14643	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14643-h.htm or 14643-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/6/4/14643/14643-h/14643-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/6/4/14643/14643-h.zip) Altemus' Children of the Bible Series THE FARMER BOY; THE STORY OF JACOB by J. H. WILLARD Illustrated Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company 1905 [Frontispiece] Altemus' Illustrated Children of the Bible Series The Boy who Obeyed: The Story of Isaac The Farmer Boy: The Story of Jacob The Favorite Son: The Story of Joseph The Adopted Son: The Story of Moses The Boy General: The Story of Joshua The Boy at School: The Story of Samuel The Shepherd Boy: The Story of David The Boy who would be King: The Story of Absalom The Captive Boy: The Story of Daniel The Boy Jesus [Illustration: no caption.] THE FARMER BOY THE STORY OF JACOB Abraham, the father of the great Israelitish, or Hebrew, nation, was the chief, or sheikh, as he would be called now, of his family or tribe, and with his flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, camels and other animals, servants and followers, moved from place to place, adding to his wealth as time went on and making for himself a respected name wherever he went. God chose Abraham to be the founder of this mighty nation, and at his death promised a continuation of His favor to his son Isaac, who had married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, who was Abraham's nephew. Isaac was an only son and inherited his father's great wealth. [Illustration: Abraham, the Founder of a Nation.] Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons whose names were Esau and Jacob, and perhaps no brothers were ever more unlike in their dispositions. Esau grew up to be a hunter. Nothing pleased him so much as to take his bow and arrows and spend days away from home in the pursuit of deer, from whose flesh he made food which his father liked. Among other customs of that time which seem strange to us now was that of rich men and their wives and their sons as well preparing food with their own hands, although it is done in the East to some extent in these days. Abraham was certainly a rich man with a host of servants at command, yet the Bible tells us that Sarah, his wife, prepared with her own hands the food for the strangers who visited the patriarch as he sat in the door of his tent by the Oaks of Mamre. We can understand then that the sons of Isaac, who were even richer than his father, prepared food themselves. Esau was looked upon as the older son and treated accordingly. There were certain privileges which by custom were given to oldest sons at their fathers' deaths, and these things constituted what was called a birthright. In addition to being treated as the older son Esau was also the favorite son of his father. But Rebekah loved Jacob more than she did Esau. Jacob was of a much quieter disposition than his brother, living near his mother and probably spending much of his time with her. We may think of him as a man who liked to live in comfort and peace, hospitable to strangers, as was the custom of the country, yet all the time wishing, as he looked out over the flocks and herds, that his was to be an older brother's portion when they were divided. The word Jacob means "supplanter," or one who takes the place of another, and Jacob acted up to the meaning of his name at the first opportunity. It came about in this way. Jacob was cooking some food one day which smelt and looked very tempting to Esau when he came in hungry and tired to the point of exhaustion from one of his hunting trips. He asked his brother to give him some of this food, and Jacob, seeing a chance to acquire what he coveted, told him he would do so if he would give him his birthright in exchange for it. Probably Esau's hunger was more to him at the moment than any privileges he might have later in life, so he consented and the bargain was made. [Illustration: Jacob was cooking some food one day.] After this there was a famine in the land where Isaac and his family lived, but Isaac did not go to Egypt to escape it as his father had done on a similar occasion. Instead, he took his family into the land of the Philistines and lived for a time at a place called Gerar. Isaac grew so prosperous in Gerar that the Philistines envied him. They had filled up the wells which his father had dug years before, so Isaac, besides reopening them, dug others, about which there were many disputes. Then after a while Isaac took his family to Beersheba, and there God renewed to him the promises of future greatness which He had made to Abraham. Both Isaac and Rebekah disapproved of the marriage Esau made with a woman of a neighboring tribe, but in spite of this Isaac loved him very dearly, and when he felt that he should not live much longer he wished to bestow a blessing or promise upon him. So he called Esau and asked him to go once more and get some of the meat he liked and cook it for him, telling him that when he brought it he would bless him. Esau set out on his errand, but as soon as he had gone, Rebekah, who had overheard what Isaac had said, called Jacob, whom she loved more than she did Esau, and told him that now he had a chance to get the blessing instead of his brother, and showed him how it could be done. Jacob was very fond of his mother; he wanted the blessing, but was afraid his father would detect the deception and that it would bring a curse instead of a blessing. But his mother told him she would take all the blame and then Jacob consented to do as she told him. Rebekah first sent Jacob to get some meat, which she cooked in the way Isaac liked, and then she dressed him in some of Esau's clothes. Then she put hairy skins on his hands and neck to make him feel like Esau if Isaac should put his hands on him. Then she gave him the meat she had prepared and sent him on his dishonest errand. [Illustration: The hands are the hands of Esau.] So Jacob went where his blind father was sitting and said, "My father." And Isaac replied, "Here am I; who art thou, my son?" Then Jacob told him that he was his son Esau, and that he had brought the food as he had been asked to do. Isaac asked him how the meat could have been found and prepared so quickly, and Jacob replied, "Because the Lord thy God brought it to me." Still Isaac was not satisfied and had him come nearer that he might feel of him, but the disguise was good and Isaac said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." But before he ate he made one more appeal. "Art thou," he asked, "my very son Esau?" and Jacob, forced by the first lie to tell another and then another, replied, "I am." Isaac ate the food and then blessed Jacob, whom he supposed to be Esau. He promised a great and prosperous future for him. People and nations should serve him, and his brothers should bow down to him. Scarcely had Jacob left his father, when Esau came back with the food his father had asked him to bring and claimed the blessing. When Isaac realized that he had been deceived he told Esau that he could not recall the promises he had made to the one who had brought him the food, and then Esau, who had sold his birthright, and now had been tricked out of the blessing that was rightfully his, cried out bitterly, "Bless me, even me also, O my father." Then Isaac told him that it was his brother Jacob who had robbed him, and Esau replied, "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?" And then in the bitterness of his heart he wept. Moved by Esau's distress, Isaac did bless him, but the promises he made were different from those he had given Jacob. He told Esau that he should live by the sword, that he should serve his brother, but that the time would come when he would break away from his brother's rule. Esau hated his brother after this and made threats that he would kill him after their father died. His mother heard of these threats and was afraid he would carry them out, so she proposed that Jacob should go to her brother Laban and stay with him until Esau's anger had cooled. Isaac agreed to this and told him also to choose a wife among Laban's daughters. Before Jacob's departure Isaac blessed him, once more telling him that he and his descendants should have the land which God had promised to Abraham and his family. So the mother and her favorite son parted. Their deceit had given Jacob the blessing that should have been Esau's, but Rebekah was never to see Jacob again. Jacob started on his journey to his uncle's house, and when night came lay down to sleep, making a pillow of stones for his head. In his sleep a wonderful dream or vision came to him. He saw a ladder with its foot resting on the earth and its top reaching to heaven. Upon this ladder angels went up and down, while at the top stood God Himself, who promised Jacob that He would be with him wherever he went, and that he and his children should have the land in which he was at that time. [Illustration: Upon this ladder angels went up and down.] When Jacob awoke he made a pillar of the stone upon which his head had rested, poured oil upon it, and called the name of the place Bethel. Then he made a vow that if God would go with him and provide for him he would serve Him and give to Him a tenth part of all he possessed. Although Jacob knew a good deal about God, up to this time he had no personal knowledge of Him, but during, this, his first night from home, he had, in a vision, seen God and heard His voice in the most gracious of promises. His whole life was changed, and from that time he was God's man. Then Jacob went on his way again and came to a well near Haran, where Laban lived. This well was not like the one where Eliezer, the steward of Abraham, had first seen the maiden who became Jacob's mother. It was more like a cistern or tank with an opening at the top which was covered by a great stone which had to be rolled away to get at the water. Three flocks of sheep were lying near by and Jacob asked the shepherds if they knew Laban and why they did not water their flocks. The men told him that they knew Laban and that they were waiting for his sheep to arrive and then all the flocks would be watered. Just then Rachel, one of the daughters of Laban, appeared with her father's sheep, and the shepherds told Jacob who she was. Then Jacob went to the well, rolled the stone away, and watered Laban's sheep. Then he told Rachel who he was and she hastened away to tell her father. When Laban heard who had come to visit him he ran to meet Jacob and made him welcome just as he had done years before when his sister Rebekah had told him of her meeting with her uncle's steward outside the city of Nahor. [Illustration: Meeting of Eliezer and the maiden who became Jacob's mother.] Jacob staid with Laban for a month, helping him with his flocks and becoming more and more in love with Rachel. Then Laban asked him if he would like to be his shepherd and if so what wages he would wish. Jacob told Laban he would serve him seven years for his daughter Rachel and so the bargain was made. We are told that, "Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." But Laban was as crafty as Jacob had been when he obtained his brother's birthright and robbed him of his blessing. He tricked Jacob and made him work seven more years for Rachel. After the second seven years had passed and Jacob had married Rachel, he made another bargain with Laban and this time it was greatly to his own advantage. He lived with Laban for a number of years and then God appeared to him, saying, "I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred." So, without letting Laban know anything about it, Jacob took his family, his flocks and herds and all his possessions, and started for his father's home in the land of Canaan. He had been gone three days before Laban knew that he had left him. After seven days he overtook Jacob camped on Mount Gilead. When they met, Laban accused Jacob of carrying away some of his possessions, and searched his tent for them; but after a while, not finding them, they talked over all that had occurred since Jacob first came to Laban's house, and in the end they made a covenant or agreement of friendship and set up a heap of stones for a witness to it and called it "Mizpah," which means, "The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." [Illustration: Laban searched Jacob's tent.] So Jacob and his family kept on their way to the land of Canaan. He had now eleven sons and one daughter and was a rich man, for God had kept His promise and blessed him abundantly. On the way he heard that his brother Esau was coming to meet him with a band of four hundred men. Jacob remembered how he had taken advantage of his brother and was afraid the time for Esau's promised revenge had come. But Jacob prayed to God to protect him, and after sending his family by night across a little mountain river, he remained alone in the darkness on the other side. The Bible tells us that there he met God in the shape of a man and wrestled with Him until morning, saying, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." And God did bless him and gave him a new name--that of "Israel," which means "a prince of God." [Illustration: Jacob wrestled with him until morning.] In the morning the brothers met, but Esau's anger was all gone and in its place was such love for Jacob that he embraced him and kissed him, while both wept for joy. Jacob had prepared a present of sheep and cattle and camels and other animals for his brother, which at first Esau did not wish to take, but he accepted it at last and then the brothers separated, Esau going to the hilly country of Seir, while Jacob continued his journey. [Illustration: Esau's anger was all gone.] Jacob halted for a while at a place called Succoth, where he built a house for himself and stables for his cattle. Then he went to Shechem and bought some land near the city for "an hundred pieces of silver." In the time of his grandfather Abraham money was weighed, not counted, but now it was in the shape of rude coins with the figures of lambs stamped upon them. After a while God told Jacob to go to Bethel, where, on his first night from home, he had vowed to give Him a tenth part of all his possessions, and to build an altar there. His way to Bethel lay through a hostile country, but God protected him as He had promised; and at last Jacob reached the pillar which he had set up, and there he built the altar and worshipped God. Jacob's mother had died during his long absence from home and now her old nurse, Deborah, died, so in memory of the great love mother and son had for each other he buried Rebekah's faithful servant under an oak-tree and called it "the oak of tears." [Illustration: The tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem.] From Bethel Jacob now set out for Hebron, but on the way, just before they came to Bethlehem--the little village where Jesus was born many years afterwards--his beloved Rachel died, leaving him his twelfth and last son, whom he called Benjamin. Rachel was buried where she died and a pillar was placed above her grave. Then Jacob went on to see his father, who was then living at Abraham's favorite dwelling-place at the "Oaks of Mamre," and there Isaac died, "being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him." [Illustration: Isaac died, being old and full of days.] After their father's death Esau and Jacob parted with the best of feeling because they were so rich in flocks and herds and servants that the land could not sustain two such large tribes. Jacob continued to live quietly at Hebron as the head of his family, in touch with everything that went on, but leaving the actual work to be done by others. He had a great number of servants and his ten older sons were in charge of his vast flocks and herds. Joseph was his especial favorite among his sons, and Jacob showed his preference in ways that were perhaps not wise. For one thing, he gave him a very handsome coat which distinguished him from his brothers. Then he did not send him to tend the flocks and herd the cattle, but kept him at home with himself and his little brother Benjamin. Jacob's sons were not slow to notice their father's fondness for Joseph and it made them angry. They were all older than he and had served their father faithfully for many years, while Joseph was only seventeen years old. Another thing made them angry. Joseph used to have dreams and tell them to his brothers in what they thought was a boastful way. Their jealousy and anger grew to hatred and they talked over plans for getting rid of him. [Illustration: Joseph used to have dreams and tell them to his brothers.] At this time Jacob's flocks of sheep were at quite a distance from Hebron, cared for by the ten older sons. Wishing to know how they prospered, Jacob sent Joseph to inquire if all was well with them. So Joseph set out on his errand and found his brothers in the pasture-lands of Dothan. When his brothers saw him coming they decided to get rid of him in some way. Their hearts were full of hatred and they deliberately planned to kill their brother. One thing after another was suggested until at last they decided to leave him in a deep, dry water-cistern to starve to death. Reuben, the eldest son, intended to get Joseph out of the cistern later and send him home to his father, but he was unable to do this, for in his absence his brothers sold Joseph to some merchants who came along just then. [Illustration: His brothers sold Joseph to some merchants.] These merchants took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, one of the officers of the King's household. Potiphar was very kind to Joseph, and as he grew up made him his steward or overseer. Joseph had very winning manners and in time rose to be the governor or ruler over all the land of Egypt and in high favor with King Pharaoh. [Illustration: Ruler over all the land of Egypt.] Meanwhile Joseph's brothers had told their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast, and in proof they showed Jacob his son's handsome coat, which they had taken from him and dipped in blood for this purpose. Jacob mourned long and bitterly for Joseph, and then he and his sons lived on much as they had been doing until there was a famine in the land and no food was to be had. Then Jacob sent his ten older sons to Egypt to buy corn, for it was plentiful there. He would not let Benjamin go, however, fearing that some harm might come to him. When Reuben and his brothers reached Egypt they were taken to Joseph, the governor, who recognized them at once, but pretended to think they were spies. They protested in vain that they had been sent by their father to buy food and that this was their only errand. Joseph asked them if they had any other brothers, and they told him there was one more, Benjamin, the youngest. Then Joseph told them to go home and come back again bringing Benjamin with them, and that he would keep Simeon, one of their number, until they did this. So back they went with their sacks full of corn which Joseph had allowed them to buy, and told their father what the governor had said and done. At first Jacob refused to let them take Benjamin away from him, but when the corn they had brought home was all gone he consented. Once more the brothers stood before the governor of Egypt and this time Benjamin was with them. After questioning them once more, letting them start on their home-ward journey, and then bringing them back again, Joseph told them who he was and how he had been prospered. He gave them food and money and clothes and sent them back to Hebron. He also told them to bring back their father Jacob and gave them wagons in which to bring his goods. [Illustration: Joseph told them who he was.] Pharaoh, the King, also sent an invitation to Jacob, and in time he and his sons and their families went to Egypt and were given the fertile land of Goshen for their home. They were put in charge of all the King's flocks and herds and became very prosperous. But before agreeing to this change of home Jacob asked God if he should go to Egypt. God told him to go, and on the way his long-lost son Joseph met him and took him to Pharaoh, who received him very kindly. Jacob and his sons lived peaceably in Egypt for seventeen years, and then Jacob died at the age of a hundred and forty-seven years. But before he died he blessed Joseph's two sons and made him promise to bury him in the family sepulchre, the cave of Machpelah. As the end approached, Jacob blessed all his twelve sons and foretold what their lives would be, bestowing a peculiar blessing upon his third son, Judah, from whose descendants should be born the Saviour of his people. Jacob's body was embalmed and carried to the land of Canaan, attended by his twelve sons, and a great company of Pharaoh's household, and buried in the cave of Machpelah as he had directed. 
17162	----	[Illustration: Front Cover] [Illustration: Frontispiece: JOSEPH SOLD INTO CAPTIVITY.] MOTHER STORIES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT A Book of the Best Stories from the Old Testament That Mothers Can Tell Their Children With Forty-five Illustrations PHILADELPHIA HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY ALTEMUS' MOTHER STORIES SERIES MOTHER STORIES A Book of the Best Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER NURSERY RHYMES AND TALES A Book of the Best Nursery Rhymes and Tales that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER FAIRY TALES A Book of the Best Fairy Tales that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER NATURE STORIES A Book of the Best Nature Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER STORIES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT A Book of the Best Old Testament Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT A Book of the Best New Testament Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER BEDTIME STORIES A Book of the Best Bedtime Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER ANIMAL STORIES A Book of the Best Animal Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER BIRD STORIES A Book of the Best Bird Stories that Mothers can tell their Children MOTHER SANTA CLAUS STORIES A Book of the Best Santa Claus Stories that Mothers can tell their Children Profusely illustrated and handsomely bound in cloth, with ornamentation in colors $1.00 PER VOLUME COPYRIGHT 1908 BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS. PAGE ADAM AND EVE 7 CAIN AND ABEL 8 THE FLOOD 10 THE TOWER OF BABEL 12 LOT'S FLIGHT FROM SODOM 14 ABRAHAM AND ISAAC 16 THE STORY OF REBEKAH 18 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 22 THE FINDING OF MOSES 28 THE FLIGHT FROM EGYPT 30 MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK 32 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 34 BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB 36 THE BRAZEN SERPENT 38 PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN 40 THE CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S HOST 42 HOW JERICHO WAS CAPTURED 44 ACHAN'S SIN 46 THE ALTAR ON MOUNT EBAL 48 THE CITIES OF REFUGE 50 JOSHUA'S EXHORTATION 52 GIDEON AND THE FLEECE 54 THE DEFEAT OF THE MIDIANITES 56 THE DEATH OF SAMSON 58 RUTH AND NAOMI 60 BOAZ AND RUTH 62 HANNAH PRAYING BEFORE THE LORD 64 ELI AND SAMUEL 66 DEATH OF ELI AND HIS SONS 68 PLAYING ON THE HARP BEFORE SAUL 70 DAVID AND GOLIATH 72 NATHAN REPROVING THE KING 74 DAVID AND ARAUNAH 76 ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS 78 PLOUGHING IN CANAAN 80 THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON 82 THE LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID 84 JONAH AT NINEVEH 86 HEZEKIAH AND SENNACHERIB 88 THE BRAVE HEBREW BOYS 90 DANIEL AND THE LIONS 92 ESTHER BEFORE THE KING 94 DAVID AND JONATHAN 96 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES ADAM AND EVE. In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth He also made the sun, moon, and stars; trees, flowers, and all vegetable life; and all animals, birds, fishes, and insects. Then God made man. The name of the first man was Adam, and the first woman was Eve. Both were placed in a beautiful garden called the Garden of Eden, where they might have been happy continually had they not sinned. But God forbade them to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan tempted Eve to take the fruit of this tree. She ate, and gave to Adam, and he ate also. Thus they sinned, and sin came into the world. Then God called to Adam and said, "Where art thou?" Before this, Adam and Eve had been happy when God was near, now they were afraid. Why? Because they knew they had done wrong. So sin makes us afraid of God. God rebuked them for the evil they had done; and then drove them out of the Garden of Eden, placing an angel to keep watch over the gate so that they could not return. CAIN AND ABEL. What a sad story the Bible tells us in the fourth chapter of Genesis! Cain and Abel were brothers, the sons of Adam and Eve. How they should have loved each other! Yet we find that Cain killed Abel. Why did he do this? Cain was a husbandman, who tilled the ground; Abel was a shepherd, who kept sheep. One day each offered a sacrifice to God. Cain brought fruit, and Abel brought a lamb. God accepted Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Why? Well, I am not quite sure, but I think it was because Abel offered his sacrifice according as God had commanded, and had faith in a promised Saviour; but Cain simply acknowledged God's goodness in giving him the fruits of the earth. God had probably told them, too, that when they came to worship Him, they were to bring a lamb or a kid as a sacrifice for their sins; this Abel had done, but Cain had not. Cain was angry because God had accepted Abel's offering and not his; and he hated his brother Abel. God knew the evil thought Cain had towards his brother, and asked him, "Why art thou wroth?" and said, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" But Cain did still more wickedly. When out in the field he killed his brother. Was it not a cruel deed? They were alone when this murder was committed, yet one eye saw it all. God saw it, and said to Cain: "Where is Abel, thy brother?" We cannot sin without God knowing it! Cain told God a lie. He answered, "I know not." But he did know. God was angry with Cain for his sin, and sent him as a fugitive and vagabond to wander on the earth. [Illustration: ABEL'S SACRIFICE.] THE FLOOD. About fifteen hundred years had passed since Cain slew Abel, during which time man had become more and more wicked. At length God saw "that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Then God said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth." But one man was righteous and served God. His name was Noah. God told him that the world would be drowned by a flood because of the wickedness of the people, and commanded him to build a great ark to float upon the waters. In this ark God promised to preserve alive Noah and his family; and also two of each of every living thing on the earth--animals, birds, and creeping things. All the rest were to die. Noah built the ark as God commanded. It took him a great many years, during which time the people were warned to forsake their sins and turn to God, but they did not do so. At last the ark was finished, and Noah, with his wife, and his sons with their wives, and the animals, birds, and creeping things, as God had commanded, all entered into it. What a long procession it must have been! Then God shut them in, and they dwelt in safety while the rain came down, and the waters rose up and covered the earth. All were drowned except those in the ark. A year afterwards, when the waters were dried up, Noah, and all that had been with him, left the ark. Then Noah built an altar, and offered sacrifices to God, in thankfulness for God's goodness to him and his family. [Illustration: ENTERING THE ARK.] THE TOWER OF BABEL. Babel means confusion. Was it not a strange name to give a tower? How did it get this? After Noah left the ark, God made a promise to him that He would no more destroy the earth by a flood, and blessed him and his sons. In course of time many little children were born, baby boys and girls, who grew up to be fathers and mothers having children also. In this manner a great many people dwelt again on the earth. For more than one hundred years they all spoke the same language, and as, in course of time, they journeyed onward, they came to a large plain in the land of Shinar, near to where Babylon was afterwards built. Here they said they would remain and build a great city, with a high tower ascending to heaven. Now God, when he blessed Noah, had said to him, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth;" meaning that the people were to scatter abroad, so that the world might become inhabited again. But these men wanted to keep together, and found one great empire, the centre of which should be the great city with the lofty tower. So they made bricks and burnt them, and took a kind of pitch for mortar, and began to build. Some learned men say they took three years in getting the materials, and were twenty-two years building the tower. It was very great and high, but it was never finished. The people did wickedly in building it, and God, who saw all they were doing, confounded their language, so that one could not understand another. Thus they left off building the tower, and that is why it is called Babel. Then God scattered them abroad to re-people the earth. [Illustration: BUILDING THE TOWER OF BABEL.] LOT'S FLIGHT FROM SODOM. In Palestine, the land in which Jesus dwelt when He was upon earth, there is an inland sea, called the Dead Sea. Its waters are very salt, and no trees grow upon its shores. Many long years before the birth of Jesus Christ, two cities stood upon the plain which the waters of the Dead Sea now cover. These cities were named Sodom and Gomorrah. Their inhabitants were very wicked, so God destroyed their cities by raining brimstone and fire upon them. Before God destroyed these cities, He sent two angels to Lot, Abraham's nephew, who dwelt in Sodom, commanding him to flee from it, taking his family with him. The angels hastened him, saying, "Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city." Then the angels took all four by the hand and led them out, and said to Lot, "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed." Lot pleaded that he might take refuge in a little city, named Zoar, not very far distant; and having obtained the angels' permission to do so, he took his wife and daughters, and hastened away. In our picture we see him and his daughters entering Zoar, and Sodom burning in the distance--but what is that strange figure standing on the plain? Alas! that is Lot's wife; the angel had commanded them that none were to look back, but she did so, and was turned into a pillar of salt. Lot did wrong in dwelling in such a wicked city as Sodom, and lost all his property when he escaped for his life. [Illustration: LOT ENTERING ZOAR.] ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Abraham feared God and obeyed His commandments; and God promised to bless Abraham very greatly. He gave him riches in cattle, and silver, and gold; and said that the land of Canaan should belong to him and his descendants. God also gave him a son in his old age, whom he loved, very dearly and named Isaac. But God intended to try Abraham, to see if he loved Him above all else. One day God told Abraham to take his son Isaac, and to journey into the land of Moriah; there to build an altar and offer Isaac as a sacrifice upon it. It was a strange command, but Abraham knew that God would not bid him do what was wrong, and believed that even if he slew his son, God was able to raise him to life again. So he rose early in the morning, saddled his ass, took two of his young men, and wood for the fire; and then, accompanied by Isaac, started on his journey. On the third day they came near the place God had pointed out, and Abraham left the young men with the ass, while he and his son journeyed up the mountain alone. As they went along, Isaac--who carried the wood, while his father carried the knife and the fire, said: "My father." And Abraham replied, "Here am I, my son." Then Isaac said: "Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham answered: "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." The altar was built, Isaac was bound and laid upon it, and Abraham's arm was uplifted to strike the blow that was to take his son's life away. Then God called to Abraham, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me." Abraham looked up, and behind him saw a ram which was caught in a thicket by its horns; this he took and offered as a sacrifice to God. So God tried Abraham; and also Himself provided the lamb for the burnt offering, as Abraham had said. [Illustration: ABRAHAM AND ISAAC.] THE STORY OF REBEKAH. When Abraham had grown old, he desired that his son, Isaac, should take a wife. But he did not wish him to choose one from among the women of Canaan, for they worshipped idols. So he called his oldest servant, and commanded him to make a journey to Abraham's own country, and there to choose a wife for Isaac. Then the man took ten camels, together with food and other goods for the journey, and set out for the city of Nahor. When he came to the walls of the city he spied a well, and, as it was evening, the young women were coming out to draw water. Then he asked God to help him to choose a wife for Isaac, saying, "Let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, 'Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink,' and who shall reply, 'Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also;' let her be the one Thou hast chosen for Thy servant Isaac." [Illustration: REBEKAH GIVING DRINK TO ABRAHAM'S SERVANT.] Before he had done speaking, there came out a beautiful young woman, whose name was Rebekah. She was the grand-daughter of Nahor, Abraham's brother. She carried a pitcher upon her shoulder, and went down to the well and filled it. Then Abraham's servant ran to her and asked her for a drink from her pitcher. She said, "Drink, my lord," and held the pitcher for him, and afterwards drew water for his camels also. Then he took a golden jewel and a pair of gold bracelets, and put them upon her, and asked whose daughter she was, and if her father could lodge him and his company. When she told him who she was, he was glad, and worshipped God, for he was sure then that he had been led to the house of Abraham's brother. Then Rebekah called out her friends, and they took the man in to lodge him for the night, and set food before him. But he would not eat until he had told them his errand, and how he believed God had chosen Rebekah for Isaac's wife. He then asked the parents to say whether they would give their daughter or not, but they said: "It has been ordered by God; we cannot give or refuse her. Rebekah is before you. Take her and go. Let her be Isaac's wife, as the Lord hath spoken." When the man heard these words, he again praised God, and then he brought out rich clothing, and jewels of gold and silver, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave presents to her mother and brother. When they asked Rebekah if she would go with the man, she said "Yes," and took leave of her friends, who blessed her. Then, with her nurse and her maids, she rode upon the camels, and followed the man, for she believed that so God had ordered it. Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi, and one evening he walked into the fields to meditate. As he lifted up his eyes he saw the company of camels coming towards him. At the same time, Rebekah lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac. When the man told her it was his master Isaac, she alighted from the camel, and covered her face with a veil, according to the custom of the East. When the man told Isaac all he had done, Isaac was pleased, and welcomed Rebekah, and gave her the tent that had been his mother's. And she became his wife. [Illustration: REBEKAH JOURNEYING TO ISAAC.] * * * * * JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. How wonderful is the way in which God works for those who fear Him! The history of Joseph teaches us this truth. Joseph had one younger and ten elder brothers. The name of the younger brother was Benjamin. Jacob was the father of them all; and Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, and made him a coat of many colours; but his elder brothers hated him, and one day, when far away from home, proposed to kill him. They cast him into a pit instead, and afterwards sold him as a slave to some merchants who were travelling from Gilead to Egypt. When they returned to their father, they took Joseph's coat of many colours, which they had dipped in blood, and brought it to Jacob, saying: "This have we found: know now if it be thy son's coat or no." Jacob knew the coat; and thought Joseph had been killed by some wild beast, and mourned for him greatly. [Illustration: THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBEKAH.] The merchants carried Joseph into Egypt, and sold him to one of the king's officers, named Potiphar. But, though a slave, he was not forsaken by God. No, God was with him, and made all that he did to prosper. His master placed him over all his house, but his mistress wanted him to commit a great sin. When he refused, she accused him unjustly to his master, and Potiphar had him cast into prison. God was with Joseph in the prison, and gave him such favour with the keeper that he set him over all the other prisoners. Among them were two; one who had been the king's butler, and the other his baker. Both had dreams which troubled them much, but Joseph was enabled by God to interpret their dreams for them. By-and-by Pharaoh, the king, dreamed a dream. He was standing on the banks of a river, and saw seven fat cows come up out of the water and feed in a meadow; afterwards seven very lean cows came up and devoured the fat ones. Then Pharaoh awoke; but he dreamed again, and saw that seven very poor ears of corn devoured seven that were full and good. In the morning he was greatly troubled. What could the dreams mean? He called for the magicians and the wise men, but they could not tell. At last it was told him how Joseph had interpreted the dreams in the prison; so he sent for Joseph, who came from the prison, and stood before the king. Pharaoh said, "I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it." Joseph answered, "It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." Then Joseph told Pharaoh that the dreams had been sent by God, to show him that after seven years of great plenty had passed there would come seven years of famine. He also advised Pharaoh to lay up corn in cities during the years of plenty, so that the people might be fed during the years of famine. Pharaoh saw what great wisdom God had given Joseph, and made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. The corn was stored up; and after the years of plenty the famine came. [Illustration: JOSEPH BEFORE THE PHARAOH.] During all this time Jacob and his sons had been dwelling in Canaan; where, through the famine, they were now in want of food. So Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy corn. The Bible tells us, in the book of Genesis, how they came to Egypt, and all that befell them there; and how at last Joseph, the ruler of the mighty kingdom, made himself known to them as the brother they had cruelly sold for a slave. But he forgave them, and sent to fetch his father Jacob, saying that all were to come into Egypt, where he would provide for them. Jacob could not at first believe the good news his sons brought; but when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him and the little ones, he said, "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die." So he journeyed to Egypt, with his sons, and all that he had; and as he drew near Joseph went to meet him. When Joseph met his father, he fell on his neck, and wept there. And Jacob said, "Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive." He was so full of joy that it seemed to him there was nothing else worth living for. Afterwards Joseph presented his father to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh; who allowed him and his family to dwell in the land of Goshen. [Illustration: JACOB PRESENTED TO PHARAOH.] THE FINDING OF MOSES. Pharoah, becoming alarmed at the increasing power and numbers of the Israelites in Egypt, ordered that every male child who might be born to them should be cast into the river, and drowned. But the wife of a man named Levi felt that she could not give up her babe, and for three months she hid him. When she could hide him no longer, she prepared a basket of rushes, and coated it with pitch, so that it would float upon the river and keep out the water. In this ark she placed her infant son, and hid the ark among the flags and bulrushes on the river-bank, and set the child's sister to watch it. Now it happened that the daughter of Pharaoh came with her maidens to bathe in the river; and when she saw the basket she sent one of her maids to fetch it. And when she looked at the child he wept, and she had compassion for him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." Then the child's sister came forward and said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I call to thee a Hebrew woman that she may nurse the child for thee?" And when the princess said, "Go!" she, the maid, went and called her own mother, to whom Pharaoh's daughter said, "Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will give thee thy wages." And the woman took the child and nursed him. And when he had grown, his mother took him to the princess, who adopted him as her son, and called his name Moses, which means _drawn out_, because she took him from the water. Afterwards he grew to be a great man: he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and we are told, "he was mighty in words and deeds." [Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES.] THE FLIGHT FROM EGYPT. When Moses was forty years old he had to flee from Egypt. He went to Midian, where he dwelt for forty years; at the end of which time God appeared to him, and instructed him to return to Egypt; where he was appointed by God to lead the Israelites from bondage to the land of Canaan. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and delivered to him God's command to let the people of Israel go; telling him that if he disobeyed terrible plagues would come upon his land. Pharaoh hardened his heart against God, and refused to let the people go; so ten dreadful plagues were sent, the last of which was that the firstborn of every Egyptian should die, whether it were man or beast. But not a single Israelite was to suffer harm. This plague God said should come in the night; when an angel would pass through the land, destroying the Egyptians but sparing the Israelites. Each family of the Israelites was commanded, on the evening that God had appointed, to kill a lamb, and to dip a bunch of hyssop in its blood, sprinkling this blood upon the top and side posts of the door. All the houses thus marked God said would be spared when the destroying angel passed through the land. In the night, while the Israelites were, according to God's command, eating the lambs that had been slain, all ready to depart, a great cry arose among the Egyptians. In every house, from the palace downwards, the eldest child lay dead. Then the Egyptians arose, and thrust the Israelites out; and they left Egypt, and journeyed towards the Red Sea. [Illustration: SPRINKLING THE BLOOD.] MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK. After the Israelites left Egypt they crossed the Red Sea, whose waters divided so that they passed through on dry land. Then they travelled through the wilderness toward Mount Sinai. Passing onward, they wanted water and food; and forgetting the great things God had already done for them, they began to murmur. At a place called Marah they found the water too bitter to drink; so they grumbled, saying to Moses, "What shall we drink?" He asked God; who showed him a tree, which, when cast into the water, made it sweet. Next the people murmured for food, and God sent them manna, which they gathered every day except the Sabbath; but with all God's care and kindness the Israelites continued to grumble whenever any difficulty arose. Journeying forward, they entered another wilderness, called the Desert of Sin, and came to a place named Rephidim, where they found no water. They were very thirsty, and came to Moses murmuring and saying, "Give us water that we may drink." How could Moses do that? He was grieved with them, and said, "Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?" But the people grew so angry that they were ready to stone him. Then Moses told God all the trouble, and God showed him what to do. He was to go before the people, taking the elders of Israel with him, and his rod, and God would stand before him on a rock among the mountains of Horeb. This rock he was to strike, when water would gush forth. Moses did as God commanded. He went forward with the elders, struck the rock with his rod; and the pure, clear water gushed out, so that all the people were able to drink. [Illustration: STRIKING THE ROCK.] THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. The Israelites journeyed onward and encamped before Mount Sinai. There God talked with Moses, and instructed him to remind the people of the great things He had done for them; and to say that if they obeyed Him, and kept His covenant, they should be a peculiar treasure to Him above all people, and a holy nation. When the people heard God's message, they answered, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." How happy would they have been if they had always kept this promise! But, alas! they did not do so; and great punishments came upon them in consequence. God also said that on the third day He would descend upon Mount Sinai; and commanded the people to prepare themselves for that great and solemn event. None were to approach the mount, for if they did so they would die. On the third day, according to the command, the people gathered before Mount Sinai. A thick cloud covered the mountain, which smoked and quaked, and there were thunders and lightnings; a trumpet also sounded exceeding loud, so that all the people trembled. Then God spake from the midst of the fire, and gave the people the Ten Commandments. These you will find in the twentieth chapter of Exodus; and little folks with sharp eyes can read them in our picture. We are told that "all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking;" and when they saw it they were so much afraid that they stood afar off. How holy is God's law, and how careful should we be to obey it! [Illustration: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.] BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB. After God had given the Ten Commandments, He called Moses up into the mountain; where he remained forty days and forty nights. During that time, God told him to speak to the Israelites, asking them to give gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, fine linen, oil, precious stones, and other things, to make a tabernacle or sanctuary, where God would dwell among them. God showed Moses the pattern of this tabernacle, with its coverings, its holy place and most holy place, its ark of the covenant with the cherubims and mercy-seat, its table for the shewbread, golden candlestick, and altar of incense, and the garments for Aaron and his sons, etc.; everything was accurately described by God. Then God instructed Moses as to who could do the work He had commanded to be done, and named two to whom He had given special wisdom and skill: these two were Bezaleel and Aholiab. When Moses came down from the mountain he called Aaron and all the people of Israel, and told them what God had commanded. The people willingly brought gifts, till more than enough was provided. Then Bezaleel and Aholiab, and other wise-hearted men, worked diligently until the tabernacle and all things belonging to it were made exactly as God had instructed. Some worked in gold and silver, others in brass and wood; wise women spun cloth of blue, purple and scarlet, and fine linen; precious stones were set for the high priest's ephod and breastplate; and, at last, all was finished. Then we are told "Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded." Then Moses blessed them. [Illustration: BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB.] THE BRAZEN SERPENT. Jesus Christ says that "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." What did Jesus mean? Nearly forty years had passed since God gave His law from Mount Sinai; and frequently the people had sinned during that time. Through their disobedience they were compelled to wander in the wilderness for many long years, instead of going straight to Canaan. While thus wandering they passed round the land of Edom, and became grieved and impatient because of the dreariness and difficulty of the way. They murmured against God and against Moses, and said, "Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread." They meant the manna which God gave them daily. God allowed fiery serpents to come among the people because of their sin, which bit them, and many died. Then they came to Moses, saying, "We have sinned ... pray unto the Lord that He take away the serpents from us." Moses did so; and God told him to make a serpent of brass and to put it on a pole; and said that all who looked to the serpent should live. The serpent of brass could not heal them, but God healed them as they obeyed his command to look to the serpent. It was _look_ and _live_. Now I think we see what Jesus means. God has said that all must die because of sin; but those who look to Jesus and trust in Him will have their sins pardoned, and will live with Him in glory forever. [Illustration: THE BRAZEN SERPENT.] THE PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN. Having wandered for forty years in the wilderness, the Israelites drew near to the river Jordan, at a place opposite Jericho. Moses was dead, and Joshua was now the leader of the host. God told him that the time had come when the people of Israel were to enter Canaan; to which land they had all this long time been travelling, but which previously they had not been permitted to enter on account of their sin. A description of this sin is given in the Bible, in the fourteenth chapter of Numbers. But the people were now to cross the Jordan and enter Canaan. They were a very great multitude, and the river lay before them. How were they to cross? God told them! He commanded Joshua that the priests were to take the ark of the covenant and to go before the people; who were to follow a short distance behind. Could the priests and the people walk across the deep water? No. But as soon as the priests reached the river, and their feet were dipped in the water, God divided the Jordan into two, leaving dry ground for the Israelites to cross upon. The priests carried the ark into the middle of the bed of the river and then stood still, and all the people passed on before them. When all were over, the priests carrying the ark moved forward also, and the waters returned to their proper place again. But before they did so, Joshua commanded twelve men, one from each tribe, each to take a stone from the river's bed; and these stones were set up as a memorial of the marvellous manner in which God had brought the Israelites across the Jordan into Canaan. [Illustration: CROSSING THE JORDAN.] THE CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S HOST. News of the miraculous way in which the Israelites had been brought across the Jordan spread rapidly among the Canaanites, and when they heard what God had done, they were very much afraid. We are told that "their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel." God had said to Joshua that the land of Canaan was to be taken possession of by the Israelites; and had commanded him to "Be strong and of a good courage," and had strengthened him by saying, "Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Joshua and the people were now in Canaan, and before them lay a stronghold of the Canaanites, named Jericho, having high walls and strong gates. This city the Israelites had to capture; but the inhabitants closed the gates, and prepared to fight fiercely to prevent Joshua and his warriors from getting in. As Joshua was alone at this time, near Jericho, he looked up, and saw a man standing with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and asked, "Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" The man answered, "Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I come." Do you know who it was? Was it an angel? I think it was more than an angel. It was the Lord! Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, saying, "What saith my Lord unto His servant?" Then the Lord told Joshua, as before he had told Moses, to take his shoes from his feet, for the place on which he stood was holy; and instructed him how Jericho was to be captured. [Illustration: THE CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S HOST.] HOW JERICHO WAS CAPTURED. When men in olden times attacked a city, they tried to batter down the walls with heavy beams of wood, having heads of iron, called battering rams; but God did not instruct the Israelites thus to capture Jericho. They were to remember that it was not by their own power they could conquer the Canaanites, but only as God gave them the victory over their enemies. So God commanded Joshua to lay siege to Jericho in a very strange way. He said that seven priests, each having a trumpet, were to go before the ark. In front of them the armed men of Israel were to march; and behind the ark the people were to follow. In this way they were to go round the city once each day for six days, the priests blowing their trumpets each time. The seventh day they were to go in the same manner round the city seven times; and God said that when the priests blew their trumpets the seventh time, the people were to give a great shout, and the walls of the city would fall down. Joshua and the people did as God commanded. They marched round the city carrying the ark, the priests blowing their trumpets; and on the seventh day they marched round seven times. The last time, when the priests blew their trumpets, the people shouted with a great shout, and the walls of the city fell down flat. Then the Israelites went up and took possession of it. Thus God delivered Jericho into the hands of His people. All the inhabitants were killed except Rahab and her relatives. These were spared because Rahab had been kind to the spies whom Joshua had sent. [Illustration: THE FALL OF JERICHO.] ACHAN'S SIN. God commanded the Israelites to destroy Jericho; and all the gold, silver, and other riches found there were to be devoted to the Lord. If any disobeyed this command then a curse was to rest upon all, and they were not to prosper. The Israelites were to conquer the Canaanites, and drive them out of the land. So Joshua prepared to attack a city named Ai. Three thousand of his men went to capture it, but the inhabitants came out and drove them back, killing some of them. Joshua was greatly grieved. He knew that unless God made the Israelites victorious, the Canaanites would be able to overcome them, and God had appeared to fail them this time. Oh! he was sorry. But he told God the trouble, and God showed him the cause of it. One of the Israelites, named Achan, saw among the spoil of Jericho, a handsome garment, some silver, and a bar of gold, and coveted them. He stole these things and hid them away in his tent, thinking that no one saw him; but God knew it all. Achan's sin was the cause of Israel's defeat! God showed Joshua how the man who had done the wickedness was to be discovered. Each tribe was to be brought before God, then each family of the tribe He chose, then each household of the family taken, and lastly each man of the family chosen. Finally, Achan was pointed out by God. Joshua bade him confess what he had done, and he said that he had taken the Babylonish garment and the gold and silver. Messengers were sent to his tent, who brought what Achan had hidden; and he, with his sons and daughters, his cattle, and all that he had, and the garment, silver, and gold, were taken to a valley near by, where the people stoned them, and burned them with fire; and then raised over all a great heap of stones, which remained as a memorial to warn others against sinning as Achan had done. [Illustration: ACHAN CONFESSING HIS SIN.] * * * * * THE ALTAR ON MOUNT EBAL. Before Moses died he called the Israelites together, and urged them to faithfully serve God; also directing that when they entered Canaan, they were to build an altar of rough stones, covered with plaster, on Mount Ebal, and to write the words of God's law upon this altar. Then six of the tribes were to stand on Mount Gerizim, and six on Mount Ebal, and, in the hearing of all the people, the blessings for obedience and the cursings for disobedience were to be proclaimed. Mounts Ebal and Gerizim are two rugged mountains that face each other in Samaria. When the Israelites advanced thus far, they remembered the words of Moses. Joshua built the altar as directed, on which he offered sacrifices to God, and wrote a copy of the law upon it. All Israel stood, "half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal," and Joshua read all the words of the law, "the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law." Then the loud voices of the Levites were heard from the mountain sides, declaring, in the hearing of all the people, the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience, as God had commanded. [Illustration: THE ALTAR ON MOUNT EBAL.] THE CITIES OF REFUGE. Revenge is contrary to the teaching of Jesus Christ, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him," says the Saviour; but among the Israelites and other eastern nations a different practice prevailed. If one slew another, the kinsman of him that was slain felt bound to avenge his relative, and to slay him that had done the deed. Sometimes people were killed by accident, when it was clearly unjust that he who had unwittingly killed another should be slain. To guard against the innocent thus suffering, God commanded that "cities of refuge" should be appointed, to which the slayer might flee, "which killeth any person at unawares." These cities were six in number: Kedesh, Shechem, and Kirjath-arba, on the west of Jordan; and Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan, on the east of that river. They were so arranged that a few hours' rapid flight would bring the slayer from any part of the land to one of the cities of refuge. Jewish writers say that the roads leading to these cities were always kept in good repair, and that guide-posts were placed at every cross road with "Refuge! Refuge!" written upon them. But the man that wilfully killed another was not sheltered. He was given up to the avenger to be slain. In our picture we see the slayer running to the city gate; the avenger close behind, shooting arrows at him. He has thus far escaped, and two or three more steps will place him in safety. But, once within the city, he must not quit its refuge until the death of the high priest. If he do so and the avenger find him he may be slain. But upon the death of the high priest he will be allowed to return home, to dwell in peace again. [Illustration: FLEEING TO THE CITY OF REFUGE.] JOSHUA'S EXHORTATION. Exhortation seems a hard word, but it simply means to strongly urge to good deeds, and this is what our artist shows Joshua to be doing. Joshua is now an old man, and the Israelites are settled peaceably in Canaan. He has called them before him, with their elders, and heads, and judges, and officers. He tells them that he is old and about to die, and reminds them of the land that has already been conquered and divided among them, and of that which still remains to be conquered; urging them to be "very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that they turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left." He bids them take good heed therefore unto themselves, that they love the Lord their God; and warns them that if they go back and do wickedly, the anger of the Lord will be kindled against them, and they will perish quickly from off the good land which God has given them. In his address, Joshua said, "Ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one good thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof." How faithful is God! He never fails in His promises: and we are told He is unchangeable, so that whatever He promises now He will fulfil, and whatever warnings He gives will surely come to pass. How good is it to have this holy and wise God for our Father, and to know that He promises abundantly to bless all those that trust in the Saviour, Jesus Christ. But let us take heed of the warnings against sin given in God's Holy Word. [Illustration: JOSHUA EXHORTING THE PEOPLE.] GIDEON AND THE FLEECE. After the death of Joshua, the Israelites turned away from God, and served idols. Therefore the evils came upon them of which they had been warned by Moses and Joshua. But at different times God, seeing their distress, raised up "judges" to deliver them from their enemies, and to judge over them. The first of these judges was named Othniel. He was Caleb's nephew. The last was Samuel. One that lived about one hundred years before Samuel was named Gideon. The Israelites were at this time in great trouble. They were hiding in dens and caves because of the Midianites, who had conquered them and overrun their country. When their corn was ripe these enemies came and destroyed it, so altogether they were in sad plight. One day Gideon was threshing wheat in a secluded place, so as to escape the notice of the Midianites, when an angel from God appeared to him, bidding him to go and save the Israelites from their foes. Gideon obeyed the command: but before commencing the battle he much desired a sign from God showing that He would give the Israelites the victory. The sign Gideon asked for was, that when he laid a fleece of wool on the ground, if the victory were to be his, then the fleece should be wet and the ground dry. He placed the wool on the ground, and taking it up the next morning found it wet, although the ground was dry. So he knew God had answered him as he desired. But he was not quite satisfied. He begged God for a second sign. This time the ground was to be wet and the fleece of wool dry. God gave him this sign also: and then Gideon felt sure that the Israelites would be victorious over the Midianites. [Illustration: EXAMINING THE FLEECE.] THE DEFEAT OF THE MIDIANITES. Large numbers of the Israelites gathered around Gideon, prepared to fight against the Midianites, who were encamped in a valley, "like grasshoppers for multitude." How Gideon's host was reduced till only three hundred men remained, and the wonderful dream he heard related, when he and his servant went down as spies into the enemy's camp, are recorded in the seventh chapter of Judges. It was not by their own bravery or power that the Israelites were to overcome their enemies. God was to give them the victory: and He chose Gideon and three hundred men to overcome the great and mighty host of the Midianites. Gideon divided his three hundred men into three companies, and put a trumpet in every man's hand, and gave to each a pitcher with a lamp inside. Then he said, "Look on me, and do likewise: when I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of the camp, and say, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'" Gideon and the hundred men of his company approached the enemy's camp by night, and the other two companies drew nigh also, so that the Midianites where surrounded. Then all blew their trumpets, broke their pitchers, held up their lamps (torches), and cried out as they had been commanded. The Midianites heard the trumpets' blast and the cry, and saw the lights. They were thrown into confusion, and one fought against another; then they fled, and were pursued by the Israelites, great numbers of whom gathered together and followed after their flying enemies. Thus the Midianites were overcome, and Israel had peace during the lifetime of Gideon. [Illustration: "THE SWORD OF THE LORD, AND OF GIDEON."] THE DEATH OF SAMSON. Samson's birth was foretold by an angel. He was to grow up a Nazarite, forbidden to drink strong drink, neither was his head to be shaved. His strength was very great; but his marriage was sinful, and his doings with the idolatrous Philistines terrible. Though an Israelite and a judge, I fear much he sinned greatly against God. On one occasion he went to Gaza, a city of the Philistines. The inhabitants tried to take him, but he arose at midnight and carried away the gates of their city. In our picture though he looks so strong, yet we see chains on his legs, and he is blind! How came he to lose his sight and be made a prisoner? I think it was owing to his sin and folly. He became acquainted with a wicked woman, who enticed him to tell her in what his great strength lay. Three times he told her falsely, but at last he said that if the flowing locks of his hair were removed his strength would depart. While he slept these locks were cut off, then the Philistines burst in upon him, and when he arose to resist them, he found that his strength was gone. Then his eyes were cruelly put out, and he was bound with fetters of brass. Our artist shows him blind, brought out to make sport at the Philistines' feast. He is very sorrowful, and, I think, angry. He asks the lad beside him to place his hands upon the pillars supporting the house; then, his great strength returning, he bows himself with all his might; the pillars break, the house falls, and Samson, with very many of the Philistines, is crushed amid the ruins. Was not this a terrible end to what might have been a noble life? [Illustration: SAMSON MAKING SPORT FOR THE PHILISTINES.] RUTH AND NAOMI. Naomi was the wife of a Jew named Elimelech, who left his own city of Bethlehem to go into the land of Moab, because there was a famine in Canaan. Some time afterwards he died, leaving Naomi a widow with two sons, all dwellers in a strange land. Her sons married two young women belonging to Moab, whose names were Orpah and Ruth. After living there about ten years Naomi's sons died also, leaving Orpah and Ruth widows, along with their widowed mother-in-law. Then Naomi determined to return to her own land. Orpah and Ruth accompanied Naomi some distance on her journey; then she bade them to leave her, telling each to go back to her mother's house in Moab, while she would pursue her way alone to the land of Judah. They were unwilling to do so, saying they would go with her to her land and people; but she urged them to depart, assuring them that they would gain nothing by leaving their own country to accompany her, and that they had better return to their own homes. Then the story informs us--you will find it in the Bible, in the Book of Ruth--that Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and departed; but Ruth clave unto her, saying, "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me and more also, if ought but death part thee and me." So Ruth refused to leave her mother-in-law, and journeyed with her until they reached Canaan. Then they both dwelt in the city of Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, where we shall meet with them again. [Illustration: RUTH AND NAOMI.] BOAZ AND RUTH. When Naomi returned to Bethlehem she was poor. The poor were allowed at harvest time to follow the reapers; gleaning or gathering up the stray ears of corn. One day, Ruth obtained permission from her mother-in-law to go gleaning, and went to glean in the field of a rich man named Boaz, who happened to be a kinsman, or relative of Elimelech. But Ruth did not know of this relationship. Boaz saw Ruth gleaning, and asked one of his servants who she was. The servant replied, "It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab." Then Boaz spoke kindly to Ruth, telling her not to go to any other field to glean, but to stay with his maidens and glean in his field. She fell on her face before him and bowed herself to the ground, and asked, "Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?" Boaz was pleased with her because of her kindness to Naomi, so he replied, "It hath fully been showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband." He also bade her to eat and drink with his servants, and told his reapers to let some handfuls of grain fall on purpose for her. So Ruth gleaned that day quite a large quantity of barley, which she took home to Naomi. Then she learned that Boaz was her kinsman. She continued gleaning until the end of harvest; and afterwards became the wife of Boaz and grandmother of Jesse, the father of David. Jesus Christ descended from David; so we see what high honour was bestowed upon Ruth for her kindness to her mother-in-law. [Illustration: BOAZ SHOWING KINDNESS TO RUTH.] HANNAH PRAYING BEFORE THE LORD. The Tabernacle, which had been set up by the Israelites in the wilderness, was after the conquest of Canaan erected at Shiloh, a city about ten miles south of Shechem. There it remained for more than three hundred years. No Temple was at Jerusalem in those days, so the Jewish priests offered sacrifices to God in the Tabernacle at Shiloh. One day, Hannah, the wife of a priest named Elkanah, came to the Tabernacle to worship. She was grieved because she had no children; and especially sad because she had no son. So she knelt down and prayed to God, and asked God to remember her sorrow and to give her a son; promising that if God granted her request, she would give that son to Him all the days of his life. As Hannah prayed, Eli, the high priest, saw her. She did not speak aloud, but prayed in her heart; her lips moved, but no voice was heard; so Eli thought that a drunken woman had come before the Lord. He reproved her saying, "How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee." But Hannah had not drunk wine. She answered Eli, "No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord." Then Eli bade her "Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him." Hannah left the Tabernacle. Her face was no longer sad. She believed God had heard her prayer; and He had done so. In due time a son was given her, whom she named Samuel. Samuel means _Heard of God_, which name Hannah gave him in remembrance of God's goodness in hearing her prayer. [Illustration: HANNAH PRAYING BEFORE THE LORD.] ELI AND SAMUEL. Elkanah went up to Shiloh yearly to offer sacrifice: and when Samuel was old enough, Hannah went with her husband and took her little boy with her. They came to Eli the high priest, and Hannah said: "Oh, my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here praying. For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition. Therefore also have I given him to the Lord." Then she left Samuel with Eli. Samuel assisted Eli in the Tabernacle service, and wore a linen ephod like a priest. His mother came yearly to see him, when she accompanied Elkanah to the sacrifice at Shiloh, and each time brought with her a little coat, which she had made for her son. Eli was an old man, who had two wicked sons. These he had not restrained as he should have done. So God was displeased with him and them on account of their sins. One night, while the lamp in the Tabernacle was burning, and Eli was resting, Samuel was sleeping. A voice came to him calling, "Samuel!" He rose, and ran to Eli saying, "Here am I." But Eli had not called, so Samuel lay down again. A second time the same voice called, "Samuel!" He went to Eli and said, "Here am I; for thou didst call me." But Eli replied, "I called not, my son; lie down again." The call was repeated a third time; then Eli told Samuel it was the Lord who called him; and bade him answer if the voice came again, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Again God called, and Samuel answered as Eli had commanded him. Then God told Samuel what terrible things should befall Eli and his sons through their wickedness. [Illustration: SAMUEL COMING TO ELI.] DEATH OF ELI AND HIS SONS. In the morning Samuel feared to tell Eli what the Lord had shown him; but Eli bade him do so, saying to Samuel, "God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all that He said unto thee." So Samuel told Eli all God had said, keeping nothing back, and Eli answered, "It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good." Afterwards there was war between the Israelites and the Philistines, and both sides prepared for battle. They fought; the Israelites were defeated, and many of them slain. Then they sent to Shiloh and fetched the ark of the covenant out of the Tabernacle, carrying it to the camp, and thinking that if the ark were with them they would overcome their enemies. But the ark only signified God's presence in their midst; it was not God Himself, to give them victory. It was very sinful of them thus to use what God had made so holy; and God suffered them again to be defeated. The ark was taken by the Philistines, and many of the Israelites were slain. Eli, who was then ninety-eight years old, and nearly blind, sat by the wayside, trembling for the safety of the ark, and waiting for messengers to bring news of the battle. Presently a messenger came who told him the Israelites had fled before the Philistines, that his two sons Hophni and Phinehas were slain, and that the ark of God had been taken. When he heard that the ark had been taken, he fell backward from off his seat and died. Thus God's judgment upon Eli and his sons came to pass. In our picture we see the messenger, who has just come from the field of battle, telling Eli the sad tidings that caused his death. [Illustration: ELI RECEIVING THE EVIL TIDINGS.] PLAYING ON THE HARP BEFORE SAUL. We are not told much in the Bible concerning the early life of David. He was born in Bethlehem. We have seen who his father was, but I do not find that his mother's name is given. His own name means "beloved." What a happy name! He must have been much loved by his parents, and we know he was loved by God. Like many other youths in Canaan, he acted as a shepherd to his father's flocks. He was a fair, open-faced boy; "ruddy, and of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look at," so the Scriptures say. He was a good musician, knew how to sling stones at a mark, and was so brave that when a lion and a bear came to attack the lambs of his flock he went after them and killed them both. One day a strange and most important event happened. Samuel, the prophet, came from Ramah, and pouring some very precious oil upon the head of David, anointed him to be the future King of Israel. Saul was then King, but on account of his wickedness God had rejected him, saying that another should reign in his stead. Soon after this event Saul became very wretched. An evil spirit troubled him, we are told. His servants advised him to get a man that could play skilfully upon the harp, so that music might drive away his misery. Some one suggested David; and David was sent for. He brought sweet strains from his harp, and Saul was soothed. Saul was pleased with David. We are told that "he loved him greatly," and that David became his armour-bearer. But he soon grew jealous, and twice threw a javelin at David, seeking to smite him to the wall and kill him. This, however, he was not able to do. [Illustration: DAVID PLAYING ON THE HARP BEFORE SAUL.] DAVID AND GOLIATH. How attentively David looks at the stones in his hand. His sling is on his arm, and his bag by his side. What is he about to do with those stones? And who is that tall man in armour, strutting about with such a long spear in his hand? Two armies were drawn up in battle array. They were the armies of the Israelites and Philistines. The camp of the Israelites was on one hill, and that of the Philistines was upon another; a valley lying between. For forty days these armies had been facing each other, but yet the battle had been delayed. The Philistines had on their side a giant of great height and strength, encased in armour, who daily came out, challenging the Israelites to send a man from their camp to fight with him. But no man among them dared to go against Goliath, the Philistines' champion. Meanwhile Jesse had sent David to the Israelites' camp to see after his brethren. He heard what the giant said, and offered to go out against him. Saul was informed of David's offer, and sent for him. Saul told David he was not able to fight the giant, but he boldly replied, "The Lord which delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." David trusted not in his own power, but in God! Then Saul said, "Go, and the Lord be with thee." He went, slung one of the smooth stones he had chosen out of the brook, smote the Philistine in the forehead so that he fell to the earth, and then ran and cut off his head. Thus God enabled this ruddy youth to overcome the giant Philistine, and to slay him with a sling and a stone. [Illustration: CHOOSING SMOOTH STONES OUT OF THE BROOK.] NATHAN REPROVING THE KING. David was now King. He had great riches and honour, and a palace had been built for him. He had brought the ark from Kirjath-jearim, and placed it in the tabernacle prepared for it at Jerusalem, and he now reigned over all the people of Israel and Judah. But David did a very wicked thing. He took the wife of Uriah the Hittite for his wife, and caused Uriah to be slain. God was displeased at what he had done, and sent Nathan the prophet to reprove him. Nathan's reproof was given by a parable. It was a story of a poor man who had one dear little lamb. It grew up in his house, played with his children, and was very precious to him. But one day a traveller came to a rich neighbour, who possessed great flocks and herds, and this neighbour, instead of killing one of his own lambs and setting it before his guest, sent and took the poor man's lamb and killed it. David heard the story, and was very angry. He said the rich man should die, and the lamb taken away should be restored fourfold. Then Nathan, looking at the King, said: "Thou art the man!" He showed David how greatly he had sinned, and told him that trouble and sorrow would come upon him for what he had done. God had given him riches and honour, and all that he could wish for; yet he had taken the one precious thing of Uriah's, even his wife, and had caused him to be slain. David was sorely grieved when he saw how wickedly he had acted. He confessed his sin to God, and God forgave it; but great trouble came upon the King afterwards through this crime. [Illustration: "THOU ART THE MAN."] DAVID AND ARAUNAH. After David had reigned may years, he numbered the people of Israel. This was wrong; and God sent a pestilence which destroyed seventy thousand men. David was grieved, and prayed that God would punish him and spare the people. God stayed the hand of the destroying angel; who stood by the threshing-floor of Araunah, whither David was told to go and offer sacrifice. David went. He purchased the threshing-floor of Araunah, also oxen and wood and offered a burnt sacrifice to God. The following verses describe the scene:-- Beside Araunah's threshing-place The awful angel took his stand, When from high heaven came words of grace-- "It is enough; stay now thine hand." For David's penitential prayer Had enter'd God's compassionate ear; And where the angel stood, even there God bade the King and altar rear. Araunah offered ground, and wood, And oxen for the sacrifice: David stood noble wish withstood, And bought them all at full price. His answer has a royal ring; Its lesson high shall not be lost: "Burnt offerings I will never bring Unto Jehovah without cost." The altar rose, the victims died, The plague was stayed, and lo, there fell-- Token that Heaven was satisfied-- A fire from God, and all was well. 'Twas like a finger from the skies-- That falling fire--to show God's will, That here the Temple should arise And crown Moriah's sacred hill. And still God marks the faithful prayer, The careful work, the costly pains; The Spirit's fire descendeth there, And there, as in a shrine, remains. RICHARD WILTON, M.A. [Illustration: DAVID AND ARAUNAH.] ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. God was displeased with King Ahab, and sent His prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, to say unto him, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth there shall not be dew nor rain for years in all Israel." God knew that these words would make Ahab angry with Elijah, so He commanded Elijah to get out of Ahab's way. "Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." Elijah went, and the ravens brought him bread and meat, morning and evening, and he drank of the brook. But after many days the brook dried up, and God told him to go to Zarephath, where a widow would sustain him. So he arose and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the city he saw the widow gathering sticks; and called to her, saying, "Bring me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink, and a morsel of bread in thy hand, that I may eat." The widow turned and said, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but only a handful of meal, and a little oil in a cruse; and, behold, I am gathering a few sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it before we starve to death." Elijah told her not to fear, but to make a cake for him, and, afterwards, one for her son and herself, for God had said that neither her handful of meal nor her cruse of oil should fail until He again sent rain upon the earth. So she did as Elijah told her, and there was always enough oil and meal for their daily food, according to the word of the Lord which He spake by Elijah. [Illustration: ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS.] PLOUGHING IN CANAAN. In Scripture frequent mention is made of the husbandman and his work. Ploughing the land, sowing the seed, reaping the harvest, and winnowing the grain are often referred to. Our picture shows an Eastern husbandman ploughing. How different it is to ploughing in our own land! There is no _coulter_; and instead of the broad steel _plough-share_ we see a pointed piece of wood. And the long handles with which our labourers guide their ploughs--where are they? The strong horses, too, harnessed one behind the other, are missing. Yes! none of these were used in Canaan. Small oxen drew the plough; and the husbandman guided it by means of a single handle, as we see him doing in the picture. Thus their method of ploughing was a slow one, and unless the land had been very good their harvests would have been poor. Often these husbandmen had to wait until the rain made the ground soft enough for their ploughs to enter it, consequently many had to toil in cold, stormy, winter weather. To this the proverb alludes which says: "The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." (Prov. xx. 4.) Perhaps it was just such a plough, drawn by just such oxen as we see in our picture, that Elisha was using when Elijah passed by and cast his mantle upon him; thereby calling Elisha to be his servant and successor. We are told that Elisha "took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." [Illustration: PLOUGHING IN CANAAN.] THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. Many interesting stories are told in the Bible, few of which are more touching than that of Elisha the prophet, and the Shunammite woman. This story we find in the fourth chapter of the Second Book of Kings. We read of the prophet journeying to and fro, and resting in the little chamber that the kind Shunammite had built for him on the wall of her house. We see its bed, table, stool, and candlestick; and the joy beaming upon the good woman's face when a tiny infant son was given her. How she loved him! And as he grew up how carefully she watched over him. But a sad time was coming. The golden corn was in the field ready for reaping, for the harvest time had come. The hot sun shone overhead, and the little lad was out with his father in the field, probably running about among the corn. Suddenly he felt a violent pain, and cried out, "My head, my head!" Then joy was changed to sorrow. The father saw his son was ill, and bade a lad carry the little boy to his mother, on whose knees he sat till noon, and then he died. Next we see the mother leaving her dead son, and journeying to find the prophet. Elisha sees her coming, and sends Gehazi to inquire if all is well. Then she falls down before the prophet and tells him her trouble; and he sends his servant with his staff to lay it upon the dead child. The story closes by stating how Elisha follows Gehazi, goes to the chamber where the dead boy lay, prays to God that the life may be restored, and finally has the joy of giving the lad, alive and well again, into the arms of his mother. [Illustration: THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON RESTORED.] THE LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. Naaman was a great general in the army of the King of Syria, who esteemed him highly, because it was Naaman that led the Syrians when God gave them victory over the Israelites. But in spite of his bravery and his high position, he was miserable, because he suffered from a terrible disease called leprosy. Now, among the captives whom the Syrians had brought back from war was a little Israelitish maiden, who was appointed to wait upon Naaman's wife. She had heard of the wonderful things which Elisha did in the name of God; and she told her mistress that if Naaman could only see this prophet, who was in Samaria, he could be cured. And the King was told what the maid had said, and he sent a letter to the King of Israel commanding him to cure Naaman of his leprosy. But the King of Israel was afraid, and thought the King of Syria sought this way to quarrel with him. When Elisha heard of the King's fear, he sent and desired that Naaman should be brought to him. So Naaman came in his chariot, and stood at Elisha's door. But the prophet instead of coming to him, sent a message directing Naaman to wash in Jordan seven times, when his leprous flesh would be restored to health. Naaman had thought that Elisha would have received him with much ceremony and touched him, bidding the leprosy to depart; so he was angry and said, "Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" Therefore he went away in a rage. But his servants persuaded him to carry out the prophet's injunction, and he went and dipped seven times in Jordan, and was made whole. [Illustration: THE LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID.] JONAH AT NINEVEH. Jonah was commanded to go to Nineveh, and cry out that the city should be destroyed on account of the wickedness of its inhabitants. But instead of obeying God's command he fled in a ship that was bound for Tarshish. Then a great storm arose, and the shipmen cast Jonah into the sea, believing that the storm had been sent through his disobedience. God saved Jonah by means of a large fish, and brought him safely to land again. A second time God said to Jonah, "Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." So Jonah arose and went as God had directed him. Now Nineveh was a very large city, about sixty miles in circumference, and Jonah went some distance inside and then cried out, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" It was a strange and terrible cry which sounded throughout the city, and as the Ninevites heard it they feared God, proclaimed a fast, covered themselves with sackcloth, and every man was commanded to forsake evil. So they hoped God would forgive them and spare their city. God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, therefore He spared their city. When Jonah saw that Nineveh was spared he was very angry, and prayed God to take away his life. He made a booth and sat under it to see what would become of the city. Then God sheltered him from the sun by a gourd, and afterwards taught him by it how wrong he was in being displeased because Nineveh had been spared. Nineveh was afterwards overthrown, and has remained since then but a heap of ruins. [Illustration: JONAH AT NINEVEH.] HEZEKIAH AND SENNACHERIB. Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, invaded the land of Judah, and threatened to lay siege to Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah took counsel with his princes and mighty men, and repaired the broken walls, and made them higher. He made many other preparations for the defence of the city, and went among his people, exhorting them to trust in God, and be of good courage. But Sennacherib sent messengers to induce those that guarded the walls of the city to revolt against Hezekiah, saying, "Do not believe this Hezekiah when he tells you that your God will deliver you; hath any of the nations against which I have made war been delivered by their gods?" When Hezekiah heard these words he went into the house of the Lord, and sent messengers to Isaiah, asking for his prayers. Isaiah said to them, "Thus saith the Lord, 'Be not afraid of the words with which the King of Assyria hath blasphemed Me. I will send a blast upon him, and he shall return and shall fall by the sword in his own land.'" Afterwards the King of Assyria sent a letter to Hezekiah, in which he repeated his sneers at the power of God. When Hezekiah read it, he went into the house of the Lord, and spreading the letter before the Lord, prayed for His help. God answered, by the mouth of Isaiah, that the King of Assyria should not enter Jerusalem, nor shoot over it, but be turned back the way he came. And the same night the angel of the Lord went into the camp of the Assyrians, and smote one hundred and eighty-five thousand. Then Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, and as he was worshipping in the house of his god, there came to him two of his sons, who killed him. [Illustration: HEZEKIAH LAYING THE LETTER BEFORE GOD.] THE BRAVE HEBREW BOYS. Brave boys and girls! We all wish to be brave, do we not? Then we must learn to say "No," when tempted to do wrong. These Hebrew boys were young nobles who had been carried captive from Jerusalem to Babylon; but though in a strange land, subject to the mighty king Nebuchadnezzar, they feared not to refuse his food and wine when they knew that the taking of it would cause them to sin against God. They were well educated Hebrew youths, and the Babylonish king had commanded that they should be taught the learning of the Chaldeans; also, to keep them in health and with beautiful countenances, he had ordered that the meat and wine from his table should be given them. Their names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Daniel seems to have been their leader. We find "he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank." So he begged the king's servant the feed him and his three companions on plain food and pure water; but the servant feared to do so, lest the king should find them worse looking than those who ate his meat and drank his wine, and the servant should lose his head in consequence. A trial was made, however, for ten days, at the end of which time they were found to be better looking than the boys fed on rich food and wine. Therefore, the servant let them live plainly according to their request; and at the end of three years, when they stood before the king, we are told that for wisdom and understanding none were found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. [Illustration: THE BRAVE HEBREW BOYS.] DANIEL AND THE LIONS. When Darius came to the throne, upon the death of Belshazzar, he set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty princes. Over these he appointed three presidents, of whom Daniel was first. Now the princes and other presidents were jealous of Daniel, and sought to find some fault against him; but could not, as he was a faithful servant of the King. Then they tried to injure him because of his praying to God. So they came to the King, and said, "King Darius live for ever: all the great officers of thy kingdom have consulted together to establish a royal law, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O King, he shall be cast into a den of lions." The King signed the writing and established the law. But Daniel still knelt and prayed three times a day as before. His enemies saw him praying, and told the King, urging him to carry out the law. But the King was angry with himself that he had agreed to such a law, and tried to think of some way to save Daniel. Then these men urged that the law could not be altered. So Daniel was cast into the den of lions, and a stone was put over the mouth of the den, which was sealed by the King and the lords. But the King had said to Daniel, "Thy God whom thou servest will deliver thee." The King passed the night fasting, and could not sleep. In the morning, very early, he arose and went to the den of lions, and cried with a lamentable voice, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God able to deliver thee from the lions?" Then Daniel said, "O King, live for ever. My God hath sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths." [Illustration: DANIEL AND THE LIONS.] ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. Ahasuerus reigned over the vast empire of Persia, and Esther, the adopted daughter of a Jew named Mordecai, was Queen. None in the palace knew she was a Jewess, for Mordecai had charged her not to make it known. He abode in the king's palace, and was one of the king's servants. Ahasuerus promoted Haman, one of his courtiers, a cruel and wicked man, to be over all his princes and officers; and all bowed down to Haman and did him reverence except Mordecai, the Jew. Then was Haman filled with wrath against Mordecai and his people, and obtained from the king a decree ordering that all the Jews throughout his dominions should be slain. Mordecai informed Queen Esther of this decree, and bade her go to the king and plead for her people. Now it was one of the laws of the palace that no one should approach the king in the inner court unless he had been previously called; the penalty for not obeying this law being death, unless the king should hold out the golden sceptre to the offender so that he might live. Esther knew the danger of approaching the king uncalled for, but she bade Mordecai to gather the Jews so that they might spend three days in fasting and prayer, while she and her maidens did the same, and, said she, "So will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish." Esther went in. The king graciously held out the golden sceptre to her, accepted her invitation to a banquet, and finally ordered the wicked Haman to be hanged, and measures to be taken to preserve the lives of the Jews. [Illustration: ESTHER BEFORE THE KING.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. Jonathan was the son of Saul, the king. He loved David greatly, and regretted that his father, through jealousy, sought David's life. David, after the last attempt of Saul to smite him to the wall by a javelin, fled away, and meeting with Jonathan said: "What have I done? What is mine iniquity, and what is my sin before thy father that he seeketh my life?" Jonathan sympathised deeply with his friend, and tried to save him. He promised to ascertain whether Saul fully intended to kill David, and, if so, to inform him, that he might escape. Meantime David was to remain in hiding, but on the third day Jonathan was to return with the required information. Before they parted they entered into a solemn covenant, one with the other, to remain firm friends during life; and David promised to show kindness to Jonathan and his children, after God should make him king. At the time appointed, after ascertaining that Saul still sought David's life, Jonathan went to the field where David lay concealed. Jonathan took with him his bow and arrows and a little lad. Shooting an arrow beyond the lad, he cried, "Make speed, haste, stay not!" These words were intended as a warning to David to flee quickly. When the lad had gone, David arose from his hiding place and came to Jonathan, bowing three times before him. Then they kissed each other, wept, and again pledged themselves to be faithful; after which David fled, and Jonathan returned to the city. * * * * * 
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36956	----	scanned by Fox in the Stars from the collection of Brays Advent Christian Church in Iberia, Missouri CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES EDITED BY ERNEST D. BURTON HEROES OF ISRAEL THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Agents THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH [Illustration: THE SEMITIC WORLD] HEROES OF ISRAEL TEXT OF THE HERO STORIES WITH NOTES AND QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG STUDENTS _By_ THEODORE GERALD SOARES _Professor of Homiletics and Religious Education in the_ _University of Chicago_ THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT 1908 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published January 1909 Second Impression September 1909 Third Impression December 1909 Second Edition October 1911 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. TO MY FATHER MY FIRST HERO PREFACE It is the purpose to present these Hero Studies in two books, one being the present volume which is intended as a textbook for the students, the other being the teacher's manual with fuller explanations and suggestions. The necessary prefatory statements will be found in the respective books under the titles "Foreword to the Student" and "Foreword to the Teacher". This volume contains the text of the stories, with explanatory notes and questions intended to stimulate study. Each lesson consists of a complete story arranged in such a way as to impress the main features of the narrative clearly upon the student's mind. The explanatory material is reduced to the minimum, since the main desire is to let the stories speak for themselves and not to burden the student with wearisome details. The three reviews divide the course into the three natural parts, the first extending to Christmas, the second to the end of March, the third, which is shorter, to the middle of June, when it is usually wise for the regular courses to end. The text of the British Revisers is used in the reprint of the stories with the consent and approval of the Oxford and Cambridge University presses. As the plan of simplifying the narratives involved certain verbal changes, it has seemed wise to go a step farther and to use the spellings which would be more familiar to American students. For constant suggestions as to form and method I am greatly indebted to my wife, who has taught the lessons from advance sheets to a class of boys. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the valuable counsel of Professor E. D. Burton, the editor of the series, and especially that of Professor J. M. P. Smith, who at Professor Burton's request, and to my own great satisfaction, assumed the editorial responsibility of reading the manuscript, and gave me the benefit of his ripe scholarship and judgment. T. G. S. July 29, 1908 CONTENTS Page FOREWORD TO THE STUDENT xv CHAPTER I. ABRAHAM, THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL 1 II. ABRAHAM, THE MAGNANIMOUS 9 III. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC 16 IV. JACOB, THE CLEVER 29 V. ISRAEL, THE GODLY 41 VI. JOSEPH, THE SLAVE 51 VII. JOSEPH, THE RULER 60 VIII. JOSEPH, THE GENEROUS 70 IX. MOSES' EARLY LIFE 85 X. MOSES' COMMISSION 94 XI. MOSES, THE DELIVERER 104 XII. MOSES, THE LAWGIVER 117 XIII. REVIEW: THE HEROES OF ISRAEL'S WANDERINGS 129 XIV. JOSHUA AND CALEB 135 XV. GIDEON, THE WARRIOR 147 XVI. SAMSON, THE STRONG MAN 158 XVII. RUTH, THE FOREIGNER 171 XVIII. SAMUEL AND ELI 187 XIX. SAMUEL AND SAUL 200 XX. JONATHAN'S VICTORY 211 XXI. DAVID AND THE GIANT 223 XXII. THE HERO FRIENDS, DAVID AND JONATHAN 237 XXIII. DAVID, THE OUTLAW 247 XXIV. DAVID, THE KING 260 XXV. DAVID AND HIS REBEL SON 270 XXVI. REVIEW: TEN HEROES OF ISRAEL 283 XXVII. SOLOMON, THE WISE KING 289 XXVIII. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF PURE RELIGION 303 XXIX. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF JUSTICE 317 XXX. ELISHA, THE HEALER AND COUNSELOR 328 XXXI. NEHEMIAH, THE BUILDER 339 XXXII. ESTHER, THE PATRIOT QUEEN 351 XXXIII. JUDAS, THE HAMMERER 364 XXXIV. DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS 373 XXXV. REVIEW: SEVEN HEROIC NAMES 385 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Page MAP OF THE SEMITIC WORLD Frontispiece A CARAVAN IN PALESTINE 5 MAP OF CANAAN opposite 47 THE SEAL OF THE GRAND VIZIER OF RAMSES II 66 PORTRAIT STATUES OF RAMSES II 88 ORIENTAL SANDALS 95 BRICK-MAKING IN EGYPT 102 MOSES 118 WINNOWING GRAIN 179 A PHILISTINE 212 DAVID 226 CEDARS OF LEBANON 294 ESTHER'S PALACE 357 FOREWORD TO THE STUDENT 1. We are to study the heroes of Israel. What is a hero? We use this word of the chief character in a book or of one who does a very noble deed. It is also applied to the great men of the past, who have done deeds that have made their names famous in story and who have been the makers of nations. Call to mind some American heroes. 2. Why should we study the heroes of Israel? For three reasons: (1) The stories are very interesting and full of adventure. (2) Israel played a most important part in the world's history. The Jews, who now represent Israel, are no longer a nation, and unhappily they are often very badly treated, but they have many noble qualities. We owe some of the best things in our modern civilization to the men of old Israel. We shall find a great value in reading their story. (3) The questions of duty and religion that often puzzle us are very old questions. They came to these men thousands of years ago. We shall find them clearer to us as we read how the old heroes struggled with their difficulties. 3. How shall we study? The stories of the heroes are in the Old Testament, but in order to bring them together, and to separate them from other matter which is less profitable for young people to study they have been reprinted in this book. Most of the more difficult names have been omitted, together with everything that would take from the interest in the story. Each chapter is divided into three parts: The Story, The Meaning of the Story, and the Written Review. In preparing the lesson, the story should be read through first. It would be a very good plan to read it aloud to someone. Then take up the suggestions in the second part of the lesson, one at a time, and look up the sections of the story to find answers to the questions. When special Scripture references are given look them up, and use the maps whenever directions are given to that effect. When you have finished the study read the whole story through again and be sure that you understand it. The Written Review is very important. Have a notebook in which you will write the review stories every week. The best time to write the review story is soon after the meeting of the class, while the lesson is still fresh in memory. Always read the story of the hero again before you write the review. Keep the notebook neat. It is a good plan to write the exercise in pencil first and then copy it into the book in ink. At the end of the year you will have a good-sized book full of your own hero stories. A careful study of these lessons will make you acquainted with a score of the mighty men of the past. Many of them you will wish to keep as life-long friends. ABRAHAM I. ABRAHAM, THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL II. ABRAHAM, THE MAGNANIMOUS III. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC ABRAHAM, THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL THE STORY =§1. The Old Home of Abraham= (Gen. 11:31) Terah took Abraham his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son Abraham's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there, and Terah died in Haran. =§2. The Journey Westward= (Gen. 12:1-5) Now the Lord said unto Abraham, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So Abraham went, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abraham was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan: and into the land of Canaan they came. =§3. Abraham's Altars= (Gen. 12:6-9) And Abraham passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this land." And there built he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he built an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abraham journeyed, going on still toward the South. =§4. A Test of Courage= (Gen. 12:10-20) And there was a famine in the land: and Abraham went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarah his wife, "Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: and it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, 'This is his wife': and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee." And it came to pass, that, when Abraham was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he treated Abraham well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abraham's wife. [Illustration: A CARAVAN IN PALESTINE] And Pharaoh called Abraham, and said, "What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so that I took her to be my wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way." And Pharaoh gave men charge concerning him: and they brought him on the way, and his wife, and all that he had. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 1 (§1). We begin with the man to whom Israel looked back as their first great hero. What was his name? What was his father's name? 2 (§1). Where did he come from? Look at the map of the Semitic world. You will see two great rivers which join and then flow into the Persian Gulf. It is not always possible to know where ancient cities were located, but it is supposed that Ur may have been on the Euphrates near the point where the rivers join. It is called Ur of the Chaldees, because people of that name lived there. Terah therefore came from the very old country of Babylonia, which was rich and fertile because it was in the valley of the two rivers. What American river has a rich country in all its wide valley? 3 (§1). What route would be taken to go from Ur to Canaan? If you lay a ruler on the map you will see that Jerusalem is almost directly west of Ur. They lay about six hundred miles apart. But there was a very good reason why they could not travel right across that way. What kind of country would they have had to pass through? They had to follow the river for nearly the same distance in a northwesterly direction. This would bring them to a very rich country where it seems they stopped for some time and where Terah died. What was its name? 4 (§2). Evidently most of Terah's tribe were satisfied to stay in Haran, but Abraham felt a great stir in him to continue the journey to the West land. He believed that God wanted him to go there and to become the founder of a great nation that should serve Jehovah. This feeling became so strong that at last it was clear to him that the Lord was calling him. Learn the beautiful passage of the Call of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3) so that you can recite it. 5(§2). What route would Abraham take from Haran to Canaan? Let us look at the map again. There was a caravan road that ran from Haran west across the river, then it turned south and came down through the country of Syria to a very ancient city. Abraham's chief servant came from this city (Gen. 15:2). The road still runs south and then crosses the river Jordan into Palestine. 6(§2). How long would such a journey take? There were no railroads and there are still very few in that country. Travel was very slow. We have an account in Ezra 7:9 of how long it took a company to make the journey from Babylon long afterward. But Abraham's company would move more slowly, for we must think of him as traveling with a great many animals and servants and children. It was very much as the Arab tribes move about to-day. 7(§2). Think of what Abraham left behind when he obeyed God's voice and came into the strange land. What company of people in American history felt that God called them to leave their own country and come into the new land? Is it always safe to obey God? Look up Gal. 3:9 and Heb. 11:8-10 and see why Abraham is called "The Father of the Faithful." 8(§3). What promise did God give Abraham after he came to Canaan? What places did Abraham visit? Locate them on the map of Canaan. What religious act did he perform wherever he went? What act is the same in our lives? 9(§4). Abraham's numerous sheep and cattle required him to journey from place to place. Why was this? Why would dry weather cause him trouble? Notice on the map that when the famine came he was in the south of Palestine. It was only a short journey west to reach a very rich country, which lay in the valley of a great river. Name the country and its river and explain why there was no drought there. 10 (§4). We shall often notice that the old heroes did wrong. Tell the story of Abraham's visit to Egypt. What do you think of his conduct? If we knew only this part of Abraham's story we should not call him a hero. Ought we then to judge anyone by a single act? WRITTEN REVIEW This story deals with several journeys. Let us get them all before our eyes. Turn to the map of the Semitic world at the beginning of the book and make a very simple copy of it, according to the following directions: Mark the two great rivers in the east. Make the coast line of the Mediterranean Sea. Draw the River Nile. Make the coast line of the Red Sea. Locate Ur, Haran, Damascus, Canaan, Egypt. Make this map first in pencil and then ink it. II. ABRAHAM, THE MAGNANIMOUS THE STORY =§5. Abraham's Treatment of Lot= (Gen. 13) And Abraham went out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the South. And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai; unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abraham called on the name of the Lord. And Lot also, who went with Abraham, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. And Abraham said unto Lot, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left." And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the Plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar. So Lot chose him all the Plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the Plain, and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Lord exceedingly. And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him, "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for unto thee will I give it." And Abraham moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. =§6. Abraham's Deliverance of Lot= (Gen. 14:10-24) And there came five kings from the East and made war against the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abraham's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abraham the Hebrew: now he dwelt by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner; and these were confederate with Abraham. And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan. And he divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of the kings. And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abraham of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be God Most High, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." And he gave him a tenth of all. And the king of Sodom said unto Abraham, "Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself." And Abraham said to the king of Sodom, "I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread nor a shoelatchet nor aught that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abraham rich: save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me; Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, let them take their portion." =§7. Abraham's Prayer for Sodom= (Gen. 18:17-32; 19:29) And the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." And the Lord said, "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." And Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And the Lord said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sake." And Abraham answered and said, "Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it, if I find there forty and five." And he spake unto him yet again, and said, "Peradventure there shall be forty found there." And he said, "I will not do it for the forty's sake." And he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: peradventure there shall thirty be found there." And he said, "I will not do it if I find thirty there." And he said, "Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: peradventure there shall be twenty found there." And he said, "I will not destroy it for the twenty's sake." And he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: peradventure ten shall be found there." And he said, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake." And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 11 (§5). Follow Abraham's journey back from Egypt along the coast road. He reached the district in Southern Canaan that was called "the South." What wealth did he have? What would he need for his cattle? Notice how this caused him to journey from place to place. 12 (§5). On the western plains of America there have been disputes between the cattle men over the rights of grazing. The big men have driven the little men away. Tell the story of this old dispute in Canaan. What plan of settlement did Abraham suggest? How did Lot behave in the matter? What good result came to Abraham? 13 (§5). Look up the word "magnanimous." Could it be applied to Abraham? Have you ever known an act that was magnanimous? 14 (§6). Kings in old times used to make war on their neighbors just for the purpose of stealing their goods. This is the story of one of those plundering expeditions that was made against the country near the Dead Sea. Who had chosen that country for his residence? What was the result of the invasion? How did Abraham hear of it? How many young men did he have in his service? What does this show of the size of his camp? What did Abraham do? 15 (§6). What did Abraham do with the spoil that he captured? Was this magnanimous? 16 (§6). Compare Abraham's conduct with that of the United States in Cuba. 17 (§6). Abraham gave back the property that he had rescued: what should we do with property that we find? 18 (§7). Men of old loved to think of God appearing to them and talking to them. It is a beautiful picture of the silent message that comes to our hearts. What does Abraham learn is to happen to the wicked city of Sodom? 19 (§7). Is Abraham magnanimous in pleading for Sodom? What do the Lord's replies to Abraham's prayers teach us? 20 (§7). What happened to Sodom? Was Abraham's prayer answered? WRITTEN REVIEW Think over and write out the three ways in which Abraham was _magnanimous_. If you watch carefully the conduct of the best people you know you will be sure to see somebody do a magnanimous act before the next lesson. When you see it write it down in your notebook as your review work. III. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC THE STORY =§8. Abraham's Devotion= (Gen. 21:2, 3; 22:1-19) A. THE SACRIFICE OF THE FIRSTBORN And Sarah bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken unto him. And Abraham called the name of his son Isaac. And the child grew. And it came to pass, that God did prove Abraham and said unto him, "Abraham." And he said, "Here am I." And he said, "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went into the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, "Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship, and come again to you." And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, "My father." And he said, "Here am I, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham said, "God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. B. THE DIVINE INTERFERENCE And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, "Abraham." And he said, "Here am I." And he said, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be provided." And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba. =§9. The Selection of Isaac's Wife= (Gen. 24) A. THE COMMISSION OF THE SERVANT And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his servant, the elder of his house, that ruled over all that he had, "Swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: but thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac." And the servant said unto him, "Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?" And Abraham said unto him, "Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again. The Lord, the God of heaven, that took me from my father's house, and from the land of my nativity, and that spake unto me and that sware unto me, saying, 'Unto thy seed will I give this land,' he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife for my son from thence. And if the woman be not willing to follow thee, thou shalt be clear from this my oath; only thou shalt not bring my son thither again." And the servant sware to Abraham his master concerning this matter. B. THE MEETING WITH REBEKAH And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, and departed; having all goodly things of his master's in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made the camels to kneel down without the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, "O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, send me, I pray thee, good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand by the fountain of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, 'Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink;' and she shall say, 'Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also': let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master." And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon; and she went down to the fountain, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, "Give me to drink, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher." And she said, "Drink, my lord": and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, "I will draw for thy camels also, until they have done drinking." And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw, and drew for all his camels. And the man looked stedfastly on her; holding his peace, to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold, and said, "Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee. Is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?" And she said unto him, "I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor." She said moreover unto him, "We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in." And the man bowed his head, and worshipped the Lord. And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who hath not forsaken his mercy and his truth toward my master: as for me, the Lord hath led me in the way to the house of my master's brethren." C. THE BETROTHAL OF ISAAC AND REBEKAH And the damsel ran, and told her mother's house according to these words. And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the fountain. And it came to pass, when he saw the ring, and the bracelets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, "Thus spake the man unto me;" that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the fountain. And he said, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels." And the man came into the house, and he ungirded the camels; and he gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet and the men's feet that were with him. And there was set meat before him to eat. But he said, "I will not eat, until I have told mine errand." And Laban said, "Speak on." And he said, "I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great: and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and menservants and maidservants, and camels, and asses. And Sarah my master's wife bare a son to my master when she was old: and unto him hath he given all that he hath. And my master made me swear, saying, 'Thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell: but thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.' And I said unto my master, 'Peradventure the woman will not follow me.' And he said unto me, 'The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father's house: then shalt thou be clear from my oath, when thou comest to my kindred; and if they give her not to thee, thou shalt be clear from my oath.' "And I came this day unto the fountain, and said, 'O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now thou do prosper my way which I go: behold, I stand by the fountain of water; and let it come to pass, that the maiden which cometh forth to draw, to whom I shall say, Give me, I pray thee a little water of thy pitcher to drink; and she shall say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman whom the Lord hath appointed for my master's son.' And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the fountain, and drew: and I said unto her, 'Let me drink, I pray thee.' And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, 'Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also.' So I drank, and she made the camels drink also. And I asked her and said, 'Whose daughter art thou?' And she said, 'The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bare unto him.' And I put the ring upon her nose, and the bracelets upon her hands. And I bowed my head, and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter for his son. And now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me: and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left." Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, "The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken." And it came to pass, that, when Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed himself down to the earth unto the Lord. And the servant brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, "Send me away unto my master." And her brother and her mother said, "Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go." And he said unto them, "Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master." And they said, "We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth." And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go." And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, "Our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them." And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way. D. THE MARRIAGE And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. And she said unto the servant, "What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master." And she took her veil, and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 21. What promise had been made repeatedly to Abraham? But he had grown old and was still without a son. Yet the Lord repeated the promise and Abraham believed. At last to his great joy the son was born. It makes a man's life strong to believe that God will fulfil his promise. Faith and goodness are very near together (Gen. 15:6). A good boy believes his parents: surely he can believe God. 22 (§8A). In order to understand this story we must consider a strange and fearful custom of the old times. Read II Kings 3:26, 27, and note the awful sacrifice that a king, who was seeking help, made to his heathen god. The ancients felt that God ought to have the best that man has. They had not learned that he is loving and good, wishing our best to be given to him in loving service and not killed in sacrifice. 23 (§8A). Abraham knew that it was the custom of his neighbors to show their loyalty to their gods by killing their oldest sons. He was most anxious to do what God would wish, so what would he naturally think that he ought to do? Is a man wicked if he does what he thinks is right? But if he is pure in his motive and is very anxious to know what is right, he will often come to the truth. This story shows how God led Abraham to know what he really wanted of him. 24 (§8). It is a very striking story. Picture the scenes: (1) The long journey: who went? (2) Abraham and Isaac alone: what did Isaac ask? What was Abraham's confidence in God? (3) The preparation for the sacrifice. (4) The wonderful interference: what did this teach Abraham? What was the promise that was repeated? 25 (§8). Men have often used wrong methods, thinking to please God. What did the Puritans do to the witches? But the Puritans were good men, anxious to do right, and they soon learned that they had been wrong. It is not enough for us to be willing to do right. We must try hard to find out what is right. 26 (§9A). This section is a long one, but is full of interest and need not detain us for special study. It is the charming story of an old-time wooing. Parents often arranged the marriages of their children in those days as they do in many countries to-day. Abraham had a trusted servant who managed his business for him. What did he ask the servant to promise? 27 (§9B). Mesopotamia means "between the rivers." Locate it between the two rivers of Abraham's old country. Recall Abraham's journey (5, 6, §2) and trace the servant's journey. 28 (§9B). Tell the story of the meeting with Rebekah. 29 (§9C). Tell the story of the betrothal. Notice that the betrothal took place although Isaac was not there. 30 (§9D). Tell the story of the marriage. WRITTEN REVIEW We have finished the study of the "Father of the Faithful." He was a man who trusted God. Think over all that you have learned about him and write down in your notebook two or three ways in which you think that he showed his trust in God. Think whether there is any way in which you would be willing to trust God. JACOB-ISRAEL IV. JACOB, THE CLEVER V. ISRAEL, THE GODLY IV. JACOB, THE CLEVER THE STORY =§10. The Purchase of the Birthright= (Gen. 25:25-34) Isaac and Rebekah had two sons who were twins. The first was red, all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau, and the name of his brother was called Jacob. And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: and Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob boiled pottage: and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint: and Esau said to Jacob, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint." And Jacob said, "Sell me this day thy birthright." And Esau said, "Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall the birthright do to me?" And Jacob said, "Swear to me this day." And he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: so Esau despised his birthright. =§11. The Deception of Isaac= (Gen. 27:1-45) A. ISAAC'S COMMISSION TO ESAU And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his elder son, and said unto him, "My son." And he said unto him, "Here am I." And he said, "Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death. Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me venison; and make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die." And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. B. REBEKAH'S SCHEME And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, "Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, 'Bring me venison, and make me savory meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death.' Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth: and thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, so that he may bless thee before his death." And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." And his mother said unto him, "Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them." And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savory meat, such as his father loved. And Rebekah took the goodly garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: and she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck: and she gave the savory meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. C. Jacob's Deception And he came unto his father, and said, "My father." And he said, "Here am I; who art thou, my son?" And Jacob said unto his father, "I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me." And Isaac said unto his son, "How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son?" And he said, "Because the Lord thy God sent me good speed." And Isaac said unto Jacob, "Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not." And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. And he said, "Art thou my very son Esau?" And he said, "I am." And he said, "Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee." And he brought it near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, "Come near now, and kiss me, my son." And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son Is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: And God give thee of the dew of heaven, And of the fatness of the earth, And plenty of corn and wine: Let peoples serve thee, And nations bow down to thee: Be lord over thy brethren, And let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: Cursed be every one that curseth thee. And blessed be every one that blesseth thee. D. ESAU'S DISAPPOINTMENT And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also made savory meat, and brought it unto his father; and he said unto his father, "Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that thy soul may bless me." And Isaac his father said unto him, "Who art thou?" And he said, "I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau." And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, "Who then is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed." When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said unto his father, "Bless me, even me also, O my father." And he said, "Thy brother came with guile, and hath taken away thy blessing." And he said, "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?" And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, "Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him: and what then shall I do for thee, my son?" And Esau said unto his father, "Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father." And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept. And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling, And of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt serve thy brother; And it shall come to pass when thou shalt break loose, That thou shalt shake his yoke from off thy neck. E. ESAU'S HATRED And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob." And the words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah; and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, "Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee. Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; and tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?" =§12. The Dream of the Heavenly Ladder= (Gen. 28:10-22) And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." And he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." THE MEANING OF THE STORY 31. No man is altogether good and no one is wholly bad. Good and evil struggle for the mastery in us. Jacob is a man in whom this is very clearly seen. He was the twin brother of Esau, but Esau had the right of the oldest son. This was called the birthright. It was very important in that day. It meant that after the father's death Esau would become the head of the tribe, and would have twice as much of the property as his brother. Jacob did not like this and began to scheme to get the better of his brother. 32 (§10). What was the difference between the two men? 33 (§10). Tell the story of the hunting day and how Jacob sold the food to his brother. 34 (§10). What do you think of Esau in this affair? He gave up a great future for a little satisfaction. 35 (§10). Jacob was "smart" or "clever" in his bargain. Was he brotherly? Is it honest to charge all that you can get for something that people must have? 36 (§11A). The last solemn blessing of the head of the tribe was considered very important. How did Isaac arrange that it should be given to Esau? 37 (§11B). There was a wretched favoritism in this family. What was Rebekah's scheme to get the blessing for her favorite? Tell the story. 38 (§11C). Picture the blind old father and the crafty son coming to him. How did he secure the blessing? Notice how one wrong leads to another. 39 (§11D). Tell the story of Esau's bitter disappointment. 40 (§11E). What revenge did Esau plan? Rebekah was afraid: what advice did she give to Jacob? When the man had to flee for his life, how much had he gained by his deception? Do the "smart" men always win? If they do is it worth while? 41 (§12). The Lord is wonderfully forgiving, and he still wanted to lead Jacob to a noble life. Follow the journey on the map. What did Jacob do when night overtook him? There are great rocks at Beth-el that look something like a huge staircase. How did these form themselves in Jacob's dream? This is a simple, beautiful story of the old time when men thought they saw God in dreams. Tell the whole story in your own words. 42 (§12). What promise did the Lord give him? What vow did Jacob make? WRITTEN REVIEW Call to mind the meaning of _magnanimous_. Taking advantage of another's need as Jacob took advantage of Esau is the opposite of magnanimous. When the earthquake occurred in San Francisco some stores that had bread put up the price so high that very few could buy it. Soldiers compelled them to sell it for the regular price. How were those storekeepers like Jacob? Why was their conduct wrong? Write the answers to these two questions in your notebook. V. ISRAEL, THE GODLY THE STORY =§13. Jacob's Return after Twenty Years= (Gen. 29:1, 16, 23, 28; 30:43; 31:17, 18) And Jacob came to the land of the children of the East. And he served Laban, his mother's brother. And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. And Laban gave his two daughters to Jacob to be his wives. And Jacob increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses. And after twenty years Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon the camels; and he carried away all his cattle, and all his substance which he had gathered to go unto the land of Canaan. =§14. Jacob's Fear of Esau= (Gen. 32:1-21) A. THE MESSAGE TO ESAU And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir. And he commanded them, saying, "Thus shall ye say unto my lord Esau, 'Thus saith thy servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now: and I have oxen, and asses and flocks, and menservants and maidservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.'" And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to thy brother Esau, and moreover he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him." Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two companies; and he said, "If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the company which is left shall escape." B. JACOB'S PRAYER And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, which saidst unto me, 'Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will do thee good': I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two companies. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, the mother with the children. And thou saidst, 'I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.'" C. THE PRESENT TO ESAU And he lodged there that night; and took of that which he had with him a present for Esau his brother; two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch camels and their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself; and said unto his servants, "Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove." And he commanded the foremost, saying, "When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, 'Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee?' then thou shalt say, 'They be thy servant Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, he also is behind us.'" And he commanded also the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, "On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him; and ye shall say, 'Moreover, behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us.'" For he said, "I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept me." So the present passed over before him: and he himself lodged that night in the company. =§15. The Wrestle and the New Name= (Gen. 32:22-31) And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven children, and passed over the ford of Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled with him. And he said, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." And he said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." And he said unto him, "What is thy name?" And he said, "Jacob." And he said, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed." And Jacob asked him, and said, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name." And he said, "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?" And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for, said he, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Peniel, and he halted upon his thigh. =§16. The Meeting With Esau= (Gen. 33:1-16) And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. And he himself passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, "Who are these with thee?" And he said, "The children which God has graciously given thy servant." Then the handmaidens came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves. And Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said, "What meanest thou by all this company which I met?" And he said, "To find grace in the sight of my lord." And Esau said, "I have enough; my brother, let that thou hast be thine." And Jacob said, "Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: forasmuch as I have seen thy face, as one seeth the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me. Take, I pray thee, my gift that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough." And he urged him, and he took it. And he said, "Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee." And he said unto him, "My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have young: and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according to the pace of the cattle that is before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come unto my lord unto Seir." And Esau said, "Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me." And he said, "What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord." So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir. =§17. The Altar of Beth-el= (Gen. 35:1-7) And God said unto Jacob, "Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother." Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with them, "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." [Illustration] And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And they journeyed: and a great terror was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Beth-el, he and all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, because there God was revealed unto him when he fled from the face of his brother. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 43 (§13). There is a long and interesting story of Jacob's marriage and of his twenty years' service with Laban. It was a hard service, for Laban was a hard master and was very jealous of the prosperity of his son-in-law. But in spite of difficulty Jacob was successful, though in the game of wits he was not always very scrupulous. At last he determined to return to his own land, but was obliged to go secretly for fear of Laban. Even so, Laban pursued him and there was a hot dispute. But at last they made a covenant of peace, and parted. Jacob journeyed as far as the brook Jabbok, a stream which flows westward into the Jordan, about twenty-five miles north of the Dead Sea. Locate it on the map. 44 (§14A). As Jacob returned home, what might he have to fear? The old sin comes up after twenty years. Note Jacob's plan. He is very courteous to Esau and yet he wants him to know what a great man he has become. What would the reply of the messengers indicate about Esau's life for the twenty years? How did Jacob feel when he heard of Esau, and what did he do? 45 (§14B). Jacob was very shrewd, but there is a better defense than cunning. Read the beautiful prayer. How does he think of God? How does he think of himself? What does he pray for? What promise does he plead? 46 (§14C). How many animals were there in each of the five droves? How many were there altogether? What was Jacob's plan to pacify Esau? Do you think this was a shrewd scheme? 47 (§15). In the old days the experiences and feelings of the heart were often told as if they were physical events. So we must understand the wonderful story of the wrestle. Jacob had been a clever man living by his wits. God had in many ways been seeking to bring him to obedience to his will. Now when the danger of Esau is upon him, Jacob has the fight of his life--but it is within his own heart. 48 (§15). Picture the loneliness of Jacob and describe how you think he felt that night? Did you ever have a great heart struggle about some duty, or over some temptation? 49 (§15). Jacob was defeated and yet he was victorious. When we give in to God, we are really victors. What was his new name? How are all his people called by it? The old name belongs to the clever man: the new name belongs to the godly man, who has received God's blessing. 50 (§16). This story may be passed rapidly, though it is full of interest. Tell in your own words: (1) what happened when the brothers met; (2) how Jacob wisely separated from Esau. 51 (§17). There was one place in Canaan that was very sacred to Jacob. What had happened at Beth-el? Why did God tell him to go there? How did he prepare his people for the visit? What thoughts do you think came to him when he returned to the spot where he had slept as a lonely young man twenty years before? WRITTEN REVIEW Tell your parents what you have learned about Jacob, and ask them if they ever knew a person who had done wrong and was in danger from it years afterward, and who was sorry for the wrong, and was helped by God's goodness. Write what they tell you in your notebook. JOSEPH VI. JOSEPH, THE SLAVE VII. JOSEPH, THE RULER VIII. JOSEPH, THE GENEROUS VI. JOSEPH, THE SLAVE THE STORY =§18. Joseph and His Dreams= (Gen. 37:3-11) Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a long garment with sleeves. And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren; and they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, "Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf." And his brethren said to him, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?" And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me." And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, "What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" And his brethren envied him; and his father kept the saying in mind. =§19. Joseph Sold as a Slave= (Gen. 37:12-35) And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, "Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them." And he said to him, "Here am I." And he said to him, "Go now, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flock; and bring me word again." So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, "What seekest thou?" And he said, "I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they are feeding the flock." And the man said, "They are departed hence: for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And they saw him afar off, and before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, "Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, 'An evil beast hath devoured him': and we shall see what will become of his dreams." And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph of his coat, the long garment with sleeves that was on him; and they took him, and cast him into the pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a traveling company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, "What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh." And his brethren hearkened unto him. And they drew and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a he-goat, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they brought it to their father; and said, "This have we found; know now whether it be thy son's coat or not." And he knew it, and said, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces." And Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, "For I will go down to the grave to my son mourning." And his father wept for him. =§20. Joseph's Faithfulness= (Gen. 39:1-6) And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he ministered unto him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. And it came to pass from the time that he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had, in the house and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not aught that was with him save the bread which he did eat. =§21. Joseph in Prison= (Gen. 39:17-23) But Potiphar's wife spoke false words concerning Joseph, and she said unto her husband, "The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me: and it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he fled out." And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, "After this manner did thy servant to me," that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed kindness unto him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand, because the Lord was with him; and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 52. The story of Joseph is remarkably beautiful and interesting. It is more fully told than many of the other stories, and we seem to know Joseph better than almost any of the older Bible characters. His life was full of startling adventure and shows how a strong, noble young hero can meet danger. 53 (§18). Joseph was the youngest but one of Jacob's sons. The others were grown up, and many statements show that they were not very good men. How did Jacob feel toward Joseph? He gave him a long garment with sleeves, which was a mark of distinction. The ordinary working garments were short and had no sleeves. How did Joseph's brothers feel toward him? What do you think of favoritism in families? Can a father feel the same toward good sons and bad sons? 54 (§18). In old times they thought much of dreams and believed they had important meanings. Tell Joseph's two dreams. What were they supposed to mean? Do boys often dream of their future? 55 (§19). Why do men with large flocks need to move from place to place? Locate Hebron on the map. Then note how far the shepherds had wandered to Shechem, which is a very rich pasturage. Then notice Dothan, 15 miles farther north, where the pasturage is still richer. About how far was Dothan from Hebron? (Use the scale on the map to measure.) Tell how Joseph found his brothers. 56 (§19). Tell the story of the plot. What had prepared these men for the crime they committed? (See I John 3:15.) It is a fearful thing to keep hatred in the heart. Shut the book and think for a moment whether you really hate anyone. Tell what they did with Joseph. How does one sin lead to another? What did they tell Jacob? Notice how sorry the old man was and how they showed their sorrow in those days. 57 (§20). What happened to Joseph when he reached Egypt? What is the position of a slave? 58 (§20). Notice how Joseph, although he was sold into slavery, determined to do his duty to his master. Some people will only do their best when they are well paid. How was faithfulness rewarded in this case? 59 (§21). This story is full of strange surprises. Just as Joseph was enjoying his place as overseer, a new enemy arose. His master's wife made false charges against him. She was a wicked woman and wanted Joseph to be put out of the way. Her husband believed her. What did he do with Joseph? 60 (§21). Joseph might well be discouraged, but even in prison he was determined to do his best. Whose favor did he gain? In our prisons they call the good prisoners "trusties." The jailer soon found that Joseph was a "trusty," and gave him charge of all the other prisoners. WRITTEN REVIEW Bear in mind Joseph's trouble in slavery and in prison, and try to find out about someone who has had a very hard time, but who is patiently and cheerfully doing his work, trusting in God. Write the account of it. VII. JOSEPH, THE RULER THE STORY =§22. Joseph's Interpretation of the Dreams= (Gen. 40) A. JOSEPH AND THE STATE PRISONERS And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against his two officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he ministered unto them: and they continued a season in prison. And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and saw them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked them, saying, "Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day?" And they said unto him, "We have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it." And Joseph said unto them, "Do not interpretations belong to God? tell it me, I pray you." B. THE CHIEF BUTLER'S DREAM And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, "In my dream, behold, a vine was before me; and in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and its blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes: and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand." And Joseph said unto him, "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thine office: and thou shalt give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. But have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house: for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon." C. THE CHIEF BAKER'S DREAM When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, "I also was in my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white bread were on my head: and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of baked food for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat it out of the basket upon my head." And Joseph answered and said, "This is the interpretation thereof: the three baskets are three days; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee." D. THE INTERPRETATION COMES TRUE And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand: but he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him. =§23. Joseph's Interpretation of Pharaoh's Dreams= (Gen. 41:1-16, 25-36) A. THE KING'S DREAM And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well favored and fatfleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favored and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favored and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favored and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up on one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven ears, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. And the thin ears swallowed up the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream: but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. B. THE BUTLER'S RECOMMENDATION OF JOSEPH Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, "I do remember my faults this day: Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in prison in the house of the captain of the guard, me and the chief baker: and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And there was with us there a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guards; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; I was restored unto mine office, and he was hanged." C. JOSEPH INTERPRETS PHARAOH'S DREAM Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that when thou hearest a dream thou canst interpret it." And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, "It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." And Pharaoh told Joseph his dreams. And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, "The dream of Pharaoh is one: what God is about to do he hath declared unto Pharaoh. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven lean and ill favored kine that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind; they shall be seven years of famine. That is the thing which I spake unto Pharaoh: what God is about to do he hath showed unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: and there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine which followeth; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine." =§24. Joseph Made Ruler of Egypt= (Gen. 41:37-45, 47-57) A. JOSEPH HONORED BY PHARAOH And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is?" And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou." And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt." And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, "Bow the knee," and he set him over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt." [Illustration: THE SEAL OF THE GRAND VIZIER OF RAMSES II] And he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt. B. JOSEPH'S PROSPERITY And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: "For God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house." And the name of the second called he Ephraim: "For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." And the seven years of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came to an end. And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said: and there was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, "Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do." And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy grain; because the famine was sore in all the earth. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 61. Recall rapidly the story of Joseph as far as we have studied it. Read §21 and consider the situation of the young prisoner. 62 (§22A). Who were these two great men that were sent to prison? It was a high office to be cupbearer to the king. The butler's speech later shows that it was his duty to squeeze the grapes into a goblet of water, making the refreshing drink for his royal master. The officer who had charge of the kitchen in a great palace would also be an important man. In our time a French "chef" sometimes has a salary of $25,000. Why were these men in prison? What did Joseph have to do with them? 63 (§22A). This was three days before the king's birthday and on that day it was customary to decide the fate of state prisoners. How would the two men feel as the day drew near? Would they be likely to dream about their former occupations? Tell the conversation that took place between them and Joseph in the morning. 64 (§22B). Tell the story. Note how natural it was for the butler to dream that he was again preparing the king's grape juice. What do you think of Joseph's request? Was it a reasonable request? 65 (§22C, D). Tell the story of the baker's dream and the interpretation. What happened on the king's birthday? How was it that the chief butler was so ungrateful? 66 (§23A). Pharaoh was the title given to all the kings of Egypt, as Czar is given to the Russian emperors, Sultan to the rulers of Turkey, and President to our own chief executive. The most important thing in Egypt is its famous river. (What is its name?) It was natural for the king to dream of it. Tell the story of his dream. 67 (§23B). We have already noted how much significance was attached to dreams. A king would have a company of learned men who were supposed to be able to interpret his dreams. How was it in this case? What did the chief butler do? How long had he forgotten Joseph? 68 (§23C). How did they get Joseph ready to appear before the king? If you look at Egyptian pictures you will see that the great men never wore beards. The Egyptians were also very cleanly and particular about white garments. What did Pharaoh say to Joseph? Note Joseph's modesty. 69 (§23C). Tell Joseph's interpretation of the dreams. Of course we naturally ask how Joseph could know these things. But we can only say that it is part of the story, and our interest is in finding just what these beautiful old tales of the heroes have to say to us. What advice did Joseph give to the king? Famines were rare in Egypt, because the country is not dependent upon rainfall but upon the overflow of the Nile. Occasionally, though very seldom, the water does not come from the upper river in sufficient quantity; then there is no inundation and the crops fail. 70 (§24A). What did Pharaoh think of Joseph's interpretation? What did he think of his advice? What did he decide to do with him. Note the six distinctions he gave him and explain what they meant? In England one of the highest officers is the Keeper of the Great Seal. And there the aldermen wear gold chains round their necks. It was a notable honor to be married to the daughter of the high priest, who was a great dignitary. 71 (§24B). What did Joseph do during the seven prosperous years? How many sons were born to him? What did he do when the famine came? 72. When Joseph was in the pit in slavery, and in the prison, whom did he trust? Did he ever think the happy dreams of youth were hopeless? What is the best way to meet bad fortune? Now note how he meets good fortune. Read Rom. 8:28. WRITTEN REVIEW Like Joseph, you doubtless have some tasks put upon you that are unpleasant. Note one of those tasks this week. Do it as Joseph would have done. You will feel after you have done your best that it was worth while. Then think again how Joseph behaved. Write out in your notebook why Joseph always did his duty. VIII. JOSEPH, THE GENEROUS THE STORY =§25. Joseph and the Guilty Brothers= (Gen. 42) A. THE FIRST JOURNEY OF THE BROTHERS Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons, "Why do ye look one upon another? Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die." And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, "Lest peradventure mischief befall him." B. JOSEPH'S TREATMENT OF HIS BROTHERS And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly with them; and he said unto them, "Whence come ye?" And they said, "From the land of Canaan to buy food." And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, "Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come." And they said unto him, "Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies." And he said unto them, "Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come." And they said, "We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not." And Joseph said unto them, "Ye are spies." And he put them all together into prison three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day, "This do, and live; for I fear God: if ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison house; but go ye, carry grain for the famine of your houses: and bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die." And they said one to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them. And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and he returned to them, and spake to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes. C. THE RETURN TO JACOB Then Joseph commanded to fill their vessels with grain, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus was it done unto them. And they laded their asses with their grain and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place, he espied his money; and, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. And he said unto his brethren, "My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack." And their heart failed them, and they turned trembling one to another, saying, "What is this that God hath done unto us?" And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen them. And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack; and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said unto them, "Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me." And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, "Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again." And he said, "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." =§26. Joseph and Benjamin= (Gen. 43) A. THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT And the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the grain which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, "Go again, buy us a little food." And Judah spake unto him, saying, "The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, 'Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you.' If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food: but if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down." And Israel said, "Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother?" And they said, "The man asked straitly concerning ourselves, and concerning our kindred, saying, 'Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother?' and we told him according to the tenor of these words: could we in any wise know that he would say, 'Bring your brother down'?" And Judah said unto Israel his father, "Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever: for except we had lingered, surely we had now returned a second time." And their father Israel said unto them, "If it be so now, do this; take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and myrrh, nuts, and almonds: and take double money in your hand; and the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight: take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man: and God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release unto you your other brother and Benjamin. And if I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." B. THE KIND RECEPTION And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, "Bring the men into the house, and slay, and make ready; for the men shall dine with me at noon." And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph's house. And the men were afraid because they were brought into Joseph's house; and they said, "Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses." And they came near to the steward of Joseph's house; and they spake unto him at the door of the house, and said, "Oh my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food: and it came to pass, when we came to the lodging place, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man's money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight: and we have brought it again in our hand. And other money have we brought down in our hand to buy food: we know not who put our money in our sacks." And he said, "Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money." And he brought Simeon out unto them. And the man brought the men into Joseph's house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon: for they heard that they should eat bread there. C. THE FEAST And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed down themselves to him to the earth. And he asked them of their welfare, and said, "Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?" And they said, "Thy servant our father is well, he is yet alive." And they bowed the head, and made obeisance. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother's son, and said, "Is this your youngest brother, of whom ye spake unto me?" And he said, "God be gracious unto thee, my son." And Joseph made haste; for his heart yearned over his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. And he washed his face, and came out; and he refrained himself, and said, "Set on bread." And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one with another. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him. =§27. Joseph's Forgiveness= (Gen. 44; 45:1-15) A. THE HARD TEST And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, "Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, and his grain money." And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, "Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, 'Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth? ye have done evil in so doing.'" And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these words. And they said unto him, "Wherefore speaketh my lord such words as these? God forbid that thy servants should do such a thing. Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lord's house silver or gold? With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, let him die, and we also will be my lord's bondmen." And he said, "Now also let it be according unto your words: he with whom it is found shall be my bondman; and ye shall be blameless." Then they hasted, and took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house; and he was yet there: and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, "What deed is this that ye have done? know ye not that such a man as I can indeed divine?" And Judah said, "What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord's bondmen, both we, and he also in whose hand the cup is found." And he said, "God forbid that I should do so: the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my bondman; but as for you, get you up in peace unto your father." B. JUDAH'S NOBLE OFFER Then Judah came near unto him, and said, "Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant: for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, 'Have ye a father, or a brother?' And we said unto my lord, 'We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him.' And thou saidst unto thy servants, 'Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him.' And we said unto my lord, 'The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die.' And thou saidst unto thy servants, 'Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more.' And it came to pass when we came up unto my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, 'Go again, buy us a little food.' And we said, 'We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down; for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us.' And my father said unto us, 'Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since: and if ye take this one also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.' Now therefore when I come to my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life; it shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, 'If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father for ever.' Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father." C. THE FORGIVENESS Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, "Cause every man to go out from me." And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud. And Joseph said unto his brethren, "I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?" And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, "Come near to me, I pray you." And they came near. And he said, "I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in the which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, 'Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: and there will I nourish thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast.' And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither." And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him. =§28. Joseph and His Father= (Gen. 45:25-28; 46:28-30; 47:7-11) And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, "Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: and Israel said, "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die." And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to show the way before him unto Goshen; and they came unto the land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen. And he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, "Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet alive." And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, "How many are the days of the years of thy life?" And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 73. This a rather long chapter, but it is so full of interest that it would not be well to divide it. Recall the last chapter and tell what was the condition in Egypt and what was Joseph's position. 74 (§25A). We turn back in our story to what persons? What was happening to them? What was this journey, who went, why did they go, who remained behind? Compare this with Abraham's journey (§4). 75 (§25B). How did Joseph feel when he saw his brothers after so many years? How did he recognize them, while they did not know him? Notice how roughly he treats them. He is going to see whether they care for the youngest brother Benjamin. How does he do this? We saw in the life of Jacob how an old sin comes back. So it is here, as the brothers realize. How does the interview end? 76 (§25C). What happened about the money? Describe the report that they made to Jacob. 77 (§26A). Why did they need to go to Egypt again? What did Judah say to his father? How did Jacob at last consent? 78 (§26B). Joseph is not yet ready to tell them of his forgiveness, because he wants them to be really repentant. He has a very good plan in his mind. What took place between the brothers and the steward? 79 (§26C). This description is very beautiful. What were Joseph's feelings when he saw Benjamin? How was the feast arranged? Notice that Joseph ate apart as the Egyptian custom required. How surprised they were that they should be seated according to their ages! 80 (§27A). What was Joseph's plan about the cup? Tell the story of the arrest. Notice the custom of expressing sorrow. The brothers find themselves in a hard case. Once, when they were guilty, they had been able to escape detection; now, when they are innocent, they cannot escape. What was Joseph's harsh decision? 81 (§27B). The brothers had not cared that Joseph should be sold as a slave and Jacob should be heartbroken. But now when Benjamin is to be a slave they feel different. Why is this? Tell in your own words Judah's noble speech. See how completely Joseph has brought his brothers to repentance. 82 (§27C). Notice (1) Joseph's loving words, (2) his faith in God's providence, (3) his message to his father, (4) his affection for his brothers. Have you ever known forgiveness to do any good? 83 (§28). How did Jacob receive the good news that Joseph was alive? Goshen was a fertile part of Egypt in which the Hebrews were to live. Describe the meeting of the father and son. Notice the formal presentation of Jacob to the king, and how stately is the old patriarch as he blesses the king. WRITTEN REVIEW Remember how happy Joseph was in forgiving his brethren. Read Rom. 12:20, 21. If anybody should annoy or anger you this week, try Joseph's plan. Instead of getting even with your enemy, be kind to him. See if you do not feel happier about it. Write in your notebook your own idea of whether Joseph was right in his forgiveness. MOSES IX. MOSES' EARLY LIFE X. MOSES' COMMISSION XI. MOSES, THE DELIVERER XII. MOSES, THE LAWGIVER IX. MOSES' EARLY LIFE THE STORY =§29. The Oppression of the Hebrews= (Exod. 1:6-12, 22) And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: come, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land." Therefore, they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, "Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." =§30. The Birth and Adoption of Moses= (Exod. 2:1-10) [Illustration: _Copyright 1904 by Underwood and Underwood_ THE SIXTY-FIVE-FOOT PORTRAIT STATUES OF RAMSES II] And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch: and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it. And she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go." And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses. =§31. The Young Man's Unwise Methods= (Exod. 2:11-15) And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, "Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?" And he said, "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?" And Moses feared, and said, "Surely the thing is known." Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. =§32. Moses in Midian= (Exod. 2:16-22) Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the trough to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, "How is it that ye are come so soon to-day?" And they said, "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock." And he said unto his daughters, "And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread." And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter, and she bare a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a strange land." =§33. The Unhappy Hebrews= (Exod. 2:23-25) And it came to pass in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 84. In any nation one of the greatest heroes is the man who was the founder of the national life. The Italians look to the great Garibaldi, who delivered them from their enemies and brought about a united Italy. Americans call Washington the father of his country, because he was the leader in the great struggle to make America a nation. The Hebrews always looked back to Moses as their great deliverer, who brought them out of Egypt and made them a nation. The study of this hero takes us to the second book of the Bible, which is called Exodus, meaning "Going out," because it gives the story of the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt. 85 (§29). In the last chapter we were studying about a small tribe of people. Now we find that a long time has passed and the people have greatly increased in numbers. Consider how the negroes have increased in numbers since the War. There were then four millions. How many are there now? 86 (§29). There probably arose a new dynasty, or line of kings. What did the king fear might happen if the Hebrews grew too numerous? These Pharaohs were mighty builders. What great objects had some of the earlier Pharaohs built? They loved to have splendid palaces and temples and strong fortifications. As there was no machinery, this work required great numbers of men. In the wars of those days all prisoners were made slaves and compelled to work. So the Egyptians treated the Hebrews as if they were prisoners. What kind of labor were they compelled to do? 87 (§29). We get a glimpse into the awful harshness of that old slavery. As we see the pictures of the magnificent structures of those days we remember that they cost the lives of millions of human beings. We have done away with slavery, but are not people still compelled to work in awful conditions? There are very many occupations where the health of the laborers is broken down and their lives shortened. We have still a great deal to learn about how men ought to labor. 88 (§29). When the harsh slavery did not prevent the increase of the Hebrews, it was brutally determined to murder them. What was the plan? The girls were saved because they could not fight. 89 (§30). Doubtless many of the Hebrew children were drowned, but one mother was determined to save her boy. Tell the story of how he was hidden and found and saved. 90 (§30). By the happy plan of the mother and sister the boy could be brought up safely in his own home. But he was also to have the opportunity of training in the royal palace. What did it mean that he was adopted by the princess? 91 (§31). Which people would it have been most profitable for Moses to belong to--the Egyptians or the Hebrews? Sometimes we see a boy who is clever and fortunate separating himself from his family. How did Moses feel when he grew up and saw the sad condition of his people? What hasty thing did he do? Was Moses justified in that act? Let us see how it turned out. 92 (§31). The young man was not only anxious to save his people from tyranny but also from quarreling among themselves. What happened the next day? People are not always willing to take good advice. What danger was Moses in? 93 (§32). What was Moses obliged to do because he had killed the Egyptian overseer? Locate Midian. When Moses was off in the desert, a fugitive from justice, could he help his people? Was not his hasty act unwise? Do you remember someone attacking saloons with a hatchet? Can we often do good by violence? Sometimes we are very indignant because we see injustice, but in the long run we shall gain all good ends by peaceful means. Lynching is a poor way to secure justice. 94 (§32). Notice that the girls were in charge of the flocks. What did the rude shepherds do? Again Moses interferes to help the weak, but this time he seems to have done it without fighting. Why did the girls think Moses was an Egyptian? How did it all turn out? 95 (§33). Meantime everything looked very dark for the Hebrews. But God was preparing a man to save them. Would it have been a good thing for the Hebrews to have been happy in Egypt and to have stayed there and become Egyptians? Would it have been well if the Pilgrims had been well treated in England and had stayed there? Are our troubles ever good for us? Who is watching all the time? WRITTEN REVIEW Moses was obliged to be a shepherd instead of a wealthy Egyptian. So sometimes our plans are changed. But often it turns out for good. Ask your parents, or your pastor, or some friend, to tell you if anything ever happened to them that seemed at the time to upset all their plans of life, but which turned out to be of great value in their training. Write an account of it in your notebook. X. MOSES' COMMISSION THE STORY =§34. The Call in the Wilderness= (Exod. 3:1-11; 4:1-17) A. THE BURNING BUSH Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, "I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses." And he said, "Here am I." And he said, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt." [Illustration: ORIENTAL SANDALS] B. MOSES' HESITATION And Moses said unto God, "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? Behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, 'The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.'" And the Lord said unto him, "What is that in thine hand?" And he said, "A rod." And he said, "Cast it on the ground." And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, "Put forth thine hand and take it by the tail." And he put forth his hand, and laid hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand. And the Lord said furthermore unto him, "Put now thine hand into thy bosom." And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow. And he said, "Put thine hand into thy bosom again." And he put his hand into his bosom again; and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. And the Lord said, "It shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign." And Moses said unto the Lord, "Oh Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." And the Lord said unto him, "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh a man dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? is it not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak." And he said, "Oh Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of another whom thou wilt choose." And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, "Is there not Aaron thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak unto him, and put the words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people. And thou shalt take in thine hand this rod, wherewith thou shalt do the signs." And the Lord said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." And he went, and met him in the mountain of God, and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord wherewith he had sent him, and all the signs wherewith he had charged him. =§35. The Return to Egypt= (Exod. 4:18, 20, 27-31) And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said unto him, "Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive." And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace." And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel: and Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed: and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. =§36. Pharaoh's Harshness= (Exod. 5:1-6:1) A. THE CHALLENGE And afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said unto Pharaoh, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.'" And Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go." And they said, "The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God." And the king of Egypt said unto them, "Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? get you unto your burdens. Behold, the people of the land are now many, and ye make them rest from their burdens." B. THE BITTER BONDAGE And the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, "Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the number of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they may labor therein; and let them not regard lying words." And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, "Thus saith Pharaoh, 'I will not give you straw. Go yourselves, get you straw where ye can find it: for nought of your work shall be diminished.'" So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. And the taskmasters were urgent, saying, "Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw." And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, "Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both yesterday and to-day, in making brick as heretofore?" Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, "Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, 'Make brick': and behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people." But he said, "Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.' Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the number of bricks." And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, and they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: and they said unto them, "The Lord look upon you, and judge; because ye have made us to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us." C. THE PROMISE OF THE LORD And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, "Lord, wherefore hast thou evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all." And the Lord said unto Moses, "Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for by a strong hand shall he let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." THE MEANING OF THE STORY 96 (§34A). We left Moses in Midian. Locate it again on the map. With whom did he live? What was his occupation? Notice that he came to Mt. Horeb, which is also called Mt. Sinai. Locate it on the map. 97 (§34A). As Moses was alone in the wilderness, his thoughts would naturally turn to his people. What would he wish for them? How greatly they needed a leader! If ever the thought occurred to him that he ought to be their leader, how would he feel about it? At last God's message came to him. It is one of the beautiful stories of God speaking to man. How was Moses told to show his reverence? It is the custom in the East. How could they take off their shoes so easily? (See illustration of the sandal.) What custom do we have to show reverence? How did Moses show a still deeper reverence? 98 (§34A). What did God tell Moses? It might have seemed to the lonely exile that the Lord had forgotten all about the people in bondage. A commission is a duty given to a man: what was Moses' commission? At last God's plan for poor Israel was clear. The deliverer had been found. 99 (§34B). It was a startling commission for Moses. He remembered how the people had treated him when he had tried to help them. (Recall §31.) What was he now afraid of? Tell the story of the signs with which the Lord gave him confidence. People were always anxious for something wonderful in those old days. 100 (§34B). Moses had another reason for hesitation. Is humility a good preparation for a great work or is confidence better? How does the Lord fit an earnest man for his work? Humility is not good when it is through lack of faith. "The anger of the Lord" means his displeasure at what is not right. Who was sent with Moses? 101 (§35). How did Moses act after receiving the commission. Did he tell his father-in-law his plans? Describe the meeting, as you may imagine it, between the two brothers and the Hebrew people. [Illustration: _Copyright 1904 by Underwood and Underwood_ BRICK-MAKING IN EGYPT] 102 (§36A). It was a bold thing to go to the king. What did Moses and Aaron demand? What did the king say about the Lord? What did he say Moses and Aaron were doing? 103 (§36B). Brick was made from the black Nile mud mixed with sand and with chopped straw. There are pictures in Egypt of captives making these bricks with overseers guarding them. The soft mud would be put into a wooden mold, which would then be lifted off and the brick left to dry in the sun. Sometimes the captives had to gather waste material or stubble instead of straw. Why was this such a hardship to the Hebrews? 104 (§36B). Note how the orders were carried out. There are two classes of officials mentioned: the Egyptian taskmasters and the Hebrew officers. The latter were responsible for the full work being done by their countrymen. Tell the whole story of the bondage. 105 (§36B). Describe the interview of the officers with Pharaoh. How did they feel toward Moses and Aaron? 106 (§36C). How did all this affect Moses? It is often darkest just before day. What did the Lord promise? WRITTEN REVIEW Think over the story carefully and prepare for a debate, the students taking different sides on the question: Resolved that Moses was wrong in settling down in Midian and leaving his people so long without help. XI. MOSES, THE DELIVERER THE STORY =§37. The Plagues of Egypt= (Exod. 7:14-18, 25; 8:1-4, 6, 8, 13, 15-17, 20-24, 28, 31, 32; 9:1-6, 8, 9, 22-28, 33, 34; 10:3-6, 14, 19-23, 28, 29; 11:4-8; 12:29-36) A. THE NILE TURNED TO BLOOD And the Lord said unto Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is stubborn, he refuseth to let the people go. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink to meet him; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. And thou shalt say unto him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold hitherto thou hast not hearkened. Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall be polluted; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink water from the river.'" B. THE SWARMS OF FROGS And seven days were fulfilled, after that the Lord had smitten the river. And the Lord spake unto Moses, "Go in unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, 'Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs: and the frogs shall come up both upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.'" And the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, "Entreat the Lord, that he take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice unto the Lord." And the frogs died, but when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart. C. THE STINGING GNATS AND SWARMS OF FLIES And the Lord said unto Moses, "Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the earth, that it may become stinging gnats throughout all the land of Egypt." And there were gnats upon man, and upon beast; all the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt. And the Lord said unto Moses, "Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; and say unto him, 'Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. And I will separate in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.'" And the Lord did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said, "I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness." And the Lord removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go. D. THE CATTLE PESTILENCE AND THE BOILS Then the Lord said unto Moses, "Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, 'Thus saith the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the herds, and upon the flocks: there shall be a very grievous pestilence. And the Lord shall separate between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that belongeth to the children of Israel.'" And on the morrow all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, "Take handfuls of ashes, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt." E. THE HAIL, THE LOCUSTS, AND THE DARKNESS And the Lord said unto Moses, "Stretch forth thine hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, upon man, and upon beast, and upon every herb of the field." So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail smote all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail. And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, "I have sinned this time. I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer." And the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth. And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, 'How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to-morrow I will bring locusts into thy border: and they shall cover the face of the earth, that one shall not be able to see the earth: and they shall eat that which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: and thy houses shall be filled, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; as neither thy fathers nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day.'" And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, "I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you." And the Lord turned an exceeding strong west wind, which took up the locusts, and drove them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust in all the border of Egypt. But Pharaoh did not let the children of Israel go. And the Lord said unto Moses, "Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt." And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. F. THE LAST PLAGUE And Pharaoh said unto Moses, "Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in the day thou seest my face thou shalt die." And Moses said, "Thus saith the Lord, 'About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of cattle. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there hath been none like it, nor shall be like it any more.' But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, 'Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee': and after that I will go out." And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. And it came to pass at midnight, that the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, "Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also." And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, to send them out of the land in haste; for they said, "We be all dead men." And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. =§38. The Great Deliverance= (Exod. 13:17, 18, 21, 22; 14:5-7, 10-14, 19-27) A. THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, "Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:" but God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea: and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night: the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from before the people. And it was told the king of Egypt that the people were fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was changed towards the people, and they said, "What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him: and he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over all of them. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, "Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to bring us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we spake unto thee in Egypt, saying, 'Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness." And Moses said unto the people, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." B. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them: and it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud and the darkness, yet gave it light by night: and the one came not near the other all the night. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass in the morning watch, that the Lord looked forth upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and discomfited the host of the Egyptians. And he took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, "Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians." And the Lord said unto Moses, "Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen." And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. =§39. The Song of the Exodus= (Exod. 14:30, 31; 15:1, 2, 20, 21) Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord: and they believed in the Lord, and in his servant Moses. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, And he is become my salvation: This is my God and I will praise him; My father's God, and I will exalt him. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 107. The story of the deliverance from Egypt makes a long chapter, but it is full of exciting interest and shows the fearless character of the great leader who trusted in his God. It was a bold thing for Moses to return to Egypt and try to persuade the king to let Israel go. But when he was sent to threaten Pharaoh it was indeed a task requiring courage. Imagine a single man to-day demanding of the sultan of Turkey that he should free his slaves. 108 (§37). Moses was sent to tell the king that terrible plagues would come upon his people if he refused to let the Hebrews go. Ten plagues are mentioned. Nine of them were as follows: (1) the water of the Nile turned to blood-red color and made undrinkable; (2) enormous numbers of frogs; (3) swarms of stinging insects, perhaps gnats or mosquitoes; (4) swarms of flies, which would be terrible in a hot country; (5) a cattle pestilence; (6) fearful boils on men and cattle; (7) destructive hail; (8) locusts that ate vegetation; (9) the awful hot desert wind filling the air with fine sand and causing darkness. 109 (§37). When Pharaoh was frightened by each of the plagues, what did he promise? What made him break his promise? Did you ever know anyone who was sorry for doing wrong when the punishment came, but forgot his promises afterward? 110 (§37F). What did Pharaoh threaten Moses after the ninth plague? What did Moses say should be the last plague? Probably some sudden terrible pestilence came upon Egypt. Tell the story of that night. 111 (§38A). Study the map and notice what a short journey it would be from Egypt along the coast to the Philistine country. But the borders of Egypt were strongly guarded, so that was a dangerous way to go. What might have happened if the Hebrews had seen that they would have to fight? 112 (§38A). Moses was a wise leader. He knew he had a host of slaves, who had not learned courage. So he led them southward toward the Red Sea. There was a road leading to the wilderness near the Bitter Lakes. Locate this. 113 (§38A). What happened when the Egyptians found that the people had actually gone? What did the Hebrews say when they learned that Pharaoh was following them? How did Moses encourage them? 114 (§38B). The Hebrews were in a very difficult situation. They had come to a place where the water from the Red Sea ran far up the low-lying sands. What great canal has since been dug there? The water was too deep for the Hebrews to cross. Pharaoh's army was coming up behind. The only thing that could save Israel would be a strong wind that should drive the waters back and leave the sands clear. How often God's great Providence helps his people in trouble! Moses bravely encouraged them. 115 (§38B). What separated the Israelites from the Egyptians? What made the crossing possible? What trouble did the Egyptians experience? What would naturally happen if the high wind stopped after the Israelites had crossed? Tell the story of the deliverance. 116 (§39). What do you think were the feelings of Israel when they found themselves safe? Recite the song in which they celebrated their escape? What does "Exodus" mean? WRITTEN REVIEW Let us try to see just what happened to the Hebrews. Draw a map of Egypt and the Sinai peninsula on a larger scale than that in your book. Mark Goshen, the region where the Hebrews lived. Mark the bitter lakes coming nearly to the Gulf of Suez. Connect these with a wavy line showing the shallow waters which were driven back for the passage of the Hebrews. Mark with a red line the road which the Hebrews might have taken along the coast road straight to Canaan and the road which they actually took south of the bitter lakes. Continue this last line into the Sinai peninsula, noting that the people were led into the wilderness. XII. MOSES, THE LAWGIVER THE STORY =§40. The Law at Sinai= (Exod. 15:22-25, 27; 19:1) A. THE MARCH AND THE MURMURING And Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters for they were bitter. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. And they came to Elim, where were twelve springs of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters. And they took their journey from Elim, and in the third month they came to the wilderness of Sinai; and there Israel encamped before the mount. [Illustration: MOSES] B. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; =I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.= =Thou shalt have none other gods before me.= =Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.= =Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.= =Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.= =Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.= =Thou shalt do no murder.= =Thou shalt not commit adultery.= =Thou shalt not steal.= =Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.= =Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.= And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." And Moses said unto the people, "Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before you, that ye sin not." And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. =§41. The Great Rebellion= (Exod. 24:13, 18; 32:1-8, 15-20, 30-35) A. THE GOLDEN CALF And Moses and Joshua his minister went up into the mount of God. And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights. And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, "Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him." And Aaron said unto them, "Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me." And all the people brake off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf: and they said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, "To-morrow shall be a feast to the Lord." And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. And the Lord spake unto Moses, "Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed unto it." And Moses turned and went down from the mount with the two tables in his hand. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." And he said, "It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear." And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. B. MOSES' PRAYER And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, "Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin." And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." And the Lord said unto Moses, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. And now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." And the Lord smote the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made. [The people were forgiven, but again and again they rebelled. Moses prayed for them, but the Lord said they must wander in the wilderness forty years. At last Moses led them to the plains of Moab and to the river Jordan, where he made his farewell speech.] =§42. The Last Days of Moses= (Deut. 31:1-3, 6-8; 34) A. THE FAREWELL SPEECH And Moses spake these words unto all Israel, "I am a hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: and the Lord hath said unto me, 'Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.' The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee; he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath spoken. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be affrighted at them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt go with this people into the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed." B. THE DEATH OF MOSES And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land. And the Lord said unto him, "This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither." So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face; in all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his land; and in all the mighty hand, and in all the great terror, which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 117. After the Revolutionary War, the thirteen American states adopted a constitution. Washington was the great leader. We all honor him now, but during his life many were jealous of him and the people often found fault with him and lost confidence in him. He was greatly tried and would have given up the presidency but for his sense of duty. So it was with Moses. He brought deliverance to the people and gave them their first great laws, but they constantly murmured against him and against God. The long story of his leadership of Israel during forty years in the wilderness is told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We shall study a few of the main incidents. 118 (§40A). After the victory over the Egyptians, Moses led the people toward Mt. Sinai. Notice on the map the mountain range in the Sinai Peninsula. What difficulty soon arose? How did the people meet it? This was the beginning of a number of trials that Moses had in his leadership. 119 (§40A). How long did it take to reach Mt. Sinai? The gathering at the mountain was a very solemn occasion. Israel was to receive a constitution. Think of the solemn time when the constitution of the United States was adopted. 120 (§40B). What do we call these great words? Every student should know them by heart. If they were learned in the Primary Department it would be well to recall them. 121 (§40B). How were the people impressed by the holy law? Let us understand that when we speak of "the fear of the Lord" it does not mean that we are afraid of him, but that we have a great reverence for him. 122 (§41A). How long had Moses remained in the mountain to which he had gone to receive the laws? The people could not understand a God whom they could not see. They wanted an idol such as the Egyptians had. Tell the story of the golden calf. 123 (§41A). How did Moses learn of what had happened? What did Moses bring down from the mountain? What did Joshua hear? What did Moses do when he found what had happened? Is it ever right to be angry? 124 (§41B). The people had greatly disappointed Moses, but he was very sorry for their sin. He went to pray for them. Read carefully his wonderful prayer. Moses well knew God's love, but he knew also that wickedness must be punished. 125. We shall consider another great rebellion in connection with the next two heroes whom we study. It resulted in the Hebrews being sentenced to travel about for forty years. Moses led them. He was their chief, ruling over them, and their general, enabling them to conquer their enemies. 126 (§42A). Moses had led the people for forty years. At last the grand old man brought them to the very border of the Promised Land. What river was all that separated them from Canaan? Locate the place of the last camp just opposite Jericho. The book of Deuteronomy gives the farewell speeches of Moses. This section is a part of what he said to them. Tell it in your own words. What great American gave a Farewell Message to his countrymen? 127 (§42B). It was a great disappointment to Moses that he could not lead the people into Canaan, but he cheerfully accepted God's will. It must have been a wonderful sight that the old man saw from the mountain. Imagine yourself on Mt. Nebo. Look over Canaan and tell what Moses saw. Where did Moses die? How did Israel mourn for him? What did the writer of the last verses think of this great man? Learn Mrs. Alexander's beautiful poem. THE BURIAL OF MOSES By Nebo's lonely mountain, On this side Jordan's wave, In a vale in the land of Moab, There lies a lonely grave; But no man dug that sepulchre, And no man saw it e'er, For the angels of God upturned the sod, And laid the dead man there. That was the grandest funeral That ever passed on earth; But no man heard the tramping, Or saw the train go forth. Noiselessly as the daylight Comes when the night is done, And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek Grows into the great sun, Noiselessly as the springtime Her crown of verdure weaves, And all the trees on all the hills Open their thousand leaves, So, without sound of music, Or voice of them that wept, Silently down from the mountain crown The great procession swept. This was the bravest warrior That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher Traced, with his golden pen, On the deathless page, truths half so sage As he wrote down for men. And had he not high honor? The hillside for his pall; To lie in state while angels wait, With stars for tapers tall; And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave; And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave. WRITTEN REVIEW Draw a picture of two large tables of stone. Write the first five commandments on one, using just the first sentence of each commandment. Write the last five commandments on the other in full, except that for the tenth commandment use only its first four words. Do this very neatly. REVIEW XIII. THE HEROES OF ISRAEL'S WANDERINGS XIII. THE HEROES OF ISRAEL'S WANDERINGS 128. Our studies have brought us to the time when the Hebrews were about to enter the land of Canaan. Up to that time they were a wandering people going from place to place, seeking pasture for their flocks or refuge from famine. After they settled down they used to tell the stories of the heroes of the old wandering days. We have studied five of these. Who was called the Father of the Faithful? Who was his son? Who was the man who gave his name to the nation? Which of his sons became the ruler of Egypt? Who was the deliverer of the people from Egypt? Let us recall some of the stories of these five heroes. 129 (5-7, §2). Tell the story of Abraham's journey westward to the new land. Who did he believe called him and led him? What people in our own history did we compare with him? 130 (12, 13, §5). Abraham had a nephew with him: what was his name? What great wealth did these two men have? What trouble was caused by the increase of their wealth? How did Abraham settle the matter? Why did we call him "magnanimous"? 131 (23, 24, §8). Abraham was most anxious to do what he thought was right. Tell the wonderful story of how God showed him that he need not sacrifice his son. 132. Read §11A and see if you can recall the story of Jacob's deception of Isaac. 133 (50, §16). After many years and after Jacob had learned many hard lessons he turned back to his own land. Tell the story of his meeting with the brother whom he had wronged. 134 (§19). How many sons had Jacob? Who was his favorite? Why did his brothers hate him? Tell the story of how they sold him as a slave. 135 (§23C). Joseph prospered in Egypt, but through false accusation was thrown into prison. Here he interpreted the dreams of two men: who were they? which of the men was pardoned by the king and forgot Joseph? The king dreamed: how did this lead to Joseph's promotion? 136 (§27C). There were seven years of good crops followed by seven years of famine. How did the famine bring Joseph's brothers to Egypt? Why did they not recognize him when he knew them? What plan did he use to make them sorry for their unkindness and to make one of them willing to be a slave to save his youngest brother? Tell the story of the forgiveness. 137 (84, 89, 90, §30). After the Hebrews had been a long time in Egypt they became very numerous. Pharaoh was alarmed at their numbers. What order did he give so that there should be no more men? Tell the story of Moses' safety and adoption. 138 (97, 98, §34A). Moses had been obliged to flee from Egypt and had lived a long time in the wilderness thinking about how his people could be saved. Perhaps sometimes he thought that he ought to deliver them, but he hesitated. Tell the story of the Burning Bush and how God encouraged him to go back to Egypt and be the deliverer. 139 (114, §38B). Moses boldly went back and told the king he must let the people go. After ten awful plagues Pharaoh let them go. But no sooner were they gone than he repented and followed after them. How did Moses lead them into safety by God's good providence? 140 (127, §42B). How many years did Moses lead his people in the wilderness? To what point did he bring them at last? There he made them a noble farewell speech of encouragement. Tell the story of how he saw Canaan, and of his death. What did the writer of the Book of Deuteronomy think of Moses? WAR HEROES XIV. JOSHUA AND CALEB XV. GIDEON, THE WARRIOR XVI. SAMSON, THE STRONG MAN XIV. JOSHUA AND CALEB THE STORY =§43. The Twelve Spies= (Num. 13:1, 2, 17-21, 25-28, 30-33; 14:1-10, 26-33) A. THE MISSION OF THE SPIES The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "Send thou men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a prince among them." And Moses sent twelve men of the tribes of Israel, and of them Caleb was of the tribe of Judah and Joshua of the tribe of Ephraim. And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, "Get you up this way by the South, and go up into the mountains: and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, whether they be few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds; and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land." Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes. So they went up, and spied out the land. And they came unto the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it upon a staff between two; they brought also of the pomegranates, and of the figs. B. THE REPORT OF THE COWARDS And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. And they went and came to Moses, and to the children of Israel, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said, "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Howbeit the people that dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fenced, and very great: and moreover we saw the giants, the children of Anak, there." And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." But the men that went up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we." And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." C. THE DISCOURAGEMENT And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and said unto them, "Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore doth the Lord bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones shall be a prey: were it not better for us to return into Egypt?" And they said one to another, "Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt." Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the children of Israel. D. THE ADVICE OF THE HEROES And Joshua and Caleb, which were of them that spied out the land, rent their clothes: and they spake unto all the children of Israel, saying, "The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it unto us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is removed from over them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." But all the people cried to stone them with stones. E. THE SENTENCE OF THE LORD And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting unto all the children of Israel. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, "I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, 'As I live, saith the Lord, surely as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I lifted up my hand that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb and Joshua. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have rejected. But as for you, your carcases shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years.'" =§44. After the Forty Years= (Josh. 1:1-11; 11:16-18; 14:6-13) A. JOSHUA'S REWARD Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, Moses' minister, saying, "Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses. From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, "Pass through the midst of the camp, and command the people, saying, 'Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.'" B. JOSHUA'S CONQUESTS So Joshua took all that land, the hill country, and all the South, and the lowland, and the hill country of Israel, and the lowland of the same; and all their kings he took, and smote them, and put them to death. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord spake unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. C. CALEB'S REWARD Then the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua: and Caleb said unto him, "Thou knowest the thing that the Lord spake unto Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses sware on that day, saying, 'Surely the land whereon thy foot hath trodden shall be an inheritance to thee and to thy children for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.' And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he spake, these forty and five years, from the time that the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, and to go out and to come in. Now, therefore, give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the giants, the sons of Anak, were there, and cities great and fenced: it may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake." And Joshua blessed him; and he gave Hebron unto Caleb for an inheritance. And the land had rest from war. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 141. We have followed the story of Moses to the time of his death. Now we shall go back to notice the part that two other heroes played in the wilderness. It was at the time when Moses had led the people from Mount Sinai toward the southern part of Canaan. Locate this journey on the map. 142 (§43A). Notice that we take up the Book of Numbers, which is so called because it tells of the census of the people in the wilderness. Try to imagine the feelings of the people who had come from slavery in Egypt and had reached the borders of the strange new land. They would wish to know what was before them. What plan was to be used to find out? 143 (§43A). The southern part of Canaan was called "the South." Locate it. They were to go through there and then to the higher country where the vineyards were planted on the hills. What seven different things were these men to find out? What were they to bring back with them? What time of the year was it? We can imagine how the settlers in the early history of our country might have sent scouts to go through the Indian lands to find out what they were and what kind of people the Indian tribes were. 144 (§43A). These twelve men went all through the land. What did they get as a sample of the fruit? Why did two men have to carry it? What does this show of the character of the land? 145 (§43B). How long did it take them to find out about the country? What did they do when they came back. What report did they give? The children of Anak were very tall men. It seems that there must have been a tribe of exceedingly big men in Canaan. These frightened the spies. 146 (§43B). There was one of the committee who spoke out a bold word. Who was he and what did he say? But what did the others reply? Notice that at first they said they saw some tall men. Soon they began to think that all the Canaanites were giants. So difficulties grow in our minds when we are cowardly. 147 (§43C). What happened when the people heard the discouraging report? It shows how a few men can discourage a whole army. What rebellion did they plan? Would it have been wise to go back to Egypt? 148 (§43D). Moses and Aaron were very much troubled. But the two heroes out of the twelve spies made a great speech. They were troubled so they tore their clothes. But what did they say about the land? Who did they say would bless the people if they would be faithful and brave? How did the people respond? Think of the two noble men standing against the great crowd. 149 (§43E). The message of the Lord tells of the punishment for the rebellion. What was to happen to all the grown men? What two men were to be an exception? What was to happen to the children? Notice that the punishment is that they shall not go into the land. But they did not want to go. Sometimes the worst punishment is to take a person at his word. 150 (§44A). Now imagine forty years to pass. All the old men are gone. The great leader is gone. Let us see what became of the two brave men. We turn to a new book, the sixth in our Bible, which is called after the name of the hero. Who was chosen to succeed Moses? Was not this an honor and reward? What was to be his duty for the people? What spirit was he to have? What was to be his guide? Who promised to be with him? What did he immediately do as the first act of his leadership? 151 (§44B). The first eleven chapters of this book give the account of Joshua's wars to gain the land for his people. This passage tells how he succeeded. Tell it in your own words. 152 (§44C). The old hero Caleb comes up to get his share of the new land. Tell what he says to Joshua. As he states that it is forty-five years since Moses gave him the promise, there must have been five years spent in conquering the land. It was a long time to wait for his reward, but at last the old man receives it. It is interesting to note that he chooses his own reward. He asks to be given the very highland country that the spies were so much afraid of. He expects the Lord to help him to drive the giants out. One would think that an old man would ask for an easy place. Caleb asks for a hard one. What do you think of Caleb? What kind of a place do you want in the world--an easy place with plenty to get or a hard place with plenty of chance to do good? Think about that question and then answer it to yourself. WRITTEN REVIEW This week you will undoubtedly have some difficult lessons assigned in school. It will seem that they are too hard and you will feel inclined to give them up. Do not be afraid of the giants, be like Joshua and Caleb and you can conquer if you are brave enough. Make up your mind to conquer some hard task each day. When you are sure you have really conquered a difficulty think how those heroes must have felt about the giants. Write in your notebook the reason why Caleb and Joshua wanted to do the hard duty. XV. GIDEON, THE WARRIOR THE STORY =§45. The Call of Gideon= (Judg. 6:2-6, 11-24, 36-40) A. THE OPPRESSION OF THE MIDIANITES The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of Midian the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up and encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, they came in as locusts for multitude; both they and their camels were without number: and they came into the land to destroy it. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. B. THE ANGEL'S VISIT TO GIDEON And the angel of the Lord came, and sat under the oak that belonged unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." And Gideon said unto him, "Oh my lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' but now the Lord hath cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian." And the Lord looked upon him, and said, "Go in this thy might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee?" And he said unto him, "Oh Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." And the Lord said unto him, "Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." And he said unto him, "If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that it is thou that talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and lay it before thee." And he said, "I will tarry until thou come again." And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, "Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there went up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. And Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord God! forasmuch as I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face." And the Lord said unto him, "Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die." Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord. C. THE SIGN OF THE FLEECE And Gideon said unto God, "If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor: if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast spoken." And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water. And Gideon said unto God, "Let not thine anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew." And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. =§46. The Defeat of the Midianites= (Judg. 6:33-35; 7:2-24; 8:4, 10-12, 21) A. THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES Then all the Midianites assembled themselves together; and they passed over, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; and they also were gathered together after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali; and they came up to meet them. B. THE CHOICE OF THE WARRIORS And the Lord said unto Gideon, "The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, 'Mine own hand hath saved me.' Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, 'Whosoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from mount Gilead.'" And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand. And the Lord said unto Gideon, "The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, 'This shall go with thee,' the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, 'This shall not go with thee,' the same shall not go." So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, "Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink." And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, "By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the people go every man unto his place." So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets: and he sent all the men of Israel every man unto his tent, but retained the three hundred men: and the camp of Midian was beneath him in the valley. C. THE DREAM OF THE ENEMY And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, "Arise, get thee down into the camp; for I have delivered it into thine hand. But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah thy servant down to the camp: and thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down into the camp." Then went he down with Purah his servant unto the outermost part of the armed men that were in the camp. And the Midianites lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is upon the sea shore for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, "Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came unto the tent, and smote it that it fell, and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat." And his fellow answered and said, "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: into his hand God hath delivered Midian, and all the host." And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped; and he returned into the camp of Israel, and said, "Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian." D. THE PLAN OF THE BATTLE And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put into the hands of all of them trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches within the pitchers. And he said unto them, "Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outermost part of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, 'For the Lord and for Gideon.'" So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outermost part of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, when they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake in pieces the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran; and they shouted, and put them to flight. And they blew the three hundred trumpets, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, and against all the host: and the host fled and the men of Israel pursued after Midian. E. THE PURSUIT AND THE VICTORY And Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, "Come down against Midian and take the Jordan before them." So they came down. And Gideon came to the Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing. Now the two kings of Midian had with them about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of the host. And Gideon smote the host. And the two kings of Midian fled. And Gideon pursued after them and took them. And he slew them, and took the crescents that were on their camels' necks. =§47. The Result of the Victory= (Judg. 8:22-27) Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, "Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also: for thou hast saved us out of the hand of Midian." And Gideon said unto them, "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you." And Gideon said unto them, "I would desire and request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his spoil." And they answered, "We will willingly give them." And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his spoil. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside the crescents, and the pendants, and the purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels' necks. And Gideon made an idol thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went after it there: and it became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 153. After the death of Joshua, the Hebrews had a hard time from their many enemies. Just as our forefathers were constantly in danger from the Indians, so the Hebrew settlers were often attacked and their goods taken from them. But in their case it was worse, because their enemies often came against them in great armies and conquered them. Israel had no king or governor, but from time to time some hero rose up to deliver them. These men were called "judges," because in addition to leading the people in war they decided matters of dispute. Their stories are told in the Book of Judges. Gideon was one of these military heroes. 154 (§45A). The Midianites were a wandering people of the desert. They wandered on the borders of Edom and Moab. Find these places on the map, southeast of Canaan. As they raised no crops themselves they delighted to attack the agricultural people after the crops were harvested and steal all the result of the year's work. That is the meaning of the fear of the Hebrews that is described. Where did the Hebrews hide? How many were there of the enemy? 155 (§45B). Notice that Gideon was afraid to thresh his wheat in the open place, so he was beating out a few sheaves in the hollow where they pressed the grapes. What did the angel say to him when he saw his powerful frame and how vigorously he was beating his wheat? Tell the conversation, showing how the angel encouraged Gideon. He was a brave man, but like everyone else he had lost heart. What sign was given to Gideon? It was such a solemn thing to be called by God to deliver the people that Gideon was afraid, but God encouraged him. What did Gideon build there? What did that mean? 156 (§45C). What further sign was given to Gideon to make him sure that the Lord was with him? 157 (§46A). There were twelve tribes in Israel and each tribe consisted of a number of clans. Gideon was of the clan of Abiezer, which was part of the tribe of Manasseh. Look at the map of Canaan and note the names of the Twelve Tribes. In the tribe of Issachar is the Plain of Esdraelon. That was the great plain where many of the battles of Israel were fought. If you can look at a relief map you will see how this great plain lay. The enemy had crossed the Jordan and camped on this plain. When Gideon heard it, he was stirred to the heart. What did he do? First his own clan followed him. Then he called his own tribe to follow him. Then he sent to three of the northern tribes. Find all these on the map. Try to imagine the Israelites all gathering together at the call of the hero. 158 (§46B). Here we have a strange story. It would seem as if the army ought to be as large as possible, but the Lord told Gideon that he did not want the people to boast of the victory. Who were told to go home? How large was the army? How many went home? How many remained? But still the numbers were too large: what was the second plan to reduce them? How many at last were left? 159 (§46C). What did Gideon do in order to find out about the enemy? Tell the dream that he heard explained. 160 (§46D). Read carefully and explain what Gideon told his men. He had a stratagem in mind to frighten the enemy. It is to be noted that the men who went home left their provisions and their trumpets, so Gideon had as many trumpets in his little army as in the big army. What would the Midianites think when they heard three hundred trumpets blowing? The night was divided into three watches. The sentries had just been set for the second watch when the attack was made. Describe the actions of the Israelites. What did they shout? The Midianites killed one another in the confusion. 161 (§46E). Gideon wanted the great tribe of Ephraim to help in the fight, so he asked them to go down to the river Jordan to cut off the flying enemy. What did Gideon do himself? What happened to the kings of Midian and the host? 162 (§47). What did the grateful people offer Gideon? Why did he refuse? What great American refused to be a king? The story closes in disappointment. Is it not strange that after the great victory Gideon should forget God? Tell the story of making the idol. WRITTEN REVIEW Make a search during the next week for an example of some brave person standing up like Gideon for a good cause when others hold back. There is sure to be someone if you are keen enough to find him. It may be at school or in the city, or you may hear of someone in the newspapers. Talk it over with your companions until you have found the best example. Write about it in your notebook. XVI. SAMSON, THE STRONG MAN THE STORY =§48. The Birth of Samson= (Judg. 13:2-6, 24) There was a certain man of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife bare no child. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, "Behold now, thou shalt bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing: for, lo, thou shalt bear a son; and no razor shall come upon his head: for the child shall be a Nazirite unto God from his birth: and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." Then the woman came and told her husband. And the woman bare a son and called his name Samson: and the child grew and the Lord blessed him. =§49. The Riddle at the Wedding Feast= (Judg. 14) And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife." Then his father and his mother said unto him, "Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the Philistines?" And Samson said unto his father, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well." Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. And after a while he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. And he took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went, and he came to his father and mother, and gave unto them, and they did eat: but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion. And his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do. And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. And Samson said unto them, "Let me now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment: but if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment." And they said unto him, "Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it." And he said unto them, "Out of the eater came forth meat, And out of the strong came forth sweetness." And they could not in three days declare the riddle. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, "Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to impoverish us? is it not so?" And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, "Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me." And he said unto her, "Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell thee?" And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him sore: and she told the riddle to the children of her people. And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?" And he said unto them, "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, Ye had not found out my riddle." And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment unto them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend. =§50. Samson's Strength= (Judg. 15:1-17; 16:1-3) A. THE STORY OF THE FOXES But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the chamber." But her father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, "I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her." And Samson said unto them, "This time shall I be blameless in regard to the Philistines, when I do them a mischief." And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the oliveyards. Then the Philistines said, "Who hath done this?" And they said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he hath taken his wife, and given her to his companion." And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. And Samson said unto them, "If ye do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that will I cease." And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam. B. THE STORY OF THE JAWBONE Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. And the men of Judah said, "Why are ye come up against us?" And they said, "To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us." Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what then is this that thou hast done unto us?" And he said unto them, "As they did unto me, so have I done unto them." And they said unto him, "We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines." And Samson said unto them, "Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves." And they spake unto him, saying, "No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee." And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. When he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and smote a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men." And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand. C. THE STORY OF THE GATES OF GAZA And Samson went to Gaza. And it was told the Gazites, saying, "Samson is come hither." And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, "Let be till morning light, then we will kill him." And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. =§51. Samson's Weakness= (Judg. 16:4-22) And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, "Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver." And Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee." And Samson said unto her, "If they bind me with seven new bowstrings that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man." Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven new bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now she had liers in wait abiding in the inner chamber. And she said unto him, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And he brake the bowstrings as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known. And Delilah said unto Samson, "Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound." And he said unto her, "If they only bind me with new ropes wherewith no work hath been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man." So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And the liers in wait were abiding in the inner chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said unto Samson, "Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound." And he said unto her, "If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web." And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And he awaked out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web. And she said unto him, "How canst thou say, 'I love thee,' when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth." And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was vexed unto death. And he told her all his heart, and said unto her, "There hath not come a razor upon mine head: for I have been a Nazirite unto God from my birth: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man." And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up this once, for he hath told me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought the money in their hand. And she made him sleep upon her knees: and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself." But he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. And the Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. =§52. Samson's Vengeance= (Judg. 16:23-31) And the lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, "Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand." And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, "Our god hath delivered into our hand our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which hath slain many of us." And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may make us sport." And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made sport before them: and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, "Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house resteth, that I may lean upon them." Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, "O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once. O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and leaned upon them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him in the burying-place of Manoah his father. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 163. All peoples have their old stories of heroes who had great strength. The Greeks had their Hercules and the Hebrews had their Samson. In reading his story we must remember that it belongs to a rude age, when men's passions were strong and they had not learned the gentler ways of life. The story is full of adventure; it is very well told; it shows us much of the old Hebrew life; and it helps us to see how hard the lot of the people must have been under their oppressors. Of course they remembered any strong man of those days, and his story grew as it was told from generation to generation. 164 (§48). The first thing that we learn about the hero is that he was a promised child. He was set apart from his birth to the Lord. Such persons were called Nazirites. They had to abstain from wine, and their hair was not to be cut. 165 (§49). With whom did Samson fall in love? The Philistines were the oppressors of his people. What did his parents think of it? It would seem that they all went down to make the betrothal feast. What great feat of strength did Samson perform on the way? Then there was a second visit for the marriage itself. What did Samson find this time on his way? 166 (§49). The story describes some of the old customs. What was Samson expected to provide for the wedding? How many young men were there? What bet did he make with them? What was the riddle? Could you have guessed it? 167 (§49). How did the young men find out the riddle? How did Samson pay his bet? Consider what rude times those must have been. 168 (§50A). We have a number of the old stories of Samson's strength. Consider what injury was done to Samson. What humorous and savage revenge did Samson take upon his enemies? It was considered a great insult to burn the standing grain. What horrible vengeance did the Philistines take on the bride's family? 169 (§50B). Tell what Samson's own people did to him. Why did they do it? What was Samson's great feat? Notice how big they made the stories--one man killing a thousand. 170 (§50C). They loved the stories of Samson's clever escapes. How did the men of Gaza think he was caught? How did Samson escape? 171 (§51). This strong man was not really a great man. After he had lost his first Philistine wife he fell in love with another woman of the same race. She proved as deceitful as the first. Note the enormous bribe that the Philistine lords offered Delilah. What was the first trial of Samson's strength? The new bowstrings were probably cords made from the intestines of animals. If they were not dried they would be tougher. 172 (§51). Tell the story of the second trial. The story of the third trial is not quite so plain. It means that his long hair was to be woven in with a piece of stuff that was being woven in the loom. When he woke up he walked off with the whole heavy loom. 173 (§51). Notice how he let the wicked woman tease him. Was he strong or weak? Is it the part of a strong man to go into temptation or to run away from it? What was done to Samson? He makes us think of many a big strong man who was weak when it came to a question of goodness. Most of the big prize fighters are so weak that they become drunkards. Think of this hero doing the work of a slave. 174 (§52). Notice how delighted the Philistines were that they had overcome their great enemy. Imagine the crowd gathered in a temple, the roof of which rested upon two central pillars. When they were very merry they sent for the poor blind Samson to make fun of him. What happened? 175. Do you think Samson was a great man? WRITTEN REVIEW Discuss the question whether Samson ought to have been put among the heroes of Israel. Read over the story carefully and see why the Hebrews would have wished to class him with their heroes. Read it again to see what there is against giving him that distinction. Prepare for a debate upon the question. A HEROINE XVII. RUTH, THE FOREIGNER XVII. RUTH, THE FOREIGNER THE STORY =§53. The Three Widows= (Ruth 1:1-5) And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech, Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelt there about ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died both of them; and the woman was left of her two children and of her husband. =§54. The Return to Bethlehem= (Ruth 1:6-22) A. THE TWO DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. And she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house: the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice, and wept. And they said unto her, "Nay, but we will return with thee unto thy people." And Naomi said, "Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? have I yet sons that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should even have a husband, and should also bear sons; would ye therefore tarry till they were grown? would ye therefore stay from having husbands? nay, my daughters: for it grieveth me much for your sakes, for the hand of the Lord is gone forth against me." And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, "Behold thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her god: return thou after thy sister-in-law." And Ruth said, "Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." And when she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking unto her. B. THE ARRIVAL IN BETHLEHEM So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and the women said, "Is this Naomi?" And she said unto them, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty; why call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?" So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her; and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. =§55. In the Barley Field= (Ruth 2) A. THE GLEANERS And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth; and his name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, "Let me now go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor." And she said unto her, "Go, my daughter." And she went, and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and she happened to light on the portion of the field belonging unto Boaz. And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, "The Lord be with you." And they answered him, "The Lord bless thee." Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, "Whose damsel is this?" And he answered, "It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: and she said, 'Let me glean, I pray you, and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.' So she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, save that she tarried a little in the house." Then said Boaz unto Ruth, "Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither pass from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn." Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, "Why have I found favor in thy sight, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a foreigner?" And Boaz answered and said unto her, "It hath fully been showed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thy husband; and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people that thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to take refuge." Then she said, "Let me find favor in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken kindly unto thy handmaid, though I be not as one of thy handmaidens." And at meal-time Boaz said unto her, "Come hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar." And she sat beside the reapers; and they reached her parched grain, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left thereof. And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, "Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not. And also pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it, and let her glean, and rebuke her not." B. THE HUMBLE AND HAPPY HOME So she gleaned in the field until even; and she beat out that which she had gleaned, and it was about a bushel of barley. And she took it up, and went into the city; and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned: and she brought forth and gave to her that which she had left after she was sufficed. And her mother-in-law said unto her, "Where hast thou gleaned to-day? and where hast thou wrought? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee." And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, "The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz." And Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, "Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead." And Naomi said unto her, "The man is nigh of kin unto us, one of our near kinsmen." And Ruth the Moabitess said, "Yea, he said unto me, 'Thou shalt keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest.'" And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, and that they meet thee not in any other field." So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz, to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she dwelt with her mother-in-law. =§56. At the Threshing Floor= (Ruth 3) A. THE PLAN And Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, "My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? And now is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to-night in the threshing-floor. Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the threshing-floor; but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking. And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down: and he will tell thee what thou shalt do." And she said unto her, "All that thou sayest I will do." [Illustration: _Copyright 1904 by Underwood and Underwood_ WINNOWING GRAIN] B. THE DUTY OF THE KINSMAN And she went down unto the threshing-floor, and did according to all that her mother-in-law bade her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself; and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, "Who art thou?" And she answered, "I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman." And he said, "Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter: thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou sayest; for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a worthy woman. And now it is true that I am a near kinsman; howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; but if he will not, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning." And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could discern another. For he said, "Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing-floor." And he said, "Bring the mantle that is upon thee, and hold it," and she held it; and he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and he went into the city. And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, "How hast thou fared, my daughter?" And she told her all that the man had done to her. And she said, "These six measures of barley gave he me; for he said, 'Go not empty unto thy mother-in-law.'" Then she said, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall; for the man will not rest, until he have finished the thing this day." =§57. At the City Gate= (Ruth 4:1-17) A. THE PURCHASE Now Boaz went up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the near kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by: unto whom he said, "Ho, such a one! turn aside, sit down here." And he turned aside, and sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, "Sit ye down here." And they sat down. And he said unto the near kinsman, "Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth the parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech's: and I thought to disclose it unto thee, saying, 'Buy it before them that sit here, and before the elders of my people.' If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know; for there is none to redeem it besides thee; and I am after thee." And he said, "I will redeem it." Then said Boaz, "What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy also Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance." And the near kinsman said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: take thou my right of redemption on thee; for I cannot redeem it." Now this was the custom in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning exchanging, to confirm all things; a man drew off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor; and this was the manner of witness in Israel. So the near kinsman said unto Boaz, "Buy it for thyself." And he drew off his shoe. And Boaz said unto the elders, and unto all the people, "Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi. Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place; ye are witnesses this day." And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, "We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephrathah, and be famous in Bethlehem." B. THE HAPPY MARRIAGE So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and she bare a son. And the women said unto Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who hath not left thee this day without a near kinsman; and let his name be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of life, and a nourisher of thine old age; for thy daughter-in-law, who loveth thee, who is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him." And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, "There is a son born to Naomi." And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 176. We study one of the heroines of Israel. She was a foreigner of the country of Moab, but held a most important place in Israel's history as the great-grandmother of King David. The story tells of her devotion and of its reward. 177 (§53). Notice the time in which the story is placed. The town which is mentioned is well known to us because of one who was born there long afterward: who was he? The farmer with his wife and two sons went over to the rich high country of Moab. Locate it on the map, east of the Jordan. What happened in Moab? 178 (§54A). What did Naomi decide to do? These three women loved one another very dearly, but Naomi thought that the young women ought to marry again, so she told them to stay in their own land as they would not be likely to find husbands among strangers. 179 (§54A). According to the Hebrew custom, if a man died his brother would marry the widow, but Naomi had no sons who could marry these young widows. Why did Orpah return? Why did Ruth refuse to leave her mother-in-law? Note how beautifully Ruth spoke. Love does not count the cost. What do we mean by Ruth's devotion? 180 (§54B). Why were the Bethlehem women so surprised at Naomi's appearance? Naomi means "Pleasant." Perhaps the name had been given to her because of her beauty. Mara, the same as our name Mary, means "Bitter." Explain what Naomi meant by her speech to the women. What time of year was it when they returned? 181 (§55A). The principal man of the story is introduced to us. The two women had nothing to live on, but the Hebrew law permitted the poor to follow the reapers and to gather up the stalks that were dropped or left. This was called gleaning. Where did Ruth go to glean? This young woman did not leave her mother to do the work. Her love expressed itself in deeds. 182 (§55A). Tell the conversation between Boaz and the foreman. Note the kindness of this Bethlehem gentleman to the stranger. It is the mark of a gentleman to be kind. It was not usual to invite the gleaners to share the lunch with the farm hands, but Boaz was especially kind to Ruth. What directions did he give to the young men? How would this help her in gleaning? 183 (§55B). Notice that she beat out the ears of barley, so as not to carry home the straw. How much did she have? This was a good day's gleaning. How surprised Naomi was that she had secured so much! Tell their conversation in your own words. They were poor, but they were happy all that harvest time: why? 184 (§56A). Remember that it was the Hebrew custom for a man's widow to be married by his brother. If he had no brother his nearest relative was expected to marry her. So Naomi hoped that Boaz, who was related to her dead husband, would marry Ruth. She plans a little scheme to let him know privately that he is a near relative who ought to do this honor for those who were dead. There would be a great feast at the time the barley was threshed, and then all the men would go to sleep in the open air on the smooth floor where the threshing was done. Ruth was instructed to let Boaz know the plan when the others were asleep. 185 (§56B). Tell the story in your own words. Notice especially that Boaz explains that there is a nearer relative who ought to marry Ruth. What did Boaz give to Ruth to take to her mother-in-law? Tell the conversation of the two women. 186 (§57A). The Gate was the place where all the business was done. Note how the business was begun, and how arrangements were made for the bargain to be witnessed. The conversation refers to the Hebrew laws of real estate. It is enough for us to see that the kinsman was not willing to marry Ruth. What interesting old custom is shown? They were sitting on the ground cross-legged, so one could easily pull off his shoe or sandal. What other story have we had in which the sandal was easily taken off? (See 97 and illustration.) Note Boaz' solemn statement of the agreement. How did all the people congratulate Boaz? 187 (§57B). It is interesting to see that the people congratulated Naomi when Ruth's baby was born, because there was again a son for her family. This grandson would take the place of the sons whom she had lost. What did the women think of Ruth? What relation was Ruth to David? 188. What do you think of Ruth? Look up I Cor. 13:13 in the Revised Version and see what it says about the greatest thing in the world. Can everybody have this greatest thing? How much does it cost? Think whether you are bringing that into your home. WRITTEN REVIEW We do not always see the heroism that is just about us. The only women whom we think about as heroines are those who have done some great public work, but there is many a heroine who is quietly giving up her ambitions to make the home happy as Ruth gave up herself to go with Naomi. Ask your mother to tell you about some young woman who gave up opportunity of education, or ease, or pleasure, in order to help the family. Write about it in your notebook. THE FOUNDERS OF THE KINGDOM XVIII. SAMUEL AND ELI XIX. SAMUEL AND SAUL XX. JONATHAN'S VICTORY XVIII. SAMUEL AND ELI THE STORY =§58. The Birth of Samuel= (I Sam. 1:1-4, 8-28; 2:11) A. HANNAH'S GRIEF Now there was a certain man of the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah. And the name of his wife was Hannah and she had no children. And this man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, priests unto the Lord, were there. And when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, Hannah wept, and did not eat. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, "Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am I not better to thee than ten sons?" So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon his seat by the door post of the temple of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, "O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head." And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, "How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee." And Hannah answered and said, "No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for a wicked woman: for out of the abundance of my complaint have I spoken." Then Eli answered and said, "Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of him." And she said, "Let thy servant find grace in thy sight." So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah. B. THE DEDICATION OF SAMUEL And it came to pass, that Hannah bare a son; and she called his name Samuel. And the man Elkanah went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, "I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever." And Elkanah her husband said unto her, "Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou hast weaned him; only the Lord establish his word." So the woman tarried until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of meal, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young. And they slew the bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, "Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: therefore I also have granted him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he is granted to the Lord." And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest. =§59. The Wicked Priests= (I Sam. 2:12-17, 22-25, 18, 19, 26) Now the sons of Eli were wicked men; they knew not the Lord. And the custom of the priests with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was being boiled, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the kettle; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Yea, before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, "Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have boiled flesh of thee, but raw." And if the man said unto him, "They will surely burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth;" then he would say, "Nay, but thou shalt give it to me now: and if not, I will take it by force." And the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord; for they despised the offering of the Lord. Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did unto all Israel. And he said unto them, "Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings from all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sinned against another, God shall judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father. But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod. Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife. And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord, and also with men. =§60. The Call of Samuel= (I Sam. 3:1-18) And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, (now his eyes had begun to wax dim, that he could not see,) and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep, in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was; that the Lord called Samuel: and he said, "Here am I." And he ran unto Eli, and said, "Here am I; for thou calledst me." And he said, "I called not; lie down again." And he went and lay down. And the Lord called yet again, "Samuel." And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here am I; for thou calledst me." And he answered, "I called not, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here am I; for thou calledst me." And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, "Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, 'Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, "Samuel, Samuel." Then Samuel said, "Speak; for thy servant heareth." And the Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even unto the end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring a curse upon themselves, and he restrained them not." And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. Then Eli called Samuel, and said, "Samuel, my son." And he said, "Here am I." And he said, "What is the thing that the Lord hath spoken unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he spake unto thee." And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, "It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good." =§61. The Punishment of the Wicked Priests= (I Sam. 4:1-18) A. ISRAEL'S DOUBLE DEFEAT Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us to-day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies." So the people sent to Shiloh, and they brought from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark. And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, "What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?" And they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, "God is come into the camp." And they said, "Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all manner of plagues in the wilderness. Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight." And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. B. THE DEATH OF THE OLD PRIEST And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon his seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, "What meaneth the noise of this tumult?" And the man hasted, and came and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were set, that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, "I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army." And he said, "How went the matter, my son?" And he that brought the tidings answered and said, "Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken." And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 189. We turn to the Books of Samuel, which take their name from one of the great heroes of Israel. He did not write the books, for they contain the story of what happened long after his death, but as he was the noblest character in the books they were named after him. 190 (§58A). At the beginning of this story we learn that Elkanah the husband and Hannah his wife had no children. They had gone up to Shiloh to the sacred building that was called the house of God, and had celebrated a sacred feast. But Hannah was greatly troubled that she had no child. What did she do? What did she promise if she could have a son? We remember from the story of Samson that leaving the hair uncut was a mark that the child was to serve God. 191 (§58A). When Hannah prayed, did she speak aloud? What did Eli, the old priest, think about her? Tell in your own words their conversation. 192 (§58B). The boy whom Hannah longed for was born. What was his name? It was the custom to kill animals at the house of God as a sign of thanksgiving: what did Hannah take with her for this sacrifice? What did she say to Eli? Note that she brings the boy to the old priest to learn the duties of the house of God. 193 (§59). Perhaps the wrong-doing of the priests seems rather difficult to understand. Eli, the old priest, was assisted by his two sons. Their duty was to offer the sacrifices for the people, and they would be allowed part of the meat as their pay. That was one of the ways in which a priest had his living. But these young priests would send their servants to stick a large fork into the pot where the meat was boiling and whatever came out they would take. Or they would take the meat first, before the offering to the Lord had been made, and this was considered a dishonor to the sacrifice. It often happens that public officers are more anxious to get what they can than to do their duty. 194 (§59). How did the father feel about his sons? What did he say to them? What ought he to have done to them? Why did he not do so? 195 (§59). What was happening to Samuel all this time? The linen ephod was a white dress such as a priest would wear. Who made the boy's garments? Think what those happy meetings of the parents and boy once a year must have been. 196 (§60). Imagine how the little church, or temple, was at night. There was a room in which the sacred box called the ark was kept. A lamp burned in this room all night. Samuel had a room near by, where he slept, and old Eli had another. What wonderful thing happened to Samuel one night? Tell it in your own words. Nearly all men and women who have become great have heard calls in some manner in their youth. Joan of Arc, the young girl who saved France from her enemies, thought that she heard God calling to her, though she was only thirteen years of age. This was a vision that Samuel saw in the night. Do you remember the dreams of Joseph? It is often in conscience and in times of thoughtfulness that God speaks to us. 197 (§60). How did Samuel do as Eli had told him? Note that God tells the boy that a great punishment will come upon Eli's family. How was Eli to blame for the wickedness of his sons? 198 (§60). What did Samuel do as soon as he got up in the morning? What does this show us regarding his duties? What did he think about the vision? But old Eli knew that there was something very important that had happened. Tell in your own words the conversation between them. Note that the poor old man can simply say that he must bear what comes upon him. What do you think of Eli? 199 (§61A). With whom did Israel go to war? Locate the country of these enemies on the map. How did the battle come out? The people thought that if they could have the ark with them they could conquer. They thought the Lord would fight for them. Where did they go to get the ark? Who were with the ark? 200 (§61A). When the two priests brought the ark to the camp, what happened? What effect did this have upon the Philistines? What was the result? What happened to the two priests? What happened to the ark? 201 (§61B). When a Hebrew felt very sad he covered his head with dust and tore his dress. Tell the story of how the news of the defeat was brought to Eli. How old was the priest? What was he doing? Why did he care so much about the ark of God? What happened to him? Eli was a noble man himself, but could he not have done better for Israel than he did? Remember that young Samuel was growing up while these things were going on. WRITTEN REVIEW Think of what paragraph 196 means to you. It is at Samuel's age that most young people come into the full membership of the church. Write what you think that means. XIX. SAMUEL AND SAUL THE STORY =§62. The Meeting of Samuel and Saul= (I Sam. 9:1-25) A. SAUL SEEKING THE DONKEYS Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name was Kish, a mighty man of valor. And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a young man and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. And the asses of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. And Kish said to Saul his son, "Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses." And he passed through the hill country of Ephraim, and there they were not: and he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they found them not. When they were come to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant that was with him, "Come and let us return; lest my father cease caring for the asses, and take thought for us." And he said unto him, "Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is a man that is held in honor; all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now let us go thither; peradventure he can tell us concerning our journey whereon we go." Then said Saul to his servant, "But, behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to bring to the man of God: what have we?" And the servant answered Saul again, and said, "Behold, I have in my hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver: that will I give to the man of God, to tell us our way." Then said Saul to his servant, "Well said; come, let us go." B. SAUL ENTERTAINED BY SAMUEL So they went unto the city where the man of God was. As they went up the ascent to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, "Is the seer here?" And they answered them, and said, "He is; behold, he is before thee: make haste now, for he is come to-day into the city; for the people have a sacrifice to-day in the high place: as soon as ye be come into the city, ye shall straightway find him, before he go up to the high place to eat: for the people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice; and afterwards they eat that be bidden. Now therefore get you up; for at this time ye shall find him." And they went up to the city; and as they came within the city, behold, Samuel came out toward them, to go up to the high place. Now the Lord had revealed unto Samuel a day before Saul came, saying, "To-morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be prince over my people Israel, and he shall save my people out of the hand of the Philistines: for I have looked upon my people, because their cry is come unto me." And when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said unto him, "Behold the man of whom I spake to thee! this same shall have authority over my people." Then Saul drew near to Samuel in the gate, and said, "Tell me, I pray thee, where the seer's house is." And Samuel answered Saul, and said, "I am the seer; go up before me unto the high place, for ye shall eat with me to-day: and in the morning I will let thee go, and will tell thee all that is in thine heart. And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set not thy mind on them; for they are found. And on whom is all the desire of Israel? Is it not on thee, and for all thy father's house?" And Saul answered and said, "Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou to me after this manner?" And Samuel took Saul and his servant, and brought them into the guest-chamber, and made them sit in the chiefest place among them that were bidden, which were about thirty persons. And Samuel said unto the cook, "Bring the portion which I gave thee, of which I said unto thee, 'Set it by thee.'" And the cook took up the thigh, and that which was upon it, and set it before Saul. And Samuel said, "Behold that which hath been reserved! set it before thee and eat; because unto the appointed time hath it been kept for thee, for I said, 'I have invited the people.'" So Saul did eat with Samuel that day. And when they were come down from the high place into the city, he communed with Saul upon the housetop. =§63. Saul Anointed by Samuel= (I Sam. 9:26-10:7) A. THE PROMISE OF THE KINGDOM And they arose early: and it came to pass about the spring of the day, that Samuel called to Saul on the housetop, saying, "Up, that I may send thee away." And Saul arose, and they went out both of them, he and Samuel, abroad. As they were going down at the end of the city, Samuel said to Saul, "Bid the servant pass on before us, (and he passed on,) but stand thou still at this time, that I may cause thee to hear the word of God." Then Samuel took the vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, "Is it not that the Lord hath anointed thee to be prince over his inheritance? When thou art departed from me to-day, then thou shalt find two men by Rachel's sepulchre, in the border of Benjamin; and they will say unto thee, 'The asses which thou wentest to seek are found: and lo, thy father hath left the care of the asses, and taketh thought for you, saying, What shall I do for my son?' Then shalt thou go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the oak of Tabor, and there shall meet thee there three men going up to God to Beth-el, one carrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine: and they will salute thee, and give thee two loaves of bread; which thou shalt receive of their hand. After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall be prophesying: and the spirit of the Lord will come mightily upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee: for God is with thee." B. SAUL'S RETURN HOME And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day. And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a band of prophets met him; and the spirit of God came mightily upon him, and he prophesied among them. And it came to pass, when all that knew him before-time saw that, behold, he prophesied with the prophets, then the people said one to another, "What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?" And when he had made an end of prophesying, he came to the high place. And Saul's uncle said unto him and to his servant, "Whither went ye?" And he said, "To seek the asses: and when we saw that they were not found, we came to Samuel." And Saul's uncle said, "Tell me, I pray thee, what Samuel said unto you." And Saul said unto his uncle, "He told us plainly that the asses were found." But concerning the matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he told him not. =§64. Saul's Opportunity= (I Sam. 11:1-11, 15) Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabesh-gilead: and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, "Make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee." And Nahash the Ammonite said unto them, "On this condition will I make it with you, that all your right eyes be put out; and I will lay it for a reproach upon all Israel." And the elders of Jabesh said unto him, "Give us seven days' respite, that we may send messengers unto all the borders of Israel: and then, if there be none to save us, we will come out to thee." Then came the messengers to Gibeah of Saul, and spake these words in the ears of the people: and all the people lifted up their voice, and wept. And, behold, Saul came following the oxen out of the field; and Saul said, "What aileth the people that they weep?" And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh. And the spirit of God came mightily upon Saul when he heard those words, and his anger was kindled greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the borders of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying, "Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen." And the dread of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out as one man. And he numbered them in Bezek; and the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. And they said unto the messengers that came, "Thus shall ye say unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, 'To-morrow, by the time the sun is hot, ye shall have deliverance.'" And the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh; and they were glad. Therefore the men of Jabesh said, "To-morrow we will come out unto you, and ye shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you." And it was so on the morrow, that Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and smote the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it came to pass, that they which remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 202 (§62A). Look at the map of Canaan and find the tribe of Benjamin. Is it a very large tribe? The tribes occupied separate districts, something like our states. This story is going to tell us about how the first king was chosen, so it is particular to tell us where he came from and how it happened. What kind of man was Saul? Some animals that are used very much in Palestine had strayed: tell about them. 203 (§62A). Saul and the servant had wandered a long way looking for the donkeys, probably spending several days in the hunt. At last Saul made up his mind to do something: what was it? But the servant thought of a plan to help them in their search. The man of God was one who could help people in their troubles. They were supposed to bring him a present. What did Saul do about the present? 204 (§62B). Try to imagine the whole scene. Think what Saul and the servant were doing: whom did they meet and what did they ask? We must understand that a feast was to be held. The people were going to cook a whole animal. They would pour out the blood and burn the fat, which was called a sacrifice and was part of their religion; then they would eat the rest of the animal with great joy. It happened that the two men reached the city just as the feast was to be held. And Samuel would be there to ask the blessing. The girls told the two men all this. What happened just as they reached the city? 205 (§62B). The Philistines were enemies of Israel who greatly troubled them. Samuel had been wondering how the people could be saved from their enemies. What had the Lord told him? What did Samuel feel just as soon as he saw Saul? 206 (§62B). Try to imagine the meeting. What did Saul say? What did Samuel answer? Notice the invitation, the information about the donkeys, and especially the hint of some great thing. Saul is surprised: what does he say to Samuel? 207 (§62B). What did Samuel do for Saul? What plan had Samuel made so that a good piece of meat could be kept? Note the part of the animal that they thought best is the same that we like: it is the leg of lamb or the second joint of the turkey. What did Samuel say to Saul? 208 (§62B). Evidently Samuel took Saul to his own house. What part of the house did they use in those days for visiting? How could they do so? What do you think they talked about? Once during the Civil War Abraham Lincoln went to visit Henry Ward Beecher: what do you think they talked of? Samuel had great hopes that Saul was the man to save Israel. 209 (§63A). After the conversation they went to bed. Then they talked again early in the morning. Then Samuel walked with Saul out of the city. What plan did Samuel use to be alone with Saul? Picture the scene to yourself: the old man with the flask of olive oil in his hand, the tall young man wondering about his future, the anointing, the solemn kiss, the promise. 210 (§63A). What signs was Saul to have? Samuel's last word meant that Saul was to wait until some great opportunity should arise and then to do as God led him. We shall see how the opportunity came. 211 (§63B). Tell the story of what happened to Saul after he left Samuel. What was the conversation between Saul and his uncle? What did Saul keep silent about? Why do you think he did so? He was modest; he did not want to boast. It seems that he went quietly to work on his father's farm and waited for something to happen that should show him what to do. 212 (§64). The scene of the story changes. Locate Ammon on the map, east of the Jordan. The Ammonites were old enemies of Israel. Locate Jabesh-Gilead, the town which they attacked. The people were afraid and begged for mercy. What terms did the cruel king offer them? He was so sure that no one in Israel could save them that he let them send messengers asking for help. The messengers came to the town where Saul lived. Locate Gibeah in Saul's tribe. How did the people feel when they heard the news? What had Saul been doing since his return from Samuel? Tell the story of how he came home on the day the messengers arrived. 213 (§64). How did the news affect Saul? This was the opportunity that Samuel had told him to wait for. What striking thing did he do to gather an army? Tell the story of the successful march to relieve Jabesh-Gilead. 214 (§64). What did the people think of the hero who had saved them? What did they do? Who was the first president of the United States? Why was he elected? Who was the first king of Israel? Why was he chosen? WRITTEN REVIEW Consider which man you would rather have been: A wise, good man who was magnanimous enough to see that a king was needed and to choose him, or the vigorous man who could conquer the enemies and win the kingship. Think carefully of the heroic qualities of each of them. Write down which you admire the most and why you would rather be that one. XX. JONATHAN'S VICTORY THE STORY =§65. The New King and the Old Foes= (I Sam. 13:2-7, 15-17; 14:1-23) A. THE OUTBREAK OF WAR When Saul had reigned two years over Israel, he chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with him in Michmash and in the mount of Beth-el, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent. And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, "Let the Hebrews hear." And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten the garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel also was had in abomination with the Philistines. And the people were gathered together after Saul. And the Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude: and they came up, and pitched in Michmash, eastward of Beth-aven. When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in holds, and in pits. [Illustration: A PHILISTINE] Now some of the Hebrews had gone over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. And Saul numbered the people that were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, abode in Geba of Benjamin: but the Philistines encamped in Michmash. And the spoilers came out of the camp of the Philistines. B. JONATHAN'S BOLD ATTACK Now it fell upon a day, that Jonathan the son of Saul said unto the young man that bare his armor, "Come and let us go over to the Philistines' garrison, that is on yonder side." But he told not his father. And Saul abode in the uttermost part of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people that were with him were about six hundred men. And the people knew not that Jonathan was gone. And between the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go over unto the Philistines' garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side, and a rocky crag on the other side. The one crag rose up on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba. And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armor, "Come and let us go over unto the garrison: it may be that the Lord will work for us: for there is not restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few." And his armorbearer said unto him, "Do all that is in thine heart: turn thee, behold I am with thee according to thy heart." Then said Jonathan, "Behold, we will pass over unto the men, and we will discover ourselves unto them. If they say thus unto us, 'Tarry until we come to you;' then we will stand still in our place, and will not go up unto them. But if they say thus, 'Come up unto us,' then we will go up: for the Lord hath delivered them into our hand: and this shall be the sign unto us." And both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of the Philistines: and the Philistines said, "Behold, the Hebrews come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves." And the men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his armorbearer, and said, "Come up to us, and we will show you a thing." And Jonathan said unto his armorbearer, "Come up after me: for the Lord hath delivered them into the hand of Israel." And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armorbearer after him: and they fell before Jonathan; and his armorbearer slew them after him. And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armorbearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were half an acre of land. And there was a trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the spoilers, they also trembled: and the earth quaked; so there was an exceeding great trembling. C. THE GENERAL BATTLE And the watchmen of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked; and, behold, the multitude melted away, and they went hither and thither. Then said Saul unto the people that were with him, "Number now, and see who is gone from us." And when they had numbered, behold, Jonathan and his armorbearer were not there. And Saul said unto Ahijah the priest, "Bring hither the ark of God." For the ark of God was there at that time with the children of Israel. And it came to pass, while Saul talked unto the priest, that the tumult that was in the camp of the Philistines went on and increased: and Saul said unto the priest, "Withdraw thine hand." And Saul and all the people that were with him were gathered together, and came to the battle: and, behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture. Now the Hebrews that were with the Philistines as before-time, which went up with them into the camp from the country round about, even they also turned to be with the Israelites that were with Saul and Jonathan. Likewise all the men of Israel which had hid themselves in the hill country of Ephraim, when they heard that the Philistines fled, even they also followed hard after them in the battle. So the Lord saved Israel that day: and the battle passed over by Beth-aven. =§66. Saul's Oath and Jonathan's Danger= (I Sam. 14:24-46) A. THE OATH OF ABSTINENCE And the men of Israel were distressed that day: for Saul had adjured the people, saying, "Cursed be the man that eateth any food until it be evening, and I be avenged on mine enemies." So none of the people tasted food. And all the people came into the forest; and there was honey upon the ground. And when the people were come unto the forest, behold, the honey dropped: but no man put his hand to his mouth; for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened. Then answered one of the people, and said, "Thy father straitly charged the people with an oath, saying, 'Cursed be the man that eateth food this day.'" And the people were faint. Then said Jonathan, "My father hath troubled the land: see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey. How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely to-day of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?" B. THE HUNGRY WARRIORS And they smote of the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon: and the people were very faint. And the people flew upon the spoil, and took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground: and the people did eat them with the blood. Then they told Saul, saying, "Behold, the people sin against the Lord, in that they eat with the blood." And he said, "Ye have dealt treacherously: roll a great stone unto me this day." And Saul said, "Disperse yourselves among the people, and say unto them, 'Bring me hither every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and slay them here, and eat; and sin not against the Lord in eating with the blood.'" And all the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and slew them there. And Saul built an altar unto the Lord: the same was the first altar that he built unto the Lord. C. JONATHAN'S DANGER AND RESCUE And Saul said, "Let us go down after the Philistines by night, and spoil them until the morning light, and let us not leave a man of them." And they said, "Do whatsoever seemeth good unto thee." Then said the priest, "Let us draw near hither unto God." And Saul asked counsel of God, "Shall I go down after the Philistines? wilt thou deliver them into the hand of Israel?" But he answered him not that day. And Saul said, "Draw nigh hither, all ye chiefs of the people: and know and see wherein this sin hath been this day. For, as the Lord liveth, which saveth Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die." But there was not a man among all the people that answered him. Then said he unto all Israel, "Be ye on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the other side." And the people said unto Saul, "Do what seemeth good unto thee." Therefore Saul said unto the Lord, the God of Israel, "Show the right." And Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot: but the people escaped. And Saul said, "Cast lots between me and Jonathan my son." And Jonathan was taken. Then Saul said to Jonathan, "Tell me what thou hast done." And Jonathan told him, and said, "I did certainly taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand; and, lo, I must die." And Saul said, "God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan." And the people said unto Saul, "Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid: as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day." So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not. Then Saul went up from following the Philistines: and the Philistines went to their own place. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 215 (§65A). There was a strong enemy on the western coast that was the most serious trouble to Israel. It was to save themselves from these people that the Hebrews had longed for a king. Imagine how we should feel if some foreign nation should capture New York and Chicago and St. Louis and San Francisco and should compel us to give up a large part of our crops every year. We should look for a great general to lead us to turn them out. What then did Saul feel was his first duty as king? He had with him his noble son: what was his name? The first blow was struck at the town of Geba: what followed at once? 216 (§65A). Note the great force of the Philistines. What do you think they expected to do with the Hebrews? How did the Hebrews behave? We have seen before how the people would hide from their enemies. How many warriors did Saul have left? Notice that the two forces were drawn up on opposite sides of a valley. Each was on a height which it was difficult to attack. The reference to "the spoilers" means that the Philistines determined to destroy all the Hebrew country. The little army of Saul was unable to prevent the raids. 217 (§65B). Evidently some bold deed had to be done. We find that the king had a hero son. The knights in Europe used to have their squires: Jonathan had his armorbearer. Why did he not tell his father of his plan? At the battle of Santiago in the Cuban war Lieutenant Hobson wanted to do a very bold deed, but it was so dangerous that he had difficulty in getting permission. Jonathan was afraid his father would think his plan foolhardy. Study the description of the place. There was a narrow pass between two rocky crags. In order to reach the Philistines, Jonathan would have to climb the steep rock. Note that Jonathan hopes for the Lord to be with him. How does the armorbearer respond? 218 (§65B). Jonathan proposes to go into the open at the bottom of the valley and call to the Philistine sentinels, and then to decide whether to attack according to their reply. He thinks that they will make one of two replies: what were they? Tell what happened. How do you think the sudden attack of two men could have frightened the Philistines? 219 (§65C). The Hebrew sentinels on their crag suddenly saw a great disturbance on the opposite height, which the Philistines held. What did Saul do? The king intended to consult God through the priest, but the confusion in the enemy's camp grew so great that he decided to attack at once. Three causes helped to put the Philistines to flight: what were they? 220 (§66A). In the old time it was thought to be very religious to make solemn vows to God. Saul felt that the Lord was saving Israel from the oppression: what oath did he put upon the people? What did the hungry people find in the forest? How did they act? How did Jonathan act? The little food was so refreshing that he seemed to see clearly again, so it is said "his eyes were enlightened." Tell what conversation took place about the honey. 221 (§66B). In order to understand this story, we must remember that it was considered wrong to eat meat unless it had been properly killed so that the blood could run off. The blood was thought to be an offering to God. The Jews still keep up the same custom, and their meat is always specially killed. When the Philistines fled, what property did they leave behind? How did the hungry Hebrews behave? How did Saul secure an altar where the animals could be properly killed? Saul was very careful to do everything that was considered right. 222 (§66C). The king thought that the victory should be followed up, so that the Philistines could not return to trouble them. They had a custom of seeking to find out God's will about any matter through the priest, just as people do in the temples of Japan to-day. But there was some difficulty in securing an answer, so Saul felt sure that someone had broken the oath. It was a most solemn matter to him. What did he say to the leaders of the people? Tell how they found out that Jonathan was guilty. 223 (§66C). When a man was found out by the lot, he was expected to confess. What did Jonathan confess? Do you think that he had done wrong? Evidently Saul thought so, because at that time it seemed terrible to break a solemn oath. Picture the scene to yourself and see how nobly Jonathan was ready to bear the punishment. 224 (§66C). It seems to us most strange that the king should think so much of the matter as to feel that his son must die, but we must remember that it was part of their religion. It makes us very glad that we know God so much better, and that we can see that he must have been pleased with the hero who had risked his life to save his people from their enemies. Indeed we find that Jonathan's noble conduct was so clear that the people decided that the old custom must be broken. What did they say? Why did they think the Lord would not wish Jonathan to die? WRITTEN REVIEW Imagine that you were Jonathan's armorbearer. Write a letter home, just as the young man might, telling what happened that day. Make it as full of description as possible. DAVID XXI. DAVID AND THE GIANT XXII. THE HERO FRIENDS, DAVID AND JONATHAN XXIII. DAVID, THE OUTLAW XXIV. DAVID, THE KING XXV. DAVID AND HIS REBEL SON XXI. DAVID AND THE GIANT THE STORY =§67. The Anointing of David= (I Sam. 16:1-13) And the Lord said unto Samuel, "I have rejected Saul from being king over Israel. Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons." And Samuel said, "How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me." And the Lord said, "Take an heifer with thee, and say, 'I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.' And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee." And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, "Comest thou peaceably?" And he said, "Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice." And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice. And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him." But the Lord said unto Samuel, "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." [Illustration: DAVID] Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, "Neither hath the Lord chosen this." Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, "Neither hath the Lord chosen this." And Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, "The Lord hath not chosen these." And Samuel said unto Jesse, "Are here all thy children?" And he said, "There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep." And Samuel said unto Jesse, "Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither." And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon. And the Lord said, "Arise, anoint him: for this is he." Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. =§68. David and Goliath= (I Sam. 17:1-14, 16-52) A. GOLIATH'S CHALLENGE Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongeth to Judah. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and pitched in the vale of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them. And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was clad with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a javelin of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and his shield-bearer went before him. And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, "Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us." And the Philistine said, "I defy the armies of Israel this day, give me a man, that we may fight together." And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid, and the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days. B. DAVID'S VISIT TO THE ARMY Now Jesse had eight sons: and the man was an old man in the days of Saul, stricken in years among men. And the three eldest sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons that went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and next unto him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. And David was the youngest: and the three eldest followed Saul. And Jesse said unto David his son, "Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to thy brethren; and bring these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare." And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the place of the wagons, as the host which was going forth to the fight shouted for the battle. And Israel and the Philistines put the battle in array, army against army. And David left his baggage in the hand of the keeper of the baggage, and ran to the army, and came and saluted his brethren. And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid. And the men of Israel said, "Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel." And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, "What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" And the people answered him after this manner, saying, "So shall it be done to the man that killeth him." And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, "Why art thou come down? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle." And David said, "What have I now done? Is there not a cause?" And he turned away from him toward another, and spake after the same manner: and the people answered him again after the former manner. C. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHALLENGE And when the words were heard which David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul; and he sent for him. And David said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." And David said unto Saul, "Thy servant kept his father's sheep; and when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant smote both the lion and the bear: and this Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." And David said, "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said unto David, "Go, and the Lord shall be with thee." And Saul clad David with his apparel, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword upon his apparel, and he essayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them." And David put them off him. D. THE COMBAT And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine. And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and withal of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto David, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field." Then said David to the Philistine, "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from off thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel: and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand." And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead; and the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. And the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted, and pursued the Philistines, until thou comest to Gath, and to the gates of Ekron. =§69. David before Saul= (I Sam. 17:15-18:5) And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, "Abner, whose son is this youth?" And Abner said, "As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell." And the king said, "Inquire thou whose son the stripling is." And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, "Whose son art thou, thou young man?" And David answered, "I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite." And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and it was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 225 (§67). It is a surprise to read that Saul who had begun his reign so well had made a failure so early. But he was a headstrong man. He would not take Samuel's advice, and the old prophet realized that a new king would have to be chosen. We have now the interesting story of how David was given his first knowledge of the great future that was before him. 226 (§67). Tell the story of the plan for a visit to Bethlehem. What did Samuel think when he saw Jesse's oldest son? What did the Lord tell him about the way to judge of men? Saul was a man of noble appearance, but sometimes such men are disappointing. What occurred regarding the other sons? Tell the story of the anointing of David. Compare this with the anointing of Saul. 227 (§68A). We hear again of the same old enemies of Israel. Who were they and where did they live? Who was their champion? Six cubits and a span would be at least ten feet, so we may suppose that as this story was told over and over again they came to exaggerate the height of the giant. But he must have been a very big man. He had heavy bronze armor. How many pieces? Five thousand shekels would be about 150 lbs.--a heavy coat of mail. Who was with him? Tell the story of his challenge. 228 (§68B). How many of David's brothers were in the army? Why did Jesse send David to the army and what presents did he send with him? Tell the story of David's inquiry about the Philistine. What did his brother say to him? What did David think of the challenge? 229 (§68C). Tell the story of David's interview with Saul. What kind of a young man was he? What had he been able to do in his shepherd life? How did he get along with Saul's armor? 230 (§68D). There was one weapon with which David was very skilful. Some of the Israelites could do wonders with this simple weapon: read Judg. 20:16. Try to imagine what the two men looked like when they met. Describe the meeting. 231 (§68D). What did Goliath say to David? The young man knew that the safety of his people depended upon this fight. What noble words did he say? Did he boast of his own skill? Tell the story of the combat. 232 (§69). What conversation took place regarding David? What did Saul do for the young victor? 233 (§69). Jonathan comes out nobly in the story. We might think that he would be jealous of David's success, but instead of that, he was delighted with his fine appearance and his courage. How did Jonathan show his pleasure in David? There began that day a great friendship that lasted till death. There can be no jealousy between friends. It is one of the noblest feelings, when one friend can be glad of another's advancement. WRITTEN REVIEW When David was practicing with his sling and keeping his flocks he little thought that he would ever be king of Israel. We do not know how our common duties are getting us ready for a greater work. Make a list of the principal things that you will have to do this week. Write them down in your notebook. Then write down what good you think they will do to prepare you for your work when you are grown up. XXII. THE HERO FRIENDS, DAVID AND JONATHAN THE STORY =§70. Saul's Jealousy of David= (I Sam. 18:6-9, 27-29; 19:1-18) A. THE BEGINNING OF THE JEALOUSY And it came to pass as they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with timbrels, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women sang one to another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and this saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?" And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife. And Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David; and Michal Saul's daughter loved him. And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul was David's enemy continually. B. JONATHAN THE PEACEMAKER And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should slay David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, saying, "Saul my father seeketh to slay thee: now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself in the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself: and I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where thou art, and I will commune with my father of thee; and if I see ought, I will tell thee." And Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, "Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; because he hath not sinned against thee, and because his works have been very good toward thee: for he put his life in his hand, and smote the Philistine, and the Lord wrought a great victory for all Israel: thou sawest it, and didst rejoice: wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?" And Saul hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan: and Saul sware, "As the Lord liveth, he shall not be put to death." And Jonathan called David, and Jonathan showed him all those things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence, as before-time. C. SAUL'S ATTEMPTS TO KILL DAVID And there was war again: and David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter; and they fled before him. And an evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David played with his hand. And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the spear into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night. And Saul sent messengers unto David's house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: and Michal David's wife told him, saying, "If thou save not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain." So Michal let David down through the window: and he went, and fled, and escaped. And Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats' hair at the head thereof, and covered it with the clothes. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick." And Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may slay him." And when the messengers came in, behold, the teraphim was in the bed, with the pillow of goats' hair at the head thereof. And Saul said unto Michal, "Why hast thou deceived me thus, and let mine enemy go, that he is escaped?" And Michal answered Saul, "He said unto me, 'Let me go; why should I kill thee?'" Now David fled, and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth. =§71. The Two Friends= (I Sam. 20:1-39) A. THE COVENANT OF THE FRIENDS And David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan, "What have I done? what is mine iniquity? and what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life?" And he said unto him, "God forbid; thou shalt not die: behold, my father doeth nothing either great or small, but that he discloseth it unto me and why should my father hide this thing from me? it is not so." And David sware moreover, and said, "Thy father knoweth well that I have found grace in thine eyes; and he saith, 'Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved': but truly as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death." Then said Jonathan unto David, "Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee." And David said unto Jonathan, "Behold, to-morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even. If thy father miss me at all, then say, 'David earnestly asked leave of me that he might run to Bethlehem his city: for it is the yearly sacrifice there for all the family.' If he say thus, 'It is well;' thy servant shall have peace: but if he be wroth, then know that evil is determined by him. Therefore deal kindly with thy servant; for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant of the Lord with thee: but if there be in me iniquity, slay me thyself; for why shouldest thou bring me to thy father?" And Jonathan said, "Far be it from thee: for if I should at all know that evil were determined by my father to come upon thee, then would not I tell it thee?" Then said David to Jonathan, "Who shall tell me if perchance thy father answer thee roughly?" And Jonathan said unto David, "Come and let us go out into the field." And they went out both of them into the field. And Jonathan said unto David, "The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness; when I have sounded my father about this time to-morrow, or the third day, behold, if there be good toward David, shall I not then send unto thee, and disclose it unto thee? The Lord do so to Jonathan, and more also, should it please my father to do thee evil, if I disclose it not unto thee, and send thee away, that thou mayest go in peace: and the Lord be with thee, as he hath been with my father. And thou shalt not only while yet I live show me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not: but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever: no, not when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth." And Jonathan caused David to swear again, for the love that he had to him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul. Then Jonathan said unto him, "To-morrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty. And when thou hast stayed three days, thou shalt go down quickly, and come to the place where thou didst hide thyself when the business was in hand, and shalt remain by the stone Ezel. And I will shoot three arrows on the side thereof, as though I shot at a mark. And behold, I will send the lad, saying, 'Go, find the arrows.' If I say unto the lad, 'Behold, the arrows are on this side of thee': take them, and come; for there is peace to thee and no hurt, as the Lord liveth. But if I say thus unto the boy, 'Behold, the arrows are beyond thee'; go thy way; for the Lord hath sent thee away. And as touching the matter which thou and I have spoken of, behold, the Lord is between thee and me for ever." B. SAUL'S DEADLY ANGER So David hid himself in the field: and when the new moon was come, the king sat him down to eat meat. And the king sat upon his seat, as at other times, even upon the seat by the wall; and Jonathan stood up, and Abner sat by Saul's side: but David's place was empty. Nevertheless Saul spake not any thing that day; for he thought, "Something hath befallen him, he is not clean; surely he is not clean." And it came to pass on the morrow after the new moon, which was the second day, that David's place was empty: and Saul said unto Jonathan his son, "Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat, neither yesterday, nor to-day?" And Jonathan answered Saul, "David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem: and he said 'Let me go, I pray thee; for our family hath a sacrifice in the city; and my brother, he hath commanded me to be there: and now, if I have found favor in thine eyes, let me get away, I pray thee, and see my brethren.' Therefore he is not come unto the king's table." Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, "Thou son of a perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame? For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die." And Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said unto him, "Wherefore should he be put to death? what hath he done?" And Saul cast his spear at him to smite him: whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to put David to death. So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat the second day of the month: for he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame. C. THE PARTING OF THE FRIENDS And it came to pass in the morning, that Jonathan went out into the field at the time appointed with David, and a little lad with him. And he said unto his lad, "Run, find now the arrows which I shoot." And as the lad ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the lad was come to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan cried after the lad, and said, "Is not the arrow beyond thee?" And Jonathan cried after the lad, "Make speed, haste, stay not." And Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows, and came to his master. But the lad knew not any thing: only Jonathan and David knew the matter. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 234. When David returned victorious from the fight with Goliath, Jonathan, the king's son, made a fast friendship with him. Read §69. What do you think each of these young men would admire in the other? There was the beginning that day of a life-long friendship. 235 (§70A). It is still the custom among the Arabs for the women to go dancing and singing to meet the warriors returning from a fight. The women of Israel had the simplest musical instrument, the tambourine, such as the Salvation Army women use. They composed a little verse to sing: what was it? How did Saul feel when he heard it? Was it natural for him to have this feeling? It was a very sad thing connected with the Spanish War, that after the battle of Santiago there was a bitter jealousy between the two American admirals. It is a most pitiful thing when great men are jealous. Recall why we called Abraham "magnanimous." What would have been magnanimous conduct in Saul? Was Jonathan jealous? 236 (§70B). There are a number of stories of Saul's enmity against David. We shall study a few of them. How did Jonathan try to be the peacemaker? How did he praise David to the king? What effect did it have? Evidently Saul had a better nature, to which Jonathan could appeal, but there was always danger that the fit of jealousy would return. 237 (§70C). David had been appointed to a high command in the army. He seems always to have been successful against the Philistines. But it made Saul jealous. Saul had been subject to fits of melancholy, which was explained in those days as caused by an evil spirit. David, who was a skilful player on the harp, had often been able to soothe the king. So, when the jealousy made him moody, David tried to cheer him with music. But a sudden fit of rage came upon Saul. What happened? 238 (§70C). David had married Michal, the daughter of the king. What plan of Saul's did she discover? How did she help her husband to escape? The teraphim was an idol about the size of a man: how did Michal use it to deceive Saul's messengers? But when Saul was determined to have David brought to him even if he were sick in bed, how was the deceit discovered? What did Saul say to his daughter? Notice that she told her father a falsehood, saying that David had threatened to kill her. Where did David flee? 239 (§71A). This is another story of how Jonathan helped David when he first found out his father's jealousy. Note that Jonathan feels sure that Saul will not do evil to David, but David is certain of his danger. A plan is thought of to find out whether the king is really David's enemy. There was to be the regular monthly religious feast at the time of the new moon and it was David's duty to be present. What was the plan that he suggested to test the king? What appeal does David make to Jonathan? The two friends go out into the field where they can talk unobserved. 240 (§71A). This is the story of the covenant or agreement. If Jonathan finds that Saul is well disposed to David, what does he promise to do? If Saul is evil disposed, what does he agree to do? He is sure that David will succeed to the throne; what therefore does he ask of him in the future? We are glad to know that David remembered this promise long after and took care of Jonathan's lame son. 241 (§71A). Jonathan knows that it will be dangerous for him to tell David the result of his observation of the king as he would probably be watched, so he arranges to tell him by signal. Read the story carefully, and then tell in your own words how David was to know if he could return safely, and how he was to know if he must escape. 242 (§71B). Tell the story of the Feast of the New Moon. Notice that Saul did not object to David's absence the first day, thinking that there might be some religious cleansing that was necessary. What excuse did Jonathan make? The king thought that Jonathan could not understand that David would get the throne, and he was angry with him for being so foolish as to be friends with him. Do you think Jonathan knew that David was to be king? What was the end of the discussion between the king and his son? 243 (§71C). How did Jonathan inform David that the king was his enemy? Why did he say to the boy, "Make speed, haste, stay not"? So these two friends parted, each trusting the other. WRITTEN REVIEW Have you known a friend who was magnanimous when he might have been jealous? Write about it in your notebook. XXIII. DAVID, THE OUTLAW THE STORY =§72. The Band of Outlaws= (I Sam. 22:1, 2; 23:1-8, 13, 14; 25:2-42) A. THE GATHERING OF THE BAND David arose and fled for fear of Saul, and escaped to the cave of Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men. And they told David, saying, "Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and they rob the threshing-floors." Therefore David enquired of the Lord, saying, "Shall I go and smite these Philistines?" And the Lord said unto David, "Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah." And David's men said unto him, "Behold, we be afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?" Then David enquired of the Lord yet again. And the Lord answered him and said, "Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand." And David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and slew them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth. And David abode in the wilderness in the strongholds, and remained in the hill country. B. DAVID'S REQUEST OF NABAL And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and the woman was of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings. And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent ten young men, and David said unto the young men, "Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, 'Peace be both unto thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: thy shepherds have now been with us, and we did them no hurt, neither was there aught missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel. Ask thy young men, and they will tell thee: wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes; for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand, unto thy servants, and to thy son David.'" And when David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David. And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men of whom I know not whence they be?" So David's young men turned on their way, and went back, and came and told him according to all these words. And David said unto his men, "Gird ye on every man his sword." And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff. C. ABIGAIL'S PEACEMAKING But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, "Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he flew upon them. But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we were with them, when we were in the fields: they were a wall unto us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his house: for he is such a worthless fellow, that one cannot speak to him." Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. And she said unto her young men, "Go on before me; behold, I come after you." But she told not her husband Nabal. And it was so, as she rode on her ass, and came down by the covert of the mountain, that, behold, David and his men came down against her; and she met them. Now David had said, "Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged unto him: and he hath returned me evil for good. God do so unto David, and more also, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light so much as one man child." And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off her ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. And she fell at his feet, and said, "Upon me, my lord, upon me be the iniquity: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine ears, and hear thou the words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this worthless fellow, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal, fool, is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. Now therefore, this present which thy servant hath brought unto my lord, let it be given unto the young men that follow my lord. Forgive, I pray thee, the trespass of thine handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord; and evil shall not be found in thee all thy days. And though man be risen up to pursue thee, and to seek thy life, yet the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the lives of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as from the hollow of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee prince over Israel; that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: and when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." And David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy wisdom, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from bloodguiltiness, and from avenging myself with mine own hand. For in very deed, as the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, which hath withholden me from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light so much as one man child." So David received of her hand that which she had brought him: and he said unto her, "Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person." D. THE END OF NABAL And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. And it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, that his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died. And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept back his servant from evil; and the evil-doing of Nabal hath the Lord returned upon his own head." And David sent and spake concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife. And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, "David hath sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife." And she arose, and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, "Behold, thine handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord." And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that followed her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. =§73. David's Generosity to Saul= (I Sam. 26:2-25; 27:1-4) A. THE SLEEPING ENEMY And Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David. David therefore sent out spies and knew where Saul was come. And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched: and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner, the captain of his host: and Saul lay within the place of the wagons, and the people pitched round about him. Then answered David and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai, "Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?" And Abishai said, "I will go down with thee." So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head: and Abner and the people lay round about him. Then said Abishai to David, "God hath delivered up thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not smite him the second time." And David said to Abishai, "Destroy him not: for who can put forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless?" And David said, "As the Lord liveth, either the Lord shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall go down into battle, and perish. The Lord forbid that I should put forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed: but now take, I pray thee, the spear that is at his head, and the cruse of water, and let us go." So David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul's head; and they gat them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither did any awake: for they were all asleep; because a deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them. B. SAUL'S REPENTANCE Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of the mountain afar off; a great space being between them: and David cried to the people, and to Abner, saying, "Answerest thou not, Abner?" Then Abner answered and said, "Who art thou that criest to the king?" And David said to Abner, "Art not thou a valiant man? and who is like to thee in Israel? wherefore then hast thou not kept watch over thy lord the king? for there came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord. This thing is not good that thou hast done. As the Lord liveth, ye are worthy to die, because ye have not kept watch over your lord, the Lord's anointed. And now, see, where the king's spear is, and the cruse of water that was at his head." And Saul knew David's voice, and said, "Is this thy voice, my son David?" And David said, "It is my voice, my lord, O king. Wherefore doth my lord pursue after his servant? for what have I done? or what evil is in mine hand? for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains." Then said Saul, "I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my life was precious in thine eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly." And David answered and said, "Behold the spear, O king! let then one of the young men come over and fetch it. And the Lord shall render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness: forasmuch as the Lord delivered thee into my hand to-day, and I would not put forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed. And, behold, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord, and let him deliver me out of all tribulation." Then Saul said to David, "Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do mightily, and shalt surely prevail." So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place. C. DAVID'S FLIGHT FROM ISRAEL And David said in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand." And David arose, and passed over, he and the six hundred men that were with him, unto Achish the king of Gath. And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men. And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 244. It was clear to David that Saul had determined to kill him. He therefore decided to flee to his own tribe of Judah and to dwell in the mountains where it would be hard for Saul to reach him. The caves in the Judean hills have been the refuge all through the centuries for those who were in danger from the government. In thus fleeing from the king, David became an outlaw, that is, one who refuses to be under the law. Of course he was obliged to do so by the king's tyranny. 245 (§72A). Adullam was probably about twelve miles from Bethlehem. David would have friends near his own town. He gathered to him all his own relatives, who otherwise might have been killed by the king. Three classes of people are mentioned as joining him: who are they? The first would be those who were oppressed, the second those who were likely to be sold as slaves for debt, the third those who had some grievance. It has often happened in countries where there was no free government that men have banded together in sufficient strength to defy the rulers. In English history we read of Robin Hood and his outlaws, who made the rich pay tribute, when they caught them in the forest. Of course in our modern free states there is no excuse for any such life, and we rightly put down all bandits as criminals. How many men did David have at the first? 246 (§72A). News soon came to David that the people of Keilah, a few miles south of Adullam, were being robbed by the old enemies, the Philistines. They had come when the people were threshing the grain, and intended to steal it. How did David use his band of adventurers against the Philistines? What food supply did he secure? 247 (§72A). How was David's expedition brought to an end? How large had his band grown to be? He must have been an able chieftain to attract these men to him. The next story shows how he provided for them. 248 (§72B). Find Maon and Carmel on the map, just south of Hebron. Who was the rich sheep owner? What kind of man was he and what kind of wife had he? It is evident that David's men had protected the shepherds. What request did he make at the time of the shearing feast? Was this a reasonable request? There were so many bands of robbers abroad that it was a great advantage to the Judean shepherds to have David's protection. Of course he in turn needed supplies for his men. 249 (§72B). What answer did Nabal send back? How did he sneer at David's band? What did David decide to do? How did he divide his men? 250 (§72C). What report was brought to Abigail? What did the shepherds think of David? What did Abigail immediately do? David was in a great rage with Nabal, though of course he really had no right to any pay from the man. What vengeance had he decided to take? What do you think of that? How thankful it makes us feel that we live in times when we have strong laws, and no man is permitted to take the law in his own hands. 251 (§72C). Notice how beautifully Abigail speaks to David, telling him that she knows he will never be sorry that he was merciful. How does David respond? What do you think of a man who gives up his purpose so suddenly? 252 (§72D). Note the character of the drunken fellow and his cowardice when he learned of his escape. Probably his drunkenness and the shock of his terror seriously affected him. How long afterward did he die? When David heard the news, what message did he send to the beautiful Abigail? How did she reply? 253 (§73A). Saul had not given up his determination to kill David. He had made several unsuccessful attempts to capture him. At last he heard of David's hiding-place. How many men did he take with him? But David was ever on the watch. How did he discover that Saul was coming? 254 (§73A). Tell the story of the sleeping camp, of David's stealthy approach with a single companion, of the proposal of Abishai, of David's reply, of the spear and the jug of water. What did we mean when we said Abraham was "magnanimous"? Would you say that David was magnanimous? Read Rom. 12:19-21. Where does David appear best--when he threatens Nabal or when he spares Saul? 255 (§73B). Tell the story of the conversation with Saul: David's summons to the sleepers, his reproach of the captain, Saul's recognition, David's appeal, Saul's repentance, the peaceful separation. 256 (§73C). David knew that he could not trust Saul. There was constant danger from the jealous king, so he decided to leave the country. We are surprised to find that he found refuge with Israel's enemies. Where did he go? Locate the city on the map. How was he received? What did Saul decide? But David could afford to wait. In a little while everything was going to turn to his advantage. WRITTEN REVIEW Imagine that you were Abishai. Write the story as though you were telling your brother Joab about that night when you crept with David to the sleeping camp. Describe all that happened and tell what you thought of David. XXIV. DAVID, THE KING THE STORY =§74. The Way to the Throne= (I Sam. 31:1-6; II Sam. 1:1-4, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27; 2:1-4, 8-11; 3:1; 5:1-3) A. THE BATTLE OF GILBOA Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. Then said Saul to his armorbearer, "Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these Philistines come and thrust me through, and abuse me." But his armorbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. And when his armorbearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armorbearer, and all his men, that same day together. B. DAVID'S DIRGE OVER SAUL AND JONATHAN And it came to pass after the death of Saul, that a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head: and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance. And David said unto him, "From whence comest thou?" And he said unto him, "Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped." And David said unto him, "How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me." And he answered, "The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also." And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son: Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the enemy triumph. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet delicately, Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: Thy love to me was wonderful, Passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished! C. DAVID MADE KING And it came to pass after this, that David enquired of the Lord, saying, "Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?" And the Lord said unto him, "Go up." And David said, "Whither shall I go up?" And he said, "Unto Hebron." So David went up thither, and his men that were with him did David bring up: and they dwelt in the cities of Hebron. And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. Now Abner, the captain of Saul's host, had taken Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and made him king over Israel. But the house of Judah followed David. And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months. Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: and David waxed stronger and stronger, but the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker, and when Ish-bosheth was dead, then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, "Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was thou that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to thee, 'Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over Israel.'" So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David king over Israel. =§75. David's Great Reign= (I Chron. 11:4-9; II Sam. 5:17-25; 8:2-6, 13, 14; 10:6, 17-19; 11:1; 12:29-31; 5:11, 12; 23:14-17) A. THE NEW CAPITAL And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, where the Jebusites were, the inhabitants of the land. And the inhabitants said to David, "Thou shalt not come hither." Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion. And David said, "Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain." So Joab the son of Zeruiah went up first, and was chief. And David dwelt in the stronghold; therefore they called it the city of David. And he built the city round about, from Millo, even round about: and Joab repaired the rest of the city. So David waxed greater and greater: for the Lord of hosts was with him. B. DAVID'S WARS OF DEFENSE And when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, they went up and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And David enquired of the Lord, saying, "Shall I go up against the Philistines? wilt thou deliver them into my hand?" And the Lord said unto David, "Go up; for I will certainly deliver the Philistines into thy hand." And David went up and smote them; and he said, "The Lord hath broken down mine enemies before me like the breaking of waters." And the Philistines came up yet again, and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And when David enquired of the Lord, he said, "Thou shalt not go up. Go about to their rear and come upon them opposite the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then is the Lord gone out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines." And David did so as the Lord commanded him, and smote the Philistines, and subdued them. And he smote Moab. And the Moabites became servants to David and brought tribute. And David put garrisons in Damascus; and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought tribute. And the Lord gave victory to David whithersoever he went. And David got him a name when he returned from smiting Edom in the valley of salt, even eighteen thousand men. And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became servants to David. And the children of Ammon hired the Syrians. And it was told David; and he gathered all Israel together, and passed over the Jordan. And the Syrians set themselves in array against David, and fought with him. And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote the captain of their host. And when all the kings saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel, and served them. So the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more. And it came to pass, at the return of the year, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon. And David went to Rabbah, and fought against it, and took it. And he brought forth the spoil of the city exceeding much. And thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David a house. And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake. C. DAVID'S KNIGHTS And at one time David was in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed, and said, "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!" And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, "Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: shall I drink the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?" therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 257. David spent many years as captain of his outlaw band, first in the mountains of Judah and then in Philistia. The Philistines thought he had given up his own people and become one of them. Fortunately, however, they did not wish him to fight against Saul, so he was not obliged to meet that difficulty. He had simply to wait till the end of Saul's reign. It came very tragically. 258 (§74A). The battles of Israel were generally fought on the broad plain of Esdraelon. Find it on the map southeast of Mt. Carmel. In this case, however, Saul had entrenched his army on the high ground to the south of the plain. But the terrible enemies who had troubled Israel so long were too strong for him. How did the battle result? Who were killed? How did Saul die? 259 (§74B). David was still in the Philistine town of Ziklag. He had been fighting the Amalekites who had attacked him. How was the news of the battle of Gilboa brought to him? How would you expect him to feel about Saul's death? how about Jonathan's? As a matter of fact he forgot all his wrongs, and remembered only how he had loved Saul and honored him in the early days, and of course he remembered his great friendship with Jonathan. Was this "magnanimous"? 260 (§74B). A dirge means a song for the dead. David was a fine poet and he sang this beautiful song of lamentation over the king and the prince. Notice the six stanzas. The first and the last are a refrain. The second is a hope that the Philistines will not know the sad news. The third is a praise of Saul and Jonathan. The fourth is a special praise of Saul, whose victories had brought spoil to Israel. The fifth is the tender lament of the singer for his friend. This would be a noble poem to learn by heart. 261 (§74C). After Saul's death, it was a question whether David should return home. Tell what happened. Find Hebron on the map in the south. But Saul's general had another policy. What did he do? So there was war between the north and south. At last Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, was murdered by two men who thought they would get reward from David. He punished them of course, but the way was open for David to be king of the whole land. Tell how David was elected king. 262 (§75A). When the thirteen American colonies adopted the Constitution and became the United States, it was necessary to have a capital that should not be in any one state. So two of the states gave a piece of land, which was called a District: what is its full name? What is the name of the city that was built to be the capital of our country? Does it belong to any one of the states in particular? Saul had not had a definite capital, except his own town. David had his headquarters at the old town of Hebron. But it would not do to have a town of Judah as capital of all Israel. There was a strong town that had never been conquered and occupied by the Israelites, but was still inhabited by the old Jebusites. David decided to capture this city and make it his capital. What is the name of the city that is still after 3,000 years the chief city in Palestine? Find it on the map. The fortress was so strong that there was a proverb that it could be defended even by the blind and the lame. Tell the story of the capture. 263 (§75B). The first necessity was to prevent the enemies all around Israel from interfering with the new kingdom. Who was the first enemy subdued? Locate their territory. In several campaigns these old enemies were prevented from giving any more trouble. The next enemy was in the southeast: who were they? Locate their territory. The next was an old city in the north, then a people in the south, then a nation to the east who hired northern allies. Locate all these, and note that David subdued all his troublesome neighbors. One people was left on the northwest coast, but they were a commercial and not a military people. What alliance did David make with them? 264 (§75C). David was able to conquer all these enemies because he had a noble company of knights about him. They were brave and loyal to their king. We study one fine passage that tells of a heroic deed during one of the Philistine campaigns. What do you think of the bravery of the heroes and the conduct of the king? WRITTEN REVIEW Draw an outline map of Canaan. Mark Jerusalem which David made his capital. Mark the territory of each of the enemies whom David conquered. You will find that you will have to go all around the map showing that David had to defend his people on every side. XXV. DAVID AND HIS REBEL SON THE STORY =§76. The Treacherous Son and the Loyal Friends= (II Sam. 14:25, 26; 15:1-15, 18-37) A. ABSALOM'S BEAUTY AND TREACHERY Now in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he cut the hair of his head, (now it was at every year's end that he cut it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he cut it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, after the king's weight. And Absalom prepared him a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate: and it was so, that when any man had a suit which should come to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, "Of what city art thou?" And he said, "Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel." And Absalom said unto him, "See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee." Absalom said moreover, "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice!" And it was so, that when any man came nigh to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took hold of him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. And it came to pass at the end of four years, that Absalom said unto the king, "I pray thee, let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed unto the Lord, in Hebron." And the king said unto him, "Go in peace." So he arose, and went to Hebron. But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, "As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet, then ye shall say, 'Absalom is king in Hebron.'" And with Absalom went two hundred men out of Jerusalem, that were invited, and went in their simplicity; and they knew not any thing. And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered the sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom. B. DAVID'S FLIGHT And there came a messenger to David, saying, "The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom." And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, "Arise, and let us flee; for else none of us shall escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us quickly, and bring down evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword." And the king's servants said unto the king, "Behold, thy servants are ready to do whatsoever my lord the king shall choose." And the king went forth, and all his household after him. And all his servants passed on beside him; and all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites, six hundred men which came after him from Gath, passed on before the king. Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, "Wherefore goest thou also with us? return, and abide with the king: for thou art a stranger, and also an exile; return to thine own place. Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us, seeing I go whither I may? return thou, and take back thy brethren; mercy and truth be with thee." And Ittai answered the king, and said, "As the Lord liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, even there also will thy servant be." And David said to Ittai, "Go and pass over." And Ittai the Gittite passed over, and all his men, and all the little ones that were with him. And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness. And, lo, Zadok also came, and all the Levites with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God; and they set down the ark of God, until all the people had done passing out of the city. And the king said unto Zadok, "Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it, and his habitation: but if he say thus, 'I have no delight in thee;' behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him." C. DAVID'S PLAN The king said unto Zadok the priest, "Return into the city in peace. See, I will tarry at the fords of the wilderness, until there come word from you." Zadok therefore carried the ark of God again to Jerusalem: and they abode there. And David went up by the ascent of the mount of Olives, and wept as he went up; and he had his head covered, and went barefoot: and all the people that were with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up. And one told David, saying, "Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom." And David said, "O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness." And it came to pass, that when David was come to the top of the ascent, behold, Hushai came to meet him with his coat rent, and earth upon his head: and David said unto him, "If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto me: but if thou return to the city, and say unto Absalom, 'I will be thy servant, O king; as I have been thy father's servant in time past, so will I now be thy servant': then shalt thou defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel. And hast thou not there with thee Zadok and Abiathar the priests? therefore it shall be, that what thing soever thou shalt hear out of the king's house, thou shalt tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests. Behold, they have there with them their two sons; and by them ye shall send unto me everything that ye shall hear." So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city. =§77. The Folly and Fate of Absalom= (II Sam. 16:15, 16, 20; 17:1-16, 22, 24; 18:1-17, 21, 24, 25, 31-33) A. ABSALOM'S COUNCIL OF WAR And Absalom, and all the people, the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him. And it came to pass, when Hushai, David's friend, was come unto Absalom, that Hushai said unto Absalom, "God save the king, God save the king." Then said Absalom to Ahithophel, "Give your counsel what we shall do." And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, "Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night: and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only: and I will bring back all the people unto thee: so all the people shall be in peace." And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel. Then said Absalom unto Hushai, "Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do after his saying? if not, speak thou." And Hushai said unto Absalom, "The counsel that Ahithophel hath given this time is not good. Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people. Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some other place: and it will come to pass, when some of them be fallen at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, 'There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.' And even he that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men. But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together unto thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person. So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground: and of him and of all the men that are with him we will not leave so much as one. Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone found there." And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The counsel of Hushai is better than the counsel of Ahithophel." Then said Hushai unto Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, "Thus and thus did Ahithophel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel; and thus and thus have I counselled. Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, 'Lodge not this night at the fords of the wilderness, but in any wise pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that are with him.'" Then David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan. And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home, unto his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father. B. THE BATTLE AND THE DEATH OF ABSALOM And David numbered the people that were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them. And David sent forth the people, a third part under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai, Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said unto the people, "I will surely go forth with you myself also." But the people said, "Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care for us: but thou art worth ten thousand of us: therefore now it is better that thou be ready to succor us out of the city." And the king said unto them, "What seemeth you best I will do." And the king stood by the gate side, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands. And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, "Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom. So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the forest of Ephraim. And the people of Israel were smitten there before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men. For the battle was there spread over the face of all the country: and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. And Absalom chanced to meet the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went on. And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, "Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak." And Joab said unto the man that told him, "And, behold, thou sawest it, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten pieces of silver, and a girdle." And the man said unto Joab, "Though I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king's son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, 'Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.' Otherwise if I had dealt falsely against his life, (and there is no matter hid from the king,) then thou thyself wouldest have set thyself against me." Then said Joab, "I may not tarry thus with thee." And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men that bare Joab's armor compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew him. And Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel: for Joab held back the people. And they took Absalom, and cast him into the great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones: and all Israel fled every one to his tent. C. DAVID'S GRIEF Then said Joab to the Cushite, "Go tell the king what thou hast seen." And the Cushite bowed himself unto Joab, and ran. Now David sat between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, a man running alone. And the watchman cried, and told the king. And the king said, "If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth." And, behold, the Cushite came; and the Cushite said, "Tidings for my lord the king: for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee." And the king said unto the Cushite, "Is it well with the young man Absalom?" And the Cushite answered, "The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise up against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is." And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" THE MEANING OF THE STORY 265. David did not bring up his sons well and there were very bad family quarrels. At last Absalom murdered one of his brothers and was obliged to flee. The king allowed him to return, but the wicked young man planned to rebel against his father. 266 (§76A). What are we told of this handsome young man? Beauty of face and figure is very desirable, but it frequently makes a person vain and selfish. Probably Absalom had been admired and spoiled, and had come to think only of himself. 267 (§76A). How did the young prince make a fine appearance? We see that people were accustomed to come to the king to have their matters of law decided. He was the supreme court. Of course it was not always possible to hear all the cases at once. How did Absalom persuade the people that he would make a better king than his father? Note how the prince pretended to be democratic. What do you think of all this conduct? 268 (§76A). This deceitful conduct continued for four years until Absalom thought he was ready to strike the blow. He decided to make Hebron the headquarters of his rebellion. Locate Hebron. It was where David had his capital when he was king of Judah. Can you think of any reason why that city might have been dissatisfied? What excuse did Absalom give for a journey to Hebron? How did he plan to gather an army? How many innocent men went with him? What wise man did Absalom get on his side? 269 (§76B). What did David decide upon as soon as he heard the news? Notice that he had a body guard of 600 Philistine soldiers. The old enemies were good warriors and he had taken them into his service. David had a wonderful way of gaining friends. Tell the story of Ittai. How did the people feel about the flight of the old king? 270 (§76B). It was customary for the ark to be taken when the army went to battle (§61A). So the priest thought he ought to carry it with David. But the king sent it back again, saying that he would trust in the Lord. Moreover he was glad to have a friend in the city. How did he arrange with Zadok to have news sent to him? Describe the sad journey up the Mount of Olives. What signs of grief did they show? 271 (§76C). Whom did David hear had joined Absalom? How did he plan that bad advice might be given to Absalom? How did he arrange for news to be brought to him? Let us get the movement of the story before us. Absalom is marching from Hebron with his counselor and his army; David is in flight with his 600 guards and some faithful friends, but he has left some friends in the city to send him news; presently Absalom marches into the city. 272 (§77A). The first act of the new king is to decide what to do. Ahithophel advised immediate pursuit of David. Tell what he said. Absalom decided to ask the wise old Hushai his advice also. Whose side was Hushai really on? What advice did he give? How did he frighten Absalom and how did he flatter him? Why was this advice good for David? What was decided? 273 (§77A). How was David informed of the council? He decided to cross the river at once, so as to have the swift stream between himself and his pursuers. Locate the Jordan. Did he succeed in getting his whole company over? What became of Ahithophel? Meantime Absalom was gathering a considerable army. After a lapse of a little time he followed his father, who had been gathering all the people that were loyal to him. The matter could only be settled by battle. 274 (§77B). How many divisions were there of David's army? Why did he not go himself to battle? Notice how he reviewed the troops as they went forth. What special command did he give to the captains? Why did he do this? Give an account of the battle. 275 (§77B). In the battle, which was going against him, Absalom met David's guards. What accident happened to him as he was trying to escape? What dispute took place between the soldier and Joab? What did Joab do? There was no need for further pursuit, so Joab called back his troops. What was done with Absalom? We see that with the death of the leader the rebels fled to their homes. Joab called a Cushite, that is a negro slave: what command did he give him? 276 (§77C). Where was David during the battle? What conversation took place between the king and the Cushite? How was David affected? What do you think of David in all this matter? A REVIEW OF DAVID David was one of those men who loved others and could make them love him. It will be interesting to make a list of all those of whom we have studied who felt the influence of his winning disposition. Read I Sam. 16:12, 21; 18:1, 20; 24:16; 25:42; II Sam. 1:26; 2:4; 5:3; 15:21, 32; 18:3; 23:15, 16. Write a little paper telling of all the people who loved David. REVIEW XXVI. TEN HEROES OF ISRAEL XXVI. TEN HEROES OF ISRAEL After we had studied the heroes of Israel's wanderings we looked back over the stories and tried to remember the great characters we had learned to know. Now we have added ten more heroes to our acquaintance since Moses. Let us look back over the stories of these ten, and see if we can remember about them. 277. Moses brought the people near to Canaan and then sent twelve spies into the land to find out about it. Ten of the men were afraid, and said that the Hebrews could not conquer it, but two men were brave, and told their countrymen to trust in the Lord and go up. Tell the story of these two and what happened to them later. (§44; Josh. 1:1, 2; 14:13.[1]) [1: Very short Scripture references are given--just enough to recall the story. Read these and glance over the section in the textbook to refresh the memory.] 278. After the Hebrews had settled in Canaan they were greatly troubled by enemies. Many heroes arose who delivered them. One, who was called by the Lord, gathered a large army, then sent home all who were not fit and reduced his army to 300 men. He then devised a strange plan to frighten the enemy. Tell the story. (§46; Judg. 7:19, 20.) What reward did this hero refuse? (§47; Judg. 8:22, 23.) 279. One of the heroes of Israel was a man of enormous strength. What were some of the stories told about him? How did he foolishly sin and lose his strength? (§51; Judg. 15:14, 15; 16:18, 19.) 280. Who was the heroine of whom we studied? Tell what you remember of her. (§54.) 281. Do you remember the story of the good old priest who had two wicked sons, and of the little boy who came to live with him? Tell the story of how the boy came, and what happened one special night, and how the old priest died. (§§60, 61; I Sam. 3:10, 11; 4:18.) 282. The little boy grew up to be a great prophet. He saw that the people could never be saved from their enemies without a strong king. One day a young man who was seeking some straying animals came to see him. Tell the story of what happened. What great blow for liberty did this young man strike and so become king? (§64; I Sam. 11:6-11.) 283. The new king had a brave son. This young man determined to help free his people from their oppressors. Tell the story of his bold attack upon the Philistines. (§65; I Sam. 14:13.) How did Saul follow up the attack? 284. The young man who was to be the great king of Israel performed a wonderful feat of arms. One of the Philistine heroes challenged the Hebrews to send a single man against him. Who accepted the challenge and how did the combat turn out? (§68; I Sam. 17:48,49.) 285. Who were the two hero friends? Tell the story of their parting. (§71; I Sam. 20:35-39.) 286. Why was David an outlaw? Tell the story of his sparing the king's life. (§73; I Sam. 26:9-12.) 287. David had a company of heroes about him. Tell the story of the knights who brought him the drink of water. (§75C; II Sam. 23:14-17.) 288. David had a bitter trial in his wicked son who rebelled against him. But many loyal friends stood by him: who were these, and how did they show their loyalty? (§76; II Sam. 15:19-34.) 289. Write down the names of the ten heroes in a column. How many were great patriots? How many trusted God? How many showed fine leadership? How many showed weakness of character? Who showed a great love? How many were unselfish? Which of them do you think the greatest? SOLOMON XXVII. SOLOMON, THE WISE KING XXVII. SOLOMON, THE WISE KING THE STORY =§78. Solomon's Wise Choice= (I Kings 2:12; 3:3-15) Solomon sat upon the throne of David his father; and his kingdom was established greatly. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar. In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, "Ask what I shall give thee." And Solomon said, "Thou hast showed unto thy servant David my father great kindness, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child; I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give thy servant therefore an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this thy great people?" And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, "Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern justice; behold, I have done according to thy word: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there hath been none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee, all thy days. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days." And Solomon awoke, and, behold, it was a dream: and he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants. =§79. Solomon and the Temple= (I Kings 5:1-12; 6:1, 2, 7, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 38; 8:1, 6, 10, 11, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 54-58, 62) A. PREPARATIONS FOR THE TEMPLE And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram was ever a lover of David. And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, "Thou knowest how that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. And, behold, I purpose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spake unto David my father, saying, 'Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build a house for my name.' Now therefore command thou that they cut me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and I will give thee hire for thy servants according to all that thou shalt say: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that knoweth how to cut timber like unto the Sidonians." And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly, and said, "Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great people." And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, "I have heard the message which thou hast sent unto me: I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will make them into rafts to go by sea unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be broken up there, and thou shalt receive them, and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household." [Illustration: CEDARS OF LEBANON] So Hiram gave Solomon timber of cedar and timber of fir according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year. And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together. B. THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE And it came to pass in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. And the house was sixty cubits in length, twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty cubits in height. And the house was built of stone made ready at the quarry; and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building. And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar: and he covered the floor of the house with boards of fir. And he built an oracle, even the most holy place, in the midst of the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he drew chains of gold across before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold. Also the whole altar that belonged to the oracle he overlaid with gold. And in the eleventh year, in the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it. C. THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the children of Israel, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto its place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place. And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house. Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven; and he said, "O Lord, the God of Israel, who keepest covenant and lovingkindness with thy servants, that walk before thee with all their heart, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified, which thou spakest unto thy servant David my father. But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded! Yet hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: yea, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place; and when thou hearest, forgive." D. THE BENEDICTION And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth toward heaven. And he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying, "Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by Moses his servant. The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers: let him not leave us, nor forsake us: that he may incline our hearts unto him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers." And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. =§80. The Greatness of Solomon= (I Kings 10:1-10, 13, 23-25) A. THE VISIT OF THE QUEEN OF SHEBA And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not anything hid from the king, which he told her not. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, and the food of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, "It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore he made thee king, to do justice and righteousness." And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon. And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, besides that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants. B. HIS WEALTH AND WISDOM So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And all the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. And they brought every man his tribute, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, and armor and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 290. We are to study the story of the man whom the Hebrews loved to think of as one of their heroes, because of his great wisdom and wealth. He was the most splendid of all their kings. To be sure he laid very heavy taxes upon the people to raise money for his magnificence, but the later ages forgot all that in admiration of his glory. 291 (§78). When David died he left a throne to his son that was secure from all enemies. The young king had a great opportunity to be a noble ruler. Read carefully the story of the young man's dream. What offer did God make to him in the dream? In what spirit did Solomon reply? When he says he is a little child he means that he is young and inexperienced. Remember that one of the important duties of an eastern king was to hear cases, as a kind of chief justice. What quality did Solomon ask for? Why was the Lord pleased? What did he give Solomon? 292 (§78). It is often true that the young man who desires above all things to fit himself to do his duty, without thinking of honor or wealth, actually obtains those also. Washington never sought greatness, but what do we think of him? Tennyson wrote of the great Duke of Wellington, Not once or twice in our fair island story The path of duty was the way to glory. Learn these lines. 293 (§79A). One of David's great hopes was that he could build a noble house of worship. He had been unable to do so, partly because of his many wars. Solomon therefore decided to carry out his father's plan. But the Hebrews were not skilful as artists or mechanics. They were at that time mostly farmers and shepherds. Solomon therefore decided to secure the help of the people of Phoenicia, called the Sidonians, who lived on his northwest border. Locate the country. What are its two chief cities? Who was the king who sent to congratulate Solomon on his succession to the throne? 294 (§79A). Read carefully Solomon's message to Hiram. What proof does he give that he is able to build the temple? What trees does he ask for? These were the noble trees that grew in the mountains of Lebanon. Locate this region to the north of Israel. What reason does Solomon give why the Sidonians (that is, the people of Sidon) should cut the trees? 295 (§79A). Read Hiram's reply. Notice the plan of getting the timber to Jerusalem. The lumbermen from Tyre and Sidon would cut it in the mountains. It would be hauled by the nearest route to the sea. Note on the map where that would be. Then how was it to be taken by sea to the port nearest to Jerusalem? This port was probably Joppa. Locate it. What then was to be done with it before it was hauled up the steep roads to Jerusalem? It was a hard job in those days when they had no railways. How different from the way our lumber trains carry the great timbers! What was Solomon to give Hiram in exchange? This is a very old story of trade between nations. 296 (§79B). When did Solomon begin to build? The building itself was not very large. A cubit is rather less than two feet, so the structure was about 100 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 50 feet high. Do you know any building about that size? Inside, one-third of the space was partitioned off for the ark. How was this room ornamented? How long did it take to finish the work? 297 (§79C). What solemn procession was held? How was the glory of the Lord shown? Read carefully the prayer of Solomon and see that it is reverent and trustful. What is his great hope that God will do for the people when they pray? We are quite sure that God will do that. Read I John 1:9. 298 (§79D). Who pronounced the benediction upon the people? What does he feel that God has done for them? What does he hope that God will do for them? 299 (§80A). This is one of the stories showing the fame of Solomon. Sheba was in Arabia. Note how much information the story gives us of the products of those times. Tell the story of the visit. 300 (§80B). What does the story tell us finally of Solomon's wealth and wisdom? WRITTEN REVIEW Recall the lines about the Duke of Wellington and write them in your notebook. Find out if there is any man in your own state of whom that would be true. Find someone in politics or business or in one of the professions who has been more anxious to do his duty than for anything else and to whom reward has come. Write an account of it. TWO PROPHETS XXVIII. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF PURE RELIGION XXIX. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF JUSTICE XXX. ELISHA, THE HEALER AND COUNSELOR XXVIII. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF PURE RELIGION THE STORY =§81. Elijah and the Drought= (I Kings 16:30-17:24) A. THE STARTLING PROPHECY Ahab the son of Omri did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab did yet more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab, "As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." B. ELIJAH AT THE BROOK And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, "Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. C. THE WIDOW'S CAKE And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, "Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Sidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee." So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks: and he called to her, and said, "Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, "Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand." And she said, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in the barrel, and a little oil in the cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die." And Elijah said unto her, "Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it forth unto me, and afterward make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, 'The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.'" And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. D. THE WIDOW'S SON And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, "O thou man of God? thou art come unto me to bring my sin to my remembrance, and to slay my son!" And he said unto her, "Give me thy son." And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the chamber, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said. "O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, "O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again." And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, "See, thy son liveth." And the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." =§82. Elijah's Victory= (I Kings 18:1-46) A. THE SEARCH FOR PASTURAGE And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, "Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth." And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab. And the famine was sore in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly: for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, "Go through the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto all the brooks: peradventure we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts." So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. B. ELIJAH'S CHALLENGE TO THE KING And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, "Is it thou, my lord Elijah?" And he answered him, "It is I: go, tell thy lord, 'Behold, Elijah is here.'" And he said, "Wherein have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, 'He is not here,' he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, 'Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here.' And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest, 'Go, tell thy lord, Behold Elijah is here': and he shall slay me." And Elijah said, "As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him to-day." So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, "Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?" And he answered, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed the Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, which eat at Jezebel's table." C. THE TEST AT CARMEL So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, "I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." And all the people answered and said, "It is well spoken." And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, "Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under." And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, "O Baal, hear us." But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped about the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, "Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it was so, when midday was past, that they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; but there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the people, "Come near unto me." And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was thrown down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, "Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood." And he said, "Do it the second time." And they did it the second time. And he said, "Do it the third time." And they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, "O Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou, Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again." Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, "The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God." And Elijah said unto them, "Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape." And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. D. THE COMING OF THE RAIN And Elijah said unto Ahab, "Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain." So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he bowed himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." And he went up, and looked, and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go again," seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, "Behold, there ariseth a cloud out of the sea, as small as a man's hand." And he said, "Go up, say unto Ahab, 'Make ready thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.'" And it came to pass in a little while, that the heaven grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 301. In the beautiful city of Florence in Italy there was once a great prince named Lorenzo, whose reign was very splendid, but who oppressed the people and lived an evil life. The people followed his bad example and there was great immorality in Florence. But a fearless preacher came to the city who told the prince and the people plainly of their sins. Great crowds went to hear him and he became the most influential man in Florence. By his stirring words he compelled the government to give back the liberties to the people, and he led the citizens to promise to serve God with good lives. His enemies finally proved too strong for him and killed him, but this noble Italian preacher, Savonarola, left an influence that has lasted to this day. Among the heroes of Israel were some bold preachers, called prophets, who did not hesitate to denounce the sins of kings and people. One of the greatest of these was Elijah. 302 (§81A). Ahab was a very wicked king who married a princess from Sidon. Locate the city on the coast of Palestine. The Sidonians worshipped a god called Baal, and so the king built a temple for this idol in his capital. He thought he could go on serving the Lord and serve Baal also. Suddenly a man appeared in the court. He was roughly clad, not a man of the city. What startling message did he bring? 303 (§81B). While the drought came upon Israel the prophet was taken care of. Tell the story of Elijah at the brook. What happened to the brook at last? 304 (§81C). Elijah was east of the Jordan. He was sent to Zarephath near Sidon. Locate it. Tell the story of his conversation with the widow. The "cruse" was a flask or small jug for holding liquids. 305 (§81D). Many wonderful stories were told of this great prophet. Tell the story of the widow's son. Think of the prophet waiting all this time till he should be sent back to the king. 306 (§82A). At last Elijah's message came. How long had he waited? Meantime what was the condition in Israel, and Samaria the capital? Who was Obadiah? What had he done? What did the king and Obadiah undertake? 307 (§82B). Tell the story of Elijah's conversation with the timid Obadiah. This man was good, but he was having a hard time as the servant of a bad king. What bold answer did Elijah make to the king? What is a challenge? What challenge did Elijah make? 308 (§82C). This is the important part of the story. Find Mt. Carmel on the coast. Imagine the scene: the king, the prophets of Baal, and Elijah, as the actors, and the great crowd as an audience. What was Elijah's first question to the people? We have a saying that no one can be on the fence: everyone must be on one side or the other. Whenever there is a right and wrong, people must take sides. 309 (§82C). What test did Elijah propose? Who prepared the bullock for the sacrifice first? How did they try to gain the attention of their god? Could Baal hear them? How did Elijah mock them? What was the result of all the excitement? 310 (§82C). Notice how serious Elijah was. How did he prepare for the sacrifice? How did he arrange so that nobody could say there was a trick? What prayer did Elijah offer? Learn this noble prayer so that you can recite it. What happened? How did it affect the people? 311 (§82C). Those were days when men were very stern. What awful punishment did Elijah inflict on the false prophets? 312 (§82D). Elijah was sure that the drought would now be over. What did he say to Ahab? They had eaten nothing all day, so everyone went eagerly to the food. But Elijah went back to the mountain. Who went with him? What happened? What message did the prophet send to Ahab? Notice how quickly the storm came up. Elijah was a man of the desert, hardy and strong; he was also under great excitement from the events of the day. It was sixteen miles from Carmel to Jezreel. Locate these places on the map. The king drove his horses hard in the storm. What did Elijah do? WRITTEN REVIEW Imagine yourself present at the scene on Mt. Carmel and that your parents were unable to go. How would you tell them the story of all that happened that day? Write it out just as you would have told it, if you were a young Israelite on that great occasion. XXIX. ELIJAH, THE CHAMPION OF JUSTICE THE STORY =§83. Elijah's Discouragement= (I Kings 19:1-21) A. THE BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." And he lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and, behold, an angel touched him, and said unto him, "Arise and eat." And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baked on the coals, and a bottle of water. And he did eat and drink, and laid himself down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, "Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee." And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. B. ELIJAH COMFORTED AND INSTRUCTED And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, "What does thou here, Elijah?" And he said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." And he said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord." And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" And he said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." And the Lord said unto him, "Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: and Jehu shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." C. THE CALL OF ELISHA So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed over unto him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee." And he said unto him, "Go back again; for what have I done to thee?" And he returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him. =§84. Elijah and the Tyrant= (I Kings 21:1-24) A. AHAB COVETS NABOTH'S VINEYARD And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, "Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house; and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it: or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money." And Naboth said to Ahab, "The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, "I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers." And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, "Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?" And he said unto her, "Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, 'Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it': and he answered, 'I will not give thee my vineyard.'" And Jezebel his wife said unto him, "Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." B. JEZEBEL'S PLOT So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in the city, and that dwelt with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, "Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: and set two wicked men before him, and let them bear witness against him, saying, 'Thou didst curse God and the king.' And then carry him out, and stone him, that he die." And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who dwelt in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, according as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. And the two wicked men came in and sat before him: and the men bare witness against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, "Naboth did curse God and the king." Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, "Naboth is stoned, and is dead." And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that she said to Ahab, "Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead." And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that he rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. C. ELIJAH'S STARTLING SENTENCE And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, "Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwelleth in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to take possession of it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?' and thou shalt speak unto him, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.'" And Ahab said to Elijah, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" And he answered, "I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will utterly sweep thee away, and will cut off from Ahab every man child, and him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and hast made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel.' Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat." =§85. The Old Prophet and the New Prophet= (II Kings 2:1-15) A. THE FAREWELL OF THE OLD PROPHET And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, "Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me as far as Beth-el." And Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." So they went down to Beth-el. And the sons of the prophets that were at Beth-el came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, "Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?" And he said, "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." And Elijah said unto him, "Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho." And he said, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came near to Elisha, and said unto him, "Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?" And he answered, "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." And Elijah said unto him, "Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan." And he said, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood over against them afar off: and they two stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken from thee." And Elisha said, "I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me." And he said, "Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so." And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" B. THE NEW PROPHET And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" and when he also had smitten the waters, they were divided hither and thither: and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were at Jericho over against him saw him, they said, "The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha." And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 313. How did the great day close after Elijah had defeated the prophets of Baal? How do you think Ahab felt about it? Elijah probably hoped to see a complete return of the people to the Lord and he expected the wicked queen Jezebel to be prevented from interfering with the prophets of the Lord. 314 (§83A). What did Ahab do when he returned home? What did Jezebel decide? Was she willing to give up her power? Elijah saw that nothing had been gained, for the wicked queen was still in control. Where did he go? Follow his journey on the map. Mention all the circumstances that would make Elijah tired out. His discouragement was largely due to his exhaustion from hunger and travel. What kind thing did the Lord do for the tired prophet? 315 (§83B). Where did Elijah go? Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. Do you remember what great hero led the people to Sinai? (§40A.) Elijah wanted to go back to the mountain where his people had heard of the Lord. Tell the story of what happened at the cave. The Lord would show Elijah that the people could not be saved by great contests, but by gentle means. He also told him that it would take time to get rid of the idolatry. He told him three important persons would all have a part in the work, even after he was dead: who were these? 316 (§83B). Elijah was mistaken in thinking that he was the only faithful man left. How many were there? There are often more good people than we think. 317 (§83C). Tell the story of the call of Elisha. 318 (§84A). Locate Jezreel on the map. We found it before, near Mt. Carmel. King Ahab had a fine palace there, though his capital was in Samaria. But the king needed some more land to make a garden. How did he try to get it? Why would not the man sell it? We must remember that in those times a farm would sometimes remain in one family for centuries. How did Ahab behave? What did Jezebel say that she would do? 319 (§84B). A king of Israel could not do as he pleased. He was bound to respect the rights of his people. Jezebel therefore thought out a plan to have Naboth killed. What was the plan and how did it work? 320 (§84B). When Jezebel heard of the success of her plot she told the king. What did he do? What ought he to have done? 321 (§84C). The king and queen had forgotten all about Elijah. How did he suddenly appear? Imagine how frightened the king must have been when he saw the stern prophet coming to meet him in the garden. So conscience suddenly speaks when we have forgotten it. What did Elijah say? 322 (§84C). We have seen Elijah the champion of pure religion, now we see him the champion of justice. There was no one else who dare speak against the king's tyranny. Do you think he was brave? Why did not Ahab kill him? 323 (§85A). Tell the story of the last journey of Elijah and Elisha. Follow the journey on the map. Imagine the fearful mountain storm on the east of Jordan in the midst of which Elijah was carried away. Is it not a grand story of the end of such a stormy life? 324 (§85B). How did the new prophet begin his work? WRITTEN REVIEW Ahab, although in many respects an able king, showed himself in this incident a bully. A bully is one who does wrong to a person who is too weak to resist. There is generally a bully in every school. Is there also a hero? Write what you think a hero ought to do with a bully. XXX. ELISHA, THE HEALER AND COUNSELOR THE STORY =§86. The Payment of the Widow's Debt= (II Kings 4:1-7) Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, "Thy servant my husband is dead: and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two children to be slaves." And Elisha said unto her, "What shall I do for thee? tell me; what hast thou in the house?" And she said, "Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil." Then he said, "Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And thou shalt go in, and shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and pour out into all those vessels; and thou shalt set aside that which is full." So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons; they brought the vessels to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, "Bring me yet a vessel." And he said, "There is not another vessel." And the oil stopped. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, "Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy sons on the rest." =§87. The Healing of the Leper= (II Kings 5) A. NAAMAN'S VISIT TO ISRAEL Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given victory unto Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away a captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! then would he recover him of his leprosy." And one went in, and told his lord, saying, "Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel." And the king of Syria said, "Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel." And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, "And now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy." And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? but consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me." B. NAAMAN HEALED And it was so, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, "Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, 'Wash, and be clean'?" Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. C. NAAMAN'S GRATITUDE And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, "Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a present of thy servant." But he said, "As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none." And he urged him to take it; but he refused. And Naaman said, "If not, yet I pray thee let there be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth; for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord." And he said unto him, "Go in peace." So he departed from him a little way. D. PUNISHMENT OF GREED AND DECEIT But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, "Behold, my master hath spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not receiving at his hands that which he brought: as the Lord liveth, I will run after him, and take somewhat of him." So Gehazi followed after Naaman. And when Naaman saw one running after him, he lighted down from the chariot to meet him, and said, "Is all well?" And he said, "All is well. My master hath sent me, saying, 'Behold, even now there be come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets; give them, I pray thee, a talent of silver, and two changes of raiment.'" And Naaman said, "Be content, take two talents." And he urged him and bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of raiment, and laid them upon two of his servants; and they bare them before him. And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand, and bestowed them in the house: and he let the men go, and they departed. But he went in, and stood before his master. And Elisha said unto him, "Whence comest thou, Gehazi?" And he said, "Thy servant went no whither." And he said unto him, "Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and menservants and maidservants? The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever." And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow. =§88. Mysterious Capture of the Syrian Soldiers= (II Kings 6:8-23) A. THE SYRIANS' FEAR OF ELISHA Now the king of Syria warred against Israel; and he took counsel with his servants, saying, "In such and such a place shall be my camp." And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, "Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are coming down." And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of; and he saved himself there, not once nor twice. And the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, "Will ye not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?" And one of his servants said, "Nay, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber." And he said, "Go and see where he is, that I may send and fetch him." And it was told him, saying, "Behold, he is in Dothan." B. THE UNSEEN ARMY OF THE LORD Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host with horses and chariots was round about the city. And his servant said unto him, "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" And he answered, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And Elisha prayed, and said, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see." And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, "Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness." And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said unto them, "This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek." And he led them to Samaria. C. THE RELEASE OF THE PRISONERS And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, "Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them, "My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?" And he answered, "Thou shalt not smite them: wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master." And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. =§89. Elisha's Last Counsel= (II Kings 13:14-19) Now Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness of which he died: and Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over him, and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" And Elisha said unto him, "Take bow and arrows." And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, "Put thine hand upon the bow." And he put his hand upon it. And Elisha laid his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, "Open the window eastward." And he opened it. Then Elisha said, "Shoot." And he shot. And he said, "The Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them." And he said, "Take the arrows." And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel. "Smite upon the ground." And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, "Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice." THE MEANING OF THE STORY 325. Different kinds of men are needed for different times. Severe contests require vigorous men: times of trouble require patient men. When the king and all Israel were going into heathen worship, the strong, stern Elijah was the man to force them back to right conduct. But when the kingdom of Israel fell into great weakness and was beaten again and again by the Syrians, there was need of a prophet who could comfort and encourage the nation. The young man who had been trained by Elijah was fitted for this work. What was his name? He must have been a most kindly and helpful man as there are more wonderful stories gathered about his name than about any of the other heroes of Israel. We shall study four of these stories. 326 (§86). This story shows us how harsh the old law of debt was. Why were the widow's two sons to be sold as slaves? She came to Elisha in her trouble, and he said that they would use whatever she had. What did she have? How was the debt paid? 327 (§87A). Locate Syria on the map to the north of Israel. What is the capital? These people had been fighting against Israel and had taken many prisoners and made slaves of them. What was the name of the Syrian general? He was a great man, but he had the terrible disease of leprosy. It is a most frightful malady, slowly eating away the body. The general's wife had a little Hebrew slave. How did she get her? What did the little slave say to her mistress? Tell the story of Naaman's visit to Israel. 328 (§87B). How was the king of Israel troubled, and what did Elisha say to him? Describe the grand visit of the general with all his servants to the simple home of the prophet. What message did Elisha send? Why was Naaman angry? What did his servants say to him? How did it all turn out? 329 (§87C). What great change of feeling came over Naaman? What did he wish to give Elisha? The prophet did not want any present, because he wished Naaman to know that the Lord's prophet would help anyone in need without money. 330 (§87D). What did Elisha's servant think of this conduct of his master? Tell the story of his greed and deceit. Notice how one sin leads to another and one lie leads to another. But the prophet understood the wicked servant. What terrible punishment came upon him? 331 (§88A). How did Elisha help his people against the plans of the Syrians? What did the Syrian king think of it? It seems evident that Elisha was the counselor of Israel. Locate Dothan on the map. 332 (§88B). Tell the story of the two armies, one of them visible and the other invisible. This is a beautiful way of telling of God's power and care that are always over us. How did Elisha lead the army to Samaria? 333 (§88C). How did the Syrians find that they were in the capital of their enemies? What did the king want to do to them? How did Elisha say they should be treated? Do you remember that several times we have called the heroes "magnanimous"? Elisha has this character. After all, forgiveness is the best revenge. 334 (§89). At last the old prophet who had been the counselor of several kings was about to die. Who visited him? Notice he used the same words of him that Elisha had used of Elijah. What did it mean? Tell the story of the bow and arrows. The king was not a strong character and he showed it in this little bit of play. Elisha meant to tell him that great things in the world can only be done by determination. In the Civil War our great generals did not give up after three endeavors. Grant said "I propose to fight it out on this line, if ..." (finish the quotation), and Lee held together his gallant army to the last limit of endurance. WRITTEN REVIEW Tell your parents, or some friend, what you have learned about Elisha, and explain that you are to write a short story in your notebook on "A Hero of Helpfulness." Ask them if they can tell you about some good doctor who was unselfish and kindly and gave himself for the good of others. Or perhaps they know some pastor who was always seeking to help his people and cared very little what good things he got himself. Or they may be able to tell you of a good woman who spent her life in doing good to people. She would be "A Heroine of Helpfulness." Find out some strong character who did good unselfishly like Elisha, and write the story for the next class. PATRIOTS IN TROUBLOUS TIMES XXXI. NEHEMIAH, THE BUILDER XXXII. ESTHER, THE PATRIOT QUEEN XXXIII. JUDAS, THE HAMMERER XXXIV. DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS XXXI. NEHEMIAH, THE BUILDER THE STORY =§90. Nehemiah's Plans= (Neh. 1:1-4, 11. 2:1-9, 11-13, 16-18) A. NEHEMIAH'S SORROW FOR JERUSALEM Now it came to pass as I was in Shushan the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men out of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, "The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire." And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and said, "O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who delight to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." (Now I was cupbearer to the king.) B. THE KING'S PERMISSION TO REBUILD And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been before-time sad in his presence. And the king said unto me, "Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart." Then I was very sore afraid. And I said unto the king, "Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my father's sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?" Then the king said unto me, "For what dost thou make request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, "If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it." And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) "For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return?" So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, "If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may let me pass through till I come unto Judah; and a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the castle, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into." And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. C. NEHEMIAH'S ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM Then I came to the governors beyond the river, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen. So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God put into my heart to do for Jerusalem: neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode upon. And I went out by night by the valley gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire. And the rulers knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work. D. THE BEGINNING OF THE WORK Then said I unto them, "Ye see the evil case that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach." And I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also of the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, "Let us rise up and build." So they strengthened their hands for the good work. =§91. Nehemiah's Difficulties= (Neh. 4:1-4, 6-9, 16-20; 6:1-9) A. SCORNFUL JEALOUSY OF THE ENEMIES But it came to pass that, when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, "What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned?" Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, "Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall." "Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn back their reproach upon their own head; for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders." So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto half the height thereof: for the people had a mind to work. B. CONSPIRACY OF THE ENEMIES But it came to pass that, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, and that the breaches began to be stopped, that they were very wroth; and they conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to cause confusion therein. But we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them. And it came to pass from that time forth, that half of my servants wrought in the work, and half of them held the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats of mail; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They that builded the wall and they that bore burdens laded themselves, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other held his weapon; and the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me. And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, "The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another: in what place soever ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God shall fight for us." C. PLOTS OF THE ENEMIES Now it came to pass, when it was reported to Sanballat and Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and unto the rest of our enemies, that I had builded the wall, and that there was no breach left therein (though even unto that time I had not set up the doors in the gates); that Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, "Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono." But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" And they sent unto me four times after this sort; and I answered them after the same manner. Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand; wherein was written, "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel; for which cause thou buildest the wall: and thou wouldest be their king, according to these words. And thou hast also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, 'There is a king in Judah': and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together." Then I sent unto him, saying, "There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart." For they all would have made us afraid, saying, "Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done." But now, O God, strengthen thou my hands. =§92. Nehemiah's Success= (Neh. 6:15, 16; 7:1-3; 12:27, 31, 38, 40, 43; Ps. 122:2,3) A. THE COMPLETION OF THE WALL So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. And it came to pass, when all our enemies heard thereof, that all the heathen that were about us feared, and were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God. Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, that I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem: for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many. And I said unto them, "Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot; and while they stand on guard, let them shut the doors, and bar ye them: and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over against his house." B. THE DEDICATION OF THE WALL And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps. Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies that gave thanks and went in procession; whereof one went on the right hand upon the wall eastward. And the other company of them that gave thanks went to meet them, and I after them, with the half of the people, upon the wall. And the two companies of them that gave thanks met in the house of God, and stood still, and the singers sang loud: Our feet are standing Within thy gates, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that art builded As a city that is compact together. And they offered great sacrifices that day, and rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and the women also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 335. When a man has been prominent in a great undertaking it is very interesting to have his own account of it. General Grant was persuaded by friends to write a story of his own campaigns. It was called "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant," the word "memoirs" meaning his own recollections of the events. Perhaps the first man who ever wrote such a personal story was the Governor of Judah, 2,300 years ago. The story we study here might be called "Personal Memoirs of Nehemiah." 336. Nehemiah was a great patriot. It is easy to be a patriot when it simply means shouting for a great, prosperous country. But this man had never seen his own land. His great-grandparents had been taken away as prisoners, and the family had been one hundred and fifty years in the foreign land. But they had never forgotten their own beloved country. Nehemiah was rich, and in a high office in Persia, but he loved Jerusalem and longed to be able to serve her. Read (and learn) Ps. 137:5, 6, and you will see how the patriotic Jews in the East felt about their fatherland. Let us read this personal story of the patriot and see what he did. 337 (§90A). Look at the map of the Semitic world and find Persia in the East. Find Susa, which is the same as Shushan. It is a long way from Jerusalem. But one day some of the Jews came from Jerusalem to the palace of the Persian king to tell the story of the sad condition of their city. What did they tell Nehemiah? How did the story affect him? What office did he hold? Look up the description of this office that we had some time ago (62). 338 (§90B). Oriental kings are very arbitrary and the courtiers have to be most careful not to offend them. Note how cleverly Nehemiah managed, so that he obtained all that he wanted from the king. What did he obtain? 339 (§90C). Look again at the map. What is the river that Nehemiah mentions? Recall the first journey that we followed from the East to Palestine (§§3, 5). Note that the Governor traveled with a body guard. What did he do first in Jerusalem? 340 (§90D). The people who had lived so long in the ruined city were discouraged. How did Nehemiah cheer them? How did they respond? 341 (§91A). There were jealous enemies all around Judah, so Nehemiah soon found himself in difficulties. First they despised his efforts. How did he meet this ridicule? 342 (§91B). When the enemies could not stop him by laughing at him, what did they try? How did Nehemiah plan his work so as not to be surprised? 343 (§91C). What plots did the enemies devise? How did Nehemiah meet the plots? 344 (§92A). In the old times, cities had to have walls all around them to prevent attacks. How long did it take this vigorous governor to repair the fortifications? How did he plan to guard the city? 345 (§92B). What help did Nehemiah feel that he had in all his work? "Dedication" means an offering to God. They gave the city to God. Tell the story of this joyful patriotic service. Learn the song that they sang. WRITTEN REVIEW You will probably find that people to-day are opposed in their determination to do what is right in just the same three ways that Nehemiah suffered. Keep a good lookout during the week and see if you can find anyone, young or old, trying to do some right thing while somebody else laughs, or while somebody tries to stop it by force, or while somebody tells falsehoods about it. If you find any hero who goes straight on in right-doing in spite of these oppositions, give a short account of it in your notebook. XXXII. ESTHER, THE PATRIOT QUEEN THE STORY =§93. Esther Made Queen= (Esther 1:1, 5, 7, 9, 11-13, 15, 16, 19, 21; 2:1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15-18, 20) A. QUEEN VASHTI DEPOSED King Ahasuerus made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both great and small, seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace. And they gave them in vessels of gold royal wine in abundance, according to every man's pleasure. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the peoples and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by the chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. Then the king said to the wise men, "What shall we do unto the queen Vashti according to law, because she hath not done the bidding of the king?" And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, "If it please the king, let there go forth a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, that Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she." And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did according to the word of Memucan. B. THE SELECTION OF ESTHER After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was pacified, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her. Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, "Let there be fair young maidens sought for the king in all his kingdom; and let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti." And the thing pleased the king; and he did so. There was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, who had brought up Esther, his uncle's daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter. So it came to pass, when the king's commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace, that Esther was taken into the king's house. Now when the turn of Esther was come to go in unto the king, she required nothing but what the keeper of the women appointed. And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all them that looked upon her. So Esther was taken unto king Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, in the seventh year of his reign. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king made a great feast unto all his princes and his servants, even Esther's feast; and he gave gifts, according to the bounty of the king. Esther had not yet showed her kindred nor her people; as Mordecai had charged her: for Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him. =§94. The Plot against the Jews= (Esther 3:1, 2, 5, 6, 8-13; 4:1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11-17) A. THE ENMITY OF HAMAN After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him. And all the king's servants, that were in the king's gate, bowed down, and did reverence to Haman: for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not down, nor did him reverence. And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not down, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. But he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had showed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai. And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them. If it please the king, let it be written that they be destroyed." And the king took his ring from his hand and gave it unto Haman, and said, "The people is given to thee to do with them as it seemeth good to thee." Then were the king's scribes called, and letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. B. MORDECAI'S APPEAL TO ESTHER Now when Mordecai knew all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry: and he came even before the king's gate: for none might enter within the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. And Esther's maidens and her chamberlains came and told it her; and the queen was exceedingly grieved: and she sent her chamberlain to Mordecai to know what this was, and why it was. And Mordecai gave him a copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it unto Esther, and to declare it unto her; and to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him, for her people. And he came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Then Esther gave him a message unto Mordecai, saying: "All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days." And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. Then Mordecai bade them return answer unto Esther, "Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall perish: and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Then Esther bade them return answer unto Mordecai, "Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast in like manner; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish." So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. =§95. Esther's Brave Intercession= (Esther 5:1-5; 7:2-6, 9, 10; 8:1-8, 9, 11, 15-17; 9:1, 2, 5, 20-23, 32) A. THE DANGEROUS INTERVIEW Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house, over against the king's house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the entrance of the house. And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favor in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre. Then said the king unto her, "What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be given thee even to the half of the kingdom." [Illustration: _From Price, "The Monuments and the Old Testament"_ ESTHER'S PALACE] And Esther said, "If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him." Then the king said, "Cause Haman to make haste, that it may be done as Esther hath said." So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And the king said unto Esther, "What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed." Then Esther the queen answered and said, "If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish." Then spake the king Ahasuerus and said unto Esther the queen, "Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?" And Esther said, "An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman." Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. Then said one of the chamberlains that were before the king, "Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman hath made for Mordecai standeth in the house of Haman." And the king said, "Hang him thereon." So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified. B. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE JEWS On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews' enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her. And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman and his device that he had devised against the Jews. Then the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre. So Esther arose, and stood before the king. And she said, "If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king's provinces: for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, "Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews. Write ye also to the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's ring: for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse." Then were the king's scribes called at that time, and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the satraps, and the governors and princes of the provinces, that the king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, their little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. And Mordecai went forth from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a robe of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan shouted and was glad. The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honor. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy, a feast and a good day. And many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them. C. THE FEAST OF THE DELIVERANCE Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have rule over them; whereas it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them; the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt: and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them was fallen upon all the peoples. And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them that hated them. And Mordecai wrote letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them. And the commandment of Esther confirmed these matters of the feast of Purim; and it was written in the book. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 346. Among the stories of their heroes the Jews preserved several stories of heroines, and none is more striking than that of the patriot queen, whose extraordinary bravery saved her people. There are many kinds of bravery, some in doing, some in suffering. Let us try to get a correct judgment of Esther. 347 (§93A). The first part of the story shows how Esther became the queen of Persia. What kind of feast did the king give? What command did he give to Vashti? Let us remember that ladies in the East do not often appear in public before men. How did it happen that Vashti was deposed? 348 (§93B). What plan was proposed to secure a most beautiful wife for the king? Who was Mordecai? How did he get Esther introduced to the king? How did she become queen? Note that her cousin had advised her not to let it be known that she was a Jewess, because there was a prejudice against her nation. 349 (§94A). The villain of the story is Haman. What high place did he hold? How did Mordecai offend him? What revenge did he plan? 350 (§94B). Mordecai knew that when a royal decree had been issued it could not be changed. How did he behave? What did he request Esther to do? 351 (§94B). Notice the strict rule of the Persian court. No one could see the king unless summoned by him. How different from our democratic government, where any citizen may at least ask permission to see the president! But Mordecai urged Esther to risk her life to save her people. Now see how brave she was. She might have said, "No one knows that I am a Jewess. I am quite safe as the king's wife. I will keep silent. It would be folly to risk my life by offending the king." But she decided to risk her great place with its wealth and luxury, and also her life, because her duty to her people required it. What answer did she send to Mordecai? 352 (§95A). Describe Esther's approach to the king. The tyrant happened to be in a good humor, so she was safe. What invitation did she extend? 353 (§95A). Haman was delighted with the great honor the queen did him. He had no idea that his enemy, whom he had planned to hang on a high gallows, was the queen's cousin. How did it all turn out? 354 (§95B). How was Mordecai promoted? We must remember that although Haman was dead, the king's decree for the slaughter of the Jews could not be changed. But permission could be given to the Jews to defend themselves on the day of the massacre. How was this arranged? 355 (§95C). Of course this is an old story of times when people took fierce revenge, so we learn that the Jews slaughtered their enemies. But it was a great deliverance, and Mordecai and Esther planned that a great feast should be kept to celebrate it. What kind of feast was it? 356 (§95C). The Jews still keep the Feast of Purim. It is one of the merriest times they have. They have all kinds of fun and give presents, as we do at Christmas. And they still honor the beautiful queen, who stood with her own people in their peril, and saved them by her wit and courage. WRITTEN REVIEW Recall Mordecai's suggestion to Esther (p. 356). In the days of chivalry knights had a motto: _Noblesse oblige_ meaning that those of noble rank had an obligation to serve those in need. Any strength or good we have is not for our own use, but to help others with. Take this as your motto. Draw a banner and inscribe in colors: _Noblesse oblige_. XXXIII. JUDAS, THE HAMMERER THE STORY =§96. The Tyrant and the Heroes= (I Macc. 1:41-50, 54-57; 2:1-7, 14, 15, 17-25, 27, 28, 44, 45, 48-50, 64-66, 70) A. THE TYRANNY OF ANTIOCHUS Antiochus, king of Syria, who had rule over many peoples and over the Jews, wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and that each should forsake his own laws. And all the nations agreed according to the word of the king, and many of Israel consented to his worship, and sacrificed to the idols, and profaned the sabbath. And the king sent letters by the hand of messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, that they should follow laws strange to the land, and should profane the sabbaths and feasts, and pollute the sanctuary; that they should build altars, and temples for idols, and should sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts. And whosoever shall not do according to the word of the king, he shall die. And they built an abomination of desolation upon the altar, and in the cities of Judah they built idol altars. And they rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, and set them on fire. And wheresoever was found with any a book of the covenant, and if any consented to the law, the king's sentence delivered him to death. B. THE OLD HERO AND HIS FIVE SONS In those days rose up Mattathias the priest, who dwelt at Modin. And he had five sons, John, Simon, Judas who was called Maccabæus (the Hammerer), Eleazar, Jonathan. And he saw the blasphemies that were committed in Judah and in Jerusalem, and he said. "Woe is me! wherefore was I born to see the destruction of my people and of the holy city? Wherefore should we live any longer?" And Mattathias and his sons rent their clothes, and put on sackcloth, and mourned exceedingly. And the king's officers came into the city Modin to sacrifice. And they spake to Mattathias saying, "Thou art a ruler and an honorable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren; now therefore come thou first and do the commandment of the king, as all the nations have done, and the men of Judah, and they that remain in Jerusalem: and thou and thy house shall be in the number of the king's Friends, and thou and thy sons shall be honored with silver and gold and many gifts." And Mattathias answered and said with a loud voice, "If all the nations that are in the king's dominion hearken unto him, to fall away each one from the worship of his fathers, and have made choice to follow his commandments, yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. We will not hearken to the king's words, to go aside from our worship, on the right hand, or on the left." And when he had left speaking these words, there came a Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice on the altar which was at Modin, according to the king's commandment. And Mattathias saw it, and his zeal was kindled, and he showed forth his wrath, and ran and slew him upon the altar. And the king's officer, who compelled men to sacrifice, he killed at that time, and pulled down the altar. And he cried with a loud voice, "Whosoever is zealous for the law, let him come forth after me." And Mattathias and his sons fled into the mountains, and they mustered a host and smote sinners in their anger, and they went round about, and pulled down the altars, and they rescued the law out of the hand of the Gentiles. And the days of Mattathias drew near that he should die, and he said unto his sons, "My children, be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers. Be strong and show yourselves men in behalf of the law; for therein shall ye obtain glory. And, behold, Simon your brother, I know that he is a man of counsel; give ear unto him alway: he shall be a father unto you. And Judas Maccabæus, he hath been strong and mighty from his youth: he shall be your captain, and shall fight the battle of the people." And he blessed them, and was gathered to his fathers. And all Israel made great lamentation for him. =§97. The Great Deliverance= (I Macc. 3:1, 2, 13, 15-23, 25, 34, 35; 4:14, 25, 28, 34, 36-40, 42, 43, 47, 48, 53-56, 58; 9:20-22) A. THE VICTORIES OF JUDAS And his son Judas, who was called Maccabæus, rose up in his stead. And all his brethren helped him, and so did all they that clave unto his father. And they fought with gladness the battle of Israel. And Seron, the commander of the host of Syria, heard that Judas had gathered a congregation of faithful men with him, and of such as went out to war. And he went up with a mighty army of the ungodly to take vengeance on the children of Israel. And Judas went forth to meet him with a small company. But when they saw the army coming to meet them they said unto Judas, "What? shall we be able, being a small company, to fight against so great and strong a multitude? And we for our part are faint, having tasted no food this day." And Judas said, "It is an easy thing for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and with heaven it is all one to save by many or by few: for victory in battle standeth not in the multitude of a host; but strength is from heaven. They come to destroy us and our wives and our children: but we fight for our lives and our laws. Be ye not afraid of them." Now when he had left off speaking, he leapt suddenly upon them, and Seron and his army were discomfited before him. And the fear of Judas and his brethren, and the dread of them, began to fall upon the nations round about them. And king Antiochus gave Lysias half of his forces, and the elephants, and gave him charge to destroy the strength of Israel, and the remnant of Jerusalem. And Lysias chose three mighty men; and with them he sent forty thousand footmen, and seven thousand horse, to go into the land of Judah, and to destroy it. And Judas joined battle, and the Gentiles were discomfited. And Israel had a great deliverance that day. And the next year Lysias gathered together sixty thousand chosen footmen, and five thousand horse. And Judas met them with ten thousand men. And they joined battle; and there fell of the army of Lysias about five thousand men. B. THE TEMPLE CLEANSED Judas and his brethren said, "Behold, our enemies are discomfited; let us go up to cleanse the holy place and to dedicate it afresh." And all the army was gathered together, and they went up unto mount Zion. And they saw the sanctuary laid desolate, and the altar profaned and the gates burned up, and shrubs growing in the court as in a forest, and the priests' chambers pulled down. And they rent their clothes, and made great lamentation, and put ashes upon their heads, and fell on their faces to the ground, and cried toward heaven. Then Judas chose blameless priests, and they cleansed the holy place. And they built a new altar after the fashion of the former; and they built the holy place, and the inner parts of the house; and they hallowed the courts. C. THE OLD WORSHIP RESTORED And they offered sacrifice according to the law upon the new altar of burnt offerings which they had made. At what time and on what day the Gentiles had profaned it, even on that day was it dedicated afresh, with songs and harps and lutes, and with cymbals. And all the people fell upon their faces, and worshipped, and gave praise unto heaven, which had given them good success. And they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness, and sacrificed a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. And there was exceeding great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was turned away. D. THE DEATH OF JUDAS And when Judas died all Israel made great lamentation for him, and mourned many days, and said, "How is the mighty fallen, the Savior of Israel!" And the rest of the acts of Judas, and his wars, and the valiant deeds which he did, and his greatness, they are not written; for they were exceeding many. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 357. Three hundred years ago King Philip II of Spain was the most powerful king in Europe. He was a bitter tyrant, determined to rule his people according to his own will. He was a Roman Catholic and hated all Protestants. The little country of Holland was part of his territory and he ordered the people to become Roman Catholics. They refused, for they were loyal to their own religion. He sent against them a great army under the command of a brutal general, Alva, and all Europe thought that the little people would be crushed. But they fought for their faith and their homes so valiantly that the tyrant was compelled to withdraw. It is almost impossible to destroy patriots. 358. We always admire the heroism of those who resist tyrants. The Jews were often bitterly persecuted and they had many a hero who defended them. One of the greatest of all their heroes was Judas, who was called the Maccabee, or the Hammerer. With a great faith in God and a wonderful courage he defeated large armies. His story is not found in the Old Testament, but in another collection of Hebrew books called "The Apocrypha." The book is I Maccabees. 359 (§96A). At the time of this story the Jews were under the rule of Antiochus, the king of Syria. What was the wish of this tyrant? What insults were offered to the religion of the Jews? 360 (§96B). An old priest was living in one of the villages of Judah with his five noble sons. They were very much distressed about the sad state of their people: but what could they do against the strong king? At last the king's officers came to this village to order the heathen sacrifices. What did they demand of Mattathias, and what did they promise him? How did the old priest answer? What followed? 361 (§96B). The priest and his sons went to the hills, where they could find refuge in the caves. Who joined them? What did they do? The fierce contest was too severe for the old man, and he soon fell ill. What were his last words to his sons? 362 (§97A). Who took the lead after the death of the old priest? Note that there was no jealousy among those noble brothers. Tell the story of the first victory over the Syrians. 363 (§97A). The king was astonished that his forces should be defeated by the little army of patriots. Great preparations to crush the Jews were made. Note that elephants with armed men were employed. What was the result of the campaigns? 364 (§97B). At last the victories were so conclusive that they thought it safe to go to Jerusalem and clean out the abominations from the temple. In what condition did they find the temple? How did it affect them? How did Judas purify it? 365 (§97C). Note how happy they were when they could worship once more in the house of God. Describe the celebration. 366 (§97D). One can imagine how greatly the Jews would honor such a deliverer as Judas. How did they mourn for him at his death? WRITTEN REVIEW Imagine yourself a boy (or girl) about thirteen years old, living in the village of Modin a little over two thousand years ago. Imagine that you were present on the day when the officers came to command the heathen sacrifice. Then imagine yourself writing a letter describing everything that took place that day. Write it in the first person to some friend who was absent. Describe the whole scene just as it lies in your mind, and tell what you think of the heroes. XXXIV. DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS THE STORY =§98. The Training of the Young Men= (Daniel 1:1-19) When Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem and captured it, certain of the youths of the nobility were taken and given into the charge of the master of the king's servants that he should teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed for them a daily portion of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank, and that they should be nourished three years; that at the end thereof they might stand before the king. Now among these were, of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And the master gave names unto them: unto Daniel he gave the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abed-nego. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the master that he might not defile himself. Now God made Daniel to find favor and compassion in the sight of the master. And he said unto Daniel, "I fear my lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink: for why should he see your faces worse liking than the youths which are of your own age? so should ye endanger my head with the king." Then said Daniel to the steward, whom the master had appointed over them, "Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us vegetables to eat, and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the youths that eat of the king's meat; and as thou seest, deal with thy servants." So he hearkened unto them in this matter, and proved them ten days. And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer, and they were fatter in flesh, than all the youths which did eat of the king's meat. So the steward took away their meat, and the wine that they should drink, and gave them vegetables. Now as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. And at the end of the days which the king had appointed for bringing them in, the master brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. =§99. The Golden Image and the Fiery Furnace= (Dan. 3:1, 2, 4-30) A. THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN IMAGE Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its breadth six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then the king sent to gather together all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image. Then the herald cried aloud, "To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace." Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the music, they fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. B. THE THREE JEWS DEFY THE KING Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews, and said to Nebuchadnezzar, "O king, live for ever. Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the music, shall fall down and worship the golden image: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom thou hast appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar said unto them, "Is it of purpose, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that ye serve not my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made, well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?" Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." C. DELIVERANCE FROM THE FIERY FURNACE Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded certain mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their hose, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished and rose up in haste: he spake and said unto his counselors, "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" They answered and said unto the king, "True, O king." He answered and said, "Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods." Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace: he spake and said, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come hither." Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth out of the midst of the fire. And the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, and the king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power upon their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their hose changed, nor had the smell of fire passed on them. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a ruin: because there is no other god that is able to deliver after this sort." Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon. =§100. Daniel and the Lions= (Dan. 6:1-28) A. THE DECREE OF KING DARIUS It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty satraps, which should be throughout the whole kingdom; and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one; that these satraps might give account unto them, and that the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was distinguished above the presidents and the satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Then these presidents and satraps assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, "King Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the satraps, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together, to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree. B. DANIEL AT HIS PRAYERS And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem); and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king's decree; "Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall make petition unto any god or man within thirty days, save unto thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?" The king answered and said, "The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." Then answered they and said before the king, "That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day." Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he labored till the going down of the sun to rescue him. Then these men assembled together unto the king and said unto the king, "Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed." C. DANIEL DELIVERED FROM THE LIONS Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, "Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee." And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of music brought before him: and his sleep fled from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. And when he came near unto the den to Daniel, he cried with a lamentable voice: the king spake and said to Daniel, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" Then said Daniel unto the king, "O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." Then was the king exceeding glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he had trusted in his God. And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and break all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the den. D. THE PROSPERITY OF DANIEL Then king Darius wrote unto all the peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; "Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree, that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end: he delivereth and rescueth, and he worked signs and wonders in heaven and in earth; who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. THE MEANING OF THE STORY 367. In the last chapter we studied the bitter persecution of the Jews in the time of Antiochus. God sent them a great deliverer in Judas the Hammerer. He also sent them a helper who told them heroic stories of the olden time to encourage them to believe that God would surely deliver them. These stories were of Daniel and his three friends who were taken to Babylon in the captivity. They were under great temptation to be untrue to their religion. We can see how these stories would help the people to be faithful. 368 (§98). In the old times the food and wine for the king's table would first be offered to the heathen gods, so Daniel felt that he would really be an idolator if he took them. What request did he make? How did the master think it would be discovered that he had not fed them on rich food? What test did Daniel propose? How did it turn out? Of course it was really much more healthy for the young men to live simply. It took some courage to stand out against the officer, but it was a matter of conscience with Daniel and his friends. 369 (§99A). Imagine the great golden image 100 feet high. What was the king's command to the people? What was to be the penalty if they refused to obey? How would a faithful servant of the Lord feel about it? 370 (§99B). We do not know where Daniel was at this time, but what did his three friends do? What did the king say to them? What did they answer him? Notice carefully that they said they were sure God could save them, but whether he did or not they would be faithful. God does not always save people from death. The noble army of martyrs have been faithful unto death. But God has always brought good out of their sufferings. 371 (§99C). Describe the scene when these men were thrown into the furnace? What did the king think he saw? What did he do to the three? What impression did it make on the king? We can understand how the Jews would have told such a wonderful story as this to cheer those who were under great temptation to give up their faith. 372 (§100A). Long after, when Daniel was an old man, another great danger arose. He had meantime been promoted to the highest station. Great men always have many enemies who are jealous of them. All our great Americans have had those who envied them. What foolish thing did Daniel's enemies persuade the king to do? There seems to have been a rule that if the king gave an order it could not be changed. 373 (§100B). What had been Daniel's custom regarding prayer? How did he change it when he heard of the decree? Would he have been wiser to pray secretly? Some of our soldier boys that went to the war were ashamed to kneel down and pray at night, but some of them were not afraid even when their companions jeered them. Do you remember a story like that in _Tom Brown at Rugby_? How did the king feel when he found that Daniel had refused to obey the decree? Why could not the king pardon him? Notice how bitterly his enemies insisted on the penalty. 374 (§100C). What did the king say to Daniel? How did the king pass the night? What happened in the morning? What was done to his enemies? 375 (§100D). What message did the king send to his people? Daniel's bravery made the king respect his religion. What was the result of all this to Daniel? Suppose Daniel had been killed by the lions, what would you think of him? WRITTEN REVIEW Think about Daniel's refusal to do wrong. You have probably known one of your companions who refused to do some wrong when it was hard to refuse. Young people can be heroes in standing up for duty. Write about anybody whom you have known who did this. Or perhaps you will find somebody actually doing such a thing now. Make a good story of it for your notebook. REVIEW XXXV. SEVEN HEROIC NAMES XXXV. SEVEN HEROIC NAMES 376. The Hebrews always looked back to their magnificent king, whom they thought of as the wisest of men. What was his name? Tell the story of his great building. (§79; I Kings 5:2-6.[2]) [2: Very short Scripture references are given, just enough to recall the story. It might be well to read these as well as to look at the section in the textbook.] 377. What great prophet was the champion of pure religion? Tell the story of the test at Mount Carmel. (§82; I Kings 18:20-24.) 378. King Ahab had a fine palace in Jezreel and Naboth had a vineyard near by. Tell the story of the king's covetousness. Why did Elijah interfere? (§84; I Kings 21:17-23.) 379. Who was the prophet that followed Elijah? Why did we call him the healer and counselor? We read a number of stories of his kindly deeds to the people. Tell one of them. 380. One of Israel's heroes was a man who had always lived far away from Jerusalem. He had a high office, and would have found it more profitable not to trouble himself about his countrymen. But he heard of their sad condition and persuaded the king to let him help them. Tell the story of Nehemiah building the wall of Jerusalem. (§91; Neh. 6:15, 16.) 381. Two books in the Old Testament are named after women. One was a foreigner who came into Israel, the other was the beautiful Jewess who married the Persian king. Who was the wicked man that wanted to kill all the Jews? How did the queen risk her life to save her people? (§95; Esther 4:13-17.) 382. We studied about one hero, whose story is not in the Old Testament. What did his surname Maccabæus mean? How did he deliver his people? (§97.) 383. Sometimes the noblest heroism is just to refuse to be frightened away from doing right. Who was the man who prayed three times a day when the king had commanded that no prayers should be offered except to himself. Tell the story of the den of lions. (§100.) 384. Write down these seven heroic names. Which of them was honored as the kindly helper of the needy and the wise adviser of his nation in days of trouble? Which was the gallant soldier who defeated the tyrant? Who risked life and fortune to save the people? Who started out in his youth to be a good judge and ruler of the people? Who was loyal to his conscience at the risk of his life? Who was the stern rebuker of injustice? Who gave up his ease to work for his troubled people? Note that there are many ways to be a hero. * * * * * CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES =Kindergarten Series= =The Sunday Kindergarten: Game, Gift, and Story.= By CARRIE S. FERRIS. Teacher's manual, $1.25 net; postpaid $1.40. Pupil's material: Permanent, $1.00 net, postage extra; Temporary, 35 cents net, postage extra. =Elementary Series= =Grades I-VIII= =Child Religion in Song and Story.= (The Child in His World.) By GEORGIA L. CHAMBERLIN AND MARY ROOT KERN. Teacher's manual, $1.25 net; postpaid $1.39. 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CHAMBERLIN. 50 cents net; postpaid 54 cents. =Published by THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS= Transcribers Note: skekels changed to shekels Sect. 68 A thuo changed to thou Sect. 68 C Eljiah changed to Elijah Sect. 82 B Scripture references have been standardised as this example (Gen. 21:2, 3; 22:1-19) Punctuation moved inside end quote on the following lines:-- "Drink, my lord:" Sect. 9 B "Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:" Sect. 38 A Word hyphenation has been standardised. 
18316	----	[Illustration] NOTABLE WOMEN OF OLDEN TIME. WRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. PHILADELPHIA: AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. _Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1852, by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania._ _No books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION without the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen members, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of the members can be of the same denomination, and no book can be published to which any member of the Committee shall object._ CONTENTS. PAGES THE WIFE--(SARAH) 7 THE WIFE UNLOVED--(HAGAR) 35 THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--(REBEKAH) 63 THE RIVAL SISTERS--(LEAH AND RACHEL) 89 THE AFFECTIONATE SISTER--(MIRIAM) 119 THE PROPHETESS--(DEBORAH) 171 THE ARTFUL WOMAN--(JEZEBEL) 187 THE AMBITIOUS WOMAN--(ATHALIAH) 205 THE ORPHAN QUEEN--(ESTHER) 231 THE WIFE--SARAH. [Illustration] Within a few centuries after the flood, while some who had witnessed the sin and the destruction of the antediluvian world were still living, Jehovah saw fit, in accordance with his designs of eternal wisdom, to separate Abraham from his brethren, calling upon him to leave the land of his birth and go out into a strange land, to dwell in a far country. He was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner in a land which should be thereafter given to a people yet unborn,--to a nation which was to descend from him. Abraham was a lineal descendant of Shem, who was doubtless still living while "the father of Abraham yet abode with his kindred in the land of the Chaldees;" and from the lips of his venerable progenitor, Abraham himself may have first received the knowledge of the true God, and have learned lessons of wisdom and obedience, as he sat at his feet. Shem may have conversed with Methuselah; and Methuselah must have known Adam; and from Adam, Methuselah may have heard that history of the creation and fall, which he narrated to Shem, and which Shem may have transmitted to Abraham; and the history of the world would be thus remembered as the traditional recollections of a family, and repeated as the familiar remembrances of a single household. Tales of the loveliness of Eden,--of the glories of the creation,--of the blessedness of the primeval state,--of the days before the fall; remembrances of the "mother of all living" in the days of her holiness, when she was as beautiful as the world created for her home, in all the dewy sweetness of the morning of its existence,--of the wisdom of man before he yielded to the voice of temptation, when authority was enthroned upon his brow, and all the tribes of the lower creation did him homage;--of the good spirits who watched over to minister unto and bless them;--of those dark, unholy and accursed ones, who came to tempt, betray and destroy them,--were recounted as events of which those who described them had been the witnesses. And from the remembrances thus preserved and transmitted by tradition, each generation obscuring or exaggerating them, have descended what we call fables of antiquity,--great facts, now dimly remembered and darkly presented, as shadowed over by the mists of long ages. How must the hearts of the descendants of Shem have thrilled as they heard from him the history of by-gone times--of a world which had passed away! How much had the great patriarch of his race, himself, beheld? He had seen the glory and the beauty of the world before the flood. It was cursed for the sin of man, in the day of his fall--but slowly, as we measure time, do the woes denounced by God often take effect, and, though excluded from Eden, the first pair may have seen little change pass over the face of the earth. The consummation of this curse may have been the deluge; and those who dwelt on the earth, before this calamity swept it with its destroying wing, may have seen it in much of its original beauty; while those who outlived that event witnessed a wonderful change. From that frail fabric, the ark, which proved the second cradle of the race, Shem had beheld a world submerged,--a race swept off by the floods of Almighty wrath. He had heard the shrieks of the drowning, the vain prayer of those who had scoffed the threatened vengeance, the fruitless appeal of those who had long rejected mercy. As the waves bore up his frail vessel, he had seen the black and sullen waters settle over temples, cities and palaces; and he had gazed until he could behold but one dark expanse of water, in whose turbid depths were buried all the families of the earth--save one. Those he had loved and honoured, and much which, perhaps, he had envied and coveted--the pride, the glory, the beauty of earth--all had passed away. And after the waters subsided, and the ark had found a resting-place, what a deep and sad solemnity must have mingled with the joy for their preservation. How strange the aspect the world presented! How must the survivors have recalled past scenes and faces, to be seen no more! How much they must have longed to recognise old familiar places,--the Eden of Adam and Eve,--the graves in which they had been laid! For doubtless Seth and his descendants still remained with their first parents, while Cain went out from their presence and built a city in some place remote. The earth which Noah and his descendants repeopled was one vast grave; and what wonder that those who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy with tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were yet inhabited by the accursed and unholy. Such have been the fancies of those who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the caverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they heard the voices or the shrieks of the spirits imprisoned within. Shem seems to have far exceeded his brothers in true piety, and the knowledge of Jehovah was for many generations preserved among his descendants, while few or none of them ever sank into those deep superstitions which debased the children of Ham. And it is beautiful to remark, that the filial piety which so pre-eminently marked him has ever been a prominent trait among all nations descended from him. Thus receiving his impressions of the power, the truth, the awful justice of Jehovah, from one well fitted to convey them,--and taught the certain fulfilment of promises and of threats,--Abraham was early inspired with that deep reverential and yet filial love, that entire confidence, which led to the trusting obedience which distinguished his character. Yet, from his very piety, sad must it have been when the command came to leave the plains of Mesopotamia, and go out a stranger and a pilgrim into distant lands, to become a dweller among those who were fast apostatizing from the true faith. "But by faith he obeyed," and by his obedience he has given us an example and illustration of faith, which has been held forth through all succeeding ages. To be the child of Abraham, to walk as he walked, is, after the lapse of thousands of years, the characteristic of the true worshipper of God. Guided by an Omniscient hand, trusting in an Almighty power, cheered by that mysterious promise, which, as a star of hope shining in the hour of deepest darkness, still rose to higher brightness as it guided the long line of patriarchs, kings, and prophets, until it settled over the manger of Bethlehem, and was lost in the full glory of the Sun of righteousness,--Abraham girded his loins and prepared for a departure to far distant lands. At first, attended by his father and brother, he sojourned with them in Haran; and the family pitched their tents in that spot which was to become in future ages the battle-ground of nations, when the proud eagle of imperial Rome was trailed in the dust, and her warriors and her nobles fell before their fiercer foes. Long ages have intervened since the tents of this Syrian family were pitched by the side of the waters of Charan; and midway between their days and ours, were these waters discoloured with the blood of those who fell in the battle of Charae, so disastrous to Rome, ever haughty, and then exulting in the height of her prosperity. A few wandering shepherds now lead their flocks in the plain in which Sarah and Abraham dwelt, and where Cassius and his legions fell. But a short sojourn was permitted Abraham here. "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest"--and again he listened to the command from above, and gathered his flocks and servants, and girded his loins, and set his face towards the land promised to him, and to his seed after him. And now he left his father and his brethren, and went with his own family, the head of his house, the future patriarch of his race. Yet he was not alone. The wife of his youth was by his side. In all his wanderings, in all his cares, there was one with him to participate in his joys and to alleviate his sorrows. With him and for him, his wife forsook home, kindred and country. We doubt not that she too shared the faith of Abraham; that she too trusted and loved and worshipped the God of Abraham, and of Shem, and of Noah. Like Abraham, a descendant of Shem,--like him too, she had been trained in the worship of Jehovah. Yet to the faith of the true believer, there was added the strong affection of the wife; and while Abraham went out obeying God, Sarah followed, trusting God indeed, but leaning still upon her husband. In all her future life, she is presented to us the wife; devoted, affectionate, submissive; loving her husband with a true affection, and honouring him by a due deference. With a beauty that fascinated kings, preserving the charms of youth to the advanced period of her life, she still lived but for her husband; and when even the faith of Abraham failed, and he withdrew from the wife the protection of the husband, and said, "She is my sister," Sarah appears to have acquiesced in a deceit so unworthy of her husband and of herself, merely to insure his safety among the lawless tribes around them. As we read the story of Abraham's wife, we catch glimpses of ages and nations that were hoar with antiquity, and had passed away when our ancient historians began the record of the past. Nation after nation had perished and been forgotten before the profane historian began his annals. Yet childless, still trusting in the promise of Jehovah, Abraham wandered for many years through the land which was to be given to him, and his seed after him. Now pitching his tent in Moreh; then building his altar at Bethel; then driven by famine into Egypt; then returning to his altar at Bethel,--and there separating from his nephew Lot, because "the land could not bear" both, he fixes his abode in Hebron. No pictures of pastoral life are more beautiful than those presented in Genesis; and while we contemplate the character of Abraham, we catch occasional glimpses of his household, and of the manners of his age. We see him exercising forbearance and relinquishing the rights of a superior, that there might be no strife between him and his too worldly relative. We see him leading out his own band as a prince, to rescue that same relative,--who, tempted by the promise of large wealth, had chosen a location full of dangers,--and, in the hour of victory, refusing all spoil and showing all honour to the priest of the most high God. Again he is before us, sitting in his tent in the heat of the day, and hastening to receive strangers,--"thus entertaining angels unawares,"--and then interceding for that city doomed to destruction for the wickedness of the dwellers therein. And again he appears as the prince, the patriarch, the head of his own family, and high in honour with those around him, ever observing all the decorum and proprieties of oriental life. We see him, too, as one who walked with God; as the priest of his household, presenting the morning and the evening sacrifice; as holding high communion with God in the hours of darkness; entering into that covenant which is still pleaded by those who claim the promise, "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee." This promise of a seed, from which was to spring a great nation, "like to the stars of heaven in number," was frequently repeated, yet still deferred. Youth, manhood, middle age, all had passed, and still no child blest the tents of Sarah; and while Abraham still believed, and it "was accounted to him for righteousness," Sarah seems to have felt that not upon her was to be conferred the distinction of becoming the mother of the promised seed. With the warm impulse of the woman, she sacrificed the feelings of the wife and the instincts of the heart, to promote what she doubtless believed to be the plan of God and the happiness of Abraham. There is a deficiency of faith as much to be manifested in the forestalling the plans of Providence as in the denial of the promises of God: and while Abraham still trusted and waited the fulfilment of the promise, Sarah sought, by her own device, to accomplish prophecy and insure the blessing. In accordance with the usages of those around her, she gave her handmaid to her husband to be his wife, "that their children might bless her age." She doubtless felt herself strong enough in love to Abraham and to Hagar to believe that her affection would embrace their children. But when the trial came, and all the instincts of the heart, all the feelings of the wife revolted, she proved that this violation of a heaven-appointed institution brings only sorrow and strife. Yet there was no alienation between Sarah and Abraham. The wife of his youth was ever dearer to him than the mother of his child. At length, however, the promise was fulfilled. Sarah became a mother. Many years had passed since she had left the home of her fathers. The days of man were now much abridged, and she was fast approaching the ordinary limit of human life; but we may suppose her cheek was still fair and her brow smooth, and that she still retained much of the beauty of youth. With a wondering joy, Sarah gazed upon the child so long desired--the child in whose seed "all the nations of the earth" were to be "blessed." And she said, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all who hear shall laugh;" and while those that heard that Sarah "had borne Abraham a son in his old age," wondered at an event so strange, Abraham must have pondered the prophecy which had revealed to him the destiny of his race,--perhaps foreseeing that Star which was to rise in a still distant age, and apprehending, however dimly and faintly, something of the mysterious connection between the birth of the child and the promise given in the hour of the curse--the blending of the fate of his race with the eternal plan of mercy and redemption. There is an instinct in our natures which leads us to rejoice at a birth; but, could Sarah have foreseen the destiny of her race, tears would have mingled with her smiles. Wonderful has been the past history of that people, strange their present condition, while the future may develop mysteries still more incomprehensible. In the hour of rejoicing over the new-born babe, past transgression brought forth its legitimate fruits. Sullenness and strife were brooding in the bosoms of the Egyptian bond-woman and her son; and the quiet eye of the mother saw all the danger arising from the jealous hate and rivalry of the first-born of Abraham. If the decision was stern, it was needful. "Cast out the bond-woman and her child, for her son shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." Harsh words,--but it is better to dwell peacefully asunder, than together in strife and bitterness. The malignant passions which led Ishmael to mock, might soon be stimulated by the mother to murder,--chafed and irritated as she was by the constant presence of the child who had supplanted her own. From the time of the departure of Hagar from the household of Abraham, peace seems to have rested upon it. Prosperity attended him. He no longer wandered from place to place. He remained in Hebron, sojourning with Sarah and her child. Many years passed,--years of peaceful quiet and happiness seldom allotted to such an age,--while they trained their child in the nurture of the true God, and were honoured by the princes around him, who sought to enter into league with him, for they saw that "God blessed him in all that he did." Once again God saw fit to test the faith of Abraham by calling upon him to offer his son--his only son Isaac, whom he loved--as a sacrifice; and Abraham obeyed the divine command, and thus doing, uttered that prophecy which has thrilled so many souls, "God will himself provide a sacrifice." In this trial, Sarah seems not to have been called to participate. The mother was spared the agony of feeling that her only child was to be offered as a sacrifice--that the hope of her life was to perish. "Sarah was an hundred and twenty years old, and she died." The dark shadow of death is, sooner or later, to fall upon each household. Abraham seems to have been at a distance--perhaps in the charge of some of his numerous flocks--when he was recalled to Hebron by news of Sarah's death. And he came to mourn over her. The remembrance of her maiden beauty and modesty, the grateful recollection of all her conjugal devotedness, filled his soul. If light and immortality were brought to light in the gospel, still the divine rays were faintly reflected in the former dispensation, and the eye of faith even then penetrated the thick darkness of the grave. And now, after these long years of promise and waiting, Abraham takes possession of the land which God had given to him and to his seed. He asks, however, but a small portion,--a tomb, a place for his dead,--and a more beautiful description of a scene of mutual deference, of regard for rights and respect for character and position, was never penned than that which records the negotiation between the bereaved patriarch and the children of Heth. With the touch of magic, the whole scene is before us. The bereaved patriarch, courteous in grief, bowing in the presence of the sons of Heth,--the deep respect, the kindly sympathy, manifested by those who, strangers to his religion, felt the claims of his character,--mingled with that deep awe which the visitation of death ever inspires. The last scene was now over, and Sarah has first taken possession of that home to which she was to be followed by her husband and their descendants. One by one they take their places by her side,--unwelcomed, unquestioned,-- "Where none have saluted and none have replied,"-- and yet where all are gathered at last. We see her not as a sister or a daughter. She is not known to us in the house of her father. Sarah is only presented to us as the wife of Abraham. And as a wife the apostle has held her up to her own sex as a model and example. "Even as Sarah obeyed her husband, calling him lord,"--exclaims the apostle, exhorting the wife to due deference. The deep, fervent affection of the heart led to that outward manifestation of honour so beautiful and becoming; and as the only love which can be enduring is that which is founded on respect, so it is the highest happiness of the wife to be able truly to honour him whom she is bound to love and obey. When the heads of a household are thus united in warm affection and mutual respect, the influence will pervade the whole circle, and the family of Abraham presented a beautiful picture of such a household. The numerous members composing a large family were governed by one who provided for their sustenance, led them forth for the defence of rights, or the redress of injuries, or the rescue of the captive; and who officiated as the priest as well as ruler of his household. In such a community, the character of the head would be impressed upon the whole people; and it was with obvious meaning that Jehovah exclaimed, "I know him that he will command his household after him." It was by example that admonition was made availing. And the wife was ever ready, with her ardent and trusting love, to aid and co-operate. Hastening, when he welcomed the stranger, to prepare the feast, she was ever ready to receive his guests and add her efforts to his hospitality. Hatred, strife, and mutual alienation so often cloud over the unison of wedded life, and cause its sun to set in darkness, that few spectacles can be presented more beautiful or more delightful than the old age of wedded life, soothed by true affection and mutual kindness. It is more touching than the glow of youthful passion. It proclaims the presence of high moral worth. It is never found in the habitations of the unholy. The love which thus survives the glow of youth, which bears the storms and the trials of life, must be founded on truth, on unimpassioned esteem, on approved integrity; and those alone who love God supremely, love each other unselfishly. While Sarah honoured her husband, she too was treated with proper deference. Her counsels were ever heeded, her voice had its due influence, and he still deferred to her wishes. It is beautiful to note the increasing estimation in which she is held. Sarai, "the mistress," betokened her station as the head of a household; and as years brought honours, and an enlarged sphere of duty, and a more elevated position among the people around them, Sarai was changed into Sarah--_my lady_. Her husband, in addressing the former Sarai as Sarah, "my lady," gracefully returned the honour she bestowed when she called him "lord." By such manifestation of mutual respect and love, the chain of family affection is kept bright. As the household of Abraham was the household of faith, ordained as the model for all ages, it is well to analyze the elements which composed it, and to trace their combined influence. There was the conjugal union of the true worshippers of Jehovah, animated by the same hopes, governed by the same principles, whose hearts were united in the strong bonds of natural affection. There was the confiding, unfailing affection, the deep, reverential respect, and due obedience of the wife. There was the tender love, protecting care, the unwavering faith, the honourable deference of the husband. The religion of this household was the religion of faith and of obedience,--a religion which led them to forsake all at the command of God, which taught them to rely upon his promises, to fear his threatenings, to plead his grace, to trust his mercy, while it was a religion which led to a due observance of all the relative duties of life, which taught the exercise of that impartial justice, careful benevolence, disinterested kindness, and ready hospitality to those without the family; and of steady love, of affectionate kindness, of sympathetic forbearance to the members of the household within. The family of faith, where faith is pure, will ever be a family of love; and as true piety is the best security for family happiness, so family love is the best nurse for family piety. There are many families among us who aim at being families of faith, who profess to walk in the steps of Abraham, to imitate his example. Let such not confine themselves to the manifestation of his peculiar faith, to his trust and dependence alone. Let them walk as he walked before his household, in the fear of God and the love of man, in the careful fulfilment of every relative and social duty, in the daily exemplification of a tender and loving spirit, carefully avoiding or removing all sources of division. Let that piety which unites them to God, be a bond, encircling all and drawing them near to each other. By the cultivation of the simple domestic virtues, by the daily, quiet, self-denying trials, by the observance of the thousand decencies, the unaffected proprieties, the unostentatious efforts to bless and comfort,--by the elevating influence of personal example,--by the breathing atmosphere of a holy spirit,--the family is to be made the household of faith, the nursery of the church. Direct instruction and formal efforts and stated observances are neither to be forgotten nor to be remitted; but these can only be made effectual by the living exemplification of a spirit of love, a life of holiness. It will ever be found true that he who prays most loves most. [Illustration] HAGAR--THE WIFE UNLOVED. The Hebrew patriarch led his flocks and herds, surrounded by his large household, from Haran to the land of the Canaanites; from thence to that of the Philistines, down into Egypt; wherever so numerous a family and such large flocks could find sustenance--water and herbage. And as he thus sojourned, many of the poor of these lands flocked to him for employment and support; and while he bought the services of the parents, the children born in his house became members of his family, were trained as his servants, and were subject to his authority as the master of the household, the prince among his people, the patriarch of his tribe. And among these was Hagar, the Egyptian. We are not told whether she was born in the house of Abraham, or rescued from those who may have stolen her from her home, or given by her parents to the wealthy and childless Sarai. She was Sarah's handmaid--a relation, according to the customs of the East (almost immutable) nearly as dear as that of a child. She was the personal attendant, the constant companion of her mistress; and by her was doubtless instructed in the principles of the true religion, while she was thus accustomed to the accomplishments and occupations of the age. The tasks of the favourite handmaids of Eastern families are still light. To sit at the feet of her mistress with her embroidery; to cheer her with the simple music of the shepherd's tent; to aid her in those domestic duties to which Sarah gave her own superintendence; to assist in preparing the wool of the flocks for the garments of the family; to watch her tent as she reposed by day, and keep by her side as the camels slowly wandered through the valleys in search of pure streams or more abundant herbage, were probably the occupations and duties of Hagar. Years thus passed on--and the dark-browed and dark-eyed Egyptian maiden had grown into womanhood, and the freshness of youth, the joyousness of health and early life were her's, while her mistress was passing into age. Sarah no longer hoped to become a mother, and, believing that the promise was not intended for her, she urged Abraham to take another wife, offering for his acceptance her own handmaid, the Egyptian Hagar. The authority of the mistress of the East over her own establishment is so absolute, the husband so interdicted from all interference, that, although Hagar had passed her youth with Sarah, she may have been hardly noticed by Abraham until Sarah proffered her. According to the usage of the east, Sarah had a right (the right then claimed by the parent) thus to dispose of her handmaid; and a marriage with her master was the highest honour which could be bestowed on Hagar. She was given to Abraham to be his wife, and, the relation was--according to the usage then prevailing--as legal as that sustained by Sarah, although the station was inferior. No injury was intended to Hagar. No higher distinction could have been conferred upon her, and, strong in love to both Hagar and Abraham, Sarah doubtless supposed she might be able to welcome and love their children, though denied offspring of her own. But such departure from the law, precept, or institution of God, involves a long train of sin and sorrow, no matter what the intention--and the union of Abraham with Hagar was a direct violation of the institution of marriage in all its principles and intentions, and it could not but bring confusion and strife to the tent of the patriarch. It was merely a marriage of interest and convenience, unhallowed by love. The heart of Abraham never departed from the wife of his youth, nor could Sarah ever have intended to relinquish her hold upon his affection. It is the last claim a woman foregoes. And on the other hand, Hagar could have felt no love for her master, so much her superior in age and station. Unholy pride and rank ambition were all the feelings which such an alliance could awaken in the heart of Hagar. Yet Hagar was the least blameworthy, and, perhaps, not eventually the greatest sufferer. By the customs of society, she had no voice in the disposal of herself. Her heart was never consulted. She was only allowed to receive the husband allotted to her--to acquiesce in the decision of others. The natural results of such a union followed. The exaltation of Hagar excited her pride and led to arrogance; and when she knew that she should become a mother, her childless mistress was despised. It is hard to bear contempt from those upon whom we have lavished kindness; to feel that we have exalted those who despise us: and all the indignation of Sarah was roused by the assumption and ingratitude of Hagar; and, with the quick instinct of the woman, she retorted upon her husband, "My wrong be upon thee." A stranger indifference could not have been manifested than that showed by Abraham towards the youthful wife who should have now received his protection and kindness. "Behold thy handmaid is in thy hands." He recognised no tie--he felt no obligation. What was Hagar, that she should occasion strife between him and the wife of his youth, the partner of his life, the daughter of his own people! Hagar was from this hour abandoned by Abraham to her mistress. When Sarah resumed the authority belonging to her station, she assumed with it a power never before exercised. Forgetting all the love of past years, all the claims of the present hour upon her kindness and forbearance, she treated the unhappy Hagar with such intolerable harshness, that the wretched woman fled from the face of her mistress and from the tents of her master, and sought refuge in the wilderness. We can conceive what bitter, despairing thoughts, what a keen sense of injustice and injury may have pressed upon her, as she sat alone by the fountain in the desert. Probably a little spot of green herbage denoted the presence of water, while, all around, lay the sandy, rocky desert. The stars, in the brightness of an oriental night, were looking down on her as she sat alone, her face buried in her hands, unheeded, there to die. Then came the visions of her youth, the remembrances of her childhood, the sound of her mother's voice, the dream of her smile--then the tent of Sarah--then the alliance with her master, the excitement of her pride, the flush of hope, the exultation of a fancied triumph over the childless, but still honoured wife; succeeded by the cold withdrawal of all the kindness of the patriarch, and the entire abandonment of her whom he had taken to his bosom, to the implacable resentment of her former mistress! The temper of Hagar, the feelings thus excited--dark, sullen, bitter, revengeful--when she fled from all, may have been impressed upon her offspring, and thus marked the future character of her race. Still, Hagar was not alone. The wanderer was not forgotten. In the hour of darkness and of desolation, there is One nigh even to those who forget him. "And the angel of the Lord found her by the fountain in the wilderness, and he said: Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou? And whither wouldst thou go?" She was not addressed as the wife of Abraham. The conventional usage, so opposed to the positive institution, was not recognised and thus hallowed by Him who had established marriage; and while Hagar was pitied, she was reminded of her real condition. "And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return unto thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said, Thou shalt have a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy affliction. He shall be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him--and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me, for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?" implying a recognition of the unexpected interference, protection and blessing of God. The promises of God are always preceded by his commands, and the faith which clings to the promises is to be tested by the obedience which alone can make them availing. And when the words of the angel came to the desolate soul of the woman in the desert, there were admonition, reproof, and command mingled with promise and blessing. "Return to thy mistress." Return to thy duty, is the first requirement made of those God seeks out. And Hagar humbled herself and obeyed the voice of the Lord. She returned to her mistress. Trying as it must have been to one so aggrieved, she submitted to her authority, and again became a member of the household of Abraham. Had she disobeyed the angel, she and her child had doubtless perished in the wilderness; but in yielding her proud and arrogant temper, she secured the future blessing to her race, and insured the safety of her child, while her submission and gentleness must have won back Sarah to a kinder temper, to a more forbearing treatment. After the birth of Ishmael, there intervened years--long years--in which Hagar tasted the bitterest cup ever presented to the lips of woman. A wife unloved, neglected--a mother disregarded--a woman held in bondage by one who had made her a rival--dwelling in the presence of him who had put her from him! Her very presence brought reproach and sorrow to Sarah and Abraham--the violation of the divine institution ever entailing its penalty. The wife deserted, neglected, whose hopes have been crushed, ever turns to her offspring for comfort and sympathy; and ardent was the love, strong were the ties, which bound the Egyptian mother to the son of the patriarch; and in Ishmael must all the hopes and affections of Hagar have centred. Could she, indeed, have penetrated the future, could she have seen her race, the seed of her son, filling the desert and dwelling as princes; while the seed of Sarah and of Abraham were held, as if in retribution of her own sufferings, in bondage in her own native land,--could she have passed through the intervening ages and seen the children of Ishmael issuing from their desert and setting their feet upon the necks of the proudest and mightiest, imposing their faith upon a world, while they marched forth conquering and to conquer--could she have contrasted the triumphant warriors of Arabia, the caliphs of the east and the west, with the wandering, desolate, persecuted, trodden-down tribes of Israel--the proudest expectations of the woman and the mother would have been all answered. Could she have penetrated the meaning of the words she must have so often pondered, she would have found that the loftiest dreams of the rankest ambition were to be more than realized. But dimly and faintly must she have apprehended the meaning of the mysterious prophecy, even while she trusted the accompanying promise. As she saw Ishmael, the only child in the tent of the patriarch, and loved by the father, she perhaps allowed herself to hope that he was yet to be the heir, and that in his future honours she was to find a full recompense for all the trials of her blighted youth. After long years of waiting, Sarah embraced a son, and the event, so joyous to the parents, awoke afresh the bitter remembrances of Hagar, while it roused her to the consciousness of her present lot and of all the injuries inflicted upon her. In all the trials and sorrows through which she had passed, she had had none to sustain or sympathize with her. Her child remained her only earthly hope; and now she felt that another was to supplant him, and thus disappoint all her expectations. Her spirit rose in pride and wrath, and she infused her own bitter feelings into the heart of her child. When Isaac was hailed as the heir, while all rejoiced, Hagar and Ishmael mocked both the infant and the aged parents. Forbearance was no longer safe, and the decision of Sarah was wise, though harsh--yet it was sad to Abraham. Ishmael was still his son--his first-born. He had been ever dear to him; and when the angel of the Lord had again confirmed the promise of a seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, he had almost seemed to overlook it as he pleaded for the son of the bond-woman, "Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!" while to Abraham was then confirmed the promise given before the birth of her child to Hagar. There was sorrow and perplexity in the heart of Abraham, but a message from heaven confirmed the decree of Sarah. The patriarch arose, after a night of conflict and prayer, while the stars were still shining in the heavens, while the flocks lay in stillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child,--the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood--the boy shy, yet half-defying--the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had been Abraham's wife--that she was still Ishmael's mother. In that hour must have risen the memory of her wrongs, of her saddened youth, her darkened womanhood--of the selfishness with which he had wedded her; of the heartlessness with which he had deserted her; of her long years of trial and contempt. And her eye might speak reproach, although the lips were closed and there was no voice. Should we not rejoice to believe that the patriarch whispered some regret for the past, and spoke of sorrow and repentance to her whose happiness he had so selfishly sacrificed, even as he consummated his work by casting her out, a homeless exile. Such is the enslaving power of custom, so easily do we blind ourselves to our own delinquencies, that Abraham probably aggravated Hagar's faults while he overlooked her injuries. He saw in her but the despiteful, revengeful handmaid; he forgot that she was an injured wife--a neglected mother. Yet no words of reproach, of entreaty, or explanation of the past, or promise for the future, are recorded as having passed between them. He pronounced the decree, and laid upon the bondmaid, and not upon his noble boy, the provision for the journey. She turned from the tents, and thus they parted! But the connection of Abraham and Hagar had woven a thread into the destiny of nations, still to be traced. She left the patriarch in sorrow, in bitterness of soul; but she went out to found nations, to punish rulers, to establish a long line who should transmit the name of her son and the influence of her character to remotest ages--even to the end of time. Accustomed to the wandering life of the desert, and provided for the journey, Abraham probably deemed Hagar competent to guide her steps to a place of safety. But sorrow may have blinded her eyes, or despair made her reckless, and she was lost in the desert. The water was spent in the bottle--tons of gold could not open a fountain in the desert--and she saw her child parched with thirst, "faint and ready to die; and she cast him under one of the shrubs, and went and sat a good way off, as it were a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child; and as she sat over against him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to her out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee Hagar? Fear not! For God hath heard the voice of the child where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad to drink." What an inimitable description of a mother's love! What a display of the watchful benevolence of Jehovah! In this hour of desolation, when no human aid was near, there was again the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed be God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to separate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still nigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ready to save. "And God was with the lad: and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer; and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran." And his mother still dwelt with him; and in all his wanderings, wherever his footsteps were turned, there was her home. There is a touching remembrance of her early life, in the fact that Hagar chose a wife for her son from among the daughters of her own people: "She took him a wife out of the land of Egypt." And from this union have sprung the tribes who still fill the deserts where Hagar sought a refuge. A wild race, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren, whose hand is against every man, while every man's hand is against them. Ishmael rose rapidly to rank, and Hagar lived to rejoice in his prosperity. The life which commenced in want, privation and wandering in the wilderness, conducted her to wealth and honour. So dark and inscrutable are the ways of Providence, that at each step we are taught but to seek the path of duty and obey the direction of Heaven. The children of Ishmael seem to have long preserved the knowledge of Jehovah. Hagar, who had received so many proofs of the being, power, and providence of the God of Abraham, might well instruct her descendants in the principles of the true faith. The race of Ishmael have still preserved the rite which Abraham received as the seal of faith. Often may Hagar have recounted the providences of God--the account she had heard, in the tent of Abraham, of the creation, the fall, the deluge, the re-peopling of the world; and often, in the course of their wandering lives, she may have led her descendants to those deep waters which covered the guilty cities of the plain, and then described them as she knew them before the wrath of God fell upon them. The tribes of Ishmael have ever recognised their descent from Abraham; and the instructions of Hagar are preserved as national traditions to this very day, though exaggerated by Eastern fancy, and mingled with wilder romance, as they have been transmitted from one generation to another by the children of Ishmael, who still lead their flocks in the same valleys, and pitch their tents by the same fountains to which Hagar resorted with Ishmael. Hagar and Ishmael were no more members of Abraham's household, yet the relationship of father and son was ever recognised. Doubtless Abraham imparted of his wealth to his first-born; and as Abraham often sojourned afterwards in Beer-sheba, probably not far from the spot where Hagar and Ishmael so nearly perished, the father and son may have often met; and Isaac and Ishmael may have held kindly intercourse, when the bitter feelings of rivalry and of conscious wrong had subsided. The ties of kindred were still allowed, and Esau sought a wife from the family of his own kindred, as a means of conciliating his father and mother; thus showing that a purer morality and a higher religious feeling were cherished than those among surrounding tribes. And when Abraham died, having attained a full age, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, both far advanced in years, buried him. The strifes, the bitterness, the hate of early life seem to have been forgotten, and they united in the last offices of filial love and duty. The son of the bondmaid had attained, during the life of Abraham, a distinction beyond that of the son of the wife; and his immediate descendant rose to wealth and honour, while, if one branch of Isaac's family tasted prosperity, those recognised as the heirs of that mysterious blessing were long known as wanderers, and then despised as slaves. Their long line of descent has run parallel, side by side, distinct, unmingled; recognising a common origin, but never acknowledging a common brotherhood. The oldest nations of the earth,--the one exiled from the land given them, dwelling as outcasts and strangers among all the nations of the earth, yet still separate, apart, a peculiar people; the other living at this day in the deserts where Hagar wandered, and where she fainted--a never-conquered people. And while Assyrian, Greek, and Roman have swept the world and exacted tribute of the nations around them, and other tribes have been swept with the besom of destruction, the sons of Ishmael have still dwelt in the presence of their brethren, ever enforcing, but still refusing to pay tribute--free and wild as the lad who first became an archer in the wilderness. Unconsciously confirming prophecy, and still attesting the truth of a revelation which they contemn and deny,--thus strangely dwelling so different from all other nations,--preserving the initiatory rites and the mystic symbols of the faith of Abraham, the customs and traditions of the age of the patriarch,--these nations dwell distinct, separate from each other and from all other nations, awaiting the day when blindness shall be removed from the eyes of the children of promise, and the descendants of Sarah and of Hagar shall be both gathered with the fold of Christ. There are Hagars of modern, as well as of ancient days,--of western as of eastern lands. She who is wedded from interest and convenience; she who forms a heartless union from pride and ambition; she who awakes from her dreams of bliss to find herself an unloved, and perhaps to become a deserted wife--all these prove the bitterness of the lot of the Egyptian Hagar. He who has ordained marriage has graciously implanted the affections which are to make it a source of happiness; and those who form this union under other motives and influences run fearful risks. There are many Hagars in the highest ranks of life, and even where the artificial distinctions of society are most highly regarded and carefully recognised. When youth is wedded to age or sacrificed to decrepitude to promote some State policy, though the victims are not clothed in the garb of the Egyptian slave, but arrayed in the pomp of regal vestments, yet the diamond often rests upon an aching brow, and the pearls press a saddened bosom; and when the holiest of earthly institutions is thus violated, each relation of life is profaned; and polluted streams descend from the highest sources and diffuse their poison through all the ranks of life--through all the gradations of society. There will still be Hagars--women who marry for a home, or a support; and especially while woman is educated to be helpless--unable to provide for her own wants; or while that prejudice is cherished which leads her to deem useful employment a degradation. * * * * * HAGAR'S EXILE. She fled, with one reproachful look On him who bade her go, And scarcely could the patriarch brook That glance of voiceless wo: In vain her quivering lips essay'd His mercy to implore; Silent the mandate she obey'd, And then was seen no more. The burning waste and lonely wild Received her as she went; Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child, With thirst and sorrow spent. And in the wilderness so drear, She raised her voice on high, And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer "Let me not see him die!" Her beautiful, her only boy, Her all of hope below; So long his father's pride and joy, And yet--from _him_ the blow! Alone she must his head sustain, And watch his sinking breath, And on his bright brow mark the stain Of the destroyer, Death. "Let me not see him die," and lo! The messenger of peace! Once more her tears forget to flow, Once more her sorrows cease. Life, strength, and freedom now are given With mighty power to one Who from his father's roof was driven, And he--the outcast's son. How often we, like Hagar, mourn, When some unlook'd for blight Drives us away, no more to turn To joys we fancied bright! Forced from our idols to retreat, And seek the Almighty's care, Perchance we are sent forth to meet A desert-angel there. [Illustration] THE PARTIAL AND INTRIGUING MOTHER--REBEKAH. [Illustration] After the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham, peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and parental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of a mother. The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character of Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless, wandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and taught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around; while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into action. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness, are never nursed in the bosom of ease. Sarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could not have been insensible. There was a dreary void in the home of the patriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre. There was no one to fill the place of Sarah--no one to bless their simple meals. She no longer appears to welcome them as they returned from the field or the flock. The tribe is without a mother, the household without a mistress. Many considerations led Abraham to desire the marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife worthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well fulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large household. The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as yet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the inhabitants of the land. But Abraham too well knew the influence of the wife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a race apostate from the religion of Jehovah. He knew the ensnaring influence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he resolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred--those who yet retained the knowledge and clung to the worship of the God of Shem, of Noah, and of Adam. Though far separated from his brethren, yet communications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the enlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to seek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making arrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return of his descendants to the land from whence he had been called. Trying as might be the long journey, and uncertain as seemed the issue, no inferior motives were allowed to be put in competition with the perpetuity of the worship and knowledge of God. A connection with any of the families of the Canaanites would have been at once ensnaring to the household of Abraham and injurious in its influence upon the heart of Isaac. Had Isaac married the daughter of an idolater, irreligion and immorality would soon have pervaded the family of the patriarch, and the knowledge of the true God have departed from the earth. Thus the beacon light of nations had been extinguished, and the last altar erected to Jehovah had been broken down: for the other descendants of Shem were fast departing from the God of their fathers,--and if the children of Keturah and Ishmael for a period retained the faith of Abraham, the torch which kindled the fire on their altars was lighted at that which was kept burning on those of Isaac and Jacob, and the example of their families preserved alive the remembrance and the acts of the living God in the nations around them. With a train which became the suitor of a prince, with costly presents of gold and ornaments according to the custom of both ancient and modern days, but more particularly conforming to Eastern usage, the confidential servant of Abraham was sent on his embassy to the kindred of his master, there to receive a bride for the son of the patriarch. We gain a delightful impression both of the piety and intelligence of the household of Abraham from the account of the messenger to whom this important transaction was intrusted. The faith of the patriarch animated the other members of his household, and a strong chain of love encircled all. After a long journey, the train reached the plains of Mesopotamia, and then the tents of Nahor appeared in view; and then, in the prospect of the immediate discharge of his commission, the messenger of the patriarch sought explicit direction from the God of Abraham. While the description of the interview at the fountain, "without the gate of the city," gives a most beautiful view of the manners of the age and the people, and an unsurpassed picture of the freshness and simplicity of pastoral life, it proves at once the piety and the clear discrimination of the agent employed. The beauty of the youthful Rebekah caught his eye, while the test he devised afforded a safe criterion of the character of the woman. Weary with the labours of the sultry day, after tending her own flocks, had she been indolent or inactive, selfish or sullen, she had turned from his request, and suffered his attendants to administer to his wants. But as she looked upon them--dusty, weary, parched by thirst, worn down by long travel--the sympathies of a kind nature were awakened, as the servant ran to meet her, saying, "Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher." She said, "Drink, my lord," and she let down the pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink; and when he had done drinking, she said, "I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking." Thus did the maiden clearly prove that she possessed some of the qualities most necessary for a wife--that ready self-forgetfulness, that kindness, cheerfulness, and desire to promote the happiness of others, that sunshine of the heart which sheds its brightening beams over all the clouds that darken domestic life. Through all the ages of the world, in all the circumstances in which mankind are placed, the wife has ever need of them, and wisely may the suitor look for them. But the servant of the patriarch, "still wondering, held his peace." Not until assured that she was of the race of the true worshippers of the God of Abraham, that she had been trained in the fear of the Lord, did he feel assured that the fair and kind Syrian damsel was to be chosen for the wife of his master's son. He had felt that the prayer was answered. He had taken out the rich gifts intended for her, but he seems to hesitate as he says, "Whose daughter art thou! Tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?" And she answered, "I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor." "And the man bowed down and worshipped the Lord, and he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord hath led me to the house of my master's brethren." The negotiation between the servant of Abraham and the father and brothers of Rebekah was soon concluded. They deferred not the answer to be given, when the messenger had laid before them his errand, and told them of the wealth and honour of his master; and the whole transaction impresses us with an idea of the piety and kindness of the family of Bethuel. The thing is from the Lord--while the rich gifts, made to all the members of the family, proved the truth of the statements of the messenger, and perhaps enforced his plea. Yet, when he urged the immediate departure of the bride for the tent of her husband, the hearts of the mother and of the brothers yet clung to the youthful maiden. They shrank from a separation so sudden, so complete--and they said, Let the damsel stay with us a few days--at least ten. Oh, do not snatch her away from us so suddenly. But after that, she shall go. And he said, "Hinder me not. Seeing that the Lord hath prospered me, send me away that I may go to my master." And they said, "We will call the maiden, and inquire at her mouth." And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go." Are we not, even at this period, taught lessons of parental wisdom, in the care displayed by the ancient patriarch respecting the choice of a wife for his son? In the care taken to secure an unstained parentage in one who had been early trained in the habits of piety and godly principles of action? The character of the family is often stamped upon each member, and the marked features are transmitted from generation to generation, even where the character of the woman may be modified by her new relations. As she advances in years she often returns to the habits of her youth, while she almost invariably adopts the practice of her own mother in the early nurture and training of her children. He who would have reformed France was taught that he must begin his work by training mothers. And thus the ancient patriarch foresaw that the great nation that was to descend from him, like to the stars of heaven for multitude, would long bear the impress of the character of the mother who rocked it in the first cradle of its existence, and his wisdom was manifested in the pains which he took to secure a good lineage and right habits and principles. The foresight of the father could go no farther. Time must test the individual character. After they left the tents of Bethuel, the train, now augmented by the presence of the bride and her immediate attendants, her nurse and handmaids, slowly wended its way back to the tents of the patriarch, pursuing the natural highways of the country,--now by the stream, then across the plain, then through the desert, sandy, barren, trackless; then winding through the mountain pass, encamping during the heat of the day by the fountain and under the shade, and pursuing their journey in the cool of the evening and of the morning. Love or devotion, or the mingling of both, led Isaac out into the fields at eventide to meditate, and his feet turned towards the route by which his messengers might be expected, and the eye of his servant descried him afar off, and he pointed him out to the stranger. And while the messenger seems to have hasted to meet his master and give an account of his mission, Rebekah descended from her lofty seat and covered herself with a veil. Henry the Fourth, of France, met his bride soon after she entered his kingdom, and mingled with her attendants, that he might watch her unobserved; and when his presence was announced she kneeled, and he gracefully raised her up. Napoleon entered the carriage of his Austrian bride, and announced himself, while she gazed with wondering eyes upon one, long only known as the enemy of her father's house and the terror of his kingdom. The meeting of the heir of the patriarch and his youthful bride is quite as interesting a scene as any of those recorded of more modern days. And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide, and he lifted up his eyes, and, behold! the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, "What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master;" therefore she took a veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. Rebekah seems to have made an affectionate, happy wife. Many years passed before children were born to Isaac; and when the twin boys, Esau and Jacob, were in childhood, there was evidently a marked difference in their characters. Esau was active, restless, and enterprising, He grew up a hunter,--daring and bold,--loving a life of change and adventure; while Jacob was a "plain man, dwelling in tents." Blindness was stealing over Isaac and unfitting him for the cares which rested upon him, for the supervision of his numerous servants and his many flocks and herds. During the frequent absences of Esau upon his hunting expeditions, these cares must have devolved upon Rebekah and Jacob. Her heart clung to the child who was ever with her in sympathy; while the tales of peril and adventure with which Esau enlivened the wearisome days of his father, were as acceptable to blindness and loneliness, as were the presents of the game he so frequently brought. "And Isaac loved Esau." Thus the injudicious fondness of the parents sowed the seeds of bitterness and alienation between the two brothers, and led to their mutual estrangement. The birth-right, which implied the inheriting of the blessing promised to the seed of Abraham, was despised by Esau, who, doubtless, in his prolonged wanderings from home, and his frequent associations with the inhabitants of the land, had been led to feel contempt for the worship and the promises of God, and in his reckless levity he transferred it to Jacob for "_a mess of pottage_," while he further alienated himself from his parents and brother by marrying the daughter of a Hittite. "This was a grief and sorrow of mind to Isaac and Rebekah." Forgetting the respect due to them as his parents; forgetting his own position as the eldest son of the heir of the promise; heedless of the example of filial deference shown by Isaac, and of all the care that preserved the family free from the corruption around them, he formed an union with those who were strangers to the faith of Abraham and of a race apostate from the worship of Jehovah. Yet, while mourning the perverseness of his favourite child, the father, aged and blind, did not propose to withdraw his favour from him; and, feeling that his infirmities increased, Isaac bade Esau with his own hands prepare him a favourite dish, that he might eat and bless him before his death. Did we better understand the customs of that age, we might find that Isaac was not merely influenced by bodily appetite, but that there might be a peculiar significance in the act. We do not love to dwell upon Rebekah's deceit and the lessons of falsehood she taught her son--and the prophecy uttered before the birth of the children, neither justifies nor extenuates her guilt; for God has never taught his people, that to promote his plans they are to violate his laws. Alienated from her elder son, we see Rebekah, by intrigue and treachery, seeking to advance the interests of the younger at the expense of the rights of his brother. As we read the sacred narrative, every sympathy is awakened in favour of the injured Esau, and we hear, with burning indignation against the author of his wrong, his pathetic cry, "Hast thou no blessing for me! Bless me, even me, my father!" But the artifice of the mother and wife was successful. She secured all she sought--and her success brought its own punishment. Dark clouds of hate settled over the household, and Esau waited only for the death of his father that he might destroy the life of his brother; and to save the life of her son, the mother was forced to send him into banishment. Again the intriguing, managing character of the mother appears. She assigned what might be a reason, but not the true reason, to Isaac. "I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?" The plea of the mother prevailed, and Isaac blessed Jacob, and he left the land of his father, ostensibly to seek a wife, but in truth to flee from the vengeance of his brother. The son of the wealthy patriarch went not out like an Eastern suitor--not with a train such as Abraham sent when he wooed Rebekah for his son. To avoid the hate of Esau, he stole like a fugitive from the tents of Isaac; and, a foot-worn pilgrim, unattended, he sought the kindred of his mother. And here the mother and her favourite child parted. She had alienated his brother to promote his interests. She had sacrificed her integrity to secure his fortune, and her plan had succeeded. She had secured the object at which she had aimed, and yet in the result she had been forced to send forth her darling child--a homeless wanderer. There is no reason to believe that the mother and the son ever met again. From this time she disappears. Surrounded by the alienated Esau's hated wives and ill-loved children, separated from the child of her affection, she may have sunk into a premature grave, or she may have lived many sorrowful years to feel the miseries she had drawn upon herself by her violations of the rules of rectitude, and an eager desire to promote the happiness of one child at the sacrifice of that of another. There are still too many families involved in all the bitterness of domestic strife from the unjust partiality of one or both of the parents for favoured children. If, as children advance in life and their characters are formed, a calmer feeling succeeds the trembling tenderness which guarded their infant days, and our love to them (as to all other mortal beings) results from an appreciation of their characters, so that one may awaken a purer regard than another, this feeling is very different from that partial fondness which adopts one and gives him a place in our affection to the exclusion of another. That instinctive justice which compels a higher regard for the purer moral worth, will, of itself, prevent that parental partiality which leads to injustice or to an infringement of established rights and recognised principles. An unjust parent presents one of the most revolting pictures of human nature. The character involves a disregard of the most sacred ties and the tenderest relations. And whoever exhibits parental injustice, or that partial fondness which leads to injustice, at once destroys the affections and violates the moral sense. Families trained under such influences, still exhibit revolting scenes of human depravity--of bitterness, strife, alienation and revenge. Who can tell how much of the estrangement of Esau, and this early introduction of the worship of strange gods among his descendants, may have been induced by the conscious alienation of his mother, and the unjust preference of the interests of his brother? Had Rebekah, with a mother's love, striven to win her eldest son back to his father's tent and the altar of his God--had she still respected his rights and preserved his regard by undeviating truth and faithfulness, she would have retained a strong hold upon him, and her influence might have been long felt by her descendants, in restraining them from the sins of those around them. We cannot yet part with the two principal actors in these sad scenes of treachery and deceit. We think of Rebekah, the companion of her blind husband--deprived of the son who had shared and alleviated her cares, and conscious of having awakened that bitter hate which would seek the blood of a brother--still following in her thoughts the footsteps of the wandering Jacob, feeling that by her own intrigues she had banished him from his home and her presence. And we may follow Jacob, as he stole from the tents of Isaac, a wanderer like the first fugitive, with his brother's curse upon him. Until this hour all Jacob's views and feelings seem earthly and grovelling. Until now, there has been no indication of that trust and piety which afterwards marked his life. He had seemed worldly, cunning, ready to snatch any personal advantage. From this period he seems to awaken to a higher--a spiritual life. He seems to have comprehended the deeper meaning of promise and prophecy. We cannot tell what remorseful and despairing thoughts filled his soul as he left his home--how strange and inexplicable may have seemed all the ways of God toward him. Yet he must have felt that, in punishment of his deceit and falsehood, he was thus sent forth with but his scrip and staff, while he left Esau to inherit the possessions of his father. He had wandered until he was faint and weary, and then he had lain himself down on the earth, with stones for his pillow and the heavens for the curtains of his tent. In the silence of the night his soul was opened to spiritual revealings--to those influences from heaven which marked the change in his future life. He _saw_ the angels of God ascending and descending upon him. Often before this may they have visited him--constantly may they have hovered over him--but now he was made conscious of the presence, watch and interposition of the heavenly intelligences of the higher presence of the God of Abraham. From this hour we trace a different influence pervading the heart and life of Jacob. He was awakened to higher motives--and from this hour he entered into covenant with God, and took Him to be his God. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not;" and he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God--and this is the gate of heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. "And he called the name of that place Bethel." And Jacob vowed a vow, saying "If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." The future life of Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human purpose--the imperfection of human nature. Yet from this time he walked with God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety. We doubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change by which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul has been enabled to enter into the mysteries of the spiritual life and enjoy communion with the Author of its existence, through that Spirit which breathed the first breath of life by which man became a living soul. [Illustration] THE RIVAL SISTERS--LEAH AND RACHEL. [Illustration] There are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or caprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections--the one of ancient, the other of modern days--the one of sacred, the other of profane history. Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King of England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hated wife of the Hebrew patriarch. There may seem to be as little assimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between the daughter and the wife of a Syrian shepherd, and the daughter of one of the proudest monarchs of Spain and the wife of the haughtiest king of England; but they were both women, and both wives of those who loved them not; and this fact, whatever the condition of woman, stamps her lot as one of wretchedness. The wife neglected and despised is a woman sorrowful, whether she be the inmate of a tent or the dweller in a palace--whether she tend the flock or grace the throne. Catharine of Arragon, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, seems a truth-loving, devout woman, well prepared to welcome the great principles advanced by the Reformers, had she not been placed in circumstances most adverse to their influence. Had Henry embraced the doctrines and the principles of the Reformation from a conviction of their truth and importance--had he sought to regulate his own life by the pure precepts of the Bible, and thus striven to disseminate a pure faith among his people--had the conscientious Catharine been the patroness and the friend of the Reformers, instead of the trifling, if not guilty, Anne Boleyn--the English church and the state of religion in the English nation would doubtless have presented a different history for the past, and a different aspect for the future. But these are vain speculations. Catharine lived and died in the Papal faith. From the circumstances in which she was placed, she clung to it as to her womanly honour, her queenly dignity--as she would preserve her name from blight, her child from shame. And when she saw herself supplanted, when she was disgraced, divorced, her child declared illegitimate, and she knew her death was desired by one to whom she had been a devoted, faithful wife, what words could be more touching than those the dramatist gives as her last message to the king! "Tell him, his long sorrow has passed away." Oh, none but a wife dying thus, with the bitter consciousness that her life was undesired and that her death would be unregretted, can feel their full import. The bells which had tolled for Catharine of Arragon had hardly ceased to vibrate when the roar of the cannon announced the execution of Anne. The one died in January, the other was beheaded in May; and she who, by exciting and encouraging the unholy love of the king, had unchained his fierce passions and taught him to break through all restraints, was herself, full early, their victim. Shall we pass from the palaces of England to the tents of Mesopotamia--from the last days of chivalry to those of the ancient patriarchs and shepherds of the earliest of recorded ages? When the wandering Jacob reached the abode of his mother's kindred, the land of Haran, he met, at the same fountain at which Rebekah had watered the flocks of the messenger of Abraham, the daughter of her brother Laban. He had seated himself by the well, and when the maiden came, he aided her to water her flocks; and he was thus introduced to his kinsmen by Rachel; and he told them that he was the son of Rebekah, of whom, perhaps, they had long lost the recollection; and with all the hospitality of the East--that hospitality which ever prevails among a simple and pastoral people--he was welcomed by the kindred of the mother. The brother of Rebekah had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful; and both sisters loved their cousin, while the heart of Jacob clung to the younger, the fair damsel who first welcomed him; so that he overlooked the claims of the elder,--the plain, if not disfigured, Leah. He brought no offerings with him to conciliate the favour of the father, and, according to the custom of the East, to facilitate his marriage. But he offered his personal service as an equivalent. And the son of Isaac served seven years for the daughter of Laban. But this long period was passed; and dwelling, as Jacob did, in the presence of Rachel, a member of the household of her father, they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore her. But the time had now arrived when the marriage should be celebrated, and Jacob claimed his bride. But he who had wronged his brother, who had by disguise deceived his father, was now imposed upon by guile and treachery; and all the hopes and expectations of these long years were defeated. The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have stayed his anger. Thus commenced the family of Jacob, with all the elements of dissension, strife and bitterness incorporated into its very earliest existence. The daughters of Laban both became the wives of Jacob, and they were rivals as women, as sisters, as wives and as mothers--forced to dwell together, yet ever in sullen hatred or bitter strife. When the ties of natural affection are severed, the heart never ceases to bleed; and there is no hatred so deep, so implacable as that which springs up where hearts once knit are thus alienated and forced asunder: and the sorrows and evils which sprang up in the family of Jacob may have led to that command so explicitly given by Moses--"Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, in her lifetime." The heart of Jacob never departed from Rachel. She was the chosen bride. He loved her with a deep and true affection, while the forced claims of Leah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language of the Bible, "he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah," and it was in accordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature that it should be thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a lot of reproach and trial--and as we behold her wretchedness, we are led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive and pity her sorrows. In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist the authority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged, the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin and her husband's hate--her sister's bitter contempt--striving, though scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish of a mother, with the fond assurance, "Now will my husband love me, for I have borne him a son." We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to follow the footsteps of their husband,--Rachel and her offspring are the first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed--all her affections as a wife crushed and despised--in her hour of grief, and in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth not. And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah at once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she is hated of her husband--attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her trusting faith. Rachel was childless--and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it awoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. "Am I in God's stead?" said he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one--the overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received, made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully ordained that the very sorrow which ever follows transgression, the evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble spirit. When the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from a latent superstition, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the household gods of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the daughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus paving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of Jacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and, to secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had multiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and trials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and then enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus ensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel upon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative shows that the strongest passion, gratified in defiance of prudence and previously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and vexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving all at the command of the husband; and the God in whom Jacob still trusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath of his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had passed Jordan with his staff and his scrip--he went out an outcast, and a fugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an Eastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted the mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His father was still living--the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the family of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the grand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son into sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled upon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of Abraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had anticipated a short absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send for him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the estate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour--yet bearing that bitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are exempt,--she who would have assuredly exulted in the one, and sympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not forth to welcome her son, to embrace her relatives and daughters or caress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was vacant--her voice was hushed--her heart cold. The places that had known her, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth or honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have passed away; while still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows, imbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the brightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are often followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as are without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within its shadow. And soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,--the shame, sorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who neglected to guard her--while the husband, though indifferent to the sorrow and love of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father. And the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. "Give me children or else I die," was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws--and the prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,--the voices of their children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers' ears,--they had been called to worship at the same altar,--they had been members of the same household. Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with the same objects, to have the same interests, they were alienated, but not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes. There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,--over those from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged. Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. She was not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream--a few years of pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,--then comes the strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave. As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of God, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark shades so plainly appear. In every age the heart of man is the same; but the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be peculiar to some particular age or condition. We know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were not exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet prosperity rested upon Jacob--and in the decline of life she may have known happiness desired, but not realized, in youth. After the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have turned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and the conflicts of youthful passion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened by the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and strengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the strong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the patriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. He had laid her in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From the touching expression of the dying patriarch--himself far from the land of his fathers' sepulchres--"And there I buried Leah," we feel that, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The repudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her memory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we have read the book of God, we have been taught that good, inordinately coveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The principal actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis, may have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did not avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was secured. Rebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her favourite child, and by that act separated him from herself and doomed him to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw his face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his unattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but he thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that wealth which he so coveted. Leah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she loved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow. Jacob, departing from the institution of marriage that he might yet possess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and disappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a fruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while he first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic relations in the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame as a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things written for our edification? Are we not, in every page of God's word, taught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness save in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure from the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may seem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in its train? Many have studied the word of God to justify sin, or palliate guilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully studied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a positive object, still brought its punishment,--if delayed, never remitted--although successful, never justified. The word of God never justifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom He over-rules them to promote the designs of his eternal providence. Modern days and Christian institutions allow no examples of the exact type of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the patriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there will ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from misplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is still to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a friend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival--as there are still fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their daughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful beauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and wisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction. Human nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed the generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and acknowledged. While we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of these individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpassing beauty and excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of a renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is always allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful prosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his parents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent traits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest, less to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's or Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had prepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in affluence and cherished by maternal affection, seems to have exhibited less energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his descendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive life. Yet he trusted and obeyed the God of his father, though he enjoyed neither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the enlarged prophetic views of Jacob. In all the trials and infirmities of Jacob--from the day in which he left his father's house until the hour in which "he gathered his feet in his bed and died" in Egypt--we see the evidence and the growth of true piety, of enlarged faith. He was encompassed with infirmities, and these infirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the sorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus his character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his advancing piety our veneration. From the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and Laban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants of Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both worshipped the God of their fathers--of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of Enoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household of faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true God. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort to a sensible representation,--some image probably used as a symbol of the true God at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in idolatry. Thus the gods of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him and his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true God. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged himself, and invoked the name of the God of Abraham and of Nahor, and of their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not yet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a false worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy of his descendants. That the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob left Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images--and there is then great significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with God, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel. "And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." Probably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While idolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he saw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental connection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in the household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live." The cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superstitions by which her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been thus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer to this example in his promise: "Nevertheless she shall be saved in child-bearing, if she continue in the faith." And this sin may have excluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot disappears from this time, and the purification of the household was availing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children of Jacob were kept from idolatry. [Illustration] MIRIAM. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON THE DESTINY AND CHARACTER OF MAN, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF MOSES. [Illustration] There were designs of infinite wisdom to be accomplished by the long sojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt. The people of Israel were appointed to guard the name and worship of Jehovah, until He who was to bring life and immortality to light should rise from among them. Until the "Star" that was to come from Jacob should shed its glorious radiance over this darkened earth. When all the children of men were departing from God, He chose this family to perpetuate the memory of his works and his mighty acts in preserving the first history of the race, and to prepare the way for the fulfilment of the designs of infinite mercy toward a sinful and apostate world. By miracles and judgments, by type and prophecy, by altars and sacrifices, he kept before this people the mysterious promise given in the hour of transgression. From this family was to descend him who was to be the light of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel, him who was at once the Almighty Saviour, the everlasting Father, the wonderful Counsellor, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who bore our sickness, and took upon himself our iniquities. And while from the family of Israel that high spiritual influence was to emanate, which was to renovate men's moral nature and change the aspect and condition of the race, restoring the knowledge of the true God; and again, through the great atoning sacrifice, opening the gates of eternal life and bringing spiritual blessings to all mankind,--the character of the children of Israel, their civil institutions, their legislation, their history, their laws, their literature, were to leave their impress upon all the nations of the earth. The apostle accounts it the chief honour of the Jews that unto them were committed the oracles of God. They were employed to transcribe and preserve the inspired books. From them went forth those who first announced the great truths of a Saviour crucified and a Comforter promised. For successive ages the nation of Israel stood surrounded by the heathen world,--stood the witnesses of the faithfulness of Jehovah, the monuments of his truth and power, the only nation upon the face of this earth who worshipped the true God. Thick moral darkness shrouded all other lands--the nation of Israel alone had light in their dwellings, and the beams of the rising Sun of righteousness fell upon them and revealed the gross darkness around them. And he who had chosen the people of Israel for such a high purpose, in infinite wisdom devised the means to fit them for their destination, and he guided and guarded them in each stage of their national existence. Egypt was one of the first kingdoms founded after the deluge, and it is probable that those who repeopled it after this event, had retained many impressions of the former world. Her monuments, yet remaining, attest the high antiquity of her arts and sciences, and her early advancement in refinement and civilization. Her priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and the philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and philosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts and sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe. God designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel. The granary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought Jacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until they multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for number; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their national history so as to promote his own eternal plans. The patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,--the wealth of a pastoral people,--into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh, the monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close of a long pilgrimage: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed him all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his sons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them for a place of abode. Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people, and enabled to maintain their own peculiar institutions, practise the rites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the God of Abraham. And in all the oppression which they here sustained, we do not find that their religion was ever persecuted or their rites forbidden. And as Egypt was the cradle of the nation of Israel, so it was to be the school in which the children of Jacob were to form a national character. The wandering, pastoral tribes, transformed into an agricultural people and settled residents, and instructed in the arts of civilized life, were fitted to take possession of the allotted heritage. After fostering their infancy and feebleness, the monarchs of Egypt gradually changed their course as the increasing numbers of the Israelites excited jealous apprehension. Yet all this varying policy and every cruel edict advanced the designs of Jehovah and promoted the welfare of his chosen people. The cruelty of the Egyptians alienated the hearts of the Israelites from the nation and from the land of Egypt, and kept freshly before them the remembrance of the inheritance promised. While considered as strangers, treated as aliens, and surrounded by enemies, the bonds of brotherhood were more closely drawn, and they clung together, a distinct and separate people. The tribes were one nation. While the people of Israel were oppressed, they were not enslaved. They were tributary, but not reduced to personal bondage. They dwelt together in that portion of Egypt assigned to them. They spoke their own language. They seem to have regulated their internal affairs by their own elders. They maintained their own worship. Their family relations were unbroken. They must have amassed riches, for they brought great wealth out of Egypt, as the offerings at the tabernacle show--and although in part this may have been received from the restitution which the conscience-smitten Egyptians offered upon their departure, all could not have been thus derived. The whole narrative of the Israelites shows that they were rich in silver and gold, and possessed much cattle. Yet all their property was personal--they owned no land. And much of the tribute was, doubtless, exacted as rent, paid by many in personal labour; and while they thus erected, perhaps, the proudest monuments of Egyptian art by this enforced labour, they were acquiring the various knowledge needful to a nation; while their very task-masters, by compelling them to acquire the habits of industry, to which a pastoral people are always averse, were school-masters, needful though harsh, teaching them to develop their energies and forcing them to exercise patience and to acquire skill. Learning and wisdom have departed from Egypt. She has long been the basest of kingdoms. The race of the Pharaohs has passed away. She has been for ages governed by slaves. Temple and palace are in ruins. Her tombs, sacred and precious, have been pillaged; And the bones of her great and noble ones, her priests and kings, feed the fire by which the wandering Arab prepares his food. Yet many monuments of her ancient arts remain, interesting as attesting her power, grandeur, and high advancement in civilization, and still more valuable as corroborating the sacred history and throwing light on many passages of the inspired word,--at once showing the former residence of the Israelites in Egypt, the close connection of these ancient people, and affording proofs of that wisdom which selected Egypt for the cradle and school of the chosen race. The Egyptians, gradually after the flood, lost the knowledge of Jehovah and departed from his worship. At the time Joseph married the daughter of the priest of On, the Egyptians could not have sunk into that gross idolatry which contrasted so strangely with their wise legislation and scientific attainments; and their priests are supposed to have concealed, under mystic symbols, mysterious truths, which they imparted to the initiated, while they taught a grosser system to the common mind. While in Egypt the Israelites seem never to have been exposed to the debasing immoralities which prevailed among the nations around the promised land. The children of Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham four hundred years. When Jehovah called his people out of Egypt they were fitted to receive the laws and institutions which he designed to give them, and to take the high position he assigned them among the nations of the earth. And lest, during their long sojourn in the wilderness, they should lose the arts of civilized life, they were employed in the construction of the tabernacle. By the minute enumeration of all that was required for the completion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate a high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the generation born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from degenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless were occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people, exciting the interest and employing the energies of all the different classes of the great multitude. The long ages of the sojourn of the children of Jacob were drawing to a close. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full; the children of Israel were prepared to be numbered among the nations of the earth; and the events dictated by the craft and policy of men were ordained to promote the infinite designs of Jehovah. For four hundred years the descendants of Jacob had dwelt in Goshen. From a pastoral they were already become an agricultural people; they had learned to prize the comforts of an established life, of quiet, peaceful homes, of pleasant places of abode. Dwelling in the richest portion of Egypt, protected from all foreign aggression, they there enjoyed abundance, peace, and prosperity, to which their wanderings in the desert furnished a sad contrast. The policy of Egypt had excluded the Israelites from her crimes. The energy, the love of change and adventure, which a martial life imparts, were unfelt; and had not oppression driven the Israelites from Egypt, the promise of that goodly land destined for their race had hardly induced the nation to leave their present abundance and protection. Thus, by the various dispensations of his providence, Jehovah was at once preparing a guide, leader, ruler, and future lawgiver for his people, while by the continued vexation, oppression, and cruelty of the Egyptian rulers, he was suffering them to alienate the affections of the children of Jacob from a country which had become the native land of the Israelites, which was the birth-place of generation after generation. At the time Miriam, the sister of Moses, appears before us, the children of Israel had reached the fourth generation. A family had become a nation, a people in the bosom of another, dwelling together, distinct, separate, too numerous to be easily or safely held in subjection, too valuable as tributaries to be relinquished. Thus to hold them safely in bondage and to prevent their further increase, it became the settled policy of Egypt to oppress and degrade them. As their jealous apprehensions were at length awakened, by a policy as profound as it was cruel, the Egyptian monarchs endeavoured, in destroying the sons of this people, to force the daughters of Israel to intermarry with their oppressors, that they might obtain the wealth of the sons of Jacob, while the name and memory of his family would be swept from the earth. Yet dwelling, as the Israelites did, in a separate province, it was not easy for Pharaoh to find those who would execute his purposes; and the first efforts to cut off the race of the chosen, failed. He was however so intent upon their extermination, that he did not hesitate to direct that all the male children of the Israelites should be cast into the river as soon as they were born. While there were so many to court the favour of the monarch and ever ready for the darkest deeds, how could the sons of the Hebrews now escape? When Moses was born, his mother hid him three months; and when concealment was no longer possible, she sought for the babe a strange place of safety--in the very element which was indicated for its destruction. The slender ark is framed by the mother's hands, and deposited among the flags on the bank of the Nile. The morning was perhaps dawning, and the sky yet gray, when the anxious mother withdrew. In a few hours after, the chant of the boatmen is suddenly hushed, and the passing labourers shroud their heads in token of reverence, as, surrounded by her attendants, the daughter of Pharaoh approaches the river. The slight ark, with its precious burden, floating among the reeds, attracts her eye, and, as her maidens draw it from the water, the wail of the desolate infant strikes her ear. "The babe wept"--and full fountains of womanly tenderness were broken up in the heart of the princess of Egypt. "This is one of the Hebrew children," said she; and as she drew him from the waves, she resolved to save and adopt the child. Miriam, the sister, had lingered near to watch, if not to save the child. We may fancy the Hebrew maiden at a little distance, eagerly bending forward, and gazing with intense and breathless interest. And when the princess announces her intention to protect the infant, in all the gladness of childhood she bounds forward, and, mingling with the royal train, asks, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, "Go;" and the maid went and brought the child's mother! Thus had the God of Israel overruled all the designs of evil to his people, by providing in the very family of Pharaoh a shelter and a home for the child--doomed by the impious monarch to destruction--but designed by Jehovah to be the saviour of his people. He who was thus drawn from the water was the ordained deliverer, guide, legislator, and prophet of Israel. As Jehovah had appointed him to this high vocation, he not only guarded his life, thus threatened, but made the instruments intended for the extermination of the race the means of the full accomplishment of all its mysterious destiny. The child thus adopted into the royal family was not only saved from death, but was thus placed under influences most propitious for the attainment of all the various knowledge which could fit him for the high station to which he was destined. That helpless infant was not only to be the deliverer of Israel, but by his political institutions, his legislative enactments, his moral precepts, his inspired teachings, he was to mould the character of his own people, and to influence other nations down through all coming ages. High was the honour allotted him as the deliverer and the lawgiver of Israel--still higher that as the prophet of the Lord. He was the promulgator of the great moral laws of the universe, originally engraven on the hearts of men, but now so effaced by sin as to be scarcely legible;--he was to establish those institutions which were to perpetuate the name and the worship of Jehovah among the children of men; and that memorial which, by a long line of types and sacrifices, was at once to prefigure and prepare for the great atoning sacrifice, offered for a lost world. Of all the fallen sons of Adam, none were ever destined to a station of more arduous responsibility, of more extensive and long-continued influence than that appointed to this Hebrew infant; and He who had marked out his destiny ordained the means which were to prepare him for it. Transplanted into the family of Pharaoh, he was there instructed in all the "wisdom of the Egyptians," and Egypt (as we know) was the fountain of ancient learning, science, and philosophy. While Jehovah communicated by direct inspiration to Moses, yet the mind of the ruler and leader of Israel had been prepared by that instruction which develops the capacity, expands the mind, and enlarges the apprehension to receive and understand the institutions Jehovah gave his people, and he was thus enabled to co-operate with an enlightened mind in all the designs of God. But if the schools of Egypt imparted that intellectual attainment, mental discipline and knowledge of legislation in its various forms, so necessary for the lawgiver, there were other influences which were needful for the perfection of the character. There was a knowledge higher and holier than that ever taught by priests or Grecian philosophers,--a wisdom beyond that of the Egyptians, "the knowledge of the Lord," the God of his fathers, and the first great truths of religion should be breathed into the soul in the whispers of parental love. The earthly parent should lead the child to the feet of the great Creator. And then in the formation of a character which was to leave its impress upon all future ages to the close of time, the affections were to be cultivated, the sympathies awakened, and all that is pure and kind and elevated in the nature of man drawn forth. And where is the influence which so gently moulds the character, refining, softening, and elevating it, as the affectionate, intelligent sister? As a man advances in life, the continual influence and association of virtuous and accomplished women is felt in all the relations he is called to sustain. We see in the various circumstances of the life of Moses a Divine recognition of the value of the family relation and of the importance of the influence of women in the formation of character. Before Moses was admitted to the schools of Egyptian learning, before he was exposed to the snares and the splendours of a court, before he was called to a throne, he had learned lessons of the deepest wisdom from the lips of his parents. One higher than the royal of earth spoke through the princess, when she said, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages." And faithfully did the mother fulfil her charge. She strove to imbue the soul of her child with living faith, while upon that infant heart she impressed the maxims of eternal truth--she imparted those lessons of trust and confidence, and inculcated that deep conviction of the power of truth, which led the man, by the grace of God, in the prime and flush of life, to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Had that mother been unfaithful to her high trust, had she infused into that infant heart lessons of ambition and worldliness, he had perhaps failed in the hour of trial, and another had led the tribes of Israel to the chosen land. A little band guarded Moses; the princess of Egypt, the mother of Moses, and his sister Miriam. Each one exerted her peculiar influence upon his character, while his future destiny attested the varied power of these influences and their relative value. As the saviour of the young Hebrew, as his protectress and adopted mother, the daughter of Pharaoh had a large claim upon him, and to her he was indebted for many of those high attainments which fitted him for his office. The slight incidental notices of the daughter of Pharaoh give us a delightful impression of her character. There is something higher and nobler than a princess. She was a true woman, filled with all the quiet sympathies and kind affections of her sex, and possessing an energy and a persevering constancy which led her to fulfil her generous purposes, and made her impulses bear the fruits of benevolent action. Such women show what women should be, and such women in all ages make the influence of their characters to be felt. To her fostering care Moses owed life and advancement, education, honour, the standing of a prince, the polish and the refinement of the court. She proved her appreciation of knowledge, and we may well infer her own cultivated intelligence from the care with which she provided for the instruction of her charge. She showed that she could feel and that she cherished all the sympathies of domestic love, by providing for their indulgence, by allowing their continuance, and yielding to their claims, even though she was a princess of Egypt, the daughter of the haughty Pharaoh, and her adopted child belonged to a race studiously oppressed, degraded, and exposed to all contumely, and while, doubtless, she was no stranger to the prejudices which led her countrymen to look upon the sons of Israel as an outcast and despicable race. Still the bonds of national affection, of kindred and brotherhood, were all respected. The whole narrative shows that Moses was never alienated from his family, never taught to forget that he was a Hebrew. His patroness felt that there were holy ties never to be disregarded nor trampled upon. And while the princess of Egypt surrounded her infant charge with right influences, while she provided wisely for his intellectual culture, she likewise brought the influence of her own personal character to bear upon him. The influence of a pure woman, who unites refinement to intelligence, and adds to them the polish of the court without its corruption, would be as powerful as it would be salutary, and when to the higher qualities, mental and moral, the polished refinement and graceful attention to all the proprieties of life are imparted, a high finish is given to the character. Nor was that acquired grace and courtly manner a thing of frivolous import. It exerted an important influence upon the future destiny of the individual. The successful leaders of great multitudes have often owed almost as much to that high bearing and dignified demeanour which should be the distinct badge of those who are numbered with the great, as to their skill and discernment; and while treated in the court of Pharaoh as a scion of royalty, the young Hebrew acquired that air of conscious authority to which inferior minds always defer. He gained there that knowledge of courtly splendour and gayety which forced in him the conviction of their perfect insufficiency for the high demands of the spiritual nature, and that knowledge of the heart of man and its depraved qualities most needful to one who was at once to lead and control a multitude, and who was to stand before kings as the envoy of Jehovah. The Israelites never seem to have entered the Egyptian armies. It would have been contrary to the policy of the kings either to have encouraged a martial spirit or to have placed arms in the hands of this multitude; yet as one of the family of Pharaoh, Moses led the armies of Egypt. And needful it was that the future leader of Israel should be well instructed in all the tactics of war--should understand all the providing for, the ordering, and the encamping of vast hosts. It was perhaps only by arduous military service that he could have developed that capacity indicated by the vast skill with which an army of six hundred thousand men, encumbered with their wives and little ones, could be encamped in regular order, whether marching or resting. Ever desiring peace and acting on the defensive, yet ready to repel aggression, for forty years the nation of Israel were encamped as the hosts of an army. Each tribe with its own banner, marching and countermarching, taking down and putting up their tents, with all the skill and regularity of a disciplined army, and often engaged in actual warfare. He who could thus order and regulate such a host must have possessed the skill and science of the general. While the habits of long command, added to the consciousness of authority and Divine reliance, enabled him to prevent or control turbulent outbreaks. While the legislator of Israel owed so much to the fostering care of the daughter of Pharaoh in preparing him for his high destination, we cannot but feel a deep interest in her who so unconsciously contributed toward an influence and prepared an instrumentality quite adverse to the apparent interests of her people. We cannot but hope that, while she thus hastened the accomplishment of promise and prediction, she was herself led to the knowledge and worship of Israel's God. Might not one who thus adopted the brother, encircle in her affection the sister whose affectionate entreaty gave the babe a mother for its nurse? The fraternal affection which marks the family seems to indicate more than occasional intercourse. Between Miriam and her brother there was that sympathy which always results from an intimate association. The princess of Egypt may have imparted to Miriam many of the accomplishments of the courtly circle, for we find that she was skilled in music, that she led the dance; while, in return, Miriam may have imparted that higher knowledge and those deep truths of which her people were the appointed conservators, and the daughter of Pharaoh may have tasted the blessings which were held in trust for future ages. Miriam was the only sister of Moses, and she first appears as watching the fate of that child in whose destiny all the ages and all the nations of earth were to have an interest. The tender care which watched the cradle on the Nile continued through life, and from the day Moses was saved, down to the day when Miriam died in the wilderness, she seems ever associated with her brothers in all their efforts and designs. The influence of the sister is peculiarly her own. It is felt in early life in its softening, refining, and purifying tendency--in diverting opening manhood from rude sports or gross pursuits to the enjoyments of a more elevated and pure nature, and shedding a charm around the pleasures of home; while, if no other ties intervene, the bonds of affection grow stronger with each successive year. We cannot trace the course of Miriam's life. She appears before us for a season and then we lose sight of her for many years. She may have passed them in the retirement and obscurity of her rural home in the land of Goshen. She may have been counted in the train of the princess of Egypt and shone in the court of Pharaoh. Princes may have flattered her and nobles sued for her love. She seems never to have married,--yet her heart may have had its own history of love, perhaps unrequited, disappointed, or sacrificed at the altar of prudence, of conscience, or, it may be, ambition. Oh what a tale of suffering and of enjoyment would the history of one human heart present, if faithfully recorded! Years had passed: childhood was gone--youth was fleeing. The brother had attained a high distinction in the court of Egypt. He had tasted the pleasures of wisdom and the enjoyments of science and knowledge, while, as the adopted child of Pharaoh's daughter, he stood before the people, the prospective heir to the crown. Thus, in the prime of life, endowed with the richest gifts of mind and the attractions of manly beauty, adding the polish of the courtier to the wisdom of the philosopher--and all the adventitious advantages of royal birth received by his adoption--there lay before the young Hebrew a bright vista of prospective glory and honour and earthly happiness. But not to sit on the throne of Egypt had Jehovah raised this child of the chosen people from the death designed by their oppressor. Not to fit him for the throne of Egypt had he surrounded him with all that was propitious to intellectual and moral attainments and guided and watched each step of his course from his infancy. Deep and inscrutable must have seemed the designs of Jehovah, as, when all was brightest, the dark clouds gathered around this favoured son of the Hebrews, and all the promise and purpose of his saved life seemed defeated. The hour of trial came--probably, as it generally comes, suddenly and unexpectedly. It was the hour which was to test his principles and prove his faith. The hour in which all the allurements of sense, the gratification of ambition, and (it may have seemed) the claims of grateful affection, were brought into conflict with the stern claims of duty and principle, and in this hour he did not fail. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. His choice was made. He abjured the throne and left the court. What disappointment must have fallen upon hearts who had looked to his exaltation as a pledge of good for his race, and who saw in his downfall the prolonged dominion of tyranny and persecution! Yet Moses was not permitted to remain in peace, although he had sunk into obscurity. He who was to lead the hosts of Israel through the great and terrible wilderness--who was to endure toil, labours, and privation, needed the nerve, the hardihood, the physical training, which could not be gained in the luxurious courts of the Pharaohs, or in the quiet, and, doubtless, comfortable and abundant homes of the husbandmen of Goshen. Amid the enjoyments of home, the pleasures of study, he need not have regretted the loss of a throne. For many years he, who had been trained in luxury and elegance, led the flocks of Jethro, and knew all the privations and the endurances of the shepherd in the desert. And while his frame was thus hardened and invigorated, while he learned to forego pleasure and endure bodily toil, his soul was nourished by solitary meditation and high communion with God. The philosopher can find instruction and interest in the works of creation, but only he who adds the adoration of the worshipper to the wisdom of the philosopher is prepared to study the works of Jehovah aright. What deep thought, what high imaginings, what profound reverence must have filled the soul of the Hebrew shepherd as he watched the stars in the silence and loneliness of the desert. As he sat, a solitary and banished man, under the shadow of the rocks of the wilderness, how strange, how incomprehensible must have seemed the events of his past life. The visions of his youth, the splendour and warlike pomp of the army or the pageant of courts, must have come over his soul like a dream. Even to us how strange seems this long sojourn in the wilderness, this enforced inactivity and apparent uselessness. Yet the God of Israel was promoting his own designs both among his people and in the heart of him who was to be their leader--weaning them from their place of abode, and preparing them for their departure, and fitting Moses to be their leader, guide, ruler, and lawgiver. Each dispensation of his providence, each passing occurrence, all the thoughts, the emotions, the solitary meditations, the reverential communion, the occasional intercourse with the few dwellers of the desert,--like the strokes, slight and almost imperceptible in their effect, which the block receives from the hand of the sculptor,--all were fitting the apparently exiled Hebrew for his high vocation as a prophet and legislator. And it is often thus. For many years may Jehovah be preparing his instruments for that event to which he destines them, and which they may then speedily accomplish. Yet this work in the soul, by which man is prepared to co-operate with his Maker, is silent, unseen, unmarked, so that often we may account this time as lost. And man, ignorant of his future destiny, and of the state to which he is to be called, will ever find it his true wisdom carefully to fulfil the present duty and to aim at deriving instruction and benefit from each dispensation of Divine providence, and from the ordering of each event of his life. In the careful provision made for the training of Moses, in the various instrumentalities used to prepare him for his appointed trust, we are taught that by no miraculous intervention does God supersede the necessity of the improvement of the faculties he has bestowed. The more enlightened the understanding, the more the powers of reason are cultivated, the more intelligently can man serve his Creator, and the more entirely does he co-operate in the designs of Infinite Wisdom. God does not bestow, by direct inspiration, that wisdom or knowledge which is to be gained by the diligent cultivation of the natural faculties, to save man the fatigue and labour of the acquirement. Those upon whom he has most richly bestowed the gifts of spiritual wisdom have been most careful to cultivate their natural endowments. Both Paul and Moses were learned before they were inspired, but God did not supersede the use of the powers of the mind by the higher gift of the Spirit. The providential dealings of God are adapted to the laws of the human mind, and in the government of his creatures he never violates the principles which he has established. The occupation of the shepherd was at length to be abandoned. By oppression and suffering and ignominious exactions, the children of Israel were prepared to leave their homes--the land in which they had dwelt for centuries--and venture across the sea and into the desert. When we remember that husbandry had been the national occupation, when we consider how strong is the instinct which binds man to the land of his birth and the graves of his fathers, and how strong is that bond which attaches one to the spot he has cultivated, to the land he has ploughed and sowed and reaped, we cannot wonder at the coercion needful to rouse a people whose energies were all depressed, and who had been held in check and kept stationary for ages. But the people were ready to depart. The oppression of Pharaoh had prepared the way for the display of the Divine faithfulness and power. Jehovah sent his ambassador from the desert to the court of the King of Egypt, to demand their freedom. During his long exile, most who had known Moses in his early days, had passed away; and the few that were left would hardly recognise in the shepherd of the desert, with his staff for his badge of office--bearing the marks of toil and exposure, of deep thought and solitary meditation--the young and gallant prince, the courtier and the warrior of former days. She who had cherished him had probably been laid in the tomb of her royal race, and the name and the memory of Moses may have been forgotten in the palace and the court. Yet there he stood, before the throne which might have been his seat, the ambassador of the King of kings, bearing the stern message of Jehovah--"Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." Yet wo after wo was denounced and executed--pledge after pledge given and violated--and not until one long wail over the dead and dying resounded through the land were the children of Israel permitted to leave the land of Egypt. The loss of three millions of subjects, of their labour, their tribute, and the removal of all their personal property, would weaken and impoverish the kingdom. Every motive of policy and pride urged the monarch to resist the demand, and thus he suffered the penalty due to his contumelious defiance of the God of Israel, while the judgments inflicted upon him strengthened the faith of the Israelites. The expulsion of the Moors and of the Jews from Spain, the banishment of the Huguenots from France, furnish similar though not parallel cases, in modern ages; and these show that the loss of peaceful, industrious subjects to a kingdom is like taking the life-blood from the system. Centuries have passed, yet these nations have not recovered--and thus Egypt must long have felt her loss. After the tribes of Israel had passed through the Red Sea, the sister of Moses again appears before us. When he poured forth that chant of triumphant thanksgiving--the oldest song of nations--Miriam gave a response worthy of the sister of the leader of the hosts encamped before the Lord. With timbrel she led the daughters of Israel in the dance. And well might the prophetess of Israel teach the dance of ancient Egypt to the daughters of her people on this occasion. The representations preserved in painting and sculpture show that this was not the gay and voluptuous movement of modern days, but rather a succession of graceful gestures, regulated by music, expressive of joy and emotion. Thus the maidens of Israel offered praise and adoration; nor was it unseemly in the warlike monarch of after ages thus to worship before the ark of the Lord, although his pious act provoked the ridicule of the daughter of Baal. From this time until the day of her death, Miriam is found co-operating with her brothers in their designs and efforts. However the earlier years of her life had passed, she had attained to a high distinction among her people. While she seems to have neither claimed nor exerted authority, her rank and position, in her sphere, were as well defined and as elevated as that of her brothers. Throughout the whole narrative we find proofs of the high consideration with which she was regarded. While in early life her influence as a sister had refined and softened the rudeness and roughness of their boyhood and youth, and similar associations with the brothers in mature years had enlarged her mind and imparted intelligence and strength to her understanding. During the long sojourn in the wilderness, Miriam, "the prophetess of Israel," was probably the counsellor of the mothers and the instructress of the daughters of her people; while between the sister and the brothers there ever seems to have subsisted the most tender, confidential friendship. But, alas for imperfect woman! There was a time in which the dark passions and malignant tempers of our evil nature so triumphed in the hearts of Miriam and Aaron, that they arrayed themselves against Moses. The dissension which troubled the camps of their leaders threatened to spread and involve the multitude of Israel in all the evils of rebellion and civil war. During his exile, Moses had married the daughter of the priest of Midian. The descendant of Abraham, Jethro was a worshipper of the God of his fathers, and we have recorded proofs of his piety and wisdom. Yet the marriage of Moses was not apparently in accordance with the views either of his brother or sister. There is a selfish tenderness sometimes exhibited, which leads the dependent mother or single sister to regard with jealousy one who claims a closer tie, and Miriam may not have been free from the infirmities of weaker natures. Yet the notices, slight as they are, of the "Ethiopian" woman, perhaps impress few minds favourably; and we cannot but feel that in herself she may not have been all that the friends of the lawgiver of Israel could have wished in a wife. Bred in the seclusion of the wilderness, she was probably deficient both in the intelligence and the accomplishments which distinguished Miriam. And Miriam and Aaron seem at last to have cherished feelings of bitterness toward their sister-in-law, which were fast extending to the brother himself. They evidently disliked the foreigner. They may have compared the toil-worn daughter of Midian with the high-bred maidens of Egypt, who in former days would have welcomed the addresses of one numbered with the princes of Egypt, or with the daughters of his own people, as offering an alliance more worthy the ruler of Israel; and Miriam, elevated by the distinction conferred upon her as the prophetess of Israel, conscious of superiority in all feminine accomplishments, seems to have forgotten the love of a sister and to have lost the humility befitting a woman. Domestic bitterness was fast preparing the way for political disaffection, and the dark clouds which had gathered around the tents of the leaders threatened to burst upon the whole camp of Israel. Then Jehovah himself interposed. As the principal offender, the prophetess of Israel was publicly rebuked before all the congregation of the Lord; and then, as a leper, expelled from the camp, shut out from all human associations, in shame and solitude, Miriam, diseased and suffering, lay for seven days. In this time she doubtless humbled herself and repented of her sin. Yet, during this interval, the vast multitude showed their respect by remaining stationary; and while Aaron confessed their sin, Moses interceded for his faulty, erring, but still be loved sister. If the conduct and fault of Miriam are to be censured and deplored, it is to be confessed that it was not peculiar to the sister of the leaders of the hosts of the Lord. Women of later ages, conscious of intellectual superiority, elevated by position, or merely distinguished by usefulness, have sometimes been proud enough to despise the inferior of their own sex, and to arrogate to themselves the power allotted to man; and their awakened pride and vanity have introduced strife and confusion into the counsels of those who were appointed to guide the people of God. There is meaning in this record of the faults of those whose hearts had been, from infancy to age, knit together. While God has implanted the natural and domestic affections, they are still to be guarded, cherished, and cultivated. The jealousies, the petty strifes of domestic life, the little dislikes, the unguarded tempers of those who dwell together, have sometimes alienated hearts that have been united from childhood. The love that has grown strong by the mutual endurance of oppression, toil, privation, and danger, has been turned to gall by the infusion of the constant droppings of domestic strife. Pure, unselfish love is the spontaneous growth of a holy heart. It must be nurtured and tended, or it will wither and die in our corrupt nature. The afflictions and punishments which harden the hearts of those who reject God, bring such as love his laws and character to submission and penitence. Miriam was restored to her former usefulness, probably better fitted for her high position, while the hearts of the brothers seem united anew to each other and to her; and the authority of Moses, vindicated by God, was strengthened by his own forbearing love and disinterested gentleness. And from thenceforth, while a due subjection was observed, there seems to have been an entire co-operation between them. Miriam died in the wilderness of Zin, and the brothers buried her. There is a peculiar sadness in this separation, occurring, as it evidently did, not long before the close of their various pilgrimages. As we follow the inspired narrative, we are naturally impressed by the care with which Jehovah selects and prepares those whom He intends as the instruments of advancing the welfare of his people and his own glory; and while this may be more clearly traced in the case of the highly distinguished legislator and prophet of Israel, we may be assured that it extends not less certainly to the lowest and the humblest. The influences by which the lawgiver of Israel was so early surrounded, we are willing to accept as a divine attestation to the power and value of female culture in the formation of the character. Three women are brought distinctly before us, as connected with the early history of Moses. The mother's high duty and privilege it was (as it ever is) to instil into his opening mind those great truths and first principles which are at the foundation of all excellence. Had the nurse of Moses been an Egyptian idolatress, the character of the man had doubtless been very different. While Moses owed all his worldly advancement to the princess of Egypt, he derived other advantages from being brought under the familiar influence of one who preserved, amid the corruptions of a court, the best sympathies of our nature. A knowledge of human character and a power of adaptation to all the circumstances of his eventful life were thus imparted, and which could be hardly elsewhere acquired, yet they were very needful to one who was to fill the office allotted to him. God has graciously ordered that while the parents and guardians are to pass away, there are early ties which are enduring. Where families are properly regulated, added years strengthen the bonds of natural affection. Through all the vicissitudes of his life, the brother and sister of Moses clung to him. We first see Miriam watching the cradle-ark in which the infant was concealed, and she never appears except some event in his career brings her into view. Yet, through their long lives she was his companion and helper, participating in his labours, soothing his sorrows, and aiding and encouraging him in his work. She is a type of a large class--we mean the daughters and the sisters who are not wives. Her life shows that a woman may be honourable, useful, distinguished, and happy, and yet remain single--that the holy duties of the wife and the mother are not the only duties. How many homes would be comparatively unblessed but for the presence of a dutiful daughter or a loving sister! How largely our own age is indebted to women as teachers; women, who, like the prophetess of Israel, while assisting their brothers to proclaim the oracles of God, devote themselves to the instruction of their own sex, and bless men by instructing women! [Illustration] DEBORAH--THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN. The book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a period of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the birth of Samuel. It is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations of the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments. It has ever been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and misfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather than to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to dwell upon the periods of peaceful prosperity. Like the records of a court of justice, it presents the criminals and the offences and those implicated, while the thousands of peaceful citizens are never brought to view. The flow of human life is, like that of a mighty river, unmarked during its mild course; but when it bursts its bounds and overflows its channel and spreads a wide destruction, it is watched with interest and its desolating ravages are all recorded. Of the many women who have attained honour and celebrity amidst the intrigues of courts and cabinets and the revolutions of empires, few have retained the purity and the peculiar virtues of their sex. Deborah seems to have united the sagacity and courage of man to the modest virtues of woman. She appears before us affecting no pomp, assuming no state. The wife of Lapidoth--one known only as the husband of Deborah, but thus known never to be forgotten--she abode with her husband in their own dwelling, under that palm-tree distinguished, when Samuel wrote this book, as "the palm of Deborah," between Ramah, where Rachel died, and Bethel, where Jacob worshipped. "And all the children of Israel came up to her there for judgment." The people of Israel had departed from God and from the laws of Moses, and for twenty years they had been mightily oppressed by Jabin. During this long period no priest called the people to repentance, no prophet was commissioned to promise them relief. We may imagine Deborah dwelling among her people, a devout, strong-minded, enlightened woman. She saw their sins, she participated in their trials, and she warned those around her of the evil of departing from Jehovah. She recalled His past acts of judgment and of mercy. She was well acquainted with the laws of Moses, and she recognised in the punishment of the people the fulfilment of prophecy. The influence of such a woman--a woman instructed in the religion of Jehovah--a woman of faith and of prayer--would be felt, first, in her own family, or in her immediate circle of friends; and then would commence the reformation and the repentance and putting away of past sins and the return to the God of Israel. And as the influence spread, the circle extending, the whole nation would seem to have been affected, and they naturally resorted to one whose wisdom and piety were so well established, when any questions of their law, either civil or religious, were to be settled. Thus the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. They came to her--for her feet abode within her own dwelling. Her influence extended throughout all the borders of her land, but her presence still blest her own house. The prophetess of Israel was still the wife of Lapidoth, and her only authority was that of piety, wisdom and love. A more beautiful instance of a woman's true, legitimate influence cannot be given. Quietly, unostentatiously exercised, it penetrated through the nation and brought them back to Jehovah, and prepared the way for the removal of their yoke. For many years she was doubtless employed in reclaiming and instructing her people. Through this influence the children of Israel were prepared to assert their liberty; and then Deborah was inspired to call upon "Barak the son of Abinoam," to gather an army, and take his station on Mount Tabor, where the Lord would deliver the enemies of Israel into his hands. She did not propose to attend--certainly not to lead--the army; but, giving her message, her counsel and her prayers, would still abide under the palm-tree and remain with her husband. But the appointed general knew so well the value of her presence in inspiring the people with confidence, and felt so much the need of her prayers, that he refused to go unless she sanctioned the expedition with her attendance. "And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go." Thus appealed to, the answer was immediate: "I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hands of a woman." Mount Tabor, chosen for the encamping-place of the army of Barak, still rises like a tall cone in the vast plain of Esdraelon, which, stretching across the land to the sea, has since been the battle-ground of nations. From the wide plain on its lofty summit, Deborah and Barak could look over almost all the land. The view of the hills of Judea, of the sea of Tiberias, and of a country of wide extent, still repays the toil of those who climb to its summit. But since the days of Deborah and of Barak, Tabor is generally supposed to have witnessed another scene. The Man of grief, who bore our sins and took upon himself our sorrows, climbed its steep ascent with his favoured disciples--And Moses and Elias appeared unto him there, and there "they talked with him." Of what? Not of the battle of Deborah and Barak with Sisera--although they stood where the leaders of Israel had watched the hosts of their enemies encompassing them. It was a converse of high things, not meet for us to know. And there he was transfigured before his wondering disciples, and his "raiment became exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them." And there was a cloud that overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son--hear him. Alas! the Divine command has been ill obeyed. Tabor yet retains the remains of a fortress and preserves the marks of warfare; but no trace of the meeting there of the great lawgiver and reformer of Israel with Him who came both to fulfil and to abolish. No temples have yet been there erected to Him whose mission was far above all who were sent either to announce or prepare for his forthcoming. From Mount Tabor the leaders and hosts of Israel watched their enemies gathering from afar and encompassing them. With the chariots of iron, so much dreaded by the Israelites, came the archers, and the spearmen, and the multitude that were with them--all assembled to surround and to destroy the allies of Barak. But when Deborah gave the signal, "Up! for this is the day in the which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hands: is not the Lord gone out before thee?" Barak went from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. The victory was complete--"Jehovah triumphed, His people were free." The hosts of the enemy were vanquished. The river Kishon, that ancient river, swept them away. And the victory was celebrated by a song of most triumphant, yet grateful exultation, in a strain of the loftiest, purest poetry, such as the prophets and psalmists of Israel alone could pour forth:-- Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, When the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings! Give ear, O ye princes! I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel. LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, The clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the LORD, Even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, And the travellers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, They ceased in Israel, Until that I Deborah arose, That I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; Then was war in the gates: Was there a shield or spear seen Among forty thousand in Israel? My heart is toward the governors of Israel, That offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the LORD! Speak, Ye that ride on white asses, Ye that sit in judgment, And walk by the way! They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the place of drawing water, There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, Even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: Then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates. Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak! And lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam. Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people: The LORD made me have dominion over the mighty. Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek; After thee, Benjamin, among thy people; Out of Machir came down governors, And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; Even Issachar, and also Barak: He was sent on foot into the valley. For the divisions of Reuben There were great thoughts of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, To hear the bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben There were great searchings of heart. Gilead abode beyond Jordan: And why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, And abode in his breaches. Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives Unto the death in the high places of the field. The kings came and fought, Then fought the kings of Canaan In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; They took no gain of money. They fought from heaven; The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away, That ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horsehoofs broken By the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz! said the angel of the LORD, Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; Because they came not to the help of the LORD, To the help of the LORD against the mighty. Blessed above women Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, Blessed shall she be above women in the tent! He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, When she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, And cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies answered her, Yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; To every man a damsel or two; To Sisera a prey of divers colors, A prey of divers colors of needlework on both sides, Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD! But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. One such strain preserved from any other ancient nation would establish their claims to the highest order of poetic genius, and lead to the most industrious and painful research for all that could throw light upon their literature. It comes over the soul now like the full burst of martial music. It stirs the blood and quickens the pulses with its strain of triumph, while it melts us to pity, as it brings before us so graphically, with such exquisite power--yet such slight allusion--the distress and desolation of Israel. It is a finished picture of the age. We see the judges, those that ride on white asses (still reserved for royal stables) that walk by the way; while it gives us a full character of Sisera and the mother who trained him. We see the mother--haughty, proud, avaricious, surrounded by "her wise ladies," who are flatterers rather than counsellors--ready to exult in the rapine and plunder of the army of her son; her natural fears awakened by his delayed return, yet hushed and soothed by the enumeration of the spoil. No feeling of pity softening the love of vengeance,--the desire for the plunder of a conquered people engrossing all. And in Sisera we see the proud, cruel, licentious spoiler--all the powers of his evil nature called into exercise by success and the long indulgence of every evil passion and gross appetite--arrogant, oppressive and cruel in success; abject, cowardly and overreaching in adversity. We can well imagine the state of an oppressed people ruled by such a man at the head of a licentious soldiery. And harsh as may seem some of the expressions of Deborah, in her joyous outbursts of praise and thanksgiving, they arise from the ineffable miseries, the deep degradation, the oppressive cruelties, to which all the daughters of Israel would have been exposed had he been triumphant; and a mother in Israel might well exult in a deliverance from one whose desolating track was marked by lust and carnage. We do not love to dwell on the treachery of Jael--we do not feel called upon to justify the act, although Deborah might well rejoice in the deliverance of her people from so stern a foe, so foul an oppression. Sisera appears as abject in the hour of defeat as he had been insolent and arrogant and cruel in the hour of triumph. After Israel was restored to liberty we hear no more of Deborah; but "the land had rest forty years." She again returns to her own sphere, to the unostentatious, yet all-pervading usefulness of domestic life. No honours, no triumphs, no statues were awarded to her. No monuments seem to have been erected to her memory. The palm-tree was her fitting memorial; delighting the eye, affording shade, shelter and nourishment; asking and securing nought from man, watered by the dew and rain of heaven, and rejoicing in the beams of the sun--still pointing to heaven while sheltering those beneath it. Jehovah seems to permit such examples to stimulate woman to usefulness and to vindicate their capacity; and thus there ever have been and are still Deborahs--mothers in Israel--those who, dwelling under their own roof, in the seclusion of domestic life, yet send forth an influence which extends far and wide. The sound, rational piety of such women, and their lives of humble faith, of prayer, and of consistent usefulness, have often awakened a high tone of religious feeling and led to extensive revivals of pure religion. Without departing from their allotted sphere, without forgetting the delicacy and proprieties demanded from their sex, they have been greatly instrumental in elevating the moral and religious standard of a community by their faithfulness in reproving the erring and reclaiming the backsliding, while by their kindly sympathy and effectual co-operation, they have aided, encouraged, and, by their prudent, judicious counsel, guided--the appointed leaders of Israel. [Illustration] JEZEBEL. [Illustration] Although the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of Israel, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had been governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked the reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more to provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him." He pursued the path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married, and he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind, by the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry at once more corrupt and more ensnaring, she did more to complete and seal the apostasy of Israel than all who had gone before her. The name of Jezebel has descended to us as one of the most opprobrious epithets which can be applied to a woman. Little did the haughty queen who bore it imagine what a reproach and offence it was to become for future ages, in unknown lands, and among unborn nations. We think of her always as old, withered, thirsting for blood, and incapable of the finer sentiments and all the softer emotions of human kind. There was a time in which she shone as the centre of a splendid and luxurious court, where minstrels sang to her and poets praised her and princes flattered her, while statesmen confessed her influence and cabinets adopted her plans. Fascinating, artful, able, ambitious, and unprincipled, she may be regarded as chief among many of the most celebrated of this class of her sex of ancient or modern days. There have been queens, not of heathen lands and barbarous Asia, but of refined and christianized Europe, upon whose memories rest quite as dark shadows as those which cover the character of the Queen of Israel. It is sad to remember how many of the most atrocious acts which disgrace the annals of our race are to be traced to the influence of female ambition, jealousy, hate, or revenge. Larger possessions than that of the vineyard of Naboth have been obtained by perjury and blood; and few modern courts could consistently condemn the principles or the policy by which the monarchs of Israel attempted to consolidate and perpetuate their dominion. In the estimation of many statesmen and many historians, greatness has sanctified all the means by which power is either to be attained or preserved, and the splendour of the court has fully atoned for all the oppression of the people. While she was fitted to co-operate with her husband, and ready to promote his designs and to embrace the policy which had guided the court of Israel, she soon assumed and ever maintained that influence which the stronger mind, the more powerful will, ever exerts over the inferior and weaker. Through all his reign, Ahab ever deferred to her; and while she goaded him onward in his career of crime, she stimulated and upheld him by her daring defiance of the commands and threatenings of the prophets of the Lord. She possessed all the energy, power, and constancy which ever belongs to minds of a high order, and which fit them for greatness in virtue or crime--insuring widespread usefulness or leading to desperate wickedness. She never was turned from her course. She never faltered, trembled, or hesitated in the pursuit of her object. She witnessed, unawed and unmoved, miracles of judgment and of mercy. She saw unpitying a land consumed by drought and a people perishing by famine; and when the parched earth drank the showers of heaven, while she rejoiced, she was neither softened nor made penitent by the blessing. Ahab could not entirely divest himself of every national characteristic, or the remembrances and associations of his faith and his people. There still clung to him some remains of the fear of the "Lord God of his fathers," some feelings of reverence and awe for the name and worship of Jehovah. No such compunctions troubled Jezebel. When Elijah visited Ahab, the impious monarch quailed before him and trembled at the denunciation of Divine wrath. Jezebel answered his reproofs by scorn and threats, and her menaces drove the prophet from the altar where he had triumphed. Yet her history is replete with sad interest. While it declares the certain ruin which follows national sins and national corruption, it displays also much of the wonderful forbearance of Jehovah. As we retrace his dealings even with the guilty house of Ahab and the apostate people of Israel, we are reminded of _One_ who, ages after, wept over Jerusalem. "Oh, if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace--but now they are hidden from thine eyes." During the earlier years of the reign of Ahab, while Jezebel was engaged with all zeal and activity in proselyting the people of Israel to the worship of Ashtaroth and Baal, she was constantly resisted by the prophets sent as messengers from Jehovah. And many miracles of mercy and of judgment, wrought before her by the power of the Lord God of Israel, should have convinced her of the truth of His messengers--His indisputable claim to be the God--the Lord God. She resisted all--not from the want of evidence or the power of believing, but from the perverseness of a determined will and a hardened heart. Yet he who styles himself a God merciful and gracious, long strove with her, though at last she provoked him to depart and leave her to her chosen way. The seizure of the vineyard of Naboth seems to have consummated the iniquity of Jezebel, while it brought all the distinguishing traits of her character into full light. Judah was a land of rocky hills and narrow though fertile valleys. The possessions of Israel were broader and more luxuriant; and in the beautiful plain of Jezreel the kings of Israel had built their favourite city of Samaria. In that city, Ahab erected the temple consecrated to Baal, and there he maintained four hundred and fifty priests for his service, while the Queen of Israel kept four hundred in the groves consecrated to Ashtaroth. "But the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite was hard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria." The King of Israel desired the vineyard of Naboth, either to enlarge his grounds or to add to their beauty and variety. Yet, despotic and unprincipled as he was, the laws of possession were so fixed, the rights of property so established, that, on the refusal of Naboth to sell his inheritance, he dared not use violence; and he sank into sullen despondency. It has ever been characteristic of wives like Jezebel to maintain their ascendency by arts and blandishments, and by ministering to every corrupt propensity of their husbands. With the watchfulness of a devoted wife, she saw the vexation of her husband. "Why is thy countenance so sad?" "And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for that." Naboth had said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. The faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its passing into the hands of the unholy worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth and being polluted by their orgies. But Ahab did not give the denial in its full force. He represents Naboth as simply refusing. "I will not give thee my vineyard." We seem to see the actors before us, in the spirited, yet simple narration, as it proceeds. Ahab, heavy, sullen, morose--with clouded brow and furrowed cheek. Jezebel, with her flashing eye, her queenly gait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and ambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what utter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency because he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the iniquity which would insure the attainment of his desires! "Dost thou govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry. _I_ will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." And a darker plot, or one more artfully devised, has seldom been unravelled among all the iniquitous intrigues of courts and statesmen. Naboth was doubtless a true worshipper; and for once Jezebel professed all honour to the laws of Jehovah. He was arraigned and tried by the laws of Moses--long trampled upon and disused. And all the solemnities of religion were resorted to, to aid her plans and advance her purpose. Falsely arraigned, accused, and condemned, Naboth was executed, and his sons perished with him. The hands of his brethren were imbrued in their blood. She who managed the plot found other agents to execute her designs. With impious hypocrisy, she insulted heaven by ordaining a solemn fast, for God and the king had been blasphemed. These transactions display the deep depravity of the Queen of Israel, while they show the influence of her character and example upon her people. The very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and law, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction crime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous desire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was corrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to accomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been thus arraigned, and perished thus, in later days! This deed awoke the vengeance of Jehovah. Even as Ahab took possession of his blood-stained field, the prophet of the Lord met him and denounced the doom of the perpetrators of the dark crime. All were to perish, and all were to die deaths of blood and shame. Husband, wife, parents, and children--all, to the latest generation, were to be cut off--to be rooted out of the earth as an abominable stock, and to rot in the sight of the heavens. Ahab humbled himself, as he received the message of the prophet, and showed an outward reverence: and his doom was so far softened that the destruction of the family was not immediate: but Jezebel seems still as bold and unmoved as ever. Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, entered into alliance with Ahab, and visited his court to witness the splendour and share the hospitalities of Jezebel; and while both were warring against Syria, Ahab was slain in battle. Jezebel doubtless would have scouted the folly of those who saw the fulfilment of both prophecy and sentence in the dogs licking the blood from the chariot and the armour, as they were washed in the pool, which probably was on the lands of Naboth; yet she might have foreseen thus her certain fate--and as Ahab had died, so she should die. Her doom was yet deferred. She long survived her husband, and prosperity and such honours as attend the prosperous were her's. She was the daughter, wife, and the mother of kings. Her sons ruled Israel. Her daughter sat on the throne of Judah. She dwelt in royal state at Jezreel, and enjoyed possessions which had been obtained by revolting crimes. Ahab had died a bloody death. Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers; the King of Syria perished by the hands of his servant; and Elijah was taken up to heaven--but Jezebel still lived. What were the occupations of her old age? Was she still busy, restless, and intriguing? Or did the past haunt her with dark remembrances of shame and crime, and the avenging future cast its shadow over her soul? Did the stern decree of the prophet ring in her ears, and late remorse drive her to the dark cruelties of her bloody idolatry, in the idle hope of expiation? Such an old age could not have been happy. She was left to fill up the measure of her iniquity, while memory told of past sins, and conscience whispered of the coming retribution, and the avenging justice of heaven hung like a dark cloud over her guilty house. Past the season of pleasure, deprived of the power she had so abused, without the honour and sacred reverence due to virtuous age, she may have had a foretaste of her future retribution, though surrounded by all the splendour of royalty, with trembling and abject slaves ministering to all her wants. One son after another quietly took possession of the throne of Israel, and Jezebel may have derided the prophecy of Elijah; yet the sentence, long delayed, was fully executed. The hour of foretold vengeance arrived. In one day, the King of Israel was dethroned and murdered, and the race of Ahab was swept from the face of the earth. The last act of her life was worthy of Jezebel herself,--of the Queen of Israel in the days of her prime. She heard of the death of Jehoram and of the insurrection of Jehu. Neither the timidity of a woman nor the yearnings of a mother had a place in her soul. In the hour of carnage, surrounded by all the horrors of death, the pride of her nature prevailed, and all the daring of her character was displayed. She forgot neither the proprieties due to her rank nor the embellishments needful for her person. With the vanity of the woman and the pride of a queen, "she painted her face and tired her head," and then haughtily presenting herself before the murderer of her children, she uttered a maddening taunt and defiance. By the hands of her servants she was cast from the windows of the palace of Israel into the very grounds which had been the vineyard of Naboth; and as she was dashed to the earth, the wheels of the chariot of the destroyer of her race passed over her, and the feet of the horses trampled upon her. "And the dogs ate Jezebel by the walls of Jezreel." Thus her doom was accomplished! [Illustration] There have been many like her. Her crimes have been sometimes equalled in atrocity. Her ruling passions were pride and ambition; and she doubtless clung to the idols of her land from the unbounded license their worship gave to sensuality, and the opportunities it afforded, in its feasts and festivals, for display and gayety. But she clung more tenaciously to her idolatry from motives of self-interest and national aggrandizement. It was the test of loyalty for Israel. It was in perfect consistency with such a character to turn away from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe. In the expressive language of the Bible, she "hardened her heart;" and doubtless, like skeptics of later days, she could ascribe what she could not disprove to the working of natural causes, or to the arts of priestcraft. We can all stifle the convictions of conscience and contemn the principles which conflict with our interest or our inclination; and there are in every station unconscious imitators of the Queen of Israel. [Illustration] ATHALIAH. [Illustration] The pious king of Judah not only formed a political alliance with Israel, but he even permitted, and probably encouraged, his son, and the heir to his throne, to marry the daughter of the impious Ahab and the idolatrous Jezebel. Jehoshaphat saw not the Queen of Israel as we see her--as unlovely as she was unholy. Dazzled by the splendour of her court, won by her grace and queenly bearing, he may have overlooked her crimes. The most unprincipled have sometimes carefully and successfully cultivated much that gives grace and attraction to social life. Some, whose hearts have been utterly selfish and callous, and whose lives have been one dark record of crime and cruelty, have yet shone as the centres of splendid circles, diffusing all around them pleasure and gayety. And men, themselves unstained, have been won by these fascinations to a close association with those whose principles were worthy only of reprobation, and whose association should have been shunned as in the last degree contaminating. The intimacies between those who love and worship God and those who reject him are ever full of danger. And while the courtiers of Ahab and the flatterers of Jehoshaphat may have applauded the liberal policy of the King of Judah, and his freedom from the bigotry of the prophets who would reform Israel, he was pursuing a course which was to involve his family in calamity and bring corruption into his kingdom. Jerusalem and Samaria were not very remote from each other, and the kings of Israel and Judah seem at this period to have maintained frequent personal intercourse: an intercourse which appears not to have elevated the moral character of Israel, while it surely led to the deterioration of the piety of Judah; for when godly persons mingle freely with the impious,--especially if this intercourse originates from mere motives of ambition or worldly expediency,--the former will be much more ready to sink to the level of the worldling than to raise the worldling to their own. The influence of this association with the depraved court of Israel doubtless had its effect upon the heart of Jehoshaphat. He was not drawn into idolatry, but he probably was less zealous in the service of Jehovah and in the vindication of his ways. He may have rather sympathized with the monarchs of Israel in their attempts to establish their own faith and maintain their own authority, than with the persecuted people of Israel in their efforts to preserve the worship of their fathers. While he regretted the idolatry of Jezebel, he may have censured what would be called the uncourtly intolerance or the bigoted zeal of the prophets, who uttered such denunciations and threatenings against the reigning family. Perhaps he pointed out to the few faithful Israelites whom he might meet in the train of Ahab or at the court of Israel the propriety of a more gentle mode or a more conciliating policy. As the friend of Ahab, he betrayed the cause of God, and upheld his iniquities. In all the persecutions they sustained, we do not find that the prophets of the Lord ever sought a refuge among their brethren of Judah. Hardly could they have expected shelter and protection from the king who was allying his own family with the house of Ahab. They found shelter among the heathen; they were nourished by miracles; they were hid in the coverts of the rocks, and were fed by ravens, while Jehoshaphat and his court were rejoicing in the alliance of Jehoram with Athaliah--the royal son of Judah with the royal daughter of Israel; and the worshippers of Jehovah and the devotees of Ashtaroth and Baal were mingled in their train. There might have been heavy forebodings and low, suppressed murmurs among those who remembered the statutes of the Lord, and who recalled his dealings with his people; but the multitude could rejoice in the splendour and the festivities of the occasion; the court could exult in the pomp and display; and wise politicians could talk of the benefits to the two countries of speaking one language, springing from a common origin, and preserving their own national integrity, and yet presenting one united front to the common enemy. And Jehoshaphat may have hailed this marriage as the master-stroke of his policy, while religiously-disposed courtiers whispered that a scion of Israel, transplanted to Judah and nurtured by Jehoshaphat, under the influences of Zion, must indeed prove a plant of righteousness in this garden of the Lord. Did Jezebel fear this? Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her father's house? Jezebel was too strong in the consciousness of her own power, to fear that her children would oppose her wishes or her plans. All experience proves that the wife exerts a powerful influence upon the character of her husband. Even where she has apparently little mental strength, she may possess great moral power, for evil or for good. This influence pervades her family, and is felt even while it is despised and disavowed. When holy and pure, it is as reviving, strengthening, invigorating as the pure breath of the morning. When it has its source in a selfish, polluted heart, it comes like the midnight miasma or the blast of the desert, prostrating and destroying all over which it passes. The character of the mother often determines the course and the destiny of her children. She imprints her own moral lineaments upon her offspring. She moulds their habits and she transfuses into them the feelings, motives, and principles which actuate herself. The influence of the mother is often so perpetuated in her daughters that the individual seems multiplied as she is faithfully reflected by them. Where the mental and moral characteristics are marked, they are almost sure to descend; and the character of Jezebel was one to leave its impress. Thus we find Athaliah worthy of the stock from which she sprang. She was the true, as she seems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early allied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she retained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and she exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the qualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life of Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the same daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud ambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder feelings, affections, and sympathies. Jezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of her nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of crime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in the attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself to utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had some regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification of her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah was utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A character more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the historian, sacred or profane. A woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother destroying her offspring that she might possess their inheritance! Jezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster--a woman destitute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only evil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed all consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes, having no object in view beyond her personal gratification or aggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for Athaliah which could be urged for Jezebel; for the policy of Judea was opposed to idolatry, and in the family of Jehoshaphat she was surrounded by influences most favourable to a virtuous course, and influences which had never rested upon her mother. Under the very shadow of the Temple she perpetrated her most flagrant crimes. Although the depravity of Jezebel led her to adopt a corrupt religion, to reject a pure and holy worship, and to cling to the dark and cruel rites of heathenism, the voice of conscience was not silenced, the light of the soul was not entirely extinguished. She felt the need of some faith--she clung to the altars of her gods. But Athaliah seems to have sunk into the brutishness of those who own "no God." She seems to have trampled upon all faith, as she violated all obligation--insensible alike to the calls of conscience and the aspirations of devotion. She had no womanly sympathies. She had high mental endowments--she had a powerful will and strong passions--but she had no affections. There have been many Jezebels--but few Athaliahs. The affections compose so large a part of a woman's nature that we disown one who is without them. In her deepest guilt, in her lowest debasement, they still cling to her; and raised to the summit of power, they do not often wholly desert her. The princess of Israel must have been married at an early age, and she was long restrained by the character of Jehoshaphat from the public display of her wishes and inclinations. While he lived, Judah still retained the outward show of reverence for the God of Israel, and doubtless Athaliah often led her train to the temple of Jehovah; yet the infection of the character and principles of the daughter of Ahab was at work. A poisonous leaven spread through the royal family. The younger princes of Judah were contaminated; and when Jehoshaphat died, this influence of Athaliah was first manifest in the character of Jehoram. It is written of him that "he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, after the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord." He commenced his reign by the murder of his brethren, the sons of his father. Jehoshaphat had provided for all his sons, giving them wealth and appointing them to offices of trust, while he left the kingdom to Jehoram. And without pretext or apology, Jehoram put them all to death; and their families were involved, as we may well believe, in their ruin. They were probably proclaimed outlaws, and then murdered wherever found, perhaps while dwelling in perfect security and in profound peace; and with them fell many of the other princes of Judah not so nearly connected with the royal family. The very commencement of his reign, the occasion of so much joyful festivity to the court, was thus marked by crimes which brought utter desolation to the families and terror to the hearts of the people of his kingdom; and we may well presume that the woman who afterwards proved herself so reckless and heaven-defying, prompted to this first crime. She who was herself so ready to commit deeds of blood would be quick to instigate others. The whole reign of Jehoram was impious and disgraceful. He erected altars on all the hills of Judea, to draw his people into the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth; while he compelled the inhabitants of Jerusalem to join in the corrupt festivals and the abominable rites of this Syrian goddess. Elijah, the prophet of Israel, was commissioned to reprove Jehoram, and to denounce the impending doom of his house. He was not ordered to present himself at the court of the King of Judah, but to write his message. "There came a writing to Jehoram;" and probably the King of Judah scoffed at the warning, and perhaps referred him to the unexecuted judgments denounced upon the house of Ahab, and to the present prosperity of the family, and the continued stability of the kingdom, as a proof of the fanatical delusion of the pretended prophets of the Lord. Yet the doom of the guilty Jehoram was accomplished even before the woes denounced upon Jezebel were fulfilled. Tributary kingdoms revolted, and in vain he sought to bring them back to obedience. The Philistines and the Arabians made an incursion into Judah, and carried away all his wealth, while they took his family captive; and Jehoram, smitten by a most loathsome and painful disease, died. He was buried without the usual honours paid to royalty. His memory and his person were alike offensive. Upon the accession of Ahaziah, the next king, the influence of Athaliah is soon recognised. He was the youngest and the only son not carried into captivity. It is said that "his mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri. He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly,"--as wife and mother, alike unholy. "Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab, for they were his counsellors, after the death of his father, to his destruction." The second son of Ahab had succeeded to the kingdom of Israel, and Jezebel was surrounded by all the splendours of royalty. Peace and prosperity still attended her family. The death of Naboth and his sons, and the denunciations of the prophet, were probably forgotten, or remembered only to be despised. The royal houses, so closely allied, maintained a familiar intercourse, and the King of Judah was on a visit of sympathy to the King of Israel, who was sick and wounded, when the rebellion of Jehu broke out. It came upon the house of Ahab like a hurricane: in the midst of security and of apparently profound peace, the storm swept over and destroyed them. While the kings were in the palace of Israel, the rapid approach of a messenger awoke the curiosity rather than the apprehension of the King of Israel. With the rashness of a doomed man, he rushed upon his own destruction. As the messengers, whom he had sent to meet the approaching foes, returned not, the two kings hastened to meet the advancing troop. And they met Jehu by the vineyard of Naboth, and there the King of Israel was slain, while the King of Judah fled, mortally wounded, to Megiddo, where he died. All that belonged to the house of Ahab in Israel perished in this hour of vengeance and righteous retribution. Jehu murdered those of the descendants of Jehoram who fell in his way; and Athaliah hastened to complete the fulfilment of the prophetic doom of her house by herself instigating the murder of all who remained of the royal family of Judah, although they were her own descendants! In her ruthless ambition she destroyed her grandchildren, that she might herself ascend the throne of Judah. She seems to have exulted in the blood and carnage which opened her way to royal power. Unmoved by the fate of her mother, with her sons and her brothers scarce cold in their untimely graves, by her cruel treachery she consummated the destruction of her family; and, stained with blood and polluted by crimes, she seated herself upon the throne of David, and usurped the inheritance of her children! For eight years Athaliah held this usurped position. No compunctious visitings of conscience seem to have haunted her. She felt neither pity nor remorse. She may have well sustained her ill-gotten power while she resided amidst the pomp and pageantry of royalty. Her resolute despotism seems to have held her subjects in awe, and to have quelled them all into subjection. She had herself wrought the fulfilment of the doom of her race. As the last of Ahab's children, the sword of divine vengeance was suspended over her head, and in the time appointed it fell. She was to die the death of her house--a death of blood. When the kings of Judah apostatized, while the individuals were punished, the race was spared. God still remembered his covenant with David; and, amid all the sin and desolation of Judah, the line of hereditary descent was unbroken. The root remained, and some scion worthy of the stock sprang from it. When Athaliah was ingrafted on the stock of royal Judah, she so debased it, that it seemed needful to purify it by cutting off all the branches to the very root. Yet one was saved. And, as if to display his own power and grace, God is at times pleased to select from the families the most apostate and unholy, the instrument of his work and the trophy of his grace. So he made the daughter of Athaliah the nurse and the instructress of him who was to reform the kingdom of Judah. Jehoshabeath, wife of the high-priest of the Lord, seems to have escaped the character and the doom of her family. Her's was a task most difficult. She was called to oppose the depravity of her mother and to thwart her bloody policy, and yet not to appear as her accuser and as hastening the execution of the Divine vengeance. Hard is it to the virtuous child to reprobate the character and course of the unholy parent, and yet preserve the reverence due to the relation. Jehoshabeath appears before us in a light which leaves a most favourable impression. The saviour of the infant heir of Judah, the son of her brother, she cherished, instructed and guarded him. At the proper time the high-priest communicated the secret of the existence of the child to the princes of the land, and the son of Ahaziah was proclaimed king. No assault was made upon Athaliah. She rushed, like others of her family, upon her doom, as if she were infatuated. The tumult of the people, the triumphant strains of sacred and martial music, the clashing of the shields of the soldiers as they bore their king aloft, brought the first tidings of the existence of the last of her race to Athaliah. The daughter of Jezebel was not easily daunted. Her courage rose in the hour of danger. She had purchased the throne at a price too great readily to relinquish the possession of it. She forced her way through the crowds who surrounded the Temple, and through the bands of soldiers who guarded the young king, until she confronted the child whose brow already bore the crown of Judah--a heavy weight for the infant king. In vain she rent her royal robes, and in vain she cried, "Treason! Treason!" None adhered to her--none followed her--none perished with her. She died by the sword, "And left a name to other times Link'd with no virtue, but a thousand crimes." The history of modern nations is not without examples of similar evils entailed upon those who, professing themselves the heads of a purified church and a reformed faith, choose (from motives of pride or policy) to seek an alliance with the adherents of a dark, cruel, and persecuting superstition. Such a marriage precipitated the Stuarts from the throne of England, cost one king his life, and the family a kingdom; and the marriages of policy among princes, contravening the rules of God's word, are often followed by most disastrous results, and hasten the evils they are contracted to prevent. In private life, also, the marriage of those who have renounced this world for a higher portion, with the worldly and the ungodly, is generally a source of sin or of sorrow. There can be little congenial feeling between the spiritual and the earthly; and the servant of God who chooses a wife from the daughters of sin and the devotees of pleasure, places himself in a position of peculiar trial. The spirit of the wife pervades the household. The husband may rule, but the wife influences. His voice is obeyed, but the wishes of the wife are consulted. Her friends are the welcome guests. His associates gather around his board and claim his leisure hour, but her voice whispers to him in his retirement. She comes between God and his soul. The strongest of men was shorn of his might by the companion of his bosom; the wisest was led into foolishness and idolatry by the influence of a corrupt woman. We are prone to think of the period to which we have been referring as one of barbarism, and of the nations of Israel and Judah as ignorant and uncivilized. Does it not seem as if the very heavens must have been shrouded and the course of nature changed during the perpetration of such bloody crimes? Does it not seem as if a natural darkness must have overspread the land? And yet it was not so. The sun shone in his brightness, the skies were as serene, the rain and the dew descended, the vine and the olive ripened, and the flowers shed forth their sweetness, and all the bustle and show of life went on, as at other times. The people were oppressed, but the courts of Israel and Judah were splendid and luxurious; and they doubtless boasted of their advancing refinement, even when they were sinking into corruption and depravity. It has ever been the policy of the monarchs who are guilty of the most atrocious crimes, who shrink from no acts of cruelty, to promote that despotism which may banish the remembrance of their enormities, and to dazzle and blind the eyes of their people by the glare and splendour which surrounds their court. And thus these guilty monarchs, by the patronage of the licentious festivals of heathen worship and the alluring rites of a corrupt religion, compelled their people to sin. They drowned the voice of conscience and prevented all reflection. All history has shown us that, as nations have been verging to their ruin, they have yielded themselves to criminal excess and sensual indulgence; and the boasted periods of splendour and high refinement have been but the preludes to long seasons of national calamity or entire overthrow. Thus we may suppose it to have been with the ancient descendants of Israel. The courts were splendid and all the arts were patronized, while the thin veil of refinement was thrown over deeply corrupt manners. The people, departing from a holy faith, were sinking into a sullen debasement, or giving themselves to sensual indulgence and brutal ferocity. Modern nations have followed in the footsteps of the ancient world. The same idols are still worshipped under other names--the same passions rule the unholy heart. [Illustration] ESTHER. [Illustration] When Isaiah wrote, Babylon sat a queen among the nations, in the pride of pomp and power, in the full security of strength; yet he graphically depicted her desolation and foretold her present state, while he pronounced her doom--a perpetual desolation. She shall never be rebuilt! Her towers are fallen and her site marked by ruins. The decline of Babylon had begun. It was certain, although slow. Years were to pass before the sentence should be fully executed. At the period, when the transactions recorded in the book of Esther took place, Shushan was the royal city of Persia. We are told that in this--the City of Lilies--the king Ahasuerus held a great feast, probably in celebration of some recent success, or in commemoration of some great national event. He assembled all the princes and nobles of his vast empire, extending from Egypt to India, and gave a feast or succession of festivities, which continued for more than the third of a year. All that oriental splendour and magnificence could contribute, all the expedients that eastern luxury could desire, to multiply the resources and to heighten the enjoyment of pleasure, were brought to aid the designs of the monarch and to add to the festivities of his court. Yet motives of policy may have combined with the designs of pleasure. In all ages the despot has sought to blind and dazzle the people by a display of power and magnificence; and the princes and nobles around, from distant provinces, have swelled the retinue of their attendants. The amusements of monarchs and of courts have, through all varieties of manners and degrees of refinement, been much the same. The ancient Syrian or Persian, like the modern British or French monarch, had his royal parks and forests for hunting. All nations have patronized the various trials of skill and strength, and the mimic fight has ever been an amusement where war was the great business of life. And the royal pageantry was doubtless intermingled with the religious ceremonies which allowed a license to criminal indulgence and at the same time offered a supposed expiation for crime. While these employed the day, the games of chance, the wine, the music, the movements of the degraded dancing-girl, and the tricks of the buffoon and the jester, amused the late hours and varied the festive scenes of the night. The feast was drawing to a close, and, at the termination of this long season of hilarity, Ahasuerus extended the pleasures of the occasion to all classes of his subjects at Shushan. He threw open his palaces and pleasure-grounds, his parks and gardens--always of vast extent around eastern palaces--and admitted all the citizens to a feast prepared for them. Tents had been erected within the precincts of the palace for the tables--and these tents were furnished with all the luxurious appendages of the east--with white and green and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and marble pillars; while the beds--the couches around the tables, against which the ancients reclined--were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue, and black and white marble; while they gave them to drink in vessels of gold. Until these last days the princes and nobles alone had participated in the festive scenes; but now, as we have said, all ranks were allowed to share, and the citizens of Shushan, subjects of Ahasuerus, thronged the palace and trod the royal gardens, and, entering the tents, enjoyed all that royalty could offer in ancient Persia--far surpassing in costly splendour and elegance the entertainments of modern courts. And surely the monarch must have had strong confidence in the security of his government and the loyalty of his people, as he thus from day to day, for successive days, flung open to them the recesses of his palace. While the king thus feasted the men in the gardens and parks of the palace, Vashti, the queen, held a festival for the women within the secluded apartments appropriated to the female part of the royal household. She made them a feast within the house of Ahasuerus; and this queenly entertainment was conducted with all that regard for retirement and decorum which accords with Eastern manners. But whatever the amusements of the queen and her train of attendants, no rumours passed the carefully guarded bounds of the women's apartments. At length the long season of pleasure came to a harmonious close. No outbreak of the people of Shushan, no rising of distant provinces, no plotting of high-born traitors had marred the festal pomp. Yet the season of pleasure is always a period of trial, and the seeds of remorse and repentance are almost invariably sown in the hours of gayety. Amid all this brightness, a dark cloud hung over Ahasuerus. On the seventh and last day, when the heart of the king was merry--when he had forgotten royalty dignity and personal decorum, by sitting too long at the festive board--excited by pride and vanity, and stimulated by wine, he resolved to dazzle the eyes of the people by presenting to their admiration a gem, brighter and more lovely than any which sparkled in the royal crown. To verify his loud boasts of her matchless charms, he sent his chamberlain to bid the queen array herself in that royal attire which befitted her state while it displayed her beauty and proclaimed her rank, and thus present herself, that the assembled multitudes might admire her loveliness and confess his happiness. In Western lands, and in modern days, this command would convey no idea of shame or impropriety. The royal consort and her train of fair attendants have often graced the presence and shared the honours of the monarch and his court, and added refinement to luxury. But no offer could be more opposed to all ideas of Eastern delicacy and propriety--more degrading to the woman, or more offensive to the queen. By thus unveiling herself before the crowd, she would sink herself to the level of the most unworthy of her sex--while the violation of an established usage, in the time of such excitement and excess, might lead to the wildest disorder, and the queen might be exposed to every insult from crowds maddened by wine and ripe for disorder; while the monarch himself might not be able to protect her in a position so strange and unfitting. The modesty of the woman and the dignity of the queen alike forbade compliance with the strange order--and Vashti might well presume that, in the hour of reflection, when his senses had returned, the monarch would thank her for a prudence which probably alone preserved her dignity and his honour. But the passions of the king were inflamed. His reason was blinded, and artful courtiers, from motives of intrigue or pique, stimulated his anger. There are ever those who stand ready to administer to unholy passions, and who are watching for the fall of such as are high in place or favour. And still under the influence of wine, the rash monarch, by his own act, placed an inseparable barrier between himself and her whose charms had so lately been his proudest boast, and whose conduct had proved that she well deserved all honour and all affection. Vashti was separated from the king's favour; and flattering sycophants extolled the act of folly, as a measure which gave peace and security to every household in the realm. "All the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small." And thus the day closed by an edict that brought sorrow to many hearts, and desolation even to the gates of the palace. The excitement was past. The hour of reflection arrived, and "the king remembered Vashti." His resentment was appeased. "He remembered what she had done, and what was decreed against her." That which had been magnified into a crime and had given such deep offence, was now seen to be an act of wisdom and prudence--the result of true modesty, and that deep affection which sought alone the love of her husband, which shrank from the admiration of the crowd, and which ventured to disobey rather than forfeit self-respect and womanly pride--preferring to lose his love rather than expose his honour. An immutable decree--his own--separated him from one lately so beloved, and so truly worthy of high honour. The darkened and saddened aspect of the monarch declared his late repentance; and those who had precipitated the fall of the queen, to screen themselves, were prompt to devise methods of banishing the remembrance of the divorced Vashti. They would replace her by a new favourite. Yet, so surpassing was her loveliness, and so rare her beauty, that the courtiers could with difficulty find one whose charms might banish from memory the repudiated consort, until they sought through all the provinces of that vast empire for the fairest of the daughters of men. Hadassah, a daughter of Israel, a descendant of Benjamin, of the house of Kish, the family of Saul, first king of Israel, won the monarch's favour, and was promoted to the place of the disobedient but high-minded Vashti. Esther was an orphan, but she had been carefully guarded and instructed by her kinsman Mordecai; and while we are told that the maiden was exceeding fair, we may believe that her beauty was of a high order, stamped too by intellect and feeling, and that the soul which often sustained and impelled her in her trying exigencies, breathed through her features and animated her form. Yet Ahasuerus merely bowed to the fair shrine. He sought not to awaken the response of the soul that dwelt within. When the daughter of Israel was placed upon the throne of Persia, and another royal feast proclaimed the triumph of Esther and the happiness of Ahasuerus, the king displayed his royal magnificence by the bestowal of gifts upon his favourites; and the name of Esther was blended with other and higher associations, as, upon her elevation, the taxes of the burdened provinces were remitted and pardons granted to the condemned. Mordecai, the relative who had supplied the place of parents to Esther, was, as we have said, of the house of Kish. Mordecai was the Jew rather than the Benjamite. His heart was devoted to his country. When the child of his adoption was taken to the palace, Mordecai displayed his wise forethought in cautioning her against making her parentage and kindred known. He had been as a father to her, and a deep interest in the orphan of his care led him, day by day, to watch the gate of the palace--to mingle with the attendants, that he might catch a view of her train or gather tidings of her welfare. And thus, unknown as the relative of the fair queen, or as especially interested in the king, Mordecai was enabled to detect and reveal a plot for the assassination of Ahasuerus. Esther being informed of the plot, disclosed it to the king--the criminals were defeated and punished--but no reward was conferred upon Mordecai. The passion of Ahasuerus for his fair bride seems to have soon declined. The fickle voluptuary sought new pleasures, and the bride so lately exalted to a throne was no longer an object of envy. Many bitter tears have been shed by the victims of family pride or state policy, when thus allied to greatness and splendour. The sacred rite has often been prostituted to purposes of ambition and selfishness, and has thus become a source of guilt and misery. Esther, in her elevation, may have shed as bitter tears as fell from Vashti in her banishment and disgrace. Thus each state has its own trials and its own griefs--and it has its peculiar alleviations too. Perhaps the progress of the narrative will show us the source of that influence which seems early to have estranged Ahasuerus from his bride. Among the courtiers of the king there was the descendant of a race long at variance with the Jews. The Amalekites had been the enemies of the Israelites from the infancy of the nation. When the tribes came up from Egypt, faint and weary in the desert, the Amalekites had fallen upon them and attempted to destroy them; and during a series of ages there had been a war of extermination between the races. Nor had Amalek been subjected until Saul was raised to the throne and Israel had become a kingdom. When Israel and Judah had been destroyed or carried captive by the hosts of the Assyrians, the remaining Amalekites seem likewise to have been carried into the east, either as prisoners or allies. And now, from among all his courtiers, Ahasuerus had chosen, as his chief favourite and counsellor, Haman, the son of Hammedatha, a descendant of Agag--that king of Amalek who, as the prisoner of Saul, was condemned to death by Samuel, the judge of Israel. The descendant of a royal line and of an ancient race, Haman was as crafty as he was unprincipled and malignant, and his evil influence seems to have first drawn the king's favour from Esther. He did not know her lineage, but by plunging the king in every excess, by keeping all safe counsellors at a distance, he intended to increase his own influence and perpetuate his own power, while he was accumulating great wealth from the prodigality of his master and from the presents offered as bribes to obtain his favour. As he did not know the lineage of Esther, he did not persecute her; but as he feared an influence that might compete with his own, he strove to alienate the heart of Ahasuerus from her. Haman was advanced to honours far above all the native princes of the kingdom; even to the first seat in counsel, to the highest honours in the realm, and to constant companionship of the monarch. As, with trains of slaves and flatterers, he was hastening to the audience of the monarch, or returning loaded with marks of royal favour, he passed Mordecai the Jew, seated alone--unknown, unheeded, without rank or wealth--by the gate of the palace. "Yet Mordecai bowed not, neither did reverence to Haman." The two men seemed to represent to each other their respective nations; as if all the hate and malice of the race, and of long ages of national bitterness, were concentrated in an individual. They met as the Israelite and the Amalekite; and the memories of centuries of aggression and injuries, of shame and defeat, were crowded into the present moment. Mordecai saw in Haman, not only the foe to his race, but the crafty, unprincipled, unholy counsellor, who had already alienated the heart of the monarch from his youthful bride, and whose pernicious influence was spreading blight and corruption, misery and destruction--through an empire. Every feeling of the Jew, every principle of an upright, sincere heart forbade Mordecai to pay the homage demanded of him by Haman. Every sentiment of national pride, of family honour, of personal dignity, of self-respect, arose to deter the descendant of Israel from showing honour to the hereditary foe of his people and the persecutor of his faith. Haman, at the same time, saw in Mordecai the descendant of those who had triumphed over his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The descendant of Agag, the captive of Saul, he might naturally vent his indignation upon the tribe that humbled his house and subjected his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The contempt with which Mordecai regarded him roused all the ancient malignity of the Amalekite, and his hot blood called for vengeance. Yet he thought it a foul shame to lay hands on Mordecai alone. The ruin of one man would not heal his wounded pride. He meditated a deeper and more deadly revenge. He resolves to sweep the remnant of the Jews from the face of the earth! The proposed plan displays at once all his cruelty and malignity, and all his crafty influence over Ahasuerus, while it proves the king too much immersed in pleasure, or too much subjected to his artful favourite, to regard the welfare of his subjects or the interests of his kingdom. Superstitious and idolatrous, Haman cast lots day after day, for successive days, that a fortunate one might decide the day to be chosen for the work of death on which he was bent. And this accomplished, he hastened to secure the edict from the king. Surely the monarch must have been sunk in wine and debauchery who could thus unhesitatingly accede to the proposition to murder, in cold blood, thousands of unresisting subjects, when the worst allegation preferred by their enemy was "that their laws were diverse from all people." Yet here was the very principle of religious persecution; and as sanguinary edicts as these, enacted against God's ancient people, have been too often issued in more modern days, and no Mordecai has sat at the gate of the palace, mutely to plead for mercy--no Esther has staked her life upon the attempt to avert the doom! By the offer of an enormous bribe, to be collected from the plunder of those doomed to death, Haman sought the acquiescence of the king in his scheme. And though he refused the bribe, yet he bade Haman do with the people and their possessions as seemed best to him; giving him his signet ring, he seems to have divested himself of all care and responsibility, and Haman having issued the edict and commanded the couriers to distribute the royal mandate, they both returned to their pleasures. "The king and his counsellor sat down to drink." No elaborate essay upon the character of Ahasuerus, no analysis of the arts of Haman, could so display the indolent, luxurious, self-indulgent, voluptuous monarch, or so illustrate the secret of the favourite's power. The companion of his pleasures, he was careful to minister to all the sensual indulgence that could lead him to forget his duty and the obligations of right and justice incumbent upon the ruler of a great people. Of all the cruel and bloody mandates issued by despotic monarchs, and designed to answer either the purposes of private malice or unholy policy, few, if any, have exceeded this which was directed against the ancient people of Jehovah. The Jews who had returned to their own land were included in this proscription, for Judea was at this time a tributary of the Persian empire. "Then were the king's scribes called, the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded, unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province, according to the writing thereof; and to every people after their language, in the name of King Ahasuerus, was it written, and sealed with the king's ring. And the letters were sent by posts into the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews--both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month." Thus we see all the machinery of this powerful government put in motion to crush the Jews--a people widely dispersed and weak from their recent captivity and overthrow. As no crime was specified, so there was no offer of pardon or exemption on any terms; while to make it more distinctly understood, the terms which indicated their fate were singularly multiplied. "To _destroy_, to _kill_, to _cause_ to _perish_." And while the murder of a nation was thus made a legal execution, the mode was left to the option of the executioners; and every torment that malignity could devise might be inflicted, while all were stimulated by the promise of the plunder of their victims--"and to take the spoil of them for a prey." What scenes of horror, of suffering, would have followed the execution of this barbarous edict! The whole empire had probably been deluged in blood--for man, like the inferior animals, seems maddened by the taste of blood--and one cruelty is but the prelude and provocation of another; and in the time of strife, while all were made executioners of the law, private malice would confound others with the proscribed, and few could be safe in the hour of commotion. When this edict was published, and while Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to indulge in the pleasures of the table, all the city of Shushan was perplexed, confounded, and troubled--wondering what motives, what state policy, what strange conspiracy, had led to this sanguinary enactment against a people long dwelling among them--a nation who had furnished counsellors and ministers to their wisest monarchs. When Mordecai saw what was done, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry. He published--he could not conceal--his grief and terror; and his crafty foe perhaps exulted in his misery. The long struggle between the Amalekite and the Israelite seemed now to be concluded. The fall of the Jews seemed to be sealed. All the power of the Persian empire was arrayed against them. They were prisoners in her different provinces, appointed to execution! All human power and authority and presumption of success was on the side of Haman, and against his intended victims. Mordecai had no hope on earth. His trust was alone in the God of his fathers--the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob--the God often defied by Amalek. In his distress he presented himself, clothed in sackcloth, at the gate of the royal palace; but no one arrayed in the garb of sorrow might enter the haunts devoted to luxurious pleasure. Yet the sight of his distress and the tones of his deep grief arrested the attention of the attendants of the queen, and her chamberlain reported the circumstances to her. No tokens of sympathy, no expression of condolence, however grateful, could assuage the grief of Mordecai in this hour of terror and alarm; and even though commanded by the queen, he declined to lay aside the tokens of wo, while he diligently sought to convey to the secluded Esther an account of all the machinations of Haman, and the assurance of the imminent danger to which her nation was exposed, and in which she was involved. He not only sent her a copy of the edict which condemned the Jews, but he charged her to supplicate the king on their behalf. The young queen must have felt like one awakened from a sleep to find herself upon the brink of a precipice. Her situation was full of danger. The flush of royal favour was past. She was neglected and forgotten. Her splendid palace was indeed but a prison, and her lordly consort might prove her executioner. For a long time she had not seen the king or received the least token of royal favour or remembrance, and a new favourite might have succeeded her in the court of the capricious voluptuary. Yet she was sternly charged by Mordecai to rouse herself, meet the peril, and, if possible, save her people, while he taught her to recognise the designs of a wise Providence in her elevation. "Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" In the appeals of Mordecai to Esther, we may recognise the principles upon which he had trained her. The sense of duty, the obligations of religion, the call to self-sacrifice and exertion, had all been instilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on the throne. Yet there must have been a conflict in the heart of Esther, before she could adopt the decision which might accelerate the doom of her people, while, if her appeal failed, her own fate was scaled with their's. Surrounded by all the splendour of the court, with all the pleasures that pomp and power can command, with troops of menials treading marble halls, with the more genial luxuries of fair flowers and pure fountains and soft music--Esther felt the insufficiency of all that earth can yield in the hour of sorrow and trial. We may almost fancy that we see her, with lofty brow and pale cheek, her dark soft eye fixed in thought, and the compressed lip telling of the firm resolve. She has decided! She will venture the loss of royal favour, and life itself, to secure the safety of her people. "I WILL GO IN TO THE KING, AND IF I PERISH--I PERISH." Words more simple, yet sublime in their high meaning, have seldom been recorded. Strong purpose and high resolve call for but few words. Yet Esther relied upon a power higher than that of Ahasuerus. She may have recalled the history of her nation; she may have remembered all the interpositions of Divine mercy in past extremities; and doubtless she relied upon those promises for the future which induced in Mordecai a confident hope of deliverance. She remembered that Jehovah--the God of Israel--hears the prayers of the humble and the contrite. She appointed a solemn fast of three days, in which the Jews of Shushan should humble themselves and remember her before the God of their fathers. A more eminent instance of simple dependence upon the Divine interposition, or of entire reliance upon the voice of prayer, has seldom if ever, occurred. There was no resort to outward ceremonies to awaken a deeper feeling, or to atone for the want of it by a formal observance. There was no altar, no sacrifice, no long procession, no promised offering, no resort to temple or priest, but there was the call upon God from the depth of the soul--the simple, unfailing trust of the heart, the personal humiliation, the individual prayer, the united offerings of supplication and confession from a whole people. There was the simple faith that relies on the Divine power and pleads the Divine promises with submission to the Divine will. It was a strange contrast to the sensual, gross, superstitious, and unholy rites of the heathen, while from its deep spiritual meaning, and from the entire absence of all merely formal observance, it was both a precedent and a model for future ages, and for the holy spiritual worshipper of other days. It was no heartless service, no formal act of worship rendered by the Jews of Shushan, when Esther called upon them to pray and to fast with her and for her. While the queen and her maidens fasted in the recesses of the palace, in many a lowly home or quiet chamber were gathered the race of Esther, to commit her and themselves to Jehovah, to beseech him to forgive the sins of his people and save them, for his mercy's sake, in this hour of their extremity. Mingled with their personal apprehension and anxiety for their wives and their children would be thoughts of "the daughter of their people"--their beautiful queen--so young, so fair, so lately exalted to the pinnacle of honour and glory; adorned with gems and wreathed with flowers, the pride of a monarch and the ornament of a court; now, neglected, abject, forsaken--included in the doom of her race, prostrate in some secluded apartment of the palace--her royal apparel exchanged for sackcloth and ashes--still cleaving to the God of her fathers, and still identifying herself with her kindred and countrymen. Whether they regarded her royal state, her tender years, her bitter desolation, or her heroic resolution, all the sympathies of the heart, all the purest feelings of the nation, would be called forth in her behalf. Other feelings would find a place in the hearts of the Jews as they contemplated their present state. The last deed of the Amalekite would bring to recollection the injuries of ages. This Haman, who now, in a time of profound peace and full security--while both races were exiles from the land of their fathers--had plotted the ruin of their nation, the total extermination of their race; who had doomed the feeble and helpless, the little one and the aged, to perish with the strong man in his might; this Haman was the son of those who fell upon the tribes, faint and weary, in the wilderness; who had pursued them with inveterate hatred; who had ever joined with their foes or stood ready to attack them in their defenceless state. When we recollect that the conspiracy of Haman but closed the long train of injuries inflicted on Israel by Amalek, we shall not so much wonder at the feelings sometimes expressed by the Jew. The character of the tribe was still the same--their course through all years was unaltered. And now, while Amalek has perished and the Jew survives, we can form no just estimate of that national feud. Haman was a type of his race--artful, cruel, treacherous, and bloody; and what the Roman was to Hannibal, what the ancient Persian was to Greece, what the Turk is to modern Greece, what Russia is to the Pole, such was the Amalekite to the Jew. While Esther had manifested her sense of dependence upon the eternal Ruler of nations, and her faith and reliance upon the God of her fathers, by humbling herself before him and relying upon his protection and interposition in this hour of darkness, she showed, too, a knowledge of the human heart, not often acquired at her age; an instinctive insight into the character and the motives of those around her, with the power of adapting herself to circumstances, that has seldom been displayed in one so young, combined with so many of the higher qualities of the woman. She knew the weak point in the character of Ahasuerus, and she forgot not the power of beauty, the influence of personal charms, as she arrayed her fair form in the rich and splendid vestments that so well became her, and summoned all the aid of oriental art and elegance to her toilette, that her presumption might be forgiven in her loveliness--that favour won by her beauty might be extended to her nation; and if she felt the hope of pleasing, as she surveyed herself in the polished metallic mirror, decked with the magnificence of a royal bride and adorned with the gifts of him whose favour she would seek, her heart might have sunk too at the remembrance of the favour she had once won and lost. In assuming the crown placed upon her brow by Ahasuerus, there was a tacit claim to her royal rights; for that gemmed circlet was not only a badge of rank, but a pledge of affection--a token of honour and royal favour, which elevated her above the throng of beauties who filled the courts of the palace. Had she arrayed herself in sackcloth, had she appeared as a mourner, an afflicted suppliant, she would probably have found the royal voluptuary more anxious to banish one who disturbed his pleasures, than to redress the grievances that appealed to his justice. Yet it must have been with trembling limbs and a beating heart that she stood before Ahasuerus; and, by entering his presence unbidden, she made her mute appeal to his mercy. And strange, at that unwonted place and hour, must have appeared the beautiful vision to the king, while courtiers and attendants stood in silent amazement. There was but one anxious moment before the sceptre was extended; the trembling queen touched it, and thus was encouraged to prefer her petition for any favour that the royal hand could bestow. The presence of Esther seems to have revived at once the fondness of the monarch, and all his coldness and indifference vanished like the mist before the rising sun. All the arts of Haman had been needed to wean him from her and to teach him to forget her. How rarely does a vile, unholy counsellor or companion seek to corrupt a private man, or a prince, or a ruler, without striving first to undermine the influence of the virtuous wife, mother, or sister! Warily does the royal suppliant present her request, still uncertain of the degree of favour on which she might rely. She offered no petition that could embarrass the king. She made no complaint of past neglects. She uttered no word of upbraiding for forgotten vows; but delicately implying that his presence was the source of her happiness, that this had constrained her to break through all the formal observances of courtly restraint and endanger life itself, she besought him to honour her by attending a banquet which she had prepared. Thus she avoided the awakening of the suspicions of Haman by even asking to see the monarch without his presence. Including him in her invitation, she allayed all jealousy of a wish to exert an influence inimical to his, while she thus offered an additional inducement to Ahasuerus to honour her feast. By a strong effort and great self-command, the young queen retained her calmness and preserved her grace and gayety. And even when the banquet had closed and the guests had retired, and the king again asked her to prefer her petition, she did not venture to prefer that which was nearest her heart. His favour was too uncertain and his favourite too powerful. She only besought his presence again as a guest, and again his favourite was included in the invitation. The Jews were still lying low before their God. When the feast in the palace was broken up, and the gates were shut, the high walls cast their shadows upon the moat. The sentinels still moved with measured tread. The lights gradually disappeared, except those that told of some one watching over the sick or dying, or some chance-beam betraying a late carousal. In the palace, the soft footfall of the attendants in the antechambers, could not disturb the slumbers of the monarch, while strains of sweetest music were ready to lull him to repose, as warder and sentinel kept watch over his safety. But still "that night the king could not sleep;" and wakeful, restless, solitary, he commanded his attendants to bring him the archives of his kingdom, and read to him the records of his reign. Strange request! How few monarchs would care thus to review the past, and force themselves to the judgment awaiting them from a higher tribunal and from future ages! It was not chance which held the eyes of the king waking. It was not chance which drew his attention to the conspiracy defeated by Mordecai, and to the investigation of the treatment he had received for so high a service. No reward, no honour had been conferred upon one who had saved the life of the sovereign. A strange forgetfulness or neglect of the prime minister of the realm! While Ahasuerus was devising some mode of requiting the obligation due to one who had rendered the state important service, he called for a counsellor, and was told that Haman was without, in the court. Haman left the banquet of Esther in all the assurance of royal favour. He had attained to honours which distinguished him above all the subjects of the Persian empire. He had received distinctions which elevated him above even the princes and nobles of the kingdom; and in his pomp and power he passed, with his train of attendants, menials, flatterers, and followers, through the gates of the royal palace, "the observed of all observers;" and as he came into the thronged thoroughfare that led from the royal abode, all did him homage and showed him reverence--save one. Mordecai, the Jew, still sat at the king's gate--probably, still wrapped in sackcloth. His eye met that of Haman, but it quailed not. It was a stern, reproving glance! And while all others did lowliest obeisance, Mordecai neither bowed nor uncovered his head. There was no word--there was no reproach--but there was a silent defiance, that conveyed to the soul of Haman an assurance of disgrace and defeat, and that told him he was despised, amid all his honours and prosperity. He hastened to his home. He gathered his household around him and told them of his riches, his honour, his prosperity, and the assurance his large family afforded him that his riches would descend in his own line, and that his ancient lineage and royal race should thus be perpetuated. He told them of the high honour that day received at the royal feast, and of a like honour in reserve for the morrow. But still his pride was mortified by Mordecai's course. "All this availeth me nothing," he said, "so long as I see Mordecai, the Jew, sitting at the king's gate." Wretched, malignant man! What a picture of the power and force of evil passions--of that selfishness which could find its happiness in the misery and suffering of others! His hatred of Mordecai seems the more insane, when we remember that Haman held his fate in his hands, or rather had actually sealed his doom. He might well forego forms of reverence from the man he had doomed to death. Yet the desire for the humiliation of Mordecai, for some token of abasement and fear, seems to have absorbed all other feelings; and as this was the only thing withheld, so it was the only thing desired. To soothe the disgust and allay the indignation of Haman, the family council decreed the immediate death of Mordecai, and they doomed him to the gallows--a most ignominious death. While this instrument of his destruction was in preparation upon the grounds of Haman, he sought Ahasuerus, that the sentence might be ratified. He who had given him the power to murder a nation, would surely assent to forestalling the doom of an individual; and Mordecai's disobedience to the royal order, his disrespect to the minister who represented the authority of the sovereign and the laws of the realm, seemed to offer a fitting pretext. While Haman was waiting in the antechamber for audience, Ahasuerus was resolving some mode of requiting Mordecai; and, ever prone to rely on favourites and counsellors, he was unable to decide for himself; so he sought advice from his favourite courtier, who was so near at hand. To him the question was submitted: "What shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour?" Ever selfish, ever intent upon his own promotion, and constantly loaded with marks of royal favour, Haman very naturally presumed that fresh honours were destined for him, and that he was to be allowed to designate the very marks of favour which he most desired. "Now Haman thought in his heart, to whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?" And so he answered the king: "To the man whom the king delighteth to honour, let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the royal crown which is set upon his head. And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the streets of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour." If Haman intended this as a mere vain-glorious display--an impressive pageant, designed to publish to the people the high dignity of royal favour which he personally enjoyed--it would not be without meaning; but we cannot but think that, according to Eastern usage, there was a deeper significance in the ceremony. The customs of the East are almost immutable, and there was much similarity between those of Egypt, Assyria and Persia. When Joseph was exalted to be ruler of Egypt, he was clothed in royal vestments, and passed in triumphant procession through the city, while all were called upon to bow the knee before him. Daniel was clothed in scarlet and in purple (the badges of royalty) while his honours were announced. But Joseph rode in the second chariot of Pharaoh, and his distance from royal state was clearly defined, while Daniel was declared third in the empire of the Medes and Persians. In appropriating all the badges of royalty--the crown, the robes, the horse, the princely attendance--Haman seems to have been preparing a claim to higher honour than those of Joseph or Daniel; to be even preparing to ascend the throne. All the homage that could be shown the subject had long been exacted. A nation was now under a dreadful doom because only one of their race withheld it; and now he would take to himself all the appendages of royal state! A sudden tumult in the palace, a popular outbreak, so common with despotic governments, might easily be accomplished, and Haman might ascend the throne of Ahasuerus--for the lines of descent seem to have been not unfrequently changed in the Persian empire; and in the convulsions of despotic states, even slaves have mounted the thrones of their masters. Whether, in his designs, he merely sought the gratification of a present vain-glorious ambition or was preparing for a higher destiny, the revulsion must have been most overwhelming, the change and surprise inexpressible, when the announcement and command of the king fell upon his ear. "Make haste!" said he, "take the apparel, and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, who sitteth at the king's gate. Let nothing fail that thou hast spoken." You have devised the very highest honour that I can render: now confer it on the man I designate. The Eastern despots are arbitrary; and Haman, confounded and petrified, ventured no remonstrance. He bowed and obeyed. He departed as the messenger of honour to Mordecai the Jew. Whatever the malignant and bitter feelings of his heart, he dared not give expression to them. He was compelled to serve the man he hated, to confer the highest honour on the man he had doomed to the deepest obloquy, publicly to bow before one whom he hoped to trample beneath his feet! With what contending feelings must he have delivered the mandate of the king to Mordecai! What strong emotion must have convulsed his soul! Yet the most powerful feelings are seldom displayed. The green sod covers the pent volcano, and a slight trembling alone denotes the action of the devouring element. It is all repose and calmness on the surface while the billows of flame are raging beneath. Thus the aspect of the courtier was calm, though sullen, while with his own hands he acted as chamberlain to the Jew and arrayed him in robes of royalty and honour. We may imagine a group for a painter, in Haman, dark, malignant, and sullen--and Mordecai, calm, proud, unbending, receiving service from his enemy. And after having with his own hands arrayed the new object of royal favour, Haman was placed at the head of the proud war-horse, as he slowly bore the Jew through the multitude, who thronged the street "to behold the man whom the king delighteth to honour." We seem to see him--the proudest, the most arrogant of men--with bowed head and averted eye, while Mordecai sits erect and firm, in all the dignity of conscious worth. As they slowly proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in appearing as the groom of the despised Jew. When the ceremonies were over, Mordecai again appeared at the gates of the palace. Nothing in the apparent condition of the two was changed, and the pageant may have seemed like a dream to Mordecai. He was only anxious to know the proceedings and fate of Esther. Yet he must have gathered hope for the future, as he still trusted and waited upon God. But a dark cloud had fallen upon Haman. He foreboded his doom. He was humbled, disappointed, degraded, disgraced. He had been paraded, before the multitudes, the menial of the Jew. He had been forced to confer on the man he hated the very honours his soul most coveted. "And Haman hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered." And he told his wife and the friends whom he had gathered to consult upon the fall of the Jew, all that had befallen him. And clear, far-sighted, daring, and unscrupulous, the wife who had counselled Mordecai's destruction, foretold to Haman his own doom. "If Mordecai be of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall surely fall before him." And they were probably counselling some measures for his personal safety; for when they were yet talking, came the king's chamberlain, and hasted to bring Haman to the feast Esther had prepared. As the feast proceeded, the king entreated Esther to ask some gift that he might bestow as a token of favour, or a pledge of affection. And then Esther, with a simple fervour, force, and dignity, and with the pathos of true feeling, offered her supplication for herself and her nation. "And Esther answered the king and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king! and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we are sold--I and my people--to be destroyed, to be slain, to perish." She quotes the words of Haman's edict, and then adds, "But if we had been sold for bond-men and bond women, I had held my peace, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage," nor recompense the loss of so many of the king's useful citizens and peaceful subjects. Nothing could be more sweet, gentle, submissive, and truly dignified than her appeal. And the imagination and astonishment of the king are graphically displayed in his answer. Who is he? Where is he that hath presumed in his heart to do so? Who has dared to conspire against one so near my person, so exalted by my favour? Confounded, amazed--and probably for the first time suspecting the Jewish extraction of the queen--Haman was still speechless when Esther made her direct and firm reply: "That adversary, that wicked man, is Haman," here in the royal presence--here in the full blaze of royal favour. In the conscious justice of her cause, she had desired to be confronted with the man she accused, and he was present, that he might enjoy every opportunity of defence, if innocent; and if guilty, that he might receive the just reward of his deeds. The king was filled with wrath at this proof of the presumption and malice of his favourite, and he left the banqueting-room and went into the palace-garden. Haman, quick to read the feelings of his master, "saw that wrath was determined." Unable to escape the watchful attendants, and moved by terror, he approached the royal couch of Esther to beseech her, whom he had greatly injured, to intercede for him. And while he was thus engaged, the king re-entered the banqueting-house. His wrath was rekindled. The imprudence of Haman hastened the doom his crimes had provoked. The excited monarch, witnessing his apparent familiarity, accused him of designs of which his previous presumption might show him capable. His sentence was pronounced--his doom was sealed. The attendants covered his face, (a most significant act, still retained in Eastern courts,) and he was carried from the royal presence-chamber, and hung upon the very gallows he had erected for Mordecai. The flowers which were gathered for the feast and the wreaths entwined for his brow were still fresh. The succeeding interview of Ahasuerus with his still loved and more than beautiful consort, must have been one of no slight interest. There was much to unfold and to explain; there was something to confess and to forgive; and as the character of Haman was now exposed and his acts were revealed, the king may have regarded himself as the bird escaped from the fowler. Esther revealed her lineage; while the rising favour of Haman, the dangers to be anticipated from his hatred to her nation, well justified the prudent caution of Mordecai. As the queen told the king in what relation Mordecai stood to her, Mordecai was brought before him; and the former honour proved but indeed the installation into the highest offices of trust, while the vast possessions of Haman were conferred on Esther, and Mordecai was appointed her steward. Yet, while the royal favour and protection was extended to these individuals, the edict was still in force against the race, and again Esther besought the king to interpose his power and protection. The laws of the Medes and Persians, however impolitic and unjust, could not be repealed. The king had no power over the statutes he had made. Like the deeds of life, once passed, they were unchangeable. He might regret the act, he might deprecate the influence thus put in operation, but he could neither recall nor cancel them; and one instance attempted might have destroyed the royal power. Although Haman was removed, his family were numerous, and there was doubtless a large class of his ancient tribe who viewed him as the lineal descendant of their monarchs and entitled to their allegiance. They expected to share his triumphs, and, disappointed and exasperated, they would be ready to avenge his death. Haman being recognised as the highest officer of Ahasuerus and as his chief counsellor as well as favourite, he had great power and influence, and doubtless had a large party in his interests--either won by past favours or hope of future wealth and honour. At the same time all the discontented and turbulent of the land would be ready to join an outbreak which made the murder of any Jew lawful, where it could be accomplished, and which gave their possessions to those who were their destroyers. All that Ahasuerus could do to avert the threatened extermination of the children of Israel, was to allow them to defend themselves if any dared to attack them. The whole empire was convulsed with the desperate struggle between the Jews and the faction of Haman; and while the royal authority aided the Jews in Shushan, so that they were entirely victorious, seventy-five thousand of their assailants perished in the provinces, where we are told the Jews gathered themselves together and stood for their lives; and it is recorded to their honour, that upon the spoil of their enemies they laid not their hands. And all this suffering and blood was the result of the policy of Haman. The Jews were not the aggressors, although they came off victors. It was the last conflict between the nations of Amalek and Israel, and threatening and prophecy were thus fulfilled while both nations were strangers and exiles from their own lands; and while the tribe of Amalek perished, the sons of Haman, who probably led the conflict in Shushan, were condemned to the same ignominious death which their father had suffered. We infer their actual guilt from the fact that they seem to be unmolested until the day appointed for the extermination of the Jews. As leaders of the tumult they deserved the doom they received. The lot is from the Lord; and the day of vengeance thus deferred from Haman's regard to the casting of the lot, gave the Jews full time to prepare themselves to resist their foes, and defend themselves after the issuing of the second edict, by which they were empowered to act on their own defence, and to repel openly by armed resistance. The book of Esther is one of the most beautiful and variously instructive and interesting portions of the Old Testament. While it illustrates the providential care of Jehovah over all his people, and his readiness to hear their prayers and interpose for their deliverance, it shows too that he ruleth over all the nations of the earth, and that all the arts of intriguing men in courts and cabinets, the various changes which occur, either affecting nations or individuals, are all allowed to promote his infinite designs--all accomplishing his eternal plans. While his people, like Esther and Mordecai, gladly co-operate in the designs of the Almighty, his enemies are made the unwitting and unwilling instruments of advancing the same designs, and are accomplishing his purposes for the re-generation of a corrupt world--for the establishment of the kingdom of the redeemed, and the complete redemption of the children of God. As we look at the book of Esther, through the long dark vista of intervening ages, we are presented with a beautiful picture of a past period. Nations have perished and left no memories; and while all the other portion of our world, at that day, is shrouded in darkness or buried in forgetfulness, the light of revelation falls upon the court of Ahasuerus, and we see it in all the gorgeous splendour of oriental magnificence. The prosperous monarch of a powerful empire--munificent, prodigal, not deficient in capacity or heart, but indolent, and fond of luxury and feasting, he yields himself to the influence of the favourite; and when ready to rush into the seductions of pleasure, he still, at times, rouses himself and executes his own will, asserting his authority by some act of despotic power, of justice or cruelty, as the impulse prompts--he is a type of a large class of those to whom the destinies of more modern nations have been committed. In Haman we see the courtier--crafty, proud, vain, ambitious, aspiring--intent upon personal aggrandizement, and the acquisition of wealth; gaining his influence over the mind of the monarch by ministering to his pleasures, and maintaining it by banishing all pure influences and crushing all nobler feelings. The history of Haman is replete, too, with instruction, in displaying the absorbing power of the selfish and malignant passions, and their fatal influence upon character and happiness. One unsatisfied desire will embitter all the most coveted possessions. There will ever be something to be achieved--some enemy to humble, some higher elevation to attain, some Mordecai in the gate, whose reverence withheld is more desirable than all the homage of the multitude bestowed. He who cherishes in his heart a hatred of a class or an individual, is nursing a scorpion which will poison every kind feeling. We must love, not only to make others happy, but that we may be happy ourselves. We may withhold all marks of approbation from the unworthy, and still regard them with the benevolence required by the law of love. Thus while Mordecai saw in Haman the same persecuting spirit that had marked all his race; while he saw him, unholy, unprincipled, securing by his acts an influence over his master, which he abused; prostituting the royal authority to the ruin of the kingdom, making it subserve the purpose of his own unhallowed ambition; alienating the monarch from the queen, and inducing the disregard of the duties of private life as of sovereign power--Mordecai, as an upright, honourable, high-minded man, refused to render one, whose course he deprecated, whose character he abhorred, the honour accorded even by royal favour. He neither bowed nor did him reverence. But he did not assail him. He did not form any dark and treacherous plots against him. He did not revile him. All that he sought was to lead the blinded monarch to a calm investigation into the proceedings of his treacherous counsellor. And Haman had every opportunity of repelling accusation and justifying himself, as he was ever allowed to be present when Esther made her charges against him. There is a world-wide difference between the firm, indignant disapprobation with which a virtuous mind regards an evil man, working ill to all, and that malignant hatred which arises from selfishness and envy, and which pursues with bitterness and cruelty all that does not minister to its indulgence. If it should seem strange to us that the national antipathy should so long be cherished, we may remember that it is quite as strange that national character should be thus faithfully transmitted through so many generations; and those who so confidently predict a change of character from the mere change of the circumstances of a people, may do well to ponder the facts presented by the past history of the races of the earth. There are other contrasts between the characters of Mordecai and Haman. Haman was superstitious, yet not religious. He was artful, selfish, treacherous, bloodthirsty, corrupt himself and corrupting others, ambitious and vain-glorious. Mordecai was pious, upright, conscientious; fulfilling every duty, yet seeking no selfish aggrandizement, no wealth, no personal honour--even when placed in circumstances where he might claim them as a just reward--and never exerting an influence for selfish purposes; still ready to forego and sacrifice all that was demanded at the call of duty. While we see in Mordecai the devoted worshipper of the true God, the high-minded patriot, the man of inflexible integrity--an integrity that scorned the bad acts that would minister to the pride of false greatness--and a nobleness that rose above the desire for court favours, the strong features of his character are softened into beauty by his love for the orphan relative, his watchfulness over her childhood, and the interest displayed by his daily inquiries for her welfare. His affections were kind and tender, while his principles were unbending; and we feel that we love the man, though we are constrained to render a deeper homage to the patriot. Esther is one of the most beautiful characters in the gallery of Scripture portraits. Her character is peculiarly feminine; and while her path is marked by events of moment, it appeals to our hearts in each vicissitude of her lot. Youth and beauty always throw a charm around the possessor. Faint, perishing, transient as they are, they awaken all the sympathies of our nature; a deep compassion, a foreboding of the future; while the knowledge of the sorrows and trials which await those to whom the present is so bright, heightens our interest. Thus in each stage of the narrative, Esther comes to us with all that can awaken sympathy and excite interest. The fair flower is transplanted from Judea to the lands of the East--a scion of a stock soon removed--sheltered, watched, nourished by the pure dews of Divine truth; taken from seclusion and loneliness, where but one eye beheld its opening beauty, to the gardens of royalty; and there, among gayer and gaudier flowers, like the pure lily of the valley, winning royal favour by purity, sweetness, and graceful loveliness. We follow her from her lonely home to the palace, and think how many fears and alarms mingled with the triumph of her beauty, the consciousness of her power, when an empire blessed her name and celebrated her beauty. And a deeper feeling is roused for the royal bride, lately so flattered, caressed, and honoured, now suddenly forgotten, neglected--left to the loneliness of her apartments or the companionship of her formal attendants, while her lord pursued his career of pleasure, apparently unmindful of her existence. A bitter lot it is to the young, to be loved and then forgotten. And sad the contrast to the royal Esther, between her late elevation and all the incense of homage and affection then offered, and her present desolation. Yet it was a season of needful humiliation. It awoke her from the dream of splendour and gayety, and brought her back to the sober realities of life and its stern duties; and it was also a season of preparation for the trials that awaited her. It brought her to seek a happiness higher than could be found in palaces or courts, a favour more desirable than that of an earthly monarch, a love that is unfailing, a faithfulness that should be enduring--and thus, when the day of trial came, she was prepared. She could cast herself upon the arm that never falters, she could seek the interposition of the God of her nation, and of each individual who trusteth in him and relieth upon his mercy. There was something beautiful in the blending of her conscious helplessness, her sense of loss of the favour of her royal lord and of the love and courtly honour she deserved, of her entire dependence upon the protection and interposition of Heaven, and her resolution to venture all for her people. IF I PERISH--I PERISH! If we can recall the recollections of our childhood, we shall remember the breathless interest with which we attended her, in fancy, to the presence-chamber and awaited the extended sceptre. All the excitement of romance is concentrated in the story of Esther. And as we follow the narrative of her final triumph, her restoration to the love of her husband, the salvation of her people, and the exaltation of her family, we cannot but pursue the train of thought and feeling, and fondly hope that the influence of Esther and Mordecai might redeem Ahasuerus from the vices of youth, inspire him with higher motives, elevate him to a loftier standard, and rouse one, not deficient in natural kindness or nobleness of capacity, from a selfish voluptuary to an enlightened, able, and just ruler of a great people. The Jews still commemorate the feast of Purim, and celebrate their deliverance from Haman; and in all the climes and lands to which the race have been transported, they have carried the remembrance of the daughter of their people--the beautiful queen of ancient Persia, who ventured her life to ransom her race. We would learn from the whole history lessons of sobriety, of contentment with an humble lot, of the duty of cherishing the spirit of love, of kindness, of benevolence, of repressing the first germ of selfishness, of malignity, of envy; of dependence upon an over-ruling Providence; of encouragement to prayer, to trusting and waiting upon God. "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee," is said to each contrite heart now, as truly as to Israel of old; and none who have thus truly sought the Lord in lowliness and penitence, ever sought him in vain. His care and protection are still around his people; and although the enemies of his church may try her, they shall never triumph over her. [Illustration] 
40173	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter or number is superscripted (example: 15^b-18^a). [=e] represents "e" with a macon over it. HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY GEORGE FOOT MOORE, M.A., D.D., LL.D. LONDON WILLIAMS & NORGATE HENRY HOLT & Co., NEW YORK CANADA: WM. BRIGGS, TORONTO INDIA: R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD. [Illustration: HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE _Editors_: HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D. PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.LITT., LL.D., F.B.A. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., LL.D. PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. (COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, U.S.A.) NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY] [Illustration: THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY GEORGE FOOT MOORE M.A., D.D., LL.D. Professor in Harvard University; Editor of the Harvard Theological Review; Author of "Commentary on Judges," etc. LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE] The following volumes of kindred interest have already been published in the Home University Library:-- VOL. 56.--THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By PROF. B. W. BACON, LL.D., D.D.Vol. VOL. 68.--COMPARATIVE RELIGION. By PRINCIPAL J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D.Litt. VOL. 15.--MOHAMMEDANISM. By PROF. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.Litt. VOL. 47.--BUDDHISM. By MRS. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. VOL. 54.--ETHICS. By G. E. MOORE, M.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 7 II THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A NATIONAL LITERATURE 25 III THE PENTATEUCH 29 IV CHARACTER OF THE SOURCES. GENESIS 33 V EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS 47 VI DEUTERONOMY 58 VII AGE OF THE SOURCES. COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH 65 VIII JOSHUA 73 IX JUDGES 81 X SAMUEL 91 XI KINGS 100 XII CHRONICLES 118 XIII EZRA AND NEHEMIAH 128 XIV STORY BOOKS: ESTHER, RUTH, JONAH 134 XV THE PROPHETS 144 XVI ISAIAH 147 XVII JEREMIAH 164 XVIII EZEKIEL 174 XIX DANIEL 180 XX MINOR PROPHETS 190 XXI PSALMS. LAMENTATIONS 218 XXII PROVERBS 231 XXIII JOB 235 XXIV ECCLESIASTES. SONG OF SONGS 243 BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 INDEX 253 THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CHAPTER I THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT The early Christians received the Sacred Books of the Jews as inspired Scripture containing a divine revelation and clothed with divine authority, and till well on in the first century of the Christian era the name Scriptures was applied exclusively to these books. In time, as they came to attach the same authority to the Epistles and Gospels, and to call them, too, Scriptures (2 Pet. iii. 16), they distinguished the Christian writings as the Scriptures of the new dispensation, or, as they called it, the "new covenant," from the Scriptures of the "old covenant" (2 Cor. iii. 6, 14), the Bible of the Jews. The Greek word for covenant (_diathéké_) was rendered in the early Latin translation by _testamentum_, and the two bodies of Scripture themselves were called the Old Testament and the New Testament respectively. The Scriptures of the Jews were written in Hebrew, the older language of the people; but a few chapters in Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic, which gradually replaced Hebrew as the vernacular of Palestine from the fifth century B.C. The Sacred Books comprise the Law, that is, the Five Books of Moses; the Prophets, under which name are included the older historical books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) as well as what we call the Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, i.e. Minor Prophets); a third group, of less homogeneous character, had no more distinctive name than the "Scriptures"; it included Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The Minor Prophets counted as one book; and the division of Samuel, Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles each into two books was made later, and perhaps only in Christian copies of the Bible. There are, consequently, according to the Jewish enumeration twenty-four books in the Bible, while in the English Old Testament, by subdivision, we count the same books as thirty-nine. The order of the books in the Pentateuch and "Former Prophets" (Joshua-Kings) is fixed by the historical sequence, and therefore constant; among the "Latter Prophets" Jeremiah was sometimes put first, immediately following the end of Kings, with which it was so closely connected. In the third group there was no such obvious principle of arrangement, and consequently there were different opinions about the proper order; that which is given above follows the oldest deliverance on the subject, and puts them in what the rabbis doubtless supposed to be a chronological series. So long as the books were written on separate rolls of papyrus, the question of order was theoretical rather than practical; and even when manuscripts were written in codex form (on folded leaves stitched together like our books), no uniformity was attained. At the beginning of the Christian era, lessons from the Law were regularly read in the synagogues on the sabbath (the Pentateuch being so divided that it was read through consecutively once in three years), and a second lesson was chosen from the Prophets. The title of these books to be regarded as Sacred Scripture was thus established by long-standing liturgical use, and was, indeed, beyond question. Nor was there any question about the inspiration of most of the books in the third group, the "Scriptures." There was a controversy, however, over Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs; some teachers of the strictest school denied that either of them was inspired, while others accepted only one of them. The question was voted on in a council of rabbis held at Jamnia about the beginning of the second century of our era, and the majority decided for the inspiration of both books. There were also, even down to the third century, Jewish scholars who did not acknowledge Esther as Sacred Scripture. On the other hand, some were inclined to include among the Sacred Books the Proverbs of Ben Sira, which stand in the English Bible among the Apocrypha under the title Ecclesiasticus. It is thus evident that, while there was agreement in general, there was, down to the second century A.D., no authoritative list of the "Scriptures," and that about some of the books there were conflicting opinions among the learned of the most orthodox stamp. An interesting confirmation of this is the fact that in the first half of that century it was thought necessary to make a formal deliverance that the "Gospel and other writings of the heretics" are not Sacred Scripture. There are other indications that in that generation Jewish Christianity had a dangerous attraction for some even in rabbinical circles, and there was evidently ground for apprehension that the inspiration which the Christians claimed for the Scriptures of the New Covenant might impose upon well-meaning but uninstructed Jews. In the same connection it was decided, further, that Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) was not Holy Scripture, and that no books written from his time on (about 200 B.C.) were inspired, in accordance with the theory, found also in Josephus, that inspiration ceased in the age of Ezra and Nehemiah. By such decisions, recognizing the inspiration of books that had been challenged and excluding others for which inspiration had been claimed, the canon of the Scriptures, that is, the authoritative list of Sacred Books, was defined. The oldest catalogue we have, containing the titles of all the books, dates probably from the latter part of the second century, and is not concerned with the point of canonicity--which it takes for granted--but with the proper order of the Prophets and the Scriptures. The Jews had for centuries been widely distributed through the lands that had been included in the kingdoms of Alexander's successors. There were large numbers in Babylonia and the neighbouring provinces of the Parthian empire, and still more in the countries around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, in Syria and Asia Minor, in Egypt and Cyrene. In Alexandria the Jews had a whole quarter of the city to themselves, and Philo estimates their numbers in Egypt in his time (ca. A.D. 40) at a million. In cities like Alexandria, where Greek was the common speech of a population recruited from many races, the Jews soon exchanged their mother tongue for the cosmopolitan language. The ancient Hebrew of their Sacred Books was unintelligible, not only to the masses, but even to most of the educated, who had learned in the schools of Greek rhetoricians and philosophers rather than at the feet of the rabbis. If the knowledge of the holy Law by which the distinctive Jewish life was regulated was not to be lost altogether, the Scriptures must be translated into Greek. The Pentateuch was doubtless translated first--legend attributes the initiative to King Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.); then other books, by different hands and at different times and places. To some of the books, as to Daniel and Esther, additions were made in the translation which were not accepted by the Palestinian Jews. Besides the books which were finally included in the Jewish canon, there were various others, written in Hebrew or Aramaic after the pattern of the several forms of Biblical literature. History, for example, is represented by 1 Maccabees, relating the struggle of the Jews in Palestine for religious liberty and national independence in the second century B.C.; the Proverbs of Solomon have a counterpart in the Proverbs of Ben Sira, already mentioned; the Psalter, in the so-called Psalms of Solomon; the story of Judith may be compared with Esther; the visions of Daniel have their parallel in popular apocalypses bearing the names of Enoch, Noah, Ezra, Baruch, and other ancient worthies. These writings were sooner or later translated into Greek, and some of them attained a wide circulation. The Greek-speaking Jews, also, produced a religious literature, in part imitating the familiar Biblical forms, as in the Wisdom of Solomon and 2 Maccabees, in part cast in Greek moulds, as when prophecy disguised itself in Sibylline Oracles, or the supremacy of reason over the emotions was made the subject of a discourse after the pattern of a Stoic diatribe (4 Maccabees). The influence of Greek culture on many of these writers was not confined to language and literary form; they lived in an atmosphere of Greek thought--the popular philosophy, in which Platonic and Stoic elements were fused or confused--and a few had a more academic acquaintance with the Greek thinkers. But, under all this, they were Jews to the core, devoted to the religion of their fathers, of the superiority of which they were the more convinced by the spectacle of heathenism about them: Judaism was the only true religion, its Scriptures the one divine revelation. The Law and the Prophets had the same precedence as in the Palestinian synagogue. Of the other Scriptures there was no authoritative and exclusive list, and among books read solely for private edification it is not likely that a very sharp line was drawn; but, on the whole, the practice of the Greek-speaking Jews does not seem to have been materially different from that of their countrymen in Palestine. Outside of Palestine, Christianity was spread by Greek-speaking Jews who had embraced the new Messianic faith, and their converts in the fields of their missionary labours, both Jews and Gentiles, spoke Greek, either as their mother tongue or as the language of common intercourse. The church, therefore, took over the Jewish Scriptures in the existing translations: the Christian Old Testament was from the beginning the Greek Bible, not the Hebrew. They received also from the Greek-speaking Jews the belief in the divine inspiration of the translators, by virtue of which the same infallible authority attached to the version of the Seventy which belonged to the Hebrew original. In their desire to possess every word of God, they gathered up the religious books which they found in the hands of the Jews, without inquiring curiously whether the Jews included them in the narrower category of Sacred Scriptures or not; and they discovered no reason in the books themselves why Esther, for example, should be inspired and Judith not; or why Ecclesiastes, with its scepticism about the destiny of the soul, should be divinely revealed, and the Wisdom of Solomon, with its eloquent defence of immortality, a purely human production; or, again, why the Proverbs of Solomon were Scripture, and the Proverbs of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) nothing but profane wisdom. Controversies in the second century made the Christian apologists aware that the Jews did not acknowledge the authority of some of the books from which their opponents adduced proof-texts, and this practical concern, rather than purely learned interest, led to the drawing up of lists of books which were accepted by the Jews as Sacred Scripture. The oldest of these lists which has come down to us was made by Melito, Bishop of Sardes, about A.D. 170; it contains the books of the Jewish canon enumerated above (p. 8), with the noteworthy exception of Esther, about which, as we have seen, Jewish opinion was divided. Christian catalogues of the Jewish Old Testament long show an uncertainty about the right of this book to a place in the canon. Meanwhile the church had, in its worship and in religious instruction, established a use and tradition of its own. The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, was appropriated for the moral instruction of youth and of converts, as is shown by the title it bears in the Greek Bible, Ecclesiasticus, that is, "The Church Book," and other writings not included in the Jewish canon were highly esteemed in the church. About A.D. 240, Julius Africanus, Bishop of Emmaus in Palestine, addressed a critical letter to Origen on the story of Susanna and the Elders in the Book of Daniel. This story, he said, was not found in the Hebrew Daniel, and was not acknowledged by the Jews. He proved by internal evidence that it was not translated from the Hebrew, the language in which the Scriptures of the Old Testament were inspired, but originally composed in Greek, and he raised various historical objections to the tale: it ought not, therefore, to be quoted as Sacred Scripture. In his answer, Origen, the greatest Biblical scholar of his age, argued that if the story of Susanna was to be set aside on the ground that it was not accepted by the Jews, other books, such as Judith and Tobit, would have to be rejected also. He appeals to the prescriptive usage of the church itself, which had always used these books and read them with edification. This immemorial tradition was authority enough for Christians; there was no reason why the church should prune its Bible to please the Jews or adapt itself to their opinions about what was and what was not inspired Scripture; he reminds his correspondent of the law, "Thou shalt not remove the ancient landmarks which those before thee have set." This way of looking at the matter, as might be expected, prevailed in the church. Lists of the books of the Jewish Bible were handed down, and scholars were well aware that the Christian Old Testament contained several books not received by the Jews. By the more critical of the Greek Fathers these books are not cited with the same authority for the establishment of doctrine as the books of the Hebrew Bible. Thus, Athanasius, at the end of a list of the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (A.D. 365), adds: "There are, besides these, other books, not, indeed, included in the canon, but prescribed by the Fathers to be read by those who come to the church and wish to be taught the doctrine of religion, namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." But this learned reserve had no effect on the liturgical or practical use of the church. The question of the inspiration and authority of the supernumerary books of the Old Testament was not decided by any council speaking in the name of the catholic church; nor was it ever thus determined exactly what these supernumerary books were, though several local synods made lists of them. The Latin Church received its Bible from the Greeks, and the Latin translations of the Old Testament made from the Greek included, as a matter of course, the books which the church accepted and the synagogue rejected. About the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome undertook a new Latin translation direct from the Hebrew. He lived for many years at Bethlehem, and had learned Hebrew from Jewish teachers, whose assistance he employed also in the work of translation. In some of the prefaces to this translation (which was published in parts), and in other places in his writings, Jerome gives a catalogue of the books of the Hebrew Bible, corresponding to the contents of our English Old Testament, and expressly excludes all others from the class of canonical Scriptures: "Whatever is not included in this list is to be classed as apocrypha. Therefore Wisdom (commonly entitled 'of Solomon'), and the Book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobit ... are not in the canon." The word "apocrypha," literally "secret, or esoteric, writings," had been used generally for the books of heretical sects, or suspected of being such, and, more broadly, of writings which the church repudiated as not only uninspired but harmful, the reading of which it often forbade. It was, therefore, a very radical word that Jerome uttered when he applied this name to books which the church had always regarded as godly and edifying. Jerome himself did not consistently maintain the position which would make the Jewish Bible the canon of the Christian church. At the request of certain bishops he translated Judith and Tobit, noting in the prefaces that the Jews exclude these books from the canon and put them among the apocrypha, but significantly adding in the one case that he thinks it better to oppose the judgment of the Pharisees and obey the commands of the bishops, in the other pleading not only the demand of a bishop but the fact that the Nicene Council had included Judith among the Sacred Books.[1] In another preface he describes Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon as books which the church reads "for the edification of the people, not for proving the doctrines of the church"--a definition which accords with the attitude of many of the Greek Fathers. Jerome thus halts between two opinions: in relegating to the apocrypha everything that is not in the Hebrew Bible he speaks as a critic; in recognizing the books found in the Christian Old Testament, but not in the Hebrew, as useful and edifying, though of inferior authority for doctrinal purposes, he, like Origen, takes the ground of the practical churchman. The mediating position is more clearly defined by Rufinus, who, after giving a catalogue of the books of the Hebrew Bible, adds: "There are other books, which older authors called not 'canonical' but 'ecclesiastical,' such as the Wisdom of Solomon, and the so-called Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, named by the Latins Ecclesiasticus; to the same class belong Tobit, Judith and the Books of the Maccabees." [1] The Nicene Council made no formal deliverance on the subject of the canon, and upon what Jerome's appeal to its authority rests is unknown. The great influence of Augustine was thrown wholly on the side of ecclesiastical tradition; he even remonstrated with Jerome for translating the Old Testament from the Hebrew and thus disturbing the minds of the faithful, instead of revising the Old Latin version after the Greek. In his treatise on Christian Doctrine (ii. 8; written in A.D. 397) he includes among the canonical books of the Old Testament, Judith, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon; African provincial synods at Hippo (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397) pronounced themselves in the same sense. The Syriac-speaking churches, whose Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew, originally recognized those books only which were found in the Jewish Bible; it appears, indeed, that the earliest Syriac version did not extend to Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, but did include Sirach. Under the influence of the Greek Church, those branches of the Syrian Church which remained in communion with it gradually added to their Bible translations of the other books from the Greek; but the Nestorians, in whose schools Biblical criticism moved more freely than in the Catholic Church, continued to reject them, or to accord them, together with several of the books commonly reckoned canonical (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Job, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom), only qualified authority. Throughout the Middle Ages learned authors repeated the conflicting utterances of the Fathers concerning the canon, without being disturbed by their inconsistency; in practice, the Old Testament comprised all the books that were usually found in copies of the Greek or Latin Bible, without regard to the fine distinctions of "canonical" and "ecclesiastical." The immemorial usage of the church had more weight than the opinions of scholars. With this concurred the fact that from the fourth century on the Bible was copied in collective codices, on folded sheets of parchment or vellum like our books, not in separate rolls, and thus the canon of the Old Testament became, not a mere list of Sacred Books, but a physical unity, in which the books of the Jewish Bible were intermingled with those which the Jews did not accept. The question assumed a new significance at the Reformation. In rejecting the authority of ecclesiastical tradition and the prescriptive usage of the church and making the Scriptures the only rule of faith and practice, the Reformers were under the necessity of deciding what books were inspired Scripture, containing the Word of God revealed to men, clothed with divine authority, demanding unqualified faith, and a means of grace to believers. Obviously they could not logically acknowledge books whose place in the Bible had no other warrant than that the church had accepted them from very early times; nothing short of the authority of the New Testament itself would suffice, and they found in the New Testament no quotations from these books. To the Jews, St. Paul said, were committed the oracles of God; it was the Jewish Scriptures to which Jesus and the Apostles appealed. Naturally, therefore, Luther reverted to the position of Jerome: the books found in the Hebrew Bible, and those only, were the Scriptures of the Old Testament; whatever was more than these was to be reckoned among the apocrypha. In the first complete printed edition of his translation (1534), these books (Judith, Wisdom, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, the Prayer of Manasseh) stand between the Old Testament and the New, with the title (after Jerome) "_Apocrypha_; that is, books that are not equally esteemed with the Holy Scripture, but nevertheless are profitable and good to read." The other Protestant versions, on the Continent and in England, followed this example. The attitude of Luther toward the Old Testament Apocrypha was maintained by the Lutheran Churches, whose Confessions do not, however, attempt a more exact definition of the value and authority of the Apocrypha. The earlier Reformed (Calvinistic) Confessions take substantially the same ground: the Ecclesiastical Books, or Apocrypha, are useful, especially for moral instruction, but they have not the same authority as the canonical books, and doctrines may not be deduced from them alone. The Articles of the Church of England (1563; English translation, 1571) agree on this point with the other Reformed Confessions: after enumerating the canonical books "of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church," the Sixth Article continues: "And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life, and instruction of manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." A list of such books follows, comprising those commonly printed in the English Bible under the title Apocrypha. A more radical position was represented by the Synod of Dort (1618) and by the Westminster Assembly (1643). The latter declares: "The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings." In opposition to the Protestant limitation of the canon of the Old Testament to the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Roman Church defined its attitude more sharply. In the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent (1546) it framed a "Decree concerning the Canonical Scripture," in which the books set apart by the Protestants as Apocrypha are included with the rest. The complete contents of the Old Testament in the Catholic Bible as thus defined are as follows: The Five Books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four Books of Kings [Samuel, Kings], two Books of Chronicles, 1 and 2 Esdras [Ezra, Nehemiah], Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, the Psalter of David, containing one hundred and fifty Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah with Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, two Books of Maccabees, namely, the First and Second.... "If any man does not accept as sacred and canonical these books, entire, with all their parts, as they have customarily been read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient common Latin edition ... let him be anathema!" This decree not only affirms that all the books in question are Holy and Canonical Scripture, but seems to put them all in one class, and deliberately to exclude the ancient distinction between the books of the Jewish Bible and the Ecclesiastical Books. Many of the Fathers had, however, made such a distinction, and Catholic scholars, even after Trent, thought it permissible to class the Ecclesiastical Books (which Protestants call the Apocrypha) as "deuterocanonic," meaning not thereby to imply that they are inferior in authority or infallibility or dignity--for both classes owe their excellence to the same Holy Spirit--but that they had attained recognition in the church at a later time than the others. Individuals have sometimes gone farther, and acknowledged a difference in authority: the deuterocanonic books are useful for edification, but not for the proof of doctrines--a position substantially the same as that of the Greek Fathers and of moderate Protestants; but this is plainly against the sense of the decree of Trent. CHAPTER II THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A NATIONAL LITERATURE For the religious apprehension of Jews and Christians the Old Testament is a body of Sacred Scriptures, containing the Word of God as revealed to the chosen people. The revelation was made "at sundry times and in divers manners" through many centuries, that is to say, it has a historical character, an adaptation to the needs or accommodation to the capacities of men, and, from the Christian point of view, makes a progressive disclosure of the divine purpose and plan of salvation. To understand this economy of revelation, or this pedagogic of religion, it is necessary to distinguish the times, and to determine the nature, authorship, and age of the several books or parts of books. The critical questions which lie at the threshold of every historical inquiry arise, therefore, in the study of the Old Testament, and much learning and acumen have been expended upon them, especially in modern times, by scholars of all shades of theological opinion. That there should be wide divergence in their conclusions on many points is not surprising, in view of the difficulty of many of the questions and the insufficiency of the data available for a solution; the same thing is true in other ancient literatures. A more radical difference exists in the Old Testament, however, because, for many scholars, Catholic and Protestant, the deliverances of the church, or the consent of tradition, or the testimony of the New Testament, or the concurrence of all these, outweighs, in such a matter as the unity and Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the internal evidence of the books themselves, and makes it their task to show that the evidence which seems to contradict this attribution is, when properly interpreted, compatible with it; while others hold that no external authority and no theory of inspiration can be allowed to countervail the cumulative weight of internal evidence. Apart from its religious value and authority for the synagogue and the church, the Old Testament contains the remains of a national literature which richly rewards study for its own sake. While its masterpieces may be read with pleasure and profit without regard to the age and circumstances in which they were written, they will be better appreciated as well as better understood in the light of their own times and in their place in the literature as a whole. In this literature are also the sources for the political history of the Hebrew people and for the history of its civilization and religion. The critical ordering and appraisal of these sources is fundamental to any solid historical construction and, indeed, to any historical understanding of the Old Testament. In the present volume the results of this critical inquiry are concisely set forth, with primary reference to the history of the literature and the development of religion, rather than to the sources for the political history, a complete investigation of which would require a somewhat different method. The questions are approached in the same way in which we should deal with similar questions in any other literature; critical problems, whether in sacred texts or profane, can be solved only by the application of the established methods of historical criticism. All that survives of Hebrew literature prior to the age of Alexander is preserved in the Jewish Bible. It is not until the beginning of the third century B.C. that we come upon books written by Jews in Hebrew or in Greek which are not included in the canon. It is, doubtless, only a small part of a rich and varied literature that has thus been rescued across the centuries; much the larger part of what was written in the days of the national kingdoms, for example, must have perished in the catastrophes which befell Israel in the eighth century and Judah in the beginning of the sixth. What was saved was preserved for its intrinsic religious value or its association with great names of religious leaders and teachers, not out of a merely literary or patriotic interest. Nor were these losses confined to the older literature. Of the history of Judah under the Persian kings, for example, there must once have been completer records than the dubious scraps we have in Ezra. Of secular poetry, which there is every reason to think flourished no less than hymnody, we should have had no specimens, had not an anthology of love songs somehow got the name of Solomon, and by a mystical interpretation been converted to religion. The remains of this literature are scattered unequally over a period of a thousand years or more. The youngest writings in the canon date from the second century B.C. (Daniel, Maccabean Psalms), being later than Sirach, and contemporary with some of the visions of Enoch. All that is preserved of the earliest writings has been transmitted to us by later authors, who incorporated in their works longer or shorter passages extracted from their predecessors. The books of the Old Testament differ widely in matter and form--history and story; legislation, civil and ritual, moral and ceremonial; prophecy and apocalypse; lyric, didactic, and dramatic poetry. The literary quality of the best in all these kinds is very high. The Song of Deborah (Judg. 5), notwithstanding the imperfect state of the text, is one of the greatest of triumphal odes; parts of Job attain the height of the sublime; some of the Psalms are worthy of a foremost place among religious lyrics; many oracles of the prophets are as noteworthy for the perfection of the expression as for the elevation of the thought; the laws are often formulated with admirable precision; in the art of narration the older historians are unsurpassed in ancient literature. These qualities appear even more conspicuous in comparison with the remains of Egyptian or of Babylonian and Assyrian writings. It is only among the Greeks that we find anything to match the finest productions of the Hebrew genius. It need hardly be said that the Old Testament is not all on this high level of excellence--what literature is? But, taken as a whole, the level is surprisingly high, and even in the decadence classical models are sometimes imitated with no small degree of success. CHAPTER III THE PENTATEUCH The Old Testament begins with a comprehensive historical work, reaching from the creation of the world to the fall of the kingdom of Judah (586 B.C.), which in the Hebrew Bible is divided into nine books (Genesis-Kings). The Jews made a greater division at the end of the fifth book (Deuteronomy) and treated the first five books (the Pentateuch) as a unit, with a character and name of its own, the Law. The names of the several books in our Bibles are derived from the Greek version, and indicate in a general way the subject of the book, or, more exactly, the subject with which it begins: Genesis, the creation of the world; Exodus, the escape from Egypt; Leviticus, the priests' book; Numbers, the census of the tribes; Deuteronomy, the second legislation, or the recapitulation of the law. The three middle books of the Pentateuch (Exodus-Numbers) are more closely connected with one another than with the preceding and following books (Genesis, Deuteronomy); in fact, they form a whole which is only for convenience in handling divided into parts. In these books narrative and legislation are somewhat unequally represented. Exod. 1-19 is almost all narrative, as are also c. 24, and cc. 32-34; the story is picked up again in Num. 10, what lies between is wholly legislative; in Num. 10-27, 28-36, narrative and laws alternate, the latter predominating. It is evident that from the author's point of view the narrative was primarily a historical setting for the Mosaic legislation. Deuteronomy begins with a brief retrospect (Deut. 1-3) of the movements of the Israelites from the time they left the Mount of God till they arrived in the Plains of Moab, the lifetime of a whole generation. There, as they are about to cross the Jordan to possess the Land of Promise, Moses delivers to them the law which they shall observe in the land, and with many exhortations and warnings urges them to be faithful to their religion with its distinctive worship and morals. Thus Deuteronomy also presents itself essentially as legislation. The history of the Israelite tribes opens with the account of the oppression in Egypt, the introduction to the story of deliverance. Its antecedents are found in the Book of Genesis, the migration of Jacob and his sons from Palestine to Egypt several generations earlier in a time of famine; and this in turn is but the last chapter in the patriarchal story which begins with the migration of Abraham from Syria or Babylonia to Palestine. Gen. 1-11 tells of creation and first men; the great flood; the dispersion of the peoples, with a genealogical table showing the affinities of the several races and another tracing the descent of Abraham in direct line from Shem the son of Noah. But even in Genesis the interest in the law manifests itself in various ways, such as the sanction of the sabbath, the prohibition of blood, and the introduction of circumcision. In regarding the whole Pentateuch as Law, or, to express it more accurately, as a revelation of the principles and observances of religion, the Jews were, therefore, doing no violence to the character and spirit of these books; and in ascribing them to Moses they were only extending to the whole the authorship which is asserted in particular of many of the laws, and especially of the impressive exhortations in Deuteronomy which form the climactic close of his work as a legislator. It was early observed, however, that there are numerous expressions in the Pentateuch which assume the settlement of Israel in Canaan and look back to the age of Moses as to a somewhat remote past: Gen. xxxvi. 31, for example, implies the existence of the Israelite monarchy. In the seventeenth century such anachronisms were bandied about a good deal, but, inasmuch as they were all brief clauses which might well be notes or glosses by scribes, they proved nothing about the age of the main text. The controversy sharpened the eyes of the critics, and many more conclusive facts were brought to light, which proved that the Pentateuch was not the product of one author nor of one age, and that, whatever part Moses may be conceived to have had in it, much must be ascribed to later writers. No methodical attempt had been made, however, to distinguish its different strata, or to discover the sources from which it was compiled. This was first undertaken by an eminent French physician, Jean Astruc, who in 1753 published the results of his investigations under the modest title "Conjectures concerning the Original Memoirs which it appears that Moses used in compiling the Book of Genesis." Astruc's analysis was suggested by peculiar phenomena in the use of the divine names in Genesis, and he was led to the hypothesis that Moses had for the primeval and patriarchal history two principal sources, one of which employed consistently the proper name Jehovah, the other the appellative Elohim (God). The two narratives were in large part parallel, and when they were united in one continuous narrative, repetitions, contradictions, and chronological difficulties were created which disappear when the sources are separated and recombined in their original sequence. This is not the place for a history of criticism: it must suffice to say that, as the result of the labours of many scholars in the last century and a half upon the problem of the sources and composition of the Pentateuch, historians are now generally agreed that four main sources are to be recognized, of which three run, in varying proportion, from Genesis to Numbers and reappear in Joshua, while the fourth is found in Deuteronomy and Joshua only. CHAPTER IV CHARACTER OF THE SOURCES: GENESIS Of the four main sources of the Pentateuch and Joshua, two are easily recognizable, and may be distinguished with certainty in almost any combination. The Book of Deuteronomy, though itself a composite work, constitutes a whole, with a characteristic religious point of view and marked peculiarities of language and style. The strand akin to it in Joshua is not always so easy to discriminate from additions and editorial retouchings in one of the other sources; but since these are of approximately the same age, the difficulty is, from the historian's point of view, not of very serious moment. The second source, more closely interwoven in the narrative of Genesis-Numbers, and Joshua, has also such strongly marked peculiarities, not only in religious ideas and in phraseology and style, but in its whole conception and treatment of the history, that it stands out in salient contrast to any surroundings in which it may occur. Its interest is concentrated on the origin of the sacred institutions of Israel, especially on the priesthood, the worship, and the distinctive religious customs of the people, for which reason it is commonly called the "priestly" history and law. The two remaining sources resemble each other much more closely in religious conceptions, in language, and in their representation of the history, so that, where their closely parallel narratives are intimately interwoven to make one continuous and harmonious story, it is often impossible to unravel them. As far as Exod. iii. 14 one of them employs the name Elohim for God, while the other uses Jehovah from the beginning (see Gen. iv. 26), and this difference frequently serves as a first clue; but editors and copyists have so often, purposely or thoughtlessly, interchanged the names of God that it is by no means a decisive criterion. From Exod. 3 on, this criterion fails altogether. Closer acquaintance with the two sources discovers, under all their similarity, individual peculiarities by which they can ordinarily be recognized. Frequently, also, the connection of the story itself, references or allusions to incidents already recounted and preparation for events subsequently to be narrated, serve to identify passages with one or the other. For the sake of brevity, it is customary to designate these sources by symbols: J (Jahvist), the source in which God is from the beginning called Jehovah (more exactly, Jahveh); E (Elohist), the closely cognate source in which Elohim (God) is consistently used throughout Genesis; D, Deuteronomy and the kindred narrative in Joshua; P (Priestly), the source in which the interest in the religious institutions predominates. This author also uses Elohim exclusively in Genesis, and down to Exod. vi. 2 ff. The two sources, J and E, both narrate the story of the patriarchs at some length. J begins with the migration of Abraham from Haran (Gen. 12); the corresponding introduction of Abraham in E is not preserved, and the first passage that can with confidence be attributed to that source is Gen. 20. From that point through Genesis and down to Exod. 24, J and E furnished the author of the Pentateuch most of his narrative. The contents of both were evidently drawn from the same common stock of legend, and they tell in large part the same stories in variant forms, with differences of incident or of localization. Sometimes one is ampler and more detailed, sometimes the other. The author of Genesis in such cases often chose the fuller version, enriching it here and there from the other; in other places the two are combined in more equal measure into one continuous narrative; or, again, as in parts of the story of Joseph, extracts from the two alternate in large blocks. J and E are, as has been said above, much alike in language and style, yet each has distinguishing peculiarities of expression. These of necessity disappear in a translation, especially in a translation which, like the Authorized Version, raises everything to one stately level of noble English prose. Even in translation, however, a difference in the story-teller's art and manner may be discerned. For J the reader will find good examples in Gen. 18-19; 24; 38; 39; and 43-44 (which are nearly solid extracts from that source); with the latter chapters, from the story of Joseph, should be compared Gen. 40-42, chiefly from E. Gen. 22 is also from E. From the literary point of view, J is the better narrator; he tells his story directly, swiftly, with almost epic breadth, and with just that measure of detail which gives the note of reality, never overloading the story with circumstance. Nor is it only the external action which he causes thus vividly to pass before us; with the dramatic instinct of the true story-teller he makes us spectators of the inner play of feeling and motive. The religious element in the stories of J is pervasive. The forefathers are favourites of God, who directs their ways, and protects and blesses them in all their doings. He appears to them in human form, and converses with them as a man with his friends; reflection has not yet found such too human behaviour unbecoming in God. Gen. 18 is a striking instance of this familiarity in the deity: Jehovah with two companions comes to Abraham's tent, eats of the meal the patriarch's hospitality provides, predicts that Sarah shall bear a son before the year is out--a prospect which moves the old woman listening behind the door to incredulous merriment--and as he departs announces that he is going down to Sodom to see whether they are as bad there as has been reported to him. A still more drastic example is the "man" who wrestles with Jacob, and finding himself no match for the brawny patriarch, disables him by a foul, putting his hip out of joint, and finally, to get loose, unmasks as a god, owns Jacob the winner, and names him "Israel," the man who held his own against a god (Gen. xxxii. 24 ff.). Or, again, as Moses is on the way to Egypt by God's command to deliver his people, Jehovah encounters him where he halts for the night, and tries to kill him, desisting only when Zipporah bans him by smearing her imperilled husband with the bloody foreskin of her son (Exod. iv. 24 ff.). Such extremely human representations belong to the ancient legends which are incorporated in the history; the author's own conception of God, if we may judge him by passages like Exod. xxxiii. 12-23; xxxiv. 6-9, was much less crude; but it is significant that such traits were allowed to remain with so little change. The legends also attribute to God a partiality for the patriarchs which lets him protect and prosper them in transactions such as are repugnant not only to the most rudimentary morality but to savage manliness, as in Gen. 12 and 26, variants of the story how one of the forefathers exposed his wife's honour rather than risk his own neck. Less striking, but no less instructive, is Jacob, who gains the birthright by overreaching his brother and the blessing of the first-born by deceiving his father, and in the end outwits the wily Laban at his own devices and grows rich at his expense. It would be a mistake to take such stories as reflecting the morality of the author's time: they were the traditions of another age and another order of things. But again it is significant that they are narrated in J without any visible attempt to mitigate their offensive features. Other authors, as we shall see, toned down these features or eliminated them. The second of the authors in the patriarchal history (E) is but little inferior to J as narrator, and in translation the difference is even less noticeable than in the original. Where they can be directly compared, however, E is slightly less vivid and picturesque. A certain learned, or antiquarian, interest is also apparent. E notes, for instance, that Laban, who as a Syrian naturally spoke Aramaic, called the boundary cairn Jegar Sahaduta, while Jacob named it in good Hebrew Gal 'Ed (a popular etymology of Gilead), and that the ancestors of the Israelites in their old homes beyond the Euphrates were heathen. He is particularly well informed in things Egyptian; he knows, for example, the Egyptian names of the chief personages in the story of Joseph. It is in accord with this tendency that he introduces the name Jehovah only after the call of Moses (Exod. iii. 14 ff.), and for the patriarchal period employs only the appellative, God. The conception of deity is less naïve than in J: God never appears in tangible bodiliness like a man, but reveals himself in visions or dreams, or makes known his will by a voice out of the unseen. Things objectionable to morals or taste are frequently softened down. In J, for example, Joseph's brothers, at Judah's instance, sell him to the Ishmaelites; in E Reuben persuades them to put Joseph into a dry well, intending to save him from them and restore him to his father; while he is absent, Midianites steal Joseph out of the well and carry him off to Egypt. Compare also Gen. 20 (E) with c. 12 (J), noting how in the former the author takes pains to make clear that no harm came to Sarah, and that Abraham is a prophet whose intercession is effectual with God. On the other hand, the interventions of God in E often show a disposition to magnify the miracle and to give it a magical character. Thus at the crossing of the Red Sea, in J the waters are driven back by a strong wind, leaving the shallow basin dry; in E the miracle is wrought by Moses with his wand (like the plagues), and this representation is followed by P, in which the waters stand in walls on either hand while the people march between. If the author of E was acquainted with J, as it would be natural to assume, he certainly does not copy him; of literary dependence in a strict sense there is no sign. The two appear, rather, to be parallel narratives, drawing on a common stock of tradition, which had already acquired by repetition, whether oral or written, a comparatively fixed form. This common stock included traditions of different groups of tribes and of holy places in different parts of the land. As might be supposed, the tribes seated in central Palestine, with their kinsmen east of the Jordan, which constituted the strength of the kingdom of Israel, make the largest contribution; Judah with its allied clans in the south comes second. In the treatment of the common tradition in J and E, respectively, local or national interests appear, from which it is generally inferred that E was written in the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and J in the Southern (Judah). The question of the age of these writings can be more profitably considered at a later stage of our inquiry. The patriarchal history which begins with the migration of Abraham, Gen. 12, is preceded by what may be called the primeval history of mankind, Gen. 1-11. In these chapters E is not represented, and it seems probable that the Israelite historian began his book with Abraham. The primeval history as we read it, therefore, is derived in part from J, in part from P. From J come Gen. ii. 4b-iv. 25; vi. 1-8; a part of the composite story of the Flood (vii. 1-5, 7-10, 12, 17b, 22-23; viii. 6-12, 13b, 20-22); the sons of Noah, ix. 18-27, and part of the table of nations (x. 8-19, 21, 24-30); the Tower of Babel (xi. 1-9). These pieces do not form a literary unity, and they give evidence, as we should expect, of diverse origin. There are some among them which imply a continuous development of civilization, unbroken by the catastrophe of the Deluge, and Noah himself was originally an agricultural figure, the first vine-dresser and maker of wine, not the navigator of the ark. The tradition which ascribes the invention of the arts of primitive civilization to descendants of Cain (Gen. iv. 17-24) is obviously of different origin from the story of Cain and Abel. Closer inspection shows that the narrative of J in Gen. 1-11 is composed of two strands, each having a consistency and continuity of its own, and similar phenomena appear in subsequent parts of the history from Genesis to Samuel. If these various elements are alike designated by the symbol J, it is because they exhibit the peculiarities of conception and expression which characterize that work. The God who walks for pleasure in his garden in the cool of the day, misses his gardeners, and finding that they have eaten the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, drives them out of the garden for fear they might also put out their hands to the tree whose fruit gives immortality, or who comes down to see the tower the Babylonian heaven-stormers are building, and apprehending more presumptuous attempts from their success, breaks up their concert by the ingenious device of making them talk different languages, is plainly imagined in quite the same way as the God who visits Abraham on his way to Sodom or wrestles with Jacob or tries to kill Moses on the road to Egypt. Even more primitive is the fragment, Gen. vi. 1-4, telling how deities, captivated by the charms of mortal women, begot with them a mythical race of giants. The Deluge has long been known to be a Babylonian myth, which now forms an episode in a poem celebrating the exploits of a hero named Gilgamesh. But, though preserving even such details of the Babylonian original as the sending out of the birds, the Hebrew author has impressed upon it the stamp of his own religion, effacing its polytheistic features, and making the Flood a just judgment on universal sinfulness; while for the Babylonian hero he substituted a figure of Palestinian legend, and shows his inland bringing-up by converting the ship into an enormous box. It has frequently been assumed or asserted that others of these myths of the early world, particularly the Garden in Eden and the Tower of Babel, are also of Babylonian origin, but no parallels to them have as yet been discovered, nor does internal evidence point that way. The scenery in the Garden in Eden is naïve enough, but the problem of the myth is one which has exercised the minds of men through all time: Why is man mortal? or, as it is usually put in myths, How did man fail of immortality? Two other persistent questions are here joined with it, Why has man to work so hard for a living? and Why must women bear children with pangs and peril? The answer evinces a reflection of which we often think primitive philosophy incapable: man aspired to a knowledge that God jealously kept to himself--he would not respect his limitations. The third chief narrative source in the Pentateuch, commonly called the Priestly History (P), is of a different character from those which we have been examining. A more descriptive title for it would be, Origins of the Religious Institutions of Israel. In the view of the author, these institutions were successively ordained by God at certain epochs in the history of mankind and in connection with certain historical events; these events he narrates as the occasion or ground of the institution, which the subsequent observance recalls and commemorates. These institutions were not all first revealed to Israel and prescribed for it; on the contrary, the author has a theory of a progressive revelation of God's will, beginning with the first man and woman, and amplified from age to age by the addition to its contents of fresh ordinances, while at the same time its extension gradually narrows, until, in the Mosaic Law, it is addressed to the chosen people of Israel alone. The place of each new institution is therefore fixed not only in a chronological system but in the genealogical scheme of races and nations. The genealogies which connect one epoch of revelation with the following one are thus not the bare bones of history, stripped of its flesh and blood, but serve a distinct and characteristic purpose. The Origins begin with the creation of the world (Gen. i.-ii. 4), and a comparison of this account with that of J in 2-3 well illustrates the difference between the two sources. The God of P is not one who fashions man and beast out of clay and breathes with his own lips into the work of his hands the breath of life; he stands above and apart from the world, and creates all things by fiat: "Let there be light, and there was light"--so in sublime simplicity the formula runs. The creative acts are six natural days: "Evening came and morning came, a first day." "And he rested (kept sabbath) on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all his creative work." The ordinance of the sabbath thus has its origin and sanction in the creation itself, and this is alleged in the Decalogue (Exod. xx. 11) as the motive for man's sabbath-keeping. The Flood gives occasion to the blessing of Noah and his sons, in which for the first time animal food is permitted--like many of the ancients, P made the first men vegetarians--and with this licence is coupled a prohibition of flesh with blood in it and the sentence of God upon murder, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man." These commandments, given to Noah, are binding on all mankind, his descendants. The genealogies of the antediluvians connect the creation with the Flood and serve also the chronology; genealogies of the descendants of Noah's sons follow, the chronology attaching to the line of Shem down to Terah, the father of Abraham. Abraham's migration to Canaan and the birth of Ishmael are briefly told, and then, at large, the covenant with Abraham, the promise of a son by Sarah, and the institution of circumcision, which is an ordinance for all the Abrahamic peoples, the Arab descendants of Ishmael as well as the Israelites and Edomites sprung from Isaac, and for their slaves, home-born or foreign. The only other incident in Abraham's life of which P gives a fuller account is the purchase from the sons of Heth of the cave of Macpelah, the burial-place of the patriarchs; meagre notices of marriages and deaths, and tedious pedigrees take the place of the vivid stories of J and E. The contrast is most striking in the case of Joseph, about whom we have from P only a few verses. Doubtless this is in part due to the fact that the author of the Pentateuch preferred the richer narrative of his other sources, but what is preserved of P shows clearly enough that his history of Joseph, even when complete, was brief and dry. The diction and style of P are very unlike that of J and E; a favourable example of his manner is Gen. 17. Even in a translation, which necessarily obliterates much, some of the author's peculiarities can be observed, foremost among them a certain stiffness and a laborious circumstantiality, which will be felt if Gen. xvi. 1-2, 4-8, 11-14 (J) or xvi. 8-21 (E) be compared with c. 17 (P). In Gen. 1, thanks to the subject, this dry simplicity gives an impression of sublimity; but in general, narration is not the author's best gift. On the other hand, the conception of God, as we have seen in Gen. 1, is more elevated than in either of the other sources; and in the little P tells of the patriarchs their deportment is unimpeachable. CHAPTER V EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS In the early chapters of Exodus the narrative is chiefly a combination of J and E; the first considerable extract from P is Exod. vi. 2-vii. 13, recalling the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and announcing its approaching fulfilment, adding, as the signature of the new epoch of the history now opening, the revelation of the name God, Jehovah (Jahveh), which none of the patriarchs had known. In the story of the plagues all three sources are interwoven; a distinctive feature of P is that Aaron with his wand, under Moses' direction, brings the plagues to pass. The announcement of the last plague is the occasion for P to introduce the ordinance of the Passover. The houses of the Israelites are to be marked by the blood of the victim on the door-posts and lintel: when Jehovah passes through the land, smiting dead all the first-born of the Egyptians, he will "skip" the houses so protected--thus the name of the feast is explained (Exod. xii. 1-13). To this is annexed a law for the observance of the feast of Unleavened Bread, which in Palestine immediately followed the Passover (xii. 14-20). With the institution of the Passover is connected also a change in the calendar: henceforth the month of the vernal full moon (March-April) is to be the first of the year. It was so in the ecclesiastical calendar of later times, but the civil New Year was, and still is, in the Autumn. All the strands of the triple narrative lead to a holy mountain in the desert (Sinai in P and probably in J; Horeb in E and D), the Mount of God, represented in all as the ancient seat of Jehovah. It was on this mountain that God appeared to Moses and bade him return to Egypt to deliver Israel: when he had brought the people out of Egypt they should worship at this mountain. Thither, therefore, Moses directs their way after crossing the Red Sea. In all the sources God's presence is manifested by cloud and fire upon the mountain, and Moses goes to the summit to meet God (Exod. 19, J, E; xxiv. 15^b-18^a, P). These imposing preparations portend a revelation of no common moment; and the whole situation bids us expect the organic law of the religion of Jehovah, the things which he requires of his worshippers. We find, in fact, in each of the three sources at this point larger or smaller groups of laws purporting to be delivered to Moses at the holy mountain, and containing what may be regarded as fundamental institutions. These bodies of law are, however, very different; the problem of their relation to one another and to the narratives is extremely difficult, and the parallel account of the legislation at Horeb in Deut. 5 adds another element to the complication. If the reader will attentively compare Exod. 20; 21-23; 24; Deut. 5; ix. 8-x. 5; and Exod. 34, he will get some impression of the nature of the difficulties. According to Deut. v. 22, the Decalogue (Deut. v. 6-21; Exod. xx. 1-17, with noteworthy variants) was the law written on the two tables of stone by the hand of God which Moses dashed down and shattered when he saw the people wantoning around the golden calf (Exod. xxxii. 19). God proposes to reproduce the law on two new tablets (xxxiv. 1), but the Decalogue (xxxiv. 28) written on these tablets (xxxiv. 14-26) is wholly different from that of Exod. 20, being not a compend of moral law, but prescriptions for the festivals and ritual rules, whereas Deut. ix. 8-x. 5 says in so many words that it was the Decalogue of v. 6-21 which was restored. It is impossible to discuss these problems here. It must suffice to say that they arise in part from the attempt to harmonize radically different representations of what the fundamental law given at Sinai (or Horeb) was, in part from the tendency of later times to ascribe to the original Mosaic legislation the whole body of actual law regarded as having a religious sanction. To the latter cause we may without hesitation attribute, for example, the introduction of the fragmentary remains of a Palestinian civil code in Exod. 21-22, to which other remnants of diverse origin have been attached, as well as the great mass of ritual and ceremonial laws which are thrust into the framework of P. The fundamental law of J, the basis of the original compact between Jehovah and Israel, is preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 1-5, 10a, 14-28 (with some manifest amplifications in vss. 15, 16, 24). When this was combined with the story of the golden calf and the broken tables (E), it was necessary to take it as a _renewal_ of the law, and this was accomplished by very slight additions in vss. 1 and 4 ("like unto the first," "that were on the first tables, which thou brakest"). What the Horeb constitution in E originally was, is less confidently to be determined. In the form in which E was read by the authors of Deut. 5 and of ix. 8-x. 5 (end of the seventh century or later), it was the Decalogue _only_ (Deut. v. 22 f.); but it is not certain that this was the oldest representation. There are other evidences that E was revised and enlarged in the seventh century by an author who was influenced by the prophets, particularly by Hosea; and the story of the golden calf (with which the Decalogue narrative is closely connected), a condemnation in advance of the Israelite worship of Jehovah in the image of a bull, may have been introduced in this edition, as the repudiation of the sacrifice of children to Jehovah in the story of Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22) probably was. In P the case is clearer. According to his theory all the ordinances of worship were revealed at Sinai. Legitimate sacrifice presupposes one legitimate temple and altar, a legitimate priesthood, and a minutely prescribed ritual. In J and E the patriarchs set up altars and offer sacrifice in many places; it is an obvious interest of the authors, or of the local legends of holy places which they follow, to trace the origin of the altars, sacred stones, holy trees and wells, at Shechem or Bethel, Hebron or Beersheba, to one of the forefathers. In P, on the contrary, the patriarchs never offer sacrifice. Until the tabernacle was erected and God's presence filled it, until Aaron was consecrated as priest, until the technique of the various species of offering had been revealed by God and exemplified by Moses or Aaron, no sacrifice could be anything but impious, like the worship of heathen. Accordingly, the first thing God does when Moses goes up into the mount is to give him plans and specifications for a sacred tent--a portable temple--with all its furniture, an altar for sacrifice in the court before it, the vestments of the priests, and the apparatus of the high-priestly oracle, and to reveal in detail the ritual for the consecration of priests (Exod. 25-30). The making of the tabernacle and all the other things necessary for the complete cultus is described in Exod. 35-40; the consecration of the priests and the inaugural sacrifices by Aaron in Lev. 8-9; Lev. x. 1-7 is closely connected with cc. 8-9, and its sequel (combined with other matter) is found in c. 16, the ritual of atonement. Lev. 8-9 is a good specimen of the author's method. In the form of a description of the sacrifices of consecration and the inaugural sacrifices of Aaron, he gives a paradigm for every variety of offering. Here was obviously a natural place to introduce laws prescribing the ritual of these species of sacrifice and the circumstances which demand them, and accordingly we find in Lev. 1-7 a collection of such laws, some of them (e.g. Lev. 1 and 3) unquestionably old both in substance and formulation, with slight adaptation to their surrounding (e.g. "the sons of Aaron," i. 5, etc.), or with supplements to meet new economic and social conditions, such as the burnt offering of doves (Lev. i. 14-17, cf. vs. 2); others are younger or have been more extensively enlarged and amended. The chapters thus represent a growth in actual custom and corresponding rule. In c. 4 we may observe an example of another kind of legal growth, namely, the systematic development of principles or ideas. The scale of sin-offerings, graduated by the social station of the sinner--the high priest, the whole people, the prince, a common citizen--is consistently thought out in conformity with a theory. Observe that the prince is assigned a modest place next the bottom, below the religious community corporately, while the priest takes his at the top. We can say with full confidence that this elaborate ritual is not the booking of usage, but is a product of sacerdotal theory; and, further, that so long as kings reigned, the most high-church ecclesiastic is not likely to have arrogated so much to himself, or, at least, to have proclaimed his ambitions. Only in days when, under foreign governors, the high priest was really the greatest man in the community is such a table of precedence conceivable. Whether even then this law was actually put in operation, may be an open question. The position of the sacrificial laws, Lev. 1-7, explains itself, as has been said. In many other cases, however, we see no reason why a subject is brought in where it is. Thus, Lev. 11-15, on various forms of uncleanness and the prescribed purifications, to which x. 10 f. seems to be a fragmentary introduction, have no obvious association with anything in the context, though they are introduced appropriately enough before the general purification of the Day of Atonement, c. 16. The laws, which read like the chapters of an exactly formulated code of purity, have been expanded by the addition of new paragraphs (e.g. Lev. xiv. 21-32, 33-53), and in some cases changes in the ritual may be recognized; compare, for example, Lev. xiv. 1-8 with vss. 10-20. Chapters 17-26 form a distinct body of law, having certain marked peculiarities of its own, notably the frequent recurrence of the motive of "holiness"--that is, the avoidance of things and actions tabooed by the religion of Israel--often coupled with the appeal to God's holiness, as in xix. 2, "Ye shall be holy, for I, Jehovah, your God, am holy," or simply asserting his authority, "I am Jehovah." On the other hand, much in the laws of this Holiness Book (H), as it now stands, has close affinity to the mass of ritual and ceremonial laws in Leviticus and Numbers. The hypothesis which seems best to explain the phenomena is that an independent collection of laws (or rather the remains of such a collection), characterized by the motive of holiness, has been expanded and edited in the spirit and manner of the priestly legislation, while some laws which were originally included in this collection have been transposed to other contexts. The Holiness Book closed with an earnest exhortation and warning to observe all these laws, promising the blessing of God on obedience and depicting in strong colours the calamities with which he will punish defection (Lev. 26). The position and prophetic tenour of this chapter resemble Deut. 28, and the book in its original form is apparently the product of the same age with Deuteronomy. The Origins (P) described in Exod. 28 f. and Lev. 8 f. the choice of Aaron and his sons to be priests and their installation in the sacred office. The inferior order of the ministry of the sanctuary, the levites, is not as yet instituted. This is done in Numbers, and indeed with a certain redundancy, for Num. 3 and 4 independently deal with the subject, and c. 18 takes it up afresh without any allusion to a previous appointment. Much stress is laid on the exclusive prerogative of Aaron and his sons in the service of the altar and the ministry "within the veil"; no levite, much less a layman, may presume to these sacred functions on pain of death. The levites are given to Aaron and his sons as temple slaves for the menial work of the sanctuary, in place of the first-born Israelites of all tribes who would naturally be dedicated to God, i.e. to the temple. Yet, as ministers of religion, they are supported by a general tithe of the products of the soil imposed on all the people. The laws in Numbers present the same variety as in Leviticus. There are old laws with modifications and enlargements, and many others which by various signs betray a more recent origin. Num. 28-36 belong as a whole to the latter class; cc. 28 f. exemplify that growth of the law by the formulation of sacerdotal ideals or desiderata which has been noted in the case of Lev. 4. It is to be observed that the narrative of P has reached in Num. xxvii. 12-23 the end of Moses' career; nothing is in place after it but the ascent of Mt. Abarim and Moses' death (Deut. 34). Num. 28-36 thus stand even formally in the place of an appendix. The narrative of P (Origin of the Religious Institutions) and the great mass of ritual and ceremonial laws in the three middle books of the Pentateuch are often called collectively the Priests' Code. The name naturally suggests to the English reader an orderly body of law, compiled, revised, and promulgated by some authority; and, in fact, many critics--except for the orderliness, which nobody has ventured to affirm, and with allowance for later additions--regard the Priests' Code as such a law book, compiled and edited by priestly scribes in Babylonia, brought to Judæa by Ezra, with the authority of the Persian king, to reform the many disorders that existed there, and ratified and put in force in B.C. 444 by the magnates and the people of the Jews. (See Ezra 7; Neh. 8-10, and below, pp. 129 ff.) Internal evidence of such an origin and destination is, however, sought in vain in the laws; the things that Ezra and Nehemiah were most zealous about, especially the veto on mixed marriages, do not stand out in the so-called Priests' Code as they do in other parts of the law, while about a reform of the cultus in Jerusalem in conformity with a new ritual introduced from Babylonia, the story of Ezra's doings is significantly silent. The phenomena we have observed in Exodus-Numbers suggest the hypothesis, rather, that various old laws, dealing chiefly with sacrifice and with the rules of clean and unclean--the two principal subjects of priestly regulation--were inserted at suitable points in the Origins of the Religious Institutions (P); these received amendments and supplements both before and after their incorporation; other more independent developments, whether representing actual custom or sacerdotal aspirations, found place among or beside them; and thus the whole Priestly stratum grew by a process of accretion through many generations into its present inorganic magnitude. It is antecedently probable that this process went on in Palestine, where the ritual laws were a practical concern, rather than in the schools of Babylonia; and only strong evidence to the contrary could overcome this presumption. CHAPTER VI DEUTERONOMY Deuteronomy purports to contain the laws under which Israel is to live in the land of Canaan. It deals with the conditions of an agricultural people, settled in towns and villages, in the presence of a native population to the contamination of whose religion and morals the Israelites are exposed. This legislation was revealed to Moses at Horeb (Deut. v. 28-33), but, inasmuch as it was not to go into effect until Israel was established in the possession of Canaan, being in fact wholly inapplicable to nomadic conditions--a consideration of which P, in its code of worship, is oblivious--it was not promulgated till the moment when the people, encamped opposite Jericho, was on the point of invading Palestine. Then the aged Moses, about to lay down his office and his life, delivers to the people, in national assembly, the law by which they are in future to be governed, and adds his most urgent injunctions and solemn warnings to be faithful to their religion and the law of their God. The book is thus almost wholly in the form of address, and the hortatory note is insistent. As an introduction, Moses briefly recalls the history of the wanderings, from Horeb on, impressing at every turn the lessons of their experience (Deut. 1-3); the material is taken chiefly from E's narrative, which it was intended to supersede in an independent Book of Deuteronomy. There follows a hortatory discourse (iv. 1-40), closely akin to cc. 29-30. The last acts and the death of Moses are narrated in confused fashion in c. 31; xxxii. 48-52; 34. The Song of Moses (c. 32), and the Blessing of Moses (c. 33), are apparently independent compositions which have been given an appropriate place at the end of the book. The core of Deuteronomy is cc. 5-11; 12-26; 28. Speaking generally, the first part (cc. 5-11) expounds the fundamental principles of religion, while the second (cc. 12-26) contains special laws, and, as a fitting and effective conclusion of the whole, c. 28 sets forth the blessings which God will bestow on Israel if it keeps his commandments, and the curses it will incur by unfaithfulness and disobedience. The special laws, particularly in Deut. 22 ff., are similar in character to those in Exod. 21-23 and in Lev. 17-25, and doubtless embody in the main ancient custom; but beside them are provisions of a singularly Utopian kind, such as those on the conduct of war in c. 20 and the septennial cancelling of all debts (xv. 1-11). The conception of religion which dominates the whole book, but is most conspicuous in cc. 5-11, is the highest in the Old Testament. There is but one God, supreme in might and majesty, constant in purpose, faithful to his word, just but compassionate; he is not to be imaged or imagined in the likeness of anything in heaven or on earth; idolatry, divination, and sorcery are strictly forbidden. The essence of religion is love (Deut. vi. 4), the love of God to his people and their responsive love to him is the ruling motive in worship and conduct. In the relations of men to their fellows, whether countrymen or strangers and to the brute creation, humanity and charity are the prime virtues; the Utopian features of the laws are such only because they push the ideal of humanity too hard for unideal human nature. What is most characteristic in the Deuteronomic legislation, the thing on which it dwells with insistent iteration, is that Jehovah will be worshipped only at one place, to be chosen by himself in the territory of one of the tribes. There all sacrifices must be offered, all festivals celebrated. At the head of the special laws this fundamental article is repeatedly laid down (Deut. xii. 13-19--seemingly the oldest formulation--xii. 2-7, 8-12, 20-27), and it recurs in connection with the laws concerning the disposition of God's share in man's increase (tithes, firstlings, etc.) and the annual festivals (Passover, Tabernacles). This was an innovation which dislocated the whole system of religious observances, and the Deuteronomic legislation had to provide for the direct and indirect consequences of so radical a change. By ancient custom the religious dues were rendered and sacrifices offered at the village altars ("high places"), and there also the festivals were kept which marked the seasons of the husbandman's year; beside the altar, with a simple religious rite, domestic animals were slaughtered whenever hospitality or a family festival gave occasion. If a man visited a more renowned sanctuary at a distance from his home, he did it of his own accord and in his own time and way. The feasts at the village altars, at which custom prescribed open hospitality, were a godsend to the poor of the community, many of whom would else seldom have tasted flesh or eaten their fill. The Deuteronomic law licenses the slaughter of animals at home without any religious rite, and introduces a plan of charity tithes to replace the hospitality of the altar. Its concern for the levites (that is, the priests of the local sanctuaries), who by the new arrangement were left without a livelihood, is also to be noted. The motives for this radical change in immemorial religious custom are characteristic. In the first place, the "high places" had been seats of Canaanite worship before they were taken possession of by the Israelites, and not only did the stigma of aboriginal heathenism cling to them, but, in fact, many heathenish doings were perpetuated at them--drunken debauches and consecrated prostitution. But, further, their existence seemed to be incompatible with strict monotheism: the many gods were worshipped in many places; the _one_ God seemed to have as corollary _one_ place of worship. As a matter of experience, the localizing of Jehovah at numerous sanctuaries--Dan, Bethel, Gilgal, Beersheba--with their distinctive traditions and local peculiarities of ritual, doubtless did result, for the apprehension of the common man, in making a local Jehovah, as happens to the Virgin and the Saints in Catholic countries. For the Deuteronomist this was only another kind of polytheism: "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, our God, is _one_ Jehovah!" Deuteronomy is, therefore, the programme of a reform. Fortunately, we know how this programme was put in execution; the history of it is written in 2 Kings 22-23. In the course of some repairs in the temple in Jerusalem, a law book turned up, the reading of which threw King Josiah and his advisers into consternation. After taking counsel of a prophetess, an assembly was convoked, and the book publicly ratified by the notables and the people as the law of the realm. Thereupon the king proceeded to put the code in force. He not only cleaned house in the temple in Jerusalem, where a miscellany of foreign gods and cults was installed, but he destroyed and desecrated all the "high places," that is, the immemorial seats of the worship of Jehovah in the towns and villages of his kingdom, pulling the altars to pieces, smashing the stone pillars, hewing down the sacred poles, and forcibly carrying off the priests (levites) to Jerusalem, where he assigned them a living from the income of the temple, but--in his zeal going beyond the law of Deut. xviii. 6-8--excluded them from sacrificial functions. It was seen long ago by some of the Church Fathers that the law book which Hilkiah found and Josiah enforced can have been no other than Deuteronomy. The historian of the kingdoms, writing after the reforms of Josiah and the following reaction and believing that the prohibition of worship at the high places had been binding since the building of Solomon's temple, is at pains to say that none of the kings from Solomon to Josiah, not even those to whom otherwise he gives the best mark for piety, had paid any attention to this law, with the sole exception of a brief attempt by Hezekiah. We can go further, and say that none of the older historians and none of the prophets of the ninth and eighth centuries show any acquaintance with such a prohibition. If the prophets assail the worship at the high places, as Hosea does, it is on the ground that it is heathenish and immoral, not that it is illegitimate; if Hosea condemns the pilgrimages to Gilgal and Beersheba, it is not implied that it would be better to go to Jerusalem; nor, indeed, is any condemnation of the worship at the high places more drastic than Isaiah's of the cultus in Jerusalem. Before the latter part of the seventh century there is no thought that Jehovah has such an exclusive preference for Solomon's temple. All the other evidence in Deuteronomy points to the same age. Its conception of God and of religion is derived from the prophets of the eighth century. The influence of Hosea is particularly plain: that the essence of religion is love is Hosea's idea, if there is such a thing as originality in religion. The language and style of Deuteronomy are of the seventh century, in its excellences and in its defects; Jeremiah and the author of Kings have the closest resemblance to it in its rhetorical manner and in its peculiar pathos. On these grounds, since the latter part of the eighteenth century, an increasing number of scholars have held that the book was written in the second half of the seventh century for the purpose of bringing about a revolution such as actually followed its well-timed discovery; and this is now the opinion of almost all who admit that the common principles of historical criticism are applicable to Biblical literature. Deuteronomy is not all of one piece, as has already been pointed out. Many older laws were taken up into it at the beginning or introduced subsequently; considerable additions were made to it after Josiah's time, and even after the fall of Judah, for in several passages that catastrophe and the dispersion of the people are an accomplished fact, an existing situation. It is only the reform programme and what hangs together with it that can be definitely dated. CHAPTER VII AGE OF THE SOURCES, COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH Deuteronomy is a fixed point, by reference to which the age of other strata in the Pentateuch may be determined, at least relatively. Thus in P the patriarchs never offer sacrifice at the ancient holy places of Canaan, and the notion that legitimate sacrifice can be made only on one altar is so fundamental an article of religion that the first thing at Sinai is the construction of the tabernacle to be transported from one station to another in the desert. The inference is plain that P was written at a time when the principle of the unity of the sanctuary for which Deuteronomy contends with the zeal of innovation was no longer disputed, at least in the author's surroundings, so that he has no need to enjoin it, and can, indeed, ignore the fact that there ever had been other sanctuaries of Jehovah. Such a state of things never existed while the kingdom stood; it was only in the Persian period, when Judæa was reduced to a circle of a few miles about Jerusalem, that the conditions implied in P arose. Only in that age, through political circumstances, did the high priests attain the pre-eminence to which P gives the sanction of divine right; and P itself not obscurely witnesses that these towering pretensions did not go unchallenged (see especially Num. 16). With this all the other evidence concurs: the supramundane conception of God and the avoidance of everything that seems to bring the deity into too close contact with earthly things or tempts the imagination to figure him too humanly speak of the progress of theological reflection. The language is plainly in decadence: apart from words which seem to be new, and occasionally foreign, the sentence is losing its flexibility, or authors are losing their mastery of it; it is only necessary to compare even the best passages in P (such as Gen. 23) with examples of really classical Hebrew prose (say, in 2 Sam. 11 ff. or the stories of Elijah in Kings), on the one hand, and with the writing of the Chronicler (third century B.C.), on the other, to see that P is nearer to the latter than to the former. The age of the laws now set in the framework of the Origins is a distinct question, or rather, as will be understood from what has been said above, it is a separate question for every law, and often for successive paragraphs of the same law. And behind the question of the age of the law in its present formulation is frequently the remoter problem of the age of the institution or custom. Various criteria are available in the history of the Kingdoms, in the prophets, in other collections of laws, and in Ezekiel's programme for the New Jerusalem (Ezek. 40 ff.). It must be enough here to say that the older laws in P go back, substantially in their present shape, to the days of the kingdom, and in many cases represent a prescriptive usage which is of remote antiquity; while the latest additions to P were made at a time so recent that they had not found entry into the copies from which the earliest Greek version was made in the third century B.C. J and E are both older than Deuteronomy. In Genesis, as has already been noted, they recite the foundation legends of Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, Beersheba, and other of the holy places of Canaan, telling how the patriarchs built the altars, set up the sacred stones, planted the sacred trees, dug the holy wells, and offered sacrifice to their own God at these spots, by this origin legitimating as Israelite sanctuaries what were, at the time of the conquest and long after, Canaanite "high places." Similarly, in Joshua, Gilgal and Shiloh are Israelite foundations. These were all, in the time of the kingdoms, holy places of great repute, frequented by pilgrims from distant quarters; but there were others, of less ancient pretensions, which attained equal celebrity. Dan, for instance, which came into the hands of the Israelites in the time of the Judges, claimed a priesthood descended from Moses, and became proverbial for the tenacity with which the good old traditions of Israel were preserved there. The narratives in Judges, Samuel, and Kings show that every town and village had its own holy place, with an altar and a sacred stone, and sometimes a hall for feasts (e.g. 1 Sam. ix. 22), and that temporary altars were built whenever and wherever there was reason. This practice is presumed in an ancient fragment of a law, Exod. xx. 24-26, which prescribes that all offerings must be made at an altar, which may be a mound of earth or a heap of field-stones (not hewn stone), and promises that at every place where God has given signs of his presence he will come to the sacrifice and bless the offerer. This rule, which probably originally stood in the context of J, expressly sanctions the local altars and sacrifices which are so abhorrent to the deuteronomic reformers of the seventh century. On the other hand, the strong interest in the origins of the holy places of Canaan indicates that when J and E were written these high places were Israelite sanctuaries, which had as such their sacred legends; indeed, a considerable part of the patriarchal stories is ultimately derived from these legends of local sanctuaries, which form a cycle, harmonized and connected by a migration motive. That both J and E were written long after the settlement of the Israelites in Palestine is proved even more conclusively by the fact that the obligatory religious observances are those of an agricultural people. Thus in Exod. 34, in what was probably according to J the organic law of the religion of Jehovah, and is indisputably the oldest collection of religious laws in the Pentateuch, three festivals are ordained, at which every male is bound "to see the face of Jehovah," that is, to appear at the high place with his offering--he is warned not to try to "see Jehovah" without something in his hands--namely, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks,[2] and the Feast of Ingathering in the end of the year. The first of these, as we know, came at the beginning of the barley harvest, at the second the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were presented, the third celebrated the close of the vintage and the olive-pressing. The firstlings of the flock and herd, if we may infer from the order of the prescriptions, were to be offered at the feast of Unleavened Bread in the Spring. The sabbath is to be kept as a day of abstention from agricultural labour, "even in ploughing-time and harvest thou shalt rest." The occupations of a nomad go on one day like another; the care of the flocks cannot be suspended for sabbath-keeping. [2] The older name, Harvest Feast, is preserved in the parallel, Exod. xxiii. 16. It is difficult to reconstruct the narratives of the exodus and the wanderings in the desert in J and E as they originally were. Extensive transpositions seem to have been made at some stage in the transmission, by which parallel relations of the same occurrence are separated and appear as distinct events. There were evidently considerable differences in the traditional accounts which the earliest authors found current. The holy mountain is in E named Horeb, in J (probably) as in P, Sinai; Moses' father-in-law in the one is Jethro, in the other Hobab. In J there are some traces of a tradition, perhaps the oldest of all, in which there was no mention of Sinai; the Israelites made their way straight from the Red Sea to Kadesh. A comparison of J and E with the history of the times of Saul and David in Samuel, and with the stories of Elijah and Elisha in Kings, would lead us to ascribe them both to the classic age of Hebrew prose of which those narratives are specimens. On the other hand, in J and the older stratum of E there is no influence of the prophetic movement of the eighth century which left so deep a mark on religion and literature. On these grounds J may be probably ascribed to the ninth century, and E, which is somewhat younger, to the first half of the eighth. Both used older sources, and both were revised and enlarged by later hands; we have had more than one occasion to refer to an edition of E which reflects the teaching of the prophets, particularly of Hosea. These two histories--the one, as we have seen, Judæan, the other Israelite--ran so nearly parallel and contained so much matter in common that an attempt to combine them in one continuous narrative was natural. The task was accomplished with considerable skill, by a Judæan historian in the seventh century, who probably introduced variants or supplementary matter from other sources. The author's own hand is most certainly recognized in the multiplied and emphasized warnings against all sorts of heathenism and in a fine tone of religious reflection on the history and its lessons, in which the influence of the prophets is plainly visible, but the peculiar theories of the seventh century historians do not appear. Whether this history (JE) extended beyond the Book of Joshua, and if so where it ended, are questions which must be reserved for later consideration. It is the general opinion that the next stage in the growth of the Hexateuch (Genesis-Joshua) was the inclusion in a new edition of JE of the Book of Deuteronomy in the form and dimensions which it had attained in the generation after the fall of Judah; and, perhaps in connection with this, the history of the conquest in Joshua as narrated in JE was recast and much enlarged by an author who was full of the ideas and phrases of Deuteronomy. At a considerably later time, perhaps in the fifth century B.C., or even in the fourth, the Origins of the Religious Institutions, a product of the Persian period, with the mass of laws that had been incorporated in it (see above p. 57), was united with JED, thus bringing together into one volume all that was preserved about the history down to the conquest of Canaan and all the various institutions and collections of laws which were attributed to Moses. The author of this comprehensive work, as was most natural, took P, with its sharply marked divisions and outstanding epochs, as his basis, and introduced in each period the parts of JE which seemed to him to belong there. Where P had a parallel narrative, as in the story of the Flood, he wove the strands together with more or less ingenuity, omitting, in ordinary cases, only the most palpable doublets. It is possible that the same author first incorporated in P a large part of the so-called priestly laws; it is more certain that, besides the harmonistic changes necessary in combining his sources, he made numerous additions; but there is usually no way of distinguishing his hand from that of earlier or of still later editors. This hypothesis, which, for all its seeming complexity, is doubtless a great simplification of the actual literary history, is accepted by the majority of Old Testament scholars--with many variations in particulars, it need hardly be said. It is commended to the historian, not merely by the fact that it explains the confusion and contradiction which reign in the Pentateuch and offers a solution of its literary problems, but that, when the sources are distinguished and reconstructed and their age and relations determined, they become historical sources of great value for the times in which they were respectively written, confirming, supplementing, or interpreting the evidence of the historical books and the prophets, and contributing important material of various kinds to our knowledge of civilization in ancient Israel and of its religious development. CHAPTER VIII JOSHUA In all the sources of the Pentateuch the possession of Canaan is the goal toward which the whole history moves, from the call of Abraham to the last exhortations of Moses in the plains of Moab, and they must all have narrated, however briefly, the occupation of the country. The history of the conquest and division of Canaan is the subject of the Book of Joshua. The author has evidently derived his material from diverse sources, and it is reasonable to expect to find among them the continuation of the chief sources of the Pentateuch. This expectation is verified; it is not difficult to recognize in some places the sequel of the preceding narratives, and other passages which on internal grounds may confidently be ascribed to one or the other of them. But the attempt to analyze the book discovers at once the fact that the problem is different from that in Genesis to Numbers. The author of the Pentateuch had two chief narrative sources, a history compiled probably in the first half of the seventh century and in any case pre-Deuteronomic, which from its two principal strands is commonly designated by the symbol JE, and the history of the religious institutions (P), probably of the fifth century. The author of Joshua had for his sources, besides the continuation of P, a history of the conquest by a writer belonging to what is not inaptly called the deuteronomist school of historians, whose thought and style are moulded by those of Deuteronomy. In cc. 1-12 the author of Joshua follows this source almost exclusively, only here and there introducing a passage from the post-exilic narrative (e.g. Jos. v. 10-12); in cc. 13-24, on the other hand, the allotment of the tribal territories and the assignment of cities in these territories to the levites and the priests, are chiefly from the later work. Inasmuch as the style of the deuteronomist and of the priestly writers is characteristically different, the rough analysis is here comparatively easy, nor is it ordinarily difficult to recognize the brief passages which are incorporated from the older sources; but, as in the Pentateuch, the discrimination of the original contents of the priestly source from subsequent expansions and from the hand of the author of Joshua himself is frequently very uncertain. Here also additions were made by editors at a still later time, some of which are not found in the Greek version. A different and much more difficult problem is presented by Jos. 1-12, the problem, namely, of the sources of the deuteronomist history. The duplication of the narrative is very plain in the story of Jericho (Jos. 6). One account told how the Israelites marched around the city once each day for seven days in ominous silence; on the seventh day, at Joshua's command, they broke out in the war-cry, and rushing upon the city from every side, took it by storm, and put every living thing in it to the sword, sparing only Rahab the harlot and her household. In the parallel narrative a religious procession, the priests bearing the ark in the midst, compassed the city seven times; on the last circuit the priests blew a fanfare on their ram's horns, at which the walls fell flat to the ground, and the Israelites, after bringing Rahab to a place of safety, burnt the city with fire. Editors or scribes who were particularly edified by the horn-blowing start it prematurely in vs. 8 f., 13, and have tried to improve on the story in other places. The second version shows the same inclination to glorify the divine interventions by giving them a magical form which has been remarked in E's account of the deliverance at the Red Sea, while the simpler story of the unexpected assault--to which there is a close parallel in a Roman hand-book of military stratagems--resembles in its naturalness J's account of the crossing of the sea. Both sources tell of the rescue of Rahab, and thus presuppose some such story as we find in Jos. 2, where, again, duplication is evident. The interdict on the spoils of Jericho (vi. 17, J), is the antecedent to the story of Achan, whose appropriation of a part of the spoil is the cause of the repulse at Ai (c. 7), and thus the clues can be followed backward and forward. The chief source in c. 8 (the taking of Ai) and c. 9 (ruse of the Gibeonites) also is J, with which the parallel account of E is combined; additions by later hands are recognizable, the most remarkable being viii. 30-35 (cf. Deut. xxvii. 1-8, 12). In the history of the two campaigns by which the allied kings of the south and of the north respectively were annihilated (Jos. 10 and 11) both sources appear. A considerable part of these chapters, however, is the work of the deuteronomist author, especially the summary of the conquests, cc. x. 28-43; xi. 10-23. Chapter 12, which for completeness goes over the conquests east of the Jordan also, is dependent on Deut. 3; Jos. xiii. 2-6 (the territories remaining to be conquered) is of the same sort and probably by the same hand. It seems, therefore, that both J and E related the crossing of the Jordan, the taking of Jericho and the operations against Ai, and, further, the wars with the confederate kings. In these narratives Israel, from its standing camp at Gilgal, invades the country as one great army under the command of Joshua; the deuteronomist author represents them as exterminating the native population root and branch, "they left not a soul alive." There are, however, scattered here and there through the text, fragments of a very different story (xiii. 13; xv. 13-19, 63; xvii. 11-13, 14-18; xix. 47), most of which are also found continuously in Judg. 1. According to this account, the Israelite tribes invaded the country separately or in small groups; their success varied in different regions, but everywhere the walled cities remained in the possession of their old inhabitants; in some quarters the Israelites became subject to the Canaanites, in others they in time reduced them to subjection. This account may not embody a historical tradition--it could perfectly well have arisen by inference from the actual situation at the beginning of the kingdom--but it is at least in a broad sense historical. The case illustrates in an instructive way the fact that the oldest literary sources of the history which we can recover had themselves diverse and sometimes contradictory sources in tradition. In the Pentateuch it is well established that J and E had been combined by a historian of the prophetic period (JE), though there is evidence that the separate works continued to circulate. In Joshua, also, it is probable that the deuteronomist historian used the composite JE, and that the harmonizing of these sources and some of the religious improvement which runs along with it is the work of his predecessor who combined the two sources. It seems that P also had E independently, and it is certain that later editors of the deuteronomist school added their contributions. The allotment of the tribal territories, the designation of asylum cities, and the setting apart of cities for the levites and priests, comes chiefly, as was said above, from a priestly source. How much of it was in the older history of P (Book of Origins) is doubtful. One, at least, of the earlier narratives told of the division of the land by lot, and P, who followed this representation, may have connected with it some sort of domesday book; but it was probably not so detailed as that which we now read. The assignment of forty-eight cities to the priests and levites, including the most important places in the country, is an extravagance even for the sacerdotal imagination, comparable to Ezekiel's partition of the land in parallel strips. It is the counterpart of Num. xxxv. 1-8, in a late supplement to the priestly laws, and directly contradicts the older principle (Num. xviii. 21-24) that neither priests nor levites shall have any landed property. Thus in Joshua, as in the Pentateuch, the priestly element is neither of one sort nor of one age: and again the evidence of the Greek version shows that additions and changes continued to be made in the text till the neighbourhood of 200 B.C. There is no evidence that the author of our Book of Joshua was the same as the author of the present Pentateuch; various indications point rather to the contrary. Nor can the author of the deuteronomist history of the conquest be certainly identified with any one of the hands engaged in the compilation and enlargement of the Book of Deuteronomy; all that can be affirmed is that he was of the same spirit, and that literary dependence upon Deuteronomy, and sometimes on younger parts of it, is visible in many places in Joshua. The Book of Joshua closes with a farewell address by Joshua to the tribes of Israel assembled at Shechem, in which, after a brief résumé of God's dealing with their fathers from the calling of Abraham, the exodus, and their own more recent experiences down to the present, he exhorts them to put away the gods which their fathers served "beyond the river" (in Mesopotamia), and worship Jehovah alone. Thereupon the people solemnly pledge themselves to serve him only and hearken to his words (Jos. 24). There is no question that this discourse is derived from E; a counterpart to it from the hand of the author of the deuteronomist Joshua stands in c. 23, and corresponds to the address of Moses in Deut. xxxi. 1-8. The sequel of Jos. xxiv. 28 is found in Judg. ii. 6-9. The restoration at a late time, of the old fragment Judg. i. 1-36, and the division of the books at this point, led to the repetition of the verses in Jos. xxiv. 29 ff. The importance of this fact is the proof it gives that E narrated the history of the generations following the death of Joshua as an apostasy from the religion of Jehovah such as the dying leader had warned the people against (Jos. xxiv. 19), and thus determined the treatment of the whole period which we now find in the Book of Judges. The last injunctions of Joshua in the deuteronomist history (Jos. xxiii. 14-16) exhibit the same conception of the subsequent history; in Judg. ii. 11-iii. 6, both E and the deuteronomist author are represented. CHAPTER IX JUDGES The Book of Judges falls into three parts, namely, (1) Judg. i. 1-ii. 5, which intrudes, as has already been observed, between the close of Joshua and its immediate sequel in Judges ii. 6 ff.; (2) Judg. ii. 6-xvi. 31, stories of a succession of champions and deliverers of Israel in the centuries preceding the establishment of the kingdom; (3) Judg. 17-18; 19-21, two additional stories laid in the time of the Judges. In the Christian Bibles the story of Ruth, which also is said to have occurred in the days of the Judges, follows. The introduction, Judg. ii. 6-iii. 6, gives a summary of the whole period: as soon as Joshua and his generation had passed away, the Israelites fell away from the religion of Jehovah, and worshipped the gods of Canaan; indignant at this defection, he allowed them to be overrun and subdued by their enemies; when in their distress they turned to their own God for help, he raised them up champions who delivered them; but their amendment was brief, they presently relapsed into heathenism; and so it went on from bad to worse. In correspondence with this general scheme each epoch in the history is opened in some such way as this: The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah; he delivered them into the power of such and such a tyrant or nation; when they cried unto him, he raised up so and so as a deliverer. Thereupon follows the story of the deliverance (see iii. 7-11; iii. 12-15; iv. 1 ff.). Sometimes, as in vi. 1-10, x. 6-18, these preambles are expanded, but the purport remains the same. Another feature of the book is the systematic chronology in which the frequency of the numbers twenty, forty, and eighty (forty years being in the Old Testament equivalent to a generation) at once strikes the attention; see iii. 11, 30; iv. 3; v. 31; viii. 28; xiii. 1; xv. 20 (xvi. 31). In several other instances the figures vary a little on either side of twenty (eighteen, twenty-two, etc.). The duration of the oppression is given in the introduction of the story; the period of peace and prosperity which succeeded the deliverance, at the end; see, e.g., iv. 3; v. 31. In the same way the life of Moses is divided into three parts of forty years each; Eli judged Israel forty years; David and Solomon each reigned forty years. It can hardly be doubted that this chronology is artificial, and that the key to it is found in 1 Kings vi. 1, which reckons four hundred and eighty years (i.e. twelve generations) from the exodus to the building of Solomon's temple; but the actual figures in Judges and Samuel do not foot up to this sum, and there are some gaps in the series, namely, the years of Joshua after the conquest, the rule of Samuel, and that of Saul. The symmetry of the scheme has been broken by intrusions or accidental omissions in the later history of the book. The author of the part of the Book of Judges we are now considering (ii. 6-xvi. 31) sees in the history of these centuries a series of "oppressions" by the native kings or by neighbouring peoples which the Israelites brought upon themselves by neglecting their own God and worshipping the deities of the Canaanites, the Baals and Astartes. This is making history illustrate and enforce the prophetic teaching of Hosea in the eighth century and Jeremiah in the seventh. About the oppressions the author of Judges had clearly no information independent of what he extracted from the stories of the deliverances in his sources. In accordance with his theory of national sin and national disaster he converted what are in the stories themselves local conflicts, involving particular tribes or regions, into oppressions and deliverances of all Israel; where the story tells of raids by the Midianites, for example, the introduction gives them the Amalekites and the Eastern Bedouins for allies, and extends the devastation these wrought across the whole country to the neighbourhood of Gaza. The exaggeration of the evils and the emphasizing of the moral, as in other cases, invited later editors to amplifications in the same spirit. Of the heroes who delivered Israel from its oppressors the author made a succession of dictators ("judges"), who differed from the kings after them chiefly in that their office was not hereditary, and to most of them he gives in his chronology a long reign. The setting of the history is thus unmistakably a product of the so-called deuteronomist school of the sixth century which we have already recognized in Joshua, and shall learn more of in Kings. The stories themselves have, however, not been recast or extensively retouched by deuteronomist hands; only at the beginning and the end, where they had to be fitted into the frame, are such retouches common. The author's source was a collection of stories of struggles in different parts of the land, both east and west of the Jordan, with the older settled populations or with invaders, and the exploits of the leaders and champions of the Israelite tribes in these struggles. It included Ehud's assassination of the king of Moab, the defeat of Sisera and the Canaanite kings of the great Plain by Barak and Deborah, the rout and pursuit of the Midianite invaders by Gideon, and Jephthah's victory over the Ammonites in Gilead. The history of Abimelech's kingdom of Shechem--sequel to the story of Gideon--which is not accompanied by the author's moralizing comments, and the stories of Samson, which have no more than a chronological introduction and close, evidently belong to the same cycle of heroic legends; as do also the stories of Micah's idol and the migration of the Danites (cc. 17-18), and the older form of the story of the levite and his concubine and the sanguinary vengeance on Benjamin in cc. 19-21. The two last-named stories were not comprised in the deuteronomist Judges, whose doctrine they could not well be made to exemplify. On the other hand we shall see that this work included Eli and Samuel among the judges, and came to its natural conclusion with the establishment of the kingdom, as it began with the death of Joshua. In several of the stories we recognize not merely such additions and improvements as are commonly made to popular tales in the retelling, but evidences of the combination of two versions of the same exploit or accounts of other doings of the same hero. This is particularly plain in the story of Gideon, where in Judg. vii. 24 f. (vs. 23 is a harmonistic note), viii. 1-3, the business of the chiefs of Midian is effectually finished, while in viii. 4 ff. it is all still to be done. The phenomenon is entirely similar to those which we have had repeated occasion to observe in the Pentateuch and Joshua and is to be explained in the same way. The two versions of the story had been united before the time of the author of the deuteronomist Judges, for in the joints of the narrative no trace of his peculiar motives or style occur. The stories recount the exploits of local or tribal heroes, and doubtless represent the traditions of the regions or tribes concerned; with the union of the tribes under the kingdom, however, these traditions became the common property of the nation, and more than one writer made collections of them. As in the patriarchal legends, two strands may be distinguished, which have such affinities with the Judæan and the Israelite histories in the Hexateuch respectively that they are naturally regarded as the continuations of J and E. To J may be probably attributed the story of Ehud (disregarding the introduction and conclusion), say Judg. iii. 16-28; in the story of Gideon, viii. 4-60 (with small exceptions), and a part of cc. 6-7; part of the history of Abimelech; and the adventures of Samson. A good specimen of the other narrator is the beginning of the story of Abimelech, with the fable of Jotham, Judg. ix. 1-25. Here, again, additions have been made at various stages of the transmission: to the sources independently, by the author who first combined them, by the deuteronomist author, and in some places by editors at a much later time. These hands cannot always be certainly discriminated, but the main outlines of the literary history are clear enough. A peculiar problem is presented by the so-called Minor Judges, of whom nothing is told but the length of their rule and the sultanly size of their families (Judg. x. 1-5; xii. 8-15). They seem to be brought in only for the sake of the chronology, the difficulties of which they do not diminish. Except the curt notices that, the Israelites having again offended their God, he gave them into the power of the Philistines for forty years, and that Samson judged Israel for twenty years, it has already been remarked that the stories of Samson have no such introduction and conclusion as those which precede. The statement about the duration of Samson's judgeship occurs both at the end of Judg. 15, and at the end of c. 16, and it has been inferred from this that whoever put this formal close in xv. 20 left out the adventure with Delilah and Samson's tragic end (c. 16). The stories of Micah and the migration of the Danites (Judg. 17-18) and of the levite and his concubine and the decimation of Benjamin (cc. 19-21) were not included in the deuteronomist book; but there is no reason to doubt that they are of the same age as the other stories in Judges, nor that they were found in one or more of the literary collections of these stories. In cc. 17-18 the character of the narrative in the main suggests the same source with the stories of Samson (J), but there are some duplications and inconsistencies which may be regarded as fragments of a closely parallel account of not greatly inferior age. In cc. 19-21, again, the original story seems to be from J (with perhaps traces of another version in c. 19), but in the following account of the vengeance taken by all Israel on the Benjamites, the older narrative has been united with a second, which in its point of view, its language, and its unimaginable exaggerations, is evidently akin to parts of the Books of Chronicles, or to the youngest additions to the Pentateuch such as the vengeance on the Midianites (Num. 31), and doubtless belongs to the most recent stratum of the Old Testament. Judges i. 1-ii. 5, as has been pointed out above, is foreign to the connection in which it stands, and can only have been introduced there by a late compiler or editor. It is a remnant of the most historical, and presumably the oldest, account of the establishment of the tribes in western Palestine. That, in completer form, it had originally a place in the Judæan history (J) is unquestioned, and in that work it may have been closely followed by stories of exploits such as those of Ehud, Barak, Gideon. Inasmuch as it contradicted the theory of the complete conquest and extermination of the Canaanites, it was left out of the works which described the conquest in that way, but scraps of it were subsequently introduced in Joshua, and finally the whole restored in its present position. It is easily seen that the recurring apostasies into Canaanite heathenism, as well as such stories as those of Deborah and Barak and of Abimelech, assume that the Canaanites had not been killed off to the last man, but, on the contrary, were very much alive; and, in fact, the authors of Judg. ii. 20-iii. 4 feel the necessity of explaining why God had allowed these heathen to survive. The historical value of the stories in Judges is very great. However large the element of legendary embellishment may be in them, they give us a picture of the social and religious conditions in the period preceding the founding of the kingdom which has an altogether different reality from the narratives of the exodus and the wanderings. The trustworthiness of this picture is confirmed by one contemporary monument of prime significance, the triumphal ode in Judg. 5, commonly called the Song of Deborah, celebrating the victory of the Israelite tribes over Sisera and his hosts and the death of the fleeing king by the hand of a Bedouin woman in whose tent he sought refuge. The text in the middle of the poem has suffered greatly, but the beginning and end are better preserved and display not only a developed poetic art but poetic inspiration of the highest kind. To the historian it has an even greater interest for the light which it throws on the times: the independence of the tribes on both sides of the Jordan, the subjection of those along the Great Plain to the Canaanite kings with their walled cities and their formidable chariotry, the summons to the struggle in the name of religion and the varying response, the victory of Jehovah over his foes. It should not be overlooked that Judah is ignored; it was not counted among the tribes of Israel. The moralizing improvement of the history in the Book of Judges is not carried beyond the story of Jephthah, but neither at that point nor after the stories of Samson is there anything to indicate that the author is done. The introduction in Judg. ii. 11-iii. 6, a passage in which both the deuteronomist historian and a predecessor in the same way of thinking have had a hand, seems to require a correspondingly solemn conclusion, and the example of Deuteronomy and Joshua suggests that this would take the form of a hortatory address such as Moses and Joshua deliver as their testament to the people. Exactly such a discourse is found in 1 Sam. 12, where the aged Samuel, on the point of laying down his office as judge, reminds the people's conscience of the chief crises of the times of the judges in terms reminiscent of the introduction to the Book of Judges and to the several oppressions, upbraids them for their sin in desiring a king, and closes with admonitions for the future. Here Samuel appears as a judge, the last in the succession; as a judge he is represented also in 1 Sam. 7, where he delivers his people from the Philistines in the great victory at Ebenezer through the efficacy of his sacrifice and prayers--a Gideon or a Jephthah went about the business in a more secular fashion! Eli also is said to have judged Israel forty years. At some stage in the history of the sources of Judges and Samuel, therefore, Eli and Samuel were enumerated among the judges, and the close of the period was marked by the address of Samuel which we now read in 1 Sam. 12. The contents and form of this address have their parallels in the writings of the sixth century or the latter part of the seventh, and to that time it is doubtless to be ascribed. CHAPTER X SAMUEL A different division is adopted in the present books of Judges and Samuel, in which the stories of Eli and of Samuel are not made the close of the period of the judges but the prelude to the history of the kingdom. The Greek Bible divides this history into four books of the Kingdoms, or rather of the Reigns of the Kings; the Hebrew, into two, Samuel and Kings; the modern translations employ the latter names but adopt the subdivisions of the Greek, thus making two books of Samuel and two of Kings. First Samuel shows how the conquest and occupation of central Palestine by the Philistines led to the establishment of a national kingdom under Saul, a Benjamite; narrates the rise of his rival, the Judæan David, and the feud between them, down to the disastrous battle with the Philistines at Mt. Gilboa in which Saul and his gallant sons fell. Second Samuel is the history of David's reign and the tragedy of his house, the conclusion of which, the intrigue which raised Solomon to the throne and the death of the aged king, is treated as the prelude to Solomon's reign and carried over into 1 Kings; one recension of the Greek Bible, however, joins these chapters (1 Kings 1-2) to the preceding book. The two Books of Kings recount the reign of Solomon; the division of the kingdom after his death into two, on the old line, Israel and Judah; the parallel history of the two kingdoms to the end of Israel in 721 B.C.; and the rest of the history of Judah to its fall in 586. In the account of how Saul became king there are two contradictory representations. One of these, which agrees with 1 Sam. 12 in treating the desire of the people for a king as the wanton repudiation of Jehovah their king and of Samuel their divinely appointed judge, is contained in cc. 8; x. 17-27; 12. The other, according to which God, seeing the distress the people were in because of the Philistines, of his own motion resolves to give them a king to deliver them from their oppressors, is in 1 Sam. ix. 1-x. 16; 11. In c. 9 Samuel appears as a seer with a neighbourhood reputation of being able to tell where people's stray asses have gone, not as the prophet and judge, the first man of his time. These strands can be followed in both directions beyond the chapters named: 1 Sam. xiii. 1-xiv. 66 belongs to the second, which we may call the national version of the matter; c. 15 attaches itself to the other, say theocratic, representation, though it is of a somewhat different texture. On the other side, vii. 3-17 plainly goes with c. 8; while iv. 1^b-vii. 2 are akin to the national version, showing how grievous the situation was and how urgent the need of a king. Chapters 1-3 have a twofold motive; they tell of the wonderful childhood of a great man, and they explain the disasters of Eli's house. The latter has reference to cc. 4-6; the former, a favourite theme of popular tales, is an appropriate introduction to Samuel the prophet. Of the two accounts of the origin of the kingdom, it takes no great critical discernment to see that what we have called the national version is the older and more historical; the other, which condemns the monarchy as a kind of apostasy, takes the standpoint of Hosea. The picture of the monarch in 1 Sam. 12 is drawn from sorry experience. Even in the older narrative not all is of one piece. Chapter 9, in which Saul is a young man in his father's house, does not tally with c. 14, where he has a grown-up son. The author of this narrative made it up from traditions of diverse origin, some of them more strictly historical, others embellished with legendary traits. In its main features, however, it gives us a trustworthy account of the establishment of the kingdom. In c. 13, the breach with Samuel, vs. 7^b-15^a (with x. 8 which prepares for it), are not part of the original narrative; c. 15 gives another account of the origin of this breach, which was evidently a standing feature of tradition. In the remaining chapters of 1 Samuel the central interest is the relations of David to Saul. Here also there are not only two main literary sources but evidence of variant traditions underlying the oldest narrative, and of the additions by later editors, sometimes of their conception, sometimes taken from old and good sources. It is impossible here to pursue the analysis of the sources further. It must suffice to say that the further on we go, the more the older and better of the histories predominates. In 2 Samuel almost the whole is from this source (c. 7 is a notable exception, in the spirit and manner of the seventh century). Abridgment and transposition have brought matters into disorder at some points; but 2 Sam. 9-20 is a well-preserved piece of continuous narrative, of which 1 Kings 1-2 is the sequel. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-14 and c. 24 are from the same source, but must originally have stood at an earlier point in the history; their present position is best explained by supposing that they were once omitted--which their contents make very natural--and subsequently restored from a completer copy, not in their proper connection but in an appendix. Chapter xxiii. 8-39 is a very ancient roster of David's "valiant men," the companions of his days as an outlawed freebooter on the Philistine border; xxi. 15-22 is of the same character. Two poems attributed to David are also included in this appendix, c. 22, which, with many variants, is found also in the Psalter (Ps. 18), and xxiii. 1-7. The history of Saul and David gave little invitation to a moralizing improvement such as we have found in Judges and shall find again in Kings. Whatever faults those heroes had, a propensity to the worship of heathen gods could not be laid to them. The national uprising against the Philistines was, in fact, a revival of religion. If in times of peace men sought the blessing of the gods of the soil (the Baals) upon their tillage, in war their only reliance was on Jehovah, the god of Israel. Nor was the worship of Jehovah at the village sanctuaries (high places) or upon altars erected for the nonce, illegitimate, even in deuteronomic theory, till God had taken up his sole abode in Solomon's temple. Accordingly there is, after 1 Sam. 12, once the close of a history of the judges, small trace of the motives or phrases of the seventh-century school of historians; and only in a few passages can the hand of post-exilic editors be suspected. For the rest we have in our hands a product of the oldest Hebrew historiography. From a literary point of view the older source in the history of David is unsurpassed. It has in perfection all the qualities that distinguish the best Hebrew prose such as are conspicuous in the Judæan author of the patriarchal stories in Genesis. In the art of narrative Herodotus himself could do no better. Its historical value is also very high. The account of David's later years in 2 Sam. 9-20; 2 Kings 1-2 bears all the marks of contemporary origin. It comes from one who not only knew the large political events of the reign, but was intimately informed about the life of the court, and the scandals, crimes, and intrigues in the king's household which clouded the end of his glorious career. These things are narrated with an objectivity and impartiality which cannot fail to impress the reader. The author has a high admiration for David, but this does not lead him to gloze over his faults or even his grave sins, nor to disguise the weakness of his rule in his own house which was the cause of so much unhappiness. His development of this domestic tragedy is, indeed, truly dramatic, and the discrimination of the characters--say of Absalom and Adonijah--shows fine insight. He tells without comment how only the distrust of some of the Philistine chiefs kept David, as a vassal of Achish of Gath, from fighting upon the Philistine side against Saul in the fatal battle of Mt. Gilboa. So, too, he is loyally minded to Solomon, but he does not conceal the strings of the harem-intrigue by which the doting old King David was brought to declare for his succession, or to pass over the ominous beginning of Solomon's "new course," with the execution of Adonijah, the deposition of the priest Abiathar, and the murder, at altar where he had sought asylum, of Joab, to whom more than any other the house of Jesse owed the throne. The official pretexts are duly recorded, but the facts speak for themselves. In 1 Kings ii. 5 f. the death of Joab is enjoined in David's testament; opinions differ whether these verses are from the same source with ii. 12 ff., or are by the late seventh-century writer to whom vs. 1-4 are ascribed by all. Without idealizing David, we may at least allow ourselves the conjecture that, if his last words decided the death of his old companion in arms and most loyal servant, Nathan or Bathsheba was at his dying ear. The crisis in the history of the Israelite tribes which the Philistine invasion created; the long struggle with these foes, very different from their conflicts with their petty neighbours; the emergence in this struggle of a national consciousness at once political and religious; the union of the tribes in a national kingdom; the conquest of independence; the following wars of expansion and the foundation of a short-lived Israelite empire--these were achievements to stir the soul of a people and be celebrated in song and story. The leaders too, in these memorable doings were such heroes as ancient history loves to have in the middle of its stage--Saul with his chivalric son Jonathan; David with Joab, Abner, and the rest of his gallant band. The making of great history has often given a first impulse to the writing of history, and we may well believe that it was so in Israel, and that the beginning of Hebrew historical literature, in the proper sense of the word, was made with Saul and David. Around such figures the popular imagination always weaves a more or less translucent tissue of legend, and particularly about their youth before they come out on the stage of history, or the manner of their first appearance. The historians gathered up tribal tales such as the exploits of the judges (that is, in the original sense, deliverers, or defenders), the sacred legends of holy places, the traditions of a wonderful escape from the Egyptians, a visit to the Mount of God and an agreement to worship the god of the place as their god, of another sanctuary in the desert at Kadesh, conflicts with the Bedouins, and attempts to force an entry into Canaan--in short, all the diverse material which is preserved in the older narratives in Exodus and Numbers--and combined them as best they could into a continuous history of the people of Israel. The continuity is, however, only a narrative continuity; historically there are great gaps in it, or, more exactly, the traditions cluster about only a few points, such as the exodus and the invasion of Palestine, and these are embellished with a wealth of legendary and mythical circumstance beneath which the facts are effectually hidden. The nature of this material may be judged from the fact that between Joshua and Eli there are only the episodes of the judges, strung on a chronological string, generalized as experiences of all Israel, and put under a theological judgment--invaluable as pictures of civilization, but as a history of a couple of centuries (the chronology says four) evidently insufficient. On the other side of the exodus are, according to the genealogies, three or four generations (the chronology again makes it four hundred years) of total ignorance; beyond that lies the patriarchal story, the realm of pure legend. Out of such materials Judæan authors in the tenth and following centuries constructed the history of their people from the remotest antiquity, and, as commonly happens with the first precipitation of national traditions, preformed all subsequent representations. This earliest book of history is commonly designated in the Pentateuch and Joshua by the symbol J. It is disputed whether the oldest history of the founding of the kingdom in Samuel should be regarded as a continuation of J. If it were meant thereby to affirm unity of authorship of this strand from Genesis to Samuel, that would be saying much more than the facts warrant; but there is through the whole so noteworthy a congruity of conception and sameness of excellence in style that it is not inappropriate to use for it the one symbol J in the sense of the oldest Judæan history. CHAPTER XI KINGS David took Jerusalem, which till then had been a Jebusite stronghold, and made it the capital of his kingdom; but he reigned, after as before, in patriarchal fashion, making, so far as appears, few changes in the old institutions. Solomon reorganized the monarchy after the common pattern of Oriental despotisms, dividing the country into provinces for purposes of taxation, without regard to the autonomy of the tribes and their liberties. He built a great palace in the citadel, and, within the same enclosure, a temple, which, as the royal sanctuary, was also in a sense national. Like other Eastern rulers, he caused his doings to be recorded in the annals of the kingdom, and doubtless the priests of the temple kept their own chronicles. From this time, therefore, sources of a new kind make their appearance in the history, contemporary records drawn from the royal and priestly annals. The extracts from these sources in the Book of Kings, like those of the Assyrian kings, or the Phoenician annals of which fragments (through Menander) are preserved by Josephus, were brief and bald records of doings or happenings, not biographical or historical narratives. But brief and bald as they were they furnished a groundwork of fact; and, since they set down at the accession of each king the length of his predecessor's reign, they gave also the data for a continuous chronology. It is not to be supposed that the historical literature whose brilliant beginnings we have seen ceased in the first century of the kingdom or that the writers occupied themselves solely with the remoter past. The memorable deeds of great men will not have gone uncelebrated. The narrative, however, which is the chief source for the times of Saul and David, breaks off abruptly in 1 Kings 2. The Books of Kings are of a wholly different fabric. For one thing, while the two Books of Samuel cover little more than the span of one long lifetime, Kings, in about the same space, comprises the history of close on to four centuries. But there is a still greater difference, as we shall see, in the way in which history is treated. The grand divisions of the Books of Kings are these: 1 Kings ii. 12-xi. 43 is occupied with the reign of Solomon; the division of the kingdom after his death is narrated in xii. 1-24; the parallel history of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the fall of Samaria in 721 B.C. runs to 2 Kings xviii. 12; the history of Judah from that date to its own fall in 586 fills the rest of the book. The age of the book is easily determined: it tells of the two sieges of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (597 and 586 B.C.); the destruction of the temple and palace and the razing of the city walls, the assassination of Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had made governor over the devastated land; and the flight of the Jews from the king's vengeance to Egypt. The last event mentioned is the liberation of King Jehoiachin by Evil-Merodach (Amil-Marduk) in 561 B.C. It is of course possible that this detached notice (2 Kings xxv. 27-30) was added by a later hand; but there is no reason to include the story of Gedaliah in this suspicion. The book in its present form cannot, therefore, be earlier than, say, about 580 B.C. In some places in the body of the book, also, the fall of Judah is spoken of as an accomplished fact, e.g. 2 Kings xvii. 19 f. (in conflict with vss. 18 and 21 ff.). Such passages are, however, not very numerous, and they commonly sit loose in their context, like the verses just cited, as if they were thrust into the narrative by an editor. The bulk of the work, on the contrary, seems to suppose the existence of the kingdom. It is, therefore, the general opinion that the book was written before the fall of Jerusalem, and that a continuator added the account of the catastrophe and the events immediately subsequent to it. The older Kings, from beginning to end, is dominated by the conception and permeated by the phraseology of Deuteronomy and of the prophet Jeremiah, and must therefore be placed between 621 B.C. (the date of the introduction of the deuteronomic law) and the beginning of the last act of the history, that is to say, probably shortly before the year 600 B.C. It is not enough to say that Kings was written under the influence of Deuteronomy; it was written, we might rather say, as a commentary on the deuteronomic doctrine that falling away from the national religion is punished by national disaster. In this point of view it resembles Judges; but while in Judges it is the lapse into Canaanite heathenism, the worship of the Baals and Astartes, which draws upon Israel invasion and subjugation, in Kings not only foreign religions but the worship at the high places, that is, the worship of Jehovah at his oldest and holiest sanctuaries, provokes the wrath of God; for since the dedication of Solomon's temple Jehovah had made it his exclusive abode and all other places of worship were illegitimate. We have seen that down to Josiah's reform this worship prevailed unchallenged in both kingdoms. In the author's view, generation after generation, under bad kings and good, had thus sinned against the organic law of religion, and all judgments had failed to work amendment. In Israel idolatry made the case worse; the "golden calves," that is, the small images of Jehovah in the form of a bull, which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel and Dan, were worshipped under all his successors. These sins had in the end brought ruin on Israel, and they were bringing it on Judah. Manasseh had done even worse than Jeroboam; strange gods from near and far were installed in the temple itself, and under its walls men sacrificed their children to "the King" (Moloch). Josiah's reforms had no lasting results; the reaction under his successors restored the high places, and heathen cults flourished again. The doom was imminent; would Judah learn the lesson of history before it was too late? Some one has said that history is philosophy teaching by example; for the author of Kings history was prophecy teaching by example. It was the lesson of the history that the author was after, and this ruling motive determined his selection of material as well as the treatment of it. It explains why he hardly tells anything about some of the greatest kings and the most glorious periods of the history, which did not afford illustrations of his thesis, while he dwells on things of much less historical importance. The characteristic interests of the author and his highly characteristic style sharply distinguish his own writing from the sources which he incorporates. These sources, as will be supposed, were of different kinds and of various worth; they were naturally not the same in all parts of the long period he covers, and he has not always dealt with them in the same way. Part of his material comes, directly or indirectly, from the annals of the kings, to which the reader is regularly referred for further information (see e.g., 1 Kings xiv. 19, 29), or from temple records; part of it from more properly literary sources. Sometimes it has all the marks of trustworthy tradition originating close to the event; again, it is embroidered with legendary traits; a smaller part is edifying fiction. In some cases, as in the stories of Elijah and Elisha, a special source is recognizable, but in the main the attempt to trace the literary channels through which the matter reached the author is fruitless. In the history of Solomon's reign the central place is taken by a description of the palace and temple he erected (1 Kings 6-7), for which c. 5 is a preparation, and c. 8, the dedication of the temple, the sequel. The interesting account of the provincial organization and system of taxation in c. 4 is evidently from an authoritative source; the cession of cities in Galilee to Hiram, the list of cities fortified, the (mutilated) account of the revolt of Edom, the rise of the kingdom of Damascus, and the (mutilated) history of the revolt of Jeroboam, the prelude to the separation of Israel and Judah, are also of good authority. By the side of these are stories celebrating the magnificence and wisdom of Solomon, the beginnings of the exuberant Solomonic legend. The judgment of Solomon in the case of the two harlots and of the visit of the Queen of Sheba are examples of the popular tale, and relatively old. The dedication of the temple has been much expanded by the author of the Book of Kings; 1 Kings viii. 14-66 are wholly his composition; ix. 1-9 is an appendix to c. 8. In viii. 1-12 an older account of the dedication has been improved by various hands. Comparison with the Greek translation shows that this process went on to very late times; the latest additions are akin to the priestly stratum in the Pentateuch. Chapter xi. 1-13 also is by the author of the Book of Kings, built about a few words from his source in vs. 7; vss. 29-40 are of the same sort. 1 Kings 12-2 Kings 17 contains the parallel history of Israel and Judah. The method of the author is to follow the reign of a king, say of Israel, to its end and then go back to take up the king of Judah who came to the throne during this reign, follow him to his death, and return to pick up the Israelite history again in the same way. The result is, thus, interlocking histories, rather than a parallel history. The length of each reign is given, probably ultimately from the annals, with a computed synchronism which is at some points demonstrably in error. With the introduction of each king a comprehensive judgment by the standard of the deuteronomic law is pronounced upon his reign. Thus, "In the eighteenth year of the king Jeroboam the son of Nebat [king of Israel], began Abijah to reign over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And he walked in all the sins of his father which he had done before him," etc. "In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Abijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty and four years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin." These judgments are so stereotyped that they are pronounced even on kings who reigned but a short time--Zimri, for instance, who lasted only seven days. In the case of godly kings of Judah, even of such as are credited with commendable zeal against the worships that Deuteronomy denounces as Canaanitish heathenism, the reproach of leaving the worship of Jehovah at the "high places" unmolested is not spared them; see, e.g., 1 Kings xv. 1-14; xxii. 43. The conflict between the tribes to whom the name Israel by historical right belonged, headed by Ephraim, intent on reclaiming the ancient liberties which Solomon had curtailed and securing adequate guarantees for them, and Rehoboam, obstinate to maintain the despotism which his father had established and the supremacy of Judah, ended in the Israelite tribes refusing to acknowledge the succession and setting up a kingdom of their own with Jeroboam the son Nebat as king. These critical events are narrated in the source, 1 Kings xii. 1-20, with noteworthy impartiality; a comparison with the treatment of the matter by the author of the Book of Kings himself in xi. 29-39; xii. 21-24, is instructive. The account of Jeroboam's religious foundations and innovations in c. xii. 26-33 (with which xiii. 33^b belongs) is probably based on an old Israelite source (the temples Jeroboam built, etc.), on which the author of the book has put his own construction and made his own comments. 1 Kings 13 is a specimen of the edifying stories--religious fiction--which were added to the historical books at a very late time and are especially numerous in Chronicles; the reference to it in 2 Kings xxiii. 17 f. is an interpolation in a context itself post-exilic. The story of the visit of Jeroboam's wife to the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 1-18) is in the manner of the author, but seems to have an older basis. The fluid state of the text at a very late time is again shown by the fact that in some recensions of the Greek version the story is not found in this place, but, together with other matter about Jeroboam (in part variant parallel to 1 Kings xi. 26 ff., 40), in a long passage which stands in c. 12 between vss. 24 and 25. The invasion of Shishak, king of Egypt (1 Kings xiv. 25-28), is introduced by the author with a catalogue of the deuteronomic transgressions which provoked God to punish the kingdom in this way; the similarity to the introduction to the oppressions in Judges is apparent. So in the following chapters: the author's facts probably come from annalistic sources which can in places be recognized, but the religious interpretation of the events, which he sometimes gives in his own quality as historian, sometimes puts into the mouth of a prophet (e.g. xvi. 1-7, cf. xiv. 1-18), is from the point of view of the deuteronomist school. Another characteristic of the author's method is illustrated by his treatment of the reign of Omri (1 Kings xvi. 23-28). Omri was the founder of the greatest dynasty of the northern kingdom, and was one of its greatest kings. From an inscription of the Moabite king Mesha, we learn that Omri subjugated the lands east of the Jordan (see also 2 Kings i. 1; iii. 4 ff.), and it is probable that his conquests were pushed to the north-east into Syria; the Assyrian kings long after his death call Israel the "house of Omri." But the long and brilliantly successful reign of a king who in religion followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel before him, "golden calves" and all, obviously could not be made to exemplify the doctrine that such sins are regularly visited by condign judgment in national disaster. Consequently, all that our author records of Omri, beyond the revolutions which paved for him the way to the throne (1 Kings xvi. 16-18), is contained in one verse, 1 Kings xvi. 24--he built a capital on a new site, Samaria! In the following reign, however, Israel had troubles enough; the conquests east of the Jordan were lost, and the long chapter of Syrian wars began. This was material more to the author's purpose, and he makes good use of it. Here also, in addition to the annals and whatever other sources were at his hand for the preceding period, he had a new and peculiarly grateful source in the stories of Elijah and Elisha. To the fact that these prophets were outstanding figures in some of the crises of the Syrian wars we owe it that so much of the history of that struggle is preserved; for what the author has extracted from the annals is as meagre as elsewhere. From such "lives and times" of the prophets is derived much the greater part of 1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10, with 2 Kings xiii. 14-21. The stories of Elijah (1 Kings 17-19; 21; 2 Kings 1; ii. 1-18) are among the most striking in the Old Testament; the supernatural in them seems the natural setting for a figure of such heroic mould, and is a stronger testimony than any record of fact could be to the impression of the superman on the imagination of ordinary mortals. Through the vesture of legend, we too have the impression of a something titanic in the man who dared solitary to stand for his God against kings, priests, prophets, and people, and, worse than all, the vengeful fury of a woman! We can see, also, that his conflict against the prophets of Baal makes an era in the history of religion in Israel. "If Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him," he thunders at the people on Mt. Carmel. It was not the first assertion of the jealousy of Jehovah and the exclusiveness of the true religion; but the issue had never before been so dramatically joined. The intolerant monotheism of Judaism had found its war cry. 1 Kings 17-19, Elijah at Sarepta, on Carmel, and at Horeb, belong together; the beginning, which must in some way have brought Elijah upon the stage, is not preserved; 1 Kings 21 (Naboth's vineyard) may very well be from the same source; in the end of the chapter (vs. 20^b-26) the author of the Book of Kings has the word, and in the other chapters there are slight traces of the same hand. With these small exceptions the stories are old, and probably received their present literary form in the ninth century, certainly before the prophetic movement of the eighth. 2 Kings i. 2-17 is a legend of a different kind and presumably considerably younger. 2 Kings ii. 1-18, on the other hand, is akin to the older stories in 1 Kings 17-19, 21; it forms the connecting link with Elisha. Among the stories of Elijah stand other episodes of the Syrian wars in which prophets figure, 1 Kings 20; xxii. 1-38. The second of these, Micaiah ben Imlah before Ahab and Jehoshaphat, is of peculiar interest. They are apparently of the same age with their surroundings. In both a few verses are from later editors. To the same cycle probably belong 2 Kings iii. 4-27, the campaign against Moab, as well as 2 Kings ix. 1-x. 27, Jehu's revolt instigated by Elisha, the murder of King Ahaziah and of the queen mother, Jezebel, the massacre of the princes of the house of Omri and the extirpation of the worship of Baal. Beside these are a group of stories about Elisha, chiefly celebrating him as a wonder-worker, and bringing him into connection with the "sons of the prophets," who seem to have formed a kind of dervish order. The collector or editor has accumulated them all in one reign, probably against their original intention. Scattered through the narratives drawn from the lives of the prophets are brief notices from the annals and the usual deuteronomist appraisals by the author of Kings. The attempt of Jehu to exterminate the dynasty of Omri, involving the slaughter of the Judæan princes, had the unintended result of enabling the queen mother, Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, to seize the throne. The revolution, planned by the chief priest of Jerusalem, which overthrew the usurper and brought the true heir, the seven-year-old Joash, to his own, is told in 2 Kings xi. 1-20; a somewhat minute account of the restoration of the temple in his reign follows in c. xii. 4-16, both from a good Judæan source, perhaps ultimately a temple chronicle. The author of Kings has his usual formulas, including the tolerated high places, in c. xii. 1-3. The extract from the annals at the end of the chapter, the straits into which Hazael of Syria brought Joash, and his death by a treasonable conspiracy, which might be thought to prove that piety is not always crowned with prosperity, is anticipated by the author of Kings in 2 Kings xii. 3--Joash's piety lasted only as long as he was in the leading strings of the priest Jehoiada. In the following reigns the material derived from narrative sources is more scanty; a noteworthy passage of this kind is the account, evidently from an Israelite writer, of the chastisement Jehoash of Israel inflicted on the presumptuous Amaziah of Judah (2 Kings xiv. 8-14). The contemporary reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel and Azariah, or Uzziah, of Judah, lasting half a century, a period of great prosperity in both kingdoms, are dispatched with extreme brevity, and are followed by the swiftly successive conspiracies and revolutions in which the northern kingdom declined to its fall. The story of treason and bloodshed is suspended to tell of the reign of Ahaz in Judah (2 Kings 16) from a source chiefly interested in the temple, and then the last act of Israel's tragedy opens. To the brief account of the fall of Samaria in 2 Kings xvii. 1-6, is appended the moral of the whole history, VSS. 7-41. This homiletic improvement of the catastrophe was an inviting task, and besides the author of Kings, the exilian continuator and perhaps still later editors contributed to draw it out and emphasize it. From this point the historian has only Judah to deal with. The reign of Hezekiah is narrated at some length in 2 Kings 18-20. A considerable part of these chapters (xviii. 13-XX. 19) is found also in the Book of Isaiah (Isa. 36-39), with variations which are of much interest for the history of the text. The psalm, Isa. xxxviii. 9-20, for instance, is not found in Kings; 2 Kings xviii. 14-16 is not in Isaiah, and minor differences occur in almost every verse. The introduction to the reign of Hezekiah by the author of Kings is somewhat longer than usual, and attributes to him not only the destruction of the serpent idol in the temple which Moses was believed to have made (cf. Num. xxi. 8 f.), and of other apparatus of heathenism, but the removal of the high places, making him thus anticipate the reforms of Josiah a century later (2 Kings xviii. 4). This probably exaggerates Hezekiah's good works, but for the bronze serpent to which sacrificial worship had been paid from time immemorial, as well as for vs. 7 f. (Hezekiah's rebellion), which is the antecedent of vs. 13 ff., he may have had the authority of the annals. From the annals probably come also 2 Kings xviii. 13-16, with their brief record of the penalty Hezekiah paid for his revolt. Of this we have also Sennacherib's account in his inscriptions, where he tells how he took the cities of Judah and shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage," and gives the figures of the heavy indemnity he imposed upon him. There follow two longer accounts of Sennacherib's operations, 2 Kings xviii. 17-xix. 8 and xix. 9-37, which are commonly regarded as parallel and somewhat discrepant relations of the same campaign, but by some are thought to refer to two different occasions, at an interval of ten years or more. 2 Kings xx. 1-11 (cf. Isa. 38) is perhaps from a life of Isaiah, who is the chief figure in it; vs. 12-19 (Isa. 39), the embassy of the chronic Babylonia rebel, Merodach Baladan, presumably to undermine Hezekiah's shaky loyalty to his Assyrian lord, seems to belong at an earlier point in the story; in it also Isaiah is the central person. In the closing paragraph the author of Kings has preserved an interesting annalistic notice of an aqueduct and reservoir which Hezekiah constructed, not improbably the Siloam tunnel and the reservoir it feeds. Of the fifty-five years' reign of Manasseh, and the two years of his son Amon, a half-century of peace and prosperity in which the country recuperated from the disasters Hezekiah had brought upon it, nothing is told. Instead we have a long catalogue of Manasseh's religious obliquities, which includes all the crimes most abhorrent to the seventh-century prophets and laws, and the proclamation of God "by his servants the prophets" that these sins sealed the doom of Judah. This prediction is made from the standpoint of the accomplished fact, and indeed most of the chapter seems to be by the exilian continuator of Kings or a still later writer. With the reforms of Josiah (621 B.C.; 2 Kings 22-23) we arrive at events which, if not within the personal knowledge of the author of Kings, were known to his older contemporaries. This does not, of course, exclude the use of written records or narratives, and, in fact, there seem to be traces of such in the chapters. More certain it is that the continuator of the book made some changes in the account; the oracle of Huldah, for example, seems to have been revised in the light of the event. To this continuator, as has already been said, the history of the two sieges of Jerusalem, the deportations, and the misfortunes of those who were left in the land are to be attributed. In several places in earlier parts of the history we have had occasion to observe that additions and changes continue to be made by the editors or scribes--and every scribe who copied a book in those days wielded an editor's pen when he chose--until a time close to the age of the Greek translation, that is, the third century B.C. The age in which the Pentateuch and the several Historical Books (Joshua-Kings), the product of the long and obscure process which we have attempted to outline in the preceding chapters, were adjusted and connected so as to make a continuous history from the creation to the fall of the Judæan state, can be fixed only by the fact that the author of Chronicles (about 300 B.C. or somewhat later; see below) seems to have read these books in the order and, so far as his use of them permits a judgment, substantially with the contents of our present Old Testament. This arrangement, or edition, if we choose to call it so, as has been shown, did not put an end to additions and alterations, though they gradually became less frequent and less important in the following centuries. A standard and stable Hebrew text was established only in the second century after the Christian era. CHAPTER XII CHRONICLES By the side of this comprehensive history stands another which is in part parallel, in part supplementary, to it, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. It differs from the former in being the work of one author, whose characteristic conceptions, interests, and manner make it easy to distinguish his writing from the sources he incorporates. His peculiarities are the better known because there is so much of his own in the books--not far from half the matter contained in them. The succession of the high priests is brought down to Jaddua, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great, and lists of heads of priestly and levitical families are given in Neh. 12 for the reign of Darius (Codomannus), the last Persian king. The book can, therefore, not be put much, if any, before 300 B.C., and more probably it was written in the following century. The history begins with the death of Saul and the election of David as king by all Israel at Hebron (1 Chron. 10-11). The preceding chapters are filled with genealogies, beginning with Adam. Twenty-six verses bring us to Abraham, and the second chapter opens with the sons of Israel, while the third is a list of the sons of David and of his successors on the throne to the fall of the kingdom, with the descendants of the last king through several generations. These genealogies, to which historical notices of different kinds are frequently attached, are in part compiled from various places in the Pentateuch and Historical Books, in part more freely reproduced from such passages; but a large remainder has no parallel in the older work. The author, here as elsewhere, evidently attaches great importance to these lists, in particular to those which enabled the families of his own time, clerical and lay, or the inhabitants of towns and villages, to trace their pedigree back to remote times. It is not without reason that the historical narrative sets in with David, and that the first event of his reign recorded is the taking of Jerusalem; for Jerusalem is from first to last the centre of the author's interest. He writes the history of Judah alone, touching upon the kingdom of Israel only in its relation to Judah. The desire to magnify and glorify the kingdom of Judah in its great days, especially under David and Solomon, to represent it as the most powerful, wealthy, and magnificent among the nations, not only of its time but of any time, frequently expresses itself in enormous exaggerations. David could raise a native army of a million and a half, almost as many as, according to Herodotus--who certainly does not underestimate the numbers--Xerxes mustered from the whole Persian empire for the invasion of Greece; he laid away, "out of his poverty," to build the temple, a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver--over three times the national debt of the United Kingdom in 1912; at the dedication of the temple Solomon sacrificed 22,000 bullocks and 120,000 sheep and goats; and so on. It is evident that the author has raised the figures out of the grasp of his own imagination. From the same motive, if it is possible to avoid it, he tells nothing to discredit the kings whom he thus extols. David's sin in taking a census is necessarily related, because the sequel of it was the choice of a site for the future temple, but, characteristically, not God but Satan tempted him to number the people; otherwise none of the misdeeds and misfortunes which are set down so impartially in 2 Samuel is so much as alluded to by the Chronicler; David is in his pages the model king. Solomon fares as well; nothing is said of the perverting influence of his foreign wives nor the temples he erected to their gods. Indeed, his piety is such that he will not allow Pharaoh's daughter, apparently the only foreign wife the Chronicler gives him, to live in the city of David, for the neighbourhood of the ark is holy. Solomon's press-gangs were one of the greatest grievances of the tribes; the author of Chronicles takes pains to aver that Solomon raised his corvée from the remnants of the Hittites and other heathen; no Israelites were put to such work. In Kings we read that Solomon ceded twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram, king of Tyre, in payment for materials and services in the building of the temple; to the Chronicler such a transaction is unimaginable, and he amends it by making Hiram give the towns to Solomon. All this is, however, incidental to the main purpose of the book to exalt Jerusalem as the religious capital, its temple as the place which God has chosen for his abode, its liturgy as the correct form of worship, its priests and levites as the only ministry of valid orders and unimpeachable succession. It is not solely the pride of the churchman which prompts him to dwell on these things. The assertion is so emphasized and reiterated that we can hardly mistake in inferring a controversial animus, especially when we recall that at the time of writing there was a rival temple on Mt. Gerizim near Shechem, at one of the most venerable holy places in the land. This temple is said by Josephus to have been erected in the time of Alexander the Great, in avowed rivalry to the temple in Jerusalem. The high priests of the Samaritan temple were a branch of the Jewish high-priestly line, its ritual was the same, the Pentateuch was the Law in Shechem as well as in Jerusalem. If the Jews maintained that Jerusalem was the only place in the land where sacrifice might lawfully be made to God, the Samaritans made the same exclusive claim for their temple: Shechem, not Jerusalem, was the place (unnamed in Deuteronomy) which God had chosen out of all the tribes to put his name there. At Shechem was held the first great religious assembly of Israel after the invasion of Canaan; there, on Gerizim, the first altar of Jehovah was erected by his express command (see Deut. xi. 26-29; Jos. viii. 30-35; Jos. 24; especially Deut. xxvii. 4, where "Ebal" in the Jewish Bible is an anti-Samaritan substitute for the original "Gerizim"). The rivalry of Shechem was thus a serious menace, and so the Jerusalem Jews treated it. In their eyes the people of the old territory of Ephraim were descendants of the assorted heathen whom the Assyrian kings had colonized in the cities of Samaria after transplanting to the eastern provinces of the empire the old Israelite population of the region (see 2 Kings 17--a very late passage--noting especially vs. 34, "unto this day"). On the other hand, Jerusalem and the region about it, after lying waste for seventy years, had been repeopled under Cyrus by Jews of pure race returning from the exile in Babylonia, who rebuilt the temple and restored the worship as prescribed in the law. They were surrounded by the "peoples of the land," who were regarded as descendants of the ancient heathen of Canaan with whom intermarriage was forbidden in the law. This is the Chronicler's representation: the returned exiles are the only genuine stock, their priesthood the only legitimate sons of Aaron, the rest of the ministry, down to the temple slaves, was authenticated by recorded pedigrees (see Ezra ii. 59-63), and the elaborate liturgy of his own time the same in all particulars which had been used in the temple from its foundation. The author has an exaggerated interest in this liturgy, and especially in the part taken in it by the minor orders of the clergy, levites, musicians, singers, door-keepers, and the rest. The levites are provided for in the Pentateuch, but the orchestra and choruses, according to the Chronicler, were organized by David (1 Chron. 23-26), who thus provided for the proper execution of his Psalms. When a great religious function is described, the music invariably comes in for a prominent notice (e.g. 2 Chron. v. 12 f.). We have seen that the historians of the seventh and following centuries, the so-called deuteronomist school, wrote or interpreted the history to exemplify the doctrine that defection from the national religion is surely punished by national calamities. The Chronicler's doctrine of retribution is at once harder and more individual. He also turns it about: unusual suffering is proof of sin. Thus, Asa was, according to Kings, a conspicuously good king, but in his old age he had the gout. The Chronicler, by the mouth of a prophet, explains why: he relied on the king of Syria to help him against Israel, instead of relying on the Lord. The king clapped the prophet into prison for meddling with affairs of state, and so added another affront to God. He was impenitent, however, for though the gout was very bad, "yet sought he not unto the Lord, but to the physicians." Uzziah, another godly king, was in his later years afflicted with leprosy, a disease which was regarded as peculiarly the stroke of God. The Chronicler gives the reason: the king presumed to burn incense on the altar in spite of the protest of the priest, and was smitten with leprosy on the spot. There is no reason to impugn the author's good faith in such emendations of his sources. He thought he knew the laws of history, and if in the particular instance the record did not correspond, it must be defective. But whatever apology may be made for his good intentions, it need hardly be said that the unsupported testimony of a doctrinaire historian who deals so sovereignly with the facts is of no weight. The Chronicler names a considerable number of books as authorities for different periods of the history; the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (or Israel and Judah) and the Book of the Kings of Israel are repeatedly cited for things not related in our Book of Kings. For more information about Joash the reader is referred to the "Midrash of the Book of Kings," and for Abijah to the "Midrash of the Prophet Iddo," titles that in later times, at least, would designate an edifying exposition in which full licence was given to the imagination to embroider the theme with picturesque inventions. The favourite references, however, are to writings bearing the names of prophets--Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Ahijah, Iddo, Shemaiah, Jehu son of Hanani. The title History of Samuel the Seer, of Nathan the Prophet, and so on, may mean either _about_ Samuel or _by_ Samuel. Very likely the author entertained the theory which subsequently prevailed among the Jews that in each age the prophets wrote down the events of their own time in which many of them had a conspicuous part. The question is of no other interest; for an examination of the extracts from his sources which the Chronicler has incorporated or condensed shows that (with small possible exceptions to be considered hereafter) his material was all taken from our Book of Kings. This enables us to confront his history of Judah with his sources and acquaint ourselves with his habitual way of dealing with them, an investigation not only instructive for his method, but of the greatest importance when we come to the Chronicler's history of the Persian period, where, for the most part, his sources are not independently preserved. In the first place it will be noticed that he has selected from the history in Samuel and Kings the parts which particularly interested him for their own sake, such as the description of religious ceremonies, or could be used as a text for the doctrines he had most at heart, and has therefore passed over a very large part of the contents of his source. Precisely so, the author of Kings, two centuries earlier, had dealt with his sources, though with a different interest. What the Chronicler chose to include he generally copied out without much change; the present variations in the text are chiefly due to divergent transmission. (Compare, for illustration, 1 Chron. x. 1-xi. 47 with 1 Sam. 31 and 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39, or 1 Chron. xvii. 1-xx. 8 with 2 Sam. 7, 8, 10 and 12.). Often he introduces in these extracts, or appends to them, notes of his own which would in almost all cases be certainly recognizable on internal evidence even if we had not the text of Kings before us. In a few places he condenses or abridges the narrative of Kings, as in 2 Chron. xxxii. 1-23 compared with 2 Kings xviii. 13-xix. 37. Of alterations, or, from the author's own point of view, corrections, of the older history several examples have been given above. One more, of a striking character, may be cited, viz. 2 Chron. xxii. 10-xxiii. 21 compared with 2 Kings 11. The Carian mercenaries of the guard in the sacred precincts of the temple (2 Kings xi. 4) were a plain profanation, of which the pious chief priest could not have been guilty. The Chronicler accordingly rewrites the story, substituting the levites (note 2 Chron. xxiii. 6) for the obnoxious heathen. Finally, he sometimes freely expands on his text, as in the building of Solomon's temple (2 Chron. 2-3). In view of the Chronicler's multiplied references to authorities, it has frequently been assumed that his immediate source was not the Books of Samuel and Kings, but a work of a "midrashic" character--that is, euphemistically, a work with more concern for edification than for historical verity--written not long before his time from the same point of view and with the same salient interests, which the Chronicler in all simplicity took for authentic history. This ghost source eludes, however, all attempts to catch it actually walking. It may perfectly well be that the Chronicler did not invent everything in the book which is plainly invention, but if not, we can only apply the famous contribution of an undergraduate to Homeric criticism, "the Iliad was not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name." There remain a few short notices, not derived from the Pentateuch or Historical Books, whose contents and form suggest that they are scraps which the Chronicler picked up from some other source, e.g. the migration of the Simeonites, 1 Chron. iv. 24-43 (in the main). But these passages are so few, and generally of so little historical importance, that the question need here not be pursued farther. CHAPTER XIII EZRA AND NEHEMIAH The books which in our Bible bear the names Ezra and Nehemiah (in the Jewish Bible, one book, Ezra) are the immediate continuation of Chronicles, by the same author. When they were divided, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22-23, the necessary sequel of vss. 20-21 was repeated at the beginning of Ezra (Ezra i. 1-3). The reason for the division is plain: down to the end of the exile the work was no more than an epitome of the Pentateuch and Historical Books; but from the time of Cyrus to Alexander it was the only history the Jews possessed. This part was therefore separated from what went before as the book of post-exilic history, and named "Ezra" after the figure most prominent in the earlier half of it, on the same principle that the history of the founding of the kingdom was named Samuel. The subdivision into two books of Ezra as in the Greek Bible, or as we name them Ezra and Nehemiah, is apparently due to Christian hands. This part of the Chronicler's work begins, as has been said, with an edict of Cyrus permitting the Jews in Babylonia to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. There follows a list (given again in Neh. 7) of the families who availed themselves of this permission, shortly after 538 B.C. The restoration of the temple is begun, then stopped by the machinations of their enemies under Xerxes (486-465 B.C.) and Artaxerxes (465-424 B.C.), but happily completed (by the same Zerubbabel and Joshua who began it) in the sixth year of Darius (Nothus, 424-405 B.C.). "After these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes," Ezra came up from Babylonia, armed with large powers by an edict of the king, to order things according to the law of his God in the province "beyond the river" (Euphrates, Ezra 7 f.). He found things enough that needed reform; particularly the frequent intermarriages of all classes, including the clergy, with the "peoples of the land," and succeeded in inducing the Jews, in a great act of penitence, to divorce these "foreign women" (cc. 9-10). At this point the History of Nehemiah sets in abruptly in the form of personal memoirs. Nehemiah, a favourite cup-bearer of the Persian king Artaxerxes, hearing that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates burned, asks permission to go thither and repair the damaged fortifications, and is sent with a commission as royal governor of the district. In spite of dangerous opposition from jealous neighbours in Samaria and elsewhere, by the utmost endeavours he accomplishes the rebuilding of the walls in a very brief space (Neh. 1-6). In all this there is not so much as a mention of Ezra, who is supposed to have been now thirteen years in Jerusalem, but in Neh. 8 he suddenly appears on the scene with his law-book. The law is read, and the people solemnly covenant by sign and seal to observe it; Nehemiah's name stands at the head of the list of signers, but otherwise he is entirely ignored (Neh. 8-10). Lists of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of other settlements, a catalogue of the priests and levites who came up under Cyrus, and a description of the dedication of the walls, in which the singers shine, fill Neh. 11-12. That the Chronicler is the author is palpable. Finally, in c. 13, Nehemiah, who had returned to court, reappears, and finds a sad state of things; a foreigner, and an Ammonite at that, lodged by the high priest in a chamber of the temple, flagrant violations of the sabbath by market men, and the old grievance of mixed marriages in full gait. Even the high priest's family was not pure: one of its scions was son-in-law to Nehemiah's arch-enemy, Sanballat of Samaria. Naturally Nehemiah expelled him. It has been necessary to give this somewhat detailed synopsis of the books to make intelligible the problems they present. On this point it is further to be observed that the book is not all written in Hebrew: Ezra iv. 8-vi. 18; vii. 12-26, containing chiefly correspondence with the Persian court and documents issuing from it, are in Aramaic, the official language of the western provinces of the empire. Moreover, the oldest Greek translation of the Chronicler's history, part of which is preserved in the Bible of the church as 1 Esdras, differs both in matter and order from the Jewish standard text and the later Greek version; it contains, for example, the famous exhibition of wits by the three Jewish youths at the court of Darius (1 Esdr. 3 f.), as a result of which Zerubbabel obtains from Darius permission to go up to Jerusalem. In 1 Esdras the reading of the law (Neh. 8) immediately follows the act of penitence for the strange wives (Ezra 10). A large part of Ezra-Nehemiah exhibits the Chronicler's familiar motives and manner; in other places he has incorporated extracts from the sources with or without annotations of his own. Of these sources the only ones which have been independently preserved are the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, from which the author takes, however, no more than the facts that at the instance of these prophets Zerubbabel and Joshua began to rebuild the temple in the second year of Darius (Ezra v. 1 f.); the completion of the work by the same hands, which according to the Chronicler took place in the sixth year of Darius and was celebrated in a great dedication ceremony, is in Zech. iv. 9 still prediction. Another source which stands out distinctly is the Memoirs of Nehemiah, of which Neh. 1-6 (except c. 3) is a solid piece. There is, moreover, a series of documents: Ezra 1, the edict of Cyrus; Ezra iv. 7-vi. 12, complaints to the court of the Jews' building operations, and answers of the kings Artaxerxes and Darius respectively. Ezra vii. 11-26, commission of Artaxerxes to Ezra. A diplomatic appearance is given to these by the fact that--except the edict of Cyrus--they are all couched in the official Aramaic; and, inasmuch as in cc. iv. 7-vi. 18 the connecting links of narrative are also in Aramaic, the presumption is that this material was taken bodily from an Aramaic book in which the letters and rescripts were already embodied. Finally, a distinct source is commonly assumed for the history of Ezra. This is chiefly told of Ezra in the third person; but in some parts for a considerable space together Ezra speaks in the first person (I or we), and it is accordingly thought by most scholars that the Chronicler had in his hands Memoirs of Ezra as well as of Nehemiah, which in part he incorporated intact (e.g. Ezra 8 f.), in part recast into the form of a narrative about Ezra (as in Ezra 10; Neh. 8 f.). It is evident that the story of Ezra, whatever its origin, is badly dislocated: the chapters which now stand in Neh. 8-10 have no business there, and, as has been noticed above, in 1 Esdras the reading of the law immediately follows Ezra 10. On the other hand, there is a gap at the end of Ezra 6; chapter 9 cannot well be its original sequel. And, lastly, Neh. 9 f. does not seem naturally to follow c. 8. The most probable restoration of the order is Ezra 8; Neh. vii. 70-73; 8; Ezra 9-10; Neh. 9-10. This arrangement gives a continuous and consistent story, and the numerous dates fall into sequence. Incidentally another connection is thus restored, Neh. 11 follows vii. 5^a. The list (Neh. vii. 5^b-60) of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel and his company ( = Ezra 2) is obviously not what is required here. The dismemberment of the story of Ezra is not to be attributed to the Chronicler, but to misadventures of copying such as are not infrequent in ancient manuscripts. The extract from the Memoirs of Nehemiah breaks off with Neh. 6; though perhaps in vii. 1-4; xi. 1-3 the Chronicler has utilized in his own way some further sentences. In Neh. xii. 27-43, the procession at the dedication of the walls is described, ostensibly by Nehemiah in the first person, and the passage has on this ground been taken for an extract from the Memoirs. It is, however, an unmistakable piece of the Chronicler's own composition. In c. 13, also, Nehemiah, in the first person, gives an account of his reforming enterprises on a second visit to Jerusalem. An unaltered extract from the Memoirs, however, the chapter cannot well be; the Chronicler's vein crops out in too many places. It does not belong to our present task to discuss the historical value of these sources; but it may not be amiss to say that the authority of the Memoirs of Nehemiah alone is unimpeached. The question is of peculiar interest in the case of the supposed Memoirs of Ezra, because Neh. 8 has been generally understood by recent critics to be the account of the formal introduction of a new, or newly codified, law, the Priests' Code or the Pentateuch, which Ezra brought up from Babylonia. CHAPTER XIV STORY BOOKS: ESTHER, RUTH, JONAH Besides the older and younger historical books we have been considering, the Jewish Bible contains some examples of what we should call the short story, and the church has preserved others. The canonical books of this class are Esther, Ruth, and Jonah; among the apocrypha are Judith and Tobit; others, such as 3 Maccabees, are found in manuscripts of the Greek and Latin Bibles, or in Oriental translations, but did not attain official recognition of any of the great churches. These stories, which, as might be expected, differ widely in literary quality as well as in subject and motive, are doubtless only the rare survivors of a larger literature of this kind, but they suffice to give us a notion of the popular reading of the Jews in the last centuries before the Christian era. It would be more exact, perhaps, to say the popular story-telling, for probably the written books were chiefly used by the story-tellers, who reproduced their contents orally and freely, just as the Moslem story-tellers to-day recite stories from the Arabian Nights or the Antar romance. Some of them, however, like Esther, attached themselves to popular festivals and were recited or read as part of the celebration. ESTHER.--Esther is the story of a beautiful Jewess of Susa whom Xerxes raises from the ranks of his concubines to be his queen, and who uses her influence over him to save her people from a general massacre which the grand vizier has prepared for them by way of avenging an affront from one of the race. The plot is developed with noteworthy art. The deposition of Vashti, which, so far as the main matter goes, is necessary only to make room for Esther, under the author's hand becomes a brilliant first act. The embroilment of Mordecai and Haman is skilfully managed; the stiffnecked Jew refuses homage to the proud vizier, who schemes a generous revenge. Esther ventures her life for her people by intruding into the audience chamber, but the _dénouement_ is artfully retarded--instead of a pathetic plea for the imperilled Jews, an invitation for the king and his prime minister to a _petit dîner_ in the queen's apartments! At the banquet the king offers Esther her wish, but again the issue is postponed. Haman, in his elation at such signal marks of queenly favour, builds a gallows for Mordecai seventy-five feet high--and next day has to parade the streets of the capital at the bridle of the hated Jew's horse proclaiming him the object of the king's special honour! The scene in the banqueting hall when Esther at last makes her petition is highly dramatic. She makes it a plea for her own life, "for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish." The king, who has no inkling that she is a Jewess, and is incensed at the thought of such a plot against his queen, angrily asks, "Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?" The climax so skilfully prepared comes in the stunning words, "This wicked Haman here!" Thenceforth the action matches swiftly: the king bursts out of the room to collect himself by a turn in the garden; the fallen vizier sinks a suppliant on the queen's couch, where the king, returning, finds him; the sinister eunuch standing by describes the fine new gallows Haman has at home, ready for Mordecai, and on his own gallows, in poetic justice, Haman is hanged, fifty cubits high! Mordecai succeeds to the seal of state, and conceives the counter-stroke by which, instead of the heathen massacring the Jews, the Jews slaughter the heathen. An annual festival celebrates the joyful issue. For the full account of Mordecai's greatness the reader is referred to the royal annals of Media and Persia, where it will be found, he says, recorded along with the mighty deeds of Xerxes, including his subjugation of the Greeks. Despite this authority, it should be unnecessary to say that the Book of Esther is a work of fiction. Whether it is pure invention, or whether some of the incidents are borrowed from fact, is an idle question, because a wholly unanswerable one. If the local colour, which is laid on pretty thick, is good, as some modern archæologists aver, it would not be strange that a Jewish novelist who wrote not so long after the passing of Persia should prove as well acquainted with it as a modern archæologist. Some recent interpreters find in the story a mythical background: Esther is Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love; Mordecai, "Marduk's man," was originally Marduk himself, the great god of Babylon; the name of Haman sounds something like one way of pronouncing the name of an Elamite god in the epic of Gilgamesh. The triumph of Mordecai and Esther over Haman would thus be an echo of ancient strife between the gods of Babylonia and Elam. It will be obvious, however, to the mythologically unsophisticated understanding, that if these very problematical combinations are right, the author of the Book of Esther was quite innocent of them, and therefore that for the interpretation of the story he tells they are wholly irrelevant. The Book of Esther, it was long ago observed, is singular among the books of the Bible in that there is no mention of God in it. It is Jewish with a sanguinary loyalty to race, but of Judaism as religion there is not a trace; it is in fact somewhat obtrusive by its absence. When Mordecai warns Esther that if she fails her people in their hour of need deliverance will come "from another place," the word God is ostentatiously avoided; before her great adventure she fasts three days, but there is no suggestion of prayer; in the celebrations of rescue and the annual commemoration of it there is feasting and gladness, but no thanksgiving to God. It is no wonder that orthodox rabbis doubted the inspiration of so conspicuously secular romance, nor that the Greek translators made good the religious deficiencies of the book by putting pious prayers into the mouth of Mordecai and Esther at the appropriate junctures. The age of the book cannot be very closely determined; it is pretty certainly not older than the third century B.C., more likely from the second. A note at the end of the Greek version says that this translation was brought from Jerusalem to Egypt in the year which corresponds to 114 B.C. The earliest mention of the festival of Purim is in 2 Macc. xv. 36, where it is called Mordecai Day. RUTH.--The story of Ruth is laid in the time of the Judges, for which reason it was placed in the Greek Bible and in modern versions between Judges and Samuel. It tells of a young Moabitess, the childless widow of a Judæan from Bethlehem, who accompanies her widowed mother-in-law back to Bethlehem, embracing her religion. Ruth goes out to glean after the reapers and by chance comes to the field of Boaz, a kinsman of her husband, who shows her kindness. By Naomi's contrivance, she reveals to him who she is under circumstances that appeal to his chivalry, and, after a nearer of kin has waived his right, Boaz takes the widow with the land, and they live happy ever after. Their son Obed is David's grandfather. The legal proceedings in the last chapter are different from anything we otherwise know of Israelite custom, but our ignorance is no warrant for assuming that the usage there described is fictitious. If the story of Esther is told with dramatic power, that of Ruth is told with idyllic grace. The pathos of the moment in which Naomi bids her daughters-in-law return to their mothers' homes and Ruth refuses to part from her is unforced. The picture of the gleaners in the fields; the delicacy with which the night at the threshing-floor is treated; the scene at the city gate, where the waiver and redemption are witnessed and the shoe given in attestation; the blessing of the townsmen on the union, all have the charm of simple and unaffected narrative. The question what the book was written for has received diverse answers. It has been thought that the author meant to protest against the narrowness of those who condemned all marriages with foreigners and put the Moabites under a special ban, by showing that David himself had Moabite blood in his veins; others see the point of the book in the commendation of the marriage of childless widows, not by brothers-in-law only as the levirate law required, but by remoter kinsmen. Others have conjectured otherwise. In this state of the case it is safe to say that if the author had an ulterior motive, he concealed it more successfully than is common to story-tellers who write with a purpose. There are no very definite signs in the book of the age in which it was written. The author is familiar with the Hebrew literature of the good period, and writes a better imitation of it than some. It is precisely this imitative character which stands in the way of putting the book in the days of the kingdom. But where, in the centuries of the Persian or Greek dominion it belongs, it is impossible to say. JONAH.--The third of the short stories, Jonah, is not found, like Esther and Ruth, in the Jewish Bible in the miscellaneous collection of "Scriptures" and in the Christian Bible among the Historical Books, but in the prophetic canon, as one of the Minor Prophets. The reason, doubtless, is that it is not only a story about a prophet and his mission, but was thought to be written by himself. The tale is too familiar to have to be retold at length. The Israelite prophet, Jonah the son of Amittai, is commissioned by God to go to Nineveh and announce its impending destruction; to escape this unwelcome errand he embarks on a Phoenician ship bound for Spain, at the other end of the world; a tempest threatens to engulf the ship; the seamen cast lots to discover against whom the gods are so angry; the lot falls on Jonah, and he is cast into the sea, which thereupon becomes calm; Jonah is swallowed by a monstrous fish, which after three days sets him ashore safe and sound. He goes to Nineveh and delivers his message; the people repent of their sins, and God repents of his purpose to destroy them, whereat the prophet is very indignant and upbraids God with his soft-heartedness; he expected this from the beginning, and therefore tried to flee to Tarshish. By his own grief for the death of the plant "which sprang up in a night and perished in a night," the prophet is taught the lesson of the divine compassion: "How should I not have compassion on this great city, Nineveh, in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand human beings which do not know their right hand from their left, not to speak of cattle?" With this rebuke the book ends. These closing words leave no room for question about the purpose of the book. In the person of Jonah, the rebuke is addressed to the Jews, to whom God's long-suffering with the heathen was a stumbling-block. The greater prophetic books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all contain a long array of oracles against foreign nations, predicting their total and remediless destruction, some of them very precise as to time and agent (see, for example, Isa. 13 f., against Babylon). The fulfilment of these prophecies, the final breaking of the power of the heathen world, must come before the golden age of Israel could dawn. Yet the generations came and went, and the heathen still ruled the earth! Then, too, the Jews doubtless felt that they, as the people of God, had an exclusive claim on his affections, as he asserted exclusive claims to theirs. The author of Jonah not only extends to mankind God's word in Ezekiel, "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord God, and not rather that he should return from his way and live?" but he asserts the all-embracing compassion of God. The one God is the creator of the heathen as well as of Israel, his merciful providence is over all his works. The higher spirit of Judaism here reproves the lower, narrow, exclusive, and intolerant spirit, which could unfortunately allege so much warrant for itself from the law and the prophets. Therein the author had many and noble successors, not only among the sages, with their cosmopolitan wisdom, but in the circles of the law. It is not the fault of the author that modern readers and interpreters have had their attention diverted from the moral of the book to the fable in which it is conveyed; he could not have imagined the pseudo-historical frame of mind to which the question whether it all happened thus and so was of such absorbing importance that it might almost be said that the sea-monster swallowed the commentators as well as the prophet. For one of the difficulties of the book he is not responsible, the psalm (Jonah ii. 2-9) which Jonah sings in the fish's belly was put in his mouth by a later editor; vs. 10 is the immediate sequel of vs. 1. The poem was evidently not composed for the place; it is a hymn of thanksgiving not a prayer for deliverance; but the (figurative) references to the depths of the abyss seemed appropriate to Jonah's situation. The hero of the story is a historical character, of whom, to be sure, we know only that he came from a place named Gath-hepher, and predicted the reconquest of lost Israelite territories which Jeroboam II. achieved (2 Kings xiv. 25). It has been conjectured that the author of our book may have heard in some way that he went on a mission to Nineveh; but if he had, that would not make the book any more historical. Jonah, like Ruth and Esther, belongs to the later period of Hebrew literature; it is more likely that it was written after the time of Alexander than before, but greater definiteness is not justified. CHAPTER XV THE PROPHETS In the old story of Saul and Samuel (1 Sam. 9 f.) Samuel is named "the seer," that is, a man endowed with what we call second sight, and a note by an editor explains that what in his time was called a prophet used to be called a seer. Samuel was, indeed, in the apprehension of later times, a prophet, but the story itself makes a clear distinction between the two. The band of prophets whom Saul meets coming down from the high place, working up by music an enthusiasm, or possession, which makes them beside themselves, raving in the prophetic fury (raving and prophesying, in such connections, is the same word in Hebrew), an enthusiasm which Saul catches, to the surprise and scandal of his townsmen, are evidently something quite different from the village seer; they must have been outwardly very much like modern Moslem dervishes. In the ninth century of the Syrian wars, these gregarious prophets appear in many places; especially in the stories of Elisha they are organized societies of devotees, living by themselves in colonies of huts or cells under a superior--again very much like a dervish order--and sometimes turning their religious zeal into political channels, as when they incite Jehu to the revolt which overthrew the house of Omri. Beside them are others who also bear the name prophet, but stand apart from the order and often in opposition to it. Such a figure is Micaiah son of Imlah, confronting the four hundred prophets whom Ahab got together, and declaring their unanimity of inspiration to be the work of a lying spirit sent from God to lure the king to his doom (1 Kings 22). Such a figure, above all as we have already seen, is Elijah, who, solitary, champions Jehovah's right to the undivided allegiance of Israel, or thunders the doom of the dynasty at the authors of Naboth's judicial murder. It is in such men as these, rather than in the common herd of prophets by profession, that the ethical prophets of the eighth century have their forerunners. The moral conception of God had its roots far down in the religion of Israel, as may be seen in the older (certainly preprophetic) strata in Samuel, and better still in the patriarchal legends, which received their present form in the same age; but after the establishment of the kingdom it was crossed by the national idea. It was not till the eighth century that the men came who thought through what the moral idea of God involves, and had the courage to proclaim its consequences, fatal though they might be to both state and church. These prophets, beginning with Amos, not only preached a new doctrine, they employed a new method. The message which they spoke to the heedless, incredulous, or hostile ears of their contemporaries, they also recorded, whether in the hope to reach through the written page a larger audience, or to perpetuate their words to generations following. Thus there begins a prophetic literature which is one of the most characteristic features of the Old Testament. Four prophets of the second half of the eighth century have given their names to such prophetic books, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Then, in the latter part of the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth, follow the little books of Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habbakuk, and the great one of Jeremiah, whose younger contemporary in Babylonia is Ezekiel. Haggai and Zechariah were instrumental in the rebuilding of the temple in the reign of Darius I. In the discussion of these books we shall not attempt a chronological disposition, but follow the order of the English Bible. CHAPTER XVI ISAIAH The first of the prophetic books bears the name of Isaiah, a Judæan prophet, who dates his call "in the year that king Uzziah died," a year which cannot be fixed with certainty, but was at all events not very long before 734 B.C., and whose latest dated utterances are from the time of Sennacherib's invasion in the year 701. His prophecies thus range over a period of not far from forty years. He witnessed the humbling of Israel by Tiglath-Pileser in 734, the fall of Samaria in 721, the Assyrian campaigns in the west in 720 and 711, and the condign punishment Sennacherib inflicted on Judah in 701; and all these events (of which we have historical knowledge from both Assyrian and Jewish sources) are reflected in his prophecies. The book contains, however, much besides the prophecies of Isaiah in the different periods of his long career. It has already been noted that Isa. 36-39 are found also, with some variations, in 2 Kings 18-20, where they are an integral part of the narrative. That this extract from Kings was copied into the Book of Isaiah is explained by the fact that the prophet is a prominent figure in the story. It does not stand in immediate connection with the prophecies of Isaiah during the campaign of Sennacherib in cc. 28-33, from which it is separated by several oracles of different character and date; and the natural presumption is that this historical appendix was added at the end of a roll, just as Jer. 52, also an extract from Kings (2 Kings xxiv. 18-xxv. 21), is appended at the end of the roll of Jeremiah. In the present Book of Isaiah, cc. 36-39 are followed by another prophetic book of considerable length (Isa. 40-66), which has no title, and in which, from first to last, no prophet's name appears. The theme which is announced in the first verses of this book and runs through a large part of it is the approaching deliverance of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, their return to their own land, and the restoration of Zion. In Isa. 1-35 certain larger divisions are at once apparent; cc. 1-12, a collection of prophecies, chiefly, as appears from dates and other indications, from the earlier years of Isaiah's ministry; cc. 13 to 23, a collection of oracles mainly against foreign nations; cc. 24-27, previsions of a great judgment, in a peculiarly mysterious tone; cc. 28-33, chiefly from the time of Sennacherib, followed by c. 34, in which God's fury is poured out on Edom, and c. 35, a prophecy of restoration akin to cc. 40 ff. It is thus evident that the present book is made up from several older collections of prophecies gathered by different hands; the peculiar titles in cc. 13-23, for instance, are most probably to be attributed to the editor of an independent book of prophecies against the heathen. The same phenomenon appears on a smaller scale in Isa. 1-12. That these chapters, at one stage in the history of the collections, formed a roll by themselves is probable from the fact that they begin with a grand overture (c. 1), in which the leading motives of Isaiah's prophecy are heard, and close (c. 12) with a psalm of praise for the messianic deliverance which is the subject of c. 11. But the order of the prophecies is not chronological: the inaugural vision and Isaiah's call to be a prophet stands, not at the beginning, as in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but in c. 6 (dated in the year of King Uzziah's death), while the chapters that precede it (cc. 2 f.; 5), with what was once an initial title (ii. 1), may confidently be assigned, on internal grounds, to the reigns of Uzziah's successors. Chapters 7 and 8 (dated under Ahaz) seem to have originally followed close on c. 6, as they do now. Whatever may be the reason for this singular arrangement, it seems evident that the compiler had several smaller groups or loose leaves of oracles, which he put together for better preservation, rather, perhaps, by affinity of subject than in order of time. This must have taken place at a comparatively late time, for not only does his roll begin with a prophecy (Isa. i. 2-9) which vividly depicts the devastation of Judah and the isolation of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 (perhaps the latest oracle of Isaiah preserved in the book), but it contains passages (e.g. xi. 11-16) which bear all the marks of a time several centuries after Isaiah's death; the psalm in c. 12 is perhaps later still. Another indication that the collection was made at a date remote from the age of the prophet is the fragmentary character of several of the oracles in cc. 2-5. The refrain verses here afford a certain clue; they show that prophecies originally composed with much art in balanced strophes with closing refrains came into the compiler's hands mutilated and dislocated. Thus, v. 25 has the refrain of ix. 8-21; x. 4, while x. 1-3 is a "woe" which has strayed away from v. 18 ff., and the refrain ii. 9, 11, 17 recurs in v. 15. Fragmentary as many of these prophecies are, enough remains to show that Isaiah had poetical genius as well as unequalled mastery of the peculiar literary form of the Hebrew oracle. The parable of the vineyard (Isa. v. 1-7), or the picture of the swift, resistless advance of the Assyrian (v. 26-30), or the description of devastated Judah (i. 2-8), or the oracle against Samaria (ix. 8-21), in the authorized English Version illustrate in different ways the art with which Isaiah handles this traditional form. The earlier prophecies of Isaiah, whether directed against Israel and its allies or against Judah, are unsparing in their condemnation of the political and social evils of the time, and predict the imminent and irremediable ruin of both nations. This is revealed to Isaiah in the vision which made him a prophet, in terms so drastic that the closing words were piously erased by some late editor (so in the Greek Bible), and a meaningless phrase put in their place in the curtailed sentence by a still later hand (our Hebrew text). With this the tenor of his utterances in cc. ii. 5-iii. 26; v. 1-30; ix. 8-x. 4, wholly agrees. These unrelieved forebodings of doom led in later times not only to excisions such as we have noted in vi. 13, but to interpolations; hopeful pendants were attached to the prophet's gloomy pictures, sometimes written for the purpose--a particularly instructive example is iv. 2-6, after iii. 16-iv. 1--sometimes borrowed from other prophetic contexts. To the latter class belongs the famous messianic oracle, ix. 1-7, which is very imperfectly connected (by changes in viii. 22) with the preceding climactic denunciation of doom, the end of which is missing. If Isa. ix. 1-7 is a prophecy by Isaiah, it can only belong to his latest years. One other feature of Isaiah's message must be signalized. His God indignantly rejects the sacrifices and all the pompous worship which are offered him in his temple in Jerusalem (Isa. i. 10-17). Men think they can thus gain the favour of God and persuade him to overlook or condone their sins against their fellows! Such worship is an insult to God. So Amos a few years before had condemned the worship at Bethel (Amos v. 21-25). So their successors repeat in no uncertain terms (see Mic. vi. 6-8; Jer. 7, especially vss. 21-23). It is the fundamental doctrine of prophecy: the will of God is wholly moral. For worship he cares nothing at all; for justice, fairness, and goodness between man and man he cares everything. Such a God is capable of destroying the nation for the wrongs men do their fellow men; he is not capable of being bribed by offerings, or flattered with psalms, or wheedled with prayers. He will listen to no intercession (Jer. xv. 1 ff., after c. 14); nothing but complete reformation and reparation will he call repentance--and there comes a pass where repentance is impossible. The book of prophecies against the heathen (Isa. 13-23) begins with two remarkable chapters (xiii. 1-xiv. 23) declaring the imminent destruction of Babylon by the Medes, whom the prophet sees already in motion against the doomed city, and exulting over the descent of the king of Babylon to hell, greeted by the taunts of the mighty of the earth who were before him there. The two prophecies are connected by a prediction of the deliverance of captive Israel, which will be restored to its own land and rule over its oppressors (xiv. 1-4^a). The situation is not that of Isaiah's time, in which Babylon was a province of the Assyrian empire, and when, under Merodach Baladan, it for a while reasserted its independence, seems to have sought an alliance with Hezekiah against their common oppressor, Assyria (Isa. 39 = 2 Kings xx. 12 ff.). The Medes had been in league with the Babylonians against Assyria until its fall in 606 B.C.; it was not until the time of Cyrus that the Medes became a menace to Babylonia, and only after Cyrus's conquest of Lydia (546 B.C.) that the turn of Babylon was visibly come. On the other hand, the sack and ruin of Babylon, pictured with vengeful satisfaction in Isa. 13, did not come to pass at that time. The Persian armies, after a decisive battle in northern Babylonia, entered the city in the autumn of 538 without resistance. Babylonian inscriptions acclaim Cyrus as a deliverer, and Babylon became one of the capitals of his great empire. On these grounds the prophecy is generally thought to fall between 546 and 538 B.C. It is immediately followed by a short oracle (Isa. xiv. 24-27) against the Assyrians, quite in the tone of the prophecies of Isaiah in the time of Sennacherib (701 B.C.), and by an enigmatical warning to the inhabitants of the Philistine cities, said in the title to have come "in the year that King Ahaz died." Another prophecy concerned with the inhabitants of these cities, bearing Isaiah's name and definitely dated (711 B.C.), is Isa. 20. Chapter 17, entitled "The Burden of Damascus," is in fact chiefly against the kingdom of Israel, and falls in line with prophecies of Isaiah in the time of the alliance of the two kingdoms against Judah (ca. 736 B.C.); compare Isa. 7. In Isa. xxii. 15-25 is a prophecy of Isaiah singular in the fact that it is launched at an individual, the major domo of King Hezekiah. Besides these, the collection contains oracles against Moab (Isa. 15 f.), Nubia (c. 18), Egypt (c. 19), another vision of the fall of Babylon before the armies of Elam and Media (xxi. 1-10), but in a different spirit from cc. 13-14, the Arabs (xxi. 11 f., 13-17), Tyre (c. 23), and one with the mysterious (editorial) title "Burden of the Valley of Vision" (xxii. 1-14). The last-named, in the form of a vision, depicts a crisis in the history of Jerusalem, and condemns the frivolous behaviour of its inhabitants on the eve of a siege or, as some think, during the respite given by a temporary raising of a siege. It was probably uttered by Isaiah at an early stage in Hezekiah's revolt against Sennacherib (704 or 703 B.C.), before the actual appearance of the Assyrian army. The oracle against Tyre (Isa. xxiii. 1-14--what follows is a later supplement) seems more appropriate to the thirteen years' siege by Nebuchadnezzar than to the operations of Shalmanezer or of Sennacherib in Isaiah's days. Thus Isa. 13-23, like cc. 1-12, contains prophecies of Isaiah from both the earliest and the latest period of his activity, intermingled with others having a totally different historical horizon and dating from a much later time, and to both additions have been made by editors or scribes. A very interesting example of the latter phenomenon is Isa. xix. 18 ff. The passage is, in all probability, from the time of the Greek kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, the name of the city in the Greek Bible, "City of Righteousness," referring to Leontopolis, where a Jewish temple was erected about 170 B.C., with high priests of the legitimate line exiled from Jerusalem. "City of Destruction" (_heres_) in the Hebrew text is a hostile perversion, possibly by way of another reading "City of the Sun" (_heres_). Each of the three large prophetic books has such a group of oracles about gentile nations, Isa. 13-23; Jer. 46-51; Ezek. 25-32. They are in part levelled at the immediate neighbours of Judah, in part against the great powers, Babylon and Egypt. Many of them are in such general terms--or, if they refer to specific events and situations, our knowledge of the history is so incomplete--that it is peculiarly difficult to fix their age. It was also a kind of prophecy which peculiarly invited imitation. Under the foreign yoke the Jews wore for so many centuries, it must often have been a relief of soul to repeat what God was going to do to the heathen; the spirit of the author of Jonah was not for everybody. Moreover, if there is any place in the Old Testament where it would be easier than another for oracles of the "false prophets" to slip in and be preserved, it is in these collections; about the doom of the enemies of Israel they were as orthodox and as emphatic as the best. It is not strange, therefore, that there should be more than usual uncertainty about the origin of these anathemas on the gentiles. Isaiah 24-27 contains a series of prophecies of judgment to come which differ from others in the book in having no particular address. The vision seems to widen to a judgment of the world, in which the earth itself reels and sinks under the weight of men's sin, and the celestial powers (the heavenly bodies, which are the tutelary deities of the heathen) and the kings of the earth are cast into the pit and shut up in prison, while the Lord of Hosts reigns gloriously in Zion. In another passage God, with his great sword, punishes the leviathan, the swift and winding serpent, and slays the great dragon in the sea. The mythological eschatology of Judaism made much of such imagery, which is itself doubtless of mythical ancestry. The diction and style of these chapters alone would suffice to acquit Isaiah of responsibility for them; anything more unlike his writing could not be imagined. The author, whosoever he was, riots in plays on words, many of them, as is the fate of laborious punsters, forced or far-fetched. As to the age of the chapters, apart from the language, prophecy is here plainly making the transition to apocalypse with those visionary revelations of the last judgment in which Jewish invention was so fertile. This of itself points to a late time in the post-exilic period. The historical allusions which have been scented out in the chapters are too uncertain to reckon with; only, as in c. 19, the way in which Egypt and Assyria (or Syria) are conjoined seems plainly to point to the divisions of Alexander's empire. In chapters 28-33 are brought together a number of oracles of Isaiah from the years of Hezekiah's revolt and Sennacherib's punitive expedition. These oracles are generally brief and pointed; they agree in form and spirit with his prophecies in cc. 1-12 quite as closely as the writing of an aging man ordinarily resembles that of his youth. In xxviii. 1-4, indeed, an early prophecy against Samaria is made to serve as text for a counterpart addressed to Jerusalem. Mingled with these is a series of passages which foretell the destruction of the foe and the miraculous escape of Judah from imminent ruin, or, taking higher flight, picture the golden age to come. To the former class belong, for example, xxx. 27-33; xxxi. 4-9; to the latter, xxix. 18-24; xxx. 18-26; xxxii. 1-8, 16-20; while c. 33 partakes of both characters. That Isaiah predicted the deliverance of Jerusalem in the last extremity is reported also in Kings, and need not be questioned (see also Isa. x. 5-14; xiv. 24-27). Most of the prophecies of the golden age are, however, alien to their context, and the unmediated transition from the unsparing predictions of judgment to these messianic idylls makes them suspicious. It is not to be believed that the prophet thus took the sting out of his most pungent oracles, but the position of the passages in question can have no other intention. If, then, these are utterances of Isaiah at all, they cannot have been spoken in their present connection. Some of them, at least, are much more likely by other hands. This is true most evidently of c. 33, which was probably once the end of this little book of prophecies from the time of Sennacherib (Isa. 28-33). Isaiah 34 is a prophecy against all the nations, which at once concentrates itself upon Edom, and is remarkable for its rancour, in which, as in other respects, it resembles cc. 13 f. The supernatural features of the judgment remind us also of Isa. 27: it is too little that the people are annihilated, its very land is turned into an uninhabitable waste, and, as by some prodigious volcanic convulsion, its dust becomes brimstone and its soil burning pitch. This is the Lord's vengeance for the wrong of Zion. The cause of this unusual passion is known from other prophets (see Obad. vss. 10-12; Ezek. xxv. 12-14; c. 35): in the life and death struggle against Nebuchadnezzar, the Edomites, Judah's next neighbours and near kin, had been on the side of the Babylonians, and were the chief gainers by the ruin of Judah, occupying permanently the whole south of the country to a line north of Hebron, making good in this way the part of their own old territory which had been taken by the Nabatæans. The injury was lasting and the hatred durable, but the flaming passion of Isa. 34 would incline us to think that it was written while the grief was still fresh. The pendant to this, Isa. 35, a prophecy of the return of the dispersion and restoration of Zion, is quite in the manner of Isa. 40 ff., and not improbably by the same author. Of Isa. 36-39 (2 Kings 18-20) account has already been given (see above, pp. 112 f.). There remains the anonymous prophetic book, Isa. 40-66, which not only has no title, but in which--in striking contrast to the frequency with which Isaiah's name occurs in the earlier chapters of the book--no prophet's name appears. It begins with the announcement that the Jews have now been sufficiently punished for their sins; their guilt has been expiated by suffering. The hour of national restoration is at hand. God has already called the deliverer, who will bring low the pride of Babylon and set free captive Israel; by his edict Jerusalem shall be rebuilt and the temple restored. The Jews, not only from Babylonia but from the wide and distant lands of their dispersion, shall flock back to their own country, the cities of Judah shall be repeopled, and Zion shall be too strait for its inhabitants. The deliverer is Cyrus (Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1), who is called God's friend, his anointed one (messiah); the victories he has already gained have been won in the might of Jehovah, who, all unknown to him, girds him for the battle, and will go before him to new conquests. The prophet's prediction was met with incredulity; the power of Babylon seemed invincible, the resurrection of the dead nation impossible. Impossible, maybe, to men, but not to the Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth, the sovereign ruler of the nations! As surely as the words of former prophets have come true, so signally shall these foretellings be fulfilled. For history is the unfolding of God's plan from the beginning, which he reveals by chapters to his servants the prophets. That this prophecy was delivered by Isaiah of Jerusalem, a century before the fall of Judah and a century and a half before the time of Cyrus, would never have entered anybody's head had these chapters not been appended to a roll which bore at its beginning the name of Isaiah and contained many oracles of the eighth-century prophet. But this physical fact, which may be due to no intention more profound than a desire to economize writing material, cannot count against the conclusive internal evidence; background and foreground in Isa. 40 ff. are not merely totally different from those of the prophecies of Isaiah and his contemporaries, they are alike inconceivable in his age. Nor is the fact that the Jews in New Testament times, including the New Testament writers, quoted these chapters as Isaiah and believed him the author of them, prove anything except that such was the opinion of the Jews in that age. The historical situation in Isa. 40 ff. would of itself be conclusive against Isaiah's authorship; but it is not the only proof of the contrary. The author of these chapters has not inappropriately been called the theologian among the prophets. His idea of God is conspicuously more advanced than that of the prophets of the eighth century; it lies in the same line with the monotheism of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, but lies beyond them. And it is characteristic that, in contrast to the older prophets, this one reasons about it. He argues the omnipotence of God in history from his omnipotence in creation, and makes large use of the evidence from the fulfilment of prophecy to prove that Jehovah is the only God; he can predict because he foreordains and brings to pass. With him begins the polemic, not against the worship of heathen gods, but against their existence. What the heathen bow down to are naught but helpless, senseless idols, the work of their own hands. He is fond of inviting his readers to an image-maker's shop to see how a god is made (see, e.g., Isa. xliv. 9-20). Such are the impotent gods that the Babylonians expect to save them out of the hands of the creator of the world! The style of Isa. 40 ff. is not less decisive. Translation necessarily in large measure effaces the differences, but even in translation a comparison of two passages on similar themes such as Isa. x. 5-19 and Isa. 47 may perhaps give some impression of them. The style of Isaiah and his contemporaries--Amos, Hosea, Micah--is concise and pregnant, the sentences are short and have often an oracular ring. The author of Isa. 40 ff. writes with a freer pen in flowing periods; he develops his thought and his figures more at large; if he is obscure, it is seldom from compression. Here again, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, the whole literature of the seventh century, is an intermediate stage. The later author is a poet, as Isaiah is, but with other themes and in other forms; compare, e.g., Isa. 5 with Isa. xlii. 1-9. In short, each has a highly characteristic style, and the two are totally different. The historical situation, as it has been defined above, appears most distinctly in Isa. 40-55. In the following chapters two passages were long ago seen not to correspond to that situation, viz. lvi. 9-lvii. 13 and c. 65 (especially vss. 1-16), in which the vehement attack on idolatrous and abominable rites practised by Jews under the prophet's eyes was thought to indicate a pre-exilic origin. It was a serious error, however, to conceive that the so-called exile cured all the Jews once and for all of every inclination to heathenism; the history of the Seleucid period sufficiently proves the contrary. There is nothing in the chapters inconsistent with the view, now generally entertained, that these flaming denunciations were delivered in Palestine in the Persian or the Greek period; and there is no warrant for assuming that they were specifically addressed to the half-heathen population of the old territory of Israel, still less to the so-called Samaritan sect, that is, the worshippers at the rival temple on Gerizim. Other chapters (Isa. lvii. 14-21; 60; 61 f.) resemble in spirit and manner the prophecies in Isa. 40-55, but are more probably by later writers under the influence of those prophecies than by their author. Their optimism contrasts with the depressed tone of lviii. 1-lix. 15^a, in which the sense of sin is borne in on the community by the delay in the coming of the good times. In lix. 15^b-21, and lxiii. 1-6 God's fury is poured out on foreign nations, in the latter specifically on Edom; lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12 is a cry for God's intervention in dire distress (see lxiii. 18; lxiv. 10 f., devastation of Judah, burning of the temple); c. 66 contains diverse elements, consolation to Jerusalem of the school of Isa. 40-45, and censures of abominable rites (lxvi. 3 f., 17 ff.). Isaiah 56-66 is, therefore, generally regarded as an appendix to the book of consolation, cc. 40-55, containing very diverse elements. It would be nothing strange if alien prophecies and editorial expansions were found in Isa. 40-55 also, and displacements are probably in more than one passage. The question of authorship is of peculiar interest in the case of three prophecies which have for their subject the mission and suffering of the "Servant of Jehovah," Isa. xlii. 1-9; xlix. 1-13; lii. 13-liii. 12, which are thought by some to be taken wholly or in part from an older prophet, by others to be later insertions. The reasons for ascribing the "Servant" passages to a different author do not seem decisive. The Book of Isaiah is thus a great collection of prophecies of various ages, from the middle of the eighth century B.C. down perhaps to the third, with some minor additions of even later date. CHAPTER XVII JEREMIAH Jeremiah dates his call to the arduous mission of prophet in the thirteenth year of King Josiah (626 B.C.), and he lived till after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., so that, like his predecessor Isaiah a century earlier, his career spans a period of about forty years in a time of great events. Only five years after he began to prophesy, Josiah reformed religion in Judah on the new model of the law-book discovered by Hilkiah (Deuteronomy; see above, pp. 62 f.). Jeremiah, scion of a priestly family native in Anathoth, a few miles north of Jerusalem, which very likely traced its descent from Abiathar, David's priest, whom Solomon deposed in favour of Zadok, was therefore one of those priests of the high places who were hit hardest by the suppression of the local sanctuaries. That his townsmen of Anathoth sought his life (Jer. xi. 18 ff.) has been attributed to their indignation that Jeremiah should dare to preach Josiah's "covenant" to them (see Jer. xi. 1-17). Whatever hopes he may have entertained at first, Jeremiah was not long in seeing that the reform had cleaned only the outside of the cup and the platter, while men fortified their consciences behind the "covenant" against an investigation of the inside. In 608 B.C. Josiah fell in battle at Megiddo against the Egyptian king Necho. After a brief vassalage to Egypt, Judah came under the Babylonian yoke. Jeremiah saw all this; saw, too, Jerusalem twice taken by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar (597, 586 B.C.), the temple burned and the walls razed; and was at last forced to accompany the refugees to Egypt after the murder of Gedaliah. Early in the reign of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah delivered himself of a fulminant oracle in the gate of the temple (Jer. vii. 1-15, cf. c. 26), in which he declared that the Jews' faith in the temple as the palladium of the city was a delusion; unless they altogether amended their ways, God would make the temple a ruin like the ancient sanctuary at Shiloh. Priests, prophets, and people clamoured with one voice for the blasphemer's death, but he hurled back at them a reiteration of his warning. The intervention of some of the magnates saved his life; but another prophet who lacked such influential protection was extradited from Egypt and put to death. Under these circumstances Jeremiah took another way of reaching the public (see Jer. 36). He dictated to Baruch the prophecies which he had uttered from the beginning of his mission to that time, and sent Baruch to read the roll in the temple at the fast in the ninth month in the fifth year of Jehoiakim (603 B.C.). Some of the nobles had Baruch give them a private reading, and then carried the book to the king, first giving Baruch the friendly advice to put himself and Jeremiah out of harm's way. The king, as he read the roll, cut off the pages, and burned them on the brazier in his chamber. Jeremiah thereupon dictated to the faithful Baruch another roll containing all the prophecies that were in the first, "and there were added besides unto them many like words." We may be sure that the second edition would have been even less agreeable reading to Jehoiakim than the first. One of the additional words is indeed preserved in Jer. xxxvi. 29-31. The chapter is of peculiar interest, because it is an account--the only one in the Old Testament--of the origin of a prophetic book. We see the prophet reproducing, doubtless from memory, the content of oracles uttered in the course of the preceding twenty years or more, and enlarging the collection for a second edition. It is a fair conjecture that this second roll furnished to our Book of Jeremiah most, if not all, the prophecies prior to the fifth year of Jehoiakim; but it is certain that the roll itself is not incorporated as such in the present book. There are also several prophecies from later years of Jehoiakim, and many from the reign of the last king, Zedekiah, especially from the time of his revolt and the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. A distinctive feature of the Book of Jeremiah is the presence of passages of considerable extent derived from a biographical source. From this comes the account of the making and reading of the collected volume of prophecies in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim of which we have already spoken (Jer. 36), and particularly the narrative of Jeremiah's fortunes during the last siege of Jerusalem and afterward, including the flight to Egypt and his experiences with the refugees there, covering thus three or four years beginning with 588 (Jer. 37-44). To the same source it is natural to ascribe c. 26, relating to the circumstances and consequences of the prophecy delivered in the temple at the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign (c. 7); c. 28 (collision with the "false prophet" Hananiah, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah); c. 29 (letter to the Jews in Babylonia, about the same time); and parts of cc. 32, 34, and 35. There is good reason to believe that the author of this biography was Baruch, who not only stood in intimate relations with Jeremiah before the fall of Jerusalem, but accompanied him to Egypt (Jer. xliii. 6). It is consequently a historical source of the best possible kind. For the first half of Jeremiah's career this source fails us; and, as we have seen, it is continuous only from the last years of Zedekiah. It is possible that Baruch's association with Jeremiah began in the time of Jehoiakim, and his narrative may have commenced there. Unfortunately this life of Jeremiah has not been preserved complete or intact. The prophecies contained in it led later compilers to introduce other oracles which seemed appropriate to the context, and to supplement the words of Jeremiah by edifying compositions of their own. Their aim, it must constantly be borne in mind, was not to produce a critical edition of the prophecies of Jeremiah, but to make a book effective to impress the truths and motives of religion on their own contemporaries, and with changing times and situations to keep the book, so to speak, up to date. If the words of an old prophet suggested to them a good moral, they wrote it out for him, without dreaming that they were doing either him or morality a wrong, or thinking how much trouble they were making for future historical students. It is exactly the same procedure and the same motive which meets us in innumerable places in the Pentateuch and Historical Books. To stigmatize such interpolations as literary fraud is absurd. These additions are often recognizable by their prosaic preachiness or by their composite imitativeness. Of one kind of prediction the Jews of later centuries could not have enough, the prophecies of deliverance from the foreign yoke and the better time to follow. They not only cherished the hopeful words of former prophets and wrote variations on their themes, but gave expression to their faith and their ideals in their own way. That they often took their inspiration from Isa. 40 ff. is natural. In Jeremiah such promises of a happier future are accumulated in cc. 30-33, which contain, with some oracles of Jeremiah, pieces of various authorship and age, some of them such pendants to gloomy pictures as we have found numerous in Isaiah (e.g. Jer. xxx. 1 ff. to vss. 12-15), others more independent compositions. These stand interspersed among the extracts from Baruch's life of Jeremiah. In the first half of the book (Jer. 1-25) there is no such history for a framework. It will be observed here that the prophet commonly introduces his message in personal form, "The word of Jehovah came to me, saying," or "Then Jehovah said to me," or the like. Sometimes an oracle begins, as in c. 18, "The words which came to Jeremiah," as a kind of title, while in the sequel the prophet speaks in the first person. Dates are infrequent in this part of the book, and if a chronological order was observed in Baruch's roll, it has been broken up in the present arrangement. Internal evidence does not always suffice to fix the age of the utterances, the less because some of the early oracles have obviously been adapted to a later situation. This is peculiarly evident in cc. 1-6. In these chapters are several prophecies from the years when the wild horsemen from the Scythian steppes were overrunning western Asia and striking terror into the stoutest hearts by their barbarous appearance and fierce manners. Jeremiah saw in them the scourge of God (see e.g. Jer. iv. 5-8, 27-31), the day of doom was come! It was, indeed, such a vision of doom that first met his gaze, when God made him a prophet (Jer. i. 13 ff.). But in the present shape of these chapters the enemy out of the north which menaces ruin is not the wild Scythian hordes, but the serried armies of Babylon. It is not at all improbable that this change of horizon was made by Jeremiah himself, when at the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign the Scythian flood had run off, and, by the overthrow of Nineveh and Nebuchadnezzar's defeat of Pharaoh Necho on the Euphrates, the new Babylonian empire had become the impending fate of Syria and Palestine. Among the prophecies of Jeremiah in this part of the book also are introduced pieces, larger or smaller, which are the product of later generations; two conspicuous examples are Jer. ix. 23-34; x. 1-16 (x. 17 is the immediate continuation of ix. 22), and xvii. 19-27. Jeremiah's experience in the pursuit of his calling was a hard one. His Cassandra forebodings gained him the enmity of all, and hostility grew to bitter hatred as the dire fulfilment stared them in the face. His countrymen in Anathoth plotted his death; the prophecy in the temple all but cost him his life, and was an end, for the time at least, of public appearances; the coming of his collected oracles into Jehoiakim's hands drove him and the scribe into hiding. During the last siege, he first was kept in arrest in a private house, then cast into an empty cistern, where he would have perished but for the friendliness of a negro eunuch; then confined in the court of the guard till the taking of the city; released by the Babylonians, his counsel to the refugees not to flee to Egypt was badly received, and he was constrained to accompany them. In Egypt, again denouncing and predicting ill, he disappears; Jewish legend says, killed by his exasperated countrymen. But these outward perils and pains were not all he had to bear for being a prophet. In anguish of soul he suffered twice the tragedy of his people, in foresight and in fact--suffered as only a man of sensitive spirit and unflinching will can suffer. That needs no commentary; but there is another element we do not so easily conceive: Jeremiah believed that the word of God he had to utter was not merely a prediction, but the effectual cause, of the ruin of Judah (see Jer. i. 9 f.). It is not strange that the task God had laid on him seemed too heavy to be borne. He feels himself a man of contention to the whole earth. He remonstrates, he reproaches God for having misled him, he resolves never again to speak in the name of the Lord; but there is within him as it were a burning fire shut up in his bones, he cannot hold in (Jer. xx. 7-18; see also xv. 10 f., 15-18; xii. 1-6). These "confessions," as they have been called, are of the greatest interest; they are a revelation of the prophet's soul such as has no counterpart in the Old Testament, and, with Baruch's simple story, bring him as a man nearer to us than any of the other prophets. In the Hebrew (and therefore in the English) Bible, the last chapters of the book (Jer. 46-51) contain a collection of prophecies against foreign nations, to which is appended (c. 52) an extract from the Book of Kings (2 Kings xxiv. 18-xxv. 21), describing the taking of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 586 B.C. In the Greek Bible the oracles against the foreign nations come in between Jer. xxv. 13 and vs. 15, but in an altogether different order. They evidently formed a little book by themselves, which in one recension of the Book of Jeremiah were appended to the volume of his prophecies, in another were inserted in the middle of it as the corresponding collections of foreign oracles are placed in Ezek. 25-32 and Isa. 13-23. The question of the original place and disposition of these prophecies is of importance only for the relation of the two forms of the book to each other, and need not be pursued here. It is very doubtful whether Jeremiah had any hand whatever in these chapters. The prolix prophecy against Babylon (Jer. 50-51) is a purely literary exercise, for which contributions have been levied right and left, and was written at a time when Babylon had long ceased to be of historical importance. Others of the prophecies borrow from earlier prophets generously. An examination, by the aid of the marginal references in the Revised Version (Oxford and Cambridge edition, 1898), of the appropriations and reminiscences will give a profitable notion of this literary imitation of prophecy. The different order of the prophecies is not the only, nor the most important, difference between the Hebrew and the Greek Jeremiah. Besides a great number of variant readings of the ordinary kind, the oldest Greek version is much shorter than the Hebrew; it has been reckoned that in the neighbourhood of 2700 words in the latter have nothing corresponding to them in the translation. Some part of this may be due to abridgment by the translators, to which the repetitions in parts of Jeremiah--chiefly secondary parts--invited; but when all allowance is made for this, it remains that the Hebrew copies from which the translation was made had a much briefer text than the Palestinian Hebrew in our hands, and it is probable that the greater part of this difference, which is chiefly in comparative verbosity, is due to padding with stock phrases and turns of thought in the Palestinian text. In some instances oracles or tags to oracles which on other grounds are recognized as late additions to our text had not got into that of the Greek translators. CHAPTER XVIII EZEKIEL Ezekiel was one of the priests of Jerusalem who was carried off to Babylonia with King Jehoiachin in the deportation of 597 B.C. Those who were thus deported were the upper classes, including, of course, the royal family and the court and the aristocracy of the priesthood, and skilled artisans, particularly the smiths (armorers). Having thus removed the natural leaders of the rebellious people, Nebuchadnezzar made Zedekiah, an uncle of Jehoiachin, king in his stead and gave Judah another trial. The eight or ten thousand Jews with their families who were removed to Babylonia were colonized at different points, Ezekiel repeatedly mentions the river Chebar, that is, probably, the grand canal in the vicinity of Nippur. The patricians in exile thought very poorly of the new lords who had stepped into their shoes in Jerusalem, and they flattered themselves that events would soon take such a turn that they would return to Judæa and to power. They had prophets and diviners among them who encouraged them in this expectation. When Zedekiah revolted and the Babylonian armies a second time besieged Jerusalem, their faith in the inviolability of Zion, confirmed, rather than shaken, by the outcome of things in 597 B.C., when Jehoiachin surrendered and the holy city took no harm, made them refuse hearing to Ezekiel's prediction of ruin; they may even have dreamed that Nebuchadnezzar would find out his mistake and restore to Judah its legitimate rulers, chastened by experience, and pack Zedekiah and his advisers into exile in their place. Against this vain and superstitious optimism Ezekiel had to contend until the disastrous issue made a rude end of all their dreams and threw the exiles into the depths of hopelessness: Bel had triumphed over Jehovah, and it was all over with the nation. Thenceforth Ezekiel's task was to save them from despair by the assurance that God still had a purpose to fulfil with them, and that, in his own time, when they had been thoroughly purged from their old sins and filled with a new spirit, he would restore them to their own land and bring to life again the dead nation. These two periods of the prophet's mission sharply divide the Book of Ezekiel. To the day when the word came to him that the Babylonian armies had invested Jerusalem (Ezek. 24) he combats delusion; from the arrival of the tidings of the fall of the city (xxxiii. 21 ff.) he combats despair. The first part is all menace, the second is full of promise. Numerous dated oracles serve as landmarks, especially in the first part. Between the two, in the two years of suspense, when about his own people the prophet is dumb, is placed the group of prophecies against foreign nations (cc. 25-32), beginning with oracles against the neighbours of Judah who held true to Nebuchadnezzar in this crisis and had their reward at Judah's cost--Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines. These are followed by long predictions of the ruin of Tyre, over whose calamity the prophet exults more loudly than the grievance of Jerusalem (Ezek. xxvi. 2) seems to justify. Nebuchadnezzar did in fact besiege Tyre for thirteen years (585-572 B.C.), and doubtless inflicted upon it great losses; but the island city, with its command of the sea, he could not take. Ezekiel himself, in a remarkable passage which is perhaps his latest word in the book, admits that his predictions of the capture of Tyre (xxvi. 7-14) had not been fulfilled--Nebuchadnezzar had had to raise the long and ineffectual siege--but he promises that Jehovah will reward him for these fruitless labours in the Lord's service by giving him Egypt instead (xxix. 17-21). The animosity against Egypt which finds expression in the predictions of the Babylonian subjugation of that country is more easily explained. Egypt had been the evil genius of Judah, instigating rebellion against the Babylonian suzerainty, and promising armed aid which always failed in the decisive hour; it was meet that it should taste the cup of humiliation itself. In c. 32 the descent of Egypt to the hell of fallen nations is vividly depicted; a similar picture of the descent of the Babylonian king in Isa. 14 has already been noted. Not improbably Babylonian notions of the nether world may have influenced the imagery of both, as a myth of paradise seems to have suggested the imagery of Tyre in Eden (xxviii. 12 ff.). Outside this group is an oracle against Edom (c. 35), and the great prophecy of the irruption of Gog and his hordes and their fate (cc. 38 f.). A conspicuous feature of the Book of Ezekiel are the extended visions and the elaborated symbolical actions. In the inaugural vision (Ezek. i.-iii. 15), for instance, God appears, a veritable _deus ex machina_, on a high seat in a curious motor car made up of animated wheels and winged monsters. In a later vision (c. 10) he sees God leave the doomed temple in Jerusalem and mount this cherubim car, in which he is whirled away through the air to the east; and in the great vision of the new temple in the golden age God returns to his abode in the same conveyance (c. 43). Striking examples of symbolical actions may be found in Ezek. 4, and in xii. 1-20. They are of such an extraordinary character as to raise the question whether they were really enacted before the eyes of the people or only described in discourse. Ezekiel's visions are sometimes ecstatic states, in which he is instantaneously translated from place to place. At the end of the inaugural vision, "the spirit" lifted him up and took him away, setting him down in amazement among the colonists at Tell-Abib. In viii. 1 ff., as he sat in his own house in the midst of a company of the elders of Judah, the spirit, which is described as a strange luminous creature, took him up by the hair of his head and wafted him "in the visions of God" to Jerusalem, where his conductor showed him all the idolatrous cults and the abominable mysteries that were practised in the temple under the very eyes of "the glory of the God of Israel" (c. 8); after seeing God take his flight from the desecrated sanctuary, the prophet is translated by the spirit to Chaldæa again. Another such vision in ecstasy is the famous scene in the valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37). In such cases it is impossible to say how much is actually the experience of the visionary, how much literary form. In the great vision of the restoration, cc. 40-48, which also is introduced as an ecstasy with the translation of the prophet to Palestine, we may be pretty sure that the element of conscious composition predominates. The chapters contain a programme for the coming age when all the twelve tribes, gathered together from exile and dispersion, shall reoccupy the holy land, with a new, geometrical division of the territory, with a new plan for the city of Jerusalem, a new constitution for the state, a new temple after the old model, a reorganized ministry of religion, and a reformed worship. The ruling idea which runs through all is to make impossible those sins against the holiness of God, his land, his house, his people, which had been the cause of former ruin. The Book of Ezekiel seems to have been arranged and published by the author, and though some derangements and repetitions may be observed, it has not been much meddled with by later editors, and, to whatever reason it may be attributed, exhibits none of the phenomena of compilation and amplification which we have found in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Hebrew text, however, has suffered more than most books in transmission, and has reached us in an unusually corrupt state. The author has a style of his own, which can rise to eloquence (as in the oracles against Tyre), but is generally pedestrian and sometimes clumsy. He has plenty of imagination, not always regulated by taste or restrained by decency. His drastic figures of the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah are often unfit to translate. CHAPTER XIX DANIEL In the Hebrew Bible the Book of Daniel stands, not as in our Bible among the Prophets, after Ezekiel, but among the miscellaneous books in the third division, the "Scriptures." Various reasons have been suggested for this, but by far the most probable is that at the time when Daniel became current, in the second century B.C., the Prophets were already a definite group of writings with a traditional use in the readings of the Synagogue, to which a new book could not well be added. The Book of Daniel consists of two parts, stories about Daniel and his three comrades (cc. 1-6), and visions of Daniel (cc. 7-12); in the latter Daniel reports his visions in the first person as Ezekiel habitually does, and it was only natural that he should be taken for the author of the book. According to the introduction to the first story, Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, were Jewish youths of high birth who were carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the first deportation (which is erroneously dated in the third year of Jehoiakim). One story (Dan. 1) tells how these youths contrived to avoid all danger of eating unclean food, and how God blessed them in body and mind for their scrupulousness in observance of the dietary laws; another (c. 3), how the three were saved from Nebuchadnezzar's overheated furnace, into which they were thrown for refusing to worship the idol; a third (c. 6), how Daniel was cast into the lions' den for praying to his God despite the edict of Darius. These miraculous deliverances constrain the heathen kings publicly to acknowledge that the God of the Jews is the greatest of gods. The same acknowledgment is drawn from Nebuchadnezzar when Daniel recalls his forgotten dream and interprets it, after all the diviners of Babylon had failed (c. 2); he alone is able to decipher and explain for Belshazzar the handwriting on the wall (c. 5). The stories of Nebuchadnezzar's madness (c. 2) and of Belshazzar's feast (c. 5) teach also how God punishes kings who in their pride of power exalt themselves before him, or in their arrogance profane his holy things. All of them thus magnify the God of the Jews as in power and wisdom above all other gods, and two of the most striking of them have for their theme the deliverance from mortal peril of men who stood faithful to their religion against the king's commandment. These obvious motives, as we shall presently see, have a bearing on the age of the stories. In the second part of the book are four visions, or revelations, which stand in chronological order (according to the author's chronology): c. 7 in the first year of Belshazzar; c. 8 in his third year; c. 9 in the first year of "Darius son of Xerxes, of the race of the Medes"--not properly a vision, but a revelation by Gabriel; and cc. 10-12 in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia. By the side of these must be put Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. ii. 28-45 (second year of Nebuchadnezzar), which, in its four-empire scheme, corresponds to Daniel's vision in c. 7. The interpretations which Daniel gives to Nebuchadnezzar or the angel gives to Daniel, though sometimes surrounded with an impressive air of mystery, give all the necessary clues to the understanding of the visions, and obscure allusions are often made plain by a more explicit parallel. Under fantastic and varied imagery, they unroll the history of the empires which succeed one another in the dominion of the world, from the Babylonian (Dan. 2 and 7), or the Medo-Persian (c. 8), or Persian (cc. 10-12)--that is from the assumed standpoint of Daniel--through the dominion of Alexander and the kingdoms into which his empire was broken up, ending always with the reign of Antiochus IV. (175-164 B.C.). The goal in them all is the destruction of the heathen power and the establishment of the eternal kingdom of the holy people of the Most High, otherwise, the Jews. The simplest form of this scheme is Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. 2. The image with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet part of iron and part of clay, stands for four empires in a scale of deterioration, like the four ages of Hesiod, beginning with the Babylonian, represented by Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is followed by an inferior kingdom, and that by a third universal empire; the destructive strength of the fourth is figured by iron which shatters all that it smites; the feet and toes signify a divided kingdom, in part strong as iron, in part brittle as pottery. The stone which smote the image on the feet and broke them to pieces, whereupon the whole image collapsed into dust and was whirled away by the wind, while the stone grew to a great mountain and filled all the earth, is the kingdom which the God of heaven shall establish in those days, "which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and annihilate all those empires, and it shall stand forever." The image thus represents the rule of the heathen as one world-empire, the dominion being exercised successively by four kingdoms and by the divisions of the fourth; in the destruction of these last the heathen world-empire is forever annihilated, and the eternal kingdom of God subdues and rules the whole earth. What is said about the second and third kingdoms is too general to identify them; the iron strength and destructiveness of the fourth, and its divisions with their mingled strength and weakness, naturally suggest Alexander and his successors, and this impression is strengthened by the one specific trait in the whole picture; the vain effort to make iron and wet clay combine signifies, we are told, an equally futile attempt to bind the divided kingdoms together by intermarriages (Dan. ii. 43). We know from the historians that attempts to ally the kingdoms of the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria by dynastic marriages were repeatedly made in vain, and the author of Daniel himself, in c. 11, refers to these alliances and their disastrous failure in plain terms. The vision of Daniel in c. 7 brings in the four empires under the symbol of four monstrous beasts. The fourth, more terrible and more destructive than the others, has ten horns ("out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise," vs. 24); another horn, "with the eyes of a man and a boastful mouth," arises which roots out three of the ten. Daniel sees how he makes war on the "holy men" (i.e. the Jews) and prevails over them (vs. 21); the interpreting angel describes in more detail the crimes of the last king: he will utter speeches against the Highest, and wear out the holy men of the Most High, and try to change (religious) seasons and law (religion). God's people will be delivered into his power till the expiration of three and a half years (cf. xii. 7). Then the proud king and his kingdom will be annihilated and the universal and eternal empire of the Jews established. Still more definite is the description of the doings of the "little horn" which springs up on the head of the great he-goat in the vision of c. 8. Here the interpreter becomes explicit: the he-goat is by name the Macedonian empire. The little horn is a king who shall arise in the latter time of the divided kingdoms of Alexander's successors. This king magnifies himself against the chief of the heavenly host, casts down his sanctuary, takes away his daily burnt-offerings, and destroys the holy people; and is then himself suddenly "broken without hand." In the further explanation given to Daniel in ix. 26 ff., the cessation of the daily sacrifice is to last half a week (of years), i.e. three and a half years; the profanation of the sanctuary and suppression of the sacrifices and the persecution of the Jews occur again in xi. 31 ff. (cf. xii. 5-12). In connection with this we hear of setting up of a "desolating (or appalling) abomination," in the temple. The common use of "abomination" (loathsome thing) for idols or other objects of heathen worship leaves no doubt that some such object is meant here: the king not only stopped the worship of the God of the Jews in his own temple, but established in its place a heathen cult. It is, indeed, not improbable that the words translated "appalling abomination" are an intentional distortion of the proper name of the heathen god Baal Shamaim, i.e. Jupiter. The definiteness of all this proves that the author is not creating an imaginary monster in whom all the sins of the heathen rulers against the God of Heaven and his people are accumulated, but describing a historical figure. Nor is there the smallest room for question whose portrait he is painting: every feature of it belongs to Antiochus IV., Epiphanes (Manifest God, the title means, which Antiochian wits perverted to Epimanes, Manifest Madman), who in 168 B.C. took possession of the temple in Jerusalem, suppressed the worship of its God, erected an altar of Jupiter on the great altar of burnt offering, and inaugurated heathen sacrifices. Not only that, but he forbade circumcision, the observance of the sabbath, and the possession of copies of the scriptures, and commanded that Jews should certify their abjuration of their own religion by sacrificing to his gods. Those who ignored or defied his decrees were persecuted; many of them put to death. This attempt to extirpate the Jewish religion and forcibly heathenize the people provoked a revolt led by Judas Maccabæus and his brothers, who three years later recovered the temple, purged it, and restored the sacrifices. If there could be any doubt about the identification, it would be removed by Dan. 11, which, as was recognized by Porphyry in the third century of our era, contains a minute history of the relations of the Ptolemies and Seleucids, their intermarriages and their wars, with increasing detail, down to the Egyptian campaigns of Antiochus Epiphanes--mentioning, for instance, the rebuff he received from the Roman envoy (Popillius Laenas), and in the sequel of this his desecration of the temple in Jerusalem and persecution of the law-abiding Jews--and there the history ends. All this is supposed to be revealed to Daniel in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and under later Babylonian and Median kings down to the first year of Cyrus, that is, according to the historical chronology, about three hundred and seventy-five years before the event. Such visionary panoramas form a recognized genus of Jewish literature, and they are regularly unrolled to some man of God in the remote or remotest past. In the second and first centuries before our era a great variety of such visions were attributed to Enoch, others to Noah; revelations to Seth the son of Adam were once popular, and Adam himself had some. Another class, like Daniel, bore the names of men of the exile; Baruch is the putative father of several such revelations; one of the most notable of the kind is the apocalypse of Ezra, which stands in the Apocrypha in our Bible as Second Esdras. The age of such apocalypses is determined, not by the date assigned to the imaginary seer, but by the actual standpoint of the author as disclosed in the visions. In Daniel the historical panorama is unrolled every time to the reign of Antiochus IV., and there stops. The writer had witnessed the desecration of the temple and the persecution of the Jews for their religion, he had seen the first small successes of the Maccabees, but the recovery of the temple and the restoration of sacrifice had not yet occurred. The death of Antiochus is circumstantially predicted, but in a place and manner very remote from the reality (Dan. xi. 45). The visions of Daniel fall, therefore, between December 168 B.C., the date of the desecration of the temple, and December 165, the restoration. The motives of the stories also (see above, p. 178 f.) are most appropriate to the situation under Antiochus. It is possible that they are adaptations of older tales, but there is no reason to think that they are of high antiquity. The Greek Bible has three additional stories about Daniel (Susanna and the Elders, Bel, and the Dragon) which stand in our Bibles among the Apocrypha. One peculiarity of the Book of Daniel remains for brief mention. Like Ezra, it is in two languages: Dan. i. 1-ii. 4 is in Hebrew, from ii. 4 b to the end of c. 7 in Aramaic, and from the beginning of c. 8 the rest is in Hebrew again. The Aramaic begins appropriately where the Chaldæans (diviners) are introduced speaking in what the author evidently conceives to be the language of the country; the text does not, however, revert to Hebrew when this conference is over, but holds on, not only through all the rest of the stories, but through the first vision (c. 7). A motive for just this distribution of the two tongues is not discoverable; in the chapter of accidents are various possibilities which offset one another. As in Ezra--though there are some differences between the two books--the Aramaic is of a kind which was vernacular in Palestine in the last centuries before our era. CHAPTER XX MINOR PROPHETS The Minor Prophets--so called not in depreciation, but because their books are smaller than those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel--form in the Jewish Bible one book, in which are brought together oracles in the name of various prophets from the eighth century B.C. (Amos, Hosea) to the fifth (Haggai, Zechariah), and one anonymous book (Malachi). As in the collections which bear in their titles the names of Isaiah and Jeremiah, so in the collection of the Twelve, prophecies have been attributed, by error or conjecture or accident, to prophets to whom they do not belong, and additions and alterations have been made by compilers or editors. The extent of this alien matter differs in different books; Hosea, for example, seems to contain little of it, while in Micah it is considerable. HOSEA.--In our Bibles, in which the Minor Prophets stand and are counted individually, the first is Hosea. This position, which it has also in the Hebrew Bible, may have been given the book, partly on account of its age, partly on account of its length; but it might also claim it by reason of its worth, for Hosea is one of the greatest of the prophets, not in Minor company alone, but in the canon. No other contributed so much, through his own words and through his great successors, Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists, to deepen and spiritualize the conception of religion. Hosea was an Israelite who began to prophesy to his countrymen in the reign of Jeroboam II., probably about 750 B.C., and after Jeroboam's death witnessed at least the beginning of that procession of assassinations and revolutions through which the kingdom hurried to meet its fate; but it does not appear from his book that he lived to see the invasion of Tiglath-Pileser and the loss of Gilead and Galilee in 734 B.C. in which his own predictions of impending doom had so signal a verification. Their complete fulfilment came in 721, when Sargon made an end forever of the kingdom of Israel, and deported many of the people of Samaria to remote quarters of his empire. The Book of Hosea opens with chapters out of the prophet's experience with his unfaithful wife, in which he sees a counterpart and symbol of God's experience with Israel. This discovery of this significance in the tragedy of his life is what made him a prophet. He saw then that it was for this he had been led to marry a woman who turned out a gross adulteress. When he drove her from his house, when later he bought her out of the servitude into which she had sunk, and by seclusion and a discipline at once firm and kind tried to win her back by love to virtue, that, too, was an apologue of God's dealing with his people (see specially Hos. i. 2-9; iii. 1-5). He is the first, apparently, to use the metaphor adultery, or fornication, for religious defection. The oracle, ii. 2-23, translates it into its historical terms and discloses Hosea's construction of the religious history of Israel. The root of Israel's apostasy was the belief that the gods of the soil of Canaan, the baals, gave the corn and the wine and the oil which in reality its own God, Jehovah, bestowed. Therefore he will take away all these, which she deems the gift of the baals, the wages of her prostitution, and will lead the people into the desert of exile. But he will be with them there to comfort and encourage, and Israel will return to its first love as in the early days when it was alone with God in the desert of the exodus. Then the old relation will be restored, never to be broken, and the gifts in the new betrothal are uprightness and justice and charity and kindness of heart and faithfulness and the knowledge of God (Hosea's word for religion). That will be the golden age! (See Hos. ii. 18-23.) When the Jew says his _Shema_ or the Christian his Great Commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might," it is Hosea's great thought he is repeating. Hosea interprets God's dealing with his people by his faith in God's inextinguishable love. Outraged love may smite harder than offended righteousness, but its blows are remedial, not retributive or expiatory; its aim not to satisfy justice, but to recover the erring. The exile, which for Amos is the final vindication of God's righteousness in the death of the sinful nation, is for Hosea a chastisement which leads to repentance and restoration. He is therefore the author of that ideal of a golden age of godliness and uprightness and happiness, beyond the impending judgment or the present oppression, which is one of the leading motives of the so-called messianic prophecy. The rest of the book (cc. 4-14) consists of a collection of oracles, without titles, and often without obvious boundaries. They contain an appalling picture of the sins of the nation as a whole and of all classes of society; kings and princes, priests and prophets and people--all are corrupt. The theme of the whole may be read in Hos. iv. 1 f.: "There is no truth, nor charity, nor knowledge of God (religion) in the land; naught but swearing and breaking faith and murder and theft and adultery." Therefore ruin yawns before the nation. Yet God will not destroy utterly; all the pathos of the divine love finds words in such passages as xi. 8 ff., "How can I give thee up, Ephraim?" or xiv. 1 ff., "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God." This book of a prophet of the northern kingdom has come down to us through Judæan hands; the title, with its list of Judæan kings (exactly the same as in the title of Isaiah), is doubtless due to a Jewish editor, and we are not surprised to find in the text itself Jewish touches, such as the words "and David their king" in iii. 5, or i. 11, but these are not numerous nor important. The text of Hosea is, however, unusually corrupt. The prophet's style is very difficult, and scribes did as they commonly do with a difficult text, they made mechanical mistakes because they did not understand and false emendations because they thought they understood what they did not. JOEL.--Joel was probably put between Hosea and Amos because the editors of the Book of the Twelve thought that he was one of the earlier prophets, and, chiefly because of its position, this opinion has been general until recent times. In the book itself there are neither names nor identifiable historical allusions by which its age can be determined. The whole situation, however, is that of the so-called post-exilic times. The occasion of the prophecy with which the book begins was a portentous plague of locusts, whose invasion and ravages are described in Joel 1-2 in highly poetical imagery. Locusts and drought together have so devastated the land that both men and beasts are perishing, and--the last touch of the extremity--the obligatory daily offerings in the temple have been cut off. The prophet calls to fasting and supplication; perhaps God may be entreated to have mercy on them (ii. 12-17). God had pity on his people; the following oracle (ii. 18-27) promises relief and everlasting prosperity. The visitation seems to the prophet an omen of the dread "Day of the Lord." He sees the nations gather beneath the walls of Jerusalem (in the valley with the ominous name, Jehoshaphat, "Jehovah judges") for the last onset, to be annihilated by the intervention of God. Then the golden age will be ushered in. The heads of the people are priests and elders; of king and princes there is no word. The Judah and Jerusalem which the prophet addresses are the religious community which assembles in the temple; people and congregation are the same thing. This one observation takes Joel out of the company of Amos and Hosea and puts him by the side of Malachi. All the other features of the book confirm this date. Assyrians or Babylonians, without whom no picture of the Day of the Lord in the pre-exilic prophets would be complete, are not here; Israel has disappeared. The author has read much prophetic literature; reminiscences in thought and phrase meet us at every turn. The heathen in the Valley of Jehoshaphat are Ezekiel's hordes of Gog (Ezek. 38 f.); the fountain that flows from the house of the Lord is a modest counterpart of the river that sweetens the Dead Sea (Ezek. 47). The thumb-prints of editorial hands have been thought to betray themselves in several places, and some students would give a larger range to this observation. The additions, if such they are, are not far remote in time from the original book, and reflect the same religious conceptions. AMOS.--A dramatic scene in Amos vii. 10-17 describes the appearance of Amos at Bethel on a high festival, with his presages of swift and utter ruin for Israel (cf. vii. 1-9). That his hearers greeted the message with incredulity can well be believed, for under Jeroboam II. Israel was at the very culmination of its power and prosperity. The chief priest of Bethel was not minded to let such speech pass in his diocese; as scornfully as Creon dismisses the prophet Teiresias in the Antigone, he bids Amos be gone: "O Seer, be off, flee to the land of Judah; make thy living there, and there do thy prophesying. But prophesy no more at Bethel, for it is a royal temple and a residence city." Spurning the contemptuous insinuation, Amos answers: "No prophet am I, and no member of the prophetic order, but a herdsman am I and a ripener of sycamore figs. Jehovah took me from following the flock, and bade me, Go prophesy against my people Israel." Incidentally we see in how low esteem the professional prophet stood, that the priest should make a taunt of the name and the prophet indignantly repel it. The priest followed up his warning by a report to the king, and we may safely conclude that Amos prophesied no more at Bethel. Perhaps it was the rude end of his mission that prompted him to collect his oracles into a book, the earliest example of such a collection, as a witness to his own generation and to that which should see the fulfilment. The title, this part of which may well be original, describes Amos as a shepherd from Tekoa, in the wilderness of Judah. Beyond the brief scene at Bethel nothing more is told of him in the book or out of it. But the book is his monument. It is one of the easiest of the prophetic books to understand and one of the best preserved. Chapters 1 and 2 contain a series of brief oracles, on the same plan, against the neighbours of Israel, the Syrians of Damascus, the Philistines, Phoenicians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, Judæans, leading up to a longer indictment of Israel and denunciation of God's judgment upon it. This is followed by prophecies against Israel (cc. 3-6), which seem to be formally divided into three parts by the introductory formula, "Hear this word" (iii. 1; iv. 1; v. 1), but by subject would naturally fall into a larger number of oracles. Chapter 7 begins with three visions, the delivery of which at Bethel may have provoked Amaziah's interference (vii. 10-17); c. 8 again opens with a vision, in which the basket of summer fruit _(kais)_ is to the prophet a symbol of the coming end _(k[=e]s)_ of Israel; in c. 9 Amos sees the Lord standing beside the altar and pronouncing the word of destruction and inescapable doom (ix. 1-8^a), from which an awkward transition (ix. 8^b-10) carries us to a prediction of the restoration of David's kingdom and the prosperity of the golden age. The doom which Amos sees impending over Israel is visited upon it in retribution for the wrongs which men inflict upon their fellows, the oppression of the poor by the rich, the small man by the great; the injustice, often in the forms of law, by which men are deprived of property and liberty; the luxury, aping foreign modes, which is not only corrupting in itself, but is the chief motive of injustice and oppression and fraud. The very prosperity of the nation was its ruin. With all this, Israel is very religious; it acknowledges the success in war and the profit of commerce as the gift of the national God and evidence of his favour, and does not grudge him his share even of ill-gotten gains. Amos's God has a conscience--that was a new idea about gods!--and abhors such religion; he hates their festivals, refuses their sacrifices, spurns their hymns of praise. "But let justice roll down like floods, and right like an unfailing stream." That is the only worship he owns. The standard of right is not one thing in Israel and another among the heathen: Amos summons the Philistines and the Egyptians to behold with amazement and horror the doings in Samaria. In the oracles with which the book opens, he pronounces the judgment of God on the peoples neighbour to Israel, not solely because they have wronged Israel, as in so many of the prophecies against the nations, but because they have violated the principles of humanity. It is the first assertion in the Old Testament that there is such a thing as an international morality. Amos is the first in the succession of ethical prophets, the author, so far as we know, of a new idea of religion. It is deeply significant that he and Hosea are contemporaries; hardly more than ten years can lie between Amos's appearance at Bethel and the earliest of Hosea's prophecies against the house of Jehu. The God of Amos is the apotheosis of right, the conscience of the world that can neither be corrupted nor sophisticated; the God of Hosea was born in the heart of a man whose love the grossest wrong could not quench. Retribution is the divinity of the one, redemption of the other. Amos's conception was the first to take hold; the earlier prophecies of Isaiah against Judah are wholly in that mood. Hosea had to wait a century before his greater thought found a fruitful soil in Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists. The predictions of judgment in Amos are so sweeping and ultimate that later readers found the message incomplete. Especially the last oracle (ix. 1 ff.) was an ill-omened close. Consequently, a messianic pendant was attached to it (ix. 11-15) by a Judæan editor, and an imperfect juncture made by the introduction of vs. 8^b (which flatly contradicts the first half verse) and 9^b (no grain shall fall to the ground) perhaps displacing some words of the original. It seems that some imitative pieces have been inserted also in c. 1; the prophecy against Judah in ii. 4 f. with its deuteronomic sins, falls out of the scheme and is generally recognized as editorial. Slight retouches elsewhere (e.g. iv. 13; v. 8 f.; ix. 6) need not detain us. In general the book has suffered little from the improvers, and the text is in relatively good preservation. OBADIAH.--The single chapter of Obadiah, the shortest of the Old Testament books, is a prophecy against the Edomites, toward whom, as we have repeatedly seen, the Jews cherished an implacable animosity from the time of the fall of Jerusalem. Obadiah vss. 1-9 has close parallels in Jer. xlix. 7-22 (cf. Obad. vss. 1-4 with Jer. xlix. 14-16; Obad. vs. 5 f., Jer. xlix. 9 f.; Obad. vs. 8, Jer. xlix. 7). The question which is the borrower has been differently answered. Obadiah vss. 15-21, in which Edom gets its judgment in the Day of the Lord on the nations, is probably later than vss. 1-14, but the whole is post-exilic. JONAH.--The Book of Jonah has already been discussed along with the stories of Esther and Ruth. MICAH.--The prediction of Micah, the Morashtite, that Zion should be plowed as a field and Jerusalem be a heap of ruins and the temple hill become like forest shrines (Mic. iii. 2), is quoted under his name in Jer. xxvi. 18--the only example of such a prophetic quotation in the Old Testament. The author, a resident of Moresheth-Gath in the Judæan Lowland, is said in the title to have prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, which is the editor's way of saying that he was a younger contemporary of Isaiah. The reign of Hezekiah is attested by the tradition in Jeremiah. It is probable that only cc. 1-3 (with perhaps some dubious possibilities in the following chapters) can be attributed to Micah. The book opens with an oracle against Samaria (Mic. i. 2-8). Samaria fell in 721 B.C., while the sequel (vs. 9 ff.) portrays the imminent peril of Judah, presumably in the time of Sennacherib (701 B.C.). The case seems to be similar to Isa. xxviii. 1 ff.: the fate of Samaria, though it is already fact, is represented prophetically for a closer parallel to the following. Verses 10-16 are little more than a string of ominous puns on the names of towns in the author's Lowland, which in translation lose what little point they have. The second chapter gives the cause of the woe much as in Amos or Isaiah, but perhaps with local emphasis on the wrongs the capitalists of the great city inflict on the peasant proprietors. His forebodings and censures are not well received, men bid him stop his preaching, it is a different sort of prophet they like (ii. 6-11). "If a man, walking in wind and falsehood, should lie, 'I will preach to thee of wine and drink,' he will be the preacher for this people." Micah has more to say, but not better, about the demagogue prophets in the following oracle (iii. 5-7). The predictions of disaster in ii. 1-11 have their point blunted in vs. 12 f. in the way the editors of the prophetic books so often do it. Chapter 3 returns to condemnation, which turns at last on the heads of the rulers "who build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity," and ends with the prediction of the total destruction of the city which has already been quoted. Then the unexpected follows, in the prophecy that Jerusalem shall become the religious centre of the earth, to which all nations flow, and the law of God the universal arbiter in an age of universal peace (Mic. iv. 1-5). Verses 1-3 are found also, in no more suitable context, in Isa. ii. 2-4. They belong to neither Isaiah nor Micah. For the rest, Mic. 4-5 and cc. 6-7 contain a number of pieces of diverse age and origin. Chapters iv. 6-v. 1 are as a whole of good omen, yet after the promise of restoration in iv. 8, Jerusalem is suddenly in desperate straits; exile awaits its people, and only beyond the exile (the words "thou shalt come even unto Babylon" may be a gloss, but the meaning is not essentially changed) redemption waits (iv. 9 f.). In iv. 11-13, again, many nations gather against Zion, but it crushes them like sheaves on the threshing floor. There follows (v. 2-9, 10-15) a messianic prophecy, in which an allusion to Isa. vii. 14 appears. No less strangely assorted are the oracles in Mic. 6-7, of which there are four: vi. 1-8; vi. 9-16; vii. 1-6; vii. 7-20. The first of these contains the quintessence of the prophetic conception of religion: God does not demand holocausts and costly offerings in expiation of sin; nor the supreme expiation which the prophets and the laws of the seventh century so often reject and condemn: "Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man. What is good and what doth God require of thee, but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God?" Trenchant condemnations of the sins of the times fill vi. 9-16 and vii. 1-6, the former of which, at least, is pre-exilic; while the book closes in the situation and spirit of Isa. 40 ff. Thus the Book of Micah, like that of his contemporary Isaiah, has been a depository for prophecies differing in age by several centuries. Perhaps the book once stood at the end of a roll, and was therefore the natural place to add stray and nameless pieces, as happened later to the Book of Zechariah at the end of the volume of the Minor Prophets. NAHUM.--In the three larger prophetic books we have found groups of oracles against foreign nations, some relatively old, many late and literary variations on given motives--it was evidently a grateful theme. In Nahum we have a whole book occupied with the impending fall of Nineveh and the Assyrian empire, which had so long and so brutally tyrannized over all western Asia. Now its hour has struck, and the prophet triumphs over the fate of the old lion, who "rent in pieces to satisfy his whelps and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his dens with prey and his lairs with ravin." His imagination revels in the terrors of the onslaught, the horrors of the sack, which he depicts with unsurpassed vividness and great poetic power. It is the judgment of the Lord, long deferred, but sure and final (Nah. 1). In Nah. iii. 8-10 the fate of the Egyptian Thebes is adduced as an historic example: all her power could not save her, and it shall fare no better with Nineveh. The reference is probably to the capture of Thebes by Assurbanipal in 661 B.C. Nineveh itself fell about 606 B.C. under an attack of enemies from the north (Medes or Scythians), and was destroyed never to be restored. With it the Assyrians disappear from history. The prophecy of Nahum was probably delivered shortly before this event, though a date twenty years earlier, when, according to Herodotus, Nineveh barely escaped from a similar onset by Cyaxares, is not strictly impossible. It is thought by many scholars that the first chapter (with which ii. 2 must go) is a later composition, a poem, much deranged, originally in acrostic form. HABAKKUK.--The Book of Habakkuk predicts that Jehovah is about to raise up the fierce Chaldæan nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth to occupy habitations not belonging to it, which scoffs at kings and has dynasts in derision, laughing at all fortresses, against which it casts up a mound and takes them (Hab. i. 5-11). Such a prophecy would be timely in the last years of the seventh century: the Chaldæan, or New Babylonian, kingdom dates its independence from 625, and is hardly likely to have attracted much attention in the West before the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C. and the defeat of Pharaoh Necho on the Euphrates in 605 B.C. The prophecy, which does not specifically threaten Judah, intrudes between i. 4 and i. 12 ff., where the plaint of vss. 2-4 is continued, so that vss. 5-11 are at least misplaced. This complaint is of the oppression of "the righteous" (Judah) by "the wicked" (heathen, i. 13-17). From his watch tower the prophet sees a vision of a distant time, which he is bidden record, and of whose ultimate fulfilment he is assured (ii. 1-3). What follows is a series of invectives which the nations he has gathered under his robber rule shall heap upon the fallen oppressor, "the man who was greedy as hell, insatiable as death." The date of the prophecy depends on the identification of this tyrant of the nations. If it is Babylon, the oracle must be considered later than i. 5-11, which greets the rise of the Babylonian power to execute God's judgment on the world. An ingenious solution of the difficulty has been proposed, viz., to transfer i. 5-11 from c. 1 to a place after ii. 4, and see in it the contents of the vision spoken of in ii. 3: the Babylonians would then be the ministers of God's avenging justice on the Assyrian robbers of the world, and the whole might have been uttered about 615 B.C. All parts of these chapters abound in reminiscences of the eighth-century prophets; the resemblances to Jeremiah may be explained by the contemporaneousness of the authors. Habakkuk 3, entitled "A Prayer by Habakkuk the Prophet," with a musical direction following, as in the Psalms, is in fact a psalm, and the presence of the musical directions, implying liturgical use, suggests that it once stood in a hymn book like the Psalter. It is a fine ode, by an author well read in the classic literature of his nation. The theophany (iii. 2 ff.) is indebted to Exod. xxxiii. 2 ff. and Judg. v. 4 ff. The ode belongs with the Psalms of the Persian period. It is imitated in Ps. 77. The title ascribing it to Habakkuk the prophet is of no greater authority than the ascription Pss. 146-148 in the Greek Bible to Haggai and Zechariah. ZEPHANIAH.--The pedigree of Zephaniah is carried back to his great-great-grandfather, Hezekiah. As such genealogical proper names have seldom more than three terms, it has been conjectured that the particular reason for adducing two extra generations here was that the prophet boasted royal blood--Hezekiah was the king of that name. The thing is possible, though the generations are somewhat rapid; the parallel royal line counts four. It would be a romantic touch if the prophet was a great-grand-nephew of Manasseh, and a second cousin of Josiah, of the manners and morals of whose courts he has so bad an opinion. The title says that he prophesied in the reign of Josiah, and with this the tenor of a large part of the book agrees. Like the earliest prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer. 1-6) Zephaniah's Day of the Lord is inspired by the irruption of the Scythian hordes which threatened to engulf the civilized nations of western Asia in a common ruin, as the Mongol and Turkish hordes, pouring out of the same cradle of the commissioned races, the scourges of God, did successively in later ages. For Judah it is the day of reckoning for the sins which made the reign of Manasseh a by-word with prophets and historians, and which went on unrestrained through the short years of his successor and the minority of Josiah down to the reforms of his eighteenth year. Nowhere is the state of things in that three quarters of a century more clearly exposed than in the first oracle of Zephaniah. The second chapter holds out the possibility that repentance may still save Judah; the wave of invasion has taken, as we know from historical sources it did, the way by the coast, bringing calamity on the Philistine cities. It surged on to the very frontier of Egypt, where it was stayed, more likely by the payment of a great indemnity than by force of arms, and rolled back whence it came. Zephaniah sees the storm break over Assyria, and predicts the total destruction of the proud city of Nineveh which had so long said in her heart, "I, and none beside me." Several verses in this chapter are suspected of being later amplifications, viz. ii. 7^a (Judah profits by the ruin of the Philistine plain; vs. 7^b connects directly with vs. 6), and especially the oracles against Moab and Ammon, which accuse them of their enmity to Judah in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, a generation after Zephaniah. The first oracle in Zeph. 3 is incomplete; the original conclusion, a sentence of doom upon Judah, the only imaginable sequel to vss. 1-7, is supplanted by the inconsequent pouring out of God's fury on the nations, whereupon the heathen are converted, the dispersion returns, and, purified and chastened the remnant of Judah enjoys a modest golden age (iii. 8-13). The book closes in a more jubilant salutation of the good time coming (iii. 14-20). Thus in Zephaniah, as in so many other prophetic books, all turns out well in the end; but as in most of the others, the happy endings are an afterthought of later generations for whom the judgment was in the past but the golden age had not yet come. HAGGAI.--Haggai dates his first revelation to the very day of the month--a new fashion which he and his contemporary Zechariah have--the first day of the sixth month (of the Jewish calendar) in the second year of Darius (Hystaspis), that is, 520 B.C. He has the word of the Lord for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, and Joshua, the chief priest, that it is high time to rebuild the temple; the lean years they have been having are due to God's displeasure that he is thus neglected. The civil and religious heads of the community stir up the people and the work begins; again the exact date is given. Three other oracles follow, all in the same year. The first of these (ii. 1-9) encourages Zerubbabel and the people to more zeal by the prediction that the great crisis of history is at hand: yet a little while and the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth; he will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations shall flow to his temple (cf. Isa. lx. 9 ff.), and God will fill the house with his glory. The third (ii. 20-23), to Zerubbabel, foretells the overthrow and destruction of the kingdoms of the nations; and, in prudently veiled phrase--since such great expectations might have ill consequences if they reached Persian ears--the restoration of Zerubbabel to the throne of his fathers, fulfilling the messianic predictions of earlier prophets. The intervening oracle (ii. 10-19) is another spur to zeal in rebuilding the temple. The immediate restoration of Jewish nationality which Haggai and Zechariah so confidently foretold was not merely the expression of a general faith or the result of studies in their predecessors. For in reality God was shaking the nations; in particular the Persian empire, newly made master of the world, was shaken to its foundations by the usurpation of the pretended Smerdis, the death of Cambyses, the conspiracy of the nobles against Smerdis, and the elevation of Darius to the throne. In the years when the Jewish prophets were making their predictions, Darius was confronted by formidable rebellions in every quarter of the empire except the west. It might well appear to Haggai that the armies of the nations were falling every one by the sword of his fellow. In the end Darius put down all opposition and welded the empire together more strongly than ever; the brief dream of Jewish independence under a Davidic prince and the brighter vision of the golden age faded. ZECHARIAH.--Zechariah's first oracle is dated in the month after that in which Haggai's first was delivered. It is a brief exhortation to his countrymen to repent, and not neglect the warnings of the prophets as their fathers had done, to their sorrow when the predicted judgments overtook them (Zech. i. 1-6). Then follow, in i. 7-vi. 15, under the common date (second year of Darius, 11th month, 24th day), a series of eight visions, the meaning of which is interpreted to the prophet by an angel. They symbolize the shattering of the power of the nations; the rebuilding of the temple and city, and the golden age to follow; the removal of the sin of Judah; the recognition of the Messiah (Zerubbabel); the harmony of prince and priest. At the end of this group of visions is a bit of history of high interest. A crown was made of gold and silver brought by some representatives of the Babylonian Jews, and set by the prophet on the head of Zerubbabel, who was saluted as "the Scion," i.e., the Messiah (Jer. xxiii. 5), with the prediction that he should rebuild the temple, assume majesty, and sit and rule upon his throne. The coronation, it need hardly be said, was in the secrecy of a private house, and is to be regarded as a symbolical act; the Babylonian envoys kept the crown as a memento. But its significance is unmistakable. The prediction was not fulfilled. Whatever became of Zerubbabel--he disappears with this scene--he never wore a real crown nor sat upon the throne of his fathers. This has led to more than one change in the text, which, however, as in many other cases, were not sufficiently thorough-going to pass unnoticed. First, the crown is once made plural, "crowns," as though the intention was to crown both the prince and the priest; when it comes to the coronation, however, only Joshua, the high priest, receives the honour (vi. 11). But vss. 12, 13^a, which are left untouched, can refer only to Zerubbabel. Verse 13^b originally read, "and [Joshua] shall be priest _at his right hand_ (so the Greek Bible, instead of "on his throne"), and there shall be harmony between the two." In vs. 14 there is only one crown. In Zech. 7 the question is asked of the prophet by some pilgrims from Bethel, whether, now that the temple was rebuilding, they should continue to keep the fast for the burning of the temple in the fifth month; his response, that what God wants of them is not fasting but justice, charity, compassion, that none should oppress his neighbour nor devise evil against him, is quite in the spirit of the earlier prophets to whom he appeals. He goes on, in c. 8, to picture the coming golden age, when the fasts shall all be turned into cheerful feasts, a prophecy which is one of the finest of its kind in the Old Testament and a fitting crown to the book. The prophecies of Zechariah (cc. 1-8) are definitely dated; they spring out of a definite historical and religious situation which is everywhere apparent and consistent. Not so the chapters which follow (cc. 9-14). The titles (ix. 1; xii. 1) have a different form ("Burdens"), the situations which give their background to the oracles are wholly unlike that which stands out so clearly in Haggai and Zechariah; the character of the prophecies, with their affected obscurity, easily penetrable, doubtless, to contemporaries, but impenetrable to us who have not the historical key, and their apocalyptic eschatology, are in strong contrast to the manner of Zechariah; the evidence of diction confirms that of situation and content. It has, therefore, long been recognized that none of these prophecies can be by the author of Zech. 1-8: they are anonymous oracles which have been appended at the close of his book or of the Book of the Minor Prophets. They are not all by the same author: cc. 12-14 contain two pictures (xiii. 1-xiii. 6; xiv. 1-21) of the final onset of the heathen on Jerusalem, their destruction, and the golden age of pious prosperity that ensues, variations of Ezekiel's original in the great prophecy of Gog (Ezek. 38-39) which gave the scheme for all subsequent revelations on the last times. A notable difference between the two pictures is that in Zech. 12 the heathen are destroyed by the clans of Judah, who deliver Jerusalem; while in c. 14 Jerusalem is taken by the heathen and subjected to all the horrors of a sack, half of its inhabitants being carried into slavery, before Jehovah himself, descending on the Mount of Olives, fights against the nations and cleaves the mount itself in twain. In cc. xii. 1-xiii. 6 concrete features of the author's time are probably discernible, in the fact, for instance, that Judah (that is the inhabitants of the other towns and the country) besieges Jerusalem in company with the neighbouring heathen peoples, and in the striking animosity displayed toward the prophets, who are in the same condemnation with the idols and arouse much intenser feeling (xii. 2-6). Our ignorance of the internal history of the Jewish community for two or three centuries is, however, so complete that these allusions furnish us no clue. In Zech. 9-11 also there are two sections, viz. ix. 1-xi. 3 and xi. 4-17 + xiii. 7-9. The age of these can be fixed with greater confidence by the external historical situation. The heathen power the overthrow of which ushers in the golden age is named, in ix. 13, the Greeks. Egypt and Syria ("Assyria"), that is, the kingdoms of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, shall be brought low (x. 11). "The land of Hadrach," to which the first oracle is directed, is in all probability the region of Antioch, the Seleucid capital. The bad "shepherds" of cc. 11; xiii. 7-9, who are over the flock of God, are very good likenesses of the Jewish high priests of the Greek time, though it is impossible to identify the concrete historical persons and events of c. 11. Taking all together, we shall not go amiss in ascribing these to the early part of the third century B.C.--say between the year 200, when Judæa came under Seleucid rule and the religious persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabæan revolt, to neither of which is there any allusion in the chapters. Chapters 12-14 may perhaps be put in the century before. MALACHI.--A third appendix to the Book of Zechariah is the anonymous book which we call Malachi. The earliest title, "The Burden of the Word of the Lord against Israel," is word for word the same as that in Zech. xii. 1 (cf. ix. 1), and doubtless was prefixed by the same editor. Subsequently, perhaps to give the book an independent status and thus round out the number of the Minor Prophets to twelve, the words "by 'My Messenger'" (Heb. _malaki_; iii. 1 f.) were added. Jewish tradition in later times identified this messenger with Ezra. In the versions the word was naturally taken for a proper name. The book consists of two parts, Mal. i. 2-ii. 9, which from i. 6 on is addressed to the priests, and ii. 10-iv. 3, to the people at large. The priests treat the worship in the temple with professional disrespect, under which lurks an equally professional scepticism. Any kind of blemished or diseased victim is good enough--the prophet invites them to make such a scurvy gift to the governor! The perpetual routine of sacred services they find tiresome. They are no less negligent in their other great function as the religious teachers and guides of the people. The _Tora_, that is, the revealed will of God, is committed to them, and they, degenerate successors of the faithful priests in the good old times, have not only themselves abandoned the right way, but have caused many to fall by their false instructions. They have earned the contempt in which men hold them. The curse of God is on them. One of the most notable words in the Bible stands in this indignant denunciation (Mal. i. 11 f.). Jehovah's own priests in his own temple treat his worship with contempt; he refuses their offerings: "For from the rising of the sun to the setting, my name is great among the nations, and in every place pure sacrifices are burnt to my name among the nations, saith Jehovah of Hosts; but _ye_ profane it by thinking that the table of Jehovah may be polluted and his food despised." That the sacrifices of the heathen may be "pure" sacrifices, though not according to the Mosaic rite, because all true worship is the worship of the true God, is a conception quite unparalleled in the Old Testament. The author's polemic against the priests of Jerusalem has doubtless made him say more than he would have stood by as a dogmatic statement; more, indeed, than any church has ever been ready to acknowledge, but it was fitting that it should be said, for it is the final consequence of the ethical conception of religion of which the Hebrew prophets from Amos on are the exponents. Of the remaining oracles, one (Mal. iii. 6-12) urges to the honest consecration of the tithes (dues to the temple); another (ii. 10-16), as commonly interpreted, condemns the marriages with heathen women which so disturbed the soul of Nehemiah and Ezra, and especially the divorce of native wives to take foreign ones; but the language should perhaps rather be taken as figurative for foreign worship. The two remaining prophecies (ii. 17-iii. 5; iii. 13-iv. 3) are addressed to such as thought that God did not trouble himself about men's affairs: the long threatened day of doom gave no sign of coming, nor was the promised reward of serving God bestowed. The prophet declares that the Day will come, sudden and terrible, and the ungodly will get their deserts. The last verses (iv. 4-6) are not improbably an addition by an editorial hand. CHAPTER XXI PSALMS. LAMENTATIONS The Book of Psalms counts one hundred and fifty hymns, and this evidently by design, for the Greek Version, which sometimes unites in one what are two psalms in the Hebrew and divides one Hebrew psalm into two, comes out with the same number. It is divided into five books, as is indicated in the Revised English Version, vis. Book I., Pss. 1-41; Book II., Pss. 42-72; Book III., Pss. 73-89; Book IV., Pss. 90-106; Book V., Pss. 107-150, each book ending with a liturgical doxology. The rabbis were probably right in the opinion that this fivefold division was made in imitation of the five books of the Pentateuch, but in some cases, as we shall see, the limits correspond to those of older separate books. The psalter has not inaptly been called the hymn book of the second temple. We learn from Jewish tradition that certain psalms were used in the liturgy of the Herodian temple on certain days or at certain seasons, and to many of them musical or liturgical directions are prefixed and interludes are noted ("Selah"), from which, apart from tradition, such a use would be inferred. It is evident from the familiarity with the Psalms which is shown in the New Testament and in contemporary Jewish writings, both Greek and Hebrew, that, like our hymn books, the Psalter was largely used for private devotion and edification. The poems contained in the Psalter are from different ages and authors, and of widely diverse religious worth and poetical excellence. Some of them are unsurpassed in the religious literature of the world; others are the tedious production of authors who, like so many hymnists of all climes, were neither born nor made poets. Thanks to the translators, such pieces are a great deal better, so far as expression goes, in the Authorized English Version or in Luther's, than the original. A modern hymn book is seldom, if ever, a fresh compilation from the sources; it is habitually made up from collections already in use, with the addition, perhaps, of the editor's gleanings from the sources, or of recent poems. The names of the collections thus used may be given, and the names of the authors--often taken along without verification. Editors of hymn books have also generally allowed themselves great liberties with the text of hymns, altering them to suit their own taste or the religious and theological idiosyncrasies of their sect; abridging, transposing, expanding, without scruple; and only in very modern times has a tardily awakened literary conscience constrained them to give notice of such changes. In this way mediæval Catholic poets are made to sing good Protestant songs, or Calvinists and Methodists to drop their shibboleths and express themselves in a manner acceptable to Unitarians. The familiar hymn, "O for a thousand tongues to sing my dear Redeemer's praise," has been adapted to Buddhist use as, "O for a thousand tongues to sing my holy Buddha's praise, The glories of my teacher great, the triumphs of his grace," with similar changes throughout, and if we did not know the Christian hymn, we might take the author for a good Shin-shu Buddhist, though an indifferent poet. The editors of the Psalter proceeded in the same way, and the older recollections on which they worked can in part be recognized. It is observed that Books II. and III. of the Psalter (Pss. 42-89), or, more exactly, Pss. 42-83, must once have formed a collection by themselves, whose editor was averse to the use of the proper name Jehovah, and accordingly altered the text of the hymns where this name occurred by substituting the appellative God (Elohim), giving rise to such strange expressions as "O God, my God." Thus Ps. 53 is the same with Ps. 14, but wherever Jehovah stands in Ps. 14, "God" takes its place in Ps. 53; Ps. 70 is merely an extract from Ps. 40 (vss. 13-17) with the same change. In the latter, however, copyists, influenced by the parallel passage, have restored "Jehovah" in one (Greek) or two (Hebrew) places, as they have done in other of these psalms. This occurrence of the same hymn in two parts of the Psalter, of which another instance is Ps. 108 (made up of parts of two psalms in the elohistic book, lvii. 7-11, and lx. 5-12), is itself presumptive evidence that these parts once existed separately. At the time when the musical directions were prefixed to the psalms, the last two books (Pss. 90-150) seem not to have been included in the temple hymn book; for these directions, scattered through Pss. 1-89, are lacking from that point on, notwithstanding the fact that a larger proportion of the psalms in Pss. 90-150 were manifestly composed for public worship than in Pss. 1-89. The titles of Psalms give the names of other collections from which individual psalms were taken. Thus twelve psalms, Pss. 42, 44-49, 84, 85, 87, 88, are hymns or songs of the Korahites, and eleven, Pss. 50, 73-83, of Asaph, who were according to the Chronicler--a good authority on the worship of his time--families, or hereditary guilds, of temple musicians, and seem, in this capacity, to have had special hymn books containing psalms which they sang, and which may also have been composed by members of the guild. The fact that the Korahite and Asaphite psalms are not scattered through the present Psalter, but appear in groups, and only in the elohistic hymn book (Pss. 42-89), confirms this view. When they were incorporated in the collection, the source was indicated by prefixing the name of the guild book to the individual psalms. Another group of fifteen psalms (Pss. 120-134) bear in their titles, "The Song of the Ascents," a phrase which, by the irregularity of its form, shows that it was transferred mechanically from the title of the collection ("The Songs of the Ascents") to the individual poems. The ancient interpretation makes the "ascents" the fifteen steps, or ascending platforms, on which the levitical orchestra stood at the festival of the water-drawing on the evening after the first day of Tabernacles (hence the Authorized Version, Song of Degrees, i.e. Steps). We need not discuss the question; that these psalms constitute a liturgical unit selected for a specific ceremony is plain. A considerable number of psalms have loosely prefixed to them the words Hallelu Jah (Praise ye Jah), which in the Hebrew text are frequently found at the end, having been erroneously carried back from the beginning of a following psalm. When this displacement (which is later than the Greek translation) is corrected, the Hallelujah psalms are 105-107, 111-118, 135, 136, 146-150. Here also a liturgical collection is naturally inferred. Jewish tradition informs us about the use of the "Hallel" (Pss. 113-118) and the "Great Hallel" (Ps. 136) at the festivals, and the name Hallel is also sometimes given to Pss. 146-148. Both the Hallels and the Songs of Degrees, it will be observed, are in the last of the three parts of the Psalter (Pss. 90-150). Of greater interest is the large collection of psalms which bear individually the name of David. This name is found in the titles of all the psalms in Book I. (Pss. 1-41), except Pss. 1 and 2, 10 (properly a part of 9, as in the Greek Bible), and 33 (in the Greek Bible Davidic); further, in Book II., two groups, Pss. 51-65, 68-70, and thereafter, scattering, Pss. 86, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138-145--73 psalms in all, or almost half the Psalter. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible add a varying number of others, and other versions do the same. In the light of the phenomena we have already observed, we may confidently infer that there was once a collection of religious lyrics bearing some such title as "Hymns of David." So long as this book had a separate existence, the name would naturally not be repeated at the head of the individual poems in it; such repetition became necessary, however, when psalms from this book were taken up into a larger hymn book containing not only psalms from the Korahite and Asaphite collections but many anonymous hymns; just as the name of Charles Wesley would be attached to one of his hymns only when it was taken out of his own volume and included in a composite hymn book. By good fortune we have the colophon of this Davidic Psalter in Ps. lxxii. 20, in the words of a scribe: "The Prayers (an older name for Psalms) of David son of Jesse are finished," that is, the roll containing them is copied to the end--a very common Oriental form of colophon. Curiously enough, the hymn to which this note is annexed is said in its title to be by Solomon, to whom Ps. 127 (one of the Songs of Degrees) is similarly attributed. In both cases the ground of the ascription is plain: the editor thought that Ps. cxxvii. 1 referred to the building of the temple, while the prayer for wisdom with which Ps. 72 begins suggested to him Solomon's dream, 1 Kings 3. From this Davidic hymn book came what is now the first book of the Psalter entire, except Ps. 1 and probably 2; further the groups in Book II. (51-65, 68-70, with 72), which probably stood immediately after Ps. 41. For it will be noted that the second (elohistic) part of the present Psalter (Pss. 42-89) is made up of Korahite, Asaphite, and Davidic psalms, and that in their present position the Davidic psalms, say Pss. 51-72, are thrust into the otherwise solid group of Asaphite hymns Pss. 50 ... 73-83. Further, the transposition of the Davidic psalms to the beginning of the book would bring the hymns of the guilds together. The elohistic recension does not extend consistently beyond Ps. 83; and Pss. 84-89 (Korahite) may therefore be regarded as a supplementary extract from the guild book. The titles of several of the Davidic psalms specify the occasion and circumstances in which the poem was composed; these historical notes are especially numerous in the group Pss. 51-72 (see Pss. 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63), but occur also in the First Book (Pss. 3, 7, 18, 34), and in Ps. 142 (cf. Ps. 57). The incidents referred to are, with one exception, all narrated in the Books of Samuel. There is no reason to imagine that the editor had any tradition about the origin of these particular poems, much less authentic information on the subject. Precisely as in the ascription of Pss. 72 and 127 to Solomon, he combined what he took to be allusions to a historical situation in the poems with the history as he read it. Psalm 51, for example, is a confession of deep sinfulness, and seems to specify blood-guilt (vs. 14). When had David reason to express himself in this manner? Clearly after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. It is a very familiar procedure. Modern commentators have made many similar guesses, but nobody attaches any authority to them. Whether the scattered Davidic psalms in the last part of the Psalter (Pss. 90-150) are a gleaning from the Davidic hymn book of poems which had not been included by previous editors or come from some other source is uncertain; the latter is the more probable hypothesis. The Psalter, in the form in which we have it, is one of the latest books in the Old Testament, for it contains poems in which the religious persecution of Antiochus IV. and the Maccabæan struggle are clearly reflected, and very likely events still further down in the second century B.C. This was shown by an acute critic at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., and in the Reformation century John Calvin rightly referred Pss. 44 and 74 to the Maccabæan times, and admitted the same possibility for Ps. 79. All these are from the Korahite and Asaphite collections included in the elohistic hymn book, which itself is not the youngest of the sources of our Psalter. Numerous other psalms are, with greater or less probability, assigned to the same age; thus, Ps. 149, where the saints, with the high praises of God in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hands, execute judgment on the heathen, is singularly apt to the Maccabæan victories. Psalm 110 ("Davidic") most naturally is understood as one of the Asmonæan princes, since in them alone priesthood and royalty were united. There are, however, other and more conclusive criteria than references to historical events or persons. The religious situation in the Jewish community reflected in very many of the psalms is that of the Persian and Greek period, not that of the days of the kingdom. The strife of parties or of classes, on one side the righteous, the pious, the poor, for whom the psalmists speak, on the other, the wicked, the ungodly, the rich and the great; here those whose delight is in the law of God (religion), there those who contemn it and pursue evil ways regardless of its precepts and prohibitions, is a new condition, not in the behaviour of the wicked, but in the self-consciousness of the pious, who feel themselves a distinct class and are evidently crystallizing into a party or a sect. The religious conceptions and the conception of religion are drawn chiefly from Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists, and from Isaiah 40 ff., but on the subjective side of religion, piety, the best of the psalms represent a more advanced stage than the prophets of the seventh and sixth centuries. The hopes of the future of God's people and of the world run with the prophets of the Persian period and the contemporary anonymous and editorial additions to the older prophetic books. That the long rehearsals of the ancient history like Pss. 78, 105, 106, or eulogies of the law such as Ps. 119, or litanies of the fashion of Ps. 136, belong to a stage in the history of the liturgy such as rouses the enthusiasm of the Chronicler is also apparent. The evidence of language tends the same way. Fine hymns were written even at a late time; but on a large part of the psalms the decadence has set its mark. Such is the impression the Psalter makes as a whole, and it indicates that not only is the existing collection late, but that most of the hymns in it were comparatively modern when they were brought together. This is what would be expected in a hymn book, which for devotional even more than for liturgical use, needs to express and nurture the type of piety prevalent in its own time and circle. Protestant hymn books fifty years ago, outside the Anglican communion, had hardly any hymns in them more than a couple of hundred years old, except versified translations of the psalms, modernized and Christianized in the operation. It would be going much beyond the evidence to say there were no psalms in the Psalter that were composed in the days of the kingdom; there may be a considerable number. But the proof that any particular psalm came from that period is difficult and seldom very convincing. This is true even of the psalms which speak of the king; for, aside from the impossibility of deciding in some instances whether a reigning king is meant or the king of the good time coming (Messiah), a foreign king may sometimes be in mind (Ps. 45 is so interpreted by many), or an Asmonæan king. LAMENTATIONS.--The fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. is the subject of five poems of considerable length which together make the Book of Lamentations. The mistaken opinion that the prophet Jeremiah was the author caused this book to be put immediately after Jeremiah in the Christian Bible, with an introduction explicitly attributing the poems, or the first of them, to the prophet. In the Hebrew Bible the book stands among the miscellaneous Scriptures. The first four poems are in the Hebrew elegiac metre, the verse used for dirges, the characteristic of which is that each line is divided by a cæsura into unequal parts, oftenest in the ratio of three to two, as in Amos v. 1. Fállen no móre to ríse | is Ísrael's dáughter! Próstrate to éarth she líes, | nó one to líft her. In Lamentations 1-4 this is combined with an alphabetic acrostic. In cc. 1 and 2 the poem consists of twenty-two tiercets, the first line of each beginning with a letter of the alphabet in order; c. 4, of as many couplets; while in c. 3 each line of the tiercet begins with the proper letter. Chapter 5 is neither alphabetic nor in elegiac metre. The alphabetic artifice is not uncommon with Hebrew poets, the most elaborate example being Ps. 119, where in stanzas of seven verses each line of the stanza begins with A, B, G, D, and so on. The five Lamentations differ considerably in character and poetic merit. Chapters 2 and 4 are distinctly superior to the rest, and describe the agony of Jerusalem in vivid and moving images; peculiarly direct and poignant is c. 5; while c. 3 has more the character of a psalm. The poems are not all by the same author. Those which seem to stand nearest to the catastrophe (cc. 2 and 4 at least) were probably written no very long time after it; the others perhaps in the following generation. There is nothing in them that would lead us to think of Jeremiah as the author. Perhaps the statement of the Chronicler that Jeremiah made a dirge for King Josiah which was written among the Lamentations, and recited in later times by the professional singers of dirges, may imply that he ascribed one of the poems to the prophet. At any rate, it became "tradition," and has chiefly contributed to get Jeremiah the injurious reputation of the weeping prophet. CHAPTER XXII PROVERBS The Book of Proverbs bears the title "The Proverbs of Solomon son of David, King of Israel." Other titles scattered through the book prove that it is made up of several collections of proverbs which once circulated independently. Thus Prov. 10 begins, "The Proverbs of Solomon"; xxii. 17-21 is an introduction inviting the reader to give attention to "Sayings of Sages," and dwelling on the profit of so doing; xxiv. 23, "These also are by the Sages"; xxv. 1, "These also are Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah edited"; xxx. 1, "The Sayings of Agur son of Jakeh"; xxxi. 1, "The sayings of Lemuel King of Massa (?), which his mother taught him"; finally, xxxi. 10-31 is an anonymous alphabetic poem in praise of the good housewife. The inference of diverse origin drawn from these titles is confirmed by diversity of character and form, and by the repetition of proverbs in the different sections, especially in Prov. x. 1-xxii. 16 and cc. 25-29; on the other hand, the similarity of all parts of the book in thought and expression indicates that there is among them no wide difference in time. The theme of the book is "wisdom," by which is meant primarily a practical wisdom in the conduct of individual life under the social, political, and economic conditions of the time. The end is a prosperous and happy life, and the motive is enlightened self-interest. Experience shows that morality conduces to prosperity and happiness, and immoral and unsocial actions to the opposite. To inculcate this truth and to apply it is the aim of the wise, who make this knowledge the foundation of virtue and of well-being. Their instruction is not given in the form of a philosophical ethic, with a discussion of the nature of the highest good and of the principles and motives of conduct, but in sententious maxims, or aphorisms, sometimes grouped upon a central theme, often without any thread of connection. Religion is affirmed by the most reflective of these authors to be the first principle of wisdom (Prov. i. 7; ix. 10; cf. xv. 33), but there is no appeal to a divine law or to the conscience of the individual; the maxims are based on observation and experience. The opposite of wisdom is folly; it is an unintelligent selfishness which ignores the consequences of its course, and sooner or later involves itself in loss or ruin. For ruin is the end of persistent folly as happiness is the fruit of wisdom. This is the order of the world; God's ordering, no doubt, but working itself out by natural law. Wise men and fools are two permanent classes of men, divided by as hard a line as in the Stoic ethics is drawn between the virtuous man and the rest of mankind. The authors know no degrees of wisdom; they recognize different kinds of folly, but no difference in fools. The pictures of society they draw are chiefly of city life, with its temptations and vices, and they closely resemble those which Jesus the son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) paints about 200 B.C. Monotheism is taken for granted; among the many follies the sages condemn, the folly of polytheism and idolatry does not appear. The national particularism of the Jewish religion is nowhere in evidence; the cultus is hardly referred to, except to say that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, or that justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. These features are doubtless due in part to the distinctive tendencies of the moralists, but they also reflect the times. We find them in Job, in Sirach, and in Ecclesiastes, other products of Jewish "Wisdom" which date from the later Persian or Greek period; and we have every reason to believe that this peculiar development, of which we have no trace earlier, was characteristic of that age. With this the evidence of language accords. Of the several parts of the book, Prov. x. 1-xxii. 16 seem to be the oldest, and may be from the Persian period; the following chapters are later. So also is Prov. 1-9, which may well have been written under Ptolemaic rule (say 320-200 B.C.), when the Jews enjoyed times of peace and prosperity. The latter author treats his topics more sustainedly, though without logical disposition or connection, in a warm and friendly tone such as an experienced elder might use toward a youth. The style is easy and flowing, and sometimes rises to poetic inspiration. The personifications of wisdom and folly in c. 9 give a good example of his manner. A more philosophical mind is recognized in c. 8, with its personification of the divine wisdom, first of God's creations, the skilled artificer who was by his side at the making of the world, rejoicing in God's habitable earth and the sons of men who people it. Here the author comes near the conceptions of the Greek "Wisdom of Solomon," and prepares the way for the theological hypostases of Wisdom and the divine Reason and Word (Logos). Even among the aphorisms of the older collections, there are few that have the stamp of true popular proverbs, the wisdom of the generations finding the pregnant phrase in the mouth of the people; they are, what indeed they profess to be, maxims of the sages, fashioned with conscious art for a didactic end. And these sages seem to have been, like the Greek sophists, professional teachers of the youth of the well-to-do classes. That the bulk of this wisdom, when compilation of it came to be made, should have been labelled Solomonic, is explained by Solomon's fame for wisdom, which is the subject of numerous anecdotes in the historical books (see 1 Kings iii. 4-15, with the examples, ibid. vs. 16-28; 1 Kings x. 1-14, etc.), coupled with the explicit statement that he "spake three thousand proverbs," not to mention his songs and his expeditions into natural history (1 Kings iv. 29-34). In later times Solomon's fame for wisdom was not that of an ethical philosopher but of an adept in magic. It is almost a pity to take away from Solomon the urgent warnings against women in which the Proverbs abound; they have in his mouth such a mordant irony. CHAPTER XXIII JOB The Book of Job is the greatest work of Hebrew literature that has come down to us, and one of the great poetical works of the world's literature. In the form of a colloquy between Job and his friends, in which at last God intervenes, it discusses the gravest problem of theodicy, How can the suffering of a good man be reconciled with the moral government of God? In a prose introduction the reader is apprised of the true cause of Job's sufferings, of which the parties to the colloquy are, of course, ignorant: they are a trial of his uprightness, more specifically, of his disinterested virtue. In this "prologue in heaven," Satan insists that Job's exemplary virtue is no wonder, since God rewards him so well for it, and God, who has full faith in the patriarch, gives Satan permission to test him. In an hour all his wealth is swept away and his children perish, but Job bows submissive to God's will. Then he himself is smitten with a loathsome and distressful ailment which was regarded as in a peculiar sense the stroke of God, his wife bids him "bless" God (a euphemism for "curse") and die; but he rebukes her: "What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips." His three friends come to bemoan him and to comfort him, but the sight of his misery makes them dumb; they sit down with him in silence for seven days. So far the prologue. On this scene the poem opens: Job's long suppressed grief breaks out in bitter words; he curses the day of his birth, he envies the dead who are at rest. The eldest of the three friends answers him, and so the colloquy begins. The structure of the poem is symmetrical. Each friend speaks in turn and to each Job replies. The cycle is thrice repeated (cc. 4-14; 15-21; 22-26), but, at least in the present text, the third round is incomplete--Zophar has no speech. The friends being apparently convinced that it is useless to argue with him, Job soliloquizes (cc. 27-31), contrasting his former prosperity with his present adversity, and again protesting his good conscience before God and men. Now a new disputant comes on the scene, whose name does not appear among the dramatis personæ, the youthful Elihu; a short prose introduction tells us who he is, and why he intrudes. He is incensed at them all; at Job for justifying himself at God's expense, at the friends for not having found arguments to put him down. For his part, he is so full of words that he cannot hold in. He delivers himself, accordingly, of four speeches (cc. 32 f.; 34; 35; 36), to which Job vouchsafes no reply. Suddenly God, whom Job had alternately challenged and implored to appear, answers him out of the whirlwind (cc. 38-41); with Job's confession of his presumption in speaking of things he understood not (xlii. 1-6), the poem ends. In the prose epilogue God condemns the three friends, whom he pardons at Job's prayer; and the trial over, God, in poetical justice, restores Job to a prosperity greater than the first. In the argument, the three friends and Elihu maintain throughout the view of divine retribution which was plainly the orthodoxy of the author's time: God rewards piety and virtue with prosperity and requites sin with adversity. This law is grounded in the righteousness of God; it is inconceivable that he should act otherwise. Consequently if a man is overwhelmed by calamity, as Job is, the only explanation their religion can allow is that he is a great sinner; any other interpretation would impugn the justice of God or bring into question the existence of a divine providence. They recognize, indeed, that in sending suffering God may design through chastisement or by way of warning to bring the sinner to repentance and amendment; they admit that suffering may be a trial of man's faith. They present the matter to Job thus, especially in their earlier speeches; but the character of Job's replies convinces them that neither of these is his case, and they come at last to outspoken accusation. Job denies their insinuations and their charges. He has done nothing to deserve such a fate; if they insist on calling this God's justice, he will say straight in God's face that he is an almighty tyrant, who unjustly destroys an innocent man. If God slay him for it, he will not belie his conscious rectitude. The argument goes round and round, takes this or that turn, grows hotter as it proceeds, but does not get beyond this deadlock. The author's motive so far is clear: he means to controvert the dogma that all suffering, or at least extraordinary suffering, is retributive, and to show in the instance of Job how this doctrine may drive a godly man to the denial of God's justice altogether. With remarkable psychological insight, however, he makes Job not only cling to the belief that God is more just than his dealings with him show, but makes this faith grow in even steps with his passionate charges of injustice. He appeals from the injustice of God to the just God who some day will have to justify him. The author meant to refute the doctrine that God's providence is exhaustively explained by distributive justice. Had he his own solution of the problem of theodicy to put in the place of that cruel dogma? Job, we have seen, finds no solution. In the speeches of Jehovah, where dramatic fitness would lead us to look for the author's solution if he had one, there is no refutation of Job's charges, no response to his pleadings. The speeches are splendid, but the gist of them is that God's ways are inscrutable. If man cannot comprehend God's operations in nature, what folly, what presumption, to pretend to fathom his dealings in providence! In that Job acquiesces for the soul of man. Let his sufferings be a mystery, he can submit and trust; call them punitive, and he revolts against the injustice. That is the end to which the author would bring his readers. Some one has said that there is nothing about which men are usually so sure as about the character of God, and nothing they are so ready to do as to interpret his dealings by his character--especially his dealings with others. Such were Job's friends. And from this point of view we have no difficulty in understanding, what has stumbled some critics, how they, with their zeal for God's character--that is, for their orthodox conception of it--come off in the epilogue with so smart a rebuke, while Job, whose words seemed to them sheer blasphemy, is praised for saying what was right about God. The theme of the Book of Job is one which exercised the greatest of the Greek tragic poets, and it is treated with an Æschylean grandeur; in conception and execution it declares the genius of its author. It has not come into our hands altogether as it left his, and certain parts of the poem are generally recognized as additions by other pens. The most considerable of these are the speeches of Elihu (cc. 32-36). It has already been noted that Elihu's name is not in the prologue, he comes in with a bit of a prologue of his own (xxxii. 1-5); and when the three friends are rebuked in the epilogue, he, who surely deserved the same condemnation, is ignored. All his speeches, provocative enough, draw no reply from Job. When, at the end of Elihu's discourse, God answers out of the whirlwind (xxxviii. 1 ff.), "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge," it is to Job he addresses himself, not Elihu; and the appearance of God is naturally taken as the response to Job's challenge in xxxi. 35, "O that I had one to hear me," etc., just before Elihu breaks in. All these signs indicate that Elihu is an intruder. This inference is borne out by the arguments so pretentiously announced. They are in the main variations on the themes in the preceding speeches of the friends, with a certain evident predilection for the idea that suffering is a warning. It would seem that another poet thought, as he makes Elihu boast, that he could improve on the arguments of the friends. The unbiassed reader, without depreciating the poetical merit of the speeches, will be likely to differ with him. The eulogy of the divine wisdom (Job 28) is a very fine poem, in the vein of Prov. 8, of which it is probably not independent, but it is, to say the least, inappropriate in the mouth of Job at this point in the debate. The description of ancient mining is particularly noteworthy. In the speeches of God, the long descriptions of the hippopotamus and the crocodile (xl. 15-xli. 34) are not without reason suspected of being purple patches, and in putting them in some damage has been done to the margins. It has been questioned whether the prose prologue and epilogue really belong with the poem; but it would not be intelligible without them. In Ezek. xiv. 14, 20 the name of Job occurs with Noah and Daniel as exemplary righteous men, who, if they were alive, could nevertheless not save the wicked city of Jerusalem from its doom; but whether the story Ezekiel knew about Job had any resemblance to the prologue of our book, no one can tell. It may very well be that there was a prose book of Job (in which, possibly, the friends played the opposite rôle from that given them in the poem), and that the poet took from it the incidents and setting that he needed; but about that also nothing can be known. The age of the book is determined chiefly by the problem with which it deals. The doctrine of individual retribution is the application to the individual of the prophetic teaching about God's dealing with the nation; it appears in a peculiarly crude and hard form in Ezekiel at the moment of the break up of the nation. It was furthered by the teaching of the sages, as in Proverbs, about the connection between prosperity and happiness and virtue. Experience contradicted the dogma, and so the problem of theodicy arose--arose in a peculiarly difficult form, because all that befell a man was attributed to the immediate act of God, who was not relieved of any part of his responsibility by talk of second causes and natural laws, and because the sphere of retribution was limited to this life, with no relief in the possible compensations of another. This is the problem of Job, and of itself suffices to put the book in what is called the post-exilic age. It belongs to the literature of Jewish Wisdom, with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The latter book, one of the latest certainly in the Old Testament, is much concerned with the same conflict of dogma with experience, though in a very different spirit. Job may be a work of the fifth century B.C., or perhaps of the fourth. The language would incline us to the earlier date. CHAPTER XXIV ECCLESIASTES. SONG OF SONGS Two singular books remain, about the inspiration of both of which the straitest sect of the Pharisees in the first century of our era had grave difficulties, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Both are attributed to Solomon, the Song by title, Ecclesiastes by implication in the book itself, and doubtless the supposed authorship had much to do with finally securing the two books a place in the Jewish Bible. ECCLESIASTES.--The title of Ecclesiastes runs, "The words of Koheleth the son of David, king in Jerusalem," under which pseudonym no one but Solomon can be meant; see also Eccl. i. 12, and especially ii. 1-11. In the body of the book, Koheleth is regularly used as a proper name; it is apparently coined for the nonce. Like many pseudonyms in other literatures, it is probably a mystification, piquant to the author's contemporaries but impenetrable to us. That it means "Preacher"--an ancient guess--is highly improbable; but even if the meaning were transparent, there is no more reason for translating a fictitious proper name than a real one. The theme of this symphony of pessimism is stridently announced in the first notes of the overture: "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities! Everything is vanity." The world and its happenings, man and his strivings, pleasure, pain, wisdom, folly, good and evil--all is utterly empty; existence has no meaning and no worth. All is chance and change, in which things endlessly go round and round, but plan, purpose, progress is nowhere to be seen. And as all have one lot, even this senseless and inconstant fortune, so death sooner or later overtakes all alike and ends the strange play without plot we call human life. Of a divine providence directed to any end or by any principle, of a justice above which requites men according to their deeds, long years and happiness to the wise and good, adversity and premature death to the wicked and foolish, Koheleth, looking on the world of things as they are with searching eyes, discovers no sign. Of another world and an immortal soul, with which some of his contemporaries consoled themselves, he, keeping his thinking within the bounds of experience, knows nothing. Man dies as the beast dies, the same vital breath is in them both, all are of dust and turn to dust again; nor has man any advantage over the beast, they all have the same end (iii. 19-21; ix. 4-6). There is consolation in this thought, when the misery of the world weighs too heavy on the heart. The dead are better off than the living, but happier still it would be never to be born to see the evils that are under the sun (iv. 2 f.). When we look the facts squarely in the face, the only counsel of wisdom is to make the most of what capricious fortune gives us in its friendly moods, to enjoy the pleasures life offers while we can, with abandon, but without excess. For the "too much" is always evil, even too much wisdom and virtue! "Be not over righteous nor put on too much wisdom, why shouldest thou die before thy time?" (vii. 16 f.). The author's religion makes God somehow the cause of what happens under the sun, the evil and the good. In one place he seems to express the belief that all that God does is fine and opportune, if man could only understand it; but God has denied man the intelligence to penetrate the secret of his ways. So there is nothing better for man to do than to be merry, and have a good time while he is alive! It is easy to imagine what scandal all this gave to pious souls, and it was very natural that orthodox editors should try to neutralize Koheleth's scepticism and his epicurean counsels by notes in an opposite sense. A modern editor would have put his protests into footnotes, as for example to Gibbon's famous chapters on the spread of Christianity; an ancient editor, having no footnotes, put his incontinently into the text. To these editorial improvements belong the last verses (Eccl. xii. 13 f.), with its conclusion, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the business of every man; for God will bring every deed into the judgment on all secrets, whether it be good or bad." The judgment after death is evidently meant. The warning against many books and much reading in xii. 12 is also a gloss, while xii. 9-11 appears to be written by an earlier editor of the book, commending it to reading and study. In the body of the book, also, several verses are obviously introduced to give an orthodox twist to the author's very heterodox utterances. That Ecclesiastes belongs to the latest stratum of Hebrew Biblical literature is evident from both its matter and its style; but there is nothing in it by which its age can be exactly fixed. SONG OF SONGS.--A verse already quoted (1 Kings iv. 32) tells that, besides three thousand proverbs, Solomon composed a thousand and five songs. We shall probably not err in assuming that this verse was in the mind of the editor who prefixed the title "The Song of Songs (that is, the very best of songs), by Solomon." There is nothing in the book to indicate that Solomon was the author or that the poet meant his productions to be attributed to him. The one theme of the book, running through many variations, is the love of man and woman, passionate and sensuous. In the second century of our era its songs were warbled at banquets or wedding feasts, a profane abuse on which a scandalized rabbi denounced damnation. In the first century it was, in spite of Solomon's name, no Holy Scripture for the straitest sect, and was not finally admitted to the canon, we may be pretty sure, until an allegorical sense had been discovered in it, or rather imposed on it: it sang, under the figure of wedded love, of the relation of the Lord to Israel. The Fathers took over all the allegory, only making the lover Christ, the beloved the Church (as still in the running titles of the Authorized Version), or the soul. The mediæval church saw in the bride the Virgin Mary. The allegorical interpretation was a necessary corollary of the dogmatic assumption that the canon of inspired scripture could contain nothing but books of religious instruction and edification. Allegorical love poetry--usually the love of God and the soul--is not uncommon in mystical sects or circles of various creeds; and the ultra-spiritual poets often revel in an ultra-sensual imagery of passion and fruition; but nothing in the Song of Songs suggests such an origin, nor have we knowledge of a Jewish mysticism of this erotic type in the centuries from which it must come. The literary criticism of the last century chiefly spent itself in endeavours to discover in the book a lyric drama with a moral tendency, on some such theme as the triumph of pure love over lust. Great ingenuity was expended in dividing the text into regular acts and scenes and assigning the speeches to the leading actors and the chorus. In its simplest form there were but two actors, the virtuous village maiden and the harem-jaded Solomon; a more plausible scheme gave the girl a rustic lover, which added much to the piquancy of the scenes with Solomon, and to the _dénouement_, in which the king, foiled by the maiden's constancy, confesses virtue triumphant, and sends her back to her shepherd swain. More recent supporters of the dramatic hypothesis have modified this scheme in a way to remove some of its plainest difficulties, but have complicated it in proportion. Other interpreters take the book for a collection of love songs, or, more specifically, of wedding songs, such as are sung to-day at village weddings in Syria and Palestine. A certain dramatic quality in the songs, and their relation to successive stages of the festivities, would give the appearance of a progressive action which has been urged for the dramatic theory. The Syrian peasant to-day, in the region of Damascus, is for his bride-week in song and salutation a king or prince; a sledge on the village threshing-floor is his throne, and the bride is queen. Through the week the royal pair are honoured by the villagers with songs and dances. If in the Hebrew songs the bridegroom-king is sometimes called Solomon, it is because Solomon was the richest and most splendid of kings. This view of the nature of the book is simpler and more probable. The several poems are not distinguished by titles, and there is room for difference of opinion about the divisions; but this is a small difficulty compared with the partition into roles in the supposed play. The songs are fine examples of popular poetry, with traditional subjects, forms, and imagery. Nothing requires us to suppose that they are the production of one poet; we may think of them rather as an anthology of love songs, not necessarily all composed for wedding festivities, but all appropriate for use on such occasions. The language of the songs proves that they belong to a very late period in Hebrew literature, though the type is doubtless old enough. Such popular poetry has no motive for preserving or imitating archaism, as hymn writers do, but modernizes itself from generation to generation. The wedding songs of old Israel may have been like enough to these in character, but they were in another speech. It was a fortunate misunderstanding that has preserved them; but the accidental preservation of these few pages emphasizes the loss of almost every other vestige of Hebrew secular poetry. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. =General.=--SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church._ 1892.--These lectures, first published in 1881, were meant to give to laymen an account of the problems and methods of criticism. They are a remarkably lucid exposition of the subject, and may still be read with profit as a general introduction to criticism. 2. =The Canon.=--RYLE, H. E. _The Canon of the Old Testament._ 1892; 2nd ed. 1895.--A history of the growth of the Old Testament rather than a history of the canon. In that growth there were, according to the author, three stages; in the first, which began with the ratification of Deuteronomy in 621 B.C., the Law (Pentateuch) was the only recognized collection of Sacred Scripture; in the second the Law and the Prophets; and in the third the Law, the Prophets, and the "Writings." The latter part of the volume, which treats of the history of the canon in the usual meaning of the term, is a convenient but not very accurate compilation. The article "Canon" (of the Old Testament) in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, by Karl Budde, and the article "Old Testament Canon" in Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, by F. H. Woods, are concise presentations of generally accepted opinions by competent scholars. 3. =Literature of the Old Testament.=--DRIVER, S. R. _Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament._ 6th ed., revised, 1897. A volume of the _International Theological Library_, designed primarily for ministers and students of theology. The technical matter (lists of Hebrew words and the like) is, however, set off from the body of the text, and the work can therefore be used with profit by laymen for purposes of study. The synopses of the contents of Biblical books will be found helpful. The author is a scholar of conservative temper and cautious about accepting new or radical theories. CORNILL, CARL. _Introduction to the Canonical Books of the Old Testament._ Translated by G. H. Box. New York. 1907.--Originally one of a German series of theological handbooks, this volume is on a smaller scale than Driver's and goes less into details which are of interest only to the professional student. The author's criticism is much less conservative than Driver's and more original. KENT, C. F. _The Student's Old Testament._ 1904-1910.--I. _Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History_, 1904; II. _Israel's Historical and Biographical Narratives_, 1905; III. _The Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets_, 1910; IV. _Israel's Law and Legal Precedents_, 1907. (Two volumes on the Poetical Books will complete the series.) The sources of the Pentateuch and the Historical Books are separated, and where the narratives are parallel they are printed in parallel columns with headings indicating their origin. The analysis is also set out in tabular form, and maps and chronological charts are added. The oracles of the prophets are arranged, so far as possible, in chronological order, additions and interpolations being set in smaller type. The author is an experienced teacher and book-maker, and has a fine talent for exposition. CARPENTER, J. ESTLIN, and HARFORD-BATTERSBY, G. _The Hexateuch according to the Revised Version._ 2 vols. 1900.--The first volume (separately reprinted, 1902) contains an excellent history of criticism, and develops fully and very clearly the evidence for the prevailing theory concerning the sources and composition of the Hexateuch. Tabular appendices exhibit the linguistic evidence in a form which makes it available, as far as possible, to the reader who does not know Hebrew; they also give a synopsis of the laws and institutions, and an analysis and conspectus of the several codes. The second volume presents in the text of the Revised Version the analysis of the Pentateuch and Joshua in an extremely ingenious typographical scheme. The articles on the Books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Judges inclusive, in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, by the author of the present volume, may be referred to for a fuller statement of the reasons for his views and a more detailed analysis. The article "Historical Literature" in the same Encyclopaedia gives a comprehensive survey of the Hebrew historiography from its beginnings down to the time of Josephus. The article on "Prophecy and Prophets" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, by A. B. Davidson, though not dealing primarily with critical questions, may be strongly commended, and the article on "Psalms," by W. T. Davison, in the same volume, is good. An excellent article on "Proverbs" in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ should also be mentioned. INDEX Abomination, Dan. 8, 186 Acrostics, 229 f. Alexander and successors in Dan., 185 f. Allegory, in Song of Songs, 247 Amos, Book, 196 ff. Annals, royal and temple, 100 Antiochus Epiphanes, 186, 187 f. Apocalypses, character of, 188 ----age, how determined, 188 Apocrypha, older use of the name, 18 ----Jerome, 17 f. ----Luther, 21 f. ----_See_ Canon Aramaic, in Ezra, 130 ----in Daniel, 189 f. Asa, king, 123 Assyria, Greek kingdom (Syria), 155, 215 Astruc, analysis of Genesis, 32 Athanasius, 16 Augustine, 19 f. Baal, Tyrian, 111 Baals and Astartes, 83, 192 Babylon, destruction, prophesied, 152 ----taken by Cyrus, 153 Babylonian myths in Genesis, 43 f. Baruch, scribe of Jeremiah, 166 f., 168 Bible, Jewish, _see_ Old Testament Calvin, on Maccabæan Psalms, 226 Canaan, conquest, in Jos., 77 f., 88 f. Canon, Jewish, formation of, 11 ----of Greek-speaking Jews, 13 ----Jewish, in Church Fathers, 14 ff. ----of Greek Church, 13 ff. ----Latin Church, 17 ff. ----Syrian churches, 20 ----in the Middle Ages, 20 ----the Reformation, 21 ----Reformed churches, 22 ----Council of Trent, 23 ----_See_ also Apocrypha Chaldæans, in Hab., 205 ----in Dan., 189 Cherubim car, 178 Chron.--Ezra--Neh., one book 118 Chronicles, Book, 118 ff. ----sources, 124 f. ----genealogies, 119 ----historical value, 124 Chronology in Judg., 82 ----in Kings, 101 Commandments, Ten, 49 f. Criticism, historical, 25 f. ----of Pentateuch, 31 ff. Cyrus, edict of, 128 ----deliverer, messiah, 160 Daniel, Book, 180 ff. ----two languages in, 189 ----Nebuchadnezzar's dream, 183 f. ----the four beasts, _c. 7_, 184 f. ----ram and he-goat, _c. 8_, 185 ----Seleucids and Ptolemies, _c. 11_, 187 f. ----age of the book, 188 Darius Hystaspis, 209 f. David, history, 96 f., 109 ----Psalms of, 223 Day of the Lord, in Zeph., 207 ----in Joel, 195 ----in Mal., 217 f. Deborah, Song of, 89 Decalogue, 49 f. Deluge, Babylonian myth, 43 f. Deuterocanonic Books, 24 D (Deuteronomy, Deuteronomist), 35, 84 Deuteronomists, historians, 84 ----_See_ also Jos., Judg., Kings Deuteronomy, 58 ff. ----programme of a reform, 62 ----age of the book, 64 f. Dragon of the sea, 156 E (Elohist), 35 ----characteristics, 39 ff. ----origin, 41 ----age, 67 f. ----Horeb constitution in, 50 ----in Jos. _1-12_, 75 ff. ----in Judg., 86 Ecclesiastes, Book, 243 ff. Ecclesiastes, interpolations, 246 f. ----age, 246 ----inspiration, 8 ff., 245 Ecclesiastical Books, 17, 24 Ecclesiasticus, in the Church, 15 f. Eden, Garden in, 43 Eden, Prince of Tyre in, 177 Edom, prophecies against, 158 f., 177, 197, 199 ----Obad., 200 Egypt, Ezekiel's prophecy, 177 Eli, a judge, 90 Elihu, in Job, 240 f. Elijah, 110 f., 145 Elisha, 112 f. Esther, Book, 135 ff. ----mythical interpretation, 137 ----age, 138, 139 f. ----inspiration, 8, 138 ----additions in Greek, 138 Exile, theory of the return, 122 Exodus, Book, 47 f. Ezekiel, Book, 174 ff. ----against foreign nations (_cc. 25-32_), 176 f. ----state of the text, 180 Ezra, 129 ff. ----Priests' Code, 56 f. ----two languages in, 130 Ezra and Neh., sequel of Chron., 118 ----contents, 128 ff. ----sources, 131 f. ----historical value, 133 ----derangement, 132 (_cf._ 128-131) Fast, the true, 212 Feasts, agricultural, 69 Fool, in Proverbs, 232 f. Foreign nations, oracles against, 142, 152 ff., 158 f., 171 f., 176 ff., 195, 197, 200, 204 f., 206, 214 f. Genesis, Book, 33 ff. Gerizim, temple on, 121 God, national idea, 146 ----moral idea, 145 ----in J, 37 f. ----in E, 39 f. ----in P, 47 ----in Amos, 198 f. ----in Hosea, 193, 199 ----in Deuteronomy, 59 f. ----in Isaiah _40-66_, 161 Gog and his hordes, 178, 200 ----echo in Zech., 214 Golden age, prophecies of, 151, 157, 158, 169 ff., 176, 179, 193, 198 f., 213 f. Golden calves, 104 Gospels, inspiration of, 10 Greek versions of O. T., 11 Greeks, kingdom doomed, 215 Habakkuk, Book, 205 ff. Hadrach, 215 Haggai, Book, 209 Heavenly bodies, judgment on, 156 Hezekiah, king, 114 f. High places, 65 f., 95, 103, 117 ----untouched by good kings, 107 ----Hezekiah's measures, 114 f. ----Josiah, 61 f., 116 Historical literature, 98 ff. ----oldest, 99 _cf._ 96 f. History, religious lessons, 104 Holiness, Law of, Lev. _17-26_, 54 f. Horeb, Mount of God, 48 Hosea, Book, 190 ff. Idolatry, satire on, 161 Idols, _see_ Golden Calves, Serpent Immortality, denied in Eccles., 244 Inspiration, cessation of, 10 ----of Eccles. and Cant., 8 ff. ---of Gospels, 10 Isaiah, prophet, 115, 147 ----genius of, 150 ----earlier utterances, 150 ----rejection of sacrifice, 151 Isaiah, Book, 147 ff. ----main divisions, 147 f. ----_cc. 1-12_, 149 f. ----_cc. 13-23_, 152 ff. ----_cc. 24-27_, 156 f. ----_cc. 28-33_, 157 f. ----_cc. 34-35_, 158 f. ----_cc. 36-39_, 147 ----_cc. 40-66_, 159 ff. J and E, characteristics of, 35 ff. ----in Gen., common tradition, 40 f. ----diversity of tradition, 70 ----combined in one book (J E), 71 ----in Jos., 78 ----in Judg., 85 J (Jahvist), 35 J, literary quality, 36 ----in Gen. _1-11_, two strands, 41 f. ----anthropomorphism, 37 f., 42 ----religious element, 37 ff. ----origin, 41 ----age, 67 f. ----fundamental law in, 50 f. ----in Jos., 74 ff. ----in Judg., 86 ----in Sam., 99 Jehoash, king of Israel, 113 Jehoiakim, king, 165 Jehu, king, 112, 118 Jeremiah, prophet, 164 ----his hard lot, 171 f. ----"confessions," 172 ----not author of Lam., 230 Jeremiah, Book, 164 ff. ----later additions, 168 f., 171, 173 ----Hebrew and Greek texts, 172 f. Jericho, taking of, 75 f. Jeroboam I., 104, 108 Jeroboam II., 114 Jerome, 17, 18 Jerusalem, two sieges, 117 f., 174 ----in Chron., 121 Joash, king of Judah, 113 Job, mention of in Ezek., 241 Job, Book, 235 ff. ----prologue and epilogue, 241 ----structure of the poem, 236 f. ----purpose of author, 239 f. ----age, 242 f. ----later additions, 240 ff. Joel, Book, 194 ff. Jonah, Book, 140 ff. Joshua, Book, 73 ff. Josiah, king, 116 ----his reforms, 62 ----reaction, 103 f. Judas Maccabæus, 187 Judges, Book, 81 ff. ----stories of deliverance, 84 ff. ----interpretation of history, 81, 83 ----original close of the Book, 91 Judgment, last, in Isa. _24-27_, 156 f. Julius Africanus, 15 Kadesh, 70 Kingdom, founding, two accounts, 92 ----division of, 108 Kings, Books, 100 ff. ----2 Kings _18-20_ = Isa. _36-39_, 114 Koheleth, the name, 243 Lamentations, Book, 229 ff. Latin Bible, 17 Laws, given at Sinai, 49 ----Ezra's, ratification of, 130 Legends, rise of, 98 Leviathan, 156 Levites, choice of, in Num., 55 f. ----in Chron., 123 Leviticus, Book, 52 ff. Little Horn, Dan. 8, 185 Love, principle of religion in Hos., 192 f. Malachi, Book, 215 f. Manasseh, king, his sins, 104 Medes, 152 Merodach Baladan, 116, 153 Messianic prophecy, _see_ Golden Age Micah, Book, 201 ff. Micaiah ben Imlah, 112, 145 Midrash, of Kings, 124, 127 Minor Prophets, 190 ff. Mixed marriages, 129, 130, 217 Myths, Babylonian, in Gen., 177 f. Moloch, 104 Monotheism, in Deut., 59 ----in Isa. _40-66_, 161 Naboth's vineyard, 111 Nahum, Book, 204 f. Nehemiah, mission to Jerusalem, 129 f. ----Memoirs, 129, 131, 183 ----Book, 118, 128 ff. New Year, 48 Nineveh, prophecy against, Zeph., 208 ----Nah., 204 f. Numbers, Book, 55 ff. Obadiah, Book, 200 Old Testament, the name, 7 ----Jewish, divisions, 8 ----order of books, 8 ----sacred scriptures, 25 ----a national literature, 26 ff. ----literary quality, 28 f. Omri, king, 109 f. Origen, 16 P (Priestly authors), 35 f. ----Origins of Religious Institutions, 44 f. ----in Gen., contents, 45 ff. ----diction and style, 46 ----conception of God, 47 ----the revelation at Sinai, 51 ----age of the laws in, 66 f. ----age and origin of P, 56 f., 65 f. ----united with J E D, 72 ----in Jos., 78 Passover, 48 Patriarchs, in J and E, 35 ff. Pentateuch, 29 ff. ----the law of Moses, 31 ----names of the books, 29 ----contents, 29-31 ----beginnings of criticism, 32 ff. ----main sources, 33 ff. ----method of the author, 72 f. ----composition, 65 ff. ----age of, as a whole, 72 f. ----_See_ under the several Books, also, J, E, D, P. Peoples of the land, 122 Porphyry, 187 Priesthood, in Chron., 121, 122 f. Priests' Code, 56 f., 130, 134 Priests and levites, cities, in Jos., 78 Priests, invective in Mal., 216 Primeval History, sources, 41 ----ultimate sources, 42 f. Prophets, Former and Latter, 8 ----in old Israel, 144 f. ----societies, or orders of, 145 f. ----popular, 202 f. ----bad repute of, 196, 214 ----ninth century, 110 ff. ----eighth century, 146 f., 190, 199 Proverbs, Book, 231 ff. Providence, scepticism in Eccles., 243, 244 Psalms, Book, 218 ff. ----older hymn books, 220 ----liturgical and devotional use, 218 f. ----titles, 219 ----Elohistic book (Ps. _42-82_), 220, 224 ----Davidic, 223, 224, 225, 226 ----Asaphite and Korahite, 221, 224 ----Songs of Ascents, Hallels, 222 ----Maccabæan, 226 f. ----age of the Book, 223 ff. ----religious conceptions, 227 f. Purim, 139 Religion, idea of, in Hos., 191 f. ----in Deut. 59 ----in Mic., 203 ----in Isa. _40-66_, 161 f. ----in Proverbs, 232 ----true, among the heathen, 216 Restoration, in Ezek., 179 ----in Isa., 148 ff. ----_See_ Golden Age Retribution, orthodoxy of Job's friends, 237 Ruth, Book, 139 ff. Sacrifice, patriarchal, 51 f. ----ritual laws, in Lev. _1-7_, 52 ----prophetic rejection, 151 f., 198 Samaria, Omri's new capital, 110 ----fall of, 114 Samaritan sect, in Jewish eyes, 122 Samuel, last of the judges, 90 f. Samuel, Books, 91 ff. Sanballat, 130 "Scriptures," class of sacred books, 8 ----disputed, 9 Scythians, 170 f., 207 Seers, 144 Sennacherib, siege of Jerusalem, 115 Septuagint, _see_ Greek Version Serpent, idol, in temple, 114 f. Servant of Jehovah, in Isa., _40_ ff., 164 Sheol, imagery, 152, 156, 177 f. Shishak, invasion by, 109 Siloam tunnel, 116 Sinai, 48 Sirach, Book, _see_ Ecclesiasticus Scepticism, 217 Solomon, 97 ----character of his reign, 100 ----his wealth and wisdom, 105 ----reputation for wisdom, 234 ----Proverbs ascribed to, 234 f. ----Eccles. ascribed to, 243 ----Psalms ascribed to, 223 f. Song of Deborah, 89 Song of Songs, 246 ff. ----allegorized, 247 ----age, 249 ----inspiration, 8, 247 Story books, Jewish, 134 ff. Suffering of the good, in Job, 237 ff. Susanna and the Elders, 15, 189. Symbolical actions in Ezek., 178 Syria ("Assyria"), 155, 215 Syriac Bible, contents of O. T., 20 Syrian wars, 110 Tabernacle, in P, 51 Temple, dedication of, 106 ----abode of Jehovah, 103 ----no protection to the city, 166 ----rebuilding of, 209 Theodicy, in Job, 237 ff., 242 Tyre, prophecy against, Ezek., 176 Uncanonical books, Hebrew and Greek, 12 ----_See_ also Apocrypha Valley of dry bones, 179 Visions, in prophets, 149, 178, 183 ff., 197, 211 Wedding songs, 248 Wisdom, in Proverbs, 232 ----personified, 233 ----divine, in Job _28_, 241 f. Worship, prophetic attitude, 151 f. ----_See_ Sacrifice Zechariah, Book, 211 ff. Zech., _9-11, 12-14_, age, 214, 215 Zedekiah, king, 175 f. Zephaniah, Book, 207 ff. Zerubbabel, Messianic hopes, 210 f. THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH The Home University Library of Modern Knowledge _A Comprehensive Series of New and Specially Written Books_ EDITORS: PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A. HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. PROF. WM. T. 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A fascinating and suggestive survey."--_Morning Post._ _20. EVOLUTION_ By Professor J. ARTHUR THOMSON and Professor PATRICK GEDDES. "A many-coloured and romantic panorama, opening up, like no other book we know, a rational vision of world-development."--_Belfast News-Letter._ _22. CRIME AND INSANITY_ By Dr C. A. MERCIER. "Furnishes much valuable information from one occupying the highest position among medico-legal psychologists."--_Asylum News._ _28. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH_ By Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S., Professor of Physics, Royal College of Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. "What he has to say on thought-reading, hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision, spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be read with avidity."--_Dundee Courier._ _31. ASTRONOMY_ By A. R. HINKS, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge Observatory. "Original in thought, eclectic in substance, and critical in treatment.... No better little book is available."--_School World._ _32. INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE_ By J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen University. "Professor Thomson's delightful literary style is well known; and here he discourses freshly and easily on the methods of science and its relations with philosophy, art, religion, and practical life."--_Aberdeen Journal._ _36. CLIMATE AND WEATHER_ By Prof. H. N. DICKSON, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E., President of the Royal Meteorological Society. (With Diagrams.) "The author has succeeded in presenting in a very lucid and agreeable manner the causes of the movements of the atmosphere and of the more stable winds."--_Manchester Guardian._ _41. ANTHROPOLOGY_ By R. R. MARETT, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in Oxford University. "An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear that a child could understand it, so fascinating and human that it beats fiction 'to a frazzle.'"--_Morning Leader._ _44. THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY_ By Prof. J. G. MCKENDRICK, M.D. "It is a delightful and wonderfully comprehensive handling of a subject which, while of importance to all, does not readily lend itself to untechnical explanation.... Upon every page of it is stamped the impress of a creative imagination."--_Glasgow Herald._ _46. MATTER AND ENERGY_ By F. SODDY, M.A., F.R.S. "Prof. Soddy has successfully accomplished the very difficult task of making physics of absorbing interest on popular lines."--_Nature._ _49. PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR_ By Prof. W. MCDOUGALL, F.R.S., M.B. "A happy example of the non-technical handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting rather than dogmatising. It should whet appetites for deeper study."--_Christian World._ _53. THE MAKING OF THE EARTH_ By Prof. J. W. GREGORY, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.) "A fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things contained in the series this takes a high place."--_The Athenæum._ _57. THE HUMAN BODY_ By A. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) "It literally makes the 'dry bones' to live. It will certainly take a high place among the classics of popular science."--_Manchester Guardian._ _58. ELECTRICITY_ By GISBERT KAPP, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) "It will be appreciated greatly by learners and by the great number of amateurs who are interested in what is one of the most fascinating of scientific studies."--_Glasgow Herald._ _62. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE_ By Dr BENJAMIN MOORE, Professor of Bio-Chemistry, University College, Liverpool. "Stimulating, learned, lucid."--_Liverpool Courier._ _67. CHEMISTRY_ By RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Finsbury Technical College, London. Presents clearly, without the detail demanded by the expert, the way in which chemical science has developed, and the stage it has reached. _72. PLANT LIFE_ By Prof. J. B. FARMER, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.) "Professor Farmer has contrived to convey all the most vital facts of plant physiology, and also to present a good many of the chief problems which confront investigators to-day in the realms of morphology and of heredity."--_Morning Post._ _78. THE OCEAN_ A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir JOHN MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S. (Illus.) "A life's experience is crowded into this volume. A very useful feature is the ten pages of illustrations and coloured maps at the end."--_Gloucester Journal._ _79. NERVES_ By Prof. D. FRASER HARRIS, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A description, in non-technical language, of the nervous system, its intricate mechanism and the strange phenomena of energy and fatigue, with some practical reflections. _Philosophy and Religion_ _15. MOHAMMEDANISM_ By Prof. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.Litt. "This generous shilling's worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and most responsible tractate by an illuminative professor."--_Daily Mail._ _40. THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY_ By the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. "A book that the 'man in the street' will recognise at once to be a boon.... Consistently lucid and non-technical throughout."--_Christian World._ _47. BUDDHISM_ By Mrs RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. "The author presents very attractively as well as very learnedly the philosophy of Buddhism as the greatest scholars of the day interpret it."--_Daily News._ _50. NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS_ By Principal _W. B. Selbie_, M.A. "The historical part is brilliant in its insight, clarity, and proportion; and in the later chapters Dr Selbie proves himself to be an ideal exponent of sound and moderate views."--_Christian World._ _54. ETHICS_ By G. E. MOORE, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in Cambridge University. "A very lucid though closely reasoned outline of the logic of good conduct."--_Christian World._ _56. THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT_ By Prof. B. W. BACON, LL.D., D.D. "Professor Bacon has boldly, and wisely, taken his own line, and has produced, as a result, an extraordinarily vivid, stimulating, and lucid book."--_Manchester Guardian._ _60. MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT_ By Mrs CREIGHTON. "Very interestingly done.... Its style is simple, direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation where a more fervently pious style of writing repels."--_Methodist Recorder._ _68. COMPARATIVE RELIGION_ By Prof. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D.Litt., Principal of Manchester College, Oxford. "Puts into the reader's hand a wealth of learning and independent thought."--_Christian World._ _74. A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT_ By J. B. BURY, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. "A little masterpiece, which every thinking man will enjoy."--_The Observer._ _84. LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT_ By Prof. GEORGE MOORE, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed examination of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the most recent research. _Social Science_ _1. PARLIAMENT_ Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir COURTENAY P. ILBERT, G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons. "The best book on the history and practice of the House of Commons since Bagehot's 'Constitution.'"--_Yorkshire Post._ _5. THE STOCK EXCHANGE_ By F. W. HIRST, Editor of "The Economist." "To an unfinancial mind must be a revelation.... The book is as clear, vigorous, and sane as Bagehot's 'Lombard Street,' than which there is no higher compliment."--_Morning Leader._ _6. IRISH NATIONALITY_ By Mrs J. R. GREEN. "As glowing as it is learned. No book could be more timely."--_Daily News._ _10. THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT_ By J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. "Admirably adapted for the purpose of exposition."--_The Times._ _11. CONSERVATISM_ By LORD HUGH CECIL, M.A., M.P. "One of those great little books which seldom appear more than once in a generation."--_Morning Post._ _16. THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH_ By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. "Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique position among living economists.... Original, reasonable, and illuminating."--_The Nation._ _21. LIBERALISM_ By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A., Professor of Sociology in the University of London. "A book of rare quality.... We have nothing but praise for the rapid and masterly summaries of the arguments from first principles which form a large part of this book."--_Westminster Gazette._ _24. THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY_ By D. H. MACGREGOR, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Leeds. "A volume so dispassionate in terms may be read with profit by all interested in the present state of unrest."--_Aberdeen Journal._ _26. AGRICULTURE_ By Prof. W. SOMERVILLE, F.L.S. "It makes the results of laboratory work at the University accessible to the practical farmer."--_Athenæum._ _30. ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW_ By W. M. GELDART, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford. "Contains a very clear account of the elementary principles underlying the rules of English Law."--_Scots Law Times._ _38. THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education._ By J. J. FINDLAY, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education in Manchester University. "An amazingly comprehensive volume.... It is a remarkable performance, distinguished in its crisp, striking phraseology as well as its inclusiveness of subject-matter."--_Morning Post._ _59. ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY_ By S. J. CHAPMAN, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in Manchester University. "Its importance is not to be measured by its price. Probably the best recent critical exposition of the analytical method in economic science."--_Glasgow Herald._ _69. THE NEWSPAPER_ By G. BINNEY DIBBLEE, M.A. (Illustrated.) The best account extant of the organisation of the newspaper press, at home and abroad. _77. SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE_ By H. N. BRAILSFORD, M.A. "Mr Brailsford sketches vividly the influence of the French Revolution on Shelley's and Godwin's England; and the charm and strength of his style make his book an authentic contribution to literature."--_The Bookman._ _80. CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING_ By ANEURIN WILLIAMS, M.A.--"A judicious but enthusiastic history, with much interesting speculation on the future of Co-partnership."--_Christian World._ _81. PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE_ By E. N. BENNETT, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of the British land problem, including housing, small holdings, rural credit, and the minimum wage. _83. COMMON-SENSE IN LAW_ By Prof. P. VINOGRADOFF, D.C.L. _85. UNEMPLOYMENT_ By Prof. A. C. PIGOU, M.A. IN PREPARATION _ANCIENT EGYPT._ By F. LL. GRIFFITH, M.A. _THE ANCIENT EAST._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A. _A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE._ By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D. _THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE._ By NORMAN H. BAYNES. _THE REFORMATION._ By President LINDSAY, LL.D. _A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA._ By Prof. MILYOUKOV. _MODERN TURKEY._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A. _FRANCE OF TO-DAY._ By ALBERT THOMAS. _HISTORY OF SCOTLAND._ By Prof. R. S. RAIT, M.A. _LATIN AMERICA._ By Prof. W. R. SHEPHERD. _HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN._ By J. FITZMAURICE-KELLY, F.B.A., Litt. D. _LATIN LITERATURE._ By Prof. J. S. PHILLIMORE. _THE RENAISSANCE._ By Miss EDITH SICHEL. _ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE._ By ROGER E. FRY. _LITERARY TASTE._ By THOMAS SECCOMBE. _CHAUCER AND HIS TIME._ By Miss G. E. HADOW. _WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS CIRCLE._ By A. CLUTTON BROCK. _SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY & LITERATURE._ By T. C. SNOW. _THE MINERAL WORLD._ By Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E., D.Sc. _SEX._ By Prof. J. A. THOMSON and Prof. PATRICK GEDDES. _THE GROWTH OF EUROPE._ By Prof. GRENVILLE COLE. _BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS._ By Canon R. H. CHARLES, D.D. _A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY._ By CLEMENT WEBB, M.A. _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke._ By G. P. GOOCH, M.A. _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill._ By Prof. W. L. DAVIDSON. _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to To-day._ By ERNEST BARKER, M.A. _THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY._ By Viscount ST. CYRES. _THE CIVIL SERVICE._ By GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A. _THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT._ By JANE ADDAMS and R. A. WOODS. _GREAT INVENTIONS._ By Prof. J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A. _TOWN PLANNING._ By RAYMOND UNWIN. London: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE _And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls._ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been silently normalized except for the following: Page 27: "eighth century and Judah in the beginning of the sixth". "of" has been added. Page 100: "saying much more that the facts warrant". "that" has been changed to "than". Page 139: "the festiva of Purim". "festiva" has been changed to "festival". Page 224: "the editor thought that Ps. cxxv i. 1 referred to the building of the temple". "cxxv i" has been changed to "cxxvii" which according to the context appears to be intended. 
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31876	----	THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY FREDERICK CARL EISELEN Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK ---- CINCINNATI ---- CHICAGO Copyright, 1912 FREDERICK CARL EISELEN Printed in the United States of America First Edition Printed September, 1912 Second Printing, June, 1913 Third Printing, May, 1916 Fourth Printing, November, 1917 Fifth Printing, September, 1921 Sixth Printing, September, 1923 Seventh Printing, October, 1925 Eighth Printing, July, 1928 {5} CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 I. THE NEW TESTAMENT VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT . . . . 9 II. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND MODERN SCIENCE . . . . . . . 38 III. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND MODERN CRITICISM . . . . . . 66 IV. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGY . . . . . . . . . 110 V. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION . . . . 160 VI. THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT . . 227 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 OTHER WORKS BY PROFESSOR EISELEN PROPHECY AND THE PROPHETS THE MINOR PROPHETS THE WORKER AND HIS BIBLE THE BOOKS OF THE PENTATEUCH THE PSALMS AND OTHER SACRED WRITINGS THE PROPHETIC BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (Two Volumes) {7} PREFACE During the past half century the attitude of many men toward the Bible has undergone a decided change. The old confidence seems to be gone; a feeling of uncertainty and of unrest has taken its place. This small volume is intended to set forth the Christian view of the Old Testament, and to furnish answers to some of the questions men are asking concerning the Sacred Scriptures of the Hebrews, which the early Christians included in the canon of Christian sacred writings. The old foundations are not shaken. The Old Testament has stood the tests of the past, which have been severe and often merciless; and there is to-day stronger ground than ever for believing that in its pages "men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." FREDERICK CARL EISELEN. Evanston, Illinois. {9} CHAPTER I THE NEW TESTAMENT VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT The Christian Church has always assigned to the Bible a unique place in theology and life. What is true of the Bible as a whole is equally true of that part of the Bible which is known as the Old Testament. Indeed, until the middle of the second century of the Christian era, the only Scriptures accepted as authoritative were those of the Old Testament. Even then, only gradually and under the pressure of real need, different groups of Christian writings were added and received an authority equal to that of the older Scriptures. And though in the course of the centuries there have been some who denied to the Old Testament a rightful place in Christian thought and life, the Church as a whole has always upheld the judgment of the early Christians in making the Old Testament a part of the canon of Christian sacred writings. It is worthy of note that the Old Testament played an important part in the religious life of Jesus. No one can study the records of his life without seeing that he gathered much of his {10} spiritual nourishment from its pages. Even in the moments of severest temptation, greatest distress, and bitterest agony the words of these ancient writings were on his lips, and their consoling and inspiring messages in his heart and mind. This attitude of Jesus toward the ancient Hebrew Scriptures in itself explains the high estimate placed upon them by his followers. For, in the words of G. A. Smith, "That which was used by the Redeemer himself for the sustenance of his own soul can never pass out of the use of his redeemed. That from which he proved the divinity of his mission and the age-long preparation for his coming must always have a principal place in his Church's argument for him."[1] The attitude of Jesus is reflected in his disciples and those who have given to us the New Testament books. Nearly three hundred quotations from the Old Testament are scattered throughout the Gospels and Epistles, and in a number of passages is the value of Old Testament study specifically emphasized. Perhaps nowhere is this done more clearly than in 2 Tim. 3. 15-17, in words written primarily of the Old Testament: "The sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for {11} correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." Evidently the writer of these words considers the sacred writings of the Hebrews able to inspire a personal saving faith in Jesus, the Christ; to furnish a knowledge of the things of God; and to prepare for efficient service. And these are the elements which enter into the life advocated and illustrated by the Founder of Christianity. An attempt will be made in this chapter to determine the New Testament view of the Old Testament for the purpose of discovering what is the proper Christian view of that part of the Bible. For, if the teaching, spirit, and example of Jesus have a vital relation to Christian belief, and if his immediate followers have preserved an essentially accurate portrayal of him, then the modern Christian view of the Old Testament should be a reflection of the view of Jesus and of those who, as a result of their intimate fellowship with him, were in a position to give a correct interpretation of him and his teaching. We may inquire, in the first place, what is the New Testament view of the purpose of the Old Testament Scriptures? The answer to this inquiry is furnished by the passage in the Second Epistle to Timothy quoted above. Neither this nor any other passage in the whole Bible warrants {12} the belief that the Old Testament ever was meant to teach physical science, or history, or philosophy, or psychology. Everywhere it is stated or clearly implied that the purpose of all biblical teaching is to make man morally and spiritually perfect, and to furnish him "unto every good work." Therefore we may expect that where the Old Testament writers touch upon questions of science and history they develop them only in so far as they serve this higher religious and ethical purpose. This being the biblical view of the purpose of the Scriptures, any theory of the Old Testament which makes no distinction between scientific and historical statements on the one hand, and religious and ethical statements on the other, is inadequate and erroneous, because it is not in accord with the New Testament teaching on that point. The purpose of the Bible is intimately connected with its nature and character. The New Testament view of the nature and character of the Old Testament is suggested in Heb. 1. 1, 2: "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son." Four great truths concerning the Old Testament dispensation are definitely indicated in these words, with a fifth one implied: (1) _God_ spoke; (2) God spoke in the prophets, {13} that is, in or through _human agents_; (3) God spoke _in divers portions_; (4) God spoke _in divers manners_; (5) the words imply that _the Old Testament dispensation was incomplete_; it had to be supplemented and perfected by a revelation in and through a Son. The truths expressed here constitute the essential elements which enter into the New Testament view of the Old Testament. The two expressions, "in divers portions" and "in divers manners," concern largely the external form of divine revelation. The former means that the revelations recorded in the Old Testament were not given at one time, through one channel or by one man, but at many times, through many channels, by many men, scattered over a period of many centuries, in places hundreds of miles apart. One result of this is seen in the fact that the Old Testament contains many books written by different authors in successive periods of Hebrew history. The latter expression has to do with the different kinds of literature in the Old Testament, but it goes deeper than mere literary form. It means that in giving revelations of himself during the Old Testament period God used various methods and means, the different kinds of literature being simply the outgrowth of the various modes of revelation. It is a universal Christian belief that God {14} reveals himself to-day in divers manners and modes. Every Christian believes, for example, that God reveals himself in the events of history, be it the history of individuals or of nations. Again, to many devout persons, God speaks very distinctly through the outward acts and ceremonies of worship. To thousands of earnest and sincere Christians connected with churches using an elaborate ritual, this ritual is no mere form; it is a means of blessing and grace through which God reveals himself to their souls. Moreover, God selects certain persons, especially well qualified to hear his voice; these he commissions as ambassadors to declare him and his will to the people. The belief in this method of revelation is the philosophical basis for the offices of the Christian preacher and the Christian religious teacher. Once more, in his attempt to reach the human heart God may dispense with all external means; he may and does reveal himself by working directly upon and in the mind and spirit of the individual. These are some of the "manners" in which God reveals himself to his children to-day, and these are some of the means and manners in which God made himself known during the Old Testament dispensation. Then, as he does now, he revealed himself in nature, in the events of history, in the ritual, and by direct impressions; and at times he selected certain individuals to whom he might {15} make himself known in all these various ways and who could transmit the various revelations to others. The Old Testament contains records and interpretations of these manifold revelations. It is self-evident that when attempts were made to record these various manifestations of God different kinds of literature must be used in order to express most vividly the truth or truths gathered from the divine revelations. The several kinds of literature, therefore, are the natural outgrowth of the manifold modes of divine revelation. In the Old Testament five kinds of literature may be distinguished: the prophetic, the wisdom, the devotional, the legal or priestly, and the historical. In their production four classes of religious workers who observed, interpreted, and mediated the divine revelations, were active: the prophets, the wise men, the priests (compare Jer. 18. 18), and the psalmists. The prophetic literature owes its origin to prophetic activity. The prophets towered above their contemporaries in purity of character, strength of intellect, sincerity of purpose, intimacy of communion with God, and illumination by the divine Spirit. As a result of these qualifications they were able to understand truth hidden from the eyes and minds of those who did not live in the same intimate fellowship with Jehovah. Their high conceptions of the character of God enabled {16} them to appreciate the divine ideals of righteousness, and they sought with flaming enthusiasm to impress the truths burning in their hearts upon their less enlightened contemporaries. In carrying out this purpose they became statesmen, social reformers, and religious and ethical teachers. No records have been preserved of the utterances of the earliest prophets. But when, with the general advance in culture, reading and writing became more common, the prophets, anxious to reach a wider circle, and to preserve their messages for more willing ears, put their utterances into writing, and to this new departure we owe the sublime specimens of prophetic literature in the Old Testament. In his direct appeal to heart and conscience the ancient prophet resembles the modern preacher. The wise man, like the prophet, sought to make the divine will known to others, but in his method he resembles, rather, the modern religious teacher. His ultimate aim was to influence conduct and life, but instead of appealing directly to the conscience he addressed himself primarily to the mind through counsel and argument, hoping that his appeal to the common sense of the listener would make an impression, the effects of which might be seen in transformed conduct. The prophet would have said to the lazy man, "Thus saith Jehovah, Go to work, thou indolent man." {17} Prov. 24. 30-34 may serve as an illustration of the method of the wise man: I went by the field of the sluggard, And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, The face thereof was covered with nettles, And the stone wall thereof was broken down Then I beheld, and considered well; I saw, and received instruction: Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep; So shall thy poverty come as a robber, And thy want as an armed man. Nothing escaped the observation of these men, and from beginning to end they emphasized the important truth that religion and the daily life are inseparable. From giving simple practical precepts, the wise men rose to speculation, and the books of Job and Ecclesiastes bear witness that they busied themselves with no mean problems. Of profound significance is also the devotional literature of the Old Testament. In a real sense the entire Old Testament is a book of devotion. It is the outgrowth of a spirit of intense devotion to Jehovah, and it has helped in all ages to nurture the devotional spirit of its readers. Here, however, the term "devotional" is used in the narrower sense of those poetic compositions which are primarily the expressions of the religious experience or emotions of the authors, generated {18} and fostered by their intimate fellowship with Jehovah. The chief representative of this literature is the book of Psalms, which is aptly described by Johannes Arnd in these words: "What the heart is in man, that is the Psalter in the Bible." The Psalms contain in the form of sacred lyrics the outpourings of devout souls--prophets, priests, kings, wise men, and peasants--who came into the very presence of God, held communion with him, and were privileged to hear the sweet sound of his voice. No other literary compositions lift us into such atmosphere of religious thought and emotion. Because these lyrics reflect personal experiences they may still be used to express emotions of joy, sorrow, hope, fear, anticipation, etc., even by persons who live on a higher spiritual plane than did the original authors. The legal literature differs from the other kinds in that it does not form separate books, but is embodied in other writings, principally in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All the representatives of Jehovah--prophets, priests, wise men, and even psalmists--were thought competent to make known the law of Jehovah, but the Old Testament makes it clear that at a comparatively early period the giving of law came to be looked upon as the special duty of the priests. These priests constituted a {19} very important class of religious workers among the ancient Hebrews. During the greater part of the national life their chief functions were the care of the sanctuary and the performance of ceremonial rites. But in addition to these duties they continued to administer the law of Jehovah, consisting not only of ceremonial regulations but also of moral and judicial precepts and directions. For centuries these laws may have been transmitted by word of mouth, or were only partially committed to writing, but when circumstances made it desirable to codify them and put them in writing the priests would be called upon to take this advance step. Thus, while it is quite probable that other representatives of Jehovah helped to formulate laws, the legal literature embodied in the Old Testament reached its final form under priestly influence. The historical literature furnishes an interpretation of the movements of God in the events of history. It owes its origin in part to prophetic, in part to priestly, activity. The prophet was an ambassador of Jehovah appointed to make known the divine will concerning the past, the present, and the future. Of the present he spoke as a preacher; when his message concerned the future it took the form of prediction; but the case might arise that the people failed to understand the significance of events in their own history, and {20} thus failed to appreciate the lessons which the events were intended to teach. If these lessons were not to be lost, some one must serve as an interpreter, and who would be better qualified to furnish the right interpretation than the prophet? This demand made of him, in a sense, an historian, not for the purpose of merely recording events but of interpreting them at the same time, and these prophetic interpretations are embodied in the historical literature originating with the prophets. But not all Old Testament history comes from the prophets. As already indicated, the legal and ceremonial literature is due to priestly activity. Now, in connection with the recording of the laws, customs, institutions, and ceremonial requirements, the origin of these laws and customs became a matter of interest and importance. This interest, and the demand for information arising from it, led the priests also to become historians. And to these priestly writers we are indebted for not a small part of sacred history. The third truth taught by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that God spoke unto the fathers in or by the prophets, which means, that he used _human agents_ to mediate his revelations. The Old Testament may be more than a human production; nevertheless, it will be {21} impossible to appreciate it adequately unless it is borne in mind that it contains a human element. In the first place may be noted the differences in style between various writers. These are frequently the outgrowth of differences in temperament and early training. Even the English reader can notice such differences between Amos and Hosea, or between Isaiah and Jeremiah. Evidently, whatever divine coöperation the biblical writers enjoyed, they retained enough of their human faculties and powers to make use of their own peculiar styles. Again, the hand of man may be seen in the manner of literary composition. Most Bible students are familiar with the opening words of the Gospel of Luke: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus; that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed." Evidently, the evangelist carefully sifted the material at hand before he wrote the Gospel, just as a modern writer would do. In the Old Testament even clearer evidence is found {22} that the authors of the several books were guided in the process of composition by the same principles as writers of extra-biblical productions. The most suggestive illustrations of this fact are found in the books of Chronicles, in which reference is made again and again to the sources from which the compiler gathered his material. In 1 Chron. 29. 29, for example, mention is made of the "words of Samuel the seer, ... the words of Nathan the prophet, and ... the words of Gad the seer"; 2 Chron. 9. 29 refers to "words of Nathan the prophet, ... the prophecy of Ahijah, ... the visions of Iddo the seer." These are only a few of the references scattered throughout Chronicles, but they are sufficient to show that in their composition methods employed by secular writers were used. The same characteristic appears in the book of Proverbs. According to its own testimony, it contains several separate collections. After the general title, "Proverbs of Solomon," in 1. 1, the following additional headings are found: 10. 1, "Proverbs of Solomon"; 22. 17, "The words of the wise"; 24. 23, "These also are the sayings of the wise"; 25. 1, "These also are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out"; 30. 1, "The words of Agur"; 31. 1, "The words of King Lemuel"; 31. 10-31 is an anonymous alphabetic acrostic. Similar more or less clearly marked phenomena may {23} be noted in other Old Testament books, all of them bearing witness to the presence of a human element in these writings. More significant are the historical inaccuracies found here and there in the books. They may not be serious; the substantial accuracy of the writings may be established, but even the slightest inaccuracy constitutes a blemish which one would not expect in a work coming directly from an all-wise God. For example, 2 Kings 18. 10 states that Samaria was taken in the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah; verse 13 contains the statement that in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came against Jerusalem. Now, the date of the capture of Samaria is definitely fixed by the Assyrian inscriptions. The city fell either in the closing days of B.C. 722, or the beginning of B.C. 721. Assuming that it was in 722, the fourteenth year of Hezekiah would be B.C. 714. But Sennacherib did not become king of Assyria until B.C. 705, while his attack upon Judah and Jerusalem was not undertaken until B.C. 701, hence there would seem to be an inaccuracy somewhere. Certainly, since the primary purpose of the writings is not historical, but religious, these inaccuracies do not affect the real value of the book. Nevertheless, their presence shows that the writings cannot be looked upon as coming in all their parts directly from {24} God. At some point man must have stepped in and left marks of his limitations. More serious perhaps may appear the incompleteness and imperfection of the religious and ethical conceptions, especially in the older portions. Read, for example, the twenty-fourth chapter of Second Samuel. Jehovah is there represented as causing David to number the people, and when he carried out the command Jehovah was angry and sent a pestilence which destroyed, not David, but seventy thousand innocent men. Can any Christian believe that the God of love revealed by Jesus ever acted in such arbitrary manner? No! The trouble lies with the author of the passage, who, on account of his relatively low conception of the character of Jehovah, gave an erroneous interpretation of the events recorded. A later writer, who had a truer conception of the God of Israel, saw that a mistake had been made; therefore he introduced Satan as the one who caused the numbering (1 Chron. 21. 1). Or take the twenty-second chapter of First Kings, especially verses 19 to 23. Four hundred prophets of Jehovah urge Ahab to go up against Ramoth-gilead. On the advice of the king of Judah, Micaiah is called, who announces, after some hesitation, that the expedition will end disastrously. He then explains how it happened that the other prophets told a falsehood: {25} "Therefore hear thou the word of Jehovah: I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And Jehovah said, Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner; and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also; go forth, and do so. _Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets_; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee." Can any Christian believe that our God who is infinitely pure and holy ever did persuade anyone to tell a lie? God never changes; he has always been pure and holy; but man was not able in the beginning to comprehend him in his fullness. The human conceptions of the divine were imperfect and incomplete, and these imperfect conceptions are embodied in some of the Old Testament writings. True, as Bowne suggests, "God might conceivably have made man over all at once by fiat, but in that case it would have been a magical rather than a moral revelation."[2] Throughout the entire book these and other {26} indications of the presence of a human element may be seen, which the reader cannot afford to overlook if he would estimate rightly the Old Testament Scriptures. But while they are there, they must not blind the eyes of the student to the fourth great truth expressed by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, namely, that God spoke through these men; in other words, that there is also a divine element in the Old Testament. In the words of S. I. Curtis: "While it seems to me that we find abundant evidences of development in the Old Testament from very simple concrete representations of God to those which are profoundly spiritual, I am not able to account for this development on naturalistic principles. In it I see God at all times and everywhere coworking with human instruments until the fullness of time should come"[3]. The presence of this divine element was recognized by Jesus and by all the New Testament writers, and surely it is a significant fact that in the first outburst of Christian enthusiasm, and under the living impression of the unique personality of the Master, no doubt arose concerning the inspiration and permanent value of the Old Testament. With the Christian the testimony of Jesus and his disciples carries great weight. But without appealing to his authority every unbiased reader may convince himself of the nature and character {27} of the Book; it is not necessary to depend upon the testimony of men who lived centuries ago, though they were inspired men. The Book is an open book, ready for examination, and inviting the closest scrutiny on the part of every reader. Former generations found the principal arguments in favor of the belief in a divine element in the Old Testament in the presence of miracles in its records and in the fulfillment of prophecy. The present generation cannot depend upon these arguments exclusively. The whole question of miracles in the Old Testament has assumed a different aspect within recent years. In the first place, it is seen that in some places where formerly a miracle was thought to have been wrought natural causes may have played a prominent part, as, for example, in the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan. In other cases language which used to be interpreted literally is now seen to be poetic and imaginative. In still other cases the absolute historical accuracy of certain narratives has come to be questioned. All this has resulted in a weakening of the evidence relied upon by former generations. Approaching the subject of miracles from another side, a better acquaintance with the uniformity of nature and the laws of nature has led some to question even the possibility of miracles, while the greater emphasis upon the immanence of God has resulted {28} in altered conceptions of the natural and supernatural, if not in an almost complete obliteration of any distinction between the two. Since miracles are involved in so much uncertainty, they do not at present constitute a very strong argument to prove the presence of a divine element in the Old Testament to one who is at all skeptically inclined; indeed, there are many sincere Christians who find miracles useless as an aid to faith. In a similar manner, one cannot appeal with the same assurance as formerly to the fulfillment of prophecy. It is undoubtedly true that many prophetic utterances were fulfilled; it is equally true that some were not fulfilled. If, however, the apologist depends upon the fulfillment of prophecy as a proof, the nonfulfillment of even a single one weakens his position. Moreover, it is recognized at present that prophecy in the sense of prediction occupies a relatively insignificant place in the Old Testament. Besides, scientific methods of study have shown that some passages interpreted formerly as predictions can no longer be so interpreted, while in the case of others the interpretation is more or less doubtful. Here, again, the difficulties connected with the use of the argument have become so perplexing that many consider it wise not to use it at all. If used with caution, prophecy, especially Messianic {29} prophecy, possesses great evidential value; but the argument from the fulfillment of prophecy as used formerly has lost much of its worth as a proof of inspiration. The arguments relied upon at the present time are simpler than those of the past, and are of such a nature that any fair-minded student can test them. In the first place, attention may be called to the essential unity of the book. There are in the Old World great and magnificent cathedrals, some of which have been centuries in building, yet in all of them may be found unity and harmony. How is this to be explained? Although generation after generation of workmen have labored on the enterprise, back of all the efforts was a single plan, evolved in the mind of one man, which mind controlled all the succeeding generations of workmen. The result is unity and harmony. The Bible has been likened to a magnificent cathedral. The phenomenon to which reference has been made in connection with ancient cathedrals may be seen in the Bible as a whole, as also in the Old Testament considered separately. The latter contains thirty-nine books, by how many authors no one knows, scattered over a period of more than a thousand years, written, at least some of them, independently of one another, in places hundreds of miles apart. And yet there is one thought running through them all--the {30} gradual unfolding of God's plan of redemption for the human race. There must be an explanation of this unity. Is it not natural to find it in the fact that one and the same divine spirit overshadowed the many men who made contributions to the Book? The proof of the presence of a divine element in the Old Testament which is derived from the essential unity of the book, is confirmed by the response of the soul to its message, and the effect which it produces in the lives of those who yield themselves to its teachings. Jesus and his disciples observed that its message rightly applied would awaken a response in the human heart; sometimes, indeed, it produced a sense of indignation, because it carried with it a sentence of condemnation; at other times it led to loving obedience. And they themselves experienced the effects of its teaching upon life and character: it was with truths proclaimed in the Old Testament that Jesus overcame temptation, and the quotations used in the darkest hours of his earthly life are an indication that at all times he found the most refreshing soul food in its pages. The same is true of the early disciples of Jesus. Undoubtedly, the statement in 2 Tim. 3. 15-17 is the expression of a living experience; and ever since these words were written millions of Christians have experienced the uplifting influence of many portions of the {31} Old Testament Scriptures. They may not enjoin the finer graces of Christianity, but they insist most strongly and persistently upon the fundamental virtues which go to make up a sturdy, noble, righteous, uncompromising character. A message which produces such divine results bears witness to itself that it embodies truth which in some sense proceeded from God. This is aptly stated by Coleridge in these words: "Need I say that I have met everywhere more or less copious sources of truth and power and purifying impulses, that I have found words for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs, and pleadings for my shame and feebleness? In short, whatever finds me, bears witness for itself that it has proceeded from a Holy Spirit, even from the same Spirit which remaining in itself, yet regenerateth all other powers, and in all ages entering into holy souls, maketh them friends of God and prophets."[4] As long as the Old Testament is able to awaken this response and produce these effects men will believe that it contains a divine element; and it will accomplish these things whenever men are willing to study it intelligently and devoutly. What the Old Testament calls for is not a defense but earnest and devout study. The words of Richard Rothe concerning the Bible as a whole are applicable also to the Old Testament Scriptures: {32} "Let the Bible go forth into Christendom as it is in itself, as a book like other books, without allowing any dogmatic theory to assign it to a reserved position in the ranks of books, let it accomplish of itself entirely through its own character and through that which each man can find in it for himself, and it will accomplish great things."[5] The words of Professor Westphal are also worthy to be remembered: "The only thing for our more enlightened religion to bear in mind is that the proof of revelation is not necessarily to be found in the formula which claims to herald it, but, above all, in the specific value of the thing revealed, in the divine character of the inspired Word which forces our conscience to recognize in it the expression of God's will itself."[6] The value and significance of the above argument cannot be overestimated. But during the past century other proofs have become available as a result of the careful, painstaking study of the Bible by scholars in many lands and from various points of view. These investigations have shown the Old Testament to be a peculiarly unique book when compared with other sacred literatures of antiquity. This uniqueness consists principally in the pure and lofty atmosphere which permeates the whole from beginning to end. One may read its stories of prehistoric times, its records {33} of history, its law, its poetry, its prophecy, and everywhere he will find a religious tone and spirit which, if present at all, is much less marked in the similar literatures of other nations. The modern scientific student has approached the Old Testament chiefly from four directions, and in the pursuit of his work four distinct tests have been applied to the Old Testament: the tests of science, of criticism, of archæology, and of comparative religion. These four tests and their bearing upon the New Testament, or Christian, view of the Old Testament are considered in the succeeding pages. Before closing this chapter one important question remains to be considered. It may be formulated in this wise: If there are limitations and imperfections in the Old Testament, or anywhere else in the Bible, how may they be distinguished from the truth? In the case of historical or scientific errors the method of procedure may appear clear to those who hold the New Testament view as to the purpose of the Old Testament writers; but the situation seems more troublesome in the case of religious and ethical imperfections, because religion and ethics are the rightful sphere of the biblical writings. If the Bible is not the final authority, where can be found a criterion by which the biblical, or Old Testament, statements may be judged? Startling as the suggestion {34} to judge scriptures may seem in theory, a moment's thought will show that it is being done every day by practically every Christian who seeks spiritual nourishment in the Sacred Book. Who has not passed through experiences such as are suggested in these words of Marcus Dods?--"Who is at the reader's elbow as he peruses Exodus and Leviticus to tell him what is of permanent authority and what is for the Mosaic economy only? Who whispers as we read Genesis and Kings, 'This is exemplary; this is not'? Who sifts for us the speeches of Job, and enables us to treasure up as divine truth what he utters in one verse, while we reject the next as Satanic ravings? Who gives the preacher authority and accuracy of aim to pounce on a sound text in Ecclesiastes, while wisdom and folly toss and roll over one another in confusingly rapid and inextricable contortions? What enables the humblest Christian to come safely through the cursing Psalms and go straight to forgive his enemy? What tells us that we may eat things strangled, though the whole college of apostles deliberately and expressly prohibited such eating? Who assures us that we need not anoint the sick with oil, although in the New Testament we are explicitly commanded to do so? In a word, how is it that the simplest reader can be trusted with the Bible and can be left to find his own {35} spiritual nourishment in it, rejecting almost as much as he receives?"[7] These questions call attention to a common Christian practice. But, if the practice can be justified as Christian, the principle underlying the practice may be Christian also; and so it is, for it is recognized as legitimate in the New Testament. A single sentence from a New Testament book suggests the answer to the above questions: "He that is spiritual judgeth all things."[8] The Scriptures are included among the "all things." But notice, Paul does not say that anyone may set himself up as judge, but "he that is spiritual"; that is, the man who is controlled by the spirit of the Christ. If Jesus has given to the world the highest revelation of God and truth, then the expressions of all other revelations must be measured by his revelation, either as an external standard, or as an inner criterion by him who, in his own experience, has appropriated the character, spirit, and life of Jesus. He who has thus appropriated the Christ in his fullness will be able to judge all things. But until he has reached that standard man's judgment will remain imperfect and more or less unreliable, and though for his own guidance he is still dependent upon it, he must guard against the error of setting up his own imperfect Christian consciousness as the ultimate criterion for all. {36} Up to the present time no individual has reached the stage of experience where he may be appealed to as final authority for all. Perhaps the sum total of the general Christian consciousness would prove a more reliable guide, or the Church in so far as it embodies this consciousness. But it also still falls short of its final glory. It is in the process of development toward perfection, but it has not yet reached that stage, and will not reach it until the consciousness of every individual contributing to it reflects the consciousness of Jesus himself. Then, and then only, can it be appealed to as an ultimate criterion in matters religious or Christian, including the specific question under consideration: What in the Old Testament is from God, and so, permanent, and what is due to the human limitations of the authors, and so, temporary and local? It seems, therefore, necessary to appeal at the present time to what may be called, in a sense, an external standard: the spirit, the teaching, and the life of Jesus as it may be determined objectively from the gospel records. The supreme position occupied by Jesus the Christ in Christian thinking is well described by W. N. Clarke: "He [Jesus Christ] has shown God as he is in his character and relations with men. He has represented life in its true meaning, and opened to us the real way to genuine welfare and success in existence. {37} What he has made known commends and proves itself as true by the manner in which it fits into the human scheme, meets human needs, and renders thought rational and life successful. God eternally is such a being as Jesus represents him to be--this is the heart of Christianity, to be apprehended, not first in thought but first in life and love, and this is forever true. And it is a revelation never to be superseded, but forever to be better and better known."[9] By this standard, called by Clarke the Christian element in the Bible, the Old Testament teaching must be measured; and by the application of this standard alone is it possible to separate the human from the divine and to estimate rightly the permanent value of Old or New Testament teaching. Whatever in the Scriptures endures this test may be received as of permanent religious value, because it is divine in the deepest sense. NOTES ON CHAPTER I [1] Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, p. 19. [2] Studies in Christianity, p. 73. [3] Primitive Semitic Religions To-day, p. 14. [4] Letters on the Inspiration of the Scriptures, Letter I. [5] Quoted in the Old Testament Student, Vol. VIII, p. 84. [6] The Law and the Prophets, p. 16. [7] The Bible, Its Origin and Nature, pp. 160, 161. [8] 1 Cor. 2. 15. [9] The Use of the Scriptures in Theology, pp. 51, 52. {38} CHAPTER II THE OLD TESTAMENT AND MODERN SCIENCE For many centuries during the Christian era science was almost completely dominated by theology. Whenever, therefore, a scientific investigator proposed views not in accord with the theological notions of the age he was considered a heretic and condemned as such. During these same centuries theology was dominated by a view of the Bible which valued the latter as an infallible authority in every realm of human thought. The view of the Bible held then was expressed as late as 1861 in these words: "The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it (where are we to stop?), every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the word of God; not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme."[1] A book which came thus directly from the mind of God must be inerrant and infallible; hence closely associated with this mechanical view of {39} the divine origin of the Bible was the belief in its absolute inerrancy and infallibility. This is clearly recognized in the words of two eminent American theologians: "The historical faith of the Church has always been that the affirmations of the scriptures of all kinds, whether of spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical or historical fact, or of psychological or philosophical principle, are without any error, when the _ipsissima verba_ of the autographs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense."[2] With such an estimate of the Bible it is only natural that theology should bitterly resent any and all scientific conclusions which seemed to be contrary to the statements of the Bible. However, a study of the history of Bible interpretation creates a serious perplexity. The principles upon which the interpretations rested were not the same in all ages. As a result, the "natural and intended sense" of biblical statements was variously apprehended. What was considered the clear teaching of Scripture in one age might be condemned as unscriptural in another. Moreover, some of the methods of interpretation are not calculated to inspire confidence in the results. When, for example, the poetic passage, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, And thou, moon, in the valley of Aijalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,[3] {40} is considered sufficient to discredit the scientific claim that the earth moves around the sun, rather than the sun around the earth, one's confidence in the truth of the theological view is somewhat shaken. It may be insisted, then, that much of the so-called conflict between science and the Bible was in reality a conflict between science and a misinterpreted Bible. This, even theology seems to have recognized, for again and again it changed its interpretation of the Bible so as to bring it into accord with the persistent claims of science. "The history of most modern sciences," says Farrar, "has been as follows: their discoverers have been proscribed, anathematized, and, in every possible instance, silenced or persecuted; yet before a generation has passed the champions of a spurious orthodoxy have had to confess that their interpretations were erroneous; and--for the most part without an apology and without a blush--have complacently invented some new line of exposition by which the phrases of Scripture can be squared into semblable accordance with the now acknowledged fact."[4] The so-called historical method of Bible study, which has gradually won its way, at least in Protestant Christianity, has established Bible interpretation upon a firmer foundation, so that at present much less uncertainty exists as to the {41} meaning of the Bible than at any preceding age. In the same way scientific investigation has made remarkable strides during the nineteenth century; Twentieth century science is far different from that of the early years of the preceding century. And as scientists have had to surrender many of their positions in the past it is very probable that, as the result of further investigation, some views held at present will be superseded by others. Nevertheless, though science cannot as yet dispense with working hypotheses which may or may not prove true, and though modifications in certain widely accepted views may be expected, there are many conclusions which may be considered firmly established. This being the case, if at the present time the conflict between science and the Bible is discussed, it is a conflict between scientific conclusions reached after prolonged, careful study and investigation and the teaching of the Bible as determined by the scientific use of all legitimate means of interpretation. Does such conflict exist? Many geologists, astronomers, biologists, and other scientists have claimed for some time that they have reached conclusions not in accord with certain statements of the Bible. Take as an illustration the biblical and scientific statements concerning the age of the earth, or creation in general.[5] The general conclusion reached by an overwhelming majority {42} of the most competent students of the Bible has been that according to the information furnished by the Scriptures, the date of creation was, in round numbers, four thousand years before the opening of the Christian era.[6] At that time, in the words of the Westminster Confession,[7] "It pleased God ... to create or make of nothing the world and all things therein whether visible or invisible in the space of six days and all very good." This was accepted as the plain teaching of the first chapter of Genesis even after scientific methods had been introduced in the study of the Bible. Then came geology, pushing back the "beginnings," adding millions of years to the age of the globe, and insisting that there is abundant evidence to prove the existence of life upon earth many millenniums before B.C. 4,000. Other sciences reached conclusions pointing in the same direction, until it became perfectly evident that Bible students must reckon with what seemed a real conflict between the conclusions of science and the teaching of the Bible. No wonder Bible lovers were troubled when scientists in ever-increasing numbers advanced claims that appeared to involve a charge of scientific inaccuracy against the Sacred Scriptures. Many were convinced that this could not be, for they feared that if the Bible contained inaccuracies of any sort, its value would be {43} completely destroyed, and with the Bible Christianity must fall into ruins. In Brother Anthony, intended to picture the perplexed soul of a monk in the days of Galileo, Mark Guy Pearse gives a vivid portrayal of the doubts and perplexities of many devout Bible students in the nineteenth century: But on my fevered heart there falls no balm; The garden of my soul, where happy birds Sang in the fullness of their joy, and bloomed The flowers bright, finds only winter now; And bleak winds moan about the leafless trees, And chill rains beat to earth the rotting stalks. Hope, Faith, and God, alike are gone, all gone-- If it be so, as this Galileo saith. "_The earth is round and moves about the sun; The sun,_" he saith, "_is still, the axle fixed Of nature's wheel, center of all the worlds_." Galileo is an honest soul, God knows-- No end has he to serve but only truth, By that which he declares, daring to risk Position, liberty, and even life itself. He knows. And yet the ages have believed it not. Have they not meditated, watched, and prayed-- Great souls with vision purged and purified? Had God no messenger until arose Galileo! Long years the Church has prayed, Seeking His grace who guided into truth, And weary eyes have watched the sun and stars, And heard the many voices that proclaim God's hidden ways--did they believe a lie? The Church's holy fathers, were they wrong? Yet speaks Galileo as one who knows. Shrinks all my soul from breathing any word That dares to question God's most holy Book, {44} As men beneath an avalanche pass dumb For fear a sound should bring destruction down. If but a jot or tittle of the Word Do pass away, then is all lost. And yet If what Galileo maintains be true!-- "_The sun itself moves not_." The Scripture tells At Joshua's command the sun stood still. Doth scripture lie? The blessed Lord himself, Spake he not of the sun that rose and set! So cracks and cleaves the ground beneath my feet. The sun that fills and floods the world with light My darkness and confusion hath become! O God, as here about the old gray walls The ivy clings and twines its arms, and finds A strength by which it rises from the earth And mounts toward heaven, then gladly flings Its grateful crown of greenery round the height, So by thy Word my all uncertain soul Hath mounted toward thy heaven, and brought Its love, its all, wherewith to crown my Lord. Alas, the wall is fallen. Beneath it crushed The clinging ivy lies; its stronghold once Is now the prison house, the cruel grave.[8] Since the scientific position seemed to many devout believers to undermine the Christian faith, it is not altogether strange that they should set themselves against these claims with all their might, though it may be difficult to justify the bitterness displayed by many Christian ministers in the denunciation of even devout Christian scientists, as "infidels," "impugners of the sacred records," "assailants of the Word of God," etc. It is hardly credible that during the enlightened {45} nineteenth century geology should be denounced as "not a subject of lawful inquiry," "a dark art," "dangerous and disreputable," "a forbidden province," "infernal artillery," "an awful evasion of the testimony of revelation." But the progress of science could not be blocked by denunciation, and gradually the claims of geology, astronomy, and other sciences respecting the great age of the earth came to be accepted as well established. Is, then, the scientific teaching of the Bible false? By no means, said many defenders of the faith; on the contrary, there is perfect agreement between science and the Bible, provided the latter is rightly interpreted. The first problem was to extend what was commonly taken to be the biblical teaching respecting the age of the earth so as to meet the demands of geology. This was readily done by interpreting "day" figuratively as meaning an indefinite period. It could easily be shown that in some passages "day" did not mean a day of twenty-four hours. Hence, why not interpret the word metaphorically in Gen. 1? It is safe to say that, had it not been for a desire to harmonize the biblical account with the conclusions of science, no Bible student would ever have thought of this interpretation in connection with the acts of creation, for a natural interpretation of the writer's language makes it evident that when the author of Gen. 1 speaks {46} of the successive events of creation he is thinking of days of twenty-four hours, each consisting of day and night.[9] Marcus Dods is right when he says, "If the word 'day' in these chapters does not mean a period of twenty-four hours, the interpretation of scripture is hopeless."[10] No permanent good can come from doing violence to plain statements of the Bible by the use of methods of interpretation that would be considered illegitimate in the study of other literary productions. In all the harmonizing efforts this caution has been overlooked. The believer in revelation, thinking that the agreement between science and the Bible must be minute, has yielded to the temptation to twist the biblical record into a new meaning with every fresh discovery of science. Many scientists were repelled by this arbitrary method, and when they saw that agreement could not be had by legitimate methods, and knew of no other way out of the difficulty, they too frequently assumed a hostile attitude toward revelation. A method leading to such disastrous results cannot be considered altogether satisfactory. Granting, however, for the sake of argument, the possibility of interpreting "day" metaphorically, the troubles are by no means ended, for it is impossible to discover clearly defined periods in the geological records such as are presupposed in the biblical record. But there is a more serious {47} difficulty. The order in which the different living beings and the heavenly bodies are said in Genesis to have been created does not seem to be the same as that suggested by geology and astronomy. For example, according to Genesis, fishes and birds appeared together on the fifth day, preceding all land animals, which are said to have been created on the sixth day. According to geology, fish and numerous species of land animals, especially reptiles living on land, preceded birds.[11] Moreover, according to Genesis, the sun, moon, and stars were created after the earth, a view which is altogether inconsistent with the modern scientific view of the universe, and of the part the sun plays in plant and animal life upon earth. True, this last difficulty is avoided by some by giving to certain Hebrew words a meaning which they do not ordinarily have. For example, it is said, "Let there be" (verse 14) means "Let there appear"; "God made" (verse 16) means "God made to appear," or "God appointed," to a specific office. With this interpretation, it is stated, Genesis says nothing about the formation or creation of the luminaries. They may have existed for a long time, only on the fourth day they were made to appear--the vapor around the earth having previously hidden them--and were appointed to the offices mentioned in verses 14 to 18. No one will claim that this is a natural {48} interpretation of the biblical language. If the writer meant "Let there appear," he could have found a suitable word in Hebrew, as also to express the idea "appoint." The language of Driver is not too strong: "Verses fourteen to eighteen cannot be legitimately interpreted except as implying that in the conception of the writer luminaries had not previously existed, and that they were made and set in their places in the heavens after the separation of sea and land and the appearance of vegetation upon the earth."[12] Various attempts have been made to escape the difficulty caused by the conclusions of geology as to the order in which different forms of life have appeared upon earth. These conclusions are based chiefly upon the presence of fossil remains imbedded in the different strata of the earth's surface. Passing by the earlier explanations--for example, that these fossil remains were placed there by a direct act of God on one of the creative days for some mysterious purpose, perhaps for the trial of human faith, or that they were due to the ravages of the Deluge--reference may be made to two or three of the more recent "scientific" attempts to harmonize the facts of science with the statements of Genesis. There is, first of all, the _restitution_ theory advocated by J. H. Kurtz and Thomas Chalmers.[13] Admitting that the fossil remains are important for the determination {49} of the age of the earth and the order in which different forms of life appeared upon the globe, Kurtz writes: "The animal and vegetable world which lies buried in the stratified formations was not that which, according to the Bible, was created respectively on the third, fifth, and sixth days. Its origin must belong to an earlier period."[14] In other words, his view is that "the main description in Genesis does not relate to the geological periods at all; that room is left for these periods between verse one and verse two; that the life which then flourished upon the earth was brought to an end by a catastrophe, the results of which are alluded to in verse two; and that what follows (verses 3ff.) is the description of a second creation immediately preceding the appearance of man." That this view is due to a desire to harmonize the biblical account with science is clearly implied in the words of Kurtz intended to meet the charge of Delitzsch that his view is "pure delusion." "It is," says Kurtz, "merely a delusion to attempt identifying the creation of the primeval fossil flora and fauna with those of the third, fifth, and sixth days, _and at the same time to endeavor harmonizing geology and the Bible_." Not to speak of the astronomical difficulty referred to above, which remains, science has nothing whatever to offer in support of this theory, while, on the other {50} hand, the tenor of the Genesis narrative implies such close connection between verse one and verse two that there is no room for the alleged catastrophe. It is not strange, therefore, that modern apologists have discarded the restitution hypothesis. The _vision_ theory has been presented most forcefully by Hugh Miller.[15] According to this view "the narrative was not meant to describe the actual succession of events, but was the description of a series of visions presented prophetically to the narrator's mental eye, and representing, not the first appearance of each species of life upon the globe, but its maximum development. The 'drama of creation,' it is said, is not described as it was enacted historically, but _optically_, as it would present itself to a spectator in a series of pictures or tableaux embodying the most characteristic and conspicuous feature of each period, and, as it were, summarizing in miniature its results." Though this view was presented with much eloquence and skill, it has been unable to maintain its position, simply because it is based upon an unnatural interpretation of the biblical record. No one approaching Genesis without a theory to defend would think for a moment that he is reading the description of a vision. The only natural interpretation is that the author means to record what he considers actual fact. Moreover, {51} where in Scripture could there be found an analogy to this mode of procedure? The revelation of an unknown past to a historian or prophet seems not in accord with the ordinary method of God's revelations to men. But, admitting the possibility of this method of divine communication, why should the picture thus presented to the mind of the author differ so widely from the facts uncovered by geologists? Similar attempts to harmonize Genesis with geology have been made by other geologists, among them Professor Alexander Winchell,[16] Sir J. W. Dawson,[17] and Professor J. D. Dana.[18] The results are perfectly satisfactory to these writers, but they fail to see that in order to accomplish their purpose they must have recourse to unnatural interpretations of the Genesis account, which in itself is sufficient evidence to show the hopelessness of the task. A similar judgment must be passed on the more recent attempt by F. H. Capron[19] to bring the biblical account into harmony with the modern theory of evolution. Capron is fully convinced that "the most rudimentary knowledge of geology is sufficient to satisfy any candid critic that the Genesis narrative as interpreted by any one of them[20] cannot be brought into harmony with the admitted facts of science." He, therefore, attempts a new harmony by trying to show that the first chapter of Genesis {52} gives only the order in which the creative words were uttered, not the order in which the resulting effects were produced. Unfortunately, in accomplishing this purpose, he, like his predecessors, reveals an almost complete disregard for the obvious meaning of the Genesis narrative. After a close study of the Genesis narrative and the numerous attempts of harmonizing it with science, the present writer has become thoroughly convinced that it is impossible to establish a complete, detailed harmony between the Genesis account of creation and the established facts of science without doing violence to the Bible or to science or to both. The only harmony possible is what has been called an "ideal harmony," that is, a harmony not extending to details, but limited to salient features. But this gives away the very position for which the "harmonists" have contended. As Driver says, "If the relative priority of plants and animals, or the period at which the sun and moon were formed, are amongst the details on which harmony cannot be established, what other statement (in the account of creation) can claim acceptance on the ground that it forms part of the narrative of Genesis?"[21] Admitting now the presence of discrepancies between science and the Old Testament, what becomes of the Old Testament?[22] Must it be {53} discarded as no longer "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness"? Some there are who seem to fear such fate for the book they dearly love. On the other hand, there are multitudes who calmly admit the claims of science, and at the same time continue to read and study the pages of the Old Testament, assured that it can still furnish nourishment to their spiritual natures. This attitude of confidence has been made possible, on the one hand, by a broader and truer conception of divine revelation, and, on the other, by a more adequate interpretation of the purpose of the Bible and of the biblical writers. Believers in God have come to realize as never before that God has spoken and still speaks in a variety of ways. Manifestations of God may be seen on every hand: The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge.[23] What is the universe but a manifestation of God? The whole realm of nature is in a real sense a record of divine revelations, which science seeks to interpret. "Now," says A. H. McNeile,[24] "If God created all things and carries the universe along by the utterance of his power, it is clear that every fresh item of knowledge gained by {54} scientific investigation is a fresh glimpse into the will of God. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as secular knowledge. A man only makes his studies secular for himself as he divorces them from the thought of God, so that all the scientific experiments in the world form part of the study of one aspect of God's Word." On the other hand the purpose of scripture has come to be more adequately apprehended. The New Testament makes it perfectly clear that the aim of the Old Testament Scriptures is to bring man into harmony with God, to make him morally and spiritually perfect, and to point to the consummation of the redemptive purpose of God in and through the Christ.[25] There is no warrant anywhere for the belief that the Old Testament writers meant to teach science of any kind. This is admitted even by some who insist upon the accuracy of the scientific teaching of the Bible. "It is true that the Scriptures were not designed to teach philosophy, science, or ethnology, or human history as such, and therefore they are not to be studied primarily as sources of information on these subjects."[26] Evidently, then, wherever the Old Testament touches upon questions of science it treats them only in so far as they serve a higher ethical or spiritual purpose. Is it necessary to have absolute scientific accuracy in every detail in order to do this {55} effectively? A moment's thought will show that it is not. The writer heard not long ago a powerful appeal on behalf of the boys in a certain community, in which the speaker referred to the "Gracchi, the most renowned citizens of Athens." The historical inaccuracy in no wise affected the moral force of the appeal. No one would be foolish enough to assume that the spiritual and ethical value of sermons preached by the early Church fathers is invalidated by the fanciful science mixed with their gospel message. Who has not heard sermons that created a profound spiritual impression, though their science and history were not altogether faultless? It would seem, then, that in estimating extra-biblical utterances the principle is recognized that "ignorance of some departments of truth does not disqualify a man for knowing and imparting truth about God; that in order to be a medium of revelation a man does not need to be in advance of his age in secular learning; that intimate communion with God, a spirit trained to discern spiritual things, a perfect understanding of and zeal for God's purpose are qualities quite independent of a knowledge of the discoveries of science."[27] Is it right to raise a different standard for the Scriptures? "Certainly," say many, "because the Bible is inspired; it is the Word of God, and God cannot inspire an untruth of any kind." {56} Now, it may be readily admitted that God cannot inspire an untruth; but have we any right to argue as if we knew exactly how God ought to convey a revelation to man? Without entering upon a discussion of the entire subject of inspiration, the question may be raised whether or not inspiration covers purely scientific information. The claim has been put forth by some who believe that the Bible and science are in perfect agreement that this agreement "proves that the scientific element of scripture as well as the doctrinal was within the scope of inspiration."[28] Consistency might seem to require the admission that disagreement would prove that the scientific element does not fall within the scope of inspiration. At any rate, it is of enormous importance to remember, what should be a perfectly obvious principle, that the facts presented in the Bible must determine the answer to the inquiry. In other words, "We can learn what the Bible is only from what the Bible itself says."[29] One thing is quite certain, namely, that the Bible makes not the slightest claim of being a scientific treatise complete and up-to-date.[30] It is equally true that it does not deny being such a treatise, hence the inquirer is thrown back upon a study of the facts presented in the Bible; and upon the basis of these he must determine whether or not there is reason for believing that scientific {57} knowledge comes within the scope of inspiration. Now, the abstract possibility of God communicating to man a knowledge of exact scientific facts in a prescientific age need not be denied. It is, however, a question whether God could have communicated such facts to man three thousand years ago without robbing him of his personality and changing him into a mechanism. So far as the ways of God are known from experience, observation, history, and other sources, he has always treated with respect and consideration the powers and faculties of his chief creature. "Had inspired men," says Dods,[31] "introduced into their writings information which anticipated the discoveries of science, their state of mind would be inconceivable, and revelation would be a source of confusion. God's methods are harmonious with one another, and as he has given men natural faculties to acquire scientific knowledge and historical information, he did not stultify this gift by imparting such knowledge in a miraculous and unintelligible manner." The same truth is expressed by H. E. Ryle in these words: "We do not expect instruction upon matters of physical inquiry from revelation in the written Word. God's other gifts to men, of learning, perseverance, calculation, and the like, have been and are a true source of revelation. But scripture supplies no short cut for the intellect. Where {58} man's intellectual powers may hope to attain to the truth, be it in the region of historical, scientific, and critical study, we have no warrant to expect an anticipation of results through the interposition of supernatural instruction in the letter of scripture.... Scripture is divinely inspired, not to release men from the toil of mental inquiry, but to lead and instruct their souls in things of eternal salvation."[32] This is not an arbitrary limitation of the scope of inspiration; it is a conclusion based upon a careful consideration of the facts of science and of the Bible, which seem to furnish sufficient evidence that the biblical writers were not in any marked degree in advance of their age in the knowledge of physical facts or laws. In other words, the Bible is primarily a book of religion, hence religion, and not science, is to be looked for in its pages. Altogether too much time has been spent in an effort to find in it scientific truth in a scientific form. Such attempts clearly disregard the purpose of the biblical writers as interpreted in the New Testament. And could a Divine Providence have chosen a different method? Even now discoveries follow one another so fast in the realm of science that no book remains a standard work for more than a few years. It seems obvious, therefore, that a book written thousands of years ago could not remain a standard scientific work for all times. {59} But assuming for the sake of argument that God had communicated the knowledge of scientific facts to these writers--evidence for which is entirely lacking--what would have been the result? Later occurrences suggest what might have happened. The great mass of people would have looked upon teachers of strange science as heretics and madmen, and would have rejected not only their scientific teaching but their religious teaching as well. What a loss that would have been to mankind! No serious loss would come to men if they were left a while longer in ignorance concerning scientific matters, but very serious loss would come to them by continuing in their lower religious and ethical beliefs and practices. The only way to make the higher religious truth understood was to present it in a form easily apprehended by the people. To do this is the chief purpose of the primitive, _prescientific science_ of the Old Testament Scriptures. The peculiar element in scripture is the spirit and religious atmosphere which permeate all its parts and give to the Bible a unique place among the literatures of the world. This is the divine element due to inspiration. It is this element which establishes a gulf between the Hebrew account of creation and the cosmologies of other nations. Though the biblical writers had very much the same idea about the form and general {60} arrangement of the visible world as we find among other peoples--ideas that have satisfied at all times the majority of men even among nations with a pretense to culture, namely, the cosmology of appearances--these ideas were all connected with their sublime faith in Jehovah: to his omnipotence they referred the existence of the world, and they made all its changes depend entirely on his will. In their monotheistic religion they secured the foundation of a clear and simple cosmology different from the grotesque cosmologies of other nations and yet not beyond the demands of men of a primitive type and of simple mind, who were full of a lively imagination, but not much accustomed to analyze phenomena or their causes. In this connection it may prove helpful to remember what, according to the biblical viewpoint and in the light of history, was the contribution of Israel to the development of the human race. "Israel," says G. W. Jordan,[33] "is comparatively young, politically it is provincial, socially it is not brilliant, in the realm of science it is narrow and dependent; yet when we lay stress on these limitations we only cause the peculiar glory of this nation's life to stand out more clearly; it has its own individuality; its real leaders are men of genius, their ambition is to speak in the name of the eternal king; they {61} hear the divine message and claim for it the supreme significance." This is the judgment of a Bible student. The same truth is expressed in the words of one who approaches the Bible from the viewpoint of the scientist, namely, the eminent Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli[34]: "Their [the Hebrews] natural gifts, as well as the course of events, carried them to a different mission [from that of Greece and Rome] of no smaller importance--that of purifying the religious sentiment and of preparing the way for monotheism. Of this way they mark the first clear traces. In the laborious accomplishment of this great task Israel lived, suffered, and completely exhausted itself. Israel's history, legislation, and literature were essentially coördinated toward this end; science and art were for Israel of secondary importance. No wonder, therefore, that the steps of the Jews' advance in the field of scientific conceptions and speculations were small and feeble; no wonder that in such respects they were easily vanquished by their neighbors on the Nile and the Euphrates." In conclusion: Permanent harmony between science and the Bible will be secured when each is assigned to its legitimate sphere. Science has a right to ask that, if men are seeking purely scientific information, they should turn to recent text-books in geology, astronomy, or the other {62} sciences. But in the sphere to which Jesus and the New Testament writers assigned the Old Testament science cannot deny or seriously question its inspiration or permanent value. Unprejudiced science has never done this. It is perfectly ready to recognize the inestimable religious and ethical value of even those Old Testament narratives which refer to scientific facts, not because of their scientific teaching, but because of the presence of eternal truth in the crude form of primitive science. Fair-minded scientists readily admit that if anyone wishes to know what connection the world has with God, if he seeks to trace back all that now is to the very fountain head of life, if he desires to discover some unifying principle, some illuminating purpose in the history of the world, he may still turn to the early chapters of Genesis as a safe guide. What, then, is the bearing of the conclusions of modern science upon the permanent value of the Old Testament? Science has compelled the Bible student to withdraw the attention from the nonessential and secondary, and to concentrate it upon the heart and substance. In doing this it has established upon a much firmer basis the conviction that, whatever the scientific value of scripture may be or may not be, the apostle was right when he wrote that "the sacred writings ... are able to make wise unto salvation through {63} faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work."[35] NOTES ON CHAPTER II [1] Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, p. 89. [2] Presbyterian Review, 1881, p. 238. [3] Josh. 10. 12. [4] The Bible--Its Meaning and Supremacy, p. 160. [5] In a brief treatment it seems preferable to confine the discussion to a specific concrete case; therefore this chapter deals almost exclusively with questions centering around the subject of cosmogony. [6] The margin of the Authorized Version still gives the chronology of Archbishop Ussher to that effect. [7] Chapter IV, 1. [8] The Expositor, 1902, pp. 159, 160. [9] It requires but a reading of the "proofs" of the opposite view to understand their weakness. Compare Expositor, 1886, pp. 287-289. [10] The book of Genesis, p. 4. [11] Another difficulty has been found in the statement of Genesis that "vegetation" was complete two days before animal life appeared, but the disagreement is more apparent than real. The geological record, it is true, shows many more animal than plant remains in the very ancient rocks. It was not until Devonian and Carboniferous times that the plants became very abundant, as far as the geological records go. Indeed, in the oldest rocks in which animal remains occur, no plant remains have been discovered. However, this is not to be {64} taken as proving that animals existed before plants, because low forms of the latter, having no hard parts, would be preserved with difficulty. Moreover, in some of the primitive forms, it is not easy to distinguish plants from animals. But, apart from the records in the rocks, both biologists and geologists believe that plants existed as early as animals, if not earlier, for the latter needed the former to live upon. An eminent geologist, Professor U. S. Grant, of Northwestern University, has expressed his opinion to the writer in these words: "It seems to me that, viewed in an abstract way, the Genesis statement of vegetation appearing before animal life is not far from correct." [12] The Book of Genesis, p. 25. [13] Natural Theology, Vol. I, pp. 229, 230. [14] History of the Old Covenant, Vol. I, p. cxxix. [15] The Testimony of the Rocks, Lecture IV. [16] Reconciliation of Science and Religion, pp. 356ff.; compare also Pre-Adamites, _passim_. [17] Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science, _passim_. [18] Bibliotheca Sacra, 1885, pp. 201ff. [19] The Conflict of Truth, pp. 162ff. [20] Kurtz, Miller, Dawson, Dana, and the rest. [21] Expositor, 1886, p. 38. [22] The writer wants it clearly understood that an "ideal," harmony, as described above, can be established. He is equally certain, however, that the harmony cannot be carried into details. [23] Psa. 19. 1, 2. [24] Expository Times, October, 1907, p. 20. [25] See above, Chapter I, p. 12. [26] Presbyterian Review, 1881, p. 239. [27] Marcus Dods, The Book of Genesis, pp. 4, 5. [28] Presbyterian Review, 1881, p. 239. [29] Expository Times, October, 1907, p. 20. {65} [30] Surely, there is not the slightest claim in Scripture that Moses or any other biblical writer received divine information concerning the beginnings of the universe; nor is there anything to support the assumption that the account of creation was supernaturally revealed to Adam, and that from him it was transmitted word for word through the families of the pious antediluvians, of Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., until it was finally received and committed to writing by Moses. [31] The Book of Genesis, p. 5. [32] H. E. Ryle, The Early Narratives of Genesis, pp. 5, 6. [33] Biblical Criticism and Modern Thought, p. 90. [34] Astronomy in the Old Testament, p. 1. [35] 2 Tim. 3. 15-17; on the permanent value and significance of the Genesis narratives; see also below, pp. 234ff. {66} CHAPTER III THE OLD TESTAMENT AND MODERN CRITICISM No careful observer can doubt that modern criticism has exerted a marked influence upon the attitude of many Christian people toward the Bible. Both those in sympathy with new ideas and those opposed to them frequently speak of the crisis which this criticism has brought about. "It does seem," says John E. McFadyen, a believer in the methods and results of modern criticism, "that the Church to-day in all her branches is face to face with a crisis of the most serious kind."[1] On the other hand, John Smith, a determined opponent of criticism, writes concerning the conclusions of the latter: "They conflict with the profoundest certitudes of the faith, must inevitably alter the foundation on which from the beginning our holy religion has stood before the world, and, consequently, so far as a theory can, must obstruct her mission and abridge her influence."[2] Whether the crisis is as acute as is here implied or not, there seems to be much concern among devout believers in the Bible about the bearing of modern criticism upon the value of the book they dearly love. In the nature {67} of the case, limitation of space forbids an exhaustive discussion of this interesting subject here. There are, however, three questions which are worthy of serious consideration: (1) What is modern criticism? (2) What are the more important conclusions of criticism that have secured wide recognition? (3) What is the bearing of these conclusions, if true, upon the Christian view of the Old Testament? What, then, is biblical criticism? It is defined by Nash as "the free study of all the facts,"[3] which definition McFadyen expands so as to read, "the free and reverent study of all the biblical facts."[4] Criticism is _study_, which means careful investigation rather than superficial reading followed by hasty or unfounded conclusions. The investigation is _free_ in the sense that though it is not disrespectful to traditional beliefs, it is not prevented by them from marking out new paths if the facts so demand. It is _reverent_ because it deals with a book that has played a unique part in the religious life and thought of many centuries, and has been received as a book in which the voice of God may be heard. It is primarily a study of the _facts_ presented by the book, not of theories or speculations, though in the study of these facts much may be learned from the theories of the past, and the study may give rise to new theories. In order to be {68} thoroughly scientific, it must have due regard for all the facts in the case. For convenience sake it has become customary to distinguish four phases of Old Testament, or biblical, criticism: (1) Textual Criticism; (2) Linguistic Criticism; (3) Literary Criticism; and (4) Historical Criticism. Close students of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament have been compelled to admit that even the oldest Hebrew manuscripts now known are not free from errors and blemishes, and it is the office of textual criticism to remove such errors by the use of all legitimate methods and means and to restore the _ipsissima verba_ of the author. The presence of corruptions in the text is established by facts like these: (1) There are passages in which the text as it stands cannot be translated without violence to the laws of grammar, or, which are irreconcilable with the context or with other passages. For example, in 1 Sam. 3. 1 the Authorized Version reads, "Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel." This translation does violence to the laws of Hebrew grammar. The Hebrew reads, literally, "The son of a year was Saul in his reigning," which may be rendered, "Saul was a year old when he began to reign." The narratives concerning events in the life of Saul before he became king make it clear that this statement is not correct. Perhaps the scribe, in writing the {69} formula, which is the usual formula for stating a king's age at his accession, left a space for the numeral to be filled in later, and forgot the omission; or the numeral has accidentally dropped out. In this case, it is the duty of textual criticism to supply, if possible, the age of Saul when he was made king. In the absence of all external evidence the textual critic must fall back upon conjecture. This the translators of the Revised Version did, for in the English Revised Version we find in brackets the word "thirty," in the American Revised Version "forty." In this special case the assured results of textual criticism are purely negative, in that they have established the fact that the present text cannot be correct. The attempt to restore the original text rests upon conjecture. (2) Parallel passages differ in such a manner as to make it certain that the variations are largely due to textual corruption. A good illustration is seen in Psa. 18, when compared with 2 Sam. 22. These two passages were undoubtedly identical in the beginning; but even the oldest existing manuscripts show more than seventy variants between the two chapters. (3) Some of the ancient versions contain readings which often bear a strong stamp of probability and remove or lessen the difficulties of the Hebrew text. For example, in Josh. 9. 4, where the Hebrew reads, "And they {70} went and made as if they had been ambassadors," the Septuagint reads, "And they went and provisioned themselves." The latter reading is supported by nearly all the ancient versions, and seems more probable than that of the Hebrew text. Another illustration of a similar character is found in Psa. 22. 16c, which is translated by both the Authorized and the Revised Version, "They pierced my hands and my feet." This, however, is not a translation of the Hebrew at all, for it reads, "Like a lion, my hands and my feet." In this case the New Testament, as well as the Latin and Syriac translations, supports the reading of the Septuagint. Passages like these, in which the text has evidently suffered in the course of transmission, might be multiplied a hundredfold, and it is generally considered a legitimate ambition to attempt the restoration of the Hebrew text to its original form. Linguistic criticism deals with difficult and obscure passages. Sometimes the meaning of single words or phrases is uncertain, as, for example, in Isa. 53. 1, which reads, in the Authorized Version, "Who hath believed our report?" The margin gives as alternatives for "report" the words "doctrine" and "hearing." The Revised Version reads, "Who hath believed our message?" with a marginal note, "Or, _that which we have heard_." In form the word translated "message" {71} is a passive participle, meaning, literally, "that which has been heard." Surely, no one would consider "report," "doctrine," "hearing," "message," etc., synonymous. It is the duty of linguistic criticism to determine the exact meaning of the word. Sometimes grammatical constructions are ambiguous. Very familiar are the words in Isa. 6. 3, "Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." The margin suggests as an alternative for the last clause, "the fullness of the whole earth is his glory," which might mean something entirely different from the ordinary rendering. There are other passages, some among the sublimest prophetic utterances, in which it is by no means clear whether the reference is to the past or to the present or to the future. There is, indeed, plenty of room for the most painstaking work of the linguistic critic. The literary criticism concerns itself with the literary history of Old Testament books. The Bible may be more than a human production, but in outward form it has the appearance of an ordinary work of literature; and, so far as its history as a collection of literary productions is concerned, it has not escaped the fortunes or misfortunes of other ancient literary works. It is a well-known fact that extra-biblical books, religious and secular, have come down from the {72} distant past bearing the names of men who cannot have been their authors; for example, the Gospel of Peter, or the Ascension of Isaiah. Some ancient books have been interpolated and added to from time to time; for example, the Sibylline Oracles, the religious books of the Hindus. Some ancient books are compilations rather than original productions; for example, the Diatessaron of Tatian, or the religious books of the Babylonians, which give abundant evidence of compilation. The discoveries of these phenomena in extra-biblical books naturally raised the question whether similar phenomena might not be found in the books of the Old Testament. It is the duty of literary criticism to throw light on these questions; to decide whether all the Old Testament books are rightly ascribed to the men whose names they bear, whether they are original productions or compilations from earlier material, and whether any of the books have received additions or interpolations in the course of their literary history. Hand in hand with literary criticism goes historical criticism. The student of Old Testament history seeks to trace the development of the history of Israel by combining in a scientific manner the historical material scattered throughout the Old Testament. In doing this he is compelled to determine the value of the sources {73} from which he gathers information. To do this is the duty of historical criticism. It inquires, for example, whether the records are approximately contemporaneous with the events they record; if so, whether the writers were qualified to observe the events accurately, or to record and interpret them correctly; and, if the accounts were written a considerable time subsequent to the events recorded, whether they were colored in any way by the beliefs and practices of the time in which they were written or compiled. This line of investigation is almost thrust upon the Bible student by a comparison of the books of Kings with the books of Chronicles, which in many portions cover the same ground; and yet, there are marked differences between the descriptions of the two. These are the different phases of criticism. Ordinarily, however, only two kinds are distinguished: the lower, or textual criticism, and the higher criticism. The aims of textual criticism are described above. The higher criticism combines the functions of literary and historical criticism, while linguistic criticism is considered a part of exegesis or interpretation, not a separate branch of Bible study. The legitimacy of textual criticism is universally recognized. Its importance in a comprehensive study of the Bible is clearly implied in these words of W. H. Green, a {74} generation ago the best known defender of the traditional view of the Old Testament: "Its function is to determine, by a careful examination of all the evidence bearing upon the case, the condition of the sacred text, the measure of its correspondence with, or divergence from, the exact language of the inspired penman, and by means of all available helps to remove the errors which may have gained admission to it from whatever cause, and to restore the text to its pristine purity as it came from the hands of the original writers.... It is not an arbitrary but a judicial process, based on fixed and intelligible principles and conducted in a determinate manner, in which all the evidence is diligently collected, thoroughly sifted, and accurately weighed, and the decision given in accordance with the ascertained facts."[5] No exception is taken to linguistic criticism as a legitimate part of exegesis, but at the mention of higher criticism many good men and women become greatly disturbed, for they seem to look upon it as a handmaid of Satan. A few expressions will illustrate the feeling with which some regard this kind of study: One writer says, "Neither hard times nor higher criticism nor infidelity ... has any effect upon the sale of the Divine Scriptures." He evidently places higher criticism on a par with infidelity. Again: "The so-called higher critics, it is well known, are constantly {75} trying to shake the faith of the Christian by telling him that the books of the Bible were not written by the men whose names are usually given as the human authors." Another writer declares that the higher critics allege that the Bible is "the off-spring of incompetence and fraud." One more quotation may suffice: "Higher criticism tends invariably ... to absolute rationalism and the discrediting of inspiration." Now, if higher criticism is on a par with infidelity, if it declares the Bible to be the "offspring of incompetence and fraud," if it constantly tries to shake the faith of Christians, if it tends invariably to absolute rationalism and discredits inspiration--if it does these things, then the Christian Church may well look upon it with dread and alarm. Whether or not higher criticism is guilty of the things charged against it will probably appear in the further discussion, for from now on chief emphasis will be placed upon the bearing of the higher criticism on the Christian view of the Old Testament. First of all, it may be well to define, if possible, the term "higher criticism." It is too often assumed by those who should know better, that the adjective "higher" exhibits the arrogance of those using it, who claim thereby an unwarranted precedence for their methods. This assumption is erroneous, for the adjective is used {76} simply to distinguish this kind of criticism from the lower or textual criticism, which, since its purpose is to fix the exact text of a book, necessarily precedes the application of the processes of the higher criticism. The designation may be unfortunate, but thus far no clearer or less objectionable substitute has been found. But what is higher criticism? Higher criticism may be defined as a process of scientific investigation for the purpose of determining the origin, original form, and intended value of literary productions. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that higher criticism is nothing more than a process of study or investigation. It is not a set of conclusions respecting the books of the Bible; it is not a philosophical principle underlying the investigation; it is not a certain attitude of mind toward the Bible; it is not a theory of inspiration nor a denial of inspiration. Higher criticism is none of these things. It is simply a process of study to determine certain truths concerning literary productions. Again, higher criticism, as a process of study, is not confined to the study of the Bible. It was applied to extra-biblical books long before there was any thought of applying it to the Old or New Testament. Eichhorn, who first applied the term to Old Testament study, has this to say: "I have been obliged to bestow the greatest {77} amount of labor on a hitherto entirely unworked field: the investigation of the inner constitution of the separate books of the Old Testament by the aid of the higher criticism, _a new name to no humanist_."[6] Once more: the higher criticism as such is not opposed to traditional views. In the words of Professor Zenos: "Its relation to the old and the new views respectively is one of indifference. It may result in the confirmation of the old, or in the substitution of the new for the old.... It is no respecter of antiquity or novelty; its aim is to discover and verify the truth, to bring facts to light whether these validate or invalidate previously held opinions."[7] It is a grave mistake, therefore, to attribute to higher criticism an essentially destructive purpose. In reality, it has confirmed traditional views at least as often as it has shown them to be untenable. It does not approach its investigations even with a suspicion of the correctness of tradition; it starts out with the tradition, it accepts it as correct until the process of investigation has brought to light facts and indications which cannot be harmonized with tradition. In such a case criticism believes itself bound to supply a satisfactory explanation of the facts, though such explanation may be contrary to the claims of tradition. Any student Who approaches the inquiry in a spirit {78} different from that here indicated introduces into his investigation elements that are not a part of higher criticism as such, and the latter cannot and should not be held accountable for them. That it is desirable to answer questions concerning the origin, form, and value of biblical books no one will dispute. C. M. Mead, exceedingly cautious and conservative, says: "I regard the higher criticism as not only legitimate but as useful, and indiscriminate condemnation of it as foolish. Genuine criticism is nothing but the search after truth, and of this there cannot be too much."[8] No literary production in the Bible or outside of the Bible can be fully understood unless the interpreter has a full knowledge of its origin, its author, and its first readers. When, where, by whom, to whom, under what circumstances, for what purpose?--an answer to these and similar questions will wonderfully illuminate the message of a book. A knowledge of the form of the writing is also essential to a proper understanding of the same. Is it history or poetry? is it narrative or prediction? or any one of the various kinds of literature? In a similar manner it is important, though not always easy, to know the value a given literary work was intended to have. Is it to be understood as literal history? Is its essential purpose didactic, without special regard for historic accuracy in {79} every detail? Are the religious and ethical truths taught intended to be final, or do they mark a stage in the development toward perfection and finality? These and other important questions of a similar nature the higher criticism seeks to answer. Some one may say, "Scholars in all ages have sought to answer these questions; why is it, then, that modern higher criticism reaches conclusions concerning the origin, form, and value of Old Testament writings not dreamed of a few centuries ago?" This is a legitimate question, but the answer is not far to seek. It may best be answered by asking another question: Men in all ages have studied the earth, the sun, the stars, and other phenomena of nature; how is it that modern scientists have reached conclusions unknown and undreamed of a few centuries ago? The modern higher criticism, like all modern science, is the outgrowth of the awakening during the Middle Ages which revolutionized the whole world of science, literature, and religion. The Renaissance aroused men's interest in literature and science, the Reformation aroused men's interest in religion as a personal experience. In the Renaissance men began to think for themselves in matters of science and literature; in the Reformation they began to think for themselves in matters of religion. It was inevitable that {80} the awakening of thought and the substitution of reason for authority in science, secular literature, and secular history should ultimately affect sacred history and sacred literature as well.[9] Chronologically, it is true, the work of higher criticism began even before the time of the Renaissance among Spanish Jews. But this Jewish criticism did not at the time exert any influence in the Christian Church. Only after criticism had secured a foothold among Christian scholars were the results of Jewish investigation made use of. In the same way the purely negative conclusions of some of the early Christian heretics, based upon dogmatic considerations rather than historical investigations, have no organic connection with the investigations and results of modern criticism. It is perfectly correct, therefore, to state that the modern higher criticism had its birth in the great awakening of the Renaissance and the Reformation. They gave to it a life and an impetus which from that day to this have not abated in the least. Some of the reformers themselves and their coworkers advanced views which later investigation has confirmed and expanded. Carlstadt, for example, the friend and coworker of Luther, published in 1520 an essay in which he argued, on the ground that the style of narration in the account of Moses's death which, he believed, was not written by Moses, was {81} the same as in the preceding chapters, that it might be held that Moses did not write the entire Pentateuch. The freedom with which Luther criticized both the Old and the New Testament books is well known. Concerning the Old Testament, he admitted that the books of Kings were more credible than Chronicles. "What would it matter," he asks, "if Moses did not write the Pentateuch?" He thinks it probable that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Ecclesiastes received their final form at the hands of redactors. The testimony of the psalm titles he does not regard as conclusive. He admits chronological difficulties and contradictions in the statements of historical facts. He concedes that we do not always hear God himself speaking in the Old Testament. Esther might well have been left out of the canon, and First Maccabees might have been included. If this is not criticism, what is? The case of Luther has been mentioned simply to show the absurdity of the claim that modern higher criticism is the outgrowth of German rationalism or English deism or infidelity; or that a man who pursues Old Testament study on the line of the higher criticism is necessarily an infidel, a rationalist, or a fool. True, there have been and are those out of sympathy with Christianity or the Bible who have employed critical methods in carrying on their anti-Christian warfare; but {82} such misuse of critical methods no more proves the illegitimacy of this process of investigation than the employment of a surgical instrument, which, in the hands of a skillful surgeon, may be the means of saving a diseased organism, by a murderer to carry out his destructive aim, would prove that the use of all surgical instruments is unscientific or criminal. The vast majority of the so-called higher critics do not deserve the denunciations heaped upon them by some who consider themselves sole defenders of the faith. Most of them are Christian men whose loyalty to Christ, whose devotion to the truth, and whose sincerity of motive no one has reason or right to question or doubt. It is exceedingly unfortunate that many writers have failed to recognize this fact. No one acquainted with the history of biblical criticism can accept the following as a true characterization of serious critics: "I mean by professional critic, one who spends his time and strength in trying to find some error or discrepancy in the Bible; and, if he thinks he does, rejoiceth as 'one who findeth great spoil'; who hopes, while he works, that he may succeed, thinking thereby to obtain a name and notoriety for himself."[10] In a similar spirit Sir Robert Anderson speaks of "the foreign infidel type of scholar ... as ignorant of man and his needs as a monk, and as ignorant of God and his ways as a monkey."[11] {83} Such abuse is unchristian, and no good can be accomplished by it. The truth of the matter is more adequately expressed by James Orr when he says: "There are, one must own, few outstanding scholars at the present day on the Continent or in Britain--in America it is somewhat different--who do not in greater or less degree accept conclusions regarding the Old Testament of the kind ordinarily denominated critical. Yet among the foremost are many whom no one who understands their work would dream as classing as other than believing, and defenders of revealed religion."[12] Then, after mentioning a number of scholars, he describes them as "all more or less critics, but all convinced upholders of supernatural revelation." But even among these Christian, evangelical, higher critics a distinction must be made between two classes. The one may be called, for want of a better name, traditional, because its adherents insist that their investigations on the line of the higher criticism have confirmed in all essentials the positions held during many centuries. It should be noted, however, that many scholars who are sometimes quoted as upholders of the traditional view are ready to make many concessions to those who believe that the traditional views are no longer tenable.[13] On the other hand is a class of critics which may be called nontraditional, critics who claim that {84} their investigations, while confirming the truth of many traditional positions, compel them in other cases to set aside the traditional views in favor of some more in accord with the facts in the case. It may be difficult to state all the causes responsible for the differences in the conclusions of these two classes of critics. However, the writings of some scholars in the former class seem to show that the authors are influenced, to some extent at least, by the fear that further concessions would affect the Christian theory of inspiration. Another cause may be found in the fact that the present generation of Old Testament scholars received its training largely at the hands of those accustomed to the traditional viewpoint; the influence of this early training manifests itself to some extent in the present attitude. A more important cause, however, is supplied by the nature of the evidence upon the basis of which these critical questions must be settled. Mathematical demonstration is impossible in very many cases. The critic must be qualified to estimate probabilities, and various degrees of probability, depending upon the nature of the grounds on which it rests. In the nature of the case, the personal element enters into the estimate of the degree of probability. What to some may appear a high degree of probability, or amount to practical certainty, may to another investigator, perhaps less familiar with {85} the facts in the case, appear of less value and lead him to reject the conclusion entirely. As long as this condition of affairs continues--and there is no reason to suppose that it ever will be otherwise--perfect agreement among critical investigators need not be expected; but a fair and thorough examination of the facts by all must be insisted upon. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the views of the traditional class of critics, for theirs are the views with which most Christians now living have been familiar since their childhood. In order to understand, however, the bearing of the nontraditional criticism upon the Christian view of the Old Testament it is necessary to consider the most important conclusions of the nontraditional class of evangelical criticism; and to these conclusions we may now turn our attention. 1. Modern criticism has placed into clearer light the progressive character of Old Testament revelation. God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, but man has taken many advance steps; and as he advanced his spiritual capacities and powers of apprehension increased. This growth enabled him to secure, from generation to generation and from century to century, during the Old Testament dispensation, an ever-broadening and deepening conception of the nature and character of God and of his will. The Old {86} Testament books, says Kent, are "the harmonious and many-sided record of ten centuries of strenuous human endeavor to know and to do the will of God, and of his full and gracious response to that effort."[14] 2. Formerly the beginning of the Old Testament canon was traced to Moses. He was thought not only to have written the books of the Pentateuch but to have given to them official sanction as canonical books. To these books were gradually added the other sacred writings of the Old Testament on the authority of the divinely chosen successors of Moses, like Joshua, Samuel, and the prophets. The close of the canon was ascribed to Ezra, who, according to later views, had to share the honor with the men of the Great Synagogue. Modern criticism assigns new dates to some of the Old Testament books; it believes that the exile was a period of great spiritual and intellectual activity, and a number of books are placed subsequent to Ezra and Nehemiah, which in itself would imply a denial of the view that the canon was finally closed in the days of Ezra. The modern critical view is that the Old Testament books were canonized--whatever the dates of their writing--gradually and at a comparatively late period. The canonization of the Law is placed at about B.C. 400, that of the Prophets between B.C. 250 and B.C. 180, while the third {87} division of the Jewish canon, the Writings, is believed to have acquired canonical authority during the second and first centuries B.C. 3. Formerly the order of the Old Testament books determined largely the view of the development of Hebrew religion. Just as in the New Testament the Gospels occupy first place, the Epistles being expositions of the principles laid down in the Gospels, so it was thought that the Law of the Pentateuch, coming from the hands of Moses, served as the basis of the religious development of the Hebrews during subsequent centuries. The prophets were looked upon chiefly as expounders and interpreters of this Law. Modern criticism has introduced a change of viewpoint. It does not deny the pre-exilic existence of all law, or of sacrifice, or of a ceremonial, or of other priestly elements, but it believes that in the religious development of Israel, the pre-exilic period was preëminently the period of the prophets, while the religious life during the post-exilic period was dominated by the priests, the priestly type of religion finding literary expression in the ceremonial system embodied in the Pentateuch. 4. According to modern criticism, compilation had a prominent place in the production of Old Testament books. The composite character of the Pentateuch is touched upon in the next paragraph, but, in addition, it is believed that {88} there is sufficient evidence to establish the composite character of practically all the other historical books. McFadyen accurately represents the modern viewpoint when he says, "In the light of all these facts the general possibility, if not the practical certainty, of the compositeness of the historical books may be conceded."[15] Evidences of compilation are seen also in several of the prophetic books. The assignment of Isaiah and Zechariah to more than one author each furnishes perhaps the best known examples, but other prophetic books are similarly divided. 5. The Pentateuch is no longer assigned in its entirety to Moses; it is thought, rather, to contain material selected from four different sources, which the compiler had before him in writing.[16] These documents did not reach their final form until some time subsequent to Moses, but all of them contained ancient material, much of it going back to the time of Moses, some of it even to pre-Mosaic days. Among the contents of the Pentateuch special attention is called to three legal codes--the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, and the Priestly Code--belonging to different periods in Hebrew history, and reflecting different stages in the religious and social development of the nation. The Deuteronomic Code, in some form, is believed to have been the basis of the reforms instituted by Josiah {89} and to have been written most probably during the early part of the seventh century. On these general questions respecting the Pentateuch there seems to be general agreement among critical scholars; on the other hand, there is wide divergence of opinion concerning points of detail, such as the chronological order in which the several documents reached their final form, their exact dates, the manner and time of their compilation, the detailed distribution of the material among the several sources, etc. The differences of opinion on these points are due to the fact that the data upon the basis of which the problems must be solved are not sufficiently numerous or decisive. 6. Doubt is thrown upon the authorship of a number of Old Testament books, or parts of books, which have been assigned to certain authors by both Jewish and Christian tradition. As already stated, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is denied; the book of Lamentation is taken away from Jeremiah; parts of Isaiah and Zechariah and the whole of Daniel are assigned to persons other than the prophets bearing these names. The accuracy of the psalm titles is questioned; few of the psalms, if any, are assigned to David or his age; and most of the psalms--by some scholars all--are placed in the post-exilic period. A conservative scholar, like W. T. Davison, is not willing to say more than "that {90} from ten to twenty psalms--including 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 18, 23, 24, 32, and perhaps 101 and 110--may have come down to us from David's pen, but that the number can hardly be greater, and may be still less."[17] The same uncertainty is believed to exist respecting the authorship of Proverbs and of Ecclesiastes, which is considered one of the latest books in the Old Testament canon. Other books, like Job, which in the absence of external testimony were formerly assigned to an early date, are now placed in the later period of Hebrew history. In addition to these results touching upon matters practically unrecognized before, the higher criticism has emphasized some truths which, though known, exerted little, if any, influence upon the conception or study of the Old Testament. Of these perhaps the most important are, first, that the Old Testament is not so much a single book as a library consisting of many books of different dates and authorship, though all these books may be held together by one common spirit and purpose;[18] and, second, that in these books are represented practically all the various forms and kinds of literary composition that can be found in the literatures of other nations. These are perhaps the most important conclusions reached by the nontraditional higher critics. Some may not be willing to admit that {91} these conclusions are well founded, and, indeed, the cautious among the critics very candidly state that in most cases scientific demonstration is impossible, that probability of varying degrees is an important element in the conclusions; but unless one has followed those who have reached the conclusions into every detail of their investigation, he is hardly competent to pass a valid judgment. And it is well to remember what seems to be an indisputable fact, that with very few exceptions Old Testament experts everywhere agree essentially on these results, and that an ever-increasing number of serious Old Testament students whose competency and sincerity cannot be doubted feel compelled to accept these conclusions, convinced that the traditional views cannot be maintained without numerous modifications. This fact may not establish the truth of these conclusions; nevertheless, it may serve as a sufficient reason for the consideration of another question: Should the truth of the conclusions enumerated be established beyond a possibility of doubt, what would be the effect upon the Christian conception of the Old Testament? What would become of its inspiration or authority, of the supernatural in its history, of the work and character of Moses, Isaiah, or David; and, perhaps most important of all, what effect would this have upon the authority of Jesus Christ himself? {92} The most important and vital of these questions may be considered first. How do the conclusions of the nontraditional higher criticism affect the authority of Jesus Christ? This question arises chiefly in connection with investigations into the authorship of Old Testament books, especially of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Isaiah. It is asserted that since Christ quotes and refers to passages from the books bearing the names of Moses, David, and Isaiah, apparently as if they had been written by these men, any claim that these passages were not written by the authors mentioned is an indication of unbelief, an insult to Christ, and a denial of his authority. "If Moses did not write the Pentateuch," says L. W. Munhall, "or any portion of it, and the highest critics (Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit) declare he did, it would be a lie. It would be none the less a lie, even though the Jews held traditionally that Moses was the author of these books. The testimony of the _Highest Critics_ is absolutely unerringly and eternally true, and he who hesitates to receive it as against all other testimonies is disloyal to the truth."[19] Clearly, this statement is based upon the assumption that Jesus gave deliberate decisions on questions of authorship, which assumption cannot be substantiated. In the first place, it is well to note that in less than one fifth of the New Testament {93} quotations from the Old Testament is a personal name connected with the quotation; Jesus himself, in quoting from the Pentateuch and other Old Testament books, frequently omits all reference to the alleged author, which shows that he considered the question of authorship of no special significance in comparison with the truth taught. Moreover, in some cases at least, the exact form of quotation is doubtful. Compare, for example, Matt. 15. 4, "God said," with Mark 7. 10, "Moses said"; and Luke 20. 37, "Moses showed, in the place concerning the Bush," with Mark 12. 26, "Have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the Bush how God spake unto him," with Matt. 22. 31, which, referring to the same statement, introduces it by, "Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?" Which one of the evangelists has preserved the actual words of Jesus? But even admitting that Jesus used in these and other passages a personal name, does this imply a decision respecting authorship? In extra-biblical literature no one would raise serious objection to the use of the name of a man to designate a book without implying that the man named was the author of the entire book. This is done also in the New Testament. In the sermon of Peter, "Samuel" evidently is used in the sense of "book of Samuel," for the reference {94} is not to an utterance of Samuel but of Nathan,[20] and it cannot imply authorship, for some of the events recorded in First Samuel and those in Second Samuel occurred after Samuel's death. In the Epistle to the Hebrews,[21] a psalm is referred to as "David," which is not even by the title assigned to the great king of Israel.[22] Might it not be, therefore, that "Moses" was used as a designation of a book, without a thought of authorship. This seems to be the case in 2 Cor. 3. 15: "Whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart."[23] All these facts suggest that while Jesus frequently quotes the Pentateuch, and in some cases connects the name of Moses with it, _he never does so to prove that Moses wrote it_. W. T. Davison describes the situation correctly when he writes, "A study of the whole use of the Old Testament made by Christ in his teaching shows that the questions of date and authorship with which criticism is chiefly concerned were not before the mind of our Lord as he spoke, nor was it his object to pronounce upon them."[24] But even admitting that the references of Jesus imply in some cases a recognition of authorship, the question still remains whether the few passages quoted carry with them the authorship of the entire book from which the quotations are made. There are even some conservative scholars who {95} answer this question in the negative. After enumerating some of the passages referred to by Jesus as coming from Moses, C. H. H. Wright continues: "All, however, that can be fairly deduced from such statements is, the Pentateuch contains portions written by Moses. It does not follow that the five books as a whole were written by that lawgiver."[25] Though this explanation seems satisfactory to some, others consider it somewhat forced and unnatural, and they are inclined to give different interpretations of the words of Jesus. Many hold that in his references to Old Testament books Jesus accommodated himself to the usage of the Jews without indorsing their views or giving expression to his own, even though he knew that the commonly held opinions as to the authorship of certain Old Testament books were erroneous. Those who advocate this view believe that their attitude in no wise dishonors the Master. Indeed, they say, one cannot easily see what other course he could have taken. Jesus had come to reveal the Father, to bring a fallen race into harmony with a holy God. Surely, the task was great, and there was but little time in which to accomplish it. If he had turned aside from his chief purpose to settle scientific and literary questions which were not under discussion among the people, he would have aroused popular {96} opposition and thus have hindered his chief work. In no case do his references imply that he desired to pronounce an authoritative critical judgment, and in no case does the value of the quotation depend upon its authorship. Looking at the matter, therefore, from a pedagogical standpoint, it would seem that, in view of his important mission in the world, he was compelled to accommodate himself to the views of the people in all matters not essential to his work. This view seems entirely satisfactory to many sincere Christian believers. There are, however, those who maintain that it would not have been legitimate for Jesus thus to accommodate himself to the usage of the people if he had known that their views were not in accord with the facts; nevertheless, they insist that his utterances do not settle purely literary questions. They believe that Jesus shared the views of the people, that he actually thought that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, and Isaiah, the whole of the book bearing his name; but that this was a limitation of knowledge on his part. And they further insist that this attitude toward Jesus in no wise affects the supreme and final authority of the Christ over the lives of men. The entire life of the Master, they say, shows that he regarded his mission as spiritual; he did not come to correct all errors, but merely those touching religion and {97} ethics; and even here he did not give detailed specific rules. In many cases he simply laid down great principles, which in time might be worked out and applied to the details of human activity. He did not abolish slavery, he made no efforts to correct errors in science; why should he correct erroneous views respecting literary and critical questions? These were outside of his immediate sphere of interest. His knowledge or ignorance in these secondary matters does not necessarily involve his knowledge or authority in essentials.[26] Again, while Christ was God, he was also truly man. This union of the divine with the human, if real, must have brought some limitations. And the New Testament clearly teaches that in some respects the powers of Christ were limited. His omnipotence was limited, else he could not have felt hunger, weariness, pain, etc. As strength was needed, it was supplied. It may have been there potentially, but not actually. Might it not have been the same with omniscience? In one case, at least, Jesus admits that his knowledge was limited: "But of that day or hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."[27] And, surely, that which, according to this admission, was hidden from Jesus was, as compared with a question of the authorship of a biblical book, of infinitely greater importance. It would seem, therefore, {98} that B. P. Raymond is right when he says: "To affirm that he had knowledge of the critical questions which agitate Christian scholars to-day is to deny that he was made like unto his brethren. It is to compromise the reality of his humanity and to start on the road that leads to docetism. Fairbairn's conclusions are just; 'The humanity of the Saviour must be absolutely real.'"[28] There are, then, three explanations of the references of Christ to the authorship of Old Testament books, each one of which seems perfectly fair, natural, and, above all, scriptural; and each one shows that his utterances do not finally settle purely literary questions. This conclusion, since it is in perfect accord with the New Testament, can in no wise be construed as an insult to the Christ, nor does it affect in the least the authority of Jesus in matters religious and ethical. What is said here of the words of Jesus is equally true, with some slight modifications, of similar New Testament references coming, not from Jesus directly, but from the authors of the New Testament books. From the consideration of this question of vital interest we may turn to another, also of great importance, namely, what is the effect of critical conclusions upon the belief in the inspiration of the Old Testament, in the supernatural in its history, and in its authority? All these questions {99} center in one, for inspiration implies the presence of a supernatural element, and the authority of the Old Testament depends upon the reality of its inspiration. Hence the real question is, Have the conclusions of the higher criticism disproved, or in any serious way affected, the reality of the inspiration of the Old Testament writers? This inquiry must be answered with an emphatic "No." Inspiration does not depend upon the fact that a certain definite individual is responsible for a writing. A book is inspired because God is back of it and in it, and not because a certain man wrote it. Nor does belief in inspiration depend upon the knowledge of the human author, else how could Christians believe in the inspiration of the men who wrote books like the Epistle to the Hebrews, the book of Job, the books of Samuel, and other biblical books whose authors are not named? Moreover, an inspired book does not lose its inspiration because it is discovered that the human agent inspired is one different from the man to whom tradition has been accustomed to assign the book. Would the laws of the Pentateuch be any less divine if it should be proved that they were the product of the experience of the chosen people from the time of Moses to the exile? Would the Psalms cease to lift us into the presence of God, if it should be demonstrated that most of them came {100} from a period later than David? Is the book of Job less majestic and sublime because we know not the time or place of its birth? Are the Proverbs less instructive because criticism claims that they do not all come from the son of David?[29] Once more: inspiration is not confined to any form of literature; a parable may be as truly inspired as history; and the inspiration of a book does not vanish when it is assigned to one form of literature rather than to another. The conclusions of the legitimate higher criticism in no wise tend toward a denial of the inspiration of the Old Testament. Inspiration, the special divine providence over Israel, God's interference in the history of the chosen people, would stand out as prominently as ever if every claim of the higher criticism should be proved true. Most critical scholars are ready to indorse the words of Professor Sanday: "My experience is that criticism leads straight up to the supernatural, and not away from it."[30] But if this be true, how can any authority which rightly belongs to the Old Testament be affected by criticism? This authority belongs to it by virtue of its inspiration, and the voice of God is not silenced by the conclusions of modern criticism. "But," some one will say, "if this is true how is it that criticism has been and still is condemned unsparingly by many men whose sincerity {101} and love for the truth cannot be called into question?" There are several reasons for this. In the first place even some very intelligent men seem to misunderstand both the purpose and the claims of the higher criticism. Another reason is that there are even among the evangelical critics those who lack judgment, and who permit themselves to draw inferences unwarranted by the facts in the case. As a consequence, ill-informed persons have concluded that all the results of criticism are unwarranted by the facts. A third reason is that some critics are arrogant and obnoxious in the presentation of their views, and, therefore, bring the entire process into disrepute. A fourth, and perhaps the most important, reason is that in addition to the legitimate higher criticism discussed in the preceding pages there is an illegitimate criticism which very frequently, though erroneously, is thought to be the only kind of criticism practiced. This criticism also studies the facts, but--and this is its distinguishing feature--its investigations are colored by certain presuppositions, such as the belief in a materialistic or deistic evolution, in the presence of which there is no room for inspiration, or for the supernatural, or for miracles, in the Christian sense of these terms. This kind of criticism is not legitimate, because it is not scientific, proceeding as it does on the basis of an unestablished, {102} unchristian, and impossible view of the universe. But higher critics belonging to this class are few in number, and fairness and Christian courtesy demand that in any discussion of the subject clear distinctions should be made between this criticism and that process of investigation which is not only legitimate, but indispensable. It is also well to bear in mind that the conclusions of the illegitimate criticism will never be disproved by denunciation, but, rather, by the careful and painstaking labors of those critics who approach their studies without these unwarranted assumptions. One more question remains to be considered, namely, What becomes of the men from whom criticism takes away at least part of the writings traditionally connected with their names? Preëminent among these are Moses, Isaiah, and David. Moses is not, as is sometimes erroneously asserted, removed to the realm of myths.[31] To prove this assertion it is only necessary to quote the words of one who accepts the results of the higher criticism as set forth above: "Moses was the man who under divine direction 'hewed Israel from the rock.' Subsequent prophets and circumstances chiseled the rough bowlder into symmetrical form, but the glory of the creative act is rightly attributed to the first great Hebrew prophet. As a leader he not only created a nation but guided them through infinite {103} vicissitudes to a land where they might have a settled abode and develop into a stable power; in so doing he left upon his race the imprint of his own mighty personality. As a judge he set in motion forces which ultimately led to the incorporation of the principles of right in objective laws. As a priest he first gave definite form to the worship of Jehovah. As a prophet he gathered together all that was best in the faith of his age and race, and, fusing them, gave to his people a living religion. Under his enlightened guidance Israel became truly and forever the people of Jehovah. Through him the Divine revealed himself to Israel as their Deliverer, Leader, and Counselor--not afar off, but present; a God powerful and willing to succor his people, and, therefore, one to be trusted and loved as well as feared. As the acorn contains the sturdy oak in embryo, so the revelation through Moses was the germ which developed into the message of Israel to humanity."[32] Isaiah, though losing some of the sublimest passages in the book, is still the king among the prophets. In the words of Ewald, a pronounced advocate of the conclusions of modern criticism: "Of the other prophets all the more celebrated ones were distinguished by some special excellence and peculiar power, whether of speech or of deed; in Isaiah all the powers and all the beauties {104} of prophetic speech and deed combine to form a symmetrical whole; he is distinguished less by any special excellence than by the symmetry and perfection of all his parts. There are rarely combined in one individual the profoundest prophetic emotion and purest feeling, the most unwearied, successful, and consistent activity amid all the confusions and changes of life; and, lastly, true poetic genius and beauty of style, combined with force and irresistible power; yet this triad of powers we find realized in Isaiah as in no other prophet."[33] David, indeed, loses some of his halo, if many of the most beautiful psalms are taken from him, yet he remains the man after God's own heart. "According to his light, he served the Jehovah whom he knew with marvelous fidelity and constancy.... He ruled over the united Hebrew tribes as Jehovah's representative. In his name he fought the battles against Israel's foes, whom he regarded as Jehovah's also.... From the spoils which he won in his wars he provided the means wherewith to build a fitting dwelling place for the God of his nation. The priests found in him a generous patron, and prophets like Nathan were among his most trusted counselors. To do the will of Jehovah as it was revealed to him was the dominating principle of his life. More cannot be said of any one."[34] {105} A splendid summary of the bearing of modern evangelical criticism upon the Christian view of the Old Testament is given by Canon Driver: "It is not the case that critical conclusions are in conflict either with the Christian creeds or with the articles of the Christian faith. Those conclusions affect not the _fact_ of revelation but only its _form_. They help to determine the stages through which it passed, the different phases which it assumed, and the process by which the record of it was built up. They do not touch either the authority or the inspiration of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. They imply no change in respect to the divine attributes revealed in the Old Testament, no change in the lessons of human duty to be derived from it, no change as to the general position (apart from the interpretation of particular passages) that the Old Testament points forward prophetically to Christ. That both the religion of Israel itself and the record of its history embodied in the Old Testament are the work of men whose hearts have been touched and minds illuminated, in different degrees, by the Spirit of God is manifest."[35] But not only has criticism not taken away anything essential from the Bible; on the contrary, it has resulted in some distinct gains. The textual criticism has furnished the modern {106} student with a much more accurate text of the biblical books, while the linguistic criticism has established the interpretation of this text upon a firmer basis. The higher criticism also has made invaluable contributions toward a more adequate understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures. It has made impossible the arbitrary and, sometimes, unreasonable interpretations of scripture which in former ages have proved a serious detriment to religion and theology. It has restored to religious use some of the biblical books almost forgotten before, and endowed them with flesh and blood by throwing bright light upon the circumstances connected with their origin. It has made it possible to secure a "reasonable, probable, and even thrilling" view of the history and religion of Israel and of the steps by which the records of these grew up. Many of the moral, religious, and historical difficulties which served as effective weapons to skeptics in all ages have disappeared, and the weapons have been snatched from the enemies of the Bible. Many of the confusions and apparent discrepancies, which according to former theories presented insurmountable difficulties, have found a satisfactory explanation. "Higher criticism," says R. F. Horton, "so much dreaded by pious souls, is furnishing a conclusive answer to the untiring opponents of revelation."[36] Everyone knows {107} that the Bible has been bitterly attacked in the past, and that such attacks have not altogether ceased even now; but it is sometimes overlooked that in the majority of cases these attacks are made by men who are, or seem to be, lamentably ignorant of the attitude and results of modern critical study. Their arguments become "absolutely powerless against the modern historical interpretation of the Bible; and the more that interpretation underlies the teaching of the young, the more certain are those attacks to die a natural death."[37] There are, indeed, few Old Testament scholars who would not indorse the testimony of Professor A. S. Peake, given in a paper on "Permanent Results of Biblical Criticism," read before the Fourth Methodist Ecumenical Conference: "Speaking for myself, I may truthfully say that my sense of the value of Scripture, my interest in it, my attachment to it, have been almost indefinitely enhanced by the new attitude and new mode of study which criticism has brought to us." NOTES ON CHAPTER III [1] Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 1. [2] The Integrity of Scripture, p. 1. [3] The History of the Higher Criticism of the New Testament, p. 85. [4] Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 47. {108} [5] General Introduction to the Old Testament: The Text, pp. 162, 163. [6] J. G. Eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, Preface to Second Edition. [7] The Elements of the Higher Criticism, pp. 12, 13. [8] Christ and Criticism, Preface. [9] J. P. Peters, The Old Testament and the New Scholarship, p. 87. [10] L. W. Munhall, Anti-Higher Criticism, p. 9. For a discriminating study of the theological and philosophical bias of the more representative Old Testament critics, see Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1912, pp. 1ff. [11] The Bible and Modern Criticism, p. 19. [12] The Problem of the Old Testament, pp. 7, 8. [13] Some of these concessions are enumerated in J. E. McFadyen, Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, pp. 15ff. The Problem of the Old Testament, by James Orr, is often quoted as overthrowing entirely the positions of modern criticism regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch. If, however, one reads Orr's summary of the chief results of his own critical investigation (pp. 371ff.), the question may well be asked, Why should he be considered less of a higher critic than, for example, Wellhausen? [14] The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament, p. 30. [15] Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 143. [16] Even those who question the existence of four independent documents assume the activity of at least four different hands. [17] James Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 151. [18] See above, pp. 30ff. [19] The Highest Critics vs. The Higher Critics, pp. 7, 8. {109} [20] Acts 3. 24. The passage in the mind of the apostle seems to be 2 Sam. 7. 11-16. [21] Heb. 4. 7. [22] Psa. 95. [23] The origin of the designations Moses = Pentateuch, Samuel = books of Samuel, David = book of Psalms, must be explained, and can be explained; but as the mention of Samuel and David shows, it cannot always rest upon the fact of authorship, whatever the popular idea may have been. [24] James Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 151. [25] Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 76. [26] See above, p. 55. [27] Mark 13. 32. [28] M. S. Terry, Moses and the Prophets, p. 194. [29] C. A. Briggs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 26. [30] Quoted in J. E. McFadyen, Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 253. [31] Moses has, indeed, been removed by some investigators to the realm of myth, but not upon the basis of conclusions reached by the legitimate modern criticism. [32] C. F. Kent, A History of the Hebrew People, Vol. I, pp. 44, 45. [33] Prophets, English translation, Vol. II, p. 1. [34] C. F. Kent, A History of the Hebrew People, Vol. I, p. 167. [35] Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, pp. viii, ix. [36] Revelation and the Bible, p. 61. [37] J. E. McFadyen, Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 136. {110} CHAPTER IV THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ARCHEOLOGY A century ago the student of the world's history found it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to paint for himself a clear picture of events antedating B.C. 400. Concerning earlier periods, he was, aside from the Old Testament, practically without records that could claim contemporaneousness with the events recorded. But, one hundred years ago, men had commenced to test every statement, be it historical, or scientific, or theological, by severe canons of criticism, and if it could not stand the test, it was speedily rejected. One result of this tendency was to reject historical statements of the Bible when they could not be corroborated by reliable extra-biblical records. The nineteenth century has wrought a marvelous change. The Old Testament is no longer the "lone Old Testament," at the mercy of the scientific investigator. The historian and the Bible student now have at their command literary treasures almost without number, partly contemporaneous with the Old Testament, partly older by many centuries. These rich treasures have been brought to light by the {111} perseverance and painstaking toil of archæologists, whose discoveries have shed light on human history during a period of more than four thousand years before the opening of the Christian era. The historical movements recorded in the Old Testament, in which the Hebrews had a vital interest, were confined chiefly to the territory between the four seas of western Asia: the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf. In the East the territory might be extended to include Persia; in the West, to include Asia Minor; and in the South or Southwest, to include Egypt, in North Africa. All these districts, which may be designated Bible lands, have been more or less thoroughly explored, and in most of them excavations have been carried on. The countries in which the most valuable finds, so far as Bible study is concerned, have been made are Palestine, Babylonia-Assyria, Egypt, Northern Syria, Phoenicia, Moab, and Asia Minor. Even before excavations were undertaken travelers had visited these different countries and had reported their observations, but the information thus gained was more or less vague, and in many cases of no practical scientific value.[1] They saw many strange mounds and ruins, and noticed and occasionally picked up fragments of inscriptions and monuments; but no one could {112} decipher the inscriptions; hence the finds were preserved simply as mementoes and relics of an unknown age, from which nothing could be learned concerning the history and civilization of the people that once occupied these lands. The mounds and heaps of ruins which contained the real treasures were left undisturbed until the nineteenth century. The pioneer in the work of excavation in the territory of Babylonia and Assyria was Claudius James Rich, who, while resident of the British East India Company in Bagdad, in 1811, visited and studied the ruins of Babylon, and a little later made similar investigations in the mounds marking the site of the ancient city of Nineveh. In the gullies cut by centuries of rain he gathered numerous little clay tablets, covered on every side with the same wedge-shaped characters as those seen on the fragments found by earlier travelers. These he saved carefully, and in time presented them to the British Museum. No systematic excavations were carried on until 1842, when P. C. Botta was sent by the French government as vice-consul to Mosul on the upper Tigris. He noticed across the river from Mosul extensive artificial mounds which were supposed to mark the site of the city of Nineveh. These so aroused his curiosity that he began digging in the two most prominent mounds. Failing to make {113} any discoveries, he transferred, the following year, at the suggestion of a peasant, his activities to Korsabad, a few miles to the northeast, where the digging produced, almost immediately, startling results. In the course of his excavations he laid bare a complex of buildings which proved to be the palace of Sargon, king of Assyria from B.C. 722 to B.C. 705, a palace covering an area of about twenty-five acres. The walls of the various buildings were all wainscotted with alabaster slabs, upon which were representations of battles, sieges, triumphal processions, and similar events in the life of ancient Assyria. He also found, in the course of the excavations, scores of strange figures and colossi, and numerous other remains of a long lost civilization. Botta's discoveries filled the whole archæological world with enthusiasm. Even before Botta reached Mosul, a young Englishman, Austin Henry Layard, visited the territory of ancient Assyria, and was so impressed by its mounds and ruins that he resolved to examine them thoroughly whenever it might be in his power to do so. This resolution was taken in April, 1840, but more than five years elapsed before he began operations. It would be interesting to follow Layard's work as described by him in a most fascinating manner in Nineveh and Its Remains, and other writings, which give {114} complete records of the wonderful successes he achieved wherever he went. Never again did the labors entirely cease, though there were periods of decline. Layard's operations were continued under the direction of Rassam, Taylor, Loftus, and Henry C. Rawlinson; the French operations were in charge of such men as Place, Thomas, Fresnell, and Oppert. However, it was not until 1873 that other startling discoveries were made, chiefly under the direction of George Smith, who was sent by the Daily Telegraph, of London, to visit the site of Nineveh for the purpose of finding, if possible, fragments of the Babylonian account of the Deluge, parts of which he had previously discovered on tablets that had been shipped to the British Museum. In 1877 France sent Ernest de Sarzec as consul to Bosra in Lower Babylonia. His interest in archæology led him to investigate some of the mounds in the neighborhood, and he soon began work at one called Telloh. In the course of several campaigns, which continued until 1894, he unearthed a great variety of material illustrative of primitive ages, among his treasures being palaces, statues, vases, thousands of tablets, and various other articles of interest. The first steps toward sending out an American expedition for excavation were taken at a meeting of the American Oriental Society in the spring of {115} 1884. In the fall of the same year a preliminary expedition of exploration was sent out, which completed its labors during the winter and spring, returning in June, 1885. But the means for excavation were not forthcoming until 1888, when a well-equipped expedition was sent out under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. Four successive campaigns were carried on upon the great mounds of Nuffar, the site of Nippur, a center of early Babylonian life. Each expedition brought to light architectural and artistic remains and many thousands of tablets, throwing light upon all sides of the ancient life and civilization, over which hitherto there had lain almost complete darkness. In 1899 Germany sent its first expedition to Babylon and, during successive seasons, extensive excavations have been carried on, which have resulted in the discovery of many interesting finds. At a later date excavations were begun and, like those of Babylon, are still continued, on the mound covering the site of the ancient capital city of Assyria, Asshur, where inscriptions of great value have been uncovered. At the present time the Germans are perhaps the most active excavators in Assyria-Babylonia, and by their painstaking care to record every new discovery they are bound to increase the knowledge of the early history and civilization of these ancient empires.[2] {116} Reference may be made also to the later excavations of the French at Susa, the scene of the book of Esther, where they have uncovered much valuable material. The most important find, made in the winter of 1901-1902, is the monument upon which is inscribed the legal code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, generally identified with the Amraphel of Gen. 14. 1. For a short time the University of Chicago carried on excavations at Bismiyah, in southern Babylonia, which have brought to light many objects of interest, if not of great historical importance. The Turkish government, under whose rule the territory of Babylonia and Assyria now is, stimulated by the example of other nations, is taking an active interest in these excavations, granting the privilege of excavating to an ever-increasing number of scholars, and giving them protection while engaged in their work. The Sultan has erected in Constantinople a magnificent museum, where the valuable antiquities are accessible to the scholarship of the world. The credit of having first turned the attention of the West toward the monuments of Egypt, and of having brought them within the reach of science, belongs to the military expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte, undertaken in the summer of 1798.[3] In August, 1799, a French artillery officer, Boussard, unearthed at the Fort Saint Julien, near {117} Rosetta, in the Nile Delta, a stone of black granite, three feet five inches in height, two feet four and one half inches in width, and eleven inches in thickness. It is thought to have been at least twelve inches higher and to have had a rounded top. On the upper portion of this block could be seen parts of fourteen lines of characters, resembling those seen everywhere on the obelisks and ruined temples of the land; adjoining these below are thirty-two lines of another species of script, while at the bottom are fifty-four lines, twenty-eight of them complete, in Greek uncial letters. The Greek was easily read, and told the story of the stone: It was set up in B.C. 195, by the priests of Egypt, in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, because he had canceled arrearages of certain taxes due from the sacerdotal body. The grateful priests ordered the memorial decree to be inscribed in the sacred characters of Egypt, in the vernacular, and in Greek. The Greek portion having been read, it was conjectured that the two inscriptions above the Greek told the same story. Such being the case, the value of the document for the decipherment of the Egyptian inscriptions was at once perceived, and scholars immediately set to work on the task of deciphering the unknown script. The honor of having solved the mystery belongs to François Champollion, who by 1822 had succeeded in fixing the value of a considerable {118} portion of the ancient Egyptian signs, and at the time of his death, ten years later, left behind in manuscript a complete Egyptian grammar and vocabulary. Through the discovery of Champollion the interest in ancient Egypt grew in all learned circles, and from his day until now efforts at bringing to light the remains of the Egyptian civilization have never ceased. The French have been especially active; but other nations also have been in the field and have greatly added to our knowledge of ancient Egypt. Since 1883 the Egyptian Exploration Fund has been at work in various parts of the Nile valley; private subscriptions have enabled the investigation of certain places of special interest; and now every year new finds are made, which constantly enrich our knowledge of the history, art, and civilization of the land of the Pharaohs. "Palestine," says Dr. Benzinger, "became the object of most general interest earlier than any other Oriental country.... Nevertheless, Palestine research is but a child of the century just closed, the systematic exploration of the land, in all its aspects, beginning properly speaking with the foundation of the English Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865."[4] The reason for this delay is not far to seek. From the time that Christians first began to visit Palestine to a comparatively {119} recent date all pilgrimages were prompted by religious, not by scientific motives. The interest of the pilgrims was excited only by those places which were pointed out to them as the scenes of sacred events, and the knowledge they brought home consisted chiefly of descriptions of the places held in special veneration. In 1841 there appeared in three volumes a work entitled Biblical Researches, in which Professor Edward Robinson recorded the results of his travels in Palestine during the year 1838. In 1852 Robinson made a second journey. During these two trips he and his companions worked with ceaseless industry, always accurately measuring the distances, and describing the route, even to the smallest detail. This painstaking care made the accounts so valuable that his books marked a turning point in the whole matter of Palestinian research, and could serve as a foundation upon which all future researches might rest. Among other travelers who have made valuable contributions to our knowledge of Palestine, the most important are Titus Tobler, H. V. Guerin, E. Renan, and G. A. Smith. But the better the land came to be known, the more fully was it realized that the complete systematic exploration of the land was beyond the power of individual travelers. Hence in 1865 a number of men interested in Palestinian research met in London {120} and organized a society known as the Palestine Exploration Fund. Its object was the complete, systematic, and scientific exploration of the Holy Land, especially for the purpose of elucidating the Scriptures. The idea was taken up with great enthusiasm, and from the beginning until now the society has been actively engaged in illuminating Palestine past and present. During the early history of the Fund few excavations were carried on, and these were confined to the city of Jerusalem; but since 1890 several mounds in southern Palestine have been excavated, the most important being Tel-el-Hesy, the probable site of ancient Lachish, and the site of the important city of Gezer. At present (1912) the site of ancient Beth-Shemesh is being excavated. The German Palestine Society was organized in 1877 for a similar purpose. When the English surveyors were prevented by the Turkish government from completing the survey of eastern Palestine the German society took up the work, and its results are embodied in a map now in process of publication. The principal excavations of the German society were carried on between 1903 and 1907 at Tel-el Mutasellim, the ancient Megiddo, under the direction of Dr. Benzinger and Dr. Schumacher. Dr. Sellin carried on excavations at the neighboring Taanach for the Austrian government between 1902 and 1904. {121} Two other sites have been excavated--Jericho by the Germans and Samaria by Harvard University, and though no epoch-making finds have come to light in these two places, the results illuminate the early history of Palestine. Phoenicia has yielded some of its treasures. The first of importance, found in 1855 in the Necropolis of Sidon, was the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, king of Sidon. Since then various other sites have been examined, and much material has been unearthed, throwing light on the history, religion, art, and civilization of these ancient neighbors of Israel. In the year 1868 a German missionary, the Rev. F. Klein, discovered at Diban, the site of an ancient royal city of Moab, a large stone, with an inscription of Mesha, a king of Moab in the ninth century B.C. Between 1888 and 1891 investigations were conducted, for the Royal Museum in Berlin, at the mound of Zenjirli, once a city in the land Shamal, near the northern limits of Syria, south of the Issus, about forty miles inland. The old citadel was uncovered, and various sculptures, showing Hittite influence, a magnificent statue of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, a huge statue of the god Hadad, and several Aramaic inscriptions of great value, as illustrating early Syrian civilization, were found. More recently, in 1906 and 1907, Professor Winckler visited Boghaz-koei, in Asia Minor, a center of {122} early Hittite civilization, where he uncovered thousands of tablets which throw new light upon the history of western Asia in ancient times. Thus, generation after generation, amid dangers and hardships, a body of enthusiastic, self-sacrificing men have toiled almost day and night in order to restore to life a civilization buried for many centuries beneath the sands of the desert and the ruins of ancient cities, and we are only at the beginning. What revelations the next fifty years may have in store! The results of these expeditions have been enthusiastically welcomed by all who are interested in antiquity: the students of history, art, science, anthropology, early civilization, and many others. They are, however, of special interest to the Bible student; and it is well to remember that, whatever additional motives may be responsible for excavations at the present time, from the beginning until now the desire to find illustrations, or confirmations of scriptural statements, has played a prominent part. "To what end," says Professor Delitzsch,[5] "this toil and trouble in distant, inhospitable and danger-ridden lands? Why all this expense in ransacking to their utmost depths the rubbish heaps of forgotten centuries, where we know neither treasures of gold nor of silver exist? Why this zealous emulation on the part of the nations to secure the greatest possible {123} number of mounds for excavation? And whence, too, that constantly increasing interest, that burning enthusiasm, born of generous sacrifice, now being bestowed on both sides of the Atlantic upon the excavations in Babylonia and Assyria? One answer echoes to all these questions, one answer which, if not absolutely adequate, is yet largely the reason and consummation of it all--the _Bible_." Our purpose is to discuss the bearing of recent researches in Bible lands upon the Christian view of the Old Testament, that is, the view which looks upon the Old Testament as containing records of divine revelations granted in divers portions and in divers manners to the people of Israel. Concerning this bearing, two distinct and opposing claims are made: on the one hand, it is said that archæological research only confirms the familiar view of the Bible as a trustworthy and unique record of religion and history; on the other hand, it is claimed that archæological research has shown the Old Testament to be untrustworthy as to history, and as to religion, what has hitherto been regarded as original with the Hebrews is claimed to have been borrowed almost bodily from the surrounding nations. What is the true situation? The archæological material which has more or less direct bearing upon our inquiry may be roughly arranged under {124} two heads: (1) The Historico-Geographical; (2) The Religio-Ethical. The present chapter deals with the bearing of the historico-geographical material upon the Old Testament historical records, the other class being reserved for the succeeding chapter. The next step in the discussion will be to enumerate at least the more important finds having a more or less direct relation to the Old Testament. Many archæological objects have been brought to light, which, though they have but indirect bearing upon the Old Testament, have wonderfully illuminated the life of the ancient East, and thus have made more distinct the general historical background upon which the scenes recorded in the Old Testament were enacted. But a more important source of information are the inscriptions which have been discovered by the thousands and tens of thousands. These inscriptions were written on all kinds of material--granite, alabaster, wood, clay, papyrus, etc.; shaped in a variety of forms--tablets, cylinders, rolls, statues, walls, etc.; and they have been dug out of mounds, tombs, pyramids, and many other places. What, then, are the most important finds? The first thing to bear in mind is that the inscriptions have very little to say about the earlier period of Hebrew history. Says Driver,[6] "With the exception of the statement on the stele of Merneptah, that 'Israel is desolated,' the first {125} event connected with Israel and its ancestors which the inscriptions mention or attest, is Shishak's invasion of Judah in the reign of Rehoboam; and the first Israelites whom they specify by name are Omri and his son Ahab." Before considering the statement on the stele of Merneptah, attention may be given to certain inscriptions which throw considerable light on conditions in Palestine before the Hebrew conquest, namely, the so-called Tel-el-Amarna tablets.[7] These tablets were discovered by accident in the winter of 1887-1888 at Tel-el-Amarna, the site of the ancient capital of Amenophis IV of Egypt, about midway between Memphis and Thebes. On examination they proved to be a part of the official archives of Amenophis III (1411-1375) and Amenophis IV (1375-1358), consisting almost entirely of letters and reports addressed to these two Pharaohs by their officials in western Asia, and by rulers who sustained close relations to the Egyptian court. The royal letters, about forty in number, are chiefly from kings of the Hittites, of the Mitanni, of Assyria, and of Babylonia. The rest of the correspondence, about two hundred and fifty letters, is of much greater historical interest; it consists of letters from Egyptian governors in various cities of Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria. These inscriptions show that about B.C. 1400, {126} about two hundred years before the Hebrew conquest, Palestine and the neighboring countries formed an Egyptian province under the rule of Egyptian governors stationed in all principal towns. At the time the Egyptians had considerable difficulty in maintaining their authority. Their power was threatened by the Hittites and other powerful neighbors, by the dissatisfied native population, by the Habiri, who seem to have been invaders from the desert, and by the intrigues and rivalries of the Egyptian governors themselves. Practically all the principal cities of the land are mentioned in these letters. From the standpoint of Old Testament study, six letters written by Abdi-hiba, Governor of Jerusalem, are of special interest. He, like many of the other governors, is in difficulty. The Habiri are pressing him hard; the neighboring cities of Gezer, Lachish, and Askelon are aiding the enemy; he has been slandered before the king and accused of disloyalty. In the letters he emphatically protests his innocence. One of them reads: "To the king my lord, say also thus: It is Abdi-hiba, thy servant; at the feet of my lord the king twice seven times, and twice seven times I fall. What have I done against the king my lord? They backbite, they slander me before the king my lord, saying: Abdi-hiba has fallen away from the king his lord. Behold, as for me, neither my father nor my {127} mother set me in this place; the arm of the mighty king caused me to enter into the house of my father. Why should I commit a sin against the king my lord?" Perhaps the most surprising fact about these letters is that the Palestinian governors used, in the correspondence with their superiors in Egypt, not the Egyptian or native Canaanite, but the Babylonian language, which seems conclusive evidence that for some time previously Western Asia had been under Babylonian influence. Without doubt this influence was primarily political, but naturally it would bring with it elements of civilization, art, science, and religion. Now and then words in the Canaanite language occur, either independently, or for the purpose of explaining a Babylonian expression in the more familiar dialect of the scribe. These Canaanite words are hardly distinguishable from the Hebrew of the Old Testament. It is evident, therefore, that the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine were closely akin to the Hebrews, and spoke substantially the same language. The inscriptions of later Egyptian kings, during the thirteenth and the early part of the twelfth century, throw little additional light on conditions in Palestine, except that it becomes increasingly clear that Egypt cannot maintain its hold on the land. Subsequent to Rameses III (1198-1167) Palestine was entirely {128} lost to Egypt for several centuries, which explains why the Hebrews were not disturbed by the empire on the Nile in their attempts to establish themselves in Palestine. The first direct reference to Israel in the inscriptions apparently takes us near the time of the exodus. Archaeology has nothing to say directly about the exodus; but in the enumeration of his victories, Merneptah II, thought to be the Pharaoh during whose reign the exodus took place, uses these words: "Israel is lost, his seed is not." The discovery of this inscription in 1896 was hailed with great rejoicing, for at last the name "Israel" was found in an Egyptian inscription coming, approximately at least, from the time of the exodus; but, unfortunately, the reference is so indefinite that its exact significance and bearing upon the date of the exodus is still under discussion. It is to be noted that, whereas the other places or peoples named in the inscription have the determinative for "country," "Israel" has the determinative for "men"; perhaps an evidence that the reference is not to the land of Israel, or to Israel permanently settled, but to a tribe or people at the time without a settled abode. But where was Israel at the time? To this a variety of answers have been given. D. R. Fotheringham suggests that the reference is to the destruction of the crops of Israel in Goshen. {129} Israel, he thinks, had just left, with the crops unharvested. These Merneptah claims to have destroyed.[8] Others believe that the Israelites had already entered Canaan when they suffered the defeat mentioned by Merneptah. Petrie thinks that the Israelites defeated were in Palestine, but that they had no connection with the tribes that had a part in the biblical exodus; he believes that the latter were still in Goshen at the time of this defeat.[9] Still others believe that the Israelites were, at the time of the defeat, in the wilderness south of Palestine, and that the claim of Merneptah is simply an attempt to account for their disappearance from Egypt. And now comes Eerdmans, of Leiden, with the suggestion that the Israelites defeated by Merneptah were the Israelites before they went down to Egypt.[10] It is seen, therefore, that the reference on the stele of Merneptah, while of much interest, because it is the first mention of Israel in an Egyptian inscription, after all throws little light upon the date and the events of the exodus. The next monument of importance contains an account of the invasion of Palestine by Shishak, five years after the death of Solomon. On the southern wall of the court of the great temple of Amen at Karnak the king has left a pictorial representation of his campaign. A giant figure is represented as holding in his left hand the ends of ropes which {130} bind long rows of captives neck to neck. Their hands are tied behind them, and the victor's right hand holds a rod with which he threatens them. The names of the conquered cities are inscribed on shields that cover the lower part of the body of each prisoner. Some of the most familiar names in this list are Gaza, Abel, Adullam, Bethhoron, Aijalon, Gibeon, and Shunem.[11] From about the middle of the ninth century on inscriptions containing references to kings of Israel, or to events in which the Hebrews played important parts, become more numerous. To the reign of Omri (889-875) and his immediate successors refers the inscription of Mesha on the so-called Moabite Stone.[12] This notable specimen of antiquity is a stone of a bluish-black color, about two feet wide, nearly four feet high, and fourteen and one-half inches thick; rounded at the top, and, according to the testimony of the discoverer, the Rev. F. Klein, also at the bottom, which, however, is doubtful. The value of the stone lies not only in the fact that it preserves one of the most ancient styles of Hebrew writing, but more especially in the historical, topographical, and religious information it furnishes. In 2 Kings 3 we read of the relations between Moab and Omri and his successors. Omri had subdued Moab and had collected from her a yearly tribute. Ahab had enjoyed the same revenue, amounting during {131} Mesha's reign to the wool of a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams. At the close of Ahab's reign Mesha refused to continue the payment of the tribute. The allied kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom marched with their armies against the Moabites, who fled for refuge within the strong fortress of Kir-hareseth, where Mesha offered up his own son as a burnt-offering to Chemosh, his god; whereupon "there was great wrath against Israel, and they departed from them and returned to their own land." The Moabite Stone was set up by King Mesha to his god Chemosh in commemoration of this deliverance. The opening lines read: "I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-ken, king of Moab, the Daibonite. My father reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And I made this high place for Chemosh in Korhah, a high place of salvation, because he had saved me from all the assailants, and because he had let me see my desire upon all them that hated me. Omri, king of Israel, afflicted Moab for many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land; and his son succeeded him; and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days said he thus. But I saw my desire upon him and his house, and Israel perished with an everlasting destruction." As a supplement to the Old Testament narrative, this account is very instructive. The mention of {132} Yahweh, the God of Israel, is of interest, as also the fact that in Moab, as in Israel, national disaster was attributed to the anger of the national deity. The idiom in which the inscription is written differs only dialectically from the Hebrew of the Old Testament. Small idiomatic differences are observable, but, on the other hand, it shares with it several distinctive features, so that, on the whole, it resembles Hebrew far more closely than any other Semitic language now known. In point of style the inscription reads almost like a page from one of the earlier historical books of the Old Testament. From the time of Omri on Israel came into frequent contact with Assyria; indeed, the fortunes of Israel were closely bound up with the fortunes of this great Eastern world-power.[13] In 885, at about the time when Omri had finally succeeded in overcoming his rivals, Ashurnasirpal ascended the throne of Assyria. He determined to restore the former glory of his nation, which had become eclipsed under his incompetent predecessors; and with him began a period of conquest which ultimately brought the whole eastern shore of the Mediterranean under Assyrian sway. In 860 Shalmaneser III[14] succeeded his father upon the throne of Assyria, and in the following year he renewed the attack upon the West. In 854 he felt prepared for a supreme effort, and it is in the {133} account of this campaign that we read for the first time the name of an Israelite king in the Assyrian inscription. Shalmaneser advanced with great speed and success until he reached Karkar, near the Orontes, a little north of Hamath. In the account of the campaign he mentions, among the allies who fought against him, Ahab of Israel, who, he says, furnished two thousand chariots and ten thousand men. The campaign is recorded in several inscriptions, in all of which Shalmaneser claims a complete victory. The most famous inscription of this king is the one on the so-called Black Obelisk, an alabaster monolith found at Nimrud in 1846. This monument is inscribed on all four sides with an account, in one hundred and ninety lines, of the expeditions undertaken during thirty-one years of the king's reign. In the text of the inscription reference is made to campaigns against the west land (Syria and Palestine) in 859, 854, 850, 849, 846, 842, and 839. In addition to the inscription the monument contains, on the upper portion, five series of four reliefs each, each series representing the tribute brought to the Assyrian king by kings whom he had conquered or who sought his favor. In the inscription itself, no mention is made of Israel or the king of Israel, but the second tier of reliefs is of much interest. It depicts a prince or deputy prostrating himself before Shalmaneser, {134} and behind the prostrated figure are attendants bearing gifts of various kinds. The superscription reads: "The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden ladle, golden goblets, golden pitchers, lead, a staff for the hand of the king, shafts of spears, I received of him." In 842 Shalmaneser undertook an expedition against Hazael of Damascus, and in the account of this expedition he says, "At that time I received the tribute of the Tyrians and Sidonians, and of Jehu, the son of Omri." About half a century after the occurrence of Jehu's name in the inscription of Shalmaneser III Israel is mentioned again as tributary to Assyria. Adad-nirari IV (812-783), after enumerating other countries subjugated by him, writes: "From the Euphrates to the land of the Hatti, the west country in its entire compass, Tyre, Sidon, the land of Omri, Edom, Philistia, as far as the great sea of the setting of the sun (Mediterranean Sea), I subjected to my yoke; payment of tribute I imposed upon them." Adad-nirari was succeeded by a series of weak kings, during whose reign the power of Assyria declined, but in 745 the great Tiglath-pileser IV, mentioned in the Old Testament also under the name Pul, ascended the throne. He succeeded in reorganizing the resources of the empire and in rekindling its ambitions for conquest. This {135} energetic king has left several inscriptions of much interest to the student of Old Testament history. In one of these, narrating an expedition against northern Syria about B.C. 738, he mentions a king, "Azriau of the land of Yaudi." It has been customary to identify this king with Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah. The contents speak against this identification, and since the inscriptions found in Zenjirli have established the existence in northern Syria of a state called Yaudi, perhaps the king mentioned in Tiglath-pileser's inscription was a ruler of this northern kingdom. In the annals which tell of his victory over Azriau of Yaudi he mentions Menahem of Samaria as one of the kings whose tribute he received. The same inscription, referring to events in 734 or 733, speaks of a victory over the House of Omri, and the assassination of the king Pekah, but the inscription is so fragmentary that the details are obscure. Fortunately, the same events are recorded in another inscription, which is in a better state of preservation, though it also has several gaps. After enumerating several cities which he captured in Palestine, among them Gaza, he continues: "The land of the dynasty of Omri ... the whole of its inhabitants, their possessions to Assyria I deported. Pekah, their king, they slew, Hoshea to rule over them appointed. Ten talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver, I received {136} as tribute." Ahaz of Judah is also mentioned in an inscription of Tiglath-pileser, as paying tribute, but it is not clear to what year this refers. Tiglath-pileser died in 727, and was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, who in turn gave place in 722 to Sargon II. Shalmaneser is mentioned as the king who attacked the northern kingdom, and the Old Testament narrative leaves the impression that he was the king who finally captured the city of Samaria. The inscriptions show that it was Sargon who overcame the city soon after the beginning of his reign. In one of his inscriptions he calls himself, "the brave hero ... who overthrew the House of Omri." In another he says: "Samaria I besieged, I took. 27,290 of its inhabitants I carried away; 50 chariots I gathered from them; the rest of them I permitted to retain their possessions. Over them I appointed my governor, and upon them I imposed the tribute of the former king." The annals of Sargon, which give an account of the events during his reign in chronological order, give the date of the capture of Samaria. After the introduction, he continues: "In the beginning of my reign and in the first year of my reign, ... Samaria I besieged and took.... 27,290 inhabitants I carried away; 50 chariots as my royal portion I collected there.... I restored and made as it was before.... People from all countries, my captives, I settled there. My {137} official I appointed as governor over them. Tribute and taxes like the Assyrian I imposed upon them." After the destruction of the northern kingdom the life of the Hebrews became centered in Judah and Jerusalem. The fall of Samaria made an impression on the South that was remembered for some time. Nevertheless, the states along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea bore impatiently the Assyrian yoke, and in most cities there arose a party which, relying on the promised help of Egypt, was eager to free itself from Assyria. That this party gained a foothold also in Jerusalem is seen from the prophecy in Isa. 20, in which the prophet warns the people against trusting in Egypt and rebelling against Assyria. In the same direction points an inscription of Sargon describing an expedition against Ashdod: "The people of Philistia, _Judah_, Edom, and Moab, dwelling beside the sea, bringing tribute and presents to Ashur my lord, were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, a prince who could not save them, their presents carried and besought his alliance." In all probability, Judah did not become involved seriously at this time. But the death of Sargon in 705 seems to have been a signal for revolt in many parts of the Assyrian empire. His son and successor, Sennacherib, gave these rebellions his immediate attention; until 702 {138} he was kept busy in the East, but in that year he turned westward, and by 701 was ready to attack Judah. The campaign and the remarkable deliverance of Jerusalem on that occasion are recorded at length in 2 Kings 18, 19, and Isa. 36, 37. The account of the same campaign by the Assyrian king is, from the standpoint of Old Testament history, perhaps the most interesting historical inscription left by an Assyrian ruler. It is found in the so-called Taylor Cylinder,[15] column 2, line 34, to column 3, line 41. The most interesting portion reads: To the city of Ekron I went; the governors [and] princes, who had committed a transgression, I killed and bound their corpses on poles around the city. The inhabitants of the city, who had committed sin and evil, I counted as spoil; to the rest of them who had committed no sin and wrong, who had no guilt, I spoke peace. Padi their king, I brought forth from the city of Jerusalem; upon the throne of lordship over them I placed him. The tribute of my lordship I laid upon him. But Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke, I besieged 46 of his strong cities, fortresses, and small cities of their environs, without number, [and] by the battering of rams and the assault of engines, by the attack of foot soldiers, mines, breaches, and axes, I besieged, I took them; 200,150 men, young [and] old, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen and sheep without number I brought out from them, I counted them as spoil. [Hezekiah] himself I shut up like a caged bird in Jerusalem {139} his royal city; the walls I fortified against him [and] whosoever came out of the gates of the city, I turned back. His cities, which I had plundered, I separated from his land and gave them to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, to Padi, king of Ekron, and to Sil-Bel, king of Gaza, and [thus] diminished his territory. To the former tribute, paid yearly, I added the tribute and presents of my lordship and laid that upon him. Hezekiah himself was overwhelmed by the fear of the brightness of my lordship; the Arabians and his other faithful warriors whom, as a defense for Jerusalem his royal city he had brought in, fell into fear. With 30 talents of gold [and] 800 talents of silver, precious stones, _gukhli daggassi_ (?), large lapis lazuli, couches of ivory, thrones of ivory, ivory, _usu_ wood, box wood (?), of every kind, a heavy treasure, and his daughters, his women of the palace, the young men and young women, to Nineveh, the city of my lordship, I caused to be brought after me, and he sent his ambassadors, to give tribute and to pay homage. These are, perhaps, the most important historical inscriptions illustrating specific events in the history of Israel and Judah. There are, however, many more that make important, though more or less indirect, contributions toward a better understanding of Old Testament history. Just to mention a few: Tirhaka of Egypt, who, temporarily at least, interfered with the plans of the Assyrians, {140} appears several times in the inscriptions; the real significance of the events recorded in 2 Kings 20. 12ff., and Isa. 39, can be understood only in the light of the inscriptions; an interesting sidelight is thrown by the inscriptions on the biblical account of Sennacherib's death. In one of the inscriptions of Esarhaddon, the son and successor of Sennacherib, we are told that among the twenty-two kings of the land of the Hittites who assisted him in his building enterprises was Manasseh, king of Judah. Ashurbanipal, the successor of Esarhaddon, includes Manasseh in a similar list. Though this king is not mentioned in the Old Testament under his Assyrian name, it is very probable that he is the king referred to in Ezra 4. 10, where it is said that the "great and noble Osnappar" brought Babylonians, Susanians, Elamites, and men of other nationalities to Samaria. The inscriptions do not throw much light upon the closing years of Judah's history, but we can understand the events in which Judah played a part better because the inscriptions set into clearer light the general history of Western Asia. The advance of the Scythians, the revival of Egypt in the seventh century, the fall of Nineveh, the rise of the Chaldean empire, which reached its highest glory under Nebuchadrezzar, the conqueror of Judah--all these are described in the inscriptions, or, at least, illuminated by them. {141} In a similar way the inscriptions, though not mentioning the Jewish exiles in Babylonia, illuminate the biblical records in many respects. Fortunately, also, the inscriptions furnish a good idea of the events leading to the downfall of Babylon, which resulted in the restoration of many exiles to Judah; and the restoration itself assumes a new significance in the light of the inscriptions; for the permission to return granted by Cyrus to the Jews is seen to be in accord with the general policy of the conqueror to secure the good-will of the peoples deported by the Babylonians by restoring them to their own homes. The historical situation of the age may suggest another reason for the kindly treatment of the Jews. It was inevitable that sooner or later Cyrus, or his successors, should come into conflict with Egypt. At such time it would be of immense value to him to have near the border of Egypt a nation upon whose fidelity and gratitude he could rely. Archaeology has not thrown any direct light on the condition of the Jews in Palestine under the Persian rule. On the other hand, we know a great deal about conditions in Babylonia during that period, and within the past decade several important documents written on papyrus have been found in Egypt which furnish indisputable evidence that the island of Elephantine, opposite Assuan, a short distance north of the first cataract {142} of the Nile, was the seat of a Jewish colony at least as early as the reign of Cambyses, king of Persia (B.C. 529-521).[16] This concludes the survey of the archæological material of a historical nature. It is seen that during the period from the division of the kingdom subsequent to the death of Solomon to the reëstablishment of the Jews in Palestine after the exile the inscriptions furnish most interesting and instructive illustrations of events mentioned or alluded to in the Old Testament. As a result the history and also the prophecy of the Old Testament have been removed from the isolated position in which they previously seemed to stand. They are now seen to be connected by many links with the great movements taking place in the world without. The question as to the bearing of the archæological historical records on the historical records of the Old Testament remains to be considered. This question was asked as soon as the contents of the inscriptions became known. The answers have varied greatly. On the one hand, it has been claimed that the Old Testament records are confirmed in every detail; on the other, those have not been wanting who claimed that the inscriptions discredit the Old Testament. Here, as in other investigations, the true conclusion can be reached only after a careful examination of all {143} the facts in the case. In the study of the question there are several considerations and cautions which must not be lost sight of if we would reach a true estimate. Some of these cautions are suggested by the nature of the inscriptions. In the first place, it must be remembered that most of the archæological material has come from lands outside of Palestine, and that the testimony is that of people not friendly to the Hebrews. We may expect, therefore, that at times personal bias may have colored the portrayal and caused the Hebrews to appear in a less favorable light than the facts would warrant, or that the events in which the Hebrews took part were described in a manner to make them favor the interests of the writers. Again, not every period of Hebrew history is illuminated by the inscriptions. True, the earliest monuments found in Egypt and Babylonia antedate the birth of Jesus perhaps more than four thousand years; but it is not until the time of Ahab, king of Israel, that the important historical material begins. The references to Israel preceding the time of the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, c. B.C. 850, are few and more or less obscure. There is the monument of Shishak in the tenth century; but some are inclined to believe that the list of the cities alleged to have been conquered by Shishak was simply taken over by him from {144} an earlier document, and that, therefore, it is of little or no historical value. Israel is mentioned in the inscription of Merneptah, but, as has been seen, the significance of the brief reference is obscure; there is nothing concerning the stay in Egypt, nothing concerning the patriarchs, and nothing concerning the earlier period that can in any way be connected with the historical records of the Old Testament. Furthermore, to get at the true value of the evidence from the monuments we must distinguish between facts and inferences from the facts. This distinction, obvious as it seems, has not always been maintained even by eminent archæologists. For example, Professor Sayce, who is in just repute among Assyriologists, made a few years ago the statement: "The vindication of the reality of Menes [one of the early kings of Egypt] means the vindication also of the historical character of the Hebrew patriarchs." Surely, common sense says that facts proving the historicity of an early king of Egypt do not necessarily prove the historicity of men living many centuries later. Many similar illustrations might be given. Because bricks made without straw were found it has been claimed that every detail of the Old Testament narrative concerning the stay of Israel in Egypt was corroborated by archæology. The finding of the walls of royal palaces in Babylon furnished {145} the claim that the story of the handwriting on the wall was established beyond doubt. The finding of images of deities has been interpreted as showing beyond a possibility of question the historicity of the narrative in Daniel concerning the image erected by Nebuchadrezzar, etc. There can easily be too much blind dependence on authority; an assumption of fact, upon the mere dictum of some presumably honest and competent scholar. About a generation ago a well-known investigator said, "Assyriology has its guesses and it has its accurate knowledge."[17] These words might be expanded to include the whole field of archæology. Archaeology has its facts, and it has its inferences. The two must not be confused. Moreover, the possibility of inscribing lies upon clay tablets must not be overlooked. Sometimes it has been claimed, and that most absurdly, that because an inscription has been engraved upon imperishable stone or clay it has a superior value. But the mere fact of a record being inscribed on a tablet of clay, perishable or imperishable, gives it no superiority over one written on papyrus or parchment or paper. Clay tablets were to the civilization of the Euphrates valley what print paper is to us. We all know that paper is patient, else the daily papers would be of smaller size and many books would remain unwritten. The same is true of clay tablets. Clay tablets are {146} patient. It was recognized long ago by Assyriologists that the so-called historical inscriptions are not all unbiased statements of objective facts. In many cases the chief purpose seems to have been the glorification of the king; victories are recorded with the greatest care, but no mention is made of defeats. For example: in one of the earliest inscriptions mentioning a king of Israel, Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria, claims a great victory over the Western allies in the battle of Karkar in 854; but, strange to say, the victory resulted in a rather hasty retreat of the Assyrian army. Another evidence of the "absolute reliability" of the historical tablets is offered by the inscriptions of the same king. In connection with the battle of Karkar, one inscription declares that the allies killed numbered 14,000; another, 20,500; while a third claims 25,000. We have, indeed, reason to say that "the evident uncertainty in the figures makes us doubt somewhat the clearness of the entire result. The claim of a great victory is almost certainly false."[18] Once more: the translation of the inscriptions is not in every case beyond question. For example, in lines 7-9 of the Moabite Stone we read, according to the common translation, "Now Omri annexed all the land of Medeba, and Israel occupied it his days and half the days of his son, forty years." This rendering would imply that the {147} period from the conquest under Omri to the end of the first half of Ahab's reign was forty years. The chronology of Kings gives as the total of the full reigns of the two kings only thirty-four years, while the above translation of the inscription would require about sixty--a serious discrepancy. Now, it is generally conceded that the chronology of the Bible cannot be accepted as final in all its details, and that it must be checked by the chronology of the inscriptions wherever that is possible. Yet before we can make use of the monumental testimony we should be sure of its exact meaning. In cases such as the one mentioned this certainty is absent, and we should move very slowly. Another translation of the passage has been proposed: "Omri conquered the whole land of Medeba and held it in possession as long as he reigned and during half of my reign his son, in all forty years; but yet in my reign Chemosh recovered it."[19] This translation would bring the total of the two reigns to about forty years, and thus the chronological difficulty apparently offered by 2 Kings 3 would be removed. The five considerations to which attention has been called must be observed if we would understand rightly the bearing of the monuments on the Old Testament, when viewed from the standpoint of the inscriptions. Attention must now be called to certain considerations touching {148} primarily the Old Testament that must be regarded in forming an estimate of the value of its historical records. We must remember, for example, that the purpose of the Old Testament is essentially and predominatingly religious. This is recognized by the Jews, for they do not call any of the so-called historical books by that name. The five books of the Pentateuch they designate as Law, because in these books practically all Hebrew legislation is embodied. Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, they include in the list of prophetic books, because they recognize the essentially prophetic purpose of the authors. The other books belong to the third division of the Jewish canon, called the Writings. Concerning the books of Kings, which are the principal historical books of the Old Testament, it has been truly said: "Kings, by virtue of its contents, belongs as much to the prophetical books as to the historical. It is not a continuous chronicle; it is a book of prophetic teaching in which sometimes history, sometimes story, is employed as the vehicle of teaching. It enforces the principle that God is the controlling power and sin the disturbing force in the entire history of men and nations.[20] In a similar manner the religious purpose predominates in the other Old Testament historical books. They do not pretend to give a complete history even of {149} the Hebrew people. The writers embodied only such historical material as was thought to illustrate the self-revelation of God in the history of individuals and of the nation, or to bear in some marked way upon the coming of the kingdom of God. A modern secular historian is disappointed at many omissions which would be unpardonable in a strictly historical production. Now, it is readily seen that the religious purpose may be served, and the didactic value of the narrative may remain, even though historical inaccuracies in details should be discovered. Another fact to be remembered is the possible difference in the viewpoint of several narrators of one and the same event. In sacred, as in secular history, the viewpoint of the author determines to a considerable extent the character of the narrative. For example: the delineation of the events of the Civil War will not be the same in official documents, in a secular history, in a church history, or in a work containing personal memoirs. Still other differences might be seen in narratives confined to special incidents. Such differences in viewpoint may be noticed also among the writers of the Old Testament historical books. Broadly speaking, part of the historical literature of the Old Testament is due to prophetic activity, part to priestly activity. In writing history the prophets, with their broad interest in all the {150} affairs of the nation, resemble the modern secular historian. They portray events more objectively than the priests, hence they are more reliable. The priestly writers resemble the modern ecclesiastical historian, who judges everyone and everything according to their attitude toward the peculiar religious conceptions he represents. The Old Testament contains also some personal memoirs (in Ezra and Nehemiah) and some narratives of special incidents (Ruth, Esther), while the historical books in their present form embody also what may have been official documents. Moreover, in estimating the reliability of the Old Testament historical books we must not overlook certain unconscious references and indications which show that the authors exercised considerable care in producing the books. In the first place, historical statements appear to have been preserved with considerable care, at least so far as the substance is concerned. This may be seen from the retention of parallel narratives of the same events, without attempts at harmonizing minor disagreements. In the second place, history was written with some discrimination. This is evident especially in Kings, where the several degrees in which certain of the kings departed from the legitimate religion of Israel are carefully indicated. A clear distinction is made between the relatively pious kings, who simply did not {151} remove the high places (1 Kings 15. 14; 2 Kings 12. 3) and those who, in defiance of a fundamental principle (Exod. 20. 4, 5), desired to represent the spiritual God of Israel in images that would appeal to the senses (1 Kings 12. 28, 29; 14. 16, etc.), and those who, in defiance of the first requirement of the Decalogue (Exod. 20. 3), served other gods (1 Kings 16. 31-33; 18. 22, etc.). Once more: in the Old Testament records we find evidence of the historical consciousness of ancient Israel resting upon a very sure foundation. The Mosaic age was regarded as the supreme crisis in the national history. Moses was the great hero; yet his grandeur was not able to extinguish the consciousness of the glory of the pre-Mosaic period. Throughout the entire literature Abraham and Jacob and Joseph are also connected with the beginnings of the Hebrew nation and with the beginning of the religious mission of the people. The memory of the pre-Mosaic period seems indeed to have been securely founded. What, then, are the results of this comparative study? The Old Testament world has become a new world. Dark regions were Egypt, Assyria, Elam, and other countries mentioned in the Old Testament before the explorers and excavators entered these lands. Now it is comparatively easy to trace with considerable accuracy the boundaries of empires that existed in the first {152} and second millenniums B.C. In addition, we can fix with certainty the sites of some Old Testament cities whose location was previously unknown and, in some cases, whose very existence had been doubted. The topography of cities like Nineveh, Nippur, and Babylon has become quite definitely fixed. The historical gains are even more remarkable. Whole nations have been resurrected. What did we know a century ago of Elam? Nothing but the name. What of Assyria? Only a few traditions, sometimes untrustworthy, preserved by classical writers, and the statements of the Bible, some of which were unintelligible because of their fragmentary character. Now these and other nations pass one after the other in review, great and powerful in all their ancient glory. And, almost every day, new light is thrown on these early centuries. Only a few years ago it was thought that Assyrian history, as distinct from that of Babylon, began about B.C. 1800; now we know the names of many rulers who lived generations and centuries before that date. The chronological gains are especially important. It is generally admitted that Hebrew chronology is not always reliable, and various expedients have been resorted to to remove the difficulties. It was very gratifying, therefore, to discover that the chronological system of the Assyrians was {153} more precise. Among the inscriptions are especially three classes of public records in which the occurrences are carefully dated: (1) Records of the reigns of certain kings in which their activities are carefully arranged in chronological order; (2) business tablets in which transactions are definitely dated; and (3) the so-called eponym lists. According to Assyrian custom, each year was named after a prominent official. Lists of these were carefully made and kept, and, fortunately, large fragments of them have been preserved. Two recensions of these eponym lists have come down. In one only the names of the years are given; in the other references to important events are added to the names. If, now, any one of these events can be dated, it becomes possible to trace the dates designated by the names on either side of the one whose date is first determined. By means of these lists and the other records the Assyrian chronology can be definitely fixed from about B.C. 900 on. This, in turn, enables us to bring order into the chaos of Hebrew chronology during the most important period of the nation's existence. When we think of these and other gains, not the least of which is the discovery of the contemporaneous documents, the absence of which was at one time made the basis for the rejection of many statements found exclusively in the Old {154} Testament, we may gratefully receive this new light and rejoice in the advance in Bible knowledge made possible through the excavations. What, now, is the general bearing of these discoveries on the trustworthiness of the Old Testament? In the first place, it is well to remember that for many periods of Hebrew history we are still entirely dependent on the Old Testament for direct information. For example, Professor Clay's claim concerning the patriarchal age, that "the increase of knowledge gained through the inscriptions of this period has in every instance dissolved conclusions arrived at by those critics who maintain that the patriarchs are not to be regarded as historical,"[21] is not justified by the facts. In reality, no incident in the patriarchal story is referred to in any of the inscriptions read thus far. On the other hand, the age of the patriarchs has been wonderfully illuminated. "Formerly the world in which the patriarchs moved seemed to be almost empty; now we see it filled with embassies, armies, busy cities, and long lines of traders passing to and fro between one center of civilization and another; but amid all that crowded life we peer in vain for any trace of the fathers of the Hebrews; we listen in vain for any mention of their names; this is the whole change archæology has wrought: it has given us an atmosphere and a background for the stories of Genesis; it is {155} unable to recall or certify their heroes."[22] All that can be said in this, as in other cases, is, that archæology, by furnishing a broad historical background, has established the possibility of the principal events recorded in the biblical narratives being correct. It is silent concerning the events themselves, and, therefore, neither confirms nor discredits them. A few cases there are, especially in connection with questions of chronology, where archæology has modified and corrected biblical statements. According to the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser, for example, Menahem of Israel paid tribute to the Assyrian king in B.C. 738, and there is reason for believing that this tribute was paid near the beginning of Menahem's reign for the purpose of securing the good will of Assyria. In 734 or 733 Pekah is said to have been slain and to have been succeeded by Hoshea. Now, according to the Old Testament, Menahem reigned ten years; his son, Pekahiah, two years, and Pekah twenty years, a total of thirty-two years. Even if we assume that the tribute was paid by Menahem during his last year--which is not at all likely--there would remain twenty-two years to be provided for between 738 and 734 or 733. Evidently, the Old Testament figures are too high. A similar case is found in connection with events that took place only a few years later. In 2 Kings {156} 18. 10 the statement is found that Samaria was taken in the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah. Then, verse 13 states that in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came against Jerusalem. The date of the capture of Samaria is definitely fixed by the Assyrian inscriptions. The city fell either in the closing days of B.C. 722 or the opening days of B.C. 721. Assuming that it was 722, the fourteenth year of Hezekiah would be 714. But Sennacherib did not become king until 705, and the attack upon Jerusalem was not made until 701. Here, again, the biblical account seems to be inaccurate. In many other cases, however, remarkable confirmations are seen. There are many persons and events mentioned in the Old Testament which are referred to also in the inscriptions. Think of the long list of Babylonian and Assyrian kings named in the Old Testament; Amraphel, king of Shinar, at one time considered a mythical figure, is shown to have been one of the greatest generals, wisest administrators, and fairest lawgivers among the early kings of Babylon. Sargon, whose very existence was once doubted, has in defiance risen from the dust. In these and numerous other cases, especially from the ninth century onward--as may be seen from a comparison of the inscriptions quoted above with the corresponding portions of {157} the Old Testament--the archæological records furnish striking confirmations of the Old Testament narratives. To sum up this entire inquiry: It must be apparent to every unbiased student that the monuments, when read intelligently, neither set aside nor discredit the Old Testament documents. On the contrary, they prove their substantial accuracy. They may at times modify them, especially in questions of chronology; but they more frequently corroborate than impugn; thus they offer their services not as a substitute but as a supplement, by the aid of which we may study from without the history of the Hebrew people. NOTES ON CHAPTER IV [1] An excellent account of the explorations and excavations in Babylonia and Assyria, and of the decipherment of the inscriptions is found in R. W. Rogers, A History of Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. I, Chapters I-VIII; compare also H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands during the Nineteenth Century, Part I. [2] Preliminary reports of the results of the German excavations are given from time to time in the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft. [3] G. Steindorff, Excavations in Egypt, in H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, pp. 623-690. [4] Opening words of I. Benzinger, Researches in Palestine, in Hilprecht, Explorations, pp. 579-622. A very complete discussion of explorations and excavations in Palestine may be found in F. Jones Bliss, Development of Palestine Exploration. The {158} progress of the excavations is reported in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund. [5] Opening words of the first lecture on "Babel and Bible." [6] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. xlviii. [7] A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, Chapter XI. [8] The Chronology of the Old Testament, p. 97. [9] Egypt and Israel, p. 35. Breasted also seems to think that the Israelites defeated by Merneptah had no direct connection with those who suffered in Egypt, A History of Egypt, p. 466; compare p. 410. [10] The Expositor, 1908, p. 199. [11] J. C. Ball, Light from the East, pp. 131, 132. [12] W. H. Bennett, The Moabite Stone; Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, art., "Moab, Moabites." [13] Most of the inscriptions from this period on are found in D. G. Hogarth, Authority and Archaeology, Part I--Hebrew Authority, by S. R. Driver. See also T. G. Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia; A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel; A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Orient; R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature; S. R. Driver, Modern Research as Illustrating the Bible. The most recent and most complete collection of cuneiform inscriptions throwing light on Old Testament religion and history is contained in R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, which appeared after this book had gone to press. [14] Formerly called Shalmaneser II; see Expository Times, February, 1912, p. 238. [15] A translation of the entire inscription by R. W. Rogers is found in Records of the Past, New Series, Vol. VI, pp. 80ff. These Records of the Past contain translations of the more important ancient inscriptions. {159} [16] The most important of these papyri is translated in the Biblical World, June, 1908, pp. 448ff. [17] Francis Brown, Assyriology--Its Use and Abuse in Old Testament Study, p. 3. [18] R. W. Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. II, p. 80. [19] Encyclopedia Biblica, Vol. I, col. 792, Note. [20] E. W. Barnes, The First Book of Kings, p. xxxiii. [21] A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, p. 143. [22] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. liii, quoted in part from G. A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, p. 101. {160} CHAPTER V THE OLD TESTAMENT AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION The present is an era of comparative study. We no longer study subjects by themselves, but compare them with correlated experiences and phenomena. "In the sphere of language study we have the science of comparative philology. Language is compared with language. By means of this comparison we have found that there are groups of languages closely related to one another; and, comparing these groups with one another, we have discovered certain universal laws of language. Comparing further the languages within each group, we ascertain the laws common to that group. By such comparison a flood of light has been thrown on language. We know Greek and Latin and Hebrew to-day as our predecessors did not know them."[1] The same principle of comparison is now applied to the study of history, of literature, of philosophy, of ethics, and of religion, including the literature and religion of the Hebrews. Men are laying to-day the entire Hebrew literature, history, and religion alongside of the literatures, histories, and religions of other {161} nations, testing them by the same methods and applying to them the same rules. What should be the attitude of the Christian toward this method of study? When the science of comparative philology first asserted itself many good Christians set themselves against it, because one of its claims was that Hebrew is not the original language given by God to men. Comparative philology has won its way, and Bible students are truly grateful for the light it has shed upon sacred scripture. When the comparative study of the Scriptures was first advocated there were many timid souls who felt that this method of study was an attack upon the Bible, which could only issue in such an overturning of belief that the Church would remain helpless with a worthless Bible. Hence they set themselves with all their might against the new study as an enemy of Christianity. Is this the proper attitude? In the first place, it is well to remember that the Bible has withstood all attacks for thousands of years. Its great river of truth has flowed serenely on, watering the whole earth with its life-giving streams, and refusing to be dammed up by any foe. Surely, history teaches that there need be no fear that any new method of study will bring about an end of the Bible's reign. On the other hand, history teaches the folly of resisting the progress of science along any line of investigation. {162} True science will win its way just as surely as the teaching of the Bible will win its way into the hearts of men. Hence it would seem the part of wisdom to encourage rather than to discourage the efforts of the comparative student of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, we cannot do anything else unless we would stultify ourselves. We have said to the adherents of every other religion: "You say your sacred books are divine, prove it; lay your books open before the jury of the world, let the critics scrutinize them, analyze them, criticize them, according to the canons of modern criticism by which they criticize all books." And can we refuse to open our Bible before the jury of the world and bid it scrutinize, analyze, and criticize it according to the same canons which it applies to the Veda, the Koran, and other so-called holy books? Would such an attitude be fair? If we believe that the Bible is different from the sacred books of other nations, that it stands on a far higher plane, unique, needing no concealment and no bolstering up with traditions and doctrines--if that is our faith, then let us lay it down open before the world and challenge men to read it, study it, and compare it with all the sacred literatures of the world. The man who really believes in the inspiration of the Bible ought not to be afraid of such a test. He may rest assured {163} that the comparative study of biblical literature and biblical religion will prove one of the things that work together for good to all those who have a living faith in God. An exhaustive discussion of the subject of this chapter would involve a study of all the great historical religions, known better to-day than ever before, and a comparison of them with the religion of the Old Testament. This, however, could not be done satisfactorily within the limits of a single chapter. It seems, therefore, advisable to confine the investigation to the religious beliefs, practices, and institutions of the nations with whom the Hebrews came into more or less close contact, such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. Political contact, which was common between these nations and the Hebrews, might furnish occasions for exerting influence in the realms of religion, law, and other elements of civilization. "When alien races and diverse faiths confronted each other it might not always be the cause of war, but it was always the occasion of psychical conflict."[2] Since the knowledge of the religions of the nations named has been supplied very largely through archæological labors, this inquiry is simply one phase of the broader question as to the bearing of archæology upon the Old Testament; more especially, the bearing of the archæological material of a religious and ethical nature {164} upon the uniqueness and permanent significance of the Old Testament religion. The importance of this study is suggested in the following quotation from a prominent Assyriologist, Hugo Winckler: "We come in the end to this, that we can distinguish only two views of the world which the human race has known in its historical development: the old Babylonian, and the modern empirical naturalistic, which is still in process of development and is yet struggling with the old one in many departments of life."[3] To avoid misunderstanding respecting the extent of the Babylonian influence, he adds, "The view of the world and religion are one for the ancient Oriental."[3] In this statement Winckler robs the Old Testament religion of all originality; he considers it simply a natural development of the Babylonian religion. Friedrich Delitzsch, in his lectures on "Babel and Bible,"[4] expresses the same idea in a slightly modified form and attempts to show the predominance of Babylonian thought in the Hebrew conception of the origin of the world, the Fall, the Flood, life after death, angels, demons, the devil, the Sabbath, a large part of the sacrificial cult, the directions concerning the priesthood, the name and worship of Jehovah, and even in the monotheistic conception of Deity. How much truth is there in these claims? Or, to put the question in another form, If the religious {165} ideas expressed in the Old Testament have parallels among nations commonly called heathen, and if these extra-biblical ideas cannot be explained as dependent on the Bible, does it follow that the ideas of the Bible are appropriated from these nations, and if so, what becomes of the uniqueness, the sacredness, the inspiration of the Old Testament? In order to answer the question adequately it is necessary to consider in detail the most important phases of the religious ideas of the Hebrews on the one hand, and of the nations with whom the Hebrews came in contact on the other. Fundamental to all religious thinking is the conception of Deity. The origin of the Babylonian conception of Deity, which shows more striking similarities to the ideas of the Old Testament than do the conceptions of the other nations above mentioned, belongs to a period of which little or nothing is known. But there are indications that a fundamental aspect of the earliest religion of the country was animism, that is, the belief that every object was possessed and animated by a spirit. "Life was the only force known to man which explained motion, and, conversely, motion was the sign and manifestation of life. The arrow which sped through the air, or the rock which fell from the cliff, did so in virtue of their possessing life, or because the motive force of {166} life lay in some way or other behind them. The stars, which slowly moved through the sky, and the sun, which rose and set day by day, were living beings. It was life which gave them the power of movement as it gave the power of movement to man himself, and the animals by whom he was surrounded."[5] Besides this belief in animism, the Babylonian religion shows evidences of a belief in ghosts that were related to the world of the dead. These ghosts were thought to exercise an evil influence upon men and could be cast out only by the use of incantations. But, while these elements belonged to the early religion, Babylonian religion as it actually meets us even in the earliest inscriptions has reached a higher stage of development. There appear many local deities; every center of human habitation had its special patron deity; for example, Babylon was the city of Marduk; Nippur, of Enlil; Ur, of Sin; Sippara, of Shamash; Cuthah, of Nergal; Asshur, of Ashur; etc. These deities are usually associated with natural phenomena; foremost among them stand the sun and the moon; but by the side of these many other natural objects or forces were personified and deified. It is probable that in the beginning, as the result of limited observation and speculation, the number of gods in the Babylonian pantheon was relatively small. However, in the course of time, {167} they became greatly multiplied as the result of a wider observation of the phenomena of nature, political changes, and theological speculation. Over against this tendency to multiply deities there shows itself, in the course of the centuries, a tendency to diminish the number of gods, and in the end comparatively few remain, until in the late Babylonian period the worship seems to have been confined chiefly to Marduk, Nabu, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar. Some of the great thinkers of Babylonia seem to have gone even so far as to consider the various deities manifestation of the one god Marduk. There is in existence a tablet of the Neo-Babylonian period which states that Marduk is called Ninib as the possessor of power, Nergal as lord of battle, Bel as possessor of dominion, Nabu as lord of business, Sin as the illuminator of the night, Shamash as the lord of right, Addu as the lord of rain, etc.[6] It is seen, then, that monotheistic tendencies are not absent from the Babylonian religion. But they never go beyond the realm of speculation. "The Babylonians, with all their wonderful gifts, were never able to conceive of one god, of one god alone, of one god whose very existence makes logically impossible the existence of any other deity. Monotheism transcends the spiritual grasp of the Babylonian mind."[7] In the words of Delitzsch, "Notwithstanding all this, however, and despite {168} the fact that many liberal and enlightened minds openly advocated the doctrine that Nergal and Nebo, that the moon-god and the sun-god, the god of thunder, Ramman, and all the rest of the Babylonian pantheon, were one in Marduk, the god of light, still polytheism, gross polytheism, remained for three thousand years the Babylonian state religion--a sad and significant warning against the indolence of men and races in matters of religion, and against the colossal power which may be acquired by a strongly organized priesthood based upon it."[8] Even the most spiritual expressions of the Babylonian religion, the so-called penitential psalms, bear witness to the fact that the writers continued to worship many deities. In one of the most spiritual of these psalms, the psalmist prays: That the heart anger of my lord be appeased, A god unknown to me be appeased, A goddess unknown to me be appeased, A known and unknown god be appeased, A known and unknown goddess be appeased, That the heart of my god be appeased, The heart of my goddess be appeased, God and goddess, known and unknown, be appeased.[9] Some of the hymns and prayers addressed to certain deities read almost as if the authors were monotheists. But this is due simply to the fact that just at the time they are interested in the power or {169} splendor or favor of a specific deity. Again and again the fact that they believe in the existence of other deities, and in their duty to pay homage to different deities, crops out. At no period of the religious history of Babylonia is there any indication of a clear and well-defined monotheism. In Egypt also a tendency toward monotheism manifested itself, especially during the reign of Amenophis IV, soon after B.C. 1400,[10] that is, during the period when the Hebrews were in Egypt. He tried to do away with the worship of many deities and to establish as the one supreme deity the orb of the sun; but after the death of Amenophis, who was considered a heretic, the new cult disappeared without exerting any noticeable influence on Egyptian religion. There certainly is no evidence that either the Babylonian or the Egyptian monotheistic tendencies influenced in any direct way the development of Israel's religion. Turning now to the religion of the Old Testament, we soon discover that Hebrew religion, including the conception of Deity, passed through various stages of development, the earliest of these belonging to the period before Moses. The first thing to be noted about this period is that, in spite of the close relation of the ancient Hebrews with Babylon, the early Hebrew conception of Deity does not seem to have been influenced in any marked manner by that of Babylonia; nor {170} is there any indication of Egyptian influence. On the other hand, the oldest Hebrew conceptions show marked similarities with the religion of their nomadic neighbors, as reflected, for example, in the oldest traditions of the Arab tribes. This does not mean that an indirect influence may not have been exerted by Babylon; indeed, the absence of such influence would be very strange in view of the fact that, according to Hebrew tradition, the truth of which cannot be doubted, the ancestors of the Hebrews came from Babylonia, from the city of Ur, the principal center of the worship of the Babylonian moon-god, Sin. The results of modern investigations into the nature of early Hebrew religion may be briefly stated as follows: Like the early Babylonian religion, the religion of Israel passed through a stage of animism. In one form this is the belief in the activity of the spirits of recently deceased relatives. But this becomes a religion only when it leads to the worship of the departed, that is, ancestor worship, of which there is no definite indication in the biblical material at our command. But there is a form of animism of which there are traces in Israel as in Babylonia, namely, the worship of spirits that were believed to be the inhabitants and possessors of certain objects and places, like trees, stones, springs, which thereby assumed a sacred character. To this form of {171} religion the name "polydemonism," which means the worship of many demons, is ordinarily given. Demon, however, is to be understood here, not in the sense of evil spirit, but simply a divine being of an inferior order. As illustrations of this belief, attention may be called to the sacred stone, Bethel, which gave the locality its name, "House of God" (Gen. 28. 19), or to the sacred oracular tree at Shechem (Gen. 12. 6; Deut. 11. 30), or to the sacred wells at Kadesh (Gen. 14. 7) and Beersheba (Gen. 21. 28-33). In general, it may be said that during the pre-Mosaic period the religion of Israel, whatever may have been true of isolated individuals, was not essentially different from the religious conceptions of the people with which we have become better acquainted through modern exploration and excavation.[11] Another and very different conception appears from the time of the exodus on. The most striking feature of this new conception is that the Israelites now worship one God, whom they consider their own peculiar Deity, while they look upon themselves as his own peculiar people. True, the earlier conceptions did not disappear entirely or immediately; but for the religious leaders there was but one God who had a right to demand Israel's loyalty. Jehovah, or Yahweh, was the name of this God, and the religious watchword was, "Jehovah, the God of Israel; Israel the people {172} of Jehovah." Now archeology has shown the name "Yahweh" to have been used as a divine name long before the time of the exodus; but archæology has also shown that the conception of the nature and character of Yahweh held by the religious leaders of the Hebrews from the time of Moses on is peculiar to them. Says R. W. Rogers, "There can, therefore, be no escape from the conclusion that the divine name 'Yahweh' is not a peculiar possession of the Hebrews."[12] Then he continues: "At first sight this may seem like a startling robbery of Israel, this taking away from her the divine name 'Yahweh' as an exclusive possession, but it is not so. Yahweh himself is not taken away: he remains the priceless possession, the chief glory of Israel. It is only the name that is shown to be widespread. And the name matters little. The great question is, What does this name convey? What is its theological content? The name came to Israel from the outside; but into that vessel a long line of prophets from Moses onward poured such a flood of attributes as never a priest in all western Asia from Babylonia to the sea ever dreamed of in his highest moments of spiritual insight. In this name and through Israel's history God chose to reveal himself to Israel, and by Israel to the world. Therein lies the supreme and lonesome superiority of Israel over Babylonia."[13] {173} Archaeology has revealed the pantheon of Babylonia and Assyria; the inscriptions have also set in a clear light the nature and character of the gods as conceived by their worshipers. For example, the gods are looked upon as a part of the process of creation, as may be seen from the opening lines of the story of Creation:[14] When no one of the gods had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were fixed. Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven. An idea of the character of these deities may be gathered from the description of a heavenly banquet scene in the same poem: They made ready the feast, at the banquet [they sat], They ate bread, they mingled the wine. The sweet drink made them drunken ... By drinking they were drunken, their bodies were filled. They shouted aloud, their heart was exalted, Then for Marduk, their avenger, did they decree destiny. Certainly, not all the religious thinkers of Babylonia held these low conceptions. In some of their prayers and hymns they rise to lofty spiritual and ethical conceptions which compare quite favorably with expressions found in the Old Testament. In a hymn addressed to Shamash, the sun-god, are found these lines: Who plans evil--his horn thou dost destroy, Whoever in fixing boundaries annuls rights. The unjust judge thou restrainest with force. {174} Whoever accepts a bribe, who does not judge justly--on him thou imposest sin. But he who does not accept a bribe, who has a care for the oppressed, To him Shamash is gracious, his life he prolongs. The judge who renders a just decision Shall end in a palace, the place of princes shall be his dwelling. * * * * * The seed of those who act unjustly shall not flourish. What their mouth declares in thy presence Thou shalt burn it up, what they purpose wilt thou annul. Thou knowest their transgressions; the declaration of the wicked thou dost cast aside. Every one wherever he may be is in thy care. Thou directest their judgments, the imprisoned dost thou liberate. Thou hearest, O Shamash, petition, prayer, and appeal, Humility, prostration, petitioning, and reverence. With loud voice the unfortunate one cries to thee. The weak, the exhausted, the oppressed, the lowly, Mother, wife, maid appeal to thee, He who is removed from his family, he that dwelleth far from his city.[15] Far be it from the writer to rob the religion of Babylonia of any of its glory. Nevertheless, he ventures to assert without any fear of contradiction that we may search the pantheon of Babylon, from one end to the other, and we shall not find one god who in nature and character can compare with the Jehovah of Israel as proclaimed by the great prophets and glorified by the sweet singers of the nation, a God "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth." We may well speak of a "great gulf, {175} which is fixed between primitive Semitic conceptions of God and the noble spiritual views of him set forth under divine illumination by Isaiah."[16] It is due to this fundamental difference in the conception of the nature and character of Deity that the religion of Israel became "a living and ethical power, growing and increasing until Jesus, greatest of the prophets, completed the message of his predecessors," and Christianity was born. From the conception of Deity we may pass to a brief consideration of religious institutions and beliefs. One of the most important results of recent archæological discoveries has been to show that many of the religious rites, customs, and institutions of Babylonia and Assyria, as also of Egypt, resemble closely those assigned in the Old Testament to the Hebrews. This cannot appear strange when we remember that Israel was a branch of the great Semitic race, which was, at the time of its separation from the common stock, in possession of many of the common Semitic notions and practices. It would have been impossible to rid the Israelite consciousness of all of these; therefore the religious leaders of the Hebrews took the better way of retaining the familiar forms and pouring into them a new, higher, and more spiritual significance. One of the earliest religious institutions recognized in the Old Testament is the Sabbath. The {176} very fact that it is mentioned in the story of creation shows that, whatever the reason for its observance among the Hebrews, it was recognized as a very ancient institution. Has archæology thrown any light on the origin of the Sabbath day?[17] In his first lecture on "Babel and Bible," Delitzsch answers the question in these words: "There can therefore be scarcely the shadow of a doubt that in the last resort we are indebted to this ancient nation on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris for the plenitude of blessings that flows from our day of Sabbath, or Sunday, rest."[18] This statement was soon criticized, because it seemed to give too much credit to the Babylonians, and Delitzsch later modified the statement and claimed, simply, that the Hebrew Sabbath ultimately is rooted in a Babylonian institution.[19] No exception can be taken to this putting of the claim. What are the facts in the case? (1) The Babylonians observed in a peculiar way the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month, that is, the days on which the moon entered a new phase. They also observed the nineteenth day of the month, which was the forty-ninth day from the beginning of the preceding month. These days were considered unlucky days, on which certain actions had to be avoided, at least by important personages, like the king, {177} priest, and physician. The prohibition reads: "The shepherd (king) of the great nations shall not eat roasted nor smoked meat, not change his garment, not put on white raiment, not offer sacrifice; the king shall not mount his chariot, as ruler not pronounce judgment; the priest shall not give oracles in the secret place; the physician shall not lay his hand on the sick, the day being inauspicious for any affair whatever." The Babylonians evidently observed these days by at least partial cessation of work, because nothing would prosper anyway on those days. In contrast, it may be well to notice that in the Sabbath observance among the early Hebrews the humanitarian element played a prominent part. (2) The name _Sha-bat-tu_ has been found in the inscriptions as an interpretation of the phrase, _um nuh libbi_, which means, a day for appeasing the heart (of the deity). It would seem, therefore, that the Babylonian Sabbath was intended to be a day of atonement or supplication, which might imply cessation of ordinary labor, especially since the word _Sha-bat-tu_ may be identical in meaning with _gamaru_, to complete or finish, which leads naturally to the idea of rest, because the work is completed. (3) There is no definite evidence that the five days mentioned were called _Sha-bat-tu_; the name is given rather to the fifteenth day of the month, which is the day of the full moon. {178} In the light of these facts it is not improbable that there is some connection between the Hebrew Sabbath and certain special days among the Babylonians; but, as in other cases, the Hebrews have given to the adopted institution a new significance. Some of the changes introduced by the Hebrews are: (a) The Hebrews observed every seventh day without regard for the month or the year. The Babylonians observed the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of each month, (b) The motive underlying the observance among the two people differs. The earliest Hebrew legislation (Exod. 23. 12) would seem to indicate that humanitarian considerations are responsible for Sabbath observance, not religious superstition, (c) The Sabbath law of the Hebrews was binding on all. According to our present knowledge, among the Babylonians only the leaders appear to have been affected. The Babylonians, Egyptians, and other ancient peoples had in addition to the Sabbath numerous other festivals, and it is not improbable that some of the Hebrew festivals are connected with these, though the exact relation is not yet determined. Archaeology has thrown much light on the complicated ceremonial system of the Old Testament, though it is an exaggeration to say that, "if we want to trace the origin of the late Jewish ceremonial of the Priest Code, we must look for {179} it in the cuneiform ritual texts of the Babylonians."[20] Attention may be called here to a few of the more marked similarities between the Hebrew and Babylonian systems.[21] (1) The Babylonian temple closely resembled the temple of Solomon. Both had two courts, chambers for the priests, the sanctuary, and the Holy of holies. Externally, both were mere rectangular boxes, without much architectural beauty or variety of design. It was only in the possession of a tower that the Babylonian temple differed from the Hebrew, a difference due to a difference in the conception of Deity. The temples agreed even in the details of their furniture: the two altars of the Babylonian sanctuary are found again in the temple of Jerusalem; so also the mercy seat and the table of showbread. The bronze sea of Solomon was modeled after a Babylonian original. The twin pillars, which Solomon erected in the porch of the temple, have their counterparts in Babylonian sanctuaries. Even the sacred ark seems to have had a Babylonian origin, though some would trace it to Egypt. (2) Every great sanctuary had its chief priest. Under him was a large number of subordinate priests and temple ministers, such as sacrificers, pourers of libations, anointers with oil, bakers, chanters, wailers, etc. Connected with the sanctuaries were also the prophets, augurs, soothsayers, necromancers, etc. {180} Though not all these classes of religious workers are found in connection with the Jewish sanctuaries, the chief priest and his subordinates are found there as well as in Babylon. (3) Similarities in the details of the sacrificial system may be noted. Libations were poured out before the deities, consisting originally, probably, of pure water, to which was subsequently added wine, made either from the palm or the vine. All the first-fruits of the cultivated land were offered to the god; milk and butter and oil, dates and vegetables were given in abundance. So too were spices and incense, brought from the southern coast of Arabia, the corn that was grown in the fields, garlic and other herbs from the garden, and honey from the hive. Annual sacrifices were not forgotten. Oxen and calves, sheep and lambs, goats and kids, fish and certain kinds of birds, were slain upon the altar. There are traces of human sacrifice, but, as among the Hebrews, the practice disappeared at an early date. "Babylonia," says Sayce, "was the inventor of the tithe,"[22] which was paid by all classes, even the king. One of the last acts recorded of the crown prince, Belshazzar, is the payment of a tithe, forty-seven shekels in amount, due from his sister to the temple of the sun-god at Sippara. The daily sacrifice was a fixed custom. Several of the technical terms of the Old Testament are {181} found also in Assyrian. For example: _torah_, law, has its counterpart in the Assyrian _tertu_; the biblical _kipper_, atonement, is the Assyrian _kuppuru_; _korban_, gift or offering, is the Assyrian _kurbannu_. The names for animal sacrifice, _zibu_, for meal offering, _manitu_, and for freewill offering, _nidbu_, all are found in their Hebrew forms in the Old Testament. As in the Hebrew legislation, a distinction is made between the offerings of the rich and the poor, and the sacrificial animal was to be without blemish. The Babylonian priest retained certain parts for himself, which was also the custom among the Hebrews (Deut. 18. 3), though the parts retained are not the same in the two cases. A ritual tablet shows that Babylonians sprinkled the blood of the lamb that was killed at the gate of the palace on the lintels, on the figures flanking the entrances, and on the doorposts to the right and the left, which has its parallel in the Hebrew passover ceremony. These illustrations, which by no means exhaust the list, reveal close similarities between the Hebrew ceremonial and that of the inhabitants of the Euphrates-Tigris valley, and the more we know of the Babylonian ritual, the more extensive and striking these resemblances become. They both start from the same principles and agree in many of their details. Between them, however, lies that deep gulf which separates the religion of {182} Israel from that of Babylonia as a whole. The one is monotheistic, the other polytheistic. Upon the basis of this fundamental difference the religious leaders of Israel gave to the similar forms adopted from other nations a new and deeper meaning and significance. Like the Hebrew religion, the religion of Babylonia has its guardian angels.[23] The Babylonian rulers stood in need of hosts of messengers to bear their behests into all quarters of their dominions. In a similar manner, it was thought, the gods needed their heavenly hosts to carry out their commissions. These angels are represented under various forms, but all of them are equipped with wings, so as to be able to carry upon the winds of heaven the commands of the gods to the children of men. Sometimes they are represented with eagles' heads, perhaps to indicate that they possess the keenness of vision and the rapidity of flight of an eagle; sometimes they have human countenances to denote their human intelligence. Frequently they appear as hybrid figures, with the body of a lion or bull, the wings of an eagle, and the head of a man, symbolizing strength, swiftness, and intelligence. The duties of these angels are manifold. Those placed at the entrances of palaces or temples are to guard those entrances. The peculiar relations of angels to men are suggested, for example, by {183} a letter of a Babylonian officer to the queen mother. He writes: "Mother of the king, my lady, be comforted. Bel's and Nabu's angel of mercy attends on the king of the land, my lord." A letter addressed to Esarhaddon contains these words: "May the great gods send a guardian of salvation and life to stand by the king my lord." And Nabopolassar, the founder of the Chaldean empire, and father of Nebuchadrezzar, writes: "To lordship over land and people, Marduk called me. He sent a cherub of mercy to attend on me, and everything I undertook he aided." Alongside of these guardian angels there appear evil spirits and demons. "These demons were everywhere: they lurked in every corner, watching for their prey. The city streets knew their malevolent presence, the rivers, the seas, the tops of the mountains. They appeared sometimes as serpents gliding noiselessly upon their victims; as birds, horrid of mien, flying resistlessly to destroy or afflict; as beings in human form, grotesque, malformed, awe-inspiring through their hideousness. To these demons all sorts of misfortunes were ascribed: toothache, headache, broken bones, raging fever, outbursts of anger, of jealousy. Did a man lie wasting of disease and torn of pain, a demon was thought to be within him, the disease being but a manifestation of his malevolence. There could be no return of the precious boon of {184} good health until the demon was exorcised, and it was to the exorcising of demons that so large, so disproportionate a part of the religious literature of Babylon and Nineveh was devoted."[24] Sometimes demons are referred to in a manner which shows that the conception in Job 1. 6ff., Zech. 3. 1ff., of the Adversary, or the Satan, is closely related to the Babylonian conception of a demon as accuser, persecutor, or oppressor. The vision of the Old Testament is largely confined to this world. There is little hope for a man after he passes away from this earth. Indeed, there are some passages which would seem to imply the thought that with death existence came entirely to an end. Compare, for example, Psa. 39.13: Oh, spare me, that I may recover strength Before I go hence, and be no more; or Job 14. 7-12: For there is hope of a tree, If it be cut down, that it will sprout again, And that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, And the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, And put forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and is laid low; Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, And the river wasteth and drieth up; So man lieth down and riseth not: Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, Nor be roused out of their sleep. {185} These are expressions of deepest despondency and despair over a life soon ended, never to be lived again here upon earth. However, by far the greatest number of Old Testament passages dealing with the subject express a belief in a continuous existence after death in Sheol. Sheol is the place of departed personalities; the generations of one's forefathers are there: he who dies is gathered unto his fathers; the tribal divisions of one's race are there: the dead is gathered unto his people; and if his descendants have died before him, they are there, and he goes down to them, as Jacob to his son (Gen. 37. 35: "For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning"), and David to his child (2 Sam. 12. 23: "I shall go to him, and he shall not return to me"). There are only a few passages which go beyond this, expressing a hope of immortality or a resurrection. There is, for example, the hope expressed in Psa. 16. 8-11: I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou will not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fullness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. The hope expressed here is not a hope of a resurrection, but, rather, a hope that the psalmist will {186} be delivered from death and live in fellowship with God forevermore. There are other passages which recognize the impossibility of escaping death, but express a hope that there will be a resurrection from death. The most definite Old Testament teaching of a resurrection is in Dan. 12. 2, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." These lofty hopes are peculiar to Israel. But Israel's conception of Sheol shows very striking resemblances with the Babylonian conception. The descriptions found in Job, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Ezekiel and elsewhere, are hardly to be distinguished from those found in Babylonian literature. The opening lines of Ishtar's descent into Sheol read: To the land from which there is no return, the home of darkness, Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, turned her mind, Yea, the daughter of Sin set her mind to go; To the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house from which those who enter depart not, The road from whose path there is no return; To the house where they who enter are deprived of light; A place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food; The light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell; They are clad like bats in a garb of wings; On door and bolt the dust is laid. Compare with this Job 10. 21, 22: Before I go, whence I shall not return, To the land of darkness, yea deepest darkness, {187} The land dark as midnight, Of deepest darkness without any order, And where the light is as midnight; or Job 7. 9, 10: He that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more, He shall return no more to his house, Neither shall his place know him any more. Other similarities may be noted: the Hebrew Sheol, like the Babylonian, was deep down in the earth; it is pictured as a cavern; silence reigns supreme, etc. There is but one explanation for these similarities: When the ancestors of the Hebrews left their homes in the Euphrates valley they carried with them the traditions, beliefs, and customs current in that district. Under new surroundings, and especially under the influence of their higher religion, new features were added and old conceptions were transformed. But these changes were not able to obscure entirely the character impressed upon the older beliefs by contact with Babylon. Striking similarities are found also between the legal systems of Babylonia and Israel. In the light of recent discoveries the study of ancient law begins to-day, not with the legal systems of Rome, or of Greece, or of Israel, but with the laws of early Babylonia. Of the beginning of the Babylonian legal system we know nothing except a few popular traditions, which trace it back to some deity. It is clear, however, that long {188} centuries before the time of Moses or Minos or Romulus the people living in the lower Euphrates-Tigris valley developed legal codes of a high and complex order. In the legal phrase books of the later scribes there have been preserved seven so-called Sumerian family laws, written in the language of the people occupying the southern part of the Euphrates-Tigris valley before it came under the sway of the Semites. These laws, in theme and literary form resembling later Babylonian and early Hebrew laws, were probably in existence in the fourth millennium B.C.; some of them may go even farther back. By far the most important Babylonian legal code now known is the so-called Code of Hammurabi.[25] Hammurabi was known to Assyriologists long before the finding of his legal code. He reigned in Babylon about B.C. 2000, was the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty, and the first permanently to unite the numerous small city states under one ruler. He may, therefore, be called the founder of the Babylonian empire. From his numerous letters and inscriptions, as also from other documents coming from the same period, he was known as a great conqueror and statesman, interested in the highest welfare of his people, and persistently laboring for the improvement of their conditions. The Bible student has a special interest in Hammurabi, however, because in all {189} probability he is no other than the Amraphel of Gen. 14. 1. The monument on which the code is engraved was found during the winter 1901-1902 by a French excavator in the acropolis of Susa, the scene of the book of Esther. It is a block of black diorite, about eight feet in height. When found it was in three pieces, which, however, were easily joined. On the obverse is a bas relief representing the king as receiving the ruler's staff and ring from the sun-god Shamash, "the judge of heaven and earth." Then follow on the obverse sixteen columns of writing, containing 1,114 lines. There were five more columns on this side, but they were erased and the stone repolished, probably by the Elamite conqueror who carried the monument to Susa. On the reverse are twenty-eight columns with more than 2,500 lines of inscription. The English Assyriologist, C. H. W. Johns, estimates that originally the inscription contained forty-nine columns, 4,000 lines, and about 8,000 words. About 800 lines are taken up by the prologue and epilogue, setting forth the king's titles, his glory, the extent of his rule, his care for his subjects, and devotion to his gods. The inscription opens with a statement of his call by the gods to be the ruler of Babylon: "When the lofty Anu, king of the Anunaki, and Bel, lord of heaven and earth, he who determines the destiny {190} of the land, committed the rule of all mankind to Marduk, the chief son of Ea; when they made him great among the Igigi; when they pronounced the lofty name of Babylon, when they made it famous among the quarters of the world, and in its midst established an everlasting kingdom, whose foundations were firm as heaven and earth--at that time, Ami and Bel called me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, the worshiper of the gods, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to go forth like the sun over the blackhead race, to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people." According to the closing statement of the prologue he faithfully executed this commission: "When Marduk sent me to rule the people and to bring help to the country, I established law and justice in the land and promoted the welfare of the people" (V. 14-21). To better care for the welfare of the people he set up the code of laws. In column XLI, a part of the epilogue, he says: "Let any oppressed man, who has a cause, come before my image as king of righteousness! Let him read the inscription on my monument! Let him give heed to my weighty words! And may my monument enlighten him as to his cause and may he understand his case! May he set his heart at ease!" (1-19.) He recognizes the value {191} of his law code and advises his successors on the throne to make good use of it: "In the days that are yet to come, for all future time, may the king who is in the land observe the words of righteousness which I have written upon my monument! May he not alter the judgments of the land which I have pronounced, or the decisions of the country which I have rendered! May he not efface my statues! If that man have wisdom, if he wish to give his land good government, let him give attention to the words which I have written upon my monument! And may this monument enlighten him as to procedure and administration, the judgments which I have pronounced, and the judgments which I have rendered for the land! And let him rightly rule his blackhead people; let him pronounce judgments for them and render for them decisions! Let him root out the wicked and evildoer from the land! Let him promote the welfare of his people!" (59-94.) The epilogue closes with a blessing upon the king who will observe the laws, and curses upon him who will disregard or alter them (XLII-XLIV). The pronouncement of blessings is very brief; the curses are reiterated in various forms, and numerous gods and goddesses are appealed to by name to destroy the evildoer and his reign. The section begins (XLII, 2-49): "If that man pay attention to my words which I have written {192} upon my monument, do not efface my judgments, do not overrule my words, and do not alter my statues, then will Shamash prolong that man's reign, as he has mine, who am king of righteousness, that he may rule his people in righteousness." It continues: "If that man do not pay attention to my words which I have written upon my monument; if he forget my curses and do not fear the curse of god; if he abolish the judgments which I have formulated, overrule my words, alter my statues, efface my name written thereon and write his own name; on account of these curses commission another to do so--as for that man, be he king or lord, or priestking or commoner, whoever he may be, may the great god, the father of the gods, who has ordained my reign, take from him the glory of his sovereignty, may he break his scepter and curse his fate!" Between the prologue and the epilogue is the law code proper. Originally there appear to have been 282 separate enactments (this is the estimate of the French Assyriologist, Father Scheil, who first edited the code, and is commonly accepted as correct); of these 66-99 are now missing as a result of the erasure to which reference has been made. The code covers a variety of topics. Laws dealing with the same subject are ordinarily grouped together; sometimes the principle of arrangement is the class or profession concerned. {193} A brief outline will give at least a general notion of its contents: 1, 2, False accusation of a crime; 3, 4, False witness and bribery; 5, Alteration of judgment by a judge; 6-8, Theft; 9-13, Concealing of stolen property; 14, Kidnapping; 15-20, Assisting in the escape of slaves; 21-25, Burglary and brigandage; 26-41, Rights and duties of officers, constables, and taxgatherers; 42-52, Renting of fields for cultivation; 53-56, Care of dykes and canals; 57, 58, Shepherds allowing their sheep to pasture on the fields of another; 59, Unlawful cutting down of trees; 60-65, Duties of gardeners; 66-99, (lost); 100-107, Relation of merchants to their agents; 108-111, Regulations concerning wine-sellers, always women. It may be interesting to note that with them the law was very severe. Of the three crimes condemned--minor crimes at that--one is to be punished by throwing the wine-seller into the water, the second by putting her to death, the third by burning her. 112, Loss of goods intrusted for transportation; 113-119, Securing settlement for debts; 120-126, Liability for deposits; 127, Slander; 128, Marriage contract; 129-132, Adultery, rape, and suspected unchastity; 133-143, Separation and divorce; 144-149, Concubines; 150-152, Marriage dowry; 153, Murder of husband for the sake of another; 154-158, Illegitimate sexual intercourse; 159-161, Breach of promise; 162-164, Disposition of dowry after the {194} death of the wife; 165-177, Inheritance of sons in polygamous relations; 178-182, Inheritance of priestesses; 183, 184, Inheritance of daughters of concubines; 185-194, Treatment of adopted children; 195-214, Offenses against limb and life; 215-225, Operations by doctors and veterinary surgeons. For example, "If a physician cause a man a severe wound with a bronze lancet and cause the man's death, or, in opening an abscess of a man with a bronze lancet, destroy the man's eye, they shall cut off his fingers" (218). 226, 227, Unlawful branding of slaves; 228-233, Liability of negligent builders. For example, "If a builder build a house for a man, and do not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapse and cause the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death" (229). 234-252, Hired animals--the injuries they cause or suffer; 253-277, Rights and duties of workmen; 278-282, Selling and treatment of slaves. In addition to this very complete code there is a vast amount of information from both early and late periods concerning legal practices, to be gathered from the thousands of tablets recording business and legal transactions of various sorts: Marriage and dowry contracts, partnership agreements, records of debts and promissory notes, leases of land, houses, or slaves; records of sales of all kinds of property, mortgages, documents {195} granting the power of attorney; concerning adoption, divorce, bankruptcy, inheritance--in short, almost every imaginable kind of contract. Over against this complex legal system of Babylonia we may place the legal literature of the Hebrews.[26] Anyone who approaches the study of Hebrew laws is met by two difficulties. In the first place, the legal portions do not form separate books, but are embodied in writings belonging to other kinds of literature; in the second place, there is a lack of system in the arrangement of the laws. The abrupt transitions from one subject to another are almost as marked as they are in the book of Proverbs. "Civil and ceremonial, criminal and humane, secular and religious, ancient and late laws and precedents are all mingled together, with little trace of systematic arrangement." The legal literature is found mainly in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; outside the Pentateuch the most important piece of legislation is Ezek. 40-48. This legal material may be separated from its surroundings and arranged by itself. Indeed, this has been done, and modern scholars are quite generally agreed that the Pentateuch contains several distinct legal codes belonging to different periods in the history of Israel and reflecting different stages of political, social, and religious development: (1) The Decalogue; (2) the Book of the Covenant; (3) the {196} Deuteronomic Code; (4) the Code of Holiness; (5) the Priestly Code. Of these five codes the last two are almost entirely religious and ceremonial, and as the similarities between the Babylonian and Hebrew ceremonial have already been pointed out, they need not be considered in this connection. The other three contain much legislation concerning social, civil, and criminal relations, just like the Babylonian legal provisions, and therefore may be considered somewhat more in detail. In connection with the Deuteronomic Code, however, it may be noted that three fourths of the laws in the earlier codes are reproduced in some form in Deuteronomy; so that for purposes of comparison, the Deuteronomic Code does not furnish many new elements. It is seen, therefore, that for a comparative study, the Code of Hammurabi on the one hand, and the Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant on the other, furnish the most important material; and since the Code of Hammurabi contains no religious and ceremonial provisions, the material of that nature in the Hebrew codes may be omitted in this connection. That there exist similarities between the legislations of the two nations even a superficial reading will show. One is immediately struck, for example, by the similarity in the application of the _lex talionis_: Ham. 196, "If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye"; 197, "If one {197} break a man's bone, they shall break his bone"; 200, "If a man knock out the tooth of a man of his own rank, they shall knock out his tooth." With this compare Exod. 21. 23-25, "Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe"; or Deut. 19. 21, "Thine eyes shall not pity; life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Compare also Lev. 24. 19, 20, "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him: breach for breach; eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be rendered to him." This principle is applied very extensively in both codes in providing restitution for damage done. The use of "the oath of innocence" is also enjoined in both codes: Ham. 249, "If a man hire an ox and a god strike it and it die, the man who hired the ox shall swear before god and shall go free." With this may be compared Exod. 22. 10, 11, "If a man deliver unto his neighbor an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it, the oath of Jehovah shall be between them both, whether he hath not put his hand unto his neighbor's goods, and the owner thereof shall accept it, and he shall not make restitution." The illustrations might be multiplied manifold. {198} Jeremias points out twenty-four similarities between the Code of Hammurabi and the Book of the Covenant alone;[27] which number is greatly increased if the comparison is extended so as to include the entire Pentateuch. The spirit permeating the two systems is one of humaneness and kindness. Hammurabi describes himself as a shepherd chosen by the gods to care for his people, to lead them into safe pastures and to make them dwell in peace and security. He compiled the code, "that the great should not oppress the weak; to counsel the widow and orphan, to render judgment and to decide the decisions of the land, and to succor the injured." This is the same spirit that permeates the Pentateuchal legislation. The picture at the head of the code, representing Hammurabi standing before the sun-god Shamash, "the supreme judge of heaven and earth," is very suggestive, for it reminds one of the narrative in Exodus which represents Moses as receiving the Hebrew laws directly from Jehovah. Certainly, there are also differences between the two systems; and this is only what we should expect, since the civilization of Babylon was far in advance of and much more complex than that of the Israelites, even during the period of the latter's highest development. Besides, the lower religious conceptions would inevitably influence the legislation. {199} Attention may be called also to some similarities between the Decalogue and certain requirements in Babylonia, the existence of which is implied in an incantation[28] in which these questions are asked: Has he broken into the house of his neighbor? Has he approached the wife of his neighbor? Has he spilled the blood of his neighbor? Has he grasped the garment of his neighbor? These questions would seem to imply the existence of laws like these: Thou shalt not break into the house of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not approach the wife of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not spill the blood of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not grasp the garment of thy neighbor. In view of all these similarities, the question naturally arises whether the Babylonian legal system exerted any influence upon the lawmakers of the Hebrews, for the resemblances are too close to be explained entirely on the basis of coincidence. Those who admit some relation between the two legislations are not in agreement as to the nature of the connection. Some hold that there is direct dependence; that the author or authors of the laws of the Pentateuch was or were acquainted with the laws of Hammurabi, and made these laws the basis of the Hebrew legislative system. The possibility of such dependence cannot be denied. Surely, an acquaintance with the Code of Hammurabi in the Arabian {200} desert or in Palestine at the time of the exodus or later cannot appear strange in view of the evidence of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, showing that some time before the exodus intercourse between Babylon and the West was frequent; that religious, political, and literary influence was widespread, and that the language of Babylon was the _lingua franca_ throughout Canaan. On the other hand, there are those who believe that the parallels and analogies between the two codes are due to the common Semitic origin of the two systems. The Babylonians and the Hebrews were Semites, originally dwelling in a common home. When they left this home they carried with them their common traditions, laws, customs, and practices. In their new homes they developed them and impressed upon them their own individuality. The result among the Hebrews, determined in a large measure by their peculiar religion, is seen in the legislation of the Pentateuch, while the outcome in Babylon is best represented by the Code of Hammurabi. Which of these two explanations is correct it may be impossible to say with absolute certainty. To me it seems that both contain elements of truth. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other may be correct, while in other cases the similarities may be due to coincidence. In any case, the value of the Pentateuchal legislation remains {201} unaffected, for it depends, not upon its origin or process of growth, but, rather, upon its inherent spirit and character. Attention may further be called to the existence in Babylonia of stories showing almost startling resemblances to the accounts of the creation of the world, of the origin of man and of sin, of a Deluge, and other narratives contained in the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis. Several distinct creation stories, originating in different religious centers, have been handed down. The most remarkable of these, called _Enuma elish_ (when above), from its opening words, has been deciphered from tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal in the ruins of Nineveh. These tablets represent a copy made in the seventh century B.C. The time of the composition, or compilation of the story, is not known. However, pictorial representations of some of the scenes in the epic, and allusions in other literary productions whose dates can be fixed, make it certain that the story, or at least the most important component elements of the story, existed before B.C. 2000. In its present form it belongs to a period later than the elevation of Babylon to be the national center, which took place under Hammurabi, about B.C. 2000, for the chief place is assigned to Marduk, the god of Babylon.[29] Echoes of this story are found in several Old {202} Testament passages, especially in the poetic and prophetic writings. In these Jehovah is represented as having contended with a great primeval monster, called in some passages Rahab, in others Leviathan, or Dragon. This being seems to symbolize chaos, or to personify the primeval ocean, which existed when the process of creation began. In the conflict between Jehovah and this monster the hostile creature and its helpers were overthrown, after which the heavens and the earth were created. A few of these passages may be quoted: O Jehovah God of hosts, Who is a mighty one, like unto thee, O Jehovah? And thy faithfulness is round about thee. Thou rulest the pride of the sea: When the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. _Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain;_ _Thou hast scattered thine enemies with the arm of thy strength._ The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: The world and the fullness thereof, thou hast founded them, The north and the south, thou hast created them (Psa. 89. 8-12). Rahab is a reflection of the Babylonian Tiamat; Jehovah takes the place of the Babylonian god, Marduk, the conqueror of Tiamat; the _enemies_ are the _helpers_ of Tiamat mentioned in the Babylonian poem. The order of events is the same in the two accounts: first the conflict, then creation. He stirreth up the sea with his power, And by his understanding _he smiteth through Rahab._ {203} By his Spirit the heavens are garnished; _His hand hath pierced the swift serpent_ (Job 26. 12, 13). God will not withdraw his anger; _The helpers of Rahab do stoop under him_ (Job 9. 13). Yet God is my King of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: _Thou brakest the heads of the sea-monsters in the waters._ _Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces;_ Thou gavest him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Thou didst cleave fountain and flood: Thou driedst up mighty rivers. The day is thine, the night also is thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter (Psa. 74. 12-17). The similarities between the Babylonian story called _Enuma elish_ and the narrative of creation in Gen. 1 are especially pronounced: (1) Both accounts recognize a time when all was chaos. In the Babylonian conception this chaos is personified in Tiamat; in Gen. 1. 2 occurs the word _tehom_, translated "deep," which is the same as Tiamat, changed but slightly in passing from one language to the other. (2) In Genesis light dispels darkness and order follows; in the Babylonian account, Marduk, the god of light, overcomes the demon of chaos and darkness. (3) The second act of creation is the making of the firmament, which "divided the waters which were under the {204} firmament from the waters which were above the firmament" (Gen. 1. 6-8); in the Babylonian poem the body of Tiamat is divided and one half becomes the firmament to keep the heavenly waters in place. (4) The third and fourth acts of creation in the Hebrew story are the creation of earth and the beginning of vegetation (Gen. 1. 9-13); the corresponding Babylonian story has been lost, but it seems quite probable that these acts were described in the same order on the fifth tablet. Berosus, in his summary of the Babylonian account, says that Bel formed the earth out of one half of Omorka's body--Omorka is probably a corruption of _Ummu-Khubur_, a title of Tiamat--and as in every instance where the narrative of Berosus has been tested it has proved to be correct, we may assume that in this also he gives a correct reproduction of the Babylonian tradition. Moreover, at the beginning of the seventh tablet Marduk is hailed as "bestower of fruitfulness," "founder of agriculture," "creator of grain and plants," he "who caused the green herb to spring up." (5) The fifth act of creation is the making of the heavenly bodies (Gen. 1. 14-19). With this the Babylonian parallel shows close similarities, for it states that Marduk Made the stations for the great gods, The stars, their images, as the constellations he fixed, He ordained the year, marked off its divisions.[30] {205} (6) The sixth and seventh acts of creation were the creation of fishes and birds and of land animals (Gen. 1. 20-25): the Babylonian parallels in _Enuma elish_ are wanting at present; but Berosus hints that they were created at the same time as man, so that it is probable that the account of these acts of creation appeared somewhere in the lost portions of the fifth or sixth tablet. From allusions in other writings we learn that Marduk was looked upon as the creator of the animals and other living creatures of the field. (7) The eighth act of creation, that of man (Gen. 1. 26-31), finds its parallel upon the sixth tablet: When Marduk heard the word of the gods His heart moved him and he devised a cunning plan. He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spoke, That which he had conceived in his heart he made known unto him. "My blood will I take and bone will I fashion, I shall make man that man may ... I shall create man, who shall inhabit the earth, That the service of the gods may be established and that their shrines may be built."[31] In order to estimate rightly the relations between the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts the differences between the two must also be noted. To begin with, the order of the separate acts of creation is not quite the same. For example, in the Babylonian account, the creation of the heavenly bodies follows immediately upon the {206} making of the firmament, while in the Hebrew story it follows the making of the earth and the springing up of vegetation. Certainly, this difference is of no special significance, and the change may easily be explained as due to the desire of the Hebrew writer to crowd the creative acts into the six working days of the week. The real difference is more fundamental and appears especially in the conception of the nature and character of Deity. The Babylonian story opens with these words: When above the heaven was not named And beneath the earth bore no name, And the primeval Apsu, who begat them, And Mummu-Tiamat, the mother of them all-- Their waters were mingled together, And no reed was formed, no marsh seen, _When no one of the gods had been called into being,_ [And] none bore a name, and no destinies [were fixed], _Then were created the gods in the midst of_ [_heaven_]. Compare with this the simple, yet majestic, conception, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." In one case many gods, in the other one God almighty; in one case the gods are a part of the process of creation, in the other the uncreated God is in the beginning. Genesis presents God as almighty, but also as kind, beneficent, loving; Marduk, the Babylonian creator, is represented as a great hero, but exceedingly selfish. He undertakes the mighty task of {207} overcoming Tiamat only after making arrangements for a suitable reward. The description of the heavenly banquet scene, to which reference has been made earlier in the chapter, implies a conception of the character of the gods which is separated by an impassable gulf from the Old Testament ideal. No one can read with an unbiased mind the two accounts without realizing the great differences between the mythological, polytheistic account of the Babylonians and the simple, solemn, sublime, monotheistic picture in Genesis. The soberness, the dignity, the simplicity of the Hebrew account lift it far above its Babylonian counterpart. From it the crude nature myths have all been stripped away. No drunken gods hold revels in its solemn lines. Above and behind and in all is one righteous and beneficent God. In this sublime ethical monotheism the Hebrew story rises infinitely above the story that originated in the Euphrates-Tigris valley. Another Babylonian tradition, the close relation of which to the biblical account has long been recognized, is the story of the Deluge. In its cuneiform text it was first discovered on fragments of tablets brought from the library of Ashurbanipal. But that the Babylonians possessed a story of the Flood was known before from an outline preserved by Berosus. The tradition brought to {208} light by archæology forms an episode in an epic which narrates the exploits of Gilgamesh and occupies the eleventh of the twelve parts into which the epic is divided. Gilgamesh sprang from a city, Shurippak, which afterward completely disappeared. He became king of Erech, where he ruled as a tyrant until the gods created Ea-bani to destroy him. The two, however, became bosom friends. Together they delivered Erech from the Elamite oppressor, Khumbaba. Ishtar, the goddess of love, then offered her hand to Gilgamesh in marriage, which he spurned with scorn. Out of revenge, she sent a scorpion, whose sting proved fatal to Ea-bani. Gilgamesh himself she smote with an incurable disease. To find relief, the latter set out for the dwelling place of his great-grandfather, Ut-napishtim, far away on the isles of the blessed. When he finally reaches him the latter tells him all about the great Flood from which he escaped to enjoy eternal life.[32] The most striking resemblances between the Babylonian and Hebrew stories of the Flood may now be noted: (1) Compare the instruction given by God to Noah (Gen. 6. 13-22) with the words addressed by the god Ea to Ut-napishtim: O man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu, Pull down thy house, build a ship, Leave thy possessions, take thought for thy life, {209} Thy property abandon, save thy life, Bring living seed of every kind into the ship. The ship that thou shalt build, So shall be the measure of its dimensions, Thus shall correspond its breadth and height, Into the ocean let it fare.[33] (2) In both accounts the destruction is due to sin. This is definitely stated in Gen. 6. 5-7. For the Babylonian story it is implied in the rebuke given to Bel by Ea: On the sinner lay his sin, On the transgressor lay his transgression. Forbear, let not all be destroyed.[34] (3) In both accounts, only a seed of life sufficient to replenish the earth is saved. Compare Gen. 6. 19, 20 with the command, "Bring living seed of every kind into the ship," or with the statement: I brought into the ship my family and household; The cattle of the field, the beasts of the field, craftsmen, all of them I brought in.[35] (4) Both stories tell of a great storm and deluge of water. Gen. 7. 11 reads, "The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." Compare with this: The dawning of that day I feared, I feared to behold that day. I entered the ship and closed the door. When the first flush of dawn appeared There came up from the horizon a black cloud. {210} Adad thundered within it, While Nabu and Marduk went before. They go as messengers over mountain and valley. Nergal bore away the anchor. Ninib advances, the storm he makes to descend. The Anunaki lifted up their torches, With their brightness they light up the land. Adad's storm reached unto heaven, All light was turned into darkness, It [flooded] the land like ... ........ the storm Raged high, [the water climbed over] the mountains, Like a besom of destruction they brought it upon men.[36] (5) In both instances the structure rests upon a mountain in the north. Gen. 8. 4 reads, "And the ark rested ... upon the mountains of Ararat," that is, Armenia. The Babylonian story reads: To the land of Nisir the ship made its way, The mount of Nisir held it fast that it moved not.[37] Mount Nisir is east of the upper Tigris. (6) In both cases birds are sent out to ascertain the condition of the land. Compare Gen. 8. 6-12 with these lines: When the seventh day approached I sent forth a dove and let her go. The dove flew to and fro, But there was no resting place and she returned. I sent forth a swallow and let her go; The swallow flew to and fro, But there was no resting place, and she returned. I sent forth a raven and let her go; The raven flew away, she saw the abatement of the waters, {211} She drew near, she waded (?), she croaked, and came not back. Then I sent everything forth to the four quarters of heaven.[38] (7) Sacrifice is offered by Noah and Ut-napishtim, acceptable to the God of Noah and to the gods of the Babylonian hero, in both cases resulting in a promise not to repeat the Flood. Compare Gen. 8. 20-22 with: I offered sacrifice, I made a libation upon the mountain's peak. By sevens I set out the sacrificial vessels, Beneath them I heaped up reed and cedar wood and myrtle. The gods smelt the savor, The gods smelt the sweet savor, The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer.[39] Other similarities might be noted, such as the use of bitumen, the arrangement of the ship in stories, and, what seems more striking, the fact that the hero of the Babylonian story is the tenth antediluvian king, while Noah is the tenth antediluvian patriarch. As in the stories of creation, marked differences may also be noted between the two representations of the Flood; and these differences appear where they are most significant, namely, in the spirit and purity of conception permeating the entire Hebrew account. For example, the book of Genesis introduces the divine displeasure with sin, the ethical element, as a fundamental note; then, {212} when the divine mercy is aroused, the Flood ceases; according to the Babylonian story, the Flood is caused by the capricious anger of Bel, the idea of punishment for sin cropping out only as an incident in the conversation between Ea and Bel at the end of the story. The Flood ceases because the other gods are terrified, and Ishtar intercedes for her own creation. Moreover, the whole Hebrew conception of the Divine differs from the Babylonian. In the Hebrew account we find ourselves in an atmosphere of ethical monotheism that is unknown apart from the chosen people. Disappeared have all the gods who war with one another, who rejoice in successful intrigues, who do not hesitate to tell untruths or instruct their favorites to do so; the gods unstable in all their ways, now seeking to destroy, now flattering their creatures; the gods who, terrified by the storm, "cower like dogs" at the edge of heaven, and who "gathered like flies" around the sacrifice of the saved hero. All these characteristic features of the Babylonian account are absent from the Bible. Surely, there is no connection between these deities and the one sublime and gracious God of Genesis. Lack of space will not permit us to institute detailed comparisons between other narratives in the early chapters of Genesis and Babylonian literature. It may be sufficient to say that the {213} resemblances are not confined to the stories of creation and of the Flood. True, no complete Babylonian story of paradise and of the fall is at present known; nevertheless, there are certain features in the biblical narrative which strongly point to Babylonia, and in the light of the known fact that elements in the two important narratives of creation and of the Flood are derived from Babylonia, it may be safe to infer that in this case also echoes of Babylonian beliefs supplied, at least in part, the framework of the Hebrew representation. The antediluvian patriarchs also seem to have their counterparts in Babylonian tradition, and the story of the Tower of Babel, though it does not seem to be of Babylonian origin, presupposes a knowledge of Babylonia, and it is not impossible that some Babylonian legend served as the basis of it. In closing this discussion, attention may be called to a few general considerations that must be borne in mind in any attempt to answer the question whether the religious and ethical ideas of the Hebrews which show similarities with the ideas of other nations were borrowed bodily from these nations, or, after all, contain elements that were original with the Hebrews. In the first place, it must be remembered that similarities between the customs or beliefs of two peoples do not necessarily imply the dependence {214} of one upon the other; much less do they indicate which is the original. Where similarities are found at least four possibilities should be recognized: A may depend upon B; B may depend upon A; both A and B may have been derived from a common original; or A and B may have developed independently, the similarities being merely coincidence. Which interpretation is the right one in a given case does not lie on the surface; it is only by careful, patient, unbiased study that one may arrive at a proper understanding. Take as an illustration the Decalogue. The Buddhists have "ten prohibitory laws," sometimes called the "Buddhist Decalogue." The first five read, "Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not lie; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not get drunk." Three of these correspond exactly to three of the demands in the Jewish Decalogue. Does it necessarily follow that the Decalogue was borrowed from Buddha? The Egyptians also had a sacred law. The law itself has not yet come to light, but the Book of the Dead indicates its existence. In the one hundred and twenty-fifth chapter of this book we read the justifications offered by the dead: "I have not acted with deceit or done evil to men; I have not oppressed the poor; I have not judged unjustly," etc. These negations seem to imply the existence of a law, either oral or written, {215} forbidding these things. From the negations, "I have not acted with deceit; I have not committed murder; I have not been unchaste," etc., one may infer that the Egyptians had precepts corresponding substantially to some of the requirements in the Decalogue. Does logic demand, therefore, the conclusion that the Decalogue owes its existence to the sacred law of the Egyptians? Among the Babylonians also we find evidence of the existence of, at least, some of the requirements of the Hebrew Decalogue: "Thou shalt not break into the house of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not approach the wife of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not spill the blood of thy neighbor; Thou shalt not grasp the garment of thy neighbor." Do these similarities prove beyond question the dependence of the one upon the other? There are, then, marked resemblances between the Hebrew Decalogue, certain requirements among the Babylonians, among the Egyptians, and among the Buddhists. I know of no one who claims that the Decalogue was borrowed from Buddha; some, however, seem to think, that in part at least, it was dependent upon Babylon; others, that Moses is indebted for it to Egypt. True, in the minds of most scholars the dependence is not direct; there would be room, according to their theory, for the work of the Spirit in the selection of these fundamental, ethical conceptions {216} from the great mass of requirements, the majority of which are far inferior to the Decalogue. Such dependence, even if it could be proved, would not rob the Decalogue of inspiration or permanent value; but it seems to me that the similarities do not warrant the claim of even such dependence. Is it not more likely that these similarities are due to the instinct implanted in man by the Creator, which recognizes the sanctity of life, of family relations, and of property rights? But this instinct does not account for the obvious differences between the Hebrew Decalogue as a whole and the legislations of other peoples. These must be traced to the special activity of a Spirit who produced among the Hebrews a collection of commandments such as natural instinct, if left to itself, could not have produced. It is different, perhaps, when we consider the relation of the more comprehensive civil legislation of the Pentateuch to the Code of Hammurabi. There the resemblances are numerous and striking enough to justify the inference that there exists some relation of dependence, and yet by no means that the legislation of the Pentateuch is borrowed directly from the other, or even that there is a literary dependence. How extensive this dependence is only careful examination can show; but, however complete, it will not destroy the fact that the laws of Israel are permeated by a Divine {217} Spirit. The important question is not, Where do we find the natural basis upon which the system is built up by men under divine guidance? but, Does the spirit and character of the system indicate such guidance? In the second place, in seeking the truth about this relationship assumption must not be confused with knowledge. Modern archæologists seem to be in peculiar danger of taking things for granted. It is not without reason that a prominent Old Testament scholar proposes to change the title of the third edition of a book entitled The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament into The Cuneiform Scholar and the Old Testament. It is stated, for example, without qualification by Delitzsch that the name "Yahweh" has been discovered on inscriptions belonging to the period of Hammurabi. No hint is given that the reading is questioned by many Assyriologists. There is, at least, a possibility, no matter how small, of a different rendering, with, of course, a vastly different conclusion. But admitting, as I believe we must do, that the name does occur, the inference drawn from this occurrence by Delitzsch, and expressed in the following words, is an assumption and misleading, unless it is materially modified: "Yahweh, the abiding one, the permanent one, who, unlike man, is not to-morrow a thing of the past, but one that endures forever, that {218} lives and labors for all eternity above the broad, resplendent, law-bound canopy of the stars--it was this Yahweh that constituted the primordial patrimony of those Canaanite tribes from which centuries afterward the twelve tribes of Israel sprang."[40] The fact is that you may search the Babylonian pantheon from one end to the other and you will not find one god who in nature and character can compare with the Jehovah of Israel, "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth." Another instance of the same character is the story of the fall. One thing we know, namely, that a story of the fall of man, similar to that in Genesis, has not as yet been found among the fragments of Babylonian libraries. Certainly, such story may have existed, and probably did exist; it may even be, as has been asserted, that some connection exists between the scriptural story of the fall and the picture on an old Babylonian seal cylinder having in the center a tree with fruits hanging down, on each side a figure, and behind the figure at the left a mark which may represent a serpent. But the interpretation is by no means certain. The fact that an assertion is made by an expert favors the presumption, but does not prove, that the statement is true. Some archæologists claim that the monotheism of Israel was derived from outside of Israel, {219} either from Arabia[41] or from Babylonia[42]. Among the arguments in favor of this claim is the occurrence of proper names which are alleged to imply the existence of monotheism; for example, _Yasma-ilu_, which may be translated "God hears," implying the existence of but one God. However, it might mean also "_a_ god hears," or "god"--referring to one of many--"hears," the giver of the name singling out the one for special consideration. And as there are clear indications of polytheism in southern Arabia, where the name is found, the name, in all probability, means the latter, thus implying polytheism. The same may be said of the names found in Babylonia. Whatever the primary meaning of _ilu_, these names do not in themselves prove the existence of monotheism. They may be translated in perfect accord with logic and grammar as admitting the existence of more than one god. Indeed, the historical facts demand such interpretation. If we find, for example, "Sin-muballit" ("the moon-god brings to life") as the name of the father of Hammurabi, and "Shamshu-iluna" (in all probability, "the sun-god is our god") as that of his son, the facts surely indicate that the monotheism of the period was not very distinct. The testimony of the Code of Hammurabi points in the same direction, as also the most spiritual utterances of religion in the Euphrates valley, the penitential psalms. {220} It is seen, then, that facts do not warrant the claim, made by some, that that upon which rests the significance of the Bible in the world's history, namely, monotheism, was taken over by the Hebrews from the Babylonians. Josh. 24. 2 remains uncontradicted: "Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and _they served other gods_." It is only in Israel that we find a clearly developed monotheism. Assumption and facts are not quite the same. Another important point, to which attention has already been called, is the marked difference which obtains between the literature of the Old Testament and that uncovered by archæology. True, there are points of contact; indeed, strange it would be if there were none; for, like the Babylonians, the Hebrews were Semites. Surely, it is not strange that nations of the same race, originally in the same home, should possess similar traditions, customs, beliefs, and practices. When they left their common home they carried with them their common traditions, customs, and beliefs; in their new homes they developed them and impressed upon them their own individualities. We are nowhere informed in the Old Testament, and it would seem contrary to reason to suppose, that at the time of Abraham, Moses, or at any other period, God emptied the Hebrew mind and {221} consciousness of all the things which had been the possession of the Semitic race from the beginning. Is it not more likely that the inspired teachers and writers employed for their loftier purposes the ancient traditions and beliefs familiar to their contemporaries? In doing so they took that which was, in some cases, common and unclean, and, purifying it under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, made it the medium by which to impart the sublimest truths ever presented to man. Obviously, the special religious value of the Old Testament literature does not lie in what is common to it and Babylon, but in the elements in which they differ. The points of contact must not blind the eye to the points of contrast. These points of contrast are in the spirit and atmosphere pervading the Hebrew Scriptures, which are quite distinct, not simply from Babylonian, but from all other literatures. These essential differences occur, as we have seen, throughout the entire religious and ethical literature. In many cases is agreement in form, but how far superior the spirit and substance of the Hebrew! Think of the different conceptions of the nature and character of God, of God's relation to man, of the divine government of the world, and many other truths precious to Christians in all ages. There is, indeed, in the Hebrew record "an intensity of spiritual {222} conception, a sublimity of spiritual tone, an insight into the unseen, a reliance upon an invisible yet all-controlling Power, that create the gap between the Hebrew and his brother Semite beyond the River." How are we to account for these differences? Professor Sayce has suggested an answer in these words: "I can find only one explanation, unfashionable and antiquated though it be. In the language of a former generation, it marks the dividing line between revelation and unrevealed religion. It is like that something hard to define which separates man from the ape, even though on the physiological side the ape may be the ancestor of man."[43] Though the language of this statement may be unfortunate, especially where it implies that there is no revelation in the ancient religions outside of the Old Testament, it does call attention to the secret of the fundamental difference between the Old Testament sacred literature and that of the surrounding nations. There is in the former abundant evidence of the activity of a Spirit whose presence is less manifest in the sacred literatures of other ancient nations. True, the monuments have not spoken their last word; but if we have the right to draw inferences from the known, we may safely affirm that though the monuments may swell into infinity, they will offer nothing to equal, much less to supersede, in substance and spirit, our {223} Old Testament. We may receive gratefully every ray of light, but the time has not yet come, nor ever will come, when we may lay aside the Old Testament and accept as a substitute the legends and myths of heathen lands to give to us the bread of life which the Saviour found in the pages of the Old Book. Let us welcome the light and knowledge God has bestowed upon us; let us rejoice in them with perfect assurance that they are for good and not for evil; let us learn to use them wisely and honestly, and let us still be ever alert listening for other words, uttered ages ago, but not yet audible to modern ears. "It is for us to catch these messages, and to understand them, that we may fit them into the great fabric of apprehended truth to the enrichment of ourselves, and to the glory of our common Lord." NOTES ON CHAPTER V [1] J. P. Peters, The Old Testament and the New Scholarship, p. 92. [2] S. G. Smith, Religion in the Making, p. 20. [3] Hugo Winckler, Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier, p. 9. [4] Professor Friedrich Delitzsch, of the University of Berlin, delivered three lectures on the relation of Babylonian religion to the religion of the Old Testament, under the title, "Babel und Bibel." [5] A. H. Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 276, 277. [6] A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, I, p. 86. {224} [7] R. W. Rogers, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 88. Practically all the cuneiform inscriptions quoted or referred to in this chapter are translated in R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament. [8] Friedrich Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, Two Lectures, published by Open Court Co., p. 65. [9] A translation of the entire psalm is found in Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 419-421; also in Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 182-184; R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, pp. 436-439. [10] Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 35, 93, 195. A translation of a hymn composed by this king to his supreme god is found in J. H. Breasted, A History of Egypt, pp. 371ff. [11] An excellent brief survey of the religious conceptions of the pre-Mosaic period is given in the article on "Religion of Israel," by E. Kautzsch, in James Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol., pp. 613ff. [12] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 95. [13] Ibid., p. 97. [14] The most recent and most satisfactory edition and translation of the entire Babylonian story of creation is by L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation. The two quotations given are Tablet I, lines 7-9, and Tablet III, lines 133-138. [15] Additional portions of this hymn are found in R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 170ff. [16] S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religions To-day, p. 14. [17] A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, p. 15; A. H. Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 476ff.; M. Jastrow, in American Journal of Theology, 1898, pp. 315-352; A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, I, pp. 198ff. {225} [18] Babel and Bible, Two Lectures, p. 38. [19] Ibid., p. 101. [20] Paul Haupt, Babylonian Elements in the Levitical Ritual, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1900, p. 61. [21] The details of this question have been discussed very extensively. Admirable discussions of the entire subject are found in Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 448-478; Jeremias, Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, II, pp. 112ff. [22] Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 469. [23] Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, Two Lectures, pp. 53ff. [24] R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 145. [25] R. F. Harper, The Code of Hammurabi; art. on the same subject in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol., pp. 584ff.; W. W. Davies, The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses. [26] The best and most complete recent treatment of the legal literature of the Old Testament is found in C. F. Kent, Israel's Laws and Legal Precedents, which is Vol. IV in The Student's Old Testament. [27] Johannes Jeremias, Moses and Hammurabi, pp. 31ff. [28] R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 158. [29] L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation, Two Vols.; a translation is also found in R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, pp. 282ff. R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 107ff. [30] Tablet V, lines 1-3. [31] Lines 1-8. [32] An English translation of the entire epic is found in R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, pp. 324ff.; the Deluge story is given by R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 199ff. {226} [33] Lines 23-31. [34] Lines 184-186. [35] Lines 27, 85, 86. [36] Lines 92-111. [37] Lines 141, 142. [38] Lines 146-156. [39] Lines 156-162. [40] Babel and Bible, Two Lectures, p. 62. [41] F. Hommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 75ff. [42] P. Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, pp. 58ff. [43] Preface to Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia. {227} CHAPTER VI THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT In the opening paragraphs of Chapter I, attention is called to the unique place occupied by the Old Testament in the thought, life, and theology of the early Church. Throughout the Middle Ages, and in the eyes of the Protestant reformers, the two great divisions of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, continued to command equal respect and attention. The legal principles of the Pentateuch have determined the legal systems of all civilized nations; the bold and fiery sermons of the prophets have been the chief inspiration on the fierce battles for righteousness in all ages; and the sublime religious lyrics of the Psalter have ushered millions into the very presence of God. Indeed, the Old Testament has exerted an incalculable influence on the development of religion and civilization. However, it must be admitted that during the latter part of the nineteenth century a change of attitude toward the Old Testament seems to have taken place. True, from nearly the beginning of the Christian era again and again voices have {228} been heard denying to the Old Testament a place in Christian thought and life, but not until comparatively recent times has this sentiment become widespread. Says a writer in a book published a few years ago: "The Bible was never more studied nor less read than at the present day. This paradox is true, at least, of the Old Testament. For two generations scores of patient scholars have toiled on the text, scanning each letter with microscopic care, and one result of their labors has been that to the majority of educated men and women of whatever belief, or no belief, the Bible has become a closed, yea, a sealed, book. It is not what it used to be; what it has become they do not know, and in scorn or sorrow or apathy they have laid it aside."[1] There may be some exaggeration in this statement, but it cannot be doubted that there is considerable justification for the complaint. C. F. Kent makes the admission that "with the exception of a very few books, like the Psalter, the Old Testament, which was the arsenal of the old militant theology, has been unconsciously, if not deliberately, shunned by the present generation."[2] And the words of Professor Cheyne are almost as applicable to-day as they were when they were first written, more than twenty years ago: "A theory is already propounded, both in private and in a naïve simple way in sermons, that the {229} Old Testament is of no particular moment, all that we need being the New Testament, which has been defended by our valiant apologists and expounded by our admirable interpreters."[3] If this represents in any sense the true state of affairs; if, on the other hand, the words of the apostle are true, that "every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work"; and if these words are applicable to the Old Testament, as the writer intended them to be--if, I say, these things are true, then Christians appear to be in great peril of losing sight of one of the important means of grace, on which were nourished Jesus and his disciples, and millions in former generations, and for the restoration of which the reformers risked their very lives. The change of attitude toward the Old Testament may be traced to a variety of causes, all of which affect very vitally modern religious thought and life. There are, for example, many who feel, and that with some justice, that the New Testament is in a peculiar sense the sacred book of Christianity. Why, they ask, go to the Old Testament when we have the New with its more complete and perfect revelation? But this attitude reflects only a half truth, which is often {230} more deceptive than an out and out falsehood. Certainly, Christians find their loftiest inspiration in the study of the life, character, and teaching of the Master and of his disciples; but the New Testament has by no means displaced the Old. The early Christians were right in placing it beside the New, because the former is still of inestimable value. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the New Testament properly unless one has an adequate knowledge of the Old. Moreover, there are many truths taken for granted in the New Testament for a biblical statement of which we must turn to the Old. Will the revelation of the nature and character of God contained in the Old Testament ever lose its doctrinal value? And even in cases where both Testaments cover the same field the Old retains a peculiar value. True, the New Testament presents a more complete and perfect revelation, but there are few New Testament truths which have not their roots in the Old. The former presents the full-grown revelation; nevertheless, a vast number of people, who have not yet reached a state of perfection, will understand even New Testament truths more readily as they are presented in the Old Testament; for here they can see the truths in more concrete form; they have flesh and blood; they are struggling for victory over darkness and superstition. Nearly all the great and vital doctrines of the Church, {231} though founded principally on the New Testament, are illustrated, are made more real and human, become more impressive and forceful as we study their development and growth under the Old Testament dispensation. The neglect of the Old Testament is due, in the second place, to a reaction against its misuse by former generations.[4] Puritanism and the theology of the past three centuries were largely rooted in the Old Testament. From it the stern Puritans drew their spirit of justice, their zeal for righteousness, and their uncompromising condemnation of everything that appeared wrong. Their preachers nobly echoed the thunders of Sinai and the denunciations of Elijah and Amos; but in doing this they failed to recognize the divine love back of the prophetic message, and by their narrow interpretation of the letter, and their emphasis upon the more primitive and imperfect teaching of the Old Testament, they were often led to extremes that were neither biblical nor Christian. Against intolerance and persecution the human heart rebels, and with it comes a feeling of resentment against the cause. Thus it happened that the reaction against Puritanism brought with it a disregard of the Old Testament, which was followed either by the exaltation of the New Testament, whose spirit is more merciful and tender, or by hostility against the entire {232} Bible and Christianity as a whole. This abuse of the Old Testament was due in large part to the use of faulty, or erroneous, methods of interpretation. And since there seems to be even now a tendency in some places to defend these methods, which are out of keeping with the spirit of scientific investigation in this age, many intelligent men have come to look with suspicion upon a book in the study of which unscientific methods continue to be used. Another important cause of the change of attitude toward the Old Testament is to be found in the labors expended upon the Old Testament by able scholars in the pursuit of a careful, critical study of the ancient records. As has been stated in another connection, these studies are not the outgrowth, as is often erroneously assumed, of a desire to discredit the Bible, to displace it from the heart and confidence of the people, or to attack its teaching or inspiration. "It would be a most hopeless thing," says W. G. Jordan, "to regard all this toil as the outcome of skepticism and vanity, a huge specimen of perverse ingenuity and misdirected effort."[5] They are simply the results of Protestantism and the Renaissance.[6] But whatever the spirit back of the study, and whatever the gains of this investigation, one result is that many Christians feel perplexed with regard to the true position of the Old Testament. {233} What of its claims? What of its inspiration? How far is it human in origin? How far divine? These and similar questions are asked by men everywhere. Never was there more interest, more inquiry, and, perhaps, more unrest and disquietude among thoughtful people. Surely, it is high time to realize that all this investigation has had no harmful effect upon the substance of the divine revelations conveyed in the Old Testament records. In the words of Jordan, "To me, with my faith that the whole universe is filled with the presence of the living, self-revealing God, I cannot conceive ... that the most severe criticism can ever banish the divine power from that great literature which is one of the choicest organs of its manifestations."[7] As has been pointed out in the preceding chapters, some long-cherished notions and interpretations have been overthrown; to some extent our ideas concerning its literary forms have had to be modified, but its substance has not been disturbed. On the contrary, it has come to be seen with a clearness unrecognized before that it bears the indelible stamp of God. This being the case, students of the Bible should return to a more just appreciation of that part of Sacred Scripture which is so intimately connected with the training of Jesus and his disciples. If the Old Testament contains records {234} and interpretations of divine revelations, those who claim to be children of God should be willing, yea, anxious, to put forth some efforts to familiarize themselves adequately with these records. But the sense of gratitude and appreciation for these self-revelations of God is not the only reason which should prompt the Christian to turn more frequently to the pages of the Old Book. A much more important consideration is the fact that the lessons taught in the Old Testament are of profound significance to-day, and that they cannot be neglected without serious consequences. Again, attention may be called to the fact that the Founder of Christianity and his disciples found nourishment in its pages, and that they constantly exhorted their followers to do the same. Now, Jesus is recognized by all Christians as a model worthy of imitation in every relation of life. Would it not be well to imitate him in the use of the Old Testament Scriptures? If he found in the pages of the Old Testament weapons with which to put to flight the Evil One, might not we? Aside from these general considerations, it is easily shown that every part of the Old Testament is full of teaching which is of the highest value even in the twentieth century of the Christian era. Consider, for example, the first eleven chapters of Genesis, around which much controversy has raged. In former days these chapters were {235} thought to give an absolutely accurate account of creation and the early history of mankind. However, various lines of investigation have shown this view to be untenable. "We are forced, therefore," says a recent writer, "to the conclusion that, though the writers to whom we owe the first eleven chapters of Genesis report faithfully what was currently believed among the Hebrews respecting the early history of mankind, yet there was much they did not know, and could not take cognizance of. These chapters, consequently, contain no account of the real beginnings, either of the earth itself, or of man and human civilization upon it."[8] All this need create not the slightest difficulty for one who holds the scriptural conception of the nature and purpose of the biblical writings. It is true of these chapters, as of other parts of the record, that "the only care of the prophetic tradition is to bring out clearly the religious origin of humanity.[9] If anyone is in search of accurate information regarding the age of this earth, or its relation to the sun, moon, or stars, or regarding the exact order in which plants and animals have appeared upon it, he should go to recent textbooks in astronomy, geology, and paleontology. It is not the purpose of the writers of Scripture to impart physical instruction, or to enlarge the bounds of scientific knowledge. So far as the {236} scientific or historical information imparted in these chapters is concerned, it is of little more value than the similar stories of other nations. And yet the student of these chapters can see a striking contrast between them and extra-biblical stories describing the same unknown ages handed down from pre-scientific centuries. Here comes to view the uniqueness of the Bible. The other traditions are of interest only as relics of a by-gone past. Not so the biblical statements; they are and ever will be of inestimable value, not because of their scientific teaching, but because of the presence of sublime religious truth in the crude forms of primitive science. If anyone wishes to know what connection the world has with God, if he seeks to trace back all that now is to the very fountain-head of life, if he desires to discover some unifying principle, some illuminating purpose in the history of the earth, he may turn to these chapters as his safest and, indeed, only guide to the information he seeks. The purpose of the narratives being primarily religious, it is only natural that their lessons should be religious lessons. The one supreme lesson taught throughout the entire section is "In the beginning, God." But each separate narrative teaches its own peculiar lessons. The more important of these are briefly summarized by Driver as follows: "The narrative of creation {237} sets forth, in a series of dignified and impressive pictures, the sovereignty of God; his priority to and separation from all finite, material nature; his purpose to constitute an ordered cosmos, and gradually to adapt the earth to become the habitation of living beings; and his endowment of man with the peculiar, unique possession of self-conscious reason, in virtue of which he became capable of intellectual and moral life, and is even able to know and hold communion with his Maker. In chapters two and three we read, though, again, not in a historical but in a pictorial and symbolic form, how man was once innocent, how he became conscious of a moral law, and how temptation fell upon him and he broke that law. The fall of man, the great and terrible truth, which history not less than individual experience only too vividly teaches each one of us, is thus impressively set before us. Man, however, though punished by God, is not forsaken by him, nor left in his long conflict with evil without hope of victory. In chapter four the increasing power of sin, and the fatal consequence to which, if unchecked, it may lead, is vividly portrayed in the tragic figure of Cain. The spirit of vindictiveness and the brutal triumph in the power of the sword is personified in Lamech. In the narrative of the Flood God's wrath against sin and the divine prerogative of mercy are alike exemplified: {238} Noah is a standing illustration of the truth that 'righteousness delivereth from death,' and God's dealings with him after the Flood form a striking declaration of the purposes of grace and good will with which God regards mankind. The narrative of the Tower of Babel emphasizes Jehovah's supremacy in the world, and teaches how the self-exaltation of man is checked by God."[10] These chapters are followed by the stories of the patriarchs. Missionaries say--and experience at home has confirmed the claim--that the patriarchal narratives are of inestimable value to impress lessons of the reality and providence of God, and to encourage the exercise of faith and confidence in him. There is nothing that can be substituted for them in religious instruction. Lack of space will not permit to point out in detail the educational value of these documents; however, in passing, mention may be made of the fact that Professor W. W. White enumerates twenty-one Christian virtues that are illustrated and enforced in the life of Abraham.[11] He was (1) steadfast, (2) resolute, (3) prudent, (4) tactful, (5) candid, (6) kind, (7) self-controlled, (8) obliging, (9) self-denying, (10) condescending, (11) unselfish, (12) peaceable, (13) hospitable, (14) courteous, (15) humble, (16) thankful, (17) reverent, (18) prayerful, (19) worshipful, (20) faithful, {239} (21) obedient. Not one iota of their value for purposes of instruction in righteousness have these records lost because doubt has been cast upon their absolute historical accuracy. "Abraham is still the hero of righteousness and faith; Lot and Laban, Sarah and Rebekah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, in their characters and experiences, are still in different ways types of our own selves, and still in one way or another exemplify the ways in which God deals with the individual soul, and the manner in which the individual soul ought, or ought not, to respond to his leadings."[12] What if some of these figures pass before us on the stage rather than in real life, do they on that account lose their vividness, their truthfulness, their force? "If," says J. E. McFadyen,[13] "it should be made highly probable that the stories were not strictly historical, what should we then have to say? We should then have to say that their religious value was still extremely high. The religious truth to which they give vivid and immortal expression would remain the same. The story of Abraham would still illustrate the trials and the rewards of faith. The story of Jacob would still illustrate the power of sin to haunt and determine a man's career, and the power of God to humble, discipline, and purify a self-confident nature. The story of Joseph would still illustrate how fidelity amid {240} temptation, wrong, and sorrow is crowned at last with glory and honor. The spiritual value of these and similar tales is not lost, even when their historical value is reduced to a minimum, for the truths which they illustrate are truths of universal experience." The present writer is convinced that even as historical documents these narratives are of immense value. Nevertheless, it may be well to remind ourselves again that the apostle does not point his readers to the Old Testament Scriptures for instruction in ancient history, but he claims that they are profitable "for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness"; and these records, whatever their historical shortcomings may be, are most assuredly profitable for all these purposes. The historical books of the Old Testament are a continuous illustration of the reality of a Divine Providence, by revealing on almost every page the hand of God in human history. Only as we trace the history of the Hebrews can we understand the unfolding in the mind of man under the influence of the Divine Spirit of the great religious ideas and conceptions which have become the mainspring of human progress; the ideas which may be seen in crystallized form in modern Judaism, in perverted form in Mohammedanism, and in expanded and spiritualized form in Christianity. {241} Preëminent among these conceptions is the idea of one personal holy and righteous God. The Hebrews were also the first to teach man that the supreme goal of life is righteousness, and thus they became the ethical teachers of the human race. They first gave objective expression to pure and lofty ethics in law. To-day the principles of Hebrew legislation are still the bone and marrow of the world's greatest legal systems. Though the Romans may be, to a large extent, responsible for the form which modern legal systems have adopted, the substance must be traced back to Hebrew legislation. Moreover, the Hebrews prepared the way for Christianity. Jesus himself recognized that the faith he proclaimed was not a new creation. "Think not," said he, "that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill."[14] He came to fill up, to spiritualize and intensify the religious and ethical teaching of the great leaders of the Hebrews. Men needed the preliminary training of the Old Testament dispensation before they were ready to appreciate the fuller revelation in and through Jesus the Christ, and Christianity could never have triumphed had it not been for the preparatory work of the religious and ethical teachers of the Hebrews, whose activity was very largely determined by the course of the nation's history. Again, {242} Jesus, according to the flesh, was a descendant of Abraham, reared in a Jewish home, and under Jewish influences. He studied Jewish literature and Jewish ideals were held up before him. All this must have made some impression upon the mind and life of the Master. He and his teaching can be understood only if he is studied in the light of Jewish thought and Jewish religion reaching back to the very beginning of Hebrew history. All this shows how important is the study of the historical books of the Old Testament to one who desires to appreciate fully the Christian religion. It is impossible to estimate too highly the eternal value of the devotional literature of the Old Testament as illustrated, for example, in the book of Psalms. Well has it been said, "What the heart is in man, that is the Psalter in the Bible."[15] The Psalms touch the heart, because they are the expressions of the deepest feelings of the writers; and because these lyrics express personal experiences they may be, and are, used even to-day to express the various emotions of joy, sorrow, hope, fear, anticipation, etc., of persons who live even on a higher plane than did their authors. "What is there," says Richard Hooker,[16] "necessary for man to know which the Psalms are not able to teach? Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, {243} exact wisdom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of Providence over this world, and the promised joys of that world which is to come; all good, necessarily to be either known or done, or had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth; let there be any grief or disaster incident to the soul of man, any wound or sickness named for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found." Manifold indeed are the contents of the Psalter; manifold the moods of the authors; and manifold the experiences they express. But there is one bond which unites them all into one living unity, namely, a sublime faith in Jehovah, the God of Israel. This variety on the one hand, and essential unity on the other, are the qualities which have given to the book in all ages a unique place in the religious life of the individual and of the Church of God. With full justice says Perowne:[17] "No single book of Scripture, not even the New Testament, has, perhaps, ever taken such hold on the heart of Christendom. None, if we dare judge, unless it be the Gospels, has had so large an influence in molding the affections, sustaining the hopes, purifying the faith of believers. With its words, rather than with their own, they have come before God. In these they have uttered {244} their desires, their fears, their confessions, their aspirations, their sorrows, their joys, their thanksgivings. By these their devotion has been kindled and their hearts comforted. The Psalter has been in the truest sense the prayer book of both Jews and Christians." Equally profitable is the study of the Wisdom literature. The wise men accepted the great religious truths proclaimed by the prophets; it was their business to apply them to the details of everyday life, and instruct their contemporaries in that application. They did an important and necessary work; they pointed out constantly and persistently that religion cannot be separated from the daily life. But the wise men were dealing with persons who had hardly gone beyond the childhood stage in things religious and ethical, hence they must put the most profound truths in the simplest possible form. They must abstain, as far as possible, from all speculation, and confine themselves to simple, practical precepts which would appeal to the ordinary practical common sense of the hearer. "The great desire of the sages," says Marshall, "was to reduce the lofty theistic morality which underlies Mosaism to brief, pithy sayings, easily remembered and readily applicable to the everyday life of man."[18] Certainly, in time they would be compelled to rise above simple precepts and try to solve some of {245} the more perplexing problems of life; on the other hand, there would always be a demand for the more simple sayings of these moral guides. The Old Testament contains specimens of these different productions of wisdom activity. The book of Proverbs is a collection of the more simple, practical precepts, while the books of Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate speculative wisdom. The charge has sometimes been made against the book of Proverbs that it is not truly religious, that it moves on a lower plane, and contemplates lower aims than the other books of the Old Testament; but this is only a half truth. That the book differs from other books is undoubtedly true, but that is due to the purpose of its author. He did not mean to collect prophetic discourses or sublime religious lyrics, but those simple precepts of life which, though simple, are ever needed for the proper conduct of man. There are two phases of religion: the one internal, the religious experience; the other external, the religious life. The two go together, though at times the one, at times the other, may be emphasized. The authors of the Proverbs emphasized chiefly the latter. They teach the most difficult of all lessons: how to practice religion; how to fulfill the duties and overcome the temptations of everyday life. But these wise men rested their practical teaching upon a religious basis. Their {246} religion may not be on a New Testament level, but in this they resemble other Old Testament writings; their conceptions of reward and punishment may be crude, and at times materialistic, but this peculiarity they share with all those saints of Israel whose vision is limited to this world. Underneath all their teaching there is a firm belief in the existence of a righteous God and the reality of his rule over the world, as also in the other great religious verities taught by the prophets. Far from disregarding religion, the writers of the Proverbs sought to make it the controlling motive of life and conduct. A profound religious spirit pervades the whole book; but in addition there are many passages which give definite expression to the lofty religious conceptions of the wise men.[19] Nevertheless, as is natural in view of the purpose of the wise men, greater stress is laid upon ethics, the practice of religion. Nothing and no relation of life seems to have escaped the attention of the writers. Precepts are given concerning ordinary everyday conduct, the relations of men to their fellows, domestic relations and happiness, national life and the proper attitude toward the government, and other relations and interests of life. The permanent value of the book is suggested in these words of Davison:[20] "For the writers of Proverbs religion {247} means good sense, religion means mastery of affairs, religion means strength and manliness and success, religion means a well-furnished intellect employing the best means to accomplish the highest ends. There is a healthy, vigorous tone about this kind of teaching which is never out of date, but which, human nature being what it is, is only too apt to disappear in the actual presentation of religion in the Church on earth." From simple practical precepts the wise men rose to speculation. Their speculative philosophy is theistic, for it starts from the conviction that there is a personal God. The best specimen of this type of Wisdom literature is the book of Job, which deals with the perplexing problem of evil and suffering. The book recounts how Job, a man of exemplary piety, was overtaken by an unprecedented series of calamities, and it reports the debate between Job and other speakers to which the occasion is supposed to have given rise. The experiences of the perfect Job raised the perplexing question, How can the suffering of a righteous man be harmonized with the belief in a holy and just God? The popular view, reflected in the greater portion of the Old Testament, was that suffering was always punishment for sin, prosperity reward for piety. Such belief seemed in accord with the righteousness of Jehovah. Undoubtedly, exceptions to the rule might be {248} noted, but as long as the individual was looked upon simply as an atom in the national unit, the apparent inequalities in the fortunes of individuals would not constitute a pressing problem. When, however, especially through the teaching of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the individual received proper recognition, an experience like that of Job was bound to create difficulties, for the suffering of a righteous man would seem to point to unfairness on the part of God. That this perplexity was felt is seen from allusions in the prophetic books. At last the time came when a wise man in Israel sought to solve the problem in the light of the religious knowledge he possessed. The problem, then, discussed by the author of the book of Job is, How can the sufferings of a righteous man be harmonized with belief in a holy and righteous God? Various solutions of this problem are suggested in different parts of the book: (1) The solution of the prologue--Suffering is a test of character. (2) The solution of the friends--Suffering is always punishment for sin. (3) The solution of Job--Job struggles long and persistently with the problem; a few times he seems to have a glimpse of a possible straightening-out of the present inequalities after death, but it is only a glimpse; he always sinks back to a feeling of uncertainty and perplexity. His general attitude is that there must be {249} something out of gear in the world, for the righteousness of God cannot be discerned as things are going now. (4) The solution of Elihu--Elihu agrees with the friends that suffering is closely connected with sin; but he emphasizes more than they the disciplinary purpose of suffering, which, he points out, is the voice of God warning men to return to Him. (5) The solution of Jehovah--The whole universe is an unfathomable mystery, in which the evil is no more perplexing than the good. In the presence of all mysteries the proper attitude is one of humble submission. (6) The solution of the epilogue--Returns to the opinion of the friends, for it teaches that righteousness will sooner or later be rewarded with prosperity even in this world. It is chiefly in the solution of this age-long problem suggested by the author of the book of Job that the real value of the discussion lies. The author nowhere states which of the above-mentioned conclusions he accepts as true. As a result, he has been charged with raising a profound problem, discussing it with relentless logic, and then leaving it unsolved. This, however, is not quite fair to this ancient wise man. "With a touch too artistic to permit him to descend to a homiletic attitude, the poet has shown that his solution of life's problem is a religious one. He had portrayed with great power the inability of {250} man's mind to comprehend the universe or to understand why man must suffer; but he makes Job, his hero, find in a vision of God the secret of life. Job's questions remain unanswered, but now that he knows God, he is content to let them remain unanswered. He cannot solve life's riddle, but is content to trust God, of whose goodness he is convinced, and who, Job is sure, knows the answer. The poet has thus taught that it is in the realm of religion, and not in that of the intellect, that the solution of life's mysteries is to be found."[21] Even Christianity has no other solution of the problem to offer; it must still insist upon a solution of faith, with a lofty conception of God, and a vision of life broad enough to include eternity, when the apparent inequalities of this life may be adjusted by a loving and righteous God. The book of Ecclesiastes, dealing with the perplexities of life in general, full of pessimism and skepticism, is not without its permanent value. The author of the book has passed through many disappointments, and his spirit has grown somewhat skeptical and pessimistic. Everything has proved vanity: riches, pleasure, honor, even the search for wisdom; and he is not sure concerning his destiny after death. But over against his experiences in life there is a faith in God who governs the world. The book, which portrays {251} the struggle between experience and faith, has aptly been called "a cry for light." The author does not see the light clearly, though here and there he may have a glimpse of it. The real perplexity is due to the fact that the author's horizon is bounded by the grave. In this life he sees no hope, therefore he looks with longing for a possible reckoning in an after life; but it remains a hope and cry, it never grows into a conviction. The more significant is the retention of his faith in God. He is conscious of a moral order in the world, though its operation is often frustrated; he is aware of cases in which the God-fearing man had an advantage over others. Hence, with all his uncertainty and doubt, he holds that it is his duty, and the duty of everyone else, to fear God and keep his commandments; God, somehow, will care for the mysteries and perplexities of life. Even the Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, often an object of ridicule, when rightly interpreted, is seen to bring suggestive lessons to the present age. The book owes its place in the canon of Sacred Scripture to the allegorical interpretation given to it from the earliest times. The Jews interpreted it as picturing the close relation existing between Jehovah and Israel; the Christians, as picturing the intimate fellowship between Christ and his bride, the Church. At present it is quite generally held that this interpretation {252} does not do justice to the primary purpose of the book; but as to its original purpose two different views are held. According to both interpretations, the subject of the book is love--human love; the differences of opinion are with reference to the manner in which the subject is treated. Some think that the book is simply a collection of love or wedding songs, all independent of one another. Others feel that there are too many evidences of real unity in it to permit this interpretation; they see in the book a didactic drama or melodrama, the aim of the author being the glorification of true human love. The drama centers around three principal characters--Solomon, the Shunammite maiden, and her shepherd lover. The book relates how the maiden, surprised by the king and his train, was brought to the palace in Jerusalem, where the king hoped to win her affections and to induce her to exchange her rustic home for the enjoyment and honor the court life affords. She has, however, already pledged her heart to a young shepherd; and the admiration and blandishments which the king lavishes upon her are powerless to make her forget him. In the end she is permitted to return to her mountain home, where at the close of the poem the lovers appear hand in hand and express, in warm, glowing words, the superiority of genuine spontaneous {253} affection. The real aim of the book, therefore, seems to be to glorify true love, and more specifically, true betrothed love, which remains steadfast even in the most dangerous and most seductive situations. In this age, when the responsibility of the individual Christian and of the Christian Church toward the practical, social, religious, and moral problems and evils is recognized more than at any other previous time, the prophetic literature is worthy of the most careful study on the part of all Christians who recognize and who are willing to meet their obligations to their day and generation. The prophets of old met in the strength of God, and at the divine impulse, the problems and evils of their own age. They had to face the problems of materialism and commercialism; the evils resulting from the accumulation of wealth, power, and resources in the hands of a few; very serious economic problems; cruelty, oppression, arrogance on the part of the rich proprietors; corruption in government and in the administration of justice; they had to grapple with a cold, heartless formalism that threatened to destroy pure, spiritual religion. Against these evils and wrongs the prophets of old raised their hands and voices. "When the old tribal customs and bonds were weakened by the growth of cities and the cultivation of commerce they saw that {254} society must be set upon a moral basis or suffer destruction. When the nation itself was about to be broken to pieces they saw in this a call for a deeper spiritual life.... They were interested in politics, but not as a profession in which to show their skill, or out of which they might gain wealth or glory. Politics for them meant simply the life of the nation in its relation to God and to the great outside world. They were social reformers. To the earlier prophets man was regarded always as a member of society rather than as an independent individual.... In opposition to a showy ritual, they set up their demands for justice between man and man."[22] Surely, it is a part of the Christian's duty to do his share toward a Christian solution of the social and religious problems of our day. We can hardly claim to have reached the full stature of Christian manhood or womanhood until we have acquired the knowledge and power to cope with these difficulties in the spirit of the Master and with the methods best adapted to the Christianizing of modern society. In these our efforts to lift humanity nearer to God, or to bring God nearer to humanity, we may learn much from the prophets of old. To sum up the results of our study: As Christians we may find our loftiest inspiration in the study of the life, the character, and the teachings {255} of the Master, and of the words of his disciples. But the New Testament is little more than a quarter of the Bible. In the preceding pages the attempt has been made to emphasize the permanent value of the larger division of the Sacred Book. It has been carefully scrutinized, tested in furnaces heated seven times, but out of the fire it has come bearing the stamp of God, testifying more confidently than ever before that God in olden times spake unto the fathers, and that in its pages may be found records and interpretations of these revelations. The features of the Old Testament which assure to it a permanent place in religious thought and life may be briefly indicated as follows: The Old Testament will always prove attractive as literature. The more we know of other literatures of antiquity, the more evident it becomes that even from the literary viewpoint the Old Testament is far superior to any other literary remains of ancient civilization. "If the inimitable freshness of life is preserved in Homer, it is not less preserved in the epic stories of the Old Testament; while the still more intangible simplicity of the idyl is found perfect in Ruth and Tobit, the orations of Deuteronomy are as noble models as the orations of Cicero. Read by the side of the poetry of the Psalms, the lyrics of Pindar seem almost provincial. The imaginative poetry of {256} the Greeks is perfect in its own sphere, but by the Hebrew prophets as bold an imagination is carried into the mysteries of the spiritual world. If the philosophy of Plato and his successors has a special interest as the starting point for a progression of thought still going on as modern science, yet the field of biblical wisdom offers an attraction of a different kind, in a progression of thought which has run its full round and has reached a position of rest.... And in the inner circle of the world's masterpieces, in which all kinds of literary influences meet, the Bible has placed Job, the Isaiahan Rhapsody, ... unsurpassed and unsurpassable."[23] From the standpoint of history the Old Testament still occupies, and ever will occupy, a unique position. Important as are the contributions of archæology, the student of ancient history can by no means spare the testimony of the Bible. The Old Testament is still the main source of information for the national history of the Hebrew people, and it is and will remain a very important secondary source for the history of the surrounding nations. It also retains a unique place in the history of religion, for without it the religious development of the Jews could not be traced; and since the Jewish religion is the foundation upon which Christianity was developed, ignorance of that earlier religion [257] would prove a serious handicap to the student of Christianity. The Old Testament will always be of value because of its intimate connection with the New. From the purely linguistic standpoint a knowledge of the former is essential for an understanding of the latter. New Testament modes of thought and expression are inexplicable without a study of the Old. There are many passages in the New Testament taken from the Old and referring back to it which cannot be properly understood unless we examine them in their original context. But the connection is even more vital, for in a very real sense the new dispensation has its roots in the old. It is one kingdom of God that is the subject of the history in both, and the Bible as a whole can never be rightly understood until the two Testaments are comprehended in their unity and harmony, for they are joined in inseparable unity in Christ himself. Most important of all, the Old Testament retains, and ever will retain, a unique religious value. It will ever be important in the field of doctrine. True, the New Testament is the primary source for the doctrines of Christianity, but there are some things which the New Testament takes for granted, and for which we must turn to the Old. Will the revelation of the nature and character of God contained in the Old Testament {258} ever lose its doctrinal value?--God, a spirit, personal, with a clearly defined moral character, in his mercy condescending to enter into covenant relations with his creatures, loving man and desiring to be loved by him, his anger aroused by sin, but gracious toward the repenting sinner? Again, have those early chapters of Genesis lost their doctrinal value? Has anyone supplied a substitute for the simple "In the beginning God created heaven and earth"? The Old Testament is of permanent religious value because of its keen insight into human nature. The Bible has been called "the family album of the Holy God"; we might compare it, rather, to a picture gallery. What a variety! Everywhere we see them flesh and blood! Why is it they impress us so? Is it not because the pictures are so true to human nature that in spite of the difference in time, place, and circumstances they may serve even us as mirrors? The Old Testament will always deserve study from the religious standpoint, because of the ideal of character it sets before us. "It presents to our souls characters that are supremely worthy of our reverence because consciously centered in God and full of his power. It permits us to share the enthusiasm of the men who discovered the fundamentals of our religion and the character of our God. It is indispensable to complete the {259} discipleship of Christ, because it is the creator of the mold which his soul expanded."[24] Its types of character may lack the finer graces, yet they are types we may do well to imitate. Will the lives of Abraham, Joseph, Samuel, Elijah, David, and many others ever lose their lessons? What sublime ideals even the Christian minister may find in the lives of the prophets! Will we ever get beyond the moral duties which are, according to the Old Testament, obligatory upon man? Purity of thought, sincerity of motive, singleness of purpose, truthfulness, honesty, justice, generosity, love--these are some of the virtues which again and again are in the strongest language insisted upon in the pages of the Old Book. Indeed, the Old Testament emphasizes the loftiest ideals of human life and society, anticipating the time when in all the world the universal Fatherhood of God and the common brotherhood of man would be realized. In an editorial in the Expository Times, commenting upon a paper read before the First International Moral Education Congress, are found these suggestive words: "It is when the teaching of the Old Testament is simple, frank, and historical that it becomes the best text-book of ethics in the world, for it possesses these two incomparable advantages--it is full of humanity, and it is full of variety. The epics of Joseph and David, the {260} tragedies of Elijah and Isaiah have an undying charm. And the examples are varied as they are interesting. It offers examples of almost every stage of moral development. Whatever the pupil's moral attitude, there is some Jewish hero that appeals to him. That hero's actions can be traced to their motives and followed to their consequences. He can be treated with sympathy in so far as he attains the standard of his times, and yet criticized in so far as his motives are not those which we recognize as absolute. So the pupil may learn at once to appropriate those _media axiamata_ which fit him, and yet realize that there is something beyond and above them."[25] The Old Testament is of permanent significance because of its insistence on pure and spiritual religion, and its condemnation of all cold and external formalism. These words of the prophet Isaiah imply a lofty conception of true religion: "What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of {261} assemblies--I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."[26] And the prophetic definition of religion, "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?"[27] is in no wise inferior to that given in the New Testament: "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."[28] Finally, how can we estimate highly enough the devotional value of the Old Testament as illustrated, for example, in the book of Psalms? Here we have the outpourings of human souls in the closest fellowship with their God, giving without restraint expression to the most various emotions, hopes, desires, and aspirations. What other literary compositions lift us into such atmosphere of religious thought and emotion? {262} Surely, the sweet singers enjoy a preëminence from which they can never be dethroned. It is quite safe, therefore, to assert, that as long as human nature is what it is now the Old Testament must remain an ever-flowing fountain of living truth, able to invigorate and to restore, to purify and to refine; to ennoble and to enrich the moral and spiritual being of man. "No man," says A. W. Vernon,[29] "save Jesus, ever had the right to lay the Book ... aside, and he made it immortal." NOTES ON CHAPTER VI [1] J. C. Todd, Politics and Religion in "Ancient Israel, p. vii. [2] The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament, p. 7. [3] Contemporary Review, August, 1889, p. 232. [4] C. F. Kent, The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament, pp. 5ff. [5] Biblical Criticism and Modern Thought, p. 6. [6] See above, p. 79. [7] Biblical Criticism and Modern Thought, p. 230. [8] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. xlii. [9] A. Westphal, The Law and the Prophets, p. 43. [10] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. lxx. [11] W. W. White, Studies in Old Testament Characters, p. 14. [12] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. lxviii. [13] Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 335. [14] Matt. 5. 17. {263} [15] These words of Johannes Arnd are used by Franz Delitzsch as the motto for his Commentary on the Psalms. [16] Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, Chapter XXXVII, 2. [17] The Book of Psalms, Vol. I, p. 18. [18] J. T. Marshall, Job and His Comforters, p. 4. [19] For example, 3. 5-7; 16. 3, 6, 9; 23. 17. [20] W. T. Davison, The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 134, 135. [21] G. A. Barton, The Book of Job, p. 12. [22] W. G. Jordan, Biblical Criticism and Modern Thought, pp. 284, 285. [23] Richard G. Moulton, The Modern Reader's Bible, One Vol. ed., p. x. [24] A. W. Vernon, The Religious Value of the Old Testament, p. 80. [25] Expository Times, November, 1908, pp. 54, 55. [26] Isa. 1. 11-17. [27] Mic. 6. 8. [28] James 1. 27. [29] The Religious Value of the Old Testament, p. 81. {264} INDEX Abraham, 238. Adad-nirari IV, 134. Ahab, 131 ff. Angels, 182 f. Animism, 165 f., 169 f. Appeal to the soul, 30 ff. Archaeological material, 123 f. Archaeology, 110 ff. Ashurbanipal, 140. Assumption versus knowledge, 217 ff. Authorship, of Pentateuch, 88 f.; other books, 89 f. Babylon, fall of, 141. Benefits of criticism, 105 ff. Bible and Reason, 33 f. Bible lands, 111. Black Obelisk, 133 f. Canon, 86 f. Ceremonial system, 178 ff. Character study, 238, 258 f. Christian consciousness, 36. Comparative religion, 160 ff. Comparative study, 160 ff.; aim, 160; attitude toward, 161 f.; importance, 164 Compilation, 87 f. Composition, 21-23. Confirmations, 156. Conflict between science and Genesis, 41 ff. Contrasts, 221 f. Cosmology of appearances, 59 f. Creation, 41 ff.; story of, 201 ff.; permanent value, 235 f. Criticism, 66 ff.; benefits, 105 ff.; definition, 67 f.; Jesus and c., 92 ff.; inspiration and c., 98 ff., 105. Cyrus, 141. David, 104. Day of Creation, 45 f. Decalogue, 199, 214 ff. Deity, conception of, 165 ff., 206 f., 212; Babylonian, 165-169, Egyptian, 169, Hebrew, 169-172; Character of D., 173 ff. Demons, 183 f. Devotional literature, 17 f., 242 f. Divine element, 26 ff. Doctrinal value, 257 f. Ecclesiastes, 250 f. Elephantine, 141. Eponym lists, 153. Esarhaddon, 140. Excavations, 112 ff.; Assyrio-Babylonia, 112-116; Egypt, 116-118; Palestine, 118-121; Phoenicia, 121; Moab, 121; Syria, 121; Asia Minor, 121 f. Exile, 141. Exodus, 128 f. Facts versus inferences, 144 f. Fall, 213. Festivals, 178. Flood, 207 ff. Fulfillment of prophecy, 28 f. Gains from excavations, 151 ff.; chronology, 152 f., 155; geography, 151 f.; history, 152. Gilgamesh, 208. Hammurabi, code of, 188 ff. Harmonizing science with scripture, 45 ff. Harmony between science and Genesis, 61 f. Hezekiah, 138 f. Higher criticism, 73 ff.; definition, 76; extra-biblical, 76 f.; tradition and h. c., 77; importance, 78 f.; origin, 79 ff.; reformers and h. c., 80 f.; loyalty to Christ and h. c., 82 f.; traditional, 83; non-traditional, 83 ff.; conclusions, 85 ff.; illegitimate, 101 f.; Jesus and h. c., 92 ff.; inspiration and h. c., 98 ff.; Moses and h. c., 102 f.; Isaiah and h. c., 103 f.; David and h. c., 104. Historical criticism, 72 f. Historical literature, 19 f., 240 ff., 256 f. Human element, 20 ff. Ideal harmony, 52. Illegitimate criticism, 101 f. Imperfections, 24 f. Inaccuracies, 23 f., 55 ff. Infallibility, 38 f. Inferences versus facts, 144 f. Inspiration and criticism 98 ff., 105. Interpretation, 39 f., 45 ff. Isaiah, 103 f. Jehu, 134. Jesus, the supreme revealer, 35 ff.; limitation of knowledge, 97 f.; criticism and J., 92 ff.; the Old Testament and Jesus, 9 f., 26, 36 f., 234. Job, 247-250. Knowledge versus assumption, 217 ff. Legal literature, 18 f. Legal system, Babylonian, 187 ff.; Hebrew, 195 f.; relation between the two, 199 f. Linguistic criticism, 70 f. Literary criticism, 71 f. Literature, kinds of, 15 ff., 90. Merneptah, 128 f. Miracles, 27 f. Mission of Israel, 60 f. Misuse, 231 f. Moabite Stone, 130 ff. Monotheism, 167 f., 218 f. Monotheistic tendencies, 167-169. Moral teaching, 259. Moses, 102 f. Nature of Old Testament, 12 f. Nebuchadrezzar, 140 f. Neglect, 227 f.; causes of, 229-233. New Testament, superiority, 229 f., 254 f.; estimate of O. T., 10 f. Old Testament, nature, 12 f.; reliability, 150 f.; as literature, 255 f.; in Christian church, 9; New Testament estimate of, 10 f.; Old Testament and interpretation of New Testament, 257; Jesus and Old Testament, 9 f., 26, 36 f., 234. Omri, 130 f. Opposition to criticism, 74 f., 82, 101. Order of creation, 47 ff. Patriarchal age, 154; narratives, 238 f. Pekah, 135. Penitential Psalms, 168. Pentateuch, authorship of, 88 f. Permanent value, 59 ff., 227 ff. Polydemonism, 171. Polytheism, 166 ff. Priesthood, 179 f. Prophecy, fulfilment of, 28 f. Prophetic literature, 15 f., 253 f. Proverbs, 245-247. Psalms, 242-244, 261. Purpose of Old Testament, 11 f., 53 ff., 148. Reliability, of O. T. history, 150 f. Religion, development of, 87. Religious imperfections, 24 f.; r. institutions, 175 ff. Restitution theory, 48 f. Revelation, 53 ff.; methods of, 13 f.; progressive, 85 f. Sabbath, 175 ff. Sacrifice, 180 f. Samaria, capture of, 136 f. Sargon II, 136. Science, 38 ff. Sennacherib, 137 ff. Shalmaneser III, 132 f. Shalmaneser V, 136. Sheol, 184 ff. Shishak, 129 f. Similarities, 220. Song of Songs, 251-253. Spiritual appeal, 29 ff.; judgment, 35 f.; unity, 29 f. Style, 21. Taylor Cylinder, 138 f. Tel-el-Amarna tablets, 125 ff. Temple, 179. Textual criticism, 68 ff., 74. Tiglath-pileser IV, 134 ff. Tirhaka, 139 f. Tithe, 180. True religion, 260 f. Uniqueness, 32 f. Unity, 29 f. Unrest, 42 ff., 232. Use of archæological material, 143 ff. Veracity of inscriptions, 145 f. View point, 149 f. Vision theory, 50 f. Wisdom literature, 16 f., 244 ff. Yahweh, 171 ff., 217. Yaudi, 135. 
22162	----	[Frontispiece: Joseph sold by his brethren.] CHILDREN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD. London, Edinburgh, and New York 1908 CONTENTS. JOSEPH THE DREAMER THE STORY OF BENJAMIN THE CHILD MOSES RUTH THE GLEANER THE CHILD SAMUEL DAVID THE SHEPHERD YOUTH KING DAVID'S LITTLE BOY ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW'S SON THE SHUNAMMITE'S BOY A LITTLE JEWISH MAID LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Joseph sold by his brethren . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ The babe among the bulrushes Ruth and Naomi The child Samuel David and Goliath Naaman at the house of Elisha CHILDREN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. JOSEPH THE DREAMER. Two boys, Joseph and Benjamin, sons of a rich Eastern shepherd, lived in their father's wide tent in the great valley of Hebron. Joseph was about seventeen years of age, and tall and strong, so that he could drive sheep, herd cattle, and work in the harvest field. Benjamin was a little red-cheeked boy of five, with merry brown eyes, and his brother Joseph loved him very dearly, for their mother was dead. The father of the boys, whose name was Jacob, had thousands of sheep and hundreds of camels, asses, and cattle, so that he was looked upon as a very rich man; and he had ten grown-up sons, who roamed about the country feeding the sheep in the green valleys and by the water-brooks. Joseph was dearly loved by Jacob, because the boy had been born when his father was an old man; and that was one reason why his older brothers hated Joseph and did all they could to annoy him. Perhaps they feared that their father would leave all his wealth to his favourite son, and you know that this sometimes makes quarrels among brothers and sisters. Now Jacob showed his special love for Joseph by making him a coat of many colours--a long tunic with stripes of red, green, blue, and yellow, having a coloured fringe at the knee, and a bright shawl to bind it closely round his waist. Joseph was very proud of this coat, but the others hated both it and him, believing that he would get the best of everything from their father--all but Reuben, the eldest, who loved the lad, and smiled kindly when he saw his gay tunic. One day at the harvest-time the sons of Jacob were all at home, cutting down the yellow grain, and taking it away on the backs of asses to the threshing-place. Joseph, of course, worked with them, but they were always finding fault with him, and trying to vex him. He knew, however, that his father loved him, and this made him able to bear their unkindness with patience. Besides, his mind was filled with boyish thoughts of how great he would be, and what he would do, when he grew up to be a man. He was very strong for his years, and joined with the women in tying the grain into bundles, and loading it on the asses; and it was very hard work, indeed, out there in the scorching Eastern sun. But rest came at night. When Joseph lay down with his little brother on a heap of straw at the back of the tent, he slept soundly, and dreamt the golden dreams of youth. He dreamt one night that they were all binding sheaves once more out in the sunny field, and his brothers' sheaves rose up and bowed down to his sheaf. Joseph took it all in earnest, and next day he told the dream to his brothers, perhaps as they were sitting at their midday meal in the shade of a spreading tree; but he soon knew from their angry faces that they saw nothing pleasant in it, and when his story was told they called out to him,-- "Shalt _thou_, indeed, reign over _us_?" They were jealous of him, and, of course, this did not make them any kinder to the young lad. But Joseph remembered what his father had told him--that dreams were sometimes messages from God; and he believed that his dream was a message, and that he would one day be greater than all his brothers. They also believed in dreams, and feared that what the boy had dreamt might come true, so that they began to hate him all the more. In those days people thought that the stars had a great deal to do with their lives; and certain men said that they could tell what would happen to a new-born child when he grew up by looking at the stars which were to be seen in the sky at the time of his birth. Now Joseph looked often at the stars, and wondered who placed them there, and what they had to do with him. And one night as he lay asleep in his father's tent he had another dream, and this time it was about the stars that could be seen through a slit in the tent, gleaming and sparkling in the dark blue sky. He dreamt that the sun and the moon and eleven of the largest of the twinkling stars came and bowed down to him. He told this dream also to his angry brothers, as well as to the old man his father, who gently checked him for his vain thoughts. He had, however, a soaring mind, and had more dreams still, of which we are not told, so that his brothers gave him, partly in mockery, the name of "Joseph the Dreamer." Now at certain seasons grass was somewhat scarce in the Vale of Hebron, so at one time Jacob sent his sons away with their sheep and cattle to seek food in other valleys where the grass was longer green. They went along the hills to the beautiful Vale of Shechem, fifty miles away; and after some time had passed the old shepherd began to wonder if they were all well, for he had not heard from them for some days. It was his usual custom when his sons were away from home to send a messenger to them with cheese, butter, and wine, and other nice things to eat; and this time he asked Joseph to go. Now, a camel ride of fifty miles was not an easy undertaking, for there were robbers in these parts, and the old man was much pleased when Joseph said he was not afraid to set out on the journey. Mounted on a strong camel, with side baskets filled with cakes of figs, dried raisins, parched corn, and leather bottles of oil and wine, the young lad rode away. He was dressed in his favourite coat of many colours, protected by his long cloak, while a bright kerchief covered his head, and a spear and club hung at his saddle. And as his father watched him going along the yellow track and over the hill towards the Bethlehem road, he sent up a prayer for his safe return. When Joseph came in due time to the Vale of Shechem, he wandered about asking the few people he met for his brothers; and at last he was told by a certain man that he must ride to a place called Dothan, where there were two wells, for his brothers were there feeding their flocks. This he did, and in due time came to the spot where his brothers were resting. "Who is this coming over the hill from Shechem?" said the brothers to each other, as they shaded their eyes with their hands to watch Joseph coming down the track into the plain. They expected more riders to follow him, but no more came, and they wondered who the lonely traveller could be. After a time the newcomer urged his camel into a trot across the plain, and they soon saw that it was Joseph. "Behold, this dreamer cometh!" cried one. Now they had their father's favourite in their power. "Let us slay him for his dreams, and throw him into some pit," said another; "and we will say that some wild beast has eaten him up." But Reuben, one of the ten, would not hear of hurting the lad, though he agreed to their putting him into a pit; for he had made up his mind that when the night came he would help the lad out again, and send him home to his father. Shouting to his brothers in his joy at finding them, Joseph urged on his camel; but no answering shout came back again, and his heart sank within him. His camel knelt on the ground, and leaping off its back, he turned to his nearest brother for the kiss of welcome; but a strong arm warded him off. He turned to another in surprise, only to meet with the same cold dislike. He told them what his father had sent, and took out the presents from the camel-bags, giving them the old shepherd's kind messages. But it was all of no use. He could not make friends of these dark, bearded men, whose flashing eyes spoke only of their bitter hatred towards the young lad their brother. Seizing him roughly, they stripped him of his coat of many colours, and leading him to a deep hole in the ground called a pit, they pushed him in. What would become of his dreams now? "Let him die there of thirst and hunger," they said, as they turned to feast upon the good things the lad had brought to them with such a joyful heart. Meanwhile Reuben had gone away, so as not to see his brother treated cruelly; and now the men feasted together in sullen silence, for they were by no means happy. While they sat eating they watched a string of camels come over the hills to the north, and draw nearer and nearer across the plain; and before long they saw that the travellers were a band of merchants taking slaves and spices to the distant land of Egypt. Slaves! That was the very thing; and a flush came over the face of Judah as he said to his brothers,-- "What shall we gain if we kill our brother? Let us sell him to these men. Let us not harm him, for, after all, he is our brother." So they helped Joseph out of the pit and showed him to the merchants, who saw that he was a handsome lad, such as would bring a good price in the slave-market in Egypt, where red-cheeked boys were of greater value than black boys of the desert; and they bought him for twenty silver pieces, which they counted out to Judah upon the ground. Tied with a rope like a dog to his master's camel, Joseph was led away by the dusky merchants on their slow march to Egypt. They did not heed his cries and tears, for they bought and sold boys and girls, as other men bought and sold sheep and cattle, almost every day of their lives. When night drew near, and Reuben came quietly towards the edge of the pit and called his young brother's name, he got no answer but the sighing of the wind in the grass. Believing that the lad was dead, Reuben tore his clothes in his grief, and ran quickly to his brothers' tents; but they hid the truth from him, and having dipped Joseph's tunic in the blood of a goat which they had killed, they brought it to his father. "This have we found," they said. "Tell us now whether it is your son's coat or not." Then the old man knew it at once, and said, "It _is_ my son's coat; an evil beast has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces." And in his bitter grief he tore his garments after the manner of his people, while his sons and daughters tried in vain to comfort him. "I will go down to the grave," he said, "mourning for my son." THE STORY OF BENJAMIN. I. Joseph was bought from the merchants by an officer who had command over the soldiers of Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt; and after a time of trial he prospered so well that he became one of the chief officers of the king, having among other tasks the care of the royal granaries or storehouses of corn. Now Joseph, who was very wise and thoughtful, caused great storehouses of brick to be set up in all the cities, and he told the people to place in these granaries one-tenth of the yield of each year's harvest. This he did to guard against any time of famine which might fall upon the land. For seven years of plenty this was done, and after that there came upon the land and upon all the lands round about seven years of famine; and only in the land of Egypt was there corn for the people. And when the people cried to Pharaoh for bread he said, "Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do." Then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold corn to the Egyptians. And from all the countries round about people came into Egypt to buy corn. Far away in the Vale of Hebron the famine was sore, and the sons of Jacob did not know what to do. Then when things were at their worst news came to Jacob that there was corn in Egypt. So he sent his ten sons away with their empty sacks and their asses to buy corn for their families. They wished to take their young brother Benjamin with them, but their father would not allow them. He had lost Joseph, he said, and he would not risk Benjamin with them. Having crossed many a weary mile of yellow sand and barren rock, they were stopped by a high wall set with forts and gates guarded by soldiers; and they had to say what they wanted before they were allowed to pass into Egypt. For days they walked by the side of the great river Nile, along the road to Memphis, where the king's stores were, and at length they saw the city upon an island in the river. Stepping into broad ferry-boats with their animals, they were taken over, and went up the long road, lined on each side with the figures of winged lions in stone, towards the wide market-place of the great city. There they made known what they wanted, saying that they had come from Hebron to buy corn; and their names and business were written down on a tablet, which was taken to the keeper of the granaries. Word soon came that they must go before the keeper; and they were warned to be careful what they said, for he was one of the king's chief officers. Taking off their sandals and cloaks at the steps, the ten Hebrew shepherds went between the pillars at the door and stood waiting. Within sat a young Egyptian, dressed in a robe of white linen, and wearing a great black wig of horsehair with many small plaits. His scribes sat at tables below him, writing down any orders he might wish to give. An Egyptian soldier told the sons of Jacob to go forward. Then the ten men went in and knelt down humbly before the young Egyptian; nor did they rise until he gave them leave. He looked at them and frowned, and they were afraid. "Where do you come from?" the officer asked sharply. "From the land of Canaan, to buy corn," was the humble answer. "You are spies!" he cried in a passion. "You have come to spy out the weakness of the land. What is your calling? Who are your friends?" The ten Hebrews could scarcely speak for terror. They had heard terrible stories of how these fierce Egyptians never allowed spies to get out of their country alive. "No, my lord; thy servants have come to buy food," said one. "We are all one man's sons," cried another. "We are honest men; thy servants are no spies," pleaded a third. But the great Egyptian only listened with a frown to their whining voices. "No," he replied firmly; "you have come to spy out the weakness of Egypt. Is your father alive? Have you another brother?" Why was this man so angry with them? they wondered. "We belong to one family of twelve brothers," Judah replied. "We have a father, an old man, and another brother, the child of his old age, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him much. We are the sons of one man in Canaan, and truly the youngest is now with our father, and one other is dead." Was he still angry? They lifted their dark eyes to the stern face of the young Egyptian. "I see you are spies," was the harsh reply, but his voice was softer. "In this way I will prove you. By the king's life, you shall not go back unless your younger brother is brought here to me. Send one among you to bring him, and the rest of you shall be kept in prison until he returns. So shall I prove whether what you say is true. If you will not do this, then by the king's life you are spies indeed!" He waved them away with his hand, and the Egyptian soldiers pushed them out at the door, telling them that they must come away at once to prison. As they sat on the earthen floor of the prison looking at each other in silence, they felt amazed and full of sorrow, thinking that they would never see their tents and their little ones again. For they did not know that the king's officer was their own brother Joseph, and that instead of being angry, he was really filled with joy at seeing them after twenty years of separation. As for his angry words, he was only trying them, and meant nothing but kindness, as we shall see. II. Joseph's brothers were to be kept in prison until they settled who should ride back in haste to Hebron to bring Benjamin down into Egypt; but Joseph's heart was tender, and after a while he began to think that perhaps he had been too harsh with them. One man, he told himself, could not carry enough corn to feed all the starving families in Hebron, and it might be dangerous for him to ride back alone. His old father, too, would be anxious. So he sent word to the prison that the brothers might all go home but Simeon, who must stay in prison until the rest came back with their young brother. He also gave orders that they were to have their corn-sacks filled, and that each man's money was to be secretly tied up again in the mouth of his sack. All the brothers were glad but Simeon, who begged them to come back as quickly as they could; and riding on their high camels, with their well-laden asses tied to each other in a long line, they left the Egyptian city, thankful to get away, and went back to their old father in Hebron. Jacob was glad to see them again, but he would not believe their story about Simeon being left behind; and he refused to let them have Benjamin, for he said that Joseph was once taken and never came back, and that the same fate would befall the other son of his old age. When they said that the Egyptian ruler had ordered them to bring their young brother down, their old father only asked, with flashing eyes, why they told the Egyptian that they had another brother. They replied quite truly that he asked them the question. Jacob did not believe them, and this made him all the more determined not to trust Benjamin with them. But the corn which they had brought was soon finished, and the old man urged his sons to go back to Egypt for more. They refused to do so unless they could take Benjamin with them; and after holding out for a long time, at last their father yielded. He bade them make up a little present of honey and dates and simple country things for the terrible Egyptian, hoping that the great man would not be unkind to his youngest son. Then with hands upraised he asked God's blessing upon his sons, and with a sorrowful heart saw them ride away. Mounted on strong camels, and followed by a string of asses with the empty corn-sacks on their backs, the ten brothers left the Vale of Hebron, and rode slowly across the hot desert to one of the gates of the great Egyptian wall. Again they came to the island, and were ferried over to the city as before. The camels knelt in the wide marketplace, where Joseph had been sold as a slave twenty years before, to wait while one of the brothers went to tell the doorkeeper of Joseph's house that the ten shepherds of Canaan had returned with their youngest brother. After waiting for a time they were told that the king's officer would see them. Joseph was glad when he heard that his brothers had come back again, and that they had brought his youngest brother with them. Pulling his black wig down over his brow to hide his pleasure, he ordered them to be brought in; and when they came and knelt before him, it was not on Judah or Reuben, but on the young man Benjamin, that he fixed his searching eyes. His brother had grown so much that he hardly knew him for the little boy who used to run about the camp holding his hand as he took him to see the little lambs and the small black kids at play. "Take these men to my house, for I shall dine with them to-day," was all Joseph said. The brothers were amazed when the meaning of the Egyptian words was made known to them. And when the gates of the courtyard closed behind them, they thought they were prisoners again, and sat down on the stone pavement to sigh and mourn. But at noon there came a loud knocking at the gate, and the red and green chariot of the great Egyptian drove in, and soon they were summoned to stand before him. With their simple presents in their hands, they went through the garden and into his beautiful house, and kneeling, laid the gifts at his feet. "Is your father well?" the great man asked in a kindly voice. "The old man of whom you spoke--is he still alive?" "Thy servant our father is alive and in good health," they answered humbly. "Is this your younger brother, of whom you spoke?" he asked again, speaking as if he did not know one from another. Benjamin answered with a low bow; and Joseph said, "May God be gracious to thee, my son!" Then Benjamin looked up at him, and Joseph felt the tears coming into his eyes; and rising from his chair, to the surprise of the men, he left the hall. They did not know why he had done so. But if they had seen him in his own room weeping like a child for very joy, they would have been more astonished still. The meal was served, and the ten brothers were surprised when the Egyptian ruler set them at a table all in the order of their ages; but even yet they did not know who he was. Joseph sat at a table by himself, with a beautiful silver wine-cup before him, and he sent plates of choice food to each of his brothers; but he sent to Benjamin five times as much as to any of the rest. Next morning they were sent home with their asses laden with well-filled corn-sacks. They were very glad to get away so quickly, and they wondered as they went why the great Egyptian had been so kind to them. But even yet the thought that he might be none other than Joseph had not entered their minds. III. Now Joseph had told his overseer that as he filled the brothers' corn-sacks he was to put their money into them again, and also to take his own beautiful silver cup and put it into the mouth of Benjamin's sack. This was done for a purpose, as we shall see. Next day, when the brothers had set out on their journey, the overseer was sent for by his young master, who ordered him to put horses into his chariot, to ride after the ten Hebrews, and to ask them why they had stolen his master's silver cup. Cracking his whip as he went, the Egyptian drove along the road, and soon overtook the returning travellers. Checking his horses, he stepped out of his red chariot and sternly asked why they had returned evil for good by stealing his master's precious silver cup; and he smiled when he saw the fear in the faces of the dusky Hebrews, and laughed when they all said that they knew nothing of the cup. He did not believe them, he said, and would search for the cup himself; and he laughed again when they said he could search at once, and if he found it with any one of them, he could put that man to death and make all the rest of them the slaves of his master. Of course the silver cup was found in Benjamin's sack; and pointing his finger at him, the Egyptian said that he would take him back to be his master's slave, but as for the rest of the men, they could go on their journey to their homes. The brothers wrung their hands at these words, and their hearts sank within them. Judah had promised his father that he would bring Benjamin back again safe and sound, and now the lad was to become the slave of this terrible young ruler! After all, the man's kindness of the day before was only intended to make them feel the pain all the more when he seized their young brother to be his slave. They could not return to their old father without him. They would go back to the Egyptian city, they said, and all go to prison together rather than part with Benjamin. In those days, when Hebrews were overcome with grief they tore their clothes, that all might see how sorrowful they were; and Judah was the first to seize his tunic and tear it down the front from neck to hem, and the others did the same. In a mournful procession they followed the Egyptian's chariot back to the city; and the people gazed at them as they passed, and laughed. When they reached Joseph's house and entered the courtyard, they sent in a very humble message, begging that he would see them. And when they came into his presence they knelt before him with bowed heads, till their brows touched the coloured pavement. "What is this that you have done?" he asked. "Do you not know that such a man as I can find out secret things?" Joseph wished to frighten them, but in his heart he was glad that his brothers had not gone away, leaving Benjamin behind in slavery. They were kinder now than on that day so long ago when they sold him to the dark merchantmen in the far-off Vale of Dothan. In a pleading voice Judah told the terrible Egyptian that all of them were now his slaves. But Joseph replied that he only wanted the man who stole his silver cup; the rest could return to their father. Then Judah had more to say. Holding up his hands for mercy, he told the story of how they had begged their old father to let Benjamin come; adding that if they returned without him, the old man would die of grief. And to Joseph's surprise, he begged that he would let him stay behind and be his slave for ever in place of his young brother, and let Benjamin go home to his father. At times while Judah was speaking Joseph looked at Benjamin, and sometimes he turned away his head lest they should see the tears in his eyes. And when his older brother offered to be his slave for ever, the young Egyptian suddenly ordered every one to leave the room but the Hebrews; and he remained silent, with his head turned away, while his Egyptian friends and servants went slowly out. As soon as they were all gone he sprang to his feet, and held out his hands to his brothers, calling to them in Hebrew,-- "I am Joseph! Is my father indeed alive?" The men gazed at him in amazement. What would this terrible Egyptian do next? Who was this who knew about their brother whom they had sold into slavery? They were dumb with wonder. "Come nearer to me, I beg of you," he pleaded. It was the voice of Joseph that rang in their ears. They came nearer, and gazed up at the great man. These cheeks were too ruddy for an Egyptian, and these brown eyes--were they not the eyes of Joseph! "I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt!" he cried. They could no longer doubt that he spoke the truth to them; and as they came forward he clasped them in his arms one by one, weeping for very joy. Then seeing in their eyes the deep sorrow for their past unkindness, he added,-- "Be not grieved nor angry that you sold me into Egypt, for it was God who sent me hither to save many lives in the years of famine. I am lord of the king's palace and ruler of all Egypt." Then he took his wondering brothers home with him to stay in his fine house, where his Egyptian wife and their little children lived; and after a time he sent them away, laden with presents, and with wagons to bring down their children and their old father Jacob into Egypt. For they were all to come down, he said, and live in the golden and fruitful land of Goshen, and he would watch over them there. THE CHILD MOSES. I. Jacob and his sons stayed in Egypt until the old man died. Then Joseph carried his body back to Hebron in a great funeral procession, and having buried him beside his wife, who had been dead for a long time, came back again to Egypt. The Hebrews expected to return to Canaan soon, but that was not to be. In course of time Joseph and his brothers died, but still the Hebrews, or Israelites, as they were also called, stayed on in Egypt, and in time grew into a great nation. Then a new king came to the throne, who was afraid of their numbers, and made slaves of them all, forcing them to make bricks and build for him great walls, forts, and buildings of all kinds. They were taken in gangs, guarded by soldiers, to the place where the brown river clay was thick; there they dug it out with spades, trod it with their feet, and worked it with their hands until it was wet and soft. Then they shaped it with little square boxes into brown bricks for building. Other workers placed the bricks in baskets and carried them away to the boats in the river, for the boatmen to take up to the great cities where the walls were being built. Some of the Israelites toiled at building these high brick walls, storehouses, forts, and even cities for the great king; and it is not unlikely that some of the Pyramids, which we now see standing on the banks of the Nile, were built by these poor slaves in the days now long gone by. Others, again, were driven out to the fields to drag wooden ploughs up and down like cattle, to dig with small wooden spades, and to clear the land of stones; and when the harvest came, they cut down the crops and threshed out the grain, and carried it off to their master's storehouses. Others had to stand on the bank of the river all day long, filling buckets with water and emptying them into little drains that ran away into the fields. And over all these slaves were slave-drivers, who stood beside them with long whips to lash them if they did not work hard enough. So the poor Israelites were very unhappy, and often prayed to God that they might be set free again; for they were the lowest labourers in the land, toiling for those who gave them no money for their work. But for all this they increased more and more in numbers, until the king was afraid that they might some day side with his enemies and fight against him, and then he would be in great danger; so he treated them more cruelly still, and at last ordered all the boy children that were born to the Israelites to be thrown into the river. [Illustration: The babe among the bulrushes.] There was great weeping and sorrow amongst the Hebrew mothers when they heard of the king's cruel order. And they did many strange and brave things to save their little ones, and did indeed save many of them; but many others perished, so that there was grief instead of joy in the poor Hebrew huts whenever a baby boy was born. Now, Jochebed, one of those Hebrew mothers, lived in the city of the great king, so close to the side of the blue Nile that the white walls of the royal palace were reflected in the water. She had a little baby boy, so beautiful that she told her husband he must not be thrown into the river where the crocodiles were, for she herself would save him alive. She had two other children--Miriam, a girl of fifteen, and Aaron, a little boy of three--and she told them that they were not to tell any one they had a little baby brother in the house lest the king's soldiers should come and take him away and throw him into the river. And she kept her little baby carefully hidden in the house, running to him every time he cried lest he should be heard outside, and trembling each time a soldier passed her door. For three months she was able to keep her child hidden from the slave-drivers. Often did she pray to God that he might never be found; and she loved her baby all the more because of the danger he was in. But at last a day came when his mother could keep him hidden no longer. With a sorrowful heart she saw that she must get him away, although at the moment she could not tell how to do so. Then she weighed him in her arms, measured him with her hands, and made up a plan to save him such as only a mother's heart could devise. She had seen a fair Egyptian princess coming down from the palace every morning to bathe in the river at a place not far from her hut; and she thought that if this princess could only see her lovely baby boy she would save him. So this Hebrew mother went down to the river and gathered an armful of strong reeds. With these she wove a stout basket long enough and wide enough to hold her baby boy. Then she painted it inside and out with black bitumen, until not a drop of water could get in. She lined it next with soft cloth of red and green, as mothers line their cradles, and then it was ready to be placed on the water and save the life of her little boy. II. The morning sun shone brightly on the broad surface of the Nile, turning the Pyramids on the banks into dull gold, and lighting up the palaces of the city; and while the white-robed priests went up to the temple roof to beat the brass gong and chant their hymn to the morning, the poor Hebrews flocked in thousands out of their little yellow huts, to do their heavy tasks amongst the wet, brown clay by the riverside. Taking Miriam with her, Jochebed, the Hebrew mother, stole out of her hut, carrying a little black basket shaped like a boat, with something asleep in it, hidden under her wide blue cloak. Crossing the fields, she went down to the riverside and along the path until she came to the beach of golden sand where the red-feathered hoopoes strutted in the sun--the place where the princess came to bathe, not far from the lilies of white and yellow. As they went she told Miriam what she was to do when the princess came, and then stepping down to the water's edge at a place where the lilies grew thick, she opened the basket, kissed something in it, and covered it over again. Stepping into the water, she gently put down the little basket to float among the water-flags, where the princess could not help but see it as she came along the path on the bank above. With tears running down her cheeks, this Hebrew mother turned away, praying, as she went, that all would be well with her little child; while Miriam, going a short way off, sat down on the sand to watch until the lovely princess came. Slaves in red tunics, with swords at their sides, bowed low down to the earth as they opened the palace gates to let out a bright throng of girls, laughing and singing as they went on their way down to the river; and the wind blew aside their thin robes of white and pink and soft blue, showing bare feet thrust into little slippers of red and yellow leather. Foremost of the band walked the young princess, holding a white bud of the lotus lily and smelling it as she went, while slave girls kept the hot rays of the sun from her head with fans of peacock feathers. She, too, had red slippers on her feet, and her neck and arms shone like pale copper; but she wore no chains or rings, for she was going to bathe, and her brown eyes looked with pleasure upon the cool waters of the broad river. She did not notice the Hebrew girl sitting on the sand as she walked along the river's bank; but in a few moments she saw a strange little black object floating among the green flags, and at once sent some of her maidens to bring the strange thing to her. Running down to the water, the girls lifted out the little dripping basket, wondering what was in it that made it feel so heavy; but soon a little cry from within told them, and they went quickly with their burden to the princess, to ask what they should do with it. The dark eyes of the Hebrew girl were watching them as she sat playing at odd and even with round stones from the river--a favourite game of the children of Egypt. She saw them bring the basket to the princess. She saw her smile, and noticed her pleased cry when they opened the lid; and she heard her speaking kindly to the little child, which was crying loudly. The girls were crowding round the open basket, looking in at the child; and when they placed the basket upon the ground and looked about them in doubt, Miriam knew that her time had come, and went timidly forward. "This is one of the Hebrew children," the gentle princess said, with pity in her voice, as she looked at the baby's red cheeks, so different from the brown cheeks of the Egyptian babies. The little boy still wept loudly, and the princess's heart was touched, for he would not stop crying. What was to be done? Running with bare feet upon the hot sand, Miriam, clad in the rough red and blue of a Hebrew slave girl, drew near to the princess, and kneeling down at a little distance, said,-- "Shall I run and call a nurse from among the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" The princess knew that such baby boys were to be thrown into the river; but perhaps the meaning of it all dawned upon her as she talked with her maidens, for she turned with a smile to the kneeling girl, and said simply, "Go." With light feet and a beating heart Miriam sped away to the spot where her mother was hiding, calling to her in Hebrew as she went to come quickly. The princess and her maidens looked with amusement at the Hebrew woman as she came swiftly forward and knelt before them; and the whole of the mother's little plot was clearly seen in her blushing cheeks and tear-filled eyes. This clever little slave girl had found a Hebrew nurse very, very quickly! "Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages," the princess said to the kneeling woman; and she smiled again when the little child ceased weeping and held up his little chubby arms as soon as this Hebrew woman's face bent over him. She was indeed the mother, but the princess would tell no one, for thenceforth the boy was to be as her own child. When the little child grew up this good princess took him into her lovely palace to be her son; and she called him Moses, because that name meant that he was taken out of the water. And there is a pretty story told about this same princess by an old Jewish writer, though it is not to be found in our Bible. He says that the princess was so proud of the boy that one day she brought the little fellow to her father the king, that he might see how beautiful he was. The king took off his golden crown and put it on the child's curly head; but the little boy took it off again, and putting it upon the ground, tried to stand upon it, which amused the king and his courtiers very much. The old Jewish writer says that this showed how the little boy would one day force this king to set free the Hebrews, which indeed he did, as the Bible tells us. For Moses became, when he grew up, the great leader of the Israelites, who led them out of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan, where in time, after much fighting, they founded a kingdom of their own. RUTH THE GLEANER. In the days before there was a king in Israel a woman called Naomi, whose name means "the pleasant," lived in the little village of Bethlehem; and when at one time food was scarce, she left the place with her husband and two sons, and went over into the land of Moab, where there was plenty of food to eat. For ten years she lived in that land, and there her sons married Moabite girls. Then heavy trouble came upon Naomi, for she lost not only her husband, but her two sons also. In her sorrow Naomi's heart turned to Bethlehem, with its cluster of white houses among the hills of her own country. But before going back she bade her daughters-in-law return to their mothers' houses, where they would be happy. They both wept, and Orpah, the elder, kissed Naomi and went away; but Ruth clung to her and refused to go. "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee," she said; "for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." So they went back together to the village of Bethlehem, and Naomi in her sorrow said to her old friends, when she met them once more, "Call me not Naomi 'the pleasant,' but Mara 'the bitter;' for God hath dealt bitterly with me." Ruth wore the dress of the village girls, of deep green and bright red, with a white veil streaming over her shoulder, and a row of coins upon her brow; and she was pleasant to look upon as she went up and down the stony path which ran from the gate in the wall to the women's well, carrying her pitcher to get water. As she moved along the path her eyes often strayed over the plains of dry grass and the fields of golden grain; for it was the rich harvest time, and she was very poor. Rising one morning before the clouds were red over Hebron, she went down into the valley where the harvesters were at work, and followed the reapers and binders, picking up as a gleaner all the stray heads of barley she could find. As the binders were women she kept near them; and they talked kindly to her, for they knew her and had heard her sad story. Now when Boaz, the farmer, came down to the village to see how the work went on in his field, he called out, "God be with you" to his reapers; and they answered, "May God bless you." Turning to the women, he asked the name of the strange maiden, and spoke kindly to her, calling her his daughter, and telling her to keep close to his women, where no one would touch her, and not to leave his fields. If she was thirsty, she might drink from the water-bottles from which the reapers could drink when they wished. Kneeling before him with head bowed down, as if this farmer were a king, Ruth thanked him for his kindness to a stranger; and the man replied that he had heard of her goodness to Naomi, her mother, and praised her. [Illustration: Ruth and Naomi.] When the midday heat was great the reapers gathered in a shady place, and Boaz bade Ruth come and share their bread and light wine, and he gave her parched corn, as much as she could eat. In the afternoon they rose to work again, and Boaz told the reapers to let the girl glean among the sheaves, and pull out a handful here and there; and she gleaned there till the sun went down over the hills. Now the corn that she gathered was too heavy for her to carry away as it was, so she sat down and beat the barley out between two stones, and tying it up in her veil, put it on her head, and went home with a light step. Naomi was astonished when she opened out her store in the little house; for she had gleaned more than a bushel of barley. When she told Naomi where she had been, her mother said that Boaz was a relative of her own; and the elder woman was glad indeed to hear that he had given Ruth leave to glean in his fields during the whole of the harvest time. And so it came about that every day at the red dawn Ruth went singing down the rocky pathway to work with the reapers in the warm Eastern valley; and as the wheat harvest followed close upon the barley harvest, she worked for many days, returning home at night with her ruddy cheeks burnt brown with the sun, to lay her heap on the floor of her mother's house; for they were laying up a little store with which to bake bread in the months of wind and rain that were before them in the coming winter. But as time went on they did not need to live in poverty, for Boaz married Ruth at the end of the wheat harvest; and this Moabite girl became the great-grandmother of King David, the most famous king of Israel, and one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ our Lord Himself. THE CHILD SAMUEL. I. When the Israelites had made their home in the promised land of Canaan, they did not forget the God of their great ancestor Jacob; but they set up on a hill called Shiloh a tabernacle, or place of worship, where they came to offer sacrifice to the God of their fathers. Here the priests of the tabernacle killed bullocks and rams and goats, and burnt their flesh on the great altars, believing that these offerings were pleasing to God; and here the people came also to the chief of the priests whenever they had disputes with their neighbours, for the "high priest" was a judge in Israel. Now, at one time there lived in a little cottage on the hill of Ramah, not far from what is now Jerusalem, a certain man named Elkanah, whose wife Hannah had a little boy named Samuel. The child was dearly loved by his parents, and especially by his mother, who had made up her mind that her son, when he grew up, should become a priest of the God of Israel. The child Samuel grew, amid sunshine and wind, at his father's home on the hill of Ramah, watched by his mother with loving care; for when the time came, he was to be given to the priests in the great tent of the tabernacle on the hill of Shiloh. Three times the mother and child saw the blossoms cover the twisted branches of the olive trees and fade again; three times the valley was filled with golden wheat swaying in the wind, and the song of the reaper was heard in the fields. Three happy years in Ramah, and the little child could run about, and talk, and shout, and take care of himself when the camels and oxen were near; then Hannah said she must how give him up to the priests. So with her husband she rode away upon a sure-footed ass, down the hills to the great festival at Shiloh, through rocky passes and across foaming streams; and her face was sad, for the little child of three sitting in her lap she would not bring back again. She took with her a sack of meal and a leather bottle of wine, while a servant led a young bull. The animal was to be killed and burnt, while the meal and wine were to be given to the priest at the tabernacle; for these things were all to be offered as gifts to God. Before long they saw the tabernacle on the hill of Shiloh, with its broad tent-roof of red sheepskins, as well as the hundreds of little black tents of the tribesmen, some grouped into camps with a flag, others clustered round the springs and pools of water under the trees; and soon Hannah and her boy mingled with the crowds thronging into the walled space about the tabernacle. With beating heart the mother saw the bull killed and her meal and wine given to the busy priests. Taking her child by the hand, she led him forward to the doorway of the tabernacle, where sat Eli, the aged chief priest. The little child clung to his mother's dark-red robe as he stood with naked feet before the old man, the hem of his sleeveless tunic scarce reaching to his knees, and his head uncovered. "Oh my lord," said the mother, "I prayed for this child as a gift from God, and God gave me my desire; and now I give him again to God as long as he shall live." Then she pushed forward her beautiful boy; and as Eli looked at the mother and child he was pleased, and drawing the little child to himself, he blessed the waiting woman. With bowed head and falling tears she went out at the tent door, leaving behind her the greatest treasure of her life. Before long the black tents were taken down by the women of the tribes, the crowds of men and animals passed away through the openings in the hills, and the festival was over. And Hannah rode up with her people back to Ramah, but not before she had kissed her sweet boy once more, weeping as she did so, and telling him in soft Hebrew words that she would come again to see him. The priests took the little child, and over his short blue tunic they drew a white linen dress like their own. After that he lived with them in one of the houses near the tabernacle on the hill of Shiloh, and they taught him how to read from the old yellow rolls of the Bible; and he served them, doing what he was told, as a little child should. And there were other brown-eyed boys of Israel there, left by their mothers, and all beautiful as little angels without wings. Four times a year the Israelite tribes gathered round this hill of Shiloh, to bring gifts, and offer worship to God, and hold councils of war. Then little Samuel was glad, for his mother came to see him; and he ran gaily about, now looking at the leaping fires on the brass altar, now watching the clouds of sweet smoke rolling out from behind the blue curtains of the holy place of the tabernacle. Sometimes he was told to pour olive oil into a flickering lamp; sometimes he would sing in the choir, or carry a golden bowl or a priest's shoes; but he was never allowed to go in behind the thick veil of purple, blue, crimson, gold, and white, which hid the sacred place known as the Holy of Holies, where the gold-winged cherubs were. Did his mother forget little Samuel? Other little children were born to her, but still she remembered him, away among bearded men in that large, dark tent; and this is how she showed her love for him. She gathered of the finest of the lamb's wool, and having dyed it purple, spun it into threads; and with her loom of strings hanging from the roof she wove a little blue gown without a seam and without sleeves, to reach from his chin to his knees; and she worked it round the broad hem with flowers and bells, and fruit of red and yellow and brown. And each time she went to the great yearly festival she took a little blue coat with her, making it longer and longer as the child grew into a boy, and the boy became a ruddy youth; and with it, too, would go a little white willow basket with honey-comb and cheese, sweet cakes and pressed figs, such as she knew that Samuel loved. Thus she showed her constant love for the child who had left her side, but would never leave her heart. And the child-priest grew, not only in stature, but in favour with God and men. II. The great tent of the tabernacle on the hill of Shiloh had thick curtains woven in colours of blue, purple, and scarlet, and a high roof covered over with red and brown skins to keep it warm and dry; the sides were of stone, and the doors of wood, with carved wooden pillars. A thick curtain of purple, scarlet, and gold hung down inside, dividing off the Holy of Holies at the end from the rest of the place, where the priests went about every day, attending to the altar of incense and the golden lamps. And there was a special golden lamp, with seven branches, which always stood close to this great purple curtain. All was dark in the Holy of Holies behind that heavy curtain, and there stood the Ark, a box about a yard long, plated with gold and having a wreath of gold round it, under the outspread wings of two golden angels. Inside that box were two flat stones, on which were written the Commandments that God had given to His people, the children of Israel. The priests had charge of the tabernacle, and of all that was in it; and they took special care of the Ark, which was the chief treasure of the nation. Now it was Samuel's duty to shut the wooden doors of the tabernacle at night, and sleep close to the great purple curtain and watch--a very trying thing for one so young in such a large, silent place. One night as he lay there asleep on his mat before the purple curtain, with the great lamp burning low and red, and shadows flickering about the silent place, he was suddenly roused by what sounded like Eli's voice calling him. At once he answered, "Here am I," and ran to the side of the aged priest. But the old man told the wondering boy that he had not called him, and with gentle words bade him lie down again, calling him his son. Samuel went back to his mat, but after a while he heard the voice once more; and again he thought it was Eli, and ran to his bedside, saying that he _did_ call him. Eli now saw that God was calling the boy, and told him to go and lie down, and if he heard the voice again, to answer, "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." Then the boy Samuel, in wonder and fear, returned to his sleeping-mat before the great purple curtain, and lay down with the light shining upon him. Once more he heard the voice calling,-- "Samuel, Samuel." "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth," he replied in a trembling voice. Then Samuel heard a voice, which told him that God meant to punish Eli for not checking his sons, who were very wicked men, and had done many things which were wrong in His sight; also that He had chosen him to be the leader and judge of the people of Israel after Eli. The boy slept again, the temple lamp burned low before the great curtain, and the place was silent until the gray light of morning stole in. Then Samuel rose, and as he unbarred the wooden doors of the tabernacle and opened them wide, the dawn was breaking over the hills in clouds of crimson and gold, filling the holy place with the light of a new day. The breath of morning was in his face as he looked out to the east and the rising sun; and he felt a changed boy, for he had received a message from God Himself--a call to lead the people of Israel; yet he feared to tell Eli of his vision, so great and so terrible. But after a while the old priest awoke, and calling him to his bedside put questions to him; and when he heard that he had had a vision, he bade the boy tell him all, both good and bad, and Samuel did so. [Illustration: The child Samuel.] The story grieved the old man, but even yet he did not check his sons, who were now too strong for him; and for some years more they went on in their wicked ways, and he still remained the chief priest. But as he grew older and weaker Samuel grew stronger; and when he became a man, he became known through all the land for his wisdom, and the people said that Samuel was a friend of God, who had guidance from the Most High for His people. So he continued to live at Shiloh as Eli's chief helper until the old man passed away; and so the little boy of the tabernacle became in due time the chief prophet, the ruler, and the judge of Israel. DAVID THE SHEPHERD YOUTH. I. Now it happened in the days of Samuel that the tribes of Israel made up their mind to choose a king to rule over them. Their choice fell upon a leader whose name was Saul, and who was made the first king of Israel. King Saul was a brave man and a wise leader, who made the name of the Israelites feared by all their enemies round about. But after a time he acted in a way displeasing to God, and was reproved by Samuel in His name. Saul, however, went on in his sinful ways, and this filled the heart of the prophet Samuel, who was now an old man, with sore trouble and distress. Samuel lived, among his young men on the little hill of Ramah, mourning because of King Saul's sinful ways. But there came a time when God told him--perhaps in a vision--to mourn no longer. He was to fill a small horn with oil and go to the village of Bethlehem, and there anoint one of the sons of Jesse the shepherd to be the next king; but at first the old man was afraid to go, lest King Saul should hear of it and kill him. Then one day he left Ramah early in the morning, riding on an ass, with a young man behind him driving a cow; for he gave out that he was going to offer a sacrifice to God. Their path lay to the southwards, and on by the camel road into the Hebron hills. It was a long ride, in hot autumn weather, along these stony paths glistening in the Eastern sun. The watchers on the walls of Bethlehem saw Samuel, while he was yet a long way off, riding slowly up the rough path, with his servant driving a cow before him; and they were alarmed, for the old prophet was the chief judge in the land. Then the leading men of the place hastened out through the gate in the wall to meet him, and ask if he came to them in peace. He answered that he had come to offer a sacrifice, and bade them wash themselves in the stream, and put on clean clothing, that they might join him in it. Riding through the low arch in the walls, he asked for Jesse, a wealthy shepherd of the place, who had hundreds of flocks and herds; and when he found him, he ordered him and his sons to wash and dress and come to the feast also. Jesse thought he was highly honoured, for he had eight sons, and he was pleased that they should show themselves before the great prophet and judge of Israel. A fire of sticks was kindled upon the flat rock outside the village walls, on which the sacrifices were always made; and the prophet killed the cow he had brought, and cut it in pieces for burning. Part of the flesh was then placed upon the wood, and as the old man raised his hands to heaven the flames leapt up and burned the flesh; and all the time the men of the village stood round him in their rough cloaks and striped kerchiefs, looking on in silence at this solemn act of worship. Women in their tunics of coarse blue and red, with strings of coins in their dark hair, stood apart at a distance, for they were not allowed to share in the worship of the men. The feast was to come next, at which the women would be allowed to serve the men; but before Samuel would permit it to begin, there was something else, that must be done. Calling Jesse to him, he said that he wished to see his sons. Jesse knew at once that something important was about to happen; but the people did not know, and wondered why the feast was delayed, and what it all meant when Jesse called his sons forward by their names, and bade them walk slowly, one at a time, past the aged prophet. First came the eldest, in striped cloak and gray tunic, carrying his thick war-spear in his hand; and when Samuel marked his height and his fine face, he said,-- "Here, surely, is the chosen king." But the voice of God within him seemed to whisper, "Nay, I have rejected him. God sees not as man sees; for man looks upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart." Then Samuel told Jesse that his eldest son was not chosen, and he passed on. Jesse next called up his second son, who walked slowly past the prophet, with sweeping cloak and club in hand, armed for the fight. "Neither hath God chosen this," Samuel said to the father; and the second son passed on. Jesse then called forward the third, who also walked past the old prophet with head erect, and spear in hand, hoping that he would be chosen. "Neither hath God chosen this," was all that the grim old man said of him. The people sat in the sunshine, on the slope of the hill outside the village walls, shading their eyes and looking on in silence, until seven of the sons of Jesse, dressed and armed like chiefs, had gone slowly past the old man with the keen black eyes; but Samuel made no movement, and Jesse was deeply grieved. "God hath not chosen these. Are all thy children here?" Samuel asked, turning sharply to the shepherd, who trembled as he replied,-- "There remains yet David; but he is my youngest son, and is watching the sheep." David was too young to be thought of in this important business. He was down in the hollow with his shepherd's staff and dog and sling, playing upon his harp, and watching from afar the fire and smoke and crowds, as he kept his father's flocks. "Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down to the feast until he comes," was the stern reply. The brothers were angry at this useless waste of time; but one of them was soon leaping down the stony path to the valley, shouting with his hand to his mouth, and waving a stick in the air to attract his young brother's attention. The people waited in the sunshine, and soon they saw David, with his tunic pulled through his leather belt so as to leave his legs free, running swiftly up the hill, for he was very fleet of foot. He came in his shepherd's torn and soiled garb, and had to wash at the brook before he was fit to stand before the prophet. When at length he drew near, Samuel saw a young man, not tall, but clearly of great strength, with light hair, ruddy cheeks, and bright eyes; and he thought the youth very good to look upon as he stood before him dressed in his striped tunic and leather girdle, from which hung his shepherd's club, sling, and knife. Samuel looked at his frank face, and as he looked God said to him,-- "Arise, anoint him: for this is he." Going forward, the old man bade the shepherd youth kneel down and uncover his head. And David did so, taking off his bright kerchief, little knowing what was about to happen. Then raising his horn before the astonished people, Samuel poured the sweet-smelling oil upon the young man's head, saying as he did so that God had chosen this young man to be a prince in Israel. Upon this the people raised a great shout of joy, and Samuel gave the signal for the feast that was to follow. Then the men all sat down on the ground about the large wood fire, while the women came forward to serve them. II. David, the shepherd of Bethlehem, was not a mere boy when the prophet Samuel called him from watching his sheep to pour scented oil upon his head, and tell him, before all the people of the village, that he would one day be a prince in the land. He was already a village hero, for one day he had killed a lion that sprang upon one of his sheep as they fed in the valley to the south, near the desert country. He had also killed a bear that tried to seize one of his young lambs; for David was so strong that he could break an iron bow with his hands, and so swift on his feet that he could catch a wild deer in a race over good ground. He was not so tall as his fighting brothers, but he was stronger, and knew how to use the sword, bow, club, sling, and spear; for all the young men of the villages learned the use of these weapons in their sports and games. The lad was also fond of music, and could play and sing. Sitting in the shade of a shadowy rock, or at the mouth of a dark cave, as he watched his sheep wandering to and fro in the sunshine, he often played strange music upon a rude harp made by himself; and he would sing songs of his own making about the white flocks and herds, the green hills and cool streams, the red-cheeked women at the well, and the young men of the village where he had his home. He was called the "sweet singer," and his skill on the harp was well known in the villages round about Bethlehem. When he left his own village and went to live with Samuel's young men at Ramah, to learn to read and write, he learned also to play upon the pipe and guitar, the tambourine and large harp, and to sing, not songs of love and war, but praises of God and of His goodness to men. Under the teaching of Samuel his heart opened towards God as a flower to the sun. Yet he did not always stay at Ramah, but often came back to his home, to help his father, and to watch the sheep with his brothers, who thought him too forward and did not like him much. King Saul was now very unhappy, for the aged prophet Samuel would not see him, and the king felt that God was not with him; and he often had fits of sickness when he was in deep trouble, and only music could soothe his mind. Hearing that a harper was wanted for the king, one of David's friends praised his playing, his wisdom, his bravery, and his good looks, saying that God was with him; and when King Saul heard this he sent a messenger to Bethlehem for the shepherd-harper. Now no one ever came before the king without a gift in his hand, so Jesse sent with David an ass laden with a sack of wheat, a kid, and a skin of wine, as a present to King Saul. With his ruddy cheeks, and his long fair hair falling upon his blue tunic, David pleased the gloomy king as he stood before him; and when the youth played softly upon the harp, and sang shepherd songs of love, passing from these into songs in praise of God, the king loved the youth greatly, and sent word to his father that he would keep David beside him. Jonathan, the king's son, and Michal, the king's daughter, also learnt to love the shepherd-singer as he went in and out before the king. Then Saul made him one of his fighting chiefs, who stood daily before him; and whenever his sickness came upon the king he called for the shepherd-harper, and David played music both sad and gay until the cloud passed from the king's mind. Sometimes David stayed at Gibeah, where the king's house was, and sometimes at Bethlehem; and always once a year he went home to the great family feast of the new moon, when all his father's relatives were gathered together. III. The fighting between King Saul and the Philistine tribes, who lived near the seacoast, never ceased; for the Philistines had made up their minds to make the men of Israel their servants, and King Saul was determined that his people should be free. Once upon a time the Philistines gathered their young men, and came, with their battle-flags and drums, up the great Vale of Elah, the valley of oaks, to attack Saul's people. Stopping at the village of Succoth, they chose a secure place, and put up their black tents among the thick bushes, camping about ten miles from the round hill of Bethlehem. [Illustration: David and Goliath.] Then King Saul sent out messengers to sound the war-horns up and down the valleys, and gather his fighting-men to drive back their old enemies. Three of David's brothers grasped their spears and bows, and joined King Saul with the men of the tribe of Judah; but David stayed for the time at Bethlehem, to take care of his old father and the flocks. In those days soldiers had to find their own food, and armies sat down before each other for many days before they began to fight. After a time Jesse sent David with asses laden with corn and cakes for his brothers, and ten little cheeses for their captain; and David led them through the hills and down the wide glen to the camping-place opposite Succoth, where the king's men looked across the valley to their foes on the opposite slope, while the river ran between. Then one day the Philistines sent out a champion, a giant named Goliath of Gath, who wore a helmet of brass and a brazen coat of mail of very great weight. He had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a gorget of brass between his shoulders. The staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his shield-bearer went before him. This champion sent a boastful challenge to the Israelites, bidding them send out a man to fight with him. "If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants," ran the message; "but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants." This challenge he repeated for forty days, but there was no man found among the men of Israel who dared to go out against Goliath of Gath. Then Saul made it known that whoever could kill Goliath should have great riches, should marry the princess his daughter, and win great honour for himself and for his family. Now when David reached the place with the food for his brothers, he was amazed to see that the men of Israel were so much afraid, and he asked, "Who is this Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" And those who stood around told him how the giant warrior had come out day after day, and how the king had promised to enrich the man who should slay him. Then it was told to King Saul how David had come and had asked about the king's promise. So the king sent for the youth; and when he had been brought in, David said, "Let no man's heart be troubled, for thy servant will go and fight with the Philistine." But Saul said, "Thou art not able to go out against him; for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." Then David told Saul how he had killed with his own hands a fierce lion, and a bear which had stolen a lamb from the flock. "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear. He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine," he said simply. And Saul said, "Go, and the Lord be with thee." The king then armed David with his own armour; but the mail was too heavy for the young man, and he said, "I cannot fight with these, for I have not tested them." So he took his shepherd's staff in his hand, and choosing five smooth stones out of the brook, put them in his shepherd's bag; and with his sling in his hand he drew near to the Philistine. When Goliath looked at David he was filled with scorn, and disdained him; for he was but a youth, as any one could plainly see. And with a frown upon his face he said angrily, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field." Then David said to the boastful Philistine, "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the bodies of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this army shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands." Upon this the giant came near to meet David; and the youth made haste and took a stone out of his bag, and slung it with such skill and force that it smote Goliath in the forehead, and sank so deeply that the huge warrior fell lifeless to the ground. David then ran and stood upon the body of the giant, and having no weapon except his sling, cut off Goliath's head with his own sword. When the Philistines saw that their champion had fallen, they turned and ran without more ado. Then with loud shouts the men of Israel rushed across the vale of oaks, shooting their arrows as they ran, for they were good bowmen. Scattering the Philistines, they drove them back to their own country, until they took refuge in their walled towns of Gath and Ekron. After this the men of Israel returned to their enemy's camp at Succoth, and plundered the tents, wagons, sacks, and baggage. When this had been done they feasted and rejoiced over the victory, and drove off the horses and cattle of their foes, carrying everything up to their own towns and villages in the hills. And from that day forward David was the hero of all the young men of the army of Saul. IV. The tall, gloomy king now sent for David, the hero of the battle of Succoth, and leaning on his spear among his chiefs, Saul told the young shepherd of Bethlehem that he must not return any more to his father's house, for he was to be one of the chief captains of the army. And David was glad, for he loved fighting. When Jonathan, the king's son, saw the young shepherd standing daily among the chiefs in his father's tent, he took a strong liking for him; and as time passed his soul was knit with David's, until he loved him as he loved himself. And the king was pleased that his son and David were such good friends. One day Jonathan took David into his tent, and there the young men promised to be friends all their lives till death should part them. Now David was very poor compared with the king's son, and had only the rough clothing of a herdsman, thick and strong, but not beautiful; so Jonathan took off his fine cloak, his gay tunic, his rich belt, and even his glittering sword and bow, and put them all upon David, giving them freely to him as a present. Then the king's son brought out other clothes and weapons, and dressed himself once more like a soldier-prince. And when the young men came out of the tent into the sunshine, both dressed like princes, the people saw that they were as brothers; and the king saw it too, and thought that Jonathan was very foolish. But David was so strong and brave, and such a favourite with the tribesmen, that the king set him over a troop of young men; and whenever Saul went out to fight, David and his band went with him, and this greatly pleased the chiefs and the fighting-men of the army. King Saul went on fighting with his old enemies the Philistines, who came up at certain seasons of the year to plunder the land, and had to be chased down the long valleys, and back into their walled towns again; but with David's help the king was now able to beat them as he had never done before. And each time they drove the Philistines down, the young men returned leaping, running, dancing, and showing off their skill and strength on the way; and the villagers would often come out to meet them, and rejoice also. After one of these fights, as the tribesmen came back, with David riding beside the tall, dark king, the young women of the towns came out and danced before them on the road. Beating their tambourines, they shouted wild songs in praise of the fighting-men, singing and answering each other in turn after the manner of the Hebrews. King Saul listened, and his brows grew dark as he heard them praising his brave young captain more than himself. "Saul hath slain his thousands," sweetly sang one band of maidens. "And David his tens of thousands," answered another. These girls little dreamed what harm they were doing with their light-hearted songs. David himself was pleased with the praise of the young women, as we might expect; but as the tall king rode on he grew more angry, saying to himself as he spurred forward his horse, "What more can he have but the kingdom itself?" And he watched David from that day forward, to see whether the young man was aiming at being king. King Saul's sickness of mind returned from time to time, and day after day David stood before him, playing upon his harp and singing the king's praises; but now Saul would not listen. David's music did not make him well as it had before, but rather worse, for he was full of suspicion of his young chief, and hated the sight of him. But the king's friends thought David's music was the best thing to restore the king to health. Now the dark-faced king was never without a weapon near his hand; and holding his long spear, he would sit and listen to the young harper, now pleased, now angry, for he sometimes liked David and sometimes hated him. Twice he seized a little spear and flung it at him, crying out that he would pin him to the wall; but his aim was bad. Perhaps he did not mean to harm him; but at all events David avoided the weapon and ran out. The king in his sickness of mind next became afraid of his young captain. Wishing to have him out of his sight, he set him over a band of a thousand fighting-men, and bade him live with them at a distance. But the men who were under David liked him more than ever. King Saul now wished that David was dead, so fiercely did he hate him; but he did not think it wise to kill him himself, so he made a plan to get him killed. He offered him his daughter Merab for a wife, if he would go down the hills and fight the Philistines in their own country; and the crafty king said this, hoping that they would kill him. Now David had no wish to marry Merab, but he loved fighting, so he went willingly, fought stoutly with the Philistines, and came back alive. Then Saul broke his promise, and gave Merab to another man, who gave him a rich present, as was the custom when a king's daughter was wedded; and David was not sorry, for Michal, Merab's younger sister, loved the brave young captain, and he loved her in return. Saul was pleased when he heard of this; for he hoped David would be willing to go into greater danger to win Michal as his wife. And he sent a messenger to tell David that he was well pleased with him, and would like him to marry Michal; and that as he was too poor to give the king a present, he would not ask him for one. But if he would kill one hundred Philistines within a certain time, that would stand for a present. We are not told what Michal thought of this cruel bargain, for Saul hoped and believed that David would be killed, but David himself was well pleased. He and his young men went down the long valleys to the land of the Philistines, where they went about killing people, until they had slain two hundred; and before the appointed time was up David returned to Saul once more to tell him what he had done. This was followed by days and nights of rejoicing among the young men of David's camp. The young women decked their hair with flowers, and danced to the sound of the timbrels, as they praised the beauty and goodness of Michal, the king's daughter; and the young men danced and shouted round the camp fires, praising David, the bridegroom, as a mighty man of valour. Saul was unwilling to give up Michal to the young captain; but he now feared him greatly, and could not break his promise. So David got the young princess Michal to be his wife; and after the death of Saul and Jonathan, who were both slain in battle, he became king of the Israelites, as Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, had foretold. KING DAVID'S LITTLE BOY. Sunshine fell upon the walls of King David's palace on Mount Zion. The trees in the royal gardens swayed in the breeze, and the doves fluttered up to the windows; but all was hushed and still within. Black slaves glided to and fro with naked feet, and the women took off their tinkling armlets and talked in whispers; for in a little chamber, with shaded window and curtained door, a dark-eyed mother sat watching her child--the king's child--whose flushed cheeks showed that he was very ill and near to death. Now when he heard that his boy was so ill, the king, who was now a man of middle age, threw himself upon the floor of his room in the bitterness of his grief and prayed to God to spare the life of the child. His friends came and stood round and spoke to him, trying to comfort him; but he would not rise, nor let them raise him up, nor would he take any food. So he passed the dark night in praying and in sorrow, while the mother watched the child by the light of a small lamp, and slaves stood outside the chamber door to keep silence. The morning came, and sunshine fluttered on the trees in the king's gardens and on the hills round the town. Then the king asked for the child, but the answer was that he was no better; and all the people saw that King David's grief was very great, and they wondered. For the monarch had fought in many cruel battles, and beaten his enemies, and caused the death of many men and women, and even children, and he had done many cruel things in his lifetime. He now had riches and honour and numerous children, and was the great king of Jerusalem, living in a palace, with servants and horses and gardens and fountains, and he had brought the golden ark of God to be near him in a purple tent on Mount Zion; but he had set his whole heart on this fair-haired child, and the fear that the little one might die took the joy out of everything. The peacocks on the walls and the doves on the roof missed the little child from the garden, where he used to come and feed them. For seven long days and seven longer nights the loving mother watched him as he lay getting slowly worse; and the king's grief was so great that he would not rise from the floor to eat by day or night, and when his slaves spoke to him he paid no heed and would not answer. He refused to put on the fresh clothing they brought for him, or to wash in the brass basins of water held out to him, or to eat the food placed on the table at his side; but he lay on the floor of his little room groaning, and praying to God for the little one. After a week of suffering the little one passed away in the hushed room of the king's palace at Jerusalem, and the weeping mother was led away from the bedside of her dead child. Sorrowing friends went to tell the king in his chamber; but when they came to the door of his room they stopped and whispered, saying,-- "If he would not listen to us while the child yet lived, what will his grief be if we say that the boy is dead?" The king heard them talking, and looking up, saw from their faces what had happened. Then he asked if the child was dead, and they told him, expecting that he would break out into wild grief; but he did not. Rising from the floor, where he had lain so long, he asked for water; and his slaves washed him and brought clean, fresh clothing, and combed and oiled his hair. He spoke to no one, but went out into the sunshine and the wind; and they watched to see what he would do, and where he would go. He did not linger among the shady walks of the king's garden or by the ponds where the red lilies grew and the swans shook out their white plumes in the sun. His friends followed him as he went slowly out of the palace gardens and away to the great tent of purple and crimson, which he liked to call the House of God, on Mount Zion; and they stopped outside when he drew the rich curtains apart and went in. There in the darkness he knelt, and with hands upraised bowed his face to the ground before God as he poured out his soul in prayer. After a time the king came out of the great tent again, and his friends and servants followed him as he returned to his palace. He had not yet spoken, and they could not understand why he did not weep and mourn for the child. He asked for food, and they wondered yet more as he ate from the dishes which the slaves brought him. "What is this that thou doest?" asked one of his friends. "While the child lived thou didst weep for him, and wouldst take no food; and now that he is dead thou dost rise and eat." They thought he had been only mourning as he lay for days on the floor; but he had been praying, and now he answered them,-- "While he was yet alive I fasted and wept; for I thought, 'Who knoweth whether God may not be merciful to me, and the child may live?' But now he is dead, and why should I fast? I cannot bring him back to life again. Some day I shall die and go to him, but he will not return to me." Whether such thoughts as these comforted the mother's heart, we are not told; but the king himself tried to comfort her. After a time she had another little boy, and she called him Solomon, "the peaceful one," for mothers chose the names in those days. And as his nurse carried him about the garden, clad in a little blue robe with white tassels, the people said that he too was a beautiful child; and he grew up to be good and wise and handsome, and loved his mother dearly. And years afterwards this child became the great King Solomon, whom all men thought so wise. ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW'S SON. Ahab, the wicked King of Israel, was sitting in his house at Samaria, when suddenly there appeared before him a wild-looking man, with long hair and a cape of woolly sheepskin on his shoulders, his rough tunic girdled with a broad belt of leather, and thick sandals on his feet. Elijah, the Prophet of God, was his name. Born and bred in the wild desert country, he now dwelt amid the hills and valleys of Gilead, across the river Jordan, and he had come to warn the king that trouble was in store for his kingdom. "As God lives, before whom I stand," he said, with upraised hand, "there shall not be dew or rain for years, but according to my word." And he said more, for this king was married to Jezebel, a wicked princess of another nation, who had got her husband to set up images and altars to Baal, a wooden idol, although he knew it was wrong. Also, to please his wife, Ahab had killed the priests of God, and set up priests of Baal in their stead; and so when King Ahab heard the words of the wild prophet he was both angry and afraid. Elijah did not wait for an answer, but fled out of the king's house and out of the city; for he knew that when King Ahab told his terrible wife of what he had said, she would send out men to capture him, dead or alive. She had tried to kill every prophet of God in the land, and thought indeed that she had done so; but Obadiah, the king's officer, had hidden one hundred in caves by the riverside, and kept them alive with bread and water. So the wild prophet Elijah, with his sheepskin cape or mantle on his shoulders, fled away to the lonely country of rocks and bushes, wild beasts and robbers. But he had no fear, for he had no riches to lose, and he always carried a stout staff in his hand; and no one ever refused him shelter, for he was known everywhere as "the Man of God." He fled eastwards, having received a message from God to go and hide in the deep valley of the Cherith, a small stream running between high banks down to the river Jordan--a place of caves where many ravens had their nests; and he had been told also that the black ravens would feed him there with the food they brought. There he hid himself from King Ahab's men, who were searching the country for him; and the ravens brought him food morning and evening, and he drank of the water of the brook until it dried up, for there was no rain. When he could no longer live there he had another message from God, bidding him leave his hiding-place. Climbing the wooded hills of Galilee, he started to go down the other side to the town of Zarephath, by the seashore, where he would be out of King Ahab's country. With his thick staff in his hand and his woolly mantle on his shoulders, his head shaded by a shawl hanging down each side of his face, he crossed the plains, and going up a cleft in the hills, passed between them towards the coast--a journey of about seventy miles, that would take him at least four days, for he would have to keep out of sight of the king's men. Sleeping now in a cave, now in a friendly tent, avoiding villages and bands of men, the wild prophet came to the fields outside Zarephath and waited; for the place was a walled town with a low stone archway, and gatekeepers to question all who came in. Now as he loitered among the trees a poor woman came out to gather broken branches to kindle her fire, and the prophet called to her,-- "Bring me, I pray thee, a little water in a dish, that I may drink." She looked at the man's strange figure, with the long black hair falling over his sheepskin mantle, and turned away with her bundle of sticks, intending to bring a drink of water to him; and when he saw that she was going home, he called again,-- "Bring me also a morsel of bread in thine hand." The woman, who was dressed in the rough blue and red clothing of the country, with a few brass coins in her hair, and glass beads round her neck, came nearer, and he saw from her face that she was plainly in deep distress. "As thy God liveth," she said earnestly, "I have not one cake left, but only a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse. I am only gathering a few sticks, that I may go home and bake one more cake for my son and myself, that we may eat it and then die." "Fear not," replied the wild man in a gentle tone; "go and do as thou hast said: but make me a little cake first, and bring it to me, and afterwards make a cake for thyself and thy son. For thus saith the God of Israel, 'Thy barrel of meal shall not waste, nor thy cruse of oil fail, until the day that He sendeth rain upon the earth.'" The woman wondered at his strange words, but she believed the man, and went away to her poor home; there she soon kindled a fire, and baked a little cake, and took it out to the hungry prophet sitting outside the city gate. Then she returned and baked another cake for herself and her son. And we are told that after that her barrel never lacked meal, neither did the oil in her cruse fail, according as the prophet had said; and Elijah stayed with the woman at her humble home. Now it happened some time later that this widow's son fell sick and died, and his mother came to Elijah in great distress. Then the prophet took the boy and carried him up into the loft where he slept, and stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord,-- "O Lord my God, I pray Thee, let this child's soul come into him again." And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. Then Elijah took him and brought him down out of the loft, and placed him in his wondering mother's arms, and said, "See, thy son liveth." And the woman said, "Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." THE SHUNAMMITE'S BOY. After the work of Elijah was over and God had taken him up to heaven, there was another prophet in Israel whose name was Elisha. Now it happened that one day the prophet Elisha, sitting upon his ass, with his rough cloak cast about him, came riding towards a little village named Shunem. He rode steadily onward up the steep and stony path in the afternoon heat, with his servant walking behind him. He had come all the way from his home on the wooded hill of Carmel. He was tired and hungry, and, as was his custom, he stopped at the house of a certain Shunammite woman. Then alighting from his ass, he went up the outside stair to a little chamber on the wall, which was always ready to receive him, and there he and his servant Gehazi lay down to rest. When morning came the prophet and his servant rose and breakfasted on bread and goat's milk, and were about to go on their way; but before leaving, Elisha told Gehazi to bring up the Shunammite woman, and the man called to her from the wall. Coming up the stone stair, she stood at the door of the little chamber, hiding her face, her dark hair covered by a white kerchief that fell over a tunic of bright colours which reached down to her slippered feet. "Thou hast been careful for us with all this care," the prophet said. "What is to be done for thee? Shall I ask a favour of the king for thee, or from the captain of his fighting-men?" Elisha wished to make her some return for her kindness, and thought that she might like to see her husband raised from the life of a village farmer to be an officer in the king's army. "I wish to dwell among mine own people," she replied simply, meaning that she would rather live where her tribe lived; and she turned away and left them. When she was gone Elisha asked his servant if there was nothing he could do for her; and the man answered that she had no son. Gehazi knew it was the dearest wish of every Syrian woman to have a son, and that the Shunammite's heart longed for one. "Call her," said Elisha again; and the woman in her bright tunic, bound about her waist with a silken scarf, again stood outside the door hiding her face. And Elisha told her that the time would surely come when she would hold a little son in her arms. The woman replied in a low voice,-- "Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not mock me." But Elisha said it would be so; and saddling his ass he rode away, with Gehazi following after him. But the prophet's word came true, and the Shunammite's heart leaped with joy as she nursed her little babe. Years passed, and the courtyard echoed with the shouts of the merry child, whose bare feet pattered all day about the sunny square, scaring the gray doves up to the housetop. Holding by his mother's hand, he went up the stairs to the little chamber on the wall, where the vine spread its broad leaves; and there he saw the table and the little bed, the red jar of water and the cakes of bread waiting for the prophet of God. And when he was five years old, with ruddy cheeks and soft hair, he was beautiful as an angel of God. Now one day, in the hot harvest weather, the little fellow ran away from the house down to the field where his father and the reapers were at work; and he ran to and fro in the hot morning sun, sometimes chasing the bright butterflies, sometimes following the men as they cut down the grain with their sharp sickles. But after a while he came to his father, calling, "O my head, my head!" for he had got sunstroke with the great heat. At once the old farmer bade one of his men carry the boy to his mother; and he lay on her knee in a darkened room, crying out in an agony of pain and thirst, while she tried as best she could to relieve his suffering. But by noon all was still, and the stricken mother carried his body up to the little chamber and laid it on the prophet's bed, and going out gently closed the door. Her heart was like lead as she went down the steps to her own room, for all the light seemed to have gone out of her world, and now what was she to do? Calling her husband up from the fields, the Shunammite woman asked him to send a servant to her with an ass, that she might ride to Elisha at Carmel and return again. The father did not know what had happened to his boy, and asked why she wished to go that day, as it was neither new moon nor Sabbath, her usual times for taking such a journey. "It is well!" was all her reply, for her heart was crushed, and she had no words to utter. So the ass was saddled, and she said to her servant,-- "Go forward; and do not slacken the riding unless I tell thee." Then they went out of the village at a quick pace, and along the plain, among yellow harvest-fields, and through the little streams, and over the Kishon River, and up into the wooded gorge leading to the prophet's home on the green mount of Carmel. "Yonder is the Shunammite woman; run and meet her," exclaimed Elisha to his servant, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand, as he looked and saw her yet afar off, riding in haste. Gehazi ran as he was told, and when they met he asked her in an anxious voice,-- "Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?" "It is well," she answered, for a mother's heart is strange at such a time; and she rode forward in silence until she came to Elisha standing at his house door. Getting off the ass, she threw herself down before the prophet, and holding his feet, lay there with her face to the ground, saying nothing. Gehazi came forward to raise her. "Let her alone," Elisha said, looking at the grief-stricken figure at his feet. "Her soul is vexed within her, and God hath hid the matter from me, and hath not told me." When she heard these words she found her voice, and murmured, with her face to the ground,-- "Did I ask a son of my lord? and did I not say, 'Do not deceive me'?" Then her tears fell fast. Elisha understood her at once. "Gird up thy tunic with thy belt," he said, speaking to Gehazi, "and take my staff, and go. Greet no man by the way, and answer no man's greeting; but lay it on the face of the child," handing him his staff as he spoke. And the man started at once to run down the path from the village. "As God liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee," the mother murmured at the prophet's feet. She would not be content with a servant; she must have the prophet himself. And when she rode away Elisha was with her, going back again on the long ride of sixteen miles which she had scarcely noticed, so loving was her mother's heart. When they drew near the village of Shunem, Gehazi came out to meet them. "The child is not awake," he said; but he got no answer. Elisha went up alone to the little chamber, and there lay the beautiful child, still and quiet upon the bed. And the old man shut the door and prayed to God for him, and stretched himself upon the child, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, until the child grew warm, and showing signs of life, opened his eyes. Then the prophet called to his servant to bring the Shunammite woman. She needed no calling. Her foot was on the stair while he yet spoke, so quick is a mother's heart, and she stood at the door of the little room, as she had often stood before, gazing, but afraid to enter. "Take up thy son," the prophet said. A glance was enough. One step and she fell half fainting at Elisha's feet, pouring out her soul in thanks to God and to the man of God. Turning to her boy, she gathered him up tenderly in her arms and bore him down the stairs to her own room in the house below. And thus was her boy restored to her alive. A LITTLE JEWISH MAID. Ben-hadad, the dark-eyed King of Syria, could no longer leap into his chariot and drive his swift horses through the fields as he used to do. He could not draw the bow of steel or fling the heavy spear as far or as straight as the young men of his tribe, for he was getting old; and he had given up going with his warriors on their fighting across the Jordan, leaving it to his younger chieftains. His home was in the beautiful town of Damascus, set in a land so rich and green with tapering trees, vineyards, and fields of grass, and watered with such delightful streams, that the Arabs, coming on their camels from the yellow sands of the hot desert, cried out, when they saw its white walls hung with green creepers, that it shone "like a handful of pearls in a green cup." He ruled the tribes of Syria from that walled city, and in the spring-time of the year his chiefs gathered the young warriors to make up their minds where they should go to fight and plunder. Among the chiefs was Naaman the Syrian, a young man who led them out to battle when the king could not go, and had several times beaten their foes. Sitting among his chiefs, with his royal spear in his hand, a band of gold round his brow, and rings of gold on his arms and legs, the old king talked with them about fighting the men of Israel, and gave them their orders; and best of all his warriors the king loved Naaman the Syrian. Now when Naaman blew the king's horns and beat the king's drums up and down the country, calling the young men of the tribes for a raid across the Jordan, it was either to steal cattle and corn, or to capture slaves; and boys and girls were the slaves they liked best. One day, when he returned from one of these slave-raids, Naaman brought back with him a little Jewish maid; and she looked so pretty with her dark eyes and ruddy cheeks that he gave her as a present to his Syrian wife, to wait upon her and run her messages. When her mistress washed her hands, the little maid held the basin on bended knee. When she dressed her dark hair, she held the comb and the oil, and the little pots of yellow dye for her nails and the black paint for her eyebrows. When she went out, this little maid went also, in a little dress of scarlet, with a white kerchief on her dark head. She learnt to love her mistress very much; and was sorry for her master, for he was troubled with the terrible sickness of leprosy, and she often wished he could be made well. One day she sighed, and said to her mistress,-- "Oh, I would to God that my master were with our prophet in Samaria! then he would get better of his leprosy." She believed with all her heart that Elisha the prophet, like a clever doctor, could do something for him. Now what she had said was told to Naaman, who told it to the king; and as they had both heard about Elisha, the wild prophet of Israel, the king told his favourite chief to go and see the wonderful man. And he also wrote a letter to Joram, the King of Israel, and gave it to Naaman to deliver; and this is what he wrote:-- "When this letter comes to thee, O King Joram, it is to tell thee that I have sent Naaman, my servant, for thee to heal him of his leprosy." Naaman folded the letter in his tunic, and filling a few small bags with silver and gold, and rolling up some bundles of new clothing, he put them into the wide saddle-bags of his camels as presents for the King of Israel. Then stepping into his chariot, he drove down the river valley, with his men clattering after him, and up the hills to Samaria on the watch-hill, where he delivered the letter. [Illustration: Naaman at the house of Elisha.] The King of Israel read it, and his chiefs saw that he was much troubled. Seizing his white tunic with both hands, he tore it from neck to hem--a sign of great grief--saying bitterly that _he_ was not able to heal people of leprosy, and that the powerful King of Syria was only seeking another cause to quarrel with him. What kings say and what kings do many tongues tell, and Elisha the prophet, who had a house in white-walled Samaria, heard about the king's grief, and sent his servant Gehazi to give him a message,-- "Why do you rend your clothes? Send the man to me!" The king was delighted, and soon Naaman's chariot and horses, his armed guards and his brown camels, were standing at the door of the prophet's house. But only Gehazi appeared in answer to the captain's call. "Go," he said to the proud Syrian chief--"go and wash thyself seven times in the river Jordan, and thou shalt be healed, and be clean of thy leprosy." This was a message from his master Elisha, who was not coming out to see the great captain! The Syrian chief was filled with anger at the man who dared to send him away from the prophet's door as if he were a beggar, and he exclaimed,-- "I thought he would surely come out to see me, and stand and call on his God, and wave his hand over the place and heal me. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" Springing into his chariot, he grasped the reins, and shook them as he brought his whip fiercely down on the horses' backs, causing them to leap forward from the door. The horses galloped swiftly through the narrow streets, and out by the gate in the city wall, and down the road to the plain, the guards and servants of the great captain following after him as quickly as they could. Naaman considered that he had been mocked by this foreign prophet, and was galloping back to Syria as quickly as he could. But horses cannot gallop for ever, however angry their masters may be; and when at length they came to a walking pace, Naaman began to talk with his friends about the insult he had received from the rude old prophet. Why should _he_ bathe in the Jordan River, where the water was clay-white and often muddy, when he had his own rivers of Abana the golden and Pharpar the sweet, brimming with the finest water in the world? His friends did not answer him in his wrath; but they soon reached the ford of crossing, and if he would not bathe in the Jordan, he would have to ride through it, for there was no bridge. Then one of his friends gave him this piece of very good advice. "My father," he said, "if the prophet had told thee to do some hard thing, thou wouldst have done it. How much more shouldst thou obey him when what he commands is such a little thing as this?" Naaman's rage had passed off with the lashing of his horses and his furious driving, but his terrible leprosy remained. Was he going back to his master with the disease still upon him, to tell him that he had not done what the prophet had told him because it was too easy? There was the white river rushing past at his feet. To ride so far and then refuse to wash would seem very foolish; so he changed his mind, and stopping his chariot at the water's edge, went into the stream and bathed, and to his surprise and delight was at once healed of his leprosy, so that his skin became like that of a little child. It was with a changed heart that he turned his horses' heads and drove slowly back out of the valley, and up the road to the hills down which he had just come clattering in his anger. When next he stood at the door of the prophet's little house all the pride was gone out of him. "Now I know," he said to the prophet, "that there is no God in all the world but in Israel. I pray thee to take a present from thy servant." Elisha stood before him in worn cloak and sandals, his head covered with a striped kerchief, his eyes bright and piercing. The camels were there, laden with presents in their saddle-bags. "As God liveth, before whom I stand," exclaimed the old man, "I will take nothing." Gold and silver, fine clothing, sweet spices, scented oils, had no real value for him. They were only a few of the many things he could quite well do without. This Syrian chief had obeyed what was really the command of the living God, and that was much more important. The Syrian pressed him to take something, but the poor prophet would have nothing. Naaman then asked leave to carry away two mule loads of earth from Samaria, saying that he would never again offer sacrifice to idols after the manner of his own people, but would sacrifice to God only. Again Naaman shook the reins and cracked his whip as the horses sprang forward with the light chariot, the wooden wheels clattering on the stones. Outside the city walls his servants scraped the earth together until they had filled two mule-sacks, and then the small band of Syrians, shouldering their spears, set out on the homeward road. Soon the eyes of the Syrian drivers saw the green palm-trees, the spires of glittering brass, and the white walls of Damascus. They were back again in their own country, bringing no camel-loads of plunder, no droves of stolen cattle, no chains of weeping slaves--only two sacks of earth from Samaria, and a chief with a healthy body and a grateful heart. If his wife was glad to see him, so also was the little Jewish maid; and we need not doubt that she would not be much longer a slave, but free--set free as a sign that Naaman the Syrian had a grateful heart for his little friend who had sent him to be healed by the prophet of Israel. THE END. 
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8566	----	THE ORIGIN AND PERMANENT VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY CHARLES FOSTER KENT, PH.D. WOOLSEY PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN YALE UNIVERSITY "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free" PREFACE During the past generation the Old Testament has commanded equally with the New the enthusiastic and devoted study of the great body of biblical scholars throughout the world. Two out of every three graduate students in our universities who specialize in the general field of biblical literature choose the Old as the special centre of their work. At the same time the tendency of the rank and file of the Christian church within the past decade has undoubtedly been to neglect the older Testament. Preachers as a rule select less than a fourth of their texts from it; the prevailing courses of Bible study devote proportionately less time to it; and teachers and scholars in the great majority of cases turn to the Old Testament with much less enthusiasm than they do to the New. Why are these two great currents setting in opposite directions, and what are the causes of the present popular neglect of the Old Testament? If the Old Testament should be relegated to a second place in our working canon of the Bible, let us frankly and carefully define our reasons. If, on the other hand, the prevailing apathy and neglect are due to ignorance of the real character and value of the Old Testament, let as lose no time in setting ourselves right. The present volume has been suggested by repeated calls from ministerial bodies, popular assemblies, and groups of college students for addresses on the themes here treated. The aim has been to give in concise, popular form answers to some of the many questions thus raised, with the conviction that they are in the mind of every thoughtful man and woman to-day, and especially on the lips of earnest pastors, missionaries, and Sunday-school teachers. There are indications on every side of a deepening and far more intelligent interest in the needs and possibilities of religious education. Its vital importance to the life of the Church and the nation is being understood as never before. Earnest and fruitful efforts are being put forth to improve the methods and courses of instruction. The first essential, however, is a true understanding and appreciation of that Book of Books, which will forever continue to be the chief manual "for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, completely fitted for every good work." The supreme importance and practical value of the New Testament are recognized by all, but we usually forget when we quote the familiar words of Paul that he had in mind simply the Scriptures of the Old Testament. In divine Providence mighty forces have been quietly at work during the past century removing false rabbinical traditions and misconceptions that had gathered about these ancient Scriptures, while from other sources has come new light to illumine their pages. The result is that in the Old Testament the Christian world is discerning a new heritage, the beauty and value of which is still only half suspected even by intelligent people. This fact is so significant and yet so little recognized that one feels impelled to go out and proclaim it on the housetops. The Old Testament can never be properly presented from the pulpit or in the class-room while the attitude of preacher and teacher is apathetic and the motive a sense of duty rather than an intelligent acquaintance with its real character and genuine admiration and enthusiasm for its vital truths. The irresistible fascination which has drawn many of the most brilliant scholars into the Old Testament field is a proof that it has lost nothing, of its power and attractiveness. Already the circle of those who have rediscovered the Old Testament is rapidly broadening. Observation and experience confirm the conviction that all that is lacking to make that devotion universal is a right attitude toward it and an intelligent familiarity with its real origin, contents, and teachings. The sooner this is realized the sooner some of the most difficult problems of the Church, of the Sunday-school, and of popular religious education will be solved. As the repository of a great and varied literature, as a record of many of the most important events in human history, and as a concrete revelation of God's character and will through the life and experiences of a race and the hearts of inspired men, the Old Testament has a vital message marvellously adapted to the intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual needs of to-day and supremely fitted to appeal to the thought and imagination of the present age. This little volume is intended to be simply a very informal introduction to it. Since of the two Testaments the New is by far the more easily understood and the better known, it is made the point of departure in the approach to the more complex field represented by the Old. Many unexpected analogies will aid in understanding the intricate literary history of the older Scriptures. The point of view assumed throughout is that of the busy pastor, missionary, Sunday-school teacher, and scholar, who have little time for technical study, but who are not afraid of truth because it is new and who firmly believe that God is ever revealing himself more fully to men and that his truth shall make us free. It is hoped that this general survey will prove for them but an introduction to a far deeper and more profitable study. To the Reverend J.F. McFarland, D.D., of the Bible Study Union, to the Reverend S.A. Cooke, D.D., of the Methodist Book Concern, to Mr. John H. Scribner of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sunday-school Work, to the Reverend M.C. Hazard, D.D., of the Pilgrim Press, and to the Reverend F.K. Sanders, Ph.D., of the Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, who have generously read the manuscript of this book, I am deeply indebted, not only for their valuable suggestions, but also for their strong expressions of personal interest in the practical ends which it seeks to conserve, I am also under great obligation to the Reverend Morgan Miller, of Yale, for his untiring vigilance in revising the proof of a volume written within the all too brief limits of a Christmas vacation. C.F.K. YALE UNIVERSITY, January, 1906. CONTENTS I. THE ECLIPSE AND REDISCOVERY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT II. THE REAL NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT III. THE EARLIEST CHAPTERS IN DIVINE REVELATION IV. THE PLACE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN DIVINE REVELATION V. THE INFLUENCES THAT PRODUCED THE NEW TESTAMENT VI. THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETIC HISTORIES VII. THE HISTORY OF THE PROPHETIC SERMONS, EPISTLES, AND APOCALYPSES VIII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARLIER OLD TESTAMENT LAWS IX. INFLUENCES THAT GAVE RISE TO THE PRIESTLY LAWS AND HISTORIES X. THE HEBREW SAGES AND THEIR PROVERBS XL THE WRITINGS OF ISRAEL'S PHILOSOPHERS XII. THE HISTORY OF THE PSALTER XIII. THE FORMATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON XIV. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE EARLY NARRATIVES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT XV. PRACTICAL METHODS OF STUDYING THE OLD TESTAMENT XVI. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION--THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF TO-DAY I THE ECLIPSE AND REDISCOVERY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [Sidenote: _Jesus' study of the Old Testament_] The opening chapters of the Gospels record only three or four meagre facts regarding the first thirty years of Jesus' life. The real history of those significant years ran so far beneath the surface of external events that it completely escaped the historian. The history of the mental and spiritual life of the Master is recorded in his mature character and teachings. The fugitive hints, however, vividly illustrate the supreme fact that he ever _grew stronger, becoming filled with wisdom;--and the grace of God was upon him_ (Luke ii. 40). They reveal a soul not only in closest touch with God and with human life, but also in eager quest for the vital truth regarding God and man recorded in the Scriptures of his race. It requires no imagination to picture the young Jew of Nazareth eagerly studying in the synagogue, at the temple, and alone by himself the sacred writings found in our Old Testament, for this fact is clearly recorded on every page of the Gospels. [Sidenote: _His familiarity with all parts of it_] The events of Hebrew history, and its heroes --Abraham, David, Elijah-- were all familiar to him. The Old Testament was the background of a large portion of the Sermon on the Mount. From Deuteronomy vi. 4, 5, and Leviticus xix. 18 he drew his marvellous epitome of all law and duty. In the wisdom literature, and especially in the book of Proverbs, he found many of those practical truths which he applied to life with new authority and power. From the same storehouse of crystallized experience he derived certain of those figures which he expanded into his inimitable parables; he adopted also, and put to new use, the effective gnomic form of teaching of the wisdom school. As in the mouth of his herald, John the Baptist, the great moral and spiritual truths, first proclaimed by the ancient prophets, live again on the lips of Jesus. At every point in his teachings one recognizes the thought and language of the older Scriptures. At the moments of his greatest temptation and distress, even in the last agony, the words of the ancient law and psalms were on his lips and their consoling and inspiring messages in his mind. [Sidenote: _Attitude of the apostles_] What is so strikingly true of Jesus is equally true of the apostles and disciples who have given us the New Testament books: the atmosphere in which they lived, the thoughts which they thought, and the language in which they spoke, were those of the Old Testament. Not bowing slavishly before it, as did their Jewish contemporaries, but with true reverence, singling out that which was vital and eternal, they made it the basis of their own more personal and perfect message to humanity. But for them, and for the early Church, until at least the middle of the second Christian century, the only scriptures regarded as authoritative were those of the Old Testament. Even then, only gradually, and under the pressure of real needs, were different groups of Christian writings added and ascribed an authority equal to that of the older Scriptures. [Sidenote: _Attitude of the later Church, and especially Puritanism_] Throughout the Middle Ages and in the eyes of the Protestant reformers the two great divisions of the Bible continued to command equal respect and attention. From the Old Testament and its reflection in the teachings of Paul, Puritanism and the theology of the past three centuries derived most of that which revealed their strength as well as their weakness. From the law, the prophets, and the book of Proverbs they drew their stern spirit of justice, their zeal for righteousness, and their uncompromising condemnation of everything that seemed to them wrong. Their preachers nobly echoed the thunders of Sinai and the denunciations of an Elijah, an Amos, and an Hosea. They often failed, however, to recognize the divine love which prompted the stern words of the prophets, and to see that these denunciations and warnings were simply intended to arouse the conscience of the people and to make them worthy of the rich blessings that God was eager to bestow. Misinterpretation of the spirit of the later Old Testament reformers, who dramatically portrayed Jehovah's hatred for the abominable heathen cults in the form of commands to slaughter the peoples practising them, frequently led the Puritan fathers to treat their foes in a manner neither biblical nor Christian. To this narrow interpretation of the letter rather than the spirit of the Old Testament, and the emphasis placed upon its more primitive and imperfect teachings can be directly traced the worst faults of that courageous band who lived and died fighting for what they conceived to be truth and right. [Sidenote: _Reaction against the Bible of Puritanism_] It is undoubtedly true that during the past two decades the Old Testament has in fact, if not in theory, been assigned to a secondary place in the life and thought of Christendom. This is not due to the fact that the Christ has been exalted to his rightful position of commanding authority and prestige. All that truly exalts him likewise exalts the record of the work of his forerunners which he came to bring to complete fulfilment and upon which he placed his eternal seal of approval. Rather, the present eclipse of the Old Testament appears to be due to three distinct causes. The first is connected with the reaction from Puritanism, and especially from its false interpretation of the Bible. Against intolerance and persecution the heart of man naturally rebelled. These rang true neither with life nor the teaching of Jesus. Refuge from the merciless and seemingly flawless logic of the earlier theologians was found in the simple, reassuring words of the Gospels. The result was that, with the exception of a very few books like the Psalter, the Old Testament, which was the arsenal of the old militant theology, has been unconsciously, if not deliberately, shunned by the present generation. [Sidenote: _Doubts aroused by the work of the "Higher Critics"_] Within the past decade this tendency has been greatly accelerated by the work of the so-called "Higher Critics." Because it presents more literary and historical problems, and because it was thought, at first, to be farther away from the New Testament, the citadel of the Christian faith, the Old Testament has been the scene of their greatest activity. With what seemed to the onlooker to be a supreme disregard for the traditions long accepted as established by the Church, they have persistently applied to the ancient Scriptures the generally accepted canons and methods of modern historical and literary study. In their scientific zeal they have repeatedly overturned what were once regarded as fundamental dogmas. Unfortunately the first reports of their work suggested that it was only destructive. The very foundations of faith seemed to be shaking. Sinai appeared to be enveloped in a murky fog, instead of the effulgence of the divine glory; Moses seemed to become a vague, unreal figure on the distant horizon of history; David's voice only faintly echoed through the Psalter; and the noblest messages of prophet, sage, and psalmist were anonymous. [Sidenote: _The mistakes of the critics_] Little wonder that many who heard only from afar the ominous reports of the digging and delving, and vague rumors,--all the more terrifying because vague,--either leaped to the conclusion that the authority of the Old Testament had been undermined or else rallied in a frantic effort to put a stop, by shouting or compulsion, to the seemingly sacrilegious work of destruction. When the history of the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament is finally written, it will be declared most unfortunate that the results first presented to the rank and file of the Christian Church were, as a rule, largely negative and in many cases relatively unimportant. In their initial enthusiasm for scientific research scholars, alas! sometimes lost the true perspective and failed to recognize relative values. The date, for example, of Isaiah xl.-lv. is important for the right understanding and interpretation of these wonderful chapters, but its value is insignificant compared with the divine messages contained in these chapters and their direct application to life. Moreover, instead of presenting first the testimony and then patiently pointing out the reasonableness and vital significance of the newer conclusions, scholars sometimes, under the influence of their convictions, made the fatal mistake of enunciating those conclusions simply as dogmas. [Sidenote: _Resulting loss of faith in the Old Testament_] History demonstrates that established religions and churches always hold tenaciously to old doctrines, and therefore regard new conclusions with suspicion. This tendency is clearly illustrated in the experience of Jesus; for with all his divine tact and convincing authority, he was not able to win the leaders of Judaism to the acceptance of his revolutionizing teachings. Yet one cannot escape the conviction that if in this age of enlightenment and open-mindedness, the positive results of modern scholarship had been presented first, this latest chapter in God's revelation of himself to man would have been better understood and appreciated by the leaders of the Church, and its fruits appropriated by those whose interests are fixed on that which is of practical rather than theoretical import. At least many open-minded people might have been saved from the supreme error of writing, either consciously or unconsciously, _Ichabod_ across the pages of their Old Testament. [Sidenote: _Difficulties in understanding it_] The third reason why the Old Testament has suffered temporary eclipse in so many minds is more fundamental; it is because of the difficulties in understanding it. The background of the New Testament is the Roman world and a brief century with which we Western readers are well acquainted; but the background of the Old is the ancient East--the age and land of wonder, mystery, and intuition, far removed from the logical, rushing world in which we live. The Old Testament contains a vast and complex literature, filled with the thoughts and figures and cast in the quaint language of the Semitic past. Between us and that past there lie not merely long centuries, but the wide gulf that is fixed between the East and the West. [Sidenote:_The new light from the monuments_] With three such distinct and powerful currents--reaction, suspicion, and misunderstand--bearing us from the Old Testament, it might be predicted that in a decade or two it would lie far behind our range of vision. Other forces however are, in divine providence, rapidly bringing it back to us again, so that we are able to understand and appreciate it as never before since the beginning of the Christian era. The chasm between us and it is really being bridged rather than broadened. The long centuries that lie back of the Old Testament have suddenly been illuminated by great search-lights, so that today we are almost as well acquainted with them as with the beginning of the Christian era. From ancient monuments have arisen, as from the dead, an army of contemporary witnesses, sometimes confirming, sometimes correcting, but at all times marvellously supplementing the biblical data. Now the events and characters of Old Testament history no longer stand alone in mysterious isolation, but we can study in detail their setting and real significance. At every point the biblical narrative and thought are brought into touch with real life and history. The biographies and policies, for example, of Sennacherib and Cyrus, are almost as well known as those of Napoleon and Washington. The prophets are not merely voices, but men with a living message for all times, because they primarily dealt with the conditions and needs of their own day. The vital relation and at the same time the infinite superiority of the religious teachings of the Old Testament to those of earlier ages and peoples are clearly revealed. [Sidenote: _Modern aids in interpreting the Old Testament_] Interpreted in the light of contemporary literature and language, most of the obscurities of the Old Testament melt away. Modern research in the fields of Semitic philology and syntax and the discovery of older texts and versions have put into the hands of translators new and valuable tools for making clear to all the thoughts in the minds of the original writers of the Old Testament. Studies in comparative religion, geography, and modern Oriental life and customs have illuminated and illustrated at every point the pages of the ancient writings. To utilize all these requires time and devotion, but he who is willing to study may know his Old Testament to-day as well as he does the New. [Sidenote: _Rejection of rabinical traditions_] Fully commensurate with the great light that has been shed upon it from without, is that which has come from a careful study of the testimony of the Old Testament itself. Until recent times the Church has been content to accept blindly the traditions of the late Jewish rabbis regarding the origin, history, and interpretation of their scriptures. Handed down through the Church Fathers and interwoven with creeds and popular beliefs, they have been identified in many minds with the teaching of the Bible itself. Yet, when we analyze their origin and true character, we find that many of them have absolutely no support in the Scriptures, and in many cases are directly contradictory to the plain biblical teachings. Too often they are but the fanciful conjectures of the rabbis. Developed in an uncritical age, and based upon the unreliable methods of interpretation current among the Jews in the early Christian centuries, they are often sadly misleading. A close analogy is found in the traditional identifications of most of the Palestinian sacred sites. To-day the Oriental guide shows the skull of Adam beneath the spot where tradition places the cross of Christ. If the traveller desires, he will point out the very stones which Jesus declared God could raise up to be children of Abraham. Every question which curiosity or genuine interest has raised is answered by the seemingly authoritative voice of tradition. Investigation, however, proves that almost all of these thousand identifications are probably incorrect. The discovery is a shock to the pious imagination; but to the healthy mind uncertainty is always better than error. Furthermore, uncertainty often proves the door which leads to established truth. [Sidenote: _Acceptance of the testimony of the Old Testament regarding its origin and history._] Even so the modern historical and critical spirit has led men to turn from the generally accepted but exceedingly doubtful rabbinical traditions regarding, for example, the date and authorship of many of the Old Testament books, to the authoritative evidence found in those writings themselves. In this they are but following the example of the Great Teacher, who repeatedly appealed from the same rabbis and their misleading traditions to the same ancient Scriptures. The saddest fact is that many of his followers, even to-day, hesitate to follow his inspired leadership. Fortunately, as the varied, strata and formations of the rocks tell the story of the earth's early history, so these early writings furnish the data for reconstructing the illuminating history of their origin, growth, and transmission. Often the testimony of the facts differs as widely from the familiar inherited traditions as the conclusions of modern science from the vague guesses of primitive man regarding the riddles of existence. Neither may represent absolute and final truth, and yet no serious-minded man can question which is really the more authoritative. To-day one of the most vital issues before the Christian. Church is whether it will follow the guidance of its Founder and accept the testimony of the Bible itself or cling blindly to the traditions of the rabbis and Church Fathers. [Sidenote: _Historical significance of the modern movement_] The student of history at once recognizes in the modern movement, of which the watchword is, "Back to the testimony of the Bible," the direct sequel to the Protestant Reformation. The early reformers took the chains off the Bible and put it into the hands of men, with full permission to study and search. Vested interests and dogmatism soon began to dictate how it should be studied and interpreted, and thus it was again placed practically under lock and key. It is an interesting fact that a young Zulu chief, a pupil of Bishop Colenso of South Africa, first aroused the Anglo-Saxon world to the careful, fearless, and therefore truly reverential study of its Old Testament. With this new impetus, the task of the Reformers was again taken up, and in the same open, earnest spirit. For two generations it has commanded the consecrated energies of the most thorough scholars of Christendom. Those of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, America, and Canada have worked shoulder to shoulder, dividing the work, carefully collecting and classifying the minutest data, comparing results, and, on the basis of all this work, formulating conclusions, some assured and some hypothetical, which best explain the facts. [Sidenote: _The unveiling of the Old Testament_] Often, to those who have not followed the detailed steps, these conclusions have seemed only destructive. Many of them are assuredly so; but the vital question which every honest man should ask is, Do they destroy the Bible, or simply the false traditions that have gathered about it? Fortunately, most of the leaders of the Church and most intelligent laymen have already discerned the only emphatic answer to this question. The Church is undoubtedly passing quietly through a revolution in its conception and attitude toward the Bible, more fundamental and far-reaching than that represented by its precursor the Protestant Reformation; but its real significance is daily becoming more apparent. Not a grain of truth which the Bible contains has been destroyed or permanently obscured. Instead, the _débris_ of time-honored traditions and dogmas have been cleared away, and the true Scriptures at last stand forth again in their pristine splendor. [Sidenote: _The true Old Testament_] Freed from the misconceptions and false traditions which have gathered about it, the true Old Testament rises from amidst the dust and din of the much digging and delving. To those who have known only the old it is a fresh revelation. Its literary beauty, its naturalness, its dignity, its majestic authority are a surprise to those who have not followed its unveiling. The old vagueness and mystery have in part disappeared, and instead it is found to contain a thousand vital, living messages for to- day. Its human as well as its divine qualities command our interest and attention. Through it all God speaks with a new clearness and authority. Thus, that which we thought was dead has risen, and lives again to inspire us to noble thought and deed and service. II THE REAL NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [Sidenote: _A large and complex library_] Turning from the Jewish and mediæval traditions and theories which so easily beset us, we ask, What is the real nature of the Old Testament as it is revealed in this new and clearer light? The first conclusion is that it is a library containing a large and complex literature, recording the varied experiences, political, social, ethical, and religious, of the Israelitish race. The fact that it is a library consisting of many different books is recognized by the common designation of the two testaments. As is well known, our English word _Bible_ came originally from the Papyrus or Byblus reed, the pith of which was widely used in antiquity as the material from which books were made. It was natural, therefore, that in the Greek a little book should be designated as a _biblion_. About the middle of the second Christian century the Greek Christians (first in the so-called Second Epistle of Clement xlv. 2) began to call their sacred scriptures, _Ta Biblia_, the books. When this title was transferred to the Latin it was, by reason of a natural and yet significant error, treated as a feminine singular, _Biblia_, which, reappears In English as _Bible_. This most appropriate name emphasizes the fact that the books thus described are a unit and yet a collection of little books, selected from a larger literature and given their present position of preeminent authority. [Sidenote: _The record of God's vital, personal relations to the Israelitish race_] The term Testament suggests not the form and authority of the books, but their theme. It is the English translation, through the Latin and Greek, of the Hebrew word, _berîth_, usually rendered, _covenant_. It means a _bond_ or _basis of agreement_. It implies a close and binding contract between two parties, and defines the terms to which each subscribes and the obligations which they thus assume. The _Old Covenant_ or _Testament_, therefore, is primarily the written record of the origin, terms, and history of the solemn agreement which existed between the Israelitish nation and Jehovah. The early narratives preserve the traditions of its origin; the lawgivers endeavored to define its terms and the obligations that rested upon the people; the prophets interpreted them in the life of the nation, and the sages into the life of the individual; and the historical books recorded its practical working. The significant fact is that back of the Old Testament records exists something greater and deeper than pen can fully describe: it is a vital, living connection between Jehovah and his people that makes possible the unique relation which finds expression in the remarkable history of the race and in the experiences and souls of its spiritual leaders. Thus through life, and in the concrete terms of life, God reveals himself to the life of humanity. [Sidenote: _Written in history and human minds and hearts_] In the light of this truth the Jewish and medieval dogma that every word, and even every letter of Scripture, was directly dictated by God himself, seems sadly mechanical and bears the marks of the narrow schools of thought in which it took form. Hebrew was not, and probably will never be, the language of heaven! Not on skins and papyrus rolls, but in the life of the Israelitish race and on the minds and consciences of enlightened men, God wrote his revelation. History and the character and consciousness of the human race are its imperishable records. Fortunately he also aroused certain men of old, not by word and act only, but by the pen as well, to record the revelation that was being perfected in the life of their nation and in their own minds and hearts. He did not, however, dictate to them the form of their writings nor vouch for their verbal inerrancy. In time, out of their writings were gradually collected and combined the most significant passages and books, and to these was finally attributed the authority that they now rightfully enjoy. [Sidenote: _Secondary sources of its authority_] The ultimate basis of that authority, however, is not their presence in the canon of the Old Testament. At the same time their presence there is deeply significant, for it represents the indorsement of many ages and of countless thousands who, from the most varied points of view and amid the most diverse experiences, have tested and found these ancient scriptures worthy of the exalted position that has gradually been assigned to them. It is not the support of the Church, although this also for the same reason is exceedingly significant. It is not the calm assumption, of authority that appears at every point throughout the Old Testament, although this is richly suggestive; the sacred writings of other religions make even more pretentious claims. It is not that its commands and doctrines come from the mouths of great prophets and priests, like Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. This fact undoubtedly had great weight with those who formed the final canon of the Old Testament, and the authority of a strong, noble personality is supremely impressive; but divine authority never emanates primarily from a man, however great be his sanctity. Furthermore, to establish the authority derived from a Moses or a Samuel it is necessary in every case to prove that the books attributed to them by late tradition actually came from their pens. Even if this could in every case be done, some of the noblest passages in the Old Testament remain avowedly anonymous; for the tendency of the great majority of its authors was clearly to send forth their messages without any attempt to associate their own names with them. [Sidenote: _Its ultimate basis of authority_] The ultimate authority of the Old Testament, therefore, is not dependent upon devoted canon-makers, nor the weighty testimony of the Church, nor upon its own claims, nor the reputation of the inspired men who have written it, nor the estimate of any age. Its seat of authority is more fundamental. It contains the word of God because it faithfully records and interprets the most important events in the early religious history of man, and simply and effectively presents God's revelation of himself and of his will in the minds and hearts of the great pre-Christian heralds of ethical and spiritual truth. Back of the Old Testament is a vast variety of vital experiences, national and individual, political and spiritual, social and ethical, pleasurable and painful. Back of all these deeply significant experiences is God himself, through them making known his character and laws and purpose to man. [Sidenote: _Its authority ethical and religious, not scientific_] Students of the rediscovered Old Testament also recognize, in the light of a broader and more careful study, the fact, so often and so fatally overlooked in the past, that its authority lies not in the field of natural science, nor even of history in the limited sense. Time and patience were destined to increase man's knowledge in these great departments and also to develop his mind in attaining it. The teaching of the Old Testament is authoritative only in the far more important realm of ethics and religion. Paul truly voiced its supreme claim when he said that it was _profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, completely fitted for every good work_ (II Tim. iii. 16, 17). The assertion by the Church in the past of claims nowhere made or implied by the Old Testament itself is unfortunately still a fertile source of perplexity and dissension to many faithful souls. Their salvation is to be found in a clear and intelligent appreciation of the real nature and claim of these ancient writings. [Sidenote: _Its dominant purpose to teach spiritual truth_] One dominant aim determines the form of each book and the selection of individual passages and binds together the whole: it is effectively to set forth spiritual truth and to mould in accordance with God's will the characters and beliefs of men. It was the supreme bond that bound together prophets, priests, sages, and psalmists, although the means by which they accomplished their common purpose differed widely. Many a current tradition, and the crude conceptions of the ancients regarding the natural world, are recorded in the Old Testament; but they are not there merely to perpetuate history nor to increase the total of scientific knowledge, but rather because they concretely illustrate and impress some vital ethical and spiritual truth. Such singleness of religious purpose is paralleled nowhere else except in the work and teachings of Jesus and his apostles. [Sidenote: _Its present fruits the proof of its inspired authority_] The ever-present evidence of the divine authority back of the spiritual teachings of the Old Testament as a whole is that they ring true to life and meet its needs. By their fruits we know them. It is the demonstration of the laboratory. We know that they are inspired because they inspire. The principles underlying the social sermons of Amos are as applicable to present conditions as when first uttered. The sooner they are practically applied the sooner our capitalistic civilization can raise its head now bowed In shame. The faith that breathes through the Psalms is the faith that upholds men to-day in the midst of temptation and trial. The standards of justice, tempered by love, which are maintained in the Old Testament laws make good citizens both of earth and heaven. As long as men continue to test the teachings of the Old Testament scriptures in the laboratory of experience and to know them by their fruits, nothing can permanently endanger their position in the Christian Church or in the life of humanity. Neglect and indifference, not Higher Criticism, alone permanently threaten the authority of the Old Testament as well as that of the New. [Sidenote: _Significance of the variations and inconsistencies_] Recognizing the real nature and purpose of these ancient records, the true student neither denies nor is disturbed by the marks of their human authorship. As in the case of the Gospels, the variations between the parallel narratives are all evidence of their genuineness and of the sincerity of their purpose. They demonstrate that God's revelation is adapted to the needs of life and the comprehension of man, because it was through life and expressed in the terms of life. Their individual peculiarities and minor errors often introduce us more intimately to the biblical writers and help us to understand more clearly and sympathetically their visions of truth and of God. Above all, they teach us to look ever through and beyond all these written records to the greater revelation, which they reflect, and to the infinite Source of all knowledge and truth. [Sidenote: _The record of a gradual revelation_] The inconsistencies and imperfect teachings which are revealed by a critical study of the Old Testament are also but a few of the many indices that it is the record of a gradually unfolding revelation. Late Jewish tradition, which is traceable even in the Old Testament itself, was inclined to assign the origin of everything which it held dear to the very beginnings of Hebrew history, and in so doing it has done much to obscure its true genesis. Fortunately, however, the history of God's gradual training of the race was writ too plainly in the earlier Old Testament scriptures to be completely obscured by later traditions. The recognition that God's all-wise method of revealing spiritual as well as scientific truth was progressive, adapted to the unfolding consciousness of each succeeding age, at once sweeps away many of the greatest difficulties that have hitherto obscured the true Old Testament. Jesus with his divine intuition appreciated this principle of growth. Unhesitatingly he abrogated certain time-honored Old Testament laws with the words, _Ye have heard that it was said ... but I say to you_. His own interpretation of his relation to the sacred writings of his race was that he came to bring them to complete fulfilment. Rearranged in their approximately chronological order, the Old Testament books become the harmonious and many-sided record of ten centuries of strenuous human endeavor to know and to do the will of God and of his full and gracious response to that effort. The beatitude of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness was as true in the days of Moses as it was when Jesus proclaimed it. [Sidenote: _Its different books of very different values_] Finally, the right and normal attitude toward the Old Testament leads to the wholesome conclusion that its different books are of very different values. The great critic of Nazareth again set the example. As we have just seen, certain of the Old Testament laws he distinctly abrogated; others he quietly ignored; others, as, for example, the law of love (Deut. vi. 5, and Lev. xix. 19) he singled out and gave its rightful place of central authority. A careful study of the Gospels, in the light of the Old Testament, demonstrates that a very important element in his work, as the Saviour of men, was in thus separating the dross in the older teachings from the gold, and then in giving to the vital truth a clearer, more personal, and yet more universal application. For the intelligent student and teacher of to-day the Old Testament still remains a great mine of historical, ethical, and religious truth. Some parts, like Genesis, Deuteronomy, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah xl.-lv., and the Psalter, are richly productive. Others, like Numbers, Chronicles, and Esther, are comparatively barren. [Sidenote: _Application of this truth_] Since the Old Testament is the record of a progressively unfolding revelation, it is obvious that all parts do not possess an equal authority. To place the example of the patriarchs or of David, who lived when ethical standards and religious beliefs were only partially developed, on an equality with the exalted ideals of the later prophets, is to misinterpret those ancient Scriptures and to reject the leadership of the Great Teacher. At the same time, studied from the newer point of view, the examples of those early heroes are found to illustrate vital principles in human life and to inspire and warn the child of to-day as effectively as they did far back in the childhood of the race. [Sidenote: _The Old Testament not a fetish but a spiritual guidebook_] In these later days God has taken the Bible from the throne of infallibility on which Protestantism sought to place it. By a gradual yet benign process, which we were nevertheless at first inclined bitterly to resent, he has opened our eyes to its true character and purpose. Again, he has pronounced his _Thou shall not_ to the natural and yet selfish human desire to transfer moral and intellectual responsibility from the individual conscience to some external authority. Again, he has told us that only in the sanctuary of the human soul is the Infallible One to be found. Yet in order that we each may find him there, the cumulative religious experience of the countless thousands who have already found him is of inestimable value. The Old Testament contains not merely the word of God, but, together with its complement the New, is the great guide-book in finding and knowing him, It blazes the way which, the pilgrim of to-day, as in the past, must follow from his cradle to the throne of God. At each point it is richly illustrated by the actual religious experiences of real men and women. Their mistakes and their victories, are equally instructive. From many vantage-points reached by prophets and priests and psalmists, we are able to catch new and glorious visions of God's character and purpose for mankind. Through its pages--sometimes dimly, sometimes brightly, But growing ever clearer--shines the giving light of God's truth and revelation, culminating in the Christ, the perfected revelation and the supreme demonstration that man, though beset by temptation, baffled by obstacles, deserted by friends, and maligned by foes, can nevertheless, by the invincible sword of love and self-sacrifice, conquer the world and become one with God, as did the peerless Knight of Nazareth. III THE EARLIEST CHAPTERS IN DIVINE REVELATION [Sidenote: _The nature of inspiration_] Since the days of the Greek philosophers the subject of inspiration and revelation has been fertile theme for discussion and dispute among scholars and theologians. Many different theories have been advanced, and ultimately abandoned as untenable. In its simplest meaning and use, inspiration describes the personal influence of one individual upon the mind and spirit of another. Thus we often say, "That man inspired me." What we are or do under the influence of that intellectual or spiritual impulse is the effect and evidence of the inspiration. Similarly, divine inspiration is the influence of God's spirit or personality upon the mind and spirit of man. It may find expression in an exalted emotional state, in an heightened clarity of mental perception, in noble deeds, in the development of character, indeed in a great variety of ways; but its seat is always the mind of man and its ultimate cause the Deity himself. [Sidenote: _In the Old Testament_] The early Old Testament expression most commonly used to describe inspiration was that _the Spirit of God rushed upon the man_, as it did upon Saul, causing him to burst forth into religious ecstasy or frenzy (I Sam. x. 6, 10), and upon Samson, giving him great bodily strength or prowess in war (Judg. xiv. 6, 19, xv. 14). Skill in interpreting dreams and in ruling was also regarded as evidence that the Spirit of God was in a man like Joseph (Gen. xli. 38); but above all the prophetic gift was looked upon as the supreme evidence of the presence of the Spirit of Jehovah (Hos. ix. 1; Micah ii. 7, iii. 8). The word _spirit_ as thus used in the Old Testament is exceedingly suggestive. It means primarily the breath, that comes from the nostrils. Though invisible to the eye, the breath was in the thought of primitive man the symbol of the active life of the individual. In the full vigor of bodily strength or in violent exercise it came quick and strong; in times of weakness it was faint; when it disappeared, death ensued; the living personality was gone, and only the play remained. The same Hebrew word, _rúach_, described the wind--unseen, intangible, and yet one of the most real and irresistible forces in all the universe. Thus it was a supremely appropriate term to describe the activity of God, as it produced visible effects in the minds and lives of men. In the later Old Testament literature its use was extended, so that to the Spirit of God was ascribed activity in the natural world and in human history. [Sidenote: _Nature of revelation_] Of the two terms, _revelation_ is broader than _inspiration_. Sometimes it is used collectively, to designate the truth revealed, but it more properly describes the means or process whereby it is made apparent to the human mind. It implies that truth is always existent, but only gradually recognized. Inspiration is one of the chief means whereby the human vision is clarified so as to perceive it. Natural phenomena, environment, and above all experience, are also mighty agents in making the divine character and truth clear to the mind of man. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews declares, with true insight, that _God spoke in divers manners_. All the universe, all history, and all life reveal him and his ultimate truths, for each is effective in opening the mental and spiritual eye of man to see the realm long awaiting him as conqueror. [Sidenote: _Man's role in the process of revelation_] For countless ages electricity has inscribed its magic tracery on the storm-cloud and performed its all-important functions in organic life, but not until men's eyes were opened by experience and trained observation to recognize its laws, was it practically applied to the needs of civilization. Similarly, unchanging moral and spiritual laws have existed through all time, but they have not become operative in human life until the eye of some seer is opened by a great experience, or under the direct influence of the Spirit of God he is led to see and proclaim them. Thus God is in all and reveals himself through all nature and life, but it is only through the mind and on the lips of his highest creature, man, that truth is fully appreciated, formulated, and applied. [Sidenote: _The revelation recorded in the Bible_] In the broader sense all revelation is divine, for it reveals God and his laws; and yet it is obvious that there is a real difference between the revelation recorded in a scientific book and that of the Bible. It is a difference both in subject-matter and in the ends to which the truth thus made manifest shall be applied. The one relates to the objective world, the world of things; the other relates to human beliefs, emotions, and acts. [Sidenote: _Its breadth and gradualness_] Moreover, it is evident that the spiritual revelation which is in part recorded in the Bible was not limited to the Israelitish race or to the twelve centuries represented by the Old and New Testaments. The biblical writers themselves assume this fact. According to the early Judean prophetic narratives, Enoch, who lived ages before Abraham and Moses, was a worshipper of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26). Cain and Abel are both represented in the familiar story of Genesis iv., as bringing their offerings to Jehovah. One of the chief teachings of the earliest stories in the Old Testament is that men from the first knew and worshipped God and were held responsible for their acts according to their moral enlightenment. History, science, and the Bible unite in testifying that the revelation of spiritual truth to mankind was something gradual, progressive, and cumulative; also that it is dependent upon the ability of men to receive it. This capacity of the individual to receive is, after all, the determining factor in the process of divine revelation; for God's truth and his desire to impart it are always the same. Hence, whenever conditions favor, or national or private experiences clarify the vision of a race or group of men, a revelation is assured. [Sidenote: _Antiquity of human civilization and religion_] In the light of ancient history and the result of recent excavations it is possible, now as never before, to study the varied influences and forces employed by God in the past to open the spiritual eyes of mankind to see him and his truth. The geological evidence suggests that man, as man, has lived on this earth, fifty, perhaps one hundred thousand years. Anthropology, going farther back than history or primitive tradition, traces the slow and painful stages by which early man learned his first lessons in civilization and religion. From the beginning, man's instincts as a religious being have asserted themselves, crude though their expression was. The oldest mounds of Babylonia and Egypt contain ruins of ancient temples, altars, and abundant evidence of the religious zeal of the peoples who once inhabited these lauds. The earliest examples of human literature thus far discovered are largely religious in theme and spirit. [Sidenote: _Primitive unfolding of the innate religious instinct_] All these testify that early man believed in a power or powers outside himself, and that his chief passion was to know and do the will of his god or gods. Jesus himself bore witness in the opening words of the prayer which he taught his disciples, that this is the essence of religion. It was natural and inevitable that primitive man, with his naive view of the universe, should believe not in one but in many forces or spirits, and that he should first enthrone the physical above the ethical and spiritual. It is the instinctive tendency of the child to-day. The later identification of the divine powers with the sun, that gave light and fertility to the soil, or with the moon, that guided the caravans by night over the arid deserts, or with the other heavenly bodies, that moved in majestic array across the midnight sky, was likewise a natural step in the evolution of primitive belief. [Sidenote: _Reasons why Babylonia developed an early civilization_] Civilization and religion in antiquity developed, as a rule, side by side. The two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, commanding the trade of the north and the south; proximity to the desert with its caravans of traders going back and forth from the Euphrates to the Nile; the rich alluvial soil, which supported a dense population when properly drained and cultivated; and the necessity of developing in a higher degree the arts of defence in order to maintain the much contested territory,--these were a few of the many conditions that made ancient Babylonia one of the two earliest if not the oldest centre of human civilization. The commercial habits and the abundance of the plastic clay, which could easily be moulded into tablets for the use of the scribe, also fostered the early development of the literary art. The durability of the clay tablets and the enveloping and protecting qualities of the ruined mounds of ancient Babylonia have preserved in a marvellous way its early literature. The result is that we can now study, on the basis of contemporary documents, this early and yet advanced chapter in that divine revelation, the later culmination of which is recorded in the Bible. [Sidenote: _Progress during the period of city states_] It begins as far back of Moses as he is removed from us in point of time. Its political background at first is the little city states of Babylonia, each with its independent organization and its local schools of artists, whose products in many respects surpass anything that comes from the hands of later Semitic craftsmen. Each city had its temple, at which the patron god of the local tribe and district was worshipped. In some places it was the moon god Sin, as at Haran and Ur beside the desert; elsewhere, as at Nippur, Bel, or at Eridu near the Persian Gulf, Ea, the god of the great deep, was revered. In the name of the local deity offerings were brought, hymns were sung, and traditions were treasured, which extolled his might. The life of these little city states centred about the temple and its cult. To make it more glorious the artisans vied with each other, and the kings made campaigns that they might dedicate the spoils to the deity. [Sidenote: _The growth of extensive empires_] In time, perhaps as early as 4000 B.C., certain more energetic and ambitious kings succeeded in conquering neighboring cities; they even broadened their boundaries until they ruled over great empires extending to the Mediterranean on the west and the mountains of Elam on the east. In the name of the local god, each went forth to fight, and to him was attributed the glory of the victory. Naturally, when the territory of a city state grew into an empire, the god of that city was proclaimed and acknowledged as supreme throughout all the conquered territory. At the same time the local deities of the conquered cities continued to be worshipped at their ancient sanctuaries, and many a conquering king won the loyalty of his subjects by making a rich offering to the god and at the temple of a vanquished foe. [Sidenote: _Its effect in developing the pantheon and popular theology_] The logical and inevitable result of political union was the development of a pantheon, modelled after the imperial court, with the god of the victorious city at its head and the leading deities of the other cities in subordinate positions. When, during the latter part of the third millennium before Christ, Babylon's supremacy was permanently established under the rule of Hammurabi. Marduk, the god of that city, was thus placed at the head of the Babylonian pantheon. The theologians of the day also recast and combined the ancient legends, as, for example, those of the creation, so as to explain why he, one of the later gods, was acknowledged by all as supreme. A relationship was also traced between the leading gods, and their respective functions were clearly defined. Corresponding to each male deity was a female deity: thus, the consort of Marduk was Ishtar, while that of Bel was Belit. Furthermore, the ancient myths appear to have been, coördinated, so that from this time on Babylonian, theology presents a certain unity and symmetry, although one is constantly reminded of the very different elements out of which it had been built up. [Sidenote: _Development of ethical standards and laws_] Parallel to the evolution of Babylonian religion was that unfolding of ethical ideals and laws which finds its noblest record and expression in the remarkable code of Hammurabi (about 2250 B.C.). In its high sense of justice; in its regard for the rights of property and of individuals; in its attitude toward women, even though it comes from the ancient East; and above all in its protection of widows and orphans, this code marks almost as high a stage in the revelation of what is right as the primitive Old Testament laws, with which it has points of striking resemblance. [Sidenote: _A general comparison between the religions and laws of Egypt and Babylonia_] The evolution of ancient Egyptian civilization and religion was parallel at almost every stage with that of Babylonia, only in the dreamy land of the Nile the pantheon and the vast body of variant myths were never so thoroughly coördinated. The result is that its religion forever remains a labyrinth. Since all interest centred about the future life, instead of commercial pursuits, there is no evidence that the Egyptians ever produced a legal code at all comparable with that of Hammurabi. They did, however, develop a doctrine of sin which anticipates that of the Hebrew prophets. While the Babylonians conceived of sin as simply the failure to bring offerings, or to observe the demands of the ritual, or, in general, to pay proper homage to the gods, the Egyptians held that each individual was answerable, not only to the state, but also to the gods, for his every act and thought. [Sidenote: _Significance of this early religious progress_] If they admitted of a comparison, it would be safe to say that the Babylonian religion and law in the days of Hammurabi were as far removed from the crude belief in spirits and the barbarous cults and practices of primitive man as the teachings of Jesus were from those of the kingly Babylonian lawgiver and his priestly advisers. Humanity's debt is exceedingly great to the thousands of devoted souls who, in ancient Babylonia and Egypt, according to their dim light, groped for God and the right. In part they found what they sought, although they never ceased to look through, a glass darkly. [Sidenote: _Its arrest and decline_] The sad and significant fact is that from the days of Hammurabi to those of Nebuchadrezzar, Babylonian religion, law, and ethics almost entirely ceased to develop. No other great kings with prophetic insight appear to have arisen to hold up before the nation the principles of justice and mercy and true piety, The old superstitions and magic also continued in Babylonia as in Egypt to exercise more and more their baneful influence. Saddest of all the priesthood and ceremonialism, which had already reached a point of development commensurate and strikingly analogous to that of later Judaism, became the dominant power in the state, and defined religion not in terms of life and action, but of the ritual, and so constricted it that all true growth was impossible. Hence the religions of the Babylonians and Egyptians perished, like many others, because they ceased to grow, and therefore degenerated into a mere worship of the letter rather than the spirit. IV THE PLACE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN DIVINE REVELATION [Sidenote: _Advent of the Hebrews_] Modern discovery and research have demonstrated that the truth revealed through the Babylonians and with less definiteness through the people of the Nile was never entirely lost. Such a sad waste was out of accord with the obvious principles of divine economy. As the icy chill of ceremonialism seized decadent Babylonia and Egypt, there emerged from the steppes south and east of Palestine a virile, ambitious group of nomads, who not only fell heir to that which was best in the revelation of the past, but also quickly took their place as the real spiritual leaders of the human race. Possibly their ancestors, like those of Hammurabi, belonged to that wave of nomadic emigration which swept out of overpopulated northern Arabia about 2500 B.C., part of it to settle finally in Babylonia and part in Palestine. [Sidenote: _Why were they the chosen people?_] Whatever be the exact date of their advent, the much mooted and more fundamental question at once presents itself, Why were the Hebrews "the chosen people"? It is safe to assert at once that this was not arbitrary nor without reason. Moreover, the choice was not that of a moment, but gradual. Rather the real question is, By what divine process were the Israelites prepared to be the chosen people that their later prophets and the event of history declare them to be? Certain definite historical reasons at once suggest themselves; and these in turn throw new light upon the true relation of the Old Testament to divine revelation as a whole. [Sidenote: _Their preparation to be the chosen people: genius for religion_] There is undoubtedly a basis for what Renan was pleased to call, "the Semitic genius for religion." It is a truly significant fact that the three great conquering religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, sprang from Semitic soil. To this might be added the religion of Babylonia, which, was unquestionably the noblest of early antiquity. In general the Semitic mind is keen, alert, receptive, and intuitional rather than logical. Restless energy and the tendency to acquire have also tended to make them leaders in the widely different fields of commerce and religion. The patriarch Jacob is a remarkable example of these combined qualities and results. By day he got the better of his kinsmen, and by night he wrestled with God. These combined and highly developed characteristics of mind and nature at least suggest why the Semites have furnished the greatest prophets and prophet nations for the moulding of the faith of the world. [Sidenote: _Inheritance through their Arabian antecedents_] In contrast with contemporary Semitic nations, and especially the highly civilized Babylonians, the Hebrews were fortunate in their immediate inheritances through Arabian or Aramean ancestors. The wandering, nomadic life leaves no place for established sanctuaries, with their elaborate ceremonial customs and debasing institutions inherited from more primitive ages. Instead, that life imposes limitations that make for simplicity. The mysteries and constant dangers of the wild desert existence also emphasize the constant necessity of divine help. The long marches by night under the silent stars inspire awe and enforce contemplation. The close unity of the tribe suggests the worship of one tribal god rather than many. From the desert the ancestors of the Hebrews brought strong bodies, inured to hardship, and a grim austerity that found frequent expression on the lips of their prophets and a response in the minds of the people, when luxury threatened to engulf them. They also inherited from their desert days those democratic ideas and high ideals of individual liberty which, enabled Elijah and Isaiah to stand up add champion the rights of the people even though it involved a public denunciation of their kings. [Sidenote: _Contact with Babylonian civilization_] On the other hand, the Israelites undoubtedly became in time the inheritors of the best in religion and law that had been attained by the older Semitic races. Their late traditions trace back their ancestry to ancient Babylonia. Already for long centuries, by conquest and by commerce, the dominant civilization of the Euphrates valley had been regnant in the land of Canaan, The Tell-el-Amarna letters, written from Palestine in the fourteenth century, employ the Babylonian language and system of writing, and reveal a high Semitic civilization, closely patterned after that of Babylonia. When the Israelites settled in Canaan and began to intermarry and assimilate with the older inhabitants, as the earliest Hebrew records plainly state (_cf_. Judg. I.), they found there, among the Canaanites, established civil and religious institutions and traditions which were largely a reflection of those of Babylonia. Also, when in the eighth and seventh centuries Assyrian armies conquered Palestine, they brought Babylonian institutions, traditions, and religious ideas. We know that during the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh these threatened to displace those peculiar to the Hebrews. Again, during the Babylonian exile the influence of the same powerful civilization upon the thought and religion of Israel was also strongly felt. Thus the opportunities, direct and indirect, for receiving from Babylonia much of the rich heritage that it held were many and varied. [Sidenote: _Heirs of the older Semitic civilizations_] Certain parts of the Old Testament itself testify that the wealth of tradition, of institutions, of laws, and religious ideas, gradually committed to the Semitic ancestors of the Hebrews and best preserved by the Babylonians, was not lost, but, enriched and purified, has been transmitted to us through its pages. A careful comparison of the biblical and Babylonian accounts of the creation and the flood leaves little doubt that there is a close historical connection between these accounts. Investigation reveals in language, spirit, and form many analogies between the laws of Hammurabi and those of the Old Testament which suggest at least an indirect influence. Many of the ceremonial institutions of later Judaism are almost identical with those of Babylonia. While it is exceedingly easy to over or under estimate this influence, it is a mistake to deny or ignore its deep significance. [Sidenote: _Recipients of all that was best in earlier revelation_] Thus one of the chief elements in the providential training of the Hebrews as the heralds and exponents of the most exalted religious and ethical truths revealed before the advent of the Prophet of Nazareth was the fact that they were the heirs and interpreters of the best that had been hitherto attained. Babylonia, Egypt, and later, Persia and Greece, each contributed their noblest beliefs and ideals. In the Israelites the diverse streams of divine revelation converged. The result is that, instead of many little rivulets, befouled by errors and superstitions, through their history there flowed a mighty stream, ever becoming broader and deeper and clearer as it received fresh contributions from the new fountains of purest revelation that opened in Hebrew soil. [Sidenote: _In close geographical relations to the earlier civilizations_] Clear evidences of the divine purpose to be realized through the obscure peasant people who lived among the uplands of central Canaan are found in a study of the characteristics of the Old Testament world. It is indeed the earliest and one of the most significant chapters in divine revelation. Most of its area is a barren wilderness, supporting only a small nomadic population. The three fertile spots are Babylonia, Canaan, and Egypt. The first and last are fitted by nature and situation to be the seats of powerful civilizations, destined to reach out in every direction. Canaan, on the contrary, is shut in, with no good harbors along the Mediterranean; and its largest river system leads to the Dead Sea, far below the surface of the ocean,--an effective negation to all commerce. Although thus shut in by itself, Canaan lies on the isthmus of fertile land that connects the great empires of the Nile and the Euphrates. On the east and south it is always subject to the influences and waves of immigration, that come from the Arabian desert. It attracted from their nomadic life the ancestors of the Israelites, and during their early period of development gave them a secluded home. When they were ready to learn the larger lessons in the stream of life, Egypt and the great empires of the Tigris and Euphrates valley contended for them, conquered and ultimately scattered them throughout the then known world. While their conquerors, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the greatest powers of the ancient world, took from them their gold and their freedom, from the same conquerors they appear to have received the infinitely more precious treasures of tradition and thought. [Sidenote: _Trained by remarkable national experience_] Great as was their heritage from the past, the truth that came through the Hebrews themselves constitutes by far the greatest and most significant part of that revelation which the Old Testament records. Their history suggests the ways in which, Jehovah opened the spiritual eyes of the people. From the beginning to the present day it has been characterized by a series of crises unparalleled in the life of any other race. Experiences, intense and often superlatively painful, have come to them in rapid succession, forcing them to think and develop. The little street Arab, alert, resourceful, uncanny in his prematurity, is a modern illustration of what grim necessity and experience can produce. It was in the school supremely adapted to divine ends that Jehovah, trained his people to be his spokesmen to the world. [Sidenote: _Guided by unique spiritual teachers_] Other peoples, however, had their crises and yet had no such message as did the Israelites. What made the crises in the history of the Israelites richly fruitful in ethical and spiritual truth was the presence within their midst of certain devoted, responsive teachers, and especially the prophets, who guided them in their time of peril, interpreted its significance, and appealed to the awakened conscience of the nation. Like begets like. At the beginning of Israel's history stands the great prophet Moses, and during the long centuries that followed the voice of the prophets was rarely hushed. [Sidenote: _Taught by inspired prophets_] In seeking the ultimate answer to our question, How were the Israelites prepared to be the chosen people, we are confronted by a miracle that baffles our power to analyze: it is the supreme fact that the Spirit of the Almighty touched the spirit of certain men in ancient Israel so that they became seers and prophets. This is their own testimony, and their deeds and words amply confirm it. The experiences of men to-day also demonstrate its possibility. Indeed it is not surprising, but most natural, that the one supreme Personality in the universe should reveal himself to and through human minds, and that the most enlightened men of the most spiritually enlightened race should be the recipients of the fullest and most perfect revelation. It is the truth that they thus perceived, and then proclaimed by word and deed and pen, that completed the preparation of the chosen people, for it was none other than the possession of a unique spiritual message that constituted the essence of their choice. Furthermore, as the greatest of the later prophets declares (Is. xl.-lv.), that divine choice did not mean that they were to be the recipients of exceptional favors, but rather that they were called to service. By the patient enduring of suffering and by voluntary self-sacrifice they were to perfect the revelation of God's character and will in the life of humanity. [Sidenote: _Jesus' relation to the Old Testament_] The Old Testament, therefore, is the final record of a revelation extending through thousands of years, finding at last its most exalted expression in the messages of the Hebrew prophets, and its clearest reflection in the thoughts and experiences of the priests, sages, and psalmists of ancient Israel. In varied literary forms and by many different writers the best fruits of that revelation have been preserved. Ancient traditions, songs, proverbs, laws, historical narratives, prophecies, and psalms, each present their precious truth. The Israelitish race, however, never fully completed the work to which it was called. A master was needed to distinguish between the essential and the non-essential, to simplify and unify the teachings of the Old Testament as a whole, and to apply them personally to individual life, A man was demanded to realize fully in his own character the highest ideals of this ancient revelation. A divinely gifted prophet was required to perfect man's knowledge, and to bring him into natural, harmonious relations with his Eternal Father. The world awaited the advent of a Messiah who would establish, on the everlasting foundations of justice and truth and love, the universal kingdom of God. These supreme needs were met in fullest measure by the Master, the perfect Man, the Prophet, and the Messiah, whose work the New Testament records. [Sidenote: _Points of likeness and contact between the two Testaments_] While there are many superficial points of difference in language, literary form, background, and point of view between the Old and the New Testaments, these are insignificant in comparison with the essential points of likeness and contact. Each Testament is but a different chapter in the history of the same divine revelation. The one is the foundation on which the other is built. The writers of the New constantly assume the historical facts, the institutions, and the teachings of the Old. Although in Greek garb, their language and idioms are also those of the Old. On many themes, as, for example, man's duty to society, Jesus said little, for the teachers of his race had fully developed them and there was little to add. Repeatedly by word and act he declared that he came not to destroy the older teachings, but simply to bring them to full perfection. The Old Testament also tells of the long years of preparation and of the earnest expectations of the Israelitish race; the New records a fulfilment far transcending the most exalted hopes of Hebrew seers. The same God reveals himself through both Testaments. One progressively unfolding system of religious teachings, one message of love, and one divine purpose bind both together with bonds that no generation or church can break. V THE INFLUENCES THAT PRODUCED THE NEW TESTAMENT [Sidenote: _Importance of the study of origins_] The present age is supremely interested in origins. Not until we have traced the genesis and earliest unfolding of an institution or an idea or a literature do we feel that we really understand and appreciate it. Familiarity with that which is noble breeds not contempt but reverence, and intelligent devotion. Acquaintance with the origin and history of a book is essential to its true interpretation. Therefore it is fortunate that modern discovery and research have thrown so much light upon the origin of both the Old and the New Testaments. [Sidenote: _The growing recognition that the natural is divine_] Equally fortunate is it that we are also learning to appreciate the sublimity and divinity of the natural. The universe and organic life are no less wonderful and awe-inspiring because, distinguishing some of the natural laws that govern their evolution, we have abandoned the grotesque theories held by primitive men. Similarly we do not to-day demand, as did our forefathers, a supernatural origin for our sacred books before we are ready to revere and obey their commands. With greater insight we now can heartily sing, "God moves in a natural way his wonders to perform." Our ability to trace the historical influences through which he brought into being and shaped the two Testaments and gave them their present position in the life of humanity does not in a thoughtful mind obscure, but rather reveals the more clearly, their divine origin and authority. [Sidenote: _Value of the comparative study of the origin of both Testaments_] Through contemporary writings and the results of modern biblical research it is possible to study definitely the origin of the various New Testament books and to follow the different stages in their growth into a canon. This familiar chapter in the history of the Bible is richly suggestive, because of the clear light which it sheds upon the more complex and obscure genesis and later development of the Old Testament. It will be profitable, therefore, to review it in outline, not only because of its own importance, but also as an introduction to the study of the influences that produced the older Scriptures; for almost every fact that will be noted in connection with the origin and literary history of the New has its close analogy in the growth of the Old Testament. [Sidenote: _The threefold grouping of the New Testament books_] We find that as they are at present arranged, the books of the New Testament are divided into three distinct classes. The first group includes the historical books: the Gospels and Acts; the second, the Epistles--the longer, like the letters to the Romans and Corinthians, being placed first and the shorter at the end; while the third group contains but one book, known as the Apocalypse or Revelation. The general arrangement is clearly according to subject-matter, not according to date of authorship; the order of the groups represent different stages in the process of canonization. [Sidenote: _Why the Gospels are not the earliest_] Their position as well as the themes which they treat suggest that the Gospels were the first to be written. It is, however, a self-evident fact that a book was not written--at least not in antiquity, when the making of books was both laborious and expensive--unless a real need for it was felt. If we go back, and live for a moment in imagination among the band of followers which Jesus left behind at his death, we see clearly that while the early Christian Church was limited to Palestine, and a large company of disciples, who had often themselves seen and heard the Christ, lived to tell by word of mouth the story of his life and teachings, no one desired a written record. It is not surprising, therefore, that the oldest books in the New Testament are not the Gospels. The exigencies of time and space and the burning zeal of the apostles for the churches of their planting apparently produced the earliest Christian writings. [Sidenote: _Origin of the earliest epistles_] In his second missionary journey Paul preached for a time at Thessalonica, winning to faith in the Christ a small mixed company of Jews and proselyte Greeks. His success aroused the bitter opposition of the narrower Jews, who raised a mob and drove him from the city before his work was completed. But the seed which he had planted continued to grow. Naturally he was eager to return to the infant church. Twice he planned to visit it, but was prevented. In his intense desire to help the brave Christians of Thessalonica, he sent Timothy to inquire regarding their welfare and to encourage them. When about 50 A.D. Timothy reported to Paul at Corinth, the apostle wrote at once to the little church at Thessalonica a letter of commendation, encouragement, and counsel, which we know to-day as First Thessalonians and which is probably one of the oldest writings in our New Testament, Galatians perhaps being the earliest. [Sidenote: _Paul's later epistles_] Another letter (II Thess.) soon followed, giving more detailed advice. As the field of Paul's activity broadened, he was obliged more and more to depend upon letters, since he could not in person visit the churches which he had planted. Questions of doctrine as well as of practice which perplexed the different churches were treated in these epistles. To certain of his assistants, like Timothy, he wrote dealing with their personal problems. Frankly, forcibly, and feelingly Paul poured out in these letters the wealth of his personal and soul life. They reveal his faith in the making as well as his mature teachings. Since he was dealing with definite conditions in the communities to which he wrote, his letters are also invaluable contemporary records of the growth and history of the early Christian church. Thus between 30 and 60 A.D., during the period of his greatest activity, certainly ten, and probably thirteen, of our twenty-seven New Testament books came from the burning heart of the apostle to the Gentiles. [Sidenote: _Growth of the other epistles_] Similar needs impelled other apostles and early Christian teachers to write on the same themes with the same immediate purpose as did Paul. The result is a series of epistles, associated with the names of James, Peter, John, and Jude. In some, like Third John, the personal element is predominant; in others, the didactic, as, for example, the Epistle of James. [Sidenote: _Purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews_] A somewhat different type of literature is represented by the Epistle to the Hebrews. Its form is that of a letter, and it was without doubt originally addressed to a local church or churches by a writer whose name has ever since been a fertile source of conjecture. The only fact definitely established is that Paul did not write it. It is essentially a combination of argument, doctrine, and exhortation. The aim is apologetic as well as practical. Most of Paul's letters were written as the thoughts, which he wished to communicate to those to whom he wrote, came to his mind; but in the Epistle to the Hebrews the author evidently follows a carefully elaborated plan. The argument is cumulative. The thesis is that Christ, superior to all earlier teachers of his race, is the perfect Mediator of Salvation. [Sidenote: _Value of the Epistles_] Thus the Epistles, originally personal notes of encouragement and warning, growing sometimes into more elaborate treatises, were made the means whereby the early Christian teachers imparted their doctrines to constantly widening groups of readers. At best they were regarded simply as inferior substitutes for the personal presence and spoken words of their authors. Like the Old Testament books, their authority lies in the fact that they faithfully reflect, in part at least, the greater revelation coming through the lives and minds of the early apostles. [Sidenote: _The larger group_] As is well known, the twenty-one letters in our New Testament were selected from a far larger collection of epistles, some of which were early lost, while others, like the Epistles of Barnabas and Polycarp and Clement, were preserved to share with those later accepted as canonical, the study and veneration of the primitive Church. [Sidenote: _Influences that gave rise to the earliest Gospels_] The influences which originally produced the Gospels and Acts were very different from those which called forth the Epistles. The natural preference of the early Christians for the spoken word explains why we do not possess to-day a single written sentence in the Gospels which we can with absolute assurance assign to the first quarter-century following the death of Jesus. Two influences, however, in time led certain writers to record his early life and teachings. The one was that death was rapidly thinning the ranks of those who could say, _I saw and heard_; the other was the spread of Christianity beyond the bounds of Judaism and Palestine, and the resulting need for detailed records felt by those Christians who had never visited Palestine and who had learned from the lips of apostles only the barest facts regarding the life of the Christ. [Sidenote: _Testimony of Luke's Gospel_] The opening verses of Luke's Gospel are richly suggestive of the origin and growth of the historical books of the New Testament: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us,--they who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed. This prologue states that many shorter Gospels had previously been written, not by eye-witnesses, but by men who had listened to those who had themselves seen. Luke leaves his readers to infer that he also drew a large number of his facts from these earlier sources as well as from the testimony of eye-witnesses. The implication of the prologue is that he himself was entirely dependent upon written and oral sources for his data. This is confirmed by the testimony of the _Muratorian Fragment_: Luke the physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him, as it were, as a follower zealous of the right, wrote the gospel book according to Luke in his own name, as is believed. Nevertheless he had not himself seen the Lord in the flesh, and, accordingly, going back as far as he could obtain information, he began his narrative with the birth of John. His many literal quotations from it and the fact that he makes it the framework of his own, indicate that Mark's Gospel was one of those earlier attempts to which he refers. [Sidenote: _Luke's motive in writing_] The motive which influenced Luke to write is clearly stated. It was to prepare a comprehensive, accurate, and orderly account of the facts in regard to the life of Jesus for his Greek friend Theophilus, who had already been partially instructed in the same. His Gospel confirms the implications of the prologue. It is the longest and most carefully arranged of all the Gospels. The distinctively Jewish ideas or institutions which are prominent in Matthew are omitted or else explained; hence there is nothing which would prove unintelligible to a Greek. The book of the Acts of the Apostles, dedicated to the same patron, is virtually a continuation of the third Gospel, tracing, in a more or less fragmentary manner, the history and growth, of the early Christian Church, and especially the work of Paul. [Sidenote: _Purpose of Mark's Gospel_] Very similar influences called forth the shortest and undoubtedly the oldest of the four Gospels, the book of Mark. The testimony of the contents confirms in general the early statement of Papias and other Christian Fathers that it was written at Rome by John Mark, the disciple and interpreter of the apostle Peter, after the death of his teacher. The absence of many Old Testament quotations, the careful explanation of all Jewish and Palestinian references which would not be intelligible to a foreigner, the presence of certain Latin words, and many other indications, all tend to establish the conclusion that it was written for the Gentile and Jewish Christians, probably at Rome, and that its purpose was simply historical. [Sidenote: _The two-fold purpose of the Gospel of Matthew_] The memoir of Jesus, which we know as the Gospel of Matthew, is from the hand of a Jewish Christian and, as is shown by the amount of material drawn from Mark's Gospel, must be placed at a later date. The great number of quotations from the Old Testament, the interest in tracing the fulfilment of the Messianic predictions, and the distinctively Jewish- Christian point of view and method of interpretation, indicate clearly that he wrote not with Gentile but Jewish Christians in mind. Nevertheless, like that of Mark and Luke, his purpose was primarily to present a faithful and, as far as his sources permitted, detailed picture of the life and teachings of Jesus. His arrangement of his material appears, however, to be logical rather than purely chronological. The different sections and the individual incidents and teachings each contribute to the great argument of the book, namely, that Jesus was the true Messiah of the Jews; that the Jews, since they rejected him, forfeited their birthright; and that his kingdom, fulfilling and inheriting the Old Testament promises, has become a universal kingdom, open to all races and freed from all Jewish bonds. [Footnote: Cf. e.g., x. 5, 6; xv. 24; viii. 11, 12; xii. 38-45; xxi. 42, 43; xxii. 7; xxiii. 13, 36, 38; xxiv. 2; xxviii. 19] This suggests that the First Gospel represents a more mature stage in the thought of the early Church than Mark and Luke. [Sidenote: _Origin of Matthew's Sayings of Jesus_] Its title and the fact that the Church Fathers constantly connect it with Matthew, the publican, and later apostle is explained by the statement of Papias, quoted by Eusebius: Matthew accordingly composed the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted them as he was able (H.E., iii. 39). These oracles evidently consisted of a written collection of the sayings of Jesus. Since they were largely if not entirely included in our First Gospel, It was therefore known as The _Gospel of Matthew_. There is no evidence that the original Matthew's _Sayings of Jesus_ contained definite narrative material. The fact that the First Gospel draws so largely from Mark for its historical data would indicate that this was not supplied by its main source. The _Sayings of Jesus_ was probably the oldest written record of the work of Jesus, for, while oral tradition, easily remembers incidents, disconnected teachings are not so readily preserved by the memory. Their transcendent importance would also furnish a strong incentive to use the pen. It was natural also that, of all the disciples, the ex-customs officer of Capernaum should be the one to undertake this transcendently important task. [Sidenote: _Aim of the The Fourth Gospel_] The Fourth is clearly the latest of the Gospels, for it does not attempt fully to reproduce the facts presented in the other three, but assumes their existence. Its doctrines are also more fully developed, and its aim is not simply the giving of historical facts and teachings, but also, as it clearly states, that those reading it _might believe that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God, and that believing they might have life in his name_ (xx. 31). The motive that produced it was, therefore, apologetic and evangelical rather than merely historical. [Sidenote: _Review of growth of the Gospels_] A detailed comparison of the differences between the Gospels, as well as of their many points of likeness which often extend to exact verbal agreement, furnishes the data for reconstructing their history. In general the resulting conclusions are in perfect harmony with the testimony of the Church Fathers. Mark, the shortest and more distinctively narrative Gospel, is clearly the oldest of the four. Possibly it was originally intended to be the supplement of the other early source, Matthew's _Sayings of Jesus_, now known only through quotations. These two earliest known Christian records of the work of the Master in their original form were the chief sources quoted in the First and Third Gospels. So largely is Mark thus reproduced that, if lost, it would be possible from these to restore the book with the exception of only a few verses. But in addition, Matthew and Luke each have material peculiar to themselves, suggesting other independent written as well as oral sources. To such shorter written Gospels, and also to the oral testimony of eyewitnesses, Luke refers in his prologue. In the Fourth Gospel, the doctrinal motive already apparent in Matthew, and prominent in the Church at the beginning of the second Christian century, takes the precedence of the merely historical. A distinct source, the personal observation of the beloved disciple, probably also furnishes the majority of the illustrations which are here so effectively arrayed. [Sidenote: _Influences that produced the apocalypses_] More complex were the influences which produced the single example of the third type of New Testament literature,--the Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation. The so-called apocalyptic type of literature was a characteristic product of later Judaism. The Book of Daniel is the most familiar example. Although in the age of scribism the voice of the prophets was regarded as silent, and the only authority recognized was that of the past, the popular Messianic hopes of the people continued to find expression anonymously in the form of apocalypses. In the periods of their greatest distress Jews and Christians found encouragement and inspiration in the pictures of the future. Since the present situation was so hopeless, they looked for a supernatural transformation, which would result in the triumph of the right and the establishment of the rule of the Messiah. Underlying all the apocalypses is the eternal truth voiced by the poet: "God's in his heaven and all's right with the world." [Sidenote: _Origin of the Book of Revelation_] The immediate historical background of the Apocalypse is the bitter struggle between Christianity and heathenism. Rome has become _drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus_ (xvii. 6). The contest centres about the worship of the beast,--that is, Caesar. The book possibly includes older apocalypses which reflect earlier conflicts, but in its present form it apparently comes from the closing years of Domitian's reign. The obvious aim of its Jewish Christian writer was to encourage his readers by glowing pictures of the coming victory of the Lamb, and thus to steel them for unfaltering resistance to the assaults of heathenism. The purpose which actuated the writer was therefore in certain respects the same as that which led Paul to write his letter to the persecuted church of Thessalonica, although the form in which that purpose was realized was fundamentally different. [Sidenote: _The literary activity of the first four centuries_] Many other apocalypses were written by the early Christians. The one recently discovered and associated with the name of Peter is perhaps the most important. Thus, the second half of the first century after the death of Jesus witnessed the birth of a large Christian literature, consisting of epistles, gospels, and apocalypses. The work of the next three centuries was the appreciation and the selection of the books which, to-day constitute our New Testament. The influences which led to this consummation may be followed almost as clearly as those which produced the individual books. [Sidenote: _Influences that led to the canonization of the Gospels_] Early in the second century the motives which had originally led certain Christians to write the four Gospels induced the Church to regard those books as the most authentic, and therefore authoritative, records of the life and teachings of the Master. We have no distinctive history of the process. It was gradual, and probably almost unconscious. The fact that three of the Gospels were associated with the names of apostles and the other with Luke, the faithful companion of Paul, undoubtedly tended to establish their authority; but the chief canonizing influence was the need of such records for private and public reading. The production, early in the second century, of spurious gospels, like the Gospel of Marcion, written to furnish a literary basis for certain heretical doctrines, also the desire of the Church Fathers to have records to which they could appeal as authoritative hastened the formation of the first New Testament canon. The use of the Gospels in the services of the church, which probably began before the close of the first Christian century, by degrees gave them an authority equal to that of the Old Testament Scriptures. The earliest canon consisted simply of these four books. They seem to have been universally accepted by the Western Church by the middle of the second century. About 152 A.D. Justin Martyr, in proving his positions, refers to the _Memoirs of the Apostles compiled by Christ's apostles and those who associated with them_, and during the same decade his pupil Tatian made his _Diatessaron_ by combining our present four Gospels. [Sidenote: _The second edition of the New Testament_] Meantime the natural desire to supplement the teachings of Jesus by those of the Apostles led the Church to single out certain of the epistles and associate them with the Gospels. Already in the first century the apostolic epistles and traditions were cherished by the individual churches to which they had been first directed. In time, however, the need for a written record of the apostolic teachings and work became widely felt. Hence, by the end of the second century, Acts and the thirteen Pauline epistles, First Peter, First John, and the Apocalypse, were by common consent placed side by side with the Gospels, at least by the leaders of the Western Church. [Sidenote: _The disputed books_] Regarding the authority of the remaining New Testament books, Hebrews, James, First and Second John, and Jude, opinion long remained undecided. Concerning them an earnest discussion was carried on for the next two centuries. By certain leaders in the Church they were regarded as authoritative, while elsewhere and at different periods, other books, like the Gospel to the Hebrews, the Epistle of Barnabas, Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse of Peter, were included in the canon and even given the priority over the disputed books later included in our New Testament. [Sidenote: _Final completion of the New Testament canon_] The final decision represents the result of an open and prolonged and yet quiet consideration of the merits of each book and of its claims to apostolic authority. The ablest scholars of the early Christian Church devoted their best energies to the problem. Gradually, thoughtfully, prayerfully, and by testing them in the laboratory of experience, the Christian world separated the twenty-seven books which we find to-day in our New Testament from the much larger heritage of kindred writings which come from the early Christian centuries. Time and later consideration have fully approved the selection and confirmed the belief that through the minds of consecrated men God was realizing his purpose for mankind. As is well known, at the Council of Carthage, in 397 A.D., the Western world at last formally accepted them, although the Syrian churches continued for centuries to retain a somewhat different canon. [Sidenote: _Conclusions from this study of the influences that produced the New Testament_] This brief historical study of the origin of our New Testament has demonstrated twelve significant facts: (1) That the original authors of the different books never suspected that their writings would have the universal value and authority which they now rightfully enjoy. (2) That they at first regarded them as merely an imperfect substitute for verbal teaching and personal testimony. (3) That in each case they had definite individuals and conditions in mind. (4) That the needs of the rapidly growing Church and the varied and trying experiences through which it passed were all potent factors in influencing the authors of the New Testament to write. (5) That certain books, especially the historical, like Luke and Matthew, are composite, consisting of material taken bodily from older documents, like Matthew's _Sayings of Jesus_ and the original narrative of Mark. (6) That our New Testament books are only a part of a much larger early Christian literature. (7) That they are unquestionably, however, the most valuable and representative writings of that larger literature. (8) That they were only gradually selected and ascribed a value and authority equal to that of the Old Testament writings. (9) That there were three distinct stages in the formation of the New Testament canon: the gospels were first recognized as authorative; then Acts, the Apostolic Epistles, and the Apocalypse; and last of all, the complete canon. (10) That the canon was formed as a result of the need felt by later generations, in connection with their study and worship, for reliable records of the history and teachings of Christianity. (11) That the principles of selection depended ultimately upon the intrinsic character of the books themselves and the authority ascribed to their reputed authors. (12) That the process of selection continued for fully three centuries, and that the results represent the thoughtful, enlightened judgment of thousands of devoted Christians. Thus through definite historical forces and the minds and wills of men, the Eternal Father gradually perfected the record of his supreme revelation, to humanity. VI THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETIC HISTORIES [Sidenote: _Analogies between the influences that produced the two Testaments_] Very similar influences were at work in producing and shaping both the Old and the New Testaments; only in the history of the older Scriptures still other forces can be distinguished. Moreover, the Old Testament contains a much greater variety of literature. It is also significant that, while some of the New Testament books began to be canonized less than a century after they were written, there is clear evidence that many of the Old Testament writings were in existence several centuries before they were gathered together into a canon and thus crystallized into their final form. The inevitable result is that they bear the marks of much more elaborate editorial revision than those of the New. It is, however, not the aim of the present work to trace this complex process of revision in detail, nor to give the cumulative evidence and the many data and reasons that lead to each conclusion. These can be studied in any modern Old Testament introduction or in the volumes of the present writer's _Student's Old Testament_. [Sidenote: _The present classification of the Old Testament books_] In their present form, the books of the Old Testament, like those of the New, fall into three classes. The first includes the historical books. In the Old, corresponding to the four Gospels and Acts of the New, are found the books from Genesis through Esther. Next in order, in the Old, stand the poetical books, from Job through the Song of Songs, with which the New Testament has no analogy except the liturgical hymns connected with the nativity, preserved in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. The third group in the Old Testament includes the prophecies from Isaiah through Malachi. [Sidenote: _Close correspondence between the Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament apocalypses and epistles_] One book in this group, Daniel, and portions of Ezekiel and Joel, are analogous to the New Testament Apocalypse, but otherwise the prophetic books correspond closely in character and contents to the epistles of the New. Both are direct messages to contemporaries of the prophets and apostles, and both deal with then existing conditions. Both consist of practical warnings, exhortations, advice, and encouragement. The form is simply incidental. The prophets of Jehovah preached, and then they or their disciples wrote down the words which they had addressed to their countrymen. When they could not reach with their voices all in whom they were interested, the prophets, like the apostles, committed their teachings to writing and sent them forth as tracts (_cf_. Jer. xxxvi.). At other times, when they could not go in person, they wrote letters. Thus, for example, the twenty-ninth chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah opens with the interesting superscription: Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadrezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon; by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadrezzar. If it were not for this superscription, no one would suspect from the nature of the letter which follows that it was anything other than a regular spoken or written prophecy. Its contents and spirit are exactly parallel to those of Paul's epistles. Undoubtedly many prophecies were never delivered orally, but were originally written like Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and sent out as circular letters. The Babylonian exile scattered the Jews so widely that the exilic and post-exilic prophets depended almost entirely upon this method of reaching their countrymen and thus became writers of epistles. [Sidenote: _The oldest literature poetry_] Like the Epistles in the New, certain of the prophecies,--as, for example, those of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah,--are among the earliest writings of the Old Testament. But in the light of modern biblical study, it has become apparent that prose was not the earliest form of expression among the Hebrews, In this respect their literary history is parallel with that of other early peoples; for first they treasured their thought in heroic song and ballad. While they were nomads, wandering in the desert, and also while they were struggling for the possession of Canaan, they had little time or motive for cultivating the literary art. The popular songs which were sung beside the camp-fires, at the recurring festivals, and as the Hebrews advanced in battle against their foes, were the earliest records of their past. There is evidence that many of the primitive narratives now found in the opening chapters of Genesis were also once current in poetical form. In some cases the poetic structure has been preserved. [Sidenote: _Israel's early song-books_] The earliest collections of writings referred to in the Old Testament bear the suggestive titles, _The Book of the Upright_ (i.e., Israel), and, _The Book of the Wars of Jehovah_. From the quotations which we have from them it is clear that they consisted of collections of songs, recounting the exploits of Israel's heroes and the signal victories of the race. [Sidenote: _The Song of Deborah_] That stirring paean of victory known as the Song of Deborah was perhaps once found in the Book of the Wars of Jehovah. It is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the Old Testament, and breathes the heroic spirit of the primitive age from which it comes. Through the eyes of the poet one views the different scenes in the mighty conflict. [Footnote: The translation is from "The Student's Old Testament," Vol. I., pp. 320-323.] [Sidenote: _Exordium_] That the leaders took the lead in Israel, That the people volunteered readily, Bless Jehovah! Hear, O kings, Give ear, O rulers. I myself will sing to Jehovah, I will sing praise to Jehovah, the God of Israel. [Sidenote: _Advent of Jehovah_] Jehovah, when thou wentest forth from Seir, When thou marchest from the land of Edom, The earth trembled, the heavens also dripped, Yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked before Jehovah, Yon Sinai before Jehovah, the God of Israel. [Sidenote: _Conditions before the war_] In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways ceased to be used, And travellers walked by round-about paths. The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased, Until than didst arise, Deborah, Until thou didst arise a mother in Israel. * * * * * [Sidenote: _The rally about Deborah and Barak_] Then the people of Jehovah went down to the gates, crying, "Arise, arise, Deborah, Arise, arise, strike up the song! Arise Barak, and take thy captives, thou son of Abinoam!" So a remnant went down against the powerful, The people of Jehovah went down against the mighty, From Ephraim they rushed forth into the valley, Thy brother Benjamin among thy peoples, From Machir went down, commanders, And from Zebulun those who carry the marshal's staff. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; And Napthali was even so with Barak, Into the valley they rushed forth at his back. [Sidenote: _The cowards who remained at home_] By the brooks of Reuben great were the resolves! Why didst they sit among the sheepfolds, Listening to the pipings for the flocks? By the brooks of Reuben there were great questionings! Gilead remained beyond the Jordan; And Dan, why does he stay by the ships as an alien? Asher sits still by the shore of the sea, And remains by its landings. [Sidenote: _The battle and defeat of the Canaanites_] Zebulun was a people who exposed their lives to deadly peril, And Napthali on the heights of the open field. Bless Jehovah! Kings came, they fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan, At Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; They took no booty of silver. From heaven fought the stars, From their courses fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away, The ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, march on with strength! Then did the horse-hoofs resound With the galloping, galloping of the powerful steeds. [Sidenote: _David's dirge over Saul and Jonathan_] In the Book of the Upright is included that touching elegy which David sang after the death of Saul and Jonathan, and which stands next to the Song of Deborah as one of the earliest surviving examples of Old Testament literature. [Footnote: "Student's Old Testament," Vol. II., pp. 113,114.] [Sidenote: _The greatness of the calamity_] Weep, O Judah! Grieve, O Israel! On thy heights are the slain! How have the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, Declare it not in the streets of Askelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. Ye mountains of Gilboa, may no dew descend, Nor rain upon you, O ye fields of death! For there was the shield of the mighty cast away, The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. [Sidenote: _Bravery and attractiveness of the fallen_] From the blood of the slain, From the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan turned not back, The sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan, the beloved and the lovely! In life and in death they were not parted; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. [Sidenote: _Saul's services to Israel_] Daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you daintily in fine linen, Who put golden ornaments on your garments, [and say:] "How have the mighty fallen in the midst of battle!" [Sidenote: _David's love for Jonathan_] Jonathan, in thy death hast thou wounded me! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan! Thou wert surpassingly dear to me, Thy love to me was far more than the love of woman! How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished! [Sidenote: _The blessing of Jacob_] The so-called _Blessing of Jacob_ (Gen. xlix, 2-27) is a poetical delineation of the strength and weakness of the different tribes of Israel with references to specific events in their history. These historical allusions suggest that it probably comes from the reigns of David and Solomon, when the tribes were for the first time all united under a common rule and had passed through certain of the experiences alluded to in the poem. [Sidenote: _Israel's heritage of oral traditions_] The Israelitish race was supremely rich in possessing not only many ancient songs, but also a large body of oral traditions which had long been handed down from father to son or else treasured by the story-tellers and by the priests of the ancient sanctuaries. Many of these traditions were inherited from their Semitic ancestors, and, in the light of recently discovered Babylonian literature, can be traced back far beyond the days of Abraham and Moses. Some were originally the possessions of certain nomadic tribes; others recorded the early experiences of their ancestors or told of the achievements of early heroes. In the process of continuous retelling, all unnecessary details had been eliminated and the really dramatic and essential elements emphasized, until they attained their present simple, graphic form, which fascinates young and old alike. [Sidenote: _Value of these oral traditions_] The superlative value of these varied traditions is apparent. They were the links which bound later generations to their prehistoric past. Incidentally, in the characteristic language of Semitic tradition, they preserved the memory of many important events in their early tribal history. They are also the illuminating record of the primitive beliefs, customs, and aspirations of their Semitic ancestors. Subject as they inevitably were to the idealizing tendency, they became in time the concrete embodiment of the noblest ideals of later generations. Thus they presented before the kindled imagination of each succeeding age, in the character and achievements of their traditional ancestors, those ideals of courage, perseverance, and piety which contributed much toward making the Israelites the chosen people that they were. [Sidenote: _Influences that led to the writing of history_] In time this growing heritage of traditions became too great for even the remarkable Oriental memory to retain. Meantime the Hebrews had also acquired that system of writing which they learned from their more civilized neighbors the Canaanites and Phoenicians. From, the days of Solomon, scribes were to be found in court and temple, and probably among the prophetic guilds; although the common people, as in the same land to-day, doubtless had little knowledge of the literary art. While the nation was struggling for the soil of Canaan, or enjoying the full tide of victory and achievement that came under the leadership of David, there was no time or incentive to write history. But with the quieter days of Solomon's reign, and the contrasting period of national decline that followed his death, the incentive to take up the pen and record the departed glories became strong. With a large body of definite oral traditions dealing with all the important men and events of the earlier periods, the task of the historian was chiefly that of writing down and coordinating what was already at hand. [Sidenote: _The early Judean prophetic history_] The oldest Hebrew history that has been preserved in the Old Testament was the work of an unknown Judean prophet or group of prophets who lived and labored probably during the latter part of the ninth century before Christ. This history corresponds closely in relative age and aim to Mark's graphic narrative of the chief facts in the life of Jesus. The motive which influenced the earliest historians both of the Old and New Testaments to write was primarily the religious significance of the events which they thus recorded. This early Judean prophetic history (technically known as J) begins with the account of the creation of man from the dust by the hand of Jehovah, and tells of the first sin and its dire consequences (Gen. ii. 4 to iii. 24); then it gives an ancient list of those who stood as the fathers of nomads, of musicians and workers in metal (Gen. iv. 1, l6b-26). This is followed by the primitive stories of the sons of God and the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 1-4), of Noah the first vineyard-keeper (ix. 20-27), and of the tower of Babel and the origin of different languages (xi. 1-9). In a series of more or less closely connected narratives the character and experiences of the patriarchs, the life of the Hebrews in Egypt and the wilderness, and the settlement in Canaan are presented. Its basis for the history of the united kingdom was for the most part the wonderfully graphic group of Saul and David stories which occupy the bulk of the books of Samuel. Thus this remarkable early Judean prophetic history begins with the creation of the universe and man and concludes with the creation of the Hebrew empire. [Sidenote: _Its unity and characteristics_] In its present Old Testament form it has been closely combined with other histories, just as Mark's narrative is largely reproduced in Matthew and Luke; but when, it is separated from the later narratives its unity and completeness are astounding. Almost without a break it presents the chief characters and events of Israel's history in their relations to each other. The same peculiar vocabulary, the use of Jehovah as the designation of the Deity, the same vivid, flowing narrative style, the same simple, naïve, primitive conception of Jehovah, the same patriotic interest in the history of the race, and the same emphasis upon the vital religious significance of men and facts, characterize every section of this narrative and make comparatively easy the task of separating it from the other histories with which it has been joined. [Sidenote: _The early Ephraimite prophetic history_] A little later, sometime about the middle of the eighth century before Christ, a prophet or group of prophets in Northern Israel devoted themselves to the similar task of writing the history of Israel from the point of view of the northern kingdom. Since this state is called _Ephraim_ by Hosea and other writers of the North, its history may be designated as _the early Ephraimite prophetic_ (technically known as E). Naturally its author or authors utilized as the basis of their work the oral traditions current in the North. Sometimes these are closely parallel, and sometimes they vary widely in order and representation from the Judean versions. In general the variations are similar, although somewhat greater than those between the parallel narratives of Matthew and Luke. [Sidenote: _Its characteristics_] Marked peculiarities in vocabulary and literary style distinguish this northern history from the Judean. Since _Elohim_ or _God_ is consistently used to describe the Deity, it has sometimes been called the _Elohistic_ history. Interest inclines to the sanctuaries and heroes and events prominent in the life of the North. In that land which produced a Samuel, an Elijah, an Elisha, and an Hosea, it was natural that especial emphasis should be placed on the role of the prophet. Throughout these narratives he is portrayed as the dominant figure, moulding the history as God's representative. Abraham and Moses are here conceived of as prophets, and the Ephraimite history of their age is largely devoted to a portrayal of their prophetic activity. [Sidenote: _Its scope_] The interests of later editors who combined these early prophetic histories, as we now find them in the Old Testament, were centred in the Judean, and hence they have introduced citations from the Ephraimite narratives chiefly to supplement the older history. Possibly it never was as complete as that of the South. At present it begins with Abraham and traces the parallel history of the patriarchs and the life of the Hebrews in Egypt and the wilderness. Its account of the conquest, is somewhat fuller, probably because Joshua was a northern leader. It also preserves many of the stories of the heroes in the book of Judges. With these the citations from the early Ephraimite prophetic history seem to disappear, but the opening stories in the book of Samuel, regarding the great prophet whose name was given to the book, apparently come from the pen of later disciples of this same Ephraimite group of prophets. [Sidenote: _Later editorial supplementing and combination of the two histories_] The eighth and seventh centuries before Christ were periods of intense prophetic activity both in the North and the South. It was natural, therefore, that these early prophetic histories should be supplemented by the disciples of the original historians. Traditions that possessed a permanent historical or religious value, as, for example, the familiar story of Cain and Abel (Gen. iv. 2-16), and the earlier of the two accounts of the flood, were thus added. Also when in 722 B.C. the northern kingdom fell and its literary heritage passed to Judah, it was most natural that a prophetic editor, recognizing the valuable elements in each, and the difficulties presented by the existence of the two variant versions of the same events, should combine the two, and furthermore that, in the days of few manuscripts, the older originals should be lost and only the combined history survive. To-day we find this in turn incorporated in the still later composite history extending from Genesis through Samuel. [Sidenote: _Method of combining_] The later editor's method of uniting his sources is exceedingly interesting, and is analogous in many ways to the methods followed in the citations in Matthew and Luke from their common sources, the original Mark and Matthew's _Sayings of Jesus_. Where the two versions were closely parallel, as in the account of Jacob's deception of his father Isaac, or the story of the spies, the two are completely amalgamated; short passages, verses, and parts of verses are taken in turn from each. In other cases the editor introduced the different versions--as, for example, the two accounts of the flight of Hagar--into different settings. From subsequent allusions to two versions, of which only one survives in the Old Testament, it is to be inferred that sometimes he simply preserved the fuller, usually the Judean. As a rule, however, there is clear evidence that he made every effort to retain all that he found in his original sources, even though the resulting composite narrative contained many inconsistencies. [Sidenote: _Practical value of the rediscovery of the original histories_] To the careful student, seeking to recover the original narratives in their primal unity, these inconsistencies are guides as valuable as the fossils and stratification of the earth are to the geologist intent upon tracing the earth's past history. Guided by these variations and the distinctive peculiarities in vocabulary, literary style, point of view, religious conceptions, and purpose of each of the groups of narratives, Old Testament scholars have rediscovered these two original histories; and with their recovery the great majority of seeming inconsistencies and many perplexing problems fade into insignificance. Supplementing each other, as do the earliest Gospels, these two independent histories present with new definiteness and authority the essential facts in Israel's early political, social and religious life. Like eye-witnesses, they testify to the still more significant fact that from the first God was revealing his character and will through a unique race. [Sidenote: _The brief late prophetic history_] A third survey of the period beginning with the sojourn in Egypt and concluding with the conquest of the east-Jordan land is found in the introduction to the book of Deuteronomy. It is the prologue to the laws that follow, appropriately and effectively placed in the mouth of the pioneer prophet Moses. A comparison quickly demonstrates that it is in reality a brief summary of the older histories, and especially of the early Ephraimite prophetic. Like the Gospel of Matthew, its aim is not merely to present historical facts, but to illustrate and establish a thesis. The thesis is that Jehovah has personally led his people, and that when they have been faithful to him they have prospered, but when they have disobeyed calamity has overtaken, them. The message is distinctly prophetic; and to distinguish this third history, which was probably written near the close of the seventh century before Christ, from the earlier, it may be designated as the late prophetic or _Deuteronomic history_ (technically represented by D). [Sidenote: _Comparison of the Old with the New Testament histories_] These three prophetic histories correspond strikingly to the three synoptic Gospels: Mark, Luke and Matthew. The essential differences in their literary history are that they come, not from a single limited group of writers and a brief quarter century, but represent the work of many hands and at least two hundred and fifty years of literary activity. Two, at least, of these histories, are no longer extant in their original form, but only as they have been quoted verbatim by later historians and closely amalgamated. Similarly, as is well known, Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second Christian century, did for the four Gospels precisely what an Old Testament editor did for the two early prophetic histories,--he combined them into one composite, continuous narrative. By joining passages and verses and parts of verses taken from the different Gospels, by omitting verbal duplicates, by rearranging in some cases and by occasionally adding a word or phrase to join dissimilar parts, Tatian produced a marvellous mosaic gospel, known as the _Diatessaron_. All of the Fourth Gospel is thus preserved, and most of the first three. So successfully was the work done that the volume was widely used throughout the Eastern Church. If, as once seemed possible, it had completely supplanted the original four Gospels, the literary history of these would have been a repetition of that of the earliest Old Testament records. [Sidenote: _The dominant motive of the prophetic historians_.] It is very important to note that the motive which led the prophetic historians to commit to writing the earlier traditions of their race was not primarily historical. Like the author of the Fourth Gospel, they selected their material chiefly with a view to enforcing certain important religious truths. If an ancient Semitic tradition illustrated their point, they divested it of its heathen clothing and, irrespective of its origin, pressed it into service. For example, it seems clear that the elements which enter into the story of the Garden of Eden and man's fall were current, with variations, among the ancient Babylonians centuries before the Hebrews inherited them from their Semitic ancestors. The early prophet who wrote the second and third chapters of Genesis appreciated their value as illustrations, and made them the medium for imparting some of the most important spiritual truths ever conveyed to mankind. Like the preachers or moral teachers of to-day, the first question the prophets asked about a popular story was not, Is it absolutely historical or scientifically exact? but, Does it illustrate the vital point to be impressed? Undoubtedly Israel's heritage of oral traditions was far greater than is suggested by the narratives of the Old Testament; but only those which individually and collectively enforced some important religious truth, were utilized. Just as Jesus drew his illustrations from nature and human life about him, so these earlier spiritual teachers, with equal tact, took their illustrations from the familiar atmosphere of song and story and national tradition in which their readers lived. A secondary purpose, which they obviously had in view, was also to remove from certain of the popular tales the immoral implications which still clung to them from their heathen past, and to reconsecrate them to a diviner end. [Sidenote: _The permanent and vital value of these narratives_] Questions of relative date and historical accuracy concern the historian, but they should not obscure the greater value of these narratives. To the majority of us, who turn to the Old Testament simply as the record of divine revelation and as a guide to life, the essential thing is to put ourselves into touch with these ancient prophets, who taught by illustration as well as by direct address, and ask, What was the ethical or spiritual truth that illumined their souls and finds concrete expression and illustration through these primitive stories? To discuss the literal historicity of the story of the Garden of Eden is as absurd as to seek to discover who was the sower who went forth to sow or the Samaritan who went down to Jericho. Even, if no member of the despised Samaritan race ever followed in the footsteps of an hypocritical Levite along the rocky road to Jericho and succored a needy human being, the vital truth abides. Not until we cease to focus our gaze on the comparatively unimportant, can we discern the great spiritual messages of these early narratives. [Sidenote: _The sequel to the early prophetic histories_] The sequel to the great prophetic histories which underlie the Old Testament books, from Genesis through Samuel, is in the books of Kings. These carry the record of Israel's life down to the Babylonian exile. The opening chapters of First Kings contain the conclusion of the Judean prophetic David stories. Fortunately the rest of the biblical history to the exile was largely compiled from much earlier sources. As in most of the historical writings, the later editors, also, quoted _verbatim_ from these earlier records and histories, so that in many cases we have the testimony of almost contemporary witnesses. The titles of certain of these earlier books are given: _The Book of the Acts of Solomon_, _The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel_, and _The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah_. [Sidenote: _Earlier sources quoted by the editor of Kings_] A careful study of the books of Kings suggests many other ancient sources. For the reign of Solomon, state annals, temple records, and popular Solomon traditions appear to have been utilized. The graphic account of the division of the Hebrew empire was probably drawn from an early Jeroboam history. In the latter part of First Kings appear citations from an early Ahab history and a group of Ephraimite Elijah stories. The political data throughout First and Second Kings were probably drawn from the annals of the northern and southern kingdoms. Furthermore, in II Kings ii.-viii. appear long quotations from two cycles of Elisha stories, centring, respectively, about the ancient northern sanctuary of Gilgal, near Shiloh, and about Samaria. The rest of the book includes citations from sources which may be designated as a prophetic Jehu history, temple records, a Hezekiah history, and a group of Isaiah stories. [Sidenote: _Influences that produced this later prophetic history_] These valuable quotations the late prophetic editor of Kings has arranged in chronological order and fitted into a framework which gives the length of each reign and the date of accession of the different kings, according to the chronology of the other Hebrew kingdom. To this data he adds a personal judgment upon the policy of each ruler, thereby revealing his prophetic spirit. History is to him, as to every true prophet, a supreme illustration of fundamental spiritual principles. Clearly the influence that led him to compile and edit his great work was his recognition of the fact that the record of Israel's national experience as a whole was of deep religious import. The same motive undoubtedly guided him in the selection of material from his great variety of sources. Only that which was essential was presented. Thus he, or a later editor of his book, traced Israel's remarkable history down to the middle of the Babylonian exile (560 B.C.), and completed that wonderful chain of prophetic narratives which record and interpret the first great chapter of divine revelation through the chosen race. VII THE HISTORY OF THE PROPHETIC SERMONS, EPISTLES, AND APOCALYPSES [Sidenote: _Real character and aims of the prophets_] To understand and rightly interpret the prophetic writings of the Old Testament it is necessary to cast aside a false impression as to the character of the prophets which is widely prevalent. They were not foretellers, but forth-tellers. Instead of being vague dreamers, in imagination living far in the distant future, they were most emphatically men of their own times, enlightened and devoted patriots, social and ethical reformers, and spiritual teachers. Their characteristic note of conviction and authority was due to the fact that, on the one hand, they knew personally and distinctly the evils and needs of their nation, and that, on the other hand, their minds and hearts, ever open to receive the truth, were in vital touch with the Infinite. Thus, just as Aaron became Moses' prophet to the people, publicly proclaiming what the great leader imparted to him in private (Ex. vii. 1, 2), so the Hebrew prophets became Jehovah's heralds and ambassadors, announcing by word and life and act the divine will. [Sidenote: _Influences that led the prophets to write down their sermons_] While the historians were perfecting their histories certain prophets also were beginning to commit their sermons to writing. The oldest recorded address in the Old Testament is probably that of Amos at Bethel. His banishment from the northern kingdom under strict injunction not to prophesy there (Am. vii. 10-17) may well explain why he resorted to writing to give currency to his prophetic message, though, like Paul in later days, he undoubtedly regarded writing as an inferior substitute for the spoken word. Jeremiah appears to have preached twenty years before he dictated a line to his scribe Baruch, and then it was because he could not personally speak in the temple (xxxvi. 1-5). Sometimes complete sermons of the prophets are preserved, but more often we seem to have only extracts and epitomes. In some of the prophetic books, like that of Jeremiah, there are also popular reports of a prophetic address, and narrative sections, telling of the prophet's experience. [Sidenote: _The editing of the earlier prophecies_] Evidences of editing are very apparent in the earlier prophecies. Sudden interruptions, and verses or clauses, in which appear ideas and literary style very different from that of the immediate context, indicate that many of the prophecies have been supplemented by later notes, some explanatory and some hortatory. Other longer passages are intended to adjust the earlier teaching to later conditions and beliefs and so to adapt them to universal human needs that they are not limited to the hour and occasion of their first delivery. Some of these passages come from the hands of disciples of the prophets and often contain valuable additional data; others are from later prophetic editors and scribes. A detailed comparison, for example, of the Hebrew and Greek versions of Jeremiah quickly discloses wide variations of words, verses, and even long passages, added in one or the other text by later hands. All these additions testify to the deep interest felt by later generations in the earlier writings, even before they were assigned a final place in the canon. It is one of the important tasks of biblical scholars to distinguish the original from the additions and thus determine what were the teachings of each prophet and what are the contributions of later generations. [Sidenote: _The background of Isaiah xl.-lv._] Many of the later additions possess a value and authority entirely independent of that possessed by the prophet with whose writings they have been joined by their original authors or later editors. Thus the sublime chapters appended to the original sermons of Isaiah contain some of the noblest teachings in the Old Testament. The different themes and literary style; the frequent references to the Babylonians, not as distant allies, as in the days of Isaiah the son of Amoz, but as the hated oppressors of the Jews; the evidence that the prophet's readers are not exiles far from Judah; the many allusions to the conquests of Cyrus,--all these leave little doubt that chapters xl.-lv. were written in the latter part of the Babylonian or the first of the Persian period. Interpreted in the light of this background, their thought and teachings become clear and luminous. Similarly, the varied evidence within the chapters themselves seems to indicate that Isaiah lvi.-lxvi. contain sermons directed to the struggling Jewish community in Palestine during the days following the rebuilding of the temple in 520 B.C. [Sidenote: _The order and date of the prophetic books_] The prophetic sermons, epistles, and apocalypses fall naturally into five great groups. The books prophets of the Assyrian period were Amos and Hosea, who between 750 and 734 B.C. preached to Northern Israel; also Isaiah and Micah, whose work lies between 740 and 680 B.C. Nahum's little prophecy, although much later, echoes the death-knell of the great Assyrian kingdom, which for two or three centuries dominated southwestern Asia. The prophets of Judah's decline were Zephaniah (about 628 B.C.), Jeremiah (628-690), and Habakkuk (609-605). To the same period belong Ezekiel's earlier sermons, delivered between 592 and 586, just before the final destruction of Jerusalem. The prophets of the Babylonian exile were Obadiah, whose original oracle belongs to its opening years; Ezekiel (xxv.-xlviii.), who continued to preach until 572 B.C., and the great prophet whose deathless messages ring through Isaiah xl.-lv. The prophets of the Persian period were Haggai and Zechariah, whose inspiring sermons kept alive the flagging zeal of those who rebuilt the second temple; the authors of Isaiah lvi.-lxvi.; the author of the little book of Malachi; and Joel. To this list we may perhaps add the prophet who has given us that noble protest, found in the much misunderstood book of Jonah, against the narrow and intolerant attitude of later Judaism toward foreigners. [Sidenote: _Growth of anonymous and apocalyptic literature_] With the exception of Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Joel, all the prophecies which come from the centuries following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. are anonymous. The worship of the authority of the past had begun, and there is evidence that the belief was gaining currency that the days of the prophets were past. Hence the natural tendency to resort to anonymous authorship or else to append a later message to an earlier prophecy. Chapters ix.-xiv. of the book of Zechariah illustrate this custom,--chapters which apparently come from the last Old Testament period, the Greek or Maccabean. The habit of presenting prophetic truth in the highly figurative, symbolic form, of the apocalypse also became prominent in later Judaism. This has already been noted in the study of the growth of the New Testament, and is illustrated by the book of Revelation. It was especially adapted to periods of religious persecution, for it enabled the prophet to convey his message of encouragement and consolation in language impressive and clear to his people, yet unintelligible to their foreign masters. [Sidenote: _The historical background of the book of Daniel_] To the mind of one who has carefully studied the book of Daniel in the light of the great crisis that came to the Jews as a result of the relentless persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, between the years 169 and 165 B.C., there remains little doubt that it is in this period the wonderful apocalypse finds its true setting and interpretation. The familiar examples of the heroic fidelity of Daniel and his friends to the demands of their religion and ritual were supremely well adapted to arouse a similar resistance toward the demands of a tyrant who was attempting to stamp out the Jewish, religion and transform the chosen people into a race of apostates. The visions found in the book trace rapidly, in succession, the history of the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and, last of all, the Greek kingdoms. The culmination is a minute description of the character and reign, of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes (xi. 21-45). He is clearly the little horn of chapter viii. But suddenly, in the midst of the account of the persecutions, the descriptions become vague and general. Nor is there any reference to the success of the Maccabean uprising; instead, the prediction is made that Jehovah himself will soon come to establish his Messiah's kingdom. [Sidenote: _Date of the book_] The inference is, therefore, that the prophecy was written a short time before the rededication of the temple in 165 B.C. This conclusion is confirmed by many other indications. For example the language, in part Aramaic, is that of the Greek period. The mistakes regarding the final overthrow of the Babylonian empire, which was by Cyrus, not Darius, and brought about not by strategy, but as a result of the voluntary submission of the Babylonians, are identical with the errors current in Greek tradition of the same late period. Here, as in the early narratives of Genesis, a true prophet has utilized earlier stories as effective illustrations. He has also given in the common apocalyptic form an interpretation of the preceding four centuries of human history, and showed how through it all God's purpose was being realized, The book concludes with the firm assurance that those who now prove faithful are to be richly rewarded and to have a part in Ms coming Messianic kingdom. [Sidenote: _The common motive actuating the prophets and the authors of the New Testament_] Thus, from the minds of the prophets come the earliest writings of the Old Testament. They consist of exhortations, warnings, messages of encouragement, or else stories intended to illustrate a religious principle or to present, in concrete form, a prophetic ideal. The fundamental motive which produced them all was identical with that which led the disciples and apostles to write the Gospels and Epistles of the New. In the case of the historico-prophetic writings, like Samuel and Kings, the desire to inspire and mould the minds and wills of their readers was combined with the desire to preserve in permanent form a record of the events which, in their national history, revealed most clearly Jehovah's character and purpose. In this respect they correspond perfectly to the Gospels and Acts of the New Testament. It is easy to see, therefore, that kindred aims and ideals actuated these unknown prophetic writers and their later successors, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Their literary products differ only because their subject-matter is different. The one group records Jehovah's revelation of himself through the life of the Messianic nation, the other through the life of the perfect Messiah. [Sidenote: _The New Testament the sequel of the prophetic writings_] It is interesting to note, in conclusion, that from the point of view of the Old, all the literature of the New may be designated as prophetic. The three distinct groups of writings found in the New, namely, the Gospels and Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, correspond exactly to the three types of prophetic literature found in the Old: the historico-prophetical writings, direct written prophecies, and apocalypses. If the final canon of the Old Testament had been completed before the days of Josiah, there is every reason to believe that it also would have contained little beside prophetic writings. In divine providence it was not closed until seven centuries later, so that, as it has come to us, it is a comprehensive library, representing every stage and every side of Israel's development. It is, however, in perfect keeping with the spirit of the Master that the New Testament should contain significant facts and broad principles rather than detailed laws or even the songs of worship. He whose ideals, teachings, and methods were in closest harmony with those of the Hebrew prophets, naturally begat, through his immediate followers, a group of distinctively prophetic writings. VIII THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARLIER OLD TESTAMENT LAWS [Sidenote: _First the principle, and then the detailed laws_] If the canon of the New Testament had remained open as long as did that of the Old, there is little doubt that it also would have contained many laws, legal precedents, and ecclesiastical histories. From the writings of the Church Fathers and the records of the Catholic Church it is possible to conjecture what these in general would have been. The early history of Christianity illustrates the universal fact that the broad principles are first enunciated by a great prophetic leader or leaders, and that in succeeding centuries these new principles are gradually embodied in detailed laws and ceremonials. Also the principles must be accepted, partially at least, by the majority of the people before the enactments based upon them can be enforced. This important fact, stated in Old Testament terms, is that the prophet must and always does precede the lawgiver. [Sidenote: _Meaning of the Hebrew word for law_] _Torah_, the common Hebrew word for law, comes from a Hebrew word meaning to _point out_ or _direct_. It is probably also connected with the older root signifying, to cast the sacred lot. The _torah_, therefore, was originally the decision, rendered in connection with specific questions of dispute, and referred to Jehovah by means of the sacred lot. Thus the early priests were also judges because they were the custodians of the divine oracle. [Sidenote: _Origin of this Hebrew belief in the divine origin of law_] Here we are able to trace, in its earliest Hebrew form, the universal belief in the divine origin of the law. In the primitive laws of Exodus xxi.-xxiii., in connection with a case of disputed responsibility for injury to property, the command is given: _the cause of both parties shall come before God; he whom God shall condemn shall pay double to his neighbor_ (xxii. 8, 9). In ancient times all cases of dispute were thus laid before God and decided by the lot or by God's representatives, usually the priests. When, in time, customs and oral laws grew up on the basis of these decisions, a similar divine origin and authority were naturally attributed to them. Individually and collectively they were designated by the same suggestive term, _torah_. When they were ultimately committed to writing, the legal literature bore this title. In the Hebrew text it still remains as the designation of the first group of Old Testament books which contain the bulk of Israel's laws. [Sidenote: _Its ultimate basis in fact_] A belief in the divine origin of law was held by most ancient peoples. In connection with the tablet which records the laws of Hammurabi, we have a picture of Shamash the sun-god giving the laws to the king. In the epilogue to these laws he states that by the command of Shamash, the judge supreme of heaven and earth, he has set them up that judgment may shine in the land. The statements in the Old Testament that Jehovah talked face to face with Moses or wrote the ten words with his finger on tablets of stone reflect the primitive belief which pictured God as a man with hands and voice and physical body; still they are the early concrete statement of a vital, eternal truth. Not on perishable stone, but in the minds of the ancient judges, and in the developing ethical consciousness of the Israelitish race, he inscribed the principles of which the laws are the practical expression. If he had not revealed them, there would have been no progress in the knowledge of justice and mercy. The thesis of the Old Testament, and of Hammurabi also, is fundamentally true. The vivid forms in which both expressed that thesis were admirably fitted to impress it upon the mind of early man. [Sidenote: _Method in which Hebrew law grew_] The early Israelitish theory of the origin, of law provided fully for expansion and development to meet the new and changed conditions of later periods. Whenever a new question presented itself, it could be referred to Jehovah's representatives, the priests and prophets; and their _torah_, or response, would forthwith become the basis for the new law. Malachi ii. 6,7 clearly defines this significant element in the growth, of Israel's legal codes: _the torah of truth was in the mouth of the priest... and the people should seek the torah at his mouth._ Similarly Haggai commands the people to ask a _torah_ from the priests in regard to a certain question of ceremonial cleanliness (ii, 11). Until a very late period in Israelitish history, the belief was universal that Jehovah was ever giving new decisions and laws through his priests and prophets, and therefore that the law itself was constantly being expanded and developed. This belief is in perfect accord with all historical analogies and with the testimony of the Old Testament histories and laws themselves. Not until the days of the latest editors did the tendency to project the Old Testament laws back to the beginning of Israel's history gain the ascendency and leave its impression upon the Pentateuch. Even then there was no thought of attributing the literary authorship of all of these laws to Moses. This was the work of still later Jewish tradition. [Sidenote: _Moses' relation to Israelitish law_] The earliest Old Testament narratives indicate clearly the real historical basis of the familiar later tradition, and vindicate and help us in the effort to define the title, _Law of Moses_. The early Ephraimite narratives describe Moses as a prophet rather than as a mere lawgiver. In Exodus xviii. they give us a vivid picture of his activity as judge. To him the people came in crowds, with their cases, _to inquire of God_ (15). In 16, to his father-in-law Jethro, he states: _whenever they have a matter of dispute they come to me, that I may decide which of the two is right, and make known the statutes of God and his decisions (tôrôth)_. Jethro then advises him to appoint reliable men, gifted with a high sense of justice, to decide minor cases, while he reserves for himself the difficult questions involving new principles. The origin and theory of Israel's early laws are vividly presented in Jethro's words to Moses in verses 19, 20: _You be the people's advocate with God, and bring the cases to God, and you make known to them the statutes and the decisions, and show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do._ [Sidenote: _Historical basis of the tradition of Mosaic authorship_] It appears from these and other passages that Moses' traditional title as the father of Israelitish legislation is well established. As a prophet, he proclaimed certain fundamental principles that became the basis of all later codes. As a judge, he rendered decisions that soon grew into customary laws. As a leader and organizer, he laid the foundations of the later political and institutional growth of the nation. Furthermore, it is probable that he taught the people certain simple commands which became the nucleus of all later legislation. Naturally and properly, as oral laws subsequently grew up and were finally committed to writing, they were attributed to him. Later, when these laws were collected and codified, they were still designated as _Mosaic_, even, though the authors of these codes added many contemporary enactments to the earlier laws. Thus the traditions, as well as the theory, of Israelitish law fortunately raised no barrier against its normal growth. It was not until the late Jewish period, when the tradition became rigid and unnatural, that the rabbis, in order to establish the authority of contemporary laws, were forced to resort to the grotesque legal fictions which appear in the Talmud. [Sidenote: _Evidences that the earliest laws were oral_] The earliest Hebrew laws, like the traditions, were apparently long transmitted in oral form. The simple life of the desert and early Canaan required no written records. Custom and memory preserved all the laws that were needed. Also, as we have seen, before the Hebrews came into contact with the Canaanites and Phoenicians, they do not seem to have developed the literary art. Instead, they cast their important commands and laws into the form of pentads and decalogues. The practical aim seems to have been to aid the memory by associating a brief law with each finger of the two hands. The system was both simple and effective. It also points clearly to a period of oral rather than written transmission. [Sidenote: _The earliest Hebrew laws_] The nucleus of all Israelitish law appears to have been a simple decalogue, which gave the terms of the original covenant between Jehovah and his people, and definitely stated the obligations they must discharge if they would retain his favor. The oldest version of this decalogue is now embedded in the early Judean narrative of Exodus xxxiv. There is considerable evidence, however, that it once stood immediately after the Judean account of Jehovah's revelation of himself at Sinai, and was transposed to its present position in order to give place for the later and nobler prophetic decalogue of Exodus xx. 1-17. Its antiquity and importance are also evidenced by the fact that it has received many later introductory, explanatory, and hortatory notes. Exodus xxxiy. 28 preserves the memory that it originally consisted of simply ten words. The slightly variant version of these original ten words Is also found in Exodus xx. 23, xxiii. 12, 15, 16, 18, 29, 30. Furthermore, it probably once occupied a central position in the corresponding Northern Israelltish account of the covenant at Sinai. [Sidenote: _The oldest decalogue_] With the aid of these two different versions, that of the North and that of the South, it is possible to restore approximately the common original: I. Thou shalt worship no other God. II. Thou shalt make no molten gods, III. Thou shalt observe the feast of unleaven bread. IV. Every first-born is mine. V. Six days shalt thou toil, but on the seventh thou shalt rest. VI. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks and ingathering at the end of the year, VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven. VIII. The fat of my feast shall not be left until morning. IX. The best of the first-fruits of thy land shalt thou bring to the house of Jehovah. X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. [Sidenote: _Its date_] These laws bear on their face the evidence of their primitive date and origin. They define religion not in the terms of life, as does the familiar prophetic decalogue of Exodus xx., but, like the old Babylonian religion, in the terms of the ritual. Loyalty to Jehovah, as the God of the nation, and fidelity to the demands of the cult is their watchword. Their antiquity and the central position they occupy in Old Testament legislation are shown further by the fact that all of them are again quoted in other codes, and most of them four or five times in the Old Testament. Three of them apply to agricultural life; but agriculture is not entirely unknown to the nomadic life of the wilderness. Possibly in their present form certain of these commands have been adapted to conditions in Canaan, but the majority reflect the earliest stages in Hebrew history. In all probability the decalogue in its original form came from Moses, as the earliest traditions assert, although comparative Semitic religion demonstrates that many of the institutions here reflected long antedated the days of the great leader. [Sidenote: _The_ Judgements _of Exodus xxi., xxii_] Although in part contemporary, the next stage in the development of Israelitish law is represented by the civil, social, and humane decalogues in Exodus xx. 28 to xxiii. 19. The best preserved group is found in xxi.1 to xxii.20, and bears the title _Judgments_, which recalls Hammurabi's title to his code, The _Judgments_ of Righteousness. Like this great Babylonian code, the Hebrew _Judgments_ deal with civil and social cases, and are usually introduced by the formula, _If so and so_, followed by the penalty or decision to be rendered. They are evidently intended primarily for the guidance of judges. The parallels with the code of Hammurabi are many, both in theme, form, and penalty, although there is no conclusive evidence that the Hebrew borrowed directly from the older Babylonian. Undoubtedly many of the striking points of resemblance are due simply to common Semitic ideas and institutions and to the recurrence of similar questions. But on the whole, the Hebrew laws place a higher estimate on life and less on property. They reflect also a simpler type of civilization than the Babylonian. [Sidenote: _Their arrangement and contents_] When three or four obviously later additions have been removed, the _Judgments_ are found to consist of five decalogues, each divided into two pentads which deal with different phases of the same general subject. They are as follows: _First Decalogue: The Rights of Slaves._ First Pentad: Males, Ex. xxi. 2,3a, 3b, 4,5-6. Second Pentad: Females, xxi. 7, 8, 9,10, 11. _Second Decalogue: Assaults._ First Pentad: Capital Offences, xxi. 12, 13,14, 15, 16. Second Pentad: Minor Offences, xxi. 18-19, 20, 21, 26, 27. _Third Decalogue: Laws regarding Domestic Animals._ First Pentad: Injuries by Animals, xxi. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Second Pentad: Injuries to Animals, xxi. 33-34, 35, 36; xxii. 1,4. _Fourth Decalogue: Responsibility for Property._ First Pentad: In General, xxii. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Second Pentad: In Cattle, xxii. 10-11, 13, 14, l5a, I5b. _Fifth Decalogue: Social Purity._ First Pentad: Adultery, Deut. xxii. 13-19, 20-21, 22, 23-24, 25-27. Second Pentad: Fornication and Apostasy, Ex. xxii. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. [Sidenote: _Their date_] Many of these laws anticipate the settled agricultural conditions of Palestine. Society, however, is very simple. The decalogue and peatad form also points clearly to an early period, when the laws were transmitted orally. Many of the laws probably came from the days of the wilderness wandering, and therefore go back to the age of Moses, in some cases much earlier, as is shown by close analogies with the code of Hammurabi. Although in their present written form these oral _Judgments_ bear the marks of the Northern Israelitish prophetic writers who have preserved them, the majority, if not all, may with confidence be assigned to the days of David and Solomon. [Sidenote: _The early humane and ceremonial laws_] The remaining verses of Exodus xx. 23 to xxiii. 19, contain, groups of humane and ceremonial laws. In the process of transmission they have been somewhat disarranged, but, with the aid of the fuller duplicate versions in Deuteronomy, four complete decalogues can be restored and part of a fifth. The following analysis will suggest their general character and contents: HUMANE AND CEREMONIAL LAWS _First Decalogue: Kindness._ First Pentad: Towards Men, Ex. xxii. 2la, 22-23, 25a, 25b, 26-27. Second Pentad; Towards Animals, Ex, xxiii. 4 [Deut. xxii. 1], Deut. xxii. 2, 3; Ex. xxiii. 5 [Deut. xxii. 4], Deut. xxii. 6-7. _Second Decalogue: Justice_. First Pentad: Among Equals, Ex. xxiii. 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3. Second Pentad: On the Part of those in Authority, xxiii, 6, 7a, 7b, 7c, 8. _Third Decalogue: Duties to God._ First Pentad: Worship, Ex. xx. 23a, 23b, 24, 25, 26. Second Pentad: Loyalty, Ex. xxii. 28, 29a, 29b, 30, 31. _Fourth Decalogue: Sacred Seasons._ First Pentad: Command to Observe them, xxiii. 10-11, 12, l5a, 16a, 16b. Second Pentad: Method of Observing them, xxiii, 17, 18a, 18b, 19a, 19b. [Sidenote: _Period represented by the primitive codes_] Here the primitive ceremonial decalogue has been expanded into the third and fourth group given above. Like the _Judgments_, these decalogues bear testimony to their northern origin, and probably they also have had much the same history, although their relation to the primitive decalogue and the fact that they are prefixed and added to the solid group of _Judgments_, would seem to indicate that they were somewhat later. These two collections, together with their older prototype, the ancient decalogue, represent the growth of Israel's laws during the four centuries beginning with Moses and extending to about 800 B. C. To distinguish them from later collections they may be designated as the _Primitive Codes_. [Sidenote: _The need for new laws_] The eighth and seventh centuries before Christ which brought to the Hebrews great crises and revolutionary changes in both their political and religious life, witnessed the epoch-making work of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. This remarkable group of prophets proclaimed so many new principles that a fundamental revision and expansion of Israel's primitive codes became necessary in order to adapt the latter to the new needs of the age. The reactionary reign of Manasseh had also brought out plainly the contrast between the older heathen cults, still cherished by the people, and the exalted ideals of the true prophets. If the prophetic teachings were to become operative in the life of the nation, it was also seen that they must be expressed in concrete legal enactments, which could be universally understood and definitely enforced. [Sidenote: _Application of prophetic principles in the life of the people_] Accordingly, a group of prophets, disciples of the older masters, and inspired by the spirit of reform, devoted themselves to this all-important task. The results of their work are represented by the prophetic law-book of Deuteronomy. Through its pages glow the new ethical teachings of the prophets of the Assyrian period. The elements of Hosea's doctrine, love to God and love to men and kindness to the needy and oppressed, in their new setting and application, make it one of the evangels of the Old Testament. Its lofty standards of justice and social responsibility reflect the impassioned addresses of Amos and Hosea. Since the new laws, as a whole, represented the practical application of the messages of the prophets to life, they were justly and appropriately placed in the mouth of Moses, the real and traditional head of the nation and of the prophetic order. [Sidenote: _Relation to the older laws_] A comparison of this prophetic law-book with the older primitive laws shows that the latter were made the basis of the new codes, since most of them, in revised form, are also found in Deuteronomy. The prophetic lawmakers, however, in the same spirit that actuated Jesus in his attitude toward the ancient law, freely modified, supplemented, and in some cases substituted for the primitive enactments, laws that more perfectly embodied the later revelation. [Sidenote: _Promulgation and date of the prophetic codes_] The nature of the reforms instituted by Josiah, according to II Kings xxii., clearly prove that the laws which inspired them were those of Deuteronomy, and that this was the law-book discovered in the temple by Hilkiah the priest and publicly read and promulgated by the king in 621 B.C. Originally it was probably prepared by the prophetic reformers as a basis for their work; but it incorporates not only most of the primitive codes, but also many other ancient laws and groups of laws, some doubtless coming from the earliest periods of Israel's history. It also appears to have been further supplemented after the reformation of Josiah. In general it represents the second great stage in Old Testament law, as it rapidly developed between 800 and 600 B.C. under the inspiring preaching of the remarkable prophets of the Assyrian period. [Sidenote: _Their historical and permanent value_] These laws represent, in many ways, the high-water mark of Old Testament legislation. Every effort is made to eliminate that which experience had proved to be imperfect in the older laws and customs. The chief aim is to protect the rights of the wronged and dependent. The appeal throughout is not to the fear of punishment--in a large number of laws no penalty is suggested--but to the individual conscience. Not merely formal worship is demanded, but a love to God so personal that it dominates the individual heart and soul and finds expression through energies completely devoted to his service. These laws required strict justice, but more than that, mercy and practical charity toward the weak and needy and afflicted. Even the toiling ox and the helpless mother-bird and her young are not beyond the kin of these wonderful laws. Under their benign influence the divine principles of the prophets began to mould directly the character and life of the Israelitish race. The man who lives in accord with their spirit and injunctions to-day finds himself on the straight and narrow way, hallowed by the feet of the Master. IX INFLUENCES THAT GAVE RISE TO THE PRIESTLY LAWS AND HISTORIES [Sidenote: _Influences in the exile that produced written ceremonial laws_] The Babylonian exile gave a great opportunity and incentive to the further development of written law. While the temple stood, the ceremonial rites and customs received constant illustration, and were transmitted directly from father to son in the priestly families. Hence, there was little need of writing them down. But when most of the priests were carried captive to Babylonia, as in 597 B.C., and ten years later the temple was laid in ruins and all sacrifice and ceremonial worship suddenly ceased, written records at once became indispensable, if the customs and rules of Israel's ritual were to be preserved. The integrity and future of the scattered Israelitish race also largely depended upon keeping alive their distinctive traditions. Torn from their altars, the exiled priests not only had a strong incentive, but likewise the leisure, to write. The ritualistic zeal of their Babylonian masters doubtless further inspired them. The result was, that during the Babylonian exile and the following century most of the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament appear to have been first committed to writing. [Sidenote: _Ezekiel's Code_] Even Ezekiel, the prophet of the early exile, yielded to the influence of his early priestly training and the needs of the situation. In 572 he issued the unique code found in chapters xl.-xlviii. of his prophecy. It provides for the rebuilding of the temple, and defines the duties of its different officials and the form of ritual that is to be observed. The whole is intended primarily to emphasize, through the arrangement of the sanctuary and the forms of the ceremonial, the transcendent holiness of Jehovah. Ezekiel also proclaims, through this elaborate program for the restored community, the certainty that the exiles would be allowed to return and rebuild the temple. He evidently reproduces many of the proportions and regulations of the first temple, but, with the same freedom that characterizes the authors of the Deuteronomic codes, he unhesitatingly sets aside earlier usages where something better has been revealed. [Sidenote: _Genesis and character of the Holiness Code_] Ezekiel's code was never fully adopted by the later Jews, for much of it was symbolic rather than practical; but it powerfully influenced subsequent lawmakers, and was indicative of the dominant tendency of the day. Even before he issued his code, some like-minded priest had collected and arranged an important group of laws, which appear to have been familiar to Ezekiel himself. They are found in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and have felicitously been designated as the _Holiness Code_, because they constantly emphasize the holiness of Jehovah and the necessity of the people's being holy in thought and act. In chapters xvii.-xix. most of the original laws are still arranged in the decalogue and pentad form. This strong evidence that they had been transmitted by word of mouth from a much earlier period is supported by their contents. They resemble and supplement the primitive laws of Exodus xx. 23 to xxiii. 19. Many of them probably came from the early periods of Israelitish history. Most of the laws, like those of the prophetic codes in Deuteronomy, are ethical and humane rather than ceremonial. The code, as a whole, is a remarkable combination of prophetic and priestly teaching. It marks the transition from the age of the prophets, represented by Deuteronomy, to that of the priests and ritual, represented by the priestly codes proper. Like every important early collection of laws, It also has been much supplemented by later editors; the original Holiness Code, however, may be given a date soon after the first captivity in 597 B.C. [Sidenote: _The priestly codes_] The influences represented by Ezekiel and the Holiness Code have given us the remaining laws of the Old Testament. These are found in Leviticus i-xvi., xxviii., and, excepting Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv., in the legal sections of Exodus and Numbers. They deal almost entirely with such ceremonial subjects, as the forms and rules of sacrifice, the observation of the annual religious festivals, and the rights and duties of priests. Many of them incorporated laws and customs as old or older than the days of Moses. An early and important group, technically known as the Priestly teaching (Lev. i.-iii., v.-vii., xi.-xv.; Num. v., vi., xv., xix. 14-22), is repeatedly designated as _the torah of the burnt-offering_ (Lev. vi. 9), or _the torah of the meal-offering_ (vi, 14), or _the torah of the unclean and clean beast or bird_ (xi. 46, 47). It is evidently based upon the _toroth_, or decisions, rendered by the priests concerning the various ceremonial questions thus treated. The recurring phrase, _according to the ordinance_, probably refers to the fixed usage observed in connection with the first temple. [Sidenote: _Their date_] The atmosphere and point of view of these priestly laws as a whole are the exilic and post-exilic periods. The ritual has become much more elaborate, the position of the priests much more prominent, and their income far greater than before the exile. The distinction between priest and Levite, which was not recognized before the exile, is clearly defined. The annual feasts have increased, and their old joyous character has largely disappeared under the dark shadow of the exile. Sin-offerings, guilt-offerings, trespass-offerings, and the day of atonement (practically unknown before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.) reflect the spirit of the later Judaism which sought to win Jehovah's favor by its many sacrifices. Within these priestly codes there is also evidence of development. The older collections, such as the priestly teachings, were probably made early in the Babylonian exile. Others represent the gradual expansion and supplementing of these older groups, the process apparently continuing until the days of Nehemiah and Ezra. The whole, therefore, is the fruit of the remarkable priestly literary activity between 600 and 400 B.C., and possibly extending even later. [Sidenote: _Adoption of the priestly law about 400 B.C._] The Jewish community which Nehemiah found in Palestine was still living under the Deuteronomic law, and apparently knew nothing of the very different demands of the priestly codes. His reform measures recorded in Nehemiah v. and xiii., as well as his effective work in repairing the walls, prepared the way for the sweeping innovations which followed the public acceptance of the new law-book, brought according to tradition by Ezra. Five out of the eight regulations specified by the oath then taken by the leaders of the nation (Neh. x. 30-39) are found only in the priestly codes; one of them, indeed, is not presented elsewhere in the Old Testament. Henceforth the life of the Jewish race is moulded by these later codes. It is, therefore, safe to conclude that they constituted the essence of the new law-book solemnly adopted by the Jewish community as its guide somewhere about 400 B.C. [Sidenote: _Aim and characteristics of the priestly narratives_] Inasmuch as the interest of the priests centred in ceremonial institutions and the history of the law rather than about individuals and politics, it was natural that they also should write their own history of the race. Their general purpose was to give an introduction and setting to their laws. As might be anticipated, this priestly history incorporates the traditions of the late priestly school, and therefore those current long centuries after the events recorded transpired. As in the case of the prophetic narratives, the aim is not primarily historical, but doctrinal. The peculiar vocabulary, language, and theological conceptions are those which distinguish the post-exilic priestly editors of the latest Old Testament laws. [Sidenote: _Their sketch of the earlier history_] Their history begins with the majestic account of creation in Genesis i. 1 to ii. 4a. God does not form man from the dust, as in the primitive prophetic account, but by a simple word of command; and by progressive acts of creation he realizes his perfect plan, which culminates in the creation of mankind. The literary style is that of a legalist: formal, precise, repetitious, and generic. The ultimate aim of the narrative is to trace the origin of the institution of the Sabbath back to the creation. The genealogical history of Genesis v. connects this account of creation with the priestly version of the flood story which leads up to the covenant with Noah. The priestly genealogical histories of Genesis x. and xi. 10-27 trace the ancestry of the Hebrews through Abraham. Regarding this patriarch these later historians present only a brief sketch; in Genesis xvii., however, they expand their narrative to give in detail the origin of the rite of circumcision, which they associate with him. Jacob is to them chiefly of interest as the father of the ten tribes. [Sidenote: _from Egypt to Canaan_] The history of the experiences of the Hebrews in Egypt is briefly outlined as the prelude to the traditional institution of the feast of the passover. Sinai, however, is the great goal of the priestly narratives, for about it they group all their laws. It is their concrete method of proclaiming the antiquity and divine origin of Israelitish legislation. The period of the wilderness wandering is also made the background of many important legal precedents. The priestly history concludes with an account of the conquest of Canaan and the allotment of the territory to the different tribes. [Sidenote: _The lack of historical perspective_] In these late priestly narratives the historical perspective is sometimes considerably shortened and sometimes lengthened. Moreover, their representation often differs widely from that of the parallel but much earlier prophetic histories. The original traditions have also assumed larger proportions, and the supernatural element is much more prominent. This is evidently the result of long transmission, in an age that had largely lost the historic sense, and among the priestly exiles, who were far removed from the real life of Palestine. [Sidenote: _Variations between the older and later narratives_.] The wide variations between the older prophetic and late priestly accounts of the same events might be illustrated by scores of examples. The following parallel account of the exodus will suffice: [Sidenote: _Early Judean Prophetic Account_] Ex. xiv. l9b. Then the pillar of cloud changed its position from before them and stood behind them. (20b) And the cloud lighted up the night; yet throughout the entire night the one _army_ did not come near the other. (21b) And Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the bed of the sea dry. (24b) And it came to pass in the watch before the dawn that Jehovah looked forth through the pillar of fire and of cloud upon the host of the Egyptians, (25) and he bound their horsemen. [Sidenote: _Late Priestly Account of the Exodus_] (21a, c) Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the waters were divided, (22) so that the Israelites went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground; and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (23b) And the Egyptians went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. (26) Then Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their chariot wheels, so that they proceeded with difficulty. Then the Egyptians said, Let us flee from before Israel; for Jehovah fighteth for them against the Egyptians. (27b) But the sea returned to its ordinary level toward morning, while the Egyptians were flying before it. And Jehovah shook off the Egyptians into the midst of the sea, (28b) so that not one of them remained. (30) Thus Jehovah saved Israel that day out of the power of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. (27a) So Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, (28a) and the waters returned and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, even all the host of Pharaoh that went in after them into the sea. (29) But the Israelites walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand, and on their left. [Footnote: "Student's Old Testament," Vol. I., 175, 176.] [Sidenote: _Inferior historical value of the priestly narratives_] No one can doubt for a moment that the older, simpler, and more natural version is, from the historical point of view, the more accurate. The normal man to-day has outgrown the craving for the grotesquely supernatural. The omnipotent, omniscient, loving Creator, who reveals himself through the growing flower, commands our admiration as fully as a God who speaks through the unusual and extraordinary. Everything is possible with God, and the man is blind indeed who would deny the Infinite Being, who is all and in all, the ability to pass beyond the bounds of that which we, with our extremely limited vision, have designated as natural. The real question is, How did God see fit to accomplish his ends? Our judicial and historical sense unhesitatingly inclines to the older and simpler narratives as containing the true answer. In distinguishing these different strands of narrative, it must be acknowledged that modern biblical scholarship has performed a service invaluable alike to the student of literature, of history, and of revelation. [Sidenote: _Recognition of their defects and real value_] In passing, it is instructive to note that, almost without exception, Ingersoll's once famous examples of the mistakes of Moses were drawn from the priestly narratives. It is safe to predict that had that learned jurist been introduced, when a boy, to the Old Testament, as revealed in modern light, he would have enjoyed a very different popular fame. In the divine economy, however, even the sledge-hammer of ridicule may play an important rôle in shattering false claims and the untenable theories which obscure the real truth. It is wholesome to apply the principle of relative values to the Bible, since one cannot fully appreciate the best without recognizing that which is inferior. These priestly narratives come from a school which, in its reverence for the form and the letter, had began to lose sight of the vital and spiritual. Its still later product is that ritualistic Judaism which stands in such unfavorable contrast to the perfected spiritual revelation which came through Jesus. At the same time, the recognition of the defects of the late priestly school should not deter us from appreciating the rich religious teaching of a narrative like the first chapter of Genesis, nor from accepting its great message, namely, that through all natural phenomena and history God is revealing and perfecting his gracious purpose. [Sidenote: _The ecclesiastical history of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah_] The long ecclesiastical history found in I and II Chronicles and the original sequel of these books, Ezra and Nehemiah, were written from the same general point of view as the late priestly narratives, but in a much later period. The same peculiar literary style and conceptions, which recur throughout these four books, show clearly that they are from one author and age. Since they trace the history to the beginning of the Greek period and speak of the kings and events of the Persian period as if they belonged to the distant past, it is evident that the anonymous author, who is usually designated as the Chronicler, lived after the conquests of Alexander. The internal evidence all points to the middle of the third century before Christ as the date of their composition. [Sidenote: _Its general point of view_] From the author's evident interest in the ritual of the temple, and especially its song service, it would appear that he belonged to one of the guilds of temple singers that became prominent in the post-exilic period. His history centres about the sanctuary and its services. Since Judah, not Israel, is the land of the temple, Northern Israel is almost completely ignored. Like the late priestly historians, his chief aim is to trace the origin of the ceremonial institutions back to the beginnings of Hebrew history. Thus he represents the song service and the guilds of singers as having been established in the days of David. Living as he did under the glamour of the great Persian and Greek empires, he, in common with his contemporaries, idealized the past glories of his race. As we compare his versions of early events with the older parallel accounts of Samuel and Kings, we find that iron has become gold, and hundreds have become thousands, and defeats are transformed into victories. No mention is made of the crimes of such kings as David and Solomon, since they are venerated profoundly as the founders of the temple. [Sidenote: _Sources of I and II Chronicles_] The basis of I and II Chronicles is the prophetic history of Samuel and Kings; from these the author quotes _verbatim_ chapter after chapter, according as their contents are adapted to his purpose. This groundwork he supplements by introducing the priestly traditions current in his own day. Possibly he quotes also from certain somewhat earlier written collections of traditions, for to those, following the example of the author of Kings, he frequently refers his readers for further information. In some cases these later traditions may have preserved authentic, supplemental data; but when the representation of Chronicles differs, as it frequently does, from that of Samuel and Kings, the older and more sober prophetic history is undoubtedly to be followed. [Sidenote: _The older sources quoted in Ezra-Nehemiah_] In Ezra and Nehemiah the author has preserved some exceedingly valuable historical material, for he has quoted, fortunately, long sections from two or three older sources. Oae is the document in Ezra iv. 7 to vi. 14, the original Aramaic of which is retained. This appears to have been a temple record, dating from the middle or latter part of the Persian period, and tells of the interruption of the temple building in the days of Darius and the finding of the original decree of Cyrus sanctioning the restoration of the shrine of Jerusalem. Still more important is the wonderful memoir of Nehemiah quoted in Nehemiah i., ii., iv. to vii. 5, xii. 31, 32, 37-40, and xiii. 4-31. Here we are able to study the events of an exceedingly important period through the eyes of the man who, by his able and self-sacrificing efforts, did more than any one else to develop and shape later Judaism. Less important, yet suggestive, citations are taken from the priestly traditions regarding the work of Ezra. The final editor has apparently rearranged this material in order to give to the work of Ezra the scribe such precedence over that of Nehemiah the layman, as, from his later Levitical point of view, he deemed proper. Restoring what seems to have been the original order (_i.e._, Ezra vii. viii., Neh. vii. 70 to viii. 18; Ezra ix., x.; Neh. ix., x.) and studying it as the sequel of Nehemiah's essential pioneer work, the obscurities of this period begin to disappear and its significant facts to stand out in clear relief. [Sidenote: _Value of the writings of the priestly school_] Thus we find that, quoting largely as he does, from much older sources, the author of this great ecclesiastical history of Judah and the temple has given us, in Ezra and Nehemiah, some exceedingly important historical data. His writings also clearly reveal the ideas and institutions of his own day; but otherwise it is not as history that his work is of permanent value. Rather it is because, in common with all the great teachers who speak to us through the Old Testament, he believed firmly in the moral order of the universe, and that back of all events and all history is an infinitely powerful yet just and merciful God who is constantly revealing himself to mankind. While these later priestly writers were not in such close touch with fact and life as were the prophets, and while they were subject to the defects of all extreme ritualists and theologians, they were faithful heralds of truth to their own and later generations. Behind their symbolism and traditions lie certain great universal principles which amply reward an earnest quest. X THE HEBREW SAGES AND THEIR PROVERBS [Sidenote: _Rôle of the sages in Israel's life_] In the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer. xviii. 18; Ezek. vii. 26) three distinct classes of religious teachers were recognized by the people: the prophets, the priests, and the wise men or sages. From their lips and pens have come practically all the writings of the Old Testament. Of these three classes the wise men or sages are far less prominent or well known. They wrote no history of Israel, they preached no public sermons, nor do they appear to have been connected with any sanctuaries. Quietly, as private teachers, they appealed to the nation through the consciences and wills of individuals. Proverbs viii. 1-5 reveals their methods: Doth not wisdom cry, And understanding put forth her voice? On the top of high places by the way, Where the paths meet, she standeth; Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, At the coining in at the doors, she crieth aloud: Unto you, O men, I call; And my voice is to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand prudence; And ye fools, be of an understanding heart. At the open spaces beside the city gates, where legal cases were tried, at the intersections of the streets, wherever men congregated, the sages of ancient Israel could be found, ready and eager to instruct or advise the inexperienced and foolish. [Sidenote: _Their functions_] The wise man or sage is a characteristic Oriental figure. First Kings iv. 30 speaks of the far-famed wisdom of the nomadic tribes of northern Arabia and of the wisdom of Egypt. The sage appears to have been the product of the early nomadic Semitic life, in which books were unknown and the practical wisdom gained by experience was treasured in the minds of certain men who were called the wise or sages. In our more complex western life such functions have been distributed among the members of the legal, medical, and clerical professions, but even now, in smaller towns, may be found an Uncle Toby who is the counterpart of the ancient Hebrew sage. To men of this type young and old resort with their private problems, and rarely return without receiving real help and light. In the East, sages are still to be found, usually gray-bearded elders, honored and influential in the tribe or town. [Sidenote: _Source of their knowledge and inspiration_] Of the three classes of Israel's teachers the sages stood in closest touch with the people. They were naturally the father-confessors of the community. Observation was their guide, enlightened common sense their interpreter, and experience their teacher. The great book of human life, which is one of the most important chapters of divine revelation, was thrown open wide before them. The truths that they read there, as their eyes were divinely opened to see it, are recorded in the wisdom books of the Old Testament,--Proverbs, Job, The Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. [Sidenote: _The objects of their attention_] It is significant that neither Israel nor the nation is mentioned in all the wisdom literature, and that man is spoken of thirty-three times in the book of Proverbs alone. Man was the object of their study and teaching; the nation, only as it was made up of individuals. In this respect the sages stand in contrast with the prophets, whose message usually is to the nation. They also have little to say about the ritual or the forms of religion. _To them the fear and knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom_, and its end a normal relation to God, to one's fellowmen, and to life. Their message is directed equally to all mankind. The subjects that command, their attention are of universal interest: the nature and tendencies of man, and his relations and duties to God, to society, to the family, and to himself. Everything that concerns man, whether it be the tilling of the soil, the choice of a wife, the conduct of a lawsuit, or the proper deportment in the presence of a ruler, commands their earnest consideration. [Sidenote: _Their aims not theoretical but practical_] The Hebrew sages, however, were not mere students of human nature or philosophers. Knowledge to them was not an end in itself, but only a means. Their contribution to Israel's life was counsel (Jer. xviii. 18). Their aim was, by the aid of their tried maxims, to so advise the inexperienced, the foolish, indeed, all who needed advice, that they might live the fullest and best lives and successfully attain all worthy ends. While their teaching was distinctively ethical and religious, it was also very practical and utilitarian. As pastors and advisers of the people, they drew their principles and ideals from Israel's prophets, and applied them to the practical, every-day problems of life. It is obvious that without their patient, devoted instruction the preparation of the chosen people for their mission would have been imperfect, and that without a record of their teachings the Old Testament would have been incomplete. [Sidenote: _Their teachings preserved in proverbs_] The proverb was the most characteristic literary form in which the sages treasured and imparted their teachings. Poetical in structure, terse, often figurative or epigrammatic, the proverb was well calculated to arouse individual thought and make a deep impression on the mind. Transmitted from mouth to mouth for many generations, like the popular tradition or law, it lost by attrition all its unnecessary elements, so that, 'like an arrow,' it shot straight to the mark. Based on common human experience, it found a ready response in the heart of man. In this way crystallized experience was transmitted, gathering effectiveness and volume in each succeeding generation. Job viii. 8-10 speaks of this accumulated wisdom handed down from _the former age, that which the fathers have searched out. They shall teach man and inform him, and utter words out of their heart_. Job xv. 18 also refers to that _which wise men have told from their fathers and have not hid it_. A proverb thus orally transmitted not only gains in beauty of form but also in authority, for it is constantly being tested in the laboratory of real life and receives the silent attestation of thousands of men and of many different generations. [Sidenote: _Expansion of the proverb_] When the sages desired to treat a many-sided subject, as, for example, intemperance, they still used proverbs, but combined them into brief gnomic essays (_e. g_., xxiii. 29-85, xxvi. 1-17). Sometimes, to fix the attention of their hearers, they combined two proverbs, so as to produce a paradox, as in Proverbs xxvi. 4, 5: Answer not a fool according to his folly, Lest them also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own conceit. Later they developed the simple gnomic essay into a philosophical drama, of which Job is the classic example, or into a homily, like Ecclesiastes. [Sidenote: _Use of fables and riddles_] Side by side with the proverb, the sages appear from the earliest times to have used the fable also; this is illustrated by the fable of Jotham in Judges ix. 6-21. Of the riddle a famous examples is that of Samson in Judges xiv. 14, 18, which combines rhythm of sound with rhythm of thought and well illustrates the form of the earliest popular Hebrew poetry: Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet, And its answer: If with my heifer you did not plow, You had not solved my riddle now. Proverbs xxx. 15-31 contains a collection of numerical riddles, combined with their answers. [Sidenote: _Traces of proverbs and the work of sages in the Hebrew history_] Proverbs are found in the oldest Hebrew literature. The Midianite kings, awaiting death at the hand of Gideon, cite a popular proverb, _For as the man, so is his strength_. David in his conversation with Saul says, _As runs the proverb, "Out of the wicked cometh forth wickedness"_ (I Sam. xxiv. 13). Frequent references are also found to wise men and women, and examples are given of their prudence and insight Thus Joab, David's iron-hearted commander, brings a wise woman from Tekoa, the later home of the prophet Amos, to aid him in securing the recall of the banished Absalom. By her feigned story she succeeds in working upon the sympathy of the king to such a degree that he commits himself finally to a principle which she at once asks him to apply to the case of his own son (II Sam. xiv. 1-24). [Sidenote: _Basis of Solomon's reputation for wisdom_] The stories told in I Kings iii. 16-28, to illustrate the wisdom of Solomon, suggest the historical basis of the reputation which he enjoyed in the thought of succeeding generations. Such stories also indicate, as do the other early examples of the work of the wise, the conception of wisdom held in that more primitive age. Such wisdom does not necessarily include ethical righteousness or even practical executive ability, for the true Solomon of history was lacking in both; but rather a certain. shrewdness, versatility, and keenness of insight which enable its possessor to discern what is not clearly apparent. First Kings iv. 29-34 contains the later popular tradition of Solomon's wisdom: (29) And God gave Solomon wisdom and insight in plentiful measure, and breadth of mind, even as the sand that is on the seashore, (30) so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the eastern Arabians and all the wisdom of Egypt. (31) For he was wiser than all men: than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. (32) And he uttered three thousand proverbs, and his songs were five thousand. (33) And he spoke of different varieties of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, of birds, of creeping things, and of fishes. (34) And there came some from among all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, deputed by all kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom. [Sidenote: _Reason why all ancient proverbs were attributed to him_] A popular proverb, like a primitive oral law, usually grows out of common human experience, and is gradually formulated and moulded into its final literary form by successive generations. No one man can claim it as his own, and even if he could, the ancient Semitic East, which cared so little about authors' titles, would have quickly forgotten his name. That Solomon did utter certain brilliant aphorisms, embellished by illustrations drawn from animal and plant life, cannot be doubted; and that some of them have been preserved in the book of Proverbs is probable. These facts and the popular tradition that tended to exalt his wisdom clearly explain why all Hebrew proverbs were attributed to him (Prov. i. 1), in the days of the final editing of the book of Proverbs. [Sidenote: _Evidence that Proverbs comes from many different writers_] That our present book of Proverbs is the work of many unknown sages, and consists of a collection of smaller groups coming from different periods, is demonstrated by the superscriptions which recur throughout the book, such as, _These are the proverbs of Solomon_ (x. 1), _These also are the sayings of the wise_ (xxiv. 23), _These are the proverbs of Solomon which the men of_ _Hezekiah king of Judah copied out_ (xxv. 5), _The words of King Lemuel_ (xxxi. 1), The same proverbs also recur In different groups, indicating that originally they were independent collections, gleaned from the same field. When the first collection was made, the title _Proverb of Solomon_ evidently meant a popular maxim handed down from antiquity and therefore naturally attributed to the most famous wise man in Israel's early history. It is an instructive fact that later proverbs, the immediate superscriptions to which plainly state that they come from many different sages, are still called _Proverbs of Solomon;_ it betrays an exact parallel to the similar tendency, apparent in the legal and prophetic literature, to attribute late anonymous writings to earlier authors. This is also further illustrated by such late Jewish books as _The Wisdom of Solomon_ or the _Psalms of Solomon._ [Sidenote: _Testimony of the individual proverbs_] The individual proverbs confirm the general conclusion that they come from many different authors. Those which commend fidelity to one wife and kingly consideration for the rights of subjects, qualities in which Solomon was sadly lacking, do not fit in his mouth. Many are written from the point of view of a subject, and describe what a man should do in the presence of a ruler. Furthermore, the ethical standards upheld are those of prophets who lived and taught long after the days of the Grand Monarch who fascinated his own and succeeding generations by his brilliant wit rather than by his sterling virtues. [Sidenote: _Real nature of Proverbs_] The book of Proverbs is far more than an epitome of his versatile sayings: it represents at least ten centuries of experience divinely guided, but won often through mistakes and bitter disappointments. It contains the many index hands, set up before the eyes of men to point them from error to truth, from folly to right, and from failure to success. Like most of the Old Testament books, it embodies the contributions of many different teachers writing from many different ages and points of view. Their common aim is well expressed by the sage who appended to Proverbs the preface: To acquire wisdom and training, To understand rational discourse, To receive training in wise conduct, In uprightness, justice, and rectitude, To impart discretion to the inexperienced, To the young knowledge and insight; That the wise man may hear and add to his learning, And the man of intelligence gain education, To understand a proverb and a parable, The words of sages and their aphorisms. [Sidenote: _The first edition of Proverbs_] The structure and contents of the book suggest its literary history. Like the New Testament, it appears to have passed through different stages, and to have been supplemented repeatedly by the addition of new collections. The original nucleus is probably found in x. 1 to xxii. 16; this is introduced by the simple superscription, _The Proverbs of Solomon_. The form of the proverb is simple; the atmosphere is joyous, prosperity prevails, virtue is rewarded; a king who loves justice and righteousness is on the throne (xiv. 35, xvi. 10, 12, 13, xx. 8, xxii. 11); the rich, and poor stand in the same relation to each other as in the days of the pre-exile prophets; and the teaching of their prophets--righteousness is more acceptable than sacrifice--is frequently reiterated (xv. 8, xvi. 6, xxi. 3, 27). While this long collection doubtless contains many proverbs antedating even the beginnings of Israel's history and possibly some added later, the indications are that they represent the original edition of the book which the Jews carried with them into the Babylonian exile. This early collection was perhaps made under the inspiring influence of the reign of Josiah. [Sidenote: _Dates of the other collections_] Undoubtedly the remaining collections also contain many very ancient proverbs, but as a whole their literary form and thought is more complex. The descriptions of the kings suggest the Persian and Greek tyrants who ruled over the Jews during the long centuries after the exile (_cf._ xxv. 1-7, xxviii. 2, 12, 15, 28, xxix. 2, 4, 16, xix. 14), The age of the prophets has apparently been succeeded by that of the priest and the law (xxix. 18). Already the Jews have tasted the bitterness of exile (xxvii. 8). There are also certain points of close contact with proverbs of Ben Sira, written about 190 B.C. The sages as a class are very prominent, as in the later centuries before Christ. These and many other indications lead to the conclusion that the different collections were probably made after the exile, and that the noble introduction, i.-ix., and the two chapters in the appendix were not added until some time in the Greek period,--not long before 200 B.C. The date, however, when these proverbs arose and were committed to writing is comparatively unimportant, save as a knowledge of their background aids in their interpretation, and as they, in turn, reveal the life and thought of the persecuted, tempted Jews, whose religious life centred in the second temple. [Sidenote: _Teaching of the Song of Songs_] Probably in the Greek period also a poet-sage collected and wove together certain love and wedding songs of his race. The result was called the Song of Songs, that is, the Peerless Song. According to one interpretation, it presents, in a series of scenes, the heart struggle of a simple country maiden with the promptings of a true, pure love for a shepherd lover and the bewildering attractions of a royal marriage; and true love in the end triumphs. Whatever be the interpretation, it is clear that this exquisite little book, so filled with pictures of nature and simple country life, was intended to emphasize the duty and beauty of fidelity to nature and the promptings of the human heart. This thought is expressed in the powerful passage which seems to voice the central teaching of the poem: Love is strong as death; Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, A very flame of Jehovah. Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can floods drown it: If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, He would utterly be condemned. XI THE WRITINGS OF ISRAEL'S PHILOSOPHERS [Sidenote: _Discussions the problem of evil_] An intense interest in man led certain of Israel's sages in time to devote their attention to more general philosophical problems, such as the moral order of the universe. In the earlier proverbs, prophetic histories, and laws, the doctrine that sin was always punished by suffering or misfortune, and conversely that calamity and misfortune were sure evidence of the guilt of the one affected, had been reiterated until it had become a dogma. In nine out of ten cases this doctrine was true, but in time experience proved that the tenth case might be an exception. While most of the teachers of the race denied or ignored this exception, certain wise men, faithful and unflinching in their analysis of human life, faced the fact that the innocent as well as the guilty sometimes suffer. Their quest for the answer to the eternal question, Why? is recorded in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. [Sidenote: _The primitive story of Job_] The basis of the book of Job Is undoubtedly a primitive story. Traces of a tradition somewhat similar have recently been discovered in the Babylonian-Assyrian literature. The Babylonian treatment of the moral problem that it presents is even more strikingly similar. Ezekiel also refers to a well-known popular Hebrew version of the story of Job (xiv. 14): _though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it_ (the guilty land), _they would deliver simply their own lives their righteousness, saith the Lord Jehovah_ (_cf._ also xiv. 20). Evidently in Ezekiel's day these names represented three ancient worthies, each conspicuous for his superlative piety. The Hebrew word here used also indicates that the righteousness attributed to them was conformity to the demands of the ritual. This agrees closely with the representation of the prose version of the story found in Job i. ii. and xlii. 7-17; here the supreme illustration of Job's piety is that he repeatedly sacrifices burnt-offerings, whenever there is the least possibility that his sons have sinned (i. 4, 5). Also in describing his perfection (i. 1), the same unusual term is employed as in the priestly narrative of Genesis vi. 9, where Noah's righteousness is portrayed. [Sidenote: _Original teaching and application of the prose story_] It seems probable, therefore, that the ancient story of Job was committed to writing by some priest during the Babylonian exile. Since Job and his friends live out on the borders of the Arabian desert to the east or southeast of Palestine, it seems clear that the tradition came to the Hebrews originally from some foreign source; but in the prose form in which we find it in Job, it has been thoroughly naturalized, for Job is a faithful servant of Jehovah and the law. Ignoring for the moment the poetical sections (iii. 1 to xlii. 6), we find that the prose story has a direct, practical message for the broken-hearted exiles, crushed beneath an overpowering calamity. Jehovah is testing his servant people, as he tests Job in the story, to prove whether or not they _fear God for nought_ (i, 9). If they bear the test without complaint, as did Job, all their former possessions will be restored to them in double measure (xlii. 7-17). [Sidenote: _The problem of the poetical sections of Job_] This prose story has apparently been utilized and given a very different interpretation by a later poet-sage in whose ears rang Jeremiah's words of anguish, found in chapter xx. 14-18 of his prophecy (_cf_. Job iii.), and to whose ears came also the cry of the pious voiced in Malachi ii. 17: _Every one who does evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in_ _them. Where is the God of justice_? The old solutions of the problem of evil were being openly discarded. _They who feared Jehovah_ were saying (iii, 13, 14), _It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it to have kept his charge or to have walked in funeral garb before Jehovah of hosts? Even now we must congratulate the arrogant; yea, they who work wickedness are entrenched; yea, they tempt God and escape!_ With a boldness and thoroughness that must have seemed to his contemporaries dangerous and heretical, the great poet-sage presents the problem in all its intensity. [Sidenote: _The role of Job and his friends in presenting the problem_] He adopts the popular story, utilizing it as his prologue and epilogue: but as we pass to chapter iii, the simple, pure Hebrew yields to sublime poetry, shot through with the words and idioms and ideas of a much later age. The designation of God is no longer _Jehovah_ but _El_ or _Eloah_ or _Shaddai_. The character of Job suddenly changes; instead of being the patient, submissive servant of the law, he boldly, almost defiantly, charges God with injustice. The role of the friends also changes, and they figure as champions of the Deity. In their successive speeches they present in detail the current dogmas and the popular explanations of suffering. In his replies Job points out their inapplicability to the supreme problem of which he is the embodiment. The action and progress in this great drama is within the mind of Job himself. By degrees he rises to a clear perception of the fact that he is innocent of any crime commensurate with the overwhelming series of calamities which have overtaken him; and he thus throws off the shackles of the ancient dogma. From the seemingly cruel and unjust God who has brought this undeserved calamity upon him, he then appeals to the Infinite Being who is back of all phenomena. [Sidenote: _The message of the book_] The reply to this appeal, and the author's contribution to the eternal problem of evil, are found in xxxviii. I to xlii. 6. It is not a solution, but through the wonders of the natural world, it is a fuller revelation to the mind of Job, of the omnipotence, the omniscience, the wisdom, and the goodness of God. Even though he cannot discern the reason of his own suffering, he learns to know and to trust the wisdom and love of the Divine Ruler. I had heard of this by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth thee (xlii. 5). [Sidenote: _Teaching the Elihu passage xxxii-xxxvii_] Faith triumphs over doubt, and the problem, though unsolved, sinks into comparative insignificance. Apparently another poet-sage has added, out of the depths of his own experience, his contribution to the problem of suffering in the speeches of Elihu (chapters xxxii-xxxvii). It is that suffering rightly borne becomes a blessing because it is one of God's ways of training his servants. This indeed is an expansion of the explanation urged by Eliphaz in v. 17, _Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth_. While these speeches of Elihu are written in a different literary style and have, in fact, no vital connection with the original poem of Job, they nevertheless contain a great and intensely practical truth; they have rightly found a place in this marvellous book. Similarly the sublime description of wisdom in chapter xxviii. makes good its title; it can, however, be studied best by itself apart from Job's impassioned protestations of his innocence (chapter xxix.). [Sidenote: _Probable history of the book of Job_] Thus the book of Job, like so many other Old Testament writings, has its own literary history. Somewhere and sometime, back in an early Semitic period, there doubtless lived a man, conspicuous for his virtue and prosperity. Upon him fell a misfortune so great and apparently undeserved that it made a deep impression, not only upon his contemporaries, but also upon the minds of later generations. Thus there grew up a common Semitic story of Job which was in time thoroughly naturalized in Israel. Probably a Jewish priest in the exile first committed it to writing in order to assure his fellow-sufferers that could they but be patient and submissive Jehovah would soon restore them to their former prosperity. The painful experiences that came to the Jews, especially to the pious, during the middle and latter part of the Persian period (sometime between 450 and 340 B.C.), convinced a poet- sage that the old interpretations of the meaning of suffering did not suffice. Accordingly into the heart of the familiar story of Job he injected his powerful, impassioned message. Later writers, inspired by his inspiring genius, added their contributions to the solution of the perennial problem. Hence by 200 B.C., at least, the book of Job was probably current in its present form. [Sidenote: _Age and point of view of Ecclesiastes_] The same ever-recurring, insistent questions regarding the moral value and meaning of life led another later wise man to embody the results of his observation and experience in what we now know as the book of Ecclesiastes. Although i. 16 and ii. 7, 9 clearly imply that many kings had already reigned in Jerusalem, the author seems to put his observations in the mouth of Solomon, the acknowledged patron of wisdom teaching. The evidence, however, that the book is one of the latest in the Old Testament is overwhelmingly conclusive. The language is that of an age when Hebrew had long ceased to be spoken. The life mirrored throughout is that of the luxurious, corrupt Greek period. If not directly, at least indirectly, it reflects the doctrines of the Stoics and the Epicureans. It was a crooked, sordid, weary world upon which its author looked. It is not strange that a vein of materialism and pessimism runs through his observations and maxims. _All is vanity_ is the dominant note, and yet light alternates with shadow. He loses faith in human nature; yet he does not give up his faith in God, though that faith is darkened by the desolateness of the outlook. While the book has practical religious teachings, perhaps its chief mission, after all, is vividly to portray the darkness just before the dawn of the belief in a future life and before the glorious rising of the Sun of Righteousness. [Sidenote: _Significance of the later additions_] Its teachings naturally called forth many protests, explanations, and supplements, and these have found the permanent place in the book that they rightfully deserve. Its fragmentary structure and abrupt transitions also made later insertions exceedingly easy. These are the simplest and the most natural explanation of the sharp contradictions that abound in the book (_cf. e.g_., ii. 22 and iii. 22, or iv. 2 and ix. 4, or iii. 16 and iii. 17, or viii. 14 and ix. 2, or iii. 1-9 and iii. 11). The preacher, whose painful experiences and prevailingly pessimistic teachings are the original basis of the book, appears to have been consistent throughout. He ends in xii. 8 with the same refrain, _Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!_ In a divine library like the Old Testament, reflecting every side of human thought and experience, such a book is not inappropriate. Its contradictions provoke thought; they beget also a true appreciation of the positive notes thus brought into dramatic contrast with the ground tones of pessimism which resound through all literature and history. XII THE HISTORY OF THE PSALTER [Sidenote: _Nature of the Psalter_] Corresponding to the book of Proverbs, itself a select library containing Israel's best gnomic literature, is the Psalter, the compendium of the nation's lyrical songs and hymns and prayers. It is the record of the soul experiences of the race. Its language is that of the heart, and its thoughts of common interest to worshipful humanity. It reflects almost every phase of religious feeling: penitence, doubt, remorse, confession, fear, faith, hope, adoration, and praise. Even the unlovely emotion of hatred is frankly expressed in certain of the imprecatory psalms. The Psalms appeal to mankind in every age and land because, being so divine and yet so human, they rest on the foundations of universal experience. Whenever a heart is breaking with sorrow or pulsating with thanksgiving and adoration, its strongest emotions find adequate expression in the simple and yet sublime language of the Psalter. [Sidenote: _Influence of the prophets upon it_] In the familiar doings of Mary and Zacharias, found in the opening chapters of Luke, we may trace the beginnings of the hymn literature of the early Christian Church, a literature which later became one of the Church's most valued possessions. If the canon of the New Testament had been closed in 1000 instead of 400 A.D., its books would doubtless have included a hymnal which would have corresponded closely to the Psalter of the Old. Just as the Psalms represent the application of the great doctrines of the Hebrew prophets in the spiritual life of the community, so this new hymnal would represent the personal application of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles to the religious life of the Church and the individual. The Psalter is also what it is because its background is a period of stress and severe trial. In the hot furnace of affliction and persecution the psalmists learned to appreciate the truths which they so confidently and effectively proclaim. Then the spiritual teachings of the earlier prophets, which were contemptuously rejected by their contemporaries, were at last appropriated by the community. The Psalter as a whole appears, therefore, to be one of the latest and most precious fruits of the divine revelation recorded in the Old Testament. [Sidenote: _Evidence of distinct collections of psalms_] In its present form, the Psalter is divided into five books or collections. At the end of each collection there is a concluding doxology (xli., lxxii., lxxxix., cvi). The last psalm (cl.) serves as a concluding doxology, not only to the fifth collection, but also to the Psalter as a whole. Certain psalms are also reproduced in two different collections with only slight variations. For example, xiv. is practically identical with liii., except that in the first _Jehovah_ is always used as the designation of the Deity, and in liii. _Elohim_ or _God_; again Psalm xl. 13-17 is reproduced in lxx.; lvii. 7-11 and lx. 5-12 are together practically equivalent to cviii. These and kindred facts indicate that the Psalter, like the book of Proverbs, is made up of collections originally distinct. The division into exactly five groups appears to be comparatively late, and to be in imitation of the fivefold division of the Pentateuch. [Sidenote: _The oldest collection_] The genesis of the book of Proverbs is exceedingly helpful in tracing the closely analogous growth of the Psalter. The prevailing form of the superscriptions and the predominant use of the name _Jehovah_ or _Elohim_ also aid in this difficult task. Psalms i. and ii. are introductory to the entire book. Psalms iii-xli. all bear the Davidic superscription and use the designation _Jehovah_ two hundred and seventy-two times, but _Elohim_ only fifteen. The form and contents of these psalms, as well as their position, suggest that they are the oldest collection in the book. In the Greek version all the psalms of the collection found in li-lxxii., excepting Psalm lxvi., which is anonymous, and lxxii., which is attributed to Solomon, have also the Davidic superscription. Although certain subsequent psalms are ascribed to David, as, for example, lxxxvi., ci., and ciii., the close of the collection, is the significant epilogue (lxxii. 20), _the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended._ [Sidenote: _Meaning and value of the superscriptions_ ] Before the approximate date of these collections can be determined the significance of the Davidic title needs interpretation. In the Hebrew version, this title is borne by seventy-three psalms. Two are ascribed to Solomon (lxxii. and cxxvii.), one to Moses (xc.), and twenty-four to the members of the post-exilic guilds of temple singers. The superscriptions of the Greek and Syrian versions contain many variations from those in the Hebrew. This is probably due to the fact that superscriptions are usually added by later scribes in whose minds the question of authorship first became prominent. In earlier Hebrew the phrase commonly translated _Psalm of David_ would more naturally mean a _psalm for David_ or _dedicated_ or _attributed to David._ The latter appears to have been its original significance. Like the title, _Proverbs of Solomon,_ it was used to distinguish an ancient poem, which, being a psalm, was naturally ascribed to David, and to him later Judaism, in common with the New Testament writers, attributed all psalm literature. A detailed study of the superscriptions soon demonstrates that the majority of them represent only the conjectures of scribes who were guided by current traditions or suggestions embodied in the psalms themselves. In this manner, to Solomon, the builder of the temple, is ascribed Psalm cxxvii., because it refers to the building of the house in its opening verse. The Greek version even attributes to David Psalm xcvi., which, it states, was written _when the temple was being built after the captivity._ [Sidenote: _David's relation to the psalter_] Since the superscriptions to the Psalter were only very late additions, the question still remains, What was the basis of the late Jewish tradition that makes David the father of the psalm literature, as was Solomon of the wisdom, Moses of the legal, and Enoch of the apocalyptical? The other Old Testament books give no direct answer. They tell us, however, that the warrior king was skilled in playing the lyre, and we are aware that to this, in antiquity, an improvised accompaniment was usually sung. We also have the account of David's touching elegies over the death of Saul and Jonathan and of Abner (II Sam. i., iii. 33, 34). Moreover, the early historical books vividly portray the faults of David, the limitations which he shared in common with his contemporaries, and his deeply religious spirit; but they leave the question of his relation to the Psalter to be settled by the testimony of the individual psalms. Here the evidence is not conclusive. It is clear that many of the psalms attributed by tradition to him were written in the clearer light of later prophetic teaching and amid very different circumstances from those which surrounded Israel's early king. Still it would be dogmatic to assert that nothing from his lips is to be found in the Psalter; and to point out with assurance those passages and psalms which must be Davidic is quite as unwarrantable. [Sidenote: _Evidence of pre-exilic elements in the Psalter_] The Psalter is clearly the repository of that which was best in the earlier spiritual life and thought of the race. While there are no direct references to songs in connection with the pre-exilic Jewish temple, Amos (v. 23) found them in use at the sanctuary at Bethel; and from Psalm cxxxvii. 3, 4 it would appear that the exiles in Babylonia were acquainted with certain _songs of Zion_ or _songs of Jehovah_. Treasured in the hearts of the people, and attributed, perhaps even by the time of the exile, as a whole to David, they constituted the basis of the earliest collections of psalms, which, as we have noted, practically without exception bear the Davidic superscription. The date of each individual psalm, however, must be determined independently on the basis of its own testimony, although the historical allusions are few and the data in many cases are far from decisive. [Sidenote: _Approximate date of the earliest collections_] Just when the earliest collections, found in iii.-xli. and li.-lxxii., were made is a comparatively unimportant yet difficult question to decide. Probably the rebuilding of the temple in 516 B.C. was one of the great incentives. The example of the Babylonians, who possessed a large and rich psalm literature, may also have exerted an indirect influence. At least it is certain that the guilds of temple singers and the song service became increasingly prominent in the religious life of the Jewish community which grew up about the restored temple. The presence of alphabetical psalms, as, for example, ix., x., xxv., xxxiv., xxxvii., in the earliest collection suggests also the leisure of the exile. The historical background of many of these psalms is clearly the exile and the long period of distress that followed. They voice the experiences of the poor, struggling band of the pious, who, living in the midst of oppressors, found in Jehovah alone their refuge and their joy. Some of these psalms also reflect the prophetic teachings of Jeremiah (_e.g._, xvi., xxxix) and of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. In general their attitude toward sacrifice is that of the prophets: For thou desirest not sacrifice; Else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Religion is defined in the terms of life and acts. Ceremonialism has not yet cast its chilling influence over the heart of the nation. Therefore the earliest collections may, with considerable assurance, be assigned to a date not later than the days of Nehemiah (about 400 B.C.). [Sidenote: _Later collections_] Psalms xlii.-l. and lxxiii-lxxxiii. constitute a collection of Levitical hymns. If we may follow the indications of their superscriptions, they consist of two originally distinct groups, the one, xlii.-xlix., associated with and possibly at first collected and preserved by the post-exilic guild of temple singers, known as the sons of Korah, and the other, l., lxxiii.-lxxxiii., similarly attributed to Asaph, the guild of temple singers, mentioned first in the writings of the Greek period. In these two groups the priests and Levites and the liturgy are prominent. Psalms lxxxiv.-lxxxix. constitute a short Levitical supplement. The remainder of the Psalter is also made up of originally smaller collections, as, for example, the Psalms of Ascent or the Pilgrim Psalms (cxx.-cxxxiv.), and the Hallelujah Psalms (cxi.-cxiii. and cxlvi.-cl.). Some of the latter come perhaps from the Jews of the dispersion. Each collection appears to represent a fresh gleaning of the same or slightly different fields, incorporating ancient with contemporary psalms, and, as has been noted, not infrequently including some already found in earlier collections. [Sidenote: _Completion of the Psalter_] Certain of the psalms, such as lxxiv., lxxix., lxxxiii., seem clearly to reflect the horrors of the Maccabean struggle (169-165 B.C.). Later Jewish literature bears testimony that in the last two centuries before Christ psalm writing increased rather than decreased (_cf. e.g._, Psalms of Solomon). Certainly the experiences through which the Jews passed during the middle of the second century were of a nature to evoke psalms similar to those in the Psalter. The probabilities, therefore, are that the Psalter, in its final form, is, like the book of Daniel, one of the latest writings in the Old Testament. It was possibly during the prosperous reign of Simon, when the temple service was enriched and established on a new basis, that its canon was finally closed. [Sidenote: _The book of Lamentations_] The fact that they all gather about a definite event in Israel's history, and probably antedate the majority of the psalms in the Psalter, explains why the little collection of lyrical poems, known as the book of Lamentations, never found a place beside the kindred psalms (_e.g._, Pss. xlii., xliii) in the larger book. Their theme is the Babylonian exile and the horrors and distress that it brought to the scattered members of the Jewish race. Their aim is prophetic, that is, to point out and confess the guilt of the nation and its dire consequences. They reflect the teachings of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel. While it is not strange that later tradition attributed the collection to the first of these prophets, its contents do not support the conjecture. Four out of the five poems are alphabetical, and distinctly different points of view are represented. Chapters ii. and iv. probably come from the middle of the Babylonian exile, and to the remainder must be assigned a still later period. [Sidenote: _The national and individual element in the Psalter_] The Psalter, with its natural appendix, the book of Lamentations, was the song and prayer book of the Jewish community. A majority of the psalms, and especially those in the latter part of the book, were doubtless originally intended for liturgical use. Many, particularly where the first person singular is used, are to be interpreted collectively, for here, as often in the book of Lamentations, the psalmist is speaking in behalf of the community. Others have been adapted to liturgical ends. But in the final analysis it is the experience and emotions of the individual soul that find expression throughout all the psalms. Since these experiences and emotions were shared in common by all right-minded members of the community, it was natural that they should in time be employed in the liturgy. [Sidenote: _E pluribus unum_] Again, as we review the history of the Psalter, we are impressed with the many sides of Israel's life and human experience that it represents. Not one, but perhaps fifty or a hundred, inspired souls, laymen, prophets, priests, sages, kings, and warriors, have each clothed the divine truth that came to them or to their generation in exquisite language and imagery, and given it thus to their race and humanity. Successive editors have collected and combined the noblest of these psalms, and the Psalter is the result. The exact date of each psalmist and editor is comparatively unimportant, for though differing widely in origin and theme, they are all bound together by a common purpose and a common belief in the reality and the immediate presence of God. All nature and history and life are to them but the manifestation of his justice and mercy and love. In direct communion with the God whom they personally knew, they found the consolation and peace and joy that passeth all understanding, even though the heathen raged and their foes plundered and taunted them. To that same haven of rest they still pilot the world's storm-tossed mariners. XIII THE FORMATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON [Sidenote: _Israel's literature at the beginning of the fourth century before Christ_] Could we have studied the scriptures of the Israelitish race about 400 B.C., we should have classified them under four great divisions: (1) The prophetic writings, represented by the combined early Judean, Ephraimite, and late prophetic or Deuteronomic narratives, and their continuation in Samuel and Kings, together with the earlier and exilic prophecies; (2) the legal, represented by the majority of the Old Testament laws, combined with the late priestly history; (3) the wisdom, represented by the older small collections of proverbs; (4) the devotional or liturgical, represented by Lamentations and the earlier collections of psalms. [Sidenote: _The combining of the prophetic and priestly histories_] Even before all the Old Testament books were written, the work of canonization began; before the first large canon was adopted, the prophetic and priestly narratives, and with them the earlier and later laws, were combined. This amalgamation was the work of a late priestly editor. The Pentateuch and its immediate sequel, Joshua, is the result. [Sidenote: _The method of combining_] A study of these books makes clear the editor's method. Naturally he gave the late priestly versions the precedence. He placed, therefore, its version of the creation first,--a position that it well deserves. Probably as a result of this arrangement the older and more primitive prophetic version of Genesis ii. 4a-25 was somewhat abridged, for it begins with the picture of a level plain, watered by a daily mist, and is immediately followed by the account of the creation of man. Genesis iii. and iv. are taken entirely from the prophetic, and practically all of v. from the priestly, group of narratives. Confronted by two variant versions of the flood, he joined them together into a closely knit narrative; but all the elements of both versions are so faithfully preserved that when they are again separated, behold! the two originally complete and self-consistent versions reappear. The story of Noah, the first vineyard-keeper, in ix. 20-27, is taken entirely from the prophetic history, but in x. two distinct lists of the nations are joined together. All the story of the tower of Babel in xi. 1-9 is from the prophetic, while the genealogical list in the remainder of the chapter is from the priestly history. The patriarchal and subsequent narratives are likewise combined with, the same remarkable skill. [Sidenote: _Later biblical analogies_] Thus the first six Old Testament books were given their final form. The method in general was the same as that followed by the authors of the First and Third Gospels in their use of Matthew's Sayings of Jesus and the original Mark narrative, or by the authors of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles in their citations from the older sources. In his close fusion of three or four parallel narratives the editor's work resembled most closely that of Tatian, who thus combined the four Gospels in his _Diatessaron_. So far as we are able to observe, the final editor of the Hexateuch preserved, like Tatian, most of the material in his older sources, except where a parallel version verbally duplicated another. The prophetic and priestly narratives also followed lines so distinctly different that cases of duplication were comparatively few. [Sidenote: _Deep significance of the work of the later editors_] To the latest editor of the early narratives we owe the preservation of some or the oldest and most valuable sections of the Old Testament. In that age and land of perishable writing materials, the prevailing method of compilation was one of the effective means whereby the important portions of primitive records were handed down in practically their original form. It is well that we are beginning to understand its significance in the realization of the divine purpose. Important beyond words, although often overlooked, were the services of the faithful editors who without the slightest desire for personal glory or reward, other than the perpetuation of truth, carefully selected, condensed, and combined material gleaned from earlier and fuller sources. To them is due the marvellous preservation of our Old Testament, To the honored rôle of the prophets and apostles, therefore, let us add the anonymous redactors. [Sidenote: _Date of the beginning of the cannonization of the Law_] The final editors were the immediate precursors of those who formed the successive canons of the Old Testament. Indeed, between the work of the former and the latter there is no clear line of demarcation. A period shortly after 400 B. c. is the date usually accepted for the work of the final editor of the Pentateuch; the canonization of the law, which included these five books, is dated between 400 and 300 B.C. The real canonization of Israel's laws had, however, begun much earlier. The primitive decalogue, represented by Exodus xxxiv., and probably from the first associated with Moses, appears, in the earliest periods of Israel's history, to have enjoyed a canonical authority. The primitive accounts, in Exodus xix., of the establishment of the covenant by Jehovah with his people mark the real beginning of the process of canonization,--a process, that is, of attributing to certain laws a unique and commanding authority. [Sidenote: _Popular acceptance and promulgation of the earlier codes_] Likewise the successive civil, humane, and ceremonial decalogues appear from the days of the united kingdom to have occupied a similar position. Primarily this was probably due to the fact that each was based upon a divine _torah_ or decision, received from Jehovah through the priestly oracle. The public reading and promulgation of the Deuteronomic laws in the days of Josiah, with the attestation of the prophets and the solemn adoption by the people, was an act of canonization far more formal than the final acceptance of the New Testament writings by the Council of Carthage. [Sidenote: _Adoption of the late priestly law_] The next great stage in the canonization of the law is recorded in Nehemiah x. Then the representatives of the Jewish community _entered into a solemn obligation and took oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe to do all the commands of Jehovah our Lord and his ordinances and his statutes_ (v. 29.) This action appears to be the historical basis of the fanciful and incredible Jewish traditions concerning the work of the Great Synagogue and the authority of Ezra. The new law thus adopted was evidently the one gradually developed and finally formulated by the Jewish priests in Babylonia. It was accepted, as was the earlier Deuteronomic code, because it met the needs and appealed to the moral and religions sense of those by whom it was adopted. [Sidenote: _Acceptance of the completed Torah_] To set completely aside the Deuteronomic lawbook and the primitive decalogue of Exodus xx.-xxiii., already in force among the Jews of Palestine, was impossible and unnecessary. Hence, as we have noted, it was the task of some editor of the next generation to combine these and the earlier prophetic histories with the late priestly law and its accompanying history. Naturally this whole collection was still called the _Torah_ or _Law_ and was at once accepted as canonical by the Jews. This step was also most natural because their interests all centred about the ritual, and for two centuries the dominant tendency had been to exalt the sanctity of the written law. [Sidenote: _Date of the final canonization of the Law_] It is possible to fix approximately the date of this first edition of the Old Testament writings, since the Samaritans adopted and still retain simply the Pentateuch and an abbreviated edition of Joshua as their scriptures. Although Josephus, following a late Jewish tradition, dates the Samaritan schism at about 330 B.C., the contemporary evidence of Nehemiah xiii. 28 suggests that it was not long after 400. It is therefore safe to conclude that by 350 B.C. the first five books of our Old Testament had not only been singled out of the larger literature of the race, but were regarded as possessing a unique sanctity and authority. [Sidenote: _Principles of canonization_] As the name _Law_ suggests, the chief reason for this was the fact that these five books embodied laws long since accepted as binding. The second reason was probably because they were by current tradition ascribed to Moses. The third, and not the least, was, doubtless, because they met the need felt by the community for a unified and authoritative system of laws and for an authentic record of the earlier history of their race, especially that concerning the origin of their beloved institutions. [Sidenote: _Evidence that the Law was first canonized_] The priority of the canon of the law is also proved by the fact that, although it contains some of the later Old Testament writings, it stands first, not only in position but in the esteem of the Jewish race. Furthermore, it became in time the designation of all the Old Testament canonical writings. The term _Law_ is thus used in the New Testament (_e.g._, John x. 34, xii. 34; I Cor. xiv. 21), in the Talmud, and by the rabbis, indicating that the later groups of historical, prophetic, and poetical books were simply regarded as supplements. [Sidenote: _Canonization of the prophetic writings_] The history of the canonization of the next group, known as the _Prophets_, is very obscurely recorded, and this largely because it reached its culmination in the Greek period, concerning which we have only the most meagre information. Here analogy with the history of the New Testament is helpful. The same influences which led the early Christians to add the Epistles and Acts undoubtedly operated upon the minds of the Jews. The Law represented only a limited period in their national and religious history. But the addition of the early prophetic and legal histories to the detailed laws prepared the way for the expansion of the canon. This included first, the four historical books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, with the exception of Ruth. These were designated as the _Former Prophets_. Thus even the later Jews recognized their true character and authorship. The second division of the _Prophets_ included Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve, which contained the minor prophets. [Sidenote: _Evidence that the historico-prophetic books were first added to the Law_] The order of the book and the probabilities of the situation suggest that the _Former Prophets_, since they were the immediate sequel of the prophetic histories of the Pentateuch, and recorded the deeds of such heroes as David, Solomon, and Isaiah, were added first. That they also bear the marks of late priestly revision, is direct evidence of the esteem in which they were held by the late priestly school that completed the canon of the Law. They therefore may have been added as early as 300 B.C. They were certainly known to the author of Chronicles, as his many quotations from them show, although it is difficult to see how he would have felt as free as he does to substitute the testimony of later tradition, if they were regarded as equally sacred with the Law. [Sidenote: _Reverence for the prophetic word_] The reference to the prediction of Jeremiah, in the opening verse of Ezra, suggests the reverence with which the author of Chronicles regarded the words of this prophet. The post-exilic Jews never ceased to revere the prophetic word. The popular belief, current in the Greek period, that the prophets had ceased to speak only deepened their reverence for the teachings of Moses' successors (Deut. xviii. 15-19). The devotion of the later scribes is evinced by the scores of glosses which they have added to the older prophecies. It is manifest, therefore, how strong was the tendency, even in priestly circles, to add the Prophets to the Law. [Sidenote: _Date of completion of the prophetic canon_] The process was probably gradual and perhaps not complete until the Jews had learned fully to appreciate the value of their ancient Scriptures, after martyrs had died for the sacred writings during the Maccabean struggle. Aside from supplements made to older books, as, for example, Zechariah ix.-xiv., the canon of the prophets was probably closed not later than 200 B.C. From direct evidence it is clear that the book of Daniel (written about 165 B.C.) did not find a place in this canon. It is also significant that in the prologue to the Greek version of Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus (132 B.C.) the translator refers repeatedly--as though they were then regarded as of equal authority--to the _Law and the Prophets and the rest of the books_, or to _the other books of the fathers_. But most significant of all, Ben Sira, who wrote about 190 B.C., includes in his list of Israel's heroes (xliv.-l.) not only those mentioned in the _Torah_, but also David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and the chief characters in the _Former Prophets_. Furthermore, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel are introduced in their proper settings, and the panegyric closes with a reference to the twelve prophets collectively, indicating that Ben Sira was also acquainted with the _Latter Prophets_ as a group. [Sidenote: _The beginning of the last stage in the canonization of the Old Testament_] The reference to _the rest of the books_ in the prologue to Ben Sira indicates that even before 130 B.C. certain other writings had been joined to the canon of the Law. Ben Sira himself, to judge from his description of David (_cf_. xlvii. 8, 9, and I Chron. 25), Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Nehemiah, was acquainted with the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Chapter xlvii. 8 apparently contains an allusion to a hymn-book attributed to David. Evidently he was also familiar with the book of Proverbs, including its introductory chapters. Thus we have a glimpse of the beginning of that third stage in the canonization of the Old Testament which, as in the case of the New, continued for fully three centuries. [Sidenote: _Canonization of the Psalter and Lamentations_] The Psalter doubtless passed through different stages of canonization, as did the Old Testament itself. The earliest collection was, in the beginning, probably made for liturgical purposes, and its adoption in the service of the temple was practically equivalent to canonization. When successive collections were added, they too were thus canonized. The result was that the Psalter, when complete, enjoyed a position somewhat similar to that of the Law and the Prophets, although the authority of each rested upon a different basis. That the Psalter was early canonized is further demonstrated by a quotation in I Maccabees vii. 17 (about 125 B.C.) from Psalm lxxix. 2, 3, introduced by the words, _as it is written in the Scriptures_. This conclusion is also supported by the significant reference in the New Testament to the _Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms_ (Lk. xxiv. 44). Jesus' use of the Psalter indicates that in his day its canonicity was already thoroughly established. Lamentations, by a late tradition attributed to Jeremiah, was probably also canonized contemporaneously with the Psalms. [Sidenote: _The other books of the fathers_] The canonization of the book of Proverbs, like that of the Psalter, was undoubtedly by successive stages. The Jews of the Greek and Maccabean period were especially appreciative of this type of literature, and it was doubtless accorded its position of authority primarily because it rang true to human experience. That it was attributed to Solomon also told in its favor. Ben Sira's indirect testimony suggests that it and the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, which were in close accord with the point of view of later Judaism, were already in his day associated with the Law and the Prophets. The book of Ruth was probably at this time added to the other historical books. [Sidenote: _Canonization of the book of Daniel_] The absence of any reference in Ben Sira to Daniel is significant. The first allusion to it comes from the last half of the second century before Christ. First Maccabees i. 54 appears to quote the prediction of Daniel ix. 27, and in I Maccabees ii. 59, 60, Daniel and his three friends are held up as noble examples of virtue. Thus it would seem that within a half century after the book of Daniel was written its authority was recognized. In New Testament times its canonicity is fully established (_e.g., cf_. I Cor. vi. 2, and Dan. vii. 22). [Sidenote: _Date of the completion of the Hebrew Old Testament canon_] Concerning the canonicity of two books, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs or Canticles, the opinions of the rabbis continued to differ until the close of the first Christian century. From the Mishna we learn that the school of Shammai accepted Ecclesiastes, while that of Hillel rejected it. Finally, in a conference in Jamnia, about 100 A.D., the two schools finally agreed to accept both books as canonical. From Second Esdras and Josephus, however, we learn that the present Hebrew and Protestant canon of the Old Testament had already for some time been practically adopted by common consent. [Sidenote: _Contents of the last group of writings_] The last collection, which includes eleven books known as the _Hagiographa_ or _Sacred Writings_, constitutes the third general division of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a heterogeneous group of histories, prophecies, stories, and wisdom books. Some, like the Psalter, were, as we have seen, probably canonized as early as the Prophets; although the final canon of the Old Testament was not closed until 100 A.D. Even later the canonicity of Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and Esther was sometimes questioned; most of them were regarded as authoritative as early as 100 B.C. Here, as in the case of the New Testament, the real decision was not the work of any school or council; but gradually, on the basis of their intrinsic merit, the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible were singled out of a much larger literature and recognized, at least by the Jews of Palestine, as the authoritative record of God's revelation through their race. [Sidenote: _Differences between the Palestinian and Alexandrian canons_] Jewish tradition, represented by Second Esdras xiv. and the Talmudic treatise _Baba Bathra_ xv. a, states that all the canonical books were in existence in the time of Ezra. While the tradition is refuted by the historical facts, it appears to have influenced the Jews of Palestine in shaping their canon; since no books purporting to come from a later date or author are found in it. The broader-minded Jews of the dispersion, and especially Alexandria and the early Christian Church, refused to be bound by the narrow principle that divine revelation ceased with Ezra. Accordingly we find them adopting a larger canon, that included many other later writings known in time as the apocryphal or hidden books. [Sidenote: _Additional books in the Greek and Christian canon_] These consisted of three genuine works,--I and II Maccabees and Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus; two didactic stories,--Tobit and Judith; four books wrongly ascribed to earlier authors,--the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremy, and Second Esdras (Gk. IV Esdras); and four additions to the Hebrew canonical books,--First Esdras, an expansion of the book of Ezra, the Prayer of Manasses, and additions to Esther and Daniel. [Sidenote: _History of the Apocryphal books in the Christian Church_] As is well known, these books were retained by the Christian Church, as they still are by the Roman Catholic and Greek churches, until the Protestant reformers relegated them, as a whole, to a secondary place. Ultimately the Bible societies, during the first part of the last century, ceased to print them in the ordinary editions of the Bible. The result is that the present generation has almost forgotten their existence. The last decade or two, however, has witnessed a significant revival of interest among the scholars of Christendom, and the wholesome tendency to restore certain of the Apocrypha to the working Old Testament canon is very marked. This is only a correction of the error of the Protestant reformers in estimating the Apocryphal books, not by the intrinsic merit of each individual writing but of the group as a whole. [Sidenote: _Great value of these later Jewish writings_] Some of the Apocrypha and kindred books like the apocalypse of Enoch, were quoted and recognized by New Testament scholars as having authority equal to that of the other Old Testament Scriptures. The rejection of I and II Maccabees and Ben Sira from the Palestinian canon because they were written after the days of Ezra and not associated with the names of any early Old Testament worthies, was due to a narrow conception of divine revelation, directly contrary to that of Christianity which recognized the latest as the noblest. These later Jewish writings also bridge the two centuries which otherwise yawn between the two Testaments--two centuries of superlative importance both historically and religiously, witnessing as they do the final development of the life and thought of Judaism and the rise of those conditions and beliefs which loom so large in the New Testament. [Sidenote: _The larger working canon of the Old Testament_] While they will always be of great value in the study of later Jewish history, literature, and religion, the majority of the apocryphal books undoubtedly belong in the secondary group to which the Palestinian Jews and the Protestant reformers assigned them. Three or four, however, tested by the ultimate principles of canonicity, are equal, if not superior, to certain books like Chronicles, Esther, and Ecclesiastes. First Maccabees records one of the most important crises in Israelish history. As a faithful historical writing, it is hardly equalled in ancient literature. Its spirit is also genuinely religious. The later but parallel history of II Maccabees is not the equal of the first, although its religious purpose is more pronounced. Its historical character, style, aim, and point of view are strikingly similar to those of the book of Chronicles. The proverbs of Ben Sira, while not all of the same value, yet abound in noble and practical teachings, very similar to those in the book of Proverbs. Not only does the Wisdom of Solomon contain many exalted and spiritual passages, but it is also of unique importance because it represents that wonderful fusion of the best elements in Hebrew and Hellenic thought which formed the background of Christianity. Probably the Church, will ultimately restore to its larger working Old Testament canon the beautiful Prayer of Manasses, already largely adopted in the prayer-book of the Anglican Church. [Sidenote: _Conclusion_] Our rapid historical study has revealed the unity and the variety of teaching reflected in the Old Testament, and has suggested its real place in the revelation of the past and its true place in the life of to-day. This older testament is the record of God's gradual revelation of himself through the history of the Israelitish race and the experiences and minds of countless men and women whose spiritual eyes were open and whose ears were attentive to divine truth. The same benign Father who has always spoken to his children has influenced them also to recognize the writings that most faithfully and fully record the spiritual truth thus revealed. Had the task been entrusted to our own or later generations, it is not probable that the result would have differed in any important essential. For a few brief centuries false theories and traditions may partially obscure the truth, but these, like the mists of morning, are sure in time to melt away and reveal the eternal verities in their sublime beauty and grandeur. XIV THE INTERPRETATION OF THE EARLY NARRATIVES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [Sidenote: _Importance of regarding each story as a unit_] Of all the different groups of writings in the Old Testament, undoubtedly the early narratives found in the first seven books present the most perplexing problems. This is primarily due to the fact that they have been subject to a long process of editorial revision by which stories, some very old and others very late and written from a very different point of view, have been closely joined together. While there is a distinct aim and unity in the whole, in approaching them it is simplest to study each story as a unit in itself. Not only is this practical, but it is justified by the fact that almost every story was once current in independent form. Often, as in the case of the accounts of creation and the flood, it is possible to recover the older versions and even to trace their origin and earlier history. [Sidenote: _Classification necessary to determine the point of view_] The first essential, however, is to determine to the point of view and purpose of the biblical writer, who has taken the given story from the lips of his contemporaries and incorporated it in the cycle of stories in which it is now found, Here the language, literary style, theme, and conceptions of God and religion are the chief guides. If, as in the first chapter of Genesis, the Deity is always designated as _God_ or _Elohim;_ if the literary style is formal, repetitious, and generic; if the theme is the origin of an institution like the Sabbath; and if the Deity is conceived of as a spirit, accomplishing his purpose by progressive stages through the agency of natural forces,--it is not difficult to recognize at once the work of a late priestly writer. If, on the contrary, as in Genesis ii. 4b to iii. 24, _Jehovah_ is the name of the Deity; if the style is vivid, picturesque, and flowing; if the interest centres in certain individuals instead of species; if the themes vitally concern the spiritual life of man; if the Deity is conceived of after human analogies, as intimately associating with men, and as revealing himself directly to them by word and visible presence,--the work of an early prophetic writer is evidently before us. The identification of the point of view of the author at once puts us into appreciative sympathy with him. [Sidenote: _Value of knowing an author's point of view_] It also enables us intelligently to interpret his words and figures. Knowing, for example, that the first chapter of Genesis was written by a priest who lived long after his race had ceased to think of God as having a body like a man, we cannot make the common mistake of interpreting verse 26 as implying physical likeness. Rather, as his conception of God as a spirit demands and the latter part of the verse proves, his sublime teaching is that man, the end and culmination of the entire work of creation, is like his Creator, a spiritual being, endowed with a mind and a will, and as God's viceregent, is divinely commanded to rule over all created things. [Sidenote: _Practical value of the critical analysis_] Where two distinct versions of the same narrative have been amalgamated in the process of editorial revision, the analysis of the original sources is indispensable to a true understanding and interpretation of the thought of the prophet and priest who have each utilized the ancient story,--as, for example, that of the flood,--to illustrate the inevitable consequences of sin and God's personal interest in mankind. Here the culminating purpose of the prophet, however, is to proclaim Jehovah's gracious promise that he will never thus again destroy man or living things; that (viii. 21, 22): While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, Day and night Shall not cease. The priest, on the other hand, is interested in the renewal of the covenant which insures man's dominion over the natural world, and in the sanctity of blood, and in the primitive, divine origin of the command, Thou shalt not kill (ix. 1-6). [Sidenote: _The necessary basis for intelligent interpretation_] Fortunately the work of analysis has been so thoroughly carried out during the last century that there is practical agreement among the Christian scholars of the world on the essential questions. These results are now also available in popular form, so that, without wasting time on technicalities, the pastor and teacher of to-day can utilize them as the basis for more important study and teaching. The origin, the literary form, and the scientific and historical accuracy of each narrative all suggest definite and interesting lines of study, but, as has been noted (p. 106), these are of secondary value compared with the religious truths that each story is intended to illustrate. [Sidenote: _Principles of religious interpretation_] Since these stories were preserved because they conserve this higher purpose, it is always safe to ask, What are their distinctive contributions to the grand total of ethical and spiritual teaching found in the Old Testament? At the same time it is exceedingly important always to be sure to read the teachings out of, and not into, a given narrative. By unnatural and fanciful interpretation of these simple stories the friends of the Bible in the past have often wronged it more than have its avowed foes. Each story, like the parables of Jesus, had its one or two central teachings, usually conveyed to the mind by implication rather than by direct statement. The characters who figure in them by their words and deeds proclaim the practical truths and embody the ideals in the minds of the ancient prophets and priests. [Sidenote: _Theme of Genesis ii. and iii._] The heterogeneous group of stories found in Genesis i.-xi. constitute the general introduction to the succeeding narratives which gather about the names of the traditional ancestors of the Hebrews. Each of these originally independent stories illustrates its own peculiar religious teachings. None has taken a deeper hold on the imagination and made a deeper impression on the thought and literature of the world than that which is found in the second and third chapters of Genesis. Its theme-- the origin and nature and consequences of sin--is of vital, personal interest to every man of every age. [Sidenote: _The problem of presenting it in a form intelligible to early man_] The problem that confronted the early Judean prophet was to present in form intelligible to the minds of his primitive readers a subject that has taxed to the utmost the resources of the world's greatest philosophers and theologians. The task was comparable to that which fell to the Master when he sought to make clear to his untutored disciples the real nature of the mighty tempest of temptation that raged in his soul at the beginning, and, indeed, later in his ministry. The method adopted was strikingly similar in each case. If the language of modern philosophy and psychology had been at the command of these great religious teachers, it would have but obscured the great truths. These truths must be made objective; they must be expressed in the familiar language of the people. Even the inner struggle of conflicting motives must be presented in words so simple that a child could understand. [Sidenote: _Pictorial elements drawn from popular tradition_] The second and third chapters of Genesis record the effective way in which a great early prophet dealt with his difficult problem. From the lips of the people he took fragments of ancient Semitic traditions. Almost all of the elements which enter into the story of man's fall have been traced to far earlier sources; but the narrative in its present unity and suggestiveness never has and never will be found outside the Bible. How far the prophet adapted to his higher purpose the current Hebrew version can not be absolutely determined. The fact alone remains that it is one of the truest bits of history in the Old Testament, and this not because it is a leaf from the diary of Adam and Eve, but because it concretely and faithfully portrays universal human experience. [Sidenote: _Creation of man and the elements necessary for his development_] In the simple language of popular tradition it proclaims, among other truths, that Jehovah, Israel's God, created man, breathing into him from his own nostrils the vital principle of life and making him the commanding figure in the universe; then that the Creator graciously provided all that was needful and best for his true physical and spiritual development. Incidentally the prophet calls attention to that innate and divine basis of the marriage bond which Jesus re-emphasizes (Matt. xix. 4-6). Physical death, according to the story in its present form, was not a necessary part of Jehovah's plan; the implication is that man would not die while he remained in the garden and ate of the life-giving tree. Temptation is not in itself evil, but necessary, if man is to develop positive virtue, for beside the tree of life grows the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with its attractive, alluring fruit guarded by the divine prohibition. [Sidenote: _The struggle in the woman's heart_] The elements of the temptation are all presented in chapter ii., but the serpent, the craftiest of animals, in his conversation with the woman is required to make clear and objective the real nature of the conflict within her mind. The rôle of the serpent is the opposite of that of Balaam's ass, which figures in a story which comes from the same early Judean prophetic school. In the conversation between the woman and the serpent the true character of all temptation is revealed: it is the necessity of choosing between two courses of conduct neither of which is altogether bad. Curiosity, which is the guide to all knowledge, the beauty of the apple, which appeals to the aesthetic sense, and physical appetite, not in itself bad,--all these powerfully attracted the Oriental woman of the ancient story. On the other side she felt the compelling power of love and gratitude and the definite divine command. [Sidenote: _The essence of all temptation_] The prophet saw clearly that all the elements of temptation are within man--a truth sometimes obscured in later Jewish thought. Milton has also led us astray in identifying the crafty serpent with the Satan of later Judaism. The prophet graphically presents another great fact of human experience, namely, that what is one man's temptation is not another's, that the temptation to be real must appeal to the one tested. The crafty serpent is not represented as speaking to the man; he would probably have turned away in loathing. His wife, she who had already sinned, the one whom Jehovah had given him as a helpmeet, herself appeals to the sense of chivalry within him. Hence the conflict rages in his soul between love and obligation to Jehovah and his natural affection and apparent duty to his wife. Thus in all temptation the diviner impulses struggle with those which are not in themselves necessarily wrong but only baser by contrast. Duty is the call of the diviner, sin is the yielding to the baser, motives. [Sidenote: _The real nature of sin_] The Hebrew word for sin, which means the missing of the mark set up before each individual, is the only altogether satisfactory definition of sin ever devised, for it absolutely fits the facts of human experience. Deflection from the moral standard set up by each man's conscience, even though his resulting act seem in itself noble, is for him a sin. Although the influences which led the man and woman of the story to disobey were exceedingly strong, the higher standard had been set up, and in falling short of it they sinned. Thus sin is not God's but man's creation, and results from the deliberate choice of what the sinner knows to be wrong. [Sidenote: _The effects of sin_] In the same simple yet powerful way the prophet depicts the inevitable consequences of sin. At every point the picture is true to universal experience. The most appalling effect of a wrong act is that it destroys peace and purity of mind. It also makes cowards of brave men, and the presence and tender affection of the one wronged suddenly become intolerable. Sin also begets sin. To the cowering fugitives Jehovah comes, as he always does, with a message intended to evoke a frank confession which would tear down the hideous barrier that their sin had reared between himself and them; but, like most foolish, blind Adams and Eves, they hug their crime to their breasts and raise the barrier heaven high by trying to excuse their guilt. Thus they pronounce their own doom. For God himself only one course of action remains: it is to send them forth from his presence and from the life-giving tree, out into the school of hardship and bitter pain, that there they may learn the lessons which are necessary before they can again become citizens of the true Garden of Eden. [Sidenote: _The sequel to the story of man's fall_] Two simple yet exceedingly significant touches lighten the gloom of this universal tragedy of human life. The one is that for the guilty, unrepentant pair, Jehovah himself made tunics of skins to protect them from the inclemency of their new life,--evidence that his love and care still went with them. The other is the implication that the true garden of Eden was still to be found on earth, and was closed simply to the guilty and unrepentant. The Bible is the record of how men learned the all-important lessons in the painful school of experience. Israel's teachers, each in his characteristic way, led their race on toward the common goal. The Gospels tell of how _a man, tempted in all points as we are_ in a distant day and land found his way again into the abiding presence of God. He _was one with the Father_, not because he did not meet temptation in all its power, but because, unlike the actors in the primitive story, and all other participants in the drama of life, he yielded only to the guidance of divine impulses. Not content with achieving the goal himself, he gave his energies and his life to showing others how they also might overcome the baser impulses within them and find their way to God's presence and become one with him. Thus, because of what he did and said and was, he forever vindicated his title of Saviour of Mankind. [Sidenote: _The religious teachings of other early stories_] No other early Old Testament narrative is perhaps so full of rich spiritual suggestion as the one just considered, and yet each has its valuable contribution. Even such a story as that of the killing of Abel by Cain forcibly teaches the great prophetic truth that it is not the form of the offering, but the character and deeds back of the sacrifice, that determine Jehovah's favor or disfavor (iv. 7). Graphically it sets forth the spirit that prompts the greatest of crimes. In contrast to Cain, defiant yet pursued by haunting fear of vengeance, it also presents the divine tenderness and mercy in granting him a tribal mark to protect him from the hand of man. The similar story of Noah, the first vineyard-keeper, preaches the first temperance sermon in all literature, and also suggests the inevitable consequences of moral depravity so forcibly illustrated in the history of the ancient Canaanites. Even the prosaic table of the nations in Genesis x. emphasizes the conception of the unity of the human family which was destined in time to become the basis of Israel's belated missionary activity. [Sidenote: _Ideals presented in the early prophetic portrait of Abraham_] When we pass to the twelfth chapter of Genesis the independent stories coalesce into cycles, and each cycle, as well as each narrative, has its own religious purpose. In definite outlines each successive group of teachers painted the character of Abraham, the traditional father of the Israelitish race, and held it up before their own and succeeding generations as a perpetual example and inspiration. In the early Judean prophetic narratives he is pictured as the friend of Jehovah. His own material interests are entirely secondary, as illustrated in his dealing with Lot. Without hesitation he leaves home and kindred behind, for his dominating purpose in life is simply to know and do the will of Jehovah. To this end he rears altars throughout the land of Canaan. His chief joy is in communion with God and in the promises to be realized in his descendants. Through warring, hostile Canaan he passes unscathed, for his eyes are fixed on things heavenly. [Sidenote: _Its significance_] It matters little whether or not, far back in the primitive days of Israel's history, a Bedouin sheik anticipated in actual character and life all that was gradually revealed to the prophets of a much later age. The supremely significant fact is that the noble ideal of Israel's earliest teachers was thus vividly and concretely embodied in the portrait of him whom the Hebrews regarded with pride and adoration as the founder of their race. In Hosea and Jeremiah, and less imperfectly in the nation as a whole, the ideal in time became an historical reality. [Sidenote: _Later portraits of Abraham_] The early Ephraimite school of writers picture Abraham as a prophet (Gen. xx. 7), and therefore as an exemplification of their highest ideal. In the remarkable fourteenth chapter of Genesis he is a courageous, chivalrous knight, attacking with a handful of followers the allied armies of the most powerful kings of his day. Returning victorious, he restores the spoil to the plundered and gives a princely gift to the priest of the local sanctuary. In the later priestly narratives the picture suddenly changes, and Abraham figures as the faithful servant of the law, with whom originates the rite of circumcision, the seal of a new covenant (xvii). Later Jewish and Moslem traditions each have their characteristic portrait. One, which pictures him as in heaven the protector of the faithful, is reflected in the New Testament (Luke xvi. 23-30), Thus each succeeding age and group of teachers made him the embodiment and supreme illustration of its noblest ideals, and it is this ideal element that gives the Old Testament stories their permanently practical value. [Sidenote: _Practical teachings of the Abraham stories_] Having noted the teachings that each individual story and the cycle as a whole conveyed to the minds of their first readers, it only remains for the teacher of to-day to translate them into modern terms. Some of the most important implications of the Abraham stories thus interpreted are, for example: (1) God calls each man to a high mission. (2) He will guide and care for those who are responsive. (3) To those who seek to know him intimately, and to do his will, he will reveal himself in fullest measure, and for such he has in store his richest blessings. (4) _He that findeth his life_ (Lot) _shall lose it, and he that loseth his life_ (Abraham) _shall find it_. [Sidenote: _Significance of the character of Esau_] The Jacob and Esau stories contain marvellously exact and realistic portraits of the two races (the Israelites and the Edomites) that they respectively represent. Of the two brothers, Esau is in many ways the more attractive. He suggests the open air and the fields, where he loved to hunt. He is easy-going, ingenuous, and impulsive. His faults are those of not being or doing. As long as he had enough to eat and was comfortable, he was contented. He is the type of the world's drifters. Since Aram was far distant he disregards the wishes of his parents and marries one of the daughters of the land. No ambition stirred him and no devotion to Jehovah or to the ideals of his race gave content and direction to his life. Thus he remained a laggard, and the half-nomadic, robber people that he represented became but a stagnant pool, compared with the onrushing stream of Israel's life. [Sidenote: _Jacob's faults_] Jacob's faults are also presented by the early prophets with an astonishing fidelity. Rarely does a race early in its history have a portrait of its weaknesses as well as its strength held up thus prominently before its eyes. Jacob is the antithesis of Esau. While his brother was hunting care-free in the fields, he was at home plotting how he could farther his own interests. When the opportunity offers, he manifests a cold, calculating shrewdness. To make good the title to the birthright thus acquired he does not hesitate to resort to fraud and lying. Then he flees, pursued by his own guilty conscience, and, tricked by Laban, he serves as a slave fourteen years to win the wife whom he loves. At last, again a fugitive from the consequences of his own questionable dealing, he returns with quaking heart to face the brother that he had wronged. [Sidenote: _The elements of strength in Israel's character_] The character is far from a perfect one, and yet the ancient stories suggest its elements of strength. By nature he was selfish and crafty; and yet he has what Esau fatally lacks: energy, persistency, and a commanding ambition. From the first his ambition looks beyond himself to the future of his descendants. Measured by our modern standards, his religious professions seem only hypocrisy; but as we analyze his character we find that a faith in Jehovah, narrow and selfish though it be, was ever his guiding star. Out of the tortuous windings of his earlier years it ultimately led him to a calm old age. Imperfect though his character was, like that of the race which he represented, the significant fact is that God ever cared for him and was able to utilize him as an agent in divine revelation. [Sidenote: _The noble teachings of the Joseph stories_] Even more obvious and universal are the practical lessons illustrated by the Joseph stories. In the early prophetic narratives, Abraham is the perfect servant of God, Jacob the type of the Israelitish race, but Joseph is the ideal man of affairs. Graphically the successive stories picture the man in his making and reveal his true character. He is simple, affectionate, and yet strongly ambitious. His day-dreams make him odious, as in the case of many a boy to-day, to his unimaginative brothers. A seemingly hard fate rudely snatches him from the enervating influences of his childhood home and places him in the severe school of experience, where he is tested and trained. It also opens wide the door of opportunity. Fidelity to every interest and an unselfish response to every opportunity for service soon bring him into the presence of the Pharaoh. His judicious counsels, diplomacy, and organizing ability win for him the highest honors Egypt can confer. With modesty and fidelity he endures this supreme test--success. Toward his brothers, who had bitterly wronged him, he is nobly magnanimous, and to his kinsmen, who belong to the shepherd class especially despised as boors by the cultured Egyptians, he is loyal and considerate. Above all, not by professions, but by deeds, he reveals the true source of his strength,-- a natural faith in the God of his race and an unfailing loyalty to him. [Sidenote: _Conclusion_] In the same way Moses, the exodus, and the great men and events of Israel's dramatic history, all have a religious importance and significance far surpassing the merely historical. At the same time the methods of modern literary and historical investigation reveal rather than conceal the deeper spiritual truths that they illustrate. The more light that can be turned upon them the more clearly will their essential teachings stand forth. Like the Old Testament as a whole, they grew up out of real life and truly reflect and interpret it, and therefore have a living, vital message to life to-day. Any interpretation that does not ring true to life may well be questioned. Finally, the authority of these ancient narratives depends not upon the historical or scientific accuracy of the individual story that is used as an illustration, but upon the fact that through the experiences and hearts of those who employed them God was seeking to make men free by the knowledge of the truth. XV PRACTICAL METHODS OF STUDYING THE OLD TESTAMENT [Sidenote: _The various methods of approach_] The Old Testament may be studied as literature, as history, as the record of an important stage in the evolution of religion, as the revelation of God to the race, or as a practical aid to the individual in living the true life. Each angle of approach calls for different methods and yields its correspondingly rich results. Studied in accordance with the canons of modern literary investigation, a literature is disclosed of surpassing variety, beauty, and fascination. After the principles of historical criticism have been vigorously applied, the Old Testament is found to contain some of the most important and authentic historical data that have come down to us from antiquity. To the general student of religion there is no group of writings that equals in value those included in these ancient Scriptures. As a simple, clear revelation of the character and will of the Divine Ruler, present and regnant in all life, the Old Testament is surpassed by only one other volume, and that is its complement, the New. [Sidenote: _The supreme aim of Old Testament study_] It is, however, as the guide to right thinking, and being, and acting, _that the man of God may be perfect, completely equipped for every good work_, that the Old Testament is and always will be studied by the majority of people. In so doing they will be realizing its primary and supreme purpose. Like true religion, it is not an end in itself, but simply an effective force, drawing and binding individual men to God and to the right. Any method of study that fails to attain this definite and practical end does not achieve the chief aim of the Old Testament writings. [Sidenote: _Necessity of studying the Old Testament as an organic whole_] This practical and personal end, however, cannot be attained at a leap. It is impossible to achieve the best results by taking a truth or a passage here and there and applying it at once to the individual. Both the Old Testament and the individual are something organic. Each book has a unity and a history that must be understood, if a given passage is to be fairly interpreted or its truths intelligently applied, Individual books are also related to others and to their historical background. Also, as has already been shown, to appreciate fully the vital message of a given writer it is necessary, not to know his name, but his place in history, his point of view, his method of expression, and his purpose. The Old Testament and Israelitish history as a whole are the best and most essential interpreters of individual books and passages. The most serious handicap to the ordinary Bible teacher and scholar is the lack of this broader, systematic, constructive knowledge. Much earnest, devoted study, especially in the Old Testament fields, is deficient in inspiration and results, because it is simply groping in an unknown land. It is all important, therefore, to ascend some height and spy out the land as a whole, to note the relation of different books and events to each other, and to view broadly the great stream of divine revelation which flows out of the prehistoric past on through the Old and New Testaments to the present. [Sidenote: _Remarkable adaptation of the Old Testament to different ages and degrees of moral culture._] In order effectively to apply the truths of the Old Testament to life, it is also necessary to regard the point of view of the individual to be taught. This fundamental principle of all education was fully appreciated and applied by Israel's great spiritual teachers. The result is that the Old Testament contains truths marvellously adapted to every age and type of mind. The importance of the religious culture of the child is emphasized by the comparatively large proportion, of writings especially fitted to hold the attention and arouse the imagination and shape the ideals even of the youngest. Nearly half of the Old Testament consists simply of narratives. Those inimitable stories, which come from the childhood of the race, have a perennial fascination for the child of to-day. They find him on his own mental and moral plane, as they did the primitive child, and by natural stages lead him on and up to the higher standards and broader faith of Israel's later prophets and sages, and thus prepare him to understand and appreciate the perfected life and teachings of Jesus. [Sidenote: _The prophetic stories the children's Bible_] In the modern use of the Old Testament, the faithful application of this fundamental principle also leads to a most practical conclusion; the stories peculiarly adapted to children are not the mature, legalistic narratives of the late priestly writers, but the early prophetic stories, which begin in the second chapter of Genesis. If children are taught only these, they will not be disconcerted by widely variant versions of the same events. Above all, they will be delivered from the inconsistencies and erroneous impressions which are often the cause of stumbling to the child. The later process of unlearning, which is always dangerous, will be avoided. If the problems presented by the priestly narratives be reserved until they can be studied from the broader and truer point of view, they will be readily solved, and the great positive teachings of these later didactic stories will be fully appreciated. [Sidenote: _The prophets the best story-tellers_] The subject-matter, therefore, supremely suitable for the earliest moral and spiritual culture of the child, is clearly the simple and yet profound prophetic stories of the Old Testament. It is very questionable whether the many excellent paraphrases now current are a gain or a hindrance. The ancient prophets and the generations who have retold them were inimitable story-tellers. To attempt to improve upon their work is futile. A simple, clear translation is all that is required. [Footnote: A Children's Bible is now being prepared according to the plan suggested above.] The interpretation and application of their practical teachings can best be left to the intuition of the child and the direction of the intelligent parent and teacher. [Sidenote: _Their effective methods of presenting truths_] It is also astonishing how readily even a little child appreciates the essential lessons, as, for example, those regarding the nature and consequences of sin, presented by the story of the Garden of Eden. Under the charm of the attractive personalities that figure in them, and the stirring achievements, so dramatically presented that they command breathless attention, the early prophetic narrations unconsciously and, therefore, all the more effectively, instil into the mind of the child the most essential truths regarding God and life and duty. At the same time, as they study in order the deeds of the heroes and makers of Israel's history, they are becoming familiar with the real background of the earlier revelation recorded in the Old Testament. [Sidenote: _The present position of these stories_] Therefore scattered throughout Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and the older sections of Ezra, Nehemiah, and I Maccabees, are to be found in rich profusion the material for the earliest years of Bible study. These should naturally be supplemented by the stories of the prophets, found in such books as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Haggai. Their sequel and culmination are the corresponding stories in the Gospels and Acts. [Sidenote: _Study of the direct personal teachings of the Old Testament_] In connection with the earliest study of the achievements of Israel's heroes and spiritual leaders, many of their greatest teachings would be appropriated and applied, but when the years of early adolescence are reached, the prophets in their sermons, the priests in their laws, the usages in their proverbs, and the psalmists in their psalms, each have certain personal messages, superbly adapted to the critical, formative years, when childhood begins to unfold into maturity. To make this material available, judicious selection and interpretation are required. The organism of each book and of the child must both be carefully regarded to make the adjustment perfect. Naturally this most vital line of study would be the introduction to a corresponding study of the direct, personal teachings of Jesus and the apostles. [Sidenote: _Study of the origin and growth of the Old Testament_] This intensely practical work could profitably be preceded or followed by a study of the origin and growth of the different books and groups of Old Testament writings and the gradual stages whereby these Scriptures attained their present form and authority. The guides in this investigation should not be the Jewish rabbis or even the traditions of the Church Fathers. We have been misled too long by the pious guesses of the mediæval saints; but rather the testimony of the Bible itself and the evidence of contemporary writings should be the guides. The spirit should also be frank and constructive. The results cannot fail to be practically helpful in a great variety of ways. Thus on the basis of facts, in the light of history, and by the use of those methods of research which alone command respect and acceptance in other kindred lines of investigation, the questions which come to every thoughtful boy and girl will be fairly and truly answered. In this way those experiences which are inevitable in this critical age will deepen and broaden rather than destroy the foundations of individual faith. [Sidenote: _The historical method of approach_] With this general introduction, many students and classes will find it profitable to approach the Old and New Testaments from the distinctively historical point of view. Beginning with the unfolding of the civilization and religion of ancient Babylonia, they will study in conjunction the history, the strong personalities, the literature, and the thought of each successive period. The advantages of this method of study are many. Each book will be read and its messages interpreted in the light of the conditions and forces that constitute its true background. The different characters will live again, and the significance of their work and words will be fully appreciated as they are viewed in the clear perspective of history. [Sidenote: _Its practical aims and results_] Above all, such a synthetic study of the unfolding of the supreme truths of revelation lays a foundation for the individual faith as broad as human experience. This is to attain one of the chief aims of all study, which is to put the individual into practical possession of all that is vital and best in the experiences and achievements of the past, that, thus equipped, he may go forth to fight the battle of life, valiantly and successfully. [Sidenote: _Its natural sequel_] This last course of study would call for several years, and, more than that, for enthusiasm, devotion, and real work. It would also take the student in time through the New Testament period, with its literature and commanding personalities and events, and perhaps beyond to the great epochs of Church history. Many would not stop until they had studied the latest chapter in Church history, the noble missionary activity and achievement of the past and present century. [Sidenote: _Advances courses of study_] When the Bible had thus been studied, the scholars in our schools would not be ready to graduate, but rather to enter upon that still deeper and more fundamental study which would mean an ultimate conquest of the broad field that it represents. Then it might be safe and profitable to adopt the topical method and study some one of the vital themes that are treated from many different points of view in the various parts of the Bible. [Sidenote: _Study of Old Testament history_] It will, however, probably be found easier and more natural next to take up in succeeding years the detailed study of the nine or ten great groups of writings which are found in the Bible. The natural and easiest method of approach to those of the Old Testament would be through a careful, constructive study of the history of the Israelitish race, perhaps beginning with the definite historical period of Saul and Samuel and concluding with the advent of Rome. Far better than any modern history of Israel is that marvellous history written by its own historians, which begins with the book of Samuel and ends with I Maccabees. Analyzed and arranged in their chronological order, these narratives tell the story with rare fascination and suggestiveness. [Footnote: Volume II of the "Student's Old Testament": contains the narratives from Samuel through I Maccabees, thus arranged.] [Sidenote: _Study of the prophecies and earlier narratives_] On the basis of this detailed study of the historical background, the work and teachings of the prophets could next be traced in their true and chronological order. No Old Testament field is more neglected and none is more intensely interesting, when once the student understands the problems and aims of each great prophet. None has a more practical message for to-day, provided its supreme truths are interpreted into modern terms and conditions. After becoming intimately acquainted with the Hebrew prophets, it would be possible to go back and study with a new understanding and appreciation the early narratives which gather about the beginnings of Hebrew history. Then the intricate problems of the first eight books of the Bible would vanish in the light of a fuller knowledge. Above all, that which is essential and permanent would stand out in clear relief. [Sidenote: _Study of the devotional literature_] From the earliest fruits of prophetic activity it would then be profitable to turn to the later, represented by Lamentations and the Psalter. Here the best results require a classification of the different psalms according to their themes, so that their teachings can be studied systematically and as a whole. In this field of study the student comes very close to the heart of the Old Testament and the heart of the God who speaks through it. [Sidenote: _Study of the wisdom literature_] Less spiritual and yet intensely interesting and practical is the great department of the Old Testament known as the wisdom literature. _He that walketh with the wise shall be wise_ (Prov. xiii. 20) is as true to-day as when first uttered. This literature is a great mine of truth, almost entirely neglected by the Christian world. Systematic classification is the first requisite for the profitable study of the Proverbs and the later Wisdom of Ben Sira. From these the student may pass on to the fuller treatment of the omnipresent human problem, so sublimely presented in the book of Job, and to the many fundamental questions raised by Eccleslastes and the Wisdom of Solomon. [Sidenote: _Study of the Old Testament laws and institutions_] Last of all a year might well be spent in the study of the unfolding and concrete application and illustration of Israel's ethical and religious principles in the legal codes and institutions of the Old Testament. Many of these have found a higher expression, some are but symbolic, but others still have permanent authority and value. Studied as a whole and on the basis of a logical classification, this little understood field would also cease to be a jungle, and Instead would yield its own practical spiritual fruits. XVI RELIGIOUS EDUCATION--THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF TO-DAY [Sidenote: _The practical realization of these possibilities_] This very brief and fragmentary outline of methods and possibilities of Old Testament study is not an impossible dream. In colleges and in a few Bible schools it is already being tried with the gratifying results that might be anticipated. To put it at once into force in most of our Sunday-schools would be absolutely impracticable. It is presented simply as a suggestion of a definite and practical goal toward which to work. With careful adjustment, these courses, adapted to different ages, could be arranged so that at least the intermediate grades in the Sunday-school would be studying in the same field at the same time. This plan provides for no graduation from the school of the Bible. It assumes that the Christian world is at last awakening to the real significance of religious education and to a recognition of the fact that the ultimate solution of our gravest national and social problems is to be found only in the inculcation of the true ethical ideals in the mind of the individual. It also assumes the fundamental principle that no worthy ends can be attained without real work, enthusiastic devotion, systematic methods, and above all a definite and worthy goal. It rests on the belief that the sense of gradual conquest and the attainment of practical results will alone inspire permanent devotion and evoke faithful work, and in the end prepare the individual scholar for the intelligent and loyal service of God. [Sidenote: _The overwhelming responsibility of the Sunday-schools_] Frank confessions are good for a cause as well as for the soul. We must admit that most of our Sunday-schools, with their vast resources in opportunity, in financial support, and in the devotion of the teachers and officers, do not permanently hold their scholars, and in the great majority of cases do not give them a thorough or systematic knowledge, even of the most vital teachings of the Bible. The ignorance of its literature and history on the part of even, the more intelligent students who enter college, is almost past belief, as many of us can testify from personal observation. The limitations in time and equipment of the Sunday-schools are undoubtedly great in comparison with those of the secular schools; and yet the responsibility now thrown upon the Bible schools is even greater than upon the latter. Parents have ceased to instruct their children in spelling and the multiplication-table because they have found that the teachers can do this better. Without justification, but by analogy and because they are themselves often unacquainted with the Bible, or uncertain regarding its interpretation, they are more and more leaving the religious education of their sons and daughters to the Church and the Sunday-school. [Sidenote: _The transcendent importance of religious education_] It is safe to say, and this without reservation, the most fundamental problem in England and America to-day is the problem of religious education, because this lies at the roots of all else--political, social, and theological. When the Christian world awakens to its profound significance, and when its ideals and methods are raised, even to a level with those of the public schools, the other grave problems will be near their solution. If the individual is thoroughly taught during the impressionable years of childhood and youth, the fundamental principles of ethics and religion, society and the state will have no difficulty in meeting their problems; but if not, these will perforce continue to remain unsolved. [Sidenote: _Important that the Old Testament be taught in the public schools_] It is a time for all earnest men of every denomination or creed to unite in meeting this need. In the Old Testament, Jew and Christian, Catholic and Protestant, stand on common ground. The modern inductive historical methods of study have prepared the way for union; for they aim to support no denominational interpretation, but simply to attain the truth. The last reasons, therefore, why the literature, history, geography, and ethical teachings of the Old Testament should not be taught in our public schools are rapidly disappearing, and the hundreds of reasons why any system of secular education is incomplete without it are coming to the front. With this fundamental basis of knowledge and instruction, the work of the Sunday-schools could also at once be placed on a far more effective plane. It is a consummation for which every intelligent citizen should earnestly work. [Sidenote: _The task of the Church in the present century_] The achievement of the last century was to complete the work of the Protestant Reformation and rediscover the Bible. The task of the present century is to instil its essential teachings, thus revealed, into the mind of the individual, so that they will become controlling factors in human life. Here lies the great responsibility and opportunity of the Christian Church. If it is to renew its hold on modern men, it will be through the mind as well as the heart, and its most efficient method will be--as it always has in reality been--religious education. Horace Bushnell proclaimed the watchword of the Church triumphant: "Christian culture." [Sidenote: _The examples of the prophets and Jesus_] His, however, was no new discovery. The Hebrew prophets, priests, and sages were not primarily preachers, but teachers. The prophetic messages which fell on deaf ears, instilled into the minds of a few humble disciples, in time won acceptance from the nation. Jesus himself was not so much the preacher as the Great Teacher. His earliest public preaching was but the net cast to catch the few faithful disciples. When these had been secured, he turned his back upon a popular preaching ministry, and devoted the best part of his brief public work to instructing a little group of disciples. History completely vindicates the wisdom of his method. Only by following closely on his footsteps can the Church hope to realize its true mission, especially in this age, when the heart and will must be reached through the mind. In this respect, it must also be confessed that the Catholic are far in advance of the Protestant churches and Sunday-schools, where the preaching still overshadows the teaching. [Sidenote: _The call for a teaching ministry_] To inspire and direct thorough religious instruction, carefully trained leaders are needed. The demand to-day is for a teaching as well as a preaching ministry, with an apostolic sense of a mission and a message. Men with natural gifts and the most thorough preparation are wanted to raise the standards and to organize and transform, as they alone can, by personal contact, the teaching corps of our Sunday-schools into effective forces. Such men and women certainly can be found. It is a conviction, based on a wide experience, that many of the ablest students in our colleges and universities, who for many valid reasons do not feel the call to a preaching mission, would gladly and enthusiastically devote themselves to the work of religious instruction, could they be sure of a field, when their preparation was complete. Our universities and seminaries already have the facilities and could readily assume this important responsibility. As soon as our large city churches and the federated churches in our smaller towns, demand a teaching pastor as the permanent director of their Sunday-schools, and of the religious educational work under their charge, they will enter upon a new career of permanent conquest. The needs are undoubtedly great, the volunteers are at hand, thorough preparation can be assured; but the call must come from the Church, united and awake to its supreme opportunity and responsibility. [Sidenote: _The antiquated methods of our Sunday-schools_] It must also be confessed that our religious systems--if such they may be called--are still in the experimental stage. They are far inferior in every respect, except in the self-sacrificing devotion of the teachers and officers, to those of the secular schools. What is most vital to our national and individual life is most neglected. Instead of the latest and best pedagogical methods, the most antiquated largely prevail. Saddest of all, the Bible which is being taught in the majority of our schools is the Bible of later Judaism and the Middle Ages, not the Book of Books which stands forth in the light of God's latest revelation, as a message of beauty and life to the present age. It is not strange that there is a growing distrust of the Sunday-school among many intelligent people, and an appalling apathy or distaste for Bible study in the mind of the rising generation. [Sidenote: _The crying need for improved courses of study_] If we shut our eyes to these facts, they will remain; but if we frankly face them, a decade of intelligent and devoted work will effect a great transformation. The first step is obviously along the line of improved courses and methods of study. Many different courses are at present in the field. All have their merits, and to those who have developed them highest praise and credit is due. Some have been prepared to meet immediate and practical needs, but ignore the larger unities and the historical background, and in general neglect the results of modern educational and biblical knowledge. Some have been worked out in the study and have a strong academic flavor, but do not meet the needs of the average scholar or teacher. Others are models of pedagogical perfection, but lack content. Progressive Sunday-schools are trying one system after another, and meantime the note of discontent is rapidly rising. The crisis is too serious to admit of personal rivalries or prejudices. [Sidenote: _How to meet this need_] The moral of the situation is simple: that which will fully meet the needs of the present must be a combination of all that is good in existing courses, and embody what is best in the scholarship and methods of to-day. Like the most effective systems in the past, it must be wrought out in the laboratory of practical experience. It must be planned from the point of view of actual needs and conditions. It must also have a worthy and definite goal and a high ideal. It should emphasize the importance of fundamental religious instruction, as well as preaching. All that is practical and permanent in modern educational methods should be utilized. It should preserve the existing superb Sunday-school organization, and, as far as possible, the unity of the splendid system now under the direction of the International Committee. Finally, it should incorporate the positive and illuminating results of modern constructive biblical research. The task cannot be accomplished in a moment, nor by one man nor a small group of men. It is certainly important enough to command the best experience, the ripest scholarship, and the most unselfish devotion. [Sidenote: _The advent of a new era in the history of the kingdom of God_] When this task has been thoroughly performed, and the ablest of our educated men and women have been enlisted in our Bible schools, the cause of religious education will command the respect of the world, not merely because of the fundamental need which it aims to meet, but also because it is effectually meeting it. The Christian Church will also find itself in sympathy and touch with that which is best and most significant in modern life and thought. Religious teachers and scientific investigators will work shoulder to shoulder in a common study and interpretation of God's many-sided revelation. Pastors will feel the solid foundations of historical truth beneath their feet. Leaving behind the din and distractions of the transitional period, the disciples of the Great Teacher will go forth with fresh zeal to make the eternal truths of the Bible regnant in the lives of men, and the kingdom of God a reality in human history. 
39014	----	Transcriber's Notes: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_. OUTLINE STUDIES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR BIBLE TEACHERS By JESSE L. HURLBUT, D.D. [Illustration] NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM Copyright, 1905, by EATON & MAINS PREFATORY THIS book has been prepared at the request of the New York State Sunday School Association, through its Normal Committee. The desire was expressed for a teacher-training course to include two years in the Bible: one year upon subjects contained in the Old Testament, taking the historical point of view, and presenting with the history the lands and the Israelite people, their institutions of worship; and a second year upon the New Testament, following the same plan. Those who have studied "Revised Normal Lessons" and "Studies in Old Testament History" will find most of these "Outline Studies" familiar; for it has not been my purpose, as it was not the desire of the committee, to furnish a series of new lessons, but to have the subjects of Old Testament study brought together in one volume. Each subject, however, has been studied anew, and the results of recent knowledge, especially in the chronology, have been incorporated in this revision. At the request of the committee new lessons on "The Old Testament as Literature" and "How We Got Our Bible" have been added. It is my earnest desire that through these studies the Bible may be better understood and more thoroughly taught by the Sunday school teachers of our land. JESSE L. HURLBUT. South Orange, New Jersey, September, 1905. CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY 3 I. THE OLD TESTAMENT WORLD 7 II. OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY 12 III. THE BEGINNINGS OF BIBLE HISTORY 21 IV. THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS 26 V. INSTITUTIONS OF ISRAELITE WORSHIP 33 VI. THE LAND OF PALESTINE 41 VII. THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN 46 VIII. THE AGE OF THE HEROES 51 IX. THE RISE OF THE ISRAELITE EMPIRE 57 X. THE REIGN OF SOLOMON 63 XI. THE TEMPLE ON MOUNT MORIAH 69 XII. THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL 75 XIII. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH 81 XIV. THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH 84 XV. THE JEWISH PROVINCE 92 XVI. THE OLD TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE 99 XVII. HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 104 Outline Studies in the Old Testament FIRST STUDY The Old Testament World The Bible is primarily a book of history, and without some knowledge of its historical contents no one can rightly understand its revelation of divine truth. But in order to know the history contained in the Old Testament we must obtain a view of the lands in which that history was wrought. We therefore study first of all the =Old Testament World=. I. =Location and Extent.= The history of the Old Testament was enacted upon a field less than half the area of the United States. It extended from the river Nile to the lands east of the Per´sian Gulf and from the northern part of the Red Sea to the southern part of the Cas´pi-an. The world of Old Testament history was thus 1,400 miles long from east to west and 900 miles wide from north to south, and it aggregated 1,110,000 square miles, exclusive of large bodies of water. II. Let us begin the construction of the map by drawing upon its borders =Six Seas=, four of which are named in the Old Testament. 1. The =Cas´pi-an Sea=, of which only the southern portion appears in the northeastern corner of our map. 2. The =Per´sian Gulf=, south of the Cas´pi-an, on the southeast. 3. The =Red Sea=, on the southwest (Exod. 15. 4; Num. 33. 10; 1 Kings 9. 26). 4. The =Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea=, on the central west. Note its names in Josh. 1. 4 and Deut. 34. 2. 5. The =Dead Sea=, north of the eastern arm of the Red Sea (Gen. 14. 3; Deut. 4. 49; Joel 2. 20; Ezek. 47. 18). 6. =Lake Chin´ne-reth= (ch pronounced as k), the name in the Old Testament for the Sea of Gal´i-lee (Num. 34. 11; Josh. 13. 27). III. Next we indicate the =Mountain Ranges=, most of which, though important as boundaries, are not named in the Bible. 1. We find the nucleus of the mountain system in =Mount Ar´a-rat=, a range in the central north (Gen. 8. 4). From this great range three great rivers rise and four mountain chains branch forth. 2. The =Cas´pi-an Range= extends from Ar´a-rat eastward around the southern shore of the Cas´pi-an Sea. [Illustration: MAP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WORLD.] 3. The =Za´gros Range= extends from Ar´a-rat southeasterly to the Per´sian Gulf, which it follows on the eastern border. 4. The =Leb´a-non Range= extends from Ar´a-rat in a southwesterly direction toward the Red Sea. Mount Her´mon, the mountain region of Pal´es-tine, Mount Se´ir, on the south of the Dead Sea, and even Mount Si´nai, all belong to this chain (Deut. 3. 25; Josh. 13. 5; 1 Kings 5. 6). 5. The =Tau´rus Range=, from Ar´a-rat westward, following the northern shore of the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an. IV. The =Rivers=, for the most part, follow the lines of the mountain ranges. 1. The =A-rax´es=, from Ar´a-rat eastward into the Cas´pi-an Sea, may be taken as the northern boundary of the Old Testament world. 2. The =Ti´gris=, called in the Bible _Hid´de-kel_, flows from Ar´a-rat, on the southwestern slope of the Za´gros mountains, in a southeasterly direction into the Per´sian Gulf (Gen. 2. 14; Dan. 10. 4). 3. The =Eu-phra´tes=, the great river of the Bible world, rises on the northern slope of Ar´a-rat, flows westward to the Tau´rus, then southward, following Leb´a-non, then southeasterly through the great plain, and finally unites with the Ti´gris (Gen. 2. 14; 15. 18; Josh. 1. 4; 24. 2). 4. The =Jor´dan= flows between two parallel chains of the Leb´a-non range southward into the Dead Sea (Gen. 13. 10; Num. 22. 1; Judg. 8. 4). 5. The =Nile=, in Af´ri-ca, flows northward into the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea (Gen. 41. 1; Exod. 2. 2). V. The Old Testament world has three =Natural Divisions=, somewhat analogous to those of the United States. 1. The =Eastern Slope=, from the Za´gros mountains eastward to the great desert. 2. The =Central Plain=, between the Za´gros and Leb´a-non mountains, the larger portion a desert. 3. The =Western Slope=, between Leb´a-non and the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea. VI. We arrange the =Lands= according to the natural divisions, giving locations, and not boundaries, as these changed in every age. 1. On the eastern slope lie: 1.) =Ar-me´ni-a= (Rev. Ver., "Ar´a-rat"), between Mount Ar´a-rat and the Cas´pi-an Sea (2 Kings 19. 37). 2.) =Me´di-a=, south of the Cas´pi-an Sea (2 Kings 17. 6; Isa. 21. 2). 3.) =Per´sia=, south of Me´di-a and north of the Per´sian Gulf (Ezra 1. 1; Dan. 5. 28). 2. In the central plain we find: (_a_) Between Mount Za´gros and the river Ti´gris: 4.) =As-syr´i-a=, on the north (2 Kings 15. 19; 17. 3). 5.) =E´lam=, on the south (Gen. 10. 22; 14. 1). (_b_) Between the rivers Ti´gris and Eu-phra´tes: 6.) =Mes-o-po-ta´mi-a=, on the north (Gen. 24. 10; Deut. 23. 4). 7.) =Chal-de´a=, on the south (Jer. 51. 24; Ezra 5. 12). (_c_) Between the river Eu-phra´tes and the Leb´a-non range: 8.) The great desert of =A-ra´bi-a= (2 Chron. 17. 11; 26. 7). 3. On the western slope we find: 9.) =Syr´i-a=, extending from the Eu-phra´tes to Pal´es-tine (2 Sam. 8. 6; 1 Kings 22. 1). 10.) =Phoe-ni´cia=, a narrow strip between Mount Leb´a-non and the sea, north of Pal´es-tine. 11.) =Pal´es-tine=, "the Holy Land," south of Syr´i-a and north of the Si-na-it´ic wilderness. Note its ancient name in Gen. 12. 5. 12.) The =Wilderness=, a desert south of Pal´es-tine, between the two arms of the Red Sea (Exod. 13. 18; Deut. 1. 19). 13.) =E´gypt=, on the northeast corner of Af´ri-ca (Gen. 12. 10; 37. 28). VII. In these lands out of many =Places= we name and locate only the most important. 1. =E´den=, the original home of the human race, probably at the junction of the Ti´gris and Eu-phra´tes (Gen. 2. 8). 2. =Shu´shan=, or Su´sa, the capital of the Per´sian empire, in the province of E´lam (Esth. 1. 2). 3. =Bab´y-lon=, the capital of Chal-de´a, on the Eu-phra´tes (Gen. 10. 10; 2 Kings 25. 1). 4. =Nin´e-veh=, the capital of As-syr´i-a, on the Ti´gris (Gen. 10. 11; Jonah 3. 3). 5. =Ha´ran=, a home of A´bra-ham, in Mes-o-po-ta´mi-a (Gen. 11. 31). 6. =Da-mas´cus=, the capital of Syr´i-a, in the southern part of that province (Gen. 15. 2). 7. =Tyre=, the commercial metropolis of Phoe-ni´cia (Ezek. 27. 3). 8. =Je-ru´sa-lem=, the capital of Pal´es-tine (Judg. 1. 8). 9. =Mem´phis=, the early capital of E´gypt, on the Nile (Hos. 9. 6). Other names of places might be given indefinitely, but it is desirable not to require the student to burden his memory with lists of names, and therefore the most important only are given. Hints to the Teacher Have a good blackboard for the map drawing, and see that each scholar is supplied with a tablet or pad of paper. 1. Let the teacher first draw on the board in presence of the class the boundaries of the _Seas_, and require the class to draw them also on tablet or pad, holding the pad so that its longest side will be from right to left. Inspect each pupil's design, and see that it is fairly correct, but do not seek for finished drawing. A rough sketch is all that should be desired. 2. Next draw the lines representing _Mountain Ranges_, and require the class to do the same. Review the names of the Seas, and also of the Mountain Ranges. 3. Place on the board the lines representing the _Rivers_, and let the pupils do the same, and review Seas, Mountains, and Rivers. 4. Show the three Natural Divisions; indicate on the map the _Lands_ in the order given, and let the pupils do the same. See that the pupils know the name and location of each Land, and review Seas, Mountains, Rivers, and Lands. 5. Indicate on the blackboard the _Places_ named in the lesson, and have the pupils also locate and name them. Review Seas, Mountains, Rivers, Lands, and Places. 6. Let the pupils redraw the map at home from copy, and at the next session of the class call upon five pupils to go in turn to the board--the first to draw the Seas, and then receive criticism from the class, the second the Mountains, the third the Rivers, the fourth the Lands, and the fifth the Places. 7. If another review could be given it would be an excellent plan to call for the reading of the Bible references in the lesson, and require a student to name and locate on the blackboard the Sea or Mountain or River or Land or Place named in the reference. It will abundantly reward the teacher to occupy three or four sessions of the class on this map and its reviews. 8. Let the pupils read all the facts of the lesson from the hints given in the following Blackboard Outline and answer all the Review Questions. Blackboard Outline I. =Loc. Ex.= N.--P. G. R. S.--Cas. 1,400. 900. 1,110,000. II. =Se.= Cas. Per. G. R. S. Med. S. D. S. L. Ch. III. =Mtn. Ran.= Ar. Cas. Zag. Leb. Tau. IV. =Riv.= Ar. Tig. Eup. Jor. Ni. V. =Nat. Div.= Ea. Sl. Cen. Pl. Wes. Sl. VI. =La.= 1. Ar. Me. Per. 2. Ass. El. Mes. Chal. Ar. 3. Syr. Phoe. Pal. Wil. Eg. VII. =Pla.= Ed. Sh. Bab. Nin. Har. Dam. Ty. Jer. Mem. Review Questions How large was the Old Testament world? Between what bodies of water was it located? What were its dimensions? Name its six important bodies of water. Locate each of these bodies of water. Name and describe its mountain ranges. Name and locate its five important rivers. State and describe its three natural divisions. Name and locate the lands of the eastern slope. Name and locate the lands of the central plain. Name and locate the lands of the western slope. Name its nine important places. Locate each of the nine places. SECOND STUDY Old Testament History The divine revelation which the Bible contains is given in the form of a history. God revealed his plan of saving men not in a system of doctrine, but in the record of his dealings with the world at large, and especially with one people. To understand this revelation it is necessary for us to view the great stream of history contained in the Bible. Our study on this subject will include the principal events from the creation of man, at a date unknown, to the birth of Christ.[1] PART ONE We begin by dividing the entire field of time to the opening of the New Testament into five periods. Each of these we write at the head of a column. (See the Blackboard Outline.) I. The Period of the Human Race. II. The Period of the Chosen Family. III. The Period of the Is´ra-el-ite People. IV. The Period of the Is´ra-el-ite Kingdom. V. The Period of the Jew´ish Province. I. We find in the opening of the Bible that the =Human Race= is the subject of the history. This theme extends through the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which narrate the history of much more than half of the time included in the Bible. During this long period no one tribe or nation or family is selected; but the story of all mankind is related by the historian. 1. This period begins with the =Creation of Man= (not the creation of the _world_), at some unknown time which scholars have not been able to fix; and it ends with the =Call of A´bra-ham=, also at a date uncertain, though given with some doubt at about B. C. 2280. With this event Bible history properly begins. 2. Through this period it would appear that God dealt with each person _directly_, without mediation or organized institutions. We read of neither priest nor ruler, but we find God speaking individually with men. (See Gen. 3. 9; 4. 6; 5. 22; 6. 13; and let the class find other instances.) We call this, therefore, the period of =Direct Administration=. 3. All the events of this period may be connected with three epochs: 1.) =The Fall= (Gen. 3. 6), which brought sin into the world (Rom. 5. 12), and resulted in universal wickedness (Gen. 6. 5). 2.) =The Deluge= (Gen. 7. 11, 12). By this destruction the entire population of the world, probably confined to the Eu-phra´tes valley, was swept away (Gen. 7. 23), and opportunity was given for a new race under better conditions (Gen. 9. 18, 19). 3.) =The Dispersion= (Gen. 10. 25). Hitherto the race had massed itself in one region, and hence the righteous families were overwhelmed by their evil surroundings. But after the deluge an instinct of migration took possession of families, and soon the whole earth was overspread. 4. In this period we call attention to three of its most important =Persons=: 1.) =Ad´am=, the first man (Gen. 5. 1, 2). His creation, fall, and history are briefly narrated. 2.) =E´noch=, who walked with God (Gen. 5. 24), and was translated without dying. 3.) =No´ah=, the builder of the ark (Gen. 6. 9), and the father of a new race. Hints to the Teacher Let the teacher place the outline of the period on the blackboard, point by point, as the lesson proceeds, and let the class do the same on paper or in notebooks. Let every Scripture text be read in the class by a student, and let its bearing be shown. Call upon members of the class to give more complete account of the events and the persons named, and for this purpose let the first eleven chapters of Genesis be assigned in advance as a reading lesson. Blackboard Outline +---------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+ |I. Per. Hu. Ra.|II. Per. |III. Per. |IV. Per. |V. Per. | | | Ch. Fam.| Is. Peo.| Is. Kin.| Je. Prov.| +---------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+ | C. M. | | | | | | C. A. | | | | | +---------------+ | | | | | Dir. Adm. | | | | | +---------------+ | | | | | Fa. | | | | | | Del. | | | | | | Dis. | | | | | +---------------+ | | | | | A. E. N. | | | | | +---------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+ Review Questions What is the central theme of the Bible? How is this theme presented in the Bible? Why should we study the history in the Bible? What are the five periods of Old Testament history? What is the subject of the history during the first period? With what events does the first period begin and end? What is said concerning the dates of early events? What kind of divine government in relation to men is shown in the first period? Into what epochs is the first period subdivided? What results followed the first man's falling into sin? Where was the population of the world confined up to the time of the flood? How did the flood become a benefit to the world? What new instinct came to the human family after the flood? Name three important persons in the first period? State a fact for which each of these three men is celebrated. PART TWO II. A new chapter in Bible history opens at Gen. 12. 1. Here we find one family of the race is selected and made the subject of the divine revelation. This was not because God loved one family more than others, but because the world's salvation was to be wrought through that family (Gen. 12. 2, 3). Hence we call this the =Period of the Chosen Family=. 1. This period extends from the =Call of A´bra-ham= (Gen. 12. 1), B. C. 2280?, to the =Exodus from E´gypt=, B. C. 1270?. 2. In this period we notice the recognition of _the family_. God deals with each family or clan through its head, who is at once the priest and the ruler (Gen. 17. 7; 18. 19; 35. 2). We call this period, therefore, that of the =Patriarchal Administration=. 3. We subdivide this period into three epochs: 1.) =The Journeyings of the Patriarchs= (Gen. 12. 5; 13. 17, 18; 20. 1, etc.). As yet the chosen family had no dwelling place, but lived in tents, moving throughout the land of promise. 2.) =The Sojourn in E´gypt.= In the lifetime of the patriarch Ja´cob, but at a date unknown, the Is´ra-el-ite family went down to E´gypt, not for a permanent home, but a "sojourn," which lasted, however, many centuries (Gen. 46. 5-7; 50. 24). 3.) =The Oppression of the Is´ra-el-ites.= Toward the close of the sojourn the Is´ra-el-ite family, now grown into a multitude (Exod. 1. 7), endured cruel bondage from the E-gyp´tians (Exod. 1.13, 14). This was overruled to promote God's design, and led to their departure from E´gypt, which is known as "the exodus," or going out. 4. From the names of men in this period we select the following: 1.) =A´bra-ham=, the friend of God (James 2. 23). 2.) =Ja´cob=, the prince of God (Gen. 32. 28). 3.) =Jo´seph=, the preserver of his people (Gen. 45. 5). Blackboard Outline +------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------+ |I. Per. Hu. |II. Per. |III. Per. |IV. Per. |V. Per. | | Ra. | Ch. Fam.| Is. Peo. | Is. Kin.| Je. Prov.| +------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------+ | C. M. | C. A. | | | | | C. A. | E. E. | | | | +------------+------------+ | | | | Dir. Adm. | Patr. Adm. | | | | +------------+------------+ | | | | Fa. | Jou. Pat. | | | | | Del. | Soj. Eg. | | | | | Dis. | Opp. Isr. | | | | +------------+------------+ | | | | A. E. N. | A. J. J. | | | | +------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------+ Review Questions What is the name of the second period? Why is it so named? With what events does the second period begin and end? What kind of divine administration do we notice in the second period? Into what three epochs is the second period divided? What were the beneficial results of the bondage in E´gypt upon the Is´ra-el-ites? Name three persons of the second period? For what fact or trait is each of these three persons distinguished? PART THREE III. When the Is´ra-el-ites went out of E´gypt a nation was born, and the family became a state, with all the institutions of government. Therefore we call this the =Period of the Is´ra-el-ite People=. 1. It opens with the =Exodus from E´gypt=, B. C. 1270? (Exod. 12. 40-42), and closes with the =Coronation of Saul=, B. C. 1050?. 2. During this period the government of the Is´ra-el-ites was peculiar. The Lord was their only King (Judg. 8. 23), but there was a priestly order for religious service (Exod. 28. 1), and from time to time men were raised up by a divine appointment to rule, who were called judges (Judg. 2. 16). This constituted the =Theocratic Administration=, or a government by God. 3. We subdivide this period as follows: 1.) =The Wandering in the Wilderness.= This was a part of God's plan, and trained the Is´ra-el-ites for the conquest of their land (Exod. 13. 17, 18). It lasted for forty years (Deut. 8. 2). 2.) =The Conquest of Ca´naan=, which immediately followed the crossing of the Jordan (Josh. 3. 14-17). The war was vigorously carried on for a few years, but the land was only seemingly conquered, for the native races remained upon the soil, and in some places were dominant until the time of Da´vid. 3.) =The Rule of the Judges.= From the death of Josh´u-a, B. C. 1200?, the people were directed by fifteen judges, not always in direct succession. 4. This period has been justly called "the Age of the Heroes"; and from many great men we choose the following: 1.) =Mo´ses=, the founder of the nation (Deut. 34. 10-12). 2.) =Josh´u-a=, the conqueror of Ca´naan (Josh. 11. 23). 3.) =Gid´e-on=, the greatest of the judges (Judg. 8. 28). 4.) =Sam´u-el=, the last of the judges (1 Sam. 12. 1, 2). Blackboard Outline +---------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+ |I. Per. Hu. Ra.|II. Per. |III. Per. |IV. Per. |V. Per. | | | Ch. Fam.| Is. Peo.| Is. Kin.| Je. Prov.| +---------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+ | C. M. | C. A. | E. E. | | | | C. A. | E. E. | C. S. | | | +---------------+------------+------------+ | | | Dir. Adm. | Patr. Adm. | The. Adm. | | | +---------------+------------+------------+ | | | Fa. | Jou. Pat. | Wan. Wil. | | | | Del. | Soj. Eg. | Con. Can. | | | | Dis. | Opp. Isr. | Ru. Jud. | | | +---------------+------------+------------+ | | | A. E. N. | A. J. J. | M. J. G. S.| | | +---------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+ Review Questions What is the third period of Bible history called? With what events did it begin and end? How was Is´ra-el governed during this period? What are its subdivisions? How many judges governed the Is´ra-el-ites after Josh´u-a? Name four important persons of the third period. State for what each of these persons was distinguished. PART FOUR IV. With the reign of the first king a new period opens. We now study the history of the =Is´ra-el-ite Kingdom=. The kingdom was divided after the reign of three kings, but even after the division it was regarded as one kingdom, though in two parts. 1. This period extends from the =Coronation of Saul=, B. C. 1050? (1 Sam. 11. 15), to the =Captivity of Bab´y-lon=, B. C. 587. 2. During this period the chosen people were ruled by kings; hence this is named the =Regal Administration=. The king of Is´ra-el was not a despot, however, for his power was limited, and he was regarded as the executive of a theocratic government (1 Sam. 10. 25). 3. This period is divided into three epochs, as follows: 1.) =The Age of Unity=, under three kings, Saul, Da´vid, and Sol´o-mon, each reigning about forty years. In Da´vid's reign, about B. C. 1,000, the kingdom became an empire, ruling all the lands from E´gypt to the Eu-phra´tes. 2.) =The Age of Division.= The division of the kingdom took place B. C. 934, when two rival principalities, Is´ra-el and Ju´dah, succeeded the united empire, and all the conquests of Da´vid were lost (1 Kings 12. 16, 17). The kingdom of Is´ra-el was governed by nineteen kings, and ended with the fall of Sa-ma´ria, B. C. 721, when the Ten Tribes were carried into captivity in As-syr´i-a (2 Kings 17. 6) and became extinct. 3.) =The Age of Decay.= After the fall of Is´ra-el, Ju´dah remained as a kingdom for one hundred and thirty-four years, though in a declining condition. It was ruled by twenty kings, and was finally conquered by the Chal-de´ans. The Jews were carried captive to Bab´y-lon in B. C. 587 (2 Chron. 36. 16-20). 4. The following may be regarded as the representative =Persons= of his period, one from each epoch: 1.) =Da´vid=, the great king (2 Sam. 23. 1), and the true founder of the kingdom. 2.) =E-li´jah=, the great prophet (1 Kings 18. 36). 3.) =Hez-e-ki´ah=, the good king (2 Kings 18. 1-6). Blackboard Outline +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+------------+ |I. Per. Hu. |II. Per. Ch. |III. Per. Is. |IV. Per. Is. |V. Per. Je. | | Ra. | Fam. | Peo. | Kin. | Prov. | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+------------+ | C. M. | C. A. | E. E. | C. S. | | | C. A. | E. E. | C. S. | C. B. | | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+ | | Dir. Adm. | Patr. Adm. | The. Adm. | Reg. Adm. | | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+ | | Fa. | Jou. Pat. | Wan. Wil. | Ag. Un. | | | Del. | Soj. Eg. | Con. Can. | Ag. Div. | | | Dis. | Opp. Isr. | Ru. Jud. | Ag. Dec. | | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+ | | A. E. N. | A. J. J. | M. J. G. S. | D. E. H. | | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+------------+ Review Questions What is the fourth period called? With what events did it begin and end? What were the dates of these two events? How were the people governed during this period? What were the three subdivisions of this period? Under whom did the kingdom become an empire? What was the extent of its empire? When did the division of the kingdom take place? What was the result of the division? How many were the kings of the Ten Tribes? With what event, and at what date, did the kingdom of Is´ra-el end? How long did Ju´dah last after the fall of Is´ra-el? How many kings reigned in Ju´dah? By what people was Ju´dah conquered? To what city were the Jews carried captive? Name three representative persons of the period of the kingdom. PART FIVE V. In the closing period of Old Testament history we find the tribe of Ju´dah alone remaining, and during most of the time under foreign rule; so we name this the =Period of the Jew´ish Province=. 1. It extends from the beginning of the =Captivity at Bab´y-lon=, B. C. 587, to the =Birth of Christ=, B. C. 4.[2] 2. During this period Ju-de´a was a subject land, except for a brief epoch. This may be called, therefore, the =Foreign Administration=, as the rule was through the great empires in succession. 3. This period may be subdivided into five epochs. For the first and a part of the second we have the Old Testament as our source of history; all the rest fall in the four centuries of silence between the Old and the New Testament. 1.) =The Chal-de´an Supremacy.= Fifty years from the captivity, B. C. 587, to the conquest of Bab´y-lon by Cy´rus, B. C. 536, by which the Chal-de´an empire was ended, and the Jews were permitted to return to their land (Ezra 1. 1-3). 2.) =The Per´sian Supremacy.= About two hundred years from the fall of Bab´y-lon, B. C. 536, to the battle of Ar-be´la, B. C. 330, by which Al-ex-an´der the Great won the Per´sian empire. During this epoch the Jews were permitted to govern themselves under the general control of the Per´sian kings. 3.) =The Greek Supremacy.= Al-ex-an´der's empire lasted only ten years, but was succeeded by Greek kingdoms, under whose rule the Jews lived in Pal´es-tine for about one hundred and sixty years. 4.) =The Mac-ca-be´an Independence.= About B. C. 168 the tyranny of the Greek king of Syr´i-a drove the Jews to revolt. Two years later they won their liberty under Ju´das Mac-ca-be´us, and were ruled by a line of princes called As-mo-ne´ans, or Mac-ca-be´ans, for one hundred and twenty-six years. 5.) =The Ro´man Supremacy.= This came gradually, but began officially in the year B. C. 40, when Her´od the Great received the title of king from the Ro´man senate. Thenceforth the Jew´ish province was reckoned a part of the Ro´man empire. 4. In each epoch of this period we select one important =Person=. 1.) In the Chal-de´an supremacy, =Dan´iel=, the prophet and prince (Dan. 2. 48; 5. 12). 2.) In the Per´sian supremacy, =Ez´ra= the scribe, the framer of the Scripture canon and the reformer of the Jews (Ezra 7. 6, 10). 3.) In the Greek supremacy, =Si´mon the Just=, a distinguished high priest and ruler. 4.) In the Mac-ca-be´an independence, =Ju´das Mac-ca-be´us=, the liberator of his people. 5.) In the Ro´man supremacy, =Her´od the Great=, the ablest but most unscrupulous statesman of his age. This Ro´man supremacy lasted until A. D. 70, when Je-ru´sa-lem was destroyed by Ti´tus, and the Jew´ish state was extinguished by the emperor of Rome. Blackboard Outline +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ |I. Per. Hu. |II. Per. Ch. |III. Per. Is. |IV. Per. Is. |V. Per. Je. | | Ra. | Fam. | Peo. | Kin. | Prov. | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ | C. M. | C. A. | E. E. | C. S. | C. B. | | C. A. | E. E. | C. S. | C. B. | Bi. Ch. | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ | Dir. Adm. | Patr. Adm. | The. Adm. | Reg. Adm. | For. Adm. | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ | Fa. | Jou. Pat. | Wan. Wil. | Ag. Un. | Ch. Sup. | | Del. | Soj. Eg. | Con. Can. | Ag. Div. | Per. Sup. | | Dis. | Opp. Isr. | Ru. Jud. | Ag. Dec. | Gk. Sup. | | | | | | Mac. Ind. | | | | | | Rom. Sup. | +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ | A. E. N. | A. J. J. | M. J. G. S. | D. E. H. |D. E. S. J. H.| +------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ Review Questions What is the closing period of Old Testament history called? With what events and dates did it begin and end? How were the Jews governed during most of this time? Name its five epochs. Under whom did the Jews obtain independence? Name one person in each epoch of the fifth period, and for what he is distinguished. THIRD STUDY The Beginnings of Bible History Having taken a general view of Bible history from the creation to the coming of Christ, we now turn again to the record for a more careful study of each epoch. The aim will be not to give a mere catalogue of facts, but as far as possible to show the relation of cause and effect, and to unfold the development of the divine purpose which is manifested through all the history in the Bible. I. We begin with the =Deluge= as the starting point of history. Back of that event there may be studied biography, but not history; for history deals less with individuals than with nations, and we know of no nations before the flood. With regard to the deluge we note: 1. The _fact_ of a deluge is stated in Scripture (Gen. 7), and attested by the traditions of nearly all nations. 2. Its _cause_ was the wickedness of the human race (Gen. 6. 5-7). Before this event all the population of the world was massed together, forming one vast family and speaking one language. Under these conditions the good were overborne by evil surroundings, and general corruption followed. 3. Its _extent_ was undoubtedly not the entire globe, but so much of it as was occupied by the human race (Gen. 7. 23), probably the Eu-phra´tes valley. Many Christian scholars, however, hold to the view that the book of Genesis relates the history of but one family of races, and not all the race; consequently that the flood may have been partial, as far as mankind is concerned. 4. Its _purpose_ was: 1.) To destroy the evil in the world. 2.) To open a new epoch under better conditions for social, national, and individual life. II. =The Dispersion of the Races.= 1. Very soon after the deluge a new _instinct_, that of _migration_, took possession of the human family. Hitherto all mankind had lived together; from this time they began to scatter. As a result came tribes, nations, languages, and varieties of civilization. "The confusion of tongues" was not the cause, but the result, of this spirit, and may have been not sudden, but gradual (Gen. 11. 2, 7). 2. _Evidences of this migration_ are given: 1.) In the Bible (Gen. 9. 19; 11. 8). 2.) The records and traditions of nearly all nations point to it. 3.) Language gives a certain proof; for example, showing that the ancestors of the Eng´lish, Greeks, Ro´mans, Medes, and Hin´dus--races now widely dispersed--once slept under the same roof. At an early period streams of migration poured forth from the highlands of A´sia in every direction and to great distances. III. =The Rise of the Empires.= In the Bible world four centers of national life arose, not far apart in time, each of which became a powerful kingdom, and in turn ruled all the Oriental lands. The strifes of these nations, the rise and fall, constitute the matter of ancient Oriental history, which is closely connected with that of the Bible. These four centers were: 1. _E´gypt_, in the Nile valley, founded not far from B. C. 5000, and in the early Bible history having its capital at Mem´phis. 2. _Bab-y-lo´ni-a_, called also Shi´nar and Chal-de´a, on the plain between the Ti´gris and Eu-phra´tes Rivers, near the Per´sian Gulf, where a kingdom arose about B. C. 4500; of which Ba´bel or Bab´y-lon was the greatest, though not the earliest, capital. 3. _As-syr´i-a_, of which the capital was Nin´e-veh (Gen. 10. 11). 4. _Phoe-ni´cia_, on the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an seacoast, north of Pal´es-tine, having Si´don for its earlier and Tyre for its later capital, and holding its empire not on the land, but on the sea, as its people were sailors and merchants. IV. =The Migration of A´bra-ham=, B. C. 2280?. No other journey in history has the _importance_ of that transfer of the little clan of A´bra-ham from the plain of Bab-y-lo´ni-a to the mountains of Pal´es-tine in view of its results to the world. Compare with it the voyage of the Mayflower. Its causes were: 1. Probably the _migratory instinct_ of the age, for it was the epoch of tribal movements. 2. The _political cause_ may have been the desire for liberty from the rule of the Ac-ca´di-an dynasty that had become dominant in Chal-de´a. 3. But the deepest _motive_ was _religious_, a purpose to escape from the idolatrous influences of Chal-de´a, and to find a home for the worship of God in what was then "the new West," where population was thin. It was by the call of God that A´bra-ham set forth on his journey (Gen. 12. 1-3). V. =The Journeys of the Patriarchs.= For two centuries the little clan of A´bra-ham's family lived in Pal´es-tine as strangers, pitching their tents in various localities, wherever pasturage was abundant, for at this time they were shepherds and herdsmen (Gen. 13. 2; 46. 34). Their home was most of the time in the southern part of the country, west of the Dead Sea; and their relations with the Am´o-rites, Ca´naan-ites, and Phi-lis´tines on the soil were generally friendly. [Illustration] VI. =The Sojourn in E´gypt.= After three generations the branch of A´bra-ham's family belonging to his grandson Ja´cob, or Is´ra-el, removed to E´gypt (Deut. 26. 5), where they remained more than four hundred years. This stay in E´gypt is always called "the sojourn." The event which led directly to the descent into E´gypt was the selling of Jo´seph (Gen. 37. 28). But we can trace a providential purpose in the transfer. Its objects were: 1. _Preservation._ The frequent famines in Pal´es-tine (Gen. 12. 10; 26. 1; 42. 1-3) showed that as shepherds the Is´ra-el-ites could not be supported in the land. On the fertile soil of E´gypt, with three crops each year, they would find food in abundance. 2. _Growth._ At the end of the stay in Ca´naan the Is´ra-el-ites counted only seventy souls (Gen. 46. 27); but at the close of the sojourn in E´gypt they had increased to nearly two millions (Exod. 12. 37; Num. 1. 45, 46). The hot climate and cheap food of E´gypt have always caused an abundant population. In E´gypt, Is´ra-el grew from a family to a nation. 3. _Isolation._ There was great danger to the morals and religion of the Is´ra-el-ites in the land of Ca´naan. A´bra-ham had sent to his own relatives at Ha´ran for a wife for I´saac (Gen. 24. 3, 4) in order to keep both the race and the faith pure. One of I´saac's sons married Ca´naan-ite wives, and as a result his descendants, the E´dom-ites, lost the faith and became idolaters (Gen. 26. 34, 35). Ja´cob sought his wives among his own relatives (Gen. 28. 1, 2). We note a dangerous tendency in Ja´cob's family to ally themselves with the Ca´naan-ites (Gen. 34. 8-10; 38. 1, 2). If they had stayed in Ca´naan the chosen family would have become lost among the heathen. But in E´gypt they lived apart, and were kept by the caste system from union with the people (Gen. 46. 34; 43. 32). It was a necessary element in the divine plan that Is´ra-el should dwell apart from other nations (Num. 23. 9). 4. _Civilization._ The E-gyp´tians were in advance of other nations of that age in intelligence, in the organization of society, and in government. Though the Is´ra-el-ites lived apart from them, they were among them and learned much of their knowledge. Whatever may have been their condition at the beginning of the sojourn, at the end of it they had a written language (Exod. 24. 7), a system of worship (Exod. 19. 22; 33. 7), and a leader who had received the highest culture of his age (Acts 7. 22). As one result of the sojourn the Is´ra-el-ites were transformed from shepherds and herdsmen to tillers of the soil--a higher manner of living. Hints to the Teacher 1. Let the map of the Old Testament world be drawn by a pupil on the blackboard, and let all the lands and places referred to in this lesson be noted upon it. Indicate on this map the regions of the deluge, the four empires, the journey of A´bra-ham, and the route of the Is´ra-el-ites to E´gypt. 2. Let the references be read and their connection with the lesson be shown by the students. 3. Place on the board (and in the scholar's notebook) the outline of the lesson, and let additional details from the book of Genesis be given. 4. See that each pupil can read the Blackboard Outline and answer the Review Questions given below. Blackboard Outline I. =Del.= 1. Fac. Scrip. trad. 2. Cau. wick. rac. 3. Ext. 4. Pur. 1.) Des. ev. 2.) New ep. II. =Disp. Rac.= 1. Inst. mig. 2. Evid. 1.) Bib. 2.) Trad. 3.) Lang. III. =Rise Emp.= 1. Eg. 2. Chal. 3. Ass. 4. Sid. and Tyr. IV. =Mig. Abr.= Causes. 1. Mig. inst. 2. Pol. cau. 3. Rel. mot. V. =Jour. Patr.= Str. in Pal. Shep. Hom. Relat. VI. =Soj. in Eg.= Obj. 1. Pres. 2. Gro. 3. Isol. 4. Civ. Review Questions At what point does history begin? Name the six great events in early Bible history? How is the fact of a deluge attested? What was the moral cause of the flood? What was its extent? What was its purpose in the plan of God? What new spirit took possession of men soon after the flood? To what results did this lead? What was the relation of this fact to the confusion of tongues? What evidences of these migrations are found? What were the four great centers of national life in the Oriental world? What was the most important journey, in its results, in all history? What three causes are given for this migration? What was especially the religious motive of this journey? How long did A´bra-ham's descendants remain in Pal´es-tine? In what part of the country did they live? What were their relations with the native peoples in Pal´es-tine? What is meant by "the sojourn"? What was its immediate cause? What four providential results came to Is´ra-el through this sojourn? How long was the time of the sojourn? How were the Is´ra-el-ites protected from corruption through this sojourn? What was the effect of the sojourn upon their civilization? FOURTH STUDY The Wandering in the Wilderness PART ONE I. =Preliminary Events.= As preparatory to the wilderness stage in the history of Is´ra-el certain events and processes are to be noted. 1. =The Oppression of the Is´ra-el-ites= (Exod. I. 8-13). If the Is´ra-el-ites had been prosperous and happy in E´gypt they would have remained there, and the destiny of the chosen people would have been forgotten. Therefore, when E´gypt had given to Is´ra-el all that it could the wrath of man was made to praise God; and by suffering the Is´ra-el-ites were made willing to leave the land of their sojourn and seek the land of promise. The nest was stirred up, and the young eaglet was compelled to fly (Deut. 32. 11, 12). The Pha´raoh of the oppression is generally identified with Ram´e-ses II, who was reigning about B. C. 1320. 2. =The Training of Mo´ses.= Therein was another element of preparation. No common man could have wrought the great work of liberation, of legislation, and of training which Is´ra-el needed. 3. =The Ten Plagues.= But if it was needful to make the Is´ra-el-ites willing to depart it was also needful to make the E-gyp´tian king and his people willing to let them depart; and this was accomplished by the plagues which fell upon E´gypt, showing Is´ra-el as under God's peculiar care and the gods of E´gypt powerless to protect their people. 4. =The Passover= (Exod. 12. 21-28). This service represented three ideas: 1.) It was the springtide festival. 2.) It commemorated the sudden departure from E´gypt, when there was not even time to "raise the bread" before leaving (Exod. 12. 34-39). 3.) It was an impressive prophecy of Christ, the slain Lamb of God (Exod. 12. 21, 22). 5. =The Exodus= (Exod. 12. 40, 41). The word means "going out." This was the birthday of a nation, the hour when the Is´ra-el-ites rose from being merely a mass of men to become a people. The date of the exodus is uncertain, but the best scholars have concluded that it took place in the reign of the King Me-neph´thah (or Me-re-neph´thah), who may have reigned about B. C. 1270. [Illustration: JOURNEYS OF THE ISRAELITES] II. In order to follow the journeys of the Is´ra-el-ites we must draw a map of the =Wilderness of the Wandering=. 1. Draw the coast lines, and note =three Seas=. 1.) The "great sea," or _Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an_ (Josh. 1. 4). 2.) The _Red Sea_ (Exod. 13. 18), (Gulfs of Su-ez´ and Ak´a-ba). 3.) The _Dead Sea_. 2. Draw the mountain ranges, and note =five Deserts=. 1.) The _Desert of Shur_ (Exod. 15. 22), between Go´shen and Ca´naan. 2.) The _Desert of Pa´ran_, in the center of the Si-na-it´ic triangle (Num. 10. 12). This is the wilderness in which thirty-eight of the forty years were passed (Deut. 1. 19). 3.) The _Desert of E´tham_ (Num. 33. 8), on the shore of the Gulf of Su-ez´. 4.) The _Desert of Sin_, near Mount Si´nai (Exod. 16. 1). 5.) The _Desert of Zin_, the desolate valley between the Gulf of Ak´a-ba and the Dead Sea, now called the Ar´a-bah (Num. 13. 21). 3. Locate also the =five Lands= of this region. 1.) _Go´shen_, the land of the sojourn (Exod. 9. 26). 2.) _Mid´i-an_, the land of Mo´ses' shepherd life (Exod. 2. 15), on both sides of the Gulf of Ak´a-ba. 3.) _E´dom_, the land of E´sau's descendants, south of the Dead Sea (Num. 21. 4). 4.) _Mo´ab_, the land of Lot's descendants, east of the Dead Sea (Num. 21. 13). 5.) _Ca´naan_, the land of promise (Gen. 12. 7). 4. Fix also the location of =three Mountains=. 1.) _Mount Si´nai_, where the law was given (Exod. 19. 20). 2.) _Mount Hor_,[3] where Aar´on died (Num. 20. 23-28). 3.) _Mount Ne´bo_ (Pis´gah), where Mo´ses died (Deut. 34. 1). 5. Notice also =seven Places=, some of which are clearly, others not so definitely, identified. 1.) _Ram´e-ses_, the starting point of the Is´ra-el-ites (Exod. 12. 37). 2.) _Ba´al-ze´phon_, the place of crossing the Red Sea (Exod. 14. 2). 3.) _Ma´rah_, where the bitter waters were sweetened (Exod. 15. 22-25). 4.) _E´lim_, the place of rest (Exod. 15. 27). 5.) _Reph´i-dim_, the place of the first battle, near Mount Si´nai (Exod. 17. 8-16). 6.) _Ka´desh-bar´ne-a_, whence the spies were sent forth (Num. 13. 26). 7.) _Ja´haz_, in the land of Mo´ab, south of the brook Ar´non, where a victory was won over the Am´or-ites (Num. 21. 23, 24). Blackboard Outline I. =Pre. Even.= 1. Opp. Isr. 2. Tra. Mos. 3. Ten Pla. 4. Pass. 5. Exod. II. =Wil. Wan.= 1. Seas. 1.) M. S. 2.) R. S. [G. S., G. A.] 3) D. S. 2. Des. 1.) D. Sh. 2.) D. Par. 3.) D. Eth. 4.) D. Si. 5.) D. Zi. 3. Lan. 1.) Gos. 2.) Mid. 3.) Ed. 4.) Mo. 5.) Can. 4. Mts. 1.) Mt. Sin. 2.) Mt. H. 3.) Mt. Neb. 5. Pla. 1.) Ram. 2.) B.-zep. 3.) Mar. 4.) El. 5.) Rep. 6.) Kad.-bar. 7.) Jah. Review Questions Name five events which were preparatory to the wandering. What made the Is´ra-el-ites willing to leave E´gypt? What three ideas were connected with the passover? What is meant by the exodus? What are the three seas of the map illustrating the wandering? Name five deserts of this region? In which desert were the most years passed? What were the two deserts on the shore of the Red Sea? Where was the Desert of Zin? Which desert was between E´gypt and Pal´es-tine? Name and locate five lands of this region. Which land was nearest to E´gypt? Which land was on the eastern arm of the Red Sea? Which land lay east of the Dead Sea? Which land was south of the Dead Sea? Name three mountains in this region. What event took place on each of these mountains? Name two places between E´gypt and the Red Sea. Name three places on the route between the Red Sea, and an event at each place. What place was south of Ca´naan and near it? What events occurred at this place? What two places were battlefields? PART TWO III. On our map we indicate the =Journeys of the Is´ra-el-ites=, and at the same time note the principal events of the wandering. 1. _From Ram´e-ses to the Red Sea_ (Exod. 12. 37; 14. 9). With this note: 1.) The crossing of the Red Sea. 2. _From the Red Sea to Mount Si´nai._ Events: 2.) The waters of Ma´rah (Exod. 15. 23-26). 3.) The repulse of the Am´a-lek-ites (Exod. 17. 8-16). 4.) The giving of the law at Mount Si´nai. Here the camp was kept for a year, and the organization of the people was effected. 3. _From Mount Si´nai to Ka´desh-bar´ne-a._ At the latter place occurred: 5.) The sending out of the spies and their return (Num. 13. 1-26). 6.) The defeat at Hor´mah, north of Ka´desh-bar´ne-a (Num. 14. 40-45). It was the purpose of Mo´ses to lead the people at once from Ka´desh up to Ca´naan. But their fear of the Ca´naan-ite and Am´or-ite inhabitants made them weak; they were defeated and driven back into the Desert of Pa´ran, where they wandered thirty-eight years, until the generation of slavish souls should die off, and a new Is´ra-el, the young people, trained in the spirit of Mo´ses and Josh´u-a and fitted for conquest, should arise in their places. 4. _From Ka´desh-bar´ne-a through the Desert of Pa´ran and Return._ This was the long wandering of thirty-eight years. We trace the route from Ka´desh, around the Desert of Pa´ran, to Mount Hor, to E´zi-on-ge´ber at the head of the Gulf of Ak´a-ba, and at last to Ka´desh once more (Num. 20. 1). There occurred: 7.) The water from the rock at Ka´desh and Mo´ses's disobedience (Num. 20. 10-12). 8.) The repulse by A´rad (Num. 21. 1). It would seem that the Is´ra-el-ites made a second attempt to enter Ca´naan on the south, and were again defeated, though not so severely as before. 5. _From Ka´desh-bar´ne-a around E´dom to the River Jor´dan._ After this second defeat Mo´ses desired to lead the people through the land of the E´dom-ites, and to enter Ca´naan by crossing the Jor´dan (Num. 20. 14). But the E´dom-ites refused to permit such an army to pass through their land (Num. 20. 18-21). Hence the Is´ra-el-ites were compelled to go down the Desert of Zin, past E´dom, as far as the Red Sea, then east of E´dom--a very long and toilsome journey (Num. 21. 4). Note with this journey: 9.) The brazen serpent (Num. 21. 6-9; John 3. 14, 15). 10.) The victory over the Am´or-ites (Num. 21. 23,24). This victory gave to the Is´ra-el-ites control of the country from Ar´non to Jab´bok, and was the first campaign of the conquest. The long journey was now ended in the encampment of the Is´ra-el-ites at the foot of Mount Ne´bo, on the eastern bank of the Jor´dan, near the head of the Dead Sea. 11.) The last event of the period was the death of Mo´ses, B. C. 1451 (Deut. 34. 5-8). IV. =The Results of the Wandering.= These forty years of wilderness life made a deep impress upon the Is´ra-el-ite people, and wrought great changes in their character. 1. It gave them certain _Institutions_. From the wilderness they brought their tabernacle and all its rites and services, out of which grew the magnificent ritual of the temple. The Feast of Passover commemorated the exodus, the Feast of Pentecost the giving of the law, the Feast of Tabernacles (during which for a week the people lived in huts and booths) the outdoor life in the desert. 2. Another result was _National Unity_. When the Is´ra-el-ites left E´gypt they were twelve unorganized tribes, without a distinct national life. Forty years in the wilderness, meeting adversities together, fighting enemies, marching as one host, made them a nation. They emerged from the wilderness a distinct people, with one hope and aim, with patriotic self-respect, ready to take their place among the nations of the earth. 3. _Individual Liberty._ They had just been set free from the tyranny of the most complete governmental machine on the face of the earth. In E´gypt the man was nothing; the state was everything. The Is´ra-el-ite system was an absolute contrast to the E-gyp´tian. For centuries after the exodus the Is´ra-el-ites lived with almost no government, each man doing what was right in his own eyes. They were the freest people on earth, far more so than the Greeks or the Ro´mans during their republican epochs. Mo´ses trained them not to look to the government for their care, but to be a self-reliant people, able to take care of themselves. If they had passed this initial stage of their history surrounded by kingdoms they would have become a kingdom. But they learned their first lessons of national life in the wilderness, untrammeled by environment and under a wise leader, who sought to train up a nation of kings instead of a kingdom. 4. _Military Training._ We trace in the history of those forty years a great advance in military discipline. After crossing the Red Sea, Mo´ses did not wish to lead them by the direct route to Ca´naan lest they should "see war" (Exod. 13. 17, 18). Attacked by the Am´a-lek-ites soon after the exodus, the Is´ra-el-ites were almost helpless (Exod. 17. 8-16; Deut. 25. 17-19). A year later they were the easy prey of the Ca´naan-ites at Hor´mah (Num. 14. 40-45). Forty years after they crossed the Jor´dan, and entered Ca´naan a drilled and trained host, a conquering army. This discipline and spirit of conquest they gained under Mo´ses and Josh´u-a in the wilderness. 5. _Religious Education._ This was the greatest of all the benefits gained in the wilderness. They were brought back from the idolatries of E´gypt to the faith of their fathers. They received God's law, the system of worship, and the ritual which brought them by its services into a knowledge of God. Moreover, their experience of God's care taught them to trust in Je-ho´vah, who had chosen them for his own people. Even though the mass of the people might worship idols, there was always from this time an Is´ra-el of the heart that sought and obeyed God. Blackboard Outline III. =Jour. and Even.= Jour. 1. Ram.--R. S. 1.) Cr. R. S. Jour. 2. R. S.--Mt. Sin. 2.) Wat. Mar. 3.) Rep. Am. 4.) Giv. 1. Jour. 3. Mt. Sin.--Kad.-bar. 5.) Sen. sp. 6.) Def. Hor. Jour. 4. Kad.-bar.--Des. Par.--Ret. 7.) Wat. roc. Kad. 8.) Rep. Ar. Jour. 5. Kad.-bar.--Ed.--Riv. Jor. 9.) Bra. ser. 10.) Vic. ov. Amo. 11.) Dea. Mos. IV. =Res. Wan.= 1. Ins. 2. Nat. Un. 3. Ind. Lib. 4. Mil. Tra. 5. Rel. Ed. Review Questions State the route of the first journey. What was the great event of this journey? What was the second journey? What events are named with this journey? What was the third journey? What two events took place with this journey? What was the longest journey? Name four places of this journey? Name two events near its close. What was the last journey? What events took place at this time? Where was the last encampment of the Is´ra-el-ites? What institutions originated during this period? What was the political effect of this epoch upon the people? How did it give them liberty? What was the influence in military affairs? What were its results upon the religion of the people? FIFTH STUDY Institutions of Israelite Worship PART ONE In the Old Testament we note certain forms and institutions for worship, and as some of these received their shaping during the wilderness life of the Is´ra-el-ites, we give a brief account of such institutions at this place in the history. I. Earliest of all institutions for worship we find the =Altar=, and throughout the Old Testament the altar worship stands prominent. 1. =Its Principle=, the root idea underlying the altar, was of a meeting between God and man. As the subject always came to his ruler with a gift in his hands, so the worshiper brought his offering to his god, whether Je-ho´vah, the God of Is´ra-el, or Ba´al, the divinity of the Ca´naan-ites. 2. =Its Origin= is unknown, but it was early sanctioned by a divine approval of the worship connected with it (Gen. 4. 3, 4; 8. 20; 12. 8). 3. =Its Universality.= There was scarcely a people in the ancient world without an altar. We find that the worship of every land and every religion was associated with altars. (See allusions in Isa. 65. 3; 2 Kings 16. 10; Acts 17. 23, to altars outside of the Is´ra-el-ite faith.) 4. =Its Material.= Among the Is´ra-el-ites it was of earth or unhewn stone. Where metal or wood was used it was merely for a covering, the true altar being of earth inside. The laws of Is´ra-el forbade any carving of the stone which might lead to idol worship (Exod. 20. 24, 25). 5. =Its Limitation.= In the patriarchal age the chief of the clan was the priest, the altar stood before his tent, and there was but one altar for the clan, which thus represented one family. When Is´ra-el became a nation only one altar was allowed by the law, carrying out the idea that all the Twelve Tribes were one family (Deut. 12. 13, 14; Josh. 22. 16). Yet the law, if known to the Is´ra-el-ites, was constantly ignored by the prophets (1 Sam. 7. 9; 1 Kings 18. 31, 32). 6. =Its Prophetic Purpose=, as revealed in the New Testament, was to prefigure the cross whereon Christ died (John 1. 29; Heb. 9. 22; 1 Pet. 3. 18). II. The =Offerings=, as fully developed and named in the law, were of five kinds, as follows: 1. =The Sin Offering.= 1.) This regarded the worshiper as a sinner, and expressed the means of his reconciliation with God. 2.) The offering consisted of an animal. 3.) The animal was slain and burned without the camp. 4.) Its blood was sprinkled on the altar of incense in the Holy Place (Lev. 4. 3-7). 2. =The Burnt Offering.= 1.) This regarded the worshiper as already reconciled, and expressed his consecration to God. 2.) It consisted of an animal, varied according to the ability of the worshiper. 3.) The animal was slain and burned on the altar. 4.) Its blood was poured out on the altar, a token that the life of the worshiper was given to God (Lev. 1. 2-9). 3. =The Trespass Offering.=[4] 1.) This represented the divine forgiveness of an actual transgression, whether against God or man, as distinguished from the condition of a sinner represented in the sin offering. 2.) The offering consisted of an animal, generally a ram, though a poor person might bring some flour. 3.) The animal was slain and burned on the altar. 4.) The blood was poured out at the base of the altar (Lev. 5. 1-10). 4. =The Meat Offering.=[5] 1.) This expressed the simple idea of thanksgiving to God. 2.) It consisted of vegetable food. 3.) The offering was divided between the altar and the priest; one part was burned on the altar, the other presented to the priest to be eaten by him as food (Lev. 2. 1-3). 5. =The Peace Offering.= 1.) This expressed fellowship with God in the form of a feast. 2.) It consisted of both animal and vegetable food. 3.) The offering was divided into three parts, one part burned upon the altar, a second eaten by the priest, a third part eaten by the worshiper and his friends as a sacrificial supper. Thus God, the priest, and the worshiper were all represented as taking a meal together. Blackboard Outline +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | I. =Alt.= 1. Prin. 2. Orig. 3. Univ. 4. Mat. 5. Lim. 6. Proph. Pur.| |II. =Off.= | | 1. Si. Off. |Sin. rec. G.|An. |Sl. bur. |Spr. alt. inc. | | 2. Bu. Off. |Con. G. |An. |Sl. bur. |Pou. alt. | | 3. Tre. Off.|For. trans. |An. |Sl. bur. |Pou. ba. alt. | | 4. Me. Off. |Tha. Gd. |Veg. |Alt. pri. | | | 5. Pea. Off.|Fel. G. |An. veg.|Alt. pri. wor.| | +--------------+------------+--------+--------------+----------------+ Review Questions What two institutions of the Old Testament are here presented? What shows the universality of the altar in connection with worship? What is said of the origin of the altar? Of what material were the earliest altars made? What was the religious idea in the altar? What prophetic purpose did the altar have? Name the five kinds of offerings. How did the sin offering regard the worshiper? What did the sin offering express? Of what did the sin offering consist? What was done with the offering? What was done with the blood? What was the design of the burnt offering? Of what did the burnt offering consist? What was done with the animal? What was done with the blood in the burnt offering? Wherein did the trespass offering differ from the sin offering? Of what did the trespass offering consist? What was done with the sacrifice? What did the meat offering express? Of what did it consist? How was the meat offering used? What was expressed by the peace offering? Of what did it consist? What was done with the peace offering? PART TWO The Tabernacle 1. When the family of A´bra-ham grew into a people its unity was maintained by regarding the altar--and but one altar for all the Twelve Tribes--as the religious center of the nation. 2. To the thought of the altar as the meeting place with God was added the conception of God dwelling among his people in a sanctuary and receiving homage as the King of Is´ra-el (Exod. 25. 8). 3. Thus the altar grew into the Tabernacle, which was the sanctuary where God was supposed to dwell in the midst of the camp. As was necessary among a wandering people, it was constructed of such materials as could be easily taken apart and carried on the march through the wilderness. In considering the Tabernacle and its furniture we notice the following particulars: I. =The Court=, an open square surrounded by curtains, 150 by 75 feet in extent, and occupying the center of the camp of Is´ra-el (Exod. 27. 9-13). In this stood the Altar, the Laver, and the Tabernacle itself. II. =The Altar of Burnt Offerings= stood within the court, near its entrance. It was made of wood plated with "brass" (which is supposed to mean copper), was 7½ feet square and 4½ feet high. On this all the burnt sacrifices were offered (Exod. 27. 1; 40. 29), except the sin offering. III. =The Laver= contained water for the sacrificial purifyings. It stood at the door of the tent, but its size and form are unknown (Exod. 30. 17-21). IV. =The Tabernacle= itself was a tent 45 feet long, 15 feet wide. Its walls were of boards, plated with gold, standing upright; its roof of three curtains, one laid above another. Whether there was a ridge-pole or not is uncertain. It was divided, by a veil across the interior, into two apartments, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies (Exod. 36. 8-38). V. =The Holy Place= was the larger of the two rooms into which the tent was divided, being 30 feet long by 15 wide. Into this the priests entered for the daily service. It contained the Candlestick, the Table, and the Altar of Incense (Heb. 9. 2). [Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING LOCATION OF THE OBJECTS WITHIN THE TABERNACLE COURT.] VI. =The Candlestick= (more correctly, "lampstand") stood on the left side of one entering the Holy Place; made of gold, and bearing seven branches, each branch holding a lamp (Exod. 25. 31-37). VII. =The Table= stood on the right of one entering the Holy Place; made of wood, covered with gold; 3 feet long, 1½ feet wide, 2¼ feet high; contained 12 loaves of bread, called "the bread of the presence" (Exod. 37. 10, 11). VIII. =The Altar of Incense= stood at the inner end of the Holy Place, near the veil; made of wood, covered with gold; 1½ feet square and 3 feet high. On it the incense was lighted by fire from the Altar of Burnt Offerings (Exod. 30. 1, 2). IX. =The Holy of Holies= was the innermost and holiest room in the Tabernacle, into which the high priest alone entered on one day in each year (the Day of Atonement); in form a cube of 15 feet. It contained only the Ark of the Covenant (Heb. 9. 3). X. =The Ark of the Covenant= was a chest containing the stone tablets of the Commandments; made of wood, covered on the outside and inside with gold; 3 feet 9 inches long, 2 feet 3 inches wide and high. Through gold rings on the sides were thrust the staves by which it was borne on the march. Its lid, on which stood two figures of the cherubim, was called "the mercy seat." On this the high priest sprinkled the blood on the Day of Atonement (Exod. 25. 17, 18; Heb. 9. 7). Blackboard Outline THE TABERNACLE I. =Cou.= sq. 150. 75. (Al. Lav. Tab.) II. =Alt.= woo. br. 7½. 4½. III. =Lav.= do. ten. IV. =Tab.= 45. 15. bds. cur. (H.P. H.H.) V. =Ho. Pl.= 30. 15. (Can. Tab. Alt. Inc.) VI. =Can.= go. 7 bran. VII. =Tab.= 3. 1½. 2¼. 12 loa. VIII. =Alt. Inc.= woo. gol. 1½. 3. IX. =Ho. Hol.= 15. 15. 15. (Ar. Cov.) X. =Ar. Cov.= wo. go. 3,9. 2,3. "mer. se." Review Questions How was the unity of the Is´ra-el-ite people maintained? What was the conception or thought in the Tabernacle? Why was it constructed of such material? What was the court of the Tabernacle? What were the dimensions of the court? What stood in the court? What were the materials of the Altar of Burnt Offerings? What was the size of this altar? What was the laver, and where did it stand? What was the Tabernacle itself? Into what rooms was it divided? How was it covered? What were the dimensions of the Holy Place? What did the Holy Place contain? What was the form of the candlestick? Where did the candlestick stand? Of what was the Altar of Incense made? What were its dimensions? For what was this altar used? What were the dimensions of the Holy of Holies? What did the Holy of Holies contain? Who alone entered this room, and how often? What was the Ark of the Covenant? What was the "mercy seat"? PART THREE The Sacred Year I. Among the Is´ra-el-ites certain institutions of worship were observed at regular intervals of time which have been called the =Periodical Institutions=. These were: 1. =The Sabbath=, observed one day in seven; of which the root idea is the giving to God a portion of our time. (See references in the Old Testament: Gen. 2. 3; Exod. 20. 8-11; Isa. 56. 2; 58. 13.) In the New Testament we find the first day of the week gradually taking its place among the early Christians (Acts 20. 7; 1 Cor. 26. 2; Rev. 1. 10). 2. =The New Moon=, which was the opening day of each month; regarded as a sacred day, and celebrated with religious services (Num. 10. 10; 2 Kings 4. 23). 3. =The Seven Annual Solemnities=, the important occasions of the year, six feasts and one fast day. 4. =The Sabbatical Year.= One year in every seven was to be observed as a year of rest, and the ground was not to be tilled (Lev. 25. 2-7). 5. =The Year of Jubilee.= Once in fifty years the Is´ra-el-ites were commanded to give liberty to slaves, freedom to debtors, and general restitution of alienated inheritances (Lev. 25. 9, 10). How far the "Sabbatical Year" and "the Year of Jubilee" were actually kept among the Is´ra-el-ites we have no means of knowing; but the commands concerning them were given in the law. II. We take for special notice among these periodical institutions the =Seven Annual Solemnities= of the =Sacred Year=. Most of these were instituted in the time of Mo´ses, but two of them arose later. We consider them all, however, in this place, rather than at the closing of the history, where two of the feasts properly belong. These may be classified as: 1. =The Three Great Feasts=: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; all observed at the capital, and requiring the people to make annual pilgrimages to Je-ru´sa-lem. 2. =The Annual Fast=: the Day of Atonement. 3. =The Three Lesser Feasts=: Trumpets, Dedication, Purim. These were observed throughout the land, as well as in Je-ru´sa-lem. With regard to each of these we will note: 1.) Its time. 2.) The event which it commemorated. 3.) How it was observed. 1. =The Feast of Passover= (Luke 22. 1). 1.) Was held in the spring, on the fourteenth of the month Abib, or Nisan, corresponding to parts of March and April (Exod. 12. 18). 2.) Commemorated the exodus from E´gypt (Exod. 12. 42). 3.) Observed with the eating of unleavened bread and the slain lamb (Exod. 12. 19-21). 2. =The Feast of Pentecost= (Acts 2. 1). 1.) Was held early in the summer, on the fiftieth day after Passover, in the month Sivan, corresponding to May and June. 2.) Commemorated the giving of the law.[6] (See Exod. 19. 1, 11.) 3.) Observed by "first fruits" laid on the altar, with special sacrifices (Lev. 23. 15-21). 3. =The Feast of Tabernacles= (John 7. 2, 10). 1.) Held in the fall, after the ingathering of crops, from the 15th to the 21st of the seventh month, Ethanim, corresponding to September and October (Lev. 23. 34). 2.) Commemorated the outdoor life of the wilderness (Lev. 23. 43). 3.) Observed by living in huts or booths, and by special sacrifices (Lev. 23. 35-42). 4. =The Day of Atonement=, the only fast required by the Jew´ish law. 1.) Held in the fall, on the tenth day of the month Ethanim (Lev. 23. 27), five days before the Feast of Tabernacles. 2.) Showing the sinner's reconciliation with God. 3.) On this day only in the year the high priest entered the Holy of Holies (Exod. 30. 10). 5. =The Feast of Trumpets.= 1.) Held on the first day of the seventh month, Ethanim, corresponding to September or October (Lev. 23. 24). 2.) This feast recognized the "New Year Day" of the civil year.[7] 3.) It was observed with the blowing of trumpets all through the land. 6. =The Feast of Dedication=, not named in the Old Testament. (See John 10. 22.) 1.) This was held in the winter, on the 25th of the month Chisleu (December), and for eight days thereafter. 2.) It commemorated the reconsecration of the Temple by Ju´das Mac´ca-be´us, B. C. 166, after its defilement by the Syr´i-ans. 3.) It was observed by a general illumination of Je-ru´sa-lem; hence often called "the feast of lights." 7. =The Feast of Purim=, not named in the New Testament, unless it be referred to in John 5. 1. 1.) Held in the early spring, the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (March) (Esth. 9. 21). 2.) Commemorating Queen Esther's deliverance of the Jew´ish people (Esth. 9. 22-26). 3.) Observed with general feasting and rejoicing. Blackboard Outline I. =Per. Inst=. 1. Sab. 2. Ne. Mo. 3. Sev. Ann. Sol. 4. Sab. Ye. 5. Ye. Jub. II. =Sac. Yea.= {1. Pass. spr. ex. Eg. sla. la. 1. Gr. Fe. {2. Pen. sum. giv. la. fir. fru. {3. Tab. fal. lif. wil. liv. huts. 2. Ann. Fa. 4. Day. At. fal. sin. rec. pr. H. Hol. {5. Trum. fal. N. Ye. bl. trum. 3. Les. Fe. {6. Ded. win. rec. Tem. ill. Jer. {7. Pur. spr. Esth. del. fea. rej. Review Questions What is meant by "Periodical Institutions"? Name the five general periodical institutions of the Is´ra-el-ites. What did the Sabbath commemorate? What were the new moons? How many times in the year were observed by the Is´ra-el-ites? What was the Sabbatical Year? What was the Year of Jubilee? Name the three great feasts. When was each great feast observed? What did each feast commemorate? How was each feast observed? What took place on the Day of Atonement? What did the Day of Atonement represent? What were the three lesser feasts? When was each observed? What did each lesser feast commemorate? How were these feasts observed? SIXTH STUDY The Land of Palestine PART ONE We have followed the history of the Is´ra-el-ites to their encampment on the border of their promised land. Before taking up the study of their conquest of Ca´naan let us obtain some conception of the country with which the greater part of Bible history is connected--the land of Pal´es-tine. I. Let us notice its =Names= at different periods: 1. The earliest name was =Ca´naan=, "lowland," referring only to the section between the river Jor´dan and the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea, of which the inhabitants most widely known were the Ca´naan-ites, dwelling on the lowland plains (Gen. 12. 5). [Illustration: PALESTINE] 2. After the conquest by Josh´u-a it was called =Is´ra-el=, though in later times of Old Testament history the name referred only to the northern portion, the southern kingdom being called Ju´dah (Judg. 18. 1; 1 Kings 12. 20). 3. In the New Testament period its political name was =Ju-de´a=, which was also the name of its most important province (Mark 1. 5). 4. Its modern name is =Pal´es-tine=, a form of the word "Phi-lis´tine," the name of a heathen race which in early times occupied its southwestern border (Isa. 14. 29). II. The following are the principal =Dimensions= of Pal´es-tine: 1. =Ca´naan=, or western Pal´es-tine, has an area of about 6,600 square miles, a little less than Massachusetts. 2. =Pal´es-tine Proper=, the domain of the Twelve Tribes, embraces 12,000 square miles, about the area of Massachusetts and Connecticut. 3. The =Coast Line=, from Ga´za, the southernmost town, to Tyre, on the north, is not far from 140 miles long. 4. The =Jor´dan= is distant from the coast at Tyre about 25 miles; and the =Dead Sea=, in a line due east from Ga´za, about 60 miles. 5. The =Jor´dan Line=, from Dan, one of the sources of the Jor´dan, to the southern end of the Dead Sea, is 155 miles. III. The most important =Waters= of Pal´es-tine are: 1. The =Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea=, which bounds the land on the west (Josh. 1. 4; Exod. 23. 31; Deut. 11. 24). 2. The =River Jor´dan=, rising in three sources in Mount Her´mon, and emptying into the Dead Sea in a direct line 105 miles long, but by its windings over 200 miles (Deut. 9. 1; Josh. 4. 1; 2 Sam. 17. 22). 3. =Lake Me´rom=, now called _Hu´leh_, a triangular sheet of water, 3 miles across, in a swamp in northern Gal´i-lee (Josh. 11. 5). 4. The =Sea of Gal´i-lee=,[8] a pear-shaped lake, 14 miles long by 9 wide, and nearly 700 feet below the sea level. (Note other names in Josh. 13. 27; 11. 2; Luke 5. 1; John 6. 1.) 5. The =Dead Sea=, 47 miles long by 10 wide, and 1,300 feet below the sea level (Gen. 14. 3; Deut. 4. 49; Joel 2. 20). IV. The land of Pal´es-tine lies in five =Natural Divisions=, nearly parallel: 1. The =Maritime Plain=, or sandy flat, extending along the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea, from 8 to 20 miles wide. 2. The =Sheph´e-lah=, or foothills, from 300 to 500 feet high and very fertile. 3. The =Mountain Region=, the backbone of the land, consisting of mountains from 2,500 to 4,000 feet high. 4. The =Jor´dan Valley=, a deep ravine, the bed of the river and its three lakes, from 500 to 1,200 feet below the level of the sea, and from 2 to 14 miles wide. 5. The =Eastern Table-land=, a region of lofty and precipitous mountains, from whose summit a plain stretches away to the A-ra´bi-an Desert on the east. Hints to the Teacher 1. Let the map be drawn by the teacher in presence of the class, and each part carefully taught, while the class also draw the map in their notebooks. 2. Then erase the map from the board, and call upon one scholar, in presence of the class, to draw the lines representing natural divisions: another the river and lakes, etc., etc. 3. If chalk of different colors can be used for the different departments of the map, coast line and Jordan line one color, mountain lines another, it will add to the interest. Blackboard Outline I. =Na.= Ca. Isr. Jud. Pal. II. =Dim.= Ca. 6,600. Pal. 12,000. C. L. 140. To =Jor.= 25. To D. S. 60. Jor. L. 155. III. =Wat.= Med. Jor. L. Me. S. Gal. D. S. IV. =Nat. Div.= M. P. Sh. M. R. J. V. E. T.-L. Review Questions Why is a knowledge of the land of Pal´es-tine important? Give and explain the four different names of this land. What is meant by "Ca´naan" proper? How large is Ca´naan? How large was the domain of the Twelve Tribes? How long is the coast line? How far is the Jor´dan distant from the coast near its source? How far is the Dead Sea from the coast? What is meant by the Jor´dan line? How long is the Jor´dan line? Name the most important waters of Pal´es-tine. Describe the river Jor´dan, sources, elevations, length, etc. Describe and locate Lake Me´rom. Describe the Sea of Gal´i-lee. Describe the Dead Sea. What are the five natural divisions of Pal´es-tine? PART TWO V. Pal´es-tine is a land of =Mountains=, among which we notice only a few of the most important, beginning in the north. 1. =Mount Her´mon=, is near the source of the Jor´dan, on the east, and is the highest mountain in Pal´es-tine. 2. =Mount Leb´a-non=, west of Her´mon, was famous for its cedars (1 Kings 5. 6; Psa. 29. 5). 3. =Mount Ta´bor=, the place of Deb´o-rah's victory, is southwest of the Sea of Gal´i-lee (Judg. 4. 6). 4. =Mount Gil-bo´a=, where King Saul was slain, is south of Ta´bor (1 Sam. 31. 1; 2 Sam. 1. 21). 5. =Mount Car´mel=, the place of E-li´jah's sacrifice, is on the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an, due west of the Sea of Gal´i-lee (1 Kings 18. 20, 42; Isa. 35. 2). 6. =Mount E´bal=, "the mount of cursing," lies in the center of the land (Deut. 11. 26). 7. =Mount Ger´i-zim=, "the mount of blessing," is south of E´bal (Josh. 8. 33; John 4. 20). 8. =Mount Zi´on=, on which Je-ru´sa-lem stood and still stands, is due west of the head of the Dead Sea. 9. =Mount Ne´bo=, where Mo´ses died, is directly opposite Zi´on, on the east of the Dead Sea (Deut. 34. 1). VI. We note a few of the most important places, selecting only those connected with Old Testament history; and we arrange them according to the natural divisions of the land. 1. On the _Seacoast Plain_ were: 1.) =Ga´za=, on the south, the scene of Sam´son's exploits and death (Judg. 16. 21). 2.) =Jop´pa=, principal seaport of Pal´es-tine (2 Chron. 2. 16; Jonah 1. 3). 3.) =Tyre=, just beyond the northern boundary of Pa´les-tine, a great commercial city of the Phoe-ni´cians (Josh. 19. 29). 2. In the _Mountain Region_ were: 1.) =Be´er-she´ba=, in the southern limit of the land (Gen. 21. 31, 33; 1 Sam. 3. 20; 1 Kings 19. 3). 2.) =He´bron=, burial place of the patriarchs (Gen. 23. 19; 49. 29-31). 3.) =Beth´le-hem=, the birthplace of Da´vid (1 Sam. 17. 12). 4.) =Je-ru´sa-lem=, "the city of the great king," which stands due west of the northern point of the Dead Sea (2 Sam. 5. 6-9). 5.) =Beth´el=, nine miles north of Je-ru´sa-lem, the place of Ja´cob's vision (Gen. 28. 19). 6.) =She´chem=, between the twin mountains Ger´i-zim and E´bal, in the center of the land (1 Kings 12. 1). 7.) =Sa-ma´ri-a=, the capital of the Ten Tribes (1 Kings 16. 24). 3. In the _Jor´dan Valley_ were: 1.) =Jer´i-cho=, near the head of the Dead Sea (1 Kings 16. 34). 2.) =Dan=, at one of the sources of the Jor´dan, the northernmost place in the land (Judg. 18. 28; 20. 1). Blackboard Outline I. =Na.= Ca. Isr. Jud. Pal. II. =Dim.= Ca. 6,600. Pal. 12,000. C. L. 140. To Jor. 25. To D. S. 60. Jor. L. 155. III. =Wat.= Med. Jor. L. Me. S. Gal. D. S. IV. =Nat. Div.= M. P. Sh. M. R. J. V. E. T.-L. V. =Mtns.= Her. Leb. Tab. Gil. Car. Eb. Ger. Zi. Ne. VI. =Pla.= 1. _Sea. Pl._ Ga. Jop. Ty. 2. _Mtn. Reg._ Beer. Heb. Beth. Jer. Bet. She. Sam. 3. _Jor. Val._ Jer. Da. Review Questions Name nine mountains on the map of Pal´es-tine. State the location of each mountain. State a fact for which each mountain is celebrated. Name and locate three places on the Maritime Plain. Name and locate seven places in the Mountain Region. Name and locate two places in the Jor´dan Valley. SEVENTH STUDY The Conquest of Canaan I. Let us notice the =Ca´naan-ites=, the peoples who were dispossessed by the Is´ra-el-ites. 1. They were of =one stock=, according to the Scriptures, belonging to the Ham´ite race, and all descended from the family of Ca´naan (Gen. 10. 15-19). 2. They were divided into =various tribes=, from seven to ten nations, arranged mainly as follows: 1.) On the seacoast plain, the Phi-lis´tines on the south, the Ca´naan-ites in the middle, and the Phoe-ni´cians, or Zi-do´ni-ans, on the north of Mount Car´mel. 2.) In the mountain region, the Am´or-ites in the south, the Jeb´u-sites around Je-ru´sa-lem, the Hi´vites in the center of the land, and the Hit´tites in the north. 3.) The Jor´dan valley was held by the Ca´naan-ites. 4.) On the eastern table-land, the Mo´ab-ites east of the Dead Sea, the Am´or-ites east of the Jor´dan, and the Ba´shan-ites in the north. 3. Their =government= was =local=. Not only was each tribe independent, but each little locality, often each city, had its own "king," or chief. There was no unity of government, and scarcely any combination to resist the invasion of Is´ra-el, a fact which made the conquest far less difficult. 4. They were =idolatrous= and, as a result, grossly =immoral=. Idolatry is always associated with immorality; for the worship of idols is a deification of sensuality. Ba´al and Ash´e-rah (plural Ash´to-reth) were the male and female divinities worshiped by most of these races (Judg. 2. 13). 5. They had been =weakened= before the coming of the Is´ra-el-ites either by war or by pestilence. The allusions in Exod. 23. 28; Deut. 7. 20; and Josh. 24. 12, have been referred to an invasion before that of Israel, or to some plague, which destroyed the native races. II. =The Campaigns of the Conquest.= These may be divided as follows: 1. =The Campaigns East= of the Jor´dan. These were during the lifetime of Mo´ses, and gained for Is´ra-el all the territory south of Mount Her´mon. [Illustration: CAMPAIGNS OF THE =CONQUEST=] 1.) The conquest of Gil´e-ad was made at the battle of Ja´haz, near the brook Ar´non (Num. 21. 21-31). In one battle the Is´ra-el-ites gained the land of Gil´e-ad east of the Jor´dan. 2.) The conquest of Ba´shan was completed at the battle of Ed´re-i, in the mountainous region (Num. 21. 33-35). 3.) The conquest of Mid´i-an (Num. 31. 1-8) was led by the warrior-priest Phin´e-has, and by smiting the tribes on the east protected the frontier toward the desert. The land won by these three campaigns became the territory of the tribes of Reu´ben, Gad, and the half tribe of Ma-nas´seh (Deut. 32). 2. =The Campaigns West of the Jor´dan= were led by Josh´u-a, and showed great tactical skill and resistless energy of action. Josh´u-a led his people across the Jor´dan and established a fortified camp, the center of operations during all his campaigns, at Gil´gal (Josh. 4. 19). 1.) The first invasion was of _Central Pal´es-tine_, beginning with Jer´i-cho (Josh. 6), taking A´i on the way (Josh. 8), and ending with She´chem, which apparently fell without resistance (Josh. 8. 30-33). This campaign gave to Is´ra-el the center of the land and divided their enemies into two sections. 2.) Next came the campaign against _Southern Pal´es-tine_. At this time was fought the battle of Beth-ho´ron (Josh. 10. 10), the most momentous in its results in all history, and one over which, if ever, the sun and moon might well stand still (Josh. 10. 12, 13).[9] After this great victory Josh´u-a pursued his enemies and took the towns as far south as He´bron and De´bir (Josh. 10. 29-39). 3.) Lastly, Josh´u-a conquered _Northern Pal´es-tine_ (Josh. 11). The battle in this campaign was near Lake Me´rom (Josh. 11. 7), and, as before, it was followed by the capture of many cities in the north. Thus in those marches Josh´u-a won all the mountain region of western Pal´es-tine. 3. There were certain =supplementary campaigns=, partly in Josh´u-a's time, partly afterward. 1.) Caleb´s capture of He´bron, which had been reoccupied by the Am´or-ites (Josh. 14; Judg. 1. 10-15). 2.) The Ju´dah-ites' capture of Be´zek, an unknown place between Je-ru´sa-lem and the Phi-lis´tine plain (Judg. 1. 1-8). 3.) The Dan´ites' capture of La´ish, in the extreme north, which afterward bore the name of Dan (Judg. 18). But, after all these campaigns, a large part of the land was still unsubdued, and the war of the conquest did not end until the days of Da´vid by whom every foe was finally placed under foot. III. =General Aspects of Is´ra-el at the Close of the Conquest.= 1. With regard to the =native races=. They were not destroyed nor driven away, as had been commanded.[10] They remained as subject people in some places, as the ruling race on the seacoast and in the Jor´dan valley. We see their influence, always injurious, throughout all Is´ra-el's history (Exod. 23. 31-33; Deut. 7. 1-5); and some think that the present inhabitants of the country belong to the original Ca´naan-ite stock. 2. The =Is´ra-el-ites= did not occupy all the country. They possessed most of the mountain region, but none of the seacoast plain on the Jor´dan valley. They were like the Swiss in modern times, living among the mountains. Even in the New Testament period the lowlands were occupied mainly by Gen´tiles. 3. The =landed system= was peculiar. =Estates= were inalienable. They might be leased, but not sold; and on the year of jubilee (every fiftieth year) all land reverted to the family originally owning it. Thus every family had its ancestral home, the poor were protected, and riches were kept within bounds. 4. The =government= was a republic of families without an executive head, except when a judge was raised up to meet special needs. Each tribe had its own rulers, but there was no central authority after Josh´u-a (Judg. 21. 25). This had its evils, for it led to national weakness; but it had its benefits: 1.) It kept Is´ra-el from becoming a great worldly kingdom like E´gypt and As-syr´i-a, which would have thwarted the divine purpose. 2.) It promoted individuality and personal energy of character. There would have been no "Age of Heroes" if Is´ra-el had been a kingdom like E´gypt. 5. The =religious system= was simple. There was but one altar at Shi´loh for all the land and for all the tribes, and the people were required to visit it for the three great feasts (Deut. 12. 11, 14; Josh. 18. 1). This was the religious bond which united the people. If it had been maintained they would have needed no other constitution, and even its partial observance kept the people one nation. 6. The =character= of the people was diverse. Throughout the history we trace the working of two distinct elements: There was the true Is´ra-el--the earnest, religious, God-worshiping section, the Is´ra-el of Josh´u-a and Gid´e-on and Sam´u-el. Then there was the underlying mass of the people--secular, ignorant, prone to idolatry, the Is´ra-el that worshiped Ba´al and Ash´to-reth, and sought alliance with the heathen. One element was the hope of the nation; the other was its bane. We shall constantly see the evidences of these two elements in the story of the Is´ra-el-ites. Blackboard Outline I. =Can.= 1. One st. 2. Var. tri. 1.) S. P. Phil. Can. Phoe. 2.) M. R. Am. Je. Hiv. Hitt. 3.) J. V. Can. 4.) E. T.-L. Mo. Am. Bash. 3. Gov. loc. 4. Idol. imm. 5. Weak. II. =Camp. Conq.= 1. Camp. Eas. Jor. 1.) Gil. Jah. 2.) Bash. Ed. 3.) Mid. 2. Camp. Wes. Jor. 1.) Cent. Pal. Jer. Ai. She. 2.) Sou. Pal. Beth-hor. 3.) Nor. Pal. L. Mer. 3. Supp. Camp. 1.) Cal. cap. Heb. 2.) Jud. cap. Bez. 3.) Dan. cap. Lai. III. =Gen. Asp. Isr. at Clo. Conq.= 1. Nat. rac. sub. 2. Isr. in mtn. reg. 3. Land. sys. 4. Gov. rep. fam. 5. Rel. sys. 6. Char. peo. Questions for Review To what race did the Ca´naan-ite tribes belong? What were their tribes, and where located? What was their government? What was their worship? What was the effect of their worship on their character? What had taken place shortly before the coming of the Is´ra-el-ites? What campaigns of conquest were made before the death of Mo´ses? What battles were fought in these campaigns? What tribes took possession of this territory? On which side of the Jor´dan were Josh´u-a's campaigns? What traits as a military leader did he show? What places were captured on the first of Josh´u-a's campaigns? What was the effect of this campaign on the enemies? Against what section was Josh´u-a's second campaign? Where was the great battle fought? What is said to have taken place at this battle? What cities were captured at this time? Where was the third campaign of Josh´u-a directed? Where was the battle fought in this campaign? What were the three supplementary campaigns? What city was conquered by Ca´leb? What city was occupied by the tribe of Dan? What king, long after Josh´u-a, completed the conquest of Ca´naan? What was the condition of the native races after the conquest? What was the result of their continuance in the land? What portion of the country was occupied by the Is´ra-el-ites? What modern analogy is given to them? What was the system of land tenure among the Is´ra-el-ites? What were some of its benefits? What was the form of government? Wherein was the system defective? What were its excellences? What was the religious system of the Is´ra-el-ites? What was the effect of this system? What was the religious character of the people? What was the condition of the mass of the Is´ra-el-ites? EIGHTH STUDY The Age of the Heroes From the death of Josh´u-a to the coronation of Saul the Twelve Tribes of Is´ra-el were without a central government, except as from time to time men of ability rose up among them. It was not, as some have supposed, an "age of anarchy," for anarchy is confusion; and during most of the time there were peace and order in Is´ra-el. It was rather an "age of heroes," for its rulers were neither hereditary nor elective, but men called forth by the needs of the hour and their own qualities of leadership. I. =The Condition of Is´ra-el during This Period.= This was partly favorable and partly unfavorable. The _favorable_ elements were: 1. =The Mountain Location= of Is´ra-el. The tribes were perched like Switzerland in the Alps. There was a desert on the south and on the east, while on the west lay the plain by the sea, the great route of travel between E´gypt and the Eu-phra´tes. Great armies passed and repassed over this plain, and great battles were fought by E-gyp´tians, Hit´tites, and As-syr´i-ans, while Is´ra-el on her mountain peaks was unmolested. This mountain home left Is´ra-el generally unnoticed, and, when attacked, almost inaccessible. 2. =The Racial Unity= of Is´ra-el. The two finest races of the world, the Greek and the Is´ra-el-ite, were both of pure blood. The Is´rael-ites were one in origin, in language, in traditions, in aspirations. This national unity often brought the tribes together in times of distress, though not always when the union was needed. 3. =The Religious Institutions.= In Greece every town had its own god and its own religion; hence the many parties and petty nationalities. But in Is´ra-el there was in theory but one altar, one house of God, one system of worship, with its annual pilgrimage to the religious capital (1 Sam. 1. 3). Just to the measure in which these institutions were observed Is´ra-el was strong against all foes, and as they were neglected the land became the prey of oppressors (Judg. 2. 7-14; 1 Sam. 7. 3). But there were also _unfavorable_ elements in the condition of Is´ra-el, which threatened its very existence. These were: 1. =The Native Races.= These were of two kinds: the subject people left on the soil, more or less under the domination of the conquerors; and the surrounding nations, Am´mon, Mo´ab, Syr´i-a, and the Phi-lis´tines. There was danger from their enmity, a rebellion of the subject tribes, allied with the enemies around, for the destruction of Is´ra-el. And there was far greater danger from their friendship, which would lead to intermarriage, to idolatry, to corruption of morals, and to ruin (Judg. 3. 1-7). 2. =Lack of a Central Government.= Is´ra-el was in the condition of the United States at the close of the Revolution, from 1783 to 1789, a loose confederation with no central authority. There were twelve tribes, but each governed itself. Only under some great chieftain like Gid´e-on or Sam´u-el were all the twelve tribes united. Most of the judges ruled only over their own district of a few adjoining tribes. Often the northern tribes were in peril, but we never read of Ju´dah going to their assistance; and in Ju´dah´s wars with the Phi-lis´tines the northern tribes stood aloof. 3. =Tribal Jealousy.= Until the establishment of the American republic the world never saw, for any length of time, a league of states on an equal footing. In Greece the strongest state claimed the _hegemony_, or leadership, and oppressed its allies. In Italy the Ro´mans reduced all their neighbors to subjection. In Europe it now requires an army of more than a million men to maintain the "balance of power." So in Is´ra-el there was a constant struggle for the leadership between the two great tribes of Ju´dah and E´phra-im. During the period of the judges E´phra-im was constantly asserting its rights to rule the other tribes (Judg. 8. 1-3; 12. 1-6). We trace this rivalry through all the reign of Da´vid; and at last it led to the division of the empire under Re-ho-bo´am. 4. =Idolatrous Tendencies.= We note constantly "the two Is´ra-els"--a spiritual minority and an irreligious, idolatrous mass. For many centuries the greatest evil of Is´ra-el-ite history was the tendency to the worship of idols. Causes which operated to promote it were: 1.) The natural craving for a visible object of worship, not altogether eradicated from even the Christian heart; for example, Ro´mish images and the use of the crucifix. 2.) The association of Is´ra-el with idolaters on the soil or as neighbors. 3.) The opportunity which idol worship gives to gratify lust under the guise of religion. As a result of these forces we find idol worship the crying sin of the Is´ra-el-ites down to the captivity in Bab´y-lon. II. =The Judges of Is´ra-el.= These were the heroes of that age, the men who in turn led the tribes, freed them from their enemies, and restored them to the service of God. 1. =Their Office.= It was not generally to try legal cases between man and man or between tribe and tribe. It might be regarded as a military dictatorship blended with a religious authority. The judge was a union of the warrior and the religious reformer. 2. =Their Appointment=, not by election, nor the votes of the people. The Orientals have never chosen their rulers by suffrage. The judges were men whom the people recognized as called of God to their office (Judg. 2. 16; 3. 9; 6. 11-13). 3. =Their authority= rested not on law, nor on armies, but on the personal elements of integrity and leadership in the men, and on the general belief in their inspiration. They spoke to the people with the authority of a messenger from God. They arose in some hour of great need, and after the immediate danger was over held their power until the end of their lives. 4. =The Extent of Their Rule= was generally local, over a few tribes in one section. Deb´o-rah ruled in the north (Judg. 5. 14-18); Jeph´thah governed only the east of the Jor´dan (Judg. 11. 29). Often more than one judge was ruling at the same time; probably Sam´son and E´li were contemporaneous. Gid´e-on and Sam´u-el alone ruled all the twelve tribes. Blackboard Outline I. =Cond. Isr.= _Fav._ 1. Mtn. Loc. 2. Rac. Un. 3. Rel. Inst. _Unfav._ 1. Nat. Rac. 2. Lac. Cent. Gov. 3. Tri. Jeal. 4. Idol. Ten. II. =Jud. Isr.= 1. Off. 2. App. 3. Auth. 4. Ex. Ru. Review Questions Between what events was this period? What were its traits? What were the conditions favorable to Is´ra-el during this period? How did their location aid the Is´ra-el-ites? Wherein were the Is´ra-el-ites one people? How did their religious institutions keep them together? What were the unfavorable and dangerous elements in the condition of Is´ra-el? How were they in danger from the native races? What was lacking in the government of Is´ra-el? What two tribes were in rivalry? What was the effect of this jealousy? What analogy is found in ancient history? How was the same principle illustrated in modern times? What evil tendency was manifested in Is´ra-el through nearly all its history? What causes are assigned for this tendency? What was the office of a judge in Is´ra-el? How were the judges appointed? What was their authority? How widely did their rule extend? III. =The Oppressions and Deliverers.= During these centuries the influences already named brought Is´ra-el many times under the domination of foreign power. The story was always the same: forsaking God, following idols, subjection, reformation, victory, and temporary prosperity. We notice the seven oppressions. Some of these were undoubtedly contemporaneous. 1. =The Mes-o-po-ta´mi-an Oppression= (Judg. 3. 7-11). Probably this was over the southern portion, and the invaders came by the east and around the Dead Sea, as earlier invaders from the same land had come (Gen. 14. 1-7). The deliverer was Oth´ni-el, the first judge, and the only judge of the tribe of Ju´dah. 2. =The Mo´ab-ite Oppression= (Judg. 3. 12-30). Over the eastern and central section, including E´phra-im (verse 27); deliverer, E´hud, the second judge; battle fought at the ford of the river Jor´dan (verse 28). 3. =The Early Phi-lis´tine Oppression= (Judg. 3. 31). Over the southwest, on the frontier of Ju´dah; deliverer, Sham´gar. 4. =The Ca´naan-ite Oppression= (Judg. 4). Over the northern tribes; deliverer, Deb´o-rah, the woman judge; battle at Mount Ta´bor. 5. =The Mid´i-an-ite Oppression= (Judg. 6. 1-6). Over the northern center, especially Ma-nas´seh, east; the most severe of all; deliverer, Gid´e-on, the greatest of the judges (Judg. 6. 11, 12); battle, on Mount Gil-bo´a (Judg. 7), followed by other victories (Judg. 8). 6. THE AM´MON-ITE OPPRESSION (Judg. 10. 7-9). Note an alliance between the Am´o-rites and Phi-lis´tines, which is suggestive; mainly over the tribes on the east of Jor´dan; deliverer, Jeph´thah[11] (Judg. 11); victory at A-ro´er (verse 33). 7. THE PHI-LIS´TINE OPPRESSION (Judg. 13). This was the most protracted of all, for it extended, with intervals of freedom, for a hundred years; embraced all the land, but was most heavily felt south of Mounts Car´mel and Gil-bo´a. The liberation was begun by Sam´son (Judg. 13. 5), but he was led astray by sensual lusts and became a failure. Freedom was later won by Sam´u-el at the battle of Eb-en-e´zer (1 Sam. 7. 7-14); but the oppression was renewed in the time of Saul, and became heavier than ever (1 Sam. 13. 17-20). Finally the yoke was broken by Da´vid, in a succession of victories, ending with the capture of Gath, the Phi-lis´tine capital (2 Sam. 5. 17-25; 1 Chron. 18. 1). Note with each oppression: 1.) The oppressor. 2.) The section oppressed. 3.) The deliverer. 4.) The battlefield. IV. =The General Aspects of the Period.= 1. It was an age of =individuality=. There was no strong government to oppress the people, to concentrate all the life of the nation at the court, and to repress individuality. Contrast Per´sia with Greece; Rome under the emperors with Rome as a republic. As men were needed they were raised up, for there was opportunity for character. Hence it was an age of heroes--Oth´ni-el, E´hud, Sham´gar, Gid´e-on, Jeph´thah, Sam´son, Sam´u-el, etc. Free institutions bring strong men to the front. 2. It was an age of =neglect of the law=. During all this period there is no allusion to the law of Mo´ses. Its regulations were ignored, except so far as they belonged to the common law of conscience and right. The laws of Mo´ses were not deliberately disobeyed, but were ignorantly neglected. Even good men, as Gid´e-on and Sam´u-el, built altars and offered sacrifices (Judg. 6. 24; 1 Sam. 7. 9) contrary to the letter of the law of Mo´ses, but obeying its spirit. 3. Nevertheless, it was an age of =progress=. There were alternate advancements and retrogressions; yet we see a people with energy, rising in spite of their hindrances. By degrees government became more settled (1 Sam. 7. 15-17), foreign relations arose (1 Sam. 7. 14; Ruth 1. 1), and the people began to look toward a more stable system (1 Sam. 8. 4-6). Hints to the Teacher 1. See that the outline is thoroughly committed to memory, and test the pupil's knowledge by calling upon him to read at sight the Blackboard Outline below. 2. Draw on the board an outline map of Pal´es-tine, and indicate upon it in succession the portions occupied in each of the oppressions. Blackboard Outline I. =Cond. Isr.= _Fav._ 1. Mtn. Loc. 2. Rac. Un. 3. Rel. Ins. _Unfav._ 1. Nat. Rac. 2. Lac. Cent. Gov. 3. Tri. Jeal. 4. Idol. Ten. II. =Jud. Isr.= 1. Off. 2. App. 3. Auth. 4. Ext. Ru. III. =Opp. and Deliv.= _Opp._ _Sec._ _Deliv._ _Batt.-fie._ 1. Mes. Sou. Oth. 2. Moab. Ea. cen. Ehu. For. Jor. 3. Ea. Phil. So.-wes. Sham. 4. Can. Nor. Deb. Mt. Tab. 5. Mid. Nor. cen. Gid. Mt. Gil. 6. Amm. East. Jeph. Aro. 7. Phil. All. Sams. Saml. Eben. Dav. Gath. IV. =Gen. Asp. Per.= 1. Ind. 2. Neg. Law. 3. Prog. Review Questions What resulted from these evil tendencies in Is´ra-el? How many oppressors were there? Who were the first oppressors? Over what part of the country was the first oppression? Who delivered Is´ra-el from it? What was the second oppression? What part of the country suffered from it? Who was the deliverer? Where was the battle fought? What was the third oppression, and where? Who delivered Is´ra-el? What was the fourth oppression? Where was it? Who was the deliverer? Where was the victory won? What was the fifth oppression? Over what part of the country was it? Who delivered Is´ra-el from it? What was the sixth oppression? Over what part of the land was it? Who delivered from it? What was the last oppression? How did it differ from the others? What three names are associated in the deliverance from its power? What are the three general aspects of this period? NINTH STUDY The Rise of the Israelite Empire PART ONE The coronation of Saul marks an epoch in the history of Is´ra-el. From that point, for five hundred years, the chosen people were under the rule of kings. I. =The Causes Leading to the Monarchy.= The kingdom was not an accidental nor a sudden event. There had been a gradual preparation for it through all the period of the judges. 1. Notice the =tendency toward settled government=. In the time of Gid´e-on the people desired him to become a king (Judg. 8. 22, 23). His son attempted to make himself a king, but failed (Judg. 9). We find judges setting up a semi-royal state, and making marriages for their children outside of their tribe (Judg. 12. 9, 13, 14); and associating their sons with themselves (Judg. 10. 4; 1 Sam. 8. 1, 2). All these show a monarchical trend in the time. 2. Another cause was the =consolidation of the surrounding nations=. In the days of the conquest there were few kings in the lands neighboring Pa´les-tine. We read of "lords" and "elders," but no kings, among the Phi-lis´tines, the Mo´ab-ites, the Am´mon-ites, and the Phoe-ni´cians (Judg. 3. 3; 1 Sam. 5. 8; Num. 22. 7). But a wave of revolution swept over all those lands, and very soon we find that every nation around Is´ra-el had its king (1 Sam. 21. 10; 12. 12; 22. 3; 2 Sam. 5. 11). The movement of Is´ra-el toward monarchy was in accordance with this spirit. 3. There was a =danger of invasion=, which impelled the Is´ra-el-ites to seek for a stronger government (1 Sam. 12. 12). They felt themselves weak, while other nations were organized for conquest, and desired a king for leader in war. 4. Then, too, the =rule of Sam´u-el= led the Is´ra-el-ites to desire a better organization of the government. For a generation they had enjoyed the benefit of a wise, strong, and steady rule. They felt unwilling to risk the dangers of tribal dissension after the death of Sam´u-el, and therefore they sought for a king. 5. But underlying all was the =worldly ambition= of the people. They were not willing to remain the people of God and work out a peculiar destiny. They wished to be like the nations around, to establish a secular state, to conquer an empire for themselves (1 Sam 8. 5-20). It was this worldly spirit, whose results Sam´u-el saw, which made him unwilling to accede to the wish of the Is´ra-el-ites. But the very things against which he warned them (1 Sam. 8. 11-18) were just what they desired. II. =The Character of the Is´ra-el-ite Kingdom.= When men change their plans God changes his. He desired Is´ra-el to remain a republic, and not to enter into worldly relations and aims. When, however, the Is´ra-el-ites were determined God gave them a king (1 Sam. 8. 22); but his rule was not to be like that of the nations around Is´ra-el. We ascertain the divine ideal of a kingdom for his chosen people: 1. =It was a theocratic kingdom.= That is, it recognized God as the supreme ruler, and the king as his representative, to rule in accordance with his will, and not by his own right. Only as people and king conformed to this principle could the true aims of the kingdom be accomplished (1 Sam. 12. 13-15). And if the king should deviate from this order he should lose his throne. Disobedience to the divine will caused the kingdom to pass from the family of Saul to that of Da´vid (1 Sam. 13. 13, 14; 15. 26). 2. =It was a constitutional kingdom.= The rights of the people were carefully guaranteed, and there was a written constitution (1 Sam. 10. 25). Nearly all the Oriental countries have always been governed by absolute monarchs, but Is´ra-el was an exception to this rule. The people could demand their rights from Re-ho-bo´am (1 Kings 12. 3, 4). A´hab could not take away nor even buy Na´both's vineyard against its owner's will (1 Kings 21. 1-3). No doubt the rights of the people were often violated, but the violation was contrary to the spirit of the monarchy. 3. =It was regulated by the prophets.= The order of prophets had a regular standing in the Is´ra-el-ite state. The prophet was a check upon the power of the king, as a representative both of God's will and the people's rights. He spoke not only of his own opinions, but by the authority of God. Notice instances of the boldness of prophets in rebuking kings (1 Sam. 15. 16-23; 2 Sam. 12. 1-7; 1 Kings 13. 1-6; 17. 1; 22. 7-17). The order of prophets was like the House of Commons, between the king and the people. III. =The Reign of Saul.= 1. This may be divided into two parts: 1.) A _period of prosperity_, during which Saul ruled well, and freed Is´ra-el from its oppressors on every side (1 Sam. 14. 47, 48). 2.) Then a _period of decline_, in which Saul's kingdom seems to be falling in pieces, and only preserved by the prowess and ability of Da´vid. After Da´vid's exile the Phi-lis´tines again overran Is´ra-el, and Saul's reign ended in defeat and death. 2. We observe that Saul's reign was =a failure=, and left the tribes in worse condition than it found them. 1.) He failed _in uniting the tribes_; for tribal jealousies continued (1 Sam. 10. 27), and at the close of his reign broke out anew in the establishment of rival thrones (2 Sam. 2. 4, 8, 9). 2.) He failed _in making friends_. He alienated Sam´u-el, and with him the order of prophets (1 Sam. 15. 35); he alienated Da´vid, the ablest young man of his age and the rising hope of Is´ra-el, and drove him into exile (1 Sam. 21. 10); he alienated the entire order of the priests, and caused many of them to be massacred (1 Sam. 22. 18). 3.) He failed _to advance religion_, left the tabernacle in ruins, left the ark in seclusion, broke up the service, and drove the priests whom he did not murder into exile (1 Sam. 22. 20-23). 4.) He failed _to liberate Is´ra-el_; at his death the yoke of the Phi-lis´tines was more severe than ever before (1 Sam. 31. 1-7). The most charitable view of Saul was that he was insane during the latter years of his life. The cause of his failure was a desire to reign as an absolute monarch, and an unwillingness to submit to the constitution of the realm. [For Blackboard Outline and Review Questions see end of the lesson.] PART TWO IV. =The Reign of Da´vid.= This was a brilliant period; for it was led by a great man, in nearly every respect the greatest, after Mo´ses, in Is´ra-el-ite history. 1. Notice the =condition of Is´ra-el at his accession=. This will throw into relief the greatness of his character and his achievements. 1.) It was a _subject people_. Under Phi-lis´tine yoke; its warriors slain, many of its cities deserted; Da´vid himself probably at first tributary to the king of Gath. 2.) It was a _disorganized people_. The tribes were divided; national unity was lost; and two thrones were set up, one at He´bron, the other at Ma-ha-na´-im (2 Sam. 2. 4-9). [Illustration: EMPIRE OF =DAVID=] 3.) It was a _people without religion_. The tabernacle was gone; the ark was in neglect; there was no altar and no sacrifice; the priests had been slain. We can scarcely imagine Is´ra-el at a lower ebb than when Da´vid was called to the throne. 2. We ascertain =Da´vid's achievements=, the results of his reign. 1.) _He united the tribes._ At first crowned king by Ju´dah only, later he was made king over all the tribes, by the desire of all (2 Sam. 5. 1-5). During his reign we find but little trace of the old feud between E´phra-im and Ju´dah, though it was not dead, and destined yet to rend the kingdom asunder. 2.) _He subjugated the land._ The conquest of Pal´es-tine, left incomplete by Josh´u-a, and delayed for nearly three hundred years, was finished at last by Da´vid in the capture of Je´bus, or Je-ru´sa-lem (2 Sam. 5. 6, 7), in the overthrow of the Phi-lis´tines (2 Sam. 5. 17-25), and in the final capture of their capital city (1 Chron. 18. 1). At last Is´ra-el was possessor of its own land. 3.) _He organized the government._ He established a capital (2 Sam. 5. 9). He built a palace (2 Sam. 5. 11); notice that the builders were from Tyre, showing that the Is´ra-el-ites were not advanced in the arts. He established a system of government, with officers in the court and throughout the realm (1 Chron. 27. 25-34). Contrast all this with Saul, who ruled from his tent, like a Bed´ou-in sheik. 4.) _He established an army._ There was a royal bodyguard, probably of foreigners, like that of many European kings in modern times (2 Sam. 8. 18; 15. 18). There was a band of heroes, like Arthur's Round Table (2 Sam. 23. 8-39). There was "the host," the available military force, divided into twelve divisions, one on duty each month (1 Chron. 27. 1-15). 5.) _He established religion._ No sooner was Da´vid on the throne than he brought the ark out of its hiding place, and gave it a new home in his capital (1 Chron. 16. 1). The priesthood was organized, and divided into courses for the service of the tabernacle (1 Chron. 23. 27-32; 24. 1-19). He wrote many psalms, and caused others to be written, for the worship of God. Two prophets stood by his throne (1 Chron. 29. 29), and two high priests stood by the altar (1 Chron. 24. 3). This organization and uplifting of the public worship had a great effect upon the kingdom. 6.) _He conquered all the surrounding nations._ These wars were largely forced upon Da´vid by the jealousy of the neighboring kingdoms. In turn his armies conquered and annexed to his dominions the land of the Phi-lis´tines (1 Chron. 18. 1), Mo´ab (2 Sam. 8. 2), Syr´i-a, even to the great river Eu-phra´tes (2 Sam. 8. 3-6); E´dom (2 Sam. 8. 14), Am´mon, and the country east of Pal´es-tine (2 Sam. 10. 1-14; 12. 26-31). The empire of Da´vid thus extended from the frontier of E´gypt to the Eu-phra´tes River, fulfilling the promise of Josh. 1. 4. It was at least six times the area of the twelve tribes. 7.) We may add that _he reigned as a theocratic king_. He realized more than any other monarch the divine ideal of a ruler, and so was "the man after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13. 14); if not altogether in personal character, yet in the principles of his government. He respected the rights of his subjects, had a sympathy for all people, obeyed the voice of the prophets, and sought the interests of God's cause.[12] Blackboard Outline I. =Cau. Lea. Mon.= 1. Ten. tow. set. gov. 2. Con. sur. nat. 3. Dan. inv. 4. Ru. Sam. 5. Wor. am. peo. II. =Char. Isr. Kin.= 1. Theo. kin. 2. Cons. kin. 3. Reg. by pro. III. =Rei. Sau.= 1. Pros. and dec. 2. Fai. 1.) Un. tri. 2.) Mak. fri. 3.) Adv. rel. 4.) Lib. Isr. IV. =Rei. Dav.= 1. Con. Isr. acc. 1.) Sub. 2.) Dis. 3.) Wit. rel. 2. Dav. achiev. 1.) Uni. tri. 2.) Sub. la. 3.) Org. gov. 4.) Est. ar. 5.) Est. rel. 6.) Conq. surr. nat. 7.) Rei. theo. kin. Questions for Review What event marks an epoch in Is´ra-el-ite history? What were the causes leading to the monarchy? What events in the period of the judges show a tendency toward settled government? What changes in government in the surrounding nations helped to bring on the monarchy in Is´ra-el? From what source did external danger lead the Is´ra-el-ites to desire a king? How had Sam´u-el unconsciously helped to prepare the way for a kingdom? What worldly spirit promoted the same result? What kind of a kingdom did God intend for Is´ra-el? What is a theocratic kingdom? Wherein was Is´ra-el an exception among Oriental kingdoms? By what institutions was the kingdom regulated? Name some instances of prophets rebuking kings. Into what two parts may Saul's reign be divided? Wherein was Saul a failure? How did he fail in gaining and holding friends? What was the condition of Is´ra-el when Da´vid came to the throne? What were the achievements of Da´vid? What great incomplete work did Da´vid finish? What did he do in the organization of his kingdom? What was the arrangement of his army? What were his services to the cause of religion? What nations did he conquer? What was the extent of his empire? In what spirit did he rule? TENTH STUDY The Reign of Solomon PART ONE The reign of Sol´o-mon may be regarded as the culminating period in the history of Is´ra-el. But, strictly speaking, the latter part of Da´vid's reign and only the former part of Sol´o-mon's constitute "the golden age of Is´ra-el"; for Sol´o-mon's later years manifested a decline, which after his death rapidly grew to a fall. I. =Sol´o-mon's Empire= embraced all the lands from the Red Sea to the Eu-phra´tes, and from the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an to the Syr´i-an desert, except Phoe-ni´cia, which was isolated by the Leb´a-non mountains. 1. Besides Pal´es-tine, he ruled over E´dom, Mo´ab, Am´mon, Syr´i-a (here referring to the district having Da-mas´cus as its capital), Zo´bah, and Ha´math. 2. On the Gulf of Ak´a-ba, E´zi-on-ge´ber was his southern port (1 Kings 9. 26); on the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an, Ga´za (Az´zah) was his limit; in the extreme north, Tiph´sah, by the Eu-phra´tes (1 Kings 4. 24); in the desert, Tad´mor, afterward Pal-my´ra (1 Kings 9. 18). II. =His Foreign Relations= were extensive, for the first and only time in the history of Is´ra-el. 1. His earliest treaty was _with Tyre_ (Phoe-ni´cia), whose king had been his father's friend (1 Kings 5. 1). (What this alliance brought to Sol´o-mon see 1 Kings 5. 6-10; 2 Chron. 2. 3-14.) 2. His relations _with E´gypt_: in commerce (1 Kings 10. 28, 29); in marriage, a bold departure from Is´ra-el-ite customs (1 Kings 3. 1). Perhaps Psalm 45 was written upon this event. 3. _With A-ra´bi-a_, the land bordering on the southern end of the Red Sea (1 Kings 10. 1-10, 14. 15). 4. _With the Far East_, perhaps India, referred to in 1 Kings 9. 21-28. 5. _With the West_, perhaps as far as Spain, the Tar´shish of 1 Kings 10. 22. III. =His Buildings.= No king of Is´ra-el ever built so many and so great public works as did Sol´o-mon. Among these are named: 1. _The temple_, on Mount Mo-ri´ah, to be described later. [Illustration: PLAN OF SOLOMON'S PALACE. (According to Stade.) "Reprinted from Kent's History of the Hebrew People, from the Settlement in Canaan to the Division of the Kingdom. Copyrighted, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons."] 2. _His own palace_, south of the temple precincts, on the slope of O´phel and Mo-ri´ah. This consisted of several buildings, as follows: 1.) The House of the Forest of Leb´a-non, so called because of its many columns of cedar; this was the forecourt, or entrance. 2.) The Porch to the Palace. 3.) The Throne Hall. 4.) The King's Palace. 5.) The Queen's Palace, or Harem. 3. _His fortified cities_, forming a cordon around his kingdom. (See the lists of these in 1 Kings 9. 17-19.) 4. _His aqueducts_, some of which may still be seen (Eccl. 2. 4-6). IV. But all was not bright in the reign of Sol´o-mon. We must notice also =His Sins=, for they wrought great results of evil in the after years. 1. That which led to all his other sins was his _foreign marriages_ (1 Kings 11. 1-4). These were the natural and inevitable results of his foreign relations, and were probably effected for political reasons as well as to add to the splendor of his court. 2. His _toleration of idolatry_, perhaps actual participation in it (1 Kings 11. 5-8). We cannot overestimate the harm of Sol´o-mon's influence in this direction. At once it allied him with the lower and evil elements in the nation, and lost to him the sympathy of all the earnest souls.[13] 3. Another of Sol´o-mon's sins, not named in Scripture, but referred to in many legends of the East, may have been a _devotion to magical arts_. He appears in Oriental traditions as the great master of forces in the invisible world, engaging in practices forbidden by the law of Mo´ses (Lev. 19. 31; Deut. 18. 10, 11). Blackboard Outline I. =Sol. Emp.= Pal. Ed. Mo. Amm. Syr. Zob. Ham. E.-G. G. T. T. II. =For. Rel.= Ty. Eg. Ar. F. E. W. III. =Buil.= 1. Tem. 2. Pal. 1.) H. F. L. 2.) P. 3.) T. H. 4.) K. P. 5.) Q. P. IV. =Sins.= 1. For. mar. 2. Tol. idol. 3. Mag. Review Questions What is the reign of Sol´o-mon called? How far is that a correct title? What lands were included in Sol´o-mon's empire? What cities were on its boundaries? With what countries did Sol´o-mon have treaties and foreign relations? How was Sol´o-mon connected with the court of E´gypt? What were some of Sol´o-mon's buildings? Name the various parts of his palace. What were the sins of Sol´o-mon? PART TWO V. =General Aspects of Is´ra-el in the Reign of Sol´o-mon.= 1. =It was a period of peace.= For sixty years there were no wars This gave opportunity for development, for wealth, and for culture. 2. =It was a period of strong government.= The age of individual and tribal energy was ended, and now all the life of the nation was gathered around the throne. All the tribes were held under one strong hand; tribal lines were ignored in the government of the empire; every department was organized. 3. =It was a period of wide empire.= It was Is´ra-el's opportunity for power in the East; for the old Chal-de´an empire had broken up, the new As-syr´i-an empire had not arisen, and E´gypt was passing through a change of rulers and was weak. For one generation Is´ra-el held the supremacy in the Oriental world. 4. =It was a period of abundant wealth= (1 Kings 3. 12, 13; 4. 20; 10. 23, 27). The sources of this wealth were: 1.) The _conquests_ of Da´vid, who had plundered many nations and left his accumulated riches to Sol´o-mon (1 Chron. 22. 14-16). 2.) The _tribute_ of the subject kingdoms, doubtless heavy (1 Kings 10. 25). 3.) _Commerce_ with foreign countries (E´gypt, A-ra´bi-a, Tar´shish, and O´phir) in ancient times was not carried on by private enterprise, but by the government. The _trade_ of the East from E´gypt and Tyre passed through Sol´o-mon's dominions, enriching the land. 4.) There were also _taxes_ laid upon the people (1 Kings 4. 7-19; 12. 4). 5.) The erection of _public buildings_ must have enriched many private citizens and made money plenty. 5. =It was a period of literary activity.= The books written during this epoch were Sam´u-el, Psalms (in part), Prov´erbs (in part), and perhaps Ec-cle-si-as´tes and Sol´o-mon's Song. Not all the writings of Sol´o-mon have been preserved (1 Kings 4. 32, 33). VI. =Dangers of the Period.= There was an A-ra´bi-an tradition that in Sol´o-mon's staff, on which he leaned, there was a worm secretly gnawing it asunder. So there were elements of destruction under all the splendor of Sol´o-mon's throne. 1. =The absolute power of the king.= Da´vid had maintained the theocratic constitution of the state; Sol´o-mon set it aside and ruled with absolute power in all departments. He assumed priestly functions (1 Kings 8. 22, 54, 64); he abolished tribal boundaries in his administration (1 Kings 4. 7-19); he ignored both priests and prophets, and concentrated all rule in his own person. 2. =The formal character of the worship.= There was a magnificent temple and a gorgeous ritual, but none of the warmth and personal devotion which characterized the worship of Da´vid. The fervor of the Da-vid´ic Psalms is wanting in the literature of Sol´o-mon's age. 3. =Luxury and corruption of morals.= These are the inevitable results of abundant riches and worldly association. We do not need the warnings of Prov. 2. 16-19; 5. 3-6, etc., to know what a flood of immorality swept over Je-ru´sa-lem and Is´ra-el. 4. =The burden of taxation.= With a splendid court, an immense harem, and a wealthy nobility came high prices and high taxes; the rich growing richer rapidly, the poor becoming poorer. The events of the next reign show how heavy and unendurable these burdens grew. 5. =Heathen customs.= With the foreign peoples came the toleration of idolatry, its encouragement, and all the abominations connected with it. Jer-o-bo´am could not have established his new religion (1 Kings 12. 28) if Sol´o-mon had not already patronized idol worship. 6. Underlying all was the old =tribal jealousy= of E´phra-im and Ju´dah, fostered by an able leader (1 Kings 12. 26), ready to break out in due time and destroy the empire. Blackboard Outline V. =Gen. Asp. Isr.= 1. Pea. 2. Str. gov. 3. Wi. emp. 4. Abun. weal. 1.) Conq. 2.) Trib. 3.) Com. 4.) Tax. 5.) Pub. build. 5. Lit. act. VI. =Dan. Per.= 1. Abs. pow. 2. For. wor. 3. Lux. cor. mor. 4. Bur. tax. 5. Hea. cus. 6. Tri. jeal. Questions for Review Name five general aspects of Is´ra-el in Sol´o-mon's reign? What were the benefits of the peace at that time? What was the characteristic of Sol´o-mon's administration? What opportunity did the age give to a great empire for Is´ra-el? What were the sources of the wealth in Sol´o-mon's age? How was it a period of literary activity? What ancient legend illustrates the dangers of Sol´o-mon's age? What were some of the dangers? Wherein did Sol´o-mon set aside the Is´ra-el-ite constitution? What was the defect in the religion of Sol´o-mon's time? What evils resulted from the wealth of that time? What caused heavy taxation? What heathen customs were introduced? What showed that tribal jealousy was still existing? Hints to the Teacher and Class 1. See that the outline of the lesson is learned, with all its divisions and subdivisions. Let a scholar place each division of the outline on the blackboard in the form given in the Blackboard Outline, and then let another scholar read it to the class. 2. Have a map of Sol´o-mon's empire drawn, with each of the subject lands shown upon it. "Bound" the empire; that is, name the countries surrounding it. 3. Let the diagram of buildings on Mount Mo-ri´ah and O´phel be drawn by one pupil, and explained by another. 4. Let the Review Questions be studied until they can be answered correctly. ELEVENTH STUDY The Temple on Mount Moriah The most famous of all the buildings erected by Sol´o-mon, though by no means the largest, was the temple. It is so frequently mentioned in the Bible, and was so closely connected with the religious and secular history, both in the Old Testament and the New, that a detailed study of it is needed. I. =The Three Temples.= All these stood in succession upon the same site, and were arranged upon the same general plan. 1. _Sol´o-mon's Temple._ Built about B. C. 970, and standing until B. C. 587, when it was destroyed by the Bab-y-lo´ni-ans (2 Kings 25. 8, 9). 2. _Ze-rub´ba-bel's Temple._ After lying desolate more than fifty years the second temple was begun about B. C. 534, under Ze-rub´ba-bel, the ruler of the exiles returned from Bab´y-lon (Ezra 3. 8). This temple was far inferior in splendor to the first, but soon became the object of pilgrimage to Jews from all lands and the center of Jew´ish national and religious life. 3. _Her´od's Temple._ The second temple having become dilapidated, Her´od the Great undertook its restoration on a magnificent scale. The work was begun about B. C. 20 and was not completed until A. D. 64. In the lifetime of Je´sus it was not yet finished (John 2. 20). This temple was destroyed by the Ro´mans under Ti´tus, A. D. 70. Its site is now occupied partially by the Dome of the Rock, miscalled the Mosque of O´mar, in Je-ru´sa-lem. [Illustration] II. =The Situation.= The city of Je-ru´sa-lem stood upon hills separated by three valleys radiating in a fanlike order, from a point at the southeast. Northward runs the valley of the Kid´ron; northwest the valley of the Ty-ro´poe-on, now almost obliterated; almost westward, with a curve northward, the valley of Hin´nom. Between the valley of the Kid´ron and the valley of the Ty-ro´poe-on were two hills--on the north Mount Mo-ri´ah, and a little to the south a spur of lower elevation known as O´phel. On Mount Mo-ri´ah stood the temple, on O´phel the buildings of Sol´o-mon's palace. Later the temple area was enlarged to include both these hills. West of Mo-ri´ah, across the Ty-ro´poe-on valley, was Mount Zi´on, upon which the principal part of the city stood. III. =The House of the Lord.= This was a building not large, but magnificent and costly; made of stone and cedar, and decorated lavishly with gold and precious stones. It consisted of four parts: 1. _The Porch_, a lofty tower facing the east. Two pillars, either in the tower at the entrance or standing apart before it, are named (1 Kings 7. 21). The interior dimensions of the porch were about 30 feet from north to south, and 15 feet east and west[14] (1 Kings 6. 3). 2. _The Holy Place_ was west of the porch, and was a chamber 60 feet long by 30 wide, and perhaps 30 feet high. In it stood, on the north, the table for "the showbread"--that is, the twelve loaves shown before the Lord; on the south, the golden candlestick, or lampstand[15]; and at the western end the golden altar of incense. 3. _The Holy of Holies_, or "the oracle" (1 Kings 6. 19, 20), was a cube, each dimension being 30 feet. It had no windows, but received a dim light through the veil which separated it from the adjoining room. This place was entered by the high priest only, and on but one day in the year, the day of atonement. The only article of furniture in the room was the Ark of the Covenant, containing the two stone tables of the law. The Ark doubtless was destroyed with the first temple, and in the second and third temples its place was indicated by a marble block, upon which the blood was sprinkled. [Illustration: THE TEMPLE] 4. _The Chambers_ were rooms for the priests, situated around the house, with entrance from without. They were in three stories, and were set apart for the residence of the priests while employed in the services of the temple. Each priest served two weeks in the year; not, however, two weeks in succession, but six months apart, and lived at his home for the rest of the time. In similar chambers around the old tabernacle E´li and Sam´u-el slept (1 Sam. 3. 2, 3). IV. The =Court of the Priests= was an open, unroofed quadrangle surrounding the House of the Lord, but mainly in front, toward the east. It was about 200 feet wide, north and south, by 275 feet long, east and west, a few feet lower in elevation than the floor of the temple proper. Here stood the great _Altar of Burnt Offering_, upon which the daily sacrifice was offered, its site now shown under the Dome of the Rock; and near the door to the house _the Laver_ for washing the sacrifices. Sol´o-mon built also a great "_Sea_," or reservoir of water, standing on the backs of twelve oxen, all of "brass," probably copper (1 Kings 7. 23-26). This was broken up by the Bab-y-lo´ni-ans, B. C. 587 (2 Kings 25. 13), and was not replaced in the later temples. V. Around the Court of the Priests was another and larger corridor, the =Court of Is´ra-el=, or "the men's court." In the later temples this was 320 by 240 feet in dimensions, 26 feet wide on the north and south, 24 feet wide on the east and west. The size of this court in Sol´o-mon's temple is not given, but was probably the same as in later times. This was the standing place of the worshipers (exclusively men) as they witnessed the service. VI. These were the only courts around the first temple, as the space to the south of the last-named court was occupied by Sol´o-mon's palaces, from which a magnificent flight of steps ascended to the temple area (1 Kings 10. 5). After these buildings were destroyed the latest temple, that of Her´od, included their site in additional courts and buildings for the worship. East of the Court of Is´ra-el, and a little lower, stood the =Court of the Women=, 200 feet square, having a lattice gallery on the western side, from which the women could look on the services of the altar. This court was also called "the Treasury" (John 8. 20) from the gift boxes fastened upon the wall (Mark 12. 41, 42). In each corner of this court was a room said to be 60 feet square, with an open roof. VII. Around all these buildings and courts, with Her´od's temple, but not with Sol´o-mon's, was the =Court of the Gen´tiles=, an irregular quadrangle of about 1,000 feet on each side (north 990, east 1,000, south 960, west 1,060). The wall on the east was surmounted by a double row of columns, and called Sol´o-mon's Porch (John 10. 23; Acts 3. 12). The "Beautiful Gate" was from the Court of the Gen´tiles to the eastern side of the Court of the Women (Acts 3. 1), through which the people passed on their way to the public worship. The narrow corridor extending entirely around the Court of the Women and the Court of Is´ra-el was called "Chel"--that is, the sacred inclosure--and no one except an Is´ra-el-ite was permitted to enter it. The Court of the Gen´tiles was not regarded by the Jews as sacred, since foreigners were allowed within it, and in its area had grown up a market for the sale of animals for sacrifice and tables for the exchanging of foreign money. Twice this court was purged of these desecrations by Je´sus (John 2. 13-17; Matt. 21. 12, 13). The principal access to the temple in the time of Christ was a bridge over the Ty-ro´poe-on valley from Mount Zi´on. Of this bridge a fragment of one arch still remains, known as "Rob´in-son's Arch." The immediate surroundings of the temple, in the New Testament period, were the following: 1. On the north stood the Castle or Tower of An-to´ni-a, erected by the Ro´mans for the control of the temple area. 2. On the east was the valley of the Kid´ron. 3. On the south and west lay the curving valley of the Ty-ro´poe-on. Blackboard Outline I. =Thr. Tem.= 1. Sol. 970-587. 2. Zer. 534. 3. Her. B. C. 20. A. D. 70. II. =Situa.= Vall. Kid. Tyr. Hin. Mts. Mor. Oph. Zi. III. =Hou. Lor.= 1. Por. 30x15. 2. H. P. 30x60. 3. H. H. 30x30. 4. Chamb. IV. =Cou. Pri.= 200x275. Alt. Lav. "Sea." V. =Cou. Isr.= 240x320. VI. =Cou. Wom.= 200x200. "Treas." Rooms. VII. =Cou. Gen.= 1,000. "Chel." Market. Bridge. Hints to the Teacher and the Class Let each pupil in turn draw on the blackboard one of the departments or courts of the temple, state its dimensions, and explain its uses. Let a pupil recite the history of each temple. Let one pupil state in what parts of the temple Je´sus walked and taught, and another events in the life of Saint Paul connected with the temple. Review Questions Who built the first temple, how long did it stand, and by whom was it destroyed? Who built the second temple, and at what time? Who built the third temple? When was it begun, finished, and destroyed? What building now stands on the site of the temple? Between what three valleys was Je-ru´sa-lem situated? Give a description of each valley. Where were Mo-ri´ah, O´phel, and Zi´on located? Into what four parts was the "House of the Lord," or temple proper, divided? What were the dimensions and what was the location of the Porch? Describe the Holy Place and its contents. Describe the Holy of Holies. What took the place of the Ark in the later temples? What were the Chambers, and where were they situated? Where was the Court of the Priests? What were its dimensions? What stood in this court? Where was the Court of Is´ra-el? What were its dimensions and uses? What stood outside the Court of Is´ra-el adjoining Sol´o-mon's temple? Where was the Court of the Women in the latest temple? Describe this court and its uses? What was the exterior court to the temple in the time of Christ? What were the dimensions of this court? Where was the "Beautiful Gate"? Where was the "Chel"? Where was Sol´o-mon's Porch? How was this court used by the Jews? What did Je´sus do in this court? What was the principal means of access to the temple? What were the immediate surroundings of the temple? TWELFTH STUDY The Kingdom of Israel PART ONE The splendors of Sol´o-mon's reign passed away even more suddenly than they arose. In less than a year after his death his empire was broken up, and two quarreling principalities were all that was left of Is´ra-el. I. Let us ascertain the =Causes of the Division of Is´ra-el=. These were: 1. =The oppressive government of Sol´o-mon= (1 Kings 12. 3, 4). How far the complaints of the people were just, and to what degree they were the pretexts of an ambitious demagogue, we have no means of knowing. But it is evident that the government of Sol´o-mon, with its courts, its palaces, its buildings, and its splendor, must have borne heavily upon the people. Probably, also, the luxury of living among the upper classes, so suddenly introduced, led to financial crises and stringency of money, for which the government was held responsible by the discontented people. 2. =The opposition of the prophets= (1 Kings 11. 11-13, 29-33). It is a suggestive fact that the prophets were opposed to Sol´o-mon and friendly to Jer-o-bo´am. Their reason was a strong resentment to the foreign alliances, foreign customs, and especially to the foreign idolatries which Sol´o-mon introduced. 3. =Foreign intrigues=, especially in E´gypt. The old kingdoms were not friendly to this Is´ra-el-ite empire, which loomed up so suddenly, and threatened to conquer all the East. Sol´o-mon's attempt to win the favor of E´gypt by a royal marriage (1 Kings 3. 1) was a failure, for two enemies of Sol´o-mon, driven out of his dominions, found refuge in E´gypt, were admitted to the court, married relatives of the king, and stirred up conspiracies against Sol´o-mon's throne (1 Kings 11. 14-22, 40). Another center of conspiracy was Da-mas´cus, where Re´zon kept up a semi-independent relation to Sol´o-mon's empire (1 Kings 11. 23-25). 4. =Tribal jealousy=; the old sore broken out again. Notice that Jer-o-bo´am belonged to the haughty tribe of E´phra-im (1 Kings 11. 26), always envious of Ju´dah, and restless under the throne of Da´vid. The kingdom of the ten tribes was established mainly through the influence of this tribe. 5. =The ambition of Jer-o-bo´am= was another force in the disruption. It was unfortunate for Sol´o-mon's kingdom that the ablest young man of that time in Is´ra-el, a wily political leader and an unscrupulous partisan, belonged to the tribe of E´phra-im, and from his environment was an enemy of the then existing government. The fact that he was sent for from E´gypt to the assembly at She´chem showed collusion and preparation of the scheme (1 Kings 12. 2, 3). 6. But all these causes might have been insufficient but for =the folly of Re-ho-bo´am= (1 Kings 12. 13, 14). If Da´vid had been on the throne that day an empire might have been saved. But Re-ho-bo´am, brought up in the purple, was without sympathy with the people, tried to act the part of a tyrant, and lost his ancestral realm (1 Kings 12. 16). II. =The Results of the Division.= These were partly political, partly religious, and were neither of unmixed good nor unmixed evil. 1. The =political results= were: 1.) The entire _disruption_ of Sol´o-mon's empire. Five kingdoms took the place of one: Syr´i-a on the north, Is´ra-el in the center, Ju´dah west of the Dead Sea, Mo´ab east of the Dead Sea, and E´dom on the extreme south. Mo´ab was nominally subject to Is´ra-el, and E´dom to Ju´dah; but only strong kings, like A´hab in Is´ra-el and Je-hosh´a-phat in Ju´dah, could exact the tribute (2 Kings 3. 4; 1 Kings 22. 47). 2.) With the loss of empire came _rivalry_, and consequent _weakness_. For fifty years Is´ra-el and Ju´dah were at war, and spent their strength in civil strife, while Syr´i-a was growing powerful, and in the far northeast As-syr´i-a was threatening. 3.) As a natural result came at last _foreign domination_. Both Is´ra-el and Ju´dah fell under the power of other nations and were swept into captivity, as the final result of the disruption wrought by Jer-o-bo´am. 2. =The religious results= of the division were more favorable. They were: 1.) _Preservation of the true religion._ A great empire would inevitably have been the spiritual ruin of Is´ra-el, for it must have been worldly, secular, and, in the end, idolatrous. The disruption broke off relation with the world, put an end to schemes of secular empire, and placed Is´ra-el and Ju´dah once more alone among their mountains. In this sense the event was from the Lord, who had higher and more enduring purposes than an earthly empire (1 Kings 12. 15-24). 2.) _Protection of the true religion._ Is´ra-el on the north stood as a "buffer," warding off the world from Ju´dah on the south. It was neither wholly idolatrous nor wholly religious, but was a debatable land for centuries. It fell at last, but it saved Ju´dah; and in Ju´dah was the unconscious hope of the world. 3.) _Concentration of the true religion._ The departure of Is´ra-el from the true faith led to the gathering of the priests, Le´vites, and worshiping element of the people in Ju´dah (2 Chron. 11. 13-16). Thus the Jew´ish kingdom was far more devoted to Je-ho´vah than it might otherwise have been. Blackboard Outline I. =Cau. Div.= 1. Opp. gov. 2. Opp. pro. 3. For. int. 4. Tri. jeal. 5. Am. Jer. 6. Fol. Re. II. =Res. Div.= 1. Pol. res. 1.) Dis. emp. 2.) Riv. and weak. 3.) For. dom. 2. Rel. res. 1.) Pres. rel. 2.) Pro. rel. 3.) Conc. rel. Review Questions What causes may be assigned for the division of Is´ra-el? How far was Sol´o-mon's government responsible? What was the relation of the prophets to the revolution? What foreign intrigues contributed to break up the kingdom? Who were connected with these intrigues? What ancient jealousy aided, and how? What man led in the breaking up of the kingdom? Whose folly enabled the plot to succeed? What were the political results of the division? What were its religious results? How was this event from the Lord? Part Two III. =The Kingdom of Is´ra-el.= From the division the name _Is´ra-el_ was applied to the northern kingdom and _Ju´dah_ to the southern. We notice the general aspects of Is´ra-el during its history, from B. C. 934 to 721. 1. =Its extent.= It embraced all the territory of the twelve tribes except Ju´dah and a part of Ben´ja-min (1 Kings 12. 19-21), held a nominal supremacy over Mo´ab east of the Dead Sea, and embraced about 9,375 square miles, while Ju´dah included only 3,435. Is´ra-el was about equal in area to Massachusetts and Rhode Island together. 2. =Its capital= was first at _She´chem_, in the center of the land (1 Kings 12. 25); then, during several reigns, at _Tir´zah_ (1 Kings 15. 33; 16. 23); then at _Sa-ma´ri-a_ (1 Kings 16. 24), where it remained until the end of the kingdom. That city after a time gave its name to the kingdom (1 Kings 21. 1), and after the fall of the kingdom to the province in the center of Pal´es-tine (John 4. 3, 4). 3. =Its religion.= 1.) Very soon after the institution of the new kingdom Jer-o-bo´am established a national religion, the _worship of the calves_ (1 Kings 12. 26-33). This was not a new form of worship, but had been maintained in Is´ra-el ever since the exodus (Exod. 32. 1-4). In character it was a modified idolatry, halfway between the pure religion and the abominations of the heathen. 2.) A´hab and his house introduced the Phoe-ni´cian _worship of Ba´al_, an idolatry of the most abominable and immoral sort (1 Kings 16. 30-33), but it never gained control in Is´ra-el, and was doubtless one cause of the revolution which placed another family on the throne. 3.) Through the history of Is´ra-el there remained a remnant of _worshipers of Je-ho´vah_, who were watched over by a noble array of prophets, and though often persecuted remained faithful (1 Kings 19. 14, 18). 4. =Its rulers.= During two hundred and fifty years Is´ra-el was governed by nineteen kings, with intervals of anarchy. Five houses in turn held sway, each established by a usurper, generally a soldier, and each dynasty ending in a murder. 1.) _The House of Jer-o-bo´am_, with two kings, followed by a general massacre of Jer-o-bo´am's family (1 Kings 15. 29, 30). 2.) _The House of Ba´a-sha_, two kings, followed by a civil war (1 Kings 16. 16-22). 3.) _The House of Om´ri_, four kings, of whom Om´ri and A´hab were the most powerful. This was the age of the prophet E-li´jah and the great struggle between the worship of Je-ho´vah and of Ba´al (1 Kings 18. 4-21). 4.) _The House of Je´hu_, five kings, under whom were great changes of fortune. The reign of Je-ho´a-haz saw Is´ra-el reduced to a mere province of Syr´i-a (2 Kings 13. 1-9). His son Jo´ash threw off the Syr´i-an yoke, and _his_ son, Jer-o-bo´am II, raised Is´ra-el almost to its condition of empire in the days of Sol´o-mon (2 Kings 14. 23-29). His reign is called "the Indian summer of Is´ra-el." 5.) _The House of Men´a-hem_, two reigns. Is´ra-el had by this time fallen under the power of As-syr´i-a, now dominant over the East, and its history is the story of kings rising and falling in rapid succession, with long intervals of anarchy. From the fall of this dynasty there was only the semblance of a state until the final destruction of Sa-ma´ri-a, B. C. 721. 5. =Its foreign relations.= During the period of the Is´ra-el-ite kingdom we see lands struggling for the dominion of the East. The history of Is´ra-el is interwoven with that of Syr´i-a and As-syr´i-a, which may now be read from the monuments. 1.) There was a _Period of Division_. During the reign of the houses of Jer-o-bo´am and Ba´a-sha there were constant wars between Is´ra-el, Syr´i-a, and Ju´dah; and as a result all were kept weak, and "a balance of power" was maintained. 2.) Then followed a _Period of Alliance_--that is, between Is´ra-el and Ju´dah, during the sway of the House of Om´ri. The two lands were in friendly relations, and the two thrones were connected by marriages. As a result both Is´ra-el and Ju´dah were strong, Mo´ab and E´dom were kept under control, and Syr´i-a was held in check. 3.) Next came the _Period of Syr´i-an Ascendency_. During the first two reigns of the House of Je´hu, Syr´i-a rose to great power under Haz´a-el, and overran both Is´ra-el and Ju´dah. At one time Is´ra-el was in danger of utter destruction, but was preserved. Near the close of these periods the dying prophecy of E-li´sha was uttered (2 Kings 13. 14-25). 4.) _The Period of Is´ra-el-ite Ascendency._ Is´ra-el under Jer-o-bo´am II took its turn of power, and for a brief period was again dominant to the Eu-phra´tes, as in the days of Sol´o-mon. 5.) _The Period of As-syr´i-an Ascendency._ But its glory soon faded away before that of As-syr´i-a, which was now rapidly becoming the empire of the East. Its rise meant the fall of Is´ra-el; and under the unfortunate Ho-she´a, Sa-ma´ri-a was taken, what was left of the ten tribes were carried captive, and the kingdom of Is´ra-el was extinguished (2 Kings 17. 1-6). IV. =The Fate of the Ten Tribes.= There has been much idle discussion over this subject and some absurd claims set up; for example, that the Anglo-Saxon race are descended from the ten lost tribes--a statement opposed to all history, to ethnology, and to every evidence of language. 1. After their deposition nearly all the Is´ra-el-ites, having lost their national religion and having no bond of union, =mingled with the Gen´tiles= around them and lost their identity, just as hundreds of other races have done. The only bond which will keep a nation long alive is that of religion. 2. Some remained in Pal´es-tine, others returned thither and formed the =nucleus of the Sa-mar´i-tan people=, a race of mingled origin (2 Kings 17. 24-29). 3. Some of those who remained in the East retained their religion, or were revived in it, and later became a part of the =Jews of the dispersion=; though "the dispersion" was mainly Jew´ish, and not Is´ra-el-ite. 4. A few =families united with the Jews=, returned with them to Pal´es-tine after the exile, yet retained their tribal relationship; for example, An´na (Luke 2. 36). Blackboard Outline III. =Kin. Isr.= 1. Ext. 9,375. 2. Cap. 1.) Sh. 2.) Tir. 3.) Sam. 3. Rel. 1.) Wor. cal. 2.) Wor. Ba. 3.) Wor. Jeh. 4. Rul. 1.) Hou. Jer. 2.) Hou. Ba. 3.) Hou. Om. 4.) Hou. Je. 5.) Hou. Men. 5. For. Rel. 1.) Per. Div. 2.) Per. All. 3.) Per. Syr. Asc. 4.) Per. Isr. Asc. 5.) Per. Ass. Asc. IV. =Fat. Ten. Tri.= 1. Min. Gen. 2. Sam. Peo. 3. Disp. 4. Jews. Review Questions How long did the new kingdom of Is´ra-el last? What was its extent? What were its three successive capitals? What three forms of religion were found in it? Who was the first king of the ten tribes? What family introduced foreign idolatry? How many kings ruled over the ten tribes? What were the five royal houses? Which house raised Is´ra-el almost to its ancient power? What is this period of prosperity called? Who was the greatest king of Is´ra-el? With what other history is that of Is´ra el interwoven? What were the five periods in the foreign relations of Is´ra-el? By what kingdom was Is´ra-el destroyed? Who was its last king? What finally became of the ten tribes? THIRTEENTH STUDY The Kingdom of Judah I. =General Aspects of the Kingdom of Ju´dah.= 1. =Its territory.= It embraced the mountain portion of the tribe of Ju´dah, from the Dead Sea to the Phi-lis´tine plain; a part of Ben´ja-min, in which tribe the larger part of Je-ru´sa-lem stood; and also a part of Dan (Chron. 11. 10). Sim´e-on was nominally within its border, but was practically given up to the A-ra´bi-ans of the desert; E´dom was tributary, though often in rebellion, and finally independent (1 Kings 22. 47; 2 Kings 8. 20); Phi-lis´ti-a was outside of its boundary. Its extent was about 3,435 square miles, about half the area of Massachusetts. 2. =Its government= was a monarchy, with but one family on the throne, the line of Da´vid, in direct succession, with the exception of Ath-a-li´ah´s usurpation (2 Kings 11. 1-3), through nineteen reigns. 3. =Its religion.= Through all the history we find two forms of worship strongly opposed to each other, yet both rooted in the nation. 1.) The worship of Je-ho´vah through the temple, the priesthood, and the prophets. 2.) But side by side with this pure religion was the worship of idols upon "high places," probably begun as a form of worshiping Je-ho´vah, but degenerating into gross and immoral idolatry. There was a struggle going on constantly between these two elements in the state, the spiritual and the material. Notwithstanding the efforts of reforming kings like Je-hosh´a-phat, Hez-e-ki´ah, and Jo-si´ah, the general tendency was downward. II. =The Duration of the Kingdom.= The kingdom lasted from B. C. 934 to 587--more than one hundred and thirty years longer than Is´ra-el. Reasons for its endurance may have been: 1. =Its retired situation=: hemmed in by mountains and deserts; at a distance from the ordinary lines of travel; not in the direct path of conquest from any other nation. Ju´dah had few foreign wars as compared with Is´ra-el. 2. =The unity of its people.= They were not ten tribes loosely connected, but one tribe, with a passionate love of their nation and a pride in their blood. 3. =Its concentration at Je-ru´sa-lem.= Through all its history there was but one capital, where the palace of the king and the temple of the Lord were standing together. 4. =The reverence for the House of Da´vid= also kept the people together. There was no change in dynasty, and the loyalty of the people grew stronger through the generations toward the family on the throne. There being no usurpers, the throne was permanent until destroyed by foreign power. 5. =The purity of its religion= tended to keep the nation united and to keep it in existence. No bond of self-interest or of blood will hold a people together as strongly as the tie of religion. Ju´dah's strength was in the measure of her service of God, and when she renounced Je-ho´vah her doom came speedily. III. =Periods in the History.= Though Ju´dah was not without political contact with other nations, yet its history is the record of internal events rather than external relations. We may divide its history into four epochs. 1. =The first decline and revival.= 1.) The reigns of Re-ho-bo´am and A-bi´jah marked a decline indicated by the E-gyp´tian invasion and the growth of idolatry. 2.) The reign of A´sa and Je-hosh´a-phat showed a revival in reformation, progress, and power. Under Je-hosh´a-phat, Ju´dah was at the height of prosperity. This was the time of peace with Is´ra-el and of strength at home and abroad (2 Chron. 17. 5; 20. 30). 2. =The second decline and revival.= 1.) For nearly two hundred years after the death of Je-hosh´a-phat the course of Ju´dah was downward. E´dom was lost under Je-ho´ram (2 Chron. 21. 8); the Ba´al-ite idolatry was introduced by the usurping queen, Ath-a-li´ah (2 Kings 11. 18); the land was again and again invaded under Jo´ash and Am-a-zi´ah, and Je-ru´sa-lem itself was taken and plundered. 2.) But a great reformation was wrought under Hez-e-ki´ah, who was the best and wisest of the kings of Ju´dah, and the kingdom again rose to power, even daring to throw off the As-syr´i-an yoke and defy the anger of the mightiest king then on the earth. At this time came the great event of the destruction of the As-syr´i-an host (2 Kings 19. 35). 3. =The third decline and revival.= 1.) The reforms of Hez-e-ki´ah were short-lived, for his son Ma-nas´seh was both the longest in reigning and the wickedest of the kings, and his late repentance did not stay the tide of corruption which he had let loose (2 Kings 21. 10-17; 2 Chron. 33. 1-18). The wickedness of Ma-nas´seh's reign was the great moral cause of the kingdom's destruction, for from it no reform afterward could lift the mass of the people. 2.) Jo-si´ah, the young reformer, attempted the task, but his efforts, though earnest, were only measurably successful, and after his untimely death the kingdom hastened to its fall (2 Kings 23. 29). 4. =The final decline and fall.= 1.) The political cause of the destruction of the kingdom was the rise of Bab´y-lon. The old As-syr´i-an empire went down about B. C. 625, and a struggle followed between Bab´y-lon and E´gypt for the supremacy. Ju´dah took the side of E´gypt, which proved to be the losing side. 2.) After several chastisements and repeated rebellions Je-ru´sa-lem was finally destroyed by Neb-u-chad-nez´zar, king of Bab´y-lon, and the kingdom of Ju´dah was extinguished, B. C. 587. Blackboard Outline I. =Gen. Asp. Kin. Jud.= 1. Terr. Tri. Jud. 3,435 m. 2. Gov. mon. 3. Rel. 1.) Jeh. 2.) Idol. II. =Dur. Kin.= 1. Ret. sit. 2. Un. peo. 3. Conc. Jer. 4. Rev. Ho. Dav. 5. Pur. rel. III. =Per. Hist.= 1. Fir. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. Reho. Abi. 2.) Rev. As. Jehosh. 2. Sec. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. 200 y. 2.) Rev. Hez. 3. Thi. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. Man. 2.) Rev. Jos. 4. Fin. dec. fal. 1.) Ris. Bab. 2.) Des. Jer. Review Questions What was embraced in the kingdom of Ju´dah? What was its area? How was it governed? What was its religion? What was associated with the worship of Je-ho´vah? What was the religious tendency of the people? How long did the kingdom of Ju´dah last? What were the causes of this duration? What were the periods in its history? Under what kings was the first decline? Who led in a revival and reformation? Who was the greatest of the kings of Ju´dah? What took place during the second decline? Who was the usurping queen? What did this queen try to do? Who wrought the second great reformation? What was the character of this king? What great destruction of Ju´dah's enemies took place at this time? Which reign was both longest, wickedest, and most evil in its results? Who attempted a third reformation? What was the result of his endeavor? What was the political cause of the fall of Ju´dah? By what nation and by what king was Je-ru´sa-lem finally destroyed? FOURTEENTH STUDY The Captivity of Judah PART ONE I. We must distinguish between the =Captivity of Is´ra-el= and that of =Ju´dah=. 1. The captivity of Is´ra-el took place B. C. 721, that of Ju´dah B. C. 587. The southern kingdom lasted one hundred and thirty-four years longer than the northern. 2. Is´ra-el was taken captive by the As-syr´i-ans under Sar´gon; Ju´dah by the Chal-de´ans under Neb-u-chad-nez´zar. 3. Is´ra-el was taken to the lands south of the Cas´pi-an Sea (2 Kings 17. 6); Ju´dah to Chal-de´a, by the river Eu-phra´tes (Psa. 137. 1). 4. Is´ra-el never returned from its captivity, which was the end of its history; but Ju´dah was brought back from its captivity and again became a flourishing state, though subject to foreign nations during most of its after history. II. There were =Three Captivities= of Ju´dah, all in one generation and all under one Chal-de´an king, Neb-u-chad-nez´zar: 1. =Je-hoi´a-kim's captivity=, B. C. 607. Je-hoi´a-kim was the son of Jo-si´ah, placed upon the throne after the battle of Me-gid´do, in which Jo-si´ah perished (2 Kings 23. 34). For three years Je-hoi´a-kim obeyed Neb-u-chad-nez´zar; then he rebelled, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and many of the leading people among the Jews were carried captive to Bab´y-lon (2 Kings 24. 1, 2). Among these captives was Dan´iel the prophet (Dan. 1. 1-6). From this event the _seventy years_ of the captivity were dated (Jer. 27. 22; 29. 10), though the kingdom of Ju´dah remained for twenty years longer. 2. =Je-hoi´a-chin's captivity=, B. C. 598. Je-hoi´a-chin was the son of Je-hoi´a-kim (called Jec-o-ni´ah, 1 Chron. 3. 16; Jer. 24. 1; and Co-ni´ah, Jer. 22. 24). He reigned only three months, and then was deposed by Neb-u-chad-nez´zar and carried to Bab´y-lon. With the young king and the royal family were taken thousands of the people of the middle classes, whom the land could ill spare (2 Kings 24. 8-16). Among these captives was E-ze´ki-el, the prophet-priest (Ezek. 1. 1-13). 3. =Zed-e-ki´ah's captivity=, B. C. 587. He was the uncle of Je-hoi´a-chin and the son of the good Jo-si´ah (2 Kings 24. 17), and had been made king by Neb-u-chad-nez´zar. But he too rebelled against his master, to whom he had taken a solemn oath of fidelity (2 Chron. 36. 13). The Chal-de´ans were greatly incensed by these frequent insurrections, and determined upon a final destruction of the rebellious city. After a long siege Je-ru´sa-lem was taken, and the king was captured while attempting flight. He was blinded and carried away to Bab´y-lon, the city was destroyed, and nearly all the people left alive were also taken to the land of Chal-de´a (2 Kings 25. 1-11). After this captivity the city lay desolate for fifty years, until the conquest of Bab´y-lon by Cy´rus, B. C. 536. III. Let us ascertain the =Causes of the Captivity=--why the Jews were taken up bodily from their own land and deported to a distant country. 1. Such deportations were a frequent =policy of Oriental conquerors=. The Orientals had three ways of dealing with a conquered people: that of extermination, or wholesale butchery, which is frequently described upon the As-syr´i-an monuments; that of leaving them in the land under tribute, as subjects of the conqueror; and that of deporting them _en masse_ to a distant land. Frequently, when the interests of the empire would be served by changing the population of a province, this plan was carried out. Thus the ten tribes were carried to a land near the Cas´pi-an Sea, and other people were brought to Sa-ma´ri-a in their place (2 Kings 17. 6, 24). A similar plan regarding Ju´dah was proposed by Sen-nach´e-rib (2 Kings 18. 31, 32), but was thwarted by the destruction of the As-syr´i-an host. 2. We have already noticed another cause of the captivity in the frequent =rebellions of the kings of Ju´dah= against the authority of Bab´y-lon. The old spirit of independence, which had made Ju´dah the leader of the twelve tribes, was still strong, and it was fostered by the hope of universal rule, which had been predicted through centuries, even while the kingdom was declining. The prophets, however, favored submission to Bab´y-lon; but the nobles urged rebellion and independence. Their policy was pursued, and the unequal strife was taken up more than once. The rebellions always failed; but after several attempts the patience of Neb-u-chad-nez´zar was exhausted, and the destruction of the rebellious city and the deportation of the population were ordered. 3. But underneath was another and a deeper cause--in =the rivalry of E´gypt and Bab´y-lon=. Pal´es-tine stood on the border of the As-syr´i-an empire toward E´gypt; and in Pal´es-tine there were two parties, the As-syr´i-an and the E-gyp´tian: one counseling submission to As-syr´i-a, the other seeking alliance with E´gypt against As-syr´i-a (Isa. 31. 1-3; 37. 6). After Bab´y-lon took the place of Nin´e-veh the Chal-de´an party took the place of the As-syr´i-an, as the Chal-de´an empire was the successor of the As-syr´i-an empire. The prophets, led by Jer-e-mi´ah, always counseled submission to Bab´y-lon, and warned against trusting to E´gypt, which had never given anything more than promises; but the nobles were of the E-gyp´tian party, and constantly influenced the kings to renounce the yoke of Bab´y-lon and to strike for independence by the aid of E´gypt. The necessity of making the frontier of the Chal-de´an empire safe on the side toward E´gypt was the political cause for the deportation of the tribe of Ju´dah. 4. There was underlying all these political reasons a moral cause in =the divine purpose to discipline the nation=. The captivity was a weeding-out process, to separate the precious from the vile, the false from the true, the "remnant" from the mass. There had always been two distinct elements in Is´ra-el and Ju´dah--the spiritual, God-fearing few, and the worldly, idol-worshiping many. The worldly and irreligious took part in the resistance to the king of Bab´y-lon, and the worshipers of Je-ho´vah, led by the prophets, urged submission. As a result the nobles and the warriors, for the most part, perished; while the better part, the strength and hope of the nation, were carried away captive. Notice that the captives were mainly of the middle class, the working element (2 Kings 24. 14-16). Those who had submitted to the Chal-de´ans were also taken away (2 Kings 25. 11). The prophet expressed greater hope for those taken away than for those left behind (Jer. 24. 1-10). The captives were the root of Ju´dah, out of which in due time a new nation should rise; and, as we shall see, the captivity in Bab´y-lon proved to be the most benign experience in all the history of God´s chosen people. Blackboard Outline I. =Cap. Isr. Jud.= 1. Isr. 721. Jud. 587. 2. Ass. Sar.--Chal. Neb. 3. Cas. Sea.--Riv. Eup. 4. Nev. ret.--Bro. b. II. =Thr. Cap. Jud.= 1. Jeh. cap. 607. 2. Jehn. cap. 598. 3. Zed. cap. 587. III. =Caus. Cap.= 1. Pol. Or. conq. 2. Reb. kgs. Jud. 3. Riv. Eg. Bab. 4. Div. pur. dis. Review Questions From what earlier captivity must that of Ju´dah be distinguished? What were the dates of these two captivities? By whom was each nation taken captive? Where was each nation carried captive? What followed the captivity in each nation? What were the three captivities of Ju´dah? What were the events of the first captivity of Ju´dah? Who were carried away at this time? What date is connected with this captivity? What were the events of the second captivity of Ju´dah? Who were then taken away? What were the events of the third captivity? How long was Je-ru´sa-lem left in ruins? By whom and when were the Jews permitted to return from captivity? What causes may be assigned for the carrying away of the Jews? What were the customs of ancient Oriental conquerors? How did the conduct of the kings of Ju´dah bring on the captivity? What rivalry between nations was a cause of the captivity? What were the two parties in the kingdom of Ju´dah? How was the carrying away of the Jews a political necessity? What was the moral cause of the captivity? PART TWO IV. =The Condition of the Captives in Chal-de´a= was far better than we are apt to suppose. 1. They received =kind treatment=; were regarded not as slaves or prisoners, but as colonists. At a later captivity by the Ro´mans the Jews were sold as slaves and dispersed throughout the empire. Such wholesale enslavement was common after a conquest. For some reason the Chal-de´ans did not enslave the Jews at the time of their conquest, but colonized them as free people. This may have been because the captives as a class were of the "Chal-de´an party" among the Jews, and hence were treated in a measure as friends. The letter of Jer-e-mi´ah to the exiles (Jer. 29. 1-7) shows that they were kindly dealt with in Chal-de´a. Some of them were received at the court and rose to high station in the realm (Dan. 1. 1-6). 2. =Their organization was maintained.= The exiles were not merged into the mass of the people where they were living, but retained their own system and were recognized as a separate colony. Their dethroned kings had a semi-royal state and at death an honorable burial (Jer. 52. 31-34; 34. 4, 5). The captives were governed by elders, rulers of their own nation (Ezek. 8. 1; 14. 1; 20. 1). There was a "prince of Ju´dah" at the close of the captivity (Ezra 1. 8). This fact of national organization was a fortunate one for the exiles. If they had been dispersed as slaves throughout the empire, or even had been scattered as individuals, they would soon have been merged among the Gen´tiles, and would have lost their identity as a people. But being maintained as a separate race, and in Jew´ish communities, they were readily gathered for a return to their own land when the opportunity came. 3. =Their law and worship were observed.= There were no sacrifices, for these could be offered only at Je-ru´sa-lem in the temple. But the people gathered for worship and for the study of the law far more faithfully than before the exile; for adversity is a school of religious character far more than prosperity. The exile would naturally exert an influence in the direction of religion. While the irreligious and idolatrous among the captives would soon drop out of the nation and be lost among the Gen´tiles, the earnest, the spiritual, and the God-fearing would grow more intense in their devotion. 4. =They were instructed by prophets and teachers.= Jer-e-mi´ah lived for some time after the beginning of the captivity, made a visit to Bab´y-lon, and wrote at least one letter to the exiles (Jer. 13. 4-7; 29. 1-3). Dan´iel lived during the captivity, and, though in the court, maintained a deep interest in his people, and comforted them by his prophecies. E-ze´ki-el was himself one of the captives, and all his teachings were addressed to them (Ezek. 1. 1-3). Many evangelical and eminent Bible scholars are of the opinion that the latter part of I-sa´iah, from the fortieth chapter to the end, was given by a "later I-sa´iah" during the exile; but whether written at that time or earlier, it must have circulated among the captives and given them new hope and inspiration. The radical change in the character of the Jews which took place during this period shows that a great revival swept over the captive people and brought them back to the earnest religion of their noblest ancestors. 5. =Their literature was preserved and enlarged.= Internal evidence shows that the books of the Kings were finished and the books of the Chronicles written at this time or soon afterward; the teachings of Dan´iel, E-ze´ki-el, Ha-bak´kuk, and other of the minor prophets were given; and a number of the best psalms were composed during this epoch, as such poems are likely to be written in periods of trial and sorrow. Out of many psalms we cite Psa. 124, 126, 129, 130, 137, as manifestly written during the captivity. The exile was an age of life and vigor to He´brew literature. V. =The Results of the Captivity.= In the year B. C. 536 the city of Bab´y-lon was taken by Cy´rus, king of the combined Medes and Per´sians. One of his first acts was to issue an edict permitting the exiled Jews to return to their own country and rebuild their city. Not all the Jews availed themselves of this privilege, for many were already rooted in their new homes, where they had been for two generations. But a large number returned (Ezra 2. 64), and reestablished the city and state of the Jews. The captivity, however, left its impress upon the people down to the end of their national history, and even to the present time. 1. =There was a change in language=, from He´brew to Ar-a-ma´ic, or Chal-da´ic. The books of the Old Testament written after the restoration are in a different dialect from the earlier writings. After the captivity the Jews needed an interpreter in order to understand their own earlier Scriptures. Allusion to this fact is given in Neh. 8. 7. The Chal´dee of Bab´y-lon and the He´brew were sufficiently alike to cause the people during two generations to glide imperceptibly from one to the other, until the knowledge of their ancient tongue was lost to all except the scholars. 2. =There was a change in habits.= Before the captivity the Jews were a secluded people, having scarcely any relation with the world. The captivity brought them into contact with other nations, and greatly modified their manner of living. Hitherto they had been mostly farmers, living on their own fields; now they became merchants and traders, and filled the world with their commerce. Rarely now do we find a Jew who cultivates the ground for his support. They are in the cities, buying and selling. This tendency began with the Bab-y-lo´ni-an captivity, and has since been strengthened by the varied experiences, especially by the persecutions, of the Jews during the centuries. 3· =There was a change in character.= This was the most radical of all. Before the captivity the crying sin of Ju´dah, as well as of Is´ra-el, was its tendency to idolatry. Every prophet had warned against it and rebuked it, reformers had risen up, kings had endeavored to extirpate it; but all in vain--the worshipers of God were the few; the worshipers of idols were the many. After the captivity there was a wonderful transformation. From that time we never read of a Jew bowing his knee before an idol. The entire nation was a unit in the service of Je-ho´vah. Among all the warnings of the later prophets, and the reforms of Ez´ra and Ne-he-mi´ah, there is no allusion to idolatry. That crime was utterly and forever eradicated; from the captivity until to-day the Jews have been the people of the one, invisible God, and intense in their hatred of idols. 4. =There were new institutions= as the result of the captivity. Two great institutions arose during the captivity: 1.) The _synagogue_, which grew up among the exiles, was carried back to Pal´es-tine, and was established throughout the Jew´ish world. This was a meeting of Jews for worship, for reading the law, and for religious instruction. It had far greater influence than the temple after the captivity; for while there was but one temple in all the Jewish world, there was a synagogue in every city and village where Jews lived; and while the temple was the seat of a priestly and ritualistic service, the synagogue promoted freedom of religious thought and utterance. Out of the synagogue, far more than the temple, grew the Christian church. 2.) _The order of scribes_ was also a result of the captivity. The days of direct inspiration through prophets were passing away, and those of the written Scripture, with a class of men to study and interpret it, came in their place. During the captivity the devout Jews studied the books of their literature, the law, the psalms, the histories, and the prophets. After the captivity arose a series of scholars who were the expounders of the Scriptures. Their founder was Ez´ra, at once a priest, a scribe, and a prophet (Ezra 7. 1-10), who arranged the books and in a measure completed the canon of Old Testament Scripture. 5. =There was a new hope, that of a Mes-si´ah.= From the time of the captivity the Jew´ish people looked forward with eager expectation to the coming of a Deliverer, the Consolation of Is´ra-el, the "Anointed One" (the word Mes-si´ah means "anointed"), who should lift up his people from the dust, exalt the throne of Da´vid, and establish an empire over all the nations. This had been promised by prophets for centuries before the exile, but only then did it begin to shine as the great hope of the people. It grew brighter with each generation, and finally appeared in the coming of Je´sus Christ, the King of Is´ra-el. 6. From the captivity there =were two parts of the Jew´ish people=: the Jews of Pal´es-tine, and the Jews of the dispersion, 1.) The Jews of Pal´es-tine, sometimes called He´brews (Acts 6. 1), were the lesser in number, who lived in their own land and maintained the Jew´ish state. 2.) The Jews of the dispersion were the descendants of those who did not return after the decree of Cy´rus (Ezra 1. 1), but remained in foreign lands and gradually formed Jew´ish "quarters" in all the cities of the ancient world. They were the larger in number, and later were called "Gre´cian Jews," or Hellenists, from the language which they used (Acts 6. 1). Between these two bodies there was a close relation. The Jews of the dispersion had synagogues in every city (Acts 15. 6), were devoted to the law, made constant pilgrimages to Je-ru´sa-lem, and were recognized as having one hope with the Jews of Pal´es-tine. The traits of the two bodies were different, but each contributed its own elements toward the making of a great people. Blackboard Outline IV. =Con. Cap.= 1. Kin. tre. 2. Org. main. 3. La. wor. obs. 4. Ins. pro. tea. 5. Lit. pre. enl. V. =Res. Cap.= 1. Ch. Ian. 2. Ch. hab. 3. Ch. char. 4. Ne. ins. (syn. scr.) 5. Hop. Mess. 6. Two. par. peo. Review Questions How were the captive Jews treated? What evidences show that their national organization was continued during the captivity? Why was this fact a fortunate one for the exiles? What customs of the Jews were observed during the captivity? What instructors did the Jews have during this period? What was the condition of Jew´ish literature during the captivity? What events followed the decree of Cy´rus? Did all the exiles of the Jews return? What change in language was wrought by the captivity? What change in habits followed the captivity? What great change in religion came as the result of the captivity? How can that change be accounted for? What two institutions arose during the captivity? What new hope arose at this time? How were the Jews divided after the captivity? FIFTEENTH STUDY The Jewish Province PART ONE From the return of the exiles, B. C. 536, to the final destruction of the Jew´ish state by the Ro´mans, A. D. 70, the history of the chosen people is closely interwoven with that of the East in general. During most of this time Ju-de´a was a subject province, belonging to the great empires which rose and fell in succession. For a brief but brilliant period it was an independent state, with its own rulers. As most of this period comes between the Old and New Testaments its events are less familiar to Bible readers than the other portions of Is´ra-el-ite history. We therefore give more space than usual to the facts, selecting only the most important, and omitting all that have no direct relation with the development of the divine plan in the Jewish people. I. The history divides itself into =Four Periods=, as follows: 1. =The Per´sian period=, B. C. 536 to 330, from Cy´rus to Al-ex-an´der, while the Jew´ish province was a part of the Per´sian empire. Very few events of these two centuries have been recorded, but it appears to have been a period of quiet prosperity and growth. The Jews were governed by their high priests under the general control of the Per´sian government. The principal events of this period were: 1.) _The second temple_, B. C. 535-515. This was begun soon after the return from exile (Ezra 3. 1, 2, 8), but was not completed until twenty-one years afterward (Ezra 6. 15, 16). It was smaller and less splendid than that of Sol´o-mon, but was built upon the same plan. 2.) _Ez´ra's reformation_, B. C. 450. The coming to Je-ru´sa-lem of Ez´ra the scribe was a great event in Is´ra-el-ite history; for, aided by Ne-he-mi´ah, he led in a great reformation of the people. He found them neglecting their law and following foreign customs. He awakened an enthusiasm for the Mo-sa´ic law, aroused the patriotism of the people, and renewed the ancient faith. His work gave him the title of "the second founder of Is´ra-el." 3.) _The separation of the Sa-mar´i-tans_, B. C. 409. (For the origin of the Sa-mar´i-tans see 2 Kings 17. 22-34.) They were a mingled people, both in race and religion; but until the captivity were permitted to worship in the temple at Je-ru´sa-lem. After the return from Bab´y-lon the Sa-mar´i-tans and the Jews grew farther and farther apart. The Sa-mar´i-tans opposed the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 4. 9-24), and delayed it for many years; and a century later strove to prevent Ne-he-mi´ah from building the wall of Je-ru´sa-lem (Neh. 4. 2). Finally they established a rival temple on Mount Ger´i-zim, and thenceforth the two races were in bitter enmity (John 4. 9). 4.) _The completion of the Old Testament canon._ The prophets after the restoration were Hag´ga-i, Zech-a-ri´ah, and Mal´a-chi; but the author or editor of most of the latest books was Ez´ra, who also arranged the Old Testament nearly, perhaps fully, in its present form. Thenceforward no more books were added, and the scribe or interpreter took the place of the prophet. 2. =The Greek period=, B. C. 330-166. In the year B. C. 330 Al-ex-an´der the Great won the empire of Per´sia in the great battle of Ar-be´la, by which the sovereignty of the East was transferred from A´sia to Eu´rope, and a new chapter in the history of the world was opened. Al-ex-an´der died at the hour when his conquests were completed, and before they could be organized and assimilated; but the kingdoms into which his empire was divided were all under Greek kings, and were all Greek in language and civilization. Ju-de´a was on the border between Syr´i-a and E´gypt, and belonged alternately to each kingdom. We divide this period into three subdivisions: 1.) _The reign of Al-ex-an´der_, B. C. 330-321. The Jews had been well treated by the Per´sian kings and remained faithful to Da-ri´us, the last king of Per´sia, in his useless struggle. Al-ex-an´der marched against Je-ru´sa-lem, determined to visit upon it heavy punishment for its opposition, but (according to tradition) was met by Jad-du´a, the high priest, and turned from an enemy to a friend of the Jews. 2.) _The E-gyp´tian supremacy_, B. C. 311-198. In the division of Al-ex-an´der's conquests Ju-de´a was annexed to Syr´i-a, but it soon fell into the hands of E´gypt, and was governed by the Ptol´e-mies (Greek kings of E´gypt) until B. C. 198. The only important events of this period were the rule of Si´mon the Just, an exceptionally able high priest, about B. C. 300, and the translation of the Old Testament into the Greek language for the use of the Jews of Al-ex-an´dri-a, who had lost the use of He´brew or Chal´dee. This translation was made about B. C. 286, according to Jew´ish tradition, and is known as the Septuagint version. 3.) _The Syr´i-an supremacy_, B. C. 198-166. About the year B. C. 198 Ju-de´a fell into the hands of the Syr´i-an kingdom, also ruled by a Greek dynasty, the Se-leu´ci-dæ, or descendants of Se-leu´cus. This change of rulers brought to the Jews a change of treatment. Hitherto they had been permitted to live undisturbed upon their mountains, and to enjoy a measure of liberty, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters. But now the Syr´i-an kings not only robbed them of their freedom, but also undertook to compel them to renounce their religion by one of the most cruel persecutions in all history. The temple was desecrated and left to ruin, and the worshipers of Je-ho´vah were tortured and slain, in the vain endeavor to introduce the Greek and Syr´i-an forms of idolatry among the Jews. Heb. 11. 33-40 is supposed to refer to this persecution. When An-ti´o-chus, the Syr´i-an king, found that the Jews could not be driven from their faith, he deliberately determined to exterminate the whole nation. Uncounted thousands of Jews were slaughtered, other thousands were sold as slaves, Je-ru´sa-lem was well-nigh destroyed, the temple was dedicated to Ju´pi-ter O-lym´pus, and the orgies of the Bacchanalia were substituted for the Feast of Tabernacles. The religion of Je-ho´vah and the race of the Jews seemed on the verge of utter annihilation in their own land. Blackboard Outline 1. =Four Per.= 1. Per. per. 1.) Sec. tem. 2.) Ez. ref. 3.) Sep. Sam. 4.) Com. O. T. can. 2. Gk. per. 1.) Rei. Alex. 2.) Eg. sup. 3.) Syr. sup. Review Questions With what history is that of the Jews interwoven during this period? What was the political condition of the Jews at this time? What are the four periods of this history? Who were the rulers of the Jews during the first period? What building was erected after the return from captivity? What great deliverance was effected by a woman? What great reforms were effected by a scribe? What title has been given to him? What were the events connected with the separation of the Sa-mar´i-tans? Who were the prophets of the restoration? By whom was the Old Testament canon arranged? What brought on the Greek period? What events of Jew´ish history were connected with Al-ex-an´der the Great? Under what people did the Jews fall afterward? What were the events of the E-gyp´tian rule? What is the Septuagint? How was its translation regarded by the Jews of Pal´es-tine? In what kingdom, after E´gypt, did Ju-de´a fall? How was it governed by its new masters? Who instituted a great persecution? PART TWO 3. =The Mac-ca-be´an period=, B. C. 166-40. But the darkest hour precedes the day; the cruelties of the Syr´i-ans caused a new and splendid epoch to rise upon Is´ra-el. 1.) _The revolt of Mat-ta-thi´as._ In the year B. C. 170 an aged priest, Mat-ta-thi´as, unfurled the banner of independence from the Syr´i-an yoke. He did not at first aim for political freedom, but religious liberty; but after winning a few victories over the Syr´i-an armies he began to dream of a free Jew´ish state. He died in the beginning of the war, but was succeeded by his greater son, Ju´das Mac-ca-be´us. 2.) _Ju´das Mac-ca-be´us_ gained a greater success than had been dreamed at the beginning of the revolt. Within four years the Jews recaptured Je-ru´sa-lem and reconsecrated the temple. The anniversary of this event was ever after celebrated in the Feast of Dedication (John 10. 22). Ju´das ranks in history as one of the noblest of the Jew´ish heroes, and deserves a place beside Josh´u-a, Gid´e-on, and Sam´u-el as a liberator and reformer. 3.) _The Mac-ca-be´an dynasty._ Ju´das refused the title of king, but his family established a line of rulers who by degrees assumed a royal state, and finally the royal title. In the year B. C. 143 Jew´ish liberty was formally recognized, and the Mac-ca-be´an princes ruled for a time over an independent state. Between B. C. 130 and 110 E´dom, Sa-ma´ri-a, and Gal´i-lee were added to Ju-de´a. The latter province had been known as "Gal´i-lee of the Gen´tiles" (Isa. 9. 1); but by degrees the foreigners withdrew, and the province was occupied by Jews who were as devoted and loyal as those of Je-ru´sa-lem. 4.) _The rise of the sects._ About B. C. 100 the two sects, or schools of thought, the Phar´i-sees and Sad´du-cees, began to appear, though their principles had long been working. The Phar´i-sees ("separatists") sought for absolute separation from the Gen´tile world and a strict construction of the law of Mo´ses, while the Sad´du-cees "moralists") were liberal in their theories and in their lives. 4. =The Ro´man period=, B. C. 40 to A. D. 70. It is not easy to name a date for the beginning of the Ro´man supremacy in Pal´es-tine. It began in B. C. 63, when Pom´pey the Great (afterward the antagonist of Ju´li-us Cæ´sar) was asked to intervene between two claimants for the Jew´ish throne, Hyr-ca´nus and Ar-is-to-bu´lus. Pom´pey decided for Hyr-ca´nus, and aided him by a Ro´man army. In his interest he besieged and took Je-ru´sa-lem, and then placed Hyr-ca´nus in power, but without the title of king. From this time the Ro´mans were practically, though not nominally, in control of affairs. 1.) _Her´od the Great._ We assign as the date of the Ro´man rule B. C. 40, when Her´od (son of An-tip´a-ter, an E´dom-ite, who had been the general of Hyr-ca´nus) received the title of king from the Ro´man Senate. From this time Pal´es-tine was regarded as a part of the Ro´man empire. Her´od was the ablest man of his age and one of the most unscrupulous. He ruled over all Pal´es-tine, I-du-me´a (ancient E´dom), and the lands south of Da-mas´cus. 2.) _Her´od's temple._ Her´od was thoroughly hated by the Jews, less for his character than for his foreign birth. To gain their favor he began rebuilding the temple upon a magnificent scale. It was not completed until long after his death, which took place at Jer´i-cho about the time when Je´sus Christ, the true King of the Jews, was born (Matt. 2. 1, 2). 3.) _The tetrarchies._ By Her´od's will his dominions were divided into four tetrarchies ("quarter-rulings," a title for a fourth part of a kingdom). Three of these were in Pal´es-tine: Ar-che-la´us receiving Ju-de´a, I-du-me´a, and Sa-ma´ri-a; An´ti-pas (the Her´od of Luke 3. 1; 9. 7; 23. 7-11) receiving Gal´i-lee and Pe-re´a; and Phil´ip (Luke 3. 1) having the district of Ba´shan. About A. D. 6 Ar-che-la´us was deposed, and a Ro´man, Co-po´ni-us, was appointed the first procurator of Ju-de´a, which was made a part of the prefecture of Syr´i-a. The rest of Jew´ish annals belongs properly to the New Testament history. II. Through these periods we notice the gradual =Preparation for the Gospel=, which was steadily advancing. 1. =There was a political preparation.= Six centuries before Christ the world around the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an was divided into states, whose normal condition was war. At no time was peace prevalent over all the world at once. If Christ had come at that time it would have been impossible to establish the gospel except through war and conquest. But kingdoms were absorbed into empires, empires rose and fell by turns, each with a larger conception of the nation than its predecessor. From the crude combination of undigested states in the As-syr´i-an empire to the orderly, assimilated, systematic condition of the Ro´man world was a great advance. Christ appeared at the only point in the world's history when the great nations of the world were under one government, with a system of roads such that a traveler could pass from Mes-o-po-ta´mi-a to Spain and could sail the Med-i-ter-ra´ne-an Sea in perfect safety. 2. =There was a preparation of language.= The conquests of Al-ex-an´der, though accomplished in ten years, left a deeper impress upon the world than any other two centuries of history. They gave to the whole of that world one language, the noblest tongue ever spoken by human lips, "a language fit for the gods," as men said. Through Al-ex-an´der, Greek cities were founded everywhere in the East, Greek kingdoms were established, the Greek literature and Greek civilization covered all the lands. That was the language in which Paul preached the gospel, and in which the New Testament was written--the only language of the ancient world in which the thoughts of the gospel could be readily expressed. While each land had its own tongue, the Greek tongue was common in all lands. 3. While these preparations were going on there was another in progress at the same time, the =preparation of a race=. We might point to the history of the Is´ra-el-ites from the migration of A´bra-ham as a training; but we refer now to their special preparation for their mission after the restoration, B. C. 536. There was a divine purpose in the division of Ju´da-ism into two streams: one a little fountain in Pal´es-tine, the other a river dispersed over all the lands. Each branch had its part in the divine plan. One was to concentrate its energies upon the divine religion, to study the sacred books, to maintain a chosen people, whose bigotry, narrowness, and intolerance kept them from destruction; the other branch was out in the world, where every Jew´ish synagogue in a heathen city kept alive the knowledge of God and disseminated that knowledge, drawing around it the thoughtful, spiritual minds who were looking for something better than heathenism. Pal´es-tine gave the gospel, but the Jews of the dispersion carried it to the Gen´tiles, and in many places synagogues in the foreign world became the nucleus of a Christian church, where for the first time Jew and Gen´tile met as equals. 4. Finally, there was the =preparation of a religion=. The gospel of Christ was not a new religion; it was the new development of an old religion. As we study the Old Testament we see that each epoch stands upon a higher religious plane. There is an enlargement of spiritual being between A´bra-ham and Mo´ses, between Mo´ses and Da´vid, between Da´vid and I-sa´iah, between I-sa´iah and John the Bap´tist. Phar´i-see and Sad´du-cee each held a share of the truth which embraced the best thoughts of both sects. The work of many scribes prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, and just when revelation was brought up to the highest level, when a race was trained to apprehend and proclaim it, when a language had been created and diffused to express it, when the world was united in one great brotherhood of states, ready to receive it--then, in the fullness of times, the Christ was manifested, who is over all, God blessed forever. Blackboard Outline I. =Four Per.= (Cont.) 3. Macc. per. 1.) Rev. Mat. 2.) Jud. Macc. 3.) Macc. dyn. 4.) Ri. sec. 4. Rom. per. 1.) Her. Gr. 2.) Her. tem. 3.) Tetr. II. =Prep. Gosp.= 1. Pol. prep. 2. Prep. lan. 3. Prep. rac. 4. Prep. rel. Review Questions What was the effect of the Syr´i-an persecution? Who led the Jews in revolt? What great hero arose at this time? What line of rulers came from his family? What was the growth of the Jew´ish state at that time? What sects of the Jews arose? How did Ju-de´a fall under the Ro´man power? Whom did the Ro´mans establish as king? What were his dominions? What building did he erect? How was his kingdom divided after his death? What finally became of Ju-de´a? Name five ways in which there was a preparation for the gospel during this period. What was the political preparation? How was a language prepared for preaching the gospel to the world? What race was prepared, and how? What part had each of the two divisions of the Jew´ish race in the divine plan? What was the preparation of a religion for the world? SIXTEENTH STUDY The Old Testament as Literature[16] PART ONE 1. =Importance.= In order rightly to understand the Bible we must not only study it as a book of history, as a book of morals or ethics, as a book of doctrine, and as a book of devotion; we must also examine it as _literature_, and ascertain the different types of forms of literature shown in its pages. The literary study of the Bible is often of the highest importance. For example, the incident narrated in Josh. 10. 12-14, printed as prose in most of our Bibles, is shown as poetry in the Revised Version; and we all know that poetry is to be interpreted upon principles different from prose. II. =Difficulties.= In the study of the Bible as literature two difficulties arise and must be overcome: 1. _The division into chapters and verses_, and the printing of the Bible throughout in the form of prose, forms an obstacle to the student of the Bible as literature. Suppose that every history of England, the poetry of Milton, the dramas of Shakespeare, and the romances of Scott were printed in the form of our Bibles--broken up into short paragraphs--what a hindrance that would prove to the understanding and the enjoyment of these works! Except in the Revised Version of England and America, that is the condition in which we read our Bibles. Only in the Revised Version can the Bible be read as literature. 2. Another obstacle is in the fact that in the Bible all the different _forms of literature are mingled together_. The prose has poetry here and there; history, personal narrative, drama, and lyric are all united in the same writings. We have Scott's prose and his poetry separate, Matthew Arnold's poems and his essays in separate volumes; but in the Old Testament all these forms of literature are found together, and generally more than one form in the same book. There are few books in the Old Testament that are either all prose or all poetry. III. =Classification.= We may arrange the different kinds of literature found in the Old Testament under six classes, as follows: 1. The larger portion of the Old Testament belongs to the department of _History_. In its books we trace the early history of the world and the history through two thousand years of the Is´ra-el-ite people. This history may be classified as: 1.) _Primitive_ history, in the book of Gen´e-sis. 2.) _Constitutional_ history, or the record of laws and institutions, in Ex´o-dus, Le-vit´i-cus, Num´bers. 3.) _National_ history, or historical events, in Josh´u-a, Judg´es, Sam´u-el, Kings, and Ez´ra. Although in some of these books are many narratives more biographical than historical, yet nearly all these stories have a bearing upon the national history. 4.) _Ecclesiastical_ history, in the books of Chron´i-cles, which tell the story of the kingdom of Ju´dah from a priestly point of view. 2. Next to the history comes _Personal Narrative_ as a literary form in the Bible; such stories as those of Jo´seph, Ba´laam, Ruth, Da´vid, E-li´jah, E-li´sha, Jo´nah, and Es´ther; not historical, as the story of the nations, but personal, as the record of individuals. These narratives belong to the class called by scholars "prose epics," an epic being a work of narration, generally in poetry, as the epics of Homer, Dante, and Milton. The epics in the Bible are poetic in their thought, but prose in their form. Blackboard Outline I. =Imp.= The Bible as Hist. Eth. Doc. Dev. Lit. [Illust.] II. =Diff.= 1. Div. chap. ver. 2. Lit. ming. III. =Class.= 1. Hist. 1.) Prim. 2.) Const. 3.) Nat. 4.) Eccl. 2. Per. narr. J. B. R. D. E. E. J. E. Review Questions With what various purposes may the Bible be studied? What is meant by the study of the Bible as literature? Give an instance showing that this study is important for the right interpretation of the Bible. How does the form in which our Bibles are printed hinder in the study of it as literature? What other difficulty is met in the literary study of the Bible? How many classes of literature are found in the Bible? What is the department of literature most prominent in the Bible? Name four kinds of history in the Bible, define each kind, and give an example of it. To what class of literature do the stories of the Bible belong? What are the subjects of some of these stories? What is an epic? Name some great epics in literature? Wherein do these differ from the epics in the Bible? PART TWO Review I, II, and parts 1 and 2 of III. 3. Far more of the Old Testament belongs to the department of _Poetry_ than appears in the Authorized Version, the Bible in common use. The He´brew mind was poetic rather than prosaic, and the thought of this people naturally fell into the form of poetry. But there is a great difference between our poetry or verse and that of the He´brews. With us there is apt to be rhyme, never sought by the Bible poet; or else a certain measure in length of line or emphasis on certain vowel sounds, the "feet" or "meter," in the verse, equally unknown in the Bible. He´brew verse consists in a peculiar symmetry and balance of clauses, which is called "parallelism," for instance: "He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Is´ra-el Shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psa. 121. 3, 4). Poetry is to be found in nearly all parts of the Old Testament. There are: 1.) _Odes_, as the song of Mir´i-am (Exod. 15), of Deb´o-rah (Judg. 5), and the book of Lam-en-ta´tions. In the latter book there is an acrostical arrangement, each stanza beginning in the original text with a letter of the He´brew alphabet, and arranged in their order. 2.) _Lyric poems_, songs of emotion or feeling, as most of the Psalms. 3.) _Dramatic poems_, illustrative of action, as Job and the Song of Sol´o-mon. 4. _Oratory_ figures extensively in the Old Testament, as we should expect to find in the literature of any Oriental people, among whom the public speaker exercises a mighty influence. The orations or discourses of the Bible are sometimes in prose, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in both forms of expression. The speeches in the book of Job, Sol´o-mon's dedicatory prayer (2 Chron. 6), almost the entire book of Deu-ter-on´o-my, the opening chapters of Prov´erbs, and many of the discourses of the prophets belong to this department. Note how readily the passage in Deut. 8. 7-9 falls into verse: "For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, A land of brooks of water, Of fountains and depths, Springing forth in valleys and hills; A land of wheat and barley, And vines and fig trees and pomegranates; A land of oil olives and honey," etc. (Rev. Ver.) 5. _Philosophy_, or "wisdom-literature," is also found in the Old Testament. The book of Prov´erbs is a collection of the "sayings of the sages" among the Is´ra-el-ites; while Ec-cle-si-as´tes is a series of connected essays on human life. 6. _Prophecy_ is a distinct form of literature in the Bible. The word "prophecy" in the Scriptures means not "foretelling," or "prediction," but "_forth_telling," speaking under a divine power, whether of past, present, or future. It is not to be forgotten that the books of Josh´u-a, Judg´es, Sam´u-el, and Kings were called by the Jews "the former prophets," and were all regarded as prophetic, although they contained history. The prophets used freely either the prose form or verse form in their messages. Their writings may be classified under: 1.) _Prophetic Discourse_, the message of the Lord concerning nations, often called "the burden," the counterpart of the modern sermon, as in Isa. 1. 1-31; Ezek. 34. 2.) _Lyric prophecy_, in the form of song, as in Zeph-a-ni´ah, Isa. 9. 8 to 10. 4, and many other instances. 3.) _Symbolic prophecy_, or the use of emblems, as Jer-e-mi´ah's girdle (Jer. 13), the potter's wheel (Jer. 18), or E-ze´ki-el's tile (Ezek. 4). 4.) _The prophecy of Vision_, of which instances are: I-sa´iah's call (Isa. 6); Jer-e-mi´ah's vision (Jer. 1. 11-16); E-ze´ki-el's vision of the cherubim (Ezek. 1); "the valley of dry bones" (Ezek. 37); and Zech-a-ri´ah's vision of the candlestick (Zech. 4). 5.) _The prophecy of Parable_, as "the vineyard" (Isa. 5), also in Ezek. 15; "the eagle" (Ezek. 17). There are many parables in the Old Testament, but the master in this form of teaching was the Prophet of Gal´i-lee in the gospels. 6.) _The prophecy of Dialogue_, either between the prophet and Je-ho´vah or more frequently between the prophet and the people, as in the book of Mal´a-chi. 7.) _Dramatic prophecy_, in which Je-ho´vah himself is represented as speaking, generally introduced by the words "Thus saith Je-ho´vah." A close analysis will perhaps show other forms of prophetic teaching, as "The Doom Song" and "The Prophetic Rhapsody"; but in our judgment these also may be included in the classification given above. (See footnote with the opening of this lesson.) Blackboard Outline I. =Imp.= The Bible as Hist. Eth. Doc. Dev. Lit. [Illust.] II. =Diff.= 1. Div. chap. ver. 2. Lit. ming. III. =Class.= 1. Hist, 1.) Prim. 2.) Const. 3.) Nat. 4.) Eccl. 2. Per. Narr. J. B. R. D. E. E. J. E. 3. Poet. Heb. ver. 1.) Od. 2.) Lyr. 3.) Dram. 4. Orat. Sol. Deut. Prov. Proph. 5. Phil. "Wis.-Lit." Prov. Eccl. 6. Proph. "Forthtell." "For. proph." 1.) Pro. Disc. 2.) Lyr. pro. 3.) Sym. pro. 4.) Pro. Vis. 5.) Pro. Par. 6.) Pro. Dia. 7.) Dram. pro. Review Questions Review the questions with PART ONE of this lesson. What are the first and second classes of literature in the Bible? What is the third class? Wherein does He´brew poetry differ from Eng´lish verse? What three kinds of poetry are found in the Old Testament? Give examples under each kind. What is the fourth class of literature in the Bible? Name some instances under this class. Are the discourses of the Bible in prose or in poetry? What is the fifth class of biblical literature? By what other name is this class known? Give two examples of this class, and state the differences between them. What is the sixth literary department in the Bible? What is the meaning of the word "prophecy"? In what form, prose or poetry, did the prophets speak? What are the seven kinds of prophecy found in the Bible? Define each kind. Give illustrations of each class. SEVENTEENTH STUDY How We Got Our Bible PART ONE I. =Name.= Here is a volume which we call "The Holy Bible." The word "bible" means "books"--_biblia_, plural of Greek _biblion_, "book." So the Bible is "The Sacred Book," and by its very name calls attention to the fact that it is not one book, but many: 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 in the New--66 books in the Bible. Its composite nature is not less important for us to keep in mind than its unity. Especially is this true of the Old Testament, of which we speak mainly in this lesson. II. =Origin.= How came these books into being? This is a question of the "higher criticism"--that is, the study of subjects back of and above those belonging to the meaning of the text; not higher because more important, but higher because pertaining to an earlier period. Certain conclusions, however, may be accepted. 1. Much of the contents of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, was given _orally_, through stories, songs, and poems recited, through prophetic discourses, and through traditions handed down from generation to generation--a method of instruction universal before books were printed. 2. These oral teachings were _written_, some at the time when they were given, others later, sometimes after generations of oral repetition. The writing of different portions of the Bible was carried on at various times, in various places, and by various writers; perhaps through 1,600 years, and by more than 40 writers, most of whom have remained unknown. In the writing and rewriting He´brew scholars of Old Testament times did not hesitate to modify the older works as they saw reasons for so doing. We respect the "works of authors," and would not alter the language of Chaucer or Milton or Macaulay; but He´brew prophets and scribes in early times cared more for the contents than for the authorship of their sacred books. 3. As long as there were prophets in Is´ra-el and Ju´dah to declare the will of the Lord the need of a written and authoritative Scripture was scarcely recognized. But prophecy ceased about B. C. 450, and then began the _work of the great scribes_, of whom Ez´ra was the chief, in bringing together, editing, and copying the sacred books. Perhaps about B. C. 400 the Old Testament was practically complete. But it is evident that the precise text was not fixed for centuries afterward, as the earliest translation (the Septuagint; see below) shows that a text was followed different from that now read. The text of the He´brew Bible was not finally adopted until later than A. D 200. III. =Language.= 1. Nearly all the Old Testament was written in He´brew, the language of the Is´ra-el-ites, called by the As-syr´i-ans on their monuments "the tongue of the west country," in the Bible "the lip of Ca´naan" (Isa. 19. 18) or "the Jews' language" (2 Kings 18. 26). 2. Certain parts of Dan´iel and Ez´ra and one verse of Jer-e-mi´ah (Jer. 10. 11) were written in Ar-a-ma´ic (2 Kings 18. 26, "Syr´i-an language"), often, though inaccurately, called Chal´dee. IV. =Form.= 1. The books of the Old Testament were _written upon parchment_, the prepared skins of animals. The letters were large, and a manuscript roll embraced generally only one book; and several rolls were needed for the longer books. 2. Their use was almost entirely _limited to the synagogue_, and few copies were ever owned by private persons. After touching the roll of an inspired book one must wash his hands in running water before touching anything else. 3. When the synagogue rolls were well worn they were cut up into smaller pieces for _use in the schools_, where the Bible was the only text-book. When worn out they were burned or buried. The Jews did not preserve ancient writings, which is one reason why all the manuscripts of the Bible are of comparatively modern date. Blackboard Outline I. =Name.= "H. B." _Biblia._ 39. 27. 66. II. =Orig.= "Hi. Crit." 1. _Ora._ St. so. po. pro. trad. 2. _Writ._ 1,600 y. 40 wri. "Works of authors." 3. _Work of scr._ B.C. 400. Text not uniform. III. =Lang.= 1. Heb. 2. Aram. IV. =Form.= 1. Writ. parch. 2. Use in syn. 3. Use in sch. Review Questions What is the origin and meaning of the word "Bible"? What does this word suggest as to the books of the Bible? How many books does the Bible contain? What is meant by "the higher criticism"? How was much of the Bible given? How and when were the books written? How long was the writing in progress? Did the writers of the Bible change the documents as they wrote them? How long was there little need of a written revelation? When were the writings of the Old Testament brought together? Name the leader in this work. At what time was the Old Testament completed? Was the precise text of the Bible fixed at that time? What evidence is there of more than one accepted text? In what language was most of the Old Testament written? What other language was also used? What parts of the Old Testament were in this other language? In what form were the books of the Old Testament preserved? What was their principal use? What hindered the private ownership of the books? What use was made of the old rolls of the Scriptures? How were they finally disposed of? PART TWO V. =Early Versions.= The captivity of the Jews in Bab-y-lo´ni-a led to a change in their spoken language, so that they could no longer understand the ancient Hebrew of the Bible, and translations, or "versions," became necessary. Note that in Ez´ra's Bible class (Neh. 8. 7) translators were employed, and their names are given. 1. _The Targums_. These translations from the Hebrew to the vernacular, or common speech, of the Jews were called _Targums_. Men were trained to give them, as the sacred text was read, sentence by sentence, in the synagogue. This translator was called a "meturgeman." For centuries these translations, or Targums, remained unwritten, were handed down orally, and were jealously guarded. Not until after A. D. 200 was the writing of the Targums authorized by Jewish custom. 2. _The Septuagint._ The conquests of Al-ex-an´der, B. C. 330, made the Greek language dominant in all the lands of the east, and the Jews dispersed among these countries needed their writings in the _Greek tongue_, which was used almost everywhere in the synagogues outside of Ju-de´a. To meet this need the _Septuagint_ version arose in Al-ex-an´dri-a, beginning about B. C. 285. The name Septuagint, meaning "seventy," arose from a legend that the version was made by seventy men, each in a separate room, translating all the books; and the result showed the rendering alike, word for word! The Septuagint became the current Bible of the Jews in all lands except, perhaps, Pal´es-tine. 3. _The Vulgate._ After Rome became the world's capital, and the Latin language came into general use, especially west of Al-ex-an´dri-a, in the Christian churches came a demand for the Bible in Latin. Many versions of certain books were made, but the one that at last superseded all the earlier translations was that prepared by Jerome, about A. D. 400. This was called "the Vulgate," from the Latin _vulgus_, "the common people." This was the Bible in general use until the Reformation. But as the Latin language in its turn ceased to be spoken the Bible was lost to the common people throughout Europe, and was known only to scholars, mostly in the monasteries. VI. =Modern Versions.= Of these multitudes have been made; but we will notice only a few of the most important in the line of succession leading to our English Bible. 1. _Wyclif's Bible._ John Wyclif was "The Morning Star of the Reformation," preaching in England one hundred and fifty years before Luther in Germany. Finding the Latin Bible inaccessible to the common people, he prepared a version in the English of his time, aided by other scholars. The New Testament was first translated, beginning with the book of Revelation, in 1357, and nearly all the Old Testament was translated by 1382, two years before Wyclif died. This translation was made from the Vulgate, not from the original Hebrew and Greek. As printing had not yet been invented it was circulated in manuscript only, yet was read widely. 2. _Tyndale's Bible._ After the invention of printing and the great Reformation there was an awakened interest in the Bible. William Tyndale, a scholar in Hebrew and Greek, gave his life to the translation of the Scriptures, was exiled, and was martyred in 1536 on account of it. His New Testament in 1525 was the first printed in English, and it was followed by the Pentateuch in 1530. No one man ever made a better translation than Tyndale, which has been followed in many renderings by nearly all the later versions. 3. _The Great Bible._ Omitting the versions of Coverdale, Matthew, and Taverner, we come to the first authorized version, made under the direction of the English prime minister, Thomas Cromwell, edited by Miles Coverdale, and published in 1539. It received its name from its size, and from the fact that a copy of it was required to be placed in every church in England. 4. _The Geneva Bible_ was translated by a company of English exiles in Switzerland, and appeared in 1560. It was more convenient in form than the earlier editions, was divided into verses, and printed in Roman letters--traits which made it popular, especially among the nonconformists in England. 5. _The Bishops' Bible_ was prepared under the direction of Matthew Parker, archbishop under Queen Elizabeth, by eight bishops of the Church of England, and appeared in 1572. It had a limited circulation, because it was really not quite as good as the Geneva Bible; but it was the official version in England from 1572 to 1611. 6. _The Douai Bible._ All the above-named versions, and many others, were the work of Protestants. The Roman Catholics of England found a version of their own a necessity; and, as they were not allowed to prepare and publish one in England, the task was undertaken by exiled Roman Catholics on the Continent. The New Testament was published at Rheims, in France, in 1582; the Old Testament at Douai, in Belgium, in 1610. This translation was made from the Latin Bible of Jerome, and its marginal notes set forth the Roman Catholic views. It is still the English Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. 7. _The King James Version._ In the reign of James I of England many versions were in circulation, and for the sake of uniformity a new translation was ordered by the king. This was made by forty-seven scholars, occupying about three years, and was issued in 1611. It became by degrees the standard English Bible, "The Authorized Version," as it is called. It is the Bible which is still circulated by the million every year, the Bible familiar to every reader. 8. _The Revised Version._ The advance in scholarship, the increasing knowledge of the ancient world, and the discovery of old manuscripts unknown to earlier translators, caused a demand, not for a new Bible, but for a revision of the text and of the translation in common use. The Church of England led in the movement, but invited the coöperation of scholars in every denomination of Great Britain and America. In 1881 the New Testament appeared, and in 1885 the entire Bible. Students everywhere recognized the Revised Version as a great improvement upon the Authorized Version, but it comes very slowly into use by the people. 9. _The American Revised Version._ In the preparation of the Revised Version of 1885 the American scholars proposed more radical changes than the English revisers would admit. It was arranged that the Americans should have their list of proposed changes published at the end of the version, but they should not publish any Bible containing them in the text until 1900. The American revisers continued their organization, and, aided by experience, made a new revision throughout, which was published both in England and America as "The American Revised Version," in 1901. This work is by most students regarded as, upon the whole, better than the Revised Version of 1885 and the best translation of the Bible that has yet appeared. Blackboard Outline I. =Name.= "H. B." _Biblia._ 39. 27. 66. II. =Orig.= "Hi. Crit." 1. _Ora._ St. so. po. pro. trad. 2. _Writ._ 1,600 y. 40 wri. "Works of authors." 3. _Work of scr._ B. C. 400. Text not uniform. III. =Lang.= 1. Heb. 2. Aram. IV. =Form.= 1. Writ. parch. 2. Use in syn. 3. Use in sch. V. =Ear. Ver.= 1. Tar. 2. Sept. 3. Vul. VI. =Mod. Ver.= 1. Wyc. 1382. 2. Tyn. 1525, 1530. 3. Gr. Bib. 1539. 4. Gen. Bib. 1560. 5. Bish. Bib. 1572. 6. Dou. Bib. 1582, 1610. 7. K. Jam. Ver. 1611. 8. Rev. Ver. 1881, 1885. 9. Am. Rev. Ver. 1901. Review Questions Review and answer again the questions on Sections I, II, III, IV of this lesson. What is meant by "versions"? How did versions of the Old Testament become necessary to the Jews? What were these versions called, and how did they arise? How were they preserved? What called forth the Septuagint Version? In what language was it? When was it prepared? What was the Jewish legend concerning it? How did the Vulgate arise? Who made it? Why did it receive that name? What did the Vulgate become? Repeat the names of the three most important early versions. Name the nine most important modern versions. Who was Wyclif? When did he live? When did his translation of the Bible appear? How was it circulated? What two events in modern times increased the desire for the Bible in the language of the people? What is said of Tyndale's version? What was the Great Bible? Who directed its preparation? Who edited it? When was it published? What was the Geneva Bible? Wherein did it differ from earlier Bibles? Give the facts concerning the Bishops' Bible--originator, translators, date, characteristics. What was the history of the Douai Bible? Where is that Bible used? Tell the facts about the Authorized Version. How did the Revised Version arise? How was it prepared? What new version has recently appeared, and how is it regarded? FOOTNOTES: [1] The chronology of the Bible is not a matter of the divine revelation, and scholars are not agreed with respect to the dates of early Scripture history. The system of chronology commonly found in reference Bibles is that of Archbishop Usher, who lived 1580-1656, long before the modern period of investigation in Bible lands. According to this chronology A´dam was created B. C. 4004, the flood took place B. C. 2348, and the call of A´bra-ham was B. C. 1928. But it is now an attested and recognized fact that kingdoms were established in the Eu-phra´tes valley and beside the Nile more than 4000 years before Christ. All of Usher's dates earlier than the captivity of the Jews in Bab´y-lon are now discarded by scholars. We give in these lessons no dates earlier than the call of A´bra-ham, which is doubtfully placed at B. C. 2280, and regard none as certain before B. C. 1000. [2] When the birth of Christ was adopted as an era of chronology, about A. D. 400 a mistake of four years was made by the historian who first fixed it. Hence the year in which Christ was born was in reality B. C. 4. [3] We give Mount Hor the traditional location, east of the Desert of Zin; but there is strong reason for finding it west of the Desert of Zin, near Ka´desh-bar´ne-a. [4] Called in the Revised Version "guilt offering." [5] This is called in the Revised Version "the meal offering"; that is, the offering to God of a meal to be eaten. It might be called "food offering." [6] According to Josephus; the fact is not stated in the Bible. [7] The ecclesiastical year began with the month Abib, or Nisan, in the spring: the civil year with the month Ethanim in the fall. [8] The Old Testament name for the Sea of Gal´i-lee is Chin´ne-reth (ch as k), a word meaning "harp-shaped." [9] The account of the sun and moon standing still is an extract from an ancient poem, and is so printed in the Revised Version. The subject is discussed in Geikie's Hours with the Bible, footnote with chapter 13. [10] With regard to the destruction of the Ca´naan-ites: 1. Such destruction was the almost universal custom of the ancient world. 2. It was observed by the Ca´naan-ites, who were among the most wicked of ancient peoples. 3. It was necessary if Is´ra-el was to be kept from the corruption of their morals, and upon Is´ra-el´s character depended the world in after ages. 4. As a result of failing to extirpate the Ca´naan-ites a vastly greater number of the Is´ra-el-ites were destroyed during the succeeding centuries. [11] With Jeph´thah is associated the only instance of human sacrifice offered to Je-ho´vah in all Bible history; and this was by an ignorant freebooter, in a part of the land farthest from the instructions of the tabernacle and the priesthood. When we consider that the practice of human sacrifice was universal in the ancient world, and that not only captives taken in war, but also the children of the worshipers, were offered (2 Kings 3. 26, 27; Mic. 6. 7), this fact is a remarkable evidence of the elevating power of the Is´ra-el-ite worship. [12] With regard to Da´vid's crimes against U-ri´ah and his wife, note that no other ancient monarch would have hesitated to commit such an act, or would have cared for it afterward; while Da´vid submitted to the prophet's rebuke, publicly confessed his sin, and showed every token of a true repentance. [13] Notice that while the prophets had been friendly to Da´vid, they were strongly opposed to Sol´o-mon, and gave aid to his enemy Jer-o-bo´am (1 Kings 11. 29-39). [14] The dimensions as given in the Bible are all in cubits, a measure of uncertain length, which I have estimated at eighteen inches; consequently all the figures given in this study are to be regarded as approximate, not exact. [15] There is no mention of either the table or the candlestick in Sol´o-mon's temple, but instead ten tables and ten candlesticks in the Holy Place (2 Chron. 4. 7, 8). The table and candlestick were in the tabernacle, and were also in the second and third temples; but it is uncertain whether they actually stood in the temple of Sol´o-mon. [16] Nearly all the material in this lesson is drawn in an abbreviated form from The Literary Study of the Bible, by Richard G. Moulton (Boston D. C. Heath & Co.), a masterpiece on this subject, strongly recommended to the student. I have, however, ventured to vary from Dr. Moulton's classification on some minor points--J. L. H. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. 
38724	----	produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive. Additional images courtesy of Google Books.) THE DANCE OF DEATH. [Illustration] The Dance of Death EXHIBITED IN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD WITH A DISSERTATION ON THE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT SUBJECT BUT MORE PARTICULARLY ON THOSE ASCRIBED TO Macaber and Hans Holbein BY FRANCIS DOUCE ESQ. F. A. S. AND A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NORMANDY AND OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ETC. AT CAEN Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. HORAT. lib. i. od. 4. LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING 1833 C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane. PREFACE. The very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Dance of Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity of attempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the present Essay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which are necessary to be stated. The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded as the invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chiefly known in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them by Wenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become the property of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompanied by a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, and considerable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. It is appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegant designs, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred by the proprietor and publisher of this volume, have been executed with consummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of our best artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly be regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals. The remarks in the course of this Essay on a supposed German poet, under the name of Macaber, and the discussion relating to Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death, may perhaps be found interesting to the critical reader only; but every admirer of ancient art will not fail to be gratified by an intimate acquaintance with one of its finest specimens in the copy which is here so faithfully exhibited. In the latest and best edition of some new designs for a Dance of Death, by Salomon Van Rusting, published by John George Meintel at Nuremberg, 1736, 8vo. there is an elaborate preface by him, with a greater portion of verbosity than information. He has placed undue confidence in his predecessor, Paul Christian Hilscher, whose work, printed at Dresden in 1705, had probably misled the truly learned Fabricius in what he has said concerning Macaber in his valuable work, the "Bibliotheca mediæ et infimæ ætatis." Meintel confesses his inability to point out the origin or the inventor of the subject. The last and completest work on the Dance, or Dances of Death, is that of the ingenious M. Peignot, so well and deservedly known by his numerous and useful books on bibliography. To this gentleman the present Essay has been occasionally indebted. He will, probably, at some future opportunity, remove the whimsical misnomer in his engraving of Death and the Ideot. The usual title, "The Dance of Death," which accompanies most of the printed works, is not altogether appropriate. It may indeed belong to the old Macaber painting and other similar works where Death is represented in a sort of dancing and grotesque attitude in the act of leading a single character; but where the subject consists of several figures, yet still with occasional exception, they are rather to be regarded as elegant emblems of human mortality in the premature intrusion of an unwelcome and inexorable visitor. It must not be supposed that the republication of this singular work is intended to excite the lugubrious sensations of sanctified devotees, or of terrified sinners; for, awful and impressive as must ever be the contemplation of our mortality in the mind of the philosopher and practiser of true religion, the mere sight of a skeleton cannot, as to them, excite any alarming sensation whatever. It is chiefly addressed to the ardent admirers of ancient art and pictorial invention; but nevertheless with a hope that it may excite a portion of that general attention to the labours of past ages, which reflects so much credit on the times in which we live. The widely scattered materials relating to the subject of the Dance of Death, and the difficulty of reconciling much discordant information, must apologize for a few repetitions in the course of this Essay, the regular progress of which has been too often interrupted by the manner in which matter of importance is so obscurely and defectively recorded; instances of which are, the omission of the name of the painter in the otherwise important dedication to the first edition of the engravings on wood of the Dance of Death that was published at Lyons; the uncertainty as to locality in some complimentary lines to Holbein by his friend Borbonius, and the want of more particulars in the account by Nieuhoff of Holbein's painting at Whitehall. The designs for the Dance of Death, published at Lyons in 1538, and hitherto regarded as the invention of Holbein, are, in the course of this Dissertation, referred to under the appellation of _the Lyons wood-cuts_; and with respect to the term _Macaber_, which has been so mistakenly used as the name of a real author, it has been nevertheless preserved on the same principle that the word _Gothic_ has been so generally adopted for the purpose of designating the pointed style of architecture in the middle ages. F. D. CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER I. Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.-- Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber 1 CHAPTER II. Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.-- Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17 CHAPTER III. Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.-- Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28 CHAPTER IV. Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.-- Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51 CHAPTER V. List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horæ that contain it.--Manuscript Horæ.--Other Manuscripts in which it occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it 55 CHAPTER VI. Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.-- Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.-- Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78 CHAPTER VII. Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him 94 CHAPTER VIII. List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.-- Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations of some of the subjects 103 CHAPTER IX. Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.-- Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death at Whitehall by him 138 CHAPTER X. Other Dances of Death 146 CHAPTER XI. Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects 160 CHAPTER XII. Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced 168 CHAPTER XIII. Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages in some degree connected with the Dance of Death 179 CHAPTER XIV. Single prints connected with the Dance of Death 188 CHAPTER XV. Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death 213 CHAPTER XVI. Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous 221 CHAPTER XVII. Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux Aveugles 228 CHAPTER XVIII. Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of the Dance of Death 233 ERRATA. Page 7, line 25, for _Boistuan_ read _Boistuau_. 7, ... 26, for _Prodigeuses_ read _Prodigieuses_. 28, ... 14, read _in Holland_, &c. 32, ... 23, for _Lamorensi_ read _Zamorensi_. 81, ... 4, for _fex_ read _sex_. 88, ... 10, after _difficulty_ add ? 89, ... 21, after _works_ add " 180, ... 23, for _Typotia_ read _Typotii_. 197, ... 8, for _Stradamus_ read _Stradanus_. THE Dance of Death. CHAPTER I. _Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber._ The manner in which the poets and artists of antiquity have symbolized or personified Death, has excited considerable discussion; and the various opinions of Lessing, Herder, Klotz, and other controversialists have only tended to demonstrate that the ancients adopted many different modes to accomplish this purpose. Some writers have maintained that they exclusively represented Death as a mere skeleton; whilst others have contended that this figure, so frequently to be found upon gems and sepulchral monuments, was never intended to personify the extinction of human life, but only as a simple and abstract representation. They insist that the ancients adopted a more elegant and allegorical method for this purpose; that they represented human mortality by various symbols of destruction, as birds devouring lizards and serpents, or pecking fruits and flowers; by goats browsing on vines; cocks fighting, or even by a Medusa's or Gorgon's head. The Romans seem to have adopted Homer's[1] definition of Death as the eldest brother of Sleep; and, accordingly, on several of their monumental and other sculptures we find two winged genii as the representatives of the above personages, and sometimes a genius bearing a sepulchral vase on his shoulder, and with a torch reversed in one of his hands. It is very well known that the ancients often symbolized the human soul by the figure of a butterfly, an idea that is extremely obvious and appropriate, as well as elegant. In a very interesting sepulchral monument, engraved in p. 7 of Spon's Miscellanea Eruditæ Antiquitatis, a prostrate corpse is seen, and over it a butterfly that has just escaped from the _mouth_ of the deceased, or as Homer expresses it, "from the teeth's inclosure."[2] The above excellent antiquary has added the following very curious sepulchral inscription that was found in Spain, HÆREDIBVS MEIS MANDO ETIAM CINERE VTMEO VOLITET EBRIVS PAPILIO OSSA IPSA TEGANT MEA, &c. Rejecting this heathen symbol altogether, the painters and engravers of the middle ages have substituted a small human figure escaping from the mouths of dying persons, as it were, breathing out their souls. We have, however, the authority of Herodotus, that in the banquets of the Egyptians a person was introduced who carried round the table at which the guests were seated the figure of a dead body, placed on a coffin, exclaiming at the same time, "Behold this image of what yourselves will be; eat and drink therefore, and be happy."[3] Montfaucon has referred to an ancient manuscript to prove that this sentiment was conveyed in a Lacedæmonian proverb,[4] and it occurs also in the beautiful poem of Coppa, ascribed to Virgil, in which he is supposed to invite Mæcenas to a rural banquet. It concludes with these lines:-- Pone merum et talos; pereat qui crastina curat, Mors aurem vellens, vivite ait, venio. The phrase of pulling the ear is admonitory, that organ being regarded by the ancients as the seat of memory. It was customary also, and for the same reason, to take an oath by laying hold of the ear. It is impossible on this occasion to forget the passage in Isaiah xxii. 13, afterwards used by Saint Paul, on the beautiful parable in Luke xii. Plutarch also, in his banquet of the wise men, has remarked that the Egyptians exhibited a skeleton at their feasts to remind the parties of the brevity of human life; the same custom, as adopted by the Romans, is exemplified in Petronius's description of the feast of Trimalchio, where a jointed puppet, as a skeleton, is brought in by a boy, and this practice is also noticed by Silius Italicus: ... Ægyptia tellus Claudit odorato post funus stantia Saxo Corpora, et a mensis exsanguem haud separat umbram.[5] Some have imagined that these skeletons were intended to represent the larvæ and lemures, the good and evil shadows of the dead, that occasionally made their appearance on earth. The larvæ, or lares, were of a beneficent nature, friendly to man; in other words, the good demon of Socrates. The lemures, spirits of mischief and wickedness. The larva in Petronius was designed to admonish only, not to terrify; and this is proved from Seneca: "Nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras, et larvarum habitum nudis ossibus cohærentium."[6] There is, however, some confusion even among the ancients themselves, as to the respective qualities of the larvæ and lemures. Apuleius, in his noble and interesting defence against those who accused him of practising magic, tells them, "Tertium mendacium vestrum fuit, macilentam vel omnino evisceratam formam diri cadaveris fabricatam prorsus horribilem et larvalem;" and afterwards, when producing the image of his peculiar Deity, which he usually carried about him, he exclaims, "En vobis quem scelestus ille sceletum nominabat! Hiccine est sceletus? Hæccine est larva? Hoccine est quod appellitabatis Dæmonium."[7] It is among Christian writers and artists that the personification of Death as a skeleton is intended to convey terrific ideas, conformably to the system that Death is the punishment for original sin. The circumstances that lead to Death, and not our actual dissolution, are alone of a terrific nature; for Death is, in fact, the end and cure of all the previous sufferings and horrors with which it is so frequently accompanied. In the dark ages of monkish bigotry and superstition, the deluded people, seduced into a belief that the fear of Death was acceptable to the great and beneficent author of their existence, appear to have derived one of their principal gratifications in contemplating this necessary termination of humanity, yet amidst ideas and impressions of the most horrible and disgusting nature: hence the frequent allusions to it, in all possible ways, among their preachers, and the personification of it in their books of religious offices, as well as in the paintings and sculptures of their ecclesiastical and other edifices. They seemed to have entirely banished from their recollection the consolatory doctrines of the Gospel, which contribute so essentially to dissipate the terrors of Death, and which enable the more enlightened Christian to abide that event with the most perfect tranquillity of mind. There are, indeed, some exceptions to this remark, for we may still trace the imbecility of former ages on too many of our sepulchral monuments, which are occasionally tricked out with the silly appendages of Death's heads, bones, and other useless remains of mortality, equally repulsive to the imagination and to the elegance of art. If it be necessary on any occasion to personify Death, this were surely better accomplished by means of some graceful and impressive figure of the Angel of Death, for whom we have the authority of Scripture; and such might become an established representative. The skulls and bones of modern, and the entire skeletons of former times, especially during the middle ages, had, probably, derived their origin from the vast quantities of sanctified human relics that were continually before the eyes, or otherwise in the recollection of the early Christians. But the favourite and principal emblem of mortality among our ancestors appears to have been the moral and allegorical pageant familiarly known by the appellation of the _Dance of Death_, which it has, in part, derived from the grotesque, and often ludicrous attitudes of the figures that composed it, and especially from the active and sarcastical mockery of the ruthless tyrant upon its victims, which may be, in a great measure, attributed to the whims and notions of the artists who were employed to represent the subject. It is very well known to have been the practice in very early times to profane the temples of the Deity with indecorous dancing, and ludicrous processions, either within or near them, in imitation, probably, of similar proceedings in Pagan times. Strabo mentions a custom of this nature among the Celtiberians,[8] and it obtained also among several of the northern nations before their conversion to Christianity. A Roman council, under Pope Eugenius II. in the 9th century, has thus noticed it: "Ut sacerdotes admoneant viros ac mulieres, qui festis diebus ad ecclesiam occurrunt, ne _ballando_ et turpia verba decantando choros teneant, ac ducunt, similitudinem Paganorum peragendo." Canciani mentions an ancient bequest of money for a dance in honour of the Virgin.[9] These riotous and irreverent tripudists and caperers appear to have possessed themselves of the church-yards to exhibit their dancing fooleries, till this profanation of consecrated ground was punished, as monkish histories inform us, with divine vengeance. The well-known Nuremberg Chronicle[10] has recorded, that in the time of the Emperor Henry the Second, whilst a priest was saying mass on Christmas Eve, in the church of Saint Magnus, in the diocese of Magdeburg, a company of eighteen men and ten women amused themselves with dancing and singing in the church-yard, to the hindrance of the priest in his duty. Notwithstanding his admonition, they refused to desist, and even derided the words he addressed to them. The priest being greatly provoked at their conduct, prayed to God and Saint Magnus that they might remain dancing and singing for a whole year without intermission, and so it happened; neither dew nor rain falling upon them. Hunger and fatigue were set at defiance, nor were their shoes or garments in the least worn away. At the end of the year they were released from their situation by Herebert, the archbishop of the diocese in which the event took place, and obtained forgiveness before the altar of the church; but not before the daughter of a priest and two others had perished; the rest, after sleeping for the space of three whole nights, died soon afterwards. Ubert, one of the party, left this story behind him, which is elsewhere recorded, with some variation and additional matter. The dance is called St. Vitus's, and the girl is made the daughter of a churchwarden, who having taken her by the arm, it came off, but she continued dancing. By the continual motion of the dancers they buried themselves in the earth to their waists. Many princes and others went to behold this strange spectacle, till the bishops of Cologne and Hildesheim, and some other devout priests, by their prayers, obtained the deliverance of the culprits; four of the party, however, died immediately, some slept three days and three nights, some three years, and others had trembling in their limbs during the whole of their lives. The Nuremberg Chronicle, crowded as it is with wood-cut embellishments by the hand of Wolgemut, the master of Albert Durer, has not omitted to exhibit the representations of the above unhappy persons, equally correct, no doubt, as the story itself, though the same warranty cannot be offered for a similar representation, in Gottfried's Chronicle and that copious repertory of monstrosities, Boistuau and Belleforest's Histoires Prodigieuses. The Nuremberg Chronicle[11] has yet another relation on this subject of some persons who continued dancing and singing on a bridge whilst the eucharist was passing over it. The bridge gave way in the middle, and from one end of it 200 persons were precipitated into the river Moselle, the other end remaining so as to permit the priest and his host to pass uninjured. In that extremely curious work, the Manuel de Pêché, usually ascribed to Bishop Grosthead, the pious author, after much declamation against the vices of the times, has this passage:-- Karoles ne lutes ne deit nul fere, En seint eglise ki me voil crere; Kas en cimetere karoler, Utrage est grant u lutter.[12] He then relates the story in the Nuremberg Chronicle, for which he quotes the book of Saint Clement. Grosthead's work was translated about the year 1300 into English verse by Robert Mannyng, commonly called Robert de Brunne, a Gilbertine canon. His translation often differs from his original, with much amplification and occasional illustrations by himself. As the account of the Nuremberg story varies so materially, and as the scene is laid in England, it has been thought worth inserting. Karolles wrastelynges or somour games, Whosoever haunteth any swyche shames, Yn cherche other yn cherche yerd, Of sacrilage he may be aferd; Or entyrludes or syngynge, Or tabure bete or other pypynge; All swyche thyng forboden es, Whyle the prest stondeth at messe; But for to leve in cherche for to daunce, Y shall you telle a full grete chaunce, And y trow the most that fel, Ys sothe as y you telle. And fyl thys chaunce yn thys londe, Yn Ingland as y undyrstonde, Yn a kynges tyme that hyght Edward, Fyl this chaunce that was so hard. Hyt was upon crystemesse nyzt That twelve folys a karolle dyzt, Yn Wodehed, as hyt were yn cuntek,[13] They come to a toune men calle Cowek:[14] The cherche of the toune that they to come, Ys of Seynt Magne that suffred martyrdome, Of Seynt Bukcestre hyt ys also, Seynt Magnes suster, that they come to; Here names of all thus fonde y wryte, And as y wote now shal ye wyte Here lodesman[15] that made hem glew,[16] Thus ys wryte he hyzte[17] Gerlew; Twey maydens were yn here coveyne, Mayden Merswynde[18] and Wybessyne; All these came thedyr for that enchesone,} doghtyr Of the prestes of the toune. } The prest hyzt Robert as y can ame, Azone hyzt hys sone by name, Hys doghter that there men wulde have, Thus ys wryte that she hyzt Ave. Echone consented to o wyl, Who shuld go Ave out to tyl, They graunted echone out to sende, Bothe Wybessyne and Merswynde: These women zede and tolled[19] her oute, Wyth hem to karolle the cherche aboute, Benne ordeyned here karollyng, Gerlew endyted what they shuld syng. Thys ys the karolle that they sunge, As telleth the Latyn tunge, Equitabat Bevo per sylvam frondosam,} Ducebat secum Merwyndam formosam, } Quid stamus cur non imus. } By the levede[20] wode rode Bevolyne, Wyth hym he ledde feyre Merwyne, Why stonde we why go we noght: Thys ys the karolle that Grysly wroght, Thys songe sung they yn chercheyerd, Of foly were they nothyng aferd. The party continued dancing and carolling all the matins time, and till the mass began; when the priest, hearing the noise, came out to the church porch, and desired them to leave off dancing, and come into the church to hear the service; but they paid him no regard whatever, and continued their dance. The priest, now extremely incensed, prayed to God in favour of St. Magnes, the patron of the church: That swych a venjeaunce were on hem sent, Are they out of that stede[21] were went, That myzt ever ryzt so wende, Unto that tyme twelvemonth ende. Yn the Latyne that y fonde thore, He seyth not twelvemonth but evermore. The priest had no sooner finished his prayer, than the hands of the dancers were so locked together that none could separate them for a twelvemonth: The preste yede[22] yn whan thys was done, And comaunded hys sone Azone, That shuld go swythe after Ave, Oute of that karolle algate to have; But al to late that wurde was sayde, For on hem alle was the venjeaunce leyd. Azonde wende weyl for to spede Unto the karolle asswythe he yede; Hys syster by the arme he hente, And the arme fro the body wente; Men wundred alle that there wore, And merveyle nowe ye here more; For seythen he had the arme yn hand, The body yode furth karoland, And nother body ne the arme Bled never blode colde ne warme; But was as drye with al the haunche, As of a stok were ryve a braunche. Azone carries his sister's arm to the priest his father, and tells him the consequences of his rash curse. The priest, after much lamentation, buries the arm. The next morning it rises out of the grave; he buries it again, and again it rises. He buries it a third time, when it is cast out of the grave with considerable violence. He then carries it into the church that all might behold it. In the meantime the party continued dancing and singing, without taking any food or sleeping, "only a lepy wynke;" nor were they in the least affected by the weather. Their hair and nails ceased to grow, and their garments were neither soiled nor discoloured; but Sunge that songge that the wo wrozt, "Why stond we, why go we nozt." To see this curious and woful sight, the emperor travels from Rome, and orders his carpenters and other artificers to inclose them in a building; but this could not be done, for what was set up one day fell down on the next, and no covering could be made to protect the sinners till the time of mercy that Christ had appointed arrived; when, at the expiration of the twelvemonth, and in the very same hour in which the priest had pronounced his curse upon them, they were separated, and "in the twynklyng of an eye" ran into the church and fell down in a swoon on the pavement, where they lay three days before they were restored. On their recovery they tell the priest that he will not long survive: For to thy long home sone shalt thou wende, All they ryse that yche tyde, But Ave she lay dede besyde. Her father dies soon afterwards. The emperor causes Ave's arm to be put into a vessel and suspended in the church as an example to the spectators. The rest of the party, although separated, travelled about, but always dancing; and as they had been inseparable before, they were now not permitted to remain together. Four of them went hopping to Rome, their clothes undergoing no change, and their hair and nails not continuing to grow: Bruning the Bysshope of Seynt Tolous, Wrote thys tale so merveylous; Setthe was hys name of more renoun, Men called him the Pope Leon; Thys at the courte of Rome they wyte, And yn the kronykeles hyt ys write; Yn many stedys[23] beyounde the see, More than ys yn thys cuntre: Tharfor men seye an weyl ys trowed, The nere the cherche the further fro God. So fare men here by thys tale, Some holde it but a trotevale,[24] Yn other stedys hyt ys ful dere, And for grete merveyle they wyl hyt here. In the French copies the story is said to have been taken from the itinerary of St. Clement. The name of the girl who lost her arm is Marcent, and her brother's John.[25] Previously to entering upon the immediate subject of this Essay, it may be permitted to observe, that a sort of Death's dance was not unknown to the ancients. It was the revelry of departed souls in Elysium, as may be collected from the end of the fourth ode of Anacreon. Among the Romans this practice is exemplified in the following lines of Tibullus. Sed me, quod facilis tenero sum semper Amori, Ipsa Venus campos ducit in Elysios. Hic _choreæ_ cantusque vigent ...[26] And Virgil has likewise alluded to it: Pars pedibus plaudunt _choreas_ et carmina dicunt.[27] In the year 1810 several fragments of sculptured sarcophagi were accidentally discovered near Cuma, on one of which were represented three dancing skeletons,[28] indicating, as it is ingeniously supposed, that the passage from death to another state of existence has nothing in it that is sorrowful, or capable of exciting fear. They seem to throw some light on the above lines from Virgil and Tibullus. At a meeting of the Archæological Society at Rome, in December, 1831, M. Kestner exhibited a Roman lamp on which were three dancing skeletons, and such are said to occur in one of the paintings at Pompeii. In the Grand Duke of Tuscany's museum at Florence there is an ancient gem, that, from its singularity and connexion with the present subject, is well deserving of notice. It represents an old man, probably a shepherd, clothed in a hairy garment. He sits upon a stone, his right foot resting on a globe, and is piping on a double flute, whilst a skeleton dances grotesquely before him. It might be a matter of some difficulty to explain the recondite meaning of this singular subject.[29] Notwithstanding the interdiction in several councils against the practice of dancing in churches and church-yards, it was found impossible to abolish it altogether; and it therefore became necessary that something of a similar, but more decorous, nature should be substituted, which, whilst it afforded recreation and amusement, might, at the same time, convey with it a moral and religious sensation. It is, therefore, extremely probable, that, in furtherance of this intention, the clergy contrived and introduced the Dance or Pageant of Death, or, as it was sometimes called, the Dance of Macaber, for reasons that will hereafter appear. Mr. Warton states, "that in many churches of France there was an ancient show, or mimickry, in which all ranks of life were personated by the ecclesiastics, who danced together, and disappeared one after another."[30] Again, speaking of Lydgate's poem on this subject, he says, "these verses, founded on a sort of spiritual masquerade antiently celebrated in churches, &c."[31] M. Barante, in his History of the Dukes of Burgundy, adverting to the entertainments that took place at Paris when Philip le Bon visited that city in 1424, observes, "that these were not solely made for the nobility, the common people being likewise amused from the month of August to the following season of Lent with the Dance of Death in the church yard of the Innocents, the English being particularly gratified with this exhibition, which included all ranks and conditions of men, Death being, morally, the principal character."[32] Another French historian, M. de Villeneuve Bargemont, informs us that the Duke of Bedford celebrated his victory at Verneuil by a festival in the centre of the French capital. The rest of what this writer has recorded on the subject before us will be best given in his own words, "Nous voulons parler de cette fameuse _procession_ qu'on vit defiler dans les rues de Paris, sous le nom de _danse Macabrée ou infernale_, epouvantable divertissement, auquel présidoit un squelette ceint du diadême royal, tenant un sceptre dans ses mains décharnées et assis sur un trône resplendissant d'or et de pierreries. Ce spectacle repoussant, mêlange odieux de deuil et de joie, inconnu jusqu'alors, et qui ne s'est jamais renouvellé, n'eut guere pour témoins que des soldats étrangers, ou quelques malheureux échappés à tous les fléaux réunis, et qui avoient vu descendre tous leurs parens, tous leurs amis, dans ces sepulchres qu'on dépouilloit alors de leurs ossemens."[33] A third French writer has also treated the Dance of Death as a spectacle exhibited in like manner to the people of Paris.[34] M. Peignot, to whom the reader is obliged for these historical notices in his ingenious researches on the present subject, very plausibly conceives that their authors have entirely mistaken the sense of an old chronicle or journal under Charles VI. and VII. which he quotes in the following words.--"Item. L'an 1424 fut faite la Danse Maratre (pour Macabre) aux Innocens, et fut comencée environ le moys d'Aoust et achevée au karesme suivant. En l'an 1429 le cordelier Richard preschant aux Innocens estoit monté sur ung hault eschaffaut qui estoit près de toise et demie de hault, le dos tourné vers les charniers encontre la charounerie, à l'endroit de la danse Macabre." He observes, that the Dance of Death at the Innocents, having been commenced in August and finished at the ensuing Lent, could not possibly be represented by living persons, but was only a painting, the large dimensions of which required six months to complete it; and that a single Death must, in the other case, have danced with every individual belonging to the scene.[35] He might have added, that such a proceeding would have been totally at variance with the florid, but most inaccurate, description by M. Bargemont. The reader will, therefore, most probably feel inclined to adopt the opinion of M. Peignot, that the Dance of Death was not performed by living persons between 1424 and 1429. But although M. Peignot may have triumphantly demonstrated that this subject was not exhibited by living persons at the above place and period, it by no means follows that it was not so represented at some other time, and on some other spot. Accordingly, in the archives of the cathedral of Besançon, there is preserved an article respecting a delivery made to one of the officers of Saint John the Evangelist of four measures of wine, to be given to those persons who performed the Dance of Death after mass was concluded. This is the article itself, "Sexcallus [seneschallus] solvat D. Joanni Caleti matriculario S. Joannis quatuor simasias vini per dictum matricularium exhibitas illis qui choream Machabeorum fecerunt 10 Julii, 1453, nuper lapsa hora misse in ecclesia S. Joannis Evangeliste propter capitulum provinciale fratrum Minorum."[36] This document then will set the matter completely at rest. At what time the personified exhibition of this pageant commenced, or when it was discontinued cannot now be correctly ascertained. If, from a moral spectacle, it became a licentious ceremony, as is by no means improbable, in imitation of electing a boy-bishop, of the feast of fools, or other similar absurdities, its termination may be looked for in the authority of some ecclesiastical council at present not easily to be traced. CHAPTER II. _Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.--Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters.--Other Metrical Compositions on the Dance._ The subject immediately before us was very often represented, not only on the walls, but in the windows of many churches, in the cloisters of monasteries, and even on bridges, especially in Germany and Switzerland. It was sometimes painted on church screens, and occasionally sculptured on them, as well as upon the fronts of domestic dwellings. It occurs in many of the manuscript and illuminated service books of the middle ages, and frequent allusions to it are found in other manuscripts, but very rarely in a perfect state, as to the number of subjects. Most of the representations of the Dance of Death were accompanied by descriptive or moral verses in different languages. Those which were added to the paintings of this subject in Germany appear to have differed very materially, and it is not now possible to ascertain which among them is the oldest. Those in the Basle painting are inserted in the editions published and engraved by Mathew Merian, but they had already occurred in the Decennalia humanæ peregrinationis of Gaspar Landismann in 1584. Some Latin verses were published by Melchior Goldasti at the end of his edition of the Speculum omnium statuum, a celebrated moral work by Roderic, Bishop of Zamora, 1613, 4to. He most probably copied them from one of the early editions of the Danse Macabre, but without any comment whatever, the above title page professing that they are added on account of the similarity of the subject. A Provençal poet, called _Marcabres_ or _Marcabrus_, has been placed among the versifiers, but none of his works bear the least similitude to the subject; and, moreover, the language itself is an objection. The English metrical translation will be noticed hereafter. Whether any of the paintings were accompanied by descriptive verses that might be considered as anterior to those ascribed to the supposed Macaber, cannot now be ascertained. There are likewise some Latin verses in imitation of those above-mentioned, which, as well as the author of them, do not seem to have been noticed by any biographical or poetical writer. They occur at the end of a Latin play, intitled Susanna, Antverp. apud Michaelem Hillenium, MDXXXIII. As the volume is extremely rare, and the verses intimately connected with the present subject, it has been thought worth while to reprint them. After an elegy on the vanity and shortness of human life, and a Sapphic ode on the remembrance of Death, they follow under this title, "Plausus luctificæ mortis ad modum dialogi extemporaliter ab Eusebio Candido lusus. Ad quem quique mortales invitantur omnes, cujuscujus sint conditionis: quibusque singulis Mors ipsa respondet." Luctificæ mortis plausum bene cernite cuncti. Dum res læta, mori et viventes discite, namque Omnes ex æquo tandem huc properare necessum. Hic inducitur adolescens quærens, et mors vel philosophus respondens. Vita quid est hominis? Fumus super aream missus. Vita quid est hominis? Via mortis, dura laborum Colluvies, vita est hominis via longa doloris Perpetui. Vita quid est hominis? cruciatus et error, Vita quid est hominis? vestitus gramine multo, Floribus et variis campus, quem parva pruina Expoliat, sic vitam hominum mors impia tollit. Quamlibet illa alacris, vegeta, aut opulenta ne felix, Icta cadit modica crede ægritudine mortis. Et quamvis superes auro vel murice Croesum, Longævum aut annis vivendo Nestora vincas, Omnia mors æquat, vitæ meta ultima mors est. IMPERATOR. Quid fers? Induperator ego, et moderamina rerum Gesto manu, domuit mors impia sceptra potentum. REX RHOMANUS. Quid fers? en ego Rhomulidum rex. Mors manet omnes. PAPA. En ego Pontificum primus, signansque resignans. Et coelos oraque locos. Mors te manet ergo. CARDINALIS. Cardineo fulgens ego honore, et Episcopus ecce Mors manet ecce omnes, Phrygeus quos pileus ornat. EPISCOPUS. Insula splendidior vestit mea, tempora latum Possideo imperium, multi mea jura tremiscunt. Me dicant fraudis docti, producere lites. Experti, aucupium docti nummorum, et averni Causidici, rixatores, rabulæque forenses. Hos ego respicio, nihil attendens animarum, Ecclesiæ mihi commissæ populive salutem Sed satis est duros loculo infarcisse labores Agricolûm, et magnis placuisse heroibus orbis. Non tamen effugies mortis mala spicula duræ. ECCLESIÆ PRÆLATUS. Ecclesiæ prælatus ego multis venerandus Muneribus sacris, proventibus officiorum. Comptior est vestis, popina frequentior æde Sacra, et psalmorum cantus mihi rarior ipso Talorum crepitu, Veneris quoque voce sonora. Morte cades, annos speras ubi vivere plures. CANONICUS. En ego melotam gesto. Mors sæva propinquat. PASTOR. En parochus quoque pastor ego, mihi dulce falernum Notius æde sacra: scortum mihi charius ipsa Est animæ cura populi. Mors te manet ergo. ABBAS. En abbas venio, Veneris quoque ventris amicus. Coenobii rara est mihi cura, frequentior aula Magnorum heroum. Chorea saltabis eadem. PRIOR. En prior, ornatus longa et splendente cuculla, Falce cades mortis. Mors aufert nomina honoris. PATER VESTALIUM. Nympharum pater ecce ego sum ventrosior, offis Pinguibus emacerans corpus. Mors te manet ipsa. VESTALIS NYMPHA. En monialis ego, Vestæ servire parata. Non te Vesta potest mortis subducere castris. LEGATUS. Legatus venio culparum vincla resolvemus Omnia pro auro, abiens coelum vendo, infera claudo Et quicquid patres sanxerunt, munere solvo Juribus à mortis non te legatio solvet. DOMINUS DOCTOR. Quid fers? Ecce sophus, divina humanaque jura Calleo, et à populo doctor Rabbique salutor, Te manet expectans mors ultima linea rerum. MEDICUS. En ego sum medicus, vitam producere gnarus, Venis lustratis morborum nomina dico, Non poteris duræ mortis vitare sagittas. ASTRONOMUS. En ego stellarum motus et sydera novi, Et fati genus omne scio prædicere coeli. Non potis es mortis duræ præscire sagittas. CURTISANUS. En me Rhoma potens multis suffarsit onustum Muneribus sacris, proventibus, officiisque Non potes his mortis fugiens evadere tela. ADVOCATUS. Causarum patronus ego, producere doctus Lites, et loculos lingua vacuare loquaci Non te lingua loquax mortis subducet ab ictu. JUDEX. Justitiæ judex quia sum, sub plebe salutor. Vertice me nudo populus veneratur adorans. Auri sacra fames pervertere sæpe coëgit Justitiam. Mors te manet æquans omnia falce. PRÆTOR. Prætor ego populi, me prætor nemo quid audet. Accensor causis, per me stant omnia, namque Et dono et adimo vitam, cum rebus honorem. Munere conspecto, quod iniquum est jure triumphat Emitto corvos, censura damno columbas. Hinc metuendus ero superis ereboque profundo. Te manet expectans Erebus Plutoque cruentus. CONSUL. Polleo consiliis, Consul dicorque salutor. Munere conspecto, quid iniquum est consulo rectum Quod rectum est flecto, nihil est quod nesciat auri Sacra fames, hinc ditor et undique fio opulentus Sed eris æternum miser et mors impia tollet. CAUSIDICUS. Causidicus ego sum, causas narrare peritus, Accior in causas, sed spes ubi fulserit auri Ad fraudes docta solers utor bene lingua. Muto, commuto, jura inflecto atque reflecto. Et nihil est quod non astu pervincere possim. Mors æqua expectat properans te fulmine diro. Nec poteris astu mortis prævertere tela. SCABINUS. Ecce Scabinus ego, scabo bursas, prorogo causas. Senatorque vocor, vulgus me poplite curvo, Muneribusque datis veneratur, fronte retecta. Nil mortem meditor loculos quando impleo nummis Et dito hæredes nummis, vi, fraude receptis, Justitiam nummis, pro sanguine, munere, vendo. Quod rectum est curvo, quod curvum est munere rectum Efficio, per me prorsus stant omnia jura. Non poteris duræ mortis transire sagittas. LUDIMAGISTER. En ego pervigili cura externoque labore. Excolui juvenum ingenia, et præcepta Minervæ Tradens consenui, cathedræque piget sine fructu. Quid dabitur fructus, tanti quæ dona laboris? Omnia mors æquans, vitæ ultima meta laboris. MILES AURATUS. Miles ego auratus, fulgenti murice et auro Splendidus in populo. Mors te manet omnia perdens. MILES ARMATUS. Miles ego armatus, qui bella ferocia gessi. Nullius occursum expavi, quam durus et audax. Ergo immunis ero. Mors te intrepida ipsa necabit. MERCATOR. En ego mercator dives, maria omnia lustro Et terras, ut res crescant. Mors te metet ipsa. FUCKARDUS. En ego fuckardus, loculos gesto æris onustos, Omnia per mundum coëmens, vendo atque revendo. Heroës me solicitant, atque æra requirunt. Haud est me lato quisquam modo ditior orbe. Mortis ego jura et frameas nihil ergo tremisco Morte cades, mors te rebus spoliabit opimis. QUÆSTOR. Quæstor ego, loculos suffersi arcasque capaces Est mihi prænitidis fundata pecunia villis. Hac dives redimam duræ discrimina mortis Te mors præripiet nullo exorabilis auro. NAUCLERUS. En ego nauclerus spaciosa per æquora vectus, Non timui maris aut venti discrimina mille. Cymba tamen mortis capiet te quæque vorantis. AGRICOLA. Agricola en ego sum, præduro sæpe labore, Et vigili exhaustus cura, sudore perenni, Victum prætenuem quærens, sine fraude doloque Omnia pertentans, miseram ut traducere possim Vitam, nec mundo me est infelicior alter. Mors tamen eduri fiet tibi meta laboris. ORATOR. Heroum interpres venio, fraudisque peritus, Bellorum strepitus compono, et bella reduco, Meque petunt reges, populus miratur adorans. Nulla abiget fraudi linguéve peritia mortem. PRINCEPS BELLI. Fulmen ego belli, reges et regna subegi, Victor ego ex omni præduro quamlibet ecce Marte fui, vitæ hinc timeo discrimina nulla. Te mors confodiet cauda Trigonis aquosi, Atque eris exanimis moriens uno ictu homo bulla. DIVES. Sum rerum felix, foecunda est prolis et uxor, Plena domus, lætum pecus, et cellaria plena Nil igitur metuo. Quid ais? Mors te impia tollet. PAUPER. Iro ego pauperior, Codroque tenuior omni, Despicior cunctis, nemo est qui sublevet heu heu. Hinc parcet veniens mors: nam nihil auferet à me, Non sic evades, ditem cum paupere tollit. FOENERATOR. Ut loculi intument auro, vi, fraude, doloque, Foenore nunc quæstum facio, furtoque rapinaque, Ut proles ditem, passim dicarque beatus, Per fas perque nefas corradens omnia quæro. Mors veniens furtim prædabitur, omnia tollens. ADOLESCENS. Sum juvenis, forma spectabilis, indole gaudens Maturusque ævi, nullus præstantior alter, Moribus egregiis populo laudatus ab omni. Pallida, difformis mors auferet omnia raptim. PUELLA. Ecce puellarum pulcherrima, mortis iniquæ Spicula nil meditor, juvenilibus et fruor annis, Meque proci expectant compti, facieque venusti. Stulta, quid in vana spe jactas? Mors metet omnes Difformes, pulchrosque simul cum paupere dices. NUNCIUS. Nuncius ecce ego sum, qui nuncia perfero pernix Sed retrospectans post terga, papæ audio quidnam? Me tuba terrificans mortis vocat. Heu moriendum est. PERORATIO. Mortales igitur memores modo vivite læti Instar venturi furis, discrimine nullo Cunctos rapturi passim ditesque inopesque. Stultus et insipiens vita qui sperat in ista, Instar quæ fumi perit et cito desinit esse. Fac igitur tota virtuti incumbito mente, Quæ nescit mortem, sed scandit ad ardua coeli. Quo nos à fatis ducat rex Juppiter, Amen. Plaudite nunc, animum cuncti retinete faventes. FINIS. Antwerpiæ apud Michaelem Hillenium M.D.XXXIIII. Mense Maio. A very early allusion to the Dance of Death occurs in a Latin poem, that seems to have been composed in the twelfth century by our celebrated countryman Walter de Mapes, as it is found among other pieces that carry with them strong marks of his authorship. It is intitled "Lamentacio et deploracio pro Morte et consilium de vivente Deo."[37] In its construction there is a striking resemblance to the common metrical stanzas that accompany the Macaber Dance. Many characters, commencing with that of the Pope, are introduced, all of whom bewail the uncontrolable influence of Death. This is a specimen of the work, extracted from two manuscripts: Cum mortem meditor nescit mihi causa doloris, Nam cunctis horis mors venit ecce cito. Pauperis et regis communis lex moriendi, Dat causam flendi si bene scripta leges. Gustato pomo missus transit sine morte Heu missa sorte labitur omnis homo. Vado mori Papa qui jussu regna | Vado mori, Rex sum, quod honor, subegi | quod gloria regum, Mors mihi regna tulit eccine vado | Est via mors hominis regia vado mori. | mori. Then follow similar stanzas, for presul, miles, monachus, legista, jurista, doctor, logicus, medicus, cantor, sapiens, dives, cultor, burgensis, nauta, pincerna, pauper. In Sanchez's collection of Spanish poetry before the year 1400,[38] mention is made of a Rabbi Santo as a good poet, who lived about 1360. He was a Jew, and surgeon to Don Pedro. His real name seems to have been Mose, but he calls himself Don Santo Judio de Carrion. This person is said to have written a moral poem, called "Danza General." It commences thus: "_Dise la Muerte._ "Yo so la muerte cierta a todas criaturas, Que son y seran en el mundo durante: Demando y digo O ame! porque curas De vida tan breve en punto passante?" &c. He then introduces a preacher, who announces Death to all persons, and advises them to be prepared by good works to enter his Dance, which is calculated for all degrees of mankind. "Primaramente llama a su danza a dos doncellas, A esta mi danza trax de presente, Estas dos donzellas que vades fermosas: Ellas vinieron de muy malamente A oir mes canciones que son dolorosas, Mas non les valdran flores nin rosas, Nin las composturas que poner salian: De mi, si pudiesen parterra querrian, Mas non proveda ser, que son mis esposas." It may, however, be doubted whether the Jew Santo was the author of this Dance of Death, as it is by no means improbable that it may have been a subsequent work added to the manuscript referred to by Sanchez. In 1675, Maitre Jacques Jacques, a canon of the cathedral of Ambrun, published a singular work, intitled "Le faut mourir et les excuses inutiles que l'on apporte à cette nécessité. Le tout en vers burlesques." Rouen, 1675, 12mo. It is written much in the style of Scarron and some other similar poets of the time. It commences with a humorous description given by Death of his proceedings with various persons in every part of the globe, which is followed by several dialogues between Death and the following characters: 1. The Pope. 2. A young lady betrothed. 3. A galley slave. 4. Guillot, who has lost his wife. 5. Don Diego Dalmazere, a Spanish hidalgo. 6. A king. 7. The young widow of a citizen. 8. A citizen. 9. A decrepit rich man. 10. A canon. 11. A blind man. 12. A poor peasant. 13. Tourmenté, a poor soldier in the hospital. 14. A criminal in prison. 15. A nun. 16. A physician. 17. An apothecary. 18. A lame beggar. 19. A rich usurer. 20. A merchant. 21. A rich merchant. As the book is uncommon, the following specimen is given from the scene between Death and the young betrothed girl: LA MORT. A vous la belle demoiselle, Je vous apporte une nouvelle, Qui certes vous surprendra fort. C'est qu'il faut penser à la mort, Tout vistement pliés bagage, Car il faut faire ce voyage. LA DEMOISELLE. Qu'entends-je? Tout mon sens se perd, Helas! vous me prener sans verd; C'est tout à fait hors de raison Mourir dedans une saison Que je ne dois songer qu'à rire, Je suis contrainte de vous dire, Que très injuste est vostre choix, Parce que mourir je ne dois, N'estant qu'en ma quinzième année, Voyez quelque vielle échinée, Qui n'ait en bouche point de dent; Vous l'obligerez grandement De l'envoyer à l'autre monde, Puis qu'ici toujours elle gronde; Vous la prendrez tout à propos, Et laissez moi dans le repos, Moi qui suis toute poupinette, Dans l'embonpoint et joliette, Qui n'aime qu'à me réjouir, De grâce laissez moi jouir, &c. CHAPTER III. _Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain._ The next subject for investigation is the origin of the name of Macaber, as connected with the Dance of Death, either with respect to the verses that have usually accompanied it, or to the paintings or representations of the Dance itself; and first of the verses. It may, without much hazard, be maintained that, notwithstanding these have been ascribed to a German poet called Macaber, there never was a German, or any poet whatever bearing such a name. The first mention of him appears to have been in a French edition of the Danse Macabre, with the following title, "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemannicis edito, et à Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godefrido de Marnef. 1490, folio." This title, from its ambiguity, is deserving of little consideration as a matter of authority; for if a comma be placed after the word Macabro, the title is equally applicable to the author of the verses and to the painter or inventor of the Dance. As the subject had been represented in several places in Germany, and of course accompanied with German descriptions, it is possible that Desrey might have translated and altered some or one of these, and, mistaking the real meaning of the word, have converted it into the name of an author. It may be asked in what German biography is such a person to be found? how it has happened that this _famous_ Macaber is so little known, or whether the name really has a Teutonic aspect? It was the above title in Desrey's work that misled the truly learned Fabricius inadvertently to introduce into his valuable work the article for Macaber as a German poet, and in a work to which it could not properly belong.[39] M. Peignot has very justly observed that the Danse Macabre had been very long known in France and elsewhere, not as a literary work, but as a painting; and he further remarks that although the verses are German in the Basil painting, executed about 1440, similar verses in French were placed under the dance at the Innocents at Paris in 1424.[40] At the beginning of the text in the early French edition of the Danse Macabre, we have only the words "la danse Macabre sappelle," but no specific mention is made of the author of the verses. John Lydgate, in his translation of them from the French, and which was most probably adopted in many places in England where the painting occurred, speaks of "the Frenche Machabrees daunce," and "the daunce of Machabree." At the end, "Machabree the Doctoure," is abruptly and unconnectedly introduced at the bottom of the page. It is not in the French printed copy, from the text of which Lydgate certainly varies in several respects. It remains, therefore, to ascertain whether these words belong to Lydgate, or to whom else; not that it is a matter of much importance. The earliest authority that has been traced for the name of "Danse Macabre," belongs to the painting at the Innocents, and occurs in the MS. diary of Charles VII. under the year 1424. It is also strangely called "Chorea Machabæorum," in 1453, as appears from the before cited document at St. John's church at Besançon. Even the name of one _Maccabrees_, a Provençal poet of the 14th century, has been injudiciously connected with the subject, though his works are of a very different nature. Previously to attempting to account for the origin of the obscure and much controverted word Macaber, as applicable to the dance itself, it may be necessary to advert to the opinions on that subject that have already appeared. It has been disguised under the several names of Macabre,[41] Maccabees,[42] Maratre,[43] and even Macrobius.[44] Sometimes it has been regarded as an epithet. The learned and excellent M. Van Praet, the guardian of the royal library at Paris, has conjectured that _Macabre_ is derived from the Arabic _Magbarah_, magbourah, or magabir, all signifying a church-yard. M. Peignot seems to think that M. Van Praet intended to apply the word to the Dance itself,[45] but it is impossible that the intelligent librarian was not aware that personified sculpture, as well as the moral nature of the subject, cannot belong to the Mahometan religion. Another etymology extremely well calculated to disturb the gravity of the present subject, is that of M. Villaret, the French historian, when adverting to the spectacle of the Danse Macabre, supposed to have been given by the English in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. Relying on this circumstance, he unceremoniously decides that the name of the dance was likewise English; and that _Macabrée_ is compounded of the words, to _make_ and to _break_. The same silly etymology is referred to as in some historical dictionary concerning the city of Paris by Mons. Compan in his Dictionaire de Danse, article _Macaber_; and another which is equally improbable has been hazarded by the accomplished Marquis de Paulmy, who, noticing some editions of the Danse Macabre in his fine library, now in the arsenal at Paris, very seriously states that Macaber is derived from two Greek words, which denote its meaning to be an _infernal dance_;[46] but if the Greek language were to be consulted on the occasion, the signification would turn out to be very different. It must not be left unnoticed that M. De Bure, in his account of the edition of the Danse Macabre, printed by Marchant, 1486, has stated that the verses have been attributed to Michel Marot; but the book is dated before Marot was born.[47] Again,--As to the connexion between the word Macaber with the Dance itself. In the course of the thirteenth century there appeared a French metrical work under the name of "Li trois Mors et li trois Vis," _i. e._ Les trois Morts et les trois Vifs. In the noble library of the Duke de la Valliere, there were three apparently coeval manuscripts of it, differing, however, from each other, but furnishing the names of two authors, Baudouin de Condé and Nicolas de Marginal.[48] These poems relate that three noble youths when hunting in a forest were intercepted by the like number of hideous spectres or images of Death, from whom they received a terrific lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A very early, and perhaps the earliest, allusion to this vision, seems to occur in a painting by Andrew Orgagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and although it varies a little from the description in the above-mentioned poems, the story is evidently the same. The painter has introduced three young men on horseback with coronets on their caps, and who are attended by several domestics whilst pursuing the amusement of hawking. They arrive at the cell of Saint Macarius an Egyptian Anachorite, who with one hand presents to them a label with this inscription, as well as it can be made out, "Se nostra mente fia ben morta tenendo risa qui la vista affitta la vana gloria ci sara sconfitta la superbia e sara da morte;" and with the other points to three open coffins, in which are a skeleton and two dead bodies, one of them a king. A similar vision, but not immediately connected with the present subject, and hitherto unnoticed, occurs at the end of the Latin verses ascribed to Macaber, in Goldasti's edition of the Speculum omnium statuum à Roderico Zamorensi. Three persons appear to a hermit, whose name is not mentioned, in his sleep. The first is described as a man in a regal habit; the second as a civilian, and the third as a beautiful female decorated with gold and jewels. Whilst these persons are vainly boasting of their respective conditions, they are encountered by three horrible spectres in the shape of dead human bodies covered with worms, who very severely reprove them for their arrogance. This is evidently another version of the "Trois mors et trois vifs" in the text, but whether it be older or otherwise cannot easily be ascertained. It is composed in alternate rhymes, in the manner, and probably by the author of Philibert or Fulbert's vision of the dispute between the soul and the body, a work ascribed to S. Bernard, and sometimes to Walter de Mapes. There are translations of it both in French and English. [Illustration] [Illustration] For the mention of S. Macarius as the hermit in this painting by Orgagna, we are indebted to Vasari in his life of that artist; and he had, no doubt, possessed himself of some traditionary information on the subject of it. He further informs us, that the person on horseback who is stopping his nostrils, is intended for Andrea Uguzzione della fagivola. Above is a black and hideous figure of Death mowing down with his scythe all ranks and conditions of men. Vasari adds that Orgagna had crowded his picture with a great many inscriptions, most of which were obliterated by time. From one of them which he has preserved in his work, as addressed to some aged cripples, it should appear that, as in the Macaber Dance, Death apostrophizes the several characters.[49] Baldinucci, in his account of Orgagna, mentions this painting and the story of the Three Kings and Saint Macarius.[50] Morona, likewise, in his Pisa illustrata, adopts the name of Macarius when describing the same subject. The figures in the picture are all portraits, and their names may be seen, but with some variation as to description, both in Vasari and Morona.[51] Now the story of _Les trois mors et les trois vifs_, was prefixed to the painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and had also been sculptured over the portal of the church, by order of the Duke de Berry in 1408.[52] It is found in numerous manuscript copies of Horæ and other service books prefixed to the burial office. All the printed editions of the Macaber Dance contain it, but with some variation, the figure of Saint Macarius in his cell not being always introduced. It occurs in many of the printed service books, and in some of our own for the use of Salisbury. The earliest wood engraving of it is in the black book of the "15 signa Judicii," where two of the young men are running away to avoid the three deaths, or skeletons, one of whom is rising from a grave. It is copied in Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. xxx. From the preceding statement then there is every reason to infer that the name of Macaber, so frequently, and without authority, applied to an unknown German poet, really belongs to the Saint, and that his name has undergone a slight and obvious corruption. The word _Macabre_ is found only in French authorities, and the Saint's name, which, in the modern orthography of that language, is _Macaire_, would, in many ancient manuscripts, be written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_, the letter _b_ being substituted for that of _u_ from the caprice, ignorance, or carelessness of the transcribers. As no German copy of the verses describing the painting can, with any degree of certainty, be regarded as the original, we must substitute the Latin text, which may, perhaps, have an equal claim to originality. The author, at the beginning, has an address to the spectators, in which he tells them that the painting is called the Dance of Macaber. There is an end, therefore, of the name of Macaber, as the author of the verses, leaving it only as applicable to the painting, and almost, if not altogether confirmatory of the preceding conjecture. The French version, from which Lydgate made his translation, nearly agrees with the Latin. Lydgate, however, in the above address, has thought fit to use the word _translator_ instead of _author_, but this is of no moment, any more than the words _Machabrée the Doctour_, which, not being in the French text, are most likely an interpolation. He likewise calls the work _the daunce_; and it may, once for all, be remarked, that scarcely any two versions of it will be found to correspond in all respects, every new editor assuming fresh liberties, according to the usual practice in former times. The ancient paintings of the Macaber Dance next demand our attention. Of these, the oldest on record was that of Minden in Westphalia, with the date 1383, and mentioned by Fabricius in his Biblioth. med. et infimæ ætatis, tom. v. p. 2. It is to be wished that this statement had been accompanied with some authority; but the whole of the article is extremely careless and inaccurate. The earliest, of which the date has been satisfactorily defined, was that in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and which has been already mentioned as having been painted in 1434. In the cloister of the church of the Sainte Chapelle at Dijon the Macaber Dance was painted by an artist whose name was Masonçelle. It had disappeared and was forgotten a long time ago, but its existence was discovered in the archives of the department by Mons. Boudot, an ardent investigator of the manners and customs of the middle ages. The date ascribed to this painting is 1436. The above church was destroyed in the revolution, previously to which another Macaber Dance existed in the church of Notre Dame in the above city. This was not a painting on the walls, but a piece of white embroidery on a black piece of stuff about two feet in height and very long. It was placed over the stalls in the choir on grand funeral ceremonies, and was also carried off with the other church moveables, in the abovementioned revolution.[53] Similar exhibitions, no doubt, prevailed in other places. The next Macaber Dance, in point of date, was the celebrated one at Basle, which has employed the pens and multiplied the errors of many writers and travellers. It was placed under cover in a sort of shed in the church-yard of the Dominican convent. It has been remarked by one very competent to know the fact, that nearly all the convents of the Dominicans had a Dance of Death.[54] As these friars were preachers by profession, the subject must have been exceedingly useful in supplying texts and matter for their sermons. The present Dance is said to have been painted at the instance of the prelates who assisted at the Grand Council of Basle, that lasted from 1431 to 1443; and in allusion, as supposed, to a plague that happened during its continuance. Plagues have also been assigned as the causes of other Dances of Death; but there is no foundation whatever for such an opinion, as is demonstrable from what has been already stated; and it has been also successfully combated by M. Peignot, who is nevertheless a little at variance with himself, when he afterwards introduces a conjecture that the painter of the first Dance imitated the violent motions and contortions of those affected by the plague in the dancing attitudes of the figures of Death.[55] The name of the original painter of this Basle work is unknown, and will probably ever remain so, for no dependance can be had on some vague conjectures, that without the smallest appearance of accuracy have been hazarded concerning it. It is on record that the old painting having become greatly injured by the ravages of time, John Hugh Klauber, an eminent painter at Basle, was employed to repair it in the year 1568, as appears from a Latin inscription placed on it at the time. This painter is said to have covered the decayed fresco with oil, and to have succeeded so well that no difference between his work and the original could be perceived. He was instructed to add the portrait of the celebrated Oecolampadius in the act of preaching, in commemoration of his interference in the Reformation, that had not very long before taken place. He likewise introduced at the end of the painting, portraits of himself, his wife Barbara Hallerin, and their little son Hans Birich Klauber. The following inscription, placed on the painting on this occasion, is preserved in Hentzner's Itinerary, and elsewhere. A. O. C. Sebastiano Doppenstenio, Casparo Clugio Coss. Bonaventura à Bruno, Jacobo Rudio Tribb. Pl. Hunc mortales chorum fabulæ, temporis injuria vitiatum Lucas Gebhart, Iodoc. Pfister. Georgius Sporlinus Hujus loci Ædiles. Integritati suæ restituendum curavere Ut qui vocalis picturæ divina monita securius audiunt Mutæ saltem poëseos miserab. spectaculo Ad seriam philosophiam excitentur. [Greek: ORATELOS MAKROU BIOU ARCHÊN ORAMAKARIOU] CI=C= I=C= LXIIX. In the year 1616 a further reparation took place, and some alterations in the design are said to have been then made. The above inscription, with an addition only of the names of the then existing magistrates of the city, was continued. A short time before, Mathew Merian the elder, a celebrated topographical draftsman, had fortunately copied the older painting, of which he is supposed to have first published engravings in 1621, with all the inscriptions under the respective characters that were then remaining, but these could not possibly be the same in many respects that existed before the Reformation, and which are entirely lost. A proof of this may be gathered from the lines of the Pope's answer to Death, whom he is thus made to apostrophize: "Shall it be said that I, a God upon earth, a successor of St. Peter, a powerful prince, and a learned doctor, shall endure thy insolent summons, or that, in obedience to thy decree, I should be compelled to ascertain whether the keys which I now possess will open for me the gates of Paradise?" None of the inscriptions relating to the Pope in other ancient paintings before the Reformation approach in the least to language of this kind. Merian speaks of a tradition that in the original painting the portrait of Pope Felix V. was introduced, as well as those of the Emperor Sigismund and Duke Albert II. all of whom were present at the council; but admitting this to have been the fact, their respective features would scarcely remain after the subsequent alterations and repairs that took place. That intelligent traveller, Mons. Blainville, saw this painting in January, 1707. He states that as it had been much injured by the weather, and many of the figures effaced, the government caused it to be retouched by a painter, whom they imagined to be capable of repairing the ravages it had sustained, but that his execution was so miserable that they had much better have let it alone than to have had it so wretchedly bungled. He wholly rejects any retouching by Holbein. He particularizes two of the most remarkable subjects, namely, the fat jolly cook, whom Death seizes by the hand, carrying on his shoulder a spit with a capon ready larded, which he looks upon with a wishful eye, as if he regretted being obliged to set out before it was quite roasted. The other figure is that of the blind beggar led by his dog, whom Death snaps up with one hand, and with the other cuts the string by which the dog was tied to his master's arm.[56] The very absurd ascription of the Basle painting to the pencil of Hans Holbein, who was born near a century afterwards, has been adopted by several tourists, who have copied the errors of their predecessors, without taking the pains to make the necessary enquiries, or possessing the means of obtaining correct information. The name of Holbein, therefore, as combined with this painting, must be wholly laid aside, for there is no evidence that he was even employed to retouch it, as some have inadvertently stated; it was altogether a work unworthy of his talents, nor does it, even in its latest state, exhibit the smallest indication of his style of painting. This matter will be resumed hereafter, but in the mean time it may be necessary to correct the mistake of that truly learned and meritorious writer, John George Keysler, who, in his instructive and entertaining travels, has inadvertently stated that the Basle painting was executed by Hans Bock or Bok, a celebrated artist of that city;[57] but it is well known that this person was not born till the year 1584. The Basle painting is no longer in existence; for on the 2d of August, 1806, and for reasons that have not been precisely ascertained, an infuriated mob, in which were several women, who carried lanterns to light the expedition, tumultuously burst the inclosure which contained the painting, tore it piecemeal from the walls, and in a very short space of time completely succeeded in its total demolition, a few fragments only being still preserved in the collection of Counsellor Vischer at his castle of Wildensheim, near Basle. This account of its destruction is recorded in Millin's Magazin Encyclopédique among the nouvelles littéraires for that year; but the Etrenne Helvétique for the above year has given a different account of the matter; it states that the painting having been once more renovated in the year 1703, fell afterwards into great decay, being entirely peeled from the wall--that this circumstance had, in some degree, arisen from the occupation of the cloister by a ropemaker--that the wall having been found to stand much in the way of some new buildings erected near the spot, the magistrates ventured, but not without much hesitation, to remove the cloister with its painting altogether in the year 1805--and that this occasioned some disturbance in the city among the common people, but more particularly with those who had resided in its neighbourhood, and conceived a renewed attachment to the painting. Of this Dance of Death very few specific copies have been made. M. Heinecken[58] has stated that it was engraved in 1544, by Jobst Denneker of Augsburg; but he has confounded it with a work by this artist on the other Dance of Death ascribed to Holbein, and which will be duly noticed hereafter. The work which contained the earliest engravings of the Basle painting, can on this occasion be noticed only from a modern reprint of it under the following title: "Der Todten-Tantz wie derselbe in der weitberuhmten Stadt Basel als ein Spiegel menslicher beschaffenheit gantz kuntlich mit lebendigen farben gemahlet, nicht ohne nutzliche vernunderung zu schen ist. Basel, bey Joh. Conrad und Joh. Jacob von Mechel, 1769, 12mo." that is, "The Dance of Death, painted most skilfully, and in lively colours, in the very famous town of Basel, as a mirror of human life, and not to be looked on without useful admiration." The first page has some pious verses on the painting in the church-yard of the Predicants, of which the present work contains only ten subjects, namely, the cardinal, the abbess, the young woman, the piper, the jew, the heathen man, the heathen woman, the cook, the painter, and the painter's wife. On the abbess there is the mark D. R. probably that of the engraver, two cuts by whom are mentioned in Bartsch's work.[59] On the cut of the young woman there is the mark G S with the graving knife. They are coarsely executed, and with occasional variations of the figures in Merian's plates. The rest of the cuts, thirty-two in number, chiefly belong to the set usually called Holbein's. All the cuts in this miscellaneous volume have German verses at the top and bottom of each page with the subjects. If Jansen, who usually pillages some one else, can be trusted or understood, there was a prior edition of this book in 1606, with cuts having the last-mentioned mark, but which edition he calls the Dance of Death at Berne;[60] a title, considering the mixture of subjects, as faulty as that of the present book, of which, or of some part of it, there must have been a still earlier edition than the above-mentioned one of 1606, as on the last cut but one of this volume there is the date 1576, and the letters G S with the knife. It is most probable that this artist completed the series of the Basle Dance, and that some of the blocks having fallen into the hands of the above printers, they made up and published the present mixed copy. Jost Amman is said to have engraved 49 plates of the Dance of Death in 1587. These are probably from the Basle painting.[61] The completest copies of this painting that are now perhaps extant, are to be found in a well-known set of engravings in copper, by Matthew Merian, the elder, the master of Hollar. There are great doubts as to their first appearance in 1621, as mentioned by Fuessli and Heinecken, but editions are known to exist with the respective dates of 1649, 1696, 1698, 1725, 1744, 1756, and 1789. Some of these are in German, and the rest are accompanied with a French translation by P. Viene. They are all particularly described by Peignot.[62] Merian states in his preface that he had copied the paintings several years before, and given his plates to other persons to be published, adding that he had since redeemed and retouched them. He says this Dance was repaired in 1568 by Hans Hugo Klauber, a citizen of Basle, a fact also recorded on the cut of the painter himself, his wife, Barbara Hallerin, and his son, Hans Birich, by the before-mentioned artist, G. S., and that it contained the portraits of Pope Felix V., the Emperor Sigismund, and Albert, King of the Romans, all of whom assisted at the Council of Basle in the middle of the 15th century, when the painting was probably executed. A greatly altered and modernised edition of Merian's work was published in 1788, 8vo. with the following title, "La Danse des Morts pour servir de miroir à la nature humaine, avec le costume dessiné à la moderne, et des vers à chaques figures. Au Locle, chez S. Girardet libraire." This is on an engraved frontispiece, copied from that in Merian. The letter-press is extracted from the French translation of Merian, and the plates, which are neatly etched, agree as to general design with his; but the dresses of many of the characters are rather ludicrously modernised. Some moral pieces are added to this edition, and particularly an old and popular treatise, composed in 1593, intitled "L'Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir." A Dance of Death is recorded with the following title "Todtentantz durch alle Stande der Menschen," Leipsig, durch David de Necker, formschneider. 1572, 4to.[63] Whether this be a copy of the Basle or the Berne painting, must be decided on inspection, or it may possibly be a later edition of the copy of the wood-cuts of Lyons, that will be mentioned hereafter. In the little Basle, on the opposite side of the Rhine, there was a nunnery called Klingenthal, erected towards the end of the 13th century. In an old cloister, belonging to it there are the remains of a Dance of Death painted on its walls, and said to have been much ruder in execution than that in the Dominican cemetery at Basle. On this painting there was the date 1312. In the year 1766 one Emanuel Ruchel, a baker by trade, but an enthusiastic admirer of the fine arts, made a copy in water colours of all that remained of this ancient painting, and which is preserved in the public library at Basle.[64] The numerous mistakes that have been made by those writers who have mentioned the Basle painting have been already adverted to by M. Peignot, and are not, in this place, worthy of repetition.[65] That which requires most particular notice, and has been so frequently repeated, is the making Hans Holbein the painter of it, who was not born till a considerable time after its execution, and even for whose supposed retouching of a work, almost beneath his notice in point of art, there is not the slightest authority. In the small organ chapel, or, according to some, in the porch, of the church of St. Mary at Lubeck in Lower Alsace, there is, or was, a very ancient Dance of Death, said to have been painted in 1463. Dr. Nugent, who has given some account of it, says, that it is much talked of in all parts of Germany; that the figures were repaired at different times, as in 1588, 1642, and last of all in 1701. The verses that originally accompanied it were in low Dutch, but at the last repair it was thought proper to change them for German verses which were written by Nathaniel Schlott of Dantzick. The Doctor has given an English translation of them, made for him by a young lady of Lubeck.[66] This painting has been engraved, and will be again mentioned. Leipsic had also a Dance of Death, but no particulars of it seem to have been recorded. In 1525 a similar dance was painted at Anneberg in Saxony, which Fabricius seems alone to have noticed. He also mentions another in 1534, at the palace of Duke George at Dresden.[67] This is described in a German work written on the subject generally, by Paul Christian Hilscher, and published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separate print, on a larger scale, varying considerably from the usual mode of representing the Macaber Dance, is given in Anthony Wecken's Chronicle of Dresden, printed in German at Dresden 1680, folio. It is said to have been removed in 1721 to the church-yard of Old Dresden. Nicolai Karamsin has given a very brief, but ludicrous, account of a Dance of Death in the cross aisle of the Orphan House at Erfurth;[68] but Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that it was painted on the panels between the windows of the cell inhabited by Luther.[69] In all probability the same place is intended by both these writers. There is some reason to suppose that there was a Dance of Death at Nuremberg. Misson, describing a wedding in that city, states that the bridegroom and his company sat down on one side of the church and the bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon the wall. This would seem very like a Dance of Death, if the circumstance of the figure being on both sides of the church did not excite a doubt on the subject. Whether there ever was a Macaber Dance at Berne of equal antiquity with that of Basle has not been ascertained: but Sandrart, in his article for Nicolas Manuel Deutch, a celebrated painter at Berne, in the beginning of the 16th century, has recorded a Dance of Death painted by him in oil, and regrets that a work materially contributing to the celebrity of that city had been so extremely neglected that he had only been able to lay before the readers the following German rhymes which had been inscribed on it: Manuel aller welt figur, Hastu gemahlt uf diese mur Nu must sterben da, hilft kun fund: Bist nit sicher minut noch stund. Which he thus translates: Cunctorum in muris pictis ex arte figuris. Tu quoque decedes; etsi hoc vix tempore credes. Then Manuel's answer: Kilf eineger Heiland! dru ich dich bitt: Dann hic ist gar kein Bleibens nit So mir der Tod mein red wird stellen So bhut euch Gott, mein liebe Gsellen. That is, in Latin: En tibi me credo, Deus, hoc dum sorte recedo Mors rapiat me, te, reliquos sociosque, valete! To which account M. Fuseli adds, that this painting, equally remarkable for invention and character, was retouched in 1553; and in 1560, to render the street in which it was placed more spacious, entirely demolished. There were, however, two copies of it preserved at Berne, both in water colours, one by Albrech Kauw, the other a copy from that by Wilhelm Stettler, a painter of Berne, and pupil of Conrad Meyer of Zurich. The painting is here said to have been in _fresco_ on the wall of the Dominican cemetery.[70] The verses that accompanied this painting have been mentioned as containing sarcastical freedoms against the clergy; and as Manuel had himself undergone some persecutions on the score of religion at the time of the Reformation, this is by no means improbable. There is even a tradition that he introduced portraits of some of his friends, who assisted in bringing about that event. In 1832, lithographic copies of the Berne painting, after the drawings of Stettler, were published at Berne, with a portrait of Manuel; and a set of very beautiful drawings in colours, made by some artist at Berne, either after those by Stettler or Kauw, in the public library, are in the possession of the writer of this essay. They, as well as the lithographic prints, exhibit Manuel's likeness in the subject of the painter. One of the bridges at Lucerne was covered with a Macaber Dance, executed by a painter named Meglinger, but at what time we are not informed. It is said to have been very well painted, but injured greatly by injudicious retouchings; yet there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the merit of the paintings, which are or were thirty-six in number, and supposed to have been copied from the Basle dance. Lucerne has also another of the same kind in the burial ground of the parish church of Im-hof. One of the subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, the founder of a musical society, is Death playing on the violin, and summoning the canon to follow him, who, not in the least terrified, marks the place in the book he was reading, and appears quite disposed to obey. This Dance is probably more modern than the other.[71] The subject of Death performing on the above instrument to some person or other is by no means uncommon among the old painters. M. Maurice Rivoire, in his very excellent description of the cathedral of Amiens, mentions the cloister of the Machabees, originally called, says he, the cloister of Macabré, and, as he supposes, from the name of the author of the verses. He gives some lines that were on one of the walls, in which the Almighty commands Death to bring all mortals before him.[72] This cloister was destroyed about the year 1817, but not before the present writer had seen some vestiges of the painting that remained on one of the sides of the building. M. Peignot has a very probable conjecture that the church-yard of Saint Maclou, at Rouen, had a Macaber Dance, from a border or frieze that contains several emblematical subjects of mortality. The place had more than once been destroyed.[73] On the pillars of the church at Fescamp, in Normandy, the Dance of Death was sculptured in stone, and it is in evidence that the castle of Blois had formerly this subject represented in some part of it. In the course of some recent alterations in the new church of the Protestants at Strasburg, formerly a Dominican convent, the workmen accidentally uncovered a Dance of Death that had been whitewashed, either for the purpose of obliteration or concealment. This painting seems to differ from the usual Macaber Dance, not always confined like that to two figures only, but having occasionally several grouped together. M. Peignot has given some more curious particulars relating to it, extracted from a literary journal by M. Schweighæuser, of Strasburg.[74] It is to be hoped that engravings of it will be given. Chorier has mentioned the mills of Macabrey, and also a piece of land with the same appellation, which he says was given to the chapter of St. Maurice at Vienne in Dauphiné, by one Marc Apvril, a citizen of that place. He adds, that he is well aware of the Dance of Macabre. Is it not, therefore, probable, that the latter might have existed at Vienne, and have led to the corruption of the above citizen's name by the common people.[75] Misson has noticed a Dance of Death in St. Mary's church at Berlin, and obscurely referred to another in some church at Nuremberg. Bruckmann, in his Epistolæ Itinerariæ, vol. v. Epist. xxxii. describes several churches and other religious buildings at Vienna, and among them the monastery of the Augustinians, where, he says, there is a painting of a house with Death entering one of the windows by a ladder. In the same letter he describes a chapel of Death in the above monastery, which had been decorated with moral paintings by Father Abraham à St. Clara, one of the monks. Among these were, 1. Death demolishing a student. 2. Death attacking a hunter who had just killed a stag. 3. Death in an apothecary's shop, breaking the phials and medicine boxes. 4. Death playing at draughts with a nobleman. 5. Harlequin making grimaces at Death. A description of this chapel, and its painting was published after the good father's decease. Nuremberg, 1710, 8vo. The only specimen of it in Holland that has occurred on the present occasion is in the celebrated _Orange-Salle_, which constitutes the grand apartment of the country seat belonging to the Prince of Orange in the wood adjacent to the Hague. In three of its compartments, Death is represented by skeletons darting their arrows against a host of opponents.[76] Nor has Italy furnished any materials for the present essay. Blainville has, indeed, described a singular and whimsical representation of Death in the church of St. Peter the Martyr, at Naples, in the following words. "At the entrance on the left is a marble with a representation of Death in a grotesque form. He has two crowns on his head, with a hawk on his fist, as ready for hunting. Under his feet are extended a great number of persons of both sexes and of every age. He addresses them in these lines: Eo sò la morte che caccio Sopera voi jente mondana, La malata e la sana, Di, e notte la percaccio; Non fugge, vessuna intana Per scampare dal mio laczio Che tutto il mondo abbraczio, E tutta la jente humana Perchè nessuno se conforta, Ma prenda spavento Ch'eo per comandamento Di prender à chi viene la sorte. Sia vi per gastigamento Questa figura di morte, E pensa vie di fare forte Tu via di salvamento. Opposite to the figure of Death is that of a man dressed like a tradesman or merchant, who throws a bag of money on a table, and speaks thus: Tutti ti volio dare Se mi lasci scampare. To which Death answers: Se mi potesti dare Quanto si pote dimandare Non te pote scampare la morte Se te viene la sorte.[77] It can hardly be supposed that this subject was not known in Spain, though nothing relating to it seems to have been recorded, if we except the poem that has been mentioned in p. 25, but no Spanish painting has been specified that can be called a regular Macaber Dance. There are grounds, however, for believing that there was such a painting in the cathedral of Burgos, as a gentleman known to the author saw there the remains of a skeleton figure on a whitewashed wall. CHAPTER IV. _Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.--Wortley Hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it._ We are next to examine this subject in relation to its existence in our own country. On the authority of the work ascribed to Walter de Mapes, already noticed in p. 24, it is not unreasonable to infer that paintings of the Macaber Dance were coeval with that writer, though no specimens of it that now remain will warrant the conclusion. We know that it existed at Old Saint Paul's. Stowe informs us that there was a great cloister on the north side of the church, environing a plot of ground, of old time called Pardon church-yard. He then states, that "about this _cloyster_ was artificially and richly painted the Dance of Machabray, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's: the like whereof was painted about St. Innocent's cloyster at Paris: the meters or poesie of this dance were translated out of French into English, by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury, the picture of Death leading all estates; at the dispence of Jenken Carpenter in the reigne of Henry the Sixt."[78] Lydgate's verses were first printed at the end of Tottell's edition of the translation of his Fall of Princes, from Boccaccio, 1554, folio, and afterwards, in Sir W. Dugdale's History of St. Paul's cathedral.[79] In another place Stowe records that "on the 10th April, 1549, the cloister of St. Paul's church, called Pardon church-yard, with the Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's, about the same cloister, costly and cunningly wrought, and the chappel in the midst of the same church-yard, were all begun to be pulled down."[80] This spoliation was made by the Protector Somerset, in order to obtain materials for building his palace in the Strand.[81] The single figure that remained in the Hungerford chapel at Salisbury cathedral, previously to its demolition, was formerly known by the title of "Death and the Young Man," and was, undoubtedly, a portion of the Macaber Dance, as there was close to it another compartment belonging to the same subject. In 1748, a print of these figures was published, accompanied with the following inscription, which differs from that in Lydgate. The young man says: Alasse Dethe alasse a blesful thyng thou were Yf thou woldyst spare us yn ouwre lustynesse. And cum to wretches that bethe of hevy chere Whene thay ye clepe to slake their dystresse But owte alasse thyne own sely selfwyldnesse Crewelly werneth me that seygh wayle and wepe To close there then that after ye doth clepe. Death answers: Grosless galante in all thy luste and pryde Remembyr that thou schalle onys dye Deth schall fro thy body thy sowle devyde Thou mayst him not escape certaynly To the dede bodyes cast down thyne ye Beholde thayme well consydere and see For such as thay ar such shalt thou be. This painting was made about the year 1460, and from the remaining specimen its destruction is extremely to be regretted, as, judging from that of the young gallant, the dresses of the time would be correctly exhibited. In the chapel at Wortley Hall, in Gloucestershire, there was inscribed, and most likely painted, "an history and Daunce of Deathe of all estatts and degrees." This inscribed history was the same as Lydgate's, with some additional characters.[82] From a manuscript note by John Stowe, in his copy of Leland's Itinerary, it appears that there was a Dance of Death in the church of Stratford upon Avon: and the conjecture that Shakespeare, in a passage in Measure for Measure, might have remembered it, will not, perhaps, be deemed very extravagant. He there alludes to Death and the fool, a subject always introduced into the paintings in question.[83] On the upper part of the great screen which closes the entrance to the choir of the church at Hexham, in Northumberland, are the painted remains of a Dance of Death.[84] These consist of the figures of a pope, a cardinal, and a king, which were copied by the ingenious John Carter, of well-deserved antiquarian memory. Vestiges of a Macaber Dance were not long since to be traced on the walls of the hall of the Archiepiscopal palace at Croydon, but so much obscured by time and neglect that no particular compartment could be ascertained. The tapestries that decorated the walls of palaces, and other dwelling places, were sometimes applied in extension of this moral subject. In the tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there was some tapestry with the Macaber Dance.[85] The following lines in that admirable satire, the Vision of Pierce Plowman, written about the year 1350, have evidently an allusion to the Dance, unless they might be thought to apply rather to the celebrated triumph of Death by Petrarch, of which some very early paintings, and many engravings, still exist; or they may even refer to some of the ancient representations of the infernal regions that follow Death on the Pale horse of the Revelations, and in which is seen a grotesque intermixture of all classes of people.[86] Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed Kynges and Kaysers, Knightes and Popes, Learned and lewde: he ne let no man stande That he hitte even, he never stode after. Many a lovely ladie and lemmans of knightes Swouned and swelted for sorrowe of Deathes dyntes. It is probable that many cathedrals and other edifices, civil as well as ecclesiastical, in France, Germany, England, and probably other European countries, were ornamented with paintings and sculpture of this extremely popular subject. CHAPTER V. _List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horæ that contain it.--Manuscript Horæ.--Other Manuscripts in which it occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it._ It remains only, so far as regards the Macaber Dance, to present the reader with a list of the several printed editions of that celebrated work, and which, with many corrections and additions, has been chiefly extracted from M. Peignot's "Recherches historiques et litteraires sur les Danses des Morts," Paris et Dijon, 1826, 8vo. The article that should stand at the head of this list, if any reliance could be had on a supposed date, is the German edition, intitled, "Der Dotendantz mit figuren. Clage und Antwort Schon von allen staten der welt," small folio. This is mentioned in Braun Notitia de libris in Bibliotheca Monasterii ad SS. Udalricum et Afram Augustæ, vol. ii. 62. The learned librarian expresses his doubts as to the date, which he supposes may be between 1480 and 1500. He rejects a marginal note by the illuminator of the letters, indicating the date of 1459. Every page of this volume is divided into two columns, and accompanied with German verses, which may be either the original text, or a translation from the French verses in some early edition of the Macaber Dance in that language. It consists of twenty-two leaves, with wood-cuts of the Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Abbot, &c. &c. accompanied by figures of Death. 1. "La Danse Macabre imprimée par ung nommé Guy Marchand, &c. Paris, 1485," small folio. Mons. Champollion Figeac has given a very minute description of this extremely rare, and perhaps unique, volume, the only known copy of which is in the public library of Grenoble. This account is to be found in Millin's Magazin Encyclopedique, 1811, vol. vi. p. 355, and thence by M. Peignot, in his Recherches, &c. 2. "Ce present livre est appelle Miroer salutaire pour toutes gens, et de tous estatz, et est de grant utilité et recreation pour pleuseurs ensegnemens tant en Latin comme en Francoys lesquels il contient ainsi compose pour ceulx qui desirent acquerir leur salut: et qui le voudront avoir. La Danse Macabre nouvelle." At the end, "Cy finit la Danse Macabre hystoriee augmentee de pleuseurs nouveaux pârsonnages (six) et beaux dis. et les trois mors et trois vif ensemble. Nouvellement ainsi composee et imprimee par Guyot Marchant demorant a Paris au grant hostel du college de Navarre en champ Gaillart lan de grace, 1486, le septieme jour de juing." A small folio of fifteen leaves, or thirty pages, twenty-four of which belong to the Danse Macabre, and six to the Trois morts et les trois vifs. On the authority of the above expression, "composée," and also on that of La Croix du Maine, Marchant has been made the author as well as the printer of the work; but M. De la Monnoye is not of that opinion, nor indeed is there any other metrical composition by this printer known to exist. 3. "La Danse Macabre des femmes, &c. Paris, par Guyot Marchant, 1486, le septieme jour de Juillet," small folio, of fifteen leaves only. This is the first edition of the Macaber Dance of females; and though thirty-two of them are described, the Queen and Duchess only are engraved. See No. 6 for the rest. This and the preceding edition are also particularly described by Messrs. Champollion Figeac and Peignot. 4. "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita, et a Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido de Marnef. 1490," folio. Papillon thought the cuts were in the manner of the French artist Jollat, but without foundation, for they are much superior to any work by that artist, and of considerable merit. 5. "La nouvelle Danse Macabre des hommes dicte miroer salutaire de toutes gens et de touts etats, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant. 1490." folio. 6. "La Danse Macabre des femmes, toute hystoriée et augmentée de nouveaulx personnages, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant, le 2 Mai, 1491," folio. This edition, the second of the Dance of females, has all the cuts with other additions. The list of the figures is in Peignot, but with some doubts on the accuracy of his description. 7. An edition in the Low German dialect was printed at Lubeck, 1496, according to Vonder Hagen in his Deutschen Poesie, p. 459, who likewise mentions a Low German edition in prose, at the beginning of the 15th (he must mean 16th) century. He adds, that he has copied one page with cuts from _Kindeling's Remains_, but he does not say in what work. 8. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes hystorice et augmentée de beaulx dits en Latin, &c. &c. Le tout composé en ryme Francoise et accompagné de figures. Lyon, le xviii jour de Fevrier, l'an 1499," folio. This is supposed to be the first edition that contains both the men and the women. 9. There is a very singular work, intitled "Icy est le compost et kalendrier des _Bergeres_, &c. Imprimè à Paris en lostel de beauregart en la rue Cloppin à lenseigne du roy Prestre Jhan. ou quel lieu sont à vendre, ou au lyon dargent en la rue Sainct Jaques." At the end, "Imprimè à Paris par Guy Marchant maistre es ars ou lieu susdit. Le xvii iour daoust mil cccciiiixx·xix." This extremely rare volume is in the British Museum, and is mentioned by Dr. Dibdin, in vol. ii. p. 530 of his edition of Ames's typographical antiquities, and probably nowhere else. It is embellished with the same fine cuts that relate to the females in the edition of the Macaber Dance, Nos. 4 and 11. The work begins with the words "Deux jeunes Bergeres seulettes," and appears to have been composed for females only, differing very materially from the well-known "Kalendrier des Bergers," though including matter common to both. 10. "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita et à Petro Desrey Trecacio quodam oratore nuper emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido Marnef. 15 Octob. 1499," folio, with cuts. 11. "La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500," small folio. A vellum copy of this rare edition is described by M. Van Praet in his catalogue of vellum books in the royal library at Paris. A copy is in the Archb. Cant. library at Lambeth. 12. "La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500," folio. Some variations from No. 9 are pointed out by M. Van Praet. This magnificent volume on vellum, and bound in velvet, came from the library at Blois. It is a very large and thin folio, consisting of three or four leaves only, printed on pasteboard, with four pages or compartments on each leaf. The cuts are illuminated in the usual manner of Verard's books. In the beginning it is marked "Marolles, No. 1601." It is probably imperfect, the fool not being among the figures, and all the females are wanting, though, perhaps, not originally in this edition. It is in the royal library at Paris, where there is another copy of the work printed by Verard, with coloured prints, but differing materially from the other in the press-work. It is a common-sized folio, and was purchased at the sale of the Count Macarthy's books.[87] 13. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimèe à Troyes par Nicolas Le Rouge demourant en la grant rue à l'enseigne de Venise auprès la belle croix." No date, folio. With very clever wood-cuts, probably the same as in the edition of 1490; and if so, they differ much from the manner of Jollat, and have not his well-known mark. 14. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Rouen, Guillaume de la Mare." No date, 4to. with cuts, and in the Roman letter. 15. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, ou est démonstré tous humains de tous estats estre du bransle de la Mort. Lyon, Olivier Arnoulet." No date, 4to. 16. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Lyon, Nourry, 1501," 4to. cuts. 17. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimé à Genesve, 1503," 4to. cuts. 18. "La grant Danse Macabre, &c. Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523," 4to. with very indifferent cuts, and the omission of some of the characters in preceding editions. This has been privately reprinted, 1820, by Mr. Dobree, from a copy in the British Museum. 19. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Troyes, Le Rouge, 1531," folio, cuts. 20. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Paris, Denys Janot. 1533," 8vo. cuts. 21. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, tant en Latin qu'en Francoys. Paris, par Estienne Groulleau libraire juré en la rue neuve Nostre Dame à l'enseigne S. Jean Baptiste." No date, 16mo. cuts. The first edition of this size, and differing in some respects from the preceding. 22. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Paris, Estienne Groulleau, 1550," 16mo. cuts. 23. "La grande Danse des Morts, &c. Rouen, Morron." No date, 8vo. cuts. 24. "Les lxviii huictains ci-devant appellés la Danse Machabrey, par lesquels les Chrestiens de tous estats tout stimulés et invités de penser à la mort. Paris, Jacques Varangue, 1589," 8vo. In Roman letter, without cuts. 25. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Troyes, Oudot," 1641, 4to. cuts. One of the bibliothèque bleue books. 26. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, renouvellée de vieux Gaulois en langage le plus poli de notre temps, &c. Troyes, Pierre Garnier rue du Temple." No date, but the privilege is in 1728, 4to. cuts. The _polished_ language is, of course, for the worse, and Macaber is called "des Machabées," no doubt, the editor's improvement. 27. "La grande Danse _Macabre_ des hommes et des femmes, renouvellée, &c. Troyes, chez la veuve Oudot, et Jean Oudot fils, rue du Temple, 1729," 4to. cuts. Nearly the same as No. 25. These inferior editions continued, till very lately, to be occasionally reprinted for the use of the common people, and at the trifling expense of a very few sous. They are, nevertheless, of some value to those who feel interested in the subject, as containing tolerable copies of all the fine cuts in the preceding edition, No. 11. Dr. Dibdin saw in the public library at Munich a very old series of a Macaber Dance, that had been inserted, by way of illustration, into a German manuscript of the Dance of Death. Of these he has given two subjects in his "Bibliographical Tour," vol. iii. p. 278. But it was not only in the above volumes that the very popular subject of the Macaber Dance was particularly exhibited. It found its way into many of the beautiful service books, usually denominated Horæ, or hours of the Virgin. These principally belong to France, and their margins are frequently decorated with the above Dance, with occasional variety of design. In most of them Death is accompanied with a single figure only, characters from both sexes being introduced. It would be impossible to furnish a complete list of them; but it is presumed that the mention of several, and of the printers who introduced them, will not be unacceptable. No. I. "Las Horas de nuestra Senora con muchos otros oficios y oraçiones." Printed in Paris by Nicolas Higman for Simon Vostre, 1495, 8vo. It has two Dances of Death, the first of which is the usual Macaber Dance, with the following figures: "Le Pape, l'Empereur, le Cardinal, l'Archevesque, le Chevalier, l'Evesque, l'Escuyer, l'Abè, le Prevost, le Roy, le Patriarche, le Connestable, l'Astrologien, le Bourgoys, le Chanoine, le Moyne, l'Usurier, le Medesin, l'Amoureux, l'Advocat, le Menestrier, le Marchant, le Chartreux, le Sergent, le Cure, le Laboureur, le Cordelier." Then the women: "La Royne, la Duchesse, la Regente, la Chevaliere, l'Abbesse, la Femme descine, la Prieure, la Damoissele, la Bourgoise, la Cordeliere, la Femme daceul, la Nourice, la Theologienne, la nouvelle mariee, la Femme grosse, la Veufve, la Marchande, la Ballive, la Chamberiere, la Recommanderese, la vielle Damoise, l'Espousée, la Mignote, la Fille pucelle, la Garde d'accouchée, la jeune fille, la Religieuse, la Vielle, la Revenderesse, l'Amoureuse, la Sorciere, la Bigote, la Sote, la Bergere, la Femme aux Potences, la Femme de Village; to which are added, l'Enfant, le Clerc, l'Ermite." The second Dance of Death is very different from the preceding, and consists of groupes of figures. The subjects, which have never yet been described, are the following: 1. Death sitting on a coffin in a church-yard. "Discite vos choream cuncti qui cernitis istam." 2. Death with Adam and Eve in Paradise. He draws Adam towards him. "Quid tum prosit honor glorie divitie." 3. Death helping Cain to slay Abel. "Esto meorum qui pulvis eris et vermibus esca." 4. Death holding by the garment a cardinal, followed by several persons. "In gelida putrens quando jacebis humo." 5. Death mounted on a bull strikes three persons with his dart. "Vado mori dives auro vel copia rerum." 6. Death seizing a man sitting at a table with a purse in his hand, and accompanied by two other persons. "Nullum respectum dat michi, vado mori." 7. An armed knight killing an unarmed man, Death assisting. "Fortium virorum est magis mortem contemnere vitam odisse." 8. Death with a rod in his hand, standing upon a groupe of dead persons. "Stultum est timere quod vitari non potest." 9. Death with a scythe, having mowed down several persons lying on the ground. "Est commune mori mors nulli parcit honori." 10. A soldier introducing a woman to another man, who holds a scythe in his hand. Death stands behind. "Mors fera mors nequam mors nulli parcit et equam." 11. Death strikes with his dart a prostrate female, who is attended by two others. "Hec tua vita brevis: que te delectat ubique." 12. A man falling from a tower into the water. Death strikes him at the same time with his dart. "Est velut aura levis te mors expectat ubique." 13. A man strangling another, Death assisting. "Vita quid est hominis nisi res vallata ruinis." 14. A man at the gallows, Death standing by. "Est caro nostra cinis modo principium modo finis." 15. A man about to be beheaded, Death assisting. "Quid sublime genus quid opes quid gloria prestant." 16. A king attended by several persons is struck by Death with his dart. "Quid mihi nunc aderant hec mihi nunc abeunt." 17. Two soldiers armed with battle-axes. Death pierces one of them with his dart. "Ortus cuncta suos: repetunt matremque requirunt." 18. Death strikes with his dart a woman lying in bed. "Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil." 19. Death aims his dart at a sleeping child in a cradle, two other figures attending. "A, a, a, vado mori, nil valet ipsa juventus." 20. A man on the ground in a fit, Death seizes him. Others attending. "Mors scita sed dubia nec fugienda venit." 21. Death leads a man, followed by others. "Non sum securus hodie vel cras moriturus." 22. Death interrupts a man and woman at their meal. "Intus sive foris est plurima causa timoris." 23. Death demolishes a group of minstrels, from one of whom he has taken a lute. "Viximus gaudentes, nunc morimur tristes et flentes." 24. Death leads a hermit, followed by other persons. "Forte dies hec est ultima, vado mori." This Dance is also found in the Horæ printed by Godar, Vostre, and Gilles Hardouyn, but with occasional variations, as to size and other matters, in the different blocks which they respectively used. The same designs have also been adopted, and in a very singular style of engraving, in a work printed by Antony Verard, that will be noticed elsewhere. Some of the cuts, for they are not all by the same artist, in this very rare and beautiful volume, and not found in others printed by or for Simon Vostre, may be very justly compared, in point of the delicacy of design and engraving, though on wood, with the celebrated pax of Maso Finiguerra at Florence, accurately copied in Mr. Ottley's history of engraving. They are accompanied with this unappropriated mark [monogram]. No. II. "Ordinarium beate Marie Virginis ad usum Cisterciensem impressum est caracteribus optimis una cum expensis honesti viri Symonis Vostre commorantis Parisiis in vico novo Dive Marie in intersignio Sancti Joannis Evangeliste, 1497," 12mo. This beautiful book is on vellum, with the same Danse Macabre as in the preceding, but the other cuts are different. No. III. "Hore presentes ad usum Sarum impresse fuerunt Parisiis per Philippum Pigouchet Anno Salutis MCCCCXCVIII die vero xvi Maii pro Symone Vostre librario commorante, &c." 8vo. as above. Another beautiful volume on vellum, with the same Danse Macabre. He printed a similar volume of the same date, for the use of Rome, also on vellum. A volume of prayers, in 8vo. mentioned by M. Peignot, p. 145, after M. Raymond, but the title is not given. It is supposed to be anterior to 1500, and seems to contain the same personages in its Danse Macabre, as in the preceding volumes printed by Simon Vostre. No. IV. "Heures à l'usage de Soissons." Printed by Simon Vostre, on vellum, 1502, 8vo. With the same Danse Macabre. No. V. "Heures à l'usage de Rheims, nouvellement imprimées avec belles histoires, pour Simon Vostre," 1502, 8vo. This is mentioned by M. Peignot, on the authority of Papillon. It was reprinted 1513, 8vo. and has the same cuts as above. No. VI. "Heures à l'usage de Rome. Printed for Simon Vostre by Phil. Pigouchet," 1502, large 8vo. on vellum. With the same Danse Macabre. This truly magnificent volume, superior to all the preceding by the same printer in beauty of type and marginal decoration, differs from them in having stanzas at the bottom of each page of the Dance, but which apply to the figure at the top only. They are here given. POPE. Vous qui vivez certainement Quoy qu'il tarde ainsi danserez Mais quand Dieu le scet seulement Avisez comme vous ferez Dam Pape vous commencerez Comme le plus digne Seigneur En ce point honorire serez Au grant maistre est deu l'honneur. KING. Mais maintenant toute haultesse Laisserez vous nestes pas seul Peu aurez de votre richesse Le plus riche n'a qung linseul Venez noble Roy couronne Renomme de force et prouesse Jadis fustez environne De grans pompes de grant noblesse. ARCHBISHOP. Que vous tirez la teste arriere Archevesque tirez vous près, Avez vous peur qu'on ne vous fiere Ne doubtez vous viendres après N'est pas tousjours la mort empres Tout homme suyvant coste a coste Rendre comment debtez et pres Une foys fault coustera loste. SQUIRE. Il n'est rien que ne preigne cours Dansez et pensez de suyr Vous ne povez avoir secours Il n'est qui mort puisse fuyr Avencez vous gent escuyer Qui scavez de danser les tours Lance porties et escuz hyer Aujourdhuy finerez voz jours. ASTROLOGER. Maistre pour vostre regarder En hault ne pour vostre clergie Ne pouvez la mort retarder Ci ne vault rien astrologie Toute la genealogie D'Adam qui fust le premier homme Mort prent se dit theologie Tous fault mourir pour une pomme. MERCHANT. Vecy vostre dernier marche Il convient que par cy passez De tout soing serez despechie Tel convoiste qui a assez Marchant regardes par deca Plusieurs pays avez cerchie A pied a cheval de pieca Vous n'en serez plus empeschie. MONK. Ha maistre par la passeres N'est ja besoing de vous defendre Plus homme nespouvanteres Apres Moyne sans plus attendre Ou pensez vous cy fault entendre Tantost aurez la bouche close Homme n'est fors que vent et cendre Vie donc est moult peu de chose. LOVER. Trop lavez ayme cest foleur Et a mourir peu regarde Tantost vous changerez couleur Beaulte n'est que ymage farde Gentil amoureux gent et frique Qui vous cuidez de grant valeur Vous estez pris la mort vous pique Ce monde lairez a douleur. CURATE. Passez cure sans long songier Je sans questes habandonne Le vif le mort soulier menger Mais vous serez aux vers donne Vous fustes jadis ordonne Miroir dautruy et exemplaire De voz faitz serez guerdonne A toute peine est deu salaire. CHILD. Sur tout du jour de la naissance Convient chascun a mort offrir Fol est qui n'en a congnoissance Qui plus vit plus a assouffrir Petit enfant naguerez ne Au monde aures peu de plaisance A la danse sera mene Comme autre car mort a puissance. QUEEN. Noble Royne de beau corsage Gente et joyeuse a ladvenant Jay de par le grant maistre charge De vous enmener maintenant Et comme bien chose advenant Ceste danse commenseres Faictes devoir au remenant Vous qui vivez ainsi feres. LADY. C'est bien chasse quand on pourchasse Chose a son ame meritoire Car au derrain mort tout enchasse Ceste vie est moult transitoire Gentille femme de chevalier Que tant aymes deduit et chasse Les engins vous fault habiller Et suyvre le train de ma trasse. PRIORESS. Se vous avez sans fiction Tout vostre temps servi à Dieu Du cueur en sa religion La quelle vous avez vestue Celuy qui tous biens retribue Vous recompenserer loyalment A son vouloir en temps et lieu Bien fait requiert bon payment. FRANCISCAN NUN. Se vos prieres sont bien dignes Elles vous vauldront devant Dieu Rien ne vallent soupirs ne signes Bone operacion tient lieu Femme de grande devocion Cloez voz heures et matines Et cessez contemplacion Car jamais nyres a matines. CHAMBER-MAID. Dictez jeune femme a la cruche Renommée bonne chambriere Respondez au moins quant on huche Sans tenir si rude maniere Vous nirez plus a la riviere Baver au four na la fenestre Cest cy vostre journee derniere Ausy tost meurt servant que maistre. WIDOW. Cest belle chose de tenir Lestat ou on est appellee Et soy tousjours bien maintenir Vertus est tout par tout louee. Femme vesve venez avant Et vous avancez de venir Vous veez les aultres davant Il convient une fois finir. LYING-IN NURSE. Venez ca garde dacouchees Dresse aves maintz bainz perdus Et ses cortines attachees Ou estoient beaux boucques pendus Biens y ont estez despendus Tant de motz ditz que cest ung songe Qui seront cher vendus En la fin tout mal vient en ronge. SHEPHERDESS. Aux camps ni rez plus soir ne matin Veiller brebis ne garder bestes Rien ne sera de vous demain Apres les veilles sont les festes Pas ne vous oublieray derriere Venez apres moy sa la main Entendez plaisante bergiere Ou marcande cy main a main. OLD WOMAN. Et vous madame la gourree Vendu avez maintz surplis Donc de largent est fourree Et en sont voz coffres remplis Apres tous souhaitz acomplis Convient tout laisser et ballier Selon la robe on fait le plis A tel potaige tel cuiller. WITCH. Est condannee comme meurtriere A mourir ne vivra plus gaire Je la maine en son cimitiere Cest belle chose de bien faire Oyez oyez on vous fait scavoir Que ceste vielle sorciere A fait mourir et decepvoir Plusieurs gens en mainte maniere. In the cut of the adoration of the shepherds their names are introduced as follows: Gobin le gay; le beau Roger; Aloris; Ysauber; Alison, and Mahault. The same cut is in two or three other Horæ mentioned in this list. No. VII. "Heures à l'usaige de Rouan. Simon Vostre, 1508, 8vo." With the same Danse Macabre. No. VIII. "Horæ ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1508, 8vo. Vellum. With the same Danse Macabre. No. IX. "Hore christofere virginis Marie secundum usum Romanum ad longum absque aliquo recursu, &c." Parisiis. Simon Vostre, 1508, 8vo. M. Peignot has given a very minute description of this volume with a list of the different persons in the Danse Macabre. No. X. "Heures à l'usage de ... Ant. Verard," 1509, 8vo. with the same Danse Macabre. No. XI. "Heures à l'usaige d'Angers. Simon Vostre," 1510, 8vo. With the same Danse Macabre. Particularly described by M. Peignot. No. XII. "Heures à l'usaige de Rome. Guil. Godar," 1510, large 8vo. vellum illuminated. A magnificent book. It contains the Danse Macabre as in No. I. But it is remarkable for a third Dance of Death on the margins at bottom, consisting of small compartments with a single figure, but unaccompanied in the usual manner by Death, who, in various shapes and attitudes, is occasionally introduced. The characters are the following, without the arrangement commonly observed, and here given in the order in which they occur. 1. La Prieuse. 2. La Garde dacouche. 3. L'Abesse. 4. Le Promoteur. 5. Le Conestable. 6. Le Moine, without a label. 7. La Vielle Demoiselle. 8. La Baillive. 9. La Duchesse. 10. Le Sergent. 11. La Nourrice. 12. La femme du Chevallier. 13. La Damoiselle. 14. Le Maistre descole. 15. La Femme du village. 16. La Rescomanderese. 17. La Revenderese. 18. Le Laboureur. 19. La Bourgoise. 20. L'Usurier. 21. Le Pelerin. 22. Le Berger. 23. La Religieuse. 24. L'Home d'armes. 25. La Sorciere. 26. Le Petit enfant. 27. Le Clerc. 28. Le Patriarche. 29. Le Cardinal. 30. L'Empereur. 31. Le Roy. 32. La Marchande. 33. Le Curé. 34. La Theologienne. 35. La Jeune fille. 36. Le Sot. 37. Le Hallebardier. 38. La Pucelle vierge. 39. L'Hermite. 40. L'Escuier. 41. La Chamberiere. 42. La Femme de lescuier. 43. La Cordeliere. 44. La Femme veuve. 45. Le Chartreux. 46. La Royne. 47. La Regente. 48. La Bergere. 49. L'Advocat. 50. L'Espousée. 51. La Femme amoureuse. 52. La Nouvelle Mariee. 53. Le Medecin. Wherever the figure of Death is introduced, he is accompanied with the motto "Amort, amort." No. XIII. "Hore ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1511, 8vo. Vellum, with the Danse Macabre. No. XIV. "Heures à l'usage de Langres. Simon Vostre," 1512, 8vo. In the possession of Mons. G. M. Raymond, who has described it in Millin's "Magazin Encyclopédique," 1814, tom. iii. p. 13. Mentioned also by M. Peignot. No. XV. "Heures à l'usage de Paris. Simon Vostre," 1515, 8vo. With the Danse Macabre, and the other mentioned in No. I. No. XVI. "Heures de Nostre Dame à l'usage de Troyes." Th. Englard, pour G. Goderet, vers 1520. Vellum. Described by M. Peignot. No. XVII. "Hore ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1526, 8vo. Vellum. A beautiful volume. Prefixed to the Danse Macabre are two prints of the Trois morts et trois vifs. In all the above Horæ the Macaber Dance is represented nearly alike in design, the variations being chiefly in the attitudes of the figures, which are cut on different blocks, except in a few instances where the printers have borrowed the latter from each other. Thus Vostre uses Verard's, and Pigouchet Godar's. The number of the subjects also varies, Vostre and Kerver having more than Verard, Godar, and Pigouchet. Exceptions to the above manner of representing the Macaber Dance, occur in two Horæ of singular rarity, and which are therefore worthy of particular notice. No. XVIII. "Officium beatæ Mariæ Virginis ad usum Romane ecclesie. Impressum Lugduni expensis Bonini de Boninis Dalmatini," die xx martij, 1499, 12mo. On vellum. Here the designs are very different, and three of the subjects are placed at the bottom of the page. They consist of the following personages, there being no females among them. It was reprinted by the same printer in 1521. Papa Astrologus Imperator Cives Cardinales. Canonicus. Archiepiscopus Scutifer Eques Abbas Episcopus. Pretor. Rex Monachus Patriarche Usurarius Capitanus. Medicus. Plebanus Mercator Laborator Certosinus Frater Minor. Nuncius. Amans Puer Advocatus Sacristanus Joculator. Heremita. No. XIX. "Hore beate Marie Virginis ad usum insignis ac preclare ecclesie Sarum cum figuris passionis mysterium representantibus recenter additis. Impresse Parisiis per Johannem Bignon pro honesto viro Richardo Fakes, London, librario, et ibidem commorante cymeterie Sancti Pauli sub signo A. B. C." 1521. A ledger-like 12mo. This Macaber Dance is unfortunately imperfect in the only copy of the book that has occurred. The figures that remain are those of the Pope, King, Cardinal, Patriarch, Judge, Archbishop, Knight, Mayor, and Earl. Under each subject are Lydgate's verses, with some slight variation; and it is therefore very probable that we have here a copy, as to many of the figures, of the Dance that was painted at St. Paul's in compartments like the other Macaber Dance, and not as the group in Dugdale, which has been copied from a wood-cut at the end of Lydgate's "Fall of Prynces." As all the before-mentioned Horæ were printed at Paris, with one exception only, and many of them at a very early period, it is equally probable that they may be copies of the Dance at the Innocents, unless a preference in that respect should be given to the figures in the French editions of the Danse Macabre. Manuscript Horæ, or books of prayers, which contain the Macaber Dance are in the next place deserving of our attention. These are extremely rare, and two only have occurred on the present occasion. 1. A manuscript prayer book of the fifteenth century is very briefly described by M. Peignot,[88] which he states to be the only one that has come to his knowledge. 2. An exquisitely beautiful volume, in large 8vo. bound in brass and velvet. It is a Latin Horæ, elegantly written in Roman type at the beginning of the 16th century. It has a profusion of paintings, every page being decorated with a variety of subjects. These consist of stories from scripture, sports, games, trades, grotesques, &c. &c. the several employments of the months, which have also the signs of the zodiac, are worth describing, there being two sets for each month. January. 1. A man sitting at table, a servant bringing in a dish of viands. The white tablecloth is beautifully diapered. 2. Boys playing at the game called Hockey. February. 1. A man warming himself by a fire, a domestic bringing in faggots. 2. Men and women at table, two women cooking additional food in the same apartment. March. 1. A man pruning trees. 2. A priest confirming a group of people. April. 1. A man hawking. 2. A procession of pilgrims. May. 1. A gentleman and lady on the same horse. 2. Two pairs of lovers: one of the men plays on a flute, the other holds a hawk on his fist. June. 1. A woman shearing sheep. 2. A bridal procession. July. 1. A man with a scythe about to reap. He drinks from his leathern bottle. 2. Boys and girls at the sport called Threading the needle. August. 1. A man reaping with a sickle. 2. Blind man's buff. September. 1. A man sowing. 2. The games of hot cockles and ... October. 1. Making wine. 2. Several men repairing casks, the master of the vineyard directing. November. 1. A man threshing acorns to feed his hogs. 2. Tennis. December. 1. Singeing a hog. 2. Boys pelting each other with snow balls. The side margins have the following Danse Macabre, consisting as usual of two figures only. Papa, Imperator, Cardinalis, Rex, Archiepiscopus, Comestabilis, Patriarcha, Eques auratus, Episcopus, Scutarius, Abbas, Prepositus, Astrologus, Mercator, Cordiger, Satelles, Usurarius, Advocatus, Mimus, Infans, Heremita. The margins at bottom contain a great variety of emblems of mortality. Among these are the following: 1. A man presents a mirror to a lady, in which her face is reflected as a death's head. 2. Death shoots an arrow at a man and woman. 3. A man endeavouring to escape from Death is caught by him. 4. Death transfixes a prostrate warrior with a spear. 5. Two very grotesque Deaths, the one with a scythe, the other with a spade. 6. A group of five Deaths, four dancing a round, the other drumming. 7. Death on a bull, holding a dart in his hand. 8. Death in a cemetery running away with a coffin and pick-axe. 9. Death digging a grave for two shrouded bodies on the ground. 10. Death seizing a fool. 11. Death seizing the master of a family. 12. Death seizing Caillette, a celebrated fool mentioned by Rabelais, Des Periers, &c. He is represented in the French translation of the Ship of Fools. 13. Death seizing a beggar. 14. Death seizing a man playing at tennis. 15. Death striking the miller going to his mill. 16. Death seizing Ragot, a famous beggar in the reign of Louis XII. He is mentioned by Rabelais. This precious volume is in the present writer's possession. Other manuscripts connected with the Macaber Dance are the following: 1. No. 1849, a Colbert MS. in the King of France's library, appears to have been written towards the end of the fifteenth century, and is splendidly illuminated on vellum with figures of men and women led by Death, the designs not much differing from those in Verard's printed copy. 2. Another manuscript in the same library, formerly No. 543 in that of Saint Victor, is at the end of a small volume of miscellanies written on paper about the year 1520; the text resembles that of the immediately preceding article, and occasionally varies from the printed editions. It has no illuminations. These are the only manuscript Macaber Dances in the royal library at Paris. 3. A manuscript of the Dance of Death, in German, is in the library of Munich. See Dr. Dibdin's bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. 278; and Vonder Hagen's history of German poetry. Berlin, 1812, 8vo. p. 459. The date of 1450 is given to this manuscript on the authority of Docen in his Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 148, and new Literary Advertizer for 1806, No. 22, p. 348. Vonder Hagen also states that Docen has printed it in his Miscellanies, p. 349-52, and 412-16. 4. A manuscript in the Vatican, No. 314. See Vonder Hagen, ubi supra, who refers to Adelung, vol. ii. p. 317-18, where the beginning and other extracts are given. 5. In the Duke de la Valliere's catal. No. 2801, is "La Danse Macabre par personnages, in 4to. Sur papier du xv siecle, contenant 12 feuillets." In the course of this enquiry no manuscript, decorated with a regular series of a Dance of Death, has been discovered. The Abbé Rive left, in manuscript, a bibliography of all the editions of the Macaber Dance, which is at present, with other manuscripts by the Abbé, in the hands of M. Achard, a bookseller at Marseilles. See Peignot, Diction. de Bibliologie, iii. 284. The following articles, accompanied by letter-press, and distinguishable from single prints, appear to relate to the Macaber Dance. 1. The Dance and song of Death is among books licensed to John Awdeley.[89] 2. "The roll of the Daunce of Death, with pictures and verses upon the same," was entered on the Stationers' books, 5th Jan. 1597, by Thomas Purfort, sen. and jun. The price was 6_d._ This, as well as that licensed to Awdeley, was in all probability the Dance at St. Paul's. 3. "Der Todten Tantz au Hertzog Georgens zu Sachsen schloss zu Dresden befindlich." _i. e._ "Here is found the Dance of Death on the Saxon palace of Duke George at Dresden." It consists of twenty-seven characters, as follow: 1. Death leading the way; in his right hand he holds a drinking glass or cup, and in his left a trumpet which he is blowing. 2. Pope. 3. Cardinal. 4. Abbot. 5. Bishop. 6. Canon. 7. Priest. 8. Monk. 9. Death beating a drum with bones. 10. Emperor. 11. King. 12. Duke. 13. Nobleman. 14. Knight. 15. Gentleman. 16. Judge. 17. Notary. 18. Soldier. 19. Peasant. 20. Beggar. 21. Abbess. 22. Duchess. 23. Old woman. 24. Old man. 25. Child. 26. Old beggar. 27. Death with a scythe. This is a single print in the Chronicle of Dresden, by Antony Wecken, Dresden, 1680, folio, already mentioned in p. 44. 4. In the catalogue of the library of R. Smith, which was sold by auction in 1682, is this article "Dance of Death, in the cloyster of Paul's, with figures, very old." It was sold for six shillings to Mr. Mearne. 5. A sort of Macaber Dance, in a Swiss almanack, consisting of eight subjects, and intitled "Ein Stuck aus dem Todten tantz," or, "a piece of a Dance of Death:" engraved on wood by Zimmerman with great spirit, after some very excellent designs. They are accompanied with dialogues between Death and the respective characters. 1. The Postilion on horseback. Death in a huge pair of jack-boots, seizes him by the arm with a view to unhorse him. 2. The Tinker. Death, with a skillet on his head, plunders the tinker's basket. 3. The Hussar on horseback, accompanied by Death, also mounted, and, like his comrade, wearing an enormous hat with a feather. 4. The Physician. Death habited as a modern beau, with chapeau-bras, brings his urinal to the Doctor for inspection. 5. The fraudulent Innkeeper in the act of adulterating a cask of liquor is seized and throttled by a very grotesque Death in the habit of an alewife, with a vessel at her back. 6. The Ploughman, holding his implements of husbandry, is seized by Death, who sits on a plough and carries a scythe in his left hand. 7. The Grave-digger, is pulled by Death into the grave which he has just completed. 8. The lame Messenger, led by Death. The size of the print 11 by 6-1/2 inches. 6. Papillon states that Le Blond, an artist, then living at Orleans, engraved the Macaber Dance on wood for the Dominotiers, or venders of coloured prints for the common people, and that the sheets, when put together, form a square of three feet, and have verses underneath each figure.[90] CHAPTER VI. _Hans Holbein's connexion with the Dance of Death.--A dance of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.--Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.--Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius._ The name of Holbein has been so strongly interwoven with the Dance of Death that the latter is seldom mentioned without bringing to recollection that extraordinary artist. It would be a great waste of time and words to dwell specifically on the numerous errors of such writers as Papillon, Fournier, and several others, who have inadvertently connected Holbein with the Macaber Dance, or to correct those of travellers who have spoken of the subject as it appeared in any shape in the city of Basle. The opinions of those who have either supposed or stated that Holbein even retouched or repaired the old painting at Basle, are entitled to no credit whatever, unaccompanied as they are by necessary proofs. The names of the artists who were employed on that painting have been already adverted to, and are sufficiently detailed in the volumes of Merian and Peignot; and it is therefore unnecessary to repeat them. Evidence, but of a very slight and unsatisfactory nature, has been adduced that Holbein painted some kind of a Death's Dance on the walls of a house at Basle. Whether this was only a copy of the old Macaber subject, or some other of his own invention, cannot now be ascertained. Bishop Burnet, in his letters from Switzerland,[91] states that "there is a _Dance_ which he painted on the walls of a house where he used to drink; yet so worn out that very little is now to be seen, except _shapes and postures_, but these shew the exquisiteness of the hand." It is much to be regretted that this painting was not in a state to have enabled the bishop to have been more particular in his description. He then mentions the older Dance, which he places "along the side of the convent of the Augustinians (meaning the Dominicans), now the French church, so worn out some time ago that they ordered the best painter they had to lay new colour on it, but this is so ill done, that one had rather see the dark shadow of Holbein's pencil than this coarse work." Here he speaks obscurely, and adopts the error that Holbein had some hand in it. Keysler, a man of considerable learning and ingenuity, and the author of a very excellent book of travels, mentions the old painting at Basle, and adds, that "Holbein had also drawn and painted a Death's Dance, and had likewise painted, as it were, a _duplicate_ of this piece on another house, but which time has entirely obliterated."[92] We are here again left entirely in the dark as to the first mentioned painting, and its difference from the other. Charles Patin, an earlier authority than the two preceding travellers, and who was at Basle in 1671, informs us that strangers behold, with a considerable degree of pleasure, the walls of a house at the corner of a little street in the above town, which are covered from top to bottom with paintings by Holbein, that would have done honour to the commands of a great prince, whilst they are, in fact, nothing more than the painter's reward to the master of a tavern for some meals that he had obtained.[93] In the list of Holbein's works, in his edition of Erasmus's Moriæ encomion, he likewise mentions the painting on a house in the Eisengassen, or Iron-street, near the Rhine bridge, and for which he is said to have received forty florins,[94] perhaps the same as that mentioned in his travels. This painting was still remaining in the year 1730, when Mr. Breval saw it, and described it as a _dance of boors_, but in his opinion unworthy, as well as the Dance of Death in that city, of Holbein's hand.[95] These accounts of the paintings on houses are very obscure and contradictory, and the only way to reconcile them is by concluding that Holbein might have decorated the walls of some houses with a Dance of Death, and of others with a dance of peasants.[96] The latter subject would indeed be very much to the taste of an inn-keeper, and the nature of his occupation. Some of the writers on engraving have manifested their usual inaccuracy on the subject of Holbein's Dance of Peasants. Joubert says it has been engraved, but that it is "a peu près introuvable."[97] Huber likewise makes them extremely rare, and adds, without the slightest authority, that Holbein engraved them.[98] There is, however, no doubt that his beautiful pencil was employed on this subject in various ways, of which the following specimens are worthy of being recorded. 1. In a set of initial letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere. 2. In an edition of Plutarch's works, printed by Cratander at Basle, 1530, folio, and afterwards introduced into Polydore Vergil's "Anglicæ historiæ libri viginti sex," printed at Basle, 1540, in folio, where, on p. 3 at bottom, the subject is very elegantly treated. It occurs also, in other books printed in the same city. 3. In an edition of the "Nugæ" of Nicolas Borbonius, Basle, 1540, 12mo. at p. 17, there is a dance of peasants replete with humour: and, 4. A vignette in the first page of an edition of Apicius, printed at Basle, 1541, 4to. without the printer's name. After all, there seems to be a fatality of ambiguity in the account of the Basle paintings ascribed to Holbein; and that of the Dance of Death has not only been placed by several writers on the walls, inside and outside, of houses, but likewise in the fish-market; on the walls of the church-yard of St. Peter; and even in the cathedral itself of Basle; and, therefore, amidst this chaos of description, it is absolutely impossible to arrive at any conclusion that can be deemed in any degree satisfactory. We are now to enter upon the investigation of a work which has been somewhat erroneously denominated a "Dance of Death," by most of the writers who have mentioned it. Such a title, however, is not to be found in any of its numerous editions. It is certainly not a dance, but rather, with slight exception, a series of admirable groups of persons of various characters, among whom Death is appropriately introduced as an emblem of man's mortality. It is of equal celebrity with the Macaber Dance, but in design and execution of considerable superiority, and with which the name of Hans Holbein has been so intimately connected, and that great painter so generally considered as its inventor, that even to doubt his claim to it will seem quite heretical to those who may have founded their opinion on internal evidence with respect to his style of composition. In the year 1538 there appeared a work with the following title, "Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées." A Lyon Soubz lescu de Coloigne, 4to. and at the end, "Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel fratres, 1538." It has forty-one cuts, most exquisitely designed and engraved on wood, in a manner which several modern artists only of England and Germany have been competent to rival. As to the designs of these truly elegant prints, no one who is at all skilled in the knowledge of Holbein's style and manner of grouping his figures, would hesitate immediately to ascribe them to that artist. Some persons have imagined that they had actually discovered the portrait of Holbein in the subject of the nun and her lover; but the painter, whoever he may have been, is more likely to be represented in the last cut as one of the supporters of the escutcheon of Death. In these designs, which are wholly different from the dull and oftentimes disgusting Macaber Dance, which is confined, with little exception, to two figures only, we have the most interesting assemblage of characters, among whom the skeletonized Death, with all the animation of a living person, forms the most important personage; sometimes amusingly ludicrous, occasionally mischievous, but always busy and characteristically occupied. Doubts have arisen whether the above can be regarded as the first edition of these justly celebrated engravings in the form of a volume accompanied with text. In the "Notices sur les graveurs," Besançon, 1807, 8vo. a work ascribed to M. Malpé,[99] it is stated to have been originally published at Basle in 1530; and in M. Jansen's "Essai sur l'origine de la gravure," &c. Paris, 1808, 8vo. a work replete with plagiarisms, and the most glaring mistakes, the same assertion is repeated. This writer adds, but unsupported by any authority, that soon afterwards another edition appeared with Flemish verses. Both these authors, following their blind leader Papillon, have not ventured to state that they ever saw this supposed edition of 1530, and it may indeed be asked, who has? Or in what catalogue of any library is it recorded? Malpé acknowledges that the earliest edition he had seen was that of 1538. M. Fuseli, in his edition of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, has appended a note to the article for Hans Holbein, where, alluding perhaps to the former edition of the present dissertation, he remarks, that "Holbein's title to the Dance of Death would not have been called in question, had the ingenious author of the dissertation on that subject been acquainted with the German edition." This gentleman seems, however, to have inadvertently forgotten a former opinion which he had given in one of his lectures, where he says, "The scrupulous precision, the high finish, and the Titianesque colour of Hans Holbein would make the least part of his excellence, if his right to that series of emblematic groups known under the name of Holbein's Dance of Death had not, of late, been too successfully disputed." M. Fuseli would have rendered some service to this question by favouring us with an explicit account of the above German edition, if he really intended by it a complete work; but it is most likely that he adverted to some separate impressions of the cuts with printed inscriptions on them, but which are only the titles of the respective characters or subjects. To such impressions M. Malpé has certainly referred, adding that they have, at top, passages from the Bible in German, and verses at bottom in the same language. Jansen follows him as to the verses at bottom only. Now, on forty-one of these separate impressions, in the collection of the accurate and laborious author of the best work on the origin and early history of engraving that has ever appeared, and on several others in the present writer's possession, neither texts of scripture, nor verses at bottom, are to be found, and nothing more than the above-mentioned German titles of the characters. M. Huber, in his "Manuel des curieux et des amateurs de l'art," vol. i. p. 155, after inaccurately stating that Holbein _engraved_ these cuts, proceeds to observe, that in order to form a proper judgment of their merit, it is necessary to see the earliest impressions, printed on one side only of the paper; and refers to twenty-one of them in the cabinet of M. Otto, of Leipsig, but without stating any letter-press as belonging to them, or regarding them as a part of any German edition of the work. In the public library of Basle there are proof impressions, on four leaves, of all the cuts which had appeared in the edition of 1538, except that of the astrologer. Over each is the name of the subject printed in German, and without any verses or letter-press whatever at bottom. It is here necessary to mention that the first known edition in which these cuts were used, namely, that of 1538, was accompanied with French verses, descriptive of the subjects. In an edition that soon afterwards appeared, these French verses were translated into Latin by George Æmylius, a _German_ divine; and in another edition, published at Basle, in 1554, the Latin verses were continued. In both these cases, had there been any former _German verses_, would they not have been retained in preference? There is a passage, however, in Gesner's Pandectæ, a supplemental volume of great rarity to his well-known Bibliotheca, that slightly adverts to a German edition of this work, and at the same time connects Holbein's name with it. It is as follows: "Imagines mortis expressæ ab optimo pictore Johanne Holbein cum epigrammatibus Geo. Æmylii, excusæ Francofurti et Lugduni apud Frellonios, quorum editio plures habet picturas. Vidi etiam cum metris Gallicis et _Germanicis si bene memini_."[100] But Gesner writes from imperfect recollection only, and specifies no edition in German. It is most probable that he refers to an early copy of the cuts on a larger scale with a good deal of text in German, and printed and perhaps engraved by Jobst Denecker, at Augsburg, 1544, small folio. The forty-one separate impressions of the cuts in the collection of Mr. Ottley, as well as those in the present writer's possession, are printed on one side of the paper only, another argument that they were not intended to be used in any book; and although they are extremely clear and distinct, many of them that were afterwards used in the various editions of the book are not less brilliant in appearance. It is well known to those who are conversant with engravings on wood, that the earliest impressions are not always the best; a great deal depending on the care and skill with which they were taken from the blocks, and not a little on the quality of the paper. As they were most likely engraved at Basle by an excellent artist, of whom more will be said hereafter, and at the instance of the Lyons booksellers or publishers, it is very probable that a few impressions would be taken off with German titles only for the use of the people of Basle, or other persons using the German language. Proofs might also be wanted for the accommodation of amateurs or other curious persons, and therefore it would be only necessary to print the names or titles of the subjects. This conjecture derives additional support from the well-known literary intercourse between the cities of Lyons and Basle, and from their small distance from each other. On the whole, therefore, the Lyons edition of 1538 may be safely regarded as the earliest, until some other shall make its appearance with a well ascertained prior date, either in German or any other language. In the edition of 1538 there is a dedication, not in any of the others, and of very considerable importance. It is a pious, quaint, and jingling address to Jeanne de Touszele, Abbess of the convent of St. Peter, at Lyons, in which the author, whose name is obscurely stated to be Ouzele, compliments the good lady as the pattern of true religion, from her intimate acquaintance with the nature of Death, rushing, as it were, into his hands, by her entrance into the sepulchre of a cloister. He enlarges on the various modes of representing the mortality of human nature, and contends that the image of Death has nothing terrific in the eyes of the Christian. He maintains that there is no better method of depicting mortality than by a dead person, especially by those images which so frequently occur on sepulchral monuments. Adverting then to the figures in the present work he _regrets the death of him who has here conceived [imaginé] such elegant designs, greatly exceeding all other patterns of the kind, in like manner as the paintings of Apelles and Zeuxis have surpassed those of modern times_. He observes that these funereal histories, accompanied by their grave descriptions in rhyme, induce the admiring spectators to behold the dead as alive, and the living as dead; which leads him to believe that Death, apprehensive lest this admirable _painter_ should exhibit him so lively that he would no longer be feared as Death, and that he should thereby become immortal himself, had hastened his days to an end, and thus prevented him from completing many other figures, which _he_ had already _designed_, especially that of the carman crushed and wounded beneath his demolished waggon, the wheels and horses of which are so frightfully overthrown that as much horror is excited in beholding their downfall, as pleasure in contemplating the lickerishness of one of the Deaths, who is clandestinely sucking with a reed the wine in a bursting cask.[101] That in these imperfect subjects no one had dared to put the finishing hand, on account of the boldness of their outline, shadow, and perspective, _delineated_ in so graceful a manner, that by its contemplation one might indulge either in a joyful sorrow, or a melancholy pleasure. "Let antiquaries then," says he, "and lovers of ancient imagery discover any thing comparable to these figures of Death, in which we behold the Empress of all living souls from the creation, trampling over Cæsars, Emperors, and Kings, and with her scythe mowing down the tyrannical heroes of the earth." He concludes with admonishing the Abbess to take in good part this his sad but salutary present, and to persuade her devout nuns not only to keep it in their cells and dormitories, but in the cabinet of their memory, therein pursuing the counsel of St. Jerom, &c. The singularity of this curious and interesting dedication is deserving of the utmost attention. It seems very strongly, if not decisively, to point out the edition to which it is prefixed, as the first; and what is of still more importance, to deprive Holbein of any claim to the _invention_ of the work. It most certainly uses such terms of art as can scarcely be mistaken as conveying any other sense than that of _originality in design_. There cannot be words of plainer import than those which describe the painter, as he is expressly called, _delineating_ the subjects, and leaving several of them unfinished: and whoever the artist might have been, it clearly appears that he was not living in 1538. Now it is well known that Holbein's death did not take place before the year 1554, during the plague which ravaged London at that time. If then the expressions used in this dedication signify any thing, it may surely be asked what becomes of any claim on the part of Holbein to the designs of the work in question, or does it not _at least_ remain in a situation of doubt and difficulty? It is, however, with no small hesitation that the author of the present dissertation still ventures to dispute, and even to deny, the title of Holbein to the invention of this Dance of Death, in opposition to his excellent and valuable friend Mr. Ottley, whose opinion in matters of taste, as well as on the styles of the different masters in the old schools of painting and engraving may be justly pronounced to be almost oracular. This gentleman has thus expressed himself: "It cannot be denied that were there nothing to oppose to this passage, it would seem to constitute very strong evidence that Holbein, who did not die until the year 1554, was not the author of the designs in question; but I am firmly persuaded that it refers in reality, not to the designer, but to the artist who had been employed, under his direction, to engrave the designs in wood, and whose name, there appears reason to believe, was Hans Lutzenberger.[102] Holbein, I am of opinion, had, shortly before the year 1538, sold the forty-one blocks which had been some time previously executed, to the booksellers of Lyons, and had at the same time given him a promise of others which he had lately designed, as a continuation of the series, and were then in the hands of the wood-engraver. The wood-engraver, I suppose, died before he had completed his task, and the correspondent of the bookseller, who had probably deferred his publication in expectation of the new blocks, wrote from Basle to Lyons to inform his friend of the disappointment occasioned by the artist's death. It is probable that this information was not given very circumstantially, as to the real cause of the delay, and that the person who wrote the dedication of the book might have believed the designer and engraver to be one and the same person: it is still more probable that he thought the distinction of little consequence to his reader, and willingly omitted to go into details which would have rendered his quaint moralizing in the above passage less admissible. Besides, the additional cuts there spoken of (eight cuts of the Dance of Death and four of boys) were afterwards finished (doubtless by another wood-engraver, who had been brought up under the eye of Holbein), and are not apparently inferior, whether in respect of design or execution to the others. In short, these designs have always been ascribed to Holbein, and designedly ranked amongst his finest works."[103] Mr. Ottley having admitted that the edition of the Dance of Death, printed in quarto, at Lyons, 1538, is the earliest with which we are at present acquainted, proceeds to state his belief that the cuts had been previously and _certainly_ used at Basle. He then alludes to the supposed German edition, about the year 1530, but acknowledges that he had not been able to meet with or hear of any person who had seen it. He next introduces to his reader's notice, and afterwards describes at large, a set of forty-one impressions, being the complete series of the edition of 1538, except one, and taken off with the greatest clearness and brilliancy of effect, on one side of the paper only, each cut having over it its title printed in the German language, with moveable type. He thinks it possible that they may originally have had German verses underneath, and texts of Scripture above, in addition to the titles; a fact, he adds, not now to be ascertained, as the margins are clipped on the sides and at bottom. He says, it is greatly to be regretted that the blocks were never taken off with due diligence and good printing ink, after they got into the hands of the Lyons booksellers, and then introduces into his page two fac-similes of these cuts so admirably copied as to be almost undistinguishable from the originals.[104] One may, indeed, regret with Mr. Ottley the _general carelessness_ of the old printers in their mode of taking off impressions from blocks of wood when introducing them into their books, and which is so very unequally practised that, as already observed, the impressions are often clearer and more distinct in later than in preceding editions. The works of the old designers and engravers would, in many cases, have been much more highly appreciated, if they had had the same justice done to them by the printers as the editorial taste and judgment of Mr. Ottley, combined with the skill of the workmen, have obtained in the decoration of his own book. With respect to the impressions of the cuts in question, when the blocks were in the hands of the Lyons booksellers, the fact is, that in some of their editions they are occasionally as fine as those separately printed off; and at the moment of making this remark, an edition, published in 1547, at Lyons, is before the writer, in which many of the prints are uncommonly clear and even brilliant, a circumstance owing, in a great degree, to the nature of the paper on which they are impressed. It were almost to be wished that this perplexing evidence against Holbein's title to the invention of the work before us had never existed, and that he had consequently been left in the quiet possession of what so well accords with his exquisite pencil and extraordinary talents. True it is, that the person to whom we owe this stubborn testimony, has manifested a much more intimate acquaintance with the mode of conveying his pious ejaculations to the Lady Abbess in the quaintest language that could possibly have been chosen, than with the art of giving an accurate account of the prints in question. Yet it seems scarcely possible that he should have used the word _imagined_, which undoubtedly expresses originality of invention, and not the mere act of copying, if he had referred to an engraver on wood, whom he would not have dignified with the appellation of a painter on whom he was bestowing the highest possible eulogium. There would also have been much less occasion for the author's hyperbolical fears on the part of Death in the case of an engraver, than in that of a painter. He has stated that the rainbow subject, meaning probably that of the Last Judgment, was left unfinished; but it appears among the engravings in his edition. He must, therefore, have referred to a painting, with which likewise the expression "bold shadows and perspective," seem better to accord than with a slight engraving on wood. He had also seen the subject of the waggon with the wine casks in its unfinished state, and in this case we may almost with certainty pronounce it to have been a painting, as the cut of it does not appear in the first edition, furnishing, at the same time, an argument against Holbein's claim; nor may it be unimportant to add that the dedicator, a religious person, and probably a man of some eminence, was much more likely to have been acquainted with the painter than with the engraver. The dedicator also stamps the work as originating at Lyons; and Frellon, its printer, in a complaint against a Venetian bookseller, who pirated his edition, emphatically describes it as exclusively belonging to France. Again, it is improbable that the dedicator, whoever he was, should have preferred complimenting the engraver of the cuts, who, with all his consummate skill, must, in point of rank and genius, be placed below the painter or designer; and it is at the same time remarkable that the name of Holbein is not adverted to in any of the early and genuine editions of the work, published at Lyons, or any other place, whilst his designs for the Bible have there been so pointedly noticed by his friend the poet Borbonius. It would be of some importance, if it could be shown, that the engraver was dead in or before the year 1538, for that circumstance would contribute to strengthen Mr. Ottley's opinion: but should it be found that he did not die in or before 1538, it would follow, of course, that the painter was the person adverted to in the dedication, and who consequently could not be Holbein. It becomes necessary, therefore, to endeavour at least to discover some other artist competent to the invention of the beautiful designs in question; and whether the attempt be successful or otherwise, it may, perhaps, be not altogether misplaced or unprofitable. It must be recollected that Francis the First, on returning from his captivity at Pavia, imported with him a great many Italian and other artists, among whom were Lionardo da Vinci, Rosso, Primaticcio, &c. He is also known to have visited Lyons, a royal city at that time eminent in art of every kind, and especially in those of printing and engraving on wood; as the many beautiful volumes published at that place, and embellished with the most elegant decorations in the graphic art, will at this moment sufficiently testify. In an edition of the "Nugæ" of Nicolas Borbonius, the friend of Holbein, printed at Lyons, 1538, 8vo. are the following lines: _De Hanso Ulbio, et Georgio Reperdio, pictoribus._ Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide, Accersat à Britannia Hansum Ulbium, et Georgium _Reperdium_. _Lugduno_ ab urbe Galliæ. In these verses Reperdius is opposed to Holbein for the excellence of his art, in like manner as Parrhasius had been considered as the rival of Zeuxis. After such an eulogium it is greatly to be regretted that notwithstanding a very diligent enquiry has been made concerning an artist, who, by the poet's comparative view of him, is placed on the same footing with Holbein, and probably of the same school of painting, no particulars of his life or works have been discovered. It is clear from Borbonius's lines that he was then living at Lyons, and it is extremely probable that he might have begun the work in question, and have died before he could complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might afterwards have employed Holbein to finish what was left undone, as well as to make designs for additional subjects which appeared in the subsequent editions. Thus would Holbein be so connected with the work as to obtain in future such notice as would constitute him by general report the real inventor of it. If then there be any validity in what is here stated concerning Reperdius, the difficulty and obscurity in the preface to the Lyons edition of the Dance of Death in 1538 will be removed, and Holbein remain in possession of a share at least in the composition of that inestimable work. The mark or monogram [monogram: HL] on one of the cuts cannot possibly belong to Holbein, but may possibly be that of the engraver, of whom more hereafter. CHAPTER VII. _Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him._ At this time the celebrated designs for the illustration of the Old Testament, usually denominated Holbein's Bible, made their appearance, with the following title, "Historiarum veteris instrumenti icones ad vivum expressæ. Una cum brevi, sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem expositione. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi MDXXXVIII." 4to. They were several times republished with varied titles, and two additional cuts. Prefixed are some highly complimentary Latin verses by Holbein's friend Nicholas Bourbon, better known by his Latinized name of Borbonius, who again introduces Parrhasius and Zeuxis in Elysium, and in conversation with Apelles, who laments that they had all been excelled by Holbein. These lines by Borbonius do not appear, among others addressed by him to Holbein, in the first edition of his "Nugæ" in 1533, or indeed in any of the subsequent editions; but it is certain that Borbonius was at Lyons in 1538, and might then have been called on by the publishers of the designs, with whom he was intimately connected, for the commendatory verses. The booksellers Frellon of Lyons, by some means with which we are not now acquainted, or indeed ever likely to be, became possessed of the copyright to these designs for the Old Testament. It is very clear that they had previously been in possession of those for the Dance of Death, and, finding the first four of them equally adapted to a Bible, they accordingly, and for the purpose of saving expense, made use of them in this Bible, though with different descriptions, having, in all probability, employed the same engraver on wood as in the Dance of Death, a task to which he had already demonstrated himself to be fully competent. Now, if the Frellons had regarded Holbein as the designer of the "Simulachres et historiees faces de la Mort," would they not rather have introduced into that work the complimentary lines of Borbonius on _some_ painting by Holbein of a Dance of Death, and which will be hereafter more particularly adverted to, instead of inserting the very interesting and decisive dedication that has so emphatically referred to the then deceased painter of the above admirable composition? Nor is it by any means a matter of certainty that Holbein was the designer of _all_ the wood engravings belonging to the Bible in question. Whoever may take the pains to examine these biblical subjects with a strict and critical eye, will not only discover a very great difference in the style and drawing of them, but likewise a striking resemblance, in that respect, of several of them to those in the Dance of Death, as well as in the manner of engraving. The rest are in a bolder and broader style, in a careless but effective manner, corresponding altogether with such designs as are well ascertained to be Holbein's, and of which it would be impossible to produce a single one, that in point of delicacy of outline, or composition, accords with those in the Dance;[105] and the judgment of those who are best acquainted with the works of Holbein is appealed to on this occasion. It is, besides, extremely probable that the anonymous painter or designer of the Dance might have been employed also by the Frellons to execute a set of subjects for the Bible previously to his Death, and that Holbein was afterwards engaged to complete the work. A comparison of the 8th subject in the "Simulachres, &c." with that in the Bible for Esther I. II. where the canopy ornamented with fleurs-de-lis is the same in both, will contribute to strengthen the above conjecture, as will both the cuts to demonstrate their Gallic origin. It is most certain that the king sitting at table in the Simulachres is intended for Francis I. which, if any one should doubt, let him look upon the miniature of that king, copied at p. 214 in Clarke's "Repertorium bibliographicum," from a drawing in a French MS. belonging to M. Beckford, or at a wood-cut in fo. xcxix b. of "L'histoire de Primaleon de Grece." Paris, 1550, folio, where the art in the latter will be found to resemble very much that in the "Simulachres." The portraits also of Francis by Thomas De Leu, Boissevin, and particularly that in the portraits of illustrious men edited by Beza at Geneva, may be mentioned for the like purpose. The admission in the course of the preceding remarks that Holbein might have been employed in some of the additional cuts that appeared in the editions of the Lyons Dance of Death which followed that of 1538, may seem at variance with what has been advanced with respect to the Bible cuts ascribed to him. It is, however, by no means a matter of necessity that an artist with Holbein's talents should have been resorted to for the purpose of designing the additional cuts to the Lyons work. There were, during the middle of the 16th century, several artists equally competent to the undertaking, both as to invention and execution, as is demonstrable, among numerous other instances, from the spurious, but beautiful, Italian copy of the original cuts; from the scarcely distinguishable copies of the Lyons Bible cuts in an edition put forth by John Stelsius at Antwerp, 1561, and from the works of several artists, both designers and wood-engravers, in the books published by the French, Flemish, and Italian booksellers at that period. An interesting catalogue raisonnè might be constructed, though with some difficulty, of such articles as were decorated with most exquisite and interesting embellishments. The above century was much richer in this respect than any one that succeeded it, displaying specimens of art that have only been rivalled, perhaps never outdone, by the very skilful engravers on wood of modern times. Our attention will, in the next place, be required to the excellent _engraver_ of the Dance of Death, the thirty-sixth cut of which represents the Duchess sitting up in bed, and accompanied with two figures of Death, one of which plays on a violin, whilst the other drags away the bed-clothes. On the base of one of the bed-posts is the mark or monogram [monogram: HL] which has, among other artists, been inconsiderately ascribed to Holbein. That it was intended to express the name of the designer cannot be supported by evidence of any kind. We must then seek for its meaning as belonging to the engraver, and whose name was, in all probability, Hans Leuczellberger or Lutzenberger, sometimes called Franck. M. de Mechel, the celebrated printseller and engraver at Basle, addressed a letter to M. de Murr, in which he states that on a proof sheet of an alphabet in the library in that city, containing several small figures of a Dance of Death, he had found the above name. M. Brulliot remarks that he had seen some of the letters of this alphabet, but had not perceived on them either the name of Lutzenberger, or the mark [monogram: HL];[106] but M. de Mechel has not said that the _mark_ was on the proof sheet, or on the letters themselves, but only the name of Lutzenberger, adding that the [monogram: HL] on the cut of the Duchess will throw some light on the matter, and that Holbein, although this monogram has been usually ascribed to him, never expressed his name by it, but used for that purpose an [monogram: H] joined to a [monogram: B]; in which latter assertion M. de Mechel was by no means correct. On another alphabet of a Dance of Peasants, in the possession of the writer of these pages, and undoubtedly by the same artists, M. de Mechel, to whom it was shown when in England, has written in pencil, the following memorandum: "[monogram: HL] gravè par Hans (John) Lutzenberger, graveur en patrons à Basle, vivant là au commencement du 16me siecle;" but he has inadvertently transferred the remark to the wrong alphabet, though both were undoubtedly the work of the same artist, as well as a third alphabet, equally beautiful, of groups of children. The late Pietro Zani, whose intimate experience in whatever relates to the art of engraving, together with the vast number of prints that had passed under his observation, must entitle his opinions to the highest consideration, has stated, in more places than one in his "Enciclopedia Metodica," that Holbein had no concern with the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, the engraving of which he decidedly ascribes to Hans Lutzenberger; and, without any reference to the inscription on the proof of one of the alphabets in the library at Basle before-mentioned, which he had probably neither seen nor heard of, mentions the copy of one of the alphabets which he had seen at Dresden, and at once consigns it to Lutzenberger. He promises to resume the subject at large in some future part of his immense work, which, if existing, has not yet made its appearance. As the prints by this fine engraver are very few in number, and extremely rare, the following list of them may not be unacceptable. 1. An oblong wood engraving, in length 11 inches by 3-1/2. It represents, on one side, Christ requiring the attention of a group of eight persons, consisting of a monk, a peasant with a flail, a female, &c. to a lighted taper on a candelabrum placed in the middle of the print; on the other side, a group of thirteen or fourteen persons, preceded by one who is looking into a pit in which is the word PLATO. Over his head is inscribed ARISTOTELES; he is followed by a pope, a bishop, monks, &c. &c. 2. Another oblong wood engraving, 6-1/2 inches by 2-1/2, in two compartments, divided by a pillar. In one, the Judgment of Solomon; in the other, Christ and the woman taken in adultery; he writes something on the ground with his finger. It has the date 1539. 3. Another, size as No. 2. An emperor is sitting in a court of justice with several spectators attending some trial. This is doubtful. 4. Another oblong print, 10-1/2 inches by 3, and in two compartments. 1. David prostrate before the Deity in the clouds, accompanied by Manasses and a youth, over whom is inscribed OFFEN SVNDER. 2. A pope on a throne delivering some book, perhaps letters of indulgence, to a kneeling monk. This very beautiful print has been called "The Traffic of Indulgences," and is minutely and correctly described by Jansen.[107] 5. A print, 12 inches by 6, representing a combat in a wood between several naked persons and a troop of peasants armed with instruments of husbandry. Below on the left, the letters [monogram: H =N=]. Annexed are two tablets, one of which is inscribed HANS LEVCZELLBVRGER FVRMSCHNIDER; on the other is an alphabet. Jansen has also mentioned this print.[108] Brulliot describes a copy of it in the cabinet of prints belonging to the King of Bavaria, in which, besides the name, is the date MDXXII.[109] 6. A print of a dagger or knife case, in length 9 inches. At top, a figure inscribed VENVS has a lighted torch in one hand and a horn in the other; she is accompanied by Cupid. In the middle two boys are playing, and at bottom three others standing, one with a helmet. 7. A copy of Albert Durer's decollation of John the Baptist, with the mark [monogram: H L] reversed, is mentioned by Zani as certainly belonging to this artist.[110] In the index of names, he says, he finds his name thus written HANNS LVTZELBVRGER FORMSCHNIDER GENANT (chiamato) FRANCK, and calls him the true prince of engravers on wood. 8. An alphabet with a Dance of Death, the subjects of which, with a few exceptions, are the same as those in the other Dance; the designs, however, occasionally vary. In delicacy of drawing, in strength of character and in skill as to engraving they may be justly pronounced superior to every thing of the kind, and their excellence will probably remain a long time unrivalled. The figures are so small as almost to require the aid of lenses, the size of each letter being only an inch square. Zani had seen and admired this alphabet at Dresden.[111] 9. Another alphabet by the same artists. It is a Dance of Peasants, intermixed with other subjects, some of which are not of the most delicate nature. They are smaller than the letters in the preceding article, and are probably connected in point of design with the Dance of Peasants that Holbein is said to have painted at Basle. 10. Another alphabet, also by the same artists. This is in all respects equal in beauty and merit to the others, and exhibits groups of boys in the most amusing and playful attitudes and employments. The size of the letters is little more than half an inch square. These children much resemble those which Holbein probably added to the later editions of the Lyons engravings.[112] The proofs of the above alphabets, may have been deposited by Lutzenberger in the public library of his native city. Whether they were cut on wood or on metal may admit of a doubt; but there is reason to believe that the old printers and type-cutters occasionally used blocks of metal instead of wood for their figured initial letters, and the term _formschneider_ equally applies to those who engraved in relief on either of those materials. Nothing can exceed the beauty and spirit of the design in these alphabets, nor the extreme delicacy and accurate minuteness of the engraving. The letters in these respective alphabets were intended for the use of printers, and especially those of Basle, as Cratander, Bebelius, and Isingrin. Copies and imitations of them are to be found in many books printed at Zurich, Strasburg, Vienna, Augsburg, Frankfort, &c. and a few even in books printed at London by Waley, Purslowe, Marsh, and Nicholson, particularly in a quarto edition of Coverdale's Bible, if printed in the latter city; and one of them, a capital A, is in an edition of Stowe's Survey of London, 1618, 4to. There is an unfortunate ambiguity connected with the marks that are found on ancient engravings in wood, and it has been a very great error on the part of all the writers who treat on such engravings, in referring the marks that accompany them to the block-cutters, or as the Germans properly denominate them the _formschneiders_, whilst, perhaps, the greatest part of them really belong to the designers, as is undoubtedly the case with respect to Albert Durer, Hans Schaufelin, Jost Amman, Tobias Stimmer, &c. It may be laid down as a rule that there is no certainty as to the marks of engravers, except where they are accompanied with some implement of their art, especially a graving tool. Where the designer of the subject put his mark on the drawing which he made on, or for, the block, the engraver would, of course, copy it. Sometimes the marks of both designer and engraver are found on prints, and in these cases the ambiguity is consequently removed. CHAPTER VIII. _List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.--Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations of some of the subjects._ I. "Les Simulachres et historiées faces de la Mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. A Lyon, Soubz l'escu de Coloigne, MDXXXVIII." At the end "Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel fratres, 1538," 4to. On this title-page is a cut of a triple-headed figure crowned with wings, on a pedestal, over which a book with [Greek: GNÔTHI SEAUTON]. Below, two serpents and two globes, with "usus me genuit." This has, 1. A dedication to Madame Jehanne de Touszele. 2. Diverses tables de mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l'escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par philosophes. 3. Over each print, passages from scripture, allusive to the subject, in Latin, and at bottom the substance of them in four French verses. 4. Figures de la mort moralement descriptes et depeinctes selon l'authorité de l'scripture, et des Sainctz Peres. 5. Les diverses mors des bons, et des maulvais du viel, et nouveau testament. 6. Des sepultures des justes. 7. Memorables authoritez, et sentences des philosophes, et orateurs Payens pour conformer les vivans à non craindre la mort. 7. De la necessite de la mort qui ne laisse riens estre par durable." With forty-one cuts. This may be safely regarded as the first edition of the work. There is nothing in the title page that indicates any preceding one. II. "Les Simulachres et historiées faces de la mort, contenant la Medecine de l'ame, utile et necessaire non seulement aux malades mais à tous qui sont en bonne disposition corporelle. D'avantage, la forme et maniere de consoler les malades. Sermon de sainct Cecile Cyprian, intitulé de Mortalité. Sermon de S. Jan Chrysostome, pour nous exhorter à patience: traictant aussi de la consommation de ce siecle, et du second advenement de Jesus Christ, de la joye eternelle des justes, de la peine et damnation des mauvais, et autres choses necessaires à un chascun chrestien, pour bien vivre et bien mourir. A Lyon, à l'escu de Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon freres," 1542, 12mo. With forty-one cuts. Then a moral epistle to the reader, in French. The descriptions of the cuts in Latin and French as before, and the pieces expressed in the title page. III. "Imagines Mortis. His accesserunt, Epigrammata, è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata. Ad hæc, Medicina animæ, tam iis qui firma, quàm qui adversa corporis valetudine præditi sunt, maximè necessaria. Ratio consolandi ob morbi gravitatem periculosè decumbentes. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi, 1545." With the device of the crab and the butterfly. At the end, "Lugduni Excudebant Joannes et Franciscus Frellonii fratres," 1545, 12mo. The whole of the text is in Latin, and translated, except the scriptural passages, from the French, by George Æmylius, as he also states in some verses at the beginning; but several of the mottoes at bottom are different and enlarged. It has forty-two cuts, the additional one, probably not by the former artist, being that of the beggar sitting on the ground before an arched gate: extremely fine, particularly the beggar's head. This subject has no connection with the Dance of Death, and is placed in another part of the volume, though in subsequent editions incorporated with the other prints. The "Medicina animæ" is very different from the French one. There is some reason for supposing that the Frellons had already printed an edition with Æmylius's text in 1542. This person was an eminent German divine of Mansfelt, and the author of many pious works. In the present edition the first cut of the creation exhibits a crack in the block from the top to the bottom, but it had been in that state in 1543, as appears from an impression of it in Holbein's Bible of that date. It is found so in all the subsequent editions of the present work, with the exception of those in Italian of 1549 and in the Bible of 1549, in which the crack appears to have been closed, probably by cramping; but the block again separated afterwards. This edition is of some importance with respect to the question as to the priority of the publication of the work in France or Germany, or, in other words, whether at Lyons or Basle. It is accompanied by some lines addressed to the reader, which begin in the following manner: Accipe jucundo præsentia carmina vultu, Seu Germane legis, sive ea Galle legis: In quibus extremæ qualis sit mortis imago Reddidit imparibus Musa Latina modis _Gallia quæ dederat lepidis epigrammata verbis Teutona convertens est imitata manus._ Da veniam nobis doctissime Galle, videbis Versibus appositis reddita si qua parum. Now, had the work been originally published in the German language, Æmylius, himself a German, would, as already observed, scarcely have preferred a French text for his Latin version. This circumstance furnishes likewise, an argument against the supposed existence of German verses at the bottom of the early impressions of the cuts already mentioned. A copy of this edition, now in the library of the British Museum, was presented to Prince Edward by Dr. William Bill, accompanied with a Latin dedication, dated from Cambridge, 19 July, 1546, wherein he recommends the prince's attention to the figures in the book, in order to remind him that all must die to obtain immortality; and enlarges on the necessity of living well. He concludes with a wish that the Lord will long and happily preserve his life, and that he may finally reign to all eternity with his _most Christian father_. Bill was appointed one of the King's chaplains in ordinary, 1551, and was made the first Dean of Westminster in the reign of Elizabeth. IV. "Imagines Mortis. Duodecim imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "Excudebat Joannes Frellonius, 1547," 12mo. This edition has twelve more cuts than those of 1538 and 1542, and eleven more than that of 1545, being, the soldier, the gamblers, the drunkards, the fool, the robber, the blind man, the wine carrier, and four of boys. In all fifty-three. Five of the additional cuts have a single line only in the frames, whilst the others have a double one. All are nearly equal in merit to those which first appeared in 1538. V. "Icones Mortis, Duodecim imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus, præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit, Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547." 12mo. At the end, Excudebat Johannes Frellonius, 1547. This edition contains fifty-three cuts, and is precisely similar to the one described immediately before, except that it is entitled _Icones_, instead of _Imagines_ Mortis. VI. "Les Images de la Mort. Auxquelles sont adjoustées douze figures. Davantage, la medecine de l'ame, la consolation des malades, un sermon de mortalité, par Sainct Cyprian, un sermon de patience, par Sainct Jehan Chrysostome. A Lyon. A l'escu de Cologne, chez Jehan Frellon, 1547." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "Imprimé a Lyon à l'escu de Coloigne, par Jehan Frellon, 1547. 12mo." The verses at bottom of the cuts the same as in the edition of 1538, with similar ones for the additional. In all, fifty-three cuts. VII. "Simolachri historie, e figure de la morte. La medicina de l'anima. Il modo, e la via di consolar gl'infermi. Un sermone di San Cipriano, de la mortalità. Due orationi, l'un a Dio, e l'altra à Christo. Un sermone di S. Giovan. Chrisostomo, che ci essorta à patienza. Aiuntovi di nuovo molte figure mai piu stampate. In Lyone appresso Giovan Frellone MDXLIX." 12mo. With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, the same device on a larger scale in a circle. Fifty-three cuts. The scriptural passages are in Latin. To this edition Frellon has prefixed a preface, in which he complains of a pirated copy of the work in Italian by a printer at Venice, which will be more particularly noticed hereafter. He maintains that the cuts in this spurious edition are far less beautiful than the _French_ ones, and this passage goes very far in aid of the argument that they are not of German origin. Frellon, by way of revenge, and to save the trouble of making a new translation of the articles that compose the volume, makes use of that of his Italian competitor. VIII. "Icones Mortis. Duodecim Imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus, præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Basileæ, 1554. 12mo." With fifty-three cuts. It would not be very easy to account for the absence of the name of the Basle printer. IX. "Les Images de la Mort, auxquelles sont adjoustees dix sept figures. Davantage, la medecine de l'ame. La consolation des malades. Un sermon de mortalité, par Saint Cyprian. Un sermon de patience, par Saint Jehan Chrysostome. A Lyon, par Jehan Frellon, 1562." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "A Lyon, par Symphorien Barbier," 12mo. This edition has five additional cuts, viz. 1. A group of boys, as a triumphal procession, with military trophies. 2. The bride; the husband plays on a lute, whilst Death leads the wife in tears. 3. The bridegroom led by Death blowing a trumpet. Both these subjects are appropriately described in the verses below. 4. A group of boy warriors, one on horseback with a standard. 5. Another group of boys with drums, horns, and trumpets. These additional cuts are designed and engraved in the same masterly style as the others, but it is now impossible to ascertain the artists who have executed them. From the decorations to several books published at Lyons it is very clear that there were persons in that city capable of the task. Holbein had been dead eight years, after a long residence in London. Du Verdier, in his Bibliothèque Françoise, mentions this edition, and adds that it was translated from the French into Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, and English;[113] a statement that stands greatly in need of confirmation as to the last three languages, but this writer, on too many occasions, deserves but small compliment for his accuracy. X. "Imagines Mortis: item epigrammata è Gall. à G. Æmilio in Latinum versa. Lugdun. Frellonius, 1574." 12mo.[114] XI. In 1654 a Dutch work appeared with the following title, "De Doodt vermaskert met swerelts ydelheyt afghedaen door G. V. Wolsschaten, verciert met de constighe Belden vanden maerden Schilder Hans Holbein. _i. e._ Death masked, with the world's vanity, by G. V. Wolsschaten, ornamented with the ingenious images of the famous painter Hans Holbein. T'Antwerpen, by Petrus Bellerus." This is on an engraved frontispiece of tablet, over which are spread a man's head and the skin of two arms supported by two Deaths blowing trumpets. Below, a spade, a pilgrim's staff, a scepter, and a crosier, with a label, on which is "sceptra ligonibus æquat." Then follows another title-page, with the same words, and the addition of Geeraerdt Van Wolsschaten's designation, "Prevost van sijne conincklijcke Majesteyts Munten des Heertoogdoms van Brabant, &c. MDCLIV." 12mo. The author of the text, which is mixed up with poetry and historical matter, was prefect of the mint in the Duchy of Brabant.[115] This edition contains eighteen cuts, among which the following subjects are from the original blocks. 1. Three boys. 2. The married couple. 3. The pedlar. 4. The shipwreck. 5. The beggar. 6. The corrupt judge. 7. The astrologer. 8. The old man. 9. The physician. 10. The priest with the eucharist. 11. The monk. 12. The abbess. 13. The abbot. 14. The duke. Four others, viz. the child, the emperor, the countess, and the pope, are copies, and very badly engraved. The blocks of the originals appear to have fallen into the hands of an artist, who probably resided at Antwerp, and several of them have his mark, [monogram: SA], concerning which more will be said under one of the ensuing articles. As many engravings on wood by this person appeared in the middle of the sixteenth century, it is probable that he had already used these original blocks in some edition of the Dance of Death that does not seem to have been recorded. There are evident marks of retouching in these cuts, but when they first appeared cannot now be ascertained. The mark might have been placed on them, either to denote ownership, according to the usual practice at that time, or to indicate that they had been repaired by that particular artist. All these editions, except that of 1574, have been seen and carefully examined on the present occasion: the supposed one of 1530 has not been included in this list, and remains to be seen and accurately described, if existing, by competent witnesses. Papillon, in his Traité de la gravure en bois, has given an elaborate, but, as usual with him, a very faulty description of these engravings. He enlarges on the beauty of the last cut with the allegorical coat of arms, and particularly on that of the gentleman whose right hand he states to be placed on its side, whilst it certainly is extended, and touches with the back of it the mantle on which the helmet and shield of arms are placed. He errs likewise in making the female look towards a sort of dog's head, according to him, under the mantle and right hand of her husband, which, he adds, might be taken for the pummell of his sword, and that she fondles this head with her right hand, &c. not one word of which is correct. He says that a good impression of this print would be well worth a Louis d'or to an amateur. He appears to have been in possession of the block belonging to the subject of the lovers preceded by Death with a drum; but it had been spoiled by the stroke of a plane. COPIES OF THE ABOVE DESIGNS, AND ENGRAVED ALSO ON WOOD. I. At the head of these, in point of merit, must be placed the Italian spurious edition mentioned in No. VII. of the preceding list. It is entitled "Simolachri historie, e figure de la morte, ove si contiene la medicina de l'anima utile e necessaria, non solo à gli ammalati, ma tutte i sani. Et appresso, il modo, e la via di consolar gl'infermi. Un sermone di S. Cipriano, de la mortalità. Due orationi, l'una a Dio, e l'altra à Christo da dire appresso l'ammalato oppresso da grave infermitá. Un sermone di S. Giovan Chrisostomo, che ci essorta à patienza; e che tratta de la consumatione del secolo presente, e del secondo avenimento di Jesu Christo, de la eterna felicita de giusti, de la pena e dannatione de rei; et altre cose necessarie à ciascun Christiano, per ben vivere, e ben morire. Con gratia e privilegio de l'illustriss. Senato Vinitiano, per anni dieci. Appresso Vincenzo Vaugris al segno d'Erasmo, MDXLV." 12mo. With a device of the brazen serpent, repeated at the end. It has all the cuts in the genuine edition of the same date, except that of the beggar at the gate. It contains a very moral dedication to Signor Antonio Calergi by the publisher Vaugris or Valgrisi; in which, with unjustifiable confidence, he enlarges on the great beauty of the work, the cuts in which are, in his estimation, not merely equal, but far superior to those in the French edition in design and engraving. They certainly approach the nearest to the fine originals of all the imitations, but will be found on comparison to be inferior. The mark [monogram: HL] on the cut of the duchess sitting up in bed, with the two Deaths, one of whom is fiddling, whilst the other pulls at the clothes, is retained, but this could not be with a view to pass these engravings as originals, after what is stated in the dedication. An artist's eye will easily perceive the difference in spirit and decision of drawing. In the ensuing year 1546, Valgrisi republished this book in Latin, but without the dedication, and there are impressions of them on single sheets, one of which has at the bottom, "In Venetia, MDLXVIII. Fra. Valerio Faenzi Inquis. Apreso Luca Bertelli." So that they required a license from the Inquisition. II. In the absence of any other Italian editions of the "Simolachri," it is necessary to mention that twenty-four of the last-mentioned cuts were introduced in a work of extreme rarity, and which has escaped the notice of bibliographers, intitled "Discorsi Morali dell' eccell. Sig. Fabio Glissenti contra il dispiacer del morire. Detto Athanatophilia Venetia, 1609." 4to. These twenty-four were probably all that then remained; and five others of subjects belonging also to the "Simolachri," are inserted in this work, but very badly imitated, and two of them reversed. In the subject of the Pope there is in the original a brace of grotesque devils, one of which is completely erased in Glissenti, and a plug inserted where the other had been scooped out. A similar rasure of a devil occurs in the subject of the two rich men in conversation, the demon blowing with a bellows into his ear, whilst a poor beggar in vain touches him to be heard. Besides these cuts, Glissenti's work is ornamented with a great number of others, connected in some way or other with the subject of Death, which the author discusses in almost every possible variety of manner. He appears to have been a physician, and an exceedingly pious man. His portrait is prefixed to every division of the work, which consists of five dialogues. III. In an anonymous work, intitled "Tromba sonora per richiamar i morti viventi dalla tomba della colpa alla vita della gratia. In Venetia, 1670." 8vo. Of which there had already been three editions; there are six of the prints from the originals, as in the "Simolachri," &c. No. I. and a few others, the same as the additional ones to Glissenti's work. In another volume, intitled "Il non plus ultra di tutte le scienze ricchezze honori, e diletti del mondo, &c. In Venetia, 1677." 24mo. There are twenty-five of the cuts as in the Simolachri, and several others from those added to Glissenti. IV. A set of cuts which do not seem to have belonged to any work. They are very close copies of the originals. On the subject of the Duchess in bed, the letter [monogram: S] appears on the base of one of the pillars or posts, instead of the original [monogram: HL], and it is also seen on the cut of the soldier pierced by the lance of Death. Two have the date 1546. In that of the monk, whom, in the original, Death seizes by the cowl or hood, the artist has made a whimsical alteration, by converting the hood into a fool's cap with bells and asses' ears, and the monk's wallet into a fool's bauble. It is probable that he was of the reformed religion. V. "Imagines Mortis, his accesserunt epigrammata è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata, &c. Coloniæ apud hæredes Arnoldi Birckmanni, anno 1555. 12mo." With fifty-three cuts. This may be regarded as a surreptitious edition of No. IV. of the originals by [monogram: HL] p. 106. The cuts are by the artist mentioned in No. IX. of those originals, whose mark is [monogram: SA] which is here found on five of them. They are all reversed, except the nobleman; and although not devoid of merit, they are not only very inferior to the fine originals, but also to the Italian copies in No. I. The first two subjects are newly designed; the two Devils in that of the Pope are omitted, and there are several variations, always for the worse, in many of the others, of which a tasteless example is found in that of Death and the soldier, where the thigh bone, as the very appropriate weapon of Death, is here converted into the common-place dart. The mark [monogram: HL] in the original cut of the Duchess in bed, is here omitted, without the substitution of any other. This edition was republished by the same persons, without any variation, successively in 1557, 1566, 1567, and 1573.[116] Papillon, in his "Traité sur la gravure en bois,"[117] when noticing the above-mentioned mark, has, amidst the innumerable errors that abound in his otherwise curious work, been led into a mistake of an exceedingly ludicrous nature, by converting the owner of the mark into a cardinal. He had found it on the cuts to an edition of Faerno's fables, printed at Antwerp, 1567, which is dedicated to Cardinal Borromeo by Silvio Antoniano, professor of Belles Lettres at Rome, afterwards secretary to Pope Pius IV. and at length himself a Cardinal. He was the editor of Faerno's work. Another of Papillon's blunders is equally curious and absurd. He had seen an edition of the Emblems of Sambucus, with cuts, bearing the mark [monogram: SA] in which there is a fine portrait of the author with his favourite dog, and under the latter the word BOMBO, which Papillon gravely states to be the name of the engraver; and finding the same word on another of the emblems which has also the dog, he concludes that all the cuts which have not the [monogram: SA] were engraved by the same BOMBO. Had Papillon, a good artist in his time, but an ignorant man, been able to comprehend the verses belonging to that particular emblem, he would have seen that the above word was merely the name of the dog, as Sambucus himself has declared, whilst paying a laudable tribute to the attachment of the faithful companion of his travels. Brulliot, in his article on the mark [monogram: SA][118] has mentioned Papillon's ascription of it to Silvio Antoniano, but without correcting the blunder, as he ought to have done. This monogram appears on five of the cuts to the present edition of the "Imagines Mortis;" but M. De Murr and his follower Janssen, are not warranted in supposing the rest of them to have been engraved by a different artist. It will perhaps not be deemed an unimportant digression to introduce a few remarks concerning the owner of the above monogram. It is by no means clear whether he was a designer or an engraver, or even both. There is a chiaroscuro print of a group of saints, engraved by Peter Kints, an obscure artist, with the name of Antony Sallaerts at length, and the mark. Here he appears as a designer. M. Malpé, the Besançon author of "Notices sur les graveurs," speaks of Sallaerts as an excellent painter, born at Brussels about 1576, which date cannot possibly apply to the artist in question; but at the same time, he adds, that he is said to have engraved on wood the cuts in a little catechism printed at Antwerp that have the monogram [monogram: SA]. These are certainly very beautiful, in accordance with many others with the same mark, and very superior in design to those which have it in the "Imagines Mortis." M. Malpé has also an article for Antony Silvyus or Silvius, born at Antwerp about 1525, and he mentions several books with engravings and the mark in question, which he gives to the same person. M. Brulliot expresses a doubt as to this artist; but it is very certain there was a family of that name, and surnamed, or at least sometimes called, Bosche or Bush, which indeed is more likely to have been the real Flemish name Latinized into Silvius. Foppens[119] has mentioned an Antony Silvius, a schoolmaster at Antwerp, in 1565, and several other members of this family. Two belonging to it were engravers, and another a writing master. Whether the artist in question was a Sallaerts or a Silvius, it is certain that Plantin, the celebrated printer, employed him to decorate several of his volumes, and it is to be regretted that an unsuccessful search has been made for him in Plantin's account books, that were not long since preserved, with many articles belonging to him, in his house at Antwerp. His mark also appears in several books printed in England during the reign of Elizabeth, and particularly on a beautiful set of initial letters, some of which contain the story of Cupid and Psyche, from the supposed designs by Raphael, and other subjects from Ovid's Metamorphoses: these have been counterfeited, and perhaps in England. The initial [monogram: G], in this alphabet, with the subject of Leda and the swan, was inadvertently prefixed to the sacred name at the beginning of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews in the Bishop's Bible, printed by Rd. Jugge in 1572, and in one of his Common Prayer Books. An elegant portrait of Edward VI. with the mark [monogram: SA] is likewise on Jugge's edition of the New Testament, 1552, 4to. and there is reason to believe that Jugge employed this artist, as the same monogram appears on a cut of his device of the pelican. VI. In the German volume, the title of which is already given in the first article of the engravings from the Basle painting,[120] there are twenty-nine subjects belonging to the present work; the rest relating to the Basle dance, except two or three that are not in either of them. These have fallen into the hands of a modern bookseller, but there can be no doubt that there were other editions which contained the whole set. The most of them have the letters [monogram: G. S.] with the graving tool, and one has the date 1576. The name of this artist is unknown; but M. Bartsch has mentioned several other engravings by him, omitting, however, the present, which, it is to be observed, sometimes vary in design from the originals. VII. "Imagines Mortis illustratæ epigrammatis Georgii Æmylii theol. doctoris. Fraxineus Æmylio Suo. Criminis ut poenam mortem mors sustulit una: sic te immortalem mortis imago facit." With a cut of Death and the old man. This is the middle part only of a work, intitled "Libellus Davidis Chytræi de morte et vita æterna. Editio postrema; cui additæ sunt imagines mortis, illustrata Epigrammatis D. Georgio Æmylio, Witebergæ. Impressus à Matthæo Welack, anno MDXC." 12mo. The cuts, fifty-three in number, are, on the whole, tolerably faithful, but coarsely engraved. In the subject of the Pope the two Devils are omitted, and, in that of the Counsellor, the Demon blowing with a bellows into his ear is also wanting. Some have the mark [monogram: cross], and one that of [monogram: W] with a knife or graving tool. VIII. "Todtentanz durch alle stendt der menschen, &c. furgebildet mit figuren. S. Gallen, 1581." 4to. See Janssen, Essai sur l'origine de la gravure, i. 122, who seems to make them copies of the originals. IX. The last article in this list of the old copies, though prior in date to some of the preceding, is placed here as differing materially from them with respect to size. It is a small folio, with the following title, "Todtentantz, Das menschlichs leben anders nicht Dann nur ain lauff zum Tod Und Got ain nach seim glauben richt Dess findstu klaren tschaid O Mensch hicrinn mit andacht lisz Und fassz zu hertzen das So wirdsttu Ewigs hayls gewisz Kanst sterben dester bas. MDXLIIII. Desine longævos exposcere sedulus annos Inque bonis multos annumerare dies Atque hodie, fatale velit si rumpere filum Atropos, impavido pectore disce mori." At the end, "Gedruckt inn der kaiserlichen Reychstatt Augspurg durch Jobst Denecker Formschneyder." This edition is not only valuable for its extreme rarity, but for the very accurate and spirited manner in which the fine original cuts are copied. It contains all the subjects that were then published, but not arranged as those had been. It has the addition of one singular print, intitled "Der Eebrecher," _i. e._ the Adulterer, representing a man discovering the adulterer in bed with his wife, and plunging his sword through both of them, Death guiding his hands. On the opposite page to each engraving there is a dialogue between Death and the party, and at bottom a Latin hexameter. The subject of the Pleader has the unknown mark [monogram], and on that of the Duchess in bed, there is the date 1542. From the above colophon we are to infer that Dennecker, or as he is sometimes, and perhaps more properly, called De Necker or De Negher, was the engraver, as he is known to have executed many other engravings on wood, especially for Hans Schaufelin, with whom he was connected. He was also employed in the celebrated triumph of Maximilian, and in a collection of saints, to whom the family of that emperor was related. X. "Emblems of Mortality, representing, in upwards of fifty cuts, Death seizing all ranks and degrees of people, &c. Printed for T. Hodgson, in George's Court, St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell, 1789. 12mo." With an historical essay on the subject, and translations of the Latin verses in the Imagines Mortis, by John Sidney Hawkins, esq. The cuts were engraved by the brother of the celebrated Bewick, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and a pupil of Hodgson, who was an engraver on wood of some merit at that time. They are but indifferently executed, but would have been better had the artist been more liberally encouraged by the master, who was the publisher on his own account, Mr. Hawkins very kindly furnishing the letter-press. They are faithful copies of all the originals, except the first, which, containing a figure of the Deity habited as a Pope, was scrupulously exchanged for another design. A frontispiece is added, representing Death leading up all classes of men and women. XI. "The Dance of Death of the celebrated Hans Holbein, in a series of fifty-two engravings on wood by Mr. Bewick, with letter-press illustrations. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand Deaths: yet Death we fear, That makes these odds all even. SHAKSPEARE. London. William Charlton Wright." 12mo. With a frontispiece, partly copied from that in the preceding article, a common-place life of Holbein, and an introduction pillaged verbatim from an edition with Hollar's cuts, published by Mr. Edwards. The cuts, with two or three exceptions, are imitated from the originals, but all the human figures are ridiculously modernised. The text to the subjects is partly descriptions in prose, and partly Mr. Hawkins's verses, and the cuts, if Bewick's, very inferior to those in his other works. XII. "Emblems of Mortality, representing Death seizing all ranks and degrees of people. Imitated in a series of wood cuts from a painting in the cemetery of the Dominican church at Basil in Switzerland, with appropriate texts of scripture, and a poetical apostrophe to each, freely translated from the Latin and French. London. Printed for Whittingham and Arliss, juvenile library, Paternoster-row." 12mo. The frontispiece and the rest of the cuts, with two exceptions, from the same blocks as those used for the last-mentioned edition. The preface, with very slight variation, is abridged from that by Mr. Hawkins in No. VIII. and the descriptive verses altogether the same as those in that edition. Both the last articles seem intended for popular and juvenile use. It will be immediately perceived that the title page is erroneous in confounding the Basle Dance of Death with that in the volume itself. XIII. The last in this list is "Hans Holbein's Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den holtz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Herausgegeben von J. Schlotthauer, K. Professor. Mit erklärendem Texte. Munschen, 1832. Auf kosten des Herausgebers," 12mo. or, "Hans Holbein's Dance of Death in fifty-three lithographic leaves, faithfully taken from wood engravings. Published by J. Schlotthauer, royal professor, with explanatory text. Munich, 1832. At the cost of the editors." This work is executed in so beautiful and accurate a manner that it might easily be mistaken for the wood originals. The professor has substituted German verses, communicated by a friend, instead of the former Latin ones. He states that the subject will be taken up by Professor Massman, of Munich, whose work will satisfy all enquiries relating to it. Massman, however, has added to this volume a sort of explanatory appendix, in which some of the editions are mentioned. He thinks it possible that the cholera may excite the same attention to this work as the plague had formerly excited to the old Macaber Dance at Basle, and concludes with a promise to treat the subject more at large at some future time. COPIES OF THE SAME DESIGNS, ENGRAVED IN COPPER. I. "Todten Dantz durch alle stande und Beschlecht der Menschen, &c." _i. e._ "Death's Dance through all ranks and conditions of men." This title is on a frontispiece representing a gate of rustic architecture, at the top of which are two boy angels with emblems of mortality between them, and underneath are the three Fates. At the bottom, Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge, each holding the apple presented by the serpent. Between them is a circular table, on which are eight sculls of a Pope, Emperor, Cardinal, &c. with appropriate mottoes in Latin. On the outer edge of the table STATVTVM EST OMNIBVS HOMINIBVS SEMEL MORI POST HOC AVTEM IVDICIVM. In the centre the letters MVS, the terminating syllable of each motto. Before the gate are two pedestals, inscribed MEMENTO MORI and MEMORARE NOVISSIMA, on which stand figures of Death supporting two pyramids or obelisks surmounted with sculls and a cross, and inscribed ITER AD VITAM. Below, "Eberh. Kieser excudit." This frontispiece is a copy of a large print engraved on wood long before. Without date, in quarto. The work consists of sixty prints within borders of flowers, &c. in the execution of which two different and anonymous artists have been employed. At the top of each print is the name of the subject, accompanied with a passage from scripture, and at the bottom three couplets of German verses. Most of the subjects are copied from the completest editions of the Lyons cuts, with occasional slight variations. They are not placed in the same order, and all are reversed, except Nos. 57 and 60. No. 12 is not reversed, but very much altered, a sort of duplicate of the Miser. No. 50, the Jew, and No. 51, the Jewess, are entirely new. The latter is sitting at a table, on which is a heap of money, and Death appears to be giving effective directions to a demon to strangle her. No. 52 is also new. A castle within a hedge. Death enters one of the windows by a ladder, whilst a woman looks out of another.[121] The subject is from Jeremiah, ch. ix. v. 21. "Death is come up into our windows, &c." In the subject of the Pope, the two Devils are omitted. Two military groups of boys, newly designed, are added. The following are copies from Aldegrever, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11, and 12. At the beginning and end of the book there are moral poems in the German language. II. Another edition of the same cuts. The title-page of the copy here described is unfortunately lost. It has a dedication in Latin to three patricians of Frankfort on the Maine by Daniel Meisner à Commenthaw, Boh. Poet. L. C. dated, according to the Roman capitals, in a passage from Psalm 46, in the year 1623. This is followed by the Latin epigram, or address to the reader, by Geo. Æmylius, whose translations of the original French couplets are also given, as well as the originals themselves. These are printed on pages opposite to the subjects, but they are often very carelessly transposed. At the end the date 1623 is twice repeated by means of the Roman capitals in two verses from Psalms 78 and 63, the one German, the other Latin. 12mo. III. "Icones Mortis sexaginta imaginibus totidemque inscriptionibus insignitæ, versibus quoque Latinis et novis Germanicis illustratæ. Vorbildungen desz Todtes. In sechtzig figuren durch alle Stande und Geschlechte, derselbigen nichtige Sterblichkeit furzuweisen, aus gebruckt, und mit so viel ubors schriffren, auch Lateinischen und neuen Teutschen Verszlein erklaret. Durch Johann Vogel. Bey Paulus Fursten Kunsthandlern zu finden." On the back of this printed title is an engraving of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a pair of scales, in one of which is a scull, in the other a Papal tiara, sceptre, &c. weighing down the scull. On the beam of the scales an hour glass and an open book with Arabic numerals. In the distance, at bottom, is seen a traveller reposing in a shed. Above is a label, inscribed "Metas et tempora libro," and below, "Ich Wage ziel und zeitten ab." Then follows a neatly engraved and regular title-page. At top, a winged scull surmounted with an hour-glass, and crossed with a spade and scythe. At bottom, three figures of Death sitting on the ground; one of them plays on a hautboy, or trumpet, another on a bagpipe, and the third has a drum behind him. The middle exhibits a circular Dance of Death leading by the hand persons of all ranks from the Emperor downwards. In the centre of this circle "Toden Tantz zu finden bey Paulus Furst Kunst handlern," and quite at the bottom of the page, "G. Stra. in. A. Khol fecit." Next comes an exhortation on Death to the reader in Latin verse, followed by several poems in German and Latin, those in German signed G. P. H. Immediately afterwards, and before the first cut of the work is another elegantly engraved frontispiece representing an arched gate of stone surmounted with three sculls of a Pope, a Cardinal, and a King, between a vase of flowers on the right, and a pot of incense, a cock standing near it, on the left. On the keystone of the gate are two tilting lances in saltier, to which a shield and helmet are suspended. Through the arch is seen a chamber, in which there seems to be a bier, and near it a cross. On the left of the gate is a niche with a scull and bones in it. Below are two large figures of Death. That on the left has a wreath of flowers round its head, and is beating a bell with a bone. Under him is an owl, and on the side of his left knee a scythe. The other Death has a cap and feather, in his right hand an hour-glass, the left pointing to the opposite figure. On the ground between them, a bow, a quiver of arrows and a dart. On the left inner side of the gate a pot with holy water is suspended to a ring, the sprinkler being a bone. Further on, within the gate, is a flat stone, on which are several sculls and bones, a snake biting one of the sculls. On the right hand corner at bottom is the letter [monogram: A], perhaps the mark of the unknown engraver. The explanations on the pages opposite to each print are in German and Latin verses, the latter by Æmylius, with occasional variations. This edition has the sixty prints in the two preceding Nos. some of them having been retouched; and the cut of the King at table, No. 9, is by a different engraver from the artist of the same No. in the preceding 4to. edition, No. I. The present edition has also an additional engraving at the end, representing a gate, within which are seen several sculls and bones, other sculls in a niche, and in the distance a cemetery with coffins and crosses. Over the gate a scull on each side, and on the outer edge of the arch is the inscription, "Quis Rex, quis subditus hic est?" At bottom, Hie sage wer es sagen kan | Here let tell who may: Wer konig sey? wer unterthan. | Or, which be the king? which the subject? Paulus Furst Excu. The whole of the print in a border of sculls, bones, snakes, toads, and a lizard. Opposite to it the date 1647 is to be gathered from the Roman capitals in two scriptural quotations, the one in Latin, the other in German, ending with this colophon, "Gedrucht zu Nuremberg durch Christoff Lochner. In Verlegung Paul Fursten Kunsthandlern allda." 12mo. IV. A set of engravings, 8 inches by 8, of which the subject of the Pedlar, only has occurred on the present occasion. Instead of the trump-marine, which one of the Deaths plays on in the original cut, this artist has substituted a violin, and added a landscape in the back-ground. Below are these verses: LA MORT. Sus? cesse ton traficq, car il fault à ceste heure Que tu sente l'effort de mon dard asseré. Tu as assez vescu, il est temps que tu meure, Mon coup inevitable est pour toy preparé. LE MARCHANT. Et de grace pardon, arreste ta cholere. Je suis pauvre marchant appaise ta rigueur. Permete qu'encore un temps je vive en ceste terre: Et puis tu recevras l'offrande de mon coeur. V. A set of thirty etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar, within elegant frames or borders designed by Diepenbecke, of which there are three varieties. The first of these has at the top a coffin with tapers, at bottom, Death lying prostrate. The sides have figures of time and eternity. At bottom, _Ab. Diepenbecke inv. W. Hollar fecit_. The second has at top a Death's head crowned with the Papal tiara; at bottom, a Death's head with cross-bones on a tablet, accompanied by a saw, a globe, armour, a gun, a drum, &c. On the sides are Hercules and Minerva. At bottom, _Ab. Diepenbecke inv. W. Hollar fecit, 1651_. The third has at top a Death's head, an hour-glass winged between two boys; at bottom, a Death's head and cross-bones on a tablet between two boys holding hour-glasses. On the sides, Democritus and Heraclitus with fools' caps. This border has no inscription below. As these etchings are not numbered, the original arrangement of them cannot be ascertained. The names of Diepenbecke and Hollar are at the bottom of several of the borders, &c. On the subject of the Queen is the mark [monogram: UH] and on three others that of [monogram: WH]. This is the first and most desirable state of the work, the borders having afterwards fallen into the hands of Petau and Van Morle, two foreign printsellers, whose impressions are very inferior. It has not been ascertained what became of these elegant additions, but the work afterwards appeared without them, and with the additional mark [monogram: HB] _i._ on every print, and intended for Holbein invenit. It is very certain that Hollar himself did not place this mark on the prints; he has never introduced it in any of his copies from Holbein, always expressing that painter's name in these several ways: [monogram: HH], [monogram: HHolbein] _inv._ [monogram: HHolbein] _pinxit_, H. HOLBEIN inv. H. HOLBEIN inventor. On one of his portraits from the Arundel collection he has placed "[monogram: HHolbein] _incidit in lignum_." No copy, however, of this portrait has occurred in wood, and, if this be only a conjecture on the part of the engraver, the distance of time between the respective artists is an objection to its validity, though it is possible that Holbein might have engraved on wood, because there are prints which have all the appearance of belonging to him, that have his usual mark, accompanied by an engraving tool. There is no text to these etchings, except the Latin scriptural passages under each, that occur in the original editions in that language. As a sort of frontispiece to the work, Hollar has transferred the last cut of the allegorical shield of arms, supported by a lady and gentleman, to the beginning, with the appropriate title of MORTALIVM NOBILITAS. The other subjects are, 1. Adam and Eve in Paradise. 2. Their expulsion from Paradise. 3. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 4. The Pope. 5. The Emperor. 6. The Empress. 7. The Queen. 8. The Cardinal. 9. The Duke. 10. The Bishop. 11. The Nobleman. 12. The Abbot. 13. The Abbess. 14. The Friar. 15. The Nun. 16. The Preacher. 17. The Physician. 18. The Soldier, or Warrior. 19. The Advocate. 20. The Married Couple. 21. The Duchess. 22. The Merchant. 23. The Pedlar. 24. The Miser. 25. The Waggoner with wine casks. 26. The Gamesters. 27. The Old Man. 28. The Old Woman. 29. The Infant. Of these, Nos. 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 23, 27, and 28, correspond with the Lyons wood-cuts, except that in No. 1 a stag is omitted, and there are some variations; in No. 6, the windows of the palace are altered; in No. 13, a window is added to the house next to the nunnery; and in No. 9, a figure is introduced, and the ducal palace much altered; in No. 23, a sword is omitted. They are all reverses, except No. 5. The rest of the subjects are reversed, with one exception, from the copies by [monogram: SA] in the spurious edition first printed at Cologne in 1555, with occasional very slight variations. Hollar's copies from the original cuts are in a small degree less both in width and depth. In the subject of Death and the Soldier he has not shown his judgment in making use of the spurious edition rather than the far more elegant and interesting original,[122] and it is remarkable that this is the only print belonging to the spurious ones that is not reversed. It is very probable that Hollar executed this work at Antwerp, where, at the time of its date, he might have found Diepenbecke and engaged him to make designs for the borders which are etched on separate plates, thus supplying passe-par-touts that might be used at discretion. Many sets appear without the borders, which seem to have strayed, and perhaps to have been afterwards lost or destroyed. As Rubens is recorded to have admired the beauty of the original cuts, so it is to be supposed that Diepenbecke, his pupil, would entertain the same opinion of them, and that he might have suggested to Hollar the making etchings of them, undertaking himself to furnish appropriate borders. But how shall we account for the introduction of so many of the spurious and inferior designs, if he had the means of using the originals? Many books were formerly excessively rare, which, from peculiar circumstances, not necessary to be here detailed, but well known to bibliographers and collectors, have since become comparatively common. Hollar might not have had an opportunity of meeting with a perfect copy of the original cuts, or he might, in some way or other, have been impeded in the use of them, when executing his work, and thus have been driven to the necessity of pursuing it by means of the spurious edition. These, however, are but conjectures, and it remains for every one to adopt his own opinion. The copper-plates of the above thirty etchings appear to have fallen into the hands of an English noble family, from which the late Mr. James Edwards, a bookseller of well merited celebrity, obtained them, and about the year 1794 caused many impressions to be taken off after they had been _rebitten_ with great care, so as to prevent that injury, with respect to outline, which usually takes place where etchings or engravings upon copper are _retouched_. Previously to this event good impressions must have been extremely rare, at least on the continent, as they are not found in the very rich collections of Winckler or Brandes, nor are they mentioned by the foreign writers on engraving. To Mr. Edwards's publication of Hollar's prints there was prefixed a short dissertation on the Dance of Death, which is here again submitted to public attention in a considerably enlarged form, and corrected from the errors and imperfections into which its author had been misled by preceding writers on the subject, and by the paucity of the materials which he was then able to obtain. This edition was reprinted verbatim, and with the same etchings, in 1816, for J. Coxhead, in Holywell Street, Strand, but without any mention of the former, and accompanied with the addition of a brief memoir of Holbein. It is most likely that Hollar, having discovered the error which he had committed in copying the spurious engravings before-mentioned, and subsequently procured a set of genuine impressions, resolved to make another set of etchings from the original work, four only of which he appears to have executed, his death probably taking place before they could be completed. These are, 1. The Pope crowning the Emperor, with "Moriatur sacerdos magnus." 2. The rich man disregarding the beggar, with "Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, &c." and the four Latin lines, "Consulitis, dites, &c." at bottom, as in the original. It is beautifully and most faithfully copied, with [monogram: HHolbein] _inv. Hollar fecit_. 3. The Ploughman, with "In sudore vultus, &c." 4. The Robber, with "Domine vim patior." In Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, and also in the Monasticon, there is a single etching by Hollar of Death leading all ranks of people. It is only an improved copy of an old wood-cut in Lydgate's works, already mentioned in p. 52, and which is altogether imaginary, not being taken from any real series of the Dance. VI. "Varii e veri ritratte della morte disegnati in immagini, ed espressi in Essempii al peccatore duro di cuore, dal padre Gio. Battista Marmi della compagnia de Giesu." Venetia, 1669, 8vo. It has several engravings, among which are the following, after the original designs. 1. Queen. 2. Nobleman. 3. Merchant. 4. Gamblers. 5. Physician. 6. Miser. The last five being close copies from the same subjects, in the Basle edit. 1769, No. V. of the copies in wood. VII. "Theatrum mortis humanæ tripartitum. I. Pars. Saltum Mortis. II. Pars. Varia genera Mortis. III. Pars. Pænas Damnatorum continens, cum figuris æneis illustratum." Then the same repeated in German, with the addition "Durch Joannem Weichardum Valvasor. Lib. Bar. cum facultate superiorum, et speciali privilegio Sac. Cæs. Majest. Gedrucht zu Laybach, und zu finden ben Johann Baptista Mayr, in Saltzburg. Anno 1682. 4to." Prefixed is an engraved frontispiece representing a ruined arch, under which is a coffin, and before it the King of Terrors between two other figures of Death mounted respectively on an elephant and camel. In the foreground, Adam and Eve, tied to the forbidden tree of knowledge, between several other Deaths variously employed. Two men digging graves, &c. Underneath, "[monogram: W.] inven. [monogram: W.] excud. Jo. Koch del. And. Trost sculp. Wagenpurgi in Carniola." It is the first part only with which we are concerned. The artist, with very little exception, has followed and reversed the spurious wood-cuts of 1555, by [monogram: SA]. To the groups of boys he has added a Death leading them on. VIII. "De Doodt vermaskert met des werelts ydelheyt afghedaen door Geeraerdt Van Wolschaten." This is another edition of No. IX. of the original wood-cuts, here engraved on _copper_. The text is the same as that of 1654, with the addition of seven leaves, including a cut of Death leading all ranks of men. In that of the Pedler the artist has introduced some figures in the distance of the original _soldier_. Among other variations the costume of the time of William III. is sometimes very ludicrously adopted, especially in the frontispiece, where the author is represented writing at a desk, and near him two figures of a man in a full bottom wig, and a woman with a mask and a perpendicular cap in several stories, usually called a _Fontange_, both having skeleton faces. At bottom, the mark [monogram: L B.f.]. This edition was printed at Antwerp by Jan Baptist Jacobs, without date, but the privilege has that of 1698. 12mo. IX. "Imagines Mortis, or the Dead Dance of Hans Holbeyn, painter of King Henry the VIII." This title is on a copper-plate within a border, and accompanied with nineteen etchings on copper, by Nieuhoff Piccard, a person who will be more particularly adverted to hereafter. They consist of, 1. The emblem of Mortality. 2. The temptation. 3. The expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. Concert of Deaths. 6. The Infant. 7. The new married couple. 8. The Duke. 9. The Advocate. 10. The Abbot. 11. The Monk. 12. The Abbess. 13. The Soldier. 14. The Merchant. 15. The Pedler. 16. The Fool. 17. The Blind Man. 18. The Old Woman. 19. The Old Man. The designs, with some occasional variations, correspond with those in the original wood-cuts. The plates of these etchings must have passed into the hands of some English printsellers, as broken sets of them have not long since been seen, one only of which, namely, that of the Temptation, had these lines on it: "All that e'er had breath Must dance after Death." with the date 1720. Several were then numbered at bottom with Arabic numerals. X. "Schau-platz des Todes, oder Todten Tanz, von Sal. Van Rusting Med. Doct. in Nieder-Teutscher-Spracke nun aber in Hoch Teutscher mit nothigen Anmerchungen heraus gegeben von Johann Georg. Meintel Hochfurstl Brandenburg-Onoltzbachischen pfarrer zu Petersaurach." Nurnberg, 1736. 8vo. Or, "The Theatre of Death, or Dance of Death, by Sol. Van Rusting, doctor of medicine, in Low German language, but now in High German, with necessary notes by John George Meintel in the service of his Serene Highness of Brandenburg, and parson of Petersaurach." It is said to have been originally published in 1707, which is very probable, as Rusting, of whom very little is recorded, was born about 1650. In the early part of his life he practised as an army surgeon. He was a great admirer and follower of the doctrines of Balthasar Bekker in his "Monde enchanté." There are editions in Dutch only, 1735 and 1741. 12mo. the plates being copies. In the above-mentioned edition by Meintel there is an elaborate preface, with some account of the Dance of Death, and its editions, but replete with the grossest errors, into which he has been misled by Hilscher, and some other writers. His text is accompanied with a profusion of notes altogether of a pious and moral nature. Rusting's work consists of thirty neat engravings, of which the following are copied from the Lyons wood-cuts. 1. The King, much varied. 2. The Astrologer. 3. The Soldier. 4. The Monk. 5. The Old Man. 6. The Pedler. The rest are, on the whole, original designs, yet with occasional hints from the Lyons cuts; the best of them are, the Masquerade, the Rope-dancer, and the Skaiters. The frontispiece is in two compartments; the upper one, Death crowned, sitting on a throne, on each side of him a Death trumpeter; the lower, a fantastic Dance of seven Deaths, near a crowned skeleton lying on a couch. XI. "Le triomphe de la Mort." A Basle, 1780, folio. This is the first part of a collection of the works of Hans Holbein, engraved and published by M. Chretien de Mechel, a celebrated artist, and formerly a printseller in the above city. It has a dedication to George III. followed by explanations in French of the subjects, in number 46, and in the following order; No. 1. A Frontispiece, representing a tablet of stone, on one side of which Holbein appears behind a curtain, which is drawn aside by Death in order to exhibit to him the grand spectacle of the scenes of human life which he is intended to paint; this is further designated by a heap of the attributes of greatness, dignities, wealth, arts, and sciences, intermixed with Deaths' heads, all of which are trampled under foot by Death himself. At bottom, Lucan's line, "Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat." The tablet is surmounted by a medallion of Holbein, supported by two genii, one of whom decorates the portrait with flowers, whilst another lets loose a butterfly, and a third is employed in blowing bubbles. On the tablet itself is a second title, "Le triomphe de la mort, gravé d'apres les dessins originaux de Jean Holbein par Chr{n}. de Mechel, graveur à Basle, MDCCLXXX." This frontispiece has been purposely inverted for the present work. The other subjects are: No. 2. The Temptation. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. The Pope. 6. The Cardinal. 7. The Duke. 8. The Bishop. 9. The Canon. 10. The Monk. 11. The Abbot. 12. The Abbess. 13. The Preacher. 14. The Priest. 15. The Physician. 16. The Astrologer. 17. The Emperor. 18. The King. 19. The Empress. 20. The Queen. 21. The Duchess. 22. The Countess. 23. The New-married Couple. 24. The Nun. 25. The Nobleman. 26. The Knight. 27. The Gentleman. 28. The Soldier. 29. The Judge. 30. The Counsellor. 31. The Advocate. 32. The Merchant. 33. The Pedler. 34. The Shipwreck. 35. The Wine-carrier. 36. The Plowman. 37. The Miser. 38. The Robber. 39. The Drunkard. 40. The Gamblers. 41. The Old Man. 42. The Old Woman. 45. The Blind Man. 44. The Beggar. 45. The Infant. 46. The Fool. M. Mechel has added another print on this subject, viz. the sheath of a dagger, a design for a chaser. It is impossible to exceed the beauty and skill that are manifested in this fine piece of art. The figures are, a king, queen, warrior, a young woman, a monk, and an infant, all of whom most unwillingly accompany Death in the dance. The despair of the king, the dejection of the queen, accompanied by her little dog, the terror of the soldier who hears the drum of Death, the struggling of the female, the reluctance of the monk, and the sorrow of the poor infant, are depicted with equal spirit and veracity. The original drawing is in the public library at Basle, and ascribed to Holbein. There is a general agreement between these engravings and the original wood-cuts. Twenty-three are reversed. In No. 13 the jaw-bone in the hand of Death is not distinct. In No. 16 a cross is added, and in No. 17 two heads. Mr. Coxe, in his Travels in Switzerland, has given some account of the drawings copied as above by M. de Mechel, in whose possession he saw them. He states that they were sketched with a pen, and slightly shaded with Indian ink. He mentions M. de Mechel's conjecture that they were once in the Arundel collection, and infers from thence that they were copied by Hollar, which, however, from what has been already stated on the subject of Hollar's print of the Soldier and Death, as well as from other variations, could not have been the case. Mr. Coxe proceeds to say that four of the subjects in M. de Mechel's work are not in the drawings, but were copied from Hollar. It were to be wished that he had specified them. The particulars that follow were obtained by the compiler of the present dissertation from M. de Mechel himself when he was in London. He had not been able to trace the drawings previously to their falling into the hands of M. de Crozat,[123] at whose sale, about 1771, they were purchased by Counsellor Fleischmann of Strasburg, and M. de Mechel having very emphatically expressed his admiration of them whilst they were in the possession of M. Fleischmann, that gentleman very generously offered them as a present to him. M. de Mechel, however, declined the offer, but requested they might be deposited in the public library at Basle, among other precious remains of Holbein's art. This arrangement, however, did not take place, and it happened in the mean time that two nephews of Prince Gallitzin, minister from Russia to the court of Vienna, having occasion to visit M. Fleischmann, then much advanced in years, and his memory much impaired, prevailed on him to concede the drawings to their uncle, who, on learning from M. de Mechel what had originally passed between himself and M. Fleischmann, sent the drawings to him, with permission to engrave and publish them, which was accordingly done, after they had been detained two years for that purpose. They afterwards passed into the Emperor of Russia's collection of fine arts at Petersburg. It were greatly to be wished that some person qualified like Mr. Ottley, if such a one can be found, would take the trouble to enter on a critical examination of these drawings in their present state, with a view to ascertain, as nearly as possible, whether they carry indisputable marks of Holbein's art and manner of execution, or whether, as may well be suspected, they are nothing more than copies, either by himself or some other person, from the original wood engravings. M. de Mechel had begun this work in 1771, when he had engraved the first four subjects, including a frontispiece totally different from that in the volume here described. There are likewise variations in the other three. He was extremely solicitous that these should be cancelled. XII. David Deuchar, sometimes called the Scottish Worlidge, who has etched many prints after Ostade and the Dutch masters, published a set of etchings by himself, with the following printed title: "The Dances of Death through the various stages of human life, wherein the capriciousness of that tyrant is exhibited in forty-six copper-plates, done from the original designs, which were cut in wood and afterwards painted by John Holbein in the town house at Basle, to which is prefixed descriptions of each plate in French and English, with the scripture text from which the designs were taken. Edinburgh, MDCCLXXXVIII." Before this most inaccurate title are two engraved leaves, on one of which is Deuchar's portrait, in a medallion, supported by Adam and Eve holding the forbidden fruit. Over the medallion, the three Fates, the whole within an arch before a pediment. On each side, a plain column, supporting a pyramid, &c. On the other leaf a copy of the engraved title to M. de Mechel's work with the substitution of Deuchar's name. After the printed title is a portrait, as may be supposed, of Holbein, within a border containing six ovals of various subjects, and a short preface or account of that artist, but accompanied with some very inaccurate statements. The subjects are inclosed, like Hollar's, within four different borders, separately engraved, three of them borrowed, with a slight variation in one, from Diepenbeke, the fourth being probably Deuchar's invention. The etchings of the Dance of Death are forty-six in number, accompanied with De Mechel's description and English translation. At the end is the emblematical print of mortality, but not described, with the dagger sheath, copied from De Mechel. Thirty of these etchings are immediately copied from Hollar, No. X. having the distance altered. The rest are taken from the spurious wood copies of the originals by [monogram: SA] with variation in No. XVIII.; and in No. XXXIX. and XLIII. Deuchar has introduced winged hour-glasses. These etchings are very inferior to those by Hollar. The head of Eve in No. III. resembles that of a periwigged Frenchman of the time of Louis XIV. but many of the subjects are very superior to others, and intitled to much commendation. XIII. The last in this list is "Der Todtentanz ein gedicht von Ludwig Bechstein mit 48 kupfern in treuen Conturen nach H. Holbein. Leipzig. 1831," 12mo.; or, "Death's Dance, a poem by Ludwig Bechstein, with forty-eight engravings in faithful outlines from H. Holbein." These very elegant etchings are by Frenzel, inspector of the gallery of engravings of the King of Saxony at Dresden. The poem, which is an epic one, relates entirely to the power of Death over mankind. It is necessary to mention that the artist who made the designs for the Lyons Dance of Death is not altogether original with respect to a few of them. Thus, in the subject of Adam digging and Eve spinning, he has partly copied an ancient wood engraving that occurs in some of the Horæ printed by Francis Regnault at Paris. In the subject of the Queen, and on that of the Duke and Duchess, he has made some use of those of Death and the Fool, and Death and the Hermit, in the old Dance at Basle. On the other hand, he has been imitated, 1. in "La Periere Theatre des bons engins. 1561." 24mo. where the rich man bribing the judge is introduced at fo. 66. 2. The figure of the Swiss gentleman in "Recueil de la diversité des habits." Paris, 1567. 12mo. is copied from the last print in the Lyons book. 3. From the same print the Death's head has been introduced in an old wood engraving, that will be more particularly described hereafter. 4. Brebiette, in a small etching on copper, has copied the Lyons plowman. 5. Mr. Dance, in his painting of Garrick, has evidently made use of the gentleman who lifts up his sword against Death. The copies of the portrait of Francis I. have been already noticed. CHAPTER IX. _Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.--Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death at Whitehall by him._ It may be necessary in the next place to make some further enquiry respecting the connection that Holbein is supposed to have had _at any time_ with the subject of the Dance of Death. The numerous errors that have been fallen into in making Holbein a participator in any manner whatever with the old Basle Macaber Dance, have been already noticed, and are indeed not worth the trouble of refuting. It is wholly improbable that he would interfere with so rude a piece of art; nor has his name been recorded among the artists who are known to have retouched or repaired it. The Macaber Dance at Basle, or any where else, is, therefore, with respect to Holbein, to be altogether laid aside; and if the argument before deduced from the important dedication to the edition of the justly celebrated wood-cuts published at Lyons in 1538 be of any value, his claim to their invention, at least to those in the first edition, must also be rejected.[124] There is indeed but very slight evidence, and none contemporary, that he painted any Dance of Death at Basle. The indefinite statements of Bishop Burnet and M. Patin, together with those of the numerous and careless travellers who have followed blind leaders, and too often copied each other without the means or inclination of obtaining correct information, are deserving of very little attention. The circumstance of Holbein's having painted a Dance of Peasants somewhere in the above city, in conjunction with the usual mistake of ascribing to him the old Macaber Dance, seems to have occasioned the above erroneous statements as to a Dance of Death by his pencil. It is hardly possible that Zuinger, almost a contemporary, when describing the Dance of Peasants and other paintings by Holbein at Basle would have omitted the mention of any Dance of Death:[125] but even admitting the former existence of such a painting, it would not constitute him the inventor of the designs in the Lyons work. He might have imitated or copied those designs, or the wood-cuts themselves, or perhaps have painted subjects that were different from either. We are now to take into consideration some very clear and important evidence that Holbein actually _did paint a Dance of Death_. This is to be found in the _Nugæ_ of Borbonius in the following verses: _De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili._ Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginum exprimit, Tanta arte mortem retulit, ut mors vivere Videatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibus Parem Diis fecerit, operis hujus gloria.[126] It has been already demonstrated that these lines could not refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at the Dominican convent, whilst, from the important dedication to the edition of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in 1538, it is next to impossible that that work could then have been in Borbonius's contemplation. It appears from several places in his Nugæ that he was in England in 1535, at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a manner as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copy of verses.[127] This was probably the chalk drawing still preserved in the fine collection of portraits of the eminent persons in the court of Henry VIII. formerly at Kensington, and thence removed to Buckingham House, and which has been copied in an elegant wood-cut, that first appeared in the edition of the Paidagogeion of Borbonius, Lyons, 1536, and afterward in two editions of his Nugæ. It is inscribed NIC. BORBONIVS VANDOP. ANNO ÆTATIS XXXII. 1535. He returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he was there in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentary lines in Holbein's Biblical designs a short time before their publication, either out of friendship to the painter, or at the instance of the Lyons publisher with whom he was certainly connected. Now if Borbonius, during his residence at Lyons, had been assured that the designs in the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death were the production of Holbein, would not his before-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewise introduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least into some subsequent editions, in none of which is any mention whatever made of Holbein, although the work was continued even after the death of that artist? The application, therefore, of Borbonius's lines must be sought for elsewhere; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has not adverted to the place where the painting, as he seems to call it, was made. Very soon after the calamitous fire at Whitehall in 1697, which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William the Third, and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist, made the etchings in the article IX. already described in p. 130. Copies of them were presented to some of his friends, with manuscript dedications to them. Three of these copies have been seen by the author of this Dissertation, and as the dedications differ from each other, and are of very considerable importance on the present occasion, the following extracts from them are here translated and transcribed: "TO MYNHEER HEYMANS. "Sir,--The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII. contains, among other performances of art, a _Dance of Death_, painted by Holbein in its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been reduced to ashes; and even the little work which he has engraved with his own hand, and which I have copied as near as possible, is so scarce, that it is known only to a few lovers of art. And since the court has thought proper, in consideration of your singular deserts, to cause a dwelling to be built for you at Whitehall, I imagined it would not be disagreeable to you to be made acquainted with the former decorations of that palace. It will not appear strange that the artist should have chosen the above subject for ornamenting the _royal_ walls, if we consider that the founder of the Greek monarchy directed that he should be daily reminded of the admonition, 'Remember, Philip, that thou art a man.' In like manner did Holbein with his pencil give tongues to these walls to impress not only the king and his court, but every one who viewed them with the same reflection." He then proceeds to describe each of the subjects, and concludes with some moral observations. In another copy of these etchings the dedication is to "The high, noble, and wellborn Lord William Benting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendreght, &c." "Sir,--In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art, it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans Holbein neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself had painted as large as life in fresco on the walls of Whitehall. In the copy which I presume to lay before you, as being born in the same palace, I have followed the original as nearly as possible, and considering the partiality which every one has for the place of his birth, a description of what is remarkable and curious therein and now no longer existing on account of its destruction by a fatal fire, must needs prove acceptable, as no other remains whatever have been left of that once so famous court of King Henry VIII. built by Cardinal Wolsey, than your own dwelling." He then repeats the story of Philip of Macedon, and the account of the subjects of his etchings. At the end of this dedication there is a fragment of another, the beginning of which is lost. The following passages only in it are worthy of notice. "The residence of King William." "I flatter myself with a familiar acquaintance with Death, since I have already lived long enough to seem to be buried alive, &c." In other respects, the same, in substance, as the preceding. It is almost needless to advert to M. Nieuhoff Piccard's mistake in asserting that Holbein made the engravings which he copied; but it would have been of some importance if, instead of his pious ejaculations, he had described all the subjects that Holbein painted on the walls of the galleries at Whitehall. He must have used some edition of the wood-cuts posterior to that of 1545, which did not contain the subjects of the German soldier, the fool, and the blind man, all of which he has introduced. It is possible, however, that he has given us all the subjects that were then remaining, the rest having become decayed or obliterated from dampness and neglect, and even those which then existed would soon afterwards perish when the remains of the old palace were removed. His copies are by no means faithful, and seem to be rather the production of an amateur than of a regular artist. For his greater convenience, he appears to have preferred using the wood engravings instead of the paintings; and it is greatly to be regretted that we have no better or further account of them, especially of the time at which they were executed. The lives of Holbein that we possess are uniformly defective in chronological arrangement. There seems to be a doubt whether the Earl of Arundel recommended him to visit England; but certain it is that in the year 1526 he came to London with a letter of that date addressed by Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, accompanied with his portrait, with which More was so well satisfied that he retained him at his house at Chelsea upwards of two years, until Henry VIII. from admiration of his works, appointed him his painter, with apartments at Whitehall. In 1529 he visited Basle, but returned to England in 1530. In 1535 he drew the portrait of his friend Nicholas Bourbon or Borbonius at London, probably the before-mentioned crayon drawing at Buckingham House, or some duplicate of it. In 1538 he painted the portrait of Sir Richard Southwell, a privy counsellor to Henry VIII. which was afterwards in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.[128] About this time the magistrates of the city of Basle settled an annuity on him, but conditionally that he should return in two years to his native place and family, with which terms he certainly did not comply, preferring to remain in England. In the last-mentioned year he was sent by the king into Burgundy to paint the portrait of the Duchess of Milan, and in 1539 to Germany to paint that of Anne of Cleves. In some household accounts of Henry VIII. there are payments to him in 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541, on account of his salary, which appears to have been thirty pounds per annum.[129] From this time little more is recorded of him till 1553, when he painted Queen Mary's portrait, and shortly afterwards died of the plague in London in 1554. In the absence of positive evidence it may surely be allowed to substitute probable conjecture; and as it cannot be clearly proved that Holbein painted a Dance of Death at Basle, may not the before-mentioned verses of Borbonius refer to his painting at Whitehall, and which the poet must himself have seen? It is no objection that Borbonius remained a year only in England, when his portrait was painted by his friend Holbein in 1535, or that the verses did not make their appearance till 1538, for they seem rather to fix the date of the painting, if really belonging to it, between those years; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that Borbonius would hold some intercourse with the painter, even after leaving England, as is indeed apparent from other compliments bestowed on him in his Nugæ, the contents of which are by no means chronologically arranged, and many of the poems known to have been written long before their publication. The lines in question might have been written any where, and at any time, and this may be very safely stated until the real time in which the Whitehall painting was made shall be ascertained. In one of Vanderdort's manuscript catalogues of the pictures and rarities transported from St. James's to Whitehall, and placed there in the newly erected cabinet room of Charles I. and in which several works by Holbein are mentioned, there is the following article: "A little piece where Death with a green garland about his head, stretching both his arms to apprehend a Pilate in the habit of one of the spiritual Prince Electors of Germany. Copied by Isaac Oliver from Holbein."[130] There cannot be a doubt that this refers to the subject of the Elector, as painted by Holbein in the Dance of Death at Whitehall, proving at the same time the identity of the painting with the wood-cuts, whatever may be the inference. Sandrart, after noticing a remarkable portrait of Henry VIII. at Whitehall, states, that "there yet remains in that palace _another work_ by Holbein that constitutes him the Apelles of the time."[131] This is certainly very like an allusion to a Dance of Death. It is by no means improbable that Mathew Prior may have alluded to Holbein's painting at Whitehall, as it is not likely that he would be acquainted with any other. Our term of life depends not on our deed, Before our birth our funeral was decreed, Nor aw'd by foresight, nor misled by chance, Imperious death directs the ebon lance, Peoples great Henry's tombs, and leads up Holbein's Dance. _Ode to the Memory of George Villiers._ CHAPTER X. _Other Dances of Death._ Having thus disposed of the two most ancient and important works on the subject in question, others of a similar nature, but with designs altogether different, and introduced into various books, remain to be noticed, and such are the following: I. "Les loups ravissans fait et composé par maistre Robert Gobin prestre, maistre es ars licencie en decret, doyen de crestienté de Laigny sur Marne au dyocese de Paris, advocat en court d'eglise. Imprimé pour Anthoine Verard a Paris, 4to." without date, but about 1500. This is a very bitter satire, in the form of a dream, against the clergy in general, but more particularly against Popes John XXII. and Boniface VIII. A wolf, in a lecture to his children, instructs them in every kind of vice and wickedness, but is opposed, and his doctrines refuted, by an allegorical personage called Holy Doctrine. In a second vision Death appears to the author, accompanied by Fate, War, Famine, and Mortality. All classes of society are formed into a Dance, as the author chooses to call it, and the work is accompanied with twenty-one very singular engravings on wood, executed in a style perhaps nowhere else to be met with. The designs are the same as those in the second Dance of the Horæ, printed by Higman for Vostre, No. I. page 61. II. "A booke of Christian prayers, collected out of the ancient writers, &c." Printed by J. Day, 1569. 4to. Afterwards in 1578, 1581, 1590, and 1609. It is more frequently mentioned under the title of "Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book," a most unsuitable title, when it is recollected how sharply this haughty dame rebuked the Dean of Christchurch for presenting a common prayer to her which had been purposely ornamented with cuts by him.[132] This book was most probably compiled by the celebrated John Fox, and is accompanied with elegant borders in the margins of every leaf cut in wood by an unknown artist whose mark is [monogram: CI], though they have been most unwarrantably ascribed to Holbein, and even to Agnes Frey, the wife of Albert Durer, who is not known with any certainty to have practised the art of engraving. At the end is a Dance of Death different from every other of the kind, and of singular interest, as exhibiting the costume of its time with respect to all ranks and conditions of life, male and female. These are the characters. "The Emperor, the King, the Duke, the Marques, the Baron, the Vicount, the Archbishop, the Bishop, the Doctor, the Preacher, the Lord, the Knight, the Esquire, the Gentleman, the Judge, the Justice, the Serjeant at law, the Attorney, the Mayor, the Shirife, the Bailife, the Constable, the Physitian, the Astronomer, the Herauld, the Sergeant at arms, the Trumpetter, the Pursevant, the Dromme, the Fife, the Captaine, the Souldier, the Marchant, the Citizen, the Printers (in two compartments), the Rich Man, the Aged Man, the Artificer, the Husbandman, the Musicians (in two compartments), the Shepheard, the Foole, the Beggar, the Roge, of Youth, of Infancie." Then the females. "The Empresse, the Queene, the Princes, the Duchesse, the Countesse, the Vicountesse, the Baronnesse, the Lady, the Judge's Wife, the Lawyer's Wife, the Gentlewoman, the Alderman's Wife, the Marchantes Wife, the Citizen's Wife, the Rich Man's Wife, the Young Woman, the Mayde, the Damosell, the Farmar's Wife, the Husbandman's Wife, the Countriwoman, the Nurse, the Shepheard's Wife, the Aged Woman, the Creeple, the Poore Woman, the Infant, the (female) Foole." All these are designed in a masterly manner, and delicately engraved. The figures of the Deaths occasionally abound in much humour, and always with appropriate characters. The names of the unknown artists were worthy of being recorded. III. "Icones mortis, sexaginta imaginibus totidemque inscriptionibus insignitæ versibus quoque Latinis et novis Germanicis illustratæ. Norimbergæ Christ. Lockner, 1648, 8vo."[133] IV. "Rudolph Meyers S: Todten dantz ergantz et und heraus gegeben durch Conrad Meyern Maalern in Zurich, im jahr 1650." On an engraved title page, representing an angel blowing a trumpet, with a motto from the Apocalypse. Death or Time holds a lettered label with the above inscription or title. In the back ground groups of small figures allusive to the last judgment. Then follows a printed title "Sterbenspiegel das ist sonnenklare vorstellung menschlicher nichtigkeit durch alle Stand und Geschlechter: vermitlest 60 dienstlicher kupferblatteren lehrreicher uberschrifften und beweglicher zu vier stimmen auszgesetzter Todtengesangen, vor disem angefangen durch Rudolffen Meyern S. von Zurich, &c. Jetzaber zu erwekung nohtwendiger Todsbetrachtung verachtung irdischer eytelkeit; und beliebung seliger ewigkeit zuend gebracht und verlegt durch Conrad Meyern Maalern in Zurich und daselbsten bey ihme zufinden. Getruckt zu Zürich bey Johann Jacob Bodmer, MDCL." 4to. that is: The Mirror of Death--that is--a brilliant representation of human nothingness in all ranks and conditions, by means of 60 appropriate Copperplates, spiritual superscriptions, and moving songs of Death, arranged for four voices, formerly commenced by Rudolph Meyer of Zurich, &c. but now brought to an end and completed, for the awaking of a necessary consideration of death, a contempt of earthly vanity, and a love of blissful eternity, by _Conrad_ Meyer of Zurich, of whom they are to be had. Printed at Zurich, by John Jacob Bodmer, MDCL. The subjects are the following:--1. The Creation. 2. The Fall. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Punishment of Man. 5. Triumph of Death. 6. An allegorical frontispiece relating to the class of the Clergy. 6. The Pope. 7. The Cardinal. 8. The Bishop. 9. The Abbot. 10. The Abbess. 11. The Priest. 12. The Monk. 13. The Hermit. 14. The Preacher. 15. An allegorical frontispiece to the class of Rulers and Governors. 15. The Emperor. 16. The Empress. 17. The King. 18. The Queen. 19. The Prince Elector. 20. The Earl and Countess. 21. The Knight. 22. The Nobleman. 23. The Judge. 24. The Steward, Widow, and Orphan. 25. The Captain. 26. An allegorical frontispiece to the Lower Classes. 26. The Physician. 27. The Astrologer. 28. The Merchant. 29. The Painter and his kindred: among these the old man is Dietrich Meyern; the painter resembles the portrait of Conrad Meyern in Sandrart, and the man at the table is probably Rudolph Meyern. 30. The Handcraftsman. 31. The Architect. 32. The Innkeeper. 33. The Cook. 34. The Ploughman. 35. The Man and Maid Servant. 36. The old Man. 37. The old Woman. 38. The Lovers. 39. The Child. 40. The Soldier. 41. The Pedler. 42. The Highwayman. 43. The Quack Doctor. 44. The Blind Man. 45. The Beggar. 46. The Jew. 47. The Usurer. 48. The Gamesters. 49. The Drunkards. 50. The Gluttons. 51. The Fool. 52. The Certainty of Death. 53. The Uncertainty of Death. 54. The Last Judgment. 55. Christ's Victory. 56. Salvation. 57. True and False Religion. The text consists chiefly of Death's apostrophe to his victims, with their remonstrances, verses under each subject, and various other matters. At the end are pious songs and psalms set to music. This work was jointly executed by two excellent artists, Rodolph and Conrad Meyer or Meyern, natives of Zurich. The designs are chiefly by Rodolph, and the etchings by Conrad, consisting of sixty very masterly compositions. The grouping of the figures is admirable, and the versatile representations of Death most skilfully characterized. Many of the subjects are greatly indebted to the Lyons wood engravings. In 1657 and 1759 there appeared other editions of the latter, with this title, "Die menschliche Sterblichkeit under dem titel Todten Tanz in LXI original-kupfern, von Rudolf und Conrad Meyern beruhmten kunstmahlern in Zurich abermal herausgegeben, nebst neven, dazu dienenden, moralischen versen und veber schriften." That is, "Human mortality, under the title of the Dance of Death, in 61 original copper prints of Rudolf and Conrad Meyern, renowned painters at Zurich, to which are added appropriate moral verses and inscriptions." Hamburg and Leipsig, 1759, 4to. The prolegomena are entirely different from those in the other edition, and an elaborate preface is added, giving an account of several editions of the Dance of Death. Instead of the Captain, No. 25, the Ensign is substituted, and the Cook is newly designed. Some of the numbers of the subjects are misplaced. The etchings have been retouched, and on many the date of 1637 is seen, which had no where occurred in the first edition here described. In 1704 copies of 52 of these etchings were published at Augsburg, under the title of "Tripudium mortis per victoriam super carnem universæ orbis terræ erectum. Ab A. C. Redelio S. C. M. T. P." on a label held by Death as before. Then the German title "Erbaulicher Sterb-Spiegel dast ist sonnen-klahre vorstellung menschlicher nichtigkeit durch alle stande und geschlechter: vermittelst schoner kupffern, lehr-reicher bey-schrifften und hertz-beweglich angehangter Todten-lieder ehmahls herauss gegeben durch Rudolph und Conrad Meyern mahlern in Zurch Anjetzo aber mit Lateinischen unterschrifften der kupffer vermehret und aussgezieret von dem Welt-beruhmten Poeten Augustino Casimiro Redelio, Belg. Mech. Sac. Cæs. Majest. L. P. Augsburg zu finden bey Johann Philipp Steudner. Druckts, Abraham Gugger. 1704." 4to. That is, "An edifying mirror of mortality, representing the nullity of man through all stations and generations, by means of beautiful engravings in copper, instructive inscriptions, and heart-moving lays of Death, as an appendix to the work formerly edited by Rudolph and Conrad Meyern of Zurich, but now published with Latin inscriptions, and engravings augmented and renewed by the worldly renowned poet Augustin Casimir Redel, &c." In this edition the Pope and all the other religious characters are omitted, probably by design. The etchings are very inferior to the fine originals, and without the name of the artist. The dresses are frequently modernised in the fashion of the time, and other variations are occasionally introduced. V. "Den Algemeynen dooden Spiegel van Pater Abraham à Sancta Clara," _i. e._ The universal mirror of Death of Father Abraham à Sancta Clara. On a frontispiece engraved on copper, with a medallion of the author, and various allegorical figures. Then the printed title, "Den Algemeynen Dooden spiegel ofte de capelle der Dooden waer in alle Menschen sich al lacchende oft al weenende op recht konnen beschouwen verciert mer aerdige historien, Siu-rycke gedichten ende sedenleer-ende Beeldt-schetsen op gestelt door den eerweerdigen Pater Abraham à Sancta Clara Difinitor der Provincie van het order der ongeschoende Augustynen ende Predickant van syne Keyserlycke Majesteyt Leopoldus. Getrouwelyck overgeset vyt het hoogh-duyts in onse Nederduytsche Taele. Tot Brussel, by de Wed. G. Jacobs tegen de Baert-brugge in de Druckerye, 1730." 12mo. _i. e._ "The universal mirror of Death taken from the chapel of the dead; in which all men may see themselves properly, whether laughing or weeping, ornamented with pretty stories, spirited poems, and instructive prints, arranged by Father Abraham à Sancta Clara, of the Augustinian order, and preacher to his Imperial Majesty Leopold, and faithfully translated out of High Dutch into our Netherlandish language." The work consists of sixty-seven engravings on wood within borders, and of very indifferent execution in all respects; the text a mixture of prose and poetry of a religious nature, allusive to the subjects, which are not uniformly a dance of Death. The best among them are the Painter, p. 45; the Drunkard, p. 75; the dancing Couple, Death playing the Flageolet, p. 103; the Fowler, p. 113; the hen-pecked Husband, p. 139; the Courtezan, p. 147; the Musician, p. 193; the Gamester, p. 221; and the blind Beggar, p. 289. VI. "Geistliche Todts-Gedanchen bey allerhand semahlden und Tchildereyn in vabildung Interschiedlichen geschlechts, alters, standes, und wurdend perschnen sich des Todes zucrinneren ans dessen lehrdie tugende zuüben und die Tundzu meyden Erstlich in kupfer entworffen nachmaler durch sittliche erdrtherung und aberlegung unter Todten-farben in vorschem gebracht, dardurch zumheyl der seelen im gemuth des geneighten lesers ein lebendige forcht und embsige vorsorg des Todes zu erwecken. Cum permissu superiorum. Passau Gedrucht bey Frederich Gabriel Mangold, hochfurst, hof buchdruckern, 1753. Lintz, verlegts Frantz Anton Ilger, Burgerl, Buchhandlern allda." Folio. In English, "The Spiritual Dance of Death in all kinds of pictures and representations, whereby persons of every age, sex, rank, and dignity, may be reminded of Death, from which lesson they may exercise themselves in virtue, and avoid sin. First put upon copper, and afterwards, through moral considerations and investigations brought to light in Death's own colours, thereby for the good of the souls of the well inclined readers to awaken in them a lively fear and diligent anticipation of Death." The subjects are: 1. The Creation. 2. Temptation. 3. Expulsion. 4. Punishment. 5. A charnel house, with various figures of Death, three in the back-ground dancing. 6. The Pope. 7. Cardinal. 8. Bishop. 9. Abbot. 10. Canon. 11. Preacher. 12. Chaplain. 13. Monk. 14. Abbess. 15. Nun. 16. Emperor. 17. Empress. 18. King. 19. Queen. 20. Prince. 21. Princess. 22. Earl. 23. Countess. 24. Knight. 25. Nobleman. 26. Judge. 27. Counsellor. 28. Advocate. 29. Physician. 30. Astrologer. 31. Rich man. 32. Merchant. 33. Shipwreck. 34. Lovers. 35. Child. 36. Old man. 37. Old woman. 38. Carrier. 39. Pedler. 40. Ploughman. 41. Soldier. 42. Gamesters. 43. Drunkards. 44. Murderer. 45. Fool. 46. Blind man. 47. Beggar. 48. Hermit. 49. Corruption. 50. Last Judgment. 51. Allegory of Death's Arms, &c. The designs and some of the engravings are by M. Rentz, for the most part original, with occasional hints from the Lyons wood-cuts. Another edition with some variation was printed at Hamburg, 1759, folio. VII. In the Lavenburg Calendar for 1792, are 12 designs by Chodowiecki for a Dance of Death. These are: 1. The Pope. 2. The King. 3. The Queen. 4. The General. 5. The Genealogist. 6. The Physician. 7. The Mother. 8. The Centinel. 9. The Fish Woman. 10. The Beggar. 11. The fille de joye and bawd. 12. The Infant. VIII. A Dance of Death in one of the Berne Almanacks, consisting of the 16 following subjects. 1. Death fantastically dressed as a beau, seizes the city maiden. 2. Death wearing a Kevenhuller hat, takes the housemaid's broom from her. 3. Death seizes a terrified washerwoman. 4. He takes some of the apple-woman's fruit out of her basket. 5. The cellar maid or tapster standing at the door of an alehouse is summoned by death to accompany him. 6. He lays violent hands upon an abusive strumpet. 7. In the habit of an old woman he lays hold of a midwife with a newly born infant in her hands. 8. With a shroud thrown over his shoulder he summons the female mourner. 9. In the character of a young man with a chapeau bras he brings a urinal for the physician's inspection. 10. The life-guardsman is accompanied by Death also on horseback and wearing an enormous military hat. 11. Death with a skillet on his head plunders the tinker's basket. 12. Death in a pair of jack-boots leads the postilion. 13. The lame beggar led by Death. 14. Death standing in a grave pulls the grave digger towards him by the leg. 15. Death seated on a plough with a scythe in his left hand, seizes the farmer, who carries several implements of husbandry on his shoulders. 16. The fraudulent inn-keeper in the act of adulterating his liquor in the cask, is throttled by Death who carries an ale vessel at his back. These figures are cut on wood in a free and masterly manner, by Zimmerman, an artist much employed in the decoration of these calendars. The prints are accompanied with dialogues between Death and the respective parties. IX. "Freund Heins Erscheinungen in Holbeins manier von J. R. Schellenberg Winterthur, bey Heinrich Steiner und Comp. 1785, 8vo." That is--"Friend Heins appearance in the manner of Holbein, by J. R. Schellenberg." The preface states that from the poverty of the German language in synonymous expressions for the allegorical or ideal Death, the author has ventured to coin the jocose appellation of Friend Hein, which will be understood from its resemblance to Hain or Hayn, a word signifying a grove. The sagacity of the German reader will perhaps discover the analogy. The subjects are 24 in number, as follow: 1. Love interrupted. The lovers are caught by Death in a net, and in no very decent attitude. 2. Suicide. A man shoots himself with a pistol, and falls into the arms of Death. 3. Death in the character of a beau visits a lady at her toilet. 4. The Aeronaut. The balloon takes fire, and the aeronaut is precipitated. 5. Death's visit to the school. He enters at a door inscribed SILENTIUM, and puts the scholars to flight. 6. Bad distribution of alms. 7. Expectation deluded. Death disguised as a fine lady lays hands upon a beau, who seems to have expected a very different sort of visitor. 8. Unwelcome officiousness. Death feeding an infant with poison, the nurse wringing her hands in despair. 9. The dissolution of the monastery. The Abbot followed by his monks receives the fatal summons in a letter delivered to him by Death. 10. The company of a friend. An aged man near a grave wrings his hands. Death behind directs his attention to heaven. 11. The lottery gambler. Death presents him with the unlucky ticket. 12. The woman of Vienna and the woman of Rome. Death seizes one, and points to the other. 13. The Usurer. Death shuts him into his money chest. 14. The Glutton. Death seizes him at table, and forcibly pours wine down his throat. 15. The Rope-dancer. Death mounted on an ass, and fantastically apparelled, enters the circle of spectators, and seizes the performer by one of his legs. 16. The lodge of secrecy (freemasonry). Death introduces a novice blindfold to the lodge. 17. The recruiting Officer. Death enlists some country fellows, a fiddler preceding. 18. Berthold Swartz. Death ignites the contents of the mortar, and blows up the monk. In the usual representations of this story the Devil is always placed near the monk. 19. The Duel. A man strikes with a sword at Death, who is lifting up the valves of a window. 20. The plunder of the falling-trap. Death demolishes a student by throwing a bookcase filled with books upon him. 21. Silence surrendered. Death appears to a schoolmistress. The children terrified, escape. 22. The privilege of the strong. Death lays violent hands on a lady, whom her male companions in vain endeavour to protect. 23. The apothecary. Death enters his shop, and directs his attention to the poor patients who are coming in. 24. The Conclusion. Two anatomists joining hands are both embraced by Death. The best of these subjects are Nos. 4, 13, 14, 15, and 18. The text is a mixture of prose and verse. X. "The English Dance of Death, from the designs of Thomas Rowlandson, with metrical illustrations by the author of Doctor Syntax." 2 vols. 8vo. 1815-1816. Ackermann. In seventy-two coloured engravings. Among these the most prominent and appropriate are, the last Chase; the Recruit; the Catchpole; the Death-blow; the Dramshop; the Skaiters; the Duel; the Kitchen; the Toastmaster; the Gallant's downfall; and the fall of four in hand. The rest are comparatively feeble and irrelevant, and many of the subjects ill-chosen, and devoid of that humour which might have been expected from the pencil of Rowlandson, whose grotesque predominates as usual in the groups. XI. "Death's Doings, consisting of numerous original compositions in prose and verse, the friendly contributions of various writers, principally intended as illustrations of 24 plates designed and etched by R. Dagley, author of "Select gems from the antique," &c." 1826. 8vo. From the intrinsic value and well deserved success of this work, a new edition was almost immediately called for, which received many important additions from the modest and ingenious author. Among these a new frontispiece, from the design of Adrian Van Venne, the celebrated Dutch poet and painter, is particularly to be noticed. This edition is likewise enriched with numerous elegant contributions, both in prose and verse, from some of the best writers of the age. XII. A modern French Dance of Death, under the title of "Voyage pour l'Eternité, service général des omnibus accélérés, depart à tout heure et de tous les point du globe." Par J. Grandville. No date, but about 1830. A series of nine lithographic engravings, including the frontispiece. Oblong 4to. These are the subjects: 1. Frontispiece. Death conducting passengers in his omnibus to the cemetery of Père la Chaise. 2. "C'est ici le dernier relai." Death as a postilion gives notice to a traveller incumbered with his baggage, &c. 3. "Vais-je bien? ... vous avancez horriblement." Death enters a watchmaker's shop, and shews his hour-glass to the master and his apprentice. 4. "Monsieur le Baron, on vous demande.--Dites que je n'y suis pas." Death having entered the apartment, the valet communicates his summons to his gouty master lying on a couch. 5. "Soyez tranquille, j'ai un garçon qui ne se trompe jamais." The apothecary addresses these words to some cautious patients whilst he fills a vessel which they have brought to his shop. Death, as an apprentice in another room, pounds medicines in a mortar. 6. "Voila, Messieurs, un plat de mon metier." A feast. Death as a waiter enters with a plate of poisonous fruit. 7. "Voulez vous monter chez moi, mon petit Monsieur, vous n'en serez pas fâché, allez." Death, tricked out as a fille de joye with a mask, entices a youth introduced by a companion. 8. "--Pour une consultation, Docteur, j'en suis j'vous suis ..." Death in the character of an undertaker, his hearse behind, invites an old man to follow him. 9. "Oui, Madame, ce sera bien la promenade la plus delicieuse! une voiture dans le dernier goût! un cheval qui fend l'air, et le meilleur groom de France." Death, habited as a beau, conducts a lady followed by her maid to a carriage in waiting. XIII. The British Dance of Death, exemplified by a series of engravings from drawings by Van Assen, with explanatory and moral essays. Printed by and for George Smeeton, Royal Arcade, Pall Mall. 8vo. no date. With a frontispiece designed by Geo. Cruikshank, representing a crowned sitting Death, holding a scythe in one hand, and with the other leaning on a globe. This is circular in the middle. Over it two small compartments of Death striking an infant in the cradle, and a sick man. At bottom, two others of Death demolishing a glutton and a drunkard. A short preface states that the work is on the plan of "the celebrated designs of Holbein," meaning of course the Lyons work, but to which it has not the smallest resemblance, and refers to Lord Orford for the mention of the Basle dance, which, as having two or sometimes three figures only, it does resemble. It then states that the late Mr. Van Assen had no intention of publishing these designs, which now appear in compliance with the wishes of many of his friends to possess them. They are very neatly engraved, and tinted in imitation of the original drawings, but are wholly destitute of that humour which might have been expected from the pencil of the ingenious inventor, and which he has manifested on many other occasions. The subjects are the following: 1. The Infant. 2. Juvenile piety. 3. The Student. 4. The Sempstress. 5. The musical Student. 6. The Dancer. 7. The female Student. 8. The Lovers. 9. The industrious Wife. 10. The Warrior. 11. The Pugilists. 12. The Glutton. 13. The Drunkard. 14. The Watchman. 15. The Fishwoman. 16. The Physician. 17. The Miser. 18. Old Age. Death with his dart is standing near all these figures, but does not seem to be noticed by any of them. XIV. A Dance of Death in Danish rimes is mentioned in Nyerup's "Bidragh til den Danske digtakunst historie." 1800. 12mo. XV. John Nixon Coleraine, an amateur, and secretary to the original Beef Stake Club, etched a dance of Death for ladies' fans. He died only a few years ago. Published by Mr. Fores, of Piccadilly, who had the copper-plates, but of which no impressions are now remaining. CHAPTER XI. _Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects._ I. Six small circles on a single sheet, engraved on copper by Israel Van Meckenen. 1. Christ sitting on his cross. 2. Three skulls on a table. 3. Death and the Pope. 4. Death riding on a lion, and the Patriarch. 5. Death and the Standard-bearer. 6. Death and the Lady. At top "memento mori," at bottom "Israhel V. M." II. A Dance of Death, engraved on copper, by Henry Aldegrever. 1. Creation of Eve. 2. Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. Death and the Pope. 6. Death and the Cardinal. 7. Death and the Bishop. 8. Death and the Abbot. All these have the date 1541, and with some variations follow the Lyons woodcuts. They have scriptural texts in Latin. 12mo. The whole were afterwards copied in a work by Kieser, already described, p. 121. III. A Dance of Death, consisting of eight subjects, engraved on copper by an unknown artist, whose mark is [monogram: AC]. 1. Death beating a drum, precedes a lady and gentleman accompanied by a little dog. 2. Death playing on a stickado, precedes a lady and gentleman dancing back to back, below an hour-glass. 3. Death, with an hour-glass in his right hand, lays his left on the shoulder of a gentleman taking hold of a lady with his right hand, and carrying a hawk with his left. 4. Death crowned with a garland, and holding an hour-glass in his left hand, stands between a lady and gentleman joining hands. 5. Death, with a fool's cap and hood, a dagger of lath, and a bladder, holds up an hour-glass with his right hand; with his left he seizes the hand of a terrified lady accompanied by a gentleman, who endeavours to thrust away the unwelcome companion. 6. Another couple led by Death. 7. Death with a cap and feathers holds an hour-glass in his right hand, and with his left seizes a lady, whom a gentleman endeavours to draw away from him. All have the date 1562. 12mo. Size, three inches by two. They are described also in Bartsch, Peintre Graveur, ix. 482, and have been sometimes erroneously ascribed to Aldegrever. [Illustration] IV. A Dance of Death, extremely well executed on wood, the designs of which have been taken from a set of initial letters, that will hereafter be particularly described. They are upright, and measure two inches by one and a half. Each subject is accompanied with two German verses. V. On the back of the title page to "Die kleyn furstlich Chronica," Strasb. 1544, 4to. are three subjects that appear to be part of a series. 1. Death and the Pope, who has a book and triple crosier. Death kneels to him whilst he plays on a tabor and drum. 2. Death and the King. Death blows a trumpet. 3. Death shoots an arrow at a warrior armed with sword and battle-axe. All these figures are accompanied with German verses, and are neatly engraved on wood. VI. A series of single figures, etched with great spirit by Giovanni Maria Mitelli. They are not accompanied by Death, but hold dialogues with him in Italian stanzas. The characters are, 1. The Astrologer. 2. The Doctor of universal science. 3. The Hunter. 4. The Mathematician. 5. The Idolater. They are not mentioned in Bartsch, nor in any other list of the works of engravers. It is possible that there are more of them. VII. The five Deaths, etched by Della Bella. 1. A terrific figure of Death on a galloping horse. In his left hand a trumpet, to which a flag, agitated by the wind, is attached. In the back ground, several human skeletons, variously employed. 2. Death carrying off an infant in his arms. In the back-ground, the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. 3. Death walking away with a young child on his back. In the distance, another view of the above cemetery. 4. Death carrying off a female on his shoulders, with her head downwards, followed at a distance by another Death holding a corpse in his arms. 5. Death dragging a reluctant old man towards a grave, in which another Death, with an hour-glass in his hand, awaits him. All these are extremely fine, and executed in the artist's best time. There is a sixth of the series, representing Death throwing a young man into a well, but it is very inferior to the others. It was begun by Della Bella a short time before his death, and finished by his pupil Galestruzzi, about 1664. Della Bella likewise etched a long print of the triumph of Death. VIII. A single anonymous French engraving on copper, 14-1/2 by 6-1/2, containing three subjects. 1. Death and the soldier. 2. Death standing with a pruning knife in his right hand, and a winged hour-glass in his left. Under him are three prostrate females, one plays on a violin; the next, who represents Pride, holds a peacock in one hand and a mirror in the other; the third has a flower in her left hand. 3. Death and the lady. He holds an hour-glass and dart, and she a flower in her right hand. Under each subject are French verses. This may perhaps be one only of a set. IX. A German Dance of Death, in eight oblong engravings on copper, 11 by 8-1/2, consisting of eight sheets and twenty-five subjects, as follow. 1. A fantastic figure of a Death, with a cap and feathers, in the attitude of dancing and playing on a flute. He is followed by another dancing skeleton carrying a coffin on his shoulder. 2. Pope. 3. Emperor. 4 Empress. 5. Cardinal. 6. King. 7. Bishop. 8. Duke or General. 9. Abbot. 10. Knight. 11. Carthusian. 12. Burgomaster. 13. Canon. 14. Nobleman. 15. Physician. 16. Usurer. 17. Chaplain. 18. Bailiff or Steward. 19. Churchwarden. 20. Merchant. 21. Hermit. 22. Peasant. 23. Young Man. 24. Maiden. 25. Child. This is a complete set of the prints, representing the Lubeck painting, already described in p. 43. In the translation of the inscriptions, as given by Dr. Nugent, two more characters are added at the end, viz. the Dancing Master and the Fencing Master. On the spectator's left hand of No. 1. of these engravings, is a column containing the following inscription in German, in English as follows: "Silence, fool-hardy one, whoever thou art, who, with needless words, profanest this holy place. This is no chapel for talking, but thy sure place is in Death's Dance. Silence then, silence, and let the painting on these silent walls commune with thee, and convince thee that man is and will be earth:" and on Nos. 4 and 5, the words "Zu finden in Lubeck by Christian Gotfried Donatius." X. The following entry is in the Stationers' books: 28 b. v{o} Januarij [1597.] Tho. Purfoote, sen.} Entered their c. Mr. Dix and Wm. M. The Tho. Purfoote, jun.} roll of the Daunce of Death, with pictures } and verses upon the same VI_d_. XI. In the catalogue of the library of R. Smith, secretary of the Poultry Compter, which was sold by auction in 1682, is this article "Dance of Death in the cloyster of Paul's, with figures, very old." Probably a single sheet. XII. "The Dance of Death;" a single sheet, engraved on copper, with the following figures. In the middle, Death leading the king; the beggar hand in hand with the king; Death leading the old man, followed by a child; the fool; the wise man, as an astrologer, led by Death. On the spectator's left hand, Death bringing a man before a judge; with the motto, "The greatest judge that sits in honour's seat, must come to grave, where't boots not to intreate." A man and woman in a brothel, Death behind; with the motto, "Leave, wanton youth, thou must no longer stay; if once I call all mortals must obey." On the opposite side, the Miser and Death; the motto, "Come, worldling, come, gold hath no power to save, leave it thou shalt, and dance with me to grave." Death and the Prisoner; the motto, "Prisoner arise, ile ease thy fetterd feet, and now betake thee to thy winding sheet." In the middle of the print sits a minstrel on a stool formed of bones placed on a coffin with a pick-axe and spade. He plays on a tabor and pipe; with this motto, "Sickness, despaire, sword, famine, sudden death, all these do serve as minstrells unto Death; the beggar, king, fool, and profound, courtier and clown all dance this round." Under the above figures is a poem of sixty-six lines on the power of Death, beginning thus: Yea, Adam's brood and earthly wights which breath now on the earth, Come dance this dance, and mark the song of this most mighty Death. Full well my power is known and seen in all the world about, When I do strike of force do yeeld both noble, wise, and stout, &c. Printed cullored and sould by R. Walton at the Globe and Compasses at the West end of St. Paules church turning down towards Ludgate. XIII. A large anonymous German engraving on copper, in folio. In the middle is a circular Dance of Death, with nine females, from the Empress to the Fool. In the four corners, two persons kneeling before a crucifix; saints in heaven; the temptation; and the infernal regions. At top, a frame with these verses: Vulneris en nostri certam solamque medelam En data divina præmia larga manu. Der Todt Christi Zunicht hat gmacht Den Todt und Sleben wider bracht. At bottom in a similar frame: Per unius peccatum Mors intravit in mundum. Den Todt und ewig hellisch pein Hat veruhr sagt die Sund allein. This is within a broad frame, containing a Dance of Death, in twelve ovals. The names of the characters are in German: 1. The Pope. 2. Emperor. 3. King. 4. Cardinal. 5. Bishop. 6. Duke. 7. Earl. 8. Gentleman. 9. Citizen. 10. Peasant. 11. Soldier and Beggar. 12. Fool and Child. Under each subject is an appropriate inscription in Latin and German. In the middle at top, a Death's head and bones, an hour-glass and a dial. In the middle at bottom, a lamp burning on a Death's head, and a pot of holy water with an aspergillum. On the sides, in the middle, funereal implements. XIV. Heineken, in his "Dictionnaire des Graveurs," iii. 77, mentions a Dance of Death engraved about 1740 by Maurice Bodenehr of Friburg, but without any further notice. XV. Another very large print, 2 feet by 1-1/2, in mezzotinto, the subject as in No. 10. but the figures varied, and much better drawn. At bottom, "Joh. El. Ridinger excud. Aug. Vindel." XVI. Newton's Dances of Death. Published July 12, 1796, by Wm. Holland, No. 50, Oxford Street, consisting of the following grotesque subjects engraved on copper. The size 6 inches by 5. 1. Auctioneer. 2. Lawyer. 3. Old Maid on Death's back. 4. Gamblers. 5. Scolding Wife. 6. Apple-woman. 7. Blind Beggar. 8. Distressed Poet and Bailiff. 9. Undertaker. 10. Sleeping Lady. 11. Old Woman and her Cats. 12. Gouty Parson feeding on a tythe pig. 12. Same subject differently treated. 13. Sailor and Sweetheart. 14. Physician, Gravedigger, and Death dancing a round. 15. Market-man. 16. Doctor, sick Patient, and Nurse. 17. Watchman. 18. Gravedigger putting a corpse into the grave. 19. Old maid reading, Death extinguishes the candle. 20. Gravedigger making a grave. 21. Old Woman. 22. Barber. 23. Lady and Death reflected in the mirror. 24. Waiter. 25. Amorous Old Man and Young Woman. 26. Jew Old Clothes-man. 27. Miser. 28. Female Gin-drinker. XVII. The Dance of Death modernised. Published July 13, 1800, and designed by G. M. Woodward, Berners' Street, Oxford Street. Contains the following caricatures. Size 5 by 4-1/2. 1. King. "Return the diadem and I'll follow you." 2. Cardinal. "Zounds, take care of my great toe, or I shall never rise higher than a cardinal." 3. Bishop. "I cannot go, I am a bishop." 4. Old Man. "My good friend, I am too old, I assure you." 5. Dancing-master. "I never practised such an Allemande as this since I have been a dancing-master." 6. Alderman. "If you detain me in this way my venison will be quite cold." 7. Methodist Preacher. "If you wo'nt take I, I'll never mention you or the Devil in my sarmons as long as I lives." 8. Parson. "I can't leave my company till I've finish'd my pipe and bottle." 9. Schoolmaster. "I am only a poor schoolmaster, and sets good examples in the willage." 10. Miser. "Spare my money, and I'll go contented." 11. Politician. "Stay till I have finished the newspaper, for I am told there is great intelligence from the continent." 12. Press-gang Sailor. "Why d-- me I'm one of your apprentices." 13. Beggar. "This is the universal dance from a king to a beggar." 14. Jockey. "I assure you I am engaged at Newmarket." 15. Undertaker. "A pretty dance this for an undertaker." 16. Gouty Man. "Buzaglo's exercise was nothing to this." 17. Poet. "I am but a poor poet, and always praised the ode to your honour written by the late King of Prussia." 18. Physician. "Here's fine encouragement for the faculty." 19. Lawyer. "The law is always exempt by the statutes." 20. Old Maid. "Let me but stay till I am married, and I'll ask no longer time." 21. Fine Lady. "Don't be so boisterous, you filthy wretch. I am a woman of fashion." 22. Empress. "Fellow, I am an empress." 23. Young Lady. "Indeed, Sir, I am too young." 24. Old Bawd. "You may call me old bawd, if you please, but I am sure I have always been a friend to your worship." XVIII. Bonaparte's Dance of Death. Invented, drawn, and etched by Richard Newton, 7 by 5. 1. Stabb'd at Malta. 2. Drown'd at Alexandria. 3. Strangled at Cairo. 4. Shot by a Tripoline gentleman. 5. Devoured by wild beasts in the desert. 6. Alive in Paris. CHAPTER XII. _Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced._ To offer any thing in the shape of a perfect list of these, would be to attempt an impossibility, and therefore such only as have come under the author's immediate inspection are here presented to the curious reader. The same remark will apply to the list of single prints that follows. There is a very singular book, printed, as supposed, about 1460, at Bamberg, by Albert Pfister. It is in German, and a sort of moral allegory in the shape of complaints against Death, with his answers to these accusations. It is very particularly described from the only known perfect copy in the royal library at Paris, by M. Camus, in vol. ii. of "Memoires de l'institut. national des sciences et arts: litterature et beaux arts," p. 6 et seq. It contains five engravings on wood, the first of which represents Death seated on a throne. Before him stands a man with an infant to complain that Death has taken the mother, who is seen wrapped in a shroud upon a tomb. The second cut represents Death also on a throne with the same person as before, making his complaint, accompanied by several other persons at the feet of Death, sorrowfully deposing the attributes of their respective conditions, and at the head of them a Pope kneeling with one knee on the ground. The third cut has two figures of Death, one of which, on foot, mows down several boys and girls; the other is on horseback, and pursues some cavaliers, against whom he shoots his arrows. The fourth cut is in two compartments, the upper representing, as before, a man complaining to Death seated on a throne with a crown on his head. Below, on the spectator's left hand, is a convent whence several monks are issuing towards a garden encircled with hurdles, in which is a tree laden with fruit by the side of a river; a woman is seen crowning a child with a chaplet, near whom stands another female in conversation with a young man. M. Camus, in the course of his description of this cut, has fallen into a very ludicrous error. He mistakes the very plain and obvious gate of the garden, for a board, on which, he says, _several characters are engraved which may be meant to signify the arts and sciences, none of which are competent to protection against the attacks of Death_. These supposed characters, however, are nothing more than the flowered hinges, ring or knocker, and lock of the door, which stands ajar. The fifth cut is described as follows, and probably with greater accuracy than in M. Camus, by Dr. Dibdin, from a single leaf of this very curious work in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. 104, accompanied with a copy of part of it only. "Above the figures there seen sits the Almighty upon a throne, with an attendant angel on each side. He is putting the forefinger of his left hand into the centre of his right, and upon each of the hands is an eye, denoting, I presume, the omniscience of the Deity." The fac-simile cut partly corresponds with M. Camus's description of Death, and the complainant before Christ seated on a throne in a heaven interspersed with stars. The above fourth cut among these is on a single leaf in the possession of the author, which had Dr. Dibdin seen, he would not have introduced M. Camus's erroneous account of it, who has also referred to Heineken's Idée, &c. p. 276, where it certainly is not in the French edition of 1771. 8vo. In the celebrated Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in that city, 1493, large folio, there is at fo. cclxiiii. a fine wood-cut of three Deaths dancing hand in hand, another playing to them on a haut-boy. Below is a skeleton rising from a grave. It is inscribed IMAGO MORTIS. In the "Stultifera navis" of Sebastian Brant, originally printed in German at Basle and Nuremberg, 1494, are several prints, finely cut on wood, in which Death is introduced. In an edition printed at Basle, 1572, 12mo. with elegant wood engravings, after the designs of Christopher Maurer, and which differ very materially from those in the early editions, there is a cut of great merit to the verses that have for their title, "Qui alios judicat." It represents a man on his death bed; and as the poet's intention is to condemn the folly of those who, judging falsely or uncharitably of others, forget that they must die themselves, Death is introduced as pulling a stool from under a fool, who sits by the bed-side of the dying man. In the original cut the fool is tumbling into the jaws of hell, which, as usual, is represented by a monstrous dragon. In the "Calendrier des Bergers," Paris, 1500, folio, at sign. g. 6, is a terrific figure of Death on the pale horse; and at sign. g. 5. Death in a cemetery, with crosses and monuments; in his left hand the lid of a coffin in which his left foot is placed. These cuts are not in the English translation. "Ortulus Rosarum," circa 1500, 12mo. A wood-cut of Death bearing a coffin on his shoulder, leads a group consisting of a pope, a cardinal, &c. In the dialogue "Of lyfe and death," at the end of "the dialoges of creatures moralysed," probably printed abroad without date or printer's name soon after 1500, are two engravings in wood, one representing Death appearing to a man with a falcon on his fist, the other Death with his spade leading an emperor, a king, and a duke. The latter is not found in the Latin editions of this work, and has probably formed a part of some very old Dance of Death. In an edition of "Boetius de consolatione," Strasburg, 1501, folio, is a figure of Death on a lean horse throwing his dart at a group of warriors. In the "Freidanck," Strasburg, 1508, 4to, near the end is a wood-cut of a garden, in which two men and two women are feasting at a table. They are interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Death, who forcibly seizes one of the party, whilst the rest make their escape. In the "Mortilogus" of Conrad Reitter, Prior of Nordlingen, printed at Augsbourg by Erhard Oglin and Geo. Nadler, 1508, 4to. there is a wood-cut of Death in a church-yard, holding a spade with one hand and with the other showing his hour-glass to a young soldier; and another of Death shooting an arrow at a flying man. In "Heures à l'usaige de Sens," printed at Paris by Jean de Brie, 1512, 8vo. the month of December in the calendar is figured by Death pulling an old man towards a grave; a subject which is, perhaps, nowhere else to be found as a representation of that month. It is certainly appropriate, as being at once the symbol of the termination of the year and of man's life. In the "Chevalier de la Tour," printed by Guillaume Eustace, Paris, 1514, folio, there is an allegorical cut, very finely engraved on wood, at fo. xxii. nearly filling the page. The subject is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the gate of which exhibits a regular entrance, with round towers and portcullis. Behind this gate is seen the forbidden tree, at the bottom of which is the Devil, seemingly rejoicing at the expulsion, with an apple in his hand. Near the gate stands the angel with his sword, and a cross on his head. Between him and the parties expelled is a picturesque figure of Death with a scythe ready for action. "Horæ ad usum Romanum," printed for Geoffrey Tory of Tours, 1525. Before the Vigiliæ Mortuorum is a wood-cut of a winged Death holding a clock in one hand; with the other he strikes to the ground and tramples on several men and women. Near him is a tree with a crow uttering CRAS CRAS. In another edition, dated 1527, is a different cut of a crowned figure of Death mounted on a black mule and holding a scythe and hour-glass. He is trampling on several dead bodies, and is preceded by another Death, armed also with a scythe, whilst a third behind strikes the mule, who stops to devour one of the prostrate figures. Above is a crow. In a beautiful Officium Virg. printed at Venice, 1525, 12mo. is a vignette of Death aiming an arrow at a group consisting of a pope, cardinal, &c. Another Death is behind, on the spectator's left. In "Heures de Notre Dame mises en reyne, &c." par Pierre Gringoire, 1527, 8vo. there is a cut at fo. lx. before the vigilles de la mort, of a king lying on a bier in a chapel with tapers burning, several mourners attending, and on the ground a pot of holy water. A hideous figure of Death holding a scythe in one hand and a horn in the other, tramples on the body of the deceased monarch. In a folio missal for the use of Salisbury, printed at Paris by Francis Regnault, 1531, there is a singular cut prefixed to the Officium Mortuorum, representing two Deaths seizing a body that has the horrible appearance of having been some time in its grave. In a Flemish metrical translation of Pope Innocent III.'s work, "De vilitate conditionis humanæ," Ghend, 1543, 12mo. there is a wood-cut of Death emerging from hell, armed with a dart and a three-pronged fork, with which he attacks a party taking their repast at a table. In the cuts to the Old Testament, beautifully engraved on wood by Solomon or le petit Bernard, Lyons, 1553, 12mo. Death is introduced in the vision of Ezekiel, ch. xxxvii. In this work the expulsion from Paradise is imitated from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. In "Hawes's History of Graund Amoure and la bel Pucell, called the Pastime of Pleasure," printed by R. Tottel, 1555, 4to. are two prints; the first exhibits a female seated on a throne, in contemplation of several men and animals, some of whom are lying dead at her feet; behind the throne Death is seen armed with a dart, which he seems to have been just making use of: there is no allusion to it in the text, and it must have been intended for some other work. The second print has two figures of Death and a young man, whom he threatens with a sort of mace in his right hand, whilst he holds a pickaxe with his left. "Imagines elegantissimæ quæ multum lucis ad intelligendos doctrinæ Christianæ locos adferre possunt, collectæ à Johann Cogelero verbi divini ministro, Stetini." Viteberg, 1560, 12mo. It contains a wood-print, finely executed, of the following subject. In the front Death, armed with a hunting-spear, pushes a naked figure into the mouth of hell, in which are seen a pope and two monks. Behind this group, Moses, with a pair of bulls' horns, and attended by two Jews, holds the tables of the law. In the distance the temptation, and the brazen serpent. A German translation of the well known block book, the "Ars Moriendi," was printed at Dilingen, 1569, 12mo. with several additional engravings on wood. It is perhaps the last publication of the work. On the title-page is an oval cut, representing a winged boy sleeping on a scull, and Death shooting an arrow at him. The first cut exhibits a sort of Death's dance, in eight small compartments. 1. A woman in bed just delivered of a child, with which Death is running away. 2. A man sitting at a table, Death seizes him behind, and pulls him over the bench on which he is sitting. 3. Death drowning a man in a river. 4. Flames of fire issue from a house, Death tramples on a man endeavouring to escape. 5. Two men fighting, one of whom pierces the other with his sword. The wounded man is seized by Death, the other by the Devil. 6. A man on horseback is seized by Death also mounted behind. 7. Death holds his hour-glass to a man on his death-bed. 8. Death leading an aged man to the grave. At the end of this curious volume is a singular cut, intitled "Symbolum M. Joannis Stotzinger Presbyteri Dilingensis." It exhibits a young man sitting at a table, on which is a violin, music books, and an hour-glass. On the table is written RESPICE FINEM. Near him his guardian angel holding a label, inscribed ANGELVS ASTAT. Behind them Death about to strike the young man with his dart, and over him MORS MINATVR. At the end of the table Conscience as a female, whom a serpent bites, with the label CONSCIENTIA MORDET, and near her the Devil, with the label DIABOLVS ACCVSAT. Above is the Deity looking down, and the motto DEVS VIDET. "Il Cavallero Determinado," Antwerp, 1591, 4to. A translation from the French romance of Olivier de la Marche, with etchings by Vander Borcht. The last print represents Death, armed with a coffin lid as a shield, attacking a knight on horseback. In several of the other prints Death is represented under the name of Atropos, as president in tournaments. In other editions the cuts are on wood by the artist with the mark [monogram: A]. In the margins of some of the Horæ, printed by Thielman Kerver, there are several grotesque figures of Death, independently of the usual Dance. In many of the Bibles that have prints to the Revelations, that of Death on the pale horse is to be noticed. In Petrarch's work "de remediis utriusque fortunæ," both in the German and Latin editions, there are several cuts that relate materially to the subject. It may be as well to mention that this work has been improperly ascribed to Petrarch. In many of the old editions of Petrarch's works which contain the triumphs, that of Death is usually accompanied with some terrific print of Death in a car drawn by oxen, trampling upon all conditions of men from the pope to the beggar. "Guilleville, Pelerin de la vie humaine." The pilgrim is conducted by Abstinence into a refectory, where he sees many figures of Death in the act of feeding several persons sitting at table. These are good people long deceased, who during their lives have been bountiful to their fellow-creatures. At the end, the pilgrim is struck by Death with two darts whilst on his bed. Death kicking at a man, his wife, and child. From some book printed at Strasburg in the 16th century. Death, as an ecclesiastic, sitting on the ground and writing in a book. Another Death holding an inscribed paper in one hand, seizes with the other a man pointing to a similar paper. The Deity in a cloud looking on. From the same book. "Mors," a Latin comedy, by William Drury, a professor of poetry and rhetoric in the English college at Douay. It was acted in the refectory of the college and elsewhere, and with considerable applause, which it very well deserved. There is as much, and sometimes more, wit and humour in it than are found in many English farces. It was printed at Douay, 1628, 12mo. with two other Latin plays, but not of equal interest. A moral and poetical Drama, in eleven scenes, intitled, "Youth's Tragedy, by T. S." 1671 and 1707, 4to. in which the interlocutors are, Youth, the Devil, Wisdom, Time, Death, and the Soul. It is miserable stuff. "La Historia della Morte," Trevigi, 1674, 4to. four leaves only. It is a poem in octave stanzas. The author, wandering in a wood, is overwhelmed with tears in reflecting on the approach of Death and his omnipotent dominion over mankind. He is suddenly accosted by the king of terrors, who is thus described: Un ombra mi coperse prestamente Che mi fece tremar in cotal sorte Ell'era magra, e longa in sua figura, Che chi la vede perde gioco, e festa, Dente d'acciaio haveva in bocca oscura, Corna di ferro due sopra la testa Ella mi fe tremar dalla paura, &c. The work consists of a long dialogue between the parties. The author enquires of Death if he was born of father and mother. Death answers that he was created, by Jesus Christ, "che e signor giocondo," with the other angels; that after Adam's sin he was called _Death_. The author tells him that he seems rather to be a malignant spirit, and presses for some further information. He is referred to the Bible, and the account of David's destroying angel: Quando Roma per me fu tribulata Gregorio videmi con suo occhio honesto Con una spada ch'era insanguinata Al castel de Sant Angelo chiamato Da l'hora in qua cosi fu appellato. This corresponds with the usual story, that during a plague Gregory saw an angel hovering over the castle, who, on the Pope's looking up to him, immediately sheathed his flaming sword. More questions are then propounded by Death, particularly as to the use of his horns and teeth, and the curiosity of the author is most condescendingly gratified. Bishop Warburton and Mr. Malone have referred to old Moralities, in which the fool escaping from the pursuit of Death is introduced. Ritson has denied the existence of any such farces, and he is perhaps right with respect to printed ones; but vestiges of such a drama were observed several years ago at the fair of Bristol by the present writer. See the notes to Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. 1, and to Pericles, Act iii. sc. 2. In "Musart Adolescens Academicus sub institutione Salomonis," Duaci, 1633, 12mo. is an engraving on copper of a modern Bacchus astride upon a wine cask drawn by two tigers. In one hand he holds a thyrsus composed of grapes and vine leaves, and in the other a cup or vase, from which a serpent springs, to indicate poison. Behind this Bacchus Death is seated, armed with his scythe and lying in wait for him. The motto, "Vesani calices quid non fecere," a parody on the line, "Fecundi calices quem non fecere disertum?" Horat. lib. i. epist. v. 1. 19. In "Christopher Van Sichem's Bibels' Tresoor," 1646, 4to. there is a wood-cut of Death assisting Adam to dig the ground, partly copied from the subject of "the Curse," in the work printed at Lyons. In "De Chertablon, maniere de se bien preparer à la mort, &c." Anvers, 1700, 4to. there is an allegorical print in which a man is led by his guardian angel to the dwelling of Faith, Hope, and Charity, but is violently seized by Death, who points to his last habitation, in the shape of a sepulchral monument. In Luyken's "Onwaardige wereld," Amst. 1710, 12mo. are three allegorical engravings relating to this subject. In a very singular book, intitled "Confusio disposita rosis rhetorico-poeticis fragrans, sive quatuor lusus satyrico morales, &c. authore Josepho Melchiore Francisco a Glarus, dicto Tschudi de Greplang." Augsburg, 1725, 12mo. are the following subjects. 1. The world as Spring, represented by a fine lady in a flower-garden, Death and the Devil behind her. 2. Death and the Devil lying in wait for the miser. 3. Death and the Devil hewing down the barren fig-tree. 4. A group of dancers at a ball interrupted by Death. 5. Death striking a lady in bed attended by her waiting maid. 6. Death gives the coup-de-grace to a drunken fellow who had fallen down stairs. 7. Death mounted on a skeleton-horse dashes among a group of rich men counting their gold, &c. 8. A rich man refused entrance into heaven. He has been brought to the gate in a sedan chair, carried by a couple of Deaths in full-bottom periwigs. In Luyken's "Vonken der lief de Jezus," Amst. 1727, 12mo. are several engravings relating to the subject. In one of them Death pours a draught into the mouth of a sick man in bed. In Moncrief's "March of Intellect," 1830, 18mo. scene a workhouse, Death brings in a bowl of soup, a label on the ground, inscribed "Death in the pot." An engraving in wood after Cruikshank. In Jan Huygen's "Beginselen van Gods koninryk," Amst. 1738, 12mo. with engravings by Luyken, a dying man attended by his physician and friends; Death at the head of the bed eagerly lying in wait for him. In one of the livraisons of "Goethe's Balladen und Romanzen," 1831, in folio, with beautiful marginal decorations, there is a Dance of Death in a church-yard, accompanied with a description, of which an English translation is inserted in the "Literary Gazette" for 1832, p. 731, under the title of "The Skeleton Dance," with a reference to another indifferent version in the "Souvenir." The well-known subjects of Death and the old man with the bundle of sticks, &c. and Cupid and Death in many editions of Æsopian fables. CHAPTER XIII. _Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages, in some degree connected with the Dance of Death._ EMBLEMS AND FABLES. It is very seldom that in this numerous and amusing class of books a subject relating to Death, either moral or of a ludicrous nature does not occur. It may be sufficient to notice a few of them. "La Morosophie de Guillaume de la Perriere," 1553, 12mo. "Emblemes ou devises Chretiennes," par Georgette de Montenaye, 1571, 4to. "Le Imprese del S. Gab. Symeoni." Lyons, 1574, 4to. "Enchiridion artis pingendi, fingendi et sculpendi. Auth. Justo Ammanno, Tig." Francof. 1578, 4to. This is one of Jost Amman's emblematical books in wood, and contains at the end a figure of Death about to cut off two lovers with his scythe, Cupid hovering over them. "Apologi creaturarum." Plantin, 1590, 4to. with elegant etchings by Marc Gerard. It has one subject only of Death summoning a youth with a hawk on his fist to a church-yard in the back-ground. Reusner's "aureolorum emblematum liber singularis," Argentorati, 1591, 12mo. A print of Death taking away a lady who has been stung by a serpent; designed and engraved by Tobias Stimmer. "De Bry Proscenium vitæ humanæ," Francof. 1592 and 1627, 4to. This collection has two subjects: 1. Death and the Young Man. 2. Death and the Virgin. "Jani Jacobi Boissardi Emblematum liber, a Theodoro de Bry sculpta." Francof. 1593. Contains one print, intitled "Sola virtus est funeris expers." The three Fates, one of whom holds a tablet with SIC VISVM SVPERIS. Death attending with his hour-glass. Below, crowns, sceptres, and various emblems of human vanity. On the spectator's left, a figure of Virtue standing, with sword and shield. "De Bry Emblemata." Francof. 1593, 4to. The last emblem has Death striking an old man, who still clings to the world, represented as a globe. "Rolandini variar. imaginum, lib. iii." Panormi, 1595, 12mo. "Alciati Emblemata," one of the earliest books of its kind, and a favourite that has passed through a great many editions. "Typotii symbola divina et humana Pontificum Imperatorum, Regum, &c." Francofurti, 1601, folio. "Friderich's Emblems," 1617, 8vo. Several engravings on the subject. "Das erneurte Stamm-und Stechbuchlein." By Fabian Athyr. Nuremberg, 1654. Small obl. 4to. "Mannichii Emblemata." Nuremberg, 1624, 4to. "Minne Beelden toe-ghepast de Lievende Jonckheyt," Amst. 1635, 12mo. The cuts on the subject are extremely grotesque and singular. "Sciographia Cosmica." A description of the principal towns and cities in the world, with views engraved by Paul Furst, and appropriate emblems. By Daniel Meisner: in eight parts. Nuremberg, 1637. Oblong 4to. In the print of the town of Freyburg, Death stands near an old man, and holds a clock in one hand. In that of the city of Toledo Death accompanies a female who has a mirror in her hand. In the same work, at vol. A. 4, is a figure of Death trampling on Envy, with the motto, "Der Todt mach dem Neyd ein ende." At A. 39, Death intercepting a traveller, the motto, "Vitam morti obviam procedit." At A. 74, Death standing near a city, the motto, "Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine habetur." At C. 9, a man and woman in the chains of matrimony, which Death dissolves by striking the chain with a bone, the motto, "Conjugii vinculum firmissimum est." At C. 30, Death about to mow down a philosopher holding a clock, the motto, "Omnis dies, omnis hora, quam nihil sumus ostendit." At E. 32, Death standing in the middle of a parterre of flowers, holding in one hand a branch of laurel, in the other a palm branch, the motto, "Ante mortem nullus beatus est." At E. 35, Death shooting with a cross-bow at a miser before his chest of money, the motto, "Nec divitiis nec auro." At E. 44, Death seizes a young man writing the words, "sic visum superis" on a tablet, the motto, "Viva virtus est funeris expers." At G. 32, Death pursues a king and a peasant, all on horseback, the motto, "Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat." At G. 66, a woman looking in a mirror sees Death, who stands behind her reflected, the motto, "Tota vita sapientis est meditatio mortis." At H. 66, a company of drunkards. Death strikes one of them behind when drinking, the motto, "Malus inter poculo mos est." At H. 80, Death cuts down a genealogical tree, with a young man and woman, the motto, "Juventus proponit, mors disponit." "Conrad Buno Driestandige Sinnbilder," 1643. Oblong 4to. "Amoris divini et humani antipathia." Antw. 1670. 12mo. "Typotii Symbola varia diversorum principum sacrosanctæ ecclesiæ et sacri Imperii Romani." Arnheim, 1679. 12mo. In Sluiter's "Somer en winter leven," Amst. 1687, 12mo. is a figure of Death knocking at the door of a house and alarming the inhabitants with his unexpected visit. The designer most probably had in his recollection Horace's "Mors æquo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas regumque turres." "Euterpe soboles hoc est emblemata varia, &c." with stanzas in Latin and German to each print. No date. Oblong 4to. The engravings by Peter Rollo. Republished at Paris, with this title, "Le Centre de l'amour, &c." A Paris chez Cupidon. Same form, and without date. This edition has several additional cuts. "Rollenhagii nucleus Emblematum." The cuts by Crispin de Passe. In Herman Krul's "Eerlyche tytkorting, &c." a Dutch book of emblems, 4to. n. d. there are some subjects in which Death is allegorically introduced, and sometimes in a very ludicrous manner. Death enters the study of a seated philosopher, from whose mouth and breast proceed rays of light, and presents him with an hour-glass. Below a grave, over which hangs one foot of the philosopher. A. Venne invent. Obl. 5-1/2 by 4-1/2. "Catz's Emblems," in a variety of forms and editions, containing several prints relating to the subject. "Oth. Vænii Emblemata Horatiana." Several editions, with the same prints. "Le Centre de l'Amour decouvert soubs divers emblesmes galans et facetieux. A Paris chez Cupidon." Obl. 4to. without date. One print only of a man sitting in a chair seized by Death, whilst admiring a female, who, not liking the intrusion, is making her escape. The book contains several very singular subjects, accompanied by Latin and German subjects. It occurs also under the title of "Euterpæ soboles hoc est emblemata varia eleganti jocorum mistura, &c." "Fables nouvelles par M. de la Motte." 4to. edition. Amsterd. 1727, 12mo. "Apophthegmata Symbolica, &c." per A. C. Redelium Belgam. Augspurg, 1700. Oblong 4to. Death and the soldier; Death interrupting a feast; Death and the miser; Death and the old man; Death drawing the curtain of life, &c. &c. "Choice emblems, divine and moral." 1732. 12mo. FRONTISPIECES AND TITLE PAGES TO BOOKS. "Arent Bosman." This is the title to an old Dutch legend of a man who had a vision of hell, which is related much in the manner of those of Tundale and others. It was printed at Antwerp in 1504, 4to. The frontispiece has a figure of Death in pursuit of a terrified young man, and may probably belong to some other work. On a portion of the finely engraved wood frontispiece to "Joh. de Bromyard Summa predicantium." Nuremberg, 1518, folio. Death with scythe and hour-glass stands on an urn, supported by four persons, and terrifies several others who are taking flight and stumbling over each other. "Schawspiel Menchliches Lebens." Frankfort, 1596, 4to. Another edition in Latin, intitled, "Theatrum vitæ humanæ," by J. Boissard, the engravings by De Bry. At the top of the elegant title or frontispiece to this work is an oblong oval of a marriage, interrupted by Death, who seizes the bridegroom. At bottom a similar oval of Death digging the grave of an old man who is looking into it. On one side of the page, Death striking an infant in its cradle; on the other, a merchant about to ship his goods is intercepted by Death. On the title-page to a German jeu d'esprit, in ridicule of some anonymous pedant, there is a wood-cut of Death mounted backwards on an ass, and near him a fool hammering a block of some kind on an anvil. The title of this satirical morsel is "Res Mira. Asinus sex linguarum jucundissimis anagrammatismis et epigrammatibus oneratus, tractionibus, depositionibus, et fustuariis probè dedolatus, hero suo remissus, ac instar prodromi præmissus, donec meliora sequantur, Asininitates aboleantur, virique boni restituantur: ubi etiam ostenditur ab asino salso intentata vitia non esse vitia. Ob variam ejus jucunditatem, suavitatem et versuum leporem recusus, anno 1625." The address to the reader is dated from Giessen, 19th June, 1606, and the object of the satire disguised under the name of Jonas Melidæus. "Les Consolations de l'ame fidelle contre les frayeurs de la mort, par Charles Drelincourt." Amsterdam, 1660. 8vo. "Deugden Spoor De Vijfte Der-Eeringe Aen de Medicijas met sampt Monsieur Joncker Doctor Koe-Beest ende alle sijne Complicen." Death introduces an old man to a physician who is inspecting a urinal. 12mo. Death leading an old man with a crutch, near a charnel-house, inscribed MEMENTO MORI. At top these verses: Il faut sans diferer me suivre Tu dois être prèt a partir Dieu ne t'a fait si longtemps vivre Que pour l'aprendre à bien mourir. A Amsterdam chez Henri Desbordes. Another print, with the same design. "Se vendent à Londres par Daniel Du Chemin." On a spade, the monogram [monogram: HF] 8vo. "Reflexions sur les grands hommes." In the foreground various pranks of Death. In the distance, a church-yard with a regular dance, in a circle, of men, women, and Deaths, two of the latter sitting on a monument and playing on a violin and violoncello. Engraved by A. D. Putter. 12mo. "La Dance Macabre, or Death's Duell," by W. C. _i. e._ Colman. Printed by Wm. Stansby, no date, 12mo. It has an elegantly engraved frontispiece by T. Cecill, with eight compartments, exhibiting Death with the pope, the emperor, the priest, the nobles, the painter, the priest, and the peasant. The poem, in six line stanzas, is of considerable merit, and entirely moral on the subject of Death, but it is not the Macaber Dance of Lydgate. At the end, the author apologizes for the title of his book, which, he says, was injuriously conferred by Roger Muchill upon a sermon of Dr. Donne's, and adds a satirical epistle against "Muchill that never did good." There certainly was a sermon by Donne, published by Muchill or Michel, with the title of "Death's Duell." There appears to have been another edition of this book, the title-page only of which is preserved among Bagford's collections among the Harl. MSS. No. 5930. It has the same printed title, with the initials W. C. and the name of W. Stansby. It is also without date. This frontispiece is on a curtain held by two winged boys. At the top, a figure of Death, at bottom another of Time kneeling on a globe. In the right-hand corner, which is torn, there seems to have been a hand coupé with a bracelet as a crest; in the left, a coat of arms with a cross boutonné arg. and sable, and four mullets, arg. and sable. On each side, four oval compartments, with the following subjects. 1. A pope, a cardinal, and four bishops. 2. Several monks and friars. 3. Several magistrates. 4. A schoolmaster reading to his pupils. 5. An emperor, a king, a queen, a duke, a duchess, and a male attendant. 6. A group of noblemen or gentlemen. 7. A painter painting a figure of Death, in the back ground a woman who seems to be purchasing articles of dress. 8. Two men with spades, one of them digging. This very beautiful print is engraved by T. Cecil. On the top of each of the above compartments, Death holds a string with both his hands. "Theatrum omnium miserarum." A theatre filled with a vast number of people. In the centre, an obelisk on a pedestal, behind which is a small stage with persons sitting. In the foreground, Death holding a cord, with which three naked figures are bound, and another Death with a naked figure in a net. Between these figures symbols of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. 4to. "Les Consolations de l'Ame fidelle contre les frayeurs de la mort." Death holds his scythe over a group of persons, consisting of an old man and a child near a grave, who are followed by a king, queen, and a shepherd, with various pious inscriptions. 8vo. "La maniere de se bien preparer à la mort, par M. de Chertablon." Anvers, 1700, 4to. In an engraved frontispiece, a figure of Time or Death trampling upon a heap of articles expressive of worldly pomp and grandeur, strikes one end of his scythe against the door of a building, on which is inscribed "STATVTVM EST OMNIBVS HOMINIBVS. SEMEL MORI. Hebr. ix." At the bottom, within a frame ornamented with emblems of mortality, a sarcophagus with the skeleton of a man raised from it. Two Deaths are standing near, one of whom blows a trumpet, the other points upward with one hand, and holds a scythe in the other. On one side of the sarcophagus are several females weeping; on the other, a philosopher sitting, who addresses a group of sovereigns, &c. who are looking at the skeleton. "Palingenii Zodiacus Vitæ." Rotterdam, 1722. 12mo. Death seizes a sitting figure crowned with laurel, perhaps intended for Virtue, who clings to a bust of Minerva, &c. Death leading a bishop holding his crosier. He is preceded by another Death as a bellman with bell and lanthorn. Above, emblems of mortality over a label, inscribed "A Vision." 12mo. Scene, a church-yard. Death holding an hour-glass in one hand levels his dart at a young man in the habit of an ecclesiastic, with a mask in his hand. "Worlidge inv. Boitard sculp." The book unknown. 8vo. Three figures of Death uncovering a circular mirror, with a group of persons dying, &c. At bottom, INGREDIMVR. CVNCTI. DIVES. CVM. PAUPERE. MIXTVS. J. Sturt sculp. Death touching a globe, on which is inscribed VANITY, appears to a man in bed. "Hayman inv. C. Grignion sc." 8vo. To a little French work, intitled "Spectriana," Paris, 1817, 24mo. there is a frontispiece on copper representing the subject of one of the stories. A figure of Death incumbered with chains beckons to an armed man to follow him into a cave. CHAPTER XIV. _Single prints connected with the Dance of Death._ 1500-1600. (N. B. The right and left hands are those of the spectator. The prints on _wood_ are so specified.) An ancient engraving, in the manner of Israel Van Meckenen. Death is playing at chess with a king, who is alarmed at an impending check-mate. A pope, cardinal, bishop, and other persons are looking on. Above are three labels. Bartsch x. 55. No. 32. Albert Durer's knight preceded by Death, and followed by a demon, a well-known and beautiful engraving. A very scarce and curious engraving, representing the interior of a brothel. At the feet of a bed a man is sitting by a woman almost naked, who puts her hand into his purse, and clandestinely delivers the money she takes from it to a fellow standing behind one of the curtains. On the opposite side is a grinning fool making significant signs with his fingers to a figure of Death peeping in at a window. This singular print has the mark L upon it, and is something in the manner of Lucas Van Leyden, but is not mentioned in Bartsch's catalogue of his prints. Upright 7-1/2 by 5-1/2. A small etching, very delicately executed, and ascribed to Lucas Van Leyden, whose manner it certainly resembles. At a table on the left a family of old and young persons are assembled. They are startled by the appearance of a hideous figure of Death with a long beard and his head covered. Near him is a young female, crowned with a chaplet of flowers, holding in her hand a scull, Death's head, and hour-glass, and which the father of the family turns round to contemplate. Above is an angel or genius shooting an arrow at the family, and as it were at random. At top on the right is the letter L, and the date 1523. See Bartsch, vol. vii. p. 435. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 4. A small upright print of Death with a spade on his shoulder, and leading an armed soldier. The mark L below on a tablet. Not mentioned by Bartsch. A small circular engraving, of several persons feasting and dancing. Death lies in wait behind a sort of canopy. Probably a brothel scene, as part of the story of the prodigal son. The mark is L. Not noticed by Bartsch. A reverse of this engraving, marked S. An engraving on wood of Death presenting an hour-glass, surmounted by a dial, to a soldier who holds with both his hands a long battle-axe. The parties seem to be conversing. With Albert Durer's mark, and the date 1510. It has several German verses. See Bartsch, vii. 145, No. 132. A wood print of Death in a tree pointing with his right hand to a crow on his left, with which he holds an hour-glass. At the foot of the tree an old German soldier holding a sword pointed to the ground. On his left, another soldier with a long pike. A female sitting by the side of a large river with a lap-dog. The mark of Urs Graaf [monogram: VG] and the date 1524 on the tree. Upright, 8 by 4-1/2. Death as a buffoon, with cap, bauble, and hour-glass, leading a lady. The motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. With the mark and date [monogram] 1541. Bartsch, viii. 174. An engraving of Adam and Eve near the tree of life, which is singularly represented by Death entwined with a serpent. Adam holds in one hand a flaming sword, and with the other receives the apple from Eve, who has taken it from the serpent's mouth. At top is a tablet with the mark and date [monogram] 1543. A copy from Barthol. Beham. Bartsch, viii. 116. Death seizing a naked female. A small upright engraving. The motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. With the mark and date [monogram] 1546. Bartsch, viii. 175. A small upright engraving, representing Death with three naked women, one of whom he holds by the hair of her head. A lascivious print. The mark [monogram] on a label at bottom. Bartsch, viii. 176, who calls the women sorceresses. A small upright engraving of Death holding an hour-glass and dial to a soldier with a halberd. At top, the mark and date [monogram] 1532. Bartsch, viii. 276. An upright engraving of Death seizing a soldier, who struggles to escape from him. Below, an hour-glass. In a corner at top, the mark [monogram]. An upright engraving of Death trampling upon a vanquished soldier, who endeavours to parry with his sword a blow that with one hand his adversary aims at him, whilst with the other he breaks the soldier's spear. In a corner at top, the mark [monogram]. A truly terrific print, engraved also by [monogram: AC]. Bartsch, viii. 277. A naked female seized by a naked man in a very indecent manner. Death who is behind seizes the man whose left hand is placed on a little boy taking money out of a bag. The motto, HO: MORS VLTIMA LINEA RERVM, with the mark and date [monogram] 1529. See Bartsch, viii. 176. Near the end of an English Primer, printed at Paris, 1538, 4to. is a small print of Death leading a pope, engraved with great spirit on wood, but it has certainly not formed part of a series of a Dance of Death. An upright engraving of a pair of lovers interrupted by Death with scythe and hour-glass, with the mark and date [monogram: HM] 1550. Not in Bartsch. A small wood print of a gentleman conducting a lady, whose train is held up by Death with one hand, whilst he holds up an hour-glass with the other. In a corner below, the supposed mark of Jost de Negher, [monogram]. Upright, 2 by 1-3/4. A German anonymous wood print of the prodigal son at a brothel, a female fool attending. Death unexpectedly appears and takes him by the hand, whilst another female is caressing him. Oblong, 4-1/2 by 4. An upright engraving on wood, 14 by 11, of a naked female on a couch. Death with a spade and hour-glass approaches her. With her left hand she holds one corner of a counterpane, Death seizing the other, and trampling upon it. Under the counterpane, and at the foot of the couch is a dead and naked man grasping a sword in one hand. There is no indication of the artist of this singular print. An upright wood engraving, 14-1/2 by 11, of a whole-length naked female turning her head to a mirror, which she holds behind her with both hands. Death, unnoticed, with an hour-glass, enters the apartment; before him a wheel. On the left at bottom a blank tablet, and near the woman's left foot a large wing. An engraving on wood by David Hopfer of Death and the Devil surprizing a worldly dame, who admires herself in a mirror. Oblong, 8 inches by 5-1/2. An upright engraving of a lady holding in one hand a bunch of roses and in the other a glove. Death behind with his hour-glass; the motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. and the mark F. B. Bartsch, ix. 464. A wood print of Death seizing a child. On the left, at top, is a blank tablet. Upright, 2-1/2 by 2. A small oblong anonymous engraving of a naked female asleep on a couch. A winged Death places an hour-glass on her shoulder. A lascivious print. An ancient anonymous wood print: scene, a forest. Death habited as a woodman, with a hatchet at his girdle and a scythe, shoots his arrows into a youth with a large plume of feathers, a female and a man lying prostrate on the ground; near them are two dead infants with amputated arms; the whole group at the foot of a tree. In the back-ground, a stag wounded by an arrow, probably by the young man. 4to. size. A small wood-cut of Death seizing a child. Anonymous, in the manner of A. Durer. 2-1/4 by 1-7/8. A very old oblong wood-cut, which appears to have been part of a Dutch or Flemish Macaber Dance. The subjects are, Death and the Pope, with "Die doot seyt," "die paens seyt," &c. and the Cardinal with "Die doot seyt," and "Die Cardinael seyt." There have been verses under each character. 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. A small wood print of a tree, in which are four men, one of whom falls from the tree into a grave at the foot of it. Death, as a woodman, cuts down the tree with a hatchet. In the back-ground, another man fallen into a grave. A figure of Death as a naked old man with a long beard. He leans on a pedestal, on which are placed a scull and an hour-glass, and with his left hand draws towards him a draped female, who holds a globe in her left hand. At the bottom of the print, MORS OMNIA MVTAT, with the unknown monogram [monogram: BAD]. Upright, 5 inches by 2-3/4. It is a very rare print on copper, not mentioned by Bartsch. A small anonymous wood print of Death playing on a vielle, or beggar's lyre. An ancient anonymous copper engraving of Death standing on a bier, and laying hands upon a youth over whom are the words, "Ach got min sal ich," and over Death, "hie her by mich." Both inscriptions on labels. Bartsch, x. p. 54, No. 30. An allegorical engraving on copper by Cuerenhert, after Martin Heemskirk, 1550. A naked man bestrides a large sack of money, on which a figure or statue of Hope is standing. Death with one hand levels his dart at the terrified man, and holds a circle in the other. The money is falling from the sack, and appears to have demolished the hour-glass of Death. Upright, 11 inches by 8. At bottom, these lines: Maer als hemdie eininghe doot comt voer ogen Dan vint hii hem doer üdele hope bedrogen. There is a smaller copy of it. A circular engraving, two inches diameter, of a pair of lovers in a garden. The lady is playing on a harp, her companion's lute is on the ground. They are accompanied by a fool, and Death behind is standing with a dart in his hand ready for aim at the youthful couple. A very large engraving on wood tinted in chiaroscuro. It represents a sort of triumphal arch at the top of which is a Death's head, above, an hour-glass between two arm bones, that support a stone; evidently borrowed from the last cut of the arms of Death in the Lyons wood-cuts. Underneath, the three Fates between obelisks crowned with Deaths' heads and crosses, with the words [Greek: MNÊMONEUE APOPSYCHEIN] and ITER AD VITAM. In the middle, a circle with eight compartments, in which are skeleton heads of a pope, an emperor, &c. with mottoes. In the extremity of the circle, the words "Post hoc autem judicium statutum est omnibus hominibus semel mori." The above obelisks are supported by whole length figures of Death, near which are shields with BONIS BONA and MALIS MALA. On the pedestals that support the figures of Death are shields inscribed MEMENTO MORI and MEMORARE NOVISSIMA. Underneath the circle, a sort of table monument with Death's head brackets, and on its plinth a sceptre, cardinal's cross, abbot's crozier, a vessel with money, and two books. Between the brackets, in capitals: TRIA SUNT VERE QVÆ ME FACIVNT FLERE. And underneath in italics: Primum quidem durum, quia scio me moriturum. Secundum vero plango, quia moriar, et nescio quando. Tertium autem flebo, quia nescio ubi manebo. In a corner at bottom, "Ill. D. Petro Caballo J. C. Poutrém Relig. D. Steph. ordinisq. milit. Ser. M. D. Hetr: Auditori mon: Joh. Fortuna Fortunius Inven. Seni..... MDLXXXVIII." It is a very fine print, engraved with considerable spirit. 1600-1700. A very beautiful engraving by John Wierix, of a large party feasting and dancing, with music, in a garden. Death suddenly enters, and strikes a young female supported by her partner. At bottom, "Medio, lusu, risuque rapimur æternum cruciandi." Oblong, 6-1/2 by 4-1/2. Its companion--Death, crowned with serpents, drags away a falling female, round whom he has affixed his chain, which is in vain held back by one of the party who supplicates for mercy. At bottom these lines: Divitibus mors dura venit, redimita corona Anguifera, et risus ultimo luctus habet. On the top of the print, "O mors quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis, etc." Eccl. cap. xli. An allegorical print by one of the Wierxes, after H. Van Balen. The Virgin Mary and a man are kneeling before and imploring Christ, who is about to strike a bell suspended to the branch of a tree, the root of which Death cuts with an axe, whilst the Devil assists in pulling at it with a rope. Upright, 4-1/2 by 3-1/2. Time holding a mirror to two lovers, Death behind waiting for them. At bottom, "Luxuries predulce malum cui tempus, &c." Engraved by Jerom Wierx. Oblong, 12 by 8. An allegorical engraving by Jerom Wierx, after Martin De Vos, with four moral stanzas at bottom, beginning "Gratia magna Dei cælo demittitur alto." A figure of Faith directs the attention of a man, accompanied with two infants, to a variety of worldly vanities scattered in a sun-beam. On the right, a miser counting his gold is seized and stricken by Death. At top, four lines of Latin and Dutch. Oblong, 13 by 10. A rare etching, by Rembrant, of a youthful couple surprized by Death. Date, 1639. Upright, 4-1/4 by 3. Rembrant's "Hour of Death." An old man sitting in a tent is visited by a young female. He points to a figure of Death with spade and hour-glass. Upright, 5-1/4 by 3-1/2. An engraving by De Bry. In the middle, an oblong oval, representing a marriage, Death attending. On the sides, grotesques of apes, goats, &c. At bottom, S. P. and these lines: Ordo licet reliquos sit præstantissimus inter Conjugium, heu nimium sæpe doloris habet. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 2-1/4. Its companion--Death digging a grave for an old man, who looks into it. Psal. 49 and 90. An engraving by Crispin de Pas of Death standing behind an old man, who endeavours, by means of his money spread out upon a table, to entice a young female, who takes refuge in the arms of her young lover. At bottom, the following dialogue. SENEX. Nil aurei? nil te coronati juvant? Argenteis referto bulga nil movet? MORS. Varios quid at Senex amores expetis: Tumulum tuæ finemque vitæ respice. JUVENIS. Quid aureorum me beabit copia. Amore si privata sim dulcissimo. Its companion--Death with his hour-glass stands behind an old woman, who offers money to a youth turning in disdain to his young mistress. At bottom, these lines: JUVENIS. Facie esse quid mihi gratius posset tua Ipsius haud Corinthi gaza divitis. VETULA. Formam quid ah miselle nudam respicis Cum plus beare possit auri copia. MORS. At tu juventa quid torquêre frustra anus Quin jam sepulchri instantis es potius memor. Both oblong, 6 by 4. An engraving by Bosse of a queen reposing on a tent bed, Death peeps in through the curtains, another Death stands at the corner of the bed, whilst a female with a shield, inscribed PIETAS, levels a dart at the queen. Underneath, these verses: Grand Dieu je suis donc le victime Qu'une vengeance legitime Doit immoler à tes autels Je n'ay point de repos qui n'augmente ma peine Et les tristes objets d'une face inhumaine Me sont autant de coups mortels. Oblong, 4-1/2 by 3. An engraving by John Sadeler, after Stradanus, of an old couple, with their children and grandchildren, in the kitchen of a farm-house. Death enters, fantastically crowned with flowers and an hour-glass, and with a bagpipe in his left hand. Round his right arm and body is a chain with a hook at the extremity. He offers his right hand to the old woman, who on her knees is imploring him for a little more delay. In the back-ground, a man conducted to prison; beggars receiving alms, &c. At bottom, these lines: "Pauperibus mors grata venit; redimita corona Florifera, et luctus ultima risus habet." On the top of the print, "O mors bonum est judicium tuum homini indigenti, et qui minoratur viribus defecto ætate, &c." Eccl. cap. xli. Oblong, 11 by 8-1/2. An exceedingly clever etching by Tiepolo of a group of various persons, to whom Death, sitting on the ground and habited grotesquely as an old woman, is reading a lecture. Oblong, 7 by 5-1/2. A small circle, engraved by Le Blond, of Death appearing to the astrologer, copied from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. A print, painted and engraved by John Lyvijus of two card players quarrelling. Death seizes and strikes at them with a bone. Below, Rixas atque odia satagit dispergere serpens, Antiquus, cuncta at jurgia morte cadunt. Oblong, 10 by 7-1/2. An engraving by Langlois. Death with a basket at his shoulder, on which sits an owl, and holding with one hand a lantern, seizes the dice of a gambler sitting at a table with his winnings spread before him. At top, these verses: Alarme O le pipeur, chassez, chassez le moy, Je ne veux pas jouer a la raffle avec toy. LA MORT. A la raffle je joue avec toutes personnes Toutes pieces je prends, tant meschantes que bonnes. At bottom, a dialogue between the gambler and Death, in verse, beginning "J'ay ramenè ma chance il n'y a plus reméde." Upright, 10 by 7-1/2. A print by De Gheyn, but wanting his name, of an elegantly attired lady, with a feather on her head, and a fan mirror in her hand. She is accompanied by Death handsomely attired, with a similar feather, and holding an hour-glass. At bottom, Qui genio indulges, media inter gaudia morti Non dubiæ certum sis memor esse locum. Upright, 8 by 5-1/2. Hollar's etching in Dugdale's Monasticon and his history of St. Paul's, from the old wood-cut in Lydgate's Dance of Macaber, already described, and an outline copy in Mr. Edwards's publication of Hollar's Dance of Death. Death and two Misers, 11-3/4 by 10. Engraved by Michael Pregel, 1616. At bottom, six Latin lines, beginning "Si mihi divitiæ sint omnes totius orbis." An oblong allegorical print, 14 by 10-1/2. Death and Time at war with man and animals. In the foreground, Death levels three arrows at a numerous group of mortals of all ranks and conditions, who endeavour, in every possible way, to repel his attack. In the back-ground, he shoots a single arrow at various animals. It is a very rare and beautiful engraving by Bolsverd, after Vinck-boons, dated 1610. At bottom, six lines in Latin, by J. Semmius, beginning "Cernis ut imperio succumbant omnia Mortis." An oblong print, 18-1/2 by 13, intitled, "Alle mans vrees," _i. e._ "Every man's terror," and engraved by Cornelius Van Dalen, after Adrian Van Venne. It exhibits Death armed with a spade, and overturning and putting to flight a variety of persons. At bottom, four stanzas of Dutch verses, beginning "Dits de vrees van alle man." A large allegorical oblong engraving, 18-1/2 by 13, by Peter Nolpe, after Peter Potter. On the left, a figure of religion, an angel hovering over her with a crown and palm branch. She points to several figures bearing crosses, and ascending a steep hill to heaven. On the right, the Devil blowing into the ear of a female, representing worldly vanity. In the middle, Death beating a drum to a man and woman dancing. In the back-ground, several groups of people variously employed, and a city in flames. An anonymous Venetian engraving of Death striking a lady sitting at a table covered with various fruits, a lute, &c. She falls into the arms of her lover or protector. Oblong, 9-1/2 by 7. A print, after Martin Heemskirk, of Charon ferrying over souls. On the right, a winged Death supporting an emperor about to enter the fatal boat. Below, four lines, beginning "Sed terris debentur opes, quas linquere fato." An oblong engraving, 14 by 12, after John Cossiers. On the right, Death entering at a door, seizes a young man. In the middle, a music-master teaching a lady the lute, Death near them holding a violin and music-book. On the left, in another apartment, Death in a dancing attitude, with a double bagpipe, leads an aged man with a rosary in his left hand, and leaning on a staff with his right. At bottom, three stanzas of French verses, beginning "La Mort qui n'a point d'oreilles." A very small wood print, that seems to have belonged to some English book, about 1600. It represents Death behind a female, who sees his reflected image in a mirror which she holds, instead of her own. 1-1/2 by 1-1/2. The Devil's Ruff shop, into which a young gallant introduces his mistress, whose ruff one of the Devils is stiffening with a poking-stick. Death, with a ruff on his neck, waits at the door, near which is a coffin. This very curious satirical print, after Martin De Vos, is covered with inscriptions in French and Dutch. Oblong, 11-1/2 by 8. A small anonymous engraving of two Deaths hand in hand; the one holds a flower, the other two serpents; a man and woman also hand in hand; the latter holds a flower in her hand; they are preceded by a little boy on a cock-horse and a girl with a doll. Underneath, four lines, beginning "Quid sit, quid fuerit, quid tandem aliquando futurus." An anonymous engraving of a young gallant looking up to an image of Hope placed on a bag of money, near which plate, jewels, and money lie scattered on the ground. Death enters at a door, holding a circle in one hand and a dart with the other, in a menacing attitude. At bottom, these Latin lines: Namque ubi Mors trucibus supra caput adstitit armis, Hei quam tunc nullo pondere nummus erit. The same in Dutch. Upright, 8-1/2 by 6. This print was afterwards copied in a reduced form into a book of emblems, with the title, "Stulte hoc nocte repetent animam tuam," with verses in Latin, French, and German. A small anonymous wood engraving of five Deaths dancing in a circle; the motto, DOODEN DANS OP LESTEM, _i. e._ the last Dance of Death. A very clever etching of a winged and laurelled Death playing on the bagpipe and making his appearance to an old couple at table. The man puts off his cap and takes the visitor by the hand, as if to bid him welcome. Below, two Dutch lines, beginning "Maerdie hier sterven, &c." At top, on the left, "W. V. Valckert, in. fe. 1612." Oblong, 8-1/2 by 6-1/2. A very complicated and anonymous allegorical print, with a great variety of figures. In the middle, Death is striking with a sledge-hammer at a soul placed in a crucible over a sort of furnace. A demon with bellows is blowing the fire, and a female, representing the world, is adding fuel to it. In various parts of the print are Dutch inscriptions. Oblong, 10-1/2 by 6. Two old misers, a man and a woman. She weighs the gold, and he enters it in a book. Death with an hour-glass peeps in at one window, and the Devil at another. On the left, stands a demon with a book and a purse of money. On the right, in a corner, I. V. BRVG: F. "Se vend chez Audran rue S. Jaques aux deux piliers d'or." An upright mezzotint, 11-1/2 by 8-1/2. Two old misers, a man and a woman. He holds a purse, and she weighs the money. Death behind lies in wait for them. Below, a French stanza, beginning "Fol en cette nuit on te redemande ton ame," and the same in Latin. Below, "J. Meheux sculp. A Paris chez Audran rue St. Jaques aux deux pilliers d'or." An upright mezzotint, 10 by 7-1/2. An oval engraving in a frame of slips of trees. Death pulling down a fruit tree; a hand in a cloud cutting a flower with a sickle. Motto, "Fortior frango, tenera meto." Upright, 6-1/2 by 4. An anonymous engraving of a lady sitting at her toilet. She starts at the reflected image of Death standing behind her, in her looking glass. Her lover stands near her in the act of drawing his sword to repel the unwelcome visitor. Upright, 7-1/4 by 6-1/2. To some such print or painting, Hamlet, holding a scull in his hand, evidently alludes in Act v. Sc. 1. "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." A print of the tree of knowledge, the serpent holding the apple in his mouth. Below, several animals, as in the usual representations of Paradise. On one side a youth on horseback with a hawk on his fist; on the other, Death strikes at him with his dart. On the right, at bottom, the letters R. P. ex. and these verses: Nor noble, valiant, youthfull or wise, have The least exemption from the gloomy grave. Upright, 6 by 4. A large oblong engraving, on copper, 22 by 17. On the left, is an arched cavern, from which issue two Deaths, one of whom holds a string, the end of which is attached to an owl, placed as a bird decoy, on a pillar in the middle of the print. Under the string, three men reading. On the left, near a tree, is a ghastly sitting figure, whose head has been flayed. On the opposite side below, a musical group of three men and a woman. In the back-ground, several men caught in a net; near them, Death with a hound pursuing three persons who are about to be intercepted by a net spread between two trees. In the distance, a vessel with a Death's head on the inflated sail. On the top of the arched cavern, a group of seven persons, one of whom, a female, points to the interior of an urn; near them a flying angel holding a blank shield of arms. In the middle of the print, at bottom, some inscription has been erased. A print, intitled "Cursus Mundi." A woman holds, in one hand, a broken vessel with live coals; in the other, a lamp, at which a little boy is about to light a candle. Death appears on the left. At bottom, a Latin inscription stating that the picture was painted by William Panneels, the scholar of Rubens, in 1631, and that it is in the palace of Anselm Casimir, archbishop of Mentz. Upright, 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. A small anonymous engraving of Death sitting on a large fractured bass-viol, near which, on the ground, is a broken violin. An elegant small and anonymous engraving of a young soldier, whom Death strikes with his dart whilst he despoils him of his hat and feather. At bottom, six couplets of French verses, beginning "Retire toy de moy O monstre insatiable." Upright, 3-3/4 by 2-3/4. A small anonymous engraving of a merchant watching the embarkation of his goods, Death behind waiting for him. Motto from Psalm 39, "Computat et parcit nec quis sit noverit, hæres, &c." Upright, 3-1/4 by 1-1/2. Its companion--Death striking a child in a cradle. Job 14. "Vita brevis hominum variis obnoxia curis, &c." These were probably part of a series. An anonymous engraving of a man on his death-bed. On one side, the vision of a bishop saint in a cloud; on the other, Death has just entered the room to receive his victim. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 2-1/2. An anonymous engraving of a woman sitting under a tree. Sin, as a boy, with PECCATVM inscribed on his forehead, delivers a globe, on which a serpent is entwined, to Death. At bottom, "A muliere initium factum est peccati et per illam omnes morimur. Eccl. C. XXV." A small anonymous engraving of Death interrupting a Turkish sultan at table. In the back ground, another Turk contemplating a heap of sculls. A mezzotint by Gole, of Death appearing to a miser, treading on an hour-glass and playing on the violin. In the back-ground, a room in which is Death seizing a young man. The floor is covered with youthful instruments of recreation. This subject has been painted by Old Franks and Otho Vænius. Upright, 9 by 6-1/2. Another mezzotint of the same subject by P. Schenck is mentioned by Peignot, p. 19. It is inscribed "Mortis ingrata musica." A very singular, anonymous, and unintelligible engraving of a figure that seems intended for a blacksmith, who holds a large hammer in his hand. On his right, two monks, and behind him, Death folding his arms to his breast. Below, writing implements, &c. Upright, 4 by 3. The triumphal car of Time drawn by genii, and accompanied by a pope, cardinal, emperor, king, queen, &c. At the top of the car, Death blows a trumpet, to which a banner is suspended, with "Je trompe tout le monde." In the back-ground a running fountain, with "Ainsi passe la gloire du monde." An anonymous upright engraving, 4 by 2-1/2. A very neat engraving by Le Blon of several European coins. In the centre, a room in which Death strikes at two misers, a man and a woman sitting at a table covered with money. On the table cloth, "Luc. 12 ca." Its companion--Death and the Miser. The design from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. A label on the wall, with "Luc. 12." Oblong, 6-1/2 by 3-1/2. A German anonymous print, apparently from a book of emblems, representing Death waiting with a scythe to cut off the following persons: 1. A lady. 2. A gentleman. 3. An advocate. 4. A soldier: and, 5. A preacher. Each has an inscription. 1. Ich todt euch alle (I kill you all). 2. Ich erfrew euch alle (I rejoice you all). 3. Ich eruhr euch alle (I honour you all). 4. Ich red fur euch alle (I speak for you all). 5. Ich fecht fur euch alle (I fight for you all). 6. Ich bett fur euch alle (I pray for you all). With verses at bottom, in Latin and German. Oblong, 5-1/4 by 4. An anonymous engraving of a naked youth who with a sword strikes at the head of Death pursuing another youth. Oblong, 9-1/2 by 5-1/2. An upright engraving, 5-1/2 by 4, representing a young man on horseback holding a hawk on his fist, and surrounded by various animals. Death holding an hour-glass, strikes at him with his dart. Behind, the tree of knowledge, with the serpent and apple. At bottom, on the right, are the initials T. P. ex. An engraving of the Duke of Savoy, who, attended by his guards, receives petitions from various persons. Before him stands in a cloud the angel of Death, who points towards heaven. At bottom, on the left, "Delphinus pinxit. Brambilla del. 1676," and on the right, "Nobilis de Piene S. R. C. Prim. cælator f. Taur." Oblong, 10-1/2 by 7-1/2. An engraving by De Gheyn, intitled, "Vanitas, idelheit." A lady is sitting at a table, on which is a box of jewels and a heap of money. A hideous female Death strikes at her with a flaming dart, which, at the same time, scatters the leaves of a flower which she holds in her left hand. Upright, 9 by 7. A very small circular wood-cut, apparently some printer's device, representing an old and a young man, holding up a mirror, in which is reflected the figure of Death standing behind them, with the motto, "Beholde your glory." An anonymous print of Death and the miser. Death seizes his money, which he conveys into a dish. Upright, 3-1/2 by 2-1/2. It is a copy from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. 1700-1800. An anonymous modern copy of Death and the bridegroom, copied from the Lyons wood-cuts, edition 1562. An etching of Death, with an hour-glass in one hand and a cane in the other, entering a room where a poor poet has been writing, and who would willingly dispense with the visit. At bottom "And when Death himself knocked at my door, ye bad him come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission. There must certainly be some mistake in this matter, quoth he." The same in Italian. This is one of Patch's caricatures after Ghezzi. Upright, 16-1/2 by 12. A print intitled "Time's lecture to man," with eight stanzas in verse, beginning "Why start you at that skeleton." It consists of three divisions. At top a young man starts at the appearance of time and death. Under the youth "Calcanda semel via lethi." At each extremity of this division is a figure of Death sitting on a monument. The verses, in double columns, are placed between two borders with compartments. That on the right a scull crowned with a mitre; an angel with a censer; time carrying off a female on his back; Death with an infant in his arms; Death on horseback with a flag; Death wrestling with a man. The border on the left has a scull with a regal crown; an angel dancing with a book; Death carrying off an old man; Death leading a child; Death with a naked corpse; Death digging a grave. At bottom "Sold by Clark and Pine, engravers, in Castle Yard, near Chancery Lane, T. Witham, frame-maker, in Long Lane, near West Smithfield, London." With a vignette of three Deaths' heads. 13 by 9-1/2. There is a very singular ancient gem engraved in "Passeri de Gemmis Astriferis," tom. ii. p. 248. representing a skeleton Death standing in a car drawn by two animals that may be intended for lions; he holds a whip in his hand, and is driving over other skeletons. It is covered with barbarous and unintelligible words in Greek characters, and is to be classed among those gems which are used as amulets or for magical purposes. It seems to have suggested some of the designs that accompany the old editions of Petrarch's Triumph of Death. A folio mezzotint of J. Daniel von Menzel, an Austrian hussar. Behind him is a figure of Death with the hussar's hat on his head, by whom he is seized. There are some German verses, and below Mon amis avec moi à la danse C'est pour vous la juste recompense. The print is dated 1744. A Dutch anonymous oblong engraving on copper, 10-1/2 by 10, intitled "Bombario, o dood! te schendig in de nood." Death leads a large group of various characters. At bottom verses beginning "De Boertjes knappen al temaal." On each side caricatures inscribed Democritus and Heraclitus. It is one of the numerous caricatures on the famous South Sea or Mississippi bubble. An engraving, published by Darly, entitled "Macaronies drawn after the life." On the left a macaroni standing. On the floor dice and dice-box. On a table cards and two books. On the right, Death with a spade, leaning on a sarcophagus, inscribed "Here lies interred Dicky Daffodil, &c." Oblong, 9 by 6. A very clever private etching by Colonel Turner, of the Guards, 1799, representing, in the foreground, three Deaths dancing in most grotesque attitudes. In the distance several groups of skeletons, some of whom are dancing, one of them beating a drum. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 3-1/2. A small engraving by Chodowiecki. Death appears to a medical student sitting at a table; underneath these lines, De grace epargne moi, je me fais medecin, Tu recevras de moi la moitié des malades. Upright, 3-1/2 by 2. This is not included in his Dance of Death. The same slightly retouched, with German verses. A small engraving, by Chodowiecki, of Death approaching a dying man attended by his family and a physician. Oblong, 2-1/2 by 2. A modern engraving, intitled "An emblem of a modern marriage." Death habited as a beau stands by a lady, who points to a monument inscribed "Requiescat in pace." Above a weeping Cupid with an inverted torch. At bottom ... No smiles for us the Godhead wears, His torch inverted and his face in tears. Drawn by M. H. from a sketch cut with a diamond on a pane of glass. Published according to act of parliament, June 15, 1775. A modern caricature intitled "A patch for t'other eye." Death is about to place a patch on the right eye of an old general, who has one already on the other. His hat and truncheon lie on the ground, and he is drawing his sword for the purpose of opposing the intention of his grim adversary, exclaiming at the same time, "Oh G--d d--n ye, if that's your sport, have at ye." Upright, 8 inches by 7. A small engraving by Chr. de Mechel, 1775, of an apothecary's shop. He holds up a urinal to a patient who comes to consult him, behind whom Death is standing and laying hands upon him. Below these verses: Docteur, en vain tu projettes De prononcer sur cette eau, La mort rit de tes recettes Et conduit l'homme au tombeau. Oblong, 4 by 3. An anonymous and spirited etching of Death obsequiously and with his arms crossed entering a room in which is a woman in bed with three infants. With uplifted arms she screams at the sight of the apparition. Below in a corner the husband, accompanied with four other children. Upright, 11 by 10-1/2. "The lawyer's last circuit." He is attacked by four Deaths mounted on skeleton horses. He is placed behind one of them, and all gallop off with him. A road-post inscribed "Road to hell." Below, the lines from Hamlet, "Where be his quiddits now? his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks, &c." Published April 25, 1782, by R. Smith, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street. Oblong, 10 by 6-1/2. 1800. A modern wood-cut of a drinking and smoking party. Demons of destruction hover over them in the characters of Poverty, Apoplexy, Madness, Dropsy, and Gout. In the bowl on the table is a monstrous head inscribed "Disease." Behind, a gigantic figure of Death with scythe and hour-glass. Oblong, 3-1/2 by 3. A Sketch by Samuel Ireland, after Mortimer, in imitation of a chalk drawing, apparently exhibiting an Englishman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard. Death behind stretching his arms upon all of them. Oblong 10-1/2 by 8. A wood print intitled "Das betruhte Brautfest." Death seizes a man looking at a table covered with wedding-cakes, &c. From a modern Swiss almanack. Oblong 6-1/2 by 5-1/2. A mezzotint of a physician, who attending a sick patient in bed is attacked by a group of Deaths bearing standards, inscribed "Despair," "l'amour," "omnia vincit amor," and "luxury." Oblong, 11 by 8-1/2. An etching from a drawing by Van Venne of Death preaching from a charnel-house to a group of people. His text book rests on the figure of a skeleton as a reading desk. It is prefixed to Mr. Dagley's "Death's Doings," mentioned in p. 157. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 4-1/4. Mr. Dagley, in the second edition of his "Death's Doings," p. 9, mentions a print of "a man draining an enormous bowl, and Death standing ready to confirm the title of the print, "the last drop." An etching by Dagley, after Birch, of Baxter, a famous cricketer, bowled out by Death. Below, his portrait at full length. Oblong, 9 by 7. "Sketches of the celebrated skeletons, originally designed on the long wall between Turnham-Green and Brentford." Etchings of various groups; the subjects, billiards, drafts, cards, dice, toss, and pitch. Oblong, 18 by 11. "Humorous sketches of skeletons engaged in the various sciences of Singing, Dancing, Music, Oratory, Painting, and Sculpture." Drawn by H. Heathcote Russell as a companion to the skeletons copied from the long wall at Brentford. Published 3d June, 1830. Same size as the preceding print. A lithographic print of a conjurer pointing with his magic wand to a table on which are cups, a lanthorn, &c. In the back-ground, the Devil running away with a baker, and a group of three dancing Deaths. Below, birds in cages, cards, &c. Oblong, 8 by 6. A small modern wood-cut of Death seizing a lady at a ball. He is disguised as one of the party. Underneath, "Death leads the dance."--_Young--Night 5._ From "the Christian's Pocket Magazine." Oblong, 2-1/2 by 1-1/2. A design for the ballad of Leonora, by Lady Diana Beauclerc. A spectre, as Death, carrying off a lady on horseback, and striking her with his dart. Other Death-like spectres waiting for her. Oblong, 11-3/4 by 9. A small modern engraving of Death presenting a smelling bottle to a fainting butcher with one hand, and with the other fanning him. The motto, "A butcher overcome with extreme sensibility, is as strangely revived." A modern halfpenny wood-cut of several groups, among which is a man presenting an old woman to Death. The motto, "Death come for a wicked woman." An oval etching, by Harding, intitled "Death and the Doctor." Upright, 4-1/2 by 3-1/2. A modern etching of Death striking a sleeping lady leaning on a table, on which little imps are dancing. At bottom, "Marks fecit." Oblong, 4 by 3. An anonymous modern wood-cut of Death seizing a usurer, over whom another Death is throwing a counterpane. Square, 4 by 4. An etching, intitled "the Last Drop." A fat citizen draining a punch-bowl. Death behind is about to strike him with his dart. Upright, 8-1/2 by 6-1/2. In an elegant series of prints, illustrative of the poetical works of Goethe, there is a poem of seven stanzas, intitled "Der Todtentanz," where the embellishment represents a church-yard, in which several groups of skeletons are introduced, some of them rising, or just raised, from their graves; others in the attitude of dancing together or preparing for a dance. These prints are beautifully etched in outline in the manner of the drawings in the margins of Albert Durer's prayer-book in the library of Munich. Prefixed to a poem by Edward Quillinan, in a volume of wood-cuts used at the press of Lee Priory, the seat of Sir Egerton Brydges, intitled "Death to Doctor Quackery," there is an elegant wood-cut, representing Death hob-and-nobbing with the Doctor at a table. In the same volume is another wood-cut on the subject of a dance given by the Lord of Death in Clifton Halls. A motley group of various characters are dancing in a circle whilst Death plays the fiddle. In 1832 was published at Paris "La Danse des Morts, ballade dediée à Madame la Comtesse de Tryon Montalembert. Paroles et musique de P. Merruau." The subject is as follows: A girl named Lise is admonished by her mother not to dance on a Saturday, the day on which Satan calls the dead to the infernal _Sabbat_. She promises obedience, but whilst her mother is napping, escapes to the ball. She forgets the midnight hour, when a company of damned souls, led by Satan, enter the ball-room hand-in-hand, exclaiming "Make way for Death." All the party escape, except Lise, who suddenly finds herself encircled by skeletons, who continue dancing round her. From that time, on every Saturday at midnight, there is heard under ground, in the church-yard, the lamentation of a soul forcibly detained, and exclaiming "Girls beware of dancing Satan!" At the head of this ballad is a lithographic print of the terrified Lise in Satan's clutches, surrounded by dancing, piping, and fiddling Deaths. About the same time there appeared a silly ballad, set to music, intitled "the Cork Leg," accompanied by a print in which the man with the cork leg falling on the ground drops his leg. It is seized by Death, who stalks away with it in a very grotesque manner. CHAPTER XV. _Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death._ It is very well known that the use of initial or capital letters, especially with figures of any kind, is not coeval with the invention of printing. It was some time before they were introduced at all, a blank being left, or else a small letter printed for the illuminators to cover or fill up, as they had been accustomed to do in manuscripts; for, although the art of printing nearly put an end to the occupation of that ingenious class of artists, they continued to be employed by the early printers to decorate their books with elegant initials, and particularly to illuminate the first pages of them with beautiful borders of foliage or animals, for the purpose of giving them the appearance of manuscripts. It has more than once been most erroneously asserted by bibliographers and writers on typography, that Erhard Ratdolt, a printer at Venice, was the first person who made use of initial letters about the year 1477; for instances are not wanting of their introduction into some of the earliest printed books. Among the latter the most beautiful specimen of an ornamented capital letter is the B in the Psalter of 1457, of which Dr. Dibdin has given a very faithful copy in vol. I. p. 107, of the Bibliotheca Spenceriana. This truly elegant letter seems to have been regarded as the only one of its kind; but, in a fragment of an undescribed missal in folio, printed in the same type as the above-mentioned Psalter, there is an equally beautiful initial T, prefixed to the "Te igitur" canon of the mass. It is ornamented with flowers and foliage, and in both these precious volumes there are many other smaller capitals, but whether printed with the other type, or afterwards stamped, may admit of some doubt. This unique and valuable fragment is in the collection of the present writer. As the art of printing advanced, the initial letters assumed every possible variety of form, with respect to the subjects with which they were ornamented. Incidents from scripture and profane history, animals of every kind, and the most ludicrous grotesques, constitute the general materials; nor has the Dance of Death been forgotten. It was first introduced into the books printed at Basle by Bebelius and Cratander about the year 1530, and for one or the other of these celebrated printers an alphabet of initial letters was constructed, which, in elegance of design and delicacy of engraving, have scarcely ever been equalled, and certainly never exceeded. Whether they were engraved in relief on blocks of type or printer's metal, in the manner of wood-cutting, or executed in wood in the usual manner, is a matter of doubt, and likely to remain so. They may, in every point of view be regarded as the chef d'oeuvre of ancient block engraving, and to copy them successfully at this time might require the utmost efforts of such artists as Harvey, Jackson, and Byfield.[134] A proof set of this alphabet, in the possession of the present writer, was shown to M. De Mechel when he was in London, on which occasion he stated that he had seen in the public library of Basle another proof set on a single sheet, with the inscription "Hans Lutzelburger," who is elsewhere called _formschneider_, or block-cutter, of which he has written a memorandum on the leaf containing the first abovementioned set of proofs. M. de Mechel, with great probability, inferred that this person was either the designer or engraver of the alphabet as well as of the cuts to the "Historiées faces de la mort," on one of which, as already stated, the mark [monogram: HL] is placed;[135] but to whomsoever this mark may turn out to belong, certain it is that Holbein never made use of it.[136] These letters measure precisely 1 inch by 7/8 of an inch, and the subjects are as follow: A. A group of Deaths passing through a cemetery covered with sculls. One of them blows a trumpet, and another plays on a tabor and pipe. B. Two Deaths seize upon a pope, on whom a demon fastens, to prevent their dragging him along. C. An emperor in the clutches of two Deaths, one of whom he resists, whilst the other pulls off his crown. D. A king thrown to the ground and forcibly dragged away by two Deaths. E. Death and the cardinal. F. An empress sitting in a chair is attacked by two Deaths, one of whom lifts up her petticoat. G. A queen seized by two Deaths, one of whom plays on a fife. H. A bishop led away by Death. I. A duke with his hands clasped in despair is seized behind by Death in the grotesque figure of an old woman. K. Death with a furred cap and mantle, and a flail in his right hand, seizes a nobleman. L. Death in the habit of a priest with a vessel of holy water takes possession of the canon. M. Death behind a physician in his study lays his hand on a urinal which he is inspecting. N. One Death lays hold on a miser, whilst another carries off his money from a table. O. Death carries off a terrified monk. P. Combat between Death and the soldier. Q. Death very quietly leads away a nun. R. Death and the fool who strikes at him with his bauble. S. Exhibits two Deaths, one of whom is in a very licentious action with a female, whilst the other runs off with an hour-glass on his back. T. A minstrel with his pipe, lying prostrate on the ground, is dragged away by one Death, whilst another pours something from a vessel into his mouth. V. A man on horseback endeavouring to escape from Death is seized by him behind. W. Death and the hermit. X. Death and the Devil among the gamblers. Y. Death, the nurse, and the infant. Z. The last Judgment. But they were not only used at Basle by Bebelius Isingrin and Cratander, but also at Strasburg by Wolfgang Cephaleus, and probably by other printers; because in an edition of Huttichius's "Romanorum principum effigies," printed by Cephaleus at Strasburg in 1552, they appear in a very worn and much used condition. In his Greek Bible of 1526, near half the alphabet were used, some of them by different hands. They were separately published in a very small volume without date, each letter being accompanied with appropriate scriptural allusions taken from the Vulgate Bible. They were badly copied, and with occasional variations, for books printed at Strasburg by J. Schott about 1540. Same size as the originals. The same initials were used by Henry Stainer of Augsburg in 1530. Schott also used two other sets of a larger size, the same subjects with variations, and which occur likewise in books printed at Frankfort about 1550 by Cyriacus Jacob. Christopher Froschover, of Zurich, used two alphabets with the Dance of Death. In Gesner's "Bibliotheca Universalis," printed by him in 1545, folio, he used the letters A. B. C. in indifferent copies of the originals with some variation. In a Vulgate Bible, printed by him in 1544, he uses the A and C of the same alphabet, and also the following letters, with different subjects, viz. F. Death blowing a trumpet in his left hand, with the right seizes a friar holding his beads and endeavouring to escape. O. Death and the Swiss soldier with his battle-axe; and, S. a queen between two Deaths, one of whom leads her, the other holds up her train. The Gesner has also a Q from the same alphabet of Death and the nun. This second alphabet is coarsely engraved on wood, and both are of the same size as the originals. In Francolin's "Rerum præclare gestarum, intra et extra moenia civitatis Viennensis, pedestri et equestri prælio, terra et aqua, elapso Mense Junio Anni Domini MDLX. elegantissimis iconibus ad vivum illustratarum, in laudem et gloriam sere. poten. invictissimique principis et Domini, Domini Ferdinandi electi Roma: imperatoris, &c. Vienna excudebat Raphael Hofhalter," at fo. xxii. b. the letter D is closely copied in wood from the original, and appears to have been much used. This very rare work is extremely interesting for its large and spirited etchings of the various ceremonies on the above occasion, but more particularly for the tournaments. It is also valuable for the marks of the artists, some of which are quite unknown. Other copies of them on wood occur in English books, but whether the whole alphabet was copied would be difficult to ascertain. In a Coverdale's Bible, printed by James Nicolson in Southwark, the letters A. I. and T. occur. The subject of the A. is that of the fool and Death, from the R. of the originals, with the addition of the fool's bauble on the ground: the two other letters are like the originals. The size 2 inches by 1-1/2. The same letters, and no others, occur in a folio English Bible, the date of which has not been ascertained, it being only a fragment. The A is found as late as 1618 in an edition of Stowe's "Survey of London." In all these letters large white spots are on the back-ground, which might be taken for worm-holes, but are not so. The I occurs in J. Waley's "table of yeres of kings," 1567, 12mo. An X and a T, an inch and 1/2 square, with the same subjects as in the originals, and not only closely copied, but nearly as well engraved on wood, are in the author's collection. Their locality has not been traced. Hollar etched the first six letters of the alphabet from the initials described in p. 214. They are rather larger than the originals, but greatly inferior to them in spirit and effect. Two other alphabets, the one of peasants dancing, the other of boys playing, by the same artists, have been already described in p. 101, and were also used by the Basle and other printers. In Braunii Civitates Orbis terrarum, Par. I. No. 37, edit. 1576, there is an H, inch and 1/2 square. The subject, Death leading a Pope on horseback. It is engraved on wood with much spirit. In "Prodicion y destierro de los Moriscos de Castilla, por F. Marcos de Guadalajara y Xavier." Pamplona, 1614, 4to. there is an initial E cut in wood with the subject of the cardinal, varied from that in Lutzenberger's alphabet. A Greek [Greek: P] on wood, with Death leading away the pope, was used by Cephalæus in a Testament. In "Fulwell's Flower of Fame," printed by W. Hoskins, 1575, 4to. is an initial of Death leading a king, probably belonging to some alphabet. An S rudely cut on wood with Death seizing two children was used by the English printers, J. Herford and T. Marshe. An A well cut on wood, representing Death striking a miser, who is counting his money at a table. It occurs at fo. 5 of Quad's "fasciculus geographicus." Cologne, 1608, small folio, printed by John Buxemacher. An R indifferently cut on wood, two inches square. The subject, Death in a grave pulls an old man towards him. A boy making his escape. From some unknown book. An S indifferently cut on wood, two inches square. Death shovelling two sculls, one crowned, into a grave. On the shovel the word IDEM, and below, the initials of the engraver or designer, I. F. From some unknown book. An H, an inch and half square, very beautifully cut on wood. The letter is surrounded by a group of people, over whom Death below is drawing a net. It is from some Dutch book of emblems, about 1640. An M cut on wood in p. 353 of a Suetonius, edited by Charles Patin, and printed 1675, 4to. "Basle typis Genathianis." The subject is, Death seizing Cupid. Size, 1-1/2 square. A W, 2-1/8 square, engraved on copper, with the initials of Michael Burghers. A large palm tree in the middle, Death with his scythe approaches a shepherd sitting on a bank and tending his flock. In the second volume of Braun and Hogenberg Civitates orbis terrarum, and prefixed to a complimentary letter from Remaglus Lymburgus, a physician and canon of Liege, there is an initial letter about an inch and a half square, representing a pope and an emperor playing at cards. They are interrupted by Death, who offers them a cup which he holds in his left hand whilst he points to them with his right. Other figures are introduced. This letter is very finely engraved on wood. In Vol. II. p. 118 (misprinted 208) of Steinwich's "Bibliothecæ Ecclesiasticæ." Colon. Agrip. 1599, folio. There is a single initial letter V only, which may have been part of an alphabet with a Dance of Death. The subject is Death and the queen. The size nearly an inch square. At fo. 1. of "F. Marco de Guadalajara y Xavier, Memorable expulsion y justissimo destierro de los Moriscos de Espana, Pamplona, 1613, 4to." there is an initial E, finely drawn and well engraved in wood. The subject has been taken from two cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, viz. the cardinal and the emperor. From the first, the figures of the cardinal and Death seizing his hat; and from the other, the figures of the kneeling man, and of Death seizing the emperor's crown, are introduced as a complete group in the above initial letter. Size, 1-1/2 inch square. In p. 66 of the same work there is another letter that has probably belonged to a set of initials with a Dance of Death. It is an H, and copied from the subject of the bishop taken by Death from his flock, in the Lyons series. It is engraved in a different and inferior style from that last mentioned, yet with considerable spirit. Size, 1-1/2 inch. CHAPTER XVI. _Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous._ Rene of Anjou is said to have painted a sort of Death's Dance at Avignon, which was destroyed in the French revolution. In one of the wardrobe accounts of Henry VIII. a picture at Westminster is thus described: "Item, a table with the picture of a woman playing upon a lute, and an old manne holding a glasse in th' one hande and a deadde mannes headde in th' other hande." MS. Harl. No. 1419. A round painting in oil, by or from Hans Holbein. The subject, an old man making love to a young girl. Death pulling him back, hints at the consequences, whilst the absurdity is manifested by the presence of a fool, with cockscomb and bauble, on the other side. Diameter, 15 inches. From the striking resemblance in the features of the old lover to those of Erasmus, there is no doubt that Holbein intended by this group to retort upon his friend, who, on one of the drawings which Holbein had inserted in a copy of Erasmus's Praise of Folly, now in the public library at Basle, and which represented a fat epicure at table embracing a wench, had written the name of HOLBEIN, in allusion to his well-known intemperance. In the present writer's possession. The small painting by Isaac Oliver, from Holbein, formerly at Whitehall, of Death with a green garland, &c. already more particularly described at p. 145. A small painting in oil, by Old Franks, of a gouty old miser startled at the unexpected appearance of Death, who approaches him playing on a violin, one of his feet resting on an hour-glass. In the distance, and in another room, Death is seen in conversation with a sitting gentleman. Upright, 7-1/2 by 5-1/2. The same subject, painted in oil by Otho Vænius, in which a guitar is substituted for the violin. This picture was in the collection of Richard Cosway, Esquire. Upright, 12 by 6, and is now belonging to the present writer. A Mr. Knowles, a modern artist, is said to have painted a miser counting his hoard, and Death putting an extinguisher over him. At p. 460 of the memoirs of that most ingenious artist, Charles Alfred Stothard, by his widow, mention is made of an old picture, at Nettlecombe Hall, Somersetshire, belonging to its owner, a clergyman, of a Dance of Death. Mr. Tyssen, a bookseller at Bristol, is said to possess a will of the 15th century, in which the testator bequeaths a painting of the Dance of Death. DRAWINGS. In a beautifully illuminated Psalter, supposed to have been made for Richard II. and preserved among the Cotton MSS. Domit. xvii. is a very singular painting, representing part of the choir of a cathedral, with ten monks sitting in their stalls, and chaunting the service. At the top of these stalls, and behind it, are five grotesque Deaths looking down on the monks. One of the Deaths has a cardinal's hat, two have baronial crowns on their heads, and those of the remaining two are decorated with a sort of imperial crowns, shaped like the papal tiara. A priest celebrates mass at the altar, before which another priest or monk prostrates himself. What the object of the painter was in the introduction of these singular figures of Death is difficult to comprehend. [Illustration] In the manuscript and illuminated copies of the "Romance of the Rose," the "Pelerin de la vie humaine" and the "Chevalier Deliberé," representations of Death as Atropos, are introduced. A very ancient and masterly drawing of Death and the beggar, the outlines black on a blue ground, tinted with white and red. The figures [monogram] at bottom indicate its having been part of a Macaber Dance. Upright, 5-1/4 by 4. In the author's possession. Sir Thomas Lawrence had four very small drawings by Callot that seemed to be part of an intended series of a Dance of Death. 1. Death and the bishop. 2. Death and the soldier. 3. Death and the fool. 4. Death and the old woman. An extremely fine drawing by Rembrandt of four Deaths, their hands joined in a dance, their faces outwards. One has a then fashionable female cap on his head, and another a cap and feather. Upright, 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. In the author's possession. A very singular drawing in pen and ink and bistre. In the middle, a sitting figure of a naked man holding a spindle, whilst an old woman, leaning over a tub on a bench, cuts the thread which he has drawn out. Near the old woman Death peeps in behind a wall. Close to the bench is a woman sitting on the ground mending a piece of linen, a child leaning on her shoulder. On the other side is a sitting female weaving, and another woman in an upright posture, and stretching one of her hands towards a shelf. Oblong, 11-1/4 by 8. In the author's possession. An anonymous drawing in pen and ink of a Death embracing a naked woman. His companion is mounted on the back of another naked female, and holds a dart in each hand. Oblong, 4 by 3-1/4. In the author's possession. A single sheet, containing four subjects, skilfully drawn with a pen and tinted in Indian ink. 1. An allegorical, but unknown figure sitting on a globe, with a sort of sceptre in his right hand. Death seizes him by his garment with great vigour, and endeavours to pull him from his seat. 2. Two men eating and drinking at a table. Death, unperceived, enters the room, and levels his dart at them. 3. Death seizes two naked persons very amorously situated. 4. Death seizes a miser counting his money. In the author's possession. Twenty-four very beautiful coloured drawings by a modern artist from those in the public library at Berne that were copied by Stettler from Kauw's drawings of the original painting by Nicolas Manuel Deutch. In the author's possession, together with lithographic copies of them that have been recently published at Berne.[137] A modern Indian ink drawing of a drunken party of men and women. Death above in a cloud levels his dart at them. Upright, 5-1/4 by 3-1/2. In the author's possession. A spirited drawing in Indian ink of two Deaths as pugilists with their bottle-holders. Oblong, 7 by 4-1/2. In the author's possession. A pen and ink tinted drawing, intitled "The Last Drop." A female seated before a table on which is a bottle of gin or brandy. She is drinking a glass of it, Death standing by and directing his dart at her. In the author's possession. Mr. Dagley, in the second edition of his "Death's Doings," p. 7, has noticed some very masterly designs chalked on a wall bordering the road from Turnham-Green towards Kew-Bridge. They exhibited figures of Death as a skeleton ludicrously occupied with gamblers, dancers, boxers, &c. all of the natural size. They were unfortunately swept away before any copies were made to perpetuate them, as they well deserved. It was stated in The Times newspaper that these sketches were made by a nephew of Mr. Baron Garrow, then living in retirement near the spot, but who afterwards obtained a situation in India. These drawings were made in 1819. Four very clever coloured drawings by Rowlandson, being probably a portion of an unfinished series of a Death's Dance. 1. The Suicide. A man seated near a table is in the act of discharging a pistol at his head. The sudden and terrific appearance of Death, who, starting from behind a curtain, significantly stares at him through an eye-glass. One of the candles is thrown down, and a wine-glass jerked out of the hand of the suicide, who, from a broken sword and a hat with a cockade, seems intended for some ruined soldier of fashion. A female servant, alarmed at the report of the pistol, rushes into the apartment. Below, these verses: Death smiles, and seems his dart to hide, When he beholds the suicide. 2. The Good Man, Death, and the Doctor. A young clergyman reads prayers to the dying man; the females of his family are shedding tears. Death unceremoniously shoves out the physician, who puts one hand behind him, as expecting a fee, whilst with the other he lifts his cane to his nostrils. Below, these lines: No scene so blest in Virtue's eyes, As when the man of virtue dies. 3. The Honey-moon. A gouty old fellow seated on a sopha with his youthful bride, who puts her hand through a window for a military lover to kiss it. A table covered with a desert, wine, &c. Death, stretching over a screen, pours something from a bottle into the glass which the husband holds in his hand. Below, these verses: When the old fool has drunk his wine, And gone to rest, I will be thine. 4. The Fortune-teller. Some females enter the conjurer's study to have their fortunes told. Death seizes the back of his chair and oversets him. Below, these verses: All fates he vow'd to him were known, And yet he could not tell his own. These drawings are oblong, 9 by 5 inches. In the author's possession. MISCELLANEOUS. A circular carving on wood, with the mark of Hans Schaufelin [monogram: HS], representing Death seizing a naked female, who turns her head from him with a very melancholy visage. It is executed in a masterly manner. Diameter, 4 inches. In the author's possession. In Boxgrove church, Sussex, there is a splendid and elaborately sculptured monument of the Lords Delawar; and on the side which has not been engraved in Mr. Dallaway's history of the county, there are two figures of Death and a female, wholly unconnected with the other subjects on the tomb. These figures are 9-1/2 inches in height, and of rude design. Many persons will probably remember to have seen among the ballads, &c. that were formerly, and are still exhibited on some walls in the metropolis, a poem, intitled "Death and the Lady." This is usually accompanied with a wood-cut, resembling the above figures. It is proper to mention likewise on this occasion the old alliterative poem in Bishop Percy's famous manuscript, intitled _Death and Liffe_, the subject of which is a vision wherein the poet sees a contest for superiority between "our Lady Dame Life," and the "ugly fiend, Dame Death." See "Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry," in the Essay on the Metre of Pierce Plowman's Vision. Whether there may have been any connexion between these respective subjects must be left to the decision of others. There is certainly some reason to suppose so. [Illustration] The sculptures at Berlin and Fescamp have been already described. Among the subjects of tapestry at the Tower of London, the most ancient residence of our kings, was "the Dance of Macabre." See the inventory of King Henry VIII.'s Guardrobe, &c. in MS. Harl. 1419, fo. 5. Two panes of glass with a portion of a Dance of Death. 1. Three Deaths, that appear to have been placed at the beginning of the Dance. Over them, in a character of the time of Henry VII. these lines: ... ev'ry man to be contented w{t} his chaunce, And when it shall please God to folowe my daunce. 2. Death and the Pope. No verses. Size, upright, 8-1/2 by 7 inches. In the author's possession. They have probably belonged to a Macaber Dance in the windows of some church. CHAPTER XVII. _Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux Avengles._ The first of these subjects, as connected with the Macaber Dance, has been already introduced at p. 31-33; what is now added will not, it is presumed, be thought unworthy of notice. It is needless to repeat the descriptions that have been given by M. Peignot of the manuscripts in the Duke de la Valliere's catalogue. The following are some of the printed volumes in which representations of the _trois vifs et trois morts_ occur. They are to be found in all the editions of the Danse Macabre that have already been described, and in the following Horæ and other service books of the catholic church. "Horæ ad usum Sarum," 1495, no place, no printer. 4to. Three Deaths, three horsemen with hawks and hounds. The hermit, to whom the vision appeared, in his cell. "Heures à l'usaige de Rome." Paris. Nicolas Higman, for Guil. Eustace, 1506, 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Traject." 1513. 18mo. "Breviarium seu horarium domesticum ad usum Sarum." Paris, F. Byrckman, 1516. Large folio. Three Deaths and three young men. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1522. 8vo. And again, 1535. 4to. A Dutch "Horæ." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1522. 8vo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Thielman Kerver's widow, 1525. 8vo. "Missale ad usum Sarum." Paris, 1527. Folio. Three horsemen as noblemen, but without hawks or hounds. "Enchiridion preclare ecclesie Sarum." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1528. 32mo. "Horæ ad usum fratrum predicatorum ordinis S. Dominici." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1529. 8vo. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Yolande Bonhomme, widow of T. Kerver, 1531. 8vo. "Missale ad usum Sarum." Paris. F. Regnault, 1531. Three Deaths only; different from the others. "Prayer of Salisbury." Paris. Francois Regnault, 1531, 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Sarum." Paris. Widow of Thielman Kerver, 1532. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Francois Regnault, 1535. 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Gilles Hardouyn, 1537. 18mo. The subject is different from all the others, and very curiously treated. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Thielman Kerver, 1558. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Rome." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1573. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Jacques Kerver, 1573. 12mo. And again, 1575. 12mo. In "The Contemplation of Sinners," printed by Wynkyn de Worde. 4to. All the above articles are in the collections of the author of this dissertation. In an elegant MS. "Horæ," in the Harl. Coll. No. 2917, 12mo. three Deaths appear to a pope, an emperor, and a king coming out of a church. All the parties are crowned. At the end of Desrey's "Macabri speculum choreæ mortuorum," a hermit sees a vision of a king, a legislator, and a vain female. They are all lectured by skeletons in their own likenesses. In a manuscript collection of unpublished and chiefly pious poems of John Awdeley, a blind poet and canon of the monastery of Haghmon, in Shropshire, anno 1426, there is one on the "_trois vifs et trois morts_," in alliterative verses, and composed in a very grand and terrific style. NEGRO FIGURE OF DEATH. In some degree connected with the old painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, was that of a black man over a vaulted roof, constructed by the celebrated N. Flamel, about the year 1390. This is supposed to have perished with the Danse Macabre; but a copy of the figure has been preserved in some of the printed editions of the dance. It exhibits a Negro blowing a trumpet, and was certainly intended as a personification of Death. In one of the oldest of the above editions he is accompanied with these verses: CRY DE MORT. Tost, tost, tost, que chacun savance Main à main venir a la danse De Mort, danser la convient, Tous et a plusieurs nen souvient. Venez hommes femmes et enfans, Jeunes et vieulx, petis et grans, Ung tout seul nen eschapperoit, Pour mille escuz si les donnoit, &c. Before the females in the dance the figure is repeated with a second "Cry de Mort." Tost, tost, venez femmes danser Apres les hommes incontinent, Et gardez vous bien de verser, Car vous danserez vrayment; Mon cornet corne bien souvent Apres les petis et les grans. Despecte vous legierement, Apres la pluye vient le beau temps. These lines are differently given in the various printed copies of the Danse Macabre. This figure is not to be confounded with an alabaster statue of Death that remained in the church-yard of the Innocents, when it was entirely destroyed in 1786. It had been usually regarded as the work of Germain Pilon, but with greater probability belonged to Francois Gentil, a sculptor at Troyes, about 1540. It was transported to Notre Dame, after being bronzed and repaired, by M. Deseine, a distinguished artist. It was saved from the fury of the iconoclast revolutionists by M. Le Noir, and deposited in the Museum which he so patriotically established in the Rue des petits Augustins, but it has since disappeared. It was an upright skeleton figure, holding in one hand a lance which pointed to a shield with this inscription: Il n'est vivant, tant soit plein d'art, Ne de force pour resistance, Que je ne frappe de mon dart, Pour bailler aux vers leur pitance. Priez Dieu pour les trespassés. It is engraved in the second volume of M. Le Noir's "Musée des monumens Francais," and also in his "Histoire des arts en France," No. 91. DANSE AUX AVEUGLES. There is a poetical work, in some degree connected with the subject of this dissertation, that ought not to be overlooked. It was composed by one Pierre Michault, of whom little more seems to be known than that he was in the service of Charles, Count of Charolois, son of Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. It is intitled "La Danse aux Aveugles," and the object of it is to show that all men are subject to the influence of three blind guides, Love, Fortune, and Death, before whom several persons are whimsically made to dance. It is a dialogue in a dream between the Author and Understanding, and the respective blind guides describe themselves, their nature, and power over mankind, in ten-line stanzas, of which the following is the first of those which are pronounced by Death: Je suis la Mort de nature ennemie, Qui tous vivans finablement consomme, Anichillant à tous humains la vie, Reduis en terre et en cendre tout homme. Je suis la mort qui dure me surnomme, Pour ce qu'il fault que maine tout affin; Je nay parent, amy, frere ou affin Que ne face tout rediger en pouldre, Et suis de Dieu ad ce commise affin, Que l'on me doubte autant que tonnant fouldre. Some of the editions are ornamented with cuts, in which Death is occasionally introduced, and that portion of the work which exclusively relates to him seems to have been separately published, M. Goujet[138] having mentioned that he had seen a copy in vellum, containing twelve leaves, with an engraving to every one of the stanzas, twenty-three in number. More is unnecessary to be added, as M. Peignot has elaborately and very completely handled the subject in his interesting "Recherches sur les Danses des Morts." Dijon, 1826. octavo. CHAPTER XVIII. _Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of the Dance of Death._ To enumerate even a moiety of these mistakes would almost occupy a separate volume, but it may be as well to notice some of them which are to be found in works of common occurrence. TRAVELLERS.--The erroneous remarks of Bishop Burnet and Mr. Coxe have been already adverted to. See pp. 79, 134, and 138. Misson seems to regard the old Danse Macabre as the work of Holbein. The Rev. Robert Gray, in "Letters during the course of a tour through Germany and Switzerland in the year 1791 and 1792," has stated that Mechel has engraved _Rubens's designs_ from the Dance of Death, now perishing on the walls of the church-yard of the Predicant convent, where it was sketched in 1431. Mr. Wood, in his "View of the History of Switzerland," as quoted in the Monthly Review, Nov. 1799, p. 290, states, that "the Dance of Death in the church-yard of the Predicants has been falsely ascribed to Holbein, as it is proved that it was painted _long after the death of that artist, and not before he was born_, as the honourable Horace Walpole supposes." Here the corrector stands in need himself of correction, unless it be possible that he is not fairly quoted by the reviewer. Miss Williams, in her Swiss tour, 1798, when speaking of the Basle Dance of Death, says it was painted by Kleber, a _pupil of Holbein_. Those intelligent and amusing travellers, Breval, Keysler, and Blainville have carefully avoided the above strange mistakes. WRITERS ON PAINTING AND ENGRAVING.--Meyssens, in his article for Holbein in "the effigies of the Painters," mentions his "Death's Dance, in the town-hall of Basle, the design whereof he first neatly cut in wood and afterwards painted, which appeared so fine to the learned Erasmus, &c." English edition, 1694, p. 15. Felibien, in his "Entretiens sur les vies des Peintres," follows Meyssens as to the painting in the town-hall. Le Comte places the supposed painting by Holbein in the fish-market, and in other respects copies Meyssens. "Cabinet des Singularités, &c." tom. iii. p. 323, edit. 1702, 12mo. Bullart not only places the painting in the town-hall of Basle, but adds, that he afterwards engraved it in wood. "Acad. des Sciences et des Arts," tom. ii. p. 412. Mr. Evelyn, in his "Sculptura," the only one of his works that does him no credit, and which is a meagre and extremely inaccurate compilation, when speaking of Holbein, actually runs riot in error and misconception. He calls him a Dane. He makes what he terms "the licentiousness of the friars and nuns," meaning probably Hollar's sixteen etchings after Holbein's satire on monks and friars and other members of the Romish church as the persecutors of Christ, and also the "Dance Machabre and Mortis imago," to have been cut in wood, and one or both of the latter to have been painted in the church of Basle. Mr. Evelyn's own copy of this work, with several additions in manuscript, is in the possession of Mr. Taylor, a retired and ingenious artist, of Cirencester-place. He probably intended to reprint it, and opposite the above-mentioned word "Dane," has inserted a query. Sandrart places the Dance of Death in the fish-market at Basle, and makes Holbein the painter as well as the engraver. "Acad. artis pictoriæ," p. 238, edit. 1683, folio. Baldinucci speaks of twenty prints of the Dance of Death painted by Holbein in the Senate-house of Basle. "Notizie dè professori del disegno, &c." tom. iii. 313 and 319. M. Descamps inadvertently ascribes the old Dance of Death on the walls of the church-yard of Saint Peter to the pencil of Holbein. "Vie des Peintres Flamandi," &c. 1753. 8vo. Tom. i. p. 75. Papillon, in his account of the Dance of Death, abounds with inaccuracies. He says, that a magistrate of Basle employed him to paint a Dance of Death in the fish-market, near a church-yard; that the work greatly increased his reputation, and made much noise in the world, although it has many anatomical defects; that he engraved this painting on small blocks of wood with unparalleled beauty and delicacy. He supposes that they first appeared in 1530 at Basle or Zuric, and as he thinks with a title and German verses on each print. Now he had never seen any edition so early as 1530, nor any of the cuts with German verses, and having probably been misled on this occasion, he has been the cause of misleading many subsequent writers, as Fournier, Huber, Strutt, &c. He adopts the error as to the mark [monogram: HL] on the thirty-sixth subject belonging to Holbein. He is entirely ignorant of the nature and character of the fool or idiot in No. xliii. whom he terms "un homme lascif qui a levé le devant de sa robbe:" and, to crown the whole, he makes the old Macaber Dance an _imitation_ of that ascribed to Holbein. De Murr, in tom. ii. p. 535 of his "Bibliothéque de Peinture, &c." servilely copies Papillon in all that he has said on the subject, with some additional errors of his own. The Abbé Fontenai, in the article for Holbein in his "Dictionnaire des Artistes," Paris, 1776, 8vo. not only makes him the painter of the old Macaber Dance, but places it in the town-house at Basle. Mr. Walpole, or rather Vertue, in the "Anecdotes of Painting in England," corrects the error of those who give the old Macaber Dance to Holbein, but inadvertently makes that which is usually ascribed to him to have been borrowed from the other. Messrs. Huber and Rost make Holbein the engraver of the Lyons wood-cuts, and suppose the original drawings to be preserved in the public library at Basle. They probably allude to the problematical drawings that were used by M. de Mechel, and which are now in Russia. "Manuel des curieux et des amateurs de l'art." Tom. i. p. 155. In the "Notices sur les graveurs," Besancon, 1807, 8vo. a work that has, by some writers, been given to M. Malpé, and by others to the Abbé Baverel, Papillon is followed with respect to the supposed edition of 1530, and its German verses. Mr. Janssen is more inaccurate than any of his predecessors, some of whom have occasionally misled him. He makes Albert Durer the inventor of the designs, the greater part of which, he says, are from the Dance of Death at Berne. He adopts the edition of 1530, and the German verses. He condemns the title-page of the edition of 1562 for stating an addition of seventeen plates, whereas, says he, there are but five; but the editor meant only that there were seventeen more cuts than in the original, which had only forty-one. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.--Charles Patin, a libeller of the English nation, has made Holbein the engraver on wood of a Dance of Death, which, he says, is "not much unlike that in the church-yard of the Predicants at Basle, painted, as some say, from the life, by Holbein." He ought to have known that this work was executed near a century before Holbein was born. "Erasmi stultitiæ laus." Basileæ, 1676, 8vo. at the end of the list of Holbein's works. Martiniere, in his Geographical Dictionary, makes Holbein the inventor of the Macaber Dance at Basle. Goujet, in his very useful "Bibliothéque Francoise," tom. x. p. 436, has erroneously stated that the Lyons engravings on wood were by the celebrated artist Salomon Bernard, usually called "Le petit Bernard." The mistake is very pardonable, as it appears that Bernard chiefly worked in the above city. M. Compan, in his "Dictionnaire de Danse," 1787, 12mo. under the article _Macabrée_, very gravely asserts that the author took his work from the Maccabees, "qui, comme tout le monde scait danserent, et en ont fait epoque pour les morts." He then quotes some lines from a modern edition of the "Danse Macabre," where the word _Machabées_ is ignorantly substituted for "Machabre." M. Fournier states that Holbein painted a Dance of Death in the fish-market at Basle, reduced it, and engraved it. "Dissertation sur l'imprimerie," p. 70. Mr. Warton has converted the imaginary Machabree into _a French poet_, but corrects himself in his "Hist. of Engl. Poetry." He supposes the single cut in Lydgate to represent _all_ the figures that were in St. Paul's cloister. He atones for these errors in referring to Holbein's cuts in Cranmer's Catechism, as entirely different in style from those published at Lyons, _but which he thinks, are probably the work of Albert Durer_, and also in his conjecture that the painter Reperdius might have been concerned in the latter. See "Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser," vol. ii. 116, &c. In his most elegant and instructive History of English Poetry he relapses into error when he states that Holbein painted a Dance of Death in the Augustine monastery at Basle in 1543, and that Georgius Æmylius published this Dance at Lyons, 1542, one year before Holbein's painting at Basle appeared. Hist. Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 364, edit. Price. The Marquis de Paulmy ascribes the old Macaber Dance at Basle to Holbein, and adds, "le sujet et l'execution en sont aussi singuliers que ridicules." "Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothéque," tom. Ff. 371. M. Champollion Figeac in Millin's "Magazin encyclopedique," 1811, tom. vi. has an article on an edition of the "Danse Macabre anterieure à celle de 1486." In this article he states that Holbein painted a fresco Dance of Death at Basle near the end of the 15th century (Holbein was not born till 1498!); that this Dance resembled the Danse Macabre, all the characters of which are in Holbein's style; that it is still more like the Dance in the Monasticon Anglicanum in a single print; and that the English Dance belongs to John Porey, an author who appears, however, to be unknown to all biographers. We should have been obliged to M. Figeac if he had mentioned where he met with this John Porey, whom he again mentions, but in such a manner as to leave a doubt whether he means to consider him as a poet or a painter. Even M. Millin himself, from whom more accuracy might have been expected, speaks of Holbein's work as at the Dominican convent at Basle. The "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique," 1789, 8vo. gives the painting on the walls of the cemetery of St. Peter at Basle, to Holbein, confounding the two works as some other French biographical dictionaries have done, especially one that has cited an edition of the Danse Macabre in 1486 as the first of Holbein's painting, though it immediately afterwards states that artist to have been born in 1498. In that excellent work, the "Biographie universelle," in 42 vols. 8vo. 1811-1828, M. Ponce, under the article "Holbein," inaccurately refers to "the Dance of Death painted in 1543 on the walls of a cemetery at Basle," at the same time properly remarking that it was not Holbein's. He refers to the supposed original drawings of Holbein's work at Petersburg that were engraved by De Mechel, and concludes his brief note with a reference to a dissertation of M. Raymond in Millin's "Magazin encyclopedique," 1814, tom. v. which is nothing more than a simple notice of two editions of the Danse Macabre, described in the present dissertation. And lastly--The Reviewer of the first edition of the present dissertation prefixed to Mr. Edwards's engravings or etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar, has displayed considerable ingenuity in his attempt to correct supposed errors, by a lavish substitution of many of his own, some of which are the following: That the Dance of Death is found in _carvings in wood in the choirs of churches_. Not a single instance can be produced. That Hollar's etchings are on _wood_. "Black letter" is _corrected_ to "Black letters." That the book would have been more _complete if Lydgate's stanzas_ had been quoted, in common with others in _Piers Plowman_. Now all the stanzas of Lydgate are given, and not a single one is to be found in Piers Plowman. And they most _ingeniously and scientifically_ denominate the skeleton figure of Death "the Gothic monster of Holbein!" * * * * * A short time after the completion of the present Dissertation, the author accidentally became possessed of a recently published German life of Holbein, in which not a single addition of importance to what has been gleaned from preceding writers can possibly be found. It contains a general, but extremely superficial account of the works of that artist, including the Dance of Death, which, as a matter of course, is ascribed to him. As the author, a Mr. Ulrich Hegner, who is said to be a _Swiss gentleman and amateur_, has not conducted himself with that urbanity and politeness which might have been looked for from such a _character_, and has thought proper, in adverting to the slight Essay by the present writer, prefixed, at the instance of the late Mr. Edwards, to his publication of Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, to speak of it with a degree of contempt, which, even with all its imperfections, others may think it may not have deserved; the above _gentleman_ will have but little reason to complain should he meet with a somewhat uncourteous retort in the course of the following remarks on his compilation. Had Mr. Hegner written with a becoming diffidence in his opinions, his work might have commanded and deserved respect, though greatly abounding in error and false conceit. He has undertaken a task for which he has shown himself wholly unqualified, and with much unseemly arrogance, and its usual concomitant, ignorance, has assumed to himself a monopoly of information on the subject which he discusses. His arguments, if worthy of the name, are, generally speaking, of a most weak and flimsy texture. In support of his dogmatical opinion that the original designs for the Lyons Dance of Death exclusively belong to Holbein he has not adduced a single fact. He has not been in possession of a tenth part of the materials that were necessary for the proper investigation of his subject, nor does he appear to have even seen them. The very best judges of whatever relates to the history and art of engraving are quite satisfied that most of the persons who have written on them, with the exception of Mr. Ottley, and of the modest and urbane Monsieur Peignot, are liable to the charge of extreme inaccuracy and imperfection in their treatment of the Dance of Death, and the list of such writers may now be closed with the addition of Herr Hegner. Some of his positions are now to be stated and examined. He makes Holbein the author of a new Dance of Death in the Crozat or Gallitzin drawings in Indian ink which have been already described in the present dissertation, adding that he also _engraved_ them, and suppressing any mention in this place of the monogram on one of the cuts which he _elsewhere admits not to belong to Holbein_. Soon afterwards, and with very good reason, he doubts the originality of the drawings, which he says M. de Mechel caused to be copied by Rudolph Schellenberg, a skilful artist, already mentioned as the author of a Dance of Death of his own invention; and proceeds to state, that from these copies De Mechel employed some inferior persons in his service to make engravings; advancing all this without the accompaniment of any proof whatever, and in direct contradiction to De Mechel's authority of having himself engraved them. An apparently bitter enemy to De Mechel, whose posthumous materials, now in the library at Basle, he nevertheless admits to have used for his work, he invidiously enlarges on the discrepancies between his engravings and the Lyons wood-cuts, both in size and manner; and then concludes that they were copied from the wood-cuts, the copyist allowing himself the privilege of making arbitrary variations, especially in the figure of the Eve in the second cut, which, he says, is of the family of Boucher, who, in spite of Hegner's opinion, is regarded by better judges as a clever painter. Whether the remarks on any deviations of De Mechel's prints from the Crozat drawings are just or otherwise can now be decided by comparison only, and Hegner does not appear to have seen them, or at least does not tell us so. His criticisms on the merit of the engravings in De Mechel's work cannot be justified, for though they may occasionally be faulty, they are very neatly, and many will think beautifully executed. What Hegner has said respecting the alphabets of initial letters, is at once futile and inaccurate; but his comment on Hans Lutzenberger deserves the severest censure. Adverting to the inscription with the name of this fine artist on one of the sets of the initials, he terms him "an itinerant _bookseller_, who had bought the blocks and put his name on them;" and this after having himself referred to a print on which Lutzenberger is called FORMSCHNEIDER, _i. e._ woodcutter: making in this instance a clumsy and dishonest effort to get rid of an excellent engraver, who stands so recorded in opposition to his own untenable system. The very important and indelible expressions in the dedication to the first known edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, he very modestly terms "a play upon words," and endeavours to account for the death of the painter by supposing Holbein's absence in England would warrant the language of the dedication. This is indeed a most desperate argument. Frellon, the publisher and proprietor of the work, must have known better than to have permitted the dedication to accompany his edition had it been susceptible of so silly a construction. He again adheres to the improbable notion that _Holbein engraved_ the cuts to the Lyons book, and this in defiance of the mark or monogram [monogram: HL] which this painter never used; nor will a single print with Holbein's accredited name be found to bear the slightest resemblance to the style of the wood-cuts. Even those in Cranmer's catechism, which approach the nearest to them, are in a different manner. His earlier engravings on wood, whether in design only, or as the engraver, resemble those by Urs Graaf, who, as well as Holbein, decorated the frontispieces or titles to many of the books printed at Basle. It is not improbable that Urs Graaf was at that time a pupil of Holbein. Hegner next endeavours to annihilate the painting at Whitehall recorded in Nieuhoff's etchings and dedications, but still by arguments of an entirely negative kind. He lays much stress on this painting not being specifically mentioned by Sandrart or Van Mander, who were in England; but where does it appear that the latter, during his short stay in this country, had visited Whitehall? Even admitting that both these persons had seen that palace, it is most probable that the fresco painting of the Dance of Death, would, from length of time, dampness of the walls, and neglect, have been in a condition that would not warrant the exhibition of it, and it was, moreover, placed in a gallery which scarcely formed, at that time, a part of Whitehall, and which was, probably, not shown to visitors. It must not, however, be omitted to mention that Sandrart, in p. 239 of his Acad. Pict. states, though ambiguously, that "there was still remaining at Whitehall a work by Holbein that would constitute him the Apelles of his time," an expression which we may remember had been also applied to Holbein by his friend Borbonius in the complimentary lines on a Dance of Death. The Herr Hegner has thought fit to speak of Mr. T. Nieuhoff in terms of indecorous and unjust contempt, describing him as "an unknown and unimportant Dutch copper-plate engraver," and arraigning his evidence as being in manuscript only; as if manuscripts that have never been printed were of no authority. But where has Hegner discovered that Nieuhoff was a Dutch copper-plate engraver, by which is meant a professed artist; or even though he had been such, would that circumstance vitiate his testimony? In his dedication to Lord William Benting the expressions allusive to his ardent love of the arts, seem to constitute him an amateur attempter of etching; for what he has left us in that way is indeed of a very subordinate character, and unworthy of a professed artist. He appears to have been one of the Dutchmen who accompanied King William to England, and to have had apartments assigned to him at Whitehall. At the end of his dedication to Lord W. Benting, he calls himself an old servant of that person's father, and subscribes himself "your and your illustrious family's most obedient and humble servant." The identification of William Benting must be left to the sagacity of others. He could not have been the Earl of Portland created in 1689, or he would have been addressed accordingly. He is, moreover, described as a youth born at Whitehall, and then residing there, and whose dwelling consisted of nearly the whole of the palace that remained after the fire. Again,--We have before us a person living in the palace of Whitehall anterior to its destruction, testifying what he had himself seen, and addressing one who could not be imposed upon, as residing also in the palace. There seems to be no possible motive on the part of Nieuhoff for stating an untruth, and his most clear and unimpeachable testimony is opposed by Hegner's wild and weak conjectures, and chiefly by the negative argument that a few strangers who visited England in a hasty manner have not mentioned the painting in question at Whitehall, amidst those inaccurate and superficial accounts of England which, with little exception, have been given by foreign travellers. Among these Hegner has selected Patin and Sandrart. Before adducing the former, he would have done well to have looked at his very imperfect and erroneous account of Holbein's works, in his edition of the [Greek: MÔRIAS EGKÔMION] of Erasmus; and, with respect to the latter, the stamp of inaccuracy has been long affixed to most of the works he has published. He has mentioned, that being in company with Rubens in a Dutch passage boat "the conversation fell upon Holbein's book of cuts, representing the Dance of Death; that Rubens gave them the highest encomiums, advising him, who was then a young man, to set the highest value upon them, informing him, at the same time, that he in his youth had copied them."[139] On this passage Mr. Warton has well remarked that if Rubens styled these prints Holbein's, in familiar conversation, it was but calling them by the name which the world had given them, and by which they were generally known; and that Sandrart has, in another place, confounded them with the Basle painting.[140] To conclude,--Juvenal's "hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas," may be regarded as Herr Hegner's literary motto. He has advocated the vague traditions of unauthenticated Dances of Death by Holbein, and has made a most unjustifiable attempt to deprive that truly great artist of the only painting on the subject which really appears to belong to him. Yet, if by fair and candid argument, supported by the necessary proofs, the usual and long standing claim on the part of Holbein can be substantiated, no one will thereby be more highly gratified than the author of this dissertation. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. P. 59. After No. 17 add "La Danse Macabre." Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523, 4to. with very different cuts, and some characters omitted in former editions. P. 77, last line of the text. There is a German work intitled "The process or law-suit of Death," printed, and perhaps written, by Conrad Fyner in 1477; but as it is not noticed in Panzer's list of German books, no further account of it can be given than that it is briefly mentioned by Joseph Heller, in a German work on the subject of engraving on wood, in which one cut from it is introduced, that exhibits Death conversing with a husbandman who holds a flail in one of his hands. It is probable that the book would be found to contain other figures relating to a Macaber Dance. P. 112, l. ult. There is another work by Glissenti, intitled "La Morte innamorata." Venet. 1608, 24mo. with a dedication to Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador at Venice, by Elisabetta Glissenti Serenella, the author's niece; in which, after stating that Sir Henry had seen it represented, she adds, that she had ventured to have it printed for the purpose of offering it to him as a very humble donation, &c. It is a moral, dramatic, and allegorical fable of five acts, in which _Man_, to avoid _Death_, who has fallen in love with him, retires with his family to the country of _Long Life_, where he takes up his abode in the house of _the World_, by whom and his wife _Fraud_, who is in strict friendship with _Fortune_, he is apparently made much of, and calculates on being very happy. _Death_ follows the _Man_, and being unknown in the above region, contrives, with the aid of _Infirmity_, the _Man's_ nurse, to make him fall sick. The _World_ being tired of his guest, and very desirous to get rid of, and plunder him of his property, under pretence of introducing him to _Fortune_, and consequent happiness, enters into a plot with _Time_ to disguise _Death_, who is lodged in the same house with him, as _Fortune_, and thus to give him possession of the _Man_, who imagines that he is just about to secure _Fortune_. Each act of this piece is ornamented with some wood-cut that had been already introduced into the other work of Glissenti. P. 118, line 32. Ebert, in his "Bibliographisches Lexicon," Leipsig. 1821, 4to. has mentioned some later editions of Denneker's engravings. See the article Denecker, p. 972. P. 126, l. 14. It is not impossible that Hollar may have copied a bust carved in wood, or some other material, by Holbein, as Albert Durer and other great artists are known to have practised sculpture in this manner. P. 135, l. 25. These four prints are in the author's possession. P. 137, l. ult. Other imitations of the Lyons cuts are, 1. A wood engraving of Adam digging and Eve spinning, by Corn. Van Sichem in the "Bibel's tresor," Amst. 1646, 4to. 2. The Astrologer, a small circular print on copper by Le Blond. 3. The Bridegroom, an anonymous modern engraving on wood. 4. The Miser, a small modern and anonymous print on copper. P. 147, l. 19. In the library at Lambeth palace, No. 1049, there is a copy of this book in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, printed by J. Day, 1569, 8vo. It was given by Archb. Tillotson, and from a memorandum in it supposed to have been the Queen's own copy. The cut of the Queen kneeling was used so late as 1652, in Benlowes' Theophila. Some of the cuts have the unexplained mark [monogram: CI]. P. 164, Article xii. This print is a copy, with a few variations, of a much older one engraved on wood, and probably unique, in the very curious collection of single sheets and black letter ballads, belonging to George Daniel, Esquire, of Islington. The figures are executed in a style of considerable merit, and each of them is described in a stanza of four lines. It may probably be the same as No. 1 or No. 2, mentioned in p. 76, or either of Nos. x. or xi. described in p. 163. P. 226, line 12. Another drawing by Rowlandson, intitled "Death and the Drunkards." Five topers are sitting at a table and enjoying their punch. Death suddenly enters and violently seizes one of them. Another perceives the unwelcome and terrific intruder, whilst the rest are too intent on their liquor to be disturbed at the moment. It is a very spirited and masterly performance. 11 by 9. In the author's possession. P. 239, l. 12. There is likewise in the "Biographie Universelle" an article intitled "Macaber, poete Allemand" by M. Weiss, and it is to be regretted that a writer whose learning and research are so eminently conspicuous in many of the best lives in the work, should have permitted himself to be misled in much that he has said, by the errors of Champollion Figeac in the Magazin Encyclopedique. He certainly doubts the existence of Macaber as a writer, but inclines to M. Van Praet's Arabic _Magbarah_. He states, that the English version of the Macaber Dance belongs to John Porey, _a poet who remains unknown even to his countrymen_, and is inserted in the Monasticon Anglicanum. Now this _unknown poet_, who is likewise adopted by M. Peignot, is merely the person who contributed Hollar's plate in the Monasticon, already mentioned in p. 52, and whose coat of arms is at the top of that plate, with the following inscription, "Quo præsentes et posteri Mortis, ut vidimus, omni Ordini comunis, sint magis memores, posuit IOHANNES POREY." Mr. Weiss has likewise inadvertently adopted the error that Holbein painted the old Dance of Macaber in the convent of the Augustines at Basle. Two recently published Dances of Death have come to hand too late to have been noticed in their proper places. 1. "Der Todtentantz. Ein Gedicht von Ludwig Bechstein, mit 48 kupfern in treuen Conturen nach H. Holbein. Leipzig bei Friedrich August Leo, 1831." 8vo. These prints are executed in a faithful and elegant outline, and accompanied with modern German verses. 2. "Hans Holbein's Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den Holz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Heraus gegeben von J. Schlotthaver k. Professor Mit erklärendem Texte. Munchen, 1832, Auf Rosten des Heraus gegebers." 12mo. The prints are most accurately and elegantly lithographed in imitation of wood engraving. The descriptions are in German verse, and accompanied with some brief prefatory matter by Dr. H. F. Massmann, which is said to have been amplified in one of the German journals or reviews. DESCRIPTION OF THE CUTS GIVEN IN THE DISSERTATION. I. The frontispiece is a design for the sheath of a dagger, probably made by Holbein for the use of a goldsmith or chaser. The original drawing is in the public library at Basle. See some remarks on it in p. 133. II. These circular engravings by Israel Van Meckenen are mentioned in p. 160. III. Copy of an ancient drawing, 1454, of Death and the Beggar. See p. 223. IV. Figures of Death and the Lady, sculptured on a monument of the Delawars, in Boxgrove church, Sussex. See p. 226. V. A fac-simile of one of the cuts to a very early edition, printed without date at Troyes by Nicolas le Rouge. It represents the story of the _trois morts et trois vifs_, and the vision of Saint Macarius. See pp. 33, 34, and 59. VI. A fac-simile of another cut from the edition of a Danse Macabre, mentioned in No. V. DESCRIPTION OF THE LYONS WOOD-CUTS OF THE DANCE OF DEATH. _The Copies have been made by MR. BONNER from the Cuts belonging to the "Imagines Mortis, Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547," 12mo. and which have been usually ascribed to Holbein._ 1. THE CREATION OF ALL THINGS. The Deity is seen taking Eve from the side of Adam. "Formavit Dominus Deus hominem de limo terræ, &c." Gen. i. 2. THE TEMPTATION. Eve has just received the forbidden fruit from the serpent, who, on the authority of venerable Bede, is here, as well as in most ancient representations of the subject, depicted with a female human face. She holds it up to Adam, and entices him to gather more of it from the tree. "Quia audisti vocem uxoris tuæ, et comedisti de ligno, &c." Gen. iii. 3. THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE. Adam and Eve are preceded by Death, who plays on a vielle, or beggar's lyre, as if demonstrating his joy at the victory he has obtained over man. "Emisit eum Dominum Deus de Paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est." Gen. iii. 4. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL OF MAN. Adam is digging the ground, assisted by Death. In the distance Eve is suckling her first-born and holding a distaff. Whence the proverb in many languages: When Adam delv'd and Eve span Where was then the gentleman? "Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec revertaris, &c." Gen. iii. 5. A CEMETERY, in which several Deaths are assembled, most of whom are playing on noisy instruments of music, as a general summons to mortals to attend them. "Væ, væ, væ habitantibus in terra." Apoc. viii. 6. THE POPE. He is crowning an Emperor, who kneels before him, two Cardinals attending, one of whom is ludicrously personated by Death. In the back-ground are bishops, &c. Death embraces the Pope with one hand, and with the other leans on a crutch. Two grotesque Devils are introduced into the cut, one of whom hovers over the Pope, the other in the air holds a diploma, to which several seals are appended. "Moriatur sacerdos magnus." Josue xx. 7. THE EMPEROR. Seated on a throne, and attended by his courtiers, he seems to be listening to, or deciding, the complaint of a poor man who is kneeling before him, against his rich oppressor, whom the Emperor, holding the sword of justice, seems to regard with an angry countenance. Behind him Death lays hands upon his crown. "Dispone domui tuæ, morieris, enim tu, et non vives." Isaiæ xxxviii. 8. THE KING. He is sitting at his repast before a well-covered table, under a canopy studded with fleurs-de-lis. Death intrudes himself as a cupbearer, and presents the King with probably his last draught. The figure of the King seems intended as a portrait of Francis I. "Sicut et Rex hodie est, et cras morietur; nemo enim ex regibus aliud habuit." Ecclesiast. x. et Sapient. vii. 9. THE CARDINAL. There is some difficulty in ascertaining the real meaning of the designer of this subject. It has been described as the Cardinal receiving the bull of his appointment, or as a rich man making a purchase of indulgences. The latter interpretation seems warranted by the Latin motto. Death is twisting off the Cardinal's hat. "Væ qui justificatis impium pro muneribus, et justitiam justi aufertis ab eo." Isaiæ v. 10. THE EMPRESS. Gorgeously attired and attended by her maids of honour, she is intercepted in her walk by Death in the character of a shrivelled old woman, who points to an open grave, and seems to say, "to this you must come at last." "Gradientes in superbia potest Deus humiliare." Dan. iv. 11. THE QUEEN. She has just issued from her palace, when Death unexpectedly appears and forcibly drags her away. Her jester, in whose habiliments Death has ludicrously attired himself, endeavours in vain to protect his mistress. A female attendant is violently screaming. Death holds up his hour-glass to indicate the arrival of the fatal hour. "Mulieres opulentæ surgite, et audite vocem meam: post dies et annum, et vos conturbemini." Isaiæ xxxii. 12. THE BISHOP. Quietly resigned to his fate he is led away by Death, whilst the loss of the worthy Pastor is symbolically deplored by the flight and terror of several shepherds in the distance amidst their flocks. The setting sun is very judiciously introduced. "Percutiam pastorem, et dispergentur oves gregis." Mat. xxvi. Mar. xiv. 13. THE DUKE. Attended by his courtiers, he is accosted in the street for charity by a poor beggar woman with her child. He disdainfully turns aside from her supplication, whilst Death, fantastically crowned with leaves, unexpectedly lays violent hands upon him. "Princeps induetur moerore, et quiescere faciam superbiam potentium." Ezech. viii. 14. THE ABBOT. Death having despoiled him of his mitre and crosier, drags him away. The Abbot resists with all his might, and is about to throw his breviary at his adversary. "Ipse morietur, quia non habuit disciplinam, et in multitudine stultitiæ suæ decipietur." 15. THE ABBESS. Death, grotesquely crowned with flags, seizes the poor Abbess by her scapulary. A Nun at the convent gate, with uplifted hands, bewails the fate of her superior. "Laudavi magis mortuos quam viventes." Eccles. iv. 16. THE GENTLEMAN. He vainly, with uplifted sword, endeavours to liberate himself from the grasp of Death. The hour-glass is placed on his bier. "Quis est homo qui vivet, et non videbit mortem, eruet animam suam de manu inferi?" 17. THE CANON. Death holds up his hour-glass to him as he is entering a cathedral. They are followed by a noble person with a hawk on his fist, his buffoon or jester, and a little boy. "Ecce appropinquat hora." Mat. xxvi. 18. THE JUDGE. He is deciding a cause between a rich and a poor man. From the former he is about to receive a bribe. Death behind him snatches his staff of office from one of his hands. "Disperdam judicem de medio ejus." Amos ii. 19. THE ADVOCATE. The rich client is putting a fee into the hands of the dishonest lawyer, to which Death also contributes, but reminds him at the same time that his glass is run out. To this admonition he seems to pay little regard, fully occupied in counting the money. Behind this group is the poor suitor, wringing his hands, and lamenting that his poverty disables him from coping with his wealthy adversary. "Callidus vidit malum, et abscondit se: innocens pertransiit, et afflictus est damno." Prover. xxii. 20. THE MAGISTRATE. A Demon is blowing corruption into the ear of a magistrate, who has turned his back on a poor man, whilst he is in close conversation with another person, to whose story he seems emphatically attentive. Death at his feet with an hour-glass and spade. "Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, et ipse clamabit, et non exaudietur." Prover. xxi. 21. THE PREACHER. Death with a stole about his neck stands behind the preacher, and holds a jaw-bone over his head, typifying perhaps thereby that he is the best preacher of the two. "Væ qui dicitis malum bonum, et bonum malum: ponentes tenebras lucem, et lucem tenebras: ponentes amarum in dulce, et dulce in amarum." Isaiæ v. 22. THE PRIEST. He is carrying the viaticum, or sacrament, to some dying person. Attendants follow with tapers and holy water. Death strides on before, with bell and lanthern, to announce the coming of the priest. "Sum quidem et ego mortalis homo." Sap. vii. 23. THE MENDICANT FRIAR. He is just entering his convent with his money box and wallet. Death seizes him by the cowl, and forcibly drags him away. "Sedentes in tenebris, et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate." Psal. cvi. 24. THE NUN. Here is a mixture of gallantry and religion. The young lady has admitted her lover into her apartment. She is kneeling before an altar, and hesitates whether to persist in her devotions or listen to the amorous music of the young man, who, seated on a bed, touches a theorbo lute. Death extinguishes the candles on the altar, by which the designer of the subject probably intimates the punishment of unlawful love. "Est via quæ videtur homini justa: novissima autem ejus deducunt hominem ad mortem." Prover. iv. 25. THE OLD WOMAN. She is accompanied by two Deaths, one of whom, playing on a stickado, or wooden psalter, precedes her. She seems more attentive to her rosary of bones than to the music, whilst the other Death impatiently urges her forward with blows. "Melior est mors quam vita." Eccle. xxx. 26. THE PHYSICIAN. He holds out his hand to receive, for inspection, a urinal which Death presents to him, and which contains the water of a decrepid old man whom he introduces, and seems to say to the physician, "Canst thou cure this man who is already in my power?" "Medice cura te ipsum." Luc. iv. 27. THE ASTROLOGER. He is seen in his study, looking attentively at a suspended sphere. Death holds out a skull to him, and seems, in mockery, to say, "Here is a better subject for your contemplation." "Indica mihi si nosti omnia. Sciebas quod nasciturus esses, et numerum dierum tuorum noveras?" Job xxxviii. 28. THE MISER. Death has burst into his strong room, where he is sitting among his chests and bags of gold, and, seated on a stool, deliberately collects into a large dish the money on the table which the Miser had been counting. In an agony of terror and despair, the poor man seems to implore forbearance on the part of his unwelcome visitor. "Stulte, hac nocte repetunt animam tuam: et quæ parasti, cujus erunt?" Lucæ xii. 29. THE MERCHANT. After having escaped the perils of the sea, and happily reached the wished-for shore with his bales of merchandize; this too secure adventurer, whilst contemplating his riches, is surprised by Death. One of his companions holds up his hands in despair. "Qui congregat thesauros lingua mendacii, vanus et excors est, et impingetur ad laqueos mortis." Proverb. xxi. 30. THE SHIP IN A TEMPEST. Death is vigorously employed in breaking the mast. The owner of the vessel is wringing his hands in despair. One man seems perfectly resigned to his impending fate. "Qui volunt ditescere, incidunt in tentationem et laqueum, et cupiditates multas, stultas ac noxias, quæ demergunt homines in exitium et interitum." 1 ad Tim. vi. 31. THE KNIGHT. After escaping the perils in his numerous combats, he is vanquished by Death, whom he ineffectually resists. "Subito morientur, et in media nocte turbabuntur populi, et auferent violentum absque manu." Job xxxiv. 32. THE COUNT. Death, in the character of a ragged peasant, revenges himself against his proud oppressor by crushing him with his own armour. On the ground lie a helmet, crest, and flail. "Quoniam cum interierit non sumet secum omnia, neque cum eo descendet gloria ejus." Psal. xlviii. 33. THE OLD MAN. Death leads his aged victim to the grave, beguiling him with the music of a dulcimer. "Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mei breviabuntur, et solum mihi superest sepulchrum." Job xvii. 34. THE COUNTESS. She receives from an attendant the splendid dress and ornaments with which she is about to equip herself. On a chest are seen a mirror, a brush, and the hour-glass of Death, who, standing behind her, places on her neck a collar of bones. "Ducunt in bonis dies suos, et in puncto ad inferna descendant." Job xxi. 35. THE NEW-MARRIED LADY. She is accompanied by her husband, who endeavours to divert her attention from Death, who is insidiously dancing before them and beating a tambour. "Me et te sola mors separabit." Ruth i. 36. THE DUCHESS. She is sitting up, dressed, in her bed, at the foot of which are two Deaths, one of whom plays on a violin, the other is pulling the clothes from the bed. "De lectulo, super quem ascendisti, non descendes, sed morte morieris." 4 Reg. i. 37. THE PEDLAR. Accompanied by his dog, and heavily laden, he is proceeding on his way, when he is intercepted by Death, who forcibly pulls him back. Another Death is playing on a trump-marine. "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et onerati estis." Matth. xi. 38. THE HUSBANDMAN. He is assisted by Death, who conducts the horses of his plough. "In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo." Gen. iii. 39. THE CHILD. A female cottager is preparing her family mess, when Death enters and carries off the youngest of her children. "Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis: qui quasi flos egreditur, et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra." Job xiv. 40. THE SOLDIER. He is engaged in unequal combat with Death, who simply attacks him with a bone. On the ground lie some of his demolished companions. In the distance, Death is beating a drum, and leading on a company of soldiers to battle. "Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, &c. Si autem fortior eo superveniens vicerit eum, universa ejus arma aufert, in quibus confidebat." Luc. xi. 41. THE GAMESTERS. Death and the Devil are disputing the possession of one of the gamesters, whom both have seized. Another seems to be interceding with the Devil on behalf of his companion, whilst a third is scraping together all the money on the table. "Quid prodest homini, si universum mundum lucretur, animæ autem suæ detrimentum patiatur?" Mat. xvi. 42. THE DRUNKARDS. They are assembled in a brothel, and intemperately feasting. Death pours liquor from a flaggon into the mouth of one of the party. "Ne inebriemini vino, in quo est luxuria." Ephes. v. 43. THE IDEOT FOOL. He is mocking Death, by putting his finger in his mouth, and at the same time endeavouring to strike him with his bladder-bauble. Death smiling, and amused at his efforts, leads him away in a dancing attitude, playing at the same time on a bag-pipe. "Quasi agnus lasciviens, et ignorans, nescit quod ad vincula stultus trahatur." Prover. vii. 44. THE ROBBER. Whilst he is about to plunder a poor market-woman of her property, Death comes behind and lays violent hands on him. "Domine vim patior." Isaiæ xxxviii. 45. THE BLIND MAN. Carefully measuring his steps, and unconscious of his perilous situation, he is led on by Death, who with one hand takes him by the cloak, both parties having hold of his staff. "Cæcus cæcum ducit: et ambo in foveam cadunt." Matt. xv. 46. THE WAGGONER. His cart, loaded with wine casks, has been overturned, and one of his horses thrown down by two mischievous Deaths. One of them is carrying off a wheel, and the other is employed in wrenching off a tie that had secured one of the hoops of the casks. The poor affrighted waggoner is clasping his hands together in despair. "Corruit in curru suo." 1 Chron. xxii. 47. THE BEGGAR. Almost naked, his hands joined together, and his head turned upwards as in the agonies of death, he is sitting on straw near the gate of some building, perhaps an hospital, into which several persons are entering, and some of them pointing to him as an object fit to be admitted. On the ground lie his crutches, and one of his legs is swathed with a bandage. A female is looking on him from a window of the building. "Miser ego homo! quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?" Rom. vii. 48. THE LAST JUDGMENT. Christ sitting on a rainbow, and surrounded by a group of angels, patriarchs, &c. rests his feet on a globe of the universe. Below, are several naked figures risen from their graves, and stretching out their hands in the act of imploring judgment and mercy. "Memorare novissima, et in æternum non peccabis." Eccle. vii. 49. THE ALLEGORICAL ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH. The coat or shield is fractured in several places. On it is a skull, and at top the crest as a helmet surmounted by two arm bones, the hands of which are grasping a ragged piece of stone, and between them is placed an hour-glass. The supporters are a gentleman and lady in the dresses of the times. In the description of this cut Papillon has committed some very absurd mistakes, already noticed in p. 110. I THE CREATION [Illustration] Formavit Dominus Deus hominem de limo terræ, &c. _Gen._ i. II THE TEMPTATION [Illustration] Quia audisti vocem uxoris tuæ, et comedisti de ligno, &c. _Gen._ iii. III THE EXPULSION [Illustration] Emisit eum Dominum Deus de Paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. _Gen._ iii. IV THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL [Illustration] Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec revertaris, &c. _Gen._ iii. V A CEMETERY [Illustration] Væ, væ, væ habitantibus in terra. _Apoc._ viii. VI THE POPE [Illustration] Moriatur sacerdos magnus. _Josue_ xx. VII THE EMPEROR [Illustration] Dispone domui tuæ, morieris, enim tu, et non vives. _Isaiæ_ xxxviii. VIII THE KING [Illustration] Sicut et Rex hodie est, et cras morietur; nemo enim ex regibus aliud habuit. _Eccles._ x. _et Sapient._ vii. IX THE CARDINAL [Illustration] Væ qui justificatis impium pro muneribus, et justitiam justi aufertis ab eo. _Isaiæ_ v. X THE EMPRESS [Illustration] Gradientes in superbia potest Deus humiliare. _Dan._ iv. XI THE QUEEN [Illustration] Mulieres opulentæ surgite, et audite vocem meam: post dies et annum, et vos conturbemini. _Isaiæ_ xxxii. XII THE BISHOP [Illustration] Percutiam pastorem, et dispergentur oves gregis. _Mat._ xxvi. _Mar._ xiv. XIII THE DUKE [Illustration] Princeps induetur moerore, et quiescere faciam superbiam potentium. _Ezech._ viii. XIV THE ABBOT [Illustration] Ipse morietur, quia non habuit disciplinam, et in multitudine stultitiæ suæ decipietur. XV THE ABBESS [Illustration] Laudavi magis mortuos quam viventes. _Eccles._ iv. XVI THE GENTLEMAN [Illustration] Quis est homo qui vivet, et non videbit mortem, eruet animam suam de manu inferi? XVII THE CANON [Illustration] Ecce appropinquat hora. _Mat._ xxvi. XVIII THE JUDGE [Illustration] Disperdam judicem de medio ejus. _Amos_ ii. XIX THE ADVOCATE [Illustration] Callidus vidit malum, et abscondit se: innocens pertransiit, et afflictus est damno. _Prover._ xxii. XX THE MAGISTRATE [Illustration] Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, et ipse clamabit, et non exaudietur. _Prover._ xxi. XXI THE PREACHER [Illustration] Væ qui dicitis malum bonum, et bonum malum: ponentes tenebras lucem, et lucem tenebras: ponentes amarum in dulce, et dulce in amarum. _Isaiæ_ v. XXII THE PRIEST [Illustration] Sum quidem et ego mortalis homo. _Sap._ vii. XXIII THE MENDICANT [Illustration] Sedentes in tenebris, et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate. _Psal._ cvi. XXIV THE NUN [Illustration] Est via quæ videtur homini justa: novissima autem ejus deducunt hominem ad mortem. _Prover._ iv. XXV THE OLD WOMAN [Illustration] Melior est mors quàm vita. _Eccle._ xxx. XXVI THE PHYSICIAN [Illustration] Medice, cura te ipsum. _Luc._ iv. XXVII THE ASTROLOGER [Illustration] Indica mihi si nosti omnia. Sciebas quod nasciturus esses, et numerum dierum tuorum noveras? _Job_ xxxviii. XXVIII THE MISER [Illustration] Stulte, hac nocte repetunt animam tuam: et quæ parasti, cujus erunt? _Lucæ_ xii. XXIX THE MERCHANT [Illustration] Qui congregat thesauros lingua mendacii, vanus et excors est, et impingetur ad laqueos mortis. _Proverb._ xxi. XXX THE SHIP IN A TEMPEST [Illustration] Qui volunt ditescere, incidunt in tentationem et laqueum, et cupiditates multas, stultas, ac noxias, quæ demergunt homines in exitium et interitum. _1 ad Tim._ vi. XXXI THE KNIGHT [Illustration] Subito morientur, et in media nocte turbabuntur populi, et auferent violentum absque manu. _Job_ xxxiv. XXXII THE COUNT [Illustration] Quoniam cum interierit, non sumet secum omnia, neque cum eo descendet gloria ejus. _Psal._ xlviii. XXXIII THE OLD MAN [Illustration] Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mei breviabuntur, et solum mihi superest sepulchrum. _Job_ xvii. XXXIV THE COUNTESS [Illustration] Ducunt in bonis dies suos, et in puncto ad inferna descendunt. _Job_ xxi. XXXV THE NEW-MARRIED LADY [Illustration] Me et te sola mors separabit. _Ruth_ i. XXXVI THE DUCHESS [Illustration] De lectulo super quem ascendisti, non descendes, sed morte morieris. _4 Reg._ i. XXXVII THE PEDLAR [Illustration] Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis, et onerati estis. _Matth._ xi. XXXVIII THE HUSBANDMAN [Illustration] In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo. _Gen._ iii. XXXIX THE CHILD [Illustration] Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis: qui quasi flos egreditur, et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra. _Job_ xiv. XL THE SOLDIER [Illustration] Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, &c. Si autem fortior eo superveniens vicerit eum, universa ejus arma aufert, in quibus confidebat. _Luc._ xi. XLI THE GAMESTERS [Illustration] Quid prodest homini, si universum mundum lucretur, animæ autem suæ detrimentum patiatur? _Mat._ xvi. XLII THE DRUNKARDS [Illustration] Ne inebriemini vino, in quo est luxuria. _Ephes._ v. XLIII THE IDEOT FOOL [Illustration] Quasi agnus lasciviens, et ignorans, nescit quod ad vincula stultus trahatur. _Prover._ vii. XLIV THE ROBBER [Illustration] Domine, vim patior. _Isaiæ_ xxxviii. XLV THE BLIND MAN [Illustration] Cæcus cæcum ducit: et ambo in foveam cadunt. _Matt._ xv. XLVI THE WAGGONER [Illustration] Corruit in curru suo. _1 Chron._ xxii. XLVII THE BEGGAR [Illustration] Miser ego homo! quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? _Rom._ vii. XLVIII THE LAST JUDGMENT [Illustration] Memorare novissima, et in æternum non peccabis. _Eccle._ vii. XLIX ALLEGORICAL ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH [Illustration] MARKS OF ENGRAVERS. [monogram: G S.] 41, 117 [monogram: HL] 93, 97, 98, 100, 111, 113, 114, 215, 235 [monogram: H =N=] 100 [monogram: S.] 113 [monogram: SA] 113, 114, 115, 116, 127, 130, 136, 174 [monogram: W] 117 [monogram: cross] 117 [monogram] 118 [monogram: A] 124 [monogram: UH] 125 [monogram: WH] 125 [monogram: HB] 126 [monogram: HH] 126 [monogram: HHolbein] inv. 126, 129 H. HOLBEIN, inv. 126. [monogram: W.] 130 [monogram: L B.f.] 130 [monogram: CI] 147, 248 [monogram: AC] 160, 190 [monogram: HF] 184 [monogram: L] 189 [monogram: VG] 189 [monogram] 190 [monogram] 190 [monogram] 191 [monogram: HM] 191 [monogram] 191 [monogram: BAD] 193 [monogram: I. F.] 219 [monogram] 223 [monogram: HS] 226 These are the marks erroneously given to Holbein, BI. Hf. [monogram: HL] [monogram: HL B.] [monogram: HB.] [monogram: HH.] And these the marks which really belong to him, HH. HANS HOLB. HANS HOLBEIN. [monogram: 1519 HF] [monogram: HF] II H. HANS HOLBEN. [monogram: AH 1517] [monogram: H [symbol] H] [monogram: H-H] INDEX. A. Æmylius, Geo. his verses, 84. Alciatus, his emblems the earliest work of the kind, 180. Aldegrever, his Dance of Death, 160. Almanac, a Swiss one, with a Dance of Death, 76, 209. Alphabets, several curious, 100, 214, 217. Amman, Jost, a Dance of Death by him, 41. Ars moriendi, some account of the last edition of it, 173. Athyr, "Stamm-und Stechbuchlein," a rare and singular book of emblems, 180. B. Baldinucci, a mistake by him corrected, 235. Basle, destruction of its celebrated painting of the Dance of Death, 39. engravings of it, 41. Beauclerc, Lady Diana, her ballad of Leonora, 210. Bechstein, Ludwig, his edition of the Lyons' wood-cuts, 136. Beham, Barthol., his Dance of Death, 190. Bernard, le petit, his fine wood-cuts to the Old Testament, 173. Berne almanac, a Dance of Death in one of them, 154. Bock, Hans, not the painter of the Basle Dance of Death, 39. Bodenehr, Maurice, a Dance of Death by him, 165. "Boetius de consolatione," a figure of Death in an old edition of it, 171. Bonaparte, Napoleon, a Dance of Death relating to him, 167. Books in which a Dance of Death is occasionally introduced, 168. Borbonius, Nicolas, his portrait, 140. his verses, 92, 94, 139. in England, 140. Bosman, Arent, a singular old Dutch legend relating to him, 183. Bosse, a curious engraving by him, 196. Boxgrove church in Sussex, sculpture in, 226. Brant, Sebastian, his stultifera navis, 170. Bromiard, John De, his "Summa predicantium," a fine frontispiece to it, 183. Buno, Conrad, a book of emblems by him, 181. Burnet, Bishop, his ambiguous account of a Dance of Death at Basle, 79, 138. C. Calendrier des Bergers, 170. Callot, drawings by him of a Dance of Death in the collection of Sir Tho. Lawrence, 223. Camus, M. de, a ludicrous mistake by him, 169. Catz's emblems, 182. Cavallero determinado, 174. Centre de l'amour, a singular book of emblems, 182. Chertablon, "Maniere de se bien preparer à la mort," 177. "Chevalier de la tour," a singular print from this curious romance, 171. Chodowiecki, his engravings relating to the Dance of Death, 153, 207, 208. Chorier, his "Antiquités de Vienne," 48. Cogeler, "Imagines elegantissimæ, &c." 173. Coleraine, I. Nixon, his Dance of Death on a fan, 159. Colman's "Death's duell," 185. Compan, M. his mistake about a Dance of Death, 237. Coppa, a poem ascribed to Virgil, 3. Cossiers, John, a curious print after him, 199. Coverdale's Bible, with initials of a Dance of Death, 217. Coxe's travels in Switzerland, some account in them of M. Crozat's drawings, 134. Crozat, M. De, account of some supposed drawings by Holbein in his collection, 134. D. Dagger, design for the sheath of one by Holbein, 133. Dagley's "Death's doings," 157, 210, 224. Dance of Death, a pageant, 5. Danish one, 159. known to the ancients, 12. one at Pompeii, 13. the term sometimes improperly used, 81. verses belonging to it, 17. where sculptured and painted, 17. Dance, Mr. the painter, his imitation of a subject in the Dance of Death in his portrait of Mr. Garrick, 137. Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subject, 160. anonymous, 161, 162, 163, 164. at the following places, Amiens, 47. Anneberg, 44. Avignon, 221. Basle, 36. Berlin, 48. Berne, 45. Blois, 47. Croydon, 54. Dijon, 35. Dresden, 44. Erfurth, 44. Fescamp, 47. Hexham, 53. Holland, 49. Italy, 49. Klingenthal, 42. Leipsic, 44. Lubeck, 43. Lucerne, 46. Minden, 35. Nuremberg, 45. Paris, 14, 33, 35. Rouen, 47. Salisbury, 52. St. Paul's, 51, 76. Spain, 50. Strasburg, 47. Tower of London, 54. Vienne, in Dauphiné, 48. Wortley Hall, 53. Dancing in temples and churchyards, 5, 6. Daniel, Mr. an unique print of a Dance of Death in his possession, 248. Danse aux aveugles, 231. Death and the Lady, 226. how personified by the Ancients, 1. not in itself terrific, 4. to Dr. Quackery, 211. De Bry, prints by him, 180, 183, 195. Dedication to the first edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, 86. mistakes in it, 87. De Gheyn, prints by him, 198, 205. De la Motte's fables, 183. Della Bella, 162. De Murr, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235 Dennecker, or De Necker, Jobst, Dances of Death by him, 40, 42, 85, 118. De Pas, Crispin, description of a singular engraving by him, 196. Descamps, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235. Deuchar, David, the Scottish Worlidge, his etchings of the Dance of Death, 135. Deutch, Nicolas Manuel, the painter of a Dance of Death at Berne, 224. Devil's ruff-shop, 200. De Vos, Martin, print after him of the Devil's ruff-shop, 200. Diepenbecke, Abraham, designer of the borders to Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, 125. Dialogue of life and death, in "Dialogues of creatures moralized," 170. Dominotiers, venders of coloured prints for the common people, 77. Drawings of the Dance of Death, 222. Druræi Mors, an excellent Latin comedy, 175. Dugdale, his Monasticon, 129. his St. Paul's, 129. Durer, Albert, some prints by or after him described, 188, 189. E. Ear, the seat of memory among the Ancients, 3. swearing by, 3. Edwards, Mr. the bookseller, the possessor of Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, 128. Elizabeth, her prayer-book with a Dance of Death, 147, 247. Emblems and fables relating to the Dance of Death, 179. Engravings on wood, the earliest impressions of them not always the best, 85, 90. commendations of them in books printed in France, Germany, and Italy, 97. Errors of miscellaneous writers on the Dance of Death, 236. of travellers concerning it, 233. of writers on painting and engraving concerning it, 234. Evelyn, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 235. F. Fables relating to the Dance of Death, 179. Faut mourir, le, 26. Felibien, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235. Figeac, Champollion, his account of a Macaber Dance, 238. Fleischmann, Counsellor, of Strasburg, drawings of a Dance of Death in his possession, 134. Fontenai, Abbé, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Fool and Death in old moralities, 177. Fournier, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 237. Fox, John, "Book of Christian Prayers," compiled by him, 147. Francis I. an importer of fine artists into France, 92. Francolin, a rare work by him described, 217. Freidanck, 171. Friderich's emblems, 180. Frontispieces connected with the Dance of Death, described, 183. Fulbert's vision of the dispute between the soul and the body, 32. Fuseli, Mr. his opinion concerning the Dance of Death, 83. Fyner, Conrad, his process or law-suit of Death. G. Gallitzin, Prince, some supposed drawings by Holbein of a Dance of Death in his possession, 134. Gem, an ancient one, with a skeleton as the representative of Death, 206. Gerard, Mark, some etchings of fables by him, 179. Gesner's Pandectæ, remarks on a passage in that work, 84. Ghezzi, a figure of Death among his caricatures, 206. Glarus, Franciscus à, his "Confusio disposita, &c." noticed as a very singular work, 177. Glass, painted, with a Dance of Death, 227. Glissenti, his "Discorsi morali," 112. his "Morte inamorata," 246. Gobin le gay, a name of one of the shepherds in an old print of the Adoration, 69. Gobin, Robert, his "loups ravissans," remarkable for a Dance of Death, 146. Goethe, a Dance of Death in one of his works, 178, 211. Gole, a mezzotinto by him of Death and the Miser, 203. Goujet, his mistake about the Dance of Death at Basle, 233. Graaf, Urs, a print by him, and his monogram described, 189. Grandville, "Voyage pour l'eternité," 157. Gray, Rev. Robert, his mistake about the Dance of Death at Basle, 233. Gringoire, Pierre, his "Heures de Notre Dame," 172. Grosthead, story from his "Manuel de Péché," 7. Guilleville, "Pelerin de la vie humaine," 175. H. Harding, an etching by him of "Death and the Doctor," 211. Hawes's "Pastime of Pleasure," two prints from it described, 173. Heemskirk, Martin, a print by him described, 193, 199. Hegner, his life of Holbein, 240. Heymans, Mynheer, a dedication to him, 141. Historia della Morte, a poem so called, 176. Holbein, a German, life of him by Hegner, 240. ambiguity with respect to the paintings at Basle ascribed to him, 81. dance of peasants by him, 80. engravings by him with his name, 95. his Bible prints, 94. his connexion with the Dance of Death, 78, 138. his death, in 1554, 144. his name not in the early editions of the Lyons wood-cuts, 92. lives of him very defective, 143. more particulars relating to him, 143. not the painter of the Dance of Death at Basle, 38, 43, 144. paints a Dance of Death at Whitehall, 141. satirical painting of Erasmus by him, 221. Hollar, his copies of the Dance of Death, 125. Hopfer, David, his print of Death and the Devil, 191. Horæ, manuscripts of this service book with the Macaber Dance, 60. printed copies of it with the same, and some similar designs, 72. Huber and Rust, their mistake concerning Holbein, 236. I. Jacques, Maitre, his "le faut mourir," 26. Jansen, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Imitations of and from the Lyons wood-cuts, 137. Initial letters with a Dance of Death, 213, 214, 217. Innocent III. Pope, his work "de vilitate conditionis humanæ," 172. K. Karamsin, Nicolai, his account of a Dance of Death, 44. Kauw, his drawing of a Dance of Death, at Berne, 224. Kerver, Thielman, his editions of "Horæ," 174. Klauber, John Hugh, a painter of a Dance of Death at Basle, 36, 42. L. Langlois, an engraving by him described, 198. Larvæ and lemures, confusion among the ancients as to their respective qualities, 4. "Last drop," an etching so intitled, 211. a drawing of the same subject, 224. Lavenberg calendar, prints by Chodowiecki in it, 153. Lawrence, Sir Thomas, drawings by Callot of a Dance of Death in his possession, 223. "Lawyer's last circuit," a caricature print, 209. Le Blon, a circular print by him described, 197. Le Comte, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 235. Lubeck, a Dance of Death there, 163. Lutzenberger, Hans, the engraver of the Lyons wood-cuts of the Dance of Death, 98. alphabets by him, 100. various prints by him, 99. Luyken's Emblems, 177, 178. Lydgate, his Verses to the Macaber Dance, 29, 52. Lyons, all the editions of the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death published there described, 82, 103. copies of them by Hollar, 125. copies of them on copper, 121. copies of them on wood, 111. various imitations of some of them, 137. Lyvijus, John, a print by him of two card players, 197. M. Macaber, a word falsely applied as the name of a supposed German poet, 28, 34. its etymology discussed, 30, 34. Macaber Dance, 13, 28. copies or engravings of it as painted at Basle, 40. destruction of the painting at Basle, 39. manuscripts in which it is represented, 72. not painted by Holbein, 38. printed books, in which it is represented, 55. representations of it at the following places:-- Amiens, 47. Anneberg, 44. Basle, 36. Berlin, 48. Berne, 45. Burgos, 50. Croydon, 54. Dijon, 35. Dresden, 44, 76. Erfurth, 44. Hexham, 53. Holland, 49. Klingenthal, 42. Lubeck, 43. Lucerne, 46. Minden, 35. Naples, 49. Rouen, 47. Salisbury, 52. St. Paul's, 51, 76. Strasburg, 47. Tower of London, 54. Vienne, 48. Wortley Hall, 53. Macarius Saint, painting of a legend relating to him, by Orgagna, at the Campo Santo, 32, 33. Malpé, M., his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Mannichius, 180. Manuel de Peché, by Grosthead, 7. Mapes, Walter de, an allusion by him to a Dance of Death, 24. vision of a dispute between the soul and the body, ascribed to him, 33. Marks or monograms of engravers, their uncertainty, 102. Marmi, Gio. Battista, his "Ritratte della Morte," 129. Mechel, Chretien de, 132, 208, 214. Meckenen, Israel Van, a Dance of Death by him, 160. Meisner, his "Sciographia Cosmica," 180. Melidæus, Jonas, a satirical work under this disguised name, intitled "Res mira," 184. Meyers, Rodolph, his Dance of Death, 148. Meyssens, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 234. Missal, an undescribed one, in the type of the psalter of 1457, 213. Misson, the traveller, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 233. Mitelli, Gio. Maria, a kind of Death's Dance, by him, 161. Moncrief, his "March of Intellect," quoted for a print after Cruikshank, 178. Montenaye, Georgette de, her emblems, 179. "Mors," an excellent Latin comedy, by William Drury, 175. Mortimer, a sketch by him of Death seizing several persons, 209. Mortilogus, 171. N. Negro figure of Death, 230. Newton's Dances of Death, 165. Nieuhoff, Piccard, 130, 140. Nuremberg Chronicle, a cut from it described, 170. a story from it, 6. O. Old Franks, a curious painting by him, 204, 221. Oliver, Isaac, his copy of a painting by Holbein, at Whitehall, 145, 221. Orgagna, Andrea, his painting at the Campo Santo, 32. Ortulus Rosarum, 170. Otho Vænius, a curious painting by him, 204, 222. Ottley, Mr. his opinion in favour of Holbein as the designer of the Lyons wood-cuts, 88. proof impressions of the Lyons wood-cuts in his valuable collection, 85. P. Palingenius, his "Zodiacus Vitæ," a frontispiece to this work described, 186. Panneels, William, a scholar of Rubens, mention of a painting by him, 203. Papillon, his ludicrous mistakes noticed, 110, 114. Patin, Charles, a traveller, and a libeller of the English, 79, 138, 237. Paulmy, Marquis de, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 238. Paul's St., mention of the Dance of Death formerly there, 51, 163. Peasants, a dance of, painted at Basle, by Holbein, 80. Peignot, M. author of "Les Danses de Mort," an interesting work, preface. his misconception relating to John Porey, 248. Perriere, his "Morosophie," 179. Petrarch, his triumph of Death, 175, 207. his work "de remediis utriusque fortunæ," 175. Pfister, Albert, his "Tribunal Mortis," 168. Piccard, Nieuhoff, 130, 140. Piers Plowman, lines from, 54. Porey, John, a mistake concerning him corrected, 248. Potter, P. an allegorical engraving after him, 199. Prints, single, relating to the Dance of Death, list of, 188. Prior, Matthew, his lines on the Dance of Death, 145. Psalter of 1457, a beautiful initial letter in it noticed, 213. of Richard II., a manuscript in the British Museum, 222. R. Rabbi Santo, a Jewish poet, about 1360, 25. Ratdolt, a Venetian printer, not, as usually supposed, the inventor of initial or capital letters, 213. Rembrandt, drawing of a Dance of Death by him, 223. etching by him, 195. René, of Anjou, painted a Dance of Death, 221. Reperdius, Geo. an eminent painter at Lyons, 93. Revelations, prints of the, 175. Reusner, his emblems, 179. Rive, Abbé, his bibliography of the Macaber Dance, 75. Rivoire, his history of Amiens commended, 47. Roderic, bishop of Zamora, 17, 32. Rolandini's emblems, 180. Rollenhagius's emblems, 182. Roll of the Dance of Death, 1597, 163. Rowlandson's Dance of Death, 156, 225, 248. Rusting, Salomon Van, his Dance of Death, 131. S. [monogram: SA], some account of this monogram, 115. its owner employed by Plantin, the famous printer at Antwerp, 116. Salisbury missal, singular cut in one, 172. Sallaerts, an artist supposed to have been employed by Plantin the celebrated printer, 115, 116. Sancta Clara, Abraham, a description of his "universal mirror of Death," 151. Sandrart, his notice of a work by Holbein at Whitehall, 145. Schauffelin, Hans, a carving on wood by him described, 226. Schellenberg, I. R. a Dance of Death by him, 154. Schlotthaver, his edition of a Dance of Death, 249. Silvius, or Sylvius, Antony, an artist at Antwerp, account of a monogram supposed to belong to him, 115. Skeleton, use made of the human by the ancients, 3. "Spectriana," a modern French work, frontispiece to it described, 187. Stelsius, his edition of a spurious copy of Holbein's Bible cuts, 97. Stettler, his drawings of the Macaber Dance of Death at Berne, 224. "Stotzinger symbolum," description of a cut so intitled, 174. Stradanus, an engraving after him described, 197. Susanna, a Latin play, 18. Symeoni, "Imprese," 179. T. Tapestry at the Tower of London, 227. "Theatrum Mortis," a work with a Dance of Death described, 129. Tiepolo, a clever etching by him described, 197. Title-pages connected with the Dance of Death, list of, 183. Tory, Geoffrey, Horæ printed by him described, 172. Tower of London, tapestry formerly there of a Dance of Death, 227. Trois mors et trois vifs, 31, 33, 228. Turner, Col., a Dance of Death by him, 207. Turnham Green, some account of chalk drawings of a Dance of Death on a wall there, 210, 224. Typotii symbola, 180, 182. U. Urs Graaf, his engravings noticed, 243. V. Vænius, Otho, some of his works mentioned, 182, 204. Valckert, a clever etching by him described, 201. Van Assen, a Dance of Death by him, 158. Van Leyden, Lucas, 189. Van Meckenen, Israel, his Dance of Death in circles, 160. Van Sichem, his prints to the Bible, 177. Van Venne, prints after him, 157, 182, 199, 209. Verses that accompany the Dance of Death, 17. Von Menzel, 207. "Voyage pour l'eternité," a modern Dance of Death, 157. W. Walpole, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Warton, Mr. his remarks on the Dance of Death, 237. Weiss, Mr. author of some of the best lives in the "Biographie Universelle," misled in his article "Macaber" by Champollion Figeac, 249. Whitehall, fire at, 140. painting of a Dance of Death there by Holbein, 141. Wierix, John, some prints by him described, 194, 195. Williams, Miss, her mistake concerning the Dance of Death at Basle, in her Swiss tour, 233. Wolschaten, Geeraerdt Van, a Dance of Death by him, 130. Wood, engravings on, the first impressions of them not always the best, 85. Wood, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death in his "View of Switzerland," 233. Y. "Youth's Tragedy," a moral drama, 1671, 175. Z. Zani, Abbate, of opinion that Holbein had no concern in the Lyons wood-cuts of the Dance of Death, 98, 101, 138. Zuinger, his account of paintings at Basle, 139. C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. FOOTNOTES: [1] Iliad, and after him Virgil, Æn. vi. 278. [2] Iliad IX. On an ancient gem likewise in Ficoroni's Gemmæ Antiquæ Litteratæ, Tab. viii. No. 1, a human scull typifies mortality, and a butterfly immortality. [3] Lib. ii. 78. [4] Diarium, p. 212. [5] Lib. xiii. l. 474. [6] Epist. xxiv. [7] Apolog. p. 506, 507. edit. Delph. 4to. [8] Lib. iii. [9] Leg. Antiq. iii. 84. [10] Folio clxxxvii. [11] Folio ccxvii. [12] Bibl. Reg. 20 B. xiv. and Harl. MS. 4657. [13] Contest. [14] Q. Cowick in Yorkshire? [15] Leader. [16] Glee. [17] Called. [18] A name borrowed from Merwyn, Abbess of Ramsey, temp. Reg. Edgari. [19] Took. [20] Leafy. [21] Place. [22] Went. [23] Places. [24] A falsehood. [25] Whoever may be desirous of inspecting other authorities for the story, may consult Vincent of Beauvais Speculum Historiale, lib. xxv. cap. 10; Krantz Saxonia, lib. iv.; Trithemii Chron. Monast. Hirsaugensis; Chronicon Engelhusii ap. Leibnitz. Script. Brunsvicens. II. 1082; Chronicon. S. Ægidii, ap. Leibnitz. iii. 582; Cantipranus de apibus; & Cæsarius Heisterbach. de Miraculis; in whose works several _veracious_ and amusing stories of other instances of divine vengeance against dancing in general may be found. The most entertaining of all the dancing stories is that of the friar and the boy, as it occurs among the popular penny histories, of which, in one edition at least, it is, undoubtedly, the very best. [26] Lib. i. Eleg. iii. [27] Æn. lib. vi. l. 44. [28] Millin. Magaz. Encycl. 1813, tom. i. p. 200. [29] Gori Mus. Florentin. tom. i. pl. 91, No. 3. [30] Hist. Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 43, edit. 8vo. and Carpentier. Suppl. ad Ducang. v. Machabæorum chorea. [31] Id. ii. 364. [32] Hist. des Ducs des Bourgogne, tom. v. p. 1821. [33] Hist. de René d'Anjou, tom. i. p. 54. [34] Dulaure. Hist. Physique, &c. de Paris, 1821, tom. ii. p. 552. [35] Recherches sur les Danses des Morts. Dijon et Paris, 1826, 8vo. p. xxxiv. et seq. [36] Mercure de France, Sept. 1742. Carpentier. Suppl. ad Ducang. v. Machabæorum chorea. [37] Bibl. Reg. 8 B. vi. Lansd. MS. 397. [38] Madrid. 1779, 8vo. p. 179. [39] Bibl. Med. et Inf. Ætat. tom. v. p. 1. [40] Recherches sur les Danses de Mort, pp. 79 80. [41] Passim. [42] Modern edition of the Danse Macabre. [43] Journal de Charles VII. [44] Lansd. MS. No. 397--20. [45] Peignot Recherches, p. 109. [46] Mélange d'une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. vii. p. 22. [47] Bibl. Instruc. No. 3109. [48] Catal. La Valliere No. 2736--22. [49] Vasari vite de Pittori, tom. i. p. 183, edit. 1568, 4to. [50] Baldinucci Disegno, ii. 65. [51] Morona Pisa Illustrata, i. 359. [52] Du Breul Antiq. de Paris, 1612, 4to. p. 834, where the verses that accompany the sculpture are given. See likewise Sandrart Acad. Picturæ, p. 101. [53] Peignot Recherches, xxxvii-xxxix. [54] Urtisii epitom. Hist. Basiliensis, 1522, 8vo. [55] Peignot Recherches, xxvi-xxix. [56] Travels, i. 376. [57] Travels, i. 138, edit. 4to. [58] Heinecken Dictionn. des Artistes, iii. 67, et iv. 595. He follows Keysler's error respecting Hans Bock. [59] Peintre graveur, ix. 398. [60] Essai sur l'Orig. de la Gravure, i. 120. [61] Heinecken Dictionn. des Artistes, i. 222. [62] Recherches, &c. p. 71. [63] Heller Geschiche der holtzchein kunst. Bamberg, 1823, 12mo. p. 126. [64] Basle Guide Book. [65] Recherches, 11 et seq. [66] More on the subject of the Lubeck Dance of Death may be found in 1. An anonymous work, which has on the last leaf, "Dodendantz, anno domini MCCCCXCVI. Lubeck." 2. "De Dodendantz fan Kaspar Scheit, na der utgave fan, 1558, unde de Lubecker fan, 1463." This is a poem of four sheets in small 8vo. without mention of the place where printed. 3. Some account of this painting by Ludwig Suhl. Lubeck, 1783, 4to. 4. A poem, in rhyme, with wood-cuts, on 34 leaves, in 8vo. It is fully described from the Helms. library in Brun's Beitrage zu krit. Bearb. alter handschr. p. 321 et seq. 5. Jacob à Mellen Grundliche Nachbricht von Lubeck, 1713, 8vo. p. 84. 6. Schlott Lubikischers Todtentantz. 1701. 8vo. 7. Berkenmeyer, le curieux antiquaire, 8vo. p. 530; and, 8. Nugent's Travels, i. 102. 8vo. [67] Biblioth. Med. et inf. ætat. v. 2. [68] Travels, i. 195. [69] Recherches, xlii. [70] Pilkington's Dict. of Painters, p. 307, edit. Fuseli, who probably follows Fuesli's work on the Painters. Merian, Topogr. Helvetiæ. [71] Peignot Recherches, xlv. xlvi. [72] Rivoire descr. de l'église cathédrale d'Amiens. Amiens, 1806. 8vo. [73] Recherches, xlvii. [74] Recherches, xlviii. [75] Recherches sur les antiquités de Vienne. 1659. 12mo, p. 15. [76] Dr. Cogan's Tour to the Rhine, ii. 127. [77] Travels, iii. 328, edit. 4to. [78] Survay of London, p. 615, edit. 1618, 4to. [79] In Tottel's edition these verses are accompanied with a single wood-cut of Death leading up all ranks of mortals. This was afterwards copied by Hollar, as to general design, in Dugdale's St. Paul's, and in the Monasticon. [80] Annales, p. 596, edit. 1631. folio. Sir Thomas More, treating of the remembrance of Death, has these words: "But if we not only here this word Death, but also let sink into our heartes, the very fantasye and depe imaginacion thereof, we shall parceive therby that we wer never so gretly moved by the beholding of the _Daunce of Death pictured in Poules_, as we shal fele ourself stered and altered by the feling of that imaginacion in our hertes. And no marvell. For those pictures expresse only y{e} lothely figure of our dead bony bodies, biten away y{e} flesh," &c.--Works, p. 77, edit. 1557, folio. [81] Heylin's Hist. of the Reformation, p. 73. [82] Cotton MS. Vesp. A. xxv. fo. 181. [83] Leland's Itin. vol. iv. part i. p. 69.--Meas. for Meas. Act iii. sc. 1. [84] Hutchinson's Northumberland, i. 98. [85] Warton's H. E. Poetry, ii. 43, edit. 8vo. [86] And see a portion of Orgagna's painting at the Campo Santo at Pisa, mentioned before in p. 33. [87] From the Author's own inspection. [88] Recherches, p. 144, and see Catal. La Valliere, No. 295. [89] Herbert's typogr. antiq. p. 888. [90] Traité hist. de la gravure en bois, i. 182, 336. [91] Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. by G. Burnet, D. D. Rotterdam, 1686, 8vo. p. 265. [92] Travels through Germany, &c. i. 138, edit. 4to. [93] Relations historiques et curieuses de voyages en Allemagne, &c. Amst. 1695, 12mo. p. 124. [94] See likewise Zuinger, Methodus Academica, Basle, 1577, 4to. p. 199. [95] Remarks on several parts of Europe, 1738, vol. ii. p. 72. [96] Peignot places the dance of peasants in the fish-market of Basle, as other writers had the Dance of Death. Recherches, p. 15. [97] Manuel de l'Amateur d'estampes, ii. 131. [98] Manuel des curieux, &c. i. 156. [99] Some give it to the Abbé Baverel. [100] Lib. ult. p. 86. [101] The dedicator has apparently in this place been guilty of a strange misconception. The Death is not sucking the wine from the cask, but in the act of untwisting the fastening to one of the hoops. Nor is the carman crushed beneath the wheels: on the contrary, he is represented as standing upright and wringing his hands in despair at what he beholds. It is true that this cut was not then completed, and might have undergone some subsequent alteration. He likewise speaks of the rainbow in the cut of the Last Judgment, as being at that time unfinished, which, however, is introduced in this first edition. [102] It would be of some importance if the date of Lutzenberger's death could be ascertained. [103] "An enquiry into the origin and early history of Engraving," 1816, 4to. vol. ii. p. 759. [104] "An Enquiry," &c. ii. 762. [105] The few engravings by or after Holbein that have his name or its initials are to be found in his early frontispieces or vignettes to books printed at Basle. In 1548, two delicate wood-cuts, with his name, occur in Cranmer's Catechism. In the title-page to "a lytle treatise after the maner of an Epystle wryten by the famous clerk, Doctor Urbanus Regius, &c." Printed by Gwalter Lynne, 1548, 24mo, there is a cut in the same style of art of Christ attended by his disciples, and pointing to a fugitive monk, whose sheep are scattered, and some devoured by a wolf. Above and below are the words "John x. Ezech. xxxiiii. Mich. v. I am the good shepehearde. A good shepehearde geveth his lyfe for the shype. The hyred servaunt flyeth, because he is an hered servaunt, and careth not for the shepe." On the cut at bottom HANS HOLBEIN. There is a fourth cut of this kind in the British Museum collection with Christ brought before Pilate; and perhaps Holbein might have intended a series of small engravings for the New Testament; but all these are in a simple outline and very different from the cuts in the Dance of Death, or Lyons Bible. It might be difficult to refer to any other engravings belonging to Holbein after the above year. [106] Brulliot dict. de monogrammes, &c. Munich, 1817, 4to. p. 418, where the letter from De Mechel is given. [107] Essai sur l'origine de la gravure, &c. tom. i. p. 260. [108] Id. p. 261. [109] Dict. de monogrammes, &c. tom. i. pp. 418, 499. [110] Enciclop. metod. par ii. vol. vii. p. 16. [111] Enciclop. metod. par. i. vol. x. p. 467. [112] All the above prints are in the author's possession, except No. 7, and his copy of No. 5 has not the tablets with the name, &c. [113] Edit. Javigny, iv. 559. [114] This edition is given on the authority of Peignot, p. 62, but has not been seen by the author of this work. In the year 1547, there were three editions, and it is not improbable that, by the transposition of the two last figures, one of these might have been intended. [115] Foppen's Biblioth. Belgica, i. 363. [116] That of 1557 has a frontispiece with Death pointing to his hour-glass when addressing a German soldier. [117] Tom. i. p. 238, 525. [118] Dict. de Monogrammes, col. 528. [119] Biblioth. Belgica, i. 92. [120] See p. 40. [121] This is the same subject as that in the Augustan monastery described in p. 48. [122] See p. 34. [123] It has been stated that they were in the Arundelian collection whence they passed into the Netherlands, where forty-six of them became the property of Jan Bockhorst the painter, commonly called Long John. See Crozat's catalogue. [124] On the same dedication are founded the opinions of Zani, De Murr, Meintel, and some others. [125] Zuinger methodus apodemica. Basil, 1557. 4to. p. 199. [126] P. 427, edit. Lugd. apud Gryphium, and p. 445, edit. Basil. [127] Nugæ, lib. vi. carm. 12. [128] Baldinucci notizie d'é professori del disegno, tom. iii. p. 317, 4to. edit. where the inscription on it is given. [129] Norfolk MS. 97, now in the Brit. Museum. [130] Harl. MS. 4718. [131] Acad. Pictur. 239. [132] Strype's Annals, I. 272, where the curious dialogue that ensued on the occasion is preserved. [133] Catal. de la bibliothèque du Roi. II. 153. [134] These initial letters have already been mentioned in p. 101-102. The elegant initials in Dr. Henderson's excellent work on modern wines, and those in Dr. Nott's Bristol edition of Decker's Gull's horn-book, should not pass unnoticed on this occasion. [135] See before in p. 97. [136] Zani saw this alphabet at Dresden, and ascribes it likewise to Lutzenberger. See his Enciclop. Metodica, Par. I. vol. x. p. 467. [137] See before, in p. 46. [138] Biblioth. Franc. tom. x. p. 436. [139] Sandrart Acad. Pict. p. 241. [140] Obs. on Spenser, II. 117, 118, 119. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. Letters printed in reverse are indicated by =X=. Various printers' monograms are included throughout the original text. These are represented by [monogram] or [monogram: description] if a description could be provided. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. 
16583	----	THE YOKE A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS WHEN THE LORD REDEEMED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL FROM THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT BY ELIZABETH MILLER GROSSET & DUNLAP Publishers -:- New York COPYRIGHT, 1904 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY JANUARY TO PERCY MILLER MY BROTHER WHO CONSTRUCTED THE PLOT CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHOOSING THE TENS II UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL III THE MESSENGER IV THE PROCESSION OF AMEN V THE HEIR TO THE THRONE VI THE LADY MIRIAM VII ATHOR, THE GOLDEN VIII THE PUNISHMENT OF ATSU IX THE COLLAR OF GOLD X THE DEBT OF ISRAEL XI HEBREW CRAFT XII CANAAN XIII THE COMING OF THE PHARAOH XIV THE MARGIN OF THE NILE XV THE GODS OF EGYPT XVI THE ADVICE OF HOTEP XVII THE SON OF THE MURKET XVIII AT MASAARAH XIX IN THE DESERT XX THE TREASURE CAVE XXI ON THE WAY TO THEBES XXII THE FAN-BEARER'S GUEST XXIII THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH XXIV THE PETITION XXV THE LOVE OF RAMESES XXVI FURTHER DIPLOMACY XXVII THE HEIR INTERVENES XXVIII THE IDOLS CRUMBLE XXIX THE PLAGUES XXX HE HARDENED HIS HEART XXXI THE CONSPIRACY XXXII RACHEL'S REFUGE XXXIII BACK TO MEMPHIS XXXIV NIGHT XXXV LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS XXXVI THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE XXXVII AT THE WELL XXXVIII THE TRAITORS XXXIX BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE XL THE FIRST-BORN XLI THE ANGEL OF DEATH XLII EXPATRIATION XLIII "THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH" XLIV THE WAY TO THE SEA XLV THROUGH THE RED SEA XLVI WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT XLVII THE PROMISED LAND THE YOKE A STORY OF THE EXODUS CHAPTER I CHOOSING THE TENS Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile, Rameses II, in the fourteenth century B. C., erected the city of Pithom and stored his treasure therein. His riches overtaxed its coffers and he builded Pa-Ramesu, in part, to hold the overflow. But he died before the work was completed by half, and his fourteenth son and successor, Meneptah, took it up and pushed it with the nomad bond-people that dwelt in the Delta. The city was laid out near the center of Goshen, a long strip of fertile country given over to the Israelites since the days of the Hyksos king, Apepa, near the year 1800 B. C. Morning in the land of the Hebrew dawned over level fields, green with unripe wheat and meadow grass. Wherever the soil was better for grazing great flocks of sheep moved in compact clouds, with a lank dog and an ancient shepherd following them. The low, shapeless tents and thatched hovels of the Israelites stood in the center of gardens of lentils, garlic and lettuce, securely hedged against the inroads of hares and roving cattle. Close to these were compounds for the flocks and brush inclosures for geese, and cotes for the pigeons used in sacrifice. Here dwelt the aged in trusteeship over the land, while the young and sturdy builded Pa-Ramesu. Sunrise on the uncompleted city tipped the raw lines of her half-built walls with broken fire and gilded the gear of gigantic hoisting cranes. Scaffolding, clinging to bald façades, seemed frail and cobwebby at great height, and slabs of stone, drawn and held by cables near the summit of chutes, looked like dice on the giddy slide. Below in the still shadowy passages and interiors, speckled with fallen mortar, lay chains, rubble of brick and chipped stone; splinters, flinders and odd ends of timber; scraps of metal, broken implements and the what-not that litters the path of construction. Without, in the avenues, vaguely outlined by the slowly rising structures on either side, were low-riding, long, heavy, dwarf-wheeled vehicles and sledges to which men, not beasts, had been harnessed. Here, also, were great cords of new brick and avalanches of glazed tile where disaster had overtaken orderly stacks of this multi-tinted material. In the open spaces were covered heaps of sand, and tons of lime, in sacks; layers of paint and hogsheads of tar; ingots of copper and pigs of bronze. Roadways, beaten in the dust by a multitude of bare feet, led in a hundred directions, all merging in one great track toward the camp of the laboring Israelites. This was pitched in a vast open in the city's center, wherein Rameses II had planned to build a second Karnak to Imhotep. Under the gracious favor of this, the physician god, the great Pharaoh had regained his sight. But death stayed his grateful hand and Meneptah forgot his father's debt. Here, then, year in and year out, an angular sea of low tents sheltered Israel. Let it not be supposed that all the sons of Abraham were here. Thousands labored yet in the perfection of Pithom, on the highways of the Lower country, and on the Rameside canal, and the greater number made the brick for all Egypt in the clay-fields of the Delta. Therefore, within the walls of Pa-Ramesu there were somewhat more than three thousand Hebrews, men, women and children. On a slight eminence, overlooking the camp, were numerous small structures of sun-dried brick, grouped about one of larger dimensions. Above this was raised a military standard, a hawk upon a cross-bar, from which hung party-colored tassels of linen floss. By this sign, the order of government was denoted. The Hebrews were under martial law. The camp was astir. Thin columns of blue smoke drifted up here and there between the close-set tents, and the sibilant wearing of stone-mills, as they ground the wheat, was heard in many households. The nutty aroma of parching lentils, and the savor of roasting papyrus root and garlic told the stage of the morning meal. The strong-armed women, rich brown in tint from the ardent sun, crowned with coil upon coil of heavy hair, bent over the pungent fires. Sturdy children, innocent of raiment, went hither and thither, bearing well filled skins of water. Apart from these were the men of Israel, bearded and grave, stalwart and scantily clad. They repaired a cable or fitted an ax-handle or mended a hoe. But they were full of serious and absorbed discourse, for the great Hebrew, Moses, from the sheep-ranges of Midian, had been among them, showing them marvels of sorcery, preaching Jehovah and promising freedom. The first high white light of dawn was breaking upon the century-long night of Israel. Before one of the tents an old woman knelt beside a bed of live coals, turning a browning water-fowl upon a pointed stick. She was a consummate cook, and the bird was fat and securely trussed. Now and again she sprinkled a pinch of crude salt on the embers to suppress the odor of the burning drippings, and lifted the fowl out of the reach of the pale flames that leaped up thereafter. Presently she removed the fowl and forked it off the spit into a capacious earthenware bowl near by. Then, with green withes as tongs, she drew forth a round tile from under the coals and set it over the dish to complete the baking. From another tile-platter at hand she took several round slices of durra bread and proceeded to toast them with much skill, tilting the hot tile and casting each browned slice in on the fowl as it was done. When she had finished, she removed the cover and set the bowl on the large platter, protecting her hands from its heat with a fold of her habit. With no little triumph and some difficulty she got upon her feet and carried the toothsome dish into her shelter, to place it beyond the reach of stealthy hands. No such meal was cooked that morning, elsewhere, in Pa-Ramesu, except at the military headquarters on the knoll. There was little inside the tent, except the meagerest essential furnishing. A long amphora stood in a tamarisk rack in one corner; a linen napkin hung, pinned to the tent-cloth, over it; a glazed laver and a small box sat beside it. A mat of braided reeds, the handiwork of the old Israelite, covered the naked earth. This served as seat or table for the occupants. Several wisps of straw were scattered about and a heap of it, over which a cotton cloak had been thrown, lay in one corner. "Rachel," the old woman said briskly. Evidently some one slept under the straw, for the heap stirred. "Rachel!" the old woman reiterated, drawing off the cloak. Without any preliminary pushing away of the straw, a young girl sat up. A little bewildered, she divested her head and shoulders of a frowsy straw thatch and stood erect, shaking it off from her single short garment. She was not more than sixteen years old. Above medium height and of nobler proportions than the typical woman of the race, her figure was remarkable for its symmetry and utter grace. The stamp of the countenance was purely Semitic, except that she was distinguished, most wondrously in color, from her kind. Her sleep had left its exquisite heaviness on eyes of the tenderest blue, and the luxuriant hair she pushed back from her face was a fleece of gold. Hers was that rare complexion that does not tan. The sun but brightened her hair and wrought the hue of health in her cheeks. Her forehead was low, broad, and white as marble; her neck and arms white, and the hands, busied with the hair, were strong, soft, dimpled and white. The grace of her womanhood had not been overcome by the slave-labor, which she had known from infancy. "Good morning, Deborah. Why--thy bed--have I slept under it?" she asked. "Since the middle of the last watch," the old woman assented. "But why? Did Merenra come?" the girl inquired anxiously. "Nay; but I heard some one ere the camp was astir and I covered thee." "And thou hast had no sleep since," the girl said, with regret in her voice. "Thou dost reproach me with thy goodness, Deborah." She went to the amphora and poured water into the laver, drew forth from the box a horn comb and a vial of powdered soda from the Natron Lakes, and proceeded with her toilet. "Came some one, of a truth?" she asked presently. Deborah pointed to the smoking bowl. Rachel inspected the fowl. "Marsh-hen!" she cried in surprise. "Atsu brought it." "Atsu?" "Even so. From his own bounty and for Rachel," Deborah explained. Rachel smiled. "Thou art beset from a new direction," the old woman continued dryly, "but thou hast naught to fear from him." "Nay; I know," Rachel murmured, arranging her dress. The garb of the average bondwoman was of startling simplicity. It consisted of two pieces of stuff little wider than the greatest width of the wearer's body, tied by the corners over each shoulder, belted at the waist with a thong and laced together with fiber at the sides, from the hips to a point just above the knee. It was open above and below this simple seam and interfered not at all with the freedom of the wearer's movements. But Rachel's habit was a voluminous surplice, fitting closely at the neck, supplied with wide sleeves, seamed, hemmed and of ample length. Deborah was literally swathed in covering, with only her withered face and hands exposed. There was a hint of rank in their superior dress and more than a suggestion of blood in the bearing of the pair; but they were laborers with the shepherds and serving-people of Israel. "He would wed thee, after the manner of thy people, and take thee from among Israel," Deborah continued. The girl drooped her head over the lacing of her habit and made no answer. The old woman looked at her sharply for a moment. "Well, eat; Rachel, eat," she urged at last. "The marsh-hen will stand thee in good stead and thou hast a weary day before thee." Rachel looked at the old woman and made mental comparison between the ancient figure and her strong, young self. With great deliberation she divided the fowl into a large and small part. "This," she said, extending the larger to Deborah, "is thine. Take it," waving aside the protests of the old woman, "or the first taste of it will choke me." Deborah submitted duly and consumed the tender morsel while she watched Rachel break her fast. "What said Atsu?" Rachel asked, after the marsh-hen was less apparent. "Little, which is his way. But his every word was worth a harangue in weight. Merenra and his purple-wearing visitor, the spoiler, the pompous wolf, departed for Pithom last night, hastily summoned thither by a royal message. But the commander returns to-morrow at sunset. This morning, every tenth Hebrew in Pa-Ramesu is to be chosen and sent to the quarries. Atsu will send thee and me, whether we fall among the tens of a truth or not. So we get out of the city ere Merenra returns. He called the ruse a cruel one and not wholly safe, but he would sooner see thee dead than despoiled by this guest of Merenra's--or any other. I doubt not his heart breaketh for thy sake, Rachel, and he would rend himself to spare thee." "The Lord God bless him," the girl murmured earnestly. "Where dost thou say we go?" she asked after a little silence. "To the quarries of Masaarah, opposite Memphis." The color in the young Israelite's face receded a little. "To the quarries," she repeated in a half-whisper. "Fearest thou?" "Nay, not for myself, at all, but we may not have another Atsu over us there. I fear for thee, Deborah." The old woman waved her hands. "Trouble not concerning me. I shall not die by heavy labor." But the girl shook her head and gazed out of the low entrance of the tent. Her face was full of trouble. Once again the old woman looked at her with suspicion in her eyes. Presently the girl asked, coloring painfully: "Was Atsu commanded to hold me for this guest of Merenra's--ah!" she broke off, "did Atsu name him?" "Not by the titles by which the man would as lief be known," Deborah answered grimly, "but I remember he called him 'the governor.'" There was a brief pause. "Not so," she resumed, answering Rachel's first question. "Atsu but overheard him say to Merenra to see to it that thou wast taken from toil and made ready to journey with him to Bubastis." "He can not take me by right save by a document of gift from the Pharaoh," Rachel protested indignantly. "Of a truth," the old woman admitted; "but Merenra is chief commander over Pa-Ramesu and how shall thine appeal to the Pharaoh pass beyond Merenra if he see fit to humor this ravening lord with a breach of the law? The message summoning him in haste to Pithom before the order could be fulfilled was all that saved thee. And if Merenra return ere thou art safely gone, thou art of a surety undone." Rachel moved away a little and stood thinking. The old woman went on with a note of despondency in her voice. "Alas, Rachel! thou art in eternal peril because of thy lovely face. Beauty is a curse to a bondwoman. What I beheld in truth yesterday I have seen in dreams--the discourteous hand put forth to seize thee and the power back of it to enforce its demand. And yet, I would not wish thee old and uncomely, for that, too, is a curse to the bondwoman," she added with a reflective shrug of the shoulders. "If I but knew his name--" Rachel pondered aloud. "What matter?" the old woman answered almost roughly. "Suffice it to know that he is a knave and a noble and hath evil in his heart against thee." "Now, if I might dye my hair or stain my face--" Rachel began after a pause. "Thou foolish child! It would not wear, nor hide thy charm at all!" "But I dread the quarries for thee, Deborah. If only we might be hidden here, somewhere." "Come, dost thou want to marry Atsu?" the old woman demanded harshly. The girl turned toward her, her face flushed with resentment. "Nay! And that thou knowest. For this very mingling with Egypt is Israel cursed. The idolatrous have reached out their hands in marriage and wedded the Hebrews away from the God of Abraham. When did an Egyptian desert his gods for the faith of the Hebrew he took in marriage? Not at any time. Therefore have we fed the shrines of the idols and increased the numbers of the idolaters and behold, the hosts of Jehovah have dwindled to naught. Therefore is He wroth with us, and justly. For are there not pitiful shrines to Ra, Ptah and Amen within the boundaries of Goshen? Nay, I wed not with an idolater," she concluded firmly. Deborah's wrinkled face lighted and she put a tender arm about the girl. "Of a truth, then, it is for me that thou wouldst avoid the quarries," she said. "I did but try thee, Rachel." Rachel looked at her reproachfully, but the old woman smiled and drew her out into the open. Without, Israel of Pa-Ramesu made ready to surrender a tenth of her number to the newest task laid on it by the Pharaoh. Quarrying was unusual labor for an Israelite and the name carried terror with it. Long had it meant heavy punishment for the malefactor and now was the Hebrew to take up its bitter life. The hard form of oppression following so closely upon the promise of liberty by Moses had diversified effects upon the camp. There was rebellion among the optimists, and the less hopeful spirits were crushed. There was the scoffer, who exasperates; the enthusiast, the over-buoyant, who could point out favorable omens even in this bitter affliction; and it could not be divined which of these troubled the people more. But whatever the individual temper, the entire camp was overhung with distress. Israel had gathered in families before her tents--the mothers hovering their broods, the fathers tramping uneasily about them. In the heart of each, perhaps, was an indefinable conviction that he should fall among the tens. Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and with what dire speed would not Israel perish in the dreaded stone-pits! Just outside the doorway of their shelter, Deborah and Rachel overlooked the troubled camp. "Moses comes in time," Rachel said, speaking in a low tone, "for Israel is in sore straits. The hand of the oppressor assaileth with fury his bones and his sinews now. How shall it be with him if he is bequeathed from Pharaoh to Pharaoh of an intent like unto the last three? He shall have perished from the face of the earth, for the Hebrew bends not; he breaks." Deborah did not answer at once. Her sunken eyes were set and she seemed not to hear. But presently she spoke: "Thou hast said. But the Hebrew droppeth out of the inheritance of the Pharaohs in thy generation, Rachel. The end of the bondage is at hand. Thou shalt see it. Of a truth Israel shall perish. If its afflictions increase for long. But they shall not continue. Have we entered Canaan as God sware unto Abraham we should? Have we possessed the gates of our enemies? Shall He stamp us out, with His promise yet unfulfilled? Behold, we have gone astray from Him, but not utterly, as all the other peoples of the earth. For centuries, amid the great clamor of prayers to the hollow gods, there arose only from this compound of slaves, here, a call to Him. Out of the reek of idolatrous savors, drifted up now and again the straight column from the altar of a Hebrew, sacrificing to the One God. Where, indeed, are any faithful, save in Israel? Shall He condemn us who only have held steadfast? Nay! He hath but permitted the oppression that we may have our fill of the glories of Egypt and be glad to turn our backs upon her. He will cure us of idols by showing forth their helplessness when they are cried unto; and when Israel is in its most grievous strait and therefore most prone to attach itself to whosoever helpeth it. He will prove Himself at last by His power. Aye, thou hast said. Israel can suffer little more without perishing. Therefore is redemption at hand." Rachel had turned her eyes away from the humiliation of Israel to its exaltation--from fact to prophecy. She was looking with awed face at Deborah. The prophetess went on: "Israel hath been a green tree, carried hither in seed and grown in the wheat-fields of Mizraim. The herds and the flocks of the Pharaoh gathered under its branches and were sheltered from the sun by day and from the wolves by night. The early Pharaohs loved it, the later Pharaohs used it and the last Pharaohs feared it. For it grew exceedingly and overshadowed the wheat-fields and they said: 'It will come between us and Ra who is our god and he will bless it instead of the wheat. Let us cut it down and build us temples of its timber.' But the Lord had planted the tree in seed and in its youth it grew under the tendance of the Lord's hand. And in later years, though it lent its shadow as a grove for the idols and temples of gods, the most of it faced Heaven, and for that the Lord loves it still. The Pharaohs have lopped its branches, unmolested, but lo! now that the ax strikes at its girth, the Lord will uproot it and plant it elsewhere than in Mizraim. But the soil will not relinquish it readily, for it hath struck deep. There shall be a gaping wound in Mizraim where it stood and all the land shall be rent with the violence of the parting." The prophetess paused, or rather her voice died away as if she actually beheld the scene she foretold, and no more words were needed to make it plain. Rachel's hands were clasped before her breast. "Sayest thou these things in prophecy?" she asked finally in an eager half-whisper. Deborah's eyes seemed to awaken. She looked at Rachel a moment and answered with a nod. The girl's vision wandered slowly again toward the camp, and the sorrowful unrest of Israel subdued the inspired elation that had begun to possess her. Her face clouded once more. Deborah touched her. "Trouble not thyself concerning these people. They go forth to labor, but their burdens shall be lightened ere long. As for thee and me--" she paused and looked up toward the eminence on which the military headquarters were built. "As for thee and me--" Rachel urged her. Deborah motioned in the direction she gazed. "Come, let us make ready," she said; "they are beginning." The Egyptian masters over Israel of Pa-Ramesu were emerging from the quarters. They were, almost uniformly, tall, slender and immature in figure. Dressed in the foot-soldier's tunic and coif, they looked like long-limbed youths compared with the powerful manhood of the sons of Abraham. Among them, in white wool and enameled aprons, was a number of scribes, without whom the official machinery of Egypt would have stilled in a single revolution. The men advanced, sauntering, talking with one another idly, as if awaiting authority to proceed. That came, presently, in the shape of an Egyptian charioteer. The vehicle was heavy, short-poled, set low on two broad wheels of six spokes, and built of hard wood, painted in wedge-shaped stripes of green and red. The end was open, the front high and curved, the side fitted with a boot of woven reeds for the ax and javelins of the warrior. Axle and pole were shod with spikes of copper and the joints were secured with tongues of bronze. The horses were bay, small, short, glossy and long of mane and tail. The harness was simple, each piece as broad as a man's arm, stamped and richly stained with many colors. The man was an ideal soldier of Egypt. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but otherwise lean and lithe. In countenance, he was dark,--browner than most Egyptians, but with that peculiar ruddy swarthiness that is never the negro hue. His duskiness was accentuated by low and intensely black brows, and deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes. Although his features were marked by the delicacy characteristic of the Egyptian face, there was none of the Oriental affability to be found thereon. One might expect deeds of him, but never words or wit. He wore the Egyptian smock, or kamis--of dark linen, open in front from belt to hem, disclosing a kilt or shenti of clouded enamel. His head-dress was the kerchief of linen, bound tightly across the forehead and falling with free-flowing skirts to the shoulders. The sleeves left off at the elbow and his lower arms were clasped with bracelets of ivory and gold. His ankles were similarly adorned, and his sandals of gazelle-hide were beaded and stitched. His was a somber and barbaric presence. This was Atsu, captain of chariots and vice-commander over Pa-Ramesu. His subordinates parted and gave him respectful path. He delivered his orders in an impassive, low-pitched monotone. "Out with them, and mark ye, no lashes now. Leave the old and the nursing mothers." The drivers disappeared into the narrow ways of the encampment, and Atsu, with the scribes at his wheels, drove out where the avenue of sphinxes would have led to the temple of Imhotep. Here was room for three thousand. He alighted and, with the scribes who stood, tablets in hand, awaited the coming of the Israelites. The camp emptied its dwellers in long wavering lines. Into the open they came, slowly, and with downcast eyes, each with his remnant of a tribe. Though the columns were in order, they were ragged with many and varied statures--now a grown man, next to him a child, and then a woman. Here were the red-bearded sons of Reuben, shepherds in skins and men of great hardihood; the seafaring children of Zebulon; a handful of submissive Issachar, and some of Benjamin, Levi, and Judah. "Do we not leave the aged behind?" the scribe asked, indicating Deborah who came with Judah. "Give her her way," Atsu replied indifferently, and the scribe subsided. The lines advanced, filling up the open with moody humanity. A scribe placed himself at the head of each column, and as the hindmost Israelite emerged into the field the movement was halted. If an eye was lifted, it shifted rapidly under the stress of desperation or suspense. If any spoke, it was the rough and indifferent, whose words fell like blows on the distressed silence. Many were visibly trembling, others had whitened beneath the tropical tan, and the wondering faces of children, who feared without understanding, turned now and again to search for their elders up and down the lines. The drivers distributed themselves among the Israelites and each with a scribe went methodically along the files choosing every tenth. "Get thee to my house and bring me my lists," Atsu said to the soldier who was beginning on Judah. "I will look to thy work." The man crossed his left hand to his right shoulder and hastened away. One by one nine Israelites dropped out of line as Atsu numbered them and returned to camp. He touched the tenth. "Name?" the scribe asked. "Deborah," was the reply. Meanwhile Atsu walked rapidly down the line to Rachel. The Hebrews fell out as he passed, and the relief on the faces of one or two was mingled with astonishment. He paused before the girl, hesitating. Words did not rise readily to his lips at any time; at this moment he was especially at loss. "Thou canst abide here, in perfect security--with me," he said at last. She shook her head. "I thank thee, my good master." "For thy sake, not mine own, I would urge thee," he continued with an unnatural steadiness. "Thou canst accept of me the safety of marriage. Nothing more shall I offer--or demand." The color rushed over the girl's face, but he went on evenly. "A part go to Silsilis, another to Syene, a third to Masaarah. If thine insulter asks concerning thy whereabouts I shall not trouble myself to remember. But what shall keep him from searching for thee--and are there any like to defend thee, if he find thee, seeing I am not there? And even if thou art securely hidden, thou hast never dreamed how heavy is the life of the stone-pits, Rachel." "Keep Deborah here," the girl besought him, distressed. "She is old and will perish--" "Nay, I will not send thee out alone," was the reply. "If thou goest, so must she. But--hast thou no fear?" Once again she shook her head. "I trust to the triumph of the good," she replied earnestly. The sound of the scribe's approach behind him, moved him on. "Farewell," he said as he went, and added no more, for his composure failed him. "The grace of the Lord God attend thee," she whispered. "Farewell." All the morning the work went on, and when the Egyptian mid-winter noon lay warm on the flat country, three hundred Israelites were ready for the long march to the Nile. They left behind them a camp oppressed with that heart-soreness, which affliction added to old afflictions brings,--the numb ache of sorrow, not its lively pain. Only Deborah, the childless, and Rachel, the motherless, went with lighter hearts,--if hearts can be light that go forward to meet the unknown fortunes of bond-people. As they moved out, one of the older Hebrews in the forward ranks began to sing, in a wild recitative chant, of Canaan and the freedom of Israel. The elders in the line near him took it up and every face in the long column lighted and was lifted in silent concord with the singers. Atsu in his chariot, close by, scanned his lists absorbedly, but one of the drivers hurried forward with a demand for silence. A young Hebrew, who had tramped in agitated silence just ahead, worked up into recklessness by the fervor of the singers, defied him. His voice rang clear above the song. "Go to, thou bald-faced idolater! Israel will cease to do thy bidding one near day." The driver forced his way into the front ranks and began to lay about him with his knout. Instantly he was cast forth by a dozen brawny arms. "Mutiny!" he bawled. A group of drivers reinforced him at once. "By Bast," the foremost cried, as he came running. "The sedition of the renegade, Mesu,[1] bears early fruit!" But the spirit of rebellion became contagious and the men of Israel began to throw themselves out of line. At this moment, Atsu seemed to become conscious of the riot and drove his horses between the combatants. "Into ranks with you!" he commanded, pressing forward upon the Hebrews. The men obeyed sullenly. "I have said there was to be no use of the knouts," he said sharply, turning upon the drivers. "Forward with them!" The first driver muttered. "What sayest thou?" Atsu demanded. The man's mouth opened and closed, and his eyes drew up, evilly, but he made no answer. "Forward with them," Atsu repeated, without removing his gaze from the driver. Slowly, and now silently, the hereditary slaves of the Pharaoh moved out of Pa-Ramesu. And of all the departing numbers and of all that remained behind, none was more stricken in heart than Atsu, the stern taskmaster over Israel. [1] Moses. CHAPTER II UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL Holy Memphis, city of Apis, habitat of Ptah! Not idly was she called Menefer, the Good Place. Not anywhere in Egypt were the winds more gentle, the heavens more benign, the environs more august. To the south and west of her, the Libyan hills notched the horizon. To the east the bald summits of the Arabian desert cut off the traveling sand in its march on the capital. To the north was a shimmering level that stretched unbroken to the sea. Set upon this at mid-distance, the pyramids uplifted their stupendous forms. In the afternoon they assumed the blue of the atmosphere and appeared indistinct, but in the morning the polished sides that faced the east reflected the sun's rays in dazzling sheets across the valley. Out of a crevice between the heights to the south the broad blue Nile rolled, sweeping past one hundred and twenty stadia or sixteen miles of urban magnificence, and lost itself in the shimmering sky-line to the north. The city was walled on the north, west, and south, and its river-front was protected by a mighty dike, built by Menes, the first king of the first dynasty in the hour of chronological daybreak. Within were orderly squares, cross-cut by avenues and relieved from monotony by scattered mosaics of groves. Out of these shady demesnes rose the great white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various Memphian Pharaohs. About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white under a cloudless sun. Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the reign of the divine Meneptah. She had fortified herself and resisted the great invasion of the Rebu. Her generals had done battle with him and brought him home, chained to their chariots. And after the festivities in celebration of her prowess, she laid down pike and falchion, bull-hide shield and helmet, and took up the chisel and brush, the spindle and loom once more. The heavy drowsiness of a mid-winter noon had depopulated her booths and bazaars and quieted the quaint traffic of her squares. In the shadows of the city her porters drowsed, and from the continuous wall of houses blankly facing one another from either side of the streets, there came no sound. Each household sought the breezes on the balconies that galleried the inner walls of the courts, or upon the pillared and canopied housetops. Memphis had eaten and drunk and, sheltered behind her screens, waited for the noon to pass. Mentu, the king's sculptor, however, had not availed himself of the hour of ease. He did not labor because he must, for his house stood in the aristocratic portion of Memphis, and it was storied, galleried, screened and topped with its breezy pavilion. Within the hollow space, formed by the right and left wings of his house, the chamber of guests to the front, and the property wall to the rear, was a court of uncommon beauty. Palm and tamarisk, acacia and rose-shrub, jasmine and purple mimosa made a multi-tinted jungle about a shadowy pool in which a white heron stood knee-deep. There were long stretches of sunlit sod, and walks of inlaid tile, seats of carved stone, and a single small obelisk, set on a circular slab, marked with measures for time--the Egyptian sun-dial. On every side were evidences of wealth and luxury. So Mentu labored because he loved to toil. In a land languorous with tropical inertia, an enthusiastic toiler is not common. For this reason, Mentu was worth particular attention. He towered a palm in height over his Egyptian brethren, and his massive frame was entirely in keeping with his majestic stature. He was nearly fifty years of age, but no sign of the early decay of the Oriental was apparent in him. His was the characteristic refinement of feature that marks the Egyptian countenance, further accentuated by self-content and some hauteur. The idea of dignity was carried out in his dress. The kilt was not visible, for the kamis had become a robe, long-sleeved, high-necked and belted with a broad band of linen, encompassing the body twice, before it was fastened with a fibula of massive gold. That he was an artisan noble was another peculiarity, but it was proof of exceptional merit. He had descended from a long line of royal sculptors, heightening in genius in the last three. His grandsire had elaborated Karnak; his father had decorated the Rameseum, but Mentu had surpassed the glory of his ancestors. In the years of his youth, side by side with the great Rameses, he had planned and brought to perfection the mightiest monument to Egyptian sculpture, the rock-carved temple of Ipsambul. In recognition of this he had been given to wife a daughter of the Pharaoh and raised to a rank never before occupied by a king's sculptor. He was second only to the fan-bearers, the most powerful nobles of the realm, and at par with the market, or royal architect, who was usually chosen from among the princes. And yet he had but come again to his own when he entered the ranks of peerage. In the long line of his ancestors he counted a king, and from that royal sire he had his stature. He sat before a table covered with tools of his craft, rolls of papyrus, pens of reeds, pots of ink of various colors, horns of oil, molds and clay images and vessels of paint. Hanging upon pegs in the wooden walls of his work-room were saws and the heavier drills, chisels of bronze and mauls of tamarisk, suspended by thongs of deer-hide. The sculptor, rapidly and without effort, worked out with his pen on a sheet of papyrus the detail of a frieze. Tiny profile figures, quaint borders of lotus and mystic inscriptions trailed after the swift reed in multitudinous and bewildering succession. As he worked, a young man entered the doorway from the court and, advancing a few steps toward the table, watched the development of the drawings with interest. Those were the days of early maturity and short life. The Egyptian of the Exodus often married at sixteen, and was full of years and ready to be gathered to Osiris at fifty-five or sixty. The great Rameses lived to the unheard-of age of seventy-seven, having occupied the throne since his eleventh year. This young Egyptian, nearly eighteen, was grown and powerful with the might of mature manhood. A glance at the pair at once established their relationship as father and son. The features were strikingly similar, the stature the same, though the young frame was supple and light, not massive. The hair was straight, abundant, brilliant black and cropped midway down the neck and just above the brows. There was no effort at parting. It was dressed from the crown of the head as each hair would naturally lie and was confined by a circlet of gold, the token of the royal blood of his mother's house. The complexion was the hue of a healthy tan, different, however, from the brown of exposure in that it was transparent and the red in the cheek was dusky. The face was the classic type of the race, for be it known there were two physiognomies characteristic of Egypt. The forehead was broad, the brows long and delicately penciled, the eyes softly black, very long, the lids heavy enough to suggest serenity rather than languor. The nose was of good length, aquiline, the nostril thin and sharply chiseled. The cut of the mouth and the warmth of its color gave seriousness, sensitiveness and youthful tenderness to the face. Egypt was seldom athletic. Though running and wrestling figured much in the pastime of youths, the nation was languid and soft. However, Seti the Elder demanded the severest physical exercise of his sons, and Rameses II, who succeeded him, made muscle and brawn popular by example, during his reign. Here, then, was an instance of king-mimicking that was admirable. Originally the young man had been gifted with breadth of shoulder, depth of chest, health and vigor. He would have been strong had he never vaulted a pole or run a mile. To these advantages were added the results of wise and thorough training, so wise, so thorough, that defects in the national physique had been remedied. Thus, the calves were stanch and prominent, whereas ancient Egypt was as flat-legged as the negro; the body was round and tapered with proper athletic rapidity from shoulder to heel, without any sign of the lank attenuation that was characteristic of most of his countrymen. The suggestion of his presence was power and bigness, not the good-natured size that is hulking and awkward, but bigness that is elegant and fine-fibered and ages into magnificence. He wore a tunic of white linen, the finely plaited skirt reaching almost to the knees. The belt was of leather, three fingers in breadth and ornamented with metal pieces, small, round and polished. His sandals were of white gazelle-hide, stitched with gold, and, by way of ornament, he had but a single armlet, and a collar, consisting of ten golden rings, depending by eyelets from a flexible band of the same material. The metal was unpolished and its lack-luster red harmonized wonderfully with the bronze throat it clasped. Diminutive Isis in profile had emerged part-way from the background of papyrus, and the sculptor lifted his pen to sketch in the farther shoulder as the law required. The young man leaned forward and watched. But as the addition was made, giving to the otherwise shapely little goddess an uncomfortable but thoroughly orthodox twist, he frowned slightly. After a moment's silence he came to the bench. "Hast thou caught some great idea on the wing or hast thou the round of actual labor to perform?" he asked. His attention thus hailed, the sculptor raised himself and answered: "Meneptah hath a temple to Set[1] in mind; indeed he hath stirred up the quarries for the stone, I am told, and I am making ready, for I shall be needed." The older a civilization, the smoother its speech. Age refines the vowels and makes the consonants suave. They spoke easily, not hastily, but as oil flows, continuously and without ripple. The younger voice was deep, soft enough to have been wooing and as musical as a chant. "Would that the work were as probable as thou art hopeful," the young man said with a sigh. "Out upon thee, idler!" was the warm reply. "Art thou come to vex me with thy doubts and scout thy sovereign's pious intentions?" The young man smiled. "Hath the sun shone on architecture or sculpture since Meneptah succeeded to the throne?" he asked. Mentu's eyes brightened wrathfully but the young man laid a soothing palm over the hand that gripped the reed. "I do not mock thee, father. Rather am I full of sympathy for thee. Thou mindest me of a war-horse, stabled, with his battle-love unsatisfied, hearing in every whimper of the wind a trumpet call. Nay, I would to Osiris that the Pharaoh's intents were permanent." Somewhat mollified, Mentu put away the detaining hand and went on with his work. Presently the young man spoke again. "I came to speak further of the signet," he said. "Aye, but what signet, Kenkenes?" "The signet of the Incomparable Pharaoh." "What! after three years?" "The sanctuary of the tomb is never entered and it is more than worth the Journey to Tape[2] to search for the scarab again." "But you would search in vain," the sculptor declared. "Rameses has reclaimed his own." Kenkenes shifted his position and protested. "But we made no great search for it. How may we know of a surety if it be gone?" "Because of thy sacrilege," was the prompt and forcible reply. "Osiris with chin in hand and a look of mystification on his brow, pondering over the misdeeds of a soul! Mystification on Osiris! And with that, thou didst affront the sacred walls of the royal tomb and call it the Judgment of the Dead. Not one law of the sculptor's ritual but thou hadst broken, in the sacrilegious fresco. Gods! I marvel that the rock did not crumble under the first bite of thy chisel!" Mentu fell to his work again. While he talked a small ape entered the room and, discovering the paint-pots, proceeded to decorate his person with a liberal hand. At this moment Kenkenes became aware of him and, by an accurately aimed lump of clay, drove the meddler out with a show of more asperity than the offense would ordinarily excite. Meanwhile the sculptor wetted his pen and, poising it over the plans, regarded his drawings with half-closed eyes. Then, as if he read his words on the papyrus he proceeded: "Thou wast not ignorant. All thy life hast thou had the decorous laws of the ritual before thee. And there, in the holy precincts of the Incomparable Pharaoh's tomb, with the opportunity of a lifetime at hand, the skill of thy fathers in thy fingers, thou didst execute an impious whim,--an unheard-of apostasy." He broke off suddenly, changing his tone. "What if the priesthood had learned of the deed? The Hathors be praised that they did not and that no heavier punishment than the loss of the signet is ours." "But it may have caught on thy chisel and broken from its fastening. Thou dost remember that the floor was checkered with deep black shadows." "The hand of the insulted Pharaoh reached out of Amenti[3] and stripped it off my neck," Mentu replied sternly. "And consider what I and all of mine who come after me lost in that foolish act of thine. It was a token of special favor from Rameses, a mark of appreciation of mine art, and, more than all, a signet that I or mine might present to him or his successor and win royal good will thereby." "That I know right well," Kenkenes interrupted with an anxious note in his voice, "and for that reason am I possessed to go after it to Tape." The sculptor lifted a stern face to his son and said, with emphasis: "Wilt thou further offend the gods, thou impious? It is not there, and vex me no further concerning it." Kenkenes lifted one of his brows with an air of enforced patience, and sauntered across the room to another table similarly equipped for plan-making. But he did not concern himself with the papyrus spread thereon. Instead he dropped on the bench, and crossing his shapely feet before him, gazed straight up at the date-tree rafters and palm-leaf interbraiding of the ceiling. Though the law of heredity is not trustworthy in the transmission of greatness, Kenkenes was the product of three generations of heroic genius. He might have developed the frequent example of decadence; he might have sustained the excellence of his fathers' gift, but he could not surpass them in the methods of their school of sculpture and its results. There was one way in which he might excel, and he was born with his feet in that path. His genius was too large for the limits of his era. Therefore he was an artistic dissenter, a reformer with noble ideals. Mimetic art as applied to Egyptian painting and sculpture was a curious misnomer. Probably no other nation of the world at that time was so devoted to it, and certainly no other people of equal advancement of that or any other time so wilfully ignored the simplest rules of proportion, perspective and form. The sculptor's ability to suggest majesty and repose, and at the same time ignore anatomical construction, was wonderful. To preserve the features and individual characteristics of a model and obey the rules of convention was a feat to be achieved only by an Egyptian. There was no lack of genius in him, but he had been denied liberty of execution until he knew no other forms but those his fathers followed generations before. All Egypt was but a padding that the structural framework of religion supported. Science, art, literature, government, commerce, whatever the member, it was built upon a bone of religion. The processes and uses of sculpture were controlled by the sculptor's ritual and woe unto him who departed therefrom in depicting the gods! The deed was sacrilege. In the portrait-forms the limits were less severely drawn. There were a dozen permissible attitudes, and, the characteristic features might be represented with all fidelity; but there were boundaries that might not be overstepped. The result was an artistic perversion that well-nigh perpetrated a grotesque slander on the personal appearance of the race. After the manner of Egyptians it was understood that Kenkenes was to follow his father's calling, and ahead of him were years of labor laid in narrow lines. If he rebelled, he incurred infinite difficulty and opposition, and yet he could not wholly submit. He had been an apt and able pupil during the long process of his instruction, but when the moment of actual practice of his art arrived, he had rebelled. His first work had been his last and, in the estimation of his father, had entailed a grievous loss. Thereafter he had been limited to copying the great sculptor's plans, the work of scribes and underlings. Thus, he had passed three years that chafed him because of their comparative idleness and their implied rebuke. The pressure finally became too great, and he began to weigh the matter of compromise. If he could secretly satisfy his own sense of the beautiful he might follow the ritual with grace. His cogitations, as he sat before his table, assumed form and purpose. Presently Mentu, raising his head, noted that the shadows were falling aslant the court. With an interested but inarticulate remark, he dropped his pen among its fellows in an earthenware tray, his plans into an open chest, and went out across the court, entering an opposite door. With his father's exit, Kenkenes shifted his position, and the expression of deep thought grew on his face. After a long interval of motionless absorption he sprang to his feet and, catching a wallet of stamped and dyed leather from the wall, spread it open on the table. Chisel, mallet, tape and knife, he put into it, and dropped wallet and all into a box near-by at the sound of the sculptor's footsteps. The great artist reentered in court robes of creamy linen, stiff with embroidery and gold stitching. "Har-hat passes through Memphis to-day on his way to Tape, where he is to be installed as bearer of the king's fan on the right hand. He is at the palace, and nobles of the city go thither to wait upon him." "The king was not long in choosing a successor to the lamented Amset," Kenkenes observed. "Har-hat vaults loftily from the nomarchship of Bubastis to an advisership to the Pharaoh." "Rather hath his ascent been slower than his deserts. How had the Rebu war ended had it not been for Har-hat? He is a great warrior, hath won honor for Egypt and for Meneptah. The army would follow him into the jaws of Tuat,[4] and Rameses, the heir, need never take up arms, so long as Har-hat commands the legions of Egypt. But how the warrior will serve as minister is yet to be seen." "Who succeeds him over Bubastis?" "Merenra, another of the war-tried generals. He hath been commander over Pa-Ramesu. Atsu takes his place over the Israelites." "Atsu?" Kenkenes mused. "I know him not." "He is a captain of chariots, and won much distinction during the Rebu invasion. He is a native of Mendes." Left alone, Kenkenes crossed the court to the door his father had entered and emerged later in a street dress of mantle and close-fitting coif. He took up the wallet and quitted the room. Passing through the intramural park and the chamber of guests, he entered the street. It was a narrow, featureless passage, scarcely wide enough to give room for a chariot. The brown dust had more prints of naked than of sandaled feet, for most men of the young sculptor's rank went abroad in chariots. Once out of the passage, he turned across the city toward the east. Memphis had pushed aside her screens and shaken out her tapestries after the noon rest and was deep in commerce once again. From the low balconies overhead the Damascene carpets swung, lending festivity to the energetic traffic below. The pillars of stacked ware flanking the fronts of pottery shops were in a constant state of wreckage and reconstruction; the stalls of fruiterers perfumed the air with crushed and over-ripe produce; litters with dark-eyed occupants and fan-bearing attendants stood before the doorways of lapidaries and booths of stuffs; venders of images, unguents, trinkets and wines strove to outcry one another or the poulterer's squawking stall. Kenkenes met frequent obstructions and was forced to reduce his rapid pace. Curricles and chariots and wicker chairs halted him at many crossings. Carriers took up much of the narrow streets with large burdens; notaries and scribes sat cross-legged on the pavement, surrounded by their patrons and clients, and beggars and fortune-tellers strove for the young man's attention. The crowd thickened and thinned and grew again; pigeons winnowed fearlessly down to the roadway dust, and a distant yapping of dogs came down the slanting street. At times Kenkenes encountered whole troops of sacred cats that wandered about the city, monarchs over the monarch himself. By crowding into doorways he allowed these pampered felines to pass undisturbed. In the district near the lower edge of the city he met the heavy carts of rustics, laden with cages of geese and crates of produce, moving slowly in from the wide highways of the Memphian nome. The broad backs of the oxen were gray with dust and their drivers were masked in grime. The smell of the river became insistent. In the open stalls the fishmongers had their naked brood keeping the flies away from the stock with leafy branches. The limits of Memphis ended precipitately at a sudden slope. In the long descent to the Nile there were few permanent structures. Half-way down were great lengths of high platform built upon acacia piling. This was the flood-tide wharf, but it was used now only by loiterers, who lay upon it to bask dog-like in the sun. The long intervening stretch between the builded city and the river was covered with boats and river-men. Fishers mending nets were grouped together, but they talked with one another as if each were a furlong away from his fellow. Freight bearers, emptying the newly-arrived vessels of cargo, staggered up toward the city. Now and again sledges laden with ponderous burdens were drawn through the sand by yokes of oxen, oftener by scores of men, on whom the drivers did not hesitate to lay the lash. River traffic was carried on far below the flood-tide wharf. Here the long landings of solid masonry, covered with deep water four months of the year, were lined with vessels. Between yard-arms hanging aslant and over decks, glimpses of the Nile might be caught. It rippled passively between its banks, for it was yet seven months before the first showing of the June rise. Here were the frail papyrus bari, constructed like a raft and no more concave than a long bow; the huge cedar-masted cangias, flat-bottomed and slow-moving; the ancient dhow with its shapeless tent-cabin aft; the ponderous cattle barges and freight vessels built of rough-hewn logs; the light passenger skiffs; and lastly, the sumptuous pleasure-boats. These were elaborate and beautiful, painted and paneled, ornamented with garlands and sheaves of carved lotus, and spread with sails, checkered and embroidered in many colors. From these emerged processions of parties returning from pleasure trips up the Nile. They came with much pomp and following, asserting themselves and proceeding through paths made ready for them by the obsequious laboring classes. Presently there approached a corps of servants, bearing bundles of throw-sticks, nets, two or three fox-headed cats, bows and arrows, strings of fish and hampers of fowl. Behind, on the shoulders of four stalwart bearers, came a litter, fluttering with gay-colored hangings. Beside it walked an Egyptian of high class. Suddenly the bearers halted, and a little hand, imperious and literally aflame with jewels, beckoned Kenkenes from the shady interior of the litter. He obeyed promptly. At another command the litter was lowered till the poles were supported in the hands of the bearers. The curtains were withdrawn, revealing the occupant--a woman. This, to the glory of Egypt! Woman was defended, revered, exalted above her sisters of any contemporary nation. No haremic seclusion for her; no semi-contemptuous toleration of her; no austere limits laid upon her uses. She bared her face to the thronging streets; she reveled beside her brother; she worshiped with him; she admitted no subserviency to her lord beyond the pretty deference that it pleased her to pay; she governed his household and his children; she learned, she wrote, she wore the crown. She might have a successor but no supplanter; an Egyptian of the dynasties before the Persian dominance could have but one wife at a time; none but kings could be profligate, openly. So, while Babylonia led her maidens to a market, while Ethiopia ruled hers with a rod, while Arabia numbered hers among her she-camels, Egypt gloried in national chivalry and spiritual love. This was the sentiment of the nation, by the lips of Khu-n-Aten, the artist king: "Sweet love fills my heart for the queen; may she ever keep the hand of the Pharaoh." Whatever Egypt's mode of worshiping Khem and Isis, nothing could set at naught this clean, impulsive, sincere avowal. Here, then, openly and in perfect propriety was a woman abroad with her suitor. She might have been eighteen years old, but there was nothing girlish in her gorgeous beauty. She was a red rose, full-blown. Her robes were a double thickness of loose-meshed white linen, with a delicate stripe of scarlet; her head-dress a single swathing of scarlet gauze. She wore not one, but many kinds of jewels, and her anklets and armlets tinkled with fringes of cats and hawks in carnelian. Her hair was brilliant black and unbraided. Her complexion was transparent, and the underlying red showed deeply in the small, full-lipped mouth; like a stain in the cheeks; like a flush on the brow, and even faintly on the dainty chin. Her eyes were large and black, with the amorous lid, and lined with kohl beneath the lower lash. Her profile showed the exquisite aquiline of the pure-blooded Egyptian. Aside from the visible evidences of charm there was an atmosphere of femininity that permeated her immediate vicinity with a witchery little short of enchantment. She was the Lady Ta-meri, daughter of Amenemhat, nomarch[5] of Memphis. The Egyptian accompanying the litter was nearly thirty years of age. He was an example of the other type of the race, differing from the classic model of Kenkenes. The forehead retreated, the nose was long, low, slightly depressed at the end; the mouth, thick-lipped; the eye, narrow and almond-shaped; the cheek-bones, high; the complexion, dark brown. Still, the great ripeness of lip, aggressive whiteness of teeth and brilliance of eye made his face pleasant. He wore a shenti of yellow, over it a kamis of white linen, a kerchief bound with a yellow cord about his head, and white sandals. He was the nephew of the king's cup-bearer, who had died without issue at Thebes during the past month. His elder brother had succeeded his father to a high office in the priesthood, but he, Nechutes, was a candidate for the honors of his dead uncle. Kenkenes gave the man a smiling nod and bent over the lady's fingers. "Fie!" was her greeting. "Abroad like the rabble, and carrying a burden." She filliped the wallet with a pink-stained finger-nail. "Sit here," she commanded, patting the cushioned edge of the litter. The sculptor declined the invitation with a smile. "I go to try some stone," he explained. "Truly, I believe thou lovest labor," the lady asserted accusingly. "Ah, but punishment overtakes thee at last. Behold, thou mightst have gone with me to the marshes to-day, but I knew thou wouldst be as deep in labor as a slave. And so I took Nechutes." Kenkenes shot an amused glance at her companion. "I would wager my mummy, Nechutes, that this is the first intimation thou hast had that thou wert second choice," he said. "Aye, thou hast said," Nechutes admitted, his eyes showing a sudden light. He had a voice of profound depth and resonance, that rumbled like the purring of the king's lions. "And not a moment since she swore that it was I who made her sun to move, and that Tuat itself were sweet so I were there." "O Ma[6]," the lady cried, threatening him with her fan. "Thou Defender of Truth, smite him!" Kenkenes laughed with delight. "Nay, nay, Nechutes!" he cried. "Thou dost betray thyself. Never would Ta-meri have said anything so bald. Now, when she is moved to give me a honeyed fact, she laps it with delicate intimation, layer on layer like a lotus-bud. And only under the warm interpretation of my heart will it unfold and show the gold within." Nechutes stifled a derisive groan, but the lady's color swept up over her face and made it like the dawn. "Nay, now," she protested, "wherein art thou better than Nechutes, save in the manner of telling thy calumny? But, Kenkenes," she broke off, "thou art wasted in thy narrow realm. They need thy gallant tongue at court." The young sculptor made soft eyes at her. "If I were a courtier," he objected, "I must scatter my small eloquence among many beauties that I would liefer save for one." She appropriated the compliment at once. "Thou dost not hunger after even that opportunity," she pouted. "How long hath it been since the halls of my father's house knew thy steps? A whole moon!" "I feared that I should find Nechutes there," Kenkenes explained. During this pretty joust the brows of the prospective cup-bearer had knitted blackly. The scowl was unpropitious. "Thou mayest come freely now," he growled, "The way shall be clear." The lady looked at him in mock fear. "Come, Nechutes," the sculptor implored laughingly, "be gracious. Being in highest favor, it behooves thee to be generous." But the prospective cup-bearer refused to be placated. He rumbled an order to the slaves and they shouldered the litter. Ta-meri made a pretty mouth at him, and turned again to Kenkenes. "Nay, Kenkenes," she said. "It was mine to say that the way shall be clear--but I promise it." She nodded a bright farewell to him, and they moved away. The sculptor, still smiling, continued down to the river. At the landing he engaged one of the numerous small boats awaiting a passenger, and directed the clout-wearing boatman to drop down the stream. Directly opposite his point of embarkation there were farm lands, fertile and moist, extending inland for a mile. But presently the frontier of the desert laid down a gray and yellow dead-line over which no domestic plant might strike its root and live. But the arable tracts were velvet green with young grain, the verdant level broken here and there by a rustic's hut, under two or three close-standing palms. Even from the surface of the Nile the checkered appearance of the country, caused by the various kinds of products, was noticeable. Egypt was the most fertile land in the world. However, as the light bari climbed and dipped on the little waves toward the north the Arabian hills began to approach the river. Their fronts became abrupt and showed the edges of stratum on stratum of white stone. About their bases were quantities of rubble and gray dust slanting against their sides in slides and drifts. Across the narrowing strip of fertility square cavities in rows showed themselves in the white face of the cliffs. The ruins of a number of squat hovels were barely discernible over the wheat. "Set me down near Masaarah," Kenkenes said, "and wait for me." The boatman ducked his head respectfully and made toward the eastern shore. He effected a landing at a bedding of masonry on which a wharf had once been built. The rock was now over-run with riotous marsh growth. The quarries had not been worked for half a century. The thrifty husbandman had cultivated his narrow field within a few feet of the Nile, and the roadway that had once led from the ruined wharf toward the hills was obliterated by the grain. Kenkenes alighted and struck through the wheat toward the pitted front of the cliffs. Before him was a narrow gorge that debouched into the great valley over a ledge of stone three feet in height. After much winding the ravine terminated in a wide pocket, a quarter of a mile inland. Exit from this cul-de-sac was possible toward the east by a steep slope leading to the top of one of the interior ridges of the desert. Kenkenes did not pause at the cluster of houses. The roofs had fallen in and the place was quite uninhabitable. But he leaped up into the little valley and followed it to its end. There he climbed the sharp declivity and turned back in the direction he had come, along the flank of the hill that formed the north wall of the gorge. The summit of the height was far above him, and the slope was covered with limestone masses. There had been no frost nor rain to disturb the original rock-piling. Only the agencies of sand and wind had disarranged the distribution on which the builders of the earliest dynasty had looked. And this was weird, mysterious and labyrinthine. At a spot where a great deal of broken rock encumbered the ground, Kenkenes unslung his wallet and tested the fragments with chisel and mallet. It was the same as the quarry product--magnesium limestone, white, fine, close-grained and easily worked. But it was broken in fragments too small for his purpose. Above him were fields of greater masses. "Now, I was born under a fortunate sign," he said aloud as he scaled the hillside; "but I fear those slabs are too long for a life-sized statue." On reaching them he found that those blocks which appeared from a distance to weigh less than a ton, were irregular cubes ten feet high. He grumbled his disappointment and climbed upon one to take a general survey of his stoneyard. At that moment his eyes fell on a block of proper dimensions under the very shadow of the great cube upon which he stood. It was in the path of the wind from the north and was buried half its height in sand. Kenkenes leaped from his point of vantage with a cry of delight. "Nay, now," he exclaimed; "where in this is divine disfavor?" He inspected his discovery, tried it for solidity of position and purity of texture. Its location was particularly favorable to secrecy. It stood at the lower end of an aisle between great rocks. All view of it was cut off, save from that position taken by Kenkenes when he discovered it. A wall built between it and the north would bar the sand and form a nook, wholly closed on two sides and partly closed at each end by stones. All this made itself plain to the mind of the young sculptor at once. With a laugh of sheer content, he turned to retrace his steps and began to sing. Then was the harsh desolation of the hills startled, the immediate echoes given unaccustomed sound to undulate in diminishing volume from one to another. He sang absently, but his preoccupation did not make his tones indifferent. For his voice was soft, full, organ-like, flexible, easy with illimitable lung-power and ineffable grace. When he ceased the silence fell, empty and barren, after that song's unaudienced splendor. [1] Set--the war-god. [2] Thebes. [3] Amenti--The realm of Death. [4] Tuat--The Egyptian Hades. [5] Nomarch--governor of a civil division called a nome. A high office. [6] Ma--The goddess of truth. CHAPTER III THE MESSENGER Mentu returned from the session at the palace, uncommunicative and moody. When, after the evening meal, Kenkenes crossed the court to talk with him, he found the elder sculptor feeding a greedy flame in a brazier with the careful plans for the new temple to Set. Kenkenes retired noiselessly and saw his father no more that night. The next day Mentu was bending over fresh sheets of papyrus, and when his son entered and stood beside him he raised his head defiantly. "I have another royal obelisk to decorate," he said, fixing the young man with a steady eye, "of a surety,--without doubt,--inevitably,--for the thing is all but ready to be set up at On." "I am glad of that," Kenkenes replied gravely. "Let me make clean copies of these which are complete." He gathered up the sheets and took his place at the opposite table. Then ensued a long silence, broken only by the loud and restless investigations of the omnipresent and unabashed ape. At last the elder sculptor spoke. "The eye of heaven must be unblinkingly upon the divine Meneptah," he observed, as though he had but thought aloud. Kenkenes gazed at his father with the inquiry on his face that he did not voice. The sculptor had risen from his bench and was searching a chest of rolled plans near him. He caught his son's look and closed his mouth on an all but spoken expression. Kenkenes continued to gaze at him in some astonishment, and the elder man muttered to himself: "I like him not, though if Osiris should ask me why, I could not tell. But he hath a too-ready smile, and by that I know he will twirl Meneptah like a string about his finger." The eyes of the young man widened. "The new adviser?" he asked. "Even so," was the emphatic reply. Before Kenkenes could ask for further enlightenment a female slave bowed in the doorway. "The Lady Senci sends thee greeting and would speak with thee. She is at the outer portal in her curricle," she said, addressing Mentu. The great man sprang to his feet, glanced hurriedly at his ink-stained fingers, at his robe, and then fled across the court into the door he had entered to change his dress the day before. Kenkenes smiled, for Mentu had been a widower these ten Nile floods. The slave still lingered. "Also is there a messenger for thee, master," she said, bowing again. "So? Let him enter." The man whom the slave ushered in a few minutes later was old, spare and bent, but he was alert and restless. His eyes were brilliant and over them arched eyebrows that were almost white. He made a jerky obeisance. "Greeting, son of Mentu. Dost thou remember me?" The young man looked at his visitor for a moment. "I remember," he said at last. "Thou art Ranas, courier to Snofru, priest of On. Greeting and welcome to Memphis. Enter and be seated." "Many thanks, but mine errand is urgent. I have been a guest of my son, who abideth just without Memphis, and this morning a messenger came to my son's door. He had been sent by Snofru to Tape, but had fallen ill on the river between On and Memphis. As it happened, the house of my son was the nearest, and thither he came, in fever and beyond traveling another rod. As the message he bore concerned the priesthood, I went to Asar-Mut and I am come from him to thee. He bids thee prepare for a journey before presenting thyself to him, at the temple." Kenkenes frowned in some perplexity. "His command is puzzling. Am I to become a messenger for the gods?" "The first messenger was a nobleman," the old courier explained in a conciliatory tone, "and the holy father spoke of thy fidelity and despatch." "Mine uncle is gracious. Salute him for me and tell him I obey." The old man bowed once more and withdrew. When Kenkenes crossed the court a little time later he met his father. "The Lady Senci brings me news that makes me envious," Mentu began at once, "and shames me because of thee!" Kenkenes lifted an expressive brow at this unexpected onslaught. "Nay, now, what have I done?" "Nothing!" Mentu asserted emphatically; "and for that reason am I wroth. The Lady Senci's nephew, Hotep, is the new chief of the royal scribes." "I call that good tidings," Kenkenes replied, a cheerful note in his voice, "and worth greeting with a health to Hotep. But thou must remember, my father, that he is older than I." "How much?" the elder sculptor asked. "Three whole revolutions of Ra." The artist regarded his son scornfully for a moment. "The Lady Senci wishes me to prepare plans for the further elaboration of her tomb," he went on, at last, "but the work on the obelisk may not be laid aside. If I might trust you to go on with them, the Lady Senci need not wait." "But I have, this moment, been summoned by my holy uncle, Asar-Mut, to go on a journey, and I know not when I return," Kenkenes explained. Mentu gazed at him without comprehending. "A messenger on his way to Tape from Snofru was overtaken with misfortune here, and Asar-Mut, getting word of it, sent for me," the young man continued. "I can only guess that he wishes me to carry on the message." "Humph!" the elder sculptor remarked. "Asar-Mut has kingly tastes. The couriers of priests are not usually of the nobility. But get thee gone." The pair separated and the young man passed into the house. The ape under the bunch of leaves in a palm-top looked after him fixedly for a moment, and then sliding down the tree, disappeared among the flowers. When, half an hour later, Kenkenes entered a cross avenue leading to a great square in which the temple stood, he found the roadway filled with people, crowding about a group of disheveled women. These were shrieking, wildly tearing their hair, beating themselves and throwing dust upon their heads. Kenkenes immediately surmised that there was something more than the usual death-wail in this. He touched a man near him on the shoulder. "Who may these distracted women be?" he asked. "The mothers of Khafra and Sigur, and their women." "Nay! Are these men dead? I knew them once. "They are by this time. They were to be hanged in the dungeon of the house of the governor of police at this hour," the man answered with morbid relish in his tone. Kenkenes looked at him in horror. "What had they done?" he asked. The man plunged eagerly into the narrative. "They were tomb robbers and robbed independently of the brotherhood of thieves.[1] They refused to pay the customary tribute from their spoil to the chief of robbers, and whatsoever booty they got they kept, every jot of it. Innumerable mummies were found rifled of their gold and gems, and although the chief of robbers and the governor of police sought and burrowed into every den in the Middle country, they could not find the missing treasure. Then they knew that the looting was not done by any of the licensed robbers. So all the professional thieves and all the police set themselves to seek out the lawless plunderers." "Humph!" interpolated Kenkenes expressively. "Aye. And it was not long with all these upon the scent until Khafra and Sigur were discovered coming forth from a tomb laden with spoil, and in the struggle which ensued they did murder. But the constabulary have not found the rest of the booty, though they made great search for it and may have put the thieves to torture. Who knows? They do dark things in the dungeon under the house of the governor of police." "And so they hanged them speedily," said Kenkenes, desirous of ending the grisly tale. "And so they hanged them. I could not get in to see, and these screaming mothers attracted me, so I am here. But my neighbor's son is a friend of the jailer, and I shall know yet how they died." But Kenkenes was stalking off toward the temple, his shoulders lifted high with disgust. "O, ye inscrutable Hathors," he exclaimed finally; "how ye have disposed the fortunes of four friends! Two of us hanged, a third in royal favor, a fourth an--an--an offender against the gods." Presently the avenue opened into the temple square. With reverential hand Memphis put back her dwellings and her bazaars, that profane life might not press upon the sacred precincts of her mighty gods. Here was a vast acreage, overhung with the atmosphere of sanctity. The grove of mysteries was there, dark with profound shadow, and silent save for a lonesome bird song or the suspirations of the wind. The great pool in its stone basin reflected a lofty canopy of sunlit foliage, and the shaggy peristyle of palm-tree trunks. The shadow of the great structure darkened its approaches before it was clearly visible through the grove. The devotee entered a long avenue of sphinxes--fifty pairs lining a broad highway paved with polished granite flagging. At its termination the two truncated pyramids that formed the entrance to the temple towered upward, two hundred feet of massive masonry. Egypt had dismantled a dozen mountains to build two. When he reached the gateway that opened like a tunnel between the ponderous pylons, he was delayed some minutes waiting till the porter should admit him through the wicket of bronze. At last, a lank youth, the son of the regular keeper, appeared, and, with an inarticulate apology, bade him enter. Within the overarching portals he was met by a novice, a priest of the lowest orders, to whom he stated his mission. With a sign to the young man to follow, the priest passed through the porch into the inner court of the temple. This was simply an immense roofless chamber. Its sides were the outer walls of the temple proper, reinforced by stupendous pilasters and elaborated with much bas-relief and many intaglios. The ends were formed by the inner pylons of the porch and outer pylons of the main temple. The latter were guarded by colossal divinities. Down the center of the court was a second aisle of sphinxes. They had entered this when the priest, with a startled exclamation, sprang behind one of the recumbent monsters in time to avoid the frolicsome salutation of an ape. "Anubis! Mut, the Mother of Darkness, lends you her cloak! Out!" Kenkenes cried, striking at his pet. The wary animal eluded the blow and for a moment revolved about another sphinx, pursued by his master, and then fled like a phantom out of the court by the path he came. By this time the priest had emerged from his refuge and was attempting to prevent the young man's interference with the will of the ape. "Nay, nay; I am sorry!" the priest exclaimed as Anubis disappeared. "It is an omen. Toth[2] visiteth Ptah; Wisdom seeketh Power! Came he by divine summons or did he seek the great god? It is a problem for the sorcerers and is of ominous import!" "The pestiferous creature followed me unseen from the house," Kenkenes explained, rather flushed of countenance. "To me it is an omen that the idler who keeps the gate is not vigilant." The priest shook his head and led the way without further words into the temple. Here the young sculptor was conducted through a wilderness of jacketed columns, over pavements that rang even under sandaled feet, to the center of a vast hall. The priest left him and disappeared through the all-enveloping twilight into the more sacred part of the temple. In a moment, Asar-Mut, high priest to Ptah, appeared, approaching through the dusk. He wore the priestly habiliments of spotless linen, and, like a loose mantle, a magnificent leopard-skin, which hung by a claw over the right shoulder and, passing under the left arm, was fastened at the breast by a medallion of gold and topaz. He was a typical Egyptian, but thinner of lip and severer of countenance than the laity. The wooden dolls tumbled about by the children of the realm were not more hairless than he. His high, narrow head was ghastly in its utter nakedness. Kenkenes bent reverently before him and was greeted kindly by the pontiff. "Hast thou guessed why I sent for thee?" he asked at once. "I have guessed," Kenkenes replied, "but it may be wildly." "Let us see. I would have thee carry a message for the brotherhood." Kenkenes inclined his head. "Good. Be thy journey as quick as thy perception. I ask thy pardon for laying the work of a temple courier upon thy shoulders, but the message is of such import that I would carry it myself were I as young and unburdened with duty as thou." "I am thy servant, holy Father, and well pleased with the opportunity that permits me to serve the gods." "I know, and therefore have I chosen thee. My trusted courier is dead; the others are light-minded, and Tape is in the height of festivity. They might delay--they might be lured into forgetting duty, and," the pontiff lowered his voice and drew nearer to Kenkenes, "and there are those that may be watching for this letter. A nobleman would not be thought a messenger. Thou dost incur less danger than the clout-wearing runner for the temple." A light broke over Kenkenes. "I understand," he said. "Go, then, by private boat at sunset, and Ptah be with thee. Make all speed." He put a doubly wrapped scroll into Kenkenes' hands. "This is to be delivered to our holy Superior, Loi, priest of Amen. Farewell, and fail not." Kenkenes bowed and withdrew. It was long before sunset, and he had an unfulfilled promise in mind. He crossed the square thoughtfully and paused by the pool in its center. The surface, dark and smooth as oil, reflected his figure and face faithfully and to his evident satisfaction. He passed around the pool and walked briskly in the direction of another narrow passage lined by rich residences. He knocked at a portal framed by a pair of huge pilasters, which towered upward, and, as pillars, formed two of the colonnade on the roof. A portress admitted him with a smile and led him through the sumptuously appointed chamber of guests into the intramural park. There she indicated a nook in an arbor of vines and left him. With a silent foot he crossed the flowery court and entered the bower. The beautiful dweller sat in a deep chair, her little feet on a carved footstool, a silver-stringed lyre tumbled beside it. She was alone and appeared desolate. When the tall figure of the sculptor cast a shadow upon her she looked up with a little cry of delight. "Oh," she exclaimed, "a god led thee hither to save me from the solitude. It is a moody monster not catalogued in the list of terrors." She thrust the lyre aside with her sandal and pushed the footstool, only a little, away from her. "Sit there," she commanded. Kenkenes obeyed willingly. He drew off his coif and tossed it aside. "Thou seest I am come in the garb of labor," he confessed. "I see," she answered severely. "Am I no longer worthy the robe of festivity?" "Ah, Ta-meri, thou dost wrong me," he said. "Chide me, but impugn me not. Nay, I am on my way to Tape. I was summoned hurriedly and am already dismissed upon mine errand, but I could not use myself so ill as to postpone my visit for eighteen days." She jeered at him prettily. "To hear thee one would think thou hadst been coming as often as Nechutes." "How often does Nechutes come?" "Every day." "Of late?" he asked, with a laugh in his eyes. "Nay," she answered sulkily. "Not since the day--that day!" Kenkenes was silent for a moment. Then he put his elbow on the arm of her chair and leaned his head against his hand. The attitude brought him close to her. "All these days," he said at length, "he has been unhappy among the happy and the unhappiest among the sad. He has summoned the shuddering Pantheon, to hear him vow eternal unfealty to thee, Ta-meri--and lo! while they listened he begged their most potent charm to hold thee to him still. Poor Nechutes!" "Thou dost treat it lightly," she reproached him, her eyes veiled, "but it is of serious import to--to Nechutes." "Nay, I shall hold my tongue. I efface myself and intercede for him, and thou dost call it exulting. And when I am fallen from thy favor there will be none to plead my cause, none to hide her misty eyes with contrite lashes." "Mine eyes are not misty," she retorted. "Thou hast said," he admitted, in apology. "It was not a happy term. I meant bejeweled with repentant dew." She shook her little finger at him. "If thou dost persist in thy calumny of me, thou mayest come to test thy dismal augury," she warned. He dropped his eyes and his mouth drooped dolorously. "I come for comfort, and I get Nechutes and all the unpropitious possibilities that his name suggests." "Comfort? Thou, in trouble? Thou, the light-hearted?" she laughed. "Nay; I am discontented, but I might as well hope to heave the skies away with my shoulders as to rebel against mine oppression. So I came to be petted into submission." "Nay, dost thou hear him?" the lady cried. "And he came, because he was sure he would get it!" "And he will go away because the Lady Ta-meri means he shall not have it," he exclaimed. He reached toward his coif and immediately a panic-stricken little hand stayed him. "Nay," she said softly. "I was but retaliating. Hast thou not plagued me, and may I not tease thee a little in revenge? Say on." "My--but now I bethink me, I ought not to tell thee. It savors of that which so offends thy nice sense of gentility--labor," he said, sinking back in his easy attitude again. "Fie, Kenkenes," she said. "Hath some one put thy slavish love of toil under ban? Does that oppress thee?" He reproved her with a pat on the nearest hand. "The king toils; the priests toil; the powers of the world labor. None but the beautiful idle may be idle, and that for their beauty's sake. Nay, it is not that I may not work, but I may not work as I wish and I am heart-sick therefore." His last words ended in a tone of genuine dejection. His eyes were fixed on the grass of the nook and his brows had knitted slightly. The expression was a rare one for his face and in its way becoming--for the moment at least. The hand he had patted drew nearer, and at last, after a little hesitancy, was laid on his black hair. He lifted his face and took cheer, from the light in her eyes, to proceed. "Since I may speak," he began, "I shall. Ta-meri, thou knowest that as a sculptor I work within limits. The stature of mine art must crouch under the bounds of the ritual. It is not boasting if I say that I see, with brave eyes, that Egypt insults herself when she creates horrors in stone and says, 'This is my idea of art.' And these things are not human; neither are they beasts--they are grotesques that verge so near upon a semblance of living things as to be piteous. They thwart the purpose of sculpture. Why do we carve at all, if not to show how we appear to the world or the world appears to us? Now for my rebellion. I would carve as we are made; as we dispose ourselves; aye, I would display a man's soul in his face and write his history on his brow. I would people Egypt with a host of beauty, grace and naturalness--" "Just as if they were alive?" Ta-meri inquired with interest. "Even so--of such naturalness that one could guess only by the hue of the stone that they did not breathe." The lady shrugged her shoulders and laughed a little. "But they do not carve that way," she protested. "It is not sculpture. Thou wouldst fill the land with frozen creatures--ai!" with another little shrug. "It would be haunted and spectral. Nay, give me the old forms. They are best." Kenkenes fairly gasped with his sudden descent from earnest hope to disappointment. A flood of half-angry shame dyed his face and the wound to his sensibilities showed its effect so plainly that the beauty noted it with a sudden burst of compunction. "Of a truth," she added, her voice grown wondrous soft, "I am full of sympathy for thee, Kenkenes. Nay, look up. I can not be happy if thou art not." "That suffices. I am cheered," he began, but the note of sarcasm in his voice was too apparent for him to permit himself to proceed. He caught up the lyre, and drawing up a diphros--a double seat of fine woods--rested against it and began to improvise with an assumption of carelessness. Ta-meri sank back in her chair and regarded him from under dreamy lids--her senses charmed, her light heart won by his comeliness and talent. Kenkenes became conscious of her inspection, at last, and looked up at her. His eyes were still bright with his recent feeling and the hue in his cheeks a little deeper. The admiration in her face became so speaking that he smiled and ran without pausing into one of the love-lyrics of the day. Breaking off in its midst, he dropped the lyre and said with honest apology in his voice: "I crave thy pardon, Ta-meri. What right had I to weight thee with my cares! It was selfish, and yet--thou art so inviting a confidante, that it is not wholly my fault if I come to seek of thee, my oldest and sweetest friend, the woman comfort that was bereft me with my rightful comforter." "Neither mother nor sister nor lady-love," she mused. He nodded, but the slight interrogative emphasis caught him, and he looked up at her. He nodded again. "Nay, nor lady-love, thanks to the luck of Nechutes." "Nechutes is no longer lucky," she said deliberately. "No matter," Kenkenes insisted. "I shall be gone eighteen days, and his luck will have changed before I can return." "Thine auguries seem to please thee," she pouted. He put the back of her jeweled hand against his cheek. "Nay, I but comfort thee at the sacrifice of mine own peace." "A futile sacrifice." "What!" "A futile sacrifice!" "Ah, Ta-meri, beseech the Goddess Ma to forget thy words!" he cried in mock horror. She tossed her head, and instantly he got upon his feet, catching up his coif as he did so. "Come, bid me farewell," he said putting out his hand, "and one of double sweetness, for I doubt me much if Nechutes will permit a welcome when I return." "Nechutes will not interfere in mine affairs," she said, as she rose. "Nay, I shall know if that be true when I return," he declared. She stamped her foot. "Fie!" he laughed. "Already do I begin to doubt it." She turned from him and kept her face away. Kenkenes went to her and, taking both her hands in his, drew her close to him. She did not resist, but her face reproached him--not for what he was doing, but for what he had done. With his head bent, he looked down into her eyes for a moment. Her red mouth with its sulky pathos was almost irresistible. But he only pressed one hand to his lips. "I must wait until I return," he said from the doorway, and was gone. On the broad bosom of the Nile at sunset, four strong oarsmen were speeding him swiftly up to Thebes. Off the long wharves at the southernmost limits of the city, the rapid boat overtook and passed low-riding, slowly moving stone-barges laden with quarry slaves. The unwieldy craft progressed heavily, nearer and within the darkening shadow of the Arabian hills. Kenkenes watched them as long as they were in sight, an unwonted pity making itself felt in his heart. For even in the dusk he distinguished many women and the immature figures of children; and none knew the quarry life better than he, who was a worker in stone. [1] In ancient Egypt burglary was reduced to a system and governed by law. The chief of robbers received all the spoil and to him the victimized citizen repaired and, upon payment of a certain per cent. of the value of the object stolen, received his property again. The original burglar and the chief of robbers divided the profits. This traffic was countenanced in Egypt until the country passed into British hands. [2] The ape was sacred to and an emblem of Toth, the male deity of Wisdom and Law. CHAPTER IV THE PROCESSION OF AMEN Thebes Diospolis, the hundred-gated, was in holiday attire. The great suburb to the west of the Nile had emptied her multitudes into the solemn community of the gods. Besides her own inhabitants there were thousands from the entire extent of the Thebaid and visitors even from far-away Syene and Philae. It was an occasion for more than ordinary pomp. The great god Amen was to be taken for an outing in his ark. Every possible manifestation of festivity had been sought after and displayed. The air was a-flutter with party-colored streamers. Garlands rioted over colossus, peristyle, obelisk and sphinx without conserving pattern or moderation. The dromos, or avenue of sphinxes, was carpeted with palm and nelumbo leaves, and copper censers as large as caldrons had been set at equidistance from one another, and an unceasing reek of aromatics drifted up from them throughout the day. For once the magnificence of the wondrous city of the gods was set down from its usual preeminence in the eyes of the wondering spectator, and the vastness of the multitude usurped its place. The bari of Kenkenes seeking to round the island of sand lying near the eastern shore opposite the village of Karnak, met a solid pack of boats. The young sculptor took in the situation at once, and, putting about, found a landing farther to the north. There he made a portage across the flat bar of sand to the arm of quiet water that separated the island from the eastern shore. Crossing, he dismissed his eager and excited boatmen and struck across the noon-heated valley toward the temple. The route of the pageant could be seen from afar, cleanly outlined by humanity. It extended from Karnak to Luxor and, turning in a vast loop at the Nile front, countermarched over the dromos and ended at the tremendous white-walled temple of Amen. Between the double ranks of sightseers there was but chariot room. The side Kenkenes approached sloped sharply from the dromos toward the river, and the rearmost spectators had small opportunity to behold the pageant. The multitude here was less densely packed. Kenkenes joined the crowd at this point. Here was the canaille of Thebes. They wore nothing but a kilt of cotton--or as often, only a cincture about the loins, and their lean bodies were blackened by the terrible sun of the desert. They were the apprentices of paraschites,[1] brewers, professional thieves, slaves and traffickers in the unclean necessities of a great city, and only their occasional riots, or such events as this, brought them into general view of the upper classes. They had nothing in common with the gentry, whom they were willing to recognize as creatures of a superior mold. Among themselves there were established castes, and members of each despised the lower and hated the upper. Kenkenes slackened his pace when he recognized the character of these spectators, and after hesitating a moment, he hung the flat wallet containing the message around his neck inside his kamis and pushed on. Every foot of progress he essayed was snarlingly disputed until the rank of the aggressive stranger was guessed by his superior dress, when he was given a moody and ungracious path. But he finally met an immovable obstacle in the shape of a quarrel. The stage of hostilities was sufficiently advanced to be menacing, and the young sculptor hesitated to ponder on the advisability of pressing on. While he waited, several deputies of the constabulary, methodically silencing the crowd, came upon these belligerents in turn and belabored the foremost into silence. The act decided the young man. The feelings of the rabble were now in a state sufficiently warlike to make them forget their ancient respect for class and turn savagely upon him, should he show any desire to force his way through their lines. Therefore he gave up his attempt to reach the temple and made up his mind to remain where he was. At that moment, several gorgeous litters of the belated wealthy rammed a path to the very front and were set down before the rabble. Kenkenes seized upon their advance to proceed also, and, dropping between the first and second litter, made his way with little difficulty to the front. With the complacency of a man that has rank and authority on his side he turned up the roadway and continued toward the temple. He was halted before he had proceeded ten steps. A litter richly gilded and borne by four men, came pushing through the crowd and was deposited directly in his path. But for the unusual appearance of the bearers, Kenkenes might have passed around the conveyance and continued. Instead, he caught the contagious curiosity of the crowd and stood to marvel. The men were stalwart, black-bearded and strong of feature, and robed in no Egyptian garb. They were draped voluminously in long habits of brown linen, fringed at the hem, belted by a yellow cord with tasseled ends. The sleeves were wide and showed the wristbands of a white under-garment. The head-dress was a brown kerchief bound about the brow with a cord, also yellow. While Kenkenes examined them in detail, a long, in-drawn breath of wonder from the circle of spectators caused him to look at the alighting owner of the litter. He took a backward step and halted, amazed. Before him was a woman of heroic proportions, taller, with the exception of himself, than any man in the crowd. Upon her, at first glance, was to be discerned the stamp of great age, yet she was as straight as a column and her hair was heavy and midnight-black. Hers was the Semitic cast of countenance, the features sharply chiseled, but without that aggressiveness that emphasizes the outline of a withered face. Every passing year had left its mark on her, but she had grown old not as others do. Here was flesh compromising with age--accepting its majesty, defying its decay--a sublunar assumption of immortality. There was no longer any suggestion of femininity; the idea was dread power and unearthly grace. Of such nature might the sexless archangels partake. "Holy Amen!" one of the awed bystanders exclaimed in a whisper to his neighbor. "Who is this?" "A princess from Punt," [2] the neighbor surmised. "A priestess from Babylon," another hazarded. "Nay, ye are all wrong," quavered an old man who had been looking at the new-comers under the elbows of the crowd. "She is an Israelite." "Thou hast a cataract, old man," was the scornful reply from some one near by. "She is no slave." "Aye," went on the unsteady voice, "I know her. She was the favorite woman of Queen Neferari Thermuthis. She has not been out of the Delta where her people live since the good queen died forty years ago. She must be well-nigh a hundred years old. Aye, I should know her by her stature. It is of a truth the Lady Miriam." At the sound of his mistress' name one of the bearers turned and shot a sharp glance at the speaker. Instantly the old man fell back, saying, as a sneer of contempt ran through the rabble at the intelligence his words conveyed: "Anger them not. They have the evil eye." Kenkenes had guessed the nationality of the strangers immediately, but had doubted the correctness of his surmise, because of their noble mien. If he suffered any disappointment in hearing proof of their identity, it was immediately nullified by the joy his artist-soul took in the stately Hebrew woman. He forgot the mission that urged him to the temple and, permitting the shifting, restless crowd to surround him, he lingered, thinking. This proud disdain must mark his goddess of stone in the Arabian hills, this majesty and power; but there must be youth and fire in the place of this ancient calm. A porter that stood beside him, emboldened by barley beer and the growing disapproval among the on-lookers, cried: "Ha! by the rags of my fathers, she outshines her masters, the brickmaking hag!" Kenkenes, who towered over the ruffian, became possessed of a sudden and uncontrollable indignation. He pecked the man on the head with the knuckle of his forefinger, saying in colloquial Egyptian: "Hold thy tongue, brawler, nor presume to flout thy betters!" The stately Israelite, who had taken no notice of any word against her, now turned her head toward Kenkenes and slowly inspected him. He had no opportunity to guess whether her gaze was approving, for the crowd about him, grown weary of waiting, had become quarrelsome and was loudly resenting his defense of the Hebrews. The porter, supported by several of his brethren, was already menacing the young sculptor when some one shouted that the procession was in sight. From his position Kenkenes commanded a long view of the street that declined sharply toward the river. As yet there was nothing to be seen of the pageant, but the dense crowds far down the highway swayed backward from the narrow path between them. Presently, scantily-clad runners were distinguished coming in a slow trot between the multitudes. The lane widened before the swing of their maces and there were cries of alarm as the spectators in the middle were pressed between the retreating forward ranks and the immovable rear. Running water-bearers pursued the couriers with gurglets, sprinkling the way. Directly after these, slim bare-limbed youths came in a rapid pace strewing the path with flowers and palm-leaves. By this time the intermittent sound of music had grown insistent and continuous. Solemn bodies of priests approached, series after series of the shaven, white-robed ministers of Amen. The murmur had grown to an uproar. The wild clamor of trumpet, pipe, cymbal and sistrum, with the long drone of the arghool as undertone, drifted by. The upper orders of priests followed in the vibrating wake of the musicians. Then came Loi, high-priest to the patron god of Thebes, walking alone, his ancient figure most pitifully mocked by the richness of his priestly robes. After him the great god, Amen, in his ark. The air was rent with acclaim. The crowd was too dense for any one to prostrate himself, but every Egyptian, potentate or slave, assumed as nearly as possible the posture of humility. Kenkenes bent reverently, but he lifted his eyes and looked long at the passing ark. Six priests bore it upon their shoulders. It was a small boat, elaborately carved, and the cabin in the center--the retreat of the deity--was picketed with a cordon of sacred images. The entire feretory was overlaid with gold and crusted with gems. Mentu, his father, had planned one for Ptah, and a noble work it was,--quite equal to this, Kenkenes thought. His artistic deliberations were interrupted by an angry tone in the clamor about him. The Israelites had called out a demonstration of contempt before, and he guessed at once that they had further displeased the rabble. It was even as he had thought. The four bearers with folded arms contemplated the threatening crowd with a sidelong gaze of contempt. The stately Israelite stood in a dream, her brilliant eyes fixed in profound preoccupation on the distance. Kenkenes knew by the present attitude of the group that they had made no obeisance to Amen. Hence the mutterings among the faithful. Few had seen the offense at first, but the demonstration spread nevertheless, and assumed ominous proportions. "Nay, now," Kenkenes thought impatiently, "such impiety is foolhardy." But he drifted into the group of Hebrews and stood between the woman of Israel and her insulters. The bearers glanced at him, at one another, and closed up beside him, but he had eyes only for the majestic Israelite. Not till he saw her bend with singular grace did he look again on the pageant, interested to know what had won her homage. She had done obeisance before the crown prince of Egypt. He stood in a sumptuous chariot drawn by white horses and driven by a handsome charioteer. The princely person was barely visible for the pair of feather fans borne by attendants that walked beside him. Through continuous cheering he passed on. Seti, the younger, followed, driving alone. His eyes wandered in pleased wonder over the multitude which howled itself hoarse for him. Close behind him was a chariot of ebony drawn by two plunging, coal-black horses. A robust Egyptian, who shifted from one foot to the other and talked to his horses continually, drove therein alone. As he approached, the Hebrew woman raised herself so suddenly that one of the nervous animals side-stepped affrighted. The swaggering Egyptian, with a muttered curse, struck at her with his whip. The four bearers sprang forward, but she quieted them with a few words in Hebrew. Reentering her litter she was borne away, while the Thebans were still lost in the delights of the procession. In the few strange words of the woman of Israel, Kenkenes had caught the name of Har-hat. This then was the bearer of the king's fan--this insulter of age and womanhood. And the words of Mentu seemed very fitting,--"I like him not." The Thebans were in raptures. The splendors of the pageant had far surpassed their expectations. Priests, soldiers and officials came in companies, rank upon rank, of exalted and ornate dignity. Chariots and horses shone with gilding, polished metal and gay housings, while the marching legions clanked with pike and blade and shield. Now that the chief luminaries of the procession had passed, the rich and lofty departed with a great show of indifference to the rest of the parade. But the humbler folk, all unlearned in the art of assumption, had not reached that nice point of culture, and lingered to see the last foot-soldier pass. Kenkenes, urged by his mission, was departing with the rich and lofty, when his attention was attracted by the chief leading the section of royal scribes now passing. His was a compact, plump figure, amply robed in sheeny linen, and he balanced himself skilfully in his light shell of a chariot, which bumped over the uneven pavement. He was not a brilliant mark in the long parade, but something other than his mere appearance made him conspicuous. Behind him, walking at a respectful distance, was his corps of subordinates--all mature, many of them aged, but the years of their chief were fewer than those of the youngest among them. From the center of the crowd his face appeared boyish, and the multitude hailed him with delight. But the crown prince himself was not more unmoved by their acclaim. His silent dignity, misunderstood, brought forth howls of genuine pleasure, and groups of young noblemen, out of the great college of Seti I, saluted him by name, adding thereto exalted titles in good-natured derision. "Hotep!" ejaculated Kenkenes aloud, catching the name from the lips of the students. "By Apis, he is the royal scribe!" Not until then had he realized the extent of his friend's exaltation. He turned again toward the temple, walking between the crowds and the marching soldiers, indifferent to the shouts of the spectators--lost in contemplation. But the procession moved more swiftly than he and the last rank passed him with half his journey yet to complete. Instantly the vast throng poured out into the way behind the rearmost soldier and swallowed up the sculptor in a shifting multitude. For an hour he was hurried and halted and pushed, progressing little and moving much. Before he could extricate himself, the runners preceding the pageant returning the great god to his shrine, beat the multitude back from the dromos and once again Kenkenes was imprisoned by the hosts. And once again after the procession had passed, he did fruitless battle with a tossing human sea. But when the street had become freer, he stood before the closed portal of the great temple. The solemn porter scrutinized the young sculptor sharply, but the display of the linen-wrapped roll was an efficient passport. In a little space he was conducted across the ringing pavements, under the vaulted shadows, into the presence of Loi, high priest to Amen. The ancient prelate had just returned from installing the god in his shrine and was yet invested in his sacerdotal robes. At one time this splendid raiment had swathed an imposing figure, but now the frame was bowed, its whilom comfortable padding fallen away, its parchment-like skin folded and wrinkled and brown. He was trembling with the long fatigue of the spectacle. He spelled the hieratic writings upon the outer covering of the roll which the young man presented to him, and asked with some eagerness in his voice: "Hast thou traveled with all speed?" "Scarce eight days have I been on the way. Only have I been delayed a few hours by the crowds of the festival." "It is well," replied the pontiff. "Wait here while I see what says my brother at On." He motioned Kenkenes to a seat of inlaid ebony and retired into a curtained recess. The apartment into which Kenkenes had been conducted was small. It was evidently the study of Loi, for there was a small library of papyri in cases against the wall; a deep fauteuil was before a heavy table covered with loosely rolled writings. The light from a high slit under the architrave sifted down on the floor strewn with carpets of Damascene weave. Two great pillars, closely set, supported the ceiling. They were of red and black granite, and each was surmounted by a foliated encarpus of white marble. The ceiling was a marvelous marquetry of many and wondrously harmonious colors. In one wall was the entrance leading to another chamber. It was screened by a slowly swaying curtain of broidered linen, which was tied at its upper corners to brass rings sunk in the stone frame of the door. This frame attracted the attention of the young sculptor. It consisted of two caryatides standing out from the square shaft from which they were carved, their erect heads barely touching the ceiling. The figures were of heroic size and wore the repose and dignity of countenance characteristic of Egyptian statues. The sculptor had been so successful in bringing out this expression that Kenkenes stood before them and groaned because he had not followed nature to the exquisite achievement he might have attained. He was deeply interested in his critical examination of the figures when the old priest darted into the apartment, his withered face working with excitement. "Go! Go!" he cried. "Eat and prepare to return to Memphis with all speed. Thine answer will await thee here to-night at the end of the first watch,--and Set be upon thee if thou delayest!" Kenkenes, startled out of speech, did obeisance and hastened from the temple. The outside air was thick with dust and intensely hot under the reddening glare of the sun. It was late afternoon. The city was still crowded, the river front lined with a dense jam of people awaiting transportation to the opposite shore. Kenkenes knew that many would still be there on the morrow, since the number of boats was inadequate to carry the multitude of passengers. He began to think with concern upon the security of his own bari, left in the marsh-growth by the Nile side, north of Karnak. He left the shifting crowd behind and struck across the sandy flat toward the arm of quiet water. Straggling groups preceded and followed him and at the Nile-side he came upon a number contending for the possession of his boat. They were image-makers and curriers, equally matched against one another, and a Nubian servitor in a striped tunic, who remained neutral that he might with safety join the winning party. The appearance of the nobleman checked hostilities and the contestants, recognizing the paternalism of rank after the manner of the lowly, called upon him to arbitrate. "The boat is mine, children," [3] was his quiet answer. He pushed it off, stepped into it, and turned it broadside to them. "See here, the scarab of Ptah," he said, tapping the bow with a paddle, "and the name of Memphis?" With that he drew away to the sandbar before the astonished men had realized the turn of events. Then they looked at one another in silence or muttered their disgust; but the Nubian went into transports of rage, making such violent demonstrations that the image-makers and curriers turned on him and bade him cease. At the Libyan shore Kenkenes gave his bari into the hands of a river-man and by a liberal fee purchased its security from confiscation. Then he turned his face toward the center of the western suburb of Thebes Diospolis. He had the larger palace of Rameses II in view and he walked briskly, as one who goes forward to meet pleasure. Only once, when he passed the palace and temple of the Incomparable Pharaoh, which stood at the mouth of the Valley of the Kings, he frowned in discontent. Far up the tortuous windings of this gorge was the tomb of the great Rameses and there had the precious signet been lost. As he looked at the high red ridge through which this crevice led, he remembered his father's emphatic prohibition and bit his lip. Thereafter, throughout a great part of his walk, he railed mentally against the useless loss of a most propitious opportunity. To the first resplendent member of the retinue at Meneptah's palace, who cast one glance at the fillet the sculptor wore, and bent suavely before him, Kenkenes stated his mission. The retainer bowed again and called a rosy page hiding in the dusk of the corridor. "Go thou to the apartments of my Lord Hotep and tell him a visitor awaits him in his chamber of guests." The lad slipped away and the retainer led Kenkenes into a long chamber near the end of the corridor. The hall had been darkened to keep out the glare of the day, air being admitted only through a slatted blind against which a shrub in the court outside beat its waxen leaves. Before his eyes had become accustomed to the dusk Kenkenes heard footsteps coming down the outer passage, with now and then the light and brisk scrape of the sandal toe on the polished floor. The young sculptor smiled at the excited throb of his heart. The new-comer entered the hall and drew up the shutter. The brilliant flood of light revealed to him the tall figure of the sculptor rising from his chair--to the sculptor the trim presence of the royal scribe. The friends had not met in six years. For a space long enough for recognition to dawn upon the scribe, he stood motionless and then with an exclamation of extravagant delight he seized his friend and embraced him with woman-like emotion. [1] Undertakers--embalmers, an unclean class. [2] Punt--Arabia. [3] The oriental master calls his servants "children." CHAPTER V THE HEIR TO THE THRONE Loi was not present at the sunset prayers in Karnak. An hour before he had summoned the trustiest priest in the brotherhood of ministers to Amen and bade him conduct the ceremonies of the evening. Then he sent to the temple stores, put into service another boat and was ferried over to the Libyan suburb of Thebes. He had himself borne in a litter to the greater palace of Rameses II, and asked an audience with Meneptah. The king was at prayers in the temple of his father, close to the palace, and the dusk of twilight was settling on the valley of the Nile, before Loi was summoned to the council chamber. The hall he entered was vast and full of deep shadows. The two windows set in one wall, many feet above the floor, showed two spaces of darkening sky. A single torch of aromatics flared and hissed beside the throne dais. Tremendous wainscoting covered the base of the walls, more than a foot above a man's height. It was massively carved with colossal sheaves of lotus-blooms and sword-like palm-leaves. Columns of great girth, bouquets of conventional stamens, ending in foliated capitals, supported by the lofty ceiling. The few men gathered in council were surrounded, over-shadowed, and dwarfed by monumental strength and solemnity. Behind a solid panel of carved cedar, which hedged the royal dais, stood Meneptah. Above his head were the intricate drapings of a canopy of gold tissue. On a level with his eyes, at his side, was the single torch. His vision, like his father's, was defective. He was forty years old, but appeared to be younger. His person was plump, and in stature he was shorter than the average Egyptian. His coloring was high and of uniform tint. The arch of the brow, and the conspicuous distance between it and the eye below, the disdainful tension of the nostril and the drooping corners of the mouth, gave his face the injured expression of a spoiled child. The lips were of similar fullness and the chin retreated. There was refinement in his face, but no force nor modicum of perception. Below, with the light of the torch wavering up and down his robust figure, was Har-hat, Meneptah's greatest general and now the new fan-bearer. In repose his face was expressive of great good-humor. Merriment lighted his eyes and the cut of his mouth was for laughter. But the smile seemed to be set and, furthermore, indicated that the fan-bearer found much mirth in the discomfiture of others. Aside from this undefined atmosphere of heartlessness, it can not be said that there was any craft or wickedness patent on his face, for his features were good and indicative of unusual intelligence. To the unobservant, he seemed to be a lovable, useful, able man. However, we have seen what Mentu thought of him, and Mentu's estimation might have represented that of all profound thinkers. But to the latter class, most assuredly, Meneptah did not belong. Har-hat, taking the place of the king during the Rebu war, had displayed such generalship that the Pharaoh had rewarded him at the first opportunity with the highest office, except the regency, at his command. To the king's right, beside the dais, with a hand resting on the back of a cathedra, or great chair, was the crown prince, Rameses. The old courtiers of the dead grandsire, visiting the court of Meneptah, flung up their hands and gasped when they beheld the heir to the double crown of Egypt. They looked upon the old Pharaoh, renewed in youth and strength. There were the same narrow temples with the sloping brow, the same hawked nose, the same full lips, the same heavy eye with the smoldering ember in its dusky depths. The only radical dissimilarity was the hue of the prince's complexion. It was a strange, un-Egyptian pallor, an opaque whiteness with dark shadows that belied the testimony of vigor in his sinewy frame. The old courtiers that were still attached to the court of Meneptah watched with fascination the development of the heir's character. He was twenty-two years old now and had proved that no alien nature had been housed in the old Pharaoh's shape. If any pointed out the prince's indolence as proving him unlike his grandsire the old courtiers shook their heads and said: "He does not reign as yet and he but saves his forces till the crown is his." So Egypt, stagnated at the pinnacle of power by the accession of Meneptah, began to look forward secretly to the reign of Rameses the Younger, with a hope that was half terror. To-night he stood in semi-dusk robed in festal attire, for somewhere a rout awaited him. And of the groups of power and rank about him, none seemed to fit that majestic council chamber so well as he. It was not the robe of costly stuffs he wore, nor the trappings of jewels, which if he moved never so slightly emitted a shower of frosty sparks--but a peculiar emanation of magnetism that at once repelled and attracted, and made him master over the monarch himself. He had never met repulse or defeat; he had never entered the presence of his peer; he had never loved, he had never prayed. He was a solitary power, who admitted death as his only equal, and defied even him. The other counselors were minor members of the cabinet, who had been summoned, but expected only to hear and keep silence while the great powers--the king, the prince, the priest and the fan-bearer--conferred. Loi entered, bowing and walking with palsied step. At one time the three central figures of the hall had been his pupils. He had taught them from the simplest hieratic catechism to the initiation into the mysteries. As novices they had kissed his hand and borne him reverence. Now as the initiated, exalted through the acquisition of power, it lay with them to reverse conditions if they pleased. But as the old prelate prepared to do obeisance before Meneptah, he was stayed with a gesture, and after a word of greeting was dismissed to his place. Rameses saluted him with a motion of his hand and Har-hat bowed reverently. The pontiff backed away to the great council table set opposite the throne and was met there by a courtier with a chair. At a sign from the king, who had already sunk into his throne, the old man sat. "Thou bringest us tidings, holy Father?" "Even so, O Son of Ptah." "Say on." The priest moved a little uncomfortably and glanced at the ministers grouped in the shadows. "Save for the worthy Har-hat and our prince, O my King, thou hast no need of great council," he said. Meneptah raised his hand and the supernumerary ministers left the chamber. When they were gone, Loi unwrapped the roll Kenkenes had brought and began to read: "To Loi, the most high Servant of Amen, Lord of Tape, the Servant of Ra, at On, sends greeting: "The gods lend me composure to speak calmly with thee, O Brother. And let the dismay which is mine explain the lack of ceremony in this writing. "It is not likely that thou hast forgotten the good Queen Neferari Thermuthis' foster-son--the Hebrew Mesu, whom she found adrift in a basket on Nilus. But lest the years have driven the memory of his misdeeds from thy mind, I tell again the story. Thou knowest he was initiated a priest of Isis, and scarce had the last of the mysteries been disclosed to him, ere it was seen that the brotherhood had taken an apostate unto itself. "By the grace of the gods, he interfered in a brawl at Pithom and killed an Egyptian. Before he could be taken he fled into Midian, and the secrets of our order were safe, for a time. "One by one our fellows have entered Osiris. The young who knew not have filled their places. Thou and I, only, are left--and the Hebrew! "He hath returned! "The gods make strong our hands against him! He went away as a menace, but he returneth as a pestilence. The demons of Amend are with him, and his hour is most propitious. He hath sunk himself in the Israelitish pool here in the north, and he will breathe therefrom such vapors as may destroy Egypt--faith--state--all! "The bond-people are already in ferment. There was mutiny at Pa-Ramesu recently, when three hundred were chosen to work the quarries. Moreover, the taskmasters are corrupt. The commander, one Atsu by name, appointed when the chief Merenra became nomarch over Bubastis, hath disarmed the under-drivers, removed the women from toil and restored many privileges which are ruinous to law and order. The whole Delta is in commotion. The nomad tribes near the Goshen country are agitated; communities of Egyptian shepherds have been won over to the Hebrew's cause, and now the Israelitish renegade needs but to betray the secrets to bring such calamity upon Egypt as never befell a nation. "But, Brother, he is within reach of an avenging hand! Commission us, I pray thee, to protect the mysteries after any manner that to us seemeth good. "Despatch is urgent. He may fly again. Give us thine answer as we have sent this to thee--by a nobleman--a swift and trusty one, and the blessings of the Radiant Three be upon thy head. "Thy servant, the Servant of Ra, "Snofru." When the priest finished, the king was sitting upright, his face flushed with feeling. "Sedition!" he exclaimed; "organized rebellion in the very heart of my realm!" He paused for a space and thrust back the heavy fringes of his cowl with a gesture of peevish impatience. "What evil humor possesses Egypt?" he burst forth irritably. "Hardly have I overthrown an invader before my people break out. I quiet them in one place and they revolt in another. Must I turn a spear upon mine own?" "Well," he cried, stamping his foot, when the three before him kept silence, "have ye no word to say?" His eyes rested on Har-hat, with an imperious expectation in them. The fan-bearer bent low before he answered. "With thy gracious permission, O Son of Ptah," he said, "I would suggest that it were wise to cool an insurrection in the simmering. The disaffection seems to be of great extent. But the Rameside army assembled on the ground might check an open insurrection. Furthermore, thou hast seen the salutary effect of thy visit to Tape when she forgot her duty to her sovereign. Thy presence in the Delta would undoubtedly expedite the suppression of the rebellion likewise." "O, aye," Meneptah declared. "I must go to Tanis. It seems that I must hasten hither and thither over Egypt pursuing sedition like a scent-hunting jackal. Mayhap if I were divided like Osiris[1] and a bit of me scattered in each nome, I might preserve peace. But it goes sore against me to drag the army with me. Hast thou any simpler plan to offer, holy Father?" The old priest shifted a little before he answered. "The mysteries of the faith are in possession of Mesu," he began at last. "The writing saith he hath exerted great influence over the bond-people--in truth he hath entered a peaceful land and stirred it up--and time is but needed to bring the unrest to open warfare. Thou, O Meneptah, and thou, O Rameses, and thou, O Har-hat, each being of the brotherhood--ye know that we hold the faith by scant tenure in the respect of the people. Ye know the perversity of humanity. Obedience and piety are not in them. Though they never knew a faith save the faith of their fathers, we must pursue them with a gad, tickle them with processions and awe them with manifestations. So if it were to come over the spirit of this Hebrew to betray the mysteries, to scout the faith and overturn the gods, he would have rabble Egypt following at his heels. "As the writing saith, he hath the destruction of the state in mind, and his own aggrandizement. He but beginneth on the faith because he seeth in that a rift wherein to put the lever that shall pry the whole state asunder. So with two and a half millions of Hebrews and a horde of renegade Egyptians to combat, I fear the Rameside army might spill more good blood than is worth wasting on a mongrel multitude. The rabble without a leader is harmless. Cut off the head of the monster, and there is neither might nor danger in the trunk. Put away Mesu, and the insurrection will subside utterly." The priest paused and Meneptah stroked the polished coping of the panel before him with a nervous hand. There was complete silence for a moment, broken at last by the king. "Mesu, though a Hebrew, an infidel and a malefactor, is a prince of the realm, my foster-brother--Neferari's favorite son. I can not rid myself of him on provocation as yet misty and indirect." "Nay," he added after another pause, "he shall not die by hand of mine." The prelate raised his head and met the eyes of the king. After he read what lay therein, the dissatisfaction that had begun to show on his ancient face faded. The Pharaoh settled back into his seat and his brow cleared as if the problem had been settled. But suddenly he sat up. "What have I profited by this council? Shall I take the army or leave it distributed over Egypt?" He stopped abruptly and turned to the crown prince. "Help us, my Rameses," he said in a softer tone. "We had well-nigh forgotten thee." Rameses raised himself from the back of his cathedra, against which he lounged, and moved a step forward. "A word, my father," he said calmly. "Thy perplexity hath not been untangled for thee, nor even a thread pulled which shall start it raveling. The priesthood can kill Mesu," he said to Loi, "and it will do them no hurt. And thou, my father, canst countenance it and seem no worse than any other monarch that loved his throne. Thus ye will decapitate the monster. But there be creatures in the desert which, losing one head, grow another. Mesu is not of such exalted or supernatural villainy that they can not fill his place. Wilt thou execute Israel one by one as it raises up a leader against thee? Nay; and wilt thou play the barbarian and put two and a half million at once to the sword?" The trio looked uncomfortable, none more so than the Pharaoh. The prince went on mercilessly. "Are the Hebrews warriors? Wouldst thou go against a host of trowel-wielding slaves with an army that levels lances only against free-born men? And yet, wilt thou wait till all Israel shall crowd into thy presence and defy thee before thou actest? And again, wilt thou descend on them with arms now when they may with Justice cry 'What have we done to thee?' Thou art beset, my father." The Pharaoh opened his lips as if to answer, but the level eye of the prince silenced him. "Thou hast not fathomed the Hebrew's capabilities, my father," Rameses continued. "In him is a wealth, a power, a magnificence that thy fathers and mine built up for thee, and the time is ripe for the garnering of thy profit. What monarch of the sister nations hath two and a half millions of hereditary slaves--not tributary folk nor prisoners of war--but slaves that are his as his cattle and his flocks are his? What monarch before thee had them? None anywhere, at any time. Thou art rich in bond-people beyond any monarch since the gods reigned." The chagrin died on the Pharaoh's face and he wore an expectant look. The prince continued in even tones. "By use, they have fitted themselves to the limits laid upon them by the great Rameses. The feeble have died and the frames of the sturdy have become like brass. They have bred like beetles in the Nile mud for numbers. Ignorant of their value, thou hast been indifferent to their existence. Forgetting them was pampering them. They have lived on the bounty of Egypt for four hundred years and, save for the wise inflictions of a year or two by the older Pharaohs, they have flourished unmolested. How they repay thee, thou seest by this writing. Now, by the gods, turn the face of a master upon them. Remove the soft driver, Atsu, and put one in his stead who is worthy the office. Tickle them to alacrity and obedience with the lash--yoke them--load them--fill thy canals, thy quarries, thy mines with them--" He broke off and moved forward a step squarely facing the Pharaoh. "Thou hast thine artist--that demi-god Mentu, in whom there is supernatural genius for architecture as well as sculpture. Make him thy murket[2] as well, and with him dost thou know what thou canst do with these slaves? Thou canst rear Karnak in every herdsman's village; thou canst carve the twin of Ipsambul in every rock-front that faces the Nile; thou canst erect a pyramid tomb for thee that shall make an infant of Khufu; thou canst build a highway from Syene to Tanis and line it with sisters of the Sphinx; thou canst write the name of Meneptah above every other name on the world's monuments and it shall endure as long as stone and bronze shall last and tradition go on from lip to lip!" The prince paused abruptly. Meneptah was on his feet, almost in tears at the contemplation of his pictured greatness. "Mark ye!" the prince began again. His arm shot out and fell and the flash of its jewels made it look like a bolt of lightning. "I would not fall heir to Israel--and if these things are done in thy lifetime I must build my monuments with prisoners of war!" The old hierarch, who had been nervously rubbing the arm of his chair during the last of the prince's speech, broke the dead silence with an awed whisper. "Ah, then spake the Incomparable Pharaoh!" Meneptah put out his hand, smiling. "No more. The way is shown, I follow, O my Rameses!" [1] Osiris--the great god of Egypt, was overcome by Set, his body divided and scattered over the valley of the Nile. Isis, wife of Osiris, gathered up the remains and buried them at This or Abydos. [2] Murket--the royal architect, an exalted office usually held by princes of the realm. CHAPTER VI THE LADY MIRIAM Meanwhile the scribe of the "double house of life," and the son of the royal sculptor were taking comfort on the palace-top beneath the subdued light of a hooded lamp. The pair had spoken of all Memphis and its gossip; had given account of themselves and had caught up with the present time in the succession of events. "Hotep, at thy lofty notch of favor, one must have the wisdom of Toth," Kenkenes observed, adding with a laugh, "mark thou, I have compared thee with no mortal." Hotep shook his head. "Nay, any man may fill my position so he but knows when to hold his tongue and what to say when he wags it." "O, aye," the sculptor admitted in good-natured irony. "Those be simple qualifications and easy to combine." The scribe smiled. "Mine is no arduous labor now. During my years of apprenticeship I was sorely put to it, but now I have only to wait upon the king and look to it that mine underlings are not idle. If another war should come--if any manner of difficulty should arise in matters of state, I doubt not mine would be a heavy lot." The young man spoke of war and fellowship with a monarch as if he had been a lady's page and gossiped of fans and new perfumes. Kenkenes looked at him with a full realization of the incongruity of the youth of the man and the weight of the office that was his. But at close range the scribe's face was young only in feature and tint. He was born of an Egyptian and a Danaid, and the blond alien mother had impressed her own characteristics very strongly on her son. He had a plump figure with handsome curves, waving, chestnut hair and a fair complexion. Nose and forehead were in line. The eyes were of that type of gray that varies in shade with the mental state. His temper displayed itself only in their sudden hardening into the hue of steel; content and happiness made them blue. They were always steady and comprehending, so that whoever entered his presence for the first time said to himself: "Here is a man that discovers my very soul." Whatever other blunder Meneptah might have made, he had redeemed himself in the wisdom he displayed in choosing his scribe. Kenkenes had been led to ask how Hotep had come to his place. "My superior, Pinem, died without a son," the scribe had explained; "and as my record was clean, and the princes had ever been my patrons, the Pharaoh exalted me to the scribeship." Kenkenes had then set down a mark in favor of the princes. "I doubt not," the scribe observed at last, "that my time of ease is short-lived." The sculptor looked at him with inquiry in his eyes. "When sedition arises and defies the Pharaoh in his audience chamber," Hotep went on, "it has reached the stage of a single alternative--success or death. Dost know the Lady Miriam?" "The Israelite?" "Even so." "I saw her this day." "Good. Now, look upon the scene. Thou knowest she is the sister of Prince Mesu, and the favorite waiting-woman of the good Queen Thermuthis. She has lived in obscurity for forty years, but this morning she swept into the audience chamber, did majestic obeisance and besought a word 'with him who was an infant in her maturity,' she said. The council chamber was filled with those gathered to welcome Har-hat. Meneptah bade her speak. Hast thou ever heard an Israelitish harangue?" he broke off suddenly. Kenkenes shook his head. "Ah, theirs is pristine oratory--occult eloquence," the scribe said earnestly, "and she is mistress of the art. She told the history of Israel and catalogued its wrongs in a manner that lacked only measure and music to make it a song. But, Kenkenes, she did not move us to compunction and pity. When she had done, we had not looked on a picture of suffering and oppression, but of insulted pride and rebellion. Instead of compunction, she awakened admiration, instead of pity, respect. For the moment she represented, not a multitude of complaining slaves, but a race of indignant peers. "Meneptah--ah! the good king," the scribe went on, "was impressed like the rest of us. But finally he showed her that the Israelites were what they were by the consent of the gods; that their unwillingness but increased the burden. He pointed out the example of his illustrious sires as justification for his course; enumerated some of their privileges,--the fertile country given them by Egypt, and the freedom that was theirs to worship their own God,--and summarily refused to indulge them further. "Then she became ominous. She bade him have a care for the welfare of Egypt before he refused her. Her words were dark and full of evil portent. The air seemed to winnow with bat-wings and to reek with vapors from witch-potions and murmur with mystic formulas. Every man of us crept, and drew near to his neighbor. When she paused for an answer, the king hesitated. She had menaced Egypt and it stirreth the heart of the father when the child is threatened. He turned to Har-hat in his perplexity and craved his counsel. The fan-bearer laughed good-naturedly and begged the Pharaoh's permission to send her to the mines before she bewitched his cattle and troubled him with visions. Har-hat's unconcern made men of us all once more, but Meneptah shook his head. 'The name of Neferari Thermuthis defends her,' he said; 'let her go hence'." "'And I take no amelioration to my people?' she demanded. 'Nay,' he replied, 'not in the smallest part shall their labor be lessened.' "Holy Isis, thou shouldst have seen her then, Kenkenes! "She approached the very dais of the throne and, throwing up her arms, flung her defiance into the face of her sovereign. It were treason to utter her words again. I have seen men white and shaking from rage, but Meneptah never hath so much of temper to display. Far be it from me to say that the king was afraid, but I tell you, Kenkenes, mine own hair is not yet content to lie flat. She concentrated all the denunciatory bitterness of the tongue and pronounced and gloried in the doom of the dynasty, heaping the blame of its destruction upon the head of Meneptah!" The scribe finished his story in a whisper. Kenkenes was by this time sitting up, his eyes shining with interest and wonder. "Gods! Hotep, thou dost make me creep." "Creep!" the scribe responded heartily, "never in my life have I so wanted to flee a royal audience. When she had done, she turned and swept from the presence and no man lifted a finger to stay her." For a moment there was an expressive silence between the two young men. At last Kenkenes broke it in a voice of intense admiration. "What an intrepid spirit! Small wonder that she did not heed the condemnation of the rabble at mid-day--she who was fresh from a triumph over the Pharaoh!" Hotep's eyes widened warningly and he shook his head. "Nay, hush me not, Hotep," Kenkenes went on in a reckless whisper. "I must say it. Would to the gods I had been there to copy it in stone!" "Hush! babbler!" the scribe exclaimed, his eyes twinkling nevertheless, "thine art will make an untimely mummy of thee yet." Kenkenes poured out his first glass of wine and set it down untasted. The contemplated sacrilege in stone opposite Memphis confronted him. "If Egypt's lack of art does not kill me first," he added in defense. "Nay," Hotep protested, "why wouldst thou perpetuate the affront to the Pharaoh?" "Because it is history and a better delineation of the Israelitish character than all the wordy chronicles of the historians could depict," was the spirited reply. "But the ritual," Hotep began, with the assurance of a man that feels he is armed with unanswerable argument. "Sing me no song of the ritual," Kenkenes broke in impatiently. "The ritual offends mine ears--my sight, my sense. We have quarreled beyond any treaty-making--ever." The other looked at him with amazement and much consternation. "Art thou mad?" he exclaimed. "Nay, but I am rebellious--as rebellious as the Israelite, for I have already shaken my fist in the face of the sculptor's canons. And the time will come when the world will call my revolt just. I would there were a chronicler, here, now, to write me down, since I would be remembered as the pioneer. I shall win no justification, in these days, perhaps only persecution, but I would reap my reward of honor, though it be a thousand years in coming." "Thou hast a grudge against the conventional forms and the rules of the ritual?" Hotep asked, after a thoughtful silence. "I have a distaste for the horrors it compels and am ignorant of their use," Kenkenes answered stubbornly. "Kenkenes," the scribe began, "Law is a most inexorable thing. It is the governor of the Infinite. It is a tyrant, which, good or bad, can demand and enforce obedience to its fiats. It is a capricious thing and it drags its vassal--the whole created world--after it in its mutations, or stamps the rebel into the dust while the time-serving obedient ones applaud. So thou hast set up resistance against a thing greater than gods and men and I can not see thee undone. I love thee, but I should be an untrue friend did I abet thee in thy lawlessness. Submit gracefully and thy cause shall have an audience with Law some day--if it have merit." The young sculptor's face was passive, but his eyes were fixed sadly on the remote stars strewn above him. He felt inexpressibly solitary. His zest in his convictions did not flag, but it seemed that the whole world and the heavens had receded and left him alone with them. Again Hotep spoke. "There is more court gossip," he began cheerily, as if no word had been said that could depress the tone of the conversation. Kenkenes accepted the new subject gladly. "Out with it," he said. "Within the four walls of my world I hear naught but the clink of mallet and falling stone." "The breach between Meneptah and Amon-meses, his mutinous brother, may be healed by a wedding." "So?" "Of a surety--nay, and not of a surety, either, but mayhap. A match between the niece of Amon-meses, the Princess Ta-user, and the heir, Rameses." Kenkenes sat up again in his earnestness. "Nay," he exclaimed. "Never!" "Wherefore, I pray thee?" Hotep asked with a deprecating smile. "There is no mating between the lion and the eagle; the stag and the asp! They could not love." "Thou dreamy idealist!" Hotep laughed. "The half of great marriages are moves of strategy, attended more by Set[1] than Athor.[2] Ta-user is mad for the crown, Rameses for undisputed power. Each has one of these two desirable things to give the other." "And how shall they appease Athor?" Kenkenes demanded warmly. "Ta-user loves Siptah, the son of Amon-meses, and Rameses will crown whom he loves though he had a thousand other crown-loving, treaty-dowered wives!" Hotep smiled. "I thought the four walls of thy world hedged thee, but it seems thou art right well acquainted with royalty." "Scoff!" Kenkenes cried. "But I can tell thee this: Rameses will put his foot on the neck of Amon-meses if the pretender trouble him, and will wed with a slave-girl if she break the armor over his iron heart." Hotep laughed again and suggested another subject. "The new fan-bearer," he began. "Nay, what of him?" Kenkenes broke in at once. "And shall we quarrel about him, also?" "Dost thou know him?" Hotep queried. "Right well--from afar and by hearsay." "Do thou express thyself first concerning him, and I shall treat thee to the courtier's diplomacy if I agree not." "I like him not," Kenkenes responded bluntly. Hotep leaned toward him, with the smile gone from his face, the jest from his manner, and laid his hand on the sculptor's. The pressure spoke eloquently of hearty concord. "But he has a charming daughter," he said. Kenkenes inspected his friend's face critically, but there was nothing to be read thereon. A palace attendant approached across the paved roof and bent before the scribe. "A summons from the Son of Ptah, my Lord," he said. "At this hour?" Hotep said in some surprise as he arose. "I shall return immediately," he told Kenkenes. "Nay," the sculptor observed, "my time is nearly gone. Let me depart now." "Not so. I would go with thee. This will be no more than a note. If it be more I shall put mine underlings to the task." He disappeared in the dark. Kenkenes lay back on the divan and thought on the many things that the scribe had told him. But chiefly he pondered on Har-hat and the Israelite. When Hotep returned he carried his cowl and mantle, and a scroll. "I too, am become a messenger," he said, "but I am self-appointed. This note was to go by a palace courier, but I relieved him of the task." The pair made ready and departed through the still populous streets of Thebes to the Nile. There they were ferried over to the wharves of Luxor. At the temple the porter conducted them into the chamber in which the ancient prelate spent his shortening hours of labor. He was there now, at his table, and greeted the young men with a nod. But taking a second look at Hotep, he beckoned him with a shaking finger. "Didst bring me aught, my son?" he asked as the scribe bent over him. "Aye, holy Father; this message to the taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu." "Ah," the old man said. "Is that not yet gone?" "Nay, the Pharaoh asks that thou insert the name of him whom thou didst recommend for Atsu's place. The Son of Ptah had forgotten him." The old man pushed several scrolls aside and prepared to make the addition.. "But thou art weary, holy Father; let me do it," Hotep protested gently. "Nay, nay, I can do it," the old man insisted. "See!" drawing forth a scroll unaddressed, "I have written all this in an hour. O aye, I can write with the young men yet." He made the interlineation, rolled the scroll and sealed it. "I am sturdy, still." At that moment, he dropped his pen on the floor and bent to pick it up, but was forestalled by Hotep. Then he addressed the scrolls, carefully dried the ink with a sprinkling of sand and delivered one to Hotep, the other to Kenkenes. "This to the king, and that to Snofru. The gods give thee safe journey," he continued to Kenkenes. "Who art thou, my son?" "I am the son of Mentu, holy Father. My name is Kenkenes," the young man answered. "Mentu, the royal sculptor?" Kenkenes bowed. "Nay, but I am glad. I knew thy father, and since thou art of his blood, thou art faithful. Let neither death nor fear overtake thee, for thou hast the peace of Egypt in thy very hands. Fail not, I charge thee!" After a reverent farewell, the two young men went forth. A slender Egyptian youth went with them to the wharves and awakened the sleeping crew of a bari. Hotep they carried across and set ashore on the western side. "May the same favoring god that brought thee hither, grant thee a safe journey home, my friend. The court comes to Memphis shortly. Till then, farewell," said Hotep. "All Memphis will hail her illustrious son, O Hotep. Farewell." It was not long until the sculptor was drifting down toward Memphis under a starry sky--the shadowy temples of Thebes hidden by the sudden closing-in of the river-hills about her. [1] Set--the war-god. [2] Athor--the Egyptian Venus; the feminine love-deity. CHAPTER VII ATHOR, THE GOLDEN At sunrise the morning after his return from On, Kenkenes appeared at the Nile, attended by a burden-bearing slave. The first lean, brown boatman who touched his knee and offered his bari for hire, Kenkenes patronized. The slave had eased his load into the boat and Kenkenes was on the point of embarking when a four-oared bari, which had passed them like the wind a moment before, put about several rods above them and returned to the group on shore. A bent and withered servitor was standing in the bow of the boat, wildly gesticulating, as if he feared Kenkenes would insist on pulling away despite his efforts. The young man recognized the servant of Snofru, old Ranas. The large bari was beached and the servitor alighted with agility and, beckoning to Kenkenes, took him aside. "There has been an error--a grave error, concerning the message," the old man began in excitement; "but thou art in no wise at fault. Yet mayhap thou canst aid us in unraveling the tangle. See!" He displayed the linen-wrapped roll, the covering split where Snofru had opened it, but the wavering hieratic characters of the address in Loi's hand, still intact. When the young sculptor had gazed, the old servant nervously undid the roll, and showed within a letter to the commander over Pa-Ramesu, written in the strong epistolary symbols of the royal scribe. Kenkenes frowned with vexation. Innocent and efficient though he had been, the miscarriage of his mission stung him nevertheless. The blunder was not long a mystery to him. Summoning all the patience at his command, he recounted the events in the apartments of the ancient hierarch of Amen. "There were two Scrolls," he explained; "one to the Servant of Ra at On, the other to Atsu. The holy father sealed them both before he addressed them and confused the directions. The one which I should have brought to thine august master, hath gone to the taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu." "Thou madest all speed?" the servant demanded, trembling with eagerness. "A half-day's journey less than the usual time I made in returning. I doubt much, if the messenger with the other scroll hath passed Memphis yet, since he may not have been despatched in such hot haste. Furthermore, because of the festivities in Tape, it would have been well-nigh impossible for him to hire a boat until the next day." This information kindled a light of hope on the old servant's face. "Thou givest me life again," he exclaimed. "The blessings of Ra be upon thee!" Without further words he ran back to the boat, and the last Kenkenes saw of him, he was frantically urging his boatmen to greater speed, back to On. Kenkenes had come to the Nile that morning, rejoicing in the propitiousness of his opportunity. Mentu was at that moment in On, seeing to the decoration of the second obelisk reared by Meneptah to the sun. The great artist had prepared to be absent a month, and had left no work for his son to do. But the coming of Ranas with the news of his mission's failure had filled Kenkenes with angry discomfiture. He dismissed his slave and rowed down-stream toward Masaarah. As he approached the abandoned wharf, a glance showed him that some effort toward restoring it had been made. The overgrowth of vines had been cut away and the level of the top had been raised by several fragments of rough stone. The tracks of heavy sledges had crushed the young grain across the field toward the cliffs. Kenkenes stood up and looked toward the terraced front of the hills, in which were the quarries. There were dust, smoke, stir and moving figures. The stone-pits were active again after the lapse of half a century. "By the grace of the mutable Hathors," the young man muttered as he dropped back into his seat, "my father may yet decorate a temple to Set, but by the same favor, it seems that I shall be snatched from the brink of a sacrilege." He permitted his boat to drift while he contemplated his predicament. Suddenly he smote his hands together. "Grant me pardon, ye Seven Sisters!" he exclaimed. "I misread your decree. Ye have but covered my tracks toward transgression." After a little thought he resumed his felicitations. "Who of Memphis will think I come to Masaarah, save to look after the taking out of stone? Is it not part of my craft? Nay, but I shall make offering in the temple for this. And need any of these unhappy creatures in Masaarah see me except as it pleases me to show myself?" He seized his oars and rowed down the river another furlong. Leaving the craft fixed in the tangle of herbage at the water's edge, he shouldered his cargo and crossed the narrow plain to the cliffs below Masaarah. There he made a difficult ascent of the fronts facing the Nile and reached his block of stone without approaching the hamlet of laborers. Depositing his burden, he set forth to reconnoiter. He descended again into the Nile valley by the way he had come and wandered toward the mouth of the gorge. From a little distance he looked upon a scene of great activity. In the shadow of one of the dilapidated hovels, four humped oxen stood, their heavy harness still hanging upon them, though the sledges they drew, covered with stone dust and broken pieces, were some distance away from them. A company of half a score of children were ascending in single file, along a slanting plane of planks, into the hollow in the cliff upon which work had been renewed. Along the rock-wall ahead of them a scaffold had been erected and here were men drilling holes in the stone, or driving wooden wedges into the holes already made, or pouring water on the wedges as the skins the children bore were passed up to them. Kenkenes picked his way through the debris of sticks, stones, dust and cast-off water-skins, and serenely disregarding the stare of the laborers, went up to the edge of the stone-pit and watched the work with interest. A constant stream of broken stone rattled down under the scaffold and long runlets of water fed an ever increasing pool in the depression before the cliff. A single slab of irregular dimensions lay on the sand at the base of a wooden chute, down which it had descended from the hollow in the cliff the evening before. The cavity it left bade fair to enlarge by nightfall, for the swelling wedges were rending another slab from its bedding with loud reports and the sudden etching of fissures. The young sculptor noted with some wonder that the laborers were Israelites. After a time Kenkenes turned away and addressed one of the bearded men at that moment, ascending the wooden plane. "What do ye here?" he asked. The man answered in unready Egyptian, but, for an inferior, in a manner curiously collected. "The Pharaoh addeth to the burden of the chosen people. We dig stone for a temple to the war-god." "The chosen people!" Kenkenes repeated inquiringly. "The children of Israel," the Hebrew explained. Kenkenes lifted one eyebrow quizzically and went his way. As he leaped up into the gorge he vaguely realized that he had seen no trace of an encampment near the hamlet, which he knew to be uninhabitable. "Of a truth, the chosen people seem to follow me of late," he said to himself as he rambled up the valley. "Meneptah must have scattered them out of Goshen into all the corners of Egypt." As he turned the last winding of the gorge he came upon a cluster of some threescore tents, spread over the level pocket at the valley's end. Almost against the northern wall the house of the commander had been built to receive the earliest shadow of the afternoon. The military standard was raised upon its roof and a scribe, making entries on a roll of linen, sat cross-legged on a mat before the door. In one of the narrow ways between the tents an old woman, very bowed and voluminously clad, prepared a great hamper of lentils and another of papyrus root for the noonday meal. One or two children sitting on the earth beside her rendered her assistance, and a third kept the turf fire glowing under a huge bubbling caldron. Kenkenes passed through the camp by this narrow way and paused to look with much curiosity at the ancient Israelite. Never had he seen any old person so active or a slave so wrapped in covering. He hoped she would lift her head that he might see her face; and even as he wished, she pierced him with a look which, from her midnight eyes, seemed like lightning from a thunder-cloud. "Gods!" he exclaimed as he retreated up the slope behind the camp. And a moment later he continued his soliloquy in a voice that struggled between mirth and amazement: "Have I never seen an Israelite until I beheld these twain, the Lady Miriam and that bent dart of lightning in the valley? If these be Israelites I never saw one before. If those cowed shepherds that have strayed now and again out of Goshen be Hebrews, then these are not. And the gods shield me from the disfavor of them, be they slaves or sibyls!" When he reached his block of stone he unrolled his load of equipments and set to work without delay. He was remote from any possible interruption from Memphis, and the slaves in the gorge and in the stone-pits had no opportunity to come upon his sacrilege in idle hours. They would be held like prisoners within the limits of the quarries. His sense of security had been strengthened by the renewed activities in Masaarah. With a shovel of tamarisk he cleared the slab of its drift of sand. He found that the block broadened at the base and was separate from the sheet of rock on which it stood. Among his supplies was a roll of reed matting, and with this cut into proper lengths, he carpeted a considerable space about the block. Precaution rather than luxury had prompted this procedure, since the chipped stone falling on the covering could be carried cleanly and at once from the spot. Pausing long enough to eat a thin slice of white bread and gazelle-meat, and to drink a draft from the porous and ever cooling water bottle, he turned to the protection and concealment of his statue. The place was strewn with tolerably regular fragments, and the building of a segment of wall to the north at the edge of the matting required more time than strength or skill. He built solidly against the penetrative sand, and as high as his head. The early afternoon blazed upon him and passed into the mellower hours of the later day before he had finished. He hid his shovel and two cylindrical billets of wood, such as were used to roll great weights, under the edge of his reed carpet, and his preparations were complete. He wiped his brow, congratulating himself on the snugness of his retreat and the auspicious beginning of his transgression. Weary and happy, he rowed himself back to Memphis and slept soundly on the eve of a great offense against the laws of Egypt. But the next day, when the young sculptor faced the moment of actual creation, he realized that his goddess must take form from an unembodied idea. The ritual had been his guide before, and his genius, set free to soar as it would, fluttered wildly without direction. His visions were troubled with glamours of the old conventional forms; his idea tantalized him with glimpses of its perfect self too fleeting for him to grasp. The sensation was not new to him. During his maturer years he had tried to remember his mother's face with the same yearning and heart-hurting disappointment. But this time he groped after attributes which should shape the features--he had spirit, not form, in mind; and the odds against which his unguided genius must battle were too heroic for it to succeed without aid. The young sculptor realized that he was in need of a model. Stoically, he admitted that such a thing was as impossible as it was indispensable. It seemed that he had met complete bafflement. He took up his tools and returned to Memphis. But each succeeding morning found him in the desert again, desperately hopeful--each succeeding evening, in the city disheartened and silent. So it followed for several days. On the sixth of January the festival in honor of the return of Isis from Phenicia was celebrated in Memphis. Kenkenes left the revel in mid-afternoon and crossed the Nile to the hills. He found no content away from his block of stone--no happiness before it. But he wandered back to the seclusion of the niche that he might be moody and sad of eye in all security. The stone-pits were deserted. The festivities in Memphis had extended their holiday to the dreary camp at Masaarah. Kenkenes climbed up to his retreat and remained there only a little time. The unhewn rock mocked him. He descended through the gorge and found that the Hebrews were but nominally idle. A rope-walk had been constructed and the men were twisting cables of tough fiber. The Egyptians lounged in the long shadows of the late afternoon and directed the work with no effort and little concern. The young sculptor overlooked the scene as long as it interested him and continued down the valley toward the Nile. Presently a little company of Hebrew children approached, their bare feet making velvety sounds in the silence of the ravine. Each balanced a skin of water on his head. The little line obsequiously curved outward to let the nobleman pass, and one by one the sturdy children turned their luminous eyes up to him, some with a flash of white teeth, some with a downward dip of a bashful head. One of them disengaged a hand from his burden and swept a tangle of moist black curls away from his eyes. The sun of the desert had not penetrated that pretty thatch and the forehead was as fair as a lotus flower. Kenkenes caught himself looking sharply at each face as he passed, for it contained somewhat of that for which he sought. As he walked along looking after them he became aware that some one was near him, He turned his head and stopped in his tracks. He confronted his idea embodied--Athor, the Golden! It was an Israelitish maiden, barely sixteen years old, but in all his life he had never looked upon such beauty. He had gazed with pleased eyes on the slender blush-tinted throats and wrists of the Egyptian beauties, but never had he beheld such whiteness of flesh as this. He had sunk himself in the depths of the dusky, amorous eyes of high-born women of Memphis, but here were fathomless profundities of azure that abashed the heavens. He had been very near to loveliest hair of Egypt, so close that its odorous filaments had blown across his face and his artist senses had been caught and tangled in its ebon sorcery. But down each side this broad brow was a rippling wave of gold, over each shoulder a heavy braid of gold that fell, straightened by its own weight, a span below the waist. The winds of the desert had roughened it and the bright threads made a nimbus about the head. Its glory overreached his senses and besieged his soul. Here was not witchery, but exaltation. Enraptured with her beauty, her perfect fulfilment of his needs, he realized last the unlovely features of her presence. She balanced a heavy water pitcher on her head and wore a rough surplice, more decorous than the dress of the average bondwoman, but the habit of a slave, nevertheless. He had halted directly in her path, and after a moment's hesitancy she passed around him and went on. Immediately Kenkenes recovered himself and with a few steps overtook her. Without ceremony he transferred the heavy pitcher to his own shoulder. The girl turned her perfect face, full of amazement, to him, and a wave of color dyed it swiftly. "Thy burden is heavy, maiden," was all he said. The bulk of the jar on the farther shoulder made it necessary for him to turn his face toward her, but she was uneasy under the intent gaze of his level black eyes. She dropped behind him, but he slackened his pace and kept beside her. For the moment he was no longer the man of pulse and susceptibility but the artist. Therefore her thoughts and sensations were apart from his concern. The unfamiliar perfection of the Semitic countenance bewildered him. He took up his panegyric. Never was a mortal countenance so near divine. And the sumptuousness of her figure--its faultless curves and lines, its lissome roundness, its young grace, the beauty of arm and neck and ankle! Ah! never did anything entirely earthly dwell in so fair, so splendid a form. As they neared the camp the girl spoke to him for the first time. He recognized in her voice the same serene tone he had noted in his talk with the Hebrew some days before. "Give me my burden now," she said. "Thou hast affronted thy rank for me, and I thank thee many times." The sculptor paused and for a moment stood embarrassed. It went sorely against his gallantry to lay the burden again upon her and he said as much. "Nay, Egypt has no qualms against loading the Hebrew," she said quietly. "Wouldst thou put thy nation to shame?" Kenkenes opened his eyes in some astonishment. "Now am I even more loath," he declared. "What art thou called?" "Rachel." "It hath an intrepid sound, but Athor would become thee better. Now I am a sculptor from the city, come to study thy women for a frieze," he continued unblushingly, "and I would go no farther in my search. Rachel repeated will be beauty multiplied. Let me see thee once in a while,--to-morrow." A sudden flush swept over her face and her eyes darkened. "It shall not keep thee from thy labor," he added persuasively. The color deepened and she made a motion of dissent. "Nay! thou dost not refuse me!" he exclaimed, his astonishment evident in his voice. "Of a surety," she replied. "Give me my burden, I pray thee." Dumb with amazement, too genuine to contain any anger, Kenkenes obeyed. As she went up the shady gorge, walking unsteadily under the heavy pitcher, he stood looking after her in eloquent silence. And in eloquent silence he turned at last and continued down the valley. There was nothing to be said. His appreciation of his own discomfiture was too large for any expression. In a few steps he met the short captain who governed the quarries. Kenkenes guessed his office by his dress. He was adorned in festal trappings, for he had spent most of the day in revel across the Nile. "Dost thou know Rachel, the Israelitish maiden?" Kenkenes asked, planting himself in the man's way. "The yellow-haired Judahite?" the man inquired, a little surprised. "Even so," was the reply. The soldier nodded. "Look to it that she is put to light labor," the sculptor continued, gazing loftily down into the narrow eyes. The soldier squared off and inspected the nobleman. It did not take him long to acknowledge the young sculptor's right to command. "It does not pay to be tender with an Israelite," the man answered sourly. Kenkenes thrust his hand into the folds of his tunic over his breast and, drawing forth a number of golden rings strung on a cord, jingled them musically. The soldier grinned. "That will coax a man out of his dearest prejudice. I will put her over the children." Kenkenes dropped the money into the man's palm. "I shall have an eye to thee," he said warningly. "Cheat me not." He went his way. The incident restored to him the power of speech. "Now, by Horus," he began, "am I to be denied by an Israelite that which the favoring Hathors designed I should have? Not while the arts of strategy abide within me. The children, I take it, will come here with the water," he cogitated, stamping upon the wet and deserted ledge which he had reached, "and here will she be, also." He raised his eyes to the ragged line of rocks topping the northern wall of the gorge. "I shall perch myself there like a sacred hawk and filch her likeness. Nay, now that I come to ponder on it, it is doubtless better that she know naught about it. She might drop certain things to the Egyptians hereabout that would lead to mine undoing. The gods are with me, of a truth." He descended into the larger valley and went singing toward the Nile. CHAPTER VIII THE PUNISHMENT OF ATSU One late afternoon, in the streets of Pa-Ramesu, a curious new-comer bowed before Atsu, the commander of Israel of the treasure city. The visitor was old and tremulous from fatigue, and the stains of hard travel were evident upon him. "Greeting, Atsu. The peace of the divine Mother attend thee," he said. "Snofru, the beloved of Ra at On, sends thee greeting by his servant, Ranas." "Greeting," the taskmaster replied, after he had inspected the white-browed servant. "The shelter of my roof and the bread of my board are thine;" adding after a little pause, "and in truth thou seemest to need these things." The old man smiled an odd wry smile and followed lamely after the long swinging stride of the commander toward the headquarters on the knoll. Within the house of Atsu, Ranas delivered into the hands of the soldier the message that Kenkenes had brought to Snofru. While Atsu undid the roll the old servant made voluble apologies for the broken seal. The commander stepped to the doorway for better light and read the writing. The old servant back in the dusk of the interior saw the stern face harden, the heavy brows knit blackly, the dusky red fade from the cheek. Ranas knew what the soldier read, for he had had the roll with its broken seal, from On to Memphis and from Memphis back to On again. But with all his astuteness he could not have guessed what extremes of wrath and grief the insulted taskmaster suffered. The sheet rolled itself together again and was broken and crushed in the iron fingers that gripped it. Presently he tossed it aside. Hardly had it left his hand before he hastened to pick it up, straightened it out and re-read it feverishly. He forgot the old servant; but had he remembered the man's curious gaze, no resolution could have hidden that joy which slowly wrote itself upon his face. There was balm in the barb for all the wound it made. This is what he read: "To Atsu, Commander over the Builders of Pa-Ramesu, These: To mine ears hath come report of mutiny and idleness through thy weak government of my bond-people. Also that thou hast enforced my commands but feebly, and so defeated my purposes, which were my sire's, after whose illustrious example I reign. "For these and kindred inefficiencies art thou removed from the government over Pa-Ramesu. "I hereby bestow upon thee another office within the limits of thy capacity. Thou wilt take up the flagellum over Masaarah when thou hast surrendered Pa-Ramesu to thy successor. "By this thou shalt learn that the Pharaohs will be ably served. "Horemheb of Bubastis, thy successor, accompanieth these. "Give him honor. MENEPTAH." The diction was manifestly the king's. None other of high estate would have inspired so spiteful a letter. But the appointment to Masaarah made Atsu forget the sting in the second reading. To Masaarah! To Masaarah and Rachel! He folded the broken sheet and thrust it into his bosom. Meeting the keen eye of his guest, the color rushed back to the taskmaster's face and he summoned two attendant Hebrews to wait upon the old man while he went forth to gain composure in the air. After the old man had been fed and given such other comfort as the soldier's house afforded, the taskmaster returned. Then Ranas shifted his position so that he might watch his host's face most intelligently, and turned to the real purpose of his visit. "Thou canst see, my master, that if thy message bore the wrapping for the epistle to Snofru, the message to the holy father must have borne thy name. Thou hast received no letter as yet which was not intended for thee?" The question was delivered politely, but the old man thrust his curious face forward and shook his head with a combination of interrogation and dissent, which was highly insincere. "I have received naught which was not intended for me," the taskmaster replied warmly. After a moment's intent contemplation of Atsu's face the courier went on: "Nay, so had I thought. The messenger came to Snofru with all speed and out-stripped the courier bound for Pa-Ramesu. It is even as I had thought. He may arrive shortly, but I must tarry till he comes." Atsu assented bluntly, and after that if they talked it was of impersonal things and in a desultory manner. When night came Atsu called his attendants and had the weary old man put to bed in a curtained corner of the house. For himself there was no sleep. At midnight there came the beat of hoofs on the dust-muffled ways of Pa-Ramesu. A sentry knocked at the door of the commander and announced a visitor. Atsu, who still sat under the unextinguished reed light, greeted the new-comer with an exclamation of concern. The man was covered with dust, his dress was torn and bloody, his right hand swathed in cloths, and his lip, right cheek and eye were swollen and discolored. "By Horus, friend, thou lookest ill-used," the taskmaster exclaimed. "What has befallen thee?" "Naught--naught of any lasting hurt," the newcomer replied carelessly. "We were set upon by a troop of murdering Bedouins this side of Bubastis and had a pretty fight." "Aye, thou hast the stamp of its beauty upon thy face. A slave, here, with some balsam," Atsu continued, addressing the sentry, "and a captain of the constabulary next. We will cure these Bedouins and their hurt at once." "Nay," the visitor protested. "It is only a spear-slit in my hand, and a flying stirrup marred my face. I am well. Look to the Bedouins, however; they ran our messenger through--Set consume them!" "Doubt not, we shall look to them. They grow strangely insolent of late." "Small wonder," the other responded heartily. "Is not the whole north a seething pot of lawlessness; and by the demons of Amenti, is not the Israelite the fire under the caldron? Nay, but I shall have especial joy in damping him!" The man laughed and dropped into the chair Atsu had offered him. "Then thou art Horemheb, the new taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu?" "So! has my news outridden me?" the man exclaimed in very evident amazement. Ranas, indifferently clad in a hastily donned kamis, at this moment parted the curtains of his retreat and came forth with an apologetic courtesy. "And thy messenger, sir? What of him?" he asked eagerly. "Dead, and left at a wayside house." "And the message?" the old man persisted. Horemheb surveyed him with increasing astonishment. "Where hast thou these tidings?" he demanded. "They are scarce three hours old. Who reached thee with them before me?" Atsu interposed and explained the interchange of letters. "Oh," said Horemheb. "So the correct message came to thee, nevertheless, good Atsu. But I can not tell thee aught of the other. It is lost." "Lost!" Ranas shrieked. "Gods! old man. It was only pigment and papyrus, not gold or jewels. A kindly disposed Hebrew came to our help with some of his people, and we put the Bedouins to flight. But after the struggle, search as we might with torches which the Hebrew brought, the message was not to be found. A Bedouin made off with it, I doubt not." Ranas stood speechless for an instant, and then he rushed up to the new taskmaster. "His name?" he demanded fiercely. "The Hebrew! What was he like? Where does he dwell?" "A murrain on the maniac!" Horemheb exploded. "He called himself Aaron!" Ranas staggered against the wall for support and beat the air with his arms. "Aaron, the brother of Mesu! O ye inscrutable Hathors!" he babbled. "A Bedouin made off with it! Oh! Oh! What idiocy!" CHAPTER IX THE COLLAR OF GOLD The next morning after his meeting with the golden-haired Israelite, Kenkenes came early to the line of rocks that topped the north wall of the gorge and, ensconced between the gray fragments, looked down unseen on her whenever she came to the valley's mouth. All day long the children came staggering up from the Nile, laden with dripping hides, or returned in a free and ragged line down the green slope of the field to the river again. Vastly more simple and time-saving would have been one of the capacious water carts. But what would have employed these ten youthful Hebrews in the event of such improvement? There was to be no labor-saving in the quarries. Therefore, through the dust, up the weary slanting plane, again and again till the day's work amounted to a journey of miles, the Hebrew children toiled with their captain and co-laborer, Rachel. At the summit of the wooden slope the beautiful Israelite, who had preceded her charges, passed up the burden of each one to the Hebrews on the scaffold. From his aery Kenkenes watched this particular phase of her tasks with interest. She was not too far from him for the details of her movements to be distinguishable, and the posture of the outstretched arms and lifted face fulfilled his requirements. He abandoned the modeling of her features for that day and copied the attitude. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon a countryman of hers, strong, young and but lightly bearded, stepped down from his place on the scaffold and relieved her. The sculptor noted the act with some degree of disquiet, hoping that the graceful protests of the girl might prevail. When the stalwart Hebrew overrode her remonstrances, and motioned her toward a place at the side of the frame-work where she might rest, the young sculptor frowned impatiently. But his humane heart chid him and he waited with some assumption of grace till she should take up her burden again. At sunset he retired cautiously, but several dawns found him among the rocks, with reed pen, papyri and molds of clay. When he climbed to his retreat within the walls of stone, on the hillside in the late afternoon, he hid several studies of the girl's head and statuettes of clay under the matting. At last he began the creation of Athor the Golden. For days he labored feverishly, forgetting to eat, fretting because the sun set and the darkness held sway for so long. Having overstepped the law, he placed no limit to the extent of his artistic transgression. After choosing nature as his model, he followed it slavishly. On the occasion of his initial departure from the accepted rules, he had never dreamed it possible to disregard ritualistic commandments so absolutely. He even ignored the passive and meditative repose, immemorial on the carven countenances of Egypt. The face of Athor, as she put forth her arms to receive the sun, must show love, submission, eagerness and great appeal. As Kenkenes said this thing to himself, he lowered chisel and mallet and paused. Posture and form would avail nothing without these emotions written on the face. He began to wonder if he might carve them, unaided. He had not found them in the Israelite, and he confessed to himself, with a little laugh, a doubt that he should ever see them on her countenance. Then a vagabond impulse presented itself unbidden in his mind and was frowned down with a blush of apology to himself. And yet he remembered his coquetry with the Lady Ta-meri as some small defense in the form of precedent. "Nay," he replied to this evidence, "it is a different woman. Between myself and Ta-meri it is even odds, and the vanquished will have deserved his defeat." That evening--it was several days after the face of the goddess had begun to emerge from the block of stone--he went to the upper end of the gorge and passed through the camp on his way home, that he might meet his model. The laborers had not returned from the quarries, though the evening meal bubbled and fumed over the fires in the narrow avenue between the tents. Kenkenes passed by on the outskirts of the encampment and went on. Deep shadow lay on the stone-pits when Kenkenes reached the mouth of the gorge, and a cool wind from the Nile swept across the grain. The day's work had been prolonged in the lowering of a huge slab from its position in its native bed. The monolith was already on the brink of the wooden incline, and every man was at the windlasses by which the cables controlling its descent were paid out. Kenkenes saw at a glance that none of the water-bearers was present, and he knew the lovely Israelite was with them. He did not pause. Before the sound of the quarry stir had been left behind he heard a sharp report, the frightened shrieks of women and shouts of warning. He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like smoke from an explosion. But there was no further outcry, and through the outskirts of the lifting cloud men were seen making deliberate preparations to repair the parted cable. Assured that no calamity had occurred, Kenkenes went on. In a few steps he met the children water-bearers flying to the scene of the accident. Not one of them bore a water-skin. The excited young Hebrews did not stop to question the sculptor, but ran on, and were swallowed up in dust. Half-way to the Nile he came upon her whom he sought. She was standing alone in the midst of ten sheepskins, and the grain was wetted with the spilled water. He pointed to the discarded hides about her. "The camp will go thirsty if the runaways do not return," he said. "Thy burden is too heavy for even me to-night." "They will return," she answered. "Aye, it was naught but a parting cable and a falling rock. I was near and saw no evidence of disaster. Had the children asked me, I should have told them as much." "They will return," she repeated, and Kenkenes fancied that there was a dismissal in this quiet repetition. But he did not mean to see it. He went on, with a smile. "I am glad they did not stop, for I wanted to see thee, with that frightened longing of a man who hath resolved on confession and meeteth his confessor on a sudden. Now that the moment hath arrived I marvel how I shall make my peace with Athor, whose command I most deliberately broke." She raised her beautiful eyes to his face and waited for him to proceed. The pose of the head was exactly what he wanted. Rapidly he compared every detail of her face with his memory of the statue of Athor, noting with satisfaction that his studies had been happily faithful. His scrutiny was so swift and skilful that there seemed to be nothing unusual in his gaze. "I am culpable but impenitent," he continued. "I shall not forswear mine offense. Neither is there any need of a plea to justify myself, for my very sin is its own justification. Behold me! I perched myself like a sacred hawk at the mouth of the valley and filched thy likeness. Do with me as thou wilt, but I shall die reiterating approval of my deed." His extravagant speech wrought an interesting change on the face before him. There was a pronounced curve of her mouth, a slight tension in the chiseled nostril--in fact, an indefinable disdain that had not been there before. It would become Athor well. Kenkenes understood the look but he did not flinch. Instead he let his head drop slowly until he looked at her from under his brows. Then he summoned into his eyes all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his graceless young heart was capable, and gazed at her. Khufu might have been as easily melted by the twinkle of a rain drop. Never in his life had he faced such comprehensive contemplation. Calm, monumental and icy disdain deepened on every feature. Kenkenes stood motionless and suffered her to look at him. Being a man of fine soul, the eloquent gaze spoke well-deserved rebuke. He knew that his color had risen, and his eyes fell in spite of heroic efforts to keep them steady. His sensations were unique; never had he experienced the like. When he recovered himself her blue eyes were fixed absently on the distant quarries. Every impulse urged him to set himself right in the eyes of this most discerning slave. "Wilt thou forgive me?" he asked earnestly. "I would I could make thee know I crave thy good will." There was no mistaking the honesty in these words. Her face relaxed instantly. "But I fear I have not set about it wisely," he added. "Let me give thee a peace-offering to prove my contrition." He slipped from about his neck the collar of golden rings and moved forward to put it about her throat. She drew back, her face flushing hotly under an expression of positive pain. Kenkenes dropped his hands to his sides with a limpness highly suggestive of desperate perplexity. Was not this a slave? And yet here was the fine feeling of a princess. He stood, for once in his life, at a loss what to do. He could not depart without the greatest awkwardness, and yet, if he lingered, he sacrificed his comfort. Presently he exclaimed helplessly: "Rachel, do thou tell me what to say or do. It seems that I but sink myself the deeper in the quicksand of thy disapproval at every struggle to escape. Do thou lead me out." He had met a slave, justed with an equal and flung up his hands in surrender to his better. He did not confess this to himself, but his words were admission enough. Never would his high-born spirit have permitted him to make such a declaration to one slavish in soul. The straightforward acknowledgment of defeat and the genuine concern in his voice were irresistible. She answered him at once, distantly and calmly. "Thou, as an Egyptian, hast honored me, a Hebrew, with thy notice. I have deserved neither gift nor fee." "Nay, but let us put it differently," he replied. "I, as a man, have given thee, a maiden, offense, and having repented, would appease thee with a peace-offering. Believe me, I do not jest. By the gentle goddesses, I fear to speak," he added breathlessly. The Israelite's blue eyes were veiled quickly, but the Egyptian guessed aright that she had hidden a smile in them. "Am I forgiven?" he persisted. "So thou wilt offend no further," she said without raising her eyes. "I promise. And now, since the goddess hath refused mine offering, I may not take it back. What shall I do with this?" he asked, holding up the collar of gold. "Put it about thy statue's neck," she said softly. Kenkenes gasped and retreated a step. Instantly she was imploring his pardon. "It was a forward spirit in me that made me say it. I pray thee, forgive me." "Thou hast given no offense, but how dost thou know of this--tell me that." "I came upon it by accident three days ago. Several of the children had gone fowling for the taskmaster's meal, and were so long absent that I was sent to look for them. The path down the valley is old, and I have followed it with the idea of labor ever in my mind. And this was a moment of freedom, so I thought to spend it where I had not been a slave, I went across the hills, and, being unfamiliar with them, lost my way. When I climbed upon one of the great rocks to overlook the labyrinth, lo! at my feet was the statue. I knew myself the moment I looked, and it was not hard to guess whose work it was." She paused and looked at him with appeal on her face. "Thou hast told no one?" "Nay," was the quick and earnest answer. "Thou hast caught me in a falsehood," he said. The statement was almost brutal in its directness. But the question that came back swiftly was not less pointed. "There was no frieze of bondmaidens--naught of anything thou hast told me?" "Nay, not anything. I am carving a statue against the canons of the sculptor's ritual for the sake of my love of beauty. Until thou didst come upon it, I alone possessed the secret. Thou knowest the punishment which will overtake me?" "Aye, I know right well. Yet fear not. The statue is right cunningly concealed and none will ever find it, for the children were unsuccessful and the meals for the overseer will be brought him from the city hereafter. And I will not betray thee--I give thee my word." Her tone was soft and earnest; her assurances were spoken so confidently, her interest was so genuine, that a queer and unaccountable satisfaction possessed the young artist at once. At this moment the runaway water-bearers came in sight and in obedience to very evident dismissal in the Israelite's eyes, Kenkenes bade her farewell and left her. But he had not gone two paces before she overtook him. "Approach thy work from various directions," she cautioned, "else thou wilt wear a path which may spy on thee one day." The moment the words passed her lips, Kenkenes, who still held the collar, put it about her neck, passing his hands under the thick plaits, and snapped the clasp accurately. The act was done instantly, and with but a single movement. He was gone, laughing on his way, before she had realized what he had done. There was revel in the young man's veins that evening, but the great house of his father was silent and lonely. If he would find a companion he must leave its heavy walls. His resolution was not long in making nor his instinct slow in directing him. An hour after the evening meal, when he entered the chariot that waited, he had laid aside the simple tunic, and in festal attire was, every inch of his many inches, the son of the king's favorite artist. His charioteer drove in the direction of the nomarch's house. The portress conducted him into the faintly lighted chamber of guests and went forth silently. Kenkenes interpreted her behavior at once. "There is another guest," he thought with a smile, "and I can name him as promptly as any chanting sorcerer might." When the serving woman returned she bade him follow her and led the way to the house-top. There, under the subdued light of a single lamp, was the Lady Ta-meri; at her feet, Nechutes. "I should wear the symbol-broidered robe of a soothsayer," the sculptor told himself. "You made a longer sojourn of your visit to Tape than you had intended," the lady said, after the greetings. "Nay, I have been in Memphis twenty days at least." "So?" queried Nechutes. "Where dost thou keep thyself?" "In the garb of labor among the ink-pots and papyri of the sculptor class," the lady answered. "I warrant there are pigment marks on his fingers even now." Kenkenes extended his long right hand to her for inspection. She received it across her pink palm and scrutinized it laughingly. "Nay, I take it back. Here is naught but henna and a suspicion of attar. He has been idle these days." "Hast thou forgotten the efficacy of the lemon in the removal of stains?" the sculptor asked with a smile. The lady frowned. "Give us thy news from Tape, then," she demanded, putting his hand away. "The court is coming to Memphis sooner. That is all. O, aye, I had well-nigh forgot. There is also talk of a marriage between Rameses and Ta-user." "Fie!" the lady scoffed. "Nechutes hath more to tell than that, and he hath stayed in Memphis." "Thou wilt come to realize some day, Ta-meri, that I am fitted to the yoke of labor, when I fail thee in all the nicer walks thou wouldst have me tread. Come, out with thy gossip, Nechutes." "I had a letter from Hotep to-day--a budget of news, included with official matters with which the king would acquaint me. Ta-user, with Amon-meses and Siptah, hath joined the court at Tape--" "And Siptah, she brought with her--" the sculptor interrupted softly. Nechutes cast an expressive look at Kenkenes and went on. "And the courting hath begun." Silence fell, and the lady looked at the two young men with wonder in her eyes. "Nay, but that is interesting," Kenkenes admitted, recovering himself. "Tell me more." "The offices of cup-bearer and murket are to be bestowed in Memphis," Nechutes continued. "And the one falls to Nechutes," the lady declared triumphantly. "Of a truth thou hast a downy lot before thee, Nechutes," the young sculptor said heartily. "And never one so deserving of it. I give thee joy." "And the other goes to the noble Mentu," Nechutes added in a meek voice. "Sphinx!" Ta-meri cried, tapping him on the head. "You did not tell me that." The surprised delight of Kenkenes was not so bewildering as to blind him to the reason why Nechutes had withheld this news from Ta-meri. The blunt Egyptian was not anxious to speed his rival's cause. "Does my father know of this?" he asked. "I doubt not. The same messenger that brought me news of mine own appointment departed for On when he learned that Mentu was there." "Nay, but that will be wine in his veins," Kenkenes mused happily. "It will make him young again. His late inactivity hath chafed him sorely." "You have come honestly by your labor-loving," Nechutes commented. "Hotep adds further that Mentu is the only one of the king's new ministers that is no longer a young man." "It is Rameses who counsels him, I doubt not," the sculptor replied. "He hath great faith in the powers of youth. And behold what a cabinet he hath built up for his father. First," Kenkenes continued, enumerating on his fingers, "there is Nechutes--" The new cup-bearer waved his hand, and Kenkenes went on. "There is my father, the murket. He needs no further praise than the utterance of his name. There is Hotep, on whose lips Toth abideth. There is Seneferu, the faithful, whom the Rebu dreads. Next is Kephren, the mohar,[1] who would outshine his father, the right hand of the great Rameses, had he but nations to conquer. After him, Har-hat--" "Hold! He is not appointed of the prince. He was Meneptah's choice--and his alone," Nechutes interrupted. "It is rumored that Rameses is not over-fond of him." "He will be put to it to hold his high place in the face of the prince's disfavor," Kenkenes cogitated. "Nay, but he presses the prince hard for generalship. It must be so, since he could win the king's good will over the protest of Rameses. So I doubt not he can hold his own at court by prudence and strategy." Meanwhile Ta-meri, in the depths of her chair, gazed at the pair resentfully. They had grown interested in weighty things and had seemingly forgotten her. So she sighed and bethought her how to punish them. "What a relief it will be when the Pharaoh returns to Memphis!" she murmured in the pause that now followed. "He will be more welcome to me than the Nile overflow. The city has been a desert to me since he departed." Nechutes looked at her with reproach in his eyes. "Consider the desert, O sweet Oasis," Kenkenes said softly. "Is not its portion truly grievous if its single palm complain?" The lady dropped her eyes and her cheeks glowed even through the dusk. After the long interval of Nechutes' blunt love-making the sculptor's subtleties fell most gratefully on her ear. Nechutes scowled, sighed and finally spoke. "Tape is afflicted in anticipation of the king's departure," he observed disjointedly. "Tape does not love Meneptah as Memphis loves him," Kenkenes answered. "Hast thou not this moment heard Memphis pine for him? Tape would not have spoken thus. She would have said: 'Would that the king were here that I might ask a boon of him.' Memphis is the cradle of kings; Tape, their tomb. Memphis is full of reverence for the Pharaohs; Tape, of pride; Memphis of loyalty; Tape, of boon-craving. Meneptah returns to the bosom of his mother when he returns to Memphis." "But he will not remain here long," Nechutes went on. "He goes to Tanis to be near the scene of the Israelitish unrest." "Alas, Ta-meri, and wilt thou droop again?" Kenkenes asked. "I fear," she assented with a little sigh. Then, after a pause, she asked: "Does the murket follow the court?" Kenkenes shook his head. "Not when the Pharaoh travels. But should he depart permanently from Memphis my father would go. Many of the court returning hither will not proceed to Tanis. The city will not be so desolate then as now." "Nay, but I am glad," she said. "Those who remain will suffice." "Of a truth?" Nechutes demanded angrily. "Have I not said?" she replied. Nechutes rose slowly and made his way to a chair some distance away from her. Kenkenes immediately guessed why the cup-bearer was hurt, but the lady was innocent. He knew that he had but to speak to restore Nechutes to favor. Meanwhile the lady, amazed and deeply offended at the desertion of the cup-bearer, had turned her back on him. Kenkenes arose. Ta-meri sat up in alarm. "O, do not go. You have but this moment come," she said. "Already have I stayed too long," he replied. "But thy hospitality makes one forget the debt one owes to a prior guest." She looked at him from under silken lashes. "Nechutes has misconducted himself," she objected, "and I would not be left alone with him." "Wouldst thou have me stay and see him restored to favor under my very eyes? Ah, Ta-meri, where is thy womanly compassion?" She smiled and extended her hand. Kenkenes took it and felt it relax and lie willingly in his palm. "Nay, do not go," she pleaded softly. "Give me leave to come again instead." "To-morrow," she said, half questioning, half commanding. He did not promise, but as he bent over to kiss her hand, he said in a low tone: "Hast thou forgotten that Nechutes leaves Memphis with the going of the king?" The lady started and flung a conscience-stricken glance at the scowling cup-bearer. And while her face was turned, Kenkenes departed like a shadow. But the portals of the nomarch's house had hardly closed behind him before he demanded of himself, impatiently, why he had made Nechutes' peace, why he kept the cup-bearer for ever between himself and Ta-meri. And as if to evade this catechism something arose in him and asked him why he should not. And to this he could give no answer. [1] Mohar--The king's pioneer, an office that might be defined as minister of war. CHAPTER X THE DEBT OF ISRAEL For an instant after the sculptor had put the collar about her throat, Rachel stood motionless, her face flushing and whitening with conflicting emotions. But her indecision was only momentary. Rebellion was in the ascendant. She thrust her fingers under the band and essayed to wrench off the offending necklace, but the stout fastening held and the flexible braid printed its woof on the back of the soft neck. Almost in tears she undid the clasp and flung the collar away. It struck the earth with a musical ring, and the green of the wheat hid all but a faint ray of the red metal. The rout of children descended on her, each clamoring a story of the accident. But without a word she marshaled them and turned once again toward the river to refill the hides. At the water's edge she kept her eyes resolutely from the broad dimpling breast of the Nile toward the south. She feared that she might see the light bari that was driving back to Memphis against that slow but mighty current as easily as if wind and water went with it. But even before she turned again toward Masaarah, her better nature began to chide her. She remembered her impetuous act with a flush of shame. "His peace-offering--a proof of his good will, and thou didst mistreat it, as if he had meant it for a purchase or a fee. The indignity thou hast petulantly fancied, Rachel." After a time another thought came to her. "The act was not womanly. Wherein hast thou rebuked him, in casting away the trinket? Thou hast the dignity of Israel to uphold in thy dealings with this young man." When she reached the spot where the collar had fallen, she sought for it furtively, and having found it, thrust it into the bosom of her dress. "I shall not keep it," she said, quieting the protests of her pride. "I shall make him take it back to-morrow." Entering her low shelter in the camp some time later, she found Deborah absent. Impelled by an unreasoning desire to keep secret this event, she hastily hid the collar in the sand of the tent floor and laid the straw matting of her bed smoothly over its burial place. Again she struggled with her pride and demanded of herself why she had become secretive. "Fie!" she replied. "How couldst thou tell this story to Deborah? Why, it is well-nigh unbecoming." The dusk settled down over the valley. Deborah came in like a phantom from the camp-fires with the evening meal, and the pair sat down together to eat, Rachel silent, Deborah thoughtful. "Another Egyptian comes to govern Masaarah," the old woman observed. "Agistas departed but now, leaving the camp in charge of the under-drivers." "It makes little odds with us--this change of taskmasters, Deborah--be he Agistas or any other Egyptian. They are masters and we continue to be slaves," Rachel answered after a little silence. "Nay, art thou losing spirit?" Deborah asked with animation. "How shall the elders keep of good heart if the young surrender?" "I despair not," the girl protested. "I did but remark this thing; and I have spoken truly, have I not?" "Even so. But this evening there must be more recognition in thee of thy lot since it overflows in words. I, too, have spoken truly, have I not?" Rachel smiled. "It may be," she said. When they had supped, they went out before the tent to get the cooling air. It was Deborah again that first broke the silence. "Elias is smitten with blindness from the stone-dust," she said absently. "For all time?" Rachel asked anxiously. "Nay, if he could but rest them and bathe them in the proper simples." "Alas--" Rachel began, but she checked herself hurriedly. "He was my father's servant," she said instead--"the last living one. Jehovah spare him. One by one they fall, until I shall be utterly without tie to prove I once had kindred." Deborah looked at the girl fixedly for a moment. Then she put up her hand and leaned on the soft young shoulder. "Am I not left?" she asked. Rachel passed her arm about the bowed figure, with some compunction for her complaint. "My mother's friend!" she exclaimed lovingly. "I know she died in peace, remembering that I was left to thy care." "I mind me," she continued after a little silence, "how tender and frail she was. Thou wast as a strong tree beside her. I seem to myself to be mighty compared to my memory of her." Deborah took the white hand that lay across her shoulder. "Thou art like to thy father. Thy mother was black-eyed and fragile--born to the soft life of a princess. Misfortune was her death, though she struggled to live for thee. Praise God that thou art like to thy father, else thou hadst died in thine infancy." "Nay, hath my lot been sterner than the portion of all Israel?" "Of a surety, thou canst guess it, for are there many of thy tribe like thee--without a kinsman?" Rachel shook her head, and the old woman continued absently: "Of thy mother's family there were four, but they died of the heavy labor. Thy father, Maai, surnamed the Compassionate, was the eldest of six. They were mighty men, tawny like the lion and as bold--worthy sons of Judah! But there is none left--not one." "Ten!" Rachel exclaimed, "and not one remaineth!" "Aye, and they died as though they were plague-smitten--in pairs and singly, in a little space." Deborah felt a strong tremor run through the young figure against which she leaned, and the arm across her shoulder was withdrawn, that the hand might clear the eyes of their tears. The old woman discreetly held her peace till the girl should recover. "Thou must bear in mind, Rachel," she began, after a long silence, "that Egypt had an especial grudge against thy house,--hence, its especial vengeance. Seti, the Pharaoh, began the oppression of the children of Israel, but the bondage was not all-embracing, in the beginning. There were Hebrews to whom Egypt was indebted and chief among these was thy father's grandsire, Aram. Seti paid the debt to him by sparing his small lands and his little treasure and himself when he put Israel to toil. Thy father's father, thy grandsire, Elihu, younger brother to Amminadab, who was father-in-law to Aaron, came to his share of his father's goods when Aram was gathered to his fathers. This was in the latter days of Seti. Thy grandsire sent his little treasure into Arabia and bought lands with it. After many trials he caused to grow thereon a rose-shrub which had no period of rest--blooming freshly with every moon. And there he had the Puntish scentmaker on the hip, for the Arabic rose rested often. The attar he distilled from his untiring flower, had another odor, wild and sweet and of a daintier strength. When he was ready to trade he sent in a vial of crystal to Neferari Thermuthis and to Moses, then a young man and a prince of the realm, a few drops of this wondrous perfume. Doubt not, the Hebrew prince knew that the gift came from a son of Israel. The queen and Moses used the attar. Therefore all purple-wearing Egypt must have it or die, since the fashion had been set within the boundaries of the throne. Then did Elihu name a price for his sweet odor that might have been small had each drop been a jewel. But Egypt opened her coffers and bought as though her idols had broken their silence and commanded her." The old woman paused and reflected with grim satisfaction on the remote days of an Israelitish triumph. "Meanwhile," she continued finally, "thy grandsire lived humbly in Goshen. None dreamed that this keeper of a little flock, lord over a little tent and tiller of a few acres, was the great Syrian merchant who was despoiling Mizraim. "Next he became a money-lender, through his steward, to the Egyptians, and wrested from them what they had saved in putting Israel to toil without hire. So his riches increased a hundredfold and the half of noble Egypt was beholden to him. Then he turned to aid his oppressed brethren. "He bribed the taskmasters or kept watch over them and discovered wherein they were false to the Pharaoh, and held their own sin over their heads till they submitted through fear of him. He filled Israel's fields with cattle, the hills with Hebrew flocks, the valleys with corn. Alas! Had it not been--but, nay, Jehovah was not yet ready. He had chosen Moses to lead Israel." The old woman paused and sighed. After a silence she continued: "Thy father fell heir to the most of his wealth, but not to his immunity. With a heart as great as his sire's he continued the good work. He wedded thy mother, the daughter of another free Israelite, and in his love for her, never was man more happy. In the midst of his hope and his peace an enemy betrayed him to Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh. And Rameses remembered not his father's covenant. So Maai's lands, his flocks, his home, were taken; thou, but new-born, and thy mother with her people were sent to the brick-fields--himself and his brothers to the mines; and in a few years thou wast all that was left of thy father's house." The effect of this recital on the young Israelite was deep. Anguish, wrath, and the pain that intensifies these two, helplessness, inflamed her soul. The story was not entirely new to her; she had heard it, a part at a time, in her childhood; but now, her understanding fully developed, the whole history of her family's wrongs appealed to her in all its actual savagery. Egypt, as a unit, like a single individual, had done her people to death. Between her and Egypt, then, should be bitter enmity, rancor that might never be subdued, and eternal warfare. Her enemy had conquered her, had put her in bondage, and made sport of her as a pastime. The accumulation of injury and insult seemed more than she could bear, and the vague hope of Israel in Moses seemed in the face of Egypt's strength a folly most fatuous. "O Egypt! Egypt!" she exclaimed with concentrated passion. "What a debt of vengeance Israel owes to thee!" The old woman laid her shriveled hands on the arm of her ward. "Aye, and it shall be paid," she said fiercely. "Thou canst not get thy people back, nor alleviate for them now the pangs that killed them; but to the mortally wronged there is one restitution--revenge!" At this moment some one over near the western limits of the camp cried out a welcome; a commotion arose, noisy with cheers and rapid with running. Presently it died down and the pair before the tent saw a horseman ride through the gloom toward the empty frame house of the overseer. The two women lapsed immediately into their absorbed communion again. "Lay it not to Egypt alone, but to all the offenders against Jehovah. Midian and Amalek, passing through to do homage to the Pharaoh, sneer at Israel; Babylon in her chariot of gold flicks her whip at the sons of Abraham as she bears her gifts of sisterhood to Memphis. We suffer not only the insults of a single nation, but despiteful use by all idolaters. Let but the world gather before Jehovah's altar and there shall be no more affronts to Israel." "Must we bide that time?" Rachel asked. "Or shall we bring it about?" "Nay," Deborah replied scornfully. "Even my mystic eyes are not potent enough to see so far into the future. We throw off the bondage sooner than thou dreamest, daughter of Judah, but if the nations bow at the altar of Jehovah, it will take a stronger hand than Israel's to bring them there." After a silence Rachel murmured, as though to herself: "We shall go, and soon, and leave no debt behind. Will the vengeance befall all Egypt, the good as well as the bad?" "Hast thou forgotten God's promise to Abraham concerning the wicked cities of the plain? If there were ten righteous therein He had not destroyed them utterly." "Nay, but if there be but one therein?" "One? Now, for what one dost thou concern thyself? Atsu?" Rachel, startled out of her dream, hesitated, her face coloring hotly, though unseen, beneath the kindly dusk of night. "Yea," she said in a low tone, wondering gravely if she spake the truth. Somebody beside her laughed the short unready laugh of one slow at mirth. "Of a truth?" he asked. Rachel turned about and faced Atsu. He took her hands and drew her near him. "Nay, Deborah," he said sadly; "pursue her not into the secret chambers of her young heart. I doubt not there is 'one' therein, but why shall we demand what manner of 'one' it is when she may not even confess it to herself?" Confused and a little guilty by reason of the necklace, and wondering why she admitted any guilt, Rachel drew away from him. "Nay," he went on, retaining his clasp. "Let there be perfect understanding between us twain, thou Radiant One. I shall not plague thee with my love, nor even let it be apparent after this. Men have lived in constant fellowship, but no nearer to the women whom they love, and am I less able than my kind? So I be not hateful to thee, Rachel, I am content." "Hateful to me!" she cried reproachfully. "Nay? No more then. I have spoken the last with thee concerning my love. And thus I seal the pact." He drew her, unresisting, to him, and kissed her forehead. "For my gentleness to the Hebrews of Pa-Ramesu," he continued in a calmer tone as he released her, "they have stripped me of my rank and sent me to govern Masaarah. So they thought to punish me, never dreaming that they joined me to Rachel, and hid me away in a nook with a handful to whom I may be merciful and none will spy upon me! They thwarted their end." "Happy Masaarah!" Rachel said earnestly. Atsu laughed again and disappeared in the dark. Rachel drew her hand furtively across the place on her brow that the taskmaster's lips had touched. The keen eyes of the old Israelite saw the motion and understood it. "It is not Atsu," she said astutely. "Nay," the girl protested, "and yet it is Atsu, in mine own meaning, or any one in Egypt who is fair to Israel. The grace of that one would be sufficient in God's sight to save all Egypt from doom. That was my meaning." The light in the frame quarters of the taskmaster was extinguished and at that moment a shadowy figure emerged from the dark and approached the pair. "A courier from Mesu speaketh without the camp, even now," the visiting Israelite said in a half-whisper. "Atsu hath put out his light, to sleep, but even if he sleep not, the people may go without fear and listen to the speaker. Come ye and give him audience." "We come," Deborah replied. As the old woman and her ward walked down through the night in the direction taken by the entire population of the quarries, Deborah said quietly: "Thy cloud of depression hath rifted somewhat since sunset, daughter." Rachel pressed her hand repentantly. At the side of an open space, now closely filled with sitting listeners, stood a Hebrew, not older than thirty-five. A knot of flaming pitch, stuck in a crevice of rock near him, lighted his face and figure. His frame had the characteristic stalwart structure of the Israelitish bondman. The black hair waved back from a placid white forehead; the eyes were serene and level, the mouth rather wide but firm, the jaw square. The beard would have been light for a much younger man, and it was soft, red-brown and curling. It added a mildness and tenderness to the face. Whoever looked upon him was impressed with the unflinching piety of the countenance. This was Caleb the Faithful, son of Jephunneh, the Kenezite. He was talking when Rachel and her ancient guardian entered the hollow, and he continued in a passive tone throughout the several arrivals thereafter. He spoke as one that believes unfalteringly and has evidence for the faith. He did not recount Israel's wrongs--he would have worked against his purpose had he wrought his hearers into an angry mood. Besides, the story would have been superfluous. None knew Israel's wrongs better than Israel. He talked of redemption and Canaan. CHAPTER XI HEBREW CRAFT When Mentu returned from On a light had kindled in his eyes and his stately step had grown elastic. The man that withdraws from a busy life while in full vigor has beckoned to Death. Inactivity preys upon him like a disease. The great artist, forced into idleness by the succession of an incapable king, had been renewed by the prospect of labor which his exaltation into the high office had afforded. With pleasure in his heart, Kenkenes watched his father grow young again. "Who was thy good friend in this?" the young man asked one evening after a number of contented remarks concerning the market's appointment. "Who said the word in the Pharaoh's ear?" "So to raise me to this office it is needful that something more than my deserts must have urged the king?" Mentu retorted. "Nay! that was not my meaning," Kenkenes made haste to say. "But thou knowest, my father, that Meneptah must be for ever directed. Who, then, offered him this wise counsel? Rameses?" "It was never Har-hat," Mentu replied, but half placated. "If he had, thou and I must no longer call him a poor counselor." "Bribe--" the murket began, ruffled once more. "Nay," Kenkenes interrupted smiling. "He had but proved himself worthy and wise." Mentu shook his head, but there was no more temper evident in his face. "Now is a propitious hour for a good counselor," Kenkenes pursued. "What knowest thou?" Mentu asked with interest. "Tape," the young man replied briefly. "Nay, the sedition in Tape is old and vitiated." "And the Hak-heb." "That breach may be healed. But we have sedition to fear among the bond-people--" "The bond-people!" "Even so. Open and organized sedition." "The Israelites?" Kenkenes exclaimed with an incredulous note in his voice. "The Israelites." "I would sooner fear a rebellion among the draft-oxen and the mules of Nehapehu." [1] "The elder Seti's fears and the fears of the great Rameses were other than yours." "O, aye, they had cause for fear then, but since Seti yoked the creatures--" "The Pharaohs did not begin in time," the elder man interrupted. "Had that royal fiat, the decimation of Hebrew children, continued, we should not have had the Israelite to-day, but gods!" he shuddered with horror. "I hope that is a horrid slander--tradition, not fact. I like not to lay the slaughter or babes at the door of any Egyptian dynasty. But had an early Pharaoh of the house of Tothmes enforced the absorption of the Hebrew by his same rank among the Egyptian, we should not have the menace of a hostile alien within our borders to-day. The heavy hand of oppression has made a wondrous race of them for strength. Theirs is no mean intellect; great men have come from among them, and they will be a hardy foe arrayed against us." "They are not warriors; they are poor and unequipped for hostilities; they are thoroughly under subjection," the young man pursued. "What can they do against us?" "Do!" Mentu exclaimed with impatience in the repetition. "They have only to say to the banished Hyksos: 'Come ye, let us do battle with Egypt. We will be your mercenaries.' They have only to send greeting to that lean traitor Amon-meses, thus: 'Give us the Delta to be ours and we will help you win all Egypt,' and there will be enough done." "They must have a pact among themselves and a leader, first," Kenkenes objected. "Have I not said they are organized? And their leader is found. He is a foster-brother to Meneptah; an initiated priest of Isis; a sorcerer and an infidel of the blackest order. He is Prince Mesu, a Hebrew by birth." "Dost thou know him?" Kenkenes asked with interest. "Nay, he has dwelt in Midian these forty years. He returned some time ago and hath dwelt passively in Goshen till--" The artist dropped his voice and came nearer to his son. "He hath dwelt passively in Goshen till of late, and it is whispered that some secret work against him inaugurated by the priesthood, or mayhap the Pharaoh, hath given him provocation to revolt against Meneptah." After a silence Kenkenes asked in a lowered tone: "Hath he made demonstration?" "O, aye, he is clamoring to lead his people a three days' journey into the wilderness to make sacrifice to their god." "Shades of mine ancestors! If that is all, let them, so they return," Kenkenes said amicably. "Let them!" the sculptor exploded. "Dost thou believe that they would return?" "I apprehend that the Rameside army would be capable of thwarting them if they were disposed to depart permanently." "Thou dost apprehend--aye, of a truth, I know thou dost! Halt all our works of peace for an indefinite time; mass the vast army of the Pharaoh and spend days and good arrows in retrieving the runaways, merely that a barbarian god may smell the savor of holy animals sacrificed! Gods! Kenkenes, thou art as trustworthy a counselor as Har-hat!" Thereafter there was a silence in the work-room. But a peppery man is seldom sulky, and Kenkenes was fully prepared for the mildness in his father's voice when he spoke again. "Thou shouldst see the pretense in his demand, Kenkenes. He must have provocation to urge him to rebellion, and he knows full well that Meneptah will not grant that petition." "But hath he not provocation--thou hast but a moment ago told--" "But that was only an offense against him. The whole people would not go into revolt because some one had conspired against one of their number. Therefore he telleth Israel that its God would have Israel make a pilgrimage, promising curses upon the people if they obey not. Then he putteth the appeal to the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh denieth it. Wherefore the whole people is enraged and hath rallied to the conspirator's cause. Seest thou, my son?" "It is strategy worthy the Incomparable Pharaoh--" "It is Hebrew craft!" "Perhaps thou art right. But what personal grudge hath Mesu against Egypt or the priesthood or Meneptah?" "It is said that he was wanted out of the way, and by an unfortunate sum of accidents, the miscarriage of a priest's letter and a fight between a messenger and Bedouins in front of a Hebrew tent, gave the information into the hands of Mesu himself." By this time Kenkenes was on his feet. "A miscarriage of a priest's letter," he repeated slowly. The artist nodded. After the silence the young man spoke again: "And thou believest truly that because of this letter--because of this Israelite's grievance against the powers of Egypt, we shall have uprising and serious trouble among our bond-people?" "I have said," Mentu answered, raising his head as though surprised at the earnestness in his son's voice. Kenkenes did not meet his father's eyes. He turned on his heel and left the work-room. Had the spiteful Seven, the Hathors, used him as a tool whereby mischief should be wrought between the nation and her slaves? [1] The Fayum. CHAPTER XII CANAAN When the imperative necessity of harmonious expression became apparent, the young artist laid aside his chisel and mallet, and the Arabian desert knew his footsteps no more for many days after the rough-hewing of Athor's face. Instead, he mingled with the people of Memphis in quest of the expression. The pursuit became fascinating and all-absorbing. With the most deliberate calculation, he studied the faces of the betrothed and of newly wedded wives, and finding too much of content therein, he sought out the unelect for study. And with these, his search ended. Thereafter he made innumerable heads in clay, and covered linen scrolls with drawings. But it was the semblance he gained and not the spirit. The light eluded him. On the day after Mentu's return from On, Kenkenes paid the first visit to Masaarah since the incident of the collar,--and the last he thought to make until he had won that for which he strove. He went to bury the matting in the sand and to hide other evidences of recent occupancy about the niche. He left the block of stone undisturbed, for the transgression was not yet apparent on the face of Athor. The scrolls, which had been concealed under the carpeting, were too numerous for his wallet to contain, but he carried the surplus openly in his hand. It was sunset before he had made an end. To return to the Nile by way of the cliff-front would have saved him time, but there was a boyish wish in his heart to look again on the lovely face that had helped him and baffled him. So he descended into the upper end of the ravine and slowly passed the outskirts of the camp, but the bond-girl was nowhere to be seen. The spaces between the low tents were filled with feeding laborers and there was an unusual amount of cheer to be noted among Israel of Masaarah. Kenkenes heard the talk and laughter with some wonderment as he passed. He admitted that he was disappointed when, without a glimpse of Rachel, he emerged into the Nile valley. But he leaped lightly down the ledge, crossed the belt of rubble, talus and desert sand, and entered the now well-marked wagon road between the dark green meadow land on either side. Egypt was in shadow--her sun behind the Libyan heights,--but the short twilight had not fallen. Overhead were the cooling depths of sky, as yet starless, but the river was breathing on the winds and the sibilant murmur of its waters began to talk above the sounds of the city. To the north, the south and the east was pastoral and desert quiet; to the west was the gradual subsidence of urban stir. Frogs were beginning to croak in the distance, and in the long grain here and there, a nocturnal insect chirred and stilled abruptly as the young man passed. Within a rod of the pier some one called: "My master!" The voice came from a distance, but he knew whom he should see when he turned. Half-way across the field toward the quarries Rachel was coming, with a scroll in her lifted hand. He began to retrace his steps to meet her, but she noted the action and quickened her rapid walk into running. "Thou didst drop this outside the camp," she said as she came near. "I feared it might have somewhat pertaining to the statue on it, and I have brought it, with the permission of the taskmaster." She stopped, and putting her hand into the folds of her habit on her breast, hesitated as if for words to speak further. Kenkenes interrupted her with his thanks. "How thou hast fatigued thyself for me, Rachel! Out of all Egypt I doubt if I might find another so constant guardian of my welfare. The grace of the gods attend thee as faithfully. I thank thee, most gratefully." The purpose in her face dissolved, the hand that seemed to hold somewhat in the folds of her habit relaxed and fell slowly. While Kenkenes waited for her to speak, he noted that a dress of unbleached linen replaced the coarse cotton surplice she had worn before, and her feet were shod with simple sandals--an extravagance among slaves. But the garb was yet too mean. The sculptor wondered at that moment how the sumptuous attire of the high-born Memphian women would become her. He shook his head and in his imagination dressed her in snow-white robes with but the collar of rings about her throat, and stood back to marvel at his picture of splendid simplicity. "Hast thou not something more to tell me?" he asked kindly. "Do thou rest here on the wharf while we talk. Art thou not quite breathless?" "Nay, I thank thee," she faltered. "I may not linger." The hand once again sought the folds over her breast. "Then let me walk with thee on thy way. It will be dark soon." "Nay," she protested flushing, "and again, I thank thee. It is not needful." She made a movement as if to leave him, but he stepped to her side. "Out upon thee, daughter of Israel, thou art ungracious," he remonstrated laughingly. "I can not think thee so wondrous brave. For it is a long walk to the camp and the night will be pitch-black. Why may I not go with thee?" "There is naught to be feared." "Of a truth? Those hills are as full of wild beasts as Amenti is of spirits. And even if no hurt befell thee, the trepidation of that long journey would be cruel. Nay; Ptah, the gallant god, would spurn my next offering, did I send thee back to camp alone. Wilt thou come?" She bowed and dropped behind him. Her resolution to maintain the forms of different rank between them was not characteristic of other slaves he had known. There was no presumption or humble gratitude in her manner when he would offer her the courtesies of an equal, but he had met the disdain of a peer once when he thought he talked with a slave. There was something mocking in her perfunctory deference, but her pride was genuine. Her conduct seemed to say: "I would liefer be a Hebrew and a slave than a princess of the God-forgotten realm of Egypt." The young sculptor was unruffled, however. He was turning over in his mind, with interest, the evidence that tended to show that the Israelite had something more to tell him, that her courage had failed her, and that her hand had sought something concealed in her dress. He recalled the former meetings with her and arrived at a surmise so sudden and so conclusive that with difficulty he kept himself from making outward demonstration of his conviction. "The collar, by Apis! I offended her with the trinket. And she came to make me take it back, but her courage fled. Pie upon my clumsy gallantries! I must make amends. I would not have her hate me." He broke the silence with an old, old remark--one that Adam might have made to Eve. "Look at the stars, Rachel. There is a dark casement in the heavens--a blink of the eye and the lamp is alight." "So I watch them every night. But they are swifter here in Memphis. At Mendes, where Israel toiled once, they are more deliberate," she answered readily. "Aye, but you should see them at Philae. They ignite and bound into brilliance like sparks of meeting metal and flint. Ah, but the tropics are precipitate!" "I know them not," she ventured. "Their acquaintance is better avoided. They have no mean--they leap from extreme to extreme. They are violent, immoderate. It is instant night and instant day; it is the maddest passion of summer always. Nature reigns at the top of her voice and chokes her realm with the fervor of her maternity. Nay, give me the north. I would feel the earth's pulse now and then without burning my fingers." "There is room for choice in this land of thine," she mused after a little. "Land of mine?" he repeated inquiringly, turning his head to look at her. "Is it not also thine?" "Nay, it is not the Hebrews' and it never was," the clear answer came from the dusk behind him. "So!" he exclaimed. "After four hundred years in Egypt they have not adopted her!" "We have but sojourned here a night. The journey's end is farther on." "Israel hath made a long night of the sojourn," he rejoined laughingly. "Nay," she answered. "Thou hast not said aright. It is Egypt that hath made a long night of our sojourn." There was a silence in which Kenkenes felt accused and uncomfortable. It would require little to make harsh the temper of the talk. It lay with him, one of the race of offenders, to make amends. "It is for me to admit Egypt's sin and ask a truce," he said gently. "So be thou generous to me, since it is I who am abashed in her stead." Again there was silence, broken at last by the Israelite in a voice grown wondrously contrite. "I do not reproach thee. Nor, indeed, is all Egypt at fault. The sin lies with the Pharaohs." "Ah! the gods forbid!" he protested. "Lay it on the shoulders of babes, if thou wilt, but I am party to treason if I but give ear to a rebuke of the monarch." "I am not ignorant of the law. I shall spare thee, but I have purchased my right to condemn the king." "Thou indomitable! And I accused thee of fear. I retract. But tell me--what is the journey's end? Is it the ultimate goal of all flesh?" "Not so," she answered proudly. "It is Israel's inheritance promised for four hundred years. The time is ripe for possession. We go forward to enter into a land of our own." "Thou givest me news. Come, be the Hebrews' historian and enlighten me. Where lies the land?" Rachel hesitated. To her it was a serious problem to decide whether the lightness of the sculptor's tone were mockery or good fellowship. Kenkenes noted her silence and spoke again. "Perchance I ask after a hieratic secret. If so, forgive the blunder." "Nay," she replied at once. "It is no secret. All Egypt will know of it ere long. God hath prepared us a land wherein we may dwell under no master but Jehovah. We go hence shortly to enter it. The captain of Israel will lead us thither and Jehovah will show him the way. Abraham was informed that it was a wondrous land wherein the olive and the grape will crown the hills; the corn will fill the valleys; the cattle and sheep, the pasture lands. There will be many rivers instead of one and the desert will lie afar off from its confines. The sun will shine and the rain will fall and the winds will blow as man needeth them, and there will be no slavery and no heavy life therein. The land shall be Israel's and its enemies shall crouch without its borders, confounded at the splendor of the children of God. And there will our princes arise and a throne be set up and a mighty nation established. Cities will shine white and strong-walled on the heights, and caravans of commerce will follow down the broad roadways to the sea. There will the ships of Israel come bowing over the waters with the riches of the world, and our wharves will be crowded with purple and gold and frankincense. Babylon shall do homage on the right hand and Egypt upon the left, and the straight smoke from Jehovah's altar will rise from the center unfailing by day or by night." They had reached the ledge and Kenkenes sat down on it, leaning on one hand across Rachel's way. She paused near him. Even in the dark he could see the light in her eyes, and the joy of anticipation was in her voice. As yet he did not know whether she talked of the Israelitish conception of supernal life, or of a belief in a temporal redemption. "And there shall be no death nor any of the world-sorrows therein?" he asked. "Since we shall dwell in the world we may not escape the world's uncertainties," she replied, looking at his lifted face. "But most men live better lives when they live happily, and I doubt not there will be less unhappiness, provident or fortuitous, in Israel, the nation, than in Israel, enslaved." So the slave talked of freedom as slaves talk of it--hopefully and eloquently. A pity asserted itself in the young sculptor's heart and grew to such power that it tinctured his speech. "Is thy heart then so firmly set on this thing?" he asked gently. "It is the hope that bears Israel's burdens and the balm that heals the welt of the lash." And in the young man's heart he said it was a vain hope, a happy delusion that might serve to make the harsh bondage endurable till time dispelled it. The simple words of the girl were eloquent portrayal of Israel's plight, and Kenkenes subsided into a sorry state of helpless sympathy. She was not long in interpreting his silence. "Vain hope, is it?" she said. "And how shall it come to pass in the face of the Pharaoh's denial and the might of Egypt's arms? Thou art young and so am I, but both of us remember Rameses. There has been none like him. He overthrew the world, did he not? And it was a hard task and a precarious and a long one, when he but measured arms with mortals. Is it not a problem worthy the study to ponder how he might have fared in battle with a god?" Kenkenes lifted his head suddenly and regarded her. "Aye," she continued, "I have given thee food for thought. Futile indeed were Israel's hopes if it set itself unaided against the Pharaoh. But the God of Israel hath appointed His hour and hath already descended into fellowship with His chosen people. He hath promised to lead us forth, and the Divine respects a promise. So a God against a Pharaoh. Doth it not appear to thee, Egyptian, that there approaches a marvelous time?" "Give me but faith in the hypothesis and I shall say, of a surety," he replied. "Thou hast said. Shall we not go on, my master?" "I am Kenkenes, the son of Mentu," he told her. She bent her head in acknowledgment of the introduction and moved forward as if to climb up by the projecting edges of the strata. But he put a powerful arm about her and lifted her into the valley. With a light bound he was beside her. Ahead of them was profound darkness, hedged by black and close-drawn walls and canopied by distant and unillumining stars. She resumed her place behind him though he was moved to protest, but her deliberate manner seemed to demand its way. So they continued slowly. "Thou givest me interest in the God of Israel," he said, to reopen the subject. "The Egyptian dwells in his gods, but thou sayest that the God of Israel dwells in Israel." "Even so. But thou speakest of Israel's God, even after the fashion of my people. They are jealous, saying that the true God hath but one love and that is Israel. If they would think it, let them, but He is the all-God, of all the earth, the One God--thy God as well as mine." "Mine!" Kenkenes exclaimed. "Thou hast said." "Now, by all things worshipful, this is news. I had ever thought that our gods are those to whom we bow. Either thou sayest wrong or I have been remiss in my devotions." "Nay, listen," she said earnestly, stepping to his side. "Already have I told thee of the captain of Israel. He was reared among princes in the house of the Pharaoh, and he is learned in all the wisdom of Egypt. He instructeth the elders concerning Jehovah, and from mouth to mouth his wisdom traverseth till it reacheth the ears of the young. This, then, I have from the lips of Moses, who speaketh naught but the truth. In early times all on earth had perished for wickedness by the sending of the One God, save a holy man and his three sons. These men worshiped the God of Abraham, who was the father of Israel. One of the sons founded thy race, saith Moses, and one established mine. The tribes that went into Egypt worshiped the same God. Lo, is it not written in the early tombs? So Moses testifieth, but if thou doubtest, go question thy historians. And some of the tribes called that God Ra, others, Ptah, and yet others, Amen. But in time they quarreled and each tribe refused to admit the identity of the three-named One God, saying, 'Thy god sendeth plague and affliction, and ours sendeth rich harvests and the Nile floods.' Did not the same God do each of these things in His wisdom? Even so. But when they were at last united into one great people, they had forgotten the quarrel, forgotten that in the beginning they had worshiped one God, and they bowed down to three instead. Nay, if there were but one among you who dared, there are loose threads fluttering, which, if drawn, might unravel the whole fabric of idolatry and disclose that which it hides--the One God--the God of Abraham." Kenkenes had walked in silence, looking down into the luminous eyes, lost in wonder. Rachel suddenly realized at what length she had talked and stopped abruptly, dropping back to her place again as if chidden. "Come," said Kenkenes, noting her action, "walk beside me, priestess. I would hear more of this. It is like all forbidden things--wondrously alluring." "I did forget," she answered stubbornly. "There is nothing more." Kenkenes stopped. "Come," he insisted. "The teacher rather precedes the pupil. At least, thou shalt walk beside me." "I pray thee, let us go on. We are not yet at the camp--we have walked so slowly," she answered. At that moment several fragments of rock, loosening, slid down in the dark just behind her. She caught her breath and was beside the young artist in an instant. He laughed in sheer delight. "Thou hast assembled the spirits by thy blasphemy," he said. "And remember, I must soon return to this haunted place alone." "Thou canst get a brand of fire or a cudgel at the camp," she said with some remorse in her voice, "and run for the river bank." With that she resumed her place behind him. Kenkenes laughed again. It gave him uncommon pleasure to know that his model was concerned for him. He put out his hand and deliberately drew her up to his side. Not content with that he bent his arm and put her hand under it and into his palm, so that she could not leave him again. She submitted reluctantly, but her fingers, lost in his warm clasp, were cold and ill at ease. He felt their chill and released her to slip about her shoulders the light woolen mantle he had worn. Her apprehension lest he take her hand again was so evident that he refrained, though he slackened his step and kept with her. But she spoke no more until they were beside the outermost circle of coals that had been a cooking fire for the camp. Here they met a man, whom, by his superior dress, Kenkenes took to be the taskmaster. They were almost upon him before he was seen. "Rachel!" he exclaimed. "Here am I," she answered, a little anxiously. "Thou wast gone long--" he began. The sculptor interposed. "She hath done me a service and it was my pleasure to talk with her," he said complacently. "Chide her not." The glow from the fire lighted the young man's face, and the taskmaster, standing in deep shadow, scanned it sharply but did not answer. Kenkenes turned and strode away down the valley. Rachel snatched a thick sycamore club which had been left over in the construction of the scaffold and ran after him. But the young sculptor had disappeared in the dark. "Kenkenes," she cried at last desperately. He answered immediately. She slipped off the mantle. "This, thy mantle," she said when he approached, "and this," thrusting the club into his hands. "There is as much danger in the valley for thee as for me." And like a shadow she was gone. As he hurried on again through the dense gloom of the ravine, the young man thought long on the Israelite and her words. She had offered him theories that peremptorily contradicted the accepted idea among Egyptians, that Moses was inspired by a personal motive of revenge. The argument put forth by his father began to show sundry weaknesses. Furthermore Rachel's version gave him a much coveted opportunity to slip from his shoulders the discomforting blame that had rested there since he had heard that a miscarried letter might effect a national disturbance. Much as the practical side of his nature sought to decry the great Hebrew's motive, a sense of relief possessed him. "I fear me, Kenkenes, thou durst not boast thyself an embroiler of nations," he said to himself. "The Hebrew prince is a zealot, and zealots have no fear for their lives. Truly those Israelites are an uncommon and a proud people. But, by Besa, is she not beautiful!" He enlarged on this latter thought at such exhaustive length that he had traversed the valley and field, found his boat, crossed the Nile and was at home before he had made an end. CHAPTER XIII THE COMING OF THE PHARAOH On the first day of February, runners, dusty, breathless and excited, passed the sentries of the Memphian palace of Meneptah with the news that the Pharaoh was but a day's journey from his capital. They were the last of a series of couriers that had kept the city informed of the king's advance. For days before, public drapers were to be seen clinging cross-legged to obelisk and peristyle; moving in spread-eagle fashion, hung in a jacket of sail-cloth attached to cables, across the fronts of buildings, looping garlands, besticking banners and spreading tapestries. Scattering sounds of hammer and saw continued even through the night. The city's metals were polished, her streets were sprinkled and rolled, her stone wharves scoured, her landings painted, her flambeaux new-soaked in pitch. The gardens, the storehouses and the wine-lofts felt unusual draft for the festivities, and the great capital was decked and scented like a bride. Now, on the eve of the Pharaoh's coming, the preparations were complete. The city was full of excitement and pleasant expectancy. Only once before during the six years of Meneptah's reign had such enthusiasm prevailed. When the Rebu horde descended upon Egypt, Meneptah had sent his generals out to meet the invader, but he, himself, had remained under cover in Memphis because he said the stars were unpropitious. And this was the son of Rameses II, than whom, if the historians and the singer Pentaur say true, there was never a more puissant monarch! But when the marauder was overthrown and routed, and his generals turned toward Memphis with their captives in chains, Meneptah hastened to meet them, decked his chariot with war trophies and entered his capital in triumph. He was hailed with exultant acclaim. "Hail, mighty Pharaoh! who smites with his glance and annihilates with his spear. He overthrew companies alone, and with his lions he routed armies. His enemies crumbled before him like men of clay, for he breathed hot coals in his wrath and flames in his vengeance." And the enthusiasm that inspired the eulogy was sincere. Meneptah was none the less loved because Memphis understood him. The Pharaoh was the apple of her eye and she worshiped him stubbornly. Now he was returning from a bloodless campaign--one that neither required nor brought forth any generalship--but it was a victory and had been personally conducted by Meneptah, so Memphis was preparing to fall into paroxysms of delight, little short of hysteria. An hour after sunrise on the day of the Pharaoh's coming a gorgeous regatta assembled off the wharves of Memphis. It was a flotilla of the rank and wealth of the capital, with that of On, Bubastis, Busiris, and even Mendes and Tanis. The boats were high-riding, graceful and finished at head and stern with sheaves of carved lotus. Hull and superstructure were painted in gorgeous colors with a preponderance of ivory and gold. Masts, rigging and oars were wrapped with lotus, roses and mimosa. Sails and canopies were brilliant with dyes and undulant with fringes. Troops of tiny boys, innocent of raiment, were posted about the sides of the vessels holding festoons. Oarsmen wore chaplets on the head or garlands around the loins, and half-clad slave-girls were scattered about with fans of dyed plumes. Bridges of boats had been hastily run out between the vessels, and over these the embarking voyagers or visitors passed in a stream. On shore was a great multitude and every advantageous point of survey was occupied. And here were catastrophes and riots, panics and love-making, gambling and gossip and all the other things that mark the assembly of a crowd. But these incidents drew the attention of the populace only momentarily from the revel of the nobility on the Nile. For there were laughter and songs, strumming of the lyre, shouts, polite contention and the drone of general conversation among such numbers that the sound was of great volume. At the head of the pageant were the boats of the nomarch and the courtiers to Meneptah who remained in Memphis. Near the forefront of these was the pleasure-boat of Mentu. Kenkenes dropped from its deck to the walk rising and falling at its side, and made his way through the crowd in search of a vessel bearing a winged sun and the oval containing the symbols of On. As he passed the prow of a tall pleasure-boat he was caught in a rope of flowers let down from above and looped about him with a dexterous hand. He turned in the pretty fetters and looked up. Above him was a row of a dozen little girl-faces, set like apple-blossoms along the side of the vessel. The youngest was not over twelve years of age, the oldest, fourteen. Each rosy countenance was rippled with laughter, but the sound was lost in the great turmoil about them. In the center of the group, a pair of hands put forth under the chin of an older girl, held the ends of the garland with a determined grip. Her eyes were gray, her hair was chestnut, her face very fair. Kenkenes recognized her with a sudden warmth about his heart. The others were strangers to him. A glance at the plate on the side of the boat showed him that this was the one he sought. Most willingly he obeyed the insistent summons of the garland and permitted himself to be drawn to the barge. There, the same hands showed him the ladder against the side, and a dozen pretty arms were extended to haul him aboard as he climbed. But the instant he planted foot on the deck the lovely rout retreated to shelter at the side of a smiling woman seated in the shadow of fans. Only his fair-faced captor stood her ground. "Hail, Hapi," [1] she cried, doing obeisance. "Pity the desert." She flung wide her hands. With the exception of the youths at the oars there was no other man on the boat. "Ye may call me forth," Kenkenes replied, "but how shall ye return me to my banks? Hither, sweet On," he continued, catching the hand of the fair-faced girl, "submit first to submergence." She took his kisses willingly. "This for Seti, thy lover; this for Hotep, thy brother, and this for me who am both in one. How thou art grown, Io!" "But she hath not denied thee the babyhood privileges for all that, Kenkenes," the smiling woman said. "It is an excellent example of submission she hath set, Lady Senci," he replied, advancing toward the young girls about her. "Let us see if it prevail." But the troop scattered with little cries of dismay. "Nay," he observed, as he bent over Senci's hand, "never were two maids alike, and I shall not strive to make them so." "Thy father hath most graciously kept his word in sending us a protector," Senci continued, "My nosegay of beauties drooped last night when they arrived from On with my brother sick, aboard. They feared they must stop with me in Memphis for want of a man." "It was the first word I heard from my father this morning and the last when I left him even now: 'Io's father hath failed her through sickness, so do thou look after the Lady Senci--and the gods give thee grace for once to do a thing well!'" The lady smiled and patted his arm. "He did not fear; he knew whom he chose. But behold our gallant escort--the nomarch ahead, beside us the new cup-bearer and behind us all the rank of the north." "Aye, and when we cast off thou mayest look for the new murket on thy right." The lady blushed. "I have not seen thy father yet, this morning." "So? His robes must fit poorly." At that moment a gang-plank was run across from the broad flat stern of the nomarch's boat to the prow of Senci's, a carpet was spread on it, and Ta-meri, with little shrieks and tottering steps, came across it. Kenkenes put out his arms to her and lifted her down when she arrived. "Wonder brought me," she cried. "I dreamed I saw thee kiss a maiden thrice and I came to see if it were true." "O most honest vision! It is true and this is she," Kenkenes answered, indicating Io. Ta-meri flung up her hands and gazed at the blushing girl with wide eyes. "Enough," she said at last. "It is indeed a marvel. Never have I seen such a thing before, and never shall I see it again." "And if that be true, fie and for shame, Kenkenes," Senci chid laughingly. "Ta-meri always shuts her eyes," the sculptor defended himself stoutly. The nomarch's daughter caught his meaning first and covered her face with her hands. The chorus of laughter did not drown her protests. "Kenkenes, thou art a mortal plague!" she exclaimed behind her defense. "Truce," he said. "Thou didst accuse me and I did defend myself. We are even." "Nay, but am I also even with Ta-meri?" Io asked shyly. "Now," Senci cried, "which of ye will say 'aye' or 'nay' to that!" Ta-meri retreated protesting to the prow again, but the gang-plank had been withdrawn. An army of slaves were breaking up the bridges of boats. The oars of the nomarch's barge rose and fell and the vessel bore away. Ta-meri cried out again when she saw it depart but she made no effort to stay it. "Come back, Ta-meri," Io called. "I shall not press thee for an accounting." The lanes of water between the boats cleared, the scented sails filled, the bristling fringes of oars dipped and flashed, a great shout arose from the populace on shore and the shining pageant moved away toward Thebes. The barge of Nechutes swung into position on the left of Senci--the oars on Mentu's boat rose and halted and the vessel drifted till it was alongside her right. Kenkenes put his arm about Io, who stood beside him and whispered exultantly or irreverently concerning the vigilance of the cup-bearer and the murket. "And," he continued oracularly, "there will be a third attending us when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle Seti during his long absence." "Nay, I have sent him messages faithfully and in no little point have I failed him in constancy. But I can not see why he should love me, who am to the court-ladies as a thrush to peafowls. He writes me such praise of Ta-user." "Now, Io! Art thou so little versed in the ways of men that thou dost wonder why we love or how we love or whom we love? The very fact that thou art different from Seti's surroundings is like to make him love thee best." "I am not jealous; only he hath so much to tell of Ta-user." "Aye, since she is like to become his sister, it is not strange. But what says he of her?" Io thrust her hand into the mist of gauzes over her bosom and with a soft flush on her cheeks drew forth a small, flattened roll of linen. Kenkenes made a place for her on his chair and drew her down beside him. Together the pair undid the scroll and Kenkenes, following the tiny pink finger, came upon these words: "Ah, thou shouldst see her, my sweet. Thou knowest she was born of a prince of Egypt and a lovely Tahennu, and the mingling of our dusky blood with that of a fair-haired northern people, hath wrought a marvelous beauty in Ta-user. Her hair is like copper and like copper her eyes. There is no brownness nor any flush in her skin. It is like thick cream, smooth, soft and cool. And when she walks, she minds me of my grandsire's leopardess, which once did stride from shadow to shadow in the palace with that undulatory, unearthly grace. In nature, she is world-compelling. When first she met me, she took my face between her palms and gazed into mine eyes. Ai! she bewitched me, then and there. My individuality died within me--I felt an unreasoning submission, strangely mingled with aversion. I was compelled--divorced from mine own forces, which vaguely protested from afar. . . . And yet, thou shouldst see her meet Rameses. He makes me marvel. He knows--she knows--aye, all Egypt knows why she hath come to court, and yet they meet--she salutes him with bewildering grace--he inclines his proud head with never a tremor and they pass. Or, if they tarry to talk, it is an awesome sight to see the determined encounter of two mighty souls--tremendous charm against tremendous resistance--and Io, I know that they have sounded to the deepest the depth of each other's strength. I long to see Ta-user conquer--and yet, again I would not." Thereafter followed matters which Kenkenes did not read. He rolled the letter and gave it back to Io. The little girl sat expectantly watching his face. "Nay, I would not take Seti's boyish transports seriously," he said gently. "His very frankness disclaims any heart interest in Ta-user. Besides, she is as old as I--three whole Nile-floods older than the prince. She thinks on him as Senci looks on me--he regards her as a lad looks up to gracious womanhood. Nay, fret not, thou dear jealous child." Io's lips quivered as she looked away. "It is over and over--ever the same in every letter--Ta-user, Ta-user, till I hate the name," she said at last. "Then when thou seest him at midday up the Nile, be thou gracious to some other comely young nobleman and see him wince. Naught is so good for a lover as uncertainty. It is a mistake to load him with the great weight of thy love. Doubt not, thou shalt carry all the burden of jealousy and pain if thou dost. Divide this latter with him, and he shall be content to share more of the first with thee. But thou hast condemned him without trial, Io. Spare thy heart the hurt and wait." The young face cleared and with a little sigh she settled back in the chair and said no more. It was noon when the royal flotilla was sighted. There were nineteen barges approaching in the form of two crescents like a parenthesis, the horns up and down the Nile, and in the center of the inclosed space was Meneptah's float. Here was only the royal family, the king, queen, Ta-user, and the two princes, who took the place of fan-bearers in attendance on their father. The vessel was manned by two reliefs of twelve oarsmen from Theban nobility. If magnificence came to conduct Meneptah, it met splendor as its charge. The pastoral solitude of the Middle country was routed for the moment by an assemblage of the brilliance and power of all Egypt. With a shout that made the remote hills reply again and again, the convoy divided, a half retreating to either side of the Nile and the home-coming fleet entered the hollow. The nomarch's boat detached itself from its following and took up a position in the center, beside the royal barge. The advance was delayed only long enough for the escort to turn, take in the sails--for they went against the wind now--and form an outer parenthesis. Then with another shout the triumphant return began. The other fleet absorbed the attention of each voyager. Every barge had a new-comer alongside and near enough to talk across the water. Therefore a great babel and confusion arose in which rational conversation became impossible. Then vessels essayed to approach nearer one another and the formation began to break. The right oars of one boat and the left of another would be withdrawn and the vessels lashed together. Then they were permitted to drift, with some poling to keep them in the proper direction. When this proceeding was impracticable because of the construction of the barges, one boat would take another in tow until the occupants of one had joined those of the other by a gang-plank laid from prow to stern. By sunset the merrymaking had developed into indiscriminate boarding. Only the vessels of the king and the nomarch and the barge of Senci were not involved in the uproarious revel that followed. The fates were amiable and no mishaps occurred in spite of the recklessness of the pastime. Men and women alike took part in the play, and the general temper of the merrymakers was good-natured and innocent. The dusk fell and the shadows of night were made seductive by the dim lamps that began to burn from mast-top and prow. On the barge of Senci only a single and subdued light was swung from a bronze tripod in the bow, and the fourteen charges of the young sculptor, wearied with the long day's excitement, were disposed in graceful abandon under its glow. Senci sat with Ta-meri's head in her lap, and three or four drowsy little girls were tumbled about her feet. Only Io was wide awake, and even her sweet face wore a pensive air. Kenkenes had retired to the stern, where, under the high up-standing end, stood a long wooden bench. The young sculptor had flung himself on this, and with the whole of the boat and its freight within range of his vision, he listened to the riot about him. Suddenly the sound of cautiously wielded oars attracted his attention. In the end of the boat was a hawser-hole, painted and shaped like the eye of Osiris. Kenkenes turned about on his couch and watched through this aperture. A barge, judiciously darkened, emerged into the circle of faint radiance about Senci's boat. There were probably a dozen Theban nobles of various ages grouped in attitudes of hushed expectancy in the bow. One robust peer, with a boat-hook in his hand, leaned over the prow. Another, barely older than fourteen, had mounted the side of the boat, and steadying himself by the shoulder of a young lord, gazed ahead at the group in the bow of Senci's boat. "By the horns of Isis," he whispered in disgust, "the most of them are babes!" The robust noble turned his head and jeered good-naturedly under his breath. "Mark the infant sneering at the buds. But be of cheer. One is there, ripe enough to sate your green appetite." "Nay! do you distribute them now? Let me make my choice, then." But a general chorus of whispered protests arose. "Hold, not so fast. The fan-bearer first. 'Twas he who hit upon the plan." The nose of the pursuing boat crept alongside the stern of the one pursued, and the oars rested in obedience to a whispered order. The diagonal current which moved out from the Arabian shore, and the backward wash of water from the oars of the forward boat, heaved the head of the nobles' barge toward its object. The robust courtier leaned forward and made fast to his captive with the hook. A sigh of approval and excitement ran through the group. "Gods! how they will scatter!" the young lord tittered nervously. "Nay, now, there must be no such thing," the robust noble said, addressing them all. "Mind you, we but come as guests. It shall be left to the ladies to say how we shall abide with them. Show me a light." The instant brilliance that followed proved that a hood had been lifted from a lamp. One of the men held a cloak between it and the group on Senci's boat. Kenkenes raised himself. The lamp discovered to his angry eyes the face of Har-hat. "Now, hold this hook for me while I get aboard," the fan-bearer chuckled. With a single step the young sculptor crossed to the side of the barge and wrenched the hook from the hands of the man that held it. For a moment he poised it above him, struggling with a mighty desire to bring it down on the head of the startled fan-bearer. The youthful lord dropped from his point of vantage and half of the group retreated precipitately. Har-hat drew back slowly and raised himself, as Kenkenes lowered the weapon. For a space the two regarded each other savagely. The contemplation endured only the smallest part of a moment, but it was eloquent of the bitterest mutual antagonism. There was no relaxing in the rigid lines of the young sculptor's figure, but the fan-bearer recovered himself immediately. "Forestalled!" he laughed. "Retreat! We would not steal another man's bliss though it be fourteen times his share!" The oars fell and the boat darted back into the night, the affable sound of Har-hat's raillery receding into silence with it. Kenkenes flung the boat-hook into the Nile and returned to his bench, puzzled at the inordinate passion of hate in his heart for the fan-bearer. At the end of the first watch the flotilla drifted into Memphis. Bonfires so vast as to suggest conflagrations made the long water-front as brilliant as day. Far up the slope toward the city the red light discovered a great multitude, densely packed and cheering tumultuously. Amid the uproar one by one the barges approached and discharged their occupants along the wharves. Soldiery in companies drove a roadway through the mass from time to time, by which the arrivals might enter Memphis, though few of these departed at once. When the Lady Senci's barge drew up, Mentu forced his way through the increasing crowd to meet and assist its occupants to alight. Kenkenes, still on deck, was handing his charges down the stairway one by one, when he saw Io, who stood at the very end of the line, lean over the side, her face aglow with joy. Kenkenes guessed the cause of her delight and, deserting his post, went to her side. Below stood Seti, on tiptoe, his hands upstretched against the tall hull. "O, I can not reach thee," he was crying. Kenkenes caught up the trembling, blushing, repentant girl and lowered her plump into the prince's eager arms. When Kenkenes saw her an hour later, he lifted her out of her curricle before the portals of Senci's house. "What did I tell thee?" he said softly. But the little girl clung to his arms and leaned against him with a sob. "O Kenkenes," she whispered, "he came but to drag me away to look upon her!" "Didst go?" he asked. "Nay," she answered fiercely. After a silence Kenkenes spoke again: "He does not love her, Io. Believe me. I doubt not the sorceress hath bewitched him, but he would not rush after a whilom sweetheart to have her look upon a new one. Rather would he strive to cover up his faithlessness. But he hath been untrue to thee in this--that he shares a thought with the witch when his whole mind should be full of thee. Bide thy time till he emerges from the spell, then make him writhe. Meantime, save thy tears. Never was a man worth one of them." He kissed her again and set her inside Senci's house. But one remained now of the procession he had escorted from the river. This was the Lady Ta-meri's litter, and his own chariot stood ahead of it. She had lifted the curtains and was piling the opposite seat with cushions in a manner unmistakably inviting. He hesitated a moment. Should he dismiss his charioteer and journey to the nomarch's mansion in the companionable luxury of the litter? But even while he debated with himself, he passed her with a soft word and stepped into his chariot. [1] The inundation, more properly Nilus--the river-god. CHAPTER XIV THE MARGIN OF THE NILE Meneptah having come and the old regime of life resumed, Memphis subsided into her normal state of dignity. Mentu remained in his house preparing for his investiture with the office of murket. His hours were spent in study, and the coming and going of Kenkenes crossed his consciousness as swiftly as the shadows wavered under his young palms. His son might work for hours near him on mysterious drawings, but so deep was the great artist in the writings of the old murkets that he did not think to ask him what he did. It might not have won his attention even had he seen the young man burn the sheets of papyrus thereafter, and grow restless and dissatisfied. He remarked, however, that Kenkenes was absent during the noon-meal, but when the sundown repast was served and the young man was in his place, Mentu had forgotten that he had not been there at midday. Kenkenes had visited his niche in the Arabian desert. On his way to the statue he came to the line of rocks where he had hidden himself to get Athor's likeness, and looked down into the quarry opposite him. He was astonished to see at the ledge, just below, a great water-cart with three humped oxen attached. The water-bearers were grouped about it and a Hebrew youth was drawing off the water in skins and jars. The children received their burdens from his hands and passed up the wooden incline to the scaffold. There Kenkenes saw that the incline had been extended to the level of the platform, and the children were able to deliver the hides directly into the hands of the laborers. Then it occurred to Kenkenes that there was not a woman in sight about the quarries. While he wondered, Rachel emerged from the windings of the valley into the open space below. She carried a band of linen and a small box of horn in her hand. When the young bearers saw her, one of them, who had been rubbing his eye, came to her. She set her box upon an outstanding edge of stone and devoted herself to him. Drawing his head back until it rested against her bosom, with tender hands she dressed the injured optic with balm from the box. Kenkenes from his aery watched her, noting with a softening countenance the almost maternal love that beautified her face. Now and then she spoke soothingly as the boy flinched, but her words were so softly said that the sculptor did not catch them. The eye dressed, she covered it with the bandage and the pair separated. It was with some regret that Kenkenes saw her turn to leave the spot. But at that moment the taskmaster rode into the open space. She made a sign of salutation and paused at a word from him. Kenkenes fancied that her face had sobered and he looked down on the cowled head and shoulders of the overseer, wrathfully wondering if the Egyptian had played the master so harshly that Rachel dreaded him. Presently the man dismounted; and though his back was turned toward Kenkenes, the young sculptor knew by his stature that he was not the soldier who had first governed the quarries. The young man watched him excitedly but there was no display of tyranny or even authority in the taskmaster's manner. They talked, and by the motion of the man's hand Kenkenes fancied that he described something growing near the Nile. Presently they walked together toward the outlet of the valley. The taskmaster leaped down the ledge and, turning, put up his arms and lifted Rachel down. It was plain that something more than courtesy inspired the act, for the man's hands fell reluctantly. Kenkenes faced sharply about and proceeded up the hill to his statue with a queer discomfort tugging at his heart. That night in his effort to bring forth the coveted expression in his drawings of Athor, Kenkenes all but satisfied himself. The next day, without any apparent cause, he went back to the niche in the desert, stayed without purpose, and departed when no tangible reason urged him. When the day declined he climbed down the front of the hill and crossed the narrow field toward his boat, which was buried in the rank vegetation of the water's edge. At the Nile he noted, a little distance up the river, a familiar figure among the reeds. For a moment he hesitated and then rambled through the riotous growth in that direction. As he drew near, Rachel raised herself from a search in a thicket of herbs, her arms full of them and her face a little flushed. "Idler!" said Kenkenes. "Nay," she answered with a smile, "I am at work--learned work." "Gathering witch-weeds for an incantation, sorceress?" "Not so. I am hunting herbs to make simples for the sick." "Of a truth? Then never before now have I craved for an illness that I might select my leech." Again she smiled and made a sheaf of the herbs, preparatory to binding it. The bundle was unruly, and several of the plants dropped. She bent to pick them up and others fell. Kenkenes came to her rescue and gathered them all into his large grasp. "Now, while I hold it," he suggested. With the most gracious self-possession she smoothed out the fiber, put it twice, thrice about the sheaf and knotted it, her fingers, cool and moist after their contact with the marsh sedge, touching the sculptor's more than once. "There! I thank thee." "Are there any sick in the camp?" "Only those who have been blinded by the stone-dust. But I prepare for sickness during health." "A wise provision. Would we might prepare for sorrow during contentment." "We may lay up comfort for us against the coming of misfortune." "How?" "In choosing friends," she answered. His mind went back to the scene of that morning. Did she speak of the taskmaster? "Thou hast found it so?" he asked. "Thou hast said." She added no more, though the sculptor was eager for an example. "How goes it with the statue?" she asked, seeing that he did not move out of her path. "Slowly," he answered. "But it shall hasten to completeness when I once begin." "What wilt thou do with it when it is done? Destroy it?" He shook his head with a smile. "Leave it there to betray thee to the vengeance of the priesthood one day?" "I have no fear of discovery." "Nay, but fear or unfear never yet warded off misfortune," she said gravely. "It is better to entertain causeless concern than unwise confidence." He eagerly accepted this establishment of equality between them, and overshot his mark. "Advise me, Rachel. What should I do?" She gazed at him for a moment distrustfully, wondering if he mocked her and asking herself if she had not deserved it in assuming comradeship with him. "Nay, it is not my place, my master," she said. "I did forget." He put his hand on hers with considerable determination in his manner. "Let us make an end to this eternal emphasis of different rank. I would forget it, Rachel. Wilt thou not permit me? I am thy friend and nothing harsher--above all things, not thy master." Never before had he spoken so to her. She ventured to look at him at last. His face was grave and a little passionate and his eyes demanded an answer. "Aye, I shall gladly be thy friend," she answered; "but never hast thou been so much of a master as in the denial that thou art." The first gleam of girlish mischief danced in her blue eyes. The young sculptor noted it with gladness. He took the free hand and pressed it, and when she turned toward the roadway through the wheat he turned with her and hand in hand they went. As they neared it he spoke again. "Again would I ask, when wilt thou advise me concerning the statue? Here is my boat. Let us turn it into a high seat of council and I will sit at thy feet and learn." "Nay, if I sit I shall linger too long, and there is a taskmaster--albeit a gentle one--waiting with other things for me to do." Kenkenes kicked the turf and frowned. "It sounds barbarous--this talk of master upon thy lips, Rachel. Thou art out of thy place," he answered. "I am no more worthy of freedom than my people," she replied with dignity. "Thy people! They should be lawgivers and advisers among Egypt's high places, rather than brick-makers and quarry-slaves, if thou art a typical Israelite." "Aye!" she exclaimed, "and thou hast given tongue to the same estimate of Israel, which hath wrought consternation among the powers of Mizraim. And for that reason are we enslaved. Think of it, thou who art unafraid to think. Think of a people in bondage because of its numbers, its sturdiness and its wisdom. Thou who art in rebellion against ancient law dost feel somewhat of Israel's hurt. Behold, am I not also oppressed because I may think to the upsetting of idolatry and the overthrow of mine oppressors? Thou and I are fellows in bondage; but mark me! I am nearer freedom than thou. The Pharaohs began too late. Ye may not dam the Nile at flood-tide." Her face was full of triumph and her voice of prophecy. She seemed to declare with authority the freedom of her people. Kenkenes did not speak immediately. His thoughts were undergoing a change. The pity he had felt that night a month agone for her sanguine anticipation of freedom seemed useless and wasted. Her confidence was no longer fatuous. He admitted in entirety the truth of her last words. If all Israel--nay, if but part, if but its leaders were as able and determined as she, did Meneptah guess his peril? Was not Egypt most ominously menaced? He remembered that he had been amused at his father's perturbation over the Israelitish unrest, but he vindicated Mentu then and there. Furthermore, if all Israel were like unto her, what heinous injustice had been perpetrated upon an able people? He found himself hoping that they would assert themselves and enter freedom, whether it be in Canaan or in Egypt. "If ever Israel come to her own," he said impulsively, "I pray thee, Rachel, remember me to her powers as her partizan in her darker days. And take this into account when thou comest to judge Egypt. The half of the nation know not thy people, even as I have been ignorant; and Osiris pity the hand that would oppress them if all Egypt is made acquainted with them as I have been in these past days. Art thou indeed typical of thy race?" "Hast thou not been among us often enough to discover?" she parried smilingly. He shook his head. "Nay, I have known but one Israelite, and she keeps me perpetually aghast at Egypt." Rachel's eyes fell. "We did speak of the statue," she began. "O, aye! I meant to tell thee how I had fortified myself against mischance. I can not break up the statue; sooner would I assail sweet flesh with a sledge; but when it is done I shall bury it in the sands. It will wrench me sorely to do even that. During the carving I feel most secure, for Memphis and Masaarah think I come hither to look after the removal of stones, since I am a sculptor. But if an Egyptian should come upon it by mischance before it is complete, I have left no trace of myself upon it. Most of all I trust to the generosity of the Hathors, who have abetted me so openly thus far." Rachel heard him thoughtfully. "What a pity it is that thou must follow after the pattern of God and sate thy love of beauty by stealth under ban and in fear. Till what time Mizraim sets this law of sculpture aside she may not boast her wisdom flawless. It is past understanding why she exacts obedience to this law most diligently, which fathers these ill-favored images of her gods, when their habitations are most splendidly and most beautifully built. She robeth herself in fine linen, decketh herself with jewels, anointeth her hair and maketh her eyes lovely with kohl, and lo! when she would picture herself she setteth her shoulders awry and slighteth the grace of her joints and the softness of her flesh. O, that thy brave spirit had arisen long ago, ere the perversion had become a heritage, dear to the Egyptian sculptor as his bones! But now, artist though he be, his eye is so befilmed by ancient use that he sees no monstrousness in his work. So thou hast nation-wide, nation-old, nation-defended custom to fight. And alas! thou art but one, Kenkenes, and I fear for thee." For once the young sculptor's ready speech failed him. He drew near her, his eyes shining, his lips parted, drinking every word as if it were authoritative privilege for him to indulge his love of beauty without limit and openly. Here was that which he had sought in vain from those nearest to him--that which he had ceased to believe was to be found in Egypt--comfort, sympathy, perfect understanding. What if it came from the lips of an hereditary slave of the Pharaoh--a toiler in the quarries, an infidel, an alien nomad? If an alien, a slave, an unbeliever thought so deeply, felt so acutely and responded so discerningly to such delicate requirements--the slave, the nomad for him! "Rachel," he began almost helplessly, "I am beyond extrication in debt to thee--thou golden, thou undecipherable mystery!" She flushed to her very brows and her eyes fell quickly. "I have appealed to all sources from which I might justly expect sympathy--to men of reason, of power, of mine own kin, and to women of heart--and not once have I found in them the broad and kindly understanding which thou hast displayed for me out of the goodness of thy beautiful heart. Behold! thou hast given speech to my own hidden longings, summarized my difficulties, foreshadowed my misfortunes, deplored them--aye, of a truth, heaved my very sighs for me!" His voice fell and grew reverent. "I would call thee an immortal, but there is a better title for thee--woman--a true woman--and thou dost even uplift the name." For the first time in the history of their acquaintance she laughed, not mirthfully, but low and very happily, and the fleeting glimpse she gave him of her eyes showed them radiant and glad. He caught her hands, the bundle of herbs fell, and drawing her near him, he lifted the pink palms to his lips and pressed them there. "Nay," she said, recovering herself and withdrawing her hands, "I am not an Egyptian but a Hebrew, unbiased by the prejudices of thy nation. It is not strange that I can understand thy rebellion, which is but a rift in thine Egyptian make-up through which reason shows. Any alien could comfort thee as well." "And thou hast no more sympathy for me than any alien would have?" he asked, somewhat piqued. "Is there any other sympathizing alien with whom I may compare and learn?" she asked with a smile. She took up her bundle of herbs again and seemed to be preparing to leave him. "How dost thou know these things," he asked hurriedly; "all these things--sculpture, religion, history?" "I was not born a slave," she answered simply. "Nay, cast out that word. I would never hear thee speak it, Rachel." "Then, I was born out of servitude. My great grandsire was exempted by Seti when Israel went into bondage. His children and all his house were given to profit by the covenant. But the name grew wealthy and powerful to the third generation. My father was Maai the Compassionate, who loved his brethren better than himself. Them he helped. Rameses the Great forgot his father's promise when he found he had need of my father's treasure--" she paused and continued as if the recital hurt her. "There were ten--four of my mother's house, six of my father's. To the mines and the brick-fields they were sent, and in a little space I was all that was left." Horrified and conscience-stricken, Kenkenes made as if to speak, but she went on hurriedly. "My mother's nurse, Deborah, who went with us into servitude, is learned, having been taught by my mother, and I have been her pupil." "And there is not one of thy blood--not one guardian kinsman left to thee?" Kenkenes asked slowly. "Not one." Up to this moment, during every interview with Rachel, Kenkenes had forsworn some little prejudice, or sacrificed some of his blithe self-esteem. But the tragic narrative swept all these supports from him and left him solitary to face the charge of indirect complicity in murder. He was an Egyptian--a loyal supporter of the government and its policies; he had profited by Israel's toil, and if he succeeded to his father's office, Israel would serve him directly in his labor for the Pharaoh to be. He had known that Israel was oppressed, that Israel died of hard labor, and he had pitied it, as the humane soul in him had felt for the overworked draft-oxen or the sacrifices that were led bleating to the altars. Perhaps he had even casually decried the policy that sent women into the brick-fields and did men to death in a year in the mines. But his own conscience had not been hurt, nor had he taken the misdeed home to himself. Now his sensations were vastly different. He felt all the guilt of his nation, and he had nothing to offer as amends but his own humiliation. Of this he had an overwhelming plenitude and his eloquent face showed it. With an effort he raised his head and spoke. "Rachel, if my humiliation will satisfy thee even a little as vengeance upon Egypt, do thou shame me into the dust if thou wilt." "I do not understand thee," she said with dignity. "Believe me. I would help thee in some wise, and alas! there is no other way by deed or word that I could prove my sorrow." Tears leaped into her eyes. "Nay! Nay!" she exclaimed. "Thou dost wrong me, Kenkenes. What wickedness were mine to make the one contrite, guiltless heart in Egypt suffer for all the unrepentant and the wrong-doers of the land!" Once again he took her hand and kissed it, because the act was more eloquent than words at that moment. "It is near sunset," she said softly, "give me leave to depart." "Farewell, and the divine Mother attend thee." She bowed and left him. That night in the dim work-room Kenkenes brought forth upon papyrus a face of Athor, so full of love and yearning that he knew his own heart had given his fingers direction and inspiration. He sought no further. To-morrow in the niche in the desert he would carve the want of his own soul in the countenance of the goddess. CHAPTER XV THE GODS OF EGYPT It was Kenkenes' first love and so was most rapturous, but it did not cast a glamour over the stern perplexities that it entailed. He knew the suspense that is immemorial among lovers, and further to trouble him he had the harsh obstacle of different society. Rachel was a quarry-slave, a member of the lowest rank in the Egyptian scale of classes. She was an Israelite, an infidel and a reviler of the gods. He was a descendant of kings, a devout Osirian and welcomed in Egypt's high places. Never could extremes have been greater. But Kenkenes would not have given any of these obstacles a moment's consideration had not the weight of their neglect fallen on the shoulders of Rachel. If he had been a sovereign he could have taken her freely, and purple-wearing Egypt would have kissed her sandal; but he occupied a place that could provide with honor only him who was born to it. To lift Rachel to that position would be to expose her to the affronts of an undemocratic society. On the other hand he might sacrifice name and station and go down to her; but he was not to be judged harshly because he hesitated at this step. Rachel had given him no sign of preference beyond a pretty fellowship. In the beginning this realization had hurt him, but as he tossed night after night, troubled beyond expression, he remembered this thing with some melancholy comfort. It was a sorry solution of his problem to feel that he was unloved, and even while he recognized its efficacy, he prayed that it might not be so. His heavy heart did not retard the progress of his statue or make its beauty indifferent. The more he suffered the greater the passion in the face. He labored daily and tirelessly. But day by day he looked, unseen, on his love in the valley, and the oftener he looked the more irresolute he grew. The conflict between his heart and his reason was gradually shifting in favor of his love. His longing, as it continued to crave, grew from hunger to starving, and though his reason pointed to disastrous results, his heart justified itself in the blind cry, "Rachel, Rachel!" He had endured a month before his fortitude succumbed entirely. Once near sunset, as Rachel was proceeding toward the camp from some helpful mission to the quarries, she caught the fragments of a song, so distantly and absently sung that she could not locate it. There were singers among the Israelites, but they sang with wild exultation and more care for the sense than the melody. They had cultivated the chant and forgotten the lyric, because they had more heart for prophecy than passion. Rachel had revered her people's song, but there was something in this half-heard music that touched her youth and her love of life. She stopped to hear it well. It had all the power and profundity of the male voice, but it was as subdued, as flawless and sympathetic as a distant, deep-toned bell. There was not even a breath of effort in it, nor an insincere expression, and it pursued a theme of little range and much simplicity. The singer sang as spontaneously as a bird sings. She did not catch the words, but something in the fervor of the music told her it was a song of love--and a song of love unsatisfied. There was a pathos in it that touched the fountain of her tears and awoke to willingness that impulse in her womanhood that longs to comfort. As she stood in an attitude of rapt attention. Kenkenes rounded a curve in the valley just ahead of her. The song died suddenly on his lips and the color deepened in his cheeks. "Fie!" he exclaimed. "Here thou art, O Athor, catching me in the imperfection of my practice. Now will the keen edge of their perfect beauty be dulled upon thine ear when I come to lift my tuneful devotions to thee." "And it was thou singing?" she asked. "It was I--and Pentaur; mine the voice; Pentaur's the song." "Together ye have wrought an eloquent harmony, but such a voice as thine would gild the pale effort of the poorest words," she said earnestly. "What dost thou with thy voice?" "Once I won me a pretty compliment with it," he said softly, bending his head to look at her. She flushed and her eyes fell. "Nay, it is but my pastime and at the command of my friends," he continued. "See. This is what has made me sing." He unslung his wallet and took out of it a statuette of creamy chalk. "Thus far has the Athor of the hills progressed." He put it into her hands for examination. The face was complete, the minute features as perfect as life, the plaits of long hair and all the figure exquisitely copied and shaped. The pedestal was yet in rough block. Rachel inspected it, wondering. Finally she looked up at him with praise in her eyes. "Dost thou forgive me?" he asked. "It is for me to ask thy forgiveness," she answered. "So we be equally indebted and therefore not in debt." "Not so. I know the joy of creating uncramped, and the joy of copying such a model far outweighs any small delight thy little vanity may have experienced. Thy vanity? Hast thou any vanity?" "Nay, I trust not," she replied laughingly. "Vanity is self-esteem run to seed." "Sage! Let me make haste to carve the pedestal that I may know how low to do obeisance to wisdom. Hold it so, I pray thee." He took the statue and set it on a flat cornice jutting from the stone wall. Rachel obediently steadied it. He selected from his tools a knife with a rounded point of wonderful keenness and smoothed away the chalk in bulk. They stood close together, the sculptor bending from his commanding height to work. From time to time he shifted his position, touching her hand often and saying little. The pedestal given shape, he began its elaboration. Pattern after pattern of graceful foliation emerged till the design assumed the intricate complexity of the Egyptic style. Rachel watched with absorbed interest, her head unconsciously settling to one side in critical contemplation. Kenkenes, pressing the blade firmly upon the chalk, felt her cheek touch his shoulder for a fraction of a second; his fingers lost their steadiness and direction, but not their strength; the blade slipped, and the fierce edge struck the white hand that held the statuette. With a cry he dropped the knife, flung one arm about her and drew her very close to him. The image toppled down and was broken on the rock below, but he saw only the fine scarlet thread on the soft flesh. Again and again he pressed the wounded hand to his lips, his eyes dimmed with tears of compunction. "O, Rachel, Rachel!" he exclaimed in a sudden burst of passionate contrition. "Must even the most loving hand in Egypt be lifted against thee?" The great content on the glorified face against his breast was all the expression of pardon that he asked. "My love! My Rachel!" he whispered. "Ah, ye generous gods! indulge me still further. Let this, your richest gift, be mine." The gods! Stunned and only realizing that she must undo his clasp, she freed herself and retreated a little space from him. And then she remembered. Slowly and relentlessly it came home to her that this was one of the abominable idolaters, and she had forsworn such for ever. These very arms that had held her so shelteringly had been lifted in supplication to the idols, and the lips, whose kiss she had awaited, would swear to love her, by an image. The pitiless truth, once admitted, smote her cruelly. She covered her face with her hands. Kenkenes, amazed and deeply moved, went to her immediately. "What have I said?" he begged. "What have I done?" What had he done, indeed? But to have spoken, though to explain, would have meant capitulation. She wavered a moment, and then turning away, fled up the valley toward the camp--not from him, but from herself. CHAPTER XVI TEE ADVICE OF HOTEP If Mentu, looking up from the old murkets, noted that the face of his son was weary and sad, he laid it to the sudden heat of the spring; for now it was the middle of March and Ra had grown ardent and the marshes malarious. The old housekeeper, to whom the great artist mentioned his son's indisposition, glanced sharply at the young master, touched his hand when she served him at table, and felt his forehead when she pretended to smooth his hair. And having made her furtive examination, the astute old servant told the great artist that the young master was not ill. If she had further information to impart, Mentu did not give her the opportunity, for had she not said that Kenkenes was well? So he fell to his work again. Senci noted it, and sorrowful Io, but they, like Mentu, ascribed it to the miasmas and said nothing to the young man about himself. But Hotep was a penetrative man, and more hidden things than his friend's ailment had been an open secret to his keen eye. He did not care to know which one of the butterflies was the fluttering object of Kenkenes' bounteous love, for Hotep knew that those high-born Memphian women, who were openly partial to the handsome young sculptor, loved him for his comeliness and his silken tongue alone. It would take a profounder soul than any they had displayed to understand and sympathize with the restive genius hidden under the smooth exterior they saw. Therefore, with some impatience, Hotep conceded that his friend was in love, and presumably throwing himself away. So the scribe purposed, even though the attempt were inevitably fruitless, to win Kenkenes out of his dream. One faint dawn he entered the temple to pray for his own cause at the shrine of the lovers' goddess. In the half-night of the vast interior, at the foot of the sumptuous pedestal of Athor, he distinguished another supplicant, kneeling. But there was a hopelessness in the droop of the bowed head and a tenseness in the interlaced fingers of the clasped hands, which proved that Athor's answer had not been propitious. Hotep knew at once who besought the goddess. Setting his offering of silver and crystal on the altar, the scribe departed with silent step. But without, he ground his teeth and execrated the giver of pain to Kenkenes. In mid-afternoon of the same day Hotep's chariot drew up at the portals of Mentu's house, and the scribe in his most splendid raiment was conducted to Kenkenes. The young sculptor was alone. "What was it, a palsy or the sun which kept thee at home this day?" was Hotep's greeting. "Nine is a mystic number and is fruitful of much gain. Eight times within a month have I come for thee. The ninth did supply thee. Blessed be the number." Kenkenes smiled. "But there are seven Hathors, and five days in the epact--and the Radiant Three. To me it seemeth there are many good numbers." Hotep plucked his sleeve. "Come, I will show thee the best of all--One, the One." Kenkenes arose. "Let me robe myself befittingly, then." "Not too effectively," the scribe cried after him. "I would not have thee blight my chances with the full blaze of thy beauty." When Kenkenes returned Hotep looked at him with another thought than had been uppermost in his mind since he had noted his friend's dejection. This time, he was impatient with Kenkenes. "And such a man as this will permit a woman to break his heart!" Then was the young sculptor taken to the palace of the Pharaoh. On its roof, in the great square shadow of its double towers, he was presented to a dainty little lady, whose black eyes grew large and luminous at the coming of the scribe. She was Masanath, the youngest and only unwedded child of Har-hat, the king's adviser. Her oval face had a uniform rose-leaf flush, her little nose was distinctly aquiline, her little mouth warm and ripe. Her teeth were dazzlingly white, and, like a baby's, notched on the edges with minute serrations. But with all her tininess, she planted her sandal with decision and scrutinized whosoever addressed her in a way that was eloquent of a force and perception larger by far than the lady they characterized. And this was the love of Hotep. Kenkenes smiled. The top of her pretty head was not nearly on a level with his shoulders, and the small hand she extended had the determined grip with which a baby seizes a proffered finger. A vision of the golden Israelite rose beside her and the smile vanished. The day was warm and the courtiers in search of a breeze were scattered about the palace-top in picturesque groups. Masanath occupied a diphros, or double chair, and a female attendant, standing behind her, stirred the warm air with a perfumed fan. The lady was on the point of sharing her seat with one of her guests, when Har-hat, who had been lounging by himself on the parapet, sauntered over to his daughter's side. "My father," she said, "the son of Mentu, the first friend of the noble Hotep." Kenkenes had noticed, with a chill, the approach of the fan-bearer, and, angry with himself for his unreasoning perturbation, strove to greet him composedly. But he could not force himself into graciousness. The formal obeisance might have been made appropriately to his bitterest enemy. "The son of Mentu and I have met before," the fan-bearer declared laughingly. "But I scarce should have recognized him in this man of peace had not his stature been impressed upon me in that hour when first I met him." The fan-bearer paused to enjoy the wonder of his daughter and the scribe, and the hardening face of Kenkenes. "But for the agility the gods have seen fit to leave me in mine advancing years," he continued, "this self-same courteous noble would have brained me with a boat-hook on an occasion of much merrymaking, a month agone." He sat down on the arm of Masanath's chair and shouted with laughter. With a great effort Kenkenes controlled himself. "Shall I give the story in full?" he asked with an odd quiet in his voice. "Nay! Nay!" Har-hat protested; "I have told the worst I would have said concerning that defeat of mine." Again he laughed and returned to the young man's identity once more. "Aye, I might have known that thou wast somewhat of kin to Mentu. Ye are as much alike as two owlets--same candid face." He sauntered away, leaving an awkward silence behind him. "Sit beside me?" asked Masanath, drawing the folds of her white robes aside to make room for the scribe. But Hotep did not seem to hear. Instead, he wandered away for another chair, became interested in a group of long-eyed beauties near by and apparently forgot Masanath. Kenkenes did not permit any lapse between the invitation and its acceptance. He dropped into the place made for Hotep, as if the offer had been extended to him. "From Bubastis to Memphis, from Bast to Ptah," he said. "Dost thou miss the generous levels of the Delta in our crevice between the hills?" She shook her head. "Memphis is the lure of all Egypt, and he who hath been transplanted to her would flout the favor of the gods, did he make homesick moan for his native city." "And thou hast warmer regard for the stir of Memphis than the quiet of the north?" "There is no quiet in the north now." "So?" "Nay; hast thou not heard of the Israelitish unrest?" "Aye, I had heard--but--but hath it become of any import?" "It is the peril of Egypt that she does not realize her menace in these Hebrews," the lady answered. "The north knows it, but it has sprung into life so recently, and from such miserable soil, that even my father, who has been away from the Delta but a few months, does not appreciate the magnitude of the disaffection." "Thou hast lived among them, Lady Masanath. What thinkest thou of these people?" Kenkenes asked after a little silence. "Of the mass I can not speak confidently," she answered modestly. "They are proud--they pass the Egyptian in pride; they have kept their blood singularly pure for such long residence among us; they are stubborn, querulous and unready. But above all they are a contented race if but the oppression were lifted from their shoulders. They are an untilled soil--none knows what they might produce, but the confidence of their leader, who is a wondrous man, bespeaks them a capable people. To my mind they are mistreated beyond their deserts. I would have the powers of Egypt use them better." "Is it known in the north what Mesu's purpose is? The Israelites among us talk of their own kingdom, and I wonder if the Hebrew means to set up a nation within us, or assail the throne of the Pharaohs, or go forth and settle in another country." The lady shrugged her shoulders. "The Hebrews talk in similitudes. The prospect of freedom so uplifts them that they chant their purposes to you, and bewilder you with quaint words and hidden meanings. But these three facts, my Lord, are apparent and most potent in results when combined; they are oppressed beyond endurance; they are many; they are captained by a mystic. They have but to choose to rebel, and it would tax the martial strength of Egypt to quiet them." The magisterial dignity of the little lady was most delightful. The young sculptor's sensations were divided between interest in the grave subject she discussed and pleasure in her manner. Happening to glance in the direction of the scribe, he found the gray eye of his friend fixed upon him from the group of beauties. Presently Hotep rambled back with an ebony stool and sat a little aloof in thoughtful silence until the visit was over. When Kenkenes alighted at the door of his father's house some time later, Hotep leaned over the wheel of the chariot and put his hand on the sculptor's shoulder. "Thou hast met Har-hat and, by his own words, thou hast had some unpleasant commerce with him. What he did to thee I know not, but I shall let thee into mine own quarrel with him. He lays the curb of silence on my lips and enforces the indifference in my mien. If I revolt the penalty is humiliation and disaster for Masanath and for me. I love her, but I dare not let her dream it. The fan-bearer hath greater things in store for her than a scribe can promise. I am thy brother in hatred of him." The next dawn, even before sunrise, Hotep found Kenkenes once again in the temple before the shrine of Athor. But this time the scribe knelt silently beside his friend. When they emerged into the sunless solemnity of the grove he turned to Kenkenes. "With the licensed forwardness of an old friend, I would ask what thou hast to crave of the lovers' goddess, O thou loveless?" "Favor and pardon," Kenkenes answered. "So? But already have I reached the limit. Not even a friend may ask an accounting of a man's misdeeds." Kenkenes smiled. "Ask me," he said, "and spare me the effort of voluntary confession." "Then, what hast thou done?" "Come and look upon mine offense. Thine eyes will serve thee better than my tongue." The pair were in costume hardly fitted for the dust of the roadway, but Memphis was not astir. They went across the city toward the river and at the landings found an early-rising boatman, who let them his bari. Kenkenes took the oars and moved out into the middle of the swiftest current of the Nile. There he headed down-stream and permitted the boat to drift. The clear heavens, blue and pellucid as a sapphire, were still cool, but from the lower slope down the east a radiance began to crawl upward. The peaks of the Libyan desert grew wan. The young men did not resume their talk. The dawn in Egypt was a solemn hour. Kenkenes raised his eyes to the heights of the west. On the shore a group approached the Nile edge, and Hotep guessed by the cluster of fans and standards that it was the Pharaoh at his morning devotions to Nilus. The white points on the hilltops reddened and caught fire. Softly and absently Kenkenes began to sing a hymn to the sunrise. Hotep rested his cheek on one hand and listened. More solemn, more appealing the notes grew, fuller and stronger, until the normal power of the rich voice was reached. The liquid echo on the water gave it a mellow embellishment, and Hotep saw the central figure of the group on shore lift his hand for silence among the courtiers. But Kenkenes sang on unconscious even of his nearest auditor. After the nature of humanity he was nearer to his gods in trouble than in tranquillity. The white fronts of Memphis receded slowly, for neither took up the oars. Hotep hesitated to break the silence that fell after the end of the hymn. The shadow on the singer's face proved that the heart would have flinched at any effort to soothe it. It was the young sculptor's privilege to speak first. After a long silence, Kenkenes roused himself. "Look to the course of the bari, Hotep, and chide it with an oar if it means to beach us. I doubt me much if I am fit to control it with the wine of this wind on my brain." Hotep took up the oars and rowed strongly. "Thine offense does not sit heavily on thy conscience," he said. "I have made my peace with Athor." "Hath she given thee her word?" "Nay, no need. For I did not offend her. Rather hath she abetted me--urged me in my trespass. She persuaded me to become vagrant with her, and I followed the divine runaway into the desert. I doubt not I was chosen because I was as lawless as her needs required. Athor is beautiful and would prove herself so to her devotees. And to me was the lovely labor appointed." Hotep looked at him mystified. "By the gods," he said at last, "thou hadst better get in out of this wind." Kenkenes laughed genuinely. "My babble will take meaning ere long. If thou questionest me, I must answer, but I am determined not to betray my secret yet." "Go we to On?" Hotep asked plaintively, after a long interval of industry for him and dream for Kenkenes. The young sculptor sat up and looked at the opposite shore. "Nay," he cried, "we are long past the place where we should have landed. Yonder is the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. Let me row back." He turned and pulled rapidly toward the eastern shore. Away to the south, behind them, were the quarries of Masaarah. But they were still a considerable distance above Toora, a second village of quarry-workers, now entirely deserted. The pitted face of the mountain behind the town was without life, for, as has been seen, Meneptah was not a building monarch. Directly opposite them the abrupt wall of the Arabian hills pushed down near to the Nile and the intervening space was a flat sandy stretch, ending in a reedy marsh at the water's edge. The line of cultivation ended far to the south and north of it, though the soil was as arable as any bordering the Nile. A great number of marsh geese and a few stilted waders flew up or plunged into the water with discordant cries and flapping of wings as the presence of the young men disturbed the solitude. The sedge was wind-mown, and there were numberless prints of bird claws, but no mark of boat-keel or human foot. The place should have been a favorite haunt of fowlers, but it was lonely and overshadowed with a sense of absolute desertion. "But," Hotep began suddenly, "thou hast spoken of offense and pardon, and now thou boastest that Athor abetted thee." "Why is this called the Marsh of the Discontented Soul?" The scribe smiled patiently. "Of a truth, dost thou not know?" "As the immortals hear me, I do not. I have never asked and the chronicles do not speak of it." "Nay; the story is four hundred years old, and the chroniclers do not tell it because it is out of the scope of history, I doubt not. But it has become tradition throughout Egypt to shun the spot, though few know why they must. A curse is laid upon the place. An unfaithful wife whom the priests denied repose with her ancestors is entombed yonder." He pointed toward an angle between an outstanding buttress and the limestone wall. "Her soul haunts him who comes here with the plea that her mummy be removed to On, where she dwelt in life, and laid with the respected dead, in the necropolis." Kenkenes shrugged his shoulders. "I trust the unhappy soul will not trouble us. We came here by way of misadventure--not to disturb her. But how came it they did not entomb her nearer On?" "She betrayed one great man and tempted another. She offended against the lofty. Therefore, her punishment was the more heavy--her isolation in death like to banishment in life." "So; if she had slighted a paraschite and tempted a beer brewer, her fate would have been less harsh. O, the justness of justice!" The morning was well advanced when they reached the niche on the hillside--Hotep, wondering; Kenkenes, silent and expectant. The sculptor led the way into the presence of Athor, and stepped aside. The scribe halted and gazed without sound or movement--petrified with amazement. Before him, in hue and quiescence was a statue in stone--in all other respects, a human being. The figure was of white magnesium limestone, and stood upon rock yet unhewn. The ritual had been trampled into the dust. The eye of the most unlearned Egyptian could detect the sacrilege at a single glance. It was the image of a girl, draped in an overlong robe, fastened over each shoulder by a fibula, ornamented with a round medallion. Through the vestments, intentionally simple, there was testimony of the exquisite lines of the figure they clothed. The sole observance of hieratic symbol were the horns of Athor set in the hair. The figure was posed as if in the act of a forward movement. The knee was slightly bent in an attitude of supplication. The face was upturned, the eyes lifted, the arms extended to their fullest, forward and upward, the fingers curved as if ready to receive. The hair was separated into two heavy plaits, which fell below the waist down the back. One sandaled foot was advanced, slightly; the other hidden by the hem of the robe. Every physical feature visible upon the living form so disposed and draped had been carved upon this grace in stone. Egypt had never fashioned anything so perfect. Indeed, she would not have called it sculpture. The glyptic art of Greece had been paralleled hundreds of years before it was born. On the face there was the light of overpowering love together with the intangible pride so marked on the representations of profane deities. But the most manifest emotions were the great yearning and entreaty. They were marked in the attitude of the head thrown back, in the outstretched arms and in the bent knee. That there was more hopeful expectancy than despairing insistence, was proved by the curve of the ready fingers and the uncertain smile on the lips. It was Athor, eternally young, eternally in love, eternally unsatisfied, receiving the setting sun as she had done since the world began. None of the rapturous impatience and uncertainty of the moment had been lost since the first sunset after chaos. And yet, with all the pulse and fervor, here was womanhood, immaculate and ineffable. Never did face so command men to worship. "Holy Amen!" the scribe exclaimed, his voice barely audible in its earnestness. "What consummate loveliness! But what--what unspeakable impiety!" "Hast thou seen Athor? She is before thee." "Athor! The golden goddess in the image of a mortal! Kenkenes, the wrath of the priests awaits thee and thereafter the doom of the insulted Pantheon!" The scribe shuddered and plucked at his friend's robe as if to drag him away from the sight of his own creation. Firmly fixed were the young artist's convictions to resist the impelling force of Hotep's consternation. "Nay, nay, Hotep," he answered soothingly. "The wrath of the gods for an offense thus flagrant is exceedingly slow, if it is to fall. Lo! they have propitiated me at great length if they mean to accomplish mine undoing at last. Thus far, and the statue is well-nigh complete, I have met no form of obstacle." But Hotep shook his head in profound apprehension. He looked at the statue furtively and murmured: "O Kenkenes, what madness made thee trifle with the gods?" "Have I not said? The goddess herself lured me. Is she not the embodied essence of Beauty? The ritual insults her. Ah, look at the statue, Hotep. How could Athor be wroth with the sculptor who called such a face as that, a likeness of her!" "It startles me," the scribe declared. "It is supernaturally human. That is not art, but creation. O apostate, thine offense is of two-fold seriousness. Thou hast stolen the function of the divine Mother and made a living thing!" Kenkenes laughed with sheer joy at his comrade's genuine praise. The more dismayed Hotep might be, the more sincere his compliment. But the scribe, plunged into a stupor of concern lest the authorities discover the sacrilege, went on helplessly. "What wilt thou do with it when it is done?" "I have left no mark of myself upon it." "Nay, but the priesthood can scent out a blasphemer as a hound scents a jackal." "Thou wilt not betray me, Hotep; I shall not publish myself, and the other--the only other who possesses my secret--the Israelite, who was my model, is fidelity's self. I would trust her with my soul." "An Israelite! Thy nation's most active foe at this hour!" "She is no enemy to me, Hotep." Slowly the scribe's eyes traveled from the face of Athor to the face of Kenkenes. The young sculptor turned away and leaned against the great cube that walled one side of the niche. He was not prepared to meet his friend's discerning eyes. Hotep surveyed him critically. A momentous surmise forced itself upon him. He went to Kenkenes and, laying an affectionate arm across his shoulder, leaned not lightly thereon. "Thou hast said, O my Kenkenes, that I should understand thy meaning when thou spakest mysteriously a while agone. May I not know, now? Thou didst plead offense to Athor and didst boast her pardon. Later thou calledst her thy confederate. And earliest of all, thou didst confess to asking favor of her. How may all these things be?" "Look thou," Kenkenes began at once. "On one hand, I have my new belief concerning sculpture--on the other, the beliefs of my fathers. I practise the first and make propitiation for the second. No harm hath overtaken me. Am I not pardoned? Furthermore, Athor is beauty, and beauty guided my hand in creating this statue. Therefore, Athor being beauty, Athor was my confederate. Is it not lucid, O Son of Wisdom?" Hotep laughed. "Nay, thou wilt not prosper, Kenkenes. Thou servest two masters. But there is one thing still unexplained--the favor of Athor." "That is not mine to boast. I have but craved it," Kenkenes replied hesitatingly. "Where doth she live?" Hotep asked, by way of experiment. "In the quarries below." There was no more doubt in the mind of Hotep. Here was a duty, plain before him, and his dearest friend to counsel. His must be tender wisdom and persuasive authority. Not a drop of the scribe's blood was democratic. He could not understand love between different ranks of society, and, as a result, doubted if it could exist. Kenkenes must be awakened while it was time. "Do thou hear me, O my Kenkenes," he said after some silence. "If I overstep the liberty of a friend, remind me, but remember thou--whatsoever I shall say will be said through love for thee, not to chide thee. No man shapeth his career for himself alone, nor does death end his deeds. He continues to act through his children and his children's children to the unlimited extent of time. Seest thou not, O Kenkenes, that the ancestor is terribly responsible? What more heavy punishment could be meted to the original sinner, than to set him in eternal contemplation of the hideous fruitfulness of his initial sin! "I have said sin, because sin, only, is offense in the eyes of the gods. But sin and error are one in the unpardoning eye of nature. Thus, if thou dost err, though in all innocence, though the gods absolve thee, thou wilt reap the bitter harvest of thy misguided sowing, one day--thou or thy children after thee. The doom is spoken, and however tardy, must fall--and the offense is never expiated. There is nothing more relentless than consequence. "If thou weddest unwisely thou dost double thy children's portion of difficulty, since thou art unwise and their mother unfit. If, perchance, thy only error lay in thy choice of wife, the result is still the same. Let her be most worthy, and yet she may be most unfitting. She must fit thy needs as the joint fits the socket. Virtue is essential, but it is not sufficient. Beauty is good--I should say needful, but certainly it is not all. Love is indispensable and yet not enough." "I should say that these three things are enough," put in Kenkenes. "They would gain entrance into the place of the blest--the bosom of Osiris--but they are not sufficient for the over-nice nobility of Egypt," the scribe averred promptly. "Thou must live in the world and the world would pass judgment on thy wife. If thou art a true husband, thou wouldst defend her, and be wroth. Yet, canst thou be happy being wroth and at odds with the world?" Kenkenes slipped from under the affectionate arm and busied himself with the statue, marking with a sliver of limestone where his chisel must smooth away a flaw. But the voice of the scribe went on steadily. "The nobility of Egypt will not accept an unbeliever and an Israelite. That monarch who favored the son of Abraham, Joseph, is dead. The tolerant spirit died with him. Another sentiment hath grown up and the loveliest Hebrew could not overthrow it. Henceforward, there is eternal enmity between Egypt and Israel." The sliver of stone dropped from the fingers of the artist and his eyes wandered away, dreamy with thought. He remembered the story of the wrong of Rachel's house, and it came home to him with overwhelming force that the feud between Egypt and Israel was the barrier between him and his love. He was punished for a crime his country had committed. "Oh!" he exclaimed to himself. "Am I not surely suffering for the sins of my fathers? How cruelly sound thy reasoning is, O thou placid Hotep!" The scribe saw that as the sculptor stood, the pleading hands of Athor all but touched his shoulders. Hotep went to him and turned him away from the statue. He knew he could not win his friend with the beauty of that waiting face appealing to him. "Thus far thou hast borne with me, Kenkenes--and having grown bold thereby, I would go further. Return with me to Memphis and come hither no more. She will soon be comforted, if she is not already betrothed. Egypt needs thee--the Hathors have bespoken good fortune for thee--and thou art justified in aspiring to nothing less than the hand of a princess. Come back to Memphis and let her heal thee with her congruous love." "Nay, my Hotep, what a waste of words! I will go back to Memphis with thee, not for thy reasoning, but for mine own--nay, hers." "Hast thou--did the Israelite--" the scribe began in amazement, and paused, ashamed of his unbecoming curiosity. "Aye; and let us speak of it no more. Thou hast my story, my confidence and my love. Keep the first and the rest shall be thine for ever." "And this?" questioned Hotep, nodding toward the statue, though he resolutely kept the face of Kenkenes turned from it. "Let it be," Kenkenes replied. Hotep hesitated, dissatisfied, but feared to insist on its destruction, so he went arm in arm with his friend down to the river, without a word of protest. "I will at him again when he is better," he told himself, "and we will bury the exquisite sacrilege." There was an animated group of Hebrew children at the Nile drawing water, and among them was a golden-haired maiden. Hotep had but to glance at her to know that he looked on the glorious model of the pale divinity on the hill above. At the sound of their approach through the grain, she looked up. As she caught sight of Kenkenes, she started and flushed quickly and as quickly the color fled. Since she was near the boat, Kenkenes stood close beside her for a moment while he pushed the bari into the water. "Gods! What a noble pair!" Hotep ejaculated under his breath. But he saw Kenkenes bend near the Israelite, as if to make his final plea; a spasm of anguish contracted her white face, and she turned her head away. The incident, so eloquent to Rachel and Kenkenes, had been so swift and subtile in its enactment, that only the quick eye of Hotep detected it. Again he called on the gods in exclamation: "She is saner than he!" On the way back to Memphis he maintained a thoughtful silence. Since he had seen Rachel, he began to understand the love of Kenkenes for her. CHAPTER XVII THE SON OF THE MURKET March and April had passed and now it was the first of May. Five days before, the ceremony of installation had been held for the murket and the cup-bearer and for four days thereafter the new officers passed through initiatory formalities. But on the fifth day the rites of investiture had been brought to an end, and Mentu and Nechutes entered on the routine of service. To Mentu fell the dignified congratulations of his own world of sedate old nobles and stately women. But Nechutes was younger and well beloved by youthful Memphis, so on the night of the fifth day, the house of Senci was aglow and in her banquet-room there was much young revel in his honor. Aromatic torches flaring in sconces lighted the friezes of lotus, the painted paneling on the walls, and the clustered pillars that upheld the ceiling of the chamber. The tables had been removed; the musicians and tumblers common to such occasions were not present, for the rout was small and sufficient unto itself for entertainment. Gathered about a central figure, which must needs be the one of highest rank--and in this instance it was the crown prince--were the young guests. They were noblemen and gentlewomen of Memphis, freed for an evening from the restraint of pretentious affairs and spared the awesome repression of potentates and monitors. Hotep was host and these were his guests. First, there was Rameses, languid, cynical, sumptuous, and enthroned in a capacious fauteuil, significantly upholstered in purple and gold. Close beside him and similarly enthroned was Ta-user. She wore a double robe of transparent linen, very fine and clinging in its texture. The over-dress was simply a white gauze, striped with narrow lines of green and gold. From the fillet of royalty about her forehead, an emerald depended between her eyes. Her zone was a broad braid of golden cords, girdling her beneath the breast, encompassing her again about the hips, and fastened at last in front by a diamond-shaped buckle of clustered emeralds. Her sandals were mere jeweled straps of white gazelle-hide, passing under the heel and ball of the foot. She was as daringly dressed as a lissome dancing-girl. On a taboret at her right was Seti, the little prince. Although he was nearly sixteen he looked to be of even tenderer years. In him, the charms of the Egyptian countenance had been so emphasized, and its defects so reduced, that his boyish beauty was unequaled among his countrymen. At his feet was Io, playing at dice with Ta-meri and Nechutes. Ta-meri was more than usually brilliant, and Nechutes, flushed with her favor, was playing splendidly and rejoicing beyond reason over his gains. Opposite this group was another, the center of which was Masanath. She sat in the richest seat in the house of Senci. It was ivory tricked with gold; but small and young as the fan-bearer's daughter was, there was none in that assembly who might queen it as royally as she from its imperial depths. By her side was the boon companion of Rameses. He was Menes, surnamed "the Bland," captain of the royal guard, a most amiable soldier and chiefly remarkable because, of all the prince's world, he was the only one that could tell the truth to Rameses and tell it without offense. On the floor between Masanath and Menes was the son of Amon-meses, the Prince Siptah. He was a typical Oriental, bronze in hue, lean of frame, brilliant of eye, white of teeth, intense in temperament and fierce in his loves and hates. Religion comforted him through his appetites; in his sight craft was a virtue, intrigue was politics, and love was a fury. His eyes never left Ta-user for long, and his every word seemed to be inspired by some overweening emotion. Aside from these there were others in the group. Some were sons and daughters of royalty, cousins of the Pharaoh's sons and of Ta-user and Siptah; many were children of the king's ministers, and all were noble. Senci and Hotep's older sister, the Lady Bettis, a dark-eyed matron of thirty, presided in duenna-like guardianship over the rout. They sat in a diphros apart from the young revelers. Kenkenes was momently expected. For the past two months he had been seen every evening wherever there was high-class revel in Memphis. But he had laughed perfunctorily and lapsed into preoccupation when none spoke to him, and his song had a sorry note in it, however happy the theme. But these were things apparent only to those that saw deeper than the surface. "Where is Kenkenes?" Menes demanded. "Hath he forsworn us?" "I saw him to-day," Nechutes ventured, without raising his eyes from the game, "when we were fowling on the Nile below the city. He was alone, pulling down-stream, just this side of Masaarah." Hotep frowned and gave over any hope that Kenkenes would join the merrymaking that night. But at that moment, Ta-meri, who sat facing the entrance to the chamber, poised the dice-box in air and drew in a long breath. The guests followed her eyes. Kenkenes stood in the doorway, the curtain thrust aside and above him. His voluminous festal robes were deeply edged with gold, but his arms, bare to the shoulder, and his strong brown neck were without their usual trappings of jewels. The omission seemed intentional, as if the young man had meant to contrast the ornament of young strength and grace with the glitter and magnificence of the other guests. He had succeeded well. Perhaps to most of those present, the young man's presence was not unusual, but Hotep was not blind to a manifest alteration in his manner. There was cynicism in the corners of his mouth, and a hint of hurt or temper was evident in the tension of his nostril and the brilliance of his eyes. Hotep had no need of seers and astrologers, for his perception served him in all tangible things. He knew something untoward had set Kenkenes to thinking about himself, and guessing where the young artist had gone that evening, he surmised further how he had been received. And though he was sorry in his heart for his friend's unhappiness, he confessed his admiration for Rachel. "Late," cried Hotep, rising. "Thy pardon, Hotep," Kenkenes replied, advancing into the chamber, "I had an errand of much importance to Masaarah and it was fruitless. It shall trouble me no more." Hotep lifted his brows, as though he exclaimed to himself, and made no answer. Kenkenes greeted the guests with a wave of his hand and did obeisance before Rameses. "Thou speakest of Masaarah, my Kenkenes," the crown prince commented after the salutation, "and it suggests an inquiry I would make of thee. Dost thou go on as sculptor, or wilt thou follow thy father into the art of building?" "Since the Pharaoh chose for my father, he shall choose for me also." "Nay, the Pharaoh did not choose," Rameses objected dryly. "It was I." "Of a truth? Then thou shalt choose for me, O my generous Prince." "Follow thy father. I would have thee for my murket. Nay, it is ever so. I mold the Pharaoh and he gets the credit." "And thou, the blame, when blame accrues from the molding," Menes put in very distinctly, though under his breath. "But be thou of cheer, O Son of the Sun," Kenkenes added. "When thou art Pharaoh, thou canst retaliate upon thine own heir, in the same fashion." "Thou givest him tardy comfort, O Son of Mentu," Siptah commented with an unpleasant laugh. "He will lose all recollection of the grudge, waiting so long." Rameses turned his heavy eyes toward the speaker, but Kenkenes halted any remark the prince might have made. "Nay, let it pass," he said placidly, dropping into a chair. "All this savors too much of the future and is out of place in the happy improvidence of the present." "Let it all pass?" Ta-user asked. "Nay, I would hold the prince to the promise he made a moment agone, when the choosing of the new murket comes round again." "Do thou so, for me, then, when that time comes," Kenkenes interrupted. Ta-user laughed very softly and delivered the young artist a level look of understanding from her topaz eyes. "I fear thou art indeed improvident," she continued, "if thou leavest thy future to others." "Then all the world is improvident, since it belongeth to others to shape every man's future. But Hotep, the lawgiver, denies this thing. He holds that every man builds for himself." "Right, Hotep!" Rameses exclaimed. "It was such belief that made a world-conqueror of my grandsire." "Nay, thy pardon, O my Prince. Hotep's counsel will not always hold," Kenkenes objected. "Give me to know wherein it faileth," the prince demanded. "Alas! in a thousand things. In truth a man even draws his breath by the leave of others." "By the puny god, Harpocrates!" the prince cried, scoffing. "That is the weakest avowal I have heard in a moon!" Kenkenes flushed, and Rameses, recovering from his amusement, pressed his advantage. "Let me give thee a bit of counsel from mine own store that thou mayest look with braver eyes on life. Take the world by the throat and it will do thy will." "Again I dispute thee, O Rameses." "Name thy witness," the prince insisted. Kenkenes leaned on his elbow toward him. "Canst thou force a woman to love thee?" he asked simply. Ta-user glanced at the prince and the sleepy black eyes of the heir narrowed. "Let us get back to the issue," he said. "We spoke of others shaping the future of men. You may not force a woman to love you, but no love or lack of love of a woman should misshape the destiny of any man." "That is a matter of difference in temperament, my Prince," Ta-user put in. "It may be, but it is the expression of mine own ideas," he answered roughly. The lashes of the princess were smitten down immediately and Siptah's canine teeth glittered for a moment, one set upon the other. Kenkenes patted his sandal impatiently and looked another way. His gaze fell on Io. She had lost interest in the game. The color had receded from her cheeks and now and again her lips trembled. Kenkenes looked and saw that Seti's eyes were adoring Ta-user, who smiled at him. With a sudden rush of heat through his veins, the young artist turned again to Io, and watched till he caught her eye. With a look he invited her to come to him. She laid down the dice, during the momentary abstraction of her playing-mates, and murmuring that she was tired, came and sat at the feet of her champion. "Wherefore dost thou retreat, Io?" Ta-user asked. "Art vanquished?" "At one game, aye!" the girl replied vehemently. Kenkenes laid his hand on her head and said to her very softly: "If only our pride were spared, sweet Io, defeat were not so hard." The girl lifted her face to him with some questioning in her eyes. "Knowest thou aught of this game, in truth?" she asked. He smiled and evaded. "I have not been fairly taught." Ta-meri gathered up the stakes and Nechutes, collecting the dice, went to find her a seat. But while he was gone, she wandered over to Kenkenes and leaned on the back of his chair. "Let me give thee a truth that seemeth to deny itself in the expression," Io said, turning so that she faced the young artist. "Say on," he replied, bending over her. "The more indifferent the teacher in this game of love, the sooner you learn," said Io. Kenkenes took the tiny hand extended toward him in emphasis and kissed it. "Sorry truth!" he said tenderly. As he leaned back in his chair he became conscious of Ta-meri's presence and turned his head toward her. Her face was so near to him that he felt the glow from her warm cheek. His gaze met hers and, for a moment, dwelt. All the attraction of her gorgeous habiliments, her warm assurance and her inceptive tenderness detached themselves from the general fusion and became distinct. Her beauty, her fervor, her audacity, were not unusually pronounced on this occasion, but the spell for Kenkenes was broken and the inner working's were open to him. Different indeed was the picture that rose before his mind--a picture of a fair face, wondrously and spiritually beautiful; of the quick blush and sweet dignity and unapproachable womanhood. His eyes fell and for a moment his lids were unsteady, but the color surged back into his cheeks and his lips tightened. He took Io's hands, which were clasped across his knee, and rising, gave the chair to Ta-meri. He found a taboret for himself, and as he put it down at her feet, he saw Nechutes fling himself into a chair and scowl blackly at the nomarch's daughter. Kenkenes sighed and interested himself in the babble that went on about him. The first word he distinguished was the name of Har-hat, pronounced in clear tones. Menes, who sat next to Kenkenes, put out his foot and trod on the speaker's toes. The man was Siptah. "Choke before thou utterest that name again," the captain said in a whisper, "else thou wilt have Rameses abusing Har-hat before his daughter." "What matters it to me, his temper or her hurt?" Siptah snarled. "Churl!" responded Menes, amiably. "What is amiss between the heir and the fan-bearer?" Kenkenes asked. "Everything! Rameses fairly suffocates in the presence of the new adviser. The Pharaoh is sadly torn between the twain. He worships Rameses and, body of Osiris! how he loves Har-hat! But sometime the council chamber with the trio therein will fall--the walls outward, the roof, up--mark me!" Again, clear and with offensive emphasis, Siptah's voice was heard disputing, in the general babble. "Magnify the cowardice of the Rebu if you will, but it was Har-hat who made them afraid," he was saying. The slow eyes of Rameses turned in the direction of the tacit challenge. Menes' black brows knitted at Siptah, but Kenkenes came to the rescue. A lyre, the inevitable instrument of ancient revels, was near him and he caught it up, sweeping his fingers strongly across the strings. A momentary silence fell, broken at once by the applause of the peace-loving, who cried, "Sing for us, Kenkenes!" He shook his head, smiling. "I did but test the harmony of the strings; harmony is grateful to mine ear." Menes' lips twitched. "If harmony is here," he said with meaning, "you will find it in the instrument." Again, a voice from the general conversation broke in--this time from Rameses. "Kenkenes hath outlasted an army of other singers. I knew him as such when mine uncles yet lived and my father was many moves from the throne. It was while we dwelt unroyally here in Memphis. They made thee sing in the temple, Kenkenes. Dost thou remember?" "Aye," Ta-user took it up. "They made thee sing in the temple and it went sore against thee, Kenkenes. Most of the upper classes in the college here were hoarse or treble by turns, and the priests required thee by force from thy tutors because thou couldst sing. Thou wast a stubborn lad, as pretty as a mimosa and as surly as a caged lion. I can see thee now chanting, with a voice like a lark, and frowning like a very demon from Amenti!" The princess laughed musically at her own narration and received the applause of the others with a serene countenance. She had repaid Kenkenes for his implied championship of her cause earlier in the evening. "Art still as reluctant, Kenkenes?" the Lady Senci called to him. Kenkenes looked at the lyre and did not answer at once. There was no song in his heart and a moody silence seemed more like to possess his lips. His audience, too, was not in the temper for song. He took in the expression of the guests with a single comprehensive glance. Siptah's hands were clenched and his face was blackened with a frown. Ta-user's silken brows were lifted, and even the pallid countenance of the prince was set and his eyes were fixed on nothing. Seti was entangled by the princess' witchery and he saw no one else. Io, blanched and miserable, forgotten by Seti, forgot all others. In his heart Kenkenes knew that Nechutes was unhappy and Hotep and Masanath; and even if there were those in the banquet-room who had no overweening sorrow, the evident discontent of the troubled oppressed them. Far from finding inspiration for song in the faces of the guests, Kenkenes felt an impulse to rush out of the atmosphere of unrest and unhappiness into the solitary night, where no intrusion of another's sorrow could dispute the great triumph of his own grief. The bitter soul in him longed to laugh at the idea of singing. The hesitation between Senci's invitation and his answer was not noticeable. He put the instrument out of his reach, tossing it on a cushion a little distance away. "Not so reluctant," he said, turning his face toward the lady, "as unready. I have exhausted my trove of songs for this self-same company,--wherefore they will not listen to reiteration, which is ever insipid." Senci wisely accepted his excuse, and pressed him no further. One or two of the more observant members of the company looked at him, with comprehension in their eyes. Seldom, indeed, had Kenkenes refused to sing, and his reluctance corroborated their suspicions that all was not well with the young artist. The irrepressible Menes observed to Io in one of his characteristic undertones, but so that all the company heard it: "What makes us surly to-night? Look at Kenkenes; I think he is in love! What aileth thee, sweet Io? Hast lost much to that gambling pair--Ta-meri and Nechutes? And behold thy fellows! What a sulky lot! I am the most cheerful spirit among us." "Boast not," she responded; "it is not a virtue in you. You would be blithe in Amenti, for one can not get mournful music out of a timbrel." The soldier's eyes opened, and he caught at her, but she eluded him and growled prettily under her breath. "Come, Bast," he cried, making after her. "Kit, kit, kit!" She sprang away with a little shriek and Kenkenes, throwing out his arm, caught her and drew her close. "Menes is malevolent--" he began. "Aye, malevolent as Mesu!" she panted. "What!" the soldier cried. "Has the Hebrew sorcerer already become a bugbear to the children?" "If he become not a bugbear to all Egypt, we may thank the gods," Siptah put in. Rameses laughed scornfully, but Ta-user and Seti spoke simultaneously: "Siptah speaks truly." "Yea, Menes," the heir scoffed; "he hath already become a bugbear to the infants. Hear them confess it?" Siptah buried his clenched hand in a cushion on the floor near him. "O thou paternal Prince," he said, "repeat us a prayer of exorcism as a father should, and rid us of our fears." "And pursuant of the custom bewailed an hour agone, we shall return thanks to the Pharaoh, for the things thou dost achieve, O our Rameses," Menes added. "If there are any prayers said," the prince replied, "the Hebrews will say them. Mine exorcism will be harsher than formulas." The rest of the company ceased their undertone and listened. "Wilt thou tell us again what thou hast said, O Prince?" Kenkenes asked. "Mine exorcism of the Hebrew sorcerer, Mesu, will be harsher than formulas. I shall not beseech the Israelites and it will avail them naught to beseech me." "Thou art ominous, Light of Egypt," Kenkenes commented quietly. "Wilt thou open thy heart further and give us thy meaning?" "Hast lived out of the world, O Son of Mentu? The exorcism will begin ere long. In this I give thee the history of Israel for the next few years and close it. I shall not fall heir to the Hebrews when I come to wear the crown of Egypt." "Are they to be sent forth?" Kenkenes asked in a low tone. Rameses laughed shortly. "Thou art not versed in the innuendoes of court-talk, my Kenkenes. Nay, they die in Egypt and fertilize the soil." "It will raise a Set-given uproar, Rameses," Menes broke in with meek conviction; "and as thou hast said--to the king, the credit--to his advisers, the blame." "Nay; the process is longer and more natural," the prince replied carelessly. "It is but the same method of the mines. Who can call death by hard labor, murder?" The full brutality of the prince's meaning struck home. Kenkenes gripped the arm of Ta-meri's chair with such power that the sinews stood up rigid and white above the back of the brown hand. Luckily, all of the guests were contemplating Rameses with more or less horror. They did not see the color recede from the young artist's face or his eyes ignite dangerously. Masanath sat up very straight and leveled a pair of eyes shining with accusation at the prince. "Of a truth, was thine the fiat?" she demanded. "Even so, thou lovely magistrate," he answered with an amused smile. "Was it not a masterful one?" Hotep delivered her a warning glance, but she did not heed it. Austere Ma, the Defender of Truth, could have been as easily crushed. "Masterful!" she cried. "Nay! Menes, lend me thy word. Of all Set-given, pitiless, atrocious edicts, that is the cruelest! Shame on thee!" At her first words, Rameses raised himself from his attitude of languor into an upright and intensely alert position. The company ceased to breathe, but Kenkenes heaved a soundless sigh of relief. Masanath had uttered his denunciations for him. Meanwhile the prince's eyes began to sparkle, a rich stain grew in his cheeks and when she made an end he was the picture of animated delight. For the first time in his life he had been defied and condemned. But his gaze did not disturb Masanath. Her eyes dared him to resent her censure. The prince had no such purpose in mind. "O by Besa! here is what I have sought for so long," he exclaimed, at last. "Hither! thou treasure, thou dear, defiant little shrew! Thou art more to me than all the wealth of Pithom. Hither, I tell thee!" But she did not move. The company was breathing with considerable relief by this time, but not a few of them were casting furtive glances at Ta-user. "Hither!" Rameses commanded, stamping his foot. "Nay, I had forgot she defies my power. Behold, then, I come to thee." Masanath anticipated his intent, and rising with much dignity, she put the ivory throne between her and the prince. Cool and self-possessed she gathered up her lotuses, as fresh after an evening in her hand as they were when the slaves gathered them from the Nile; found her fan and made other serene preparations to depart. Rameses, fended from her by the chair, stood before her and watched with a smile in his eyes. Presently he waved his hand to the other guests. "Arise; the princess is going," he commanded. In the stir and rustle, laughter and talk of the guests, getting up at the prince's sign--for it was customary to permit the highest of rank to dismiss a company--Masanath slipped from among them and attempted to leave unnoticed. But Rameses was before her and had taken possession of her hand before she could elude him. As Kenkenes passed them on his way to the door her soft shoulders were squared; she had drawn herself as far away from the prince as she might and was otherwise evincing her discomfort extravagantly. Before them was Hotep, outwardly undisturbed, smiling and complacent. At one side was Ta-user, at the other Seti, and Io hung on Hotep's arm. The young artist walked past them hurriedly, moved to leave all the ferment and agitation behind him. If he had thought to forget his sorrows among the light-hearted revel of those that did not sorrow, he misdirected his search. At the doors the Lady Senci met him and drew him over to the diphros, now vacated by Bettis. And there she took his face between her hands and kissed him. "Hail! thou son of the murket!" she said. "Having much, I am given more," he responded. "Behold the prodigality of good fortune. The Hathors exalt me in the world and add thereto a kiss from the Lady Senci." "I was impelled truly," she confessed, "but by thine own face as well as by the Hathors. Kenkenes, if I did not know thee, I should say thou wast pretending--thou, to whom pretense is impossible." He did not answer, for there was no desire in his heart to tell his secret; his experience with Hotep had warned him. Yet the unusual winsomeness of his father's noble love was hard to resist. "Thy manner this evening betrays thee as striving to hide one spirit and show another," she continued, seeing he made no response. "Thou hast said," he admitted at last; "and I have not succeeded. That is a sorry incapacity, for the world has small patience with a man who can not make his face lie." "Bitter! Thou!" she chid. "Have I not spoken truly?" he persisted. "Aye, but why rebel? No man but hides a secret sorrow, and this would be a tearful world did every one weep when he felt like it." "But I am most overwhelmingly constrained to weep, so I shall stay out of the world and vex it not." She looked at him with startled eyes. "Art thou so troubled, then?" she asked in a lowered tone. "Doubly troubled--and hopelessly," he replied, his eyes away from her. She came nearer and, putting up her hands, laid them on his shoulders. "You are so young, Kenkenes---so young, and youth is like to make much of the little first sorrows. Furthermore, these are troublous days. Saw you not the temper of the assembly to-night? Egypt is a-quiver with irritation. Every little ripple in the smooth current of life seems magnified--each man seeketh provocation to vent his causeless exasperation. And when such ferment worketh in the gathering of the young, it is portentous. It bodeth evil! You are but caught in the fever, my Kenkenes, and your little vexations are inflamed until they hurt, of a truth. Get to your rest, and to-morrow her smile will be more propitious." Kenkenes looked at the uplifted face and noted the laugh in the eyes. "What a tattling face is mine," he said, "Is her name written there also?" He drew his fingers across his forehead. "No need; I have been young and many are the young that have wooed and wed beneath mine eyes. I know the signs." She nodded sagely and continued after a little pause: "I shall not pry further into your sorrow, Kenkenes; but you are good and handsome, and winsome, and wealthy, and young, and it is a stony heart that could hold out long against you. I would wager my mummy that the maiden is this instant well-nigh ready to cast herself at your feet, save that your very excellence deters her. Go, now, and let your dreams be sweeter than these last waking hours have been." Again she kissed him and let him go. In the corridor without, he received his mantle and kerchief from a servant and continued toward the outer portals. But before he reached them, Ta-meri stepped out of a cross-corridor and halted. Never before did her eyes so shine or her smile so flash within the cloud of gauzes that mantled and covered her. Kenkenes wondered for a moment if he must explain the change in his countenance to her also. But the beauty had herself in mind at that moment. "Kenkenes, thou hast given me no opportunity to wish thee well, as the son of the murket." "Ah, but in this nook thy good wishes will be none the less sincere nor my delight any less apparent." "Most heartily I give thee joy!" Kenkenes kissed her hand. "And wilt thou say that to Nechutes and put him in the highest heaven?" "Already have I wished him well," she responded, pretending to pout, "but he repaid me poorly." "Nay! What did he?" "Begged me to become his wife." "And having given him the span, thou didst yield him the cubit also when he asked it?" he surmised. "Nay, not yet. But--shall I?" she lifted her face and looked at him, smiling and bewitchingly beautiful. Her eyes dared him; her lips invited him; all her charms rose up and besought him. For a moment, Kenkenes was startled. If he had believed that Ta-meri loved him never so slightly, his sensations would have been most distressing. But he knew and was glad to know that he awakened nothing deeper than a superficial partiality, which lasted only as long as he was in her sight to please her eye. In spite of his consternation, he could think intelligently enough to surmise what had inspired her words. The Lady Senci had guessed the nature of his trouble; even Menes had hinted a suspicion of the truth in a bantering way. What would prevent the beauty from seeing it also and preempting to herself the honors of his disheartenment? But he was in no mood for a coquettish tilt with her. His sober face was not more serious than his tone when he made answer: "Do not play with him, Ta-meri. He is worthy and loves thee most tenderly. Thou lovest him. Be kind to thine own heart and put him to the rack no more. Thou art sure of him and I doubt not it pleases thee to tantalize thyself a little while; but Nechutes, who must endure the lover's doubts, is suffering cruelly. Thou art a good child, Ta-meri; how canst thou hurt him so?" He paused, for her eyes, growing remorseful, had wandered away from him. He knew he had reasoned well. The guests in the banquet-room began to emerge, talking and laughing. The voice of Nechutes was not heard among them. Kenkenes glanced toward the group and saw the cup-bearer a trifle in advance, his sullen face averted. "He comes yonder," Kenkenes added in a whisper, "poor, moody boy! Go back to him and take him all the happiness I would to the gods I knew. Farewell." He pressed her hand and continued toward the door. Once again he was hailed, this time by Rameses. He halted, stifling a groan, and returned to the prince. Nechutes and Ta-meri had disappeared. "One other thing, I would tell thee, Kenkenes," the prince said, "and then thou mayest go. The Pharaoh heard a song to the sunrise on the Nile some time ago and I identified the voice for him. He would have thee sing for him, Kenkenes." "The Pharaoh's wish is law," was the slow answer. "Oh, it was not a command," Rameses replied affably, for he was still holding Masanath's hand and therefore in high good humor with himself. "In truth he said the choice should be thine whether thou wilt or not. He would not insist that a nobleman become his minstrel. But more of this later; the gods go with thee." Kenkenes bowed and escaped. In his room a few moments later, he lighted his lamp of scented oils and contemplated the comforts about him. His conscience pointed a condemning finger at him. Here was luxury to the point of uselessness for himself; across the Nile was the desolate quarry-camp for his love. In Memphis he had robed himself in fine linen and reveled, had eaten with princes and slept sumptuously--in his strength and his manhood and unearned idleness. And she, but a tender girl, had toiled for the quarry-workers and fasted and now faced death in the hideous extermination purposed for her race. He ground his teeth and prayed for the dawn. He forgot that he had come away from the Arabian hills because she repelled him; he remembered his scruples concerning their social inequality, only to revile himself; Hotep's caution was more than ever a waste of words to him. He forgot everything except that he was here in comfort, she, there in want and in peril, and he had not rescued her. He did not sleep. He tossed and counted the hours. "Sing for the Pharaoh!" he exclaimed, "aye, I will sing till the throat of me cracks--not for the reward of his good will alone, but for Rachel's liberty. That first, and the unraveling of this puzzle thereafter." CHAPTER XVIII AT MASAARAH Since the day Kenkenes had wounded her hand with the knife, Rachel had seen him but twice in many weeks. One mid-morning, the oxen were unyoked from the water-cart and led ambling up to the pit where a monolith, too huge to be moved by men alone, had been taken forth and was to be transferred to the Nile. The bearers carried water directly from the river during this time, and it was given Rachel to govern them in the departure from the routine. Suddenly she became aware that some one approached through the grain, and when she raised her head, she looked up into the face of Kenkenes. It was Kenkenes, indeed, but Kenkenes in robes of rustling linen and trappings of gold. Never had she seen so stately an Egyptian, nor any so entitled to the name of nobleman. In quick succession she experienced the moving sensations of surprise, pride in him, and depression. The last fell on her with the instant recollection of duty, when his face bent appealingly over hers. Trembling, she turned away from him, and when she looked again, he was returning to Memphis. Now, her days had ceased to be the dreamy lapses of time in which she lived and walked. The glamour that had made the quarries sufferable had passed; all the realization of her enslavement, with the accompanying shame, came to her, and her hope for Israel was lost in the destruction of her personal happiness. Still, the longing to look on Kenkenes once again made the dawns more welcome, the days longer and the sunsets more disheartening. Vainly she summoned pride to her aid; vainly she exhorted herself to consistency. "How long," she would say, "since thou didst reject the good Atsu because he is an idolater and an Egyptian? How long since thou wast full of wrath against the chosen people who wedded Egyptians and became of them? And now, who is it that is full of sighs and strange conduct? Who is it that hath forgotten the idols and the abominations and the bondage of her people and mourneth after one of the oppressors? And how will it be with thee when the chosen people go forth, or the carving is complete and the Egyptian cometh no more; or how will it be when he taketh one of the long-eyed maidens of his kind to wife?" In the face of all this, her intuition rose up and bore witness that the Egyptian loved her, and was no less unhappy than she. So time came and went and weeks passed and he came not again. Late, one sunset, while there yet was daylight, she left the camp merely that she might wander down the valley to the same spot where, at the same hour, she had met Kenkenes on that last occasion of talk between them. Moving slowly down the shadows, she saw a figure approaching. The stature of the new-comer identified him. The head was up, the step slow, the bearing expectant. In the one scant lapse between two throbs of her heart, Rachel knew her lover, remembered all the power of his attraction, and realized that her joy and love could carry her beyond her fortitude and resolution. Just ahead of her, not farther than three paces, a long fragment of rock had fallen from above and leaned against the wall. There was an ample space formed by its slant against the cliff and almost before she knew it, she had crept into this crevice. Cowering in the dusk, she clutched at her loud-beating heart and listened intently. There was no sound of his steps on the rough roadway of the valley and though she watched eagerly from her hiding-place, she did not see him pass. After a long time she emerged. He was gone. When she looked in the dust she found that his footprints turned not far from her hiding-place and led toward the Nile. She knew then that he had seen her when she had caught sight of him, and failing to meet her as he had expected, had guessed she had hidden from him. This was the sunset of the night of the revel at Senci's house. It was this incident that had made Kenkenes late at the festivities, and cynical when he came. On her way back to the camp Rachel met Atsu, mounted and attended by a scribe, the taskmaster's secretary. The two officials were on their way to Memphis to worship in the great temple and to spend a night among free-born men. Once every month, no oftener, did Atsu return to his own rank in the city. Recognizing Rachel, he drew up his horse; the scribe rode on. "Hast been in search of the Nile wind, Rachel? The valley holds the day-heat like an oven," he said. "Nay, I did not go so far. The darkness came too quickly." "Endure it a while. I shall move the people into the large valley where they may have the north breeze and the water-smell after sunset, now that the summer is near. I am glad I met thee. Deborah tells me the water for the camp-cooking is turbid, and I doubt not the children draw it from some point below the wharf where the drawing for the quarry-supply stirs up the ooze. Do thou go with the children in the morning when they are sent for the camp supply, and get it above the wharf." "I hear," she answered. "The gods attend thee," he said, riding away. "Be thy visit pleasant," she responded, and turned again up the valley. The taskmaster was forgotten at her second step, and her contrition and humiliation came back with a rush. There was little sleep for her that night, so heavy was her heart. The next morning Rachel obeyed Atsu and followed the children to the Nile. Crossing the field, absorbed in her trouble, she did not hear the beat of hoofs or the grind of wheels until she was face to face with the attendants of a company of charioteers. The troop of water-carriers had scattered out of the road-way and each little bronzed Israelite was bending with his right hand upon his left knee in token of profound respect. Rachel hastily joined them. When she looked again the retinue of servants had passed. After them came a gilded chariot with a sumptuous Egyptian within. By the annulets over his temples and the fringed ribbons pendent therefrom, the Israelite knew him to be royal. Behind, a second chariot was driven by a single occupant, who wore the badges of princehood also. The third was a chariot of ebony drawn by two prancing coal-black horses whose leathers and housings shone and jingled. Rachel's eyes met those of the driver and the life-current froze in her veins. Har-hat, fan-bearer to the Pharaoh, late governor of Bubastis, drew up his horses and calmly surveyed her. The action halted the chariots of a dozen courtiers following him. One by one they came to a stand-still and each man peered around his predecessor until the fan-bearer became conscious of the pawing horses behind him. He drove out of line and alighted. With an apologetic wave of his hand, he motioned the procession to proceed and busied himself with the harness as if he had found a breakage. Those that had passed were by this time some distance ahead and, missing the grind of wheels in their wake, looked back. The fan-bearer beckoned to one of the attendants who had gone before, and the man returned. Meanwhile the procession moved on and the nobles glanced first at the fan-bearer, and next, at the Israelite. But Athor in the niche on the hillside was not more white and stony than its living model in the valley. There was no retreat. The fan-bearer stood between her and the Nile, his servant between her and the quarries. She felt the sickening numbness that stupefies one who realizes a terrible strait, from which there is neither succor nor escape. The procession passed and the servant, halting, bowed to his master. He was short and fat, thick of neck and long of arm--a most unusual Egyptian. Har-hat tossed him the reins and, walking around his horses, approached Rachel. The smallest Hebrew--too small to be awed and yet old enough to realize that the beloved Rachel was in danger, dropped the hide he bore, and flinging himself before her, clasped her with his arms, and turned a defiant face at Har-hat over his shoulder. The fan-bearer paused. "It is the very same," he said laughingly. "The hard life of the quarries hath not robbed thee in the least of thy radiance. But by the gambling god, Toth, thou didst take a risk! Dost dream what thou didst miss through a malevolent caprice of the Hathors? Five months ago I would have taken thee out of bondage into luxury but for an industrious taskmaster and the unfortunate interference of a royal message. But the Seven Sisters repent, and I find thee again." Rachel had fixed her eyes upon the white walls of Memphis shining in the morning sun, and did not seem to hear him. "Nay, now, slight me not! It was the fault of the taskmaster and not mine. I confess the charm of distant Memphis, but it is more glorious within its walls. I am come to take thee thither. Thank me with but a look, I pray thee." Seeing she did not move nor answer, he tilted his head to one side and surveyed her with interest. "Hath much soft persuasion surfeited thee into deafness?" The color surged up into Rachel's face. "Ha!" he exclaimed, "not so! Perhaps thou art but reluctant, then." He whirled upon the other children, cowering behind him. "Is she wedded?" he demanded. Frightened and trembling, they did not answer till he repeated the question and stamped his foot. Then one of them shook his head. "It is well. I need not delay till a slave-husband were disposed of in the mines. Hither, Unas!" The fat servitor came forward. "I know this taskmaster not, nor can I coax or press him into giving her up without the cursed formality of a document of gift from the Pharaoh. Get thee back to Memphis with this," he drew off a signet ring and gave it to the servitor, "and to the palace. There have my scribe draw up a prayer to the Pharaoh, craving for me the mastership over the Israelite, Rachel,--for household service." The fan-bearer laughed. "Forget not, this latter phrase, else the Pharaoh might fancy I would take her to wife. Haste thee! and bring back Nak and Hebset with thee to row the boat back, and help thee fetch her. She may have a lover who might make trouble for thee alone. Get thee gone." He took the reins from his servitor's hands and turned again toward Rachel. "I go forth to hunt, and there is danger in that pastime. I may not return. It would be most fitting to bid me a tender farewell, but thou art cruel. Nevertheless, I shall care for myself most diligently this day, and return to thee in Memphis by nightfall. Farewell!" He sprang into his chariot and, urging his horses, pursued the far-away procession at a gallop. Unas was already at the Nile-side, preparing to return to Memphis. To Rachel it seemed as if she had been set free for a moment, that her efforts to escape and her inevitable capture might amuse her tormentor. And after the manner of the miserable captive so beset, she seized upon the momentary release and sought to fly. The three little Hebrews clung to her--the one that had answered Har-hat weeping bitterly and remorsefully. "Nay, weep not," she said in a hurried whisper. "It would have ended just the same. Heard ye not what he said concerning a husband? But let me go! Let Rachel hide ere the serving men return!" She undid their arms and ran back toward the quarries. For a moment the children hesitated and then they pursued her, crying in an undertone as they ran. Past the stone-pits, up the winding valley she fled until she reached the encampment and her own tent. The women saw her come and old Deborah, who was preparing vegetables for the noonday meal, left the fires and hastened to the shelter. There, Rachel, choking with terror and tears, gave the story of the morning. Deborah made no interruption and after the disjointed and unhappy recital was complete, she sat for some moments, motionless and silent. Then she arose and made as if to leave the tent, but Rachel caught at her hand in affright. "Nay, be not so frightened," the old woman said soothingly. "I go to look for Atsu. He will come in a little while." With that, she went forth. After a time--more than two hours, in truth, but infinitely longer to Rachel, the voice of the taskmaster was heard without, talking with Deborah. He was permitting no curb to the expression of his rage. "The gods rend his heart to ribbons!" he panted after a tempest of anathema. "Curse the insatiate brute! Is there not enough of Egypt's women who are willingly loose that he must destroy the purest spirit on earth? He shall not have her, if I take his life to save her!" After a moment's savage rumination, he broke out again. "He has us on the hip! We shall be put to it to hide her away from him now. Do thou go to her--nay, I will go." Rachel heard him enter the tent and walk across the matting on the floor. She flung her arm over her face and huddled closer to the linen-covered heap of straw against which she had thrown herself. Even the eyes of the taskmaster were intolerable, in her shame. Atsu plunged into the heart of his subject at once. "There is no escape in the choosing of the tens, now, Rachel. I have said that I would not vex thee again with my love. Once I offered thee marriage as refuge. My love and the shelter of my name are thine to take or leave. I will urge thee no more." He paused for a space and, as she made no answer, he went on as though she had rejected him explicitly. "Then I shall hide thee somewhere in Egypt. The ruse is not secure, but it may serve." She sat up and put the hair back from her face. "Thou good Atsu," she said in a voice subdued with much weeping, "Wilt thou add more to mine already hopeless indebtedness to thee? Art thou blind to the ill-use thou invitest upon thine own head in thy care for me? Let me imperil thee no more. Is there no other way?" He shook his head. Slowly her face fell, and she sighed for very heaviness of spirit. Atsu stooped and took her hand. "Make ready and let us leave this place," he said kindly, "and thou canst decide in the securer precincts of Memphis what thou wilt do. Lose no time." He turned away and, signing to Deborah to follow him, left the tent. Rachel arose and began her preparations to depart. The formidable blockade in the way to safety seemed to clear and her heart leaped at the anticipation of freedom or stopped at the suggestion of failure. She hastened slowly, for her excitement made most of her movements vain. Her hands trembled and held things insecurely; she forgot the place of many of her belongings, in that humble, orderly house. Alternately praying and fearing, she stopped now and then to be sure that the sounds of the camp were not those of the returning servants. The simple apparel gathered together, she collected the remaining mementoes of her family,--saved with so much pain and guarded with such diligence by old Deborah. These were trinkets of gold and ivory, bits of frail gauzes in which a wondrous perfume lingered, and a scroll of sheep-skin bearing the records of the house. And after all these had been found and gathered together, she furtively put the straw aside and drew forth the collar of golden rings. With the first glint of light on the red metal, the hope and animation in her heart went out. What of Kenkenes? No thought came to her now, but the most unhappy. The obligations which she would have gladly laid on him had fallen to Atsu. She dared not confess to him her love, and she could not give him gratitude. He had entered her life like a bewildering radiance, but it was Atsu who had saved her and emancipated her and would save her again. She thrust the collar into her bosom with a sob and went on mechanically with her preparations. But during one of her movements the coins clinked musically. She clutched them, and they rang again, softly. They reproached her, and in that irresistible way,--gently. They made a sound even as she breathed. As she walked they chafed. They took weight and crushed her breast. And with every sound from them, she felt Kenkenes' arm about her, her hand lost in his, the warmth of his young cheek against hers. Never so long as his gift were in her possession might she hope to put these memories from her, and she could not cherish them hopefully now. Desperate grief stirred her into action. She went quickly to the door of the tent and there met Deborah. "This is not mine," she said, holding up the necklace. "It belongs to the young nobleman who brought me back to camp that night." "Leave it with the tribe and it shall be given him." "Nay, he may not return to camp. I know where he comes and I can leave it there. It is not far--only a little way." Deborah stood in her path. "Will he be there?" she demanded. "Nay, that I can pledge thee." She slipped past her guardian, out of the tent and sped up the valley, determined that Deborah's prohibition, however just, should not stay her. The old Israelite turned to look after her, and her eyes fell on Atsu, his face black with rage, his arms folded, talking with a fat, wildly gesticulating servitor. At that moment the courier caught sight of Rachel flying up the valley and, flinging a document at Atsu's feet, started to pursue. Atsu halted him with an iron hand, and Deborah paused to see no more. With a prayer she ran up the valley the way Rachel had taken. CHAPTER XIX IN THE DESERT In the early morning of the next day after the rout at Senci's, Kenkenes wandered restlessly about the inner court of his father's house. He had slept but little the preceding night, and now, dizzy and irritable, the freshness of the morning did not invigorate him and the haunting perplexities were with him still. There was no need of haste to the Arabian hills and yet he could not wait patiently in Memphis for an appropriate hour to visit Masaarah. He paced hither and thither, flung himself on the benches in the shade, only to rise and resume his uneasy walk. Anubis was omnipresent and particularly ungovernable. If his young master were in motion he vibrated and oscillated like a shuttle. If Kenkenes sat, he paced the tessellated pavement slowly and with a foot-fall lighter than a birds. The sculptor eyed him understandingly, and finally arose. "Come, Anubis! Tit, tit, tit!" he called, backing toward the work-room. Anubis bounded after him, but as Kenkenes paused just over the threshold, the ape also halted. His master retreated to the rear of the room still calling, but to the ape there was something portentous familiar in this proceeding. It hinted of imprisonment. Turning as though pursued, he disappeared up an acacia tree from which he could not be dislodged. With a vexed exclamation, Kenkenes passed out of the court into the house, slamming the swinging door so sharply that it sprang open again after him. As the old portress put back the outer doors leading into the street, that her young master might go forth, a shadow quick as thought slipped out after him. The old portress clapped her hands with a shrill command but the shadow was gone. Once more in his work-day dress, his wallet of tools and provisions across his shoulder, the young sculptor passed toward the Nile, moody and unhappy but determined. At the river-side he hired the shallow bari that had given him faithful service for so long, and receiving the oars from Sepet, the boatman, prepared to push away. At that moment, Anubis, tremulous but unrepentant, bounded in beside him. "Anubis!" Kenkenes exclaimed. "Of a truth I believe thou art possessed of the arts of magic. Now, if thou art lost in the hills and devoured by a wolf, upon thine own head be it. Pull in that paw, before thou becomest a foolish sacrifice to the sacred crocodile. I wonder thy self-respect does not keep thee from coming when thou art unwelcome." And subsiding into silence, the sculptor turned toward Masaarah. He made a landing below the stone wharf, for there a two-oared bari was already drawn up, and the tangle of herbage was a safe hiding-place for his own boat. He looked toward the quarry and hesitated. He had no heart yet to face her, who had laid his cruelest sorrow on him. He would continue his work on Athor until he had gathered assurance from that unforbidding face. His light foot made no sound and he entered the niche silently. Kneeling on the chipped stone at the base of the statue, her face against the drapings, her arms clasping its knees, was Rachel. In one hand was the collar of rings. She had not heard the sculptor's approach. For an instant his surprise transfixed him. Had she repented? A great wave of compassion and tenderness swept over him and he drew her face away between his palms. With a terrified start, the girl turned a swift glance upward. When she recognized Kenkenes her tearful face colored vividly. Her posture was such that she could not rise, and with infinite gentleness he lifted her to her feet. "What is it, Rachel? Art thou in trouble?" Joy and maidenly confusion took away her voice. "Alas," he went on sadly. "Am I so fallen from thy favor, shut out and denied thy confidence?" "Nay, nay," she protested. "Think not so harshly of me. I am--I came--" she faltered and paused. He did not help or spare her. He had come to learn why she had done this thing, why she had said that, and why she had repulsed him without explanation, when there was unmistakable preference for him in her unstudied acts. He held his peace and waited for her to proceed. Meanwhile Rachel suffered cruelly. She had no thought in her mind concerning her conduct toward him. It was the shameful event of the morning, which must be told to explain her presence before Athor, that made her cover her crimson face at last. Kenkenes silenced the protests of his gallantry, and drawing her hands away, lifted her face on the tips of his fingers and waited. While they stood thus, Deborah, exhausted and praying, staggered into the inclosure. "Rachel!" she panted. "The serving-men--thou art pursued!" The fat courier, purple of countenance and breathing hard, appeared in the opening. Rachel shrank against Kenkenes and Deborah dropped on her knees between the pair and the servitor. "Out of the way, hag!" the man puffed. "Let me at yon slave. Out!" He struck at Deborah with a short mace but Kenkenes caught his arm and thrust him aside. "Go, go back to the camp," he said to the old woman. "No harm shall befall Rachel." Raising her, he put her behind him, and advanced toward the courier. "Hast thou words with me?" he said coolly. "What wilt thou?" "The girl. Give her up!" "Nay, but thou art peremptory. What wilt thou with her?" "For the harem of the Pharaoh's chief adviser," the man retorted. The blood in Kenkenes' veins seemed to become molten; flashes of fierce light blinded him and his sinews hardened into iron. He bounded forward and his fingers buried themselves in soft and heated flesh. The first glimmer of reason through his murderous insanity was the consciousness of a rain of blows upon his head and shoulders, and a blackening face settling back to the earth before him. He released his grip on the throat of the strangling servitor and flung off his other assailants. For a moment, stunned by the hard usage at the hands of the reinforcing men, he staggered, and seemed about to succumb. The men pursued him to finish their work, but as he eluded them, it seemed that a third person--a woman all in white with extended arms--came into their view. Kenkenes saw the foremost, a tall Nubian in a striped tunic, stop in his tracks, and the second, smaller and lighter but a Nubian also, following immediately behind, bumped against his fellow. Mouths agape, eyes staring, they stood and marveled. The strange presence, they discovered at once, was neither a human being nor an apparition. It was stone--a statue. "Sacrilege!" the first exploded. "A--a--by Amen, it is the slave herself!" In the little pause, Kenkenes recovered himself, but he knew that he gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him. He caught her hand and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of the cliff facing the Nile. It was a desperate chance for escape but he seized it. Immediately they were pursued and at the brink of the hill, overtaken. The stake was too large for the young artist to risk its loss by adhering to the unwritten rules of combat. He released Rachel, whirled about, and as the foremost descended on him, ducked, seized the man about the middle, and pitched him head-first down into the valley. The second, the tall Nubian that wore the striped tunic, halted, dismayed, and Kenkenes, catching Rachel's hand, prepared to descend. But she checked him with a cry. "Look!" His eyes followed her outstretched arm. At regular intervals along the Nile, the distant figures of men were seen posted. Escape was cut off. He mounted to the top of the cliff and led Rachel out of view from the river. The second man retreated, and raged from afar. The sculptor turned up the shingly slope toward the sun-white ridge of higher hills inland. Here, he would hide with Rachel, till his strength returned and the ache left his head clear to plan a safe escape. The Nubian called on all the gods to annihilate them and started in pursuit. The sculptor did not pause, and, emboldened by the indifference of the man he dogged, the pursuer drew near and made menacing demonstrations. Kenkenes had no desire to be followed. He bade Rachel wait for him and approached the Nubian. "Now," he began coolly, "thou art unwelcome, likewise, insolent. Also art thou a fool, but it is an arch-idiot indeed that lacketh caution. This maiden is beloved of all the Israelites. Thou art one man, and alone. It would not be safe for thee to attempt to take her without help even across that little space between Masaarah and the Nile. I should harass thee with others within call. Do thou save thyself and send the chief adviser after her. I would treat with him also." The Nubian backed away and Kenkenes followed him relentlessly until the man, overcome with trepidation, took to his heels and fled. Even then, Kenkenes did not lessen his vigilance. He caught up Anubis, who had bounded beside him during the entire time, and running back to Rachel, turned into the limestone wastes. Kenkenes had risked his suggestions to the single Nubian, and their effect upon him gave the young sculptor some hope that the pursuing force had been limited to these three. Though the men along the Nile were not within call, they would prevent flight into Memphis, and the camp of the Israelites, if not similarly picketed, would offer security only for the moment. Why had not the Hebrews protected her in the beginning? He would get to a place of perfect safety first and learn all concerning this matter. After an hour's cautious dodging from shelter to shelter, through the masses of rocks, they toiled up the great ridge of hills deep into the desert. Rachel would have gone on and on, but Kenkenes drew her into the shadow of a great rock and stopped to listen. The oppressive silence was unbroken. Far and near only gray wastes of hills heaved in heated solitude about them. "Sit here in the shadow and rest," he said, turning to the weary girl beside him. "I shall keep watch." He cleared a space for her among the debris at the base of the great fragment and pressed her down in the place he had made. Next he undid his belt and fastened Anubis to a boulder, too heavy for the ape to move. The animal resented the confinement, and Kenkenes, tying him by force, found in the forepaws the collar of golden rings. With a murmur of satisfaction, the young man reclaimed the necklace and thrust it into the bosom of his dress. When he arose the day grew dark before him, and he was obliged to steady himself against the rock till the vertigo passed. His assailants had hurt him more than he had thought. But he took up his vigil and maintained it faithfully till all sense of danger had vanished. Rachel, who had been watching his face, touched his hand at last, and bade him rest. The invitation was welcome and with a sigh he sank down beside her. "Lie down," she said softly. "Thou hast been most cruelly misused. And all for me!" Obediently, he slipped from a sitting to a recumbent posture. She put out her arm, and supporting him, seemed about to take his head into her lap. Instead, she slipped the mantle from the strap that bound it across his shoulders, and rolling it swiftly, made a pillow of it for his head. The wallet that had hung by the same strap over his shoulder, attracted her attention and she guessed that it had been used as a carrier for provision. She laid it open and took out the water-bottle. The pith-stopper had held, during all the violent motion, and the dull surface of the porous and ever-cooling pottery was cold and wet. She put the bottle to his lips and, after he had drunk, bathed his bruises most tenderly. Succumbing to the gentle influence of her fingers, he put up his hands to take them, but they moved out of his reach in the most natural manner possible. He could not feel that she had purposely avoided his touch, but he made no further attempt when the soothing fingers returned. Finally he raised himself on his elbow and supported his head in his hand. "Now am I new again," he said; "once more ready to help thee. Let us take counsel together and get into safety and comfort." He paused a moment till his serious words would not follow with unseeming promptness upon his light tone. "I know thy trouble, Rachel," he began again soberly. "There is no need that thou shouldst hurt thyself by the telling. But there are details which would be helpful in aiding thee if I had them in mind. Thou knowest better than I. Wilt thou aid me?" Her golden head drooped till her face was bowed upon her hands. After a little silence she answered him, her voice low with shame. "This man sought to take me before, at Pa-Ramesu, but Atsu learned of it in time and sent me to Masaarah. This morning I met him again--" She paused, and Kenkenes aided her. "Aye, I can guess--poor affronted child!" "Atsu meant to escape with me again, but the servants of the nobleman came before we could get away." Kenkenes knew by her choice of words that she did not know the name of her persecutor, and he did not tell her what it was. He could not bear the name of Har-hat on her lips. She went on, after a little silence. "I came--" she began, coloring deeply, "to leave thy collar with the statue--I did not expect to find thee there." How little it takes to dispirit a lover! How could he know that any thought had led her to do that thing save an impulse actuated by indifference or real dislike? His hope was immediately reduced to the lowest ebb. The mention of the taskmaster's name brought forward the probability of a rival. "I can take thee back to Atsu," he said slowly. "These menials will not remain in the hills after sunset, and under cover of night I can slip thee, by strategy, past any sentries they may have set and get thee to Atsu. I, by my sacrilege, and he by his insubordination, are both under ban of the law, but danger with him will be sweeter danger than peril with me, I doubt not." She looked at him, and the hurt that began to show on her face gave place to puzzlement. "Is it not so?" he asked with a bitter smile. "The companionship of ones beloved works wonders out of heavy straits!" "But--. Dost thou--? Atsu is naught to me," she cried, her grave face brightening. The blood surged back to his cheeks and the life into his eyes. He leaned toward her, ready to ask for more enlightenment concerning her conduct, when she went on dreamily: "But he is wondrous kind and hath made the camp bright with his humanity. Israel loveth Atsu." Kenkenes turned again to the perplexity in hand. "I came this morning to ask thy permission to give thee thy freedom. I doubt not Israel of Masaarah, hidden in a niche in the hills, does not dream that it is the plan of the Pharaoh--nay, the heir to the crown of Egypt by the mouth of the Pharaoh--to exterminate the Hebrews." Rachel recoiled from him. "What sayest thou?" she exclaimed, her voice sharp with terror. "Nay, forgive me!" he said penitently. "So intent was I on thy rescue that I forgot to soften my words. Let it be. It is said; I would it were not true." Her affright was only momentary, for her faith restored her ere his last words were spoken. "It will not come to pass," she declared. "Jehovah will not suffer it. Thou shalt see--and let the Pharaoh beware!" Her words were vehement and she offered no argument. She saw no need of it, since her belief, merely expressed, had the force of fact with her. "I am committed to the cause of Israel--that thou knowest, Rachel," Kenkenes made answer. After another silence he took up the thread of his talk. "If thy danger from this man were set aside I should not return thee to the camp, even if there were no doom spoken upon Israel. I would have thee free; I would have thee in luxury, sheltered in my father's house--I would--" "Thou dost paint a picture that mocks me now, O Kenkenes," she broke in on his growing fervor. "Doubly am I enslaved, and the safety of Masaarah and Memphis is no more for me." "Thou hast said," he answered in a subdued voice. "It was given me last night to win favor with the Pharaoh for thy sake, but the need of that favor fell before it was won. But I despair not. What is thy pleasure, Rachel? Shall I take thee to Atsu, or wilt thou stay with me?" "This nobleman will know of a surety that Atsu is my friend, but he must guess the other Egyptian who hath helped me. If I go to Atsu I take certain danger to him; if I stay with thee the peril must wander ere it overtakes us. But I would not burden either. Is there no other way?" He shook his head. "It lies between me and Atsu to care for you, and the peril for you and for us is equal. My name is as good as published, for I am gifted with a length of limb beyond my fellows. I was found before the statue and they, describing me to the priests, will prove to the priests, who know my calling, that the son of Mentu has committed sacrilege. And the priesthood would not wait till dawn to take me." "I will stay with thee, Kenkenes," she said simply. He became conscious of the collar on his breast and drew it forth. "With this," he began, assuming a lightness, "I fear I gave thee offense one day and thou hast held it against me. Now let me heal that wound and sweeten thy regard for me with this same offending trinket. Wilt thou take it as a peace-offering from my hands and wear it always?" She bent toward him and, with worshiping hands, he put aside the loosened braids and clasped the necklace about her throat. "There are ten rings," he continued. "Let them be named thus," telling them off with his fingers, "This first of all--Hope--it shall be thy stay; this--Faith--it shall comfort thee; this--Good Works--it shall publish thee; this--Sacrifice--it shall win thee many victories; this--Chastity--it shall be thy name; the next--Wisdom--it shall guide thee; after it--Steadfastness--it shall keep thee in all these things; Truth--it shall brood upon thy lips; Beauty--it shall not perish; this, the last, is Love, of which there is naught to be said. It speaketh for itself." Their eyes met at his last words and for a moment dwelt. Then Rachel looked away. "Are the fastenings secure?" she asked. "Firm as the virtues in a good woman's soul." "They will hold. I would not lose one of them." A long silence fell. The curious activity of desert-life, interrupted for the time by the presence of the fugitives, resumed its tenor and droned on about them. The rasping grasshopper, the darting lizard, the scorpion creeping among the rocks, a high-flying bird, a small, skulking, wild beast put sound and movement in the desolation of the region. The horizon was marked by undulating hills to the west; to the east, by sharper peaks. The scant growth was blackened or partly covered with sand, and it fringed the distant uplands like a stubbly beard. The little ravines were darkened with hot shadows, but the bald slopes presented areas, shining with infinitesimal particles of quartz and mica, to a savage sun and an almost unendurable sky. From somewhere to the barren north the wind came like a breath of flame, ash-laden and drying. There was nothing of the cool, damp river breeze in this. They were in the hideous heart of the desert to whom death was monotony, resisting foreign life, an insult. The two in the shortening shadow of the great rock were glad of the water-bottle. The necessity of comfortable shelter for Rachel began to appeal urgently to Kenkenes. He put aside his dreams and thought aloud. "What cover may I offer thy dear head this night?" he began. "We may not return to the camp, for there of a surety they lie in wait for us. Toora is deserted and so tempting a spot for fugitives that it will be searched immediately. Not a hovel this side of the Nile but will be visited. I would take thee to my father--" "Nay," she said firmly. "I will take affliction to none other. Already have I undone two of the best of Egypt. I will carry the distress no further." After a silence he began again. "How far wilt thou trust in me, Rachel?" She raised her face and looked at him with serious eyes. "In all things needful which thou wilt require of me." "And thou canst sleep this night in an open boat?" She nodded. "To-morrow, then," he continued, taking her hand, "we shall reach Nehapehu, where I can hide thee with some of the peasantry on my father's lands. And there thou canst abide until I go to Tape and return. "Thou must know," he continued, explaining, "the Athor of the hills is not my first sacrilege. Once I committed a worse. My father was the royal sculptor to Rameses and is now Meneptah's murket." Rachel glanced at him shyly and sought to withdraw her hand, for she recognized the loftiness of the title. But he retained his clasp. "He is a mighty genius. He planned and executed Ipsambul. For that, which is the greatest monument to Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh loved him, and while the king lived my father was overwhelmed with his favors. Nor did the royal sculptor's good fortune wane, as is the common fate of favorites, for the great king planned that my father's house should be honored even after his death though the dynasties change. So Rameses gave him a signet of lapis lazuli, and its inscription commanded him who sat at any time thereafter on the throne of Egypt to honor the prayer of its bearer in the unspeakable name of the Holy One. "After the death of Rameses," the narrator went on, "we went to Tape, my father and I, to inscribe the hatchments and carve the scene of the Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of the great king. Now, I am my father's only child and have been taught his craft. I have been an apt pupil, and he had no fear in trusting me with the execution of the fresco. I had long been in rebellion, practising in secret my lawless ideas, and I was seized with an uncontrollable aversion to marring those holy walls with the conventional ugliness commanded by the ritual. I assembled my ideas and dared. I worked rapidly and well. The work was done before my father discovered it." Kenkenes paused and laughed a little. "Suffice it to say the fresco was erased. And the solemnity of the crypt was hardly restored before my father found that his sacred signet, which he always wore, was gone. Nay, nay, I might not search for it more than the fruitless once, for he declared, and of a truth believed firmly, that the great king had reclaimed his gift. I did not and never have I believed it. Now I need the signet and I shall go after it on the strength of that belief. "Having found it, I shall appeal to Meneptah for thy liberty and safety and whatever boon thou wouldst have and for myself. What thinkest thou? Shall I go on?" Rachel smiled and looked up at him gratefully. "I will go with thee, Kenkenes," she said. Her ready confidence and the easiness of his name on her lips filled him with joy. "Ah! ye ungentle Hathors!" he mourned to himself, "why may I not tell her how much I love her?" But the white hand which he pressed against his breast asked its release with gentle reluctance, and he set it free. Once again the silence fell and was not frequently broken thereafter. There was no invitation in her manner, and he could not speak what he would. The sun dropped behind the Libyan hills and the heights filled with shadow. At length he said: "It is time." Lifting her to her feet, the ape attending them, he went toward the Nile, hand in hand with Rachel, his love all untold. CHAPTER XX THE TREASURE CAVE The sudden night had just fallen, and there was an incomplete moon in the west. But already the desert was full of feeble shadows and silver interspaces, and all that tense silence of evening upon unpeopled localities. Kenkenes stood upon the top of a huge monolith, listening. Below, with only her face in the faint moonlight, was Rachel, looking up to him. Anubis, oppressed by the voiceless expectancy of the two young people, crouched at his master's feet. For a while there was only the ringing turmoil of his own quickened blood in the young man's ears. But presently, up from the southern slope, rose the sound he had heard some minutes before--a long, quavering note, ending in a high eery wail. Kenkenes was familiar with the screams of wild beasts, and he knew the irreconcilable differences between them and the human voice. Instantly he sent back across the hollow a strong reply that the startled echoes repeated again and again. Almost immediately the first cry was repeated, but a desperate power had entered into it. Kenkenes dropped from his point of vantage. "Some one calleth, of a surety," he said, "and by the voice, it is a woman." "It is Deborah come up from the camp to seek for me!" Rachel exclaimed. "I doubt not. But the gods are surely with her, to fend the beasts from her in this savage place. It is well we came this way." With all the haste possible on the rough slope, they descended. The ground was familiar to Kenkenes, for the niche was near the foot of the declivity. Half-way down he called again, and the answer came up from the hiding-place of Athor. In another moment they were within and beside the prostrate form of the old Israelite. Rachel dropped on her knees, crying out in her solicitude. Her words were in the soft language of her own people and unintelligible to Kenkenes, but her voice trembled with concern. The old woman answered soothingly and at some length. The narrative was frequently broken by low exclamations from Rachel, and at its end the girl turned to Kenkenes with a sob of anger. "The Lord God break them in pieces and His fury be upon them!" she cried. "They set upon her and beat her and left her to the jackals!" "Set consume them!" Kenkenes responded wrathfully. "How came they upon you? Did you not return to camp?" "Nay, the mother heart in me would not suffer me to desert Rachel. I stayed without this place, and ye outstripped me when ye fled. After a time the fat servitor, rousing out of his swoon, came forth from here, and another, who had been lurking in the rocks, joined him, and the pair, in searching for you, discovered me and beat me with maces, leaving me for dead." After a grim silence, broken only by the low weeping of Rachel, Kenkenes bade her continue. "The search they made for you was not thorough, for one was ill and both were afraid. But they came upon the statue again, and the sight of it mocked them, so they overthrew it and broke it." Kenkenes drew a sharp breath and glanced at the place where Athor should have been. Except for themselves, the niche was evidently vacant. The old woman continued: "Then they descended into the camp of Israel. After a time I heard the sound of voices as if there were many men in the hills, and the heart of me was afraid. With much pain and travail I crept into this place, and here sounds come but faintly. But I heard sufficient to know that there were many who sought diligently, but whether they were our own people or the minions of thine enemy, Rachel, I could not with safety discover." "Said they aught concerning their intents--this pair, who set upon you?" Kenkenes asked. "O, aye, they blustered, and if they bring half of their threats to pass, it will go ill with thee, Egyptian. They will set the priests upon thee immediately; the hills will be searched; the Nile will be picketed. It behooves thee to have a care for thyself. As for Rachel, I know not what will become of her. She is penned out in the desert, for the camp is to be watched, and they boast that the hunt will end only with her capture." "Let them look to it that it does not end with the choking of the swine who inspired it! I long to put him beyond the cure of leeches." He made no answer to Deborah's words concerning Rachel's plight. Deborah had disarranged his plans. He could not take the old woman, grievously wounded, on the long journey to Nehapehu, and, indeed, had she been well, his small boat might not hold together with a burden of three for a distance of half a hundred miles. For a moment his perplexity baffled his ingenuity. It occurred to him that he might cross to the Memphian shore and procure a larger boat; but what would protect his helpless charges during the hours of absence, or in case he were taken? He realized that he dare not run a risk; his every movement must be safe and sure. He could not ask the wounded Israelite to return to the camp now, seeing that she had suffered mistreatment at the hands of Har-hat's servants and deserted not. "If there were but a grotto in the rocks--a cave or a tomb--" he stopped and smote his hands together. "By Apis! I have it--the Tomb of the Discontented Soul!" He turned to the two women, who had talked softly together in Hebrew, and spoke lightly in his relief. "We have shelter for this night--safer than any other place in all Egypt. Trouble no more concerning that. Let me hide my sacrilege and rob them of indisputable evidence against me, and then we shall get to our refuge." He lifted Deborah in his arms, and bearing her out into the open, left her with Rachel. Then he reentered the shadowy niche. The night was not too dark to show the interior. Athor, a torso, broken in twain, headless, armless, was prostrate. It had been pushed over against the great cube that sheltered it and the fall against the hard limestone had ruined it. Kenkenes clenched his hands and choked back the angry tears. To the artist the destruction partook of the heinousness of murder, of the pathos of death. He set about concealing the wreck with all speed, for he wished to be merciful to his eyes. He collected the fragmentary members, and carrying them down the slope a little way, dug a grave for them in the sand. To the trench he rolled the trunk on the tamarisk cylinders, and buried all that was left of Athor the Golden. Over the grave he laid a flat stratum of rock that the wind might not uncover the ruin. Returning to the niche, he took up the matting with its weight of chipped stone, and went down through the dark to the line of rocks opposite the quarries. There he permitted the rubble to slide with a mixture of earth, like a natural displacement, into the talus, of a similar nature, at the base of the cliff. The matting he shook and laid aside. It would serve for a bed in the tomb that night. Then he destroyed the north wall. In the four months of its existence the sand had banked against it more than half its height. Each stone removed in the dismantling was carried away to a new place, until the whole fortification was, as once it had been, scattered up and down the slope. The light, dry sand he pitched with his wooden shovel against the great cube until it all lay where the wind would have piled it had no second wall stood in its way. By dawn the strong breeze from the north would cover every footprint and shovel-mark to a level once more. He went again to the line of rocks and threw the shovel with a sure aim and a strong arm into the quarries across the valley. To-morrow it would seem that an Israelite had forgotten one of his tools. The work was done. With an ache in his heart, Kenkenes returned to Deborah and Rachel. "The shelter for us is in the cliff to the north, near Toora," he began immediately. "It is a tomb, but others before us have partaken of the dead's hospitality." [1] "How am I to reach it?" Deborah asked. "Is the place far?" "A good hour's journey, but we go by water. Still, we must walk to the Nile." "That I can not do," the old woman declared. "Nay, but I can carry you," Kenkenes replied, bending over her. She shrank away from him. "Thou hast forgotten," she protested. "Not so," he insisted stoutly. Taking her up, he settled her on one strong arm against his breast. The free hand he extended to Rachel, who had taken the matting, and together they went laboriously down the steep front of the hill. They proceeded cautiously, watching before and behind them lest they be surprised. He had covered his boat well with the tangle of sedge and marsh-vines, and after a long space of search, he found it. Once again he lifted Deborah and laid her in the bottom of the boat. With its triple burden, the bari sank low in the water, but Kenkenes wielded the oars carefully. The faint moonlight showed him the way. Now and then a red glimmer across the grain marked the location of a farmer's hut, but there was no other sign of life. Even at the Memphian shore there was little activity. When the line of cultivation ended Kenkenes knew he was in the precincts of the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. He rowed across what he believed to be one-half of its width and drew into the reeds. The sound and movement awoke many creatures, which hurried away in the dark, and something slid off into the river with a splash. The lapping of the ripples sounded like a drinking beast. Kenkenes put a bold foot on the soggy sand and stepped out. Rachel followed him with bated breath. Anubis unceremoniously mounted his shoulder. He dragged the bari far up on the shore, once more lifted Deborah and started up the warm sand. At the base of the limestone cliff he deposited his burden and brought together a little heap of dried reeds and flag blades. This he fired after many failures by striking together his chisel and a stone. Rachel hid the blaze from the Nile while he made and lighted a torch of twisted reeds and stamped out the fire. In the feeble moonlight he discerned a stairway of rough-hewn steps leading into a cavity in the wall. The southern side of the ascent was sheltered by an outstanding buttress of rock. He put the torch into Rachel's hand, and, taking up Deborah, climbed a dozen steps to a dark opening half-closed by a fallen door. Pushing the obstruction aside with his foot, he entered. When they were all within he closed the entrance and unrolled the reeds. There was a helter-skelter of mice past them and a rustle of retiring insects. The torch blazed brightly and showed him a squat copper lamp on the floor of the outer chamber. The vessel contained sandy dregs of oil and a dirty floss of cotton. With an exclamation of surprise Kenkenes lighted the wick, and after a little sputtering, it burned smokily. "Nay, now, how came a lamp in this tomb?" he asked without expecting an answer. The chamber was low-roofed and small--the whole interior rough with chisel-marks. To the eyes of the sculptor, accustomed to the gorgeous frescoes in the tombs of the Memphian necropolis, the walls looked bare and pitiful. There were several prayers in the ancient hieroglyphics, but no ancestral records or biographical paintings. Several strips of linen were scattered over the floor, with the customary litter of dried leaves, dust, refuse brought by rodents, cobwebs and the cast-off chrysalides of insects. In one corner was a bronze jar, Kenkenes examined it and found it contained cocoanut-oil for burning. "Of a truth this is intervention of the gods," he commented, a little dazed, but filling his lamp nevertheless. Ahead of him was a black opening leading into the second chamber. He stooped, and entering, held the lamp above his head. He cried out, and Rachel came to his side. In the center of the room was a stone sarcophagus of the early, broad, flat-topped pattern. In one corner was a two-seated bari, in another a mattress of woven reeds. Leaning against the sarcophagus was a wooden rack containing several earthenware amphorae; on the floor about it was a touseled litter of waxed outer cerements torn from mummies. All these things they observed later. Now their wide eyes were fixed on the top of the coffin. At one time there had been a dozen linen sacks set there, but the mice and insects had gnawed most of them away. The bottoms and lower halves yet remained, forming calyxes, out of which tumbled heaps of gold and silver rings, zones, bracelets, collars and masks from sarcophagi--all of gold; images of Isis in lapis lazuli and amethyst; scarabs in garnets and hematite, Khem in obsidian, Bast in carnelian, Besa in serpentine, signets in jasper, and ropes of diamonds which had been Babylonian gems of spoil. "The plunder of Khafra and Sigur, by my mummy!" Kenkenes ejaculated. "Will they return?" Rachel asked, in a voice full of fear. "They are gathered to Amenti for their misdeeds many months agone," he explained. "See how thickly the dust lies here without a print upon it. They were tomb-robbers. None of the authorities could discover their hiding-place, and lo! here it is." He walked round the sarcophagus and found at the head, on the floor, several bronze cases sealed with pitch. He opened one of them with some difficulty. Flat packages wrapped with linen lay within. "Dried gazelle-meat,--and I venture there is wine in those amphorae. They lived here, I am convinced, and fed upon the food offerings they filched from the tombs. Was there ever such intrepid lawlessness?" "Here is a snare and net," Rachel reported. "Did they not profit by superstition? As long as they were here they were safe. They did not fear the spirit." "The spirit?" Deborah, still in the outer chamber, repeated with interest. "The spirit of this tomb," Kenkenes explained, returning to her. In a few words he told her the story as Hotep had told it to him. "Canst thou discover the name?" she asked when he had finished. "The sarcophagus is plain. There is no inscription within yonder crypt, for I have this moment looked. But let me examine this writing here by the door." After a while he spoke again. "The name is not given. It says only this: 'The Spouse to Potiphar, Captain of the Royal Guard to Apepa, Child of the Sun, In the Twelfth Year of Whose Luminous Reign She Died. Rejected by the Forty-two at On, because of Unchastity, She Lies Here, Until Admitted to the Divine Pardon of Osiris.'" "Aye, I know," Deborah responded. "It is history to the glory of a son of Abraham. Him, who brought our people here, she would have tempted, but he would have none of her. Therefore she bore false witness against him and he was thrust into prison. "But the God of Israel does not suffer for ever His chosen to be unjustly served, and he was finally exalted over Upper and Lower Mizraim. And honor and long life and a perfumed memory are his, and she--lo! she hath done one good thing. Her house hath become a shelter for the oppressed and for that may she find peace at last." Kenkenes looked at the old woman with admiring eyes. The quaint speech of the Hebrews had always fascinated him, but now it had become melody in his ears. In this, the first moment of mental idleness since midday, he had time to think on Deborah. He knew that he had seen her before, and now he remembered that it was she who had transfixed him with a look on an occasion when Israel had first come to Masaarah. But he did not remind her of the incident. Instead, he set about counteracting any effect that might follow should her memory, unaided, recall the occurrence. He had put her down on the matting, and the running spiders and slower insects worried her. "A murrain on the bugs," he said. "We shall have a creepy night of it. Let us bottle this treasure and lay the mattress out of their reach on the sarcophagus. Endure them a while, Deborah, till we make thee a refuge." He set the lamp in the opening from the outer into the inner crypt and entered the second chamber. Rachel followed him, and the old Israelite watched them with brilliant eyes. Kenkenes swept the jewels as if they had been almonds into an empty amphora and returned it to the rack. The mattress he laid upon the broad top of the sarcophagus. "A line of oil run around the coffin will keep the insects away," Rachel ventured. Kenkenes returned to the outer chamber for the jar of oil; but Rachel took it from him. "Let me be thy handmaid," she said softly. He did not protest, and she reentered the crypt. "Luckily the mattress is large enough for the two of you," Kenkenes observed to Deborah, "but it will be hard sleeping." "The Hebrews are not spoiled with couches of down," she replied. "There are enough of the wrappings in yonder to take off the hardness, but even with the matting over them they will be gruesome things to sleep upon. They would bewitch your dreams. But mayhap ye will not suffer from one night's discomfort." "Where go we to-morrow?" Kenkenes did not answer immediately. Another plan for Rachel's security had been growing in his mind, and his heart leaped at the prospect of its acceptance by her. "There is a large boat here, and we might go to On," he began at last. "There is one way possible to save Rachel from this man as long as I live, and I would she were to be persuaded into accepting the conditions." "Name them and let me judge." He hesitated for proper words and his cheeks flushed. Deborah looked at him with comprehension in her gaze. "Rachel is not blind to my love for her, and thou, too, art discerning. Yet I would declare myself. I love Rachel, and I would take her to wife. Then, not even the Pharaoh could take her from me by law." Deborah raised herself with difficulty, and after peering into the inner chamber to see where Rachel was, approached him softly. "Thou lovest Rachel. Aye, that is a tale I have heard oftener than I have fingers to count upon. From the first men of her tribe I have heard it, from the best of Egypt and the worst. But she kept her heart and stayed by my side. Now thou comest, young, comely, gifted with fair speech and full of fervor. Thou lovest as she would be loved, and her heart goes out to thee, even as thou wouldst have it--in love." Kenkenes' face glowed and his fine eyes shone with joy. "But mark thou!" she continued passively. "If thou wouldst save her, think upon some other way, for thou mayest not wed her. Jehovah planteth the faith of Abraham anew in Israel. In Rachel and in Rachel's house it died not during the hundred years of the bondage. Therefore the name is godly. Of her, what would thy heart say? Hath she not beauty, hath she not wisdom, hath she not great winsomeness? There is none like her in these days among all the children of Abraham. To her Israel looketh for example, for, since she compelleth by her grace, those who behold her will consider whatever she doeth as good. Great is the reward of him who can direct and directeth aright, but shall he not appear abominable in the sight of the Lord if he useth his power to lead astray? Lo! if she wed thee, to her people it will seem that she would say: 'Behold, this man is fair in my sight, and it is good for the chosen of the Lord to take the idolater into his bosom.' There is a multitude in Israel, which, like sheep, follow blindly as they are led. Great will be the labor to engrave the worship of the Lord God in their hearts, when all the powers of Israel shall strive to do that thing for them. How shall there be any success if Moses and the appointed of the Lord bid them worship, while the husband or wife that dwelleth in their tent saith 'Worship not'? To these, Rachel's marriage with thee would be justification and incentive to incline toward idolaters and idols. Then there are the wise and discerning who know that Rachel hath turned away from the best among her people. How, then, shall she be fallen in their sight if she wed with an idolater? "She knoweth all these things and she keepeth a firm hold upon herself, but she hath not said these things to thee lest her strength fail her." And thus was the mystery explained to him. "Thou bowest down to a beetle," she went on without pausing. "Thou worshipest a cat; thou offerest up sacrifice to an image and conservest abominable and heathen rites. Thou art an idolater, and as such thou art not for Rachel. And yet, this further: if thou canst become a worshiper of the true God, thou shalt take her. Never have I seen an Egyptian won over to the faith of Abraham, but there approacheth a time of wonders and I shall not marvel." To Egypt its faith was paramount. Israel in its palmiest days was not more vigilantly, jealously fanatical than Egypt. Every worshiper was a zealot; every ecclesiast an inquisitor. Church and State were inseparably united; law was fused with religion; science and the arts were governed by hieratic canons. The individual ate, slept and labored in the name of the gods, and national matters proceeded as the Pantheon directed by the ecclesiastical mouthpiece. Life was an ephemeral preface to the interminable and actual existence of immortality. Temporal things were transient and only of probationary value. The tomb was the ultimate and hoped-for, infinite abiding-place. To the ideal Osirian his faith was the essential fiber in the fabric of his existence, to withdraw which meant physical and spiritual destruction. The forfeiture of his faith for Rachel, therefore, appealed to Kenkenes as a demand upon his blood for his breath's sake. His plight was piteous; never were alternatives so apparently impossible. At first there was no coherent thought in the young man's mind. His consciousness seemed to be full of rebellion, longing and amazement. Never in his life had he been refused anything he greatly desired, when he had justice on his side. Now he was rejected, not for a shortcoming, but, according to his religious lights, for a virtue instead. His gaze searched the visible portion of the other chamber and found Rachel. In the half-light he saw that she had cast herself down against the sarcophagus, face toward the stone, her whole attitude one of weary depression. Piteous as was the sight, there was comfort in it for him. Rachel loved him so much that she was bowed with the conflict between her love and her duty. His manhood reasserted itself. Love in youth bears hope with it in the face of the most hopeless hindrances. With the blood of the Orient in his veins and the fire of youth to heighten its ardor, he was not to be wholly and for ever cast down. Furthermore, there was Rachel to be comforted. He turned to Deborah. "Let it pass, then. Deny me not the joy of loving her, nor her the small content of loving me. If there should be change, let it be in thy prohibitions, not in our love. Enough. Art thou weary? Wouldst thou sleep?" "Nay," she answered bluntly. "Then I would take counsel with thee. Thou knowest the end of Israel?" he asked. "I know the purpose of the Pharaoh, but there is no end to Israel." "Not yet, perchance," he said calmly, "or never. But we shall not put trust in auguries. The oppression of the people is already begun at Pa-Ramesu and the brick-fields. Ye shall not return to those dire hardships. Ye can not return to Masaarah. In Memphis I offer my father's house, but Rachel refuses it. In Nehapehu there is safety among the peasantry on the murket's lands. My father lost an all-powerful signet in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh at Tape, and did not search for it because he believed that Rameses had taken it away from him. The king will honor it and grant whatever petition I make to him. If ye are unafraid to abide in this tomb for the few remaining hours of this night I shall take you to Nehapehu at dawn. There ye can abide till I go to Tape and return. What sayest thou?" The old woman looked at him quietly for a moment. "Is this place safe?" she asked. "The forty-two demons of Amenti could not drive an Egyptian into this tomb." "How comes it that thou art not afraid?" "I have no belief in spirits." "Nor have we. Why need we go hence? We shall abide here till thou shalt return." "In this place!" Kenkenes exclaimed, recoiling. "Nay! I shall be gone sixteen days at least." "We shall not fear to live in a tomb, we who have defied untombed death daily. We shall remain here." "This hole--this cave of death!" "We have shelter, and by thine own words, none will molest us here. We are not spoiled with soft living, nor would we take peril to any. Without are fowls, herbs, roots, water--within, security, meat and wine. We shall not fear the dead whom, living, Joseph rebuked. We shall be content and well housed." "But thou art wounded," he essayed. She scouted his words with heroic scorn. "Nay, let us have no more. If thou canst accomplish this thing for Rachel, do it with a light heart, for we shall be safe. If thou art successful, Israel will rise up and call thee blessed; if thou failest, the sons of Abraham will still remember thee with respect." No humility, no cringing gratitude in this. Queen Hatasu, talking with her favorite general, could not have commended him in a more queenly way. To Kenkenes it seemed that their positions had been reversed. He craved to serve them and they suffered him. "I shall go then to-night," he said simply. "Nay, bide with us to-night, for thou art weary. There is no need for such haste." He opened his lips to protest, his objections manifesting themselves in his manner. But she waved them aside. "Thou hast the marks of hard usage upon thee," she said; "thou hast slaved for us since midday, and now the night is far spent. Thine eyes are heavy for sleep, thy face is weary. And before thee is a task which will require thy keenest wit, thy steadiest hand. Thou owest it to Rachel and to thyself to go forth with the eye of a hawk and the strength of a young lion." Because of Rachel's name in her argument he yielded and turned immediately to the subject of their lonesome residence in the haunted tomb. "If aught befall me," he said, "for I am in the unknowable hands of the Hathors, disguise thyself and Rachel. If thou art skilled in altering thou canst find pigment among the roots of the Nile. Dye her hair and stain her face, take the boat and go to my father's house in Memphis. He is Mentu, the murket to the Pharaoh--a patriot and a friend to the kings. He knows not the Hebrew, but he is generous, hospitable and kind to the oppressed of whatever blood. Tell him Rachel's trouble and of me. I am his only child, and my name on thy lips will win thee the best of his board, the shelter of his roof, the protection of his right arm. Wait for me, however, in this place till a month hath elapsed. "Keep the amphorae filled with water, fresh every day, and preserve a stock of food within the tomb always to stand you in good stead if Rachel's enemy discover her hiding-place and besiege it." His eyes ignited and his face grew white. "Starve within this cave," he went on intensely, approaching her, "but deliver her not into his hands, I charge thee, for the welfare of thy immortal soul. If thou art beset and there is no escape, before she shall live for the despoiler--take her life!" Deborah scanned him narrowly, and when he made an end she opened her lips as though to speak. But something deterred her, and she moved away from him. "Come, spread the matting, Rachel," she said. "The master will stay with us to-night." Obediently the girl came, still white of face, but composed. She made a pallet of one roll of the matting, generously sprinkled the floor about it with oil to keep away the insects, put the lamp behind the amphora rack, hung her scarf over the frame that the light might not shine in her guest's eyes, and set the door a little aside to let the cool night air enter from the river. Having completed her service, she bade him a soft good-night and disappeared into the inner crypt, where Deborah had gone before her. Kenkenes immediately flung himself upon the pallet because Rachel's hands had made it, and in a moment became acutely conscious of all the ache of body and the pain of soul the day had brought him. The first deprived him of comfort, the second of his peace, and there was the smell of dawn on the breeze before he fell asleep. After sunset the next day Deborah roused him. He awoke restored in strength and hungry. The old Israelite had prepared some of the gazelle-meat for him, and this, with a draft of wine from an amphora, refreshed him at once. Provisions had been put in his wallet, and a double handful of golden rings, with several jewels, much treasure in small bulk, had been wrapped in a strip of linen and was ready for him. By the time all preparations were complete the night had come. He bade Deborah farewell and took Rachel's hand. It was cold and trembled pitifully. Without a word he pressed it and gave it back. He had reached the entrance, when it seemed that a suppressed sound smote on his ears, and he stopped. Deborah, her face grown stern and hard, had moved a step or two forward and stood regarding Rachel sharply. Neither saw her. "Did you speak, Rachel?" Kenkenes asked. He fancied that her arms had fallen quickly as he turned. "Nay, except to bid thee take care of thyself, Kenkenes," she faltered, "more for thine own sake than for mine." He returned and, on his knee, pressed her hand to his lips. "God's face light thee and His peace attend thee," she continued. The blessing was full of wondrous tenderness and music. He knew how her face looked above him; how the free hand all but rested on his head, and for a moment his fortitude seemed about to desert him. But she whispered: "Farewell." And he arose and went forth. [1] The tombs of the Orient in ancient times were common places of refuge for fugitives, lepers and outcasts. CHAPTER XXI ON THE WAY TO THEBES The moon was ampler and its light stronger. The Nile was a vast and faintly silvered expanse, roughened with countless ripples blown opposite the direction of the current. The north wind had risen and swept through the crevice between the hills with more than usual strength, adding its reedy music to the sound of the swiftly flowing waters. After launching his bari, Kenkenes gazed a moment, and then, with a prayer to Ptah for aid, struck out for the south, rowing with powerful strokes. At the western shore lighted barges swayed at their moorings or journeyed slowly, but the Nile was wide, and the craft, blinded by their own brilliance, had no thought of what might be hugging the Arabian shore. Yet Kenkenes, with the inordinate apprehension of the fugitive, lurked in the shadows, dashed across open spaces and imagined in every drifting, drowsy fisher's raft a pursuing party. He prayed for the well-remembered end of the white dike, where the Nile curved about the southernmost limits of the capital. The day had not yet broken when he passed the last flambeau burning at the juncture of the dike with the city wall. He rowed on steadily for Memphis, and immediate danger was at last behind him. The towers of the city had sunk below the northern horizon when, opposite a poor little shrine for cowherds on the shore, a brazen gong sounded musically for the sunrise prayers. The Libyan hilltops were, at that instant, illuminated by the sun, and Kenkenes, in obedience to lifelong training, rested his oars and bent his head. When he pulled on again he did not realize that he had been, with the stubbornness of habit, maintaining the breach between him and Rachel. There was no thought in his mind to give over his faith. At noon, weary with heat, hunger and heavy labor, he drew up at Hak-heb, on the western side of the Nile, fifty miles above Memphis. The town was the commercial center for the pastoral districts of the posterior Arsinoëite nome--Nehapehu. Here were brought for shipment the wine, wheat and cattle of the fertile pocket in the Libyan desert. Being at a season of commercial inactivity, when the farmers were awaiting the harvest, the sunburnt wharves were almost deserted. Few saw Kenkenes arrive. Most of the inhabitants were taking the midday rest, and every moored boat was manned by a sleeping crew. He made a landing and went up through the sand and dust of the hot street to the only inn. Here he ate and slept till night had come again. Refreshed and invigorated, he continued his journey. At noon the next day he stopped to sleep at another town and to buy a lamp, materials for making fire, ropes and a plummet of bronze sufficiently heavy to anchor his boat. He was entering a long stretch of distance wherein there was no inhabited town, and he was making ready to sleep in the bari. Then he began to travel by day, for he was too far from Memphis to fear pursuit, and rest in an open boat under a blazing sun would be impossible. The third evening he paused opposite a ruined city on the eastern bank of the Nile. Hunters not infrequently went inland at this point for large game, and although the place was in a state of partial demolishment, Kenkenes hoped that there might be an inn. He tied his boat to a stake and entered Khu-aten,[1] the destroyed capital of Amenophis IV, self-styled Khu-n-Aten. Here under a noble king, who loved beauty and had it not, the barbarous rites of the Egyptian religion were overthrown and sensuous and esthetic ceremonies were established and made obligatory all over the kingdom. In his blind groping after the One God, the king had directed worship to the most fitting symbol of Him--the sun. He appeased the luminous divinity by offerings of flowers, regaled it with simmerings from censers, besought it with the tremulous harp and had it pictured with grace and vested with charm. And since the power of the national faith was all-permeating, its reconstruction was far-reaching in effect. Egypt was swept into a tremendous and beautiful heresy by a homely king, whose word was law. But at his death the reaction was vast and vindictive. The orthodox faith reasserted itself with a violence that carried every monument to the apostasy and the very name of the apostate into dust. Now the remaining houses of Khu-ayen were the homes of the fishers--its ruins the habitation of criminals and refugees. The hand of the insulted zealot, of the envious successor, of the invader and conqueror, had done what the reluctant hand of nature might not have accomplished in a millennium. The ruins showed themselves, stretching afar toward and across the eastern sky, in ragged and indefinable lines. The oblique rays of the newly risen moon slanted a light that was weird and ghostly because it fell across a ruin. Kenkenes climbed over a chaos of prostrate columns, fallen architraves and broken colossi, and the sounds of his advance stirred the rat, the huge spider, the snake and the hiding beast from the dark debris. Here and there were solitary walls standing out of heaps of wreckage, which had been palaces, and frequent arid open spaces marked the site of groves. In complex ramifications throughout the city sandy troughs were still distinguishable, where canals had been, and in places of peculiarly complete destruction the strips of uneven pavement showed the location of temples. There was not a house at which Kenkenes dared to ask hospitality. Those that lived so precariously would have little conscience about stripping him of his possessions. He retraced his steps to the wharves and drew away, prepared to spend the night in his boat. After leaving Khu-aten, the Nile wound through wild country, the hills approaching its course so closely as to suggest the confines of a gorge. The narrow strip of level land on the eastern side lay under a receding shadow cast by the hills, but the river and the western shore were in the broad brilliance of the moon. The night promised to be one of exceeding brightness and Kenkenes shared the resulting wakefulness of the wild life on land. The half of his up-journey was done and the conflict of hope and doubt marshaled feasible argument for and against the success of his mission. In some manner the destruction of Khu-aten offered, in its example of Egypt's fury against progress, a parallel to his own straits. In his boyhood he had heard the Pharaoh Khu-n-Aten anathematized by the shaven priests, and in the depths of his heart he had been startled to find no sympathy for their rage against the artist-king. Ritual-bound Egypt had resented liberty of worship--a liberalism that lacked naught in zeal or piety, but added grace to the Osirian faith. In his beauty-worship, Kenkenes was not narrow. He would not confine it to glyptic art, nor indeed to art alone--all the uses of life might be bettered by it. His appreciation of Khu-n-Aten's ambition had been passive before, but when his own spirit experienced the same fire and the same reproach, his sympathy became hearty partizanship. His mind wandered back again to the ruin. How fiercely Egypt had resented the schism of a Pharaoh, a demi-god, the Vicar of Osiris! The words of Rachel came back to him like an inspiration: "Thou hast nation-wide, nation-old, nation-defended prejudice to overcome, and thou art but one, Kenkenes." But one, indeed, and only a nobleman. Could he hope to change Egypt when a king might not? Behold, how he was suffering for a single and simple breach of the law. At the thought he paused and asked himself: "Am I suffering for the sacrilege?" The admission would entail a terrifying complexity. If he were suffering punishment for the statue, what punishment had been his for the sacrilegious execution of the Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of Rameses II? What, other than the reclamation of the signet by the Incomparable Pharaoh, even as Mentu had said? If the hypothesis held, he had committed sacrilege, he had offended the gods, and might not the accumulated penalty be--O unspeakable--the loss of Rachel? On the other hand, if the signet were still in the tomb, Rameses had not reclaimed it--Rameses had not been offended. The ritual condemned his act, but if Rameses in the realm of inexorable justice and supernal wisdom did not, how should he reconcile the threats of the ritual and the evident passiveness of the royal soul? If he found the signet and achieved his ends, aside from its civil power over him, what weight would the canonical thunderings have to his inner heart? Once again he paused. The deductions of his free reasoning led him upon perilous ground. They made innuendoes concerning the stability of the other articles of hieratical law. He was startled and afraid of his own arguments. "Nay, by the gods," he muttered to himself, "it is not safe to reason with religion." But every stroke of his oar was active persistence in his heresy. He believed he should find the signet. Thereafter he could turn a deaf ear to any renegade ideas such an event might suggest. It was an unlucky chance that befell the theological institutions of Egypt as far as this devotee was concerned, that Kenkenes had landed at the capital of the hated Pharaoh. But he shook himself and tried to fix his attention on the night. The stars were few--the multitude obliterated by the moon, the luminaries abashed thereby. The light fell through a high haze of dust and was therefore wondrously refracted and diffused. The hills made high lifted horizons, undulating toward the east, serrated toward the west. In the sag between there was no human companionship abroad. Throughout great lengths of shore-line the tuneless stridulation of frogs, the guttural cries of water-birds and the general movement in the sedge indicated a serene content among small life. But sometimes he would find silence on one bank for a goodly stretch where there was neither marsh-chorus nor cadences of insects. The hush would be profound and an affrighted air of suspense was apparent. And there at the river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to drink. Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence. Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the boat moving in midstream. Kenkenes admitted with a grim smile that the great powers of the world and the wild were against him. But Rachel's face came to him as comfort--the memory of it when it was tender and yielding--and with a lover's buoyancy he forgot his sorrows in remembering that she loved him. He dropped the anchor and, lying down in the bottom of his boat, dreamed happily into the dawn. During the day he landed for supplies at a miserable town of pottery-makers, leaving his boat at the crazy wharves. When he returned the bari was gone. A negro, the only one near the river who was awake, told him that a dhow, laden with clay, in making a landing had struck the bari, staved in its side, upset it and sent it adrift. The mischance did not trouble Kenkenes. After some effort he aroused a crew of oarsmen, procured a boat, and continued at once to Thebes. [1] Khu-aten--Tel-el-Amarna. CHAPTER XXII THE FAN-BEARER'S QUEST At sunset on the day after the festivities at the Lady Senci's, Hotep deserted his palace duties and came to the house of Mentu. He had in mind to try again to persuade his friend from his folly, for the scribe was certain that Kenkenes was once more returning to his sacrilege and the Israelite. The old housekeeper informed him that the young master was not at home, though he was expected even now. Hotep waited in the house of his aunt, neighbor to the murket, and about the middle of the first watch asked again for Kenkenes. Nay, the young master had not returned. But would not the noble Hotep enter and await him? The scribe, however, returned to the palace, and put off his visit until the next day. The following noon a page brought him a message from his aunt, the Lady Senci. It was short and distressed. "Kenkenes has not returned, Hotep, and since he is known to have gone upon the Nile, we fear that disaster has overtaken him. Come and help the unhappy murket. His household is so dismayed that it is useless. Come, and come quickly." The probability of the young artist's death in the Nile immediately took second place in the scribe's mind. Kenkenes had displayed to Hotep the effect of Rameses' savage boast to exterminate the Hebrews. It was that incident which had convinced the scribe that the Arabian hills would claim the artist on the morrow. He had not stopped to surmise the extremes to which Kenkenes would go, but his mysterious disappearance seemed to suggest that the lover had gone to the Israelitish camp to remain. He made ready and repaired to the house of the murket. Mentu met him in the chamber of guests. By the dress of the great artist it would seem that he had returned at that moment from the streets. Hotep sat down beside him, and with tact and well-chosen words told his story and summarized his narration with a mild statement of his suspicions. There was no outbreak on the part of Mentu. But his broad chest heaved once, as though it had thrown off a great weight. "But Kenkenes has been a dutiful son," he said after a silence, "I can not think he would use me so cruelly--no word of his intent or his whereabouts." The objection was plausible. "Then, let us go to Masaarah and discover of a surety," the scribe suggested. When Atsu emerged from the mouth of the little valley into the quarries some time after the midday meal, he was confronted by the murket and the royal scribe. Neither of the men was unknown to him. Hotep halted him. "Was there a guest with the fair-haired Israelite maiden last night?" the scribe asked. Atsu's face, pinched and darker than usual, blazed wrathfully. "Have ye also joined yourselves with Har-hat to run that hard-pressed child to earth?" he exclaimed. "Do ye call yourselves men?" "The gods forbid!" Hotep protested. "We do not concern ourselves with the maiden. It is the man who may be with her that we seek." The taskmaster made an angry gesture, and Hotep interrupted again. "I do not question her decorum, and the man of whom I speak is of spotless character. He is lost and we seek him." "I can not help you; my wits are taxed in another search." Hotep's face showed light at the taskmaster's words. "Is she also gone?" he asked mildly. "Then let me give you my word, that the discovery of one will also find the other." Atsu gazed with growing hope at the scribe. "How is he favored?" he asked at last. "He is tall, half a palm taller than his fellows; comely of countenance; young; in manner, amiable and courteous--." Atsu interrupted him with a wave of his hand. "I saw him once--good three months agone, but not since." The reply baffled Hotep for a moment. He realized that to find Kenkenes he must begin a search for Rachel. "Good Atsu, he whom we seek is a friend to the maiden. He is much beloved by me--by us. Whomsoever he befriendeth we shall befriend. Wilt thou tell us when and from whom the maiden fled?" Atsu had become willing by this time. This amiable young noble might be able to lift the suspense that burdened his unhappy heart. "Har-hat--Set make a cinder of his heart!--asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh for his harem--" Mentu interrupted him with a growling imprecation and Hotep's fair face darkened. "Yesterday morning he sent three men to me," the taskmaster continued, "with the document of gift from the Son of Ptah, but she saw them in time and fled into the desert. At that hour there were only women in the camp, and the three men made short work of me when I would have held them till she escaped. In three hours, two of them returned--one, sick from hard usage, and the third, they said, had been pitched over the cliff-front into the valley of the Nile. They had not captured her and they were too much enraged to explain why they had not. During their absence I emptied the quarries of Israelites and posted them along the Nile to halt the Egyptians, if they came to the river with Rachel. But we let them return to Memphis empty-handed, and thereafter searched the hills till sunset. The maiden's foster-mother, it seems, fled with her, but neither of them, nor any trace of them, was to be found." "Does it not appear to thee," Hotep asked, after a little silence, "that the same hand which so forcibly persuaded the Egyptians to abandon the pursuit may have led the maiden to a place of safety? My surmises have been right in general, O noble Mentu, but not in detail," he continued, turning to the murket. "There is, however, the element of danger now to take the place of the gracelessness we would have laid to him. Thou knowest Har-hat, my Lord." He thanked the dark-faced taskmaster. "Have no concern for the maiden. She is safe, I doubt not." He took Mentu's arm and passing up through the Israelitish camp, climbed the slope behind it. "It is my duty and thine to hide this lovely folly up here, ere these searching minions of Har-hat or frantic Israelites come upon it." The scribe's sense of direction and location was keen. It was one of the goodly endowments of the savage and the beast which the gods had added to the powers of this man of splendid intellect. He doubled back through the great rocks, his steps a little rapid and never hesitating, as though his destination were in full view. Mentu followed him, silent and moodily thoughtful. At last Hotep stopped. Before them was a narrow aisle leading down from the summit of the hill. It was hemmed in on each side by tumbled masses of stone. The aisle terminated at its lower end in a long white drift of sand against a great cube. Instinct and reason told Hotep that here had been the hiding-place of Athor, but there was no sign that human foot had ever entered the spot. After a space of puzzlement, Hotep smiled. "He hath made way with the sacrilege himself," he said with relief in his voice; "I had not credited him with so much foresight. Nay, now, if the runaway will but come home, we will forgive him." Mentu said nothing. Indeed, since Hotep had told him of the recent doings of Kenkenes, the murket had had little to say. He had felt in his lifetime most of the sorrows that can overtake a man of his position and attainments--but he had never known the chagrin of a wayward child. The fear that he was to know that humiliation, now, made his heart heavy beyond words. As they turned away the sound of voices smote upon their ears. "Near this spot, it must be, my Lord," one said. "Find the sacrilege, lout. We seek not the neighborhood of it." Hotep caught the murket's arm and drew him out of the aisle into hiding behind another great stone. "This is the place; this is the place," the first voice declared, and his statement was seconded by another and as positive a voice. There was the sound of the new-comers emerging into the aisle, and immediately the first speaker exclaimed in a tone full of astonishment and disappointment: "O, aye; I see!" the master assented with an irritating laugh. "Har-hat!" Hotep whispered. Another of the party broke in impatiently: "Make an end to this chase. Saw you any sacrilege, or was it a phantom of your stupid dreams?" "Asar-Mut," Mentu said under his breath. The first voice and its second protested in chorus. "As the gods hear me, I saw it!" the first went on. "It was a statue most sacrilegiously wrought and the man stood before it. It was cunningly hidden between two walls, and there is no spot on the desert that looks so much like the place as this. And yet, no wall--no statue--no sign of--" "How did you find it yesterday?" the fan-bearer asked. "We followed the hag, and she, the girl. The pair of them were in sight of each other, as they ran." "How did they find it?" "Magic! Magic!" "There were three of you and one man overthrew you all?" the high priest commented suspiciously. "Holy Father!" the servant protested wildly, "he was a giant--a monster for bigness. Besides, there were but two of us, after he had all but throttled me." Har-hat laughed again. "Aye, and after he pitched Nak over the cliff, there was but one. But tell me this: was he noble or a churl?" "He wore the circlet." Mentu's long fingers bent as if he longed for a throat between them. "The craven invented his giant to salve his valor," the priest said. "It may be," the fan-bearer replied musingly, "but thy nephew, holy Father, is conspicuously tall and well-muscled. Likewise, he is a sculptor. Furthermore, the two slaves came home badly abused. Unas has some proof for his tale--" "Kenkenes is the soul of fidelity," the high priest retorted warmly. "He has had unnumbered opportunities to betray the gods and he has ever been steadfast." "Nay, I did not impugn him. The similarity merely appealed to me. Let us get down into the valley and question that villain Atsu. I would know what became of the girl." "Mine interests are solely with the ecclesiastical features of the offense, my Lord," Asar-Mut replied. "I would get back to Memphis." "Bear us company a little longer, holy Father. The taskmaster may tell us somewhat of this blaspheming sculptor-giant." When the last sound of the departing men died away, Mentu turned across the hill toward the Nile-front of the cliff. "Nay, I will go back to Memphis first," he said grimly. "Mayhap Kenkenes hath returned. If Asar-Mut should question him, he would not evade nor equivocate, so I shall send him away that he may not meet his uncle. I would not have him lie, but he shall not accomplish his own undoing." But days of seeking followed, growing frantic as time went on, and there was no trace of the lost artist. Even his pet ape did not return. Asar-Mut questioned Mentu closely concerning the fidelity of Kenkenes to the faith and the ritual. "I ask after his soul," he explained. But he gained no evidence from Mentu. On the fourteenth day after the disappearance of the young sculptor, Sepet, the boatman that had hired his bari to Kenkenes, found the boat among the wharf piling. It was overturned, its bottom ripped out, one side crushed as if a river-horse had played with it. In the small compartment at the tiller were provisions for a light lunch; a wallet, empty; a rope and a plummet of bronze used to moor a boat in midstream while the sportsman fished; the light woolen mantle worn as often for protection against the sun as against the cold, and other things to prove that Kenkenes had met with disaster. The fate of the young man seemed to be explained. The great house of Mentu was darkened; the servants went unkempt and the artist wore a blue scarf knotted about his hips. The high priest dismissed the subject of the sacrilege from his mind, now that his nephew was dead. The people of Memphis who knew Kenkenes mourned with Mentu; the festivities were dull without him, and there were some, like Io and the Lady Senci, who went into retirement and were not to be comforted. But Har-hat presented jeweled housings to Apis for the prospering of his search after Rachel, and set about assisting the god with all his might. He sent couriers, armed with a description and warrant for the arrest of Kenkenes and the Israelite, into all the large cities of Egypt. He ransacked Pa-Ramesu and the brick-fields, Silsilis, Syene, where there were quarries, and especially Thebes, which was large and remote, a tempting place for fugitives. When he heard the news of the young sculptor's death, he actually sent a message of condolence to Mentu, much to the tearful and unspeakable rage of the heart-broken murket. Yet, with all the limitless resources placed at the command of a bearer of the king's fan, Har-hat continued to search for the young artist, until word came to him from Thebes several days later. His next move was to bring to the notice of the Pharaoh that the taskmaster Atsu was pampering the Israelites of Masaarah and defeating the ends of the government. Furthermore, the overseer had treated with contempt the personal commands of the fan-bearer. So Atsu was removed entirely from over the Hebrews, reduced to the rank of a common soldier, and returned to the nome from which he came, in the coif and tunic of a cavalryman. Thus it was that Har-hat avenged himself for the loss of Rachel, put all aid out of her reach, and kept up an unceasing pursuit of her. CHAPTER XXIII THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes. On the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not hope to reach Memphis by that time. She should not wait an hour longer than necessary. He would get the signet that night and return by the swiftest boat obtainable in Thebes. The dawn should find him on the way to Memphis. He entered the streets of the Libyan suburb of the holy city, and passed through it to the scattering houses, set outside the thickly-settled portion, and nearer to the necropolis. At the portals of the most pretentious of these houses he knocked and was admitted. He was met presently in the chamber of guests by an old man, gray-haired and bent. This was the keeper of the tomb of Rameses the Great. "I am the son of Mentu," he said, "thy friend, and the friend of the Incomparable Pharaoh. Perchance thou dost remember me." "I remember Mentu," the old man replied, after a space that might have been spent in rumination, or in collecting his faculties to speak. "He decorated the tomb of Rameses," the young man continued. "Aye, I remember. I watched him often at the work." "Thou knowest how the great king loved him." The old man bent his head in assent. "He was given a signet by Rameses, and on the jewel was testimony of royal favor which should outlive the Pharaoh and Mentu himself." "Even so. A precious talisman, and a rare one." "It was lost." "Nay! Lost! Alas, that is losing the favor of Osiris. What a calamity!" The old man shook his head and his gray brows knitted. "But the place in which it was lost is small, and I would search for it again." "That is wise. The gods aid them who surrender not." By this time the old man's face had become inquiring. "There is need for the signet now--" "The noble Mentu, in trouble?" the old man queried. "The son of the noble Mentu is in trouble--the purity of an innocent one at stake, and the foiling of a villain to accomplish," Kenkenes answered earnestly. "A sore need. Is it-- Wouldst thou have me aid thee?" "Thou hast said. I come to thee to crave thy permission to search again for the signet." "Nay, but I give it freely. Yet I do not understand." "The signet was lost in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh. May I not visit the crypt?" The old man thought a moment. "Aye, thou canst search. If thou wilt come for me to-morrow--" "Nay, I would go this very night." The keeper's face sobered and he shook his head. "Deny me not, I pray thee," Kenkenes entreated earnestly. "Thou, who hast lived so many years, hast at some time weighed the value of a single moment. In the waste or use of the scant space between two breaths have lives been lost, souls smirched, the unlimited history of the future turned. And never was a greater stake upon the saving of time than in this strait--which is the peril of spotless womanhood." The old man rubbed his head. "Aye, I know, I know. Thy haste is justifiable, but--" "I can go alone. There is no need that thou shouldst waste an hour of thy needed sleep for me. I pledge thee I shall conduct myself without thee as I should beneath thine eye. Most reverently will I enter, most reverently search, most reverently depart, and none need ever know I went alone." The ancient keeper weakened at the earnestness of the young man. "And thou wilt permit no eye to see thee enter or come forth from the valley?" "Most cautious will I be--most secret and discreet." "Canst thou open the gates?" "I have not forgotten from the daily practice that was mine for many weeks." "Then go, and let no man know of this. Amen give thee success." Kenkenes thanked him gratefully and went at once. The moon was in its third quarter, but it was near midnight and the valley of the Nile between the distant highlands to the east and west was in soft light. On the eastern side of the river there was only a feeble glimmer from a window where some chanting leech stood by a bedside, or where a feast was still on. But under the luster of the waning moon Thebes lost its outlines and became a city of marbles and shadows and undefined limits. On the western side the vision was interrupted by a lofty, sharp-toothed range, tipped with a few scattered stars of the first magnitude. In the plain at its base were the palaces of Amenophis III, of Rameses II, and their temples, the temples of the Tothmes, and far to the south the majestic colossi of Amenophis III towered up through the silver light, the faces, in their own shadow, turned in eternal contemplation of the sunrise. Grouped about the great edifices were the booths of funeral stuffs and the stalls of caterers to the populace of the Libyan suburb of Thebes. But these were hidden in the dark shadows which the great structures threw. The moon blotted out the profane things of the holy city and discovered only its splendors to the sky. At the northwest limits of the suburb, the hills approached the Nile, leaving only a narrow strip a few hundred yards wide between their fronts and the water. Here the steep ramparts were divided by a tortuous cleft, which wound back with many cross-fissures deep into the desert. The ravine was simply a chasm, with perpendicular sides of naked rock. At its upper end, it was blocked by a wall of unscalable heights. Nowhere in its length was it wider than a hundred yards, and across the mouth a gateway wide enough for three chariots abreast had been built of red granite. This was the valley of the Tombs of the Kings. In chambers hewn in solid rock, the monarchs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties were entombed. All along the walls of the gorge, nature had secured the sacred resting-place of the sovereigns against trespass from the end and sides of the chasm, and Egypt had dutifully strengthened the one weak point in the fortification--the entrance--by the gateway of granite. But there was no vigilance of guards. Whosoever knew how to open the gates might enter the valley. The secret of the bolts was known only among the members of the royal family and the court. To Kenkenes, whose craft as a sculptor had taught him the intricate devices used in closing tombs, the opening of these gates was simple. Even the mighty portals of Khufu and Menka-ra would yield responsive to his intelligent touch. He let himself into the valley and, closing the valves behind him, went up the tortuous gorge, darkened by the shadows of its walls. He continued past the mouth of the valley's southern arm wherein were entombed the kings of the eighteenth dynasty. Here, in this open space, he could see the circling bats, which before he could only hear above his head. Somewhere among the rocks up the moonlit hollow an owl hooted. But the tombs he sought were in the upper end of the main ravine. Here lay Rameses I, the founder of that illustrious dynasty--the nineteenth. Near-by was his son, Seti I, and next to him the splendid tyrant, Rameses the Great, the Incomparable Pharaoh. By the time Kenkenes had reached the spot, all lightness in his heart had gone out like the extinguishing of a candle, and the weight of suspense, the fear of failure, fell on him as suddenly. He approached the elaborate facade of the solemn portals, climbed the pairs of steps, and paused at each of the many landings with a prayer for the success of his mission, not for the repose of the royal soul, after the custom of other visitors. With trembling hands he pushed the doors, rough with inscriptions, and the great stone valves swung ponderously inward, the bronze pins making no sound as they turned in the sockets. Kenkenes entered and closed the portals behind him. Instantly all sound of the outside world was cut off--the sound of the wind, the chafing of the sands on the hills above, the movement and cries of night-birds, beasts and insects. Absolute stillness and original night surrounded him. With all speed he lighted his lamp, but the flaring name illuminated only a little space in the brooding, hovering blackness about him. The atmosphere was stagnant and heavily burdened with old aromatic scent, and the silence seemed to have accumulated in the years. Even the soft whetting of his sandal, as he walked, made echoes that shouted at him. The little blaze fizzed and sputtered noisily and each throb of his heart sounded like a knock on the portal. He did not pause. The darkness might cloud and tinge and swallow up his light as turbid water absorbs the clear; the silence might resent the violation. This was the habitation of a royal soul in perpetual vigil over its corpse and vested with all the powers and austere propensities of a thing supernatural. But not once did the impulse come to him to fly. Rachel's face attended him like a lamp. He moved forward, his path only discovered to him step by step as the light advanced, the sumptuous frescoes done by the hand of his father emerging, one detail at a time. The solemn figures fixed accusing eyes upon him from every frieze; the passive countenance of the monarch himself confronted him from every wall. One wondrous chamber after another he traversed, for the tomb penetrated the very core of the mountain. The innermost crypt contained the altars. This was the sanctuary, the holy of holies, never entered except by a hierarch. When Kenkenes reached the final threshold he paused. Thus far, his presence had been merely a midnight intrusion. If he entered the sanctuary his coming would be violation. He thought of the distress of Rachel and dared. The first alabaster altar glistened suddenly out of the night like a bank of snow. Kenkenes' sandal grated on the sandy dust that lay thick on the floor. Not even the keeper had entered this crypt to remove the accumulated dust of six years. Under this floor of solid granite was the pit containing the sarcophagi of the dead monarch, of his favorite son and destined heir, Shaemus, and his well-beloved queen, Neferari Thermuthis. The opening into the pit had been sealed when Rameses had descended to emerge no more. The chamber over it was brilliant with frescoing and covered with inscriptions. There were three magnificent altars of alabaster and over each was an oval containing the name of one of the three sleepers in the pit below. In this chapel the signet had been lost. Kenkenes set his light on the floor and began his search. The first time he searched the floor, he laid the lack of success to his excited work. The second time, the perspiration began to trickle down his temples. Thereafter he sought, lengthwise and crosswise, calling on the gods for aid, but there was no glint of the jewel. At last, sick with despair, he sat down to collect himself. Suddenly across the heavy silence there smote a sound. In a place closer to the beating heart of the world, the movement might have escaped him. Now, though it was but the rustle of sweeping robes, it seemed to sough like the wind among the clashing blades of palm-leaves. For a moment Kenkenes sat, transfixed, and in that moment the sound came nearer. He remembered the injunction of the old keeper. Human or supernatural, the new-comer must not find him there. He leaped behind the altar of Shaemus, extinguishing the light as he did so. He flung the corner of his kamis over the reeking wick that the odor might not escape, but his fear in that direction was materially lessened when he saw that the stranger bore a fuming torch. On one end of the short pole of the torch was a knot of flaming pitch, on the other was a bronze ring fitted with sprawling claws. The stranger set the light on the floor and the device kept the torch upright. He crossed the room and stood at the altar of Neferari Thermuthis. By the deeply fringed and voluminous draperies, and by the venerable beard, rippling and streaked with gray, the young sculptor took the stranger to be an Israelite. As Kenkenes looked upon him, he was minded of his father, the magnificent Mentu. There was the bearing of the courtier, with the same wondrous stature, the same massive frame. But the delicate features of the Egyptian, the long, slim fingers, the narrow foot, were absent. In this man's countenance there was majesty instead of grace; in his figure, might, instead of elegance. The expression had need of only a little emphasis in either direction to become benign or terrible. Kenkenes caught a single glance of the eyes under the gray shelter of the heavy brows. Once, the young man had seen hanging from Meneptah's neck the rarest jewel in the royal treasure. The wise men had called it an opal. It shot lights as beautiful and awful as the intensest flame. And something in the eyes of this mighty man brought back to Kenkenes the memory of the fires of that wondrous gem. The stranger stood in profound meditation, his splendid head gradually sinking until it rested on his breast. The arms hung by the sides. The attitude suggested a sorrow healed by the long years until it was no more a pain, but a memory so subduing that it depressed. At last the great man sank to his knees, with a movement quite in keeping with his grandeur and his mood, and bowed his head on his arms. Pressed down with awe, Kenkenes followed his example, and although he seemed to kneel on some rough chisel mark in the floor, he did not shift his position. The discomfort seemed appropriate as penitence on that holy occasion. After a long time the stranger arose, took up the torch and quitted the chamber. He went away more slowly than he had come, with reluctant step and averted face. When night and profound silence were restored in the crypt, Kenkenes regained his feet and, examining the irritated knee, found the offending object clinging to the impression it had made in the flesh. The shape of the trifle sent a wild hope through his brain. Groping through the dark, he found his lamp and lighted it with trembling hands. He held the lapis-lazuli signet! He did not move. He only grasped the scarab tightly and panted. The sudden change from intense suspense to intense relief had deprived him of the power of expression. Only his physical make-up manifested its rebellion against the shock. As the tumult in his heart subsided, his mind began to confront him with happy fancies. Rachel was already free. In that moment of exuberance he thrust aside, as monstrous, the bar of different faith. He believed he could overcome it by the very compelling power of his love and the righteousness of his cause. He spent no time picturing the method of his triumph over it. Beyond that obstacle were tender pictures of home-making, love and life, which so filled him with emotion that, in a sudden ebullition of boyish gratitude, he pressed the all-potent signet to his lips. Then, his cheeks reddening with a little shame at his impulsiveness, he examined the scarab. The cord by which it had been suspended passed through a small gold ring between the claws of the beetle. This had worn very thin and some slight wrench had broken it. "Ah!" he exclaimed aloud. "It is even as I had thought. But let me not seem to boast when I tell my father of it. It will be victory enough for me to display the jewel, and abashment enough for him to know he was wrong." He ceased to speak, but the echoes talked on after him. He shivered, caught up his light and raced through the sumptuous tomb into the world again. It was near dawn and the skies were pallid. He was hungry and weary but most impatient to be gone. He would repair to Thebes and break his fast. Thereafter he would procure the swiftest boat on the Nile and take his rest while speeding toward Memphis. The inn of the necropolis was like an immense dwelling, except that the courts were stable-yards. The doors, opening off the porch, were always open and a light burned by night within the chamber. So long and so murkily had it burnt, that the chamber Kenkenes entered was smoky and redolent of it. Aside from a high, bench-like table, running half the length of the rear wall, there was nothing else in the room. Kenkenes rapped on the table. In a little time an Egyptian emerged from under the counter, on the other side. Understanding at last that the guest wished to be fed, he staggered sleepily through a door and, presently reappearing, signed Kenkenes to enter. The room into which the young sculptor was conducted was too large to be lighted by the two lamps, hung from hooks, one at each end of the chamber. Down either side, hidden in the shadows, were long benches, and from the huddled heap that occupied the full length of each, it was to be surmised that men were sleeping on them. Above them the slatted blinds had been withdrawn from the small windows and the morning breeze was blowing strongly through the chamber. At the upper end was another table, similar to the one in the outer room, except for a napkin in the middle with a bottle of water set upon it. An Egyptian woman stood beside this table and gave the young man a wooden stool. As Kenkenes walked toward the seat a stronger blast of wind puffed out the light above his head. The woman climbed up to take the lamp down and set it on the table while she relighted it. The skirt of her dress caught on the top of the stool she had mounted and pulled it over on the wooden floor with a sharp sound. One of the sleepers stirred at the noise and turned over. Presently he sat up. Kenkenes righted the stool and sat down on it, the light shining in his face. He saw the guest in the shadow shake off the light covering and walk swiftly through the door into the outer chamber. Meanwhile the silent woman served her guest with cold baked water-fowl, endives, cucumbers, wheat bread and grapes, and a weak white wine. Kenkenes ate deliberately, and consumed all that was set before him. When he had made an end, he paid his reckoning to the woman and returned into the outer chamber. At the doors, he was confronted by four members of the city constabulary and a Nubian in a striped tunic. "Seize him!" the Nubian cried. Instantly the four men flung themselves upon Kenkenes and pinioned his arms. "Nay, by the gods," he exclaimed angrily. "What mean you?" "Parley not with him," the Nubian said in excitement. "Get him in bonds stronger than the grip of hands. He is muscled like a bull." The young sculptor looked at the Nubian. He had seen him before--had had unpleasant dealings with him. And then he remembered, so suddenly and so fiercely that his captors felt the sinews creep in his arms. "Set spare thee and thine infamous master to me!" he exclaimed violently. The Nubian retreated a little, for Kenkenes had strained toward him. "Get him into the four walls of a cell," the Nubian urged the guards. "I may not lose him again, as I value my head." The guards started out of the doors and Kenkenes went with them, unresisting, but not passively. All the thoughts were his that can come to a man, on whose freedom depend another's life and happiness. Added to these was an all-consuming hate of her enemy and his, new-fed by this latest offense from Har-hat. With difficulty he kept the tumult of his emotions from manifesting themselves to his captors. They feared that his calm was ominous, and held him tightly. The necropolis was not astir and the streets were wind-haunted. The tread of the six men set dogs to barking, and only now and then was a face shown at the doorways. For this Kenkenes thanked his gods, for he was proud, and the eye of the humblest slave upon him in his humiliating plight would have hurt him more keenly than blows. The prison was a square building of rough stone, flat-roofed, three stories in height. The red walls were broken at regular intervals by crevices, barred with bronze. There was but one entrance. Herein were confined all the malefactors of the great city of the gods, and since the population of Thebes might have comprised something over half a million inhabitants, the dwellers of that grim and impregnable prison were not few in number. Kenkenes was led through the doors, down a low-roofed, narrow, stone-walled corridor to the room of the governor of police. This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by loteform pillars of brilliant stone. Toth, the ibis-headed, and the Goddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were painted on the walls. A long table, massive, plain and solid like a sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room. A confused litter of curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls were distributed carelessly over the polished surface. At one side were eight plates of stone--the tables of law, codified and blessed by Toth. The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table. When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed pen in the pigment, and was ready. "Name?" he began, preparing to write. "That, thou knowest," Kenkenes retorted. The Nubian bowed respectfully and approaching, whispered to the scribe. The official ran over some of the scrolls and having found the one he sought, proceeded to make his entries from the information contained therein. When the man had finished Kenkenes nodded toward the eight volumes of the law. "If thou art as acquainted with the laws of Egypt as thine office requires, thou knowest that no free-born Egyptian may be kept ignorant of the charge that accomplished his arrest. Wherefore am I taken?" "For sacrilege and slave-stealing," the scribe replied calmly. "At the complaint of Har-hat, bearer of the king's fan," Kenkenes added. "Until such time as stronger proof of thy misdeeds may be brought against thee," the scribe continued. "Even so. In plainer words, I shall be held till I confess what he would have me tell, or until I decay in this tomb. Let me give thee my word, I shall do neither. Unhand me. I shall not attempt to escape." At a sign from the scribe the four men released him and took up a position at the doors. Kenkenes opened his wallet and displayed the signet. The scribe took it and read the inscription. There was no doubting the young man's right to the jewel for here was the name of Mentu, even as the chief adviser had given it in identifying the prisoner. The official frowned and stroked his chin. "This petitions the Pharaoh," he said at last. "I can not pass upon it." "Send me to my cell, then, and do thou follow," Kenkenes said. "I have somewhat to tell thee." "Take him to his cell," the official said to the men as he returned the signet to the prisoner. "I shall attend him." Kenkenes was led into a corridor, wide enough for three walking side by side. There was no light therein, but the foremost of the four stooped before what seemed a section of solid wall and after a little fumbling, a massive door swung inward. The chamber into which it led was wide enough for a pallet of straw laid lengthwise, with passage room between it and the opposite wall. The foot of the bed was within two feet of the door. Between the stones, in the opposite end near the ceiling, was a crevice, little wider than two palms. This noted, the interior of the cell has been described. The jailer entered after him, and let the door fall shut. "I have but to crave a messenger of thee--a swift and a sure one--one who can hold his peace and hath pride in his calling. I can offer all he demands. And this, further. Keep his going a secret, for I am beset and I would not have my rescue by the Pharaoh thwarted." "I can send thee a messenger," the jailer answered. "Ere midday," Kenkenes added. "I hear," the passive official assented. The solid section of wall swung shut behind him and the great bolts shot into place. CHAPTER XXIV THE PETITION Some time later the bar rattled down again, and the jailer stood without, a scribe at his side. At a sign from the jailer, the latter made as though to enter, but Kenkenes stopped him. "I have need of your materials only," he said, "but the fee shall be yours nevertheless." The man set his case on the floor and Kenkenes put a ring of silver in the outstretched palm. "Fail me not in a faithful messenger," the prisoner repeated to the jailer. The official nodded, and the door was closed again. Kenkenes sat on the floor beside the case, laid the cover back and taking out materials, wrote thus: "To my friend, the noble Hotep, greeting: "This from Kenkenes, whom ill-fortune can not wholly possess, while he may call thee his friend. "I speak to thee out of the prison at Tape, where I am held for stealing a bondmaiden and for executing a statue against the canons of the sculptor's ritual. The accumulated penalty for these offenses is great--my plight is most serious. "The pitying gods have left me one chance for escape. If I fail I shall molder here, for my counsel is mine and the demons of Amenti shall not rend it from me. "The tale is short and miserable. But for the necessity I would not repeat it, for it publishes the humiliation of sweet innocence. "Suffice it to say that the offended is she of whom we talked one day on the hill back of Masaarah; the offender is Har-hat who hath buried me here in Tape. "One morning he saw her at the quarries and, taken with her beauty, asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh, for the hatefullest bondage pure maidenhood ever knew. "She fled from the minions he sent to take her, and came to me in that spot on the hillside where thou and I did talk. "There the minions found us, and by the evidence they looked upon, I am further charged with sacrilege. "Thou dost remember the all-powerful signet, which my father had from the Incomparable Pharaoh. He lost it in the tomb of the king, three years ago, abandoning the search for it before I was assured that it was not to be found. "So strong was my faith that the signet was in the tomb, that when this disaster overtook her, I came to Tape at once to look again for the treasure. I found it. "But by some unknowable mischance mine enemy discovered my whereabouts and a third minion, who escaped my wrath before the statue that morning, appeared in the city and caused me to be delivered up to the authorities on the charges already named. "She is hidden, and I have provided for her protection, as well as I may, against the wishes of the strongest man in the land. For her immediate welfare I am not greatly troubled. But, alas! I would be with her--thou knowest, O my Hotep, the hunger and heartache of such separation. "If the Pharaoh honor not the signet herein inclosed, tell my father of my plight, let me know the decision of the king, and then I shall trust to the Hathors for liberty. "Of this contingency, I would not speak at length. It may be tempting the caprice of the Seven Sisters to presuppose such misfortune. "Let not my father intervene for me. He shall not endanger himself further than I have already asked of him. "But remember thou this injunction, most surely. That it shall be last and therefore freshest in thy memory, I put this at the end of the letter. "Put the petition herein inclosed into the Pharaoh's hands! For my life's sake let it not come into the possession of any other. "I shall write no more. My scant eloquence must be saved for the king. "Gods! but it is good to have faith in a friend. I salute thee. "KENKENES." The letter to Hotep complete, Kenkenes took up another roll and wrote thus to Meneptah: "To Meneptah, Beloved of Ptah, Ambassador of Amen, Vicar of Ra, Lord over Upper and Lower Egypt, greeting:" At this point he paused. His power of expression, aghast at the magnitude of the stake laid on its successful use, became panic-stricken and fled from him. He feared that words could not be chosen which would justify his sacrilege or prove his claims to Rachel greater than Har-hat's. Meneptah would be hedged about with prejudice against his first cause, and deterred by the prior right of Har-hat, in the second. The last man that talked with the king molded him. Flattery alone might prevail against coercion. It was the one hope. Kenkenes seized his pen and wrote: "This from thy subject, Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket. "I give thee a true story, O Defender of Women. "There is a maiden whose kinsmen died of hard labor in the service of Egypt. Not one was left to care for her. Of all her house, she alone remains. They died in ignominy. Shall the last remnant of the unhappy family be stamped out in dishonor? "If one came before thee seeking to insult innocence, and another begging leave to protect it, thou wouldst choose for him who would keep pure the undefiled. Have I not said, O my King? "Before thee, even now is such a choice. "Already thou hast given over the mastership of Rachel, daughter of Maai the Israelite, to thy fan-bearer, Har-hat. By the lips of his own servants, I am informed that he would have put her in his harem. "She fled from him and I hid her away, for I could not bear to deliver her up to the despoiler. "I love her--she loveth me. Wilt thou not give her to me to wife? "Thine illustrious sire bespeaketh thy favor, out of Amenti. Behold his signet and its injunction. "Furthermore, I confess to sacrilege against Athor, in carving a statue which ignored the sculptor's ritual. For this, and for hiding the Israelite, am I imprisoned in the city stronghold of Tape. "I would be free to return to my love and comfort her, but if it shall overtax thy generosity to release me, I pray thee announce my sentence and let me begin to count the hours till I shall come forth again. "The Israelite hath a nurse, a feeble and sick old woman, Deborah by name, whom the minions of Har-hat abused. She can be of no further use in servitude, and I would have thee set her free to bear company to her love, the white-souled Rachel. "But if these last prayers imperil the first by strain upon thy indulgence, O Beloved of Ptah, do thou set them aside, and grant only the safety of the oppressed maiden. "These to thy hand, by the hand of the scribe, Hotep. "KENKENES." The letter complete, he summoned the messenger. "How swift art thou?" he asked. "So swift that my service is desired beyond mine opportunities to accept," was the answer. "How is it that thou art ready to serve me? Thou seest my plight." "The jailer spoke of thee as petitioning the Pharaoh. The king is in the north where I have not been in all the reign of Meneptah. Thou offerest me a pleasure and the fee shall be in proportion to the length of the journey." "Nay, but thou art a genius. Thou dost move me to imitate the Hathors, since they add fortune to the already fortunate. Mark me. I will give thee thy fee now. If thou dost return me a letter showing that thou hast carried the message with all faith and speed, I shall give thee another fee on thy home-coming. What thinkest thou?" The man smiled and nodded. "Naught but the darts of Amenti shall delay me." Kenkenes gave him the message, and a handful of rings. The man expressed his thanks, after which he went forth, and the door was barred. Kenkenes stood for a while, motionless before the tightly fitted portal of stone. Then through the high crevice that was his window the sounds of life outside smote upon his ear. The noise of the city seemed to become all revel. Some one under the walls laughed--the hearty, raucous laugh of the care-free boor. He turned about and flung himself face down in the straw of his pallet. He had begun to wait. CHAPTER XXV THE LOVE OF RAMESES By the twentieth of May, the court of Meneptah was ready to proceed to Tanis. The next week the Pharaoh would depart. To-night he received noble Memphis for a final revel. His palace was aglow, from its tremendous portals to the airy hypostyle upon its root and from far-reaching wing to wing, with countless colored lights. From every architrave and cornice depended garlands and draperies, and tinted banners waved unseen in the dark. The great loteform pillars supporting the porch were festooned with lotus flowers, and the approaches were strewn with palm-leaves. The guests came in chariots with but a single attendant or in litters accompanied by a gorgeous retinue and much authority. Charioteers swore full-mouthed oaths and smote slaves; horses reared and plunged and bearers hurried back through the dark with empty chairs. Meanwhile the pacing sentries made frank criticism and gazed at each alighting new-comer with eyes of connoisseurs. When the portals opened, a broad shaft of light shot into the night, a multitude of attendants was seen bowing; gusts of reedy music and babble and the smell of wilting flowers and Puntish incense swept into the outer air. Within, the great feast began and proceeded to completeness. The tables were removed and the stage of the revel was far advanced. The levels of scented vapor from the aromatic torches undulated midway between the ceiling and the floor and belted the frescoes upon the paneled walls. Far up the vaulted hall, the Pharaoh and his queen, in royal isolation, were growing weary. The lions chained to their lofty dais slept. The guardian nobles that stood about the royal pair leaned heavily upon their arms. Out in the sanded strip across the tessellated floor, tumblers were glistening with perspiration from their vaguely noticed efforts. Apart from the guests the painted musicians squatted close together and made the air vibrant with the softly monotonous strumming of their instruments. The company, which was large, had fallen into easy attitudes; an exciting game of drafts, or a story-teller, or a beauty, attracting groups here and there over the hall. Before one table, whereon the scattered pawns of a game yet lay, Rameses lounged in a deep chair, a semi-recumbent figure in marble and obsidian. Beside him, where she had seated herself at his command, was Masanath. There was Seti at Ta-user's side, but Io was not at the feast. She mourned for Kenkenes. Ta-meri was there, the bride of a week to Nechutes, who hovered about her without eye or ear for any other of the company. Siptah, Menes, Har-hat, all of the group save Hotep and Kenkenes, were present and near enough to be of the crown prince's party, yet scattered sufficiently to talk among themselves. The game of drafts, prolonged from one to many, had ended disastrously for the prince in spite of his most gallant efforts to win. Masanath, against whom he had played, finally thrust the pawns away and refused to play further with him. "Thou dost make sport for the Hathors, O Prince," she said. "Have respect for thyself and indulge their caprice no more." "Hast thou not heard that we may compel the gods?" he asked. "Perhaps I do but indulge them, of a truth. But let me set mine own will against fate and there shall be no more losing for me." "It is a precarious game. Perchance there is as strong a will as thine, compelling the Hathors contrarily to thine own desires. What, then, O Rameses?" "By the gambling god, Toth, I shall try it!" he exclaimed. "The opportunity is before me even now." He took her hand. "I catch thy meaning. Beloved of Isis! Thou didst challenge me long ago, and long ago I took it up. Thus far have we fenced behind shields. Down with the bull-hide, now, and bare the heart!" "Thou dost forget thyself," she retorted, wrenching her hand from him. "The eyes of thy guests are upon thee." He laughed. "The prince's doings become the fashion. Let me be seen and there shall be no woman's hand unpossessed in this chamber." "Thou shalt set no fashion by me. Neither shalt thou rend the Hathors between thy wishes and mine. Furthermore, if thou dost forget thy princely dignity, thy power will not prevent me if I would remind thee of thy lapse." "War!" he exclaimed. "Now, by the battling hosts of Set, never have I met a foe so worthy the overcoming. Listen! Dost thou know that I have sorrows? Dost thou remember that I may have sleepless nights and unhappy days--discontents, heartaches and oppressions? I am not less human because I am royal, but because I am royal I am more unhappy. Sorry indeed is a prince's lot! Wherefore? Because he is sated with submission; because he hath drunk satiety to its very dregs; because he hath been denied the healing hunger of appetite, ambition, conquest. How hath my miserable heart longed to aspire--to conquer! I have starved for something beyond my reach. But lo! in thee I have found what I sought. Thou hast defied me, rebuffed me, thwarted me till the surfeited soul in me hath grown fat upon resistance. Now shall the longing to conquer that racketh me be fed! Go on in thy rebellion, Masanath! Gods! but thou art a foe worthy the subduing! I would not have thee give up to me now. I would earn thee by defeats, losses and many scars. And thy kiss of submission, in some far day, will give me more joy than the instant capitulation of many empires." "Thou hast provided thyself with lifelong warfare, and triumph to thine enemy at the end," she answered serenely. Her reply seemed to awaken a train of thought in the prince. He did not respond immediately. He leaned his elbows on his knees, and clasping his hands before him, thought a while. In the silence the talk of the others was audible. "The festivities of Memphis have lost two, since they lost one," Menes mused. "Give us thy meaning," Nechutes asked. "Hast seen Hotep in Memphian revels since Kenkenes died?" the captain asked, by way of answer. Nechutes shook his head. "The gods have dealt heavily with Mentu," he said after a little silence. "Not even the body of his son returned to him for burial!" Har-hat, who had been perched on the arm of Ta-meri's chair, broke in. "Mayhap the young man is not dead," he surmised. "All the Memphian nome hath been searched, my Lord," Menes protested. "Aye, but these flighty geniuses are not to be measured by doings of other men. Perhaps he hath gone to teach the singing girls at Abydos or Tape." "Ah, my Lord!" protested Ta-meri, horrified. "Nay, now," Har-hat responded, bending over her. "I but give his friends hope. To prove my sincerity I will wager my biggest diamond against thy three brightest smiles that thou wilt hear of Kenkenes again, alive and dreamy as ever, led into this strange absence by some moonshine caprice." "I would give more than my biggest diamond to believe thee," Nechutes muttered, turning away. "Wilt thou wager?" the fan-bearer demanded with animation. "Nay!" was the cup-bearer's blunt reply. Har-hat shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into silence. Rameses leaned toward Masanath again. The expression on his face during the talk and the tone he chose now showed that he had not heard, nor was even conscious of the silence that had fallen. His words were low-spoken, but each of his companions heard. "In warfare it is common for a foe to hedge his adversary about so that fight he must. Thou art a woman and cunning, and lest thou join thyself to another and elude me ere the battle is on, I would better treat thee to a strategy. I shall wed thee first and woo thee afterward." Ta-user leaned across the table, and sweeping the pawns away with her arms, said, with a smile: "Quarreling over a game of drafts! Which is in distress--in need of allies?" "Come thou and be my mercenary, Ta-user," Masanath said with impulsive gratitude. "Rameses hath lost and demands restitution beyond reason." Har-hat had risen the instant the words had passed the prince's lips and left the group. He did not wish to let his face be seen. A dash of dark color grew in the heir's pallid cheeks, partly because he knew he had been heard, partly because he was angry at the princess' interruption. "Strange," mused Menes once again, "that the phrases of war mark the babble of even the maidens these days. And half the revels end in quarrels. Though I be young in war experience, I would say the omens point to conflict in which Egypt shall be embroiled." "Aye, Menes; and perchance thou wilt be measuring swords with a Hebrew ere the summer is old," Siptah said, speaking for the first time. "Matching thy good saber-metal with a trowel or a hay-fork, Menes," Rameses sneered. "Hold, thou doughty pride of the battling gods!" Menes cried laughingly to Rameses. "For once, I scout thy prophecies. The Hebrews are stirred up beyond any settling, save thou dost put them all to the sword, and that is a task that I would go to Tuat to escape. Thou wilt not work the Israelite to death. I can tell thee that!" "Hast caught the infectious terror of the infant-scaring, bugbear Hebrew?" Rameses asked. Menes leaned against the nearest knee and smiled lazily. "If the gray-beard sorcerer did meet me in open field, protected only with bull-hide and armed with a spear, I would fight him till he said 'enough'; but who wants to go against an incantation that would mow down an army at the muttering? Not I; yea, Rameses, I am a craven in battle with a sorcerer." "If he means to blast us, wherefore hath he not spoken the cabalistic word ere this?" the prince demanded. "He had no personal provocation until late," the captain replied. "Hath the taskmaster set him to making brick?" the prince laughed. "Nay; but the priesthood plotted against his head, and he is angry." Rameses raised himself and looked fixedly at the soldier. Again Menes laughed. "Spare me, my Prince! It is no longer a state secret. It is out and over all Egypt. Why it came not to thine ears I know not. Perchance every one is afraid to gossip to thee save mine unabashed self." "Waster of the air!" Rameses exclaimed. "What meanest thou?" "It seems that the older priests have a hieratic grudge against the Israelite, and when he returned into Egypt they set themselves, with much bustle, importance and method to silence him. Hither and thither they sent for advice, permission and aid, till all the wheels of the hierarchy were in motion, and the air quivered with portent and intent. Vain ado! Superfluous preparation! The very letter which gave them explicit and formal permission to begin to get ready to commence to put away the Hebrew, fell--by the mischievous Hathors!--fell into the hands of the victim himself!" Rameses fell back into his chair, his lips twitching once or twice, a manifestation of his genuine amusement. "As it follows, the Israelite is angry. So the witch-pot hath been put on, and in council with a toad and a cat and an owl, he thinketh up some especial sending to curse us with," the captain concluded. "A proper ending," Rameses declared after a little. "Let men kill each other openly, if they will, but the methods of the ambushed assassin should recoil upon himself." At this point it was seen that the Pharaoh and his queen were preparing to leave the hall. All the company arose, and after the royal pair had passed out the guests began to depart. Rameses left his party and, joining Har-hat, led the fan-bearer away from the company. "It seems that thou, with others, heardest my words with Masanath," the prince began at once. "It is well, for it saves me further speech now. I want thy daughter as my queen." Har-hat seemed to ponder a little before he answered. "Masanath does not love thee," he said at last. "Nay, but she shall." "That granted, there are further reasons why ye should not wed," the fan-bearer resumed after another pause. "Masanath would come between Egypt and Egypt's welfare. Thou knowest what thy marriage with the Princess Ta-user is expected to accomplish. At this hour the nation is in need of unity that she may safely do battle with her alien foes. If thou slightest Ta-user thou wilt add to the disaffection of Amon-meses and his party. Furthermore, thine august sire would not be pleased with thee nor with Masanath, nor with me. It is not my place to show thee thy duty, Rameses, but of a surety it is my place to refuse to join thee in thy neglecting of it." Rameses contemplated the fan-bearer narrowly for a moment. "Come, thou hast a game," he said finally. "Out with it! Name thy stake." "O, thou art most discourteous, my Prince," the fan-bearer remonstrated, turning away. But Rameses planted himself in his path. "Stay!" he said grimly. "Dost thou believe me so blind as to think thee sincere? Thou canst use thy smooth pretenses upon the Pharaoh, but I understand thee, Har-hat. Declare thyself and vex me no further with thy subtleties." Har-hat measured the prince's patience before he answered. "When thou canst use me courteously, Rameses," he said with dignity, "I shall talk with thee again. Meanwhile do not build on wedding with Masanath. I shall mate her with him who hath respect for her father." For a moment Rameses stood in doubt. Could it be that this soulless man had scruples against giving him Masanath? But Har-hat, allowed a chance to leave the prince if he would, had not moved. Rameses understood the act. The fan-bearer was awaiting a propitious opportunity to name his price gracefully. The momentary warmth of respect died in the prince's heart. "Out with it," he insisted more calmly. "What is it? Power, wealth or a wife? These three things I have to give thee. Take thy choice." "I would have thee use me respectfully, reverently," Har-hat retorted warmly. "I would have thee speak favorably of me; I would have thee do me no injustice by deed or word, nor peril my standing with the king! This I demand of thee--I will not buy it!" "To be plain," Rameses continued placidly, "thou wouldst insure to thyself the position of fan-bearer. Say on." "I am fan-bearer to the king," Har-hat continued with a show of increasing heat, "and I would fill mine office. If thou art to be his adviser in my stead, do thou take up the plumes, and I will return to Bubastis." "Once again I shall interpret. I am to keep silence in the council chamber and resign to thee the molding of my plastic father. It is well, for I am not pleased with ruling before I wear the crown. But mark me! Thou shalt not advise me when I rule over Egypt. So take heed to my father's health and see that his life is prolonged, for with its end shall end thine advisership. What more?" "So thou observest these things I am satisfied." "Gods! but thou art moderate. Masanath is worth more than that. Do I take her?" "She does not love thee." The prince waved his hand and repeated his question. "I shall speak with her," Har-hat responded, "and give thee her word." For a moment the prince contemplated the fan-bearer, then he turned without a word and strode out of the chamber. In a corridor near his own apartments he overtook the daughter of Har-hat. Her woman was with her. The prince stepped before them. The attendant crouched and fled somewhere out of sight. Masanath drew herself to the fullest of her few inches and waited for Rameses to speak. "Come, Masanath," he said, "thou canst reach the limit of thy power to be ungracious and but fix me the firmer in my love for thee. I am come to tell thee that I have won thee from thy father." "Thou hast not won me from myself," she replied. "Nay, but I shall." "Thou dost overestimate thyself," she retorted. Catching up the fan and chaplet that her woman had let fall she made as though to run past him. But he put himself in her way, and with shining eyes, caught her in his arms. "There, there! my sweet. I shall do thee no hurt," he laughed, quieting her struggles with an iron embrace. "Thou art hurting me beyond any cure now," she panted wrathfully. "It is thy fault. Have I not said I am sated with submission? If thou wouldst unlock mine arms, kiss me and tell me thou wilt be my queen." "Let me go," she exclaimed, choking with emotion. "Better for thee to tell me 'yes'; thou wilt save thy father a lie." She looked at him speechless. "I have said. To-morrow he will tell me that thou hast promised to wed me--whether thou sayest it or not. Spare him the falsehood, Masanath, and me a heartache." "Wilt thou slander my father to me?" she demanded. "Art thou a knave as well as a tyrant?" "Nay, I have spoken truly. Sad indeed were thy fate, my Masanath, did the gods mate thee with a knave, having fathered thee with a villain. So I am come to know of a truth what is thy will." "And I can tell thee most truly. Sooner would I sit upon the peak of a pyramid all my life than upon a throne with thee; sooner would I be crowned with fire than wear the asp of a queen to thee. My father may wed me to thee, but I will never love thee, nor say it, nor pretend it. Thou wilt not win a wife if thou dost take a queen by violence. Release me!" "Thou dost rivet mine arms about thee." She stiffened herself and savagely submitted to her imprisonment. Rameses laughed and, bending her head back, kissed her repeatedly and with much tenderness. She struggled madly, but he held her fast. "This is but the beginning," he said in a low voice, "and I have won. The end shall be the same. I am a lovable lover, am I not, Masanath? Am I not good to look upon? Dost thou know a more princely prince, and is my father more of a king than I shall be? Where do I fail thee in thy little ideals? Am I harsh? Aye, but I am a king. Am I rough-spoken? Aye, because most of the world deserve it. Thou hast never felt the sting of my tongue, and never shalt thou unless thou breakest my heart. I have much to give thee; not any other monarch hath so much as I to give his queen. And yet I ask only thy love in return." This was earnest wooing, which contained nothing that she might flout. So she strained away from him and sulked. Again he laughed. "Khem and Athor and Besa have combed my heart and created a being of the desires they found therein! O, thou art mine, for the gods ordained it so." Again he kissed her, holding her in spite of her efforts to get away. "There! carry thy hate of me only to the edge of sleep and dream sweetly of me." He released her and continued down the hall. As he turned out of the smaller passage into the larger corridor, Ta-user stepped forth from the shadow of a pillar. The huge column dwarfed her into tininess. The hall was but dimly lighted by a single lamp and that flared above her head. Rameses paused, for she stood in his path. "Not yet gone to thy rest?" he asked. "Rest!" she said scornfully. "Gone to a night-long frenzy of relentless consciousness--weary tossing, wasted prayers. I have not rested since I left the Hak-heb." Her voice sounded hollow in the great empty hall. "So? Thou art ready for the care of the physicians by this, then, O my Sister." "I am not thy sister." "What! Hast quarreled with the gentle Seti?" "Rameses, do not mock me. Seti does not even stir my pulses. He could not rob me of my peace." "What temperate love! Mine makes my temples crack and fills mine hours with sweet distress." Ta-user looked at him for a moment, then raising her hands, caught the folds of his robe over his breast. "Rameses, how far wilt thou go in this trifling with the Lady Masanath?" "To the marrying priests." Without looking at her, he loosed her hands, swung them idly and let them go. "She does not love thee," she said after a little silence. "Thy news is old. She told me that not a moment since." Ta-user drew a freer breath. "Thou wilt not wed her, then." "That I will. I have vowed it. Go, Ta-user, the hour is late. Have thy woman stir a potion for thee, and sleep. I would to mine own dreams. They yield me what the day denies." "Stay, Rameses," she urged, catching at his robes once more. "I would have thee know something. But am I to tell thee in words what I would have thee know? Surely I have not let slip a single chance to show thee by token. Art thou stubborn or blind, that thou dost not pity me and spare me the avowal?" Rameses looked down at her upturned face without a softening line on his pallid countenance. "Ta-user," he said deliberately, "had I been mummied and entombed I should have known thine intent. I marvel that thou couldst think I had not seen. Now, hast thou not guessed my mind by this? Have I not been sufficiently explicit? Must I, too, lay bare my heart in words?" She did not speak for a moment. Then she said eagerly: "Let not thy jealousy trouble thee concerning Seti--he is naught to me--I love him not--a boy, no more." "Seti!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "I have no feeling against Seti save for his unfealty to the little child who loves him,--whose heart thou hast most deliberately broken." "Not so," she declared vehemently. "I can not help the boy's attachment to me. She is a child, as thou hast said, and is easily comforted. Not so with maturer hearts like mine." She put her arms about his neck, and flinging her head back, gazed at him with a heavy eye. "O, wilt thou put me aside for Masanath? What is her little dark beauty compared to mine? How can she, who is not even a stately subject, be a stately queen? Wilt thou set the crown upon her unregal head, invest her with the royal robes, and yield thy homage to a scowl and a bitter word? And me, in whom there is no drop of unroyal blood, in whom there is all the passion of the southlands and all the fidelity of the north, thou wilt humiliate. The gods made me for thee--schooled me for thy needs and shifted the nation's history so that thou shouldst have need of me. Look upon me, Rameses. Why wilt thou thrust me aside?" She was not dealing with Seti, or Siptah, or any other whom she had bewitched. There was no spell in the topaz eyes for Rameses. If her sorcery affected him at all, it won no more than a cursory interest in her next move. "The night is too short to recount my reasons," he replied calmly, as he put her arms away. "But I might point out the snarling cur, Siptah, for one, and a few other comely lords of Egypt." "What hast thou done in thy life?" she cried. "I am no more wicked than thou; thou hast found delight in others beside whom I am all innocence." "It may be. Who knows but there is somewhat of the vulture-nostril in man, tickled with a vague taint? But, even then, the sense is fleeting, more or less as the natures of men vary. A man hath his better moments, and how shall they be entirely pure in the presence of shame? Nay, I would not mate and live for ever with mine own sins." "Then as thou dost permit her spotlessness to cover her hate, let my love for thee hide my sins. From the first I have loved thee unasked. She is all unwon." "Thou hast said it. She is unwon. But doth the lion prey upon the carcass? Nay. His kill must be fresh and slain by his own might. Thou didst stultify thyself by thine instant acquiescence. Come, let us make an end to this. The more said the more thou shalt have of which to accuse thyself hereafter." But she dropped before him, her white robes cumbering his path, her arms clasping his knees. "What more have I to do of which to accuse myself, O Rameses? Egypt knows why I came to court. Egypt will know why I shall leave it. What have I not offered and what hast thou given me? Where shall I find that refuge from the pitying smile of the nation? Spare my womanhood--" "Ah, fie upon thy pretense, Ta-user! Art thou not shrewd enough to know how well I understand thee? Thou dost not love me. No woman who loves pleads beyond the first rebuff. Love is full of dudgeon. Thou dost betray thyself in thy very insistence. Thou beggest for the crown I shall wear, and if I were over-thrown to-morrow thou wouldst kneel likewise to mine enemy. Thou hast no womanhood to lose in Egypt's sight. As thy caprice turned from Siptah to me, let it return thee to Siptah once again. And if thy heart doth in truth wince with jealousy, think on Io." He undid her arms, flung her from him and disappeared into the dark. CHAPTER XXVI FURTHER DIPLOMACY Masanath, suffocating with wrath and rebellion and overpowered with an exaggerated appreciation of her shame, tumbled down in the shadows of the narrow passage and wrapped her mantle around her head. When she had wept till the creamy linen over her small face was wet and her throat hurt under the strain of angry sobs, and until she was sure that Rameses was gone, she picked herself up and went cautiously to the end of the passage to reconnoiter. The prince stood under the single lamp in the great corridor, between her and the refuge of her chamber. Another was close to him, her hands upon his shoulders. Masanath retired into the dusk and waited. When she looked again the hands were clasped about the prince's neck. Back into the shadows she shrank, pressing her tiny palms together in a wild prayer for Ta-user's triumph. After an interval she looked again in time to see Rameses undo the arms about his knees and fling the princess from him. Cold with dismay and shaking with her sudden descent from hope to despair, Masanath watched him disappear into the dark. "O most ill-timed, iron continence!" she wailed under her breath. But the change which had come over Ta-user interested her immediately. Fascinated, she forgot to hide again, but the light of the single lamp did not penetrate to her position. The princess kept the posture of abandoned humiliation, into which Rameses had flung her, until the heir's footsteps died away up the corridor. Then she raised herself and faced the direction the prince had taken. Her lithe body bent a little, her rigid arms were thrust back of her, and the hands were clenched hard. Her head was forced forward, the long neck curved sinuously like a vulture's. She began to speak in a whisper that hissed as though she breathed through her words. Masanath felt her flesh crawl and her soft hair take on life. Not all the words of the sorceress were intelligible. At first only her ejaculations were distinct. "Puny knave!" Masanath heard. "Well for thee I do not love thee, else thou shouldst sleep this night in the reeking cave of a paraschite, with the whine of feeding flies about thee for dreams. Well for me that I do not love thee, for thine instant death would rob me of the long revenge that I would liefer have! Share thy crown with me! When Ta-user hath done with thee thou shalt have no crown to share! Turned from Siptah for thee! How thou wilt marvel when thou learnest that I never turned from Siptah nor wooed thee with a single glance but for Siptah's sake. Go on! Sleep well! Have no regrets, for thy doom was spoken long before this night's haughty work. Rather do I thank thee for thy scorn. It robs me of qualms and adds instead a dark delight in that which I shall do!" She turned toward Masanath, walking swiftly. The fan-bearer's daughter, stricken with panic, fled, nor paused until she had passed far beyond the chamber of Ta-user. Cowering in a friendly niche, she waited until the princess had disappeared, and then only after a long time was she sufficiently reassured to reach her own apartments. It was the next day's noon before Masanath saw her father. Then he came with light step as she sat in her room. Approaching from behind her, he took her face between his hands, and tilting it back, kissed her. "I give thee joy, Masanath. Thou hast melted the iron prince." She rose and faced him. "Did Rameses tell thee I loved him?" she demanded, a faint hope stirring in her heart. "Nay, far from it. He told me, and laughed as he said it, that if thy soft heart had any passion for him it was hate." "Said he that? Nay, now, my father, thou seest I can not marry him." There was relief in her voice, and she drew near to the fan-bearer and invited his arms. He sat down instead, and drawing up a stool with his foot, bade her sit at his feet. "Listen! It is a whim of the Hathors to conceal one's own feelings from him at times, that he may accomplish his own undoing, being blind. Much is at stake on thy love for the prince. Awake, Masanath! Thou dost love him; thou wilt wed him--and it shall go well with--all others whom thou lovest." "Wouldst use me for a price, my father--wouldst barter thy daughter for something?" she asked in a tone low with apprehension. "Ah, what inelegant words," he chid. "Thou dost miscall my purpose. Look, my daughter. Have I not served thee with hand and heart all thy life, asking nothing, sacrificing much? I, for one, have a debt against thee, and thou canst pay it in thy marriage to Rameses. Dost thou not love me enough to make me secure with the prince, and so, secure in mine advisership to the king?" Masanath arose slowly, as if her movements kept pace with the progress of her realizations. Thus far she had been a loving and a believing child. The genial knavishness of her father had never appeared as such to her. In her sight he was cheery, great and lovable. Most of all she had flattered herself that he loved her better than life, and that his nights were sleepless in planning for her happiness. Now, a terrifying lapse in his care, or a more terrifying display of his real character, appalled her. He had placed his demand in the most irresistible form, by calling upon her dutifulness. Being obedient, she felt constrained to submit, but being spirited, with her heart already bestowed, she resisted. She floundered wildly for testimony that would justify her rebellion in his sight. The memory of Ta-user's threats came to her as unexpected and unbidden as all inspirations come. "Shall I hold thee in thy position at the expense of Egypt's peace, if not at the expense of the dynasty?" she cried. "By the heaven-bearing shoulders of Buto!" he responded laughingly, "thou dost put a high estimate on the results of thine acts. Add thereto, 'if not at the expense of the Pantheon,' and thou shalt have all heaven and earth at thy mercy." "Nay, my father, hear me! Thou knowest Ta-user--" "O, aye, I know Ta-user--all Egypt knows her--more particularly, Rameses." "Thou dost not fathom the evil in her--" "Her fangs are drawn, daughter." "Hear me, father. Last night, after Rameses--after he--after he left me, he met Ta-user. And the talk between them was of such nature that she knelt to him and he flung her off. They were between me and mine apartments, and I could not but know of it. When he left her she made such threats that it were treason for me to give them voice again. What she asked of him I surmise. It could not have been other than a prayer to him, to fulfil what was expected of him concerning her. Thou knowest the breach between the Pharaoh and his brother, Amon-meses, is but feebly bridged till Rameses shall heal the wound in marriage with Ta-user. His failure, added to the vehement contempt he displayed for her last night, shall make that breach ten times as deep and ever receding, so there can be no healing of it." Har-hat flung his head back and laughed heartily. "Thou timid child! frightened with the ravings of a discarded wanton. She and her following of churls can do nothing against the Son of Ptah. The moles in the necropolis are richer than they. None of loyal Egypt will espouse their cause, and without money how shall they get them mercenaries? Nay, why vex thee with matters of state? All that is required of thee is thy heart for Rameses, no more." "Judge not for Rameses, I pray thee," she insisted, coming near him. "Knowing that I love him not, perchance he might be gentler with Ta-user did he see his peril." Again Har-hat laughed. "I am not blind, O little reluctant," he said. "I know the secret spring of thy concern for Egypt--for Ta-user--for Rameses. I have not told thee all the stake upon thy love for the prince. Does it not seem that since a maiden will not love one winsome man there must be another already installed in her heart?" She drew back, changing color. "How little of the court-lady thou art, Masanath," he broke oft, looking at her face. "Thy sensations are too near the surface. Thou must teach thy face to dissemble. It was this very eloquence of countenance that betrayed thy foolish preferences. Mind thee, I know it to be but a maiden fancy which, discouraged, dies. But have a care lest it bring disaster upon him whom thou hast put in jeopardy of the fierce power of the prince." Masanath's eyes widened with terror. The fan-bearer continued: "I have but to mention the name of Hotep--" She clutched at her heart. "Ah?" he observed with mild interrogation in the word. "How foolish thy caprice! Hotep does not thank thee. His marble spirit hath set its loves upon ink-pots and papyri and such pulseless things. How I should reproach myself if I must undo him--" "Nay, bring no disaster on the head of the noble Hotep," she begged. "He--I--there is naught between us." "It is even as I had thought. I shall tell Rameses and send him to thee," he said, moving away. With a bound she was between him and the door. "If he ask tell him there is naught between me and the royal scribe, but send him not hither," she commanded with vehemence. "If thou art rebellious, Masanath, I must chasten thee." "Threaten me not!" she cried, thoroughly aroused, "or by the Mother of Heaven, I shall demand audience with Meneptah and tell him what thou wouldst do." "Bluster!" he answered with an irritating laugh. "Hast won the sanction of the Pharaoh for this betrothal?" she demanded. "Meneptah's will is clay in my hands," he replied contemptuously. "Vex me further and I shall tell him that!" He caught her arm, and though the fierce grasp pinched her, she knew by that she had gained a point. "And further," she continued, gathering courage at each word, "I shall ask him why thou shouldst be so anxious to keep the breach between him and his brother and defeat his aims at peace." His face blazed and he shook her, but she went on in wild triumph. "I have a confederate in Rameses. He loves thee not. And I have but to hint and ruin thee beyond the restoring power of the marriages of a thousand daughters!" Har-hat's forte had been polished insult, but when the evil in him would have expressed itself in its own brutal manner he was helpless. "Hotep--Hotep--" he snarled. The name was potent. Again she recoiled. "I shall yield him up to Rameses," he went on. "And in that very hour thou dost, in that same hour will I charge thee with treason before the throne of Meneptah!" she returned recklessly. The pair gazed at each other, breathless with temper. "Wilt thou wed Rameses?" he demanded. "So thou wilt avoid the name of Hotep in the presence of Rameses and wilt shield him as if his safety were to bring thee gain," she replied, thrusting skilfully, "I will wed the prince in one year. Furthermore, in that time I shall be free to go where and when I please, to dwell where I please and to be vexed with the sight of thee or that royal monster no more than is my desire. Say, wilt thou accept?" He had twitted her about her frank face. He could not tell now but that she was fearless and had measured her strength. He did not know that within she trembled and felt that her threats were empty. But, being guilty in his soul, and facing righteousness, Har-hat succumbed. "Have it thy way, then, vixen," he exclaimed; "but remember, I hold a heavy hand above thy head and Hotep's!" He strode out of her presence, and when she was sure he was gone, she fell on her face and wept miserably. CHAPTER XXVII THE HEIR INTERVENES At Tanis, the next day after the arrival of Meneptah, there came a messenger from Thebes to Hotep, and the royal scribe retired to his apartments to read the letter. And after he had read he was glad that he had secluded himself, for his demonstrations of relief at the news the message imparted were most extravagant and unrestrained. For the moment he permitted no reminder of Kenkenes' present plight to subdue his joy in the realization that his friend was not dead. Having exulted, he read the letter again, and then he summoned all his shrewdness to his aid. He would wait till the confusion of the court's settling itself had subsided before he presented the petition to Meneptah. Furthermore, he would relieve his underlings and write the king's communications with his own hand till he knew that the reply to Kenkenes had been sent. Har-hat should be watched vigilantly. But order and routine were not restored in the palace of Meneptah. The unrest that precedes a national crisis had developed into irritability and pugnacity. Tanis was within hearing of the plaints of Israel, and the atmosphere quivered with omen and portent. Moses appeared in this place and that, each time nearer the temporary capital, and wherever he came he left rejoicing or shuddering behind him. Meanwhile the fan-bearer laughed his way into the throne. Meneptah's weakness for him grew into stubborn worship. The old and trusted ministers of the monarch took offense and sealed their lips; the new held their peace for trepidation. The queen, heretofore meek and self-effacing, laid aside her spindle one day and, meeting her lord at the door of the council chamber; protested in the name of his dynasty and his realm. But the king was beyond help, and the queen, angry and hurt, bade him keep Har-hat out of her sight, and returned to her women. Thereafter even Meneptah saw her rarely. The rise of the fan-bearer was achieved in an incredibly short time. It proved conclusively that until this period an influence against Har-hat had been at work upon Meneptah, and seeing that Rameses had subsided, having cause to propitiate the father of the woman he would wed, the courtiers began to blame the prince and talk of him to one another. He seemed lost in a dream. In the council chamber he lounged in his chair with his eyes upon nothing and apparently hearing nothing. But the slow shifting of the spark in his sleepy eyes indicated to those who observed closely that he heard but kept his own counsel. If Meneptah spoke to him he but seconded Har-hat's suggestions. But once again the observant ones noted that the fan-bearer did not advise at wide variance with any of the prince's known ideas. Thus far the most caviling could not see that Har-hat's favoritism had led to any misrule, but the field of possibilities opened by his complete dominance over the Pharaoh was crowded with disaster, individual and national. The betrothal of Rameses to Har-hat's daughter gave further material for contention. It seemed to indicate that the fan-bearer had builded for himself for two reigns. Hotep's situation was most poignantly unhappy. He was fixed under the same roof with the man that had taken his love by piracy; he must greet him affably and reverently every day; he must live in daily contemplation of the time when he must meet Masanath also as his sovereign--the wife of the prince, whom he must serve till death. Hardest of all, he must wear a serene countenance and cover his sorrow most surely, for his own sake and for Masanath's. Ta-user still remained at court. Seti, in a fume of boyish indignation at Rameses, attended her like a shadow. Among the courtiers there were others who were not alive to the true nature of the princess and who joined Seti in his resentment against the heir. Amon-meses and Siptah, snarling and malevolent, had left the court abruptly on the morning of its departure for Tanis. The Hak-heb received them once again, and an ominous calm settled over that little pocket of fertility in the desert--Nehapehu. Thus the court was torn with factions; old internal dissensions made themselves evident again, but the vast murmur in Goshen was heard above the strife. All this had come to pass in the short space of a month. When half of that time had elapsed, Hotep, fearing to delay the petition of Kenkenes longer, lest conditions should become worse rather than better, met the Pharaoh in the hall one day and gave him the writing. Earnestly the scribe impressed Meneptah with the importance of the petition and begged him to acquaint himself in an hour of solitude with its contents and the identity of the supplicant. Meneptah promised and continued to his apartments. There Har-hat came in a few moments, and Meneptah, after his custom, gave over to him the state communications of the day, and after some little hesitation, tossed the petition of Kenkenes among them. "Thou canst attend to this matter as well, good Har-hat. Why should I take up the private concerns of my subjects when I am already burdened with heavy cares? But do thou look to this petition faithfully. It may be important, and I know not from whom it is. I promised Hotep it should be given honest attention." For seven days thereafter every letter sent by the king was written by Hotep. At the end of that time he met Meneptah again, and bending low before him, asked pardon for his insistence, and begged to know what disposition the Son of Ptah had made of the petition of his friend. He was irritably informed that the matter had been given over to the fan-bearer for attention, since the Pharaoh had been too oppressed with heavier matters to read the letter. The state of the scribe's mind, after receiving the information, was indescribable. He controlled himself before Meneptah, but he suffered no curb upon his feelings when he had returned to his own apartments. After a long time he succeeded in choking his anger, disgust and grief, realizing that each moment must be turned to account rather than wasted in railing. He viewed the situation with enforced calm. Har-hat was in full possession of the facts. He had the signet and was absolute master of Meneptah. The Hathors had surrendered Kenkenes wholly into the hands of his enemy. Furthermore, the fate of the Israelite seemed to be sealed. At the thought Hotep gnashed his teeth. In his sympathy for his friend's strait, the scribe gave over his objections to Rachel. Kenkenes had suffered for her, and, if he would, he should have her. Between the king and persuasion was Har-hat, vitally interested in the defeat of any movement toward the aid of Kenkenes. The one hope for the sculptor was the winning over of the Pharaoh, and only one could do it. And that was Rameses, who was betrothed to the love of Hotep, and against her will. Nothing could have appeared more distasteful to the scribe than the necessity of prayer to the man for whom he cherished a hate that threatened to make a cinder of his vitals. But the more he rebelled the more his conscience urged him. He flung himself on his couch and writhed; he reviled the Hathors, abused Kenkenes for the folly of sacrilege which had brought on him such misfortune; he execrated Meneptah, anathematized Har-hat and called down the fiercest maledictions on the head of Rameses. Having relieved himself, he arose and, summoning his servant, had his disordered hair dressed, fresh robes brought for him, and a glass of wine for refreshment. On the way to the palace-top he met Ta-user, walking slowly away from the staircase. Rameses, solitary and luxurious, was stretched upon a cushioned divan in the shadow of a canopy over the hypostyle. "The gods keep thee, Son of the Sun," Hotep said. "So it is thou, Hotep. Nay, but I am glad to see thee. Methought Ta-user meant to visit me just now. Is there a taboret near?" "Aye, but I shall not sit, my Prince." "Go to! It makes me weary to see thee stand. Sit, I tell thee!" Hotep drew up the taboret and sat. "I come to thee with news and a petition," he began. "It is more fitting that I should kneel." "Perchance. But exertion offends mine eyes in such delicious hours as these, and I will forego the homage for the sake of mine own sinews. Out with thy tidings." "Thou dost remember thy friend and mine, that gentle genius, Kenkenes." "I am not like to forget him so long as a bird sings or the Nile ripples make music. Osiris pillow him most softly." "He is not dead, my Prince." "Nay!" Rameses cried, sitting up. "The knave should be bastinadoed for the tears he wrung from us!" "Thou wouldst deny my petition. I am come to implore thee to intercede for him." Rameses bade him proceed. "Thou art acquainted with the nature of Kenkenes, O Prince. He is a visionary--an idealist, and so firmly rooted are his beliefs that they are to his life as natural as the color of his eyes. He is a beauty-worshiper. Athor possesses him utterly, and her loveliness blinds him to all other things, particularly to his own welfare and safety. "In the beginning he fell in love, and a soul like his in love is most unreasoning, immoderate and terribly faithful. The maiden is beautiful--I saw her--most divinely beautiful. She is wise, for I saw that also. She is good, for I felt it, unreasoning, and when a man hath a woman intuition, a god hath spoken the truth to his heart. But she is a slave--an Israelite." "An Israelite!" Hotep bowed his head. "By the gods of my fathers, I ought not to marvel! Nay, now, is that not like the boy? An Israelite! And half the noble maids of Memphis mad for him!" "He is not for thee and me to judge, O Rameses," Hotep interrupted. "The gods blew another breath in him than animates our souls. For thee and me such conduct would be the fancies of madmen; for Kenkenes it is but living up to the alien spirit with which the gods endowed him. It might be torture for him to wed according to our lights." "Perchance thou art right. Go on." "It seems that Har-hat looked upon the girl, and taken by her beauty, asked her at the Pharaoh's hands for his harem." "Ah, the--! Why does he not marry honorably?" "It is not for me to divine," Hotep went on calmly. "The fan-bearer sent his men to take her, but she fled from them to Kenkenes, and he protected her--hid her away--where, none but Kenkenes and the maiden know. Har-hat is most desirous of owning her, but Kenkenes keeps his counsel. Therefore, Har-hat overtook him in Tape, where he went to get a signet belonging to his father, and imprisoned him till what time he should divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite." "Never was there a true villain till Har-hat was born! What poor feeble shadows have trodden the world for knaves before the fan-bearer came. Go on. Hath he put him to torture yet?" "Aye, from the beginning, though not by the bastinado. He rends him with suspense and all the doubts and fears for his love that can haunt him in his cell. But I have more to tell. There was a signet, an all-potent signet, which belonged to the noble Mentu--" "Aye, I remember," Rameses broke in. "My grandsire gave it to the murket in recognition of his great work, Ipsambul. It commands royal favor in the name of Osiris. That should help the dreamer out of his difficulty." "Aye, it should, my Prince, but it did not. Kenkenes sent it to the Pharaoh, with a petition for his own freedom, but the cares of state were so pressing that the Son of Ptah gave the letter, unopened, to Har-hat for attention." Rameses laughed harshly. "Kenkenes would better content himself. The Hathors are against him," he cried. "Was there ever such consummate misfortune? What more?" "Is it not enough, O Rameses?" Hotep answered sternly. "He hath suffered sufficiently. Now is it time for them, who profess to love him, to bestir themselves in his behalf. Thou knowest how near the fan-bearer is to the Pharaoh. Persuasion can not reach the king that worketh against Har-hat. Thou alone art as potent with the Son of Ptah. Wilt thou not prove thy love for Kenkenes and aid him?" Rameses did not answer immediately. Thoughtfully he leaned his elbow on his knee and stroked his forehead with his hand. His black brows knitted finally. "My hands are tied, Hotep," he began bluntly. "I permit the sway of this knave over my father because I am constrained. Till he begins to achieve confusion or bring about bad government I must let him alone. There is no love between us. We have no quarrel, but I despise him for that very spirit in him which makes him do such things as thou hast even told me. If his offense had been against Egypt or the king or myself, I could balk him. But this is a matter of personal interest to him, which would be open and flagrant interference--" Hotep broke in earnestly. "Surely so small a matter of courtesy--if such it may be called--should not stand between thee and this most pressing need." "Aye, thou hast said--if it were only a small matter of courtesy. But the breach of that same small courtesy entails great disaster for me. Thou knowest, O my Hotep, that I am betrothed to the daughter of Har-hat." With great effort Hotep kept a placid face. "The Lady Masanath would abet him who would aid Kenkenes," he said. "Even so. But hear me, I pray thee, Hotep. This most rapacious miscreant would hold his favor with the king. He knew I loved Masanath, and he held her out of my reach till I should consent to countenance his advisership to my father. I consented--and should I lapse, I lose Masanath." Hotep was on his feet by this time, his face turned away. Rameses could not guess what a tempest raged in his heart. "But be thou assured," the prince continued grimly, "that only so long as Masanath is not yet mine, shall I endure him. After that he shall fall as never knave fell or so deserved to fall before. Aye,--but stay, Hotep. I have not done. I have some small grain of hope for this unfortunate friend of ours. The marriage hath been delayed. I shall press my suit, and wed Masanath sooner, if she will, and Kenkenes need not decay in prison--" Hotep did not stay longer. He bowed and departed without a word. "Out upon the man, I offered all I could," Rameses muttered, but immediately he arose and hurried to the well of the stairway. "Hotep!" he called. The scribe, half-way down, turned and looked up. "Return to me in an hour. Give me time to ponder and I may more profitably help thee," the prince commanded. Hotep bowed and went on. The hour was barely long enough for the smarting soul of the scribe to soothe itself. Deep, indeed, his love for Kenkenes that he returned at all. Masanath's name, spoken so familiarly, so boastingly, by the prince was fresh outrage to his already affronted heart. It mattered not that Rameses did not know. His talk of marriage with Masanath was exultation, nevertheless. Once again, Hotep flung himself on his couch and wrestled with his spirit. At the end of the hour, he went once again to Rameses. He was calm and composed, but he made no apology for his abrupt departure, when last he was there. Perhaps, however, he gained in the respect of Rameses by that lapse. The blunt prince was more patient with the sincere than with the diplomatic. "Thou hast said," the prince began immediately, "that Har-hat hath imprisoned Kenkenes till what time he shall divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite?" Hotep bowed. "The fan-bearer charges him with slave-stealing?" "And sacrilege," the scribe added. The prince opened his eyes. "Aye, Kenkenes carried his beauty-love into blasphemy. He executed a statue of Athor in defiance of the sculptor's ritual. For this also, Har-hat holds a heavy hand over him." "A murrain on the lawless dreamer!" Rameses muttered. "Is there anything more?" Hotep shook his head. "He deserves his ill-luck. Mark me, now. He will not go mad with a year's imprisonment, and he will profit by it. Furthermore, he can not be persuaded into betraying the Israelite, if he knows how long and how much he will have to endure. Once sentenced, Har-hat can add nothing more thereto. Has he confessed?" "To me, he did. I know not what he said to the Pharaoh. But the Goddess Ma broodeth on the lips of Kenkenes." Rameses nodded, and clapped his hands. The attendant that appeared he ordered to bring the scribe's writing-case and implements. When the servant returned, Hotep, at a sign from Rameses, prepared to write. "Write thus to the jailer at Tape: "'By order of the crown prince, Rameses, the prisoner, Kenkenes, held for slave-stealing and sacrilege, is sentenced to imprisonment for one year--'" Hotep lifted his pen, and looked his rebellion. "Write!" the prince exclaimed. "I do him a kindness, with a lesson added. Were it in my power to free him I would not--till he had learned that the law is inexorable and the power of its ministers supreme. Go on--'at such labor as the prisoner may elect. No further punishment may be added thereto.' Affix my seal and send this without fail. Thou canst write whatever thou wilt to Kenkenes. For the Israelite, I shall not concern myself. The nearer friends to Kenkenes may look to her. Mine shall be the care only to see that they are not harassed by the fan-bearer. In this, I fulfil the law. Let Har-hat help himself." He dropped back on his divan and Hotep slowly collected his writing materials and made ready to depart. Having finished, he lingered a little. "A word further, O Rameses. Kenkenes is proud. He would liefer die than suffer the humiliation of public shame. Memphis believes him dead. None but thyself, Har-hat, the noble Mentu and I know of his plight. Har-hat hath no call to tell it. Mentu will not; I shall not. Wilt thou keep his secret also, my Prince?" "Far be it from me to humiliate him publicly. Let him have a care, hereafter, that he does not humiliate himself." "I thank thee, O Rameses." Saluting the prince, Hotep departed. That night he wrote to Kenkenes and to Mentu, and the two messengers departed ere midnight. CHAPTER XXVIII THE IDOLS CRUMBLE Meanwhile Kenkenes seldom saw a human face. Food and water in red clay vessels, bearing the seal of Thebes, were set inside his door by disembodied hands. At intervals he saw the keeper, always attended by the inevitable scribe, but the visit was a matter of inspection and rarely was the prisoner addressed. Though he grew to expect these visits, each time the bar rattled down he trembled with the hope that the jailer brought him freedom. Each successive disappointment was as acute as the last, made more poignant by the torturing certainty that his hopes were vain. The effect of one was not at all counteracted by the other. Some time after dawn the sun thrust a golden bar, full of motes, across the door, a foot above his head. In a space the beam was withdrawn. The heat and dust of the midday came, instead. Gnats wove their mazes in the narrow casement that opened on the outside world, and now and then the twitter of birds sounded very close to it. Kenkenes knew how they flashed as they flew in the sun. They were prodigal of freedom. At nightfall, if he stood at full height against the door, he could see a thread of cooling sky with a single star in its center. This was all his knowledge of the world. Hour after hour he paced the narrow length of the cell, till the circumscribed round made him dizzy. If he flung himself on his straw pallet, he did not rest. The mind has no charity for the body. If there is to be no mental repose it is vain to hope for physical. When the inactivity of his uneasy pallet became intolerable, he resumed his pace. He expected the return of his messenger in twenty days after the man's departure. At the expiration of that time his suspense and apprehension became more and more desperate at the passing of each new day. In rapid succession he accepted and rejected the thought that the messenger had played him false, had been assassinated and robbed; that Meneptah had recalled the signet, or had added the penalty of suspense to his indorsement of Har-hat's fiat of imprisonment. When the climax of his sensations was reached, his self-sufficiency collapsed and he entered into ceaseless supplication of the gods. He vowed costly sacrifices to them, adding promises of self-abnegation which became more comprehensive as his distress increased. At the end of a month he had consecrated everything at his command. Then he subsided into a numb endurance till what time his prayers should be answered. Eight days later, about mid-afternoon, while he lay on his pallet, the door was flung open and his messenger stood without. With a cry, Kenkenes leaped to his feet and wrenched the scroll from the man's hand. With unsteady fingers he ripped off the linen cover and read. The letter was from Hotep, conveying such information regarding his imprisonment as we already know. If was couched in the gentlest terms, and contained that essence of hope which loving spirits can extract from the most desperate situation, for another's sake. But for all the kindly intent of the scribe, his news was none the less unhappy. The dreaded had come to pass, and the war between hope and fear was at an end. Kenkenes read the missive calmly, and paid the messenger according to his promise. The jailer, who had come with the man, read the sentence and bade the prisoner make his choice of labor. "Anything, so it will but give me a glimpse of the horizon," he said. "Thou wilt pay dearly for thy sky," the keeper cautioned him. "The softest labor is within doors." "Give me my wish according to the command of the prince." The jailer shrugged his shoulders. "As thou wilt. Make ready to follow the canal-workers, to-morrow." When the door fell shut again, Kenkenes returned to his pallet and re-read the scroll. A year's imprisonment! The sentence defined was the sum of daily shame, sorrow, homesickness and misanthropy. Shame in the proud man admits of no degrees of intensity. If it exist at all, it is superlative. To this was added the loss of Rachel. How little it would take to satisfy him, now that she was wholly denied to his eyes! Only to look down on her again, unseen, from his aery in the rocks over the valley! Hotep had offered him hope, based on circumstantial evidence and fact. Har-hat could not add to his sentence. That was the only indisputable cheer he could give. But would Rameses stay the chief adviser's hand, seeing that the winning of Masanath depended on the prince's neutrality, as Hotep had explained? If Rachel fled to Mentu, as Kenkenes had bidden her, could the murket protect her, even at his own peril? Might not the heavy hand of the powerful favorite fall also on the head of the king's architect? Wherein was the murket more immune than his son? Rachel's destruction seemed to be decreed by the Hathors. Such was his thought, and he raised himself to curse the Seven Sisters, and growing reckless, he included the unhelpful gods in his maledictions. The blasphemy comforted him strangely, and he persisted till his heated brain was cooled. At dawn the next day he laid aside his fillet of gold, his trappings and noble dress, and donning the kilt or shenti of the prisoners, was handcuffed to another malefactor and taken forth to the sun-white plain between Thebes Diospolis and the Arabian, hills, to labor in the canals of the nome. Here, looking continually upon crime, brutality and misery, he asked himself the divine motive in creating man, and having found no answer, he began to question man's debt to the gods. He was going the way of all the weak in faith. He had pleaded with his deities, and they had not heard him. He asked himself what he had done to deserve their disfavor. The sacrilege of Athor was too slight an offense--if offense it were--and here again he paused, set his teeth and swore that he had done no wrong and the god or man that accused him was impotent, unjust and ignorant. Once again he asked himself what he had done to deserve ill-use at the hands of the Pantheon. They had turned a deaf ear to him, and why should he render them further homage? The doctrine of divine Love, displayed through chastisement, was not in the Osirian creed. His eyes grew bold through rebellion and he attacked the wild inconsistencies of the faith with the destructive instrument of reason. Each deduction led him on, fascinated, in his apostasy. Each crumbling tenet started another toward ruin. Finding no sound obstacle to stay him, he fell with avidity to rending the Pantheon. But he found no cheer nor any hope that day when he told himself bitterly, "There is no God." CHAPTER XXIX THE PLAGUES The court was gone and Masanath was making the most of each day of her freedom. Memphis was in a state of apathy, worn out by revel and emptied of her luminaries, Ta-meri, intoxicated with the importance of her position as lady-in-waiting to the queen, had departed with her husband, the cup-bearer. Io had returned to her home in On, with an ache in her brave little heart that outweighed even Masanath's for heaviness. The last of Seti's lover-like behavior toward her dated back to a time before the court had gone to Thebes--long, long ago. Ta-user, also, had gone, but the fan-bearer's daughter did not regret her. The other ladies who remained in Memphis, frightened at the loftiness of Masanath's future, were uneasy in her presence and seemed more inclined to bend the knee before her than to continue the girlish companionship that had once been between them. So she must entertain herself, if she were entertained at all. For a time after the departure of Meneptah, Masanath had given herself up to tears and gloom. When she had worn out her grief, the elastic spirit of youth reasserted itself and once again she was as cheerful as she felt it becoming to be under the circumstances. The fan-bearer had taken a house for his daughter's use, during her year of solitary residence, and her own servants, a lady-in-waiting, the devoted Nari, Pepi, a courier and upper servant, lean, brown and taciturn, and several slaves, both black and white, had been left with her. The older daughter of the fan-bearer lived with her husband in Pelusium. Her home could have been an asylum for the younger, but Masanath was determined to know one year of absolute independence before she entered the long bondage of queenship. It was now the middle of June, the height of Egyptian summer. In a little space the marshes, which had been, for eight months, favorite haunts of fowlers, would be submerged, for the inundation was not far away. Masanath would hunt for wild-duck and marsh-hen, while there was yet time. It was an hour after sunrise. Her raft, built of papyrus, was boat-shaped and graceful as a swan. Pepi was at the long-handled sweep in the stern. Masanath sat in the middle, which was heaped with nets, throw-sticks, and bows and arrows. A pair of decoy birds, tame and unfettered, stood near her, craning their small heads, puzzled at the movement of the boat which was undecipherable since they were motionless. Nari sat in the prow, her hands folded, her face quite expressionless. The service of the day was out of the routine, but as a good servant, she was capable of adapting herself to the change. The little craft darted away from the painted landing for pleasure boats, and reaching midstream, was turned toward the north. The current caught it and swept it along like a leaf. As they passed the stone wharf at Masaarah, Nari looked toward the quarries with a show of interest on her face. She even caught her breath to speak. Masanath noted her animation. "What is it, Nari?" "Naught but a bit of gossip that came to mine ears, last night, and the sight of Masaarah urged me to tell it again. It is said the Hebrews of these quarries rose against the new driver and drove him out of the camp, crying, 'Return us our Atsu, return us our Atsu.'" "What folly!" Masanath exclaimed. "If they had been the host which crowds Goshen to her bounds, it might serve. But this handful in rebellion against Egypt! The military of the Memphian nome will crush them as if they had been so many ants." "I know," the serving-woman admitted. "The soldier I had it from, said that the city commandant would move against them by noon this day." "The gods help them!" Pepi put in. "Thy prayer is too late, Pepi," Masanath answered. "The gods should have cautioned them ere they took the step. And yet," she continued, musing, "straits may become so sore that aught but endurance is welcome." Her servants looked at her and at each other, understanding. Nari went on: "But the soldier told me further that the Israelites had spent the night chanting and dancing before their God, and it seems from this spot that the quarries are empty. They do not fear, boasting their God's care." Masanath shook her head. "He must look to them at once, ere the soldiery fall upon them. His time for aid is short," she said. A silence fell, and the raft passed below Masaarah. Again Nari spoke, proving that she had heard and thought upon the last words of her mistress. "Are not the gods omnipotent and everywhere?" "Aye, so hast thou been taught, Nari." "Our gods, and the gods of every nation like them?" the serving-woman persisted. "The gods of Egypt are so, and each nation boasts its gods equally potent." "Mayhap the Hebrews' God will help them," Nari ventured. Masanath was silent for a moment. "He hath deserted them for long," she said at last, "but they are hard-pressed. Mayhap their loud supplications will reach Him in His retreat." "They boast that He hath returned." "Let Him prove Himself," Masanath insisted stoutly. When next she spoke there was no hint of the past serious talk in her voice. "A pest on the ban," she exclaimed. "Look at the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. It fairly swarms with teal and coot, and see the snipe on the sand." She stood up and watched the sandy strip they were nearing. They were a goodly distance out from the shore, but Pepi poled nearer midstream. "The pity of it," she sighed; "but I doubt not the place swarms with crocodile, also." She sat down again, and looked at the decoy birds. Their timidity had increased into actual fear. Masanath reached a soothing hand toward one of them and it fled. The motion of the poling-arm of Pepi frightened it again, and with a flirt of its wings it retreated toward Masanath. "Stop a moment, Pepi," she said. "Let me quiet this frightened thing. I can not fathom its terror." "The unquiet soul, my Lady," Nari whispered, in awe. "Strange that the gods gifted the creatures with keener sight than men," Masanath answered, somewhat disturbed. She moved toward the bird, talking softly, but the persuasion was as useless as if the decoy had been a wild thing. At the nearer approach of the small hand it took wings and flew. The mate followed, unhesitating. The shining distance toward the west swallowed them up. The trio on the raft looked at one another. "Nay, now, saw ye the like before?" Masanath exclaimed, the tone of her voice divided between astonishment and irritation at the loss of her pets. "Let us leave this vicinity," Pepi said, suiting the action to the word, "it is unholy." He seized the sweep and drove the raft about, poling with wide strokes. At that moment, a cry, which was more of a hoarse whisper, broke from his lips. "Body of Osiris! The river! the river!" Masanath leaned on one hand and looked over the side of the raft. With a bound and a shivering cry, Nari was cowering beside her, the little craft tossing on the waves at the force of the leap. Instantly, Pepi was at her other side, on his knees, praying and shaking. And together the trio huddled, but only one, Masanath, was brave enough to watch what was happening. From the bottom of the Nile a turbid convection was taking place, as if the river silt had been stirred up, but the fuming current was assuming a dull red tinge. The action had been rapid. Already the stain had predominated, streaks of clear water, only here and there, clarifying the opaque coloring. The boat rode half its depth in red, the paddle dripped red, the splashes of water within on the bottom were red, the sun shone broadly into the mirroring red, a sliding, reeking red! A lavender foam broke its bubbles against the drifting raft and a tepid, invisible vapor, like a moist breath, exhaled from the ensanguined surface. Schools of fish, struggling and leaping, filled the space immediately above the water, and cumbered the raft with a writhing mass. Numberless crocodiles bounded into the air, braying, snorting, rending one another and churning the river into froth by their hideous battle. Dwellers of the deep water drifted into the upper tide--monsters of the muck at the Nile bottom, turtles, huge crawfish, water-newts, spotted snakes, curious bleached creatures that had never seen the day, great drifts of insects, with frogs, tadpoles--everything of aquatic animate life, came up dead or dying terribly. Along either bank water-buffalo and wallowing swine, which had been in the pools near the river, clambered ponderously, snorting at every step. Vessels were putting about and flying for the shore. From the prow of one tall boat, with distended sails, a figure was seen to spring high and disappear under the red torrent. Rioting crews of river-men fought for first landing at the accessible places on the banks. Memphis shrieked and the pastures became compounds of wild beasts that deafened heaven with their savage bellowing. Pepi and Nari had no thought of saving themselves. It was Masanath who must save them. They clung to her, dragging her down with their arms when she attempted to rise. Bereft of reason, they made the liquid echoes of the river ring with wild cries of mortal terror. Masanath had sufficient instinct left to urge her to fly. With a mighty effort she shook off her servants and sprang to the sweep. Instantly they made to follow her, but she threatened them with a hunting-stick. The combined weight of the three in the stern would have swamped the frail boat. Seizing the sweep she poled with superhuman strength toward the nearest shore--the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. If she remembered the spirit, she forgot her fear of it. Any terror was acceptable other than isolation on this mile-wide torrent of blood. The raft grounded, and as a viscous wash of red lapped across it, she leaped forth, landing with both feet in the horror. She floundered out and crying to her servants to follow her, fled like a mad thing up the sandy stretch toward the distant wall of rock. The boat, lightened of her weight, received a backward thrust as she leaped, and drifted out of the reeds. The heavy current caught it and swept it across the smitten river to the Memphian shore. It bore two insensible figures. Masanath ran, thinking only to leave the ghastly flood behind. Her wet over-dress flapped about her ankles. It, too, was stained, and she tore if off as she ran. Ahead of her was a sagging limestone wall, with no gap, but Masanath, hardly sane, would have dashed herself against it, if hands had not detained her. "Blood! Blood!" she shrieked. "Holy Ptah save us!" "Peace!" some one made answer. "God is with us." The voice was calm and reassuring, the hands firm. Here, then, was one who was strong and unafraid, and therefore, a safe refuge. No longer called upon to care for herself, Masanath fell into the arms of the brave unknown and ceased to remember. Consciousness returned to her slowly and incompletely. Horror had dazed her, and her surroundings, but faintly discovered in an all-enveloping gloom, were not conducive to mental repose and clearness. She became aware, first, that she was somewhere hidden from the sunshine and beyond reach of the strange odor from the Nile. Next she realized that she was sheltered in a cave; that slender lines of white daylight sifted through the interstices of a door; that a lamp was burning somewhere behind a screen; that a hairy thing sat in a corner and looked at her with half-human eyes, and that, as she shrank at the sight, the warm support under her head moved and a fair face, framed with golden hair, bent over her. Then her eyes, becoming clearer as her recollection returned, wandered away toward the walls of her shelter. They had been hewn by hands. There was an opening in one side, leading into another and a darker crypt. Was not this a tomb? She was in the Tomb of the Discontented Soul! Terrified, she struggled to gain her feet and fly, but the awful memory of the plague without returned to her overwhelmingly. Gentle hands restrained her, and the same voice that had sought to soothe her before, continued its soft comforting now. "Thou art safe and sheltered," she heard. "No evil shall befall thee." Was this the spirit of the tomb? If so, it was most lovely and kindly. But a solemn voice issued out of the dark cell beyond. This was the spirit, of a surety. She cowered against her fair-haired protector and shuddered. But the maiden answered the voice in a strange tongue. Masanath would have known it to be Hebrew, had she been composed. But now it was mystic, cabalistic. Presently the maiden addressed her. "Deborah asks after thee, Lady. How shall I tell her thou findest thyself?" "Oh, I can not tell," Masanath answered. "What has happened? Is it true or did I go mad?" The Israelite smoothed her hair. "It is a plague," she said. "Then the hand of Amenti is on us," the Egyptian shuddered. "Whither shall we flee?" "Ye can not flee from the One God," the voice from the crypt said grimly. "Nay, but what have I done to vex the gods?" Masanath insisted. "O let me go hence. Where are my servants?" "It is better for thee to bide here," the voice went on relentlessly. "For outside the sheltering neighborhood of the chosen people, the hand of the outraged God shall overtake Egypt and scorch her throat with thirst and make her veins congeal for want of water." Masanath gained her feet, crying out wildly: "My servants! Where are they? Let me forth." The Israelite put an assuring arm about her. "Thou wilt not dare to face the Nile again," she warned. "Stay with us." "To starve! To perish of thirst! To die of pestilence! The gods have left us. We are undone!" "Aye, the gods have left you," the voice continued harshly. "Ye are given over to the vengeance of the God of Abraham. Howl, Egypt! Rend thyself and cover thy head with ashes. Thy destruction is but begun. For a hundred years thou hast oppressed Israel. Now is the hour of the children of God!" Masanath wrung her hands, but the voice went on. "As the Nile flows, so hath the blood of Israel been wasted by the hand of Egypt. Now shall the God of Abraham drain her veins, even so, drop for drop. For the despoiling of Israel shall her pastures and stables be filled with stricken beasts--for the heavy hand of the Pharaohs shall the heavens thunder and scourges fall. And the wrath of God shall cool not till Egypt is a waste, shorn of her corn and her vineyards and her riches, and foul with dead men." Nothing could have been more vindictive than this disembodied voice. Masanath thrust her fingers through her hair, and drawing her elbows forward, sheltered her face with them. "When have I offended against the Hebrew?" she cried, sick with terror. "Why should your awful God destroy the innocent and the friend of Israel among the people of Egypt?" Rachel, who had stood beside her, with an increasing cloud on her face, now spoke in Hebrew. There was mild protest in her tones. "The plague will pass," the voice from the inner crypt continued. "Seven days will it endure, no more." "Deborah is mystic," Rachel added softly, "and is gifted with prophetic eyes. Much hath she suffered at Egypt's hands, and her tongue grows harsh when she speaks of the oppression." "Nay, but let me go," Masanath begged. "Where are my servants? Came they not after me when I fled?" "None followed thee, Lady, and thy raft went adrift." "Let me out of this hideous place, then, for I must seek them. They may be dead." Her tone was imperious, and Rachel, silently obedient, led her to the entrance and pushed aside the door. Instantly the terrible turmoil over Egypt smote upon her ears; next she saw the Nile, moving slowly, black where its clear surfaces had been green, scarlet and froth-ridden where the sun had shone upon transparent ripples and white foam; after that, the strange odor came to her, recalling the smell of the altars, but now magnified till it was overpoweringly strong. She sickened and turned away. Setting the door in place, Rachel led her back into a corner of the outer chamber and laid her down on the matting there. "The Lord God will care for thy servants. Fret thyself no further, but be content here until the horror shall pass. I shall attend thee, so thou shalt not miss their ministrations." The Israelite spoke with gentle authority, smoothing the dark hair of her guest. Command in the form of persuasion is doubly effective, since it induces while it compels. Masanath was most amenable to this manner of entreaty, since it disarmed her pride while it governed her impulses. Thus, though her inclination urged against it, she ate when the Israelite brought her a bit of cold fowl and a beaker of wine at midday and again at sunset. And at night, she slept because the Israelite told her she was safe and bade her close her eyes. But once she awoke. The lamp burned behind a wooden amphora rack and the interior of the stone chamber was not dark. The voice in the inner chamber was still and the human-eyed beast in the corner was now only a small hairy roll. In the silence she would have been dismayed, but close beside her sat the Israelite. One hand toyed absently with the golden rings of a collar about her throat. The face was averted, the hair unplaited and falling in a shower of bright ripples over the bosom and down the back. The beauty of the picture impressed itself on Masanath, in spite of her drowsiness. But as well as the beauty, the dejection in the droop of the head, the unhappiness on the face, were apparent even in the dusk. Here was sorrow--the kind of sorrow that even the benign night might not subdue. Masanath was well acquainted with such vigils as the golden Israelite seemed to be keeping. Her love-lorn heart was stirred. She spoke to Rachel softly. "Come hither and lie down by me," she said. "I am afraid and thou art unhappy. Give me some of thy courage and I will sorrow with thee." The Israelite smiled sadly and obeyed. It was dawn when the fan-bearer's daughter awoke again. The door had been set aside, and on the rock threshold a squat copper lamp was sending up periodic eruptions of dense white vapor. Rachel was feeding the ember of the cotton wick with bits of chopped root. The breeze from the river blew the fumes back into the cave, filling the dark recesses with a fresh and pungent odor. Masanath, wondering and remembering, raised her head to look through the opening. Day was broad over Egypt, and the turmoil had subsided. The silence was heavy. But the Nile was still a wallowing torrent of red. She sank back and drew the wide sleeves of her dress over her face. Rachel put the lamp aside, set the door in place and came to her. "Thou art better for thy long sleep," she said. "Now, if thou canst bear, as well, with the meager food this house affords, the plague will not vex thee sorely." Then, in obedience to the Israelite's offer, Masanath sat up and suffered Rachel to dress her hair and bathe her tiny hands and face with a solution of weak white wine. "The water which we had stored with us is also corrupted. I fear we shall thirst, if we have but wine to wet our lips," Rachel explained. "Thou dost not tell me that ye abide in this place?" the fan-bearer's daughter asked, taking the piece of fowl and hard bread which Rachel offered her. "Even so," Rachel responded after a little silence. "Holy Isis! guests of a spirit! What a ghastly hospice for women! How came ye here?" For a moment there was silence, so marked that Masanath ceased her dainty feeding and drew back a little. "Are ye lepers?" she asked in a frightened voice. "Nay, we are fugitives," Rachel answered. "Fugitives! What strait brought you to seek such asylum as this?" Again a speaking pause. "Who art thou, Lady?" Rachel asked, at last. "I am Masanath, daughter of Har-hat, fan-bearer to the Pharaoh." "And thou art a friend of the oppressed?" the Israelite continued. "It is my boast before the gods," the Egyptian answered with dignity. "I am Rachel, of Israel, daughter of Maai, and I have fled from shame. In all Egypt, this is the one and only refuge for such as I. If my hiding-place were published, no help could save me from the despoiler. My one protector is she who lies within. She is my foster-mother, old and ill from abuse at the hands of brutal servants. Thou hast my story." As Rachel ceased, Deborah called from within. "There is more," she said. "Come hither. I am moved to tell thee." Masanath obeyed with hesitation and, pausing in the doorway of the inner chamber, heard the story of the Israelites. Great was her perplexity and her sorrow when she heard the name of Kenkenes spoken calmly and without grief. They did not know he was dead! She held her peace till the story was done, How much more would her heart have been tortured could the old woman have given her the name of the offending noble! Instead, all unsuspecting, she heard the story of Har-hat's wrong-doing with now and then an exclamation of indignation, condemning him heartily in her soul. "The time for the Egyptian's return is long past, but he will come soon," Deborah concluded. Masanath slowly turned her head and looked at Rachel. This, then, was the love of that dear, dead artist, for whom Memphis mourned and had ceased to wait. How doubly grievous his loss, for Rachel was undone thereby! How heart-breaking to see her wait for him who would come no more! Masanath choked back her tears and said, when she was composed again: "Ye need not molder in this cave, I can hide you in Memphis." "Nay, we will await him here." "But the Nile will be upon your refuge in three weeks. Ye would starve if ye drowned not," the Egyptian protested earnestly. "It may be we shall not wait so long," Rachel put in. Masanath looked at her while she thought busily. "If I tell it, I break a heart. But if they bide here, they die. None other will come to them by chance or on purpose." "I would not risk it," she answered. Returning to the pallet of matting she finished her breakfast in silence. After a little sigh she glanced at the wine in one of the small amphoras which Rachel had brought to her as a drinking-cup. "Mayhap the plague is past," she said, hinting, "and I am athirst." Rachel took up another jar and went forth. The hairy creature in the corner, tethered to the amphora rack, slipped his collar and followed her. As soon as the Israelite was gone, Masanath went into the inner chamber. Standing by the old woman, who lay upon a mattress, set on the top of the sarcophagus, she said hurriedly: "Ye may not remain here. Kenkenes is known to me and he will not return." "Thou dost not tell me he was false to us," Deborah exclaimed. "Nay, I will not believe it," she declared. "Nay, he was the soul of honor, but he is dead." "Dead!" the old woman cried, catching at her dress. "Hush! Tell her not!" "Aye, thou art right. Tell her not! But--but how did he die?" "By drowning. His boat was discovered battered and overturned among the wharf-piling at Memphis, some weeks agone." The old woman was silent for a moment and then she shook her head. "He is a resourceful youth and he may have procured another boat and set this one adrift to deceive his enemies. Yet, the time has been so long, it may be; it may be." "None in Memphis doubts it. His father hath given him up and his house and his people are in mourning. But we may not lose this moment in surmises. Wilt thou go with me into Memphis--if this sending is withdrawn?" "There is no other choice," Deborah answered after some pondering. "Kenkenes offered us refuge with his father--alas! that the young man should die!" After shaking her head and muttering to herself in her own tongue, she went on. "But Rachel hesitated to accept, at first from maiden shyness, though now she hath a secret fear, I doubt not, that the Egyptian may have played her false. The sorry news must be told her ere she would go." "Nay, keep it from her yet a while. Tell her not now." "How may we?" Deborah asked helplessly. "Listen. I am a householder in Memphis for a year. The place is secure from much visiting and only my trusted servants are there. They will not tell her--none else will--thou and I shall keep discreet tongues, but if the fact creep out, in the way of such things, we need not accuse ourselves of killing her hope. As thou sayest, the young man may not be dead. But let us not risk anything. "And furthermore," she caught up the line of her talk before Deborah could answer, "I may as well work good out of an evil I can not escape. I am betrothed to the heir of the crown of Egypt--" Deborah flung up her hand, drawing away in her amazement. "Thou! A coming queen over the proud land of Mizraim--a guest in the retreat of enslaved Israel!" Masanath bent her head. "Ye, in your want and distress, are not more poor or wretched than I." The old Israelite's brilliant eyes glittered in the dark. "Hold!" she exclaimed. "Thou art not a slave--" "Nay, am I not?" Masanath rejoined swiftly. "A slave, a chattel, doubly enthralled! But enough of this, I would have said that if I wed the prince, I can ask Rachel's freedom at his hands." "So thou canst," Deborah said eagerly--but before she could continue, Rachel appeared at the outer opening, the amphora held by one arm, the ape by the other. Her face was alight with a smile that seemed dangerously akin to tears. "Here is water, clean and fresh, but the Nile is bank-full of the plague. It was Anubis that showed me!" She lowered the amphora into the rack and took up the linen band the ape had slipped. "Oh, it is ungrateful to tie thee, Anubis," she went on, "but thou must not betray us, thou good creature." "It was Anubis!" Deborah repeated inquiringly. "Aye. Not once did the hideous sight disturb him. He was athirst and he made me a well in the sand with his paws. See how Jehovah hath sent us succor by humble hands." She stroked the hairy grotesque and tethered him reluctantly. Deborah muttered under her breath. "I liked the creature not, since he made me think of the abominable idolatries of Mizraim, but he hath served the oppressed. He shall be more endurable to me." The night fell and the dawn came again and again, but holy Hapi was denied. Hour by hour the fuming lamp was set before the entrance, the door was put a little aside, that the entering air might be purified for those within. When the aromatic was exhausted, Rachel sought for the root once more, among the herbs at the river-bank; for the atmosphere, unsweetened, was beyond endurance. Never a boat appeared on the water, nor was any human being seen abroad. Egypt retired to her darkest corner and shuddered. But after the seven days were fulfilled, the horror on the waters was gone. It went as miasma is dispelled by the sun and wind--as pestilence is killed by the frost--unseen, unprotesting. The lifting of the plague was as awesome as its coming, but it was not horrible. That was the only difference. Egypt rejoiced, but she trembled nevertheless and went about timidly. The Israelite and the Egyptian carried the punt, the boat of Khafra and Sigur, and launched it on the clean waters. Then they prepared themselves and Deborah and Anubis for a journey, and ere they departed, Masanath, at Rachel's bidding, wrote with a soft soapstone upon the rock over the portal of the tomb, the whereabouts of its whilom dwellers: "Her, whom thou seekest, thou wilt find at the mansion of Har-hat in the city." At sunset, Rachel, all unsuspecting, was sheltered in the house of her enemy. Masanath's servants had sought for her, frantically and without system or method. Pepi and Nari had been saved by the gods. They did not know where she had gone, and nothing human or divine could have driven them over the Nile to search for her in the Arabian hills. And for that reason likewise, they did not notify Har-hat of his daughter's loss. The messenger would have had to cross the smitten river. They intended to send for the fan-bearer, but they waited for the plague to lift. When it was gone, Masanath returned to them. CHAPTER XXX "HE HARDENED HIS HEART" The Nile rose and fell and the seasons shifted until eight months had passed. The period was inconsiderable, but its events had never been equaled in a like space, or a generation, or a whole dynasty, or in all the history of Egypt. When the ancient Hebrew shepherd from Midian first demanded audience with Meneptah, Egypt was autocrat of the earth and mistress of the seas. Her name was Glory and Perpetual Life and her substance was all the fullness of the earth and the treasures thereof. But eight months after the Hebrew shepherd had gone forth from that first audience, how had the mighty fallen! She was stripped of her groves and desolated in her wheat-fields; her gardens were naked, her vineyards were barren, and the vultures grew fat on the dead in her pastures. About the thrice-fortified walls of her cities her gaunt husbandmen were camped, pensioners upon the granaries of the king. Her commerce had stagnated because she had no goods to barter; her society ceased to revel, for her people were called upon to preserve themselves. Her arts were forgotten; only religion held its own and that from very fear. Egypt was on her knees, but the gods were aghast and helpless in the face of the hideous power of the unsubstantial, unimaged God of Israel. Never had a monarch been forced to meet such conditions, but in all the mighty line of Pharaohs no feebler king than Meneptah could have faced them. In treating with the issue he had fretted and fumed, promised and retracted, temporized with the Hebrew mystic or stormed at him, hesitated and resolved, and reconsidered and deferred while his realm descended into the depths of ruin and despair. It would seem that the dire misfortunes would have pressed the timid monarch into immediate submission. But a glance at conditions may explain the cause of his obduracy. At this period in theological chronology, human attributes for the first time were eliminated from the character of a god. Moses depicted the first purely divine deity. Omnipotence was ascribed to the gods, but Pantheism being full of paradoxes, the gods were not omnipotent. Loud as were the panegyrics of the devout, the devout recognized the limitations of their divinities. None had ever dreamed of a deity that was actually omnipotent, actually infinite. Meneptah measured the God of Israel by his own gods. Furthermore, the miracles did not amaze him as they appalled Egypt. He was exceedingly superstitious; in his eye the most ordinary natural phenomenon was a demonstration of the occult. No matter that the advanced science of his time explained rainfall, unusual heat or cold, over-fruitful or unproductive years, pestilence and sudden death, eclipses, comets and meteors,--he believed them to be the direct results of sorcery. Calamitous as the effects may have been upon other people, he had ever escaped harm from these sources. It was not strange that in time he ceased to fear miracles, and the demonstrations of Moses were not so terrifying, inasmuch as they did not greatly affect him. His horses died, but Arabia was near to replenish his stables; the pests annoyed him, but his servants fended them from him; the blains troubled him, but his court physicians were able and gave him relief; the thunders frightened him, but his fright passed with the storm. Whenever the sendings became unendurable he had but to yield to gain a respite, and then he forgot the experience in a day. Meanwhile he ate, slept and walked in the same luxury he had known in happier years. Therefore, Meneptah neither realized his peril nor was personally much aggrieved by the troublous times. It did not occur to him that all the people of his realm were not sheltered against the plagues by wealth and many servants. He could not understand why Egypt should be restive under the same afflictions that he had borne with fortitude. Summoning all evidence from his point of view, he was able to present to himself a case of personal persecution and ill-use. The Hebrews belonged to him, and because he held them their God afflicted Egypt. Egypt complained and would have him sacrifice his private property, his slaves, for its sake. To the peevish king the demand was unreasonable. Yet he was not extraordinary in his behavior. Unselfishness was not an attribute of ancient kings. Meneptah was a man that wished to be swayed. He craved approbation and was helpless without an abettor. His puny ideas had to be championed by another before they became fixed convictions. After the plague of locusts, the Hebrew question reached serious proportions. Har-hat had estranged most of the ministers, and in his strait Meneptah felt vaguely and for the first time that he needed the acquiescence of others in addition to the fan-bearer's ready concord. One early morning, in a corridor leading from the entrance, he met Hotep. A sudden impulse urged him to consult his scribe. "Where hast thou been?" he asked, noticing Hotep's street dress. "To the temple, O Son of Ptah." "What hast thou to ask of the gods that thy king can not give thee?" Hotep hesitated, and the color rushed into his cheeks. The Hathors tortured him with an opportunity he dared not seize. How could he ask for Masanath? "I went to pray for that which all Egyptians crave at this hour--the succor of Egypt," he said, instead. Meneptah signed his scribe to follow him to a seat near by. "Why may I not require of thee the services of a higher minister?" he began, after he had seated himself. "Never hast thou failed me, and I can not say so much of the great nobles above thee. Serve me well in this, Hotep, and thou mayest take the place of some one of these." "Let me but serve thee," the scribe returned placidly; "that is reward in itself." "Thou knowest," the king began, plunging into the heart of the question, "that I yielded to these ravening wolves, Mesu and Aaron. I have consented to release the Israelites. But other thought hath come to me in the night. Thou knowest that no evil hath befallen the land of Goshen. Har-hat explaineth this strange thing by the location of the strip. The Nile toucheth it not and rains fall there. Furthermore the winds blow differently in that district, and withal the hand of Rannu of the harvests hath sheltered it. It may be, but to me it seemeth that the Hebrew sorcerer hath cast a protecting spell over the spot. But whatever the cause, the race of churls and their riches have escaped misfortune. Thinkest thou not, good Hotep, that, if they must go, we may by right require their flocks of them to replenish the pastures of Egypt?" Surely the Hathors were exploiting themselves this day. Another opportunity for good and what would come of it? Hotep knew the man with whom he dealt. Still it were a sin to slight even an unprofitable chance that seemed to offer alleviation for Egypt. He would proceed cautiously and do his best. "Be the little lamp trimmed never so brightly, O Son of Ptah, it may not help the sun. Thou art monarch, I am thy slave. How can I mold thee, my King?" "Others have swayed me, thou modest man." "In that hour when thou wast swayed, O Meneptah, another than thyself ruled over Egypt." Meneptah looked in amazement at his scribe. He had never considered the influence of Har-hat in that light, but, by the gods, it seemed strangely correct. He straightened himself. "Be thou assured, Hotep, that I weigh right well whatever counsel mine advisers offer me before I indorse it." Hotep bowed. "That I know. And for that reason do I hesitate to give thee my little thoughts. It would hurt the man in me to see them thrust aside." "Thou evadest," Meneptah contended smiling. "Wherefore?" "Because, O King, I should advise against thine inclinations." "Wherefore?" Meneptah demanded again, this time with some asperity. "We hold the Hebrews," was the undisturbed reply; "through destruction and plague we have held them. They boast the calamities as sendings from their God. Egypt's afflictions multiply; every resort hath failed us. One is left--to free the slaves and test their boast." Meneptah's face had grown deprecatory. "Dost thou espouse the cause of thy nation's enemy?" he asked. "I espouse the cause of the oppressed, and which, now, is more oppressed--Egypt or the Hebrew?" This was different sort of persuasion from that which the king had heard since Har-hat took up the fan. The scribe was compelling him by reason; the man's personality was not entering at all into the argument. Meneptah's high brows knitted. He felt his feeble resolution filter away; his inclination to hold the Hebrews stayed with him, but the power to withstand Hotep's strong argument was not in him. "What wouldst thou have me do?" he asked querulously. "I am but a mouthpiece for thy realm; I counsel not for myself. The strait of Egypt demands that thou set the Hebrew free, yield his goods and his children to him, and be rid of him and his plagues for ever." Hotep spoke as if he were reciting a law from the books of the great God Toth. His tone did not invite further contention. He had read the king his duty, and it behooved the king to obey. A silence ensued, and by the signs growing on Meneptah's face, Hotep predicted acquiescence. It can not be said, however, that he noted them hopefully. Much time would elapse in which much contrary persuasion was possible before Israel could depart from Egypt. Rameses came out of the dusk at the end of the corridor. The king raised himself eagerly and summoned his son. "Hither, my Rameses!" With suspense in his soul, Hotep saw the prince approach. Rameses had never expressed himself upon the Hebrew question, and the scribe knew full well that neither himself nor Har-hat, nor all the ministers, nor heaven and earth could militate against the counsel of that grim young tyrant. Meneptah spoke with much appeal in his voice. "Rameses, I need thee. Awake out of thy dream and help me. What shall I do with the Hebrews?" "I have trusted to my father's sufficient wisdom to help him in his strait, without advice of mine," was the indifferent reply. "Aye; but I crave thy counsel, now, my son." "Then, neither god nor devil could make me loose my grasp did I wish to hold the Hebrews!" Hotep sighed, inaudibly, and was moved to depart, had not lack of the king's permission made him stay. "But consider the losses to my realm," Meneptah made perfunctory protest. The prince's full lip curled. "This is but a new method of warfare," he answered. "Instead of going forth with thy foot-soldiers and thy chariots, thy javelins and thy shields, thou sufferest siege within thy borders. Wilt thou fling up thy hands and open thy gates to thine enemy, while yet there is plenty within the realm and men to post its walls? Let it not be written down against thee, O my father, that thou didst so. Losses to Egypt!" the phrase was bitter with scorn. "Dost thou remember how many dead the Incomparable Pharaoh left in Asia? How many perished of thirst in the deserts and of cold in the mountains, and of pestilence in the marshes? Ran not the rivers of the Orient with Egyptian blood, and where shall the souls of those empty bodies dwell which rotted under the sun on the great plains of the East? The Incomparable Pharaoh cast out the word 'surrender' from his tongue. Wilt thou restore it and use it first in this short-lived conflict with a mongrel race of shepherds? Nay, if thou dost give over now, it shall not be an injustice to thee if it come to pass that thou shalt bow to a brickmaker as thy sovereign, sacrifice to the Immaterial God and swear by the beard of Abraham!" Meneptah winced under the acrid reproach of his son. "It hath ever been mine intent to keep the Hebrews, but I would not act unadvised," he explained apologetically. "Wherefore, then, these frequent consultations with the wolf from Midian?" was the quick retort. "Thou art unskilled in the ways of war, my father. The king who would conquer treats not with his enemy. Thou dost risk the respect of thy realm for thee. Strengthen thy fortifications and exhaust the cunning of thy besieger. And if he invade thy lines again with insolence and threats, treat him to the sword or the halter. If thou art a warrior, prove thy deserts to the name. And if Egypt backs thee not in thy stand against the Hebrew, then it is not the same Egypt that followed Rameses the Great to glory!" The king put up his hand. "Enough! They shall not go; they shall not go!" CHAPTER XXXI THE CONSPIRACY One morning early in March Seti stood beside the parapet on the palace of the king in Tanis. His eyes were fixed on the shimmering line of the northern level, but he did not see it. Some one came with silent footfall and laid a hand on his arm. He turned and looked into Ta-user's eyes. His face softened and he took the hand between his own. "Alas! this day thou returnest into the Hak-heb," he said. She nodded. "Would I could take thee with me, but not yet, not yet. Wait till thou art a little older." He sighed and looked away again. "What weighty things absorb my prince?" she asked. "What especial labors is he planning?" His face clouded. "Dost thou mock me, Ta-user?" he returned. "Hadst thou no thought at all?" she persisted. "I merely pondered on mine own uselessness," he answered. "Fie!" "Nay, even thou must see it. I live on my father's bounty; I accept my people's homage; I adore the gods. I bear no arms; I neither prepare to reign nor expect to serve. I am a thing set above the healthy labor of the world and below the cares of the exalted. I am nothing." "Fie! I say." Seti looked at her reproachfully. "Thou hast wealth," she began and paused. "Wherein doth that make me useful?" "Much can be done with gold. Is there none in need?" "None who asks has been denied. Yet what right have I to deal alms to them from whom my riches come? If I yielded up everything, to my very cloak, should I have done more than return to them what they have given me? I should still be a penniless prince, more useless than ever." He sat down on the broad lintel capping the parapet, but retained her hand. "Ta-user," he continued, as she opened her lips to speak, "what wouldst thou have me do?" "I would have thee be useful." "I shall throw away my lordly trappings," he said, "and become a lifter of the shadoof[1] this day." "Seti," she said sternly, putting his hand away, "with thy people imperiled by the sorcery of a wizard, with thy realm desolated by the plagues of his sending, canst thou, on whom I have built so much, thus lightly consider thy uses and ignore the things set at thy very hand to do?" The prince looked at her with not a little discomfiture showing on his young face. But the interrogation was emphatic, and she awaited an answer. "I have no weight with my father," he said soberly. "Thou knowest that Egypt will never have peace until the Hebrews depart. But I can not persuade my father to release them and I can not persuade the Israelite to content himself to stay. Thou dost demand much of me if thou dost demand of me the impossible." As much of contempt as it was wise to show glimmered in her eyes. "And thou art at thy wits' end?" she asked. "A little way to go. Help me, Ta-user. Bear with me." She moved closer to him and absently smoothed down the fine locks, disordered by the wind. Presently she lifted his face and said with sudden impulsiveness: "Dost, of a truth, believe everything that is told thee?" "Am I over-credulous?" he asked. "Thou art. Thou believest this Hebrew to be honest in his show of interest in his people?" "I can not doubt him, Ta-user. One has but to see him to be convinced." "One has but to see him to know that he might be coaxed into passiveness with that for which an Israelite would sell his mummy--gold!" "Nay! Nay!" Seti exclaimed. "Thou dost wrong him! He is the soul of misdirected zeal. His is an earnestness not to be frightened with death nor abated with bribes." She laughed a cool little laugh. "Deliver to him but the price he names, and the Israelitish unrest will settle like a swarm of smoked bees." "Ta-user, it is thou that art deceived," Seti remonstrated. "Even the Pharaoh does not hesitate to assert that Mesu is terribly upright. Not even he would dream of offering the wizard Hebrew a peace-tribute." Once again she laughed. "Mind me, I speak reverently of the divine Meneptah, the Shedder of Light, but I do not marvel that he is no more willing to deliver over to Mesu one color of gold than another." Seti looked at her with a puzzled expression. Gazing down into his eyes, she said with sudden solemnity: "My Prince, may I give my life into thy hands?" Impulsively he pressed her hand to his lips. "The gods overtake me with their vengeance if I guard it not," he exclaimed. She drew him from his place on the parapet and led him to a seat in a corner near the double towers. There she sat, and he dropped down at her feet. He crossed his arms over her lap and lifted his face to her. For a moment she was silent, contemplating the young countenance. What were the thoughts that came to her then? Did she applaud or rebuke herself? Did she pity or despise him? Is there more of evil than of good wrought by the mind working silently? Seti was ripe to be plucked by treachery. His was the faith that is insulted by a suggestion of wariness. "While I dwelt obscurely in the Hak-heb," she began, "I was much among the partizans of Amon-meses. They are friends of the Pharaoh now, so what I tell is dead sedition. But I heard it when it lived, and thou knowest the penalty invited by him who listens to criticism of the king. Attend me, then, for the story is short. "The history of Mesu is an old tale to thee. Thy noble grandsire's first queen, Neferari Thermuthis, adopted the Hebrew, and when she died he shared in the allotment of her treasure. But Mesu was an exile in Midian at the time, and his share was left with Shaemus, then the heir, to be given over to the foster-son when he should return. But Shaemus died, and all thy father's older brothers, so the gracious Meneptah came to wear the crown. To him fell the guardianship of the Hebrew's treasure till what time he should return out of Midian. Mesu hath returned. Hath thy father delivered to him his inheritance?" Seti's face flamed, but, before he could speak, she went on. "Not so; not one copper weight. It lies untouched in the treasury. Thine august sire does not use it, because he hath wealth more than he can spend. But it is the Hebrew's, and if it were delivered into his hands it would redeem Egypt. I know it. There, it is done. My life is in thy hands." The prince looked at her with wide eyes, his cheeks flushed, his lips silent. "Wouldst thou have proof?" she continued recklessly. "Seek out Hotep, who hath been keeper of the records at Pithom and ask him." "Did he tell thee?" Seti demanded. "Nay; I learned it from another source, not in the palace." The prince lapsed into silence, his eyes averted. Ta-user regarded him intently. Suddenly he raised his head. "Dost thou know the amount of his share?" he asked. "It is but a moderate part of the queen's fortune, since each of the king's children by his many women was included." Seti winced, for there was something dimly offensive in the calm way she stated the bald fact. "It is not much, as princely dowers go," she added casually. "He shall have it," Seti said almost impatiently. "Out of mine own wealth he shall have it--not as a bribe--he would not have it so--but because it is his." She caught his hands to her breast and cried out in delight. "And I shall be thy lieutenant, and none shall know of it, save thee and me." He smiled up at her. "Nay, there is danger in this," he said gently, "and I would not imperil thee. Already thou hast overstepped safety for Egypt's sake and mine. More than this I will not let thee do." An expression of panic swept over her face. He interpreted it as hurt. "Thou hast been my guide for so long, Ta-user. Let me choose this once for thee." She pouted, and putting him away from her, arose and left him. He followed her and took her hands. "A confederate thou must have," she complained; "and whom dost thou trust more than Ta-user?" "It is not a matter of trust," he explained, "but of thine immunity should the Hathors frown upon my plan." "It matters not," she protested. "Whom wilt thou trust and imperil instead of Ta-user?" "Thou dost hurry me in my plan-making," he remonstrated mildly. "Mayhap I shall choose Hotep." She flung up her head, her face the picture of dismay. "Nay, nay! not Hotep! Of all thy world, not Hotep!" she exclaimed. He lifted his brows in amazement. "Surely thou dost not question his fidelity--his power?" "Nay! but dost thou not guess what he will do? Thou child! Abet thee! Nay! he would set his foot upon thy plan and foil thee at once with his politic hand." "Hotep will obey as I command; that thou knowest," he said with dignity. "Thou wilt not reach the point of command with him," she vehemently insisted. "He would catch thine intent ere thou hadst stated it and would make thee aghast at thyself in a twinkling by his smooth reasoning and vivid auguries. Nay, if thou art to have thy way in this, I wash my hands of it. We are as good as undone." She turned away from him, but he followed her contritely. "I submit," he said helplessly. "Advise me, but I--nay, ask me not to endanger thee, Ta-user." She shook her head and moved on. He advanced a step or two after her, stopped, and wheeling about, resumed his place at the parapet. After a little pause she was beside him again. "Shall we forego this thing?" she asked. "Nay," he answered quietly. "I can achieve it without help." She drew a breath as if to speak but held her peace. They stood in silence side by side for a while. Presently she slipped between him and the parapet. "Hast thou not called me wise in thy time?" she asked. "I believed thee, then." "I told thee a truth, but I might have added that thou art over-brave," he said, catching her drift. "Listen, then, to me. Thou, in thy young credulity, seest in this only justice to an enemy. I, in the wisdom of riper years and the discernment bred of experience with knaves, see in it the redemption of Egypt. If the heaviest penalty overtook us is it not a result worth achieving at any cost? Seti, believe me; grant me my belief! It is the one hope of thy father's kingdom. Shall it fail because thou wast envious for my safety above Egypt's? I can aid thee to success. That thou hast said. If thou failest, though thou dost attempt it alone, dost thou dream that I could see thee punished without crying out, 'It was I who urged him!' If thou art undone, likewise am I. If thou art to succeed, wilt thou selfishly keep thy success to thyself?" She slipped her arm about his neck and pressed close to him. "Nay, Seti, thou dost overestimate the peril. The Hebrew will not betray us, and who else will know of it? I shall make a journey into Goshen, find Mesu and bid him meet thee at a certain place. There thou shalt come at a certain time with the treasure, and the feat is done. But if we fail--" she flung her head back and bewitched him with a heavy eye--"will it be hard for me to persuade the king?" Seti contemplated her with bewilderment in his face. The youth and innocence in his young soul revolted, but there was another element that yielded and was pleased. "Have it thy way, Ta-user," he said, with hesitation in his words, while he continued to gaze helplessly into her compelling eyes. She laughed and kissed him. "I will see thee again soon." Putting him back from her, she descended the stairway. In the shadow at the foot she came upon two figures, walking close together, the taller of the two bending over the smaller. The pair started apart at sight of the princess. "A blessing on thy content, Ta-meri," the princess said. "And upon thine, Nechutes." The cup-bearer bowed and rumbled his appreciation of her courtesy. "Dost thou leave us, Ta-user?" his wife asked. "Aye, I return to the Hak-heb. O, I am glad to go. Would I could leave the same quiet here in Tanis that I hope to find in Nehapehu." "Aye, I would thou couldst. But is it not true, my Princess, that one may make his own content even in the sorriest surroundings?" Nechutes asked. "For himself, even so. But the very making of one's selfish content may work havoc with the peace of another. That I have seen." "Aye," Nechutes responded uncomfortably, wondering if the princess meant to confess her disappointment to them. "It makes me quarrel at the Hathors. The most of us deserve the ills that overtake us. But he--alas--none but the good could sing as he sang!" The cup-bearer dropped his indifference immediately. "Ha! Whom dost thou mean?" he demanded. "Oh!" the princess exclaimed. "Perchance I give thee news." "If thou meanest Kenkenes, indeed thou dost give us news. What of him? We know that he is dead. Is there anything further?" "Of a truth, dost thou not know? Nay, then, far be it from me to tell thee--anything." She passed round them and started to go on. In a few paces, Nechutes overtook her. "Give us thy meaning, Ta-user," he said earnestly. "Kenkenes was near to me--to Ta-meri. What knowest thou?" "The court buzzes with it. Strange indeed that ye heard it not. It is said, and of a truth well-nigh proved, that the heart of the singer broke when Ta-meri chose thee, Nechutes, and that--that the disaster which befell him may have been sought." Nechutes seized her arm, and Ta-meri cried out, "He sent Ta-meri to me," the cup-bearer said wrathfully. "Thy news is--" "Alas! Nechutes," the princess said sorrowfully, "it was sacrifice. He knew that Ta-meri loved thee and he nobly surrendered, but was the hurt any less because he submitted?" Nechutes released her and turned away. Ta-meri covered her face with her hands and followed him. He did not pause for her, and she had to hasten her steps to keep up with him. The princess looked after them for a space and went on. Straight through the corridors toward the royal apartments she went. Her copper eyes had taken on a luminousness that was visible in the dark. There was an elasticity in her step that spoke of exultation. The Hathors were indulging her beyond reason. A soldier of the royal guard paced outside the doorway of the king's apartments. Ta-user flung him a smile and, passing him without a word of leave-asking, smiled again and disappeared through the door. Meneptah, who sat alone, raised his head from the scroll he was laboriously spelling. If he had meant to resent the intrusion, the impulse died within him at the charming obeisance the princess made. As she rose at his sign, Har-hat entered. Ta-user came near to the king, smiling triumphantly at the fan-bearer. "The gods sped my feet," she said, "and I am here first. Hold thy peace, noble Har-hat. Mine is the first audience." Having reached the king's side, she dropped on her knees and folded her hands on the arm of his chair. "A boon, O Shedder of Light! So much thou owest me. Behold, I came to thee on the hope of thy promises. What have I won therefrom? Naught save, perchance, the smiles of Egypt at my disappointment." Meneptah's face flushed. "Say on, O my kinswoman," he said, moving uncomfortably. "Kinswoman! And a year agone, I thought to hear, 'O my daughter.'" The color in the king's face deepened. "Wilt thou reproach me, Ta-user, for my son's wilfulness?" was his tactless reply. Ta-user shot an amused glance at the discomfited countenance of Har-hat and went on. "Nay, O my Sovereign. I do but wish to incline thine ear to me. Say first thou wilt grant me my boon." He looked at her doubtfully, but she drew nearer and lifted her face to his. "I do not ask for thy crown, or thy son, or for an army, or treasure, or anything but that which thou wouldst gladly give me, because of thy just and generous heart." The doubt faded out of his face. "Thou hast my word, Ta-user." "And for that I thank thee." She bent her head and touched her lips to the hand lying nearest her. "Give me ear, then," she continued. "Thou hast among thy ministers a noble genius, the murket, Mentu--" The king broke in with a dry smile. "Wouldst have him for a mate?" She shook her head till the emeralds pendent from the fillet on her forehead clinked together. Nothing could have been more childlike than the pleased smile on her face. "Nay, nay, he would not have me," she protested. "But he hath a son." Har-hat moved forward a pace. She noted the movement and playfully waved him back. "Encroach not. This hour is mine." Har-hat's face wore a dubious smile. "He hath a son," she repeated. "He had a son, but he is dead," the king answered. "Not so! He is in prison where thy counselor, the wicked, unfeeling, jealous, rapacious Har-hat hath entombed him!" Har-hat sprang forward as the king lifted an amazed and angry face. "Back!" she cried, motioning at him with her full arm. "It is time the Hathors overtook thee, thou ineffable knave!" "I protest!" the fan-bearer cried, losing his temper. "Enough of this play," Meneptah said sternly. "Go on with thy tale, Ta-user. I would know the truth of this." "Thou wilt not learn it from the princess," Har-hat exclaimed. "Ah!" Ta-user ejaculated, a world of innocence, surprise and wounded feeling in the word. "Thy words do not become thee, Har-hat," Meneptah said. The fan-bearer closed his lips and gazed fixedly at the princess. She drooped her head and went on in a voice low with hurt. "The gods judge me if my every word is not true! Har-hat imprisoned him because the gallant young man loved the maiden whom Har-hat would have taken for his harem." Meneptah's face blazed. "Go on," he said sharply. "The fan-bearer had some little right on his side, for the young man had committed sacrilege in carving a statue, and had stolen the maiden away and hidden her when Har-hat would have taken her. The maiden is an Israelite, and her hiding-place is known to this day only by herself and her unhappy lover. Now comes thy villainy, O thou short of temper," she continued, looking at the fan-bearer. "Thy father, O Shedder of Light, the Incomparable Pharaoh who reigns in Osiris, gave Mentu a signet--" The king interrupted. "I know of that. Go on." "When Kenkenes was overtaken and thrust into prison he sent this signet to thee, O my Sovereign, with a petition for his release and for the maiden's freedom. The writing and the signet came into Har-hat's hands and he ignored them, though the signet commanded him in the name of the holy One." Her voice lowered with awe and dismay at his unregeneracy. "Kenkenes is still in prison." "Now, by the gods, Har-hat!" Meneptah exclaimed angrily. "I would not have dreamed such baseness in thee!" The fan-bearer was stupefied with wrath and astonishment. Words absolutely refused to come to him. Ta-user accused him with the wide eyes of fearless righteousness. Presently she went on: "Already hath he languished eight months in prison. His offense against the gods and against the laws of the land hath been expiated. I would have thee set him free now, O Meneptah, that he may return to his love and comfort her." Meneptah reached for the reed pen. "Hold!" cried Har-hat. "Thou dost forget thyself, good Har-hat," the princess said with dignity. "Thou speakest with thy sovereign." "But I will be heard!" he exclaimed violently. "Hear me! I pray thee, Son of Ptah!" Meneptah removed the wetted pen and waited. "Thou didst give the maiden to me thyself!" he began precipitately. "Thy document of gift I have yet. He stole her, hid her away, committed sacrilege and abused two of my servants nigh unto death when they sought for her. Hath he any more right to her than I? Art thou assured that he hath an honorable purpose in mind for her? She is comely and well instructed in service, and I would have put her in my daughter's train, even as the Hebrew Miriam was lady-in-waiting to Neferari Thermuthis. If thou dost examine the records of the petitions to thee thou wilt find that I asked her expressly for household service. It is false that I had any other purpose in mind. "As to the signet," he continued breathlessly, "there is no word upon it concerning the palliation of a triple crime! Shall we invoke the king in the blameless name of the holy One, and demand forgiveness in the name of Him who forgiveth no sin? Furthermore, thou didst give the writing into my hands, and in obedience to thy command, I acted as I thought best. My purposes have been wilfully distorted!" Meneptah frowned with perplexity. But while he pondered, Ta-user drew near to him and said to him very softly: "If his words be true, O my Sovereign, one lovely Israelite is as serviceable as another. The young man loves this maiden. Doubt it not! He is a worthy off-spring of that noble sire, Mentu. If he offended, he hath suffered sufficiently. Let him go, I pray thee." "It is my word against her surmises, O Meneptah," Har-hat insisted. The king frowned more and stroked his cheek. "Thine anger should be abated by this time, Har-hat," he said feebly. "His rebellion is not yet broken. I have not the slave yet," the fan-bearer retorted. "Mayhap he is ready to surrender her now." "Not so!" the princess put in. "He hath endured eight months. If it were eight hundred years his silence would be the same. It is proof of my boast that he loves her. No man who would comfort his flesh alone would suffer such lengths of mortification of flesh! Let him go, my King, and give the clean-souled fan-bearer another Israelite for his daughter." "Why camest thou not sooner with this to the king?" Har-hat demanded. "I have but this moment learned of it, and I could not leave the court without one last act for the good of the oppressed," she replied. "Have it thy way, Ta-user. Come to me in an hour," Meneptah began. "Nay, write it now." "Thou art insistent." "Thou didst promise," she whispered, her face so close to his that the light from the facets of her emeralds turned on his cheek. He took up his pen and wrote. "Now promise that the signet shall go back to Mentu," she continued. "As thou wilt, Ta-user," the king replied. She caught up the roll, hesitated for a moment, and then kissed his cheek deliberately and was gone. A moment later Har-hat overtook her in the hall. "Hyena!" he exclaimed. "What is thy game?" She laughed and shook the scroll in his face. "It is my turn at the pawns now. Thou didst play between me and the crown. Now I shall harass thee for the joy of it. Thinkest thou I cared aught for the dreamer and his loves? Bah! I heard this tale eight months agone while I had naught to do but eavesdrop. Nay, it was but my one chance to vex thee." Again she laughed and ran away to the queen's apartments. "I am come to bid thee farewell," she said, kneeling before the pale little woman who loved the king. The princess put up her face to be kissed. "Not my lips!" she cried warningly. "They yet tingle with the kiss of Meneptah, thy husband. I would not have the ecstasy spoiled by another's touch." The queen flushed and kissed the cheek. "Farewell, and peace go with thee," she said quietly. The princess retained her composure until she reentered the hall. There she flung her arms above her head and laughed silently. "Of a truth, I take peace with me, and I leave discord behind!" [1] Shadoof--a pole with a bucket attached, like the old well-sweep, used by rustics to dip water from the Nile. CHAPTER XXXII RACHEL'S REFUGE Rachel stood by the parapet on the top of the Memphian house of Har-hat. About her were no evidences of her former serfdom. She wore an ample robe of white linen, with blue selvages heavily fringed. About her neck was the collar of gold. The costume was distinctly Israelitish, elaborated somewhat at the suggestion of Masanath, to whom Rachel's golden beauty was a never-lessening wonder. Compared to the tiny gorgeous lady, Rachel was as a tall lily to a mimosa. Masanath was comfortably pillowed on cushions, close to the Israelite. The rose-leaf flush on her little face was subdued and her dark eyes were larger than usual. The physical discomforts of the plagues had overtaken her; and Rachel, the only one of all the household who had passed unscathed through the troublous time, had been so tender a nurse that Masanath recovered with reluctance. This was the Egyptian's first day on the housetop, and she was not happy. The great pots of glazed earthenware, each a small garden in size, were filled with baked earth. The locusts had taken her flowers. In the park below the grass was gone and the palm trees were shadowless. Her chariot horses had died in the stables; her pets had drooped and perished; her birds were missing one morning, and Rachel said they had flown to Goshen, where there were grain and grasses. Furthermore, the year of freedom had almost expired and she began to anticipate sorrowfully. The period of the Israelite's residence with Masanath had been uneventful save for those grim, momentous days of plague and loss. Deborah had survived the removal to comfort in Memphis only a month. The brutal injuries inflicted by the servants of Har-hat had been too severe for her age-enfeebled frame to repair. So she died, blessing the two young girls who had attended her, and promising peace and happiness to come. Then they laid her in a new tomb cut in the rock face of the Libyan hills and wrote on her sarcophagus: "She departed out of the land of Mizraim before her people." And this was prophecy. Thus was Rachel left, but for Masanath, entirely alone. None of the afflictions had overtaken her. A mysterious Providence shielded her. Anubis, which she formally claimed as hers, was the only one of the numerous dumb dwellers in the fan-bearer's house that had escaped. And of him there is something to be told. Shortly after the arrival of the Israelites in Memphis, Anubis disappeared for days. "He is gone to visit the murket," Masanath explained. One noon Rachel, resting on the housetop with her hostess, saw him leisurely returning, by starts of interest and recollection. Behind him, walking cautiously, was a man. "Anubis returneth," Rachel said, sitting up. Masanath raised herself and looked. "Imhotep[1] plagues mine eyes, or that is the murket following him," she exclaimed. Immediately Rachel began to tremble and, sinking back on her cushions, hid her face. Masanath continued to watch the approaching man. "If he comes shall I send for thee?" she asked in a half-whisper. The Israelite shook her head. "Only if he asks for me," she answered. "A pest on the creature!" Masanath exclaimed impatiently after a little silence. "He is torturing the man! Hath he forgot the place?" She leaned over the parapet and called the ape. The murket looked up. "Anubis is my guest, noble Mentu," she replied. "Wilt thou not come up with him?" The murket looked at her a moment before he answered. "Nay, I thank thee, my Lady. I left the noonday meal that I might be led at the creature's will. He is restless since my son is gone." Every word of the murket's fell plainly on Rachel's ears. The tones were those of Kenkenes, grown older. The statement came to her as a call upon her knowledge of the young artist's whereabouts. "Tell him--tell him--" she whispered desperately. "What?" asked Masanath, turning about. "Tell him where Kenkenes went!" The Egyptian leaned over the parapet. "Fie! he is gone!" she said. "Nay, but I shall catch him;" and flying down through the house, out into the narrow passage, she overtook the murket. This is what she told Rachel when she returned: "I said to him: 'My Lord, I know where Kenkenes went.' And he said: 'Of a truth?' in the calmest way. 'Aye,' said I. 'It hath come to mine ears that he went to Tape,' 'That have I known for long,' he answered, after he had looked at me till I wished I were away. 'That have I known for long, and why he went and why he came not back,' and having said, he smoothed my hair and told me I was not much like my father, and departed without another word. To my mind he hath conducted himself most strangely. I doubt not he knows more than you or I, Rachel." To Masanath's dismay the Israelite flung herself face down on the rugs and wept. "He is not dead; he is not dead," she cried. The collapse of a composure so strong and bridled filled Masanath with consternation. Had Rachel's spirit been of weaker fiber the Egyptian's own forceful individuality would have longed to sustain it, but when it broke in its strength she knew that here was a stress of emotion too deep for her to soothe. "Then if he is not dead," she said, searching for something to say, "why weepest thou?" "Alas! seest thou not, Masanath? He hath not returned to me; his father knows his story, and if he be not dead how shall I explain his absence save that he hath forgotten or repented?" "Not so!" Masanath declared. "He is the soul of honor, and there is a mystery in this that the gods may explain in time. Comfort thee, Rachel, for there stirreth a hope in me." Then with the utmost tact she told the story of the finding of Kenkenes' boat and the theory accepted in Memphis. "I can offer thee hope," she concluded, "but I can not even guess what should keep him so long. Of this be assured, however, he did not desert thee, Rachel." Enigmatical as it was, the incident was comforting to Rachel. So the Nile rose and subsided, the winter came and went, and now it was near the middle of March, Masanath forgot Kenkenes and remembered her own sorrow now that its consummation was surely approaching. During the hours that darkened gradually Rachel was to her an ever-responsive comforter. Even in the dead of night, if the weight of her care burdened her dreams so that she stirred or murmured, she was instantly soothed till she slept again. Usually the day did not harass her with oppression, but if she grew suddenly afraid, Rachel was at her side to comfort her--never urging, either to rebellion or submission, but ever offering hope. So the little Egyptian came to love the Israelite with the love that demands rather than gives--the love of a child for the mother, of the benefited for the benefactor. Gradually Rachel lost sight of her own trouble in her devotion to Masanath. She had no time for her own thoughts. Each passing day brought the Egyptian's martyrdom nearer, and Rachel's uses hourly increased. This day Masanath, who had been ill, was unusually downcast. "It may be," she said with more cheer in her tones than had been in her previous remarks, "that I shall die before they can wed me to Rameses." "Nay, why not say that the Lord God will interfere before that time?" "Evil and power have joined hands against me, and even the gods are helpless against such collusion," Masanath answered drearily. "The sorrows of Egypt are not yet at an end; mayhap the hand of the God of Israel will overtake the prince." "Thy God is afflicting, not helping; He will not spare me." "The hand of the Lord is lifted against Egypt. Will He bless the land, then, with such a queen as thou wouldst be?" "Nay, but thine is a strange God! Mark thou, I doubt Him not! But ai! I should face Him for ever in sackcloth and ashes lest He smite me for smiling and living my life without care." "Hath an ill befallen Israel?" "If thou art Israel, nay! Thou hast flourished in this dread time like a palm by a deep well." "So he prospereth all his chosen." Masanath shook her head and looked away. From the stairway Nan approached. "Unas hath come from Tanis, my Lady," she said with suppressed excitement. Masanath sat up, trembling. "Isis grant he hath not come to take thee to marriage," the waiting woman breathed. Rachel laid an inquiring hand on the little Egyptian's arm. "My father's courier," she explained. "Let him come up," she continued to Nari. The waiting woman bowed and left her. Rachel arose and took a place on the farther side of the hypostyle, with the screens of matting between her and Masanath. She was still in hiding. The fat servitor came up presently. "The gracious gods have had thee under their sheltering wings during these troublous times," he said, bowing. "It is worth the trip from Tanis to look upon thee." "Thy words are fair, Unas. How is it with my father?" Masanath asked with stiff lips. "The gods are good to the Pharaoh. They permit the wise Har-hat to continue in health to render service to his sovereign." Masanath, dreading the news, asked after it at once. Men have killed themselves for fear of death. "Thou hast come to conduct me to court?" "That is the gracious will of my master." Masanath half rose from her seat. "When?" she asked almost inaudibly. "In twenty days; no more. I have a mission to perform and shall go hence immediately. But I shall return in twenty days, never fear, my Lady." Masanath saw that he mocked her. Her wrath was an effective counter-irritant for her trouble. She was calm again. "Then, if thy message is delivered, go!" He backed out and descended the stairway. When she was sure he was gone she flung herself, in a paroxysm of wild grief and despair, face down on her cushions. At that moment a cold hand caught her arm. She looked up and saw Rachel. All the blue had gone from the Israelite's eyes, leaving them black with dreadful conviction. The color had receded from her cheeks and her figure was rigid. "Who was that man?" she demanded in a voice low with concentrated emotion. "Unas, my father's man. What is amiss, Rachel?" The Israelite stood for a moment as though she permitted the intelligence to assemble all the further facts that it entailed. Then she turned away and walked swiftly toward the well of the stair. "Rachel! Thou--what--thou hast not answered me," Masanath called. "There is naught to be said. I--it were best that I go to my people now, since thou goest to marriage," was the unready reply. "Thou wilt return to thy people! Rachel! Nay, nay I Thou art all I have. Come back! Come back!" Masanath cried, running after her. Rachel hesitated, trembling with a multitude of emotions. "It were better I should go," she insisted, trying to escape Masanath's clasp. "If I go now I can reach my people and be hidden safely." The little Egyptian flung herself upon the Israelite, weeping. "Art thou, too, deserting me--thou, who art the last to befriend me? What have I done that thou shouldst desert me?" "Naught! Naught! Thou dear unfortunate!" was the passionate reply. "But I must go! I must!" "Thou must flee from sure safety to only possible security!" Masanath demanded through her tears. "If I must wed this terrible prince, I shall put my misery to some use. I shall ask thy liberty at his hands and thou shalt live with me for ever, my one comfort, my one support." "But Israel departeth shortly--" "Thou shalt not go," Masanath declared hysterically. "I will not suffer thee! The doors shall be barred against thy departure!" Rachel turned her head away and pushed back her hair. Her plight was desperate. Meanwhile Masanath went on. "It is not like thee, Rachel, to desert me! I had not dreamed thee so selfish--so cruel!" "Sister!" Rachel cried, "thou torturest me!" On a sudden Masanath raised her head and gazed at the Israelite. "What possessed thee to go?" she demanded. "Is it Rameses who hath beset thee?" Rachel shook her head and avoided Masanath's eye. "Tell me," the Egyptian insisted. "There is mystery in this. What had my father's man to do with thy hasty resolution to depart?" There was no answer. Masanath put the Israelite back from her a little and repeated her question. "I can not tell thee," Rachel responded slowly. Silence fell, and Masanath spoke at last, in a decided voice. "Thou art within my house, and so under my command. Thou shalt not leave me! I have said!" She turned to go back to her cushions. Rachel followed her. "I pray thee, Masanath--" "Hold thy peace. Let us have no more of this." Rachel grew paler, and she clasped her hands as though praying for fortitude. At last she broke out: "Masanath! Masanath! That man--that Unas--attended the noble who halted me on the road to the Nile, that morning; he was the one sent back to Memphis for the document of gift; he pursued me into the hills. He is the servant of the man who follows me!" The Egyptian recoiled as though she had been struck. "Nay, nay," she cried, throwing up her hands as though to ward off the conviction. "Not my father! Not he! Thou art wrong, Rachel!" "Would to the Lord God that I were, my sister! But I am not mistaken in that face. He was the one that disputed with Kenkenes--was the one Kenkenes choked. Never was there another man with such a voice, such a face, such a figure! It is he!" Masanath wrung her hands. "Tell it over again. Describe the noble to me." "He was third in the procession and drove black horses--" "Holy Mother Isis! his horses were black. The first two would have been the princes of the realm, the next the fan-bearer. Nay, I dare not hope that it is not true. Since he would barter his own daughter for a high place, he would not hesitate to take by force the daughter of another. O Mother of Sorrows, hide me! my father! my father!" she wailed. Under the combined weight of her griefs, she dropped on the carpeted pavement and wept without control. All of Rachel's fear and horror were swept away in a wave of compunction and pity. She lifted the little Egyptian back upon her cushions again and, kneeling beside her, took the bowed head against her heart. Her hair fell forward and framed the two sorrowing faces in a shower of gold. "Lo! I have been a guest under thy roof and at thy board, a pensioner upon thy cheer, and now, even while my heart was full of gratitude, have I encroached upon thy happiness and broken thine overburdened heart. Forgive me, Masanath. Let me not come between thee and thy father, sister! Let me return to my people, for Israel shortly goeth forth. Doubt it not. Then shall I be out of his reach, and the Lord will not lay up the sin against him. Furthermore, dost thou not remember Deborah's words while the spirit of prophecy was upon her? Promised she not peace for us, and happiness and long tranquillity to follow these days of sorrow? Do thou have faith, Masanath. Cease not to hope, for the forces of evil have never yet triumphed wholly." "Nay, but how shall that restore my pride in my father?" Masanath sobbed. "How shall I ever think of him without the bitterness of shame? What must the world think of him--of me? Now I know what the murket meant. He knew, and Kenkenes knew and all-- Alas! alas!" she broke forth in fresh grief, "and Hotep knows!" Rachel could say no more, for in this sorrow no comfort could avail. She stroked the little Egyptian's hair and let the wounded heart soothe itself. Presently Masanath's mind wandered from the new villainy of her father to the memory of the older offense and she wept afresh. "If thou goest, Rachel, there is none left to comfort me," she mourned. "I am alone--desolate, and the powers of Egypt are arrayed against me!" Rachel was hearing her own plight given expression. She put aside any thought of herself and applied herself to Masanath's need. "Nay, there is Hotep," she whispered. "He loves thee, and if there is aught in prophecy, he will comfort thee when I am gone." "But thou shalt not go," Masanath cried. "Stay with me, Rachel." "Thy father's servant returneth in twenty days. As I have said, if I go now, I can reach my people and be hidden safely." The Egyptian held fast to the Israelite and wept. "Nay, Rachel. Stay with me. Thou art all I have!" Rachel turned her head and gazed toward the south. Across the housetops, the far-off sickle of the Nile curved into a crevice between the hills and disappeared. Somewhere beyond that blue and broken sky-line her last claim to Egypt had been lost. Why should she stay when Kenkenes was gone? Meanwhile Masanath went on pleading. If she departed, the next day's sun might dawn upon him in Memphis, searching and sorrowing because he found her not. The hour of separation might be delayed for twenty days--in that time he might come. "I will stay till my people go--if they depart within twenty days," Rachel made answer. "But I must be gone ere thy father's servant returns." Masanath rebelled, sobbing. "Nay, weep not. The hour is distant. In that time, since these are days of miracles, thy sorrows and mine may have faded like a mist. Come, no more. Let us bide the workings of the good God." [1] Imhotep--The physician-god. CHAPTER XXXIII BACK TO MEMPHIS The valley in which Thebes Diospolis was situated was wide and the overflow of the Nile did not reach the arable uplands near the Arabian hills. Three thousand years before, Menes had established a system of irrigation which had added hundreds of square miles to the agricultural area of Egypt, and every monarch after him had unfailingly preserved the institution. From Syene to Pelusium the country was ramified with canals, and vast sums and great labor were expended yearly upon their keeping. Since the work was heavy and the demand for it constant, it became a punitive part of each nome's administration. Therefore, the convicts whose misdeeds were too serious to be punished adequately by the bastinado or the fine, and yet not grave enough to merit a sentence to the quarries or the mines, were sent to the canals. So here in the canals of the eastern Thebaid, was Kenkenes, a prisoner known only by a number. His fellows were unjust public weighers, usurers, rioters, habitual tax-evaders, broken debtors, forgers and housebreakers. The season of toil had been unusually severe. The native convicts had more to endure than the lash, the bitter fare, the terrible sun by day, and a bed of dust by night, for the afflictions that befell all Egypt were theirs also. The strange prisoner among them suffered these things and had further the drawback of his own physical strength to combat. The plagues overcame the weaker convicts and decimated the number of laborers, so Kenkenes was put, alone, to the work that two men had done before. However, the accumulation of toil came upon him gradually and his supple frame toughened as the demand upon it increased. Nor was he sensible of pain or great weariness, for his mind was far away from the sun-heated desert of the eastern Thebaid. He spoke seldom, and held himself aloof from his fellow prisoners. He regarded his taskmasters as if they were written authority no more animate than watered scrolls of papyrus. No one doubted from the beginning that he was high-born, and this mark of a great fall might have exposed him to abuse; but his great strength and unusual deportment did not invite mistreatment. In short, he was looked upon as mildly mad. When Kenkenes had rejected the gods, hope, sundered from faith, groped wildly and desperately. In his rare moments of cheer he could not anticipate freedom without trusting to something, and in his misanthropy his doubt had placed no limit on its scope, questioning the honor of king or slave. In these better moments he wanted to believe in something. So constantly had his sorrows attended him that he had come to dread the night, when there was neither event nor labor to interrupt their dominance over his mind. He caught eagerly at any less troublous problem that might suggest itself, for he felt that he had been conquered by his plight. As he lay by night, apart from the rest of the prisoners, he gazed at one glittering star that stood in the north. About it were scintillating clusters, single stars and faint streaks of never-dissipated mists. Night after night that one brilliant point had remained unmoved in its steady gaze from the uppermost, but the clusters rotated about it; the single stars were westward moving; the mists shifted. And a question began to trouble him: What hand had marshaled the stars? Seb,[1] whom Toth had supplanted? Osiris, whom Set destroyed? The young man put them aside. They were feeble. Nothing so weak had created the mighty hosts of heaven. So he began to weigh the question. What hand had marshaled the stars? An accident? Since man must worship something supernal, what more tremendous than the cataclysm, if such it were, that evolved the stars. Had the same or a series of such events brought forth the earth and man? Was the accident continuously attendant? Did it spread the Nile over Egypt and call it again within its banks every year? Did it clothe the fields and bring them to harvest every revolution of the sun? Did it hang the moon like a sickle in the west or lift it over the Arabian hills like a bubble of silver every eight and twenty days? If it were omnipotent, infinite and omnipresent, could it be an accident? If it were, why not worship it and call it God? The reasoning led him again in the direction of the gods, but he saw no reason for a multiplicity of deities. Each member of the Egyptian Pantheon presided over some special field of human interest or human environment. To him, who had lived next to nature till her study had become a worship, there were no flaws in her chronology, no shortcomings or plethora. The earth responded to the skies; the waters were in harmony with the earth, the harvests with all. There was unity in the control over the universe and the hand that was powerful enough to swing the moon was mighty enough to flood the Nile, was tender enough to nourish the harvests, was wise enough to govern men. Where, then, was any need of a superfluity of powers? But behold, something had thrust a dread hand between the tender ministrations of this other Thing and the benefits to men. By this time it had reached the remotenesses of Egypt that it was the God of the Hebrews. The young man arrived at this alternative in his reasoning: There was a minister of good and another of evil--two powers presiding over the earth,--or,--the sole minister was offended and had deserted its charge, or had loosed upon Egypt the evil at its command. Here Kenkenes paused. He could not arrive at any conclusion on the matter or convince himself that he had not reasoned well. Night after night, he fell asleep upon his ponderings, but they returned to him with fresh food for thought after every sunset. The reconstruction of something worshipful was more fascinating than had been the demolition of the gods. It took many a night's meditation for the evolution of any fixed idea from the bewildering convection of thought. And at last he had concluded only that there was one thing--Power--Purpose, which was greater than man. This was not a great achievement. He had simply permitted the universal, indefinable claim to piety, inherent in every reasoning thing, to assert itself. Great and sincere and beyond expression was his amazement and his joy when a taskmaster called him from the canal-bed one day and informed him that he was free. The order was shown him at his request, and the name of the Princess Ta-user as his champion filled him with puzzlement. State news filtered slowly down even to the level he had occupied for the past eight months. He had heard that it was Masanath whom the Hathors had destined to wear the crown of queen to Rameses; the convicts had known of the supremacy of Har-hat. He could not understand how it came that Ta-user, lately discarded, could prevail upon the crown prince to persuade Meneptah, or could herself persuade the king to the overthrow of the fan-bearer's wishes in the matter. Furthermore, why should the princess have taken up his cause? But he did not tarry while he pondered. His raiment and his money, conscientiously preserved for him by the authorities, had been sent to him, and a little way outside the camp he stepped from the lowest to his rightful rank, swifter than he had descended from it. Covering his sun-burnt shoulders with his robes, assuming the circlet once again, he went toward the distant city of Thebes, once more in spirit and dress the son of the royal murket. At the heavy-walled prison across the Nile he asked after the signet. It had not been returned with the writing. Neither was there any word to him concerning his prayer to Pharaoh for the liberty of Rachel. It began to dawn on him that he had been released only after he had been sufficiently punished; that he had failed in the most vital aims of his mission; that the signet, having been found, seemed now to be lost irretrievably. For a space his relief at his freedom was overshadowed by chagrin, but after a little he recovered himself. "At least I am free to care for her, now," he reflected. Just as he emerged from the imposing doorway of the house of the governor of police, he was jostled by a half-grown boy. To Kenkenes, it seemed that the youth had been on the point of entering, but instead he apologized inaudibly and walked away. A great rush of impatience, suspense, eagerness and heart-hunger fell on the young artist the instant he knew his footsteps were turned toward Memphis and Rachel. The six days that must intervene between the present time and the moment he entered the old capital seemed insufferable. Never did a lover so fume against the inexorable deliberation of time and the obstinate length of distance. The preliminaries to departure seemed to accumulate and lengthen--and lessen in importance. Haste consumed him. Under a momentary impulse, with all seriousness he began to consider his own fleetness of foot as more expedient than travel by boat. But he put the thought aside, and summoning as much patience as was possible, set about with all speed preparing to depart. Thebes had not awakened from the coma of horror into which it had lapsed during the great plagues. It was Kenkenes' first visit to the city since he had left it for the desert, eight months before. Now, the change in the great capital of the south impressed itself upon him, in spite of his haste and his all-absorbing thought of Memphis. The activities of life seemed to be suspended. The call to prayers could be heard hourly from the great gongs of the temple at Karnak, when in happier days the sound had been lost in the city's noises within the very shadow of the pylons. He could hear strains of music in religious processions, when the wind was fair, but he missed the acclaim of the populace. Besides these sounds, silence had settled over Thebes. Booths were closed in many instances; the streets, which ordinarily were quiet, were now deserted; there were no carpets swinging from balconies and housetops, and the citizens he saw were sober of countenance and of garb. So few, indeed, he met, that he noted each passer-by as an event. Once, some distance away from him, he saw again the youth whom he had met in the doorway of the prison. At a caterer's he purchased supplies for a day's journey and looked about him for a carrier. Catching the boy's eye, he beckoned him, but the youth turned on his heel and disappeared. The son of the merchant offering himself, Kenkenes continued rapidly toward the river where he engaged a vessel to take him to Memphis. He roused the boatmen into immediate activity by promises of reward for every mile gained over the average day's journey. Their passenger and cargo shipped, the men fell to their oars and the craft shot out of the still waters by the landings into midstream and turned toward the north. As they cleared, the private passage boat belonging to a nobleman swept up near to them and crossing their track took the same direction several hundred yards nearer the Libyan shore. Kenkenes noted that it was a bari of elegant pattern, deep draft and more numerously manned than his. He noted further that one of the boat's crew was the youth he had met thrice in a short space at Thebes. "Small wonder that he was not willing to serve me," he commented to himself. If he observed the companion boat during the next five days it was to remark that since his own vessel kept sturdily alongside one of superior rowing force his men were of a surety earning the promised reward. When they entered the long straight stretches of the Middle country the elegant stranger dropped behind and attended Kenkenes and his crew more distantly thereafter. Except for these few occasions, Kenkenes had no thought of his surroundings. He stood in the prow and looked down the shimmering width of river, in the direction his heart had taken long before him. And when the white cliffs that proved him close to Memphis came shouldering up from the northern horizon, he had forgotten the stranger in the eager, trembling anticipations that possessed him. [1] Seb--The Egyptian Chronos. CHAPTER XXXIV NIGHT On the morning of the eighteenth day, immediately after sunrise, Rachel came to the curtains over Masanath's door, and put them aside. Within, she saw her hostess yet in her bed-gown, her hair disordered and her tiny feet bare. She stood before a shrine of silver, the statue of Isis in turquoise displayed therein, and an offering of pressed dates before it. But there was no sign of devotion or humility in the attitude of the Egyptian. One plump arm was stretched toward the image and the hand was tightly clenched. Neither was there any reverence in her voice. Rachel dropped the curtain and waited. The words came distinctly through the linen hangings. "Thou false one![1] thou ingrate! Is it for this that every day I have sent two fat ducks to the altar in thy name? Is it that I must be separated from my beloved and wedded to the man I hate, that I have prayed to thee day and night? Who hath been more faithful to thee and whom hast thou served more cruelly? Mark thou! If thou darest to cause this thing to come to pass, night nor day shall I rest until I have found the bones of Osiris and scattered them to the four winds of heaven! So carefully shall I hide them, so widely shall I scatter them, that no help of Nepthys, Toth or Anubis shall let thee gather them up again! Aye, I will do it, though I die in the doing and remain unburied, I swear by Set! Remember thou!" Rachel went softly away. After a time she returned. She had covered her white dress with a mantle of brown linen and over her head she wore a wimple of the same material. Her hair had been coiled and secured with a bodkin. When she put her hand under the wimple and drew it across her mouth, only her fair skin and blue eyes distinguished her from any other Egyptian lady dressed for a long journey. She lifted the curtains and entered, and it was long before she came forth again. Then her eyes were hidden and her head bowed, for she had bidden farewell to Masanath. She was returning to Goshen. In the street before the house she entered her litter and with Pepi walking beside her went to the Nile. And there they were joined by Anubis. He had been absent for days, so his greeting was extravagant, his loyalty inalienable. He entered the bari Pepi had loaded with Rachel's belongings, and would not be coaxed or menaced into disembarking. "Nay, let him come," Rachel said at last. "Thou canst set him on the shore opposite the tomb. He will leave us willingly there." So they pushed away. Rachel wrapped her wimple about her face and removed it once only to gaze at the quarries of Masaarah. They were deserted. Months before, directly after the affliction of the Nile, the Israelites had been returned to Goshen. After the bari had passed below the stone wharf, Rachel covered herself and neither spoke nor moved. Her heart was heavy beyond words. Pepi broke the silence once. "Shall we drop the ape first, my Lady?" Rachel shook her head. Anubis was her last hold on Kenkenes. At the Marsh of the Discontented Soul, the bari nosed among the reeds and grounded gently. Rachel stood for a moment gazing sadly across the stretch of sand toward the abrupt wall against which it terminated inland. Pepi, already on shore, reached a patient hand toward her and awaited her awakening. Anubis landed with a bound and made in a series of wide circles for the cliff. His escape aroused Rachel and she stepped out of the boat. After a moment's thought, she bade Pepi pull away from the shore and await her at a safe distance. "I shall stay no longer than to write my whereabouts on the tomb, but thy boat here may attract the attention of others on the river, and hereafter they might ask what thou didst in this place. And I am not afraid." The slow Egyptian obeyed reluctantly, shaking his head as he stood away from shore. With a sigh that was almost a sob, Rachel walked back over the sand toward the cave that had been her only shelter once. She did not fear it. Kenkenes had crossed this gray level of sand in the night and its wet border at the river had borne the print of his sandal. He had made the tomb a home for her, he had knelt on its rock pavement and kissed her hands in its dusk and had passed its threshold, like a shadow, to return no more. And here, too, was the other faithful suggestion of her lost love--the pet ape. How his fitful fidelities had directed themselves to her! She caught him up as he passed her. He struggled, turned in her arms, and then became passive, breathing loudly. She climbed the rough steps and sat down on the topmost one to think. She was surrounded with old evidences of her sorrow. Nor was there any cheer before her. Escape was in prospect, but it was liberty without light or peace--a gray freedom without hope, purpose or fruit. Her retrospect gradually brightened, never to brilliance but to a soft luminance, brightest at the farthermost point and sad like the dying daylight. She summarized her griefs--danger, death, suspense, shame and long hopelessness. The lonely girl's stock of unhappiness took her breath away and she pushed back the wimple as if to clear away the oppression. Anubis realized his moment of freedom was short and with an instant bound he was out and gone. In no little dismay Rachel started in pursuit, but she had not moved ten paces from the bottom of the steps before she paused, transfixed. An Egyptian, not Pepi, was hauling a boat into the reeds. The craft secure, he turned up the slant, walking rapidly. There was no mistaking that commanding stature. Anubis descended on him like an arrow. The man saw the ape, halted a fraction of an instant, caught sight of Rachel, and with a cry, his arms flung wide, broke into a run toward her. The ape bounded for his shoulder, but missed and alighted at one side, chattering raucously. The running man did not pause. The world revolved slowly about Rachel, and the sustaining structure of her frame seemed to lose its rigidity. She put out her hands, blindly, and they were caught and clasped about Kenkenes' neck. And there in the strong support of his tightening arms, her face hidden against the leaping heart, all time and matters of the world drifted away. In their place was only a vast content, featureless and full of soft dusk and warmth. Gone were all the demure resolutions, the memory of faith or unfaith. Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he had returned from the dead. Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking. Though a little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she seemed to have known from the cradle. "Rachel! Rachel!" he was saying, "why didst thou not go to my father as I bade thee? Nay, I do not chide thee. The joy of finding thee hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father's house, at dawn to-day. But tell me. Why didst thou not go?" "I--I feared--" she faltered after a silence. "My father? Nay, now, dost thou fear me? Not so; and my father is but myself, grown old. He was only a little less mad with fear than I, when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and camest not. It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale with concern. Did I not tell thee how good he is?" "Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou--" And she paused and again he helped her. "That I was dead? That I had played thee false? Rachel! But how couldst thou know? Forgive me. Since the tenth night I left thee I have been in prison." "In prison!" she exclaimed, lifting her face. "Alas, that I did not think of it. It is mine to beg thy forgiveness, Kenkenes, and on my very knees!" "So thou didst think it, in truth!" She hid her face again and craved his pardon. But he pressed her to him and soothed her. "Nay, I do not chide thee. Had I been in thy place, I might have thought the same. But it is past--gone with the horrors of this horrible season--Osiris be thanked!" "Thanks be to the God of Israel," she demanded from her shelter. "And the God of Israel," he said obediently. "Nay, to the God of Israel alone," she insisted, raising her head. He laughed a little and patted her hands softly together. "It was but the habit in me that made me name Osiris. There is no god for me, but Love." "So long, so long, Kenkenes, and not any change in thee?" she sighed. "How hath Egypt been helped of her gods, these grievous days?" "The gods and the gods, and ever the gods!" he said. "What have we to do with them? Deborah bade me turn from them and this I have done with all sincerity. Much have I pondered on the question and this have I concluded. Egypt's holy temples have been vainly built; her worship has been wasted on the air. There was and is a Creator, but, Rachel, that Power whose mind is troubled with the great things is too great to behold the petty concerns of men. My fortunes and thine we must direct, for though we implored that Power till we died from the fervor of our supplications, It could not hear, whose ears are filled with the murmurings of the traveling stars. Why we were created and forgotten, we may not know. How may we guess the motives of anything too great for us to conceive? Whatsoever befalls us results from our use at the hands of men, or from the nature of our abiding-place. We must defend ourselves, prosper ourselves and live for what we make of life. After that we shall not know the troubles and the joys of the world, for the tombs are restful and soundless. Is it not so, my Rachel?" She shook her head. "Thou hast gone astray, Kenkenes. But thou wast untaught--" "I have reasoned, Rachel, and the Power I have found in my ponderings, makes all the gods seem little. Thy God must manifest himself more fearfully; he must overthrow my reasoning before I can bow to him. And if, of a surety, he is greater than the Power I have made, will he need my adoration or listen to my prayers? Nay, nay, my Rachel. If thou wilt have me worship, let me fall on my face to thee--" She interrupted him with a quick gesture. "Kenkenes, have I prayed in vain for the light to fall on thee?" she asked sadly. He smiled and moved closer, looking down into her face as he had done when he studied it as Athor. "Nay, hast thou done that, and hast thou not been heard? Thou dost but fix me in mine unbelief. Did any god exist he would have heard thy supplications. Come, let us make an end of this. There are sweeter themes I would discuss. Where hast thou been, these many months? Not here in this haunted cave?" His lightness sank her hope to the lowest ebb. A sudden hurt reached her heart. His unregeneracy suggested unfaithfulness to her. Their positions had been reversed. It was she that had been denied. Duty reasserted itself with a chiding sting. "I have been a guest with Masanath--" "The daughter of Har-hat!" he cried, retreating a step. "The daughter of mine enemy," she went on. "She found me here by accident and took me to her home in Memphis. There Deborah died. And there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me, and now I return to my people." "The fan-bearer did not find thee?" he demanded at once. "Nay. Unseen, I looked upon his man. Alas! the wound to the daughter-love in Masanath! On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where she will wed with the Prince Rameses." Kenkenes' hands fell to his sides. "Nay, now! Of a surety, this is the maddest caprice the Hathors ever wrought. In the house of thine enemy! Well for me I did not know it! I should have died from very apprehension. And all these months thou wast within sight of my father's doors!" "I saw him once," she said. "And discovered not thyself! How cruelly thou hast used thyself, Rachel. He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back." "Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing--" "Enough. I forgot. Come, let us go hence. Memphis and my father's house await thee now." "But I go to my people, even now," she answered, with averted face and unready words. Kenkenes whitened. "And leave me?" he asked quietly. "Think me not ungrateful," she said. "I have said no words of thanks since there is none that can express a tithe of my great indebtedness to thee." "I have achieved nothing for thee. Not even have I won thy freedom. I have failed. But shameless in mine undeserts, I am come to ask my reward nevertheless." He was very near to her, his face full of purpose and intensity, his voice of great restraint. "That which once thou didst refuse to hear, thou hast known for long by other proof than words," he went on. "Let me say it now. I love thee, Rachel." Taking her cold hands he drew her back to him. "Once I forbore," he continued, the persuasive calm in his manner heightening, "because I knew it would hurt thee to say me 'nay,' I told myself that I was brave, then, when the actual loss of thee was distant. But thou wilt leave me now and my fortitude for thy sake is gone. I am selfish because I love thee so. The extreme is reached. I can withstand no more. Dost thou love me, Rachel?" What need for him to wait for the word that gave assent? Was there not eloquent testimony in her every feature and in every act of that hour he had been with her? But his hands trembled, holding hers, till she told him "aye." "Then ask what thou wilt of me," he said, the restraint gone, desperation taking its place. "I submit, so thou dost yield thyself to me. Shall I pray thy prayers, kneel in thy shrines? Shall I go with thee into slavery? Shall I learn thy tongue, turn my back on my people, become one of Israel and hate Egypt? These things will I do, and more, so I shall find thee all mine own when they are done." But she freed her hands to cover her face and weep. Kenkenes sighed from the very heaviness of his unhappiness. "Thou shouldst hate me, if, to win thee, I bowed in pretense to thy God," he said weakly. Perhaps his words awakened a hope or perhaps they made her desperate. Whatever the sensation, she raised her head and spoke with a sudden assumption of calm: "Naught could make me hate thee, Kenkenes, but I should know if thou didst pretend. Thou art as transparent as air. Thou art honest, guileless--too good to be lost to the Bosom that must have thrilled with joy when he beheld what a beautiful soul His hands had wrought. Few of His believers have conceived the greatness of Jehovah as thou hast, O my Kenkenes. In that art thou proved ripe for His worship. Thou hast found His might to be so limitless that thou thinkest thyself as naught in His sight. In that hast thou gone astray. The mind is gross that can not heed the weak and small. Shall we say that the spinner of the gossamer, the painter of the rose is not fine? Shall He forget His daintiest, frailest works for His mightiest? Thou, artist and creator thyself, Kenkenes, answer for Him. Nay; not so! He, who hath an ear to the lapse between an hour and an hour, hath counted His song-birds and numbered His blossoms. For are they, being small, less wondrous than the heavens, His handiwork? Shall He then fail to hear the voice of His sons in whom He hath taken greater pains?" She paused for a moment and looked at him. His expression urged her on. "Does it not trouble thee when I, whom thou hast but lately known, am in sorrow? How much more then does thine unhappiness vex His holy heart, who fashioned thee, who blew the breath of life into thy nostrils! Wilt thou deny the Hand that led thee to me, here, in this hour--that cared for me during the season of distress and peril? Nay, my beloved, there is no greater virtue than gratitude. It is an essential in the make-up of the great of heart--wilt thou put it out of thy fine nature?" Again she paused, and this time he answered in a half-whisper: "Thou dost shake me in mine heresy." "It is but newly seated in thy credence," she said eagerly, "and is easy to be put aside--easier to cast off than was the idolatry. Put it away in truth from thee and grieve thy Lord God no more." "Would that I could, now, this hour. We may discipline the soul and chasten the body, but how may we govern the mind and its disorderly beliefs? It laughs at the sober restraint of the will; my heart is broken for its sake, but it is reprobate still." "And I have not won thee?" she asked, shrinking from him. "Give me time--teach me more--return not to Goshen. Come back to Memphis with me!" he begged in rapid words, pressing after her. "No man uncovered so great a problem, alone, in a moment. How shall I find God in an hour?" "O had I the tongue of Miriam!" she exclaimed. "Go not yet. Wilt thou give me up, after a single effort? Miriam could not win me, nor all thy priests. I shall be led by thee alone. A day longer--an hour--" "But after the manner of man, thou wilt put off and wait and wait. Thou art too able, Kenkenes, too full of power for aid of mine--" "Rachel, if thou goest into Goshen--" he began passionately, but she clutched him wildly, as if to hold him, though death itself dragged at her fingers. "Hide me!" she gasped in a terrified whisper. "The servant of Har-hat!" At the mention of his enemy's name, Kenkenes turned swiftly about. Two half-clad Nubians were at the river's edge, hauling up an elegant passage boat. It was deep of draft and had many sets of oars. Approaching over the sand, hesitatingly, and with timid glances toward the tomb beyond, were four others. The foremost was the youth he had seen in Thebes. The next wore a striped tunic. Fourth and last was Unas. "Now, by my soul," Kenkenes exclaimed aloud, "there is no more mystery concerning the boy." He turned and took Rachel in his arms. "Now, do thou test the helpfulness of thy God! I have been tricked and I see no help for us. Enter the tomb and close the door, and since thou lovest honor better than liberty, let this be thine escape." He put his only weapon, his dagger, into her hands. For an instant he gazed at her tense white face; then bending over her, he kissed her once and put her behind him. "Go," he said. "What want ye?" he demanded of the men. "A slave," Unas answered evilly, stepping to the fore. "Your authority?" The fat courier flourished a document and held up a blue jewel, hanging about his neck. Meneptah had forgotten his promise to return the lapis-lazuli signet to Mentu. "Thou art undone, knave!" the courier added with a short laugh. He clapped his hands and the four Nubians advanced rapidly upon Kenkenes. There was to be no parley. Kenkenes glanced at the youth. He was not full grown,--spare, light and small in stature. "I am sorry for thee, boy," Kenkenes muttered. "Thy gods judge between thee and me!" The Nubians, two by two, each man ready to spring, rushed. With a bound, Kenkenes seized the youth by the ankles and swung him like an animate bludgeon over his head. The attacking party was too precipitate to halt in time and the yelling weapon swung round, horizontally mowing down the foremost pair of men like wooden pins. The weight of the boy, more than the force of the blow, jerked him from the sculptor's hands. Kenkenes recovered himself and retreated. As he did so, he stumbled on a fragment of rock. He wrenched it from its bed and balanced it above his head. The powerful figure with the primitive weapon was too savage a picture for the remaining pair to contemplate at close quarters. Unas had made no movement to help in the assault. He had felt the weight of the sculptor's hand and had evidently published the savagery of the young man to his assistants. They had come prepared to capture an athletic malefactor, but here was a jungle tiger brought to bay. They retired till their fallen fellows should arise. The vanquished were struggling to gain their feet, and Kenkenes noted it with concern. He was not gaining in this lull. There were other stones about him. He hurled the fragment with a sure aim, and a Nubian, who had been overthrown, dropped limply and stretched himself on the sand. With a howl the remaining three charged. They were too close for the second missile of Kenkenes to do any slaughter, and he went down under the combined attack, fighting insanely. "Slit his throat," Unas shrieked, tumbling on the captive, as Kenkenes' superhuman struggles threatened to shake them off. One of the men raised himself and made ready to obey. Holding to Kenkenes with one hand, he drew a knife from his belt and prepared to strike. At that instant, the captive caught sight of a pale woman-face, the eyes blazing with vengeance. There was a flash of a white-sleeved arm and the thump and jolt of a dagger driven strongly through flesh. The murderous Nubian yelled and tumbled, kicking, on the sand. He carried a knife at the juncture of the neck and shoulder. Instantly there was a chorus of yells. "She-devil! Hyena!" Unas detached himself from the struggle and plunged after Rachel, now in full sight of Kenkenes. He saw her retreat, warding off the fat courier with her hands; he saw her stumble and fall; he saw Anubis fly, with a chatter of rage, in the face of the courier, and struggling mightily, he threw off his captors, and leaped to his feet. And then the light went out in Egypt! [1] It was not uncommon for Egyptians to threaten their gods. CHAPTER XXXV LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS A water-carrier in Syene was carrying a yoke across his shoulders and the great earthen jars swung ponderously as he walked. His bare feet disturbed the red dust of the path down to the granite-basined river, and tiny clouds puffed out on each side of the way at every footfall. On a housetop in Memphis, a gentlewoman, in a single gauze slip and many jewels, lounged on a rug and gazed at nothing across the city. A flat-shanked Ethiopian fanned her listlessly and dreamed also. A little boy, innocent of raiment, stood before a new tomb, opposite Tanis and awaited his father who labored within. The water-carrier collapsed in his tracks; the lady shrieked; the Ethiopian dropped the fan; the little boy fell on his face--all at the same instant. From the sea to the first cataract, from the deepest recess in the Arabian hills to the remotest peak in the Libyan desert, Egypt was blinded and muffled and smothered in a dead, black night--even darkness that could be felt. Kenkenes stood still. Harsh hands were no longer on him and for an instant no sound was to be heard. Profound gloom enveloped him. His every sense was frustrated. Some one of his assailants had found his heart with a knife and this was death, he thought. Then strange, far-off murmurings filled his ears. From the river and beside him went up wild, hoarse cries of men in mortal terror. Memphis began to drone like a vast and troubled hive. The distant pastures became blatant and the poultry near the huts of rustics cackled in wild dismay. In the hills about beasts whimpered and the air was full of the screaming of bewildered birds. With the awakening of sound, Kenkenes knew that another plague had befallen Egypt. The dread that might have transfixed him was overcome by the instant recollection of Rachel's peril. No restraining hands were upon him, but he stood yet a space attempting to catch some rift in the thick night. There was not one ray of light. While he waited it was more distinctly borne in upon him that during that space Rachel might suffer. He would go to her. The night made a wall ahead of him which was imminent and indiscernible. It was like a great weight upon his shoulders and a pitfall at his feet. He crouched and fumbled before him. His apprehension was physical; his mind urged him; his body rebelled. He would have run but he could barely force one foot ahead of the other. Illusory obstacles confronted him. He waved his arms and put forward a foot. The ground was lower than he thought, and he stepped weightily. He brought up the other foot laboriously, hesitatingly. This was not advance, but time-losing. Meanwhile, what might not be happening to Rachel in this chaos of gloom and clamor? Why need he hide his escape? None of these near-by assailants had any care now save for his own safety. He called her name loudly and listened. There was no answer in her voice. He forced himself to move, but had the next step led into an abyss his feet could not have been more reluctant. He flailed the air with his arms and accomplished another pace. He realized that he could not reach, in an hour, at this rate, the spot in which he had last seen her. Again he called, using his full lung power, but the only reply was an echo, or the hoarse supplications of men, near him and on the river. The river! Had Rachel gone that way too far and beyond retreat? The thought chilled him with terror and horror. He execrated himself for his trepidation and strove wildly to proceed; but strive as he might he could not advance. How long since the darkness had fallen, and he had moved but two paces from the spot in which it had overtaken him! The outcry near him subsided into low murmurs of terror, and none lifted a voice in answer to his distracted call. If Rachel had been near she would have replied to him. The alternatives he had to choose as her possible fate were death in the Nile or capture by Unas. The one he fought away from him wildly, the other made him frantic. And the realization of his own helplessness, with the picture of her distress at that moment, crushed him. A tangle of wind-mown reeds tripped him and pitched him to his knees among the high marsh growth. He did not rise. The babe in pain cries to his mother; the man in his maturity may outgrow the susceptibility to tears, but he never outwears the want of a stronger spirit upon which to call in his hour of distress. For Kenkenes it had been a far cry, from his careless days and his empyrean populous with deities, to this utter and unhappy night and one unseen Power. In that time he had run the gamut of sensations from a laugh to a wail. Now was his need the sorest of all his life. The most helpful of all hands must aid him. His fathers' gods were in the dust. What of that unapproachable, unfeeling Omnipotence he had created in their stead? He fell on his face and prayed. "O Thou, who art somewhere behind the phantom gods that we have raised! To whom all prayer ascends by many-charted paths; Thou who canst spread this sooty night across the morning skies and turn to milk the bones of men! Thou who didst undo my surest plans, who dost mock my boasted power, who hast stripped me till my feeble self is bared to me even in this dreadful night; Thou who wast a fending hand about her; who art her only succor now--to whom she prays--and by that sign, Thou Very God! I bow to Thee. "My lips are stiff at prayer to such as Thou. But what need of my tongue's abashed interpretation of that which I would say, since even the future's history is open unto Thee? "I have run my course without craving Thine aid, and lo! here have I ended--a voice appealing through the night--no more. "Now, wilt Thou heed an alien's plea; wilt Thou know a stranger petitioning before Thy high and holy place? How shall I win Thine ear? Charge me with any mission, weight me with a lifetime of penances, strip me of power everlastingly, but grant me leave to supplicate Thy throne. "Not for myself do I pray, O Hidden God! Not one jot would I overtax Thy bounty toward me beyond the sufferance of my devotion. But for her I pray--for her, out somewhere in this unlifting gloom, her tender maidenhood uncomforted--with night, with death, with long dishonor threatening her. Attend her, O Thou august Warden! Let her not cry out to Thee in vain! Be Thou as a wall about her, as a light before her, as a firm path beneath her feet. Do Thou as Thou wilt with me. Lo! I offer up myself as ransom for her--myself--all I have! Take her from me, deny mine eyes the sight of her for ever, blot me wholly out of her heart, yield me over to the wrath of mine enemies, and to Thine unknowable vengeance thereafter; but save her, Great God! save her from her enemy! "Dost Thou hear me, O Holy Mystery? Is there no sign, no manifestation that Thou dost attend? "Nay, but I know that Thou hearest me! By my faith in Thy being I know it, Lord!" Peace fell on him and he slept. In after years Kenkenes remembered only vaguely the long hours of that black and lonely vigil. This climax to a calamitous space eight months in length might have crushed a less sturdy spirit, but he was mystically sustained. With the exception of a few intervals of short duration most of the time was spent in sleep, so profound and dreamless as to border on coma. The reeds had received him on a bed of crushed herbage and the upstanding ranks about him sheltered him from the blowing sand. The whilom assailants of the young man were not so kindly served by the gods to whom they appealed loudly and frequently. The city in the distance moaned and complained and the hills were full of fear. In one of his profound lapses of slumber a hairy paw felt of Kenkenes' face. Later a drifting boat nosed about among the reeds at the water's edge. Presently one of the crew cried out, and a second voice said: "Nay, fear not; it is an ape, by the feel of him. Toth is with us. It is a good omen; let him not go forth." Silence fell again, for the boat drifted on. At last dawn-lights reddened about the horizon; stars faded out of the uppermost as naturally as if they had been there during the three days of unlifting night. All Egypt showed up darkly in the coming day. Kenkenes, in his couch of reeds, slept on peacefully. The mid-morning sun shone in his face before he awakened. He leaped to his feet, cramped and stiffened by his long inactivity, and looked about him. Near by was a disturbed spot of wide circumference. Here had the struggle taken place. Here, also, some of the sand was stained with the blood of the Nubian, who had been wounded by Rachel. Fresh footprints led toward the water. He followed them with a wildly beating heart. There were no marks of a little sandal. At the Nile edge the deep line cut by a keel was still visible in the wet sand. His own boat and the other were gone. All other signs had been obliterated, for the wind had been busy during the darkness. Across the cultivated land, or rather the land which would have been wheat-covered but for the locusts, he saw the huts of rustics, and to each of these he went, asking of the pallid and terror-stricken tenants if Rachel had come to them. Gaining no information, he went next to Masaarah, appeasing his hunger with succulent roots plucked from the loam beside the river. The quarries were deserted, the pocket in the valley, where the Israelites had pitched their tents, was as solitary as it had ever been. There was no place here to shelter the lost girl. There were the huts to the north of the Marsh and the deserted village of Toora to search. He retraced his steps. As he came again before the tomb he went to it. Half-way up the steps he stopped. On a blank face of the rock, sheltered by a jutting ledge above it, was an inscription, a little faint, but he ascribed that to the poor quality of the pencil and roughness of the tablet. This is what he read: "Her whom thou seekest thou wilt find in the palace of Har-hat, in the city." Perhaps under other circumstances Kenkenes would have understood correctly the origin and intent of the writing. Already, however, his fears pointed to the palace of Har-hat as the prison of Rachel, and this faint inscription was corroboration. It appealed to him as villainy worthy of the fan-bearer. It was like his exquisite effrontery. Kenkenes whirled away with an indescribable sound, rather like the snarl of an infuriated beast than an expression of a reasoning creature. Dashing down the sand, he plunged into the Nile and swam with superhuman speed for the Memphian shore. He defied death as a maniac does. The river was a mile in width and teeming with crocodiles. But the same saving Providence that shields the adventurous child attended him. He clambered up the opposite bank and struck out for Memphis on a hard run. He had but one purpose and that was to find Har-hat and strangle him with grim joy. The rescue of Rachel did not occur to him, for in his excited mind the simple touch of the fan-bearer's hand was sufficient to kill her with its dishonor. He did not remember anything that Rachel had told him concerning her life in Memphis, or that Har-hat was in Tanis, and Masanath like to be the only resident in the fan-bearer's palace. His reasoning powers abandoned their supremacy to all the fierce impulses toward revenge and bloodletting of which his nature was capable. Though it was day when he entered the great capital of the Pharaohs, the streets were almost deserted, and every doorway and window showed interiors brilliant with a multitude of lamps. Memphis was prepared against a second smothering of the lights of heaven. The few pedestrians Kenkenes met fell back and gave room to the dripping apparition which ran as if death-pursued. One told him on demand where the mansion of Har-hat stood, and after a few slow minutes he was within its porch. He flung himself against the blank portal and beat on it. He did not pause to await a response. He felt within him strength to batter down the doors if they did not open. Presently an old portress came forth from a side entry and Kenkenes seized her. Fearing that she might cry out and defeat his purpose, he put his hand over her mouth. "Your master," he demanded hoarsely. "Where is he? Answer and answer quietly!" For a moment she was dumb with terror. "Gone," she gasped at last when Kenkenes shook her. "Where? When?" he insisted. "To Tanis, eight months since!" "Was an Israelite maiden brought here? Answer and truly, by your immortal soul!" "Many months ago, aye, but she departed three days ago for Goshen," the old woman answered falteringly. "And she came not back?" "Nay." "Swear, by Osiris!" "By Osiris--" "And the Lady Masanath?" "Gone, also, to Tanis with Unas, this morning." "Thou liest! In the dark?" "Nay, I swear by Osiris," she protested wildly. "The light came in with the hour of dawn." Kenkenes released her and hurried away. He did not doubt that the old woman had told the truth. He had overslept the light. Unas could not have taken Rachel and Masanath to Tanis together. The Israelite would have been sent on before. There was yet Atsu to question, and then--on to Tanis to rescue Rachel or to avenge her. He met no one until he reached a bazaar of jewels near the temple square. An armed watchman stood before the tightly closed front of the lapidary's booth, above the portal of which a flaring torch was stuck in a sconce. "The house of Atsu?" the watchman repeated after Kenkenes. "Atsu is no longer a householder in Memphis." "When did he depart?" "Eight or nine months ago, at the persuasion of the Pharaoh." The lightness of the man's manner irritated the already vexed spirit of the young artist. "Be explicit," he demanded sharply. "What meanest thou?" "He was stripped of his insignia and reduced to the rank of ordinary soldier," the man answered, "for pampering the Israelites. He is with the legions in the north." "Hath he kin in the city?" "Nay, he is solitary." Kenkenes walked away unsteadily. The nervous energy that had upborne him during his intense excitement was deserting him. His hunger and weariness were asserting themselves. He turned down the narrow passage leading to his father's house. And suddenly, in the way of such vagrant thoughts, it occurred to him that the inscription on the tomb had been pointedly denied by the old woman's statements. "Ah, I might have known," he said impatiently. "Rachel put the writing there for me when she left the tomb for the shelter Masanath offered her in Memphis." The admission cheered him somewhat, but it did not repair his exhausted forces. By the time he reached his father's door he was unsteady, indeed, and beyond further exertion. CHAPTER XXXVI THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE The murket sat at his place in the work-room, but no papyrus scrolls lay before him; his fine implements were not in sight; the ink-pots and pens were put away and the table was clear except for a copper lamp that sputtered and flared at one end. The great artist's arms were extended across the table, his head bowed upon them, his hands clasped. The attitude was not that of weariness but of trouble. Kenkenes hesitated. For the first time since the hour he left Memphis for Thebes, months before, he felt a sense of culpability. He realized, with great bounds of comprehension, that the results of his own trouble had not been confined to himself. He began to understand how infectious sorrow is. He crossed the room and laid a trembling hand on the murket's shoulder. Instantly the great artist lifted his head and, seeing Kenkenes, leaped to his feet with a cry that was all joy. The young man responded to the kiss of welcome with so little composure that Mentu forced him down on the bench and summoned a servant. The old housekeeper appeared at the door, started with a suppressed cry and flung herself at her young master's feet. He raised her and touched her cheek with his lips. "Bring me somewhat to eat and drink, Sema," he said weakly. "I have fasted, since I returned here, well-nigh four days agone." The stiff old creature rose with a murmur half of compassion, half of promise, and went forth immediately. The murket stood very close to his son, regarding him with interrogation on his face. "Memphis was full of famishing at the coming of dawn this morning," he said. "For the first time in my life I knew hunger, and it is a fearsome thing, but thou--a shade from Amenti could not be ghastlier. Where hast thou been--what are thy fortunes, Kenkenes?" "Rachel--thou knowest--" Kenkenes began, speaking with an effort. "Aye, I know. Didst find her?" "Aye, and lost her, even while I fought to save her!" "Alas, thou unfortunate!" Mentu exclaimed. "Of a surety the gods have punished thee too harshly!" Kenkenes was not in the frame of mind to receive so soft a speech composedly. A strong tremor ran over him and he averted his face. The murket came to his side and smoothed the damp hair. The old housekeeper entered with broth and bread and a bottle of wine. Mentu broke the bread and filled the beaker, while Sema stood aloof and gazed with troubled eyes at the unhappy face of the young master. Silent, they watched him eat and drink, grieved because of the visible effort it required and because no life or strength returned to him with the breaking of his fast. When he had finished, the bowl and platter were taken away, but at a sign the old housekeeper left the wine with the murket. After she had gone Mentu glanced at the draggled dress of his son. "Thou needest, further, the attention of thy slave, Kenkenes," he suggested. The young man shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "My time is short, and it is thy help I need." The murket sat down beside his son. Without further introduction Kenkenes plunged into his story. He had had no time to tell it four days before. Then he had asked for Rachel with his second word, and finding her not, had rushed immediately to the search for her. Mentu heard without comment till the story was done. Most of it he had known from Hotep, and only the recent events at the tomb excited him. When Kenkenes made an end the murket brought his clenched hand down on the table with a force that made the lamp wink and the implements rattle in their boxes above him. "Curse that smooth villain Har-hat!" he cried in a tempest of wrath. "A murrain upon his greedy, crafty lust! The gods blast him in his knavery! Now is my precious amulet in his hands. Would it were white-hot and clung to him like a leech!" Kenkenes said nothing. The murket's wrath was more comforting to him than tender words could have been. "Who hath the ear of Meneptah?" the murket continued with increasing vehemence. "Har-hat! And behold the miseries of Egypt! Shall we put any great sin past the knave who sinneth monstrously, or divine his methods who is a master of cunning? The land is entangled in difficulty! Give me but a raveling fiber to pull, and, by the gods, I know that we shall find Har-hat at the other end of it! He is destroying Egypt for his ambition's sake! And that a son of mine--me! the right hand of the Incomparable Pharaoh--should furnish meat for his rending!" His voice failed him and he shook his clenched hands high above his head in an abandon of fury. "Did I not tell thee?" he burst forth again, pointing a finger at his son. "Did I not warn thee from the first?" Kenkenes raised his head. "Can you avoid a knave if he hath designs on you?" he asked. "Have I erred in crossing his will? Have I sinned in loving and protecting her whom I love?" Mentu's hands fell down at his sides. The simple questions had silenced him. His son was blameless now that he had expiated his offenses against the law, and from the moral standpoint his persistence in his claim on Rachel was just--praiseworthy. "Nay," he said sullenly, "but since thou didst love the girl, how came it that thou didst not wed her long ago and save her this shame and danger?" He saw the face of his son grow paler. "The bar of faith lay between us," Kenkenes answered. "I was an idolater, she a worshiper of the One God. She would not wed with me, therefore." The murket looked at his son, stupefied with amazement. "Thou--thou--" he said at last, his words coming slowly by reason of his emotions. "The Israelite rejected thee!" Kenkenes bent his head in assent. "Thou! A prince among men--a nobleman, a genius--a man whom all women--Kenkenes! by Horus, I am amazed! And thou didst endure it, and continue to love and serve and suffer for her! Where is thy pride?" Kenkenes stopped him with a motion of his hand. "A maid's unwillingness is obstacle enough," he said. "Shall a man summon further difficulty in the form of his self-esteem to stand in the way of his love? Nay, it could not be, and that thou knowest, my father, since thou, too, hast loved. When a man is in love it is his pride to be long-suffering and humble. But there is naught separating us now save it be the hand of Har-hat." "So much for Israelitish zeal! Thou hast been a pawn for her to play during these months. Long ago had she surrendered if thou hadst been--" Kenkenes smiled. "She did not surrender. It was I." "Thy faith?" the murket asked in a voice low with earnestness. "Thou hast said!" A dead silence ensued. Kenkenes may have awaited the outbreak with a quickening of the heart, but it did not come. Instead, the murket sat down on the bench and gazed at his son intently. After a long interval he spoke. "Thus far had I hoped that thou wast taken by the Israelite but in thy fancy. The hope was vain. Thou art in love with her." Kenkenes endured the steady gaze and waited for Mentu to go on. "There is no help for thee now," the murket continued stoically. "If the gods will but tolerate thee till the madness leaves thee after thou art wedded and satisfied, it may be that thou wilt turn again to the faith of thy fathers. But if I would fix thee in thine apostasy I should try to persuade thee now." "Aye, and further, I should be moved to urge thee into heresy," calmly responded Kenkenes. The murket flung up one hand in a gesture of dissent, and arising, walked toward the door of the workroom. There he leaned his shoulder against the frame and looked out at the night. Presently Kenkenes went to him and laid his hand on his sleeve. The murket spoke first, proving what thoughts had been his during the little space of silence. "There is little patriotism in thee, Kenkenes. Thou wouldst wed with one of Egypt's enemies and bow down to the God which has devastated thy country." The hand on his sleeve fell. "What did Egypt to Israel for a hundred years before these miseries came to pass?" Kenkenes asked. "Let me tell thee how Egypt hath used Rachel. She is free-born, of noble blood, even as thou art and as I am. Her house was wealthy, the name powerful. There were ten of her family--four of her mother's, six of her father's. Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh, had use for their treasure and need of their labor in the brick-fields and mines. This day Rachel possesses not even her own soul and body, nor one garment to cover herself, nor a single kinsman to shield her from the power of her masters! Well for Egypt that the God of Israel hath not demanded of Egypt treasure for treasure seized, toil for toil compelled, lash for lash inflicted, blood for blood outpoured! This desolation had been thrice desolate and Egypt's glory gone like the green grass in the breath of the Khamsin! And yet would such justice restore to Rachel the love she lost, the comfort that should have been hers? Nay, not even the sorcery of Mesu might do that. The debt of Egypt to Rachel is most cheaply discharged by the service of one life for the ten which were taken from her!" "Let be; Israel shall cumber Egypt no longer," the murket muttered after a little; "and the quarrel between them shall be at an end. The hour approacheth when every Hebrew shall leave Egypt--shall be driven forth if he leave it not willingly." "Thinkest thou so of a truth?" Kenkenes asked earnestly. "Of a truth. Thou seest the plight of the nation. Can it endure longer? And if thou takest this Israelite to wife--" He paused abruptly, for he had pressed the problem and a solution opened itself so suddenly that it staggered him. Kenkenes understood the pause. Again he laid his hand on the murket's sleeve. "On this very matter would I take counsel with thee, my father," he said gently. "The night grows, and my time is short." Mentu turned an unhappy face toward his son and followed him back to the bench they had left. He felt, intuitively, that there was further grave purpose in the young man's mind and there was dread in his paternal heart. "Thou knowest, my father," Kenkenes began, "that I may not give over my love for Rachel. I am free to love her and she to love me. There is no obstacle between us. Such love, therefore, in the sight of heaven, becometh a duty and carrieth duty with it. In the spirit I am as though I had been bound to her by the marrying priests. Her griefs are mine to comfort, her wrongs mine to avenge. "She is gone and there are these three surmises as to her whereabouts. She may have escaped and returned to Goshen; she may have wandered to death in the Nile; she may have been taken by Har-hat." He paused, and Mentu gazed fixedly at the lamp. "I am going to Tanis," Kenkenes began, with forced restraint. "Wherefore?" Mentu demanded. "To discover if Har-hat hath taken her!" "Go on." "If he hath the Lord God make iron of my hands till I strangle him!" "Madman!" Mentu exclaimed. "Thou wilt be flayed!" "Be assured that I shall earn the flaying! The punishment shall be no more savage than the deed that invites it! But enough of that. If I go to Tanis and find her the spoil of the fan-bearer, thine augury will hold, I return not to Memphis. . . . If she was lost in the Nile--!" "Nay! Nay! put away the thought if it wrench thee so. No man removed from his place during that night. We were caught and transfixed at what we did. For three days I sat in the court, where I was overtaken by the darkness, and in that time I stirred not except to slip down on the bench and sleep. The palsy seized all Memphis likewise--not one of my neighbors moved. But the resident Hebrews of the city seemed to have been warned, or else the favor of their strange God was with them. For it is said they came and went as they willed, carrying lamps." Kenkenes looked at his father with growing hope. "If that be true," he said eagerly, "if the palsy fell upon Egypt and not upon Israel, Rachel may have fled safely--she may have escaped them!" Mentu assented with a nod. "She may have returned to her people," Kenkenes went on. "And if she be in Goshen I must reach her, find her, before her people depart. Having found her--" but Kenkenes stopped and made no effort to resume. Mentu set his teeth, his hands clenched and his whole figure seemed to denote intense physical restraint. Suddenly he whirled upon his son. "Thou wilt go with her, out of Egypt?" he demanded. "I shall go with her, out of Egypt." Mentu gained his feet. "And dost thou remember that while I live my commands are yet law over thee?" he continued in a tone of increasing intensity. "Mine it is to say whether thou shall do this thing or do it not!" He turned away and strode back to his post against the door-frame, his face toward the night. Kenkenes had slowly risen to his feet. Not for an instant did his father's authority appear to him as an obstacle. He knew that the murket's outburst was a final stand before capitulation. Kenkenes was troubled only for what might follow after his father had surrendered. He followed the murket to the door and laid his arm across the broad shoulders. "Father," he said persuasively. Mentu did not move. "Look at me, father," Kenkenes insisted. Still no movement. The young man put his arm closer about the shoulders, and lifting his hand, would have turned the face toward him. But the palm touched a wet cheek. The murket had consented. * * * * * * An hour later, when it was far into the second watch, Kenkenes changed his dress and made himself presentable. Then, without further counsel with the murket, he went silently and unseen to the portal of Senci's house. After a long time, for her household had been asleep, he was admitted, and the Lady Senci, perplexed and surprised, joined him in the chamber of guests. With few and simple words he told his story, pictured his father's loneliness and, while she wept silently, begged her to become his father's wife--on the morrow. There was no long persuasion; the need of the occasion was sufficient eloquence for the murket's noble love. An hour after the next day's sunrise Mentu and Senci repaired together to the temple, and when they returned Senci went not again into her own house. In preparing for his departure, Kenkenes asked at the hands of his father, not his patrimony, for that would have been an embarrassment of wealth, but such portion of it as might be carried in small bulk. In mid-afternoon Senci brought him a belt of gazelle-hide and in this had been sewed a fortune in gems. The murket had given his son his full portion and more. At the close of day, with his face set and colorless, Kenkenes stepped into the narrow passage before his father's house. The great portal closed slowly and noiselessly behind him. He did not pause, but sprang into his chariot and was driven rapidly away. At a landing near the northern limits of Memphis he took a punt, bade farewell to his sad-faced charioteer and pushed off. The broken bluffs about Memphis, the temples, the obelisks, the Sphinx, the pyramids melted into night behind him. He kept his head down that he might not look his last on his native city. He had reached that point where endurance must conserve itself. CHAPTER XXXVII AT THE WELL Once out of its confines the Nile divided its flood over and over again and hunted the sea in long meanderings over the flat Delta. A few miles above On the separation began and continued to the marshy coast far to the north. From the summit of the great towers of Bubastis and Saïs the glistening sinuosities of its branches might be discerned for many miles. There was no thirst in the Delta. Nowhere did the capillary, the irrigation canal, fail to reach, even now in the season of desolation and loss. Half-green stubble, hail-mown and locust-eaten, showed where a wheat-field had been. Regular, barren rows were the only evidences of the lentil and garlic gardens in happier days, and the location of pastures might be guessed by the skeletons that whitened the uplands. Through fringes of leafless palm trees, stone-rimmed pools, like splashes of quicksilver or facets of sapphire, reflected the sky. Half-way between On and Pa-Ramesu was one of these basins, elliptical in shape and walled with rough limestone. Moss grew in the crevices of the masonry and about it had been a sod of velvet grass. Black beetles slipped in and out among the stones; dragon-flies hung over the surface of the water and large ants made erratic journeys about the rough bark of the naked palms. Whoever came dipped his goblet deep, for there the water was cold. If he gazed through to the bottom he detected a convection in the sand below. This was not a reservoir, but a well. Once only had it failed, but then Hapi, the holy river, had been smitten also. The spring bubbled up at the division of a road. One branch led along the northern bank of the Rameside canal, eastward to Pa-Ramesu. The other crossed the northwestern limits of Goshen and went toward Tanis, in the northeast. Round about the little oasis were the dark circles where the turf fires of many travelers had been. The merchants from the Orient entering Egypt through the great wall of Rameses II, across the eastern isthmus, passed this way going to Memphis. Here Philistine, Damascene, Ninevite and Babylonian had halted; here Egyptian, Bedouin, Arabian and the dweller of the desert had paused. The earth about the well was always damp, and the top-most row of the curb was worn smooth in hollows. This, therefore, was a point common to native and alien, the home-keeping and the traveler, the faithful and the unbeliever. The strait of Egypt was sore and the aid of the gods essential. The priests had seized upon the site as a place of prayers, placed a tablet there, commanding them, and a soldier to see that the command was obeyed. The soldier was in cavalry dress of tunic and tasseled coif, with pike and bull-hide shield and a light broadsword. He was no ordinary bearer of arms. He walked like a man accustomed to command; he turned a cold eye upon too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the level blackness of his low brows. Wealth, beauty, age nor rank won servility or superciliousness from him. The Egyptian soldier was not obliged to cringe, and this one abode by the privilege. He was a man of one attitude, one mood and few words. The Memnon might as well have been expected to smile. The earliest riser found him there; the latest night wanderer came upon him. When the day broke, after the falling of the dreadful night, the brave or the thirsty who ventured forth saw him at his post, silent, unastonished, unafraid. Once only the soldier had been seen to flinch. Merenra, now nomarch of Bubastis, but whilom commander over Israel at Pa-Ramesu, paused one noon with his train at the well. The governor glanced at the soldier, glanced again, shrugged his shoulders and rode away. The man-at-arms winced, and often thereafter stood in abstracted contemplation of the distance. Just after sunrise on the second day following the passing of the darkness, four Egyptians, lank, big-footed and brown, came from the northeast. By their dress they had been prosperous rustics of the un-Israelite Delta. But the healthful leanness, characteristic of the race, had become emaciation; there was the studious unkemptness of mourning upon them, and they, who had ridden once, before the plagues of murrain and hail, traveled afoot. They were evidently journeying to On, where the benevolence of Ra would feed them. They said nothing, looking a little awed at the soldier and puzzled at the stela. The warrior read the command and the unlettered men fell on their knees, each to a different god. The Egyptian was not ashamed of his piety nor did he closet himself to pray. "Incline the will of the Pharaoh to accord with the needs of the hour, O thou Melter of Hearts!" "Rescue the kingdom, O thou Controller of Nations, for it descendeth into death and none succoreth it!" "Deal thou as thou deemest best with the destroyer of Egypt, O thou Magistrate over Kings!" Thus, in these fragments of prayers was it made manifest that the worm was turning, apologetically, it is true, but surely. For once the prescribed defense of the Pharaoh was ignored. "It is not the fault of the Child of the Sun, but his advisers, who are evil men and full of guile." And in the odd perversity of fate for once its observance would have been just. Having fulfilled the command and relieved their souls, the four arose and went their way, soft of foot and stately of carriage, after the manner of all their countrymen. Next, descending with a volley of yells, a rout of the nomad tribes, mounted on horses, came from the southwest. They were chiefly Bedouins, their women perched behind them with the tiniest members of their broods. But every child that could bestride a horse was mounted independently. Whatever worldly possessions the nomads owned were bound in numerous flat rolls on other horses which they led. "Hail!" they shouted to the warrior, for the desert races are prankish and unabashed. A younger among them, without wife or goods, drew his gaunt horse back upon its scarred haunches and saluted the soldier. "Greeting, bearer of many arms!" he said, and then addressed a near-by companion as if he were rods away. "Behold leaden-toed Egypt, cumbered with defense! Bull-hide for shield instead of the safe remoteness of distance, blade and pike for vulgar intimacy in combat instead of the nice aloofness of the launched spear--" "Go to, thou prater!" interrupted a companion. "If thou lovest Bedouin warfare so well, wherefore dost thou join thyself to the Israelite who fights not at all?" "Spoil!" retorted the first, "and new fields, O waster of the air! Hast thou not heard of Canaan?" "Nay," shouted a third, "he hath an eye only to some heifer-eyed brickmaker among them!" The soldier moved forward to the group and grounded his pike. His attitude interested them, and in the expectant silence he repeated the writing on the tablet. "So saith the writing," the first speaker began, but the warrior interrupted him. "It behooves thee to obey. Thou art yet within the reach of the awkward arms of Egypt." "One against a troop of Bedouins," the trifler laughed. "And there are a thousand within sound of my beaten shield," was the harsh answer. "Come," said an elder complacently, "it does no harm to ask the alleviation of any man's hurt, and it may keep us whole for the journey into Canaan." He dismounted, and in a twinkling the company, even to the babes, had followed his example. Each dropped to his haunches, his hands spread upon his knees, and there was no sound for a few minutes. Then they rose simultaneously and, flinging themselves upon their horses, departed as they came, like the whirlwind, over the road to Pa-Ramesu and the heart of Goshen. These were part of the mixed multitude that went with Israel. The dust of their going had hardly settled before a drove of hosannahing Israelites approached from the direction of the Nile. The soldier saw them without seeming to see and, moving toward the tablet, a four-foot stela of sandstone, planted himself against its inscribed face, and, resting his pike, contemplated the west. The ragged rout approached, singing and shouting, noisy and of doubtful temper. A cloud of dust came with them and the odor of stall and of quarry sweat. Want plays havoc with the Oriental's appearance. It acutely accentuates his already aggressive features and reduces his color to ghastliness. The approaching Hebrews were studies of sharp angularity in monochrome, and the soul which showed in the eyes was no longer a spiritual but a ravenous thing. Being something distinctly Egyptian, the soldier brought their actual temper to the surface. They had suffered long, but their time had come. The foremost flung themselves into his view and halted, hushed and amazed. When those behind them tried to press forward with jeers, they turned with a frown and a significant jerk of the head in the direction of the man-at-arms. These, also, subsided and passed along the sign of silence. A leader in the front rank walked away and took a drink, using his hands as a cup. The whole silent herd followed and did likewise, solemnly and thoughtfully. Presently the bolder began to whisper and conjecture among themselves, hushing the sibilant surmises of the humbler with a cautioning frown. An old man, who could not lower his voice, quavered a resolve to "ask and discover," and started toward the soldier to put his resolution into effect. A wiry old woman seized him and drew him back. "Wilt thou humiliate him with thy notice, meddler?" she demanded in a fierce whisper. "See him not, and it will be a mercy to him in his hour of abasement,--him who hath been balsam to the wound of Israel!" She turned about and took the road toward Pa-Ramesu, the unprotesting old man trotting after her. The crowd followed, silent at first, then softly talkative, and finally, in the distance, singing and noisy once again. A careening camel, almost white in the early morning sunshine, broke the sky-line far up the road leading from Tanis in the north. Very much nearer, to the west, two single litters, with a staff-bearing attendant, were approaching. The camel rider was a Hebrew by the beast that bore him. Egypt had no liking for the bearer of the Orient's burdens and small acquaintance with him. Likewise the litters were Hebraic, for the attendant was bearded. The soldier kept his place before the stela and contemplated the distance. The time was not long, though in that land of distances the camel had far to come from the horizon to the well, until by the soft jarring of the earth the motionless sentinel knew that the swifter traveler had arrived. Haste is not common in tropical countries, and the camel had been put to his limit of speed. A commoner spirit than the soldiers could not have resisted the impulses of curiosity concerning this hot haste. But he did not turn his eyes. The traveler alighted before his mount ceased to move, and undoing his leathern belt with a jerk, he struck the camel a smart blow on the shoulder. There was the protesting buzz of a large fly and an angry, disabled blundering on the sand, silenced by the stamp of a sandal. "Thou wouldst have it, pest!" the traveler exclaimed. "Thy kind is not to be persuaded from its blood-sucking by milder means. Ye mind me of the Pharaoh!" He turned toward the well, and his glance fell on the man-at-arms for the first time. He started a little to find himself not alone, and a second time he started with sudden recognition. The well was between him and the soldier. He leaned upon his hands on the top of the curb and gazed at his opposite. Once he seemed about to speak, but the studious disregard of the soldier deterred him. Slowly his eyes fell until they were directed thoughtfully through his own reflection into the green depths of the well. Although there were ten years in favor of the Egyptian, there was a certain similarity between the two men. Both were soldiers, both black and stern. But one was a Hebrew, no less than forty-five years of age. He wore a helmet of polished metal, equipped with a visor, which, when raised, finished the front with a flat plate. The top of the head-piece was ornamented with a spike. His armor was complete--shirt of mail, shenti extending half-way to the knees, greaves of brass and mailed shoes. He was as tall as the Egyptian and as lean, but his structure was heavy, stalwart and powerful. His forehead was broad and bold, his eyes deep-set, steel-blue and keen. He had the fighting nose, over-long and hooked like an eagle's beak. The inexorable character of his features was borne out by the mouth, thin-lipped and firm in its closing. Even his beard, scant and touched with gray, was intractable. Here was an Israelite who was a warrior, a rare thing--but splendid when found. After a pause he turned, and the camel knelt at his command. The litters had halted a little distance away under two palms that leaned their leafless crowns together. The attendant was hastening toward the well. "Joshua!" he cried joyously. "Even I," the Hebrew soldier said, walking around the kneeling beast. "Peace to thee, Caleb." The two men embraced; the warrior imperturbably, the attendant tearfully. "What dost thou away from Goshen?" Joshua asked, disengaging himself. "The faithful of Israel have been summoned thither from the remotenesses of Mizraim." But Caleb did not hear, having caught sight of the Egyptian. The recognition startled him as it had all the others, but he did not hold his peace. "Atsu!" he exclaimed. Joshua checked him. "Vex him not with attention," he said in a lowered tone. "His fall hath been great, but it hath not killed his pride. He would speak if it hurt him to be unremembered." "Hath he a grudge against us?" Caleb asked in astonishment. "Nay, look thou at the writing on the tablet. He would hide its command from us. Is he not a friend to Israel still?" He indicated the characters on either side of the soldier. The words were disconnected, but the sense was easily guessed. The command for prayers to the Pantheon of Egypt was not hidden, beyond conjecture, from the discerning. Caleb saw the meaning of the inscription, but looked to Joshua for further enlightenment. "He would spare us," the abler Israelite said. "Let us return the kindness and see him not." All this had the Egyptian heard, but his eyes, fixed so absently on the horizon, seemed to indicate that he was not conscious of his surroundings. Joshua repeated his question. "I was sent forth with Miriam," Caleb made answer. "She hath been abroad, gathering up the scattered chosen." His eyes brightened and he clasped his hands with the gesture of a happy woman. "Deliverance is at hand! Doubt it not, O Son of Nun! We go forth!" he exclaimed. On the camel were hung a shield, a javelin and a quiver of arrows. Joshua jostled the arrows in their case before answering. "Not as the moon changes," he said grimly. "The time for mild departure is past and the word of the Lord God unto Moses must be fulfilled." "So we but go," Caleb assented, "I care not. And such is the temper of all Israel--nay," he broke off, conscientiously; "there is an exception, an unusual exception." "There may be more," Joshua replied. "There is much in Egypt to hold the slavish. But the captain of Israel hath called me, out of peaceful shepherd life, to the severe fortunes of a warrior, and I go, no mile too short, no moment too swift, that shall speed me into Pa-Ramesu." "And thou takest up arms for Israel?" Caleb cried. "Ah! but Moses hath gloved his right hand in mail, in thee, O Son of Nun! But," he continued, uneasy with his story untold, "this was no slavish content under a master. Rather did it come from one of the best of Israel." "Strange that the lofty of Israel should regret a departure from the land of the oppressors." Joshua settled himself on the camel and the tall beast rose to its feet with a lurch. "Even so," Caleb answered, patting the nose of the camel and arranging the tassels of its halter. "It was a quarry-slave, a maiden and of gentle blood among the nobility of Israel. She is in the bamboo litter, Miriam is in the other. "We are come from farthest Egypt, fifty of us in three barges," he began. "To Syene have we been and all the Nilotic towns. To Nehapehu, and even deep into the Great Oasis were messengers sent, for we would not leave a single son of Abraham behind. And the masters surrendered them to a man! Was it the face of Miriam or the fear of Moses or the might of the Lord that tamed them? Hath Miriam a compelling glance, or Moses a power that came not from Jehovah? Nay, not so. Praised be His holy name!" The mild Israelite clasped his hands and raised his eyes devoutly. But fearful lest his pause might furnish an opportunity for Joshua's escape, he continued at once: "We were descending the Nile, below Memphis; the river sang and the hills lifted up their voices. There was rejoicing in the meadows and clapping of hands in the valleys. We possessed the gates of our enemies and Mizraim sat upon the shores and wept after us. "Below Masaarah, the darkness fell; the sun perished in the morning and the stars were not summoned in the night, for the Lord had withdrawn the lights of heaven. But His hand was upon the waters and His glory stood about us and we feared not. "And lo! there came a call upon Him from the shores to the east. The barge of Miriam paused and from the land we succored an Israelitish maiden. But when we would have moved on, she flung herself before Miriam and besought her: "'Depart not yet, for there is another.' "'Of the chosen?' the prophetess asked. "'Nay, an Egyptian, but better and above his kind.' "'Of the faith?' Miriam asked further. And the maiden faltered and said, 'Nay, not yet--but worthy and kindly.' "But the prophetess bade the men at the poles to continue, saying: 'Shall we cheat Jehovah in his intent and rescue an oppressor?' "But the maiden clung about the knees of Miriam and prayed to her, while the prophetess said, 'Nay, nay' and 'Peace,' and sought to soothe her, and when at that moment some one called out of the darkness, she put her hand over the maiden's mouth and would not let her answer. And the barge went swiftly away. Then the maiden fell on her face, like one dead, and she will not be comforted." Joshua drew himself into securer, position on the camel and shook its harness. "Love!" he said with a frown. "The evilest tie and the strongest between Israel and Mizraim!" "Nay," Caleb protested, "thou hast loved." "A daughter of Israel," the warrior answered bluntly. "Dost thou follow me into Goshen, Caleb?" "Nay, we go on to Tanis, where we shall join Moses and Aaron who lie there awaiting the Pharaoh's summons." "The parting shall not be long between thee and me, then. Peace to thee, Caleb. To Miriam, greeting and peace." The warrior urged his camel and, rounding the stela-guarding soldier who had stood within ear-shot of the narrative, he was gone in a long undulating swing up the road that led to Pa-Ramesu. Caleb gazed after him until he was only a tall shape like the stroke of a pen in the distance. Then the mild Israelite looked longingly at the Egyptian, and finally returned to the litters. These in a moment were shouldered by the bearers and moved out up the road toward Tanis. Caleb walked before them, dotting every other footprint with the point of his staff. He sighed gustily and sank his bearded chin on his breast. The soldier turned his head as soon as the attendant had passed and gazed at the litters. The Hebrew bearers of the foremost were four in number, dressed in the garb of serving-men to noble Israel. The hangings of blue linen had been thrust aside and within was the semi-recumbent figure of a woman. One knee was drawn up, the hands clasped behind the head, but the majesty of the august countenance belied the youth of the posture. The eyes of the woman met those of the Egyptian and lighted with recognition. She lowered her arms and crossed the left to the shoulder of the right. It was the old attitude of deference from Israel to Atsu. A dusky red dyed the man's cheeks and he touched his knee in response. The litter of Miriam passed. The next was a light frame of jungle bamboo, borne by a pair of young men. Its sides were latticed, with the exception of two small window-like openings on either side. These were hung with white linen, but the drapings had been put aside to admit the morning air. The soldier looked and the shock of recognition drew him a pace away from the stela. The head of a young girl, partly turned from him, was framed in the small window. The wimple had been thrown back and a single tress of golden hair had escaped across the forehead. The countenance was unhappy, but beautiful for all its misery. The lids were heavy, as if weighted down with sorrow; the cheeks were pallid, the lips colorless and pathetically drooped. A white hand, resting on the slight frame of the small opening, was tightly clenched. The picture was one of weary despair. The soldier, blanched and shaken, took a step forward as if to speak, but some realization brought him back to rigid attention against the stela. The light litter passed on. The regular tread of the men grew fainter and fainter and silence settled again about the well. The soldier stood erect, gray-faced and immovable, his eyes fixed, his teeth set, his hand gripping the pike, till the insects, reassured, began to chirr close about him. Then his lids quivered; the pike leaned in his grasp; his jaw relaxed, weakly. He shifted his position and frowned, flung up his head and resumed his vigil. The moments went on and yet he retained his tense posture. The hour passed and with it his physical endurance. Then his emotion gathered all its forces, all the compelling sensations of disappointment, rebuff, heart-hurt, jealousy, hopelessness, and stormed his soul. He turned about and, stretching his arms across the top of the stela, hid his face and surrendered. Around him was the unbroken circle of the earth and above the blue desert of sky, solitary, soundless. And the union of earth and heaven, like a mundane and spiritual collusion, lay between him and the little litter. The beat of a horse's hoofs in the distance roused him after a long time, and hastily turning his back toward the new-comer, he resumed at once his soldierly attitude. The traveler bore down on him from the west and reined his horse at the intersection of the two roads. He looked up the straight highway toward Pa-Ramesu, then turned in the saddle and gazed toward Tanis. His indecision was not a wayfarer's casual hesitancy in the choice of roads. By the anxiety written on his face, life, fortune or love might be at stake upon the correct selection of route. Once or twice he looked at the soldier, but showed no inclination to ask advice, even had the man-at-arms turned his way. It was one of fate's opportunities to be gracious. Here was Kenkenes seeking for the maiden whom he and the soldier loved, and it lay in the power of the unelect to direct the fortunate. But Kenkenes did not know the warrior, and Atsu had no desire to turn his unhappy face to the new-comer. The young man grew more and more troubled, his indecision more marked. Suddenly he dropped the reins, and without guiding the horse, urged the animal forward. Kenkenes was relying on chance for direction. Confused and unready the horse awaited the intelligent touch on the bridle. It did not come. He flung up his head and smelt the wind. Nervously he stamped and trod in one place, breathing loudly in protest. The low voice of his rider continued to urge him. Perhaps the wind from Goshen brought the smell of unblighted pastures. Whatever the reason, the horse turned, with uncertainty in his step and took the road eastward to Pa-Ramesu. Having chosen, he went confidently, and as he was not halted and was young and swift, he increased his pace to a long run. Meanwhile far to the north the little litter was borne toward Tanis. And Atsu, the warrior, did not move his eyes from the distant point where it had disappeared over the horizon. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE TRAITORS The morning of the second day after the lifting of the darkness lay golden over Egypt, blue-shadowed before the houses and trees to the west and shimmering and illusory toward the east. A slow-moving, fragmentary cloud had gathered in the zenith just after dawn and for many minutes over the northern part of Goshen there had been a perpendicular downpour of illuminated rain. Now the sky was as clear and blue as a sapphire and the little wind was burdened with odorous scents from the clean-washed pastures of Israel. Seti had crossed the border into Goshen at daybreak and was now well into the grazing-lands, yet scintillating with the rain. The hoofs of his fat little horse were patched with wet sand of the roadway and there was no dust on the prince's modest raiment. Behind the youth plodded two heavy-headed, limp-eared sumpter-mules, driven by a big-boned black. Seti was not far from his destination, an obscure village of image-makers directly south of Tanis and situated on the northern border of Goshen. The same region that furnished clay to Israel for Egypt's bricks afforded material for terra-cotta statuettes. Ahead of him were fields with clouds of sheep upon the uplands and cattle standing under the shade of dom-palms. Here and there hovels with thatches no higher than a man's head, or low tents, dark with long use, and lifted at one side, stood in a setting of green. About them were orderly and productive gardens. Nowhere was any sign of the desolation that prevailed over Egypt. Seti looked upon the beautiful prosperity of Goshen at first with the natural delight loveliness inspires, and then with as much savage resentment as his young soul could feel. Belting this garden and stretching for seven hundred miles to the south, was Egypt, desolate, barren and comatose. The God of the Hebrews had avenged them fearfully. "They had provocation," he muttered to himself; "but they have overdone their vengeance." A figure appeared on the road over the comb of a slight ridge, and Seti regarded the wayfarer with interest. He was a Hebrew. His draperies were loose, voluminous, heavily fringed, and of such silky texture of linen that they flowed in the light wind. His head was covered with a wide kerchief, which was bound with a cord, and hid the forehead. He was of good stature and upright, but his drapings were so ample that the structure of his frame was not discernible. His eyes were black, bright and young in their alertness, but the beard that rippled over his breast to his girdle was as white as the foam of the Middle Sea. The Hebrew walked in the grass by the roadside and came on, his face expectant. At sight of the prince he stepped into the roadway. Seti drew up. "Thou art Seti-Meneptah?" the ancient wayfarer asked. "Even so," the prince answered. The Hebrew put back his kerchief and stood uncovered. "Dost thou know me, my son?" he asked. "Thou art that Aaron, of the able tongue, brother to Mesu. Camest thou forth to meet me?" The Hebrew readjusted the kerchief. "Thou hast said." "Wast thou, then, so impatient? Where is thy brother?" "Nay. The village of image-makers is not safe. Moses hath departed for Zoan." [1] "And named thee in his stead. But his mission to my father's capital bodes no good. He might have stayed until I could have persuaded him into friendship." "Not with all thy gold!" said Aaron gravely. "Nay, I had not meant that," Seti rejoined with some resentment. "If Egypt's plight can not win mercy from him by its own piteousness, the treasure I bring is not enough." The Hebrew waved his hand as if to dismiss the subject. "Let us not dispute so old a quarrel," he said. "We have a new sorrow, thou and I." "Of Mesu's sending?" "Nay, of thine own misplaced trust." "What!" the prince exclaimed. "Have I clothed thy kinsman with more grace than he owns?" "Thou hast put faith in thine enemy. A woman hath deceived thee." "What dost thou tell me?" Seti cried, leaping to the ground and angrily confronting Aaron. "A truth," the Hebrew answered calmly. "The Princess Ta-user is a fugitive charged with treason." Seti turned cold and smote his forehead. "Undone through me!" he groaned. "Not so, my son. Thou art undone through her. She betrayed thee." Seti turned upon him with a fierce movement. "Peace!" the Hebrew interrupted the furious speech on the prince's lips. "I bear thee no malice." "I will give ear to no tales against the princess," Seti avowed with ire. "Thy blind trust hath already wrought havoc with thee. Let it not bring heavy punishment upon thy head. Thou hast dealt kindly with me, and I am beholden to thee. Give me leave to discharge my debt." The prince looked stubbornly at Aaron for a moment, but the doubt that had begun to assert itself in his mind clamored for proof or refutation. "Say on," he said. "The story is long," the Hebrew explained mildly, "and the sun is ardent. There are friends in yonder house. Let us ask the shelter of their roof for an hour." Gathering his robes about him with peculiar grace, he went through the grass toward a low, capacious tent, pitched by a trickling branch of the great canal. Seti followed moodily. A black-haired Israelitish woman, sitting on the earth before the lifted side of the tent, arose, and reverently kissed the hem of Aaron's robes. Her dark-eyed brood appeared at various angles of the tent, and at a sign and a word from the woman they did obeisance and hailed the ancient visitor in soft Hebrew. After a short colloquy between Aaron and the woman of Israel, the children were dismissed to play in the fields and the woman carried the bowl and basket of lentils out of ear-shot of her house. "Let us enter," Aaron said, with an inclination of his head toward Seti. He stooped and preceded the young man into the home of the Hebrew. The prince saw the black dispose himself on the grass outside, with his eyes upon the sumpter-mule. Aaron sat upon one of the rugs, and Seti, following his example, took another. "Say on," the prince urged. The Hebrew began at once. "What I tell thee, O my son, will soon be talked abroad over the land. But if thou hast a doubt in thy heart, and art like to question my truth-speaking, there are witnesses I may summon, such as no wise man will deny. And these be Jambres, and the twelve priests of the cities of the north, and the innkeeper at Pithom, also the governor over the treasure-city, his soldiers, and others, who know the secret by now. "I will give thee the tale now, and the proof thereafter, if thou believest me not. "Last night, I lay under the tent of a son of Israel, at Pithom. When I arose, two hours before dawn, horsemen began to gallop through the city toward the south. The inhabitants were aroused; there was much running to and fro, and the inn was full of lights. "We approached, and when the tumult had died and the Egyptians were so full of the tidings that they were glad to relieve themselves even to an Israelite, I asked and learned this story. Many times afterward, on my way hither, I heard it from the lips of men whom I passed, so I am not deceived. "Seven days agone, under an evil star, a veiled woman came to the temple of Bast, in the village of image-makers, and made offerings to the idol. She remained in the shrine, praying, for a time without reason, as though she pretended to worship, until a certain space should elapse. At the end of the hour in which she came, another woman, closely covered, her mouth hidden, entered and knelt near her. In a little they arose and went forth together, and Jambres, who is priest at the little temple, grown suspicious by reason of their behavior, looked after them. The wind swayed the garments of the second stranger, and showed the foot and ankle of a man. Filled with wonderment, Jambres laid aside his priest's robes and garbing himself like a wayfarer, followed. They left the village, going east where the road leadeth along the canal, which is hidden by the sprouts of young trees. Farther up the way were servitors who waited for the man and woman, but the two stepped out of ear-shot, and sat by the road to talk. "Jambres, hidden in the fringe of bushes behind, heard them. "They laid a snare. And thou, O Prince, wast to be trapped therein." Seti's eyes were veiled and his face showed a heightening of color. "Thou wast to come to the temple in the village of image-makers with treasure to give into the hands of Moses. Thy message to my brother was to be delivered by the Princess Ta-user. She delivered it not. The word she should have brought came to Moses by a son of Belial, a godless Hebrew, sent by Jambres, for the brotherhood of priests would have had Moses come to the temple, for their own ends. But the servants of the Lord God of Israel are keen-eyed and they know a jackal from a hare. However, these matters I did not hear from the people. Such secret things are not discussed upon the streets. All that I heard in Pithom may be talked openly over Egypt. "The man and the woman laid their plans, and they were these: Last night, the man and his servants were to lie at Pithom, and to-day they were to meet thee at the temple of Bast, overpower thee, take thy treasure and, with the woman, fly to some secure place. With the treasure they were to hire them soldiers--mercenaries, and take arms against the king, thy father." The speaker paused again. Seti's breast labored and his gaze was fixed upon the Hebrew. "The ire of Jambres was kindled against the plotters, and he called an assembly of the priests within short distances from the village of image-makers and laid his discoveries before them. They pledged themselves to proceed to Pithom last night, which was the night they came together in council, and take the traitors. But one among their number, a young priest who knew the woman, played them false, entered the city before his fellows and warned the plotters. They had fled, with the priests in pursuit. "My son, the man was Siptah, son of Amon-meses; the woman, the Princess Ta-user." The prince's face took on an insane beauty. In each cheek was a scarlet stain--his lips smiled without parting and his eyes glittered. He did not question the Hebrew's story. Something within him corroborated every word. He sprang to his feet and with an unnatural laugh flung his hand above his head. "Now, by Horus," he cried, "I must get back to Tanis. I would ask the pardon of Rameses!" Aaron arose and laid detaining hands upon him. "I did not tell thee this, that I might be a bearer of evil tidings. I came forth to meet thee, that thou mayest save thyself. Far be it from me to bring misfortune upon Israel's one friend in Egypt's high places. Return to Tanis with all speed and take the treasure with thee. Then only will the intent rest against thee--" "Not so," Seti interrupted harshly. "Wilt thou rob me of the one balm to my humiliation? Wilt thou defeat me also in the one good deed I would do? Take thou the treasure and be glad that it fell not into the hands of the wanton. Let me depart." But Aaron was planted in his way. "Knowest thou not what they will do with thee? Thou wouldst have given aid to the enemy of Egypt. Thou knowest the penalty. Sooner would Israel make it a garment of sackcloth and feed upon alms, than yield thee up to thine enemies for thy gold's sake--" But Seti would not hear him. "I care not what they do with me," he said. "The gods grant they lay upon me the extreme weight of the law. I go back to Tanis as one returneth to his beloved." He shook off the Israelite's hands and ran into the open. There, he ordered the black to give the treasure over to the Hebrew, and flinging himself upon his horse, galloped furiously toward Tanis. Of the remainder of the day Seti had little memory. Once or twice as he proceeded headlong through hamlets, he caught from the lips of natives a denunciation of Siptah, a vicious epithet applied to Ta-user, or, like a fresh thrust in an old wound, a pitying groan for himself. His shame had preceded him on fleet wings. He hoped he might as swiftly run his sentence down. None knew him in the roadways and the towns did not expect him. The pickets on the outer wall of Tanis halted him, but when they beheld his face, their pikes fell and with hands on knees, they bade him pass. The palace sentries started and gave him room. He was running, sobbing, through the dark and capacious corridors of the palace and no man had stayed him yet. Were they to make his shame more poignant by pitying him and punishing him not at all? He flung himself through the doors of the council chamber and halted. The great hall was crowded and full of excitement. Meneptah had summoned the court to the royal presence. In his loft above the throng stood the king, purple with rage. The queen, in her place at his side, was staying his outstretched hand. Below at his right stood Rameses, the kingliest presence that ever graced a royal sitting. At the left of Meneptah, was Har-hat, complacent and serene. Out in the center of a generous space stood Moses. The great Hebrew was alone and isolated, but his personality was such that a throng could not have obscured him. In his massive physique was an insistent suggestion of immovability and superhuman strength; in the shape of his imperial head, there was illimitable capacity; in his face, the image of a nature commanding the entire range of feeling, from the finest to the fiercest. There was nothing of the occult in his atmosphere. His intense human force would have commanded, though Egypt had not known him as the emissary of God. As it was, when he moved the assembly swayed back as if blown by a wind. A motion of his hand sent a nervous start over the hall. The nearest courtiers seemed prepared to crouch. Meneptah did not win a glance from his court. Every eye, wide and expectant, was fixed upon the Israelite. The pale and troubled queen strove in vain. Meneptah thrust her aside and shaking his clenched hand at the solitary figure before him, ended the audience in a voice violent with fury. "Get thee from me! Take heed to thyself; see my face no more. For in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die!" After the speech, the silence fell, deepened, grew ominous. None breathed, and the overwrought nerves of the court reached the limit of endurance. Then Moses answered. His tones were quiet, his voice full of a calm more terrifying than an outburst had been. "Thou hast spoken well," he said. "I will see thy face no more." Another breathless silence and he turned, the courtiers shrinking from his way, and passed out of the hall. At the doors, his eyes fell upon Seti. He made no sign of surprise. Indeed his glance seemed to indicate that he expected the prince. He raised his hand and extended it for a moment over the boy's head, and went forth. The strength went from Seti's limbs, the passion from his brain, and when Rameses with grim purpose in his face beckoned him, he obeyed meekly and prostrated himself before the angry king. [1] Zoan--The Hebrew name for Tanis. CHAPTER XXXIX BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE The distance by highway between Memphis and Tanis was eighty miles, a little more than two days' journey by horseback. Masanath had required two weeks to accomplish that distance. She refused to travel except in the cool of the morning and of the afternoon; if she felt the fatigue of an hour's journey, she rested a day at the next town; she consulted astrologers, and moved forward only under propitious signs; she insisted on following the Nile until she was opposite Tanis, instead of taking the highway at On and continuing across the Delta. The most of her following walked, and she proceeded at the pace of her plodding servants. She spoke of her freedom as though she went to meet doom; she gazed on the sorry fields and pastures of Egypt as though the four walls of a prison were soon to shut out heaven and earth from her eyes. She was now within ten miles of Tanis, fourteen days after her departure from Memphis. Four solemn Ethiopians bore her litter upon their shoulders, and another waved a fan of black ostrich plumes over her. The litter was of glittering ebony, hung with purple, tasseled with gold. At her right, was Unas; at her left, Nari. Behind her were dusky attendants and sooty sumpter-mules. Her robes were white, and very fine, but there was no henna on her nails, nor kohl beneath her lids, nor jewels in her hair. So she would prove that, though she was a coming queen, she was not glad of it. Hers was not the spirit that hides its trouble and enamels the exterior with false flushes and smiles. She enveloped herself in her feelings. She tinctured her voice with them; she made her eyes languid with them; and the touch of her hand, the curve of her lips and the droop of her head were eloquent of them. By this time, she had despaired. There was yet an opportunity to spend another day covering the remaining ten miles, but she would loiter no longer. She was tired, of a truth. It was near sunset when a company of royal guards, under Menes, rode up from the north. The captain flung himself from his horse and hurried to Masanath's litter. "Holy Isis! Lady Masanath," he exclaimed; "where in all Egypt hast thou hidden thyself these fourteen days? The whole army of the north hath been searching after thee, and Rameses hath raved like a madman since that day long past on which thou shouldst have arrived in Tanis." "I have been on the way," she answered loftily. "The haste of the prince is unseemly. I would not fatigue myself nor court disaster by incautiousness, these perilous days." Menes bowed. "I am reproved, and contrite. I forgot that I spoke with my queen. But I am most grateful that thou didst permit me to find thee, for Rameses sent me forth an hour since, with the hard alternative of fetching thee to him or losing my head. But that he was sure of my success is proved by the litter he sent between two horses for thee. Wilt thou leave this and proceed in the other?" Masanath answered by extending her hand to him. Three of the soldiers laid their cloaks on the earth for her feet; six others let down the litter and Menes assisted her into the sumptuous conveyance Rameses had sent. Another soldier, after rapid and low-spoken instructions from the captain, whirled his horse about, saluted and took the road toward Tanis at a gallop. The six shouldered the litter of the crown princess-to-be, Menes mounted his horse and rode beside her; Unas, her Memphian train, and the riderless horses were left to bring up the rear, and Masanath continued to the capital. "Perchance, thou hast been famished these fourteen days in the matter of court-gossip," the captain said. "Wherefore I am come as thy informant with such news as thou shouldst know. For, being ignorant of the infelicities in the household of the king, it may be that thou wouldst ask after the little prince, Seti, and wherefore the queen appears no more at the side of the Pharaoh, nor speaks with thy lord nor sees thy noble father; and furthermore, where Ta-user hath taken herself and other things which would embarrass thee to hear answered openly." Masanath roused herself and prepared to listen. Serious words from the lips of the light-hearted captain were not common, and when he spoke in that manner it was time to take heed. "I had heard of the little prince's misfortune and of the treason of Ta-user and her party, and the placing of a price upon her head; but nothing more hath come to mine ears. Is there more, of a truth?" "Remember, I pray thee," the captain replied, riding near to her, "that I bring thee this for thine own sake--not for the love of tale-bearing. On the counsel of Rameses, this day the Pharaoh sentenced Seti to banishment for a year to the mines of Libya--" "To the mines!" Masanath cried in horror. "Not as a laborer. Nay, the sentence was not so harsh. But as a scribe to the governor over them." "It matters little!" she declared indignantly. "The boy-prince--the poor, misguided young brother sent to a year of banishment--a lifelong humiliation! Libya, the death-country! Now, was anything more brutal? Nay, it is like Rameses!" "Aye," the captain replied quickly, leaning over her with a cautioning motion of his hand. "Aye, and it is like thee to say it. But hear me yet further. The queen and the Son of Ptah have quarreled, violently, over Seti," he continued in a low tone. "The little prince merited thy father's disfavor, because Seti espoused the cause of Ta-user in thy place, though he loves thee, and for that--we can find no other reason--the noble Har-hat also urged the king into the harsh sentence of the little prince. For this the queen hath publicly turned her back upon the crown prince and the fan-bearer, and the atmosphere of the palace is most unhappy." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Hotep championed Seti,--for the young sister's sake, it would appear,--but to me it seemeth that the scribe hath lost his wits." "It would seem that he courteth a sentence to the mines likewise, and he needs but to go on as he hath begun to succeed most thoroughly. And it behooveth his friends to prevent him." He took Masanath's hand and, leaning from the saddle, whispered: "Ye are under the same roof--thou and Hotep. Avoid him as though he were a pestilence." He straightened himself and drew his horse away from her so that she could not answer. The captain's meaning, though obscure to any other that might have heard him, was very clear to Masanath. Har-hat was still holding a threat of Hotep's undoing over his daughter's head, lest, at the last moment, she rebel against her marriage. She trembled, realizing how desperately she was weighted with the safety of the scribe. Her fear for him brought the first feeling of willingness to wed with Rameses that she had ever experienced. Distasteful as marriage was to her, it was a species of sacrifice to be catalogued with the many self-abnegations of which womanhood is capable when the welfare of the beloved is at stake. She sank back in the shadows of her litter, covered her face with her hands and shuddered because of the imminence of her trial. So they journeyed on, till at last Masanath fell asleep--not from indifference, for her fears exhausted her--but because her mind still retained babyhood's way of comforting itself when too roughly beset. She was aroused in the middle of the first watch by the passage of her litter between bewildering stretches of lights. She was within the palace. The soldiers that bore her were tramping over a Damascene carpet, and between long lines of groveling attendants, through an atmosphere of overwhelming perfume. The messenger had been swift and the court had had time to prepare to greet the coming crown princess with propriety. After the first spasm of terror, Masanath set her teeth and prepared to endure. She was borne to the doors of the throne-room and two nobles gorgeously habited set the carved steps beside the litter for her feet. Without hesitation she descended. The great hall was ablaze with light and lined with courtiers. The Pharaoh, with the queen by his side again, was in his place under the canopy. How tiny the little bride seemed to those gathered to greet her! In that vast chamber, with its remote ceiling, its majestic pillars, its distances and sonorous echoes, her littleness was pathetically accentuated. Outside the shelter of her litter, she felt stripped of all protection. She dared not look at the ranks of courtiers, lest her gaze fall on the fair face of the royal scribe. She reminded Isis of her threat and moved into the open space, which extended down the center of the hall. Har-hat, glittering with gems, and rustling in snow-white robes, approached with triumph in his face to embrace her. But within three steps he paused as suddenly as though he had been commanded. Masanath had not spoken, but her pretty chin had risen, her mouth curved haughtily, and the gaze she fixed upon him from under her lashes was cold and forbidding. She extended the tips of her fingers to him. The action clamored its meaning. Not in the face of that assembly dared he disregard it, but his black eyes hardened and flashed threateningly. The warning given, he bent his knee and kissed the proffered hand. He had become the subject of his daughter. She suffered him to lead her to the royal dais where she knelt. The queen descended, raised her and led her to the throne. Meneptah met them, kissed Masanath's forehead, and blessed her. The queen embraced her and returned to her place beside the Pharaoh. Masanath turned to the right of the royal dais and faced the prince. Thus far, her greetings had not been hard. Now was the supreme test. Har-hat conducted her within a few paces of the prince and stepped aside. What followed was to prove Masanath's willingness. Rameses stood in the center of a slightly raised platform, which was carpeted with gold-edged purple. Behind him was his great chair. But for the badge of princehood, the fringed ribbon dependent from a gem-crusted annulet over each temple, his habiliments were the same as the Pharaoh's. Masanath gave him a single comprehensive glance. She was to wed against her will, but she noted philosophically that she was to wed with no puppet, but a kingly king. With all that, admitting herself a peer to this man, it wrenched her sorely to acknowledge subserviency to him. Hope dead--the hour of her trial at hand--nothing was left to uphold her but the memory of the good she might do for Hotep. Her face fell and she approached the prince with slow steps. Within three paces of the platform she paused and sank to her knees. It was done. She had acknowledged the betrothal and knelt to her lord. Somewhere in that assembly Hotep had seen it, and she wondered numbly if he understood why she had submitted; wondered if she had saved him; wondered if she could endure for the long life they must spend under the same roof; wondered if the gods would take pity on her and kill her very soon. By this time, Rameses had raised her. He lifted the badge of princehood from his forehead, shortened the fillet from which it hung, so that it would fit her small head and set it on her brow. The great palace shook with the acclaim of the courtiers. Organ-throated trumpets were blown; the clang of crossed arms, and sound of beaten shields arose from all parts of the king's house; all the ancients' manifestations of joy were made,--and the pair that had brought it forth looked upon each other. Masanath was trembling, and filled with a great desire to cry out. All this was manifest on her small, white face. The light had died in the prince's eyes, the exultation was gone from his countenance. He knew what thoughts were uppermost in the mind of Masanath, and the tyrant had spoken truly to her long ago, when he said his heart might be hurt. His brow contracted with an expression of actual pain and he turned with a fierce movement as if to command the rejoicings to be still. But a thought deterred him and taking Masanath's hand he led her down the hall through the bending ranks of purple-wearing Egyptians to the great portals of the hall. There, he gave her into the hands of a troop of court-ladies, lithe as leopards and gorgeous as butterflies, who led her with many sinuous obeisances to her apartments. She had not far to go. The suite given over to the new crown princess was within the wing of the palace in which the royal family lived. Masanath noted with a little trepidation that her door was very near to the portals over which was the winged sun, carven and portentous. Here were the chambers of her lord, the heir. Within her own apartments, she was attended multitudinously. Ladies-in-waiting bent at her elbow; soft-fingered daughters of nobility habited her in purple-edged robes; flitting apparitions, in a distant chamber, glimpsed through a vista, laid a table of viands for her, to which she was led with many soft flatteries; her every wish was anticipated; all her trepidation conspicuously overlooked; her rank religiously observed in all speech and behavior. And of all her retinue, she was the least complacent. After her sumptuous meal, she was informed that a member of her private train had come to Tanis from Memphis, ten days agone, in a state of great concern and had awaited all that time in the palace till she should arrive. Now that she had come, the servitor insisted on seeing the princess and would not be denied. Troubled and wondering, Masanath ordered that he be brought. In a few minutes, Pepi stood before her. The taciturn servant was visibly frightened. "Pepi!" she cried. "What brings thee here?" "I have lost the Israelite," he faltered. "Thou hast lost Rachel!" "Hear me, my Lady, I pray thee. Thou knowest we were to stop at the Marsh of the Discontented Soul to leave a writing on the tomb for the son of Mentu. So we did. The Israelite bade me stand away from the shore lest we be seen. I put out into midstream and while mine eyes were attracted for a space toward the other shore, a boat drew up at the Marsh. I started to return, but before I could reach the place, the Israelite--the man--they were in--each other's arms." Masanath clasped her hands happily, but the servant went on, in haste. "It was the son of Mentu, I know, my Lady. He was wondrous tall, and the Israelite was glad to see him--" "O, of a surety it was Kenkenes," Masanath interrupted eagerly. "Nay, but hear me, my Lady," the serving-man protested, his distress evident in his voice. "I moved away and turned my back, for I knew they had no need of me. Once, twice, I looked and still they talked together. But, alas! the third time I looked, it was because I heard sounds of combat, and I saw that the son of Mentu and several men were fighting. One, whom by his fat figure I took to be Unas, was pursuing the Israelite. I would have returned to help her, but the dreadful night overtook me before I could reach her--and as thou knowest,--none moved thereafter. "When the darkness lifted, I was off the wharves at On, where my boat had drifted. I halted only long enough to feed, for I was famished, and with all haste I returned to the Marsh. None was there. I went to the house in Memphis, but it was dark and closed. Next I visited the home of Mentu and asked if Rachel were there, but the old housekeeper had never heard of such a maiden. But when I asked if the young master had returned, she asked me where I had been that I had not heard he was dead. And having said, she shut the door in my face. I think he was within, and she would not answer me 'aye' or 'nay,' but I know that she told the truth concerning the Israelite." Masanath, who had stood, the picture of dismay and apprehension during the last part of the recital, seized his arm. "Hast thou had an eye to the master?" she demanded in a fierce whisper. "Aye," he answered quickly. "I have followed him like a shadow, and this I know. Nak and Hebset were here when I came, but they went that same night, each in a different direction, to search further for her. They returned to-night, but I know not whether they brought one with them." Masanath clasped her hands and thought for a moment, a mental struggle evidenced on her little face by the rapid fluctuations of color. "Get thee down to the kitchens, Pepi," she said presently, "and if Nari hath come, send her up to me. Give thyself comfort and remain in the palace. It may be that I shall need thee." She surveyed herself with a swift glance in a plate of polished silver which was her mirror, and then, darting out of her door, ran down the corridor as though she would outstrip repentance before it overtook her. The flight was not long, but she had lost her composure before she started. Outside her doors, she trembled as if unprotected. Soldiers of the royal guard paced along the hall before her chambers. The lamps that burned there were of gold; the drapings were of purple wrought with the royal symbols; the asp supported the censers; the head of Athor surmounted the columns. She was a dweller of the royal house. Far, far away from her were the unimperial quarters in which, once, she would have lived. There was her father--there was Hotep-- She came upon him whom she sought. He was on the point of entering his apartments. He paused with his hands on the curtains and waited for her. "A word with thee, my Lord," she panted, chiefly from trepidation. "I have come to expect no more than a word from thee," he said. The answer would have sent her away in dudgeon, under any other circumstances, but her pride could not stand in the way of this very pressing duty. "A boon," she said, choking back her resentment. "A boon! Thou wouldst ask a boon of me! Nay, I will not promise, for it may be thou comest to ask thy freedom, and that I will not grant for spleen." Still she curbed herself. "Nay, O Prince; I am come to ask naught of thee which--a wife--may not justly ask of--her--lord." He left the curtain and came close to her. "Had the words come smoothly over thy lips, they would have meant any wife--any husband. But thy very faltering names thee and me. What is the boon that thou mayest justly ask of me?" "My father--." "Hold! There, too, I make a restriction. Already have I suffered thy father sufficiently." Tears leaped into her insulted eyes, and in the bright light, shining from a lamp above her head, her emotion was very apparent. "Thou hast begun well in thy siege of my heart, Rameses," she said. "I am like to love thee, if thou dost woo me with affronts!" "I am as like to win thee with rough words as I am with soft speeches. I had thought thee above pretense, Masanath." "I pretend not," she cried, stamping her foot. "And if thou wouldst know how I esteem thee, I can tell thee most truthfully." He laughed and caught her hands. "Nay, save thy judgment. Thou hast a long life with me before thee, and the minds of women can change in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, I love thee none the less because thou art so untamed. Thou art the world I would subdue. So thou dost not give allegiance to another conqueror, I shall not grieve over thy rebellion. Is there another?" he asked. "I would liefer wed with well-nigh any other man in Egypt than with thee, Rameses," she replied deliberately. The declaration swept him off his feet. "Gods! but thou dost hate me," he cried. Panic possessed her for a moment, remembering Hotep, but it was too late. She returned the prince's gaze without wavering, though her hands shook pitifully. After what seemed to her an interminable time, he spoke again. "Perchance I am unwise in taking thee," he said. "Perchance I but give thee opportunity to spit me on a dagger in my sleep." The tears brimmed over her lashes this time. "Thou dost slander me!" she exclaimed passionately. "Then I do not understand thee, Masanath," he asserted. "Of a surety," she declared, withdrawing a hand that she might dry the evidences of her indignation from her cheeks. "Take the example home to thyself! Thou hast been loved in thy time, and if ever there was awakened any feeling in thy heart in response it was repugnance. What if one of these women had it in her power to take thee against thy will? By this time thou hadst been dead of thy frantic hate of her, if self-murder had not been done!" "Even so," he answered with a short laugh; "but I will not set thee free, Masanath, if thou didst convict me a monster in mine own eyes. If thou art good thou wilt love me or do thy duty by me. If thou art base, I have wedded mine own deserts." He took the hand she had withdrawn and prepared to go on, but she interposed. "Not yet have I asked my boon." "I am no longer in debt to thy father." "I ask no favor for my father at thy hands. Rather am I come to crave a boon for myself." "Speak." "My father asked an Israelite maiden at the hands of the Pharaoh a year agone, and she was beloved by my friend and thine. She fled from my father and was hidden by the man she loved--" "Aye, I know the story. Hotep brought it to mine ears months ago. The man was Kenkenes, and thy father overtook him and threw him into prison in Tape. What more?" "The gods keep me in my love for thee, O my father! for thou dost strain it most heavily," Masanath thought. After an unhappy silence she went on. "Thou hast given me news. I know little of the tale save that the day the darkness fell Kenkenes met his love on the eastern shore of the Nile opposite Memphis, and there my father's servants came upon them and fought with him for the possession of the Israelite. The Israelite is gone, and my father's servants are still seeking for her, and I would not have her taken." "Thou art a queen. What is she, a slave, to thee?" "A sister, my comforter, my one friend!" "Thou canst find sisters and comforters and friends among high-born women of Egypt. I had laid Kenkenes' folly concerning this Israelite to the moonshine genius in him. But the slave is a sorceress, for the madness touches whosoever looks upon her. Behold her worshipers--first, thy father, Kenkenes, Hotep and thyself, and the gods know whom else. She would better be curbed before she bewitches Egypt." "It is her goodness and her grace that win, Rameses. If that be sorcery, let it prevail the world over. Give her freedom and save her spotlessness." "Har-hat shall not take her, I promise thee. I shall send her back to her place in the brick-fields." Masanath recoiled in horror. "To the brick-fields!" she cried. "Rachel to the brick-fields!" "I have said. Her Israelitish spotlessness will be secure there, and the reduction of her charms will be the saving of Kenkenes." "Alas! what have I done?" she cried. "I am as fit for the brick-fields as Rachel. O, if thou but knew her, Rameses!" "Nay, it is as well that I do not; she might bewitch me. And seeing that she is born of slaves, how shall she be pampered above her parents? Put the folly from thy mind, Masanath, and trouble me not concerning a single slave. Shall I let one go, seeing that I am holding the body at the sacrifice of Egypt?" Great was Masanath's distress to make her seize him so beseechingly. "Turn not away, my Lord," she begged. "See what havoc I have wrought for Rachel when I sought to help her. And behold the honesty of thy boast of love for me. My first boon and thou dost deny it!" He laughed, and slipping an arm about her, pressed her to him. "First am I a king--next a lover," he said. "Thy prayer seeketh to come between me and my rule over the Israelites. Ask for something which hath naught to do with my scepter." "Surely if thou sendest her to the brick-fields Kenkenes will go into slavery with her," she persisted, enduring his clasp in the hope that he might soften. "Then it were time for the dreamer to be awakened by his prince." "Thou wilt not come between them!" she exclaimed. "Nay, no need. Seven days of the lash and the sun of the slave-world will heal Kenkenes." "Thou shalt see!" Masanath declared, endeavoring to free herself. "And the gods judge thee for thy savage use of maidenhood!" Again he laughed, and this time he kissed her in spite of her resistance. "The gods judge me rather for this sweeter use of maidenhood," he said. "Let them continue to prosper me in it and hasten the day of her willingness. Meanwhile," he continued, still holding her, as if he enjoyed the mastery over her, "get thee back to thy sleep and put the thought of slaves out of thy mind. To-morrow thou settest thy feet in the path to the throne; to-morrow there will be ceremonies and prayers and blessings out of number; and to-morrow sunset thou art no longer betrothed but a bride! My bride! Go now, and be proud of me if thou canst not love me!" He released her and, as he entered his apartments, lifted the curtain and stood for an instant looking back at her. Masanath saw him through her despairing tears--strong, immovable, terrible--in his youth and his purposes and his capabilities. Then the curtain fell behind him. Crushed and stunned with despair and horror, she made her way to her apartments in a mist of tears. There was no help for the beloved Rachel or for the young lover. All whom she might ask to approach the king in their favor were helpless or prejudiced. Seti was disgraced; the queen, useless; Hotep, already too imminently imperiled; Rameses, Har-hat, against the lovers; and the king--the poor, feeble king, hopelessly beyond any appeal that she might direct to him. A sorry resolve shaped itself in her mind. To-morrow at dawn she also would put forth searchers, and finding Rachel, send her out of Egypt, and Kenkenes after her. CHAPTER XL THE FIRST-BORN At the door of her apartments Masanath was met by the faithful Nari, who drew her within and showed her triumphantly that the usurping ladies-in-waiting had departed. The unhappy girl was grateful for the change. The relief for her sorrow was its expression, and she dreaded the restraint put upon her by the presence of discerning and unfamiliar eyes. All desire for sleep had left her. Nari, weary and heavy-headed, begged her to retire, but she would not. So at last the waiting woman, at her mistress' command, lay down and slept. The apartment consisted of two chambers running the width of the palace. The outer chamber had a window opening on the streets of Tanis, the inner looked into the palace courtyard. Masanath wrapped a woolen mantle about her and sat at the window overlooking the park. Without was the wide hollow, walled by the many-galleried stories of the king's house. Below a fountain of running water, issuing from an ibis-bill of bronze, and falling into a pool, purled and splashed and talked on and on to itself. Above, the mighty constellations were dropping slowly down the west. The wild north wind from the sea strove against her cheek. The gods were too absorbed in great things, the shifting of the heavens, the flight of the wind and the rocking of the waters, to care for her great burden of trouble. Or, indeed, were they not prejudiced against her as all the world was? They had heard every prayer but hers. They had harkened to Rameses when he asked for her at their hands; they had harkened to her father and yielded him power at her sacrifice; they had even pitied Rachel; they had returned her love from Amenti, and yet had not Rachel reviled them? Nay, there was conspiracy laid against her by the Pantheon, and what had she done to deserve it? In some one of the many windows that looked into the court another dragged at his chestnut locks and execrated gods and men because of their hardness of heart. So the night wore on to its noon. Masanath was becoming drowsy in spite of her determination to keep a sleepless vigil until dawn, when she was aroused by a commotion in the vicinity of the palace. There were indoor cries and shouts for help. "A brawl," she thought. But the noise seemed to emerge into the street, and there came the sound of flying footsteps and frantic knocks upon doors without. The sound seemed to swell and spread abroad, widening and heightening. Wild shrieks and husky broken shouts swept up from all quarters of the town, and the whole air was full of a vast murmur of many voices, calling and wailing, excited, tremulous and full of fear. Masanath passed into the outer room to the window that looked upon the city. Every house had a light, which flickered and appeared at this window and that, and the streets were full of flying messengers, who cried out as they ran. Now and then a chariot, drawn at full speed, dashed past, and by the fluttering robes of the occupants Masanath guessed them to be physicians. All Tanis was in uproar, and its alarm possessed her at once. She turned to awaken Nari, when she heard inside the palace excited words and hurrying feet. Some one ran, barefoot, past her door, calling under his breath upon the gods. At that moment an incisive shriek cut the increasing murmur in the palace and died away in a long shuddering wail of grief. "Awake, awake, Nari!" Masanath cried, shaking the sleeping woman. "Something has befallen the city. It is in the palace and everywhere." Meanwhile a chorus of screams smote upon her ears and the wild outcries of men filled the great palace with terrifying clamor. Masanath, shaking with dread, wrung her hands and wept. Nari, stupid with fear, sat up and listened. Presently some one came running and beat, with frenzied hands, upon the door. "Open! Open! In the name of Osiris!" cried a voice which, though it quaked with consternation, Masanath recognized as her father's. She flew to the door and wrenched it open. Har-hat, half-dressed, stood before it. "Father, what manner of sending is this?" she cried. "Death!" he panted. "Come with me!" He caught her arm and ran, dragging her after him down the corridor, half-lighted, but murmurous with sound. "What is it, father?" she begged as he hurried her on. "The gods only know. Rameses hath been smitten and is dying, or even now is dead!" "Rameses!" she breathed in a terrified whisper. "Rameses! And an hour ago I talked with him--so strong, so resolute, so full of life--O Holy Isis!" "It is a pestilence sent by Mesu. The whole city is afflicted. Ptah shield us!" The hangings that covered the entrance to each suite of chambers had been thrown aside and the interiors were vacant. But the farther end of the hall was filled with terrified courtiers in all attitudes and degrees of extravagant demonstration of grief. Men and women were fallen here and there on the pavement or supporting themselves by pillar and wall, wailing, tearing their hair, wounding their faces, rending their garments. All the dwellers of the palace were flocked about the apartments of Rameses. From the entrance into these chambers issued sounds of the wildest nature. Masanath heard and attempted to draw away from the fan-bearer. "Take me not into that awful place!" she pleaded. "How canst thou force me, my father!" But Har-hat did not seem to hear and pushed his way, still dragging her through the crush of shaking attendants that crowded into the outer chambers. The sleeping-room of the heir was the focal spot of violent sorrow. The royal pair, the king's ministers, the immediate companions of Rameses, the high priest from the Rameside temple to Set at Tanis and a corps of leeches were present. The couch was surrounded. Seti was not present, for only in the last moment had some one realized that the young prince should be brought. Hotep had gone to conduct him to the chamber. The queen, inert and lifeless, lay on the floor at the foot of the prince's bed. Most of the physicians bent over her. Her women, chiefly the wives of the ministers, were hysterical and helpless. But it was Meneptah who froze the hearts of his courtiers with horror. Because of his obstinacy Egypt had gone down into famine, pestilence and destruction. Without more than ordinary concern he had watched the hand of the scourge pursue it into ruin till what time he should relent, and he had not relented. But now that dread Hand had entered within the boundaries of his loves and had smitten Rameses, his heir, his idol! The effect upon him was terrible. The death chamber rang like a torture dungeon. Nechutes and Menes, by united efforts, barely prevented him from doing self-murder. The earnest attempts of the priest to quiet him were totally useless. Nothing could have been more shocking. The violent scene wrought Masanath's already over-strained nerves to the highest pitch of distress. The blood congealed in her veins and her steps lagged, but Har-hat, for some purpose not apparent to any who looked upon his daughter's anguish, drew her to the very side of the couch. The leeches, who had been vainly seeking for some flicker of life, stepped aside and the eyes of the cowering girl fell on the prince. Rameses had seen the Hand that smote him. The look on the frozen features completed the undoing of Masanath's self-control and she collapsed beside the bed, utterly prostrated. Hotep entered with Seti. The boy prince's face was inflamed with much weeping, and he flung himself upon the cold clay of Rameses, forgetting wholly that the older brother had urged the passage of a harsh sentence upon his young head. The courtiers, who had stoically witnessed Meneptah's frantic grief, turned now and hid their blinded eyes. Hotep went to the Pharaoh and laid his hand on the monarch's shoulder. The action commanded. Exhausted by his frenzy, Meneptah leaned against his scribe. The cup-bearer and the captain released him and Hotep spoke quietly. "Seest thou, O my King, the sorrow of thy people? Behold thy young son and pity him. Look upon thy queen and comfort her. If thou, their staff, art broken, who shall bear them up in their sorrow? Break not. Be thou as the strong father of thy great son, so that from the bosom of Osiris he may look upon Egypt and sleep well, seeing that in his loss his kingdom lost not her prop and stay, her king, also." The scanty manhood of the monarch, thus ably invoked, responded somewhat. He raised himself and permitted Hotep to conduct him to the side of the boy prince. Seti fell down at his father's feet, and Hotep took Meneptah's hand and laid it on the bowed head. "Thou dost pardon him, O Son of Ptah," the scribe said in the same quiet voice. The king nodded weakly and wept afresh. After the prince had clasped his father's knees and covered the hand with kisses, he obeyed the scribe's sign and went away to his mother's side. Again Hotep, compelling by his low voice, spoke to the king and the assembly listened. "The gods have not limited the darts of affliction to thee, O Son of Ptah. Rameses journeyed not alone into Amenti. He took a kingdom with him. Behold, the Hebrew hath loosed his direst plague upon Egypt, and by the lips of an Israelite, in the streets, every first-born in thy realm perished in the home of his father this night!" The entire assembly cried out, and most of them ran sobbing and praying from the chamber. Instantly the outcry and clamor in the palace broke forth again, for the inhabitants knew that the blow which had smitten Rameses had fallen on one of their own. Meneptah staggered away from Hotep, his frenzy upon him again. "Send them hither," he cried hoarsely, waving his arms toward a white-faced courtier that had stood his ground. "Send them hither--the Hebrews, Mesu and Aaron! Israel shall depart, before they make me sink the world! For they have sent madness upon me! I condemned my gentle son, I punished those who gave me wise counsel, I have ruined Egypt, I have slain mine heir, and now the blood of the first-born of all my kingdom is upon my head!" His voice rose to a shriek, and Hotep, putting an arm about him, hushed him with gentle authority and signed the courtier to obey. The physicians lifted the queen and bore her away. Seti stopped at Masanath's side and looked at her with compassion in his eyes. Har-hat came to him. "Seeing that thou hast won the pardon of thy father, am I not also included in the restoration of good feeling? Have I won thine enmity, my Prince?" "I hold naught against thee, O Har-hat, but thou hast not been a profitable counselor to my father in these days of his great need." The young prince spoke frankly and returned the comprehending gaze of the fan-bearer. Har-hat's eyes fell on his daughter, and again on the prince. Slow discomfiture overspread his features. Rameses was dead and with him died the fan-bearer's hold upon his position. Seti was arisen in the heir's place, with all the heir's enmity to him. But from Seti he could not purchase security with Masanath. Hotep supported Meneptah out of the death chamber, for the court paraschites were already hiding in the shadows of the great halls without. The bed-chamber slowly emptied. Har-hat lifted Masanath and followed the last out-going courtier. Another tumult had arisen in the great corridor, an uproar of another nature that advanced from the entrance hall of the palace. There were cries of supplication, persuasion, urging, that were frantic in their earnestness. The whole palace seemed to be on its knees. Hotep, with the king, had paused, and several courtiers went before him and looked down the cross corridor. Instantly they fell on their knees, crying out: "Ye have the leave of the powers of Egypt! Go! Make haste! Take your flocks, all that is yours! Aye, strip us even, if ye will! But let not the sun rise upon you in Egypt! For we be all dead men!" A murmur ran through the ministers. "The Hebrews!" They came slowly, side by side, the two brothers. Egyptians in all attitudes of entreaty cumbered their path--Egyptians, born to the purple, rich, proud, powerful, on their faces to enslaved Israel! Meneptah wrenched himself from Hotep's sustaining arms and, staggering forward, all but on his knees, met them. "Rise up and get you forth from among my people," he besought them, "both ye and the children of Israel, and go and serve the Lord as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also!" Great was the fall for a Pharaoh to pray a blessing from the hands of a slave; great was his humility to kneel to them. But there was no triumph, no exultation on the faces of the Hebrews. Aaron, with his bearded chin on his breast, looked down on the head of the shuddering, pleading monarch; but Moses, after sad contemplation of the humbled king, raised his splendid head and gazed with kindling eyes at Har-hat. Then with the words, "It is well," spoken without animation, he turned and, with his brother, disappeared into the dusk of the long corridor. The expression, the act, the mode of departure seemed to indicate that the Israelites doubted the stability of the king's intent. In a moment, therefore, the courtiers were pursuing the departing brothers, urging and praying with all their former wild insistence. Har-hat put Masanath on her feet and started to leave her, but she flung her arms about his neck. "Forgive me, my father," she sobbed. "For my rebellion the gods may absolve me, but I have been unfilial and for that there is no justification. If aught should befall thee in these awful days, how I should reproach myself! Sawest thou not the Hebrew's gaze upon thee? Say thou dost forgive me!" "Nay, nay," he said hastily; "thou hast not done me to death by thine undutifulness. And the Hebrew fears me. Get back to thy chamber and rest." He kissed her and undid her clinging arms. Going to the king, he put aside Hotep, who was striving to raise the monarch, and lifted Meneptah in his arms. "Masanath is better now, good Hotep, and I would take my place beside my king." Without summoning further aid, he half carried the limp monarch up the hall and into the royal bed-chamber. Weak, shaking, sated with horror and numb with fear, Masanath attempted to return to her apartments, but at the second step she reeled. Hotep saw her. The fan-bearer was not in sight. In an instant the scribe was beside the fainting girl, supporting her, nor did he release her until she was safe in the ministering arms of Nari. As he was leaving her he commended her most solemnly to the gods. "Death hath wrenched a scepter from the gods and ruled the world this night," he said. "We may not delude ourselves that we have escaped, my Lady. As sure as there is a first-born in thy father's house and in mine, that one is dead. And think of those others whom we love, the eldest born of other houses! Do thou pray for us, thou perfect spirit. I can not, for there is little reverence for my gods in me this night." He turned away and disappeared down the corridor. Within her chamber Masanath knelt and dutifully strove to pray, but her petition resolved itself into a repeated cry for help. In that hour she did not think of the relief to her and to many that the death of Rameses had brought about, for in her heart she counted it sin to be glad of benefit wrought by the death of any man. Through the fingers across her face she knew that dawn was breaking, but quiet had not settled on the city. Surging murmurs of unanimous sorrow rose and fell as if blown by the chill wind to and fro over Egypt. The nation crouched with her face in the dust. There was no perfunctory sorrow in her abasement. She was bowed down with her own woe, not Meneptah's. Never before had a prince's going-out been attended by such wild grief. There was no comfort in Egypt, and the air was tremulous with mourning from the first cataract to the sea. CHAPTER XLI THE ANGEL OF DEATH Kenkenes had spent two weeks in Goshen in systematic search for Rachel. The labor had been time-consuming and fruitless. More than two million Israelites were encamped about Pa-Ramesu, and among this host Kenkenes had searched thoroughly and fearlessly. He was an Egyptian and a noble, and Israel did not make his way easy. But all Judah knew Rachel and loved her, and the first the young man came upon was a quarryman who had known of Rachel's flight from Har-hat and of her protection at the hands of an Egyptian. Therefore when Kenkenes bore witness, by his stature, that he was the protecting Egyptian, and by his testimony concerning the God of Israel, that he was worthy, this friendly son of Judah began to suspect that Rachel would be glad to see the young noble, and he joined Kenkenes in his search. Furthermore, he softened the hearts of the tribe toward the Egyptian and they tolerated him with some assumption of grace. The other tribes gave him no heed except to glower at him in the camp-ways or to mutter after him when he had passed. Seeing that Judah suffered him, they did not fall on him. Thus the young man was safe. As for the notice Kenkenes took of Israel, it began and ended with his inquiry after Rachel, the daughter of Maai the Compassionate, a son of Judah. His earnestness absorbed him. Otherwise he was but partly conscious of great preparations making in camp, of tremendous excitement, heightening of zeal and vast meetings after nightfall, when he had withdrawn to a far-off meadow to sleep in the grass. When he had searched throughout the length and breadth of Israel and found Rachel not, he led his horse from the distant meadow, where he had been pastured, and turned his head toward Tanis. While he was binding the saddle of sheep's wool about the Arab's narrow girth he was surprised to find that the friendly son of Judah had followed him to the pasture. The man approached, as though one spirit urged him and another held him back, and offered Kenkenes the shelter of his tent for the night. Somewhat gratified and astonished, Kenkenes, thanked him and declined. Still the Hebrew lingered and urged him with strange persistence. Kenkenes expressed his gratitude, but would not stay. Having taken the road toward Tanis where Rachel might be in the hands of Har-hat, his heart seemed to turn to iron in his breast. All the energies and aims of his youth seemed to resolve into one grim and inexorable purpose. It was far into the second watch when he left Pa-Ramesu. But the great city of tents was not yet sleeping. The horse was anxious for a journey after a fortnight of idleness and he bade fair to keep pace with his rider's impatience. The Arabian hills had sunk below the sky-line and the Libyan desert was not marked by any eminence. With Pa-Ramesu behind him, a wide unbroken horizon belted the dusky landscape. The lights winked out over Goshen and the hamlets were not visible except as Kenkenes came upon them. The shepherd dogs barked afar off, or now and then a wakened bird cheeped drowsily, or the waters in the canals rippled over a pebbly space. But these sounds ceased unaccountably, at last, and a silence settled down till the atmosphere was tense with stillness. A deadening hand seemed to cover the night. The silence roused Kenkenes and he realized the solemnity of the earth, the vastness of the sky and the majesty of the solitude. Mysteriously affected, he withdrew within himself and humbly acknowledged the One God. At midnight a chill struck the breeze and he drew his mantle about him while he rode. The wind freshened and a heated counter-current from the desert met it and they whirled away, rustling through the grassy country. The Arab reduced his gallop so suddenly that Kenkenes was jolted. The small peaked ears of the horse went up and he showed a disposition to move sidewise into the meadow growth beside the way. "A wild beast hath taken the road," Kenkenes thought. The horse brought up, with a start, his prominent muscles twitching, and sniffed the air strongly. A high oscillation in the atmosphere descended on Kenkenes. The Arab reared, snorting, and then crouched, quivering with wild terror in every limb. Unconscious, even of the movement, Kenkenes threw up his arm as if to ward off the blow and bent upon his horse's neck. Gust after gust of icy air swept down on his head, as if winnowed by frozen wings. Then with a backward waft, colder than any wind he had ever known, the hovering Presence passed. Instantly the horse plunged and took the road toward Tanis as if stung by a lash. Kenkenes, shaken and full of solemn dread, did well to keep his saddle. He grasped the stout leather bridle with strong hands, but he might have curbed the hurricane as easily. The Arab stretched his gaunt length, running low, and the haunted night reechoed with the sound of his hoofs. The land of Goshen lay east and west, with a slight divergence toward the north. The road to Tanis ran due north. It was not long until Kenkenes' flying steed brought him in sight of the un-Israelite Goshen. Illuminated windows starred the plain and the wind shrilling in Kenkenes' ears bore uncanny sounds. A turf-thatched hovel at the roadside showed a light as they swept by and a long scream clove the air, but the Arab was not to be halted. The murmurous wind did not soothe him, and the wakeful night had a terror for him that he could not outrun. He veered sharply and galloped through the pastures to avoid a roadside hamlet that shrieked and moaned. He leaped irrigation canals and brush hedges, swept through fields and gardens, until, at last, by dint of persuasion, coupled with the animal's growing fatigue, Kenkenes succeeded in drawing the horse down into a milder pace. The young man made no effort to fathom the mysterious visitation. Instead, he bowed his head and rode on, awed and humbled. The night wore away and the gray of the morning showed him, strange-featured, the misty levels, meadows, fields and gardens of northern Goshen. The wind faltered and died; the stars, strewn down the east, paled and went out, one by one. Fragmentary clouds toward the sunrise became apparent, tinted, silvered and at last, like flakes of gold, scattered down to a point of intensest brilliance on the horizon. A lark sprang out of the wet, wind-mown grass of a meadow and shot up, up till it was lost in radiance and only a few of its exquisite notes filtered down to earth again. A brazen rim showed redly on the horizon and the next instant the sun bounded above the sky-line. It was the morning after the Passover, and Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, was the only Egyptian first-born that lived to see it break. CHAPTER XLII EXPATRIATION At sunrise, Kenkenes drew up his horse and took counsel with himself. By steady riding he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to Har-hat and within reach of the fan-bearer's potent hand. When he entered the city he must be mentally and physically alert. He had not slept since the last daybreak, and he was weary and heavy-headed. Ahead of him was a squat hamlet, set on the very border of Goshen. It was the same village that Seti had designated in his appointment with Moses. Here he might have found a hospitable roof and a pallet of matting, but the accompanying gratuity of curiosity and comment would have outweighed the small advantage of a bed indoors over a bed in the meadows. He dismounted and, leading his horse some distance from the road, into the fringe of water-sprouts which lined the canal, picketed him within shade, out of view from the highway. Usually the meadow growth within reach of the seepage from the canals was most luxuriant, and here the flocks of the Israelites had come for sweet grass. They had kept the underbrush down, and the herbage closely cropped. But for two months Israel had been near Pa-Ramesu with its cattle, and the canal-borders were again riotous with growth. The place Kenkenes came upon was most tempting, odorous and cool. He rolled his mantle for a pillow and flung himself into the grass, where he lay, half-buried in green, and slept. The April sun, hot as a torrid July noon in northern lands, discovered the sleeper and stared into his upturned face. He flung his arm across his eyes and slept on. Shadows fell and lengthened; the afternoon passed, and still he slept. Mounted couriers riding at a dead gallop, passed over the road, toward Tanis. Following them, war-chariots thundered by with a castanet accompaniment of jingling harness and jarring armor. Kenkenes stirred during the tumult, but when it had receded he lay still again. Three mounted soldiers leading a score of horses passed. The Arab in the copse whinnied softly. A second trio of soldiers, following with a smaller drove, heard the call from the bushes and drew up. The foremost man spoke to another, tossed the knotted bridles to him and, dismounting, came through the copse to the Arab. There he found the young nobleman, sleeping. For a moment he hesitated, but no longer. Silently he untied the horse, led him forth, attached him with the others and speedily took the road toward Tanis. After these had passed the road was deserted and no more came that way. In a little time the sun set. The wind from the north freshened and swayed the close-standing bushes so that their branches chafed one against another. At the sound Kenkenes, ready to wake, stirred and opened his eyes. After a moment he sat up and looked for the Arab. The horse was gone. Kenkenes arose and searched industriously. The trampled space in the road convinced him that the horse had departed with a number of others. Hoping that he might find some trace of the lost animal among the inhabitants, he went to the hamlet. Two ragged lines of huts, built of sun-dried brick, formed a single straggling street. A low shed, the first building Kenkenes came upon, showed a flickering red light. A spare figure darted into it, just ahead of the young man. From the threshold, the whole of the small interior was visible. The light came from a small annealing oven. At a table, overlaid with a thin slab of stone, a man was modeling a cat in clay. On the opposite side of the room was a younger man, painting an image, preparatory to burning it in the oven. The walls were black with smoke, the floor strewn with broken images and dried crumbs of clay. In the center of the room was the spare figure, in white robes. Kenkenes had opened his lips to speak when the conversation among the trio stopped him. "Cowards! Dastards!" the spare man vociferated. "Is there not a patriot in Egypt? The Pharaoh in danger and not a man in the hamlet who will raise a heel to save him!" "Holy Father," the short man protested, "the way is long, the horses have been required at our hands by the Pharaoh and were taken from us, and if there be evil omens, the king's sorcerers will discover them." "King's sorcerers!" the spare man repeated indignantly. "There is not one of them who can tell a star from a fire-fly or read the events of yesterday! Horses! Must ye go mounted, in litters, in chariots, afraid of the harsh earth and a rough mile? In my youth, the young men went barefoot and traveled the desert for the joy of effort. Oh, for one of mine own best days! Horses!" "Is the son of Hofa away?" the younger man asked. "He is a runner as well as a soldier." The spare man broke out afresh. "A runner! Aye, of a truth he is a runner. When the tidings came that the Pharaoh was to pursue the Israelites he ran his best--for the hay-fields--and is hidden safe under a swath somewhere--the craven!" Kenkenes stepped into the shed. "What is this concerning the Israelites?" he demanded. The spare man turned and the two artisans gazed at the young sculptor with open mouths. "The news is not to be cried abroad," the spare man replied shortly. "Thou hast become cautious too late," Kenkenes retorted. "The most of thy talk have I heard. I would know the rest of it." "By Bast, thou art imperious! In my great days the nobles groveled to me. Now, am I commanded by them. How thou art fallen, Jambres! "The Israelites, my Lord," he continued mockingly, "departed out of the land of Goshen, in the early morning hours of this day, but the Pharaoh hath repented, and will pursue them--to turn them back, or to destroy them." The old man's voice lost its sarcasm and became anxious. "But the signs are ominous, the portents are evil. I know, I know, for I am no less a mystic because I have fallen from state. His seers are liars, they can not guide the king. He must not pursue them, for death shadows him the hour he leaves the gates of Tanis. He must not go! I love him yet, and I can not see him overthrown." "Thou art no more eager to stay him than I," Kenkenes answered quickly. "Thou art in need of a runner. I am one." The eye of the sorcerer fell on the young man's dress. "A runner among the nobility?" he commented suspiciously. "Is a man less likely to be a patriot because he is of blood, or less fleet of foot because he is noble?" "Nay; nor less useful because he is sharp of tongue. Come with me!" Jambres seized his arm and, hurrying him out of the shed, went through the ragged street to the shrine at the upper end of the village. From the tunnel-like entrance between the dwarf pylons a light was diffused as though it came through thin hangings. The pair entered the porch and passed into the sanctuary. Entering his study, Jambres made his way to the heavy table and, fumbling about the compartments under it, drew forth a wrapped and addressed roll. Taking up a lighted lamp, he scrutinized the messenger sharply. While he gazed, Kenkenes took the opportunity of inspecting the priest. He had been a familiar figure about the palaces of two monarchs. For thirty years he had read the stars for the great Rameses, six for Meneptah, but he had measured rods with Moses and had fallen. From the pinnacle of power he had declined precipitately to the obscurest office in the priesthood. This bird-cote shrine was his. "Art thou seasoned? Canst thou endure? Nay, no need to ask that," he answered himself, surveying the strong figure before him. "But who art thou?" "I am the son of Mentu, the murket." "The son of Mentu? Enough. If a drop of that man's blood runneth in thy veins, thou art as steadfast as death. Surely the gods are with me." He opened a second compartment in the end of the table, but before he found what he sought he raised himself, suddenly. "If thou art that son of the murket," he asked, "how is it thou art not dead?" Kenkenes looked at him, wondering if the news of his supposed death had penetrated even to this little hamlet. "Art thou not thy father's eldest born?" the priest asked further. "His only child." "What sheltered thee in last night's harvest of death?" "Thou speakest in riddles, holy Father." "Knowest thou not that every first-born in Egypt died last night at the Hebrew's sending?" the sorcerer demanded. "The first-born of Egypt," Kenkenes repeated slowly. "At the Hebrew's sending?" "Aye, by the sorcery of Mesu. Save for the eldest of Israel, there is no living first-born in Egypt to-day. From that most imperial Prince Rameses to the firstling of the cowherd, they are dead!" The young man heard him first with a chill of horror, half-unbelieving, barely comprehending. He was not of Israel and yet he had been spared. Then he remembered the dread presence above him in the night,--the chill from its noiseless wing. A light, instant and brilliant as a revelation, broke over him. Unconsciously, he raised his eyes and clasped his hands against his breast. He knew that his God had acknowledged him. When his thoughts returned to earth, he found the glittering eyes of the sorcerer fixed upon him. "Seeing that thou dost live, tell me what sheltered thee in this harvest of death?" Jambres repeated. "The Lord God of Israel, who reaped it." The answer was direct and fearless. To the astonished priest who heard it, it seemed triumphant. Each of the many emotions the sorcerer experienced, displayed itself, in turn, on his face,--amazement, anger, censure, irresolution, distrust. After a silence, he took up the scroll and made as if to return it to its hiding-place in the compartments under the table. "Stay," Kenkenes said, laying his hand on the sorcerer's. "Put it not away, for I shall carry it. Shall I, being a believer in Israel's God, be willing for the Pharaoh to pursue Israel?" "Nay," Jambres replied bluntly; "but thou wouldst stay him for Israel's sake; I would prevent him for his own." "So the same end is accomplished, wherefore quarrel over the motive? But when thou speakest of Israel's sake, which, by the testimony of past events, is now the more imperiled, Egypt or Israel?" "Egypt! But it shall not be wholly overthrown through mine incautious trust of a messenger." The young man still retained his hold on the sorcerer's hand. "Thou dost impugn my fidelity. Now, consider this. I could have defeated thee and accomplished the Pharaoh's undoing by refusing to carry the message, by keeping silence in yonder shed of image-makers. Is it not so?" Jambres assented. "Even so. Instead, I offered and now I insist. Now, if thou deniest me, there is none to carry the warning and thou, thyself, hast undone the Pharaoh." The sorcerer put away the hand and showed no sign of softening. "Nay, then," Kenkenes said, "there is no need of the writing. I shall warn the king by word of mouth." He turned away and walked swiftly toward the portals of the shrine. Jambres beheld him recede into the dusk and wavered. "Stay!" he called. Kenkenes stopped. "Wilt thou swear fidelity by the holy Name?" "Aye, and by that holier Name of Jehovah, also." He returned and faced the priest. "Thou art mystic, Father Jambres," he said persuasively; "what does thy heart tell thee of me?" "The supplication of the need indorses thee, as it indorses any desperate chance. If thou art false, thou art the instrument of Set, whom the Hathors have given to overthrow Egypt. If thou art true, the Pharaoh shall return safe to his capital in Memphis. The gratitude of Egypt will be sufficient reward." "And I take the message?" Jambres nodded. "Art thou armed?" he asked, bending again to look into the compartment he had opened. "Except for my dagger, nay." The sorcerer brought forth a falchion of that wondrous metal that could carve syenite granite and bite into porphyry; also, a pair of horse-hide sandals and a flat water-bottle. "Put on these." Kenkenes undid his cloak and untying his broidered sandals, wrapped them in his mantle and bound the roll, crosswise, on his back. Over this he slung the water-bottle, which the priest had filled in the meantime, fixed the falchion at his side and put on the horse-hide sandals. "When hast thou broken thy fast?" the priest asked next. "At sunset yesterday." The priest turned with a sign to the young man to follow him and, passing through the shrine, led the way out of the sanctuary into the house of the sorcerer. Here, shortly, Kenkenes was served by a slave, with a haunch of gazelle-meat, lettuce, white bread and wine. While he ate, the priest informed him of the situation he might expect to find at the end of his journey. "The Israelites departed in the early hours of this morning taking the Wady Toomilat, east, toward the gates of the Rameside wall. It was the going forth of a multitude,--the exodus of a nation! And they will travel at the pace of their slowest lambs. Thus Meneptah can gather his legions and make ready to pursue ere they have reached the wall." The priest had begun calmly, but the thought of pursuit excited him. "He must not follow!" he continued. "They are unarmed, but the Pharaoh deals with a wizard and a strange God--no common foe. And if these were all who have evil intents against him, but there is another--another!" He came to the young man's side, saying in an excited whisper: "There is another, I say, within the king's affections--a scorpion cherished in his bosom!" The old man's vehemence and his words fired Kenkenes. He arose and faced Jambres with kindling eyes. The sorcerer went on with increasing excitement. "Better that his slaves depart increased, enriched threefold by Egypt, better that never again one stone be laid upon another, nor monument bear the king's name, than that Meneptah should leave the precincts of shelter! For his enemy would lead him outside the pale of protection, and there put him to death, and wear his crown after him!" During this impetuous augury, the young man naturally searched after the identity of the offender. Not Ta-user, nor Siptah, nor Amon-meses, for the sorry tale of Seti and the outlawing of the trio had reached him at Pa-Ramesu. Furthermore, they had never had a place in the affections of the king. There was a new conspirator! At this point the blood heated and went charging through the young man's veins. "If the king's enemy be mine enemy," he declared passionately, "thou hast this hour commissioned and armed that enemy's dearest foe! Name him." The priest shook his head. His excitement had not carried him beyond the limits of caution. "Save for my mystic knowledge, I have no proof against him, and if I balk him not and offend him, he hath a heavy and a vengeful hand." "And thou hast not named him in the writing?" Again the priest shook his head. "Then," said the young man firmly, "then will I name him to the Pharaoh!" Jambres looked at Kenkenes with profound admiration, not unmixed with apprehension. "Let not thy youthful zeal undo thee," he cautioned. "Perchance thou dost mistake the man." "The gods did not bestow all the art upon the mystics when they endowed thee with divining powers. They gifted every man with a little of it, and it speaketh no less truthfully because it is small. Come, thy board has been generous and I am satisfied. I have another and a fiercer hunger I would appease. Give me the message and let me be gone." Silent, the priest led the way again into the sanctuary. Taking the scroll from its hiding-place once more he said, as he gave it into the messenger's hands: "Go first to Tanis, and if thou findest not the king in his capital, seek until thou dost find him. And have a care to thyself." Kenkenes hesitated a moment, and said at last: "It may be that I shall not return, but I would have my father know that I died not with the first-born. Wilt thou tell him, when thou canst?" "The word shall go to him by sunset to-morrow if I carry it myself." Kenkenes expressed his thanks and the priest went on. "Be not rash, I charge thee. Farewell, and thy father's gods attend thee." Without the dwarf pylons, Kenkenes bent for the old man's blessing and turned away. Walking rapidly to the northern limits of the town, he took the dusty highway again, and struck into an easy run. The road sloped up toward the north, but the rise was gradual and the ascent was not wearying. The miles slipped behind swiftly, for he covered them as naturally as the unloitering bird traverses the air. In two hours he had reached the pinnacle of the upland. To the north the road led continuously down to the sea. He paused and looked back over the long gentle declivity toward the south and west. A sharp pain pierced him. In that moment, he realized that he was expatriated. After he had warned Meneptah, Egypt dropped out of his aims. Thereafter he had the rescue of Rachel, or her avenging to accomplish, and the results following upon the necessity of either of these alternatives would not permit him to return into the land of his fathers. There was no turning back now, nor any desire in him to do so. His conscience had been witness to the renunciation of his nation and his faith, and it did not chide him. Still he stretched out his arms to the limitless, featureless, velvety dusk that was Egypt by day, and wept. He entered Tanis in the middle of the third watch, and there he learned that the Pharaoh had departed, but whither, the solemn, haggard citizens he met could not tell. He repaired to the inn, a house of mourning, also, and awaited the dawn. Then he looked on the funereal capital of Meneptah. The city no longer cried out; it sighed or sobbed, exhausted with its grief; it went the heavy round of labor demanded by the necessities of life, bowed, disheveled and blinded with woe. Kenkenes, humbled, sorrowful, and helpless, averted his eyes and hurried to the palace. There he found that the queen and Seti, with all the queen's retinue, had departed on a pilgrimage to the temple of the sacred ram at Mendes for the welfare of the soul of Rameses. Masanath was in Pelusium mourning for her sister who died with the first-born. The others,--Har-hat, Hotep, Nechutes, Menes, Seneferu, Kephren the mohar,--all except the palace attendants had accompanied the king. The great house of the Pharaoh was empty, solitary and haunted. The destination of the king was a state secret that had not been imparted to the chamberlains. Kenkenes returned into the unhappy streets again. He went to the square in which the loiterers were congregated, even though there was one dead in the household, and seeking out the most intelligent, questioned him concerning the departure of the Pharaoh. He learned that the king and the ministers had left Tanis, and driven south, the afternoon after the night of death. At nightfall, sixteen chariots from the nome followed him. And though the young man inquired of many sources in the capital, he discovered nothing further. Avowedly, it was Meneptah's intent to overtake the Hebrews, turn them back, or destroy them. He could not accomplish that thing with a score of ministers and sixteen picked chariots. It was evident that he meant to collect an army near the track of the Hebrews, and that he had departed for the rendezvous. If the Israelites traveled but two miles an hour, they could cover the distance between Pa-Ramesu and the Rameside wall by the sunset of this, the second day after the death of the first-born. It would have been the first act of the Pharaoh to close the gates of the wall against them. The army of the north could gather from the remotest nomes by the close of this day also. Therefore, the hour to proceed against the Israelites was not far away. Kenkenes knew that he might not delay, even for a short sleep, in Tanis. He fixed upon Pithom as the chosen spot for the rendezvous, since it was situated on the Wady Toomilat. He refreshed himself with a beaker of sour wine in which a recuperative simple had been stirred, and took the road to the south. Immediately outside of the city walls he came upon the track of the departing king, and followed it faithfully as long as there was light to show it to him. A dozen miles out of Tanis he ceased to run, and thereafter his progress became slower as his fatigue increased. Toward the end of the first watch, at the northern borders of the district known as Succoth, at the extreme east of Goshen, he came upon a mighty track. Even in the dark he could see that a diaphanous gauze of dust overhung it and the air was heavy with the most volatile particles. The sandy earth had been ground and worked to the depth of over a foot. How difficult had it been for the rearmost ranks to cover this ploughed soil! The track was a mile in width, and by the nature of the marks upon it, Kenkenes knew that husbandmen, not warriors, had passed over this spot. It was the path of Israel, leading east to the Rameside wall. Kenkenes tightened his sandal straps and continued toward the south. Ahead of him, the horizon began to glow and then an edge,--a half,--all of a perfect moon lifted a vast orange disk above the world. At its first appearance it was sharply cut by a tower of the city of Pithom. "Now, the God of Israel be thanked," he said to himself, "for another mile I can not cover." The gates were tightly closed and a sentry from the wall challenged him. "I bring a message to the Pharaoh," he answered. "The Son of Ptah is not within the walls." "Hath he departed," Kenkenes wearily asked, "or came he not hither?" "He came not to Pithom." "Come thou down, then, and let me in, friend, for I am spent." In a little time, he entered the inn of the treasure city, was given a bed, upon which he flung himself without so much as loosening the kerchief on his head, and slept. CHAPTER XLIII "THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH" In mid-afternoon of the following day, Kenkenes awoke and made ready to take up his search again. He was weary, listless and sore, but his mission urged him as if death threatened him. The young man's athletic training had taught him how to recuperate. Most of the process was denied him now, because of his haste and the little time at his command, but the smallest part would be beneficial. He stepped into the streets of the treasure city, and paused again, till the recollection of the sorrow upon Egypt returned to him to explain the gloom over Pithom. The great melancholy of the land, attending him hauntingly, oppressed him with a sense of culpability. And he dared not ask himself wherein he deserved his good fortune above his countrymen, lest he seem to question the justice of the God of his adoption. At a bazaar he purchased two pairs of horse-hide sandals, for the many miles on the roads had worn out the old and he needed foot-wear in reserve. From the booth he went straight to the baths, now wholly deserted; for when Egypt mourned, like all the East, she neglected her person. When he came forth he was refreshed and stronger. Of the citizens, haggard and solemn as they had been in Tanis, he asked concerning the Pharaoh. None had seen him, nor had he entered the city. The last one he questioned was a countryman from Goshen, and from him he learned that the army was assembling in a great pasture on the southern limits of the Israelitish country. At sunset he was again upon the way, taking the level highway of the Wady Toomilat for a mile toward the west, and turning south, after that distance, as the rustic had directed him. The road was good and he ran with old-time ease. At midnight he came upon the spot where the army had camped, but the Pharaoh had already moved against Israel. He had left his track. The great belt of disturbed earth wheeled to the south, and as far as Kenkenes could see there was the same luminous veil of dust overhanging it, that he had noted over the path of Israel. The messenger drank deep at an irrigation canal, for he turned away from water when he followed the army, and leaving the level, dust-cushioned road behind, plunged into a rock-strewn, rolling land, desolate and silent. The growing light of the moon was his only advantage. The region became savage, the trail of the army wound hither and thither to avoid sudden eminences or sudden hollows. Kenkenes dogged it faithfully, for it found the smoothest way, and, besides, the wild beasts had been frightened from the track of a multitude. In the early hour of the morning, Kenkenes emerged from a high-walled valley with battlemented summits. Before him was the army encamped, and wild, indeed, was the region chosen for the night's rest. The glistening soil was thickly strewn with rocks, varying in size from huge cubes to sharp shingle. Every abrupt ravine ahead was accentuated with profound shadow, and the dim horizon was broken with hills. The locality maintained an irregular slope toward the east. The camp stretched before the messenger for a mile, but the great army had changed its posture. It squatted like a tired beast. Kenkenes approached it dropping with weariness, and after a time was passed through the lines and conducted to the headquarters of the king. In the center of the great field were pitched the multi-hued tents of Meneptah and his generals. Above them, turning like weather-vanes upon their staves, were the standards bearing the royal and divine device, the crown and the uplifted hands, the plumes and the god-head. About the royal pavilion in triple cordon paced the noble body-guard of the Pharaoh. Of one of these Kenkenes asked that a personal attendant of the king be sent to him. In a little time, some one emerged from the Pharaoh's tent, and came through the guard-line to the messenger. It was Nechutes. The cup-bearer took but a single glance at Kenkenes and started back. "Thou!" he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "Out of Amenti!" "And nigh returning into it again," was the tired reply. In a daze, Nechutes took the offered hands and stared at Kenkenes through the dark. "Where hast thou been?" he finally asked. "In the profoundest depths of trouble, Nechutes, nor have I come out therefrom." The cup-bearer's face showed compassion even in the dusk. "Nay, now; thine was but the fortune a multitude of lovers have suffered before thee," he said, with a contrite note in his deep voice. "It was even odds between us and I won. Hold it not against me, Kenkenes." It was the sculptor's turn to be amazed. But with one of the instant realizations that acute memory effects, he recalled that he had disappeared immediately after Nechutes had been accepted by the Lady Ta-meri. And now, by the word of the apologetic cup-bearer, was it made apparent to Kenkenes that a tragic fancy concerning the cause of his disappearance had taken root in the cup-bearer's mind. With a desperate effort, Kenkenes choked the first desire to laugh that had seized him in months. "Nay, let it pass, Nechutes," he said in a strained voice. "Thou and I are friends. But lead me to the king, I pray thee." "To the king?" the cup-bearer repeated doubtfully. "The king sleeps. Will thine interests go to wreck if thou bidest till dawn?" "I carry him a message," Kenkenes explained. "A message!" "Even so. Hand hither a torch." A soldier went and returned with a flaming knot of pitch. In the wavering light of the flambeau, Nechutes read the address on the linen scroll. "The king could not read by the night-lights," he said after a little. "Much weeping is not helpful to such feeble eyes as his. Wait till dawn. My tent is empty and my bed is soft. Wait till daybreak as my guest." "Where is Har-hat?" "In his tent, yonder," pointing to a party-colored pavilion. "Dost thou keep an unsleeping eye on the Pharaoh?" "By night, aye." Kenkenes had a thought to accept the cup-bearer's hospitality. He knew that the expected climax would follow immediately upon the king's perusal of the message, and that the nature of that climax depended upon himself. He needed mental vigor and bodily freshness to make effective the work before him. His cogitations decided him. "Let the unhappy king sleep, then, Nechutes; far be it from me to bring him back to the memory of his sorrows. Lead me to thy shelter, if thou wilt." With satisfaction in his manner Nechutes conducted his guest into a comfortably furnished tent, and showed him a mattress overlaid with sheeting of fine linen. "Shame that thou must defer this soft sleeping till the noisy and glaring hours of the day," Kenkenes observed as he fell on the bed. "By this time to-morrow night, I may content myself in a bed of sand with a covering of hyena-fending stones," the cup-bearer muttered. "Comfort thee, Nechutes," the artist said sententiously, "But do thou raise me from this ere daybreak, even if thou must take a persuasive spear to me." So saying, he fell asleep at once. After some little employment among his effects, the cup-bearer came to the bedside on his way back to the king's tent, and bent over his guest. "Holy Isis! but I am glad he died not!" he said to himself. "Aye, and there be many who are as glad as I am. Dear Ta-meri! She will be rejoiced, and Hotep. What a great happiness for the old murket--" he paused and clasped his hands together. "He is Mentu's only son! Now, in the name of the mystery-dealing Hathors, how came it that he died not with the first-born?" After a silence he muttered aloud: "Gods! the army would barter its mummy to have the secret of his safety, this day!" At the first glimmerings of the dawn, the melody of many winded trumpets arose over the encampment of the Egyptians. Now the notes were near and clear, now afar and tremulous; again, deep and sonorous; now, full and rich, and yet again, fine and sweet. There is a pathos in the call of a war-trumpet that no frivolous rendering can subdue--it has sung so long at the death of men and nations. Outlined in black silhouette against the whitening horizons, the sentries, tiny and slow-moving in the distance, tramped from post to post in a forward-leaning line. Soldiers began to shout to each other. The clanking of many arms made another and a harsher music. The tumult of thousands of voices burdened the wind and above this presently arose the eager and expectant whinnyings of a multitude of war-horses. While the army broke its fast and prepared to move the king stood in the open space before his tent, with his eyes on the east. The Red Sea lay there beyond the uplifted line of desert sand, and it was the birthplace of many mists and unpropitious signs. Would the sun look upon the king through a veil, or openly? Would he smile upon the purposes of the Pharaoh? There were striations, watery and colorless, in the lower slopes of the morning sky, and these were taking on the light of dawn without its hues. Long wind-blown streaks crossed the zenith from east to west and the setting stars were blurred. The moon had worn a narrowing circlet in the night. Meneptah shook his head. Suddenly some one in the ranks of the royal guard exclaimed to a mate: "Look! Look to the southeast!" Meneptah turned his eyes in that direction, as though he had been commanded. There, above the spot where he had guessed the Israelites to be, a straight and mighty column of vapor extended up, up into the smoky blue of the sky. The tortuous shapes of the striations across the zenith indicated that there was great wind at that height, but the column did not move or change its form. It was further distinguished from the clouds over the dawn, by a fine amber light upon it, deepening to gold in its shadows. So vivid the tint, that steady contemplation was necessary to assure the beholders that it was not fire, climbing in and out of the pillar's heart. Egypt's skies were rarely clouded and never by such a formation as this. Meneptah turned his troubled eyes hurriedly toward the east. He must not miss the sunrise. At that moment, unheralded, the disk of the sun shot above the horizon as if blown from a crater of the under-world--blurred, milky-white, without warmth. He turned away and faced Nechutes, bending before him; behind the cup-bearer, a stately stranger--Kenkenes. "A message for thee, O Son of Ptah," Nechutes said. At a sign from the king, the messenger came forward, knelt and delivered the scroll. The king looked at the writing on the wrapping. "From whom dost thou bring this?" he asked. "From Jambres, the mystic, O Son of Ptah." "Ah!" It was the tone of one who has his surmises proved. "Now, what is contained herein?" Kenkenes took it that the inquiry called for an answer. "A warning, O King." "How dost thou know?" "The purport of the message was told me ere I departed." "Wherefore? It is not common to lead the messenger into the secret he bears." "I know, O Son of Ptah," Kenkenes replied quietly; "but the messenger who knew its contents would suffer not disaster or death to stay him in carrying it to thee." As if to delay the reading of it, the king dismissed Nechutes and signed Kenkenes to arise. Then he turned the scroll over and over in his hands, inspecting it. "Age does not cool the fever of retaliation," he said thoughtfully, "and this ancient Jambres hath a grudge against me. Come," he exclaimed as if an idea had struck him, "do thou open it." Kenkenes took the scroll thrust toward him, and ripped off the linen wrapping. Unrolling the writing he extended it to the king. "And there is naught in it of evil intent?" Meneptah asked, putting his hands behind him. "Nay, my King; naught but great love and concern for thee." "Read it," was the next command. "Mine eyes are dim of late," he added apologetically, for, through the young man's reassuring tones, a faint realization of the trepidation he had exhibited began to dawn on Meneptah. Kenkenes obeyed, reading without emphasis or inflection, for he knew no expression was needed to convey the force of the message to the already intimidated king. When Kenkenes had finished, Meneptah was standing very close to him, as if assured of shelter in the heroic shadow of the tall young messenger. The color had receded from the monarch's face, and his eyes had widened till the white was visible all around the iris. "Call me the guard," he said hoarsely; but when Kenkenes made as if to obey, the king stayed him in a panic. "Nay, heed me not. Mine assassin may be among them." The sound of his own voice frightened him. "Soft," he whispered, "I may be heard." Kenkenes maintained silence, for he was not yet ready. Meanwhile, the king turned hither and thither, essayed to speak and cautiously refrained, grew paler of face and wider of eye, panted, trembled and broke out recklessly at last. "Gods! Trapped! Hemmed like a wild beast in a circle of spears! Nay, not so honestly beset. Ringed about by vipers ready to strike at every step! And this from mine own people, whom I have cherished and hovered over as they were my children--" His voice broke, but he continued his lament, growing unintelligible as he talked: "Not enough that mine enemies menace me, but mine own must stab me in my straits! Not even is the identity of mine assassin revealed, and there is none on whom I may call with safety and ask protection--" "Nay, nay, Beloved of Ptah," Kenkenes interrupted. "There be true men among thy courtiers." "Not one--not one whom I may trust," Meneptah declared hysterically. "Here am I, then." Meneptah, with the inordinate suspicion of the hard-pressed, backed hurriedly away from Kenkenes. "Who art thou?" he demanded. "How may I know thou art not mine enemy?" "Not so," Kenkenes protested. "Give me ear, I pray thee. Would I have brought thee thy warning, knowing it such, were I thine enemy? And further, did not Jambres, the mystic, who readeth men's souls, trust me?" "Aye, so it seems," the king admitted, glad to be won by such physical magnificence. "But who art thou?" "Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket." "It can not be," the king declared with suspicion in his eye. "The murket had but one son and he must be dead with the first-born." "Nay; I was in the land of Goshen, the night of death, and the God of Israel spared me." Meneptah continued to gaze at him stubbornly. Then a conclusive proof suggested itself to Kenkenes, which, under the stress of an austere purpose and a soul-trying suspense, he had no heart to use. But the need pressed him; he choked back his unwillingness, and submitted. Coming very close to Meneptah, he began to sing, with infinite softness, the song that the Pharaoh had heard at the Nile-side that sunrise, now as far away as his childhood seemed. How strange his own voice sounded to him--how out of place! At first, the expression of surprise in the king's face was mingled with perplexity. But the dim records of memory spoke at the urging of association. After a few bars, the Pharaoh's countenance had become reassured. Kenkenes ceased at once. "Enough!" Meneptah declared. "The gods have most melodiously distinguished thee from all others. Thou art he whom I heard one dawn, and mine heir in Osiris, my Rameses, told me it was the son of Mentu." "Then, being of the house of Mentu, thou hast no fear of my steadfastness, O my Sovereign?" "Nay; would that I might be as trustful of all my ministers. Alas, that a single traitor should lay the stain of unfaith upon all the court! Ah, who is mine enemy?" The sentence, more exclamatory than questioning, seemed to the young man like a call upon him to voice his impeachments. His inclination pressed hard upon him and the tokens of his knowledge wrote themselves upon his open face. When a man is dodging death and expecting treachery, his perceptions become acute. The king, with his eyes upon the young man's countenance, caught the change of expression. He sprang at Kenkenes and seized his arms. "Speak!" he cried violently. "Thou knowest; thou knowest!" A sudden ebullition of rage and vengeance sent a tingling current through the young man's veins. The moment had come. In the eye of a cautious man, he had been called upon for a dangerous declaration. He had a mighty man to accuse, no proof and little evidence at his command, and a weakling was to decide between them. But his cause equipped him with strength and a reckless courage. He faced the king fairly and made no search after ceremonious words. He spoke as he felt--intensely. "Nay; it is thou who shalt tell me, O my King. I know thee, even as all Egypt knows thee. There is no power in thee for great evil, but behold to what depths of misery is Egypt sunk! Through thee? Aye, if we charge the mouth for the word the mind willed it to say. Have the gods afflicted thee with madness, or have they given thee into the compelling hands of a knave? Say, who is it, thou or another, who playeth a perilous game with Israel, this day, when its God hath already rent Egypt and consumed her in wrath? Like a wise man thou admittest thine error and biddest thy scourge depart, and lo! ere thy words are cold thou dost arise and recall them and invite the descent of new and hideous affliction upon thine empire! Behold the winnings of thy play, thus far! From Pelusium to Syene, a waste, full of famine, mourners and dead men, and among these last--thy Rameses!--" Meneptah did not permit him to finish. Purple with an engorgement of grief and fury, the monarch broke in, flailing the air with his arms. "Har-hat!" he cried. "Not I! Har-hat, who cozened me!" The voice rang through the royal inclosure, and the ministers came running. Foremost was Har-hat. At sight of his enemy, the king put Kenkenes between him and the fan-bearer. At sight of Kenkenes, Har-hat stopped in his tracks. Behind followed Kephren and Seneferu, the two generals, who, with the exception of Har-hat, the commander-in-chief, were the only arms-bearing men away from their places among the soldiers; after these, Hotep and Nechutes, Menes of the royal body-guard, the lesser fan-bearers, the many minor attaches to the king's person--in all a score of nobles. They came upon a portentous scene. The tumult of preparation had subsided and the hush of readiness lay over the desert. The orders were to move the army at sunrise, and that time was past. The pioneers, or path-makers for the army, were already far in advance. Horses had been bridled and each soldier stood by his mount. Captains with their eyes toward the royal pavilion moved about restlessly and wondered. The high commanding officers absent, the next in rank began to weigh their chances to assume command. Soldiers began to surmise to one another the cause of the delay, which manifestly found its origin in the quarters of the king. All this was the environment of a hollow square formed by the royal guard. Within was the Pharaoh, shrinking by the side of his messenger. The messenger, taller, more powerful, it seemed, by the heightening and strengthening force of righteous wrath, faced the mightiest man in the kingdom. Har-hat, though a little surprised and puzzled, was none the less complacent, confident, nonchalant. Near the fan-bearer, but behind him, were the ministers, astonished and puzzled. But since the past days had been so filled with momentous events, they were ready to expect a crisis at the slightest incident. The fan-bearer did not look at the king. It was Kenkenes who interested him. The young man's frame did not show a tremor, nor his face any excitement. There was an intense quiescence in his whole presence. Hotep, who knew the provocation of his friend and interpreted the menace in his manner, walked swiftly over to Kenkenes, as if to caution or prevent. But the young sculptor undid the small hands of the king, clinging to his arm, and gave them to Hotep, halting, by that act, all interference from the scribe. Then he crossed the little space between him and the fan-bearer. "What hast thou done with the Israelite?" he asked in a tone so low that none but Har-hat heard him. But the fan-bearer did not doubt the earnestness in the quiet demand. "Hast thou come to trouble the king with thy petty loves, during this, the hour of war?" "Answer!" "She escaped me," the fan-bearer answered. "A lie will not save thee; the truth may plead for thee before Osiris. Hast thou spoken truly?" "I have said, as Osiris hears me. Have done; I have no more time for thee!" "Stand thou there! I have not done with thee." The thin nostril of the fan-bearer expanded and quivered wrathfully. "Have a care, thou insolent!" he exclaimed. Kenkenes did not seem to hear him. He had turned toward Meneptah. "I have dared over-far, my King," he said, "because of my love for Egypt and my concern for thee. Bear with me further, I pray thee." Meneptah bent his head in assent. "Suffer mine inquiry, O Son of Ptah. Wilt thou tell me upon whose persuasion thou hast gathered thine army and set forth to pursue Israel?" "Upon the persuasion of Har-hat, my minister." "Yet this question further, my King. Wherefore would he have thee overtake these people?" "Since it was foolish to let them go, being my slaves, my builders and very needful to Egypt. But most particularly to execute vengeance upon them for the death of my Rameses, and for the first-born of Egypt." "Ye hear," Kenkenes said to the nobles. Then he faced Har-hat. The fan-bearer's countenance showed a remarkable increase of temper, but there was no sign of apprehension or discomfiture upon it. "Thou hast beheld the grace of thy king under question," Kenkenes said calmly. "Therefore thou art denied the plea that submission to the same thing will belittle thee. Thy best defense is patience and prompt answer." "Perchance the king will recall his graceful testimony," Har-hat replied with heat, "when he learns he hath been entangled in the guilty pursuit of a miscreant after--" Kenkenes stopped him with a menacing gesture. "Say it not; nor tempt me further! Thou speakest of a quarrel between thee and me, and of that there may be more hereafter. Now, thou art to answer to mine impeachment of thee as an offender against the Pharaoh." Har-hat received the declaration with a wrathful exclamation. "Thou! Thou to accuse me! I to plead before thee! By the gods, the limit is reached. The ranks of Egypt have been juggled, the law of deference reversed! A noble to bow to an artisan! Age to give account of itself to green youth!" "And thou pratest of law! The benefits of law are for him who obeys it; the reverence of youth is for the honorable old. But thou wastest mine opportunity. Thou shalt silence me no longer. "Thy dearest enemy, O Har-hat," Kenkenes continued, "would not impugn thy wits. He deserves the epithet himself who calls thee fool. But be not puffed up for this thing I have said. Thou hast made a weapon of thy wits and it shall recoil upon thee. Thou seest Egypt; not in all the world is there another empire so piteously humbled. Her fields are white with bones instead of harvests; her cities are loud with mourning instead of commerce; the desert hath overrun the valley. And this from the hands of the Hebrews' God! Who doubts it? Hath Egypt won any honor in this quarrel with Israel? Look upon Egypt and learn. Hath the army of the Pharaoh availed him aught against these afflictions? Remember the polluted waters, the pests, the thunders, the darkness, the angel of death and tell me. 'Vengeance?' Vengeance upon a God who hath blasted a nation with His breath? Chastisement of a people whose murmurs brought down consuming fire upon the land? And yet, for vengeance and chastisement hast thou urged the king to follow after Israel. I know thee better, Har-hat! That serviceable wit of thine hath not failed thee in an hour. Thou hast not wearied of life that thou courtest destruction by the Hebrews' God. Never hast thou meant to overtake Israel! Never hast thou thought further to provoke their God! Rather was it thine intent here, somewhere in the desert, thyself to be a plague upon Meneptah and wear his crown after him!" Confident were the words, portentous the manner as though proof were behind, astounding the accusation. One by one the ministers had fallen away from Har-hat and placed themselves by the king. After a long time of humiliation for them, the supplanter, the insulter, was overtaken, his villainy uncovered to the eyes of the king. Kenkenes had justified them, and their triumph had come with a gust of wrath that added further to their relief. Hotep gazed fixedly at Kenkenes. Where had this young visionary, new-released from prison, found evidence to impeach this powerful favorite? How was he fortified? What would be his next play? How much more did he know? And while Hotep asked himself these things, trembling for Kenkenes, Har-hat put the same questions to himself. The roll of papyrus, with its seals, still in the young man's hands, was significant. He folded his arms and forced the issue. "Your proof," he demanded. "Both the hour and need of my proof are past. Already art thou convicted." Kenkenes indicated the king and the ministers behind him. The fan-bearer followed the motion of the arm and for the first time met the gaze of the angry group. Kenkenes had not ventured blindly, nor dared without deep and shrewd thought. When the artist-soul can feel the fiercer passions it has the capacity to work them out in action. Kenkenes, having been wronged, grew vengeful, and therefore had it within him to aspire to vengeance. He knew his handicap, but had estimated well his strength. With calmness and deliberation he had studied conditions, assembled all contingencies and fortified himself against them, gathered hypotheses, summarized his evidence and brought about that which he had planned to accomplish--the destruction of Har-hat's rule over Meneptah. Har-hat was alone. Before him were all the powers of the land arrayed against him. Behind him in Tanis was Seti, the heir, who hated him, and the queen who had turned her back upon him. He had not seen the need of friends during the days of his supremacy over Meneptah. Now, not all his denials, eloquence, subtleties could establish him again in the faith of the frightened king. His ministership had crumbled beyond reconstruction. What would avail him, then, to defend himself? What proof had he to offer against this impeachment? The young man's argument met him at every avenue toward which he might turn for escape. At best his future in Egypt would be mere toleration; the worst, condign punishment. A flame of feeling surged into his face. With a wide sweep of his arm, as though to thrust away pretense, he faced the ministers, all the defiance and audacity of his nature faithfully manifested in his manner. "Why wait ye? Would ye see me cringe? Would ye hear me deny, protest, deprecate? Go to! ye glowering churls, I disappoint you! Flock to the king; dandle the royal babe a while! Endure the stress a little, for ye will not serve him long. And thou," whirling upon Kenkenes, "dreamest thou I fear this bloody God of Israel, or all the gibbering, incense-sniffing, pedestal-cumbering gods of earth? I will show thee, thou ranting rabble spawn! See which of us hath the yellow-haired wanton when I return. For I go to wrest spoil and fighting men from Israel. Then, by all the demons of Amenti! then, I say! look to thy crown, thou puny, puling King!" With a bound he broke through the cordon of royal guards, leaped into his chariot, and putting his horses to a gallop, drove at full speed to his place at the head of the army. There, in an instant, clear and long-drawn, his command to mount rang over the desert. Front and rear, wing and wing, the trumpets took up the call, "To horse!" A second command in the strong voice, a second winding of the many trumpets, and with a rush of air and jar of earth the great army of the Pharaoh swept like the wind toward the sea. Kenkenes, Menes, Nechutes and those of the royal guard that had started in pursuit of the traitor, did well to save themselves from annihilation under the hoofs of twenty thousand horse. Bewildered and amazed, they were an instant realizing what was taking place. "He is running away with the army!" they said to themselves in a daze. "He is running away with the army!" And they knew that not all the efforts of the guards and the ministers and the Pharaoh himself would avail, for the army had received its orders from its great commander and no man but he might turn it back. So the short-poled chariots, multi-tinted and gorgeous, wheel to wheel, axle-deep in a cloud of dust, glittered out across the desert--sixty ranks, ten abreast. Far to the left moved the horsemen, the dust of their rapid passage hiding their galloping mounts up to the stirrup. To the watchers by the king they seemed like an undulant sea of quilted helmets and flying tassels, while the sunlight smote through a level and straight-set forest of spears. They were seasoned veterans, many of them heroes of a quarter-century of wars. They had followed Rameses the Great into Asia and had extended the empire and the prowess of arms to the farthest corners of the known world. They had drunk the sweets of unalloyed victory from the blue Nile to the Euphrates and had filled Egypt with booty, scented with the airs of Arabia, gorgeous from the looms of India, and heavy with the ivory and gold of Ethiopia. Now they went in formidable array in pursuit of two millions of slaves to dye their axes in unresisting blood, to return, not as victors over a heroic foe, but as drivers of men, herders of sheep and cattle, and laden with inglorious spoil. Behind them, in regular ranks, beaten by their drivers into an awkward run, came the sumpter-mules, and after them the rumbling carts filled with provision. Meneptah, raging and weeping, saw his army leave him and gallop in an aureole of dust toward the Red Sea. Thus it was that "the Pharaoh drew nigh," but came no farther after Israel. CHAPTER XLIV THE WAY TO THE SEA Kenkenes did not remain long in the apathy of amazement and helplessness. Consternation possessed him the instant he roused himself sufficiently to realize and speculate. He had saved the king and exposed Har-hat, but the accomplishing of this temporary good had forced the probable commission of a great evil. If death in some form did not overtake the fan-bearer he could enrich and strengthen himself from Israel. Then, even if Meneptah's army did not continue to follow him, he would be enabled to buy mercenaries and return equipped to do battle with Meneptah, even as he had vowed. The flower of the military was with him; the Pharaoh was incapable and Egypt demoralized. The success of the traitor seemed assured. What then of Rachel, of his own father, of the faithful ministers, of all whom Kenkenes had loved or befriended? The thought filled him with resolution and vigor. "If the Lord God of Israel overtake him not," he said, returning to the king, "then must I! For, in my good intent, it seems that I have undone thee. Hotep," he continued, taking the scribe's hands, "let my father know that I died not with the first-born. Also, thou seest the danger into which the nation hath descended in this hour. Help thou the king! I return not. Farewell." He kissed the scribe on the lips, and freeing himself from his clinging hands, ran through the broken line of the royal guards. The army was already a compact cluster in the center of a rolling cloud of dust to the south. When Nechutes had aroused him before daybreak, the cup-bearer had brought Hotep with him, and while the messenger broke his fast, he had availed himself of the scribe's presence to learn many things. Not the smallest part of his information was the fact that the Pharaoh's scouts had located Israel encamped on a sedgy plain at the base of a great hill on the northern-most arm of the Red Sea. Meneptah's army had marched twenty-five miles due south of Pithom and pitched its tents for the night. It was twenty-five miles from that point to Baal-Zephon or the hill before which Israel had camped. The fugitives had chosen the smoothest path for travel, keeping along the Bitter Lakes that their cattle might feed. Their track led in a southeasterly direction. But Har-hat, making off with the army, had struck due south. He had chosen this line for more than one advantage it offered. The Arabian desert approached the sea in a series of plateaux or steps. The most westerly was surmounted by a ridge of high hills, higher probably than any other chain within the boundaries of Egypt. The most easterly overlooked the sea-beach and was originally, it may be, the old sea margin. At points the table-land advanced within sight of the water; at other localities an intervening space of several miles lay between it and the sea. The summit was flat, at least smooth enough for the passage of horsemen, and at all times it was a good field for strategic manoeuverings by an army arrayed against anything which might be on the beach below. If Meneptah's scouts had reported truly, Israel had behind it a hill, east of it the sea. West of it the army would approach. South only could it flee, into a torrid, arid, uninhabited desert. The slaves were entrapped. The pursuer had but to follow the pursued in the only open direction, and overtake the starving, thirsting multitude at last. But from Har-hat's movement he had meant to continue along this plateau, out of sight of Israel, until he had posted part of his army in the way of escape to the south. Kenkenes reached this conclusion without much pondering. He had his own manoeuverings in mind. Of the captain of Israel, Prince Mesu, he would discover, first, if the Lord God had prepared him against Har-hat. This grave question answered to the repose of his mind concerning the welfare of Israel, the path of his next duty would be clearly laid for him. He would join the army and take the life of the fan-bearer, for the sake of all he loved, and Egypt. In the course of the day's events his motive had been exalted from the personal desire for revenge to the high intent of a patriot. He felt most confident that he would forfeit his own life in the act. Not an instant did he hesitate. Ahead of him was the narrow bed of a miniature torrent which rolled out of the desert during the infrequent rains. Now it was dry, packed hard, free of all obstructions except the great boulders, and led in a comparatively straight line toward the sea. It was an ideal stretch for running. He summoned all his forces, gathering, in a mighty mental effort, all that depended on his speed, and took the path with a leap. The dazed king and his ministers saw him with whom they had that moment talked stretch a vast and ever-widening breach between them with a bat-like swoop, and while they watched he was swallowed up in distance. The bed of the torrent served him for the first few miles. Then it turned abruptly toward the Bitter Lakes. He left it and entered the rougher country. Thereafter no great bursts of speed were possible, because the runner had to pick his way. He ran, not with a steady pace, each stride equal to the preceding, but with bounds, aside and forward, dimly calculating the safety of the footfall. Suddenly a column of sand rose under his feet, and he dashed through it. Blinded and choking, he cleared his eyes, caught his breath and ran on. A gust of wind, like a breath of flame, met him from the east and passed. Then he realized that the atmosphere had thickened, as if an opaque cloud of heat had enveloped the earth. He glanced at the sky and saw that it was strewn with fragmentary clouds, but a little south and east of him was the pillar, unmoving and gilded royally. There was storm in the air. Finally the region began to grow level, proving the proximity to the sea. In another moment he came upon the old sea bed. It was sandy, sedge-grown, with here and there a palm, and tremendously trampled. Israel had passed this way. The clash and ring of meeting metal fell on his ear. He looked and saw ahead of him two men fighting with a third. Three horses with empty saddles nervously watched the fray. The single combatant was a soldier in the uniform of a common fighting man. One of the pair was a tall Nubian in a striped tunic; the other was an Egyptian, short, fat, purple of countenance--Unas! With a furious exclamation, Kenkenes slackened his pace only long enough to undo the falchion at his side and rushed to the fight. It did not matter to him who the soldier was or what his cause. The fact that he was fighting the emissaries of Har-hat was sufficient indorsement of the lone soldier. But even as he sprang forward, Unas sank on the sand, moved convulsively once or twice and lay still. The soldier staggered back from the second servitor and fell. The Nubian, standing over him, swung his heavy weapon aloft, but Kenkenes thrust his falchion over the fallen man and caught the blow, as it descended, upon the broad back of the blade. "Set receive your cursed soul," the Nubian snarled. Kenkenes leaped across the prostrate soldier, and simultaneously the weapons went up, descended and clashed. Then followed a wild and fearful battle. The Egyptian falchion was nothing more than a sword-shaped ax. Therefore, these were not tongues of steel which would whip their supple length one across the other and fill the air with the lightning of their play and the devilish beauty of their music. The vanquished would not taste the nice death of a spitted heart. There was yet the method of the stone-ax warriors in this battle, and he who fell would be a fearful thing to see. Perhaps it was because Kenkenes was stronger and more agile; perhaps he remembered Deborah at that moment, or perhaps he was simply a better fighter. Whatever the cause his blade went up and descended at last, before the Nubian could parry, and the second servitor of Har-hat fell on his face and died. Chilled by the instant sobering, which follows the taking of life, the young man sickened and whirled away from the quivering flesh. Plunging his falchion in the sand to hide its stain, he went back to the fallen soldier. He knew by the look on the gray face, by the dark pool that had grown beside him, that the warrior had fought his last fight. Kenkenes raised the man's head, and heard these words, faintly spoken: "He sent them in pursuit. I knew he meant to do it, but I could not get near to kill him. So I followed them. But thou art her lover; do thou protect her now." "Her! Rachel?" Kenkenes cried. "Who art thou?" "Atsu, once her taskmaster, always her--" the voice died away. "Where is she?" Kenkenes implored. "In the name of thy gods, go not yet! Where is she?" The lips parted in answer, but no sound came. The arm went up as if to point, but it fell limp without indicating direction, and with a sigh the soldier turned his face away. Sobbing, wild with anxiety and grief, Kenkenes shook the inert body, pleading frantically for some sign to guide him to Rachel. But there was no response, for the dead speak not out of Amenti. At last Kenkenes laid the body down and stood up. It had come to him very plainly that, but for Atsu, already these dead servitors would have been beyond overtaking in pursuit of his love. Though a worshiper of Israel's God, Kenkenes was still Egyptian in his instincts. The man who had died to save Rachel he could not bury uncoffined in a grave of sand, where the natural processes of dissolution would destroy him utterly. His and Rachel's debts to Atsu were great, and the demand was made upon him now to discharge all that was possible in the one act of caring for the dead soldier's remains. Kenkenes could not bear the body back to the group he had left about the king, for he had a mission which concerned all the living who were dear to him. Furthermore the sky was threatening, the desert was a terrible place during high winds, and he dared not delay. Suddenly a thought struck him. Travelers and sea-faring men had told him that there were settlements along the Red Sea. Might he not go forward, on his way after Israel, till he found one of these? He led the largest horse past the dead servitors, and persuading it to stand, lifted the body of Atsu upon its back. With difficulty he mounted, and supporting the limp burden with one arm, turned again toward the southeast. As he went forward, Kenkenes meditated on the signs of this recent and tragic event. He had searched throughout the length and breadth of Goshen for Rachel and none had seen her or heard of her since she had fled from Har-hat into the desert, eight months before he had seen her last. Israel was more ignorant of the whereabouts of Rachel than he. He could not tell whether Har-hat knew where she was, nor could he guess from the position of the fighters in which direction the servants had meant to ride. The tracks of their horses were not to be discovered in the great trampled roadway Israel had made. Of this thing Kenkenes was sure. If Rachel were with Israel she had joined it after he had left Goshen. In that case he was going to her, to ask after her safety, when he inquired after all Israel. If she were still in Egypt he would stop Har-hat's search for ever. This recollection added to his determination and intensified his zeal. At the beginning of the great fields of sea-grass he came upon a little hamlet. It was a considerable distance inland, and the chief industry of the people could have been only the gathering of sedge for hay, or the curing of herb and root for medicines. Some of the villagers were in sight but the most of them were out in the direction of the lakes, laboring in the marsh grass. In the course of the past year's events Kenkenes had learned to be a cautious and skilful fugitive. He did not care to be caught and taxed with the death of the man whose body he bore. The village shrine was the structure nearest to him. It was built of sun-dried brick, with three walls, the fourth side open to the sunrise. Kenkenes dismounted and reconnoitered. The shrine was empty, and none of the villagers was near. He lifted the dead man from the horse and bore the body into the sanctuary. Before the image of Athor was a long table overlaid with a slab of red sandstone. Here the offerings were left and here Kenkenes laid Atsu, a true sacrifice to the love deity. Reverently the young man closed the eyes and straightened the chilling limbs. Going into his patrimony of jewels sewn in his belt, he took an emerald, and putting it in the hands, crossed them above the breast. Then he laid his mantle over the bier. At the threshold he found a soft stone and with that he wrote upon the head of the long table the name of the dead man, and Mendes, his native city. Under this he wrote further to the villagers, charging them, in the name of the goddess, to care for the body reverently and return it to the tomb of Atsu's fathers. Having made note of the emerald as remuneration for their labors, he completed the inscription without signature. Thus he insured the safety and preservation of the bones of Atsu, and in the eye of the average Egyptian he had served the soldier well. But Kenkenes was not satisfied. As he left the shrine he muttered with trembling lips: "Bless him! The fate is not kind which yields to such goodness no reward save gratitude. There must be, because of the great God's justness, some especial blessing laid up for Atsu." In the time he had spent in the sanctuary the atmosphere had grown hazy and the sun shone obscurely. To the east were tumbled and darkening masses, which gathered even as he looked and joined till they stretched in a vast and unillumined sweep about the horizon. The wind had died and the heat bathed him in perspiration. Once again his eyes sought the pillar and found it above him, still somewhat to the east, yet in form unchanged, in hue undimmed. Something within him associated the column of cloud with Israel and Israel's God. He went to his horse and found him terrified and unmanageable. After vain efforts to soothe the creature, he walked away a little space, clasping his hands. "O Thou mysterious God! By these tokens Thy hand is upon the earth and upon the heavens. Even as Thou hast shielded me thus far, withdraw not Thy sheltering hand from about me, Thy worshiper, in this, Thy latest hour of mystery." He skirted the village, now filling with frightened peasants, and took the path of Israel. It led in a southeasterly direction toward a far-off hill, barely outlined through the haze of the distance. Meanwhile the darkness settled and over the sea the somber bastion of cloud heaved its sooty bulk up the sky. The air stagnated and the whole desert was soundless. A round and tumbled mass, blue-black but attended by a copper-colored rack, detached itself from a shelf-like stratum of cloud, and elongating, seemed to descend to the surface of the sea. Daylight went out instantly and a prolonged moan came from the distant east. Blinding flashes of lightning illuminated the whirling mass and almost absolute darkness fell after each bolt. Out of the inky midnight toward the east came an ever-increasing sound of a maddened sea, gathering in volume and fury and menace. Kenkenes flung himself on his face and waited. He did not have long to wait. With a noise of mighty rending, reinforced by a continuous roll of savage thunder, the storm struck. A spinning cone of wind caught a great expanse of sand, and lifting the loose covering, carried a huge twisting column inland--death and entombment for any living thing it met. With it went a great blast of spray, stones, sea-weed, masses of sedge uprooted bodily, much wreckage, palm trees, small huts which went to pieces as they were carried along, wild and domestic animals, anything and everything that lay in the path of the storm. The rotatory movement passed with the first whirl, but a hurricane, blowing with overcoming velocity, pressed like a wall against anything that strove to face it. Its hoarse raving filled Kenkenes' ears with titanic sound. The breath was snatched from his nostrils; his eyelids, tightly closed, were stung with sharply driven sand. Though he struggled to his feet and attempted to proceed, he staggered and wandered and was prone to turn away from the solid breast of the mighty blast. He could not hope to make headway blinded, yet he dared not lift his face to the sand. He could make a shelter over his eyes that he might watch his feet, but he could not discover path and direction in this manner. The day was far advanced, and already the army had outstripped him. Might not Har-hat at this hour be descending with his veterans, seasoned against the simoons of Arabia, upon Israel, demoralized in the storm? Desperate, the young man dropped his hands and flung up his head. He was standing in a soft light, very faintly diffused about him but narrowing ahead of him, brightening, as it contracted, into almost daytime brilliance to the south. The illuminated strip was not wide; the plateau to the west was dark; the farther east likewise storm-obscured. Taking courage, he raised his eyes for an instant. The drifting sand would not permit a longer contemplation, but in that fleeting glimpse he discovered the source of the supernatural radiance. The pillar was tinged like a cloud in the sunset, with a mellow and benign fire. Kenkenes did not marvel and was not perplexed. The miracles no longer amazed him, but he had not become indifferent or unthankful. Each forward step he took was a declaration of faith; the thrill of relief in his veins, a psalm of thanksgiving. The stones were as many and as sharp, the way as untender, and the mighty tempest strove against him as powerfully, but he followed the ray, trusting it implicitly. Night fell unnoticed for it merged with the supernatural darkness of the day. At the summit of the slope which led down to the water's edge, he paused. Below him was a gentle declivity ending to the south in darkness. There was not a glimmer of radiance on the sea. Far to the east could be heard the sound of infuriated surges, storming the rocks, but dense darkness shrouded all the distance. Only the beach directly under him was alight. The shadows cast were blacker than daylight shadows, and the radiance had a touch of gold, which gilded everything beneath it. The poorest object was enriched, the gaudiest subdued. Had the number of Israel been ten thousand or even a hundred thousand, Kenkenes might have had some conception of the multitude. The millions massed below him on the sand were not to be looked on except as a vast unit. The tribes were divided, the herds were collected at the rear or inland side, and the lepers were isolated, but no order in detail was possible. Tents were down, goods were being gathered, and much commotion was apparent. Even at a distance Kenkenes could see that consternation and dismay were rife among Israel. The whole valley was murmurous with subdued outcry, and a multitudinous lowing and bleating of the herds swept up, blown wildly by the hurricane. The senses, too, are limited in their grasp, even as the brain has bounds upon its conception. The dimensions, movement and sound of the multitude over-taxed the eye and ear. Was it the storm or the army that had frightened them? Slipping and sliding in his haste, he descended the slope without care for the sound he made. The hillocks and hollows that interposed irritated him. His impatience made him forget his great weariness. Israel's helpless ones to the sword, Israel's treasure open to the enrichment of a traitor, Israel's fighting-men driven to rally to his standard--Rachel's people, to be mastered by Har-hat! Great was his intent and its scope, and how cheaply attained if it cost but two lives--his enemy's and his own! How much depended upon him! His enthusiasm and zeal put out of his sight all his young reluctance to surrender life and the world. He could have explained, truthfully, from his own feelings, what it is that enables men to suffer an eager martyrdom. Two Hebrews outside the limits of the camp halted him. "I bring tidings to your captain," he explained. The answer was swept from the speaker's lips and carried astray by the wind, but he caught these words. "Thou art an Egyptian. Thy kind hath no friendship for Israel." "I am of Egypt, but I am one with you in faith. Conduct me to the prince, I pray you." "Take him," said one to the other. "He is but one." The Hebrew, thus addressed, motioned Kenkenes to follow him, and turned toward the encampment. They passed through a lane between two tribes. Kenkenes guessed, looking first upon one and then the other, that there were one hundred thousand in the two. Strip a city of her plan and shape, her houses, her pleasures and commerce; leave only her people, their smallest possessions, and all their fears; beset such a city with an army on three sides, the sea on the fourth and a furious hurricane over all--and in such state and of such appearance were these two tribes. Kenkenes fortified himself and resisted with all his might the contagious panic that seemed about to attack him. As well as he might, he concentrated his mind upon other things. He noted that the shadows were long like those of afternoon. Turning his head, he saw that the pillar stood behind the encampment and that its light was thrown forward and downward, not backward and outward. Very manifestly, the benefits of the miracle were only for the believers in Jehovah. The marvel brought into the young man's mind some natural speculation concerning the great miracle-worker to whom his guide was leading him. What manner of man was he about to look upon,--a sorcerer, a trafficker in horrors, a confounder of men? Ahead, particularly illumined by the celestial light, was a group of elders--great, grave men, misted in the flying fleeces of their own beards. They bent firmly against the blast and the broad streaming of their ample drapings added much to the idea of supernatural power and resistance they inspired. The Hebrew leading Kenkenes slackened his step as if hesitating to approach so venerable a council, when suddenly the group separated, revealing a majestic man about whom it had been clustered. After a word in his own tongue, delivered with bent head and deferential attitude, the Hebrew stood aside. Kenkenes prepared to meet a prince of Egypt, whatever the personality of the Israelite. He dropped on one knee, bent his head and extended his hand with the palm toward Moses. The great man took the fingers and bade the young Egyptian arise. Forty years a courtier, forty years a shepherd, but the graces of the one had not been forgotten in the simplicities of the other. When Kenkenes gained his feet, lo! he faced the wondrous stranger he had seen in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh. At a sign from Moses Kenkenes came near to him, that the howl of the tempest and the turmoil of Israel might not drown their voices. "Thou art weary, my son," the Israelite said, glancing at the tired face and dusty raiment. "Hast thou come from afar?" "From Goshen to Tanis, and hither, O Prince." "Afoot?" "Even so." "Thou hast journeyed farther than Israel, and Israel is most weary. I trust thy journey is done." And this was the confounder of Egypt, the vicar of God--this kindly noble! "Not yet, O Prince; but its dearest mission endeth here. I come of the blood of the oppressors, but I am full of pity for thy people's wrongs. Knowest thou that the Egyptians pursue thee? Is thy hand made strong with resource? Hath the Lord God prepared thee against them?" "From whom art thou sent?" the Israelite asked pointedly. "I am come of mine own accord." "Wherefore?" "Because I am one with Israel in faith." The great Lawgiver surveyed him in silence for a moment, but the penetrative brilliance in his eyes softened. "Wast thou taught?" he asked at last. "In casting away the idols, nay; in finding the true God, I was." In the pause that followed, Israel lifted up its voice, and to Kenkenes it seemed that the people besought their great captain, urgingly and chidingly. The Lawgiver listened for a little space. His gaze was absent, the lines of his face were sad. Something in his attitude seemed to say, "What profiteth all Thy care, O Lord? Behold Thy chosen--these men of little faith!" Then, as if some thought of the young proselyte, the Egyptian, arose in contrast, his eyes came back to Kenkenes again. "Thou hast filled me with gladness, my son," he said simply. Kenkenes bowed his head and made no answer. Presently the Israelite spoke to the panic-stricken people nearest to him. In the tone and the words he used there was a world of paternal kindliness--a composite of confidence, reassurance, and implied protection, that should have soothed. "Fear ye not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. For the Egyptians ye have seen this day, ye shall see again no more for ever." At the words, Kenkenes lifted his head quickly. The Hebrew had answered his question, but how enigmatically! Was Israel to escape, or Har-hat to be destroyed? In either case, the young man wondered concerning himself. Again the eyes of the Lawgiver returned to him, as if the sight of the young Egyptian was grateful to him. "Abide with us," he said. "Saith not thy faith, 'Fear not; the Lord shall fight for thee?'" Kenkenes' face wore a startled expression; how had the Israelite divined his purpose? "Saith not thy faith?" Faith? He confessed faith, but faith had not spoken that thing to him. Slowly and little by little it began to manifest itself to him, that he had wavered in his trust; that the purpose of his visit to Israel had questioned the fidelity of his God's care; that so surely had he doubted, he had defied danger and fought with death to ask after the intent of the Lord; that he had meant to perform the duty which the Lord had left undone. The realization came with a rush of shame. In the asking he had betrayed his wavering, and Moses had tactfully told him of it. A surge of color swept over his face. "Thou hast recalled my trust to me, my Prince," he said in a lowered tone. "Till now, I knew not that it had failed me. But remember thou, it was my love for Israel--O, and my love for mine own--that made me fear. Forgive me, I pray thee." The Lawgiver laid his hand on the young man's shoulder but did not answer at once. The growing clamor about them had reached the acme of insistence. The nearest people pressed through the tribal lines and, rushing forward, began to throw themselves on their knees, tumbling in circles about the majestic Hebrew. Others kept their feet, and with arms and clenched hands above their heads, shouted vehemently. Their cries were partly in Egyptian, partly in their own tongue, but the cause of their terror and the burden of their supplications were the same. The Egyptians were upon them! Even the dumb beasts were swept into the panic and the illuminated beach shook with sound. After a little sad contemplation of the clamoring horde about him, the Lawgiver drew nearer to Kenkenes and said in his ear, because the tumult drowned his voice: "The Lord will fight for thee; thine enemy can not flee His strong hand. Wait upon Him and behold His triumph." Kenkenes bowed his head in acquiescence. CHAPTER XLV THROUGH THE RED SEA The voices of the storm found harmonious tones of different pitch and swelled in glorious accord from the faintest breath of melody to an almighty blast that stunned the senses with stupendous harmony. Then the chord seemed to melt and lose itself in the wild dissonances of the hurricane. The turmoil of Israel began to subside, growing fainter, ceasing among the ranks nearest the sea, failing toward the rear, dying away like a sigh up and down the long encampment. The people that had been on their knees rose slowly. The bleating of the flocks quieted into stillness. Commotion ceased and Israel held its breath. The Lawgiver had passed from among them, and those that followed him with their eyes saw that he was moving toward the sea, seemingly at the very limit of the outer radiance and still going on. First to one and then to another, it became apparent that the extent of the illuminated beach was widening. Hither and thither over the multitude the intelligence ran, in whispers or by glances. Having showed his neighbor each looked again. Ripple-worn sand, shells, barnacle-covered rocks, slowly came within the pale of the radiance and Moses moved with it. Eight stalwart Hebrews, bearing a funeral ark, shrouded with a purple pall, fringed with gold, emerged from among the people and, taking a place in front of the Lawgiver, walked confidently down the sand toward the east. The radiance progressed step by step. Wet rocks entered the glow, lines of sea-weed, immense drifts of debris, the brink of a ledge, the shadow before it, and then a sandy bottom. A long line of old men, two abreast, the wind making the picture awesome as it tossed their beards and gray robes, followed the Lawgiver. After these several litters, borne by young men, proceeded in imposing order. Except for the raving of the tempest there was no sound in Israel. A double file of camels with sumptuous housings moved with dignified and unhasty tread after the litters. By this time, the foremost ranks of the procession were some distance ahead, the limit of radiance just in advance, and lighting with special tenderness the funeral ark. Here were the bones of that noblest son of Jacob. Having brought Israel into Egypt, Joseph was leading it forth again. Pools, lighted by the ray, glowed like sheets of gold, darkling here and there with shadow; long ledges of rock, bearded with deep-water growth, sparkled rarely in the light; stretches of sodden sand, colored with salts of the waters, and littered with curious fish-life, lay between. Where was the sea? After the camels followed a score of mules, little and trim in contrast to the tall shaggy beasts ahead of them. They were burden-bearing animals, precious among Israel, for they were laden with the records of the tribes, much treasure in jewels and fine stuffs, incense, writing materials, and such things as the people would need, and were not to be had from among them, or like to be found in the places to which they might come. These passed and their drivers with them. The next moment, Kenkenes was caught in the center of a rushing wave of humanity. He fought off the consternation that threatened to seize him and tried to care for himself, but a reed on the breast of the Nile at flood could not have been more helpless. Behind Israel were the Egyptians, ahead of it miraculous escape; the one impulse of the multitude was flight. That any remembered his mate or his children, his goods, his treasure or his cattle, was a marvel. The foremost ranks, moving in directly behind the leaders, had adopted their pace. Furthermore, as the advance-guard, they had a greater sense of security, and before them was all the east open for flight. Not so with the hindmost; they were near the dreaded place from which the army would descend; ahead of them was a deliberate host; within them, soul-consuming fear and panic. The rear rushed, the forward ranks walked, and the center caught between was jammed into a compact mass. Neither halt nor escape was possible. Press as the hindmost might upon those forward, the pace was slackened, instead of quickened. The advance grew slower as it extended back through the ranks, for each succeeding line lost a modicum in the length of the step, till at the rear they were pushing hard and barely moving. No wonder they sobbed, prayed, panted, surged, swayed and pressed. How they reviled the snail-like leaders, not knowing that the sturdy pace lagged in the body of the multitude. So they hasted and progressed only inch by inch. After the first moment of battle against the human sea, Kenkenes recognized the futility of resistance and suffered himself to be borne along. There was no turning back now, had he been so disposed. He had left behind him his purposes, unaccomplished. He had received no explicit promise from Moses, and if he had given ear to the doubts of his own reason, he might have been sorely afraid, much troubled for Egypt and all he loved therein. But he went with the multitude passively, even contentedly; he did not speculate how his God would fight for him; his faith was perfect. As for his presence with Israel, no one heeded him. Sometimes it came his way to be helpful; an old man lost his feet and becoming panic-stricken was soothed only when the young Egyptian put a strong arm about him and held him till his feet touched earth again. Children became heavy in the arms of parents and the little Hebrews had no fear of the young man who carried them, a while, instead. But no one stopped to take notice that this was an Egyptian, totally unlike those among the "mixed multitude" that had come to join Israel; nor did any wonder what a nobleman of the blood of the oppressors did among the fleeing slaves. Indeed, if the host had any thought beyond the impulse of self-preservation, it was only a dim realization that they were walking over a most rocky, oozy and untender road and that the smell of the sea was very strong about them. In the early hours of the morning, having become so accustomed to the roar of the wind and the sound of the moving multitude, Kenkenes ceased to be conscious of it. Other sounds, which hours before would have failed to reach his ears, became distinct. The crying of tired children reached him, and he detected even snatches of talk among the ranks some distance away from him. Thus a clamor of noise, secondary in force, grew about him. Above it all, at last, came a sound that would have made him halt if he could. He tried to think it one of the many voices of the storm, but the second time he heard it, he knew what it was. Far to the rear, a trumpet-call, beautiful and spirited, rose upon the air. The Egyptian army was in pursuit! Israel heard it, and crying aloud in its terror, swept forward, as if the trumpet-call had commanded it. Kenkenes felt a quickening of pulse, a momentary tremor, but no more. He became conscious finally of a warmth penetrating his sandals. He knew that he had been struggling up a slope for a long time, and now he realized that he was again on the dry, sun-heated sand of the desert. The multitude ceased to crowd, the pressure about him diminished; the ranks began to widen to his left and right; the leaders halted altogether, and though there was still much movement among the body and rear of the host, people turned to look upon their neighbors. The overhanging cloud parted from the eastern horizon, leaving a strip of sky softly lighted by the coming morn. Without any preliminary diminution of its force, the wind failed entirely. Kenkenes, with many others, looked back and saw that the pillar, illuminated, but no longer illuminating, had halted above a solitary figure of seemingly super-human stature in the morning gray, standing on an eminence, overlooking the sea. The arm was uplifted and outstretched, tense and motionless. From his superior height, Kenkenes saw, over the heads of the immense concourse, two lines of foam riding like the wind across the sea-bed toward each other. Between them was a great body of plunging horses; overhead a forest of fluttering banners; and faint from the commotion came shouts and wild notes of trumpets. Then the two lines of foam smote against each other with a fearful rush and a muffled report like the cannonading of surf. A mountain of water pitched high into the air and collapsed in a vast froth, which spread abroad over the churning, wallowing sea. The falling wind dashed a sheet of spray over the silent host on the eastern shore. Sharp against the white foam, dark objects and masses sank, arose, and sank again. At that moment the sun thrust a broad shaft of light between the horizon and the lifted cloud. It discovered only the sea, raving and stormy, and afar to the west a misty, vacant, lifeless line of shore. "And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and all the host of the Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them." So perished Har-hat and the flower of the Egyptian army. CHAPTER XLVI WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT Of the ensuing day, Kenkenes had no very distinct memory. Very fair and beautiful, one recollection remained--a recollection of another figure on the eminence, and by the flash of white upthrown arms, and the blowing of a somber cloud of hair, this time it was a woman. How the morning sun glittered on the shaken timbrel; how the spotless draperies went wild in the wind; how the group of lissome maidens on the sand below wound in and out, in a mazy dance; how the multitude was swept into transports of beatification; how the men became prophets and the women, psalmists; how the vast wilderness reverberated with a great chant of exultation--all this he remembered as a sublime dream. Thereafter, Israel moved inland and down the coast some distance, for the sea began to surrender its dead. Of the stir and method of the removal he did not remember, but of the encampment and the reassembling of the tribes he recalled several incidents. He was numb and sleep-heavy beyond words, and while leaning, in a semi-conscious condition, against some household goods, he was discovered by the owner, who was none other than the friendly son of Judah, his assistant in his search for Rachel in Pa-Ramesu. The man's honest joy over Kenkenes' safety was good to look upon. A few words of explanation concerning his very apparent exhaustion were fruitful of some comfort to the young Egyptian. The Hebrew's wife had a motherly heart, and the weary face of the comely youth touched it. Therefore, she brought him bread and wine and made him a place in the shadow of her tent-furnishings where he might sleep till what time the family shelter could be raised. But Kenkenes did not rest. He fell asleep only to dream of Rachel, and awoke asking himself why he had abandoned the search for her; why he had left Egypt without her; and why he had not gone to Moses at once for aid to further his seeking through Israel. He arose from his place, sick with all the old suspense and heartache. He would begin now to look for Rachel and cease not till he found her or died of his weariness. He stepped forth directly in the path of a party of women. He moved aside to give them room, and glancing at the foremost, recognized her immediately as the Lady Miriam. She stopped and looked at him. "Thou art he who found Jehovah in Egypt?" she asked. He bowed in assent. "Thy faith is entire," she commented. "Also, have I cause to remember thee. Thou didst display a courteous spirit in Tape, a year agone." "Thou hast repaid me with the flattery of thy remembrance, Lady Miriam," he replied. "Thy speech publishes thee as noble," she went on calmly. "Thy name?" "Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, the murket." Her lips parted suddenly and her eyes gleamed. "See yonder tent," she said, indicating a pavilion of new cloth, reared not far from the quarters of Moses. "Repair thither and await till I send to thee." Without pausing for an answer she swept on, her maidens following, damp of brow and bright of eye. Kenkenes turned toward the tent. A Hebrew at the entrance lifted the side without a word and signed him to enter. The interior was not yet fully furnished. A rug of Memphian weave covered the sand and a taboret was placed in the center. Presently the serving-man entered with a laver of sea-water, and an Israelitish robe, fringed and bound at the selvage with blue. With the despatch and adroitness of one long used to personal service, he attended the young Egyptian, and dressed him in the stately garments of his own people. When his service was complete, he took up the bowl and cast-off dress and went forth. After a time he brought in a couch-like divan, dressed it with fringed linen and strewed it with cushions; next, he suspended a cluster of lamps from the center-pole; set a tiny inlaid table close to the couch, and on the table put a bottle of wine and a beaker; and brought last a heap of fine rugs and coverings which he laid in one corner. The tent was furnished and nobly. The man bowed before Kenkenes, awaiting the Egyptian's further pleasure, but at a sign from the young man, bowed again and retired. Kenkenes went over to the divan and sat down on it, to wait. Presently some one entered behind him. He arose and turned. Before him was the most welcome picture his bereaved eyes could have looked upon. His visitor was all in shimmering white and wore no ornament except a collar of golden rings. What need of further adornment when she was mantled and crowned with a glory of golden hair? Except that the face was marble white and the eyes dark and large with quiet sorrow, it was the same divinely beautiful Rachel! It may have been that he was beyond the recuperative influence of sudden joy, or that the unexpected restoration of his love might have swept away his forces had he been in full strength; but whatever the cause, Kenkenes sank to his knees and forward into the eager arms flung out to receive him. Her cry of great joy seemed to come to him from afar. "Kenkenes! O my love! Not dead; not dead!" Then it was he learned that she had despaired, grieving beyond any comfort, for she had counted him with the first-born of Egypt. And even though thoughts came to him but slowly now, he said to himself: "Praise God, I did not think of it, or I had gone distracted with her trouble." How rich woman-love is in solicitude and ministering resource! It made Rachel strong enough to raise him, and having led him back to the divan, gently to lay him down among the cushions. The wine was at her hand, and she filled the beaker, and held it while he drank. Then she kissed him and, hiding her face in his breast, wept soft tears. And though he held her very close and had in his heart a great longing to soothe her, he could not speak. After a little she spoke. "I had not dreamed that there was such artifice in Miriam. She told me of a nobleman that had served God and Israel, and was in need of comfort in his tent. But she bridled her tongue and governed her expression so cunningly, that I did not dream the hero was mine--mine!" Then on a sudden she disengaged herself from his arms and gaining her feet, cried out with her hands over her blushing face: "And now, I know why she and Hur--O I know why they came with me, and brought me to the tent!" "Nay, now; may I not guess, also?" Kenkenes laughed, though a little puzzled over her evident confusion. "They had a mind to peep and spy upon our love-making. Perchance they are without this instant; come hither and let us not disappoint them." She dropped her hands and looked at him with flaming cheeks and smiling eyes. There was more in her look than he could fathom, but he did not puzzle longer when she came back to her place and hid her face away from him. It is the love of riper years, that makes the lips of lovers silent. But Kenkenes and Rachel were very young and wholly demonstrative, and they had need of many words to supplement the testimony of caresses. They had much to tell and they left no avowal unmade. But at last Kenkenes' voice wearied and Rachel noted it. So in her pretty authoritative way, she stroked his lashes down and bade him sleep. When she removed her hands and clasped them above his head, his eyes did not open. As she bent over him, she noted with a great sweep of tenderness how young he was. In all her relations with Kenkenes she had seen him in the manliest roles. She had depended upon him, looked up to him, and had felt secure in his protection. Now she contemplated a face from which content had erased the mature lines that care had drawn. The curve of his lips, the length of the drooping lashes, the roundness of cheek, and the softness of throat, were youthful--boyish. With this enlightenment her love for him experienced a transfiguration. She seemed to grow older than he; the maternal element leaped to the fore; their positions were instantly reversed. It was hers to care for him! After a long time, his arms relaxed about her, and she undid them and disposed them in easy position. Lifting the fillet from his brow, she smoothed out the mark it had made and settled the cushions more softly under his head. From the heap of coverings she took the amplest and the softest and spread it over him. Remembering that the wind from the sea blew shrewdly at night, she laid rugs about the edges of the tent which fluttered in the breeze and returned again to his side. After another space of rapt contemplation of his unconscious face she went forth and drew the entrance together behind her. The next daybreak was the happiest Israel had known in a hundred years. Egypt, overthrown and humbled, was behind them; God was with them, and Canaan was just ahead--perhaps only beyond the horizon. Few but would have laughed at the glory of Babylonia, Assyria and the great powers. For had it not been promised that out of Israel nations should be made, and kings should come? The march was to be taken up immediately, and in the cool of the morning the host was ready to advance. Rachel had not permitted herself to be seen until the tent of Miriam was struck. She knew that Kenkenes was without, waiting for her, and with the delightful inconsistency of maidenhood, she dreaded while she longed to meet her beloved again. And when the moment arrived she slipped across the open space to the camel that was to bear her into Canaan, but in the shadow of the faithful creature, Kenkenes overtook her and folded her in his arms. "A blessing on thee, my sweet! And I am blest in having thee once more." "Didst thou sleep well?" she asked. "Most industriously, since I made up what I lost and overlapped a little. And yet I was abroad at dawn prowling about thy tent lest thou shouldst flee me once again. Rachel--" his voice sobered and his face grew serious--"Rachel, wilt thou wed me this day?" "If it were only 'aye' or 'nay' to be said, I should have said it long ago," she answered with averted eyes, "but there are many things that thou shouldst know, Kenkenes, before thou demandest the answer from me." "Name them, Rachel," he said submissively; "but let me say this first. Mine eyes are not mystic but most truthfully can I tell this moment, which of us twain will rule over my tent." "And thou art ready for the tent and shepherd life of Israel?" she asked gravely, but before he could answer she went on. "Hear me first. So tender hast thou been of me; so much hast thou sacrificed for my sake that it were unkind to bind thee to me in the life-long sacrifice and life-long hardships that I may know. Thine enemy and mine is dead, and Egypt rid of him. There is much in Egypt to prosper thee; there, thy state is high; there, thou hast opportunity and wealth. Israel can offer thee God and me. Even the faith thou couldst keep in Egypt, so thou wert watchful. And further, thou art the murket's son, and building takes the place of carving for thee, now. But, here, O Kenkenes, thou must lay thy chisel down for ever, for the faith of the multitude, so newly weaned from idolatry, is too feeble to be tried with the sight of images." Kenkenes heard her with a passive countenance. She gave him news, indeed--facts of a troublous nature, but he held his peace and let her proceed. "And this, yet further. Once in that time when I was a slave and thou my master and loved me not--" His dark eyes reproached her. "Didst love me, then, of a truth? But it matters not--and yet"--coming closer to him, "it matters much! In that time ere thou hadst told me so, we talked of Canaan, thou and I. I boasted of it, being but newly filled with it and freshly come from Caleb who taught us. Then, Israel was enslaved and not yet so vastly helped by Jehovah. But alas! I have seen Israel freed, and attended by its God, and by the tokens of its conduct, Israel is far, far from Canaan. I am of Israel and whosoever weds with me, will be of Israel likewise. It may not be that I shall escape my people's sorrows. Shall I bring them upon thy head, also, my Kenkenes?" After a little he answered, sighing. "Thou dost not love me, Rachel." "Kenkenes!" "Aye, I have said. Thou wouldst send me away from thee, back into Egypt." "O, seest thou not? I would have thee know thy heart; I would not have thee choose blindly; I do but sacrifice myself," she cried, panic-stricken. "And yet, thou wouldst deny me that same delight of sacrifice. Can I not surrender for thee as well?" She drooped her head and did not answer. "Ah! thou speakest of the benefits of Egypt," he continued. "What were Egypt without thee, save a great darkness haunted and vacant? Besides, there is no Egypt beyond this sea. She hath risen and crossed with Israel--all her beauty and her glory and her beneficence. For thou art Egypt and shalt be to me all that I loved in Egypt." He took her hands. "Why may I not as justly doubt thy knowledge of thy heart?" he asked softly. Seeing that she surrendered, he persisted no further in his protest. "When wilt thou wed me, my love?" She drew back from him a little, though she willingly left her hands where they were, and Kenkenes, noting the flush on her cheeks, the pretty gravity of her brow, and the well-known air she assumed when she discoursed, smiled and said fondly to himself: "By the signs, I am to be taught something more." "Thou knowest, my Kenkenes," she began, "the Hebrews are married simply. There is feasting and dancing and the bride is taken to the house of her father-in-law. Thereafter there is still much feasting, but the wedding ceremony is done at the home-bringing of the bride." "I hear," said Kenkenes when she paused. "I am without kindred; thou art here without house. There can be no wedding feast for us, nor dancing nor singing, for Israel is on the march." "Of a truth," Kenkenes assented. "So there is only the essential portion of the ceremony left to us--the home-bringing of the bride." "It is enough," said Kenkenes. "Hur and Miriam brought me to thy tent last night." With his face lighting, Kenkenes drew her to him and put his arm about her. "So if thou wilt, we shall say--that--from--that moment--" Her voice grew lower, her words more unready and failed altogether. "From that moment," he said eagerly, reassuring her. "From that moment--" "From that moment, I have been thy wife!" CHAPTER XLVII THE PROMISED LAND One sunset, shortly after his marriage, word came to the tent of Kenkenes that an Amalekite chieftain on his way to Egypt had paused for the night just without the encampment of Israel. "Here may be an opportunity to speak with thy father," Rachel suggested. The prospect of talking once again to those he had left behind was one too full of pleasure for the young Egyptian to receive calmly. Hurriedly he despatched one of his serving men to the Amalekite to bid him await a message. But Rachel called the messenger back. "Tell the Amalekite that thou comest from an Egyptian noble. For such thy master is, and this chieftain is more willing to take command from Egypt than from Israel." The servant in his enthusiasm and the importance of his mission told the Amalekite that he came from a prince of Egypt. The chieftain was a youth who had just succeeded his father over his people and was on his way to Memphis bearing tribute to Meneptah. To this tributary nation Egypt was remote, splendid and full of glamour. The name was synonymous of the world and all the glories thereof, and particularly had it appealed to the active imagination of this youth. He had seen many Egyptians, but they were naked prisoners laboring in the mines of Sinai, or overseers or scribes or the ancient exile who was governor of the province,--and surely these were not representative of the land. Now he was to get a glance at real Egypt. In the early hours of the dawn a follower came to his pallet and told him in awed tones that the prince was without. Tremulous with pleasurable trepidation, he went out into the misty daybreak twilight of the open. And there he met an imperial stranger who towered over him as a palm over a shrub. At a single glance the Amalekite saw that there was a circlet of gold about the brow, that the face was fine and that the garments swept the sands. All this was significant, but when the stranger delivered him two rolls, one addressed to the chief of the royal scribes of the Pharaoh, the other to the royal murket, and paid him with a jewel, the Amalekite, convinced and satisfied, prostrated himself. But we may not know what the youth thought when he found that there were few in all Egypt like this princely stranger. After these writings came, with all fidelity, to the hands of those who loved him in Egypt, silence fell between them and Kenkenes. Meneptah erected no more monuments after the eighth year of his reign, for in that year Mentu, the murket, died. None could fill his place, since to his name was attached the title "the Incomparable," as befitted the artist of that great Pharaoh, likewise titled, who had so loved him and his genius. Meneptah, in memory of Mentu and his artist son who had served his king so well, set up no sculptor nor any murket in his place. It was the one graceful act in the life of the feeble king, the one resolution to which he held most tenaciously. Though Mentu's union with Senci was short, it was most happy, save perhaps for the absence of Kenkenes. But after the letter came from the well-beloved son there was more cheer in the heart of the father. Kenkenes was not dead, only absent, as he would have been had he lived in Tanis or Thebes. Furthermore, the young man had spoken glowingly and at length on the future of Israel and the Promised Land, and Mentu told himself that he might visit Kenkenes one day in that new country. Since there were no children in their house, Senci and the murket spoiled Anubis, and in the eyes of his devoted master the ape had earned his soft life. Shortly after the departure of Kenkenes Mentu discovered the ape burying something in the sand of the courtyard flower-beds. In spite of the favorite's vigorous protests Mentu overturned the tiny heap of earth and discovered therein the lapis-lazuli signet. There was but one explanation of the ape's possession of the gem. He had torn the scarab from about the neck of Unas when he flew in his face, the moment the light went out. After his nature, he kept the jewel because it was bright. All these things--the discovery of the signet in the tomb, the safety of Kenkenes when all the other first-born had died, and the testimony of the miracles to the power of Israel's God--made the good murket think deeply. Indeed, all Egypt thought deeply after the Exodus of Israel, and to such extremes was this sober thinking carried that through very fear many added the name of the Hebrews' God to the Pantheon. Mentu did not go so far, because he saw the inconsistency in such procedure, but he shook his head and pondered and was not wholly satisfied with many things in the Osirian creed. Of the love of Hotep and Masanath something yet remains to be told. It was common to examine the entire family of a traitor as to their complicity in his misdeeds, and the option lay with the Pharaoh whether or not they should bear some of his punishment. Har-hat was dead, the army destroyed at his hands. When the news of the disaster reached Tanis Meneptah's anger and grief knew no bounds. After Rameses had been interred at Thebes beside his fathers, and the court had returned to Memphis, the king summoned Masanath, the sole representative of the family of Har-hat, to give reason why she should not be accused of complicity in the treason of her father. Meneptah had taken counsel with none on this step. Perhaps he had an inkling that it would be unpopular; perhaps he thought he was but fulfilling the law. Hotep was at On comforting his family, who mourned over Bettis, and most of the other ministers were scattered over Egypt lamenting their own dead, and few expected the ungallant act of the king. But one day, when all the court had reassembled, Masanath came into the great council chamber. Alone and dressed in mourning, she seemed so little and defenseless that Meneptah stirred uncomfortably in his throne. Slowly she approached the dais and fell on her knees before the king. The great gathering of courtiers held its breath, wondering and pitying. Such was the scene upon which Hotep came all unknowing. At a glance he understood the situation. It was too much for his well-bridled spirit. With a cry, full of horror, indignation and compassion, he dropped his writing-case and scroll, and, rushing forward, flung himself on his knees beside her, one arm about her, the other extended in supplication to the Pharaoh. Meneptah, who, from the moment of Masanath's entrance into the council chamber, had begun to repent his ill-advised act, was glad to be won over. At the end of Hotep's impassioned story he came down from the dais, and raising Masanath, kissed her and put her into the young man's arms. Supplementing his pardon with command, he ordered his scribe to marry the sad little orphan at once and take her away from the scene of her sorrows till Isis restored her in spirits again. The alacrity with which this royal command was obeyed proved how acceptable it was to the lovers. By the next sunset they were going by a slow and sumptuous boat down the broad bosom of the Nile toward the sea, but they had no care whether or not they ever reached their destination. After some months spent on the coast, Masanath grew stronger and began to live with much appreciation of the joys of existence. On their return to Memphis Hotep was made fan-bearer in Har-hat's place, and for the remaining fourteen years of Meneptah's reign practically ruled over Egypt. Vastly different, however, was his favoritism from the favoritism of Har-hat. During the wise administration of the young adviser Egypt recovered something of her former glory, lost in the dreadful plague-ridden days preceding the Exodus. The army was reorganized first, for Ta-user's party began to make demonstrations the hour that the news of the Red Sea disaster reached the Hak-heb. All public building and national extravagance were halted, and the surplus treasure was expended in restocking the fields and granaries and restoring commerce. Within five years after the Exodus the great check Egypt had met in her nineteenth dynasty was not greatly apparent. So the land recovered from the plagues, but its ruler never. The death of Rameses lay like a heavy sin and torturing remorse on his conscience. He wept till the feeble eyes lost their sight, but not their susceptibility to tears. At last, succumbing to melancholia, he became a child, for whom Hotep reigned and for whom the queen cared with touching devotion. The story of Seti is history. It is needless to say that his rough usage at the hands of Ta-user awakened him, but it was long before he found courage to return to Io, the sweetheart of his childhood. Yet, when he did, after the manner of her kind, she wept over him and took him back without a word of reproach. So the fair-faced sister of Hotep came to be queen over Egypt and took another title with Nefer-ari as prefix, and the quaint Danaid name, Io, was lost to all lips but Seti's and Hotep's. After Seti came to the throne he continued Hotep in the advisership and prepared to reign happily. But in a little time the Thebaid, long disaffected, seceded from the federation of Egypt and crowned Amon-meses king of Thebes. Seti gathered his army, marched against the rebellious district, put Amon-meses to the sword and reduced the Thebaid to submission. Then he returned to Memphis for another space of prosperity. At the end of a year Ta-user and Siptah, after much browbeating of the Hak-heb, raised funds sufficient to purchase mercenaries. Then, with Ta-user at the head in barbaric splendor, they descended on Memphis. The course Seti pursued has puzzled historians. He gathered up his family, his court, his treasure, and without so much as lifting a spear, fled into Ethiopia. After some time Ta-user sent to him and conferred upon him the title of the Prince of Cush. To the friends of the young Pharaoh it was patent that he feared to meet Ta-user. Having succumbed once to her influence, to his undoing and the misery of his beloved Io, he dared not come under the all-compelling eyes of the sorceress again. So he surrendered his crown and his country for his soul's sake. But fifty years after, Seti's son, the formidable Set-Nekt, returned into Egypt and restored the Rameside house on a basis so solid that another glorious dynasty arose thereon, second only in brilliance to that which had gone out in the anarchy of Siptah and Ta-user's reign. This done, he wreaked personal vengeance upon the usurpers of his father's throne. He broke open the tomb of Siptah and Ta-user, threw out their bodies to the jackals, obliterated the inscriptions, enlarged the crypt, put his own and his father's history on the walls and used it for his mausoleum when he died. And this was the deadliest retaliation he could inflict in his father's name. Much of this Kenkenes learned from the lips of Egyptian merchants whom he met in Canaan, forty years after the Exodus. Kenkenes was a proselyte who had found his God for himself. He believed as he drew his breath and as his heart beat, involuntarily and without any lapse. Never could a son of Israel have surrendered himself more eagerly to the law. Its good and its purposes were ever before his eyes, and his footsteps led in the paths that it lighted. Though he saw not the Lord in a burning bush nor talked with Him on Sinai, he found Him on the lonely uplands of the sheep-ranges and heard Him in the voiceless night on the limitless desert. The young Egyptian was not yet twenty years old at the time of the numbering before Sinai, and he entered the Promised Land with Joshua and Caleb. For verily he walked with God all the days of his life. It must not be supposed that there was no serene life nor any happiness in the long wandering of forty years. A generation of oriental adults practically dies out in that time. The passing of the elders of Israel, though it was accomplished by plagues and sendings for iniquities, was as the passing of the old in the Orient to-day. The encampment was not continually filled with calamity and great mourning--far from it. There were long stretches of peace and plenty, extending almost uninterruptedly for years, and those who followed the law escaped the intervals of catastrophe. Kenkenes was among the chosen people but not of them, partly because he was of the execrated race of the oppressors and partly because the most of Israel had nothing in common with the nobleman. But Moses loved him and found joy in his company. Joshua loved him and had him by his side when Israel warred. Caleb and Aaron loved him because he was godly, and Miriam was proud of him and was mild in his presence. He took no public part in the people's affairs, yet who shall say that he was not near when Bezaleel wrought the wondrous angels for the ark? Who shall say that his purest jewel did not enter the breast-plate of the high priest? There are many names embraced in that general term, "every wise-hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle." So when Israel took up the forty years of pasture-hunting in Paran, Kenkenes made his tent beautiful and pitched it always apart from the multitude, and here he was contented all the days that Israel tarried in that place. Under his care his flocks increased, his cattle multiplied and his camels were not few, and he laid up riches for the four stalwart sons and the golden-haired daughter who were to live after him. From the moment of his union with his beautiful wife, through the long years of semi-isolation that he knew thereafter, he grew closer and closer to Rachel. She filled all his needs as Israel failed to supply them, and he missed neither friend nor neighbor when she was near. Rachel knew wherein she was more fortunate than other women and her content and her devotion were beyond measure. So Kenkenes and Rachel were lovers all the days of their lives. If ever they grew reminiscent there was one name spoken more tenderly than any other--the name of Atsu. Kenkenes would grow sad of countenance and he would look away, but there was no jealousy in his heart for the tears of Rachel weeping over the task-master who died for her. The collar of golden rings became popular in Israel, and, after many modifications effected by time and fashion, it came at last to be the insignia of the virtuous woman. For centuries it was worn and no one knows when the custom died out. The genius of Kenkenes did not die. His voice enriched with age, and the rocky vales wherein his flocks wandered had melodious echoes whenever he followed the sheep. But he never used chisel upon stone again. His sons were artists after him, but they were handicapped also. And so it continued for many generations until the Temple of Solomon was built. Then, though the plans came from the Lord, and artisans were brought from Tyre, it was the descendants of Kenkenes who made the Temple beautiful "with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, within and without." THE END AUTHOR'S NOTE When the Chaldeans prostrated themselves before Nebuchadnezzar, they cried: "O King, live forever!" When patrician Rome hailed Nero in the Circus, the acclaim was: "Vivat Imperator!" When the faithful saluted the Caliph, they said: "May thy shadow never grow less." Humanity, living in eternal contemplation of the tomb, offers its highest tribute in bespeaking immortality for its great. But Egypt did not invoke the gift of deathlessness upon the Pharaoh; she declared it. He was an Immortal and died not. Though he more nearly justified the confident declaration of his people, he but proved that there is no sublunar immortality, though in Egypt--almost. The Pharaoh lived with a triple purpose: the perpetuity of his empire, of his dynasty, of his individuality. He steeped his body in indestructibility and wrote his name in adamant. He employed the manifold means at the command of his era, and whether his monument were a colossus, a temple or a city, he builded well. While Europe was yet a vast tract of gloomy forests, and morasses, and plains, while the stone that was to rear Troy was yet scattered on the slopes of Ida, Mena, the first Pharaoh of the first Dynasty, deflected the Nile against the Arabian hills and built Memphis in its bed. So say the writings that are graven in stone. If this be true, this story deals with a quaint but efficient civilization that was already three thousand years old, fourteen centuries before Christ. An effort has been made to conform to the history of the time as it comes down to us in the form of biblical accounts and the writings of contemporaneous chroniclers. The author has taken liberty with accepted history in the age of Meneptah's first-born and in placing Hebrews in the quarries at Masaarah. The escape of Kenkenes in the Passover is not intended to contradict the biblical statement that not one of the eldest born was spared. Rather, it is offered, as an hypothesis, that the Angel of Death would have passed over any true believer in Jehovah, regardless of his nationality. Furthermore, the author has given the Greek spelling to some names, the Egyptic to others, the purpose being to present those pronunciations most familiar to readers. For all facts herein set forth, the author is indebted to a multitude of authorities, chiefly to Wilkinson, Birch, Rawlinson, Ebers, and Erman. LIST OF CHARACTERS AND PLACES Abydos,--A-by'-dos, city of Upper Egypt and burial-place of Osiris. Amenti,--A-men'-tee, the realm of Death. Amon-meses,--A'-mon-mee'-seez, half-brother to Meneptah and hostile to him. Anubis,--A-niu'-bis, pet ape named after the jackal-headed god. Apepa,--A-pay'-pah, a Hyksos monarch who befriended Joseph. Asar-Mut,--A-sar-Moot', half-brother to Meneptah and high priest to Ptah. Athor,--Ah'-thor, the feminine love-deity. Atsu,--At'-soo, a noble Egyptian, vice-commander over the works at Pa-Ramesu, afterwards degraded. Baal-Zephon,--Bay'-al-Zee'-phon, a hill at the northern end of the Red Sea. Bast,--Bahst, the cat-headed goddess, patron deity of Bubastis. Besa,--Bee'-sah, a dwarf-like deity similar to the Roman Cupid. Bettis,--Bet'-tis, older sister to Hotep and Io. Bubastis,--Biu-bast'-is, city in lower Egypt near Goshen. Deborah,--Deb'-or-ah, an aged woman of Israel, Rachel's attendant. Hak-heb,--Hayk'-heb, a village on the Nile, shipping point for Nehapehu, fifty miles south of Memphis. Har-hat,--Hahr'-hat, fan-bearer, or prime minister to the Pharaoh; father of Masanath. Hathors,--Hah'-thorz, seven personifications of Athor, usually seven cows, similar to the fates of Roman and Greek mythology. Hotep,--Hoe'-tep, the royal scribe, friend of Kenkenes, brother of Bettis and Io. Hyksos,--Hick'-soz, the Shepherd Kings. Imhotep,--Eem-hoe'-tep, the physician god. Ipsambul,--Ip-sahm'-bool, a temple cut from living rock. Io,--Eye'-o, younger sister to Hotep and Bettis, in love with Seti. Isis,--Eye'-sis, consort to Osiris and goddess of wisdom. Jambres,--Jam'-breez, a priest in disgrace, sometime astrologer to Rameses II and to Meneptah. Kenkenes,--Ken-ken'-eez, son of Mentu, the murket. Khem,--Kem, the Egyptian Pan. Khu-n-Aten,--Khoon-Ah'-ten, Amenhotep IV, a Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, who attempted to reform the national faith. Loi,--Lo'-ee, high-priest to Amen at Karnak. Ma,--Mah, the goddess of truth. Masaarah,--Mah-saar'-ah, a limestone quarry opposite Memphis. Masanath,--Ma-sayn'-ath, second daughter to Har-hat, beloved of Hotep. Meneptah,--Me-nep'-tah, successor to Rameses II, and Pharaoh of the Exodus. Menes,--Meen'-eez, captain of the royal guard. Mentu,--Men'-too, the murket or royal architect, father of Kenkenes. Merenra,--Mer-en'-rah, commander over the works at Pa-Ramesu. Mesu,--May'-soo, Moses, the Law-giver. Mizraim,--Miz'-ray-im, the Hebrew name for Egypt. Mut,--Moot, the mother goddess. Nari,--Nahr'-ee, the handmaiden of Masanath. Nechutes,--Nee-koo'-teez, the royal cup-bearer. Nehapehu,--Nee-hay'-pe-hiu, a fertile pocket in the Libyan desert, fifty miles south of Memphis. Neferari Thermuthis,--Nef-er-ahr'-ee Ther-moo'-this, first consort to Rameses II and foster mother of Moses. Nomarch,--Nome'-ark, governor of a civil division called a nome. On, Heliopolis,--near the site of the modern Cairo. Osiris,--Oh-sy'-ris, the great god of Egypt, the principle of good, the creator. Pa-Ramesu,--Pay-Ram'-e-soo, a treasure city begun by Rameses II. Paraschites,--Par-a-shy'-teez, embalmers, an unclean class. Pentaur,--Pen'-tor, an Egyptian priest and poet of the time of Rameses II. Pepi,--Pay'-pee, servant of Masanath. Pharaoh,--Fay'-roe, title given to the Egyptian monarchs. Pithom,---Py'-thom, a treasure city built by Rameses II. Ptah,--P-tah', the patron deity of Memphis. Punt,--Poont, Arabia. Ra,--Rah, the sun god, patron deity of On. Rachel,--daughter of Maai of Israel, beloved of Kenkenes. Rameses,--Ram'-e-seez, a popular name for Egyptian kings; the name of Meneptah's older son and also the name of Meneptah's father, the Incomparable Pharaoh. Ranas,--Rah'-nas, the servant of Snofru. Sema,--See'-mah, an aged servant of Mentu. Senci,--Sen'-cee, a lady of noble birth, aunt of Hotep and his sisters. Set,--the god of war and evil. Seti,--Set'-ee, second son to Meneptah, beloved of Io. Siptah,--Sip'-tah, son of Amon-meses and claimant to the Egyptian throne. Snofru,--Sno'-froo, priest of Ra at On. Tahennu,--Tah-hen'-niu, a fair-haired tribe on the Mediterranean, which was exterminated by Seti I. Ta-meri,--Tam'-e-ree, daughter of the nomarch of Memphis and beloved by Nechutes. Tanis,--Tay'-nis, the Egyptian name for Zoan. Tape,--Tay'-pay, Thebes. Ta-user,--Tay'-oo'-ser, a princess of the realm and beloved of Siptah. Thebaid,--Thee-bay'-id, civil division embracing Thebes and surrounding towns. Thebes,--Theebz, capital of Upper Egypt and largest city in Egypt. Toth,--Tote, the male deity of wisdom and law. Tuat,--Tiu'-ayt, the Egyptian Hades. Unas,--Yu'nas, servant to Har-hat. Wady Toomilat,--Wah'-dee Toom'-ee-laht, great Rameside road leading into the Orient. Zoan,--Zoe'-an, the capital of the Delta. 
36444	----	[Transcriber's Note: Italic text is set apart by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.] STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY By Rev. Jesse L. Hurlbut, D.D., AUTHOR OF "A MANUAL OF BIBLE GEOGRAPHY," "REVISED NORMAL LESSONS," "SUPPLEMENTAL LESSONS FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL," and "STUDIES IN THE FOUR GOSPELS." New York: HUNT & EATON. Cincinnati: CRANSTON & CURTS. For All Sunday-School Workers. [Sidenote: FOR THE SUPERINTENDENT.] =OUR SUPERINTENDENT.= By J. H. VINCENT. 10 cents. =THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL.= By J. H. VINCENT. 90 The first of these is an inspiring talk with the superintendent upon the duties of his office and how to perform them. The second is a thorough explanation of the best methods of conducting a Sunday-school. The Sunday-school experience of one hundred years has proved that without well trained teachers success is only partial. Our list of books, adapted both for private use and for normal teaching, is unsurpassed: =SUNDAY-SCHOOL SCIENCE.= By R. S. HOLMES. 20 cents. =REVISED NORMAL LESSONS.= By J. L. HURLBUT. 25 cents. =STUDIES IN THE FOUR GOSPELS.= By J. L. HURLBUT. 25 cents. =OPEN LETTERS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS.= By Mrs. W. F. CRAFTS. 40 cents. [Sidenote: FOR TEACHERS AND NORMAL CLASSES.] =NORMAL OUTLINE SERIES:= Bible History. By J. F. HURST. 40 cents. Christian Evidences. By JOSEPH ALDEN. 35 cents. Church History. By JOHN F. HURST. 40 cents. On Teaching. By JOSEPH ALDEN. 35 cents. English Bible. By J. M. FREEMAN. 40 cents. =CHAUTAUQUA TEXT-BOOKS.= Price, 10 cents each. No. 22. On Biblical Biology. No. 28. Manners and Customs of Bible Times. No. 36. Assembly Bible Outlines. No. 37. Assembly Normal Outlines. No. 39. The Normal Class. No. 41. The Teacher Before his Class. No. 42. Outlines of Methodism. No. 49. Palestine. For the many earnest teachers who desire to give their scholars a more comprehensive course than that of the International Lesson Series a series of Supplemental Lessons has been prepared. These are not intended to displace the regular lesson, but to fill out its deficiencies, to supplement it with other studies with which young people should be acquainted: =SUPPLEMENTAL LESSONS.= By J. L. HURLBUT. 25 cents. [Sidenote: FOR THE SCHOLARS.] =GRADED LESSONS FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.= By H. A. STRONG. Seven numbers. Sample set, 40 cents. =PALESTINE CLASS.= By J. H. VINCENT. Four leaflets. 2 cents each; 6 cents per set. =YOUNG TRAVELERS' CLASS.= By Mrs. M. G. KENNEDY. Seven numbers. 2 cents each; 6 cents per set. =YOUNG FOLKS' WALKS AND TALKS WITH JESUS.= By Mrs. M. G. KENNEDY. Eight numbers. 2 cents each; 10 cents per set. New York: HUNT & EATON. Cincinnati: CRANSTON & CURTS. [Illustration: THE EMPIRE OF DAVID AND SOLOMON.] STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY BY REV. JESSE L. HURLBUT, D.D. AUTHOR OF "_A Manual of Bible Geography_," "_Outline Normal Lessons_," "_Supplemental Lessons for the Sunday-School_," and "_Studies in the Four Gospels_." NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS Copyright, 1890, by HUNT & EATON, NEW YORK. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE 5 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 9 HINTS TO STUDENTS 11 HINTS TO TEACHERS 13 THE COURSE DIVIDED INTO LESSONS 14 FIRST STUDY.--The Beginnings of Bible History 17 SECOND STUDY.--The Wandering in the Wilderness 25 THIRD STUDY.--The Conquest of Canaan 34 FOURTH STUDY.--The Age of the Heroes 41 FIFTH STUDY.--The Rise of the Israelite Empire 49 SIXTH STUDY.--The Golden Age of Israel 56 SEVENTH STUDY.--The Rival Thrones--Israel 63 EIGHTH STUDY.--The Rival Thrones--Judah 71 NINTH STUDY.--The Captivity of Judah 77 TENTH STUDY.--The Jewish Province 88 FULL-PAGE MAPS. Empire of David and Solomon _Facing title-page._ Canaan 16 Old Testament World 19 Modern Jerusalem 48 The Divisions of Solomon's Empire 62 Solomon's Dominions 76 Alexander's Empire 90 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. These dates are taken from the common chronology, and those earlier than the Exodus are probably inaccurate. (See foot-note on page 22.) The student will find that to commit this table to memory will give him command of the most important facts of Bible history. 1. The Deluge B. C. 2348 2. The Dispersion of the Races " 2247 3. The Rise of the Empires " 2200 4. The Migration of Abraham " 1921 5. The Descent into Egypt " 1706 6. The Exodus from Egypt " 1491 7. The Battle of Beth-horon " 1451 8. The Death of Joshua " 1426 9. The Victory of Gideon " 1245 10. The Coronation of Saul " 1095 11. The Accession of David " 1055 12. The Division of the Kingdom " 975 13. The Fall of Samaria " 721 14. The Captivity at Babylon " 587 15. The Return from Captivity " 536 16. The Reforms of Ezra " 450 17. The Empire of Alexander " 330 18. The Maccabean Independence " 166 19. The Accession of Herod " 40 20. The Birth of Christ " 4 PREFACE. THE New Testament is the outgrowth and development of the Old. There is no revelation in the gospels or the epistles which is not in its essence contained in the elder Scripture; though to make it manifest required the incarnation of God's Son and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to understand the New Testament it is necessary to study the Old Testament. We cannot appreciate Matthew's point of view of Christ as the Messiah until we have looked upon the throne of David, and Solomon in all his glory; the theology of Paul is blind until read in the light of Moses and Isaiah; and Hebrews will obtain a new meaning when placed side by side with Leviticus. Every chapter in the New Testament has its references to parallel passages in the Old Testament. When we open the Old Testament we find it, first of all, a book of history. We are apt to look upon the Bible as a dictionary of doctrine, wherein we are to search for sentences as proof-texts. But instead it contains the story of redemption in the form of a history. We see how God chose a family and pruned off its dead branches and caused it to grow into a nation; then, how he trained and disciplined that nation through fifteen centuries, until upon it blossomed the Divine Man. The history of the Bible is the history of humanity, of literature, of ethics, of religion, of doctrine; and no one who studies it carefully will fail of an abundant reward for his endeavor. In most works upon Bible history the purpose of the author seems to be merely to arrange in chronological order a series of events without much regard to their importance or their relations to each other. The successive reigns of kings, the chronicles of courts, the reports of battles form the contents of most histories, whether sacred or secular. Works like these have their value in the statement of those facts which form the basis and working material of history. But mere facts chronologically arranged do not constitute a history, any more than words alphabetically arranged constitute a literature. True history records processes, the relation of cause and effect, the formative influences and their result in national life. The true history of England shows not annals of kings and achievements of warriors, but the development of a mighty people. The true history of Greece gives the secret springs of that intense activity which in two centuries called forth more great men in more departments of life than all the rest of the world could produce in a thousand years. The true history of Israel--which is the history of the Old Testament--shows how a little people in their mountain-eyrie grew up to a destiny more glorious than that of the proudest empire of all the earth, the honor of giving religion to mankind. The aim of this little book is to present the outlines of that remarkable history of the chosen people. What their mission was, how they were trained for it, and how the world was prepared to receive it together constitute the three threads woven together in this work. It is a book of outlines to be studied, not of chapters to be read. The reader will doubtless find the paragraphs somewhat disconnected, but we trust that the student may receive from them suggestions for thought. In the preparation of this book many works have been read and examined; but it is not my purpose to give a catalogue of them. I would name, however, a very few books which will be of service to the student, and will be almost a necessity for the teacher who expects to use these outlines in the class, for one secret of successful teaching is for the teacher to have at his command a fund of knowledge vastly greater than that contained in the text-book. For this purpose the following works are named, none of which are too abstruse or difficult for the average reader: 1. _Outline of Bible History._ Bishop J. F. Hurst. A small book, containing merely the facts of the subject. 2. _Old Testament History._ William Smith. A larger work and valuable, but ending with the Old Testament canon. An additional chapter on the interval between Old and New Testament history would greatly improve the book. 3. _Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church._ Dean A. P. Stanley. Three large volumes, in a brilliant but diffuse style, advanced to the knowledge of twenty years ago; not altogether sound in its critical point of view, yet to be read by all who would understand the subject. 4. _Hours with the Bible._ Cunningham Geikie. Six volumes, discussing Bible history in all of its aspects, particularly in its relations with secular history. Perhaps this is the best work on the subject for the reader who is not a specialist. But it is prolix, and could be compressed to advantage. There is need, in my opinion, of a good semi-popular Bible history, in one volume or two, to present results rather than processes of thought, and to embody all the latest knowledge from the study of the Scriptures and the monuments of the ancient world. It is needless to urge upon the student that the best book for the study of Bible history is the Bible itself. The historical books should be read with great care, even to their details of genealogical tables. The most valuable document in the study of the origin of races is the tenth chapter of Genesis; and a catalogue of names in the opening of Chronicles will give a clew to the chronology of the sojourn in Egypt. The prophetical books will aid the student, and the Psalms will irradiate certain dark periods. Whoever undertakes to use these outlines should examine every text cited for its suggestion upon the subject. This book is commended to Bible students, to Sunday-school normal classes, and to all who love the word, with a hope that it may be of service in calling attention to the Old Testament, and that it may lead some through the Old to enter into a better spiritual understanding of the New. JESSE L. HURLBUT. HINTS TO STUDENTS. Those who desire merely to _read_ this book or to look it over will not find it interesting. Those who already know how to study will not need these hints, and can use the book in their own way. But there are many who desire to study these subjects carefully, and yet do not know precisely how to do the work. For these students, earnest but untrained, the hints are given. 1. These studies should be pursued with the Bible close at hand, so that every Scripture reference may be at once searched out and read. 2. Begin each lesson by a general view; reading it through carefully, and memorizing the leading divisions of the outline, which are indicated by the Roman numerals I, II, III, etc. This will give the general plan of the lesson. 3. Now take up Part I of the lesson in detail; notice and memorize its subdivisions, indicated by 1, 2, 3, etc., and search out the Scripture references cited in it. If practicable, write out on a sheet of paper the reference (not the language of the text in full), and what each reference shows. Thus, with the references in the First Study, page 17, Part I: BEGINNINGS OF BIBLE HISTORY. Part I. =Deluge.= Gen. 7. Description of the flood. Gen. 6. 5-7. God punished the world for wickedness. Gen. 7. 23. Covered the inhabited earth. 4. It would be a good plan to write out in full, as a connected statement, all the facts in the section; thus: "The Bible says there was a deluge and the traditions of other nations attest it. The date commonly given is 2348 B. C. Its cause was God's anger with the wickedness of the race, and it covered the inhabited globe. God's purpose was to cleanse the world for a new epoch." 5. In like manner study out and write out all the facts obtained by a study of the lesson and the texts cited in it. This will greatly aid the memory in holding fast to the information gained. 6. Having done this, look at the blackboard outline at the end of the study, and see if you can read the outline of the lesson by the aid of the catch-words and indications which it affords. Study the lesson until you can read it with the blackboard outline, and then recall it without the outline. 7. Now read over the questions for review, one by one, and see if you can answer them. Do not cease your study until every question can be answered without the aid of the text. 8. Frequently review the lessons already learned. Before beginning the third study review the first and the second; before the fourth, review the first, second, and third, and at the completion of all the studies review them all. The knowledge gained by this thorough study will more than compensate for the time and trouble which it requires. HINTS TO TEACHERS. Classes may be organized on various plans and out of varied materials for the study of these lessons. 1. A teachers' class, composed of teachers, and also of senior scholars in the Sunday-school, may be formed to study the life of Christ, which is one of the most important subjects in the Bible. This may meet on an evening or an afternoon, and devote all the sessions to the study of the lesson, and to discussions upon it. 2. In many places a teachers' meeting is held for the study of the International Lesson, as a preparation for the Sunday-school class. A part of the time might be taken at this meeting for the study of these subjects. In that case it would be well to follow the division into lessons, as given on page 14. 3. A normal class may be organized among the brightest scholars in the Sunday-school, who should be trained to become teachers. This normal class may meet on an afternoon or an evening, or may take a lesson-period in the Sunday-school session. 4. These studies may be pursued by the young people's society of the church, or by a class formed under its auspices, meeting at such time and place as shall be found most convenient. There are two methods in which these lessons may be taught: One is the _lecture method_, by which the instructor gives the lesson to the class in the form of a lecture, placing the outline upon the blackboard as he proceeds, calling upon the students to read the texts cited, and frequently reviewing the outline in a concert-drill. By this method the students may or may not have the books, as they and the instructor prefer. While it is not necessary to supply the class with the text-book, it will be a good plan to do so. The other method, simpler and easier, is to let each student have a copy of the book, to expect the lesson to be prepared by the class, and to have it recited, either individually or in concert. Let each student gain all the information that he can upon the subject of the lesson; let each contribute his knowledge; let all talk freely, and all will be the gainers. It would be a good plan to have papers read from time to time upon topics suggested by the course and parallel with it. A list of subjects for such special papers is given at the close of each study. THE COURSE DIVIDED INTO LESSONS. IN many places it will be found impracticable to give an entire evening to the study of these lessons. They may be taught at the close of the prayer-meeting, or of the young people's meeting, in short sections; or they may occupy a part of the hour at the weekly teachers' meeting for the study of the Sunday-school lesson; or they may be taught to the Normal class in the Sunday-school at the lesson hour. In the latter case, the regular lesson should receive some attention; and the members of the class should be expected to prepare it, and should be questioned upon it. Often from twenty to thirty minutes is all that can be given in a class to studies like these. We have, therefore, divided the studies into short sections, each of which may be taught in about twenty minutes, if properly prepared by both teacher and students. Thus arranged, the course will be included in thirty-two lessons, as follows: =Lesson I.=--_The Beginnings of Bible History._ The deluge and the dispersion. (First Study, I and II.) =Lesson II.=--_The Beginnings of Bible History._ Rise of the empires, migration of Abraham, and journeys of the patriarchs. (First Study, III, IV, and V.) =Lesson III.=--_The Beginnings of Bible History._ Sojourn in Egypt. (First Study, VI.) Also review First Study. =Lesson IV.=--_The Wandering in the Wilderness._ Events leading to the wandering in the wilderness. (Second Study, I and II.) =Lesson V.=--_The Wandering in the Wilderness._ Journeys of the wandering. (Second Study, III.) =Lesson VI.=--_The Wandering in the Wilderness._ Results of the wandering. (Second Study IV.) Also review Second Study. =Lesson VII.=--_The Conquest of Canaan._ Canaanites and campaigns of the conquest. (Third Study, I and II.) =Lesson VIII.=--_The Conquest of Canaan._ Aspect of Israel after conquest. (Third Study, IV.) Also review Third Study. =Lesson IX.=--_The Age of the Heroes._ Condition of Israel and the judges of Israel. (Fourth Study, I and II.) =Lesson X.=--_The Age of the Heroes._ The oppressions and deliverers. (Fourth Study, III.) =Lesson XI.=--_The Age of the Heroes._ General aspects of the period. (Fourth Study, IV.) Also review Fourth Study. =Lesson XII.=--_The Rise of the Israelite Empire._ Causes leading to the monarchy, and character of the Israelite kingdom. (Fifth Study, I and II.) =Lesson XIII.=--_The Rise of the Israelite Empire._ The reign of Saul. (Fifth Study, III.) =Lesson XIV.=--_The Rise of the Israelite Empire._ The reign of David. (Fifth Study, IV.) Also review Fifth Study. =Lesson XV.=--_The Golden Age of Israel._ Reign of Solomon. (Sixth Study, I.) =Lesson XVI.=--_The Golden Age of Israel._ General aspect of Israel and dangers of the period. (Sixth Study, II and III.) =Lesson XVII.=--_The Empire of Israel._ Review the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. (Fifth Study, III, IV, and Sixth Study, I, II, III.) =Lesson XVIII.=--_Israel._ Causes and results of division. (Seventh Study, I and II.) =Lesson XIX.=--_Israel._ Kingdom of Israel. (Seventh Study, III.) =Lesson XX.=--_Israel._ Fate of ten tribes. (Seventh Study, IV.) Also review Seventh Study. =Lesson XXI.=--_Judah._ General aspects and duration of the kingdom. (Eighth Study, I and II.) =Lesson XXII.=--_Judah._ Periods in its history. (Eighth Study, III.) Also review Seventh and Eighth Studies. =Lesson XXIII.=--_The Captivity of Judah._ Captivities of Judah and Israel, and three captivities of Judah. (Ninth Study, I and II.) =Lesson XXIV.=--_The Captivity of Judah._ Causes of captivity. (Ninth Study, III.) =Lesson XXV.=--_The Captivity of Judah._ Condition of the captives. (Ninth Study, IV.) =Lesson XXVI.=--_The Captivity of Judah._ Results of the captivity. (Ninth Study, V.) =Lesson XXVII.=--_The Captivity of Judah._ Review of Ninth Study. =Lesson XXVIII.=--_The Jewish Province._ Persian. (Tenth Study, I, II.) =Lesson XXIX.=--_The Jewish Province._ Greek periods. (Tenth Study, II.) =Lesson XXX.=--_The Jewish Province._ Maccabean and Roman periods. (Tenth Study, III, IV.) =Lesson XXXI.=--_The Jewish Province._ Preparation for the temple. (Tenth Study, V.) =Lesson XXXII.=--Review of Tenth Study. [Illustration: RADIAL KEY MAP OF CANAAN] STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. FIRST STUDY. THE BEGINNINGS OF BIBLE HISTORY. It is our purpose in this series of studies to trace the progress of events as related in the Bible from the dawn of history down to the opening of the New Testament era. The aim will be not to give a mere catalogue of facts, but rather to show the relation of cause and effect, and to unfold the development of the divine purpose which extends through all the history in the Bible. We recommend the student, first of all, to read the preface to this book. Turning back to the beginnings of Bible history we notice =six events= between the Deluge and the Exodus. We begin with the Deluge as the starting-point of history. Back of that event is a land of shadows. We have so little knowledge of the world before the flood that its history cannot be written. But since that fact we tread upon firm ground, having both the Bible and secular history to confirm each other. I. =THE DELUGE.= With regard to this event we note: 1. The =fact= of a general deluge is stated in Scripture (Gen. 7.), and attested by the traditions of nearly all nations. Compare the story of Xisuthros in Berosus; the record in the Chaldean tablets; the Greek myth of Deucalion; the Mexican tradition; and the legends of the North American Indians.[A] 2. The =date= is given in reference Bibles (following Archbishop Ussher) as B. C. 2348. This is probably incorrect. It may have been a thousand years earlier. But as archæologists are not yet agreed, we give Ussher's chronology, here and elsewhere, merely as a convenience in the arrangement, not as accurate. 3. Its =cause= was the wickedness of the human race (Gen. 6. 5-7). Before this event all the population of the world was massed together, forming one vast family and speaking one language. Under these conditions the good were overborne by evil surroundings, and general corruption followed. 4. Its =extent= was undoubtedly not the entire globe, but so much of it as was occupied by the human race (Gen. 7. 23), probably the Euphrates valley. Many Christian scholars, however, hold to the view that the Book of Genesis relates the history of but one family of races, and not all the race; consequently, that the flood may have been partial, as far as mankind is concerned. 5. Its =purpose= was: 1.) To destroy the evil in the world. 2.) To open a new epoch under better conditions for social, national, and individual life. II. =THE DISPERSION OF THE RACES.= (B.C. 2247?) 1. Very soon after the deluge a new =instinct=, that =of migration=, took possession of the human family. Hitherto all mankind had lived together; from this time they began to scatter. As a result came tribes, nations, languages, and varieties of civilization. "The confusion of tongues" was not the cause, but the result of this spirit, and was not sudden, but gradual (Gen. 11. 2, 7). [Illustration: MAP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WORLD.] 2. =Evidences of this migration= are given: 1.) In the Bible (Gen. 9. 19; 11. 8). 2.) The records and traditions of nearly all nations point to it. 3.) Language gives a certain proof; for example, showing that the ancestors of the English, Greeks, Romans, Medes, and Hindus--races now widely dispersed--once slept under the same roof. At an early period streams of migration poured forth from the highlands of Asia in every direction and to great distances. III. =THE RISE OF THE EMPIRES.= In the Bible world three centers of national life arose, not far apart in time, each of which became a powerful kingdom, and in turn ruled all the Oriental lands. The strifes of these three nations, their rise and fall, constitute the matter of ancient Oriental history, which is closely connected with that of the Bible. These three centers were Egypt (called in the Bible Mizraim, Gen. 10. 6, 13), of which the capital was Memphis; Chaldea, of which the capital was Babel or Babylon (Gen. 10. 10; 11. 2-9); and Assyria, of which the capital was Nineveh (Gen. 10. 11). We might add to these the Canaanite or Phenician city of Sidon (Gen. 10. 15, 19), and its daughter Tyre, the great commercial centers of the ancient world, whose empire was not the land, but the sea. Note that all of these early kingdoms were established by the Hamitic race. IV. =THE MIGRATION OF ABRAHAM.= (B. C. 1921?) No other journey in history has the _importance_ of that transfer of the little clan of Abraham from the plain of Shinar to the mountains of Palestine in view of its results to the world. Compare with it the voyage of the _Mayflower_. Its causes were: 1. Probably the migratory instinct of the age, for it was the epoch of tribal movements. 2. The political cause may have been the desire for liberty from the rule of the Accadian dynasty that had become dominant in Chaldea. 3. But the deepest motive was religious, a purpose to escape from the idolatrous influences of Chaldea, and to find a home for the worship of God in what was then "the new West," where population was thin. It was by the call of God that Abraham set forth on his journey (Gen. 12. 1-3). V. =THE JOURNEYS OF THE PATRIARCHS.= (B. C. 1921-1706?) For two centuries the little clan of Abraham's family lived in Palestine as strangers, pitching their tents in various localities, wherever pasturage was abundant, for at this time they were shepherds and herdsmen (Gen. 13. 2; 46. 34). Their home was generally in the southern part of the country, west of the Dead Sea, and their relations with the Amorites, Canaanites, and Philistines on the soil were generally friendly (Gen. 20. 14; 26. 26-31). [Illustration: PALESTINE IN THE TIMES OF THE PATRIARCHS] [Illustration: Goshen] VI. =THE SOJOURN IN EGYPT.= (B. C. 1706-1491?) After three generations the branch of Abraham's family belonging to his grandson Jacob or Israel removed to Egypt (Deut. 26. 5), where they remained either two hundred or four hundred years, according to different opinions.[B] This stay in Egypt is always called "the sojourn." The event which led directly to the descent into Egypt was the selling of Joseph (Gen. 37. 28). But we can trace a providential purpose in the transfer. Its objects were: 1. =Preservation.= The frequent famines in Palestine (Gen. 12. 10; 26. 1;42. 1-3) showed that as shepherds the Israelites could not be supported in the land. On the fertile soil of Egypt, with three crops each year, they would find food in abundance. 2. =Growth.= At the end of the stay in Canaan the Israelites counted only seventy souls (Gen. 46. 27); but at the close of the sojourn in Egypt they had increased to nearly two millions (Exod. 12. 37; Num. 1. 45, 46). The hot climate and cheap food of Egypt has always caused an abundant population. In Egypt Israel grew from a family to a nation. 3. =Isolation.= There was great danger to the morals and religion of the Israelites in the land of Canaan. Abraham had sent to his own relatives at Haran for a wife for Isaac (Gen. 24. 3, 4) in order to keep both the race and the faith pure. One of Isaac's sons married Canaanite wives, and as a result his descendants, the Edomites, lost the faith and became idolaters (Gen. 26. 34, 35). Jacob sought his wives among his own relatives (Gen. 28. 1, 2). We note a dangerous tendency in Jacob's family to ally themselves with the Canaanites (Gen. 34. 8-10; 38. 1, 2). If they had stayed in Canaan the chosen family would have become lost among the heathen. But in Egypt they lived apart, and were kept by the caste system from union with the people (Gen. 46. 34; 43. 32). It was a necessary element in the divine plan that Israel should dwell apart from other nations (Num. 23. 9). 4. =Civilization.= The Egyptians were far in advance of all other nations of that age in intelligence, in the organization of society, and in government. Though the Israelites lived apart from them, they were among them, and learned much of their knowledge. Whatever may have been their condition at the beginning of the sojourn, at the end of it they had a written language (Exod. 24. 7), a system of worship (Exod. 19. 22; 33. 7), and a leader who had received the highest culture of his age (Acts 7. 22). As one result of the sojourn the Israelites were transformed from shepherds and herdsmen to tillers of the soil--a higher manner of living. Blackboard Outline. =Six Ev.= =I. Del.= 1. Fac. Scrip. Trad. 2. Dat. 2348? 3. Cau. Wick. rac. 4. Ext. par. 5. Pur. 1.) Des. ev. 2.) New ep. =II. Disp. Rac.= 1. Inst. mig. 2. Evid. Bib. Trad. Lang. =III. Rise Emp.= 1. Eg. 2. Chal. 3. Ass. 4. Sid. and Tyr. =IV. Mig. Abr.= Causes. 1. Mig. inst. 2. Pol. cau. 3. Rel. mot. =V. Jour. Patr.= Str. in Pal. Shep. Hom. Relat. =VI. Soj. in Eg.= Obj. 1. Pres. 2. Gro. 3. Isol. 4. Civ. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What is the purpose in this series of studies? At what point does history begin? Name the six great events in early Bible history. How is the fact of a deluge attested? What date is commonly given to this event? What was the moral cause of the flood? What was its extent? What was its purpose in the plan of God? What new spirit took possession of men soon after the flood? To what results did this lead? What was the relation of this fact to the confusion of tongues? What evidences of these migrations are found? What were the three great centers of national life in the Oriental world? What city became the center of commercial life? To what race did the earliest empires belong? What was the most important journey, in its results, in all history? What three causes are given for this migration? What was especially the religious motive of this journey? How long did Abraham's descendants remain in Palestine? In what part of the country did they live? What were their relations with the native peoples in Palestine? What is meant by "the sojourn?" What was its immediate cause? What four providential results came to Israel through this sojourn? How long was the time of the sojourn? How were the Israelites protected from corruption through this sojourn? What was the effect of the sojourn upon their civilization? Subjects for Special Papers. THE PYRAMIDS. THE CITY OF BABYLON. THE GREAT RACES. TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE. THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. EGYPT IN THE TIME OF JOSEPH. FOOTNOTES: [A] See Geikie's _Hours with the Bible_, vol. 1, chap. xiii; _Bible Commentary_, note at the end of Gen. 8. [B] From the fact that in several genealogies four generations are given to the sojourn in Egypt, the shorter period, from 1706 to 1491, has been generally assumed. But it is almost impossible that seventy people could become two million in four generations by natural increase alone. Moreover, the genealogy of Joshua (1 Chron. 7. 22-27) gives either ten or eleven generations to this period. It is probable that the other tables name only sufficient links to show the line, and omit many of the generations. This was frequently the case with Jewish records. (See the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matt. 1, where several names are omitted.) We conclude that the sojourn began about 1900 B. C., and the call of Abraham was about 2100 B. C., or earlier; but we give in the text the usual chronology. SECOND STUDY. THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS. I. Let us notice briefly the =EVENTS LEADING TO THE WANDERING.= 1. =The Oppression of the Israelites.= (B. C. 1635.) (Exod. 1. 8-13.) This was an important link in the chain of events. If the Israelites had been prosperous and happy in Egypt they would have remained there, and the destiny of the chosen people would have been forgotten. Therefore, when Egypt had given to Israel all that it could, the wrath of man was made to praise God; and by suffering the Israelites were made willing to leave the land of their sojourn and seek the land of promise. The nest was stirred up, and the young eaglet was compelled to fly (Deut. 32. 11, 12). 2. =The Training of Moses.= (Born B. C. 1571.) There was another element of preparation. No common man could have wrought the great work of liberation, of legislation, and of training which Israel needed. Notice, 1.) Moses was an _Israelite in birth_, of the consecrated tribe of Levi (Exod. 2. 1, 2). 2.) But he was _educated in the palace_, and in the highest culture, as a prince in Egypt (Exod. 2. 10). If he had been doomed to a slave's life he could never have accomplished his mission. 3.) At full age Moses made _choice of his people_, because they were the people of God (Heb. 11. 24-26). 4.) Then came the _training of forty years_ in the desert, giving him knowledge of the land, experience of hardships, and maturity of thought. 5.) Lastly, there was the _call of God_ (Exod. 3. 2), with its revelation of God's name and power, imparting strength for his work. 3. =The Ten Plagues.= There was a special significance in these plagues, for each was a blow at some form of idol-worship among the Egyptians. They were: 1.) The river turned to blood (Exod. 7. 20, 21). 2.) Frogs (Exod. 8. 6). 3.) Lice (Exod. 8. 17). 4.) Flies, probably including beetles and other winged pests (Exod. 8. 24). 5.) Murrain, or pestilence among domestic animals (Exod. 9. 3, 4). 6.) Boils (Exod. 9. 10). 7.) Hail (Exod. 9. 23). 8.) Locusts (Exod. 10. 14, 15). 9.) Darkness (Exod. 10. 22, 23). 10.) Death of the first-born (Exod. 12. 29). 4. =The Passover.= (Exod. 12. 21-28.) This service represented three ideas. 1.) It was the spring-tide festival. 2.) It commemorated the sudden departure from Egypt, when there was not even time to "raise the bread" before leaving (Exod. 12. 34-39). 3.) It was an impressive prophecy of Christ, the slain Lamb of God (Exod. 12. 21, 22). [Illustration: JOURNEYS OF THE ISRAELITES] 5. =The Exodus.= (B. C. 1491.) (Exod. 12. 40, 41.) The word means "going out." This was the birthday of a nation, the hour when the Israelites rose from being merely a mass of men to become a people. II. =THE WILDERNESS OF THE WANDERING.= Let the student note carefully upon a good map the following locations, and then draw a map containing them: 1. Draw the coast-lines and note =three Seas=. 1.) The "great sea," or _Mediterranean_ (Josh. 1. 4). 2.) The _Red Sea_ (Exod. 13. 18), (Gulfs of Suez and Akaba). 3.) The _Dead Sea_. 2. Draw the mountain ranges, and note =five Deserts=. 1.) The _Desert of Shur_ (Exod. 15. 22), between Goshen and Canaan. 2.) The _Desert of Paran_, in the center of the Sinaitic triangle (Num. 10. 12). This is the wilderness in which thirty-eight of the forty years were passed (Deut. 1. 19). 3.) The _Desert of E'ham_ (Num. 33. 8), on the shore of the Gulf of Suez. 4.) The _Desert of Sin_, near Mount Sinai (Exod. 16. 1). 5.) The _Desert of Zin_, the desolate valley between the Gulf of Akaba and the Dead Sea, now called the Arabah (Num. 13. 21). 3. Locate also the =five Lands= of this region. 1.) _Goshen_, the land of the sojourn (Exod. 9. 26). 2.) _Midian_, the land of Moses's shepherd life (Exod. 2. 15), on both sides of the Gulf of Akaba. 3.) _Edom_, the land of Esau's descendants, south of the Dead Sea (Num. 21. 4). 4.) _Moab_, the land of Lot's descendants, east of the Dead Sea (Num. 21. 13). 5.) _Canaan_, the land of promise (Gen. 12. 7). 4. Fix also the location of =three Mountains=. 1.) _Mount Sinai_, where the law was given (Exod. 19. 20). 2.) _Mount Hor_, where Aaron died (Num. 20. 23-28). 3.) _Mount Nebo_ (Pisgah), where Moses died (Deut. 34. 1). 5. Notice also =seven Places=, some of which are clearly, others not so definitely, identified. 1.) _Rameses_, the starting-point of the Israelites (Exod. 12. 37). 2.) _Baal-zephon_, the place of crossing the Red Sea (Exod. 14. 2). 3.) _Marah_, where the bitter waters were sweetened (Exod. 15. 22-25). 4.) _Elim_, the place of rest (Exod. 15. 27). 5.) _Rephidim_, the place of the first battle, near Mount Sinai (Exod. 17. 8-16). 6.) _Kadesh-barnea_,[C] whence the spies were sent forth (Num. 13. 26). 7.) _Jahaz_, in the land of Moab, south of the brook Arnon, the place of a victory over the Amorites (Num. 21. 23, 24). III. =THE JOURNEYS OF THE WANDERING.= These, with the =EVENTS= connected with them, may be arranged in order as follows: 1. From Rameses to the Red Sea (Exod. 12. 37; 14. 9). With this note: 1.) _The crossing of the Red Sea._ [Illustration: VICINITY OF MT. SINAI] 2. From the Red Sea to Mount Sinai. Events: 2.) _The Waters of Marah._ 3.) _The repulse of the Amalekites._ 4.) _The giving of the law._ 5.) _The worship of the golden calf._ At Mount Sinai the camp was kept for nearly a year, and the organization of the people was effected. 3. From Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea (B. C. 1490). At the latter place occurred, 6.) _The sending out of the spies_ (Num. 13. 1-26). 7.) _The defeat at Hormah_ (Num. 14. 40-45). It was the purpose of Moses to lead the people at once from Kadesh up to Canaan. But their fear of the Canaanite and Amorite inhabitants made them weak; they were defeated and driven back into the desert of Paran, where they wandered thirty-eight years, until the generation of slavish souls should die off, and a new Israel, the young people, trained in the spirit of Moses and Aaron, and fitted for conquest, should arise in their places. 4. From Kadesh-barnea through the desert of Paran and return. This was the long wandering of thirty-eight years. We trace the route from Kadesh, around the desert of Paran, to Mount Hor, to Ezion-geber at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, and at last to Kadesh once more (Num. 20. 1). There occurred, 8.) _The water from the rock at Kadesh_, and Moses's disobedience (Num. 20. 10-12). 9.) _The repulse of Arad_ (Num. 21. 1). It would seem that the Israelites made a second attempt to enter Canaan on the south, and were again defeated, though not so severely as before. 5. From Kadesh-barnea around Edom to the river Jordan. After this second defeat Moses desired to lead the people through the land of the Edomites, and to enter Canaan by crossing the Jordan (Num. 20. 14). But the Edomites refused to permit such an army to pass through their land (Num. 20. 18-21). Hence the Israelites were compelled to go down the desert of Zin, past Edom, as far as the Red Sea, then east of Edom, a very long and toilsome journey (Num. 21. 4). Note with this journey: 10.) _The brazen serpent_ (Num. 21. 6-9; John 3. 14, 15). 11.) _The victory over the Amorites_ (Num. 21. 23, 24). This victory gave to the Israelites control of the country from Amon to Jabbok, and was the first campaign of the conquest. The long journey was now ended in the encampment of the Israelites at the foot of Mount Nebo, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, near the head of the Dead Sea. 12.) The last event of the period was _the death of Moses_ (Deut. 34. 5-8) (B. C. 1451). IV. =THE RESULTS OF THE WANDERING.= These forty years of wilderness life made a deep impress upon the Israelite people, and wrought great changes in their character. 1. It gave them certain =Institutions=. From the wilderness they brought their tabernacle and all its rites and services, out of which grew the magnificent ritual of the temple. The Feast of Passover commemorated the Exodus, the Feast of Pentecost, the giving of the law; the Feast of Tabernacles (during which for a week the people lived in huts and booths), the outdoor life in the desert. 2. Another result was =National Unity=. When the Israelites left Egypt they were twelve unorganized tribes, without a distinct national life. Forty years in the wilderness, meeting adversities together, fighting enemies, marching as one host, made them a nation. They emerged from the wilderness a distinct people, with one hope and aim, with patriotic self-respect, ready to take their place among the nations of the earth. 3. =Individual Liberty.= They had just been set free from the tyranny of the most complete governmental machine on the face of the earth. In Egypt the man was nothing, the state was every thing. The Israelite system was an absolute contrast to the Egyptian. For four centuries after the Exodus the Israelites lived with almost no government, each man doing what was right in his own eyes. They were the freest people on earth, far more so than the Greeks or the Romans during their republican epochs. Moses trained them not to look to the government for their care, but to be a self-reliant people, able to take care of themselves. If they had passed this initial stage of their history surrounded by kingdoms they would have become a kingdom. But they learned their first lessons of national life in the wilderness, untrammeled by environment and under a wise leader, who sought to train up a nation of kings instead of a kingdom. 4. =Military Training.= We trace in the history of those forty years a great advance in military discipline. After crossing the Red Sea Moses did not care to lead them by the direct route to Canaan, lest they should "see war" (Exod. 13. 17, 18). Attacked by the Amalekites soon after the Exodus, the Israelites were almost helpless (Exod. 17. 8-16; Deut. 25. 17-19). A year later they were the easy prey of the Canaanites at Hormah (Num. 14. 40-45). Forty years after they crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan, a drilled and trained host, a conquering army. This discipline and spirit of conquest they gained under Moses and Joshua in the wilderness. 5. =Religious Education.= This was the greatest of all the benefits gained in the wilderness. They were brought back from the idolatries of Egypt to the faith of their fathers. They received God's law, the system of worship, and the ritual which brought them by its services into a knowledge of God. Moreover, their experience of God's care taught them to trust in Jehovah, who had chosen them for his own people. Even though the mass of the people might worship idols, there was always from this time an Israel of the heart that sought and obeyed God. Blackboard Outline. =I. Eve. le. Wan.= 1. Opp. Isr. 2. Tra. Mos. 1.) Bir. 2.) Edu. 3.) Cho. 4.) Tra. 5.) Cal. 3. Ten Pla. 1.) Bl. 2.) Fr. 3.) Li. 4.) Fl. 5.) Mur. 6.) Boi. 7.) Hai. 8.) Loc. 9.) Dar. 10.) Dea. fir. bo. 4. Pass. 5. Exod. =II. Wil. Wan.= 1. Seas. 1.) M. S. 2.) R. S. [G, S., G. A.] 3.) D. S. 2. Des. 1.) D. Sh. 2.) D. Par. 3.) D. Eth. 4.) D. Si. 5.) D. Zi. 3. Lan. 1.) Gos. 2.) Mid. 3.) Ed. 4.) Mo. 5.) Can. 4. Mts. 1.) Mt. Sin. 2.) Mt. H. 3.) Mt. Neb. 5. Pla. 1.) Ram. 2.) B.-zep. 3.) Mar. 4.) El. 5.) Rep. 6.) Kad.-bar 7.) Jah. =III. Jour. and Even.= Jour. 1. Ram.--R. S., Ev. 1.) Cr. R. S. Jour. 2. R. S.--Mt. Sin. 2.) Wat. Mar. 3.) Rep. Am. 4.) Giv. L. 5.) Wor. gol. cal. Jour. 3. Mt. Sin.--Kad.-bar. 6.) Sen. Sp. 7.) Del. Hor. Jour. 4. Kad.-bar.--Des. Par.--Ret. 8.) Wat. roc. Kad. 9.) Rep. Ar. Jour. 5. Kad.-bar.--Ed.--Riv. Jor. 10.) Bra. Ser. 11.) Vic. ov. Amo. 12.) Dea. Mos. =IV. Res. Wan.= 1. Ins. 2. Nat. Un. 3. Ind. Lib. 4. Mil. Tra. 5. Rel. Ed. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. Name five events which were preparatory to the wandering. What made the Israelites willing to leave Egypt? How was their leader trained for his mission? What were the ten plagues upon the Egyptians? What three ideas were connected with the Passover? What is meant by the Exodus? What are the three seas of the map illustrating the wandering? Name five deserts of this region. In which desert were the most years passed? What were the two deserts on the shore of the Red Sea? Where was the desert of Zin? Which desert was between Egypt and Palestine? Name and locate five lands of this region. Which land was nearest to Egypt? Which land was on the eastern arm of the Red Sea? Which land lay east of the Dead Sea? Which land was south of the Dead Sea? Name three mountains in this region. What event look place on each of these mountains? Name two places between Egypt and the Red Sea. Name three places on the route between the Red Sea, and an event at each place. What place was south of Canaan and near it? What events occurred at this place? What two places were battlefields? State the route of the first journey. What was the great event of this journey? What was the second journey? What four events are named with this journey? What was the third journey? What two events took place with this journey? What was the longest journey? Name four places of this journey. Name two events near its close. What was the last journey? What events took place at this time? Where was the last encampment of the Israelites? What institutions originated during this period? What was the political effect of this epoch upon the people? How did it give them liberty? What was the influence in military affairs? What were its results upon the religion of the people? Subjects for Special Papers. THE PHARAOH OF THE OPPRESSION. MOUNT SINAI. THE GREATNESS OF MOSES. THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. THE SITE OF KADESH-BARNEA. THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS. FOOTNOTE: [C] The location of Kadesh-barnea is one of the great questions of the Bible geography. Robinson places it at _´Ain el-Weibeh_, north-west of Petra. Rowlands, and lately Trumbull, locates it at _Ain Gadis_, forty-five miles south of Beersheba. I think the latter is the true place, though the authorities are not agreed. THIRD STUDY. THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. I. Let us notice the =CANAANITES= before the conquest. 1. They were a =varied people=. There were from seven to ten different nations in Palestine when the Israelites entered it (Exod. 3. 17; Deut. 7. 1). Each tribe, often each city, had its own government. There was no unity of government, no combined action to resist the invasion of Israel. This made the conquest easy. If one king had ruled a united people the result might have been different. 2. These peoples were, however, of =one stock=. They belonged to the Hamite race, and were all descended from the family of Canaan (Gen. 10. 15-19). There was no reason, except the tribal spirit, for their separation into small clans and nationalities. 3. They were =idolatrous= and, as a result, grossly =immoral=. Idolatry is always associated with immorality; for the worship of idols is a deification of sensuality. Baal and Asherah (plural Ashtoreth) were the male and female divinities worshiped by most of these races (Judg. 2. 13). 4. They had been =weakened= before the coming of the Israelites either by war or by pestilence. The allusions in Exod. 23. 28; Deut. 7. 20; and Josh. 7. 12, have been referred to an invasion before that of Israel, or to some plague, which destroyed the native races. II. =THE CAMPAIGNS OF THE CONQUEST.= These may be divided as follows: 1. =The campaigns east of the Jordan.= (B. C. 1451.) These were during the life-time of Moses, and gained for Israel all the territory between the brook Arnon and Mount Hermon. 1.) The conquest of Gilead was made at the battle of Jahaz, near the brook Arnon (Num. 21. 21-31). In one battle the Israelites gained the land of Gilead from the Arnon to the Hieromax. 2.) The conquest of Bashan was completed at the battle of Edrei, in the mountainous region. 3.) The conquest of Midian (Num. 31. 1-8) was led by the warrior-priest Phinehas, and by smiting the tribes on the east protected the frontier toward the desert. The land won by these three campaigns became the territory of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (Deut. 32). [Illustration: JOURNEYS OF THE CONQUEST] 2. =The campaigns west of the Jordan= (B. C. 1451) were led by Joshua, and showed great tactical skill and resistless energy of action. Joshua led his people across the Jordan and established a fortified camp, the center of operations during all his campaigns, at Gilgal (Josh. 4. 19). 1.) The first invasion was of _central Palestine_, beginning with Jericho (Josh. 6), taking Ai on the way (Josh. 8), and ending with Shechem, which apparently fell without resistance (Josh. 8. 30-33). This campaign gave to Israel the center of the land and divided their enemies into two sections. 2.) Next came the campaign against _southern Palestine_. At this time was fought the battle of Beth-horon (Josh. 10. 10), the most momentous in its results in all history, and one over which, if ever, the sun and moon might well stand still (Josh. 10. 12, 13).[D] After this great victory Joshua pursued his enemies and took the towns as far south as Hebron and Debir (Josh. 10. 29-39). [Illustration: JOSHUA'S VICTORY AT BETH-HORON.] 3.) Lastly, Joshua conquered _northern Palestine_ (Josh. 11). The battle in this campaign was near Lake Merom (Josh. 11. 7), and, as before, it was followed by the capture of many cities in the north. Thus, in those marches Joshua won all the mountain region of western Palestine. 3. There were certain =supplementary campaigns=, partly in Joshua's time, partly afterward. 1.) Caleb's rapture of Hebron, which had been re-occupied by the Amorites (Josh. 14; Judg. 1. 10-15). 2.) The Judahites' capture of Bezek, an unknown place between Jerusalem and the Philistine plain (Judg. 1. 1-8). 3.) The Danites' capture of Laish, in the extreme north, which afterward bore the name of Dan (Judg. 18). But, after all these campaigns, a large part of the land was still unsubdued, and the war of the conquest did not end until the days of David, by whom every foe was finally placed under foot. III. =GENERAL ASPECTS OF ISRAEL AT THE CLOSE OF THE CONQUEST.= 1. With regard to =the native races=. They were not destroyed nor driven away, as had been commanded.[E] They remained as subject people in some places, as the ruling race on the sea-coast and in the Jordan valley. We see their influence, always injurious, throughout all Israel's history (Exod. 23. 31-33; Deut. 7. 1-5); and some think that the present inhabitants of the country belong to the original Canaanite stock. 2. =The Israelites= did not occupy all the country. They possessed most of the mountain region, but none of the sea-coast plain on the Jordan valley. They were like the Swiss in modern times, living among the mountains. Even in the New Testament period the lowlands were occupied mainly by Gentiles. 3. =The landed system= was peculiar. Estates were inalienable. They might be leased, but not sold; and on the year of Jubilee (every fiftieth year) all land reverted to the family originally owning it. Thus every family had its ancestral home, the poor were protected, and riches were kept within bounds. 4. =The government= was a republic of families without an executive head, except when a judge was raised up to meet special needs. Each tribe had its own rulers, but there was no central authority after Joshua (Judg. 21. 25). This had its evils, for it led to national weakness; but it had its benefits: 1.) It kept Israel from becoming a great worldly kingdom like Egypt and Assyria, which would have thwarted the divine purpose. 2.) It promoted individuality and personal energy of character. There would have been no "age of heroes" if Israel had been a kingdom like Egypt. 5. The =religious system= was simple. There was but one altar at Shiloh for all the land and for all the tribes, and the people were required to visit it for the three great feasts (Deut. 12. 11, 14; Josh. 18. 1). This was the religious bond which united the people. If it had been maintained they would have needed no other constitution, and even its partial observance kept the people one nation. 6. The =character= of the people was diverse. Throughout the history we trace the working of two distinct elements. There was the true Israel--the earnest, religious, God-worshiping section, the Israel of Joshua and Gideon and Samuel. Then there was the underlying mass of the people--secular, ignorant, prone to idolatry, the Israel that worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth, and sought alliance with the heathen. One element was the hope of the nation, the other was its bane. Blackboard Outline. =I. Canaanites.= 1. Var. 2. Ham. rac. 3. Idol. 4. Weak. =II. Camp. Conq.= 1. Camp. Eas. Jor. 1.) Gil. Jah. 2) Bash. Ed. 3.) Mid. 2. Camp. Wes. Jor. 1.) Cent. Pal. Jer. Ai. She. 2) Sou. Pal. Beth-hor. 3.) Nor. Pal. L. Mer. 3. Supp. Camp. 1.) Cal. cap. Heb. 2.) Jud. cap. Bez. 3.) Dan. cap. Lai. =III. Gen. Asp. Isr. at Clo. Conq.= 1. Nat. rac. sub. 2. Isr. in mtn. reg. 3. Land. sys. 4. Gov. rep. fam. 5. Rel. sys. 6. Char. peo. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What was the political system of the Canaanites before the conquest? How did this condition affect the result of the war? To what race did the Canaanite tribes belong? What was their religion? What was the effect of their worship on their character? What had taken place shortly before the coming of the Israelites? What campaigns of conquest were made before the death of Moses? What battles were fought in these campaigns? What tribes took possession of this territory? On which side of the Jordan were Joshua's campaigns? What traits as a military leader did he show? What places were captured on the first of Joshua's campaigns? What was the effect of this campaign on the enemies? Against what section was Joshua's second campaign? Where was the great battle fought? What is said to have taken place at this battle? What cities were captured at this time? Where was the third campaign of Joshua directed? Where was the battle fought in this campaign? What were the three supplementary campaigns? What city was conquered by Caleb? What city was occupied by the tribe of Dan? What king, long after Joshua, completed the conquest of Canaan? What was the condition of the native races after the conquest? What was the result of their continuance in the land? What portion of the country was occupied by the Israelites? What modern analogy is given to them? What was the system of land-tenure among the Israelites? What were some of its benefits? What was the form of government? Wherein was this system defective? What were its excellences? What was the religious system of the Israelites? What was the effect of this system? What was the religious character of the people? What was the condition of the mass of the Israelites? Subjects for Special Papers. JOSHUA AS A GENERAL. BETH-HORON AS ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BATTLES. THE MORAL ASPECTS OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. THE RIVER JORDAN. THE HISTORY OF JERICHO. FOOTNOTES: [D] The account of the sun and moon standing still is an extract from an ancient poem, and is so printed in the Revised Version. The subject is discussed in Geikie's _Hours With the Bible_, foot-note with chapter xiii. [E] With regard to the destruction of the Canaanites: 1. Such destruction was the almost universal custom of the ancient world. 2. It was deserved by the Canaanites, who were among the most wicked of ancient peoples. 3. It was necessary, if Israel was to be kept from the corruption of their morals, and upon Israel's character depended the world in after ages. 4. As a result of failing to extirpate the Canaanites a vastly greater number of the Israelites were destroyed during the succeeding centuries. FOURTH STUDY. THE AGE OF THE HEROES. From the death of Joshua (about B. C. 1426) to the coronation of Saul (B. C. 1095) the twelve tribes of Israel were without a central government, except as from time to time men of ability rose up among them. It was not as some have supposed, "an age of anarchy," for anarchy is confusion; and during most of the three hundred and thirty years there were peace and order in Israel. It was rather an age of heroes, for its rulers were neither hereditary nor elective, but men called forth by the needs of the hour and their own qualities of leadership. I. =THE CONDITION OF ISRAEL DURING THIS PERIOD.= This was partly favorable, and partly unfavorable. The favorable elements were: 1. =The mountain location= of Israel. The tribes were perched like Switzerland in the Alps. There was a desert on the south and on the east, while on the west lay the plain by the sea, the great route of travel between Egypt and the Euphrates. Great armies passed and repassed over this plain, and great battles were fought by Egyptians, Hittites, and Assyrians, while Israel on her mountain peaks was unmolested. This mountain home left Israel generally unnoticed, and, when attacked, almost inaccessible. 2. =The racial unity= of Israel. The two finest races of the world, the Greek and the Israelite, were both of pure blood. The Israelites were one in origin, in language, in traditions, in aspirations. This national unity often brought the tribes together in times of distress; though not always when their union was needed. 3. =The religious institutions.= In Greece every town had its own god and its own religion; hence the many parties and petty nationalities. But in Israel there was in theory but one altar, one house of God, one system of worship, with its annual pilgrimage to the religious capital (1 Sam. 1. 3). Just to the measure in which these institutions were observed, Israel was strong against all foes, and as they were neglected the land became the prey of oppressors (Judg. 2. 7-14; 1. Sam. 7. 3). But there were also unfavorable elements in the condition of Israel, which threatened its very existence. These were: 1. =The native races.= These were of two kinds: the subject peoples left on the soil, more or less under the domination of the conquerors, and the surrounding nations, Ammon, Moab, Syria, and the Philistines. There was danger from their enmity, a rebellion of the subject tribes, allied with the enemies around, for the destruction of Israel. And there was far greater danger from their friendship, which would lead to intermarriage, to idolatry, to corruption of morals, and to ruin (Judg. 3. 1-7). 2. =Lack of a central government.= Israel was in the condition of the United States at the close of the Revolution, from 1783 to 1789, a loose confederation with no central authority. There were twelve tribes, but each governed itself. Only under some great chieftain like Gideon or Samuel were all the twelve tribes united. Most of the judges ruled only over their own district of a few adjoining tribes. Often the northern tribes were in peril, but we never read of Judah going to their assistance; and in Judah's wars with the Philistines the northern tribes stood aloof. 3. =Tribal jealousy.= Until the establishment of the American republic the world never saw, for any length of time, a league of states on an equal footing. In Greece the strongest state claimed the _hegemony_, or leadership, and oppressed its allies. In Italy the Romans reduced all their neighbors to subjection. In Europe it now requires an army of more than a million men to maintain the "balance of power." So in Israel there was a constant struggle for the leadership between the two great tribes of Judah and Ephraim. During the period of the judges Ephraim was constantly asserting its right to rule the other tribes (Judg. 8. 1-3; 12. 1-6). We trace this rivalry through all the reign of David; and at last it led to the division of the empire under Rehoboam. 4. =Idolatrous tendencies.= We note constantly "the two Israels"--a spiritual minority and an irreligious, idolatrous mass. For ten centuries the greatest evil of Israelite history was the tendency to the worship of idols. Causes which operated to promote it were: 1.) The natural craving for a visible object of worship, not altogether eradicated from even the Christian heart; for example, Romish images and ritualistic bowing toward the altar. 2.) The association of Israel with idolaters on the soil or as neighbors. 3.) The opportunity which idol-worship gives to gratify lust under the guise of religion. As a result of these forces we find idol-worship the crying sin of the Israelites down to the captivity in Babylon. II. =THE JUDGES OF ISRAEL.= These were the heroes of that age, the men who in turn led the tribes, freed them from their enemies, and restored them to the service of God. 1. =Their office.= It was not generally to try legal cases between man and man, or between tribe and tribe. It might be regarded as a military dictatorship blended with a religious authority. The judge was a union of the warrior and the religious reformer. 2. =Their appointment=; not by election, nor the votes of the people. The Orientals have never chosen their rulers by suffrage. The judges were men whom the people recognized as called of God to their office (Judg. 2. 16; 3. 9; 6. 11-13). 3. =Their authority= rested not on law, nor on armies, but on the personal elements of integrity and leadership in the men, and on the general belief in their inspiration. They spoke to the people with the authority of a messenger from God. They arose in some hour of great need, and after the immediate danger was over held their power until the end of their lives. 4. =The extent of their rule= was generally local, over a few tribes in one section. Deborah ruled in the north (Judg. 5. 14-18); Jephthah governed the east of the Jordan only (Judg. 11. 29). Often more than one judge was ruling at the same time; probably Samson and Eli were contemporaneous. Gideon and Samuel alone ruled all the twelve tribes. III. =THE OPPRESSIONS AND DELIVERERS.= During these three centuries the influences already named brought Israel many times under the domination of foreign power. The story was always the same, forsaking God, following idols, subjection, reformation, victory, and temporary prosperity. We notice the seven oppressions. Some of these were undoubtedly contemporaneous. 1. =The Mesopotamian Oppression.= (Judg. 3. 7-11.) Probably this was over the southern portion, and the invaders came by the east and around the Dead Sea, as earlier invaders from the same land had come (Gen. 14. 1-7). The deliverer was Othniel, the first judge, and the only judge of the tribe of Judah. 2. =The Moabite Oppression.= (Judg. 3. 12-30.) Over the eastern and central section, including Ephraim (verse 27); deliverer, Ehud, the second judge; battle fought at the ford of the river Jordan (verse 28). 3. =The Early Philistine Oppression.= (Judg. 3. 31.) Over the south-west, on the frontier of Judah; deliverer, Shamgar. 4. =The Canaanite Oppression.= (Judg. 4.) Over the northern tribes; deliverer, Deborah, the woman judge; battle at Mount Tabor. 5. =The Midianite Oppression.= (Judg. 6. 1-6.) Over the northern center, especially Manasseh-east; the most severe of all; deliverer, Gideon, the greatest of the judges (Judg. 6. 11, 12); battle, on Mount Gilboa (Judg. 7), followed by other victories (Judg. 8). 6. =The Ammonite Oppression.= (Judg. 10. 7-9.) Note an alliance between the Amorites and Philistines, which is suggestive; mainly over the tribes on the east of Jordan; deliverer, Jephthah[F] (Judg. 11); victory at Aroer (verse 33). 7. =The Philistine Oppression.= (Judg. 13) This was the most protracted of all, for it extended, with intervals of freedom, for a hundred years; embraced all the land, but was most heavily felt south of Mounts Carmel and Gilboa. The liberation was begun by Samson (Judg. 13. 5), but he was led astray by sensual lusts and became a failure. Freedom was later won by Samuel at the battle of Ebenezer (1 Sam. 7. 7-14); but the oppression was renewed in the time of Saul, and became heavier than ever (1 Sam. 13. 17-20). Finally the yoke was broken by David, in a succession of victories, ending with the capture of Gath, the Philistine capital (2 Sam. 5. 17-25; 1 Chron. 18. 1). Note with each oppression: 1.) The oppressor. 2.) The section oppressed. 3.) The deliverer. 4.) The battlefield. IV. =THE GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE PERIOD.= 1. It was an age of =individuality=. There was no strong government to oppress the people, to concentrate all the life of the nation at the court, and to repress individuality. Contrast Persia with Greece; Rome under the emperors with Rome as a republic. As men were needed they were raised up, for there was opportunity for character. Hence it was an age of heroes--Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Samuel, etc. Free institutions bring strong men to the front. 2. It was an age of =neglect of the law=. During all this period there is no allusion to the law of Moses. Its regulations were ignored, except so far as they belonged to the common law of conscience and right. The laws of Moses were not deliberately disobeyed, but were ignorantly neglected. Even good men, as Gideon and Samuel, built altars and offered sacrifices (Judg. 6. 24; 1 Sam. 7. 9) contrary to the letter of the law of Moses, but obeying its spirit. 3. Nevertheless, it was an age of =progress=. There were alternate advancements and retrogressions; yet we see a people with energy, rising in spite of their hindrances. By degrees government became more settled (1 Sam. 7. 15-17), foreign relations arose (1 Sam. 7. 14; Ruth 1. 1), and the people began to look toward a more stable system (1 Sam. 8. 4-6). Blackboard Outline. =I. Cond. Isr.= _Fav._ 1. Mtn. Loc. 2. Rac. Un. 3. Rel. Ins. _Unfav._ 1. Nat. Rac. 2. Lac. cent. gov. 3. Tri. jeal. 4. Idol. ten. =II. Jud. Isr.= 1. Off. 2. App. 3. Auth. 4. Ext. ru. =III. Opp. and Deliv.= _Opp._ _Sec._ _Deliv._ _Batt.-fie._ 1. Mes. Sou. Oth. 2. Moab. Ea. cen. Ehu. For. Jor. 3. Ea. Phil. So.-wes. Sham. 4. Can. Nor. Deb. Mt. Tab. 5. Mid. Nor. cen. Gid. Mt. Gil. 6. Amm. East. Jeph. Aro. 7. Phil. All. Sams. Saml. Eben. Dav. Gath. =IV. Gen. Asp. Per.= 1. Ind. 2. Neg. Law. 3. Prog. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. How long was this period? What were its traits? What were the conditions favorable to Israel during this period? How did their location aid the Israelites? Wherein were the Israelites one people? How did their religious institutions keep them together? What were the unfavorable and dangerous elements in the condition of Israel? How were they in danger from the native races? What was lacking in the government of Israel? What two tribes were in rivalry? What was the effect of this jealousy? What analogy is found in ancient history? How is the same principle illustrated in modern times? What evil tendency was manifested in Israel through nearly all its history? What causes are assigned for this tendency? What was the office of a judge in Israel? How were the judges appointed? What was their authority? How widely did their rule extend? What resulted from these evil tendencies in Israel? How many oppressors were there? Who were the first oppressors? Over what part of the country was the first oppression? Who delivered Israel from it? What was the second oppression? What part of the country suffered from it? Who was the deliverer? Where was the battle fought? What was the third oppression, and where? Who delivered Israel? What was the fourth oppression? Where was it? Who was the deliverer? Where was the victory won? What was the fifth oppression? Over what part of the country was it? Who delivered Israel from it? What was the sixth oppression? Over what part of the land was it? Who delivered from it? What was the last oppression? How did it differ from the others? What three names are associated in the deliverance from its power? What are the three general aspects of this period? Subjects for Special Papers. THE ISRAELITE REPUBLIC. THE CAREER OF GIDEON. THE VOW OF JEPHTHAH. THE FAILURE OF SAMSON. SHILOH AND THE TABERNACLE. FAMILY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. [Illustration: MODERN JERUSALEM.] FOOTNOTE: [F] With Jephthah is associated the only instance of human sacrifice offered to Jehovah in all Bible history; and this was by an ignorant freebooter, in a part of the land farthest from the instructions of the tabernacle and the priesthood. When we consider that the practice of human sacrifice was universal in the ancient world, and that not only captives taken in war but also the children of the worshipers were offered (2 Kings 3. 26, 27; Mic. 6. 7), this fact is a remarkable evidence of the elevating power of the Israelite worship. FIFTH STUDY. THE RISE OF THE ISRAELITE EMPIRE. The coronation of Saul (B. C. 1095) marks an epoch in the history of Israel. From that point, for five hundred years, the chosen people were under the rule of kings. I. =THE CAUSES LEADING TO THE MONARCHY.= The kingdom was not an accidental nor a sudden event. There had been a gradual preparation for it through all the period of the judges. 1. Note the =tendency toward settled government=. In the time of Gideon the people desired him to become a king (Judg. 8. 22, 23). His son attempted to make himself a king, but failed (Judg. 9). We find judges setting up a semi-royal state, and making marriages for their children outside of their tribe (Judg. 12. 9, 13, 14). Judges associating their sons with themselves (Judg. 10. 4; 1 Sam. 8. 1, 2). All these show a monarchical trend in the time. 2. Another cause was the =consolidation of the surrounding nations=. In the days of the conquest there were few kings in the lands neighboring Palestine. We read of "lords" and "elders," but no kings, among the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Phenicians (Judg. 3. 3; 1 Sam. 5. 8; Num. 22. 7). But a wave of revolution swept over all those lands, as about the same time over Greece; and very soon we find that every nation around Israel had its king (1 Sam. 21. 10; 11. 1; 22. 3; 2 Sam. 5. 11). The movement of Israel toward monarchy was in accordance with this spirit. 3. There was a =danger of invasion=, which impelled the Israelites to seek for a stronger government (1 Sam. 12. 12). They felt themselves weak, while other nations were organized for conquest, and desired a king for leader in war. 4. Then, too, the =rule of Samuel= led the Israelites to desire a better organization of the government. For twenty years they had enjoyed the benefit of a wise, strong, and steady rule. They felt unwilling to risk the dangers of tribal dissension after the death of Samuel, and therefore they sought for a king. 5. But underlying all was the =worldly ambition= of the people. They were not willing to remain the people of God, and work out a peculiar destiny. They wished to be like the nations around, to establish a secular state, to conquer an empire for themselves (1 Sam. 8. 5-20). It was this worldly spirit, whose results Samuel saw, which made him unwilling to accede to the wish of the Israelites. But the very things against which he warned them (1 Sam. 8. 11-18) were just what they desired. II. =THE CHARACTER OF THE ISRAELITE KINGDOM.= When men change their plans God changes his. He desired Israel to remain a republic, and not to enter into worldly relations and aims. When, however, the Israelites were determined, God gave them a king (1 Sam. 8. 22); but his rule was not to be like that of the nations around Israel. We ascertain the divine ideal of a kingdom for his chosen people: 1. =It was a theocratic kingdom.= That is, it recognized God as the supreme ruler, and the king as his representative, to rule in accordance with his will, and not by his own right. Only as people and king conformed to this principle could the true aims of the kingdom be accomplished (1 Sam. 12. 13-15). And if the king should deviate from this order, he should lose his throne. Disobedience to the divine will caused the kingdom to pass from the family of Saul to that of David (1 Sam. 13. 13, 14; 15. 26). 2. =It was a constitutional kingdom.= The rights of the people were carefully guaranteed, and there was a written constitution (1 Sam. 10. 25). Nearly all the Oriental countries have always been governed by absolute monarchs; but Israel was an exception to this rule. The people could demand their rights from Rehoboam (1 Kings 12. 3, 4). Ahab could not take away nor even buy Naboth's vineyard against its owner's will (1 Kings 21. 1-3). No doubt the rights of the people were often violated; but the violation was contrary to the spirit of the monarchy. 3. =It was regulated by the prophets.= The order of prophets had a regular standing in the Israelite state. The prophet was a check upon the power of the king, as a representative both of God's will and the people's rights. He spoke not only of his own opinions, but by the authority of God. Notice instances of the boldness of prophets in rebuking kings (1 Sam. 15. 16-23; 2 Sam. 12. 1-7; 1 Kings 13. 1-6; 17. 1; 22. 7-17). The order of prophets was like the House of Commons, between the king and the people. III. =THE REIGN OF SAUL.= (B. C. 1095-1055.) 1. This may be divided into two parts: 1.) _a period of prosperity_, during which Saul ruled well, and freed Israel from its oppressors on every side (1 Sam. 14. 47, 48); 2.) then a _period of decline_, in which Saul's kingdom seems to be falling in pieces, and only preserved by the prowess and ability of David. After David's exile the Philistines again overran Israel, and Saul's reign ended in defeat and death. 2. We observe that Saul's reign was =a failure=, and left the tribes in worse condition than it found them. 1.) He failed _in uniting the tribes_; for tribal jealousies continued (1 Sam. 10. 27), and at the close of his reign broke out anew in the establishment of rival thrones (2 Sam. 2. 4, 8, 9). 2.) He failed _in making friends_. He alienated Samuel, and with him the order of prophets (1 Sam. 15. 35); he alienated David, the ablest young man of his age, and the rising hope of Israel, and drove him into exile (1 Sam. 21. 10); he alienated the entire order of the priests, and caused many of them to be massacred (1 Sam. 22. 18). 3.) He failed _to advance religion_; left the tabernacle in ruins; left the ark in seclusion; broke up the service; and drove the priests whom he did not murder into exile (1 Sam. 22. 20-23). 4.) He failed _to liberate Israel_; at his death the yoke of the Philistines was more severe than ever before (1 Sam. 31. 1-7). The most charitable view of Saul was that he was insane during the latter years of his life. The cause of his failure was a desire to reign as an absolute monarch, and an unwillingness to submit to the constitution of the realm. IV. =THE REIGN OF DAVID.= (B. C. 1055-1015.) This was a brilliant period; for it was led by a great man, in nearly every respect the greatest after Moses in Israelite history. 1. Notice the =condition of Israel at his accession=. This will throw into relief the greatness of his character and his achievements. 1.) It was a _subject people_; under Philistine yoke; its warriors slain; many of its cities deserted; David himself probably at first tributary to the King of Gath. 2.) It was a _disorganized people_. The tribes were divided; national unity was lost; and two thrones were set up, one at Hebron, the other at Mahanaim (2 Sam. 2. 4-9). 3.) It was a _people without religion_. The tabernacle was gone; the ark was in neglect; there was no altar and no sacrifice; the priests had been slain. We can scarcely imagine Israel at a lower ebb than when David was called to the throne. 2. We ascertain =David's achievements=; the results of his reign. 1.) _He united the tribes._ At first crowned king by Judah only, later he was made king over all the tribes, by the desire of all (2 Sam. 5. 1-5). During his reign we find but little trace of the old feud between Ephraim and Judah, though it was not dead, and destined yet to rend the kingdom asunder. 2.) _He subjugated the land._ The conquest of Palestine, left incomplete by Joshua, and delayed for three hundred years, was finished at last by David in the capture of Jebus or Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5. 6, 7), in the overthrow of the Philistines (2 Sam. 5. 17-25), and in the final capture of their capital city (1 Chron. 18. 1). At last Israel was possessor of its own land. [Illustration: EMPIRE OF DAVID] 3.) _He organized the government._ He established a capital (2 Sam. 5. 9). He built a palace (2 Sam. 5. 11). Notice that the builders were from Tyre, showing that the Israelites were not advanced in the arts. He established a system of government, with officers in the court and throughout the realm (1 Chron. 27. 25-34). Contrast all this with Saul, who ruled from his tent, like a Bedouin sheik. 4.) _He established an army._ There was a royal body-guard, probably of foreigners, like that of many European kings in modern times (2 Sam. 8. 18; 15. 18). There was a band of heroes, like Arthur's Round Table (2 Sam. 23. 8-39). There was "the host," the available military force, divided into twelve divisions, one on duty each month (1 Chron. 27. 1-15). 5.) _He established religion._ No sooner was David on the throne than he brought the ark out of its hiding-place, and gave it a new home in his capital (1 Chron. 16. 1). The priesthood was organized, and divided into courses for the service of the tabernacle (1 Chron. 23. 27-32; 24. 1-19). He wrote many psalms, and caused others to be written, for the worship of God. Two prophets stood by his throne (1 Chron. 29. 29), and two high-priests stood by the altar (1 Chron. 24. 3). This organization and uplifting of the public worship had a great effect upon the kingdom. 6.) _He conquered all the surrounding nations._ These wars were largely forced upon David by the jealousy of the neighboring kingdoms. In turn his armies conquered and annexed to his dominions the land of the Philistines (1 Chron. 18. 1), Moab (2 Sam. 8. 2), Syria, even to the great river Euphrates (2 Sam. 8. 3-6); Edom (2 Sam. 8. 14), Ammon, and the country east of Palestine (2 Sam. 10. 1-14; 12. 26-31). The empire of David thus extended from the frontier of Egypt to the Euphrates River, fulfilling the promise of Josh 1. 4. It was at least six times the area of the twelve tribes. 7.) We may add that _he reigned as a theocratic king_. He realized more than any other monarch the divine ideal of a ruler, and so was "the man after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13. 14); if not altogether in personal character, yet in the principles of his government. He respected the rights of his subjects, had a sympathy for all people, obeyed the voice of the prophets, and sought the interests of God's cause.[G] Blackboard Outline. =I. Cau. lea. Mon.= 1. Ten. tow. set. gov. 2. Con. sur. nat. 3. Dan. inv. 4. Ru. Sam. 5. Wor. am. peo. =II. Char. Isr. Kin.= 1. Theo. kin. 2. Cons. kin. 3. Reg. by pro. =III. Rei. Sau.= 1. Pros. and Dec. 2. Fai. 1.) Un. tri. 2.) Mak. fri. 3.) Adv. rel. 4.) Lib. Isr. =IV. Rei. Dav.= 1. Con. Isr. acc. 1.) Sub. 2.) Dis. 3.) Wit. rel. 2. Dav. Achiev. 1.) Uni. tri. 2.) Sub. la. 3.) Org. gov. 4.) Est. ar. 5.) Est. rel. 6.) Conq. surr. nat. 7.) Rei. theo. kin. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What event marks an epoch in Israelite history? What were the causes leading to the monarchy? What events in the period of the judges show a tendency toward settled government? What changes in government in the surrounding nations helped to bring on the monarchy in Israel? From what source did external danger lead the Israelites to desire a king? How had Samuel unconsciously helped to prepare the way for a kingdom? What worldly spirit promoted the same result? What kind of a kingdom did God intend for Israel? What is a theocratic kingdom? Wherein was Israel an exception among Oriental kingdoms? By what institution was the kingdom regulated? Name some instances of prophets rebuking kings. Into what two parts may Saul's reign be divided? Wherein was Saul a failure? How did he fail in gaining and holding friends? What was the condition of Israel when David came to the throne? What were the achievements of David? What great incomplete work did David finish? What did he do in the organization of his kingdom? What was the arrangement of his army? What were his services to the cause of religion? What nations did he conquer? What was the extent of his empire? In what spirit did he rule? Subjects for Special Papers. HOW THE REPUBLIC BECAME A MONARCHY. THE EARLY LIFE OF DAVID. DAVID AS HERO, STATESMAN, AND POET. DAVID'S TRAINING FOR THE THRONE. SAMUEL, THE FOUNDER OF THE PROPHETIC ORDER. THE CAUSES AND RESULTS OF ABSALOM'S REBELLION. FOOTNOTE: [G] With regard to David's crimes against Uriah and his wife, note that no other ancient monarch would have hesitated to commit such an act, or would have cared for it afterward; while David submitted to the prophet's rebuke, publicly confessed his sin, and showed every token of a true repentance. SIXTH STUDY. THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISRAEL. The reign of Solomon (B. C. 1015-975) may be regarded as the culminating period in the history of Israel. But, strictly speaking, the latter part of David's reign and only the former part of Solomon's constitute "the golden age of Israel;" for Solomon's later years manifested a decline, which after his death rapidly grew to a fall. I. =THE REIGN OF SOLOMON.= 1. =His claim to the throne.= He was one of the youngest of David's sons, the second child of Bath-sheba, born during the culmination of David's reign (1 Chron. 22. 7-9). He obtained the throne by the decree of David, by the choice of God, as the one among David's children best fitted to reign (1 Chron. 28. 5, 6). The principle of primogeniture, or the special right of the eldest son, was not fixed in those times. 2. =His accession= was marked by the execution of three men, Adonijah (1 Kings 2. 24, 25), Joab (1 Kings 2. 28-34), and Shimei (1 Kings 2. 36-46). Two of these had conspired against him, and the third was the last survivor of the house of Saul, and a possible rival for the throne. Their death was dictated by policy, and probably by justice. His throne would not be secure while these men lived. 3. =His empire= embraced all the lands from the Red Sea to the Euphrates, and from the Mediterranean to the Syrian desert, except Phenicia, which was isolated by the Lebanon Mountains. 1.) Besides Palestine he ruled over Edom, Moab, Ammon, Syria (here referring to the district having Damascus as its capital), Zobah, and Hamath. 2.) On the Gulf of Akaba, Ezion-geber was his southern port (1 Kings 9. 26); on the Mediterranean, Gaza (Azzah) was his limit; in the extreme north, Tiphsah, by the Euphrates (1 Kings 4. 24); in the desert, Tadmor, afterward Palmyra (1 Kings 9. 18). 4. =His foreign relations= were extensive, for the first and only time in the history of Israel. 1.) His earliest treaty was _with Tyre_ (Phenicia), whose king had been his father's friend (1 Kings 5. 1). What this alliance brought to Solomon (1 Kings 5. 6-10; 2 Chron. 2. 3-14). 2.) His relations _with Egypt_; in commerce (1 Kings 10. 28, 29); in marriage, a bold departure from Israelite customs (1 Kings 3. 1). Probably Psalm 45 was written upon this event. 3.) _With Arabia_, the land bordering on the southern end of the Red Sea (1 Kings 10. 1-10, 14, 15). 4.) _With India_, which is probably referred to in 1 Kings 9. 26-28. 5.) _With Spain_, probably meant in 1 Kings 10. 22. 5. =His buildings.= 1.) Of these the greatest, the most costly, and the most famous was _the temple_ (1 Kings 6. 1). With this building notice: (_a_) The courts and open square, with an inner court inside for the priests only (2 Chron 4. 9). (_b_) The porch (2 Chron 3. 4). (_c_) The holy place (2 Chron. 3. 8; 1 Kings 6. 17). (_d_) The holy of holies (1 Kings 6. 19, 20). (_e_) The chambers for the priests (1 Kings 6. 5, 6). 2.) _His own palace_, situated south of the temple precincts, in the district called Ophel. Its name derived from its columned entrance (1 Kings 7. 1, 2). 3.) _His fortified cities_ (1 Kings 9. 17-19). 4.) _His aqueducts_, some of which may still be seen (Eccl. 2. 4-6). No King of Israel ever built so many public works as did Solomon. 6. But all was not bright in the reign of Solomon. We must notice also =his sins=, for they wrought great results of evil in the after years. 1.) That which led to all his other sins was _foreign marriages_ (1 Kings 11. 1-4). These were the natural and inevitable result of his foreign relations, and were probably effected for political reasons as well as to add to the splendor of his court. 2.) His _toleration of idolatry_, perhaps actual participation in it (1 Kings 11. 5-8). We cannot over-estimate the harm of Solomon's influence in this direction. At once it allied him with the lower and evil elements in the nation, and lost to him the sympathy of all the earnest souls.[H] 3.) Another of Solomon's sins, not named in Scripture, but referred to in many legends of the East, was his _devotion to magical arts_. He appears in Oriental traditions as the great master of forces in the invisible world, engaging in practices forbidden by the law of Moses (Lev. 19. 31; Deut. 18. 10, 11). II. =GENERAL ASPECTS OF ISRAEL IN THE REIGN OF SOLOMON.= 1. =It was a period of peace.= For sixty years there were no wars. This gave opportunity for development, for wealth, and for culture. 2. =It was a period of strong government.= The age of individual and tribal energy was ended, and now all the life of the nation was gathered around the throne. All the tribes were held under one strong hand; tribal lines were ignored in the government of the empire (1 Kings 4. 7-19); every department was organized. 3. =It was a period of wide empire.= It was Israel's opportunity for power in the East; for the old Chaldean empire had broken up, the new Assyrian empire had not arisen, and Egypt was passing through a change of rulers and was weak. For one generation Israel held the supremacy in the Oriental world. 4. =It was a period of abundant wealth.= (1 Kings 3. 12, 13; 4. 20; 10. 23, 27.) The sources of this wealth were: 1.) The _conquests_ of David, who had plundered many nations and left his accumulated riches to Solomon (1 Chron. 22. 14-16). 2.) The _tribute_ of the subject kingdoms, doubtless heavy (1 Kings 10. 25). 3.) _Commerce_ with foreign countries, Egypt, Arabia, Tarshish, and Ophir, in ancient times was not carried on by private enterprise, but by the government. The _trade_ of the East from Egypt and Tyre passed through Solomon's dominions, enriching the land. 4.) There were also _taxes_ laid upon the people (1 Kings 4. 7; 12. 4). 5.) The erection of _public buildings_ must have enriched many private citizens and made money plenty. 5. =It was a period of literary activity.= The books written during this epoch were Samuel, Psalms (in part), Proverbs (in part), and perhaps Ecclesiastes and Solomon's Song. Not all the writings of Solomon have been preserved (1 Kings 4. 32, 33). III. =DANGERS OF THE PERIOD.= There was an Arabian tradition that in Solomon's staff, on which he leaned, there was a worm secretly gnawing it asunder. So there were elements of destruction under all the splendor of Solomon's throne. 1. =The absolute power of the king.= David had maintained the theocratic constitution of the state; Solomon set it aside and ruled with absolute power in all departments. He assumed priestly functions (1 Kings 8. 22, 54, 64); he abolished tribal boundaries in his administration (1 Kings 4. 7-19); he ignored both priests and prophets, and concentrated all rule in his own person. 2. =The formal character of the worship.= There was a magnificent temple and a gorgeous ritual, but none of the warmth and personal devotion which characterized the worship of David. The fervor of the Davidic psalms is wanting in the literature of Solomon's age. 3. =Luxury and corruption of morals.= These are the inevitable results of abundant riches and worldly association. We do not need the warnings in Prov. 2. 16-19; 5. 3-6, etc., to know that a flood of immorality swept over Jerusalem and Israel. 4. =The burden of taxation.= With a splendid court, an immense harem, and a wealthy nobility came high prices and high taxes; the rich growing richer rapidly, the poor becoming poorer. The events of the next reign show how heavy and unendurable these burdens grew. 5. =Heathen customs.= With the foreign peoples came the toleration of idolatry, its encouragement, and all the abominations connected with it. Jeroboam could not have established his new religion (1 Kings 12. 28) if Solomon had not already patronized idol-worship. 6. Underlying all was the old =tribal jealousy= of Ephraim and Judah, fostered by an able leader (1 Kings 11. 26), ready to break out in due time, and to destroy the empire. After all, it is uncertain whether the reign of Solomon was a golden or only a gilded age. Blackboard Outline. =I. Rei. Sol.= 1. Cl. thr. 2. Acc. 3. Emp. [Lands. Cities] 4. For. rel. 1.) Ty. 2.) Eg. 3.) Ar. 4.) Ind. 5.) Sp. 5. Buil. 1.) Tem. 2.) Pal. 3.) For. cit. 4.) Aque. 6. Sins 1.) For. mar. 2.) Tol. idol. 3.) Mag. =II. Gen. Asp. Isr.= 1. Pea. 2. Str. gov. 3. Abun. weal. 1.) Conq. 2.) Trib. 3.) Com. 4.) Tax. 5). Pub. build. 5. Lit. art. =III. Dan. Per.= 1. Abs. pow. 2. For. wor. 3. Lux. cor. mor. 4. Bur. tax. 5. Hea. cus. 6. Tri. jeal. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What is meant by the Golden Age of Israel? Who was Solomon? How did Solomon obtain the throne? What events marked his accession? What lands were included in his empire? What were the frontier cities of the empire? With what foreign countries did Solomon have relations? What resulted from his alliance with Tyre? What innovation came from Egypt? Who visited Solomon from Arabia? What were the early names of Spain and India? What four classes of buildings were erected by Solomon? What were the different parts of his temple? What was the name given to Solomon's palace? Name some of the cities which he built and fortified. What other public works did he build? What three kinds of sin did Solomon commit? What was his motive in seeking foreign marriages? Name five general aspects of Israel in Solomon's reign. What were the benefits of the peace at that time? What was the characteristic of Solomon's administration? What opportunity did the age give to a great empire for Israel? What were the sources of the wealth in Solomon's age? How was it a period of literary activity? What ancient legend illustrates the dangers of Solomon's age? What were some of these dangers? Wherein did Solomon set aside the Israelite constitution? What was the defect in the religion of Solomon's time? What evils resulted from the wealth of that time? What caused heavy taxation? What heathen customs were introduced? What showed that tribal jealousy was still existing? Subjects for Special Papers. THE CHARACTER OF SOLOMON. WAS AN EMPIRE FOR ISRAEL DESIRABLE? THE WRITINGS OF SOLOMON. TARSHISH AND OPHIR. THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON. SOLOMON IN ORIENTAL LEGENDS. [Illustration: THE DIVISION OF SOLOMON'S EMPIRE.] FOOTNOTE: [H] Notice that while the prophets had been friendly to David, they were strongly opposed to Solomon, and gave aid to his enemy Jeroboam (1 Kings 11. 29-39). SEVENTH STUDY. THE RIVAL THRONES.--ISRAEL. The splendors of Solomon's reign passed away even more suddenly than they arose. In less than a year after his death his empire was broken up, and two quarreling principalities were all that was left of Israel. I. Let us ascertain the =CAUSES OF THE DIVISION OF ISRAEL=. These were: 1. =The oppressive government of Solomon.= (1 Kings 12. 3, 4.) How far the complaints of the people were just, and to what degree they were the pretexts of an ambitious demagogue, we have no means of knowing. But it is evident that the government of Solomon, with its court, its palaces, its buildings, and its splendor, must have borne heavily upon the people. Probably, also, the luxury of living among the upper classes, so suddenly introduced, led to financial crises and stringency of money, for which the government was held responsible by the discontented people. 2. =The opposition of the prophets.= (1 Kings 11. 11-13, 29-33.) It is a suggestive fact that the prophets were opposed to Solomon and friendly to Jeroboam. Their reason was a strong resentment to the foreign alliances, foreign customs, and especially to the foreign idolatries which Solomon introduced. 3. =Foreign intrigues=, especially in Egypt. The old kingdoms were not friendly to this Israelite empire, which loomed up so suddenly, and threatened to conquer all the East. Solomon's attempt to win the favor of Egypt by a royal marriage (1 Kings 3. 1) was a failure, for two enemies of Solomon, driven out of his dominions, found refuge in Egypt, were admitted to the court, married relatives of the king, and stirred up conspiracies against Solomon's throne (1 Kings 11. 14-22, 40). Another center of conspiracy was Damascus, where Rezon kept up a semi-independent relation to Solomon's empire (1 Kings 11. 23-25). 4. =Tribal jealousy=; the old sore broken out again. Notice that Jeroboam belonged to the haughty tribe of Ephraim (1 Kings 11. 26), always envious of Judah, and restless under the throne of David. The kingdom of the ten tribes was established mainly through the influence of this tribe. 5. =The ambition of Jeroboam= was another force in the disruption. It was unfortunate for Solomon's kingdom that the ablest young man of that time in Israel, a wily political leader and an unscrupulous partisan, belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, and from his environment was an enemy of the then existing government. The fact that he was sent for from Egypt to the assembly at Shechem showed collusion and preparation of the scheme (1 Kings 12. 2, 3). 6. But even all these causes might have been insufficient but for =the folly of Rehoboam= (1 Kings 12. 13, 14). If David had been on the throne that day an empire might have been saved. But Rehoboam, brought up in the purple, was without sympathy with the people, tried to act the part of a tyrant, and lost his ancestral realm (1 Kings 12. 16). II. =THE RESULTS OF THE DIVISION.= These were partly political, partly religious, and were neither of unmixed good nor unmixed evil. 1. The =political results= were: 1.) The entire _disruption_ of Solomon's empire. Five kingdoms took the place of one; Syria on the north, Israel in the center, Judah west of the Dead Sea, Moab east of the Dead Sea, and Edom on the extreme south. Moab was nominally subject to Israel, and Edom to Judah; but only strong kings, like Ahab in Israel and Jehoshaphat in Judah, could exact the tribute (2 Kings 3. 4; 1 Kings 22. 47). 2.) With the loss of empire came _rivalry_, and consequent _weakness_. For fifty years Israel and Judah were at war, and spent their strength in civil strife, while Syria was growing powerful, and afar in the north-east Assyria was threatening. 3.) As a natural result came at last _foreign domination_. Both Israel and Judah fell under the power of other nations, and were swept into captivity as the final result of the disruption wrought by Jeroboam. 2. =The religious results= of the division were more favorable. They were: 1.) _Preservation of the true religion._ A great empire would inevitably have been the spiritual ruin of Israel, for it must have been worldly, secular, and, in the end, idolatrous. The disruption broke off relation with the world, put an end to schemes of secular empire, and placed Israel and Judah once more alone among their mountains. In this sense the event was from the Lord, who had higher and more enduring purposes than an earthly empire (1 Kings 12. 15-24). 2.) _Protection of the true religion._ Israel on the north stood as a "buffer," warding off the world from Judah on the south. It was neither wholly idolatrous nor wholly religious, but was a debatable land for centuries. It fell at last, but it saved Judah; and in Judah was the unconscious hope of the world. 3.) _Concentration of the true religion._ The departure of Israel from the true faith led to the gathering of the priests, Levites and worshiping element of the people in Judah (2 Chron. 11. 13-16). Thus the Jewish kingdom was far more devoted to Jehovah than it might otherwise have been. III. =THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.= From the division the name _Israel_ was applied to the northern kingdom and _Judah_ to the southern. We notice the general aspects of Israel during its history, from B. C. 975 to 721. 1. =Its extent.= It embraced all the territory of the twelve tribes except Judah and a part of Benjamin (1 Kings 12. 19-21), held a nominal supremacy over Moab east of the Dead Sea, and embraced about 9,375 square miles, while Judah included only 3,435. Israel was about equal in area to Massachusetts and Rhode Island together. 2. =Its capital= was at first _Shechem_, in the center of the land (1 Kings 12. 25); then, during several reigns, at _Tirzah_ (1 Kings 15. 33; 16. 23); then at _Samaria_ (1 Kings 16. 24), where it remained until the end of the kingdom. That city after a time gave its name to the kingdom (1 Kings 21. 1), and after the fall of the kingdom to the province in the center of Palestine (John 4. 3, 4). 3. =Its religion.= 1.) Very soon after the institution of the new kingdom Jeroboam established a national religion, the _worship of the calves_ (1 Kings 12. 26-33). This was not a new form of worship, but had been maintained in Israel ever since the Exodus (Exod. 32. 1-4). In character it was a modified idolatry, half-way between the pure religion and the abominations of the heathen. 2.) Ahab and his house introduced the Phenician _worship of Baal_, an idolatry of the most abominable and immoral sort (1 Kings 16. 30-33), but it never gained control in Israel, and was doubtless one cause of the revolution which placed another family on the throne. 3.) Through the history of Israel there remained a remnant of _worshipers of Jehovah_, who were watched over by a noble array of prophets, and though often persecuted remained faithful (1 Kings 19. 14, 18). 4. =Its rulers.= During two hundred and fifty years Israel was governed by nineteen kings, with intervals of anarchy. Five houses in turn held sway, each established by a usurper, generally a soldier, and each dynasty ending in a murder. 1.) _The House of Jeroboam_ (B. C. 974 to 953), with two kings, followed by a general massacre of Jeroboam's family (1 Kings 15. 29, 30). 2.) _The House of Baasha_ (B. C. 953-929), two kings, followed by a civil war (1 Kings 16. 16-22). 3.) _The House of Omri_ (B. C. 929-884), four kings, of whom Omri and Ahab were the most powerful. This was the age of the prophet Elijah and the great struggle between the worship of Jehovah and of Baal (1 Kings 18. 4-21). 4.) _The House of Jehu_ (B. C. 884-772), five kings, under whom were great changes of fortune. The reign of Jehoahaz saw Israel reduced to a mere province of Syria (2 Kings 13. 1-9). His son Joash threw off the Syrian yoke, and _his_ son, Jeroboam II., raised Israel almost to its condition of empire in the days of Solomon (2 Kings 14. 23-29). His reign is called "the Indian summer of Israel." 5.) _The House of Menahem_ (B. C. 772-759), two reigns. Israel had by this time fallen under the power of Assyria, now dominant over the East, and its history is the story of kings rising and falling in rapid succession, with long intervals of anarchy. From the fall of this dynasty there was only the semblance of a state until the final destruction of Samaria, B. C. 721. 5. =Its foreign relations.= During the period of the Israelite kingdom we see lands struggling for the dominion of the East. The history of Israel is interwoven with that of Syria and Assyria, which may now be read from the monuments. 1.) There was a _Period of Division_ (B. C. 975-929). During the reign of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha there were constant wars between Israel, Syria, and Judah; and as a result all were kept weak, and "a balance of power" was maintained. 2.) Then followed a _Period of Alliance_ (B. C. 929-884)--that is, between Israel and Judah, during the sway of the House of Omri. The two lands were in friendly relations, and the two thrones were connected by marriages. As a result both Israel and Judah were strong, Moab and Edom were kept under control, and Syria was held in check. 3.) Next came the _Period of Syrian Ascendency_ (B. C. 884-840). During the first two reigns of the House of Jehu Syria rose to great power tinder Hazael, and overran both Israel and Judah. At one time Israel was in danger of utter destruction, but was preserved. Near the close of these periods the dying prophecy of Elisha was uttered (2 Kings 13. 14-25). 4.) _The Period of Israelite Ascendency_ (B. C. 840-772). Israel under Jeroboam II. took its turn of power, and for a brief period was again dominant to the Euphrates, as in the days of Solomon. 5.) _The Period of Assyrian Ascendency_ (B. C. 772-721). But its glory soon faded away before that of Assyria, which was now rapidly becoming the empire of the East. Its rise meant the fall of Israel; and under the unfortunate Hoshea Samaria was taken, what was left of the ten tribes were carried captive, and the kingdom of Israel was extinguished (2 Kings 17. 1-6). IV. =THE FATE OF THE TEN TRIBES.= There has been much idle discussion over this subject and some absurd claims set up; for example, that the Anglo-Saxon race are descended from the ten lost tribes--a statement opposed to all history, to ethnology, and to every evidence of language. 1. After their deposition nearly all the Israelites, having lost their national religion and having no bond of union, =mingled with the Gentiles= around them and lost their identity, just as hundreds of other races have done. The only bond which will keep a nation long alive is that of religion. 2. Some remained in Palestine, others returned thither and formed the =nucleus of the Samaritan people=, a race of mingled origin (2 Kings 17. 24-29). 3. Some of those who remained in the East retained their religion, or were revived in it, and later became a part of the =Jews of the dispersion=; though "the dispersion" was mainly Jewish, and not Israelite. 4. A few =families united with the Jews= returned with them to Palestine after the exile, yet retained their tribal relationship; for example, Anna (Luke 2. 36). Blackboard Outline. =I. Cau. Div.= 1. Opp. gov. 2. Opp. pro. 3. For. int. 4. Tri. jeal. 5. Am. Jer. 6. Fol. Re. =II. Res. Div.= 1. Pol. res. 1.) Dis. emp. 2.) Riv. and weak. 3.) For. dom. 2. Rel. res. 1.) Pres. rel. 2.) Pro. rel. 3.) Conc. rel. =III. Kin. Isr.= 1. Ext. 9,375. 2. Cap. 1.) Sh. 2.) Tir. 3.) Sam. 3. Rel. 1.) Wor. cal. 2.) Wor. Ba. 3.) Wor. Jeh. 4. Rul. 1.) Hou. Jer. 2.) Hou. Ra. 3.) Hou. Om. 4.) Hou. Je. 5.) Hou. Men. 5. For. Rel. 1.) Per. Div. 2.) Per. All. 3.) Per. Syr. Asc. 4.) Per. Isr. Asc. 5.) Per. Ass. Asc. =IV. Fat. Ten. Tri.= 1. Min. Gen. 2. Sam. peo. 3. Disp. 4. Jews. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What causes may be assigned for the division of Israel? How far was Solomon's government responsible? What was the relation of the prophets to the revolution? What foreign intrigues contributed to break up the kingdom? Who were connected with these intrigues? What ancient jealousy aided, and how? What man led in the breaking up of the kingdom? Whose folly enabled the plot to succeed? What were the political results of the division? What were its religious results? How was this event from the Lord? How long did the new kingdom of Israel last? What was its extent? What were its three successive capitals? What three forms of religion were found in it? Who was the first king of the ten tribes? What family introduced foreign idolatry? How many kings ruled over the ten tribes? What were the five royal houses? Which house raised Israel almost to its ancient power? What is this period of prosperity called? Who was the greatest King of Israel? With what other history is that of Israel interwoven? What were the five periods in the foreign relations of Israel? By what kingdom was Israel destroyed? Who was its last king? What finally became of the ten tribes? CHART OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL, From the DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM TO THE CAPTIVITY Together with the Contemporaneous PROPHETS AND KINGS OF JUDAH Subjects for Special Papers. THE HISTORY AND TRAITS OF THE TRIBE OF EPHRAIM. SHECHEM, AND EVENTS CONNECTED WITH IT. THE RELIGION OF THE TEN TRIBES. QUEEN JEZEBEL AND HER INFLUENCE. THE MISSION OF ELIJAH. ELISHA AND HIS INFLUENCE. CHART OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL, From the DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM TO THE CAPTIVITY Together wiht the Contemporaneous PROPHETS AND KINGS OF JUDAH Years B.C. 975 970 960 950 940 930 920 910 900 DIVISION OF KINGDOM _Dynasty of Jeroboam_ --- ·······················> _Dynasty of Baasha_ Jeroboam I.[1] <······················> _Dynasty of Omri_ ------------+ Nadab[1] <···························· KINGS } ++ Baasha[1] Elah Zimri OF } +-------------------------------+ Tibni ISRAEL } +----- Omri[1] --- ------------+ Ahab[1] +------------------- KINGS } Rehoboam[1] OF } -----------------+ Abijam[1] JUDAH } +-+ Asa[2] +------------------------------------------+ Jehoshaphat[2] +------------- --- Iddo ------------- Ahijah Azariah Elijah Prophets -------------------- ---- Jehu ----------- -------- Shemaiah Hanani Elisha --------------- ---- ----- 900 890 880 870 860 850 840 830 820 810 _Dynasty of Omri_ ····················> _Dynasty of Jehu_ <········································································· Ahab[1] ---+ Ahaziah II.[1] +-+ Jehoram I.[1] ISRAEL +----------+ Jehu[2][1] +----------------------------+ Jehoahaz I.[2] +---------------+ Jehoash II.[1] Jehosaphat[2] [3]-+-------------+ Jeroboam II.[1] -----------+ Jehoiam II.[1] [3]--------+--------------- JUDAH -------+---+ Ahaziah II.[1] ++ Athaliah[1] +-----+ Jehoash I.[2] Elijah +----------------------------------------+ Amaziah[2][1] ----- +--------------------------- Micaiah Zechariah ----- Elisha ------ -------------------------------------------------------------- Jehaziel Jonah -------- ------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 810 800 790 780 770 760 750 740 730 720 _Dynasty of Jehu_ ········································> Jeroboam II.[1] Zachariah[1] --------------------------- _Anarchy_ + Shallum Menakeu[1] +---------+ Pekahiah[1] ISRAEL +-+ Pekah[1] Hoshea[1] _Captivity_ +--------------------- -------- Azariah or Uzziah[2] ---------------------------------------------------- Jotham[2] JUDAH ---------------+ Ahaz[1] +---------------+ Hez.[2] Hosea +------ Joel ----------------------------------------------------------- PROPHETS -------------------------------------- Isaiah Amos ----------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Micah ----------------------------- Oded ----- _Fish and See, N.Y._ FOOTNOTES: [1] Did evil in the sight of the Lord [2] Did right in the sight of the Lord [3] Viceroy with his father EIGHTH STUDY. THE RIVAL THRONES--JUDAH. I. =GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH.= 1. =Its territory.= It embraced the mountain portion of the tribe of Judah, from the Dead Sea to the Philistine plain; a part of Benjamin, in which tribe the larger part of Jerusalem stood; and also a part of Dan (2 Chron. 11. 10). Simeon was nominally within its border, but was practically given up to the Arabians of the desert; Edom was tributary, though often in rebellion, and finally independent (1 Kings 22. 47; 2 Kings 8. 20); Philistia was outside of its boundary. Its extent was about 3,435 square miles, about half the area of Massachusetts. [Illustration: JUDAH.] 2. =Its government= was a monarchy, with but one family on the throne, the line of David, in direct succession, with the exception of Athaliah's usurpation (2 Kings 11. 1-3), through nineteen reigns. 3. =Its religion.= Through all the history we find two forms of worship strongly opposed to each other, yet both rooted in the nation. 1.) The worship of Jehovah through the temple, the priesthood, and the prophets. 2.) But side by side with this pure religion was the worship of idols upon "high places," probably begun as a form of worshiping Jehovah, but degenerating into gross and immoral idolatry. There was a struggle going on constantly between these two elements in the state, the spiritual and the material. Notwithstanding the efforts of reforming kings like Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, the general tendency was downward. II. =THE DURATION OF THE KINGDOM.= The kingdom lasted from B. C. 975 to 587--more than one hundred and thirty years longer than Israel. Reasons for its endurance may have been: 1. =Its retired situation=: hemmed in by mountains and deserts; at a distance from the ordinary lines of travel; not in the direct path of conquest from any other nation. Judah had few foreign wars as compared with Israel. 2. =The unity of its people.= They were not ten tribes loosely connected, but one tribe, with a passionate love of their nation and a pride in their blood. 3. =Its concentration at Jerusalem.= Through all its history there was but one capital, where the palace of the king and the temple of the Lord were standing together. 4. =The reverence for the House of David= also kept the people together. There was no change in dynasty, and the loyalty of the people grew stronger through the generations toward the family on the throne. There being no usurpers, the throne was permanent until destroyed by foreign power. 5. =The purity of its religion= tended to keep the nation united, and to keep it in existence. No bond of self-interest or of blood will hold a people together as strongly as the tie of religion. Judah's strength was in the measure of her service of God, and when she renounced Jehovah her doom came speedily. III. =PERIODS IN THE HISTORY.= Though Judah was not without political contact with other nations, yet its history is the record of internal events rather than external relations. We may divide its history into four epochs: 1. =The first decline and revival.= (B. C. 975-889.) 1.) The reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah marked a decline indicated by the Egyptian invasion and the growth of idolatry. 2.) The reign of Asa and Jehoshaphat showed a revival in reformation, progress, and power. Under Jehoshaphat Judah was at the height of prosperity. This was the time of peace with Israel, and of strength at home and abroad (2 Chron. 17. 5; 20. 30). 2. =The second decline and revival.= (B. C. 889-682.) 1.) For nearly two hundred years after the death of Jehoshaphat the course of Judah was downward. Edom was lost under Jehoram (2 Chron. 21. 8); the Baalite idolatry was introduced by the usurping queen, Athaliah (2 Kings 11. 18); the land was again and again invaded under Joash and Amaziah, and Jerusalem itself was taken and plundered. 2.) But a great reformation was wrought under Hezekiah, who was the best and wisest of the kings of Judah, and the kingdom again rose to power, even daring to throw off the Assyrian yoke and defy the anger of the mightiest king then on the earth. At this time came the great event of the destruction of the Assyrian host (2 Kings 19. 30). 3. =The third decline and revival.= (B. C. 682-610.) 1.) The reforms of Hezekiah were short lived, for his son Manasseh was both the longest in reigning and the wickedest of the kings, and his late repentance did not stay the tide of corruption which he had let loose (2 Kings 21. 10-17; 2 Chron. 33. 1-18). The wickedness of Manasseh's reign was the great moral cause of the kingdom's destruction, for from it no reform afterward could lift the mass of the people. 2.) Josiah, the young reformer, attempted the task, but his efforts, though earnest, were only measurably successful, and after his untimely death the kingdom hastened to its fall (2 Kings 23. 29). 4. =The final decline and fall.= (B. C. 610-587.) 1.) The political cause of the destruction of the kingdom was the rise of Babylon. The old Assyrian empire went down about 625 B. C., and a struggle followed between Babylon and Egypt for the supremacy. Judah took the side of Egypt, which proved to be the losing side. 2.) After several chastisements and repeated rebellions Jerusalem was finally destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and the kingdom of Judah was extinguished, B. C. 587. Blackboard Outline. =I. Gen. Asp. Kin. Jud.= 1. Terr. Tri. Jud. 3,435 m. 2. Gov. mon. 3. Rel. 1.) Jeh. 2.) Idol. =II. Dur. Kin.= 1. Ret. sit. 2. Un. peo. 3. Conc. Jer. 4. Rev. Ho. Dav. 5. Pur. rel. =III. Per. Hist.= 1. Fir. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. Reho. Abi. 2.) Rev. As. Jehosh. 2. Sec. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. 200 y. 2.) Rev. Hez. 3. Thi. dec. rev. 1.) Dec. Man. 2.) Rev. Jos. 4. Fin. dec. fal. 1.) Ris. Bab. 2.) Des. Jer. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. What was embraced in the kingdom of Judah? What was its area? How was it governed? What was its religion? What was associated with the worship of Jehovah? What was the religious tendency of the people? How long did the kingdom of Judah last? What were the causes of this duration? What were the periods in its history? Under what kings was the first decline? Who led in a revival and reformation? Who was the greatest of the kings of Judah? What took place during the second decline? Who was the usurping queen? What did this queen try to do? Who wrought the second great reformation? What was the character of this king? What great destruction of Judah's enemies took place at this time? Which reign was both longest, wickedest, and most evil in its results? Who attempted a third reformation? What was the result of his endeavor? What was the political cause of the fall of Judah? By what nation and by what king was Jerusalem finally destroyed? Subjects for Special Papers. HISTORY OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH. THE HOUSE OF DAVID. THE RELIGION OF JUDAH. THE PROPHETS OF JUDAH. ANCIENT JERUSALEM. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH IN RELATION TO EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. [Illustration: SOLOMON'S DOMINIONS, THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH & ISRAEL AND THE LANDS of the CAPTIVITIES] NINTH STUDY. THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. I. We must distinguish between the =CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL=, or the ten tribes, and =THAT OF JUDAH=. 1. The captivity of Israel took place B. C. 721, that of Judah B. C. 587. The southern kingdom lasted one hundred and thirty-four years longer than the northern. 2. Israel was taken captive by the Assyrians under Sargon; Judah by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar. 3. Israel was taken to the lands south of the Caspian Sea (2 Kings 17. 6); Judah to Chaldea, by the river Euphrates (Psa. 137. 1). 4. Israel never returned from its captivity, which was the end of its history; but Judah was brought back from its captivity and again became a flourishing state, though subject to foreign nations during most of its after history. II. There were =THREE CAPTIVITIES= of Judah, all in one generation and all under one Chaldean king, Nebuchadnezzar: 1. =Jehoiakim's captivity.= (B. C. 607.) Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah, placed upon the throne after the battle of Megiddo, in which Josiah perished (2 Kings 23. 34). In the war between Pharaoh-nechoh of Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar (then joint king of Babylon with his father Nabopolassar) Jehoiakim, as a vassal of Nechoh, aided the Egyptians. After the defeat of Nechoh, Nebuchadnezzar marched to punish Jehoiakim. He was called away from the siege of Jerusalem by the death of his father and the necessity of hastening to Babylon to assume the government. Jehoiakim was spared, but a number of the nobles of Judah were taken to Babylon, perhaps as hostages for the king's good conduct. For three years Jehoiakim obeyed Nebuchadnezzar; then he rebelled, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and many of the leading people among the Jews were carried captive to Babylon (2 Kings 24. 1, 2). Among these captives was Daniel the prophet (Dan. 1. 1-6). From this event the _seventy years_ of the captivity were dated (Jer. 27. 22; 29. 10), though the kingdom of Judah remained for twenty years longer. Jehoiakim, the king, was not taken away, though bound in chains for that purpose (2 Chron. 36. 6); he reigned several years after this event, but under suspicion of the Chaldeans, and his end was ignoble (Jer. 22. 18, 19; 36. 30). 2. =Jehoiachin's captivity.= (B. C. 598.) Jehoiachin was the son of Jehoiakim (called Jeconiah, 1 Chron 3. 16; Jer. 24. 1; and Coniah, Jer. 22. 24). He reigned only three months, and was then deposed by Nebuchadnezzar and carried to Babylon. With the young king and the royal family were taken thousands of the people of the middle classes, whom the land could ill spare (2 Kings 24. 8-16). Among these captives was Ezekiel, the prophet-priest (Ezek. 1. 1-3). 3. =Zedekiah's captivity.= (B. C. 587.) He was the uncle of Jehoiachin, and the son of the good Josiah (2 Kings 24. 17), and had been made king by Nebuchadnezzar. But he too rebelled against his master, to whom he had taken a solemn oath of fidelity (2 Chron. 36. 13). The Chaldeans were greatly incensed by these frequent insurrections, and determined upon a final destruction of the rebellious city. After a long siege Jerusalem was taken, and the king was captured while attempting flight. He was blinded and carried away to Babylon, the city was destroyed, and nearly all the people left alive were also taken to the land of Chaldea (2 Kings 25. 1-11). After this captivity the city lay desolate for fifty years, until the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus (B. C. 536). III. Let us ascertain the =CAUSES OF THE CAPTIVITY=; why the Jews were taken up bodily from their own land and deported to a distant country. 1. Such deportations were a frequent =policy of Oriental conquerors=. The Orientals had three ways of dealing with a conquered people: that of extermination or wholesale butchery, which is frequently described upon the Assyrian monuments; that of leaving them in the land under tribute, as subjects of the conqueror; and that of deporting them _en masse_ to a distant land. Frequently, when the interests of the empire would be served by changing the population of a province, this plan was carried out. Thus the ten tribes were carried to a land near the Caspian Sea, and other people were brought to Samaria in their place (2 Kings 17. 6, 24). A similar plan with respect to Judah was proposed by Sennacherib (2 Kings 18. 31, 32), but was thwarted by the destruction of the Assyrian host. 2. We have already noticed another cause of the captivity in the frequent =rebellions of the kings of Judah= against the authority of Babylon. The old spirit of independence, which had made Judah the leader of the twelve tribes, was still strong, and it was fostered by the hope of universal rule, which had been predicted through centuries, even while the kingdom was declining. The prophets, however, favored submission to Babylon; but the nobles urged rebellion and independence. Their policy was pursued, and the unequal strife was taken up more than once. The rebellions always failed; but after several attempts the patience of Nebuchadnezzar was exhausted, and the destruction of the rebellious city and the deportation of the population was ordered. 3. But underneath was another and a deeper cause--in =the rivalry of Egypt and Babylon=. Whenever in history one nation has been dominant there has been another nation, next in strength, as its rival to check its supremacy. Thus Greece stood in the way of Persia, Carthage in the way of republican Rome, and Parthia in the way of imperial Rome. In the earlier days Assyria (and after Assyria Babylon) was the controlling power in the East; but it was always opposed by Egypt, which, though less powerful, was yet strong enough to be dangerous to Assyrian or Chaldean supremacy. Palestine stood on the border of the Assyrian Empire toward Egypt; and in Palestine there were two parties, the Assyrian and the Egyptian; one counseling submission to Assyria, the other seeking alliance with Egypt against Assyria (Isa. 31. 1-3; 37. 6). After Babylon took the place of Nineveh the Chaldean party took the place of the Assyrian, as the Chaldean Empire was the successor of the Assyrian Empire. The prophets, led by Jeremiah, always counseled submission to Babylon, and warned against trusting to Egypt, which had never given any thing more than promises; but the nobles were of the Egyptian party, and constantly influenced the kings to renounce the yoke of Babylon, and to strike for independence by the aid of Egypt. Under Egyptian influence the later kings of Judah made attempt after attempt to rebel against the Chaldean Empire. But the expected help from Egypt never came, and Judah was left again and again to suffer the wrath of Babylon (Jer. 37. 5-9). The necessity of making the frontier of the Chaldean Empire safe on the side toward Egypt was the political cause for the deportation of the tribe of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar dared not to leave a people on the soil who would constantly endanger the entrance to his dominions by plotting with the Egyptians. He therefore took up the Jews bodily, placed them in the center of his empire, and turned the land of Judah into a desolation. 4. There was underlying all these political reasons a moral cause in =the divine purpose to discipline the nation=. The captivity was a weeding-out process, to separate the precious from the vile, the false from the true, the "remnant" from the mass. There had always been two distinct elements in Israel and Judah--the spiritual, God-fearing few, and the worldly, idol-worshiping many. The worldly and irreligious took part in the resistance to the King of Babylon; and the worshipers of Jehovah, led by the prophets, urged submission. As a result, the nobles and the warriors, for the most part, perished; while the better part, the strength and hope of the nation, were carried away captive. Notice that the captives were mainly of the middle class, the working element (2 Kings 24. 14-16). Those who had submitted to the Chaldeans were also taken away (2 Kings 25. 11). The prophet expressed greater hope for those taken away than for those left behind (Jer. 24. 1-10). The captives were the root of Judah, out of which in due time a new nation should rise. IV. =THE CONDITION OF THE CAPTIVES IN CHALDEA= was far better than we are apt to suppose. 1. They received =kind treatment=; were regarded not as slaves or prisoners, but as colonists. At a later captivity by the Romans the Jews were sold as slaves and dispersed throughout the empire. Such wholesale enslavement was common after a conquest. For some reason the Chaldeans did not enslave the Jews at the time of their conquest, but colonized them as free people. This may have been because the captives as a class were of the "Chaldean party" among the Jews, and hence were treated in a measure as friends. The letter of Jeremiah to the exiles (Jer. 29. 1-7) shows that they were kindly dealt with in Chaldea. Some of them were received at the court and rose to high station in the realm (Dan. 1. 1-6). 2. =Their organization was maintained.= The exiles were not merged into the mass of the people where they were living, but retained their own system, and were recognized as a separate colony. Their dethroned kings had a semi-royal state, and at death an honorable burial (Jer. 52. 31-34; 34. 4, 5). The captives were governed by elders, rulers of their own nation (Ezek. 8. 1; 14. 1; 20. 1). Such a system is still pursued in the East, where the government is according to race as well as according to locality; that is, the different races in one province will each have separate rulers. There was a "prince of Judah" at the close of the captivity (Ezra 1. 8). This fact of a national organization was a fortunate one for the exiles. If they had been dispersed as slaves throughout the empire, or even had been scattered as individuals, they would soon have been merged among the Gentiles, and would have lost their identity as a people. But maintaining as a separate race, and in Jewish communities, they were readily gathered for a return to their own land when the opportunity came. 3. =Their law and worship were observed.= There were no sacrifices, for these could be offered only at Jerusalem in the temple. But the people gathered for worship and for the study of the law far more faithfully than before the exile; for adversity is a school of religious character far more than prosperity. The exile would naturally exert an influence in the direction of religion. While the irreligious and idolatrous among the captives would soon drop out of the nation and be lost among the Gentiles, the earnest, the spiritual, and the God-fearing would grow more intense in their devotion. The institutions which date from the captivity (noticed below, under "Results of Captivity") are an evidence of this fact. 4. =They were instructed by prophets and teachers.= Jeremiah lived for some time after the beginning of the captivity, made a visit to Babylon, and wrote at least one letter to the exiles (Jer. 13. 4-7; 29. 1-3). Daniel lived during the captivity, and, though in the court, maintained a deep interest in his people, and comforted them by his prophecies. Ezekiel was himself one of the captives, and all his teachings were addressed to them (Ezek. 1. 1-3). Many evangelical and eminent Bible scholars are of the opinion that the latter part of Isaiah, from the fortieth chapter to the end, was given by a "later Isaiah" during the exile; but whether written at that time or earlier, it must have circulated among the captives and given them new hope and inspiration. The radical change in the character of the Jews which took place during this period shows that a great revival swept over the captive people and brought them back to the earnest religion of their noblest ancestors. 5. =Their literature was preserved and enlarged.= Internal evidence shows that the Books of the Kings were finished and the Books of the Chronicles written at this time or soon afterward; the Books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, and other of the minor prophets were given; and a number of the best psalms were composed during this epoch, as such poems are likely to be written in periods of trial and sorrow. Out of the many psalms we cite Psalms 124, 126, 129, 130, 137, as manifestly written during the captivity. The exile was an age of life and vigor to Hebrew literature. V. =THE RESULTS OF THE CAPTIVITY.= In the year 536 B. C. the city of Babylon was taken by Cyrus, King of the combined Medes and Persians. One of his first acts was to issue an edict permitting the exiled Jews to return to their own country and rebuild their city. Not all the Jews availed themselves of the privilege, for many were already rooted in their new homes, where they had been for two generations. But a large number returned (Ezra 2. 64), and re-established the city and state of the Jews. The captivity, however, left its impress upon the people down to the end of their national history, and even to the present time. 1. =There was a change in language=, from Hebrew to Aramaic or Chaldaic. The books of the Old Testament written after the restoration are in a different language from the earlier writings. After the captivity the Jews needed an interpreter in order to understand their own earlier Scriptures. Allusion to this fact is given in Neh. 8. 7. The Chaldee of Babylon and the Hebrew were sufficiently alike to cause the people during two generations to glide imperceptibly from one to the other, until the knowledge of their ancient tongue was lost to all but the scholars. 2. =There was a change in habits.= Before the captivity the Jews were a secluded people, having scarcely any relation with the world. The captivity brought them into contact with other nations, and greatly modified their manner of living. Hitherto they had been mostly farmers, living on their own fields; now they became merchants and traders, and filled the world with their commerce. Rarely now do we find a Jew who cultivates the ground for his support. They are in the cities, buying and selling. This tendency began with the Babylonian captivity, and has since been strengthened by the varied experiences, especially by the persecutions of the Jews during the centuries. 3. =There was a change in character.= This was the most radical of all. Before the captivity the crying sin of Judah, as well as of Israel, was its tendency to idolatry. Every prophet had warned against it and rebuked it; reformers had risen up; kings had endeavored to extirpate, but all in vain; the worshipers of God were the few, the worshipers of idols were the many. After the captivity there was a wonderful transformation. From that time we never read of a Jew bowing his knee before an idol. The entire nation was a unit in the service of Jehovah. Among all the warnings of the later prophets, and the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, there is no allusion to idolatry. That crime was utterly and forever eradicated; from the captivity until to-day the Jews have been the people of the one, invisible God, and intense in their hatred of idols. We may not know all the causes of this change, but some of them were: 1.) The fact that the idolatrous element largely perished, and the spiritual element formed the bulk of the captives. 2.) The idol-worshipers among the captives would naturally be less loyal to the national ideas, and would more readily assimilate with the heathen; while the religious among the exiles would grow all the more devoted to their religion as their only hope in trial. 3.) The most ardent lovers of their country and their religion would be the most eager to return after the exile; hence, the new state was founded by zealous Jews, who gave it religious spirit. So in modern times the spirit of the Pilgrims and the Puritans gave tone to New England, and through New England to America. 4. =There were new institutions= as the result of the captivity. Two great institutions arose during the captivity: 1.) The _synagogue_, which grew up among the exiles, was carried back to Palestine, and was established throughout the Jewish world. This was a meeting of Jews for worship, for reading the law, and for religious instruction. It had far greater influence than the temple after the captivity; for while there was but one temple in all the Jewish world, there was a synagogue in every city and village where Jews lived; and while the temple was the seat of a priestly and ritualistic service, the synagogue promoted freedom of religious thought and utterance. Out of the synagogue, far more than the temple, grew the Christian Church. 2.) _The order of scribes_ was also a result of the captivity. The days of direct inspiration through prophets were passing away, and those of the written Scripture, with a class of men to study and interpret it, came in their place. During the captivity the devout Jews studied the books of their literature, the law, the psalms, the histories, and the prophets. After the captivity arose a series of scholars who were the expounders of the Scriptures. Their founder was Ezra, at once a priest, a scribe, and a prophet (Ezra 7. 1-10), who arranged the books and in a measure completed the canon of Old Testament Scripture. 5. =There was a new hope, that of a Messiah.= From the time of the captivity the Jewish people looked forward with eager expectation to the coming of a Deliverer, the Consolation of Israel, the "Anointed One" (the word Messiah means "anointed"), who should lift up his people from the dust, exalt the throne of David, and establish an empire over all the nations. This had been promised by prophets for centuries before the exile, but only then did it begin to shine as the great hope of the people. It grew brighter with each generation, and finally appeared in the coming of Jesus Christ, the King of Israel. 6. From the captivity there =were two parts of the Jewish people=; the Jews of Palestine, and the Jews of the dispersion. 1.) The Jews of Palestine, sometimes called Hebrews (Acts 6. 1), were the lesser in number, who lived in their own land and maintained the Jewish state. 2.) The Jews of the dispersion were the descendants of those who did not return after the decree of Cyrus (Ezra 1. 1), but remained in foreign lands and gradually formed Jewish "quarters" in all the cities of the ancient world. They were the larger in number, and later were called "Grecian Jews," or Hellenists, from the language which they used (Acts 6. 1). Between these two bodies there was a close relation. The Jews of the dispersion had synagogues in every city (Acts 15. 1), were devoted to the law, made constant pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and were recognized as having one hope with the Jews of Palestine. The traits of the two bodies were different, but each contributed its own element toward the making of a great people. Blackboard Outline. =I. Cap. Isr. Jud.= 1. Isr. 721. Jud. 587. 2. Ass. Sar.--Chal. Neb. 3. Cas. Sea.--Riv. Eup. 4. Nev. ret.--Bro. b. =II. Thr. Cap. Jud.= 1. Jeh. cap. 607. 2. Jehn. cap. 598. 3. Zed. cap. 587. =III. Caus. Cap.= 1. Pol. Or. conq. 2. Reb. kgs. Jud. 3. Riv. Eg. Bab. 4. Div. pur. dis. =IV. Con. Cap.= 1. Kin. tre. 2. Org. main. 3. La. wor. obs. 4. Ins. pro. tea. 5. Lit. pre. enl. =V. Res. Cap.= 1. Ch. lan. 2. Ch. hab. 3. Ch. char. 4. Ne. ins. (syn. scr.) 5. Hop. Mess. 6. Two. par. peo. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. From what earlier captivity must that of Judah be distinguished? What were the dates of these two captivities? By whom was each nation taken captive? Where was each nation carried captive? What followed the captivity in each nation? What were the three captivities of Judah? What were the events of the first captivity of Judah? Who were carried away at this time? What date is connected with this captivity? What were the events of the second captivity of Judah? Who were then taken away? What were the events of the third captivity? How long was Jerusalem left in ruins? By whom, and when, were the Jews permitted to return from captivity? What causes may be assigned for the carrying away of the Jews? What were the customs of ancient Oriental conquerors? How did the conduct of the kings of Judah bring on the captivity? What rivalry between nations was a cause of the captivity? What were the two parties in the kingdom of Judah? How was the carrying away of the Jews a political necessity? What was the moral cause of the captivity? How were the captive Jews treated? What evidences show that their national organization was continued during the captivity? Why was this fact a fortunate one for the exiles? What customs of the Jews were observed during the captivity? What instructors did the Jews have during this period? What was the condition of Jewish literature during the captivity? What events followed the decree of Cyrus? Did all the exiles of the Jews return? What change in language was wrought by the captivity? What change in habits followed the captivity? What great change in religion came as the result of the captivity? How can that change be accounted for? What two institutions arose during the captivity? What new hope arose at this time? How were the Jews divided after the captivity? Subjects for Special Papers. THE GREAT ORIENTAL EMPIRES. THE CITY OF BABYLON. THE PROPHETS OF THE CAPTIVITY. THE PSALMS OF THE CAPTIVITY. THE REIGN OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. THE FALL OF BABYLON. TENTH STUDY. The Jewish Province. From the return of the exiles, B. C. 536, to the final destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans, A. D. 70, the history of the chosen people is closely interwoven with that of the East in general. During most of this time Judea was a subject province, belonging to the great empires which rose and fell in succession. For a brief but brilliant period it was an independent state, with its own rulers. As most of this period comes between the Old and New Testaments its events are less familiar to Bible readers than the other portions of Israelite history. We therefore give more space than usual to the facts, only selecting the most important, and omitting all that have no direct relation with the development of the divine plan in the Jewish people. I. The history divides itself into =FOUR PERIODS=, as follows: 1. =The Persian period=, B. C. 536 to 330, from Cyrus to Alexander, while the Jewish province was a part of the Persian Empire. Very few events of these two centuries have been recorded, but it appears to have been a period of quiet prosperity and growth. The Jews were governed by their high-priests under the general control of the Persian government. The principal events of this period were: 1.) _The second temple._ (B. C. 535-515.) This was begun soon after the return from exile (Ezra 3. 1, 2, 8), but was not completed until twenty-one years afterward (Ezra 6. 15, 16). It was smaller and less splendid than that of Solomon, but was built upon the same plan. 2.) _Queen Esther's deliverance._ (B. C. 474.) This took place, not in Judea, but in Shushan (Susa), the capital of the Persian Empire. The king referred to as Ahasuerus was probably Xerxes, and the events of Esther's elevation and intercession took place after the defeat of his invasion of Greece. The whole story is in accord with both Persian customs and the character of Xerxes. 3.) _Ezra's reformation._ (B. C. 450.) The coming to Jerusalem of Ezra the scribe was a great event in Israelite history; for, aided by Nehemiah, he led in a great reformation of the people. He found them neglecting their law and following foreign customs. He awakened an enthusiasm for the Mosaic law, aroused the patriotism of the people, and renewed the ancient faith. His work gave him the title of "the second founder of Israel." 4.) _The separation of the Samaritans._ (B. C. 409.) For the origin of the Samaritans, see 2 Kings 17. 22-34. They were a mingled people, both in race and religion; but until the captivity were permitted to worship in the temple at Jerusalem. After the return from Babylon the Samaritans and the Jews grew further and further apart. The Samaritans opposed the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 4. 9-24), and delayed it for many years; and a century later strove to prevent Nehemiah from building the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 4. 2). Finally they established a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, and thenceforth the two races were in bitter enmity (John 4. 9). 5.) _The completion of the Old Testament canon._ The prophets after the restoration were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; but the author of most of the latest books was Ezra, who also arranged the Old Testament nearly, perhaps fully, in its present form. Thenceforward no more books were added, and the scribe or interpreter took the place of the prophet. [Illustration: ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.] 2. =The Greek period.= (B. C. 330-166.) In the year 330 B. C. Alexander the Great won the empire of Persia in the great battle of Arbela, by which the sovereignty of the East was transferred from Asia to Europe, and a new chapter in the history of the world was opened. Alexander died at the hour when his conquests were completed, and before they could be organized and assimilated; but the kingdoms into which his empire was divided were all under Greek kings, and were all Greek in language and civilization. Judea was on the border between Syria and Egypt, and belonged alternately to each kingdom. We divide this period into three subdivisions. 1.) _The reign of Alexander._ (B. C. 330-321.) The Jews had been well treated by the Persian kings and remained faithful to Darius, the last King of Persia, in his useless struggle. Alexander marched against Jerusalem, determined to visit upon it heavy punishment for its opposition, but (according to tradition) was met by Jaddua, the high-priest, and turned from an enemy to a friend of the Jews. 2.) _The Egyptian supremacy._ (B. C. 311-198.) In the division of Alexander's conquests Judea was annexed to Syria, but it soon fell into the hands of Egypt, and was governed by the Ptolemies (Greek kings of Egypt) until 198 B. C. The only important events of this period were the rule of Simon the Just, an exceptionally able high-priest, about 300 B. C., and the translation of the Old Testament into the Greek language for the use of the Jews of Alexandria, who had lost the use of Hebrew or Chaldee. This translation was made about 286 B. C., according to Jewish tradition, and is known as the Septuagint version. It was regarded as an act of sacrilege by the Palestinian Jews to translate their Holy Scriptures into the language of heathens, and for centuries the anniversary of the completion of the Septuagint was observed as a day of humiliation and prayer. 3.) _The Syrian supremacy._ (B. C. 198-166.) About the year 198 B. C. Judea fell into the hands of the Syrian kingdom, also ruled by a Greek dynasty, the Seleucidæ, or descendants of Seleucus. This change of rulers brought to the Jews a change of treatment. Hitherto they had been permitted to live undisturbed upon their mountains, and to enjoy a measure of liberty, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters. But now the Syrian kings not only robbed them of their freedom, but also undertook to compel them to renounce their religion by one of the most cruel persecutions in all history. The temple was desecrated and left to ruin, and the worshipers of Jehovah were tortured and slain, in the vain endeavor to introduce the Greek and Syrian forms of idolatry among the Jews. Heb. 11, 33-40, is supposed to refer to this persecution. When Antiochus, the Syrian king, found that the Jews could not be driven from their faith, he deliberately determined to exterminate the whole nation. Uncounted thousands of Jews were slaughtered, other thousands were sold as slaves, Jerusalem was well nigh destroyed, the temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympius, and the orgies of the Bacchanalia were substituted for the Feast of Tabernacles. The religion of Jehovah and the race of the Jews seemed on the verge of utter annihilation in their own land. 3. =The Maccabean period.= (B. C. 166-40.) But the darkest hour precedes the day; the cruelties of the Syrians caused a new and splendid epoch to rise upon Israel. 1.) _The revolt of Mattathias._ In the year 170 B. C. an aged priest, Mattathias, unfurled the banner of independence from the Syrian yoke. He did not at first aim for political freedom, but religious liberty; but after winning a few victories over the Syrian armies he began to dream of a free Jewish state. He died in the beginning of the war, but was succeeded by his greater son, Judas Maccabeus.[L] 2.) _Judas Maccabeus_ gained a greater success than had been dreamed at the beginning of the revolt. Within four years the Jews recaptured Jerusalem and reconsecrated the temple. (The anniversary of this event was ever after celebrated in the Feast of Dedication, John 10. 22.) Judas ranks in history as one of the noblest of the Jewish heroes, and deserves a place beside Joshua, Gideon, and Samuel as a liberator and reformer. 3.) _The Maccabean dynasty._ Judas refused the title of king, but his family established a line of rulers who by degrees assumed a royal state, and finally the royal title. In the year 143 B. C. Jewish liberty was formally recognized, and the Maccabean princes ruled for a time over an independent state. Between 130 and 110 B. C. Edom, Samaria, and Galilee were added to Judea. The latter province had been known as "Galilee of the Gentiles" (Isa. 9. 1); but by degrees the foreigners withdrew, and the province was occupied by Jews who were as devoted and loyal as those of Jerusalem. [Illustration: ROMAN EMPIRE] 4.) _The rise of the sects._ About B. C. 100 the two sects, or schools of thought, the Pharisees and Sadducees, began to appear, though their principles had long been working. The Pharisees ("separatists") sought for absolute separation from the Gentile world and a strict construction of the law of Moses, while the Sadducees ("moralists") were liberal in their their theories and in their lives. 4. =The Roman period.= (B. C. 40-A. D. 70.) It is not easy to name a date for the beginning of the Roman supremacy in Palestine. It began in B. C. 63, when Pompey the Great (afterward the antagonist of Julius Cæsar) was asked to intervene between two claimants for the Jewish throne, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Pompey decided for Hyrcanus, and aided him by a Roman army. In his interest he besieged and took Jerusalem, and then placed Hyrcanus in power, but without the title of king. From this time the Romans were practically, though not nominally, in control of affairs. 1.) _Herod the Great._ We assign as the date of the Roman rule 40 B. C., when Herod (son of Antipater, an Edomite, who had been the general of Hyrcanus) received the title of king from the Roman Senate. From this time Palestine was regarded as a part of the Roman Empire. Herod was the ablest man of his age, and one of the most unscrupulous. He ruled over all Palestine, Idumea (ancient Edom), and the lands south of Damascus. [Illustration: PALESTINE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST] 2.) _Herod's temple._ Herod was thoroughly hated by the Jews, less for his character than for his foreign birth. To gain their favor he began rebuilding the temple upon a magnificent scale. It was not completed until long after his death, which took place at Jericho about the time when Jesus Christ, the true King of the Jews, was born (Matt. 2. 1, 2). 3.) _The tetrarchies._ By Herod's will his dominions were divided into four tetrarchies ("quarter-rulings," a title for a fourth part of a kingdom). Three of these were in Palestine--Archelaus receiving Judea, Idumea, and Samaria; Antipas (the Herod of Luke 4. 19, 20; 23. 7-11) receiving Galilee and Perea; and Philip (Luke 3. 1) having the district of Bashan. About A. D. 6 Archelaus was deposed, and a Roman, Coponius, was appointed the first Procurator of Judea, which was made a part of the prefecture of Syria. The rest of Jewish annals belongs properly to the New Testament history. II. Through these periods we notice the gradual =PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL=, which was steadily advancing. 1. =There was a political preparation.= Six centuries before Christ the world around the Mediterranean was divided into states, whose normal condition was war. At no time was peace prevalent over all the world at once. If Christ had come at that time it would have been impossible to establish the Gospel except through war and conquest. But kingdoms were absorbed into empires, empires rose and fell by turns, each with a larger conception of the nation than its predecessor. From the crude combination of undigested states in the Assyrian Empire to the orderly, assimilated, systematic condition of the Roman world was a great advance. Christ appeared at the only point in the world's history when the great nations of the world were under one government, with a system of roads such that a traveler could pass from Mesopotamia to Spain and could sail the Mediterranean Sea in perfect safety. 2. =There was a preparation of language.= The conquests of Alexander, though accomplished in ten years, left a deeper impress upon the world than any other two centuries of history. They gave to the whole of that world one language, the noblest tongue ever spoken by human lips, "a language fit for the gods," as men said. Through Alexander Greek cities were founded every-where in the East, Greek kingdoms were established, the Greek literature and the Greek civilization covered all the lands. That was the language in which Paul preached the Gospel, and in which the New Testament was written--the only language of the ancient world in which the thoughts of the Gospel could be readily expressed. While each land had its own tongue, the Greek tongue was common in all lands. 3. While these preparations were going on there was another in progress at the same time, =the preparation of a race=. We might point to the history of the Israelites from the migration of Abraham as a training; but we refer now to their special preparation for their mission after the restoration, B. C. 536. There was a divine purpose in the division of Judaism into two streams; one a little fountain in Palestine, the other a river dispersed over all the lands. Each branch had its part in the divine plan. One was to concentrate its energies upon the divine religion, to study the sacred books, to maintain a chosen people, whose bigotry, narrowness, and intolerance kept them from destruction; the other branch was out in the world, where every Jewish synagogue in a heathen city kept alive the knowledge of God, and disseminated that knowledge, drawing around it the thoughtful, spiritual minds who were looking for something better than heathenism. Palestine gave the Gospel, but the Jews of the dispersion carried it to the Gentiles, and each synagogue in the foreign world became the nucleus of a Christian Church, where for the first time Jew and Gentile met as equals. 4. Finally, there was the =preparation of a religion=. The Gospel of Christ was not a new religion; it was the new development of an old religion. As we study the Old Testament we see that each epoch stands upon a higher religious plane. There is an enlargement of spiritual vision between Abraham and Moses; between Moses and David; between David and Isaiah; between Isaiah and John the Baptist. Pharisee and Sadducee each held a share of the truth which embraced the best thought of both sects. The work of many scribes prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, and just when revelation was brought up to the highest level, when a race was trained to apprehend and proclaim it, when a language had been created and diffused to express it, when the world was united in one great brotherhood of states, ready to receive it--then, in the fullness of times, the Christ was manifested, who is over all, God blessed forever. Blackboard Outline. =I. Four Per.= 1. Per. per. 1.) Sec. tem. 2.) Q. Es. del. 3.) Ez. ref. 4.) Sep. Sam. 5.) Com. O. T. can. 2. Gk. per. 1.) Rei. Alex. 2.) Eg. sup. 3.) Syr. sup. 3. Macc. per. 1.) Rev. Mat. 2.) Jud. Macc. 3.) Macc. dyn. 4.) Ri. sec. 4. Rom. per. 1.) Her. Cr. 2.) Her. tem. 3.) Tetr. =II. Prep. Gosp.= 1. Pol. prep. 2. Prep. lan. 3. Prep. rac. 4. Prep. rel. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. With what history is that of the Jews interwoven during this period? What was the political condition of the Jews at this time? What are the four periods of this history? Who were the rulers of the Jews during the first period? What building was erected after the return from captivity? What great deliverance was effected by a woman? What great reforms were effected by a scribe? What title has been given to him? What were the events connected with the separation of the Samaritans? Who were the prophets of the restoration? By whom was the Old Testament canon arranged? What brought on the Greek period? What events of Jewish history were connected with Alexander the Great? Under what people did the Jews fall afterward? What were the events of the Egyptian rule? What is the Septuagint? How was its translation regarded by the Jews of Palestine? In what kingdom, after Egypt, did Judea fall? How was it governed by its new masters? Who instituted a great persecution? What was the effect of this persecution? Who led the Jews in revolt? What great hero arose at this time? What line of rulers arose in his family? What was the growth of the Jewish state at this time? What sects of the Jews arose? How did Judea fall under the Roman power? Whom did the Romans establish as king? What were his dominions? What building did he erect? How was his kingdom divided after his death? What finally became of Judea? Subjects for Special Papers. CYRUS THE EMANCIPATOR. THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. JUDAS MACCABEUS. THE JEWISH SECTS. HEROD THE GREAT. THE JEWS OF THE DISPERSION. FOOTNOTE: [L] The origin of this title is obscure. Some regard it as meaning "the hammer," like a similar name in the Middle Ages, Charles Martel. Others say that it was a part of the Hebrew inscription on the banner of Judas, "Micamo Ka Baalim Jehovah," "Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah?" Still others that it was made up as a sort of charm from the last letters of the words Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. The Maccabean princes were also called Asmoneans. THE Ten Minute Series OF Supplemental Lessons --FOR-- The Sunday School, --BY-- LORANUS E. HITCHCOCK. [Illustration: T]HE necessity of some instruction in the Bible, in order to supply the deficiencies which are unavoidable to any system of uniform lessons, is realized in every Sunday school. The International Lessons can only give detached portions of Scripture, and a supplemental lesson must be added to impart a general knowledge of the book as a whole. The full course of study includes five series of lessons, adapted to be used in any denomination. [Illustration] =I. The Life of Jesus.= =II. Studies about the Bible.= =III. Bible Geography.= =IV. Bible History.= =V. History of the Christian Church.= Two additional series of special interest to the Methodist Episcopal Church have been prepared, namely: =VI. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church.= =VII. Government of the Methodist Episcopal Church.= These lessons are arranged for use as graded studies for scholars ten years of age and upward. Each series contains thirty-six lessons, which can easily be learned in the course of a year, even if the study be suspended during the summer months. =Sample Set, 7 numbers, 35 cents.= =Price of each, per dozen, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents.= _New York: Hunt & Eaton._ _Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts._ BOOKS BY REV. JESSE L. HURLBUT, D.D. =Life of Christ.= Chautauqua Text-book, No. 38 $0 10 =Illustrative Notes on the Sunday-School Lesson.= Published yearly. With maps and blackboard lessons. Size, 8vo, bound in cloth 1 25 =Revised Normal Lessons.= Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, flexible 40 =Scripture Selections for Daily Bible Headings.= A Portion of the Bible for Every Day. Crown 8vo. Cloth. Gilt top, $1.50. Flexible leather, gilt edges 2 50 =Studies in the Four Gospels.= Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, flexible 40 =Supplemental Lessons for the Sunday-school.= Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, flexible 40 =The Manual of Biblical Geography.= A text-book of Bible History for the use of Students and Teachers, containing maps, plans, review charts, and colored diagrams. Illustrated leatherette. 4to 2 50 TRACTS FOR BIBLE STUDY. BIBLE LESSON LEAFLETS. First Series. Seven numbers. The Books of the Bible, Bible History, and The Holy Land. Per set, post-paid 03 Second Series. Eight numbers. Old Testament Characters. Per set, postpaid 04 Third Series. Seven numbers. Life of the Apostle Paul. Per set, postpaid 03 PALESTINE CLASS. By Bishop J. H. Vincent. No. 1. Pilgrim Grade. No. 2. Resident Grade. No. 3. Explorer Grade. No. 4. Jerusalem Grade. _Each, 2 cents. The four numbers for 6 cents._ YOUNG TRAVELERS' CLASS. BY MRS. M. G. KENNEDY. No. 1. The Journey. No. 2. Land and Kingdom. No. 3. By Hills and Waters. No. 4. Guided Through the Land. No. 5. In the City. No. 6. Young Travelers by the Sea-side. No. 7. Footsteps in the Holy Land. _Each, 2 cents. The seven numbers for 10 cents._ YOUNG FOLKS' WALKS AND TALKS WITH JESUS. BY MRS. M. G. KENNEDY. 1. Introductory, the Bible. 2. The Child and the Man. 3. The Chosen Twelve. 4. The Spreading Gospel Light. 5. Teaching by Parables. 6. A Little Talk with Jesus. 7. The Last Week. 8. Resurrection and Ascension. _Each, 2 cents. The eight numbers for 10 cents._ NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON. CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. The table of contents did not exactly match the numeration of the pages. It stated that the Preface began on page 5 when in actuality it began on page 7. The Chronological Table was shown to be on page 9 but that is the middle of the preface. It is actually located on page 6. In the HTML version, the links will take the reader to the actual place indexed instead of the page written. The rest of the table of contents appears accurate. The first four lessons have the questions for review in a list format. Beginning with lesson five this changes to paragraphs. Text uses both post-paid and postpaid. Page 46, "hinderances" changed to "hindrances" (spite of their hindrances) Page 51, repeated word "of" deleted. Original read (by the authority of of God) Page 77, "seige" changed to "siege" (from the siege of Jerusalem) 
45952	----	made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) THE EVOLUTION OF OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION THE EVOLUTION OF OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION BY W. E. ORCHARD, B.D. LONDON JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET 1908 TO My Wife PREFACE The substance of this book was originally delivered as a Course of Lectures to a week-night congregation. The Lecture form has been retained, and this accounts for the repetition of the leading ideas, while the practical interests of Church life account for the insistence on the religious value and lesson. It is hoped that this, which might be irritating to the professional student, may be helpful to the ordinary reader who is repelled by the technicality of critical works, and often fails to discern the devout spirit by which such works are inspired, or to discover what religious interest is served by them. Where everything is borrowed from other writers, and no claim to originality is made, detailed acknowledgment would be impossible, but the resolve to attempt some such course in place of the usual form of a week-night service was formed in the Hebrew class-room of Westminster College, Cambridge, while listening to the Lectures on Old Testament Theology and Messianic Prophecy, delivered by the Rev. Professor Dr. Skinner (now Principal), in which accurate scholarship was combined with a deep insight into the present religious importance of these subjects. Grateful acknowledgment is also due to the Rev. J.R. Coates, B.A., who kindly read through the proofs and made many valuable suggestions. W. E. ORCHARD. ENFIELD, _August, 1908_. CONTENTS LECTURE PAGE INTRODUCTION vii I. THE SEMITIC RACES 19 II. THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS 31 III. MOSAISM 55 IV. THE INFLUENCE OF CANAAN 83 V. PROPHETISM--EARLY STAGES 107 VI. THE RELIGION OF THE LITERARY PROPHETS 135 VII. THE EFFECT OF THE EXILE 169 VIII. THE WORK OF THE PRIESTS 195 IX. THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS 215 X. THE RELIGION OF THE WISE 241 XI. MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS 265 INTRODUCTION It is a matter of common knowledge that within the last few decades a tremendous change has come over our estimate of the value of the Old Testament, and that this change is of the gravest importance for our understanding of religion. But what the exact nature of the change is, and what we are to deduce from it, is a matter of debate, for the facts are only known to professional students and to a few others who may have been led to interest themselves in the subject. With some, for instance, the idea prevails that the Old Testament has been so discredited by modern research that its religious significance is now practically worthless. Others believe that the results arrived at are untrue, and regard them as the outcome of wicked attacks made upon the veracity of the Word of God by men whose scholarship is a cloak for their sinister designs or a mask of their incapacity to comprehend its spiritual message. There is perhaps a middle course open to some who have found a message of God to their souls in the Old Testament, and who, on hearing that the authorship of this book has been questioned or the historicity of that passage assailed, are unmoved, because they believe that it does not matter who wrote the Pentateuch or the Psalms so long as through these documents they hear the voice of the living Word of God. Here then is a subject on which there exists a distressing confusion, and, moreover, a subject in which ignorance plays no small part. Save with a few devout souls who have made a long and continuous study of the Scriptures, it may be doubted whether there is any widespread knowledge of the actual message of the Old Testament, even among Christian people. There are certainly many people willing to defend the authority of the Bible who spend very little time in reading it. The favourite Psalms and the evangelical passages of Isaiah are probably well known, and beyond this there is but the knowledge gained in early days, from which stand out in the memory the personalities of Samson and Saul, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the lion's den, together with the impressive stories of the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the fall of Jericho. A very little is probably carried away from the public reading of the Scriptures in places of worship. It cannot be said that this acquaintance conveys any real impression of the magnificent message that lies embedded in these thirty-nine books which go to make up the Old Testament. Now whatever harm may be charged to the modern methods, it can at least be claimed that neglected portions have been carefully studied, the meaning of obscure passages discovered, and much of importance and interest brought to light; but more than this, it has been discovered that the essential message of the Old Testament lies largely apart from those narratives and personalities that impress the superficial reader, and rather in the record of a gradual development of the conception of God and of His purpose in calling Israel to be the recipient of His self-disclosure. It has been found that the striking figures of the landscape are of less importance than the road that winds among them along which revelation moves to its final goal. It may be objected that the new inspiration, which so many who have studied the Scriptures by these methods claim to have felt, throws quite a new emphasis on our conception of the Old Testament and is revolutionary of all that we have been accustomed to believe concerning it; that the methods are such as could not legitimately be applied to the Word of God, and are the products of a criticism which is puffed up with a sense of its own superiority; and that the results are discreditable to the Old Testament, since they allege that some of the narratives are unhistorical, some passages and even whole books unauthentic, and traditions on which the gravest issues have been staked shown to have nothing more than a legendary basis. There is much in these objections that is natural, but much that is misunderstanding. It is true that the contribution which the Old Testament makes to religion is estimated differently from what it was fifty years ago, and it must be allowed that this brings a charge of having misunderstood the Scriptures against generations of scholars and saints. But it is admitted that all matters of knowledge are open to misunderstanding. It is no argument against the conception that the earth moves round the sun, that the contrary idea was held in other ages. We know that the understanding of the Old Testament has been obscured, often by those who ought to have been the greatest authorities on its meaning. Jesus read into the Scriptures a meaning unrecognised by the authorities of His day, and dealt with them in a fashion that was regarded as revolutionary. To some of the Scriptures He appealed as to a final authority, but others He regarded as imperfect and only suited to the time in which they were written. The Jews of His day venerated every letter of the sacred writings, and regarded the very copies of the Law as sacred to the touch, and yet on their understanding of the Scriptures they rejected the mission and message of Jesus. Christian scholarship has undoubtedly followed rather after the Rabbis than after Christ. The message of the Old Testament that the new methods have made clear certainly appears to be more in conformity with the Spirit of Christ than with that of His opponents, and if this is revolutionary then it is no new thing; religion always moves along such lines. Great offence has been caused and insuperable prejudice aroused among many by the name under which these methods have become known. The name, "higher criticism," conveys to most people a suggestion of carping fault-finding and an assumption of superiority. This is due to an entire misunderstanding of a technical term. Criticism is nothing more than the exercise of the faculty of judgment, and, moreover, judgment that ought to be perfectly fair. The sinister suggestion that is conveyed in the word is due to the fact that our criticisms are so often biassed by personal prejudices. But this only condemns our faults, and not the method. "Higher" criticism does not mean any assumption of superiority, but is simply a term used to distinguish it from "lower" criticism. The criticism that endeavours to ascertain the original text by a comparison of the various documents available is called _lower_, and that which deals with matters higher up the stream of descent by which the writings have been conveyed to us, namely, matters of date and authorship, is called _higher_ criticism. It might well be called literary and historical criticism, in distinction from textual criticism. It employs historical methods, and uses the simple tests of comparison and contemporaneity. For the understanding of a particular age, it prefers those documents that describe the times in which they were written, and give indirect evidence, rather than those histories which were written long after the event and which reveal a purpose other than the strictly historical. Fortunately, we have in the Old Testament many such contemporary and indirect witnesses in the writings of the Prophets. They are not consciously writing history, but they tell us indirectly what the practices of their day were, and especially what religious ideas were prevalent; for it is these things that they feel called upon to attack. With these reliable standards we can compare the regular histories, which were necessarily written at a much later age, and very often to serve some religious purpose. Now it is this method, which is surely a true and proper one, that has changed our estimate of the history and development of religion in Israel. Are we to condemn the method without examination because it destroys certain traditions about the Bible which we have received largely from Judaism?--the Judaism which could find no place for Jesus! But it will be answered that these methods yield results that are incompatible with the inspiration of the Bible, and are unworthy of God's revelation to us. But how are we to decide what is compatible with inspiration? We can only tell, surely, by seeing what these results are and by discovering whether they bring any inspiration to us. Can we be certain, without examining the facts, to what lines the revelation of God is to be restricted? Is this not coming to the Bible with a theory which we have manufactured and which will surely distort the facts? It will be said that anything less than absolute accuracy makes void any claim to be a Divine revelation. Let us consider what this means. We know that the historical spirit, which endeavours to see history as it actually happened quite apart from our desires or sympathies, is an ideal which has only emerged with the general spread of education, and that in ancient times history was written largely with a view to edification, and especially for giving such lessons as would lead to right principles being adopted for the future. It was not the accuracy of the material but suitability for its purpose that weighed with the historian. Now, with these conditions existing, was it impossible for God to speak to men through their conceptions of history, or had He to wait until the historical spirit prevailed? Could He not use the early legends which they believed, and through them bring the truth to men? We know that the greatest of all religious teachers did not scruple to embody the highest truths in such parables as lowly minds could receive. We may demand that revelation shall be infallible, but this would need in turn an infallible person to receive it, and even then an infallible interpreter. An infallible revelation would mean that there could never be any progress in revelation; that it would have to be given perfect in one process; that it would have to be authenticated to men by authority, since it would be beyond the understanding of a fallible mind; that it would break in upon every other experience, remain isolated, and never be grasped by that strong conviction which we call faith; and this would entail a destruction of the mental faculties of man, and an acknowledgment that communication between God and man is really impossible. Could not God speak to man in his infancy, and with the growing understanding would there not be growing light? Meanwhile, whatever we feel about these abstract principles, we ought to know the facts. In the pages that follow an endeavour is made to present the results at which a consensus of opinion has arrived. There will be no great time spent in argument for or against these facts. Such are to be sought in the scientific works and in the dictionaries, which alone can deal adequately with these facts, but since many altogether refuse to consider the facts because of the inferences which they think can be drawn from them, this book is an earnest plea for earnest men to consider whether it is not open to be shown that from these facts there comes to us a much clearer understanding of God's ways with man; a more certain conviction that in the past God has actually spoken through the Scriptures; a clue to a better understanding of the place Jesus occupies in the history of revelation; and what we all need greatly to-day: a preparation of heart that we may follow the leading of that Spirit who ever has and who ever will guide into all truth those who are willing to follow Him. The aim of this book is that the reader may feel that the voice which speaks in his own heart and the voice which has guided man through all his strange history is One, and is of God. THE SEMITIC RACES _Read, as Introduction to this Lecture, the Tenth Chapter of Genesis._ This is one of the most interesting documents in anthropology. It is an attempt at a scientific ethnology, and seems to have been expanded from the closing verses of the preceding chapter. It will be noticed that those verses are in poetical form (R.V.), and are likely to be very ancient. Note the principles of classification:-- (1) Geographical. It is a very incomplete summary of the peoples of the earth. Only those nations are mentioned that fill the horizon of the writer's knowledge. That horizon will be found to correspond very largely with that of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. (2) Prejudice. The evident kinship of some peoples is denied on the ground of dislike; for the same reason, Moab and Ammon, who are well known, are simply omitted. The real test of kinship is language, which is here ignored. The names are not to be taken as individuals. Of this the very form is witness: Ludim is plural, Mizraim is dual, Tarshish is the name of a place, and Amorite is gentilic. Notes:-- Verse 2. Madai = Medes. Javan = the Greeks, or more particularly, the Ionians. Verse 4. Tarshish is probably Spain. Kittim = the Cretans. Dodanim (read Rodanim 1 Ch. i. 7) = the inhabitants of Rhodes. Verse 6. Mizraim: the name for Egypt. Canaan: here and elsewhere said to be descended from Ham. Beyond all doubt the Canaanites were a Semitic people and spoke a language akin to Hebrew. Religious antagonism and the fact of their conquest demanded in the popular imagination a different ancestry. Verse 14. "Whence went forth the Philistines" is misplaced, and should follow after "Caphtorim" (Amos ix. 7). Verse 21. Eber: the name of the supposed ancestor of the Hebrews. Verse 22. Elam = Persia. Racially the Elamites were quite distinct from the Semites. This inclusion may be a clue to the date of this Table of Nations; friendship with Persia dates from Cyrus (Sixth Century B.C.). (See Driver's "Genesis.") Lecture I THE SEMITIC RACES The Hebrew nation forms a branch of that group of the human family known as the Semites. Their relation to the other great racial divisions of mankind is far beyond the reach of our enquiry, and we cannot even penetrate to a period when the Semites formed an unbroken family. At the remotest date to which history can take us we find the family already widely dispersed, with distinct national characteristics well developed, and their common ancestry quite forgotten in their violent hatreds of their unrecognised kinsmen. Indeed it is only the test of language which still preserves for us an indisputable proof of their common origin. Their existence can be traced back to a very remote date, for fragments of their literature and other evidences of civilisation have been discovered that have been dated 5000-4000 B.C., and even at that period the language shows signs of phonetic degeneration that require a still further period for the process to have reached this stage. The primitive home of the Semites cannot have been, however, where these ancient remains have been found, namely, in the Euphrates valley, for the records themselves show that they were only immigrants there and had replaced the original inhabitants, who came of Sumerian stock. Neither was it in Palestine, as our own Bible will tell us; but it is probably to be sought in Arabia, where the purest Semitic stock is still to be found. In this desert home the race was bred that was destined to have such a tremendous influence on the history of the world, and it is largely to this desert training that we can trace influences which have made them what they are. The battle for life in that inhospitable land would mould a physique capable of extraordinary endurance, and to this we can perhaps trace the virility of the modern Jew, who has resisted for centuries the poisonous ghettos of European cities and remains far healthier than his indigenous neighbours. This hard training fitted them for an exacting life, and in the Phoenicians they became the traders of antiquity, and in the Carthaginians and Saracens, warriors not to be despised. Hardness easily becomes cruelty, and purely Semitic empires, such as Assyria, developed a barbarous cruelty, the story of which is told on their inscriptions and in the denunciations of the Hebrew Prophets. There is something in the Semitic character that is disliked by Western nations, and the Jews have been subjects of relentless persecution in mediæval times, and are still capable of arousing bitter hostility, as may be seen from those violent eruptions of anti-Semitism which occasionally burst through the cosmopolitanism of Western Europe. The well-defined limitations of their primitive home--crushed in between the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, the neutral ground of the Eastern and Western worlds--seem almost to be reflected in the limitations of their mental development. The Semitic tongue is crude in its simplicity and incapable of expressing an abstract idea, and it is natural to find as a result that the philosophical faculty is almost entirely missing. Although they have given to the world an alphabet, a system of numeration which has made mathematics possible, and the beginnings of measurement and of the science of astronomy, yet their mind is not scientific in the modern sense. They possess, as perhaps no other race, the gift of telling stories of wonder and mystery, and for a simple tale of love and pathos they are unsurpassed. They have produced the finest lyrical literature of the ancient world, but have contributed hardly anything to dramatic or epic poetry, and their achievements in art have been cramped by their religious prejudices. But in the realm of religion they are supreme, and have become the high-priests of humanity, for from them have gone forth three great religions, and one of these capable of development into the universal religion of mankind. These faiths have not been slowly evolved from the national consciousness, but have both sprung from and been embodied in inspiring personalities; for have they not given to the world Moses and the Prophets, Mahomet, and the Son of Man? The Semites are divided by anthropologists into the following groups: Southern Group--North Arabians, Sabæans, Abyssinians; Northern Group--Babylonians, Assyrians, Aramæans, Canaanites, Hebrews; and all these groups seem to have been formed from the original stock by migrations from their home in Arabia. The contracted area of the Arabian peninsula, the inability of the land to support a large population, coupled with their restless spirit and the constant feuds between the tribes, made emigration a necessity at a very early period. The exact history and order of these migrations it is now impossible to trace, but it would seem that the first great movement was eastward, whither they were drawn by the culture and wealth of the Sumerian civilisation in the Euphrates valley. It is quite possible that this movement commenced 6000 years before Christ. At a later date they seem to have invaded Egypt and left some traces upon the language and customs of that land. The land of Syria would offer a near and easy home for the emigrants, and yet the first Semites to arrive in Palestine seem to have come from the Euphrates. The inhabitants they displaced were the Hittites, who probably came from Asia Minor; they were Turanians, and were akin to the present inhabitants of Armenia. It is only lately that excavation has revealed the remains of a Hittite Empire in Palestine. The first Semitic tribes to reach Palestine pushed down to the seaboard, where they developed a wonderful maritime civilisation and became the daring traders and explorers who are known in history as the Phoenicians; the other tribes occupied the hill country and became the Canaanites of Bible story. Of the next migration westward, the Bible preserves a popular account in the story of the journey of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. Now Abraham and his descendants were called Hebrews, and this name is traced to an ancestor who was called Eber or Heber. It is doubtful whether an _individual_ so named ever existed. The name "Hebrew" means "one from the other side," and would therefore have been a suitable name for those who crossed the Euphrates, coming from Arabia; but of this movement the Bible knows nothing. Some have supposed that the name was given much later to the tribes who entered Palestine across the Jordan. The discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets has somewhat complicated our understanding of these events. These tablets were letters written by the vassal-kings of Syria to their overlord Amenophis III., King of Egypt, and in them the King of Jerusalem calls for help against some tribes who are invading the country and whom he names _Habiri_. Now the date of this correspondence is about 1500 B.C., and if these are the Hebrews, we shall have to suppose that not all the tribes of Israel went down into Egypt or that the Exodus took place some two centuries earlier than the date given in the Bible; but the whole question of the identification of the Habiri is not yet certain. It is, however, with those Hebrew tribes who were afterwards known as the children of Israel that we have to do; and however remote, and by whatever stages it is to be traced, their Semitic relationship is certain. Their own tradition of the birthplace of Abraham shows that they are conscious of their common origin with the Babylonians; the stories in Genesis acknowledge their kinship with Moab and Ammon, even though national hatred has coloured the account of their birth (Gen. xix. 30-38). They formed a brotherly covenant with Edom, and Ishmael is recognised not only to be kin but to be the elder. The Canaanites were disowned wrongly, for they were certainly Semites; but the Philistines rightly, for they came into Palestine over-sea from Crete. We need always to bear in mind that our Bible is the product of Semitic thought, and whatever its universal message, it is expressed in the forms of Semitic genius; and yet that the Hebrews stand out from the other Semitic nations is indisputable, and the distinguishing mark is the purity of their religion. What is the cause of that difference? How came such a tender root out of such a dry ground? Renan is responsible for the popular idea that the Semites have a natural tendency towards Monotheism. The idea should present no difficulties for a theory of Revelation, but it is certainly not true. It is not true of the general type of Semitic religion, and it cannot be claimed, in the face of the Prophets' record of their countrymen's lapses, that it was true even of the Hebrews. If it were said that there was that in Semitic history and character which, provided opportunity were given, would offer a congenial soil for the reception of monotheistic ideas, it would be the utmost that could be said. Neither is there more truth in the antithesis that contrasts the Aryan conception of God as immanent with the Semitic as transcendent; for in their primitive stages Aryan and Semitic religions are alike. Primitive Semitic religion is indeed quite polytheistic; every tribe has its own god and this god is closely identified with a particular locality. Therefore, to be an outcast from the tribe meant to be an exile from the protection and service of the god. This idea can be found in the Bible as late as David, who thought that if he were driven forth from his own land he would have to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). The god is conceived to be the father of the tribe, while the land is the mother, and this in quite a physical and literal sense. The same idea is of course frequent in the Greek religions, and some such conception must be the original of the strange tradition in Genesis (vi. 1), which describes a union between the sons of God and the daughters of men. The connection of the god with the tribe is therefore simply a matter of blood descent, and the blood becomes in consequence invested with sacred virtues. The blood of the tribe cannot be shed by one of the members without incurring the vengeance of the god; and the use of the blood of animals in various ceremonies may point to the belief in a common ancestry for men and animals; in some tribes the animal is regarded as a superior being, and is actually worshipped. The blood of animals even is thought to be too sacred for human consumption, and is therefore set apart by libation as suitable food for the god. Seeing that the connection between the god and man is only tribal, the shedding of the blood of any other tribe is quite allowable; for the tribal god cares only for his own people, and others cannot approach him (2 Kings xvii. 27). It is evident that a religion based upon such ideas can never be a factor in the moral development of a people. It only needs to provide for help against enemies, counsel in times of national affliction, and oracles for difficult problems of judgment; therefore, in times of national prosperity and security, it will play no part beyond that of custom; and custom often seems the stronger in proportion to its lack of meaning. We may insist that the Hebrew religion is superior to all this because it owes its origin to the special revelation of God; but even that does not preclude us from enquiring through what natural causes this revelation came, if we believe that natural causes form some part of the working of the Divine mind. Now these ideas common to Semitic religion persisted among the Hebrews and were only shaken by the earnest ministry of the Prophets, and eventually destroyed by the reflection which followed the national disaster of the Exile. The continued national trouble of Israel was therefore a factor in her advance in the truth, and she stands as a witness to the possibility of suffering being an educative force. Moreover, she found that her Promised Land was only a little strip hemmed in between the desert and the sea, where all dreams of world-empire were forbidden. Then it was that this nation turned her thoughts to a spiritual kingdom, and looking across the sea that she feared to cross saw a day when the distant isles should be her possession, because she had given to them the Law of Jehovah, and the knowledge of God. THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS THE STRATA OF THE PENTATEUCH We give here for reference the proposed identification of the documents that critics say can be recognised in the construction of the first five books of the Bible. The theory has been developed so as to include the Books of Joshua, Judges, and some parts of Samuel, all of which are said to bear the same marks of composition from pre-existing documents. "J." Jahvistic. Dated 900-700 B.C. This document is especially distinguished for using the name of Jehovah, or "Yahwè," and is anthropomorphic in its conception of God. "E." Elohistic. Dated 750-650 B.C. The name for God in this document is "Elohim," and its conception of God is more spiritual and elevated than in "J." "D." Deuteronomist. Dated 650-550 B.C. This document has the style and thought of the Book of Deuteronomy, where it is chiefly, though by no means exclusively found. The central idea of this document is _the one sanctuary_. "P." Priestly Code. Dated 550-400 B.C. This document supplies the framework of the Pentateuch, and is distinguished by its interest in questions of ritual, and by its very legal and stereotyped style. The dates given above are arrived at from a comparison of the ideas expressed in these documents with their emergence in the historical books of the Old Testament. Only for the last two can it be claimed that there are historical events which are said to confirm them. These are: the finding of the Book of the Law in the reign of Josiah, and the promulgation of the Law by Ezra. Lecture II THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS We have seen from the last lecture that an examination of the general type of Semitic Religion gives us no explanation of the mature development of the Religion of the Hebrews; on the contrary, that development would seem to take place in spite of the common Semitic characteristics, for it is against these characteristics and the natural tendency to return to them that we find the Prophets continually at war. If this is so, can we penetrate to the first stage at which the new religious movement begins which was to reach such glorious heights in Jeremiah, the Psalmists and the Son of Man? It is certainly not to be found in the general character of Semitic religion; does it commence with the ancestor of the Hebrew race, the Patriarch Abraham? To this question the editor of Genesis means to return a decided answer: the true religion of Jehovah existed from the earliest times, and all lower forms are deteriorations from that pure original revelation. The earliest stories in Genesis are made to bear witness to this; Abel offered the true worship of God in that he brought of the best of his flock, thus agreeing with the sacrifice of animals set forth in the fully-developed ritual of Leviticus as the only means of approach to God; Noah offers of "clean" animals; the Patriarchs offer animal sacrifices, and call upon the name of Jehovah; Rebekah goes to enquire of Jehovah and obtains an oracle. The author means to convey by this that the earliest religion was the religion which we find outlined in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, with the exceptions that a priest is not necessary, and that sacrifice is permitted at other places besides the one chosen sanctuary. This idea is enshrined in that favourite name for God which we find in the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We have now to enquire whether this is a correct view of the history, or only the writer's speculations about an age long removed from his own. We are moved to do this because there are certain facts in this history that do not seem to fit in with the author's view. It is evident at the outset, that the writer, whoever he be, is dealing with subjects concerning which he can have at best only second-hand knowledge. This may have been conveyed to him in documents, or in popular tradition. If the object of the compilation of this history was not so much to produce an accurate and exact history as to interpret the past as a religious lesson for his own age, it cannot be instantly dismissed as improbable that he may have altered some of his material so as to accord more closely with his own religious views. Now scholars say that they can detect the presence of various documents, which have been loosely combined and coloured with the editor's own ideas of what should have taken place. There is hardly any theory which has excited more ridicule from a certain class of Biblical students. The idea is dismissed offhand as utterly unworthy of a sacred writer; and even if he did adopt such a scissors-and-paste method of compiling history, it is denied that anyone could detect the various strata now. No defence of these claims of the critical school need be attempted here, for we are taking their theories as granted, with the idea of seeing what their acceptance as true would mean to our estimate of the Bible and Revelation; but it may be shown that the Evangelist Luke is not ashamed to confess that he used something like this method in compiling his Gospel. From the Table that faces this lecture, it will be seen that the critics give dates for these documents that lie very far apart, and if the dates are even approximately true, it is a fair conclusion that with such wide separation of time, and with the consequent difference both in language and idea, there should be sufficient criteria to detect the different strata. The critics who have attempted the disintegration of the original documents of the Pentateuch have been challenged to show their fitness for such a task by extricating the respective contributions in a joint authorship novel such as "The Chaplain of the Fleet," by Walter Besant and James Rice. Or, again, such claims are discounted on the ground of the known failures of professional literary critics to recognise under pseudonym or anonymity, the style of a well-known author, or even to guess correctly the sex of the writer. The analogy fails because the circumstances are entirely different. It would be on more equal terms to deny that it would be possible to distinguish, say, the personal opinions of the author of an English History from the passages quoted from the Doomsday Book, Chaucer, or an Act of the Long Parliament, if all quotation marks and references were omitted. For according to the witness of the very documents themselves this conception of the early history must be set aside as not quite correct. The history in Genesis is conscious that some new start began with Abraham: he abandoned idolatry. Still more clearly is it seen that with Moses another epoch began, for according to one document, the very name of Jehovah was unknown before its revelation to Moses (Exod. vi. 2, 3). We are, therefore, faced with the necessity of enquiring how much of the stories of the Patriarchs can be called history in any true sense. The reasons for and against their historical value may be summarised: _Against_: (1) The stories must have been composed long after the events took place. (2) Tribal movements and personal incidents seem to have been confused. (3) The endeavour to explain the origin of personal and geographical names is often merely popular, and etymologically incorrect. (Compare with this the common errors of our own day; for instance, the explanation of the name of Liverpool from a supposed bird called the liver, now known to be entirely mythical.) (4) While the contemporary history of this period is now quite an enlightened field, and the life, character, and customs of the inhabitants of Palestine in this age of the Patriarchs comparatively well known, we look in vain for any mention of these persons themselves. _For_:(1) The narratives of the Patriarchs are admitted by critics to have been taken from at least two documents of separate origin and of different dates. This should double the weight of the evidence. (2) The simplicity of the narratives in many places looks like a relation of fact. (But over against this must be placed the genius for relating a story of pure fiction which is so peculiar a distinction of the Semites. Some of the narratives are quite artificial; as the story of Isaac's lie to shield his wife, which follows a similar story related of Abraham.) (3) We might appeal to the memory of the Bedawin reciters, who can repeat almost incredibly long portions of the Koran. The most likely solution of this conflicting evidence would seem to be that in the history of the Patriarchs we have a modicum of historical foundation which has been worked up into popular and idealised legends. If the stories of the three Patriarchs be carefully studied, it will be noticed that while the stories of Jacob are matter of fact, and do outline a conceivable character, the stories of Isaac produce only a nebulous character impression, while Abraham stands forth as a character which has been idealised. This would be an accountable psychological process: in the case of Jacob a good deal of detail is remembered, Isaac is almost forgotten, while in the case of Abraham, only the name and a few incidents are known, which serve to form the framework of a religious lesson. It is, however, in the conception of their religion that idealisation has most plainly occurred, for it is mainly the religion of the Ninth Century, that is, of the age immediately preceding the great literary Prophets. In the documents themselves there is left to the careful reader ample indication in customs and narratives, the meaning of which has escaped the notice of the editor, that a more primitive form of religion prevailed. It would seem, as we have seen, that the name of Jehovah was unknown to them, while there are evident tokens of polytheistic belief (Gen. xxxi. 19; xxxv. 1-4). The crudity of the worship may be seen in the frequent reference to the erection of pillars and stones, which, it will be seen later, have more than a merely memorial purpose. The ease with which we find idolatry always reappearing in later history points to some hereditary tendency at work among the mass of the people. If, however, we suppose that the primitive religion was entirely heathen we shall be faced with the problem of discovering some necessary point of departure to which the higher revelation could affix itself. We may suppose, therefore, that among the ancestors of the Hebrews there was held a faith that was relatively purer than that common to the Semites, a faith which contained in itself the guarantee of the possibility of advance, if only favourable conditions arose; that "El, the Mighty One (_Shaddai_)," was worshipped, but along with the retention of customs and ideas that are to be found in some forms of demon worship, that is, with the recognition of many other great spirits, not all of whom are thought of as inimical to man; very much as we find among the North American Indians the idea of a Great Spirit, existing side by side with heathen practices and beliefs. So far our enquiry has not taken us on to very sure ground, and we must seek other methods. In the study of Comparative Religion the idea of a certain natural order of the evolution of religion predominates, but the actual origin of religion is still only a matter of speculation, as indeed it is bound to remain from the very nature of religion itself, since it is a vision of faith, rising in different ages and races through quite different processes. We propose now to take both the speculations and the assured results of the study of Comparative Religion, and using these as tests, see if they have left any traces in the evolution of the Hebrew religion or if they can guide us to its possible origins. The principles of such enquiry and application may be stated. (1) The ascertained customs and ideas of other religions, especially those of the Semites, will form a working hypothesis, and if we then find any reference to these customs or ideas in the Old Testament, it will make towards reasonable proof of a similar origin. (2) We must be careful, however, to exclude customs that are known to have been borrowed from the Canaanites, such as the practice of Baal-worship. (3) At the same time we must beware of assuming, without further enquiry, that all the observances ordained by the religion of Jehovah whose origins are connected with some historical event are to be thought of as having their beginning then. It is more than likely that when a long-established custom was recognised to be heathen in its origin or tendency, it would be strictly forbidden, as in the case of the heathen practice of necromancy; others which had lost their original meaning would be baptised into a new significance under the new religion. (With this phenomenon may be compared our own festival of Christmas Day, taken over from the Roman Saturnalia, and our mourning customs, which are survivals of heathenism, and can only with great difficulty be made to take on a Christian meaning.) Let us then examine the supposed origins of heathen religion, and first of all, that known as Totemism. Totemism is a custom exceedingly common among savage tribes, in which some animal is chosen as the badge, or the name of the tribe, and a blood covenant formed, when the animal becomes the "totem" or god of the tribe. Popular instances may be given in the names of many of the Indian tribes of North America, or even in the crests and emblems of our now disrupted clans in Scotland, which can be traced back to a similar idea. In other cases the totem may be one of the well-known flora of the country or some other natural object. The custom is, of course, seen in the well-known worship of animals which has continued even among nations of advanced civilisation. Are there any traces of the influence of this idea at work in the religion of the Old Testament? There are one or two tribal names which are names of animals. Simeon is probably the name of a hybrid between a wolf and a hyæna. Leah means a wild cow, and Rachel is the Hebrew name for an ewe. The distinction between clean and unclean animals might be traced to this influence, but it does not altogether explain the lists in Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv. Another theory of the origin of religion is that known as Animism. This is the belief in the existence of spirits,--a belief prompted by the phenomena of dreams,--which usually takes the form of belief in the activity of the spirits of the recently deceased, an activity which is sometimes thought to be harmful and therefore feared. Animism, as a belief in a spiritual activity behind natural phenomena, especially those of the fearful type, survives in some form or other in the highest religions, and was particularly active in the Hebrew idea that Jehovah controlled natural forces for the deliverance of His people and for His own wonderful manifestations. Animism generally survives among uncivilised peoples in the practice of ancestor worship, of which there is no trace among the Hebrews. Nevertheless, the belief in Animism has left some customs behind it. Especially is this seen in the mourning customs which are designed to render the relatives unrecognisable to the departed spirit. This was effected by sprinkling ashes on the head, going naked or clothed in sackcloth. Cutting the flesh for this purpose is expressly forbidden (Lev. xix. 28). The ritual uncleanness of one who has come into contact with a dead body is also a relic of Animism, as is also the strange idea in Num. xix. 15, which is intended to guard against the spirit taking up its abode in a position from which it would be difficult to dislodge it. The funeral feast is held with the idea that the dead can still partake, but in this case friendly feelings rather than fear operate. The conclusion is that Animism has played its part in the shaping of Israel's religion, but that the cruder forms of it were dropped at a very early age. The religion of savage tribes is generally found to be polytheistic, and this is supposed to be one of the earliest stages in the development of religion. It takes the form of the deification of the forces of Nature or of striking natural objects, which are worshipped and generally feared, and is therefore a form of Animism. If the theories of the critics as to the composition of the early books of the Bible are correct, we should expect to find that, if any traces of Polytheism could be detected, they would be carefully obliterated from the original documents by the latest editor. There are indications discernible which show that this has been done, for although the worship of other gods is always severely condemned as the greatest of sins, yet at the same time we find no clear recognition of the idea of the One God until the time of the Prophets. The gods of the heathen are mentioned as if they were real beings who are to be feared. The evidence for this may be objected to in detail, but the accumulation of facts does press the reader to the unavoidable conclusion that until the Prophets, the faith of Israel was Monolatry rather than Monotheism, that is, the worship of one God rather than the definite belief that He is the Only God. The very name for God in the Hebrew language has a plural form (Elohim), but this is explained by a grammatical custom by which things of exalted idea are spoken of in the plural, called by grammarians, _the plural of eminence_. The evidence for Polytheism quoted above from Gen. xxxi. 19; xxxv. 1-4, might be referred to the introduction of alien idolatrous practices; but this can hardly be claimed in the case of the practice mentioned in Lev. xvii. 7, which must be a reference to the cult of satyrs, or goat-like demons which were commonly supposed to inhabit the desert, to the discouragement of which the ceremony mentioned in Lev. xvi. 8, 10, 21 ff, would seem to be directed. This strange figure called Azazel is not elsewhere described in the Old Testament, but we learn from the Book of Enoch that this was the name for the King of the Demons, a kind of _djinn_ who inhabited the wilderness and demanded toll of human life. (In agreement with what has been said before it will be noticed how this practice has been absorbed in the ritual of the Tabernacle, but with a different meaning.) Even the First Commandment does not explicitly deny the existence of other gods; it merely prohibits their worship by the Israelites. It may be that this command led to the full monotheistic belief which we find in men like Isaiah, but that full conception cannot be fairly read into the First Commandment. Chemosh, the god of the Amorites, is mentioned in Judges xi. 24, as a real being who had given the Amorites the possession of their land, even as Jehovah had given Canaan to the Israelites. In the popular imagination these heathen gods would remain as real beings probably long after the monotheistic belief had been held by the more enlightened, being thought of as demon powers, in much the same way as the early Christians regarded the gods of Greece and Rome. When we turn to the evidence from the customs of worship that owe their origin to heathen ideas, the supposition that the early religion of the Hebrews was hardly distinguishable from that of the Semitic races finds a full confirmation. The most determinative of these ideas is that of the localisation of the god, who appears only at certain specified places with which he is inseparably connected. The appearance is generally in some form more or less human, and the site of the manifestation is either marked for posterity by the erection of a suitable memorial, in the shape of a stone or an altar, or else some natural object is taken to be the actual residence of the god. The god is therefore connected rather with the land than with the people, and it is this antagonism of the popular idea with that of the Prophets, who stand for the relation between Jehovah and Israel as not territorial but covenanted, which is the key to the history of Israel. Apart from this prevalent idea, which is in itself a sufficient proof, we have the frequent reference to the sacredness of certain memorials and objects whose original significance cannot be hidden from the careful reader. We shall examine first these objects of reverential regard and then proceed to notice some of the more outstanding customs whose origin is heathen. (a) _Sacred Stones._ Throughout the Old Testament we meet with numerous references to stones or circles that form convenient landmarks or natural _rendezvous_ for national ceremonies. Adonijah strengthens his rebellion by a great sacrifice at the stone of Zoheleth--"the serpent's stone." The extremely important part which the serpent plays in all Semitic religion and mythology, together with the sacrificial act at this spot, points to its having been the ancient site of some idolatrous cult. Many of these sacred stones may have been the shrines of the Canaanites, and to some of these the invading religion attached its own meaning. The circle at Gilgal, which is said to commemorate the crossing of the Jordan, may be an example of this, for there is some contradiction in the account which refers it to a memorial erected by Joshua for this purpose (compare Josh. iv. 2-6, 20 ff, with iv. 9), and it is more than likely that the circle of graven images mentioned in Judges iii. 19 (R.V. margin) is to be identified with it. Among this class of sacred objects must be mentioned the obscure _Mazzebah_, translated in the margin of the Revised Version, "Obelisk." The use of the Mazzebah is strictly forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 13, as one of the idolatrous customs of the former inhabitants of the land, but in the Eighth Century the Mazzebah is reckoned by Hosea as one of the essentials of Hebrew worship, as if he knew nothing of this proscription in the Law (Hosea iii. iv.). These pillars were evidently used to mark the place of worship, and they are said to have been found at Shechem, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpeh, and elsewhere. From their usage in primitive Semitic religion as well as from their prohibition in Exodus it can be seen that they had idolatrous significance, and it is thought that they were rudely carved to resemble the likeness of the god. The two pillars placed before the temple, called Jachin and Boaz, are probably connected with the Mazzebah. (b) _Sacred Trees._ The continual reference to these in the Old Testament shows that they had some special and sacred significance. Such are the terebinths of Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18; should be singular according to the Septuagint), the tamarisk at Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 33), the palm of Deborah (Judges iv. 5), and the terebinth in Ophrah (Judges vi. 11). We can understand how to desert peoples trees naturally stood for objects of thankful reverence, and in the popular mind were regarded as the special seat and haunt of a deity. That they also served for the purpose of obtaining oracles may be seen from 2 Sam. v. 24; with which may be compared the practice of oracular decision by the rustling of the famous oaks of Delphi. With this species of tree-worship we must compare the use of the Asherah mentioned as a sacred symbol in Judges vi. 25; this is expressly forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 13, Deut. xvi. 21. It used to be supposed that this was a wooden symbol of a goddess Asherah, but from the description in the passage quoted from Deuteronomy, and from Isa. xvii. 8, it would seem to be a tree-like post, and is more likely to be a remnant of tree worship, as our own Maypole may be. It came to pass that the tree or tree-like pole could therefore stand beside any altar as the sign of the presence of the god, and in the pre-Prophetic religion of Israel this was transferred to a sign of the presence of Jehovah until the Asherah was forbidden, in that great attempt to make return to idolatry impossible, the reform under Josiah. (c) _Sacred Springs._ A similar origin may be supposed for the recognised sacredness of springs. From the names given to some of these it is evident that they were regarded as the special seat of Divine power, natural enough, as in the case of the trees, to a desert-bred race and to dwellers in a land which never had too plentiful a supply of water. The proximity of the spring to an altar or sacred stone confirms this, as in the case of the stone Zoheleth near the spring En-rogel, the "spring of the fuller." The name of "En-Mishpat" (Gen. xiv. 7), "the spring of judgment," would seem to indicate that springs were used for the purpose of obtaining oracles, but by what signs this was effected is not known. The name of the spring in Gen. xvi. 14, where the angel appeared to Hagar, is significant in this connection: "the well of the living one who seeth me." In the customs of worship, and in all customs to which there is attached a definite religious significance, we find analogies in the heathen religions which show that they must have had a common origin. Chief among these must be classed the custom of sacrifice. It is natural, therefore, to find that sacrifice, which has such an undoubtedly natural explanation in heathen religions as either the food of the god or a means of propitiation, is nowhere in the Old Testament explicitly defined as to its intent and meaning. The root idea is, however, clearly seen in such customs as that of the setting forth of the Shewbread, however much the meaning may have become spiritualised by a purer idea of the nature of Jehovah, while in Ezek. xliv. 7, 15, this seems to be quite explicitly stated. As the conception of Deity was spiritualised, the idea of material food would doubtless grow too repugnant to be retained in the bare offering of flesh, and so we get the burnt-offering, the smoke of which Jehovah can smell. The blood especially, forms the correct offering, since being the seat of life, it belongs altogether to God. On the idea of the sacrifice being used as a propitiation to the Deity, it follows naturally that the more costly the victim the more acceptable it will be, and of all sacrifices the most efficacious will be that of a human being. The story of Abram and Isaac in Gen. xxii. is made to serve as a condemnation of human sacrifices, but the origin of the story may very well have pointed the other way, as indeed the first part of the story does; and that the practice was common may be seen from 2 Kings xvi. 3; xxi. 6; Jer. vii. 31; xix. 5 (Delete the last words of Jer. xix. 5, as an evident gloss from vii. 31). True, in these passages human sacrifice is said to be in express contravention of the will of Jehovah, but no such comment is added to the story of Jephthah (Judges xi. 30 ff.), while in Micah vi. 7, the sacrifice of the firstborn is simply classed among other sacrifices as part of the common idea. A remnant of this horrible practice is probably to be found in the consecration of the firstborn to Jehovah, while the legality of human sacrifice is determinative in the common practice of the "ban," by which all captives were devoted to Jehovah, and any violation visited by the direst vengeance; as in the case of Saul and Agag. Another use of the sacrifice was that of ratifying a covenant by cutting a victim in parts, between which the contracting parties passed (Gen. xv. 9-17; Jer. xxxiv. 18). Much the same result will be found from enquiry into the origin of special feasts and customs that are said to have been instigated at the express command of Jehovah; for there is evidence which shows that they were often customs common amongst the heathen, and were only invested with a new significance by the higher religion of the Hebrews. Among these it is likely that we must reckon even the Passover, for the daubing of the lintels is said to be a common heathen practice, and it will be noticed in support of the pre-Mosaic origin of the ceremony that at its first mention in Exod. xii. 21, it is called _the_ Passover. The meaning of the Hebrew word translated "Passover" is also capable of another meaning than that given in the story of its institution, a meaning which also points to its being the survival of a Semitic and heathen custom. Similar enquiry into ancient religions of the Semitic type shows that originally circumcision had no special religious significance, but was probably a sign of puberty and the right to marry. As manners softened it became a family rite and there was no need to postpone it till years of manhood. The practice of wearing special garments at religious rites is also found in heathen religions, and still maintains itself in our habit of wearing "Sunday clothes." The results of these enquiries are sufficiently startling to those who have been accustomed to regard the religion of Israel as starting from some definite act of revelation which ordained these ordinances and their religious meaning for the first time. But it is common enough in history to find that customs persist long after their original significance has been forgotten, and that they are gradually invested with a meaning more appropriate to the spirit of the age. We are not, however, shut up to the conclusion, that, because we can trace much of the wonderful religion of Israel to common causes acting upon heathen religion, there is no real work of revelation in this gradual progress from lower to higher stages. It would be quite useless, from the point of view of this book, to enter on the fruitless discussion as to whether in the evolution of religion we have to deal with a natural process or with a supernatural revelation. Is any such antithesis necessary? Surely the one can come through the other. If revelation is to reach us it must come through the ordinary processes of our minds; the recognition that it is from God cannot be authenticated to us by any miracle or outward authority, but simply by the possibility of the mind, which God has made, being able to recognise its Maker. It may be more of a difficulty to others that we should have such erroneous conceptions of history in a Book that has been regarded as infallible on these matters. We have to face the fact, from which there is no escape, that the historian may not have known the origin of the things of which he wrote, or may have intentionally obscured the fact of the heathen origin of customs that had become to all pious Israelites expressions of Jehovah's special revelation to Israel. If we are going to call this fraud, then it means that we are going to force on that early age a conception of historical accuracy which it certainly did not possess, and which, as a matter of fact, is only a late demand of the human mind. And after all, there was truth in this reference of all their religion to the revelation of Jehovah. It witnesses to the fact that behind even the crudest religion there is something which defies explanation, and that we have in heathen religions the slow dawning consciousness of God within man's soul. In Israel these things never stood still. That central idea of the localisation of Jehovah grew too small to contain the widening conception of Him as it was evolved through reflection and national experience, until the Prophets burst forth with the proclamation that He was the God of the whole earth, and His relation to Israel not tribal or territorial, but moral, and only to be maintained by righteousness and true holiness. MOSAISM The reader is recommended to make a careful study of the following passages, which are among the most important adduced by the critics as evidence for the non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. (1) Mosaic authorship is never claimed for the Pentateuch as a whole. Only in certain places is it noted that Moses wrote down special things (Exod. xvii. 14; xxiv. 4; xxxiv. 27; Num. xxxiii. 2; Deut. xxxi. 9, 22, 24). Moses is consistently spoken of in the third person, and it is hardly likely that this is a style purposely adopted, or the statement of Num. xii. 3 would be extraordinary in the circumstances. Obviously the last chapter of Deuteronomy was not written by him, nor is the common opinion that it was added by Joshua at all probable, for there is no difference in style from the rest of the book discernible, and, moreover, Dan is referred to (Deut. xxxiv. 1; cp. also Gen. xiv. 14), which was not so named until after the conquest. (Josh. xix. 47; Judges xviii. 29.) Would Moses need to authenticate his history of contemporaneous events by quoting from what are regarded as ancient books: from the Book of the Wars of Jehovah (Num. xxi. 14), wars which could have only just commenced, or from the poem which refers to the victory over Sihon (Num. xxi. 27 ff.), which took place at the very end of the forty years' wandering? (2) The standpoint as a whole is that of an age later than Moses. The remark in Gen. xxxvi. 31 can only have had any meaning in the age of David when Edom was in submission to Israel. A late date is also needed for the following passages: Gen. xii. 6; xiii. 7; xxxiv. 7 ("in Israel"! cp. Judges xx. 10; 2 Sam. xiii. 12); Lev. xviii. 27; Deut. ii. 12; iv. 38. In fact, the whole geographical outlook is that of an inhabitant of Western Palestine, as may be seen from the use of the term "Seaward" to indicate the west, and of "Negeb," or the desert land, for the south. These terms are used even in the description of the Tabernacle, which, if taken from the site of Mount Sinai, would be altogether wrong and meaningless. Compare Num. xxii. 1; xxxiv. 15; Deut. i. 1, 5; iii. 8; iv. 41, 46, 49: "beyond the Jordan," showing clearly that the writer's position is in Palestine, west of the Jordan. (3) There is no trace in the history of any observance of the Levitical ritual until after the exile; the day of atonement, the sin-offering, the high-priest, all are unheard of until this date. Nor can it be claimed that it was the ignorance of the common people, or their apostasy, that was responsible for this condition of things. The great leaders of the various reformations are apparently also quite ignorant that none but a priest could sacrifice, and none but a Levite take charge of the ark. Samuel, who was not a Levite, sleeps beside the ark and offers sacrifice. Elijah does nothing to recall the people to the ritual of Leviticus. (4) The conclusion is that, while later ages were right in attributing to Moses the founding of their religion and some of their ritual, all the accumulation of law, which had only been the growth of many centuries, has been placed to his credit. What the actual contribution of Moses was it is now impossible to say, but the original of the Ten Words and of the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xx. 2-xxiii. 33) may well go back to that age, as may be seen from the relative simplicity of the laws and rules. For example, compare the simple regulations for the altar in Exod. xx. 24 with the elaborate altar described in Exod. xxvii. 1-8. Lecture III MOSAISM The national consciousness of Israel goes back to a series of remarkable events in which the nation was born, and which are too deeply graven on the mind of the people to be mere legends without historical foundation. These events are the deliverance from the bondage in Egypt and the great covenant made with Jehovah at Sinai. The indispensable personal centre, round which these events revolve, is that of the great national leader, Moses. The fact that, outside the Pentateuch and the closely connected Book of Joshua, little is known of the work of Moses until after the exile, has given rise to doubts concerning his historical reality. If we take the writings of the Old Testament that are contemporary with the period they describe, there stand out in indisputable primacy the writings of the great literary Prophets. To these modern criticism has rightly turned to discover the opinions, customs, and religion, prevailing in the Eighth Century; and it is claimed that by these writings we can test the historical value of the Pentateuch, and of the other historical books. Now it must be admitted that in the pre-exilic Prophets the mention of Moses is less frequent than we should expect from the position which is claimed for him in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Prophets do appeal with one consent to the original covenant of Jehovah with Israel, to the fulfilment of which they would recall the nation; but only rarely is the name of Moses associated with that covenant. There are only four references to Moses in the Prophets before the exile (Hosea xii. 13--Moses not actually named; Micah vi. 4; Jer. xv. 1; Isa. lxiii. 12--reckoned post-exilic by critics), and in none of these is Moses referred to as a law-giver, but as a prophet and national deliverer. We have to come to Prophets writing after the exile to find any reference to the legislative work of Moses (Mal. iv. 4; Dan. ix. 11-13). The purpose of the prophetic writings is moral rather than historical, and this forbids putting more evidential weight upon this argument from silence than it will bear; but in face of their continual appeal to the covenant of Sinai, this silence is at least significant. Evidently Moses was not a name to conjure with in their age. (Compare Jer. xxxi. 31, 32, where the mention of the name of Moses would have been most natural.) We have, on these and other grounds, to disregard the later idea that Moses was the only law-giver of Israel and the author of the Pentateuch, although the fact that the later legislation could only find sanction as it was included under his name, points to him as in some way the initiator of Israel's great Code of Laws. While in addition to this, it must be admitted that a great deal of the story of his life is due to the growth of legend, there is no need to regard the figure of Moses as entirely mythical. The events by which a motley crowd of serfs became a nation and covenanted themselves to an almost new religion not only need for their explanation a great interpreter, but also a great leader; and this demand and need Moses fills. We may therefore safely regard Moses as one of the great Founders of Religion. We have now to enquire how much of the marvellous story of his life can be safely reckoned as history. The document which gives the earliest, and therefore the most trustworthy, story of his life is dated by the critics in the Ninth Century, although it is not denied that it may, and probably does, go back for its material to a much earlier period. This document, known to the critics as "J," owes its origin to early prophetic influence. In this document, as might be expected from the analogy in similar cases (compare the absence of the birth stories in Mark), the story of the birth and finding of Moses is omitted; it is probably nothing more than an effort to find a popular explanation of his name, as derived from _Mashah_, "to draw out." A much more likely origin of the name is found by modern scholars in the Egyptian word for "son" (_Mesu_). The important thing to be noticed is that in this early document he appears first of all in Midian, although there are indications which show that it is known that he had previously been in Egypt. Here, alone in the wilderness, or in intercourse with the strange Bedawin who still inhabit that region, there came to him a revelation of Jehovah and the call to deliver Israel from their bondage. He returned to Egypt with a message at once religious and national. He calls upon the Israelites to leave Egypt and to seek a covenant with Jehovah at His shrine at Sinai. During a plague, the passage of the Red Sea was effected under conditions that were interpreted to be due to the direct intervention of Jehovah; and, the returning tide cutting off the pursuing Egyptians who challenged their flight, the Israelites stood delivered from their enemies and their first trust in Jehovah was vindicated. It is not for us to enquire into the exact causes which proved so favourable to the Israelites and so disastrous to the Egyptians; we only need to know that they were interpreted religiously. Then around Mount Sinai, with its impressive solitude and its awful storms, Moses gathered the people, imparted the secret of the new worship, made a solemn covenant by which the people of Israel became for ever the people of Jehovah, and probably laid down some rudiments of legislation fitted for their primitive and nomadic condition. This much at least the after history demands as the irreducible minimum. If this is at all an accurate view of the founding of the religion of Jehovah, then we are faced with the phenomenon of a nation practically adopting a new religion. We do not ignore "revelation" when we feel compelled to seek for natural causes which might prepare the way for this event; and this we may attempt by an enquiry into the meaning of the name "Jehovah." It should be noted at the outset that "Jehovah" is a personal name, like that of Zeus or Poseidon, conveying the idea of some aspect of deity. The meaning of the name is exceedingly obscure. The general name for deity common to all Semites, and therefore belonging to the undivided primitive stock, is "El," meaning either "the Mighty One" or, and more in accord with Semitic conceptions of God, "the Leader." The meaning of the name "Jehovah" is difficult to discover, because in the first place the exact pronunciation of the word has been lost, probably beyond recovery. The word "Jehovah" is a hybrid compound, and as a matter of fact was never used as a name for God until the Reformation. We can be certain only that the consonants of the word were _JHVH_ (or _YHWH_, Hebrew pronunciation). This extraordinary state of things is accounted for by the fact that for centuries the Hebrew Scriptures were "unpointed" or unvocalised--that is, the consonants only were written and the necessary connecting vowels were taught orally, and only retained in the memory for use when the Scriptures were read aloud. When in the Ninth Century A.D. it was likely that the pronunciation of the sacred language would be entirely forgotten, a device for its preservation was made whereby the vowel pronunciation was indicated by means of "points" placed chiefly underneath the consonantal text; very much like the dots and dashes used for vowels in Pitman's system of shorthand. When, however, it came to the "pointing" of JHVH, it was found that the pronunciation of this word had been entirely lost. Reverence for the name of God had become so exaggerated that, in reading aloud from the Scriptures, wherever the sacred name occurred another word had always been substituted. This word was one of respect, but of less marked exaltation--_Adonai_, equal to our word "Lord." The only course open to the punctuators was that of inserting under the consonants JHVH, the vowels (with suitable euphonic modifications) of the word _Adonai_, with the result that we get the conflate "Jehovah," a word which has become invested with so much solemnity to our ears, but which was certainly not the right pronunciation, and which has never been used by the Jews. Scholars have endeavoured, at present without any universally accepted result, to recover the lost pronunciation by linguistic enquiries, with the desire to discover what the word originally meant, in the hope that it would throw some light on the origin of the religion founded by Moses. In Exod. iii. 13 ff. (R. V. margin) we have the traditional explanation of the word, an explanation which is not altogether satisfactory from a grammatical point of view; the great Hebraist Ewald goes so far as to pronounce it highly artificial. It has been objected that the man who wrote this account, about 750 B.C., surely understood his own language. Probably; but that is not to say that he understood the etymology of it, for etymology is a new science, and has upset many popular derivations in the case of our own language. If the explanation given in Exodus is correct, and we cannot with certainty put anything much better in its place, then the meaning of the word "Jehovah" would be "He that is," perhaps an equivalent in Hebrew form to the Western idea of "The Eternal." Only one of the numerous guesses as to the meaning of the original name need be quoted here: that the word comes from a verb, _hawah_, meaning either "to fall," or "to blow." Similar ideas would seem to account for either of these meanings. "He who blows," looks like the name for the Tempest God, while "that which falls" has been taken to indicate a fallen meteorite, which may have been preserved as a symbol of Jehovah. When we remember the thunderstorms at Sinai, and the common belief that thunder was a special theophany of Jehovah, these ideas are not to be hastily dismissed as altogether incredible. Nor should we be prevented from considering such an idea from the prejudice that it would make the origin of the religion of Israel a piece of Nature-worship and superstition. God has taken man where He has found him, and none can dare to define the limits of childish and crude conceptions within which the Spirit of God can begin His work in man's mind. The conclusion derived from the examination of the meaning of the name "Jehovah" must therefore remain open until some further light is thrown on the subject. (Scholars usually adopt the pronunciation, _Yahwe_, as our nearest approach to the original.) An endeavour has been made to discover the origin of the religion of Israel from the persistent connection of Jehovah with the locality of Mount Sinai. This idea continues long after in the Promised Land (Deut. xxxiii. 2; Judges v. 5), and Elijah takes a long journey back to the sacred spot, presumably to get into closer touch with Jehovah (1 Kings xix.). With the prevailing beliefs of that age in the localisation of the god, this connection must be thought of as of more than accidental significance. It is fair to assume that the seat of Jehovah at Sinai must have been known before the great covenant, and is indeed required by the narrative itself (Exod. iii.; iv. 27), while recent discoveries are said to prove that the traditional Sinai must have been a sacred place from the earliest times. Moses, however, is clearly represented as coming to know of Jehovah during his stay in Midian. The exact means of the revelation is said to have been the sight of a bush on fire, yet miraculously unconsumed. What actually lies behind this story--whether it is a creation of the religious imagination which sees "every common bush afire with God"--it is useless for us to try and discover. A natural explanation has been sought in the fact that Jethro, the Kenite, was the priest of Midian, and presumably of some shrine of Jehovah. Certainly Jethro knew the name of Jehovah, but apparently only regarded Him as one of the gods, until the marvellous deliverance of the Exodus proved Him to be the greatest of gods (Exod. xviii. 9-11). Jethro performs an act of sacrifice to Jehovah, in the presence of Aaron and the elders, that looks remarkably like an act of initiation by which Israel are introduced to the worship of Jehovah by the regular priest of the shrine (Exod. xviii. 12). The hypothesis is further strengthened by the fact that the Kenites are found later dwelling in Palestine (Judges i. 16), and are always remembered long after as the friends of the Israelites (1 Sam. xv. 6; xxvii. 10; xxx. 29). The inference from this is that Moses first learned of Jehovah from his father-in-law Jethro, but that he understood more of the character of Jehovah than Jethro, and by his superior religious consciousness conceived of Him as in some way Supreme who to Jethro had been only one of the desert gods. This theory would certainly be strengthened if Sinai could be identified, not with the traditional site of _Jebel Musa_ in the southern part of the Sinaitic peninsula, but with some spot in the land of Midian, across the gulf of Akaba. This does indeed seem necessary from the narrative, for from the most natural interpretation of Exod. iii. 1, Horeb, the mount of God, was in Midian. It is generally taken for granted that Horeb and Sinai are identical; the respective names are used by different documents. It is said that, for some reasons, Midian would fit in with the record of the journey through the wilderness better than the Sinaitic peninsula. If the parallelism of Sinai with Seir in Deut. xxxiii. 2 can be taken to show identity, as is natural, we have a further confirmation, for Seir is in Midian. The grave difficulty of all this is that it would make the religion of Jehovah a distinct importation. Is such a thing as its reception by the Hebrews credible on this account? The idea of a nation changing its religion is certainly repugnant to the Semitic mind (Jer. ii. 10, 11), and some more natural connection seems necessary, both from the narrative and from general considerations. Now the narrative hints that the religion was not entirely new (Exod. vi. 3), but was known to the Patriarchs under different forms; while the sanctity of Sinai would seem to have been already known to some of the tribes (Exod. iv. 27). There is nothing here definite enough for us to proceed to historical certainty, but it is fair to suppose that the shrine at Sinai was known to the Patriarchs in their wanderings, and that Jehovah would be worshipped; as would any other local god whose territory they happened to be in. Grant that this was partly known to the Hebrew slaves in Egypt; that Moses received the revelation of the power of Jehovah in his exile in Midian, and by a splendid leap of inspiration identified the actual shrine and the Person of Jehovah with the Mighty Spirit dimly known to the Patriarchs, and we have an explanation that is natural and is also true; for the Object of man's worship has been One through all history. When the successful passage of the Red Sea and the defeat of the Egyptians were interpreted by Moses as the direct intervention of Jehovah, the transition to the great covenant is made possible. All this may be very contrary to the traditional idea of how Moses received the revelation of Jehovah, but the facts do point this way; and it is not for us to deny that the Spirit of God could work through these natural events and through the mind of this commanding personality, and so bring about this identification of Jehovah and the Great Spirit of the Patriarchal thought, which was to lead to such great results for religion. We are now free to investigate what the character of the religion introduced by Moses actually was. (1) _General Character._ A careful examination of its character shows that while it is by no means identical with the religion taught by the Prophets, and while it retained many heathen ideas and customs, yet it contained within itself the promise and guarantee of development. We have already had occasion to notice that it is not pure Monotheism. Jehovah is not the only God; He is the only God for Israel. The heathen deities are still regarded as having a real existence. Neither can it be called a purely spiritual religion, for Jehovah is rather said to have a spirit than to be a spirit; He has a form which, though terrible in its effect on the beholder, by reason of its glory, can nevertheless be seen; He inhabits a special place, which is His sacred territory, and on this Moses stumbles all unwittingly in Midian. Still more emphatically against the idea of a purely spiritual religion is the fact--which the editors have done their best to hide, but not successfully--that images of some kind were allowed, or existed unreproved. The Ephod, of which we hear so often, was evidently at one time an idol. The meaning of the word is of something "covered," as may be seen from Isa. xxx. 22, where the feminine form of the word (_aphuddah_) is used of the gold plating of images; but according to a later idea (Exod. xxviii. 6-14), the Ephod formed part of the dress of the High Priest, and was a kind of embroidered waistcoat. This explanation, however, does violence to a number of passages where the Ephod is mentioned. Gideon expended seventeen hundred shekels of gold on an Ephod which he "set up" in Ophrah (Jud. viii. 26 f.); this cannot be a waistcoat. Only the explanation that the Ephod was an image can do justice to the reference in Judges xvii. 5, and it suits the passage in 1 Sam. xxi. 9, if we think of the sword hanging behind an image. If the ephod was nothing more than a waistcoat by which lots were determined, we have to explain why it is so sharply condemned in Judges viii. 27, and why the text of 1 Sam. xiv. 18, which in the Septuagint reads "ephod," in the Hebrew text has been altered to read "ark"; an alteration which is quite impossible here, as the ark was at this time in Kirjath Jearim, and, moreover, was never used for the purpose of obtaining oracles. (The only explanation is that some scribe has made this alteration because he knew that there was something idolatrous about the ephod.) Even as late as Hosea (iii. 4) we find the ephod mentioned in a connection where it can only stand for an object of idolatrous worship. It is certainly strange that the same name should be in use for an image, and then later for a garment of the high-priest; but the likely explanation of this is that the image was at one time clothed with a dress, as was usual (Jer. x. 9), and that in the pockets of this the lots were kept. When the use of the image became offensive the garment was retained as part of the high-priest's dress. The transition is made more natural if we can suppose that the Priest of the Oracle, in the early days, was accustomed to put on the garment of the image, under the customary idea that thus the divine knowledge of the idol would be communicated to him. In 2 Kings xviii. 4, we read of _Nehushtan_, the brazen serpent which Moses had made, being used idolatrously; but perhaps this has been wrongly ascribed to Moses. From the intimate connection of bull-worship with the worship of Jehovah, it would seem that the bull was regarded as a symbol of Jehovah; a similar idea may have instituted Aaron's golden calf. While admitting the force of this evidence, we must still keep open the possibility that the religion instituted by Moses was of a purer type, but was never strong enough to drive out the remnants of heathen practice. More indisputable evidence of the materialistic conception of the Person of Jehovah is found in the reverence paid to what is known as "the ark of Jehovah," the making of which is certainly ascribed to Moses. The name "the ark of the covenant," was not the original name given to the ark, but is taken from the incident recorded in Deut. x. 1-5. The idea that the ark was built to contain the tables of the Law does not appear until the time of Deuteronomy, and is quite unknown to the older strata of the Pentateuch. In these older strata all mention of the actual making of the ark is omitted, although there is evidence that they did contain an account of its preparation and meaning. Enough, however, is told us of the reverential treatment of it, to show that it was a symbol of higher sanctity than a mere receptacle for the stones of the law would be likely to be. It is certainly very closely identified with Jehovah Himself, as may be seen from Num. x. 35. (This is in poetic form, and is therefore likely to be a very early fragment. It should be noticed that the ark apparently starts of itself.) Its presence in the battlefield ensures victory, while its absence brings about defeat (Num. xiv. 42-45; 1 Sam. iv. 3-7; v. 1 ff.). It can hardly be that the ark was taken for Jehovah Himself, but it must have contained something that was closely identified with Jehovah; a box is not built except with the idea of holding something. We have seen that it is unlikely that that something was originally the two tables of the law; was it something else of stone which made the transference to the tables of the law at once necessary and natural? Was it a stone image of Jehovah? It has been conjectured that it may have contained meteoritic stones, which would agree with the proposed derivation of "Jehovah" from the Storm God of Sinai. There is nothing in the Old Testament which gives any support to these conjectures, but in face of the fact that the original narrative of the making of the ark has been omitted, and in view of the ideas of religion which were common in that period, we cannot say that they are absolutely excluded from consideration. The ark was certainly bound up with the idea of war, and would seem to have been kept in a soldier's tent. It was transferred to the dark inner temple till 586 B.C., and from that date all trace of it is lost. The Priest's Code ("P") makes provision for it in the second temple, but we have unimpeachable Jewish testimony that the shrine of the inner temple was absolutely empty (Josephus, _War of the Jews_, v. v. § 5). Jeremiah may have been aware of the original significance of the ark as tending towards idolatry, and hence his words in Jer. iii. 16. (2) _Ordinances of Worship._ It remains for us to enquire into the character of the religion founded by Moses by an examination of some of the outstanding ordinances that regulated the idea of worship. Here the traditional ascription of the fully developed ritual of the Book of Leviticus to Moses has to be set aside, on the consideration that we have no record of its observance until late in the period of the monarchy, and from then it can be traced as a gradual growth of custom and ideal until its complete observance after the Exile. There does not seem to have been any priesthood of the exclusive Levitical order founded by Moses. The story of the Levites in Exod. xxxii. can only be a late story, for there is no record of their monopoly of the ritual service until the Reform under Josiah: Joshua, an Ephraimite, is the "servant of the tent"; Samuel, also an Ephraimite, sleeps beside the ark (1 Sam. iii. 3); David and Solomon assume a kind of chief priesthood (2 Sam. vi. 13; 1 Kings viii. 5, 62 ff.), and of course neither of them were Levites. The story in Judges xvii. gives what is perhaps the true position of the Levites: anyone could be consecrated as a family priest, but the presence of a Levite was reckoned propitious. Down to a very late age sacrifice seems to have remained largely a tribal or family act, and although a descendant of Moses' tribe (Levi) was regarded as possessing special advantage, there was no law by which Levites alone were reckoned capable of discharging priestly functions. In the matter of sacrifice, it would seem that Moses simply adopted what was a very ancient and common practice. In face of the evident neglect of the Levitical ritual in matters of sacrifice, both by the common people and by such great reformers as Samuel and Elijah, together with the fact that in the teaching of the prophets doubts are cast on its divine origin (Isa. i. 11; Amos v. 25; Micah vi. 6-8), we cannot infer that the detailed and explicit commands concerning sacrifice found in the Book of Leviticus are the work of Moses, or belong to an early age. To the Prophets, sacrifice is always reminiscent of paganism. The time when the change came in may be detected in the different value given to sacrifice by the post-exilic prophets (Mal. i. 13 f.), while the incompatibility of the two views, prophetic and priestly, can be seen from the addition which has been made to Ps. li., to bring it into accord with the later view. Neither is it possible for us to believe that the elaborate shrine known as the Tabernacle owed its existence to Moses. The impossibility of transporting the cumbrous fixtures through the wilderness had been noticed before the modern era of critical study. A close examination of the details of construction shows that it is nothing more than an ideal projection from the mind of a priestly writer who believed that a tent-like counterpart of Ezekiel's temple was essential to Israel's worship in the wilderness. It is enough to recall that the tabernacle of the priestly writer's imagination is quite unknown to the historical books. In Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff., which may be seen to be only a fragment of an early document, since it starts abruptly by describing "the" tent, which is known as the Tent of Meeting, we have what has been taken to be the Tabernacle; but it is nothing more than a tent for keeping the ark in. (3) _Legislation._ How much of the legislation of the Pentateuch is to be ascribed to Moses we cannot tell. Too many hands have been at work on it for the original to be discovered. A remarkable discovery was made in the year 1901 of some enormous _steles_, which bear in cuneiform characters what is now known as the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest code of laws in the world, the date of which is reckoned to be 2250 B.C. They presuppose an advanced state of civilisation and morality existing in the Euphrates valley at that period. The agreement between the Pentateuchal Code and the Code of Hammurabi argues dependence of the former on the latter to a very considerable extent, and supplies a still further testimony to the extent to which the religion of Israel is indebted to Babylon. The exact bearing of this discovery upon critical theories, and especially upon the date of the Pentateuch has perhaps hardly been estimated yet; it does not, however, refute the theory which denies that the Pentateuch as it stands is from the hand of Moses. We naturally think of the Decalogue as the work of Moses, but here we are faced by the difficulty that the Decalogue appears to exist in three recensions (Exod. xx. 1-17; xxxiv. 14-28; Deut. v. 6-21). The account in Exod. xxxiv., which forms part of the document "J," is reckoned to be the oldest of these, and the original of this might well go back to the time of Moses. It has been objected that the Decalogue is too ethical to suit the time of Moses, but is this not because we are inclined to read into the Ten Commandments far more than is to be found there? It can be shown that they are little more than ten laws of "rights." A special difficulty is found in ascribing the second commandment to this age, in view of its frequent uncensured breach; but perhaps there is some difference that escapes us between a molten image, which is prescribed in the first draft (Exod. xxxiv. 17), and the later prohibition of the graven image (Exod. xx. 4). In the foregoing examination we have allowed for the most rigorous demands of advanced criticism, demands which may have to be modified as criticism becomes more of a science, but there remains the need to discover what there was, on these critical assumptions, in the Mosaic religion that provided the way for a further advance into the faith which became the glory of Israel. What is it that makes the difference between Mosaism and the heathen Semitic religions, a difference which was to make the gradual growth of a pure Monotheism possible? The first important element which needs to be reckoned with is that it was a religion of choice rather than a religion of nature. We saw that it was difficult to conceive how the religion of Jehovah could have been adopted by Israel unless there had been some previous contact. What is so difficult to understand is nevertheless the one element that contained the possibility of progress. The relation of Israel to Jehovah was neither by physical descent nor through the connection of the god with the land, as with the heathen Semitic religions. Jehovah was at first conceived of as the God of the tribe only, but even this was not by nature, but by His gracious choice. Their land was given to them by Jehovah, but His natural connection was with a far distant shrine. This fact in itself must have rendered necessary some more spiritual conception of His habitation, and, though hard enough for the common people to realise, when they entered Canaan and found a full-grown cultus and religion in connection with the god of the land already in possession, it was this fact upon which the Prophets fastened and which could not be denied: the religion of Jehovah was a matter of choice and not of racial or local connection. That choice had been ratified by solemn covenant, to which the Prophets appealed. The relation between Jehovah and Israel depended therefore on the conditions of the covenant being faithfully kept. When we compare the religions of the other Semites, which made the relation of the god and his people one which nothing could break, and from which neither the god nor the people could escape, we can see how this difference constituted one of the ethical germs of the religion which was destined to grow into fuller power and life. There was another important conception, which was intensified by the fact that the religion of Jehovah was a religion of choice: that of the jealousy of Jehovah. This was often interpreted, especially in the pre-prophetic period, in a very crude and in even a cruel way. The jealousy of Jehovah was very like the human passion: uncertain, arbitrary and irrational, manifesting itself according to the popular mind in outbreaks of fury for ceremonial mistakes, or for causes even less comprehensible (Num. iii. 4; 2 Sam. vi. 7). In all the religions it was thought to be a serious thing to depart from the allegiance to the rightful god, and sure to lay one open to his jealousy and vengeance; but something more is now found in this idea as it develops in Hebrew thought: it is that the jealousy of Jehovah is due to the great difference between Him and the other gods, a difference which came to be recognised as one of character. Something of this must go back to Moses himself. This difference is also expressed in the idea that He is a God of righteousness. The word "righteousness" does not always have in the Hebrew Scriptures the absolute meaning which it has for us. It was rather equal to our word "rights," which we often employ quite unethically. Jehovah was one who gave right judgments when questions were submitted and answered by the lot, and One who brought victory to the right. It was undoubtedly Israel's right that was chiefly considered, but there was hidden in it an ethical germ which was to bring forth notable fruit when man's sense of right was widened. This at least was the mark of the new religion which Moses impressed on the people, impressed with such a force that it could never be quite forgotten. It had new thoughts pregnant with meaning for the mind of man and for the future of religion, and these became the fulcrum of the Prophets' appeal. From the bosom of this people was to come forth One who was to reveal the Father as perfectly righteous and impartial, and who demands for His service a righteousness that must far exceed that of the straitest observers of external religion. It would be easy for us to despise this day of small beginnings, or to refuse to see in it any real revelation of God at all. Doubtless this enquiry may necessitate a change in our conceptions of the work of Moses, but it is one that we are forced to by a multitude of facts, and we must find a theory of inspiration wide enough to fit them. Crude as we may make the beginnings of Israel's faith, natural as we may feel are the laws by which it worked towards its growth, we have not been able to get any nearer to some of those ultimate questions which ask how religion begins, what the nature of revelation is, and how it comes to man's mind. We need not think that God had to break in on the mind of Moses, so that the personality of the man was in abeyance while God worked through him. When God wishes to bring men to a higher truth He does not supernaturally communicate it; He makes human nature to produce personalities whose minds come naturally to the truth. There can be no separation of natural and supernatural here; wherever that separation is to be made, we certainly cannot make it. There can be no meaning in revelation, and no possibility of it, unless God has made man's mind to be growingly in touch with Him and to be capable of receiving His revelation by the natural working of thought, so that it seems to spring up within his own consciousness. Deeper into this question we are not called upon to go at present, but no one can object that it is less reverent, or that it shows signs of a decay of faith, if men can see God to-day not only in the extraordinary and the supernatural, but also in the ordinary and the natural. If the recognition of God depends on spiritual vision, then those who refuse to narrow the limits within which God can be seen, and who therefore welcome all truth with gladness and without fear, are not to be called godless and unspiritual. We should learn to be thankful for Moses, for he was faithful as far as he knew; if we were as faithful in proportion to the fuller light which has come to us, religion would be a very real and inclusive thing. We should also learn to take heart, if from these beginnings such mighty movements have sprung. The mistakes inevitable to the human mind do not destroy the possibility of revelation, the error cannot everlastingly obscure the truth, nor in the long run will evil triumph over good. It was possible in that far off age, it was possible in all ages, it is possible now, for a mind still far from the true conception of the ultimate nature of God to yet grasp something, and by a supreme faith in the leading of a Mighty Power to lift a whole nation, and through it the world, one stage further on in goodness and truth. THE INFLUENCE OF CANAAN As an introduction to Lecture IV. the reader is advised to make a careful study of Judges i. 1-ii. 5, a mutilated fragment of a very early and reliable account of the invasion of Canaan. The opening words (verse 1) refer the events which follow to the period after the death of Joshua; but the Book of Joshua has already recorded the complete conquest of Canaan, so that there can be no place for this further invasion on a far less ambitious plan, and apparently with less successful results. It will be noticed, however, that this account easily falls away from the main body of the narrative; Judges ii. 6 follows naturally after Joshua xxiv. 28, and ignores what comes between. We have, therefore, in this account another history of the conquest of Canaan, which contradicts altogether the impression--which we get from reading the Book of Joshua--that the conquest of Canaan was effected by the tribes acting in unison, that it was complete, and that the conquered were exterminated; it records a movement of tribes acting independently, there is no "conquest" in the ordinary sense of the term, but a footing is obtained alongside the original inhabitants of the land. This account of a gradual immigration of tribes is confirmed by the discovery of inscriptions, which seem to show that there were some tribes of the Hebrews in Palestine before the traditional date of the Conquest, and even before the Exodus. Until quite lately the history of Egypt has thrown no light on these events. It has not even been possible to identify with any certainty the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus took place. One identification is now fairly certain. The Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites was Rameses III., for discoveries have proved that it was he who built Pithom (Exod. i. 11); the Exodus has therefore been referred to the reigns of Merneptah or Seti II., his immediate successors. The objection to this is that in these reigns both the peninsula of Sinai and the land of Palestine were under full Egyptian control, and therefore the Exodus must be put later on, when this control slackened. This would bring the Exodus to the date of 1200-1180 B.C. and the Conquest some fifty years later. The latest discoveries tend to throw this result into confusion. Names, which it is proposed to identify with tribes of the Israelites, have been found in inscriptions belonging to earlier reigns. On an inscription of Rameses II. the name of Asher is found as dwelling in North Palestine. In a list of Thotmes III. (still earlier, Sixteenth Century, B.C.) we find the names Jacob and Joseph in the significant combination, Jacob-el and Joseph-el, used to describe the Dan-Ephraim district of Palestine. This makes it more likely that the Tel-el-Amarna tablets (dated Fourteenth Century, B.C.) refer to the Hebrews. In these letters, addressed to Amenophis IV., the King of Jerusalem appeals for help against an invasion of the _Habiri_, who are led by Abd Ashera. The invasion is not by a large force, as may be seen from the fact that it is thought thirty or forty Egyptian soldiers will be sufficient for the purpose of resisting their attacks. More certain than any of these references is the occurrence of the name of Israel on a Stele of Merneptah, in connection with a recital of his triumphs in Syria. The form in which this reference is made leaves no doubt that, by this period, Israel was already settled in Palestine. ("Israel is laid waste, its corn is annihilated.") There is no confirmation of a Syrian campaign under Merneptah, and it may be that in accordance with the fashion of the age, he is including among his victories the exploits of his predecessors; this would agree with the earlier date for the occupation of Canaan by Israel which the previous references seem to require. The exact bearing of these discoveries has yet to be determined, but they either require us to put the date of the Exodus earlier, which would in itself be difficult, or, what would bring light on many problems, assume that not all the tribes were in bondage in Egypt, and that the invasion of Canaan by various tribes, only long after welded into a nation, was spread over a long period. Lecture IV THE INFLUENCE OF CANAAN If the nation of Israel may be said to have been born in captivity, baptised in the Red Sea, and awakened to national consciousness at Mount Sinai, then the settlement in Canaan corresponds to the no less critical period of adolescence, when, training and tutelage being over, youth must choose its own path and fight its way in the world. Certain it is that the entrance into Canaan largely determined the future of this people, for it must have profoundly modified the national character, turning as it did nomadic tribes into a settled and civilised people; but above all, and what more concerns us, it proved extremely critical for the fate of that as yet untried revelation of Jehovah, which had still to win its way against the heathenism of the common people, and was now by this new experience called upon to measure its strength against the attraction of a competing faith. The peculiar and pathetic love of the Jews for Canaan is largely due to the remembrance that it was not their own land but the long promised gift of Jehovah, standing therefore to all time as the material proof of His love for Israel; while their estimate of it was intensely deepened by the wilderness experience which preceded. That estimate seems to us somewhat exaggerated, for to-day Palestine has almost given up the struggle against the always threatening advance of the desert. It has certainly changed for the worse under neglect and misrule, but it can never have been a too indulgent land; only comparison with the bare and awful desert can have called forth the description, "a land flowing with milk and honey." With the long memory of restless nomadic life and the bitter thought of bondage, any land would seem welcome that offered them freedom and safety; while to those approaching it from the desert it seemed as fair and fruitful a land as men could desire. All lands have contributed largely to the character of the nations they have reared, and the wilderness ancestry and the character of Canaan have played their part in the development of Israel. The very geographical position of Canaan helps us to understand the Hebrews, and even to see how it was that in this land it was possible to nurture from such unpromising beginnings the wonderful development of religion that was to make this smallest of all lands one of the most sacred spots on earth, and this strange and limited people among the greatest contributors to the moral and religious ideas of humanity. Crushed in between the sea and the desert, hemmed in by great military powers, the little buffer state itself the very crossways of East and West, its roads never long at rest from the tramp of armies; here was a land in which all dreams of fame and empire were hammered out, and nothing left possible save an empire of spiritual power and the fame of a unique religion. A people strangely proud and passionately exclusive, they could never rest under the dominion of their great neighbours, however light the burden imposed; and since sustained resistance was out of the question by reason of their inferior numbers and lack of military power, they resorted to irritating acts of rebellion, or intrigued with the enemies of their overlords, and so brought down on their land frequent vengeance. Such was their untameable nature that the only practical policy open to Babylon, if she wished to insure the loyalty, or at least, the neutrality of Palestine, was to deport the Jews bodily to where they could be under observation. So we find the greatest heroes of Jewish history--from Moses, through Gideon and Samson, to David and Judas Maccabæus--are those who deliver the nation from oppression; while Israel's prayers are largely cries for succour against enemies, or for Divine vengeance on the oppressor; only too eloquent a witness of the sense of their own impotence. Yet it was precisely this experience that forced their religion to rise above the common type, to conquer its natural tendencies, and to become the most magnificent faith in God that the world has seen. Of this they themselves were not ignorant; for one of their writers points to the easy lot of Moab as the cause of their irreligion (Jer. xlviii. 11), and one of the Psalmists says that it is the men who have no changes who fear not God (lv. 19). We need not consider the utterly feeble objection that all this makes the religion of Israel the outcome of natural necessity, rather than of Divine revelation; for God made the land that made Israel. The entry into Canaan was therefore one of the most critical periods in the history of this people and in the development of the religion of the Old Testament. It is, however, extremely difficult to discover from the means at our disposal just how or when that entry was effected. The sources for this period are found in the Books of Joshua and Judges, but, from comparison with much in the history that follows, it is clear that they do not present us with absolute history; yet a critical examination of these books enables us to recover the essential facts. A study of the preface to this lecture will show that the story of the Conquest is obscure in its details and difficult to reconcile with modern discoveries. A careful examination of our sources shows that the description of the entry of the Hebrews into Canaan as a "conquest," which was settled by a few decisive battles, is at least rather fanciful; and as a matter of fact we have quite another picture in the first chapter of Judges, which partakes more of the character of an "alien immigration," a method of "conquest" in which the Jews have always been remarkably successful. The history in Joshua certainly represents the Conquest as striking, complete, and followed by a ruthless extermination of the defenders of their native land. In view of the relations that were for long maintained between the Canaanites and the Hebrews, the representation in Judges i. must be regarded as nearer to the facts than the story of the Conquest according to the Book of Joshua. The children of Israel dwelt side by side with the Canaanites, simply because they were not able to drive them out; and as a result the tribes were frequently divided by strong belts of Canaanitish territory. Right through the time of the Judges we get warfare between the Israelites and the inhabitants of the land; sometimes in pitched battles between the Canaanites and the united tribes of Israel (Judges iv. v.), but more generally in guerilla warfare or in the sudden surprise of a Canaanitish garrison (Judges xviii.). The result of the conflict seems to have been the gradual absorption of the two elements into one nation. The records definitely admit that it was not until the time of David that the Jebusites were driven from Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 6, 7), and not until Solomon that the superiority of the Israelites was finally established (1 Kings ix. 20, 21). It surely is an immense relief to think that the huge slaughters recorded in the Book of Joshua are, to say the least, exaggerations. The history in Judges also clearly shows that there was little cohesion between the tribes. They filtered across the Jordan only by degrees, and there is evidence that this process may have extended over a considerable time. We have records of quarrels between Gideon and Ephraim (Judges viii. 1), and between Jephthah and Ephraim (Judges xii. 1). These inter-tribal conflicts might have been serious, were it not for the circumstance that the Israelites were no sooner settled in the land than other tribes of desert invaders began to press upon them, and they had to sink family differences in order to combine against the common enemy. The song of Deborah (Judges v.) is one of the most valuable documents we possess for the light which it throws on the conditions of religious and national life in this period, for it is probably the only document in the Old Testament, earlier than the founding of the monarchy, that is contemporary with the events it describes. It shows that the tribes had somewhat improved their position, for they now seem to be in possession of the highlands of Ephraim, although the plains are still in the hands of the Canaanites. The growing power of the Israelites and their threatening predominance moved the Canaanites to a united effort to repress Israel. It is to face this danger that the Prophetess Deborah calls the tribes; but from the way in which the praise and blame is meted out we can see that a strong sense of national unity was still lacking. The important point to be noticed is that the bond of unity to which Deborah could appeal was the name of Jehovah. It should be noted also that in the enumeration of the tribes, Judah, Simeon, and Levi are altogether omitted. In the case of so important a tribe as Judah this is significant, for it agrees with the fact that until the time of David this tribe does not come into prominence. It has been conjectured that Judah was only a small tribe, and may have invaded Canaan from the south, for it is difficult to conceive how it could have crossed the strong Canaanitish territory which separated it from the other tribes. At any rate, at this time it was not regarded as one of the tribes of Israel; it may have been that this tribe embraced a strong Canaanitish element (Gen. xxxviii.), and this fact may have contributed to the resentment which broke out among the other tribes when Judah assumed the hegemony in the time of David, and which led in the end to the disruption of the Kingdom. In our sources the history of this period has attached to it a religious interpretation: apostasy, and disobedience to the commands of Jehovah were the causes of the people being sold into the power of their enemies; when they returned to the worship of Jehovah and penitently pleaded for His forgiveness then deliverers were raised up who vanquished their oppressors. This can be nothing but a late interpretation, for the religion of the Book of Judges is of quite a fixed order, and many of the stories recorded in it will not lend themselves to any such interpretation. The hand that supplied this reading of the history of this period has been identified with the author of Deuteronomy, or, as some would prefer to say, with the school of thought that produced that work. There is a religious lesson in this history, as in all history; but it is hardly to be found in a series of apostasies and returns. There are really four separate endeavours to account for the undoubted fact of the Canaanites being spared. (1) Israel was not able to drive them out (Judges i. 19, 27). (2) Israel was only commanded to drive them out by degrees, "lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee" (Deut. vii. 22). (3) It was a providential arrangement to keep the Israelites practised in war (Judges iii. 1, 2). (4) It was due to direct disobedience to the command of Jehovah (Judges ii. 20). The history does not entitle us to assume that the judges were officials who exercised kingly rights over a united Israel. The word translated "Judge" more often means "Deliverer," and this is certainly the part that they play. Of some of the so-called minor judges we know nothing beyond their names, and there is evidence that they have simply been used to fill out a traditional period of 480 years (1 Kings vi. 1). Whenever the "Judges" assumed kingly or judicial functions trouble and rebellion always followed. The figure of Samson displays little fitness for ruling a nation or guiding it in religion, but the stones of his life are illuminating for the understanding of the morality and interests of that age. With this revised conception of the history of the Conquest, and of the events which followed, we are in a better position to estimate the effect of the change from nomadic life to a settled existence, and to understand how critical for the future of the religion of Jehovah this change was. We see tribes possessing little national unity, but bound together by a religion in which lay the germ of a mighty future, entering a land where the inhabitants had reached a higher stage of civilisation, and possessed a religion that drew its power from the fact that it was the worship of Baal, the possessor and owner of the land. In face of these conditions it was almost inevitable that many of the customs of the original inhabitants should be gradually adopted, and that the religion of Jehovah should borrow something from the religion indigenous to the land. This was certainly the result which followed. For a considerable period we find a religion prevalent among the common people, which is simply a conflation of the two religions. There were certain elements common to both, and certain advantages in the one, together with corresponding weaknesses in the other, that prepared the way for this syncretism. We shall now turn to examine the religion of the Canaanites, which we shall find to partake largely of the common elements of Semitic religion. Their deities were personifications of natural forces, and among these there is no one which is supreme, and nothing that tends to Monotheism. The gods are friendly and destructive by turn, and of unreliable character. It is nothing more than an undeveloped Polytheism. The religion, as it is seen in the Old Testament, groups itself around three names: Baal, Ashtoreth (often written in plural form Ashtaroth), and Molech (otherwise written Moloch, Milcom, and known to the Phoenicians as Melkart). The name of Baal has a hateful memory in the pages of the Old Testament as the Canaanitish deity to whom Israel constantly apostatised. The exact significance of Baal in the Canaanitish religion is a matter of dispute. He has been identified with the sun, and by the Greeks with Zeus; so that it has been inferred that Baal was the President of the Canaanitish Pantheon. This view is no longer generally accepted, for it certainly fails to fit in with the records of the cult preserved in the Old Testament. The word "Baal" is not a proper name, but signifies "the Possessor"; it is used in Semitic language for "husband," as the possessor of the wife, and is used as the name for deity, as the possessor of the land. Every land, and indeed every locality, will therefore have its own Baal; so that in the Old Testament we hear of the "Baalim" (the Hebrew plural), and these local Baalim are further distinguished by the addition of the name of their locality or of some event with which they were connected, as Baal-Peor, Baal-Berith, Baal-Zebul. The "Baal" is especially responsible for sending rain and sunshine, and for giving fruitful seasons. He is, therefore, the god of agriculture, and the great events of the agricultural year, such as harvest and vintage, are observed as his festivals. It is natural to find the uncertainty of the weather reflected in the character of the Baalim, with the result that we get a religion alternating between intoxicating joy and the deepest gloom. To appease the fickle god or to win his favour sacrifices, even of human lives, are presented, and if Baal continues unheeding, scenes of the most unrestrained fanaticism prevail. It is this gloomy religion which darkens the times of the later Kings of Judah. The Canaanitish Baal should be distinguished from the Baal of Tyre (Melkart) whose worship was introduced by Ahab. Here the introduction of an alien Baal, with probably different rites and ceremonies, awoke the resentment of the prophetic party under the leadership of Elijah, but the worship of the Canaanite Baal was maintained for long unchecked. Closely connected with the worship of the Baalim we find the worship of the Ashtaroth (Judges ii. 13). The pronunciation of this word is obscure; it was probably _Ashtart_, and the singular form, Ashtoreth (1 Kings xi. 5), has been formed by inserting the vowels of the word _bosheth_ (shame), a common device in the Old Testament for expressing contempt. Ashtart is the female counterpart of Baal, and is spoken of in the plural for a similar reason. Monuments of the worship of Ashtart are still to be found, and from these it is evident that we have here the worship of the goddess of sexual passion, as common in polytheistic systems, and best known in the Greek worship of Aphrodite. The whole conception of Ashtart can be traced to the famous goddess _Ishtar_ of Babylonian religion, and there is only too certain evidence that in Canaan as elsewhere the degrading rite of religious prostitution was used in this worship of female divinity (Hosea iv. 13). The identification of Ashtart with the "Queen of Heaven" (Jer. vii. 18; xliv. 15-25) is not so certain. As far as the worship of the latter is described to us, it looks like an importation of the Babylonian worship of Ishtar, who was identified with the planet Venus or sometimes with the moon. The "cakes to pourtray her" (Jer. xliv. 19) may have been crescent-shaped cakes. Of a similar character was the worship that gathered around the name of Molech. We have here simply the word for king (_Milk_) with the vowels of _bosheth_. Of this name, Moloch, Milcom, and Melkart of Tyre are variations. Molech is not to be distinguished from Baal, as may be seen from Jer. xix. 5, where the practice of passing children through the fire, which was certainly connected with the worship of Molech, is a part of the worship of Baal. This burnt-sacrifice of children evidently belonged to the Canaanitish religion (2 Kings xvi. 3). This then was the religion of the Canaanites: in times of prosperity and fruitful seasons, one of rejoicing and festivity; but in time of famine, drought or national danger, one of the most hopeless gloom and of the most fearful fanaticism. In conflict with this religion, the purer worship of Jehovah yet presented certain weaknesses; these are found chiefly in points of possible identification, which in the course of the history actually took place. This may be difficult for us to understand until we remember that Baal and Molech, to Semitic ears, simply meant "Lord" and "King"; and Jehovah was the "Lord" and "King" of Israel. If the character of Jehovah was not clearly apprehended as moral by the common people, we can see how easy it was for confusion to take place. The great weakness of the religion of Jehovah was that He was not the God of Canaan. His home was in distant Sinai, and the only symbol of His presence was the ark, a symbol bound up with the idea of war. As the people settled down to a peaceful agricultural life, the need for Jehovah, the warrior God, would not be keenly felt. There was certainly a party from the very first who recognised the difference between Jehovah and Baal and fought against their identification, but so long as Baal was believed to be a real being the danger of his secret worship at least was never far away. Every land had its own god, and although the people knew that Jehovah was their God, yet they might think it necessary, and not inconsistent, to pay their respects to the local Baalim on whom they were dependent for the fruits of the earth (Hosea ii. 8). Nothing therefore but a national calamity could revive the old religion in face of the attractions of the new; if peace had been continuous it is hard to see how the religion founded by Moses could have persevered. Such dangerous peace the Children of Israel were not to enjoy. We soon hear the rousing call to the help of Jehovah in the Song of Deborah, and it was the threatened domination by the Philistines that called the monarchy into existence and revived the religion of Jehovah. Meanwhile, however, a process of syncretism was gradually taking place, which it was to be the task of the Prophets to unravel; and how far it had gone may be seen from the difficulty they found in making the character of Jehovah and the moral demand made upon His worshippers clear to the people. "Jehovah," it must be remembered, was a name largely personal. Baal was a general name for deity, and could be applied to Jehovah quite truthfully. That this actually took place may be seen from a number of passages in the Old Testament. The most instructive instance is to be found in Hosea ii. 16; but the names given to places point in the same direction: David calls the spot where Jehovah broke his enemies, Baal-perazim; the same god is called indiscriminately, Baal-berith (Judges viii. 33; ix. 4) and El-berith (Judges ix. 46). This practice accounts for the names of Saul's son, Eshbaal, and of Jonathan's son, Meribbaal (1 Chron. viii. 33, 34), both of which have been altered in the Book of Samuel to "bosheth." (In obedience to the command of Exod. xxiii. 13, _Bosheth_ was substituted for _Baal_ in reading the Scriptures. The written text was altered in many places at a later period; the Chronicler must have found _Baal_ in his text of Samuel; that is about 200 B.C.) The names of Jehovah and Baal therefore came to have the same significance, and the distinction began to be missed; Jehovah was still the God of Israel, but the moral elements of His religion were gradually diluted with the naturalistic conceptions of the worship of Baal. Jehovah becomes the Baal of the land; that is, the relation between Him and Israel is conceived in a natural and even physical way. It is therefore no longer a covenant relation, which depends on the observance of moral obligations, but one of nature which cannot be broken by either party. Naturally the sanctuaries of the Canaanites are taken over by the Israelites, and Jehovah is worshipped in "the high places." All through the history worship at these local sanctuaries is condemned, but only from a later standpoint, for the earliest Book of Laws permitted an altar to be erected anywhere where Jehovah had manifested Himself (Exod. xx. 24). Around some of these undoubtedly Canaanitish sanctuaries the stories of the Patriarchs gathered, but from the practices which prevailed at such places as Bethel we can see that heathen rites were used, for here Jeroboam set up the golden calves, which seem to have been used in the worship of Jehovah, for neither Elijah nor Amos condemns them. Jehovah is now worshipped all over the land, but there is the same tendency to regard each separate place as having its local deity, and so Jehovah is multiplied (perhaps, Jer. xi. 13) and needs to be further identified by the addition of place names, as in the strange name El-bethel (Gen. xxxv. 7), El-elohe-Israel (Gen. xxxiii. 20), in a way that is very like the multiplication of the Baalim. So deeply was the worship of Jehovah mixed up with Canaanitish ideas that in the reign of Josiah the only possibility of reform lay in forbidding the worship at the local sanctuaries altogether and concentrating all worship at the central sanctuary of Jerusalem. Nothing but this process of syncretism can explain the condition of religion in the subsequent history, and it is needed to enable us to understand both the difficulty of the work of the Prophets and the form their message takes. Nevertheless, there must have been from the earliest times elements that made for a purer faith, and that never acquiesced in this confusion between Jehovah and Baal, which certainly prevailed in the popular mind; otherwise the Reformation of the Eighth Century would be an isolated and inexplicable movement, and without that historical support the Prophets claimed. There was a party against Baal altogether, although they do not emerge until the monarchy. This party may have consisted of the "priests" of Jehovah. At mention of these we must not think of the sacrificing priests described in the Book of Leviticus. No such persons are known until after the exile; during this period anyone could sacrifice. The story of the priest in Judges xvii. gives a good idea of this class; his chief duties seem to have consisted in keeping the oracle and obtaining decisions by the lot. These decisions became the basis on which there was gradually built up the _Torah_ (the Law), which, as the word implies, was a collection of decisions obtained by casting lots. For the purpose of obtaining these decisions the priests seem to have used an idol of some kind; for this is the most natural explanation of the Ephod and its use in the early history. There would be different degrees of intellectual and moral capacity found in the ranks of the priests, and many of them may have had higher ideals of their duties than the one mentioned in Judges. It would be likely that those who were in charge of the Sacred Ark possessed a superior dignity and maintained a purer tradition. Gradually the magical accompaniments to their oracular decisions may have given way to more judicial deliverances, although in the time of David and Abiathar they were apparently still used (1 Sam. xxx. 7). At any rate the priests kept alive the idea of Jehovah as the dispenser of justice, and helped to build up that system of laws for which Israel is so justly famous. This "higher critical" view of the history is simply one to which we are driven by the records that stand nearest to the times they describe. It certainly alters considerably the ordinary conceptions of the type of religion that prevailed in those early days, before the coming of the Prophets; but that such was the type is only too clearly shown by the writings of the Prophets themselves. Nevertheless this view of the period, while it shuts out a somewhat stiff and mechanical religious interpretation of the history which has been forced upon it by a later age, is still not without a valuable lesson, which is perhaps not taught elsewhere in the Bible, and yet is one that we need to have always before us. It is one, the possibility of which always exists and often threatens a spiritual religion: the danger of a gradual encroachment and assimilation of pagan ideas until the original purity is lost almost beyond recovery. If this has happened anywhere it has happened in Christianity. It was the awakening to this paganisation of Christianity that provoked the struggle of the Reformation, not yet decided. Many of the conceptions that are still popularly identified with Christianity are the remnants of paganism. It is not necessary to enumerate the common customs which wear only a thin veneer of Christianity; but many of the ideas in connection with Christian Doctrine certainly owe more to pagan philosophy than they do to the New Testament. The syncretism between Paganism and Christianity has not been destroyed by the Reformation. Many of the popular ideas of the Atonement, for instance, rest on a pagan conception of God and a materialistic idea of Christ's work which are so deeply involved in the common presentation of Christianity that to present the actual New Testament teaching would seem to many like a denial of the foundation truths of the Gospel. Still more dangerous is the localisation of the god as the peculiar patron of the land, which justifies many unholy wars and makes such a thing as a national repentance almost impossible. There is a god of the British Empire who is remarkably like the Jehovah-Baal of the old syncretised religion that ruled in the period which we have been studying, and whose worship begets equal indifference to the claims of true religion, and equally cruel treatment for the prophet who strives to call men to a purer faith. It is a relief to turn to a more comforting lesson. It is that which assures us that man's thought of God is not entirely his own, that it cannot be destroyed and is never wholly forgotten, but ever makes its way to higher truth and greater power. The way in which the higher religion comes is through the pure minds of those who wish only to live up to the fulness of the truth, and however mistaken they be, wish only to know and to do the will of God. A similar task lies equally before every honest man and every true Christian. The lesson is plain: beware of a stagnant religion that dreads progress, and keep the mind open as a child's to God's further revelation of Himself, which has yet many things to tell us. PROPHETISM--EARLY STAGES The reader is recommended to investigate for himself the origins of Prophetism by a careful examination of the following passages:-- I. There were originally Guilds or Schools of Prophets; from which it would appear that Prophetism was a kind of profession (1 Sam. x. 5; xix. 20; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5). There is nothing in the records that we possess that marks these bands of prophets as possessed of great spiritual power; they were devoted to the cause of Israel and Jehovah, and the way in which this was manifested was taken to imply that they were filled with the spirit of Jehovah; it inclines somewhat to the Dervish order of enthusiastic devotion (1 Sam. x. 5; xix. 20-24). It is significant that wherever these schools are found there is known to have existed a "high place," _i.e._, an old Canaanitish sanctuary, now used for the worship of Jehovah-Baal. A similar order of prophets was connected with the worship of the Tyrian Baal (1 Kings xviii.). II. Samuel (1 Sam. xix. 20) Elisha (2 Kings ii. 15; iv. 38; vi. 1-7) and in much less degree, Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 4; xix. 10) had some connection with these schools. III. The later Prophets did not claim descent from these guilds of "prophecy," and even repudiated any connection with them (Amos vii. 14). This conflict between the "called" prophet and the professionals is revealed in the fierce denunciations of Isaiah (xxix. 10) and Jeremiah (v. 31; xiv. 13, 14; xxvi. 7, 8). IV. The identification of these prophets with priests and seers probably gives a clue to their origin (1 Sam. ix. 9; Isa. xxix. 10; Jer. xxvi. 7, 8; Amos vii. 12). V. Certain individuals who are called prophets or seers had official court connection (2 Sam. xxiv. 11; 1 Chron. xxv. 5; Amos vii. 10). Between these "prophets" and the great writers who bear the same designation, we cannot fail to recognise an immense difference; Samuel and Elijah are connecting links between the two classes. Elijah is rather a hero than a prophet in the later sense, for he gives us no new doctrine, and Samuel is a seer who has risen to political power, rather than a religious ruler. Critics have discovered evidence of a double narrative in our documents. (Earlier) 1 Sam. ix. 1-x. 16; xi. xiii. 2-xiv. 52. (Later) 1 Sam. i. ii. iii. iv. vii. 3-17; viii. x. 17-25; xii. xv. If these be examined and contrasted, it will be found that Samuel is more allied in the earlier narratives with the "priest-seer" than with the Prophet of the type of Amos. A confirmation of this double narrative is found in the different accounts of the origin of the monarchy which they give. Samuel, according to the earlier sources, is just the type we need for the intermediate stage in the development of the Prophet. For the different historical conceptions of the work and character of David the narratives in Samuel should be compared with the representation given in Chronicles, and with that inferred by the ascription of various Psalms to his authorship. Lecture V PROPHETISM--EARLY STAGES We have seen that in the time of the Judges the religion of Jehovah became so mixed with elements taken over from the Canaanites that the original revelation gained through Moses was in danger of being lost. We have now to trace the steps by which this syncretism was broken up, and the advance made to the purely monotheistic conception and the lofty morality of the great literary Prophets. However this came about it is certain that it was not due to any gradual movement among the mass of the people, for the type of religion which we have been considering remains largely unaltered in its hold upon the popular mind. Through the teaching of the earlier prophets certain reforms were attempted, but none of them seem to have touched the heart of the nation. Hezekiah and Josiah attempted to reform religion by centralising the national worship, but, from whatever cause, it left the people still in opposition to the prophetic type of religion, a conflict that was only ended by the calamity of the exile. It is, therefore, to the prophetic band themselves that we must turn. Can we trace within this more limited circle a movement that shall in any way prepare us for the appearance of men of the type of Amos? To answer this question we must turn to the Books of Samuel and Kings. These present us with a history of the period which, like most history, has been written, or over-written, from a later standpoint and made to conform with later ideals. On the whole, however, and by contrasting it with the still later conceptions of the Books of Chronicles, we can form an accurate impression of the state of religion at this time; and incidentally we have a valuable account of a movement that evidently gave birth to those great conceptions of religion which were to be voiced with such power and force by the great Prophets. The writers who, apart from the value of their religious teaching, have by their distinctive style made the Old Testament a contribution to the literature of the world, are known to us as "Prophets." This name they share, however, with others who have left us no first-hand record of their religious opinions, and who, as described to us in the early sources, bear only the slightest resemblance to Prophets as we conceive them. Our task will be, therefore, to investigate the origins of this movement which embraces such diverse elements, and this we may commence by examining the meaning of the word "Prophet" (_Nabi_). Like many other words in the Old Testament that lock up important secrets, the origin of the word Prophet is obscure and its meaning disputed. The conception which is most natural to our word "Prophet" is of one who sees into the future; this is not even the main characteristic of the writing Prophets, nor does it embrace all the phenomena connected with the movement, especially in its early stages. All that can be said of the word from an etymological standpoint is that it has no origin which can be traced in historical Hebrew, and the inference is that it is either a very ancient word, or one borrowed from some other language. The word can, however, hardly be ancient, for it is not common to Semitic tongues, as is the word "priest," for instance, while we have a definite statement that within historic times it superseded the older word "seer" (1 Sam. ix. 9). The name was also used for certain devotees of the Tyrian Baal, whose worship was imported by Ahab; but it can hardly be that the name would be adopted directly from a phenomenon that was so repugnant to the Israelites, although the common name hints that there was a common ancestry somewhere. It seems fair to assume from the facts mentioned that the word is, at least, not older than the entry into Canaan, and while it cannot be definitely proved that it was borrowed from the Canaanites, there is some confirmation of this in the fact that the earliest occurrence of the name is in connection with the "sons of the prophets," who are always found in places where it is known that there were Canaanitish sanctuaries. The word _Nabi_ has been variously connected with the root, _nab'a_, "to bubble," and so one inspired; with the Arabic word, "to speak," and so a speaker or herald. The word seems to exist in Assyrian in the form _nabu_, "to announce," but this is probably from the name of the Babylonian deity, Nebo, the God of Eloquence, so that the word might mean one possessed by Nebo. Some have even looked to this as the ultimate derivation of the word. The investigation of the word really gives nothing satisfactory, and we must therefore turn to examine the character of the persons to whom it was applied. In various passages in the Old Testament, Seer and Prophet are so used as to lead us to infer that they embraced identical ideas (Isa. xxix. 10; Amos vii. 12), and in one passage, which has only the authority of a late annotation of the text, we learn that they were identical in their application (1 Sam. ix. 9). The other name with which Prophet is frequently bracketed is that of Priest; they are placed together in the denunciations of Jeremiah (ii. 8; v. 31). Our previous studies showed us that these classes were all somewhat akin in their origins; the duties of the priest were discharged in keeping the oracles, while the Seer is evidently akin to the Soothsayer, a type that has appeared in all religions. We have a concrete example of these classes being combined in Samuel. In the early story of Samuel's first meeting with Saul, we find Saul turning to consult the famous Seer in order to discover where his father's lost asses are to be found; and even the question of the Seer's usual fee is mentioned (1 Sam. ix. 8). This picture, which makes Samuel a notable Seer, is earlier and more authentic than that which makes him nearly a ruler over Israel. Although he is nowhere called a priest, yet he himself sacrifices, and his presence at a sacrifice is reckoned an advantage (1 Sam. xiii. 8-13); while we have the story of his sleeping by the ark in his youth. The Seer is, therefore, an exalted type of priest who has obtained renown by the success of his prognostications, and so we read of Seers attached to the courts of the Kings (2 Sam. xxiv. 11; 1 Chron. xxv. 5); but the later sources have recognised that there is something heathenish about the word, and have covered it up with the name Prophet. From the early descriptions of the bands of prophets in the books of Samuel, it would seem that they are more allied to the priestly order than to the Seers, for it is certain that down to the middle of the Ninth Century the name Prophet stands for something different from its use as applied to Moses and the literary Prophets. The name is applied to bands of men who "prophesy," but this prophesying is entirely unlike the methods associated by us with the prophetic spirit. It is evidently something which is done, not individually, but in companies, and apparently in solemn procession to the accompaniment of noisy music. It must have been a species of violent incantation, leading to acts of fierce fanaticism, in which the clothing might be stripped off, and often ending in complete mental prostration (1 Sam. x. 5, 6; xix. 23, 24). The connection of music with religious exercises is almost universal, and it always had a conspicuous place in the worship of Jehovah (2 Sam. vi. 5; Isa. xxx. 29), while music has often been used to induce the prophetic vision (2 Kings iii. 15). These prophets seem to have lived together in schools, semi-monastic orders, or guilds, and to have been found where there were high places, or Canaanitish sanctuaries; and from their behaviour we are forced to admit that we have here a common manifestation in the history of religion, where companies of men devote themselves to fanatical outbursts that are taken to indicate possession by the Spirit of God. To the accompaniment of music and frenzied dancing they work themselves into a state that approaches madness--always among uncivilised peoples taken to be a sign of the hand of God (Hosea ix. 7). We cannot fail to be reminded of the greater excesses of the prophets of Baal, the extraordinary performances of the dervish bands, and the fanatical excesses that have always disfigured monastic institutions. It cannot be dismissed, therefore, as incredible that this phenomenon was derived from the Canaanites, and developed a zeal for Jehovah that was manifested after a fashion common to the devotees of other religions. Down to a very late date in the history of the Kingdom, the literary Prophets found themselves in conflict with bands of prophets, who to their judgment prophesied falsely; and from the way in which these are often associated with the priests, it seems probable that they represent the deteriorated--or perhaps simply the stagnant--remnant of this earlier movement. It is, however, necessary to assume that even in the earlier movement there were purer elements than those which we have noticed, and that it embraced individuals who were led into a real fellowship with the mind of God, of which Samuel and Elisha are conspicuous examples. Religious movements of the "revival" type, which have undoubtedly inspired and produced great ethical changes and resulted finally in sane religion, have often been accompanied in their earlier stages by these frenzied outbreaks. It would be in response to some of those strange mental movements which modern psychology is endeavouring to understand, but also whenever danger threatened the nation or the national religion, that these enthusiasts would take the field. As the movement shed its purely hysterical elements, it may have been occupied in the compilation of the records of Israel's history, for many of these hardly reflect the higher prophetic standpoint, or in writing down such stories of their great heroes as we find connected with Elijah and Elisha. A connection with the literary productions of the great Prophets may be thus indirectly traced, as it also most certainly can in the prophetic _style_, which in its fierce rhythm of denunciation or its sobbing sweeps of passionate appeal recalls something of the incantation of the prophetic bands. Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, by their connection with this early phenomenon of prophetism and by the approximation of their work to the ideals of the later Prophets, are the true links between the earlier and later stages of the prophetic movement. It is both credible and natural that, when the movement had spent itself in some wonderful advance into ethical power and religious insight, the less noble elements should have still remained and continued to claim divine inspiration, and yet have been found in open conflict with its own nobler productions. It would seem that the obscure sect known as Nazarites were connected in some way with the early prophetic movement, for they are mentioned side by side with the prophets (Amos ii. 11, 12); and it is probable that Samuel was both a Nazarite and a prophet (1 Sam. i. 11), while Samson, in whom the Spirit of Jehovah seemed to produce these strange outbursts of savage frenzy, was certainly a Nazarite (Judges xiii. 4, 5, 7, 14). It would appear that the Nazarites were men who devoted themselves to the service of Jehovah under certain vows of abstinence from wine and ceremonial defilement. The vows might be taken for life or for a limited period, but while under the vow the hair was left unshorn. There is evidence that this is an old Semitic custom, and that when the vow was accomplished the hair was made an offering to the god (Num. vi. 18); to this day the pilgrims to Mecca are forbidden to cut their hair until the journey is completed. The law of the Nazarites (Num. vi.) is only a late attempt to legislate for a custom that had existed independently of the institutions of the religion of Jehovah, and so to secure a place within the official religion for a custom that would have been difficult to suppress by prohibition. Similar in many respects to the Nazarites, but even more obscure, were the Rechabites, who abstained from wine (Jer. xxxv. 2-10), but who seem also to have protested against the adoption of any of the arts and customs of settled life, especially as these customs were typified in the cultivation of the vine. They chose these methods in order to resist the influence of Canaan, which was threatening so dangerously the integrity of the nation and the national religion. They probably hoped by these conservative manners to destroy the syncretism between Baal and Jehovah; for the only other mention of the sect in the Old Testament is in connection with the extirpation of the house of Ahab (2 Kings x. 15-17). It may appear repulsive to those who have made up their minds as to the methods by which the Spirit of God can work to trace back the supreme genius, the impassioned ethical ideals, and the practical statesmanship of the great Prophets of Israel to movements bordering on insanity; yet it is from enthusiasm that most of the great saving movements of the world have come. Certainly the great religious revival which was soon to come in Israel owed almost as much of its success to these bands of enthusiasts as to the personality of Elijah. It falls now to our task to trace the movement from bands to individuals, from Prophetism to Prophecy, from a phenomenon to a teaching. We have records of men who seem to have moved beyond the mantic stage and who prepare the way for the great Prophets. We can conveniently call these "transition prophets." We shall find that they bear some resemblance to the old style of Seer, or to the guild prophets, or to both. Of some of these we have only the merest mention, so that they may be called the _minor_ transition prophets. Two stand together by their connection with David and from the fact that they both seem to have been Court officials (2 Sam. vii. 2; xxiv. 11; 1 Kings i. 10). There is no word here of the mantic fury of the early prophets; although in Gad, who makes known the best way to escape the anger of an offended Deity, we have a survival of the ancient seer; but in Nathan we have a truly noble example of one who, although he may have been dependent on David for his daily bread, yet faced him with the unsparing denunciation of his sin. Here is a man who regards right in Israel more than the smile of princes, and who has a higher conception of his office than that of a convenient manipulator of oracles for the flattering of a King. Nathan is a true ancestor of Amos and Jeremiah. Ahijah the Shilonite is famous because he foretold the disruption of the Kingdom (1 Kings xi. 29-31), and we may see in this the beginnings of that political judgment which was to become notable in the later Prophets; although a partisan motive might be suspected in this particular case, when Jeroboam, in later years, sent his wife to consult Ahijah, accompanied with the usual fee (1 Kings xiv. 2), the message he received shows that in Ahijah we have no party politician, but the impartial judgment of the later Prophets. There is a pathetic and somewhat mysterious story of an unnamed man of God who delivered the word of Jehovah to Jeroboam at the altar at Bethel, and who, refusing the accustomed hospitality due to a prophet, afterwards accepted the invitation of the old prophet of Bethel, and paid the penalty with his death. We have here a story, the moral of which may be obscure enough, but which certainly illustrates the growing conflict between the two prophetic ideals. Here is a prophet who travels from his own land to rebuke the sin of a King to his face, afterwards yielding to the blandishments of one of the official prophets. The new Prophetism, tempted from its superior position by the old, fell; yet not many years were to elapse before these two orders, in the persons of Amos and Amaziah, were again to face one another at this same spot, and this time the new Prophetism was to maintain its integrity (1 Kings viii.; Amos vii. 10-17). Before we pass on to the _major_ transition prophets, it will be well to consider here the effect which the foundation of the Monarchy had on the development of the religion of Israel. Of the inauguration of the Monarchy we possess two accounts; one extremely unfavourable, written doubtless after Judah's experience of some of her notorious Kings, and in the light of a somewhat ideal conception of the Theocratic government that was supposed to have flourished before the time of Saul (1 Sam. x. 17-24); the other account, in which Samuel himself at the revelation of Jehovah initiates the movement towards the Monarchy (1 Sam. ix. 15-x. 1) by anointing Saul, is the one that is placed earlier by the critics. The Monarchy was an inevitable stage in the social development of a settled people, and it was the policy of Samuel to make the Monarchy the organ of the Theocracy. For all this Saul does not seem to have had any influence on religion, or to have ever realised the needs of his times, and under the sense of failure he became a prey to fear and depressing influences which eventually wrecked his reason. Round the name of David have gathered the national ideals of heroism and sainthood so often found in combination in early story. They had a true origin in David, if we judge from the standards of piety and rulership that were natural to his age. Outlaw, hero, poet, saint--David is the darling of Israel's history. It would be unfair to David to picture him as the saintly author of some of the tender Psalms that bear his name, although others of a more robust character might well be from his hand. That David was a poet seems to be certain, and the songs of lament over Saul and Abner, which have strong claims to be genuine, bear witness to his true poetic gift; but they are deficient in any display of deep religious feeling. We may have also to reduce somewhat the conception of the extent or the absoluteness of his kingly rule. He was rather one of those freebooters who by their heroism and rough manly courage are able to gather round them men of their own nature and to inspire in their followers a loyal devotion. To this pleasant adventurer the early Kingdom fell, but for long it was only a kingdom of personal followers; nor does he ever seem to have been enthusiastically acknowledged by the whole nation, or to have established his claims absolutely beyond dispute. His heroic defence against the Philistine invasion was sufficient to give him a great place in the affection of the people, yet he never assumed the imperial rule in the manner of his successor Solomon. With all this necessary allowance for the idealising process of a later age, David was the indispensable centre round which the early ideals and legends of the Monarchy could collect. His work was of immense importance for the future; especially his conquest of Jerusalem, now for the first time wrested from the Canaanites and destined to become in the future the centre of the national life, to be bound up with his name, and above all to be the peculiar dwelling-place of Jehovah. To make Jerusalem his capital was a very diplomatic stroke, for it was neutral territory to both Ephraim and Judah, and this fact quietened the mutual jealousy of these tribes. It was also a great work of David that by his rough piety he definitely connected the Kingship with devotion to the cause of Jehovah. This devotion found expression in his care for the sacred palladium of the Tribes, although it was policy as well as piety that brought the Ark to Jerusalem; for we are forced to admit that in matters of religion David was not greatly in advance of his times. He regarded the jurisdiction of Jehovah as not extending beyond Palestine (1 Sam. xxvi. 19), and although he himself may have abandoned idols, yet he allowed them in his house (1 Sam. xix. 13), while he retained the old custom of consulting the will of Jehovah by the Ephod (1 Sam. xxx. 7) or by the movements of trees (2 Sam. v. 23-25). His conception of Jehovah was that of a Being of uncertain temper, who would take vengeance for any acts of ceremonial violation (2 Sam. vi. 9) or whose anger might be aroused for reasons beyond human discovery (2 Sam. xxiv. 10-17). But it would be equally wrong to blame David because he does not come up to the ideals of a later age. So far as it went, we may believe that his piety was real; he was a man after Jehovah's own heart, _for those times_. He certainly did his best to found a Kingdom on personal affection and to establish some kind of impartial justice. In the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah David has been judged by impossible standards, and especially by the religious ideas of the 51st Psalm, which bears in its every line evidence of a morality far too deep for the age of David, and which is quite unsuitable for a confession of murder and adultery. It was no crime in the eyes of an oriental monarch to take his neighbour's wife, and it was novel doctrine that David heard from the lips of Nathan; it is to be laid to his everlasting credit that he listened to this prophetic judgment, was convicted of the sinfulness of his act, and repented very profoundly. When we pass to Solomon we come to a character altogether different, but one that is very difficult to estimate from the portrait presented to us in the Old Testament. The writers allow themselves to be carried away by the tradition of his magnificence, and by the external evidence of his piety preserved in the splendid Temple which he reared to the glory of Jehovah; but they cannot produce much evidence for the depth of his personal religion. He attempted to build an empire on the lines of the barbaric and superficial glories of his greatest neighbours; but its splendour and certainly its significance have been rather overdrawn by the later historians. It was a reign of splendour, but for the religion of Israel it was unimportant, for it was in the main irreligious. Save for the presence of Nathan at his coronation, the prophetic ministry almost disappears in this reign; what prophets remain are opposed to his policy. Solomon was little more than a worldly cosmopolitan; his empire was magnificent in comparison with the achievements of his predecessors, but it rested not as David's on the devotion of the people to a popular hero, but depended for its strength on a system of taxation and a false imperialism: forced labour was employed and the loyalty of the tribes was strained. It was an endeavour to change the government from a natural and tribal system to that of an Eastern despotism; and it ended in failure. The building of the Temple was only a part of this policy, and it was a policy resented by the prophetic party, who were all for simplicity in matters of worship (2 Sam. vii.; omit verse 13). The Temple did not occupy too outstanding a place in the block of royal buildings, and there is no evidence that in this age it was anything more than Solomon's private chapel built with the desire to rival the splendid royal shrines of other countries. It was evidently designed largely on heathen models, and contained heathen symbols which the later religion absorbed with difficulty. The adoption of the Temple as the supreme centre of Israel's worship was not the work of Solomon, but the effect of the teaching of Isaiah of Jerusalem and the consequence of the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah. The harem and the strange worship were similarly parts of an international policy. Solomon was certainly the first to give to the worship of Jehovah an imposing splendour and regularity, but it was not a splendour that appealed to the Prophets. The beautiful prayer of the dedication can hardly be the composition of Solomon, but is more likely to have been the production of a later age which endeavoured to give to this display a piety which the original did not possess. In time the Temple was to become of enormous importance, but in this period it remained only a magnificent shrine for the Ark. The fact that two of the prophets sided with Jeroboam may point to a revolt against this religious splendour. The bulls of Jeroboam were a counterblast to the Temple, and although his name is ever afterwards connected with the introduction of this idolatrous worship, and the succeeding Kings of Israel condemned for their participation, it is evident that these strictures are somewhat intensified by the conception that in the quarrel between Israel and Judah, Judah was in the right, and by the refusal to allow for the fact that this method of worship had not been condemned by any contemporary. The calves were most likely ancient symbols of Semitic divinity, and were certainly intended as symbols of Jehovah. Nevertheless, the future lay with the Temple and the South, for the revolution was based on a merely conservative impulse and contained no ideal. In the South, Jehovah was never worshipped with such an excess of heathen symbolism, and thither the voice of Prophecy soon transferred itself to find in Judah its greatest sphere. We are brought now to one of the most pregnant movements of this time, known as the northern prophetic revolt, and to the work and personalty of the major transition prophets, Elijah and Elisha. The introduction of the worship of the Tyrian Baal by Ahab was the signal for revolt. Here was a violation of the commonest conceptions of religion: the transplantation of the worship of another god, Melkart, the Baal of Tyre, into the territory of Jehovah, who was regarded as the Baal of Canaan. It opened the eyes of the schools of the Prophets to the danger of the use of the name of Baal, and was the cause of its complete disuse as a name for Jehovah (Hosea ii. 16, 17). In the revolt against the worship of this heathen Baal there stands out as its chief inspiration and leader the magnificent figure of the prophet Elijah. It is evident that in the story of his life we have much that is legendary and probably some confusion with the work of Elisha, but the religious significance is sufficiently clear. We have noticed that Elijah is remotely connected with the prophetic schools, and they share with him the persecution organised by the devotees of Baal; the old mantic accompaniments of prophecy are still found in Elijah; he seems to charm the rain (1 Kings xviii. 42), and he certainly hears it coming. With all his courage and insight he does not fully comprehend the true methods by which the religion of Jehovah is to win its way; conviction is to be brought by thunder and fire; if these fail there remains the sword. It may be difficult to decide whether Elijah actually conceived the wonderful revelation at Mount Horeb, but it is more than likely that to this man there came in the hour of failure the discovery that there were other ways more to the mind of Jehovah whereby men should realise His presence; a discovery which has been dramatised in the theophany on Horeb. Revelation by the still small voice of inner conviction certainly gained greater recognition after the ministry of Elijah. If we seek to understand the meaning of Elijah's stand for Jehovah, we shall see that it was first of all a protest against the syncretism of the Baal and Jehovah religions. This protest may have been founded initially on conceptions not too exalted, namely, that Jehovah and Melkart could not be worshipped in the same land, but there are evidences that Elijah had advanced further than that. His daring taunts to Baal amount to complete scepticism as to his existence, or at least of his power to injure the true follower of Jehovah. If that is so, then we have in Elijah the first monotheist. He clearly perceived that in character Baal and Jehovah were utterly different. The cruelty connected with the religion of Jehovah still persists under Elijah, but the incompatibility between the true religion and heathenism is recognised and affirmed. We may sum up Elijah's religion in his own phrase: "I have been very jealous for Jehovah." There is another aspect of Elijah's work which certainly forms a true transition to the teaching of the later Prophets; he denounces the murder of Naboth almost as much as the worship of Baal. We trace here the rise of the ethical conception of the service of Jehovah and the protest against social wrongs which was to become so great a part of the burden of such men as Amos and Micah. With Elijah we can see forming, however dimly, the thought of a Kingdom of God, and the peculiar patriotism of the Prophets: he desires an Israel independent of all heathen alliances; it is a conception of a Kingdom which shall be great in intension rather than wide in extension. It was this conflict of the prophetic and the so-called patriotic ideals that was to contribute largely to the final overthrow of the State. It may have been that the Prophets could never have built up a strong State on the lines they indicated, and their very protest may have weakened the arm of statesmen and contributed to the destruction of the Kingdom founded by David and Solomon. We can only feel that we side with the Prophets. If the prophetic voice had been silenced we might have had Israel with a kingdom as mighty as Assyria, although that is highly doubtful; but it would have been a kingdom as useless for its contribution to religion as that proud, vain, and cruel empire. The theophany at Horeb, therefore, whatever its embellishment and however symbolical its dress, is the true history of this period. In the development of the prophetic religion, magic and mystery are failing, display and external glory are passing away, and there enters from this time the conception of the religion of the inward voice on which the work of the later Prophets is built. Elisha is but a pale reflection of his master, and makes little contribution to religion; but we soon hear of Micaiah (1 Kings xxii. 8), whose message reveals the still widening gap between the professional prophet and the new order of men who hear with greater clearness the true voice of Jehovah. But sixty years have to pass, and Northern Palestine awakens to the echoes of a new voice, and listens to the new message of the first of that prophetic band who have enriched literature while they have exalted religion--Amos the herdman of Tekoa. Where elsewhere in history has there been a religion that, starting in comparative heathenism, almost lost in conflict with a fully-developed paganism, has yet moved steadily upward, breaking away from its origins, shedding the false charms of magic and sorcery, and rising by gradual ascent into fellowship with the Will of God? It is this _movement_ that constitutes the inspiration of the Old Testament and that makes it still a Word of God to us. Many of these conclusions, which have been put forward and established by critical methods, especially in reference to the religious feeling of those times, and in the different conception of the piety of men like David and Solomon, may strike the reader as startling and disturbing. That may well be, but that is no excuse for our reading into Bible story more than can be legitimately found there, while it will be sure to obscure some of its highest teaching, which is to be found not in isolated "texts," but in great movements. It is the facts that we have to face, and the facts are obscured not so much by the corrections of the history by the later historians, as by our forcing into them the still later conceptions of our own times. We have not given detailed proof of many of the positions here taken up; they may be sought in detail by the reader in the works of Biblical scholarship. Our object is to discover whether these things being so, we can still find a true revelation in the history of this people, and hear in it the Voice of God. Do we not get from this corrected view of the history, a sense of the splendid onward movement of this religion, which in itself is so much more inspiring than the monotonous conception, which is only the product of later Judaism, that the history of Israel's religion is nothing but a series of apostasies from a pure and perfect faith? That late conception is not borne out by a careful and critical study of the sources, and it rather owes its strength to-day to a certain dogmatic conception of human nature that is needlessly pessimistic, and to an idea of the weakness of the Spirit of God in His dealings with man that nearly approaches atheism. One or two lessons of the period stand out in strong relief. One is that better things come of enthusiasm, even when it is mistaken, than from indifference. The reference of all the institutions of Israel to the definitely revealed Will of Jehovah may seem to some, after these investigations, a mistake. This can only arise from too narrow a conception of the working of God and the means through which His Spirit reaches man, for it is this very reference to the Will of God that is responsible for the advance in Israel's faith. To believe in the Will of God, and to refer all to it, does gradually increase the knowledge of that Will, and so leads to a true revelation. Another lesson is, not to despise the accompaniments of the first movements of the Spirit of God in man. It is not within the scope of this work to enquire why it is that when a man is moved by the Spirit of God such strange phenomena as we have been studying in the prophetic bands, which still accompany many revivals, should be the immediate results. There must be patience with these things as beginnings; but equally must there be impatience with them when they elevate themselves into a permanent claim to recognition as the only signs of a true religious life, and when they refuse to recognise as higher the sane and ethical movement to which they themselves have given birth. One of the chief difficulties in things religious is to recognise the offspring of a great movement, to discover the time when the child must be allowed its new-found freedom, to know when symbols may be dropped and the reality brought in. Protestantism has given birth to wider thoughts about God and deeper appreciations of the extent of His working, which are the logical outcome of Protestantism, and yet which are often repudiated by those whose Protestantism is of the aggressive type. A progressive movement of any kind always has these strifes. They are as constant in Science as in Religion, only in Science they are more easily overcome by the greater readiness to accept new revelation. Christianity is a religion that moves, and, as Christ Himself foretold, it causes the son to rise up against his father, the new generation to come into conflict with the old. Ours it is never to forget that the Kingdom of God is on the side of the child; except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a child, in the spirit of enquiry and growth, except ye never grow old, ye cannot enter therein. THE RELIGION OF THE LITERARY PROPHETS THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHETS _Assyrian Period._ B.C. Amos 760-750 B.C. Hosea 750-737 Accession of Tiglath Pileser III 745 Isaiah 740-700 Invasion of Sennacherib 701 Micah 724- Fall of Samaria 722 Zephaniah _circa_ 627 Western Palestine invaded by Scythians Nahum 610-608? Fall of Nineveh 607 _Chaldæan Period._ Jeremiah 626-586 Deuteronomy discovered 621 Habakkuk 605-600? First Great Exile 597 Ezekiel 593-573 Second Great Exile 586 _Persian Period._ Isa. xiii.-xiv.; xxi. 1-10; xxxiv., (Date uncertain, but xxxv. definitely after the Exile.) Isa. xl.-lv. (The "Second" Isaiah) _c_540. Cyrus takes Babylon 538 Isa. lvi.-lxvi. (Various prophecies, to be dated after the return.) Return of the Exiles 537 Haggai _c_520 Zech. i.-viii. _c_520 Mal. 460-450 Promulgation of the Law 444 Zech. ix.-xiv. 322 There is nothing to enable us to decide the dates of Jonah, Joel, and Obadiah with greater definiteness than to say that they were written after the Restoration. Diagram representing the religious significance of the Prophets:-- FINAL EMBODIMENT GOLDEN AGE OF PROPHECY SILVER AGE OF PROPHETIC TEACHING _Exile_ + +--------+ PSALMS | | | | | | | + | +--------------+ 2 ISAIAH | | | | | | | +---+ JEREMIAH | | | | | | | | + | | +--+ HOSEA | | | | | | | | AMOS +-------+ MICAH--NAH.--HAB. +--+--------------+ WISDOM LITERATURE | | | | | | +-----------+ ISAIAH DEUT. | | + | | | | | | | | +-------------+ EZEKIEL -----+ THE LAW Judging from the standard of New Testament religion and their contribution to it, the Prophets may be roughly classified in the above order. The higher tendency seems to vanish from the historical works which were composed after the Exile, save in many of the Psalms, where religion reaches its highest expression outside the New Testament. The tendency represented by the middle and horizontal line ends in the somewhat superficial ethics of such works as the Book of Proverbs. The lower tendency _is only to be judged so from comparison_; it served its purpose, and it was an honest endeavour to reduce the Prophetic ideals to a definite system. It is in line with the spirit of many of the Psalms that the religion of the revelation of Christ takes its rise, and we may see in the Sadducees and the Pharisees the degenerate effect of the other lines of development. Lecture VI THE RELIGION OF THE LITERARY PROPHETS Among the writings of the Old Testament, the Prophetical Books, whether considered as literature or religion, are acknowledged to stand out as unsurpassed. If the Psalms claim to rival them it is to be remembered that the Psalms are probably to be traced to the Prophetic teaching. The Prophets themselves begin a new era; they are creative and owe but little to their past. That for so long a period, in unbroken continuity, there should emerge from a tiny nation a succession of men of differing temperament, training, and social position, who should with remarkable unity voice truths of religion not only hitherto unrecognised but rarely surpassed or apprehended in subsequent history, is in itself a unique phenomenon in comparative religion. Equally notable is the fact, that in the majority of the Prophets we have not only the gift of religious intuition, but that this is found in combination with great oratorical power, true poetic genius, and practical statesmanship. They remain for all time an indisputable witness to the Divine revelation in the development of Israel's religion. Previous stages which we have been able to recognise in the development of Israel's religion do not carry us on to Amos by so inevitable a movement, that his message could be predicted as the next stage to be reached. When we come fresh from the investigation of the religion held by the leaders of the people in the times of David and Solomon, we recognise the immense strides made when we open the Book of Amos. We can trace a likeness between Elijah and Amos in their denunciation of wrong; but, in the sphere of religion, there is a great gulf between them which no records of the intervening period quite help us to bridge over. We cannot think of Amos taking part in the great vindication of Carmel; it is probable that he would have recognised it as useless. In Samuel, Elijah and Elisha we undoubtedly have the religious ancestors of the Literary Prophets, but while they stood at the head of popular movements which they led in triumph against the intrusion of alien faiths, the Prophets that we are now to study stand in decided antagonism to the popular faith, and the conceptions of Israel's religion which they reiterate with such passion and insistency were never acceptable to the people. Their religion has to make its way against the national religion. The importance of the Prophets is the natural starting point for the modern study of the Old Testament, and it is from the earnest perusal of their writings that modern Biblical science has been forced to take up a rigorous criticism of the entire literature of the Old Testament. Under the old methods, the Prophets had only a secondary position in the history of the ancient revelation, since their message was conceived as rather concerned with an age yet to come than with their own times and needs. The Divine Law had already been given to the people, constituting a perfect norm of religion. When the people failed to obey the Law, then the Prophet appeared, enforced its principles, and condemned the people's apostasy. If that message was rejected, as it often was, then nothing was left for the Prophet but the proclamation of vengeance, or the prediction of a time when the Law should be ideally fulfilled by the revelation of the Gospel. Between the Law and the Gospel, therefore, stood the Prophets, but they acted only as a bridge from the one to the other. The natural method of studying their writings was to search for the fulfilment of their predictions in history. With these aims it was perhaps inevitable that their words should often be interpreted in a quite unwarrantable manner; events were read back into their prophecies, or the fulfilment was found in such ordinary coincidences that the dignity of prediction was itself lost, the study became puerile and morbid, while a fancied necessity as to what they must mean prevented any scholarly and unbiassed interpretation. Their works have consequently been largely used as mysterious oracles from which the future history of the world could be accurately predicted. To read the Prophets in order to obtain a picture of their own age was regarded as a secular occupation, while every attempt to recover the original application of their words was regarded as an endeavour to discountenance the proofs of Divine revelation. Many of their words bear remarkable likeness to the gracious invitations of the Gospel, so that they have been used equally with the New Testament for Gospel preaching, but it was never dreamed that they were real invitations to the people of their own times, founded on the eternal laws of God's forgiveness afterwards made clear in Christ; they were simply words spoken under mental effects which transferred the speakers to the time of the New Testament. Whatever the final results of the application of historical criticism may be, it has already laid religion under a permanent obligation in its discovery of the hitherto unrealised importance of the Prophets. At first attention was directed to their exalted ethical and religious standpoint, appearing as it did in an age that neither produced nor responded to it; minute study then showed that they gave first-hand and incidental accounts of their own times. Their messages bear witness to the contemporary state of the religion of Jehovah and the people's morals, and although it may be that they sometimes judged these from their own high standard, which caused them to paint them somewhat darker than an absolutely historical judgment would demand, yet on what the prevailing religious opinions of the day really were, they are the best evidence. The startling but unassailable deduction made from the Prophets' accounts of their own times is, that in matters religious they were proclaiming doctrines that seemed to their contemporaries entirely novel. The Prophets do not, however, acquiesce in the charge of novelty. They profess to go back to the original and inner meaning of Jehovah's choice of the nation. They refer to this choice, as a "covenant," and to the religion demanded by it, as the law of the Lord. The first inference is that they refer to that which _we_ know as the Law, the Pentateuch, or Law of Moses. A comparison with the Prophetic teaching with the ordinances of, say, the Book of Leviticus, shows that this cannot be the case, for they do not correspond. Many things there commanded as essential are passed over in silence by the Prophets; but the force of the argument is not wholly drawn from that, although it has a weight here which the argument from silence cannot usually carry, because both Leviticus and the Prophets' teaching set forth the essentials of religion, and there can be no possibility of doubt that the conceptions of the essentials have an altogether different outlook. It is chiefly, though not by any means entirely, from the standpoint of the Prophetical writings that modern criticism is forced to revise the conception of the progress and decline of religion that Jewish tradition has embodied in the arrangement of its Scriptures, and especially in the ascription of the Pentateuch as a whole to the age and authorship of Moses. The verdict from this comparison between the Prophets and the Law is, that the five Books of Moses either did not exist in their present form at the time of the Prophets, or, if they did, remained entirely unknown to them. The historical value of the Prophets is therefore to be rated very high, not only because of their transparent sincerity, but also because the historical data which can be secured from them are given indirectly, and are valuable for the same reason as the remarks of a contemporary diarist. They are unaware that they are writing history, and are consequently free from the almost unescapable tendency of the historian to make the facts fit into preconceived theories. Modern criticism, therefore, does rightly in making the Prophets of paramount importance for the understanding of the Old Testament, and when the Prophets are thus made the test, much in the history that was either completely hidden or difficult to understand, becomes visible and clear, and the progress of Israel's religion is displayed in all its grandeur and movement. We can now turn to examine the extent of the sources from which we may draw, in order to estimate the religious opinions and influence of the Prophets, and to examine the peculiar character of the literature for which they are responsible. First in importance stand the Books of the Prophets proper. In the ancient division of the Hebrew Bible into, (1) The Law, (2) The Prophets, (3) The Hagiographa, or the holy writings, "The Prophets" included, beside our Books of the Prophets, such historical Books as Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Significantly enough, however, Daniel is not grouped with the Prophets, but with the Hagiographa, either because it was not classed as prophecy, or more probably because the Canon of "The Prophets" had been closed by the time it was written. Therefore, in addition to the writings ascribed to the Prophets, there is a literature which has been influenced by their teaching, and this is found largely in those historical Books which have thus been rightly included in the Prophetical division of the Hebrew Bible. That is to say, however, that Books dealing with history prior to the rise of the Prophets, show traces of an influence that can only have emerged later. It is here that criticism seems to the ordinary reader to enter very debatable ground, although among critical students of the Bible the question is no longer an open one. They claim that the peculiar conditions under which Hebrew history was compiled allow us to discern, and to separate with ease, this later prophetical editing, whereas in other literatures such would be impossible. History was compiled among the Jews largely from pre-existing documents, much as it is everywhere, with the difference that in the Old Testament the records have been simply pieced together with whatever corrections and reductions were rendered necessary, while the conceptions of the later times, when this re-editing was accomplished, are often simply superimposed; this method has been ridiculed as an invention of the critical mind, but it is simply an indisputable if tiresome fact which has to be taken into account in any serious study of the literature. The narratives of the documents that have been named "J" and "E" bear the marks of having been combined under the influence of prophetical teaching, since this teaching, it is to be noted, is recognisably incompatible with other parts of the stories which have been left untouched. It has been suggested that criticism seems to assume that religion progressed until it reached a certain height in the Eighth Century, and to enable this theory to stand all marks of this supposed later type appearing earlier are classed as interpolations. It is usual to trace this theory to "Evolution gone mad." Even on the critical theories this cannot however be legitimately shown to result, since critical reconstruction shows that the supreme height gained in the Prophets was never maintained, but suffered a perceptible decline. Whatever the guiding idea of criticism may be, it cannot be an endeavour to make the history of Israel's religion confirm some theory of the natural development and evolution of religion. The critical theories leave us with the problem of moral lapses to account for and with the failure of vision to explain, and demand still a moral insight to detect the cause. But it is clear to many that the moral causes do stand out more clearly discoverable by this method. The critical theory of the priority of the Prophets is not based only upon the emergence under their teaching of certain theological ideas for the first time; but also on the difference of style and vocabulary which can be recognised after only a slight acquaintance with the language; and on the general outline of the history that the Bible itself forces upon us. It is a fact which the reader can soon discover for himself, that the historical Books are compilations from the records of various ages, and these various ages can be as easily discerned as the conflicting styles of an oft-restored church, or the disturbance of the normal geological strata that demands some upheaval for its explanation. It must be remembered that all this is made possible from the fact of the remarkable uniformity of ideas that characterises the various stages of Hebrew religion. The Prophets' teaching can therefore be traced outside their own writings; mainly in fragmentary comments added to the narratives; or in a superimposed colouring, which easily falls off, leaving the original outlines in view; but it is supposed to be found grouped into one great mass in the Book of Deuteronomy. The critics' theory of this Book is that it is an endeavour to reduce the teaching of the Prophets, more especially that of Isaiah, to a code, and to secure reform by the centralisation of worship at Jerusalem. This idea of a central worship, which leaves no record of its actual observance until the time of Josiah, or perhaps an attempt in the reign of Hezekiah, is so unmistakable and is so uniformly expressed that the work of this author (perhaps we should say, this school) can be easily detected, and many of the Books, such as Judges and Kings, can be seen to have been subjected to a "Deuteronomist" redaction. In all these phenomena we have teaching that presupposes the Prophets, and that stands in contrast and often in conflict with the general tone of the original. It is remarkable that with such redactions of history any clue to the earlier conceptions should have been left to us, especially that there should have been left in the records anything that would be in disagreement with the editors' ideas, but the Jews, like the other nations of antiquity, did not possess modern notions of exactness, and their notions of history prevented them from understanding things that were removed only a short distance from their own times. It is hardly surprising to find that this Prophetical literature was in turn liable to redaction, though in a different degree and for a different reason, since it has been preserved to us under peculiar conditions. This at first may seem terribly confusing to the bewildered student, and it is here that tired men reject criticism and all its works. To such the reminder cannot be spared that in any branch of Science the same conditions have to be overcome, and if he would understand the Old Testament and reap the magnificent reward that its earnest study gives, he must be prepared to face the facts and labour at their solution. First of all then, it must be noted that the Books of the Prophets are not so much literature, in the ordinary sense of the word, as reported rhetoric, with the qualification that the reporter and the speaker may be usually assumed to be the same. In most cases the speeches were written out by the Prophet himself soon after they were delivered, although sometimes this was done by others long after, and expanded or altered, as is actually reported to have been the case with the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer. xxxvi.). In the second place, the literature reveals the fact that there does not seem to have been in that age any conception of literary property; ideas are borrowed directly from one Prophet by another, and sometimes direct quotation is made without any acknowledgment or indication of the source. The Prophet's scribe, his school or followers, could amend or paraphrase; later generations could evidently insert a qualifying phrase, temper a threat with a qualifying condition, or to the doom of exile add a promise of restoration. When it is noticed that messages like those of Amos or Hosea end unexpectedly in hopeful words, and when it is recollected that these Prophets have been used as Service Books in the Synagogue and may have been therefore altered to suit the purpose, then we shall understand the problem that faces us and why a shadow of suspicion should rest on promises of restoration that are to be found in pre-exilic writings. Let it be remembered however that it is no true critical canon to assume that prediction cannot be made; but what are we to do when such a prediction fits ill with the context, breaks the sense, is foreign to the outlook of the speaker, and is in later style? Finally, there seem to have been many prophecies circulated anonymously, and since a place had to be found for these they were inserted in other writers, on no principle that we can discover, or more often were grouped together at the end of some notable Prophet's works. In Zechariah we have to suppose three strata of different authorship and date, or give up the rational study of the Book altogether; and in the famous case of the Book of Isaiah we have to suppose that some of the early chapters are the work of a post-exilic author, while chapters xl.-lxvi. are a heterogeneous collection by a number of writers, of which chapters xl.-lv. are recognised to be by one hand, and that, one of the most wonderful personalities which has contributed to the Old Testament; about that grand figure we only know one thing, that he was not Isaiah of Jerusalem. This has been called "sawing Isaiah asunder" and making the Bible a piece of patchwork and the critics are blamed; but if they are right, these complaints are not directed at them, but at the Bible itself, a proceeding which to say the least, is not pious. When a writer could say many years later that revelation came of old time in many fragments (Heb. i. 1), others beside critics fall under these hasty condemnations. It is refreshing to turn from this less interesting part of our subject, which nevertheless demands serious study from anyone who would be informed where ignorance has done and still is doing so much harm, and to examine the features which distinguish the work of the literary Prophets. We have already spoken of the novelty of their message. Whatever theory is chosen for the study of Old Testament history, nothing quite prepares us for the message of the Prophet Amos. What an inspiration we miss because he does not stand in our Bibles in his rightful place, at the head of the Prophets! His bravery and ruggedness remind us of Elijah, but he brings something that Elijah is far from giving us. Elijah was very jealous for the due recognition of Jehovah as the only God for Israel; Amos is jealous for the recognition of the true _character_ of Jehovah. That is to say, we receive from Amos definite teaching concerning the character of Jehovah and His relations to the people of Israel, and these doctrines are startling to Israelitish ears. Almost the first thing that strikes us as an outstanding characteristic of the Prophets is that they are conscious of a call to which they often appeal. Five of them definitely refer to the circumstances of their call (Amos vii. 14; Hosea i. 2; Isaiah vi.; Jer. i. 4-10; Ezek. i. 1-ii. 3). The same is true of their predecessors, but in a different way; they stand as defenders of the national religion because they belong to the prophetic guilds or possess certain gifts of vision. On the other hand the literary Prophets are against the national religion as a perversion of the true, and to this weary and warlike work they are called by immediate and special summons of God. This call is not self-originated nor can it be evaded (Jer. xx. 9), and in some cases there has been no preparation for the office (Amos vii. 14, 15), and even positive unfitness (Jer. i. 6). They are very careful therefore to distinguish themselves from the schools of prophets. Professionalism has disappeared, and in Jeremiah the official idea also vanishes. The peculiar mental condition of the Prophets has of late years attracted a great deal of attention. The rapture and holy frenzy into which they are sometimes thrown remind us of the phenomena accompanying the early Prophetism, studied in our last lecture; but this is now accidental and is becoming rare. The Prophets often speak of this as "the hand of the Lord" upon them (Isa. viii. 11); in the visions of Ezekiel the effect is often described as overpowering (Ezek. iii. 14 ff.). There is a similarity between the accompaniments of these states and the trances which have been found in so many religious movements, and which are now attracting the attention of the scientific world so seriously. Only the results differ remarkably from the effects obtained in hypnotic and sub-conscious states, with which the prophetic gift has sometimes been compared. The Prophet still exhibits his natural style when under the influence of the Word of the Lord. Yet it may be that there is something to be learned along the lines of modern research; we know that if certain states of mental passivity can be induced, there lies open a new realm of knowledge, which, although it can be accounted for, cannot be summoned under ordinary mental conditions; add to this the superior moral constitution which seems to be missing from the mediums of spiritualistic phenomena to-day, and the prophetic consciousness becomes more comprehensible. The Prophets often speak of visions, but it is difficult to gather their actual character. It can hardly be objective; it is more like the artistic vision which creates within the mind in perfect detail and objectivity, so that what is seen has greater reality than any reproduction on canvas or in stone. The mind would seem to project its vision by the strength of its imaginative powers, so that, owing to the emotion aroused by the nature of the truth perceived, the revelation appears to come from an entirely external source. Sometimes it would seem to be an actual beholding of some natural object, which induces a train of thought, as the case of Amos's vision of the plumb-line may well be. We cannot think either of any organic hearing of their message, since they sometimes also declare that they "see" it. Their predictive power has been exaggerated, chiefly because it was thought that this was the only office of the Prophet. Where it occurs it is mostly a natural deduction from their insight into the movements of their age, their conception of the unchangeable character of Jehovah, and their belief in His providential government; the emphasis is never upon details, and it may be added that the prediction is by no means always fulfilled. Their vision of the future usually takes a certain outline, or order; a national calamity is immediately impending, in which they recognise the punishment of the people's sins and the complete triumph and vindication of Jehovah; this will result in a purifying of the nation, and in the immediate succession there will come the Messianic or ideal era. Still there are predictions which cannot be explained on any theory yet broached, such as the prediction by Isaiah of the destruction of Sennacherib's army, or Jeremiah's prophecy of the Restoration. If this is ordinary second sight, then it is strange that it should have occurred in so many cases at this time when prophecy was dropping its mysterious accompaniments. Yet it may be recalled that in the history of all nations there has been, in times of great national affliction, a tendency to prophecy of this order, which can sometimes claim a remarkable fulfilment. The distinguishing glory of Israel's prophecy is, however, to be sought in its ethical character, and it is perhaps to the writings of men like our own Carlyle, where we often catch the old prophetic ring, that we are to look for its analogy. Among the things that separate Amos from his predecessors is the use of a literary channel for the dissemination of his teaching, which was of course primarily preaching. This in itself marks a great change. What was it that led the Prophet to write down the message which he had delivered? It may have been that there was a tendency towards literature at that particular period, but even before this the habit of keeping records must have commenced, while there is evidence of collections of poems or sagas, such as the Book of Jasher, or the Book of the Wars of the Lord, being in existence from a very early period. It is evident therefore that we need some particular occurrence to account for the adoption of literature as the vehicle of Prophecy. It has been suggested that the cause is to be sought initially in the rejection of the message of Amos by those to whom it was delivered: he was aware of the permanent application of the truths that he had delivered, and since his own times would not hearken he resolved to commit them to the verdict of posterity. The example once set, it was natural for the succeeding Prophets to wish to give something more than the fleeting character of the spoken word to teaching that was new and that had been rejected, and therefore to adopt this form (Isa. viii. 16 f.). Whatever the cause, we are thankful for the results. The channel chosen for the preservation of their messages was not purely literary; the form is not that of the essay, or thesis; it has not the studied elegance of poetry, yet it rises above prose, and rhythmic verse is found scattered throughout their writings. These reports of passionate oratory fall naturally into poetic form as the Prophet is carried away by his message. Especially do we find a very extensive use of symbolism, which has proved a trap into which the literalist has hastened to fall. The relation of the Prophets to the State is difficult for us accurately to appreciate. Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha headed what were practically popular revolutions; in them nationalism overshadows the universally religious, or the purely moral ideal. To appreciate the contrast that the literary Prophets present to this, a careful study should be made of 2 Kings ix. 7-10; x. 30, and this compared with the verdict of Hosea, which rises above the standard of State interest to a judgment of universal morals (Hosea i. 4). The literary Prophets have no office at court and receive no fee (Micah iii. 2); but they have an official connection with the nation, which they regard as the chosen instrument for the establishment of God's reign; they have no conception of a secular state for Israel. It became therefore a tragedy for Jeremiah to be so completely rejected by the nation, for then he felt his prophetic office really ceased. It was this that drove him into a personal relationship with God that is not reached by any other of the Prophets. It is not correct to say that the Prophets were social reformers or practical politicians. Their sole concern is with religion, but it is a religion that goes very deep, and that must express itself in social and national ethics. It is however upon their distinctive message that the chief interest centres, not only for the understanding of their age, but for their permanent contribution to religion. It is a declaration of pure ethical Monotheism. Jehovah is not simply the tutelary deity of Israel; He is the Only God. The gods of the other nations are not real beings; this truth is vividly expressed in the scorn which is poured on idols and their worship. Jehovah is a spiritual Being; therefore the crusade against the idols that had been used in the worship of Jehovah is an outcome of prophetic teaching. This condemnation of idols in the worship of Jehovah is not actually met with until Hosea (xiii. 2), but that any visible form of Jehovah is derogatory to the true conception of His glory is the only possible deduction from prophetic teaching. We still get the naïve terms that refer to Jehovah as if He had bodily parts; but this is nothing more than the necessary imagery which all spiritual conceptions have to employ, and which are not mistaken by any save the most ignorant. This purely spiritual Being fills the whole universe (Deut. x. 14; 1 Kings viii. 27; Jer. xxiii. 24; esp. Isa. xxxi. 3, which implies more clearly than any other statement in the Old Testament the spirituality of God, and thus anticipates the declaration of Jesus to the woman of Samaria). But it is with the _ethical_ character of Jehovah that they are mostly concerned. He is righteous; which means more than the early conception that He simply defends Israel's right. They insist on His complete impartiality, which no choice of Israel for His own can turn aside: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth, _therefore_ will I visit upon you all your iniquities." They fall back again and again on His absolute fidelity and truthfulness. The arbitrary character which is ascribed to Jehovah in the Books of Samuel has completely disappeared; the Prophet can say: "Come and let us reason together, saith Jehovah." Universalism is the necessary corollary to Monotheism, but the strong sense of Israel as His chosen instrument hinders the clear statement of this truth by the Prophets. A particular regard for Israel still colours their vision; but they are altogether against the popular estimate in maintaining that this choice was made solely as a means for reaching the whole world. Universalism is seen forming in the idea that Jehovah is concerned with the punishment of other nations, since He it is who will punish them for their sins; not only for their hatred of His chosen, but for their cruelty to other nations: He will punish Moab for his inhumanity to Edom (Amos ii. 1). This is a great advance. Even when the surrounding nations afflict Israel it is not because the Lord has no control over them, but it is He that raises up the hostile powers as instruments of His chastisement. Even kinder views are to be found in Amos, in whose tiny book we find nearly all the characteristic ideas of the Prophets; for Jehovah is said to have been concerned in the early migratory movements not only of the Hebrews, but of the hated Philistines and Assyrians (Amos ix. 7). The grand universalism of Isaiah xix. 19-25 only needs us to recall the part that Egypt and Assyria played in the history of Israel, in order to appreciate its magnanimity. Yet in spite of these passages, the outlook as a whole is centred on Israel, and works of a definitely universalistic nature could hardly have found a place in the canon. This spirit probably made it necessary for the writer of "Jonah" to embody his universalistic doctrines in the form of an obscure parable about a Prophet and a whale. It was the same national bigotry that led to the rejection of the Son of man. It is in the idea of the conditions of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel that the teaching of the Prophets stands in such contrast to the conceptions of the people. That relation was conceived of, as we have seen, as tribal; the Prophets declare it to rest on a covenant of choice, which is to be maintained by the adherence of the parties to the original terms. They love to place in contrast the unwearied faithfulness of Jehovah and the fickleness of the people; while they alternate between threats of Jehovah's complete rejection and the recurring thought that despite all He can never change, and against all known custom will even welcome back the harlot nation. Jehovah's requirements from Israel, for the proper maintenance of the covenant, are simply the full allegiance of the people; but how this is to be displayed is not so definitely described. There must be a pure worship of Jehovah, but this is not to find expression in accurate ritual or great sacrifices. Indeed it cannot be claimed that the Prophets are at all concerned about ritual. The Book of Deuteronomy distinctly lays down that the true worship of Jehovah is to be performed at one chosen central spot, while Leviticus provides an elaborate method of approach, which can only be neglected at the peril of the worshipper. On the other hand, it is certain that the Prophets found the people worshipping at the "high places," the old Canaanitish shrines, with many customs which would be a direct infringement of the Code of Leviticus, yet they are entirely unconcerned with these faults. The principle of sacrifice as a means of worship had existed from ancient times, and is to be found in nearly all religions; yet there is an overwhelming verdict from the pre-exilic Prophets that shows that they are doubtful of its Divine appointment or of its necessity. (These passages should be carefully examined:--Amos v. 25; Hosea vi. 6; Isa. i. 11-17; Micah vi. 6-8; 1 Sam. xv. 22; Jer. vi. 20; vii. 21-23; and Jeremiah may have been a priest!) There is only one conclusion possible; these Prophets had never seen the Book of Leviticus. The ritual which the Prophets seek is that of an upright life. They base all their morality on religious ideas. The great incentive to moral conduct is the recognition that the whole nation and land is the property of Jehovah; any social wrong is wrong against Him. So we find that the earliest attempt to formulate this teaching in a code contains many regulations which are purely humanitarian (Deut. xiv. 29; xix. 2 ff.; xxi. 10-17; xxii. 1-3; xxiv. 6, 10-15). Ritual is turned into ethics. Against the inequalities and injustices of their day the Prophets set their faces, with an utter disregard for consequences: they hurled their accusations at the nation with tremendous energy, in public, before kings, as men went up to worship; fiery denunciation mingling with a patriot's tears; for the time, all unavailing. Yet they have had their harvest, and to-day they are among the voices that call men to social reform. It will be well to endeavour to show, in the briefest possible outline, the historic setting of this mighty message. It was shortly after the opening of the Eighth Century that threatening indications began to gather on the horizon of Northern Israel. The situation called for a Prophet's message. Amos, the herdman of Tekoa, comes like a whirlwind from Judah, utters his message at Bethel and returns. He is the first and in many respects the greatest of that meteoric band who illumine the dark night of Israel's history; later Prophets repeat his words and share his ideas. Hosea, from the Northern Kingdom, follows in his steps, but with a message made the more tender from the fact that the whole drama of Israel's unfaithfulness to her husband Jehovah had been brought home to him in a personal domestic tragedy. The tender heart which led him to forgive his unfaithful wife, wondered if Jehovah would not be equally forgiving, and through this experience he almost penetrates to the thought of God as Love. A few years later, a voice is heard in the villages of Judah proclaiming the message of Amos with the same call to simple reality: Micah pleads for simple life, simple worship, simple justice. With this transference of the prophetic voice to the Southern Kingdom there falls an awful silence on the North. In 722 B.C., Samaria fell before the arms of Assyria, and Israel ceased to exist. For centuries that land was to remain silent and despised, until there should come from Galilee of the Gentiles He of whom all the Prophets spake. One would expect that the awful doom which had overtaken the Northern Kingdom would not have been without effect on Judah. Its only visible effect was the strengthening of her belief in her own inviolability, and the acceptance of the idea that Israel's fall was due to her separation from Judah. If a Prophet could have turned the people's thought in a saner direction, then it would have been accomplished by Isaiah, the most princely and the most literary of all the Prophets. His work was not indeed without effect. He was the means of lifting prophecy into popular favour, and a revival followed his teaching. The chief cause of this favour was the events of the memorable year, 701 B.C. In face of the demands of Assyria, Isaiah had all along counselled submission and the avoidance of all intrigues with Egypt. But the violation of the treaty by Sennacherib, who demanded the surrender of the city after he had been bought off, roused the anger of Isaiah. In answer to the insulting message of the Rabshakeh, while the army lay round the city, in obedience to the word of Jehovah he counsels resistance. Nothing seemed more improbable than that there could be any escape for Jerusalem; nevertheless he declared that the holy city should be inviolable. The great host with their insolent captain lay before the gates, but in the morning "The Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Had melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." Whatever the actual cause of the raising of the siege may have been, there can be no doubt that something did happen to the Assyrian army which Isaiah was able to attribute to the intervention of Jehovah, for from this time Isaiah became famous. To those who see in the fulfilment of prediction the chief end of prophecy this event will naturally seem of profound importance. To another view of the function of prophecy this is the least thing that Isaiah did, for while it lifted his name into popular favour, that same deliverance proved a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. For his declaration of the city's inviolability was remembered long after, and quoted as if it had been of universal, instead of temporary application, while his moral teaching was forgotten. To that trick of national memory the exile was largely due. From this time the sacrosanct character of the city obsessed the popular mind, and in consequence the Temple became, for the first time since its erection, of supreme significance in Jewish eyes. Following Isaiah, there was a movement, commenced probably by his disciples, that strove to bring the Temple into prominence as the one authorised place of worship. Possibly during the reactionary reign of Manasseh, when their master is said to have been martyred, they worked at this idea, and driven into silence by the persecutions of the king they employed their pens in producing a code of laws, which undoubtedly gathered into legal form many of the customs which had existed for centuries, and endeavoured to give them the religious interpretation of the prophetic teaching. Its chief injunction was the suppression of the high places as no longer authorised for the worship of Jehovah, hoping to centre thereby the whole of the nation's worship at the Temple. This code was probably laid up for publication in brighter days, and was discovered in the reign of Josiah, in the year 621 B.C. There can be but little doubt, from the reforms instituted, and from the total disregard of them until this time, that this code was our Book of Deuteronomy. Since it was published under the name of Moses, many moderns have looked upon its compilation as a pious forgery. This is to read into a past age the legal conceptions of Western civilisation. It must be remembered that many of these laws could be legitimately traced back to Moses or to his influence, and there was no idea of deception in using his name. The hand of the School which produced this work can also be traced in the compilation and redaction of other historical works, which were undertaken with this idea of making the past history teach the value of the reforms they wished the people to adopt. This was not only regarded as legitimate, but as a sacred duty imposed upon them. The modern historical ideal, which instigates research with the sole intention of discovering the facts, is only the product of our own age, and is still unsuccessfully striven after. The reformation under Josiah is therefore known as the Deuteronomic reformation. From this time the Temple becomes the only spot where God can be publicly worshipped, and the local shrines are forbidden. This may seem an arbitrary action, and it is possible that for some time it called forth loud complaints; but it was certainly for the benefit of religion. It had been proved to be impossible to dissociate the local shrines from the customs and ideas which had descended from the original Canaanitish worship carried on there. With a central worship it was found possible to check practices that were not in accordance with the religion of Jehovah. The teaching of the Prophets finds then in the Book of Deuteronomy its first-fruits of reform. The relation of one young man to this new movement is full of peculiar interest and difficulty. It was at this very time that Jeremiah began his ministry, and it is possible that he took some part in the movement (Jer. xi. 8). He also lived to see the reaction and to prove that the reform was only superficial. There is one passage which seems to point to a change of view and even to the suspicion that the new code was not authoritative (Jer. vii. 8). When Jeremiah attacked the sin of the people, and warned them that the presence of Jehovah's Temple would not suffice to protect them if they persisted in their iniquity, his message was rejected and eventually he was imprisoned and silenced by a coalition of the priests and prophets. Jeremiah ceased therefore to be the Prophet of that nation. In his loneliness and sorrow, his thoughts turned in an hitherto unexplored direction. He complains to God in words which sound almost blasphemous, and pours forth expostulations that are the reverse of the submissive spirit usually thought proper to religion; but it is through this agony that Jeremiah discovers that God can be something to him, not only as the Prophet of the nation, but for himself. He discovers personal religion. His next discovery is equally momentous; for he is led to see that no promulgation of laws can save the nation: ordinances do not change the heart. He sorrowfully pronounces the doom of the nation, but as he stands by its open grave he sings of its resurrection. When purged by trial the nation shall return, and the New Covenant shall be set up, in which Jehovah shall write His laws in their hearts. It is a long far-off look that he gives, and the picture is not complete until One sits at a last supper and says: This cup is the New Covenant in my blood. THE EFFECT OF THE EXILE Dates for reference:-- B.C. 597. Jehoiachin and 10,000 captives deported to Babylon, and Zedekiah made king in his stead. FIRST CAPTIVITY. 587-6. Jerusalem besieged, Zedekiah taken to Babylon, Jerusalem and the Temple destroyed, and the whole population, save the very poorest, deported to Babylon. SECOND CAPTIVITY. 538. Cyrus issues edict for Return. Return under Sheshbazzar (?) (Ezra i.). 537. Return under Zerubbabel (Ezra ii.). 458. Arrival of Ezra. 445. First Mission of Nehemiah. 433. Second Mission of Nehemiah. There is a good deal of uncertainty about the above dates, and the condition of the documents in Ezra-Nehemiah offers difficulties which have not, so far, found acceptable solutions. Some have sought to identify Sheshbazzar with Zerubbabel, and to bring down the date of the Return to 522-21. It will be seen from the above Table that Jeremiah's prophecy of Seventy Years was not literally fulfilled. * * * * * The student would receive a clear idea of the growth of Israel's institutions and the way in which they have been incorporated in the successive documents, by tracing the development of the Sabbath in the following passages. Some claim that the Records of Babylonia show that the observance of the seventh day as sacred goes back to the origins of primitive Semitic religion. (1) In "J-E" (which may be prior to Amos in oral form, and perhaps slightly later as documents): Exod. xxiii. 12; xxxiv. 21; xx. 8. (2) In historical books: 2 Kings iv. 22, 23; Amos viii. 5; Hosea ii. 11; Isa. i. 13. (3) In "D": Deut. v. 14. (4) In Jer. xvii. 19-27. (Jeremiah is the first writer to show traces of the influence of Deuteronomy.) (5) In "H," The Code of Holiness (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.): Lev. xix. 3, 30; xxvi. 2. (6) In Ezek. xx. 12, 13. (7) In "P": Gen. ii. 1-3; Exod. xx. 10, 11; xxxi. 12-17; xxxv. 1-3; Lev. xxiii. 3; Num. xv. 32-36; Exod. xvi. 5, 22-30. (8) In post-exilic observance: Neh. xiii. 15-22; Isa. lvi. 2, 4, 6; lviii. 13, f.; lxvi. 23. Lecture VII THE EFFECT OF THE EXILE In the year 597 B.C., a catastrophe long foretold befell the Kingdom of Judah. Nebuchadrezzar invaded the land, took Jerusalem, and robbing the land of every person of importance or usefulness, transported them together with King Jehoiachin to Babylon, hoping doubtless to prevent any further trouble with Judæa. In what a conflict of emotion must the exiles have left that city which they had fondly imagined inviolable! for even in Babylon they continued to believe that so long as Jerusalem stood, Jehovah would have a citadel, and the holy city would remain a symbolic witness to their unconquered religion. With the captives there went a young man who was destined to leave a deep impression upon the future of his nation--the priest Ezekiel. Arrived in Babylon, he felt himself called to a prophetic ministry to the exiles, and his first message was directed to the crushing of their remaining hopes; for with dramatic symbolism he predicted that Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. The suicidal policy of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar had left to carry on the government as his vassal, soon fulfilled this prophecy; for sedition and intrigue soon compelled Nebuchadrezzar to adopt still stricter measures. He again marched into Judæa and besieged Jerusalem. This time the Jews expected no mercy, and resisted with such tenacity that the siege lasted for nearly two years. On the ninth day of the Fourth month, (our July) 586 B.C., a day still kept with solemn fasting by the Jews, a breach was made in the walls and the city capitulated. A month later the entire destruction of the city and Temple was ruthlessly carried out, and the whole population, with the exception of a few husbandmen, was deported to swell the company of exiles now at Babylon. This was the inevitable culmination of the policy of the Kingdom of Judah under her latest monarchs. The position of their land laid them open to conflicts with the powers of Assyria and Babylon. The wise and peaceful policy of Solomon had been departed from, and indeed rendered impossible by the disruption of the Tribes. A period of national decadence seems to have followed, in which luxury and corruption undermined all political sanity, and both rulers and people became blind to the dangers that threatened. Such religion as existed, only expressed itself in bursts of fanaticism, and filled the people with the fatal idea that Jehovah would never suffer the Temple to be violated or the holy city to be taken. The disaster of the Exile is charged by the Prophets to the unrepented sins of the nation, and while this is a religious interpretation it is not unsupported by a review of the history. The people had set their hearts upon a glorious kingdom of material prosperity, presided over and protected by a mighty national deity; the Prophets wanted a kingdom of righteousness, which would reflect the character of Jehovah and be a witness to the nations of His reality and power. While they saw in the Exile a calamity which meant the destruction of the nation, and an evidence that Jehovah had broken His covenant because of disobedience, they clung to the belief that the end for which Jehovah had chosen Israel might still be attained. That nation might be destroyed, yet from its ruins there would arise a Kingdom of God; a remnant would return, weaned from a false religion, to work out a new ideal of holiness and service. The period which follows is one of great obscurity and the records which are actually dated from this time are scanty. Literary criticism however throws great light on this period because it believes that it is from the Exile that we are to date many institutions and writings that have been referred to a previous age. This may seem at first sight a desperate device, since so little is known of the actual conditions; and yet unfettered investigation can arrive at no other conclusion, the exilic stamp being often unmistakable and even showing itself in geographical outlook (1 Kings iv. 24). If we take the Bible as it stands, it presents us with the story of an early legislation given by Moses, neglected however by the entire people, including the Reformers and Prophets, until it suddenly appears after the Exile as the acknowledged code for the regulation of religion and common life. It would be quite possible to conceive that the shock of the Exile drove the Jews to examine the details of the neglected covenant of Jehovah and to restore the authority of the Law of Moses. Such however is impossible, not only from that fact that there is no mention of the Law of Moses in the records that can be dated between the Conquest of Canaan and the Exile, but that in this period we can discern customs and ideas _gradually_ growing up that find their full and final embodiment in the Pentateuch as we now possess it. From the lawless condition of the Judges and the early monarchy, we advance to the teaching of the Prophets. It is Isaiah who contributes the ideas which lie at the basis of the Deuteronomic Code, and the time of Josiah is the first to show the influence of that code. Ezekiel is the first to show any trace of the ideas which we find embodied in Leviticus, but these, as we shall see, have to be explained as anticipations of, rather than as an acquaintance with, the finished Levitical Code. When we consider what effect the Exile would have upon the more thoughtful of the Jews, we can imagine that conscience would be shocked into activity, and a new interest would be taken in their strange history, especially in its prophetic interpretation. It is common in history to find that repentance rarely goes so deep as to grasp the inner meaning of its discovered sin, but is apt to content itself with somewhat superficial methods of showing its sincerity and securing future compliance with religion. So at least, the records of Israel's history assure us, happened in this instance, and one of the resolutions of their penitence took concrete form in the writing or editing of their history so that it should be a warning to the future, and in codifying customs and drawing up regulations which should make apostasy for ever impossible. Many references in the ancient records or in the oral tradition which savoured of idolatry or of a too anthropomorphic conception of God were corrected, as those references, the tendency of which was not detected, have remained to bear witness; and the whole history was fitted somewhat clumsily into a mechanical scheme, which was rather what they thought ought to have happened than what really did happen. One example of this may be seen in the condemnation which is naïvely passed on king after king because he had allowed sacrifice to be made at the high places; the fact being that this was not made illegitimate until the reign of Josiah. In this way external offences were marked and abandoned, while the deeper incongruity between the national religion and the teaching of the Prophets was missed. If we seek in this period for the rise of ideas which shall bridge over the change from the popular religion on the one hand, and the religion of Jeremiah on the other, to the complete unity of the national religion under Nehemiah and Ezra, we shall find a most important link in the Book of Ezekiel. The Book of Ezekiel is said to be the least read book in the Bible, yet its author plays a most important part in the history of Israel's religion, and to grasp the position which he occupies is to have a focus point from which the whole development may be conveniently grasped. The Prophet probably got a better hearing from his contemporaries than any of his predecessors. He accompanied the body of captives who left Jerusalem for Babylon in the year 597, and his works date from soon after that year and go down to about 570. The men to whom he was called to speak were therefore his fellow captives, and he had not to look far for a text for his sermons. His hearers were in Babylon for their sins, and they knew it. His style of preaching is difficult, and his method of embodying his message in visions marks a new phenomenon in Israel's religion. He states truth in strange and fanciful figures, a method which was to form an example for the later works of Judaism, and if we detect in Ezekiel a return to the extravagance of the earlier prophecy, we must make allowance for the tragic times in which he lived; especially must we do this where we trace a falling off from his predecessors in moral insight and in the ritualistic influence which his work undoubtedly left behind him. Ezekiel continues the work of the pre-exilic Prophets in that he proclaims their characteristic doctrines, and naturally he shows distinct traces of the influence of Jeremiah. What is new, is that he gives to those doctrines a more fixed and somewhat pedantic form, and a greater self-consciousness is discernible; the prophecies are accurately arranged, and the language is marked by precision; rhetoric is less frequent, and the prophecies look more fit for reading than for delivery. The idea of God is the same as in the earlier Prophets, but in Ezekiel it is elevated and rarified; especially is great emphasis laid upon the attribute of holiness, which is however a ceremonial rather than a purely ethical conception. The characteristic idea of the Prophets, that Jehovah chose Israel not for their own sakes, becomes the idea that Jehovah did this for His own sake alone, and this is so often repeated that it almost looks like arbitrariness. The cause of Judah's punishment is still traced to the sin of the people, but that sin is now definitely determined to be idolatry; and this is insisted on almost to the exclusion of the social and ethical wrongs assailed by the earlier Prophets. While, however, Ezekiel enforces the bitter lessons of the Exile, he carefully distinguishes the true interpretation of that disaster from that which rose readily to the popular mind. He disposes of the conception that the Captivity was due to the inability of Jehovah to defend His own land (xxxvi. 20); it was a punishment for sin (xxxix. 23), and in His own time He will prove this by restoring them to their land again (xxxix. 25). Neither will he allow them to rest in the flattering thought that they were only suffering for the unvisited sins of a former generation; he insists, probably with greater rigour than experience would sanction, that each man bears his own sin, and never suffers for the sins of others. But to those who admit the justice of his charges, and who therefore regard the future as hopeless, he preaches a tender doctrine of forgiveness and the possibility of cleansing from sin. From the events of his times, he seeks to draw lessons which should redeem the mistakes that had been made in the past: the teaching of the Prophets must be kept before the people in definite rules and religious ceremonies. Old customs, whose original significance had long been forgotten, were invested with new interpretations worthy of the true religion of Jehovah, and were made not only customs, but religious commands. In the book which bears his name, and especially in chapters xl.-xlviii., he outlines a policy in which the whole of national life is comprehended in its religious significance, and thus the calamity of future apostasy prevented. The new State is to centre round the idea of worship: the Temple with its services and appointments is to be the expression of the national life. Now in this scheme there is little doubt that we have the beginning of the Levitical system, for Ezekiel is related to Leviticus as the rough sketch to the finished plan. If Leviticus in its present form existed in Ezekiel's time, then the work of the Prophet was not only entirely unnecessary, but careless and presumptuous. Some of the facts which point to the priority of Ezekiel to the Levitical Code may be noticed. In the Levitical Code we find that a distinction is made between priests and Levites. This is not found in Deuteronomy (xvii. 9, 18; xviii. 1) but is first found in Ezekiel (xliv. 10-15), where it is explained to be due to the degradation of the Levites as a punishment for leading the people into idolatry; in Leviticus we reach the final stage, where the distinction is accepted without explanation. In Ezekiel we have no mention of the high-priest or of the Day of Atonement, both of which figure so largely in the Priest's Code, although we can find _foreshadowings_ of the Day of Atonement (Ezek. xlv. 18-20). Indeed we meet with no mention of the Day of Atonement, apart from the Priestly Code, until Zechariah (vii. 5; viii. 19). The general conclusion may be safely drawn, that during and after the Exile, Ezekiel's ideas were stiffened and developed into the full legislation now preserved for us in Leviticus. We may rightly claim Ezekiel to be the founder of Judaism, with its transcendent conception of Jehovah and its great attention to ceremonial detail, and we are bound therefore to recognise in Ezekiel a falling off from the ideals of the pre-exilic Prophets; he is a prophet in priest's clothing. Yet it may be questioned whether the idealistic teaching of the Prophets could have been preserved through the periods of the Exile and the Restoration, without this formal process. An outer husk of formality had to develop in order that the living kernel might be protected during the critical years when Persia, Greece, and Rome were to press their alien ideas upon this people. It has been well for the world that Ezekiel clothed the Prophets' teaching in the resisting garments of Judaism. The Exile could not fail to leave upon the Jewish nation an imperishable mark, and they emerged from that trial a different people. It was a shock that brought a repentance the Prophets had often laboured for in vain, and this repentance was marked by the initiation of many new movements in thought, and by a more stringent and solemn observance of their peculiar institutions. Probably in that alien land many of the Jews adopted the customs of their conquerors, since it is estimated that not more than a small fraction returned to Palestine. This defection would impress upon those who remained faithful the necessity for a strict policy of separation, and from this time certain institutions which had been inherited from ancient Semitic practice received a new meaning. Chief among these may be noticed the observance of the Sabbath, and the rite of circumcision. The observance of a certain day as sacred to the gods is a custom that is found in nearly all early religions, and there are traces of such an observance in the Babylonian religion. We do not find however in the historical books of the Bible that mention of the Sabbath which would be expected, if it was observed with the strictness common after the Exile. There are traces of an observance, not strictly defined, save that it is in association with the new moon feasts, and is combined with social relaxation (2 Kings iv. 22, 23; Hosea ii. 11; Amos viii. 5; Isa. i. 13). Even before the Exile however a more religious conception had arisen (Jer. xvii. 19-27), and is even then referred to as an earlier command. The change after the Exile was towards an ever increasing strictness (Isa. lvi. 2, 4, 6; lviii. 13; lxvi. 23; Neh. xiii. 15-22). The rite of circumcision was by no means peculiar to the Jewish religion (Jer. ix. 25, 26), except perhaps in so far as it was performed in infancy: its origin and growth are very obscure. Its original significance was early lost and its interpretation was probably due to the Prophets themselves, who often referred to a spiritual circumcision, and thus made possible the full ceremonial interpretation which became so important a feature in later Judaism. We have seen that there is evidence to prove that the religion of Israel had not always been averse to the use of idols as part of the legitimate worship of Jehovah. The Prophets began the protest against this, not so much because of its principles, but because of the immoral practices with which idol worship was connected. But after the Exile, idolatry was for ever separated from the worship of Jehovah, and in the later Prophets idolatry becomes the target for their most scornful invective. It has been suggested that this new abhorrence accounts for the non-return of the Ark, which in this period disappears from history. Among the most important of the new institutions that can be traced back to the period of the Exile is the founding of the Synagogue. In the land of Exile, away from the one spot where sacrifice was permitted, worship had to be carried on without the aid of sacrificial or ceremonial rites, but there was nothing to prevent the people from gathering together for prayer or to hear read their newly reverenced prophetic books. It is quite possible that this led to a collection of the Prophets' writings being made, and perhaps to some editing to meet their present needs. This movement was of profound importance for the future development of religion, for it was in the Synagogue rather than in the Temple that Christianity was to find the readiest medium for its dissemination and the earliest model for its worship. The Synagogue itself prepared the way for the more spiritual developments within Judaism, for away from the Temple sacrifices and their always dangerous suggestions men learned that the sacrifice of the broken heart was more acceptable to Jehovah; and so the way was prepared for that magnificent collection of prayers and songs which we call the Psalms, which were afterwards to be used as an accompaniment to a form of worship that they frequently condemn. The external and legal conceptions were, however, to be the most visible results gained from the Exile, and they were to mould religion for many a year. The materials for an exact history of the return from Exile do not exist in our Bibles; the accounts found in Ezra and Nehemiah raise questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. The Prophets who had foretold the destruction of the kingdom of Judah had never been able to rest in the thought that this was the final chapter in Jehovah's dealings with His people, and their faith forced them to peer through this impending disaster and dimly discern a purpose yet to be disclosed. This is often pictured in merely general terms, but in Jeremiah and Ezekiel these hopes issued in the definite prophecy of the restoration of the Jews to their own land within a certain period. When political changes brought this on the horizon of possibility, the times wakened the "voice of one crying in the wilderness," in some respects the most wonderful of all that noble band we have been studying. The name of this herald has not been preserved, but he is known to criticism as the Second Isaiah. This does not of course mean that he bore that name, but it is a convenient designation for the writings that occupy the second half of the work included under the name of Isaiah. The separation of chapters xl.-lxvi. from those which precede, as from different hands, is one of the most universally accepted results of criticism. The preceding chapters end with a historic survey of events that happened in the lifetime of the great Isaiah of Jerusalem, and then suddenly the whole outlook and atmosphere change. Critics claim that the test of language and style is itself decisive, but while this must remain a question on which only Hebrew experts are qualified to pronounce, the difference of theological ideas, and the change of situation cannot be missed by any attentive English reader. Indeed that the situation has changed is a fact which has never been challenged. From chapter xl., the audience addressed consists no longer of the proud and scornful peoples of the time of Hezekiah, but of penitent captives far from their native land some 150 years later; the accepted explanation used to be that Isaiah transported himself to this later time by a miracle of prophetic inspiration. But there is really only one adducible reason for attributing this prophecy to Isaiah: it is bound up with the book that bears his name as the title. This reason is of little value when we admit our ignorance of the method by which the Old Testament was finally edited, and when the internal evidence entirely contradicts the traditional theory. For it must be borne in mind that the explanation that this is due to a prophetic transportation is only a hypothesis framed to fit the conditions, and has no claim to acceptance if there can be found one that does equal justice to the facts without appealing to such an unusual method. Moreover, the hypothesis of prediction does not fit the facts, for while some parts of the prophecy have predictive form, others have not. For instance, the picture of Cyrus and his conquests, complete even to the name of the hero, is not only presented as if he were on the stage of actual history, but his appearance is adduced as a convincing evidence of the fulfilment of prophecy. What fulfilment would it be if Cyrus was yet a figure of the unknown future? If it is claimed that this presentation is due to what is known to Hebrew grammarians as a use of the _prophetic present tense_, in which things future in fact, are stated as present, owing to the vividness of the prophetic consciousness, then we must ask why it is that Cyrus is presented as a figure of contemporary history, while the fall of Babylon is still spoken of as future. This distinction would be meaningless if the whole of this period was seen from some anterior time. The "settled results" of criticism were greatly ridiculed when further investigation pronounced that only chapters xl.-lv. can have come from this great Prophet, and that the remainder of the book is of a composite character, extending at least to the time of the Second Temple. To have to bring in a third author, or even more, to explain this book is quoted as an example of the foolishness of criticism. Now the critics _may_ be wrong, but their theories are simply endeavours to understand these prophecies by setting them in their exact historical surroundings. Surely this is a task worthy of any reverent student of the Old Testament, and if it brings, as many believe, wonderful light on these messages, and thus sets free their eternal significance, then these men should earn gratitude rather than ridicule, when the difficulty of their task calls for a continual rearrangement and a finer adjustment. The critical reconstruction of this prophecy therefore places chapters xl.-lv. among the scenes it depicts, and in the very history whose movements called it forth. The exact conditions can be discerned. After the death of Nebuchadrezzar the kingdom of the Chaldæans began to decline, and when Cyrus succeeded to the throne of Persia its fate was determined. His victorious campaigns, culminating in the fall of Sardis in B.C. 547, could not fail to reach the ears of the exiles in Babylon, and many a whisper of hope must have been exchanged, and many a prophecy handed on. Babylon itself fell before the conqueror in 538 and between these two dates, and perhaps nearer to the latter, the internal witness of the prophecy demands that it should be placed. When we turn to examine the work of this unknown messenger we cannot help noticing the difference in style, which even the translation cannot obscure. The great Isaiah writes in terse, closely-packed sentences, with all the authoritative manner customary with the Prophets. This writer, on the other hand, is rhetorical, and loves to dwell on his favourite ideas. The sharp word of the prophetic deliverance here gives way to a reasoning exposition and a pleading tenderness that makes this prophecy a Gospel before the Gospels. The distinctive religious ideas can be easily marked. Absolute Monotheism is insisted on with a fulness and repetition which shows that it is in some degree a new truth. There is none beside Jehovah; He is alone, unique; and description is exhausted in the endeavour to picture His glory and power. He is now constantly referred to as the Creator of the world, the framer of the stars on high, the maker of both darkness and light, both good and evil; so that no room is left for the dualism that the Prophet may have learned to despise in the Babylonian religion. His finest scorn is reserved for the conception that an idol can have any claim to divinity. He depicts the process of their manufacture, their utter helplessness; it may be that he had seen them borne in to the capital as the suburbs fell before the invader. Universalism struggles for expression in this writer, but it is not always so clear and definite as in the writings of the great Isaiah. This arises however, not so much from the racial prejudices that have so clogged the Hebrew mind, as from a reading of Israel's history which the prophet was well entitled to make, namely, that she was to be the premier nation in the instruction of the world in righteousness and the knowledge of God, the priest-nation of humanity. This conception of the nation's history and destiny is embodied in a personification known as the Servant of Jehovah. Israel has been chosen as the Servant so that the light may be brought to the nations. In this mission the Servant meets with persecution, yet turns not back from those who pluck off the hair nor hides his face from shame and spitting. The slightest retrospect of Israel's history shows that the Servant of Jehovah was trained for his task only through suffering. Israel had suffered for her sins of presumption and disobedience; but were the nations who punished her any more righteous? Moreover, many of those who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept when they remembered Zion must have been pious and righteous, and innocent of the causes of their nation's calamities. As the prophet broods over the meaning of the Exile, as it affected the godly remnant, he begins to see that this suffering, undeserved though it might be in particular cases, would become a supreme lesson in righteousness to the world. This assumption is embodied in the astonishing drama of the suffering Servant; one who suffers from a disfiguring disease, which marks him out to all beholders as the afflicted of Jehovah, and who is therefore despised and rejected of men. But the day comes when the idea slowly dawns upon men that this servant-nation suffered for the sake of the world, bore the consciousness of sin when other nations lived in carelessness and flourished on cruelty. The Prophet believed that this patient suffering would be an awakening force and would be the means of bringing the world to the knowledge of God. It is a marvellous reading of Israel's history; but it is true, for that little nation despised and rejected by Empires, battered by the armed forces which surrounded her, has made the whole world her debtor. But indirectly this interpretation is a revelation of the meaning of all history, and especially of that strange law of vicarious suffering which binds all the world one and makes every new age in debt to the past. This unknown writer has contributed one of the most fruitful ideas to the philosophy of history. It is not surprising that most early commentators have tried to read in the 53rd chapter a picture, not of a nation, but of some definite person; although the Prophet definitely identifies the Servant of the Lord with Israel (Isa. xli. 8). But when did Israel embody such a conception? It can only stand for an ideal of what Israel ought to have been; and there have been many things which have entered into the composition of the picture. It has been suggested that one of the Prophets sat for this picture, just as sometimes an artist painting a symbolical picture will get one of his friends to sit for the model; and who could be better for this purpose than Jeremiah, the rejected of the nation? The interpretation that finds in this picture a minute prediction of the life and passion of Jesus is not sanctioned by a careful study of the passage; but the instinct that has led to this is right in the main, for as we travel down the ages looking for the fulfilment of this ideal, we only rest with complete satisfaction on the story of the life and death of One who stepping out from this very race, by His uninterrupted communion with God, His hatred of sin and His profound sympathy with mankind, bore away the sin of the world on the red flood of sacrifice, and brought in for ever the true Kingdom of God. An increasing number of Old Testament scholars believe that another of the Prophets contains an interpretation of the Exile, conceived in the same spirit as that of the Second Isaiah, although veiled under such a strange allegorical form that centuries of Jewish and Christian interpretation have entirely missed its meaning. The book of the Prophet Jonah belongs to a later age, and should probably stand last of all the Minor Prophets, but the critical interpretation of the prophecy falls naturally to be considered here. The character of the Book reveals on close inspection that it was never intended for history; as its inclusion among the prophetical writings perhaps recognises. It is not only the improbability of the whale episode that has led to this conclusion, but the whole character of the events narrated: the sudden growth and withering of the gourd, the instant repentance of the Ninevites, which included a forced régime of fasting even for the cattle! Moreover, the closing words of the book breathe a spirit of universalism and humanity that is almost the high-water mark of Old Testament inspiration, and this encourages the reader to look for some deeper meaning in the rest of the book. The story as interpreted by critical methods is that Jonah is the nation of Israel, chosen to be a missionary nation to the heathen. On refusing the task which Divine selection had marked out for her she is thrown into exile, and has been restored for the purpose of carrying out her original mission. This is here symbolised by the whale swallowing Jonah, who on being cast up proceeded on his neglected commission, though still with little love for his work. The imagery is crude and may strike the reader as exceedingly improbable, until his attention is drawn to the fact that the whale or sea-monster plays a great part in Old Testament imagery and is once actually used as a symbol of the Exile. "Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon hath devoured me, ... he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, ... he hath cast me out.... I will do judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up" (Jer. li. 34, 44). With this interpretation as a clue, the book becomes luminous. It is an apology for the Gentiles who are shown to be capable of repentance; Israel is blamed for her grudging estimate of the heathen, for her refusal to convey to them the light which she enjoyed, and for her fear lest others should share the favour of Jehovah. Perhaps the symbolic character of the book was adopted, because the author knew that if such truths were boldly stated they would never be received by his age; and so he hoped that the truth might enter in through an interesting story of wonder and adventure. It can hardly be claimed that the author has been successful; for the Jews resisted the universalism of the Son of Man and the propagandist methods of the Apostle Paul, while Christendom has been far more concerned in proving that a whale can swallow a man, than in carrying out the command to evangelise those who know not their right hand from their left. THE WORK OF THE PRIESTS The following passage (Exod. vii. 14-25) illustrates the attempt to disintegrate the various documents ("J" is indicated by roman type, "E" by _italics_, and "P" by CAPITALS). "And Yahwe said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is stubborn, he refuseth to let the people go. _Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink to meet him; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take into thine hand._ And thou shalt say unto him, Yahwe, the God of the Hebrews, hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou hast not hearkened. Thus saith Yahwe, in this thou shalt know that I am Yahwe: behold, I will smite ... _with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood_. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink water from the river. AND YAHWE SAID UNTO MOSES, SAY UNTO AARON, TAKE THY ROD, AND STRETCH OUT THINE HAND OVER THE WATERS OF EGYPT, OVER THEIR RIVERS, OVER THEIR STREAMS, AND OVER THEIR POOLS, AND OVER ALL THEIR PONDS OF WATER, THAT THEY MAY BECOME BLOOD; AND THERE SHALL BE BLOOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND OF EGYPT, BOTH IN VESSELS OF WOOD AND IN VESSELS OF STONE. AND MOSES AND AARON DID SO, AS YAHWE COMMANDED; _and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river; in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood_. And the fish that was in the River died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the river; AND THE BLOOD WAS THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND OF EGYPT. AND THE MAGICIANS OF EGYPT DID IN LIKE MANNER WITH THEIR ENCHANTMENTS: AND PHARAOH'S HEART WAS HARDENED, AND HE HEARKENED NOT UNTO THEM; AS YAHWE HAD SPOKEN. _And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he lay even this to heart._ And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river. And seven days were fulfilled, after that Yahwe had smitten the river." Notes:--The account in "J" evidently had nothing about the water being turned into blood. Yahwe himself will smite the river (_Ye' or_; the Nile) so that the fish will die. "The river" probably stood after "smite ..." in "J." In "E" Moses is commanded to smite with his rod, and the Nile will be turned into blood. In verse 17 _thine_ must have stood in the original and was altered to "mine" when the documents were pieced together. In "P" Aaron is to take the rod, and now all the rivers of Egypt, and even the water in the houses, is to be turned into blood. Notice the formal repetition in "P." Lecture VIII THE WORK OF THE PRIESTS We have seen that the Exile produced two important prophetical works. The one is a vision of a restored Jewish state, contemplated under the guise of a Church rather than as a Nation; the work of the priestly Prophet Ezekiel. The other is incorporated in the second half of the prophecies ascribed to Isaiah; the author is unknown, but the work is an attempt to interpret the calamitous history of the Exile in such a fashion that the nation might be led to take as its ideal for the future, the Servant of Jehovah, the bearer of light to the nations of the world. The outlook in these two works is entirely different, yet both seem to have called forth a school which endeavoured to work out their ideals, but the school of Ezekiel obtained a more immediate recognition and exerted the greater influence on the nation. For the first time in Israel's history a prophet is found who is concerned with matters of ritual, the regulation of a priesthood, and the details of ecclesiasticism. Ezekiel endeavoured to secure the reforms demanded by the Prophets, not only by the effect of his own preaching, but by the formation of definite organisations and the establishment of certain customs. The priestly school which followed Ezekiel and developed his conceptions, possessed sufficient prestige to persuade the nation that their scheme was of Divine authority. Their work was carried on during and after the Exile, but with the exception of Ezra, the names of the authors have not been preserved. In the Bible history their work suddenly appears under the name of "the law of Moses" in 444 B.C. The first certain mention of the recognition and observance of this law is found in Nehemiah (viii.), where a memorable scene is described. Ezra the Scribe, "the writer of the words of the commandments of the Lord and of his statutes to Israel" (Ezra vii. 11), has come from Babylon, bringing with him the law of Moses. The people are gathered together on a certain day, and from morning to noon, the law is read in their hearing, with such comments and explanations as seemed necessary. The immediate result of this publication was the discovery that important provisions had been neglected and commands very seriously transgressed, and there followed such grief and alarm among those who listened, that it was difficult for the authorities to persuade the people to abandon their mourning and rejoice in the fact that the law had now been made known to them. On the morrow a further reading took place, when they discovered that on that very day they ought to be keeping a feast of tabernacles. The feast was therefore observed for the appointed time of eight days, and it is expressly noted that this had not been done since the time of Joshua. Other reforms were immediately set in motion; marriage with those not of pure Jewish blood was not only forbidden but, where such had actually been contracted, an immediate dissolution was enforced; a tax of one third of a shekel was levied for the upkeep of the Temple Services, and the law of the Sabbath was rigorously enforced. Now this picture was not written by a contemporary, and critics have found such difficulty in discovering the exact historical facts that considerable doubt has been aroused, not only concerning the historicity of this event, but even concerning the existence of Ezra himself. But it is certain that in the Fifth Century B.C., laws were obeyed and institutions were recognised, of which we have no record, outside the Pentateuch, in the earlier historical books. The question to be answered is: What was that "law of Moses" which Ezra brought to Jerusalem and read to the people? Later Judaism calls the first five books of the Bible "the Law of Moses," and for centuries both Jewish and Christian scholars have identified Ezra's law with these books, have supposed that they existed from the time of Moses downwards, but were entirely neglected by the Jews until this time. Modern research is compelled to dissent altogether from this tradition. Our purpose in this book prevents us from discussing the details of this controversy, but in addition to what has been already said in an earlier lecture, the main results of critical study on the origin of the Law may be outlined. From the time occupied by Ezra in reading his law it is inferred that it could hardly have been our first five books of the Bible; and since to carry out the laws contained in them would involve endless discussion because of their contradictory character (compare for example the directions for keeping the feast of Tabernacles in Deut. xvi. 13, 15, which commands seven days, with Lev. xxiii. 39, which adds an eighth day for a solemn assembly; compare also the account in 1 Kings viii. 66, with 2 Chron. vii. 8, 10), it is thought that this law of Ezra must have been much smaller than the Pentateuch, and much more homogeneous. The Pentateuch not only contains more than "laws," but even the legal sections bear the marks of such widely different aims and conditions that we are compelled to assume a gradual collection, with continual redaction and codification, in order to account for the various phenomena. The earliest strata may go back to a great antiquity, and the customs themselves must often be primitive Semitic survivals, but the critical contention is that, as a whole, the "Law of Moses" owes its present form to an age later than the Exile, and somewhat later than Ezra himself; for Ezra's code has itself been revised (compare Neh. x. 32, where a third of a shekel is appointed, with Exod. xxx. 13, where it has increased to half a shekel), before it was amalgamated with the Pentateuch in its existing form. The critical basis for this theory of the gradual formation of the law is found first in the fact that the legislation of the Pentateuch is not homogeneous: it is so contradictory that to carry out the law as it stands would be found impossible. It is claimed that the presence of the various strata can be detected by the numerous repetitions (_e.g._, the commandments exist in three recensions: Exod. xx. 1-17; xxxiv. 17-28; Deut. v. 6-21); by the use of different names for God, by the difference in language and style, and by the change in theological conceptions; and moreover, that these different strata can be roughly assigned to various ages, which can be actually confirmed by the record of their observance in the historical books (compare the provisions made for the Ark in Exod. xxv.-xl.; Num. iii.-iv., with its actual treatment in 1 Sam.). The different strata of the laws, and the ages to which they may be roughly assigned, are as follows:--The earliest code of laws is said to be that of the "Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxiv. 7), found in Exod. xx. 20-xxiii. 33. The primitive character of this code can be discerned, by the comparison of its directions for worship with those of later ages. It sanctioned the erection of rude altars at any place where Jehovah had been revealed, whereas in later codes no place except the one chosen spot can be used for worship, and the altar must be of highly specialised construction (compare Exod. xx. 24-26 and Deut. xii. 4-24, with Exod. xxvii. 1-8). Now it is precisely this informal worship, which could be performed by any one and at any place, that appears to have been the custom until the time of the reformation under Josiah; and in his times, and as the cause of his reform, the critics place the Book of Deuteronomy, v.-xxvi.; for it presupposes the teaching of the prophets and is the programme followed by Josiah. Then next follows "the Law of Holiness" (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.); which is either the outcome of Ezekiel's work or is shortly prior to it; anyhow, the connection is close. Then in 444 B.C. appears the code of Ezra, which was afterwards developed and set in a brief narrative describing the historical preparation for the law and its actual deliverance by Moses; this document of history and laws is known for convenience as the Priestly Code, and is denoted by the letter "P." The editorial framework of the completed Hexateuch (the first six books of the Bible), is of the same stamp as the Priests' Code, and the date of its final compilation must not be put very much later than Ezra, since the Samaritan Pentateuch probably goes back to the Fourth Century, from which date it can claim an independent existence. It is this work of the Priests that we are now to examine. "P" is to be found at present scattered throughout the Hexateuch, and embraces nearly the whole of Leviticus, Numbers and a good portion of Exodus; is found in many scattered passages in Genesis and in a small portion of Joshua and Judges, especially, in the latter case, in the closing chapters; there is only a very little in Deuteronomy. Although not the work of one hand, these passages can be detected by their unity of motive, the uniform phraseology, the priestly outlook, and their concern with legal and ritualistic regulations. The style is stereotyped, measured, and prosaic, and is rendered somewhat monotonous by the repetition of stated formulae. The theological ideas are dominated by the thought of the awful holiness of God and the danger that there lies in approaching Him in any other than the ordained way. What were the sources from which this code drew its material? It is not suggested that the code was simply _invented_ during the Exile. Many of the legal commands concerning uncleanness, leprosy, and marriage are really ancient customs, and only owed their _codification_ to this late age; for they reflect a low stage of culture, and their rites of purification are primitive. Again sacrifice had been performed as far back as Semitic history can be traced, and customs which had persisted were now simply tabulated and their form fixed. Many of the sacrificial rites prescribed in the code still bear the marks of their early origin, especially in the case of the burnt and the peace-offerings, but the law of the sin-offering shows artificial elaboration. Undoubtedly when Solomon's Temple was built a new sacrificial ritual would be developed more in keeping with the splendour of the edifice, and as the Temple increased in prestige, and when under Isaiah's influence it became the one spot at which sacrifice could be performed, the priestly caste would keep the rite in their own hands and perform it with more care; and all this would become the basis for a new ritualistic legislation. The minuteness of the Priestly Code often gives the impression of a record of exact history, but a careful examination of such measurements as are given in the case of the Ark or the Tabernacle do not confirm the historical accuracy; for the Tabernacle cannot be made exactly as described, and if it could be, would neither stand up, nor be suitable for the purpose for which it was intended, nor be able to be transported through the desert. It is simply a tent-like model of the Temple projected into the early history on the theory that the worship which existed in the writer's time was that which had always existed. The artificial conception of the history which "P" follows can of course be seen, if we separate the various strata of the first six books in the Bible, but it can be seen without this difficult and controversial method by comparing the history of Kings with Chronicles: the one written largely before and the other entirely after the legislation of "P" had been accepted. The law of the Day of Atonement is almost entirely late, and originated in the deepened sense of guilt produced during the Exile; neither is there any trace of its observance until that time. A difficult question has arisen concerning the date of this legislation since the discovery of the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who lived somewhere about 2,250 B.C., and who has been identified by some with the Amraphael of Gen. xiv. His code reveals a fairly advanced stage of civilisation and morality existing in Babylon at that time, but its chief interest for us is found in the fact that many of the laws concerning common life, marriage, etc., are not only like the laws of the Bible, but in some cases are verbally similar. This phenomenon demands some theory of contact between the two codes, but no theory has yet been found that explains all the facts. The idea of direct borrowing on either side can hardly be taken seriously, and the correspondence between the two codes hardly requires that; so that the question is narrowed to one of influence. This influence would seem to be most natural in the time of the Exile, were it not that the strictly exclusive spirit then developed by the Jews makes it unthinkable. There remains either the explanation of a common basis for the two codes, traceable to their Semitic origin, or what has received the greater support from scholars, the idea that the influence of Hammurabi's laws on Israel's legislation is to be traced through the former inhabitants of Canaan. To understand how this is possible, we must remember that it is now known that Babylon had predominating influence over Western Palestine before the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews; that the inhabitants of the land were much more civilised than their conquerors; and that the invaders did not exterminate the inhabitants, but quietly effected a settlement among them and adopted many of their customs. While on the subject of the influence of Babylon it will be convenient to notice here that this influence is not confined to legal matters, but can be traced in certain legendary elements in the Old Testament. The ideal of the Priests' Code would not tolerate heathen mythology that could be detected as such, to appear in its work, and yet there are definite traces of such mythology to be found in "P"s account of the creation in Gen. i. The discovery of the libraries of Assurbanipal has brought to light records of a mythological cosmogony which, while utterly different in conception and spirit from Genesis, is sufficiently similar to suggest some degree of connection. This Babylonian Epic of creation deals not so much with the remarkably scientific idea of a gradual creation of our earth out of chaotic materials, but with a conflict of gods and monsters which is supposed to have taken place before the creation. In the opening verses of the Bible there is a reference to the partition of the deep, which is here called by the non-Hebrew name _Tehom_, into two parts: the waters above and the waters under the firmament. Now in the Babylonian story the actual creation of the earth is preceded by a mighty struggle between _Marduk_, the sun-god (the Merodach of the Bible) and a great dragon symbolical of the primeval waters, which bears the name _Tiamat_, the Babylonian form of _Tehom_. The influence of this myth is the more certainly to be traced in Genesis, because it appears elsewhere in the Old Testament under the form of a legend of a conflict between Jehovah and Rahab, a mighty dragon; and this legend is generally in some way connected with creation (Job ix. 13; xxvi. 12; Isa. li. 9; Ps. lxxxix. 10). There is also a Babylonian story of the flood which keeps even closer to the Bible narrative, and it may be seen from the Babylonian version that this is more probably another form of the dragon myth than a common memory of a tremendous deluge. A Babylonian seal cylinder in the British Museum bears the picture of a man and woman standing one on each side of a sacred tree, from which they are picking fruit, while a serpent coils around the tree; but no written explanation of this very suggestive picture has been discovered. These mythical stories have come down from primitive Semitic times, but we cannot fail to notice that while their ancestry is undoubtedly common, there is a tremendous difference between the stage reached under the inspiration of the Hebrew genius and the crude Polytheism of the Babylonian stories. Their connection in some way is unmistakable, but still more certain is their different ethical and religious level. The fact of the borrowing does not deny the inspiration; it rather reveals how powerful that inspiration was. To turn now to a consideration of the work of the Priests. We must doubtless concede to the workers a very lofty motive: it was nothing less than an endeavour to include the whole of the nation's life under the conception that God was dwelling among His people, and that the nation must be holy because He is holy. But in the working out of this purpose the ideal is neither secured nor maintained. The holiness of God is insisted on with much reiteration, but it is conceived of as a physical rather than a moral attribute. It is really only a conception of the unapproachability of God unless certain purely ritual and physical conditions are observed. For the enforcement of this idea the old custom of sacrifice was elaborated and strictly defined, but strangely enough, without explicit teaching as to its meaning. This is peculiar, and it seems to have remained largely unnoticed, for many Biblical expositors have adopted without inquiry the idea that the sacrifices were substitutionary, piacular, and typical of the sacrifice of Christ. The piacular meaning suggests itself at so many points that it is startling to find that it cannot be borne out by careful examination. The sacrifices are in most instances only efficacious for the forgiveness of unintentional sins, or for the atonement of ritualistic mistakes made in ignorance or through inadvertence. The ceremony of laying the hands of the offerer on the head of the intended victim, suggests that a symbolical transference of guilt is taking place, and yet only in one case is this accompanied by a confession of sins, and there the victim is not slain, but led away for Azazel. The sin-offering involved the death of the animal, but an animal was not absolutely necessary for the purpose, and flour might be substituted; and even where we have the slain animal, the idea that the animal has taken the place of the sinner seems to be excluded by the fact that its flesh is regarded as "most holy." The offerings are said to make atonement, but we are not told how this is affected unless in the passage that states that "it is the blood that maketh atonement, by reason of the life." The word translated "atonement" means simply "a covering," and of course may mean that the blood, which is symbolical of the offered life, either covers the eyes of God from beholding the sin, or covers the sinner. We are left then, either with the deduction that the exact significance of the sacrifices was not mentioned because everyone knew what it was, or that it has not been told because it was too mysterious, or that there was no definite meaning attached to them. Originally sacrifice did not bear a piacular significance, but it would be unsafe to argue from this that no substitutionary value was attached to the Levitical sacrifices by these priestly lawyers; indeed the only safe conclusion seems to be that the priests adopted these sacrifices, which were time-honoured, as the proper ritual for the approach to God, without any definite inquiry as to their meaning. But taking the Levitical system as a whole there seems to underlie it the theory of symbolical, although not piacular substitution. God owns man entirely, and that by right: his time, possessions, flocks, and lands; and demands from him the completest recognition of this ownership. Now in practice, this absolute demand can only be recognised by substitute and proxy; and so we have the recognition of God's claims by the observance of one holy day in seven, by the ransom of the first-born, by the sabbatical and jubilee years, by the tithes, and especially by the sacrifices. His dwelling in the land is symbolised by the respect paid to one symbolical holy place; and the continual service He demands is represented by the daily service carried on by the Levitical caste. But even if this be the intention of the system, it is nowhere so defined, and therefore it is not surprising to find that people soon forgot the symbolical meaning, and treated the symbol as a thing sufficient in itself; with the result, that the service of God came to be restricted to a performance of rites that had lost all significance. One explanation would soon silence any criticism of this scheme that might arise, namely, that God had so ordained that men should worship Him. But deeper still there lay a radical misconception of the very nature of God and of the service He seeks. God was conceived as inimical not so much to man's sin, as to man himself; and this danger was averted by the use of protective rites which needed to be performed with scrupulous care, lest a mistake might bring down on the worshipper immediate and awful destruction, quite irrespective of his moral condition. Doubtless the nation might be impressed by these means with the awful aloofness of God, and there must often have accompanied this some notion of the ethical character that was expressed in this separateness; but the means taken for satisfying this character and demand in the nature of God could never have had any other result than it did, namely, the conception that attention to details of ritual could be a substitute for the much more difficult service of repentance and righteousness. It is possible that we may be under-estimating the real motive of the Priests' work and its actual success in preserving religion under these forms; but the radical evil is clearly exposed when we come to the time of another calamity, that which befel the nation under Antiochus Epiphanes, when no other method of averting the anger of God seems to have been thought of, except that of increasing the rigour of this ritual law and fencing it round with still further restrictions, until it became a burden too heavy to be borne. Such a régime utterly failed to understand the teaching of Jesus and could only regard His religion as impious and lacking in all that was essential, reverential, or good, and it was "the Law" which put Jesus to death. It is much to be deplored that the Sacrifice of Christ has in turn been explained to the conscience touched to penitence and tenderness by the story of the Cross, rather by the analogy of the Old Testament sacrifices than by its complete superiority to them as based upon a different and ethical order; for the rags and tatters of the Levitical system still impede the religious life; allowing men to think that God is content with substitutes, can be placated with blood, and is more concerned with abstract regulations than with moral change. And so there still hang about religion the same inconsistencies, the same slaughter of the prophets, the same blindness to the eternal demands of personal and social righteousness. The motive of the work of the Priests may have been to enforce the prophetic repentance, but to gain this end they compromised with unspiritual ritual, and on that compromise Christ was, and is still crucified. THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS Titles of the Psalms, descriptive of their contents:-- (1) Song, Heb. _Shirah._ A lyrical poem for singing. Probably the earliest title, which in some instances may have belonged to the original composition. (2) _Michtam_, perhaps, "a golden piece." The title indicates their artistic form and choice contents. They were probably all taken from a previous collection. (3) _Maschil_, a meditative poem, from a collection made perhaps in the late Persian period. (4) Psalm, Heb. _Mizmor_. The name given to a collection used for public worship, probably in the early Greek period. (5) _Shiggaion_, (Ps. vii.; also in plural, Hab. iii. 1.) Some take this to mean a wild, passionate composition, but this Psalm hardly bears that character. Perhaps we may expect a textual corruption from _Neginah_: a song accompanied with musical instruments. (6) A song of Ascents: used in the processions to the Temple. (7) A prayer. On the question of the Davidic authorship of the Psalms, the following passages should be examined; they would appear to be in hopeless disagreement with the life of David as depicted in the historical books. Ps. v. 8-10; vi. 7, f.; xii. 1-4; xvii. 9-14; xxii.; xxvii. 10, 12; xxxv. 11-21; xli. 5-9; liv. 2-6; lxii. 3, f. The Psalms which are ascribed to some definite occasion in David's life are not on the whole any more suitable to the situation, although there is generally some single phrase which probably gave rise to this identification. The great commentator Ewald, on literary grounds ascribed the following Psalms to David because of their originality and dignified spirit: Ps. iii.; iv.; vii.; viii.; xi.; xv.; xviii.; xix. 1-6; xxiv. 1-6; xxiv. 7-10; xxix.; xxxii.; lx. 6-9; lxviii. 13-18; ci.; cxliv. 12-14. Briggs would not go so far as to indicate Davidic Psalms, but would put as far back as the Early Monarchy, Ps. vii., xiii., xviii., xxiii., xxiv. b, lx. a, and cx. Lecture IX THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS The principles of Biblical criticism have often been traced to a vigorous application of the theory of evolution to the growth of religious ideas. Such an application, if without the support of facts, would discredit all critical results; but as a matter of fact, the critical readjustment of the Old Testament does not give a perfect progression in religious development. Indeed, it leaves us with a perplexing story of decline from high attainment. The Law follows the Prophets, and no theory can recognise the Law as an advance upon prophetic teaching. The national rejection of the Prophets is the central tragedy of Hebrew history and prepares us for the national rejection of Jesus. Yet between the Prophets and the religion of the Gospels we are able to trace an almost continuous link in the religion of the Psalmists. This connection is somewhat obscured by the early date assigned to the Psalms by uncritical tradition, by the heterogeneous character of the collection, and by its continual redaction in the interest of the purpose to which they were adapted. In adopting this collection of religious poems for the purpose of public praise, it is more than likely that additions were made, in order that they might more fitly express the need of the time, while reverence for the writings, by the time at least, of the final edition of the work, operated to preserve the original; as may be seen, for instance, in the addition made to the fifty-first Psalm (ver. 18, 19), which in its original form condemns the very worship in which it was used. Moreover the collection is as much a prayer-book as a hymn-book, for many of the Psalms are really prayers, and five of them are actually so entitled. The book was certainly used in the Temple services, but on the whole it must have seemed more fitted for the non-sacrificial and non-ceremonial worship of the synagogue, or for the private devotions of pious men and women. However and wherever used, it must have nourished a deep personal religion and kept alive hopes to which Christianity afterwards appealed. No other single book of the Old Testament has had such an influence on Christian piety and worship. From ancient times to the present day the Psalms have been chanted, and in Churches of widely differing ritual they have been considered the only fit vehicle for Christian praise. Nothing more clearly demonstrates their proximity to the Christian view of things, although the modern spirit in Christendom is finding it increasingly difficult to express itself in the language of all the Psalms, on account of their imprecatory wishes. Perhaps still more, the predominant tone of the book, which is one of crying for deliverance from overwhelming enemies and oppression, hardly suits the safety of our times, or meets the demand for a joyful religious spirit. Many of the Psalms become real only in times of severe spiritual trial, and where there exists a deep sense of contrition; still better do they express the emotions which arise in times of national calamity or religious persecution; and most of all when men are constrained to take arms in the cause of religion and righteousness. They have never sounded so fitting as on the lips of the Reformers, Cromwell's Ironsides, or the Scottish Covenanters. And yet their great breadth of appeal, their touching of every possible note in religious experience--penitence and joy, questioning and trust, longing and satisfaction, defeat and victory,--their majestic literary form, and their poetic inspiration will preserve them for ever as sublime utterances of universal religion. But our work is not to appraise their eternal value, but to estimate their significance, influence, and position in the development of Old Testament religion; and to do this we must endeavour to trace the origin and compilation of the Psalter. The criticism of the Psalter is faced by a peculiarly difficult and complex problem, arising from the lack of historic connection, the possible obliteration by editorial redaction, and the difficulty of interpreting with certainty even those data which the text presents, and it has by no means yet reached settled conclusions; only general and tentative results can be noted here. That, however, the book is the result of a gradual process, may be seen from the presence of doublets (liii. = xiv.; lxx. = xl. 13-17; cviii. = lvii. 7-11 + lx. 5-12), and from the subscription at the end of Book II., which displays ignorance of the fact that further Psalms, ascribed to David follow. It will be more convenient to start from the final position and work backward; and that final position is undoubtedly this, that the Book of Psalms as it stands in our Bible is the hymn-book of the restored Second Temple. It is a book prepared for musical accompaniment; this may be seen from the titles still preserved at the head of many of the Psalms. These titles are of three kinds: they describe the nature of the poetic composition; they give the names of the authors and sometimes the circumstances in which they were composed; and the third kind are most probably to be explained as instructions for musical setting. These last-named titles are in most cases very obscure; the Revised Version has simply transliterated the Hebrew words. On the assumption that these are musical terms, we have three classes of them in the Psalms. One class apparently gives directions for the tune to which the Psalm is to be sung, and this tune is named, like some modern hymn tunes, after the words with which the tune had been originally or customarily associated; these appear to have been popular songs, not necessarily of an entirely religious character (Ps. lvi., R.V. title: "set to Jonath elem rehokim"; mar. translates: "The silent dove of them that are afar off"; Ps. lvii., lviii.: "set to Al tashheth," which means: "Do not destroy." In the Septuagint the setting of Ps. lxx. has been altered to: "Save me, O Lord"). Other titles seem to direct the voice to be used in singing, as either falsetto or bass (Ps. xlvi., "set to Alamoth"; probably maiden-like voices, and as women took no part in the service of the choirs, this must refer either to tenor, or male falsetto; Ps. vi., xii., "set to the Sheminith." R.V. mar., "the eighth." This is probably the octave or bass voice). Two references are to be found to the instrumental accompaniment to be used, as either stringed or wind instruments (Ps. iv., vi., etc., "on stringed instruments"; Ps. v., "with the Nehiloth," mar., "wind instruments"). The much discussed meaning of _Selah_ is most probably to be sought in a musical direction. The word means: "lift up." The Septuagint translates, "interlude," but many other versions (Version of Aquila, Syriac Peshitto, Jerome and the Targum) translate, "for ever." This duplicate translation suggests the very possible clue that at the places where _Selah_ appears, the Psalm might be ended, if desired, and the "for ever," or the doxology, which was usually sung at the end of the Psalm and which is found at the end of each book, could be taken there. As completed, the Psalter is therefore a book with directions for a fully organised and choral worship, and we have to seek for a time when such a worship was in existence. The difficulty is that these musical directions are somewhat rare and are not found in the later books, but only in connection with those Psalms entitled, "for the Director." As the instruments mentioned are only of the simplest kind and not of the varied character used in the ornate worship of the Temple (cxlix. 3; cl. 3-5), and as by the time the Greek translation was made (150 B.C.), their significance was forgotten, we have to put the final edition long after the founding of synagogue worship, in which the Director's Psalm Book was first used, and at some period when there had been a complete change in musical practice. This demands a time when Hellenistic culture had moulded even the Temple worship. (The Jews were under Greek influence and rule from B.C. 333 to B.C. 63.) The time from which a full choral service was in use in the Temple is to be carried back, according to the Chronicler, to the time of Solomon and David, but a comparison with the earlier history contained in the Books of the Kings does not confirm this. The Chronicler, who from his interest in these matters seems to have been a member of one of the Levite choirs, really gives us the customs current in his times, and infers that they went back unchanged to the time of the building of the first Temple and to the preparatory work of David. These considerations, together with the admitted lateness of many of the Psalms, some of them undoubtedly belonging to the times of the Maccabæan wars, bring us down to that late age and perhaps more precisely to the time of the rededicated Temple (165 B.C.), and demand that the final edition of the Psalter is to be placed somewhere about 150 B.C. We might expect to find traces of the growth of the Psalter in the division into five books (at xli., lxxii., cvi., cl., see R. V.), but there seems no real division necessary between Books IV. and V. and the five-fold division may be due to the desire to imitate the divisions of the Law; the other divisions however contain more hopeful suggestions. The first book, for instance, is almost entirely ascribed to David (Ps. i. is an introduction to the whole book, composed for the final edition, and Ps. ii. may have been also placed in front as part of the introduction. Ps. xxxiii., which is very late, may have been added as a kind of doxology to Ps. xxxii. The rest are ascribed to David). The second book is largely Davidic and it concludes with the statement: "the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." In spite of this notice Psalms are found ascribed to David in the books that follow, so that the remark must have been found appended to a collection that the final editor took over; it cannot be due to his own hand. Further evidence of compilation is to be found in the strange occurrence of the different names for God: Elohim and Jehovah. In the first book the name of Jehovah preponderates. In Book II. the name Elohim is found most frequently. Then in Book III. Psalms lxxiii.-lxxxiii. use Elohim only, and lxxxiv.-lxxxix. Jehovah mainly; and in practically the whole of Books IV. and V. Jehovah is almost solely used, The reason for this phenomenon must be sought in editorial redaction, for in the duplicate Psalms, xiv. and liii., xl. 13-17 and lxx., Jehovah is found in the first recension and Elohim in the second. The Elohistic character of lxxiii.-lxxxiii. may be due to the original compiler since they are all ascribed to Asaph and otherwise bear marks of common production. The Elohistic redaction may have been made in a period when the name Jehovah sounded tribal and almost heathenish; but a similar test leads to the conclusion that the first collection enjoyed by this time a liturgical familiarity, which did not permit of alteration. The reversion to the name of Jehovah in Books IV. and V. might be explained by the fact that in later times the name was written but never pronounced. On the line of these suggestions we should expect to find that Book I. contained the earliest Psalms and Books IV. and V. the latest; this is roughly correct, if we allow for the possibility of minor insertions being made for various purposes in the last edition. In Book V. there is a group of Psalms (civ.-cvi., cxi.-cxiii., cxv.-cxvii., cxxxv., cxlvi.-cl.), which are distinguished by either commencing or ending with "Hallelujah," and are known as the "Hallels." From their contents, it may be observed that they are suitable for use at the Great Festivals, and it is known that they were, and are still so used by the Jews. They imply a highly organised musical service (Ps. cl.), they require a time when the festivals were regularly observed and when the worship of the Temple could be carried on without fear. Such conditions are to be found together only after the Exile, and then only during the period of Greek rule; and to this late period the composition of these Psalms is to be referred. An even later date is demanded for some Psalms that are said to reflect the rebellion against the Hellenizing movement enforced by Antiochus Epiphanes, in which the Maccabees played such a heroic part. This date is confirmed by the references to: the "assembly of the saints" (Ps. cxlix. 1, Heb. _hasidim_, the purist party formed in that time); the cruel persecution for religious opinions (Ps. xliv. 17-22; lxxix. 2; lxxxiii. 3, 4); the defiling of the Temple, the burning of the synagogues, and the silence of the Prophetic voice (Ps. lxxiv. 7-9; lxxix. 1). Other Maccabæan Psalms are said to be: cx., where there is a reference to some priest who is not in the legitimate succession, which entirely describes the Priest-Kings of the Maccabæan dynasty (other scholars would put this Psalm very early; on the other hand there are alleged traces of an acrostic that would spell Simon, the first of the Maccabæan Priest-Kings); cxv. cxviii., which celebrate successful wars in which the leaders have been the house of Aaron, to which house the Maccabees of course belonged. This is the latest date that is demanded for any of the Psalms, and in the present condition of criticism we can only say that between this and some earlier period the book is to be placed. It must now be our task to discover the earliest date that any of the Psalms demand. We have seen that Book I. seems to be the earliest collection, and tradition assumes that this was the work of David and was the Psalm Book used in the First Temple. To discuss this point it is necessary to enquire into the reliability of the titles that ascribe the Psalms to definite authors. These titles give: one each to Moses, Ethan, and Heman; two to Solomon; eleven to the Sons of Korah; twelve to Asaph; and seventy-three to David (it is doubtful whether Jeduthun is a person; if so he is probably the same as Ethan: Ps. xxxix., lxii., lxxvii., titles; cp. 1 Chron. vi. 44 with 1 Chron. ix. 16). Now it should be noticed that none of the authors are later than Solomon (Ethan, 1 Kings iv. 31, 1 Chron. vi. 44; Heman, 1 Kings iv. 31, 1 Chron. vi. 33, xv. 17, 19, xxv. 5; Asaph, 1 Chron. vi. 39, xxv. 1f, Neh. xii. 46; in Ezra ii. 41, Neh. vii. 44, Asaph seems to mean a guild of singers rather than an individual). If any of the Psalms ascribed to authors might be expected to yield confirmation by internal evidence, it would be Ps. xc.; but there is nothing in its language or thought that points to extreme antiquity. There is also nothing in the Psalms themselves that confirms the authorship of the contemporaries of Solomon, Ethan and Heman. The title of Ps. cxxvii., "of Solomon," is missing in the Septuagint and is evidently a late gloss, and the title of Ps. lxxii. is translated in the Septuagint: "a psalm _for_ Solomon," which certainly describes the contents better. The Psalms ascribed to the Sons of Korah (xlii.-xlix., lxxxiv., lxxxv., lxxxvii., lxxxviii.; 2 Chron. xx. 19, 1 Chron. xxvi. 19; but 1 Chron. vi. 33-38 shows that Kohathite and Korahite are the same), have common features, as have also the Psalms ascribed to Asaph, which imply that they are at least guild collections; but their exalted conception of God, their consciousness of national righteousness, the reference to synagogue worship and the cessation of prophecy (lxxiv. 8f) point to a time subsequent to Ezra. The chief interest of the titles is found in the ascription of so many Psalms to David. It was long thought that David was not only the author of the Psalms ascribed to him, but that he was also editor of the entire Psalter. (When as early as Theodore of Mopsuestia it was recognised that some of the Psalms were Maccabæan, it was supposed that David wrote them in the spirit of prophecy.) Our enquiry may be narrowed down to those Psalms that are ascribed to David in the earliest collection, Book I. Do these reflect the conditions and development of his times? It must be replied that there is nothing in the Davidic Psalms as a whole to distinguish them from other Psalms, and what historical connection they betray seems everywhere to belong to an age later than David. The Temple is spoken of as already in existence (Ps. v. 7; xi. 4) and the name for Jerusalem, "my holy hill," seems to demand a time subsequent to the mission of Isaiah. The general conditions of life reflected are clearly those in which a godly minority is oppressed and wickedness is established in the land; a condition which finds no parallel in the Books of Samuel. Moreover, the religious ideas are far in advance of those that seem to have been prevalent in the time of David or that can be traced to him. The general tone of the Psalms is one of a chastened piety that hardly existed in the time of the kingdom, and the religious ideas everywhere show dependence upon the teaching of the Prophets. There is hardly a verse of the fifty-first Psalm which cannot be paralleled in Jeremiah, but there is almost nothing in the Psalm that makes it a fitting confession for an adulterer and murderer. These considerations lead us to enquire whether the Hebrew preposition translated "of" David denotes authorship; its accurate signification is "belonging to," and from the analogy of the other titles we infer this to mean that the editor found these Psalms in a collection ascribed to David. What gave the name of David to that collection? Some of the Psalms may be pre-exilic and may even go down to the early monarchy; Ps. xx. may belong to the Old Kingdom, but it can hardly have come from the lips of David; it is Ps. xviii. that has perhaps the greatest claim to Davidic authorship. This Psalm is also found in 2 Sam. xxii., but there it seems to be an interpolation, for it breaks apart verses that apparently once stood together (2 Sam. xxi. 22 and xxiii. 8). Yet we meet with a reference to the Temple even in this Psalm (2 Sam. xxi. 7); at the same time several of its passages would come very fittingly from the Warrior King, and would be suitable to his barbarous times. In this Psalm, if anywhere, we may possess some original Davidic fragments. We must conclude therefore, that the Davidic Psalter was so called because its origin was somehow due to David, or because it contained some Song of David which must have been considerably altered to suit liturgical purposes. The early tradition of David ascribes to him a poetic and musical gift (1 Sam. xvi. 18; Amos. vi. 5), and of this the lament over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i.) is a sufficient confirmation, but it should be noticed that it is remarkably free from any religious sentiment whatsoever. It must be due to the later tradition of the Chronicler that David has been credited as the saintly author of the whole Book of Psalms. The conclusion is that the titles are not, strictly speaking, a claim to authorship, but are names given, for various reasons, to pre-existing collections; that the earliest of these collections may contain pre-exilic Psalms, but that everything points to the collection being made for use in the time of the Second Temple. The references to a king do not necessitate any re-consideration of this verdict; they may be personifications of the nation in the light of Messianic conceptions. This position has been steadily resisted by some in the interests of tradition, but without any real religious reason being adduced; for the idea that this decision denies the authority of Christ and His Apostles is disposed of by the simple fact that in the New Testament, David is simply a name for the Psalter (Ps. ii. is ascribed to David in Acts ii. 34; it is anonymous in the Psalter. Heb. iv. 7 has "in" David; this does not refer to authorship, for the author of this Epistle never quotes the Scriptures save anonymously). To others it will perhaps come as a great relief to feel that the writer of some of the most spiritual utterances of personal religion need not be identified with the historical David. There are awful possibilities of failure in the most religious men, but the problem here is more difficult than that: it would compel us to think of David as displaying in public no hint of the secrets of his inner religious life, but very much that contradicts them. The traditional idea of the authorship of the Psalms has done grave injustice to the sincere if passionate character of the historical David. The origin of such a tradition is due as much to the spiritual blindness as to the careless historic judgment of later Judaism, and its acceptance by generations of Christian students speaks a greater reverence for tradition than for religious insight. To be compelled to date the great majority of the Psalms within the period 500-150 B.C., is indeed a comforting interpretation of Jewish history; for it shows that the barren ground of post-exilic times was not without its tender flowers of piety and an appreciation of the prophetic religion far beyond that of the Prophets' contemporaries. The gloss of legalism, which can be traced in the Psalter, and which was inevitable when these private devotions were adapted to the Levitical worship of the Temple, has not succeeded in obscuring, but rather brings into greater clearness the spiritual elements in the Psalms. It is welcome to turn from this task of literary criticism, which finds in the Psalms its most difficult field, and which perhaps yields here less help than in other branches of Bible literature, to an endeavour to appreciate the religion of the Psalmists. There is difficulty here also; but now it is in the splendour of the composition, the magnificent breadth of experience they embrace, the classic utterance of the eternal religion of the heart. We have recognised the heterogeneous character of the collection, and it is only to be expected that this should be reflected in the variety of religious ideas. A theology of the Psalter is as impossible as it is mistaken. The quality of poetic genius varies, the heights of religious inspiration sometimes reached are not consistently maintained, and there are many lower levels. And yet there remains a sufficient unity to leave a very definite impression; that unity owes little to similarity of circumstances, to contemporaneity, or to the influence of a theological school; it is rather due to the unreflective simplicity of the human mind in the realised presence of God. In that position all unfettered religion speaks one tongue: the only mother tongue of humanity. The inspiration of the Psalmist owes its beauty to the absence of self-consciousness. There is nothing here of the prophetic claim to speak in the name of God; in the Psalms God does not speak to men, men speak to God, but it is just because of this that the revelation in the Psalms reaches so far beyond the limits of Old Testament religion and seems to grasp that religion which was to be personified in the consciousness of Jesus. We are compelled to recognise that men's prayers are themselves a revelation of God, and that when men seek to voice their highest aspiration we catch the sound of a deep undertone, the supplication of the Spirit that intercedes within. As an expression of eternal religion the Psalms have one serious defect, which really unfits them, without careful selection, for use in Christian worship--their awful imprecations upon enemies. There are hardly to be found in the whole realm of literature more fearful desires for vengeance than in the Psalms (cix. 6-15. cxxxvii. 9; cxl. 10). To date the Psalms from the comfortable times of the monarchy, under the martial supremacy of David and Solomon, is to make them cruel without meaning; but imagine the sufferings of the Israelites in Exile, or in the still worse times when the pious remnant were persecuted by their own irreligious and apostate countrymen, which was so often their lot in post-exilic times, and these expressions can be explained, even if they cannot be justified. The desire for vengeance does not arise from personal motives, but is doubtless due to the complete identification of the Psalmist with the cause of God and righteousness, and to his burning indignation against the cruelty, injustice, and craftiness of the impenitent wicked. Thus understood, there is a moral element in this anger, which is not only to be condoned but even admired. This deep moral revulsion has been one of the greatest factors in moulding history along righteous lines. But when all this has been said, it remains to be acknowledged frankly that this is not the religion of the Sermon on the Mount. The anger at sin is right, but the desire for vengeance is no real cure for sin. It is far from the deep wisdom of the Son of Man; but we have to remember, when we judge the Psalms from that standard, that His wisdom is still unaccepted, not only by the world, but by many who profess His name. It is in the Psalms that personal religion receives its clearest exposition in the Old Testament, and this spirit owes much to the personal experience of Jeremiah. There has been an endeavour to find the speaking subject of the Psalms not in the individual but in the nation. There are national Psalms, but many others cannot be successfully interpreted save as the expressions of personal devotion. National religion could never reach these heights; it is bound down to the average level, it is always open to unethical movements and ideas. The personal element is not to be confused with the individualistic; the personal is wider than the individual; it realises the things that lie at the base of all human life, and when it is most personal it speaks the most universal language. It is in the deep sense of sin and the assurance of forgiveness that the Psalms are the classics for all who know the secrets they utter; and the sense of sin can never be felt save under the searching light of God's very presence. To be deeply conscious of sin is the first step towards any high revelation of God, and of this the fifty-first Psalm is the most perfect expression; there we see the sense of inward sin, opening up the possibility of a separation between the self and that higher self, the holy spirit, and bringing about the severest mental pain and anguish. Naturally, the Psalms hardly rise to the Christian ground of forgiveness, but the thirty-second Psalm vibrates with the joy that the Christian knows and, when mere figures of speech are discounted, it springs from the same reason: the acknowledgment of one's sin and the consciousness of its forgiveness in the newly realised communion with God. In dealing with the problem of the providential order of the world, the Psalms hardly reflect any higher conceptions than those found elsewhere in the Old Testament, if they even rise as high as the conception of the Second Isaiah. The idea that goodness is rewarded by long life and prosperity, and that wickedness is always marked by outward disaster is the root idea; and the fact that this is not confirmed by observation is the cause of the complaint of many a Psalm. This problem receives no conscious solution throughout the book. The revelation given through the worship of the sanctuary only shows that the prosperity of the wicked is temporary (Ps. xxxvii., lxxiii.); but how often even this must seem to be untrue, for in many cases there are no bands in their death. Nothing higher is reached than pride in one's integrity and the assurance that somehow and somewhere retribution is sure. There is no conception of the principle of vicarious suffering, and the values set upon righteousness and prosperity never attain to those words of Jesus: "Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness sake." The pressure of this problem of Providence is supposed to have driven the Psalmists to pierce the veil and to descry beyond the grave a compensation for the inequalities of this life, and passages are frequently adduced to prove this (Ps. xvi. 10, 11; xvii. 15; xlix., 15; lxxiii. 23-26). The current belief of Israel embraced an existence after death, but only in the form of unconscious and shadowy life in the under world, _Sheol_, and this is most explicitly expressed in many of the Psalms (vi. 5; xxx. 9; xlix. 14; lxxxviii. 10-12). What then is the significance of the expressions which seem to point to something more? An accurate translation and a correct exegesis dispose of nearly all of these passages as in any sense explicit evidence for a definite belief in immortality; but there remains a witness of much greater value. It is through communion with God, and because of the significance with which it invests conscious life that the Psalmists are led to feel that their experience can never be interrupted by death. To those who know the reality of personal communion with God, this has more cogency than any other argument for immortality. The experience of communion throws a new value on personality and gives a deeper meaning to this life, and in face of this discovery death becomes nothing more than a passing shadow. While therefore the application of Ps. xvi. 10 to the resurrection of Christ is foreign to the methods of modern interpretation, that passage does show the real significance of the resurrection of Christ; for it is the person of Christ in communion with God that has brought life and immortality to light. The Psalmist shared this vital experience whether he was able to infer immortality of the soul from it or not. But the glory of the Psalms is found in their realisation of the presence of God. This expresses itself in the vivid consciousness of a present and helpful Personality rather than in intellectual concepts or theological definitions. The transcendence of God receives full appreciation, but it is never in terms of spatial distance, but in an inward realisation of His moral excellence (Ps. xxxvi. 5-7). To the discerning soul the presence of God is inescapable and is absolutely omnipresent (Ps. cxxxix. 7-10). Right alongside of the recognition of the might of God and His holiness, there is found the sense of His fatherly pity, His gentleness, and His understanding of us (Ps. ciii. 13; xviii. 35). It would be altogether mistaken to look in the Psalms for that conception of Nature which has become one of the greatest gains of modern culture. To the Psalmist Nature has no meaning apart from God, and it is merely the sphere of His activity. But the beginnings of a poetic delight in things is felt almost on every page (Ps. xxiii. 2; lv. 6; lxv. 8, 9; xciii. 3; cvii. 24; cx. 3b; cxxiv. 5; cxxx. 6; cxxxix. 18b); while the so-called Nature Psalms (viii., xix., xxix., lxv., xciii., civ., cxlviii.) yield a conception of creation and of the relation of God to the world that has not sufficiently shaped theology, and as a consequence has made it possible for us to think of a conflict between religion and science. The consciousness of God as of a present living Personality is the great contribution of Hebrew religion, and of this the Psalms are the supreme expression. All conception of a merely unconscious, all-pervading essence is transcended by the intense experience of communion; He is "an ever present help in time of trouble." The Hebrew Psalmist may be a child beside the Hindu sage or the Greek philosopher, but no one has ever sounded the human heart as he. The experience he has bequeathed to the world is that of a God who is infinite, mighty and all-present, and yet One who can be known in the experiences of temporal life and felt in the limitations of the human mind; One who shepherds and guides men, and who can take the place of human friend or nearest relative. This is in the direct line with Christ's consciousness of the Father. Without this we may have a mysticism that must perforce remain silent, or a philosophy that loses itself in the endeavour to reconcile the antinomies of thought, but without this we cannot have a religion that can satisfy the craving of the human heart for an infinite, holy, and helping Companion. THE RELIGION OF THE WISE In determining from internal evidence whether Job is later or earlier than Proverbs, the following comparisons should be examined:-- Job v. 17 and Prov. iii. 11. " xi. 8 " " ix. 18. " xv. 7 " " viii. 25. " xviii. 5,6} " {" xiii. 9. " xxi. 17 } " {" xxiv. 20. " xxii. 28 " " iv. 18. " xxviii. 18 " " iii. 15; viii. 11. " xxviii. 28 " " i. 7. In these examples, it might be noted, it is the friends of Job who quote the Proverbs; except in Job xxi. 17, where Job questions the Proverb already quoted by Bildad, rather than quotes it with approval; and in the case of xxviii. 18, 28, the whole chapter is regarded by critics as suspicious, on the ground that the sentiments here expressed by Job are in contradiction to his general attitude. These passages would seem somewhat to confirm the idea that the Book of Job is intended to be a criticism of the theory of Providence found in Proverbs. * * * * * On the suggestion that Ecclesiastes owes its disjointed character to some disarrangement of the original sheets of the MS., Bickell proposes to read the book in the following order:-- (1) i. 1-ii. 11. (2) v. 9-vi. 7. (3) iii. 9-iv. 8. (4) ii. 12-iii. 8. (5) viii. 6-ix. 3. (6) ix. 11-x. 1. (7) vi. 8-vii. 22. (8) iv. 9-v. 8. (9) x. 16-xi. 6 (10) vii. 23-viii. 5. (11) x. 2-x. 15. (12) ix. 4-10. (13) xi. 7-xii. 8. Bickell would regard the Appendix, xii. 9-14, as a later addition. Lecture X THE RELIGION OF THE WISE Certain books of the Old Testament have a marked resemblance both in their subject-matter and in their religious and ethical outlook. They stand out from the other classes of the literature, for they are neither prophetical, like the writings of the Prophets or the histories written under their influence, nor legalistic, like the great codes of the Pentateuch, nor liturgical and devotional, like the Psalms; and for convenience they are designated: "the Wisdom Literature." These writings deal chiefly with "wisdom," or the practical ordering of life, and we frequently find a reference to "the words of the wise," as if there was a school of teachers who were devoted to the discussion of these problems. The chief contributions of this school are, in our Bible, the Book of Proverbs, and in the Apocrypha, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. Job and Ecclesiastes are occupied with the same problems, but their attitude is critical and their method of treatment peculiar. No one can fail to feel the almost perplexing difference of this literature from the rest of the Old Testament; unlike the prophetic it has less a message to the conscience than a problem for the mind; unlike the historical books it is perfectly timeless, and utterly detached from the national hopes; it is not occupied with ceremonies or ritual, but with religion as a matter of conduct. The nearest approach to this is to be found in some of the Psalms, which, passing from the emotions of the devout spirit, become engaged with the problems and injustices of life. Its religion is more universal than that of the Prophets or even of the Psalmists, but it is less emotional; the religion of the heart has given way to the wisdom of the mind. We have here the beginnings of a philosophy, a mental activity strangely absent from the Hebrew race; it is not however a speculative philosophy, but one purely concerned with practical life; and yet there is a direct progression traceable from the chapters in Proverbs (i.-ix.), which are devoted to the praise of wisdom, through the work known as the Wisdom of Solomon, to Philo, the great Jewish philosopher, who endeavoured to interpret Moses by Plato and to reconcile Hebrew religion with Greek speculation. Although in this literature we have the beginnings of a philosophy it is rather that of the street than of the academy; a cultivation of a philosophic attitude towards life, its problems and duties, rather than any speculation on metaphysical reality or the absolute origin of things. The wisdom we hear so much of is an intellectual virtue, although it embraces neither speculation nor learning, but is limited to mean sagacity, shrewdness, prudence in the conduct of life. This is the main theme of the Proverbs, but the problem of the correct ordering of life unearths a deeper and darker one--the problem of the existence of evil, the injustice of life as revealed in the blind indiscrimination of trouble, pain, and death. With this problem some of the Psalms and the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes especially deal. In seeking to place this literature, we are met with an even worse difficulty than in the case of the Psalms; for the entire absence of historical allusion, and the spirit of detachment in which religious questions are discussed, leave no trace of date or age. The three books in our Bible belonging to this literature are ascribed to very early authors; two to Solomon and one traditionally to Job or Moses, although the Book of Job is really anonymous. Now it is exceedingly difficult to gather from the prophetic or historical books any trace of the opinions that are found in the Wisdom Literature. The problem of evil certainly began to occupy the minds of men like Jeremiah even before the Exile; but in the picture which the Prophets give us of the Jewish state under the late monarchy, we get no glimpse of a people who looked on life and religion as do the writers of these books. In the Wisdom Literature we find references to "the wise" as to a special class in the community (Prov. i. 6; xxii. 17; xxiv. 23; Job xv. 18); in the historical literature we find the "wisdom" of certain men extolled (Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 16-28; iv. 29-34; x. 3 ff.; Joseph, Gen. xli. 39; the four wise men, 1 Kings iv. 31, the wisdom of Egypt, the East, 1 Kings iv. 30, and of Edom, Ob. 8; Jer. xlix. 7), and in the prophetic writings "the wise" are mentioned as a class distinct from the prophet and the priest (Jer. xviii. 18) and often in a depreciatory way (Isa. xxix. 14; Jer. viii. 8; ix. 12). It seems almost impossible to identify the wise men of Proverbs with this class who receive so little praise from the Prophets. The wise men of Proverbs do not speak as if they needed to defend themselves against the claims of the prophet (Prov. xxix. 18; the reference to "vision," which can only mean a communication to the prophet, is not found elsewhere in Proverbs and is doubted by many scholars), nor can we understand the need for the message of the Prophets if this practical religion of "the wise" was current in their times. This religion may lack passion and be without national consciousness, but Isaiah and Micah would surely have found something to their heart's desire in its pure ethical character. Indeed, the religious thought seems to be dependent on the teaching of the Prophets, but only at a distance, for it is ethically advanced and has become somewhat rarefied and unemotional. The literary character seems also to point to a later age; for it is academical, sophistical, and polished. The polish of the Proverbs might be due to constant use among the common people, but they are not like popular sayings (cp. 1 Sam, xxiv. 13; 1 Kings xx. 11; Jer. xxxi. 29; Ezek. xviii. 2), and their evident kinship with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus indicates a late post-exilic origin. We shall first devote some time to an examination of the Book of Proverbs. The Hebrew "proverb" (_mashal_) means "a representation," and may be used of a fable or a taunt, but is more especially confined to any generalisation from experience or observation on life and character expressed in a rhythmic and polished form. The most usual form of the proverb is a couplet in which a common fact of Nature is placed beside a common fact of human life: "Where there is no wood the fire goes out, and where there is no talebearer strife will cease." The book as a whole would seem to be ascribed to Solomon (i. 1), but this is only the tradition of the final editor; for, as in the case of the Psalter, Proverbs shows every trace of gradual compilation, and the names of other authors are given. The main divisions of the book are as follows:-- A. (i. 1-6). The prologue, by the final editor, either ascribing the work to Solomon or else praising his proverbs. B. (i. 7-ix.). This seems to be the latest addition to the book; it is not a collection of proverbs at all, but is a continuous discourse in praise of Wisdom. In viii. 22 Wisdom is personified as a creature of God present at the creation of the world. This hypostatization of an attribute of God is one of the latest developments of Hebrew thought, and is so unusual to its genius that we are compelled to seek for some possibility of infiltration from foreign sources. The idea is still further developed in Ecclesiasticus (xxiv.), and in the Book of Wisdom has become quite a Platonic speculation (vii. 22-viii. 1). The appearance of this idea in Hebrew thought seems to be most explicable in the period of Greek influence, when Plato's doctrine of the Idea might become known in Palestine; somewhere about 250 B.C. seems a likely date. The identification of virtue with knowledge, which we find in the book, is also due to Greek thought. It was along this line of development that the conception of "the Logos" was welcomed into Jewish thought, to have through Philo such a profound influence on some of the writers of the New Testament. C. (x.-xxii. 16). This collection of proverbs is ascribed to Solomon and is generally thought by critics to be the oldest main collection; many would even be willing to assign it to the golden age of the monarchy. The Solomonic authorship is, however, unthinkable; the sentiments expressed are unsuitable for a luxurious and polygamous monarch (xv. 16, xxi. 31; xxii. 14; xiii. 1; cp. 1 Kings iv. 26; xi. 1, 4, 5-13; xii. 10, 11), and the ascription to Solomon is probably due to circumstances similar to those which operated in the case of the ascription of the Psalms to David. There are many objections to any pre-exilic time as a suitable historic background for this collection; there is no mention of idolatry, whereas we learn from Ezekiel (vi., viii., xxiii.) that idolatry was practised in Jerusalem down to the time of the city's destruction; monogamy seems to be taken quite for granted, whereas it would appear that polygamy was general before the prophetic reforms; and of the great upheaval that these reforms involved, this collection shows no trace. The national religion has here given place to universalism, a development that seems to demand some experience of contact with other nations and especially some acquaintance with foreign culture. The references to the king neither require Solomonic authorship nor demand an age when the monarchy was established; for they are only general sentiments concerning the duties of the king in the State, and are of such a nature that they show very little reminiscence of Israel's actual experience of a monarchy. D. (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22) and E. (xxiv. 23-34) are two collections of the sayings of "the wise," whose ascription, together with the reference to "instruction," points to an advanced stage of reflection and teaching, and perhaps to the existence of philosophic teachers who had schools and pupils. F. (xxv.-xxix.). "These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied out." This title has an air of circumstantiality about it which looks like a genuine historical note, and it has been observed that there is a change of tone, in this collection, in regard to the monarchy, as if some actual experience of kingly tyranny had been lately borne; so that if we were to refer this collection to the age mentioned in the title we should have to ante-date the collection, C. But in view of the state of society here portrayed, which is similar to that of Ecclesiasticus, we have no alternative but to regard the title, as in the case of some of the Davidic Psalms, as due to later Jewish scribes, and as without authority. G., H. and I. are three small collections (xxx.; xxxi. 1-9; xxxi. 10-31), the first by Agur: a very obscure passage, apparently quoting a declaration of reverent agnosticism, with a reply to it by some more believing scribe. The second is ascribed to King Lemuel, and the third is in praise of a virtuous woman, by an anonymous writer. The religious teaching of the Proverbs would seem to be a refinement of the prophetic religion, standing quite apart from the legal and ritual development. Religion has become entirely a matter of ethics; the creed is wonderfully colourless and simple, and the inducement to virtue remains almost entirely on the plane of utilitarianism and prudence. There is a good deal that is quite worldly wisdom, but pure religion is by no means wanting (xxi. 3; xiv. 34); the fear of the Lord is not slavish fear, but is a guiding principle for life and the beginning of wisdom. Men are divided somewhat roughly into the foolish and the wise; and although no book in the world has ever depicted the foolishness of men with greater variety and reality, yet there seems no hope that folly may be overcome, or that wicked men can be turned from their ways; Wisdom knows no forgiveness and can only mock when men turn to her too late (i. 24-28). Yet the ethical level is high; woman especially is highly estimated, and the home life is held sacred; kindness to animals is inculcated (xii. 10), and there is a real approach to absolute ethics in such sayings as: "Say not thou, I will recompense evil"; "Say not I will do so to him as he hath done to me" (xx. 22; xxiv. 17, 29; xxv. 21, 22). The writers have been called "humanists," and this rightly describes their position; it is the highest level rabbinical religion ever reached; it has its parallel in some of the aphoristic teaching of Jesus, but it has no message for the outcast and fallen; it knows no secret whereby the fool may be made wise and the heart be changed by a great emotion; it is the religion of the sage, not the religion of the Saviour. The doctrine of retribution is still thought to be quite satisfactory in its working (ii. 21 f.; x. 25; xi. 21). In an earlier and less reflective age this idea would not have been unexpected; but it is remarkable that it should be acquiesced in by the wise men; and yet it is an idea of life that seems to persist against all experience: it is found in the time of Christ and it still obtains, especially in the judgment of the cause of poverty. Perhaps its persistence is to be traced to an ideal of justice so strong as to obscure accurate observation of the facts. * * * * * When we turn to the Book of Job we come to a work not only the greatest product of the wise men, but the supreme literary production of the Hebrew nation. The grandeur of its language has somewhat obscured the real meaning of the book; for the opinions that the book was written to controvert are stated with such vivid power and poetic grace that they are now often quoted as Biblical truths of equal value with the opinions apparently supported by the author. It is our task, not so much to admire the literary talent of the author, as to estimate his contribution to the religion of Israel. The Book of Job has been referred to almost every age from Moses to post-exilic times. There is certainly an endeavour to reproduce the conditions of the patriarchal age, in the avoidance of the name Jehovah (Exod. vi. 3), and in the money standard adopted (Job. xlii. 11); but there is no desire to deceive the reader, for this archaic atmosphere is adopted merely as the appropriate setting of the dialogue, and is not maintained: the name Jehovah slips from the author's pen, he takes no pains to conceal his knowledge of the Law and his interest in the questions of his own times. The question of age is not to be complicated by the question of authorship; there was a person named Job, known to Ezekiel (xiv. 14), but there is nowhere any assumption that Job himself wrote the book; and the mechanical and symbolical character of the disasters which befall Job, and the nature of the compensation, show that we have here only dramatic settings for the speeches and not actual history. It is likely that there was a well-known tradition of a man named Job who had suffered overwhelming troubles and eventually had been restored to his former prosperity, and this is made the basis for a discussion of the problem of suffering. It has been suggested that in the Prologue and Epilogue we have fragments of that old tradition, since these passages are in prose while the body of the book is in semi-poetic rhythm; but the prose form is best explained as that always adopted by the Hebrews for narrative, for we find ideas in these parts that betray as late a date as anything in the body of the work. Considered on internal evidence, everything seems to point to the age which produced the rest of the Wisdom Literature; and more precisely, a date shortly before or shortly after Proverbs, seems indicated. The material for deciding more particularly is such that different conclusions may be drawn from it. For instance, the personification of wisdom in Proverbs seems to be in advance of the idea of wisdom in Job; and if we could think of the development of an idea always coinciding with chronological progression, then Job would need to be placed earlier than Proverbs; but this is complicated by the fact that the main body of the book of the Proverbs may have been in circulation before the earlier chapters were added. Yet there are apparent quotations from the Proverbs in the Book of Job (xv. 7 f. = Prov. viii. 22-25), and the reference to the lamp of the wicked being put out (Prov. xiii. 9; xxiv. 20) seems clearly to have Proverbs in mind (Job. xxi. 17). Dependence might, of course, be taken to lie the other way, but on the whole, it would appear that the problems dealt with in Job have not yet emerged for the writers of the Proverbs, and indeed Job seems rather an indictment of the superficial idea, which we find everywhere assumed in the earlier work that prosperity and goodness are inseparable. The most satisfactory order seems therefore to be: Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes. The idea that Job is to be understood as a personification of the nation, such as we were led to conceive in the allegory of Jonah and in the Servant of the Lord, can hardly be maintained in face of the perfect detachment from the history and the national hopes that characterises the book. The book deals with a problem already stirring in the minds of the Prophets and the theme of many of the Psalms, but here stated with an awful daring and intensity and as the subject-matter of an entirely new form of literary composition. The Book of Job is not a drama, in the sense that it was ever intended, or would be suitable, for presentation on the stage; but it is a poem with dramatic elements and it has a dramatic movement. The endeavour to understand the message of the book is rendered difficult because different points of view are presented, and this has suggested different authors. The book certainly has well-marked divisions, and they appear to yield distinct and different solutions of the problem of suffering. The Prologue shows us what has taken place in heaven, and seems to infer that the trials came upon Job to establish his faith and righteousness; but the speeches between Job and his friends, in the second division, if by the same author as the Prologue, skilfully avoid this explanation, and the drama pursues its course with the actors remaining in complete ignorance of the solution that has been disclosed to the audience. The third division is taken up with the speeches of Elihu: these break the continuity of the poem, Job makes no reply to him, and Elihu is not mentioned in the Epilogue. An examination of these speeches shows that they fall somewhat below the level of brilliance and originality maintained in the rest of the book, and the idea that they proceed from another writer of the same school, who felt that the arguments of the three friends had not been presented in the best possible way, is worthy of consideration. The speeches of Jehovah are by the author of the main portion and are wonderfully impressive and grand, although the exact contribution that they make to the discussion of the problem is difficult to discern. The Epilogue falls back into prose, and was certainly written by one who had the entire work before him; but it so misses the meaning of the whole argument, and is content with such a superficial solution of restoration, that it has been thought by many to be an addition to the original work. Whatever may be thought of the idea of plural authorship as a solution of these divergences, the divergences themselves must be borne in mind in any attempt to estimate the message of the book. But are these different points of view incompatible with a single author? With an author of such extraordinary talent in voicing opinions with which he evidently does not agree, it cannot be said to be impossible; and it may be that he only wished to state the problem and to give those answers which were current in his age, leaving it to the reader to discover whether these answers were really solutions; the Prologue and Epilogue may have nothing to do with the didactive motive, but only be due to dramatic and artistic demands. The theology of Job certainly demands a late age and an advanced stage of reflection. One interesting point is raised by the employment, in the Prologue, of the figure of Satan. This personality, so fruitful a factor in speculation on the cause of evil, demands a careful study. It should be noted, first, that he is referred to as _the_ Satan, that is, "the Adversary"; it is a generic, not a proper, name. This creature is represented as appearing together with the angels in the presence of God, and although his designs are sinister and his suggestions unworthy, he is still a minister doing the will of God. This delegation of evil advocacy can be traced, from the idea that it is due to God Himself (2 Sam. xxiv. 1), to the work of the separate spirit who offered to entice Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 21), and then to the greater definiteness of our author. Beyond this book, again, the adversary is a darker character who has to be rebuked by God (Zech. iii.), and in the history of the Chronicler _the_ Satan has become "Satan," a proper name (1 Chron. xxi. 1; cp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 1); but we have to go outside the Old Testament Canon to get a completely dualistic opposition of God and Satan (Wisdom ii. 24). The conception of God has passed, in this book, entirely beyond the tribal Deity Jehovah, and even beyond the ethical Personality known to the Prophets, to One who is felt to be unknowable; and yet withal Job clings to the idea that he shall one day see the face of the Redeemer who now hides Himself. As in the Psalms, the alleged idea of immortality (xix. 25 ff.) is not very definite, and so contradicts the general expectation of the book (vii. 9 f. x. 21 f. xiv. 10 ff. 20 ff. xvi. 22; xxi. 26; xxx. 23), that it must be taken to refer to Job's conviction that some vindication of his cause will be made here in this life. At the same time the idea of a future judgment which shall proclaim his innocence and the ill-desert of his sufferings, is so strong, that it sweeps death out of vision, and the hope of the future life hovers in the thought if it does not break into language. A dispassionate examination of the solutions here offered to the problem of suffering shows that nothing really beyond a negative position is reached in this book. The speeches of Job must be taken to convey the author's opinions, and they are a most emphatic repudiation of the doctrine of Providence expressed by the three friends. They can only repeat the accepted notion that suffering is everywhere the cause of sin, and with scorn and indignation Job repudiates the charge, so far as he is concerned; he maintains his innocence and appeals to God as his witness; but the Witness is silent and there is no daysman betwixt them. Job's protest is not concerned with mere innocence, for in one magnificent passage he appeals to his beneficent life spent in the service of the poor and needy (xxxi.). The answers of Job leave the little system of Providence supported by his friends, completely discredited, and in this particular Jehovah sides with Job. The theophany and speeches of Jehovah do not, however, seem to convey any further contribution to the problem than perhaps the idea that for man it is insoluble, because he does not and cannot see the whole; and so nothing is left for man but to bear his griefs in silence and maintain his trust in God. Job remains, not only the finest contribution of Semitic genius to the realm of literature, but a classic for all those who feel the anguish of the world and the unintelligible perplexities of life. If it conveys no real solution, it at least disposes of one long accepted as adequate, and its complete overthrow removes one of the worst mistakes of human observation and refutes one of the cruellest judgments of men. The idea that prosperity always follows goodness has been a most disastrous bequest of Hebrew thought, and has more than anything else obscured from men's eyes the real meaning of life, prevented an accurate judgment of character, and done much to turn aside the expression of sympathy and obscure the duty of pity and forgiveness. That a solution was not within the limits of Israel's faith cannot be affirmed with Isa. liii. before us; but that it had never been rightly understood and had never taken deep hold of even noble minds is driven home with a telling force, in a further contribution of the Wisdom Literature, the Book of Ecclesiastes. The name Ecclesiastes is borrowed from the attempt to translate the Hebrew term _Qoheleth_ into Greek. Of this name a variety of interpretations have been put forward (Qoheleth, from _qahal_ an assembly, is the active feminine participle and means, one who calls, or addresses, or is merely member of, an assembly; A.V., "the Preacher"; R.V. "the great Orator"), but the one that perhaps best describes the term is that of "the debater." The work is put forward in the name of Solomon, and of all the works ascribed to him there is none that would come so suitably from the pen of that monarch, if he ever reflected deeply on his career; but this ascription is not kept up with any idea of deceiving the reader, but is simply one of the literary customs of the time and a way of honouring a great name, for there are biographical statements impossible to Solomon ("I _was_ king," i. 12; "above all that were before me in Jerusalem," i. 16), while the reflection of society and the stage of thought, but most notably the extremely late language, betray what is one of the latest of the Old Testament writings. Ecclesiastes is a work that has held an unusual fascination for certain types of disposition, Renan declaring that it was the only lovely thing that ever came from a Hebrew mind. The presence of the book at all in the Old Testament is strange, and there were strong opinions against admitting it into the Canon; it was perhaps only eventually sanctioned because its contradictory statements made it possible to interpret the book as a work written to controvert pessimistic ideas, which are brought forward only to be refuted. For the intention of the work is difficult to gather owing to its disjointed and incomplete character, which makes the book as it stands a mass of contradictions. Some passages profess utter pessimism and unbelief in God's providence, while others, like the closing chapter, seek to inculcate religious fear and trust. Various theories have been proposed to explain these phenomena occurring in one book. It has been suggested that the work is a dialogue between a doubting scholar and an orthodox believer. With a view of straightening out the argument it has been conjectured that the sheets of the original have somehow become disarranged, and others have thought of a series of interpolations in an originally quite unbelieving work; first by a writer who wishes to defend Wisdom from the author's charges of unprofitableness, and then by a writer who wishes to defend the providence of God. If interpolation is to be thought of at all--and it should only be a refuge of despair--it is to be sought in the opening and closing verses of the last chapter (xii. 1, 13, 14), which may have been added to correct the influence of the work; but even they are not impossible from this strangely vacillating author. Certainly no explanations can remove the gloomy tone of the book. The writer seems to have come into contact with Greek pessimism, and from this standpoint he sees nothing true in the Hebrew doctrine of retribution, and especially does he reject the too optimistic doctrines of the Wisdom school. The problems that are solved so simply in Proverbs, stated and left unanswered by Job, are by this author answered in entirely negative fashion: nothing is profitable in this life, nothing is new; nature and man move in an endless cycle without hope or meaning. The pursuit of Wisdom is just as foolish as the pursuit of folly: the end of the fool and the end of the wicked is the same; life is not worth living; vanity of vanities, all is vanity. In this book we at last come upon a clear recognition of the doctrine of immortality, but only to find it explicitly denied by our author (iii. 19-21). The only solution that the writer proposes is a sad Epicureanism: make the best of a bad world. And yet in spite of this conclusion the author still believes in God (iii. 11, 14; viii. 17); but He is a God who has hidden His purpose from man and whom man can do nothing to turn from His ways. This is more like the inscrutable Fate of the Greek tragedians than the Jehovah of the Prophets: indeed the word Jehovah is never once used throughout the book. If the concluding chapter comes from the original author, then it recommends a religious attitude towards these mysteries; but there is no revelation of anything that gives assurance of the reasonableness of this position or of the goodness of God. What are we to learn from this Book? Are we to refuse to read it and to reverse the judgment that included it in the Canon? Hardly that. It is well that man's doubts should find a place in the same sacred collection with his surest beliefs, for doubt may be but a stage in a process from an inadequate to a fuller faith. The book shows that the common appreciation of Israel's faith could not satisfy the mind that had its attention fixed upon the facts of life; and especially does it show that the hope of immortality, apart from which Israel's faith had largely developed, is not the one thing that is lacking. That hope, with its promise of retribution in a future and better world, will always appear too speculative to some minds to relieve the burdens of the life that now is, and even if believed in, it would offer no real clue to the meaning of our trials here, but only tend to take men's eyes off this life where perchance they might find the solution they have missed. For there is an attitude to life that solves its darkest problems, a disposition which transmutes its pain and failure, finding it no enigma, but an opportunity for learning the will of the Father; our presence here not a thing to be reluctantly borne, but a task to be joyfully accepted as the commission of God. The book of Ecclesiastes shows us, therefore, that the revelation through Israel is not yet complete; for it voices the unsatisfied need and stretches out hands of faith for something not yet made known. It is the deep dark of the night; the next hour will see the Morning Star of Bethlehem above the horizon, the fleeing shadows and the breaking of the day. MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS The prevalence of the expectation of a personal Messiah reflected in the Gospels, and the clearness and consistency of the idea, are not to be explained solely from the Old Testament prophecies. In the Apocrypha the Messianic expectation has almost died out (Ecclus. xlix. 11; 1 Macc. ii. 57), but after the Maccabæan revolt it revived, owing doubtless to the disappointment caused by the deterioration of the Hasmonæan dynasty, of which so much had been expected. The Pharisees, who resented the policy of the Hasmonæans, made the idea of a restoration of the Davidic line the peculiar property of their party, and from this time until the appearance of Jesus, Messianic expectation reached a point never before attained. The following summary shows the emergence of the idea in the literature of the period:-- (1) The Dream-Visions of Enoch. B.C. 166-161. The Messiah appears under the figure of a white bullock, and the saints are changed into His image. The Messiah has only an official function in the world-drama, and a human though glorified personality. (2) The Sibylline Oracles. In a passage assigned to B.C. 140, the Messiah is represented as a God-sent King, who is expected to arise from the East, and whose appearance will be a signal for an attack upon the Temple by the Gentiles. (3) The Book of Jubilees. B.C. 135-105. The writer is concerned more with the Messianic Kingdom, which he conceives of spiritually, than with the Messiah, who is only alluded to once, and who is expected to arise from Judah. (4) The Similitudes of Enoch. B.C. 95-80. This part of the Book of Enoch is much occupied with the person of the Messiah. He is definitely named "the Messiah," and also bears the titles "the Elect One," "the Righteous One," and "the Son of Man." He is a Prophet and a Teacher, "the light of the Gentiles," all judgment is committed unto Him, and He will sit on the throne of His glory. He will raise again to life all the righteous who have died. (5) The Psalms of Solomon. B.C. 70-40. The Messiah is to be sinless; He is the Son of David; He will not adopt the ordinary methods of warfare, but will smite the earth with the rod of His mouth. The following works all belong to the Christian era, but they may reflect ideas that had an earlier origin:-- (6) The Assumption of Moses. A.D. 7-30. The hope of an earthly Messiah is abandoned and it is God Himself who is expected to take vengeance on His enemies. (7) The Apocalypse of Baruch. _c._ 70 A.D. The Messiah will appear after Israel's enemies have been destroyed. His Kingdom is likened to "the bright lightning," and at the end of His reign He is to return in glory to heaven. (8) 2 Esdras. A.D. 81-96. The Messiah, although more than earthly, dies after a reign of 400 years. He is pictured as a lion rebuking an eagle (the Roman power), and "as it were with the likeness of a man" arising from the midst of the sea, and flying with the clouds of heaven. Lecture XI MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS In all the stages through which the Old Testament religion passed there seems to have existed a consciousness of their imperfection, and this produced a tendency to gaze into the future, in which it was thought the ideal religion would exist, and where could be descried the perfect realisation of God's dwelling among men. It is natural that this characteristic should find its clearest expression in the Prophets. When their eyes are upon the present, they condemn; when they look to the immediate future, they utter grave warning and the shadows deepen upon their faces; but when they lift their eyes to the distant hills of time, the light is on their faces, and they break into songs of the days that are yet to be. It is this vision of the future and the endeavour to give it a definite outline that runs like a thread through the Old Testament and forces us to look beyond its borders for the ultimate issue of its religious development. This subject may best be studied under the general head of Messianic expectations. The immediate difficulty in understanding this subject is found in the circumstance that it has received from Bible students an exaggerated attention, and has been pursued with methods that the best modern scholarship cannot sanction. The eager hunting for Messianic prophecy, and the desire to find literal fulfilment, has often stretched the meaning of passages unwarrantably and made a sane exegesis appear tame and uninteresting. But more disastrous has been the effect upon the understanding of the Old Testament as a whole. The literature has been treated as a mysterious typology, in which some indirect picture of the Messiah was to be discovered, or a series of exact predictions of His life and work. This has destroyed the sense of perspective, it has ignored the message of the Prophets to their own age, and it has been responsible for the idea that the religion of the Psalmists was simply a pious expectation of the Messiah, instead of a real communion with God. It is difficult to gain a right appreciation of this subject after it has suffered such abuse, but a serious effort should be made; for it is in the understanding of the Messianic expectation that we shall find a key to the New Testament and more especially to that conflict of soul which the acceptance of the Messiahship seems to have brought upon Jesus. The method of study followed will be an endeavour to read all alleged Messianic predictions, first of all in the light of their actual meaning for the age in which they were uttered; but more particularly it will embrace the general ideas of the future of which the conception of the Messiah forms only a part. We shall find that the conscious prediction of the Messiah is somewhat reduced in bulk, and that the Messianic expectation includes something more than a figure of the Messiah himself, and is indeed sometimes found without any such feature. The Messianic ideal involves the whole conception of the religious future of Israel. The Hebrew religion receives much inspiration from its tradition of the past, but infinitely more from its hopes for the future: the golden age is not thought to lie far back in history, but in a time yet to come. It seems likely that this idea was widely dispersed even among the common people, and it is therefore only natural that it should often have been held in an unspiritual manner and expressed after a material fashion. This hope was seized upon by the Prophets, and by them elevated above a merely material expectation; they enriched it by the wealth of their creative genius, and from their time it receives a definite content. Standing far above their contemporaries in their conception of the meaning of Jehovah's covenant with Israel, the Prophets were forced to realise the failure of their message to win immediate acceptance, and sometimes they witnessed its entire rejection by the people; and therefore it was inevitable that they should look to the future to yield what the present seemed unable to produce: a religion pure, simple, and free from all limitations. If we inquire the reason of this hope, we find it in their trust in Jehovah's covenant and in their conviction of the ultimate triumph of truth. Now it was not unnatural, with the peculiar character of their national history, for their hopes to group themselves around some commanding figure; for all along Israel had been moved by splendid personalities. They were accustomed to the appearance of men whose power and genius marked them out as fitted by Jehovah for some mighty task; so that whenever they think of the future and come to a detailed description of their vision they descry one dominant figure, the symbol and representative of the people, but also the symbol and representative of the power of Jehovah dwelling among them. This figure receives his peculiar outline largely from the needs of their immediate times, and any person of whom great things are expected may be hailed as the Messiah (Cyrus, Isa. xlv. 1; Haggai ii. 20-23, seems to suggest that Zerubbabel is the expected Messiah; and Zech. vi. 12 uses Messianic language of Joshua the High Priest). We should have expected that the figure of the Messiah, as conceived by the Prophets, would partake largely of the prophetic office idealised and accepted by an obedient people. This however is not the case. There is a promise of a prophet made through Moses, which in the New Testament has been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy (Deut. xviii. 18; Acts iii. 22, vii. 37), but an examination of the passage, which follows a denunciation of the practices of divination, necromancy, and sorcery, out of which primitive Prophetism arose, shows that it is a promise of the establishment of the prophetic office rather than of any one person. Elsewhere Moses is made to exclaim: "would that all the Lord's people were prophets" (Num. xi. 29). Both these passages are due to prophetic teaching, and this is the Prophets' conception of their office: they do not rejoice in their splendid isolation and their unique relation to God; they are grieved that the people do not share their possession of the Spirit of God and their hearing of His word, for to them these things are the essence of all true religion. So they look forward to a time when their office will no longer be necessary (Jer. xxxi. 34), and when the Spirit of the Lord shall be poured out on all flesh (Joel ii. 28f). It is not in any contradiction to this that the picture of the Servant of the Lord, delineated by the Second Isaiah, is largely drawn from the prophetic office (Isa. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4); for the Servant is the Nation of Israel fulfilling her prophetic role among the nations of mankind. In the late prophecy of Malachi the figure of Elijah the prophet is seen in the future, but only as the herald of the coming of the Messianic era (Mal. iv. 5). The Priest contributes little more than the Prophet to the picture (Zech. iii.; vi. 12; Psa. cx.); for to the prophetic conception of things the Priesthood is hardly a necessary office in a true religion. It is from the office of the King that the Messiah is largely drawn. This conception could only have arisen after the founding of the monarchy and only when the real David had faded far enough into the past to be idealised. It was in their experience of the imperfection of the Kings of Israel and Judah that the Prophets saw the need for a true kingly head; and in the oppression of military kingdoms, the need for a mighty warrior. And yet it is not a king who fills the picture of the future, so much as a kingdom. Outside the Prophets and the Psalms we find little expectation of a personal Messiah, but we find almost everywhere the conception of an ideal or Messianic age. What has been called the Protevangelium, the promise to the woman that her seed should bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15), does not point explicitly to any one person, but simply promises that in man's eternal warfare with temptation he shall at length gain the victory. The prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 17-19) involves nothing more than the future supremacy of Israel. Jacob's blessing on Judah (Gen. xlix. 10) promises a stable dynasty to that tribe, and the reference to Shiloh is so obscure that nothing can be built upon it (_Shiloh_ may mean peace, but in the Septuagint the phrase is translated: "until that which is his shall come." Another ancient reading is: "till he come whose it is." Shiloh might refer to the town of that name, but this would give no help to the interpretation. The text must be corrupt). It will be necessary for us to examine the circle of ideas which form the background of the Messianic hope and from which the idea of the Messiah emerges. When the Prophets speak of the future they often use a strange phrase: "the day of the Lord." This is found first in Amos (v. 18), but its occurrence there shows that it was already a term in use among the people, for Amos had to dissent from the popular idea of its character. The term comes from the Hebrew idiom of the "day" of battle, and it comes to be used of the great conflict in which Jehovah will entirely overthrow the enemies of Israel; it is therefore looked for with expectant hope. Amos points out that the manifestation of Jehovah will be fatal to sin, whether in Israel or in other nations: _dies iræ, dies illa_. Thus modified by Amos this is the conception which, with varying details, becomes the prophetic idea of the Day of the Lord. It may therefore come in some threatened invasion; later, it is conceived as a gathering of all the nations against Jerusalem, from which we get the picture of Armageddon, the last great war before the establishment of peace; and finally it becomes the world assize, and so the "day" of judgment of the New Testament. This "day" is to separate the history of God's dealings with men into two distinct periods, and will be the dividing line between the perfect and the imperfect; so that all the bright visions of the future are to be "after those days." The Prophets believe that reconstruction can only come after destruction, that history will reach its ideal over a precipice; they believe in a reform by cataclysm rather than by evolution. Every threatening of political change or national disaster may herald the coming of that day; it is always at hand; to their vision, they are living near the finality of things. There is a great deal in this imagery that fails to appeal to modern ideas of history and progress. It was part of the prophetic scheme and as such was a limitation of perfect vision; but shorn of its mere form it remains a witness to their consciousness of the activity of God in human history and of His judgment in the crises of the world. The form was a limitation essential to their stage of mental evolution and to its intelligibility to their age; its spirit is an eternal message to mankind. Immediately after the Day of the Lord, the Messianic Age is ushered in, and in depicting the conditions of that time the lyrical genius of the Prophets reaches its supreme expression, and these passages still inspire the reformer and move men with their ideals of peace. The picture of that age is composed by projecting into the future their own institutions and especially their religious conceptions. They picture a condition of human society which is best described in the phrase, "the kingdom of God"; for although such an expression never breaks forth from their lips, its contents are obviously in their minds. It is to be a community in which the will of God is perfectly realised, when religion shall no longer consist in statutes and commands, but in the recognition of an inner law. Absolute righteousness, individual and civil, will prevail, and the nations shall learn war no more. The animal and natural creation will share in this beneficent order: the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the wilderness shall blossom like the rose; the veil shall be torn from men's vision, all tears shall be wiped away, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. When they come to depict the subjects of this kingdom they fail to attain to the inner and ethical requirements enunciated by Jesus, for national hopes and ambitions still cloud their outlook. There are two streams of thought--one frankly particularistic, where the future of the heathen is ignored, or where they are simply to be exterminated; and the other universalistic, where the conversion of the whole world is expected (Isa. xlv. 22; Jer. xii. 14 ff, xvi. 19; cp. Isa. xi. 14-16 with xix. 18-25). It is somewhat surprising, in view of the subsequent development of these ideas under Christian thought, that the sphere of this tremendous change is conceived to be this present earth; and even when the necessity of a new earth and a new heaven is considered, it is still earth that is to be the chief theatre of events. Heaven is conceived of as the dwelling place of Jehovah, but there is no idea that this great change is to be postponed or relegated to some heavenly condition; heaven is to come down to earth and Jehovah is to dwell among His people and be their God. It is from the ground of these ideas that there arises the conception of the person known as the Messiah, who shall be the Divine instrument in bringing about this blessed condition. Messiah is from the Hebrew, _Mashiah_, and means "anointed one." The actual phrase, _the_ Messiah, without further qualification, is not found in the Old Testament (Dan. ix. 25, A.V. "The Messiah" is incorrect; it should read: "an anointed one, a prince," as R.V. mar.); but after the closing of the Canon the phrase was constantly used to denote the Jewish hope of the appearance of a singular person, of Davidic descent, who should be superhumanly endowed, and who should overturn the enemies of the Jews and place their nation at the head of the world. The title recalls the mode of consecration used for priests and kings by anointing them with oil (Lev. iv. 3, 5, 16; vi. 22; 1 Sam. ii. 35; xii. 3), and "the anointed of Jehovah" is the common title for the kings of Israel. The origin of this idea of the Messianic King may certainly be traced to Nathan's promise to David of a perpetual seed which should occupy his throne and be the special delight and care of Jehovah (2 Sam. vii. 2-17). In the presence of a weak or unworthy occupant of the throne this promise would come to mind, and would gather new meaning as the Prophets saw in the troubles of their times the imminence of the Day of the Lord. It is to the prophet Isaiah that we owe a striking conception of a monarch who not only fulfils his promise but transcends it in a way that is hardly conceivable in a merely human king. The first emergence of this hope in the mind of the prophet occurs when he attempts to restrain Ahaz from joining the fatal confederacy of Syria and Ephraim against Assyria. When Ahaz demands some confirmation, the prophet promises the sign of a young woman who shall bear a child named Immanuel (Isa. vii. 14-17). Following Matthew, Christian expositors have taken this to be a prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus; although it is difficult to see how this could be a sign to Ahaz. The subject is obscure to the last degree. The Hebrew word rendered "a virgin," although capable of such a special application, means simply a young woman. The translation "virgin" was first made by the Septuagint, and this may point to the fact that at the time this version was made the Messiah was expected to be born of a virgin. The prophecy seems to have arisen from the conviction that the Assyrian invasion would bring into existence some person who should represent the active presence of God with His people; and beyond this explanation there is nothing but mere speculation. But in a later oracle of Isaiah's (ix. 6f), the conception has grown in definiteness, and this expected person is crowned with such honorific titles as "Wonder of a Counsellor, Hero-God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace." To our ears these titles convey the sense of absolute Divinity, but it is questionable whether they meant that to Isaiah. Eastern monarchs have always been addressed with high-sounding titles, and Isaiah's language may have been coloured by foreign court customs; but still it would remain that the titles lead us to expect an unexampled figure who possesses attributes that mark him out as specially equipped by God. Once more Isaiah returns to this figure (xi. 1-12), and now definitely asserts that he shall spring from David's line; only now the majesty of his person is conceived as due to his seven-fold possession of the Spirit of Jehovah, and his character fits him rather for administrative and prophetic work. Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, has much the same figure (v. 2-5) of a mighty prince of Davidic lineage and of mysterious birth (Bethlehem simply stands here for David's line, and "whose outgoings have been from eternity" probably means nothing more than that his descent shall spring from this ancient ancestor). There is an inexplicable element in these predictions, but they have been found elsewhere, outside Israel, in times of great national danger or expectation. In Israel, the idealisation of David, the personal element in her history, and the increased possibilities discovered in human personality when under the complete dominion of the Spirit of Jehovah, have contributed to the creation of this figure. It cannot be said that it was a mental vision of the person of Jesus that shaped the prophecy, for it must not be forgotten that it was an immediate fulfilment that they expected; and indeed their picture so utterly misled the Jews, that, when Christ claimed to be the Messiah, they treated His claim as blasphemous. While we can see that Christ was indeed a King, it is only by a spiritual conception of kingship, and only after the verdict of history has crowned Him as a true ruler of men; not by any actual resemblance to the external magnificence of the Messianic King. When the Messianic call came to Jesus He found in these passages a difficulty, for they outlined a programme He could only reject; but it was other and indirect allusions of the old Testament, some of which had never been considered as Messianic, that Jesus took for His pattern. This meant a reading of prophecy very different from that of the Jews of His time, and it is surely here that the views we have found ourselves forced to accept in regard to Old Testament prophecy can claim the support of Jesus Himself. It is important to grasp this point: the argument from predictions definitely fulfilled in Jesus has failed to convince the Jews, who ought to understand their own Scriptures best, and we must recognise that it is only a spiritual interpretation of prophecy and a valuation of Jesus which owes nothing to flesh and blood that can see in Him One of whom all the Prophets bore witness. It is to these other conceptions, to which the spiritual intuition of Jesus led Him in His search for support for His Messianic ideals, that we must now turn. The first of these in importance is undoubtedly "the Servant of the Lord." We saw when examining this idea that it was an ideal of a nation rather than of an individual, and yet it was upon this that Jesus fixed, and it was this idea that seemed to mould His whole conception of His mission. According to Luke, the first discourse of Jesus took place in the Synagogue at Nazareth, where He set forth His programme and policy, and stated them to be identical with those the prophet had outlined for the nation centuries before (Luke iv. 16-21; Isa. lxi. 1, 2); and the evangelist Matthew sees in the methods of Jesus a fulfilment of the prophecy of the Servant (Matt. xii. 18-21; Isa. xlii. 1-4). It was probably as Jesus saw the clouds gather about His life and disaster began to threaten that He was led to study the career of that Servant and see that it involved suffering, being despised and rejected of men; and so He came to find the key to the mystery of His Cross in that classic of the vicarious life, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Jesus was probably the first to interpret that passage in a Messianic sense. His reason for adopting the title of "the Son of Man" is exceedingly difficult to trace; it may be said that no completely satisfactory explanation of the origin or meaning of the term has yet been discovered, and in the present state of research on the subject it would be folly to commit ourselves to any of the theories that have been propounded. We can only keep in mind the various facts, which the use of this title in the Gospels presents to us. It is clear that Jesus did not intend the title to be a declaration to the world that He had accepted the Messianic call; for all along it was His deliberate purpose to conceal His Messiahship, and for reasons that are obvious, when we consider the difference between His conception of Messianic function and that of the Jews of His day. Again, although there is a slight difference between Daniel, where we only hear of "one like unto a son of man," and Jesus who calls Himself "_the_ son of man," yet when challenged by the high-priest Jesus certainly quotes from Daniel (Dan. vii. 13; Mark xiv. 62). Now in Daniel it is not a person who is figured by this title, so much as a humane kingdom which is to replace the kingdoms that were more like beasts in their character. It is only in the Book of Enoch that the Son of Man is definitely identified with the Messiah. Did Jesus ever read that Book, or were its ideas at all commonly known? If so we should have to concede that the Son of Man meant the Messiah, both to Jesus and to the people, and yet this is an apparent contradiction of His general motive in keeping the Messiahship secret. Perhaps, and the suggestion is made with the knowledge that in the present state of the problem it can be nothing more than a suggestion, there is a line that has not been exhausted, and along which help may yet be found. It starts from the fact that Jesus seems to have adopted the _character_ of the Servant of the Lord under the _name_ of the Son of Man; and we have seen that both these are ideals of a community or a nation rather than of a person. Again, that somehow the title "the Son of Man" had Messianic significance, and in the mind of Jesus was connected with the figure in Daniel, is seen from His confession before Caiaphas. The contradiction between these facts and the purpose of concealing His Messiahship can perhaps be solved by noticing that Jesus never explicitly identifies Himself with the Son of Man; and if all the passages where this title is found in the Synoptics are examined, they seem to separate themselves into three distinct groups: (1) where the reference might be not only to Jesus Himself but to Man fulfilling his ideal; (2) where the reference is to the suffering which the Son of Man must undergo; (3) and most important, this term is always used when Jesus speaks of that mysterious return on the clouds which is known as the Second Advent. The conclusion to which it is suggested all these facts point is that although Jesus believed Himself to be the personal centre on which the Messianic hope converged, it was not to Himself personally, but to the new humanity which His Spirit should beget, that He looked for the complete fulfilment of the Messianic hope. Thus at least are linked together the fact that the Prophets are occupied rather with the Messianic community than with the Messiah, and the fact that Jesus made the centre and aim of His teaching the Kingdom rather than its personal embodiment in Himself. Jesus certainly read these Prophets more according to their real inwardness than any of His contemporaries or than many generations of Christian scholars; and there is no better preparation for the serious study of the Gospels than a careful examination of the growing revelation of the Old Testament religion, and the inner meaning of the Messianic hope. Of this wonderful growth and moving revelation, it can be said, in a way deeper than the old typological and prophetic methods of study could understand, that Christ is the aim and the goal; not only Jesus of Nazareth with His unique Personality, but that still more transcendent mystery, the Christ within the heart, Christ the head of every man. If we have learned nothing else, surely we have learned this: that behind the hopes of mankind, behind their misty dreams, their gropings after truth, their struggles for righteousness, are the eternal thoughts of God; and although these may transcend their poor reflection in the mind of man, as the heavens the earth, yet this remains: that for every hope implanted, there is an answer beyond our expectation; for every desire Godward, the revelation of the Father-friend; for every ideal of the human heart, the Christ; and for every effort after human progress, the ever nearer coming of the Kingdom of God. INDEX Abraham, emigration of, 23; historicity of, 36; religion of, 31, 34 _Adonai_, 60 Ahijah, 117 Altars, erected anywhere, 98; construction of, 200 Amaziah, 118 Amos, 98, 118, 136, 148, 152, 159, 271 Animals, as tribal names, 39; clean and unclean, 40; worship of, 26, 39, 68, 124 Animism, 40, 41 Apostasy, 90, 129 Arabia, home of Semites, 20, 22 Ark, 69, 70, 121, 180 Armageddon, 272 Aryan conception of God, 25 Asaph, 222, 225 Asherah, 46 Ashtoreth, or _Ashtart_, 94 Assembly of the saints, 223 Assyria, 156, 160, 161 Atonement, 102, 208; of Christ, 210, 211; Day of, 177, 178 Azazel, 42, 207, 208 Baal, 38, 92, 96, 98 Baal of Tyre, 94, 109, 125. See also under Melkart Babylon, fall of, 185; Jews in, 169-174, 179, 185, 204 Babylonian epic of Creation, 205; influence of, 204-206 Babylonian religion, 186 Balaam, prophecy of, 271 Ban, the, 49 Blood, significance of, 26, 208; food of deity, 48 Book of the Covenant, 200 _Bosheth_, 94, 97 Bull-worship, 68, 98, 124 Calf-worship. See under Bull Canaan, influence of, 27, 83-86, 170; conquest of, 82, 86, 87; Jewish love for, 83; limitations of, 84 Canaanites, customs of, borrowed, 92, 98; origin of, 23, 24; religion of, 38, 92-95; sanctuaries of, 98, 158, 163; why not exterminated, 90; and Hebrews, 87 Centralization of worship, 144, 157, 163 Chemosh, 43 Choice of Israel, Jehovah's, 75; prophetic conception of, 156, 187 Christ the goal of Old Testament, 282. And see under Jesus Christianity, 101, 274 Chronicler, the, 221 Circumcision, 50, 180 Comparative religion, 38 Conditions of life among Semites, 20; in time of Judges, 87; after exile, 196, 232; in time of Psalms, 226, 231, 232; reflected in Wisdom lit., 247; in Ecclesiastes, 259; in Messianic age, 273 Covenant at Sinai, 58, 65; prophetic conception of, 76, 157, 267 Covenant-sacrifice, 49, 63 Creation, 186, 205; Babylonian legend of, 205 Customs retained with new significance, 39, 50, 176 Customs, mourning, 40 Cyrus, 183, 185, 268 Daniel, Book of, 141 David, character of, 119, 121, 229; influence of, 120; his kingdom, 88, 120; a poet, 119; his religious ideas, 121; his work, 120; and the Messiah, 270, 275 Day of Atonement, 177; of the Lord, 271; of judgment, 272 Deborah, Song of, 88 Decalogue, the, 74 Deluge, the, 206 Deuteronomy, Book of, 145, 157, 162, 200 Development of Religion, xiv, 27, 37, 79, 86, 99, 128, 129, 131, 142, 215, 282 Director's Psalm Book, 220 Documents, various, how detected, 33, 194, 199 "E," 30, 142, 194 Ecclesiastes, name, 258; Book of, 260; ascribed to Solomon, 258; significance of, 262 El, 37, 59 Elijah, 98, 99, 106, 114, 125, 126, 136, 148 Elisha, 113, 114, 125, 128 _Elohim_, 30, 42, 222 Ephod, 67, 100 Ethical conceptions, 127, 152, 155, 158, 244, 249 Ethnology of Old Testament, 18 Exile, date of, 134, 168; cause of, 171, 176; critical view of, 171, 172; lessons from, 190; religion after, 230 Exilic stamp on literature, 172 Exodus, the, 58; date of, 24, 82 Ezekiel, 169, 174, 175, 178, 195; Book of, 174, 177; his school, 195; and Leviticus, 172, 177 Ezra, 181; introduces the Law, 196, 197; what did it include? 198, 200 Feast of Tabernacles, 197, 198 Forgiveness, 207, 233 Funeral feasts, 41 Gad, 117 God, name of. See under _Elohim_, El and Jehovah God, conception of, Semitic, 25, 26; Aryan, 25; anthropomorphic, 48, 66, 155; ethical, 96, 155, 211; local, 43, 52, 62, 75, 96; spiritual, 155; tribal, 26, 32, 75; materialistic, 69, 70; as the Storm God, 70; as the Creator, 186 God, conception of, by David, 26; by Prophets, 154, 155, 175, 186; by Psalmists, 236; in Job, 256; in Ecclesiastes, 261 God, holiness of, 175, 207; jealousy of, 76; righteousness of, 77, 155, 232 _Habiri_, 24, 82 Hallel Psalms, 223 Hammurabi, code of, 73, 203, 204 Heathen deities, 42, 43, 66, 154 Hebrew, meaning of name, 23 Hebrew Bible, divisions of, 141 Hebrews, relation to other nations, 18, 19, 22, 24, 85, 156 Heroes of Israel, 85 Hexateuch, 200 High places, worship at, condemned, 173. See also Canaanitish sanctuaries Higher criticism, xi, xii Historical value of Hebrew tradition, 32, 183, 228, 229, 245, 247 Historical books, Prophets' influence on, 114, 141, 142 History, ancient conception of, xiii, 32, 51, 145, 163; how compiled, 114, 142, 143; religious interpretation of, 90, 101, 129, 171, 176, 187, 189. See also under Redaction Hittites, 23 Holiness, 175, 207, 236; code of, 200 Horeb, Theophany at, 126, 128 Hosea, 159 Human sacrifice, 48, 49, 95 Ideal Israel, 188 Idolatry and images, 37, 45, 67, 68, 70, 154, 176, 180, 186, 247 Immortality in Psalms, 34, 35; in Job, 256; in Ecclesiastes, 261, 262 Inspiration, xiii, 129, 206, 231; how related to infallibility, xiii, xiv Interpolations, 146 Isaiah, 160, 295; Book of, 147, 156; authorship of, 147, 182-185 Israel. See under Hebrews "J," 30, 32, 194 Jehovah, name, 59; pronunciation, 60, 62; explanation of, 61 Jehovah and other nations, 156; and Baal, 97, 98; and Israel, 44 Jehovah, religion of, date, 31, 34, 65; weakness of, 92, 95, 96; prophetic conception of, 154, 155; a religion of choice, 65, 75 Jehovah. See also under God Jeremiah, 154, 164, 188 Jeroboam, 124 Jerusalem, connection with David, 120; idea of inviolability, 161, 169, 170; besieged by Sennacherib, 161; deliverance of, 161; besieged by Nebuchadrezzar, 170; destruction of, 169, 170 Jesus and Messiahship, 266, 276, 278, 280, 281; and new covenant, 77; and Levitical system, 210; and Revelation, xv, 77; and Prophets, 273, 282; and Psalms, 231, 232, 234; and Proverbs, 250; and Isa. liii., 189; and Book of Daniel, 280, 281; and Book of Enoch, 280; and Old Testament, x Jethro, 62 Jews. See under Hebrews Job, 251; Book of, 250; date of, 251, 252; author, 251, 254, 255; divisions of, 253 Jonah, Book of, 156, 189 Joshua, Book of, 82, 86, 87 Josiah, reform of, 162, 163, 200 Judah, tribe of, 89 Judaism, 178 Judges, functions of, 91; Book of, 82, 87, 88, 90, 144 Kenites, 64 King. See under Monarchy and Messiah Kingdom of God, 28, 127, 131, 171, 273, 282 Korah, sons of, 225 Law, origin of, 173; of Moses, 196-198; later than Prophets, 137, 158; no observance of, until after exile, 54, 172, 199. See also under Pentateuch and Moses Levi, tribe of, 89 Levite choirs, 221 Levites, 71; distinguished from priests, 177 Levitical system, 208; intention of, 209 Leviticus, Book of, 157, 158, 172 Literary ideals, 146, 163, 251, 259 Localization of God, 43, 96, 103 Local sanctuaries, 58, 59 Lower criticism, xi Maccabees, the, 223, 224; times of, 221; Psalms of, 224, 226 Manasseh, 162 _Mazzebah_, the, 45 Melkart, 94, 95, 125. See also Baal of Tyre Memorial stones, 37, 44 Messiah, name, 274; title, 276; Davidic descent of, 275, 277 Messiah in the Prophets, 269, 276; in Apocrypha, 264 Messiah as Prophet, 269; Priest, 270; King, 270, 275 Messianic age, 151, 270, 273 Messianic King, 228 Messianic prophecy, 266, 267, 269-271, 275-277; includes more than a person, 267, 271, 281 Micah, 160, 277 Micaiah, 128 Midian, 64 Molech, 95, 96 Monarchy, origin of, 97, 106, 118; in Psalms, 228; in Proverbs, 247, 248 Monotheism among Semites, 25; Hebrews, 39, 43; not taught by Moses, 66; in the Prophets, 42, 154, 186 Moses, name, 57; historical reality, 55, 57; his call, 58, 63; mention before exile, 56; not author of Pentateuch, 54, 57. See also under Law, and Pentateuch Music and prophecy, 112 Musical directions in Psalter, 218-220 Musical services, 223 Nathan, 117, 122, 275 Nature in Psalter, 236 Nazarites, 114 Nebuchadrezzar, 169 Necromancy, 39 Nehustan, 68 New Covenant, the, 165 New Testament, Psalms quoted in, 229 New Testament and Old Testament, 266. See also under Christianity, and Jesus Old Testament, attitude of Jesus to, x; Jewish reverence for, x. See also under Hebrew Bible Oracles, 27, 46, 47, 68, 77, 100 Origin of religion, 51, 62 "P," 194. See under Priestly Code Palestine. See under Canaan Particularism, 155, 186, 191, 273 Passover, the, 49 Patriarchs, historicity of, 35 Pentateuch, strata of, 30, 194, 199, 200; how discovered, 34, 194, 199; not by Moses, 54, 73; Samaritan, 201. See also under Law, and Moses Personal conception of religion, 154, 166, 232, 233, 235, 237 Personalities, influence of, on history, 268 Personification, 186, 189, 232, 246, 252, 253 Pharaoh of the Exodus, 82 Philistines, 24, 97 Philo, 242, 246 Philosophy, 21, 246, 252 Phoenicians, 20, 23 Poetry, sign of early date, 18, 69, 88; of David, 119, 228; in Prophets, 153; in Psalms, 236; in Proverbs, 245 Polytheism among Semites, 25; among Hebrews, 37; the religion of savages, 41; in original documents, 41; evidence of, 42 Prayer, 216, 231 Prediction, 137, 151, 182, 183, 266, 278 Priesthood, 63; in time of Moses, 71, 111, 202; in time of Judges, 54,68, 100; in Ezekiel, 177; after exile, 209; of Messiah, 270. See also under Levites Priestly code, the, 200-202; ideals of, 206, 210. See also under Levitical system Priestly school, the, 196, 206 Problem of Providence, 234, 250, 253, 257, 259, 260 Problem of suffering, 187, 243, 251, 253, 257, 258, 262 Progress, causes of, 75, 97, 102. See under Development Prophesying, 112 Prophet, name of, 109, 110 Prophetic bands, 106, 112, 125 Prophetic consciousness, 149, 150 Prophetic literature, how compiled, 145, 146, 152 Prophetic style, 114, 145, 150, 153, 185 Prophets, origin of, 106; two classes, 108, 111, 149, 153; conflict between, 113, 128; their call, 148; their relation to State, 117, 127, 153; and national religion, 136, 149; and the Covenant, 139, 157; chronology of, 134; their place in history, 137; importance of, for criticism, xii, 137, 138; their picture of their age, 138, 139; they are creative, 135; their relation to the Law, 137, 139, 140, 143, 164, 215; and the Gospel, 136, 137, 138; their scheme of the future, 151, 272 Protestantism, 131 Protevangelium, the, 270 Proverb, the, 245 Proverbs, Book of, 245; its relation to Job, 240, 252; divisions of, 245; date of, 247 Psalms, titles of, 214, 218, 219, 224, 225, 228; ascription to David, 214, 218, 221, 222, 225-229; authorship of, 224, 225; some are prayers, 216; use in synagogue, 216; in the temple, 216, 218; Hallels, 223; Maccabæan, 224, 226; tone of, 217; imprecations in, 217, 231, 232; and the Gospel, 215; and Christianity, 216; their conception of God, 225, 236 Psalter, the, criticism of, 217, 218; date of, 221, 225-227, 229, 231; Books of, 221; a gradual compilation, 218, 221 Queen of Heaven, 95 Rahab, 205 Rechabites, 115 Redaction, 144, 145, 173, 215, 218 Reform, 107; of Elijah, 126; of Prophets, 139; under Josiah, 144, 162, 163; after exile, 180, 181; under Ezra, 196, 200 Religion, origin of, 38, 78; primitive, 32, 39, 40, 42, 43; Semitic, 25; of Patriarchs, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 65; in time of Moses, 54; in time of Judges, 67, 71; of Canaanites, 92-95; under monarchy, 108, 112, 158; after exile, 179, 181; Levitical conception of, 209, 210; of Psalmists, 230, 231-235; in Wisdom lit., 242, 244; in Proverbs, 249; in Job, 255; in Ecclesiastes, 261; of the future, 265, 268, 273 Repentance, 173, 178 Restoration, the, 181, 182 Retribution, 250, 262. And see under Problem of Providence Revelation, xiii, 51, 63, 66, 78, 79, 231 Ritual, 157, 209, 211 Sabbath, 168, 179 Sacred springs, 47 Sacred stones, 44 Sacred trees, 46 Sacrifice, primitive, 47, 48; adopted by Moses, 72; covenant, 49, 63; human, 48, 49; Prophetic estimate of, 72, 158; in "P," 202, 207; meaning of, 207, 208; of Christ, 210, 211. See also under Atonement Samaria, fall of, 134, 160 Samson, 115 Samuel, 106, 111, 113, 114, 119 Satan, 255, 266 Saul, 111, 112, 119 Scepticism, 248, 260, 261 Science, 21, 131, 237 Second Isaiah, 147, 180. See also under Isaiah Seer, 100 Selah, 219, 220 Semites, home of, 20; desert life, 20; Western antipathy to, 21; their contribution to thought, 21; to science, 21; to religion, 22; groups of, 22; migrations of, 22 Semitic character of our Bible, 25 Semitic language, 19 Semitic religion, 25, 26; tribal, 26; value of, 27; does not account for Hebrew religion, 25, 31 Sennacherib, 160 Servant of the Lord, 187, 188, 269, 278, 280; the suffering, 187, 279 Shekel, temple, 197, 199 Shewbread, 48 Shiloh, 271 Simeon, tribe of, 89 Simon Maccabæus, 224 Sin, 176, 207, 209, 232, 233 Sin-offering, the, 207 Sinai, 58, 62, 64, 65 Social conceptions, 127, 158, 159 Solomon, 88, 122, 224, 225; Proverbs ascribed to, 245, 246, 248; and Ecclesiastes, 259 Son of Man, the, title of, 279-281 Sons of the Prophets, 106, 110-112. See also under Prophetic bands Substitution, 208, 209 Supernatural, the, 79 Symbolism, 208, 209 Synagogue, the, 180, 181, 216 Syncretism, 92, 97, 99, 101, 102, 107 Tabernacle, the, 72, 73, 202 Tabernacles, Feast of, 197, 198 _Tehom_, _Tiamat_, 205 Tel-el-Amarna, tablets, 24, 82 Temple, the, 122-124, 162, 164, 177, 202; worship of, 220, 230; mentioned in Psalms, 226, 227 _Torah_, 100 Totemism, 39 Tradition, Jewish, 229 Tribes, names of, 40; unity of, 88, 91 Universalism, 155, 156, 186, 190, 191, 242, 274 Virgin birth, the, 276 Wisdom, 243, 246, 249, 261 Wisdom literature, 241; compared with rest of Bible, 243-244; date of, 245 Wise men, the, 244, 248 Worship, prophetic conception of, 157; of synagogue, 181; of temple, 220, 230. And see under Altars, Religion, God, and Sacrifice Zechariah, Book of, 134, 147 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. Transcribers' Notes: Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain. Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Missing periods at the ends of the Roman numbers of Biblical citations have been added. Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references, but on page 285, reference to page 295 under "Isaiah" should be to page 195. Page 208: "how this is affected" perhaps should be "effected". Page 288: "BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD." was printed that way, as "LD." 
27510	----	Transcriber's note. Text enclosed by underscores was italicized in the original book (_italics_), and text enclosed by forward slashes was in bold face (/bold face/). A minor printing error was corrected (Gen. xliv 29). The Modern Reader's Bible A Series of Works from the Sacred Scriptures Presented in Modern Literary Form SELECT MASTERPIECES OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by RICHARD G. MOULTON, M.A. (CAMB.), Ph.D. (PENN.) Professor of Literature in English in the University of Chicago New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1902 Copyright, 1897, By THe MacMillan Company. Set up and electrotyped September, 1897. Reprinted December, 1897; August, 1898; February, 1899; August, 1900; July, 1901; April, 1902. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. INTRODUCTION That which we call 'The Bible' has the outward appearance of a book: in reality it is--what the word 'bible' implies in the original Greek--a whole library. More than fifty books, the production of a large number of different authors, representing periods of time extending over many centuries, are all comprehended between the covers of a single volume. There is no greater monument of the power of printing to diffuse thought than this fact, that the whole classic literature of one of the world's greatest peoples can be carried about in the hand or the pocket. But there is another side to the matter. A high price has been paid for this feat of manufacturing a portable literature: no less a price than the effacement from the books of the Bible of their whole literary structure. Where the literature is dramatic, there are (except in one book) no names of speakers nor divisions of speeches; there are no titles to essays or poems, nor anything to mark where one poem or discourse ends and another begins; not only is there nothing to reflect finer rhythmic distinctions in poetry, but (in King James's version) there is not even a distinction made between poetry and prose. It is as if the whole were printed 'solid,' like a newspaper without the newspaper headings. The most familiar English literature treated in this fashion would lose a great part of its literary interest; the writings of the Hebrews suffer still more through our unfamiliarity with many of the literary forms in which they are cast. Even this statement does not fully represent the injury done to the literature of the Bible by the traditional shape in which it is presented to us. Between the Biblical writers and our own times have intervened ages in which all interest in literary beauty was lost, and philosophic activity took the form of protracted discussions of brief sayings or 'texts.' Accordingly this solidified matter of Hebrew literature has been divided up into single sentences or 'verses,' numbered mechanically one, two, three, etc., and thus the original literary form has still further been obscured. It is not surprising that to most readers the Bible has become, not a literature, but simply a storehouse of pious 'texts.' If the sacred Scriptures then are to be appreciated as literature, it is necessary to restore their literary form and structure. To do this, with all the assistance that the modern printed page gives to the reader, is the aim of the 'Modern Reader's Bible.' The present volume is intended as an introduction to the series, and, it is hoped, to the literary study of the Bible in general, by Select Masterpieces, illustrating the different types of literature represented in Scripture. It is natural to enquire, What are the leading literary forms under which the sacred writings may be classified? A large proportion of the Bible is History: the History of the People of Israel as presented by themselves. How Israel is chosen from all the nations to be the special people of Jehovah; how the invisible Jehovah is at first their only ruler; how gradually the spirit of assimilation to surrounding nations leads to a demand for visible kings. Just as this tendency to secular kingship becomes strong, there comes into prominence an order of 'prophets': the word signifies 'interpreters,' and the prophets are accepted as the interpreters of Jehovah's will to Israel. Under such rule as that of David, the man after God's own heart, the work of the prophets may fall into the background; but where, as usually happened, the secular government tends to ungodliness, the order of prophets stands forth as an organised opposition. On lines like these the historic narrative of the Bible pursues its course; and with the thread of narrative are interwoven legal and statistical documents which give it support. The History Series of the Modern Reader's Bible presents the sacred narrative divided according to its logical divisions. Genesis is occupied with the formation of the chosen nation, from the first beginnings of things to the development of the descendants of Abraham as a patriarchal family. The Exodus narrates the migration of the fully formed nation to the land of promise; this is the period of constitutional development, and in this part of the history we find massed together the whole of the constitutional lore of Israel. The group of books constituting The Judges volume represents a period of transition: the 'judges' of Israel correspond to the 'heroes' of other peoples, and amid a succession of these judges the incidents of Israel's history reveal the efforts of the people of Jehovah towards a secular government. The Kings takes up the history of the nation from the establishment of the dynasty of David, and covers the struggle between the prophetic and the secular parties until the time of the fall and captivity. Upon the return of the remnant from Babylon all opposition to the theocracy has ceased; to the prophets have succeeded the 'scribes,' or interpreters of the written law, and The Chronicles is the ecclesiastical history, not of a Hebrew nation, but of a Jewish church. From History we must, in literary analysis, distinguish Story: the one is founded on the sense of record and scientific explanation of events, the other appeals to the imagination and the emotions. The Story literature of most peoples is 'fiction,' in the sense that its matter is invented solely for literary purposes. The stories of the Bible are part of the sacred history, differing only in the mode in which the matter is presented; and a long series of these stories is scattered through the historical books, with nothing to distinguish them, in the ordinary versions, from the historic context. In the volumes of this series the distinction is made by titles; the reader can thus, without difficulty, bring to each of these varieties of literature the kind of attention it requires; it is further possible, and highly desirable, for him to make a separate study of Scriptural Story. History it is not easy to illustrate by selections; but the stories of the sacred books are represented in the present volume by typical specimens. One book that has a place in the historic sequence of the Bible introduces us in reality to a different class of literature--Oratory. Deuteronomy is made up of the Orations (and Songs) of Moses, constituting his Farewell to the People of Israel. It is oratory in the fullest sense of the term, representing the words as they may be supposed to come direct from the speaker. For the most part however the sacred literature of oratory is of a different kind; not exact reports of spoken words, but the substance, it may be, of several similar speeches worked up afresh into a form of written discourse. In this wider sense, the oratorical literature of the Bible is of considerable extent; it includes the prophetic discourses, and reflects the fervid contests over first principles of righteousness which constituted the main life of Israel. The principal varieties of Biblical oratory are illustrated in this volume. Philosophy has an important place in Scripture. The word however is not there used to describe a division of literature, but the sacred philosophy is called 'wisdom,'--a term suggestive of its close application to matters of human life and duty. This Wisdom literature started from the 'proverbs'--simple thoughts conveyed in a couplet or triplet of verse, which were collected together by King Solomon and other of the wise men of Israel. From these proverbs the form of wisdom enlarged to verse epigrams and sonnets, or prose maxims and essays, until we find books of wisdom comprehending complete systems of thought. To catch the development of this Wisdom literature, it is necessary to take in two books of 'The Apocrypha'; a portion of sacred Scripture which in the last century used to be bound up with Bibles, standing in its historical position between the Old and New Testaments, though now it is usually separated. In theology, which is concerned with questions of authority, the distinction between the Bible and the Apocrypha is fundamental: the one is accepted as authoritative in matters of faith, whereas the Apocryphal books are merely recommended for devout reading. But in literary study the distinction disappears; and two books of the Apocrypha are of the highest literary importance,--Ecclesiasticus and The Wisdom of Solomon. The Wisdom series of the Modern Reader's Bible arranges the representative books of Biblical philosophy in the order of its logical development. The Proverbs is a Miscellany of Sayings and Poems, embodying isolated observations of life. Ecclesiasticus is a Miscellany including longer compositions, but still embodying only isolated observations of life. In Ecclesiastes we find a connected series of writings, in which attempt is made to solve the mystery of the universe: but the attempt breaks down in despair. The Wisdom of Solomon renews the attempt in the light of an immortal life beyond the grave, and despair yields to serenity of spirit. The four books thus reflect a philosophical advance. In The Book of Job--one of the world's literary marvels--men's varying attitudes towards the mystery of life are represented in various speakers, and drawn together into a unity by the movement of a dramatic plot. Such is the wisdom of the sacred Scriptures viewed as a whole; in the present volume it is only possible to illustrate the different forms, whether of poetry or of prose, in which Biblical philosophy is conveyed. Biblical Lyrics may be mentioned next. Originally, all poetry was spoken with musical accompaniment; when this primitive literature began to divide up into specialised forms, Lyric was the literary form which retained most of the spirit of music. It includes Songs and Odes, in which the very structure of the poem is determined by the mode of its performance; Psalms and Lamentations; the Traditional Poetry scattered through the historical books; again, considerable portions of prophetic literature are found to take a lyric form. Even in the ordinary versions the Psalms and Lamentations retain something of their poetic structure; the less obvious features of lyric rhythm will be illustrated in the selections admitted into this volume. Of the fundamental divisions of literature there yet remains one--the Drama. The relation of this to the Bible is interesting. It is impossible to read the scriptures of the Old Testament without feeling that the genius of the Hebrew people is strongly dramatic. Yet the natural instrument for the expression of dramatic creations--the theatre--is not a Hebrew institution. Accordingly the dramatic instinct, denied its readiest outlet, is found to leaven all other literary forms. We have already noticed dramatic wisdom in Job. Dramatic lyrics are found, not only in some of the psalms, but on a larger scale in the love songs of Solomon.[1] But there is a more important type of dramatic literature in the sacred Scriptures. The prophets of Israel were not only statesmen and preachers, they were also poets, and from them has come down to us a form of spiritual drama to which may be given the name 'Rhapsody.' [Footnote 1: This Lyric Idyl of 'Solomon's Song,' together with some narrated stories of the same idyllic spirit, are united in a single volume of this series under the name of Biblical Idyls.] These spiritual dramas of the prophets are occupied with that fundamental topic of Hebrew thought which is expressed by the word 'judgment': the eternal contest between good and evil, and the Divine overthrow of wrong. They are dramas which no actual theatre could ever express, for their action covers all space and all time. Their personages include not only the prophet and the nation of Israel, but also God himself and the celestial hosts. The working of events towards the judgment is brought out before us with the general impression of dramatic movement; but the means by which this movement is realised go beyond the machinery of drama: not only dialogue and monologue, but song and even discourse are made to bear their part in the total effect. The grand example of rhapsody which covers the latter part of our Book of Isaiah can be represented in the present volume only by its prelude and one of its seven acts or 'visions.' But some of the shorter, and hardly less splendid, rhapsodies are given in full; and the selections further illustrate how a prophecy may set out as a simple discourse, and suddenly rise to the level of rhapsodic presentation. I believe few people realise what an immense addition has been made to the literary patrimony of the English reader by the Revised Version of the Bible, and such other presentations of the sacred Scriptures as this Revised Version has made possible. The language of Biblical writers, and the sentences of which their writings are made up, have long been familiar through the earlier versions; the Revisers, by the attention they have given to connectedness of thought, have carried forward translated language into translated literature. It is thus open to a person of average culture to add to his other mental possessions the whole expression of itself which a great people has made in poetry and prose throughout all the periods of its development. With the exception of humorous writing, which is foreign to the genius of the ancient Hebrews, the whole range of literary production is here illustrated; and varieties of literary form are presented to which classic Greek or modern European writers furnish no parallel. It is a literature numbering among its authors some who--by critics entirely outside the ranks of theologians--have been classed with the greatest names in the world's roll of honour. More than this, the English reader who gives attention to the literary side of the Bible is studying what is to him ancestral literature. The Hebrew writers of the Old Testament, and their followers the Christian Hebrews of the New Testament, have been the inspiration of those who have inspired our own writers: their style has largely leavened the style of modern English, their thought has become so closely interwoven with English thought of the last three centuries that it is impossible to sever the two. And, if the question be of what is higher than literary impressions, no reader need fear that the more sacred uses of the Bible will be imperilled by his reading, not with the spirit only, but with the understanding also. * * * In this, as in the other volumes of this series, the text of the Selections is that of the Revised Version, the marginal alternatives being often substituted for the readings in the text. For the use of this Revised Version I express my obligation to the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge. A Reference Table at the end connects the Selections with the volumes of the Modern Reader's Bible from which they are taken, and with the chapters and verses of the ordinary versions. CONTENTS STORIES I Joseph and his Brethren 5 II The Witness of Balaam to Israel 32 III The Crowning of Abimelech 43 IV Samson's Wedding Feast 49 V The Expedition against Elisha 53 VI The Dream of the Tree cut down 55 VII Belshazzar's Feast 60 ORATORY I The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the Curse 67 II A Discourse on Immortality and the Covenant with Death 75 III Isaiah: The Great Arraignment 84 IV Isaiah: The Covenant with Death 87 V Isaiah: The Utter Destruction and the Great Restoration 90 VI Ezekiel: The Sword of the LORD 93 VII Ezekiel: Wreck of the Goodly Ship Tyre 98 VIII Prophetic Sentences (from Jeremiah) 101 WISDOM Wisdom Brevities 107 Essays i Wisdom's Way with her Children 112 ii Prosperity and Adversity are from the Lord 113 iii Against Gossip 114 iv On the Tongue 115 v Choice of Company 116 vi The Wisdom of Business and the Wisdom of Leisure 120 vii Life as a Joy shadowed by the Judgment (with a Sonnet: The Coming of the Evil Days) 123 Sonnets i The Sluggard 125 ii The Mourning for the Fool 126 iii The Two Paths 126 iv The Creator has made Wisdom the Supreme Prize 127 v Watchfulness of Lips and Heart 129 vi Wisdom and the Fear of the Lord 130 vii Wisdom and the Strange Woman 132 LYRICS I An Elegy of a Broken Heart 141 II The Creator's Joy in his Creation 143 III Song of Moses and Miriam 149 IV Deborah's Song 152 V David's Lament 158 VI David's Song of Victory 160 VII The Bride's Reminiscences: a Lyric Idyl 165 VIII Jeremiah: The Battle of Carchemish 168 IX A Song of Zion Redeemed (from the Isaiahan Rhapsody) 170 X Isaiah: Doom of Babylon 175 XI Nahum: Doom of Nineveh 182 RHAPSODY I Jeremiah: Rhapsody of the Drought 193 II Habakkuk: Rhapsody of the Chaldeans 200 III Joel: Rhapsody of the Locust Plague 209 IV Jeremiah: The Hurt of the Daughter of my People (A Rhapsodic Discourse) 222 V Micah: The LORD'S Controversy before the Mountains (A Dramatic Morceau) 226 VI Prelude to the Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed 228 VII Zion Awakened (Vision III of the Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed) 231 MASTERPIECES OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE STORIES I JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and he was a lad with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought the evil report of them unto their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren; and they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father kept the saying in mind. And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go now, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flock; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in a field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they are feeding the flock. And the man said, They are departed hence: for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And they saw him afar off, and before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, An evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand; and said, Let us not take his life. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him: that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colours that was on him; and they took him, and cast him into the pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a travelling company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened unto him. And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a he-goat, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or not. And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces. And Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down to the grave to my son mourning. And his father wept for him. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard. And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither. And the LORD was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he ministered unto him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. And it came to pass from the time that he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had, in the house and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not aught that was with him, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was comely and well favoured. And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master knoweth not what is with me in the house, and he hath put all that he hath into my hand; there is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. And it came to pass about this time, that he went into the house to do his work; and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, that she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice: and it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled, and got him out. And she laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. And she spake unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me: and it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled out. And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison. But the LORD was with Joseph, and shewed kindness unto him, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand, because the LORD was with him; and that which he did, the LORD made it to prosper. And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against his two officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he ministered unto them: and they continued a season in ward. And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and saw them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in ward in his master's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly today? And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell it me, I pray you. And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me; and in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and its blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes: and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thine office: and thou shalt give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. But have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house: for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white bread were on my head: and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: the three baskets are three days; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand: but he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him. And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well favoured and fatfleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven ears, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. And the thin ears swallowed up the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day: Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, me and the chief baker: and we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And there was with us there a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that when thou hearest a dream thou canst interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the brink of the river: and, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in the reed-grass: and, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: and the lean and ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke. And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up upon one stalk, full and good: and, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: and the thin ears swallowed up the seven good ears: and I told it unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me. And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: what God is about to do he hath declared unto Pharaoh. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven lean and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind; they shall be seven years of famine, That is the thing which I spake unto Pharaoh: what God is about to do he hath shewed unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: and there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine which followeth; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he set him over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph laid up corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the first born 'Manasseh': For, said he, God hath 'made me forget' all my toil, and all my father's house. And the name of the second called he 'Ephraim': For God hath made me 'fruitful' in the land of my affliction. And the seven years of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came to an end. And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said: and there was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because the famine was sore in all the earth. Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn from Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly with them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said, We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies: hereby ye shall be proved: by the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be bound, that your words may be proved, whether there be truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God: if ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison house; but go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses: and bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore also, behold, his blood is required. And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them. And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and he returned to them, and spake to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill their vessels with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus was it done unto them. And they laded their asses with their corn, and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place, he espied his money; and, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they turned trembling one to another, saying, What is this that God hath done unto us? And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen them: saying, The man, the lord of the land, spake roughly with us, and took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies: we be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the land, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren with me, and take corn for the famine of your houses, and go your way: and bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffick in the land. And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack: and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. And the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food. And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food: but if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down: for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? And they said, The man asked straitly concerning ourselves, and concerning our kindred, saying, Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother? and we told him according to the tenor of these words: could we in any wise know that he would say, Bring your brother down? And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever: for except we had lingered, surely we had now returned a second time. And their father Israel said unto them, If it be so now, do this; take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and myrrh, nuts, and almonds: and take double money in your hand; and the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight: take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man: and God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release unto you your other brother and Benjamin. And if I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, Bring the men into the house, and slay, and make ready; for the men shall dine with me at noon. And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph's house. And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph's house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. And they came near to the steward of Joseph's house, and they spake unto him at the door of the house, and said, Oh my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food: and it came to pass, when we came to the lodging place, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man's money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight: and we have brought it again in our hand. And other money have we brought down in our hand to buy food: we know not who put our money in our sacks. And he said, Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. And the man brought the men into Joseph's house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon: for they heard that they should eat bread there. And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed down themselves to him to the earth. And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive? And they said, Thy servant our father is well, he is yet alive. And they bowed the head, and made obeisance. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother's son, and said, Is this your youngest brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son. And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. And he washed his face, and came out; and he refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one with another. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank and were merry with him. And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, and his corn money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth? ye have done evil in so doing. And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these words. And they said unto him, Wherefore speaketh my lord such words as these? God forbid that thy servants should do such a thing. Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lord's house silver or gold? With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, let him die, and we also will be my lord's bondmen. And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words: he with whom it is found shall be my bondman; and ye shall be blameless. Then they hasted, and took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house; and he was yet there: and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that ye have done? know ye not that such a man as I can indeed divine? And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord's bondmen, both we, and he also in whose hand the cup is found. And he said, God forbid that I should do so: the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my bondman; but as for you, get you up in peace unto your father. Then Judah came near unto him, and said, Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant: for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, buy us a little food. And we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down: for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since: and if ye take this one also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life; it shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years in the which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: and there will I nourish thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. And the sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses, laden with corn and bread and victual for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: and Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die. And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him: his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt. And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to shew the way before him unto Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen; and he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet alive. And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up, and tell Pharaoh, and will say unto him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me; and the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? that ye shall say, Thy servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And from among his brethren he took five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers. And they said unto Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we come; for there is no pasture for thy servants' flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan: now, therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell: in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any able men among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How many are the days of the years of thy life? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to their families. II THE WITNESS OF BALAAM TO ISRAEL And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this multitude lick up all that is round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time. And he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the River, to the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me: come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak. And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the LORD shall speak unto me: and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam. And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee? And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying, Behold, the people that is come out of Egypt, it covereth the face of the earth: now, come curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to fight against them, and shall drive them out. And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us. And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they. And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak, the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me: for I will promote thee unto very great honour, and whatsoever thou sayest unto me I will do: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more. Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the LORD will speak unto me more. And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men be come to call thee, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak unto thee, that shalt thou do. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD placed himself in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him. And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way. Then the angel of the LORD stood in a hollow way between the vineyards, a fence being on this side, and a fence on that side. And the ass saw the angel of the LORD, and she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall: and he smote her again. And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And the ass saw the angel of the LORD, and she lay down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with his staff. And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now I had killed thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden all thy life long unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay. Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed his head, and fell on his face. And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I am come forth for an adversary, because thy way is perverse before me: and the ass saw me, and turned aside before me these three times: unless she had turned aside from me, surely now I had even slain thee, and saved her alive. And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again. And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak. And when Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went out to meet him unto the city of Moab, which is on the border of Arnon, which is in the utmost part of the border. And Balak said unto Balaam, Did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee? wherefore camest thou not unto me? am I not able indeed to promote thee to honour? And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to speak anything? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak. And Balaam went with Balak, and they came unto Kiriath-huzoth. And Balak sacrificed oxen and sheep, and sent to Balaam, and to the princes that were with him. And it came to pass in the morning, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, and he saw from thence the utmost part of the people. And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram. And Balaam said unto Balak, Stand by thy burnt offering, and I will go; peradventure the LORD will come to meet me: and whatsoever he sheweth me I will tell thee. And he went to a bare height. And God met Balaam: and he said unto him, I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bullock and a ram on every altar. And the LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus thou shalt speak. And he returned unto him, and, lo, he stood by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab. And he took up his parable, and said: From Aram hath Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East: Come, curse me Jacob, And come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? And how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him: Lo, it is a people that dwell alone, And shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my last end be like his! And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether. And he answered and said, Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD putteth in my mouth? And Balak said unto him, Come, I pray thee, with me unto another place, from whence thou mayest see them; thou shalt see but the utmost part of them, and shalt not see them all: and curse me them from thence. And he took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bullock and a ram on every altar. And he said unto Balak, Stand here by thy burnt offering, while I meet the LORD yonder. And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak. And he came to him, and, lo, he stood by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said unto him, What hath the LORD spoken? And he took up his parable, and said: Rise up, Balak, and hear; Hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man, that he should lie; Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: And he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. God bringeth them forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of the wild-ox. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, Neither is there any divination against Israel: Now shall it be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! Behold, the people riseth up as a lioness, And as a lion doth he lift himself up: He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, And drink the blood of the slain. And Balak said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, Told not I thee, saying, All that the LORD speaketh, that I must do? And Balak said unto Balaam, Come now, I will take thee unto another place; peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence. And Balak took Balaam unto the top of Peor, that looketh down upon the desert. And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered up a bullock and a ram on every altar. And when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he went not, as at the other times, to meet with enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes; and the spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his parable, and said: Balaam the son of Beor saith, And the man whose eye is opened saith: He saith, which heareth the words of God, Which seeth the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open: How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, Thy tabernacles, O Israel! As valleys are they spread forth, As gardens by the river side, As lign-aloes which the LORD hath planted, As cedar trees beside the waters. Water shall flow from his buckets, And his seed shall be in many waters, And his king shall be higher than Agag, And his kingdom shall be exalted. God bringeth him forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of the wild-ox: He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, And shall break their bones in pieces, And smite them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up? Blessed be every one that blesseth thee, And cursed be every one that curseth thee. And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath kept thee back from honour. And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; what the LORD speaketh, that will I speak? And now, behold, I go unto my people: come, and I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. And he took up his parable, and said: Balaam the son of Beor saith, And the man whose eye is opened saith: He saith, which heareth the words of God, And knoweth the knowledge of the Most High, Which seeth the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open: I see him, but not now: I behold him, but not nigh: There shall come forth a star out of Jacob, And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, And shall smite through the corners of Moab, And break down all the sons of tumult. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession, which were his enemies; While Israel doeth valiantly. And out of Jacob shall one have dominion, And shall destroy the remnant from the city. And he looked on Amalek, and took up his parable, and said: Amalek was the first of the nations; But his latter end shall come to destruction. And he looked on the Kenite, and took up his parable, and said: Strong is thy dwelling place, And thy nest is set in the rock. Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive. And he took up his parable, and said: Alas, who shall live when God doeth this? But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim, And they shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, And he also shall come to destruction. And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way. III THE CROWNING OF ABIMELECH And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives. And his concubine that was in Sechem, she also bare him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god. And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side: neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel. And Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem unto his mother's brethren, and spake with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, which are threescore and ten persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you? remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words: and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, He is our brother. And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light fellows, which followed him. And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. And all the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem. And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? And the trees said unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if ye have dealt truly and uprightly, in that ye have made Abimelech king, and if ye have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands;--for my father fought for you, and adventured his life, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian: and ye are risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, threescore and ten persons, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother;--if ye then have dealt truly and uprightly with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you: but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away, and fled, and went to Beer, and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother. And Abimelech was prince over Israel three years. And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech: that the violence done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them, and upon the men of Shechem, which strengthened his hands to slay his brethren. And the men of Shechem set liers in wait for him on the tops of the mountains, and they robbed all that came along that way by them: and it was told Abimelech. And Gaal the son of Ebed came with his brethren, and went over to Shechem: and the men of Shechem put their trust in him. And they went out into the field, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and held festival, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech. And Gaal the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? is not he the son of Jerubbaal? and Zebul his officer? serve ye the men of Hamor the father of Shechem; but why should we serve him? And would to God this people were under my hand! then would I remove Abimelech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase thine army, and come out. And when Zebul the ruler of the city heard the words of Gaal the son of Ebed, his anger was kindled. And he sent messengers unto Abimelech craftily, saying, Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed and his brethren are come to Shechem; and, behold, they constrain the city to take part against thee. Now therefore, up by night, thou and the people that is with thee, and lie in wait in the field: and it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early, and set upon the city: and, behold, when he and the people that is with him come out against thee, then mayest thou do to them as thou shalt find occasion. And Abimelech rose up, and all the people that were with him, by night, and they laid wait against Shechem in four companies. And Gaal the son of Ebed went out, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and Abimelech rose up, and the people that were with him, from the ambushment. And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the tops of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the mountains as if they were men. And Gaal spake again and said, See, there come people down by the middle of the land, and one company cometh by the way of the oak of Meonenim. Then said Zebul unto him, Where is now thy mouth, that thou saidst, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that thou hast despised? go out now, I pray, and fight with them. And Gaal went out before the men of Shechem, and fought with Abimelech. And Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and there fell many wounded, even unto the entering of the gate. And Abimelech dwelt at Arumah: and Zebul drave out Gaal and his brethren, that they should not dwell in Shechem. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people went out into the field; and they told Abimelech. And he took the people, and divided them into three companies, and laid wait in the field; and he looked, and, behold, the people came forth out of the city; and he rose up against them, and smote them. And Abimelech, and the companies that were with him, rushed forward, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and the two companies rushed upon all that were in the field, and smote them. And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein: and he beat down the city, and sowed it with salt. And when all the men of the tower of Shechem heard thereof, they entered into the hold of the house of Elberith. And it was told Abimelech that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together. And Abimelech gat him up to mount Zalmon, he and all the people that were with him; and Abimelech took an ax in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it up, and laid it on his shoulder: and he said unto the people that were with him, What ye have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done. And all the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women. Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it. But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut themselves in, and gat them up to the roof of the tower. And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, and brake his skull. Then he called hastily unto the young man his armourbearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and kill me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place. Thus God requited the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren: and all the wickedness of the men of Shechem did God requite upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal. IV SAMSON'S WEDDING FEAST And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife. Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well. But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines had rule over Israel. Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. And after a while he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. And he took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went, and he came to his father and mother, and gave unto them, and they did eat: but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion. And his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast: for so used the young men to do. And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. And Samson said unto them, Let me now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment: but if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment. And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it. And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, And out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days declare the riddle. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to impoverish us? is it not so? And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell thee? And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him sore: and she told the riddle to the children of her people. And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down: What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them: If ye had not plowed with my heifer, Ye had not found out my riddle. And the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment unto them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend. But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said unto them, This time shall I be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing corn, and also the oliveyards. Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they said, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he hath taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. And Samson said unto them, If ye do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam. V THE EXPEDITION AGAINST ELISHA Now the king of Syria warred against Israel: and he took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are coming down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of; and he saved himself there, not once nor twice. And the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, Nay, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. And he said, Go and see where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host with horses and chariots was round about the city. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. And he led them to Samaria. And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them, My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them? And he answered, Thou shalt not smite them: wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master. And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. VI THE DREAM OF THE TREE CUT DOWN 'Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all the peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: peace be multiplied unto you. It hath seemed good unto me to shew the signs and wonders that the Most High God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. 'I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace. I saw a dream which made me afraid; and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream. Then came in the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers: and I told the dream before them; but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof. But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods: and I told the dream before him, saying, O Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof. 'Thus were the visions of my head upon my bed: I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the branches thereof, and all flesh was fed of it. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven. He cried aloud, and said thus: "Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches. Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth: let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the lowest of men." This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen: and thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation; but thou art able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. 'Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for a while, and his thoughts troubled him. The king answered and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine adversaries. The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation; it is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth. And whereas the king saw a watcher and an holy one coming down from heaven, and saying, Hew down the tree, and destroy it; nevertheless leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him; this is the interpretation, O king, and it is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king: that thou shalt be driven from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen, and shalt be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee; till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if there may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. 'All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking in the royal palace of Babylon. The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty? While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying: "O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: the kingdom is departed from thee. And thou shalt be driven from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee; until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever; for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time mine understanding returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent greatness was added unto me. 'Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways judgement: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.' VII BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall rule as one of three in the kingdom. Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were perplexed. Now the queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house: the queen spake and said: O king, live for ever; let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: there is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him: and the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made him master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of dark sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. The king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah? I have heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee. And now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not shew the interpretation of the thing. But I have heard of thee, that thou canst give interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt rule as one of three in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said before the king: Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; nevertheless I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty: and because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he raised up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: and he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven: until he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this: but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed[2]: M U P E L H N E A E K R M E S E T I N E N [Footnote 2: Daniel reads down, up, down: instead of across.] This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE God hath NUMBERED thy kingdom: And brought it to an end! TEKEL Thou art WEIGHED in the balances: And art found wanting! PERES Thy kingdom is DIVIDED: And given to the Medes and Persians! Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should rule as one of three in the kingdom. In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old. ORATORY I THE ORATION OF MOSES AT THE REHEARSAL OF THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth: and all these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneadingtrough. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thee: they shall come out against thee one way, and shall flee before thee seven ways. The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy barns, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. The LORD shall establish thee for an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee; if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the LORD shall make thee plenteous for good, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasury the heaven to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them; and shalt not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneadingtrough. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, discomfiture, and rebuke, in all that thou puttest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the evil of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest in to possess it. The LORD shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and shalt flee seven ways before them: and thou shalt be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth. And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to fray them away. The LORD shall smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled alway, and there shall be none to save thee. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not use the fruit thereof. Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shalt be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to save thee. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nought in the power of thine hand. The fruit of thy ground, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway: so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the crown of thy head. The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples whither the LORD shall lead thee away. Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worm shall eat them. Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast its fruit. Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be thine; for they shall go into captivity. All thy trees and the fruit of thy ground shall the locust possess. The stranger that is in the midst of thee shall mount up above thee higher and higher; and thou shalt come down lower and lower. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. And all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee: and they shall be upon thee for a sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things: therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young: and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee corn, wine, or oil, the increase of thy kine, or the young of thy flock, until he have caused thee to perish. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters which the LORD thy God hath given thee; in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall straiten thee. The man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he hath remaining: so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he hath nothing left him; in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall straiten thee in all thy gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter; and toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly: in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall straiten thee in thy gates. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. And he will bring upon thee again all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou didst not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest in to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I said unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall sell yourselves unto your enemies for bondmen and for bondwomen: and no man shall buy you. II A DISCOURSE ON IMMORTALITY AND THE COVENANT WITH DEATH Court not death in the error of your life; Neither draw upon yourselves destruction by the works of your hands. Because God made not death: neither delighteth he when the living perish. For he created all things that they might have being; and the generative powers of the world are healthsome, and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor hath Hades royal dominion upon earth: for righteousness is immortal. But ungodly men by their hands and their words called death unto them; deeming him a friend they consumed away, and they made a covenant with him because they are worthy to be of his portion. For they said within themselves, reasoning not aright: "Short and sorrowful is our life; and there is no healing when a man cometh to his end, and none was ever known that gave release from Hades. Because by mere chance were we born, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and while our heart beateth reason is a spark, which being extinguished, the body shall be turned into ashes, and the spirit shall be dispersed as thin air. And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall remember our works; and our life shall pass away as the traces of a cloud, and shall be scattered as is a mist, when it is chased by the beams of the sun, and overcome by the heat thereof. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and our end retreateth not; because it is fast sealed, and none turneth it back. Come therefore and let us enjoy the good things that now are; and let us use the creation with all our soul as youth's possession. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by; let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered; let none of us go without his share in our proud revelry; everywhere let us leave tokens of our mirth: because this is our portion, and our lot is this. Let us oppress the righteous poor: let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the hairs of the old man gray for length of years, but let our strength be to us a law of righteousness; for that which is weak is found to be of no service. But let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is of disservice to us, and is contrary to our works, and upbraideth us with sins against the law, and layeth to our charge sins against our discipline. He professeth to have knowledge of God, and nameth himself servant of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold, because his life is unlike other men's, and his paths are of strange fashion. We were accounted of him as base metal, and he abstaineth from our ways as from uncleannesses. The latter end of the righteous he calleth happy; and he vaunteth that God is his father. Let us see if his words be true, and let us try what shall befall in the ending of his life: for if the righteous man is God's son, he will uphold him, and he will deliver him out of the hand of his adversaries. With outrage and torture let us put him to the test, that we may learn his gentleness, and may prove his patience under wrong. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for he shall be visited according to his words." Thus reasoned they, and they were led astray. For their wickedness blinded them; and they knew not the mysteries of God, neither hoped they for wages of holiness, nor did they judge that there is a prize for blameless souls. Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own proper being; but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they that are of his portion make trial thereof. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died; and their departure was accounted to be their hurt, and their journeying away from us to be their ruin: but they are in peace. For even if in the sight of men they be punished, their hope is full of immortality; and having borne a little chastening, they shall receive great good. Because God made trial of them, and found them worthy of himself; as gold in the furnace he proved them, and as a whole burnt offering he accepted them. And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth, and as sparks among stubble they shall run to and fro. They shall judge nations, and have dominion over peoples; and the Lord shall reign over them for evermore. They that trust on him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love: because grace and mercy are to his chosen. But the ungodly shall be requited even as they reasoned, they which lightly regarded the righteous man, and revolted from the Lord: for he that setteth at nought wisdom and discipline is miserable. And void is their hope and their toils unprofitable, and useless are their works. Their wives are foolish, and wicked are their children; accursed is their begetting.[3] For good labours have fruit of great renown; and the root of understanding cannot fail. But children of adulterers shall not come to maturity, and the seed of an unlawful bed shall vanish away. For if they live long they shall be held in no account, and at the last their old age shall be without honour; and if they die quickly they shall have no hope, nor in the day of decision shall they have consolation. For the end of an unrighteous generation is alway grievous. Better than this is childlessness with virtue. For in the memory of virtue is immortality, because it is recognised both before God and before men; when it is present men imitate it, and they long after it when it is departed; and throughout all time it marcheth crowned in triumph, victorious in the strife for the prizes that are undefiled. But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall be of no profit, and with bastard slips they shall not strike deep root, nor shall they establish a sure hold. For even if these put forth boughs and flourish for a season, yet, standing unsure, they shall be shaken by the wind, and by the violence of winds they shall be rooted out. Their branches shall be broken off before they come to maturity; and their fruit shall be useless, never ripe to eat, and fit for nothing. For children unlawfully begotten are witnesses of wickedness against parents when God searcheth them out. [Footnote 3: Because happy is the barren that is indefiled, she who hath not conceived in transgression; she shall have fruit when God visiteth souls. And happy is the eunuch which hath wrought no lawless deed with his hands, nor imagined wicked things against the Lord; for there shall be given him for his faithfulness a peculiar favour, and a lot in the sanctuary of the Lord more delightsome than wife or children.] But a righteous man, though he die before his time, shall be at rest. For honourable old age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor is its measure given by number of years: but understanding is gray hairs unto men, and an unspotted life is ripe old age. Being found well pleasing unto God he was beloved of him, and while living among sinners he was translated. He was caught away lest wickedness should change his understanding, or guile deceive his soul; for the bewitching of naughtiness bedimmeth the things which are good, and the giddy whirl of desire perverteth an innocent mind. Being made perfect in a little while he fulfilled long years: for his soul was pleasing unto the Lord; therefore hasted he out of the midst of wickedness. But as for the peoples, seeing and understanding not, neither laying this to heart, that grace and mercy are with his chosen, and that he visiteth his holy ones:[4] they shall see, and they shall despise; but them the Lord shall laugh to scorn. And after this they shall become a dishonoured carcase, and a reproach among the dead for ever. Because he shall dash them speechless to the ground, and shall shake them from the foundations, and they shall lie utterly waste, and they shall be in anguish, and their memory shall perish. They shall come, when their sins are reckoned up, with coward fear; and their lawless deeds shall convict them to their face. Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of them that afflicted him, and them that make his labours of no account. When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the marvel of God's salvation. [Footnote 4: But a righteous man that is dead shall condemn the ungodly that are living, and youth that is quickly perfected the many years of an unrighteous man's old age; for the ungodly shall see a wise man's end, and shall not understand what the Lord purposed concerning him, and for what he safely kept him.] They shall say within themselves, repenting, and for distress of spirit shall they groan: "This was he whom aforetime we had in derision, and made a parable of reproach; we fools accounted his life madness and his end without honour. How was he numbered among sons of God? and how is his lot among saints? Verily we went astray from the way of truth; and the light of righteousness shined not for us, and the sun rose not for us. We took our fill of the paths of lawlessness and destruction, and we journeyed through trackless deserts; but the way of the Lord we knew not. What did our arrogancy profit us? and what good have riches and vaunting brought us? Those things all passed away as a shadow, and as a message that runneth by; as a ship passing through the billowy water, whereof, when it is gone by, there is no trace to be found, neither pathway of its keel in the billows; or as when a bird flieth through the air, no token of her passage is found, but the lightwind, lashed with the stroke of her pinions, and rent asunder with the violent rush of the moving wings, is passed through, and afterwards no sign of her coming is found therein; or as when an arrow is shot at a mark, the air disparted closeth up again immediately, so that men know not where it passed through: so we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be; and of virtue we had no sign to shew, but in our wickedness we were utterly consumed." Because the hope of the ungodly man is as chaff carried by the wind, and as foam vanishing before a tempest; and is scattered as smoke is scattered by the wind; and passeth by as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day. But the righteous live for ever, and in the Lord is their reward, and the care for them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive the crown of royal dignity and the diadem of beauty from the Lord's hand; because with his right hand shall he cover them, and with his arm shall he shield them. He shall take his jealousy as complete armour, and shall make the whole creation his weapons for vengeance on his enemies; he shall put on righteousness as a breastplate, and shall array himself with judgement unfeigned as with a helmet: he shall take holiness as an invincible shield, and he shall sharpen stern wrath for a sword. And the world shall go forth with him to fight against his insensate foes. Shafts of lightning shall fly with true aim, and from the clouds, as from a well-drawn bow, shall they leap to the mark; and as from an engine of war shall be hurled hailstones full of wrath; the water of the sea shall be angered against them, and rivers shall sternly overwhelm them; a mighty blast shall encounter them, and as a tempest shall it winnow them away. And so shall lawlessness make all the land desolate, and their evil-doing shall overturn the thrones of princes. Hear therefore, ye kings, and understand; learn, ye judges of the ends of the earth; give ear, ye that have dominion over much people, and make your boast in multitudes of nations. Because your dominion was given you from the Lord, and your sovereignty from the Most High, who shall search out your works, and shall make inquisition of your counsels; because being officers of his kingdom ye did not judge aright, neither kept ye law, nor walked after the counsel of God. Awfully and swiftly shall he come upon you, because a stern judgement befalleth them that be in high place: for the man of low estate may be pardoned in mercy, but mighty men shall be searched out mightily. For the Sovereign Lord of all will not refrain himself for any man's person, neither will he reverence greatness, because it is he that made both small and great. And alike he taketh thought for all; but strict is the scrutiny that cometh upon the powerful. Unto you, therefore, O princes, are my words, that ye may learn wisdom and fall not from the right way. For they that have kept holily the things that are holy shall themselves be hallowed; and they that have been taught them shall find what to answer. Set your desire therefore on my words; long for them, and ye shall be trained by their discipline. III ISAIAH'S DISCOURSE THE GREAT ARRAIGNMENT Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly: they have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged and gone backward. Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and festering sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil. Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies,--I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil: learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. How is the faithful city become an harlot! she that was full of judgement! righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: and I will turn my hand upon thee, and throughly purge away thy dross, and will take away all thy alloy: and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgement, and her converts with righteousness. But the destruction of the transgressors and the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. And the strong shall be as tow, and his work as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them. IV ISAIAH'S DISCOURSE THE COVENANT WITH DEATH Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest of mighty waters overflowing, shall he cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under foot: and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as the firstripe fig before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people: and for a spirit of judgement to him that sitteth in judgement, and for strength to them that turn back the battle at the gate. But these also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are gone astray; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgement. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.--'Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little.'--Nay, but by men of strange lips and with another tongue will he speak to this people: to whom he said, This is the rest, give ye rest to him that is weary; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. Therefore shall the word of the LORD be unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem: Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: therefore thus saith the LORD God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone of sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. And I will make judgement the line, and righteousness the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. As often as it passeth through, it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night: and it shall be nought but terror to understand the message. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not scorners, lest your bands be made strong: for a consummation, and that determined, have I heard from the Lord, the LORD of hosts, upon the whole earth. Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow continually to sow? doth he continually open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and put in the wheat in rows and the barley in the appointed place and the spelt in the border thereof? For his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Is bread corn crushed? Nay, he will not ever be threshing it, and driving his cart wheels and his horses over it; he doth not crush it. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom. V ISAIAH'S DISCOURSE THE UTTER DESTRUCTION AND THE GREAT RESTORATION 1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye peoples: let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the LORD hath indignation against all the nations, and fury against all their host: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stink of their carcases shall come up, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fade away, as the leaf fadeth from off the vine, and as a fading leaf from the fig tree. For my sword hath drunk its fill in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people of my curse, to judgement. The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And the wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, the year of recompence in the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest. There shall the arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate. Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: No one of these shall be missing, None shall want her mate: For my mouth it hath commanded, And his spirit it hath gathered them. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein. 2 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon: they shall see the glory of the LORD, the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, And confirm the feeble knees; Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompence of God he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the glowing sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water: in the habitation of jackals, where they lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, they shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. VI EZEKIEL'S DISCOURSE THE SWORD OF THE LORD 1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel; and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my SWORD out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more. Sigh therefore, thou son of man; with the breaking of thy loins and with bitterness shalt thou sigh before their eyes. And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord GOD. 2 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD: Say, A sword, A sword, It is sharpened, And also furbished: It is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; It is furbished that it may be as lightning! 'Shall we then make mirth? The Rod of my son, it contemneth every tree.' And it is given to be furbished That it may be handled: The sword, it is sharpened, yea it is furbished, To give it into the hand of the slayer. Cry and howl, son of man: for it is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel: they are delivered over to the sword with my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. For there is a trial; and what if even the Rod that contemneth shall be no more? saith the Lord GOD. Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together. And let the sword be doubled the third time; The sword of the deadly wounded: It is the sword of the great one that is deadly wounded Which compasseth them about. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, That their heart may melt, And their stumblings be multiplied: Ah! it is made as lightning! It is pointed for slaughter-- Gather thee together, go to the right; Set thyself in array, go to the left-- Whithersoever thy face is set. I will also smite mine hands together, and I will satisfy my fury: I the LORD have spoken it. 3 The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they twain shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city. Thou shall appoint a way, for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver. In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounts, to build forts. And it shall be unto them as a vain divination in their sight, which have sworn oaths unto them: but he bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand. And thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end; thus saith the Lord GOD: Remove the mitre, and take off the crown: this shall be no more the same: exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. 4 And thou, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say thou: 'A sword, a sword is drawn, For the slaughter it is furbished: To cause it to devour, That it may be as lightning:' whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine lies unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are deadly wounded, whose day is come, in the time of the punishment of the end. (Cause it to return into its sheath.) In the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy birth, will I judge thee. And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath: and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it. VII EZEKIEL'S DISCOURSE WRECK OF THE GOODLY SHIP TYRE The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre; and say unto Tyre, O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the merchant of the peoples unto many isles: thus saith the Lord GOD: Thou, O Tyre, hast said, I am perfect in beauty. Thy borders are in the heart of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy planks of fir trees from Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make a mast for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood, from the isles of Kittim. Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail, that it might be to thee for an ensign; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was thine awning. The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy rowers: thy wise men, O Tyre, were in thee, they were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. Persia and Lud and Put were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness. The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadim were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have perfected thy beauty. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy traffickers: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass for thy merchandise. They of the house of Togarmah traded for thy wares with horses and war-horses and mules. The men of Dedan were thy traffickers: many isles were the mart of thine hand: they brought thee in exchange horns of ivory and ebony. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of thy handyworks: they traded for thy wares with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and rubies. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy traffickers: they traded for thy merchandise wheat of Minnith, and pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus was thy merchant for the multitude of thy handyworks, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Vedan and Javan traded with yarn for thy wares: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were among thy merchandise. Dedan was thy trafficker in precious cloths for riding. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of thy hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these were they thy merchants. The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy traffickers: they traded for thy wares with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba, Asshur and Chilmad, were thy traffickers. These were thy traffickers in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar, among thy merchandise. The ships of Tarshish were thy caravans for thy merchandise: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas. Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the seas. Thy riches, and thy wares, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, with all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of thy ruin. At the sound of the cry of thy pilots the suburbs shall shake. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land, and shall cause their voice to be heard over thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: and they shall make themselves bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, 'Who is there like Tyre, like her that is brought to silence in the midst of the sea?' When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many peoples; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. In the time that thou wast broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company did fall in the midst of thee. All the inhabitants of the isles are astonished at thee, and their kings are horribly afraid, they are troubled in their countenance. The merchants among the peoples hiss at thee; thou art become a terror, and thou shalt never be any more. VIII PROPHETIC SENTENCES Thus saith the LORD: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. * * * There is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Who would not fear thee, O King of the nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like unto thee, but they are together brutish and foolish. * * * Thus saith the LORD: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out his roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. * * * The New Covenant Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. WISDOM WISDOM BREVITIES The liberal soul shall be made fat: And he that watereth shall be watered also himself. * * * Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: But much increase is by the strength of the ox. * * * He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. * * * It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth. * * * The words of a whisperer are as dainty morsels, And they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. * * * Boast not thyself of tomorrow; For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. * * * As vinegar to the teeth, And as smoke to the eyes, So is the sluggard to them that send him. * * * All the brethren of the poor do hate him: How much more do his friends go far from him! He pursueth them with words, but they are gone. * * * The getting of treasures by a lying tongue Is a vapour driven to and fro; They that seek them seek death. * * * As one that taketh off a garment in cold weather, And as vinegar upon nitre, So is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart. * * * Wrath is cruel, And anger is outrageous: But who is able to stand before jealousy? * * * The fining pot is for silver, And the furnace for gold: And a man is tried by his praise. * * * Transitoriness of Riches An Epigram Weary not thyself to be rich; Cease from thine own wisdom; Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that flieth toward heaven. * * * Hospitality of the Evil Eye An Epigram Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, Neither desire thou his dainties; For as one that reckoneth within himself, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, And lose thy sweet words. * * * A Maxim My son, if thou comest to serve the Lord, Prepare thy soul for temptation. Set thy heart aright, and constantly endure, and make not haste in time of calamity. Cleave unto him, and depart not, that thou mayest be increased at thy latter end. Accept whatsoever is brought upon thee, and be longsuffering when thou passest into humiliation. For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Put thy trust in him, and he will help thee: order thy ways aright, and set thy hope on him. * * * Three Temperance Maxims Go not after thy lusts; And refrain thyself from thine appetites. If thou give fully to thy soul the delight of her desire, she will make thee the laughingstock of thine enemies. Make not merry in much luxury; Neither be tied to the expense thereof. Be not made a beggar by banqueting upon borrowing, when thou hast nothing in thy purse. A workman that is a drunkard shall not become rich. He that despiseth small things Shall fall by little and little. Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away: and he that cleaveth to harlots will be the more reckless. Moths and worms shall have him to heritage; and a reckless soul shall be taken away. ESSAYS i Wisdom's Way with her Children Wisdom exalteth her sons, and taketh hold of them that seek her. He that loveth her loveth life; and they that seek to her early shall be filled with gladness. He that holdeth her fast shall inherit glory; and where he entereth, the Lord will bless. They that do her service shall minister to the Holy One; and them that love her the Lord doth love. He that giveth ear unto her shall judge the nations; and he that giveth heed unto her shall dwell securely. If he trust her, he shall inherit her; and his generations shall have her in possession. For at the first she will walk with him in crooked ways, and will bring fear and dread upon him, and torment him with her discipline, until she may trust his soul, and try him by her judgements: then will she return again the straight way unto him, and will gladden him, and reveal to him her secrets. If he go astray, she will forsake him, and give him over to his fall. ii Prosperity and Adversity are from the Lord There is one that toileth, and laboureth, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind. There is one that is sluggish, and hath need of help, lacking in strength, and that aboundeth in poverty; and the eyes of the Lord looked upon him for good, and he set him up from his low estate, and lifted up his head; and many marvelled at him. Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from the Lord. The gift of the Lord remaineth with the godly, and his good pleasure shall prosper for ever. There is that waxeth rich by his wariness and pinching, and this is the portion of his reward: when he saith, I have found rest, and now will I eat of my goods--yet he knoweth not what time shall pass, and he shall leave them to others, and die. Be stedfast in thy covenant, and be conversant therein, and wax old in thy work. Marvel not at the works of a sinner, but trust the Lord, and abide in thy labour; for it is an easy thing in the sight of the Lord swiftly on the sudden to make a poor man rich. The blessing of the Lord is in the reward of the godly; and in an hour that cometh swiftly he maketh his blessing to flourish. Say not, What use is there of me? And what from henceforth shall my good things be? Say not, I have sufficient, and from henceforth what harm shall happen unto me? In the day of good things there is a forgetfulness of evil things; and in the day of evil things a man will not remember things that are good. For it is an easy thing in the sight of the Lord to reward a man in the day of death according to his ways. The affliction of an hour causeth forgetfulness of delight; and in the last end of a man is the revelation of his deeds. Call no man blessed before his death; and a man shall be known in his children. iii Against Gossip He that is hasty to trust is lightminded; and he that sinneth shall offend against his own soul. He that maketh merry in his heart shall be condemned: and he that hateth talk hath the less wickedness. Never repeat what is told thee, and thou shalt fare never the worse. Whether it be of friend or foe, tell it not; and unless it is a sin to thee, reveal it not: for he hath heard thee, and observed thee, and when the time cometh he will hate thee. Hast thou heard a word? let it die with thee: be of good courage, it will not burst thee. A fool will travail in pain with a word, as a woman in labour with a child. As an arrow that sticketh in the flesh of the thigh, so is a word in a fool's belly. Reprove a friend: it may be he did it not, and if he did something, that he may do it no more. Reprove thy neighbour: it may be he said it not, and if he hath said it, that he may not say it again. Reprove a friend, for many times there is slander; and trust not every word. There is one that slippeth, and not from the heart; and who is he that hath not sinned with his tongue? Reprove thy neighbour before thou threaten him; and give place to the law of the Most High. iv On the Tongue If thou blow a spark, it shall burn; and if thou spit upon it, it shall be quenched: and both these shall come out of thy mouth. Curse the whisperer and double-tongued: for he hath destroyed many that were at peace. A third person's tongue hath shaken many, and dispersed them from nation to nation; and it hath pulled down strong cities, and overthrown the houses of great men. A third person's tongue hath cast out brave women, and deprived them of their labours. He that hearkeneth unto it shall not find rest, nor shall he dwell quietly. The stroke of a whip maketh a mark in the flesh; but the stroke of a tongue will break bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword; yet not so many as they that have fallen because of the tongue. Happy is he that is sheltered from it, that hath not passed through the wrath thereof; that hath not drawn its yoke, and hath not been bound with its bands. For the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brass. The death thereof is an evil death; and Hades were better than it. It shall not have rule over godly men; and they shall not be burned in its flame. They that forsake the Lord shall fall into it; and it shall burn among them, and shall not be quenched: it shall be sent forth upon them as a lion, and as a leopard it shall destroy them. Look that thou hedge thy possession about with thorns; bind up thy silver and thy gold; and make a balance and a weight for thy words; and make a door and a bar for thy mouth. Take heed lest thou slip therein; lest thou fall before one that lieth in wait. v Choice of Company Bring not every man into thine house; for many are the plots of the deceitful man. As a decoy partridge in a cage, so is the heart of a proud man; and as one that is a spy, he looketh upon thy falling. For he lieth in wait to turn things that are good into evil; and in things that are praiseworthy he will lay blame. From a spark of fire a heap of many coals is kindled; and a sinful man lieth in wait for blood. Take heed of an evil-doer, for he contriveth wicked things; lest haply he bring upon thee blame for ever. Receive a stranger into thine house, and he will distract thee with brawls, and estrange thee from thine own. If thou do good, know to whom thou doest it; and thy good deeds shall have thanks. Do good to a godly man, and thou shalt find a recompense; and if not from him, yet from the Most High. There shall no good come to him that continueth to do evil, nor to him that giveth no alms. Give to the godly man and help not the sinner. Do good to one that is lowly, and give not to an ungodly man; keep back his bread, and give it not to him, lest he overmaster thee thereby; for thou shalt receive twice as much evil for all the good thou shalt have done unto him. For the Most High also hateth sinners, and will repay vengeance unto the ungodly. Give to the good man, and help not the sinner. A man's friend will not be fully tried in prosperity; and his enemy will not be hidden in adversity. In a man's prosperity his enemies are grieved; and in his adversity even his friend will be separated from him. Never trust thine enemy, for like as the brass rusteth, so is his wickedness: though he humble himself, and go crouching, yet take good heed, and beware of him, and thou shalt be unto him as one that hath wiped a mirror, and thou shalt know that he hath not utterly rusted it. Set him not by thee, lest he overthrow thee and stand in thy place; let him not sit on thy right hand, lest he seek to take thy seat, and at the last thou acknowledge my words, and be pricked with my sayings. Who will pity a charmer that is bitten with a serpent? or any that come nigh wild beasts? Even so who will pity him that goeth to a sinner, and is mingled with him in his sins? For a while he will abide with thee, and if thou give way, he will not hold out. And the enemy will speak sweetly with his lips, and in his heart take counsel how to overthrow thee into a pit; the enemy will weep with his eyes, and if he find opportunity, he will not be satiated with blood. If adversity meet thee, thou shalt find him there before thee; and as though he would help thee, he will trip up thy heel. He will shake his head, and clap his hands, and whisper much, and change his countenance. He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled; and he that hath fellowship with a proud man shall become like unto him. Take not up a burden above thy strength; and have no fellowship with one that is mightier and richer than thyself. What fellowship shall the earthen pot have with the kettle? this shall smite, and that shall be dashed in pieces. The rich man doeth a wrong, and he threateneth withal: the poor is wronged, and he shall entreat withal. If thou be profitable, he will make merchandise of thee; and if thou be in want, he will forsake thee. If thou have substance, he will live with thee; and he will make thee bare, and will not be sorry. Hath he had need of thee? then he will deceive thee, and smile upon thee, and give thee hope: he will speak thee fair, and say, What needest thou? and he will shame thee by his meats, until he have made thee bare twice or thrice. And at the last he will laugh thee to scorn; afterward will he see thee, and will forsake thee, and shake his head at thee. Beware that thou be not deceived, and brought low in thy mirth. If a mighty man invite thee, be retiring, and so much the more will he invite thee. Press not upon him, lest thou be thrust back; and stand not far off, lest thou be forgotten. Affect not to speak with him as an equal, and believe not his many words: for with much talk will he try thee, and in a smiling manner will search thee out. He that keepeth not to himself words spoken is unmerciful; and he will not spare to hurt and to bind. Keep them to thyself, and take earnest heed, for thou walkest in peril of thy falling. Every living creature loveth his like, and every man loveth his neighbour. All flesh consorteth according to kind, and a man will cleave to his like. What fellowship shall the wolf have with the lamb? so is the sinner unto the godly. What peace is there between the hyena and the dog? and what peace between the rich man and the poor? Wild asses are the prey of lions in the wilderness; so poor men are pasture for the rich. Lowliness is an abomination to a proud man; so a poor man is an abomination to the rich. A rich man when he is shaken is held up of his friends; but one of low degree being down is thrust away also by his friends. When a rich man is fallen, there are many helpers; he speaketh things not to be spoken, and men justify him: a man of low degree falleth, and men rebuke him withal; he uttereth wisdom, and no place is allowed him. A rich man speaketh, and all keep silence; and what he saith they extol to the clouds: a poor man speaketh, and they say, Who is this? and if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him. Riches are good that have no sin; and poverty is evil in the mouth of the ungodly. vi The Wisdom of Business and the Wisdom of Leisure The wisdom of the scribe cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath little business shall become wise. How shall he become wise that holdeth the plow, that glorieth in the shaft of the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose discourse is of the stock of bulls? He will set his heart upon turning his furrows; and his wakefulness is to give his heifers their fodder. So is every artificer and workmaster, that passeth his time by night as by day; they that cut gravings of signets, and his diligence is to make great variety; he will set his heart to preserve likeness in his portraiture, and will be wakeful to finish his work. So is the smith sitting by the anvil, and considering the unwrought iron; the vapour of the fire will waste his flesh, and in the heat of the furnace will he wrestle with his work; the noise of the hammer will be ever in his ear, and his eyes are upon the pattern of the vessel; he will set his heart upon perfecting his works, and he will be wakeful to adorn them perfectly. So is the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is alway anxiously set at his work, and all his handywork is by number; he will fashion the clay with his arm, and will bend its strength in front of his feet; he will apply his heart to finish the glazing, and he will be wakeful to make clean the furnace. All these put their trust in their hands; and each becometh wise in his own work. Without these shall not a city be inhabited, and men shall not sojourn nor walk up and down therein. They shall not be sought for in the council of the people, and in the assembly they shall not mount on high, they shall not sit on the seat of the judge, and they shall not understand the covenant of judgement; neither shall they declare instruction and judgement, and where parables are they shall not be found. But they will maintain the fabric of the world; and in the handywork of their craft is their prayer. Not so he that hath applied his soul, and meditateth in the law of the Most High. He will seek out the wisdom of all of the ancients, and will be occupied in prophecies. He will keep the discourse of the men of renown, and will enter in amidst the subtilties of parables. He will seek out the hidden meaning of proverbs, and be conversant in the dark sayings of parables. He will serve among great men, and appear before him that ruleth. He will travel through the land of strange nations; for he hath tried good things and evil among men. He will apply his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and will make supplication before the Most High, and will open his mouth in prayer, and will make supplication for his sins. If the great Lord will, he shall be filled with the spirit of understanding: he shall pour forth the words of his wisdom, and in prayer give thanks unto the Lord. He shall direct his counsel and knowledge, and in his secrets shall he meditate. He shall shew forth the instruction which he hath been taught, and shall glory in the law of the covenant of the Lord. Many shall commend his understanding, and so long as the world endureth, it shall not be blotted out; his memorial shall not depart, and his name shall live from generation to generation; nations shall declare his wisdom, and the congregation shall tell out his praise. If he continue, he shall leave a greater name than a thousand: and if he die, he addeth thereto. vii Life as a Joy shadowed by the Judgment An Essay with a Sonnet Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Yea, if a man live many years, let him rejoice in them all; and remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for youth and the prime of life are vanity. The Coming of the Evil Days Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth: Or ever the evil days come, And the years draw nigh, When thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them: Or ever the sun. And the light, And the moon, And the stars, Be darkened, And the clouds return after the rain: In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, And the strong men shall bow themselves, And the grinders cease because they are few, And those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the street; When the sound of the grinding is low, And one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, And all the daughters of music shall be brought low; Yea, they shall be afraid of that which is high. And terrors shall be in the way; And the almond tree shall blossom, And the grasshopper shall be a burden, And the caperberry shall burst: Because man goeth to his long home, And the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, Or the golden bowl be broken, Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the cistern: And the dust return to the earth, As it was; And the spirit return unto God Who gave it. SONNETS[5] [Footnote 5: For the difference of form between the Hebrew and the modern sonnet see Notes, page 255.] i The Sluggard Go to the ant, thou Sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no chief, Overseer, Or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, And gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O Sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? "Yet a little sleep, A little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep"-- So shall thy poverty come as a robber, And thy want as an armed man! ii The Mourning for the Fool Weep for the dead, For light hath failed him; And weep for a fool, For understanding hath failed him: Weep more sweetly for the dead, Because he hath found rest; But the life of the fool Is worse than death. Seven days are the days of mourning for the dead: But for a fool and an ungodly man, all the days of his life. iii The Two Paths Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; And the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in paths of uprightness. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. Take fast hold of instruction; Let her not go: Keep her; For she is thy life. Enter not into the path of the wicked, And walk not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, Pass not by it; Turn from it, And pass on. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is as the light of dawn, That shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: They know not at what they stumble. iv The Creator has made Wisdom the Supreme Prize My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; Neither be weary of his reproof: For whom the LORD loveth he reproveth; Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, And the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, And the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: And none of the things thou canst desire are to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; In her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: And happy is every one that retaineth her. The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths were broken up, And the skies drop down the dew. v Watchfulness of Lips and Heart Who shall set a watch over my mouth, And a seal of shrewdness upon my lips, That I fall not from it, And that my tongue destroy me not? O Lord, Father and Master of my life, Abandon me not to their counsel: Suffer me not to fall by them. Who will set scourges over my thought, And a discipline of wisdom over mine heart? That they spare me not for mine ignorances, And my heart pass not by their sins: That mine ignorances be not multiplied, And my sins abound not; And I shall fall before mine adversaries, And mine enemy rejoice over me? O Lord, Father and God of my life, Give me not a proud look, And turn away concupiscence from me. Let not greediness and chambering overtake me, And give me not over to a shameless mind. vi Wisdom and the Fear of the Lord All wisdom cometh from the Lord, And is with him for ever. The sand of the seas, And the drops of rain, And the days of eternity, who shall number? The height of the heaven, And the breadth of the earth, and the deep, And wisdom, who shall search them out? Wisdom hath been created before all things, And the understanding of prudence from everlasting. To whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed? And who hath known her shrewd counsels? There is one wise, Greatly to be feared, The Lord sitting upon his throne: He created her, And saw, and numbered her, And poured her out upon all his works. She is with all flesh according to his gift; And he gave her freely to them that love him. The fear of the Lord Is glory and exultation, And gladness, and a crown of rejoicing. The fear of the Lord Shall delight the heart, And shall give gladness, and joy, and length of days. Whoso feareth the Lord, It shall go well with him at the last, And in the day of his death he shall be blessed. To fear the Lord Is the beginning of wisdom; And it was created together with the faithful in the womb. With men she laid an eternal foundation; And with their seed shall she be had in trust. To fear the Lord Is the fulness of wisdom; And she satiateth men with her fruits. She shall fill all her house with desirable things, And her garners with her produce. The fear of the Lord Is the crown of wisdom, Making peace and perfect health to flourish. He both saw and numbered her; He rained down skill and knowledge of understanding, And exalted the honour of them that hold her fast. To fear the Lord Is the root of wisdom; And her branches are length of days. vii Wisdom and the Strange Woman 1 My son, keep my words, And lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; And my law, as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers; Write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto Wisdom, Thou art my sister; And call Understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the Strange Woman, From the stranger which flattereth with her words. 2 For at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice; And I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, A young man, Void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner, And he went the way to her house; In the twilight, in the evening of the day, In the blackness of night and the darkness; And behold, there met him a Woman With the attire of an harlot, and wily of heart. She is clamorous and wilful; Her feet abide not in her house; Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, And lieth in wait at every corner. So she caught him, and kissed him, With an impudent face she said unto him: "Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me; This day have I paid my vows; Therefore came I forth to meet thee, Diligently to seek thy face, And I have found thee. I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, With striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt; I have perfumed my bed With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love Until the morning; Let us solace ourselves with loves; For the goodman is not at home, He is gone a long journey: He hath taken a bag of money with him; He will come home at the full moon." With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield, With the flattering of her lips she forceth him away. He goeth after her straightway, As an ox goeth to the slaughter, Or as one in fetters to the correction of the fool; Till an arrow strike through his liver; As a bird hasteth to the snare, And knoweth not that it is for his life. 3 Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, And attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, Go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: Yea, all her slain are a mighty host. Her house is the way to Sheol, Going down to the chambers of death. 4 Doth not Wisdom cry, And Understanding put forth her voice? In the top of high places by the way, Where the paths meet, She standeth; Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, At the coming in at the doors, She crieth aloud: Unto you, O men, I call; And my voice is to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand subtilty; And ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear, for I will speak excellent things; And the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall utter truth; And wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteousness; There is nothing crooked or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, And right to them that find knowledge Receive my instruction, and not silver; And knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; And all the things that may be desired are not to be compared unto her. 5 I Wisdom have made subtilty my dwelling, And find out knowledge and discretion. The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogancy, And the evil way, And the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, And sound knowledge; I am understanding, I have might. By me kings reign, And princes decree justice; By me princes rule, And nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me; And those that seek me diligently shall find me. Riches and honour are with me; Durable riches and righteousness; My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; And my revenue than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, In the midst of the paths of judgement: That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance, And that I may fill their treasuries. 6 The LORD formed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, Or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills, was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, Nor the fields, Nor the beginning of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there: When he set a circle upon the face of the deep: When he made firm the skies above: When the fountains of the deep became strong: When he gave to the sea its bound, That the waters should not transgress his commandment: When he marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was by him, As a master workman, And I was daily his delight, Sporting always before him; Sporting in his habitable earth; And my delight was with the sons of men. 7 Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me: For blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, And refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, And shall obtain favour of the LORD; But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul; All they that hate me love death. LYRICS I AN ELEGY OF A BROKEN HEART 1 Let the day perish wherein I was born; And the night which said, There is a man child conceived! Let that day be darkness; Let not God regard it from above, Neither let the light shine upon it! Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it! As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months! Lo, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come therein! Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan! Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark! Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning: Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes! 2 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck? For now should I have lien down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest, With kings and counsellors of the earth, Which built solitary piles for themselves; Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver; Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; As infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and great are there; And the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul? Which long for death, but it cometh not; And dig for it more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, And are glad when they can find the grave. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my roarings are poured out like water. For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me. I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, Neither have I rest: but trouble cometh! II THE CREATOR'S JOY IN HIS CREATION Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? ----Declare, if thou hast understanding---- Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who stretched the line upon it? Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, When it brake forth, and issued out of the womb; When I made the cloud the garment thereof, And thick darkness a swaddling band for it, And prescribed for it my decree, And set bars and doors, And said, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?" Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, And caused the dayspring to know its place; That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed as clay under the seal; And all things stand forth as a garment: And from the wicked their light is withholden, And the high arm is broken. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee? Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death? Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth? ----Declare, if thou knowest it all---- Where is the way to the dwelling of light, And as for darkness, where is the place thereof; That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, And that thou shouldest discern the paths to the house thereof? ----Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, And the number of thy days is great!---- Hast thou entered the treasuries of the snow, Or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, Against the day of battle and war? By what way is the light parted, Or the east wind scattered upon the earth? Who hath cleft a channel for the waterflood, Or a way for the lightning of the thunder; To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the waste and desolate ground; And to cause the tender grass to spring forth? Hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hidden as with stone, And the face of the deep is frozen. Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the Zodiac in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, And say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the mind? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, When the dust runneth into a mass, And the clods cleave fast together? Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lioness? Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, When they couch in their dens, And abide in the covert to lie in wait? Who provideth for the raven his food, When his young ones cry unto God, And wander for lack of meat? Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? Or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? Or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, They cast out their sorrows. Their young ones are in good liking, They grow up in the open field; They go forth, and return not again. Who hath sent out the wild ass free? Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling place; He scorneth the tumult of the city, Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searcheth after every green thing. Will the wild-ox be content to serve thee? Or will he abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the wild-ox with his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? Or wilt thou leave to him thy labour? Wilt thou confide in him, that he will bring home thy seed, And gather the corn of thy threshing-floor? The wing of the ostrich rejoiceth; But are her pinions and feathers kindly? For she leaveth her eggs on the earth, And warmeth them in the dust, And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, Or that the wild beast may trample them. She is hardened against her young ones, as if they were not hers: Though her labour be in vain, she is without fear; Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, Neither hath he imparted to her understanding. What time she lifteth up herself on high, She scorneth the horse and his rider. Hast thou given the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane? Hast thou made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: He goeth out to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear and is not dismayed; Neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, The flashing spear and the javelin. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage; Neither standeth he still at the voice of the trumpet. As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith, Aha! And he smelleth the battle afar off, The thunder of the captains, and the shouting. Doth the hawk soar by thy wisdom, And stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, And make her nest on high? She dwelleth on the rock, and hath her lodging there, Upon the crag of the rock and the strong hold. From thence she spieth out the prey; Her eyes behold it afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood: And where the slain are, there is she. III SONG OF MOSES AND MIRIAM TUTTI _I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously:_ _The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea._ The LORD is my strength and song, And he is become my salvation: This is my God, and I will praise him; My father's God, and I will exalt him. 1 MEN The LORD is a man of war: The LORD is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them: They went down into the depths like a stone. WOMEN _Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously:_ _The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea._ 2 MEN Thy right hand, O LORD, is glorious in power, Thy right hand, O LORD, dasheth in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency thou overthrowest them that rise up against thee: Thou sendest forth thy wrath, it consumeth them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up, The floods stood upright as an heap; The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil: My lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: They sank as lead in the mighty waters. WOMEN _Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously:_ _The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea._ 3 MEN Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, The earth swallowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led the people which thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation. The peoples have heard, they tremble: Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Then were the dukes of Edom amazed; The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them: All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. Terror and dread falleth upon them; By the greatness of thine arm they are as still as a stone; Till thy people pass over, O LORD, Till the people pass over which thou hast purchased. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, The place, O LORD, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, The sanctuary, O LORD, which thy hands have established. The LORD shall reign for ever and ever. WOMEN _Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously:_ _The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea._ IV DEBORAH'S SONG _Men._ _For that the leaders took the lead in Israel--_ _Women._ _For that the people offered themselves willingly--_ _Tutti._ _Bless ye the LORD!_ PRELUDE _Men._ Hear, O ye kings-- _Women._ Give ear, O ye princes-- _Men._ I, even I, will sing unto the LORD-- _Women._ I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel. _Tutti._ Lord, when thou wentest forth out of Seir, When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, Yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains flowed down at the presence of the LORD, Even yon Sinai at the presence of the LORD, the God of Israel. 1. THE DESOLATION _Men._ In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, The highways were unoccupied, And the travellers walked through byways; The rulers ceased in Israel, They ceased-- _Women._ Until that I, Deborah, arose, That I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; Then was war in the gates: Was there a shield or spear seen Among forty thousand in Israel? _Men._ _My heart is toward the governors of Israel--_ _Women._ _Ye that offered yourselves willingly among the people--_ _Tutti._ _Bless ye the LORD!_ _Men._ _Tell of it, ye that ride on white asses,_ _Ye that sit on rich carpets,_ _And ye that walk by the way:--_ _Women._ _Far from the noise of archers,_ _In the places of drawing water:--_ _Tutti._ _There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD,_ _Even the righteous acts of his rule in Israel._ 2. THE MUSTER _Tutti._ Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates-- (_Men._ _Awake, awake, Deborah,_ _Awake, awake, utter a song:--_ _Women._ _Arise, Barak,_ _And lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam._) _Tutti._ Then came down a remnant of the nobles, The people of the LORD came down for me against the mighty. _Women._ Out of Ephraim came down they whose root is in Amalek-- _Men._ After thee, Benjamin, among thy peoples-- _Women._ Out of Machir came down governors-- _Men._ And out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff _Women._ And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah-- _Men._ As was Issachar, so was Barak: _Tutti._ Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet. _Men._ By the watercourses of Reuben There were great resolves of heart. _Women._ Why satest thou among the sheepfolds, To hear the pipings for the flocks? _Men._ At the watercourses of Reuben There were great searchings of heart! _Women._ Gilead abode beyond Jordan-- _Men._ And Dan, why did he remain in ships?-- _Women._ Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, And abode by his creeks. _Men._ Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death, And Naphtali upon the high places of the field. 3. THE BATTLE AND ROUT _Strophe_ _Men._ The kings came and fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan, In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo:-- They took no gain of money! _Antistrophe_ _Women._ They fought from heaven, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away,-- That ancient river, the river Kishon! _Strophe_ _Men._ O my soul, march on with strength! Then did the horsehoofs stamp By reason of the pransings, The pransings of their strong ones. _Antistrophe_ _Women._ Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; Because they came not to the help of the LORD, To the help of the LORD against the mighty! 4. THE RETRIBUTION _Strophe_ _Men._ Blessed above women shall Jael be, the wife of Heber the Kenite, Blessed shall she be above women in the tent! He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought him butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, And her right hand to the workman's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera. She smote through his head, Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay: At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down dead! _Antistrophe_ _Women._ Through the window she looked forth, and cried, The mother of Sisera, through the lattice, "Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?" Her wise ladies answered her, Yea, she returned answer to herself, "Have they not found, Have they not divided the spoil? A damsel, two damsels to every man; To Sisera a spoil of divers colours, A spoil of divers colours of embroidery, Of divers colours of embroidery on both sides, on the necks of the spoil!" _Tutti._ So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might! V DAVID'S LAMENT Thy glory, O Israel, Is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty-- Fallen! Tell it not in Gath, Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you, Neither fields of offerings: For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, as of one not anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, From the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan turned not back, And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, Weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet delicately, Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty-- Fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, Slain upon thy high places, I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: Thy love to me was wonderful, Passing the love of women. How are the mighty-- Fallen! And the weapons of war-- Perished! VI DAVID'S SONG OF VICTORY The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, even mine; The God of my rock, in him will I trust; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge; My saviour, thou savest me from violence. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: So shall I be saved from mine enemies. For the waves of death compassed me, The floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The cords of Sheol were round about me: The snares of death came upon me. In my distress I called upon the LORD, Yea, I called unto my God: And he heard my voice out of his temple, And my cry came into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled, The foundations of heaven moved And were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoured: Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down; And thick darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: Yea, he was seen upon the wings of the wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, Gathering of waters, thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness before him coals of fire were kindled The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; Lightning, and discomfited them. Then the channels of the sea appeared, The foundations of the world were laid bare, By the rebuke of the LORD, At the blast of the breath of his nostrils He sent from on high, he took me; He drew me out of many waters; He delivered me from my strong enemy, From them that hated me; For they were too mighty for me. They came upon me in the day of my calamity: But the LORD was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place: He delivered me, because he delighted in me. The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgements were before me: And as for his statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also perfect toward him, And I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness; According to my cleanness in his eyesight. With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, With the perfect man thou wilt shew thyself perfect; With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; And with the perverse thou wilt shew thyself froward. And the afflicted people thou wilt save: But thine eyes are upon the haughty, That thou mayest bring them down. For thou art my lamp, O LORD: And the LORD will lighten my darkness. For by thee I run upon a troop: By my God do I leap over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect: The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield unto all them that trust in him. For who is God, save the LORD? And who is a rock, save our God? God is my strong fortress: And he guideth the perfect in his way. He maketh his feet like hinds' feet: And setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war; So that mine arms do bend a bow of brass. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: And thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, And my feet have not slipped. I have pursued mine enemies, And destroyed them; Neither did I turn again till they were consumed. And I have consumed them, And smitten them through that they cannot arise: Yea, they are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also made mine enemies turn their backs unto me, That I might cut off them that hate me. They looked, but there was none to save; Even unto the LORD, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the streets, and did spread them abroad. Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people; Thou hast kept me to be the head of the nations: A people whom I have not known shall serve me. The strangers shall submit themselves unto me: As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. The strangers shall fade away, And shall come trembling out of their close places. The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation: Even the God that executeth vengeance for me, And bringeth down peoples under me, And that bringeth me forth from mine enemies: Yea, thou liftest me up above them that rise up against me: Thou deliverest me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the nations, And will sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he to his king: And sheweth lovingkindness to his anointed, To David and to his seed, for evermore. VII THE BRIDE'S REMINISCENCES A Lyric Idyl The Interrupted Visit THE BRIDE The voice of my beloved! behold he cometh, Leaping upon the mountains, Skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: Behold, he standeth behind our wall, He looketh in at the windows, He sheweth himself through the lattice. My beloved spake, and said unto me: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, And come away. For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree ripeneth her green figs, And the vines are in blossom, They give forth their fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, And come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, In the covert of the steep place, Let me see thy countenance, Let me hear thy voice; For sweet is thy voice, And thy countenance is comely." VOICES OF THE BROTHERS (_heard interrupting_) "Take us the foxes, The little foxes that spoil the vineyards; For our vineyards are in blossom." * * * _My beloved is mine, and I am his:_ _He feedeth his flock among the lilies._ _Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,_ _Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart_ _Upon the mountains of separation._ The Happy Dream By night, on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I said, I will rise now, and go about the city, In the streets and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: To whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, When I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, Until I had brought him into my mother's house, And into the chamber of her that conceived me. * * * _I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,_ _By the roes, and by the hinds of the field,_ _That ye stir not up, nor awaken love,_ _Until it please._ VIII THE BATTLE OF CARCHEMISH 1 Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle; Harness the horses, and get up ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; Furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail. Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed, And are turned backward, and their mighty ones are beaten down, And are fled apace, and look not back. Terror is on every side, saith the LORD, Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape: In the north by the river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen. 2 Who is this that riseth up like the Nile, Whose waters toss themselves like the rivers? Egypt riseth up like the Nile, And his waters toss themselves like the rivers; And he saith, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, that handle the shield; And the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow. For that day is a day of the Lord, the LORD of hosts, A day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: And the sword shall devour and be satiate, And shall drink its fill of their blood: For the Lord, the LORD of hosts hath a sacrifice In the north country by the river Euphrates. 3 Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: In vain dost thou use many medicines; There is no healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is full of thy cry: For the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, They are fallen both of them together. IX A SONG OF ZION REDEEMED 1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, And the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, And gross darkness the peoples: But the LORD shall arise upon thee, And his glory shall be seen upon thee. 2 And nations shall come to thy light, And kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: They all gather themselves together, they come to thee: Thy sons shall come from far, And thy daughters shall be carried in the arms. Then thou shalt see and be lightened, And thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged; Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee, The wealth of the nations shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; They all shall come from Sheba, they shall bring gold and frankincense, And shall proclaim the praises of the LORD. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, The rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee; They shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, And I will beautify the house of my glory. 3 Who are these that fly as a cloud, And as the doves to their windows? Surely the isles shall wait for me, And the ships of Tarshish first, To bring thy sons from far, Their silver and their gold with them, For the name of the LORD thy God, And for the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. And strangers shall build up thy walls, And their kings shall minister unto thee: For in my wrath I smote thee, But in my favour have I had mercy on thee. Thy gates also shall be open continually, They shall not be shut day nor night; That men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations, And their kings led with them: For that nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, The fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together; To beautify the place of my sanctuary, And I will make the place of my feet glorious. And the sons of them that afflicted thee Shall come bending unto thee; And all they that despised thee Shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet. 4 And they shall call thee the City of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, So that no man passed through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, A joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the nations, And shalt suck the breast of kings: And thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy saviour, And thy redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, And for iron I will bring silver, And for wood brass, And for stones iron. I will also make thy officers peace, And thine exactors righteousness; Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, Desolation nor destruction within thy borders; But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, And thy gates Praise. 5 The sun shall be no more thy light by day, Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: But the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, And thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: For the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, And the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous, They shall inherit the land for ever; The branch of my planting, The work of my hands, That I may be glorified. The little one shall become a thousand, And the small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in its time. X ISAIAH'S DOOM OF BABYLON Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my consecrated ones, yea, I have called my mighty men for mine anger, even them that exult in my majesty. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, Like as of a great people! The noise of a tumult Of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! The LORD of HOSTS Mustereth the HOST for the battle; They come from a far country, From the uttermost part of heaven: Even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, To destroy the whole land. Howl ye, for the Day of the LORD is at hand: As destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt: and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail; they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be faces of flame. Behold, the Day of the LORD cometh, Cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; To make the land a desolation, And to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more rare than fine gold, even a man than the pure gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens to tremble, and the earth shall be shaken out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And it shall come to pass, that as the chased roe, and as sheep that no man gathereth, they shall turn every man to his own people, and shall flee every man to his own land. Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is taken shall fall by the sword. Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. And their bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. And BABYLON, The glory of kingdoms, The beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, Shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; Neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; And their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; And ostriches shall dwell there, And satyrs shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, And jackals in the pleasant palaces: And her time is near to come, And her days shall not be prolonged. For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the stranger shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and for handmaids; and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say: How hath the oppressor ceased! The golden city ceased! The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, The sceptre of the rulers; He that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, That ruled the nations in anger, Is persecuted, And none hindereth! The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: They break forth into singing: Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, And the cedars of Lebanon: 'Since thou art laid down, No feller is come up against us.' Hell from beneath is moved for thee, To meet thee at thy coming: It stirreth up the dead for thee, Even all the chief ones of the earth; It hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations, All they shall answer and say unto thee: 'Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?' Thy pomp is brought down to hell, And the noise of thy viols: The worm is spread under thee, And worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the morning How art thou cut down to the ground, Which didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst in thine heart, 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; And I will sit upon the mount of congregation, In the uttermost parts of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.' Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, To the uttermost parts of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, They shall consider thee: 'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, That did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof, That let not loose his prisoners to their home?' All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, Every one in his own house: But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre, Like an abominable branch, As the raiment of those that are slain, That are thrust through with the sword, That go down to the stones of the pit; As a carcase trodden under foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever. Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they rise not up, and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities. And I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son's son, saith the LORD. I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts. XI NAHUM'S DOOM OF NINEVEH 1 The LORD is a jealous God and avengeth; the LORD avengeth and is full of wrath; the LORD taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt; and the earth is upheaved at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by him. The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that put their trust in him. But with an overrunning flood he will make a full end of the place thereof, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. 2 What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make a full end: affliction shall not rise up the second time. For though they be like tangled thorns, and be drenched as it were in their drink, they shall be devoured utterly as dry stubble. There is one gone forth out of thee, that imagineth evil against the LORD, that counselleth wickedness. Thus saith the LORD: Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so shall they be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. And now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder. And the LORD hath given commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown; out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image; I will make thy grave; for thou art vile. 3 Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Keep thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows: for the wicked one shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off. He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face: Keep the munition; watch the way; Make thy loins strong, Fortify thy power mightily. For the LORD bringeth again the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches. The shield of his mighty men is made red: The valiant men are in scarlet: The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, And the spears are shaken terribly. The chariots rage in the streets, They justle one against another in the broad ways: The appearance of them is like torches, They run like the lightnings. He remembereth his worthies: They stumble in their march; They make haste to the wall thereof, And the mantelet is prepared. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved: And Huzzab is uncovered; she is carried away; And her handmaids mourn as with the voice of doves, Tabering upon their breasts. But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water; Yet they flee away: 'Stand, stand'-- But none looketh back. Take ye the spoil of silver, Take the spoil of gold; For there is none end of the store, The glory of all pleasant furniture. She is empty, and void, and waste: And the heart melteth, and the knees smite together; And anguish is in all loins, And the faces of them all are waxed pale. 4 Where is the den of the lions, And the feeding place of the young lions, Where the lion and the lioness walked, The lion's whelp, and none made them afraid? The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, And strangled for his lionesses; And filled his caves with prey, And his dens with ravin. 5 Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard. Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and rapine; The prey departeth not. The noise of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of wheels; And pransing horses, and jumping chariots; The horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, and the glittering spear; And a multitude of slain, and a great heap of carcases: And there is none end of the corpses; They stumble upon their corpses: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, The mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, And families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face; and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say: 6 Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee? Art thou better than No-amon, that was situate among the rivers, That had the waters round about her; Whose rampart was the sea, And her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers: Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets; And they cast lots for her honourable men, And all her great men were bound in chains: Thou also shalt be drunken, thou shalt be hid; Thou also shalt seek a strong hold because of the enemy. All thy fortresses shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: If they be shaken, They fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; The gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies; The fire hath devoured thy bars. Draw the water for the siege; Strengthen thy fortresses: Go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln: There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off. It shall devour thee like the cankerworm: Make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locust; Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: The cankerworm spreadeth himself, and flieth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, Which camp in the hedges in the cold day, But when the sun ariseth they flee away, And their place is not known where they are. 7 Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria, Thy worthies are at rest: Thy people are scattered upon the mountains, And there is none to gather them. There is no assuaging of thy hurt; Thy wound is grievous: All that hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee: For upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? RHAPSODY OR PROPHETIC DRAMA JEREMIAH'S RHAPSODY OF THE DROUGHT Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they sit in black upon the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the pits, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty: they are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is chapt, for that no rain hath been in the land, the plowmen are ashamed, they cover their heads. Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young, because there is no grass. And the wild asses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage. REPENTENT ISRAEL Though our iniquities testify against us, work thou for thy name's sake, O LORD: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee. O thou hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in the time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a sojourner in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name: leave us not. THE PROPHET Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore the LORD doth not accept them; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. THE LORD (to the Prophet) Pray not for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. THE PROPHET Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. THE LORD The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake I unto them; they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their own heart. Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them. And thou shalt say this word unto them, 'Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.' REPENTENT ISRAEL Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul loathed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold dismay! We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among the vanities of the heathen that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee; for thou hast made all these things. THE LORD (to the Prophet) Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity. And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare? Thou hast rejected me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against thee, and destroyed thee; I am weary with repenting. And I have fanned them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my people; they have not returned from their ways. Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly. She that hath borne seven languisheth; she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD. THE PROPHET Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent on usury, neither have men lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me. THE LORD (to the Prophet) Verily I will strengthen thee for good; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. THE LORD (to the People) Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. And I will make thee to serve thine enemies in a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you. REPENTENT ISRAEL O LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors: take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach. Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced: I sat alone because of thy hand; for thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail? THE LORD Therefore thus saith the LORD: If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them. EPILOGUE (to the Prophet) And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible. HABAKKUK'S RHAPSODY OF THE CHALDEANS i The Mystery THE PROPHET O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save. Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to look upon perverseness? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there is strife, and contention riseth up. Therefore the law is slacked, and judgement doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore judgement goeth forth perverted. THE LORD Behold ye among the nations, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I work a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation; which march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgement and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen bear themselves proudly: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour. They come all of them for violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind; and they gather captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him: he derideth every strong hold; for he heapeth up dust, and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over, and be guilty: even he whose might is his god. THE PROPHET Art not thou from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? thou diest not. O LORD, thou hast ordained him for judgement; and thou, O Rock, hast established him for correction. Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag: therefore he rejoiceth and is glad. Therefore he sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat, and his meat plenteous. Shall he therefore empty his net, and not spare to slay the nations continually? ii The Solution THE PROPHET I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will look forth to see what he will speak by me, and what I shall answer concerning my complaint. THE LORD Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him: but the just shall live in his faithfulness. Yea, moreover, wine is a treacherous dealer, a haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say: Doom of the Chaldeans 1 Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his, --How long?-- And that ladeth himself with pledges! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall exact usury of thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men's blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and to all that dwell therein. 2 Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, That he may set his nest on high, That he may be delivered from the hand of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. 3 Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, And stablisheth a city by iniquity! Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the peoples labour for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. 4 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, That addest thy venom thereto, And makest him drunken also, That thou mayest look on their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and be as one uncircumcised. The cup of the LORD'S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and foul shame shall be upon thy glory. For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover thee, and the destruction of the beasts which made them afraid; because of men's blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and to all that dwell therein. 5 What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?-- Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; To the dumb stone, Arise! Shall this teach? Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him! iii Jehovah come to Judgment Prelude O LORD, I have heard the report of thee, and am afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known: In wrath remember mercy! Strophe God cometh from Teman, And the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covereth the heavens, And the earth is full of his praise. And his brightness is as the light; He hath rays coming forth from his hand; And there is the hiding of his power. Before him goeth the pestilence, And fiery bolts go forth at his feet. He standeth and shaketh the earth; He beholdeth, and driveth asunder the nations: And the eternal mountains are scattered, The everlasting hills do bow; His ways are everlasting. I see the tents of Cushan in affliction; The curtains of the land of Midian do tremble. Antistrophe Is the LORD displeased against the rivers? Is thine anger against the rivers, or thy wrath against the sea, That thou dost ride upon thine horses, Upon thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow is made quite bare, Sworn are the chastisements of thy word. Thou dost cleave the earth with rivers; The mountains see thee and are afraid; The tempest of waters passeth by; The deep uttereth his voice, And lifteth up his hands on high; The sun and moon stand still in their habitation At the light of thine arrows as they go, At the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou dost march through the land in indignation, Thou dost thresh the nations in anger. Epode Thou art come for the salvation of thy people, For the salvation of thine anointed: Thou dost smite off the head from the house of the wicked, Laying bare the foundation even unto the neck. Thou dost pierce with his own staves the head of his warriors: (They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly:) Thou dost tread the sea with thine horses, the surge of mighty waters. Postlude I heard, and my belly trembled, My lips quivered at the voice; Rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in my place: That I should rest waiting for the day of trouble, When he that shall invade them in troops cometh up against the people. For though the fig tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labour of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Jehovah, the Lord, is my strength, And he maketh my feet like hinds' feet, And will make me to walk upon mine high places. JOEL'S RHAPSODY OF THE LOCUST PLAGUE i The Land Desolate and Mourning OLD MEN Hear this, ye old men, And give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land! Hath this been in your days, Or in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, And let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left Hath the locust eaten; And that which the locust hath left Hath the cankerworm eaten; And that which the cankerworm hath left Hath the caterpillar eaten. REVELLERS Awake, ye drunkards, and weep, And howl, all ye drinkers of wine, Because of the sweet wine; For it is cut off from your mouth! For a nation is come up upon my land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he hath the jaw teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, And barked my fig tree: He hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; The branches thereof are made white. PRIESTS Lament like a virgin Girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth! The meal offering and the drink offering Is cut off from the house of the LORD: The priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn. The field is wasted, The land mourneth; For the corn is wasted, The new wine is dried up, The oil languisheth. HUSBANDMEN Be ashamed, O ye husbandmen, Howl, O ye vinedressers, For the wheat, and for the barley; For the harvest of the field is perished! The vine is withered, And the fig tree languisheth; The pomegranate tree, The palm tree also, and the apple tree, Even all the trees of the field are withered: For joy is withered away from the sons of men. PRIESTS Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests; Howl, ye ministers of the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth, Ye ministers of my God: For the meal offering and the drink offering Is withholden from the house of your God! THE WHOLE PEOPLE Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men and all the inhabitants of the land unto the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD: Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand! And as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seeds rot under their clods: The garners are laid desolate, The barns are broken down; For the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, Because they have no pasture; Yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O LORD, to thee do I cry: For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, And the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. Yea, the beasts of the field pant unto thee: For the water brooks are dried up, And the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness. ii The Judgment Advancing Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in my holy mountain; Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble! For the Day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong, there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the years of many generations! A fire devoureth before them; And behind them a flame burneth: The land is as the garden of Eden before them, And behind them a desolate wilderness! Yea, and none hath escaped them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so do they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. At their presence the peoples are in anguish: All faces are waxed pale: They run like mighty men; They climb the wall like men of war; And they march every one on his ways. And they break not their ranks: neither doth one thrust another; they march every one in his path: and they burst through the weapons, and break not off their course. They leap upon the city; They run upon the wall; They climb up into the houses; They enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth quaketh before them; The heavens tremble: The sun and the moon are darkened, And the stars withdraw their shining. And the LORD uttereth his voice before his army; for his camp is very great; for he is strong that executeth his word: for the Day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it? iii Repentance at the Last Moment THE LORD Yet even now, saith the LORD, turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repenteth him of the evil. THE PEOPLE Who knoweth whether he will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion, Sanctify a fast, Call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, Sanctify the congregation, Assemble the old men, Gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, And the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say: PRIESTS Spare thy people, O LORD, And give not thine heritage to reproach, That the nations should use a byword against them, Wherefore should they say among the peoples, Where is their God? iv Relief and Restoration Then was the LORD jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. THE LORD Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations: but I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, his forepart into the eastern sea, and his hinder part into the western sea; and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things. Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice; for the LORD hath done great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he giveth you the former rain in just measure, and he causeth to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and shall praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. v Afterward THE LORD And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD doth call. For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat[6]; and I will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people: and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Yea, and what are ye to me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the regions of Philistia? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head. Forasmuch as ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things; the children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the sons of the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border: behold, I will stir them up out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head; and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the men of Sheba, to a nation far off: for the LORD hath spoken it. [Footnote 6: The LORD'S Decision.] vi Advance to the Valley of Decision THE LORD Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war: stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. VOICES Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. THE LORD Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the Valley of 'Jehoshaphat': for there will I 'sit to judge' all the nations round about. THE LORD (to his Hosts) Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, tread ye; for the winepress is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. THE PROPHETIC SPECTATOR Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision! for the Day of the LORD is near in the Valley of Decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the LORD shall roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be a refuge unto his people, and a strong hold to the children of Israel. vii The Holy Mountain and Eternal Peace THE LORD So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God, dwelling in Zion my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall flow with waters; and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the Valley of Acacias. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion. THE HURT OF THE DAUGHTER OF MY PEOPLE A Rhapsodic Discourse of Jeremiah Thus saith the LORD: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? shall one turn away, and not return? Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turneth to his course, as a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the ordinance of the LORD. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what manner of wisdom is in them? Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall possess them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. I will utterly consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. THE PEOPLE Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD. We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold dismay! The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembleth; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those that dwell therein. THE LORD For, behold, I will send serpents, basilisks, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, saith the LORD. THE PROPHET Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! my heart is faint within me. Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off-- THE PEOPLE Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her King in her? THE LORD Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities? THE PEOPLE The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved! THE PROPHET For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongue as it were their bow for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth. THE LORD For they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will go about with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else should I do, because of the daughter of my people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth wait for him. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? THE LORD'S CONTROVERSY BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS A Dramatic Morceau of Micah THE LORD Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O ye mountains, the LORD'S controversy, and ye enduring foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him; remember from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteous acts of the LORD. THE PEOPLE Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? THE MOUNTAINS He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? A CRY OF COMFORT FOR JERUSALEM Prelude to the Rhapsody of 'Zion Redeemed' JEHOVAH Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins. [Voices carry on the tidings across the desert to Jerusalem A VOICE OF ONE CRYING Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, Make straight in the desert a high way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, And every mountain and hill shall be made low: And the crooked shall be made straight, And the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together: For the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. A SECOND VOICE (in the distance) Cry! A DESPAIRING VOICE What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, The flower fadeth, Because the breath of the LORD bloweth upon it: Surely the people is grass! THE SECOND VOICE The grass withereth, The flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever. FOURTH VOICE (still more distant) O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, Get thee up into the high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, Lift up thy voice with strength; Lift it up, be not afraid; Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! FIFTH VOICE Behold, the Lord GOD will come as a mighty one, And his arm shall rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, And his recompence before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, He shall gather the lambs in his arm, And carry them in his bosom, And shall gently lead those that give suck. ZION AWAKENED (Being Vision III of the Rhapsody of 'Zion Redeemed') Appeals to Zion JEHOVAH Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many. For the LORD hath comforted Zion: he hath comforted all her waste places, and hath made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. (No response) JEHOVAH Attend unto me, O my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation; for a law shall go forth from me, and I will make my judgement to rest for a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peoples; the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. (No response) JEHOVAH Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye dismayed at their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation unto all generations. (No response) THE CELESTIAL HOSTS Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; Awake, as in the days of old, The generations of ancient times! Art thou not it that cut Rahab in pieces, That pierced the dragon? Art thou not it which dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the depths of the sea A way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, And come with singing unto Zion; And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: They shall obtain gladness and joy, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. JEHOVAH I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou art afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and hast forgotten the LORD thy Maker, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fearest continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he maketh ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile shall speedily be loosed; and he shall not die and go down into the pit, neither shall his bread fail. For I am the LORD thy God, which stilleth the sea, when the waves thereof roar: the LORD of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. (No response) THE CELESTIAL HOSTS Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, Which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; Thou hast drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it. There is none to guide her Among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; Neither is there any that taketh her by the hand Of all the sons that she hath brought up. These two things are befallen thee; Who shall bemoan thee? Desolation and destruction, And the famine, and the sword, How shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted, They lie at the top of all the streets, As an antelope in a net; They are full of the fury of the LORD, The rebuke of thy God. JEHOVAH Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord, the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people: Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy back as the ground, and as the street, to them that go over. (No response) THE CELESTIAL HOSTS Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: For henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; Arise, sit thee down, O Jerusalem: Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. JEHOVAH For thus saith the LORD, Ye were sold for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there: and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what do I here, saith the LORD, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? They that rule over them do howl, saith the LORD, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: Behold it is I! ii The Awakening CHORUS OF WATCHMEN How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him That bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, That bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation: That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! The voice of thy Watchmen! they lift up the voice, Together do they sing, For they shall see, eye to eye, How the LORD returneth to Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, Ye waste places of Jerusalem: For the LORD hath comforted his people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare his holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth Shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, Touch no unclean thing; Go ye out of the midst of her; Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the LORD. For ye shall not go out in haste, Neither shall ye go by flight; For the LORD will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rearward. NOTES The Metrical System of Biblical Verse In the strictest sense the term 'metrical' is not applicable to Biblical verse, since this is constituted, not by any numbering of syllables, but by the parallelism of whole clauses. The LORD of Hosts is with us, The God of Jacob is our refuge. This is verse, not in virtue of any particular number of syllables in the lines, but because the second line is felt to run parallel with the first. This principle of parallelism of clauses underlies the whole of versification in Scriptural literature. As however the different modes of combination and variation of these parallel lines in Biblical poetry correspond, to a large extent, with those of metrical lines in other languages, it is convenient to speak of the principles governing them as a 'metrical system.' One consequence however of the difference between Biblical and other verse should always be borne in mind. The parallelism of clauses, which makes the foundation of Hebrew verse, is also a thing proper to oratorical prose in all languages. Accordingly in Hebrew prose and verse overlap: the extremes of either (e.g. Psalms and Chronicles) are strongly contrasted, but there is a middle style which can be presented in either form. Hence there is nothing strange in the fact that the same passage of Scripture may be presented by one editor as prose and by another as verse, according to the purpose of each arrangement. [For example: the Oration on Immortality (page 75), which for a specimen of oratory is here arranged as prose, is printed as verse in the Revised Version of the Apocrypha.] 1. The simplest type of parallelism in Biblical literature may be called 'Antique Rhythm.' It is the metre of most of the traditional poetry preserved in the historic books of Scripture. Its unit consists in a couplet, of which either member may be strengthened by a parallel line, but not both. Let me die the death of the righteous. And let my last end be like his! He saith, which heareth the words of God, Which seeth the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open. He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, And shall break their bones in pieces, And smite them through with his arrows. Such a unit may be called a 'strain.' It will be seen in the examples that the first strain is a simple couplet, the second has its first line strengthened, the last has its second line strengthened. This power of occasionally strengthening either line of a couplet by an additional line gives the Antique Rhythm a flexibility suited to spontaneous composition. A similar device is found in connection with the traditional ballad poetry of England, of which such collections as The Percy Reliques are accidentally preserved specimens. While the regular metre of such ballads is a four-line stanza, yet a few poems, such as the Ballad of Sir Cauline, show some stanzas with individual lines strengthened: Fair Christabel, that lady mild, Was had forth of her tower; But ever she droopeth in her mind, As nipt by an ungentle wind Doth some pale lily flower. The poetry of the historic books mostly takes the form of aggregations of such 'strains' of Antique Rhythm, with no further structure. Occasionally such a poem will fall into verse paragraphs or 'strophes' [to be distinguished from the antistrophic system presently to be described]: an example is David's Song of Victory (see note on page 266). [For a combination of Antique Rhythm and the Antistrophic system, see note to vii on page 267.] 2. The metre of Wisdom verse is highly elaborate: we find here, not only the parallelism of successive clauses, but the 'high parallelism' which correlates all parts of a whole poem with one another. Two types may be distinguished: the Stanza structure and the Antistrophic structure. Stanzas are familiar to the English reader: in Biblical poetry groups of three lines, or four lines, etc., recur in succession: a simple example is the Chorus of Watchmen (on page 236). The Antistrophic system is familiar to students of Greek, as the metrical form of tragic choral odes. In this case the stanzas run in pairs, strophe and antistrophe, the theory being that the antistrophe exactly repeats the metrical form of its strophe; if another strophe follows the form may altogether change, but the changed form will be repeated in the corresponding antistrophe. [This may be expressed by the formula a a', b b', c c', etc.] Besides the pair of strophes there may be an introduction, or conclusion, or both. No. i of the Sonnets (on page 125) is an example of a poem consisting simply of strophe and antistrophe; No. iii (page 126) has also a conclusion.[7] [Footnote 7: The term strophe is the Greek for 'turning': the system is derived from the dance performance of Greek odes, according to which the chorus danced from the altar to the end of the orchestra in one stanza, then 'turned,' and _retraced their steps_ for the antistrophe or 'answering' stanza. The term strophe has come to be used also for verse paragraphs where there is no antistrophic arrangement. (See page 266, note on vi.)] Both in the case of the Stanza structure and the Antistrophic structure there are various modifications and elaborations--duplication, inversion, interruption, etc.: these it will be sufficient to explain in connection with the examples in which they are found. 3. The metre of Lyrics is in the main the same as that of Wisdom poetry. But in the strictest kinds of lyrics the structure is further determined by the musical performance. A lyric may be a solo, or the matter may be arranged for 'antiphonal' performance between different performers, e.g. choruses of Men and of Women. Antiphonal and antistrophic structure go easily together: see Deborah's Song, page 152. The musical performance also introduces the 'refrain,' a passage recurring (with or without changes for musical effect): for example see The Song of Moses and Miriam (page 149). 4. A characteristic metrical system in Biblical verse is the 'Doom form.' Here the thread of the poem is in what, for form and spirit, may be called prose; but this prose is interrupted at intervals by lyric verse, celebrating or realising what the prose brings forward. This is chiefly found in prophecies of 'doom,' or denunciation of the foes of Israel (hence the name): the prose is a Divine word of denunciation, the lyrics are mostly impersonal celebrations of what the Divine speaker says. The form is easily collected from examples; see pages 175-181. STORY Story as a form of literature differs from History by its appeal to the imagination and emotions, whereas History addresses itself to our sense of record and scientific explanation. It is of no consequence whether the matter of the story be historic fact or invention; in the one case the writer selects, in the other case he frames, such details as will have the desired effect in presenting the story to the mind of the reader. The stories of the Bible are scattered through the history, of which they form a part; thus a reader of the Bible in its ordinary versions may be required at any moment to alter the character of his attention without anything to warn him of the change. In the Modern Reader's Bible (volumes Genesis, The Exodus, The Judges, The Kings) the stories are separated from the surrounding matter by titles. Selections of these stories enter into the present volume. /i. Joseph and his Brethren./ This is one of the most elaborate and artistically beautiful stories in all literature. It emphasises an important place in the Biblical history, Joseph being a link between the Children of Israel and the world empire of Egypt. Among elements of story beauty note the personality of Joseph, its attractiveness wherever he goes and its gradual maturing. Note also the sketches of varied life which make a background to the story as it moves along--glimpses of shepherd life, of caravan trading, of palace life in Egypt. But the main interest will be the 'plot'--the technical term for the harmony that binds the different parts of a story into one whole. In the present case there are three 'motives' underlying the plot. (1) What has been called the 'oracular action': the interest of mystic dream oracles gradually becoming clear as the oracles are fulfilled. (2) The development of an ironic situation--Joseph recognising his brethren but not recognised by them: once developed this situation is prolonged to the utmost by the hero's conflict of feelings, between resentment and family affection. (3) Beneath all other motives is the providential overruling of human events for high purposes (compare page 27). /ii. The Witness of Balaam./ The place of this story in the main history is indicated by its title: the 'Exodus' is the period of development for Israel from a family to a nation, and towards the close of the period Balaam, an outsider, bears witness in spite of himself to the growing numbers of the nation and to its glorious future.--In literary form it is a 'mixed epic' or 'canti-fable': a story in prose that breaks into verse at appropriate places. (Compare the expression _took up his parable_: the parable is an undefined term for a more specialised literary form occurring in the course of more general literature, such as a fable in the midst of a discourse, or a poem in the midst of prose.)--Its interest rests partly upon the conception of the 'Blessing and the Curse': there is the superstitious idea of the efficacy of these in the minds of Balak and his people, while the true Blessing comes from the prophetic vision accorded to Balaam by God. [Compare 'The Stolen Blessing' in the Genesis volume.] In character Balaam is a sincere worshipper of Jehovah outside the ranks of Jehovah's people, who however from interested motives conforms to the heathen world around him as far as he can. [Outside this story the general history shows him as yielding at last to material interest and acting as tempter to Israel: compare Revelation, chapter ii. 14.]--The third paragraph (page 34) is the famous story of Balaam's Ass. It is the opinion of some that this is a fable interwoven with the main story: it is in favour of this view that the following paragraph, _So Balaam went with the princes of Balak_, etc., seems the natural continuation of the second paragraph; while the _princes of Balak_ are ignored in the story of the Ass. /iii. The Crowning of Abimelech./ This occupies an important place in the general history. Originally Israel is ruled only by the invisible Jehovah; gradually the secularising forces around lead to the institution of visible kings. This story is the first attempt at crowning a king, the work of a faction, with civil war and ruin as a result.--It is a story of war and adventure. [Compare the Raid on Michmash, or The Feud of Saul and David in the Judges volume.]--Its interest also rests upon the bitter fable of Jotham in scorn of kingship: the fable has the effect of a curse since it is literally fulfilled. /iv. Samson's Wedding Feast./ This illustrates a variety of story called 'Idyl': the word is almost equivalent to 'trifle,' and the term is applied to incidents of love or domestic life in contradistinction to graver matters of history. [Three Idyl Stories (Ruth, Esther, Tobit) are contained in the Biblical Idyls volume of this series.]--Characteristic of such a story is the game of riddles; the original riddle, answer, and rejoinder are all in single couplets.--It is not a pure idyl; feats of hero strength form another interest, as with other stories of Samson. /v-vii./ These are Prophetic Stories. As the secularising tendency in Israel towards visible kings prevails against the original conception of a spiritual rule by an invisible God there arises an order of 'prophets,' who stand forth as representatives of the invisible Jehovah, and are thus often in opposition to the external government. So in the history of The Kings stories of these prophets, with their miraculous powers, take the place of the stories of heroes and their feats in earlier parts of the history. During the captivity in Babylon, Daniel in a similar way represents the Hebrew God against the king and hierarchy of Babylon. /vii. Page 63./ I have followed a tradition that the mystic writing on the wall was interpreted by Daniel reading downward instead of across [or rather, down, up, down: the form of writing known as boustrophedon, that is, the way an ox turns in a furrow]. If the handwriting was in an unknown alphabet Daniel must have said so, or why should his interpretation be accepted at once? But if the characters were those to which the beholders were accustomed, but arranged in an unthought-of direction, it is easy to realise the puzzle of the audience and the instantaneous acceptance of the solution. ORATORY /i. The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the Curse./ The Book of Deuteronomy, from which this is taken, is a collection of the Orations and Songs of Moses, constituting his Farewell to the People of Israel. The general subject both of the oratory and song is the Covenant between Jehovah and his people, now for the first time committed to writing, and entrusted by the retiring leader of Israel to the Levites and Elders. The third of these orations is connected with a ceremonial occasion. An ordinance has been made for the ceremony of 'The Blessing and the Curse' to be an institution of the promised land: representatives of the Blessing are to stand on one mountain and representatives of the Curse on the opposite slope, the whole ritual solemnly enforcing the sanctity of the Covenant. At present however the people are on the wilderness side of Jordan; accordingly Moses arranges a _Rehearsal_ of this ceremony, on ground resembling the valley between Ebal and Gerizim. This rehearsal is allowed to proceed to a certain point when Moses stops it, and takes the subject of the blessings and curses into his own hands. Hence the abrupt commencement of this oration.--As elements of oratorical beauty note (1) the interweaving and parallelism of sentences, (2) the terrific crescendo and climax of denunciation. The oration must be spoken to get the full effect. /ii. Immortality and the Covenant with Death./ This is an example of the Written Address, Oratory that is not intended to be spoken. It is one of a series of imaginary addresses by King Solomon to the other rulers of the nations, constituting a work entitled 'The Wisdom of Solomon' (in volume 3 of the present series).--The author's style is distinguished by a peculiar order of thought, according to which some of the leading points of his argument take the form of digressions. The thought of this discourse is that death is no part of the natural order of the universe, but is introduced into the world by the wickedness of men. The author imagines a monologue of the wicked, led by despair of aught beyond the grave to a life of luxury and oppression. Another imaginary monologue expresses the feelings of the same wicked men as they awaken from death to the life beyond. But as a digression between these two monologues the author places his reflections on the 'hopes of the ungodly,' that is, the substitutes in earlier thought for the grand conception of a life beyond death. These substitutes are (1) the living over again in posterity, (2) long life in this world. With regard to the first he argues that the brood of the ungodly is unstable and accursed: better is childlessness with virtue. As to the hopes of long life, he argues that the old age of the wicked is without honour; whereas a life cut short may be a life perfected. /iii-vii./ These are Prophetic Discourses. Considered as part of the literature of Oratory these Prophetic Discourses hold an intermediate position between the spoken and the written address. What appears as a discourse in the books of the prophets is probably not the exact report of a speech, but the substance of a speech, or of several similar speeches, worked up again into the style of a written address. /iii. The Great Arraignment./ This discourse of Isaiah takes the form of a theme (God's arraignment of his people as rebels) treated in four paragraphs: the prophet's remonstrance--repentance by oblations--repentance of life--corruption redeemed with judgment. /iv. The Covenant with Death./ The phrase Covenant with Death in the title of this discourse of Isaiah has a different meaning from the same phrase in the title of another discourse (ii). In the latter it meant a supposed invitation to Death to come as a friend, by those who were 'of his portion'; in the present case it means an agreement with Death to pass by the supposed speaker while he visits others.--This discourse illustrates what is a characteristic feature of Hebrew literature--the 'pendulum structure,' by which the thought alternates in successive paragraphs between one and the other of two contrasting themes, in this case between Judgment and Salvation. The prophet is writing for the southern kingdom of Judah. Commencing with the rival kingdom of northern Israel he denounces drunken Ephraim, and how its crown of pride shall be trodden down (Judgment). But (Salvation) there shall be a crown of glory for the residue. Now he proceeds to Judgment upon Judah: the drunken rulers who trust to a refuge of lies, which the overflowing scourge shall sweep away. But there is Salvation for the patient. This comfort is imparted in agricultural images: the cruel plowing does not go on for ever, the gentle sowing comes; there are sharp threshing instruments [for the guilty], the gentle threshing with the rod for the precious cummin; and even the threshing is not to crush, but to make corn fit for bread. /v. The Utter Destruction and the Great Restoration./ A discourse made by companion pictures linked together by two parallel passages, each a parenthetic quintet, interrupting the pictorial description, which is afterwards resumed, with words emphasising the prophecy as a whole: _Seek ye out of the book of the LORD and read_ [how all these woes shall come to pass] ... _Strengthen ye the weak hands_ [with these glorious promises].--Note that Edom is only mentioned as typical of the foes of Israel in general, the pictures being of universal destruction and restoration. There is a similar use of Egypt and Edom as types of all the foes of Israel in another discourse (page 220). /vi. The Sword of the LORD./ This is an illustration of a very peculiar form of discourse, which is without parallel in modern literature. Ezekiel is the great representative of 'Emblem Prophecy,' that is, discourses which have for texts some symbolic action or piece of dumb show. But in extreme examples of Emblem Prophecy, like the present, symbolism pervades the whole of the discourse: attitude, gesture, visible emblem, sustained dumb show, song, are all mingled together and combined with oratory.--The discourse falls into four parts. (1) At the opening, the prophet sets his face toward Jerusalem: there is no symbolic action beyond this. (2) But as the address progresses, he suddenly draws forth a sword: this is the sword of the Lord which is to go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, and it will not return any more. Suddenly, the dramatic speaker has identified himself with the victims of this Divine sword: _Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins_, etc. Now the theme of the sword is resumed, and with it mingles what is evidently some military strain or folk-lore song, of which the augmenting lines suggest the gathering spirit of combat: _A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished_, etc. For a single moment the other side is presented--a people careless and secure: _the Rod of my son_ [they say] _it contemneth every tree_. But the impending destruction continues to gather force: _And it is given to be furbished that it may be handled_, etc. There is a sudden change, and cries and howls proclaim how the sword has fallen upon the people, and the _Rod that contemneth_ is no more. The emblematic movement seems to become more and more rapid [through three verses of the song: _And let the sword be doubled the third time_, etc.].--(3) A total change here ensues. The sword now becomes emblematic of the sword of Babylon; and the imaginary picture is that of the conqueror arriving at the junction of the ways and deciding by his omens to proceed against Jerusalem.--(4) Once more there is a total change: the sword now stands for Israel's enemies, the children of Ammon, and the verse conveys their boasting. But suddenly the prophetic speaker plunges the sword into its sheath: so is symbolically introduced the fate of Ammon to return to the land of his birth and perish there. /vii. Wreck of the Goodly Ship Tyre./ This illustrates a characteristic of Ezekiel's style by which, in place of visible symbolism, illustrated by the last example, a single image is sustained through the whole of a discourse. In the present case it is the image of a ship. Tyre was the great maritime city of antiquity: its grandeur is conveyed under the image of a ship which all the nations of the known world combine to build and load; the judgment is the wrecking of this goodly ship. /viii./ Amongst other things the prophetic books contain 'Sentences,' that is, brief sayings of prophets, each like an epigram, complete in itself. These no doubt passed from mouth to mouth like proverbs, and were collected by the prophets. The examples in this section are from the Book of Jeremiah. WISDOM 'Wisdom' is the name given to the department of Biblical literature which corresponds to Philosophy in modern literature. It is however always philosophy in application to human life and conduct. The starting-point of Wisdom literature is the /Unit Proverb/, which is a unit of thought in a unit of form. The unit of form is the couplet or triplet of verse: see above, page 242. Examples are given on pages 107-9. It will be seen that this Unit Proverb is a meeting-point of prose and verse literature: its form is verse, its matter (philosophy) belongs to the literature of prose. Accordingly it is natural that the more extended forms of Wisdom literature should take two directions: one on the side of verse, the other on the side of prose. /Epigrams/ and /Maxims/: examples of these are found on pages 109-11. The Epigram is a verse saying, of a few lines in length, in which two lines (not necessarily consecutive) are capable of standing by themselves as a unit proverb. In the examples given the two lines in each epigram that stand out on the left may be read as a proverb complete in itself. Such a germ proverb is the text of the epigram, the remaining lines serve to expand this text. The corresponding prose form is the Maxim, a unit proverb text with a brief prose comment. /Essays./ A more extended form of Wisdom literature, on the side of prose, is the Essay. The word has various uses: the Scriptural essays are not of the modern type (like those of Macaulay or Emerson), but of the antique type like the essays of Bacon. The title of an essay suggests a theme, on which the rest is a prose comment. (Pages 112-24.) Verse compositions consisting of comments upon themes are in this series called /Sonnets/. In general literature the idea underlying the Sonnet is the adaptation of the matter to the outer form, as if a poet's thought were poured into special moulds. In English and Italian sonnets there is only one such form or mould--a sequence of 14 lines divided according to a particular plan; the matter of these sonnets must be condensed or expanded to suit this plan. The nearest approach to this in Scriptural literature is the Fixed or Number Sonnet: the opening of this suggests a number scheme, to which the rest conforms. There be three things which are too wonderful for me, Yea, four which I know not: The way of an Eagle in the air; The way of a Serpent upon a rock; The way of a Ship in the midst of the sea; And the way of a Man with a Maid. The examples quoted in the present volume are different. They may be called 'Free Sonnets': the moulding in these is to nothing more restricted than 'high parallelism,' that is, not the parallelism binding successive lines into a stanza, but the bond which may correlate the most distant parts of a poem into a single scheme. The scheme of parallelism for each sonnet will be given in a separate note. Essays /ii./ This essay touches upon what was the great difficulty to early Hebrew thinkers: the visible prosperity of the wicked, which seemed to them contrary to their conception of 'judgment' or righteous providence. The author in this essay endeavours to meet the difficulty by two thoughts: (1) how a change of fate at the very end of life may make all the difference; (2) how the punishment may come in the next generation.--A resemblance will be noted at one point to a parable of the New Testament. /v./ An essay on the Choice of Company, in five paragraphs: The danger of unknown company in a house--the good only are proper objects of charity--friendship not trustworthy until tested by adversity--the humble can only be defiled by contact with the proud--like will to like, and riches cannot consort with poverty. /vi./ This essay is founded upon the old conception of society by which the educated formed a separate class--here called 'the scribes.' Translated into modern ideas of life the argument would be that no life in any social station must be without leisure, and on such leisure self-culture depends. /vii./ This section makes a transitional stage to the next division of our selections, as it consists of an Essay containing a Sonnet. The argument of the whole is that Life is a thing of joy, tempered by the sense of responsibility. The latter idea is conveyed by the word 'judgment,' which throughout the Old Testament stands for the irreconcilable antagonism between good and evil, and the certain overthrow of evil: the recognition of this makes action responsible. With this limitation, the author urges that the very shortness of life and youth is so much incentive to make joyful what days are allowed. The scheme of high parallelism [see above, page 256] in this sonnet is the 'pendulum structure': the alternation of successive lines between two thoughts is conveyed to the eye by the indenting of the lines. The middle lines put symbolic descriptions of old age; the lines indented on the left drop the symbolism and speak in plain terms. [The lines indented on the right are subordinate clauses.] The matter of the sonnet is a tour-de-force of symbolism, under which are veiled the symptoms of senile decay followed by death. It is very likely that some of the symbols may be lost; but it is not difficult to see, without straining, a possible interpretation for each; and some of them have passed into traditional use. The poetic beauty of the passage is marvellous. _Or ever the sun, and the light ... be darkened_: in view of the opening words of the preceding essay, which take the 'light' and 'sun' as symbols of the whole happiness of conscious existence, it is clear that the darkening of this light is the gradual failing of the joy of living.--_And the clouds return after the rain_: an exquisite symbol, closely akin to the last. In youth we may overstrain and disturb our health, but we soon rally; these are storms that quickly clear up. In age the rallying power is gone: "the clouds return after the rain."--_The keepers of the house shall tremble_: Cheyne understands of the hands and arms, the trembling of which is a natural accompaniment of old age.--_The strong men shall bow themselves_: the stooping frame; the plural is merely by attraction to 'keepers.'--_The grinders cease because they are few_: obviously of the teeth.--_Those that look out of the windows be darkened_: the eyes becoming dim.--_The doors shall be shut in the street_: the general connection of ideas makes it inevitable that the 'folding-doors' should be the jaws; clenched jaws are so marked a feature in the skull that it is not difficult to associate them with the picture of old age.--_When the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low_: these must be taken together: appetite, speech, and sleep are all feeble. Grinding must be interpreted as grinders in the previous part of the sonnet: the loud or low sound of such grinding may fitly typify the eagerness of appetite or the reverse. The early waking or short sleeping of old age is well known. _The daughters of music_ are the tones of the voice.--_They shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way_: the gait of old age is, through physical feebleness, much what the gait of a person terrified is for other reasons.--_The almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and the caperberry shall burst_: the three are linked together as being images from natural objects, not because of their symbolising similar things. _The blossoming of the almond tree_ probably refers to the sparse white hairs of age. The name of this tree in Hebrew is founded on the fact that it is the first to blossom; though not strictly white, its blossoms may be called whitish: the whitish blossoms, solitary while all is bare around, just yield the image required. The grasshopper is evidently a symbol for a small object, which is nevertheless heavy to feeble age. _The caperberry shall burst_: the last stage of its decay: the failing powers at last give way. And then follows the dropping of the symbolism: "Man goeth to his long home." So far we have had symbols for failure of powers; now for actual death and dissolution. _Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken_: a symbol from the house-lamp of gold, suspended by a silver cord, suddenly slipping its cord and breaking, its light becoming extinguished. For bowl in this sense compare Zechariah, chapter iv. 2, 3.--_Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern_: these are exquisite symbols for the sudden and violent cessation of every-day functions. Compare the popular proverb: "The pitcher goes to the well once too often."--_And the spirit return unto God who gave it_: this by analogy with the previous line must be interpreted to mean no more than that the man becomes just what he was before he was born. Sonnets /i. The Sluggard./ The metrical scheme of this sonnet is simple: a strophe balanced by an antistrophe. [See above, page 244.] /ii. The Mourning for the Fool./ Metrical scheme: a brief strophe and antistrophe and conclusion. /iii. The Two Paths./ Strophe, the way of wisdom; antistrophe, the path of the wicked; conclusion, union of the two in a common image. /iv. The Creator has made Wisdom the Supreme Prize./ The metrical scheme of this sonnet is an example of 'antistrophic inversion': that is, two strophes followed by their antistrophes, but the antistrophe to the second strophe precedes the antistrophe to the first. [This is sometimes expressed by the formula a b b a; or (reckoning the number of lines in each strophe) 4, 6; 6, 4.] The printing makes this clear to the eye.--The unity of thought in the sonnet is the conception of Wisdom as a prize. The middle strophe and antistrophe describe the richness of this prize; the opening strophe makes 'chastening' the cost at which it is obtained by the individual from the Lord; and the corresponding antistrophe (at the end) explains the reason for this costliness--wisdom was the instrument by which the whole universe was created. /v. Watchfulness of Lips and Heart./ A Prayer in sonnet form. The metrical scheme is an illustration of 'duplication' applied to antistrophic structure: a quatrain question (strophe 1) has a couplet answer (strophe 2); then the quatrain is duplicated into an octet (antistrophe 1), and the answer is duplicated into a quatrain (antistrophe 2). [The lines of invocation are not counted in strophe and antistrophe 2.] /vi. Wisdom and the Fear of the Lord./ This is one of the most elaborate sonnets: its metrical scheme combines antistrophic and stanza structure (above, page 243). There is first a strophe with its antistrophe; then a series of stanzas; but these stanzas illustrate the metrical device of 'augmenting,' for they increase, as the thought gathers strength, from 3 lines to 5 lines and 6 lines. /vii. Wisdom and the Strange Woman./ This is at once the foremost of wisdom poems in its thought, and the most elaborate in sonnet structure: here, as always, the structure is an exact reflection of the thought. The metrical scheme shows stanza structure throughout. The poem falls into seven sections. In sections 1, 3, 4, 7, which contain the thread of argument, we find octet and ten-line stanzas. Section 2, which breaks off from the argument to give a picture of temptation, changes to sextet stanzas. Sections 5 and 6, the monologue of Wisdom, are cast in quatrains, but as the monologue crescendoes to its climax the quatrains 'augment' to 5, 6, 7 lines. There is further the artistic device of 'interruption': the regular flow of stanzas is broken at critical points by single couplets (like musical rhythm interrupted by recitative); again in section 2 the actual speech of the temptress is an irregular mass of lines outside the stanza structure, and this break in the flow of lines has a fine effect. The thought of the poem is in the highest degree grand and bold. Scriptural philosophy loves to celebrate under the name 'Wisdom' the union of all things, whether of the external universe or of the spiritual life, in one Divine harmony. In this poem this Wisdom is to be personified, and to proclaim her attractions. But the poet prepares the way by contrast with the spirit of temptation, also personified in female form practising her allurements. This is displayed in a boldly drawn picture; and then the poet, with the words _Doth not Wisdom cry?_ suddenly turns round and presents 'Wisdom' as the temptress to good. LYRICS /i-ii./ These two selections are from the Book of Job. This consists of matter mainly philosophic worked up into an elaborate poem in which all literary forms--epic, lyric, drama, rhetoric, etc.--are blended in a way unparalleled in modern literature. Hence the form of these two pieces is intermediate between wisdom sonnets and the lyrical poems that follow. /i. An Elegy of a Broken Heart./ In the Book of Job this intervenes between the Story Prologue, which is prose, and the main body of the poem, which takes a dramatic form. Job breaks the silence to dilate, with lyrical elaboration, upon the situation of utter ruin which is to be the starting-point of the dramatic discussion. Hence the title of the section in the whole poem of Job is 'Job's Curse': but it admits of being separated from the action of the drama as an independent poem, with some such title as I have given it.--In metrical scheme it falls into two sections. Section 1 is an example of 'interruption' (compare note to vii of the sonnets). It will be seen that the last two lines continue the sentence begun by the first two lines, making with them a quatrain: between come masses of parallel lines interrupting with a tour-de-force of execration. Section 2 is made up of introductory quatrain, strophe, and antistrophe. /ii. The Creator's Joy in his Creation./ This selection from Job is a part of the 'Divine Intervention,' which may be read as a complete poem. That drama introduces the Voice of God out of the whirlwind as taking a part in the dialogue. The link between the Divine Intervention as a whole and the general argument is the impossibility of any mortal grasping the mysteries of the universe, which mysteries enfold the glories of nature as well as the dark ways of providence which Job and his friends have been discussing. As a part of this general thought the portion here cited works out the idea of the Creator's joy in his creation--a joyous sympathy with the infinities of great and small throughout the universe. It might be an expansion of the words in the story of the creation: "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."--The metrical scheme of this poem is a variation of the 'pendulum structure.' [Page 251.] It may be called a 'triple pendulum,' or alternation between three notes: one note is made by the startling questions of nature mysteries, another (lines indented to the right) exquisitely pictures the details of these wonders of nature, while for a third (lines still more to the right) there is a word of challenge to Job to answer. /iii-v./ These three selections are lyrics in the strictest sense. Originally all poetry is of the form technically called 'Ballad-Dance,' that is, verse combined with musical accompaniment and dancing. When this primitive poetry branches out into other forms, lyric is the form which retains most of the musical element. The poems here cited are lyrics in the strict sense that their structure is determined by the mode of their musical performance. This is seen by the 'antiphonal' distribution of the matter, for example, between choruses of men and women, and by the recurrence of passages ('refrains'). /iii. Song of Moses and Miriam./ This is arranged for a Chorus of Men, taking the successive sections of the song, and a Chorus of Women, singing the refrain. The metre is Antique Rhythm (above, page 242): the successive strophes augment with the growing fulness of the theme. The first strophe (after the prelude) simply states the fact of the deliverance; the second pictures it in detail, the third meditates on the consequences to the furthest future. /iv. Deborah's Song./ This also is arranged for a Chorus of Men, led by Barak, and a Chorus of Women, led by Deborah. It is in Antique Rhythm (above, page 242). Its structure is antiphonal as between Men, Women, and the two combined. The structure is further elaborated by 'interruption' [passages printed in italics], where the singers encourage one another. To appreciate the matter of the song it should be compared with the description of the incident in plain historic prose (Judges, chapter iv). It is not difficult to make out from this narrative (1) that Heber the Kenite, Jael's husband, was acting as a spy against his allies of Israel, and betraying their movements to the tyrant. Jael's act was treachery in retaliation for the treachery on the other side by her husband. This explains the exultation over her deed in Deborah's Song. (2) This treachery of Heber had upset the plans of Deborah and Barak: helpless against the iron chariots, their only hope had been to assemble secretly on the heights of Kedesh and attempt a surprise. But while the army of Sisera, warned by Heber, were awaiting them on the plains of Esdraelon, a sudden thunder storm with rain (commemorated in the Song) converted the whole plain into a morass. The army of Barak fell on the foe while their horses were struggling in the mud, and extirpated them at a blow. /V. David's Lament./ This simple elegy is cast in quatrain stanzas. Its only elaboration is an augmenting refrain. This beautiful refrain seems to rest for its effect upon the bringing together of two ideas, like a crescendo and decrescendo in music: How are the mighty fallen! This fragmentary refrain as it appears at the beginning is enlarged at the passage from the section on Saul to that on Jonathan, and still further enlarged at the close of the whole. /vi. David's Song of Victory./ This is in Antique Rhythm: its structure is 'strophic' (above, page 243). There is an introduction and conclusion, and three unequal strophes: the first pictures the deliverance, the second meditates on the principle involved (deliverance of the righteous), the third extends the confidence thus produced to the whole past and future. The most notable artistic effect is the sudden change at the prayer of the afflicted one: all nature is convulsed as the Almighty rushes to the rescue. /vii. The Bride's Reminiscences./ This is introduced as an example of the Lyric Idyl. The term 'idyl' has been explained above (page 248, note to iv): such idyls may be either narrated as stories, or brought out lyrically or dramatically, as in the present case. It is one of a series of lyric idyls making up the poem of Solomon's Song. The story underlying this poem has been variously interpreted; the interpretation followed in this series (Biblical Idyls volume) is that King Solomon, visiting his vineyards on Mount Lebanon, has come by surprise upon a beautiful Shulammite maiden. As she flies from the royal suite he seeks her in shepherd disguise and wins her love, then he brings her as queen to his palace. The present selection is Idyl II of the series, and contains two of the Bride's Reminiscences of this courtship. The first is of a visit by the disguised king on a fair spring morning, and how the lovers were interrupted by the harsh voices of the Bride's Brothers crying out that the foxes were in the vineyards. The second is a dream of losing and finding her lover. [The passages in italics are not spoken by the Bride, but are the poet's interludes, dividing the different sections of the poem.]--Metrical scheme. The idyls are a combination of Antique Rhythm and Antistrophic structure: but the parallelism of strophe and antistrophe must be reckoned in strains, not in lines (see above, page 242): thus we have four strains balanced by four, then two by two; then (in the Dream) three by three. [The refrains are outside the metrical scheme.] /viii, ix./ These are songs from the books of the prophets. /viii. The Battle of Carchemish./ This is a War Ballad, in triplet stanzas with 'duplication.' The battle celebrated was a turning-point in history, settling for ever the supremacy of the Babylonian over the Egyptian empire: these were the two world empires between which parties in the nation of Israel fluctuated, the whole strength of Jeremiah and the prophetic party being thrown against Egypt. /ix./ This /Song of Zion Redeemed/ forms a section of the Isaiahan 'Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed' [chapters xl-lxvi]. It is in stanzas of 4, or occasionally 6 and 8 lines, the flow interrupted by couplets, especially at the beginning of the sections. Compare above, page 262, note to /vii/ (Sonnets). /x, xi./ These are illustrations of a characteristic feature of Biblical poetry--the 'Doom form.' See above, page 245. /x. Isaiah's Doom of Babylon./ The structure is made up of the Divine word of the overthrow of Babylon [prose passages] interrupted at intervals by [impersonal] songs, realising or celebrating what the Divine word brings forward. The last of these verse interruptions is a fully developed Ode on Fallen Babylon. The structural form of this ode is antistrophic inversion (7, 6; 6, 7), like that of No. /iv/ of the Sonnets (above, page 260). Another effect in this ode is the Taunt or Dirge Song.--_My consecrated ones ... them that exult in my majesty._ The Divine voice is heard calling to God's 'hosts,' the idea suggested by the title 'Jehovah Sabaoth.' Compare Joel, chapter iii. 11 and 13; Psalm ciii. 20, 21.--_I will sit upon the mount of congregation in the uttermost parts of the north_: the north is regularly in Scripture the quarter from which Divine judgment is looked for (e.g. Ezekiel, chapter i. 4; Jeremiah vi. i; Job xxxvii. 22). /xi. Nahum's Doom of Nineveh./ This is a Doom Prophecy directed against Nineveh, partly in the structure called above 'doom form,' partly in other forms. It falls into seven sections. Sections 1 and 2 are meditations in pendulum form (above, page 251), the paragraphs alternating between judgment and salvation. Section 3 is in doom form: the Divine announcement of doom is interrupted by lyric realisation of the sudden attack upon Nineveh in the midst of its careless security. Section 4 is a brief lyric triumph over Nineveh overthrown. Section 5 resumes the doom form: the Divine denunciation interrupted by lyric realisation of Nineveh in its pride. With section 6 this passes into a Taunt Song (as in example /x/). The seventh section is a brief lyric meditation upon Nineveh overthrown and desolate. RHAPSODY This has been explained in the Introduction (pages xii-xiii) as a term applied to a highly characteristic form of prophetic literature, amounting to spiritual drama: actual dramatic dialogue and action being combined with other literary modes of expression to produce the general effect of dramatic realisation and movement. Some of the examples (I-III) are complete rhapsodies; IV is a discourse that becomes rhapsodic at its conclusion; V is a rhapsodic morceau, a single thought cast in this literary form; VI and VII are integral portions of one of the long rhapsodies. /I. Rhapsody of the Drought./ This is a simple and clear example of rhapsodic writing. It opens with scenic description of the drought; the rest is dialogue between God, Repentant Israel, and the Prophet. The action of the rhapsody consists in the gradual effect of intercession: God at first refuses so much as to answer the sinful People, and speaks only through the Prophet; at last he answers the People directly, but only to threaten; finally he shows mercy to the repentant remnant. /II. Habakkuk's Rhapsody of the Chaldeans./ This is a thoroughly typical and a splendid specimen of the rhapsody as a form of literature, (1) The historic situation is the appearance of the Chaldeans as a conquering power trampling down surrounding nations. This suggests the thought of judgment upon unpunished sin in Israel. But the Prophet feels a difficulty: how can a righteous God use a godless people as an instrument for the punishment of wickedness that is less than its own? The elaboration of this spiritual problem, in dramatic dialogue between God and the Prophet, makes the first section of the rhapsody.--(2) The Divine solution of this problem comes under the image of intoxication: the haughty career of the Chaldean is no more than the drunkard's reeling which precedes his fall. But as the idea of the fall of the Chaldean is reached there is a sudden change from dialogue to the doom form. This Doom of the Chaldeans has five stanzas of the usual combination between prose and verse: the prose is Divine denunciation, the verse passages are the imagined triumphing of the down-trodden nations over their fallen oppressor. Four of the stanzas express the fall of the Chaldean in four images: his uninterrupted career has been a heaping up of usury, but the exactor shall come; it has been building a house of refuge, but shame has been built into its walls; it has been building a huge city only to make a bigger bonfire to the glory of the avenging God; it has been giving drink to behold shame, but the drink of shame shall be given to the oppressor. The fifth stanza goes to the root of the matter: the Chaldean has trusted to senseless idols: Jehovah is the true teacher.--(3) So far the overthrow of the Chaldeans has been presented as a thing of the distant future; in the third section it is realised as visibly present: thus the movement of the rhapsody has been steadily advancing from the first forming of a problem to the climax of its solution. The literary form now changes to that of an Ode, realising the idea of Jehovah come to judgment. The prelude and postlude express the Prophet's feelings at the vision he hears and sees; the body of the ode realises the theophany itself. [Strophe, All nature convulsed as God comes; antistrophe, Is it against nature that the coming is directed? conclusion, Nay, but God comes to deliver his people. Compare Psalm cxiv.] /Page 205./ _I have heard the report of thee._ This _report_, and so _the voice_ in the second line of the postlude, refer to the voice supposed to sing what makes the body of the ode. This is the voice of Israel, heard in the vision describing the advent of Jehovah.--_O LORD revive thy work in the midst of the years_: compare on page 202 _though it tarry, wait for it_: the Prophet prays God to interpose before it is too late. /Page 207./ _I trembled in my place_, etc. The Prophet has a strange mingling of different feelings: terror at the vision of Jehovah's advent, though it be for his deliverance, and confidence, as a result of this vision, in the midst of desolation. /III. Joel's Rhapsody of the Locust Plague./ This rhapsody may be founded on an historic plague of locusts, but the notion is idealised into mystic forces of destruction. Nothing else in the historic situation has any bearing on the rhapsody, it is ideal all through: desolation because of sin, and 'judgment,' in the double sense of first a judgment on Israel that is turned by repentance to purification, then a judgment as between Israel and the nations. As arranged in the text the movement of this rhapsody explains itself. /VI./ This selection is the Prelude to the elaborate 'Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed' [Isaiah volume, pages 127-209]. Like the overture of many modern musical compositions, this Prelude is a lyric anticipation or foreshadowing of the whole work. A word of comfort for Jerusalem is spoken by God, and Voices are heard carrying the glad tidings on the way towards Jerusalem. The words spoken by these voices are anticipations of subsequent parts of the rhapsody. /VII./ This selection is the third Act or 'Vision' of the same rhapsody. It brings out in dramatic realisation the Awakening of Zion. Successive appeals are made by Jehovah to Zion without response. The Celestial Hosts join in the appeal: still without response from Zion. At last the awakening of Zion is brought out by the Chorus of Zion's Watchmen recognising the advent of the messengers who bring the glad tidings (compare the Prelude), and calling upon the city to awake and rejoice. REFERENCE TABLE The Volumes of the Modern Reader's Bible referred to in the Table are as follows: Wisdom Series: four volumes The Proverbs Ecclesiasticus Ecclesiastes and The Wisdom of Solomon The Book of Job Deuteronomy Biblical Idyls History Series: five volumes Genesis The Exodus The Judges The Kings The Chronicles Prophecy Series: four volumes Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Daniel and the Minor Prophets REFERENCE TABLE To connect the Selections with the Volumes of the Modern Reader's Bible and with the Chapters and Verses of the Ordinary Versions Modern Reader's Authorised or Revised Bible Version Volume Page Book Chapter Verse STORY Genesis 107 I Joseph and his Brethren Genesis XXXVII 1 The Exodus 250 II The Witness of Balaam to Israel Numbers XXII 2 The Judges 105 III The Crowning of Abimelech Judges VIII 29 The Judges 122 IV Samson's Wedding Feast Judges XIV 1 The Kings 189 V The Expedition against Elisha II Kings VI 8 Minor Prophets 15 VI The Dream of the Tree cut down Daniel IV 1 Minor Prophets 20 VII Belshazzar's Feast Daniel V 1 ORATORY Deuteronomy 91 I The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the Curse Deuteronomy XXVIII 1 Ecclesiastes, 71 II A Discourse on etc. Immortality and the Wisdom Covenant with Death of Solomon I 12 Isaiah 7 III Isaiah: The Great Arraignment Isaiah I 2 Isaiah 93 IV Isaiah: The Covenant with Death Isaiah XXVIII 1 Isaiah 109 V Isaiah: The Utter Destruction and the Great Restoration Isaiah XXXIV 1 Ezekiel 79 VI Ezekiel: The Sword of the Lord Ezekiel XXI 1 Ezekiel 104 VII Ezekiel: Wreck of the Ezekiel XXVII 1 Goodly Ship Tyre, VIII Prophetic Sentences Jeremiah 41 Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise Jeremiah IX 23 Jeremiah 43 There is none like unto thee Jeremiah X 6 Jeremiah 71 Thus saith the Lord: Cursed Jeremiah XVII 5 Jeremiah 127 Behold, the days come Jeremiah XXXI 31 WISDOM Wisdom Brevities Proverbs 48 The liberal soul Proverbs XI 25 Proverbs 59 Where no oxen are Proverbs XIV 4 Proverbs 75 He that is slow to anger Proverbs XVI 32 Proverbs 91 It is naught Proverbs XX 14 Proverbs 132 The words of a whisperer Proverbs XXVI 22 Proverbs 133 Boast not thyself Proverbs XXVII 1 Proverbs 43 As vinegar to the teeth Proverbs X 26 Proverbs 85 All the brethren Proverbs XIX 7 Proverbs 94 The getting of treasures Proverbs XXI 6 Proverbs 128 As one that taketh off Proverbs XXV 20 Proverbs 134 Wrath is cruel Proverbs XXVII 4 Proverbs 136 The fining pot Proverbs XXVII 21 Proverbs 108 Epigram: Transitoriness of Riches, Proverbs XXIII 4 Proverbs 109 Epigram: Hospitality of the Evil Eye Proverbs XXIII 6 Ecclesiasticus 16 Maxim: My son, if thou comest Ecclesiasticus II 1 Ecclesiasticus 57 Three Temperance Maxims Ecclesiasticus XVIII 30 Essays Ecclesiasticus 22 i Wisdom's Way with her Children Ecclesiasticus IV 11 Ecclesiasticus 40 ii Prosperity and Adversity are from the Lord Ecclesiasticus XI 11 Ecclesiasticus 58 iii Against Gossip Ecclesiasticus XIX 4 Ecclesiasticus 94 iv On the Tongue Ecclesiasticus XXVIII 12 Ecclesiasticus 42 v Choice of Company Ecclesiasticus XI 29 Ecclesiasticus 129 vi The Wisdom of Business and the Wisdom of Leisure Ecclesiasticus XXXVIII 24 Ecclesiastes, etc. 55 vii Life as a Joy shadowed by the Judgment Ecclesiastes XI 7 Sonnets Proverbs 23 i The Sluggard Proverbs VI 6 Ecclesiasticus 70 ii Mourning for the Fool Ecclesiasticus XXII 11 Proverbs 18 iii The Two Paths Proverbs IV 10 Proverbs 13 iv The Creator has made Wisdom the Supreme Prize Proverbs III 11 Ecclesiasticus 72 v Watchfulness of Lips and Heart Ecclesiasticus XXII 27 Ecclesiasticus 13 vi Wisdom and the Fear of the Lord Ecclesiasticus I 1 Proverbs 27 vii Wisdom and the Strange Woman Proverbs VII 1 LYRICS Job 15 I An Elegy of a Broken Heart Job III 3 Job 107 II The Creator's Joy in his Creation Job XXXVIII 4 The Exodus 43 III The Song of Moses and Miriam Exodus XV 1 The Judges 88 IV Deborah's Song Judges V 2 The Judges 244 V David's Lament II Samuel I 19 The Kings 67 VI David's Song of Victory II Samuel XXII 2 Bib. Idyls 13 VII The Bride's Reminiscences Song of Songs II 8 Jeremiah 175 VIII Jeremiah: The Battle of Carchemish Jeremiah XLVI 3 Isaiah 190 IX A Song of Zion Redeemed Isaiah LX 1 Isaiah 49 X Isaiah: Doom of Babylon Isaiah XIII 2 Minor Prophets 147 XI Nahum: Doom of Nineveh Nahum I 2 RHAPSODY Jeremiah 61 I Rhapsody of the Drought Jeremiah XIV 2 Minor Prophets 157 II Rhapsody of the Chaldeans Habakkuk I 2 Minor Prophets 77 III Rhapsody of the Locust Plague Joel I 2 Jeremiah 35 IV The Hurt of the Daughter of my People Jeremiah VIII 4 Minor Prophets 140 V The Lord's Controversy before the Mountains Micah VI 1 Isaiah 131 VI Prelude to the Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed Isaiah XL 1 Isaiah 165 VII Zion Awakened Isaiah LI 1 Small 18mo. Cloth extra, 50 cents each; Leather, 60 cents. The Modern Reader's Bible. A Series of Books from the Sacred Scriptures, presented in Modern Literary Form, BY RICHARD G. MOULTON, M.A. (Camb.), Ph.D. (Penn.), Professor of Literature in English in the University of Chicago. PRESS COMMENTS. The Outlook, New York. "The effect of these changes back to the original forms under which the sacred writings first appeared will be, for the vast majority of readers, a surprise and delight; they will feel as if they had come upon new spiritual and intellectual treasures, and they will appreciate for the first time how much the Bible has suffered from the hands of those who have treated it without reference to its literary quality. In view of the significance and possible results of Professor Moulton's undertaking, it is not too much to pronounce it one of the most important spiritual and literary events of the times. It is part of the renaissance of Biblical study; but it may mean, and in our judgment it does mean, the renewal of a fresh and deep impression of the beauty and power of the supreme spiritual writing of the world." Presbyterian and Reformed Review. "Unquestionably here is a task worth carrying out: and it is to be said at once that Dr. Moulton has carried it out with great skill and helpfulness. Both the introduction and the notes are distinct contributions to the better understanding and higher appreciation of the literary character, features and beauties of the Biblical books treated." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK WISDOM SERIES IN FOUR VOLUMES THE PROVERBS A Miscellany of Sayings and Poems embodying Isolated Observations of Life. ECCLESIASTICUS A Miscellany including longer compositions, still embodying only Isolated Observations of Life. ECCLESIASTES--WISDOM OF SOLOMON Each is a Series of Connected Writings embodying, from different standpoints, a Solution of the Whole Mystery of Life. THE BOOK OF JOB A Dramatic Poem in which are embodied Varying Solutions of the Mystery of Life. DEUTERONOMY The Orations and Songs of Moses, constituting his Farewell to the People of Israel. BIBLICAL IDYLS The Lyric Idyl of Solomon's Song, and the Epic Idyls of Ruth, Esther, and Tobit. THE PSALMS (Two Volumes) Containing the whole of The Psalms and also the Book of Lamentations. SELECT MASTERPIECES OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE HISTORY SERIES IN FIVE VOLUMES GENESIS Bible History, Part I: Formation of the Chosen Nation. THE EXODUS Bible History, Part II: Migration of the Chosen Nation to the Land of Promise.--Book of Exodus, with Leviticus and Numbers. THE JUDGES Bible History, Part III: The Chosen Nation in its Efforts towards Secular Government.--Books of Joshua, Judges, I Samuel. THE KINGS Bible History, Part IV: The Chosen Nation under a Secular Government side by side with a Theocracy.--Books of II Samuel, I and II Kings. THE CHRONICLES Ecclesiastical History of the Chosen Nation.--Books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah. PROPHECY SERIES IN FOUR VOLUMES ISAIAH The vision of Isaiah, the Son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah. EZEKIEL The prophetic works of Ezekiel. JEREMIAH The words of Jeremiah, the Son of Hilkiah, to whom the Word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, Kings of Judah. DANIEL AND THE MINOR PROPHETS Containing The Book of Daniel, The Prophecy of Hosea, The Prophecy of Joel, The Book of Amos, The Vision of Obadiah, The Book of Jonah, The Prophecy of Micah, The Oracle Concerning Nineveh and the Book of Nahum, The Oracle which Habakkuk did see, The Prophecy of Zephaniah, The Book of Haggai, The Book of Zechariah, and other anonymous prophecies. NEW TESTAMENT SERIES IN FOUR VOLUMES ST. MATTHEW, ST. MARK, and the GENERAL EPISTLES Containing The Gospel according to St. Matthew, The Gospel according to St. Mark, an Epistle to the Hebrews, The Epistle of St. James, The Epistles of St. Peter, and The Epistle of St. Jude. ST. LUKE and ST. PAUL (Two Volumes) Containing The Gospel of St. Luke, The Acts of the Apostles, with the Pauline Epistles introduced at the several points of the history to which they are usually referred. An opportunity will thus be afforded of studying, without the interruption of comment or discussion, the continuous History of the New Testament Church as presented by itself. ST. JOHN Containing the Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of St. John. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
31018	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 31018-h.htm or 31018-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31018/31018-h/31018-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31018/31018-h.zip) Altemus' Beautiful Stories Series A FARMER'S WIFE The Story of Ruth by J. H. WILLARD Illustrated Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company * * * * * Altemus' Illustrated Beautiful Stories Series THE FIRST CHRISTMAS. THE FIRST EASTER. ONCE IN SEVEN YEARS. The Story of the Jubilee WITH HAMMER AND NAIL. The Story of Jael and Sisera FIVE KINGS IN A CAVE. The Story of a Great Battle THE WISEST MAN. The Story of Solomon A FARMER'S WIFE. The Story of Ruth THE MAN WHO DID NOT DIE. The Story of Elijah WHEN IRON DID SWIM. The Story of Elisha WHAT is SWEETER THAN HONEY. The Story of Samson Twenty-five Cents Each Copyright, 1906 By Henry Altemus * * * * * [Illustration: Working in the fields] A FARMER'S WIFE THE STORY OF RUTH. In the district called Ephrath, belonging to the tribe of Judah, stood the city of Bethlehem, or "house of bread." It was a city with walls and gates, and lay between fruitful hills and well-watered valleys. There among pleasant cornfields and pasture lands lived a man named Elimelech, which means "my God is my King." He was descended from one of the princes of Judah, and was a man of means and consequence. [Illustration: A FERTILE REGION IN PALESTINE.] Elimelech's wife was named Naomi, meaning "pleasant," and they had two sons whose names were Mahlon and Chilion. This old and noble family lived in this fertile region, amid pleasant surroundings, and with happy prospects, until one of the frequent famines that were brought on by want of rain visited their district. [Illustration: "THE PARCHED AND STERILE FIELDS."] Leaving the parched and sterile fields around Bethlehem, Elimelech, his family and his flocks, left their home and settled in the rich and well-watered lands of the Moabites, beyond the Jordan. As a wealthy foreigner, he probably was well received by the people of Moab, and secured good pasturage for his sheep and cattle. [Illustration: SEEKING PASTURAGE FOR HIS SHEEP.] But much trouble was in store for this family, notwithstanding its wealth had enabled them to leave their own famine-stricken lands. First Elimelech died, and the family was without a head. [Illustration: ON THE WAY TO THE LAND OF MOAB.] Then Mahlon married a beautiful woman of the country in which he was then living, named Ruth, and his brother Chilion married another named Orpah. Such marriages were against the law of Moses, because the Moabites worshipped idols, but as the nation was descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham, the marriages were not so bad as they would have been with women belonging to other of the different tribes of Canaan. [Illustration: PLAIN AND MOUNTAINS OF MOAB.] _From a Photograph._ After a while both of the sons of Naomi died, and she was left a childless widow in a strange land. By her gracious ways she had won the affection of both Ruth and Orpah, and now sorrow locked their hearts together in sympathy. At length, Naomi turned her longing eyes to her old home in Bethlehem. Ten years had come and gone since she left it, and now the news had reached her that there was plenty of food there. Naomi and her two daughters-in-law started on their way to the land of Judah. After a while, thinking that they had accompanied her far enough, Naomi bade Ruth and Orpah return to their own mothers' homes, and spoke very kindly to them. She kissed them and would have taken leave of them, but they insisted that they would go with her to the home of her own people. [Illustration: "NAOMI BID RUTH AND ORPAH RETURN."] Then Naomi suggested that they would not be welcome at Bethlehem because they were Moabites. They would be looked upon with reproach, strangers in a strange land, and again she pleaded with them to go home, lest their love for her should prove a sorrow to them. [Illustration: BETHLEHEM.] Orpah was persuaded to return and settle down among her kindred, and probably did so from a sense of duty; but Ruth would not leave Naomi, although her mother-in-law gave her one more opportunity to go back to Moab. The chief cause for separation, according to Naomi, was, not that they belonged to different races, but that they did not worship the same God. But Ruth, in words at once pathetic and sincere, unselfish in spirit and expression, declared her resolve. _"Intreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."_ [Illustration: "'INTREAT ME NOT TO LEAVE THEE.'"] Ruth gave up father and mother, friends and relatives, religion and country, and chose poverty and a life among strangers because of her love for Naomi, and her trust in Naomi's God. They reached Bethlehem about the beginning of the barley harvest, and secured some kind of a home. The city of Bethlehem was stirred by the return of Naomi. She had left them accompanied by husband and sons, and in prosperity. She returned, altered in circumstances, changed in appearance, and accompanied only by a Moabitish woman. [Illustration: A HARVEST FIELD IN PALESTINE TO-DAY.] _From a Photograph._ Her friends could hardly believe their eyes, and exclaimed, "Is this Naomi?" To which she would reply, "Call me not Naomi, 'pleasant,' call me Mara, 'bitter,' for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." There was much surprise shown at the return of Naomi with Ruth, but there is no record that people were helpful or even kind to them, and probably the first thing they had to do was to secure food. [Illustration: "'IS THIS NAOMI?'"] As it was harvest time, Ruth volunteered to go into the fields and glean, and so, one morning, she went forth as an alien, among strangers, to find bread for the two. She came to one of the fields of Boaz, a man of wealth and position, and a kinsman of Elimelech, and asked permission to glean among the sheaves. In the glory of the early morning, a band of reapers were cutting the bearded barley with their sickles. Behind them, women bound the grain in sheaves, and behind these workers were a group of gleaners, made up from the aged and the young. Ruth took her place among the gleaners, and bending her back like the rest gathered the stray ears left by the binders. The overseer watched both laborers and gleaners. All were known to him, even the beautiful stranger from the land of Moab. [Illustration: A HARVEST FIELD NEAR BETHLEHEM TO-DAY.] _From a Photograph._ As the day advanced, Boaz entered the field with the salutation to his men, "The Lord be with you." They replied, "The Lord bless thee." Then glancing around the field, Boaz saw Ruth among the gleaners and asked the overseer who she was. The overseer replied that she was the Moabitish woman who came back with Naomi, and that she had asked permission to gather the barley ears with the rest of the gleaners. Boaz was interested at once, and, struck by Ruth's modesty and beauty, he went to her and said she was not to glean in any other fields but his all the time of harvest. He told her she need fear no rudeness from the young men, for he had laid his commands upon them not to molest or offend her. He also told her that when she was thirsty she was to drink of what had been prepared for the reapers. [Illustration: "SHE WAS NOT TO GLEAN IN ANY OTHER FIELDS."] Ruth was deeply touched by this slight kindness. Bowing to the ground she asked why it was that she, a stranger, had found grace in his sight. Boaz replied that he had learned of her loving treatment of Naomi, since the death of her husband, and how she had left her father and her mother, and the land where she was born, to live with her mother-in-law; and then he invoked the blessing of God upon her and upon her work. [Illustration: "BOAZ INVOKED THE BLESSING OF GOD UPON HER."] The sympathy and sincerity of Boaz were very grateful to Ruth. She was comforted as well, for she knew that he had recognized her goodness to Naomi, and knew that she had come to trust in the care of God. At meal time Boaz invited her to eat with the reapers, and even handed food to her himself. After the simple meal was eaten and Ruth was again among the gleaners, Boaz told the reapers to let her glean wherever she chose, and to drop some of the grain on purpose for her, so that her work might be lightened. As the sun began to set, all went their homeward way, and when Ruth reached her home she beat out all the ears of barley she had gleaned and found there were three pecks of barley, about ten times as much as a single Israelite's daily portion of manna while wandering in the wilderness. Her first day's work had secured provision for several days to come. When Naomi saw what a quantity of barley Ruth had brought home, she asked in whose field she had gleaned. Then Ruth related all the events of the day, and how Boaz had been kind to her. It pleased Naomi to hear that Boaz had shown kindness to Ruth and to her, because he was a relation of her husband, and one whose duty it was to care for a widow, and one who had a right to help them by law. Such a relative was called a goel, meaning a "redeemer." So the days of the harvest passed. Every day Ruth gleaned in the fields, and at night returned to Naomi. Each day she kept close by the maidens of Boaz, through the barley harvest, and then to the last ingathering of the wheat. [Illustration: "EVERY DAY RUTH GLEANED IN THE FIELDS."] The harvest finished, the threshing of the grain began. Naomi was anxious that the "redeemer" should exercise his right. According to Israelitish law, when a man died and left his wife childless, his nearest of kin was to take the widow to be his wife, and any son born of this marriage should inherit the name and possessions of the first husband. In this way he kept his brother's name and inheritance from being blotted out. Naomi saw with thankfulness that Divine Love had led Ruth to the protection of her rightful guardian. So Naomi planned how Ruth should have an opportunity of speaking to Boaz. She told her to take off the sign of her mourning and widowhood, and go to the threshing-floor when the grain was beaten out. These threshing-floors were either natural spaces of rock, or open places covered with large flat stones, so that the grain could be readily separated from the husk without waste, and the chaff easily blown away. The sheaves of grain were spread on these places, and a wooden sledge, covered with iron teeth, was dragged over them by oxen until all the grain had fallen from the dry ears. It was a joyful time, the oxen were not muzzled, so they could eat while they worked, and the master and his servants feasted. [Illustration: "THE OXEN WERE NOT MUZZLED."] When the grain was threshed, it was cleaned by the cool winds of morning or evening, and by the aid of large fans. As this winnowing had to be done when the breezes sprang up, master and servant often slept all night at the threshing floors, so as to be ready for the first breath of wind, and to see that the grain was not stolen. Naomi told Ruth to go to the threshing-floor of Boaz, and speak to him during the night. Ruth did as she was told, and at the proper time told Boaz that he had the right to redeem her. Boaz was pleased, and told her that he would do as she had said. But he reminded her that while he was her kinsman, there was another who was nearer. He would see this man in the morning, and if he would not exercise his right as "redeemer," he would perform the part of a kinsman himself. He told her to lie quietly down until morning, and when it was nearly sunrise he poured into the veil or cloak that she wore, six measures of barley, and sent her home to Naomi. [Illustration: "GAVE HER SIX MEASURES OF BARLEY."] Ruth went on her way in the dusk of dawn, bearing the present of grain on her head, as was the custom of the country. She was returning to her mother-in-law with a story of hope and blessing that had come to her in the promise of Boaz. When she reached home, Naomi's first question was, "How hast thou fared, my daughter?" Then Ruth told her all that Boaz had said and done, and how he had given her the barley, saying as he did so, "Go not empty to thy mother-in-law." Naomi was pleased, for she understood how Boaz and Ruth felt towards each other, and so said: _"Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fare; for the man will not rest until he have finished the thing this day."_ In Palestine, nearly every town, and many villages, were surrounded by walls, and at the main entrances there were deep gateways which generally had broad and shady spaces in front, where people frequently met. These gates became the chief places of interest. They were often arched over and used as watch towers; they became the guard-house, business was transacted there, and in this way they became markets. People met in the city gates to discuss the news of the day, and proclamations were made there. Kings and rulers gave audience there, and being a place of general resort, the elders sat there to dispense justice. [Illustration: "KINGS AND RULERS GAVE AUDIENCE THERE."] In the morning, then, Boaz went to the gateway of the city of Bethlehem, ready to fulfill his pledge to Ruth. As he sat there, the man who was the nearest relative of Elimelech passed by. Boaz summoned him to a seat by himself, using the legal form of expression by which he would understand that there was special business to be transacted. Then the elders, or wise and respected citizens were asked to hear Boaz's case, and to be at once judges and responsible witnesses, and to ratify the proceedings. In their presence, and in the hearing of the people who gathered near, Boaz stated the facts, saying to the "redeemer": _"Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, seeketh the parcel of land which was our brother Elimelech's: and I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people."_ And then Boaz went on and asked the man if he would redeem it, and the man said that he would do so. He further explained to him the customs and conditions of the law, and told him if he took the land he must also take Ruth the Moabitess to be his wife. But this was a part of the bargain that the man did not want to perform, so he turned his right of redemption over to Boaz, giving as his reason, that he would not mind buying the field if it would become his own personal property, but if he should marry Ruth the field he bought would not belong to him; and so he would have paid out money for something which would bring him little or no benefit. It is not at all unlikely that he refused to marry Ruth because she was a Moabitess, fearing that a marriage with an alien might mar his reputation and position in the city. When the man had announced his decision, it was confirmed by the usual custom in all cases of redeeming and exchanging. The one giving up the claim took off his sandal and gave it to the one who received the claim. The matter was thus ratified, as though a bond had been drawn up and signed. [Illustration: "HE DREW OFF HIS SANDAL AND HANDED IT TO BOAZ."] In this way the unnamed kinsman of Elimelech refused to redeem Ruth and her land, and as a proof of it he drew off his sandal and handed it to Boaz before the ten elders and all the people, thus transferring to him the legal right to be the "redeemer." Boaz then called all present to witness that he had that day bought all that was Elimelech's and all that was Chilion's and all that was Mahlon's, and also that Ruth the Moabitess was to be his wife. And all the elders and all the people who were in the gate said they would be witnesses. [Illustration: VIEW IN PALESTINE NEAR BETHLEHEM.] _From a Photograph._ And because Boaz had acted so honorably, all present united in asking the blessing of God upon his marriage. So, with the approval and best wishes of his neighbors and friends, and above all with the blessing of God, Boaz and Ruth were married. The story of Ruth is a beautiful one, for it shows how the sacrifice and service of love was rewarded. Naomi in her old age and declining days was made glad, and the alien found a happy home. In time a son was born to Boaz and Ruth, and the name of "Obed," or "the serving one," was given to it. This boy grew up to be the father of Jesse, whose son was the mightiest of Israel's kings. [Illustration: "NAOMI BECAME THE CHILD'S NURSE."] When Ruth's baby boy was born, the matrons of Bethlehem congratulated Naomi, who became the child's nurse. The boy grew up to be the joy of his parents and the comfort of his adopted grandmother, and in time the ancestor of Mary the mother of Jesus. [Illustration: DAVID, GRANDSON OF THE SON OF RUTH.] The Saviour of the world, then, sprang from the tribe of Judah, and from the Gentiles, as they are called in the New Testament, through Ruth the Moabitess. [Illustration: RUTH THE BEAUTIFUL MOABITESS.] The memory of the faithful, loving Ruth has been a sweet and living picture for many centuries. She left her home, her friends, her all, to be kind and good to her broken-hearted mother-in-law, and to serve God, and found much more than she gave up. She brought consolation to Naomi, there came to her love, prosperity, and peace, and through her children's children, Jesus the Christ. [Illustration: A shepherd at a river] 
7168	----	INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT By JOHN EDGAR McFADYEN, M.A. (Glas.) B.A. (Oxon.) _Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis, Knox College, Toronto_ To My Pupils Past and Present PREFACE This _Introduction_ does not pretend to offer anything to specialists. It is written for theological students, ministers, and laymen, who desire to understand the modern attitude to the Old Testament as a whole, but who either do not have the time or the inclination to follow the details on which all thorough study of it must ultimately rest. These details are intricate, often perplexing, and all but innumerable, and the student is in danger of failing to see the wood for the trees. This _Introduction_, therefore, concentrates attention only on the more salient features of the discussion. No attempt has been made, for example, to relegate every verse in the Pentateuch[1] to its documentary source; but the method of attacking the Pentateuchal problem has been presented, and the larger documentary divisions indicated. [Footnote 1: Pentateuch and Hexateuch are used in this volume to indicate the first five and the first six books of the Old Testament respectively, without reference to any critical theory. As the first five books form a natural division by themselves, and as their literary sources are continued not only into Joshua, but probably beyond it, it is as legitimate to speak of the Pentateuch as of the Hexateuch.] It is obvious, therefore, that the discussions can in no case be exhaustive; such treatment can only be expected in commentaries to the individual books. While carefully considering all the more important alternatives, I have usually contented myself with presenting the conclusion which seemed to me most probable; and I have thought it better to discuss each case on its merits, without referring expressly and continually to the opinions of English and foreign scholars. In order to bring the discussion within the range of those who have no special linguistic equipment, I have hardly ever cited Greek or Hebrew words, and never in the original alphabets. For a similar reason, the verses are numbered, not as in the Hebrew, but as in the English Bible. I have sought to make the discussion read continuously, without distracting the attention--excepting very occasionally-by foot-notes or other devices. Above all things, I have tried to be interesting. Critical discussions are too apt to divert those who pursue them from the absorbing human interest of the Old Testament. Its writers were men of like hopes and fears and passions with ourselves, and not the least important task of a sympathetic scholarship is to recover that humanity which speaks to us in so many portions and so many ways from the pages of the Old Testament. While we must never allow ourselves to forget that the Old Testament is a voice from the ancient and the Semitic world, not a few parts of it--books, for example, like Job and Ecclesiastes--are as modern as the book that was written yesterday. But, first and last, the Old Testament is a religious book; and an _Introduction_ to it should, in my opinion, introduce us not only to its literary problems, but to its religious content. I have therefore usually attempted--briefly, and not in any homiletic spirit--to indicate the religious value and significance of its several books. There may be readers who would here and there have desiderated a more confident tone, but I have deliberately refrained from going further than the facts seemed to warrant. The cause of truth is not served by unwarranted assertions; and the facts are often so difficult to concatenate that dogmatism becomes an impertinence. Those who know the ground best walk the most warily. But if the old confidence has been lost, a new confidence has been won. Traditional opinions on questions of date and authorship may have been shaken or overturned, but other and greater things abide; and not the least precious is that confidence, which can now justify itself at the bar of the most rigorous scientific investigation, that, in a sense altogether unique, the religion of Israel is touched by the finger of God. JOHN E. McFADYEN. ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND. CONTENTS THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS GENESIS EXODUS LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY JOSHUA THE PROPHETIC AND PRIESTLY DOCUMENTS JUDGES SAMUEL KINGS ISAIAH JEREMIAH EZEKIEL HOSEA JOEL AMOS OBADIAH JONAH MICAH NAHUM HABAKKUK ZEPHANIAH HAGGAI ZECHARIAH MALACHI PSALMS PROVERBS JOB SONG OF SONGS RUTH LAMENTATIONS ECCLESIASTES ESTHER DANIEL EZRA-NEHEMIAH CHRONICLES THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS In the English Bible the books of the Old Testament are arranged, not in the order in which they appear in the Hebrew Bible, but in that assigned to them by the Greek translation. In this translation the various books are grouped according to their contents--first the historical books, then the poetic, and lastly the prophetic. This order has its advantages, but it obscures many important facts of which the Hebrew order preserves a reminiscence. The Hebrew Bible has also three divisions, known respectively as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. _The Law_ stands for the Pentateuch. _The Prophets_ are subdivided into (i) the former prophets, that is, the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, regarded as four in number; and (ii) the latter prophets, that is, the prophets proper--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (i.e. the Minor Prophets). _The Writings_ designate all the rest of the books, usually in the following order--Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles. It would somewhat simplify the scientific study even of the English Bible, if the Hebrew order could be restored, for it is in many ways instructive and important. It reveals the unique and separate importance of the Pentateuch; it suggests that the historical books from Joshua to Kings are to be regarded not only as histories, but rather as the illustration of prophetic principles; it raises a high probability that Ruth ought not to be taken with Judges, nor Lamentations with Jeremiah, nor Daniel with the prophets. It can be proved that the order of the divisions represents the order in which they respectively attained canonical importance--the law before 400 B.C., the prophets about 200 B.C., the writings about 100 B.C.--and, generally speaking, the latest books are in the last division. Thus we are led to suspect a relatively late origin for the Song and Ecclesiastes, and Chronicles, being late, will not be so important a historical authority as Kings. The facts suggested by the Hebrew order and confirmed by a study of the literature are sufficient to justify the adoption of that order in preference to that of the English Bible. GENESIS The Old Testament opens very impressively. In measured and dignified language it introduces the story of Israel's origin and settlement upon the land of Canaan (Gen.--Josh.) by the story of creation, i.-ii. 4_a_, and thus suggests, at the very beginning, the far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of man's place and task in the world, and of his need of woman's companionship, ii. 4_b_-25, it plunges at once into an account, wonderful alike in its poetic power and its psychological insight, of the tragic and costly[1] disobedience by which the divine purpose for man was at least temporarily frustrated (iii.). His progress in history is, morally considered, downward. Disobedience in the first generation becomes murder in the next, and it is to the offspring of the violent Cain that the arts and amenities of civilization are traced, iv. 1-22. Thus the first song in the Old Testament is a song of revenge, iv. 23, 24, though this dark background of cruelty is not unlit by a gleam of religion, iv. 26. After the lapse of ten generations (v.) the world had grown so corrupt that God determined to destroy it by a flood; but because Noah was a good man, He saved him and his household and resolved never again to interrupt the course of nature in judgment (vi.-viii.). In establishing the covenant with Noah, emphasis is laid on the sacredness of blood, especially of the blood of man, ix. 1-17. Though grace abounds, however, sin also abounds. Noah fell, and his fall revealed the character of his children: the ancestor of the Semites, from whom the Hebrews sprang, is blessed, as is also Japheth, while the ancestor of the licentious Canaanites is cursed, ix. 18-27. From these three are descended the great families of mankind (x.) whose unity was confounded and whose ambitions were destroyed by the creation of diverse languages, xi. 1-9. [Footnote 1: Death is the penalty (iii. 22-24). Another explanation of how death came into the world is given in the ancient and interesting fragment vi. 1-4.] It is against this universal background that the story of the Hebrews is thrown; and in the new beginning which history takes with the call of Abraham, something like the later contrast between the church and the world is intended to be suggested. Upon the sombreness of human history as reflected in Gen. i.-xi., a new possibility breaks in Gen. xii., and the rest of the book is devoted to the fathers of the Hebrew people (xii.-l.). The most impressive figure from a religious point of view is Abraham, the oldest of them all, and the story of his discipline is told with great power, xi. 10-xxv. 10. He was a Semite, xi. 10-32, and under a divine impulse he migrated westward to Canaan, xii. 1-9. There various fortunes befell him--famine which drove him to Egypt, peril through the beauty of his wife,[1] abounding and conspicuous prosperity--but through it all Abraham displayed a true magnanimity and enjoyed the divine favour, xii. 10-xiii., which was manifested even in a striking military success (xiv.). Despite this favour, however, he grew despondent, as he had no child. But there came to him the promise of a son, confirmed by a covenant (xv.), the symbol of which was to be circumcision (xvii.); and Abraham trusted God, unlike his wife, whose faith was not equal to the strain, and who sought the fulfilment of the promise in foolish ways of her own,[2] xvi., xviii. 1-15. Then follows the story of Abraham's earnest but ineffectual intercession for the wicked cities of the plain--a story which further reminds us how powerfully the narrative is controlled by moral and religious interests, xviii. 16-xix. Faith is rewarded at last by the birth of a son, xxi. 1-7, and Abraham's prosperity becomes so conspicuous that a native prince is eager to make a treaty with him, xxi. 22-34. The supreme test of his faith came to him in the impulse to offer his son to God in sacrifice; but at the critical moment a substitute was providentially provided, and Abraham's faith, which had stood so terrible a test, was rewarded by another renewal of the divine assurance (xxii.). His wife died, and for a burial-place he purchased from the natives a field and cave in Hebron, thus winning in the promised land ground he could legally call his own (xxiii). Among his eastern kinsfolk a wife is providentially found for Isaac (xxiv.), who becomes his father's heir, xxv. 1-6. Then Abraham dies, xxv. 7-11, and the uneventful career of Isaac is briefly described in tales that partly duplicate[3] those told of his greater father, xxv. 7-xxvi. [Footnote 1: This story (xii. 10-20) is duplicated in xx.; also in xxvi. 1-11 (of Isaac).] [Footnote 2: The story of the expulsion of Hagar in xvi. is duplicated in xxi. 8-21.] [Footnote 3: xxvi. 1-11=xii. 10-20 (xx.); xxvi. 26-33=xxi. 22-34.] The story of Isaac's son Jacob is as varied and romantic as his own was uneventful. He begins by fraudulently winning a blessing from his father, and has in consequence to flee the promised land, xxvii.-xxviii. 9. On the threshold of his new experiences he was taught in a dream the nearness of heaven to earth, and received the assurance that the God who had visited him at Bethel would be with him in the strange land and bring him back to his own, xxviii. 10-22. In the land of his exile, his fortunes ran a very checkered course (xxix.-xxxi.). In Laban, his Aramean kinsman, he met his match, and almost his master, in craft; and the initial fraud of his life was more than once punished in kind. In due time, however, he left the land of his sojourn, a rich and prosperous man. But his discipline is not over when he reaches the homeland. The past rises up before him in the person of the brother whom he had wronged; and besides reckoning with Esau, he has also to wrestle with God. He is embroiled in strife with the natives of the land, and he loses his beloved Rachel (xxxii.-xxxv.). Into the later years of Jacob is woven the most romantic story of all--that of his son Joseph (xxxvii.-l.)[1] the dreamer, who rose through persecution and prison, slander and sorrow (xxxvii.-xl.) to a seat beside the throne of Pharaoh (xli.). Nowhere is the providence that governs life and the Nemesis that waits upon sin more dramatically illustrated than in the story of Joseph. Again and again his guilty brothers are compelled to confront the past which they imagined they had buried out of sight for ever (xlii.-xliv.). But at last comes the gracious reconciliation between Joseph and them (xlv.), the tender meeting between Jacob and Joseph (xlvi.), the ultimate settlement of the family of Jacob in Egypt,[2] and the consequent transference of interest to that country for several generations. The book closes with scenes illustrating the wisdom and authority of Joseph in the time of famine (xlvii.), the dying Jacob blessing Joseph's sons (xlviii.), his parting words (in verse) to all his sons (xlix.), his death and funeral honours, l. 1-14, Joseph's magnanimous forgiveness of his brothers, and his death, in the sure hope that God would one day bring the Israelites back again to the land of Canaan, l. 15-26. [Footnote 1: xxxvi. deals with the Edomite clans, and xxxviii. with the clans of Judah.] [Footnote 2: In one version they are not exactly in Egypt, but near it, in Goshen (xlvii. 6).] The unity of the book of Genesis is unmistakable; yet a close inspection reveals it to be rather a unity of idea than of execution. While in general it exhibits the gradual progress of the divine purpose on its way through primeval and patriarchal history, in detail it presents a number of phenomena incompatible with unity of authorship. The theological presuppositions of different parts of the book vary widely; centuries of religious thought, for example, must lie between the God who partakes of the hospitality of Abraham under a tree (xviii.) and the majestic, transcendent, invisible Being at whose word the worlds are born (i.). The style, too, differs as the theological conceptions do: it is impossible not to feel the difference between the diffuse, precise, and formal style of ix. 1-17, and the terse, pictorial and poetic manner of the immediately succeeding section, ix. 18-27. Further, different accounts are given of the origin of particular names or facts: Beersheba is connected, e.g. with a treaty made, in one case, between Abraham and Abimelech, xxi. 31, in another, between Isaac and Abimelech, xxvi. 33. But perhaps the most convincing proof that the book is not an original literary unit is the lack of inherent continuity in the narrative of special incidents, and the occasional inconsistencies, sometimes between different parts of the book, sometimes even within the same section. This can be most simply illustrated from the story of the Flood (vi. 5ff.), through which the beginner should work for himself-at first without suggestions from critical commentaries or introductions--as here the analysis is easy and singularly free from complications; the results reached upon this area can be applied and extended to the rest of the book. The problem might be attacked in some such way as follows. Ch. vi. 5-8 announces the wickedness of man and the purpose of God to destroy him; throughout these verses the divine Being is called Jehovah.[1] In the next section, _vv_. 9-13, He is called by a different name--God (Hebrew, _Elohim_)--and we cannot but notice that this section adds nothing to the last; _vv_. 9, 10 are an interruption, and _vv_. 11-13 but a repetition of _vv_. 5-8. Corresponding to the change in the divine name is a further change in the vocabulary, the word for _destroy_ being different in _vv_. 7 and 13. Verses 14-22 continue the previous section with precise and minute instructions for the building of the ark, and in the later verses (cf. 18, 20) the precision tends to become diffuseness. The last verse speaks of the divine Being as God (Elohim), so that both the language and contents of _vv_. 9-22 show it to be a homogeneous section. Note that here, _vv_. 19, 20, two animals of every kind are to be taken into the ark, no distinction being drawn between the clean and the unclean. Noah must now be in the ark; for we are told that he had done all that God commanded him, _vv_. 22, 18. [Footnote 1: Wrongly represented by _the Lord_ in the English version; the American Revised Version always correctly renders by _Jehovah_. _God_ in v. 5 is an unfortunate mistake of A.V. This ought also to be _the Lord_, or rather _Jehovah_.] But, to our surprise, ch. vii. starts the whole story afresh with a divine command to Noah to enter the ark; and this time, significantly enough, a distinction is made between the clean and the unclean-seven pairs of the former to enter and one pair of the latter (vii. 2). It is surely no accident that in this section the name of the divine Being is Jehovah, _vv_. 1, 5; and its contents follow naturally on vi. 5-8. In other words we have here, not a continuous account, but two parallel accounts, one of which uses the name God, the other Jehovah, for the divine Being. This important conclusion is put practically beyond all doubt by the similarity between vi. 22 and vii. 5, which differ only in the use of the divine name. A close study of the characteristics of these sections whose origin is thus certain will enable us approximately to relegate to their respective sources other sections, verses, or fragments of verses in which the important clue, furnished by the name of the divine Being, is not present. Any verse, or group of verses, e.g. involving the distinction between the clean and the unclean, will belong to the _Jehovistic_ source, as it is called (J). This is the real explanation of the confusion which every one feels who attempts to understand the story as a unity. It was always particularly hard to reconcile the apparently conflicting estimates of the duration of the Flood; but as soon as the sources are separated, it becomes clear that, according to the Jehovist, it lasted sixty-eight days, according to the other source over a year (vii. 11, viii. 14). Brief as the Flood story is, it furnishes us with material enough to study the characteristic differences between the sources out of which it is composed. The Jehovist is terse, graphic, and poetic; it is this source in which occurs the fine description of the sending forth of the raven and the dove, viii. 6-12. It knows how to make a singularly effective use of concrete details: witness Noah putting out his hand and pulling the dove into the ark, and her final return with an olive leaf in her mouth. A similarly graphic touch, interesting also for the sidelight it throws on the Jehovist's theological conceptions is that, when Noah entered the ark, "Jehovah closed the door behind him," vii. 16. Altogether different is the other source. It is all but lacking in poetic touches and concrete detail of this kind, and such an anthropomorphism as vii. 16 would be to it impossible. It is pedantically precise, giving the exact year, month, and even day when the Flood came, vii. 11, and when it ceased, viii. 13, 14. There is a certain legal precision about it which issues in diffuseness and repetition; over and over again occur such phrases as "fowl, cattle, creeping things, each after its kind," vi. 20, vii. 14, and the dimensions of the ark are accurately given. Where J had simply said, "Thou and all thy house," vii. 1, this source says, "Thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee," vi. 18. From the identity of interest and style between this source and the middle part of the Pentateuch, notably Leviticus, it is characterized as the priestly document and known to criticism as P. Thus, though the mainstay of the analysis, or at least the original point of departure, is the difference in the names of the divine Being, many other phenomena, of vocabulary, style, and theology, are so distinctive that on the basis of them alone we could relegate many sections of Genesis with considerable confidence to their respective sources. In particular, P is especially easy to detect. For example, the use of the term Elohim, the repetitions, the precise and formal manner, the collocation of such phrases as "fowl, cattle, creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," i. 26 (cf. vii. 21), mark out the first story of creation, i.-ii. 4_a_, as indubitably belonging to P. Besides the stories of the creation and the flood, the longest and most important, though not quite the only passages[1] belonging to P are ix. 1-17 (the covenant with Noah), xvii. (the covenant with Abraham), and xxiii. (the purchase of a burial place for Sarah). This is a fact of the greatest significance. For P, the story of creation culminates in the institution of the Sabbath, the story of the flood in the covenant with Noah, with the law concerning the sacredness of blood, the covenant with Abraham is sealed by circumcision, and the purchase of Machpelah gives Abraham legal right to a footing in the promised land. In other words the interests of this source are legal and ritual. This becomes abundantly plain in the next three books of the Pentateuch, but even in Genesis it may be justly inferred from the unusual fulness of the narrative at these four points. [Footnote 1: The curious ch. xiv. is written under the influence of P. Here also ritual interests play a part in the tithes paid to the priest of Salem, v. 20 (i.e. Jerusalem). In spite of its array of ancient names, xiv. 1, 2, which have been partially corroborated by recent discoveries, this chapter is, for several reasons, believed to be one of the latest in the Pentateuch.] When we examine what is left in Genesis, after deducting the sections that belong to P, we find that the word God (Elohim), characteristic of P, is still very frequently and in some sections exclusively used. The explanation will appear when we come to deal with Exodus: meantime the fact must be carefully noted. Ch. xx., e.g., uses the word Elohim, but it has no other mark characteristic of P. It is neither formal nor diffuse in style nor legal in spirit; it is as concrete and almost as graphic as anything in J. Indeed the story related--Abraham's denial of his wife--is actually told in that document, xii. 10-20 (also of Isaac, xxvi. 1-11); and in general the history is covered by this document, which is called the Elohist[1] and known to criticism as E, in much the same spirit, and with an emphasis upon much the same details, as by J. In opposition to P, these are known as the prophetic documents, because they were written or at least put together under the influence of prophetic ideas. The close affinity of these two documents renders it much more difficult to distinguish them from each other than to distinguish either of them from P, but within certain limits the attempt may be successfully made. The basis of it must, of course, be a study of the duplicate versions of the same incidents; that is, such a narrative as ch. xx., which uses the word God (Elohim) is compared with its parallel in xii. 10-20, which uses the word Jehovah, and in this way the distinctive features and interests of each document will most readily be found. The parallel suggested is easy and instructive, and it reveals the relative ethical and theological superiority of E to J. J tells the story of Abraham's falsehood with a quaint naïveté (xii.); E is offended by it and excuses it (xx.). The theological refinement of E is suggested not only here, xx. 3, 6, but elsewhere, by the frequency with which God appears in dreams and not in bodily presence as in J (cf. iii. 8). Similarly the expulsion of Hagar, which in J is due to Sarah's jealousy (xvi.), in E is attributed to a command of God, xxi. 8-21; and the success of Jacob with the sheep, which in J is due to his skill and cunning, xxx. 29-43, is referred in E to the intervention of God, xxxi. 5-12. In general it may be said that J, while religious, is also natural, whereas E tends to emphasize the supernatural, and thus takes the first step towards the austere theology of P.[2] [Footnote 1: In this way it is distinguished from P, which, as we have seen, is also Elohistic, but is not now so called.] [Footnote 2: A detailed justification of the grounds of the critical analysis will be found in Professor Driver's elaborate and admirable _Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_, where every section throughout the Hexateuch is referred to its special documentary source. To readers who desire to master the detail, that work or one of the following will be indispensable: _The Hexateuch_, edited by Carpenter and Battersby, Addis's _Documents of the Hexateuch_, Bacon's _Genesis of Genesis_ and _Triple Tradition of the Exodus_, or Kent's _Student's Old Testament_ (vol. i.)] J is the most picturesque and fascinating of all the sources-attractive alike for its fine poetic power and its profound religious insight. This is the source which describes the wooing of Isaac's bride (xxiv.), and the meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the well, xxix. 2-14; in this source, too, which appears to be the most primitive of all, there are speaking animals--the serpent, e.g., in Genesis iii. (and the ass in Num. xxii. 28). The story of the origin of sin, in every respect a masterpiece, is told by J; we do not know whether to admire more the ease with which Jehovah, like a skilful judge, by a few penetrating questions drives the guilty pair to an involuntary confession, or the fidelity with which the whole immortal scene reflects the eternal facts of human nature. The religious teaching of J is extraordinarily powerful and impressive, all the more that it is never directly didactic; it shines through the simple and unstudied recital of concrete incident. It is one of the most delicate and not the least important tasks of criticism to discover by analysis even the sources which lie so close to each other as J and E, for the literary efforts represented by these documents are but the reflection of religious movements. They testify to the affection which the people cherished for the story of their past; and when we have arranged them in chronological order, they enable us further, as we have seen, to trace the progress of moral and religious ideas. But, for several reasons, it is not unfair, and, from the beginner's point of view, it is perhaps even advisable, to treat these documents together as a unity: _firstly_, because they were actually combined, probably in the seventh century, into a unity (JE), and sometimes, as in the Joseph story, so skilfully that it is very difficult to distinguish the component parts and assign them to their proper documentary source; _secondly_, because, for a reason to be afterwards stated, beyond Ex. iii. the analysis is usually supremely difficult; and, _lastly_, because in language and spirit, the prophetic documents are very like each other and altogether unlike the priestly document. For practical purposes, then, the broad distinction into prophetic and priestly will generally be sufficient. Wherever the narrative is graphic, powerful, and interesting, we may be sure that it is prophetic,[1] whereas the priestly document is easily recognizable by its ritual interests, and by its formal, diffuse, and legal style. [Footnote 1: If inconsistencies, contradictions or duplicates appear in the section which is clearly prophetic, the student may be practically certain that these are to be referred to the two prophetic sources. Cf. the two derivations of the name of Joseph in consecutive verses whose source is at once obvious: "_God_ (Elohim) has taken away my reproach" (E); and "_Jehovah_ adds to me another son" (J), Gen. xxx. 23, 24. Cf. also the illustrations adduced on pp. 13, 14.] The documents already discussed constitute the chief sources of the book of Genesis; but there are occasional fragments which do not seem originally to have belonged to any of them. There were also collections of poetry, such as the Book of Jashar (cf. Josh. x. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18), at the disposal of those who wrote or compiled the documents, and to such a collection the parting words of Jacob may have belonged (xlix.). The poem is in reality a characterization of the various _tribes; v_. 15, and still more plainly _vv_. 23, 24, look back upon historical events. The reference to Levi, _vv_. 5-7, which takes no account of the priestly prerogatives of that tribe, shows that the poem is early (cf. xxxiv. 25); but the description of the prosperity of Joseph (i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh), _vv_. 22-26, and the pre-eminence of Judah, _vv_. 8-12, bring it far below patriarchal times--at least into the period of the Judges. If _vv_. 8-12 is an allusion to the triumphs of David and _vv_. 22-26 to northern Israel, the poem as a whole, which can hardly be later than Solomon's time--for it celebrates Israel and Judah equally--could not be earlier than David's; but probably the various utterances concerning the different tribes arose at different times. The religious interest of Genesis is very high, the more so as almost every stage of religious reflection is represented in it, from the most primitive to the most mature. Through the ancient stories there gleam now and then flashes from a mythological background, as in the intermarriage of angels with mortal women, vi. 1-4, or in the struggle of the mighty Jacob, who could roll away the great stone from the mouth of the well, xxix. 2, 10, with his supernatural visitant, xxxii. 24. It is a long step from the second creation story in which God, like a potter, fashions men out of moist earth, ii. 7, and walks in the garden of Paradise in the cool of the day, iii. 8, to the first, with its sublime silence on the mysterious processes of creation (i.). But the whole book, and especially the prophetic section, is dominated by a splendid sense of the reality of God, His interest in men, His horror of sin, His purpose to redeem. Broadly speaking, the religion of the book stands upon a marvellously high moral level. It is touched with humility-its heroes know that they are "not worth of all the love and the faithfulness" which God shows them, xxxii. 10; and it is marked by a true inwardness-for it is not works but implicit trust in God that counts for righteousness, xv. 16. Yet in practical ways, too, this religion finds expression in national and individual life; it protests vehemently against human sacrifice (xxii.), and it strengthens a lonely youth in an hour of terrible temptation, xxxix. 9. EXODUS The book of Exodus--so named in the Greek version from the march of Israel out of Egypt--opens upon a scene of oppression very different from the prosperity and triumph in which Genesis had closed. Israel is being cruelly crushed by the new dynasty which has arisen in Egypt (i.) and the story of the book is the story of her redemption. Ultimately it is Israel's God that is her redeemer, but He operates largely by human means; and the first step is the preparation of a deliverer, Moses, whose parentage, early training, and fearless love of justice mark him out as the coming man (ii.). In the solitude and depression of the desert, he is encouraged by the sight of a bush, burning yet unconsumed, and sent forth with a new vision of God[1] upon his great and perilous task (iii.). Though thus divinely equipped, he hesitated, and God gave him a helper in Aaron his brother (iv.). Then begins the Titanic struggle between Moses and Pharaoh--Moses the champion of justice, Pharaoh the incarnation of might (v.). Blow after blow falls from Israel's God upon the obstinate king of Egypt and his unhappy land: the water of the Nile is turned into blood (vii.), there are plagues of frogs, gnats, gadflies (viii.), murrain, boils, hail (ix.), locusts, darkness (x.), and--last and most terrible of all--the smiting of the first-born, an event in connexion with which the passover was instituted. Then Pharaoh yielded. Israel went forth; and the festival of unleavened bread was ordained for a perpetual memorial (xi., xii.); also the first-born of man and beast was consecrated, xiii. 1-16. [Footnote 1: The story of the revelation of Israel's God under His new name, Jehovah, is told twice (in ch. iii. and ch. vi.).] Israel's troubles, however, were not yet over. Their departing host was pursued by the impenitent Pharaoh, but miraculously delivered at the Red Sea, in which the Egyptian horses and horsemen were overwhelmed, xiii. l7-xiv. The deliverance was celebrated in a splendid song of triumph, xv. 1-21. Then they began their journey to Sinai--a journey which revealed alike the faithlessness and discontent of their hearts, and the omnipotent and patient bounty of their God, manifested in delivering them from the perils of hunger, thirst and war, xv. 22-xvii. 16. On the advice of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, God-fearing men were appointed to decide for the people on all matters of lesser moment, while the graver cases were still reserved for Moses (xviii.)[1]The arrival at Sinai marked a crisis; for it was there that the epoch-making covenant was made--Jehovah promising to continue His grace to the people, and they, on their part, pledging themselves to obedience. Thunder and lightning and dark storm-clouds accompanied the proclamation of the ten commandments,[2] which represented the claims made by Jehovah upon the people whom He had redeemed, xix.-xx. 22. Connected with these claims are certain statutes, partly of a religious but much more of a civil nature, which Moses is enjoined to lay upon the people, and obedience to which is to be rewarded by prosperity and a safe arrival at the promised land, xx. 23-xxiii. 33. This section is known as the Book of the Covenant, xxiv. 7. The people unitedly promised implicit obedience to the terms of this covenant, which was then sealed with the blood of sacrifice. After six days of preparation, Moses ascended the mountain in obedience to the voice of Jehovah (xxiv.). [Footnote 1: This chapter is apparently misplaced. In Deut. i. 9-18 the incident is set just before the _departure from_ Sinai (cf. i. 19). It may therefore originally have stood after Ex. xxxiv. 9 or before Num. x. 29.] [Footnote 2: Or rather, the ten words. In another source, the commands are given differently, and are ritual rather than moral, xxxiv. 10-28 (J).] At this point the story takes on a distinctly priestly complexion, and interest is transferred from the fortunes of the people to the construction of the sanctuary, for which the most minute directions are given (xxv.-xxxi.), concerning the tabernacle with all its furniture, the ark, the table for the shewbread, the golden candlestick (xxv.), the four-fold covering for the tabernacle, the wood-work, the veil between the holy and the most holy place, the curtain for the door (xxvi.), the altar, the court round about the tabernacle, the oil for the light (xxvii.), the sacred vestments for the high priest and the other priests (xxviii.), the manner of consecration of the priests, the priestly dues, the atonement for the altar, the morning and evening offering (xxix.), the altar of incense, the poll-tax, the laver, the holy oil, the incense (xxx.), the names and divine equipment of the overseers of the work of constructing the tabernacle, the sanctity of the Sabbath as a sign of the covenant (xxxi.). After this priestly digression, the thread of the story is resumed. During the absence of Moses upon the mount, the people imperilled their covenant relationship with their God by worshipping Him in the form of a calf; but, on the very earnest intercession of Moses they were forgiven, and there was given to him the special revelation of Jehovah as a God of forgiving pity and abounding grace. In the tent to which the people regularly resorted to learn the divine will, God was wont to speak to Moses face to face, xxxii. 1-xxxiv. 9. Then follows the other version of the decalogue already referred to--ritual rather than moral, xxxiv. l0-28--and an account of the transfiguration of Moses, as he laid Jehovah's commands upon the people, xxxiv. 29-35. From this point to the end of the book the atmosphere is again unmistakably priestly. Chs. xxxv.-xxxix, beginning with the Sabbath law, assert with a profusion of detail that the instructions given in xxv.-xxxi. were carried out to the letter. Then the tabernacle was set up on New Year's day, the divine glory filled it, and the subsequent movements of the people were guided by cloud and fire (xl.). The unity of Exodus is not quite so impressive as that of Genesis. This is due to the different proportion in which the sources are blended, P playing a much more conspicuous part here than there. Without hesitation, more than one-fourth of the book may be at once relegated to this source: viz. xxv.-xxxi., which describe the tabernacle to be erected with all that pertained to it, and xxxv.-xl., which relate that the instructions there given were fully carried out. The minuteness, the formality and monotony of style which we noticed in Genesis reappear here; but the real spirit of P, its devotion to everything connected with the sanctuary and worship, is much more obvious here than there. This document is also fairly prominent in the first half of the book, and its presence is usually easy to detect. The section, e.g., on the institution of the passover and the festival of unleavened bread, xi. 9-xii. 20, is easily recognized as belonging to this source. Of very great importance is the passage, vi. 2-13, which describes the revelation given to Moses, asserting that the fathers knew the God of Israel only by the name El Shaddai, while the name of Jehovah, which was then revealed to Moses for the first time, was unknown to them. The succeeding genealogy which traces the descent of Moses and Aaron to Levi, vi. 14-30, and Aaron's commission to be the spokesman of Moses, vii. 1-7, also come from P. This source also gives a brief account of the oppression and the plagues, and the prominence of Aaron the priest in the story of the latter is very significant. In E the plagues come when _Moses_ stretches out his hand or his rod at the command of Jehovah, ix. 22, x. 12, 21; in P, Jehovah says to Moses, "Say unto _Aaron_, 'Stretch forth thy hand' or 'thy rod,'" viii. 5, 16. The story to which we have just alluded, of the revelation of the name Jehovah, is also told in ch. iii., where it is connected with the incident of the burning bush. Apart from the improbability of the same document telling the same story twice, the very picturesque setting of ch. iii, is convincing proof that we have here a section from one of the prophetic documents, and we cannot long doubt which it is. For while one of those documents (J), as we have seen, uses the word Jehovah without scruple throughout the whole of Genesis, and regards that name as known not only to Abraham, xv. 7, but even to the antediluvians, iv. 26, the other regularly uses Elohim. This prophetic story, then, of the revelation of the name Jehovah to Moses, must belong to E, who deliberately avoids the name Jehovah throughout Genesis, because he considers it unknown before the time of Moses. This very fact, however, greatly complicates the subsequent analysis of the prophetic documents in the Pentateuch; because, from this point on, both are now free to use the name Jehovah of the divine Being, and thus one of the principal clues to the analysis practically disappears.[1] Considering the affinity of these documents, it is therefore competent, as we have seen, to treat them as a unity. [Footnote 1: Naturally there are other very important and valuable clues. e.g, the holy mount is called Sinai in J and Horeb in E.] The proof, however, that both prophetic documents are really present in Exodus, if not at first sight obvious or extensive, is at any rate convincing. In one source, e.g. (J), the Israelites dwell by themselves in a district called Goshen, viii. 22 (cf. Gen. xiv. 10); in the other, they dwell among the Egyptians as neighbours, so that the women can borrow jewels from them, iii. 22, and their doors have to be marked with blood on the night of the passover to distinguish them from the Egyptians, xii. 22. Again in J, the people number over 600,000, xii. 37; in E they are so few that they only require two midwives, i. 15. Similar slight but significant differences may be found elsewhere, particularly in the account of the plagues. In J, e.g., Moses predicts the punishment that will fall if Pharaoh refuses his request, and next day Jehovah sends it: in E, Moses works the wonders by raising his rod. In Exodus, as in Genesis, J reveals the divine through the natural, E rather through the supernatural. It is an east wind, e.g., in J, as in the poem, xv. 10, that drives back the Red Sea, xiv. 21a (as it had brought the locusts, x. 13); in E this happens on the raising of Moses' rod, xiv. 16. Here again, as in Genesis, we find that E has taken the first step on the way to P. For this miracle (in E) at the Red Sea, which in J is essentially natural, and miraculous only in happening at the critical moment, is considerably heightened in P, who relates that the waters were a wall unto the people on the right hand and on the left, xiv. 22. These three great documents constitute the principal sources of the book of Exodus; but here, as in Genesis, there are fragments that belong to a more primitive order of ideas than that represented by the compilers of the documents (cf. iv. 24-26); there is, besides the two decalogues, a body of legislation, xx. 23-xxiii. 33; and there is a poem, xv. 1-18. _The Book of the Covenant_, as it is called, is a body of mainly civil but partly religious law, practically independent of the narrative. The style and contents of the code show that it is not all of a piece, but must have been of gradual growth. The 2nd pers. sing., e.g., sometimes alternates with the pl. in consecutive verses, xxii. 21, 22. Again, while some of the laws state, in the briefest possible words, the official penalty attached to a certain crime, xxi. 12, others are longer and introduce a religious sanction, xxii. 23, 24, and a few deal definitely with religious feasts, xxiii. 14-19, obligations, xxii. 29-31, or sanctuaries, xx. 23-26. In general, the code implies the settled life of an agricultural and pastoral people, and the community for which it is designed must have already attained a certain measure of organization, as we must assume that there were means for enacting the penalties threatened. A remarkably humanitarian spirit pervades the code. It mitigates the lot of the slave, it encourages a spirit of justice in social relations, and it exhibits a fine regard for the poor and defenceless, xxii. 21-27. It probably represents the juristic usages, or at least ideals, of the early monarchy. _The Song of Moses_, xv. 1-18, also appears to belong to the monarchy. The explicit mention of Philistia, Edom and Moab in _vv_. 14, 15 imply that the people are already settled in Canaan, and the sanctuary in _v. 17b_ is most naturally, if not necessarily, interpreted of the temple. The poem appears to be an elaboration of the no doubt ancient lines: Sing to Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously; The horse and his rider He hath thrown into the sea (xv. 21). The religious, as opposed to the theological, interest of the book lies entirely within the prophetic sources. Here the drama of redemption begins in earnest, and it is worked out on a colossal scale. From his first blow struck in the cause of justice to the day on which, in indignation and astonishment, he destroyed the golden calf, Moses is a figure of overwhelming moral earnestness. Few books in the Old Testament have a higher conception of God than Exodus. The words of the decalogue are His words, xx. 1, and the protest against the calf-worship (xxxii.-xxxiv.) is an indirect plea for His spirituality. But the highest heights are touched in the revelation of Him as merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, xxxiv. 6--a revelation which lived to the latest days and was cherished in these very words by the pious hearts of Israel (cf. Pss. lxxxvi. 15; ciii. 8; cxi. 4; cxlv. 8). LEVITICUS The emphasis which modern criticism has very properly laid on the prophetic books and the prophetic element generally in the Old Testament, has had the effect of somewhat diverting popular attention from the priestly contributions to the literature and religion of Israel. From this neglect Leviticus has suffered most. Yet for many reasons it is worthy of close attention; it is the deliberate expression of the priestly mind of Israel at its best, and it thus forms a welcome foil to the unattractive pictures of the priests which confront us on the pages of the prophets during the three centuries between Hosea and Malachi. And if we should be inclined to deplore the excessively minute attention to ritual, and the comparatively subordinate part played by ethical considerations in this priestly manual, it is only fair to remember that the hymn-book used by these scrupulous ministers of worship was the Psalter-enough surely to show that the ethical and spiritual aspects of religion, though not prominent, were very far from being forgotten. In xvii.-xxvi. the ethical element receives a fine and almost surprising prominence: the injunction to abstain from idolatry, e.g., is immediately preceded by the injunction to reverence father and mother, xix. 3,4. Indeed, ch. xix. is a good compendium of the ethics of ancient Israel; and, while hardly to be compared with Job xxxi., still, in its care for the resident alien, and in its insistence upon motives of benevolence and humanity, it is an eloquent reminder of the moral elevation of Israel's religion, and is peculiarly welcome in a book so largely devoted to the externals of the cult. The book of Leviticus illustrates the origin and growth of law. Occasionally legislation is clothed in the form of narrative--the law of blasphemy, e.g., xxiv. 10-23 (cf. x. 16-20)--thus suggesting its origin in a particular historical incident (cf. I Sam. xxx. 25); and traces of growth are numerous, notably in the differences between the group xvii.-xxvi. and the rest of the book, and very ancient heathen elements are still visible through the transformations effected by the priests of Israel, as in the case of Azazel xvi. 8,22, a demon of the wilderness, akin to the Arabic jinns. Strictly speaking, though Leviticus is pervaded by a single spirit, it is not quite homogeneous: the first group of laws, e.g. (i.-vii.), expressly acknowledges different sources--certain laws being given in the tent of meeting, i. 1, others on Mount Sinai, vii. 38. The sections are well defined--note the subscriptions at the end of vii. and xxvi.--and marked everywhere by the scrupulous precision of the legal mind. There is no trace in Leviticus of the prophetic document JE. That the book is essentially a law book rather than a continuation of the narrative of the Exodus is made plain by the fact that that narrative (Ex. xl.) is not even formally resumed till ch. viii. I. LAWS OF SACRIFICE (i.-vii.) _(a) For worshippers_, i.-vi. 7. Laws for the burnt offering of the herd, of the flock, and of fowls (i.). Laws for the different kinds of cereal offerings--the use of salt compulsory, honey and leaven prohibited (ii.). Laws for the peace-offering--the offerer kills it, the priest sprinkles the blood on the sides of the altar and burns the fat (iii.) For an unconscious transgression of the law, the high priest shall offer a bullock, the community shall offer the same, a ruler shall offer a he-goat, one of the common people shall offer a female animal (iv.). A female animal shall be offered for certain legal and ceremonial transgressions; the poor may offer two turtle doves, or pigeons, or even flour, v. 1-13. Sacred dues unintentionally withheld or the property of another man dishonestly retained must be restored together with twenty per cent. extra, v. 14-vi. 7. _(b) For priests_, vi. 8-vii. 38. Laws regulating the daily burnt offering, the cereal offering, the daily cereal offering of the high priest, and the ordinary sin offering, vi. 8-30. Laws regulating the guilt offering, the priests' share of the sacrifices, the period during which the flesh of sacrifice may be eaten, the prohibition of the eating of fat and blood (vii.). II. THE CONSECRATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD (viii.-x.) This section is the direct continuation of Exodus xl., which prescribes the inauguration of Aaron and his sons into the priestly office. Laws regulating the consecration of the high priest and the other priests--washing, investiture, anointing, sin offering, burnt offering, with accompanying rites (viii., cf. Exod. xxix.). The first sacrificial service at which Aaron and his sons officiate--the benediction being followed by the appearance of Jehovah's glory (ix.). The first violation of the law of worship and its signal punishment, x. 1-7. Officiating priests forbidden to use wine, x. 8-11. Priests' share of the meal and peace offerings, x. 12-15. An error forgiven after an adroit explanation by Aaron (law in narrative form), x. 16-20. III. LAWS CONCERNING THE CLEAN AND THE UNCLEAN (xi.-xvi.) This section appropriately follows x. 10, where the priests are enjoined to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. Laws concerning the animals which may or may not be eaten--quadrupeds, fish, birds, flying insects, creeping insects, reptiles--and pollution through contact with carcasses (xi.). Laws concerning the purification of women after childbirth (xii.). Laws for the detection of leprosy in the human body, xiii. 1-46, and in garments, xiii. 47-59. Laws for the purification of the leper and his re-adoption into the theocracy, xiv. 1-32. Laws concerning houses afflicted with leprosy, xiv. 33-57. Laws concerning purification after sexual secretions (xv.). The laws of purification are appropriately concluded by the law for the great day of atonement, with regulations for the ceremonial cleansing of the high priest and his house, the sanctuary, altar, and people (xvi.). Two originally independent sections appear to be blended in this chapter-one (cf. _vv._ 1-4) prescribing regulations to be observed by the high priest on every occasion on which he should enter the inner sanctuary, the other with specific reference to the great day of atonement. IV. LAW OF HOLINESS (xvii.-xxvi.) This section, though still moving largely among ritual interests, differs markedly from the rest of the book, partly by reason of its hortatory setting (cf. xxvi.), but especially by its emphasis on the ethical elements in religion. It has been designated the Law of Holiness because of the frequently recurring phrase, "Ye shall be holy, for I, Jehovah, am holy," xix. 2, xx. 26--a phrase which, though not peculiar to this section (cf. xi. 44), is highly characteristic of it. Animals are to be slaughtered for food or sacrifice only at the sanctuary xvii. 1-9; the blood and flesh of animals dying naturally or torn by beasts is not to be eaten, xvii. 10-16. Laws regulating marriage and chastity with threats of dire punishment for violation of the same (xviii.). Penalties for Moloch worship, soothsaying, cursing of parents and unchastity (xx.), with a hortatory conclusion, xx. 22-24, similar to xviii. 24-30. Ch. xix. is the most prophetic chapter in Leviticus, and bears a close analogy to the decalogue, _vv_. 3-8 corresponding to the first table, and _vv_. 11-18 to the second. The holiness which Jehovah demands has to express itself not only in reverence for Himself and His Sabbaths, but in reverence towards parents and the aged; in avoiding not only idolatry and heathen superstition, but dishonesty and unkindness to the weak. The ideal is a throroughly moral one. A modern reader is surprised to find in so ethical a chapter a prohibition of garments made of two kinds of stuff mingled together _v_. 19; no doubt such a prohibition is aimed at some heathen superstition--perhaps the practice of magic. Laws concerning priests and sacrifices (xxi., xxii.). The holiness of the priests is to be maintained by avoiding, as a rule (without exception in the case of the high priest), pollution through corpses and participation in certain mourning rites, and by conforming to certain conditions in their choice of a wife. The physically deformed are to be ineligible for the priesthood (xxi.). Regulations to safeguard the ceremonial purity of the sacred food: imperfect or deformed animals ineligible for sacrifice (xxii.). In ch. xxiii., which is a calendar of sacred festivals, the festivals are enumerated in the order in which they occur in the year, beginning with spring--the passover, regarded as preliminary to the feast of unleavened bread; the feast of weeks (Pentecost) seven weeks afterwards; the new year's festival, on the first day of the seventh month; the day of atonement; and the festival of booths. There are signs that the section dealing with new year's day and the day of atonement, _vv_. 23-32, is later than the original form of the rest of the chapter dealing with the three great ancient festivals that rested on agriculture and the vintage. Of kindred theme to this chapter is ch. xxv.--the sacred years--(_a_) the sabbatical year: the land, like the man, must enjoy a Sabbath rest, _vv_. 1-7; _(b_) the jubilee year, an intensification of the Sabbatical idea: every fiftieth year is to be a period of rest for the land, liberation of Hebrew slaves, and restoration of property to its original owners or legal heirs, _vv_. 8-55. In xxiv. 1-9, are regulations concerning the lampstand and the shewbread; the law, in the form of a narrative, prohibiting blasphemy, _vv_. 10-23, is interrupted by a few laws concerning injury to the person, _vv_. 17-22. The _laws of holiness_ conclude (xxvi.) with a powerful exposition of the blessing which will follow obedience and the curse which is the penalty of disobedience. The curse reaches a dramatic climax in the threat of exile, from which, however, deliverance is promised on condition of repentance. Ch. xxvii. constitutes no part of the Law of Holiness--note the subscription in xxvi. 46. It contains regulations for the commutation of vows (whether persons, cattle or things) and tithes-commutation being inadmissible in the case of firstlings of animals fit for sacrifice and of things and persons that had come under the ban. Special importance attaches to the Law of Holiness, known to criticism as H (xvii.-xxvi.). In its interest in worship, it marks a very long advance on the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.), and it would seem to stand somewhere between Deuteronomy and the priestly codex. It is profoundly interested, like the former, in the ethical side of religion, and yet it is almost as deeply concerned about ritual as the latter. But though it may be regarded as a preliminary step to the priestly code, it is clearly distinguished from it, both by its tone and its vocabulary: the word for idols, e.g. (things of nought), xix. 4, xxvi. 1, does not occur elsewhere in the Pentateuch. It specially emphasizes the holiness of Jehovah; as has been said, in H He is the person _to whom_ the cult is performed, while the question of _how_ is more elaborately dealt with in P. There are stray allusions which almost seem to point to pre-exilic days; e.g. to idols, xxvi. 30, Moloch being explicitly mentioned, xviii. 21, xx. 2; and the various sanctuaries presupposed by xxvi. 31 would almost seem to carry us back to a point before the promulgation of Deuteronomy in 621 B.C.; but on the other hand the exile appears to be presupposed in xviii. 24-30, xxvi. 34. This code, like all the others in the Old Testament, was no doubt the result of gradual growth--note the alternation of 2nd pers. sing. and pl. in ch. xix.--but the main body of it may be placed somewhere between 600 and 550 B.C. The section bears so strong a resemblance to Ezekiel that he has been supposed by some to be the author, but this is improbable. It is easy to see how the minuteness of the ritual religion of Leviticus could degenerate into casuistry. Its emphasis on externals is everywhere visible, and its lack of kindly human feeling is only too conspicuous in its treatment of the leper, xiii. 45, 46. But over against this, to say nothing of the profound symbolism of the ritual, must be set the moral virility of the law of holiness--its earnest inculcation of commercial honour, reverence for the aged, xix. 32, and even unselfish love. For it is to this source that we owe the great word adopted by our Saviour, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," xix. 18, though the first part of the verse shows that this noble utterance still moves within the limitations of the Old Testament. NUMBERS Like the last part of Exodus, and the whole of Leviticus, the first part of Numbers, i.-x. 28--so called,[1] rather inappropriately, from the census in i., iii., (iv.), xxvi.--is unmistakably priestly in its interests and language. Beginning with a census of the men of war (i.) and the order of the camp (ii.), it devotes specific attention to the Levites, their numbers and duties (iii., iv.). Then follow laws for the exclusion of the unclean, v. 1-4, for determining the manner and amount of restitution in case of fraud, v. 5-10, the guilt or innocence of a married woman suspected of unfaithfulness, v. 11-31, and the obligations of the Nazirite vow, vi. 1-21. This legal section ends with the priestly benediction, vi. 22-27. Then, closely connected with the narrative in Exodus xl., is an unusually elaborate account of the dedication gifts that were offered on the occasion of the erection of the tabernacle (vii.). This quasi-historical interlude is again followed by a few sections of a more legal nature--instructions for fixing the lamps upon the lampstand, viii. 1-4, for the consecration of the Levites and their period of service, viii. 5-26, for the celebration of the passover, and, in certain cases, of a supplementary passover, ix. 1-14. Then, with the divine guidance assured, and the order of march determined, the start from Sinai was made, ix. 15-x. 28. [Footnote 1: In the Greek version, followed by the Latin. This is the only book of the Pentateuch in which the English version has retained the Latin title, the other titles being all Greek. The Hebrew titles are usually borrowed from the opening words of the book. The Hebrew title of Numbers is either "And he said" or "in the wilderness"; the latter is fairly appropriate--certainly much more so than the Greek.] At this point, the old prophetic narrative (Exod. xxxii.-xxxiv.), interrupted by Exodus xxxv. 1-Numbers x. 28, is resumed with an account of the precautions taken to secure reliable guidance through the wilderness, x. 29-32, and a very interesting snatch of ancient poetry, through which we may easily read the unique importance of the ark for early Israel, x. 33-36. The succeeding chapters make no pretence to be a connected history of the wilderness period; the incidents with which they deal are very few, and these are related rather for their religious than their historical significance, e.g. the murmuring of the people, the terrible answer to their prayer for flesh, the divine equipment of the seventy elders, the magnanimity of Moses (xi.), and the vindication of his prophetic dignity (xii.). Before the actual assault on Canaan, spies were sent out to investigate the land. But the people allowed themselves to be discouraged by their report, and for their unbelief the whole generation except Caleb (and Joshua)[1] was doomed to die in the wilderness, without a sight of the promised land (xiii., xiv.). The thread of the narrative, broken at this point by laws relating to offerings and sacrifices, xv. 1-31, the hallowing of the Sabbath, xv. 32-36, and the wearing of fringes, xv. 37-41, is at once resumed by a complicated account of a rebellion against Moses, which ended in the destruction of the rebels, and in the signal vindication of the authority of Moses, the privileges of the tribe of Levi, and the exclusive right of the sons of Aaron to the priesthood (xvi., xvii.). Again the narrative element gives place to legislation regulating the duties, relative position and revenues of the priests and Levites (xviii.) and the manner of purification after defilement (xix.). [Footnote 1: Caleb alone in JE, Joshua also in P.] These laws are followed by a section of continuous narrative. Moses and Aaron, for certain rebellious words, are divinely warned that they will not be permitted to bring the people into the promised land--a warning which was followed soon afterwards by the death of Aaron on Mount Hor. Edom haughtily refused Israel permission to pass through her land (xx.). Sore at heart, they fretted against God and Moses, and deadly serpents were sent among them in chastisement, but the penitent and believing were restored by the power of God and the intercession of Moses. Then Israel turned north, and began her career of conquest by defeating Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan (xxi.). Her success struck terror into the heart of Balak, the king of Moab; he accordingly sent for Balaam, a famous soothsayer, with the request that he would curse Israel (xxii.). Instead, however, he foretold for her a splendid destiny (xxiii., xxiv.). But the reality fell pitifully short of this fair ideal, for Israel at once succumbed to the seductions of idolatry and impurity,[1] and the fearful punishment which fell upon her for her sin was only stayed by the zeal of Phinehas, the high priest's son, who was rewarded with the honour of perpetual priesthood, xxv. 1-15. Implacable enmity was enjoined against Midian, xxv. 16-18. [Footnote 1: Moabite idolatry, and intermarriage with the Midianites-- ultimately, it would seem, the same story. JE gives the beginning of it, _vv_. 1-5, and P the conclusion, _vv_. 6-18.] From this point to the end of the book the narrative is, with few exceptions, distinctly priestly in complexion; the vivid scenes of the older narrative are absent, and their place is taken, for the most part, either by statistics and legislative enactments or by narrative which is only legislation in disguise. A census (xxvi.) was taken at the end, as at the beginning of the wanderings (i.), which showed that, except Caleb and Joshua, the whole generation had perished (cf. xiv. 29, 34). Then follow sections on the law of inheritance of daughters, xxvii. 1-11, the announcement of Moses' imminent death and the appointment of Joshua his successor, xxvii. 12-23, a priestly calendar defining the sacrifices appropriate to each season (xxviii., xxix.), and the law of vows (xxx.). In accordance with the injunction of xxv. 16-18 a war of extermination was successfully undertaken against Midian (xxxi.). The land east of the Jordan was allotted to Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, on condition that they would help the other tribes to conquer the west (xxxii.). Following an itinerary of the wanderings from the exodus to the plains of Moab (xxxiii.) is a description of the boundaries of the land allotted to the various tribes (xxxiv.), directions for the Levitical cities and the cities of refuge (xxxv.), and, last of all, a law in narrative form, determining that heiresses who possessed landed property should marry into their own tribe (xxxvi.). Even this brief sketch of the book of Numbers is enough to reveal the essential incoherence of its plan, and the great divergence of the elements out of which it is composed. No book in the Pentateuch makes so little the impression of a unity. The phenomena of Exodus are here repeated and intensified; a narrative of the intensest moral and historical interest is broken at frequent intervals by statistical and legal material, some of which, at least, makes hardly any pretence to be connected with the main body of the story. By far the largest part of the book comes from P, and most of it is very easy to detect. No possible doubt, e.g., can attach to i.-x., 28, with its interest in priests, Levites, tabernacle and laws. As significant as the contents is the style which is not seldom diffuse to tediousness, e.g., in the account of the census (i.), the dedication gifts (vii.), or the regulation of the movements of the camp by the cloud, ix. 15-23. Ch. xv., with its laws for offerings, sacrifices and the Sabbath, ch. xvii., with its vindication of the special prerogatives of the tribe of Levi, and chs. xviii., xix., which regulate the duties and privileges of priests and Levites, and the manner of purification, are also unmistakable. Chs. xxvi.-xxxi., as even the preliminary sketch of the book would suggest, must, for similar reasons, also have the same origin. To P also clearly belong xxxiii. and xxxiv. with their statistical bent, and xxxv. and xxxvi. with their interest in the Levites and legislation. Besides these sections, however, the presence of P is certain--though not always so easily detected, as it is in combination with JE--in some of the more distinctively narrative sections, e.g. in the account of the spies (xiii., xiv.), of the rebellion against the authority of Moses and Aaron (xvi.), of the sin of Moses and Aaron, xx. 1-13, and of the settlement east of the Jordan (xxxii.). About such narratives as the death of Aaron, xx. 22-29, or the zeal and reward of Phinehas, xxv. 6-18, there can be no doubt. With the exception of a few odd verses, all that remains, after deducting the passages referred to, belongs to the prophetic narrative (JE). The radical difference in point of style and interests between JE and P occasionally extends even to their account of the facts. The story of the spies furnishes several striking illustrations of this difference. In JE they go from the wilderness to Hebron in the south of Judah, xiii. 22, in P they go to the extreme north of Palestine, xiii. 21. In JE Caleb is the only faithful spy, xiii. 30, xiv. 24, P unites him with Joshua, xiv. 6,38. In JE the land is fertile, but its inhabitants are invincible, in P it is a barren land. The story of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram is peculiarly instructive (xvi.). It will be noticed that Dathan and Abiram are occasionally mentioned by themselves, _vv_. 12, 25, and Korah by himself, _vv_. 5, 19. If this clue be followed up, it will be found that the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram is essentially against the authority of Moses, whom they charge with disappointing their hopes, _vv_. 13, 14. On the other hand, the rebellion headed by Korah is traced to two sources:[1] it is regarded in one of these as a layman's protest against the exclusive sanctity of the tribe of Levi, _v_. 3, and, in the other, as a Levitical protest against the exclusive right of the sons of Aaron to the priesthood, _vv_. 8-11. Perhaps the most striking difference between JE and P is in the account of the ark. In JE it goes before the camp, x. 33 (cf. Exod. xxxiii. 7), in P the tabernacle, to which it belongs, is in the centre of the camp, ii. 17, which is foursquare. [Footnote 1: Two strata of P are plainly visible here.] Much more than in Genesis, and even more than in Exodus have J and E been welded together in Numbers--so closely, indeed, that it is usually all but impossible to distinguish them with certainty; but, here, as in Exodus, there are occasional proofs of compositeness. The apparent confusion of the story of Balaam, e.g. (xxii.), in which God is angry with him after giving him permission to go, is to be explained by the simple fact that the story is told in both sources. This duplication extends even to the poetry in chs. xxiii. and xxiv. (cf. xxiv. 8, 9, xxiii. 22, 24). There is not a trace of P in the Balaam story. All the romantic and religious, as opposed to the legal and theological interest of the book, is confined to the prophetic section (JE); and it greatly to be regretted that more of it has not been preserved. The structure of the book plainly shows that it has been displaced in the interests of P, and from the express reference to the "ten times" that Israel tempted Jehovah, xiv. 22, we may safely infer that much has been lost. But what has been preserved is of great religious, and some historical value. Of course, it is not history in the ordinary sense: a period of thirty-eight years is covered in less than ten chapters (x. II-xix.). But much of the material, at least in the prophetic history JE, rests on a tradition which may well have preserved some of the historical facts, especially as they were often embalmed in poetry. The book of Numbers throws some light on the importance of ancient poetry as a historical source. It cites a difficult fragment and refers it to the book of the wars of Jehovah, xxi. 14, it confirms the victory over Sihon by a quotation from a war-ballad which is referred to a guild of singers, xxi. 27, it quotes the ancient words with which the warriors broke up their camp and returned to it again, x. 35, 36, and it relieves its wild war-scenes by the lovely Song of the Well, xxi. 17, 18. Probably other episodes in the books of Numbers, Joshua and Judges (e.g. ch. v.) ultimately rest upon this lost book of the wars of Jehovah. The fine poetry ascribed to Balaam, which breathes the full consciousness of a high national destiny, may belong to the time of the early monarchy, xxiv. 7, perhaps to that of David, to whom xxiv. 17-19 seems to be a clear allusion. The five verses that follow Balaam's words, xxiv. 20-24, are apparently a late appendix; the mention of Chittim in _v_. 24 would almost carry the passage down to the Greek period (4th cent. B.C.), and of Asshur in _v_. 22 at least to the Assyrian period (8th cent.), unless the name stands for a Bedawin tribe (cf. Gen. xxv. 3). Historically P is of little account. This is most obvious in his narrative of the war with Midian (xxxi.), in which, without losing a single man, Israel slew every male in Midian and took enormous booty. It is suspicious that the older sources (JE) have not a single word to say of so remarkable a victory; but the impossibility of the story is shown by the fact that, though all the males are slain, the tribe reappears, as the assailant of Israel, in the days of Gideon (Jud. vi.-viii.). The real object of the story is to illustrate the law governing the distribution of booty, xxxi. 27--a law which is elsewhere traced, with much more probability, to an ordinance of David (I Sam. xxx. 24). From this unhistorical, but highly instructive chapter, we learn the tendency to refer all Israel's legislation, whatever its origin, to Moses, and the further tendency to find a historical precedent, which no doubt once existed, for the details of the legislation. It is from this point of view that the narratives of P have to be considered. The story of the fate of the Sabbath-breaker is simply told to emphasize the stringency of the Sabbath law, xv. 32-36, the particular dilemma in ix. 6-14 is created, as a precedent for the institution of the supplementary passover, the case of the daughters of Zelophehad serves as a historical basis for the law governing the property of heiresses (xxxvi.). In other words, P is not a historian; his narrative, even where it is explicit, is usually but the thin disguise of legislation. As in Genesis and Exodus, almost every stage in the development of the religion of Israel is represented by the book of Numbers. Through the story in xxi. 4-11 we can detect the practice of serpent-worship, which we know persisted to the time of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4); and the trial by ordeal, v. 11-31, though in its present form late, represents no doubt a very ancient custom. P throws much light on the usages and ideas of post-exilic religion. But it is to the prophetic document we must go for passages of abiding religious power and value. Here, as in Exodus, the character of Moses offers a brilliant study--in his solitary grandeur, patient strength, and heroic faith; steadfast amid jealousy, suspicion and rebellion, and vindicated by God Himself as a prophet of transcendent privilege and power (xii. 8). Over against the narrow assertions of Levitical and priestly prerogative (xvi., xvii), which reflect but too faithfully the strife of a later day, is the noble prayer of Moses that God would make all the people prophets, and put His spirit upon them every one, xi. 29. DEUTERONOMY Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf. xix. 1-l3)--of three cities of refuge east of the Jordan. The second section, v.-xi., with its superscription, iv. 44-49, is a hortatory introduction to the more specific injunctions of xii.-xxviii., and deals with the general principles by which Israel is to be governed. The special relation between Israel and Jehovah was established on the basis of the decalogue (Ex. xx.), and with this Moses begins, reminding the people of their promise to obey any further commands Jehovah might give (v.). But as the source of all true obedience is a right attitude, Israel's deepest duty is to love Jehovah, serving Him with reverence, and keeping His claims steadily before the children (vi.). To do this effectively, Israel must uncompromisingly repudiate all social and religious intercourse with the idolatrous peoples of the land, and Jehovah their God will stand by them in the struggle (vii). In the past the discipline had often indeed been stern and sore, but it had come from the hand of a father, and had been intended to teach the spiritual nature of true religion; worldliness and idolatry would assuredly be punished by defeat and destruction (viii.). And just as deadly as worldliness is the spirit of self-righteousness, a spirit as absurd as it is deadly; for Israel's past has been marked by an obstinacy so disgraceful that, but for the intercession of Moses, the people would already have been devoted to destruction,[1] ix. 1-x. 11. True religion is the loving service of the great God and of needy men, and it ought to be inspired by reverent fear. Obedience to the divine commands will bring life and blessing, disobedience will be punished by the curse and death, x. 12-xi. [Footnote 1: Ch, x. 6-9 is an interpolation; _vv_. 6, 7 a fragment of an itinerary relating the death of Aaron, and _vv_. 8, 9 the separation of the tribe of Levi to priestly functions.] This hortatory introduction is succeeded by the specific laws which form the main body of the book (xii.-xxvi., xxviii.). Roughly they may be classified as affecting (_a_) religious (xii.-xvi.), (_b_) civil (xvii.-xx.), and (_c_) social (xxi.-xxv.) life, the religious being made the basis of the other two. (_a_) As the true worship is jeopardized by a multiplicity of sanctuaries, these sanctuaries are declared illegal, and their paraphernalia are to be destroyed; worship is to be confined henceforth to one sanctuary (xii.), and every idolatrous person and influence are to be exterminated (xiii.). The holiness of the people is to be maintained by their abstaining from the flesh of certain prohibited animals[1] xiv. 1-21, and the sacred dues such as the tithes, xiv. 22-29, and firstlings, xv. 19-23, are regulated. Religion is to express itself in generous consideration for the poor and the slave, xv. 1-18, as well as in the three annual pilgrimages to celebrate the passover, the feast of weeks, and the feast of booths, xvi. 1-17. [Footnote 1: This section is not altogether in the spirit of Deut. and is found with variations in Lev. xi. If it is not a late insertion in Deut. from Lev., probably both have borrowed it from an older code.] (_b_) Besides the local courts there is to be a supreme central tribunal, xvi. 18-20, xvii. 8-13. No idolatrous symbols are to be used in the Jehovah worship; idolatry is to be punished with death, xvi. 21-xvii. 7. The character and duties of the king are defined, and his obligation to rule in accordance with the spirit of Israel's religion, xvii. 14-20; the revenues and privileges of the Levitical priests are regulated and the high position and function of the prophets are defined in opposition to the representatives of superstition in heathen religion (xviii.). Following the laws affecting the officers of the theocracy are laws--which finely temper justice with mercy--concerning homicide, murder and false witness[1] (xix.). A similar combination of humanity and sternness is illustrated by the laws--whether practicable or not--regulating the usages of war, xx., with which may be taken xxi. 10-14. [Footnote 1: Kindred in theme is xxi. 1-9, dealing with the expiation of an uncertain murder.] (_c_) The laws in xxi-xxv. are of a more miscellaneous nature and deal with various phases of domestic and social life--such as the punishment of the unfilial son, the duty of neighbourliness, the protection of mother-birds, the duty of taking precautions in building, the rights of a husband, the punishment of adultery and seduction, the exclusion of certain classes from the privilege of worship, the cleanliness of the camp, the duty of humanity to a runaway slave, the prohibition of religious prostitution, the regulation of divorce, the duty of humanity to the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and of kindness to animals, the duty of a surviving brother to marry his brother's childless widow, the prohibition of immodesty, etc. By two simple ceremonies, one of thanksgiving, the other a confession of faith, Israel acknowledges her obligations to Jehovah[1] (xxvi.), and the great speech ends with a very impressive peroration in which blessings of many kinds are promised to obedience, while, with a much greater elaboration of detail, disaster is announced as the penalty of disobedience (xxviii.). In chs. xxix,, xxx., which are of a supplementary nature, Moses briefly reminds the people of the goodness of their God, and warns them of the disaster into which infidelity will plunge them, though--so gracious is Jehovah--penitence will be followed by restoration. In a powerful conclusion he sets before them life and death as the recompense of obedience and disobedience, and pleads with them to choose life. [Footnote 1: Ch. xxvii., which, besides being in the 3rd person, interrupts the connection between xxvi. and xxviii., can hardly have formed part of the original book. It prescribes the inscription of the law on stones, its ratification by the people, and the curses to be uttered by the Levites.] The speeches are over, and the narrative of the Pentateuch is resumed. In a few parting words, Moses encourages the people and his successor Joshua, who, in xxxi. 14, 15, 23, receives his divine commission, and finally gives instructions for the reading of the law every seven years, xxxi. 1-13. Verses 16-30 (except 23) constitute the preface to the fine poem known as the _Song of Moses_, xxxii. 1-43, which celebrates, in bold and striking words, the loving faithfulness of Jehovah to His apostate and ungrateful people.[1] This poem, after a few verses in which Moses finally commends the law to Israel and himself receives the divine command to ascend Nebo and die, is followed by another known as the _Blessing of Moses_ (xxxiii.). In this poem, which ought to be compared with Gen. xlix., the various tribes are separately characterized in language which is often simply a description[2] rather than a benediction, and the poem concludes with an enthusiastic expression of joy over Israel's incomparable God. The book ends with an account of the death of Moses (xxxiv.). [Footnote 1: The song must be much later than Moses, as it describes the effect, _v_. 15ff., on Israel of the transition from the nomadic life of the desert, _v_. 10, to the settled agricultural life of Canaan, and expressly regards the days of the exodus as long past, _v_.7. It is difficult to say whether the enemy from whom in _vv_. 34-43, the singer hopes to be divinely delivered are the Assyrians or the Babylonians: on the whole, probably the latter. In that case, the poem would be exilic; _v_. 36 too seems to presuppose the exile.] [Footnote 2: These descriptions--to say nothing of _v_.4 (Moses commended _us_ a law)--are conclusive proof that the poem was composed long after Moses' time. Reuben is dwindling in numbers, Simeon has already disappeared (as not yet in Gen. xlix). Judah is in at least temporary distress, and the banner tribe is Ephraim, whose glory and power are eloquently described, _vv_.13-17. Levi appears to be thoroughly organized and held in great respect, _vv_. 8-ll. The poem must have been written at a time when northern Israel was enjoying high prosperity, probably during the reign of Jeroboam II and before the advent of Amos (770 B.C.?).] Deuteronomy is one of the epoch-making books of the world. It not only profoundly affected much of the subsequent literature of the Hebrews, but it left a deep and abiding mark upon Hebrew religion, and through it upon Christianity. The problem of its origin is as interesting as the romance which attached to its discovery in the reign of Josiah (621 B.C.). Generally speaking, the book claims to be the valedictory address of Moses to Israel. But even a superficial examination is enough to show that its present form, at any rate, was not due to Moses. The very first words of the book represent the speeches as being delivered "on the other side of the Jordan"--an important point obscured by the erroneous translation of A.V. Now Moses was on the east side, and obviously the writer to whom the east side was the other side, must himself have been on the west side. The law providing for the battlement on the roof of a new house, xxii. 8, shows that the book contemplates the later settled life of cities or villages, not the nomadic life of tents; and the very significant law concerning the boundary marks which had been set up by "those of the olden time," xix. 14, is proof conclusive that the people had been settled for generations in the land. The negative conclusion is that the book is not, in its present form, from the hand of Moses, but is a product, at least several generations later, of the settled life of the people. But it is at once asked, Do the opening words of the book not commit us expressly to a belief in the Mosaic authorship, in spite of the resultant difficulties? Is it not explicitly said that these words are his words? The answer to this question lies in the literary freedom claimed by all ancient historians. Thucydides, one of the most scrupulous historians who ever wrote, states, in an interesting passage, the principles on which he composed his speeches (i. 22): "As to the various speeches made on the eve of the war or in its course, I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the precise words which I heard spoken; and so it was with those who brought me reports. But I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them to say in view of each situation; at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said." This statement represents the general practice of the ancient world; the conditions of historical veracity were satisfied if the speech represented the spirit of the speaker. And this, as we shall see, is eminently true of the book of Deuteronomy, which is an eloquent exposition and application of principles fundamental to the Mosaic religion. If, on the other hand, it be urged that the book contains deliberate assertions that it was written by Moses--e.g., "when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book," xxxi. 24, cf. 9--the simple reply is that this very phrase, "all the words of this law," is elsewhere used of a body of law so small that it can be inscribed upon the memorial stones of the altar to be set up on Mount Ebal, xxvii. 3. We are free, then, to consider the date of Deuteronomy by an examination of the internal evidence. The latest possible date for the book, as a whole, is determined by the story of its discovery in 621 B.C. (2 Kings xxii., xxiii.). There can be no doubt that the book then discovered by the priest Hilkiah, and read by the chancellor before the king, was Deuteronomy. It is called the book of the covenant (2 Kings xxiii. 2), but it clearly cannot have been the Pentateuch. For one thing, that was much too long; the book discovered was short enough to have been read twice in one day (2 Kings xxii. 8, 10). And again, the swift and terrible impression made by it could not have been made by a book so heterogeneous in its contents and containing romantic narratives such as the patriarchal stories. Nor again can the discovered book have been Exodus xxi.-xxiii., though that is also called the book of the covenant (Exod. xxiv. 7); for some of the most important points in the succeeding reformation are not touched in that book at all. It is clear from the narrative in 2 Kings xxii. ff. that the book must have been a law book; no other meets the facts of the case but Deuteronomy, and this meets them completely. Point for point, the details of the reformation are paralleled by injunctions in Deuteronomy--notably the abolition of idolatry, the concentration of the worship at a single sanctuary (xii.), the abolition of witchcraft and star-worship, and the celebration of the passover. Some of these enactments are found in other parts of the Pentateuch, but Deuteronomy is the only code in which they are all combined. 621 B.C. then is the latest possible date for the composition of Deuteronomy. It is possible, however, to fix the date more precisely. The most remarkable element in the legislation is its repeated and emphatic demand for the centralization of worship in "the place which Jehovah your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there," xii. 5. Only by such a centralization could the Jehovah worship be controlled which, at the numerous shrines scattered over the country, was being stained and confused by the idolatrous practices which Israel had learned from the Canaanites. This demand is recognized as something new, xii. 8. In the ninth and eighth centuries, when the prophetic narratives of Genesis were written,[1] these shrines, which were the scenes of an enthusiastic worship, are lovingly traced back to an origin in patriarchal times. As late as 750-735 B.C., Amos and Hosea, though they deplore the excesses which characterized those sanctuaries, and regard their worship as largely immoral, do not regard the sanctuaries themselves as actually illegal; consequently Deuteronomy must be later than 735. But the situation was even then so serious that it must soon have occurred to men of practical piety to devise plans of reform, and that the only real remedy lay in striking the evil at its roots, i.e. in abolishing the local shrines. The first important blow appears to have been struck by Hezekiah, who, possibly under the influence of Isaiah, is said to have removed the high places (2 Kings xviii. 4), and the movement must have been greatly helped by the immunity which the temple of Jerusalem enjoyed during the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib in 701 B.C. But the singular thing is that no appeal was made in this reformation to a book, as was made in 621, and as it is natural to suppose would have been made, had such a book been in existence. Somewhere then between Hezekiah and Josiah we may suppose the book to have been composed. [Footnote 1: See below] The most probable supposition is that the reformation of Hezekiah gave the first impulse to the legislation which afterwards appeared as Deuteronomy. But in the terrible reign of his son Manasseh, the efforts of the reformers met with violent and bloody opposition. Judah was under the iron heel of Assyria, and, to the average mind, this would prove the superiority of the Assyrian gods. Judah and her king, Manasseh, would seek in their desperation to win the favour of the Oriental pantheon, and this no doubt explains the idolatry and worship of the host of heaven which flourished during his reign even within the temple itself. It was just such a crisis as this that would call out the fierce condemnation of the idolatrous high places which characterizes Deuteronomy (cf. xii.) and create the imperative demand for such a control of the worship as was only possible by centralizing it at Jerusalem. During this period, too, such a book may very well have been hidden away in the temple by some sorrowing heart that hoped for better days. It is improbable in itself (cf. xviii. 6-8), and unjust to the narrative in 2 Kings xxii., xxiii., to suppose that the book was written by those who pretended to find it. It was really lost; had it been written during the earlier part of Josiah's reign, there was nothing to hinder its being published at once. In all probability, then, the book was in the main written and lost during the reign of Manasseh (_circa_ 660 B.C.). It has been observed that in some sections the 2nd pers. sing, is used. in others the pl., and that the tone of the plural passages is more aggressive than that of the singular; the contrast, e.g., between xii. 29-31 (thou) and xii. 1-12 (you) is unmistakable. We might, then, limit the conclusion reached above by saying that the passages in which a milder tone prevails probably came from Hezekiah's reign, and the more aggressive sections from Manasseh's. This date agrees with conclusions reached on other grounds concerning other parts of the Pentateuch. The prophetic narratives J and E were written in or before the eighth century B.C., the priestly code (P) is, broadly speaking, post-exilic.[1] Now if it can be proved that Deuteronomy knows JE and does not know P, the natural inference would be that it falls between the eighth and the sixth or fifth century. But this can easily be proved, for both in its narrative and legislative parts, Deuteronomy rests on JE. As an illustration of the former, cf. Deuteronomy xi. 6, where only Dathan and Abiram are the rebels, not Korah as in P (cf. Num. xvi, 12, 25); as an illustration of the latter, cf. the law of slavery in Exodus xxi. 2ff. with that in Deuteronomy xv. 12-18, which clearly rests upon the older law, but deliberately gives a humaner turn to it, extending its privileges, e.g., to the female slave. [Footnote 1: See below.] Again in many important respects the legislation of Deuteronomy either ignores or conflicts with that of P. It knows nothing, e.g., of the forty-eight Levitical cities (Num. xxxv.); it regards the Levite, in common with the fatherless and the widow, as to be found everywhere throughout the land, xviii. 6. It knows nothing of the provision made by P for the maintenance of the Levite (Num. xviii.); it commends him to the charity of the worshippers, xiv. 29. Above all it knows nothing of P's very sharp and important distinction between priests and Levites (Num. iii., iv.); any Levite is qualified to officiate as priest (cf. the remarkable phrase in xviii. 1, "the priests the Levites"). Deuteronomy must, therefore, fall before P, as after JE. A not unimportant question here arises: What precisely was the extent of the book found in 621 B.C.? Certainly the legislative section, xii.-xxvi., xxviii., possibly the preceding hortatory section, v.-xi., but in all probability not the introductory section, i. i-iv. 40. These three sections are all approximately written in the same style, but i. i-iv. 40 has more the appearance of an attempt to provide the legislation with a historical introduction summarizing the narrative of the journey from Horeb to the borders of the promised land. Certain passages, e.g. iv. 27-31, seem to presuppose the exile, and thus suggest that the section is later than the book as a whole. The discrepancy between ii. 14, which represents the generation of the exodus as having died in the wilderness, and v. 3ff. hardly makes for identity of authorship; and the similarity of the superscriptions, i. 1-5, and iv. 44-49, looks as if the sections i.-iv. and v.-xi. were originally parallel. Whether v.-xi. was part of the book discovered is not so certain. Much of the finest religious teaching of Deuteronomy is to be found in this section; but, besides being disproportionately long for an introduction, it repeatedly demands obedience to the "statutes and judgments," which, however, are not actually announced till ch. xii.; it seems more like an addition prefixed by one who had the commandments in xii.-xxvi. before him. Ch. xxvii., which is narrative and interrupts the speech of Moses, xxvi, xxviii., besides in part anticipating xxviii. 15ff., cannot have formed part of the original Deuteronomy. On the other hand, xxviii. was certainly included in it, as it must have been precisely the threats contained in this chapter that produced such consternation in Josiah when he heard the book read (2 Kings xxii.). The hortatory section that follows the legislation (xxix., xxx.), is also probably late, as the exile appears to be presupposed, xxix. 28, xxx. 1-3. On this supposition, too, the references to the legislation as "this book," xxix. 20, 21, xxx. 10, are most naturally explained. The publication of the book of Deuteronomy was nothing less than a providence in the development of Hebrew religion. It was accompanied, of course, by incidental and perhaps inevitable evils. By its centralization of worship at the Jerusalem temple, it tended to rob life in other parts of the country of those religious interests and sanctions which had received their satisfaction from the local sanctuaries; and by its attempt to regulate by written statute the religious life of the people, it probably contributed indirectly to the decline of prophecy, and started Israel upon that fatal path by which she ultimately became "the people of the book." But on the other hand, the service rendered to religion by Deuteronomy was incalculable. The worship of Jehovah had been powerfully corrupted from two sources; on the one hand, from the early influence of the Canaanitish Baal worship, practically a nature-worship, which set morality at defiance, xxiii. 18; and on the other, from her powerful Assyrian conquerors. Idolatry not only covered the whole land, it had penetrated the temple itself (2 Kings xxiii. 6). The cause of true religion was at stake. There had been sporadic attempts at reform, but Deuteronomy, for the first time, struck at the root by rendering illegal the worship--nominally a Jehovah, but practically a Baal worship--which was practised at the local sanctuaries. Again Deuteronomy rendered a great service to religion, by translating its large spirit into demands which could be apprehended of the common people. The book is splendidly practical, and formed a perhaps not unnecessary supplement to the teaching of the prophets. Society needs to have its ideals embodied in suggestions and commands, and this is done in Deuteronomy. The writers of the book legislate with the fervour of the prophet, so that it is not so much a collection of laws as "a catechism of religion and morals." Doubtless the prophets had done the deepest thing of all by insisting on the new heart and the return to Jehovah, but they had offered no programme of practical reform. Just such a programme is supplied by Deuteronomy, and yet it is saved from the externalism of being merely a religious programme by its tender and uniform insistence upon the duty of loving Jehovah with the whole heart. The love of Jehovah to Israel--love altogether undeserved, ix. 5, and manifested throughout history in ways without number--demands a human response. Israel must love Him with an uncompromising affection, for He is one and there is none else, and she must express that love for the God who is a spirit invisible, iv. 12, by deeds of affection towards the creatures whom God has made, even to the beasts and the birds, xxv. 4, but most of all to the needy--the stranger, the Levite, the fatherless and the widow. Again and again these are commended by definite and practical suggestions to the generosity of the people, and this generosity is expected to express itself particularly on occasions of public worship. Religion is felt to be the basis of morality and of all social order, and therefore, even in the legislation proper (xii.-xxviii.), to say nothing of the fine hortatory introduction (v.-xi.), its claims and nature are presented first. The book abounds in profound and memorable statements touching the essence of religion. It answers the question, What doth thy God require of thee? x. 12. It reminds the people that man lives not by bread alone, viii. 3. It knows that wealth and success tend to beget indifference to religion, viii. 13ff., and that chastisement, when it comes, is sent in fatherly love, viii. 5; and it presses home upon the sluggish conscience the duty of kindness to the down-trodden and destitute, with a sweet and irresistible reasonableness--"Love the sojourner, for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt," x. 19. JOSHUA The book of Joshua is the natural complement of the Pentateuch. Moses is dead, but the people are on the verge of the promised land, and the story of early Israel would be incomplete, did it not record the conquest of that land and her establishment upon it. The divine purpose moves restlessly on, until it is accomplished; so "after the death of Moses, Jehovah spake to Joshua," i. 1. The book falls naturally into three divisions: (_a_) the conquest of Canaan (i.-xii.), (_b_) the settlement of the land (xiii.-xxii.), (_c_) the last words and death of Joshua (xxiii., xxiv.). This period seems to be better known than that of the wilderness wanderings, and, especially throughout the first twelve chapters, the story moves forward with a firm tread. On the death of Moses, Joshua assumes the leadership, and makes preparations for the advance (i.). After sending men to Jericho to spy and report upon the land (ii.), the people solemnly cross the Jordan, preceded by the ark (iii.); and, to commemorate the miracle by which their passage had been facilitated, memorial stones are set up (iv.). After circumcision had been imposed, v. 1-9, the passover celebrated, v. 10-12, and Joshua strengthened by a vision, v. 13-15, the people assault and capture Jericho (vi.). This initial success was followed by a sharp and unexpected disaster at Ai, for which Achan, by his violation of the law of the ban, was held guilty and punished with death (vii.). A renewed assault upon Ai was this time successful.[1] (viii.). Fear of Israel induced the powerful Gibeonite clan to make a league with the conquerors (ix.). Success continued to remain with Israel, so that south (x.) and north, xi. 1-15, the arms of Israel were victorious, xi. 16-xii. [Footnote 1: The book of Joshua describes only the southern and northern campaigns; it gives no details concerning the conquest of Central Palestine. This omission is apparently due to the Deuterouomic redactor, who, in place of the account itself, gives a brief idealization of its results in viii. 30-35.] Much of the land remained still unconquered, but arrangements were made for its ideal distribution. The two and a half tribes had already received their inheritance east of the Jordan, and the rest of the land was allotted on the west to the remaining tribes. Judah's boundaries and cities are first and most exhaustively given; then come Manasseh and Ephraim, with meagre records, followed by Benjamin, which again is exhaustive, then by Simeon, Zebulon, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali and Dan (xiii.-xix.). Three cities on either side of Jordan were then set apart as cities of refuge for innocent homicides, and for the Levites forty-eight cities with their pasture land, xx. 1-xxi. 42. As Israel was now in possession of the land in accordance with the divine promise, xxi. 43-45, Joshua dismissed the two and a half tribes to their eastern home with commendation and exhortation, xxii. 1-8. Incurring the severe displeasure of the other tribes by building what was supposed to be a schismatic altar, they explained that it was intended only as a memorial and as a witness of their kinship with Israel, xxii. 9-34. The book concludes with two farewell speeches, the first (xxiii.) couched in general, the second xxiv. 1-23, in somewhat more particular terms, in which Joshua reminds the people of the goodness of their God, warns them against idolatry and intermarriage with the natives of the land, and urges upon them the peril of compromise and the duty of rendering Jehovah a whole-hearted service. The people solemnly pledge themselves to obedience, xxiv. 23-28. Then Joshua's death and burial are recorded, and past was linked to present in the burial of Joseph's bones (Gen. 1. 25) at last in the promised land, xxiv. 29-33. The documentary sources which lie at the basis of the Pentateuch are present, though in different proportions, in the book of Joshua, and in their main features are easily recognizable. The story of the conquest (i.-xii.) is told by the prophetic document JE, while the geographical section on the distribution of the land (xiii.-xxii.) belongs in the main to the priestly document P. Joshua, in common with Judges, Samuel (in part) and Kings, has also been very plainly subjected to a redaction known to criticism as the Deuteronomic, because its phraseology and point of view are those of Deuteronomy. This redactional element, which, to any one fresh from the study of Deuteronomy, is very easy to detect, is more or less conspicuous in all of the first twelve chapters, but it is especially so in chs. i. and xxiii., and it would be well worth the student's while to read these two chapters very carefully, in order to familiarize himself with the nature of the influence of the Deuteronomic redaction upon the older prophetico-historical material. Very significant, e.g., are such phrases as "the land which Jehovah your God giveth you to possess," i. 11, Deuteronomy xii. 1: equally so is the emphasis upon the law, i. 7, xxiii. 6, and the injunction to "love Jehovah your God," xxiii. 11. The most serious effect of the Deuteronomic influence has been to present the history rather from an ideal than from a strictly historical point of view. According to the redaction, e.g., the conquest of Canaan was entirely effected within one generation and under Joshua, whereas it was not completely effected till long after Joshua's death: indeed the oldest source frankly admits that in many districts it was never thoroughly effected at all (Jud. i. 27-36). A typical illustration of the Deuteronomic attitude to the history is to be found in the statement that Joshua obliterated the people of Gezer, x. 33, which directly contradicts the older statement that Israel failed to drive them out, xvi. 10. The Deuteronomist is, in reality, not a historian but a moralist, interpreting the history and the forces, divine as well as human, that were moulding it. To him the conquest was really complete in the generation of Joshua, as by that time the factors were all at work which would ultimately compel success. The persistency of the Deuteronomic influence, even long after the priestly code was written, is proved by xx. 4-6, which, though embodied in a priestly passage, is in the spirit of Deuteronomy (cf. Deut. xix.). As this passage is not found in the Septuagint, it is probably as late as the third century B.C. P is very largely represented. Its presence is recognized, as usual, by its language, its point of view, and its dependence upon other parts of the Pentateuch, demonstrably priestly. While in the older sources, e.g., it is Joshua who divides the land, xviii. 10, in P not only is Eleazar the priest associated with him as Aaron with Moses (Exod. viii. 5, 16), but he is even named before him (xiv. 1, cf. Num. xxxiv. 17). It is naturally also this document which records the first passover in the promised land, v. 10-12. The cities of refuge and the Levitical cities are set apart (xx., xxi.) in accordance with the terms prescribed in a priestly chapter of Numbers (xxxv.). The prominence of Judah and Benjamin in the allocation of the land is also significant. The section on the memorial altar, xxii. 9-34, apparently belonging to a later stratum of P, is clearly stamped as priestly by its whole temper--its formality, _v_, 14, its representation of the "congregation" as acting unanimously, _v_. 16, its repetitions and stereotyped phraseology, and by the prominence it gives to "Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest," _vv_. 30-32. That this document in Joshua was partly narrative so well as statistical is also suggested by its very brief account of Achan's sin in ch. vii., and of the treachery and punishment of the Gibeonites, ix. l7-2l--an account which may well have been fuller in the original form of the document. The most valuable part of Joshua for historical purposes is naturally that which comes from the prophetic document, which is the oldest. It is here that the interesting and concrete detail lies, notably in chs. i.-xii., but also scattered throughout the rest of the book in some extremely important fragments, which indicate how severe and occasionally unsuccessful was the struggle of Israel to gain a secure footing upon certain parts of the country.[1] Many of the difficulties revealed by a minute study of i.-xii. make it absolutely certain that the prophetic document is really composite (JE), but owing to the thorough blending of the sources the analysis is peculiarly difficult and uncertain. That there are various sources, however, admits of no doubt. The story of the crossing of the Jordan in chs. iii., iv., if we follow it carefully step by step, is seen to be unintelligible on the assumption that it is a unity. In iii. 17 all the people are already over the Jordan, but in iv. 4, 5, the implication is that they are only about to cross. Ch. iv. 2 repeats iii. 12 almost word for word. In iv. 9 the memorial stones are to be placed in the Jordan, in iv. 20 at Gilgal. In vii. 25_b_, 26_a_, Achan alone appears to be stoned, in _v_. 25_c_ the family is stoned too. A similar confusion prevails in the story of the fall of Jericho (vi.). In one version, Israel marches six days silently round the city, and on the seventh they shout at the word of Joshua; on the other, they march round seven times in one day, and the seventh time they shout at the blast of the trumpet. [Footnote 1: Cf. xv. 14-19, 63; xvi. 10; xvii. 11-18; xix. 47.] Enough has been said to show that the prophetic document, as we have it, is composite, though there can seldom be any manner of certainty about the ultimate analysis into its J and E constituents. There is reason to believe that most of the isolated notices of the struggle with the Canaanites scattered throughout xiii.-xxii. and repeated in Judges i. are from J, while ch. xxiv., with its interest in Shechem and Joseph, and its simple but significant statement, "They presented themselves before _God_ (Elohim)," xxiv. 1, is almost entirely from E. It used to be maintained, on the strength of a phrase in v. 1--"until _we_ were passed over"--that the book of Joshua must have been written by a contemporary. But the true reading there is undoubtedly that given by the Septuagint--until _they_ passed over-which involves only a very slight change in the Hebrew. On what, then, do the narratives of the book really rest? The answer is suggested by x. 12, 13, where the historian appeals to the book of Jashar in confirmation of an incident in Joshua's southern campaign. Doubtless the whole battle was described in one of the war-ballads in this famous collection (cf. Jud. v.), and it is not unreasonable to suppose that other narratives in the book of Joshua similarly rest upon other ballads now for ever lost. The capture of Jericho, e.g., may well have been commemorated in a stirring song which was an inspiration alike to faith and patriotism. If, however, it be true that the book of Joshua has thus a poetic basis, it is only fair to remember that its prose narratives must not be treated as bald historical annals; they must be interpreted in a poetic spirit. There is the more reason to insist upon this, as a later editor, by a too inflexible literalism, has misinterpreted the very passage from the book of Jashar to which we have alluded. What the precise meaning of Joshua's fine apostrophe to sun and moon may be, is doubtful--whether a prayer for the prolongation of the day or rather perhaps a prayer for the sudden oncoming of darkness. The words mean, "Sun, be thou still," and if this be the prayer, it would perhaps be answered by the furious storm which followed. But, in either case, the appeal to the sun and moon to lend their help to Israel in her battles is obviously poetic--a fine conception, but grotesque if literally pressed. This, however, is just what has been done by the editor who added x. 14, and thus created a miracle out of the bold but appropriate imagery of the poet. Similarly it is not necessary to suppose that the walls of Jericho fell down without the striking of a blow on the part of Israel, for this too may be poetry. It may be just the imaginative way of saying that no walls can stand before Jehovah when He fights for His people. That this is the real meaning of the story, and that there was more of a struggle than the poetical narrative of ch. vi. would lead us to believe, is made highly probable by, the altogether incidental but very explicit statement in xxiv. 11, "The men of Jericho _fought_ against you." With its large geographical element the book of Joshua is not particularly rich in scenes of direct religious value; yet the whole narrative is inspired by a sublime faith in the divine purpose and its sure triumph over every obstacle. In particular, the story of the Gibeonites suggests the permanent obligation of reckoning with God in affairs of national policy, ix. 14, while Gilgal is a reminder of the duty of formally commemorating the beneficent providences of life (iii., iv.). The story of Achan reveals the national bearings of individual conduct and the large and disastrous consequences of individual sin. The valedictory addresses of Joshua are touched by a fine sense of the importance of a grateful and uncompromising fidelity to God. But perhaps the greatest thing in the book is the vision of the heavenly leader encouraging Joshua on the eve of his perilous campaign, v. 13-15, a noble imagination, fitted to remind those who are fighting the battles of the Lord that they are sustained and aided by forces unseen. THE PROPHETIC AND PRIESTLY DOCUMENTS Of the three principal documents, J, E and P, to whose fusion is due the account of Israel's origin and early history contained in the Hexateuch, nothing can be known except by inference; but within certain limits their date and origin may be fixed. In Genesis, J and E alike love to trace the sacred places of the Hebrews to some revelation or incident in the life of the patriarchs. Now from the prominence assigned to Hebron in J, together with the rôle assigned to Judah in the story of Joseph, xxxvii. 26, and the special interest in Judah displayed by Genesis xxxviii., it may be inferred that J originated in Judah; while the special attention paid in E to the sanctuaries of the northern kingdom, such as Shechem and Bethel, is not unreasonably held to imply that E originated in Israel. It is impossible to assign more than an approximate date to the origin of these documents, but they can hardly be earlier than the monarchy, which is clearly alluded to in Genesis xxxvi. 31. Such incidental statements as that the Canaanite was _then_ in the land, xii. 6, xiii, 7, imply that by the author's time the situation had changed; and, as their subjection was not attained till the time of Solomon (1 Kings ix. 21) the documents can hardly be earlier than that. The sanctuaries glorified in the Pentateuch are the very sanctuaries at which a sumptuous but misguided worship was practised as late as the eighth century, in the days of Amos and Hosea (cf. Amos iv. 4; Hosea xii. II); but, generally speaking, the conception of God found in the prophetic history, though as robust and intense as that of the early prophets, is more primitive. It is not afraid of anthropomorphisms (Gen. iii. 8; Exod. iv. 24), and theophanies, and it has not very clearly grasped the idea that God is spirit. On these grounds alone it would not be unfair to place the prophetic documents somewhere between Solomon and Amos. J probably belongs to the ninth century, and E, which, as we saw reason to believe, was later, to the eighth. P takes us into a totally different world. The witchery of the prophetic documents has disappeared; poetry has given place to legislation, theophany to ritual, religion to theology. From the late historical books, such as Ezra-Nehemiah, we learn that legalism dominated post-exilic religion to an extent out of all proportion to what can be proved, or what is probable, for pre-exilic times; and it would be natural to suppose that another writing, such as P, dominated by precisely the same spirit, is a product of the same time. This supposition becomes a practical certainty in the light of two or three facts. Firstly, in not a few respects P is at variance with the legislative programme drawn up by the exilic prophet Ezekiel (xl.-xlviii.). Now if P had been in existence, such a programme would have been unnecessary, and, in any case, Ezekiel would hardly have ventured to contradict a code which enjoyed so venerable a sanction and bore the honoured name of Moses. It is easier to suppose that Ezekiel's programme is a tentative sketch, which was modified and improved upon by the authors of P. Again there was every inducement during and immediately after the exile to formulate definitely the ritual practice of pre-exilic times, and to modify it in the direction of existing or future needs. So long as the temple stood, custom could be trusted to take care of the ritual tradition, but the violent breach with their country and their past would impose upon the exiles the necessity of securing those traditions in permanent and accessible form. P is therefore referred almost unanimously by scholars to the exilic and early post-exilic age, and may be roughly put about 500 B.C. The documents J, E and P, which, for convenience, we have treated as if each were the product of a single pen, represent in reality movements which extended over decades and even centuries. The Jehovist, e.g., who traces the descent of shepherds, musicians, and workers in metal to antediluvian times (Gen. iv. 19-22), cannot be the Jehovist who told the story of the Flood, which interrupted the continuity of human life. These distinctions are known to criticism as Jl, J2, etc.; but, though they stand for undoubted literary facts, it is altogether futile to attempt, on this basis, an analysis of the entire document into its component parts. The presence of several hands may also be detected, though not so readily, in E. Most scholars suppose J to precede E, but one or two reverse the order. The truth is that there are passages in J inspired by splendid prophetic conceptions, which must be later than the earliest edition of E; and the moment it is recognized that a long period elapsed before either document reached its present form, the question of priority becomes relatively unimportant. P is even more obviously the result of a long process marked by repeated additions and refinements. Numbers xviii. 7, e.g., implies that ordinary priests might pass within the vail, whereas in Leviticus xvi. this is possible only to the high priest, and even to him only once a year. Exodus xxix. 7 represents only the high priest as anointed, Exodus xxviii. 41 the other priests as well. The section in Exodus xxx. 1-10 on the altar of incense must be later than the list in xxvi. 31-37, where it is not mentioned. The age, too, at which the Levites might enter upon their service appears to have been repeatedly changed; in Numbers iv. 3 it is put at thirty years, in viii. 24 at twenty-five (and i Chron. xxiii. 24 at twenty). All this only shows the unceasing attention that was paid by the priests to the problem of worship; and the length of the period over which this attention was spread may be inferred from the fact that, even in the third century B.C., as we know from the Septuagint, the Hebrew text of Exodus xxxv.-xl. was not absolutely fixed. We may conceive the composition of the Pentateuch to have passed through approximately the following stages. Earliest of all and fundamental to all come the ancient traditions and the ancient poetry, such as the book of the wars of Jehovah, and the book of Jashar. Upon this basis, during the monarchy men of prophetic spirit in both kingdoms--not improbably at the sanctuaries--wrote the history of the Hebrew people. These documents, J and E, were subsequently combined into a single history (JE), possibly in the seventh century, though how long, if at all, J and E continued to enjoy an independent existence we have no means of knowing. During the exile, the book of Deuteronomy was added (JED). Its influence, as we have seen, is very prominent in Joshua, and occasionally traceable even in the earlier books (cf. Gen. xviii. 19, xxvi. 5). After the exile P was incorporated, and the Hexateuch had assumed practically its present form about the middle of the fifth century B.C. JUDGES For the understanding of the early history and religion of Israel, the book of Judges, which covers the period from the death of Joshua to the beginning of the struggle with the Philistines, is of inestimable importance; and it is very fortunate that the elements contributed by the later editors are so easily separated from the ancient stories whose moral they seek to point. That moral is most elaborately stated in ii. 6-iii. 6, which is a sort of programme or preface to iii. 7-xvi. 31, which constitutes the real kernel of the book of Judges--chs. xvii.-xxi., as we shall see, being a supplement and i. 1-ii. 5 an introduction. Briefly stated, the moral is this: in the ancient history, unfaithfulness to Jehovah was regularly followed by chastisement in the shape of foreign invasion, but when the people repented and cried to Jehovah He raised up a leader to deliver them. Unfaithfulness, chastisement; penitence, forgiveness. This philosophy of history, if such it can be called, had of course the practical object of inspiring the people with a sense of the importance of fidelity to Jehovah. Both the ideas and the phraseology of this passage, ii. 6-iii. 6, are unmistakably those of Deuteronomy: therefore here, as in Joshua, we speak of the Deuteronomic redaction. The moral expressed in the preface and repeated in a less elaborate form elsewhere, vi. 7-10, x. 6-16, is amply illustrated by the stories that follow--the stories of Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson. This does not exhaust the list of judges, but it exhausts the list of those whose stories are used to illustrate the Deuteronomic scheme. The story of Abimelech, e.g. (ix.), has no such preface or conclusion as these six have; neither has the notice of Shamgar in iii. 31; the preface is also lacking in the very bald notices of the five minor judges, x. 1-5, xii. 8-15. It is clear, therefore, that they fell without the original Deuteronomic scheme; but it is equally clear that the later editors of the book intended to represent the period by twelve judges, Abimelech being apparently reckoned a judge, though he is not called one. Another computation, which ignored Abimelech, reached the number twelve by adding Shamgar, iii. 31, whom a comparison of iii. 31 with iv. 1 shows not to have belonged to the original book; the name was probably suggested by v. 6_a_. Chs. xvii.-xxi., which consist of two appendices (xvii., xviii, the origin of the sanctuary at Dan, and xix.-xxi., the vengeance of Israel on Benjamin for the outrage at Gibeah), also clearly fell without the Deuteronomic redaction: the section is untouched either by the language or ideas of Deuteronomy. Further, these chapters are clearly out of place where they stand; for, generally speaking, the order of the book is chronological, beginning with the death of Joshua and ending with the Philistine invasion which lasted on into the days of Samuel, whereas both stories in the appendix refer to quite an early period, two of the characters named being the grandsons of Moses and Aaron respectively (xviii. 30, xx. 28).[1] [Footnote 1: In ch. xviii. 30 the word now read as Manasseh was originally Moses.] The introduction, i. I-ii. 5, also plainly falls without the scheme, for the book proper, ii. 6ff., is a direct continuation[1] of Joshua xxiv. 27, and i. i-ii. 5 really duplicates, in the main, accounts and isolated notices scattered through Joshua xv., xvi., xvii., xix. The incidents related in these chapters are assigned to Joshua's lifetime; the phrase with which the book of Judges begins--"It came to pass _after the death of Joshua_"--is clearly a later attempt to connect the two books, and inconsistent with ii. 6ff., which carries the story back to a period before Joshua's death. [Footnote 1: 2 Ch. ii. 6, 7=Josh. xxiv. 28, 31; Jud. ii. 8, 9=Josh. xxiv. 29, 30.] The original book of Judges, then, as edited by the Deuteronomist, is represented[1] by ii. 6-xv., minus the notices of Shamgar, Abimelech and the minor judges. The moral pointed by the redaction, valuable as it may be, is not always suggested by the history. The redaction assigns the national misfortunes to idolatry, though only once is idolatry mentioned with reprobation in the ancient stories themselves, vi. 25-32. The redaction shows a further indifference to history in giving a national[2] turn to the tale of apostasy and deliverance, whereas the original stories show that the interests are really not as yet national, but only tribal. The chronology of the book--which is also part of the redaction--with its round numbers, 20, 40, 80, etc., appears to contain an artificial element, and to form part of the scheme indicated in i Kings vi. 1, which assigns 480 years, i.e. twelve generations, to the period between the exodus and the building of the temple. Many considerations make it practically certain that the periods of the judges, which are represented as successive, were often really synchronous, and that therefore the period covered by the entire book is only about two centuries. [Footnote 1: Note that ch. xv. 20 was apparently designed to conclude the story of Samson, raising the suspicion that ch. xvi. (with a similar conclusion) was added later.] [Footnote 2: Cf. iii. 12. The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of Jehovah, and Jehovah strengthened Eglon the King of Moab against _Israel_; so _vv_. 14, 15, etc.] There is reason to believe that the original Deuteronomic book of Judges included the stories of Eli and Samuel, and ended with I Samuel xii. It is expressly said in Judges xiii. 5 that Samson is to _begin_ to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and it is reasonable to suppose that the completion of the deliverance was also related; besides, Samuel's farewell address contains many reminiscences of the familiar formulae of the book of Judges (I Sam. xii. 9ff.) and an appropriate summary of the teaching and some of the facts of that book (cf. _v_. 11). It is easy to imagine, however, why the stories of Eli and Samuel were ultimately separated from the book of Judges: partly because they were felt to be hardly judges in the old sense of defenders, deliverers--Eli was a priest, and Samuel a prophet--and still more because the story of Samuel, at any rate, was bound up with the history of the monarchy. The book received its present form from post-exilic redactors. This is rendered certain by the unmistakable marks of the influence of the priestly code in chs. xx., xxi. The unanimity with which Israel acts, the extraordinarily high numbers,[1] the prominence of such words as "congregation," constitute indubitable evidence of a priestly hand. Some post-Deuteronomic hand, if not this same one,[2] added the other appendix, xvii., xviii., the introduction, i.-ii. 5, and the sections in the body of the book already shown to be late.[3]. The motives which prompted these additions were varied. With regard to the minor judges, e.g., some suppose that the object was simply to make up the number twelve; but generally speaking, the motive for the additions would be the natural desire to conserve extant relics of the past. The introduction, and appendix, though added late, contain very ancient material. Many of the historical notices in ch. i. are reproductions of early and important notices in the book of Joshua, though with significant editorial additions, usually in honour of Judah; [Footnote: Cf. ch. i. 8, which contradicts i. 21; and i, 18, which contradicts i. 19.] and the story of the origin of the sanctuary at Dan, with its very candid account of the furniture of the sanctuary and the capture of the priest, is obviously very old. Doubtless also there is a historical element in xix.-xxi., though it has been seriously overlaid by the priestly redaction--possibly also in the notices of the minor judges. [Footnote 1: Ch. xx. 2 (of. Num. xxxi.). Contrast Jud. v. 8.] [Footnote 2: Note the phrase in both stories. "In those days there was no king in Israel," xviii. i, xix. I.] [Footnote 3: Shamgar iii. 31; Abimelech (ix); minor judges, x. 1-5, xii. 8-15; Samson (xvi.)] This raises the question of the sources and historical value of the stories in the body of the book, which, as we have seen, are very easily separated from the redactional elements. Indeed, as those elements are confined to the beginning and the end of the stories, we may assume that the stories themselves were not composed by the redactors, but already reached them in a fixed and finished form. Further, it is important to note that, just as in the prophetic portions of the Hexateuch, duplicates are often present--very probably in the stories of Ehud, iii. 12ff., Deborah and Barak (iv.), Abimelech (ix.), and Micah (xvii., xviii.), but certainly in the story of Gideon[1] (vi.-viii.). According to the later version, Gideon is the deliverer of Israel from the incursions of the Midianites, and the princes slain are Oreb and Zeeb, vii. 24-viii. 3; according to the earlier version, viii. 4-21, which is on a smaller scale, Gideon, accompanied by part of his clan, takes the lives of Zebah and Zalmunna to avenge his brothers, whom they had slain. In the case of duplicated stories, the Deuteronomic redactors apparently found the stories already in combination, so that the original constituent documents must be further back still. As the narratives, with their primitive religious ideas and practices and their obvious delight in war, are clearly the echo of an early time, we shall be safe in relegating the original documents, at the latest, to the eighth or ninth century B.C. It is a point on which unanimity has not yet been reached, whether these documents are the Jehovist and Elohist of the Hexateuch; but considering the fact that the older notices in i.-ii. 5, on account of the prominence of Judah and for other reasons, are usually assigned to J, and that some of the characteristics of these two documents recur in the course of the book, the hypothesis that J and E are continued at least into Judges must be regarded as not improbable. [Footnote 1: In the story of Jephthah, ch. xi. 12-28, which interrupt the connexion and deals with Moab, not with Ammon, is a later interpolation.] Fortunately we are able in one case to trace the source of a story. The story of Deborah and Barak is told in chs. iv. and v. Ch. 5, which is so graphic that it must have come from a contemporary-one had almost said an eye-witness--is undoubtedly the older form of the story, as it is in verse. Partly on the basis of this poem ch. iv. has been built up, and the account of Sisera's death in this chapter, iv. 21, which differs from that in v. 26, 27, rests on a misunderstanding of the situation in v. 26. Here we see the risks which the ballads ran when turned into prose, but more important is it to note the poetical origin of the story. Probably ch. v. originally belonged to such a collection as the book of the wars of Jehovah or the book of Jashar, and it is natural to suppose that other stories in the book of Judges--e.g. the exploits of Gideon--may have similarly originated in war-ballads. The religion of the book of Judges is powerful but primitive. The ideal man is the ideal warrior. Grim tales of war are told with unaffected delight, and the spirit of God manifests itself chiefly in the inspiration of the warrior. Gideon and Micah have their idols. Chemosh and Dagon are as real, though not so powerful, as Jehovah. Unlike the redaction, the earlier tales are not given to moralizing, and yet once at least the moral is explicitly pointed, ix. 56ff. But elsewhere the power of religion in life is suggested, not by explicit comment, but rather by the naturalness with which every interest and activity of life are viewed in a religious light. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the priceless song of Deborah[1] (v.). Israel's battles are the battles of Jehovah; her triumph is His triumph. The song is inspired by an intense belief in the national God, but there was little that was ethical in the religion of the period. Jephthah offers his child in sacrifice. Jael is praised for a murder which was a breach of the common Semitic law of hospitality. By revealing, however, so candidly the meagre beginnings of Israel's religion, the book of Judges only increases our sense of the miracle which brought that religion to its incomparable consummation in the fulness of the times. [Footnote 1: The song is not necessarily and not probably composed by Deborah. In v. 12 she is addressed in the 2nd person, and _v_. 7 may be similarly read, "Till _thou_, Deborah, didst arise."] SAMUEL Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, as Samuel had much to do with the founding of the monarchy. The Jewish tradition that Samuel was the author of the book is, of course, a palpable fiction, as the story is carried beyond his death. [Footnote 1: Two books in the Greek translation, as in modern Bibles; originally one in the Hebrew, but two from the year 1517 A.D.] The book deals with the establishment of the monarchy. Its ultimate analysis is very difficult; but, if we regard the summary notices in 1 Samuel xiv. 47-51 and 2 Samuel viii. as the conclusion of sections--and this seems to have been their original intention--the broad outlines are clear enough, and the book may be divided into three parts: the first (1 Sam. i.-xiv.) dealing with Samuel and Saul, the second (i Sam. xv.-2 Sam. viii.) with Saul and David, and the third (2 Sam. ix.-xx., concluding with I Kings i., ii.) with David, xxi.-xxiv. being, like Judges xvii.-xxi., in the nature of an appendix. The book opens in the period of the Philistine wars. Samuel's birth, call and influence are described (I Sam. i.-iii.), and the disastrous defeat which Israel suffered at the hand of the Philistines. Jehovah, however, asserted His dignity, and the ark, which had been captured, was restored to Israel (iv.-vii.). But the peril had taught Israel her need of a king, and, by a providential course of events, Saul becomes the chosen man. He gains initial successes (viii.-xiv.). But, for a certain disobedience and impetuosity, his rejection by God is pronounced by Samuel, and David steps upon the arena of history as the coming king. His successes in war stung the melancholy Saul, who at first had loved him, into jealousy; and the tragedy of Saul's life deepens. Recognizing in the versatile David his almost certain successor, he seeks in various ways to compass his destruction, but more than once David repays his malice with generosity. Saul's persecution, however, is so persistent that David is compelled to flee, and he takes refuge with his country's enemy, the Philistine king of Gath. At the decisive battle between Israel and the Philistines on Gilboa, Saul perishes. Soon afterwards, David is made king of Judah; and emerging successfully from the subsequent struggle with Saul's surviving son, he becomes king over all Israel, seizes Jerusalem, and makes it his civil and religious capital (1 Sam. xv.-2 Sam. viii.). The story of his reign is told with great power and candour, and is full of the most diverse interest--his guilty passion for Bathsheba, which left its trail of sorrow over all his subsequent career, the dissensions in the royal family, the unsuccessful rebellion of his son Absalom, the strife between Israel and Judah (2 Sam. ix.-xx.). The story is concluded in 1 Kings i., ii., by an account of the intrigue which secured the succession of Solomon, and finally by the death and testament of David. The appendix, which interrupts the story and closes the book of Samuel (xxi.-xxiv.) consists of (_a_) two narratives, with a dominant religious interest, which chronologically appear to belong to the beginning of David's reign--the atonement by which Jehovah's anger, expressed in famine, was turned away from the land, xxi. 1-14, and the plague which, as a divine penalty, followed David's census of the people (xxiv.); (_b_) two psalms--a song of gratitude for God's gracious deliverances (xxii.=Ps. xviii.), and a brief psalm expressing confidence in the triumph of justice, xxiii. 1-7; (_c_) two lists of David's heroes and their deeds, xxi. 15-22, xxiii. 8-39. In the book of Samuel, even more distinctly than in the Hexateuch, composite authorship is apparent. Little or no attempt has been made by the redactor[1] to reduce, by omissions, adaptations, or corrections, the divergent sources to a unity, so that we are in the singularly fortunate position of possessing information which is exceedingly early, and in some cases all but contemporary, of persons, events and movements, which exercised the profoundest influence on the subsequent history of Israel. The book has been touched in a very few places by the Deuteronomic redactor--not to anything like the same extent as Judges or Kings. The few points at which he intervenes, however, are very significant; his hand is apparent in the threat of doom pronounced upon Eli's house (1 Sam. ii. 27-36),[2] in the account of the decisive battle against the Philistines represented as won for Israel by Samuel's intercession (1 Sam. vii. 3-16), in Samuel's farewell address to the people (1 Sam. xii.) and--most important of all--in Nathan's announcement to David of the perpetuity of his dynasty (2 Sam. vii.). A study of these passages reveals the didactic interest so characteristic of the redactors. [Footnote 1: "Come and let us _renew_ the kingdom," 1 Sam. xi. 14, is a redactional attempt to reconcile the two stories of the origin of the monarchy.] [Footnote 2: Cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 9; Deut, xviii. 6-8.] Such a book as Samuel offered little opportunity for a priestly redaction, but it has been touched here and there by a priestly hand, as we see from 1 Samuel vi. 15, with its belated introduction of the Levites to do what had been done already, v. 14, and from the very significant substitution of "all the Levites" for "Abiathar" in 2 Samuel xv. 24, cf. 29. The composite quality of the book of Samuel could hardly fail to strike even a careless observer. Many of the events, both important and unimportant, are related twice under circumstances which render it practically impossible that two different incidents are recorded. Two explanations are given, e.g., of the origin of the saying, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" I Sam. x. 11, xix. 24. Similarly, the story of David's magnanimity in sparing Saul's life is twice told (1 Sam. xxiv., xxvi.), and there is no allusion in the second narrative to the first, such as would be natural, if not necessary, on the assumption that the occasions were really different. There are also two accounts of David's sojourn among the Philistines and of his speedy departure from a situation fraught with so much peril (1 Sam. xxi. 10-15, xxvii., xxix.). Of course there are not unimportant differences between these two narratives: the voluntary departure of the one story becomes a courteous, though firm, dismissal in the other; but in the light of so many other unmistakable duplicates, it is hard to believe that these are not simply different versions of the same story. There are two accounts of the death of Saul: according to the one, he committed suicide (1 Sam. xxxi. 4), according to the other he was slain by an Amalekite (2 Sam. i. 10). The Amalekite's story may, of course, be fiction, but it is not necessary to suppose this. The differences between the duplicate accounts are sometimes so serious as to amount to incompatibility. In one document, e.g., teraphim are found in the house of a devout worshipper of Jehovah, 1 Sam. xix. 13, in another they are the symbol of an idolatry which is comparable to the worst of sins, 1 Sam. xv. 23. Again, there is no reason to doubt the statement in the apparently ancient record of the deeds of David's heroes, that Elhanan slew Goliath of Gath, 2 Sam. xxi. 19. But if this be so, what becomes of the elaborate and romantic story of i Samuel xvii., which claims this honour for David? The difficulty created by this discrepancy was felt as early as the times of the chronicler, who surmounts it by asserting that it was the brother of Goliath whom Elhanan slew (1 Chron. xx. 5). Connected with this story are other difficulties affecting the relation of David to Saul. In this chapter, Saul is unacquainted with David, 1 Samuel xvii. 56, whereas in the preceding chapter David is not only present at his court, but has already won the monarch's love, xvi. 21. The David of the one chapter is quite unlike the David of the other; in xvi. 18 he is a mature man, a skilled and versatile minstrel-warrior, and the armour-bearer of the king; in xvii. 38, 39, he is a young shepherd boy who cannot wield a sword, and who cuts a sorry figure in a coat of mail. Many of these undoubted difficulties are removed by the Septuagint[1] which omits xvii. 12-31 ,41, 50, 55-xviii. 5, and the question is raised whether the Septuagint omitted these verses to secure a more consistent narrative, or whether they were wanting, as seems more probable, in the Hebrew text from which the Greek was translated. In that case these verses, which give an idyllic turn (cf. ch. xvi.) to the story of David, may have been added after the Greek version was written, i.e, hardly earlier than 250 B.C., and a curious light would thus be shed upon the history of the text and on the freedom with which it was treated by later Jewish scholars. Equally striking and important are the conflicting conceptions of the monarchy entertained in the earlier part of the book. One source regards it as a blessing and a gift of Jehovah; the first king is anointed by divine commission "to be prince over my people Israel, and he shall save my people out of the hand of the Philistines," 1 Sam. ix. 16; the other regards the request for an earthly king as a rejection of the divine king, and the monarchy as destined to prove a vexation, if not a curse (viii.). Centuries seem to separate these conceptions--the one expressing the exuberant enthusiasm with which the monarchy was initiated, the other--perhaps about Hosea's time (cf. Hosea viii. 4)--reflecting the melancholy experience of its essential impotence.[2] [Footnote 1: The Greek text of Samuel is often of great value. In 1 Sam. xiv. 18 it preserves the undoubtedly original reading, "bring hither _the ephod_, for he carried the ephod that day before Israel," instead of "Being hither the ark of God." and in _ v_. 41 the Greek version makes it clear that the Urim and Thummim were the means employed to determine the lot.] [Footnote 2: If other proof were wanted that the book is not an original literary unit, it might be found in the occasional interruption of the natural order. 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv. is the most extensive and obvious interruption. But 2 Sam. iii. 2-5 is also out of place, it goes with v. 6-16. So I Sam. xviii. 10, 11, which is really a duplication of xix, 9, 10 is psychologically inappropriate at so early a stage.] These considerations suggest that at any rate as far as 2 Samuel viii.--for it is universally admitted that 2 Samuel ix.-xx. is homogeneous--there are at least two sources, which some would identify, though upon grounds that are not altogether convincing, with the Jehovist and Elohist documents in the Hexateuch. One of these sources is distinctly early and the other distinctly late, and the early source contains much ancient and valuable material. Its recognition of Samuel as a local seer willing to tell for a small piece of money where stray asses have gone, its enthusiastic attitude to the monarchy, its obvious delight in the splendid presence and powers of Saul, its intimate knowledge of the ecstatic prophets, its conception of the ark as a sort of fetish whose presence insures victory--all these things bespeak for the document that relates them a high antiquity. The other document represents Samuel as a great judge and virtual regent over all Israel, it has a wide experience of the evils of monarchy, it idealizes David, and it regards Saul as a "rejected" man. It is possible that these documents, in their original form, were biographical--Saul being the chief hero in the one and David in the other. A biography of Samuel, which may or may not have included the story of the war with the Philistines (I Sam. iv.-vii. 2), possibly existed separately, though in its present form it is interwoven with the story of Saul. It would be difficult to overpraise the literary and historical genius of the writer who in 2 Samuel ix.-xx. traces the checkered course of David's reign. He has an unusually intimate knowledge of the period, a clear sense of the forces that mould history, a delicate insight into the springs of character, and an estimable candour in portraying the weakness as well as the strength of his hero. The writer's knowledge is so intimate that one is tempted to suppose that he must have been a contemporary; and yet such a phrase as "to this day," 2 Sam. xviii. 18, unless it be redactional, almost compels us to come lower down. Probably, however, it is not later than the time of Solomon, whose reign appears to have been marked by literary as well as commercial activity.[1] [Footnote l: The Book of Jashar, whose latest known reference comes from the reign of Solomon (cf. p.102), is supposed by some to have been edited in that reign.] The last four chapters, which interrupt the main narrative, contain some ancient and some late material. The two tales, xxi. 1-14, xxiv., which have much in common, were preserved because of their religious interest; and although part of ch. xxiv. (cf. _vv_. 10-14) is in the later style, both stories throw much welcome light on the early religious ideas of Israel. Of the poems 2 Samuel xxii. in its present form can hardly be David's,[1] and the same doubt may be fairly entertained with regard to xxiii. 1-7. Even if _v_. 1 be not an imitation of Numbers xxiv. 3, 15, it is hardly likely that David would have described himself in terms of the last clause of this verse. The eschatological complexion of _vv_. 6, 7 also suggests, though perhaps it does not compel, a later date; further, it is not exactly in favour of the Davidic authorship of either of these psalms that they are found in a section which was obviously interpolated later.[2] On the other hand, there can be no reasonable doubt that the incomparable elegy over Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel i. 19-27 is David's. Poetically it is a gem of purest ray; but, though its position in the book of Jashar[3] shows that it was regarded as a religious poem, it strikes no distinctively religious note. The little fragment on the death of Abner, 2 Sam. iii. 33ff., is also no doubt his. [Footnote 1: See pp. 247, 248.] [Footnote 2: The song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 1-10, is proof that later editors inserted poems at points which they deemed appropriate. If the "anointed king," for whom prayer is offered in _v_. 10, be one of the historical kings, then the Ps. is pre-exilic; if the Messianic king of the latter days, post-exilic. But in neither case could the prayer be Hannah's, as there was no king yet. The clause in _v_. 5--"the barren hath borne seven"--suggested the interpolation of the poem at this point.] [Footnote 3: This may either mean the book of the upright or brave, i.e. the heroes of Israel, or it may mean the book of Israel herself.] The book of Samuel offers a large contribution to our knowledge of the early religion of Israel. It presents us with a practical illustration of the rigorous obligations of the ban (1 Sam. xv.), of the effects of technical holiness (1 Sam. xxi. 4, 5), of the appearance of the images known as teraphim (1 Sam. xix. 13), of the usages of necromancy (1 Sam. xxviii.), of the peril of unavenged bloodshed (2 Sam. xxi.), of the almost idolatrous regard for the ark (1 Sam. iv.), of the nature of the lot (1 Sam. xiv. 41, lxx.), of the place of fasting and the inviolability of oaths (1 Sam. xiv.). To the student of human nature, the book is peculiarly rich in material. The career of David and still more that of Saul--David with his weakness and his magnanimity, and Saul, a noble character, ruined by jealousy and failure combined working upon a predisposition to melancholy--present a most fascinating psychological study. The ethical interest, too, though seldom obtruded, is always present. In the parable of Nathan, it receives direct and dramatic expression; but the whole story of David's reign is haunted by a sense of the Nemesis of sin. KINGS The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), then carries on the history of the monarchy in both countries from the disruption to the fall of the northern kingdom (1 Kings xii.-2 Kings xvii.), and traces the story of Judah from that point to the exile (2 Kings xviii.-xxv.). [Footnote 1: Originally and till 1517 A.D. Kings was reckoned in the Hebrew Bible as one book. The Greek translation reckons it as two books, which it entitles the third and fourth books of the kingdoms, the first two being represented by the two books of Samuel.] During this period events of epoch-making importance in politics and religion were taking place. In it literary prophecy was born, trade and commerce arose with their inevitable cleavage of society into the rich and the poor, the northern kingdom disappeared as a political force, and many of her people were carried into exile. Judah was dominated in turn by Assyria and Babylonia, with the result that her religious usages were profoundly affected by theirs. But of all this we learn very little from the book of Kings. Most of what we do know of the inner history of the period comes from the prophets. To understand the state of society, e.g. in the time of Jeroboam II, we go not to the book of Kings but to Amos and Hosea. Again the perspective is strange. It is not only that brief reigns like those of Shallum and Pekahiah (2 Kings xv.) are dismissed in a verse or two, but even long and very important reigns, such as that of Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. 23-29). Omri, the father of Ahab, was, we know, a much more important person than the few verses devoted to him in I Kings xvi. 21-28 would lead us to suppose. The reign of Ahab himself, on the other hand, is dealt with at considerable length (I Kings xvi. 29-xxii. 40), and Solomon receives no less than nine chapters (I Kings iii.-xi.). The stories of Jeroboam I (I Kings xii.), Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii.-xx.), Josiah (2 Kings xxii. ff.) are told with comparative fulness. Whenever the narrative begins to expand it is plain that the interest of the author is predominantly and almost exclusively religious; in other words, his aim is to write not a political, but an ecclesiastical history. This at once explains his insertions and omissions. Omri's reign was not marked by anything of conspicuous importance to religion, while it was under Ahab that the great struggle of Jehovah worship against Baalism took place. Solomon is of unique importance, as he was the founder of the temple. Hezekiah's career touches that of the prophet Isaiah, while his reign and Josiah's are marked by attempts at religious reform. The author is writing for men who have access to records of the political history, and to these "chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah," as they are called, he repeatedly refers readers who are interested in the political facts. Finally, though some of the narratives--notably the Elijah group-are dramatic and powerful to the last degree, the book has not, generally speaking, that flexibility and movement which we are accustomed to look for in a modern historian. It has been artificially conformed to a scheme. The various kings are introduced and dismissed and their reigns are criticized, in set formulae, and these formulae are Deuteronomic. With the exception of Hezekiah, all the kings before Josiah are implicitly condemned for worshipping upon the high places; and the centralization of the worship at Jerusalem was, as we have already seen, the chief feature of the Deuteronomic legislation. The book of Kings, like Joshua, Judges and Samuel (in part), has been subjected to a Deuteronomic redaction, of which the most obvious feature is the summary notice and criticism of the various kings. This redaction cannot have taken place earlier than 621 B.C. (the date of the publication of Deuteronomy) nor later than 597 B.C., as the reference to the chronicles of the kings of Judah ceases with the reign of Jehoiakim, 2 Kings xxiv. 5. Parts of the book presuppose that the temple is still standing, I Kings viii. 29, and the exile not yet an accomplished fact. There was, however, a later redaction some years after the pardon of Jehoiachin in 561 B.C. (2 Kings xxv. 27), and sporadic traces of this are seen throughout the book, parts of which clearly imply the exile, 1 Kings viii. 46, 47, and the destruction of the temple, 1 Kings ix. 7, 8. These redactions are known to criticism as D and D2 respectively. On none of the historical books has the influence of Deuteronomy been so pervasive as on Kings. The importance of the Deuteronomic law receives emphatic reiteration, 1 Kings ii. 3, 4, ix. 1-9, and once that law is cited practically word for word, 2 Kings xiv. 6; cf. Deut. xxiv. 16. Naturally the affairs of the temple as the exclusive seat of the true worship receive considerable attention. This explains the elaborate treatment accorded to the reign of Solomon, who founded the temple, and to the description of the temple itself (1 Kings vi.); and on his prayer of dedication the Deuteronomic influence is very conspicuous (1 Kings viii.). It is also unmistakable in the chapter which concludes the story of the northern kingdom and attempts to account for the disaster (2 Kings xvii.). The chapter presents what may be called a Deuteronomic philosophy of history, corresponding to the scheme which is thrown into the forefront of the book of Judges (ii. 6-iii. 6). Traces of a hand that is still later than the second Deuteronomic redaction are to be found here and there in the book; e.g., in 1 Kings viii. 4, the Levites are a later insertion to satisfy the requirements of the post-exilic priestly law--the words are not supported by the Septuagint. Here we see the influence of the priestly point of view, but the traces are far too few to justify us in speaking of a priestly redaction; the course which such a redaction would have taken we see from the book of Chronicles. But that the book was touched by post-exilic hands is certain; 1 Kings xiii. 32 actually speaks of "the cities of Samaria," a phrase which implies that Samaria was a province, as it was not till after the exile. It is fortunate that one of the longest, most important, and impressive sections of the book--the Elijah and Elisha narratives (1 Kings xvii.-2 Kings viii., xiii. l4-2l)--has not been touched by the Deuteronomic redaction. The Elijah narratives not only recognize the existence of altars all over the land, 1 Kings xix. 10, but the great contest between Jehovah and Baal is actually decided at the sanctuary on Carmel, xviii. 20, a sanctuary which, by the Deuteronomic law, was illegal. Again, the advice given by Elisha to cut down the fruit trees in time of war, 2 Kings iii. 19, is in direct contravention of the Deuteronomic law (Deut. xx. 19). These narratives must precede the redaction of the book by a century and a half or more, and we have them pretty much as they left the hand of the original writers. A post-exilic hand, however, is evident in 1 Kings xviii. 31, 32_a_. To a later age, which believed in the exclusive rights of Jerusalem, the altar on Carmel, which was said to be repaired by Elijah, _v._ 30, was naturally an offence; so the repairing of this old altar is represented as the erection of a new and special one, typical of the unity of Israel. The lateness of the insertion is further proved by its containing a quotation from P (Gen. xxxv. 10). As the book was redacted by Judean writers, it is not unnatural that the summary notices of the kings of Judah are more elaborate than those of Israel. In the former case, but not in the latter, the age of the king at his accession and the name of his mother are mentioned. One curious feature of these notices is that the statement of a king's accession, whether in Israel or Judah, is always accompanied by a statement of the corresponding year in the contemporary reign of the sister kingdom. The notices conform to this type: "In the twenty and seventh year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, began Azariah, son of Amaziah, king of Judah, to reign," 2 Kings xv. 1. It is practically certain that these synchronisms, as they are called, are not contemporary but the work of the redactors. There is no reason to suppose that the kings of either country would have dated their own reigns with reference to the other; besides, the synchronisms do not strictly agree with the other chronological notices of the reigns. The period between the division of the kingdoms and the fall of Samaria is estimated as 260 years in the story of the kings of Judah, but only as 242 in the case of Israel. Probably the original documents contained the number of years in the reign, and the dates of the more important events; but the synchronisms represent an artificial scheme created by the redactor. Traces of such a system are present in 1 Kings vi. 1, according to which 480 years, i.e. twelve generations of forty years each, elapsed between the exodus and the building of the temple. So much for the redaction; what, then, were the sources of the redaction? Three are expressly mentioned--the book of the acts of Solomon, 1 Kings xi. 41, the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel, and the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. The nature of these books may be inferred, partly from the facts recorded in our book of Kings, and especially from the facts in support of which they are cited. They seem to have contained, e.g., accounts of wars, conquests, conspiracies, buildings, 1 Kings xiv. 19, xv. 23, xvi. 20, but it is not probable that they were official annals. There was indeed a court official whose name is sometimes translated "the recorder," 2 Sam. viii. 16, 1 Kings iv. 3. But besides the probable inaccuracy of this translation,[1] it is very unlikely that, in the northern kingdom at any rate, with its frequent revolutions, court annals were continuously kept; the annalist could hardly have recorded the questionable steps by which his monarch often succeeded to the throne, though doubtless official documents were extant, capable of forming material for the subsequent historian. But in any case, the chronicles to which the book of Kings refers cannot have been official annals; it is assumed that they are accessible to everybody, as they would not have been had they been official chronicles. They were in all probability finished political histories, something like the elaborate section devoted to Solomon in our present book of Kings. The chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah probably formed, not one book, as has been supposed, but two; the same event, e.g., the campaign of Hazael, is sometimes mentioned in two distinct and independent connections, 2 Kings x. 32, xiii. 3, cf. xii. 18f.--a fact which further suggests that the redactor treated his sources with at least comparative fidelity. [Footnote 1: The word strictly means "one who calls to mind," and would appropriately designate an official who brought the affairs of the kingdom before the king.] The book of Kings, as we have seen, concentrates attention almost exclusively on the religious elements in the history, and these were determined largely by the prophets. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the longer sections deal with the utterances or activities of prophets at critical junctures of the history. The part played by Ahijah at the time of the disruption of the kingdom, by Elijah in the great struggle between Baal and Jehovah worship, by Elisha during the Aramean assaults upon Israel, by Isaiah at the invasion of Sennacherib--these and similar episodes are dealt with so fully as to suggest that biographies of the prophets, written possibly by literary members of the prophetic order, were at the disposal of the redactors of the book of Kings. Temple affairs are also discussed, from the days of Solomon to Josiah (I Kings vi. vii., 2 Kings xi., xii., xvi., xxii., xxiii.), with a sympathy and a minuteness which almost suggest the inference that a regular temple history was kept; but occasional statements which are anything but flattering to the priests (2 Kings xii. 7, 15) render the inference somewhat precarious. Besides the chronicles and biographies, there are hints that the redactors had access to other sources. The words in which Solomon dedicated the temple, only partially preserved in the Hebrew, are, by a very probable emendation of the Greek text, taken from the book of Jashar:-- The sun hath Jehovah set in the heavens, He himself hath determined to dwell in the darkness. And so I have built Thee an house to dwell in, Even a place to abide in for ever and ever. (1 Kings viii. 12, 13; Septuagint, _v._ 53). Again, 1 Kings xx., xxii. appears to come from a different source from the Elijah narratives in 1 Kings xvii.-xix., xxi. The former section takes a distinctly more favourable view of Ahab than the Elijah stories do, and, unlike them, it alludes to Ahab seldom by name, but usually as "the king of Israel"; further, in it the great prophet of the period is Micah rather than Elijah. Both these groups of narrative belong no doubt to the northern kingdom.[1] [Footnote 1: Chs. xx., xxii. obviously so; but no less xvii.-xix., xxi., for in 1 Kings xix. 3 Beersheba is described as belonging to Judah. A Judean writer would not have appended such a note.] It is important to consider the value of the sources of the book of Kings. We have already seen that the redactor occasionally deals with them in a spirit of praiseworthy scrupulousness, repeating the same fact from different sources, and making no attempt to dovetail the one narrative into the other. Sometimes the sources have been demonstrably followed word for word, phrases like _to this day_ being used of situations which had passed away by the time the book was redacted.[1] The facts, though lamentably meagre, have usually the appearance of being thoroughly trustworthy; the quotation from the book of Jashar is no doubt as genuine as it is interesting, and the brief account of the submission of Hezekiah to the tribute imposed by Sennacherib, 2 Kings xviii. 14-16, is supported by the Assyrian records. But it is evident that the history does not always rest upon contemporary sources, and that early events and personalities are touched with the colours of legend or romance. Much of the story of Solomon, e.g., is unmistakably historical--his luxury, his effeminacy, his commerce, his unscrupulousness. But there are stories of another sort which, on the face of them, must be decades, if not centuries, later than Solomon's reign. "There came no more," we are informed, "such abundance of spices as those which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon" (1 Kings x. 10). The age of Solomon is clearly long past, and his glory has been enhanced by the lapse of time; for "silver was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon," x. 21. Tales are told of his almost fabulous revenue, x. 14, which can hardly be reconciled with the story of his loan from Hiram, ix. 14. The story of Solomon is really a compilation, and its various elements are by no means all of the same historical value. [Footnote 1: E.g., 1 Kings xii. 19 implies the existence of Israel, and 2 Kings viii. 22 (Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day) ignores the later conquest of Edom by Amaziah, xiv. 7.] The career of Elisha is also seen through the colours of a rich and reverent imagination. It is, in the main, intended to be a replica of Elijah's, and many of his miracles are obviously suggested by his. The story of Elisha's resuscitation of the dead child is an expansion of the similar story told of Elijah (2 Kings iv., 1 Kings xvii.), and his miracle wrought in behalf of the widow, 2 Kings iv. 1-7, is modelled on a similar miracle wrought by Elijah, 1 Kings xvii. 8-16. There is further an element of magic in his miracles which differentiates them from Elijah's, and throws them more upon the level of mediaeval hagiography; such, e.g., as the floating of the iron upon the water, or the raising of a dead man by contact with the prophet's bones. The Elijah narratives, on the other hand, represent a higher type of religious thought. The figure of that great prophet may also have been glorified by tradition, but in any case his was a personality of the most commanding power. He was indeed fortunate in his biographer; his story is told with great dramatic and literary art. In its account of the struggle with the greed of Ahab and the licentiousness of Baalism, it sheds a brilliant light upon one of the most crucial epochs of Hebrew history. Even this story, however, is not all of a piece. There is linguistic and other evidence that the chapter (2 Kings i.), in which two companies of fifty men are consumed by fire from heaven at the word of Elijah, is very late. In the story, which is rather mechanical and lacks the splendid dramatic power of the other Elijah stories, the prophet is only a wonder-worker, and his action is not determined by any moral consideration. It was not so much the spirit of Elijah himself, but rather that of the late redactor, that Jesus rebuked, when He said to His disciples, who quoted the prophet's conduct for a precedent, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of." Perhaps the chapter of least historical value in the book of Kings is that in which Jeroboam I is condemned and denounced for his idolatry at Bethel (1 Kings xiii.). It contains an unparelleled instance of predictive prophecy: Josiah is foretold by name three centuries before he appears, _v._ 2. The difficulty of this prediction is so keenly felt that one orthodox commentator feels constrained to dispose of it by assuming that the name is to be taken, not as a proper name, but in its etymological sense as one whom "Jehovah supports," The sudden withering of the hand and its equally sudden restoration to health are hardly more surprising than the definite prediction of the fate of the idolatrous priests, _v._ 2,--a prediction which appears to be fulfilled to the letter, 2 Kings xxiii. 16-18. But when we examine the account of the fulfilment, we find that the passage is later than its context[1] and inconsistent with it. The conduct of the "old prophet," whose lying counsel is attributed to an angel, is, morally considered, disreputable, and it is surely no accident that the man of God, whose message and fate are thus strangely told, is anonymous, though, as the opponent of the famous Jeroboam I, the leader of the disruption, he ought to have been well known. The vagueness and improbabilities of the story can only be accounted for by its very late date. Fortunately we are able to show that the story is, at the earliest, post-exilic. As we have already seen, there is an allusion in _v_. 32 to the cities of Samaria, which implies that Samaria was a province, and stamps the passage at once as post-exilic. Even within the post-exilic period, it probably falls quite late--a precursor of the book of Chronicles. The historical spirit is in abeyance, and edification is the only consideration. The story is a late attempt to illustrate the great truth that God's word is immutable and must be uncompromisingly obeyed. [Footnote 1: Verse 16, in which the bones are burned on the altar, contradicts _v._ 15, in which the altar is already destroyed.] The religious value of the book of Kings is general rather than particular. There are individual sections of great religious power and value--most of all the great group of Elijah narratives; but the book has been shorn, by the thoroughness of the redaction, of much that would have been of the deepest interest to the modern student of Israel's religious no less than political development. Taken as a whole, it has a certain melancholy grandeur. Beginning in the splendid glitter of Solomon's reign, the monarchy passed with unsteady gait across the centuries, menaced by foes without and within, and ended at last in the irretrievable disaster of exile. But through the sombre march of history, a divine purpose was being accomplished. The disaster which swallowed up the nation renewed and spiritualized the religion, and thus the seeming loss proved great gain. ISAIAH CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as unremitting as it was brilliant, to the indefeasible supremacy of the unseen forces that shape history, and to the quiet strength that comes from confidence in God. During this period three events stand out as of unique importance: the coalition--due to fear of Assyria--formed by Aram and Israel against Judah in 735 B.C. (vii. 1-ix. 6), the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians in 721 B.C., and the deliverance of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. from the menace of Sennacherib. In these and in all crises, Isaiah's message was a religious one, but instinct, as the sequel showed, with political wisdom. It rested ultimately upon the vision with which his ministry had been inaugurated--the vision of the King, the Lord of hosts, upon a throne high and lifted up, whose glory filled the whole earth. The King was "holy," partly, no doubt, in the ethical sense--for the man of unclean lips is afraid in His presence--but also partly in the older sense of being separated, elevated, lifted above the chances and changes of humanity. Holiness here is almost equivalent to majesty, it is the other side of the divine glory; and it is this thought that inspires the message of Isaiah with such serene confidence. His God is on the throne of the universe: He is the Lord of hosts. His purposes concern not only Judah, but the whole world, xiv. 26, and His kingdom must eventually come. Therefore it is that when, at the news of the confederacy of Aram and Israel against Judah, "the heart of Ahaz and his people shook as shake the forest trees before the wind," vii. 2, Isaiah remains firm as a rock; for, to paraphrase his own great alliterative words, "Faith brings fixity," vii. 9b. This word of his early ministry is also one of his latest (701): "he who believeth shall not give way," xxviii. 16. That is the precious foundation stone that abides unshaken amid the shock of circumstance, and can bear any weight that may be thrown upon it. This, then, is Isaiah's great contribution to religion: he is before all things, the prophet of faith. "In quietness and confidence your strength shall be," xxx. 15. It is easy from this point of view to understand the scorn which Isaiah heaps upon the common objects of men's trust, whether ships, walls or towers (ii.), lip-worship, xxix. 13f., or the gorgeous services of the sanctuary, cunning diplomacy or the projected alliance with Egypt or Assyria (xxx.). Isaiah is the sworn foe of materialism: the contrast between human and divine resource is to him nothing less than infinite. "The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit," (xxxi. 3). It is in harmony with this insistence upon the supremacy of the spiritual that Isaiah regarded religion as separable not only from political form, but even from ecclesiastical organization; for (if the text of viii. 16_b_ can be trusted) he committed his message not to the contemporary church, but to a few disciples, transforming thereby the existing conception of the church, and taking a step of immeasurable significance for the development of true religion. The majesty and originality of Isaiah's thought have their counterpart in his language. Very powerful, e.g., is his description of the Assyrian army-- See! hastily, swiftly he comes, None weary, none stumbling among them, The band of his loins never loosed, The thong of his shoes never torn. His arrows are sharpened, His bows are all bent. The hoofs of his horses are counted as flint, And his wheels as the whirlwind. His roar is like that of the lioness. And like the young lions he roars, Thundering, seizing the prey, And bearing it off to a place of security. v. 26-29. The book is full of poetry as fine as this. Whether describing the mighty roar of the sea, xvii. 12-14, or Jehovah's power to defend Israel, xxxi. 4, or singing a tender vineyard song (v.); Isaiah is equally at home. He effects his transitions with consummate skill: note, e.g., the swift application he makes of the parable of the vineyard, v. 5-7, or the scathing retort he makes to those who complain of the monotony and repetition of his message (xxviii. 11).[1] [Footnote 1: The real irony of this passage, xxviii. 10-13, can only be appreciated in the Hebrew.] The prophecies that fall within the first thirty-nine chapters are practically all on a very high religious and literary level; yet it is all but universally conceded that they are not entirely from the hand of Isaiah. Some prophecies, e.g. xiii., xiv., may be nearly two centuries later than his time, others, e.g. xxiv.-xxvii, four or six; indeed large sections or fragments of the book are relegated by the more radical critics to the second century B.C. and connected with the Maccabean times. But even the more conservative scholars admit that several oracles of Isaiah have been worked over by later hands, possibly by pupils, and that isolated sections, e.g. xxiv.-xxvii., have to be relegated to the post-exilic age, and even to a comparatively late period within that age. These questions can only be settled, if at all, by exegetical, theological and historical considerations, for which this is not the place; but in sketching the contents of the various prophecies, the more probable alternatives will be indicated, where a solution is important. It is plain that the present order of the book is not strictly chronological; otherwise it would have begun with the inaugural vision which now appears in ch. vi. Generally speaking, there are six more or less sharply articulated divisions in the first thirty-nine chapters, i.-xii., xiii.-xxiii., xxiv.-xxvii., xxviii.-xxxiii., xxxiv.-xxxv., xxxvi.-xxxix. Chs, i.-xii. _Prophecies concerning Judah, Jerusalem (and Israel_) The first division, like the fourth, deals in the main with Judah and Jerusalem. As the next division, xiii.-xxiii., deals with foreign peoples, i.1 can serve as a preface only to the first division and not to the whole book. The prophecy opens with an arraignment of Judah, intensely ethical in spirit. It was placed here, not because it was first in point of time, but as a sort of frontispiece; for, though the different sections of the ch., e.g. _vv_. 2-9, 10-20, may come from different times, the first at any rate implies the ravaging of Judah, i. 7, and appears to point to the invasion of Sennacherib in 701 B.C.: it would thus be one of the latest in the book. The land is wasted, the body politic diseased, i. 1-9; the people seek the favour of their God by assiduous and costly ceremony, which the prophet answers by an appeal for a moral instead of a ritual service, _vv_. 10-20. But, as injustice and idolatry are rampant, they will be surely punished, _vv_. 21-31. As a foil to this picture of the depravity of Zion, a foil also to the immediately succeeding description of her pride and idolatry, is the beautiful vision of Zion in the issue of the days, ii. 2-5, as the city to which all nations shall resort for religious instruction, and their obedience to the expressed will of the God of Zion will usher in a reign of universal peace. The passage appears, with an additional verse, in Micah iv. 1-5, where it seems to be preserved in a more original form; yet Isaiah can hardly have borrowed it from Micah, who was younger than he. It used to be supposed that both adopted it from an older poet. But the contents of the oracle, assigning as it does a world-wide significance to Zion, its temple, and its _torah_, while not absolutely incompatible with Isaianic authorship, rather point to a post-exilic date. We are the more at liberty to assume that the passage was later inserted as a foil to the preceding description of Zion as Sodom, as neither in Isaiah nor in Micah does it fit the context. The general theme of ii.-iv. is the divine judgment which will fall on all the foolish pride of Judah. How it will come, Isaiah does not say--the prophecy is one of the earliest (735?)--but the storm that will sweep across the land will reveal the impotence of superstition and idolatry and material resources of every kind, ii. 6-22. All the supports of Judah's political life will be taken away: indeed, the leaders are either so weak or rapacious that the country is already as good as ruined, iii. 1-15; and the women, who are as guilty as the men, will also be involved in their doom, iii. 16-iv. 1. Strangely enough, this eloquent threat of judgment ends in a vision of comfort and peace, iv. 2-6. The land is one day to be wondrously fruitful, her people to be cleansed and holy, and the glory of Jehovah will be over Zion as a shelter and shade. The theological implications of this last passage seem late, and it was probably appended by another hand than Isaiah's as a contrast and consolation. Then follows a lament, in the form of a vineyard song, which skilfully ends in a denunciation of Judah, the vineyard of Jehovah, v. 1-7, merging thereafter into a sixfold woe, pronounced upon her rapacious land-holders, drunkards, sceptics, enemies of the moral order, worldly wise men, besotted and unjust judges, v. 8-24. This is fittingly followed by the announcement that Jehovah will summon against Judah the swift, unwearied and invincible hosts of Assyria, v. 25-30. In the noble vision (740 B.C.) which inaugurated his prophetic ministry (vi.), Isaiah saw the glorious Jehovah attended by seraphim and received from Him the call to go forth and deliver his message to an unbelieving people. This vision appropriately introduces the prophecies proper in vii.-xii.; but it is practically certain that though the vision itself was early, the account of it is later. The hopelessness of his prospective ministry looks rather like the retrospect of a disappointing experience. Though Isaiah elsewhere expresses his faith in the salvation of a remnant, this chapter asserts the utter annihilation of the people, _vv_. 11-13_ab_. An attempt has been made to relieve the gloom in the last clause of the chapter, _v_. 13 _c_, by a comparison of the stump of the tree that remained, after felling, to the holy seed; but this clause, which is wanting in the Septuagint, and utterly blunts the keen edge of the prophecy, is no part of the original chapter. The next section, vii. i-ix. 6, plunges us into the war which the allied arms of Aram and Israel waged against Judah in 735, doubtless in the desire to force her to join a coalition against Assyria. Isaiah, vii. 1-17, seeks to reassure the faith of the trembling king Ahaz; and when Ahaz refuses to put the prophetic word to the test, Isaiah boldly declares that the land will be delivered from the menace before two or three years are over; and many a child--or it may be some particular child--soon to be born, will be given the name Immanuel, and will thereby bear witness to the faith that, despite the stress of invasion, God will not forget His people, but that He "is with us."[1] To the same period, but probably not the same occasion, belongs the prophecy of the devastation of Judah by Assyria, vii. 18-25. But the blow is to fall first, and within two or three years, on Aram and Israel, with their respective capitals. It did not fall so quickly as Isaiah had expected: Damascus was indeed taken in 732, but Samaria not till 721: in spirit, however, if not in the letter, the prophecy was fulfilled, viii. 1-4. The unbelief of Judah will also be punished by the hosts of Assyria, but the ultimate purpose of Jehovah will not be frustrated, viii. 5-10. He alone is to be feared, and no combination of confederate kings need alarm, viii. 11-15. The prophet commits his message to his disciples, and with patience and confidence looks for vindication to the future, viii. 16-18. Desperate days would come, viii. 19-91, but they would be followed by a brilliant day of redemption when Jehovah would remove the yoke from the shoulder of His burdened people by sending them a glorious prince with the fourfold name. [Footnote 1: vii. 8_b_] This latter prophecy, ix. 2-7, has been denied to Isaiah, but apparently with insufficient reason. The passage falls very naturally into its context. The northern districts of Israel (ix. 1) had been ravaged by Assyria in 734 B.C. (2 Kings xv. 29), and upon this darkness it is fitting that the great light should shine; and the yoke to be broken might well be the heavy tribute Judah was now obliged to pay. There are undoubted difficulties, e.g. the mention of a Davidic king, ix. 7, after a specific reference to the fortunes of Israel over which the Davidic king had no jurisdiction; and it is probable that we do not possess the oracle in its original form or completeness. But, in any case, the vision of the righteous and prosperous king ruling over a delivered people fittingly closes this series of somewhat loosely connected oracles. The next section, ix. 8-x. 4, forms a very artistic whole, consisting of four strophes, each of four verses,[1] concluding with the refrain-- For all this His wrath is not turned, And His hand is stretched out still. The poem, which falls about 734, lashes the pride and ambition of _Israel_ (not Judah) and threatens her people with loss of territory and population, anarchy and civil war. The passage was probably originally followed by v. 26-29, which has a similar refrain, and which, with its vivid description of the terrible Assyrian army, would form an admirable climax to this poem. [Footnote 1: Ch. ix. 8 is an introduction and _v_. 13 an interpolation.] Chs. x. 5-xii. 6. Assyria, then, is the instrument with which Jehovah chastises Israel. But because she executes her task in a spirit of presumption and pride, she in her turn is doomed to destruction; but the remnant of Jehovah's people will be saved, x. 5-27. The gradual approach of the Assyrians to Jerusalem is then described in language full of word-play, _vv_, 28-32, which forcibly reminds us of a very similar passage in Isaiah's contemporary Micah, i. 10-15. This chapter is probably about twenty years later than those that immediately precede it. There is an obvious advance in the prophet's attitude to Assyria, and the boast in _vv_. 9-11 carries the chapter later than the fall of Samaria (721) and Carchemish (717). It is even possible that the description of the Assyrian advance in vv. 28-32 implies Sennacherib's campaign in Judah in 701. After the destruction of the enemy before Jerusalem in x. 33, 34 follows an enthusiastic description of the Messianic king--of his wisdom and justice, and of the universal peace which will extend even to the animal world, xi. 1-9. It is the counterpart of ix. 2-7, though here again, and perhaps with more reason, the Isaianic authorship has been doubted. The peculiar emphasis upon the equipment with the spirit is hardly, in these ethical relationships, demonstrably pre-exilic, and the "stem" out of which the shoot is to grow suggests that the monarchy had fallen, but the word may possibly be used to indicate its decadent condition. In any case, there seems very little doubt that the rest of the section, xi. 10-xii. 6, strikingly appropriate as it is in this place, is post-exilic. It describes how in the Messianic days just pictured, theexiles of Israel and Judah will be gathered from the ends of the earth to their own land, where their near neighbours will all be vanquished, xi. 10-16. Then follows a simple song of gratitude for the redemption Jehovah has wrought, xii. The presuppositions of the dispersion here described are not such as fit into Isaiah's time; they would not even apply to the conditions after the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah in 586, still less to the fall of Samaria and the exile of Israel in 72l--the passage must be post-exilic. But though much later than Isaiah's time it forms a very skilful conclusion to the first division of his book, and is an admirable counterpart to the gloomy scenes of ch. i. Chs. xiii.-xxiii. _Prophecies concerning foreign nations_ Chs. xiii. 1-xiv. 23. The Downfall of Babylon. The oracle concerning Babylon, the first of the series of oracles concerning foreign nations, is one of the most magnificent odes in literature. A day of destruction to be executed by the Medes is coming upon Babylon the proud (xiii.) and the exiles will return to their own land, xiv. 1-3. The triumph song that follows discloses a weird scene in the underworld, where the fallen king of Babylon receives an ironical welcome from the shadow-kings of the other nations. There can be no doubt that this prophecy is not by Isaiah. It glows with a passionate hatred of Babylon; but the Babylon which figured in the days of Isaiah (xxxix.) was only a province of Assyria, not an independent and oppressive world-power; nor would its destruction have meant the return of the exiles of northern Israel. The situation is plainly that of the period during the later exile of Judah _before_ the capture of Babylon by Cyrus in 538, as the horrors which the poet anticipated (xiii. 15f.) did not take place. In the spirit of ch. x., xiv. 24-27 proclaims the invincible triumph of Jehovah's purpose and the destruction of the Assyrians in the land of Judah. The assassination of Sargon in 705 B.C. was the cause of wild rejoicing throughout the western vassal states: the joy of Philistia is rebuked by the prophet in _vv_. 28-32 with the warning that worse is yet in store--an allusion, no doubt, to an expected Assyrian invasion. If this be the theme of the passage, _v_. 28 can hardly be correct, as Ahaz had died ten or twenty years before. Chs. xv., xvi. Oracle concerning Moab. The subscription to this prophecy, xvi. 13, indicates that we have here an older prophetic oracle, given "heretofore." Strictly speaking, it is not so much a prophecy as an elegy over the fate of Moab whose land had been devastated by an invader from the north. The fugitives, arriving in Edom, send in vain for help to the people of Judah. Who the invader was it is hard to say--possibly Jeroboam II of Israel, whose conquests were extensive (2 Kings xiv. 25; Amos vi. 14). The oracle, besides being diffuse, is altogether destitute of higher prophetic thought, and is certainly not Isaiah's, though he adapted it to the existing situation and foretold a similar and speedy devastation of Moab, no doubt at the hands of the Assyrians, xvi. 14. Ch. xvii. I-II. This prophecy concerning Aram and Israel falls, no doubt, within the period when these two countries were leagued against Judah, about 735. The doom of Aram is to be utter destruction; that of Israel, all but utter destruction. In the next two passages, xvii. 12-14, xviii., Isaiah appears to return to his favourite theme of the sure destruction of the Assyrians, though they are not mentioned by name. In xvii. 12-14 their hosts are compared to the noise of many waters, while in xviii. their doom is announced by the prophet in answer to an embassy sent by the Ethiopians, who were alarmed at the prospect of an invasion by the Assyrians, doubtless under Sennacherib. Ch. xix. Oracle concerning Egypt. For Egypt the prophet announces a doom of civil war, oppression at the hands of a hard master, and public and private distress which will issue in despair, _vv_. 1-17. In their terror, however, the Egyptians will cry to Jehovah, who will reveal Himself to them and be in consequence honoured and worshipped on Egyptian soil. Then a triple alliance will be formed between Egypt, Assyria and Israel, and they shall all be Jehovah's people, _vv_. 18-25. The dream of such an alliance is very attractive and not too bold for so original a thinker as Isaiah. But the passage is beset by difficulties. The attitude to Egypt appears to be much friendlier in _vv_. 18-25 than in _vv_. 1-17; and it seems quite impossible to find within Isaiah's age a place for five (=several?) Hebrew-speaking cities in Egypt, _v_. 18, whereas such a reference would excellently fit the later post-exilic time when there were extensive Jewish colonies in Egypt. If the city specially mentioned at the end of the verse be, as it seems to be, either Sun-city (Heliopolis) or Lion-city (Leontopolis) then it would not be unnatural to find, in the next verse, with its worship of Jehovah upon Egyptian soil, a reference to the founding of a temple at Leontopolis by Onias in 160 B.C. In that case, Assyria in _v_. 23 stands, as occasionally elsewhere, for Syria, from which Israel had suffered more severely during the second century B.C. than the earlier Israel from Assyria; and the dream of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, united in the worship of the true God, would be just as striking and generous in the second century as in the eighth. At first, _v_. 19 seems to tell powerfully in favour of the Isaianic authorship, as the massebah (pillar) here regarded as innocent was proscribed a century after Isaiah by the Deuteronomic law (Deut. xii. 3). But the Egyptian Jews may not have been so stringent as the Palestinian, or we may even suppose that the "pillar" has here nothing to do with worship, but stands, for some other purpose, on the boundary line. There is no adequate reason, however, why _vv_. 1-17, or at least _vv_. 1-15, should not be assigned to Isaiah. In ch. xx. (711 B.C., cf. _v_. 1, capture of Ashdod) Isaiah indicates in symbolic prophecy--which, however, was not fulfilled--that the people of Egypt and Ethiopia would be deported by the Assyrians. The prophet's object was to dissuade the people of Judah from the Egyptian alliance which they were contemplating. The theme of xxi. 1-10 is the same as that of xiii., xiv.--the impending fate of Babylon--and the passages may be almost contemporary. Warriors of Elam and Media are sent against Babylon, and the issue is awaited with tremulous excitement, till at last the watchman proclaims the welcome news, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen." The importance here aligned to Babylon and her fall, the express mention of Elam and Media, _v_. 2, as her assailants, and the description of Jehovah's people as "threshed" point unmistakably to the last years of the exile, after the rise of Cyrus in 549, and before the fall of Babylon in 538, so that the passage cannot be from Isaiah. With this seems to go the next little enigmatic oracle concerning Edom, xxi. 11, 12, whose fate, as affected by the fall of Babylon, is as yet uncertain. The desert tribes, xxi. 13-17, will also be affected by the general upheaval and be driven from the regular caravan routes. Ch. xxii. is the only chapter in this division (xiii.-xxiii.) which is not concerned with foreign nations. It probably owes its place here to its peculiar superscription which conforms to the other superscription in xiii.-xxiii. In this chapter the prophet laments and very sternly rebukes the frivolity of the people of Jerusalem--whether shortly before the invasion of Sennacherib or after his retreat, it is hard to say. Trusting in their armour and fortifications they give the rein to their appetites, but he solemnly declares that their sin will be punished with death. Unique among the oracles of Isaiah are the two pieces, xxii. 15-18 and 19-25, which deal with persons. Shebna, one of the court officials and probably a foreigner, is threatened with exile and the consequent loss of his office: probably he championed the policy of an Egyptian alliance. His place will be taken, according to Isaiah, by Eliakim, who, curiously enough, is threatened in his turn. Probably _vv_. 19-23 are an adaptation of 2 Kings xviii. 18, where Eliakim is holding an office here held by Shebna, while Shebna is only a scribe. A prophetic lament over Tyre (xxiii.) concludes the oracles dealing with the foreign peoples. The glad ancient merchant city will be brought to silence, _vv_. 1-14, though after seventy years she is to be revived, and the proceeds of her traffic are to be enjoyed by the people of Jerusalem, _vv_. 15-18. There was a siege of Tyre during Isaiah's time, but it is probably not that which is celebrated here, as the poem lacks the nobility and grandeur of the prophet's style. If the oracle is held to imply the conquest of Tyre, it would require to be brought down to the time of Alexander the Great; but it may well be only an anticipatory lament and therefore earlier, contemporary perhaps with a similar oracle of Ezekiel concerning the siege of Tyre (Ez. xxvi.-xxviii.) Verses 15-18 are clearly dependent on Jeremiah's view of the duration of the Chaldean oppression (Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10); and the whole chapter may be exilic. Chs. xxiv.-xxvii. _Late prophecy concerning the glorious issue of some world-catastrophe_. This section is very peculiar, obscure, and in the Old Testament altogether unique. Contemporary historical facts are seen now in the lurid light of fear, more often in the more brilliant light of eschatological hopes. In ch. xxiv. a great catastrophe is impending. The world is weary, and joy has vanished. The city (Jerusalem?) is desolate. Something has happened to revive Jewish hopes and kindle high expectations as to the issue of the coming calamity, but in the immediate future new woes are impending--the earth will reel; on that day, however, Jehovah will suddenly punish the powers supernatural and terrestrial, and come down to reign in glory on Mount Zion. Then (xxv.) follows an enthusiastic song of praise, because a certain strong city (unnamed) has been laid low. A great banquet is prepared on Zion for all the sorrow-ridden nations of the world--emblem of their reception into the Kingdom of God--tears are wiped from every eye, and, with their reproach removed, the Jews praise their God for the victory. Another song of praise follows in xxvi. 1-xxvii. 1 for the power with which Jehovah has defended His own city, and laid her proud rival low. The wicked will not learn from the divine judgments; but, while they are destroyed, not only do Jehovah's own people increase, but their dead are restored to life, to participate in His glorious kingdom; and the dragon is smitten. Then follows xxvii. 2-6, a song of the vineyard-counterpart to v. l-7--which praises Jehovah's care for Judah, with whom He is angry no more. Her rival shall become a desolation, but she herself shall be forgiven and re-established, if only she remove all signs of heathen worship, and from the ends of the earth her exiled sons shall gather to worship at Jerusalem. The origin of this piece is wrapped in obscurity; and it would seem that the author, for some reason, deliberately concealed the historical situation. It is not even certain that the piece is a unity: the song, e.g., in xxv. 1-5 interrupts the description of judgment, and the connection is occasionally loose. There is no clue to what is meant by the strong city which is to be overthrown. It is plain, however, that the writer lived in Palestine, doubtless in or near Jerusalem, xxv. 6, 7, at a time when the Jews were scattered throughout many lands, xxiv. 14-16, xxvii. 12, 13, and when there were at least three great world powers, xxvii. 1. This could hardly have been earlier than the end of the Persian period, and probably the tidings that rang from the isles of the sea, xxiv. 14, 15, were those of the victorious advance of Alexander the Great. No earlier date would suit the theological implications of the passage: e.g. the judgment upon the hosts of heaven, xxiv. 21, 22 (cf. Dan. xi.), the resurrection from the dead, xxvi. 19, the banquet of the nations on Zion, xxv. 6. The style of the passage is nearly as peculiar as its thought, it abounds in assonance and alliteration. It is assigned by some to the close of the second century B.C.; but, in any case, it can hardly be earlier than the later half of the fourth century B.C., and may well express the wild expectations to which disappointed Jewish hearts were lifted by the conquests of Alexander. Chs. xxviii.-xxxiii. _Prophecies concerning Judah and Jerusalem _ We now return to the undoubted prophecies of Isaiah. This group begins with a woe, xxviii. 1-4, pronounced not long before the fall of Samaria in 721 B.C., ending in two verses, 5, 6, presenting another outlook, apparently by a later hand. In _vv_. 7-22, probably about the time of the Egyptian alliance, Judah is also threatened for the drunkenness of her leaders, and for the false confidence which leads the people scornfully to close their ears to prophetic instruction. The interesting little section which follows, _vv_. 23-29, shows how the farmer adapts his methods to the particular work he has to do. The connection, however, is anything but obvious: it may be intended as a reminder to the sceptics of Judah that the divine penalties, though slow, v. 19, are sure; or it may be meant to suggest that God's judgments are tempered with mercy. To the same period belongs the prophecy of the distress that is to be inflicted on Ariel, i.e. Jerusalem, by "a great multitude of all the nations," clearly Sennacherib's army, xxix. 1-15; but in a prophecy, probably much later, which is dramatically appended to it, a promise of redemption and restoration is held out, xxix. 16-24. In xxx., xxxi., also before the invasion of Sennacherib, the prophet denounces the folly of trusting the impotent aid of Egypt, when their real strength lay in quietly trusting their God: for Jehovah will smite the Assyrian with a mysterious blow and defend his dear Jerusalem. Though such promises undoubtedly fall within the range of Isaiah's message, the ideas and the general tone of xxx. 18-26 are sufficient to place that passage almost certainly in the post-exilic period. Against the background of calamity in the two preceding chapters, xxxii. 1-8 throws up a picture--whether from Isaiah's or a later hand--of the Messianic age, when rulers would be just and character transformed. The imminent desolation of Jerusalem, with which the women are threatened, is again immediately contrasted with the fruitfulness and security of the land, when the spirit will be poured out from on high, xxxii. 9-20. This group is closed by a song of triumph (xxxiii.) over the prospective annihilation of the foreign foes who have crushed Israel, by the glorious God who defends Jerusalem. There is much in the passage, especially towards the end, _vv_. 19-21, which looks as if the Assyrians were the enemy, and the prophecy, like most of those in this group, fell shortly before Sennacherib's invasion. But, besides lacking the vigour of Isaiah's acknowledged prophecies, the passage contains ideas which are hardly his: e.g. the sinners in Zion, _v._ 14, are not to be destroyed but forgiven, _v_. 24. The allusion to the king in _v_. 17, if the text is correct, helps us little, as the king may be Jehovah. There is a growing conviction that the passage is post-exilic, some scholars even bringing it down to the Maccabean times, about 163 B.C. Chs. xxxiv., xxxv. _Prophecy concerning the redemption and return of Israel._ A fitting conclusion to the whole book--ignoring xxxvi.-xxxix., which is an historical appendix--is afforded by the picture of the world-judgment, the redemption of Israel, and the destruction of her enemies in xxxiv., xxxv. Edom is singled out as the special object of Jehovah's vengeance, xxxiv. 5-17; and, in contrast to her desolation, is the blessedness of Israel, returning to her own land across the blossoming wilderness with exceeding joy. Ch. xxxv., at any rate, seems to point to the return of the exiles from Babylon, and ch. xxxiv. may also without violence be fitted into this time. The Jews never forgot or forgave the Edomites for their cruelty on the occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem (Lam. iv. 21ff., Ps. cxxxvii. 7) and the joy of their own redemption would be heightened by the ruin of Edom (Mal. i. 2-5). If, however, xxxiv. 16 implies, as we are not bound to believe, a fixed prophetic canon, the chapters would be very late, falling somewhere within the second century B.C. More probably they were written, like xiii., xiv., towards the end of the exile. xxxvi.-xxxix. _Historical Appendix_ Separating the earlier from the later of the two great divisions of the book of Isaiah (i.-xxxv., xl.-lxvi.) stands a purely historical section, practically identical with and probably borrowed from 2 Kings xviii. l3-xx. 19, which finds its place here, no doubt simply because of its connection with the prophet Isaiah. It tells the story of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah, his insulting demands, whether transmitted through the Rabshakeh (xxxvi.) or by letter (xxxvii.), of Hezekiah's terror and Isaiah's divine word of reassurance, and of the ultimate departure of the Assyrian army. Ch. xxxviii. contains Isaiah's prophecy to Hezekiah of his recovery from sickness, with the king's song of gratitude. This is followed by another prophecy of the Babylonian exile, occasioned by an embassy sent to Hezekiah by Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon (xxxix.). This account omits the very important statement in 2 Kings xviii. 14-16 of the heavy tribute paid by Hezekiah to the King of Assyria, and inserts the psalm of Hezekiah, xxxviii. 9-20, which is no doubt later than the redaction of the book of Kings as it is not found there, and is, in all probability, a post-exilic psalm. It is not certain whether the accounts in xxxvi. 1-xxxvii. 9_a_ and xxxvii. 9_b_-37 are simply parallel versions of the same incident, or refer to two different campaigns. In the distinctly prophetical portion, xxxvii. 22ff, though there is much that recalls Isaiah, the passage in its present form can hardly be his. Ch. xxxvii. 26, e.g. would be a pertinent appeal to Israel, but hardly to Sennacherib; it rests, no doubt, on the later Isaiah (xl. 28, xlvi. 11). The prophecy of exile to _Babylon_, xxxix. 6, 7, is not natural at a time when Assyria, not Babylon, was the enemy. Again, xxxvii. 33, which denies that even an arrow would be shot, is hardly reconcilable with Isaiah's prophecy of an arduous siege for the city, xxix. 1-4. Further, the minute prediction that Hezekiah's life would be prolonged for fifteen years is not in the manner of Isaiah, nor indeed of any of the great prophets, whose precise numbers, where they occur, are to be interpreted as round numbers (e.g. seventy years in Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10); and the story of the reversal of the shadow on the sun-dial reflects the later conception of the prophet as a miracle-worker (cf. I Kings xiii. 3-6). The section, in its present form, must be post-exilic. CHAPTERS XL.-LV. With ch. xl. we pass into a different historical and theological atmosphere from that of the authentic prophecies of Isaiah. The very first word, "Comfort ye," strikes a new note: in the main, the message of Isaiah had been one of judgment. Jerusalem and the cities of Judah are in ruins, xlv. 13. The people are in exile in the land of the Chaldeans, xlvii. 5, 6, from which they are on the point of being delivered, xlviii. 20. The time of her sorrow is all but over, xl. 2; and her redemption is to come through a great warrior who is twice expressly named as Cyrus, xliv. 28, xlv. 1, and occasionally alluded to as a figure almost too familiar to need naming, xli. 25, xlv. 13. He it is who is to overthrow Babylon, xlviii. 14. Such, then, is the situation: the exile is not predicted, it is presupposed, and the oppressor is not Assyria, as in Isaiah's time, but Babylon. Now it is a cardinal, indeed an obvious principle, of prophecy that the prophet addresses himself, at least primarily, to the situation of his own time. Prophecy is a moral, not a magical thing; and nothing would be gained by the delivery of a message over a century and a half before it was needed, to a people to whom it was irrelevant and unintelligible. The literary style of these chapters also differs widely from that of Isaiah. No doubt there are points of contact, notably in the fondness for the phrase, "the holy One of Israel"--a favourite phrase of Isaiah's and rare elsewhere. The influence of Isaiah is unmistakable, but the differences are no less striking. Isaiah mounts up on wings as an eagle: the later prophet neither mounts nor runs, he walks, xl. 31. He has not the older prophet's majesty; he has a quiet dignity, and his tone is more tender. Nor has he Isaiah's exuberance and fertility of resource: the same thoughts are repeated, though with pleasing and ingenious variations, over and over again. All his characteristic thoughts already appear in the first two chapters: the certainty and joy of Israel's redemption, the omnipotence of Jehovah and the absurdity of idolatry, the call of Cyrus to execute Jehovah's purpose, the ultimate design of that purpose as the bringing of the whole world, through redeemed Israel, to a knowledge of the true God. The theological ideas of the prophecy are different from those of Isaiah. Unique emphasis is laid on the creative power of Jehovah, and this thought is applied to the case of forlorn Israel with overwhelming effect; for it is none other than the eternal and omnipotent God that is about to reveal Himself as Israel's redeemer, in fulfilment of ancient words of prophecy, xliv. 7, 8. This very attitude to prophecy marks the book as late; it would not be possible in a pre-exilic prophet. But the most original conception of the book is one which finds no parallel whatever in Isaiah, viz. the suffering servant of Jehovah. This servant is the exclusive theme of the four songs, xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4-9, lii. l3-liii. 12; but more or less he is involved in the whole prophecy. The function of the servant is to give light to the Gentiles--in other words, to bring the world to a knowledge of Jehovah (cf. xlii. 1, xlv. 14). Who is the servant? The difficulty in answering this question is twofold: (i.) while the servant is often undoubtedly a collective term for the people of Israel, xli. 8, xliv. 1, 2, the descriptions of him, especially in the songs alluded to, are occasionally so intimately personal as to seem to compel an individual interpretation (cf. liii.). But in this connection we have to remember the ease with which the Oriental could personify, and apply even the most personal detail to a collective body. "Grey hairs are upon him," says Hosea, vii. 9, not of a man but of the nation; and Isaiah himself, i. 6, described the body politic as sick from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot (cf. Ezek. xvi., xxiii). Clearly, therefore, individual allusions do not necessarily compel an individual interpretation; and there is no reason in the nature of the case, and still less in the context, to assume a reference to any specific individual. The songs are an integral part of the prophecy: the function of the servant is the same, and the servant must also be the same in both. Indeed one passage in the second song, xlix. 3, expressly identifies the servant with Israel; and in liii., an intensely personal chapter, where the servant, after death, is to rise again and take his place victoriously in the world, the collective interpretation of the servant as Israel, emerging triumphantly from the doom of exile, is natural, if not necessary. But (ii.) admitting that the servant is everywhere Israel, a new difficulty emerges. The terms in which he is described are often apparently contradictory. At one time he is blind and deaf, xlii. 18, 19; at another he is Jehovah's witness and minister to the blind and deaf, i.e. to the heathen world, xliii. 8-10, xlii. 7. This contrast, which runs through the prophecy, is simply to be explained as a blending of the real and the ideal. The people contemplated are in both cases the same; but, at one time, the prophet contemplates them as they are, unreceptive and irresponsive to their high destiny; at another, he regards them in the light of that destiny--called, through their experience of suffering and redemption, to bring the world to a saving knowledge of the true and only God. _Chapters xl.-xlix._ fall somewhere about 540 B.C.-between the decisive victories of Cyrus over the Lydians in 546 (cf. xli. 1-5) and the capture of Babylon in 538. The prophecy opens with a word of consolation. The exile of Judah is all but over, her redemption is very nigh; for the eternal purpose of Jehovah must be fulfilled, xl. 1-11, He is a God whose power and wisdom are beyond all imagining, and He will be the strength of those who put their trust in Him (xl. 12-3l).[1] For He has raised up a great warrior from the north-east (cf. xli. 2, 25), i.e. Cyrus, through whom Israel's happy return to her own land is assured (xli. 1-20). Israel's God is the true God; for He alone foretold this day, as no heathen god could ever have done, xli. 21-29. The mission of His servant Israel is to spread the knowledge of His name throughout the world, and that mission must be fulfilled, xlii. 1-9. Let the world rejoice, then, at the glorious redemption Jehovah has wrought for His people, xlii. 10-17; for their sorrow, xlii. 18-25, and their redemption alike, xliii. 1-7, spring from a deep purpose of love. Israel is now fitted to be Jehovah's witness before the world, for her impending deliverance from Babylon is more marvellous than her ancient deliverance from Egypt, xliii. 8-21. Her grievous sins are freely forgiven, xliii. 22-28, and soon she shall enter upon a new and happy life, xliv. 1-5, for her God, the eternal and the only God,[2] forgives and redeems, xliv. 6-23. [Footnote 1: Between xl. 19 and 20 probably xli. 6, 7 should be inserted.] [Footnote: Ch. xliv. 9-20, though graphic, is diffuse, and interrupts the context: it is probably a later addition.] The deliverance of Israel is to be effected through Cyrus, who is honoured with the high titles, "Shepherd and Messiah of Jehovah," xlv. 1, and assured by him of a triumphant career, for Israel and the true religion's sake, xliv. 24-xlv. 8. Those who are surprised at Jehovah's call of the foreign Cyrus are sternly reminded that Jehovah is sovereign and can call whom He will, xlv. 9-13, and the ultimate object of His call is that through the redemption of Israel, which he is commissioned to effect, all men shall be saved, and the worship of Jehovah established throughout the whole world, xlv. 14-25. In xlvi. the impotence of the Babylonian gods to save themselves when the city is taken by Cyrus is contrasted with the incomparable power of Jehovah as shown in history, and in His foreknowledge of the future, and made the basis of a warning to Israel to cast away despondency. Then follows a song of triumph over Babylon, the proud and luxurious, whose doom all her magic and astrology cannot avert (xlvii.). Ch. xlviii. strikes in places a different note from that of the previous chapters. They are a message of comfort; and, where the people are censured, it is for lack of faith and responsiveness. In this chapter, on the other hand, the tone is in places stern, almost harsh, and the people are even charged with idolatry. Probably an original prophecy of Deutero-Isaiah has been worked over by a post-exilic hand. This chapter is in the nature of a summary. It emphasizes Jehovah's fore-knowledge as witnessed by the ancient prophecies and their fulfilment in the coming deeds of Cyrus; and the section fittingly closes with a ringing appeal to Israel to go forth out of Babylon.[1] [Footnote 1: Ch. xlviii. 22 is probably borrowed from lvii. 21, where it is in place, to divide xl.-lxvi. into three equal parts.] _Chapters xlix.-lv._ presuppose the same general situation as xl.-xlviii.; but whereas the earlier chapters deal incidentally with the victories of Cyrus and the folly of idolatry, xlix.-lv. concentrate attention severely upon Israel herself, which is often addressed as Zion. The group begins with the second of the "servant" songs, xlix. 1-6, its theme being Israel's divine call, through suffering and redemption, to bring the whole world to the true religion. In earnest and beautiful language Israel is assured of restoration and a happy return to her own land, of the rebuilding of her ruins, and the increase of her population; and no power can undo this marvellous deliverance, for Jehovah, despite His people's slender faith, is omnipotent, xlix. 7-l. 3. In l. 4-9 the servant tells of the sufferings which his fidelity brought him, and his confidence in Jehovah's power to save and vindicate him.[1] The glorious salvation is near and sure; let Israel but trust in her omnipotent God and cast away all fear of man, li. 1-16. Bitter has been Jerusalem's sorrow, but now she may break forth into joy, for messengers are speeding with good tidings of her redemption, li. l7-lii. 12. The fourth and last song of the servant, lii. l3-liii. 12, celebrates the strange and unparalleled sufferings which he bore for the world's sake-his death, resurrection, and the consequent triumph and vindication of his cause. In fine contrast to the sufferings of the servant acquainted with grief is the joy that follows in ch. liv.--joy in the vision of the restored, populous and glorious city, or rather in the everlasting love of God by which that redemption is inspired.[2] Nothing remains but for the people to lay hold, in faith, of the salvation which is so nigh, and which is so high above all human expectation (lv.). [Footnote 1: Ch. 1. 10, 11 are apparently late.] [Footnote 2: From liv. 17 and on we hear of the "_servants_ of Jehovah," not as in xl.-liii., of the _servant_.] CHAPTERS LVI.-LXVI. The problem of the origin and date of this section is one of the most obscure and intricate in the Old Testament. The general similarity of the tone to that of xl.-lv. is unmistakable. There is the same assurance of redemption, the same brilliant pictures of restoration. But, apart from the fact that, on the whole, the style of lvi.-lxvi. seems less original and powerful, the situation presupposed is distinctly different. In xl.-lv., Israel, though occasionally regarded as unworthy, is treated as an ideal whole, whereas in lvi.-lxvi. there are two opposed classes within Israel itself (cf. lvii. 3ff., 15ff.). One of these classes is guilty of superstitious and idolatrous rites, lvii. 3ff., lxv. 3, 4, lxvi. 17, whereas in xl.-lv. the Babylonians were the idolaters, xlvi. 1. Again, the kind of idolatry of which Israel is guilty is not Babylonian, but that indigenous to Palestine, and it is described in terms which sometimes sound like an echo of pre-exilic prophecy, lvii. 5, 7 (Hos. iv. 13)--so much so indeed that some have regarded these passages as pre-exilic. The spiritual leaders of the people are false to their high trust, lvi. 10-12. This last passage implies a religious community more or less definitely organized--a situation which would suit post-exilic times, but hardly the exile; and this presumption is borne out by many other hints. The temple exists, lvi. 7, lx. 7, 13, but religion is at a low ebb. Fast days are kept in a mechanical spirit, and are marred by disgraceful conduct (lviii.). Judah suffers from raids, lxii. 8, Jerusalem is unhappy, lxv. 19, her walls are not yet built, lx, 10. The gloomy situation explains the passionate appeal of lxiii. 7-lxiv. to God to interpose--an appeal utterly unlike the serene assurance of xl.-lv.: it explains, too, why threat and promise here alternate regularly, while there the predominant note was one of consolation. In its general temper and background, though not in its style, the chapters forcibly recall Malachi. There is the same condemnation of the spiritual leaders (lvi. 10-12; Mal. i. ii.), the same emphasis on the fatherhood of God (lxiii. 16, lxiv. 8; Mal. i. 6, ii. 10, iii. 17), the same interest in the institutions of Judaism (lvi.), the same depressed and hopeless mood to combat. From lx. 10 (lxii. 6?) it may be inferred that the book falls before the building of the walls by Nehemiah--probably somewhere between 460 and 450 B.C. This conclusion, of course, is very far from certain; it is not even certain that the chapters constitute a unity. Various scholars isolate certain sections, assigning, e.g., lxiii.-lxvi. to a period much later than lvi.-lxii., others regarding xlix.-lxii. as written by the same author as xl.-xlviii., but later and other different conditions, others referring lvi.-lxii. to a pupil of Deutero-Isaiah, who wrote not long after 520 (cf. Hag., Zech.). To complicate matters, the text of certain passages of crucial importance seems to be in need of emendation (cf. lxiii. 18); and it is practically certain that there are later interpolations. One can see how intricate the problem becomes, if Marti is right in denying so important a passage as lxiv. 10-12 to the author of the rest of the chapter, and assigning it to Maccabean times. But, though there are undoubted difficulties in the way, it seems not impossible to regard lvi.-lxvi. as, in the main, a unity, and its author as a contemporary of Malachi. In that case, the superstitious and idolatrous people, whose presence is at first sight so surprising in the post-exilic community, would be the descendants of the Jews who had not been carried into exile, and who, being but superficially touched, if at all, by the reformation of Josiah, would perpetuate ancient idolatrous practices into the post-exilic period. This prophecy begins with a word of assurance to the proselytes and eunuchs that, if they faithfully observe the Sabbath, they will not be excluded from participation in the temple worship, lvi. 1-8. But the general situation (in Judah) is deplorable. The spiritual leaders of the community are indolent and fond of pleasure, men of no conscience or ideal (cf. Mal. ii.), with the result that the truly godly are crushed out, lvi. 9-lvii. 2, and the old immoral idolatry is rampant, lvii. 3-13. The sinners will therefore be punished, but the godly whom they have persecuted will be comforted and saved, lvii. 14-21. The people, who have been zealously keeping fast-days, are surprised and vexed that Jehovah has not yet honoured their fidelity by sending happier times: the prophet replies that the real demands of Jehovah are not exhausted by ceremonial, but lie rather in the fulfilment of moral duty, and especially in the duty of practical love to the needy (lviii.). It is not the impotence of Jehovah, but the manifold sins of the people, that have kept back the day of salvation, lix. 1-15; but He will one day appear to punish His adversaries and redeem the penitent and faithful, lix. 16-21. Then the city of Jerusalem shall be glorious: her scattered children shall stream back to her, her walls shall be rebuilt by the gifts of the heathen nations, and she shall be mistress of the world, enjoying peace and light and prosperity (lx.). Again the good news is proclaimed: the Jews shall be, as it were, the priests of Jehovah for the whole world, Jerusalem shall be secure and fair and populous (lxi., lxii.). But if Judah is thus to prosper, her enemies must be destroyed, and their[1] destruction is described in lxiii. 1-6, a unique and powerful song of vengeance. [Footnote 1: The enemy is not Edom alone. Instead of "from Edom and Bozrah" in lxiii. 1_a_ should be read, "Who is this that comes _stained with red_, with garments redder than a _vine-dresser's_?"] A very striking contrast to all this dream of victory and blessedness is presented by lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12, in which the people sorrowfully remind themselves of the brilliant far-off days of the Exodus when the Spirit was with them--the Spirit whom sin has now driven away--and passionately pray that Jehovah, in His fatherly pity, would mightily interpose to save them.[1] The devotees of superstitious cults are threatened with destruction, lxv. 1-7, while brilliant promises are held out to the faithful--long and happy life in a world transformed, lxv. 8-25. Again destruction is predicted for those who, while practising superstitious rites, are yet eager to build a temple to Jehovah to rival the existing one in Jerusalem; while the faithful are comforted with the prospect of victory, increase of population and resources, and the perpetuity of their race (lxvi.). [Footnote 1: Professor G. A. Smith refers this prayer to the period of disillusion after the return and before the new religious impulse given by Haggai and Zechariah--about 525 B.C. ] JEREMIAH The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious atmosphere of his ministry was alike depressing. When it began, the Scythians were overrunning Western Asia, and Judah was the vassal of Assyria, as she continued to be till the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C. Josiah, in whose reign Jeremiah began his ministry, was a good king; but the idolatries of his grandfather Manasseh had only too surely left their mark, and the reformation which was inaugurated on the basis of Deuteronomy (621) had produced little permanent result. Idolatry and immorality of all kinds continued to be the order of the day, vii. 9 (about 608). The inner corruption found its counterpart in political disaster. The death of Josiah in 609 at Megiddo, when he took the field, probably as the vassal of Assyria, against the king of Egypt, was a staggering blow to the hopes of the reformers, and formed a powerful argument in the hands of the sceptics. The vassalage of Assyria was exchanged for the vassalage of Egypt, and that, in four years, for the vassalage of Babylonia, whose supremacy over Western Asia was assured by her victory on the epoch-making field of Carchemish (605). There was no strong ruler upon the throne of Judah during the years preceding the exile. Jehoahaz, the successor of Josiah, deposed by the Egyptians and exiled after a three months' reign, xxii. 10-12, was succeeded by the rapacious Jehoiakim (608-597), who cared nothing for the warning words of Jeremiah (xxxvi.), and his successor Jehoiachin, who was exiled to Babylon after a three months' reign, was followed by the weak and vacillating Zedekiah, who reigned from 597 to 586, when Jerusalem was taken and the monarchy perished. The priests and prophets were no more faithful to their high office than the kings. The prophets were superficial men who did not realize how deep and grievous was the hurt of the people, xxiii. 9-40, and who imagined that the catastrophe, if it came, would speedily be reversed, xxviii.; and the priests reposed a stubborn confidence in the inviolability of the temple (xxvi.) and the punctiliousness of their offerings, vii. 21, 22. Jeremiah, though he came of a priestly family, knew very well that there was no salvation in ritual. He saw that the root of the evil was in the heart, which was "deceitful above all things and desperately sick," xvii. 9, and that no reformation was possible till the heart itself was changed. It was for this reason that he called upon the people to circumcise their heart, iv. 4, and to search for Jehovah with all their heart, xxix. 13. It would be interesting to know what was Jeremiah's attitude to the law-book discovered and published in 621, but unfortunately the problems that gather round the authenticity of the text of Jeremiah are so vexatious that we cannot say with certainty. On the one hand, we know that, though at that time a prophet of five years' standing, he was not consulted on the discovery of the book (2 Kings xxii. 14); on the other hand, xi. 1-14 explicitly connects him with an itinerant mission throughout the province of Judah for the purpose of inculcating the teaching of "the words of this covenant," which can only be the book of Deuteronomy. But there is fairly good reason for supposing that this passage, which is diffuse, and very unlike the poems that follow it, _vv_. 15, 16, 18-20, is one of the many later scribal additions to the book. Even if Jeremiah did support the Deuteronomic movement, he must have felt, in the words of Darmesteter, that "it is easier to reform the cult than the soul," and that the real solution would never be found in the statutes of a law-book, but only in the law written upon the heart, xxxi. 31-33. Here again, this great prophecy of the law written upon the heart, has been denied to Jeremiah--by Duhm, for example: but at any rate, it is conceived in the spirit of the prophet. It is unfortunate that some of the noblest utterances on religion in the book of Jeremiah have been, for reasons more or less convincing, denied to him: e.g. the great passage which looks out upon a time when the dearest material symbols of the ancient religion would no longer be necessary; days would come when men would never think of the ark of the covenant, and never miss it, iii. 16. But even if it could be proved that these words were not Jeremiah's, it was a sound instinct that placed them in his book. He certainly did not regard sacrifice as essential to the true religion, or as possessing any specially divine sanction, vii. 22, and the thinker who could utter such a word as vii. 22 is surely on the verge of a purely spiritual conception of religion, if indeed he does not stand already within it. If the temple is not indispensable, vii. 4, neither could the ark be. This severely spiritual conception of religion is but the outcome of the intensely personal religious experience of the prophet. There is no other prophet whose intercourse with the divine spirit is so dramatically portrayed, or into the depths of whose heart we can so clearly see. He speaks to God with a directness and familiarity that are startling, "Why hast Thou become to me as a treacherous brook, as waters that are not sure?" xv. 18. He has little of the serene majesty of Isaiah whose eyes had seen the king. His tender heart, ix. 1, is vexed and torn till he curses not only his enemies, xi. 20ff., but the day on which he was born, xx. 14-18. He did not choose his profession, he recoiled from it; but he was thrust into the arena of public life by an impulse which he could not resist. The word, which he would fain have hidden in his heart, was like a burning fire shut up in his bones, and it leaped into speech of flame, xx. 9. As a poet, Jeremiah is one of the greatest. He knows the human heart to its depths, and he possesses a power of remarkably terse and vivid expression. Nothing could be more weird than this picture of the utter desolation of war;-- I beheld the earth, And lo! it was waste and void. I looked to the sky, And lo! its light was gone. I beheld the mountains, And lo! they trembled. And all the hills Swayed to and fro. I beheld (the earth) And lo! there was no man, And all the birds of the heaven Had fled. iv. 23-25. A world without the birds would be no world to Jeremiah. Of singular power and beauty is the lament which Jeremiah puts into the mouths of the women:-- Death is come up at our windows, He has entered our palaces, Cutting off the children from the streets And the youths from the squares. Then the figure changes to Death as a reaper:-- There fall the corpses of men Upon the face of the field, Like sheaves behind the reaper Which none gathers up. ix. 21, 22. The book appropriately opens with the call of Jeremiah, and represents him as divinely preordained to his great and cheerless task before his birth. In two visions he sees prefigured the coming doom (i.) and the prophecies that immediately follow, though but loosely connected, appear to come from an early stage of his ministry, and to be elicited, in part, by the inroads of the Scythians--the enemy from the north. False to the love she bore Jehovah in the olden time, Israel has turned for help to Egypt, to Assyria, and to the impotent Baals with their licentious worship, ii, 1-iii. 5; but[1]if in her despair and misery she yet turns with a penitent heart to Jehovah, the prophet assures her of His readiness to receive her, iii. 19-iv. 4. The rest of ch. iv. contains several poems of remarkable power. The Scythians are coming swiftly from the north, and Jeremiah's patriotic soul is deeply moved. He sees the desolation they will work, and counsels the people to gather in the fortified cities. The scene changes in v. and vi. to the capital, where Jeremiah's tender and unsuspecting heart has been harrowed by the lack of public and private conscience; and again the land is threatened with invasion from the swift wild Scythian hordes. [Footnote 1: Ch. iii. 6-18 contains much that is altogether worthy of Jeremiah, especially the great conception in v. 16 of a religion which can dispense with its most cherished material symbols. It interrupts the connection, however, between vv. 5 and 19, and curiously regards Israel as the northern kingdom, distinct from Judah, whereas in the surrounding context, ii. 3, iii. 23, Israel stands for Judah. The difference is suspicious. Again, v. 18 would appear to presuppose that Judah is in exile or on the verge of it, which would make the passage among the latest in the book. If it is Jeremiah's, it must be much later than its context.] The following chapter (vii.) introduces us to the reign of Jehoiakim.[1] The prophet strenuously combats the confidence falsely reposed in the temple and the ritual: the former is but a den of robbers, the latter had never been commanded by Jehovah, and neither will save them. With sorrowful eyes Jeremiah sees the coming disaster, and he sings of it in elegies unspeakably touching (viii.-x.: cf. viii. 18-22, ix. 21, 22).[2] [Footnote 1: The scene in ch. vii. is very similar to, if not identical with that in ch. xxvi., which is expressly assigned to the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign (608).] [Footnote 2: Ch. ix. 22 is directly continued by x. 17. Of the three passages intervening, ix. 23, 24 (the true and false objects of confidence) and ix. 25, 26 (punishment of those uncircumcised in heart or flesh) are both in the spirit of Jeremiah, but they cannot belong to this context. Ch. x. 1-16, on the other hand, can hardly be Jeremiah's. Its theme is the impotence of idols and the omnipotence of Jehovah--a favourite theme of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Is. xl.), and it is elaborated in the spirit of Is. xliv. 9-20. The warning not to fear the idols is much more natural if addressed to an exilic audience than to Jeremiah's contemporaries. It may be taken for granted that the passage is later than Jeremiah.] In ch. xi. Jeremiah is divinely impelled to undertake an itinerant mission throughout Judah in support of the Deuteronomic legislation, but he is warned that, for their disobedience, the people will be overtaken by disaster, which he must not intercede to avert, xi. 1-17. A cruel conspiracy formed against him by his own townsmen raises perplexities in his mind touching the moral order, but he is reminded that still harder things are in store, xi. l8-xii. 6. Then follows a poem, xii. 7-13, lamenting the desolation of the land, though who the aggressors are it is hard to say; but, in vv. 14-17, a passage possibly much later, there is an ultimate possibility of restoration both for Judah and her ravaged neighbours, if they adopt the religion of Judah. In ch. xiii. which possibly belongs to Jehoiachin's short reign, 597 B.C. (cf. v. 18 with 2 Kings xxiv. 8), the utter and incurable corruption of the people is symbolically indicated to Jeremiah, who announces the speedy fall of the throne and the sorrows of exile. The elements that make up chs. xiv.-xvii. are very loosely connected. Generally speaking, the situation of the people is desperate. The doom--already inaugurated in the form of a drought-is hastening on; no excuse will be accepted and no intercession can avail. In a bold and striking poem, xv. 10-21, Jeremiah complains of his bitter and lonely fate, and is reassured of the divine support. In view of the impending misery he is forbidden to marry, and more and more he is thrown back upon Jehovah as his absolute and only hope.[1] [Footnote 1: Ch. xvii. 19-27 is almost certainly post-exilic, and probably belongs to Nehemiah's time (about 450). Jeremiah nowhere else emphasizes the Sabbath, and it would be very unlike him to represent the future prosperity of Judah as conditional upon the people's observance of a single law, especially one not distinctively ethical. Such emphasis on the Sabbath suggests the post-exilic church (cf. Neh. xiii.; Is. lviii.).] Chs. xviii.-xx. A chance sight of a potter refashioning a spoiled vessel suggests to Jeremiah the conditional nature of prophecy. But as Judah remains obstinate, the threat must be irretrievably fulfilled. The proclamation of this truth in the temple court led to his imprisonment. On his release he distinctly and deliberately announces the exile to Babylon, and then breaks out into a passionate cry, which rings with an almost unparalleled sincerity, over the misery of his life, especially of that prophetic life to which he had been mysteriously but irresistibly impelled. Ch. xxi. 1-10, one of the latest pieces in the book, contains Jeremiah's answer to the question of Zedekiah relative to the issue of the siege of Jerusalem, which had already begun (588). Then follow two sections, one dealing with kings, xxi. 11-xxiii. 8, the other with prophets, xxiii. 9-40. The former, after an introduction which emphasizes the specific functions of the king, deals successively with Jehoahaz (=Shallum), Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim's oppressive methods being pointedly contrasted with the beneficent regime of his father Josiah; and against the present incompetence of the rulers and misery of the monarchy is thrown up a picture of the true king and the Messianic days, xxiii. 5-8. The latter section, xxiii. 9-40, denounces the prophets for their immorality, their easy optimism and their lack of independence. In ch. xxiv., which falls in Zedekiah's reign, after the first deportation (about 596 B.C.), it is symbolically suggested to Jeremiah that the exiles are much better than those who were allowed to remain in the land, and their ultimate fate would be infinitely happier. The battle of Carchemish in 605 showed that Babylonian supremacy was ultimately inevitable; to this year belongs ch. xxv., in which Jeremiah definitely announces the duration of the exile as seventy years. Many lands beside Judah would be included in the doom, and finally Babylon itself would be punished. Chs. i.-xxv. represent in the main the words of Jeremiah; we now come to a group of narratives by Baruch, xxvi.-xxix. Ch. xxvi. relates how a courageous sermon of Jeremiah's (608 B.C.) provoked the hostility of the professional clergy, and nearly cost him his life. Chs. xxvii.-xxix. show how the calm wisdom of Jeremiah met the ambitions and hopes cherished by his countrymen at home and in exile during the reign of Zedekiah.[1] In view of a coalition that was forming against Babylon in Western Asia, he announces that the supremacy of Nebuchadrezzar is divinely ordained, and any such coalition is doomed to failure (xxvii.). That supremacy will last for many a day; and a strange fate overtakes the shallow prophet who supposes that it will be over in two years (xxviii.). The exiles are therefore advised by Jeremiah in a letter to settle down contentedly in their adopted land, though the letter naturally rouses the resentment and opposition of the superficial prophets among the exiles (xxix.). [Footnote 1: In ch. xxvii. 1, for "Jehoiakim" read "Zedekiah," cf. _vv_. 3, 12. ] The next four chapters, xxx.-xxxiii., are full of promise: they look out upon the restoration, in which, despite the seeming hopelessness of the prospect, Jeremiah never ceased to believe. It is a voice from the dark days of the siege of Jerusalem, 587 (xxxii. 1ff.); but the present sorrow is to be followed by a period of joy, when the city will be rebuilt, and the mighty love of Jehovah will express itself in the restoration not only of Judah but of Israel, a love to which there will be a glad spontaneous response from men who have the divine law written in their hearts. This prophecy of the new covenant is one of the noblest and most daring conceptions in the Old Testament, very naturally appropriated by our Lord and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (xxx., xxxi.). So confident was Jeremiah in the divine assurance that Palestine would one day be freed from the Babylonian yoke that, even during the siege of the city, he purchased fields belonging to a kinsman, and took measures to preserve the title deeds (xxxii.). Ch. xxxiii. still further confirms the assurance of restoration. There can be no doubt that Jeremiah both believed in and announced the restoration: the very straightforward story in ch. xxxii., which, by the way, throws considerable light on the psychology of prophecy, is proof enough of that. But there can be equally little doubt that the section xxx.-xxxiii. did not come, as it stands, from the hand of Jeremiah. Many verses have no doubt been needlessly suspected: the attitude to northern Israel in ch. xxxi., especially vv. 4, 5, practically forbids a reference of these verses to post-exilic times. But xxxi. 7-l4--the glad return--is exactly in the spirit of Deutero-Isaiah, and appears to be dependent upon him. Whatever doubt, however, may be attached to these sections, it is practically certain that the concluding section, xxxiii. 14-26, which has a special word of promise, not only for the house of David, but for the Levitical priests, is not Jeremiah's. The verses are wanting in the Septuagint, and so were not in the Hebrew copy from which that translation was made; but more fatal still to their authenticity is their attitude to the priests and offerings. The religion advocated by Jeremiah was a purely spiritual one, which could dispense with temple and sacrifice (ch. vii.). "To the false prophets," as Robertson Smith has said, "and the people who followed them, the ark, the temple, the holy vessels, were all in all. To Jeremiah they were less than nothing, and their restoration was no part of his hope of salvation." It is very significant in this connection that the Septuagint omits the restoration of the holy vessels in xxvii. 22. From the ideal pictures of the last group, ch. xxxiv. flings us back into the stern reality. The city and the king alike are doomed, and their fate is thoroughly justified by the treachery displayed towards the Hebrew slaves, who were compelled by their masters to return to the bondage from which, in the stress of siege, they had emancipated them. The next chapter, xxxv., carries us back to the reign of Jehoiakim, and, in an interesting and important passage, contrasts the faithfulness of the Rechabites to the commands of their ancestor Jonathan with the popular disregard of Jehovah. The long section which follows (xxxvi.-xlv.) is almost purely historical. It comes in the main from Baruch, but it has been expanded here and there by subsequent writers; e.g. xxxix. 4-13 is not found in the Septuagint; the importance of Jeremiah is heightened in this passage by his being the object of the special care of Nebuchadrezzar, vv. 11ff., whereas in all probability his fate was decided, not by the king, but by his officers (ci. 3, 13, 14). But after making every deduction, these chapters remain as a historical source of the first rank. The section begins by revealing the reckless impiety of Jehoiakim in burning the prophecies of Jeremiah in 605 B.C., but the other chapters gather round the siege of Jerusalem, eighteen years later, and the events that followed it. They describe the cruel and successive imprisonments of the prophet for his fearless and seemingly unpatriotic proclamation of the Babylonian triumph, the pitiful vacillation of the king, the final capture of the city, the appointment of Gedaliah as governor of Judah, his assassination and the attempt to avenge it, the consequent departure of many Jews to Egypt against the advice of Jeremiah, who was forced to accompany them, the prophet's denunciation of the idolatry practised in Egypt and announcement of the conquest of that land by Nebuchadrezzar. The section closes (xlv.) with a word of meagre consolation to Baruch, whose courage was giving way beneath the strain of the times. The interest attaching to the oracles against the foreign nations (xlvi.-li.) is not very great, as, for good reasons, the authenticity of much--some say all--of the section may be disputed, and with the exception of the oracle against Egypt, they are lacking, as a whole, not only in distinctness of situation, but also in that emotion and originality so characteristic of Jeremiah. The whole group (except the oracle against Elam, xlix. 34-39, which is expressly assigned to Zedekiah's reign) is suggested by reflection on the decisive influence which the battle of Carchemish was bound to have on the fortunes of Western Asia, xlvi. 2. Nebuchadrezzar is alluded to, either expressly, xlix. 30, or figuratively, xlviii. 40, as the instrument of the divine vengeance. In the Septuagint, this group of oracles appears between xxv. 13 and xxv. 15, a chapter likewise assigned to the year of the battle of Carchemish, xxv. 1. Ch. xlvi. contains two oracles against Egypt, the first of which, at least vv. 1-12, is graphic and powerful, and the second, _vv._ 13-26, announces the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar, which took place in 568 B.C. The vengeance upon Egypt, _v._ 10, in which the writer evidently exults, may be vengeance for the defeat of Josiah at Megiddo.[1] A certain vigour also characterizes the oracle against the Philistines (xlvii.), and the conception of the enemy "out of the north," _v._ 2, is a familiar one in Jeremiah. [Footnote 1: Ch. xlvi. 27, 28, hardly in place here, were borrowed from xxx. 10f. and doubtless added later.] Even if, however, these oracles could be rescued for Jeremiah, those that follow are, in all probability, nothing but later literary compilations resting upon a close study of the earlier prophetical literature. The oracle against Moab (xlviii.) besides being unpardonably diffuse, is essentially an imitation of the old oracle preserved in Isaiah xv., xvi. The oracle against Ammon, xlix. 1-6, is followed by another against Edom, _vv._ 7-22, which again borrows very largely from Obadiah. Doom is further pronounced on Damascus, _vv._ 23-27, Kedar and Hazor, _vv._ 28-33, and, about seven years later, on Elam, _vv._ 34-39. It is not, indeed, impossible that Jeremiah should have uttered a prophetic word concerning at least some of these nations--witness his reply to the ambassadors of the neighbouring kings in ch. xxvii.--though the relevance of Elam in such a connection is hard to see; but it is very improbable that a writer and thinker so independent as Jeremiah should have borrowed in the wholesale fashion which characterizes the bulk of this group of oracles. The oracle against Egypt might be his, not impossibly the oracle against the Philistines also; but the group as a whole, consisting of seven oracles--omitting the oracle against Elam, which, by its date, falls outside--appears to be a later artificial composition, utilizing the more familiar names in xxv. 19-26, and expanding the hint in vv. 15-17 that the nations would be compelled to drink of the cup of the fury of Jehovah. The climax of the foreign oracles is that against Babylon (l.-li. 58). This prophecy is written with great vigour and intensity and characterized by a tone of triumphant scorn. A nation from the north, l. 3, explicitly designated as the Medes, li. 11, is to assail Babylon and reduce her to a desolation. Jehovah's people are urged to leave the doomed city; with sins forgiven they will be led back by Jehovah to their own land, and the poet contemplates with glowing satisfaction the day when Babylon the destroyer will be herself destroyed. This oracle purports to be a message which Jeremiah sent with an officer Seraiah, who accompanied King Zedekiah to Babylon (li. 59). There is no probability, however, that the oracle was written by Jeremiah. Doubtless the prophet foretold the destruction of Babylon, xxv. 10, but his attitude to that great power in this oracle is altogether different from what we know it to have been, judging by other authentic oracles of this period (xxvii.-xxix.). There he counsels patience--it is the false prophets who hope for a speedy deliverance--here there is an eager expectancy which amounts to impatience. But the contents of the oracle show that it cannot belong to the year to which it is assigned. The temple is already destroyed, l. 28, li. 11, so that the exile is presupposed, and indeed the Medes are definitely named as the executors of vengeance upon Babylon. All this carries us down to the conquests of Cyrus and the close of the exile, indeed to the time of Isaiah xl.-lv. The oracle bears a striking resemblance both in spirit and expression to Isaiah xiii., and might well come from the same time (about 540). It may, however, be later. Not only is it diffuse in expression and slipshod in arrangement, but it borrows extensively from other exilic or post-exilic parts of the book of Jeremiah (cf. li. 15-19 with x. 12-16, l. 44-46 with xlix. 19-21), late exilic parts of Isaiah (cf. Jer. l. 39ff, with Isa. xiii. 19-22), and from Ezekiel (cf. Jer. li. 25 with Ezek. xxxv. 3). Besides, the author appears to have no clear conception of the actual situation, as he seems to regard Israel and Judah as living side by side in Babylon, l. 4, 33. In all probability the oracle against Babylon is a post-exilic production inspired by the yearning to see the ancient oppressors not only humbled, but destroyed. The oracle just discussed is supposed to be an expansion of the message given by Jeremiah, in writing, to Seraiah, li. 60a, when he went with the king to Babylon. But though this narrative, li. 59-64, possibly rests on a basis of fact, it cannot have come, in its present form, from Jeremiah, for it presupposes the preceding oracle against Babylon, which has just been shown not to be authentic. With the composition of ch. lii., which narrates the capture of Jerusalem and the exile of the people, Jeremiah had nothing whatever to do. The chapter, except _vv._ 28-30, which is additional, is simply taken bodily from 2 Kings xxiv. 18-xxv. 30, with the omission of the account of the appointment and assassination of Gedaliah (2 Kings xxv. 22-26) as that story had already been fully told in Jeremiah xl.-xliii. The Greek version of Jeremiah is of more than usual interest and importance. It is about 2,700 words, or one-eighth of the whole, shorter than the Hebrew text, though it has about 100 words or so not found in the Hebrew. The order, too, is occasionally different, notably in the oracles against the foreign nations (xlvi.-li.), which in the Septuagint are placed between xxv. 13 and xxv. 15 (verse 14 being omitted). After making every deduction for the usual number of mistakes due to incompetence and badly written manuscripts, it has to be admitted that, in certain respects, the Greek text is superior to the Hebrew. This is especially plain if we examine its omissions. Considering the later tendency to expand, its relative brevity is a point in its favour; but, when we examine particular cases, the superiority of the Septuagint, with its omissions, is evident at once. Ch. xxvii., e.g., is considerably longer in the Hebrew than in the Greek text; but the additions in the Hebrew text represent Jeremiah as interested in the temple vessels and prophesying their restoration to the temple when the exile was over, in a way that is utterly unlike what we know of Jeremiah's general attitude to the material symbols of religion. Similarly, xxxiii. 14-26, which promises, among other things, that there would never be lacking a Levitical priest to offer burnt offerings, is wanting in the Septuagint; here again the Greek must be regarded as more truly representing Jeremiah's attitude to sacrifice (vii. 22). It would, of course, be unfair to infer from this that the briefer readings of the Septuagint were invariably superior to the longer readings of the Massoretic text, for it can be shown that the Greek translators often omitted or passed lightly over what they did not understand; nevertheless, their omissions often indicate a better and more original text. With regard to the oracles against the foreign nations, there can be little doubt that their position in the Hebrew text is to be preferred to that of the Greek. A certain plausibility attaches to the Greek text which places them after xxv. 13, the last clause of which--"that which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations"--is taken as a title; but, besides completely breaking up the surrounding context, whose theme is altogether Judah, the Greek position of the oracles is exceedingly clumsy, preceding as it does the enumeration in xxv. 15-29, which it might indeed follow, but could not reasonably precede. Further the Hebrew arrangement of the oracles within this group is much more probable than the Greek. The former appropriately reserves the oracle against Babylon to the end, the latter places it third, i.e. among the nations which are to be punished by Babylon herself, xxv. 9. We possess some direct information about the composition of the book of Jeremiah, but the present arrangement is marked by considerable confusion, and can in no case be original. A glance at the contents of consecutive chapters is enough to show that the order is not rigorously chronological. Ch. xxv., e.g., falls in 605 B.C., whereas the preceding chapter is at least eight years later (cf. xxiv. 1, 8). Ch. xxi. 1-10, which reflects the period of the siege of Jerusalem, is one of the latest passages in the book (587 B.C.). There are occasional traces of a topical order: e.g. chs. xviii., xix., give lessons from the potter, xxi. 9-xxiii. 8 is a series of prophecies concerning kings, xxiii. 9-40 another concerning prophets. Chs. xxx.-xxxiii. gather up the prophecies concerning the restoration. Chs. xxxvii.-xliv. constitute a narrative dealing with the siege of the city and events immediately subsequent to it. Here we touch one of the striking peculiarities of the book of Jeremiah that much of it is purely narrative. Again, in the narrative portion, sometimes the prophet speaks himself in the first person, as in the account of his call (i.), sometimes he is spoken of in the third, xxviii. 5. This suggests that some passages are more directly traceable to Jeremiah than others, and the clue to this fact is to be found in the interesting story told in ch. xxxvi. There we are informed that Jeremiah dictated to his disciple Baruch the scribe the messages of his ministry since his call twenty-one years before. After being read before the public gathering at the temple, and then before the court, they were destroyed by the king, Jehoiakim; but the messages were rewritten by Baruch, and many similar words, we are told, were added, xxxvi. 32. It is clear that the book written by Baruch to Jeremiah's dictation cannot have been very long, as it could be read three times in one day, but it is impossible to say what precisely were its constituent elements. Roughly speaking, they must be confined to chs. i.-xxv., as the following chapters (except xlvi.-li.) are either narrative, like xxvi.-xxix., xxxvii.-xliv., or, if prophetic words of Jeremiah, come from a later date (cf. xxx.-xxxiii., xxxii. 1). But the book cannot have included all of i.-xxv., for, as we have seen, parts of this section are later than 605, when the book was first dictated (cf. xxiv., xxi. 1-10), and some are very late (cf. x. 1-16, exilic at the earliest, and xvii. 19-27, post-exilic). The difficulty of determining the constituents is increased by the fact that several of the chapters are undated (e.g. xiv. 1-xvii. 18). No doubt most of chs. i.-xii. and much of xiii.-xxv. were included within the original book dictated. It is further important to note that the book was dictated; that is to say, it was not written by Jeremiah's own hand, and it was dictated from memory, though very possibly on the basis of notes. Obviously we cannot in any case have in these few chapters more than a summary of the words spoken during a ministry which at that time had already covered twenty-one years. The strong personal feeling which animates so much of Jeremiah's early prophecies, especially the poetry, we owe directly to his own dictation. The narrative sections, in which he is spoken of in the third person, but most of which obviously came from some one who was thoroughly conversant with the prophet's life, we owe, no doubt, to the faithful Baruch, who clearly held the prophet's words not only in respect, but in reverence, xxxvi. 24. The biography, which, in its earlier chapters, assumes a somewhat annalistic form, xxvi. i, xxviii. i, xxix. i, develops an easy and flowing style when it comes to deal with the siege of Jerusalem (xxxvii.-xliv.). Speaking very generally, the biography covers chs. xxvi.-xlv. (except xxx., xxxi., xxxiii.). But long after Baruch was in his grave, the book of Jeremiah continued to receive additions. Some of these, from exilic and post-exilic times, we have already seen (of, 1., li.). A relatively large literature grew up around the book of Jeremiah: 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 even quotes as Jeremiah's a prophecy which does not occur in our canonical book at all. (cf. Lev. xxvi. 34f). Often those who added to the book had no clear imagination of the historical situation whatever; one of them represents Jeremiah as addressing the _kings_ of Judah--as if they had all lived at the same time--on the question of the Sabbath day (xvii. 20, cf. xix. 3). The extent of these additions has already been illustrated by comparison with the Septuagint, and very often the passages which are not supported by the Greek text are historically the least trustworthy, cf. xxxix. 11, 12. These different recensions of the original text attest the wide popularity of the book; an Aramaic gloss in x. 11 shows the liberties which transcribers took with the text, the integrity of which suffered much from its very popularity. The interest of the later scribes was rather in homiletics than in history, and very probably most of the writing that seems tedious and diffuse in the book of Jeremiah is to be set down to the count of these teaching scribes. Jeremiah was a very gifted poet, with unusual powers of emotional expression, and it is greatly to be regretted that his own message has been so inextricably involved in the inferior work of a later age. EZEKIEL To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully dominated. Corrupt as the text is in many places, we have in Ezekiel the rare satisfaction of studying a carefully elaborated prophecy whose authenticity is practically undisputed and indisputable. It is not impossible that there are, as Kraetzschmar maintains, occasional doublets, e.g. ii. 3-7 and in. 4-9; but these in any case are very few and hardly affect the question of authenticity. The order and precision of the priestly mind are reflected in the unusually systematic arrangement of the book. Its general theme might be broadly described as the destruction and the reconstitution of the state, the destruction occupying exactly the first half of the book (i.-xxiv.) and the reconstitution the second half (xxv.-xlviii.). The following is a sketch of the book. After five years of residence in the land of exile, Ezekiel, through an ecstatic vision in which he beholds a mysterious chariot with God enthroned above it, receives his prophetic call to the "rebellious" exiles (i., ii.), and is equipped for his task with the divine inspiration; that task is partly to reprove, partly to warn (iii.). At once the prophet addresses himself thereto, announcing the siege of Jerusalem and the captivity of Judah--Israel has already been languishing in exile for a century and a half (iv.).[1] The threefold fate of the inhabitants is described (v.), and a stern and speedy fate is foretold for the mountain land of Israel (vi.) and for the people (vii.). How deserved that fate is becomes too pathetically plain in the descriptions of the idolatrous worship with which the temple is desecrated (viii.) and in chastisement for which the inhabitants are slain (ix.) and their city burned (x.). Jehovah solemnly departs from His desecrated temple (xi.). [Footnote 1: For 390 in iv. 5 the Septuagint correctly reads 190, and this includes the forty years of Judah's captivity.] This general theme of the sin and fate of the city is continued with variations throughout the rest of the first half of the book. The horrors of the siege and exile are symbolically indicated, xii. 1-20, and the false prophets and prophetesses, xiii. 17, are reproved and denounced for encouraging, by their shallow optimism, the unbelief of the people, xii. 21-xiv. 11. For the judgment will assuredly come and no intercession will avail, xiv. 12-23. Israel, in her misery, is like the wood of the vine, unprofitable to begin with, and now, besides, scarred and burnt (xv.); her whole career has been one of consistent infidelity--Israel and Judah alike (xvi.). And her kings are as perfidious as her people-witness Zedekiah's treachery to the king of Babylon (xvii.). But contrary to prevalent opinion, the present generation is not atoning for the sins of the past; every man is free and responsible and is dealt with precisely as he deserves--the soul that sinneth, _it_ shall die (xviii.). Then follows a beautiful elegy over the princes of Judah--Jehoahaz taken captive to Egypt, and Jehoiachin to Babylon (xix.). The third cycle (xx.-xxiv.) is, in the main, a repetition of the second. From the very day of her election, Israel has been unfaithful, giving herself over to idolatry, immorality, and the profanation of the Sabbath (xx.). But the devouring fire will consume, and the sharp sword of Nebuchadrezzar will be drawn, first against Jerusalem, and then against Ammon (xxi.). The corruption of Jerusalem is utter and absolute--princes, priests, prophets, and people (xxii.); and this corruption has characterized her from the very beginning--Samaria and Jerusalem, the northern and southern kingdoms alike (xxiii.). So the end has come: the filth and rust of the empty caldron--symbolic of Jerusalem after the first deportation in 597 B.C.--will be purged away by a yet fiercer fire. The besieged city is at length captured, and, like the prophet's wife, it perishes unmourned (xxiv.). The ministry of judgment, so far as it concerns Jerusalem, is now over, and Ezekiel is free to turn to the more congenial task of consolation and promise. But a negative condition of the restoration of Israel is the removal of impediments to her welfare, and next to her own sins her enemies are the greatest obstacle to her restoration; it is with them, therefore, that the following prophecies are concerned. The seven oracles in chs. xxv.-xxxii. (587-586 B.C., cf. xxvi. 1, except xxix. 17-21 in 570 B.C.) are directed against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (xxv.), Tyre, xxvi. 1-xxviii. 19, Sidon, xxviii. 20-26, and Egypt (xxix.-xxxii.). Tyre and Egypt receive elaborate attention; the other peoples are dismissed with comparatively brief notice. The general reason assigned for the destruction of the smaller peoples in xxv. is their vengeful attitude to Israel. Ammon in particular is singled out for her malicious joy over the destruction of the temple and her mockery of the captive Jews. The destruction of these people is no doubt to be brought about indirectly, if not directly, as in the case of Tyre, xxvi. 7, and Egypt, xxix. 19, by Nebuchadrezzar. The oracle against Tyre is one of Ezekiel's most brilliant compositions. The glorious city is to be stormed and destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar (xxvi.), and her fall is celebrated in a splendid dirge, in which she is compared to a noble merchant ship wrecked by a furious storm upon the high seas (xxvii.); her proud prince will be humbled to the ground (xxviii.). Egypt is similarly threatened with a desolating invasion at the hands of Nebuchadrezzar; the conquest of that country is to be his recompense for his failure, contrary to Ezekiel's expectations, to capture Tyre (xxix.). The day of Jehovah draws nigh upon Egypt (xxx.); like a proud cedar she will be felled by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar (xxxi.), and her fall is celebrated in two dirges--one in which Pharaoh is compared to a crocodile; the other, weird and striking, describes the arrival of the slain Egyptians in the world below (xxxii.). With the disappearance of Israel's enemies, one of the great obstacles to her restoration has been removed; but the greatest obstacle is in Israel herself. She has been stiff-necked and rebellious: now that the prophet's words have proved true,[1] each individual for himself must give heed to his warning voice, not merely consulting him, but obeying him (xxxiii.). Then Jehovah will manifest His grace in many ways. He will send them an ideal king, unlike the mercenary rulers of the past, who had plundered the flock (xxxiv.). He will destroy the unbrotherly Edomites (xxxv.) and bless His people Israel with the peaceful possession of a fruitful land, and with the better blessing of the new heart (xxxvi.). Finally, He will wake the people, who are now as good as dead, to a new life, and unite the long sundered Israel and Judah under one sceptre for ever (xxxvii.). In the final assault which will be made against His people by the mysterious hordes of Gog from the north, He will preserve them from danger, and multitudes of the assailants will fall and be buried in the land of Israel (xxxviii., xxxix.). [Footnote: In xxxiii. 21 the _twelfth_ year should be the eleventh (cf. xxvi. 1). The news of the fall of Jerusalem would not take over a year to travel to Babylon.] Probably the book originally ended here: but from Ezekiel's point of view, the remaining chapters (xl.-xlviii.) are thoroughly integral to it, if indeed they be not its climax. The people are now redeemed and restored to their own land: the problem is, how shall they maintain the proper relations between themselves and their God? The unorganized community must become a church, and an elaborate organization is provided for it. The temple, with its buildings, is therefore first minutely described, as that is to be the earthly residence of the people's God; then the rights and duties of the priests are strictly regulated: and lastly the holy land is so redistributed among the tribes that the temple is practically in the centre. Chs. xl.-xliii. embrace the description and measurement of the temple, with its courts, gateways, chambers, decorations, priests' rooms and altar. When all is ready, Jehovah solemnly enters, xliii. 1-12, by the gate from which Ezekiel had in vision seen Him leave almost nineteen years before, x. 19. The sanctity of the temple where Jehovah is henceforth to dwell must be scrupulously maintained, and this is secured by the regulations in xliv.-xlvi. The menial services of the sanctuary, which were formerly performed by foreigners, are to be henceforth performed by Levites. Then follow regulations determining the duties and revenues of the priests, the territory to be occupied by them, also by the Levites, the city and the prince; the religious duties of the prince, and the rite of atonement for the temple. The whole description is a striking counterpart to the earlier vision of the desecration of the temple (viii.). The last section (xlvii., xlviii.) deals with the land which in these latter days is to share the redemption of the people. The barren ground near the Dead Sea is to be made fertile, and the waters of that sea sweet, by a stream issuing from underneath the temple. The land will be redistributed, seven tribes north and five south of the temple, and the city will bear the name "Jehovah is there"--symbolic of the abiding presence of the people's God. Whatever be the precise meaning of the much disputed "thirtieth year" in i. 1, Ezekiel was born probably about or not long before the time Jeremiah began his ministry in 626 B.C. As a young man, he must have heard Jeremiah preach, and this, coupled with the fact that some of Jeremiah's prophecies were in circulation about eight years before Ezekiel went into exile (605-597) explains the profound influence which the older prophet plainly exercised upon the younger. With Jehoiachin and the aristocracy, Ezekiel was taken in 597 to Babylon, where he lived with his wife, xxiv. 16, among the Jewish colony on the banks of the Chebar, one of the canals tributary to the Euphrates, i. 3. Never had a prophet been more necessary. The people left behind in the land were thoroughly depraved, xxxiii. 25ff., the exiles were not much better, xiv. 3ff.--they are a rebellious house, ii. 6; and even worse than they are the exiles who came with the second deportation in 586, xiv. 22. Idolatry of many kinds had been practised (viii.); and now that the penalty was being paid in exile, the people were helpless, xxxvii. 11. For six years and a half--till the city fell--Ezekiel's ministry was one of reproof; after that, of consolation. The prophet becomes a pastor. His ministry lasted at least twenty-two years, the last dated prophecy being in 570 (xxix. 17); for thirteen years before the writing of chs. xl.-xlviii. in 572 B.C. there is no dated prophecy, xxxii. 1, 17, so that this sketch of ecclesiastical organization, pathetic as embodying an old man's hope for the future, stands among his most mature and deliberate work. His absolute candour is strikingly shown by his refusal to cancel his original prophecy of the capture of Tyre by Nebuchadrezzar, xxvi. 7, 8, which had not been fulfilled; he simply appends another oracle and allows the two to stand side by side, xxix. 17-20. It is obvious that in Ezekiel prophecy has travelled far from the methods, expressions and hopes that had characterized it in the days of Amos and Isaiah, or even of Ezekiel's immediate predecessor and contemporary, Jeremiah. In these books there are visions, such as those of Amos, vii. 1, viii. 1, ix. 1, and symbolic acts like that of Isaiah, xx. 2, walking barefoot; but there such things are only occasional, here they abound. Their interpretation, too, is beset by much uncertainty. Some maintain that the symbolic actions, unless when they are obviously impossible, were really performed; others regard them simply as part of the imaginative mechanism of the book. The dumbness, e.g., with which Ezekiel was afflicted for a period, iii. 26, xxiv. 27, xxxiii. 22, and which has been interpreted as "a sense of restraint and defeat," may very well have been real, and connected, as has been recently supposed, with certain pathological conditions; but it is hardly to be believed that he lay on one side for 190 days[1] (iv. 5). Again, though the curious action representing the threefold fate of the inhabitants of the city in ch. v. is somewhat grotesque, it is not absolutely impossible; but it is difficult to see how the command to eat bread and drink water "with trembling" can be taken literally, xii. 18. As the first symbolic action in the book--the eating of the roll, iii. 1-3--must be interpreted figuratively, it would seem not unfair to apply this principle to all such actions. It is even applied by Reuss to the very circumstantial story of the death of the prophet's wife, xxiv. 15ff., which he characterizes as an "easily deciphered hieroglyph." [Footnote 1: So the Septuagint.] Again, in spite of their highly elaborated detail, the visions appeal, and are intended to appeal, rather to the mind than to the eye. Such a vision as that of the divine chariot in ch. i. could not be transferred to canvas; and if it could, the effect would be anything but impressive. Regarded, however, as a creation of the intellectual imagination, suggesting as it does certain attributes of God, and clothing them with a mysterious and indefinable majesty, it is not without an impressiveness of its own. A similar sense of unreality has been held to pervade the speeches. It has been asserted that they are simply artificial compositions, never addressed and not capable of being addressed to any audience of living men. Certainly one can hardly conceive of the last chapters, with their minute description of the temple buildings, officers and ceremonies, as forming part of a public address; and some even of the earlier chapters, e.g. xvi., xxiii., do not suggest that living contact with an audience which invests the earlier prophets with their perennial dramatic interest. At the same time, to regard him simply as an author and in no sense as a public man would undoubtedly be to do him less than justice, cf. xi. 25. He was in any case a pastor--a new office in Israel, to which he was led by his overwhelming sense of the indefeasible importance of the individual (iii. 18ff., xviii., xxxiii.). But--especially in his earlier ministry, till the fall of the city--he was prophet as well as pastor, with a public message of condemnation very much like that of his predecessors. His reputation as a prophet naturally rose with the corroboration which his words had received from the fall of the city, xxxiii. 30, but even before this it must have been high, as we find him frequently consulted, viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1; and though behind the real audience he addresses, we often cannot help feeling that his words have in view that larger Israel of which the exiles form a part (cf. vi.), the chapters, as they now stand, are no doubt in most cases expansions of actual addresses. This view is strengthened by the precision of the numerous chronological notices, cf. viii. 1. There is another important aspect in which the contrast between Ezekiel and the pre-exilic prophets is very great: viz. in his attitude to ritual. Every one of them had expressed in emphatic language the relative, if not the absolute, indifference of ritual to true religion (Amos v. 25, Hos. vi. 6, Isa. i. 11ff., Mic. vi. 6-8). No one had expressed himself in language more strong and unmistakable than Ezekiel's contemporary, Jeremiah. Yet Ezekiel himself devotes no less than nine chapters to a detailed programme for the ecclesiastical organization of the state after the return from exile (xl.-xlviii.). With some justice Lucien Gautier has called him the "clerical" prophet, and Duhm goes so far as to say that he annihilated spontaneous and ethical religion. This, as we shall see, is a grave exaggeration; but there can be no doubt that in Ezekiel the centre of gravity of prophecy has shifted. He threw ritual into a prominence which, in prophecy, it had never had before, and which, from his day on, it successfully maintained (cf. Hag., Zech., Mal.). It is difficult to estimate justly the importance to Hebrew religion of the new turn given to it by Ezekiel: it seems to be, and in reality it is, a descent from the more purely spiritual and ethical conception of the earlier prophets. But two things have to be remembered (1) that, for the situation contemplated by Ezekiel, such a programme as that which he drew up was a practical religious necessity. The spiritual atmosphere in which Jeremiah drew his breath so freely was too rare for the average Israelite. Religious conceptions had to be expressed in material symbols. The land and the temple had been profaned by sin (viii.); after the return, their holiness must be secured and guaranteed, and Ezekiel's legislation makes the necessary provision by translating that idea into specific and concrete applications. But (2) though ritual interests are very prominent towards the close of the book, they do not by any means exhaust the religious interests of Ezekiel. If not very frequently, at any rate very deliberately and emphatically, he asserts the ethical elements that are inseparable from true religion and the moral responsibility of the individual (iii., xviii., xxxiii.). Indeed, the background of xl.-xlviii. is a people redeemed from their sin. The worshippers are the redeemed; and even in this almost exclusively ritual section ethical interests are not forgotten, xlv. 9ff. In interpreting the mind of the man who sketched this priestly legislation, it is surely unfair to ignore those profound and noble utterances touching the necessity of the new heart, xviii. 31, xxxvi. 26, and the new spirit, xi. 19, utterances which have the ring of some of the greatest words of Jeremiah. It must be admitted, however, that Ezekiel did not fully realize the implications of these profound words: he at once proceeds to apply them in a somewhat mechanical way, which suggests that his religion is a thing of "statutes and judgments," if it is also a thing of the spirit, xxxvi. 27 (cf. xx. 11, 13), and this tendency to a mechanical view of things is characteristic of the prophet. Even in the great chapter asserting the responsibility of the individual (xviii.) something of this tendency appears in the isolation of the various periods of the individual life from each other. It shows itself again in his description of the river that issues from under the threshold of the temple, xlvii. 3-6. His imagination, which was considerably influenced by Babylonian art, is undisciplined. Images are worked out with a detail artistically unnecessary, and aesthetically sometimes offensive (xvi., xxiii.). On the other hand the book is not destitute of noble and chastened imaginations. The weird fate of Egypt in the underworld, xxxii. 17-32, the glory of Tyre and the horror which her fate elicits (xxvii.) are described with great power. Nothing could be more impressive than the vision of the valley of dry bones--the fearful solitude and the mysterious resurrection (xxxvii.). Ezekiel's imaginative power perhaps reaches its climax in his vision of the destruction of Jerusalem and her idolatrous people. On the judgment day we see the corpses of the sinners, slain by supernatural executioners, lying silently in the temple court, the prophet prostrate and sorrowful, and the angel departing with glowing coals to set fire to the guilty city, ix. i-x. 7. The two chief elements in later Judaism practically owe their origin to Ezekiel, viz. apocalypse and legalism. The former finds expression in chs. xxxviii, xxxix., where, preliminary to Israel's restoration, Gog of the land of Magog--an ideal, rather than, like the Assyrians or Babylonians, an historical enemy of Israel--is to be destroyed. We have already seen how prominent the legalistic interest is in xl.-xlviii., but it is also apparent elsewhere. Ezekiel, e.g., lays unusual stress upon the institution of the Sabbath, and counts its profanation one of the gravest of the national sins, xx. 12, xxii. 8, xxiii. 38. The priestly interests of Ezekiel are easily explained by his early environment. He belonged by birth to the Jerusalem priesthood, i. 3, xliv. 15, and he received his early training under the prophetico-priestly impulse of the Deuteronomic reformation. From the critical standpoint, the book of Ezekiel is of the highest importance. Chs. xl.-xlviii. fall midway between the simpler legislation of Deuteronomy, and the very elaborate legislation of the priestly parts of the Pentateuch. This is especially plain in the laws affecting the priests and the Levites. In Deuteronomy no distinction is made between them; there the phrase is, "the priests the Levites" (Deut. xviii. 1); in the priestly code (cf. Num. iii., iv., v.) they are very sharply distinguished, the Levites being reserved for the more menial work of the sanctuary. Now the origin of this distinction can be traced to Ezekiel, according to whom the Levites were the priests who had been degraded from their priestly office, because they had ministered in idolatrous worship at the high places, xliv. 6ff., whereas the priests were the Zadokites who had ministered only at Jerusalem. The natural inference is that, at least in this respect, the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch is later than Ezekiel. A close study of chs. xl.-xlviii. enables us to extend this inference. Between Ezekiel and that legislation there are serious differences (cf. xlvi. 13, Exod. xxix. 38, Num. xxviii. 4), which, as early as the beginning of the Christian era, gave much perplexity to Jewish scholars. "According to the traditional view," as Reuss has said, "Ezekiel would be reforming, not Israel, but Moses, the man of God, and the mouth of Jehovah Himself." We have no alternative, then, but to suppose that Ezekiel is earlier than the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch, and that this sketch in xl.-xlviii. prepared the way for it. In Ezekiel the older prophetic conception of God has undergone a change. It has become more transcendental, with the result that the love of God is overshadowed by His holiness. It is of His grace, no doubt, that the people are ultimately saved; but, according to Ezekiel, He is prompted to His redemptive work not so much out of pity for the fallen people, xxxvi. 22, but rather "for His name's sake," xx. 44--that name which has been profaned by Israel in the sight of the heathen, xx. 14. The goal of history is, in Ezekiel's ever-recurring phrase, that men may "know that I am Jehovah." Corresponding to this transcendental view of God is his view of man as frail and weak--over and over again Ezekiel is addressed as "child of man"--and history has only too faithfully exhibited that inherent and all but ineradicable weakness. While other prophets, like Hosea and Jeremiah, had seen in the earlier years of Israel's history, a dawn which bore the promise of a beautiful day, to Ezekiel that history has from the very beginning been one unbroken record of apostasy (xvi., xxiii.). On the other hand, Ezekiel laid a wholesome, if perhaps exaggerated, emphasis on the possibility of human freedom. A man's destiny, he maintained, was not irretrievably determined either by hereditary influences, xviii. 2ff., or by his own past, xxxiii. 10f. Further, Jeremiah had felt, if he had not said, that the individual, not the nation, is the real unit in religion: to Ezekiel belongs the merit of supplementing this conception by that other, that religion implies fellowship, and that individuals find their truest religious life only when united in the kingdom of God (xl.-xlviii.). HOSEA The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's death.[1] But i.-iii. seem to be the result of long and agonized meditation on the meaning of his wedded life: it was not at once that he discovered Gomer to be an unfaithful wife, i. 2, and it must have been later still that he learned to interpret the impulse which led him to her and threw such sorrow about his life, as a word of the Lord, i. 2. These chapters were probably therefore written late, though the experiences they record were early. [Footnote 1: Zechariah his son reigned for only six months.] Of the date, generally speaking, of iv.-xiv. there can be no doubt: they reflect but too faithfully the confusion of the times that followed Jeroboam's death. It is a period of hopeless anarchy. Moral law is set at defiance, and society, from one end to the other, is in confusion, iv. 1, 2, vii. 1. The court is corrupt, conspiracies are rife, kings are assassinated, vii. 3-7, x. 15. We are irresistibly reminded of the rapid succession of kings that followed Jeroboam--Zechariah his son, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah. Gilead, however, is still part of the northern kingdom, vi. 8, xii. 11, so that the deportation effected by Tiglath Pileser in 734 B.C. has not yet taken place (2 Kings xv. 29). Further, there is no mention of the combination of Israel and Aram against Judah; and, as Hosea was a very close observer of the political situation, his silence on this point may be assumed to imply that his prophecies fall earlier than 735. The date of his prophetic career may safely be set about 743-736 B.C. In chs. i. and iii. Hosea reads the experiences of his wedded life as a symbol of Jehovah's experience with Israel. Gomer bore him three children, to whom he gave names symbolic of the impending fate[1] of Israel, i. 1-9. The faithless Gomer abandons Hosea for a paramour, but he is moved by his love for her to buy her out of the degradation into which she has fallen, and takes earnest measures to wean her to a better mind. All this Hosea learns to interpret as symbolic of the divine love for Israel, which refuses to be defeated, but will seek to recover the people, though it be through the stern discipline of exile (iii.). Ch. ii. elaborates the idea, suggested by these chapters, of Israel's adultery, i.e. of her unfaithfulness to Jehovah, of the fate to which it will bring her, and of her redemption from that fate by the love of her God.[2] [Footnote 1: Chs. i. 10-ii. 1 interrupts the stern context with an outlook on the Messianic days, considers Judah as well as Israel, presupposes the exile of Judah, and anticipates ii. 21-23. It can hardly therefore be Hosea's; nor can i. 7, which is quite irrelevant and appears to be an allusion to the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in 701 B.C.] [Footnote 2: It is much more satisfactory to interpret i., iii. as a real experience of Hosea, and not simply as an allegory. If it be objected, on the one hand, that the names of the last two children are not probable names, it may be urged, on the other, that Gomer seems to be an actual name, for which no plausible allegorical meaning has been suggested.] It is quite impossible even to attempt a summary of iv.-xiv., partly because of the hopeless corruption of the text in very many passages, partly from the brevity and apparently disjointed nature of the individual sections. Possibly this is due, in large measure, to later redactors of the book, or to the fragmentary reports of the prophet's addresses; perhaps, however, it also expresses something of the abrupt passion of his speeches, which, as Kautzsch says, were "more sob than speech." The general theme of this division appears in its opening words, "There is no fidelity or love or knowledge of God in the land," iv. 1. That knowledge of God is in part innate and universal: it is knowledge of _God_, and not specifically of Jehovah--not knowledge of a code, but fidelity to the demands of conscience. It was, however, the peculiar business of the priests to proclaim and develop that knowledge; and for the deplorable perversity of Israel, they are largely held responsible, iv. 6. The worship of Jehovah, which ought to be a moral service, vi. 6, is indistinguishable from Baal worship (ii.) and idolatry. Upon the calf, the symbol under which Jehovah was worshipped, and upon those who worship Him thus, Hosea pours indignant and sarcastic scorn, viii. 5, 6, x. 5, xiii. 2. Ignorance of the true nature of God is at the root of the moral and political confusion. It is this that leads the one party to coquet with Egypt and the other with Assyria, vii. II, viii, 9, xi. 5, xii. 1, and the price paid for Assyrian intervention was a heavy one (2 Kings xv. 19, 20, cf. Hosea v. 13). The native kings, too, are as impotent to heal Israel's wounds as the foreigners, vii. 7, x. 7; and though it might be too much to say that Hosea condemns the monarchy as an institution, viii. 4, the impotence of the kings to stem the tide of disaster is too painfully clear to him, x, 7, 15. Whether Hosea ever alludes to Judah in his genuine prophecies is very doubtful. Some of the references are obvious interpolations (cf. i. 7), and for one reason or another, nearly all of them are suspicious: in vi. 4, e.g., the parallelism (cf. _v_. 10) suggests that _Israel_ should be read instead of _Judah_. But there can be no doubt that the message of Hosea is addressed in the main, if not exclusively, to northern Israel. It is her land that is _the_ land, i. 2, cf. 4, her king that is "our king," vii. 5, the worship of her sanctuaries that he exposes, and her politics that he deplores. If Amos is the St. James of the Old Testament, Hosea is the St. John. It is indeed possible to draw the contrast too sharply between Amos and Hosea, as is done when it is asserted that Amos is the champion of morality and Hosea of religion. Amos is not, however, a mere moralist; he no less than Hosea demands a return to Jehovah, iv. 6, 8, v. 6, but he undoubtedly lays the emphasis on the moral expression of the religious impulse, while Hosea is more concerned with religion at its roots and in its essence. Thus Hosea's work, besides being supplementary to that of Amos, emphasizing the love of God where Amos had emphasised His righteousness, is also more fundamental than his. There is something of the mystic, too, in Hosea: in all experience he finds something typical. The character of the patriarch Jacob is an adumbration of that of his descendants (xii.), and his own love for his unfaithful wife is a shadow of Jehovah's love for Israel (i.-iii.). His message to Israel was a stern one, probably even sterner than it now reads in the received text of many passages, e.g., xi. 8, 9. He represents Jehovah as saying to Israel: "Shall I set thee free from the hand of Sheol? Shall I redeem thee from death? Hither with thy plagues, O death! Hither with thy pestilence, O Sheol! Repentance is hidden from mine eyes," xiii. 14. But it is too much to say with some scholars that the sternness is unqualified and to deny to the prophet the hope so beautifully expressed in the last chapter. There were elements in Hosea's experience of his own heart which suggested that the love of Jehovah was a love which would not let His people go, and ch. xiv. (except _v_. 9) may well be retained, almost in its entirety, for Hosea. His passion, though not robust, like that of Amos, is tender and intense, xi. 3, 4: as Amos pleads for righteousness, he pleads for love (Hos. vi. 6), _hesed_, a word strangely enough never used by Amos; and it is no accident that the great utterance of Hosea--"I will have love and not sacrifice," vi. 6--had a special attraction for Jesus (Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7). JOEL The book of Joel admirably illustrates the intimate connection which subsisted for the prophetic mind between the sorrows and disasters of the present and the coming day of Jehovah: the one is the immediate harbinger of the other. In an unusually devastating plague of locusts, which, like an army of the Lord,[1] has stripped the land bare and brought misery alike upon city and country, man and beast--"for the beasts of the field look up sighing unto Thee," i. 20--the prophet sees the forerunner of such an impending day of Jehovah, bids the priests summon a solemn assembly, and calls upon the people to fast and mourn and turn in penitence to God. Their penitence is met by the divine pity and rewarded by the promise not only of material restoration but of an outpouring of the spirit upon all Judah,[2] which is to be accompanied by marvellous signs in the natural world. The restoration of Judah has as its correlative the destruction of Judah's enemies, who are represented as gathered together in the valley of Jehoshaphat--i.e. the valley where "Jehovah judges"--and there the divine judgment is to be executed upon them. [Footnote 1: Some regard the locusts as an allegorical designation for an invading army. But without reason: in ii. 7 they are _compared_ to warriors, and the effect of their devastations is described in terms inapplicable to an army.] [Footnote 2: The sequel, in which the nations are the objects of divine wrath, shows that the "all flesh," ii. 28, must be confined to Judah.] The theological value of the book of Joel lies chiefly in its clear contribution to the conception of the day of Jehovah. As Marti says, "The book does not present one side of the picture only, but combines all the chief traits of the eschatological hope in an instructive compendium"--the effusion of the spirit, the salvation of Jerusalem, the judgment of the heathen, the fruitfulness of the land, the permanent abode of Jehovah upon Zion. These features of the Messianic hope are, in the main, characteristic of post-exilic prophecy; and now, with very great unanimity, the book is assigned, in spite of its position near the beginning of the minor prophets, to post-exilic times. A variety of considerations appears to support this date. Judah is the exclusive object of interest. Israel has no independent existence, and, where the name is mentioned, it is synonymous with Judah, ii. 27, iii. 2, 16. Further, the people are scattered among the nations, iii. 2, and strangers are not to pass through the "holy" Jerusalem any more, iii. 17. The exile and the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586 B.C. appear therefore to be presupposed. But the temple has been rebuilt; there are numerous allusions to priests and to meal and drink offerings, i. 9, 13, ii. 14,17, and an assembly is summoned to "the house of Jehovah your God," i. 14: the reference to the city wall, ii. 9, would bring the date as late as Nehemiah in the fifth century. Other arguments, though more precarious, are not without weight, e.g., the ease and smoothness of the language, the allusion to the Greeks, in. 6, the absence of any reference to the sin of Judah,[1] the apparent citations from or allusions to other prophetic books.[2] [Footnote 1: Though it may be implied in ii. 12f ] [Footnote 2: Obad. _v_. 17, Jo. ii. 32; Amos i. 2, Jo. iii. 16; Amos ix. 13, Jo. iii. 18; Ezek. xlvii. 1ff., Jo. iii. 18.] The effect of this cumulative argument has been supposed to be overwhelming in favour of a post-exilic date. Recently, however, Baudissin, in a very careful discussion, has ably argued for at least the possibility of a pre-exilic date. Precisely in the manner of Joel, Amos iv. 6-9 links together locusts and drought as already experienced calamities. Both alike complain of the Philistine and Phoenician slave-trade. The enemies--Edom, Phoenicia, Philistia, iii. 4, l9--fit the earlier period better than the Persian or Greek. In the ninth century, Judah was invaded by the Philistines and Arabians according to the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxi. 16ff.), whose statements in such a matter there is no reason for doubting, and Jerusalem may then have suffered: in any case, we know that the treasures of temple and palace were plundered as early as Rehoboam's time (1 Kings xiv. 25ff.), and this might be enough to satisfy the allusion in Joel iii. 17. Again, if Joel is smooth, Amos is not much less so; and linguistic peculiarities that seem to be late might be due to dialect or personal idiosyncrasy. With regard to the argument from citations, it would be possible to maintain that Joel's simple and natural picture of the stream from the temple watering the acacia valley, iii. 18, was not borrowed from, but rather suggested the more elaborate imagery of Ezekiel, xlvii. For these and other reasons Baudissin suggests with hesitation that a date slightly before Amos is by no means impossible.[1] [Footnote 1: It is interesting to note that Vernes, Rothstein and Strack have independently reached the conclusion that chs. i., ii. have a different origin from iii., iv. In the former, the state still exists, and the calamity is a plague of locusts; in the latter, no account is taken of the locusts--it is a time of national disaster. The reasons, however, are hardly adequate for denying the unity of the book.] The question is much more than an academic one, for on the answer to it will depend our whole conception of the development of Hebrew prophecy. Sacerdotal interests, e.g., here receive a prominence in prophecy which we are accustomed to associate only with the period after the exile. Here again, the promises are for Judah, the threats for her enemies--an attitude also characteristic of post-exilic prophecy: it is customary to deny to the pre-exilic prophets any word of promise or consolation to their own people. Obviously if the priest and the element of promise have already so assured a place in the earliest of the prophets, the ordinary view of the course of prophecy will have to be seriously modified. The lack of emphasis displayed by Joel on the ethical aspect of religion, which has been made to tell in favour of a late date, might tell equally well in favour of a very early one. Indeed, the book is either very early or very late; and, if early, it represents what we might call the pre-prophetic type of Israel's religion, and especially the non-moral aspirations of those who, in Amos's time, longed for the day of Jehovah, and did not know that for them it meant thick darkness, without a streak of light across it (Amos v. 18). On the whole, however, the balance leans to a post-exilic date. The Jewish dispersion seems to be implied, iii. 2. The strange visitation of locusts suggests to the prophet the mysterious army from the north, ii. 20, which had haunted the pages of Ezekiel (xxxviii., xxxix.); and in this book, prophecy (i., ii.) merges into apocalyptic (iii., iv.). AMOS Amos, the first of the literary prophets, is also one of the greatest. Hosea may be more tender, Isaiah more serenely majestic, Jeremiah more passionately human; but Amos has a certain Titanic strength and rugged grandeur all his own. He was a shepherd, i. 1, vii. 15, and the simplicity and sternness of nature are written deep upon his soul. He is familiar with lions and bears, iii. 8, v. 19, and the terrors of the wilderness hover over all his message. He had observed with acuteness and sympathy the great natural laws which the experiences of his shepherd life so amply illustrated, iii. 15., and his simple moral sense is provoked by the cities, with the immoral civilization for which they stand. With a lofty scorn this desert man looks upon the palaces, i. 4, etc., the winter and the summer houses, iii. 15, in which the luxurious and rapacious grandees of the time indulged, and contemplates their ruin with stern satisfaction. Those were the days of Jeroboam II, i. 1, and, as the period is marked by an easy self-assurance, and the ancient boundaries of Israel are restored, vi. 14 (cf. 2 Kings xiv. 25, 28), Amos belongs, no doubt, to the latter half of his reign, probably as late as 750 B.C., for he knows, though he does not name, the Assyrians, vi. 14, and he finds in their irresistible progress westwards an answer to the moral demands of his heart, Israel's exhausting wars with the Arameans were now over. Aram herself had been weakened by the repeated assaults of Assyria, and Israel was enjoying the dangerous fruits of peace. Extravagance was common, and drunkenness, no less among the women than the men, iv. 1. The grossest immorality is associated even with public worship, ii. 7, and religion is being eaten away by the canker of commercialism, viii. 5. The poor are driven to the wall, and justice is set at defiance by those appointed to administer it, ii. 6, v. 7. Such was the society, brilliant without and corrupt within, into which Amos hurled his startling message that the God who had chosen them, iii. 2, guided their history, ii. 9, and sent them prophets to interpret His will, ii. 11, would punish them for their iniquities, iii. 2. It is not certain whether the unusually skilful disposition of the book of Amos is due to himself or to a much later hand.[1] It has three great divisions: (_a_) the judgment (i., ii.), (_b_) the grounds of the judgment (iii.-vi.), (_c_) visions of judgment, with an outlook on the Messianic days (vii.-ix.). In chs. i., ii., with his sense of an impartial and universal moral law, Amos sees the judgment sweep across seven countries in the west--Aram, Philistia, Phoenicia, Edom, Ammon, Moab and Israel.[2] The sins denounced are, e.g., the barbarities of warfare and the cruelties of the slave trade; but Amos dwells with special emphasis and detail on the sins of Israel, as that is the country to which, though a Judean, he has been specially sent, vii. 10, 15. [Footnote 1: Note the refrains in i., ii., cf. i. 3, 6; iii.-vi. are held together by three "hears," iii. 1, iv. 1, v. 1, and apparently by three "woes," v. 7 (emended text), v. 18, vi. 1; so the visions in vii.-ix. are introduced by "Thus hath (the Lord Jehovah) shown me."] [Footnote 2: It is difficult to believe that the colourless oracle against Judah, ii. 4, 5, couched in perfectly general terms, is original. Doubts that are not unreasonable have also been raised regarding the oracle against Edom, i. 11, 12.] In the next section (_b_) he begins by asserting that Israel's religious prerogative will only the more certainly ensure her destruction, and justifies his threat of doom by his irrepressible assurance of having heard the divine voice, iii. 1-8. The doom is deserved because of the rapacity, luxury, iii. 9-15, and drunkenness, iv. 1-3, nor will their sumptuous worship save them, iv. 4, 5. Warnings enough they have had already, but as they have all been disregarded, God will come in some more terrible way, iv. 6-13. Then follows a lament, v. 1-3, and an appeal to hate the evil and seek God and the good, v. 4-15; otherwise He will come in judgment and the "day of Jehovah," for which the people long, will be a day of storm and utter darkness, v. 16-20. To-day, as in the time of the Exodus, Jehovah's demands are not ritual but moral, and the neglect of them will end in captivity, v. 21-27. The luxury and self-assurance of the people are again scornfully denounced, and the doom of exile foretold (vi.). (_c_) Then follow visions of destruction from locusts and drought, vii. 1-6, the vision of the plumbline, symbolical of the straightness to which Israel has failed to conform, vii. 7-9, the vision of the summer fruit, which, by a play upon words, portended the end, viii. 1-3, and the vision of the ruined temple, ix. 1-7. These visions are interrupted by the exceedingly interesting and instructive story of the encounter of the prophet with the supercilious courtier-priest of Bethel, and Amos's fearless reiteration of his message, vii. 10-17; and also by the section viii. 4-14, with its exposition of the evils and its threats of judgment--a section more akin to iii.-vi. than to vii.-ix. The book concludes with an outlook on the redemption and prosperity which will follow in the Messianic age, ix. 8-15. It is hardly possible that this outlook can be Amos's own. In one whose interest in morality was so overwhelming, it would be strange, though perhaps not impossible, that the golden age should be described in terms so exclusively material; but the historical implications of the passage are not those of Amos's time. It is further an express contradiction of the immediately preceding words, ix. 2-5, in which, with dreadful earnestness, the prophet has expressed the thought of an inexorable and inevitable judgment from which there is no escape. Besides, while Amos addresses Israel, this passage deals with Judah, presupposes the fall[1] of the dynasty (cf. _v_. 11) and the advent of the exile (ix. 14, 15).[2] [Footnote 1: Even if only the decay were pre-supposed, the words would be quite inapplicable to the long and prosperous reign of Uzziah, i. 1.] [Footnote: The authenticity of a few other passages, cf. viii. 11, 12, has been doubted for reasons that are not always convincing. Most doubt attaches to the great doxologies, iv. 13, v. 8, 9, ix. 5, 6. The utmost that can be said with safety is that these passages are in no case necessary to the context, while v. 8, 9 is a distinct interruption, but that the conception of God suggested by them, as omnipotent and omnipresent, is not at all beyond the theological reach of Amos.] Amos must have had predecessors, ii. 11; but even so the range and boldness of his thought are astonishing. History, reflection and revelation have convinced him that Israel has had unique religious privileges, iii. 2; nevertheless she stands under the moral laws by which all the world is bound, and which even the heathen acknowledge, iii. 9--Amos has nothing to say of any written law specially given to Israel--and by these laws she will be condemned to destruction, if she is unfaithful, just as surely as the Philistines and Phoenicians (i.). Indeed, so sternly impartial is Amos that he at times even seems to challenge the prerogative of Israel. The Philistines and Arameans had their God-guided exodus no less than Israel, and she is no more to Jehovah than the swarthy peoples of Africa, ix. 7. The universal and inexorable claims of the moral law have never had a more relentless exponent than Amos; and, though there is in him a soul of pity, vii. 2, 5, it was his peculiar task, not to proclaim the divine love, but to plead for social justice. God is just and man must be so too. Perhaps Amos's message is all the more daring and refreshing that he was not a professional prophet, vii. 14. His culture, though not formal, is of the profoundest. He is familiar with distant peoples, ix. 7, he has thought long and deeply about the past, he knows the influences that are moulding the present. The religion for which he pleaded was not a thing of rites and ceremonies, but an ideal of social justice--a justice which would not be checked at every step by avarice and cruelty, but would flow on and on like the waves of the sea, v. 24. OBADIAH The book of Obadiah--shortest of all the prophetic books--is occupied, in the main, as the superscription suggests, with the fate of Edom. Her people have been humbled, the high and rocky fastnesses in which they trusted have not been able to save them. Neighbouring Arab tribes have successfully attacked them and driven them from their home (_vv_, 1-7).[1] This is the divine penalty for their cruel and unbrotherly treatment of the Jews after the siege of Jerusalem, _vv_. 10-14, 15_b_. Nay, a day of divine vengeance is coming upon all the heathen, when Judah will utterly destroy Edom, and once again possess all the land, north, south, east and west, that was formerly theirs, and the kingdom shall be Jehovah's, _vv_. 15_a_, 16-21. [Footnote 1: Verses 8, 9, which imply that the catastrophe is yet to come, and speak of Edom in the third person, appear to be later than the context. For "thy mighty men, O Teman," in _v_. 9_a_, probably we should read, "the mighty men of Teman."] The date of the prophecy seems to be fixed by the unmistakable allusion in _vv_. 11-14 to the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586 B.C.--an occasion on which the Edomites abetted the Babylonians (Ezek. xxxv.; Lam. iv. 21 ff.; Ps. cxxxvii. 7). But the case is gravely complicated by the similarity, which is much too close to be accidental, between Obadiah 1-9 and the oracle against Edom in Jeremiah, xlix. 7-22 (especially _vv_. 14-16, 9, 10, 7, 22); and, though in one or two places the text of Obadiah is superior (cf. Ob. 2, 3; Jer. xlix. 15, 16), the resemblance is such that the passage in Jeremiah must be dependent on Obadiah. Now the date assigned to Jeremiah's oracle is 605 B.C. (xlvi. 2); but obviously Jeremiah could not adopt in 605 a prophecy which was not written till 586. A way out of this difficulty has usually been sought in the assumption that both prophets have made use, in different ways, of an older oracle against Edom, _vv_. 1-9 or 10. But there is no adequate reason for separating _vv_. 11-14, which must refer to the capture of Jerusalem in 586, from _vv_. 1-7. The assumption just mentioned becomes quite unnecessary when we remember that Jeremiah xlix. 7-22, as we have already seen, is probably, at least in its present form, from a period very much later than Jeremiah. The priority therefore rests with Obadiah, whose prophecy has been utilized in Jeremiah xlix. In _vv_. 1-7 the catastrophe is not predicted for Edom, it has already fallen: it was probably an earlier stage of the Bedawin assaults, whose desolating effect upon Edom is described in Malachi i. 1-5, and must therefore be relegated to a period about the middle of the fifth century. We are probably not far from the truth in dating Obadiah 1-14 about 500 B.C. The memory of Edom's cruelty would still rankle a generation after the return. But in _vv_. 15_a_, 16-21 the literary and religious colouring is different; _vv_. 1-14 is marked by a certain graphic vigour, _vv_. 15-21 is diffuse. The judgment of Edom in _vv_. 1-14 is in _vv_. 15-21 made only an episode in a great world-judgment. Above all, in _v_. 1 the nations are to execute this judgment, in _v_. 15 they are to be the victims of it. Further, _vv_. 19, 20 seem to imply an extensive dispersion of the Jews. Probably, therefore, this passage expresses the bold eschatological hopes of a later time, when Judah was to be finally redeemed and the heathen annihilated. The section may be later than the oracle in Jeremiah xlix, as no use is made of it there. JONAH The book of Jonah is, in some ways, the greatest in the Old Testament: there is no other which so bravely claims the whole world for the love of God, or presents its noble lessons with so winning or subtle an art. Jonah, a Hebrew prophet, is divinely commanded to preach to Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian empire of his day. To escape the unwelcome task of preaching to a heathen people, he takes ship for the distant west, only to be overtaken by a storm, and thrown into the sea, when, by the lot, it is discovered that he is the cause of the storm. He is immediately swallowed by a fish, in the belly of which he remains three days and nights (i.). Then follows a prayer: after which the prophet is thrown up by the fish upon the land (ii.). This time he obeys the divine command, and his preaching is followed by a general repentance, which causes God to spare the wicked city (iii.), whereat Jonah is greatly displeased; but, by a new and miraculous experience, he is taught the shame and folly of his anger, and the infinite greatness of the divine love (iv.). On the face of it, the narrative is not meant to be strictly historical. Its place among the prophetic books shows that its importance lies, not in its facts, but in the truths for which it pleads. Much detail is wanting which we should expect to find were the narrative pure history, e.g. the name of the Assyrian king, the results of Jonah's mission, etc. Other circumstances stamp it as unhistorical: considering the poor success the Hebrew prophets had in their own land, such a wholesale conversion of a foreign city, even if such a visit as Jonah's were likely, must be regarded as extremely improbable, to say nothing of the impossibility of the animals fasting and wearing sackcloth, iii. 7, 8. The miraculous fish and the miraculous tree which grew up in a single night forbid us to look for history in the book. Nineveh's fame is a thing of the past, iii. 3; the book is written after, probably long after, its fall in 606 B.C. The lateness of the book and its remoteness from the events it records, are proved in other ways. Its language has the Aramaic flavour of the later books, and such a phrase as "the God of heaven," i. 9, only occurs in post-exilic literature. It contains several reminiscences of late books[1] (e.g. Joel?), and its ideas are most intelligible as the product of post-exilic times, especially if it be regarded as a protest against a loveless and narrow-hearted type of Judaism. All the conditions point to a date not much, if at all, earlier than 300 B.C. [Footnote 1: There are many points of contact between the prayer in Jonah ii. and the Psalter; but the prayer must be later than the original book of Jonah. It is in reality not a prayer but a psalm of gratitude, and is quite inappropriate to Jonah's horrible situation in the belly of the fish. Even if the metaphors from the sea were interpreted literally, they would not be applicable to Jonah's case; e.g., "the weeds were wrapped about my head," _v_. 5. The Psalm, which is partly, but not altogether, a compilation, must have been inserted here by a later hand, hardly by the author of the book, who would have noticed the impropriety of it.] Jonah is himself a historical character; there is no reason to doubt that the prophet, in whose time Nineveh is standing, i. 2, is contemporary with the Jonah mentioned in 2 Kings xiv. 25 as living in the reign of Jeroboam II, and prophesying the restoration of Israel to its ancient boundaries. It may have been as the representative of an intense and exclusive nationalism that he was chosen as the hero of this book. Here and there the story trenches on Babylonian and Greek legend, but the spirit, if not also the form, is altogether the author's own. The book abounds in religious suggestion; even its incidental touches are illuminating. It suggests that man cannot escape his divinely appointed destiny, and that God's will must be done. It suggests that prophecy is conditional; a threatened destruction can be averted by repentance. It is peculiarly interesting to find so generous an attitude towards the religious susceptibilities and capacities of foreigners: in this we are reminded of Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan. The foreign sailors cry, in their perplexity, to their gods, and end by acknowledging the God of Israel; the people of Nineveh repent at the prophet's preaching. All this forms a splendid foil to the smallness and obstinacy of Jonah. With his mean views of God, he would not only exclude the heathen from the divine mercy, but rejoice in their destruction. In this the prophet is typical of later Judaism, with its longing for the annihilation of the nations as the obverse of the redemption of Zion. This attitude was greatly encouraged by the rigorous legislation of Ezra; and Jonah, like Ruth, may be a protest against it, or at least against the bigotry which it engendered. If Israel is, in any sense, an elect people, she is but elected to carry the message of repentance to the heathen; and the book of Jonah is indirectly, though not perhaps in the intention of the author, a plea for foreign missions. The greatest lesson of the book is skilfully reserved to the end, iv, 2, 10, 11. It is that God is patient and merciful, that He loves all the world which He created, that His love stretches not only beyond the Jews and away to distant Nineveh, but even down to the animal creation. He hears the prayer of the foreign sailors, He delights in the repentance of Nineveh, He cares for the cattle, iv. 11. This book is the Old Testament counterpart to "God so loved the world." MICAH Micah must have been a very striking personality. Like Amos, he was a native of the country--somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gath; and he denounces with fiery earnestness the sins of the capital cities, Samaria in the northern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the southern. To him these cities seem to incarnate the sins of their respective kingdoms, i. 5; and for both ruin and desolation are predicted, i. 6, iii. 12. Micah expresses with peculiar distinctness the sense of his inspiration and the object for which it is given; he is conscious of being filled with the spirit of Jehovah to declare unto Jacob his transgression and unto Israel his sin, iii. 8. In his ringing sincerity, he must have formed a strange contrast to the prophets who regulated their message by their income, iii. 5, and preached to a people whose conscience was slumbering, a welcome gospel of materialism, ii. 11. The words of Micah must have burned themselves into the memories, if not the consciences, of his generation; for more than a hundred years after--though doubtless by this time the prophecy was written--we find his unfulfilled prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem alluded to by the elders who pled for the life of Jeremiah, xxvi. 17ff. It is certain from this reference that he prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah; whether also under Jotham and Ahaz (Mic. i. 1) is not so certain, and depends upon whether his prophecy of the destruction of Samaria, i. 6, was made before, or as seems equally possible, after the capture of that city in 721 B.C. At any rate his message was addressed to Judah, and must have fallen (at least i.-iii.) before 701 B.C.--the year in which the city was saved beyond all expectation from an attack by Sennacherib, iii. 12. Micah begins by describing the coming of Jehovah. He is coming in judgment upon Samaria and Jerusalem, the wicked capitals of wicked kingdoms, i. 1-9; and in the difficult verses, i. 10-16, the devastating march of the enemy through Judah is allusively described. The judgment is thoroughly justified--it is due to the violent and grasping spirit of the wealthy, who do not scruple to crush the poor and defenceless, ii. 1-11. The prophet then[1] brings his charge in detail against the leaders of the people--officials, judges, priests, prophets--accuses them of being mercenary and time-serving, and ends with the terrible threat that the holy hill will one day be made a desolation (iii.). [Footnote 1: Ch. ii. 12, 13, which interrupt the stern address of the prophet, ii. 11, iii. 1 with a promise which implies that Israel is scattered, are probably exilic; they can hardly be Micah's.] These chapters are assigned almost unanimously to Micah. But serious critical difficulties are raised in connection with the rest of the book. Chs. iv. and v. constitute a section by themselves, and may be considered separately. Their general theme is the certainty of salvation, but it is quite clear that they do not form an original unity; iv. 1-4, e.g., with its generous attitude to the foreign nations, is inconsistent with iv. 11-13, which predicts their destruction. Again, iv. 10 describes a siege of Jerusalem, which is to issue in exile, iv. 11-13, a siege which is to end in the annihilation of the besiegers. Similar difficulties characterize ch. v; in _vv_. 7-9, 15 the enemies are to be destroyed. No consecutive outline of the chapters is possible in their present disconnected form. Ch. iv. 1-5 describes the Messianic age, in which the nations will come to Jerusalem to have their cases peacefully arbitrated, iv. 6-8 promise that those scattered (in exile) will be gathered again, and the kingdom of Judah restored. Siege of Jerusalem, exile, and redemption, iv. 9, 10. Unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem and annihilation of the enemy, iv. 11-13. Another siege: Israel's suffering, v. 1. Promise of a victorious king, v. 2-4. Judah's victory over Assyria, v. 5, 6 and all her enemies, v. 7-9. All the apparatus of war and idolatry will be removed from the land, v. 10-14, and vengeance taken on the enemy, v. 15. The summary shows how disjointed the chapters are. They may not impossibly contain reminiscences or even utterances of Micah; e.g. the prediction of the fatal siege, v. 1, or of the overthrow of idolatry, v. 10-14. But many elements could not possibly be Micah's: e.g. iv. 8 implies that the kingdom of Judah is already a thing of the past. iv. 6 postulates the exile,[1] and the prophecy of exile to Babylon, iv. 10, would be unnatural in Micah's time, when Assyria was the dominant power.[2] Again it is exceedingly improbable that Micah would have blunted the edge of his terrible threat in iii. 12 by following it up with so brilliant a promise as iv. 1-4, especially as not a word is said about the need of repentance. The story in Jeremiah xxvi. 17ff. raises the legitimate doubt whether Micah's prophecy, which was certainly one of threatening, iii. 12, also contained elements of promise. On the whole it seems best to assume that the fine picture of the glory and importance of Zion in the latter days, iv. 1-4, was set by some later writer as a foil to the stern threat with which the original prophecy closed, cf. Isaiah ii. 1-4. Chs. iv. and v. may be regarded as a collection of prophecies emphasizing the certainty of salvation and intended to supplement i.-iii. [Footnote 1: This might conceivably, though not very naturally, refer to the deportation of _Israel_ in 721.] [Footnote 2: Some retain iv. 9, 10 for Micah, and assume either that the Babylon clause is a later interpolation, or that Babylon has displaced another proper name.] Chs. vi. and vii. take us again into another atmosphere, more like Micah's own. The people, who attempt to defend themselves against Jehovah's charge of ingratitude on the plea that they are ignorant of His demands, are reminded that those demands are ancient and simple: justice, love as between man and man, and a humble walk with God, vi. 1-8. But instead, dishonesty and injustice are rampant everywhere, and the judgment of God is inevitable, vi. 9-16. The prophet laments the utter and universal degradation of the people, which has corrupted even the intimacies of family life, vii. 1-6. In the rest of the chapter the blow predicted has already fallen; in their sorrow the people await the fulfilment of Jehovah's purpose in patience and faith, pray to Him to restore the land which once was theirs on the east of the Jordan, and thus to compel from the heathen an acknowledgment of His power. He is the incomparable God who can forgive and restore, vii. 7-20. The accusations and laments of these two chapters come very strangely after the repeated promises of chs. iv. and v.; and if the whole book had been by Micah, it is hardly possible that this order should have been original. Probably these chapters were appended to Micah's book because of several features which they have in common with i.-iii.: notice, e.g., the prominence of the word "hear," i. 2, iii. 1, 9, vi. 1, 9, Most scholars agree with Ewald in supposing that these chapters--at any rate vi. i-vii. 6--come from the reign of Manasseh. The situation is that of i.-iii., only aggravated: the reference to Ahab, vi. 16, with whom Manasseh is compared in 2 Kings xxi. 3, points in the same direction. Even if written in this reign, Micah may still have been the author; but the general manner of the chapters and the individuality they reveal appear to be different from his. But, considering their noble insistence upon the moral elements in religion (esp. vi. 6-8) they are, if not his, yet not inappropriately appended to his book. The concluding section, however, vii. 7-20, is almost certainly post-exilic. The punishment has come, therefore the exile is the earliest possible date. But there are exiles not only in Babylon, but scattered far and wide throughout the world, vii. 12, and there is the expectation that the walls of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, vii. 11. As this took place under Nehemiah, the section will fall before his time (500-450 B.C.). This passage of promise and consolation is a foil to vi. 1-vii. 6, intended to sustain the same relation to that section as iv., v. to i.-iii. Thus many hands appear to have contributed to the little book of Micah, and the voices of two or three centuries may be heard in it: earlier words of threatening and judgment are answered by later words of hope and consolation. But wherever else the true Micah is to be found--and his spirit at any rate is certainly in vi. 6-8--he is undoubtedly present in i.-iii. It is a peculiar piece of good fortune that we should possess the words of two contemporary prophets who differed so strikingly as Micah the peasant and Isaiah the statesman. Unlike Isaiah, Micah has nothing to say about foreign politics and their bearing upon religion; he confines himself severely to its moral aspects, and like Amos, that other prophet of the country, hurls his accusations and makes his high ethical demands, with an almost fierce power, iii. 2, 3. His prophecy justifies his claim to speak in the power and inspiration of his God, iii. 8. NAHUM Poetically the little book of Nahum is one of the finest in the Old Testament. Its descriptions are vivid and impetuous: they set us before the walls of the beleaguered Nineveh, and show us the war-chariots of her enemies darting to and fro like lightning, ii. 4, the prancing steeds, the flashing swords, the glittering spears, iii. 2,3. The poetry glows with passionate joy as it contemplates the ruin of cruel and victorious Assyria. In the opening chapter, i., ii. 2, Jehovah is represented as coming in might and anger to take vengeance upon the enemies of Judah, whom He is to destroy so completely that not a trace of them will be left; and Judah, now delivered, will be free to worship her God in peace. In ch. ii. the enemy, through whom Assyria's destruction is to be wrought, is at the gates of Nineveh, _v_. 8, in all the fierce pomp of war. The city is doomed, the defenders flee, everywhere is desolation and ruin, the ravenous Assyrian lion is slain by the sword. It is because of her sins that this utter ruin is coming upon her, iii. 1-7, nor need she think to escape; for the populous and all but impregnable Thebes (No-Amon) was taken, and Nineveh's fate will be the same. Already the people are quaking for fear, some of the strongholds of Assyria are taken; it is time to prepare to defend the capital. But there is no hope, her doom is already sealed, iii. 8-19. From the historical implications of the prophecy, which belongs, as we shall see, to the seventh century, and also from definite allusions (cf. i. 15), Nahum must have been a Judean; and, of the three traditions concerning Elkosh his birthplace, which place it respectively in Mesopotamia, in Galilee, and near Eleutheropolis in southern Judah, the last must be held to be very much the most probable. Within certain limits, the date is easy to fix. Ch. iii. 8-10, which are historically the most concrete verses in the prophecy, imply the capture of Thebes, which we now know to have been taken by the Assyrians in 663 B.C. On the other hand, Nineveh has not yet fallen: the theme of the prophecy is just the certainty of its fall. It was taken by the Medians under Kyaxares, leagued with Nabopolassar of Babylon in 606 B.C. The prophecy therefore falls between 663 and 606. The fixing of the precise date depends on two considerations: (1) whether the allusion to Thebes in iii. 8-10 implies that its capture was very recent, and (2) whether we must suppose that the prophecy was inspired by a definite historical situation. It is usually felt that the reference to Thebes implies that the memory of its capture is fresh, and that the prophecy must stand very near it--not later perhaps than 650; and just about this time there was a Babylonian rebellion against Assyria. This date must be regarded as by no means impossible. On the whole, however, a later date appears to be distinctly more probable The last few verses, iii. 12f., 18f., imply the thorough weakness, disorganization and impending dissolution of the Assyrian empire, and so early a date as 650 hardly meets the case. We must apparently come down to the time when the fate of Nineveh was obviously inevitable and her conqueror was on the way, ii. 1. Probably Marti is not far from the truth in suggesting 610 B.C. The reference to Thebes is intelligible even at this later date, when we remember that the capture of so strong a city, already famous in Homer's time, must have left an indelible impression on the mind of Western Asia. It is no doubt abstractly possible that the prophecy is not intimately connected with any historical situation, and therefore might be much earlier; but to say nothing of the concreteness of the detail, such a supposition would be altogether contrary to the analogy of Hebrew prophecy. When Jehovah reveals His secret to the prophets, it is because He is about to do something (Amos iii. 7). The concreteness of detail just alluded to is characteristic only of the second and third chapters. Ch. i., however, is confessedly vague, and moves for the most part along the familiar lines of theophanic descriptions. It is not plain in i. (cf. ii. 8) who are the enemies to be destroyed, as i. 1 is probably a later addition. Further, as far as _v_. 10 the prophecy is alphabetic: this circumstance has given rise to the view that i., ii. 2 originally formed a complete alphabetic psalm whose second half has either been worked over, or displaced by i. 11-15, ii. 2, the object of the psalm being to present a general picture of the judgment into which the particular doom of Nineveh is fitted, and to give the prophecy a theological complexion which it appeared to need. The acknowledged vagueness of the chapter and the demonstrably alphabetic nature of at least part of it, certainly render its authenticity very doubtful. The theological interest of Nahum is great. It is the first prophecy dealing exclusively with the enemies of Judah. There is a hint of the sin of Nineveh, but little more than a hint, iii. 1, 4; she is the enemy and oppressor of Judah, and that is enough to justify her doom. Whether we accept the earlier or the later date for the prophecy, the reign of Manasseh or that of Josiah, the moral condition of Judah herself was deplorable enough, and so clear-eyed a prophet as Jeremiah saw that her doom was inevitable. Nahum probably represents the sentiment of narrowly patriotic party, which regarded Jerusalem as inviolable, and Jehovah as a jealous God ready to take vengeance upon the enemies of Judah. HABAKKUK The precise interpretation of the book of Habakkuk presents unusual difficulties; but, brief and difficult as it is, it is clear that Habakkuk was a great prophet, of earnest, candid soul, and he has left us one of the noblest and most penetrating words in the history of religion, ii. 4_b_. The prophecy may be placed about the year 600 B.C. The Assyrian empire had fallen, and by the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., Babylonian supremacy was practically established over Western Asia. Josiah's reformation, whose effects had been transient and superficial, lay more than twenty years behind. The reckless Jehoiakim was upon the throne of Judah, a king who regarded neither the claims of justice (Jer. xxii. 13-19) nor the words of the prophet (Jer. xxxvi. 23), and his rebellion drew upon him and his land the terrible vengeance of Babylon, first in 601 B.C., then in 597. The prophet begins by asking his God how long the lamentable disorder and wrong are to continue, i. 1-4. For answer, he is assured that the Chaldeans are to be raised up in chastisement, who, with their terrible army, will mockingly defy every attempt to check their advance, i. 5-11, But in i. 12-17 the prophet appears to be confounded by their impiety; they have been guilty of barbarous cruelty--how can Jehovah reconcile this with His own holiness and purity? The prophet finds the answer to his question when he climbs his tower of faith; there he learns that the proud shall perish and the righteous live. The solution may be long delayed, but faith sees and grasps it already: "The just shall live by his faithfulness," ii. 1-4. Then follows a series of woes, ii. 5-20, which expand the thought of ii. 4_a_--the sure destruction of the proud. Woes are denounced upon the cruel rapacity of the conquerors, their unjust accumulation of treasure, their futile ambitions, their unfeeling treatment of the land, beasts and people, and finally their idolatry. In contrast to the stupid and impotent gods worshipped by the oppressor is the great God of Israel, whose temple is in the heavens, and before whom the earth is summoned to silence, ii. 20. For He is on His way to take vengeance upon the enemies of His people, as He did in the ancient days of the exodus, when He came in the terrors of the storm and overthrew the Egyptians. His coming is described in terms of older theophanies (Jud. v., Deut. xxxiii.); and this "prayer," as it is called in the superscription, concludes with an expression of unbounded confidence and joy in Jehovah, even when all customary and visible signs of His love fail (iii.). Simple and coherent as this sequence seems to be, it is, in reality, on closer inspection, very perplexing. Ch. i. 1-4 reveals a picture of confusion within Judah, but it is impossible to say whether it is foreigners who are oppressing Judah as a whole, or powerful classes within Judah itself that are oppressing the poor. Perhaps the latter is the more natural interpretation. In that case, the Chaldeans are raised up to chastise the native oppressor, i. 5-11. This section, however, has fresh difficulties of its own; _vv_. 5, 6 suggest that the Chaldeans are not yet known to be a formidable power, they are only about to be raised up, _v_. 6, and what they will do is as yet incredible, _v_. 5. The minute description which follows, however, looks as if their military appearance and methods were thoroughly familiar. Assuming that i. 12-17 is the continuation of i. 5-ll--and the descriptions are very similar--the Chaldeans, whose coming was the answer to the prophet's prayer, now constitute a fresh problem; they swallow up those who are more righteous than themselves, _v_. 13, i.e. Judah. It cannot be denied that such a characterization of Judah sounds strange after the charge levelled at her in i. 1-4, unless we assume an interval of time between the sections, or at least that in i. 12-17, Judah is regarded as relatively righteous, i.e. in comparison with the Chaldeans. The situation is further complicated by the very close resemblance that prevails between i. 1-4 and i. 12-17. The very same words for _righteous_ and _wicked_ occur in i. 13 as in i. 4; do they or do they not designate the same persons? If they do, then, as in i. 12-17, the wicked oppressor is almost certainly the Chaldean and the righteous is Judah, and we shall have to interpret the confusion pictured in i. 2-4 as due to the Chaldean suzerainty, and perhaps to assign the section to a period after the first capture of Jerusalem in 597 B.C. In that case, as it is obvious that the Chaldeans could not be raised up to execute divine judgment upon themselves, the section, i. 5-11, would have to be regarded as an independent piece, whether Habakkuk's or not, announcing the rise of the Chaldeans, and not inappropriately placed here, considering that the sections on both sides of it have the Chaldeans for their theme. On the other hand, however, it may be urged that the identification of the righteous and wicked in i. 13 with i. 4, though natural,[1] is not necessary; and by denying it the prophecy becomes distinctly more coherent. The wrong done by Judah, i. 1-4, is avenged by the coming of the Chaldeans, i. 5-11; they, however, having overstepped the limits of their divine commission, only aggravate the prophet's problem, i. 12-17, and he finally finds the solution on his watch-tower, in the assurance that somehow, despite all seeming delay, the purpose of God is hastening on to its fulfilment, and that the moral constitution of the world is such as to spell the ultimate ruin of cruelty and pride and the ultimate triumph of righteousness, ii. 1-4. His faith was historically justified by the fall of the Babylonian empire in 538 B.C. [Footnote 1: Some scholars feel so strongly that the historical background of i. 1-4 and i. 12-17 is the same, that they regard the latter section as the direct continuation of the former. Budde, followed by Cornill, ingeniously supposes that the oppressor in these two sections is the Assyrian (about 615 B.C.), and it is this power that the Chaldeans, i. 5-11, are raised up to chastise. These scholars put i. 5-11 after ii. 4 as a historical amplification of its moral and more indefinite statement. But the strength of Habakkuk rather seems to lie in this, that he abandons the immediate historical solution, i. 5, and is content with the moral one, ii. 4, though no doubt he believes that the moral solution will realize itself in history.] The authenticity[1] of some of the woes in ch. ii. may be contested, e.g. _vv._ 12-14, which appears to be a partial reproduction of Jer. li. 58, Isa. xi. 9. It is very improbable that ch. iii. is Habakkuk's: it is not even certain that the poem is a unity. The situation in _vv._ 17-19 (especially _v._ 17) seems different from that in the rest of the chapter: there an enemy was feared, here rather infertility. Again the general temper of the ode is hardly that of ii. 3, 4. There the vision was to be delayed, here the interposition seems to be impatiently awaited and expected soon. If "thine anointed" in iii. 13 refers to the people--and the parallelism makes this almost certain--then the days of the monarchy are over and the poem cannot be earlier than the exile. Probably, as the superscription, subscription, and threefold _Selah_ suggest, we have here a post-exilic psalm. The psalm, however, is fittingly enough associated with the prophecy of Habakkuk. Its belief in the accomplishment of the divine purpose and its emphasis on a faith independent of the things of sight, are akin in spirit, though not in form to ii. 4. [Footnote 1: Marti explains the book thus: (_a_) i. 2-4, 12_a_, 13, ii. 1-4, a psalm, belonging to the fifth or perhaps the second century, giving the divine answer to the plaint that judgment is delayed; (_b_) i. 5-11, 12_b_, 14-17, a prophecy about 605 B.C. dealing with the effect of the battle of Carchemish; (_c_) ii. 5-19, the woes: about 540, when the Chaldean empire is nearing its end; (_d_) iii., a post-exilic psalm.] Patience and faith are the watch-words of Habakkuk, ii. 3, 4. There was a time when he had expected an adequate historical solution to his doubts in his own day, i. 5; but, as he contemplates the immoral progress of the Chaldeans, he recognizes his difficulty to be only aggravated by this solution, and he is content to commit the future to God. He is comforted and strengthened by a larger vision of the divine purpose and its inevitable triumph--if not now, then hereafter. "Though it tarry, wait for it, for it is sure to come, it will not lag behind." That purpose wills the triumph of justice, and though the righteous may seem to perish, in reality he lives, and shall continue to live, by his faithfulness. ZEPHANIAH If the Hezekiah who was Zephaniah's great-great-grandfather, i. 1, was, as is probable, the king of that name, then Zephaniah was a prince as well as a prophet, and this may lend some point to his denunciation of the princes who imitated foreign customs, i. 8. He prophesied in the reign of Josiah, i. 1, and the fact that he censures not the king but the king's children, i. 8, points to the period when Josiah was still a minor (about or before 626 B.C.). With this coincides his description of the moral and religious condition of Judah, which necessitates a date prior to the reformation in 621. Idolatry, star-worship and impure Jehovah-worship are rampant, i. 4, 5, 9. The rich are easy-going and indifferent to religion, supposing that God will leave the world to itself, i. 12. The people of Jerusalem are incorrigible, iii. 2, reckless of the lessons that God has written in nature and history, iii. 5ff.; their leaders--princes, prophets, priests--are immoral or incompetent. The prophecy may be placed between 630 and 626, and the prophet must have been a young man. To this idolatrous and indifferent people he announces the speedy coming of the day of Jehovah, whose terrors he describes with a certain solemn grandeur (i.). The judgment is practically inevitable, i. 18, but it may perhaps yet be averted by an earnest quest of Jehovah, ii, 1-3. That judgment will sweep along the coast through the Philistine country, ii. 4-7, and on to Egypt, and afterwards turn northwards and utterly destroy Assyria with her great capital Nineveh, ii. 12-15. Again the prophet turns to Jerusalem, and for the sins of her people and their leaders proclaims a general day of judgment, from which, however, the humble will be saved, iii. 1-13 (except _vv_. 9, 10.). The book ends with a fine vision of the latter days, when the dispersed of Judah will be restored to their own land, and rejoice in the omnipotent love of their God, iii. 14-20. The prophecy presents a very impressive picture of the day of Jehovah, but it cannot all be from the pen of Zephaniah. Besides adopting a very different attitude towards Jerusalem from the rest of the prophecy, iii. 14-20 clearly presupposes the exile, _v_. 19, towards the end of which it was probably written. Ch. ii. 11, iii. 9, 10, containing ideas which are hardly earlier than Deutero-Isaiah, are also probably exilic or post-exilic. The oracle against Moab and Ammon, ii. 8-10, countries which lay off the line of the Scythian march southwards from Philistia, _v_. 7, to Egypt, _v_. 12, are for linguistic, contextual, and other reasons, also probably late. Prophecy has practically always an historical occasion, and the thought of the black and terrible day of Jehovah was no doubt suggested to Zephaniah by the formidable bands of roving Scythians which scoured Western Asia about this time, sweeping all before them (Hdt. i. 105). They do not seem to have touched Judah; but it is not surprising that men like Jeremiah and Zephaniah should have regarded them as divinely ordained ministers of vengeance upon Jehovah's degenerate people. HAGGAI The post-exilic age sharply distinguished itself from the pre-exilic (Zech. i. 4), and nowhere is the difference more obvious than in prophecy. Post-exilic prophecy has little of the literary or moral power of earlier prophecy, but it would be very easy to do less than justice to Haggai. His prophecy is very short; into two chapters is condensed a summary, probably not even in his own words, of no less than four addresses. Meagre as they may seem to us, they produced a great effect on those who heard them. The addresses were delivered between September and December in the year 520 B.C. The people were suffering from a drought, and in the first address, i. 1-11, Haggai interprets this as a penalty for their indifference to religion--in particular, for their neglect to build the temple. The effect of the appeal was that three weeks afterwards a beginning was made upon the building, i. 12-15. The people, however, seem to be discouraged by the scantiness of their resources, and a month afterwards Haggai has to appeal to them again, reminding them that with the silver and the gold, which are His, Jehovah will soon make the new temple more glorious than the old, ii. 1-9. Two months later the prophet again reminds them that, as their former unholy indifference had infected all their life with failure, so loyal devotion to the work now would ensure success and blessing, ii. 10-19; and on the same day Haggai assures Zerubbabel a unique place in the Messianic kingdom which is soon to be ushered in, ii. 20-23. The appeals of Haggai and Zechariah were successful (Ezra v. 1, vi. 14), and within four years the temple was rebuilt (Ezra vi. 15). It was now the centre of national life, and therefore also of prophetic interest. Haggai was probably not himself a priest, but in so short a prophecy his elaborate allusion to ritual is very significant, ii. 11ff. This prophecy, like pre-exilic prophecy, was no doubt conditioned by the historical situation. The allusion to the shaking of the world in ii. 7, 22, appears to be a reflection of the insurrections which broke out all over the Persian empire on the accession of Darius to the throne in 521 B.C.; and probably the Jews were encouraged by the general commotion to make a bold bid for the re-establishment of an independent national life. That they cherished the ambition of being once more a political as well as a religious force, seems to be suggested by the frequency with which Haggai links the name of Zerubbabel, of the royal line of Judah, with that of Joshua the high priest; and, in particular, by the extraordinary language applied to him--in ii. 23 he is the elect of Jehovah, His servant and signet. Clearly he is to be king in the Messianic kingdom which is to issue out of the convulsion of the world. It cannot be safely inferred from ii. 3 that Haggai was among those who had seen the temple of Solomon and was therefore a very old man. Simple as are his words, his faith is strong and his hope very bold. Considering the meagre resources of the post-exilic community, it is touching to note the confidence with which he assures the people that Jehovah will bring together the treasures of the world to make His temple glorious. ZECHARIAH CHAPTERS I-VIII Two months after Haggai had delivered his first address to the people in 520 B.C., and a little over a month after the building of the temple had begun (Hag. i. 15), Zechariah appeared with another message of encouragement. How much it was needed we see from the popular despondency reflected in Hag. ii. 3, Jerusalem is still disconsolate (Zech. i. 17), there has been fasting and mourning, vii. 5, the city is without walls, ii. 5, the population scanty, ii. 4, and most of the people are middle-aged, few old or young, viii. 4, 5. The message they need is one of consolation and encouragement, and that is precisely the message that Zechariah brings: "I have determined in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not," viii. 15. The message of Zechariah comes in the peculiar form of visions, some of them resting apparently on Babylonian art, and not always easy to interpret. After an earnest call to repentance, i. 1-6, the visions begin, i. 7-vi. 8. In the first vision, i. 7-17, the earth, which has been troubled, is at rest; the advent of the Messianic age may therefore be expected soon. The divine promise is given that Jerusalem shall be graciously dealt with and the temple rebuilt. The second is a vision, i. 18-21, of the annihilation of the heathen world represented by four horns. The third vision (ii.)--that of a young man with a measuring-rod--announces that Jerusalem will be wide and populous, the exiles will return to it, and Jehovah will make His abode there. These first three visions have to do, in the main, with the city and the people; the next two deal more specifically with the leaders of the restored community on its civil and religious side, Zerubbabel the prince and Joshua the priest. In the fourth vision (iii.) Joshua is accused by the Adversary and the accuser is rebuked--symbolic picture of the misery of the community and its imminent redemption. Joshua is to have full charge of the temple, and he and his priests are the guarantee that the Branch, i.e. the Messianic king (Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii, 15), no doubt Zerubbabel (Zech, iii. 8, vi. 12; Hag. ii. 23), is coming. In the fifth vision (iv.)[1] the prophet sees a lampstand with seven lamps and an olive tree on either side, the trees representing the two anointed leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, enjoying the divine protection. [Footnote 1: Except vv. 6b-10a, which appears to be a special assurance, hardly here in place, that Zerubbabel would finish the temple which he had begun.] The next two visions elaborate the promise of iii. 9: "I will remove the iniquity of that land,"--and indicate the removal of all that taints the land of Judah, alike sin and sinners. The flying roll of the sixth vision, v. 1-4, carries the curse that will fall upon thieves and perjurers; and in the somewhat grotesque figure of the seventh vision, v. 5-11, Sin is personified as a woman and borne away in a closed cask by two women with wings like storks, to the land of Shinar, i.e. Babylon, there to work upon the enemy of Judah the ruin she has worked for Judah herself. In the last vision, vi. 1-8, which is correlate with the first--four chariots issuing from between two mountains of brass--the divine judgment is represented as being executed upon the north country, i.e. the country opposed to God, and particularly Babylonia. The cumulative effect of the visions is very great. All that hinders the coming of the Messianic days is to be removed, whether it be the great alien world powers or the sinners within Jerusalem itself. The purified city will be blessed with prosperity of every kind, and over her civil and religious affairs will be two leaders, who enjoy a unique measure of the divine favour. In an appendix to the visions vi. 9-15, Zechariah is divinely commissioned to make a crown for Zerubbabel (or for him and Joshua)[1] out of the gold and silver brought by emissaries of the Babylonian Jews, and the hope is expressed that peace will prevail between the leaders--a hope through which we may perhaps read a growing rivalry. [Footnote 1: It seems practically certain that the original prophecy in _v_. 11 has been subsequently modified, doubtless because it was not fulfilled. The last clause of _v_. 13--"the counsel of peace shall be between them _both"_--shows that two persons have just been mentioned. The preceding clause must therefore be translated, not as in A. V. and R. V., "and _he_ shall be a priest upon his throne," as if the office of king and priest were to be combined in a single person, but "and _there_ shall be" (or, as Wellhausen suggests, "and _Joshua_ shall be") "a priest upon his throne," (or no doubt more correctly, with the Septuagint, "a priest _at his right hand_"). As two persons are involved, and the word "crowns" in v. 11 is in the plural, it has been supposed that the verse originally read, "set the crowns _upon the head of Zerubbabel and_ upon the head of Joshua." On the other hand, in _v_. 14 the word "crown" must be read in the singular, and should probably also be so read in _v_. 11 (though even the plural could refer to one crown). In that case, if there be but one crown, who wears it? Undoubtedly Zerubbabel: he is the Branch, iii. 8, and the Branch is the Davidic king (Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15). The building of the temple here assigned to the Branch, vi. 12, is elsewhere expressly assigned to Zerubbabel, iv. 9. It is, therefore, he who is crowned: in other words, v. 11, may have originally read, "set it _upon the head of Zerubbabel._" Whether we accept this solution or the other, it seems certain that the original prophecy contemplated the crowning of Zerubbabel. As the hopes that centred upon Zerubbabel were never fulfilled, the passage was subsequently modified to its present form.] The concluding chapters of the prophecy (vii., viii.), delivered two years later than the rest of the book, vii. 1, are occupied with the ethical conditions of the impending Messianic kingdom. To the question whether the fast-days which commemorated the destruction of Jerusalem are still to be observed, Zechariah answers that the ancient demands of Jehovah had nothing to do with fasting, but with justice and mercy. As former disobedience had been followed by a divine judgment, so would obedience now be rewarded with blessing, fast-days would be turned into days of joy and gladness, and the blessing would be so great that representatives of every nation would be attracted to Jerusalem, to worship the God of the Jews. In Zechariah even more than in Haggai it is clear that prophecy has entered upon a new stage.[1] There is the same concentration of interest upon the temple, the same faith in the unique importance of Zerubbabel. But the apocalyptic element, though not quite a new thing, is present on a scale altogether new to prophecy. Again, the transcendence of God is acutely felt--the visions have to be interpreted by an angel. We see, too, in the book the rise of the idea of Satan (iii.) and of the conception of sin as an independent force, v. 5-11. The yearning for the annihilation of the kingdoms opposed to Judah, i. 18-21, has a fine counterpart in the closing vision, viii. 22, 23, of the nations flocking to Jerusalem because they have heard that God is there. The book is of great historical value, affording as it does contemporary evidence of the drooping hopes of the early post-exilic community, and of the new manner in which this disappointment was met by prophecy. But, though Zechariah's message was largely concerned with the building of the temple, and was delivered for the most part in terms of vision and apocalyptic, the ethical elements on which the "former prophets" had laid the supreme emphasis, were by no means forgotten, viii. 16, 17. [Footnote 1: Zechariah himself is conscious of the distinction, which is more than a temporal one, between himself and the pre-exilic prophets: notice the manner of his allusion to the "former prophets," i. 4, vii. 7, 12.] CHAPTERS IX.-XIV. Practically all the distinctive features of the first eight chapters disappear in ix.-xiv. The style and the historical presuppositions are altogether different. There are two new superscriptions, ix. 1, xii. 1, but there is no reference to Zerubbabel, Joshua, or the situation of their time. There the immediate problem was the building of the temple; here, more than once, Jerusalem is represented as in a state of siege. A sketch of the contents will show how unlike the one situation is to the other. The general theme of ix. 1-xi. 3 is the destruction of the world-powers and the establishment of the kingdom of God. Judgment is declared at the outset upon Damascus, Phoenicia and Philistia, while Jerusalem is to enjoy the divine protection and to be the seat of the Messianic King, ix. 1-9. Greece, the great enemy, will be overcome by Judah and Ephraim, who are but weapons in Jehovah's hand, ix. 10-17. Then follows[1] a passage in which "the shepherds" are threatened with a dire fate. Judah receives a promise of victory, and Ephraim is assured that her exiles will be gathered and brought home from Egypt and Assyria to Gilead and Lebanon; the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan--types perhaps of foreign rulers--will be laid low, x. 3-xi. 3. [Footnote 1: Ch. x. 1, 2 appears to stand by itself. It is an injunction to bring the request for rain to Jehovah and to put no faith in teraphim and diviners.] The next section is of a different kind. In it the prophet is divinely commissioned to tend the flock which has been neglected and impoverished by other shepherds. To this end he takes two staves, named Favour and Unity, to indicate respectively the favour enjoyed by Judah in her relations with her neighbours, and the unity subsisting between her and Israel (or Jerusalem, according to two codices); and thus invested with the instruments of the pastoral office he destroyed three shepherds in a short time. But the flock grew tired of him, and, in consequence he broke the staves, i.e. the relations of favour and unity were ruptured. A foolish and careless shepherd is then raised up, who abuses the flock, and over him a woe is pronounced, xi. 4-17, more minutely defined in xiii. 7-9, which appears to have been misplaced. Jehovah will slay the shepherd and scatter the sheep; a third of the flock after being purified by fire will constitute the people of Jehovah. The next section, xii. 1-xiii. 6, introduces us to a siege of Jerusalem by the heathen, abetted by Judah. Suddenly, however, Judah changes sides; by the help of Jehovah they destroy the heathen, and Jerusalem is saved, xii. 1-8. Then the people and their leaders are moved by the outpouring of the spirit to confess and entreat forgiveness for some judicial murder which they have committed and which they publicly and bitterly lament, xii. 9-14. The prayer is answered; people and leaders are cleansed in a fountain opened, with the result that idolatry and prophecy of the ancient public type are abjured, xiii. 1-6. The theme of the last section also (xiv.) is a heathen attack upon Jerusalem, but this time the city is destroyed and half the inhabitants exiled. Then Jehovah intervenes, and by a miracle upon the Mount of Olives the rest of the people effect their escape, and Jehovah Fights with all His angels against the heathen. Those glorious Messianic days, when Jehovah will be King over all the earth, will know no heat or cold, or change from light to darkness. Jerusalem will be secure and the land about her level and fruitful, watered east and west by a living stream. Those who have made war against her will waste away, while the rest of the world will make pilgrimages to the holy city to worship Jehovah and celebrate the feast of booths. Then the mighty war-horses, once the object of His hatred, will be consecrated to His service, and the number of pilgrims will be so great that every pot in the city and in the province of Judah will be needed for ceremonial purposes. Few problems in the Old Testament are more perplexing than that of the origin and relation of the sections composing, ix.-xiv. to one another. The utmost that can be said with comparative certainty is that the prophecy, in its present form, is post-exilic, while certain elements in it, especially in ix.-xi., are, if not pre-exilic, at any rate imitations or reminiscences of pre-exilic prophecy. Many scholars even deny that ix.-xiv. is a unity and assign it to at least two authors. Though the superscription in xii. 1, which seems to justify this distinction, was probably added, like Malachi i. i, by a later hand, the presence of certain broad distinctions between ix.-xi. and xii.-xiv. can hardly be denied. In the former section, Ephraim is occasionally mentioned in combination with Judah, cf. ix. 13; in the latter, Judah alone is mentioned, and partly, on the strength of this, the former section is assigned to a period between Tiglath Pileser's invasion of the north of Palestine in 734 (xi. 1-3) and the fall of the northern kingdom in 721, while the latter is assigned to a period between the death of Josiah in 609, to which the mourning in Megiddo is supposed to allude, xii. 11, and the fall of the southern kingdom in 586. Even within these sections there are differences which are held to be incompatible with the unity of each section. The most notable difference is perhaps that affecting the siege of Jerusalem. In ch. xii. the heathen are destroyed before Jerusalem, while the city itself remains secure; in ch. xiv. the houses are rifled, the women ravished, and half of the people go into captivity before Jehovah intervenes to protect the remainder. These and other differences are unmistakable, yet it may be questioned whether they are so serious as to be fatal to the unity of the whole section, ix.-xiv. It is not impossible that they may be due to the eclectic spirit of an author who gathered from many quarters material for his eschatological pictures. Besides, the sections which have been by some scholars relegated to different authors, occasionally seem to imply each other. The general assault on Jerusalem in ch. xii., e.g., is the natural result of the breaking of the staves, Favour and Unity, in ch. xi. But, even if ix.-xiv. be a unity, it is well to remember, as Cornill reminds us, that there is "much in these chapters which will ever remain obscure and unintelligible, because our knowledge of the whole post-exilic and especially of the early Hellenic period is extremely deficient." This leads to the question of date. The last section (xii.-xiv.) at any rate is obviously post-exilic. The idea of the general assault on Jerusalem is undoubtedly suggested by Ezekiel xxxviii.; the curiously condemnatory attitude to prophecy in xiii. 2-6 would have been impossible in pre-exilic times; the phrase, "Uzziah _king of Judah_," xiv. 5, rather implies that the dynasty is past, and the reference to the earthquake in his reign has the flavour of a learned reminiscence.[1] These and other circumstances practically necessitate a post-exilic date, and the objection based upon xii. 11 falls to the ground, as that verse alludes, in all probability, not to lamentations for the death of Josiah, which would no doubt have taken place in Jerusalem, but to laments which accompanied the worship of the Semitic Adonis. Nor can any objection be grounded upon the allusion to idolatry in xiii. 2, as idolatry persisted into post-exilic times.[2] [Footnote 1: Even if the earliest possible date (about 600) for this section be accepted, the earthquake had taken place a century and a half before.] [Footnote 2: Cf. Job xxxi. 2eff. and perhaps also Ps. xvi.] If ix.-xiv. be a unity, a definite _terminus a quo_ is provided in ix. 13 by the mention of the Greeks, whose sons are opposed to the sons of Zion. Such a relation of Jews to Greeks is not conceivable before the time of Alexander the Great, and this fact alone would throw the prophecy, at the earliest, into the fourth century B.C. But there are other facts which seem to some to make for a pre-exilic date: e.g. the mention of Judah and Ephraim together, ix. 13 (cf. ix. 10), seems to presuppose the existence of both kingdoms, and Egypt and Assyria are placed side by side, x. 10, 11, precisely in the manner of Hosea (ix. 3, xi. 5). But these facts, significant as they may seem, are by no means decisive in favour of a pre-exilic date. Assyria was the first great world power with which Israel came into hostile contact, and the name was not unnaturally transferred by later ages to the hostile powers of their own day--to Babylon in Lam. v. 6, to Persia in Ezra vi. 22, and possibly to Syria in Isaiah xxvii. 13. Consequently, in a context which assigns the passage, at the earliest, to the Greek period, Assyria and Egypt would very naturally designate the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms respectively, and the prophecy might be safely relegated to the third century, B.C.[1] The allusion to Ephraim is not incompatible with this date, for the prophecy presupposes a general dispersion, x. 9, which must be later than the fall of Judah in 586, considering that residence in Egypt, x. 10, is implied (cf. Jer. xlii.-xliv.). Nothing more need be implied by the allusion to Ephraim than that there will be a general restoration of all the tribes that were once driven into exile and are now scattered throughout the world. [Footnote 1: Marti puts it as late as 160. One of the most important clues would be furnished by xi. 8--"I cut off the three shepherds in one month"--if the reference were not so cryptic. Advocates of a pre-exilic date find in the words an allusion to three successors of Jeroboam II. of Israel--Zechariah, Shallum and some unknown pretender (about 740); others, to the rapid succession of high priests before the Maccabean wars (about 170). One month probably signifies generally a brief time.] If chs. ix.-xiv. belong to the third century B.C., they give us an interesting glimpse into the aspirations and defects of later Judaism. They reveal an unbounded faith in the importance of Jerusalem, and in the certainty of its triumph over the assaults of heathenism; on the other hand, they are inspired by a fine universalism, xiv. 16ff. But this universalism has a distinctly Levitical and legalistic colouring, xiv. 21. Membership in the kingdom of God involves abstinence from food proscribed by the Levitical law, ix. 7; and even for the heathen the worship of Jehovah takes the form of the celebration of the feast of booths, xiv. 16. There is in the prophecy a noble appreciation of the world-wide destiny of the true religion, but hardly of its essentially spiritual nature. MALACHI It is not inappropriate that Malachi,[1] though not the latest of the prophets, should close the prophetic collection. The concluding words of this book, which predict the coming of the great prophet Elijah, iv. 5f, and the apocalyptic tone of Malachi, show that prophecy feels itself unable to cope adequately with the moral situation and is conscious of its own decline. Here, as in Haggai, interest gathers round ritual rather than moral obligation, though the latter is not neglected, iii. 5, and the religion for which Malachi pleads is far from being exhausted by ritual. He takes a lofty view, approaching to Jesus' own, of the obligations of the marriage relation, ii. 16; and perfunctory ritual he abhors, chiefly because it expresses a deep-seated indifference to God and His claims, iii. 8. The clergy or the laity who offer God their lame or blemished beasts are guilty of an offence that goes deeper than ritual. Their whole ideal of religion and service is insulting; they have forgotten that Jehovah is "a great King," i. 14. [Footnote 1: Ch. i. 1 is late, modelled, like Zech. xii. 1 on Zech. ix. 1. The word Malachi has no doubt been suggested by _Malachi_ in iii. i (= my messenger). The prophecy is really anonymous.] The prophecy of Malachi is closely knit together. Addressing a people who doubt the love of their God, he begins by pointing-strangely enough from the Christian standpoint, but intelligibly enough from that of early post-exilic Judaism--to the desolation of Edom, Judah's enemy (cf. Obadiah) in poof of that love, i. 2-5; and asks how Judah has responded to it. The priests present inferior offerings, thus forming, in their insulting indifference, a strange contrast to the untutored heathen hearts all the world over, which offer God pure service; they have put to shame the ancient ideals, i. 6-ii. 9. The people, too, are as guilty as the priests; for they had divorced their faithful Jewish wives who had borne them children, and married foreign women who were a menace to the purity of the national religion, ii. 10-16. Those who are beginning to doubt the moral order because Jehovah does not manifestly interpose as the God of justice, are assured by the prophet that the Lord, preceded by a messenger, is on His way; and He will punish, first the unfaithful priests, and then the unfaithful people, ii. 17-iii. 5. His apparent indifference to the people is due to their real indifference to Him; if they bring in the tithes, the blessing will come, iii. 6-12. As before, ii. 17ff., the despondent are assured that Jehovah has not forgotten them; He is writing their names in a book, and when He comes in judgment, the faithful will be spared, and then the difference between the destinies of the good and the bad will be plain for all to see. The wicked shall be trampled under foot, and upon the dark world in which the upright mourn shall arise the sun, from whose gentle rays will stream healing for bruised minds and hearts, iii. 13-iv. 4. Before that day Elijah will come to heal the dissensions of the home, iv. 5, 6. (cf. ii. 14). The atmosphere of the book of Malachi is very much like that of Ezra-Nehemiah. The same problems emerge in both--foreign marriages, neglect of payment of tithes, etc. But the allusion to the presents given the governor, i. 8, shows that the book was not written during the governorship of Nehemiah, who claims to have accepted no presents (Neh. v. 14-18). On the other hand, the state of affairs presented by the book is inconceivable after the measures adopted by Ezra and Nehemiah; therefore, Malachi must precede them. Probably however, not by much; it was Malachi and others like-minded who prepared the way for the reformation, and his date may be roughly fixed at 460-450 B.C. Consistently with this, the priests are designated Levites, ii. 4, iii. 3, as in Deuteronomy; the book must therefore precede the priestly code which sharply distinguishes priests and Levites. There is an unusual proportion of dialogue in Malachi. Good men are perplexed by the anomalies of the moral order, and they are not afraid to debate them. Malachi's solution is largely, though not exclusively, iii. 8-12, apocalyptic; and though in this, as in his emphasis on the cult, iii. 4, and his attitude to Edom, i. 2ff., he stands upon the level of ordinary Judaism, in other respects he rises far above it. Coming from one to whom correct ritual meant so much, his utterance touching heathen worship is not only refreshingly, but astonishingly bold. In all the Old Testament, there is no more generous outlook upon the foreign world than that of i. 11. Though the priests of the temple at Jerusalem insult the name of Jehovah and are wearied with His service, yet "from sunrise to sunset My name is great among the (heathen) nations, and in every place pure offerings are offered to My name; for great is My name among the heathen, saith Jehovah of hosts." PSALMS The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius of Hebrew poetry to lay little stress upon artifices of rhyme and rhythm. By its simple device of parallelism, it suggests a rhythm profounder than the sound of any words--the response of thought to thought, the calling of deep to deep, the solemn harmonies that run throughout the universe. Whether the second thought of a verse is co-ordinate with the first, as-- Let us break their bands asunder, And cast away their cords from us, ii 3. or contrasted with it, as-- Jehovah knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish, i. 6, the resulting parallelism is essentially simple, and the Hebrew poet can express his profoundest thoughts and feelings with lucidity and freedom. It is the depth and sincerity of its emotion, coupled with this unrivalled simplicity of expression that has given the Psalter its abiding-place in the religious history of humanity. With the partial exception of Psalm xlv., which is a marriage song, the songs of the Psalter are exclusively religious. Indeed most of the poetry of the Old Testament is religious; the Song of Deborah, e.g. (Jud. v.), or the Psalm of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii.). But, from scattered hints it is abundantly plain that, especially before the exile, Hebrew poetry must have ranged over a wide variety of themes. So far as we know, the Hebrews never had an epic; and though a certain epic power is occasionally suggested by the extant literature, it may be doubted whether the Hebrew genius, which was essentially lyrical, would have been capable of the long sustained effort demanded by a great epic. But the lyrical genius of the Hebrew found abundant opportunity in life's common joys, sorrows and activities. Victories in battle were celebrated in ballads, which made the blood leap, love songs were sung at weddings, and dirges were chanted over the dead. The labour of drawing water, of reaping the fields or gathering the vintage, was relieved by snatches of song. There was all this and more, but it has nearly all perished, leaving little more than an echo, because the men who compiled and edited the Old Testament were dominated by an exclusively religious interest. But if the interest of the Psalter be exclusively religious, we have no reason to complain of its variety. From the deepest despair to the highest exaltation, every mood of the soul is uttered there. Many a classification of the Psalter has been attempted, e.g. into (_a_) psalms of gladness, such as thanksgiving (xlvi.), adoration (viii.); (_b_) psalms of sadness, such as lamentation (lxxiv.), confession (li.), supplication (cii.); (_c_) psalms of reflection, such as the occasional didactic poetry (cxix.), or discussions of the moral order (lxxiii.). But in the nature of the case, no classification can ever hope to be completely satisfactory, if for no other reason than that the psalms, being for the most part lyrics, are often marked by subtle and rapid changes of feeling, passing sometimes, as in Psalm xxii., from the most touching laments to the most daring expressions of hope and gladness. The following classification, though exposed, as all such classifications must be, to the charge of cross-division, will afford a working basis for the study of the Psalter:-- (1) Psalms of Adoration, including (_a_) adoration of God for His revelation in nature, viii., xix. 1-6, xxix., civ.; (_b_) adoration of Him for His love to His people, xxxiii., ciii., cxi., cxiii., cxv., cxvii., cxlvii.; (_c_) praise of His glorious kingdom, cxlv., cxlvi., ending with the call to universal praise, cxlviii., cl. (2) Psalms of Reflection (_a_) upon the moral order of the world, ix., x., xi., xiv., xxxvi., xxxvii., xxxix., xlix., lii., lxii., lxxiii., lxxv., lxxxii., xc., xcii., xciv.; (_b_) upon Divine Providence, xvi., xxiii., xxxiv., xci., cxii., cxxi., cxxv., cxxvii., cxxviii., cxxxiii., cxxxix., cxliv. 12-15; (_c_) on the value of Scripture, i., xix. 7-14, cxix.; (_d_) on the nature of the ideal man, xv., xxiv. 1-6, l. (3) Psalms of Thanksgiving, most of them for historical deliverances, e.g. from the exile, or from the Syrians in the second century B.C., xxx., xl., xlvi., xlviii., lxv., lxvi., lxvii., lxviii., lxxvi., cxvi., cxviii., cxxiv., cxxvi., cxxix., cxxxviii., cxliv. 1-11, cxlix. (4) Psalms in Celebration of Worship, v., xxiv., 7-10, xxvi., xxvii., xlii.-xliii., lxxxiv., cxxii., cxxxiv. (5) Historical Psalms (_a_) emphasizing the unfaithfulness of the people, lxxviii., lxxxi., cvi.; (_b_) emphasizing the love or power of God, cv., cxiv., cxxxv., cxxxvi. (6) Imprecatory Psalms, lviii, lix., lxix., lxxxiii., cix., cxxxvii. (7) Penitential Psalms, vi., xxxii., xxxviii., li., cii., cxxx., cxliii. (8) Psalms of Petition (_a_) prayers for deliverance, preservation or restoration, iii., iv., vii., xii., xiii., xvii., xxv., xxxi., xxxv., xli., xliv., liv., lv., lx., lxiv., lxxi., lxxiv., lxxvii., lxxix., lxxx., lxxxv., lxxxvi., lxxxviii., cxx., cxxiii., cxxxi., cxl., cxli., cxlii; (_b_) answered prayers, xxii., xxviii., lvi., lvii. (9) Royal Psalms (_a_) king's coronation, xxi.; (_b_) marriage, xlv.; (_c_) prayers for his welfare and success, xx., lxi, lxiii.; (_d_) his character, lxxii., ci.; (_e_) dominion, ii., xviii., cx.; (_f_) yearning for the Messianic King, lxxxix., cxxxii. (10) Psalms concerning the universal reign of Jehovah, i.e. Messianic psalms in the largest sense of the word, xlvii., lxxxvii., xciii., xcv., xcvi., xcvii., xcviii., xcix., c. The Psalter has plainly had a long history. In its present form it obviously rests upon groups, which in turn rest upon individual psalms, that are no doubt often far older than the groups in which they stand. Like the Pentateuch, and perhaps in imitation of it, the Psalter is divided into five books, whose close is indicated, in each case, by a doxology (xli., lxxii., lxxxix., cvi.), except in the case of the last psalm, which is itself a doxology (cl.). This division appears to have been artificially effected. Psalm cvii., which starts the last book, goes naturally with cv. and cvi., which close the fourth book; and the circumstance that the number of psalms in the fourth book corresponds exactly with that of the third, raises a strong suspicion that the break was deliberately made at Psalm cvi. It is very probable, too, that the doxology at the close of Psalm cvi. (cf. 1 Chron. xvi. 36), which differs somewhat from the other doxologies, was originally intended as a doxology to that psalm only, and not to indicate the close of the book. In any case, the contents of books 4 and 5, which are very largely liturgical, are so similar that they may be practically considered as one book. Books 2 and 3 may also be similarly regarded; for whereas in books 1, 4 and 5 the name of the divine Being is predominantly Jehovah, in books 2 and 3 it is predominantly Elohim (God), and there can be no doubt that these two books, at least as far as Ps. lxxxiii., have been submitted to an Elohistic redaction. Psalm xiv., _e.g._, reappears in the 2nd book as Psalm liii. in a form practically identical, except for the name of God, which is Jehovah in the one (xiv.) and Elohim in the other (liii.); the change is, therefore, undoubtedly deliberate. This is also made plain by the presence of such impossible phrases as "God, thy God," xlv. 7, 1. 7, instead of the natural and familiar "Jehovah, thy God." Whatever the motive for the choice of this divine name (Elohim) may be, it is so thoroughly characteristic of books 2 and 3 that they may not unfairly be held to constitute a group by themselves. In this way the Psalter falls into three great groups--book I (i.-xli.), which is Jehovistic, books 2 and 3 (xlii.-lxxxix.), which are Elohistic, and books 4 and 5 (xc.-cl.), which are Jehovistic.. These greater groups rest, however, upon other smaller ones, some formally acknowledged, e.g. the so-called Psalms of Ascent or Pilgrim psalms (cxx.-cxxxiv.), the Psalms of David, Psalms of the Korahites (xlii.-xlix., etc.), Psalms of Asaph (lxxiii.-lxxxiii., etc.), and others not so obvious in a translation, e.g. the Hallelujah Psalms, cxi.-cxiii., cxlvi.-cl. These groups must often have enjoyed an independent reputation as groups, and even been invested with a certain canonical authority, for occasionally the same psalm appears in two different groups (xiv.=liii., xl. 13-17=lxx., cviii.=lvii. 7-11 +lx. 6-12). Such repetition proves that the final editors did not consider themselves at liberty to make any change within the groups. The principle of the arrangement of individual psalms within the group was probably not a scientific one: e.g. xxxiv. and xxxv. seem to be placed together for no other reason than that both refer to "the angel of Jehovah," xxxiv. 7, xxxv. 5. Sometimes a psalm has been wrongly divided into two (cf. xlii., xliii., originally one psalm) and occasionally two psalms have been united, usually for reasons that are transparent (so perhaps xix., the revelation in the heavens and the revelation in the Scriptures, and xxiv., the entrance of Jehovah into His temple, and the essential conditions for the entrance of man). The original order of the groups themselves appears to have been dislocated. Whoever added the subscription to Psalm lxxii. can hardly have been aware of the eighteen psalms which, in the subsequent books of the Psalter, are ascribed to David; nor is it natural to suppose that the Asaphic (l.) and Korahitic psalms (xlii.-xlix.) stood in the second book when that subscription was written. It is not improbable that Psalms xlii.-l. originally belonged to the third book, along with the Asaphic group, lxxiii.-lxxxiii., and that lxxii. 20, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended," was intended as the subscription of all the Davidic psalms that had then been collected (Book I, except Pss. i., ii., x., xxxiii., and book 2, Pss. li.-lxx.).[1] The first two books originally represented a Davidic hymn-book; they probably represent, as a whole, the oldest part of the Psalter. [Footnote 1: Psalms i. and ii. were placed at the beginning as prefatory to the whole Psalter. They deal with the two cardinal points of Judaism--the law and the Messianic hope. Psalms ix. and x. originally constituted _one_ alphabetic psalm, and xxxiii. is ascribed to David in the Septuagint.] The problem of the authorship of the Psalms is one of the thorniest in the Old Testament. One hundred psalms are ascribed to definite authors: one is ascribed to Moses (xc.), seventy-three to David, two to Solomon (lxxvii., cxxvii.); and yet there are not a few scholars who maintain that, so far from any psalm being Mosaic, or even Davidic, there is not a single pre-exilic psalm in the Psalter, and the less radical critics do not allow more than thirty or forty. The question must be settled entirely upon internal evidence, as the superscriptions, definite as they often are, are never demonstrably reliable, while some of them are plainly impossible. To begin with, doubt attaches to the meaning of the Hebrew preposition in the phrase, "Psalm _of_ David." It is the same preposition as that rendered by _for_ in the phrase, "For the chief musician," and as in this phrase authorship is out of the question, it may be seriously doubted whether it is implied in the phrase rendered "Psalm of David." This doubt is corroborated by the phrase, "Psalms of the sons of Korah." Plainly all the Korahites did not cooperate in the composition of the psalms so superscribed; and the most natural inference is that the phrase does not here designate authorship, but that the psalm is one of a collection in some sense belonging to or destined for the Korahitic guild of temple-singers. [1] In that case the phrase would have a liturgical sense, and the parallel phrase "of (or for) David," might have to be similarly explained. It must be confessed, however, that whatever the actual origin of the superscription, "of (or for) David," it certainly came to be regarded as implying authorship--the many historical notices in the superscriptions of Psalms li.-lx. are proof enough of that; and no other explanation is possible of the superscription "of Moses" in Psalm, xc (cf. Is. xxxviii. 9, the writing of Hezekiah). [Footnote 1: It is not absolutely impossible that the phrase might point to a collection composed by this guild, cf. "Moravian brethren." But the other supposition is more likely.] In later times, then, authorship was plainly intended by the superscriptions. But it is quite certain that the superscriptions themselves are no original and integral parts of the psalms. In the Septuagint they occasionally differ from the Hebrew, assigning psalms that are anonymous in the Hebrew (xcv., cxxxvii.) to David, or to other authors (e.g., cxlvi.-cxlviii. to Haggai and Zechariah.) The ease with which psalms were, without warrant, ascribed to David may be seen from the Greek superscription to Psalm xcvi. "When the house [i.e. the temple] was being built after the captivity; a song of David": in other words, an admittedly post-exilic psalm is ascribed to David. The superscriptions were added probably long after the psalms, and there is no reason to suppose that the Hebrews were exempt from the uncritical methods and ideas which characterized the Greek translators. That they shared them is abundantly proved by the historical superscriptions. One at least (Ps. xxxiv.) in substituting the name of Abimelech (Gen. xx.) for Achish (1 Sam. xxi.) shows either ignorance or carelessness, and casts a very lurid light on the reliability of the superscriptions. The contents of other psalms are manifestly irreconcilable with the assumed authorship: Asaph, e.g., whom the Chronicles regards as a contemporary of David (1 Chron. xvi 7), laments in Psalms lxxiv., lxxix. the devastation of the temple, which was not at that time in existence. The principles on which the superscriptions were added were altogether superficial and uncritical. Psalm cxxvii. is ascribed to Solomon, chiefly because its opening verse speaks of the building of the house, which was understood to be the temple. So Psalm lxiii. is described as "a psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah," simply on the strength of the words, "My soul thirsteth for thee in a dry and weary land where no water is"--words which are taken literally, though they were undoubtedly intended metaphorically. A parallel case is that of the psalm inserted in Jonah ii., obviously a church psalm whose figurative language has been too literally pressed. Enough has been said to show that the superscriptions are later than the psalms themselves, and often, if not always, unreliable; we are therefore wholly dependent upon internal evidence, and the criteria for Davidic authorship must be sought outside the Psalter. The only absolutely undisputed poems of David's are the elegy over Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel i. and the lament over Abner (2 Sam. iii. 33, 34). There is no means of proving that 2 Samuel xxii. (=Ps. xviii.) and 2 Samuel xxiii. 1-7 are David's, as they are interpolated in a section of Samuel which is itself an interpolation (xxi.-xxiv.), interrupting as it does the continuity of 2 Samuel xx. and I Kings i. The data offered by the elegy are much too slender to enable us to decide whether any particular psalm is David's or not. Some have ventured to ascribe a dozen psalms or so to him on the strength of their peculiar vigour and originality, but obviously all such decisions must be altogether subjective. What is certain is that David was an accomplished musician (1 Sam. xvi. 18) and a great poet (2 Sam. i.), a man of the most varied experience, rich emotional nature and profound religious feeling, a devoted worshipper of Jehovah, and eager to build Him a temple; and it is not impossible that such a man may have written religious songs, but in the nature of the case it can never be proved that he wrote any of the songs in the Psalter. Psalm xviii. has been by many assigned to him with considerable confidence because of the support it is thought to receive from its appearance in a historical book; but besides the fact that this support, as we have seen, is slender, the psalm can hardly, at least in its present form, have come from David. The superscription assigns it to a later period in his life when he had been delivered from all his enemies; but at that time he could not have looked back over the past, stained by his great sin, with the complacency which marks the confession in vv. 20-24. Others have supposed that xxiv. 7-10, with its picture of the entrance of Jehovah through the "ancient gates," may well be his. It may be, if the gates are those of the city; but if, as is more probable, they are the temple gates, then the psalm must be long after the time of Solomon. In the quest for Davidic psalms we can never possibly rise above conjecture. Later ages regarded David as the father of sacred song, just as they regarded Moses as the author of Hebrew law. There can be little doubt, however, that there are pre-exilic psalms or fragments in the Psalter. From Psalm cxxxvii. 3, 4 we may safely infer that already, by the time of the exile, there were songs of Jehovah or songs of Zion. We cannot tell what these songs were like; but when we remember that for nearly two centuries before the exile great prophets had been working--and we cannot suppose altogether ineffectually, for they had disciples--it is difficult to see why, granting the poetic power which the Hebrew had from the earliest times, pious spirits should not have expressed themselves in sacred song, or why some of these songs may not be in the Psalter. We appear to be on tolerably sure ground in at least some of the "royal" psalms. Doubtless it is often very hard to say, as in Psalms ii., lxxii., whether the king is a historical figure or the Messianic King of popular yearning; and possibly (cf. lxxii.) a psalm which originally contemplated a historical king may have been in later times altered or amplified to fit the features of the ideal king. Other psalms, again (e.g., lxxxix., cxxxii.), clearly are the products of a time when the monarchy is no more. But there remain others, expressing, e.g. a wish for the king's welfare (xx., xxi.), which can only be naturally referred to a time when the king was on the throne. It is not absolutely impossible to refer these to the period of the Hasmoneans, who bore the title from the end of the second century B.C.; but the history of the canon renders this supposition extremely improbable. The contents of these psalms are not above pre-exilic possibility, and their position in the first book would, generally speaking, be in favour of the earlier date. Psalm xlv. also, which celebrates the marriage of a king to a foreign princess, seems almost to compel a pre-exilic date. Some scholars, struck by the resemblance between many of the sorrowful psalms and the poetry of Jeremiah, have not hesitated to ascribe some of them to him (cf. xl. 2). Such a judgment is necessarily subjective, but there can be little doubt that Jeremiah powerfully influenced Hebrew religious poetry. The Greek superscriptions, again, which assign certain psalms to Haggai and Zechariah, though doubtless unreliable, are of interest in suggesting the liturgical importance of the period following the return from the exile. This period seems to have produced several psalms. Psalm cxxvi,, with its curiously complex feeling, apparently reflects the situation of that period, and the group of psalms which proclaim Jehovah as King, and ring with the notes of a "new song," were probably composed to celebrate the joy of the return and the resumption of public worship in the temple (xciii., xcv.-c., cf. xcvi. 1). The history of the next three centuries is very obscure, and many a psalm which we cannot locate may belong to that period; but the psalms which celebrate the law (i., xix. 7ff., cxix.) no doubt follow the reformation of Ezra in the fifth century. It is not probable that there are many, if any, psalms later than 170-165 B.C. in the Maccabean period; some deny even this possibility, basing their denial on the history of the canon. But if the book of Daniel, which belongs to this same period, was admitted to the canon, there is no reason why the same honour should not have been conferred upon some of the psalms. The Maccabean period was fitted, almost more than any other in Israel's history, to rouse the religious passion of the people to song; and, as the possibility must be conceded, the question becomes one of exegesis. Exegetically considered, the claims of at least Psalms xliv., lxxiv., lxxix., lxxxiii. are indubitable. They speak of a desolation of the temple in spite of a punctilious fulfilment of the law, a religious persecution, a slaughter of the saints, a blasphemy of the holy name. No situation fits these circumstances so completely as the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., and these psalms betray many remarkable affinities with passages in the first book of the Maccabees. As long ago as the fifth century A.D. the sharp-sighted Theodore of Mopsuestia believed that there were seventeen Maccabean psalms; Calvin admitted at least three. It may be safely concluded, then, that the Psalter brings us within about a century and a half of the Christian era. The criteria for determining the date of a psalm are few and meagre. The Psalter expresses the piety of more than half a millennium, and even the century cannot always be fixed. The language is often general, and the thoughts uttered would be as possible and appropriate to one century as another. Nearly forty years ago Nöldeke maintained that there were psalms of which we could not say with any definiteness to what period they belonged between 900 and 160 B.C. He himself referred Psalm ii. to Solomon, which had been referred by Hitzig to Alexander Jannaeus (105-78 B.C.). Even where the historical implications may seem fairly certain, there may be more than one legitimate interpretation. Psalm xlvi., e.g., which is usually regarded as a song of triumph sung after the departure of Sennacherib, is by some interpreted eschatologically; Zion is the ideal Zion of the latter days, and the stream that makes her glad is the stream of Paradise. Some psalms, of course, have their origin stamped very legibly upon them. Psalm cxxxvii. e.g., clearly implies that the exile is not long over. The presence of Aramaisms in a psalm is a fairly sure indication of a relatively late date. Within certain limits, also, its theological ideas may be a guide, though we know too little of the history of these ideas to use this criterion with much confidence. Still, so elaborate an emphasis on the omnipresence of God as we find in Psalm cxxxix. is only possible to a later age, and this inference is more than confirmed by its highly Aramaic flavour. Both these considerations render its ascription to David utterly untenable. The question was raised long ago and has been much discussed in recent times, whether the subject of the Psalter is the individual or the church; and till very recently the opinion has been gaining ground that the experience and aspiration of the Psalter are not personal and individual, but that in it is heard the collective voice of the church. Many difficulties undoubtedly disappear or are lessened on this interpretation, e.g., the bitterness of the imprecatory psalms, or the far-reaching consequences attached in other psalms (cf. xxii., xl.) to the deliverance of the singer. Till the exile, the religious unit was the nation, and the collective use of the singular pronoun is one of the commonest phenomena in Hebrew literature. The Decalogue is addressed to Israel in the 2nd pers. sing., in Deuteronomy the 2nd pers. sing, alternates with the pl., in the priestly blessing (Num. vi. 24ff.) Israel is blessed in the singular. In Deutero-Isaiah, the servant of Jehovah is undoubtedly to be interpreted collectively, and in many of the psalms the collective interpretation is put beyond all doubt by the very explicit language of the context: Much have they afflicted me from my youth up, Let _Israel_ now say, cxxix. 11 All this is true, and there are probably more collective psalms in the Psalter than we have been accustomed to believe. But it would be ridiculous to suppose that every psalm has to be so interpreted. Some of the psalms were originally written without any view to the temple service, and they must have expressed the individual emotion of the singer.[1] Besides, Jeremiah had shown or at least suggested that the real unit was the individual; the teaching of Ezekiel and the book of Job are proof that the lesson had been well learned; and, although the post-exilic church may have felt its solidarity and realized its corporate consciousness as acutely as the pre-exilic nation, the individual, as a religious unit, could never again be forgotten. He had come to stay; and if, in many psalms, the general voice of the church is heard, it is equally certain that many others utter the emotions and experiences of individual singers. [Footnote 1: That Psalms, now collective, were originally individual, and subsequently altered and adapted to the use of the community is seen, e.g., in the occasional disturbance of the order in alphabetical psalms (ix., x.). ] The Psalter, or part of it, was used in the temple service[1]-witness the numerous musical and liturgical superscriptions (cf. superscr. of Ps. xcii.)--though the people probably did no more than sing or utter the responses (cvi. 48). It would be difficult to estimate the importance of the Psalter to the Old Testament Church. It was the support of piety as well as the expression of it; and, to a worship which laid so much stress upon punctilious ritual and animal sacrifice, the Psalter, with its austere spiritual tone, its simple passion for God, and its bracing sense of fellowship with the Eternal, would come as a wholesome corrective. Almost in the spirit of the older prophets (Hos. vi. 6) animal sacrifice is relegated to an altogether subordinate place (xl., l., li.), if it is not indeed rebuked: the sacrifice dear to God is a broken spirit. Thus the Psalter was a mighty contribution in one direction, as the synagogue in another, to the development of spiritual religion. It kept alive the prophetic element in Israel's religion, and did much to counteract the more blighting influences of Judaism. The place of the law is occasionally recognized (i., xix. 7ff.), once very emphatically (cxix.), but it is honoured chiefly for its moral stimulus. It is not, as in later times, an incubus; it is still an inspiration. [Footnote 1: The addition of the last verse to the alphabetic psalms, xxv. and xxxiv., adapts these psalms, whether originally individual or collective, to the temple service.] There are tempers in the Psalter which are anything but lovely-hatred of enemies, protestation of self-righteousness, and other utterances which prevent it from being, in its entirety, the hymn-book of the Christian Church. Historically these things are explicable and perhaps inevitable, but the glory of the Psalter is its overwhelming sense of the reality of God. The men who wrote it counted God their Friend; and although they never forgot that He was the infinite One, whose home is the universe and who fills the vast spaces of history with His faithfulness and His justice, He was also to them the patient and loving One, who preserves both man and beast, under the shadow of whose wings the children of men may rest with quietness and confidence, and before whom they could pour out the deepest thoughts and petitions of their hearts, in the assurance that He was the hearer of prayer, and that His tender mercies were over all His works. He was to them the source of all strength and consolation and vision. In His light they saw light; and in their noblest moments--whatever they might lose or suffer--with Him they were content. In Luther's fine paraphrase of Psalm lxxiii. 25, "If I have but Thee, I ask for nothing in heaven or earth." PROVERBS Many specimens of the so-called _Wisdom Literature_ are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew wise man seldom or never gave himself to abstract speculation; he dealt with issues raised by practical life. Wise men are spoken of almost as an organized guild, and coordinated with priests and prophets as early as the time of Jeremiah (xviii. 18), but the general impression made by the pre-exilic references to the wise men is that they exercised certain quasi-political functions and hardly correspond to the wise men of later times who discussed issues of the moral life and devoted themselves to the instruction of young men (Prov. i. 4, 8). Most of the important types of thought of the wise men are represented in the book of Proverbs. There are proverbs proper, a few of the popular kind, but most of them bearing the stamp of deliberate art, and dealing with the prudent conduct of life (x.-xxix.); there are speculations of a more general kind on the nature that wisdom which is the guide of life (i.-ix.); and there is scepticism (cf. Eccles.) represented by the words of Agur (xxx. 1-4). The book, as a whole, might be described as a guide to the happy life, or, we might almost say, to the successful life--for a certain not ignoble utilitarianism clings to many of its precepts. The world is recognized as a moral and orderly world, and wisdom is profitable unto all things. The wisdom which the wise man manifests in contact with life and its exigencies is but a counterpart of the divine wisdom which, in one noble passage, is the fellow of God and more ancient than creation (viii.). There is not a little literary power in the book. Very beautiful is Wisdom's appeal to the sons of men, and her invitation to the banquet (viii., ix.). The isolated proverbs in x.-xxix. are usually more terse and powerful than they appear in the English translation. There are flashes of humour too: As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, So is a fair woman without discretion, xi. 22. Withhold not correction from thy son, Though thou smite him with the rod, he will not die, xxiii. 13. They deal with life upon its average levels: there is nothing of the prophetic enthusiasm, but they are robust and kindly withal. Not without reason has the book been called "a forest of proverbs," for at any rate in the body of it it is practically impossible to detect any principle of order. Usually the sayings in x.-xxix. are disconnected, but occasionally kindred sayings are gathered into groups of two or more verses; and sometimes it would seem as if the principle of arrangement was alphabetic, several consecutive verses occasionally beginning with the same letter, e.g., xx. 7-9, xxii. 2-4. There are eight divisions-- (_a_) i.-ix. (of which i. 1-6 is no doubt designed as an introduction to the whole book, and vi. 1-19 is probably an interpolation): an impressive appeal to secure wisdom and avoid folly, especially when she appears in the guise of the strange woman. Wisdom's own appeal and invitation. (_b_) x.-xxii. 16. A series of very loosely connected proverbs in couplets, x.-xv. being chiefly antithetic (cf. x. 1, xv. 1) and xvi. 1-xxii. 16 chiefly synthetic (cf. xvi. 16). (_c_) xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, designated as "the words of the wise," containing a few continuous pieces (cf. xxiii. 29-35 on drunkenness) and addressed, like i.-ix., to "my son," cf. xxiii. 15, 26. (_d_) xxiv. 23-34, probably little more than an appendix to (_c_), and also containing a continuous piece (cf. _vv._ 30-34 on sloth). (_e_) xxv.-xxix. A series, in many respects resembling (_6_), of loosely connected sayings. This section, especially xxv.-xxvii., contains more proverbs in the strict sense, i.e. sayings without any specific moral bearing, e.g. xxv. 25. (_f_) xxx. The words of Agur, of a sceptical and enigmatical kind, worked over by an orthodox reader (cf. _vv_. 5, 6, which reprove _vv_. 2-4). (_g_) xxxi. 1-9. Words addressed to king Lemuel (whom we cannot identify) by his mother. (_h_) xxxi. 10-31. An alphabetic poem in praise of the good housewife. Clearly the book makes no pretence to be, as a whole, from Solomon. If we except i. 1-6, which is introductory to the whole book, only (_b_) and (_e_) are assigned to Solomon: the other sections--except the last, are deliberately assigned to others, (_c_) and (_d_) expressly to "the wise." The ascription of the whole book to Solomon, which seems to be implied by its opening verse, and which, if genuine, would render the fresh ascription in x. 1 unnecessary, is no doubt to be explained as the similar ascription of the Psalms to David or the legislation to Moses. He was the "wise man" of Hebrew antiquity, and he is expressly said in 1 Kings iv. 32 to have spoken 3,000 proverbs. The implication of that passage (cf. _v_. 33) is that those proverbs consisted of comparisons between men and trees or animals: that supposition is met by some (cf. vi. 6) but not by many in the book. There are not likely then to be many of his proverbs in our book; but not impossibly there may be some. Ch. xxv. 1 is indeed very explicit, but that notice is, on the face of it, late. The fact that Hezekiah is called not simply king, but king of Judah, seems to point to a time--at the earliest the exile--when the kingdom of Judah was no more; so that this notice would be about a century and a half after Hezekiah's time, and Hezekiah is more than two centuries after Solomon. Obviously many of the proverbs in x.-xxix. could not have been Solomon's. The advice as to the proper demeanour in the presence of a king (xxv. 6, 7) would not come very naturally from one who was himself a king (cf. xxiii.1ff.); nor, to say nothing of the praises of monogamy, would he be likely so to satirize his own government as he would do in xxix. 4: "He whose exactions are excessive ruins the land." The question may, however, be fairly raised whether the proverbs, though as a whole not Solomonic, may yet be pre-exilic; and here two questions must be kept apart--the date of the individual proverbs and the date of the collections or of the book as a whole. Now it is very probable that some of the proverbs are pre-exilic. The references to the king, e.g.--kindly in x-xxii., and more severe in xxv-xxix.--might indeed apply to the Greek period (fourth and third centuries B.C.), but are equally applicable to the pre-exilic period; and many of the shrewd observations on life might come equally well from any period. But there can be little doubt that the groups in their present form are post-exilic. The sages do their work on the basis of the achievements of law and prophecy.[1] The great prophetic ideas about God are not discussed, they are presupposed; while the "law" of xxviii. 4, 7, 9, as in Psalm cxix., appears to be practically equivalent to Scripture, and would point to the fifth century at the earliest. True, there are sayings quite in the old prophetic spirit, to the effect that character is more acceptable to God than ritual and sacrifice, xxi. 3, 27, xv. 8, xvi. 6; but this would be an equally appropriate and almost more necessary warning in post-exilic times, especially upon the lips of men whose profession was in part that of moral education. [Footnote 1: The text of xxix. 18_a_ is too insecure (cf. Septuagint) to justify us in saying that prophecy still exists. ] There is no challenge of idolatry, such as we should expect if the book were pre-exilic, and monogamy is everywhere presupposed. Indeed it is very remarkable that no mention is made of Israel, or of any institutions distinctly Israelitic. Its subject is not the nation, but the individual, and its wisdom is cosmopolitan. Now though this appeal to man rather than Israel, this emphasis on the universal conscience, can be traced as far back as the eighth century[1] (Amos iii. 9), the thoroughgoing application of it in Proverbs suggests a larger experience of international relationships, which could hardly be placed before the exile, and was not truly developed till long after it, say, in the Persian or Greek period. This is peculiarly true of chs. i-ix., which was probably an independent piece, prefixed to x.-xxix., to gather up their sporadic elements of wisdom in a comprehensive whole, and to secure an adequate religious basis for their maxims which were, in the main, ethical. It is not necessary to suppose that the personification of wisdom in ch. viii. is directly influenced by Greek philosophy, but the whole speculative manner of the passage points to a late, even if independent, development of Jewish thought. The last two chapters are probably the latest in the book, which, while it must be earlier than Ben Sirach (180 B.C.), who distinctly adapts it, is probably not earlier than 300 B.C. [Footnote 1: Micah vi. 8, "He that showed thee, _O man_, what is good," is also a saying of far-reaching significance in this connection.] The value of this much-neglected book is very great. It is easy of course to point to its limitations--to show that it hardly, if ever (ix. 18?) looks out upon another world, but confines its compensations and its penalties to this, xi. 31, or to discover utilitarian elements in its morality, in. 10, or mechanical features in its conception of life, xvi. 31. But it would be easy to exaggerate. The sages know very well that a good name is better than wealth, xxii. 1, and that the deepest success of life is its conformity to the divine wisdom (i.-ix.). While most of the maxims are purely ethical, it has to be remembered that to the Hebrew morality rests upon religion: the introductory section (i.-ix.) throws its influence across the whole book, the motto of which is that the fear of Jehovah is the basis of knowledge and its chief constituent, i. 7. Besides, many of the maxims themselves are specifically religious, e.g., "He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker," xiv. 31, "He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to Jehovah," xix. 17. On the more purely moral side, besides giving a welcome glimpse into ancient Hebrew society, it is rich in applications to modern life. Slander and revenge are severely denounced; and earnest and repeated warnings are lifted up in different parts of the book against wine and women (v., xxiii., xxxi.). Care for animals is inculcated, xii. 10, and love to enemies, xxv. 21., in words borrowed by the New Testament--a notable advance on Leviticus xix. 18. In one or two respects the book is of peculiar interest and value to the modern world. It is more interested, e.g., in practice than in creed. Its creed is very simple, little more than a general fear of Jehovah; but this receives endless application to practical life. Again, the appeal of the book is, on the whole, not to revelation, but to experience, and it meets the average man and woman upon their ordinary level. Its appeal is therefore one which cannot be evaded, as it commends itself, without the support of revelation, to the universal moral instincts of mankind. Again, its emphasis upon the moral, as opposed to the speculative, is striking. Immediately after a passage which approaches as near to metaphysical speculation as any Old Testament writer ever approaches, viii. 22-31, comes a direct, tender and personal appeal. Lastly, there is an almost modern sense of the inexorableness of law in the solemn reminder that those who refuse and despise the call of wisdom will be left alone and helpless when their day of trouble comes, i. 22ff. But the sternness is mitigated by a gentler thought. Like a gracious lady, wisdom, which is only one aspect of the divine Providence, pleads with men, yearning to win them from their folly to the peace and happiness which are alone with her; and even suffering is but one of the ways of God, a confirmation of sonship, and even a manifestation of His love. Whom Jehovah loveth, He reproveth, Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth, iii. 12. This is perhaps the profoundest note in the book of Proverbs. A book so rich in moral precept and religious thought may well claim to have fulfilled its programme: "to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion," i. 4. JOB The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be classified, whether as epic, dramatic or didactic poetry. It is didactic at any rate in the sense that the poet, who wrote it with his heart's blood, intended to read his generation a much-needed lesson on the mysterious discipline of life; and it is dramatic, though not in the ordinary sense--for in the poetry proper there is no development of action--yet in the sense that it vividly pourtrays the conflict of minds, and the clash of conventional with independent opinion. The story of the book is easily told. The prologue (i., ii.) introduces Job as a pattern of scrupulous piety, and therefore, in accordance with the ancient view, a prosperous man. In the heavenly council, the Satan insinuates that, if the prosperity be withdrawn, the piety will also disappear. Jehovah, sure of His servant Job, grants the Satan permission to deprive Job of all that he _has_, in order that he may discover what he _is_. Job sustains the four fierce blows, which stripped him of all, with beautiful resignation. The Satan is foiled. He now insinuates that the trial has not been severe enough: only his property has been touched--not his person. With Jehovah's permission a second assault is made, and Job is smitten with the incurable and loathsome disease of leprosy, so that he is without hope in the world. He has nothing but God--will God be enough? Again Job sustains his trial in noble and ever-memorable words; and the Satan is foiled again. Then three of Job's friends--great sheikhs--come to express their sorrow. Then follow three cycles of speeches between Job and his friends (iii.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.; xxii.-xxxi). _First cycle_. Job begins by lamenting his birthday and longing for death (iii.). Eliphaz, a man of age and wisdom, with much courtesy and by an appeal to a revelation which had been given him in the night, seeks to reconcile Job to his lot, reminding him that no mortal man can be pure in the sight of God, and assuring him of restoration, if he accepts his suffering as discipline (iv., v.). Job rejects this easy optimism and expresses his longing for a speedy death, as life on the earth is nothing but a miserable warfare (vi., vii.). Bildad, annoyed at Job's challenge of God's justice, asserts the sure destruction of evildoers, but implicitly concedes, at the end, that Job is not an evil-doer, by promising him a bright future (viii.). Job then grows ironical. Of course, he says, God is always in the right. Might is right, and He is almighty, destroying innocent and guilty alike. He longs to meet God, and to know why He so marvellously treats the creature He so marvellously made (ix., x.). Zophar bluntly condemns Job's bold words and urges repentance, but, like his friends, foretells the dawn of a better day for Job, though his very last words are ominous and suggestive of another possibility (xi.). Job, with a sarcastic compliment to the wisdom of his friends, claims the right to an independent judgment and challenges the whole moral order of the world. Better be honest--God needs no man to distort the facts for Him. Job longs for a meeting, in which God will either speak to him or listen to him. But, as no answer comes, he laments again the pathos of life, which ends so utterly in death (xii.-xiv.). _Second cycle_. Eliphaz, concluding that Job despises religion, describes in vigorous terms the fate of the godless (xv.). Job complains of his fierce persecution by God, and appeals, in almost the same breath, against this unintelligible God to the righteous God in heaven, who is his witness and sponsor; but again he falls back into gloom and despondency (xvi., xvii.). Bildad answers by describing the doom of the wicked, with more than one unmistakable allusion to Job's case (xviii.). Job is vexed. He breaks out into a lament of his utter desolation, the darkness of which, however, is shot through with a sudden and momentary gleam of assurance that God will one day vindicate him (xix.). Not so, answers Zophar: the triumph of the wicked is short (xx.). Job, in a bold and terrible speech, assails the doctrine of the friends, challenges the moral order, and asserts that the world is turned upside down (xxi.). _Third cycle_. To the friends Job now seems to be condemned out of his own mouth, and Eliphaz coolly proceeds to accuse him of specific sins (xxii.). This drives Job to despair, and he longs to appear before the God whom he cannot find, to plead his cause before Him. Why does He not interpose? and again follows a fierce challenge of the moral order (xxiii., xxiv.). The arguments of the friends are being gradually exhausted, and Bildad can only reply by asserting the uncleanness of man in presence of the infinite majesty of God (xxv., xxvi.). In spite of this Job asserts his integrity, xxvii. 1-6. Zophar repeats the old doctrine of the doom of the wicked, xxvii. 7-23. Then Job rises up, like a giant, to make his last great defence. He pictures his former prosperity and his present misery, and ends, in a chapter which touches the noblest heights of Old Testament morality, with a detailed assertion of the principles that governed his conduct and character. With one great cry that the Almighty would listen to him, he concludes (xxix.-xxxi.). The Almighty does listen; and He answers--not by referring to Job's particular case, still less to his sin, but by questions that suggest to Job His own power, wisdom, and love, and the ignorance and impotence of man, xxxviii., xxxix., xl. 2, 8-14. Job humbly recognizes the inadequacy of his criticism in the light of this vision of God, xl. 3-5, xlii. 2-6, and with this the poem comes to an end. The epilogue, xlii. 7-17, in prose, describes how Jehovah severely condemned the friends for the words they had spoken, commended His servant Job for speaking rightly of Him, and restored him to double his former prosperity. It is obvious that we have here a religious and not a philosophical discussion. Indeed it is hardly a discussion at all; for, though the psychological interest of the situation is heightened by every speech, there is practically no development in the argument. The friends grow more excited and unfair, Job grows more calm and dignified; but so far as argument is concerned, neither he nor they affect each other--the author meaning to suggest by this perhaps the futility of human discussion. The problem of the book of Job has been variously defined. In one form it is raised by the question of Satan, i. 9, "Doth Job fear God for naught?" which is the Hebrew way of saying, "Is there such a thing as disinterested religion?" But the body of the book discusses the problem under a wider aspect: how can the facts of human life, and especially the sufferings of the righteous, be reconciled with the justice of God? With delicate skill the author has suggested that this problem is a universal one; not Israel alone is perplexed by it, but humanity. To indicate this, he puts his hero and his stage outside the land of Israel. Job is a foreign saint, and Uz is on the borders of the Arabian desert. The ancient theory of retribution was very simple: every man received what he deserved--the good prosperity, the bad misfortune. In its national application, this principle was obviously more or less true, but every age must have seen numerous exceptions in the life of the individual. The exceptions, however, were not felt to be particularly perplexing, because, till the exile, the individual was hardly seriously felt to be a religious unit: his personality was merged in the wider life of the tribe or nation. But the exile, which saw many of the best men suffer, forced the question to the front; and the explanation then commonly offered was that they were suffering for the sins of the fathers. Ezekiel denied this and maintained that the individual received exactly what he deserved (xviii.): it is well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. The friends of Job in the main represent this doctrine, Eliphaz appealing to revelation, Bildad to tradition, and Zophar to common sense. The author of the book of Job desires, among other things, to expose the inadequacy of this doctrine. Job, a good man--not only on his own confession (xxxi.), but on the express and repeated admission of God Himself, i. 8, ii. 3--is overwhelmed with calamities which cannot be explained by the imperfections which are inherent in all men, and which Job himself readily admits vii. 21. How are such sufferings to be reconciled with the justice of God? The problem had to be solved without reference to the future world. To a steady faith in immortality, which can find its compensations otherwhere, there is no real problem; but it is certain that, though there are scattered hints, xiv. 13, xix. 25ff.--which, however, many interpret differently--of a life after death, this belief is not held by Job (or by the author) tenaciously, nor offered as a solution, for the lamentations continue to the end. The solution, if there is any, the author must find in this world. It would seem that no definite solution is offered, though there are not a few profound and valuable suggestions. (1) The prologue, e.g., suggests that the sufferings of earth find their ultimate explanation in the councils of heaven. What is done or suffered here is determined there. (2) Again the prologue suggests that suffering is a test of fidelity. Job has proved his essential and disinterested goodness, besides glorifying the name of the God, who trusted him, by standing fast. (3) The friends make their shallow and conventional contribution to the solution: from the doctrine--whose strict and universal truth Job denied--that sin was always followed by suffering, they inferred the still more questionable doctrine that suffering was punishment for sin. In estimating the views of the friends, it should never be forgotten that Jehovah, in the epilogue, condemns them as not having spoken the thing that is right, xlii. 7, 8. Of course, though inadequate, they are not always absolutely wrong; and Eliphaz expresses a truth not wholly inapplicable to Job's case--at least to the Job of the speeches--when he insists on the disciplinary value of suffering, v. 17 ff. (4) If a real solution is offered anywhere, one would most naturally look for it in the speeches of Jehovah (xxxviii. ff.); and at first sight they are not very promising. Their effect would most naturally be rather to silence and overwhelm Job than to convince him; and to some they have suggested no more than that the contemplation of nature may be a remedy for scepticism. But their object is profounder than that. By heightening the sense of the mystery of the universe, they show Job the folly, and almost the impertinence, of expecting an adequate answer to all his whys and wherefores. A man who cannot account for the most familiar facts of the physical world is not likely to explore the subtler mysteries of the moral world. But there is more. The divine speeches suggest that God is not only strong--Job knew that very well (ix.)--but wise, xxxviii. 2, and kind, feeding even the ravenous beasts, xxxviii. 39, and tenderly caring for the waste and desolate place where no man is, xxxviii. 26. The universe compels trust in the wisdom and love of God. (5) The epilogue, too, shows how the suffering hero was rewarded and vindicated. The reward we shall discuss afterwards; but it is with fine instinct that the epilogue represents Job as a man so powerful with God that his prayer is effectual to save his erring friends, and four times within two verses, xlii. 7 f, Jehovah calls him "My servant Job." Therein lies his real vindication, rather than in the reward of the sheep and the oxen. The book clearly intends to suggest that in this world it is vain to look for exact retribution. From calamity it is unjust to infer special or secret sin: the worst may happen to the best. Again, there is such a thing as disinterested goodness, a goodness which believes in and clings to God, when it has nothing to hope for but Himself. But the book may also be fairly regarded as a protest against contemporary theology; and, in its present form, at any rate, it suggests that God loves the independent thinker. The friends are orthodox, but shallow; "Who ever perished, being innocent?" iv. 7. They are so wedded to their theories that even the oldest and wisest among them cruelly invents falsehoods to support them (xxii.). Job replies to theories by facts. He is a man of independent observation and judgment, his mouth must "taste for itself," xii. 11. He is bold sometimes almost to blasphemy, he accuses God of destroying innocent and guilty alike, ix. 22, and does not scruple to parody a psalm, vii. 17 f. Yet he does this because he must be true to facts, whatever comes of theories: he must cling to the God of conscience against the God of convention. In discussing the scheme of the book and the solution it offers of the problem of suffering, we have not yet taken into account the _speeches of Elihu_ (xxxii.-xxxvii.). The value and importance of these have been variously estimated, the extremes being represented by Duhm, who characterizes them as the childish effusions of some bombastic rabbi, and Cornill, who calls them "the crown of the book of Job." It is not without good reason that the authenticity of this section has been doubted. After the dramatic appeal at the close of Job's splendid defence, it is natural to suppose that Jehovah appears; and when He does appear (xxxviii.), His speech is expressly said to be an answer to Job. Elihu is completely ignored, as he is not only in the prologue but also in the epilogue, xlii. 7. The latter omission would be especially strange, if he is integral to the book. As his speech is not condemned, it is natural to infer from the silence that it is implicitly commended. In that case, however, we have two solutions--the Elihu speeches and the Jehovah speeches. But there is practically nothing new in the Elihu speeches: in emphasizing the greatness of God, they but anticipate the Jehovah speeches, and in emphasizing the disciplinary value of chastisement, they but amplify the point already made by Eliphaz in v. 17ff., and most summarily expressed in xxxvi. 15. Almost the only other assertion made is that, as against Job's contention, God does speak to men--through dreams, sickness, angels, etc. The lengthy description in which Elihu is introduced, and the mention of his genealogy, are very unlike the other introductions. The literary art of the section is, speaking generally, inferior to that of the rest of the book. It is imitative rather than creative. Elihu takes about twenty verses to announce the simple fact that he is going to speak, though there might be a dramatic propriety in this, as he is represented as a young man. Further, the language is more Aramaic than the rest of the book. Cornill, however, defends the section as offering the real solution of the problem. "If a man recognizes the educative character of suffering and takes it to heart, the suffering becomes for him a source of infinite blessing, the highest manifestation of divine love." But it seems rather improbable that the true solution should be put into the lips of a young man, who said he was ready to burst if he did not deliver himself of his speech, xxxii. 19. Apart from the fact that it is more natural to look for the solution in the speeches of Jehovah, and that the Elihu speeches, in condemning Job, disagree with the epilogue, which commends him, the arguments against their authenticity seem much more than to counterbalance the little that can be said in their favour; and in all probability they are an orthodox addition to the book from the pen of some later scholar who was offended by Job's accusations of God and protestations of his own innocence. The authenticity of the _prologue and epilogue_ has also been questioned, some scholars asserting that they really form the beginning and end of an older (pre-exilic) book of Job, the body of which was replaced by the speeches in our present book. The question is far from unimportant, as on it depends, in part, our conception of the purpose of the author of the speeches. Against the idea that the prologue and epilogue are from his hand are these considerations. They are in prose, while the body of the book is in verse. Again, the name of God in the prologue and epilogue is Jehovah; elsewhere, with one exception, which is probably an interpolation, xii. 9, it is El, Eloah, Shaddai, as if Jehovah were purposely avoided.[1] In xix. 17_b_, where the true translation is "Mine evil savour is strange to the sons of my body," the children are regarded as living:[2] while in the prologue they are dead. But more serious is the fact that the Job of the prologue seems to differ fundamentally from the Job of the speeches. The former is patient, submissive, resigned; the latter is impatient, bitter, and even defiant. Further, the epilogue represents Jehovah as commending Job and condemning the friends without qualification, whereas it may be urged that, in the course of the speeches, the friends were not always wrong, nor was Job always right, and that it is impossible that his merciless criticisms of the moral order could have passed without divine rebuke: much that Job said would have delighted the Satan of the prologue. These considerations have led to the supposition that, in the original book, Job maintained throughout the spirit of devout resignation which he showed in the prologue, while it was the friends who accused God of cruelty and injustice. A bolder and profounder thinker of a later age attacked the problem independently on the basis of the old story, and inserted his contribution, iii.-xlii. 6, between the prologue and the epilogue, thus giving a totally different turn to the story. [Footnote 1: Ch. xxxviii. i, being introductory to the speeches of Jehovah, should hardly be counted.] [Footnote 2: See, however, viii. 4, xxix. 5, so that xix. 17_b_ may be due to forgetfulness.] This view is ingenious, but does not seem necessary. Psychologically, there is no necessary incompatibility between the Job of the prologue and the Job of the speeches. It must not be forgotten that months have elapsed between the original blow and the lamentations, vii. 3--months in which the brooding mind of the sufferer has had time to pass from resignation to perplexity, and almost to despair. Again, the words of Job are not to be taken too seriously; they are, as he says himself, the words of a desperate man, vi. 26, and the commendation in the epilogue may be taken to apply rather to his general attitude than to his particular utterances. Some kind of introduction there must undoubtedly have been; otherwise the speeches, and especially Job's repeated asseverations of his innocence, are unintelligible. The literary power and skill of the prologue is as great as that of the speeches: dramatically, the swift contrast between the happy family upon the earth and the council of gods in heaven, or the rapid succession of blows that rained upon Job the moment that Satan "went forth from the presence of Jehovah," is as effective as the psychological surprises in which the book abounds. The language is slightly in favour of a post-exilic date, and the conception of Satan appears to be somewhat in advance of Zechariah iii. 1 (520 B.C.). On the whole it seems fair to conclude that the great poet who composed the speeches also wrote the prologue, though of course his material lay to hand in a popular, and not improbably written story. With the prologue must go at least part of the epilogue, xlii. 7-9; for the author's purpose is to characterize the two types of thought represented by the discussion and to vindicate Job. More doubt may attach to the concluding section, _vv_. 10-17, which represents that vindication as taking the form of a material reward. A Western reader is surprised and disappointed: to him it seems that the author has "fallen from his high estate," and has failed to be convinced by his own magnificent argument. But, as we have already said, the real vindication of Job is the efficacy of his prayer, and the material reward is, in any case, not much more than a sort of poetic justice. It is indeed an outward and visible sign of the relation subsisting between Job and his God; but it is hard to believe that the genius who fought his way to such a solution as appears in xxxviii., xxxix., would himself have laid much stress upon it. Yet it is not inappropriate or irrelevant. Job's sufferings had their origin in Satan's denial of his integrity; and now that Satan has been convinced--for Job clings in the deepest darkness to the God of his conscience--it is only just that he should be restored to his former state. It is not certain that ch. xxviii. with its fine description of wisdom, which is neither to be found in mine nor mart, is original to the book. It does not connect well either with the preceding or the following chapter. The serenity that breathes through ch. xxviii. would not naturally be followed by the renewed lamentations of xxix., and it would further be dramatically inappropriate for a man in agony to speak thus didactically. It is a sort of companion piece to Proverbs viii.; it is too abstract for its context, and lacks its almost fierce emotion. Doubt also attaches to the sections descriptive of _the hippopotamus and the crocodile_, xl. l5-xli. The defence is that, as the earlier speeches of God, xxxviii. xxxix., were to convince Job of his ignorance, so these are to convince him of his impotence. But the descriptions, though fine in their way (cf. xli. 22), do not stand on the same literary level as those of xxxviii., xxxix. These are brief and drawn to the life--how vivid are the pictures of the war-horse and the wild ass!--those of xl., xli. are diffuse and somewhat exaggerated. Of course Oriental standards of taste are not ours; still the difference can hardly be ignored. It is worthy of note, too, that the word leviathan in xli. 1 is used in a totally different sense from iii 8, where it is the mythological (sea?) dragon. The author appears to have travelled widely and the book betrays a knowledge of Egypt (cf. pyramids, iii. 14; papyrus, viii. 11; reed ships, ix. 26; phoenix, xxix. 18), but it is not without significance that all his other animal pictures are drawn from the desert--the lion (iv.), the wild ass, the war-horse. On the whole, it is hardly probable that these long descriptions, rather unnecessarily retarding, as they do, the crisis between Jehovah and Job for which the sympathetic reader is impatiently waiting, are original to the book. Certain redistributions of the speeches seem to be necessary. Ch. xxvi. is conceived in a temper thoroughly unlike that of Job at this stage, while it closely resembles that of xxv. As ch. xxv. would be an unusually short speech, it is probable that xxv. and xxvi. should both be given to Bildad. That there is something wrong is plain from the fresh introduction to xxvii. 1 (cf. xxix. 1), a phenomenon which does not elsewhere occur and which, if xxvi. is Job's, should be unnecessary. Again in xxvii. 7-23 Job turns completely round upon his own position and adopts that of the friends. It has been said that he "forgets himself sufficiently in ch. xxvii. to deliver a discourse which would have been suitable in the mouth of one of the friends." Surely such an explanation is as impossible as it is psychologically unnatural: in all probability _vv_. 7-23 ought to be given to Zophar--the more probably as xxvii. 13 is very like xx. 19, which is Zophar's. This would have the further advantage of accounting for the fresh introduction to xxix. (especially if we allow xxviii. to be a later addition). Probably xxxi. 38-40, which constitute, at least to an Occidental taste, an anticlimax in their present position, should be placed after _v_. 32, and xl. 3-5 (followed by xlii. 2-6) after xl. 6-14. The date of the book of Job is not easy to determine. Ch. xii. 17 shows a knowledge of the dethronement of kings and the exile of priests and nobles which compels a date at any rate later than the fall of the northern kingdom (721 B.C.) more probably also of the southern. The reference in Ezekiel, xiv. 14, 20, to Job should not be pressed, as it involves only a knowledge of the man, not necessarily of any book, still less of our book. Nor can much be made of the parody of Psalm viii. 4 in Job vii. 17, as we have no means of fixing precisely the date of the psalm. Job's lament and curse in ch. iii. are strikingly similar to Jeremiah xx. 14-18, and there can be little doubt that the priority lies on the side of the prophet. Jeremiah was in no mood for quotation, his words are brief and abrupt. The book of Job is a highly artistic poem, and it is much more probable that Job iii. is an elaboration of the passionate words of Jeremiah than that Jeremiah adapted in his sorrow the longer lament of Job. This circumstance would bring us down to a time, at the earliest, very near the exile. At this point it has to be noted that the discussion of the moral problem in the book of Job is in advance of Jeremiah or Ezekiel. Against the explanation that the children's teeth are set on edge because their fathers have eaten sour grapes, Ezekiel has nothing to offer but a rather mechanical doctrine of strict retribution (ch. xviii.). The book of Job represents a further stage, when that doctrine was seen to be untenable; and the whole question is again boldly raised and still more boldly discussed. This would carry the date below Ezekiel. As the problem in Job is individual, and only indirectly, if at all, a national one--"there was _a man_ in the land of Uz"--the book cannot be earlier than the exile. But further, there is an unmistakable similarity between the temper of this book and that of the pious in the time of Malachi. "Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and He delighteth in them. Where is the God of justice?" Malachi ii. 17. We might fancy we heard the voice of Job; and almost more plainly in Malachi iii. 14, "It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance?" Equally striking is the similarity between the dialectic temper in Job and Malachi. Everywhere in Malachi occur the phrases, "Ye have said, yet ye say," etc. Good men have not only raised the problem of the moral order, as Habakkuk and Jeremiah had done: they are formally discussing it--exactly the phenomenon which we have in Job and do not have in pre-exilic times. If it be asked why, in that case, there is no trace of influence of Deutero-Isaiah's solution, the answer is that, in any case, that solution stands without serious influence on the subsequent development of religious thought in the Old Testament. Again, the peculiar boldness of the discussion suggests a post-exilic date. Jeremiah is also very bold, xii. 1, but it is a different type of audacity that expresses itself in the book of Job. Unlike Ecclesiastes in practically everything else, Job is like it in being a sustained and fearless challenge of the phenomena of the moral world. A post-exilic date, and perhaps not a very early one, would seem to be suggested by these phenomena. It is the product not only of an unhappy man, but of an unhappy time, when life is a warfare, vii. 1, and good men are bitter in heart. This date is borne out by the angelology of the book, v. 1, and by its easy use of mythology, iii. 8, xxvi. 5--a mythology which is felt to be completely innocuous, because monotheism is secure beyond the possibility of challenge. It is practically certain that the book falls before Chronicles (_circa_ 300 B.C.) as in 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, Satan is a proper name, whereas in Job the word is still an appellative--he is "the Satan.". Where the evidence is so slender certainty is impossible; but there is a probability that the book may be safely placed somewhere between 450 and 350 B.C. One could conceive it to be, in one sense, a protest against the legalistic conception of religion encouraged by the work of Ezra, and this would admirably fit the date assigned. SONG OF SONGS The contents of this book justify the description of it in the title, i. 1, as the "loveliest song"--for that is the meaning of the Hebrew idiom "song of songs." It abounds in poetical gems of the purest ray. It breathes the bracing air of the hill country, and the passionate love of man for woman and woman for man. It is a revelation of the keen Hebrew delight in nature, in her vineyards and pastures, flowers and fruit trees, in her doves and deer and sheep and goats. It is a song tremulous from beginning to end with the passion of love; and this love it depicts in terms never coarse, but often frankly sensuous--so frankly sensuous that in the first century its place in the canon was earnestly contested by Jewish scholars. That place was practically settled in 90 A.D. by the Synod of Jamnia, which settled other similar questions; and about 120 A.D. we find a distinguished rabbi maintaining that "the whole world does not outweigh the day when the Song of Songs was given to Israel; while all the _Writings_ are holy, the song is holiest of all." This extravagant language suggests that the canonicity of the song had been strenuously contested; and it may have been a latent sense of the secular origin of the song that led to the prescription that a Jew must not read it till he was thirty years of age. Its place in the canon was no doubt secured for it by two considerations, (i) its reputed Solomonic authorship, (ii) its allegorical interpretation. The reception of the book in the Canon led, as Siegfried has said, to the most monstrous creations in the history of interpretation. If it be by Solomon, and therefore a holy book, it must be a celebration of divine love, not of human. So it was argued; and the theme of the book was regarded as the love of Jehovah for Israel. Christian interpreters, following this hint of their Jewish predecessors, applied it to the love of Christ for His church or for the individual soul. The allegorical view of the poem has many parallels in the mystic poetry of the East, and it even finds a slender support in Hosea's comparison of the relation of Jehovah to Israel as a marriage relationship; but taking into account the general nature of the poem, and the tendencies of the Hebrew mind, it may be fairly said that the allegorical interpretation is altogether impossible. Any love poem would be equally capable of such an interpretation. Another view, first hinted at in a phrase of Origen, is that the book is a drama, a view which has held the field--not without challenge--for over a century. There is much in the language of the song to suggest this: it is obvious, e.g., that there is occasional dialogue, i. 15, 16, ii. 2, 3, but the actual story of the drama was very far from clear. The older view was that it was a story of Solomon's love for a peasant girl, and of his redemption from his impure loves by his affection for her. But as in viii. 11 f. and elsewhere, Solomon is spoken of by way of contrast, room must be made for a third person, the shepherd lover of the peasant maid; and, with much variety of detail, the supporters of the dramatic theory now adhere in general to the view that the poem celebrates the fidelity of a peasant maid who had been captured and brought to Solomon's harem, but who steadily resisted his blandishments and was finally restored to her shepherd lover. The book becomes thus not a triumph of love over lust, but of love over temptation. The story is very pretty; but the objections to it and to the dramatic view of the book are all but insuperable. It must be confessed that, to arrive at such a story at all, a good deal has to be read between the lines, and interpreters usually find what they bring; but the most fatal objection to it is that the text in vi. 12, on which the whole story turns--the maiden's surprise in the orchard by the retinue of the king--is so disjointed and obscure that the attempt to translate it has been abandoned by many competent scholars. Apart from that, the story can hardly be said to be probable. "She, my dove, is but one," vi. 9, would sound almost comical upon the lips of one who possessed the harem of vi. 8. But in any case, it is almost inconceivable that Solomon would have taken a refusal from a peasant girl: Oriental kings were not so scrupulous. Again, it is very hard to detect any progress on the dramatic view of the book. Ch. viii. with its innocent expression of an early love, follows ch. vii., which is sensuous to the last degree. Further, in the absence of stage directions, every commentator divides the verses among the characters in a way of his own: the opening words of the song, i. 2_a_, may be interpreted in three or four different ways, and equal possibilities of interpretation abound throughout the song. Of course the difficulties are not quite so great in the Hebrew as in the English (e.g. i. 15 must be spoken by the bridegroom and i. 16 by the bride), but they are great enough. Again, how are we to conceive of so short a play--ll6 lines--being divided into acts and scenes? for the scenes are continually changing, and the longest would not last more than two minutes. It would not be fair to lay too much stress upon the fact that there is no other illustration of a purely Semitic drama; that would be to argue that, if a thing did not happen twice, it did not happen once. Nevertheless, coupled with the untold difficulties and confusions that arise from regarding the song as a drama, the absence of a Semitic parallel is significant. The true view of this perplexing book appears to be that it is, as Herder called it, "a string of pearls"--an anthology of love or wedding songs sung during the festivities of the "king's week," as the first week after the wedding is called in Syria. Very great probability has been added to this view by the observations of Syrian customs made by Wetzstein in his famous essay on "The Syrian Threshing-board," and first thoroughly applied by Budde to the interpretation of the Song. Syrian weddings, we are told, usually took place in March, ii. 11ff. The threshing-floor is set on a sort of platform on the threshing-board covered with carpets and pillows; and upon this throne, the "king and queen," i.e. the bride and bridegroom, are seated, while the guests honour them with song, game and dance. This lasts for seven days (cf. Gen. xxix. 27; Jud. xiv. 12); and the theory is that in the Song of Songs we have specimens of the songs sung on such an occasion. In particular, it is practically certain that vi. 13-vii. 9 is the song which accompanied the "sword-dance" (as the last words of vi. 13 should probably be translated) performed by the bride on the eve of her wedding day. This would explain the looseness of the arrangement, no special attempt being made to unify the songs, though it may be conceded that the noble eulogy of love in viii. 6, 7, as it is the finest utterance in the book, was probably intended as a sort of climax. The king, then, is not Solomon, but the peasant bridegroom, who enjoys the regal dignity, and even the name of Israel's most splendid monarch, iii. 7, 9, for the space of a week. Ch. iii. 11, with its reference to the bridegroom's crown (cf. Isa. lxi. 10), is all but conclusive proof that the hero is not king Solomon, but another sort of bridegroom. His bride, perhaps a plain country girl, counts for the week as the maid of Shulem, vi. 13, i.e. Abishag, once the fairest maid in Israel (vi. 1, I Kings i. 3). So throughout the "king's week" everything is transfigured and takes on the colours of royal magnificence: the threshing-board becomes a palanquin, and the rustic bodyguard appear as a band of valiant warriors, iii. 7, 8. There is a charming naivete, and indeed something much profounder, in this temporary transformation of those humble rustic lives. We are involuntarily reminded of scenes in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. This view of the book has commended itself to scholars like Nõldeke, who formerly championed the dramatic theory, though two of the latest writers[1] have argued skilfully against it. [Footnote 1: Harper, in the Cambridge Bible "Song of Songs," and Rothstein, in Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_.] The following may be taken as an approximate division of the songs, though some of the longer sections might easily be regarded as a combination of two or three songs. The bride praises the bridegroom, modestly depreciates her own beauty, and asks where her bridegroom is to be found, i. 2-8. Each sings the other's praises: the happiness of the bride, i. 9-ii. 7. A spring wooing, ii. 8-17. The bride's dream, iii. 1-5. The bridegroom's procession, iii. 6-11. The charms of the bride, iv. 1-v. 1. The beauty of the bridegroom, v. 2-vi. 3. Praise of the bride, vi. 4-12. Praise of the bride as she dances the sword-dance, vii. 1-10. The bride's longing, vii. 11-viii. 4. The incomparable power of love, viii. 5-7. The bride's proud reply to her brothers, viii. 8-10. The two vineyards, viii. 11, 12. Conclusion, viii. 13, 14. The immortal verses in praise of love, viii. 6, 7, show that, in spite of its often sensuous expression, the love here celebrated is not only pure but exclusive; and the book, which once was regarded as a satire on the court of Solomon, would in any case make in favour of monogamic sentiment, and tend to ennoble ideals in a country where marriage was simply regarded as a contract. The mention of Israel's ancient capital Tirzah in vi. 4 (if the text be correct) as a parallel to Jerusalem, would alone be enough to bring the date below Solomon's time (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 17, xvi. 23). But it is no doubt much later. The Persian word _pardes_ in iv. 13 appears to imply the Persian period, and is used elsewhere only in post-exilic books (Neh. ii. 8; Eccles. ii. 5). Indeed the word _appirion_ in iii. 9 appears to be the Hebraized form of a Greek word _phoreion_, and if so would almost necessarily imply the Greek period, though the Hebrews may have been acquainted with Greek words, through the Greek settlements in Egypt, as early as the sixth century B.C. Many of the words and constructions, however, are demonstrably late and Aramaic; and the linguistic evidence alone (unless we assume an earlier book to have been worked over in later times) would put the Song hardly earlier than the fourth century B.C. Yet the fact that though a secular writing, it is in Hebrew and not Aramaic, which was rapidly gaining ground, shows that it can hardly be brought down much later. On the whole, probably it is to be placed somewhere between 400 and 300; and its sunny vivacity thus becomes a welcome foil to the austerity of the post-exilic age. If this argument is sound, it follows that the book cannot have been by Solomon. The superscription, i. 1, was no doubt added by a later hand on the basis of the many references to Solomon in the book, iii. 7-11, viii. 11 f, and of the statement in 1 Kings iv. 32 that he was the author of 1,005 songs. Where the songs were composed we cannot tell. The scenes they reflect so vividly are rather those of Israel than of Judah, but the repeated allusions to the daughters of Jerusalem would be most naturally explained if the songs came from Jerusalem or its neighbourhood. With this agree the references to Engedi, Heshbon, Kedar, while the northern places mentioned, Lebanon, Hermon, Gilead, Damascus, are such as would be familiar, at any rate, by reputation, to a Judean. RUTH Goethe has characterized the book of Ruth as the loveliest little idyll that tradition has transmitted to us. Whatever be its didactic purpose--and some would prefer to think that it had little or none-it is, at any rate, a wonderful prose poem, sweet, artless, and persuasive, touched with the quaintness of an older world and fresh with the scent of the harvest fields. The love--stronger than country--of Ruth for Naomi, the gracious figure of Boaz as he moves about the fields with a word of blessing for the reapers, the innocent scheming of Naomi to secure him as a husband for Ruth--these and a score of similar touches establish the book for ever in the heart of all who love nobility and romance. The inimitable grace and tenderness of the story are dissipated in a summary, but the main facts are these. A man of Bethlehem, with his wife Naomi and two sons, is driven by stress of famine to Moab, where the sons marry women of the land. In course of time, father and sons die, and Naomi resolves to return home. Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, accompanies her, in spite of Naomi's earnest entreaty that she should remain in her own land. In Bethlehem, Ruth receives peculiar kindness from Boaz, a wealthy landowner, who happens to be a kinsman of Naomi; and Naomi, with a woman's happy instinct, devises a plan for bringing Boaz to declare himself a champion and lover of Ruth. The plan is successful. A kinsman nearer than Boaz refuses to claim his rights by marrying her, and the way is left open for Boaz. He accordingly marries Ruth, who thus becomes the ancestress of the great King David. Why was this story told? The question of its object is to some extent bound up with the question of date; and for several reasons, this appears to be late. (1) In the Greek, Latin and modern Bibles, Ruth is placed after Judges; in the Hebrew Bible it is placed towards the end, among the _Writings_, i.e. the last division, in which, speaking generally, only late books appear. Had the book been pre-exilic, it is natural to suppose that it would have been placed after Judges in the second division. Some indeed maintain that this is its original position; but it is easier to account for its transference from the third division to the second, as a foil to the war-like episodes of the judges, than for its transference from the second to the third. (2) The argument from language is perhaps not absolutely decisive, but, on the whole, it is scarcely compatible with an early date. Some words are pure Aramaic, and some of the Hebrew usages do not appear in early literature, e.g., "fall," in the sense of "fall out, issue, happen," iii. 18. (3) The opening words--"In the days when the judges judged," i. 1--suggest not only that those days are past, but that they are regarded as a definite period falling within an historical scheme. The book must be, at any rate, as late as David--for it describes Ruth as his ancestress, iv. l7--and probably much later, as the implication is that it is a great thing to be the ancestress of David. The reverence of a later age for the great king shines through the simple genealogical notice with which the story concludes.[1] (4) Further, the old custom of throwing away the shoe as a symbol of the abandonment of one's claim to property, a custom familiar in the seventh century B.C. (Deut. xxv. 9f.) is in iv. 7 regarded as obsolete, belonging to the "former time." The cumulative effect of these indications is strongly to suggest a post-exilic date. Not perhaps, however, a very late one: a book as late as the Maccabean period would hardly have reflected so kindly a feeling towards the foreigner (cf. Esther). [Footnote 1: Probably iv. 18-22 is a later addition, but that does not affect the general argument (cf. _v_.17).] The story probably rests upon a basis of fact. David's conduct in putting his parents under the protection of the king of Moab (I Sam. xxii. 3, 4) would find its simplest explanation, if he had been connected in some way with Moab, as the book of Ruth represents him to have been; whereas a later age would hardly have dared to invent a Moabite ancestress for him, had there been no tradition to that effect. The object of the book has been supposed by some to be to commend the so-called levirate marriage. This is improbable: not so much because the marriage was not strictly levirate, since neither Boaz nor the kinsman was the brother-in-law of Ruth--it would be fair enough to regard this as a legitimate extension of the principle of levirate marriage, whose object was to perpetuate the dead man's name--but rather because this is a comparatively subordinate element in the story. The true explanation is no doubt to be sought in the fact that Ruth the Moabitess is counted worthy to be an ancestress of David; and, if the book be post-exilic, its religious significance is at once apparent. It was in all probability the dignified answer of a man of prophetic instincts to the rigorous measures of Ezra, which demanded the divorce of all foreign women (Ezra ix. x, cf. Neh. xiii. 23ff.); for it can hardly be doubted that there is a delicate polemic in the repeated designation of Ruth as _the Moabitess_, i. 22, ii. 2, 6, 21, iv. 5, 10--she even calls herself the "stranger," ii. 10. It would be pleasant to think that the writer had himself married one of these foreign women. In any case, he champions their cause not only with generosity but with insight; for he knows that some of them have faith enough to adopt Israel's God as their God, i. 16, and that even a Moabitess may be an Israelite indeed. Ezra's severe legislation was inspired by the worthy desire to preserve Israel's religion from the peril of contagion: the author of Ruth gently teaches that the foreign woman is not an inevitable peril, she may be loyal to Israel and faithful to Israel's God. The writer dares to represent the Moabitess as eating with the Jews, ii. l4--winning by her ability, resource and affection, the regard of all, and counted by God worthy to be the mother of Israel's greatest king. The generous type of religion represented by the book of Ruth is a much needed and very attractive complement to the stern legalism of Ezra. LAMENTATIONS The book familiarly known as the Lamentations consists of four elegies[1] (i., ii., iii., iv.) and a prayer (v.). The general theme of the elegies is the sorrow and desolation created by the destruction of Jerusalem[2] in 586 B.C.: the last poem (v.) is a prayer for deliverance from the long continued distress. The elegies are all alphabetic, and like most alphabetic poems (cf. Ps. cxix.) are marked by little continuity of thought. The first poem is a lament over Jerusalem, bereft, by the siege, of her glory and her sanctuary, i. 1-11, though the bitter and comfortless doom which she bewails in i. 12-22, is regarded as the divine penalty for her sin, i. 5, 8. Similarly in ii. 1-10 her sorrow and suffering are admitted to be a divine judgment. Her shame and distress are inconsolable, ii. 11-17, and she appeals to her God to look upon her in her agony, ii. 18-22. The third poem, probably the latest in the book, represents the city, after a bitter lament, iii. 1-21, as being inspired, by the thought of the love of God, to submission and hope, iii. 22-36. A prayer of penitence and confession, iii. 37-54, is followed by a petition for vengeance upon the adversaries, iii. 55-66. The fourth poem, like the second, offers a very vivid picture of the sorrows and horrors of the siege: it laments, in detail, the fate of the people, iv. 1-6, the princes, iv. 7-11, the priests and the prophets, iv. 12-16, and the king, iv. 17-20, and ends with a prophecy of doom upon the Edomites, iv. 21, 22, who behaved so cruelly after the siege (Ps, cxxxvii. 7). In the last poem the city, after piteously lamenting her manifold sorrows, v. 1-18, beseeches the everlasting God for deliverance therefrom, v. 19-22. [Footnote 1: In the Hebrew elegiac metre, as in the Greek and Latin, the second line is shorter than the first--usually three beats followed by two.] [Footnote 2: An unconvincing attempt has been made to refer the last two chapters to the Maccabean age--about 170 B.C.] A very old and by no means unreasonable tradition assigns the authorship of the book to Jeremiah. In the Greek version it is introduced by the words--which appear to go back to a Hebrew original--"And it came to pass, after Israel had been led captive and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremiah sat down weeping, and lifted up this lament over Jerusalem and said." This view of the authorship is as old as the Chronicler, who in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25 seems to refer the book to Jeremiah, probably regarding iv. 20, which refers to Zedekiah, as an allusion to Josiah. Chs. ii. and iv. especially are so graphic that they must have been written by an eye-witness who had seen the temple desecrated and who had himself tasted the horrors of a siege, in which the mothers had eaten their own children for very hunger. The passionate love, too, for the people, which breathes through the elegies might well be Jeremiah's; and the ascription of the calamity to the sin of the people, i. 5, 8, is in the spirit of the prophet. Nevertheless, it is not certain, or even very probable, that Jeremiah is the author. Unlike the Greek and the English Bible, the Hebrew Bible does not place the Lamentations immediately after Jeremiah but in the third division, among the _Writings_, so that there is really no initial presumption in favour of the Jeremianic authorship. Again, Jeremiah could hardly have said that "the prophets find no vision from Jehovah," ii. 8, nor described the vacillating Zedekiah as "the breath of our nostrils," iv. 20, nor attributed the national calamities to the sins of _the fathers_, v. 7 Other features in the situation presupposed by ch. v. appear to imply a time later than Jeremiah's, v. 18,20, and it is very unlikely that one who was so sorely smitten as Jeremiah by the inconsolable sorrow of Jerusalem would have expressed his grief in alphabetic elegies: men do not write acrostics when their hearts are breaking. When we add to this that chs. ii. and iv. which stand nearest to the calamity appear to betray dependence on Ezekiel (ii. 14, iv. 20, Ezek. xxii. 28, xix, 24, etc.) there is little probability that the poems are by Jeremiah. It is not even certain that they are all from the same hand, as, unless we transpose two verses, the alphabetic order of the first poem differs from that of the other three, and the number of elegiacs--three--in each verse of the first two poems, differs from the number--one--in the third, and two in the fourth. In the third poem each letter has three verses to itself; in the other three poems, only one. Ch. iii. with its highly artificial structure and its tendency to sink into the gnomic style, iii. 26ff., is probably remotest of all from the calamity.[1] Considering the general hopelessness of the outlook, chs. ii. and iv. at any rate, which are apparently the earliest, were probably composed before the pardon of Jehoiachin in 561 B.C. (2 Kings xxv. 27) when new possibilities began to dawn for the exiles. 580-570 may be accepted as a probable date. The calamity is near enough to be powerfully felt, yet remote enough to be an object of poetic contemplation. The other poems are no doubt later: ch. v. may as well express the sorrow of the returned exiles as the sorrow of the exile itself. More than this we cannot say. [Footnote 1: The intensely personal words at the beginning of ch. iii. are, no doubt, to be interpreted collectively. The "man who has seen affliction" is not Jeremiah, but the community, Cf. _v_. 14, "I am become the laughing stock of all nations" (emended text). Cf. also _v_. 45.] The older parts of the book, whether written in Egypt, Babylon, or more probably in Judah, are of great historic value, as offering minute and practically contemporary evidence for the siege of Jerusalem (cf. ii. 9-12) and as reflecting the hopelessness which followed it. Yet the hopelessness is by no means unrelieved. Besides the prayer to God who abideth for ever, v. 19, is the general teaching that good may be won from calamity, in. 24-27, and, above all, the beautiful utterance that "the love of Jehovah never ceases[1] and His pity never fails," iii. 22. [Footnote 1: Grammar and parallelism alike suggest the emendation on which the above translation rests.] ECCLESIASTES It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more distressed by the spirit of scepticism and "heresy" which pervaded the book (cf. xi. 9 with Num. xv. 39). In spite of the opening verse, it is very plain that Solomon could not have been the author of the book. Not only in i. 12 is his reign represented as over--I _was_ king--though Solomon was on the throne till his death, but in i. 16, ii. 7, 9, he is contrasted with all--apparently all the kings--that were before him in Jerusalem, though his own father was the founder of the dynasty. There is no probability that Solomon would have so scathingly assailed the administration of justice for which he himself was responsible, as is done in iii. 16, iv. i, v. 8. The sigh in xii. 12 over the multiplicity of books is thoroughly inappropriate to the age of Solomon. Indeed the whole manner in which the problem is attacked is inappropriate to so early a stage of literary and religious development. But it was by a singularly happy stroke that Solomon was chosen by a later thinker as the mouthpiece of his reflections on life; for Solomon, with his wealth, buildings, harem, magnificence, had had opportunity to test life at every point, and his exceptional wisdom would give unique value to his judgment. Ecclesiastes is undoubtedly one of the latest books in the Old Testament. The criteria for determining the date are chiefly three. (1) _Linguistic_. Alike in its single words (e.g., preference for abstract nouns ending in _ûth_) its syntax (e.g., the almost entire absence of waw conversive) and its general linguistic character, the book illustrates the latest development of the Hebrew language. There are not a few words which occur elsewhere only in Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther: there are some pure Aramaic words, some words even which belong to the Hebrew of the Mishna. Even if we allow an early international use of Aramaic, the corrupt Hebrew of the book would alone compel us to place it very late. Some have sought to strengthen the argument for a late date from the presence of Greek influence on the _language_ of the book, e.g., in such phrases as "under the sun," "to behold the sun," "the good which is also beautiful," v. 18; but, probable as it may be, it is not certain that there are Graecisms in the language of Ecclesiastes.[1] [Footnote 1: Cf. A. H. McNeile, _Introduction to Ecclesiastes_, p. 43.] (2) _Historical_. There is much interesting detail which is clearly a transcript of the author's experience: the slaves he had seen on horseback, x. 7, the poor youth who became king, iv. 13-16 (cf. ix. 14ff.). These incidents, however, are too lightly touched, and we know too little of the history of the period, to be able to locate them definitely. The woe upon the land whose king is a child, x. 16, has been repeatedly connected with the time of Ptolemy V. Epiphanes (205-181 B.C.), the last of his house who ruled over Palestine and who at his father's death was little over four years old. However that may be, the general historical background is unmistakably that of the late post-exilic age. The book bears the stamp of an evil time, when injustice and oppression were the order of the day, iii. 16, iv. 1, v. 8, government was corrupt and disorderly and speech dangerous, x. 20. The allusions would suit the last years of the Persian empire (333); but if, as the linguistic evidence suggests, the book is later, it can hardly be placed before 250 B.C., as during the earlier years of the Greek period, Palestine was not unhappy. (3) _Philosophical_. The speculative mood of the book marks it as late. Though not an abstract discussion--the Old Testament is never abstract--it is more abstract than the kindred discussion in the book of Job. It is hard to believe that Ecclesiastes was not affected by the Greek philosophical influences of the time. If it be not necessary to trace its contempt of the world to Stoicism, or its inculcation of the wise enjoyment of the passing moment directly to Epicureanism, at least an indirect influence can hardly be denied. Greek thought was spreading as the Greek language was; and the scepticism of Ecclesiastes, though not without parallels in earlier stages of Hebrew literature, yet here assumes a deliberate, sustained and all but philosophic form, which finds its most natural explanation in the profound and pervasive influence of Greek philosophy--an influence which could hardly be escaped by an age in which books had multiplied and study been prosecuted till it was a burden, xii. 12. This "charming book," as Renan calls it, has in many ways more affinity with the modern mind than any other in the Old Testament. It is weary with the weight of an insoluble problem. With a cold-blooded frankness, which is not cynical, only because it is so earnest, it faces the stern facts of human life, without being able to bring to their interpretation the sublime inspirations of religion. More than once is the counsel given to fear God, but it is not offered as a _solution_ of the riddle. The world is crooked, i. 15, vii. 13, and no change is possible, iii. 1-8. It is a weary round of contradictions, birth and death, peace and war, the former state annihilated by the latter; and by reason of the fixity of these contradictions and the certainty of that annihilation, all human effort is vain, iii. 9. It is all alike vanity--not only the meaner struggles for food and drink and pleasure (ii.) but even the nobler ambitions of the soul, such as its yearning for wisdom and knowledge. Whether we turn to the physical or the moral world it is all the same. There is no goal in nature (i.): history runs on and runs nowhere. All effort is swallowed up by death. Man is no better than a beast, iii. 19; beyond the grave there is nothing. Everywhere is disillusionment, and woman is the bitterest of all, vii. 26. The moral order is turned upside down. Wrong is for ever on the throne. Providence, if there be such a thing, seems to be on the side of cruelty. Tears stand on many a face, but the mourners must remain uncomforted, iv. 1. The just perish and the wicked live long, vii. 15. The good fare as the bad ought to fare, and the bad as the good, viii. 14. Better be dead than live in such a world, iv. 2; nay, better never have been born at all, vi. 3. For all is vanity: that is the beginning of the matter, i. 2, it is no less the end, xii. 8. Over every effort and aspiration is wrung this fearful knell. Sad conclusion anywhere, but especially sad for a Jew to reach! Indeed he contradicts some of the dearest and most fundamental tenets of the Jewish faith. Many a devout contemporary must have been horrified at the dictum that man had no pre-eminence above a beast, or that the world, which he had been taught to believe was very good (Gen. i, 31) was one great vanity. The preacher could not share the high hopes of a Messianic kingdom to come, of resurrection and immortality, which consoled and inspired many men of his day. To him life was nothing but dissatisfaction ending in annihilation. If this is not pessimism, what is? But is this all? Not exactly. For "the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun," xi. 7. Over and over again the counsel is given to eat and drink and enjoy good, ii. 24; and despite the bitter criticism of woman already alluded to, a wife can make life more than tolerable, ix. 9. Nor does the book display the thorough-going rejection of religion which the previous sketch of it would have led us to expect. It is pessimistic, but not atheistic; nay, it believes not only in God but in a judgment, iii. 17, xi. 9_b_, though not necessarily in the hereafter. There is considerable extravagance in Cornill's remark that "never did Old Testament piety celebrate a greater triumph than in the book of Ecclesiastes"; but there is enough to show that the book is, after its own peculiar melancholy fashion, a religious book. It is significant, however, that the context of the word God, which only occurs some twenty times, is often very sombre. He it is who has "given travail to the sons of men to be exercised therewith," i. 13, iii. 10, cf. esp. iii. 18. Again, if the writer has any real belief in a day of judgment, why should he so persistently emphasize the resultlessness of life and deny the divine government of the world? "The fate of all is the same-just and unjust, pure and impure. As fares the good, so fares the sinner," ix. 2. This is a direct and deliberate challenge of the law of retribution in which the writer had been brought up. It may be urged, of course, that his belief in a divine judgment is a postulate of his faith which he retains, though he does not find it verified by experience. But such words--and there are many such--seem to carry us much farther. Here, then, is the essential problem of the book. Can it be regarded as a unity? Almost every commentator laments the impossibility of presenting a continuous and systematic exposition of the argument in Ecclesiastes, or Qoheleth, as the book is called in the Hebrew Bible. The truth is that, though the first three chapters are in the main coherent and continuous, little order or arrangement can be detected in the rest of the book. Various explanations have been offered. Bickell, e.g., supposed that the leaves had by some accident become disarranged--a supposition not wholly impossible, but highly improbable, especially when we consider that the Greek translation reads the book in the same order as the Hebrew text. Others suppose with equal improbability that the book is a sort of dialogue, in which each speaker maintains his own thesis, while the epilogue, xii. 13f, pronounces the final word on the discussion. One thing is certain, that various moods are represented in the book: the question is whether they are the moods of one man or of several. Baudissin thinks it not impossible that, "apart from smaller interpolations, the book as a whole is the reflection of the struggle of one and the same author towards a view of the world which he has not yet found." Note the phrase "apart from interpolations." Even the most cautious and conservative scholars usually admit that the facts constrain them to believe in the presence of interpolations: e.g., xi. 9b and xii. la are almost universally regarded in this light. The difficulties occasioned by the book are chiefly three. (1) Its fragmentary character. Ch. x.; e.g., looks more like a collection of proverbs than anything else. (2) Its abrupt transitions: e.g., vii. 19, 20. "Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten men that are in a city: for there is not a righteous man on the earth." This may be another aspect of (1). But (3) more serious and important are the undoubted contradictions of the book, some of which had been noted by early Jewish scholars. E.g., there is nothing better than to eat and drink, ii. 24; it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, vii. 2. In iii. 1-8 times are so fixed and determined that human labour is profitless, iii. 9, while in iii. 11 this inflexible order is not an oppressive but a beautiful thing. In viii. 14, ix. 2 (cf. vii. 15) the fate of the righteous and the wicked is the same, in viii. 12, 13, it is different: it is well with the one and ill with the other. In iii. 16, which is radically pessimistic (cf. _vv_. 18-21), there is no justice: in iii. 17 a judgment is coming. Better death than life, iv. 2, better life than death, ix. 4 (cf. xi. 7). In i. 17 the search for wisdom is a pursuit of the wind: in ii. 13 wisdom excels folly as light darkness. Ch. ii. 22 emphasizes the utter fruitlessness of labour, iii. 22 its joy. These contradictions are too explicit to be ignored. Indeed sometimes their juxtaposition forces them upon the most inattentive reader; as when viii. 12, 13 assert that it is well with the righteous and ill with the wicked, whereas viii. 14 asserts that the wicked often fare as the just should fare and vice versa; and that this is the author's real opinion is made certain by the occurrence of the melancholy refrain at the end of the verse. Different minds will interpret these contradictions differently. Some will say they are nothing but the reflex of the contradictions the preacher found to run through life, others will say that they represent him in different moods. But they are too numerous, radical, and vital to be disposed of so easily. There can be no doubt that the book is essentially pessimistic: it ends as well as begins with Vanity of Vanities, xii. 8; and this must therefore have been the ground-texture of the author's mind. Now it is not likely to be an accident that the references to the moral order and the certainty of divine judgment are not merely assertions: they can usually, in their context, only be regarded as protests--as protests, that is, against the context. That is very plain in ch. iii., where the order of the world, _vv_. 1-8, which the preacher lamented as profitless, _vv_. 9, 10, is maintained to be beautiful, _v_. 11. It is equally plain in iii. 17, which asserts the divine judgment, whereas the context, iii. 16, denies the justice of earthly tribunals, and effectually shuts out the hope of a brighter future by maintaining that man dies[1] like the beast, _vv_. 18-21. [Footnote 1: Ch. iii. 21 should read: "Who knoweth the spirit of man, _whether_ it goeth upward?" This translation involves no change in the consonantal text and is supported by the Septuagint.] Of a similar kind, but on a somewhat lower religious level are the frequent protests against the preacher's pessimistic assertions of the emptiness of life and the vanity of effort. For the injunction to eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of one's labour may, in their contexts, also be fairly considered not simply as statements, but as protests (cf. v. 18-20 with v. 13-17); for this glad love of life was thoroughly representative of the ancient tradition of Hebrew life (cf. Jeremiah's criticism of Josiah, xxii. 15.) Doubtless these protests could come from the preacher's own soul; but, considering all the phenomena, it is more natural to suppose that they were the protests of others who were offended by the scepticism and the pessimism of the book, which may well have had a wide circulation. It now only remains to ask whether books regarded as Scripture ever received such treatment as is here assumed. Every one acquainted with the textual phenomena of the Old Testament knows that this was a common occurrence. The Greek-speaking Jews, translating about or before the time at which Ecclesiastes was written, altered the simple phrase in Exodus xxiv. 10, "They saw the God of Israel," to "They saw the place where the God of Israel stood." In Psalm lxxxiv. 11 they altered "God is a sun (or pinnacle?) and shield" to "God loves mercy and truth." They altered "God" to "an angel" in Job xx. 15, "God will cast them (i.e., the riches) out of his belly"; or even to "an angel will cast them out of his house." These alterations have no other authority than the caprice of the translators, acting in the interests of a purer, austerer, but more timid theology. At the end of the Greek version of the book of Job, which adds, "It is written that Job will rise again with those whom the Lord doth raise," we see how deliberately an insertion could be made in theological interests. The liberties which the Greek-speaking Jews thus demonstrably took with the text of Scripture, we further know that the Hebrew-speaking Jews did not hesitate to take. A careful comparison of the text of such books as Samuel and Kings with Chronicles[1] shows that similar changes were deliberately made, and made by pious men in theological interests. We are thus perfectly free to suppose that the original text of Ecclesiastes, which must have given great offence to the stricter Jews of the second century B.C., was worked over in the same way. [Footnote 1: Cf., e.g., the substitution of Satan in 1 Chron. xxi. 1 for Jehovah in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1.] It would be impossible to apportion the various sections or verses of the book with absolute definiteness among various writers; in the nature of the case, such analyses will always be more or less tentative. But on the whole there can be little doubt that the original book, which can be best estimated by the more or less continuous section, i.-iii., was pervaded by a spirit of almost, if not altogether, unqualified pessimism. This received correction or rather protest from two quarters: from one writer of happier soul, who believed that the earth was Jehovah's (Ps. xxiv. 1) and, as such, was not a vanity, but was full of His goodness; and from a pious spirit, who was offended and alarmed by the preacher's dangerous challenge of the moral order, and took occasion to assure his readers of the certainty of a judgment and of the consequent wisdom of fearing God. On any view of the book it is difficult to see the relevance of the collection of proverbs in ch. x. If this view be correct, the epilogue, xii. 9-14, can hardly have formed part of the original pessimistic book. The last two verses, in particular, are conceived in the spirit of the pious protest which finds frequent expression in the book; and it is easy to believe that the words saved the canonicity of Ecclesiastes, if indeed they were not added for that very purpose. The reference to the commandments in _v_. 13 is abrupt, and almost without parallel, viii. 5. Again, the preacher, who speaks throughout the book in the first person, is spoken of here in the third, _v_. 9; and, as in no other part of the book, the reader is addressed as "my son" _v_. 12 (cf. Prov. i. 8., ii. 1, iii. 1). The value of Ecclesiastes is negative rather than positive. It is the nearest approach to despair possible upon the soil of Old Testament piety. It is the voice of a faith, if faith it can be called, which is not only perplexed with the search, but weary of it; but it shows how deep and sore was the need of a Redeemer. ESTHER The spirit of the book of Esther is anything but attractive. It is never quoted or referred to by Jesus or His apostles, and it is a satisfaction to think that in very early times, and even among Jewish scholars, its right to a place in the canon was hotly contested. Its aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside of Judaism were felt by the finer spirits to be false to the more generous instincts that lay at the heart of the Hebrew religion; but by virtue of its very intensity and exclusiveness it as all the more welcome to average representatives of later Judaism, among whom it enjoyed an altogether unique popularity, attested by its three Targums and two distinct Greek recensions[1]--indeed, one rabbi places it on an equality with the law, and therefore above the prophets and the "writings." [Footnote 1: It is probable also that the two decrees, one commanding the celebration for two days, ix. 20-28, the other enjoining fasting and lamentations, ix. 29-32, are later additions, designed to incorporate the practice of a later time.] The story is well told. The queen of Xerxes, king of Persia, is deposed for contumacy, and her crown is set upon the head of Esther, a lovely Jewish maiden. Presently the whole Jewish race is imperilled by an act of Mordecai, the foster-father of Esther, who refuses to do obeisance to Haman, a powerful and favourite courtier. Haman's plans for the destruction of the Jews are frustrated by Esther, acting on a suggestion of Mordecai. The courtier himself falls from power, and is finally hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai, while Mordecai "the Jew" is exalted to the place next the king, and the Jews, whom the initial decree had doomed to extermination, turn the tables by slaying over 75,000 of their enemies throughout the empire, including the ten sons of Haman. In memory of the deliverance, the Purim festival is celebrated on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar. The popularity of the book was due, no doubt, most of all to the power with which it expresses some of the most characteristic, if almost most odious, traits of Judaism; but also in a measure to its attractive literary qualities. The setting is brilliant, and the development of the incident is often skilful and dramatic, The elevation of Mordecai, due to the simple accident of the king's having passed a sleepless night, the unexpected accusation of Haman by Esther, the swift and complete reversal of the situation by which Haman is hanged upon his own gallows and Mordecai receives the royal ring--the general sequence of incidents is conceived and elaborated with considerable dramatic power. The large number of proper names, the occasional reference to chronicles, ii. 23, vi. 1, and the precise mention of dates, combine to raise the presumption that the book is real history; but a glance at the facts is sufficient to dispel this presumption. The story falls within the reign of Xerxes--about 483 B.C., but the hero Mordecai is represented as being one of the exiles deported with Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. This is a manifest impossibility. Equally impossible is it that a Jewish maiden can have become the queen of Persia, in the face of the express statement of Herodotus (iii. 84) that the king was bound to choose his consort from one of seven noble Persian families. These impossibilities are matched by numerous improbabilities. It is improbable, e.g., that Mordecai could have had such free intercourse with the harem, ii. 11, unless he had been a eunuch, or in the palace, ii. 19, unless he had been a royal official. It is improbable that Xerxes would have announced the date of the massacre months beforehand, improbable that he would later have sanctioned so indiscriminate a slaughter of his non-Jewish subjects, and most improbable of all that the Jews, who were in the minority, should have slain 75,000 of their enemies, who cannot be supposed to have been defenceless. It is much more likely that this wholesale butchery took place chiefly in the author's imagination, though doubtless the wish was father to the thought. Clearly he wrote long after the events he claims to be describing, and the sense of historical perspective is obscured where it is not lost. The Persian empire is a thing of the relatively distant past, i. 1, 13, and though the author is acquainted with Persian customs and official titles, it is significant that the customs have sometimes to be explained. The book is, in fact, not a history, but a historical novel in miniature. Its date is hard to fix, but it must be very late, probably the latest in the Old Testament. In spite of its obvious attempt to reproduce the classic Hebrew style, the book contains Aramaisms, late Hebrew words and constructions, and the language alone stamps it as late. Still more decisive, however, is its sentiment. Its intensely national pride, its cruel and fanatical exclusiveness, can be best explained as the result of a fierce persecution followed by a brilliant triumph; and this condition is exactly met by the period which succeeded the Maccabean wars (135 B.C. or later). The book, with its Persian setting, may indeed have been written earlier in Persia; but it more probably represents a phase of the fierce Palestinian Judaism of the last half of the second century B.C. It has been suggested with much probability that Haman is modelled on Antiochus Epiphanes; between their murderous designs against the Jews there is certainly a strong resemblance, iii. 9, 1 Macc. i. 41, iii. 34-36. The object of the book appears to have been twofold: to explain the origin of the Purim festival, and to glorify the Jewish people. The real explanation of the festival is shrouded in mystery. The book traces it to the triumph of the Jews over their enemies and connects it with _Pur_, ix. 26, supposed to mean "lot"; but no such Persian word has yet been discovered. Doubtless, however, the book is correct in assigning the origin of the festival to Persia. A festival with a somewhat dissimilar name--Farwardigân--was held in Persia in spring to commemorate the dead, and there may be just a hint of this in the fasting with which the festival was preceded, ix. 31, cf. 1 Sam. xxxi. 13, 2 Sam. i. 12. The Babylonians had also held a new year festival in spring, at which the gods, under the presidency of Marduk, were supposed to draw the lots for the coming year: this may have been the ultimate origin of the "lot," which is repeatedly emphasized in the book of Esther, iii. 7, ix. 24, 26. In other words, the Jews adopted a Persian festival, which had already incorporated older Babylonian elements; for there can be little doubt that the ultimate ground-work of the book is Babylonian mythology. Esther is so similar to Istar, and Mordecai to Marduk, that their identity is hardly questionable; and in the overthrow of Haman by Mordecai it is hard not to see the reproduction of the overthrow of Hamman, the ancient god of the Elamites, the enemies of the Babylonians, by Marduk, god of the Babylonians. This supposition leaves certain elements unexplained--Vashti, e.g., is without Babylonian analogy, but it is too probable an explanation to be ignored; and it goes to illustrate the profound and lasting influence of Babylonia upon Israel. The similarity of the name Esther to Am_estr_is, who was Xerxes' queen (Hdt. vii. 114, ix. 112) may account for the story being set in the reign of Xerxes. A collateral purpose of the book is the glorification of the Jews. In the dramatic contest between Haman the Agagite and Mordecai the Jew, the latter is victor. He refuses to bow before Haman, and Providence justifies his refusal; for the Jews are born to dominion, and all who oppose or oppress them must fall. Everywhere their superiority is apparent: Esther the Jewess is fairer than Vashti, and Mordecai, like Joseph in the old days, takes his place beside the king. What we regretfully miss in the book is a truly religious note. It is national to the core; but, for once in the Old Testament, nationality is not wedded to a worthy conception of God. Too much stress need not be laid on the absence of His name--this may have been due to the somewhat secular character of the festival with its giving and receiving of presents--and the presence of God, as the guardian of the fortunes of Israel, is presupposed throughout the whole story, notably in Mordecai's confident hope that enlargement and deliverance would arise to the Jews from one place, if not from another, iv. 14. But the religion of the book--for religion it is entitled to be called--is absolutely destitute of ethical elements. It is with a shudder that we read of Esther's request for a second butchery, ix. 13; and all the romantic glamour of the story cannot blind us to its religious emptiness and moral depravity. In a generation which had smarted under the persecution of Antiochus and shed its blood in defence of its liberty and ancestral traditions, such bitter fanaticism is not unintelligible. But the popularity of the book shows how little the prophetic elements in Israel's religion had touched the people's heart, and how stubborn a resistance was sure to be offered to the generous and emancipating word of Jesus. DANIEL Daniel is called a prophet in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, however, the book called by his name appears not among the prophets, but among "the writings," between Esther and Ezra. The Greek version placed it between the major and the minor prophets, and this has determined its position in modern versions. The book is both like and unlike the prophetic books. It is like them in its passionate belief in the overruling Providence of God and in the sure consummation of His kingdom; but in its peculiar symbolism, imagery, and pervading sense of mystery it stands without a parallel in the Old Testament. The impulse to the type of prophecy represented by Daniel was given by Ezekiel and Zechariah. The book is indeed rather apocalyptic than prophetic. The difference has been well characterized by Behrmann. "The essential distinction," he remarks, "between prophecy and apocalyptic lies in this: the prophets teach that the present is to be interpreted by the past and future, while the apocalyptic writers derive the future from the past and present, and make it an object of consolatory hope. With the prophets the future is the servant and even the continuation of the present; with the apocalyptic writers the future is the brilliant counterpart of the sorrowful present, over which it is to lift them." This will be made most plain by a summary of the book itself. Chs. i.-vi. are narrative in form; chs. vii.-xii. are prophetic or apocalyptic--they deal with visions. Curiously enough ii. 4-vii. 28, for no apparent reason, are written in Aramaic. In ch. i. Daniel and his three friends, Jewish captives at the court of Babylon, prove their fidelity to their religion by refusing to defile themselves with the king's food. At the end of three years they show themselves superior to the "wise" men of the empire. Then (ii.) follows a dream of Nebuchadrezzar, in which a great image was shivered to pieces by a little stone, which grew till it filled the whole world. Daniel alone could retell and interpret the dream: it denoted a succession of kingdoms, which would all be ultimately overthrown and succeeded by the everlasting kingdom of God. Ch. iii. deals not with Daniel but with his friends. It tells the story of their refusal to bow before Nebuchadrezzar's colossal image of gold, and how their fidelity was rewarded by a miraculous deliverance, when they were thrown into the furnace of fire. The supernatural wisdom of Daniel is again illustrated in ch. iv., where he interprets a curious dream of Nebuchadrezzar as a token that he would be humbled for a time and bereft of his reason. Ch. v. affords another illustration of the wisdom of Daniel, and of the humiliation of impiety and pride, this time in the person of Belshazzar, who is regarded as Nebuchadrezzar's son. Daniel interprets the enigmatic words written by the mysterious hand on the wall as a prediction of the overthrow of Belshazzar's kingdom, which dramatically happens that very night. Ch. vi. is intended to teach how precious to God are those who trust Him and scrupulously conform to the practices of true religion without regard to consequences. Daniel is preserved in the den of lions into which he had been thrown by the cruel jealousy of the officials of Darius' empire. With ch. vii. Daniel's visions begin. Four great beasts are seen coming up out of the sea, which, according to Babylonian mythology, is the element opposed to the divine. The last of the beasts, especially cruel and terrible, had ten horns, and among them a little horn with human eyes and presumptuous lips. Then is seen the divine Judge upon His throne, and the presumptuous beast is judged and slain. Before this same Judge is brought one like a son of man, who comes with the clouds of heaven--this human and heavenly figure being in striking contrast to the beasts that rise out of the sea. Daniel is informed that the beasts represent four kingdoms, whose dominion is to be superseded by the dominion of the saints of the most High, i.e. by the kingdom of God, which will be everlasting. In a second vision (viii.) a powerful ram is furiously attacked and overthrown by a goat. The angel Gabriel explains that the ram is the Medo-Persian empire, and the goat is the king of Greece, clearly Alexander the Great. From one of the four divisions of Alexander's empire, a cunning, impudent and impious king would arise who would abolish the daily sacrifice and lay the temple in ruins, but by a miraculous visitation he would be destroyed. In ch. ix. Daniel, after a fervent penitential prayer offered in behalf of his sinful people, is enlightened by Gabriel as to the true meaning of Jeremiah's prophecy (xxv. 11f., xxix. 10f.) touching the desolation of Jerusalem. The seventy years are not literal years, but weeks of years, i.e. 490 years. During the last week (i.e. seven years) there would be much sorrow and persecution, especially during the last half of that period, but it would end in the utter destruction of the oppressor. In another vision (x.-xii.) Daniel is informed by a shining one of a struggle he had had, supported by Michael, with the tutelary angel of Persia; and he makes a revelation of the future. The Persian empire will be followed by a Greek empire, which will be divided into four. In particular, alliances will be formed and wars made between the kings of the north (no doubt Syria) and the south (Egypt). With great elaboration and detail the fortunes of the king of the north, who is called contemptible, xi. 21, are described: how he desecrates the sanctuary, abolishes the sacrifice, cruelly persecutes the holy people, and prescribes idolatrous worship. At last, however, he too perishes, and his death is the signal that the Messianic days are very soon to dawn. Israel's dead--especially perhaps her martyred dead--are to rise to everlasting life, and her enemies are also to be raised to everlasting shame. Well is it for him who can possess his soul in patience, for the end is sure. Two facts are obvious even to a cursory inspection of the contents of Daniel (1), that certain statements about the exilic period, during which, according to the book, Daniel lived, are inaccurate; and (2) towards the close of the book and especially in ch. xi., which represents a period long subsequent to Daniel, the visions are crowded with minute detail which corresponds, point for point, with the history of the third and second centuries B.C., and in particular with the career of Antiochus Epiphanes (xi. 21-45). (1) Among the unhistorical statements the following may be noted. There was no siege and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 605 B.C., as is implied by i. 1 (cf. Jer. xxv. 1, 9-11), nor indeed could there have been any till after the decisive battle of Carchemish, which brought Western Asia under the power of Babylon. Again, Belshazzar is regarded as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (v.), though he was in reality the son of Nabunaid, between whom and Nebuchadrezzar three monarchs lay. Nor is there any room in this period of the history (538 B.C.) for "Darius the Mede," v. 31; the conquest of Babylon threw the Babylonian empire immediately into the hands of Cyrus, and the impossible figure of Darius the Mede appears to arise through a confusion with the Darius who recaptured Babylon after a revolt in 521, and perhaps to have been suggested by prophecies (cf. Isa. xiii. 17) that the Medes would conquer Babylon. Again, though in certain passages the Chaldeans represent the people of that name, v. 30, ix. 1, in others (cf. ii. 2, v. 7) the word is used to denote the wise men of Babylon--a use demonstrably much later than the Babylonian empire and impossible to any contemporary of Daniel. Such a seven years' insanity of Nebuchadrezzar as is described in Daniel iv. is extremely improbable; equally improbable is the attitude that Nebuchadrezzar in his decree (iii.) and confession (iv.) and Darius in his decree (vi.) are represented as having adopted towards the God of the Jews. (2) Concerning the immediately succeeding period--from Cyrus to Alexander--the author is apparently not well informed. He knows of only four Persian kings, xi. 2 (cf. vii. 6). Ch. xi. 5-20 gives a brief _résumé_ of the relations between the kings of the north and the kings of the south--which, in this context, after a plain allusion in _vv_. 3, 4 to Alexander the Great and the divisions of his empire, can only be interpreted of Syria and Egypt. From _v_. 21, however, to the end of ch. xi. interest is concentrated upon one particular person, who must, in the context, be a king of the north, i.e. Syria. The direct reference in _v_. 31 to the pollution of the sanctuary, the temporary abolition of sacrifice, and the erection of a heathen altar, put it beyond all doubt that the impious and "contemptible" monarch is none other than Antiochus Epiphanes. This conclusion is confirmed by the details of the section, with their unmistakable references to his Egyptian campaigns, _vv_. 25-28, and to the check imposed upon him by the Romans, _v_. 30, in 168 B.C. The phenomenon then with which we have to deal is this. A book supposed to come from the exile, and to announce beforehand the persecutions and ultimate triumph of the Jewish people in the second century B.C. is occasionally inaccurate in dealing with the exilic and early post-exilic period, but minute and reliable as soon as it touches the later period. Only one conclusion is possible--that the book was written in the later period, not in the earlier. _It is a product of the period which it so minutely reflects_, 168-165 B.C. The precise date of the book depends upon whether we regard viii. 14 as implying that the dedication of the temple by Judas Maccabaeus in 165 B.C. is a thing of the past or still an object of contemplation. In any case it must have been written before the death of Antiochus in 164 (xi. 45). Like all the prophets, the author of Daniel addresses his own age. The brilliant Messianic days are always the issue of the existing or impending catastrophe; and so it is in Daniel. The redemption which is to involve the resurrection is to follow on the death of Antiochus and the cessation of the horrors of persecution--horrors of which the author knew only too well.[1] [Footnote 1: Daniel is fittingly chosen as the hero of the book and the recipient of the visions, as he appears to have enjoyed a reputation for piety and wisdom (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20, xxviii. 3). Ezekiel's references to him, however, would lead us to suppose that he is a figure belonging to the gray patriarchial times, rather than a younger contemporary of his own.] Thus the belief in the late date of the book is reached by a study of the book itself, and is not due to any prejudice against the possibility of miracle or predictive prophecy. But the late date is confirmed by evidence of other kinds, especially (1) linguistic, and (2) theological. (1) There are over a dozen Persian words in the book, some even in the Babylonian part of the story. These words would place the book, at the earliest, within the period of the Persian empire (538-331 B.C.). Further, within two verses, iii. 4, 5, occur no less than five Greek words (herald, harp, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe), one of which, _psanterîn_, by its change of l (psa_l_terion) into n, betrays the influence of the Macedonian dialect and must therefore be later than the conquests of Alexander, and another, _symphonia_, is first found in Plato. Though it is not impossible that the names of the other musical instruments may have been taken over by the Semites from the Greeks at an early time, these words at any rate practically compel us to put the book, at the earliest, within the Greek period (i.e. after 331 B.C.). Further, the Hebrew of the book has a strongly Aramaic flavour. It is not classical Hebrew at all, but has marked affinities, both in vocabulary and syntax, with some of the latest books in the Old Testament, such as Chronicles and Esther. (2) The theology of Daniel undoubtedly represents one of the latest developments within the Old Testament. The transcendence of God is emphasized. He is frequently called "the God of Heaven," ii. 18, 19, and once "heaven" is used, as in the later manner (cf. Luke xv. 18) almost as a synonym for "God," iv. 26. As God becomes more transcendent, angels become more prominent: they constitute a very striking feature in the book of Daniel--two of them are even named, Gabriel and Michael. Very singular, too, and undoubtedly late is the conception that the fortunes of each nation are represented and guarded in heaven by a tutelary angel, x. 13ff. 20. The view of the future life in xii. 2, 3 is the most advanced in the Old Testament: not only the nation but the individuals shall be raised, and of the individuals not only the good (cf. Isa. xxvi. 14, 19) but the bad, to receive the destiny which is their due. These facts so conclusively suggest a late date for the book that it is unnecessary to emphasize Daniel's prayer three times a day with his face towards Jerusalem, vi. 10, though this is not without its significance.[1] [Footnote 1: It is worthy of notice that the reference to "the books" from which the prophecy of Jeremiah is quoted in ix. 2 seems to imply that the prophetic canon of Scripture was already closed; and this was hardly the case before 200 B.C.] The interpretation of this difficult book loses much of its difficulty as soon as we recognize it to be a product of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. It is best to begin with ch. xi, for there the allusions are, in the main, unmistakable and undeniable. Antiochus is the last of the kings of the north, i.e. Syria, regarded as one of the divisions of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. Without enigma or symbolism of any kind, the Persian empire is mentioned in xi. 2 as preceding the Greek, and in _v_. 1 as being preceded by the Median, which in its turn had been preceded by the Babylonian. Here, then, in the plainest possible terms, is a succession of four empires--Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek--the last to be succeeded by the kingdom of God (ch. xii.); and with this key in our hand we can unlock the secret of chs. vii. and ii. In ch. vii. the four kingdoms, represented by the four beasts and contrasted with the humane kingdom which is to follow them, are no doubt these very same kingdoms, as are also the four kingdoms of ch. ii., symbolized by the different parts of the colossal image of Nebuchadrezzar's dream: the little stone which destroys the image is again the kingdom of God. In ch. viii. the ram with the two unequal horns is the Medo-Persian empire, and the goat which overthrows the ram is symbolic of the Greek empire, founded by Alexander. These great features of the book are practically certain. It is further extremely probable that, in spite of a noticeable difference in the context, the "little horn" of viii. 9 is the same as the little horn of vii. 8, 20: the detail of both descriptions--the war with the saints, the destruction of the temple, the abolition of the sacrifice--is an undisguised allusion to Antiochus Epiphanes in his persecution of the faithful Jews and his efforts to extirpate their religion. The one like a son of man in vii. 13 is almost certainly not the Messiah: coming as he does with the clouds of heaven, he is the symbol of the kingdom of God, in contrast to the beasts, which emerge from the ungodly sea and symbolize the empires of this world. Again, his being "like a man"--for this is probably all that the phrase means--is meant to suggest that the kingdom of God is essentially human and humane, in contrast to the four preceding kingdoms, which are essentially brutal and cruel. This interpretation, which the contrasts practically necessitate, is made as certain as may be by _vv_. 18, 22, 27, where the kingdom and dominion, which in _v_. 13 are assigned to one like a son of man, are assigned in similar terms to "the people of the saints of the most High," i.e. the faithful Jews. The passages whose interpretation is least certain occur in ch. ix. In each of two consecutive verses, _vv_ 25f., is a reference to an "anointed one"--a different person being intended in each case. The question of their identity involves the further question of the precise interpretation of the prophecy of the seventy weeks. In ix. 2 Daniel is reminded by a study of Jeremiah (xxv. 11f., xxix. 10) of the prophecy that the desolation of Jerusalem would last for seventy years. But it is not over yet.[1] Gabriel then explains, _v_. 24, that the years are in reality weeks of years, i.e. by the seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah are really meant 490 years. The period of seventy weeks, thus interpreted, is further subdivided in _vv_. 25, 26 (a passage almost unintelligible in the Authorized Version) into three periods, viz. seven weeks (=forty-nine years), sixty-two weeks, and one week (=seven years). [Footnote 1: Another incidental proof that the book is late. In the time presupposed by it for the activity of Daniel, the seventy years had not yet expired, and so there could have been no problem.] With the first and last periods there is no difficulty. Starting from 586 B.C., the date of the exile, forty-nine years would bring us to 537, just about the time assigned to the edict of Cyrus, which permitted the Jews to return and rebuild their city. Cyrus would thus be "the anointed, the prince," and it is an interesting corroboration of this view that Cyrus is actually called the anointed in Isaiah xlv. 1. Now, as the book ends with the anticipated death of Antiochus in 164 B.C., the last week would represent the years 171 to 164; and in 171 the high priest, who, as such, would naturally be an anointed one, was assassinated. Attention is specially called to the sorrows of the last half of the last week, when the sacrifice would be taken away. This corresponds almost exactly with the suspension of the temple services from 168 to 165; and this period, again, is that which is elsewhere characterized as "a time, and times, and half a time," i.e. three and a half years (vii. 25, xii. 7), or "2,300 evenings-mornings," i.e. 1,150 days (viii. 14) or 1,290 or 1,335 days (xii. 11, 12). These varying estimates of the period, not differing widely, probably suggest that the book was written at intervals, and not all at once. The beginning and the close of the seventy weeks or 490 years are thus satisfactorily explained; but the period between 537 and 171 represents 366 instead of 434 years, as the sixty-two weeks demand. Probably the simplest explanation of the difficulty is that during much of this long period the Jews had no fixed method of computing time. Also it ought not to be forgotten that the numbers are, in any case, partly symbolical, and ought not to be too strictly pressed. For the purposes of the author, the first and last periods are more important than the middle. The precise interpretation of the enigmatic writing on the wall (_mene_, _tekel_, _peres_, v. 28) is uncertain. It has been cleverly explained as equivalent to "a mina (=60 shekels), a shekel and a part" (i.e. about sixty-two) and regarded as a cryptogram for Darius, who, according to _v_. 31, was on the eve of destroying Belshazzar's kingdom. More probably it simply means "number, weigh, divide"--the ambiguity being caused by the different possibilities of pointing and therefore of precisely interpreting these words, which were of course unpointed in the original. Further, in the word _peres_ (divide), there is a veiled allusion to the Persians. It is difficult to account for the fact that part of the book, ii. 4-vii., is written in Aramaic. It has been supposed that the author began to use that language in ii. 4, either because he regarded that as the language spoken by the wise men, or because they, being aliens, must not be represented as speaking in the sacred tongue; and that, having once begun to use it, and being equally familiar with both languages, he kept it up till he came to the more purely prophetic part of the book, in which he would naturally recur to the more appropriate Hebrew. Ch. vii., on this view, is difficult to account for, as it, no less than viii.-xii., is prophetic; and we should then have to assume, rather unnaturally, that the vision in ch. vii. was written in Aramaic because it so strongly resembled the dream of ch. ii. Besides it is not certain that the word "in Aramaic" in ii. 4 is meant to suggest that the wise men spoke in that language: it may have originally been only a marginal note to indicate that the Aramaic section begins here, just as vii. 28_a_ may indicate the end of the section. Some have supposed that part of a book originally Hebrew was translated into the more popular Aramaic, or that part of a book originally Aramaic was translated into the sacred Hebrew tongue. The difficulty in either case is to account reasonably for the presence of Aramaic in that particular section which does not coincide with either of the main divisions of the book (narrative or apocalyptic), but appears in both (i.-vi., vii.-xii.). Probably, as Peters has suggested, the Aramaic portion represents old and popular folk-stories about Daniel and his friends, that language being retained because in it the stories were familiarly told, while for the more prophetic or apocalyptic message the sacred language was naturally used. Ch. vii., however, presents a stumbling-block on any view of the Aramaic section. The Aramaic of the book is that spoken when the book was written: it was certainly not the language spoken by the Babylonian wise men. It is most improbable that they would have used Aramaic at all; and if they had, it would not have been the dialect of the book of Daniel, which is a branch of western Aramaic, spoken in and around Palestine. In spite of its somewhat legendary and apocalyptic form, the religious value of Daniel is very high. It is written at white heat amid the fires of persecution, and it is inspired by a passionate faith in God and in the triumph of His kingdom over the cruel and powerful kingdoms of the world. Its object was to sustain the tried and tempted faith of the loyal Jews under the fierce assaults made upon it by Antiochus Epiphanes. Never before had there been so awful a crisis in Jewish history. In 586 the temple had been destroyed, but that was practically only an incident in or the consequence of the destruction of the city; but Antiochus had made a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Jewish religion. It was to console and strengthen the faithful in this crisis that the book was written. The author reminds his readers that there is a God in heaven, and that He reigns, iv. 26. He bids them lift their eyes to the past and shows them how the fidelity of men like Daniel and his friends was rewarded by deliverance from the lions and the flames. He bids them lift their eyes to the future, the very near future: let them only be patient a little longer, xii. 12, and their enemies will be crushed, and the kingdom of God will come--that kingdom which shall know no end. It is of especial interest that Antiochus died at the time when our author predicted he would, in 164 B.C., though not, as he had anticipated, in Palestine, xi. 45. In the kingdom that was so swiftly coming, the lives that had been lost on its behalf would be found again: the martyrs would rise to everlasting life. The narrative parts have an application to the times not much less immediate than the apocalyptic. The proud and mighty, like Nebuchadrezzar, are humbled: the impious, like Belshazzar, who drank wine out of the temple vessels, are slain. Any contemporary, reading these tales, would be bound to think of Antiochus, who had demolished the temple and suspended the sacrifices. So Daniel's refusal to partake of the king's food was well calculated to encourage men who had been put to the torture for declining to eat swine's flesh. Man's extremity is God's opportunity. However cruel the sufferings or desperate the outlook, yet the Lord is mindful of His own, and He will Himself deliver them. For one of the most impressive features of the book is its utter confidence in God and its refusal to appeal to the sword (Ps. cxlix. 6). It counsels to patience, xii. 12. Without human hands, God's kingdom comes, ii. 34, and His enemies are destroyed, viii. 25. In the most skilful way, the book reaches its splendid climax. It moves steadily on, from a distant past in which God's servants had been rewarded and His enemies crushed, down through the centuries in which successive empires were all unconsciously working out His predetermined plan, and on to the darkest days in history--so dark, because the glorious and everlasting kingdom of God was so soon to dawn. EZRA-NEHEMIAH Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then the importance and interest of these books is without parallel in the Old Testament, for nowhere else have we history written by a contemporary who shaped it. It is just and practically necessary to treat the books of Ezra and Nehemiah together. Their contents overlap, much that was done by Ezra being recorded in the book of Nehemiah (viii.-x.). The books are regarded as one in the Jewish canon; the customary notes appended to each book, stating the number of verses, etc., are appended only to Nehemiah and cover both books; the Septuagint also regards them as one. There are serious gaps in the narrative, but the period they cover is at least a century (538-432 B.C.). A brief sketch of the books as they stand will suggest their great historical interest and also the historical problems they involve. In accordance with a decree of Cyrus in 538 B.C. the exiled Jews return to Jerusalem to build the temple (Ezra i.). Then follows a list of those who returned, numbering 42,360 (ii.). An altar was erected, the feast of booths was celebrated, and the regular sacrificial system was resumed. Next year, amid joy and tears, the foundation of the temple was laid (iii.). The request of the Samaritans for permission to assist in the building of the temple was refused, with the result that they hampered the activity of the Jews continuously till 520 B.C. (iv, 1-5, 24). Similar opposition was also offered during the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes, when the governor of Samaria formally accused the Jews before the Persian government of aiming at independence in their efforts to rebuild the city walls, and in consequence the king ordered the suspension of the building until further notice, iv. 6-23. Under the stimulus of the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, the real work of building the temple was begun in 520 B.C. The enterprise roused the suspicion of the Persian governor, who promptly communicated with Darius. The Jews had appealed to the decree of Cyrus granting them permission to build, and this decree was found, after a search, at Ecbatana. Whereupon Darius gave the Jews substantial support, the buildings were finished and dedicated in 516 B.C., and a great passover feast was held (v., vi.). The scene now shifts to a period at any rate fifty-eight years later (458 B.C.) Armed with a commission from Artaxerxes, Ezra the scribe, of priestly lineage, arrived, with a company of laity and clergy, at Jerusalem from Babylon, with the object of investigating the religious condition of Judah and of teaching the law (vii.). Before leaving Babylon he had proclaimed a fast with public humiliation and prayer, and taken scrupulous precautions to have the offerings for the temple safely delivered at Jerusalem. When they reached the city, they offered a sumptuous burnt-offering and sin-offering (viii.). Soon complaints are lodged with Ezra that leading men have been guilty of intermarriage with heathen women, and he pours out his soul in a passionate prayer of confession (ix.). A penitent mood seizes the people; Ezra summons a general assembly, and establishes a commission of investigation, which, in about three months, convicted 113 men of intermarriage with foreign women (x.). The history now moves forward about fourteen years (444 B.C.). Nehemiah, a royal cup-bearer in the Persian palace, hears with sorrow of the distress of his countrymen in Judea, and of the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. i.). With the king's permission, and armed with his support, he visited Jerusalem, and kindled in the whole community there the desire to rebuild the walls (ii.). The work was prosecuted with vigour, and, with one exception, participated in by all (iii.). The foreign neighbours of Jerusalem, provoked by their success, meditated an attack--a plan which was, however, frustrated by the preparations of Nehemiah (iv.). Nehemiah, being interested in the social as well as the political condition of the community, unflinchingly rebuked the unbrotherly treatment of the poor by the rich, appealing to his own very different conduct, and finally induced the nobles to restore to the poor their mortgaged property (v.). By cunning plots, the enemy repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought to secure the person of Nehemiah; and in fifty-two days the walls were finished (vi.). He then placed the city in charge of two officials, taking precautions to have it strongly guarded and more thickly peopled (vii.). At a national assembly, Ezra read to the people from the book of the law, and they were moved to tears. They celebrated the feast of booths, and throughout the festival week the law was read daily (viii.). The people, led by the Levites (under Ezra, ix. 6, lxx.), made a humble confession of sin (ix.), and the prayer issued in a covenant to abstain from intermarriage with the heathen and trade on the Sabbath day, and to support the temple service (x.). The population of the city was increased by a special draft, selected by lot from those resident outside, and also by a body of volunteers (xi.). After a series of lists of priestly and Levitical houses, one of which[1] is carried down to the time of Alexander the Great, xii. 1-26, the walls were formally dedicated, and steps were taken to secure the maintenance of the temple service and officers, xii. 27-47. On his return to Jerusalem in 432 B.C. Nehemiah enforced the sanctity of the temple, and instituted various reforms, affecting especially the Levitical dues, the sanctity of the Sabbath, and intermarriage with foreigners, xiii. [Footnote 1: According to Josephus, Jaddua (Neh. xii. 22) was high priest in the time of Alexander (about 330 B.C.?).] The difficulties involved in this presentation of the history are of two kinds--inconsistencies with assured historical facts, and improbabilities. Perhaps the most important illustration of the former is to be found in Ezra iii. There not only is an altar immediately built by the returned exiles--a statement not in itself improbable--but the foundation of the temple is laid soon after, iii. 10, and the ceremony is elaborately described (536 B.C.). The foundation is also presupposed for this period elsewhere in the book (cf. v. 16, in an Aramaic document). Now this statement is at least formally contradicted by v. 2, where it is expressly said that, under the stimulus of the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, who did not prophesy till 520 B.C., Zerubbabel and Joshua _began_ to build the house of God. This is confirmed by the very explicit statements of these two prophets themselves, whose evidence, being contemporary, is unchallengeable. Haggai gives the very day of the foundation, ii. 18, and Zechariah iv. 9 says, "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house." It is not impossible to surmount the difficulty by assuming that the laying of the foundation in 536 B.C. was a purely formal ceremony while the real work was not begun till 520; still, it is awkward for this view that the language of two contemporary prophets is so explicit. And in any case, the statement in Ezra v. 16 that "since that time (i.e. 536) even until now (520) hath the temple been in building" is not easy to reconcile with what we know from contemporary sources; the whole brunt of Haggai's indictment is that the people have been attending to their own houses and neglecting Jehovah's house, which is in consequence desolate (Hag. i. 4, 9). The most signal illustration of the improbabilities that arise from the traditional order of the book lies in the priority of Ezra to Nehemiah. On the common view, Ezra arrives in Jerusalem in 458 B.C. (Ezra vii. 7, 8), Nehemiah in 444 (Neh. ii. 1). But the situation which Ezra finds on his arrival appears to presuppose a settled and orderly life, which was hardly possible until the city was fortified and the walls built by Nehemiah; indeed, Ezra, in his prayer, mentions the erection of the walls as a special exhibition of the divine love (Ezra ix. 9). Further, Nehemiah's memoirs make no allusion to the alleged measures of Ezra; and, if Ezra really preceded Nehemiah, it is difficult to see why none of the reformers who came with him from Babylon should be mentioned as supporting Nehemiah. Again, the measures of Nehemiah are mild in comparison with the radical measures of Ezra. Ezra, e.g. demands the divorce of the wives (Ezra x. 11ff.), whereas Nehemiah only forbids intermarriage between the children (Neh. xiii. 25). In short, the work of Nehemiah has all the appearance of being tentative and preliminary to the drastic reforms of Ezra. The history certainly gains in intelligibility if we assume the priority of Nehemiah, and the text does not absolutely bind us. Ezra's departure took place "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king" (Ezra vii. 7). Even if we allow that the number is correct, it is just possible that the king referred to is not Artaxerxes I (465-424), but Artaxerxes II (404-359). In that case, the date of Ezra's arrival would be 397 B.C.; in any case, the number of the year may be incorrect. Any doubt which might arise as to the possibility of so serious a transformation is at once met by an indubitable case of misplacement in Ezra iv. 6-23. The writer is dealing with the alleged attempts of the Samaritans to frustrate the building of the temple between 536 and 520 B.C. (Ezra iv. 1-5), and he diverges without warning into an account of a similar opposition during the reigns of Xerxes (485-465) and Artaxerxes (465-424) (Ezra iv. 6-23), resuming his interrupted story of the building of the temple in ch. v. The account in iv. 6-23 is altogether irrelevant, as it has to do, not with the temple, but with the building of the _city_ walls, iv. 12. Such peculiarities and dislocations are strange in a historical writing, and they are to be explained by the fact that the book of Ezra-Nehemiah is not so much a connected history as a compilation. The sources and spirit of this compilation we shall now consider. First and of surpassing importance are (_a_, _b_) what are known as the I-sections--verbal extracts in the first person, from the memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah:-- (_a_) Ezra vii. 27-ix., except viii. 35, 36. (_b_) Neh. i.-vii. 5, xii. 27-43, xiii. 4-31. (_c_) Other sections, though they are not actually extracts from the memoirs, appear to rest directly on them: cf. Ezra vii. 1-10, x., Neh. viii.-x. In these sections Ezra is spoken of in the third person. (_d_) Of great interest and importance are the Aramaic sections, Ezra iv. _7b_-vi. 18 and vii. 12-26, involving correspondence with the Persian court or royal rescripts. (_e_) Finally, there are occasional lists, such as Neh. xii. 1-26_a_, or Neh. vii. 6-69, a list of the returning exiles, incorporated in the memoirs of Nehemiah from some earlier list and borrowed in Ezra ii. These are the chief sources, but there can be no doubt that they were compiled--that is put together and in certain cases worked over--by the Chronicler. That suspicion is at once raised by the fact that Ezra-Nehemiah is a strict continuation of the book of Chronicles,[1] though in the Hebrew Bible Chronicles appears last, because, having to compete with Samuel and Kings, it won its canonical position later than Ezra-Nehemiah. But apart from this, the phraseology, style and point of view of the Chronicler are very conspicuous. There is the same love of the law, the same interest in Leviticalism, the same joy in worship, the same fondness for lists and numbers. He must have lived a century or more after Ezra and Nehemiah; he looks back in Neh. xii. 47 to "the days of Nehemiah," and he must himself have belonged to the Greek period. One of his lists mentions a Jaddua, a high priest in the time of Alexander the Great. He speaks of the king of _Persia_ (Ezra i. 1), and of Darius _the Persian_[2] (Neh. xii. 22), as one to whom the Persian empire was a thing of the past; contemporaries simply spoke of "the king," Ezra iv. 8. [Footnote 1: Note that the opening verses of Ezra are repeated at the end of Chronicles to secure a favourable ending to the book--the more so as that was the last book of the Hebrew Bible.] [Footnote 2: In Ezra vi. 22 Darius is even called the king of Assyria.] Many of the peculiarities of the book are explained the moment it is seen to be a late compilation. The compiler selected from his available material whatever suited his purpose; he makes no attempt to give a continuous account of the period. He leaves without scruple a gap of sixty years or more[1] between Ezra vi. and vii. He interpolates a comment of his own in the middle of the original memoirs of Nehemiah.[2] He transcribes the same list twice (Ezra ii., Neh. vii.), which looks as if he had found it in two different documents. He gives passages irrelevant settings (cf. Ezra iv. 6-23). He passes without warning from the first person in Ezra ix. to the third person in Ezra x., showing that he does not regard himself as the slave, but as the master, of his material. Whatever may be thought of the view that he has reversed the chronological order of Ezra and Nehemiah, the book undoubtedly contains misplaced passages. Ezra x. is a very unsatisfactory conclusion to the account of Ezra, whereas Neh. viii.-x., which deal with the work of Ezra and its issue in a covenant, form an admirable sequel to Ezra x., and have almost certainly been misplaced. [Footnote 1: Unless we take into account the brief misplaced section in iv. 6-23.] [Footnote 2: Cf. especially xii. 47 with its reference to "the days of Nehemiah," whereas in xii. 40, xiii. 6, etc., Nehemiah speaks in the first person. Ch. xii. 44-47 at least belongs to the Chronicler.] We cannot be too grateful to him for giving intact the vivid and extremely important account of the activity of Nehemiah the layman in Nehemiah's own words (i.-vii. 5); at the same time, his own interests are almost entirely ecclesiastical. Unlike Ezra (viii. 15ff.), he says little of the homeward journey of the exiles in 537, but much of the temple vessels (Ezra i.) and of the arrangements for the sacrificial system, iii. 4-6. He dwells at length on the laying of the foundation stone of the temple, iii. 8-13, on the Samaritan opposition to the building, iv. 1-5, on the passover festival at the dedication of the temple when it was finished, vi. 19-22. He amplifies the Nehemiah narratives at the point where the services and officers of the temple are concerned. The influence of the Chronicler is unmistakable even in the Aramaic documents, whose authenticity one would on first thoughts expect to be guaranteed by their language. Aramaic would be the natural language of correspondence between the Persian court and the western provinces of the empire, and these official documents in Aramaic one might assume to be originals; but an examination reveals some of the editorial terms that characterize the Hebrew. A decree of Darius is represented as ending with the prayer that "the God that hath caused His name to dwell there (i.e. at Jerusalem) may overthrow all kings and peoples that shall put forth their hand to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem" (Ezra vi. 13). To say nothing of the first clause, which has a suspicious resemblance to the language of Deuteronomy, such a wish addressed to the God of the Jews is anything but natural on the lips of a Persian. Again, there are several distinctively Jewish terms of expression in the rescript given by Artaxerxes to Ezra, e.g. the detailed allusion to sacrifices in Ezra vii. 17. This, however, might easily be explained by assuming that Ezra himself had had a hand in drafting the rescript, which is not impossible. The question, however, is for the historian a very serious one: how great were the liberties which the Chronicler allowed himself in the manipulation of his material? It is interesting in this connexion to compare his account of the decree of Cyrus on behalf of the Jewish exiles in Ezra i. 2-4 with the Aramaic version in vi. 3-5, which has all the appearance of being original. The difference is striking. Cyrus speaks in ch. i. as an ardent Jehovah worshipper; but the substance of the edict is approximately correct, though its form is altogether unhistorical and indeed impossible. The Chronicler's idealizing tendency is here very apparent; and it is not impossible that this has elsewhere affected his presentation of the facts as well as the form of his narrative. In the light of the very plain statements of the contemporary prophets Haggai and Zechariah, we are justified in doubting whether, in Ezra iii., the Chronicler has not antedated the foundation of the temple. To him it may well have seemed inconceivable that the returned exiles should--whatever their excuse--have waited for sixteen years before beginning the work which to him was of transcendent importance. It is possible, too, that prophecy may have influenced his presentation of the history. He throws into the very forefront a prophecy of Jeremiah (xxv. 12), and regards the decree of Cyrus as its fulfilment (Ezra i. 1). He may also have had in mind the words of the great exilic prophet who had represented Cyrus as issuing the command to lay the foundation of the temple (Isa. xliv. 28); and he may in this way have thrown into the period immediately after the return activities which properly belong to the period sixteen years later. But it is perfectly gratuitous, on the strength of this, to doubt, as has recently been done, the whole story of the return in 537 B.C. Those who do so point out that the audience addressed by Haggai, i. 12, 14, ii. 2, and Zechariah viii. 6, is described as the remnant of the people of the land--that is, it is alleged, of those who had been left behind at the time of the captivity. No doubt the better-minded among these would lend their support to the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah to re-establish the worship, but this community as a whole must have been too dispirited and indifferent to have taken such a step without the impulse supplied by the returned exiles. The devotion of the native population to Jehovah, not great to begin with--for it was the worst of the people who were left behind--must have deteriorated through intermarriage with heathen neighbours (Neh. xiii., Ezra ix. x.); and without a return in 537 on the strength of the edict of Cyrus, the whole situation and sequel are unintelligible. The Chronicler's version of the decree of Cyrus throws a flood of light upon his method. It cannot be fairly said that he invents facts; he may modify, amplify and transpose, but always on the basis of fact. His fidelity in transcribing the memoirs of Nehemiah is proof that he was not unscrupulous in the treatment of his sources. It remains to consider briefly the value of these sources. The authenticity of the memoirs of Nehemiah is universally admitted. Similar phrases are continually recurring, e.g. "the good hand of my God upon me," ii. 8, 18, and the whole narrative is stamped with the impress of a brave, devout, patriotic and resourceful personality. The authenticity of the memoirs of Ezra has been disputed with perhaps a shadow of plausibility. The language of the memoirs distinctly approximates to the language of the Chronicler himself, though this can be fairly accounted for, either by supposing that the spirit and interests of Ezra the priest were largely identical with those of the Chronicler, or that the Chronicler, recognizing his general affinity with Ezra, hesitated less than in the case of Nehemiah to conform the language of the memoirs to his own. But more serious charges have been made. It has been alleged that the account of the career of Ezra has been largely modelled on that of Nehemiah, as that of Elisha on Elijah, and that legendary elements are traceable, e.g. in the immense wealth brought by Ezra's company from Babylon (Ezra viii. 24-27). These reasons do not seem altogether convincing. The Chronicler stood relatively near to Ezra. Records and lists were kept in that period, and he was no doubt in possession of more first-hand documentary information than appears in his book. There is no obvious motive for the writer who so faithfully transcribed the memoirs of Nehemiah, inventing so vivid, coherent and circumstantial a narrative for Ezra in the first person singular (Ezra vii. 27-ix.). The question of the Ezra memoirs raises the further question of the Aramaic documents. The memoirs are immediately preceded by the Aramaic rescript of Artaxerxes permitting Ezra to visit Jerusalem for the purpose of reorganizing the Jewish community (Ezra vii. 12-26). Doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of this document on the strength of its undeniably Jewish colouring; but this, as we have seen, is probably to be explained by the not unnatural assumption that Ezra himself had a hand in its preparation. Its substantial authenticity seems fully guaranteed by the spontaneous and warm-hearted outburst of gratitude to God with which Ezra immediately follows it (Ezra vii. 27ff): "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of our fathers, who hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart," etc. A similar criticism may be made in general on the Aramaic document, Ezra iv. _7b_-vi. 18. It is certain, as we have seen, that the document has been retouched by the Chronicler; but the whole passage and especially the royal decrees are substantially authentic. Attention has been called to the Persian words which they contain, though this alone is not decisive, as they might conceivably be due to a later author; but the authenticity of the decree of Cyrus is practically guaranteed by the story that it was discovered at Ecbatana (Ezra vi. 2). Had it been a fiction, the scene of the discovery would no doubt have been Babylon or Susa. After making allowance, then, for the Chronicler's occasionally cavalier treatment of his sources, we have to admit that the sources themselves are of the highest historical value, though in order to secure a coherent view of the period, they have, in all probability, to be rearranged. No rearrangement can be considered as absolutely certain, but the following, which is adopted by several scholars, has internal probability:-- Ezra i.-iv. 5, iv. 24-vi., followed by about seventy years of silence (516-444 B.C.). Neh. i.-vi., Ezra iv. 6-23, Neh. vii. 1-69 (= Ezra ii.), Neh. xi., xii., xiii. 4-31, Ezra vii., viii., Neh. vii. 70-viii., Ezra ix.-x. 9, Neh. xiii. 1-3, Ezra x. 10-44, Neh. ix., x. Despite their enormous difficulties, Ezra-Nehemiah are a source of the highest importance for the political and religious history of early Judaism. The human interest of the story is also great--the problems for religion created by intermarriage (Neh. xiii. 23ff., Ezra ix., x.), and the growth of the commercial spirit (Neh. xiii. 15-22). The figure of Ezra, though not without a certain devout energy, is somewhat stiff and formal; but the personality revealed by the memoirs of Nehemiah is gracious almost to the point of romance. Seldom did the Hebrew people produce so attractive and versatile a figure--at once a man of prayer and of action, of clear swift purpose, daring initiative, and resistless energy, and endowed with a singular power of inspiring others with his own enthusiasm. He forms an admirable foil to Ezra the ecclesiastic; and it is a matter of supreme satisfaction that we have the epoch-making events in his career told in his own direct and vigorous words. CHRONICLES The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book of Kings had brought the history down to the exile of Judah; and the natural desire to see the history carried from its new starting point in the return and restoration through post-exilic times is met by the book of Ezra-Nehemiah, to which there was no rival, whereas Chronicles had a rival in the existing and popular books of Samuel and Kings. The book, whose name _Chronicles_ is borrowed by Luther from Jerome, is very late. Ezra-Nehemiah with which Chronicles goes must be, as we have seen,[1] as late as Alexander the Great; but the lateness of Chronicles can be proved without going beyond the book itself. The Hebrew text of 1 Chron. iii. 19ff. carries the date six generations beyond Zerubbabel (520 B.C.), that is, at the earliest, to 350 B.C., while the Greek text postulates eleven generations, which would compel us to come as late as 250 B.C. We shall not go far astray if we consider the date as roughly 300 B.C. It is thus seven centuries later than the reign of David, with whose ecclesiastical enterprises it deals so elaborately, and about two and a-half centuries from the exile, with which it closes. The distance of the record from the events has to be borne in mind when estimating its religious spirit and historical value. [Footnote: See p. 355.] The book of Chronicles is an ecclesiastical history in a sense very much more severe than the book of Kings; on every page it reflects the ritual interests which were predominant when the book was written. To it the only history worth recording is the history of Judah. The first ten chapters are occupied with the preparation for that history, and the rest of the book (i Chron. xi.-2 Chron. xxxvi.) with the history itself from the coronation of David to the exile. Israel is the apostate kingdom; she had revolted alike from Judah and Jehovah, and had been swept for her sins into exile, from which she never emerged again. The Chronicler makes a man of God say to Amaziah, "Jehovah is not with Israel," 2 Chron. xxv. 7, and this exactly represents his own attitude. He therefore all but absolutely ignores the history of the northern kingdom, touching upon it only where it is in some special way implicated in the history of Judah. This practically exclusive attention of the Chronicles to Judah is based upon her unique religious or rather ecclesiastical importance. In Judah God made Himself known as nowhere else (cf. Ps. lxxvi. 1, 2); she was the religious metropolis of the world (Ps. lxxxvii.); Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, and the temple was the centre of Jerusalem. Therefore the temple and its affairs completely dwarf all other interests. Not only is the story in Kings of its building and dedication by Solomon repeated and expanded (2 Chron. i.-ix.), but the story of David's reign (1 Chron. xi.-xxix.) is almost entirely monopolized by an account of the arrangements which he made for the temple ordinances and the material which he collected for the building. He is said to have given Solomon a plan of the temple with all its furniture and sundry other details, the pattern of which he is said to have himself received from the hand of God (xxviii). Every opportunity is taken in the course of the history to dwell with an affectionate elaboration of detail on the temple services or festivals; and the resultant contrast between the corresponding accounts of the same reign in Kings and Chronicles is often very singular--nowhere more so than in the story of Hezekiah, most of which is devoted to an account of the great passover held in connexion with the reformation (2 Chron. xxix., xxx.). The Chronicler betrays, if possible, even more interest in the Levites than in the priests. It is a Levite who is moved by the Spirit to encourage Jehoshaphat before the battle (2 Chron. xx. 14), and special attention is called to their enthusiasm at the reformation of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix. 34). The Chronicler also displays exceptional interest in the musical service--in his account, e.g., of the inauguration of the temple and of the passovers of Hezekiah and Josiah; so that it has been not unreasonably conjectured that the author was himself a Levite and member of one of the guilds of temple singers or musicians. Since, then, the interests of the Chronicler are so undeniably ecclesiastical, the question may be fairly raised how far his narrative is strictly historical. It must be confessed, e.g., that the impression made by his account of David is distinctly unnatural and improbable, in the light of the graphic biography in 1 and 2 Samuel. It is not a supplementary picture, but an altogether different one. The versatile minstrel-warrior of the earlier books is transformed into a saint, whose supreme aim in life is the service of religion; and this transformation is thoroughly characteristic of the Chronicler. He deals with his literary sources in the most sovereign fashion, and adapts them to his theories of Providence. His omissions, e.g., are very significant. He has nothing to say of David's adultery, nor of Solomon's idolatry, nor of the intrigues by which he succeeded to the throne, nor of the tribute of silver and gold which Hezekiah paid Sennaccherib (2 Kings xviii. 14-16). It may be urged in extenuation of his silence that his public were already familiar with these stories in the books of Samuel and Kings; but he repeats so many sections from these books word for word that his failure to repeat the sections which militate against his heroes can only be regarded as part of a deliberate policy. Especially must this be maintained in the light of his numerous modifications or contradictions of his sources. David's sons, he tells us, were chief about the king (1 Chron, xviii. 17); he cannot allow that they were priests, as 2 Sam. viii. 18 says they were. Nor can he allow that Solomon offered his dedicatory prayer before the altar (1 Kings viii. 22)--that was the place for the priest--so he erects for him a special platform in the midst of the court, from which he addresses the people (2 Chron. vi. 13). The motive of these changes is obviously respect for the priestly law. Sometimes the motive is to glorify his heroes or to magnify their enthusiasm or devotion. Where, e.g. in 2 Sam. xxiv. 24 David pays Araunah fifty shekels of silver for the ground on which the temple was afterwards built, in 1 Chron. xxi. 25 he pays 600 shekels of gold. Similarly, in 1 Kings ix. 11 Solomon gives Hiram certain cities in return for a loan; in 2 Chron. viii. 2 it is Hiram who gives Solomon the cities. David accumulates 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 of silver for the building of the temple (1 Chron. xxii.)--a fabulous and impossible sum when we remember that Solomon himself had only 666 talents of gold yearly (1 Kings x. 14). In 2 Sam. xxi. 19 Elhanan is the hero who slays Goliath; the Chronicler sees that this conflicts with the romantic story of David (1 Sam. xvii.) and therefore makes Elhanan slay the brother of Goliath (1 Chron. xx. 5). In 2 Kings xxii., xxiii., the reformation of Josiah follows very naturally upon the finding of the law in the eighteenth year of the king, but the Chronicler represents the reformation as taking place in his twelfth year, i.e. as soon as he came of age (2 Chrori. xxxiv. 3). He still, however, dates the finding of the law in his eighteenth year (cf. 8), i.e. _six years after the reformation_, and thus throws the history into an impossible sequence, apparently for no other object than to illustrate the youthful devotion of his hero-king. He is not even always consistent with himself; following Kings (1 Kings xv. 14, xxii. 43) he says that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not remove the high places (2 Chron. xv. 17, xx. 33), and yet he had just before told us that they did (2 Chron, xiv. 5, xvii. 6) as, on his theory,--being good kings, they should. The motive for the change is usually obvious. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 Jehovah had tempted David to number the people. This is intolerable to the more advanced theology of the Chronicler, so he ascribes the impulse to Satan (1 Chron. xxi. 1). A similar transformation may be seen in his notice of the doom of Saul. In 1 Sam. xxviii. 6 it is implicitly said that Saul earnestly sought to discover the divine will; in 1 Chron. x. 14 this is roundly denied-he did not inquire of Jehovah. These and similar transformations, amounting sometimes to contradictions of the original sources, are due to a religious motive, and they appear to be made in perfectly good faith. The Chronicler is a religious man who, unlike Job, finds no perplexities in the moral world, but everywhere a precise and mechanical correspondence between character and destiny. Not only is piety rewarded by prosperity, but prosperity presupposes piety. The most pious kings have the most soldiers. David has over a million and a half, Jehoshaphat over a million, while Rehoboam has only 180,000. Manasseh's long reign of fifty-five years--a stumbling-block, on the Chronicler's theory--has to be explained by his repentance (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11ff.). Religious explanations are everywhere assigned for facts. Josiah's defeat and death are the penalty of his disobedience to the word of God which came to him through the Egyptian king (2 Chron. xxxv. 21ff). So Uzziah's leprosy is the divine punishment of his pride in presuming to offer incense despite the protests of the priests (2 Chron. xxvi. 16ff.), The Chronicler sees the hand of God in everything; He is the immediate arbiter of all human destiny. That is why rewards and punishments are so swift and just and sure. The divine control of human affairs is most conspicuously seen in the Chronicler's account of battles, where the human warriors count for nothing. God fights or causes a panic among the enemy; the warriors do little more than shout and pursue (2 Chron. xiii. 15, xx.). The battle-scenes show how little imagination the Chronicler possessed; clearly he had never seen a battle, and he has no conception of one (cf. Num. xxxi.). He thinks nothing of describing a conflict between 400,000 Judeans and 800,000 Israelites, in which half a million of the latter were slain (2 Chron. xiii.). It is all so different from the stirring and life-like tales of the Judges or the Maccabees. In the face of these historical improbabilities, what are we to make of the Chronicler's continual appeal to his sources? These are ostensibly of two kinds: (_a_) historical, (_b)_ prophetical. (_a_) He frequently refers to the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, the book of the kings of Israel, and the history of the kings of Israel. No doubt one book is cited under these different titles. The history of Manasseh, e.g., is said to be recorded in the history of the kings of Israel (2 Chron. xxxiii. 18); clearly this cannot be northern Israel, as Manasseh was a king of Judah. What, then, was this book of the kings of Israel and Judah? At first we are strongly tempted to regard it as our canonical book of Kings. That book was already over two centuries in existence and must have been familiar; not only are whole sections copied from it by the Chronicler verbatim, but occasionally passages which he adopts presuppose other passages which he has omitted; e.g. he follows 2 Sam. v. 13 in asserting that David took _more_ wives (1 Chron. xiv. 3), though the word "more" has no meaning in his context; in his source it points naturally enough back to 2 Sam. iii. 2-5. There can be no doubt, then, that the canonical books of Samuel and Kings constituted one of his sources. Yet it is almost equally certain that that is not the book to which he continually refers his readers. The "book of Jehu," which recorded the history of Jehoshaphat, is said to be incorporated in the book of the Kings of Israel (2 Chron. xx. 34); it is not, however, in our canonical Kings. Neither is the prayer of Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 18), nor are the genealogies referred to in 1 Chron. ix. 1. Again, for further information about Jotham the reader is referred to the book of the kings of Israel and Judah (2 Chron. xxvii. 7), when, as a matter of fact, the Chronicler has more to tell about him than our book of Kings (2 Kings xv. 32-38). Clearly, then, the book so frequently cited is not the canonical book of Kings. What sort of production it was may be inferred from the reference in 2 Chron. xxiv. 27 to the "_midrash_ of the book of the Kings." Doubtless the book in question was a midrash, i.e. an edifying commentary on the history, of the sort preserved in the very late story of 1 Kings xiii. The tendency towards midrash, which so powerfully affected the later Jewish mind, appears as early as the stories of Elisha. (_b_) Prophetic sources are also frequently cited or alluded to, e.g. the books of Samuel, Nathan, Gad (1 Chron. xxix. 29), the prophecy of Ahijah, the book of Shemaiah, the book of Iddo (2 Chron, xii. 15), the vision of Isaiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 32), etc. Probably, however, these were not independent prophetic works. The reference to the "_midrash_ of the prophet Iddo" (2 Chron. xiii. 22) suggests that these works, like the history of the kings, were midrashic; in all probability they were simply extracts from the midrashic book of Kings already alluded to. Practically all the prophets to whom books are ascribed in Chronicles are mentioned in the canonical books, and probably they were regarded as the authors of the sections in which their names occur, so that the books of Samuel, Nathan and Gad would be none other than the relevant portions of Samuel and Kings, or of the midrash of these books. Thus the Chronicler's imposing array of citations may be without injustice reduced to two books--the canonical book of Kings (or Genesis to Kings) and the midrash to those books. These facts have led many to deny all value whatever to the Chronicler's unsupported statements. But such a condemnation is too sweeping. The genealogies in 1 Chron. i.-ix., though they no doubt received many later additions, probably rest on good sources, and there are other notices bearing, e.g., on the fortifications of Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi.), Jotham (2 Chron. xxvii.), etc., on Uzziah's enterprise in peace and war (2 Chron. xxvi. 5-15), on Judah's border warfare (2 Chron. xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxvi. 7, xxviii. 17f), etc., which do not display the Chronicler's characteristic tendencies and appear to be authentic. On the whole, however, the historical value of Chronicles must be rated low. Nor is its religious value high. Its attitude to the problems raised by the moral order is exceedingly mechanical, and with one noble exception (2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19), its general conception of religion is ritualistic. But it is a valuable monument of the Judaism of the third century B.C., and we learn from it to appreciate the daring independence of such books as Job and Ecclesiastes. 
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18187	----	* * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Italicized text surrounded by _text_ | | Bolded text surrounded by =text= | | | | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES HAROLD B. HUNTING ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS NEW YORK NASHVILLE Copyright, MCMXXI, by HAROLD B. HUNTING All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE FOREWORD 7 I. SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT 9 II. HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 15 III. DESERT PILGRIMS 22 IV. A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 28 V. A GREAT DELIVERANCE 34 VI. FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN 39 VII. LEARNING TO BE FARMERS 44 VIII. VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN 49 IX. KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT 55 X. MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 60 XI. LESSONS IN COOPERATION 66 XII. EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 70 XIII. THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON 76 XIV. THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS 82 XV. A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 88 XVI. A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP 94 XVII. JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER 99 XVIII. ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES 103 XIX. A REVISED LAW OF MOSES 108 XX. A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 114 XXI. KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND 120 XXII. UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 127 XXIII. THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 134 XXIV. HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP 140 XXV. A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM 146 XXVI. A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM 151 XXVII. OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 155 XXVIII. BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS 161 XXIX. NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM 167 XXX. THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE 172 XXXI. JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS 176 XXXII. A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST 182 REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 185 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS, One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money 10 ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES 10 HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES 10 BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT CANAANITE CITY 16 CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (Clay) 16 CANAANITE SILVER LADLE 16 CANAANITE FORKS 16 EGYPTIAN PLOWING 44 EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING 44 EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR 44 AN EGYPTIAN REAPING 48 CANAANITE HOES 48 CANAANITE SICKLE 48 CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES 48 MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING 52 ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY 52 HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE 52 SMALLER KEY 52 CANAANITE CHISEL (Bronze) 76 CANAANITE FILE 76 VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES 76 BRONZE HAMMERHEAD 76 BONE AWL HANDLE 76 A FISH-HOOK 76 CANAANITE WHETSTONES 76 CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS 76 REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO 134 PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA 134 CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE 144 AN EGYPTIAN HARP 144 AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP 144 AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP 144 A BABYLONIAN HARP 144 JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D. 144 ASSYRIAN DULCIMER 144 FOREWORD Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily life of the common people--their joys and sorrows, their hopes, achievements, and ideals--has been buried in oblivion. The historical narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to think and feel about God. It makes little difference to us what particular idler at any particular time sat in the palace at Jerusalem sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like Ruth in the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart and simple in faith that to them or their children visions of angels might appear telling of a Saviour of the world. On such as these, in this study, let us as far as possible fix our attention. CHAPTER I SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great central desert lived the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are Semites. The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents and wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be. The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs, superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass was crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season came on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life. THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however, the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was no lack of excitement. =Wild beasts.=--There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and spears. We would want a high-powered rifle if we were in danger of facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such fights were anything but monotonous. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS, ONE | | OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED MONEY] | | | | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES] | | | | [Illustration: HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ TRIPS TO TOWN Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought grain, and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things they could not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys rode two or more of the men of the tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small boy was taken along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the sights. And for him the sights must have been rather wonderful--the great thick walls of the town, the massive gates, the houses, row on row, and the people, more of them in one street than in the whole tribe to which he belonged! =The market.=--They took their wool, of course, to the open square where all the merchants sold their goods. Soon buyers appeared who wanted wool. It was a long process then, as now, to strike a bargain in an Oriental town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. You must each ask after one another's health, and the health of your respective fathers, and all your ancestors. By and by, you cautiously come around to the subject of wool. How much do you want for your wool? At first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that you want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about five times as large as you expect to get. The buyer in turn offers to pay about a fifth of what it is worth. After a time you come down a bit on your price. The buyer comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps a half a day, you compromise and the wool is sold. =Weighing out the silver or gold.=--In those early days there was no coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used was as follows: 60 shekels = 1 mana. 60 manas = 1 talent. The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the smaller balance with the silver. THE HARD SIDE OF SHEPHERD LIFE The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were the tribes that were almost totally wiped out by famine and the diseases that sweep away hungry men. The next year, on the site of their last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and women and little children, whitening by the side of the trail. No wonder they looked upon wells and springs as sacred. Surely, they thought, a god must be the giver of those life-giving waters that bubble up so mysteriously from the crevices in the rock. =War with other tribes.=--In addition to their constant struggle to make a living from a somewhat barren land, these shepherds were almost constantly in danger from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing its flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a stronger tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plunder. There were many robber clans who did little else besides preying on their neighbors and passing caravans of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The desert and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long-standing feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other at every opportunity for centuries with a warfare that hesitated at no cruelty or treachery. DESERT RELIGION Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark despair is a fertile soil for religion. And these early Hebrew shepherds were intensely religious. It is true that in the earliest days the fierceness and cruelty of their wars were reflected in the character of the gods in whom they believed. They thought of them as doing many cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who believe very deeply and seriously in their religion, even in an imperfect religion, are sure to be a force in the world. Hence it is not surprising that three of the world's greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, arose at different times among the wandering shepherds of Arabia. STUDY TOPICS It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write the result of your study. 1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights and Measures," the approximate size of an "ephah," which was the common Hebrew unit of dry measure, and "hin," which was their common unit for measuring liquids. 2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in pounds avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent. 3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the experiences of shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in any concordance. 4. What are some valuable lessons which great spiritual teachers among the Hebrews learned from their shepherd life? Read Psalm 23. CHAPTER II HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies. A CLUSTER OF BLACK TENTS Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps. =The inside of the tents.=--Our friend is eager to show us hospitality and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back, while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men, and another for the women and children. There are mats on the ground to sit on and to sleep on at night. PREPARING FOOD Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows' milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a year. =A meager diet.=--Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the _kumyss_, or _zoolak_, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains. We would get very tired of milk and milk products if we had nothing else to eat all the year round; and so did these shepherds. They were eager to get hold of wheat and barley, whenever they could buy them. The women took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet or a stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse meal which they made in this way they mixed with salt and water and baked on hot stones before the campfire. Once in a great while it was possible, in this shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or lamb. But milk and wool were so valuable that the shepherds were very cautious about killing their flocks. It was, you see, a very simple and healthful diet on which these tent-people lived. But one meal was pretty much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and tomorrow's meals would be just like to-day's. It is not strange that they often longed for a change, and looked with envy at the crops of the farmers in the settled lands beyond the desert. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT | | CANAANITE CITY] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (CLAY)] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE SILVER LADLE] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE FORKS] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ CLOTHING Another occupation at which the women worked all day long was the making of clothing for their families. Most of their garments were made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff, which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of stone fastened to the other to give momentum in the spinning. With deft fingers the spinner kept this spindle whirling and at the same time kept working the wool down into the thread of yarn which she was making. As the thread lengthened she wound it around the spindle, until the wool on the distaff was all gone and she had a great ball of yarn. =Weaving=.--The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were experts in the art of weaving. They had large looms similar to ours, and wove on them beautiful fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains no doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford them. But they could not carry these heavy looms around with them from one camp to another, and much of the time their own women had to weave whatever cloth they had. The primitive loom they used was made by driving two sticks into the ground, and stretching a row of threads between them, and then tediously weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a time, until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow work this was, and many a long day passed before enough cloth could be woven to make a coat for a man or even a boy. They managed, however, to get along without nearly so much clothing as we think necessary. The little children, through warm days of summer, played around the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed very simply. There were only two garments for either men or women. They wore a long shirt reaching to the knees. This was made by doubling over a strip of cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out holes for arms and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open in front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. This outer garment was often thrown aside when the wearer was working. It was worn in cold weather, however, and was often the poor man's only blanket at night. Women's garments were probably a little longer than those of men, but in other respects the same. As for the feet, they mostly went barefoot. But on long journeys over rough ground they wore sandals of wood or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern Arab, probably wore a sort of large scarf gathered around the neck. =Making the garments.=--All these garments were cut and sewed by the women. They had no sewing machines to work with, not even fine steel needles like ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze or, very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one end, with a hole drilled through the other. With such rough tools, and all this work to be done, we can be sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew shepherds did not lack for something to do. FAMILY LIFE Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very beginning, was often sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This is shown by the many stories in the early books of the Old Testament which reflect disapproval of unbrotherly conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in family life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. Take the story of Joseph. It begins indeed with an unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving family of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality toward the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited boy, of the bitter jealousy of the other brothers, and finally of a crime in which they showed no mercy when they sold their hated rival to a caravan of traders to be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes on to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to manhood and risen to a position of extraordinary power and influence in the great kingdom of Egypt, not only saved from death by starvation his family, including those same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected a complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave them. Now, the most notable facts in connection with this story are those "between the lines." It is not merely that such and such events are said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries, Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive, telling it over and over again to their children. On numberless days, no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games. The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or sister who he thought had done him a wrong. And many a time after such a day the old father would gather all the family together in the evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and would begin to tell the story of Joseph. And as the tale went on, with its thrilling episodes, and its touches of pathos leading up at last to the whole-souled generosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a little brown hand sought a brother's hand in loving reconciliation. =The tribe as a larger family.=--To some extent the desert shepherds of all ages have carried this family spirit into the relations between members of the tribe as a whole. Since they had to stand together for protection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. Moreover, they were not separated into classes by difference of wealth. There were some who had larger flocks than others, but for the most part all members of the tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who were captured now and then in war there were some who rose to positions of honor. There were no kings nor princes; the chief of the tribe held his position by virtue of his long experience and practical wisdom. The distinction between close blood relationship and the brotherhood of membership in the same tribe was not sharply drawn; all were brothers. This is true to-day of all these desert tribes. Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for brotherly affection and for making social life sweet and harmonious could have produced a Joseph or the story of Joseph, or would have preserved that story in oral form through the centuries until it could be written down. It is worth while looking into the later history of such a tribe, and seeing what happened to them and how they thought and acted, and what they contributed to the life of the world. STUDY TOPICS 1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described in this chapter. 2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew shepherds, the women or the men? 3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of Joseph which show how the Hebrews felt in regard to the relations between brothers. 4. Compare the home life in America with the home life of the Hebrews. Are American brothers and sisters growing more quarrelsome or more kindly and loving toward one another? 5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people throw light on the ideals and relationships they most valued? 6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with that of the ancient Hebrews. CHAPTER III DESERT PILGRIMS According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees. This was one of the leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was situated southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which were the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is possible that of the shepherds who brought their sheep to market in Ur some were, indeed, among the ancestors of the Hebrews. BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the other) where human civilization began. This rich alluvial plain, lying between the lower Tigris and the lower Euphrates Rivers, became the home of a gifted race which at least in its later history through intermarriage was in part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. Several thousand years before Christ the people of this land began to till the soil, to control the floods in the rivers by means of irrigating canals, to make bricks out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses and cities. They also invented a system of writing upon clay tablets. These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed. Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by modern investigators. =Evidences of ancient culture.=--By B.C. 4000 there flourished on the plains of Babylonia a splendid civilization in many ways similar to ours to-day. The people raised enormous crops of grain and exported it by ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed to a high point the arts of the weaver, the dyer, the potter, the metal worker, and the carpenter. They had devised a system of geometry for the measuring of their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, months, and years which with modifications we still use. They had erected magnificent temples to their gods. From translations of the inscriptions on their clay tablets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and customs. Here, for example, is a translation of part of a letter from a son to a father asking for more money: "My father, you said, 'When I shall go to Dur-Ammi-Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of silver.' But you have not sent. Let my father send and let not my heart be vexed.... To the gods Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this seems! How like our boys was this boy who wrote the queer-looking characters on this bit of clay which we may hold in our hand! THE FAULTS OF THE BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION With all their gifts and achievements there were certain great evils in Babylonian life. For one thing they were inclined to be greedy and covetous. They lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were constantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian merchants or their agents were to be found in almost every city and town of western Asia and perhaps even as far east as China. Of the vast mass of their written records which have been collected in our museums, the majority are business documents and records of contracts. Many of them tell the story of hard bargains. Professor Maspero declares that these records "reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, and almost exclusively absorbed by material concerns." =Slavery.=--Moreover, the wealth of the nation was not fairly distributed but was more and more in the hands of the favored few, the great nobles, and their friends. The fields were not tilled by independent farmers. There were, instead, a few great estates which were rented out to tenants. The actual work, both on the fields and in the towns, was more and more performed by slaves. Some of these were captives who had been taken in war. Others were native Babylonians who had been sold into slavery for debt. So it had come about that Babylonian society had set like plaster into a hard mold with the king and the wealthy nobles on top and the poor peasants and slaves below. This state of things was fastened all the more firmly on the people by strong kings such as Hammurabi, who lived about B.C. 2000 and who unified the country under a powerful central government with his own city, Babylon, as the capital. A SHEPHERD WITH IDEALS About the time of Hammurabi's reign, if we follow the account related in the book of Genesis, there lived among the nomads on the plains west of the city of Ur a man named Abraham. If Hammurabi ever heard of him, which is improbable, he looked down upon him as of no account. Yet Abraham wielded a greater influence for the future welfare of humanity than all the princes of Babylon. For, discontented with Babylonian life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a civilization of a different and better type. And the sons of Hammurabi have yet to reckon with Abraham and his ambitions. =Discontent among the shepherds.=--Many of Abraham's people, no doubt, were discontented in Babylonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and hard. When they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on every hand. Yet the money they received from the wool merchants of Ur gave no promise of larger opportunities in life for any shepherd boy. So, at length when Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this country," they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will follow!" So it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out northwest, toward Haran, in what is now called Mesopotamia, and finally after some years of migration found themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan, southeast of the Mediterranean Sea. =Ideals represented in Abraham.=--But it is not as a leader of fortune hunters that Abraham is pictured in the Bible. No doubt he and his clansmen hoped to better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he was being guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects, to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below those revealed by Christ. Yet he had the Hebrew gift for home and family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left." Just what Abraham looked forward to, we, of course, do not know. Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems that such men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith as well as in material wealth; a nation in which money would not be considered more important than justice and kindness; in which home life might be sweet and loving, free from the fear of want or the blighting influence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity would always be kept open even for the humblest. At any rate, some centuries after the time when Abraham is supposed to have lived, we find a group of shepherd tribes living in and around Canaan, who believed themselves to be descended from the twelve sons of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition of a divinely guided pilgrimage from Babylonia to Canaan under Abraham's leadership just as we have described. It is a great thing to have memories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors. These the Hebrews had from the very beginning. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the articles on Babylonia and Hammurabi. 2. Read Genesis 12, 15, and 24 and form your own opinion of Abraham as a husband and father. 3. What was Abraham's most valuable contribution to history? 4. From any map of western Asia, draw a sketch map showing the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers, the Mediterranean Sea, and the general direction of Abraham's pilgrimage. 5. Where in the Bible is found the sentence spoken by Abraham to Lot, and quoted in this chapter? CHAPTER IV A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day, that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the search of food. The story of Joseph tells how they settled there.[1] They were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which was the Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed to pasture their flocks on the plains called the land of Goshen in the extreme northeast of the country west of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some decades or more they lived here, following their old occupation--sheep-raising. =Egyptian civilization.=--Egypt was in many ways like Babylonia. In Egypt too a great civilization had sprung up many millenniums before Christ. In some ways it was an even greater civilization than that of Babylonia. Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of them are still standing and are among the world's treasures. It would seem that there was somewhat more of love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for money among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians. THE ACCESSION OF RAMESES II There came to the throne of Egypt about B.C. 1200 a man of extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition known as Rameses II. He wished to build more temples in Egypt than any other king had ever built, so that wherever the traveler might turn people would point to this or that great building and say Rameses II built that. To put up these buildings he enslaved his people, compelling them to labor without pay. To raise the funds for building materials he made war on his neighbors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of Canaan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the dust of marching armies over the roads past their pastures and men would say, "Rameses is going to war again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and sometimes laden with spoils. =Enslavement of the Hebrews.=--Now, wars usually breed more wars. Rameses having attacked the Hittites was afraid they would attack him. Egypt was indeed very well protected from attack. There was only one gateway into the country, and that was by way of the narrow Isthmus of Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that they will have no time for plots." Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near the northeastern border to be a base of supplies for his armies on their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.[2] So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery. THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF MOSES During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard plight of his people. =Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.=--One day in the desert, Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call and God will help you." So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people, promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and accepted him as their leader. Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though they did not grant his demands. =Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it." So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure. The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all. But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won. But the end was not yet. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history. 2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the Hebrews worked. 3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator for his people? 4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt? 5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses? FOOTNOTES: [1] See Chapter I, and Genesis 46 and 47. [2] Exodus I. 1-11, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses, after the king himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the work of brickmaking for these new cities. CHAPTER V A GREAT DELIVERANCE Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them. Throughout its history the country has been ravaged periodically by fearful epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by Moses and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the enslavement of the Israelites, made it possible for him to lead his people out of slavery. So severe were the plagues that the government was for a time disorganized. Taking advantage of their opportunity, the Hebrews suddenly gathered up their possessions and set out toward the desert, driving their sheep and goats before them. In spite of the large figures given in some passages of Exodus, other statements indicate that they were not very numerous, a few thousand at most, and they doubtless hoped to slip out past the border fortresses, at night, unnoticed. As they approached the border, however, news came that they were being pursued by a troop of horsemen. This meant, of course, that a watch would be made for them at the fortresses also. They were caught in a trap, and turned in despair upon Moses, who could only once more assure them that Jehovah was leading them, and would somehow open the way. THE STRONG EAST WIND AND ITS RESULT That night they encamped on the western shore of one of the shallow bays or lakes at the head of the Red Sea. To the east was the water. North of the lake the wall and the line of fortresses began. Behind them they could already see where their pursuers were camping for the night. In the morning--terror, death, and return to slavery! =A path through the sea.=--During the night, however, someone came in from the shore of the lake with the astonishing news that it was going dry. A strong east wind was blowing, with an effect often observed by modern travelers, namely, that the comparatively shallow waters were being driven back into the deeper part of the sea. Instantly the word of command was given. With the women and children first and the flocks next, they picked their way through the mud and sand and rocks on the lake bottom, clear across to the other side. The next morning the wind changed, the waters returned, and many of their pursuers were drowned. The feelings of the Hebrews are expressed in the words of the triumph song in which through all later centuries they celebrated this deliverance: ="I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.= * * * * * * * * * =Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea; And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea."= INFLUENCE OF THE EXODUS ON HEBREW RELIGION It was indeed a notable deliverance, and the Hebrews never forgot it. It affected their ideals and their religion. Immediately after escaping from Egypt they set out across the desert for Mount Sinai, which was considered the home of their God Jehovah, there to offer up sacrifices of gratitude. Moreover, from that time on, every year they brought to mind the story of the great deliverance through a sacrificial feast called the Passover. Under Moses' leadership at Sinai they entered into a covenant with Jehovah. They were to be Jehovah's people forever, and they probably agreed to worship him only, as their national God. =Monotheism.=--At this time few had come to perceive the truth of monotheism, namely, that there is but one God in the universe, and that all the so-called gods and goddesses are mere superstitions. The Hebrews, at this time, did not doubt the real existence of other gods than Jehovah, such as Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Marduk and Shamash, gods of Babylon. But after the deliverance from Egypt they felt themselves bound to Jehovah by special ties of gratitude, and more and more came to consider the worship of any other god, by a Hebrew as base disloyalty. So the Exodus, and the experiences at Sinai, pointed the way, at least, toward monotheism. =Justice.=--Of great importance also was the influence of these experiences on their ideas of right and wrong, and their conception of the character of Jehovah. Because they as a nation had been enslaved they were the better able to sympathize with the oppressed and down-trodden. "Remember," their prophets could always say, "that _ye_ were slaves in the land of Egypt." And when, in after years, they were unjust in their dealings with foreigners living among them, they were reminded that "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." These ideals were reflected in their conception of their God. Many of their notions about him were crude and unworthy, even late in their history. This was natural and inevitable in the light of the times in which they lived. But in these Egyptian and desert experiences we see a notable beginning of nobler religious ideals. From this time on they were impelled to think of Jehovah, first of all as the God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and who had taken their part, humble shepherds as they were, against the mighty Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. To that extent, at least, their God was a God of justice and mercy. Other ideas, which were inconsistent with this, continued for a time, but gradually fell away, until at length great seers arose who proclaimed that God is nothing else than justice and mercy; righteousness is the essence of his character, and that is all he asks of men. "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne." THE TEN COMMANDMENTS According to all the Hebrew records, the covenant at Sinai was embodied in a divinely given Decalogue, or a set of ten short commands, which could be counted off on the ten fingers. Two Decalogues are given in Exodus, as coming from Moses at Sinai. One is in Exodus 34. 17-28. The other is the well-known Decalogue in Exodus 20. The former has to do largely with sacrifices and ritual observances. The latter, with its stern demands for right conduct toward one's fellow men, and for the worship of Jehovah rather than idols, expresses well the new moral and religious impulses which came to the Hebrews under the leadership of their first great deliverer. In its original form the Decalogue probably read something as follows: =Thou shalt have no other gods before me.= =Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven (or molten) image.= =Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain.= =Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.= =Honor thy father and thy mother.= =Thou shalt not kill.= =Thou shalt not commit adultery.= =Thou shalt not steal.= =Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.= =Thou shalt not covet.= STUDY TOPICS 1. Read in Hastings or any other modern Bible dictionary, the article on "Exodus." Note the testimony of modern travelers on the effect of high winds on the upper part of the Red Sea. 2. Where was Mount Sinai? Look up in Bible dictionary. 3. Draw a map, showing the probable route of the Hebrews after leaving Egypt. 4. What part of the Ten Commandments seems most to reflect the influence of the great deliverance from Egypt? Read Deuteronomy 5. 12-15. 5. Test your memory for the Ten Commandments in their brief form as given in this chapter. 6. The records of the events of this chapter are found in Exodus, chapters 6-12, 14, and 15. Read as much of this as your time will permit. CHAPTER VI FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled, comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells; to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons and all luscious fruits--this is the picture that haunts the wandering Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life. THE LAND OF CANAAN During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before Christ there was an unusually good opportunity for nomads to settle in Palestine. Before and after that time there were strong empires in control of the land protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans long afterward built a line of fortified towns east of the Jordan on the border of the desert, whose ruins may be seen to-day. In similar ways the Babylonians and the Egyptians had occupied and defended the country. But just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, and for a century and more afterward, both the Egyptian and Babylonian governments were weak. And as the various petty kings of Canaan itself were usually at war with each other, there was no strong government anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face. =The first invasion from the south.=--Very soon after leaving the mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found themselves on the southern edge of Canaan, in what was afterward known as the South Country, south of Judah. Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron, which was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to investigate and report on conditions there. They returned with a glowing account of the fertility of the soil. It is even stated in the Hebrew traditions that they brought back as a sample of the crops, one bunch of grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole between two men. But with the exception of one of their leaders, a certain Caleb, all the men reported that the cities were strongly fortified and the inhabitants so warlike that an invasion was out of the question. The people adopted this "majority report" in spite of the protests of Moses. It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of ease and luxury for a time, and then so many years of slavery, had sapped their courage and will power. At any rate, after a brief encounter with some of the tribesmen nearby, they fled in panic into the desert again. THE WILDERNESS WANDERINGS There followed, for a generation and more, a period of training somewhat like that which Boy Scouts receive, or should receive, on their "hikes" and camping trips. They learned to be independent and resourceful. It was at times very difficult to find food for themselves, or pasture for their sheep, and there was nothing to eat but the "manna," which they believed their God provided for them, and which was perhaps in the nature of an edible moss or lichen. At times there was a terrible scarcity of water. Always there was the danger of losing their way on those trackless wastes, and in this matter also they learned to look to their God as their pillar of cloud by day and their pillar of fire by night, guiding them from oasis to oasis in their search for food and pasturage. Then there were wild beasts and poisonous serpents and, worst of all, hostile tribes with whom more than once they had to fight for their lives. =Gaining a foothold east of the Jordan.=--All these years of wandering were spent mostly in the desert south of Canaan. Later they worked their way around the lower end of the Dead Sea to the east toward what was later known as the land of Gilead, on the eastern side of the Jordan River. This region is very fertile and was always noted in Bible times for its fat cattle. But its rolling plains lie open and defenseless toward the desert. Here under Moses' leadership the Hebrews were able to conquer one or two of the petty local chieftains, and thus gained a foothold from which they might some time make a sally across the River Jordan into central Canaan itself. =The death of Moses.=--In this eastern country Moses died. According to the Hebrew story, Jehovah gave him a view of the land of Canaan from one of the high mountains overlooking the Jordan River, after which death came. And "no man knoweth of his sepulcher to this day." He had been loyal to the divine call which had come to him so long ago in a flame which "burned and did not consume," loyal to the mother who had taught him amid the luxuries of an Egyptian palace not to forget his own people and their sorrows. He had led his people out of Egypt and its slavery in defiance of the proud and mighty Pharaoh. And he had taught them to turn to Jehovah as God of justice and to worship only him. THE INVASION OF CANAAN FROM THE EAST It was not long after the settlement east of the Jordan that the Hebrews began to make raids across the river, in part under the leadership of one of Moses' lieutenants, Joshua. The first town they captured was Jericho, down in the hot valley of the Jordan River, a few miles north of the Dead Sea. They had friends within the city, a woman named Rahab and her family. Since this was the first city captured it was considered to be sacred to Jehovah. The pity of it is that, in accordance with the standards of that day, this meant the ruthless slaughter of every living thing within its walls, including men, women, and little children. =New conquests.=--In these early raids some tribes, led by the men of Judah, went southwest and captured a few towns in the mountains west of the Dead Sea. Others, led by the strong tribe of Ephraim, went northwest. Throughout their later history, these were always the two leading tribes, Judah in the south, and Ephraim in the north. After the victories of the fighting men, the women and children and flocks would follow. We can imagine these rough warriors, with their untrained boys and girls, swarming into the houses of these little towns and villages. Most of them had never been inside a house before; and they would be eager to look at the furniture and to know the uses of the many strange things: for example, the jar of lye for cleaning, the perfumes on the stand, the earthen vessels for water and milk, the lamps, the baskets made of twigs, the pots for boiling broth, the oven for baking, in the door yard, and the wine press on the hillside where the grapes were trodden at the time of grape harvest. =The right and wrong of conquest.=--One may ask, what right had the Hebrews to attack and kill these people and seize their homes? Ideal Christian standards develop slowly. In these days of which we speak such standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations were at the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves masters of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here and there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the country, they gradually made friends with their Canaanite neighbors whom they had not been able to conquer at the beginning. In time their children intermarried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, or the Children of Israel. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 11. 13-14, 20, 21; Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6. 2. Draw a map showing in a general way the movements of the Hebrews described in this chapter. 3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," "Kadesh," "Jericho." 4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treatment of the American Indians by white settlers. 5. How should the natives of Africa be treated in the opening up of Africa to civilization? CHAPTER VII LEARNING TO BE FARMERS The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but their civilization was of a different kind from that of the settled farmers and villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland fields and villages where they were able to settle down and live as farmers and vineyard keepers instead of shepherds, they soon found that they had much to learn. The only teachers to whom they could turn were the Canaanites. Very soon, therefore, they made friends with their Canaanite neighbors. "Tell us how to plant wheat," the Hebrews said to them, for example; or, "Will you please show us how to prune these grape vines?" or, "Won't you give us a few lessons in driving oxen? We can't make these young steers pull." LEARNING TO RAISE AND USE CATTLE This lesson about the training and care of cattle was one of the first and most necessary parts of their new education. As shepherds they knew all about sheep and goats; and this knowledge was still valuable, for on many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no other animal could live. But as farmers they must also raise cattle, not only because of the milk, and the beef, but because they needed the oxen to draw their carts and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not horses, were the work animals of the farmers of those days. Oxen were more powerful than asses. Horses were seldom seen at all. They were used chiefly in war by the great military emperors of Egypt and Assyria. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN PLOWING | | (Similar to Hebrew Method.)] | | | | [Illustration: EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING | | (Hebrews used same methods.)] | | | | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ =Driving an ox team.=--So we can imagine the young Canaanites of those days watching a Hebrew farmer taking his first lesson with a team of oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to turn to the left or the right or to stop altogether. Plowing was one of the most difficult of the tasks to be done with oxen. The furrows had to be run straight and true. And the plows were clumsy affairs--not like our shining steel plows to-day--just a long pole with a short diagonal crosspiece, sharpened at the lower end, or tipped with a small bronze share. CROPS OF ANCIENT CANAAN The Hebrews raised the same crops as the earlier Canaanites. The leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, grapes, and figs. The two grain crops were, of course, the most necessary to life. They were planted in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes in his great parable of the sower. =Ancient agriculture.=--Harvesting and threshing were done almost entirely by hand. The grain was cut with sickles. Some of the old sickles have recently been found by investigators, buried deep in the mounds where ruined Canaanite cities lie hidden. Some of these sickles are of metal, and others are made of the jawbones of oxen or asses, with sharp flints driven into the tooth sockets. After the grain was cut it was tied in bundles and carried to the threshing floor, which was usually a wide, level space of hard ground or rock. Oxen were driven back and forth across the grain on the floor, drawing a heavy weight, until all or nearly all the kernels were shaken or crushed out of the heads. It usually took several days to thresh all the grain from an average-sized field. Then the straw was raked away, and the grain was left mixed with chaff and dust. The next windy day the winnowers, with large "fans," or wooden shovels, came and tossed the mingled chaff and dust and grain in the wind. The kernels of wheat fell back and the chaff and dust were blown away. Last of all, the good clean grain was gathered in baskets and bags, and hauled to the farmer's house, or to the granary, which was a round brick building standing beside or behind his house. VINEYARDS AND OLIVES Another new experience of the Hebrews in Canaan was the culture of grapevines. The vineyards were often on hillsides, especially those facing the south, and hence warmed by the early spring sunshine. The soil on these hillsides had to be terraced so that the rain would not wash it away. The vines had to be planted, trained on trellises, and pruned. At the time of the grape harvest many of the grapes, especially of the sweeter varieties, were set aside for raisins. They were spread out on sheets in the hot sunshine until they were dry and wrinkled. Then they were packed away in jars, where they settled into delicious cakes. Figs were dried and packed in the same way. =The manufacture of wine.=--Many of the grapes were used for wine. The juice of these was trodden out in wine-presses. These were large hollows several feet square, cut in the solid rock on the hillside. There were always two of them, one lower than the other, with connecting passages. The bunches of grapes were piled in great heaps in the higher of the two, and then it was great fun for the boys and girls and youths and maidens to jump barefooted and barelegged among the purple clusters, and trample them until the foaming red juice ran down into the lower of the stone chambers, where it was taken up with gourd dippers and poured into skins. The youngsters would come home with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted red. =Olive orchards.=--Almost every Canaanite farm had a few olive trees or a small olive orchard. The olives were prized for the oil which was squeezed from them. This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and in cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was their chief fuel for lighting purposes. The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in the top. From the bottom of the hollow, a hole was drilled through to the outside of the stone. Across the hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a tree or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. The ripe olives were shaken from the trees, and basket full after basket full poured into the hollow stone. Then the weighted beam would be laid across the top, with flat stones under it, fitting down into the hollow over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was strained and stored in jars. HARD WORK AND BRIGHT HOPES Most of these different kinds of crops called for an immense amount of hard work and drudgery. Think of the weariness of the reapers, swinging their sickles in the wheat or barley all day long under the hot Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain into the wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower and the sower. Of course there were happy hours, also. It was great fun to ride home behind the oxen, on a cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. The time of treading out the grapes was a festival of laughter, love-making, and song. And in the rainy season, after a year of plentiful harvests, when the granaries and cellars were well stored, there must have been many happy days of quiet rest and play in Hebrew homes. But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope of better days to come, when their children at least, or their children's children, would not have to toil quite so hard or so long each day, and when the danger of famine and starvation would not loom up quite so grimly as in the old days in the desert when one summer of drought might mean death for all. Here in Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy by and by. STUDY TOPICS 1. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the light of the customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4; Matthew 3. 12. 2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from the experiences of shepherd life. What lesson about God is drawn from farm life in Isaiah 5. 1-7? +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN REAPING] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE HOES] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE SICKLE] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ CHAPTER VIII VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own field out of sight of his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do. The danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead of that, the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village or town. Early in the morning he went out to his field, and in the evening returned to his home inside the protecting village walls. These ancient villages would have seemed to us most unattractive places. The houses were crowded close together. The streets were only narrow crooked lanes between the houses. In the rear room of each house were the stalls of the family ox and ass. The brays of the ass were the alarm clock in the early morning. There was no drainage. Garbage was thrown into the street. There were smells of all varieties. One is not surprised by the frequent stories of pestilences in the Old-Testament history. =Compensations of village life.=--It seems strange that people who were accustomed to life in the open desert should have ever brought themselves to settle down in these dirty, ill-smelling places. Surely, at first they must often have been homesick for the clean, pure air of the plains. On the other hand, probably most of them were willing to put up with the disagreeable odors and the dirty streets for the sake of being near other people. The desert was lonesome. In the village there was always something going on, something to hear and see, gossip of weddings and courtships and quarrels. Even to-day we find it hard to persuade those who are accustomed to the city to live in the country. Even though their city home may be a dark tenement in the slums, yet they enjoy being in a crowd of their fellow men. The country seems lonesome. LESSONS IN HOUSE BUILDING This village and town life, like the work on the farm, was a new school for the Hebrew shepherds, and set many an interesting problem for them to solve. They had to learn to build and repair houses. They were most often built of rough stones set in mud. The mud, when dry, became fairly hard, but not like mortar or cement. It was always easy for a thief "to dig through and steal," as Jesus so graphically described. Even though no thief came the dried mud was always crumbling, leaving holes between the stones through which snakes or lizards could crawl. In such a house, if a man should lean against the wall, it might easily happen that a serpent would bite him, as the prophet Amos suggests.[3] =Primitive Homes.=--The floor of the average poor man's house was simply the hard ground. The flat roof was made of poles thatched with straw or brushwood and covered over with mud or clay. There was seldom more than one room. Often there were no windows; even in the palaces of kings there were in those days no windows of glass. In one corner of the room there was a fireplace where the family cooking was done. There was no chimney, however, and the smoke had to go out through the open door. The door itself was generally fastened to a post, the lower end of which turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When the family went away from home the door was locked with a huge wooden key, which was carried, not in the pocket, like our keys, but over the shoulder. Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. You could not very well lose them and you did not need a key ring. =Houses of the well-to-do.=--Rich men's houses were, of course, more substantially and comfortably built. Real mortar made of lime was used in the walls. There were several rooms, including perhaps a cool "summer house" on the roof, making a kind of second story. One climbed up to these upper rooms by a ladder on the outside. The roof was solidly built and surrounded by a railing, so that on a hot summer evening the family could sit there and enjoy the cool evening breeze. There were windows also, covered with wooden lattice work, which let in light and air. No doubt every Hebrew father hoped that some day he or his children might live in such a house. Some of them learned the builder's trade and were able to lay stones in mortar and to use saws and axes and nails and other tools for woodwork. Yet when David built his palace, he had to send to Tyre for skilled masons. Evidently in his day the Hebrews had not progressed very far in the manual training department of their new school. OTHER VILLAGE ARTS AND CRAFTS Many trades, which with us are carried on in separate shops, were a part of the household work among the ancient Hebrews: for example, spinning and weaving and the making of baskets, of shoes, girdles, and other articles of skin or leather. We will study some of these household activities in another chapter. Other trades, however, even in the early days, were carried on by special artisans who worked at nothing else. =Trained artisans.=--Metal workers, for example, formed a special trade. Among the excavations of ancient Canaanite cities have been found the ruins of a blacksmith shop. When the Hebrews entered Canaan no one had as yet learned the art of working in iron and steel by means of a forge with a forced draft. All tools and metal implements, such as plowshares, knives, axes, saws, and so on, were made of bronze, which consists of copper mixed and hardened with tin. The blacksmith melted the metals in a very simple and rough furnace of clay heated by charcoal. The bronze itself, although harder than copper, could be worked into the desired shape by hammering and filing, without the use of heat. We who are used to our sharp, finely tempered tools of steel would certainly have found these clumsy bronze affairs most unsatisfactory. =The pottery shop.=--Another very ancient trade is that of the potter. This worker did not need much of a shop; only an oven in which to fire his products, a pile of clay, and a wheel. This consisted of a frame, in which turned an upright rod on which were two flat wooden wheels, one small at about the height of the worker's hands as he sat in front of it, and the other larger, to be turned by the feet. A heap of clay was placed on the upper wheel, which was then turned by the revolving rod, the potter's feet all the time kicking on the larger wheel below. The whirling mass was shaped by the fingers, according to the plan in the worker's mind. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING] | | | | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY] | | | | [Illustration: HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE] | | | | [Illustration: SMALLER KEY] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ How quickly a modern boy would have contrived a different arrangement, with a belt and foot-tread like the one on our mother's sewing machine! But for those days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many different kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: large jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and even babies' rattles. =How Hebrew boys learned a trade.=--The youngsters from the desert had never seen any of these interesting crafts, except perhaps now and then when their fathers had brought them with the wool to market. But now, on a rainy day when there was no work to be done in the field or at home, the boys would go down the street to the blacksmith shop, or to the shed where the old Canaanite potter worked his clay. One of the older boys would say, "Let me see if I can make something," and if the old man was good-natured he would let him try and perhaps would teach him some of the tricks of the trade. By and by the boy would hire out as a potter's helper and in a year or two would set up a little pottery of his own. So there came to be Hebrew as well as Canaanite potters and blacksmiths. They were proud of their skill in these arts, and as a nation they never were foolish enough to look down on them or to despise those who practiced them. All work was looked on as honorable. The apostle Paul was a tent-maker. Jesus was a carpenter. And in this respect for honest and useful work we may see another reason why the people of Israel have played so remarkable a part in the life of humanity. STUDY TOPICS 1. Explain the following Scripture passage in the light of the customs described in this chapter. Isaiah 22. 22; Deuteronomy 22. 8. 2. In earlier chapters we have seen how the Hebrew leaders drew lessons about God from shepherd life (Psalm 23), and from farm life (Isaiah 5. 1-7). What lesson did a great prophet learn in regard to God from the experiences of an artisan? (Jeremiah 18. 1-6.) 3. Why was it necessary to build a tower in a Canaanite vineyard, as suggested in Isaiah 5. 2 and Mark 12. 1? FOOTNOTES: [3] Amos 5. 19. CHAPTER IX KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new arts and customs of the land. It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through the night on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the house, with our cloak over us to keep us warm. Before daylight we are awakened by the older people moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in the saucer of oil. Soon everyone is awake. The mats are rolled up and piled in a corner. In the early dawn one of the older girls takes a jar on her shoulder and goes for water to the spring, which is outside the village half way up the hill. If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall be disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, although everyone helps himself to a bite or two of bread from the bread basket in the corner of the room. By and by father and the older boys take the ox and the ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house (we are lucky if the animals were not kept all night in the house itself) and start for the field. And the women also have their day's work before them in the house. First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground into flour. HOME TASKS In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, was merely pounded between two rough stones such as could be picked up anywhere. The flour, or meal, which was made in this way was not very good. Here in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for grinding grain. It consists of a large lower stone with a saddle-shaped hollow on the upper side. The upper stone is somewhat like a large, very heavy rolling pin. The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper stone is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually sifts out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread on the ground underneath the mill. It is a monotonous task, and very often two people work it together, one feeding in the grain and the other turning the millstone. This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company" for the other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone for her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the flour from the cloth on the ground. =Baking bread.=--After the wheat is ground into flour there is bread to be baked. On the plains they do not use much yeast-bread, for this requires an oven for baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It is made of baked clay and looks like a section of tiling standing on end, about two feet high, the clay being about an inch and a half thick. There is a cover of the same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More often the loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down on the inside of the oven, and the fire built all around and over it outside. All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, but in that land wood has always been scarce. In the times of the Hebrews, as to-day, dried manure, straw, and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus speaks of the grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven." =Baking day.=--To-day, while we are visiting, our Hebrew hostess is kneading some dough. She "set it" last night, pouring in some liquid yeast. By and by it is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about the size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of dried grass placed around the sides and over the cover. By and by the fire is lighted from some coals on the hearth; and in a few moments the house is filled with smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven is heated and the smoke has escaped. WEAVING WOOL AND FLAX Another household utensil which Hebrew women learned to use in Canaan was the heavy loom. This consisted of a low horizontal frame, with a device for separating the odd and even threads of the "warp" while a shuttle was drawn through them, carrying the yarn for the "web," or the cross threads. With this kind of a loom it was possible to weave much more rapidly than when one had to insert each thread, plaiting it over and under, by hand. There is, no doubt, one of these looms in the house where we are visiting. =Making linen out of flax.=--In the desert almost all garments were made of wool, especially in the case of the poorer tribes, who could not afford to buy linen. In those days the use of cotton was probably unknown. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a flannel shirt on a hot summer day. And one of the things which drew the Hebrew shepherds to Canaan was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot summers. So it may be that a part of the work in the house we are visiting to-day is to soak some of the stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them the long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers into cloth. PREPARING DINNER Of course the main business of each day in the household then, as now, is to get dinner ready. There is a light lunch about noon for the women and children. To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before long the men folks will come home hungry. We must have dinner ready for them when they come. If it has been a good year, even poor families in Canaan can have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless perhaps a lamb or a kid has been killed, especially for us as guests. But there is the curdled milk, and bread with olive oil and other things which shepherd folk never have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or lentils. How good they smell! And here are some bunches of raisins and figs, just as sweet and luscious as those which we buy in the fruit stores in America. The figs in our stores may have come from that very country of which we are studying. =Serving the meal.=--Soon the father and the boys come home. The ox and the ass are fed in the stall behind the house. The mother spreads a cloth on the ground and on it places a small stand about eight inches high, which is their only dining-room table. The pot of beans is placed on this stand, and the bread and other good things on the cloth around it. We all sit down on the ground and begin to eat. Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, however, we need a spoon, and here are some shells from the beach that serve admirably for that purpose; and we all dip into the same dish on the little stand. By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop that up with pieces of bread. When every crumb is picked up and eaten, we all lift our eyes to heaven, and the father repeats a prayer of thanksgiving to God. Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing dark, and soon it will be time to go to bed. STUDY TOPICS 1. Explain the following Scripture passages in the light of this chapter: Judges 16. 13; Deuteronomy 24. 6; Matthew 24. 41. 2. Read Proverbs 31. 10-31 for another picture of daily life in an ancient Hebrew home. What is said in this chapter about the making of beautiful as well as necessary things, and about the doing of kindly deeds? CHAPTER X MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and weave, new kinds of food to cook--all this helped to make life more interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome. Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men. "Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is not wise." IDOLATRY IN CANAAN Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord, who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail. =Dangerous examples.=--These sacrificial rites were carried on in the shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other performances which were licentious and degrading. The Hebrews, of course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the Hebrews. CANAANITE BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORLD There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone. How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers to these questions handed down from generation to generation and generally accepted as true. =Idolatrous stories of creation.=--When the Hebrews entered Canaan they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians, and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain stories about the beginning of things. Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods once sent upon the earth. =How the Hebrews retold these stories.=--The best men among the Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we find them in the Bible. =How these stories were handed down.=--In the earliest days of the settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write. Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward were written, were invented by the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians passed on their invention to the old Canaanites. After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book of Genesis in our Bible. NEW TENDENCIES TO SELFISHNESS IN CANAAN Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood. =Humane laws enacted.=--Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples: ="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry."= ="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious."= ="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."= There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses. ="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."= It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the Baal, or god of the field. If they were taken he would be angry. The Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim--not to keep the Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people were being laid the foundations of that greater and better civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which Abraham had dimly dreamed. STUDY TOPICS 1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil? 2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in the matter of moving picture shows? 3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to you to be in the spirit of Moses? CHAPTER XI LESSONS IN COOPERATION After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand together against their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care only for its own safety. The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in central Canaan, and the Naphtalites in the northern hills, and Gilead and Reuben across the Jordan--each group tried to fight its own battles. Often they fought with each other. There was a bloody war between the men of Gilead, and their cousins, the Ephraimites on the opposite side of the Jordan. The Ephraimites crossed the river and attacked the Gileadites, and were badly beaten; when they tried to get back home again, they found the Gileadites holding the fords of the river. Each fugitive was asked, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said "No," they would order him to say "Shibboleth" (a Hebrew word). And if he said "Sibboleth" (the Gileadite dialect), and did not pronounce it exactly right, then they would kill him. This was only one example of the many wars between the tribes. There was no central government to keep the peace. This age in their history is sometimes called the period of the Judges. But these judges did not rule over the whole land. Most of them were only petty champions, each of whom helped his own tribe to defend itself against its enemies. SISERA AND DEBORAH In this disorganized state they would have been an easy prey to any strong enemy; and before long, an enemy came. In the fertile plain of Esdraelon, which cuts across Palestine just north of the central highland, there was a group of Canaanite towns which the Hebrews had not as yet conquered. These were organized into a kingdom by a warrior named Sisera, who at once began to reconquer those parts of the country which now belonged to the Hebrews. It was a bitter time for the tribes that were settled around the Plain of Esdraelon. Those villages which were perched on the mountain sides held out for a time, but the inhabitants dared not go down into the valleys. They could not take their grain to the market. The valley roads were all deserted except for bands of Sisera's troopers. Each year Sisera grew stronger, and more of the Hebrews submitted to him. In a little while there would have been none left to call themselves Hebrews and to keep up the noble traditions and hopes of Moses and Abraham. =A wise and patriotic woman.=--If only the more distant tribes had come to the help of those that bordered on Sisera's kingdom, if only all the Hebrews had stood together, they could easily have defended themselves. But no one seemed to see this, or had faith enough to try to accomplish anything in this way "until Deborah arose." One day there came up through the sheepfolds of the Reubenites this remarkable woman whose name was Deborah. "Come to the help of your brethren across the river," she said, as she told her story. "Come to the help of Jehovah, by helping his people." At first the Reubenites seemed greatly moved by Deborah's words. Certainly, they would come, whenever Deborah and her friends were ready. So the brave woman was encouraged and went to other tribes, to all of them one after another. But not everywhere was she successful. Many said: "Why should we go up and help your people? Suppose Sisera wins, he will come and punish us. We will stay here where we are safe." Even the Reubenites, whose first resolves had been so brave, changed their minds, and "stayed in their sheepfolds, listening to the pipings of the flocks." =The battle by the Kishon River.=--After many weeks of tramping, however, Deborah was able to get a few of the tribes really organized. Ephraim, Benjamin, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, and some smaller clans all promised to send troops and did send them. An army was gathered under a captain named Barak. The Canaanites under Sisera came out to fight them, and the battle took place on the flat fields of the Plain of Esdraelon. It looked like a victory for Sisera. He had charioteers as well as foot soldiers--troops of men in heavy war carts, from the axles of which extended sharp blades like scythes. But Deborah had called to her people in the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah seemed, indeed, to be on their side. We may well believe that it was the spirit of God that put it into the hearts of Deborah and Barak to delay the battle until there should be a rainy day. When the clash finally came there was a heavy downpour. The flat plain became a swamp. The war chariots sank into the mud and were helpless. The Canaanites became panic-stricken and fled in terror. Many of them were drowned in the attempt to cross the Kishon, which is usually a shallow creek, but on that day was a deep and swiftly flowing torrent. Sisera, himself in flight, was killed by a woman in whose tent he tried to take refuge. The battle was won for Jehovah's people. The Hebrews could still be free and independent, and they had learned a valuable lesson--the necessity for cooperation. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Judges. 2. With the help of a map showing the location of the various tribes in Canaan, find the ones which were most in danger from Sisera, whose kingdom was in the Plain of Esdraelon. 3. With the help of the map, explain why it was not easy for Deborah to persuade the Reubenites and the Gileadites to enter this war. 4. What arguments would you have used to persuade them? 5. Could you use the same arguments in favor of the League of Nations and our membership in it, as a nation? CHAPTER XII EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies took advantage of it to plunder and kill. =The Midianites.=--Among the most harassing of these enemies for a time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after the wheat and barley had begun to sprout, covering all the fields with a carpet of the brightest green, bands of these nomads would drive their flocks across the Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while the men stood guard in armed bands. In the summer and fall after what was left of the grain had been harvested and beaten out on the threshing floors they would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking it away in bags on the backs of camels. Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and barley unthreshed with the sheaves piled up in grain ricks and would thresh it out, a little at a time, in the low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in the rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders were in the habit of coming, and no family could be sure of food to carry them over the winter months. GIDEON, THE ABIEZRITE In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan called Abiezer. One night a band of Midianites came on camels and raided the villages of this clan, killing some of the people, and carrying away whatever they found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan River to the desert before enough Hebrew men could get together to resist them. =The counter-raid.=--In the heart of one young man, the brother of some who were killed, God planted a sudden determination to put a stop to these murders and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue this band across the river, and when some three hundred had responded they set out in hot haste, down the hillsides into the plain of the Jordan, up the slopes on the eastern side, and out onto the plains where the Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to track them over these solitary wastes; and they had their swift camels. But Gideon trailed them; stealing up at night, he surprised them. They fled in terror leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews were not molested by this particular tribe of desert wanderers. =The kingdom of Gideon.=--Out of this experience the Hebrews in central Canaan gained another lesson in cooperation; and they made up their minds to profit by it. Here is a man, they said to themselves, who can lead us to victory against our foes. If we all agree to do as he says we can all stand together, each for all and all for each. So they came to Gideon, and asked him to be their ruler. He refused at first, but it is clear that he finally accepted and really became king over some of the tribes and clans of central Canaan. One of his sons, a certain Abimelech, seized the kingdom after Gideon's death and proved to be a selfish tyrant. He was killed by his enemies, and that was the end of the dynasty of Gideon. "How can we have unity and cooperation under a strong leader," the Hebrews asked themselves, "and not at the same time be in danger of slavery under a ruthless tyrant?" That was a difficult question. THE PHILISTINES Meanwhile a national enemy far more dangerous than any previously mentioned had begun to threaten their existence as a people. About the same time that the Hebrews settled in Canaan there had landed from ships on the southwestern coast some newcomers of another race, perhaps akin to the Greeks; they were called Philistines. They quickly became a rich and powerful nation, holding the coast towns of Gath, Askelon, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. They were ambitious to become masters of the whole land of Canaan. Their soldiers, in well-trained bands, built forts and established garrisons here and there, in the leading towns, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute. At the same time they did not protect the country from other enemies. For example, there were the Amalekites on the southern border, who were robber-nomads, just like the Midianites on the east. There were the people of Ammon, a town east of the Jordan. From these and other petty enemies the Hebrews suffered much, and the Philistines did nothing to help them. All they cared about was the tribute. "O for a leader like Deborah and Gideon!" the Hebrews once again began to cry. =The messengers with the raw meat.=--One day messengers came hurrying through the towns and villages of central Canaan bearing sacks or baskets of raw beef chopped into small squares. To the leading men of each village, they handed a piece of the bloody flesh with this message: "This piece of ox flesh is from Saul, the son of Kish, of Gibeah in Benjamin. As this flesh is cut into small pieces so will the flesh of the men of your village be chopped up if you do not come at once, armed for battle, to help our brothers in Jabesh in Gilead east of the Jordan, which is besieged by the Ammonites." "Who is Saul?" many asked, and few could answer. Some perhaps were able to explain that he was a brave and able young farmer, a friend of a prophet named Samuel, in the tribe of Benjamin. But it was the raw meat that persuaded them to obey the summons. Here is a real leader, they said, a man who means what he says. And two or three nights later an army of Hebrews, with Saul in the lead, came dashing in among the tents of the Ammonites who were besieging Jabesh and put them to flight. The Gileadites were saved; and for years to come they remembered Saul with gratitude. THE KINGDOM OF SAUL Shortly after this victory there was a great gathering of the Hebrews of Benjamin and some of the neighboring tribes and Saul was elected as king. Would he also become a tyrant? Would he make their children slaves and take the best of their flocks and herds and wheat and oil, leaving them in poverty while he lived in luxury? There were many who thought so. The prophet Samuel, himself Saul's friend, warned them of the danger although he helped to make Saul king. But the danger from the Philistines was so great and they had suffered so much from their enemies on account of their lack of unity that they were willing to take the risk of organizing themselves as a kingdom under Saul. =The first victories over the Philistines.=--Soon there came a summons to battle. The first encounter turned out well for the Hebrews. One of Saul's sons named Jonathan was especially brave and skillful as a leader, and was much loved by the people. Other victories followed. More and more clans and tribes flocked to Saul's standard. A young man from Judah, named David, became famous as a captain and was made the chief commander of Saul's armies. The Philistines were not driven out from their forts, but they were held in check and the sky seemed brighter. There was a chance now for victory and peace. Everyone was hopeful for better things. When the soldiers came back from fighting the Philistines, the women would go to meet them with songs and dances. One of their songs ran like this: ="Saul has slain his thousands And David his ten thousands."= =Saul's jealousy.=--When Saul heard of this couplet he was jealous. "They gave more glory to David than to me," he thought. "One of these days, they will make him king in my place." His son Jonathan did not share his fears. He loved and trusted David. But from that time forward Saul hated David, and finally drove him out as a fugitive. Instead of fighting the Philistines he spent all his strength chasing David from town to town and from cave to cave. Of course the Philistines took advantage of this quarrel between the two ablest men among their foes and came back with a strong counter attack. Saul's own life was forfeited and that of Jonathan also in a disastrous defeat. The Philistines were masters once more. Saul's kingdom also had proved for the most part a failure. STUDY TOPICS 1. Locate on the map the Midianites and the Philistines. 2. Why would it have been a calamity for the world if the Philistines had conquered the Hebrews? 3. Study carefully the parable of Jotham (Judges 9. 8-15). In the light of this shrewd illustration, why is it hard to get _good_ men to run for political office, even to-day? 4. If we should undertake to have an _entirely different kind_ of mayors, aldermen, governors, Presidents and so on, perhaps really good men would accept these offices. What kind? CHAPTER XIII THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the East Jordan tribes. More and more, however, the hearts of all the Hebrews turned toward the young David, who, under the Philistines, to whom he paid tribute, now became king over the tribe of Judah in the south. DAVID AS A LEADER David was a born leader. Physically he was an athlete. With his sling he could throw stones straight, as Goliath, the Philistine giant, discovered to his sorrow. He had the gift of winning friends, even among those who might naturally have been his enemies, for example Jonathan and Michal, son and daughter of Saul, and Achish, the Philistine king. His followers with few exceptions were deeply devoted to him, risking their lives, sometimes, to gratify his slightest wish. He was wise in his dealings with men, knowing when to be stern and when to be lenient. =The nation united under David.=--For a few years there was more or less of war between the followers of David and the followers of Ishbaal. David did not like this war. He had no heart for fighting his own kinsmen, the people of the north. His method was to win them over without conquest. His chief difficulty in this was to restrain his own followers. Fighting always leads to more fighting. A bitter personal feud flamed up between Joab, David's chief general, and Abner, who was the real power in the other kingdom. David did not dare to punish Joab, yet he plainly showed his displeasure. When finally Ishbaal himself was murdered in his sleep, David put the assassins to death. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE CHISEL (BRONZE)] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE FILE] | | | | [Illustration: BRONZE HAMMERHEAD] | | | | [Illustration: VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE | | KNIVES] | | | | [Illustration: BONE AWL HANDLE] | | | | [Illustration: A FISH-HOOK] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE WHETSTONES] | | | | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ By this policy he pleased the people, both in the north and in the south. And after seven years of division the leading men of all the tribes came to David at Hebron, in Judah his headquarters, and made him king over the entire Hebrew nation, north, east, and south. =David's victories.=--Soon after this David declared his independence of the Philistines. War broke out and for a time it went against the Hebrews. But in the end they were able to rally their resources under their new leader, and inflicted two crushing defeats on their old enemies, which made them instead of the Philistines once and for all the masters of Canaan. From the Philistines David turned against the other petty enemies who had so often taken advantage of the weakness of the Hebrews. Already, while a vassal of the Philistines, he had thoroughly punished the Amalekites, in the deserts of the south; and now he gave the Ammonites and Moabites and other enemies on the east a taste of Hebrew warfare. Before many years passed they had all learned their lesson, and there was peace in Canaan. PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION During all those years when the Hebrews were fighting for existence life in their little villages and towns had been anything but pleasant. Not only was there constant danger from human enemies and from famine, there was also a lack of the comforts and pleasures of civilized life. There were no books to read, no musical instruments to play on, and few opportunities for any kind of recreation. They had only coarse, rough clothing to wear, and coarse, ugly furniture for their homes. =The development of commerce.=--Now that peace and security had been achieved, David did much to make the daily lives of all his people happier. One way was through commerce. The great merchants of those days were the Phoenicians, the people of Tyre and Sidon, whose daring sailors steered their ships into every harbor on the Mediterranean Sea and even out upon the stormy Atlantic and up to the tin mines of Britain. Very wisely David made a treaty of friendship with Hiram, king of Tyre, and as a result Phoenician artists and artisans came down to Jerusalem and helped to beautify the city. Phoenician wares also began to be peddled in all the towns of Canaan: fine linen fabrics, such as the Hebrews did not know how to weave; beautiful jars and cups, such as Hebrew potters had not learned to fashion; jewels of silver and gold and precious stones, over which Hebrew maidens hovered with longing eyes. Soon one could see that the homes in these little towns of Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim were cleaner and better furnished, and the people were more neatly dressed. Commerce of the right kind is always a blessing. =Education.=--Better than fine clothes and jewels and furniture are the things that feed the mind. David himself was a skillful harpist, and no doubt this helped to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion the ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried in the desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a chorus of singers and a band of instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and cymbals." In the worship of the temple at Jerusalem music from this time on had an important place. And all up and down the land here and there, one could hear in humble homes the tinkle of harp strings; and boys and girls who liked music could learn to play. If not in David's time, then very soon after, the first Hebrew history books were written. These contained stories which had been handed down from generation to generation; stories about the beginnings of things; stories about Abraham and Moses and other early heroes. There were, of course, only a few copies of written rolls of stories, as compared with the millions of volumes which are constantly being turned out to-day by our great printing presses. But these few were much read, and those who read committed many of the stories to memory so that they could repeat them again and again in their home circles. In this way life grew more rich in pleasure and interest for many a Hebrew youth and maiden. DAVID'S SUCCESSOR, SOLOMON After David's death his son Solomon was made King. He also encouraged commerce, both by land and by sea. His ships sailed down the Red Sea to India, and back, and over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain. They brought back, according to the author of First Kings, "gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks." =Solomon's folly.=--Alas for the happiness of the people, Solomon was a different kind of a man from his father. Like so many other sons of good kings he was spoiled by too much luxury and too little discipline. He had the reputation of being very wise, but in reality he was very foolish. His chief ambition was to have splendid palaces, and to make a great display of riches, like the kings of Egypt and Babylonia. In order to build these fine buildings and have great numbers of servants it was necessary to extort the money from his people by heavy taxes. They were also compelled to labor without pay in his quarries and elsewhere. So with all the increased wealth in the land and with all the seeming progress in civilization, the common people were really wretched--almost worse off than in the old days of disunion and confusion and fear. =The disruption of the kingdom.=--As a result of this cruelty and oppression, the northern tribes, after Solomon's death, rebelled against his son Rehoboam, who seemed likely to become even more of an oppressor than his father. The tribe of Judah in the south remained faithful to the family of David. So the nation was split in two parts, which were never reunited. If only all kings could be like David! He indeed was far from perfect; he was guilty of some very wicked crimes. But on the whole he came nearer than most kings to the best ideals of the Hebrews for their rulers: a man "from among thy brethren: ... neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold, ... that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, ... and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand nor to the left." STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up Joab in a good Bible dictionary, and see how much David owed to this extraordinary man for his success. 2. Read 2 Samuel 23. 13-17, as a good example of the devotion and loyalty David was able to awaken in his followers. 3. With which did David do the more for the happiness of his people, with the sword, or with his harp? 4. Why did Solomon grow up with selfish and extravagant habits and ideals? Read 2 Samuel 11, 12 for an explanation. CHAPTER XIV THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son. There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves. AN ERA OF PERPETUAL WAR In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and southern Hebrews. There were long and very bloody wars between the Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in Damascus. There were many wars between rival candidates for the throne among the Hebrews themselves. Especially was this true in the northern kingdom where, during the two hundred years of its separate existence, there was a revolution on an average every thirty or forty years. In such cases all the members of the existing royal family would be assassinated and all persons who defended them or were suspected of sympathizing with them were put to death. After the murder of hundreds and sometimes thousands the new upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king. =Famine and pestilence.=--These constant wars not only brought wounds and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent on war might have been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the cottages of the poor. Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics of disease were frightfully common at best. They knew nothing about sanitation. Even in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the streets. Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin swarmed everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the plague, the people died like flies. =The dynasty of Omri.=--Among the best of the successors of David and Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre. They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on the whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab was a despot. His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his people's needs and sufferings secondary. BACK TO THE DESERT Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses, before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All these newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have brought us only trouble. Especially bad is the worship of these Baals instead of Jehovah, the God of our fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this reason. Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the worship of the Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre. This was in accordance with the religious ideas of those days. When two countries made an alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods. But the Hebrews had made a special covenant to worship no other gods but only Jehovah. So there were many who were opposed to the worship of the Baals. =The Rechabites.=--One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do the same. They gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah only. Naturally they hated Ahab for bringing in the worship of the foreign gods of Tyre. They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the Phoenicians and their gods. THE PROPHETS There were also certain specially religious people, called prophets, some of whom saw the evils which were ruining the happiness of the people and fought against them. In the earliest days, these men who were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of other nations. They were supposed to have a special power of speaking revelations from God. Sometimes they went into trances. Sometimes they caused exciting music to be played in their hearing. Most of them spoke what seemed likely to be popular with their hearers. For example, once when Ahab wanted to start a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets and some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go to war or not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that Ahab's heart was set on the matter, answered, "Jehovah says, go to war, and he will give you victory." =Micaiah.=--The true prophets, however, were men of truth who worshiped Jehovah and waited for his teaching. Such a man was Micaiah. When Ahab asked him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the others. But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept asking him. He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed to him that the proposed expedition would end in disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a dungeon. But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were defeated, and Ahab himself was killed. =Elijah.=--The greatest leader in this movement back to the desert and to Moses, was a prophet named Elijah. He was like the Rechabites in his aims. He was dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was given to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very clear understanding as to what was best in that religion. It was not merely because Jehovah might be jealous of other gods that Elijah fought against Baal worship, but also because Jehovah really stood for justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness of the Baals. Elijah was not only a champion of Jehovah; he was a champion of the poor against their oppressors, a champion of the common people against the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly illustrated in the story of Naboth's vineyard. =Elisha.=--Elijah's work was carried on after his death by another prophet named Elisha. He also seems to have been a friend of the common people. Many traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded in the second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to overthrow the dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with the help of the Rechabites, launched the revolution of Jehu. =A disappointing outcome.=--Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He was willing to drive out the priests of the Phoenician Baal, and he offered many sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the poor, suffering, war-scourged people, his reign was horrible for its bloody killings. No one was safe from his murderous jealousy. There was needed something more than a mere revival of the "old time religion" of Moses. There had to be purer and nobler ideas of Jehovah, a better knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what Jehovah demanded of men, and of the kind of worship which would please him. Till then there was little hope of happiness for men and women and little children. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the sufferings of the common people of Israel, as a result of constant wars. 2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as an able king. What qualities are displayed by him, in the narrative of this chapter? 3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for a more complete narrative about them. 4. Is war more of a curse to the common people to-day than in ancient times, or less? Why? What classes still suffer most from war, the rich and powerful or the common people? CHAPTER XV A NEW KIND OF RELIGION Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell. Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of the burning fat. =Whole burnt offerings.=--On special occasions, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to Jehovah. SACRIFICES IN CANAAN After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the grain. =Religious feasts.=--In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late harvest seasons; they were called respectively, the "Feast of Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah some part of the products of their fields. PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a special class of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be used, nor honey. =The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries passed more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense, which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them. Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else. THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer. =Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury and in wasteful, extravagant display. None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How pleased Jehovah must be!" AMOS There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters? ="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ... meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."= What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all, he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false balances, and set free the slave. =Amos' dire forebodings.=--In many addresses, as reported in the book which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this: ="Thus the Lord God showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ... and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small."= There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep--"How can Jacob stand, for he is small?" THE RESULTS OF AMOS' WORDS Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah, because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And apparently the people did not care. No doubt even the poor people in whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words. "What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous." =Bread upon the waters.=--Yet there were some who listened. And the proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos' sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that within that same century three other supremely great religious teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow. STUDY TOPICS 1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus, and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently consider the carrying out of sacrifices? 2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more (1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal history and character. 3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7 and 8 are most important for our study. 4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion of justice and right? If so, explain how. CHAPTER XVI A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his neighbor. There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely spoken. THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN THE OLD SACRIFICES The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil. When a family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of everything in gratitude to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him. When they poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, God was indeed glad, not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking the blood, but because his children were grateful. =Wrong ideas of God.=--On the other hand, these sacrifices, when misunderstood, tended to give people a wrong idea of God as one who was greedy for food and gifts. There was the greater danger of this wrong idea because of the character of the priests who were supposed to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very greedy indeed. The story of Eli's sons in 1 Samuel 2. 12-17 is an illustration. The priests were supposed to receive for their own personal support a part of all the gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons of Eli made it the rule that whatever came out of the meat kettle on a three-pronged fork stuck in by the priest should belong to him. Very often, it is plain, the priest got everything. And naturally the people came to think of Jehovah as like his priests--as a Being who cared only for gifts. =A worship based on greed.=--The worship of such a god, or of a god who was thought of as being of such a character, would, of course, be very far from the love and adoration which we Christians are taught to offer to our Father, and was really far from the kind of worship advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a sort of bargain-hunting worship: the people to bring gifts of the fat of lambs and libations of blood and wine, and the god to give them in return good crops of wheat and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver and gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then worship Jehovah. If other gods and Baals would give more than Jehovah, worship them. In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of worship, and no worship is a mere formality, but is a vast influence for good or for ill. Because of these wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be more and more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a righteous and happy human family in which men are just and kind to each other, without a true worship, growing out of a true idea of God. HOSEA'S EXPERIENCE AND MESSAGE This young man from the lovely, grassy plains and valleys east of the Jordan had had an experience which taught him much. He was by nature a man with a loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most young men, the experience of a passionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her. She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." It hurt Hosea. For a time the light of the whole world seemed darkened for him. =Reading a meaning in sorrow.=--Then like a flash the thought came to him; Jehovah is just like me in this regard. He wants love, not gifts, from his people, a love which on their part does not fawn for other gifts from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens purring for cream. He loves his people Israel just as I love Gomer. That is why he asks us not to worship these other gods, the Baals; not because he is jealous but because he is good. He wants us to learn a different kind of worship altogether--a worship which is not prompted by greed but by love. With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new ideas into the ears of his countrymen. ="I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings."= These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in one of his controversies with the Pharisees; they are one of the supreme utterances of human literature. STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret hopefully the troubles which at that time were coming thick and fast upon his people. The forebodings of Amos were coming true. The kings of Assyria were ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great Assyrian empire extending from Babylonia to Egypt. For more than two centuries each new king at Nineveh sent his conquering armies farther west and south. Already in Hosea's day they had more than once invaded northern Israel and had taken away tribute. And the leaders of the nation did not have the brains or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless and resistless foe. =Jehovah loving even in punishment.=--Amos had declared that Jehovah would surely punish his people because of injustices and wrongs which they were inflicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able to go further, and say that in these very punishments which were now coming Jehovah was still showing not his anger but his love. He was punishing in the hope that his children might learn their lesson and return to him in love. =Fall of the northern kingdom.=--The nation, as a nation, seemed to pay no attention to Hosea's pleadings. They went right on living their selfish and greedy and lustful lives. And in B.C. 721, as a result of provoking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked. Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses had not yet been fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying scraps and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a God not only of justice but of love. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true worship? 2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in which he lived and about his personal history. 3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea of Hosea's style. 4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers for personal advantage, or prayers of love and gratitude to our Father? CHAPTER XVII JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and cruel anger. EARLY IDEAS OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite which his wife Zipporah performed. =The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.=--Similar to this is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."[4] SACRIFICE AS A PROPITIATION OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices were necessary to placate him. =Human sacrifices.=--An even darker side of the picture is the existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his vow. The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets, Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study. THE PROPHET MICAH AND HIS MESSAGE About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth. His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful. In plain, direct, and fiery sentences he denounced these evils and foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that "Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest." Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor--the prophets who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths," that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says, "teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money." =Micah's great message.=--It was, of course, the existence of superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this sacrifice or that--or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah. Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children. ="Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."= STUDY TOPICS 1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1 Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh, read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease. 2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of superstitious fear? 3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can about his personal history and work. 4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how? FOOTNOTES: [4] 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version. CHAPTER XVIII ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES THE MESSAGE OF ISAIAH The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the south. No one had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is true that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the Assyrians had been almost irresistible. All the little nations which had stood in their way had been swallowed up. Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly foretold that some such calamity would be sent upon Israelites by Jehovah on account of their sins. But very few of them believed these brave and lonely preachers of the truth. "Jehovah send the Assyrians against us! Why, that is absurd! We are Jehovah's people, and he is our God. What has he to do with the Assyrians? He may chastise us, but not by sending foreign armies to conquer us. What would he do if we should be conquered? He would have no nation to worship him." So they reasoned. =Jehovah too weak to protect his people?=--When, therefore, the Assyrians actually did come marching down from the Euphrates River, hundreds of thousands of them with their gleaming armor and their multitudes of horses and war chariots, and besieged and captured the city of Samaria, leaving it a ruin, most of the Hebrews, north and south, were sick with fear and bewilderment. For them with their false notions it could mean only one thing: their God, Jehovah, was too weak to protect his people against the greater gods of Nineveh. The Assyrians said to them: ="Let not thy God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them?... Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim?"= Against such taunts as these, the Hebrews, with their mistaken beliefs, could bring no answer. THE CRAZE FOR FOREIGN GODS With their faith in Jehovah breaking down there was a great running here and there after other gods and strange religions. Instead of trusting quietly in Jehovah's watchful care many of the people resorted in their terror to soothsayers and mediums, to "wizards that chirp and mutter." Jerusalem seems to have become almost as full of them as the cities of the Philistines, which had always been famous for their fortune-tellers and necromancers. =Alliances with other nations.=--Another favorite way of seeking safety was through alliances with other nations and their gods. According to the beliefs of that age, when two nations made an alliance their gods were included in it. To overcome the Assyrians, therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance with some other nation whose gods were very powerful. So the people of Jehovah began to "strike hands with the children of foreigners." The rulers of Jerusalem set about making coalitions with the other nations of western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the Phoenicians and, most of all, the Egyptians. The gods of the Egyptians were supposed to be especially strong: Osiris and Isis were the chief of their deities and they were believed to be the gods of the underworld--of Sheol, or Hades, the abode of the dead. So when these poor ignorant politicians at Jerusalem finally did succeed in arranging for an alliance with the crafty and deceitful kings of Egypt they said to themselves: "Now we are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt us now. We have made a covenant with Death." THE STATESMAN-PROPHET, ISAIAH It is good to know that among many misguided people there was one man whose wisdom of the eternal Truth of God made him stand like a rock while the multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. Isaiah was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the prophets named in the three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or thirty miles apart--Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in the city of Jerusalem. =Isaiah's message.=--Isaiah's special message to his people was that all the nations of the world are subject to the righteous rule of the God of righteousness, Jehovah; and that the attempt to find safety for their nation by alliances with other nations and their gods was utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message found a response in the hearts of those who remained faithful to Jehovah. This message grew out of the great and splendid ideas as to Jehovah's character which Amos and his successors had been working out: that he was a God of righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings, not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be soothed and mollified by peace offerings; but a God who asks only for justice and fair-dealing among men, and for true love in response to his own. Isaiah repeated these great truths to his own people in Jerusalem in glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. For example: ="Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow....= ="I will turn my hand upon thee, and will thoroughly purge away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin: and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city."= =Isaiah's originality.=--The prophets and leaders who came before Isaiah had not fully grasped the idea of a God of all nations instead of one. Amos and Hosea had only caught glimpses of it. Before their time, even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought of Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. But now in the midst of the terror of cruel armies and ruined cities and smoking fields, when no one knew what to believe or where to look for comfort and protection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jehovah, the God of righteousness and justice and love, was _the God of all humanity_. There were no limits to his realm. All tribes and kingdoms and races were subject to his holy law. The Assyrians are but "the axe that he hews with." His providence rules over all. Whatever wicked men may say or do, his will is done in the end. His plans are brought to pass. =Isaiah's faith.=--With such a God as this in whom to trust, Isaiah was able to show himself to his countrymen as a wonderful example of the power of faith. When they were panic-stricken he was calm. "Thus saith the Lord God, ... In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Do not rush off to other nations and other gods. They will fail you. Most likely they will selfishly betray you. Only do the will of the just God, who rules the nations, and quietly trust him. Do that and no evil can befall you. He is all-wise and all-powerful, and he is good. So at last, the religion of the one All-Father, which we call _monotheism_, was born in the mind and heart of a man, and began to be clearly proclaimed by human lips. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up "Isaiah" in the Bible dictionary. 2. Read Isaiah 6. 1-8 for his own story of the experience which led him to be a prophet. 3. What parts of this story in Isaiah 6. 1-8 express the idea of one great God of all nations? Look up "Monotheism" in the dictionary. 4. Read chapter one or chapter five of the book of Isaiah for a good example of his eloquent preaching. CHAPTER XIX A REVISED LAW OF MOSES Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as many other pioneers--only a few of their hearers heeded their words, or even understood them. But four great leaders in one century--Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah--could hardly fail to make some real impression on the minds and lives of their nation. Isaiah was perhaps the most influential, partly because the others before them had prepared the way and partly because he himself lived and preached to the people during a long period of time--more than forty years. =Isaiah's disciples.=--Another reason why Isaiah exerted so great an influence was that he organized little groups of his disciples into circles for study. These groups met together from time to time, and read aloud the sermons of Isaiah and the other prophets, and talked about how to apply them to their lives. We can see them seated in a circle in the evening on the floor of one of those little homes opening into a narrow Jerusalem street. There would be a candlestick in the center, or an upturned bushel measure, with a candle on top of it. The circle would be composed of men; but on the outside eagerly listening would be women and children. One of the men in the circle would be seated by the candle reading from a roll of papyrus on which were written the sermons of one of the prophets. THE EVIL DAYS OF MANASSEH'S REIGN It is well that these reading circles were started, for they kept alive the new truth of the reformer-prophets during the reign of a bad king, Manasseh. This man's father, Hezekiah, had favored the prophets. But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an old man, was opposed to all these new ideas. Most of the people of Judah probably agreed with him. They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for a nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the most powerful gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in spite of all their worship of Jehovah, was still subject to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to be paid every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets are!" men said, as they talked together in the streets. "See how much stronger the Assyrian gods are than Jehovah!" "Last month I had to pay ten shekels for the tribute!" "If we want to prosper, we must worship the gods of Assyria." =Manasseh's persecution.=--Manasseh therefore proceeded to introduce the worship of the moon-god, and the sun-god, and other deities of Nineveh. He even set up altars to these divinities in the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. When the disciples of the prophets spoke against all this he had them seized and killed, until he had "filled Jerusalem with innocent blood." Many a good man who had listened to the reading of Isaiah by candlelight in one of those reading circles now had to hide himself in some closet or cistern from the soldiers of Manasseh. There is a tradition that the aged Isaiah himself was put to death during this persecution. Not all of those who opposed Manasseh were killed, although they were finally compelled to keep silence. Those little study circles still held meetings in secret to read and talk and pray; and they kept looking forward to a time when a different kind of a man would be king, and when they would be able once more to lead the people into the way of justice and true worship. In one of these little groups a remarkably wise plan was suggested. Let us take the laws which have been handed down to us from Moses, it was said, and work them up into a sermon. Every one reverences Moses. Let it include the farewell address which Moses is said to have spoken to his people just before he died, and put into it all the laws of Moses, and let us show what they really mean. And by and by when Manasseh is dead we may be able to read it to the people, and perhaps they will listen. THE WRITTEN LAW =The new law book--Deuteronomy.=--So they wrote the new book, and it is preserved in our Bible as the book of Deuteronomy. We find in it all the old laws which had been handed down from early times, and which were called the "laws of Moses." And we find on every page sentences which show the influence of the great prophets, from Amos to Isaiah. Isaiah's influence is perhaps the most plainly seen, especially his teaching that the people should worship Jehovah alone as the one ruler of the world. In Deuteronomy also we find a very solemn and emphatic commandment bidding us love and worship only Jehovah, the one true God. This is the commandment which Jesus called the first and greatest of all. ="Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."= Such a law as this of course forbade all those covenants with other gods which Isaiah denounced. =Laws helping the oppressed.=--All the prophets had been on the side of the poor and the weak, against the rich and powerful who oppressed them. The authors of the book of Deuteronomy tried to shape this new law so as more fully to protect the poor. They made stronger all the older laws which were intended to make life a little easier for the weak and unfortunate, and they added others: for example, laws protecting debtors against greedy and merciless creditors, and laws forbidding the extremely harsh penalties which poor men were sometimes made to suffer by rich judges. There was an ancient law requiring that any Hebrew who had fallen into a state of slavery on account of debt must be set free after seven years. The new law book included this law, and added that the master must not send him away emptyhanded at the end of the seven years, but must give him food and clothes enough to keep him alive while he looked for a chance to work and earn money for himself. The new law also protected fugitive slaves from other countries. They were not to be returned to their owners. =A compromise.=--All of the four reformer-prophets whom we have studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground that Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but only justice and love. But the authors of the new law did not abolish sacrifices altogether. They provided that all the small shrines, called "high places," such as at Hebron or Gibeon, and all up and down the country should be destroyed, but that sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem and only there. The old-time religious feasts, such as the Passover, could no longer be celebrated at home. All the people must come up to Jerusalem for them. No doubt it was thought that this would help to put down idolatry. THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW LAW Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. It was a long, weary time of waiting for the disciples of the prophets. The new law book was put away in one of the closets of the temple for safe-keeping. The years went by and most of the men who helped to write it died. At last, however, the end came for Manasseh. After a short period his grandson, Josiah, who was only eight years old, became king. The boy's older relatives and friends were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and on the side of the prophets. Little by little the principles of the prophets were put in practice. Among other things, orders were given to tear out from the Jerusalem temple the images and altars to the sun-god and the moon-god and other emblems of Assyrian worship. The temple was also cleaned and renovated. While the carpenters were at work the new law-book was discovered in the chest where it had been hidden and was brought to the young king and read before him. =Josiah's reforms.=--Josiah was deeply impressed and gave orders that the reforms called for by the new law should be carried out. Officers went all up and down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down the little temples, or "high places," where so much heathenism had been practiced. And the people were told that several times each year they were to bring their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem. Those were also good days for the common people. There was a king now who "judged the cause of the poor and the needy." Many a poor debtor, when his crops failed, appealed to the king's court in Jerusalem and he himself and his children were saved from slavery and their home from ruin. The reform only lasted a few years--some twelve or thirteen--and then King Josiah was killed in battle, and much of the old heathenism and greed and injustice came back again in a flood. But the memory of the good days did not quickly fade. It was the first great triumph of the teachings of the prophets--the men who kept alive the true ideals of Abraham and Moses. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5. Select any passages which seem to you truly eloquent. 2. Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11. What place is referred to by the author, when he writes, "The place that Jehovah your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there"? 3. In the light of the history in this chapter, which is the more likely to change human history, a battleship or a Bible class? Explain. CHAPTER XX A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy. The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that _no_ forms of sacrifice, _no_ solemn religious feasts are of any account in the sight of God unless accompanied by simple justice and brotherly kindness between neighbors. This was the state of affairs against which one more great reforming prophet was raised up to fight--Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles north of Jerusalem. A CONVERSATION IN A JERUSALEM STREET To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in reality, very similar to this. _First citizen:_ Did you hear of my good fortune? I have just got a fine piece of ground for almost nothing. _Second citizen:_ How? _First citizen:_ I had loaned some money to an old farmer, and made him pledge me his field as security. Last summer the Babylonian soldiers came through that valley and burned all the wheat and barley stacks. So the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to tell his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove him from the palace. So I went and took his field. _Second citizen:_ What would the prophets have said to a transaction like that? Did not Isaiah call down woes from Jehovah on those who took away poor men's fields? _First citizen:_ I have just offered a sacrifice to Jehovah. _Second citizen:_ I suppose, then, it is all right. But did not the prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one remembered justice and mercy? _First citizen:_ Yes, but they were speaking of the old sacrifices on the "high places," at the village shrines. Everyone knows they were heathen shrines and hateful to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the temple yonder, just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which King Josiah's servants found in the temple. Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there in the temple yard? Let us go and see what is happening. I heard some one say, that a certain Jeremiah who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there to-day. All my friends who have heard him say that he is a false prophet. (They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is standing on the steps of the temple, addressing the people, as follows:) ="Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow ... then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, ... and come and stand before me in this house, ... and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?"= JEREMIAH'S MESSAGE OF A HEART RELIGION It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old battle that Amos and the other prophets had fought against a religion of mere empty ceremonies. But the battle had grown even harder, because the old false practices had been accepted as though they were just the kind of religion that Amos had preached. The people said, "We are keeping the law of Jehovah," and so they were satisfied with themselves. =The law to be written on the heart.=--Jeremiah saw that this mistake had come from relying too much on a written law. Something more than an outward law was needed before men could succeed in living together as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter of the law, or to think one is keeping it, while we lose the spirit of it. What is needed, Jeremiah said, is a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy _heart_." And in one of the great chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the book of Jeremiah, he looks forward to a time when Jehovah and his people should be bound together in a new covenant--not a covenant written on tables of stone like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai: ="But this is the covenant that I will make ... after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their hearts I will write it."= The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the love which Jesus Christ awakens in men's hearts, so that they gladly and eagerly do the will of God. On account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) the New Testament. JEREMIAH AND THE BABYLONIANS In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after B.C. 600) the Babylonians had taken the place of the Assyrians as the rulers of the world. There was a powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah depended on submission to him. But, just as in Isaiah's time a century before, there was now a party in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to rebel against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt. =Jeremiah as a patriot.=--Jeremiah had no sympathy with them. He loved his native land deeply and tenderly. But until the people were _worthy_ of liberty he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them. Again and again they proved their unworthiness. Once when the Babylonian armies were knocking almost at the gates of Jerusalem they remembered that law about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even more strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this law, no Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than seven years. So in their fear of the Babylonians these rich nobles solemnly set free a great number of slaves whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A few days later the hostile army, for some reason or other, withdrew. And within a month all these slaves who had been set free were seized and reenslaved. How Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy! THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people of Judah would have been spared a world of sorrow. But the leaders of the kingdom seemed bent on dragging the whole nation into ruin. In B.C. 597, Jerusalem was captured and some ten thousand of the inhabitants were carried away as exiles to Babylon. Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few years the new king, Zedekiah, and his nobles again rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar. Jeremiah protested and was called a traitor. Many times his life was threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy dungeon, and almost perished from hunger. But friends saved him. Very soon, in B.C. 586, the city came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so patiently tried to ward off. The city was captured by Babylonian soldiers and burned. Thousands were carried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to Egypt and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest farmers were left to till the soil. David's kingdom and dynasty were ended. Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but remained in Palestine. According to tradition, his last days were spent in Egypt, with a Hebrew colony there. His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul of true religion in an age when few would listen. He is one of the great heroes of uncompromising truth. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible dictionary. 2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of writing. 3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another tries to bribe Jehovah with a sacrifice as though he were _like_ the heathen gods: _a._ Which is worse? _b._ Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have considered worse? _c._ Which would Jeremiah have considered worse? CHAPTER XXI KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586, the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must have been in the line of march some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children--an army which, marching eight abreast, would stretch at least five or six miles. These must have been sorrowful processions, especially the last of the two. For months they had suffered the horrors of a besieged city. Then had come the break in the walls, the screams of frightened women and children, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and the black smoke and red glare of burning buildings; then the hasty setting out on the long road to Babylon. Some of them perhaps were able to buy asses to carry the little children and a few of their belongings. But most of them had to trudge along on foot, fathers and mothers carrying the babies, and leaving behind them all their possessions except what could be gathered into a towel or a blanket. For a month or six weeks they tramped. If anyone fell sick, there was no time to take care of him. He must drag along with the rest or fall by the wayside until he either recovered or died. THE SETTLEMENT IN BABYLONIA When they reached the land of their captors they were not made slaves, but were allowed to make their home together in settlements on land set apart for them. In these colonies they probably worked as tenant-farmers on the estates of Nebuchadrezzar's nobles. In the prophetic book of Ezekiel, who was among these exiles, we read about one of these Jewish colonies by the river, or canal, called Chebar (or in Babylonian Kabaru), which means the Grand Canal. =The attractions of Babylonian life.=--What the Babylonians hoped was that these people would forget that they were Hebrews and become Babylonians, just as immigrants from Europe become Americans. This is exactly what happened in many cases. At first, of course, the Hebrews were bitterly homesick. The land of Babylonia was as flat as a floor. The Hebrews longed for the lovely hills and valleys of their native land. =By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps, For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song In a strange land?= But the years went by, and they had time to look about in the new country. They found it full of opportunities for money-making. The soil, watered by hundreds of canals from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, was wonderfully rich. Everywhere there were prosperous towns and cities with great brick buildings, beautifully decorated with sculpture, and thronged with merchants. Ships laden with wheat and dates and with Babylonian rugs and mantles and other beautiful articles sailed up the rivers, or out to sea toward India. Many Hebrews, or Jews (that is, Hebrews from Judæa), became merchants. In their own land they had been chiefly a nation of farmers. The reputation of the Jews for cleverness in trade began with these experiences in Babylon when hundreds of Jewish boys obtained positions in great Babylonian stores or banks, and by and by set up for themselves as merchants. Among the Babylonian contracts on clay tablets coming down to us from this period are many Jewish names. THE TEMPTATION TO FORSAKE JEHOVAH These young Hebrew merchants found themselves in a net-work of foreign religious customs. When a customer signed a contract it was proposed that he offer a sacrifice to the god Marduk, that the enterprise might prosper. There were religious processions and feast days in which everyone joined, just as we hang out flags on the Fourth of July. Foreigners from other lands joined in these rites and thought nothing of it. Furthermore, some of these captive Jews thought that their Hebrew God, Jehovah, had not protected them from these mighty Babylonians. Surely, the Babylonian gods were the stronger, and one should pay them due reverence. =Memories of the prophets.=--On the other hand, even the dullest of the Jews must have begun to understand that the religion of their prophets was a different kind of religion altogether--not _a_ religion, but _true_ religion; and that Jehovah was not like the bargaining, jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with a capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the world. Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to think of Jehovah in this way had again and again declared that just this calamity of exile would come upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had come to pass. The prophets must have been right. Their teaching must be true. =Hebrews in other foreign lands.=--There were probably almost as many Hebrews in Egypt at this time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the destruction of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had compelled great numbers of them to seek for peace and comfort for themselves and their wives and children in Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away Carthage and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over the world. This began to be true of them from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. These Jews who permanently made their homes in foreign countries were called _Jews of the Dispersion_. And they all faced the same temptations as the exiles in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be loyal to their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, like Daniel and his friends in the stories related in the book of Daniel, did refuse to sacrifice to heathen gods and held fast to the nobler faith which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not easy. Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and worship the gods of the land; they were also uncertain just how to worship Jehovah. They could not offer sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a thousand miles away, and the temple there was burned. Should they build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not certain whether that would be lawful. The Jews in Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah. But no others seem to have been able to do this. KEEPING THE SABBATH There were some religious customs, however, which could more easily be transplanted. One was the Sabbath Day. In the earlier centuries the Hebrews had observed the day of the new moon with special sacrifices, and also, to some extent, the other days when the moon passed from full to first quarter, then to the second, then to the third--in other words, every seventh day. There was in the days before Moses no thought of resting from labor on these days, except as might have been necessary in order to offer up the special sacrifices. =The Sabbath and the new law of Deuteronomy.=--One of the kindly changes which the new law of Deuteronomy introduced was to make the Sabbath a rest day for slaves and all toilers. On the Sabbath "thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, ... that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou." In Babylonia and other foreign lands faithful Jews were especially careful to keep the Sabbath by resting from all their work. No one else did so, and the custom marked them as Jews. When a Babylonian would propose to buy a wagon load of wheat on the Sabbath the Jew would say, "I cannot sell on that day; it is a Sabbath day to our God." Boys and girls were not allowed to play with their Babylonian playmates on the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remember that they were Jews. They thought of it also as an act of respect to Jehovah. It took the place of animal sacrifices. As the time went on there grew up rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping which became more and more strict and elaborate. PRAYER AND PUBLIC WORSHIP Another religious custom which can be practiced anywhere is prayer. It must have been a great and happy discovery to many a homesick Jew when he found that even though the temple at Jerusalem was far away, yet in his own room "by the river Chebar" he could kneel, or even in the street he could for a moment close his eyes and breathe out a prayer to God and find in it fresh strength and hope and courage. =The synagogue.=--The weekly Sabbath rest also made it possible for the Jews to meet together on that day for prayer and worship together. The reading circles which Isaiah had organized, and out of which probably came the law-book Deuteronomy, were continued in Babylonia, and the Sabbath morning, afternoon, or evening was a convenient time of meeting. They would gather in some private house and study the law and the writings of the prophets. Then they would pray. Those who were the most learned would read and they and others would pray aloud. By and by special buildings were set apart called synagogues. As time went on these synagogue services rather than the services in the temple, became the most important part of the Jewish religion. Our morning and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out of the synagogue service. It was the beginning of that worship of which Jesus spoke when he said: The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father.... But ... the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1. 2. Mention some other temptations which must have come to the Jews, in Babylon, besides the temptation to worship idols. Consider, for example, their new experiences as traders. 3. What are some good ways in which we may be helped to be true to God to-day when we are away from home. CHAPTER XXII UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme. There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so much even if this had been the end of their national existence. But the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious for its glory. They believed that it had been promised to Abraham, their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land of Canaan. This hope had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their children. To the best men and women among them the great teachings of such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We have a knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no other nation has. Surely there is a great future before us." And now all these hopes seemed lost forever. =The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.=--Those who had been left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were even more hopeless and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. They earned money and lived in comfort. But the farmers on the stony hills of Judæa suffered untold hardships. Not only were they poor; they were also harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, which had protected them, lay in ashes. The Babylonian governor did not help them. He was there only to collect taxes and tribute. So the old enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange that many of these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish nation. Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen, like the other tribes around Canaan. VOICES OF COMFORT AND HOPE It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the Jews. Out of the darkness of those days we hear a whole chorus of voices, all of them saying: "This is _not_ the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not forgotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring back the exiles from Babylon, and from other distant lands whither they have escaped, and will rebuild Jerusalem in all its beauty, and will restore the glory of our nation in the land of Canaan." =The prophecies in Isaiah.=--Many of these voices are found in short passages scattered through the writings of the older prophets. Two of them are in Isaiah 9 and 11. ="The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: ... the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken.... For all the armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."= "In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us from the tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, who shall be wise and just and faithful, and under whose rule we shall see no more of the horror and cruelty of war." =Ezekiel's prophecies of hope.=--Away off in Babylonia itself Ezekiel helped to keep alive the hopes of the exiles. Even though the nation is dead, he told them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as though the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a battle was long ago fought should suddenly come together as human skeletons, and warm living flesh should grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out a kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple when these should be restored. All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in themselves as a people. They listened to these men as they spoke in their synagogues in Judæa and in Babylonia. They handed from one to another the rolls on which their words were written. And ever the children heard from their mothers these hopes which kept them from being completely discouraged: "We are Jews. The Jewish nation is not going to be destroyed. Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old country. We will have a king of our own. And we will build the great nation which Jehovah promised Abraham." THE BEGINNINGS OF A RESTORED JUDAH In the year B.C. 538, the Babylonian empire was conquered by Cyrus, the Persian. There was scarcely any resistance on the part of the Babylonians. And one of his first acts in the conquered city was to issue a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands might return if they wished. It was the chance for which the Jews for forty years had been hoping. Now at last they could go back over that thousand-mile journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had passed. Most of those who had come to Babylon as grown people and who remembered Canaan as home were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown up in Babylon and were comfortably settled there. Yet some did return, and from time to time others kept returning. These men who thought enough of their nation to go back to the home land and help it in its weakness and poverty almost always became leaders. =The new temple.=--It may have been a group of these leaders returned from Babylon who started the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in the year B.C. 520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There were two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who did much to stir up the people to this work. Some of their words are preserved in the Old Testament books which bear their names. These men may have been returned exiles. The new building was erected on the same old foundation and was finished in four years. It was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while old men and women, who as children had seen the former temple before it was destroyed, wept for joy that at last a house had been rebuilt for Jehovah. It seemed like the beginning of better times for their nation. THE GREATEST OF THE PROPHETS OF HOPE Yet the years that followed the building of the new temple were sad and disappointing. The better days did not seem to come. The walls of Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel raids. The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed and plundered by the richer men even of their own people. "What has become of Jehovah?" men asked. "Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does he allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed--those who do not oppress others; who obey his just laws, and who are merciful to their brothers?" =The great unknown.=--About this time there came to the people of Israel a new message from one of the greatest prophets of all those whom God has raised up in any nation. He is sometimes called the "Great Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his personal life, not even his name. His great messages to his fellow Jews are found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. The first verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort which runs through all the chapters to follow. ="Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."= With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the people that God has not forgotten them; that the scattered exiles will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city, Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a rule of justice will be established; and that the blessings of peace and happiness will come to all. =The greatness of service.=--Even better than these promises of happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more clearly what it means to _be_ a great nation. He did not believe that the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation. Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the true God. ="I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth."= He explained in this way even the undeserved suffering which many of the best people of Israel were enduring. Israel thus became a type of Him who was "despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is all a part of Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in the Old Testament becomes a reality in the New. So for the first time the idea came into the world that Abraham's dreams of a greater and nobler nation and God's promises to Abraham, Moses, David and the rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for all men; that beginning with this little nation God was making a better world; a world of love, instead of selfishness and hate; of happy work and play, instead of misery and hopelessness and war. Of course very few of the prophet's hearers understood him. But more and more the Jews were filled with the thought that somehow God had a great future for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered if they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a second David, or Elijah, to play some part in bringing the great future which God had promised. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing of the "Great Unknown." 2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste of this prophet's message and style. 3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the greater? 4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still believe in a restored nation? CHAPTER XXIII THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed country from their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital, Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly sympathy, and of great ability--just the man to help them. They told him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt in all these years since the Babylonians had captured it, and how the poor people suffered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage of their helplessness. NEHEMIAH'S GREAT ADVENTURE All this was news to the young man. They did not have newspapers and magazines in those days, and people in one part of the world knew little about what was going on in other parts, even those near by. The stories told by his brother Jews made Nehemiah sad, and his sadness showed in his face even when he came before the king. This was dangerous, for a part of his duty was to keep the king in a cheerful humor. But his Majesty was not angry, but asked him "Why are you so sad?" Nehemiah answered by telling him the story of his native land and its pitiable condition; and then and there with a prayer in his heart he asked the king to give him a leave of absence, and to permit him to go to Jerusalem and help the people there to rebuild the walls. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO] | | | | [Illustration: PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ =Why walls were greatly needed.=--All cities in those days were surrounded by walls. These were necessary, because no government had yet been strong enough to rid the country of the bands of robbers who made their dens in almost every cave or lonely valley. Not only the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, of which Jesus tells, but on almost all roads one was in danger of falling among thieves. In the deserts on the edge of Palestine whole tribes lived by robbery, and were large enough and well enough organized to defeat good-sized armies. Hence no city was safe unless it was well fortified. Nehemiah's request was granted by the king of Persia. So, with letters to the governors of the provinces through which he was to pass, the young leader set out, perhaps on camel-back, to Jerusalem. After looking about and seeing for himself the condition of the city, and the work which needed to be done, he called the people together and proposed that they rebuild the walls. His energy carried the day. They answered, "Let us rise up and build." THE WALLS REBUILT The task which Nehemiah had undertaken was a difficult one. Jerusalem is situated on a ridge, with deep valleys on all sides except the north. The walls did not need to be high where there were cliffs or steep slopes falling away into the valley. But along the entire north side, and in many other places also, they had to be at least thirty feet high, and fifteen or twenty feet thick at the base. The stones and bricks for this were buried in the rubbish where the old walls had been battered down. They had to be dug up and dragged into their places, stone by stone. Most of the work had to be done by hand, although they perhaps used asses with basket-paniers for carrying lime and sand. They may have constructed small cranes for lifting the heaviest stones, but they had very little machinery. =Difficulties overcome.=--For a time the work went merrily forward. But soon their rapid progress became known and those who had prospered because of their weakness became jealous. There was a certain Sanballat, governor of Samaria, who wanted to keep Jerusalem helpless so that Samaria might always be the chief city in the land. They were willing that the poor people of Jerusalem should go on suffering from the attacks of cruel bandits if only they themselves could keep on growing richer. He and others did all in their power to stop the work. They organized a force of men and planned to attack and kill the builders. But Nehemiah had his workers carry their swords as they worked, and arranged for signals at which all should rush to the help of any part of the wall which might be attacked. He also kept the people working at top speed from early morning every day "until the stars appeared," and cheered them on when they were tired and discouraged. Their enemies tried all kinds of tricks; they threatened to report to the king of Persia that Nehemiah was organizing a rebellion; they plotted to seize Nehemiah himself. But the man was too clever for them. The walls kept steadily going up and up. The gates were set in place and locked; and at last, fifty-two days, or just a little more than seven weeks after the first stone was laid on the old foundations, the work was done. Once more they could lie down in peace behind protecting walls, and not tremble at the thought that fierce robbers might swoop down upon them before the morning light to plunder, burn, and murder. Once more they could begin to live their lives in peace and plan for the future. Traders could bring their goods into the city without fear of losing everything. Men could buy and sell and prosper. NEHEMIAH'S REFORMS But security from outward foes is not enough to bring happiness to a people. Even before the walls were finished some of the poor people among the Jews came to Nehemiah with a bitter complaint against their rich neighbors. "We are starving," they said. Others said: "We have mortgaged our fields in order to borrow money that we may buy food for our children. And now because we cannot pay these men take our fields from us, and even sell our sons and daughters into slavery." It was the old story of greed and oppression. Those who were stronger and more fortunate used their advantage to oppress their brothers and extort from them all that they could pay. So a few men were able to live in luxury, even in those troubled days, while the great majority suffered in poverty and misery and despair. =The great massmeeting.=--In that little country of Judæa it was possible to gather into an assembly, perhaps in the open space in front of the temple, men from almost every country village and city street. Such an assembly Nehemiah called and laid before it the complaints he had received. He told the rich nobles to their faces: "You exact usury, every one, of his brother. The thing you do is not good.... I pray you leave off this usury." The nobles had nothing to say. Every one knew that what Nehemiah said was true. Then he went on: "Restore to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and their houses, also the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you exact from them." Then said they, "We will restore them." And Nehemiah made them take oath to carry out their promise. "Also I shook out my lap," Nehemiah writes in his memoirs, "and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied. And all the congregation said 'Amen,' and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise." =The beginnings of a just and happy nation.=--Nehemiah could not stay long in Jerusalem. But he was able to make another visit a few years later. And for a time at least his ideas were carried out. During this time there was happiness among the people. They all had something to eat and clothes to wear. All fathers and mothers had a little time to play with their children after the close of work each day. All who could read had a little time to study the rolls of the prophets and the law of Jehovah. And all were brothers. More than ever before the old dreams, handed down from Abraham, had begun to come true. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up the story of Nehemiah in the Bible dictionary. 2. Read Nehemiah 1-2, or 5. 1-6, 16. 3. On the right side of the line, below, write what in your judgment corresponds to the men and conditions of Nehemiah's time. _Nehemiah's Time_ | _Our Own Time_ | _a._ Walls around the city. | _a._ ___________________________ | _b._ Robbers, and enemies such as | _b._ ___________________________ Sanballat. | | _c._ The poor and enslaved people. | _c._ ___________________________ | _d._ Nehemiah. | _d._ ___________________________ CHAPTER XXIV HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began to condemn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new worship consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how the exiles in Babylon began to come together on the Sabbath days to study the law and other sacred writings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to Judæa brought this custom with them. Special buildings, called synagogues, were erected in Judæa as well as wherever there were faithful Jews in other lands. These synagogues rather than the temple gradually came to be the real home of the Jewish religion even in Jerusalem itself. The chief part of the synagogue service was always the study of the Scriptures. But prayer was also given an important place. In the temple also, after it was rebuilt, public prayer was regarded as very important--even if not quite so important as the regular burnt-offerings. There were also prayer-hymns, sung by the people and by special choirs. =Making hymnals and prayer books.=--In our churches, to-day, we could scarcely conduct our services without the hymn books scattered through the pews. In some denominations there is a prayer book, which is considered just as necessary as the book of hymns. In those ancient synagogues and in the temple service the Jews found such books needful. Had we gone into one of their meetings, we would not indeed have found a book waiting for us in the seat or handed to us by the usher. The art of printing was unknown. Books could not be purchased cheaply by the hundred. Each copy had to be written out by hand with pen and ink on a roll of papyrus. But we would probably have discovered that the leader of the worship had a book of prayers and hymns before him. He would read them, line by line, each Sabbath for the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form--that is, each line or stanza began with a different letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS IN THE BIBLE Our book of Psalms is a collection of smaller collections of just such hymns and prayers to be used in worship. Each one of these smaller collections came out of some synagogue or group of synagogues, or was prepared by the members of one of the choirs who led the worship in the temple. By studying these we may learn something about how they were used. =The Prayers of David.=--This was the title of one of these smaller books. It contained Psalms 2 to 41, and some others of our book of Psalms. All of these are headed in our Bible, "A Psalm of David." These words, in the original Hebrew, mean "dedicated to David." The last page in this smaller book is perhaps now found where our Psalm 72 comes to an end with the words, "The Prayers of David the Son of Jesse are Ended." This sentence corresponded, in the little book, to the words, "The End," in our modern books. It was copied in what is now our book of Psalms, even though it is no longer "the end." These "David" hymns were probably written not only by David, but as well by members of a synagogue of worshipers who were poor and oppressed. There are a great number of references to "enemies." "Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries." "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." These people probably lived in the days before the reforms of Nehemiah, when there were indeed many enemies both outside of Jerusalem and within the city, heathen robbers, and rich oppressors of their own race, men who cheated them and who mocked them when they prayed for help to Jehovah. =The Pilgrim Songs.=--Another very different hymn book embedded in our book of Psalms is one which we may call the "Pilgrim Songs." It is found in chapters 120 to 134 of our Psalter. All of these psalms have the title, "A Song of Ascents." This probably means a song to sing on the ascent to Jerusalem. These come from the happy time after Nehemiah when the city was safely protected by walls. Because of this blessed safety it was now possible for the people once more to go on pilgrimages to the great annual religious feasts as prescribed in the law-book of Deuteronomy. Before the walls were rebuilt such gatherings of pilgrims with their gifts would merely have been an invitation to robbers. But now the custom of pilgrimages was renewed, and they came to be among the happiest events of the year in the lives of Jewish men and women and older boys and girls. The journey to Jerusalem was usually made in large companies or caravans for the sake of protection. For the roads outside of Jerusalem were by no means safe. And naturally in such a crowd of folks from the home village there would be much singing. These "Pilgrim Songs" grew out of the spirit of these journeys. They are filled with gratitude to God for his kindness, and with trust in his care, and with pride in their beautiful city Jerusalem which God had helped them to rebuild. ="I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." "As mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the Lord is round about them that fear him."= HEBREW MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS These hymns were frequently sung to the accompaniment of instrumental music. There are many allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in the Old Testament to the harp (_kinnor_), the psaltery (_nebel_), the cornet (_shophar_) and other instruments. We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, or at least of similar instruments, are found on Egyptian and Babylonian monuments. The harp was probably like a large guitar, only it was played like a mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion instruments--the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates clashed together. It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had developed the art of music. It seems most likely that the best they ever learned to do with these various instruments would have sounded to us more like a loud banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies and harmonies. =Influence of this worship of prayer and song.=--Nevertheless the prayer-hymns of which we have told could not fail to wield an influence on the lives of those who sung them. Boys and girls heard them week by week until they could not forget them. When they were tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in their ears. For in all these collections there were great hymns, written by men who had caught the spirit of God as had Amos and Hosea and their successors--men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, and whose courage was unshakable. Only such men could write such lines as these: ="Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, And speaketh truth in his heart. He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor."= Or these: ="Thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."= These words and scores of other passages just as great set to music long since forgotten but in those days sweet to the ear, helped untold multitudes to do justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and to find strength and hope in God. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE] | | | | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN HARP] | | | | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP] | | | | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP] | | | | [Illustration: A BABYLONIAN HARP] | | | | [Illustration: JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.] | | | | [Illustration: ASSYRIAN DULCIMER] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration | | Fund. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ STUDY TOPICS 1. Of the "David" psalms, read any of the following chapters: 11, 13, 15, 23, of the book of Psalms. 2. Of the "Pilgrim" psalms, read chapter 121 or 124 or 126. 3. Which of these do you like best? 4. Look up words scattered through the Psalms which appear to be musical directions. 5. In what ways did the following Psalms help the Jews to realize their hopes?-- _a._ 15. _b._ 51. _c._ 124. 6. For a good example of one of the prayers, in the temple, read 1 Kings 8. 27, 28. CHAPTER XXV A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to foreigners. THE INCREASING HATRED TOWARDS FOREIGNERS AFTER THE EXILE We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all intermarriages were forbidden. =The fight against intermarriages in Judæa.=--When these exiles returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations around Judæa. It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt for other races. =The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.=--About the time of Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon. This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews in Judæa. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call themselves true Hebrews. The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles. =The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.=--Those who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names. THE COMING OF THE GREEKS This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judæa. Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of every Jewish city and village. The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world. =The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.=--This meant that the old religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in Babylonia and other lands but even in Judæa and Jerusalem. Many Jews quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as "Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities. =The beginnings of the Pharisees.=--Other Jews fought against all these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament. The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs. They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not, except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or "the pious." It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the Hebrews for all men who were not Jews. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage express? 2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21. Can you explain the inconsistency? 3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other nations lead to? 4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on? CHAPTER XXVI A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks, for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar, asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the splendid fishing business by the Sea of Galilee. In the time of Jesus we find this lake surrounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in these towns supported themselves and their families by fishing. The fish were salted and the salt fish sold in the inland towns. They were even exported to foreign countries. The Greeks probably also introduced poultry and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of Canaan. =New articles of dress and furniture.=--These same newcomers brought with them a greater variety of fabrics and garments, such as Cilician goat's-hair cloth, out of which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as tents, were made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. Many new kinds of household utensils came into Jewish homes as a result of the example of their Greek associates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table cloths, plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes came from the Greeks. From this same source came the custom of placing food at meals on dining tables, like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves, lay on couches with their heads toward the table. It may also have been the Greeks--although possibly it was the Persians--who first brought coined money into Canaan, so that in making each purchase it was not necessary to weigh the silver or the gold. All these useful and beautiful things helped to win over sensible people among the Jews to look with favor on their new neighbors. And when Jewish travelers found themselves stopping at new and more comfortable inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to bathe in the public baths which were erected in the larger cities by the Greek authorities, they were sure to spread the idea that even Jews might learn something from the Greeks. BROAD-MINDED PATRIOTS AMONG THE JEWS Fortunately there were some among the Jews who could appreciate the good and beautiful things in Greek civilization without being disloyal to their own race and their own religion; and, on the other hand, could be proud of the great teachings of the prophets without hating and despising men of other races. They had learned well the lesson of that great prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose Israel, not as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to teach all nations about the true God and his righteous rule. Such men realized that the Greeks and Egyptians and other foreigners were Jehovah's children like themselves, and that instead of despising them they ought to make friends with them and try to teach them the religion of Jehovah. =Jewish religious books written for Greeks.=--It was by men of this broad spirit that a number of books were written for the sake of winning Greeks to the Jewish religion. These books were written in the Greek language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. Among the most important of these books was the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation was made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in Greek countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew tongue. But the translators also had in mind the great non-Jewish Greek world. And the new translation, sometimes called the Septuagint (that is, the book of the seventy translators who are said to have worked on it), found its way into the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from it for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah. The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was another Jew of this broad spirit. He had traveled in Egypt. He had seen the vices and sins of the heathen. And he had tried to tell them of the just and merciful laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many of his fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do you have anything to do with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.) Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to teach. Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book, understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all mankind--that broadening which we call Christianity. STUDY TOPICS 1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24. 2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American habit of calling names at foreigners? 3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our "Japanese" problem? 4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah. CHAPTER XXVII OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS[5] All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual restoration, the people came more and more to see the importance of education. And in the course of these three or four centuries before the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools and two kinds of teachers, first, an _open air_ school where life itself was studied, and then later, in the second place, an _indoor_ school, where the chief study was that of books. SCHOOLS IN THE OPEN AIR These open-air schools were most often to be seen in the "city gate." The Jews meant by the "gate" of the city the broad open space in front of the actual opening in the city wall. It was like the public square in our modern towns. =Scenes in the "Gate."=--Suppose we visit one of the "gates." It is early morning. Everything is noise and confusion. Here are merchants peddling their wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax. Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is shouting with a shrill voice and with many gestures that the price asked is an outrage. Besides the merchants there are judges. Here sits one of the city elders with a long white beard. Before him are two farmers disputing over a boundary line--also witnesses and spectators. Out in the middle of the area children are playing. Every now and then a mangy yellow dog noses his way through the crowd looking for scraps of food. And everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their neighbors and to hear the news. In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we notice a dignified figure, an old man with a circle of friends and listeners. He is watching the varied scenes around him and occasionally talking with those about him. "Who is that old man?" we ask. "That is one of the wise men," we are told. These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through "proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the "proverbs" of these teachers are preserved in the Book of Proverbs in our Old Testament. THE TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN One of the most important keys to success in life is a knowledge of people. This the wise men helped their students to obtain. Let us sit for a while beside one of them and look through his eyes at the people who pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He wears a very fine garment, and walks with a swagger. His father and mother and all his aunts and uncles have always told him that he is the most clever person in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. He will listen to advice from nobody. The wise man watches him pass, then says to his hearers: ="Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him."= (=Proverbs 26. 12.=) The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to smile at the little inconsistencies of life. He has been listening to the talk between a merchant and his customer. And this is his comment on it. ="It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."= (=Proverbs 20. 14.=) But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies the wise man has a tender heart. He helps his hearers to sympathize with those who are anxious and discouraged. And he knows the value of friendly encouragement. ="Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop; But a good word maketh it glad."= (=Proverbs 12. 25.=) =A practical advice of the wise men.=--With this knowledge of human nature these teachers were able to give much good counsel in matters of business. For example, there were tricksters in those days just as now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to act as surety for a loan. "Just shake hands with me before witnesses," the smooth tongued one would say, "and the banker will lend me money; there is a caravan of silks coming from Damascus which I can buy for a song. We will both be rich." So the poor fool would shake hands before witnesses, which was like our modern custom of signing one's name on a note. The man would then take the money and disappear, leaving his victim to repay the loan or be sold into slavery. "Be on your guard against these sharpers," the wise men were constantly saying. HELPING PEOPLE TO LIVE LOVINGLY TOGETHER The best part of the teaching of the wise men had to do with even more important matters than how to keep from being cheated. They helped people live together. They had many sensible things to say about good manners. For example, Joshua the son of Sirach, a wise man whose sayings are found in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha, gives much wise counsel about table manners: ="Consider thy neighbor's liking by thine own, And be discreet in every point. Eat as becometh a man, those things which are set before thee; And eat not greedily, lest thou be hated. Be first to leave off, for manner's sake, And be not insatiable, lest thou offend."= Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things which make life happy and noble. Truly civilized people do not eat like pigs in a trough. As they looked out upon the lives of men what made the wise men most sorry was the hatred and bitterness which they so often saw between those who should have been friends. One of their most frequent teachings was the need for the control of one's anger and for charity and forgiveness. ="A fool uttereth all his anger, But a wise man keepeth it back."= (=Proverbs 29. 11.=) ="He that covereth a transgression seeketh love: But he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends."= (=Proverbs 17. 9.=) =Their condemnation of tale-bearing.=--Since the wise men felt so strongly on this point, it is not surprising that they kept their most scathing denunciations for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often they saw men who were formerly dear friends passing by each other with dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his evil seed. If you have anything to say against a man, the wise men urged, say it to his face. Don't talk against him behind his back. ="A froward man scattereth abroad strife: And a whisperer separateth chief friends."= (=Proverbs 16. 28.=) THE RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical teachers with their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about the God of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men. It is a story of a man who found God although both his own misfortunes and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that God was his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave enough to think for himself. So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied, helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with God as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this history we have studied was slowly but surely moving. STUDY TOPICS 1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the references opposite (_a_), (_b_), etc., below. (_a_) Diligence in work. (_b_) Temperance in use of wine. (_c_) Honesty in business. (_d_) Compassion toward the poor. (_e_) Self-control in anger. 2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book. 3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom of the Son of Sira. FOOTNOTES: [5] Part of these pages taken from the author's earlier book, The Story of Our Bible. Copyright, 1914, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. CHAPTER XXVIII BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of education--the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible. They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody, beginning with the children. TEACHING THE LAW AT HOME Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door. This is the way the inscription reads: ="'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah thy God is one and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'= "The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have been learning to read them," says our friend. "And every Sabbath we study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which you say Jehovah our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt ... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'" =Religion through education.=--It is easy to understand that with this training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes. THE NEW KIND OF TEACHERS, THE SCRIBES After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah. At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. =The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.=--If this larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as "scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel, who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus. ="Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself. This is the whole law. All else is exposition."= It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God." THE SCHOOLS OF THE SCRIBES These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of girls are as well worth educating as those of boys. =The methods of teaching.=--The boys sat on the floor in a circle before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with care. GOOD AND BAD RESULTS OF THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIBES So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still, the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm: ="Thy word is a lamp unto my feet And light unto my path.= * * * * * * * * * =Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."= =The danger of formality.=--The danger in this kind of education is that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture. The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were studied, not the real everyday experience of living people. JESUS WAS A WISE MAN RATHER THAN A SCRIBE When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those more ancient wise men of the city gates. Like them he taught his listeners out of doors by the shores of the lake or on the hillside as well as in the synagogues. He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, as God's word, but he listened for that word also in the sights and sounds of the streets and country lanes. He heard his Father's voice as he listened to house wives chatting with their neighbors, or to vineyard keepers hiring harvest hands. "When He walked the fields he drew From the flowers and birds and dew Parables of God. For within his heart of love All the soul of man did move-- God had his abode." STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" and "Rabbi." 2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from Matthew 7. 28-29, Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 28-34? 3. Read Luke 1. 5-6; 2. 25-36. Where and how do you think these good men and women, among whom Jesus was born, got their training? CHAPTER XXIX NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern Syria, naming it after his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the throne of the new kingdom, are known in history as the Seleucids. THE JEWS UNDER GREEK RULERS Canaan at first became part of the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and this continued for about a century. During this period the Jews seemed to have been treated with a fair degree of kindness and justice. At least they were left most of the time in peace. But about B.C. 200, Canaan was taken from the Ptolemies by the Seleucids, and this turned out to be for the Jewish people an unhappy change. In the year 175 B.C., there came to the throne in Antioch a young prince named Antiochus Epiphanes who, like Alexander the Great, thought of himself as a kind of missionary for Greek art and civilization. He became more and more angry because so many of the Jews refused to worship Greek gods. About B.C. 170, he issued a decree that all persons in his dominion must offer sacrifices to Zeus. When the Jews refused they were put to death. =New persecutions.=--A terrible persecution was thus begun. A Greek officer would come into a Jewish town or village, set up an altar to Zeus, and summon all the people to join in the sacrifice of worship. As many as possible of those who refused were hunted down and killed. All copies of the Jewish law that could be found were burned. Every month a search was made throughout Judæa to see whether any Jew still had copies of the Scriptures. A heathen altar was set up in the temple at Jerusalem and swine were sacrificed upon it. To the Jews, who were taught to regard swine's flesh as unclean and unholy, nothing could have seemed more horrible. Of course there were some traitors and renegades. But the great majority of the Jewish people were nobly true to the faith of their fathers. Hundreds and thousands, young and old, allowed themselves to be tortured and slain rather than take part in a heathen sacrifice. Many even of those who had fallen in with some of the evil customs of the Greeks now refused to be known as anything else than faithful Jews, even though it might cost them their lives. THE MACCABEAN REVOLTS AND VICTORIES In the midst of this cruel persecution a rebellion flamed up under the leadership of a certain brave old priest named Mattathias. After his death his sons took up the cause. The greatest of them was Judas, who was surnamed Maccabeus, which some have thought meant the Hammerer. The whole family is known as the Maccabees. Under the skillful command of Judas victory after victory was won by his little band of Jewish warriors fighting against great armies of Greek hired soldiers. The city of Jerusalem was cleared of the detested oppressors, all except a garrison that maintained itself in the citadel. The temple was purified and rededicated to Jehovah. After some twenty years the soldiers from Antioch were driven out altogether and the little Jewish kingdom under Simon, a brother of Judas, was recognized as independent. For nearly a century the descendants of the Maccabees reigned in Jerusalem. Most of them turned out to be greedy and selfish men unworthy of Judas and Simon. Yet during this period the Jews tasted once again something of the joys of freedom. THE VICTORIES OF ROME During the last two centuries before Christ a new empire had been growing up in the west, that of Rome. In the year B.C. 63, two princes of the Maccabean line fell into a quarrel as to which one should be king. There was a civil war, which was ended by the Roman general Pompey, who annexed the country as a province of the Roman Empire. This was the end of the independence of the Jewish nation. =The Herods.=--Sometimes Roman provinces were ruled by Roman governors, and at other times they were left to native kings who were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute to Rome. There was a certain Edomite, or Idumean, as the name was pronounced by the Greeks and Romans, who partly by flattery and partly by real ability persuaded Romans to make him king over the whole land of Palestine. This man is known in the history books as Herod the Great, although he was sadly lacking in true greatness, being fearfully cruel and absolutely selfish. He built many beautiful palaces in various Jewish cities and also rebuilt very beautifully the temple at Jerusalem. He himself had no interest in religion, but he hoped in this way to win back with the Jews some of the popularity which he had lost through his many crimes. It was during his reign that Jesus was born. When Herod died the land was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his public career as a teacher one of these sons, Herod Antipas, was the ruler of the northern part of the country, that is Galilee. Judæa, in the south, and Samaria between Galilee and Judæa, were directly under Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator. =The Sanhedrin.=--To a certain extent even after the Roman conquest the Jews were permitted to govern themselves. There was in Jerusalem a council, or court, of leading priests and rabbis, called the Sanhedrin. There were in it seventy-one members. When any member died the others elected some one to fill the vacancy. All Jews everywhere were supposed to be under the authority of the Sanhedrin. But except in purely religious matters it had little power outside of Judæa. In Judæa, however, this court, or council, decided all questions except those which the Roman procurator reserved for himself. They were not allowed to condemn a criminal to death. So when the Sanhedrin voted to put Jesus out of the way it was necessary to take him before Pilate the Roman procurator and persuade Pilate to ratify the sentence of death. How galling it was to a proud nation like the Jews to be obliged to go to a hated enemy for permission to carry out their decrees we can well imagine; and we shall learn more of it in the next chapter. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, Maccabees and Herod. 2. Read Hebrews 11. 32-40. Verses 33-38 are probably in large part a description of the heroic martyrs before the Maccabees. 3. Was the Maccabean rule a failure because it did not last? 4. How did these rulers contribute to the great ends which Jews had always dreamed of. CHAPTER XXX THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury. The world had never before seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, but the Romans were worse. Think of that form of punishment which they inflicted carelessly every day even for minor crimes--crucifixion! The poor victim was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left to hang in agony till death mercifully ended it all. Think of the gladiatorial combats in the city of Rome and in other Roman cities, where every day for centuries slaves or condemned criminals fought each other with swords to the death, or fought with wild beasts while the gloating multitudes looked on in rapture. Moreover, not only were the Romans very cruel, they had no manners. They were haughty in their bearing and took pains to let conquered people know how thoroughly they were despised. =Roman cruelty in Palestine.=--All these qualities were manifested almost at their worst by the Roman rulers in Judæa and Galilee. Jesus speaks of certain Galilæans, "whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices." We know nothing of this incident except what Jesus tells. Evidently, these Galilæans had come as pilgrims to Jerusalem at the time of one of the annual feasts. Possibly they did not salute with sufficient respect the Roman eagles as they passed some squad of Roman soldiers in the street. At any rate, they were taken before Pilate and ruthlessly condemned to the slaughter. =Roman taxes and the Publicans.=--Naturally, the thought of paying taxes to such masters was almost unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man and woman was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides taxes on his property or income. To make matters worse, the Romans were accustomed to hire _Jews_ to collect these taxes, giving these men the right to extort whatever they could, provided the required tribute was paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and despised these Jewish tax-gatherers or publicans even more than they hated and despised the Romans themselves. VARIOUS PARTIES AMONG THE JEWS There were some respectable Jews, indeed, as well as these tax-collectors, who favored the Romans. There were for example the Sadducees, a group of wealthy and aristocratic men, mostly priests, who formed a sort of political party called by this name. Many of them were members of the Sanhedrin. They were prosperous, and so long as their power was not taken away they sided with the Romans. It was nothing to them that the great mass of their poor fellow countrymen were being brutally and wickedly robbed and ill-treated. =The Pharisees.=--We have already spoken of the Pharisees as being "Separatists," that is, the people who were most opposed to any contact with heathen foreigners. Strange to say, most of the Pharisees were opposed to any violent rebellion against the Romans. They believed that God himself would come to the aid of his people. Many books of the class called apocalypses were written during this period of the history in which the writers tried to comfort their readers by prophesying that the Lord would soon descend from heaven with armies of angels or would send his Messiah to drive out the Romans and set up his own kingdom. The word "Messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") means _anointed one_. The book of Daniel in the Old Testament is one of the books of this period. Many similar books were written which were not included in the canon of the Scriptures. All of them were written in rather mysterious language--with references to trumpets, vials, seals, beasts with many heads and many horns, and so on. This was to keep their heathen rulers from understanding the real meaning. It would not have been safe openly to predict that in a few years God was going to send all Romans to eternal punishment. =The Zealots.=--There were still others among the Jews at this time who were not willing to wait for Jehovah to come down from heaven. They wanted to start a revolution right away. One such man, Judas of Gamala, led a revolt when Jesus was about ten years old in which many Galilæans joined. It was put down by the Romans with their usual cruelty. Very likely the fathers of some of Jesus' boyhood friends in Nazareth of Galilee were crucified as the punishment for taking part in this revolt. Those who sympathized with Judas continued to plot in secret against the hated Roman oppressors. They were called Zealots. One of them became a member of Jesus' band of twelve apostles. SMOLDERING HATE AMONG THE PEOPLE Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like the Zealots, or whether they gave their strength to eager prayer to Jehovah for deliverance, the great mass of the common people among the Jews in the time of Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a hatred against their oppressors such as we can scarcely imagine. The century of freedom under the Maccabees had made them all the more impatient of tyranny--and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as Herod and Pilate!--this was almost unendurable. The children drank in this spirit with their mothers' milk. Fathers and mothers had constantly to warn their boys and girls not to show their feelings toward Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful punishment should befall them. So it went on from year to year, growing constantly worse instead of better. The whole land was like a heap of smoldering leaves. Sooner or later there would be a sudden flare of open flame. STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in the Bible dictionary "Publicans," "Zealots," and "Sadducees." 2. How do you explain the success of the Romans in tyrannizing the proud Jews for so many years? Consider the part played by the Sadducees. 3. Read Matthew 3. 1-2. Why did John's message arouse such interest and enthusiasm? CHAPTER XXXI JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of Abraham. As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially realized. But what was more important the Jews came more and more clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes. Their great teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first lessons of justice as the foundation of happiness. The great prophets helped them to see that neither happiness nor justice was possible except as they knew and worshiped the true God--not a God of greed and anger to be bribed with sacrifices, but the God of justice and love. A few of the prophets also began to see that such hopes as theirs could not be for Jews alone but must include all mankind. THE FULLNESS OF THE TIMES The Jews under their Roman masters had come to a time, as we saw in the preceding chapter, when they were wildly expecting an immediate fulfillment of these hopes. The short taste of freedom and happiness which they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, followed by a tyranny more cruel and distasteful than any which their ancestors had known, made them almost mad with the desire for some kind of a Saviour. And it seemed to them that he must come soon. =The chance for a world-Saviour.=--All over the world just at this time there were strange hopes and longings in men's hearts. The Romans had robbed many other nations besides the Jews of their independence. These people had no real nation of their own any longer to live for--and they hated Rome. What was there to make life worth living unless some Redeemer should come from God? Moreover, it was possible now to think of such a Saviour as a world-Saviour. In the earlier centuries men hardly knew that there was a world outside their own tribe and a few of their neighbors. There were no maps. Only a few could travel, and see for themselves how great a world there really was--and how many nations there were--made up of men like themselves. The common people of Asia scarcely knew that there was a Europe, and the enormous continent of Africa, except for Egypt, did not exist for them. As for what is now called the New World, North and South America, no one knew of its existence. =Preparations for Christianity.=--But the Romans built good roads all over the great countries which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and many were the travelers who went to and fro upon them. They established one government for all this Mediterranean world. One language came to be understood everywhere--not Latin, the language of the Romans themselves, but Greek. Beyond the boundaries of the empire there were, of course, vast territories. But it was possible now for even the common people to realize that their own village or city or tribe was only a small part of one great world. And for the first time in history there was a chance for some one to take the old Jewish hope of a better and happier Jewish people and change it into a world-hope of a better and happier human race, and to gather a few men and women together and start them working for it. THE COMING OF JESUS In the wonderful providence of God there was born in a manger-cradle just at this moment in history the Baby who was destined to accomplish this miracle; to broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings these hopes which had been handed down from one generation of Jews to another. The story of the life of Jesus will be given in detail in other courses in this series. Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did: he helped men to believe in a God who loved all men as his children, whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles or Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; for if they were bad, they needed his love to help them to be good. Jesus not only taught this idea of God through his spoken words; he helped men, through his deeds, to understand it. He _lived_ that way, as the Son of such a God. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He ate and drank with outcasts. He was everybody's friend. =The inevitable conflict and cross.=--Of course Jesus was not able to live that kind of life very long in our kind of world. Very soon he came into conflict with the various kinds of men who enjoyed special privileges of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all willing to share these things in a brotherly way; with the Pharisees, who were considered especially holy and did not want to be brothers to common men, the "people of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to be brothers to wounded men lying by the side of the Jericho road; with Romans who were afraid the Jews might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after three short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed to the cross, praying even as the nails were driven into his hands, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." =Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus.=--How different the outcome of their history would then have been! Instead of a bloody and hopeless revolt against the Romans, they might have found a way to live at peace with them, receiving from them a more just and humane government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed his people how to get along under the rule of Assyrians. Or, if the Romans had goaded the people to rebel, they might have fought and died gloriously, not merely for their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history might have been changed. The four years' war which did break out in A.D. 66, about thirty-six years after Jesus' death, was not that kind of a war. In the course of these four years different factions among the Jews fought each other almost as fiercely as they fought the Romans. The Jews themselves were selfish in their hopes. They were not inspired and strengthened by Jesus' vision of brotherhood. In A.D. 70 the Romans captured the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. It was never rebuilt. From that day to this the Jews have been a people without a native land. CARRYING OUT THE IDEAS OF JESUS There was, however, after Jesus' death and resurrection, a splendid company of disciples whose lives had been transformed by their acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and who were eager to go on carrying out Jesus' plans. None of them thoroughly understood these plans. Indeed, we are only beginning to understand them to-day. But very soon, within a few years after Jesus' death, the wisest of the early apostles, such men as Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, came to see that to carry out Jesus' wishes there needed to be a universal church in which Jews and Gentiles, men of all races, would be included. Within a half century branches of this new world-church had been started in every important city in the Roman empire. At first their meetings were held in synagogues of the Jews of the Dispersion; and it is a pity that all the Jews could not have perceived that these disciples of Jesus were carrying out the hopes of their own prophets, that this Christianity was simply Judaism fulfilled. But many, of course, wanted to keep their religion and their God to themselves as Jews. So there sprang up other buildings everywhere which came to be known as Christian churches rather than Jewish synagogues. =Our task to-day.=--In these modern times we are still trying to understand what Jesus wanted and to bring it to pass in reality. We are beginning to see that if all men are indeed sacred to our heavenly Father, then under the leadership of our everliving Christ, a fight is in store for us on behalf of all the millions of our brothers who are blinded by selfishness, haggard from want, embittered by injustice, stunted in soul and mind by ignorance, or tortured by all the agonies of war. If there is to be a better world for any of us, it must be a better world for all of us. It must be "everybody's world." STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, for further light on the background of Jesus' life, Galilee, Nazareth, Capernaum. 2. Read Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the message of Jesus, like that of John, awakened such a quick response among the people. 3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read Matthew 20. 25-27, and Luke 13. 31, 32. 4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' plan for winning freedom and happiness, instead of the oppression and misery of Roman rule? Read John 18. 33-38. CHAPTER XXXII A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they achieve, during a thousand years of striving? SUMMARY OF RESULTS Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope that they might some time gain them for themselves or their children. These were the times of David, of Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee. These four men were all able and just leaders. They were all inspired, to a greater or less extent, by the ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the great reformer-prophets. =The long centuries of failure.=--The lives of all four of these men together, however, do not cover much more than a century. During the rest of the time, the common people were ground down under oppressors, either of their own race or foreign conquerors. Generation after generation of fathers and mothers patiently toiled and struggled and suffered, in the hope that they might climb just a little higher toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the higher blessings of life. Most of them struggled in vain. It is true that a few of the more fortunate, in each generation, saw some little advance over earlier generations in the good things of civilization. Such men as Nicodemus and Zacchæus, in the time of Jesus, lived in better houses, wore more comfortable clothes, and ate better food than did King David himself in an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of Jesus' day were not so well off as even in the days of Abraham. For as wandering shepherds they were free. Life might be a bitter struggle against wild beasts and drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked down on them with contempt, or robbed them of their last farthing in unjust taxation. Shall we say, then, that as a whole, the great enterprise was a failure? THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT--A TRUE RELIGION No, the great quest was not a failure, even though it was so far from a complete success. Out of the long years of struggle and prayer had come a new religion, not, indeed, understood by many but partly grasped at least by some, and written down in books so that it could never be wholly lost. This was a religion of the brotherhood of man and of a universal Father-God. The four eras of their history when the common people had been happy were eras when the principles of this religion had partly prevailed. And these eras still shine out for us as examples of what that kind of religion means in the life of a people. And the lives and words of the great prophets, and, greatest of all, the life of Jesus Christ, are a priceless legacy to us, who are still continuing the quest which Abraham began. =The truth which has been revealed to us.=--All men, everywhere, who are longing and toiling for a better chance for life and happiness and for knowledge and beauty and love for themselves and for their children, may now know that they are not without a mighty helper. There is One who revealed himself, in the history of the people of Israel and uniquely in Jesus Christ his Son, who still speaks in the name of all the hungry and thirsty and ragged and sick: ="I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: ... Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me."= STUDY TOPICS 1. Of the four short eras of righteousness, in the history of the Hebrews, in which does it seem to you that the common people made the greatest gains? 2. What were some of the improvements in civilization which rich or well-to-do people, in the later centuries of this history, enjoyed, as compared with the earlier centuries? Study Chapters I and II, VI, VII, and VIII, and XXII. 3. Compare the earliest religion of the Hebrews with the religion of the prophets and Jesus. Mention four great discoveries in regard to the character of God. REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 1. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors of the Hebrews. 2. What valuable characteristic of these people is reflected in the story of Joseph? 3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life? 4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging from the story of Lot? 5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews? 6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were compelled to endure. What did they have to do? 7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his countrymen? 8. What was the effect of this deliverance on the life and religion of the Hebrews in after years? 9. Why was it comparatively easy for the Hebrews to get a foothold in Canaan about B.C. 1200? 10. To what extent was the settlement in Canaan peaceful and to what extent was it by conquest? 11. What lessons in civilization did the Hebrews learn in Canaan? 12. What moral dangers did they have to fight against there? 13. Why were the Hebrews in the first years after the settlement so often beaten by their enemies? 14. What was Deborah's most important contribution to the history of her people? 15. Why did it seem necessary for the Hebrews to have a king? 16. Why were some of the wisest of the Hebrews opposed to the idea of a king? 17. How did David make the lives of the common people under his rule more prosperous and happy? 18. Why was Solomon unpopular? 19. Was the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon a mistake, or was it a blessing? 20. In what way did most of the kings who followed David make themselves a curse to their subjects? 21. Explain why the Rechabites, Elijah, and others hated Canaanite civilization and wanted the people to go back to the old nomadic desert ways. 22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew religion. What was the difference between ordinary sacrifices and special "whole burnt-offerings"? 23. Describe the life of the poor people of Israel in the time of Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos. 24. How did Amos criticize the religion of burnt-offerings? 25. What false ideas of God did Hosea combat? 26. How did Hosea come to think of God as loving and merciful? 27. How were superstitious ideas about God used by greedy priests and fortune-tellers in Micah's day to extort money from the people? 28. What did Micah say were the essential things in religion? 29. Why did the Jews in Isaiah's time seek for alliances with foreign countries? 30. How were these alliances connected with the worship of foreign gods? 31. What were some of the sayings of Isaiah in which he taught the lesson of faith in the one true God? 32. What plan did Isaiah devise to educate disciples in his religious teachings? 33. What was the historical connection between the study circles of Isaiah and the law-book of Deuteronomy? 34. To what extent did the law-book of Deuteronomy lead to the practice of the teachings of the prophets? 35. How did this law compromise in the matter of burnt-offerings and other sacrifices? 36. What did the prophet Jeremiah think of the law-book of Deuteronomy? Did he favor it or condemn it? Explain. 37. Describe the life of the exiles in Babylon. 38. How did they keep alive their faith in Jehovah? 39. Where else besides Babylonia were large numbers of Hebrew exiles to be found? 40. With what hopes did the Jews comfort themselves after the destruction of Jerusalem? 41. In what two ways did Nehemiah help the Jews in Jerusalem to a happier life? 42. Tell the story of the growing use of prayer and hymn books in the religious worship of the Jews. 43. Why did many of the Jews become more narrowly prejudiced against foreigners after the destruction of Jerusalem? 44. What influences tended to make some of the Jews in this period more broad-minded and friendly toward foreigners? 45. Mention some writings from this period which helped the cause of the broader patriotism. 46. What two kinds of special schools and teachers grew up among the Jews? 47. Describe the daily scenes in the group of listeners around one of the old wise men. 48. What were some weaknesses and faults in the education of the scribes? 49. What contributions did the Greeks bring to the civilization of the Jews in Canaan? 50. Why were the Jews specially discontented under the rule of the Romans? 51. In what four periods of their history were the Jews happiest? 52. How did Jesus fulfill and broaden out the national hopes of the Jews? A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES Kent and Bailey: _History of the Hebrew Commonwealth_. George A. Barton: _Archæology and the Bible_. Charles Reynolds Brown: _The Story Books of the Early Hebrews_. Harold B. Hunting: _The Story of Our Bible_. Crosby: _Geography of Bible Lands_. _Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary_. * * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 14: wondering replaced with wandering | | Page 38: record replaced with records | | Page 155: 'life itself itself was' replaced with | | 'life itself was' | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * 
41602	----	Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= while italic text is surrounded by _underscores_. OUTLINE STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT FOR BIBLE TEACHERS By JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D. [Illustration] NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM Copyright, 1906, by EATON & MAINS. CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY 5 HINTS TO STUDENTS 7 HINTS TO TEACHERS 9 THE COURSE DIVIDED INTO LESSONS 11 I. THE LAND OF PALESTINE 13 II. THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE 19 III. THE LIFE OF CHRIST 25 IV. THE THIRTY YEARS OF PREPARATION 30 V. THE YEAR OF OBSCURITY 35 VI. THE YEAR OF POPULARITY 40 VII. THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION 48 VIII. THE WEEK OF THE PASSION 54 IX. THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION 58 X. THE FORTY DAYS OF RESURRECTION 64 XI. THE NEW TESTAMENT WORLD 68 XII. THE SYNAGOGUE 73 XIII. THE CHURCH IN JUDEA 76 XIV. THE CHURCH IN TRANSITION 83 XV. THE CHURCH TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE ASCENSION 89 XVI. THE PREPARATION OF PAUL FOR HIS WORK 93 XVII. THE CHURCH AMONG THE GENTILES 99 XVIII. THE END OF THE AGE 106 PREFATORY There is no book in the world which repays earnest study so abundantly as the Holy Bible. Even the cursory reader who possesses a candid mind can gather many precious thoughts from its pages; and he who turns to it for guidance in life, however ignorant he may be, will never be led astray. But as the precious metal lies hidden in the mountains, and must be sought out by the miners, so the treasures in the Word of Life are found only by those who search diligently for them. He who not only reads but _studies_ the Scriptures finds an abundant reward. There is need in our age of searchers in the Bible, who shall bring out of its treasure-house things new and old. In the old Bible the most important themes are those which gather around the God-man, Jesus Christ. His coming to earth was the culmination of all prophecy, the focus of all history, and the center of all doctrine; and the church which he founded has been for nineteen centuries the inspiration of the world's progress. There are two subjects in the New Testament with which every follower of Christ should be thoroughly acquainted, and they are its two most prominent themes: the life of Christ on earth, and the growth of the early church. In the life of Christ he should know the order of the leading events; he should grasp its principles, and should enter into its spirit. Only as we apprehend Christ can we comprehend the truths taught and inspired by Christ. But our work as New Testament students must not end with the story of Christ's ascension from earth. Jesus left behind him a little church, of only one hundred and twenty members, which in seventy years overswept all the lands of the greatest empire then on the earth, and which now covers nearly all the world. Of that church we are members, inheritors of its traditions, its doctrines, and--best of all--its spirit. It should be our delight to trace the steps of its early progress, to see how its plans grew with the advancing years, and how an obscure company of Jewish disciples became a church of world-wide reach. To enable a student to obtain this knowledge this book has been prepared. The earlier studies on the life of Christ have been published as Studies in the Four Gospels, but have been carefully revised and, in the author's judgment, improved. The studies on the early church are the outgrowth of work begun many years ago, frequently revised, taught to classes many times, and carefully restudied in the light of the most recent researches in the domain of early church history. These chapters are, as their titles indicate, _studies_; designed, not for reading, but for study. This book does not undertake to be a life of Christ, and a history of the early church, to be read. It simply extends a helping hand, and holds out to the student a clue by means of which he can form his own life of Christ and prepare for himself a history of the early church. Wherever a fact can be learned by searching out a Scripture reference the fact is not stated, but the reference is given. Every text referred to should be searched out, as these texts contain the essential facts of this book. Whoever would use these studies rightly must pursue them with the Bible close at hand, and must consult his Bible more frequently than this text-book. There are a million and a half Sunday school teachers who should be acquainted with the story of Christ and his church: and there are several millions of young people in our Sunday schools who may be teachers before many years and need the same knowledge. This book has been prepared in the hope that these teachers and young people may find it a help to know Him who is the head of the church; and to understand the church, which is the pillar and ground of truth. JESSE L. HURLBUT. January 3, 1906. HINTS TO STUDENTS Those who desire merely to _read_ this book, or to look it over, will not find it interesting. Those who already know how to study will not need these hints, and can use the book in their own way. But there are many who desire to study these subjects carefully and yet do not know precisely how to do the work. For these students, earnest but untrained, these hints are given. 1. These studies should be pursued with the Bible close at hand, so that every Scripture reference may be at once searched out and read. 2. Begin each lesson by a general view; reading it through carefully, and memorizing the leading divisions of the outline, which are indicated by the Roman numerals I, II, III, etc. This will give the general plan of the lesson. 3. Now take up Part I of the lesson in detail; notice and memorize its subdivisions, indicated by 1, 2, 3, etc., and search out all the Scripture references cited in it. If practicable, write out on a sheet of paper the reference (not the language of the text in full), and what each reference shows. Thus with references in the Second Study, page 19, Section I, =Origin=, 1. =Semitic.= (Gen. 12. 1-3) God's call and promise to Abram. (Gen. 17. 1-8) The call repeated; name changed to Abraham. (James 2. 23) The Friend of God. (Gen. 18. 19: "He will command his children," etc.) In this manner write out all the facts ascertained from all the references in the section. 4. It would be a good plan to write out in full, as a connected statement, all the facts in the section. 5. In like manner study out and write out all the facts obtained by a study of the lesson and the text cited in it. This will greatly aid the memory in holding fast to the information gained. 6. Having done this, look at the blackboard outline at the end of the study and see if you can read the outline of the lesson by the aid of the catch-words and indications which it affords. Study the lesson until you can read it with the blackboard outline, and then recall it without the outline. 7. Now take up the questions for review. Read them over, one by one, and see if you can answer them. To many of them the answer is not given in the text-book, but it will be found in the Scripture references when searched out. Do not cease your study until every question can be answered from memory. 8. Frequently review the lessons already learned. Before beginning the third study review the first and second; before the fourth, review the first, second and third; and at the completion of the course review them all. The knowledge gained by this thorough study will more than compensate for the time and trouble which it requires. HINTS TO TEACHERS Classes may be organized on various plans and out of varied materials for the study of these lessons. 1. A teachers' class, composed of teachers and also of senior scholars in the Sunday school, may be formed to study the life of Christ, which is one of the most important subjects in the Bible. This may meet on an evening, or an afternoon, and devote all the session to the study of the lesson and to discussions upon it. 2. In many places a teachers' meeting is held for the study of the International Lesson as a preparation for the Sunday school class. A part of the time might be taken at this meeting for the study of these subjects. In that case it would be well to follow the division into lessons, as given on pages 11, 12. 3. A normal class may be organized among the brightest scholars in the Sunday school, who should be trained to become teachers. This normal class may meet on an afternoon, or an evening, or may take the lesson period in the Sunday school session. 4. These studies may be pursued by the young people's society of the church, or by a class formed under its auspices, meeting at such time and place as shall be found most convenient. There are two methods in which these lessons may be taught: One is the _lecture method_, by which the instructor gives the lesson to the class in the form of a lecture, placing the outline upon the blackboard as he proceeds, calling upon the students to read the texts cited, and frequently reviewing the outline in a concert drill. By this method the students may or may not have the books, as they and the instructor prefer. While it is not necessary to supply the class with the text-book, it will be a good plan to do so. Some lecturers prefer to have the books closed while the lecture is being given; but others desire to have the students use the outline in the book as a syllabus, enabling them to follow the subject more closely. The other method, simpler and easier, is to let the student have a copy of the book, to expect the lesson to be prepared by the class, and to have it recited, either individually or in concert. Let each student gain all the information that he can upon the subjects of the lesson; let each bring his knowledge to the possession of all; let all talk freely, and all will be the gainers. It would be a good plan to have papers read from time to time upon the subjects suggested by the course and parallel with it. Some teachers and classes may regard the contents of this book as too extensive and may prefer a shorter course. The aim of the author has been to include in the course only those subjects that are essential to an understanding of the New Testament, and the entire series of lessons is recommended; but if a shorter course be deemed absolutely necessary, two plans are suggested: 1. There are three subjects which under necessity might be omitted: Second Study, The People of Palestine; Third Study, General View of the Life of Christ; Twelfth Study, The Synagogue. This will leave fifteen studies, or twenty-two lessons. 2. Another plan might be undertaken: to take up as a course the studies on the life of Christ, or even omitting, as above, the second and third studies, making eight; and to leave the eight studies in the early church--a most interesting and valuable subject--to a later period. THE COURSE DIVIDED INTO LESSONS For the convenience of teachers and classes, the eighteen studies of this course are divided into twenty-five lessons, as follows: Lesson 1. The Land of Palestine. First Study. " 2. The People of Palestine. Second Study. " 3. The Life of Christ--General View. Third Study. " 4. The Thirty Years of Preparation. Fourth Study. " 5. The Year of Obscurity. Fifth Study. " 6. The Year of Popularity. Sixth Study. Part One. " 7. The Year of Popularity. Sixth Study. Part Two. " 8. The Year of Opposition. Seventh Study. Part One. " 9. The Year of Opposition. Seventh Study. Part Two. " 10. The Week of the Passion. Eighth Study. " 11. The Day of the Crucifixion. Ninth Study. " 12. The Forty Days of Resurrection. Tenth Study. " 13. The New Testament World. Eleventh Study. " 14. The Synagogue. Twelfth Study. " 15. The Church in Judea. Thirteenth Study. Part One. " 16. The Church in Judea. Thirteenth Study. Part Two. " 17. The Church in Transition. Fourteenth Study. " 18. The Church Twenty Years after the Ascension. Fifteenth Study. " 19. The Preparation of Paul for his Work. Sixteenth Study. Part One. " 20. The Preparation of Paul for his Work. Sixteenth Study. Part Two. " 21. The Church among the Gentiles. Seventeenth Study. Part One. " 22. The Church among the Gentiles. Seventeenth Study. Part Two. " 23. The Church among the Gentiles. Seventeenth Study. Part Three. " 24. The End of the Age. Eighteenth Study. Part One. " 25. The End of the Age. Eighteenth Study. Part Two. FIRST STUDY The Land of Palestine In the historical study of the New Testament the two principal subjects are, the life of Jesus Christ on earth and, after the Ascension, the growth of the Christian church. The life of Christ was passed entirely in Palestine; and we therefore begin our studies with a view of that land as it was in our Saviour's day. I. =It was an oriental land.= In all ages the boundaries of Palestine have been about the same, though the dominion of its rulers has varied according to their power. Palestine Proper, originally the land of Canaan, and later the land of Israel, or the Twelve Tribes, is located near the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea; having Syria and Phoenicia on the north, the great Syrian Desert on the east, the Sinaitic wilderness on the south, and the Mediterranean on the west. Located just outside the tropics, near the point of contact between Asia and Africa, it belongs to the Oriental or Eastern world. II. =It was a small land.= The greatest lands have not always been the largest. Greece, no larger than half a dozen counties in America, is greater in history than vast China; and the single city of Rome won and held the empire of the Mediterranean lands. Territorially the whole extent of Palestine was about that of Massachusetts and Connecticut united, or that of Switzerland, in Europe--about 12,500 square miles. Its sea-coast, from Tyre to Gaza, is 140 miles long; its Jordan line, from Mount Hermon to the foot of the Dead Sea, is 156 miles. III. =It was a land of varied natural features.= There is a regularity in the natural conformation of Palestine which every traveler notices. The country lies in five parallel sections. 1. Approaching from the Mediterranean one meets first a =sea-coast plain= two or three miles wide at the north, but widening, as it goes southward, to nearly twenty miles at Gaza. 2. Crossing this we approach the =Shephelah=, _or foot-hills_; a terrace of low hills, from 300 to 500 feet high. 3. Ascending these we reach =the mountain region=, a range of mountains broken by ravines in all directions, and varying from 2,500 to 3,000 feet high. This region was the home of the Israelites in all their history. They were always a mountain people and never occupied the lower plains in any great degree. In all the Bible times the plains and valleys were mainly foreign and heathen in their population, while the mountains were Israelite in the Old Testament and Jewish in the New. 4. Crossing the mountains we descend to the =Jordan valley=, lower than the sea level and from five to twenty miles wide. Through this runs the river Jordan, passing through two lakes--Lake Merom and the Sea of Galilee--and emptying into the Dead Sea. 5. Beyond the valley rises the =eastern table-land=, with higher mountains, but more level summits, and broken by fewer valleys. The mountains gradually decline to the great Syrian Desert on the east. IV. =It was a Land of Five Provinces.= In the time of Christ there were five political divisions in Palestine; three on the west side of Jordan and two on the east. [Illustration: PALESTINE In the time of CHRIST] 1. On the north, west of the Jordan, was the province of =Galilee=, situated between the river Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, the land of Phoenicia and Mount Carmel. It was inhabited by a brave, simple-hearted people, mainly Jews, but with many Gentiles among them. Hence its name (Isa. 9. 1, 2; Matt. 4. 15, 16); and the contempt in which it was held at Jerusalem. (John 7. 41, 52.) It was the home of Jesus during most of his life and ministry. 2. The central region was =Samaria=. See its location. (John 4. 3, 4.) It was, strictly speaking, not a province but a district around the cities of Shechem and Samaria, not extending either to the sea or river, and of uncertain limits, inhabited by a composite people, partly Israelite, partly heathen, in their origin. Note the claim of its people (John 4. 12) and their expectation. (John 4. 25.) Observe how they were regarded by the Jews. (John 4. 9; 8. 48.) Notice that Christ paid no regard to this caste prejudice. (John 4. 10.) 3. The southernmost province of Palestine was =Judea=. As the largest, and the special home of the Jewish people, it often gave its name to the whole land, as in Mark 1. 5; Luke 7. 17; Acts 10. 37. Generally, however, it is distinguished as the name of the province, as in Luke 2. 4; Matt. 2. 22; John 4. 3. Jesus made several visits to this district, especially to its city, but only for limited periods, as its people were more bigoted than the Galileans and bitterly opposed to him. 4. On the east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea was the province of =Peræa=, a word meaning "beyond." It is not mentioned by that name in the New Testament. Notice what it is called in Matt. 19. 1; Mark 10. 1. We read of a visit paid by Jesus to this region near the close of his ministry. 5. North of the river Hieromax, and east of the Sea of Galilee, was a fifth province, the ancient land of =Bashan=, "woodland," but known in the gospels as "Philip's tetrarchy." Notice how it is specified in Luke 3. 1. Another name for a part of this territory is given in Matt. 4. 25; Mark 5. 20; 7. 31. Its inhabitants were mostly Gentiles or heathen. Twice this country enjoyed brief visits from Jesus, each marked by a miracle (Mark 5. 1-20; 7. 31-37). V. =It was a Populous Land.= We can only note the places referred to in the gospel history, and we arrange them according to the provinces. 1. In Galilee we note: 1.) =Nazareth=, due west of the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, the early home of Jesus (Matt. 2. 23; Luke 2. 51). 2.) =Nain=, south of Nazareth, where he wrought a miracle (Luke 7. 11). 3.) =Cana=, north of Nazareth, where the first miracle was wrought (John 2. 1). 4.) =Capernaum=, on the Sea of Galilee, the home of Jesus during most of his ministry, and the scene of many miracles (Luke 4. 31; Mark 2. 1). 2. In Samaria we note two places: 1.) =Shechem=, which may be the place referred to in John 4. 5, though late authorities regard it as the name of a hamlet, now called Iskar, near by. 2.) =Samaria=, a few miles north-west of Shechem, the early capital of the province, and the first place where the Gospel was preached to other than the Jews (Acts 8. 5). 3. In the province of Judea we notice: 1.) =Jerusalem=, "the holy city" (Matt. 4. 5), and the place where Jesus was crucified (Matt. 16. 21). 2.) =Bethany=, two miles east of Jerusalem (John 11. 18), where Jesus was entertained by Mary and Martha (John 11. 1). Note two great events near this place (John 11. 43; Luke 24. 50, 51). 3.) =Bethlehem=, six miles south of Jerusalem. The great event in its history (Matt. 2. 1.) Its ancient honor (Luke 2. 4.) 4.) =Hebron=, the ancient capital of Judah, a priestly city, and the probable birthplace of John the Baptist (Luke 1. 39, 40.) 5.) =Jericho=, eighteen miles from Jerusalem, in the Jordan valley, visited by Jesus near the end of his ministry (Luke 19. 1). 6.) =Ephraim=, a village fourteen miles north of Jerusalem, the hiding place of Jesus for a brief period (John 11. 54). 4. In the province of Peræa but one place is identified as connected with the life of Christ: =Bethabara= (Revised version, "Bethany beyond the Jordan") the place of the baptism and of the first disciples; thirteen miles south of the Sea of Galilee. 5. In Philip's tetrarchy, east of the Sea of Galilee, we note three places: 1.) =Cæsarea Philippi=, at the foot of the Mount Hermon (Mark 8. 27; 9. 2). 2.) =Bethsaida=, at the head of the Sea of Galilee, east of the Jordan (Luke 9. 10-13). 3.) =Gergesa= or =Gerasa=, a little place on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 8. 28). VI. =It was a Subject Land.= Half a century before the birth of Christ the Jews became subject to Rome, and thenceforward various changes took place in the form of government: 1. The whole land, with some surrounding provinces, was a =kingdom= under Herod the Great (Matt. 2. 1), but tributary to the emperor at Rome from 37 B. C. to 4 B. C., the year of Christ's birth. 2. On Herod's death it was divided into three =tetrarchies=, "fourth-part rules." Archelaus became tetrarch of Judea and Samaria (Matt. 2. 22); Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peræa (Matt. 14. 1; Luke 23. 6, 7); Herod Philip, tetrarch of the Bashan district (Luke 3. 1). A fourth tetrarchy, outside of Palestine, on the north, was held by Lysanias (Luke 3. 1). 3. About the year 7 A. D., when Jesus was eleven years old, Archelaus was deposed by the Roman emperor and his dominion made a province under a Roman procurator, the other two tetrarchies remaining undisturbed. This was the form of government during the ministry of Jesus. Judea and Samaria constituting one Roman province under Pontius Pilate; Galilee and Peræa, Herod's tetrarchy, and Bashan, Philip's tetrarchy. [Illustration: NEW TESTAMENT PALESTINE] 4. In the year 37 the Roman emperor made Herod Agrippa I. king first over Judea, and then, in 41, over all the dominions of his grandfather, so that Palestine became a kingdom again. He is mentioned in Acts 12. 1. 5. On Agrippa's death, in A. D. 44, a new division took place. Agrippa II., son of Agrippa I., became ruler of Chalcis and Bashan. He is called, but by courtesy only, "King Agrippa," in Acts 25. 13; 26. 1, 2. The rest of Palestine, consisting of Judea, Samaria, and Peræa, became again a procuratorship under direct Roman rule. See Acts 23. 24; 24. 27. 6. On the rebellion of the Jews, A. D. 66, the government was again changed. Palestine became a part of Syria, under Vespasian, the legate. This was the end of Jewish history as a separate nationality. Suggestions for Study and Teaching 1. Study carefully a good map of Palestine and learn from it the boundaries and location of the land. Memorize the dimensions and distances given in the outline. 2. Draw a map showing the five natural divisions in Par. III., and learn their names. 3. Indicate on your own map the five provinces, comparing the best maps at hand to find their boundary lines. 4. Locate on your own map all the places named in Par. V., and be able to name an event connected with each, studying the references for this purpose. 5. Be sure to examine all the references, and state what fact each reference shows concerning a locality. 6. Draw in succession five sketch maps, each to represent the political government of a period. Write across each province the name of a ruler. Map No. 1 will represent it at the birth of Christ. No. 2, during the childhood of Christ. Map No. 3, during his ministry. No. 4, about A. D. 41. No. 5, from 42 to 66 A. D. Look out all the references given in Par. VI. Blackboard Outline I. =Orien. L. Bound.= N. S. P. E. S. D. S. S. W. W. M. S. II. =Sm. L.= S. M. 12,500. S. C. 140. J. L. 156. III. =Var. Nat. Fea.= S. C. P. Sh. M. R. J. V. E. T. L. IV. =Fiv. Prov.= Gal. Sam. Jud. Per. Bash. V. =Pop. L.= Gal. N. N. C. C. Sam. Sh. Sa. Jud. J. B. B. H. J. E. Per. B. Ph. Tet. C. P. B. G. VI. =Sub. L.= 1. Km. 2. Tetr. 3. Prov. 4. Kgm. 5. "Kg. Ag." Rom. Proc. 6. Part of Syr. Questions for Review Why do we need to study the land of Palestine? What were the boundaries of Palestine? Where is it located? Name some small countries which have been prominent in history. What is the size of Palestine? How long is the coast-line? The Jordan line? What are the five natural divisions of the land? Name and bound each of the political divisions. In which of these provinces was Jesus born? In which did he pass most of his life? In which was he crucified? Name four places in Galilee, and an event connected with each? Two places in Samaria, and their events. Six places in Judea and their events. One place in Peræa and three in Philip's tetrarchy, with their events. State the six successive forms of government and their rulers in Palestine during the New Testament period. SECOND STUDY The People of Palestine In all the ancient world there was but one people among whom Christ could have come with his revelation, and through whom his message could have been given to mankind. That people was =the Jews=, in certain respects the most remarkable of all the races. I. We notice their =origin=, which shows a series of selections extending through many centuries and a training for their peculiar mission. 1. Of the three great families of earth, they sprang from the =Semitic=, which has been the mother of all the great religions of the world; a thoughtful, meditative race, rather than active and aggressive. 2. From this race =Abraham= was called, more than twenty centuries before Christ, to be the father of a great nation (Gen. 12. 1-3; 17. 1-8). He was distinguished for his worship of the one God, for his faith, and for his nobility of character. Notice his title in Jas. 2. 23; a name by which he is still known in the East, _el Khalil_, "the Friend." His influence upon his family (Gen. 18. 19). 3. Of the families descended from Abraham that of =Isaac= was chosen (Gen. 21. 12; Rom. 9. 7). All the other races of Abrahamic origin yielded to the idolatrous influences around them and lost the knowledge of God. 4. Of the two sons of Isaac one married among the Canaanites, and, as a result, his descendants became idolaters (Gen. 26. 34, 35; 36. 2). The other chose the inheritance of the covenant (Gen. 28. 20-22). His name was changed (Gen. 32. 28; 35. 10). His descendants, the =Israelites=, trained up in the true faith, became the people of God. Each of his twelve sons was the ancestor of a tribe (Exod. 1. 1-7). They continued one people for a thousand years, though part of the time divided into two kingdoms. 5. In the year 721 B. C. ten of the twelve tribes were carried into Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17. 18-20). Having lost their religion, the only bond of unity, they mingled with the idolatrous world and ceased to be a separate people. The =tribe of Judah= was left, Benjamin being incorporated with it. Henceforth they were called "the Jews," a name found first in 2 Kings 18. 26. 6. But through all the history of Judah, as well as of Israel, there had been two distinct elements in the people: the worshipers of God and of idols; the religious and the worldly. In order to separate these elements, to cut off the evil and to discipline the good, came the Babylonian captivity, B. C. 587. Through this the idolatrous element was either destroyed or assimilated with the heathen world. At the release from captivity, B. C. 536, all the Jews were of God-fearing, Scripture-loving element. This was =the Remnant=, the "holy seed," the true Israel (Isa. 6. 8-13). Thus, out of all the world, was gradually chosen and prepared a people among whom the Lord should come. II. Notice =their traits= as a race, for which they were chosen, and which were intensified by their training: 1. They were a =religious= people; monotheistic; worshiping the one invisible God, hating idolatry. See the command (Exod. 20. 3-6). The exhortation of Joshua (Josh. 24. 14). This is the great glory of Israel alone among the ancient nations. 2. They were an =exclusive= people; strongly attached to each other, and seeking no affiliation with other races. Note this trait in Abraham (Gen. 24. 2-4). Also in Isaac (Gen. 28. 1, 2). See Balaam's prophecy (Num. 23. 9). To this day the Jews dwell apart; in most European cities there is a "Jewish quarter." 3. They were a =conservative= people; attached to their own customs, opposed to all changes, clinging to their worship despite persecution. 4. They were an =aspiring= people. From their earliest history the Jews cherished the expectation of being a great and conquering nation. From their own prophecies they obtained the hope and belief that a great king should arise among them to rule the world. See the promises in Gen. 49. 10. The prophecy in Isa. 32. 1, 2. His title in Dan. 9. 25. The word "Messiah" in Hebrew is "Christos" in Greek, and "Anointed" in English. This messianic hope was the central thought of all Judaism. 5. They were a =moral= people. Their Scripture set up a standard of character immeasurably superior to that in other ancient lands. Among the Jews womanhood was honored, drunkenness was rare, honesty was the rule, and crime was far less frequent than elsewhere. These were the traits that made the Jews the people of God and fitted them to accomplish the divine purpose. III. What was that purpose? Every race has its mission in the world. The Greeks were set to exalt the intellect; the Romans, to establish the reign of law. We notice the =mission of the Jewish people=: 1. =To perpetuate the knowledge of God.= In the general wickedness of the world and the spread of idolatry there was danger lest the true religion be utterly lost. Therefore God chose out one nation--the one having the traits best fitting it for his purpose--and set it apart to guard the holy fire of divine truth until the rest of the world should be ready to receive it. 2. =To receive training for higher revelation.= The higher revelations of God can come only to a people whose religious faculties have been trained to receive them. Judaism was God's school where a chosen race was educated. They received the Scriptures, the prophets, the ritual of worship, and, above all, the discipline of trial, fitting them to become "a nation of priests." See Paul's enumeration of their privileges in Rom. 9. 4, 5. 3. =To proclaim the Gospel to the world.= When, in the fullness of time, Israel was trained up to knowledge and the outer world prepared to receive the truth, Christ came as the consummation of Judaism. Then a new mission opened before the Jews--that of proclaiming Christ to the world. The little company of disciples were the seed that should replenish the whole earth. See the command. (Matt. 28. 19, 20.) IV. We notice now the =Jews in the time of Christ=. 1. They were divided into two great =branches=: the =Jews of Palestine= and the =Jews of the Dispersion=. The former were descendants of those who had settled in Palestine after the decree of Cyrus, B. C. 536 (Ezra 1. 1-3); the latter those who remained in the lands of their adoption, were found all over the ancient world, and were far more numerous. See references to them in John 7. 35; James 1. 1; 1 Pet. 1. 1. We note that these "Jews of the Dispersion" were not descendants of the Ten Tribes, except in a few instances, but were _Jews_--that is, descendants of Judah. 2. Noticing now the Palestinian Jews, for with these the life of Christ was mainly connected, we find them divided into two =sects=, or schools of thought: the =Pharisees= and the =Sadducees=. These two parties arose about 168 B. C., in the time of the Maccabæan uprising. Let us look at them in contrast. 1.) Their _names_ express their traits. _Pharisee_ means "separatist," "one who is apart." _Sadducee_ means "just," or "righteous," but rather with our idea of the world "moralist." 2.) Their _aims_. The Pharisee aimed to keep the Mosaic law absolutely, particularly with regard to ceremonial requirements; to do more than obey it, by setting around it a hedge of traditional interpretations going beyond its letter in strictness. The Sadducee professed to keep the law, ignoring tradition, but gave it a lax and easy interpretation which often ignored its requirements. 3.) Their _spirit_. The Pharisee was the radical and zealot, showing an intense, intolerant Judaism. The Sadducee was the liberal easy-going man of the world, taking the world as he found it. 4.) Their _beliefs_. The Pharisee believed in a spiritual world, heaven, hell, angels, the hereafter, the judgment. The Sadducee could not find clear statements of these doctrines in the Old Testament, and denied them. See Matt. 22. 23; Acts 23. 8. 5.) Their _influence_. The Pharisees were strong in the synagogues, where the scribes gave their interpretations, and hence were powerful among the people as leaders in religion. The Sadducees were the smaller body, but influential from their wealth and their social position, for the high priests and all the priestly order belonged to them, and they were the office-holding class, the court party. (Acts 4. 1, 2; 5. 17.) 6.) Their _evils_. The evil of the Pharisees was their tendency to make religion mere hypocritical formality, so often rebuked by Christ. See Matt. 23. 2-7. The evil of the Sadducees was their utter lack of moral conviction, from worldliness and self-interest. See their motive for putting Christ to death (John 11. 47-50). 3. Thus far we have noticed only Jews, but there were also in Palestine many =Gentiles=, which was the name the Jews gave to all foreigners or people of race other than themselves. These were of three classes, called respectively: 1.) =Sinners=--That is, those who made no attempt to observe Jewish usages. See Gal. 2. 15. The same name was given to the Jews who did not undertake to keep the ceremonial law, without reference to their moral character (Matt. 9. 10, 11). 2.) =The Devout.= Those who believed in the Scriptures and worshiped God, but who had not been received into the Jewish Church by circumcision. Such was Cornelius (Acts 10. 1, 2). 3.) =Proselytes=--Such as renounced Gentilism, received circumcision, and obeyed the Jewish law (Acts 6. 5; Matt. 23. 15). V. =The Language of Palestine.= 1. Originally =Hebrew=; still read, in Christ's time, in the synagogue but not well understood and requiring an interpreter. 2. Mostly =Aramaic=, or =Syro-Chaldaic=--that is, Chaldaic with Syrian admixture; the common dialect of the people, and undoubtedly spoken by Christ. See instances in Mark 7. 34; 15. 34. This is the language referred to in John 19. 20, 21, and Acts 22. 2, as "Hebrew." 3. The language of polite literature in all countries was =Greek=; strongly opposed by the Pharisees, but employed by the Jews of the Dispersion, and used in the courts of Herod and Pilate (Acts 21. 37). 4. The official language was =Latin=, that of the Roman Government, but not used by the Jews, and not generally understood by them. Blackboard Outline I. =Origin.=--1. Sem. 2. Abr. 3. Isa. 4. Isr. (12 t.) 5. Jud (Jews). 6. "Remn." II. =Traits.=--1. Rel. 2. Exc. 3. Cons. 4. Asp. "Mess." 5. Mor. III. =Mission.=--1. Per. kno. G. 2. Rec. tra. hi. rev. 3. Pro. Gos. wo. IV. =Jews Ti. Chr.=--1. Bran. Pal. Dis. 2. Sec. Phar. Sadd. 1.) Nam. 2.) Aim. 3.) Spir. 4.) Bel. 5.) Inf. 6.) Evils. 3. Gen. 1.) Sin. 2.) "Dev." 3.) Pro. V. =Lang.=--1. Heb. 2. Ara. (Syr.-Chal.). 3. Gre. 4. Lat. Questions for Review To what people did Jesus Christ belong? From what great family of races did that people spring? What were the traits of this race? Who was the ancestor of the Jews, and what were his traits of character? How were the Jews gradually selected from among the descendants of Abraham? To which of the twelve tribes did most of the Jews belong? What was "the remnant" in Old Testament history? Name five traits of the Jews as a people. What was the mission of the Jewish people? What were the two great branches of the Jews in the time of Christ? What were their two sects? What were the differences between these sects? Who were the Gentiles? Into what three classes were they divided? What four languages were found among the Jews in the time of Christ? THIRD STUDY The Life of Christ The central figure in all the Bible is Jesus Christ. Note his importance in the Old Testament (John 5. 39; Luke 24. 27; Acts 10. 43). Note his prominence in all true gospel teaching (1 Cor. 2. 2). Note his relation to every man (John 1. 9.) (Rev. Ver.) We have, then, an interest in Jesus Christ deeper than in any other man who ever lived. I. Let us notice some =General Aspects of his Life=. 1. It was a =short= life. This man, who has influenced the world more than any other, lived less than thirty-five years. His age at the beginning of his ministry we learn from Luke 3. 23; and the duration of his ministry was not more than three years and a half at the longest. 2. It was a life =passed wholly in Palestine=. Only once do we read of his journeying near any other country, and it is not probable that he went beyond its borders (Mark 7. 24). The only times of direct contact with Gentiles are mentioned (Mark 7. 25, 26; John 12. 20-22). He never enjoyed the benefits of foreign travel, of communion with learned men in the great cities, of studies at the universities of Athens or Alexandria. All his knowledge came from within. 3. It was a life =among the common people=. He lived in a despised province (John 7. 41, 52). He came from a despised town (John 1. 46). He was a working mechanic (Mark 6. 3). He received only a common education (John 7. 15). His manner of life during his ministry (Matt. 8. 20). Yet out of these lowly surroundings grew up the one exalted character, the one perfect life, in all human history. 4. It was an =active= life. The first thirty years may have been spent in quiet preparation, but the three years of his ministry were very busy. See pictures in Mark 1. 36-38; 2. 1-4; 6. 31-34. Notice the hyperbole in John 21. 25, which is not to be taken literally. But if the whole life of Jesus were related with the minuteness of the day between the sunset of the Last Supper and that of the burial the narration would require one hundred and eighty-five books as large as the Bible. II. Let us arrange the events of Christ's life in chronological order, grouping them into =Seven Periods=. 1. The first period is that of =The Thirty Years of Preparation=, of which we notice the following facts: 1.) It begins with his Birth (Luke 2. 7), and ends with his Temptation (Matt. 4. 1). 2.) It is related mainly by Luke (Luke 1-4) with some facts in Matthew (Matt. 1. 2; 4. 1-11), and a brief mention of its closing events in Mark (Mark 1. 9-13). 3.) It was passed mainly in Galilee, though with isolated events in Judea, in Egypt (Matt. 2. 14, 15), and in Peræa. See John 1. 28. 4.) It was the longest of all the periods, embracing nine-tenths of his life; yet it is the one having the fewest incidents recorded; and of eighteen years in it absolutely no events are known. 2. Next is =The Year of Obscurity=. In this and the two succeeding periods the year is not a precise epoch, and may have been a little less or a little more. 1.) It begins with the first followers (John 1. 35-37), and ends with the return to Galilee (John 4. 43, 44). 2.) It is related only by John, who, of all the gospel writers, records the visit of Jesus to Judea and Jerusalem. 3.) It was passed principally in Judea, though with visits to Galilee, and on the way a visit to Samaria. 4.) It is justly called a "year of obscurity," for we know but little concerning either its aims, its events, or its results. It was accompanied with miracles (John 3. 2; 4. 45). It attracted attention (John 3. 26; 4. 1). Yet at its close we find that the followers of Jesus were few, and he went to Galilee to begin his ministry anew. 3. =The Year of Popularity=, in marked contrast with the preceding period. 1.) It begins with the Rejection at Nazareth (Luke 4. 14-30), and ends with the Discourse on the Bread of Life (John 6. 25-71), a day or two after the miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand. 2.) It is related by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with some additional incidents by John. 3.) The scene of the Saviour's ministry was in Galilee, which he traversed extensively during this year. One visit to Jerusalem is related by John (John 5. 1, 2). 4.) It was a year of great activity, spent in incessant journeys, preaching, and works of mercy, and the most popular period of the Saviour's life, when the crowds were greatest and the people seemed ready to accept Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. Yet at its close, as before, he was left alone with his twelve disciples (John 6. 66-68). 4. Another period we find in =The Year of Opposition=, again contrasted with the year before it. 1.) It begins with the Retirement to Phoenicia (Mark 7. 24) and ends with the Anointing by Mary (John 12. 1-3). 2.) It is recorded in all the gospels in almost equal measure, Luke giving the most complete account of the ministry in Peræa, and John, as usual, relating the visit to Judea. 3.) This period is peculiar in the fact that in it Jesus visited all the five provinces of Palestine. We find him in Decapolis (which was a part of the Bashan district) (Mark 7. 31); passing through Galilee (Mark 9. 30); also through Samaria (Luke 9. 51, 52); in Peræa (Mark 10. 1), and in Judea (John 11. 7). 4.) This part of the Saviour's life has been variously characterized as "a ministry of sorrow and humiliation," "a year of instruction," and "a period of retirement." All are correct, for during this, the last year of his life, Jesus sought to be alone with his disciples, and in order to escape the crowds visited places where he was unknown. He aimed to instruct his disciples in the deeper truths of the gospel, to prepare their minds for his approaching death and for their mission as apostles (Matt. 16. 21). 5. We now approach the close of Christ's life on earth, and the narration is more detailed as the cross comes nearer to view. Our next period is =The Week of the Passion=. 1.) Beginning with the Triumphal Entry on the Sunday before the Passover (John 21. 12, 13), it ends with the Agony in the Garden about midnight on Thursday (Matt. 26. 36); thus embracing strictly but five days. 2.) It is related in all the gospels, John alone adding the teaching given at the Last Supper (John 13-17). 3.) All the events of this period took place in or near Jerusalem. 4.) This was the last call of Christ to the Jews of Jerusalem, and his final rebuke for their rejection of his ministry. 6. =The Day of the Crucifixion.= The most important day in all earth's history was that when Jesus died upon the cross. It is also the day whose events are narrated more fully than any other in the Bible annals. Therefore we study it apart from the rest of the week as a separate period. 1.) It begins with the Arrest (Matt. 26. 47), soon after midnight, Friday A. M., the day of the Passover, and ends at about sunset of the same day with the Burial (Matt. 27. 59, 60). 2.) Each gospel adds its portion to the account, that of John, an eye-witness of all the events, being the most complete. 3.) The events took place in Jerusalem; but few, if any, of the localities are known with certainty. 4.) In the scenes of this day we see Jesus as the suffering Saviour, bearing the sins of the world. 7. Last of all come =The Forty Days of Resurrection=. 1.) From the Resurrection, early on the first Easter Sunday (Matt. 28. 1-8), to the Ascension, forty days afterward (Acts 1. 1-3). 2.) All the gospels give accounts of the appearances of the risen Saviour, but Luke alone tells the story of his Ascension (Luke 24. 50, 51; Acts 1. 9-11). 3.) The manifestations of Christ after his Resurrection took place in and near Jerusalem, near the village of Emmaus (Luke 24. 13), and in Galilee (Matt. 28. 16; John 21. 1). 4.) During this period the visible revelation of Christ was not constant, but occasional; to his disciples only, never to his enemies; and of a spiritual body, which was freed from the restraints of the flesh (Mark 16. 12; Luke 24. 31; John 20. 19). Blackboard Outline I. =Gen. Asp.= 1. Sh. 2. In Pal. 3 Am. com. peo. 4. Ac. II. =Sev. Per.= 1. =Th. Ye. Prep.= 1) Bir-Temp. 2) Lu. Mat. Mar. 3) Gal. 4) Long. few inc. 2. =Ye. Obs.= 1) Fir. Foll.-Re. Gal. 2) Jno. 3) Jud. 4) Obs. 3. =Ye. Pop.= 1) Re. Naz-Dis. B. L. 2) M. M. L. 3) Gal. 4) Act. 4. =Ye. Opp.= 1) Re. Ph.-An. Ma. 2) All Gos. 3) All Prov. 4) Instruc. 5. =We. Pass.= 1) Tri. En.-Ag. Gar. 2) All Gos. 3) Jer. 4) Las. Ca. 6. =Day Cru.= 1) Arr.-Bur. 2) All Gos. 3) Jer. 4) Suff. Sav. 7. =For. Da. Res.= 1) Res.-Asc. 2) All Gos. 3) Jud. Gal. 4) Spir. bod. Questions for Review In what respects is Jesus Christ the central figure in the Bible? How long was Christ's life on the earth? Where was it passed? Among what class of people did Jesus live? How do we know that Jesus led an active life? What is the first of the seven periods into which his life is divided? With what events does the first period begin and end? Which gospel relates the most of this period? Where was it mainly passed? How long was it? What is the second period called? What are its first and last events? By whom is it related? Where was it passed? What were its results? What is the third period called? With what events did it begin and end? By what evangelists is it related? In what province was it passed? What is the fourth period called? With what events did it begin and end? What provinces were visited during this period? What were the traits of Christ's ministry at this time? What is the fifth period called? How long was it? What in this period is related by but one evangelist? Where did its events take place? What is the sixth period called? How long was it? With what events did it begin and end? Which account is most complete? What is the seventh and last period called? What were its first and last events? Which gospel alone relates the ascension? What were the traits of Jesus during those days? FOURTH STUDY The Thirty Years of Preparation From the Birth of Jesus to His Temptation. We have before us the longest of all the divisions in the history of Jesus, embracing thirty of his thirty-three years of life, and the one concerning which we know the least. I. Let us study the =Places= connected with this period. These we group according to locality, and not in the order of their events. Beginning in the north and traveling southward we note the following places: 1. =Nazareth, his early home=, in Galilee, due west of the southern point of the Sea of Galilee. Here Joseph and Mary lived before the birth of Jesus (Luke 2. 39); here Jesus was brought up (Luke 4. 16); and here he was living up to the time of his baptism (Mark 1. 9). 2. =Bethabara= (Rev. Ver., Bethany), =the place of his baptism=. This was in the Jordan valley, south of the Sea of Galilee. (John 1. 28). 3. =The wilderness, the place of his temptation.= (Matt. 4. 1.) This was probably the rocky desolate region of Judea, near the head of the Dead Sea. 4. =Jerusalem, the place of the Temple=; the Jewish capital, due west of the northern point of the Dead Sea. Find three visits of Jesus to the temple during this period. 1.) In his infancy (Luke 2. 22). 2.) In his youth (Luke 2. 42). 3.) In his manhood (Luke 4. 9). 5. =Bethlehem, the place of his birth.= (Matt. 2. 1). This was six miles south of Jerusalem, in Judea. 6. =Egypt, the place of his refuge.= (Matt. 2. 14). This was the land south-west of Palestine, where Jesus was taken in his infancy in order to escape from King Herod. Let the student 1.) Draw a map showing these places. 2.) Memorize the list. 3.) With each place name its event in the life of Jesus. 4.) Find other events of Scripture history connected with these places. II. Let us arrange in order the =Events= of this period. 1. =The annunciation of his birth.= 1.) To Mary (Luke 1. 26-38). 2.) To Joseph (Matt. 1. 20, 21). 3.) To Simeon (Luke 2. 25, 26). 4.) To the shepherds (Luke 2. 8-11). 2. =The birth at Bethlehem.= Note the purpose for which Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem (Luke 2. 1-4). The circumstances of his birth (Luke 2. 6, 7). 3. =The welcome to the child.= 1.) On the night of his birth (Luke 2. 15). 2.) A few days later (Matt. 2. 1, 11). 3.) In the temple (Luke 2. 25-28, 36, 38). 4. =The refuge in Egypt= (Matt. 2. 13-15). This may have been for a few weeks, a few months, or for a few years. 5. =The childhood at Nazareth= (Matt. 2. 22, 23; Luke 2. 39, 40). By what route would the journey from Egypt be made? 6. =The visit to the temple.= Read the account in Luke 2. 41-52, and notice: 1.) The age of Jesus. 2.) The object of the journey. 3.) Probable route. 4.) Where he tarried and why. 5.) The objects of his interest. 6.) Traits of his character shown. 7. =The silent years.= From the age of twelve to that of thirty no events are named. His home was still at Nazareth (John 1. 45). 8. =The woodworker at Nazareth.= From the fact that Joseph is not referred to after the visit to the temple it may be presumed that he died before the ministry of Jesus began. He had been a "carpenter" (Matt. 13. 35); although the word means, more precisely, "a skilled worker in wood," and may refer to the making of almost anything except houses, which were not built of wood. Jesus followed the same trade (Mark 6. 3) and, as the oldest son, supported his widowed mother and younger brothers and sisters (Mark 6. 3). 9. =The baptism in Jordan.= Compare the four accounts (Matt. 3. 13-17; Mark 1. 9-11; Luke 3. 21, 22; John 1. 28-34); and find: 1.) The place. 2.) The age of Jesus. 3.) The baptizer. 4.) The divine manifestation. 10. =The temptation in the wilderness.= This followed immediately upon the baptism, and was a preparation for his ministry (Matt. 4. 1-11; Mark 1. 12, 13; Luke 4. 1-13). Note: 1.) The place. 2.) The personality of the tempter. 3.) The three forms of temptation. 4.) How repelled. 5.) The result. Let the student, 1.) Memorize these nine events in their order. 2.) Read the account of each in the gospels. 3.) Recall where each took place. 4.) Notice what other persons besides Jesus are named in the period (for example, Joseph, Mary, Simeon, Anna, Herod, etc.) and each one's part in the events. [Illustration: _JOURNEYS OF 30 YEARS OF PREPARATION_] III. Draw the map of Palestine, locating upon it the live places named; and then indicate the following =Journeys= of the period: 1. From Bethlehem to Jerusalem (for the presentation in the temple) and return. 2. From Bethlehem to Egypt (flight from Herod). 3. From Egypt to Nazareth. 4. From Nazareth to Jerusalem and return (visit to temple). 5. From Nazareth to Bethabara (baptism). 6. Bethabara to the wilderness (temptation). IV. Let us now study the =External Conditions= of Christ's life during this period. 1. =The family.= The royal line of both Joseph and Mary (Matt. 1. 1; Luke 1. 27, 32). Their obscure social condition (Matt. 13. 54, 55). In all probability they belonged to the better class of self-supporting workers: for Joseph followed a trade. 2. =The house.= Probably like those of working people in Palestine; built of clay, one story high, containing but one room with no window, but lighted through the door; whitewashed on the outside; floor of earth. 3. =The furniture.= A couch that could be rolled up (Mark 2. 12). A lamp, a lamp-stand, "the bushel" (used as seat, table, and dish (Matt. 5. 15). Hand-mill for grinding (Deut. 24. 6; Matt. 24. 41). Probably neither chair, table, nor bedstead. 4. =Education.= Jesus received only the common schooling, not a college education (John 7. 15). Contrast with the early advantages of Paul (Acts 22. 3). Every synagogue had a school taught by "the minister." See Luke 4. 20. He was not a priest, nor even a scribe, but properly the curator or sexton of the synagogue, and all the teaching was the reading of the Old Testament. 5. =Religious training.= 1.) There was the influence of a godly man and woman. Joseph, "a just man," living in fellowship with God. (Matt. 1. 19, 20). The character of Mary (Luke 1. 38; 2. 19, 51). 2.) The instruction in the Scriptures at home (Deut. 6. 7.) 3.) The daily prayers, morning and evening, always observed (Matt. 6. 5, 6). 4.) The Sabbath rest (Mark 2. 27). 5.) The worship of the synagogue (Luke 4. 16; Mark 6. 2.) 6.) The great feasts, celebrated each year at Jerusalem--Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles--which Joseph and Mary attended (Luke 2. 41). Under these influences Jesus grew up to manhood. Blackboard Outline I. =Pla.= 1. Naz. ea. h. 2. Beth. pl. bap. 3. Wil. pl. temp. 4. Jer. pl. Tem. 5. Beth. pl. bir. 6. Eg. pl. ref. II. =Even.= 1. Ann. bir. 2. Bir. Beth. 3. Wel. ch. 4. Ref. Eg. 5. Chi. Naz. 6. Vis. Tem. 7. Sil. ye. 8. Wo. Naz. 9. Bap. Jor. 10. Tem. wil. III. =Jour.= 1. B. J. R. 2. B. E. 3. E. N. 4. N. J. R. 5. N. C. 6. B. W. IV. =Ext. Con.= 1. Fam. 2. Hou. 3. Furn. 4. Edu. 5. Rel. tra. Questions for Review Where did the mother of Jesus live before her marriage? At what place was Jesus baptized? Where did the temptation take place? What three visits did Jesus make to Jerusalem before his ministry? To what country was Jesus taken as a refuge from Herod? Name six places connected with this period and a fact about each. Name four announcements made to different people of the coming of Jesus. For what purpose did Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem just before the birth of Jesus? Who came to see Jesus at Bethlehem. Who gave him welcome in the temple during his infancy? How old was Jesus when he first visited the temple? What part of his life is known as "the silent years"? What trade did Jesus follow when he became a man? What took place at the baptism of Jesus? State nine events in the first thirty years of Jesus's life. State a fact in the life of Jesus with which each of the following persons was connected: Joseph, Simeon, Herod, John the Baptist, Gabriel, wise men, "the doctors of the law," shepherds. How do we know that Joseph and Mary were poor people? To what distinguished family did they belong? In what kind of a house did they probably dwell? What articles of furniture did the house contain? What education did Jesus receive? Who was the teacher of the school? What were the religious influences around the youth of Jesus? What feasts did he attend? FIFTH STUDY The Year of Obscurity From the First Followers of Jesus to His Return to Galilee. I. =Preliminary Notes= on the period. 1. =Sources of Information.= Our only account of this period is contained in =John's Gospel=. Read carefully John 1. 19 to 4. 54 for all the facts on record. 2. =Time.= The Saviour came from the temptation in the wilderness either late in February or early in March, A. D. 27, and he began his ministry in Galilee in May, A. D. 28; so that this period embraced nearly =fifteen months=. (Edersheim. According to Andrews it ended in March, and was a year in duration). 3. =Locality.= Most of this year was passed in =Judea=, though there is mention of one journey to =Galilee= soon after the beginning (John 1. 43), and of another at the close (John 4. 3). 4. =Aim.= It is probable that Jesus began his ministry in Judea, the leading province, in order to give to the leaders of the nation the =first opportunity= of accepting him as the Messiah of Israel. Not until Jerusalem and Judea had rejected him did he turn to the people of Galilee. II. =Places.= 1. =Bethabara= (or Bethany, as in Rev. Ver.) (John 1. 28). Here occurred the meeting of Jesus with his first followers (John 1. 37). 2. =Cana=, the place of the first miracle (John 2. 1). This was in Galilee, not far from Nazareth. 3. =Capernaum=, named only as a place of a brief visit by Jesus at this time, but later more prominent in the history (John 2. 12). Situated on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee. 4. =Sychar=, the place of the Samaritan ministry (John 4. 5, 40). This was formerly supposed to be the well-known city of Shechem, but is now more accurately fixed at _Askar_, a small village near to Jacob's well. 5. =Jerusalem.= During this period two events took place in Jerusalem--the cleansing of the temple (John 2. 14, 15), and the conversation with Nicodemus (John 3. 1-21). [Illustration: _YEAR OF OBSCURITY._] III. =Journeys.= We begin in the wilderness of the temptation. 1. From the wilderness to Bethabara. 2. From Bethabara to Cana. 3. From Cana to Capernaum. 4. From Capernaum to Jerusalem and Judea. 5. From Judea to Sychar, and thence to Cana. IV. We place in order next the =Events= of the Saviour's life during this period. 1. =The first followers.= Read John 1. 35-51 and ascertain the names of four, with hints of two others; for one of two in ver. 40 was John, and the language in ver. 41 implies that each sought his own brother. Notice what traits of character each disciple showed. In this little company, the band out of which grew the Christian Church, we find: 1.) A man who brought people one by one to Jesus. 2.) A deep, spiritually-minded mystic. 3.) A born leader. 4.) A plain, simple-minded believer. 5.) A man of pure, spotless character. What a combination of qualities for the founding of a church! 2. =The first miracle= (John 2. 1-11). In this miracle we find an apt symbol of what Christ came to do among men. He found water, and he turned it into living, spirit-quickening wine. 3. =The visit to Capernaum= (John 2. 12). Why he went we have no means of knowing, and it is idle to speculate. 4. =The first Passover= (John 2. 13). The mention of these passovers is important, for they enable us to know how long was the ministry of Jesus, and they give us dates for its events. This was the first passover of his ministry, not of his life. 5. =Cleansing the Temple= (John 2. 14-17). This was the first public act of his ministry in which he claimed the authority of Messiah in the house of God. See the prophecy, Mal. 3. 1-3. At the close of his ministry he found that the same evils had crept again into the temple, and purged it a second time (Matt. 21. 12). 6. =Conversation with Nicodemus= (John 3. 1-21). This conversation was remarkable: 1.) From the rank and character of the man (Vers. 3, 10). 2.) From the theme (Ver. 3.) 3). From its results (John 7. 50; 19. 39). 7. =Ministry in Judea= (John 3. 22.) 1.) Its precise place is unknown. 2.) Its relation to John the Baptist (John 3. 26). 3.) Its success (John 4. 1). 8. =Ministry in Samaria= (John 4. 4-42). 1.) What led to it. (Ver. 4.) 2.) Where it took place. (Ver. 5.) 3.) How it began. (Vers. 6, 7.) 4.) Its first convert, a remarkable character, of aptness in speech, penetration, and power to influence others. (Vers. 9, 15, 20, 25, 28, 30, 39.) Compare her brightness with the dullness of Nicodemus. 5.) Its length. (Ver. 40.) 6.) Its results: (Vers. 41,42.) This ministry is a most interesting episode in the life of Jesus. 9. =Return to Galilee= (John 4. 43). 1.) Reason for the journey (John 4. 1-3). 2.) Another reason (Mark 1. 14). 3.) Still another reason (John 4. 44, 45)--that is, he had no honor in his own country until he had obtained it in Judea. 10. =Healing the nobleman's son= (John 4. 46-54). 1.) Where Jesus was. (Ver. 46.) 2.) Who the man was. (Ver. 46)--literally, "a king's man, courtier." Is his name given in Luke 8. 30? 3.) His spirit, earnestness, persistence, faith. (Vers. 48-50.) 4.) His reward. (Vers. 51, 52.) 5.) Result of the miracle. (Ver. 53.) Let the student, 1.) Commit this series to memory. 2.) Study the facts in relation to each by searching out the references. 3.) Recall the facts in connection with each event. 4.) Make a list of eight men and two women who were connected with these events and recall what is related of each person. V. Let us now consider the =General Traits of the Ministry of Christ= during this period. 1. It was =preparatory=. So far as we can perceive, the plans of Christ's kingdom were not as yet revealed, and no general proclamation of it was made. Yet he clearly revealed himself to a chosen few as the Messiah of Israel (John 1. 41, 45: 4. 25, 26). 2. =It was connected with John the Baptist.= The two streams of John's ministry and Christ's ministry run together during this preparatory ministry. John introduced Jesus (John 1. 29-36). The two worked at the same time, in the same way, and not far apart (John 3. 22-24). Both Jesus and John refused to be put into a relation of rivalry, either by their friends (John 3. 25-30) or by their enemies (John 4. 1-3). 3. It was =individual=--that is, to individuals rather than to masses of people. We read of no such multitudes as in the succeeding period, but we find six conversations of Jesus with single persons or small groups. He sought to gather a few choice disciples rather than many adherents. 4. It was a =teaching= ministry. There were miracles (John 2. 23; 3. 2), but they were not made prominent; and the immediate followers of Jesus were won by what they saw in him and heard from him rather than by wonders wrought by him. VI. Lastly, we ascertain the =Results= of the Saviour's ministry during this period. 1. It gave him =prominence before the people=. The popular attention was arrested, and there was a transient, superficial acceptance by the many; but Jesus knew the hearts of men too well to trust them (John 2. 23, 24; 3. 26). 2. It led to his =rejection by the rulers=. Though this is not stated it is hinted at in the controversies of the Jewish leaders (John 2. 18); in the conclusion of the gospel writer (John 3. 18-20), and in the reference to the Pharisees (John 4. 1). From this hour the attitude of the capital and the ruling minds was hostile to Jesus. They missed the one great opportunity in their nation's history. 3. It drew around him =chosen followers=. From this time there was a company of disciples with Jesus. They returned to their homes in Galilee for a time, but were soon called to leave all and accompany their master. To some of them we find three separate calls (John 1. 37-42; Matt. 4. 18-22 more than a year later, and Mark 3. 13, 14, later still). 4. =It prepared for his ministry in Galilee.= The fame of Christ's acts in Judea went before him to Galilee, awakened curiosity, and gave him a ready reception on his return (John 4. 45). We shall find in the next period great multitudes thronging after Jesus as the result of his ministry in Judea. Blackboard Outline I. =Pre. Not.= 1. =Sour. Inf.= Jno. 2. =Ti.= 15 m. 3. =Loc.= Jud. 4. =Aim.= Fir. opp. II. =Pla.= 1. Beth. 2. Can. 3. Cap. 4. Syc. 5. Jer. III. =Jour.= 1. W. B. 2. B. C. 3. C. C. 4. C. J. & J. 5. J. S. & C. IV. =Even.= 1. Fir. Foll. 2. Fir. Mir. 3. Vis. Cap. 4. Fir. Pass. 5. Cle. Tem. 6. Con. Nic. 7. Min. Jud. 8. Min. Sam. 9. Ret. Gal. 10. Heal. Nob. Son. V. =Gen. Tra.= 1. Prep. 2. Con. J. Bap. 3. Ind. 4. Tea. VI. =Res.= 1. Prom. 2. Rej. rul. 3. Cho. fol. 4. Prep. Min. Gal. Questions for Students What book is our only source of information for this period? How long was the period? Where was it mostly passed? What was Christ's aim at this time? Name the five places of the period, and an event at each. Give in order the ten events of this period. Who were the first six followers of Jesus? What was his first miracle, and where wrought? Where did Jesus go for his first passover? Name two events that took place at this visit. Where did Jesus preach for a time? What led him to another province? Whom did he meet there, and at what place? How long did he stay in the province of Samaria? What were his reasons for returning to Galilee? What miracle did he work on his return? What were the circumstances of this miracle? What were the general traits of Christ's ministry during this period? What were the results of his ministry? How did it prepare the way for his work in Galilee? SIXTH STUDY The Year of Popularity From the Rejection at Nazareth to the Discourse on the Bread of Life I. =General Aspects of the Ministry of Christ during the Period.= 1. =Its Time.= It was either a little less or a little more than a year, according to different authorities. According to Dr. Edersheim it extended from May, A. D. 28, to April, A. D. 29; according to Dr. Andrews, from March, A. D. 28, to April, A. D. 29. 2. =Its Locality.= The principal sphere of Christ's activity during this year was Galilee, though he made one visit to Jerusalem (John 5. 1). 3. =Its Aim.= The purpose of Jesus during this year seems to have been to proclaim the new kingdom of God as widely as possible, and to make men acquainted with its principles. The theme of his preaching is given in Matt. 4. 17. The deeper themes of the Gospel were reserved for a later time and a select body of hearers; and those aspects were presented which all men could at once comprehend, as the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. 4. =Its Activity.= No other year in the Saviour's life was crowded so thickly with journeys and labors. See its summary in Matt. 4. 23-25. We can trace eight distinct journeys from Capernaum to various regions during this year. 5. =Its Divisions.= The number of events left on record makes a subdivision of this period necessary, and we find a convenient place at the Sermon on the Mount, which marks a point of departure in the Saviour's ministry. The =Early Galilean Ministry= extends from the rejection at Nazareth to the Sermon on the Mount, and the =Later Galilean Ministry= from the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse on the Bread of Life. During the earlier section the ministry was personal and the range was less extended; during the later Jesus sent his apostles forth to labor, and his own journeys were longer and in new fields. II. =The Places.= Though the Saviour visited many places during this year only seven have been named in the gospels. These are: 1. =Capernaum=, his home during the period (Matt. 4. 15). From this place he went forth on all of his preaching tours, and to it he returned. Its privilege (Matt. 11. 23, 24). It was situated on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. 2. =Nazareth.= Twice in this period Jesus was at this place: at its beginning (Luke 4. 16), and again in the middle of the year (Matt. 13. 54). On both occasions he was rejected by the people (Luke 4. 28, 29; Matt. 13. 57). 3. =Nain.= This was a city southwest of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus restored a young man to life (Luke 7. 11). 4. =The Mountain.= A few miles from Capernaum and west of the Sea of Galilee is a mountain (probably Kurun Hattin, "the horns of Hattin") where was delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5. 1). 5. =Bethsaida=, a place on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, east of the river Jordan. Near this was wrought the miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand (Mark 6. 45). 6. =Gergesa.= A place on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, called also =Gerasa= (Mark 5. 1; Luke 8. 26. Rev. Ver.). 7. =Jerusalem.= We read of one visit to the capital during this period (John 5. 1). III. =The Early Galilean Ministry.= 1.) =The Journeys.= Combining the accounts in the four gospels we find that the journeys were the following: 2.) =The Settlement at Capernaum= (Cana to Nazareth and Capernaum). From Cana, where Jesus was at the close of the preceding period, he went to Nazareth (Luke 4. 16), probably intending to begin his ministry there; but being rejected went down to Capernaum and made it the headquarters of his ministry (Luke 4. 30, 31). 3.) =Tour in Eastern Galilee= (Capernaum, Eastern Galilee, and return). From Capernaum Jesus went forth on a preaching tour through the villages near the Sea of Galilee (Luke 4. 43, 44). 4.) =A Visit to Jerusalem= (Capernaum to Jerusalem and return). Mention is made in John 5. 1 of a feast in Jerusalem which Jesus attended, but it is uncertain whether Passover, Tabernacles, or Purim is meant. 5.) =The Mountain Journey= (Capernaum to the mountain and return). For the purpose of quiet meditation and the call of his apostles Jesus went to a mountain near the Sea of Galilee. There he chose the twelve and gave to them and the multitudes around the Sermon on the Mount (Mark 3. 13, 14; Matt. 5. 1). [Illustration: _YEAR OF POPULARITY PART ONE_] IV. =Events of the Early Galilean Ministry.= 1.) With the first Journey, the _Settlement at Capernaum_, we connect the following events: 1. =The Rejection at Nazareth= (Luke 4. 16-30). 2. =The First Disciples Called= (Luke 5. 1-11). They had already been followers of Jesus, but now were called upon to leave their homes and become his disciples. 3. =Miracles at Capernaum= (Mark 1. 21-34). The gospel writers select the scenes of one day and show many miracles, in the synagogue, at Peter's house, and in the street. 2.) With the Second Journey, the _Tour in Eastern Galilee_, we find two events named: 4. =Healing of the Leper= (Mark 1. 40-45). This took place during the journey. 5. =Healing the Paralytic= (Mark 2. 1-12). This took place after the return to Capernaum. 3.) With the Third Journey, the _Visit to Jerusalem_, we note two events: 6. =The Miracle at Bethesda= (John 5. 1-16). Read this in the Rev. Ver. and note what is omitted. Observe also what resulted from this miracle in Jerusalem (John 5. 16-19). 7. =The Withered Hand= (Mark 3. 1-6). This probably took place at Capernaum, soon after the return from Jerusalem. 4.) With the Fourth, the _Mountain Journey_, we note two events: 8. =The Call of the Twelve= (Mark 3. 7-19). This was at the mountain. 9. =Sermon on the Mount= (Matt. 5-7). This sermon is omitted in Mark and abbreviated in Luke, but reported fully in Matthew. To the Teacher 1. Let the outline of the lesson be committed to memory. 2. Let one scholar draw the maps in presence of the class, another insert the places, a third indicate and name the journeys. 3. Then let one scholar name all the events with the first journey; another the events of the second journey, etc. 4. Let a scholar be called upon to tell the story of each one of the nine events in the period. Blackboard Outline PART ONE I. =Gen. Asp.= 1. Ti. 2. Loc. 3. Aim. 4. Act. 5. Div. II. =Pla.= 1. Cap. 2. Naz. 3. Nai. 4. Moun. 5. Beth. 6. Ger. 7. Jer. III. =Ear. Gal. Min. Jour.= 1. Set. Cap. 2. To. Ea. Gal. 3. Vis. Jer. 4. Moun. Jour. IV. =Events. Ear. Gal. Min.= _Jour. 1._ 1. Rej. Naz. 2. Fir. Dis. Cal. 3. Mir. Cap. _Jour. 2._ 4. Heal Lep. 5. Heal Par. _Jour. 3._ 6. Mir. Beth. 7. With. Ha. _Jour. 4._ 8. Ca. Tw. 9. Ser. Mo. Questions for Review PART ONE How long was this period? Where was it passed? What was the aim of Jesus during this year? What are its two subdivisions? Name seven places visited by Jesus during this period. Name four journeys during the early part of this period. What three events are connected with the settlement at Capernaum? What two events are named in connection with the tour in eastern Galilee? What two events are given with the visit to Jerusalem? What two events are named with the mountain journey? PART TWO We now take up the second part of the Year of Popularity, from the Sermon on the Mount to the Discourse on the Bread of Life. V. =The Journeys of the Later Galilean Ministry.= 1. =Tour in Southern Galilee= (Capernaum to Nain and return). From Capernaum Jesus led his disciples southward as far as Nain (Luke 7. 1, 11). There he wrought a miracle, and on the journey homeward preached in various places (Luke 8. 1). 2. =The Voyage to Gergesa.= (Capernaum to Gergesa and return.) With his disciples Jesus sailed across the Sea of Galilee (Luke 8. 22), stilling the tempest on the way. They landed at Gergesa, in the country of the Gadarenes (Luke 8. 26)--that is, not far from the well-known city of Gadara, which was twenty miles from the Sea of Galilee. Here the Gadarene demoniac was restored, but the people were unwilling to receive Jesus, so he sailed back to Capernaum (Matt. 9. 1.) [Illustration: _YEAR OF POPULARITY PART TWO._] 3. =Tour in Central Galilee= (Capernaum to Nazareth and return). The object of this journey was a second visit to Nazareth (Mark 6. 1), but, like the first, it was unsuccessful; so Jesus left "his own country" and preached in the villages of central Galilee (Mark 6. 6). 4. =Retirement to Bethsaida= (Capernaum, Bethsaida, and return). In order to obtain needed rest and seclusion Jesus and his disciples sailed across the lake to the unsettled country near Bethsaida (Mark 6. 31, 32). Here he wrought the miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand, recrossed the lake in the night, and a day or two afterward gave his last discourse of the Galilean ministry. Let the pupil draw the same map as with Part One, but omitting the journeys of that part; and place upon the maps the journeys of the later Galilean ministry. VI. =The Events of the Later Galilean Ministry.= 1.) With the First Journey, the _Tour in Southern Galilee_: 1.) =The Widow's Son Raised= (Luke 7. 11-16). This took place at Nain, southwest of the Sea of Galilee. 2.) =Washing the Saviour's Feet= (Luke 7. 36-50). This event is to be carefully distinguished from the "anointing by Mary," much later in the history. These two events are related only by Luke. 2.) With the Second Journey, the _Voyage to Gergesa_: 3.) =Parables by the Sea= (Mark 4. 1-34; also in Matt. 13. 1-52). These were given just before the journey. 4.) =Stilling the Tempest= (Mark 4. 1-35-41). 5.) =The Gadarene Demoniac Restored= (Mark 5. 1-20). 6.) =Jairus's Daughter Raised= (Mark 5. 21-43). Two miracles wrought after the return from the Gadarene country. 3.) With the third Journey, the _Tour in Central Galilee_. 7.) =Second Rejection at Nazareth= (Mark 6. 1-6). Compare with this the account of his former rejection, and note the differences. 8.) =Sending out the Twelve= (Mark 6. 7-13). Read the longer report of the charge to the Twelve in Matt. 10. 4.) With the Fourth Journey, the _Retirement to Bethsaida_: 9.) =Feeding the Five Thousand= (Mark 6. 31-44). This and the following are the only miracles related in all the four gospels. Compare their accounts. 10.) =Walking on the Sea= (Mark 6. 45-52). Note the additions in Matt. 14. 22-33). 11.) =Discourse on the Bread of Life= (John 6. 24-59). This marked a crisis in his ministry, for it proclaimed a spiritual application of the miracle, and not a "kingdom of meat and drink," as men were expecting. Note the results (John 6. 60-68). Thus at the close of his Galilean ministry--as before at the close of his Judean ministry--the Saviour was left alone with his few disciples. Blackboard Outline PART TWO V. =Jour. Lat. Gal. Min.= 1. To. Gal. 2. Voy. Ger. 3. To. Cen. Gal. 4. Ret. Beth. VI. =Ev. Lat. Gal. Min.=-- _Jour. 1._ 1. Wid. So. Rai. 2. Wash. Sav. Fe. _Jour. 2._ 3. Par. Sea. 4. Still Tem. 5. Gad. Dem. Res. 6. Jai. Dau. Ra. _Jour. 3._ 7. Sec. Rej. Naz. 8. Sen. Twel. _Jour. 4._ 9. Fe. Fi. Th. 10 Wal. Sea. 11. Dis. Br. Li. Questions for Review PART TWO [Review the Questions with Part One.] How many journeys are named with the later Galilean ministry? What was the first journey of the later Galilean ministry? The second journey? The third? The fourth? What two events took place with the tour in southern Galilee? What four events with the Gadarene voyage? What two events with the tour in Central Galilee? What three events with the retirement to Bethsaida? SEVENTH STUDY The Year of Opposition From the Retirement to Phoenicia to the Anointing by Mary PART ONE I. =General Aspects of the Period.= 1. =It was a year, lacking one week.= Jesus did not attend the third passover of his ministry. We find him at this time still in Galilee, and soon afterward leaving Galilee for "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" (John 7. 1-3; Mark 7. 24). Nearly a year later, on the week before the fourth passover, we find Jesus at Bethany, where the anointing by Mary took place (John 12. 1, 2). Between these two passovers came the year of opposition. 2. =It was a year of wandering.= During this period we notice that Jesus was in constant motion, staying only a little while at each place, and in succession visiting all the five provinces of Palestine. Notice the province referred to in each of the following references: John 7. 1; Mark 7. 31; Mark 8. 27; Luke 9. 51, 52; Mark 10. 1; John 10. 40. 3. =It was a year of retirement.= We do not find that Jesus sought the multitudes during this year, though in new places he was sought by them (Luke 11. 29; 12. 1). He seems to have chosen most of the time a secluded life, preferring to be alone with his disciples. See instances in Mark 7. 24, 32, 33, 36; 8. 22, 23, 26; 9. 30. 4. =It was a year of instruction.= He chose to be alone with his disciples, knowing that he was rapidly nearing the close of his life on earth; and he wished to instruct his chosen followers in the deeper truths of the gospel before he should be taken from them. His teaching in this period presented the spiritual side of truth and the doctrines of the cross. Notice how often during this year he foretold his own death (Mark 8. 31; 9. 31, 32; 10. 32-34; John 12. 7, 8). 5. =It was a year of opposition.= Nearly all the people had now forsaken Jesus and turned against him. Note the attitude of the Pharisees. (Matt 12. 23, 24, 38, 39; 23. 23.) The Sadducees, who were the office-holding class, are mainly referred to in John 11. 47, 48, 53. The attitude of the people. (John 6. 66.) Jesus was now rejected by the rulers, the leaders of the religious class, and by the people. II. =The Localities of the Period.= Beside the five provinces, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Bashan and Peræa, two other lands or districts are named: 1. =Phoenicia=, called in the gospels "the borders of Tyre and Sidon," narrow strip of territory between Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea, northwest of Palestine. 2. =Decapolis.= The word means "ten cities," and refers to a region, partly in Bashan and partly in Peræa, wherein were ten important cities, not Jewish but Gentile. In addition to the above we meet with names of eight cities: 3. =Cæsarea Philippi=, at the foot of Mount Hermon, in the province of Bashan. 4. =Bethsaida=, on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. 5. =Capernaum=, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. 6. =Bethabara=, in the Jordan Valley, east of the river, south of the Sea of Galilee. 7. =Jericho=, in the Jordan Valley, west of the river, near the head of the Dead Sea. 8. =Jerusalem=, the capital. 9. =Bethany=, two miles east of Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. 10. =Ephraim=, or Ephron, fourteen miles north of Jerusalem, among the mountains. III. =The Journeys and Events of the Period.= The information upon this year is meager, and it is impossible to arrange its places and facts with absolute certainty. No other period is so uncertain in the order of its events as this. We trace in this period nine journeys; and with each journey call attention to the most important events connected with it. The first journey begins at Capernaum. 1. =A Visit to Phoenicia.= (From Capernaum to Phoenicia.) (Matt. 15. 21). This was the only land outside of Palestine visited by Jesus, and it is uncertain how far he entered within its limits. He sought retirement and opportunity of instructing his disciples (Mark 7. 24). On this journey was wrought the miracle on the =Syrophenician Woman's Daughter= (Mark 7. 25, 26), in which Jesus showed his disciples that Gentiles may have true faith. [Illustration: _YEAR OF OPPOSITION._] 2. =A Visit to Decapolis.= Finding seclusion impossible he went around Galilee to Decapolis, east of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 7. 31). Here two miracles were wrought: 1.) =Healing the Deaf Man.= Notice its peculiarities in Mark 7. 32-37. 2.) =Feeding the Four Thousand= (Mark 8. 1-9). Notice its differences from a former miracle in the preceding period. 3. =A Visit to Cæsarea Philippi.= (Decapolis to Dalmanutha, Bethsaida, and Cæsarea Philippi.) Trace the route from Mark 8. 10, 22, 27. During this journey occurred four events: 1.) =Healing the Blind Man= (Mark 8. 22-26). This was at Bethsaida. 2.) =Peter's Confession= (Matt. 16. 13-20). 3.) =The Transfiguration= (Mark 9. 2-8). 4.) =Healing the Demoniac Boy= (Mark 9. 14-29). These three events were at Cæsarea Philippi. 4. =A Visit to Capernaum.= (Cæsarea Philippi to Capernaum.) (Mark 9. 33). Notice that his coming was unattended by the crowds of former times (Mark 9. 33). This visit is noteworthy as his farewell to the city which had been his home. On this visit took place the touching incident of the =Child in the Midst= (Mark 9. 36, 37). PART TWO 5. =A Visit to Jerusalem.= (Capernaum, through Samaria, to Jerusalem.) See Luke 9. 51, 52. His visit to the capital was for the purpose of attending the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7. 2, 10, 14) and he seems to have remained until the Feast of Dedication, two months later. In connection with this visit note, 1.) =The Rejection by Samaritans= (Luke 9. 52-56). 2.) =Mary and Martha= (Luke 10. 38-42). 3.) =The Pool of Siloam= (John 9. 1-7). 4.) =The Good Shepherd= (John 10. 1-18). 6. =A Visit to Bethabara.= (Jerusalem to Bethabara.) From the Feast of Dedication Jesus went down to Bethabara, evidently with the purpose of beginning a ministry in Peræa (John 10. 39, 40). With this journey we place =Sending out the Seventy= (Luke 10. 1). These messengers were sent out to prepare for the visit of Jesus to a new province. 7. =A Visit to Bethany= (John 11. 1, 7.) From Bethabara Jesus was suddenly called to Bethany, near Jerusalem (John 11. 18). With this visit we place the =Raising of Lazarus= (John 11. 1-46), a miracle narrated only by John, and told because it led directly to the conspiracy against the life of Jesus (John 11. 47, 48). 8. =A Visit to Peræa.= (From Bethany to Ephraim and Peræa.) Trace the journey from John 11. 54, and Mark 10. 1. Jesus stayed some months in Peræa, preaching to his people. Many events might be given with this Peræan ministry, of which we name only, 1.) =Blessing the Children= (Mark 10. 13-16). 2.) =The Rich Young Ruler= (Mark 10. 17-25). 3.) =Parable of the Prodigal Son= (Luke 15. 11-32). 9. =A Second Visit to Bethany.= (From Peræa, through Jericho, to Bethany.) Notice the journey in Mark 10. 32, 46; John 12. 1. With this journey notice the events, 1.) =The Healing of Bartimæus= (Mark 10. 46, 52). 2.) =The Visit to Zacchæus= (Luke 19. 1-10). 3.) =The Anointing by Mary= (John 12. 1-8). This brings the life of Christ within one week of the Crucifixion, and completes the period. Blackboard Outline I. =Gen. Asp.= 1. Year. 2. Wan. 3. Ret. 4. Ins. 5. Opp. II. =Loc. Per.= La. Ph. Dec. Cit. C. P. B. C. B. J. J. B. E. III. =Jour.= 1. =Vis. Phoe.= 1.) Syr. Wom. Dau. 2. =Vis. Dec.= 1.) He. De. M. 2.) Fe. Fou. Thou. 3. =Vis. Ces. Phil.= 1.) Hea. Bl. M. 2.) Pet. Con. 3.) Trans. 4.) Hea. Dem. B. 4. =Vis. Cap.= 1.) Ch. Mid. 5. =Vis. Jer.= 1.) Rej. Sam. 2.) M. and M. 3.) P. Sil. 4.) G. Sh. 6. =Vis. Beth.= 1.) Sen. 70. 7. =Vis. Beth.= 1.) Rai. Laz. 8. =Vis. Per.= 1.) Bl. Ch. 2.) R. Yo. Ru. 3.) Par. Prod. So. 9. =Sec. Vis. Beth.= 1.) Hea. Bar. 2.) Vis. Zac. 3.) Anoin. Ma. Review Questions With what event does the Year of Opposition begin? With what does it end? How long was it? Where was it passed? How did it differ from the preceding year? Why did Jesus seek retirement at this time? What was the feeling of the people toward Jesus? What land outside of Palestine was visited by Jesus? What miracle was wrought during this visit? Where was the Second Journey of this Period? What two miracles were wrought at this time? What was the Third Journey? Name four events connected with this journey. What was the Fourth Journey? The Fifth Journey? Name four events with this journey. Where did Jesus go for the Sixth Journey? Whom did he send out at this time, and for what purpose? What was the place and what the purpose of the Seventh Journey? Where was the Eighth Journey? What took place with this journey? What was the Ninth Journey? Name three events of this journey. EIGHTH STUDY The Week of the Passion From the Triumphal Entry Until the Agony in the Garden I. =General View of the Period.= 1. Our studies have now reached the close of the Saviour's ministry and have brought us to his =last visit to Jerusalem=. This period presents the last appeal of Jesus to the Jewish people and his final conversations with his disciples before his death. 2. Strictly speaking, "the week of the passion" or suffering of Jesus should include all the events from his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Sunday until his burial on Friday evening. But the events of the day of his crucifixion were so many and so important as to make that day a period by itself, and we therefore consider at present only =five days=, from the Sunday morning to the Thursday night of the Jewish Passover, the night before the Saviour's crucifixion. 3. All its events took place in or =near Jerusalem=. On each morning Jesus went from Bethany, where he remained at night with his friends, the household of Mary and Martha; and on each evening except the last he returned to Bethany. The days were mostly spent in Jerusalem. II. In the study of this period we note the following =Places=: 1. =Bethany=, a small village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. It was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (John 11. 1). Its distance from Jerusalem (John 11. 18). The lodging place of Jesus at this time (Matt. 21. 17). 2. =The Temple= in Jerusalem. Here Jesus passed most of the time during the first three days of this week in discussion with the Jews (Luke 21. 37). The part of the temple in which Jesus taught (John 8. 20; Mark 12. 41). This was the Court of the Women, called "the treasury" because of boxes for contributions upon its walls. It was inside the larger Court of the Gentiles, and was about two hundred and thirty feet square, open above to the sky, but with galleries around. 3. =The Supper room.= See Mark 14. 13-17. The place is unknown; but there is on Mount Zion a locality pointed out by tradition which may or may not be correct. This was probably the "upper room" used as a meeting place after the Resurrection and Ascension (John 20. 19; Acts 1. 13; 2. 1). 4. =The Mount of Olives.= This is a range of hills east of Jerusalem and separated from the Temple by the Valley of the Kedron (John 18. 1). Its distance from the city (Acts 1. 12). Here began the Triumphal Entry (Luke 19. 37). From this height Jesus gave his prophecy of the destruction of the city (Mark 13. 3, 4). 5. =The Garden of Gethsemane.= The word means "oil-press," and suggests that it was an olive orchard on the western slope of the Mount of Olives (Mark 14. 26, 32). A garden is still shown which may be the true locality of the Agony. Let the student draw a map of Jerusalem and its surroundings and locate upon it the above places, not failing to search out the references and associate the events with their localities. III. We draw on our map and fix in our memory the following =Journeys=: 1. =On Sunday, the First Journey; from Bethany to the Temple and Return.= On the first day of the week Jesus left Bethany, entered in triumphal procession into Jerusalem, looked around on the Temple, and at evening returned to Bethany. 2. =On Monday, the Second Journey; from Bethany to the Temple and Return.= Early in the morning, without waiting for breakfast, Jesus left Bethany (Mark 11. 12), and crossed the ridge of the Mount of Olives, on the way cursing the barren fig tree. He cleansed the Temple of its traders, and at evening returned again to Bethany (Mark 11. 19). 3. =On Tuesday, the Third Journey; from Bethany to the Temple and Return.= This was the last day of Christ's public teaching, closing with a terrible denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees. Toward evening he went out of the Temple for the last time, sat upon the Mount of Olives with his disciples, and gave to them his prediction of the destruction of the city (Mark 13. 1-4). 4. =On Thursday afternoon, the Fourth Journey; from Bethany to the Supper room.= Take notice that no journey or event is named by any evangelist as taking place on Wednesday. Probably the day was passed in seclusion and meditation, for no conversations with disciples are recorded. On Thursday afternoon Jesus with his disciples left Bethany and walked over the mountain and the valley to Jerusalem (Mark 14. 16, 17), where they celebrated the passover and partook of the Last Supper together. Afterward came the long conversations recorded in John 13 to 17. 5. =On Thursday, at about midnight, the Fifth Journey; from the Supper room to Gethsemane.= The Saviour and his eleven disciples went from the supper room into the silent streets of Jerusalem, through the gate, and into the valley of Kedron. They crossed the brook and entered the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Agony took place, and immediately after it the Arrest (John 18. 1). IV. We now pass in order the =Events= of these five days: 1. =The Triumphal Entry.= (Sunday.) (Mark 11. 1-10.) Compare the accounts and note the additions made by John. (John 12. 12-16.) 2. =The Barren Fig tree.= (Monday.) (Mark 11. 12-14.) This was not a wanton or petulant act of cursing. The tree was a vivid picture of the Jewish state, bearing leaves but no fruit, and the miracle was wrought as a warning of impending doom. 3. =Cleansing the Temple.= (Monday.) (Mark 11. 15-17.) Once before, in the beginning of his ministry, Jesus had purged the Temple (John 2. 13-16). But the former abuses had crept in again, and Christ again proclaimed his authority in his Father's house. 4. =The Last Discourses.= (Tuesday.) (Mark 11. 27; 12. 44.) On this day Jesus met and vanquished in debate successively the rulers (Mark 11. 27-33); the Pharisees (Mark 12. 1-12; Matt. 21. 45); the Herodians (Mark 12. 13-17); the Sadducees (Mark 12. 18-27); and the scribes (Mark 12. 28-37). He closed his ministry with a rebuke to the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23. 1-39); and after commending the gift of the widow (Mark 12. 41-44) went out of the Temple, never to return (Mark 13. 1, 2.) 5. =The Prophecy of the Last Things.= (Tuesday.) In the afternoon of that day Jesus sat with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, and looking down upon the city gave a prophecy to his disciples, mingling the predictions of the city's overthrow and of the end of the world (Mark 13. 1-37). In Matthew are added two parables--the Ten Virgins (Matt. 25. 1-13), and the Talents (Matt. 25. 14-30), and also the description of the Last Judgment (Matt. 25. 31-46). 6. =The Retirement at Bethany.= (Wednesday.) Inasmuch as none of the gospels mention any event of Wednesday we assume that the day was passed in retirement. 7. =The Last Supper.= (Thursday.) On the afternoon of Thursday Jesus went to Jerusalem with the Twelve, partook of the Passover, and at its close instituted the Lord's Supper (Mark 14. 12-31). 8. =The Last Conversation.= (Thursday evening.) (John 14 to 18.) After the Supper the long conversation took place recorded in full by John, and scarcely mentioned in the other gospels. 9. =The Agony in the Garden.= (Thursday, midnight.) Late at night Jesus crossed the brook Kedron and entered the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Agony came upon him (Mark 14. 32-42). Blackboard Outline THE WEEK OF THE PASSION I. =Gen. Vi.= 1. La. Vis. Jer. 2. Fi. Da. 3. Ne. Jer. II. =Pla.= 1. Beth. 2. Tem. 3. Sup.-ro. 4. Mo. Oli. 5. Gar. Geth. III. =Jour.= 1. (Sun.) Be. Tem. Re. 2. (Mon.) Be. Tem. Re. 3. (Tu.) Be. Tem. Re. 4. (Thu.) Be. Sup.-ro. 5. (Thu.) Sup.-ro. Geth. IV. =Events.= 1. Tri. Ent. (Sun.) 2. Bar. Fig. tr. (Mon.) 3. Cl. Tem. (Mon.) 4. La. Dis. (Tue.) 5. Pro. La. Th. (Tue.) 6. Ret. Beth. (Wed.) 7. La. Sup. (Thu.) 8. La. Con. (Thu.) 9. Ag. Gar. (Thu.) Questions for Review Where did the events of this period take place? Between what days did they occur? In what village did Jesus pass most of the nights of this week? Where was the Last Supper partaken? Where did Jesus begin his triumphal entry into the city? What journey took place on the Sunday of this week? On Monday? On Tuesday? On Thursday afternoon? Name the events of Sunday. Of Monday. Of Tuesday. Of Wednesday. Of Thursday. NINTH STUDY The Day of the Crucifixion From the Betrayal to the Burial of Jesus I. =General View of the Period.= 1. This period embraces the events of but =one day= in the life of Jesus. It was the day following the Passover Day, and therefore the fifteenth of the month Nisan, in the Jewish year. See Num. 28. 16. The betrayal of Jesus took place a little after midnight, on Friday morning, and the burial about sunset on the same day; so that the transactions of the period include about eighteen hours. 2. It was, however, =an eventful day= in the life of Jesus. No day in all Bible story is narrated with the fullness of this day. Nearly one-twelfth of the matter in the four gospels is occupied with the account of this one day. If the whole story of Christ's life were written out with equal completeness to this one day's record it would require more than four hundred volumes as large as the New Testament. 3. It was an =important day=; the most important in the history of the world. Notice in the epistles how much more is said of the death of Christ than of his life. See 1 Cor. 2. 2; Gal. 6. 14; 1 John 1. 7. Because of its eventfulness and importance we should give it careful study and place in order its events as a separate period in the life of Jesus Christ. II. =The Places.= All these are in or near Jerusalem; but none of them can be identified with certainty. Yet it is well to know the traditional localities and to fix them upon the map of the city. There are five places named in the story of this day. 1. =The Garden of Gethsemane.= Here Jesus was arrested, immediately after the agony (Mark 14. 43). See the mention of this locality in the last study. 2. =The High Priest's House= (Mark 14. 53, 54). The high priest at that time was Caiaphas, but his father-in-law, Annas, who had been deposed by the Romans, was still regarded by the Jews as the legitimate priest, and possessed great authority. There was no special "palace" of the high priest, and Annas and Caiaphas may have lived in the same group of buildings. The place is located by tradition on Mount Zion, near that of the supper room. 3. =Pilate's Palace= (Mark 15. 1-16). The Roman capital of Judea was not in Jerusalem, but at Cæsarea, where the procurator resided (Acts 23. 23, 24). But it was customary for the governor to visit Jerusalem at the time of Passover, in order to quell any disturbance at that time, when the city was thronged. Pilate may have made his headquarters in Jerusalem either in the castle of Antonia, north of the temple (referred to in Acts 21. 34, and elsewhere), or in the palace of Herod the Great on the northwest corner of Mount Zion, the place now occupied by the (so-called) Tower of David. The latter locality is accepted by the best of the recent authorities. Here Jesus was brought for his trial and sentence by Pontius Pilate. 4. =Herod's Palace.= At that time Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peræa (Luke 3. 1), the slayer of John the Baptist, was present in Jerusalem attending the Passover, and to him Jesus was sent by Pilate (Luke 23. 7). His abiding place was probably the old Maccabean palace, about midway between the temple and Pilate's headquarters. 5. =Calvary or Golgotha.= See Luke 23. 33 and Mark 15. 22 for the two names, one of which is Greek, the other Hebrew, both meaning "skull-like" or "the place of skulls." All positively known about this place is that it was outside the wall, but near the city (John 19. 20). Two localities are given: the traditional one, north of Zion and west of the temple, now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the other, recently coming into notice and accepted by many scholars, a hill on the north of the city, containing a great cave known as the "Grotto of Jeremiah." We adopt the latter place as Calvary, although the evidence is by no means certain. The place of the cross and that of the burial were in the same locality (John 19. 41, 42). It would be well for the student to draw a rough diagram showing these places in their general relation to each other, as above. III. We notice the =Journeys of Jesus= on the day of his crucifixion. 1. =From Gethsemane to the High Priest's House.= From the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was taken to the high priest's house for examination before Annas and Caiaphas (Luke 22. 54.) 2. =From the High Priest's House to Pilate's Palace.= After examination before the high priests and the Jewish council Jesus was led to Pilate for another trial (Luke 23. 1). [Illustration] 3. =From Pilate's Palace to Herod's Palace and return.= Pilate sent Jesus to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee; but Herod was unwilling to pass judgment upon him and sent him back (Luke 23. 7-11). 4. =From Pilate's Palace to Calvary.= At this second appearance before Pilate Jesus was condemned to death, and was taken to Calvary, outside the wall. Here he was crucified and after his death was buried (John 19. 16, 17, 41). Let the student draw on the diagram a line representing each of these journeys and recall the events associated with them. In Jerusalem, at the present time, there is a street known as Via Dolorosa, "the Sorrowful Way," over which Jesus is believed to have carried his cross from Pilate's judgment hall to Calvary. But in our view both Pilate's judgment hall and Calvary are wrongly located by tradition, and therefore this path cannot be the true "way of the cross." IV. =The Events.= We may group all the transactions of this momentous day around eleven leading events: 1. =The Betrayal= (Mark 14. 43-50). This was in the Garden of Gethsemane, a little after midnight, and, therefore, on Friday, the 15th of Nisan. See the more detailed account in John 18. 1-11. 2. =Jesus before Annas= (John 18. 12, 13). This was a preliminary examination, and not official in its character. 3. =Jesus before Caiaphas= (John 18. 24). Read the account of the event in Mark 14. 53-72. By comparing the four accounts we find that there was first an examination before the high priest and such of the council as could be gathered (Mark 14. 55), and then later a trial before the entire Sanhedrin, or body of the elders (Luke 22. 66), at which Jesus was condemned to death. Peter's denial took place in the house of the high priest (John 18. 24, 25). 4. =Jesus before Pilate.= The Jews had no power to sentence to death, and hence were compelled to bring Jesus before Pilate (John 18. 28-32). Notice that the Jews condemned Jesus on one ground, but accused him before Pilate on another (Matt. 26. 65, 66; Luke 23. 2). The dialogue of Pilate with Jesus is given in John 18. 29-37. Pilate declared Christ's innocence and proposed that he should be released, but the people still demanded that he should be put to death. 5. =Jesus before Herod.= Pilate was unwilling to take the responsibility either of putting to death an innocent man or of offending the Jews by releasing him. He therefore sent him to Herod. But Herod also refused to judge the case and after mocking Jesus sent him back to Pilate (Luke 23. 6-11). 6. =Jesus Condemned to Death.= After Jesus was brought back Pilate still endeavored to save his life. But instead of setting him free at once as an innocent man he proposed to release him as an act of good feeling at the Passover festival. The Jews chose Barabbas and rejected Jesus; and at last Pilate gave unwilling sentence that Jesus should be crucified. He was then delivered to the soldiers to be mocked and tortured (Luke 23. 13-25). 7. =Jesus Bearing his Cross.= On the way from Pilate's palace to Calvary Jesus was compelled to carry one of the beams of his own cross (John 19. 17). A part of the way his cross was carried by a man named Simon, of Cyrene, in Africa (Mark 15. 21). 8. =Jesus on the Cross.= At Calvary Jesus was fastened to the cross by nails through his hands and feet (Luke 23. 33; John 20. 25). He was crucified at nine o'clock in the morning and lived until three o'clock in the afternoon (Mark 15. 25-34). The stupefying potion offered to him before he was crucified (Mark 15. 23). Note the four versions of the superscription (Matt. 27. 37; Mark 15. 26; Luke 23. 38; John 19. 19). The witnesses (John 19. 25). 9. =The Seven Words from the Cross.= The first word (Luke 23. 34). The second word (John 19. 26, 27). The third word (Luke 23. 43). The fourth word (Matt. 27. 46). The fifth word (John 19. 28). The sixth word (John 19. 30). The seventh word (Luke 23. 46). 10. =The Death on the Cross.= The fact (Mark 15. 37). A remarkable testimony (Mark 15. 39). A remarkable event (Matt. 27. 51-53). An evidence of his death (John 19. 32-35). 11. =The Burial.= Why the body was taken away (John 19. 31). How it was obtained (John 19. 38). The preparation (John 19. 39, 40). The place of burial (Matt. 27. 59, 60). The witnesses (Matt. 27. 61). The sealing of the tomb (Matt. 27. 62-66). Blackboard Outline DAY OF CRUCIFIXION I. =Gen. Vie.= 1. On. Da. 2. Ev. Da. 3. Imp. Da. II. =Pla.= 1. Gar. Geth. 2. H. P. Ho. 3. Pil. Pal. 4. Her. Pal. 5. Cal. Gol. III. =Jour.= 1. Geth. H.-p. Ho. 2. H.-p Ho. Pil. Pal. 3. Pil. Pal. Her. Pal. Re. 4. Pil. Pal. Calv. IV. =Events.= 1. Betr. 2. J. bef. Ann. 3. J. bef. Cai. 4. J. bef. Pil. 5. J. bef. Her. 6. J. Con. Dea. 7. J. Bear. Cro. 8. J. on Cro. 9. Sev. Wo. Cro. 10. De. Cro. 11. Bur. Questions for Review How long was this period? What was its date in the Jewish year? What shows that it was an eventful day? Why was this the most important day in the world's history? What are the five places named in this period? State the probable location of each place. Name four journeys of this period. Name eleven events of this period. Before what rulers was Jesus brought for examination or trial? State the seven utterances of Jesus on the cross. What took place at the moment of Jesus's death? Why was the body buried so soon? Why was the tomb sealed? Who witnessed the burial? TENTH STUDY The Forty Days of Resurrection From the Resurrection to the Ascension of Christ I. =The Necessity of Christ's Resurrection.= Strange as the resurrection may appear to men in general, and unexpected as it was to the disciples of Jesus, it was the necessary completion of his work on earth. 1. It was necessary =from the nature of Christ=. A divine man, it was impossible that he should be held in the grave (Acts 2. 24). His resurrection showed that he was the Son of God (Rom. 1. 4). 2. It was necessary =for the fulfillment of prophecy=. Jesus himself declared that the prophecies pointed to his resurrection (Luke 24. 45, 46). The apostles constantly appealed to the Old Testament prophecies (Acts 13. 34, 35; 26. 22, 23; 1 Cor. 15. 4). 3. It was necessary for the =work of redemption=. He lived as our example, and he must appear before God as our high priest and mediator (Rom. 4. 25; 8. 34; 1 Cor. 15. 17). 4. It was necessary for the =faith of the disciples=. If Christ had not risen the world would never have heard of his life and the church would never have existed (1 Cor. 15. 19, 20; 1 Pet. 1. 3). 5. It was necessary to =attest Christ's authority=. But for the resurrection the name of Jesus could have possessed no more weight than any other name. Raised from the dead he has all power (Matt. 28. 18; Acts 13. 33; 17. 31). 6. It was necessary as a =pledge of our resurrection=. If Christ rose we too shall rise (Acts 26. 23; 1 Cor. 15. 12, 20-23). II. =The Fact of Christ's Resurrection.= 1. =It was proved by the testimony of witnesses.= See Acts 1. 3; 2. 32. The conduct of the disciples before and after the resurrection was in itself a proof. Before they were in sorrow (Mark 16. 10; Luke 24. 17). Afterward they were glad (Luke 24. 52; John 20. 20). The Christian Church to-day is the best evidence; for without the resurrection it could never have been established. 2. =It was effected by the power of God.= (Acts 3. 15; Rom. 8. 11; Eph. 1. 20). Jesus speaks of his own power in connection with this (John 2. 19; 10. 18). The Holy Spirit is also mentioned as raising Christ from the dead (1 Peter 3. 18). 3. It took place =on the first day of the week=. (Mark 16. 9). In commemoration of this event the first day of the week was observed by the early Church (Acts 20. 7; 1 Cor. 16. 2). The name given to this day (Rev. 1. 10). 4. It took place on =the third day after his death=. The body of Jesus was in the grave between thirty and thirty-six hours--from sunset on Friday to daybreak on Sunday. But in the Jewish notation of time this was three days (Luke 24. 46; Acts 10. 40; 1 Cor. 15. 4). III. =The Ten Appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection.= It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to harmonize precisely all the accounts in the gospels and in 1 Cor. 15. 4-7. But the best authorities unite in the following order of the manifestations of Christ between the resurrection and the ascension: 1. =To Mary Magdalene= (Mark 16. 9). This was at the sepulcher, very soon after the resurrection. Several women went to the sepulcher, found it open, and were told by an angel that Jesus had risen. They went to bear the news to the disciples (Mark 16. 1-8; Matt. 28. 1-8; Luke 24. 1-10). Mary Magdalene returned after the rest had gone and saw the risen Lord (John 20. 1-18). Notice that this Mary is to be carefully distinguished from Mary of Bethany, John 11. 2, and from the unnamed woman in Luke 7. 37. 2. =To the other women= (Matt. 28. 9). This was near the sepulcher, a few minutes later than the first appearance. The names of these women (Mark 16. 1; Luke 24. 10). 3. =To two disciples= (Luke 24. 13-32). The place where Jesus was revealed (Luke 24. 13). The name of Luke's probable informant (Luke 24. 18). 4. =To Peter= (Luke 24. 33, 34; 1 Cor. 15. 5). This was in Jerusalem. What took place at this meeting has not been revealed. 5. =To ten disciples= (Luke 24. 36-43). Another account in John 20. 19-25. This was in the upper room in Jerusalem, where the Last Supper had been partaken, and it was on the evening of the day of resurrection. 6. =To eleven disciples= (John 20. 26-29). This was in the same place a week later. 7. =To seven disciples= at the Sea of Galilee (John 21. 1-22). At this interview Peter was reinstated in his apostleship. 8. =To five hundred disciples= (1 Cor. 15. 6). This was the official manifestation of Christ appointed before his death (Matt. 26. 32; 28. 16). It took place "on the mountain" (Rev. Ver.), probably where the Sermon on the Mount was preached. At this time the great commission was given (Matt. 28. 18-20). 9. =To James= (1 Cor. 15. 7). Nothing is known about this meeting. The relationship of James to Jesus (Mark 6. 3; Gal. 1. 19). Allusions to him in Acts 15. 13; 21. 18. His epistle (James 1. 1). Probably this appearance was in Jerusalem (Acts 1. 14). 10. =The Ascension= (Luke 24. 50-53; Acts 1. 9). This was at Bethany, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives (Acts 1. 12). The promise at his departure (Acts 1. 10, 11). This list of appearances should be carefully memorized and the place of each noted on the map, with its circumstances and events. IV. =The Traits of the Risen Christ.= There were some respects in which Jesus after his resurrection was the same as he had been before; but there were also some essential differences. 1. =He was the very same Jesus.= It was not a spirit, a disembodied ghost, which appeared to the disciples. He possessed personal identity, and was the living one whom the disciples had known before. See Luke 24. 39, 40; John 20. 27. 2. =He appeared only occasionally.= He did not come to remain with his people, for it was better for them that he should go away (John 16. 7). He manifested himself after his resurrection often enough to strengthen faith, but not enough to lead his disciples to lean upon his presence. 3. =He appeared to his disciples only= (Acts 10. 40, 41). Why he did not appear to unbelievers (Luke 16. 31). His personal ministry was ended, and henceforth he was to speak to men through his messengers (2 Cor. 5. 19, 20). 4. =He possessed a spiritual body.= There is a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15. 40-44). Christ possessed such a body, uncontrolled by physical law, but dominated by the spirit. He came and went at will (Luke 24. 36; John 20. 19). He withheld himself from recognition or permitted it as he chose (Luke 24. 15, 16; 24. 30, 31; John 20. 14-16; 21. 4-7). With us the body limits the spirit; with him the spirit controlled the body. 5. =He recognized individuals= after his resurrection. The grave had not blotted out his memory of the past nor of his personal regard for people. He called his friends by name after his resurrection (Matt. 28. 10; John 20. 16; 20. 26; 21. 15). He showed the same spirit of affection, of tenderness, and of patience with the mistakes of his followers as he had shown during his earthly life. His gentleness toward a sorrowing woman (John 20. 11-15). His kindness toward a doubting disciple (John 20. 24-29). His forgiveness of a denying disciple (John 21. 15-19). Such were the traits which he bore away from earth, and such are the traits which he bears still on his throne. Blackboard Outline THE FORTY DAYS OF RESURRECTION I. =Nec. Chr. Res.= 1. Nat. Ch. 2. Ful. pro. 3. Wo. red. 4. Fai. dis. 5. Att. Chr. auth. 6. Pl. ou. res. II. =Fac. Chr. Res.= 1. Pro. tes. wit. 2. Eff. pow. G. 3. Fir. da. we. 4. Th. d. af. de. III. =Ten. App. Je. af. Res.= 1. Ma. Mag. [Sep.] 2. Oth. wom. [Sep.] 3. Tw. dis. [Emm.] 4. Pet. [Jer.] 5. Ten dis. [Jer.] 6. Elev. dis. [Jer.] 7. Sev. dis. [Sea Gal.] 8. Fiv. hun. dis. [Mt. Gal.] 9. Jas. [Jer.] 10. Asc. [Beth.] IV. =Tra. Ris. Chr.= 1. Ver. sa. Jes. 2. Ap. on occ. 3. To dis. on. 4. Pos. spir. bod. 5. Rec. ind. Questions for Review Why was the resurrection of Jesus Christ a necessity? What proves the fact of the resurrection? How was the resurrection effected? When did it take place? How long after the death of Jesus was his resurrection? How many times did Jesus appear after his resurrection? To whom did he appear first? What were the circumstances of this appearance? What were the five appearances on the day of resurrection? Name the instances when Jesus appeared during the forty days after the resurrection day. What were the traits of the risen Christ? What was the nature of his body after his resurrection? ELEVENTH STUDY The New Testament World We have seen that the life of Jesus Christ while on earth was limited to the land of Palestine. But in a few years the church founded by his apostles overstepped the boundaries of that land; and its scope became world-wide. Therefore as we begin the history of the Early Church it becomes necessary for us to study =the New Testament World=. Comparing the maps before us with that of the Old Testament World we find that in the four centuries between the events of the Old and New Testaments the dominion of the world passed from Asia to Europe, and Jerusalem, which had been in the center, became one of the cities upon the extreme east. Hence our map moves with the course of the empire westward a thousand miles. I. We draw the outlines of the most important =Seas=. These are: 1. The =Mediterranean Sea=, from its eastern limits as far west as Italy. Voyages on it are referred to in Acts 9. 30; 13. 4; 21. 1, 2; 27. 3. 2. The =Sea of Galilee=, associated with the life of Christ. Find its three different names in Matt. 15. 29; John 6. 1; Luke 5. 1. 3. The =Dead Sea=, not named in the New Testament. 4. The =Black Sea=, north of Asia Minor. 5. The =�gean Sea=, between Asia Minor and Greece. Voyages upon it (Acts 16. 11; 18. 18; 20. 13-15). 6. The =Adriatic Sea=, between Greece and Italy (Acts 27. 27). II. In these seas are many =Islands=, of which we name five of the most noteworthy in New Testament history: 1. =Cyprus=, in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean (Acts 4. 36; 13. 4). 2. =Crete=, south of the �gean Sea, between Asia Minor and Greece (Acts 27. 7; Titus 1. 5). 3. =Patmos=, in the �gean Sea, not far from Ephesus (Rev. 1. 9). 4. =Sicily=, southwest of Italy (Acts 28. 12). 5. =Melita=, now Malta, south of Sicily (Acts 28. 1). III. We locate the different =Provinces=, arranging them in four groups. [Illustration: MAP OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WORLD] 1. Those on the continent of =Europe= are: 1.) =Thrace.= 2.) =Macedonia= (Acts 14. 9, 10; 20. 1-3). 3.) =Greece=, also called =Achaia= (Acts 18. 12; 20. 3). 4.) =Illyricum= (Rom. 15. 19). 5.) =Italy= (Acts 27. 1). 2. Those on the continent of =Africa= are: 1.) =Africa Proper.= 2.) =Libya= (Acts 2. 10) 3.) =Egypt= (Matt. 2. 13). 3. Those on the continent of =Asia=, exclusive of Asia Minor, are: 1.) =Arabia=, perhaps referring to the desert region southeast of Palestine (Gal. 1. 17). 2.) =Judea=, the Jewish name for all Palestine, in the New Testament period (Luke 1. 5). 3.) =Phoenicia= (Mark 7. 24; Acts 15. 3; 21. 2). 4.) =Syria=, north of Palestine (Acts 15. 41; 20. 3). 4. The provinces in =Asia Minor= are so frequently mentioned in the Acts and Epistles that it is necessary for the student to learn their names and locations. We divide the fourteen provinces into four groups. (_a_) Three on the Black Sea, beginning on the east. 1.) =Pontus= (Acts 18. 2). 2.) =Paphlagonia.= 3.) =Bithynia= (Peter 1. 1). (_b_) Three on the �gean Sea, beginning on the north. 4.) =Mysia= (Acts 16. 7). 5.) =Lydia.= 6.) =Caria.= These three provinces together formed the district known as "Asia" (Acts 2. 9; 19. 10). (_c_) Three on the Mediterranean Sea, beginning on the west. 7.) =Lycia= (Acts 27. 5). 8.) =Pamphylia= (Acts 13. 13). 9.) =Cilicia= (Acts 21. 39). (_d_) Five in the interior. 10.) On the north, =Galatia= (Gal. 1. 2). 11.) On the east, =Cappadocia= (Acts 2. 9). 12.) On the southeast, =Lycaonia= (Acts 14. 6). 13.) On the southwest, =Pisidia= (Acts 13. 14). 14.) On the west =Phrygia= (Acts 16. 6). IV. We notice the twelve most important =Places=. 1. =Alexandria=, the commercial metropolis of Egypt (Acts 18. 24). 2. =Jerusalem=, the religious capital of the Jewish world (Matt. 4. 5; Luke 24. 47). 3. =Cæsarea=, the Roman capital of Judea (Acts 10. 1; 23. 23, 24). 4. =Damascus=, in the southern part of Syria (Acts 19. 3). 5. =Antioch=, the capital of Syria, in the north (Acts 11. 26; 13. 1). 6. =Tarsus=, the birthplace of St. Paul, in Cilicia (Acts 22. 3). 7. =Ephesus=, the metropolis of Asia Minor, in the province of Lydia (Acts 19. 1). 8. =Philippi=, in Macedonia, where the gospel was first preached in Europe (Acts 16. 12). 9. =Thessalonica=, the principal city in Macedonia (Acts 17. 1; Thess 1. 1). 10. =Athens=, the literary center of Greece (Acts 17. 16). 11. =Corinth=, the political capital of Greece (Acts 18. 1-12). 12. =Rome=, the imperial city (Acts 28. 16; Rom. 1. 7). Other lands and places are referred to as Elam, Parthia, and Media, all east of the Euphrates river (Acts 2. 9). Ethiopia, south of Egypt in Africa (Acts 8. 27), and Babylon on the Euphrates (1 Peter 5. 13); but these places are outside the general history of the church. Hints to the Teacher and Her Class. Eleventh Study In teaching this lesson let the conductor sketch the outline of the map upon the board and drill upon the seas; then draw and name the islands; then drill upon the provinces, etc. Review until the lesson is learned by all the class. The student should search all the references and be able to state the events connected with each locality. It would be well for the student to find additional Scripture references to all the localities. Let each student practice the drawing of the map at home, until he can draw it without copy. Then, in presence of the class, let one student draw on the blackboard in presence of the class the boundary lines of the continents; or one the boundary line in Asia; another in Europe; and a third in Africa. Then let another draw and name the islands; and others locate and name the provinces in Asia, Europe, and Africa; and finally let the twelve cities be located and named. Blackboard Outline I. =Se.= Med. Gal. De. Bl. �g. Adr. II. =Isl.= Cyp. Cre. Pat. Sic. Mel. III. =Prov.= 1. =Eur.= Thr. Mac. Gre. (Ach.) Ill. It. 2. =Afr.= Af.-Pr. Lib. Eg. 3. =Asi.= Ar. Jud. Phoe. Syr. 4. =As. Min.= (_a_) Pon. Paph. Bit. (_b_) Mys. Lyd. Car. (_c_) Lyc. Pam. Cil. (_d_) Gal. Cap. Lyc. Pi. Ph. IV. =Pla.= Alex. Jer. Cæs. Dam. Ant. Tar. Eph. Phi. Thes. Ath. Cor. Ro. Questions for Review What difference is to be noted between the map of the Old Testament world and that of the New? Name six seas in the New Testament world. State the location of each of these seas. Name five islands in the New Testament world. Give the location of each island. Name in order the provinces in Europe in the New Testament world. Name the provinces in Africa. Name the provinces in Asia, exclusive of Asia Minor. Name the provinces of Asia Minor bordering on the Black Sea. Name the provinces on the �gean Sea. Name the provinces on the Mediterranean Sea. Name and locate each of the interior provinces. What city of the New Testament world was in Africa? What cities were in Judea and Syria? What cities were in Asia Minor? What cities were in Europe? TWELFTH STUDY The Synagogue Before beginning the history of the Early Church, we must study one institution which formed an important link between the Old Testament and the New; and more than any other institution prepared the way for the gospel throughout the Jewish world. That institution was the synagogue. I. =Its Origin.= The synagogue arose during the captivity, when the Temple was in ruins and the sacrifices were in abeyance. In the land of captivity the people of God met for worship and fellowship, and out of their meeting grew the synagogue, a word meaning "a coming together." It is believed that the institution was organized as a part of the Jewish system by Ezra, B. C. 440. II. =Its Universality.= There was but one temple, standing on Mount Moriah, and only those who journeyed thither could attend its services. But the synagogue was in every place where the Jews dwelt, both in Palestine and throughout the world. Wherever ten Jewish heads of families could be found there a synagogue would be established. There were four hundred and sixty synagogues in Jerusalem; and every nationality of Jews had its own (Acts 6. 9). III. =The Place of Meeting.= This might be a building erected for the purpose, or a hired room, or even a place in the open air (Acts 16. 13). This meeting place was employed for secular as well as religious uses. Courts were held in it, and sentence was administered (Acts 22. 19), and sometimes a school for teaching the law was held in it. Thus the synagogue became a center of local influence. IV. =Its Arrangement.= Every ancient synagogue contained: 1. _An_ "_ark_," which was the chest for the sacred rolls, and stood in the end of the building toward Jerusalem. 2. _Chief seats_, elevated, near and around the "ark," for the elders and leading men (Matt. 23. 6). 3. A desk for the reader standing upon a platform. 4. Places for the worshipers, carefully graded according to rank, the Gentile visitors having seats near the door of entrance. 5. A lattice gallery where women could worship without being seen. V. =Its Officers.= These were: 1. Three _rulers of the synagogue_, who directed the worship, managed the business details, and possessed a limited judicial authority over the Jews in the district (Mark 4. 22; Acts 13. 15). One of these was the presiding officer, and called "_the_ ruler." 2. The _chazzan_ (Luke 4. 20, "the minister"), who united the functions of clerk, schoolmaster, sexton, and constable to administer sentence on offenders. 3. The _batlanim_, "men of ease," seven men who were chosen to act as a legal congregation, were pledged to be present at the regular services, and sometimes received a small fee for being present. VI. =Its Services.= These were held on Saturday, Monday, and Thursday, and were conducted by the members in turn, several taking part in each service. They consisted of: 1. Forms of prayer, conducted by a leader, with the responses by the worshipers. 2. Reading of selections from the law and the prophets, according to an appointed order (Acts 15. 21). The reading was in Hebrew, but it was translated, verse by verse, into the language of the people, whether Greek or Aramaic. 3. Exposition or comment upon the Scripture, in which any member might take part (Luke 4. 20, 21; Acts 13. 15, 16). VII. =Its Influence.= It is easy to perceive how widely and how powerfully the results of such an institution would reach. 1. It perpetuated the worship of God and united the worshipers. 2. It supplied a more thoughtful and spiritual worship than the elaborate ritual of the Temple. 3. It promoted the study of the Old Testament Scriptures and made them thoroughly familiar to every Jew. 4. It attracted the devout and intelligent among the Gentiles, many of whom became worshipers of God and were known as "proselytes of the gate" (Acts 10. 1, 2). VIII. =Its Preparation for the Gospel.= It is evident that the apostles and early Christian teachers were greatly aided by the synagogue. 1. It furnished a _place_; for everywhere the church began in the synagogue, even though it soon left it (Acts 13. 5; 18. 4; 19. 8). 2. It prepared a _people_; for the synagogue was attended by the earnest and thoughtful, both of Jews and Gentiles, who were thus made ready for the higher truths of the gospel (Acts 13. 42, 43). 3. It supplied a _plan of service_; for it is evident that the early Christian worship was modeled, not on the ritual of the Temple, but on the simpler forms of the synagogue. 4. It gave a _system of organization_; for the Government of the early church was similar to, and doubtless suggested by, that of the synagogue. Blackboard Outline I. =Ori.= Cap. Ez. B. C. 440. II. =Univ.= 10 fam. 460 Jer. III. =Pl. Meet.= Buil. ro. op. air. sec. us. IV. =Arr.= 1. Ark. 2. Ch. sea. 3. Desk. 4. Pla. wor. 5. Gal. V. =Off.= 1. Rul. 2. Chaz. 3. Batl. VI. =Serv.= 1. Pr. 2. Read. Ser. 3. Exp. VII. =Inf.= 1. Per. wor. 2. Spir. wor. 3. St. O. T. 4. Attr. Gen. VIII. =Prep. Gosp.= 1. Pla. 2. Peo. 3. Ser. 4. Org. Review Questions Between what two institutions was the synagogue a link of connection? How did the synagogue originate? Who gave it definite organization? Wherein did it differ from the temple and its services? Where were synagogues formed? How many were in Jerusalem? What buildings and places were used for the synagogue service? To what secular uses were these buildings put? What were the arrangements of the synagogue? Where did the women worship? What was "the ark" in the synagogue? Who were the officers? What was the _chazzan_? Who were the _batlanim_? What were the services of the synagogue? What influence did the synagogue exert? Whom did the synagogue benefit outside of the Jews? How did the synagogue prepare the way for the gospel? THIRTEENTH STUDY The Church in Judea PART ONE From the Ascension of Christ A. D. 30, to the Appointment of the Seven A. D. 35. We now enter upon the second great subject in New Testament history, the Early Church. This will include the annals of the church from the Ascension of Christ, A. D. 30, to the end of the apostolic age, A. D. 100. This epoch of seventy years is divided into four periods: 1. _The church in Judea_, from the Ascension of Christ, A. D. 30, to the Appointment of the Seven, A. D. 35. 2. _The church in Transition_, from the Appointment of the Seven, A. D. 35, to the Council at Jerusalem, A. D. 50. 3. _The church among the Gentiles_, from the Council at Jerusalem, A. D. 50, to the death of St. Paul, A. D. 68. 4. _The End of the Age_, from the death of St. Paul to the death of St. John, about A. D. 100. It should be noted that all of these dates are uncertain and historians are not agreed with reference to them. Of these four periods we take up the first, the church in Judea, or "The church of the First Days;" a space of about five years. During this time the work of the church was confined wholly to the Jewish people, and apparently to the immediate region of Jerusalem. I. We notice the =Events of this Period=. 1. =The followers of Christ= immediately after the Ascension; a company of people believing in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. 1.) _Their number_ was 120 (Acts 1. 15). They were mostly from Galilee (Acts 2. 7). They were all the organized church at that time, although throughout the land were thousands more ready to unite with them. 2.) _Their meeting place_ was "the upper room" (Acts 1. 13), on Mount Zion, probably the room where the "Last Supper" was held. Some think that this may have been the house of Mary the mother of Mark, referred to in Acts 12. 1, 2. 3.) _Their religious condition_ between the Ascension and Pentecost was probably that of belief in Jesus as the King of Israel, but with the conception of an earthly kingdom (Acts 1. 6). They were waiting with prayer for divine direction (Acts 1. 14). 2. =The Outpouring of the Spirit= came upon this company on the day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension, fifty days after the Crucifixion. The spirit descended upon them all in the form of "tongues of fire." 1.) _Physical effect._ This was "the gift of tongues," a mysterious influence (Acts 2. 2, 3). This was not a power to speak foreign languages at will; but probably a strange divine speech, sounding to everyone who heard it as though it were the language of his own people (Acts 2. 8). 2.) _Mental effect._ There came to these disciples a revelation, once and for all, of Christ's kingdom, not as a political state, but as a spiritual institution; a society of believers of which Jesus in glory is the invisible yet real head. 3.) _Spiritual effect._ This was the personal presence of the Holy Spirit with each member; an indwelling life given not merely to the apostles, but to each and every disciple; a divine enthusiasm, giving guidance, enlightenment, power. Nor was that divine life limited to that company. It has dwelt ever since in the church of Christ, and in each member of the church, (1 Cor. 3. 16; 6. 19). 3. =The Testimony of the Gospel.= 1.) The first effect of this new endowment of the Holy Spirit was a strong testimony to the gospel of Christ; a proclamation of _Jesus as the Messiah King_; and this testimony was the conquering weapon of the church. 2.) This testimony was given by _all_ the members. It is a mistake to suppose that the church settled down in Jerusalem with Peter as its pastor and preacher. Peter was the leader, but not the ruler of the church. Find four addresses of Peter sketched in Acts 2-5; not "sermons" after the modern method, but ardent declarations of Jesus as the Messiah; and similar testimonies were given by all the members everywhere, in synagogues, in houses, publicly and privately. 4. =The Apostolic Miracles.= 1.) At the opening of the history of the church we read of a _number of miracles_. a) A lame man healed. (Acts 3. 1-10). b) A miracle of judgment (Acts 5. 1-10). c) More miracles of healing (Acts 5. 12-16). 2.) We can see the _purpose of these_ miracles and how they were needed by the church in the day of its weakness. (a) They attracted _attention_ to the gospel. (b) They gave _authority_ to the apostles as teachers. (c) They were _illustrations_ of the spiritual work of the gospel; i. e., healing of the lame man a type of salvation. 5. =The Persecution of the Apostles.= It was inevitable that the preaching of the apostles and the growing prominence of the church should arouse opposition from the men who a few months before had crucified Jesus. A persecution was begun, at first upon Peter and John, then upon all the apostles. It was not sharp, murderous, crushing out the church. The apostles were first threatened (Acts 4. 17), then imprisoned (Acts 5. 18), then scourged (Acts 5. 40). The persecution only attracted greater notice to the gospel, and led to increasing numbers of believers. 6. =The Growth of the Church= went on through all these experiences. Beginning with 120, on the day of Pentecost 3,000 were received by baptism (Acts 2. 41). There was a daily growth after (Acts 2. 47). Soon the number grew to 5,000, besides women and children (Acts 4. 4). Another increase is named in Acts 5. 14; also again in Acts 6. 7. 7. The last event in this period was =the Appointment of the Seven=. Read the account in Acts 6. 1-7. Notice for the first time in this history a reference to the two great classes of Jews. 1.) _Hebrews_, Jews whose ancestors had lived in Palestine, and who spoke the Hebrew tongue, though with Syriac admixture. 2.) _Grecian Jews_ (frequently called Hellenists). Jews descended from exiles who had remained abroad in foreign lands, otherwise "Jews of the Dispersion." Everywhere except in Palestine these foreign Jews were far more numerous than the Hebrews, and they were also the richer and more intelligent. They spoke the Greek language. Note also that the seven men named in this account are nowhere spoken of as "deacons." From Acts 21. 8 we learn that they were called "the seven." They were not an order in the church, but a committee appointed for a service. Blackboard Outline Per. 1. Ch. Jud. 2. Ch. Trans. 3. Ch. am. Gen. 4. E. A. =Ch. in Jud.= 1. =Ev. Per.= 1. =Foll. Ch.= 1.) Num. 2.) Meet-pl. 3.) Rel. Con. 2. =Out Sp.= 1.) Phys. eff. 2.) Men. eff. 3.) Spir. eff. 3. =Tes. Gosp.= 1.) Jes. Mess. K. 2.) By all. 4. =Ap. Mir.= 1.) Num. mir. 2.) Pur. Att. Auth. Illus. 5. =Per. Ap.= 6. =Gro. Ch.= 120, 3,000, 5,000. "Multitude." 7. =App. Sev.= Heb. Gre. (Hellen.) Review Questions. Part One How long a period is embraced in the history of the New Testament church? Name four periods in the history, and the events with which each begins and ends. How long a time is embraced in the first period? By what name is the first period called? State in order the seven events in the first period. What was the number of Christ's followers in Jerusalem immediately after his Ascension? Where did they meet? What was their religious condition? What took place ten days after the Ascension of Christ? On what day did this outpouring occur? What were the physical effects of this outpouring? What were the mental effects? What were the spiritual effects? What testimony was given by the apostles and church? How many addresses of Peter at this time are mentioned? What miracles were wrought? How did these miracles benefit the church? What persecution arose? What was the nature of this persecution? Against whom was it directed? Did it harm the church? What is said of the growth of the church during this epoch? Who were "the seven"? How were they chosen? For what were they appointed? What two classes of Jesus are named? Define each class. PART TWO II. Having studied the history we now look at the =General Aspects of the Pentecostal Church=. 1. =Its locality=: entirely in Judea, and apparently in and around Jerusalem. There is no mention during this early period of churches in Galilee, although most of the earliest members were Galileans (Acts 1. 11; 2. 7). Individual believers doubtless were to be found throughout the land, but outside of Jerusalem they were not yet gathered together in assemblies and not yet endowed with the Spirit. 2. =Its membership= was composed wholly of Jews. As yet not a single Gentile had been received, and apparently there was no thought of Gentile believers. Christianity began as a Jewish society. Three classes of Jews were embraced in its membership: 1.) _Hebrews_, or Palestinian Jews. 2.) _Grecians_ or Hellenists, Jews of the Dispersion. 3.) _Proselytes_, or Gentiles who had embraced Judaism and received circumcision (Acts 6. 5). 3. =The qualifications for membership= were: 1.) _Repentance_, which meant not so much sorrow as decision for Christ. 2.) _Faith in Jesus_ as Christ; i. e., submission to Jesus as the true King of Israel. 3.) _Baptism_ in the name of Jesus the Christ as the outward form of consecration. 4. =The spirit of the Pentecostal Church.= 1.) In theory, and for the most part in fact, every member _possessed the Holy Spirit_, an abounding, directing spiritual life. Every member was conscious of the immediate presence of God, and lived in this fellowship. 2.) This inspired a _Christian fellowship_, the love of the brotherhood. 3.) As a result of this divine and human fellowship came _liberal giving_ to each other's needs. There was a voluntary and limited "community of goods," the rich giving freely to aid the poor; which led to some insincere imitation. See the contrast of Barnabas and Ananias (Acts 4. 34-37; 5. 1-11). 5. =Doctrines.= The doctrinal aspects of Christianity at that early period were less prominent than its spirit. As yet there was no such theological system as arose later. Three great doctrines were held fervently: 1.) _The resurrection of Jesus_; that he had risen and was living. 2.) _The Messiahship of Jesus_; that he was the prince of the true spiritual kingdom of Israel. 3.) _The return of Jesus as Christ_; that he would soon come again to earth. 6. =Worship and institutions.= These were: 1.) _The temple worship_ attended by the disciples of Christ as by all worshiping Jews (Acts 2. 46; 3. 1). 2.) _The synagogue services_, twice each week; held everywhere throughout the city; with Scripture reading, prayer and testimony. 3.) "_The upper room_" was for a time the headquarters of the church; but Solomon's porch in the temple soon took its place (Acts 5. 12). 4.) "Breaking bread," which was the Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper; at that time observed not in public assemblies but as a family ordinance, at home (Acts 2. 42, 46). 5.) _The baptism_ of new members. 7. =Government.= Scarcely any government or discipline was needed in a church where the Spirit of God was recognized as dwelling in each member. The apostles were revered as leaders, but were not exactly rulers over the body of believers. "The Seven" (Acts 6. 3) were not officials or "deacons," but laymen charged with specific duties. 8. =Literature.= 1.) _The Old Testament_; familiar to all, read in the synagogue, was seen now in a new light and with new meaning. 2.) _The teachings of Jesus_, as yet unwritten, were in the memory of most of the members who had heard his words; and especially in the memory of the apostles; but no books of the New Testament were by this time in writing. 9. =Leaders of the church.= 1.) Throughout this period _Peter_ stands at the front as the ruling spirit of the church, by his endowments of mind, and especially by his promptness in word and act. 2.) With him stands _John_ (Acts 3. 1; 4. 19). 3.) _Barnabas_ won notice by his liberality and gifts of preaching (Acts 4. 36, 37). His name means "the speaker" or "the preacher." 4.) At the end of the period _Stephen_ comes into notice. Blackboard Outline II. =Gen. Asp. Pen. Ch.= 1. =Loc.= Jud. Jer. 2. =Mem.= Jews. 1.) Heb. 2.) Gre. Hel. 3.) Pros. 3. =Qual. Mem.= 1.) Rep. 2.) Fai. 3.) Bap. 4. =Spir.= 1.) Poss. H. S. 2.) Chr. fell. 3.) Lib. giv. 5. =Doc.= 1.) Res. Jes. 2.) Mess. Jes. 3.) Ret. Jes. 6. =Worsh. and Inst.= 1.) Tem. 2.) Syn. 3.) "Up. ro" 4.) "Bre. br." 5.) Bap. 7. =Gov.= Sp. Apos. Sev. 8. =Lit.= 1.) O. T. 2.) Tea. Jes. 9. =Lead.= 1.) Pet. 2.) Jo. 3.) Bar. 4.) Ste. Review Questions. Part Two Where was the church located during the Pentecostal period? Were there churches or members in Galilee? To what race did all the members belong? What were the three classes in its membership? Who were Hebrews? Who were Grecians? By what other name were they called? Who were the "proselytes"? What were the requisites for membership in the church? What is said of the spirit of this church? How did this spirit lead the members to regard each other? What is said of their gifts to each other? Were doctrines made prominent in the church? What three doctrines were held by the members? What institutions of worship were maintained? What other institutions were observed? What is meant by "breaking bread"? Where was this service held? What is said as to the government of the church? What was the position of the apostles? What were "the seven"? What literature did the church possess at this time? What knowledge did they have of the teachings of Jesus? Who were the leaders of the church in this period? FOURTEENTH STUDY The Church in Transition From the Appointment of the Seven, A. D. 35, to the Council at Jerusalem, A. D. 50. We enter upon the study of a brief period, only fifteen years, but of supreme importance and of vast results to the world; a period, too, in which we have the deepest interest, for if its events had never taken place Christianity would have been only a Jewish sect and we would not be members of it. 1. At its opening, 35 A. D., the church was in and around Jerusalem only; and every member was a Jew, bound by the restrictions of the Jewish law and ceremony. There was no thought that the church would ever include Gentiles except as Gentiles might first become proselytes to Judaism. 2. At its close, 50 A. D., we see a church planted all around the northeastern portion of the Mediterranean Sea; and, what is even more remarkable, a church wherein Jews and Gentiles were worshiping together on terms of equality. A wonderful transition this! I. Let us draw =the Map of the Lands= occupied by the church during those fifteen years. 1. Draw the coast line of the Mediterranean Sea. 2. The island of Cyprus. 3. The lands east of the Mediterranean Sea. Judea (or Palestine), Syria, Phoenicia. 4. The lands north of the Mediterranean Sea, in Asia Minor, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia. 5. The places: Jerusalem, Joppa, Cæsarea and Samaria in Judea, Damascus and Antioch in Syria, Tarsus in Cilicia, Antioch in Pisidia, Lystra and Derbe in Lycaonia. II. Let us carefully note the =Progress of Events= in this remarkable evolution of the church. 1. =The Preaching of Stephen.= Stephen was a Hellenist, or a Jew of foreign origin. He was the man who first had the vision of a church wider than the bounds of Judaism; and he proclaimed this great truth. See evidences of this in: 1.) The new and bitter _enmity_ which his teaching aroused (Acts 6. 12). 2.) The _accusation_ against him, which contained a half truth (Acts 6. 11, 13, 14). 3.) The _prominence_ of the man, and his discourse, the longest public discourse reported in the New Testament, except the Sermon on the Mount (Acts 7. 1-53). 4.) The _logical aim_ of his address: to show that the Jews had shown themselves unworthy of their trust, implying that it would be given to others. This sermon was never finished, being broken up by the riotous acts of the council. 2. =Saul's Persecution= (Acts 8. 1-3). We shall study this man's early history later. (See page 96). He was intense and furious in his loyalty to Judaism, and undertook to crush out the gospel of Christ by violent measures. See Acts 22. 4; 26. 10, 11; Gal. 1. 13. 1.) As a result the Pentecostal church was broken up and its members were scattered. 2.) But, as another effect, these disciples who were scattered went everywhere preaching (Acts 8. 4). These "preachers" were not the apostles; they were lay-members; not delivering sermons, but testifying in country synagogues and in homes the gospel of Christ. 3.) Another result followed, churches sprang up throughout Judea (Acts 9. 31), Samaria (Acts 8. 14), and Syria (Acts 9. 2, 10; Acts 11. 19). Thus Saul by his persecution unconsciously aided the spread of the gospel. 3. =The Gospel in Samaria= (Acts 8. 5-8). One of these disciples, Philip (not the apostle, but one of the "seven" Acts 6. 5), went to Samaria, and there preached with great success. A significant event, showing breadth of view and victory over prejudice. See John 4. 9. The Samaritans were regarded, not exactly as Gentiles, but as irregular and inferior, and despised even more than Gentiles. Still more significant, the Samaritan church was recognized by the apostles and received the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8. 14-17). Note also that, after his work in Samaria, Philip went down to the coast and established a chain of churches from Azotus to Cæsarea (Acts 8. 40). 4. =Peter's Vision= (Acts 10. 1-48), and the events accompanying it, was the next step in the forward movement of the church. The leading apostle and most prominent man in the church, under direction of the Spirit, journeys thirty miles to preach to a little company of Gentiles; the Spirit falls upon them, another Pentecost; and Peter baptizes them. Here, then, is a genuine church of Gentiles founded by an apostle; the first fruits of a great harvest. 5. The next step is even more momentous in its results, =the Conversion of Saul= (Acts 9. 1-19). It seems to be a sudden conversion, but one expression (Acts 9. 5) shows that Saul had been struggling against conviction. His enmity had not been so greatly against "Jesus as Christ" as against "Christ for all the world" i. e., the gospel as preached by Stephen; and when converted he went fully over to Stephen's view, and became Stephen's successor, with even larger vision. Note the order of events in Saul's early ministry. 1.) Preaching in Damascus (Acts 9. 20-22). 2.) Retirement to Arabia (Gal. 1. 17). This may mean almost anywhere to the east or south of Palestine. In our opinion, he went thither not to meditate nor to study theology, but to preach in the cities between Palestine and the desert. 3.) Again preaching in Damascus (Gal. 1. 17). His escape (Acts 9. 23-25). 4.) Visit to Jerusalem (Acts 9. 26-28). Whom he met on this visit (Gal. 1. 8, 19). The event which led to his departure from Jerusalem (Acts 22. 17-21). 5.) His return to his birthplace (Acts 9. 29, 30. Gal. 1. 21). Let the student draw on the map all the journeys of Saul, beginning with his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus before his conversion. VI. =The Church at Antioch.= (Acts 11. 19-30). Antioch was the third city of the Roman empire; capital of Syria, of which Judea was a dependency. Its many Jews had their synagogues, each with its "court of the Gentiles," where the Gentile worshipers sat during the services. In the story of this church note 1.) Its unnamed founders (Acts 11. 19). 2.) Its membership of both Jews and Gentiles (Acts 11. 20). See American Revised Version. 3.) Its prominence (Acts 11. 22-26). 4.) Its liberality (Acts 11. 27-30). 5.) Some of its workers (Acts 13. 1). 6.) Note how Saul came to be associated with this church (Acts 11. 25, 26). VII. =The First Missionary Journey= (Acts 13. 1-4). Another step in advance was taken when two missionaries went out to plant churches of both Jews and Gentiles. 1.) They were called by the Holy Spirit (ver. 2). 2.) Approved by the church (Ver. 3). 3.) Their method; whenever possible beginning with the synagogue, where they would have access both to devout Jews and devout Gentiles (Acts 13. 5). 4.) The lands visited. Cyprus (Acts 13. 4-6). Pisidia (Acts 13. 14). Lycaonia (Acts 14. 6). On the return journey, Pamphylia (Acts 14. 24, 25). Let the student draw the maps showing the lands and places, and the route of the journey. One province in the southern tier was left unvisited, Cilicia, because Paul had already preached there (Gal. 1. 21-23). [Illustration] VIII. =The Council at Jerusalem= (Acts 15). Of course such a spread of the gospel among the Gentiles would be very unwelcome to narrow Jewish believers. Their complaint and demand (Acts 15. 1, 2). Who attended the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15. 2-4). Who took prominent part in it (Acts 15. 7, 13). The conclusion of the Council (Acts 15. 27-29). The great question was now settled. Jews and Gentiles were standing at last on equality in the church, and the great transition from a Jewish church to a church for all the world was accomplished. Hints to the Teacher and the Student 1. Read carefully in the book of Acts from the 8th to the 15th chapter, inclusive. 2. Draw the map first from copy, then without copy; not seeking for accuracy, but aiming rather for correct relation of the lands to each other. 3. Study each section of the lesson; look up every reference, and note its relation to the general subject. Master the eight points in the outline thoroughly. 4. Draw on the map (or, better, on a series of maps) the following journeys: 1.) Philip's journeys. Acts 8. 2.) Peter's journeys. Acts 8 and 10. 3.) Saul's early journeys. 4.) The journey of Saul and Barnabas. 5.) The journeys in connection with the council at Jerusalem, going and returning. 5. Let the teacher call upon the scholars to tell as a story each of the eight points in the lesson, not from the text-book but from the book of Acts; each story by a student in turn. Blackboard Outline =Ch. in Trans.= 1.) Op. 2.) Clo. I. =Map.= Lands. Cy. Ju. Syr. Ph. Cil. Pam. Pi. Lyc. Places. Jer. Jop. Cæs. Dam. Ant. Tar. An (Pi) Lys. Der. II. =Prog. of Ev.= 1. =Pre. Ste.= 1.) En. 2.) Acc. 3.) Prom. 4.) Log. ai. 2. =Sau. Per.= Res. 1.) Pen. Ch. bro. up. 2.) Dis. everyw. prea. 3.) Chur. spr. up. 3. =Gosp. in Sam.= Phil. 4. =Pet. Vis.= Pet. and Corn. 5. =Conv. Sau.= Sau. ear. Min. 1.) Dam. 2.) Ara. 3.) Dam. 4.) Jeru. 5.) Tar. 6. =Ch. at. Ant.= 1.) Foun. 2.) Mem. 3.) Prom. 4.) Lib. 5.) Work. 6.) Sau. asso. 7. =Fir. Miss. Jour.= 1.) Cal. 2.) App. 3.) Meth. 4.) Lands. C. P. L. P. 8. =Coun. at Jer.= Review Questions With what events did the period of transition begin and end? How long was it? What was the state of the church when it opened? What was the state of the church when it closed? Name an island and seven lands connected with this period. Name ten places connected with the period. State the eight great events in the history of the church at this time. What preacher introduced this epoch? How do we know that he preached salvation for the Gentiles? What man's persecution at this time proved a help to the church? Tell the story of this persecution. What three results followed it? Who formed the church in Samaria? Who were the Samaritans? How was the church recognized? Tell the story of a remarkable vision on a housetop. To what did that vision lead? Tell the story of a persecutor's conversion to Christ. Where did this conversion take place? What were the events in Saul's life that followed this conversion? What important church arose in Syria? Who were its founders? Who constituted its membership? Who were its leaders? What facts showed its prominence and influence? How came Saul to be associated with this church? Who went out as missionaries? Who went with them as helper? What became of this young man? What was their method of work? What lands did they visit? In what cities did they found churches? What led to the council at Jerusalem? Who attended the council? Who spoke in it? What were its conclusions? How did this end the period of transition in the church? FIFTEENTH STUDY The Church Twenty Years After the Ascension We have now studied the two earliest periods in the history of the Christian church and have come to the year 50 A. D., twenty years after the Ascension of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit on the first Pentecost. Let us look over the field and see what at that time was the state of the church. I. =Its Extent.= Let the student draw again the map given with the last lesson, and locate upon it the following =lands=: 1. Judea (Palestine). 2. Syria. 3. Phoenicia. 4. Cyprus. 5. Cilicia. 6. Pamphylia. 7. Pisidia. 8. Lycaonia. In all these lands churches were established and at work. II. =Its Membership.= The members of the church consisted of two classes of people, widely apart by nature, but brought together by the gospel: 1. There were churches where all the members were =Jews=, as in Judea. These were all faithful to the regulations of the Jewish ceremonial law, and many of them almost bigoted in their opinions concerning it (Acts 15. 1, 5). 2. There were other churches, as in Lycaonia, where all or nearly all the members were =Gentiles= (Acts 14. 6-13). In these the Jewish rules were unrecognized, almost unknown. 3. Between these two extremes was the great body of churches of =both Jews and Gentiles=. The two classes worshiped together; Jews remaining Jews, and Gentiles remaining Gentiles; but probably received the Lord's Supper apart, as it was as yet a house-service, not held at the public meetings. 4. While in most churches there was harmony, on both sides there were some radical members; but especially among the Jews. These were the =Judaizers=; men who sought to compel all the disciples to receive circumcision, obey the ceremonial law and make the Christian church subordinate to Jewish ritualism. These were the enemies of Paul to the end of his ministry, perverting the Gentile churches and opposing the apostle's work. III. =Its Leaders.= Three names stand out prominently at this time: 1. =Paul=, as the leader of the church in its world-wide plans, the apostle to the Gentiles (Gal. 2. 7). 2. =James=, as leader of the Jewish but not Judaizing elements (Acts 13. 13, 19). This was not James the apostle, for he had been put to death some time before this (Acts 12. 2); but James "the brother of the Lord" (Gal. 1. 19). He was the head of the church in Jerusalem and author of the Epistle of James. 3. =Peter=, who stood in friendly relation to both parties in the church, although his conduct was not always perfectly consistent with regard to Jewish regulations (Acts 11. 2, 3; Gal. 2. 11-14). Between these three leaders there was a clear understanding and no strong division of spirit, although they might not agree in all points. 4. Other leaders in this period were =Philip= (Acts 8. 40; 21. 8). =Barnabas=, =Silas= of Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts 15. 22, 32, 40), and =Titus= (Gal. 2. 1-4). IV. =Its Government.= In our time the church is often a highly wrought organization, with articles of faith, orders, and officials of various grades. We are apt to assume such a condition in the early church. But at the time of which we speak there was very little organization or machinery; and there was little need of any, for a special reason: _Every member was under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit_, living in fellowship with God, without mediation of priest or church. Yet we find certain officers named in the church: 1. =Apostles=, originally "the twelve," but changes arose and others were called by the title, for example, Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14. 14); James (Gal. 1. 19). The work of the apostles was not primarily government, but inspired testimony to Jesus as the Christ (Acts 1. 22; 6. 4); nowhere in Acts are the apostles represented as ruling the church (Acts 15. 6, 22). 2. =Elders= (Acts 11. 30; 14. 23; 15. 4). These were analogous to the same officers in the synagogue, from which the plan of the local churches was taken. 3. =Prophets= (Acts 11. 27, 28; Acts 13. 1; Acts 15. 32). Men who spoke out of direct fellowship with the Lord, and under inspiration of the Spirit; sometimes, though not always, giving predictions of future events. 4. =Teachers= (Acts 13. 1). Men who gave instruction in the Christian character; probably largely from recollection or knowledge of the teaching of Christ. The difference between "prophesy" and "teaching" was that the former was the more spontaneous and the latter the more educative in the principles of the gospel. V. =Its Doctrinal Views.= These remained substantially as in the first period. There was little tendency toward intellectual questionings while the church remained under Jewish influence. The discussion was rather regarding Jewish ceremonial regulations. The Messiahship, Resurrection and Return of Jesus were still the prominent teaching of the period. VI. =Its Moral Standards.= The church is now face to face with the heathen world and all its abominable vices. Heathen moralists continually made excuse for the immorality which was so generally practiced. But Christianity made no compromise; set forth the high standard of the gospel, with the character of Christ as its ideal. This high standard unswervingly maintained was one secret of the church's power and growth. Notice, a little later than this period, in St. Paul's writings, the strong ethical spirit. VII. =Its Meeting-places.= As yet "churches" or buildings for worship were not erected. The disciples met with the Jews in the synagogue or established synagogues of their own (James 2. 2). Often they met, even later than this period, in the upper rooms of private houses (Acts 20. 8; Rom. 16. 3-5; Philem. 2). VIII. =Its Literature.= This was still the =Old Testament= only; no book of the New Testament having been written as early as 50 A. D. These writings were familiar to all the Jewish members, and almost equally familiar to the Gentiles who attended the synagogue. Was there an "oral gospel" in existence? Probably not in any set, authorized form; but repeated as the narration of teachings and works of Jesus. The tendency would naturally be for these teachings to settle into a few accepted forms or "gospels." IX. Wherein did =the Unity of the Church= consist? Not in organization, nor government, nor doctrinal statement; but in a =common spiritual life=. They were of one heart and one mind, loved each other, contributed to each other's needs (Acts 11. 29; Gal. 2. 10), visited each other's churches (Acts 11. 22, 27, 30; 13. 25; 15. 27, 32). This was, and is, true church unity. Blackboard Outline =Ch. 20 Ye. af. Asc.= I. =Ext.= Ja. Sy. Ph. Cy. Cil. Pam. Pi. Lyc. II. =Mem.= 1. Je. 2. Gen. 3. Both J. and G. 4. "Judai." III. =Lead.= 1. Pau. 2. Jam. 3. Pet. 4. Phi. 5. Bar. 6. Sil. 7. Tit. IV. =Gov.= (Dir. Guid. H. S). 1. Aps. 2. El. 3. Pro. 4. Tea. V. =Doc. Vie.= Mes. Res. Ret. Jes. VI. =Mor. Stan.= "No comp." VII. =Meet. Pla.= Syn. "Up. roo." VIII. =Lit.= O. T. "Or. gosp." IX. =Uni.= Com. spir. lif. Review Questions What stage in the church's progress do we now consider? In what lands was the church established at this time? What two classes of people constituted its membership? How did these two classes worship together? What service was observed in the homes of members? Who were the Judaizers? What harm did they do? Name the three great leaders at this time. Who was James? Give an instance when Peter was not entirely consistent in his conduct. Name four other leaders and a fact about each. Why did the church of that time need very little government? Name four kinds of officers in the church. What was the special work of the apostles? Where did the elders originate? With what churches are elders named in this period? What were the prophets in the church? Name some who are called prophets in this period. What was the work of teachers in the church? Were doctrinal studies or discussions prominent at this time? What were the three prominent doctrines of the church? Why do the moral standards of the church come into prominence at this time? What were those standards? Where did the Christians hold their meetings? What was the literature of the church at this time? What do you understand by "the oral gospel?" Was such a gospel in existence? Wherein did the unity of the church consist? How was this unity shown? SIXTEENTH STUDY The Preparation of Paul for his Work PART ONE Before we enter upon the study of "The church among the Gentiles," our next period, there is a preliminary topic to be considered. The only record which we possess of the period before us, the Book of Acts, not only represents Paul as the leading worker for the gospel, but it even omits all reports of the work of other apostles and evangelists. There must have been other workers: Peter, Barnabas, Philip, and other workers were still living, and must have been active in founding churches; but their work is not mentioned. We find mention of churches which Paul had not founded (Acts 21. 3, 7; Acts 28. 13, 14, 15). Paul stands before us as the leading and the typical worker in the gospel. We will therefore take for our theme, =The Preparation and Methods of Paul=. At A. D. 50 Paul is now at Antioch, about fifty years old, having been born probably about four years after Jesus Christ. His first missionary journey has taken place, and he is now about to enter upon his second missionary journey. Let us notice some of his advantages for leadership in the gospel. I. He was =a Jew=. (See Phil. 3. 5; Rom. 11. 1). The leader in this movement must be a Jew. 1. Because as a Jew he would have a _training_ in Bible knowledge, and in the _faith_ of a coming Messiah such as no Gentile could possess. 2. Moreover the work in nearly all places must begin in the synagogue. (See Acts 17. 1; 2. 10; 18. 1, 4; 19. 1, 8). And only a Jew could take part in its services. II. He was a =Trained and Recognized Rabbi=: an accredited teacher of the law; "a college man" with the prestige of scholarship won in the school of Gamaliel, the greatest Jewish master of that age (Acts 5. 34; Acts 22. 3). Such a teacher would be welcome in any synagogue. In this respect contrast Paul with Peter and the other apostles (Acts 4. 13). III. He was a =Hellenist=, or "Grecian Jew;" i. e., a Jew of the Dispersion; by birth and environment broader than the Jews of Jerusalem, who rarely came in contact with Gentiles. He was a traveler acquainted with the world; spoke Greek as fluently as Hebrew, an absolute necessity for preaching to Gentiles (Acts 21. 37, 40). He spoke to the Greek philosophers in their own tongue and after their own manner. Contrast Acts 17. 22 with Acts 22. 1. Tradition says that Peter, when at Rome, used an interpreter in preaching to the church. Paul's ability to speak at least two languages gave him a great advantage. IV. Another advantage was that he was by birth a =Roman Citizen= (Acts 16. 37. Acts 22. 25-28). This privilege, at that time rare among those outside of Italy, gave the apostle safety, immunity from imprisonment by the local rulers, and the right to a trial before a Roman judge, with appeal to the emperor. James was put to death, and Peter thrown into prison by King Herod (Acts 12. 2-4); but Paul was by his citizenship undoubtedly saved more than once from torture and from death. V. He was a divinely-called =Apostle=. When he spoke it was with all the fervor and authority of one who had seen the Lord and had received a special command from the lips of the ascended Christ to bear testimony to his gospel. His call came with his conversion (Acts 26. 12-19). He claimed the authority of an apostle (Gal. 1. 1; 1 Cor. 9. 1). Notice that in his letters Paul always places "apostles" before "prophets" (Eph. 2. 20; 3. 5; 4. 11), as holding the higher office in the church. VI. He possessed rare =Natural Endowments= for his work. 1. He was a man of _sympathy_, warm-hearted and tender; making strong friendships, drawing men after him. Note how in every place he found friends (Acts 19. 31; 20. 4; 27. 3, 43). 2. He was a _preacher_ of power. He was a master of the art of public speaking; and people would always listen to him with the deepest interest (Acts 17. 22-31. Acts 22. 1-2. Acts 26. 1-26). 3. He was a _theologian_. He saw the great truths of the gospel in clearer light than any of his co-workers. Under the guidance of the Spirit he formulated a system of doctrine (Gal. 1. 11, 12), which he sometimes called "my gospel" (Rom. 2. 16; 2 Tim. 2. 8). This "gospel according to Paul," presented in his great epistles, came to be the theology of the church, and so remains. 4. He possessed rare _tact_ in dealing with men; knew how to adapt his methods to people of varied races and views. His manner of preaching at Athens was very different from that in Jerusalem. Note 1 Cor. 9. 19-22. 5. He was a _natural leader_ of men; ready to take responsibilities, quick to decide, yet thoughtful of others. He possessed the ruling spirit, yet was no imperious, self-willed man. People were as ready to follow as he was to lead. 6. He was a _tireless worker_; indomitable and undiscouraged, caring little for hardship (2 Cor. 11. 23-28), although he seems to have been delicate in health. See allusions 2 Cor. 12. 7-10. Gal. 4. 13. Notice the field of his labors, in the middle of his ministry (Rom. 15. 19). Notice too his plans for regions more distant (Rom. 15. 24). Blackboard Outline PART ONE =Pau. Prep. & Meth.= I. =Je.= 1. Train. fai. 2. Part in Syn. II. =Trai. Rec. Rab.= Sch. of Gam. III. =Hell.= "Gre. J." Trav. Gre. Lang. IV. =Rom. cit.= V. =Apos.= VI. =Nat. Endow.= 1. Sym. 2. Pre. 3. Theol. 4. Tac. 5. Nat. lead. 6. Tir. Work. Review Questions PART ONE What prominence does the book of Acts give to Paul in the period of the church among the Gentiles? How do we know that there were other workers at that time? Name some of these other workers. What churches are named which could not have been founded by Paul? What was Paul's age at the opening of this period? What were some advantages which Paul possessed for his work? What were the advantages of his birth and training as a Jew? What education did he receive, and wherein was it a help to him? To what great branch of the Jews did Paul belong? How was this fact an advantage in his work? Of what nation was he a citizen? Name instances when this fact was of avail to Paul. With what authority could Paul speak? Whence came this authority? What were some of Paul's natural endowments for his ministry? What does Paul mean by the expression, "my gospel"? What showed his industry as a worker? PART TWO VII. We must also study Paul's =Methods of Work=. These were varied greatly according to circumstances, but in them we may note certain principles. 1. _He took fellow workers_ with him. Notice his companions on his first journey. Acts 13. 2-5. On his second journey. Acts 15. 40; 16. 1-3. What other companion is indicated in the word "we" in Acts 16. 10? On his third journey. Acts 19. 22, 29. Other companions on this journey. Acts 20. 4, 5. This method gave 1.) _Mutual encouragement_. Paul was social, loved companionship; was sometimes melancholy when alone (Acts 17. 15, 16; 2 Cor. 2. 12, 13; 2 Cor. 7. 5, 6). 2.) _Power in co-operation_; two can do much more than twice as much as one. 3.) There was also _training_ for younger workers, whom Paul always took with him; e. g., Mark, Timothy, and perhaps Titus. 2. _He chose the cities_; and of these the largest and most important centers of population. Antioch, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome. Paul was, in training and tastes, a man of the city, not of the country. He took great interest in men, but apparently none in nature. Contrast Paul in this respect with Christ, most of whose illustrations were drawn from nature. One result of Paul's choice of the cities was the wide and rapid diffusion of the gospel. The cities became Christian long before the country-places. The word "pagan" literally means "countryman," but it came to mean a worshiper of idols. See the effect of Paul's two years in Ephesus (Acts 19. 10). "The seven churches of Asia" (Rev. 1. 11) were the outgrowth of Paul's work in Ephesus. 3. _He supported himself by his trade._ His occupation. Acts 18. 3. References to his self-support in different places. 1 Cor. 4. 12; 1 Thess. 2. 9; Acts 20. 34; Paul's was a "self-supporting mission," because there was no society to support him and he would not lay the burden upon those just converted. But although he asked no contributions, he accepted them when tendered. Phil. 4. 15; 16. 18. 4. _He began in the synagogue._ In every large city there were Jewish synagogues; and in these Paul could speak as an accepted Rabbi. Note how constantly he made use of the synagogue. Acts 13. 4, 5. Acts 14. 1. Acts 17. 1. Acts 18. 4, 19. This method gave him access to the worshiping Scripture-loving _Jews_, to whom he felt called to give the gospel first (Rom. 1. 16). But it also gave him access to the thoughtful, serious _Gentiles_ who were seeking after God; and from this class came many of the early Christians. Notice that in Paul's opening address in Antioch in Pisidia he addressed both these classes (Acts 13. 16). The synagogue among the Jews of the dispersion was a great aid to the gospel. 5. He formed _acquaintance with rulers_ and influential men in many places; in so many that it cannot have been accidental, but must have been a part of his plan. Examine the following references, and note names and places: Acts 13. 7. Acts 17. 34. Rom. 16. 23. Acts 19. 31. Acts 28. 7. These friendships were often of great service to Paul, especially when opposed by his own people. 6. _He used the pen_ as well as the voice. He wrote many letters, not so much to spread the gospel as to strengthen and instruct the churches which he had planted. A number of his letters to churches and to individuals have been preserved; but it is evident that some have been lost (1 Cor. 5. 9. Col. 4. 16). 7. He strengthened his work by frequently _revisiting his churches_. Notice a re-visitation on his first journey (Acts 14. 21). The same churches visited again on his second journey (Acts 16. 1-4). Again on his third journey he passed through the same places (Acts 19. 1). A re-visitation of the European churches (Acts 20. 1, 2). VIII. Note, lastly, =Paul's Enemies=; those who throughout his journeys opposed, fought, persecuted him. Almost everywhere his work stirred up violent antagonisms. This came in different places from three sources: 1. _The Jews_, whose opposition came not so much from his preaching Jesus as the Messiah as from his willingness to receive Gentiles into the church. He was regarded as breaking down the distinctions between Jew and Gentile. Note instances of persecution from this source (Acts 13. 45, 50. Acts 14. 1, 2. Acts 14. 19. Acts 17. 5. Acts 21. 27). 2. _The Judaizing Christians_; professed disciples who were opposed to Gentile membership in the church (Acts 15. 1, 5. Acts 21. 20, 21. Phil. 1. 14-17). As the years passed the proportion of Jews to Gentiles in the church became less and less, and this party diminished in power. 3. _The Gentiles._ In only two places do we find persecution stirred up against Paul by Gentiles without suggestion by Jews. Note the places and circumstances in Acts 16. 16-24. Acts 19 23-30. In each instance private interests caused the trouble. As yet there was no strife between Christianity and the imperial government. But Paul saw the trials impending, and not far distant, and he forewarned his churches of sharper persecution soon to come (Thess. 2. 3-10. Acts 20. 29. Phil. 1. 28-30). Blackboard Outline Part Two VII. =Pau. Meth. Wor.= 1. Fell. work. 2. Ch. cit. 3. Sup. by tra. 4. Beg. syn. 5. Acq. w. ral. 6. Us. pen. 7. Rev. chu. VIII. =Pau. Ene.= 1. Je. 2. Jud. Chr. 3. Gen. Review Questions. Part Two Name seven facts about Paul's methods of work in the gospel. Who were his companions on his first, second, and third journeys? What were the benefits of having fellow-workers? Name some cities where Paul labored longest. How is Paul contrasted in this respect with Jesus Christ? What was the effect of beginning the work in the great cities? How was Paul supported while preaching? Why did he follow that plan? In what place did Paul begin his work wherever possible? Whom did he reach in that method? Name some rulers and influential people in different places who were friends of Paul. What use of the pen did Paul make in his ministry? Show how he frequently revisited his churches. What three classes of people were enemies of Paul in his work? Name instances when the Jews opposed him. What was their reason for their opposition? What opposition did he meet from fellow-Christians? At what places was he persecuted by Gentiles? What was the attitude of the Roman government at that time toward Christianity? SEVENTEENTH STUDY The Church among the Gentiles From the Council at Jerusalem, A. D. 50, To the Death of St. Paul, A. D. 68. PART ONE The history of this period of eighteen years, as contained in the book of Acts, is limited to the labors of St. Paul, who was pre-eminently the apostle to the Gentiles (2 Tim. 1. 11). I. Let us draw the =map of the lands= embraced in the later journeys of the apostle Paul. 1. _The Lands_: 1.) Asia Minor. 2.) Thrace. 3.) Macedonia. 4.) Greece or Achaia. 5.) Italy. 6.) Africa, not visited by Paul. 7.) Palestine or Judea. 8.) Syria. 2. _The Localities._ 1.) Jerusalem. 2.) Antioch. 3.) Ephesus. 4.) Troas. 5.) Philippi. 6.) Thessalonica. 7.) Berea. 8.) Athens. 9.) Corinth. 10.) Rome. II. =Paul's Second Missionary Journey.= The gospel in Europe (A. D. 51-53). Notice: 1. _His companions_: the quarrel with Barnabas and separation (Acts 15. 36-39). Barnabas at this point drops out of the record. Silas, Timothy, and later Luke, accompany Paul (Acts 15. 40; 16. 1; 16. 10). Luke's profession, perhaps therein helping the apostle (Col. 4. 14). 2. _Asia Minor revisited._ Note and locate the provinces through which they passed, starting from Antioch: 1.) Cilicia (Acts 15. 41). 2.) Lycaonia (Acts 16. 1, 3.) Probably Pisidia (Acts 16. 4). 4.) Galatia. 5.) Phrygia (Acts 16. 6). Through Mysia to Troas (Acts 16. 8). Locate these provinces on the map. 3. _The Gospel in Europe._ Note the events which led to the voyage across the �gean Sea (Acts 16. 9). Trace the route on the map--from what city? to what city? The three cities in Macedonia (Acts 16. 12; 17. 1; 17. 10). The two cities in Greece (Acts 17. 15; 18. 1). Note the long stay in Corinth (Acts 18. 11); the largest city in Greece and the commercial metropolis, at that time far more important than Athens. Review and locate the five cities in Europe thus far visited, P. T. B. A. C., and recall the peculiar events at each place. 4. _The two Epistles to the Thessalonians_ were written while Paul was at Corinth, perhaps 52 and 53 A. D. These are the earliest extant writings of Paul, and the earliest books of the New Testament. Two subjects are presented in both letters: 1.) General precepts concerning _Christian character_. 2.) The _second coming of Christ_. 5. _A visit to Ephesus_, the chief city of Asia Minor (Acts 18. 18, 19). Notice what would be the direct route from Corinth. Paul's stay at this time was short, but with promise of a speedy return. 6. _Return to Antioch._ The route, from Ephesus to Cæsarea, thence to the mother church at Jerusalem; thence 250 miles either by land via Damascus, or by water via Cæsarea (Acts 18. 22). The great result of the second missionary journey was the planting of the gospel in Europe. The churches founded were composed of both Jews and Gentiles, with the latter largely in the majority. Blackboard Outline PART ONE I. =Map.= 1. Lands. 1.) A. M. 2.) Th. 3.) Mac. 4.) Gre. 5.) It. 6.) Af. 7.) Pal. 8.) Syr. 2. =Pla.= 1.) Jer. 2.) Ant. 3.) Eph. 4.) Tro. 5.) Phi. 6.) Thes. 7.) Ber. 8.) Ath. 9.) Cor. II. =Pau. Sec. Miss. Jour.= 1. Comp. S. T. L. 2. _As. Min. Rev._ 1.) Cil. 2.) Ly. 3.) Pi. 4.) Gal. 5.) Ph. 6.) My. T. 3. _Gos. in Eur._ Tro. Phil. Thess. Ber. Ath. Cor. 4. _Ep. Thess._ 1.) Chr. Char. 2.) Chr. sec. com. 5. _Vis. Eph._ 6. _Ret. Ant._ Result-Gosp. Eur. Review Questions. Part One What lands in Asia are named with this lesson on the map? What lands in Europe? What localities in Palestine and Syria? Localities in Asia Minor? Localities in Europe? Who were Paul's companions on his second missionary journey? What places of his earlier journey were revisited at this time? What new places did he visit in Asia Minor? What event called Paul to go to Europe? In what city in Europe did Paul first preach the gospel? How was his work in that city interrupted? What other places in Macedonia did he visit? In which of these places did he find the people "more noble"? What cities in Greece did he visit? In which city did he stay for a long time, and for what reason? What letters were written during this journey? From what place was each written? What was the subject or purpose of each epistle? What large city in Asia Minor was the last one visited on this journey? At what places did Paul stop on his return journey? Where did his journey end? What was the great result of this journey? PART TWO II. =Paul's Third Missionary Journey= (A. D. 54-58). His companions are named in Acts 19. 22. The latter seems to have been a man of importance from Corinth (Rom. 16. 23). We trace the journey, starting, as both the former journeys, from Antioch: 1. _From Antioch to Ephesus_ (Acts 18. 23). He went through Galatia and Phrygia, visiting churches already founded. Some think that this indicates a fourth visit to Lycaonia and Pisidia, as those lands were loosely regarded as belonging to Galatia; but this is not certain. 2. _Three years in Ephesus._ (Acts 19. 1-20.) In this metropolis of Asia Minor Paul made a stay longer than in any other place during his ministry. As results, churches arose in all that region: Colossæ (Col. 2. 2; 2. 1), Hierapolis (Col. 4. 13), and "the seven churches of Asia" (Rev. 1. 11). 3. _Macedonia and Greece revisited._ We can tell what places he would visit in this journey through former fields, although they are not named--the four or five cities wherein he had already planted churches: Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea (Athens?), Corinth. One of his errands on this journey, not mentioned in Acts, is frequently referred to in the epistles of this period, his _collection for the poor Christians in Judea_. See Rom. 15. 26, 27. 1 Cor. 16. 1-3. 2 Cor. 9. 1-4. Probably the care of these funds was one reason for the large number of disciples accompanying Paul on his return journey (Acts 20. 4). 4. _Epistles of this Period._ These were the following: 1.) _First Corinthians_, written from Ephesus, perhaps about 57 A. D. Its occasion (1 Cor. 1. 11, 12). Its purpose, to set forth a true church-life. 2.) _Second Corinthians_ (57 A. D.), probably written from Macedonia. (2 Cor. 7. 5; 8. 1); its purpose, mainly a defense of Paul's apostolic authority. 3.) _Galatians_, also probably from Macedonia (57 A. D). Its occasion, the influence of Judaizing teachers on Paul's churches in Galatia (Gal. 1. 6, 7). "Galatia" may refer to the regions in Lycaonia and Pisidia (according to Ramsay); but most expositors refer it to Galatia Proper, north of those provinces. The theme of this book is "Salvation by faith _only_." 4.) _Romans_ was written from Corinth perhaps in 58 A. D. See Rom. 16. 1, a reference to the seaport of Corinth. Its subject is "Justification by Faith." Notice how important were the writings of this period. 5. _The return journey_ (Acts 20. 6-21, 17). Note the route and places, which should be traced on the map. 1.) Philippi (Acts 20. 6). 2.) Troas (Acts 20. 6-13). What took place at Troas? 3.) Voyage to Miletus (Acts 20. 14, 15). 4.) At Miletus, a touching address (Acts 20. 17-38). 5.) Voyage to Tyre (Acts 21. 1-6). 6.) Ptolemais (Acts 21. 7). 7.) Cæsarea (Acts 21. 8-15.) A remarkable meeting. 8.) Jerusalem (Acts 21. 17). Paul's errand to Jerusalem was to present the contribution of the Gentile churches; seeking to reconcile them with the mother church in Jerusalem, which was exceedingly bigoted in its zeal for the law (Acts 21. 20, 21). 6. =Paul's arrest and imprisonment= (Acts 21. 27-34). Our purpose is not to narrate the personal life of St. Paul but to show the development of the Christian church, therefore we do not enter into the details of his experience. He was arrested in Jerusalem, and placed in the castle of Antonia for his protection (Acts 21. 24); subsequently taken to Cæsarea (Acts 23. 25-35). Here he remained in prison two years (Acts 24. 27). During this time Paul was placed on trial at least four times: 1.) Before the Jewish council of the Sanhedrim. (Acts 23. 1-10.) 2.) Before the Roman governor or procurator Felix. (Acts 24:. 1-22.) 3.) Before Festus, the successor of Felix. (Acts 25. 1-12.) 4.) Before Agrippa, the ethnarch of the Bashan district, called by courtesy "King Agrippa." (Acts 26. 1-32.) Blackboard Outline PART TWO III. =Pau. Thir. Miss. Jour.= (54-58). Comp. Tim. Eras. 1. _Ant. to Eph._ Gal. Phr. 2. _Thr. Ye. Eph._ Res. Col. Hier. "Sev. Ch. As." 3. _Mac. Gre. Rev._ Phil. Thes. Ber. (Ath.?) Cor. Coll. for Jud. 4. _Ep. Per._ 1.) 1 Cor. Eph. 57. Tr. Ch. Lif. 2.) 2 Cor. 57. Mac. P. ap. auth. 3.) Gal. Mac. 57. "Jud. tea." "Salv. fai. on." 4.) Rom. Cor. 58. "Jus. by fai." 5. _Ret. Jour._ 1.) Ph. 2.) Tro. 3.) Voy. Mil. 4.) Mil. 5.) Voy. Tyr. 6.) Ptol. 7.) Cæs. 8.) Jer. 6. _Pau. Arr. & Imp._ Jer. Cæs. Review Questions, Part Two Who were companions of Paul on his third journey? From what city did he start? Through what lands did he first pass? What great city was his principal field of labor? In what neighboring cities did churches arise as a result? What provinces in Europe, and what cities in them, did he revisit? What was one of his important errands on this journey? Who accompanied Paul on his return? What letters were written while Paul was on this journey? Name the place from which each of these epistles was written. State the approximate date of each letter. What was the purpose or theme of each letter? Name some of the places where Paul stopped on his return journey. What took place at Troas? What took place at Miletus? Whom did Paul meet at Cæsarea? What was Paul's destination? What was his purpose in visiting the mother church? What happened to Paul at Jerusalem? To what place was he afterwards taken? How long was he a prisoner in that place? PART THREE IV. =Paul's Fourth Journey= (Acts 27 and 28). Although made by a prisoner, some of the time wearing a chain (Acts 26. 29; 28. 20), the journey to Rome was a missionary journey, in many respects like Paul's other journeys. To visit Rome had long been his desire and expectation (Acts 19. 21. Rom. 1. 15. Rom. 15. 23, 24). His companions on the journey, Luke, Aristarchus (Acts 27. 1, 2), and probably Timothy. 1. On the voyage he was able to bring the _gospel to the island of Malta_ (Acts 28. 7-10). 2. Arriving at _Rome_ (Acts 28. 16) he took up his work as nearly as possible according to his _regular method_. 1.) He found a _home_ and _employment_ (Acts 28. 16). 2.) As he could not go to the synagogue he _sent for the chief Jews_ and preached the gospel to them (Acts 28. 17-24). 3.) He then turned to the Gentiles (Acts 28. 28-31). 4.) Some _results_ of his ministry in Rome (Phil 1. 12-18). 3. _The Epistles of Paul's Imprisonment at Rome._ The order of these is uncertain, but they belong rather to the close of the period than to its opening. 1.) _Ephesians_; called by S. T. Coleridge "the divinest composition of man;" written A. D. 62; its subject, "The mystical union of Christ and his church." 2.) _Philippians_; the most affectionate of all Paul's letters; written A. D. 62; its subject "The character of Christ's followers." 3.) _Colossians_; written to a church that Paul had never seen; about A. D. 62; subject, "Christ the Head of the Church." 4.) _Philemon_: a personal letter to a friend at Colossæ concerning a _runaway slave_ Onesimus, whom Paul sent back, "no longer a slave, but a brother beloved." V. =Paul's Later Years.= The record is uncertain, and almost unknown. It is probable, though not certain, that Paul was set free about 63 A. D. 1. _His years of liberty._ 63 to 67 A. D. Shall we speak of a _fifth journey_? We find hints or expectations of his being at Colossæ (Philem. 22); Miletus (2 Tim. 4. 13); Nicopolis, north of Greece, on the Adriatic Sea (Titus 3. 12). Tradition states that at this place he was arrested, and sent from it a second time to Rome. 2. _His last epistles._ It is not certain that all the "pastoral epistles" were written by Paul. 1.) They are unlike his other writings in their style. 2.) His doctrinal views are not prominent in them. Yet on the whole, they show a reasonable probability of Paul's authorship. 1.) _First Timothy_ was written during the period of liberty, between 63 and 66 A. D., as a book of _counsels to a minister_, Timothy, in charge of the church at Ephesus. 2.) _Titus_, about the same time and for the same purpose; to Titus, in charge of churches on the island of Crete. 3.) _Second Timothy_, from Rome, during Paul's second and last imprisonment; a letter of farewell counsels to his "son Timothy." Strictly speaking this book should be named under the next subject. VI. =The First Imperial Persecution.= The Christians were becoming numerous in Rome, as well as throughout the empire; and a conflict was sure to arise with the Roman government. The first persecution came soon after the burning of Rome, A. D. 64, which Nero charged falsely upon the Christians. Thousands were put to death, although the persecution was mainly limited to the capital. The _martyrdom of St. Paul_, probably of St. Peter also, took place about 68 A. D. at Rome. Blackboard Outline PART THREE IV. =Pau. Fou. Jour.= Pris. Comp. Lu. Aris. Tim. 1. Gos. Mal. 2. Ro. 1.) Ho. Emp. 2.) Sent. Ch. Je. 3.) Tur. Gen. 4.) Res. min. 3. Ep. Pau. Imp. 1.) Eph. "Mys. Un. Ch. and Ch." 2.) Phil. "Char. Chr. fol." 3.) Col. "Chr. Hea. Ch." 4.) Philem. Run. Sla. V. =Pau. Lat. Ye.= 1. Yea. Lib. Col. Mil. Nicop. 2. Las. Ep. 1.) 1 Tim. 2.) Tit. 3.) 2 Tim. VI. =Fir. Imp. Per.= Mart. Pau. 68 A. D. Review Questions. Part Three Under what circumstances did Paul make his fourth journey? Who were his companions? Where did he preach the gospel on his journey? How did he follow his regular method, as far as possible, at Rome? What were some results of his ministry in Rome? What epistles were written at Rome? What is the subject of these epistles? How long was Paul at liberty after his first imprisonment? What places did he probably visit during those years? What were the last three epistles written by Paul? What is the subject of each epistle? How did the first imperial persecution of the Christians arise? Who probably suffered martyrdom at this time? EIGHTEENTH STUDY The End of the Age From the Death of St. Paul, A. D. 68, to the Death of St. John, 100 A. D. PART ONE We come now to our last period, an _age of shadows_, of which we know very little, and wish that we knew more. The curtain of New Testament history falls while St. Paul is still a prisoner at Rome, five years before the supposed date of his death. From that time, A. D. 63, to about A. D. 125 there is very little history, and none in the New Testament; we are left to hints, traditions, and conjectures. A question which we would like to answer is, What became of the _companions_ of St. Paul: such men as Timothy (Heb. 13. 23), Titus (2 Tim. 4. 10), Apollos (Titus 3. 13), Luke (2 Tim. 4. 11)? All of these were living and working at the close of Paul's life; but there is no report of their life and labors after that event. Another perplexing fact is that when the curtain rises at about 125 A. D. it shows us a very _different church_ from that of St. Paul's day: a church completely organized, with bishops in almost absolute control; and sects quarreling over controversies apparently unknown when St. Paul wrote his letters. While Peter and Paul were living the church had wise and statesmanlike leaders, who directed its energies. But when these great men died "second-rate men" were left in control and they were not equal to the demand of the new time; and the church drifted into disputes, which grew into divisions. Let us notice the few known =Events of this Period=. I. =The Fall of Jerusalem=: epoch-making, not only to Jewish but also to Christian history. 1. The _rebellion of the Jews_ against the Roman power began in 68 A. D.; hopeless from the beginning--for how could one small state measure swords with the empire of the civilized world? The city of Jerusalem was taken and destroyed 70 A. D., and with it fell forever the Jewish state. 2. The _siege had been predicted_ in the gospels (Matt. 24. 15-18; Mark 13. 14), and was expected by the disciples of Christ. The _Christians_ in Jerusalem and Judea _withdrew_ to _Pella_ in the Jordan valley; but their numbers were not large, showing that Jewish Christianity must have declined since A. D. 58 (see Acts 21. 20), while Gentile Christianity had increased. After the destruction of Jerusalem Jewish Christianity remained for 200 years a feeble and declining sect, hated by their own people as traitors, and despised by Gentile Christians because they still observed the Jewish law. 3. The effect of the fall of Jerusalem was to draw a sharp line of _division between Jews and Christians_. Before, the two classes had been closely related, and confused in the popular mind. Thenceforth the two streams ran further and further apart, and have continued apart even to our own time. All Jewish rites ceased in the church, Christians could no longer be Jews; and after 125 A. D. Jews could no longer be Christians without renouncing Judaism. The church was now thoroughly a Gentile, non-Jewish church. Note in the gospel of John how "the Jews" are everywhere named as enemies of Christ (John 5. 16; 7. 1; 11. 8; 18. 36); and yet the author of this book was himself a Jew by birth and training; but at the time of writing he had ceased to be a Jew. II. =St. John at Ephesus.= Ephesus, at the western end of Asia Minor, was now the leading city of Christianity. It is probable that the apostle John passed the last thirty years of his life in that city. He was revered as the _last of the apostles_; but he was not a statesman or man of affairs; rather a mystic and man of meditation. It is supposed that he died about 100 A. D. but the date is not certain. III. =The Rise of the Heresies.= 1. This was the inevitable _result of the Greek mind_ working on the simple doctrines of the gospel. The Christian doctrine was Jewish; and the Jewish mind was not given to subtle intellectual questions. But when Christianity ceased to be Jewish and began to Gentile it was dominated by the Greek spirit of restless inquiry. Asia Minor was the home of wild, uncontrolled thinking. Sects almost without number appeared, wrangled, and divided over every article of the creed. The more mysterious the question, the more apart from practical life and from human interest, the more fascinating became the study. 2. Two great classes of sects embraced many minor groups. 1.) _The Ebionites._ Strict Jews, who sought to make Christianity a branch of Pharisaism, keeping the Jewish law. 2.) _The Gnostics._ People with peculiar views concerning the nature of God, heavenly beings, the nature of Christ. 3. The _results_ of these controversies were both good and evil. 1.) _Good_ in that the clashing of ideas aided in _fixing_ in permanent form the true _doctrines_ of the church. 2.) But far more _evil_; for the energies of the members were absorbed in debate and controversy; the spiritual life of the church greatly declined; the aim ceased to be devotion to Christ, but was now orthodoxy in belief. Christianity became a creed, instead of an inner spiritual life. IV. =The Second Imperial Persecution=; under the emperor Domitian, son of Titus, about A. D. 95. This was far more widely extended than the former persecution under Nero; and it was followed by a long series of persecutions, wherein untold thousands of Christians were put to death. The inevitable conflict had come between Christianity and the Roman empire, and it lasted two hundred years; but at its close the cross was triumphant over the Roman eagles. It is not difficult to see the _causes_ of this _struggle_: 1. _Heathenism was hospitable_, welcoming new gods and goddesses, while _Christianity was exclusive_, opposing with all its might every other form of worship. 2. _Idol-worship_ and its services were _interwoven_ with all the _life of the people_; personal, family, social, political. Temples, statues, festivals were constantly in evidence; on all occasions there were rites of worship. But here was a growing multitude of people who stood aloof from these exercises. It was not strange that these people were regarded as enemies of society and of the state. 3. Certain forms of religion were allowed in the Roman empire, but all new forms were forbidden. _Judaism was a permitted_ religion. As long as Christianity was looked upon as a branch of Judaism, it was allowed. But after the fall of Jerusalem it stood alone, an unlicensed form of worship, hence under suspicion; suspicion readily becoming enmity. 4. _The worship of the emperor_ was the one most prevalent throughout the empire. A statue of the reigning emperor stood in every city, and it was a test of loyalty to offer libations of incense before it. This worship is doubtless referred to in an enigmatic manner in such passages as 2 Thess. 2. 3, 4. Rev. 13. 1, 4, 8, 18. This worship was refused by the Christians, who were for that reason regarded as disloyal. From these causes persecution after persecution arose; hundreds of thousands perished; yet in spite of the persecution, the church grew rapidly. Blackboard Outline PART ONE =En. Ag.= Ag. shad. Comp. Paul. Diff. Ch. 125 A. D. "Sec. ra. m." I. =Fa. Jer.= 1.) Reb. A. D. 68-70. 2.) Siege pred. Chr. with. Pel. 3.) Eff. div. Je. Chr. II. =Jhn. Eph.= Last. Ap. 100 A. D. III. =Ris. Her.= 1. Gre. min. 2. Eb. Gnos. 3. Res. 1.) G. 2.) Ev. IV. =Sec. Imp. Per.= Dom. 95. Caus. 1. Heath. hosp. 2. Id. wor. int. li. 3. Jud. per. rel. Chr. unlic. 4. Wor. Emp. Review Questions What is said of the period after the death of St. Paul? Between what years is there very little history? What companions of St. Paul were living at the time of his death? What became of these men? Wherein was the church of a later period different from that of the earlier time? What reason is assigned for these changes? Name the four principal events in the period under consideration. When did the rebellion of the Jews against the Roman empire begin? What was the result of this rebellion? What became of the Christians in Jerusalem at the opening of the Jewish war? What was the after history of Jewish Christianity? What was the effect of the fall of Jerusalem on the relations between Christianity and Judaism? Who was the last of the twelve apostles on the earth? Where did he live? What was his character? What is said as to his death? What divisions in the church arose at this period? Of what were these divisions the result? What country was the home of the heresies? Who were the Ebionites? Who were the Gnostics? What good result came from these controversies? What evil result followed them? What persecution arose during this period? At what time? Under what emperor did the persecution begin? How did it compare with the earlier persecution under Nero? What general causes may be given for the series of imperial persecutions of the Christians? Wherein was heathenism hospitable, and Christianity exclusive? How was idolatry interwoven with the affairs of life? How was this fact adverse to the Christians? How did Christianity come to be looked on with suspicion in the empire? How did the worship of the emperor affect the Christians? What is this worship called in the New Testament? Did these persecutions stop the progress of the church? PART TWO Let us consider the =condition of the church= at the end of the first century, seventy years after the Ascension of our Lord. I. =Its Numbers= cannot be definitely stated; but the church was very large, and growing with marvelous rapidity. Sources of information: 1.) _The catacombs_; cemeteries under and around Rome where Christians only were buried, and wherein they met in times of persecution; occupied between 100 and 400 A. D.; containing in three centuries two million graves of Christians. 2.) A letter of Pliny, Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus in Asia Minor, 112 A. D., stating that "the temples were almost deserted," "an incredible number of professors." Evidences point to the church, A. D. 100, having already a large proportion of the population of the Roman empire. II. =Its Membership.= 1. Once the church had been entirely Jewish; then it became Jewish and Gentile; now it was almost everywhere a Gentile church, with a few Jewish members, most of whom had abandoned Jewish rites and rules and were regarded by the Jews as "apostates." 2. _Its social condition_ was varied. It is a mistake to suppose that at any time the early church was composed mainly of slaves and the poorest classes. Such there were; but there were also men of wealth, of high rank, and of great influence. There is reason to believe that some relatives of the emperor, previous to 100 A. D. were banished on account of their Christian profession. The gospel had by this time permeated all classes. III. =Its Organization.= We observe in this respect a remarkable change since the period of St. Paul's ministry. Everywhere the church was hardening into an _ecclesiastical system ruled by bishops_. Bishops are first mentioned late in St. Paul's ministry (Acts 20. 28; Rev. Ver. Phil. 1. 1; 1 Tim. 3. 1-7); but it is evident that the word at that time meant no more than "elder;" otherwise the elders of Ephesus would not have been called "bishops" in Acts 20.28. But in an autocratic state the church would naturally become autocratic in its arrangement, ruled from above rather than from below. By 125 A. D. bishops were in control everywhere. IV. =Its Institutions.= Two of these require notice. 1. _The Lord's Supper._ We have seen how this began as a service in the home, like the Jewish Passover, out of which it grew (Acts 2. 46). But among Gentile churches the custom arose of celebrating it at a public meeting, as a supper to which each member brought some share of provision. See 1 Cor. 11. 20-30, an account of abuses that had arisen. By the end of the first century the supper had become a service held at the meeting place of the Christians, but not in public. All except members of the church were excluded from this service, which was held as a "mystery." 2. _The Lord's Day._ The observance of the first day of the week grew gradually, and with its growth the recognition of the Jewish sabbath declined. Note the development indicated in 1 Cor. 16. 2; Acts 20. 7; Rev. 1. 10. As the church became entirely a Gentile institution "the Lord's day" took the place of the Jewish sabbath. V. =Its Doctrinal System.= The _theology of St. Paul_, as set forth in Romans and Ephesians, was now accepted as the doctrine of the church. Notice that St. Peter (1 Pet. 1. 18-21) states the great Pauline principle of justification by faith through the blood of Christ. VI. =Its Literature.= By 100 A. D. all the books of the New Testament were written, though not all of them were everywhere accepted as authoritative. In some places there were questions about Hebrews, 2 Peter and Revelation; the latter because local in its address, and so recent in origin as not to be known everywhere. But the gospels (except John, which was about 95 A. D. in its date), the Acts and nearly all the epistles were read in all the churches as possessing an inspired authority. Note that, in 2 Peter, Paul's writings are placed on a par with "the other Scriptures," which must refer to the Old Testament. VII. =Its Spiritual Life.= It must be admitted that there had been a decline in the fervency of the Christian life in the church. Its moral standards were still high; but spiritual gifts had become less noticeable; the rule of bishops and councils and the controversies over doctrines were weakening the fervor of spirituality. Note the difference in spirit and tone between the writings of the New Testament and those of the early church-fathers in the second century. Blackboard Outline PART TWO =Cond. of Ch.= 100 =A. D.= I. =Num.= 1.) Cat. 2.) Let. Plin. II. =Mem.= 1.) Gen. few Je. 2.) Soc. cond. all class. III. =Org.= Ecc. Sys. ru. b. Bish. IV. =Inst.= Lor. Sup. Lor. D. V. =Doc. Sys.= Theo. Pau. VI. =Lit.= N. T. VII. =Spir. Lif.= Dec. Review Questions. Part Two What is the estimate of the number of members in the church at the end of the first century? What evidence of this is found in the Catacombs of Rome? What evidence is given by a letter? Who wrote this letter, and when was it written? Was the church at this time Jewish or Gentile? What was the relation of Jewish believers to the church? Of what social elements was the church composed? How was the church organized at this time? What references to "bishops" are found in the New Testament, and what do they indicate? How did the bishops grow to be rulers in the church? What two institutions of the church are referred to? How was the Lord's Supper observed in the earliest church? What changes arose in the method of administration? How did the first day of the week come to be recognized in the church? What was the doctrinal system of this time? What was the literature of the church? What books were at first questioned? What was the spiritual condition of the church as compared with earlier periods? What may have caused the decline in spiritual fervor? THE END THE Ten Minute Series OF Supplemental Lessons FOR The Sunday School, BY LORANUS E. HITCHCOCK. The necessity of some instruction in the Bible in order to supply the deficiencies which are unavoidable to any system of uniform lessons, is realized in every Sunday school. The International Lessons can only give detached portions of Scripture, and a supplemental lesson must be added to impart a general knowledge of the book as a whole. The full course of study includes five series of lessons, adapted to be used in any denomination. I. The Life of Jesus. II. Studies about the Bible. III. Bible Geography. IV. Bible History. V. History of the Christian Church. Two additional series of special interest to the Methodist Episcopal Church have been prepared, namely: VI. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church. VII. Government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. These lessons are arranged for use as graded studies for scholars ten years of age and upward. Each series contains thirty-six lessons, which can easily be learned in the course of a year, even if the study be suspended during the summer months. Sample Set, 7 numbers, 35 cents. Price of each, per dozen, 50 cents; by mail, 59 cents. New York: EATON & MAINS. Cincinnati: JENNINGS & GRAHAM. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Text uses both Maccabean and Maccabæan once. Page 7, "17" changed to "19" (Study, page 19) Page 9, "9, 10" changed to "11, 12" (given on pages 11, 12) Page 17, "he" changed to "the" (the legate) Page 18, "Perea" changed to "Peræa" (place in Peræa and three) Page 25, "thrty-five" changed to "thirty-five" (less than thirty-five years) Page 30, "1.)" added to text. (this period. 1.) In his infancy) Page 36, comma changed to hyphen. Original read: (Nicodemus (John 3. 1, 21)) Page 41, number "1.)" was used for the first two items under heading III. The items were renumbered consecutively. Page 46, "Gaililee" changed to "Galilee" (southwest of the Sea of Galilee) Page 48, "refences" changed to "references" (of the following references) Page 49, "provincess" changed to "provinces" (Beside the five provinces) Page 51, "occured" changed to "occurred" (this journey occurred four) Page 51, "visit" changed to "Visit" (A Visit to Bethany) Page 52, "Question" changed to "Questions" (Review Questions) Page 72, "Aegean" changed to "�gean" (the �gean Sea. Name the) Page 75, "sugested" changed to "suggested" (and doubtless suggested by) Page 75, "synagoguge" changed to "synagogue" (synagogue service? To what) Page 77, "Jersualem" changed to "Jerusalem" (in Jerusalem with Peter) Page 97, "13. 5, 4. changed to "13. 4, 5." (13. 4, 5. Acts) 
26094	----	HEBREW HEROES: A TALE FOUNDED ON JEWISH HISTORY. By A. L. O. E., _Author of "The Triumph over Midian," "Rescued from Egypt," "Exiles in Babylon," &c. &c._ [Transcriber's note: "A. L. O. E." is the pseudonym of Charlotte Maria Tucker, and is the abbreviation of "A Lady of England".] LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1870. Preface There are few portions of the world's history which, to my own mind, afford subjects of such thrilling interest as that which I have selected for the groundwork of the following story. I have tried, in the main, to adhere closely to facts, though I have ventured somewhat to compress the length of time which actually elapsed between the rising against Syrian tyranny at Modin, and the restoration of the Temple. I may also have been inaccurate in representing Antiochus Epiphanes as being still in Jerusalem at the period when the battle of Emmaus took place. Such trifling deviations from history seem to me, however, by no means to interfere with that fidelity to its grand outlines which an author should conscientiously observe. No historical character has been wilfully misrepresented in these pages. If I have ventured to paint one of the noblest of Judah's heroes with the feelings and weaknesses common to man, I trust that even his most enthusiastic Hebrew admirer will not deem that they lower his dignity as commander, or patriot prince. The exploits of Judas Maccabeus might seem to be a theme more befitting the pen of one of his own race than mine; yet would I fain hope that a work which it has been a labour of love to a Christian to write, may not be altogether despised even by the descendants of Hebrew heroes who shared the Asmonean's toils and triumphs in the land for which he conquered and died. A. L. O. E. Contents I. FAITHFUL TO THE DEATH. II. THE MIDNIGHT BURIAL. III. LIFE OR DEATH. IV. FOLLOWING BEHIND. V. THE DREAM. VI. THE JOURNEY HOME. VII. THE FIRST STRUGGLE. VIII. HADASSAH'S QUEST. IX. DEATH OF MATTATHIAS. X. CONCEALMENT. XI. DEEP THINGS. XII. TRIALS OF THE HEART. XIII. SILENT CONFLICT. XIV. A CRISIS. XV. THE TWO CAMPS. XVI. BATTLE OF EMMAUS. XVII. DEPARTED. XVIII. THE PASSOVER FEAST. XIX. A PRISON. XX. THE COURT OF ANTIOCHUS. XXI. THE MAIDEN'S TRIAL. XXII. A BREATHING SPACE. XXIII. FOUND AT LAST. XXIV. DECISION. XXV. A RETROSPECT. XXVI. WEARY WANDERINGS. XXVII. FLIGHT. XXVIII. UNITED IN THE GRAVE. XXIX. THE MOURNER'S HOME. XXX. CHANGES. XXXI. NIGHT TRAVELLING. XXXII. FRIENDS OR FOES? XXXIII. THE LEADER AND THE MAN. XXXIV. FANATICISM. XXXV. THE BATTLE-PRAYER. XXXVI. BETHSURA. XXXVII. AFTER THE BATTLE. XXXVIII. THE VICTOR'S RETURN. XXXIX. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. HEBREW HEROES. CHAPTER I. FAITHFUL TO THE DEATH. The sun was setting gloriously over the hills which encompass Jerusalem, pouring its streams of golden light on the valleys clothed with the vine, pomegranate, and olive, sparkling on the brook Kedron, casting a rich glow on flat-roofed dwellings, parapets, and walls, and throwing into bold relief from the crimson sky the pinnacles of the Temple, which, at the period of which I write, crowned the height of Mount Zion. Not the gorgeous Temple which Solomon had raised, that had long ago been given to the flames, nor yet the Temple as adorned by King Herod: the building before us stands in its simple majesty as erected by the Hebrews after their return from Babylon under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua. Not the might of the powerful, nor the gold of the wealthy, but the earnest zeal of a people down-trodden and oppressed had built that Temple; and its highest adornment was the promise which Haggai's inspired lips had uttered: _The Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts_ (Hag. ii. 7). _The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former_ (Hag. ii. 9). The fulfilment of that promise was still a subject for faith; and seldom had faith had to breast a fiercer storm of persecution than that which was sweeping over God's ancient people at the time when my story opens, about 167 years before the Christian era. The Roman had not yet trodden the soil of Palestine as a conqueror; but a yoke yet more intolerable than his lay on the necks of the sons of Abraham. Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, one of the most merciless tyrants that ever existed, bore rule in the city of David. He had deluged the streets of Jerusalem with blood, he had plundered and polluted the Temple, offered the unclean beast upon God's holy altar, and set up the image of Jupiter Olympus in the place dedicated to the worship of the Lord of Sabaoth. It was a time of rebuke and blasphemy, of fiery persecution against the one pure faith; and if some shrank back from the trial, other Hebrews showed that the spirit of Shadrach and his brethren still lived amongst the people of Judaea. On the evening which I am describing, a young man was wandering among the clumps of hoary olive-trees which shaded a valley on the eastern side of Jerusalem. The red sunbeams pierced here and there between the grey branching stems and through the foliage, and shone full on the figure of Lycidas the Athenian. No one could have mistaken him for a Hebrew, even had the young man worn the garb of a Jew instead of that of a Grecian. The exquisitely-formed features of the stranger were those which have been made familiar to us by the masterpieces of antiquity treasured in our museums. Lycidas might well have served as model to Phidias for a statue of Endymion. His form was of faultless proportions, remarkable rather for symmetry and grace than for strength; and his face might have been deemed too feminine in its beauty, but for the stamp of intellect on it. That young brow had already worn the leafy crown in the Olympic contest for poetic honours; Lycidas had read his verses aloud in the arena to the critical ears of the Athenians, his fellow-citizens, and thousands from other parts of Greece, and had heard their plaudits ringing through the air at the close. That had been a proud moment for the youthful Athenian, but his ambition had not been satisfied by this his first great success. Lycidas was his own severest critic, and regarded himself as being rather at the starting-point than as at the goal. He had resolved on writing a poem, the fame of which should emulate that of the Iliad, and had chosen as the theme of his verse THE HEROISM OF VIRTUE. Lycidas would draw his pictures from history, choose his models from men, and not from the so-called deities with which superstition or fancy had peopled Olympus. The Athenian had an innate love of the pure and true, which made him intuitively reject fables, and which, amongst his countrymen, exposed him to the charge of scepticism. Lycidas could laugh with Aristophanes at legends of gods and demigods, whom their very priests represented as having more than the common infirmities and vices of mortal men. Had Lycidas reared an altar, it would have been like that which was seen two centuries later in his native city, with the inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD. The Greek knew of no being above earth whom he could intelligently worship; and his religion consisted rather in an intense admiration for virtue in the abstract, than in anything to which his more superstitious countrymen would have given the name of piety. To collect materials for his poem on THE HEROISM OF VIRTUE, Lycidas had travelled far and wide. He had visited Rome, then a powerful republic, and listened with keen interest to her annals, so rich in stories of patriotism and self-devotion. The Athenian had then turned his course eastward, had visited Alexandria, ascended the Nile, gazed on the Pyramids, even then--more than two thousand years ago--venerable from their antiquity. After seeing the marvels of the land of the Pharaohs, Lycidas had travelled by the way of Gaza to Jerusalem, where he was now residing. He was an occasional guest at the court of the Syrian monarch, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from Perseus, king of Macedonia. It was not to indulge in pleasant poetic reveries that Lycidas had on that evening sought the seclusion of the olive-grove, if the direction of the current of his thoughts might be known by the index of his face, which wore an expression of indignation, which at times almost flashed into fierceness, while the silent lips moved, as if uttering words of stern reproof and earnest expostulation. No one was near to watch the countenance of the young Greek, until he suddenly met a person richly attired in the costume worn at the Syrian court, who came upon him in a spot where the narrowness of the path precluded the two men from avoiding each other without turning back, and so brought about a meeting which, to the last comer at least, was unwelcome. "Ha! my Lord Pollux, is it you!" exclaimed Lycidas, with courteous salutation. "I missed you suddenly from my side to-day at that--shall I call it tragedy?--for never was a more thrilling scene acted before the eyes of man." "I was taken with a giddiness--a touch of fever," replied the courtier addressed by the name of Pollux. He looked haggard and pale as he spoke. "I marvel not--I marvel not if your blood boiled to fever-heat, as did mine!" cried Lycidas. "No generous spirit could have beheld unmoved those seven Hebrew brethren, one after another, before the eyes of their mother, tortured to death in the presence of Antiochus, because they refused to break a law which they regarded as divine!" "Nay," replied Pollux, forcing a smile; "their fate was nothing to me. What cared I if they chose to throw away their lives like fools for an idle superstition!" "Fools! say rather like heroes!" exclaimed Lycidas, stopping short (for he had turned and joined Pollux in his walk). "I marvel that you have so little sympathy for those gallant youths--you who, from your cast of features, I should have deemed to be one of their race." Pollux winced, and knitted his dark brows, as if the remark were unwelcome. "I have looked on the Olympic arena," continued Lycidas, resuming his walk, and quickening his steps as he warmed with his subject; "I have seen the athletes with every muscle strained, their limbs intertwined, wrestling like Milo; or pressing forward in the race for the crown and the palm, as if life were less dear than victory. But never before had I beheld such a struggle as that on which my eyes looked to-day, where the triumph was over the fear of man, the fear of death, where mortals wrestled with agony, and overcame it, silent, or but speaking such brave words as burnt themselves into the memory, deathless utterances from the dying! There were no plaudits to encourage these athletes, at least none that man could hear; there was no shouting as each victor reached the goal. But if the fortitude of suffering virtue be indeed a spectacle on which the gods admiringly look, then be assured that the invisible ones were gazing down to-day on that glorious arena, ay, and preparing the crown and the palm! For I can as soon believe," continued the Athenian, raising his arm and pointing towards the setting sun, "that that orb is lost, extinguished, blotted out from the universe, because he is sinking from our view, as that the noble spirits which animated those tortured forms could perish with them for ever!" Pollux turned his head aside; he cared not that his companion should see the gesture of pain with which he gnawed his nether lip. "It is certain that the sufferers looked forward to existence beyond death," continued the young Athenian. "One of the brothers, as he came forward to suffer, fixed his calm, stern gaze on Antiochus (I doubt not but that gaze will haunt the memory of Syria's king when his own dying hour shall arrive), and said--I well remember his words--'Wicked prince, you bereave us of earthly life; but the King of heaven and earth, if we die in defence of His laws, will one day raise us up to life eternal.' The next sufferer, stretching forth his hands as if to receive the palm rather than the executioner's stroke, said, with the same calm assurance, 'I received these limbs from Heaven, but I now despise them, since I am to defend the laws of God; from the sure and steadfast hope that He will one day restore them to me.' Is it possible that these men believed that not only souls but bodies would rise again--that some mysterious Power could and would restore them to life eternal? Is this the faith of the Hebrews?" The last question was impatiently repeated by Lycidas before it received an answer. "Some of them hold such a wild faith," said Pollux. "A sublime, mysterious faith!" observed Lycidas; "one which makes the souls of those who hold it invulnerable as was the body of Achilles, and without the one weak point. It inspires even women and children with the courage of heroes, as I witnessed this day. The seventh of the Hebrew brethren was of tender years, and goodly. Even the king pitied his youth, and offered him mercy and honours if he would forsake the law of his God. Antiochus swore that he would raise the youth to riches and power, and rank him amongst his favoured courtiers, if he would bend to the will of the king. I watched the countenance of the boy as the offer was made. He saw on the one side the mangled forms of his brethren--the grim faces of the executioners; on the other, all the pomps and glories of earth: and yet he wavered not in his choice!" Pollux could hardly suppress a groan, and listened with ill-concealed impatience as the Athenian went on with his narrative. "Then the king bade the mother plead with her son, obey the promptings of nature, and bid him live for her sake. She had stood through all the fearful scene, not like a Niobe in tears, but with hands clasped and eyes upraised, as one who sees the invisible, and drinks in courage from words inaudible to other ears than her own. She heard the king, approached her young son, laid her hand on his shoulder, and gazed on him with unutterable tenderness. Faith with her might conquer fear, but could only deepen love. She conjured her child, by all that she had done and suffered for him, firmly to believe, and to fear not. 'Show yourself worthy of your brethren,' she said, 'that, by the mercy of God, I may receive you, together with your brothers, in the glory which awaits us!' And the fair boy smiled in her face, and followed in the glorious track of those who had suffered before him, praying for his country as he died for his faith. Then, in cruelty which acted the part of mercy, the mother--last of that heroic band--was re-united to them by death. But I could not stay to look upon _that_ sacrifice," said Lycidas, with emotion; "I had seen enough, and more than enough!" "And I have heard enough, and more than enough," muttered Pollux, on whom the description of the scene given by Lycidas had inflicted keen anguish, the anguish of shame and remorse. "You pity the sufferers?" observed the Athenian. "Pity--I envy!" was the thought to which the blanched lips of a renegade dared not give utterance; Pollux but shook his head in reply. "I would fain know more of the religion of the Hebrews," said Lycidas; "I have heard marvellous stories--more sublime than any that our poets have sung--of a Deity bringing this people out of Egypt, making a path for them through the depths of the sea, reining back its foaming waves as a rider his white-maned steed; giving to the thirsty--water from the rock, to the hungry--bread from the skies, and scattering the foes of Israel before them, as chaff is driven by the wind. I have heard of the sun's fiery chariot arrested in its course by the voice of a man, speaking with authority given to him by an inspiring Deity. Tell me what is the name of the Hebrew's powerful God?" Pollux pressed his lips closely together; he dared not utter the awful name of Him whom he had denied. The courtier laid his hand on the jewelled clasp which fastened his girdle; perhaps the movement was accidental, perhaps he wished to direct the attention of his companion to the figures of Hercules and the Nemean lion which were embossed on the gold. "You forget," observed Pollux, "that I am a worshipper of the deities of Olympus, that I sacrifice to the mighty Jove." "I asked not what was your religion," said Lycidas; "my question regarded that held by the Hebrews, of which you can scarcely be ignorant. What is the name of that God whom they would not deny, even to save themselves from torture and death?" "I cannot tarry here longer, noble stranger," was the hurried reply of Pollux. "The sun has sunk; I must return to the city; Antiochus the king expects my attendance at his banquet to-night." "I am bidden to it, but I go not," said the young Athenian; "slaughter in the daytime, feasting at night--blood on the hands--wine at the lips--I hate, I loathe this union of massacre and mirth! Go you and enjoy the revel in the palace of your king; were I present, I should see at the banquet the shadowy forms of that glorious matron and her sons; I should hear above the laughter, the shout, and the song, the thrilling tones of voices confessing unshaken confidence in the power and mercy of their God, and the glorious hope of immortality where the oppressor can torture no more." And with a somewhat constrained interchange of parting courtesies, the free Greek and the sycophant of a tyrant went on their several ways. CHAPTER II. THE MIDNIGHT BURIAL. The scene which he had witnessed had left the mind of Lycidas in an excited and feverish state. The cooling breeze which whispered amongst the leaves of the olives, and the solitude of the secluded place where Pollux had left him, were refreshing to the young Greek's spirit. He threw himself on the grass beneath one of the trees, leant against its trunk, and gazed upwards at the stars as, one by one, they appeared, like gems studding the deep azure sky. "Are these brave spirits now reigning in one of these orbs of beauty?" thought the poet; "or are the stars themselves living souls, spirits freed from the chains of matter, shining for ever in the firmament above? I must know more of that Hebrew religion, and seek out those who can initiate me into its mysteries, if it be lawful for a stranger to learn them." And then the thoughts of Lycidas turned to his poem, and he tried to throw into verse some of the ideas suggested to his mind by the martyrdoms which he had witnessed, but he speedily gave up the attempt in despair. "Poetic ornament would but mar the grand outlines of such a history," he murmured to himself; "who would carve flowers upon the pyramids, or crown with daisies an obelisk pointing to the skies!" Gradually sleep stole over the young Greek, his head drooped upon his arm, his eyelids closed, and he slumbered long and deeply. Lycidas was awakened by sounds near him, low and subdued, the cautious tread of many feet, the smothered whisper, and the faint rustle of garments. The Athenian opened his eyes, and gazed from his place of concealment behind the thick branching stem of the olive on a strange and striking scene. The moon, full and round, had just risen, but the foliage of the trees as yet obscured most of her light, as her silver lamp hung near the horizon, casting long black shadows over the earth. Several forms were moving about in the faint gleam, apparently engaged in some work which needed concealment, for none of them carried a torch. Lycidas, himself silent as the grave, watched the movements of those before him with a curiosity which for a time so engrossed his mind as to take away all sense of personal danger, though he soon became aware that the intrusion of a stranger on these mysterious midnight proceedings would not only be unwelcome, but might to himself be perilous. The group of men assembled in that retired spot were evidently Hebrews, and as the eyes of Lycidas became accustomed to the gloom, and the ascending moon had more power to disperse it, he intuitively singled out one from amongst them as the leader and chief of the rest. Not that his tunic and mantle were of richer materials than those of his comrades; plain and dusty with travel were the sandals upon his feet, and he wore the simple white turban which a field-labourer might have worn. But never had turban been folded around a more majestic brow, and the form wrapped in the mantle had the unconscious dignity which marks those born to command. The very tread of his sandalled feet reminded the Athenian of that of the desert lion, and from the dark deep-set eye glanced the calm soul of a hero. "Here be the place," said the chief, if such he were, pointing to the earth under the branches of the very tree against the trunk of which, on the further side, the temple of Lycidas was pressed, as he bent eagerly forward to watch and to listen. Not a word was uttered in reply; but the men around, after laying aside their upper garments, set to work to dig what appeared to be a wide trench. The leader himself threw off his mantle, took a spade, and laboured with energy, bringing the whole force of his powerful muscles to bear on his humble toil. All worked in profound silence, nor paused in their labour except now and then to listen, like men to whom danger had taught some caution. Whilst the men went on with their digging, Lycidas strained his eyes to distinguish the outlines of a group at some paces' distance, which doubtless, though separated from them, belonged to the same party as those so actively employed before him. Two forms appeared to be seated on the ground in a spot evidently chosen for its seclusion; one of them was clothed in dark garments, the other was shrouded in a large white linen veil. Other figures in white seemed to be stretched upon the ground in repose. Lycidas watched this silent group for hours, and all remained motionless as marble, save that ever and anon the dark female figure slightly swayed backwards and forwards with a rocking motion, and that several times the veiled head was turned with a quick movement, as of alarm, when the breeze rustled in the olives a little more loudly than usual, or bore sounds from the city to the woman's sensitive ear. Meanwhile the work of digging proceeded steadily, and the mound of earth thrown out grew large, for the arms of those who laboured were strong and willing, and no man paused either to rest or to speak save once. It was almost a relief to Lycidas to hear at last the sound of a human voice from one of those phantom-like toilers by night. He who spoke was the fiercest-looking of the band, with something of the wildness of Ishmael's race on features whose high strongly-marked outlines showed the Hebrew cast of countenance in its most exaggerated type. "There's more thunder in the air," he observed, resting for a minute on his spade, and addressing himself to him whom Lycidas had mentally named "the Hebrew prince," on account of his commanding height and noble demeanour, and the deference with which his order had been received. No answer was returned to the remark, and the wild-looking Jew spoke again,-- "Have you heard that Apelles starts to-morrow for Modin, charged with a mission from the tyrant to compel its inhabitants to do sacrifice to one of his accursed idol-gods?" "Is it so? then ere daybreak I set out for Modin," was the reply. "It may be that the venerable Mattathias would rather have you absent," observed the first speaker. "Abishai, when the storm bursts, a son's place is by the side of his father," said the princely Hebrew; and as he spoke he threw up a spadeful of earth from the pit which Lycidas doubted not was meant for a grave. Again the work proceeded in silence. The moon had risen above the trees before that silence was once more broken, this time by the leader of the band,-- "It is deep enough now, and broad enough; go ye and bring the honoured dead." The command was at once obeyed. All the men present, excepting the chief himself, who remained standing in the grave, went towards the group which has been previously mentioned. Interest chained Lycidas to the spot, though it occurred to his mind that prudence required him to seize this favourable opportunity of quietly making his escape. The Greek remained, watching in the shadow, as on the rudest of biers, formed by two javelins fastened by cross-bars together, the swathed forms of the dead, one after another, were borne to the edge of the pit. They were followed by the two female mourners that had kept guard over the remains while the grave was being prepared. The first of these was a tall, stately woman, with hair which glistened in the moonbeams like silver, braided back from a face of which age had not destroyed the majestic beauty. Sternly sad stood the Hebrew matron by the grave of the martyred dead; no tear in her eyes, which were bright with something of prophetic fire. So might a Deborah have stood, had Sisera won the victory, and she had had to raise the death-wall over Israel's slain, instead of the song of triumph to hail the conquerors' return. The other female form, which was smaller, and exquisitely graceful in its movements, remained slightly retired, and still closely veiled. Lycidas remarked that the eyes of the leader watched that veiled form, as it approached, with a softened and somewhat anxious expression. This was, however, but for some moments, and the Hebrew then gave his undivided attention to the pious work on which he was engaged. Still standing in the grave, the chief received the bodies, one by one, from the men who had borne them to the place of interment. He took each corpse in his powerful arms, and unaided laid it down in its last resting-place, as gently as if he were laying down on a soft couch a sleeper whom he feared to awaken. Lycidas caught a glimpse of the pale placid face of one of the shrouded forms, but needed not that glimpse to feel certain that those whose remains were thus secretly interred by kinsmen or friends at the peril of their lives, were the same as those whose martyrdom he had so indignantly witnessed. The Athenian knew enough of the Syrian tyrant to estimate how daring and how difficult must have been the feat of rescuing so many of the bodies of his victims from the dishonour of being left to the dog or the vulture. The devotion of the living, as well as the martyrdom of the dead, gave an interest to that midnight burial which no earthly pomp could have lent. The spirit of the young Athenian glowed with generous sympathy; and of high descent and proud antecedents as he was, Lycidas would have deemed it an honour to have helped to dig that wide grave for the eight slaughtered Jews. The burial was conducted in solemn silence, save as regarded the Hebrew matron, and her deep thrilling accents were meeter requiem for the martyrs than the loudest lamentations of hired mourners would have been. As the chief received each lifeless form into his arms, the matron uttered a short sentence over it, in which words of the ancient Hebrew spoken by her fathers blended with the Chaldee, then the language commonly used by the Jews. Her thoughts, as she gave them utterance, clothed themselves in unpremeditated poetry; the Athenian could neither understand all her words, nor her allusions to the past, but the majesty of gesture the music of sound, made him listen as he might have done to the inspired priestess of some oracle's shrine. "We may not wail aloud for thee, my son, nor rend our garments, nor put on sackcloth, nor pour dust upon our heads. He who hath bereaved thee of life, would bereave thee even of our tears; but thou art resting on Abraham's bosom, where the tyrant can reach thee no more. "Thou art taken away from the evil. Thou seest no longer Jerusalem trodden by the heathen, nor the abomination of desolation set up in the sanctuary of the Lord. "Even as Isaac was laid on the altar, so didst thou yield thy body to death, and thy sacrifice is accepted. "As the dead wood of Aaron's rod, cut off from the tree on which it had grown, yet blossomed and bare fruit; cut off as thou art in thy prime, thy memory shall blossom for ever. "The three holy children trod unharmed the fiery furnace seven time heated. He who was with them was surely with thee; and the Angel of Death hath bidden thee come forth, naught harmed by the fire, save the bonds of flesh which thy free spirit hath left behind. "To touch a dead body is counted pollution; to touch thine is rather consecration; for it is a holy thing which thou hast freely offered to God." With peculiar tenderness the matron breathed her requiem over the seventh body as it was laid by the rest. "Youngest and best-beloved of thy mother; thou flower of the spring, thou shalt slumber in peace on her bosom. Ye were lovely and pleasant in your lives, in your deaths ye are not divided." It was with calm chastened sorrow that the last farewell had been spoken as the bodies of the martyred brethren had been placed in their quiet grave; but there was a bitterness of grief in the wail of the Hebrew woman over their mother, which made every word seem to Lycidas like a drop of blood wrung from the heart of the speaker. "Blessed, oh, thrice blessed art thou, Solomona, my sister, richest of mothers in Israel! Thou hast borne seven, and amongst them not one has been false to his God. Thy diadem lacks no gem--thy circle of love is unbroken. Blessed she who, dying by her martyred sons, could say to her Lord: _Lo, I and the children whom Thou hast given me;_" and as the matron ended her lament, she tore her silver hair, rent her garments, and bowed her head with a gesture of uncontrollable grief. All the bodies having been now reverentially placed in the grave, the chief rose from it, and joined his companions. Abishai then thus addressed him:-- "Hadassah hath made her lament. Son of Phineas, descendant of Aaron the high-priest of God, have you no word to speak over the grave of those who died for the faith?" The chief lifted up his right hand towards heaven, and slowly repeated that sublime verse from Isaiah, which to those who lived in that remote period must have seemed as full of mystery as of consolation,--_"Thy dead shall live! My dead body shall they arise! Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew the dew of herbs, and the earth, shall cast out the dead._"[1] The sound of that glorious promise of Scripture seemed to rouse Hadassah from her agonizing grief; she lifted up her bowed head, calm and serene as before. Turning to the veiled woman near her, she said, "We may not burn perfumes over these our honoured dead, but you, Zarah, my child, have brought living flowers for the burial, and their fragrance shall rise as incense. Cast them into the grave ere we close it." Obedient to the command of her aged relative, the maiden whom Hadassah had addressed glided forward to the brink of the grave, and threw down into it a fragrant shower of blossoms. The movement threw back her veil, and there flashed upon Lycidas a vision of loveliness more exquisite than the poet had ever beheld even in his dreams, as the full stream of moonlight fell on the countenance of the fairest of all the daughters of Zion. Her long dark lashes drooped, moist with tears, as she performed her simple act of reverence towards her dead kinsmen; then Zarah raised her eyes with a mournful sweet expression, which was suddenly exchanged for a look of alarm--she started, and a faint cry escaped from her lips. The maiden had caught sight of the stranger crouching in the deep shadow, her eyes had met his--concealment was over--Lycidas was discovered! [1] Isaiah xxvi. 19. It will be observed that interpolated italics are omitted. CHAPTER III. LIFE OR DEATH. "A spy! a traitor! cut him down--hew him to pieces!" such were the cries, not loud but terrible, that, as thunder on flash, followed that exclamation from Zarah. Cold steel gleamed in the moonlight; Lycidas, who had scarcely before thought of his own personal danger, found himself in a moment surrounded by a furious band with weapons upraised to take his life. With the instinct of self-preservation the young Athenian sprang forwards, clasped the knees of the leader, and exclaimed, "No spy--no Syrian--no foe! as ye would find mercy in the hour of death, only hear me!" Then, ashamed at having been betrayed into showing what might look like cowardly fear, the Greek stood erect, but gasping, expecting that ere he could draw another breath he should feel the dagger in his side, or the sword at his throat. "Hold--let him speak ere he die!" cried the leader; and, at his gesture of command, uplifted blades were arrested in air, and like leopards crouching in act to spring, the Hebrews surrounded their prisoner, to prevent the possibility of his making his escape. "What would you say in your defence, young man?" asked the leader, in tones calm and stern. "Can you deny that you have been present as a spy at a scene to have witnessed which places the lives of all here assembled in your hands?" "I am a Greek, an Athenian," said Lycidas, who had recovered his self-possession, and who intuitively felt that he was at the mercy of one who might be sternly just, but who would not be wantonly cruel. "I am here, but not as a spy--not to look with prying eyes upon your solemn and sacred rites. Led by chance to this spot, sleep overtook me under this tree. I would forfeit my right hand, nay, my life, rather than betray one engaged in the noble act which I have accidentally witnessed tonight." "Will you hear him, the heathen dog, the son of Belial, the lying Gentile!" yelled out Abishai, his gleaming white teeth and flashing eyes giving to him an almost wolf-like ferocity of aspect, that well accorded with his cry for blood. "He was present--I know it--when our martyred brethren were slain; ay, he looked on their dying pangs!--tear him to pieces--set your heel on his neck--he has rejoiced at the slaughter of the just." "No!" cried Lycidas with vehemence; "I call to witness the--" "Stop his blaspheming tongue with the steel!" exclaimed Abishai furiously; "let him not profane our ears with the names of the demons whom he worships. Cut him off from the face of the earth--that grave will hold one body more--the blood of our brethren cries out for vengeance!" Several voices echoed the fierce appeal, but amongst the wild cries for revenge, the ear of Lycidas, and the ear of the leader also, caught the maiden's faint exclamation, "Oh, Judas, have mercy! spare him!" Still the extended hand of the chief alone kept back the fierce band who would have cut down their defenceless victim. But there was painful doubt on the brow of the leader; not that he was influenced by the demand for blood from Abishai and his fierce companions, but that he was aware of the extreme risk of setting the captive free. Lycidas felt that his fate hung on the lips of that calm princely man, and was almost satisfied that so it should be; a thought rose in the mind of the Greek, "If I must die, let it be by his hand." "Stranger," began the son of Mattathias, and at the sound of his voice the tumult was hushed, and all stood silent to listen; "I doubt not your word, I thirst not for your blood--were my own life only at stake, not a hair of your head should be harmed. But on your silence as to what you have seen this night depends the safety of all here assembled, even of these daughters of Zion, for the tyrant spares not our women. We have no power to detain in captivity--we have but one way of ensuring silence; would you yourself--with the grave of those martyrs before you--be able to reproach us with cruelty should we decide on taking that way?" Lycidas met without blenching the calm sad eyes of the speaker, but he could not answer the question. He knew that under like circumstances neither Syrian nor Greek would feel hesitation before, or remorse after, what would be deemed a stern deed of necessity. The eloquent lips of the poet had no power to plead now for life. "Why waste words!" exclaimed fierce Abishai; "why do you hesitate, Judas? One would scarce deem you to be the descendant of that Phineas who won deathless fame by smiting Zimri and Cosbi through with a dart. 'Thine eye shall not pity, nor thine hand spare.' Guilt lies on your head if you let Agag go. Was not the Canaanite to be rooted out of the land? Who dare bid us draw back when the Lord hath delivered the prey to our swords?" "I dare--I do," cried Hadassah, advancing with dignity to the edge of the grove which separated her and her grand-daughter Zarah from the Hebrew men and their captive. "Shame on you, Abishai, man of blood. Yea, though you be the husband of my dead daughter, I repeat, shame on you to bring the name of the Lord to sanction your own thirst for vengeance! Hear me, son of Mattathias; ye men of Judah, hear me. The Merciful bids me speak, and I cannot refrain from speaking the words which He puts into my mouth." The matron was evidently regarded with reverence by those who were present. Judas was related to her by blood, Abishai by marriage; two of the other five Hebrews had been her servants in her more prosperous days. But it was chiefly the dignity of Hadassah's character that gave weight to her speech; the widowed lady was regarded in Jerusalem almost as a prophetess, as one endued with wisdom from on high. Her pleading might not be effectual, but would at least be listened to with respect. "The Canaanite was swept from the land," said Hadassah; "Zeba and Zalmunna were slain; Cosbi and Zimri were smitten through with a dart; but these were sinners whose cup of iniquity was full, and the swords of Israel executed God's righteous vengeance upon them, even as the waves of the sea overwhelmed Pharaoh, or the flood a world of transgressors. But the God of justice is the God also of mercy, slow to anger and plenteous in goodness. He calleth vengeance--though His work--His _strange work_ (Isa. xxviii. 21). He hath given command, by His servant the Preacher, _If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink_ (Prov. xxv. 21). _Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth_" (Prov. xxiv. 17). "An enemy born of the house of Israel, not a vile Gentile," muttered one of the men who were present. "Is the Lord the Maker only of the Jew; made He not the Gentile also?" cried Hadassah. "_Thou shalt not oppress a stranger_, saith the Lord, _seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt_ (Ex. xxiii. 9). Did not Hobab the Midianite dwell among the people of Israel; was not Achior the Ammonite welcomed by the elders of Bethura; was not the blood of the Hittite required at the hand of David, and Ittai the Gittite found faithful when Israelites fell away from their king? God said of Cyrus the Persian, _He is my shepherd_ (Isa. xliv. 28), and Alexander of Macedon was suffered to offer sacrifices to the Lord God of Jacob. Yea, hath not Isaiah the prophet declared that He, the Holy One, the Messiah, for whose coming we look, _shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles_ (Isa. xlii. 1), shall be _a light of the Gentiles_ (Isa. xlii. 6), that He will lift up His hand to the Gentiles (Isa. xlix. 22), so that their kings shall be nursing-fathers, and their queens nursing-mothers to His people (Isa. xlix. 23)? Ay, a time is coming--may it speedily come!--when the _idols He shall utterly abolish_ (Isa. ii. 18), when the Lord's house shall be established, and all nations shall flow unto it (Isa. ii. 2), when _the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea_" (Hab. ii. 14). The noble features of the aged matron kindled as with inspiration, and as she raised her hand towards heaven, she seemed to call the Deity to confirm His glorious promises of mercy to the people yet walking in darkness. A confused murmur rose amongst the listeners; if Hadassah's appeal had impressed some, it had stirred up in others the fierce jealousy which made so many Jews unwilling that the Gentiles should ever share the privileges of Abraham's race. The captive's life hung upon a slender thread, and he knew it. "Hadassah," said the chief, addressing the widow with respect, "do you then require that we should trust this stranger, when--if he prove false--so many Hebrew lives will be the forfeit of confidence misplaced?" "I require that you should trust Him who hath said, _Thou shalt do no murder_; who hath ordained that _whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed_. We show little faith when we think to find safety in transgressing the law of our God." Again rose a fierce, angry murmur. Lycidas heard the words, "folly, madness, tempting Providence," mingled with imprecations on "dogs of heathen," "idolaters," "the polluted, the worshippers of graven images." Judas laid hold on his javelin, which he had placed against the trunk of the olive when he had exchanged the weapon for the spade. The heart of Lycidas throbbed faster, he read his own death-warrant in the movement, but he braced his spirit to fall bravely, as became a fellow-citizen of Miltiades. Again there was profound silence, all awaiting what should follow that simple action of the leader. "Time passes, every minute that we linger here is fraught with peril, our decision must be prompt," said Judas, and he motioned to Hadassah and Zarah to join the company of men on the side of the grave nearest to the stem of the tree. When they had done so, the son of Mattathias cast his javelin down on the ground. "Let those who would let the captive go free, those who would trust his gratitude and honour, pass over my javelin," cried Judas. "If the greater number cross it, we spare; if they remain here, we slay. Are you content?" he inquired. There was a murmured "Content" from most of those present. The chief then turned his glance on Lycidas, and with stern courtesy repeated his question to the Greek. The young captive bowed his head, folded his arms, and answered "Content." "The women shall not vote!" exclaimed Abishai. "They shall vote," said the chief, with decision; "their peril is equal to ours, and so shall their privilege be." It was with strangely mingled emotions that Lycidas beheld, as it were, the balance raised, one of the scales of which was weighted with his freedom and life! Fear was scarcely the predominating feeling. A cloud for a few moments darkened the face of the moon, but through the shadow he could see the stately dark figure of Hadassah as she crossed over the javelin, and the flutter of Zarah's white veil. As the silver orb emerged from the cloud, the women were followed by the two Hebrews who had once been servants to Hadassah. "Four on that side--five on this--he dies!" cried Abishai eagerly; but even as the exclamation was on his lips, Judas with a bound sprang over the javelin, and stood at the side of Zarah. "He lives--the Merciful be praised!" cried Hadassah. Abishai, with a muttered curse, thrust back his thirsty blade into its sheath. "Captive, depart in peace," said the son of Mattathias; "but ere you quit this spot, solemnly vow silence as to what you have witnessed here." Lycidas instantly obeyed. "May I share the torments of those whose grave--but for your mercy--I should have shared, if I ever prove false to my oath," cried the Greek. The chief waved his hand to bid him depart, and leave the Hebrews to complete the solemn work which his appearance had interrupted. Lycidas, however, showed no haste to escape. He glanced towards Hadassah and Zarah. "May I not speak my gratitude," he began, advancing one step towards them; but the widow by a gesture forbade his nearer approach. "Live your gratitude, speak it not, stranger," said she. "If ever you see son or daughter of Abraham in peril, remember this night; if ever your enemy stand defenceless before you, remember this night. And when next you would bow down before an idol, and pray--as your people pray--to the deaf wood and the senseless stone, pause and reflect first upon what you have learned on this sacred spot of the faith of the Hebrews," Hadassah pointed to the open grave as she spoke, "how it can nerve the weak to suffer, and induce the strong to spare!" CHAPTER IV. FOLLOWING BEHIND. As he quitted that place of burial, which he had little expected to leave alive, Lycidas felt like one under an enchanter's spell. Joy at almost unhoped-for escape from a violent death was not the emotion uppermost in his mind, and it became the less so with every step which the Athenian took from the olive-grove. Strange as the feeling appeared even to himself, the young poet could almost have wished the whole scene acted over again, notwithstanding the painfully prominent part which he had had to play in it. Lycidas would not have been unwilling to have heard again the fierce cries and execrations, and to have seen once more the flashing weapons around him, for the sake of also hearing the soft appeal, "Have mercy, spare him!" and to have had another glimpse of Zarah's form and face, as, with a halo of moonlight and loveliness around her, she dropped her tribute of living flowers into the grave of the dead. "These Hebrew women are not as the women of earth, but beings that belong to a higher sphere," thought Lycidas, as he pursued his way towards the city. "That aged matron has all the majesty of a Juno, and the maiden is fair as--nay, to which of the deities of Olympus could I compare one so tender and so pure! Venus! the idea were profanation--chaste Dian with her merciless arrows--Pallas, terrible to her enemies? no! Strange that it should seem an insult to the women to compare her to the goddess!" Lycidas gazed upwards at the exquisite blue of that Eastern sky, and around him at the fair landscape of hills and valleys calmly sleeping in moonlight. A thrilling sense of beauty pervaded his soul. "Oh, holy and beneficent Nature," he murmured, "hast thou no voice to explain to men through thy visible glories the mysteries of the invisible! Dost thou not even now whisper to my soul, 'purity and goodness are the attributes of Divinity, for they are stamped upon the works of creation; and so must purity and goodness be the badge of the Divinity's true worshippers on earth!' There is a spirit stirring within the breast that echoes this voice of Nature, that repeats, 'purity and goodness, not power and might, give the highest dignity to mortal or immortal!' But if it be so, if my hand have touched the mighty veil which shrouds the truth from man's profane gaze, if I have a glimpse of the sacred mystery beyond, how far from that truth, in what a mist of error must all the nations of earth be wandering now!" Lycidas unconsciously slackened his steps, and raised his hand to his brow. "Perhaps not all," he reflected; "from what I hear it appears that this Hebrew nation, this handful of conquered people groaning in bondage, hold themselves to be the sole guardians of a faith which is lofty, soul-ennobling, and pure. They deem themselves to be as a beacon on a hill set on high, throughout ages past, to show a dark world that there is still light, and a light which shall yet overspread the earth as the waters cover the sea; those were the words of Hadassah. And she spake also of One who should come, One looked for by the Jews, who shall bring judgment unto the Gentiles. Do the Hebrews hope for the advent of a Deity upon earth, or only that of a prophet? I would that I could see Hadassah again; and I will see her--I will never give up the search for one who can guide unto knowledge; come what may, I will look upon her and on that beauteous maiden again!" Absorbed as he was by such thoughts, there is little wonder that the young Athenian missed his way, and that he unconsciously wandered in a direction different from that which he had intended to take. The moonlight also failed him, clouds had arisen, and only now and then a fitful gleam fell on his path. Lycidas became at last uncertain even as to the direction in which Jerusalem lay. The young Athenian was weary, less from physical fatigue than from the effects of strong excitement upon a sensitive frame. Sometimes he fancied now that he heard a stealthy step behind him, and stopped to listen, then felt assured that his senses must have deceived him, and went on his way, groping through the darkness. What a strange episode in his existence that night appeared to the Greek--scarcely a mere episode, for it seemed to him that it absorbed into itself all the true poetry of his life as regarded the past, and gave him new aspirations and hopes as regarded the future. To Lycidas the remembrance of his poetical triumph in the Olympic arena, the plaudits which had then filled his soul with ecstatic delight, was little more than to a man is the recollection of the toys which amused his childhood. The Greek had been brought face to face with life's grand realities, and what had strongly excited his ambition once, appeared to him now as shadows that pass away. "And yet," mused the young poet, "I would fain once more win the leafy crown, that I might lay it at Zarah's feet. But what would such a trophy of earthly distinction be to her? not worth one of the flowers, hallowed by her touch, which she cast into the martyrs' grave! Ha! again! I fancied that I heard a rustle of garments behind me! How powerful is the imagination, that mirage of the mind, that makes us fancy the existence of things that are not!" Lycidas had now reached a part of the road which bordered an abrupt descent to the left, the hill along whose side the path wound appearing to have been scarped in this place, probably to leave wider space for some vine-clad terrace below. Lights were gleaming in the far distance, marking the position of the city in which the guests of Antiochus, preceded by torch-bearers, were wending their way back to their several homes. Sounds of wild mirth, from those reeling back from the revels, were faintly borne on the night breeze from the distant streets. Lycidas, however, when he reached the point whence the lights were visible, was not left a moment either to gaze or to listen. "Dog of a Gentile--I have you!" hissed a voice from behind; and Lycidas was instantly engaged in a life or death hand-to-hand struggle with Abishai the Jew, who, as soon as he could steal away from his companions at the grave, had followed and dogged the steps of the Greek. It was almost a hopeless struggle for the young Athenian; his enemy surpassed him in strength of muscle and weight of body, wore a dagger, and was determined to use it, though some wild sense of honour had prevented Abishai from stabbing the unconscious youth without warning, when he stole upon him from behind. But the love of life is strong, and desperation gives almost supernatural power. Lycidas felt the keen blade strike him once and again, he felt his blood gushing warm from the wounds, he caught the arm uplifted to smite, with despair's fierce energy he endeavoured to wrench the murderous weapon away. The two men went wrestling, struggling, straining each sinew to the utmost, drawing nearer, inch by inch, to the brink of the steep descent. Abishai dropped his dagger in the struggle, and could not stoop to attempt to recover it in the darkness, but he grasped with his sinewy hand the gasping youth by the locks, and, with a gigantic effort, hurled him over the edge. With dilating eyeballs and a look of fierce triumph Abishai leant over the brink, trying to distinguish through the deepening gloom the lifeless form of his victim. "I have silenced the Gentile once and for ever!" cried the fierce Hebrew through his clenched teeth. "I said not 'Content' when the question was put, but I say it now!" He drew back from the edge, wiped the moisture from his heated brow, and left a red stain upon it. "Ere I go to rest," said the stern Jew, "I will let Hadassah know that my arm has achieved that safety for her and our brave companions which her wild folly would have sacrificed. I marvel that Judas, son of Mattathias, a bold man, and deemed a wise one, should have let himself be swayed from his purpose by the idle words of a woman. But I trow," added Abishai with a grim smile, "that a glance from Zarah went further with him than all the pleadings of Hadassah. It is said amongst us, their kinsmen, that these twain shall be made one; but this is no time for marrying and giving in marriage, when the unclean swine is sacrificed on God's altar, and the shadow of the idol darkens the Temple, and the sons of Abraham are given but the alternative to defile themselves or to die. The day of vengeance is at hand! may all the enemies of Judah perish as that poor wretch has perished this night!" Abishai sought for his dagger, and found it; he then left the scene of his act of ruthless cruelty, with a conscience less troubled by so dark a deed than it would have been had he rubbed corn between his hands on the Sabbath, or neglected one of the washings prescribed by the traditions of the elders. CHAPTER V. THE DREAM. At sunrise on the following morning two women were seated on the ground, in the back part of a small flat-roofed house, situated in a very secluded spot amongst the hills, not a mile from Jerusalem. They sat opposite to each other, engaged--after the manner of the East--in grinding corn, by moving round, by means of handles, the upper millstone upon the nether one. The room in which they were, if room it could be termed, was a narrow place on the ground-floor, partitioned off from a larger apartment, and devoted to holding stores, and other such domestic uses. Here corn was ground, rice sifted from the husk, and occasionally weaving carried on. Large bunches of raisins hung on the walls, jars of olive-oil and honey were neatly ranged on the floor; nor lacked there stores of millet, lentiles, and dried figs, such being the food on which chiefly subsisted the dwellers in that lonely home. A curtain, now drawn aside divided this store-place from the larger front room, which opened to the road in front. It had a door communicating with a small patch of cultivated ground behind, in which were a few flowers tended by women's hands, the fairest clustering round a bright little spring which gushed from the hill on whose steepest side the small habitation seemed to nestle. One of the women, busy with the laborious task of grinding, was a Hebrew servant, past the prime of her days, but still strong to work; the other was fair and young, her delicate frame, her slender fingers, looking little suited for manual labour. With a very sad countenance and a heavy heart sat Zarah that morning at the millstone, engaged in her monotonous task. It was not that she was unwilling to spend her strength in humble toil, or that she murmured because her grandmother Hadassah had no longer men-servants and but one maid-servant to do her bidding. Zarah had too much of the spirit of a Ruth to shrink from work, or to complain of poverty, if shared with one who was to her as a mother; nay, her cheerfulness at labour was wont to gush forth in song. It was not a personal trial that now made the tears flow from Zarah's lustrous eyes, as she slowly turned round the millstone; no selfish sorrow drew heavy sighs from her bosom, as she murmured to herself, "Oh, cruel--cruel!" "Peace be unto you, my child. You are early, and it was late ere you could retire to rest," said the voice of Hadassah, as, pale and sad in aspect, the widow lady entered the apartment. Zarah arose from her humble posture, approached her grandmother, first meekly kissed the hem of her garment, and then received her tender embrace. "I could not sleep," faltered the maiden; "I dared not close my eyes lest I should dream some dream of horror. Oh, ruthless Abishai, most cruel of men! will not the All-merciful, who cares for the stranger, require that young Greek's blood at his hand?"--Zarah covered her face and wept. "His was an unrighteous and wicked deed," said Hadassah. "And it was I who betrayed the stranger," sobbed Zarah. "It was my start and exclamation which directed the murderer's eyes to his place of concealment! I shall never be happy again!" "Nay, you did no wrong, my white dove," said Hadassah, tenderly drawing the maiden closer to her bosom; "the guilt lies on the head of Abishai, and on his head alone. Had he not been the beloved of my dead Miriam, my only daughter, never more should that man of blood cross the threshold of Hadassah." "I never wish to look on Abishai again!" cried Zarah, with as much of anger as her gentle nature was capable of feeling, flashing from under her long dark lashes. "He might have trusted one whom Judas could trust; the face of that Greek was a face which could not deceive;" and the maiden added, but not aloud, "the stranger--when he stood with folded arms, so calm, so beauteous, so noble, and bowed his head, and said 'Content' when his life was trembling in the balance--looked to me as one of the goodly angels that came to Sodom at eve! Better, if he must needs die, that the Greek should have fallen by the javelin of my brave kinsman Judas, than by the dagger of Abishai. Mother," cried Zarah, suddenly raising her head, and looking into the face of Hadassah with an earnest, pleading gaze, "may we not hope that the stranger's soul has found mercy with God? How could the young Gentile worship One whom he knew not?--his blindness was inherited from his parents--he did not wilfully turn away from the light! Oh, say that you think that the All-merciful has had compassion on the murdered Greek! did not the Lord spare Nineveh--pitied He not even the little ones and the cattle?" "I do think it--I do firmly believe it," said Hadassah, raising her eyes towards heaven; "verily the dream that visited me last night must have been sent to assure me of this." "Tell me your dream, mother," cried Zarah, who always addressed by this title the parent of her father. "Come with me into the front room, my child; leave Anna to prepare our pottage of lentiles, and I will tell you my dream," said Hadassah, leading the way into what might, in a European dwelling, have been called the sitting-room. This, with the place which they had just quitted, and two sleeping apartments above, which were reached by a rough stair on the exterior of the dwelling, constituted all the accommodation of Hadassah's small house, if we except the flat roof, surrounded by a parapet, often used by the ladies as a cool and airy retreat. Hadassah and her grand-daughter seated themselves in a half-reclining posture upon skins that were spread on the tiled floor; and while Zarah listened with glistening eyes, the Hebrew widow told her dream to the maiden. "Methought, in the visions of the night--for I snatched a brief hour of repose after our return from the burial--I beheld two women before me. They were both goodly to look upon, with a strange spiritual beauty not seen on this side of the tomb. The feet of the women rested not on the earth, but they gently floated above it; the air seemed purpled around them, and fragrant with the odour of myrrh. The first woman bore in her hand a scarlet cord, the other a bundle of golden corn. "'Hadassah,' said the first, 'I am Rahab, of the doomed race of Canaan, yet received as a daughter of Abraham. For the sake of David, born of my line, and for the sake of Him who was the Root of Jesse (Isa. xi. 10) and shall be the Branch (Isa. xi. 1), have pity upon the stranger.' "And the second woman, who was exceeding fair, spoke to me in like manner: 'Hadassah, I am Ruth, of the guilty race of Moab, yet received as a daughter of Abraham. For the sake of David, born of my line, and for the sake of Him who was the Root of Jesse and shall be the Branch, have pity upon the stranger.' And so the two bright visitants vanished--and I awoke." "Would that your dream had been sent to Abishai!" exclaimed Zarah; "then might he not through life have borne the brand-mark of Cain!" "Hark!" cried Hadassah, suddenly; "was that a groan that I heard?" Zarah had heard the sound also, and was on her feet and at the door before Hadassah had ended the sentence. "Oh, mother--it is he--the stranger--he is dying!" exclaimed Zarah, trembling as she bent over the form of Lycidas, which lay stretched on the ground, close to the threshold. The injuries which the young Greek had received from the dagger and the fall, though severe and dangerous, had not proved fatal. The fresh morning air had restored him to consciousness; unable to rise, Lycidas had yet managed to drag himself feebly along for some distance, till, as he reached the nearest dwelling, the strength of the Athenian had utterly failed him, and he had swooned at the door of Hadassah. "Bear him in--he bleeds!" said Hadassah; and after calling the strong-armed Anna to aid them, the Hebrew ladies themselves carried the senseless form of the stranger into the house, and beyond the curtain-partition into that back portion of the dwelling described in the beginning of this chapter. For some time undivided attention was given to efforts to restore consciousness to the wounded man. Hadassah, like many of her countrywomen, had knowledge of the healing art. Zarah brought of the balm of Gilead and reviving wine; Anna dragged into the inner room mats and skins, that the sufferer might have something softer to rest upon than the hard floor. Zarah and the servant then retired, by the order of Hadassah, leaving her to examine and bind up the wounds of Lycidas, which she did with tenderness and skill When all had been done which could be done, Hadassah drew aside the curtain-screen, and rejoined Zarah and Anna in the front apartment, where the latter was engaged in removing the crimson stains left by the wounded Greek on the floor and threshold. "Go on the road, Anna," said the widow; "carefully efface any marks by which a wounded man could be tracked to my dwelling. No one must know that the stranger is here." "If Abishai heard of it, even your roof would not protect the youth," said Zarah, turning pale at the thought of a repetition, in the sacred precincts of home, of the horrible scene of the previous night. "Oh, mother, think you that the stranger will live?" "He may; youth can swim through stormy waters," replied Hadassah; "but--may I be forgiven the inhospitable thought!--I would that the Greek had come to any other house rather than to mine." "So few visitors ever seek this spot--so few strangers ever pass it--we lead lives so retired--we can, better than most, conceal a guest," observed Zarah. The brow of Hadassah was clouded still. In that small dwelling, with a fair girl under her care, the widow lady was unwilling to harbour for weeks, or more probably months, a man, and that man a Gentile. Anxiously she revolved the matter in her mind, but no other course seemed to open before her. She could not be guilty of the cruelty of turning the helpless sufferer out to die. "On Abishai's account," said Hadassah, "I dare not seek out the friends of the Greek, if friends he have in Jerusalem, and ask them to bear him thence. To do that, after Abishai's murderous attempt on his life, would be to deliver over Miriam's husband to the executioner's sword. This young man is bound alike by honour and gratitude to preserve silence as to what passed by the grave; but there is nothing to prevent him from seeking, and much to induce him to seek, retribution on a would-be assassin, who violated the pledge of safety given to the Greek. Would, I repeat, that this stranger had come to any house rather than mine!" "Mother, remember your dream!" exclaimed Zarah, who, in the secret depths of her heart, did not share Hadassah's regret. Compassion for the suffering--admiration for the beautiful and brave,--combined to awaken in the maiden strong interest in the fate of the stranger. Zarah was well pleased that her grandmother's hospitality should be to him some reparation for a deep wrong sustained from one of her family. "Yes," said Hadassah, thoughtfully; "that dream must have been sent to prepare me for this. The Lord hath given me a work to perform, and He will not let His servant suffer for striving to do His bidding. The wounded stranger, Gentile though he be, needs hospitality, and I dare not refuse it. If the Lord hath guided him to the home of Hadassah, the Lord will send a blessing with him." And trying to stifle her misgivings, the widow lady returned to her guest. CHAPTER VI. THE JOURNEY HOME. Before the sun had risen above the horizon on that day, Judas, son of Mattathias, of the noble family of the Asmoneans, started on his long homeward journey. He had not re-entered Jerusalem during the night; almost as soon as he, with the assistance of Joab and Isaac, two of his companions, had filled up with earth the grave of the martyrs, he had skirted the city from the east to the west, and turned his face towards Modin. It would scarcely have been deemed by any one who might have seen the princely Hebrew ascending the western hill with his quick, firm tread, that the greater part of the preceding night had been spent by him in severe toil, and none in sleep. His soul, filled with a lofty purpose, so mastered the infirmities of the flesh, that the Asmonean seemed to himself scarcely capable of feeling fatigue, and set out, without hesitation, on a journey which would have severely taxed the powers of a strong pedestrian after long uninterrupted repose. As he reached the highest point of one of these hills which stand round Jerusalem, like guardians of the holy and beautiful city, Judas paused and turned round to take what he felt might be a last look of Zion, over which the sun was about to rise. He gazed on the fair towers, the girdling walls, the sepulchres in the valleys, the temple crowning the height, with that intense love which glows in the bosom of every Hebrew deserving the name, a love in which piety mingles with patriotism, glorious memories with still more glorious hopes. From the Asmonean's lips burst the words in which the Psalmist has embalmed that love for all generations,--_Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the great King. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth_. Faith was to the Asmonean as the rosy glow preceding the sunrise, which then flushed the eastern sky. His eye rested on the Temple; now desecrated, defiled, abandoned to the Gentile, and he remembered the promise regarding it: _The Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come, to His Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in_ (Mal. iii. 8). Then the Hebrew's gaze wandered beyond to a fair hill, clothed with verdure, and his faith grasped the promise of God: _Then shall the Lord go forth ... and His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives_ (Zech. xiv. 3, 4). Hope and joy were kindled at the thought. As surely as the hill itself should remain, so surely should a Temple stand on Mount Zion, till the Messiah should appear within it. _God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it?_ (Num. xxiii. 19). "Oh, that the Messiah might come in my day!" exclaimed the Asmonean; "that my eyes might behold the King in His beauty; that my voice might join the united acclamations of Israel, when the Son of David shall be seated on the throne of His fathers, and His enemies shall be made His footstool! That I might see the whole world worshipping in the presence of the Seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's head!" (Gen. iii. 15). The Hebrew grasped his javelin more firmly, and his dark eye dilated with joy and triumph. "But the night is not yet past for Israel," he added, more sadly; "the voice is not yet _heard in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord_ (Isa. xl. 8); we may have yet much to do and to suffer ere the Sun of Righteousness arise." Then a softened expression stole over the features of the Asmonean, as he gazed in another direction, but still with his face turned towards the east. He could not see a white dwelling nestling under the shadow of a hill, but he knew well where it lay, and where she abode to whom he had bidden on that night a long, perhaps a last, farewell. The Asmonean stretched out his hand, and exclaimed, "Oh! Father of the fatherless, guard and bless her! To Thy care I commit the treasure of my soul!" And without trusting himself to linger longer, Judas turned and went on his way. It was the month of Shebet, answering to the latter part of our January, and Palestine was already bright with the beauty of early spring. The purple mandrake was in flower, the crocus, tulip, and hyacinth enamelled the fields, with the blue lily contrasting with thousands of scarlet anemones. The almond-tree and the peach were in flower, and fragrant sighed the breeze over blossoms of lemon and citron. The winter had this year been mild, and some figs left from the last season still clung to the boughs yet bare of foliage. The vine on the terraced hills was bursting into leaf, and already in the fields the rising corn showed its young blades above the ground. But Judas was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to pay much attention to the landscape around him; with Israel the spiritual winter was not over, her time for the singing of birds had not come. Onwards pressed the traveller without resting, till at about noonday he reached the valley of Ajalon. There was a fountain by the side of the road, and here the weary man slaked his thirst, and sat down for awhile to rest beneath the shade of some date-palms. The Asmonean took from the scrip which he carried his simple repast of dried figs, laved his brow and hands in the cooling water, blessed God for his food, and began to eat. Ere many minutes had elapsed, a woman in the widow's garb of mourning, bearing a child of about six years old on her back, dragged her weary steps to the fountain by which the traveller was seated. She placed her boy on the ground, drank of the water herself, and gave to her son to drink. Her appearance denoted extreme poverty, and the child was evidently suffering from sickness. Judas divided this slender supply of provisions into three portions, and with the courteous salutation of "Peace be with you," offered one to the widow, and one to the boy. "The blessing of the God of Abraham be with you!" exclaimed the poor woman; "your servant hath not tasted food since sunset." And, seated on the turf not far from Judas, the widow and her son partook of the dried figs with the eagerness of those who are well-nigh famished. "Your child looks ill," observed the Asmonean, regarding with compassion the wasted shrunken frame of the boy. "He will not suffer long," replied the widow, with the calm apathy of despair. "I laid his father's head in the grave last month, and I shall lay Terah's head beside him this month. The seal of death is upon him; I shall soon be alone in the world." "Nay, despair not, God is good; the child may yet live," said Judas. "Why should I wish him to live," murmured the widow. "His father was taken from the evil to come, the boy will be taken from the evil to come. Jerusalem is defiled, the land is in bondage, Israel is given a prey to the heathen! The faithful are few in the land, and persecution will sweep these few away. There is no resting-place but under the sod, no freedom but in the grave. The name of Judah will soon be blotted out from amongst the nations!" "Never!" exclaimed Judas, with energy; "never, while the God of Truth lives and reigns! Judah can never perish. The vine that was brought out of Egypt may be broken, her branches torn away, her fruit scattered, the boar out of the wood may waste it, and the wild beast of the field devour, but yet _Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit_ (Isa. xxvii. 6). Were but one man left of God's chosen people, yet from that one man should spring the Deliverer who shall yet speak peace to the nations, and reign for ever and ever!" "Could I but hope--" faltered the widow. "Can you not _believe_?" exclaimed the Asmonean. "See yonder--look to the east--there is Gibeon, over which the sun stayed at the voice of Joshua; over this valley of Ajalon hung the moon arrested in her course in the day when the Amorites fled before Israel. He who raised up Moses, Joshua, and Gideon, can by human instruments, or without them, repeat the miracles wrought of old, and again deliver His people." As he concluded the last sentence, the Asmonean rose to continue his journey; he could give his weary limbs but little time for rest, for long was the distance which he yet had to traverse. "My home is but a furlong further on," said the widow, also rising, "and I have again strength to go forward." She was about to lift up her boy, but Judas prevented her. "I can relieve you of that burden," he said, and raised the child on his shoulders. They had proceeded for some way in silence, the widow pondering over the speech of the wayfaring man, when from behind was heard the clatter of hoofs and the jingle of steel. The child, whom the Asmonean was carrying, turned to gaze, and exclaimed in fear as he grasped the locks of his protector, "See--horsemen in bright armour, with banners and spears! fly, fly!--the Syrians are coming!" Judas did not turn nor alter his pace, he merely went closer to the side of the cactus-bordered road, to give more space to the horsemen to pass him. On rode the Syrians in goodly array, their steel glittering in the sunlight, the dust rising like a cloud around the hoofs of their horses. In the centre of the line was a gorgeous arabah, or covered cart with curtains, to which the troop of soldiers appeared to form an escort. There was an opening in the roof of this arabah, evidently for the convenience of accommodating within it a figure too high to be otherwise carried in the conveyance, for out of the opening appeared a white marble head of Grecian statuary. Judas and his companion regarded it with the aversion and horror with which the sight of an idol always inspired pious Jews. When the Syrians had passed the travellers, and the clatter of their arms had died away in the distance, the widow wrung her hands and exclaimed, "Yonder ride Apelles and his men of war to Modin, to do the bidding of the tyrant; and they bear the accursed thing with them, to be set up on high and worshipped. Alas! they will compel all the Hebrews at Modin to bow down to their idol of stone." "Perhaps not," said Judas, calmly. "All men will be forced to offer sacrifice," cried the woman; "there will be no way of escaping the pollution." "Solomona and her sons found one way," observed the Asmonean, "and God may provide yet another." The traveller had now reached the door of the widow's humble dwelling. Judas set down his living burden, and the mother thanked the kind stranger, and asked him to come in and rest. "I cannot abide here," replied Judas; "a long journey is yet before me; I must be at Modin this night." "At Modin!" exclaimed the astonished woman, glancing up at the worn weary countenance of the speaker. "Why, the horsemen will scarcely reach Modin this night, unless, indeed, the king's business be urgent." "My King's business is urgent," said the Asmonean, as he tightened his girdle around him, and with a grave, courteous salutation to the woman, he went on his way. The widow watched his princely form for some time in silence, then exclaimed, "That can be none other than Judas, the son of Mattathias; there is not a second Hebrew such as he. Ah, my Terah," she added, addressing herself to her son, "there is a man whom the Syrians will not frighten." "He will rather frighten the Syrians," said the boy. Many a time was that childish saying repeated in after-days, as if it had been prophetic, when Judah had long had rest from her foes, and Terah himself was an old man. When he sat beneath his own vine and fig-tree, no man making him afraid, he never wearied describing to his grand-children that form which had made the earliest impression which his memory had retained. He would speak with kindling enthusiasm of the princely man who had taken him in his arms and carried him on his shoulders--who had been as tender to a sick child, as he had afterwards been terrible to Israel's foes. The sun had just sunk when the foot of the Asmonean trod the green valley of Sharon. It was well that from thence every step of the way was familiar to Judas, for he had soon no light but that of the stars to guide him. The wind was rising; it rustled amidst the tamarisks, and shook the leafy crests of the evergreen palms; it bore to the ear of the almost exhausted traveller the wild howl of the jackals, rising higher and higher in pitch, like the wail of a human being in distress. Weary indeed and footsore was the Asmonean, but still he bravely pressed forward, till at length he heard the welcome sound of the waves of the Mediterranean lashing the coast near which stood Modin, about an English mile from the town of Joppa. Thankful was Judas to reach his father's home, where, the heavy strain upon his powers being for awhile relaxed, he slept the deep sweet sleep of the weary, after a journey which could have been accomplished on foot in a single day only by a man possessing great powers of endurance, as well as physical strength. CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST STRUGGLE. The arrival of Apelles, the emissary of Antiochus Epiphanes, had thrown the town of Modin into a state of great excitement. A proclamation was made in the morning of the following day, that all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, should assemble in the market-place at noon, to obey the mandate of the king, by worshipping at an altar of Bacchus, which was erected at that spot. "Curses, not loud but deep," were muttered in many a Hebrew home. Some of the Syrian soldiers had been quartered for the night with the inhabitants of Modin. The fatted calf had to be killed, the best wine poured out, for idolatrous guests whose very presence polluted a banquet. The Syrians repaid the reluctant hospitality of their hosts by recital of all the horrors of the persecution in Jerusalem. They told of the barbarities perpetrated on Solomona and her sons; shuddering women clasped their children closer to their bosoms as they heard how two mothers had been flung from the battlements at the south side of the Temple, with their infants hung round their necks, because they had dedicated those martyr babes to God in the way commanded by Moses. Such examples of cruelty struck terror into the hearts of all whose faith and courage were not strong. It was evident that Antiochus was terribly in earnest, and that if his wrath were aroused by opposition, the horrors which had been witnessed at Jerusalem might be repeated at Modin. The plea of terrible necessity half silenced the consciences of many Hebrews who secretly abhorred the rites of the heathen. A quantity of ivy was gathered, and twined by unwilling hands, to be worn in honour of the false deity whose worship was to be forced upon a reluctant people. A lofty shrine on which was raised a marble image of the god of wine, with his temples crowned with ivy, a bunch of grapes in his hand, and sensuality stamped on every feature, was erected in the centre of the market-place. Before it was the altar of sacrifice, and around this, as the hour of noon approached, collected a motley crowd. There were the white-robed priests of Bacchus, with the victims chosen for sacrifice. Men of war, both on foot and on horseback, formed a semicircle about the shrine, to enforce, if necessary, compliance with the decree of the Syrian monarch. Apelles himself, magnificently attired, with tunic of Tyrian purple, jewelled sandals, and fringes of gold, sat on a lofty seat on the right side of the altar, awaiting the appointed time when the sun should reach his meridian height. Numbers of people filled the market-place, of both sexes, and of every age, for the soldiery had swept through Modin, forcing all the inhabitants to quit their dwellings and assemble to offer sacrifice upon the altar of Bacchus. Directly opposite to the altar there was one group of Hebrews conspicuous above all the rest, and towards this group the eyes of the assembled people were frequently turned. There stood Mattathias, with snowy beard descending to his girdle--a venerable patriarch, surrounded by his five stalwart sons. There appeared Johannan, the first-born; Simon, with his calm intellectual brow; Eleazar, with his quick glance of fire; Jonathan; and Judas, third in order of birth, but amongst those illustrious brethren already first in fame. In stern silence the Asmonean family watched the preparations made by the Syrian priests to celebrate their unhallowed rites. Not a word escaped the lips of the Hebrews; they stood almost as motionless as statues, only their glances betraying the secret indignation of their souls. Mattathias, as a direct descendant of Aaron through Phineas, and a man of great wisdom and spotless integrity, possessed great influence within his native city of Modin. Disputes were referred to his decision, his judgment was appealed to in cases of difficulty, and his example was likely to carry with it greater weight than that of any other man in Judaea. Apelles was perfectly aware of this. "Mattathias once gained, all is gained," the Syrian courtier had said to the king before departing on his mission to Modin; "the old man's sons have no law but his will, and if the Asmoneans bow their heads in worship, all Judaea will join in offering sacrifice to your gods." Anxious to win over by soft persuasions the only Hebrews whose opposition could cause any difficulty in the execution of the king's commands, when the hour for offering sacrifice had almost arrived, Apelles descended from his seat of state, and approached the Asmonean group. This unexpected movement of the Syrian awakened eager attention amongst the assembled crowds. "Venerable Mattathias," said Apelles, saluting the old man with stately courtesy, "your high position, your wide-spread fame, entitle you to the place of leader in performing the solemn act by which Modin at once declares her fealty to our mighty monarch, Antiochus Epiphanes, and her devotion to the worship of Bacchus. Now, therefore, come you first and fulfil the king's commandment, like as all the heathen have done, yea, and the men of Judah also, and such as remain at Jerusalem; so shall you and your house be in the number of the king's friends, and you and your children shall be honoured with silver and gold and many rewards." When the Syrian had ceased speaking, the silence amongst the expectant people was so profound that the roll of the billows on the beach, and the scream of a white-winged sea-bird, could be distinctly heard. Sternly the old man had heard Apelles to the end; then fixing upon him the keen eyes which flashed under the white overhanging brows, like volcano fire bursting from beneath a mountain crest of snow, he replied, in tones so loud that they rang all over the market-place, "Though all the nations that are under the king's dominion obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, and give consent to his commandments, yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances! We will not hearken to the king's words to go from our religion, either on the right hand or the left." Hardly had the brave words died on the ears of those who heard them, when, in strange contrast, there sounded a hymn in honour of Bacchus, and, gaily dressed and crowned with ivy, a wretched apostate Jew, eager to win the king's favour by being the first to obey his will, came forward singing towards the altar. All the blood of Phineas boiled in the veins of his descendant; was the Lord of Hosts to be thus openly insulted, His judgments thus impiously defied! Forward sprang the old Asmonean, as if once more endowed with youth, one moment his dagger glittered in the sunlight, the next moment the apostate groaned out his soul upon the altar of Bacchus! To execute justice in this summary manner, and before all the people, was indeed to draw the sword and throw the scabbard away. A fierce shout for vengeance arose from the Syrian soldiers, and their ranks closed around Mattathias, but not around him alone. Not for a minute had his sons deserted his side, and now, like lions at bay, they united in the defence of their father. Nor were they to maintain the struggle unaided. There were Hebrews amongst the assembled crowds to whom the voice of Mattathias had been as the trumpet-call to the war-horse; there were men who counted their holy faith as dearer than life. These, with shouts, rushed to the rescue, and the market-place of Modin became the scene of a hand-to-hand desperate struggle, where discipline and numbers on the one side, devotion, heroism, and a good cause on the other, maintained a fearful strife. Though sharp, it was but a brief one. The fight was thickest near the altar--around it flowed the blood of human victims; there the powerful arm of Judas laid Apelles lifeless in the dust. This was the crisis of the struggle, for at the fall of their leader the Syrians were seized with sudden panic. The horses, whose trappings had glittered so gaily, were either urged by their riders to frantic speed, or dashed with emptied saddles through the throng, to carry afar the news of defeat. Flight was all that was left to the troops of Antiochus or the priests of Bacchus, and few succeeded in making their escape, for many Jews who had stood aloof from the struggle joined in the pursuit. The very women caught up stones from the path to fling at the flying foe; children's voices swelled the loud shout of triumph. The altar of Bacchus was thrown down with wild exultation; the idol was broken to pieces, and its fragments were rolled in the blood-stained dust. Those Jews who had shown most fear an hour before, now by more furious zeal tried to efface from other minds and their own the memory of their former submission. One spirit seemed to animate all--the spirit of freedom! Modin had arisen like Samson, when he snapped the green withes and went forth to the fight with the strength of a giant. But this was an ebullition of zeal likely to be more fiery than lasting. Mattathias little trusted that courage which only follows in the train of success. The old man knew that the struggle with the power of Syria was only commencing; that it would probably be long protracted, and that it would be impracticable to defend Modin against the hosts which would soon be sent to assail it. The patriarch stood in the centre of the market-place, with his foot on the fragments of the broken altar, and once more his loud clear voice rang far and wide. "Whosoever is zealous of the law, and maintaineth the Covenant, let him follow me! Let us away to the mountains, ye men of Judah!" How many of the inhabitants of Modin obeyed the call? how many resolved to leave city and home, to dwell with the beasts in the caves of the mountains? History relates that but a little band of ten, inclusive of the Asmoneans, by retiring to the fastnesses of the mountains, formed the nucleus of that brotherhood of heroes who were to wrest victory after victory from the hosts of Syria, and win that unsullied fame which belongs only to those who display firm endurance and devoted courage in a righteous and holy cause. CHAPTER VIII. HADASSAH'S GUEST. In no place were the tidings of the rising at Modin received with greater exultation than in the lonely dwelling of Hadassah. The Hebrew widow could hardly refrain from taking down the timbrel from the wall, and bursting, like Miriam, into song. "_Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously! He hath dashed to pieces the enemy!_" Constant information of what was occurring, every rumour, true or false, whether of victory or of failure, was brought to Hadassah by her son-in-law, Abishai, who little dreamed that every word which he uttered was overheard by the wounded Athenian, from whom he was divided but by the partitioning curtain! In one of his visits to Hadassah, Abishai told how Judas had in the mountains raised a standard, which bore the inscription, "Who is like unto Thee among the gods, O Jehovah!" "It is said," observed Abishai, "that from the initial letters of this inscription the word MACCABEUS is formed, and that by this new title Judas is commonly called; it is a name which the Syrians will soon have cause to dread." "It is a well-chosen name!" cried Hadassah. "Let the Asmonean be called _Makke-baiah_ (a conqueror in the Lord), for doubtless the God whom he serves will give to him the victory!" The triumphant joy of the patriotic Hadassah received a painful check when she heard some time afterwards from Abishai of the grievous sacrifice of the lives of a thousand faithful Hebrews, who had taken refuge in a cave at no great distance from Jerusalem. Being attacked there on the Sabbath-day by the Syrians, these Hebrews had actually let themselves be slaughtered without resistance, rather than incur sin (as they thought) by breaking the Fourth Commandment! Grieved at this waste of precious life, it was a relief to Hadassah to learn that such a sacrifice to a mistaken sense of duty would not be repeated; for when the tidings had reached Mattathias and his sons, they had bitterly mourned for their slaughtered countrymen, and had said one to another, "If we all do as our brethren have done, and fight not for our lives and laws, against the heathen, they will quickly root us out of the earth." A decree, therefore, was sent forth from the camp in the mountains, that to Hebrews attacked on the Sabbath-day, self-defence was lawful and right. In the meantime, under the care of Hadassah, the wounds of Lycidas were gradually healing. Never to any man had confinement and suffering been more sweetened, for was he not near to Zarah; did he not hear the soft music of her voice, breathe the same air, even see her light form gliding past the entrance of his hiding-place, though the maiden never entered it? The necessity of concealing the presence of Lycidas, above all from the blood-thirsty Abishai, compelled the closing during the daytime of the door at the back of the dwelling which opened on the small piece of ground behind. Peasants or travellers would occasionally, though rarely, come to fill their pitchers or slake their thirst at the little fountain gushing from the hill, and had the door of what Lycidas playfully called his "den" been open, there would have been nothing to prevent strangers from seeing or entering within. The whole ventilation of the confined space occupied by the invalid depended therefore during the day-time on its communication with the front room, which might be called the only public apartment, and in which not only food was now prepared and taken, and the occasional guest received, but in which the Hebrew ladies pursued their daily avocations. Here Zarah would pursue her homely occupation of spinning, and Hadassah copy out on rolls of vellum portions from the Law and the Prophets. This latter occupation was fraught with peril; and had Hadassah been discovered in the act of transcribing from the sacred pages, it might have cost her her life. Antiochus had eagerly sought to destroy all copies of the Scriptures, or to profane them by having vile pictures painted on the margins. To possess--far more to copy out--God's Holy Word was now a capital offence. But the faith of Hadassah seemed to raise her above all personal fear; the peril connected with her pious labours made her but more earnestly pursue them. The presence of the young Gentile in her dwelling was a source of far greater uneasiness to the widow, than any danger which threatened herself. Had Hadassah been able to seclude her patient entirely, she would willingly have discharged the duties of hospitality towards him; but such seclusion the scanty accommodation of her dwelling would have rendered impossible, even had Lycidas been willing to submit to perfect isolation. But this was by no means the case. Not only did he require the curtain frequently to be drawn back to enable him freely to breathe; but the Greek, as his strength increased, was eager to be seen as well as to see, and to speak as well as to listen. No anxious warnings of danger to be apprehended from the sudden entrance of Abishai could prevent Lycidas from dragging his languid limbs beyond the limits which the curtain defined, and joining in social converse. Lycidas resolutely shut his eyes to the fact that, to his hostess at least, his presence was unwelcome. He deceived himself into the belief that he was rather repaying the kindness which he had received, by lightening the dulness of the secluded lives led by the Hebrew ladies. The young Athenian drew forth for their amusement all the rich stores of his cultivated mind. Now he recited wondrous tales of other lands; now gave vivid descriptions of adventures of his own; poetry flowed spontaneously from his lips like a stream--now sparkling with fancy, now deepening into pathos; Lycidas had in Athens been compared to Apollo, as much for his mental gifts as his singular personal beauty. To the brilliant conversation of the stranger, so unlike what she ever had heard before, Zarah listened with innocent pleasure. She was ever obedient to her aged relative, and often did Hadassah's bidding in the upper rooms of the dwelling, even when it seemed to the maiden that she was sent on needless errands; but the light form, in its simple blue garment, with the long linen veil thrown back from the graceful head, was always returning to the apartment, to which it was drawn by a new and powerful attraction. If Hadassah sometimes appeared irritable and imperious towards the fair young being whom she loved, it was because her mind was disturbed, her rest broken by anxieties which she could impart to no one. The aged lady scarcely knew which evil she most dreaded: the discovery of Lycidas by Abishai--a discovery which would inevitably stain her threshold with blood--or the long sojourn under her roof of the dangerous stranger, whom she had unwillingly admitted, and now more unwillingly retained in her home. CHAPTER IX. DEATH OF MATTATHIAS. Wild was the life led by Mattathias and his followers in the mountains--a life of danger and hardship; danger met manfully, hardship endured cheerfully. Amongst wild rocks, heaped together like the fragments of an elder world torn asunder by some fearful convulsion of Nature, the band of heroes found their home. Where the hyaena has its den, and the leopard its lair; where the timid wabber or coney hides in the stony clefts, there the Hebrews lurked in caves, and manned the gigantic fastnesses which no human hands had reared, and from which it would be no easy task for any enemy to dislodge them. The small band that had rallied round Mattathias when he withdrew from Modin, had been soon joined by other bold and zealous sons of Abraham, and the mountains became a place of refuge to many who fled from persecution. As numbers increased, so did the difficulty of procuring means of subsistence. The Asmoneans and their followers chiefly lived upon roots. The less hardy of the band suffered severely from the chill of the frosts, the keenness of the sharp mountain air, the sharp winds that blew over snow-clad heights. But no voice of complaint was heard. Frequent forays were made into the plains; idol-altars were thrown down, forts were burnt, detachments of Syrians cut off. None of the enemy within many miles of the rocky haunts of the Asmoneans lay down to rest at night feeling secure from sudden attack during the hours of darkness; and oft-times the early morning light showed a heap of smouldering ruins where, on the evening before, the banners of Syria had waved on the walls of some well-manned fortress. To the bold spirit of Maccabeus there was something congenial in the adventurous kind of existence which he led, and yet he was not one who would have adopted a guerrilla life from choice. As even in a hard and rocky waste there are spots where rich vegetation betrays some source of hidden nourishment below, and they who dig deep enough under the surface find a spring of bright pure living waters,--so deep within the Asmonean's heart lay a hidden source of tenderness which prevented his nature from becoming hardened by the stern necessities of warfare. This secret affection made the warrior more chivalrous to women, more indulgent to the weak, more compassionate to all who suffered. In the moment of triumph, "Will not Zarah rejoice?" was the thought which made victory more sweet; in preservation from imminent danger, the thought, "Zarah has been praying for me," made deliverance doubly welcome. When the evening star gleamed in the sky, its pure soft guiding orb seemed to Judas an emblem of Zarah; as he gazed on it, the warrior would indulge in delicious musings. This desperate warfare might not last for ever. If the Lord of Sabaoth should bless the arms of His servants; might not the time come when swords should be beaten into ploughshares, when children should play fearlessly in pastures which no oppressor's foot should tread, and the sound of bridal rejoicings be heard in the land of the free? Hopes so intensely delightful would then steal over the Asmonean's soul, that he would suddenly start like a sentinel who finds himself dropping asleep on his post. How dared the leader of Israel's forlorn hope indulge in reveries which made him feel how precious a thing life might be to himself, when he had freely devoted that life to the service of God and his country? When David was engaged in rescuing his flock from the lion and the bear, did he stop to gather the lilies of the field? "It is well," thought Judas Maccabeus, "that I have never told Zarah what is in my heart; if I fall, as I shall probably fall, on the field of conflict, I would not leave her to the grief of a widow." An event was at hand which was felt as a heavy blow by all to whom the cause of Israel was dear, but more especially so by the Asmonean brethren, who from their childhood had regarded their father with reverence and affection. Mattathias was an aged man, and though his spirit never sank under toil and hardship, his constitution soon gave way under their effects. The patriarch felt that his days, nay, that his hours, were numbered, and summoned his sons around him to hear his last wishes, and to receive his parting blessing. In a cave near the foot of a mountain, stretched upon a soft couch of skins of animals slain in the chase, lay the venerable man. The pallor of death was already on his face, but its expression was tranquil and calm. The aged pilgrim looked like one who feels indeed that he has God's rod and staff to lean on while he is passing through the valley of the shadow of death. The full glare of noonday was glowing on the world without, but softened and subdued was the light which struggled into the cave, and fell on the form of the dying man, and the stalwart figures of the Asmonean brothers bending in mute sorrow around their honoured parent. Mattathias bade his sons raise him a little, that he might speak to them with more ease. Jonathan and Eleazar, kneeling, supported him in their arms; while their three brothers, in the same attitude of respect, listened silently at his side to the patriarch's farewell address. I shall not dare to add words of my own to those which the historian has preserved as the dying utterances of this noble old man--a hero, and the father of heroes. I give them as they fell upon the ears of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, who received them as Joseph received the parting blessing of Israel. "Now hath pride and rebuke gotten strength, and the time of destruction, and the wrath of indignation. Now, therefore, my sons, be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers. Call to remembrance what acts our fathers did in their time, so shall ye receive great honour and an everlasting name. "Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Elias, for being zealous and fervent for the law, was taken up into heaven. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, by believing, were saved out of the flame. Daniel, for his innocence, was delivered from the mouth of the lion. And thus, consider ye, throughout all ages, that none that put their trust in Him shall be overcome. Wherefore, ye my sons, be valiant, and show yourselves men in behalf of the law; for by it ye shall obtain glory." The old man paused, as if to gather strength, and then stretching forth his wasted hand towards Simon, his second son, he went on: "Behold, I know that your brother Simon is a man of counsel; give ear unto him alway; he shall be a father unto you." Then the hand was again extended, and this time laid on the bowed head of Maccabeus: "As for Judas Maccabeus," said the dying man, in firmer accents, as if the very name inspired him with vigour, "he hath been mighty and strong, even from his youth up; let him be your captain, and fight the battle of the people." There was no murmur of dissent, not even a glance of jealousy from the eye of the generous Johannan, when his younger brothers were thus preferred before him, as superior in those qualities with which leaders should be endowed. Johannan knew, and was content to acknowledge, that the wisdom of Simon and the military talents of Judas far exceeded his own; he would serve with them, and serve under them, cheerfully submissive to the will of God and the counsels of his father. We find not the slightest trace of jealous rivalry amongst that glorious band of brethren, who all shared the privilege of suffering--three of dying--for their country. Then, after solemnly blessing his five sons, Mattathias departed in peace, as one who has fought a good fight, and kept the faith to the end. Great lamentation was made throughout Judaea for him in whom the nation had lost a parent. The sons of Mattathias carried his body to Modin, and buried it in the sepulchre of his fathers. In after-times of prosperity and peace Simon raised a fair monument of marble, in the form of seven lofty pillars, which could be seen from afar by those sailing over the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The Asmonean prince placed this memorial there in honour of his parents and their five sons, after Jonathan, Eleazar, and Judas Maccabeus had sealed with their brave blood the testimony of their devotion to the cause of faith and of freedom. CHAPTER X. CONCEALMENT. We will now return to the quiet dwelling-place of Hadassah, where Lycidas day by day was becoming more hopelessly entangled in the silken meshes which kept him a willing captive in the Hebrew home. The very danger of his position served to add to its charms; it was with keen gratification that the Greek marked the anxiety which Zarah felt on his account. Whenever Lycidas emerged from his "den," Zarah kept careful watch as she sat at her wheel near the front entrance of the dwelling, ready to give timely notice of the approach of any intruder. The wave of the maiden's hand gave sufficient warning to the Greek. The view from the doorway commanded a long enough tract of road to render it impossible for any visitor to enter the house so suddenly as to prevent Lycidas, thus warned, from having time to retreat behind his curtain. An occasion, however, arose when the gentle sentinel was at last found off her guard. Resting on his arm, with his form half reclining on the floor, Lycidas was giving to Hadassah an account of the defence of Thermopylae, while his eyes were fixed on Zarah, who sat listening with her whole attention absorbed by the thrilling tale, when Abishai, breathless with excitement, rushed so suddenly into the house that Zarah was not aware of his coming in time to give her accustomed signal. It was Hadassah who heard the sound of rapid footsteps, though not till they had almost crossed the threshold. With great presence of mind the widow flung over Lycidas a large striped mantle of goat-hair, which she was preparing for Judas Maccabeus, should any opportunity arise of conveying it to the Asmonean leader. Hadassah then shifted her position, so as to interpose her own form between her guest and the door. These movements were so rapid as to take less time in the action than the narration. "Why, child, you look as much startled and terrified as if the Syrians were upon you!" exclaimed Abishai to Zarah, catching sight of her look of terror; his own eyes were flashing with triumph, and his gestures betrayed his excitement as he continued, "I bring you tidings of victory--glorious victory--achieved by our hero, Judas Maccabeus! Apollonius--may the graves of his fathers be polluted!--Apollonius, who tore down the dwellings near Mount Zion to make fortifications of the stones--he himself is laid low! The murderer, the oppressor, the instrument of a tyrant, and almost more hateful than the tyrant himself, now lies in his gore, and his mighty army has fled before the warriors of Judah!" "The Lord of Hosts be praised!" exclaimed Hadassah; "tell us, my son, of the fight," and she motioned to Abishai to take his seat beside her, so that his back should be turned towards Lycidas. The Jew seated himself so near to the Greek that the folds of his upper garment touched the mantle under which Lycidas lay crouched. If Abishai but moved his hand a few inches, he must feel that a warm and living form was concealed under the goats' hair stripes. "How your cheek changes colour, child!" exclaimed Abishai, surveying with surprise his young niece, who could not disguise her terror, nor prevent her knees from trembling beneath her as she stood in the doorway. "You have no cause to fear; Maccabeus is not even wounded. Apollonius met him in fight, and fell by his hand. Henceforth Judas, it is said, declares that he will always use as his own the sword which he took from the vanquished Syrian. As David said when he grasped that of Goliath, "There is no weapon like that." Zarah scarcely heard the words addressed to her. One thought possessed her mind to the exclusion of every other--the peril of the wounded Athenian. Should any sound or movement betray his presence to her fanatic uncle, she knew that the doom of Lycidas would be sealed, for he was yet by far too weak to defend himself with the faintest chance of success, and his recumbent position rendered him utterly helpless. Hadassah anxiously watched the countenance of Zarah, and read the thoughts passing within. Fearing that the maiden would faint where she stood, Hadassah motioned to her to come closer to her and take her seat at her feet. Zarah obeyed, taking care to be near enough to Abishai to catch him by the knees, and with what little strength she possessed at least to impede his movements should he discover the presence of the Greek. "Judas has brought great honour to our race," exclaimed Abishai, who attributed the emotion of his niece to a cause very different from the real one; "in his acts he is like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey. He has pursued the wicked, and sought them out; he has destroyed the ungodly, thrown down their altars, and turned away wrath from Israel." "He is a mighty instrument in the hands of the Lord," said Hadassah. "Is he not something more?" exclaimed Abishai, his manner becoming yet more excited; "may not the time for the great deliverance be come, and the great Deliverer be amongst us, of whom it is written, _Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me; and My fury, it upheld Me. And I will tread down the people in Mine anger, and make them drunk in My fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth_" (Isa. lxiii. 5, 6). Wild hope gleamed in the Hebrew's fierce eyes as he spoke, and he started upright on his feet. "Shame to you, son of Nathan," said Hadassah with dignity, "you speak like one who knows not the writings of the Prophets. He that shall come, the Messiah, is to be of the tribe of Judah, not that of Levi (Isa. xi. 1), shall be born at Bethlehem, not at Modin (Mic. v. 11). Nor have the prophetical weeks of Daniel yet run out. _Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks_ (Dan. ix. 25). The set time is not come." The wild animation of Abishai sank under the calm rebuke of one who as much excelled him in knowledge and intellectual power, as he surpassed her in physical strength. He looked abashed at being convicted of ignorance of prophetic writings. "You know, O Hadassah," said the Hebrew, "that I have been from my youth a man of the sword rather than of the book. Nor can I now study if I would. You are aware how Antiochus has sought out our holy writings to destroy or pollute them. Save the copy of the Scriptures which I occasionally see at the house of the elder, Salathiel, when we meet there by stealth to worship God on the Sabbath, my eyes never so much as look on the roll of the holy Word." "I have a complete copy of the Psalms and Prophets, and am making from it another," said Hadassah, intuitively lowering her tone, and glancing at the door. "A noble but dangerous work!" cried Abishai. "Go and look yonder, my son, glance up the path to the right and the left, see whether any of the heathen be near," said Hadassah, pointing to the door as she spoke. "If none of the enemy be in sight, I will show you the sacred treasure which I hold at risk of my life." Abishai instantly left the dwelling, half closing the door behind him. "Now Lycidas--oh, haste!" exclaimed Zarah in an eager whisper; she was terrified lest the opportunity of retreat which Hadassah had given, should be lost by one moment's delay. There was no need to repeat the word; Lycidas instantly drew back into his retreat behind the curtain, and the Hebrew ladies could breathe more freely again. Zarah gave a bright joyous glance at Hadassah, but it met no answering smile, the widow's features wore a sad, almost indignant expression, the sight of which shot a keen pang through the gentle heart of Zarah. What had she done, what had she said, that her venerated relative should look on her thus? Had there been aught in her conduct unseemly? She had called the Gentile by his name, could it be that which had drawn upon her the unwonted displeasure of Hadassah? As she asked herself such questions, the cheek of Zarah became suffused with crimson; she scarcely knew what caused the painful embarrassment which she felt; she seemed to herself like one detected in doing evil, and yet her conscience had nothing wherewith to reproach her as concerned her conduct towards her grandmother's guest. So uneasy was the maiden, however, that on Abishai's return she did not stay to hear the conversation which ensued between him and Hadassah, but glided up the outer stair to the roof of the house, where, seated alone on the flat roof, with only heaven's blue canopy above her, she could commune with her own heart, and question it regarding the nature of the dangerous interest which she felt in the Gentile stranger. CHAPTER XI. DEEP THINGS. When Abishai re-entered the dwelling of Hadassah, he found her drawing forth, from a secret receptacle in the wall, a long roll of parchment, covered with writing in Hebrew characters within and without. The lady pressed it reverentially to her lips, and then resumed her seat, with the sacred roll laid across her knees. Abishai regarded with respect, almost amounting to awe, a woman to whom had been given the talent, wisdom, and courage to transcribe so large a portion of the oracles of God. He felt as Barak may have done towards Deborah, and stood leaning against the wall, listening with respectful attention to the words of this "Mother in Israel." "These Scriptures, my son," said Hadassah, "have been my study by day, and my meditation by night; and most earnestly have I sought, with fasting and prayer, to penetrate some of their deep meaning in regard to Him that shall come. I am yet as a child in knowledge, but the All-wise may be pleased to reveal something even to a child. It has seemed to me of late that I have been permitted to trace one word, written as in gigantic shadows--now fainter--now deeper--on Nature, in History, on the Law, in the Prophets. That single word is SACRIFICE. Wherever I turn I see it; it seems to me as a law of being; yea, as the very essence of religion itself." "I do not understand you," said Abishai; "how is the word Sacrifice written on Nature?" "See we it not on all things around us?" replied Hadassah. "Does not the seed die that the corn may spring up; doth not the decaying leaf nourish the living plant; doth not one creature maintain its existence by the destruction of others? There is a mystery of suffering in this fair world, some stern necessity for what we call evil, though from it a merciful God is ever evolving good. These things distressed and perplexed me, till I could dimly trace that word Sacrifice as written by God's finger upon His works; death the parent of life, pain and sorrow--of joy!" "The primeval curse is on Nature," observed the Hebrew. "Linked with the primeval blessing," said Hadassah. "And now when I turn from natural objects to the history of our race, sacrifice and suffering are still ever before me. Isaac is devoted as a burnt-offering before he becomes the father of the chosen race; Joseph is sold for pieces of silver ere he can redeem his family from destruction; the storm is only stilled by Jonah's being cast out into the deep; Samson triumphs over the enemy by the sacrifice of his own life! All these historical facts seem to me as types, dim and shadowy indeed, yet legible to the eye of faith, and Sacrifice is the word which they form." "Dim and shadowy," repeated Abishai, to whom Hadassah's views on the subject appeared somewhat fanciful and vague. "If so in Nature and history," said the Hebrew lady, "the lines are clear and distinct enough in our holy law. Why have countless victims been offered, even from the time of the Fall? Why was the dying lamb of Abel more acceptable than the bloodless offering of Cain? Why have thousands of guiltless creatures been slain on the altar of God; nay, not upon His alone, even on altars of the heathen who have never heard of His name, as if there were a deep instinct implanted in the soul of man, to testify that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin? Think we that the All-merciful can take pleasure in the death of bulls or of goats? Yet hath He Himself ordained it. Sacrifice, suffering, substitution, one life accepted as ransom for another, this idea pervades the law given by inspiration to Moses; yea, long before the birth of Moses, to Abraham, to Noah, to Abel!" "I grant it," Abishai replied. "As man is guilty in the sight of his Maker, there must be sacrifice for sin as long as the world shall last." The light of inspiration seemed to glow in the uplifted eyes of Hadassah, and her lips to breathe words not her own as she spoke again. "What if all these sacrifices but point to one great Sacrifice; what if the deep mystery of suffering be resolved into some deeper mystery of love; what if God Himself should provide the substitute, and if on some altar blood be shed which shall suffice to atone for transgressions past, present, and to come, even to the end of all time? May it not be--must it not so be--if we read the Scriptures aright?" "I cannot divine your meaning," said Abishai. "What is written here of the coming Messiah?" asked Hadassah, laying her hand on the roll of prophecy, as she turned her earnest, searching gaze upon her companion. "That He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel!" exclaimed Abishai with exultation; "is He not named Messiah the Prince?" "Who shall be _cut off, but not for Himself_" (Dan. ix. 26), said Hadassah, in low thrilling tones that made Abishai start, and look at her with surprise. "You," she continued, "see the PRINCE in prophecy, written as in characters of light; I see the SACRIFICE, ever in letters of deepening shadow. Behold here,"--and as the widow spoke, she opened the roll till her finger could point to the Twenty-second Psalm,--"what means this cry of mysterious sorrow, _My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_" "It is David's cry of anguish," said Abishai. "Look farther on, my son, ponder the subject more deeply," cried Hadassah, and she proceeded to read aloud part of the inspired Word. "_The assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them, and cast lots on My vesture_ (Ps. xxii. 16-18). These things never happened to David; the Psalmist speaks not here of himself." "Of whom then could he be speaking," said Abishai, looking perplexed. "Not surely of the Messiah, not of the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15). "Wherefore not?" asked Hadassah, "seeing that He Himself must be bruised in the conflict? If it be written, _My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high_, the shadow lies close under the brightness, it is also written, _His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men, and why? because so shall He sprinkle many nations_ (Isa. lii. 13-15), it may be--with His own blood!" "Yours are strange thoughts," muttered the son of Nathan. "They are not my thoughts," replied Hadassah. "Behold, farther on in the roll, what was revealed to the prophet Isaiah? Is the note of triumph sounded here? _He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of My people was He stricken_ (Isa. liii. 3-6, 8). Have we not here the Victim, the Substitute, the Sacrifice bound on the altar, bleeding, wounded, dying, and that for sins not His own?" "It cannot be. It is impossible--quite impossible--that when the Messiah comes He should be despised and rejected," exclaimed Abishai, to whom this interpretation of prophecy was as unwelcome as it was new. "When He comes, all Israel shall triumph and rejoice, and welcome their King, the Ruler of the world." Hadassah silently unrolled her parchment until she came to the thirteenth chapter[1] of the prophet Zechariah. "Listen to this, son of Nathan," said she. "_Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man that is My Fellow, saith the Lord of hosts_" (Zech. xiii. 7). "Who is My Fellow?" repeated Abishai, in amazement, for that portion of Scripture had never been brought to his attention before. "Can you have read the sentence correctly? Were that not written in the Word of God, methinks it were rank blasphemy even to think that the Lord of hosts could have an equal." "There is mystery in that word which man cannot fathom," cried Hadassah, "The Divine Essence is One: the foundation of our faith is the most solemn declaration, _Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God_[2] _is One Lord_ (Deut. vi. 4); and yet in that very declaration is conveyed the idea of unity combined with distinction of persons." "Hadassah, Hadassah, into what wilderness of heresy are you wandering?" Abishai exclaimed. The Hebrew lady appeared not to hear him, but went on, as if thinking aloud: "No man hath seen God at any time, He Himself hath declared--_No man shall see Me, and live_" (Exod. xxxiii. 20). "But who, then, visibly appeared unto Abraham? Who was it who wrestled with Jacob? Who spake unto Gideon? On whose glory was Isaiah permitted to gaze? Who was soon to walk in the fiery furnace? Who was He, _like the Son of Man, who came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days?_" (Dan. vii. 18.) "At one moment you would view Messiah as a Victim; at the next, as a God!" cried the Hebrew. "If God should deign to take the form of Man, to bear Man's penalty, to suffer Man's death, might He not be _both_?" asked Hadassah. Seeing that Abishai started at the question, she turned to the portion of the roll which contained the prophecy of Isaiah, and read aloud:-- "_Unto us a Child is born_. Here is clearly an announcement of human birth; yet is this Child revealed to us as _the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace_" (Isa. ix. 6). "Such thoughts as these are too high, too difficult, for the human mind to grasp," exclaimed Abishai, pressing his brow. "The frail vessel must burst that has such hot molten gold poured within it. All that I can answer to what you have said is this. I believe not--and never will believe--that when Messiah, the Hope of Israel, shall come, He will be rejected by our nation. Were it so, such a fearful curse would fall upon our race that the memory of the Egyptian bondage, the Babylonish captivity, the Syrian persecution, would be forgotten in the greater horrors of what God's just vengeance would bring upon this people. We should become a by-word, a reproach, a hissing. We should be scattered far and wide amongst the nations, as chaff is scattered by the winds, until--" Abishai paused, and clenched his hand and set his teeth, as if language failed him to describe the utter desolation and misery which such a crime as the rejection of the Messiah must bring upon the descendants of Abraham. As Abishai did not finish his sentence, Hadassah completed it for him. "Until," she said, with a brightening countenance--"until Judah repent of her sin, and turn to Him whom she once denied. Hear, son of Nathan, but one more prophecy from the Scriptures. Thus saith the Lord:--_I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon ME whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born_ (Zech. xii. 10). _And the Lord shall be King over all the earth_" (Zech. xiv. 9). Abishai left the dwelling of Hadassah with a perturbed spirit, unwilling to own to himself that views so widely differing from his own could have any foundation in truth. The idea of a rejected, suffering, dying Messiah was beyond measure repugnant to the soul of the Hebrew. "See what comes of concentrating all the powers of the mind on abstruse study!" Abishai muttered to himself as he descended the hill. "Hadassah is going mad; her judgment is giving way under the strain." [1] Of course, the Hebrew roll was not divided into chapters; they are but given for facility of reference. [2] "God," in the original, is "Elohim," a _plural_ word. CHAPTER XII. TRIALS OF THE HEART. For the first time in the course of her life, Zarah dreaded a meeting with Hadassah. Though the season was now so far advanced that the heat of the sun was great, the maiden lingered on the shadeless housetop, leaning her brow against the parapet, listlessly gazing towards Jerusalem, but with her mind scarcely taking in the objects upon which her eyes were fixed. Was it a foreboding of coming sorrow, or a feeling of self-reproach, that brooded over the maiden's soul? Zarah was afraid to analyze her own feelings: she only knew that her heart was very heavy. Nearly two hours thus passed. The sun had now approached the horizon, and the heat was less oppressive. Zarah heard the slow step of Hadassah ascending the stair, and rose to meet her, but with a sensation of fear. The remembrance of that look of sad displeasure, such as had never been turned upon her before, had haunted the mind of the conscious girl. Was Hadassah angry with her daughter? Would she come to probe a heart which had never from childhood kept a secret from one so tenderly loved? Zarah was afraid to raise her eyes to Hadassah's when they met, lest she should encounter that stern look again; but never had the aged lady's face worn an expression of greater tenderness than it did when, on the housetop, she rejoined the child of her love. "Have you been here in the heat of the sun, my dove, letting the fierce rays beat on your unveiled face?" said Hadassah, after printing a kiss on the maiden's brow. "Nay, I must chide you, my Zarah. Seat yourself where yon tall palm now throws its shadow, and I will sit beside you. We will talk of the glorious tidings which Abishai brought to us to-day." It was a great relief to Zarah to hear that such was to be the subject of the coming conversation. She glanced timidly up into the face of Hadassah; and, quite reassured by what she saw there, took her favourite place at her grandmother's feet. "Is it not evident," pursued Hadassah, "that the arm of the Lord is stretched out to fight for Judah---that His blessing goes with Judas Maccabeus? Do you not rejoice, Zarah, in the victory which has been won by our Hebrew heroes?" "I do rejoice; I thank God for it," replied the maiden. "I hope that a time is coming when we shall go forth, like the women of Israel in olden time, who went singing and dancing to meet Saul and David, after the triumph over the Philistines." "David, when he slew Goliath and won the hand of a king's daughter, deserved not more of his country than does Maccabeus," observed Hadassah. "Are you not proud of your kinsman, my child?" "All Judaea is proud of her hero," said Zarah. "Happy the woman whom he shall choose as his bride!" cried Hadassah. The maiden gave no reply. "Zarah, why should I longer conceal from you what has so long been in my thoughts?" said the aged lady, after a pause of some minutes' duration. "Why should you not know of the high honour awaiting my daughter? From your early childhood both Mattathias, our revered kinsman--on whose grave be peace!--and myself have looked forward to the future espousals of my loved Zarah and Judas." "Judas! Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Zarah, suddenly withdrawing her trembling hand from that of her grandmother, in which it had been clasped. "He is wedded to his country; he will never think of taking a wife." She spoke rapidly, and with some emotion. "His toils and triumphs may, and I trust will, lead to future peace," said Hadassah. "Then may he enjoy the happiness which he has earned so well. Will you not give it to him, Zarah--you, whose very name signifies 'brightness'?" "I honour Maccabeus as a hero; I could reverence him as my prince; I would kneel and wash the dust from his feet, or cut off my long hair to string his bow; but I cannot be his bride," exclaimed Zarah. "I am so weak, so unworthy! It would be like mating the eagle with the sparrow that sits on the housetops. Maccabeus is the noblest of men." "Blessed the wife who can so honour her lord!" said Hadassah. "I do honour Maccabeus from the depths of my soul; but--but I fear him," faltered Zarah. "Were you a Syrian you might say so," observed Hadassah, with a faint approach to a smile; "but not as a daughter of Judah. Terrible as he is to his country's foes, to armed oppressors, no maiden had ever cause to dread Maccabeus. The sharp thorns of the cactus make it an impenetrable fence which the strongest intruder cannot break through; yet bears it brilliant flowers and refreshing fruit. The strong war-horse tramples down the enemy in battle; but in peace the little child unharmed may play with his mane. The bravest are the most gentle. Judas is no exception to this rule. Pure-hearted and true, he is one to make a woman happy." Zarah sighed, and drooped her head. "Was it not a proud moment for Achsah, when Othniel, after the conquest of Kirjathsepher, claimed her hand as the victor's prize?" asked Hadassah. "But Achsah was the daughter of a Caleb," said Zarah. Then, raising her head, she suddenly inquired--"Did my father also destine me to be the bride of my kinsman?" Hadassah winced at the question, as if a painful wound had been touched. "Oh, my child, have pity on me," she faintly murmured, "and speak not of him!" Zarah had for long known that there was one subject which she dared never approach. Her grandmother had, as it were, one locked chamber in her heart, which no one might venture to open. Whether Zarah's father were dead or not, the maiden knew not. She faintly remembered a tall, handsome man, who had played with her tresses and danced her in his arms when she was a child, in her early home at Bethsura; but since she had left that home in company with her grandmother, she had never seen him nor heard his name. The slightest allusion to her father by Zarah had caused such distress to Hadassah, that the child had soon learned to be silent, though not to forget. Hadassah often spoke of Miriam, her only daughter, and of Zarah's own gentle mother--twin-roses, as she would call them, both early gathered for heaven in the first year of their wedded lives--but of her son she never would speak. A mystery hung round the fate of Abner--such was his name--which his daughter vainly longed to penetrate. Her heart reproached her now for the unguarded question into which she had been surprised. "Oh, forgive me, mother," said Zarah, kissing the hand of Hadassah, which was tremulous and cold; "your word, your will, shall be enough for me in all things, except--oh, ask me not to wed my kinsman." "Is it, can it be because another has a nearer place in your heart?" said Hadassah. The fair countenance of Zarah became suddenly rosy as the sunlit cloud, then pale as Lebanon snow, at the question. "Oh, then, my fears are too true!" exclaimed Hadassah, in a tone not of wrath but of anguish. "Must the sins of the father be visited upon the innocent child! A Gentile--a heathen--an idolater! Would I had died ere this day!" "Be not angry with me, mother," faltered Zarah, wetting Hadassah's hand with her tears. "I am not angry, my poor dove," cried the widow. "Woe is me that I have been, as it were, constrained to expose you to this cruel snare. But you will break through it," she added, with more animation, "my bird will rise above earth with her silver wings unsullied and bright! Various are the temptations which the soul's enemy employs to draw away God's servants from their allegiance; some he would sway through their fears; others he would win by the love of the world, its wealth and its pleasures; others he would chain by their hearts' strong affections. But the Lord gives strength to his people, to resist and to conquer, whether the temptation be from fear or from love. You are the worthy kinsman of Solomona, who gave life itself for the faith." "Perhaps the sacrifice of life is not the hardest to make," Zarah dreamily replied. "Solomona gave her seven sons," said Hadassah. "Oh, what a mercy-stroke to her was that which let her follow them!" exclaimed Zarah. "Had she been left to survive all whom she loved, Solomona had been the most wretched woman on earth!" "No; not the most wretched," said Hadassah, with deep feeling, "for they all died in the faith. Better, all, far better to lose seven by death, than one by--by treason against God!" And in an almost inaudible voice the aged lady added, closing her eyes, "Must I know that misery twice?" "No, mother, mine own dear mother, you shall never know that misery through me!" exclaimed Zarah with animation. "I will pray, I will strive, I will try to put away, even from my thoughts, all that would come between me and the faith of a daughter of Abraham, only guide me, help me, tell your child what she should do," and the maiden passionately kissed again and again the hand of Hadassah, and then pillowed her aching head on her parent's bosom. Hadassah folded her there in a long and tender embrace. "I would send you to Bethsura, to my aged cousin, Rachel," said the widow, "only"-- "Oh, send me not away; let me stay beside you; your health is failing; I should never know peace afar from you!" sobbed Zarah, in a tone of entreaty. "I dare not send my child to Idumea, with no safe escort, and the Syrians, men of Belial, holding the land," said Hadassah. "Better keep her here under my wing, in the quiet seclusion of my home. But, oh, my child, attend to the voice of your mother; you must avoid meeting the Gentile stranger; you must be little in the lower apartments, Zarah, and never save when I am there also. Your trial will not last long; the Athenian's wounds are healing; after the Passover-feast, Abishai will leave Jerusalem to join the patriot band. When he is once safe beyond reach of the enemy, I will no longer for one hour harbour Lycidas under my roof; he has been here far too long already. Your painful struggle will now last but a short time, my Zarah." Zarah thought, though she did not say so, that the heart struggle would last as long as her earthly existence. "You will obey me, my daughter?" asked the widow; "you will shun the too attractive society of the stranger?" The maiden bowed her head in assent, and murmured, "Pray for me, mother; I am so weak." "My life shall be one prayer," said Hadassah. "Mine--one sacrifice," thought the poor maiden. "Oh, may that sacrifice be accepted!" CHAPTER XIII. SILENT CONFLICT. The maiden kept her silent promise; faithfully she obeyed the hest of Hadassah. Seldom as possible did she enter the room which communicated with the hiding-place of Lycidas, and never save in the company of her aged relative. Zarah's wheel was carried to her sleeping apartment; heat and discomfort were made no excuse for leaving the more secluded portions of the small and inconvenient dwelling. Zarah, a voluntary prisoner, avoiding seeing him who appeared to her to be an embodiment of all that was beautiful in form, and brilliant in mind, one whose society resembled the light which glorifies every object on which it may fall. And Zarah did not, as many maidens in her place might have done, punish Hadassah for throwing her influence into the scale of duty, by showing her the extent of the sacrifice which she had required. The young girl, while her heart was bleeding, struggled to maintain a serene and placid mien. Hadassah never heard Zarah sigh, never surprised her in tears. No duty was neglected, no work left undone; nay, Zarah spun more busily than ever, for the support of the stranger was a drain on the scanty resources of Hadassah, and to work for him and pray for him was the sole indulgence which Zarah could allow herself without self-reproach. She tried--how arduous was the effort!--even to turn her thoughts from the subject which was to her as the forbidden fruit was to Eve. The chasm which divided Abraham's daughter from the heathen was one over which, as Zarah knew, it would be sinful to throw even the rainbow bridge of imagination. She must force her mind from approaching the dangerous brink. How many of the Psalms of David, always those most mournful in their tone, Zarah repeated to herself, to bring solace to her spirit by day, or sleep to her eyelids by night. While Judas Maccabeus was maintaining a gallant struggle against the enemies of his country, conquering, but through much stern endurance, Zarah, with the same faith and obedience as animated the warrior, was keeping up a more painful fight against the heathen in her own gentle heart. There was one subject of thought, and that a distressing one, to which Zarah's mind most readily reverted when she would turn it from the channel into which it was ever naturally flowing. This was the mystery connected with the fate of Abner her father. The few words which had escaped Hadassah in an unguarded moment, were as the dull red light which a torch might throw on the sides of some yawning pit, whose depths are left in profound darkness. Often had Zarah yearned to know more of her father, how he had died, for she had once deemed him dead, where his dear remains had been laid,--all that concerned him was of deep interest to his only child. But any attempt to break through the reserve which sealed the lips of Hadassah had evidently occasioned such acute distress that Zarah had long since given up the hope of gaining information from her. Anna had entered the service of Hadassah, since the Hebrew lady had quitted Bethsura; the attendant knew nothing, and therefore could tell nothing, of what had previously occurred in the family. Solomona, when she had paid occasional visits to her kinswomen, had never given Zarah an opportunity of speaking on so delicate a subject. Once when Zarah had ventured to ask the question, "Did you know my father?" Solomona had appeared not to hear it, and had instantly started some quite irrelevant topic of conversation. Abishai doubtless knew much about the brother of his wife, but Zarah shrank from questioning him; from his fierce impetuosity of character, he was not one to draw out the confidence of a gentle and timid girl. Zarah almost felt as if her uncle disliked, and for some reason which she understood not, regarded her with mingled pity and contempt. Thus the daughter of Abner, cut off from all means of gaining reliable information, was thrown back on her own conjectures. A vague doubt which had lately arisen in Zarah's mind, but which had always heretofore been repelled as treason to a parent's memory, was given form and substance by the faint exclamation which grief had wrung from Hadassah, "_Must I know that misery twice._" Many slight circumstances then recurred to Zarah's memory to confirm her suspicions, especially the anguish which Hadassah had betrayed at the burial of Solomona, when a strange pang of envy had seemed to intensify that of bereavement. Zarah was as one bending lower and lower over that pit of which she longed, yet dreaded, to sound the depths, straining her eyes to penetrate the darkness, while trembling to think what horrors that darkness might hide. "Is it possible that my father may yet be breathing on earth, living--the life of an apostate!" The idea haunted Zarah like a spectre. There was only one hope which had power to lay it: "If living, he may be spared for repentance. God is merciful; He judgeth not severely; He delighteth in receiving His wanderers back. Did not Nathan say to penitent David, 'Thou shalt not surely die;' was not even the guilty Manasseh restored to his throne? Oh, the son of the pious Hadassah, a woman of such faith and prayer, can never be lost!" After such meditations, the burdened heart of Zarah would find relief in fervent supplications for her father. Her filial affection came to the aid of her religious obedience. "God will not hear prayers," thought Zarah, "from one in whose heart an idol is enshrined. For my father's sake, as well as my own, let me strive to give unreserved obedience to my Lord." So, endeavouring to overcome one grief by the help of another, and to cast a veil over both, Zarah passed weary day after day, letting no murmur mar her offering of meek submission. She would even speak cheerfully to Hadassah, and sing to her songs of Zion, which the aged lady delighted to hear. There was one song especially dear, in which Hadassah had herself woven prophetic promises into verse. The rhymes might be rude, and altogether unworthy of their theme; but when softly warbled by Zarah's melodious voice, they appeared to the aged listener like the very breathing of hope. LAY OF ZION. "Jerusalem, thou sittest in the dust, God's heavy judgment on thy children lies; But He in whom their fathers put their trust Shall bid thee yet, as from the grave, arise.[1] Oh, Zion, discrowned Queen! A throne awaits for thee;[2] For glorious thou hast been, All glorious shalt thou be.[3] "Behold the white-winged ships from Tarshish strand,[4] Shall bear thy sons and daughters o'er the wave; All nations call thee blessed, delightsome land,[5] Which God of old to faithful Abraham gave.[6] Oh, Zion, &c. "Ephraim with Judah God shall then restore,[7] The Hand that severed, now uniteth them; Ephraim shall envy, Judah, vex no more,[8] All shall rejoice in thee, Jerusalem. Oh, Zion, &c. "Assyria, Egypt, shall with Israel join,[9] (The land where Daniel trod the lion's den, The land where Pharaohs bowed at Apis' shrine), Oppressors once--but more than sisters then. Oh, Zion, &c. "God shall a wall of fire round thee abide,[10] To guard thee as the apple of the eye;[11] Rejoicing as the bridegroom o'er the bride.[12] For He hath pardoned thine iniquity.[13] Oh, Zion, &c. "The mountains may depart, the hills may shake,[14] But nought thy Saviour's love from thee shall sever, The mother may her sucking child forsake, God thy Redeemer shall forsake thee never.[15] Oh, Zion, discrowned Queen! A throne still waits for thee; For glorious thou hast been, All glorious shalt thou be." [1] Isa. lx. 1. [2] Isa. xxii. 23. [3] Isa. lx. 13, 14. [4] Isa. lx. 9. [5] Mal. iii. 12 [6] Gen. xiii. 15. [7] Ezek. xxxvii. 16, 17. [8] Isa. xi. 13. [9] Isa. xix. 24. [10] Zech. ii. 5. [11] Zech. ii. 8. [12] Isa. lxii. 5. [13] Isa. xliv. 22. [14] Isa. liv. 10. [15] Isa. xlix. 15. CHAPTER XIV. A CRISIS. Lycidas, in the meantime, was chafing in wild impatience under the trial of Zarah's almost perpetual absence. He could no longer watch her, no longer listen to her, except when his straining ear caught the faint sound of her music floating down from an upper apartment. Why was she away? why should she shun him? she whose presence alone had rendered not only tolerable but delightful the kind of mild captivity in which he was retained, while the state of his wounds rendered the Greek unable, without assistance, to leave the dwelling of Hadassah. Lycidas had none of the scruples of Zarah regarding union with one of a different race and religion. The Greek had resolved on winning the fair Hebrew maid as his bride; he was conscious of possessing the gift of attractions such as few young hearts could resist, and asked fortune only for an opportunity of exerting all his powers to the utmost to secure the most precious prize for which mortal had ever contended. Lycidas beguiled many tedious hours by the composition of a poem, of singular beauty, in honour of Zarah. Most melodious was the flow of the verse, most delicate the fragrance of the incense of praise. The realms of nature, the kingdom of art, were ransacked for images of beauty. But Lycidas felt disgusted with his own work before he had completed it. He seemed to himself like one decorating with gems and hanging rich garments on an exquisite statue, in the attempt to do it honour only marring the perfection of its symmetry, and the grace of its marble drapery. A few words which the Greek had heard Hadassah read from her sacred parchment, appeared to him to include more than all his most laboured descriptions could convoy. Lycidas had thought of Zarah when he had listened to the expression, _the beauty of holiness_. "I will not stay a prisoner here, if I am to be shut out in this stifling little den not only from the world, but from her who is more than the world to me," thought the Greek. After months of suffering and weakness, strength, though but slowly, was returning to the frame of Lycidas; and when no one was near to watch him, when the door to the west was closed, and the curtain to the east was drawn, he would occasionally try how far that strength would enable him to go. He would raise himself on his feet, though not without a pang from his wounded side. Then the Greek would take a few steps, from one end of his prison to the other, leaning for support against the wall. This was something for a beginning; youth and love would soon enable him to do more. But Lycidas carefully concealed from Hadassah and Anna that he could do as much. They never saw him but reclining on the floor. He feared that measures might be taken to clip the wings of the bird if it were once guessed how nearly those wings were fledged. The day before the celebration of the great feast of the Passover, Hadassah was far from well. Whether her illness arose from the state of the weather, for the month of Nisan was this year more than usually hot, or the effect of long fastings and prayer upon a frame enfeebled by age, or whether from secret grief preying on her health, Zarah knew not,--perhaps from all these causes combined. The maiden grew uneasy about her grandmother, and redoubled her tender ministrations to her comfort. On the day mentioned, Anna had gone into Jerusalem to dispose of flax spun by the Hebrew ladies, and procure a few necessary articles of food. Hadassah never suffered her beautiful girl to enter to walls of the city, nor, indeed, ever to quit the precincts of her home, save when on Sabbath-days and feast-days she went, closely veiled, to the dwelling of the elder Salathiel, about half a mile distant from that of Hadassah, to join in social worship. Hadassah with jealous care shrouded her white dove from the gaze of Syrian eyes. The aged lady had passed a very restless night. With thrilling interest Zarah had heard her moaning in her sleep, "Abner! my son! my poor lost son!" The sealed lips were opened, when the mind had no longer power to control their utterance. Hadassah awoke in the morning feverish and ill. She made a vain attempt to rise and pursue her usual avocations. Zarah entreated her to lie still. For hours the widow lay stretched on a mat with her eyes half closed, while Zarah watched beside her, fanning her feverish brow. "Let me prepare for you a cooling drink, dear mother," said the maiden at last, rising and going to the water-jar, which stood in a corner of the apartment. "Alas! it is empty. Anna forgot to replenish it from the spring ere she set out for the city. I will go and fill it myself." Zarah lifted up the jar, and poising it on her head, lightly descended the rough steps of the outer stair, and proceeded to the spring at the back of the house. The spring was surrounded by oleanders, which at this time of the year in Palestine are robed in their richest bloom. But the season had been singularly hot and dry, the latter rains had not yet fallen, and the spring was beginning to fail. Zarah placed her jar beneath the opening from which, pure and bright, the water trickled, but the supply was so scanty that she could almost count the drops as they fell. It would take a considerable time for the jar to be filled by these drops. "Ah! methinks my earthly joys are even as this failing spring!" thought the maiden, sadly, as she watched the slow drip of the water. "All will be dried up soon. My loved grandmother's strength is sinking; she will be unable to-morrow to keep the holy feast in Salathiel's house, though her heart will be with the worshippers there. How different, oh! how different is this Passover from that which we celebrated last year! Then, indeed, there was an idol in the Temple of the Lord, and holy sacrifice could not be offered in the appointed place, but the fierce storm of persecution had not arisen in all its terrors. Then around the table of Salathiel how many gathered whom I never again shall behold upon earth! Solomona, my kinswoman, and her seven sons all met in that solemn assembly; the bright-eyed Asahel, the fearless Mahali, young Joseph, who was my merry playmate when ten years ago we came from Bethsura hither! I remember that when Hadassah looked on that cluster of brothers, she said that they were like the Pleiades--they are more like those star-gems now, for they shine not on earth but in heaven! And Solomona looked proudly on her boys--her noble sons, and said that not one of them had ever raised a blush on the cheek of their mother; and then, methinks, she regretted having uttered the boast, and I fancied that I heard a stifled sigh from Hadassah. Was it that the spirit of prophecy came upon her then, that she foresaw the terrible future, or was it--alas! alas! I dare not think wherefore she sighed! And old Mattathias, he who now sleeps in the sepulchre of his fathers, he and his sons kept that Passover feast with Salathiel, having come up to Jerusalem to worship, according to the law of Moses. How venerable looked the old man with his long snowy beard! it seemed to me that so Abraham must have looked, when his earthly pilgrimage was well-nigh ended. Mattathias laid his hand on my head and blessed me, and called me daughter. Ah! can it be that he thought of me then as his daughter indeed! The princely Judas stood near, and when I raised my head I met the gaze of his eyes, and I thought--no, I never then fully grasped the meaning expressed in that gaze, it was to me as the tender glance of a brother. Mattathias is gone; Solomona and her children are all gone; Judas, with his gallant band, is like a lion at bay with the hunters closing in an ever-narrowing circle around him. Apollonius has been vanquished, Seron defeated by our hero; but now Nicanor and Giorgias, with the forces of Ptolemy, upwards of forty thousand men, are combining to crush him by their overwhelming numbers! What can the devotion of our patriots avail but to swell the band of martyrs who have already laid down their lives in defence of our faith and our laws! Alas! theirs will be a stern keeping of the holy feast; other blood will flow besides that of the Paschal lamb! And a sad keeping of the feast will be mine; I shall see scarce a familiar face, that of no relative save Abishai; and I owe him but little affection. And oh! worst of all, I fear me that I have an unholy leaven in my heart, which I in vain seek to put entirely away. I am secretly cherishing the forbidden thing, though not wilfully, not wilfully, as He knows to whom I constantly pray for strength to give up all that is displeasing in His sight!" The jar was now full; Zarah turned to raise it as the last thought passed through her mind, and started as she did so! Lycidas, with all his soul beaming in his eyes, was close beside her! The maiden uttered a faint exclamation, and endeavoured to pass him, and return to the house. "Stay, Zarah, idol of my soul!" exclaimed the Athenian, seizing her hand; "you must not fly me, you shall listen to me once--only once!" and with a passionate gush of eloquence the young Greek laid his hopes, his fortunes, his heart at her feet. Zarah turned deadly pale; her frame trembled. "Oh, Lycidas, have mercy upon me!" she gasped. "It is sin in me even to listen; it were cruelty to suffer you to hope. Our law forbids a daughter of Abraham to wed a Gentile; to return your love would be rebellion against my God, apostasy from the faith of my fathers; better to suffer--better to die!"--and with an effort releasing her icy-cold hand from the clasp of the man whom she loved, Zarah sprang hurriedly past him, and with the speed of a frightened gazelle fled up the staircase, and back into the chamber in which she had left Hadassah. Lycidas stood bewildered by the maiden's sudden retreat. He felt as if the gate of a paradise had been suddenly closed against him. CHAPTER XV. THE TWO CAMPS. While the scenes lately described had been occurring in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, Maccabeus, in the mountains, had been preparing for the deadliest shock of war. Like wave upon wave, each swelling higher than the one before it, successive armies hurled their strength against the devoted band that held aloft the banner of the truth, as a beacon-light gleaming on high amidst the fiercest fury of the tempest. The mighty Nicanor, son of Patroclus, a man honoured with the king's peculiar favour, had gathered together a powerful force "to root out the whole generation of the Jews," and with him was joined in command Georgias, a general of great experience in war. A large camp was formed by the Syrians at Emmaus, about a Sabbath-day's journey from Jerusalem. The hills were darkened with their goats'-hair tents, the roads thronged with soldiers, and with a multitude of merchants who brought much silver and gold to purchase Hebrew captives as slaves for their markets. For so confident of victory was Nicanor, that he had beforehand proclaimed a sale of the prisoners whom he would reserve from slaughter; nay, had fixed the very price which he would demand for his vanquished foes! Ninety of the Hebrew warriors should be sold for a talent, so ran Nicanor's proclamation. "These bold outlaws," said the haughty Syrian, "shall spend their superfluous strength, as did their Samson of old, in grinding corn for their victors, or in tilling the fields which they once called their own, with the taskmaster's lash to quicken their labours. Ha! ha! it were good subject for mirth to see the lordly Maccabeus himself, with blinded eyes, turning the wheel at the well, and bending his proud back to serve as my footstool when I mount my Arab steed! This were sweeter vengeance, a richer triumph, than to hew him to pieces with the sword which he took from the dead Apollonius. Let the Asmonean fall into my hands, and he shall taste what it is to endure a living death!" Maccabeus, on his part, had led his forces to Mizpeh, where they had encamped. Here a day of solemn humiliation was appointed by the Asmonean chief; he and his warriors fasted, put on sackcloth, and united in prayer to the God of Hosts. The leader then more perfectly organized his little army, dividing it into bands, and appointing captains over the divisions. While Divine aid was implored, human means were not neglected. Early in the morning of the succeeding day, Maccabeus and Simon, his elder brother, held grave consultation together. The scene around them was historic; the very heap of stones upon which the chiefs were seated marked the spot where the last leave of Laban had been taken by Jacob their forefather, when returning to his aged parent. But few months have elapsed since Judas stood, as the reader first saw him, by the grave of the martyrs, but these eventful months have wrought a marked change upon the Asmonean leader. Fatigue, hardship, the burden of care, the weight of responsibility, added to the sorrow of bereavement, have left their stamps on his expressive features. Maccabeus looks a worn and a weary man; but there is increased majesty in his demeanour, that dignity which has nothing to do with pride; for pride has its origin in self-consciousness, true dignity in forgetfulness of self. "This will be our sharpest conflict; the enemy is strong," observed Simon, glancing in the direction of the Syrian hosts, which lay between them and Jerusalem. "With the God of Heaven it is all one to deliver with a great multitude or with a few," said Maccabeus. "What is the number of our forces?" asked Simon. "Six thousand, as given by yesterday's returns," was the reply; "but to-day I will make proclamation that they who are planting vineyards or building houses, or who have lately married wives, have full leave to retire if they will it, and then--ha! Eleazar returned already!" cried the leader, interrupting himself, as a young Hebrew, dressed as a Syrian merchant, with rapid step ascended the little eminence on which the Asmonean brothers were seated. "I have been in the midst of them!" exclaimed Eleazar; "ay, I have stood in their tents, heard their songs, listened to their proud boastings, been present when the sons of Mammon bartered for the limbs and lives of the free-born sons of Abraham! They may have our bodies as corpses," added the young Asmonean, with a proud smile, "but never as slaves; and even as corpses, they shall purchase us dearly." "Know you the numbers of the Syrians?" inquired Simon, whose quiet, sedate manner formed a strong contrast to that of the fiery young Eleazar. "Nicanor has forty thousand footmen and seven thousand horse," was the reply; "to say nothing of those who hang round his camp, as vultures who scent the carnage from afar." "More than seven to one," observed Simon, slightly shaking his head. "Hebrews have encountered worse odds than that," cried the young man. "Ay, when all were stanch," his elder brother rejoined. "Do you then doubt our men!" exclaimed Eleazar. "Many of them will be faithful unto death; but I know that in some quarters there are misgivings--I may call them fears," was the grave reply of Simon. "Not all our troops are tried warriors; some in the camp have spoken of submission." "Submission!" cried Eleazar, clenching his hand; "I would lash the slaves up to the conflict as I would lash dogs that hung back in the chase." "On the contrary," said Maccabeus, who had hitherto listened to the conversation in silence, "I shall proclaim that whoso is fearful, has my free permission to depart from us in peace." "Were that well?" asked Simon, doubtfully, "we are already so greatly outnumbered by the foe." "It is according to the law," replied Judas, calmly; "it is what Gideon did before encountering Midian. We can have no man with us who is half-hearted; no one who will count his life dear in the struggle which is before us." "If we are to fall in the struggle," observed Simon, "half our number will indeed suffice for the sacrifice." He spoke without fear, but in the tone of one who felt the full extent of the threatening danger. "See you yon stone, my brother?" asked Maccabeus, pointing to a pillar on the way to Shen, which was clearly visible against the background of the deep blue sky. "Yonder is Ebenezer, _the stone of help_, which Samuel set up in remembrance of victory over the Philistines, when God thundered from heaven, and discomfited the foes of Israel." "Ay, I see it," replied Simon; "and I see the power and faithfulness of the Lord of Hosts written on that stone. We are in His hand, not in that of Nicanor." "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!" exclaimed Eleazar. "My brother, give order that the trumpets be sounded," said Maccabeus, "and let our proclamation be known through the camp--that all who fear may retire at once, nor remain to shame us by turning their backs in the day of battle." The commands of the leader were at once obeyed; the proclamation was issued, and its alarming effects were speedily seen. The small force of Maccabeus began to melt like a snow-wreath under the beams of the sun. One man remembered the tears of his newly-wedded bride, another the helpless state of a widowed mother; the hearts of not a few were set on their flocks and herds, while many of their comrades found in the state of crops needing the sickle, an excuse to cover the fear which they would have blushed to own as their motive for deserting the cause of their country. Long before the evening had closed in, the forces under Maccabeus had been reduced to one-half their number. "They have judged themselves unworthy to share the glory that awaits their brave brethren," cried the indignant Eleazar, as, leaning on his unstrung bow, he watched a long line of fugitives wending their way towards the west. Undismayed, though perhaps somewhat discouraged by the defection of half his troops, Maccabeus made before sunset a brief address to those who remained. "Arm yourselves," he said, "and be valiant men; and see that ye be in readiness before the morning, that ye may fight with these nations that are assembled together to destroy us and our sanctuary. For it is better for us to die in battle than to behold the calamity of our people and our sanctuary. Nevertheless, as the will of God is in heaven, so let Him do." So, with stern resolution to conquer or die, the Hebrews retired to their appointed places in the small camp till morning light should arouse them to the desperate conflict. CHAPTER XVI. BATTLE Of EMMAUS. But the struggle was not to be deferred the morning. Night had just spread her veil of darkness over earth, and Simon, prudently reserving his strength for the expected fatigues of the coming day, had wrapped himself in his mantle, and stretched himself on the ground to snatch some hours of repose, when he was roused by the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, Simon saw, by the red light of a torch, which the armour-bearer of Judas was holding aloft, that Maccabeus was before him. "Awake, arise, my brother; this is no time for sleep," said the leader. Simon was on his feet in a moment, an attentive listener, as Maccabeus continued: "A scout has just brought in tidings from the Syrian camp that Nicanor has detached five thousand of his foot-soldiers and a thousand chosen horsemen, under the command of Giorgias, to attack us this night, and take us by surprise." "They will find us prepared," said Simon, as he girded on his sword. "Nay; they will find their prey flown," replied Maccabeus, his features relaxing into a stern smile; "we will fall on the Syrian camp in their absence, teach the enemy his own lesson, and transfer the surprise to our foes." "Well thought of!" exclaimed Simon; "darkness also will serve to hide the weakness of our force." "Our brethren are now marshalling our warriors," said Judas; "all, under God, depends upon silence, promptitude, decision. We fight for our lives and our laws." The leader turned to depart, but as he did so accidentally dropped something on the ground. He stooped to raise and twist it rapidly round his left arm, under the sleeve. The incident was so very trifling that it scarcely drew the notice of Simon, though the thought did flit across his mind that it was strange that his brother, on the eve of battle, could pause to pick up anything so utterly valueless as a slight skein of unbleached flax. It was valueless indeed, save from the associations which, in the mind of him who wore it, were entwined with every thread. That flax had been once used to tie together some flowers long since dead; the flowers had been dropped into a grave of martyrs; the light skein had fallen on the upturned sod unnoticed save by the eyes of one. Perhaps it was from remembrance of the dead, or perhaps it was because hopes regarding the living (hopes brighter and sweeter than the flowers had been) seemed now bound up in that flaxen strand, that Maccabeus fastened that skein round his arm as a precious thing, when he would not have stooped to pick up a chaplet of pearls. By the exertions of the five Asmonean brethren, the little Hebrew army was rapidly put under arms, and prepared for the night attack. The whole force was united as one forlorn hope. As moves the dark cloud in the sky, so darkly and silently moved on the band of heroes, and, like that cloud, they bore the thunderbolt with them. Most of the Syrians on that eventful night were sunk in sleep, but not all; in their camp some kept up their revels till late. All the luxuries which fancy could devise or wealth could purchase were gathered together at Emmaus to hide the grim front of war, so that the camp by daylight presented the motley appearance of a bazaar with the gay magnificence of a court. There sherbet sparkled in vases of silver, and the red wine was poured into golden cups, chased and embossed, in tents stretched out with silken cords. Garments bright with all the varied tints of the rainbow, rich productions of Oriental looms, robes from Tyre, shawls from Cashmere, blended with instruments of warfare, swords, spears, and bucklers, the battle-axe and the helmet. The sentry, pacing his rounds, paused to listen to wild bursts of merriment, the loud oath and light song from some gay pavilion, where young Syrian nobles were exchanging jests, and indulging in deep carousals. Yonder, in the glaring torch-light, sat a group of officers, engaged in some game of chance, and their stakes were the captives whom they were to drag at their chariot-wheels on the morrow. Each throw of the dice decided the fate of a Hebrew; at least, so deemed the merry gamesters. But the destined slaves were coming to the market sooner than their expectant masters dreamed or desired, and the price for each Hebrew would be exacted, not in gold, but in blood. Suddenly the gamesters at their play, the revellers at the board, the slumberers on their couches, were startled by the blare of trumpets and a ringing war-cry, "The sword of the Lord and Maccabeus!" The full goblet was dashed from the lip, the dice from the hand; there were wild shouts and cries, and rushing to and fro, soldiers snatching up weapons, merchants flying hither and thither for safety, stumbling over tent-ropes in the darkness. There were confused noises of terror, trampling of feet, snorting of horses, calls to arms, clashing of weapons, with all the horrors of sudden panic spreading like an epidemic through the mighty host of Syria. The few remained to oppose the unseen assailants, the many took to flight; the ground was soon strewn with treasure, dropped by terrified fugitives, and weapons thrown down by warriors who had not the courage to use them. Tents were speedily blazing, and horses, terrified by the sudden glare and maddened by the scorching heat, prancing, plunging, rushing wildly through the camp, added to the fearful confusion. Maccabeus, with the sword of Apollonius in his hand, pressed on to victory over heaps of prostrate foes. Terror was sent as a herald before him, and success followed wherever he trode. It seemed as if the Lord of Hosts were fighting for Israel, as in the old days of Gideon. Hot was the pursuit after the flying Syrians; Maccabeus and his warriors followed hard on their track to Gazora, Azotus, and Jamnia, and that southern part of Judaea lying between the Red Sea and Sodom, to which, from its having been colonized by Edomites, had been given the name of Idumea. For many a mile the track of the fugitives was marked by their dead. But as the morning dawned after that terrible though glorious night, the trumpets of Maccabeus sounded to call his troops together. The leader had not forgotten--though some of his eager followers might have done so--that Giorgias, with an army of chosen warriors, doubling their own in number, and comparatively fresh, was yet to be encountered. With stern displeasure Maccabeus saw his own men, grim with blood and dust, loading themselves with the rich plunder which lay on the road; like fruit under orchard trees after a wild tornado. "Be not greedy of the spoils," cried the leader, "inasmuch as there is a battle before us; but stand ye now against our enemies, and overcome them, and after this ye may boldly take the spoils." It is a more difficult task to call hounds off the prey that they have run down, than to let them slip from the leashes when the quarry first is in sight. It needed such moral influence over his men as was possessed by Maccabeus to enforce instant obedience when wealth was at their feet, and needed but the gathering up. It was speedily seen, however, that the warning of the Asmonean chief had not been unnecessary. But a few minutes elapsed after the utterance of that warning, when the vanguard of the forces of Giorgias appeared on the crest of a hill at some distance, the live-long night having been spent by them in a vain attempt to discover the camp of the Hebrews. After a long, tedious march, Giorgias found himself on a commanding height, from whence at dawn he had an extensive view of the surrounding country. "The slaves have fled--they have made their escape to the mountains," exclaimed Giorgias, as he dismounted from his weary war-horse, when the first bar of golden light appeared in the orient sky. "Then they have left marks of their handiwork behind them," said a horseman, pointing in the direction in which lay what had been the camp of Nicanor, now suddenly visible to the Syrians from the summit of the hill. "See you yon smoke arising from smouldering heaps? There has been a battle at Emmaus. The lion has broken through the toils. Maccabeus has not been sleeping through the night." "Nay, my Lord Pollux; it is impossible. The Hebrews would never dare to attack a force so greatly outnumbering their own," exclaimed Giorgias, unwilling to believe the evidence of his own senses. But as the light more clearly revealed the tokens of flight and disaster in the far distance, where the smoke of ruin was rising into the calm morning air, conviction of the terrible truth forced itself on the general's mind, and, with mingled astonishment and dismay, he exclaimed, "Where are the hosts of Nicanor?" "Yonder are those who can give an account of them," said Pollux, turning to the south, where in a valley the Hebrews might be seen marshalled around their loader. "There, I ween, is the insolent outlaw who has been making a shambles of our camp. See you the glitter of the spears? Maccabeus is setting his men in battle array. There is but a handful of them. Shall we charge down upon them, and sweep them from the face of the earth?" Giorgias glanced again northward at Emmaus and the smoking ruins of the Syrian camp; then southward, where the little compact force in the valley was clustering round the standard of Maccabeus. Though the troops under the command of Giorgias doubled the Hebrews in number, he dared not try the issue of battle with those who had so lately discomfited Nicanor's formidable hosts. Had the Syrian leader been animated by such a fearless spirit as characterized his opponent, in all human probability the victory of the night might have been, to Judas and his gallant little band, succeeded by the defeat of the morning. But Giorgias showed an unusual amount of caution on the present occasion; and Pollux, though he assumed a tone of defiance, was secretly by no means desirous to measure swords with Maccabeus. The Hebrews were weary with conquering and pursuing. Their spirit was unbroken, but their strength was exhausted. It was with some anxiety that the eagle eye of Judas watched the movements of the enemy on the heights, momentarily expecting an attack which he knew that his band of heroes was so little able to sustain. "They will be down upon us soon," said Simon, as he leaned wearily on his spear. "Nay; behold, they are vanishing over the crest of the mountain!" triumphantly exclaimed Eleazar. "The cowards! only brave over the wine-bowl! Not a stain on their swords! not a dint on their shields! They are fleeing when no man pursues! Oh, that we had but strength to follow, and chase the dastards even up to the walls of Jerusalem!" "God hath put fear into their hearts. To Him be the glory!" said Maccabeus, as he sheathed his heavy sword. And after this--to transcribe the words of the ancient Hebrew historian, describing the triumphs of his countrymen--"they went home, and sung a song of thanksgiving, and praised the Lord in heaven, because He is good, because His mercy endureth for ever." CHAPTER XVII. DEPARTED. When Zarah, trembling and pale, after her interview with Lycidas, fled to the apartment of Hadassah, she left her water-jar behind her at the spring. The sight of her grandmother, stretched on her low couch, with her eyes closed, and her lips parched and dry, recalled to the remembrance of the poor young maiden the errand for which she had quitted her side. "The water! the water!" exclaimed Zarah, striking her brow. "She must have it. But oh! I dare not--I dare not go back; for nothing on earth could I go through that terrible struggle again!" As Zarah stood on the threshold, in a state of painful indecision, to her great relief she heard the voice of Anna below, and called to her to bring up the jar of water which she would find at the fountain. Anna quickly obeyed, and came up the stairs laden, not only with the cooling fluid, but with ripe fruit and vegetables, which she had brought from Jerusalem--the white mulberry and the nebeb, with early figs, cucumbers, and a melon. Very grateful was the supply to Hadassah; but more refreshing by far than the draught of cold water were the tidings which Anna had brought from the city. The Jewess was full of eagerness to a impart her glorious news. "I saw them myself--Giorgias and his horsemen--jaded, crestfallen, as they rode through the streets," cried Anna. "I marvel that they dared show their faces: they had not so much as crossed weapons with our conquering heroes!" "Or they had not lived to tell the tale," exclaimed Hadassah, to whom the news of the victory at Emmaus seemed to give new energy and life. "We dared not clap our hands and shout," continued the Jewish servant; "but there is not a Hebrew child that is not wild with joy. We blessed the name of Maccabeus, though we could only breathe it in whispers." "But a day is coming when the welkin shall ring with that name, and the walls of Jerusalem echo back the sound," cried Hadassah. "Oh, my child!" she continued, glancing joyfully at Zarah, "there will be a thankful celebration of the Passover to-morrow. The Lord is giving deliverance to His chosen, even as He once did from the power of the haughty Pharaoh." "It must be a very quiet keeping of the Feast," observed Anna, shaking her head. "It is said that King Antiochus is raging like a bear robbed of her whelps at the flight of Nicanor and the disgraceful retreat of Giorgias. A courier has ridden off, post-haste, bearer of despatches from the king to Lycias, the regent of the western provinces." "Is it known what the despatches contain?" asked Hadassah. "It is reported in the city," said Anna, "that Lycias is to raise a more mighty and terrible army than any that has swept the country before--more mighty than those led by Apollonius, Seron, or Nicanor. King Antiochus has sworn by all his false gods that he will destroy the Asmoneans root and branch." "What God hath planted, who shall root up? what God prospers, who shall destroy?" cried Hadassah. "Thinks Antiochus Epiphanes that he hath power to strive against the Lord?" "He has terrible power to use against man," said Anna, who had a less courageous spirit than her mistress. "Sharper measures than ever, it is said, are to be taken to put down our secret worship. Woe unto them who are found keeping the Passover to-morrow! It will be done unto them, as it was done to Solomona and her sons." "Would that God would give me strength to attend the holy Feast!" cried Hadassah, on whom the idea of danger following its celebration appeared to act as a stimulant; "no fear of man should keep me away. But He who withholds the power accepts the will of His servant." "I will go with my uncle Abishai," said Zarah. "To rejoice and give thanks," cried Hadassah. But Zarah's sinking heart could not respond to any accents of joy. She bowed her head on he clasped hands, and faintly murmured,-- "To pray for you, for myself, and--" No human ear could catch the word which pale lips inaudibly framed. "Go to our young Greek guest, Anna," Hadassah. "Bear to him some of this ripe, cooling fruit, and tell him of the triumphs of Judas. Though Lycidas be but a heathen," she added, as her handmaiden quitted the apartment to do her bidding, "he has a soul to admire, if he cannot emulate, the lofty deeds of our heroes." In a brief space of time Anna returned to the upper room, with alarm and surprise depicted on her face. "I can nowhere find the Greek lord," she exclaimed. "He has made his escape from the house. There is nothing left but his mantle, and that had fallen near the spring." Hadassah glanced inquiringly at Zarah. But the maiden betrayed no surprise, uttered no word. She only trembled a little, as if from cold; for the sultry heat of Nisan seemed to her suddenly to have changed to the chill of winter. Hadassah made little observation on the flight of Lycidas until Anna had again quitted the apartment, when the widow lady said abruptly,-- "It was strange to leave without a word of farewell, a word of thanks, after having been for months treated as a guest, almost as a son!" Zarah, with her cold, nervous fingers, was unconsciously engaged in tearing the edge of her veil into a fringe. "If I were not uneasy regarding the safety of Abishai," resumed Hadassah-- But here, for the first time in her life, Zarah, with an appearance of impatience, interrupted the speech of her revered relative. "Have no fear for Abishai," cried the maiden, raising her head, and throwing back the long tresses which, from her drooping position, had fallen over her pallid face. "Have no fear for Abishai," she repeated. "The Greek will never repay your generous hospitality by revenging his private injuries upon your son. I can answer for his forbearance." "You are right, my child," said Hadassah, tenderly. "I did Lycidas a wrong by expressing a doubt. Abishai is secure in his silence; and, such being the case, I believe--nay, I feel assured--that, it is better that we harbour the stranger here no longer. I am thankful that Lycidas has left us though his manner of departing seem somewhat churlish." Was Zarah thankful also? Perhaps she was, though a miserable void seemed to be left in young heart, which she felt that nothing could ever fill up. More an orphan than the fatherless and motherless, more desolate than the widow, loving and beloved, yet--save for one sick and aged woman--alone in the world, it seemed to Zarah that a slight tie bound her to life, and that even that tie was gradually breaking. On the eve of that day of sore trial, the spring behind the dwelling had quite dried up: not a single drop gushed forth from the hill to revive the fading oleanders. Just before sunset a laden mule was driven to the door of Hadassah's humble retreat. It was led by Joab, a Jew who had in former years been servant to the lady, and who had been one of those who had bravely assisted in digging the grave of the martyrs. His presence, therefore, in that unfrequented spot excited no alarm. "Anna," said he, addressing the handmaid who stood in the doorway (for he knew her by name), "help me to unload my mule; and do you bear what I bring to your mistress." "From whence comes all this?" asked Anna, with no small curiosity. "I met to-day," replied Joab, "the same stranger whom we caught lurking amidst the olives on the night of the burial of Solomona--(that was nigh being his last night upon earth!) He looked ghastly, as if himself new risen from the grave, and scarcely able to drag his steps along. I helped to raise him on my mule, and it bore him to a house in the city which he mentioned. I doubt whether the Gentile recognized me--his mind seemed to be strangely wandering--till I asked him where he had been since we had met by moonlight under a tree; and then he started, and looked fixedly into my face. He knew me, and did not forget that I had been one to spare his life by stepping over the spear," continued the muleteer, with a grim smile. "The Gentile is not ungrateful. I suppose that he remembered that he owed a debt in another quarter also, for he bade me return in a few hours; and when I did so, charged me to bear these things to the dwelling of the Lady Hadassah--ay, and gave me this purse of silver for her handmaid." "The Lord Lycidas has a noble heart! Would that he were a son of Abraham!" exclaimed the delighted Anna, as she received the gift of the Greek. With mingled curiosity and pleasure Anna then carried up what Joab had brought to the housetop, on which the Hebrew ladies were then sitting, for the sake of the cooling breeze of even. At the bidding of Hadassah, Anna removed the outer wrappings which enclosed what Lycidas had sent, and drew forth a store of goodly gifts, selected with exquisite taste--graceful ornaments, embroidery in gold, the lamp of delicate workmanship, the mirror of polished steel. Anna could not forbear uttering exclamations of admiration; but Hadassah and her grand-daughter looked on in grave silence, until a scroll was handed to the former, which she opened and read aloud. "With these worthless tokens of remembrance, accept the deep gratitude of one who has learned in a few too brief months under your roof more than he could elsewhere have learned in a life-time, of the loftiness of faith and the heroism of virtue." CHAPTER XVIII. THE PASSOVER FEAST. Very different was the celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes from what it had been in the palmy times when the children of Israel were swayed by their own native kings. There was now no mighty gathering together of the people from Dan to Beersheba; herdsmen driving their lowing cattle, shepherds leading their bleating flocks from the slopes of Carmel, and the pastures beneath the snow-capt heights of Lebanon. Fishermen left not their nets by the shores of the inland lakes, nor their boats drawn up on the coast by the sea, to go up, as their fathers had gone, to worship the Lord in Zion. There were no pilgrims from Sharon's plains or the mountains of Gilead. Jerusalem was not crowded with joyful worshippers, and her streets made almost impassable by the droves and flocks collected for sacrifice, as when Josiah held his never-to-be-forgotten Passover Feast. There were no loud bursts of joyful music, as when the singers, the sons of Asaph, ranged in their appointed places, led the chorus of glad thanksgiving. Groups of Hebrews, by twos and threes, stealthily made their way, as if bound on some secret and dangerous errand, to the few houses in which the owners were bold enough or pious enough to prepare the Paschal feast. Amongst these dwellings was that of the elder Salathiel, a man who, in despite of threatened persecution, still dared to worship God according to the law as given through Moses. In an upper room in his house all was set ready for the celebration of the feast, in order as seemly as circumstances would permit. The Paschal lamb had been roasted whole in a circular pit in the ground; it had been roasted transfixed on two spits thrust through it, one lengthwise and one transversely, so as to form a cross. The wild and bitter herbs, with which it was to be eaten, had been carefully washed and prepared. On the table had been placed plates containing unleavened bread, and four cups filled with red wine mingled with water. There had been difficulty in gathering together on this occasion, in the house of Salathiel, even the ten individuals that formed the smallest number deemed by the Hebrews sufficient for the due celebration of the feast. Three of the persons present were females, two of them belonging to Salathiel's own family. The third was Zarah, who, closely shrouded in her large linen veil, came under the escort of Abishai her uncle. The guests arrived late, having had to change their course more than once, from the suspicion that they were dogged by Syrian spies. Greetings, in that upper chamber, were interchanged in low tones; whispered conversation was held as to the recent events, the tidings of which had thrilled like an electric shock through the heart of Jerusalem. The victories of Judas Maccabeus were in every mind and on every tongue. Glad prophecies were circulated amongst the guests that the next Passover would not be held in secret, and kept with maimed rites like the present; but that ere the circling year brought round the holy season again, the sanctuary would be cleansed, the city free, and that white-robed priests and Levites would gather together in the open face of day, where the smoke of sacrifice should rise from the altar of God's Temple. Zarah was the most silent and sad of those who met in the house of Salathiel. Many thoughts were flowing through her mind, which she would not have dared to put into words. "Is it sinful to desire that the blessings of the covenant were not so exclusive?" Thus mused the young Hebrew maid. "Is it sinful to wish that the wall of partition could be broken down, and that Jews and Gentiles, descended from one common Father, and created by one merciful God, could meet to break bread and drink wine in loving communion together? And, if my mother Hadassah reads Scripture aright, may not such a time be approaching? Precious and goodly is the golden seven-branched candlestick of the Temple; but is not the Sun of Righteousness to arise with healing on His wings (Mal. iv. 2), and will the candlestick then be needed? The candles illumine but one chosen spot; the sun shines from the east to the west, the glory and light of the world! Can God care only for the children of Abraham? Lycidas has told us of far-distant isles in the West, where the poor savages are sunk in darkest idolatry, where they actually offer human sacrifices to their huge wicker-idols. Yet might not God in His loving-kindness have mercy even on such wretches as these? Would it be quite impossible that Britons should receive the light of His Word, even as they receive the light of His sunshine? I would fain cling to this hope; I trust that the hope is not presumptuous. And if even these savage islanders be not quite beyond reach of the mercy of the Great Father, will not that mercy embrace the Greeks, the brave, the noble, the gifted? But my thoughts wander upon dangerous ground. Can there be salvation for any that may not partake of the Paschal lamb? Is not exclusion from this feast exclusion from pardoning grace? Oh that there could be a Lamb whose blood could take away the sins of all the world--a Sacrifice of such priceless worth, that not in Jerusalem alone, but through all the earth, there might be forgiveness, and hope, and salvation for all who in faith partake of its merits!" The solemn feast now commenced. The bread was blessed by Salathiel, broken, and then distributed around. The first cupful of wine was silently shared; but when the second was passed around, the lesser Hallel, being the 113th and 114th psalms, were chanted in low subdued tones. Suddenly, in the midst of a verse, every voice was silenced at once, every head turned to listen. The clank of a weapon that had fallen on the paved courtyard below, was to the startled assembly above what the blood-hound's bay is to the deer. "The Syrians have found us; we are betrayed!" ejaculated Abishai, starting up and drawing his sword. "Fly! fly!" was echoed from mouth to mouth. The apartment in which the Hebrews were assembled had two doors--one communicating by a staircase with the courtyard below, the other, on the opposite side of the room, leading to the roof, which was near enough to other dwellings to afford a tolerable chance of escape to those who should make their way over them under cover of the dusk. It was partly on account of this advantage presented by Salathiel's house that it had been chosen as the scene of the Paschal Feast. The second door, through which escape might thus be effected, had been prudently left wide open, and at the first alarm there was a general rush made towards it. Terror so often has the effect of confusing the mind, that the impressions made by passing events, though painfully vivid in colouring, are not distinct in their outlines. Zarah could have given no clear account of the scene which followed, which was to her like a horrible dream. The instinct to make her escape was strong; but as she attempted to fly, the maiden's veil caught in something, she knew not what--it was three or four seconds--they seemed as many hours--before she could extricate it. Zarah heard thundering noises at the one door, rushing sounds of flight at the other; then there was a bursting open of the frail barrier which divided her from the enemy, and Zarah felt rather than saw that the place was filled with soldiers! One sight was indelibly stamped on her brain--it was that of Abishai all streaming with blood, his eyes glaring and glazed, his teeth clenched, as he hissed out the word "apostate!" in the last pangs of death. Zarah knew that it was death. Then rude hands were laid on herself; and the terrified girl felt as the gazelle feels under the claws of the tiger! She was too much alarmed to have breath even to utter a scream. "Hold! harm not the girl!" cried a voice which sounded to Zarah strangely familiar, though she knew not where she could possibly have heard it before; and she saw a tall officer in Syrian dress, the same who has been introduced to the reader more than once under the name of Pollux, who appeared to be in command of the assailing party. Zarah, in her agony of terror, stretched out her hands for protection to one in whose features, even at that moment, she recognized the Hebrew type. But Zarah could not appeal for mercy save by that supplicating gesture; horror so overpowered her senses that she swooned away; and had the steel then done its cruel work, she would have felt no pain. But the command of Antiochus had been rather to seize than to slay; and the soldiers, by the order of Pollux, carried off as their only prisoner a senseless maiden, leaving the dead body of Abishai on the floor dyed with his blood. CHAPTER XIX. A PRISON. From her long swoon Zarah awoke with a sensation of indescribable horror. The cold drops stood on her brow, and there was a painful tightness at her heart. The poor girl could not at once recall what had happened, but knew that it was something dreadful. The first image that rose up in her mind was that of the expiring Abishai: Zarah shuddered, trembled, raised herself by an effort to a sitting posture, and wildly gazing around her, exclaimed, "Where am I? what can have happened?" The place in which the maiden found herself was almost quite dark, but as she glanced upwards she could see pale stars gleaming in through a small and heavily-barred window. She knew that she must be in a Syrian prison. Pressing both her hands to her forehead, the young captive recalled the terrible scene of which she had been a witness. "Oh, God be praised that beloved Hadassah was not there!" Zarah repeated again and again to herself, as if to strengthen her grasp on the only consolation which at first offered itself to her soul. "Abishai's fate is awful--awful!" Zarah shuddered with mingled compassion and horror. "But oh, it is better, far better for him--my poor kinsman--that he did not fall into the hands of the enemy alive, as I have done! That would have been more awful still!" Zarah was no high-spirited heroine, but a timid, gentle, loving girl, subject to fears, shrinking from danger, peculiarly sensitive to pain whether physical or mental. Though related both to Solomona and Hadassah, Zarah had neither the calm fortitude of the one, nor the exalted spirituality of the other; she deemed herself alike incapable of uttering the inspired words of a prophetess, or showing the firm endurance of a martyr. And it was a martyr's trial that was now looming before the imprisoned maiden: she would, like Solomona and her sons, have to renounce either her faith or her life. To Zarah this was a terrible alternative, for though, but a few hours previously the poor maiden had longed for death to come and release her from sorrow, the idea of its approach, heralded by such tortures as Hebrew captives had had to undergo, was unspeakably dreadful to the tender spirit of Zarah. "Oh, I fear that I shall never endure to the end; my courage will give way; I shall disgrace myself, my country, my race, and draw on myself the wrath of my God!" exclaimed Zarah, starting up in terror, after rehearsing to herself the ordeal to which her faith was likely to be exposed. "Woe is me!--what shall I do--what shall I do--is there no way of escape?" Those massive stone walls, those thick iron bars were sufficient answer to the question. Zarah leant against the wall, and raised her clasped hands towards the glimpse of sky seen between those dark bars. "Oh, my God, have mercy upon me!" she cried; "feeble, utterly helpless in myself, I cast myself upon Thee! Thou hast said, _When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned_. Carry the weak lamb in Thy bosom; let me feel beneath the everlasting arms!" The tears were flowing fast down Zarah's cheeks as she sobbed forth her almost inarticulate prayer: "I ask not to be saved from death--not even from torture--if it be Thy will that I should endure it; but oh, save me from falling away from Thee; save me from denying my faith, and breaking the heart of my mother!---And I shall surely be saved!" said Zarah more calmly, her faith gaining strength from the exercise of prayer. "Perhaps the Lord will make the pain tolerable--He to whom all things are possible can do so--or He may even send an angel to protect me, as He sent His bright and holy ones to guard Elisha." The imagination of Zarah pictured a being with glorious wings flying down to her rescue, with a countenance resembling that of Lycidas--to her the type of perfect beauty. "Or the Lord may raise up some earthly friend," continued Zarah. Then fancy again pictured a Lycidas, but this time wanting the wings. The maiden stopped her weeping, and dashed the limpid drops from her eyes. A gleam of brightness seemed to illumine the dark prospect before her. How eagerly do we listen to the voice of hope, even if it be but the echo of a wish, an echo thrown back from the cold hard rock which can only repeat the utterance of our own heart's desires; it comes back to us like music! Zarah's prison would have been far more dreary to the maiden, her approaching trial far more dreadful, had she known the fact that Lycidas had gone to Bethlehem, and had heard nothing of the peril of her whom he loved. In the same unconsciousness of Zarah's imminent peril, another, to whom she was dearer than the sight of the eyes or the breath of life, lay extended on the ground in sleep, many miles from Jerusalem, with no pillow but that stalwart arm, around which was still twined a slight flaxen strand. A monarch might have envied the dream which made the features of the sleeper relax into an expression of happiness which, when waking, they seldom indeed wore. Maccabeus, lying on the parched dry earth, was in thought seated in an Eden of flowers, with Zarah at his side, her small hand clasped in his own. She was listening with bashful smile and downcast eyes to words such as the warrior had never breathed to her, save in his dreams. All was peace within and without, peace deepening into rapture, even as the sky above appeared almost dark from the intensity of its blue! Such was the Hebrew's dream of Zarah! How different the dream from the actual reality! Had Maccabeus known the actual position of the helpless girl, to guard whom from the slightest wrong he would so willingly have shed his life's blood, even that heart which had never yet quelled in the face of peril would have known for once keenest anguish of fear! CHAPTER XX. THE COURT OF ANTIOCHUS. Fierce had been the rage and disappointment of Antiochus Epiphanes on hearing of the result of the night attack on his forces at Emmaus, and the subsequent retreat of Giorgias without striking a blow. In vain the troops of that too cautious leader endeavoured, by exaggerating the account of the numbers of their enemies, to cover their own shame. Antiochus was furious alike at what he termed the insolence of a handful of outlaws, and the cowardice of his picked troops, who had flaunted their banners and gone forth as if to assured victory, and had then fled like some gay-plumed bird before the swoop of the eagle. Not only the oppressed inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs had cause to tremble at the rage of the tyrant, but his own Syrian officers and the obsequious courtiers who stood in his presence. And none more so than Pollux, once the chosen companion and special favourite of the Syrian king. Pollux had been so loaded with wealth and honours by his capricious master, as to have become an object of envy to his fellow-courtiers, and especially so to Lysimachus, a Syrian of high birth, who had seen himself passed in the race for royal favour by a rival whom he despised. But there was little cause for envying Pollux, the wretched parasite of a tyrant. Alas, for him who has bartered conscience and self-respect to win a monarch's smile! He has left the firm though narrow path of duty, to find himself on a treacherous quicksand, where the ground on which he places his foot soon begins to give way beneath him! A few months before the time of which I am writing, Pollux, after a long sojourn in Antioch, then the capital of the Syrian dominions, had rejoined Antiochus in Jerusalem, where the monarch was holding his court in a luxurious palace which he had caused to be erected. It was here that Pollux first experienced the fickleness of royal favour. The courtier had been present at the trial of Solomona and her brave sons without making the slightest effort to save them, though their fate had moved him to something more than pity. But though Pollux could to a certain extent trample down compunction, and force his conscience to silence, he had not perfect command over his nerves. He might consent to the perpetration of horrors, but he could not endure to witness them; and, as we have seen, he had quietly, and, as he hoped, without attracting notice, quitted the chamber of torture. The keen eye of jealousy had, however, keenly watched the movements of Pollux, and Lysimachus had not failed to make the most of the weakness betrayed by his rival. "Pollux has sympathy with the Hebrews," observed Lysimachus to the tyrant, when Antiochus was chafing at being baffled by the fortitude of his victims. "Pollux may wear the Syrian garb, and he loaded with favours by the mighty Syrian king, but he remains at heart a Jew." From that day Pollux found himself an object of suspicion, and having once reached the quicksand, he gradually sank lower and lower, notwithstanding his desperate efforts to save himself from impending ruin. His most costly gifts, his most fulsome flattery, his assurances of deathless devotion to "the greatest, noblest of the kings who sway realms conquered by Alexander, and surpass the fame of Macedonia's godlike hero," met but the coldest response. Pollux had once been wont to delight the king with his brilliant wit; now his forced jests fell like sparks upon water. Antiochus was growing tired of his favourite, as a child grows tired of the toy which he hugs one day, to break and fling aside on the next. All the more embarrassed from having to simulate ease, all the more wretched because forcing himself to seem merry, with the sword of Damocles ever hanging over his head, Pollux, in the midst of luxury and pomp, was one of the most miserable of mankind. The court became to him at last an almost intolerable place. In an attempt at once to free himself from its restraints, and to win back the favour of the king by military service, in an evil hour for himself, he had volunteered to join the forces of Nicanor. The courtier was incited by no military ardour; he had no desire to fall on the field of victory; Pollux was not a coward, but he clung to life as those well may cling who have forfeited all hope of anything but misery beyond it. Pollux, as we have seen, had accompanied Giorgias when that general led a detachment of chosen troops to make that night attack upon Judas which had proved so unsuccessful. With Giorgias, Pollux had returned to Jerusalem, covered with shame instead of glory. More than his fair share of the obloquy incurred had fallen to the unfortunate courtier. "Be assured, O most mighty monarch"--thus had Lysimachus addressed the disappointed tyrant--"that had there been no sympathizers with the Hebrew rebels in the army of the king, Giorgias would have returned to Jerusalem with the head of Judas Maccabeus hanging at his saddle-bow." The insinuation was understood--the instilled poison worked its effect. Antiochus had met his former favourite with an ominous frown. He did not, however, consign Pollux to irremediable ruin; he gave him a chance of redeeming his character from the imputation of treachery towards the Syrian cause. Pollux received a commission from Antiochus to attack and seize a party of Hebrews who, according to information brought by spies, were to celebrate the Passover Feast in Salathiel's house, in defiance of the edict by which the king had endeavoured to crush the religion of those who still worshipped the God of their fathers. An office more repugnant to the feelings of Pollux could scarcely have been assigned to him, but he dared not show the slightest hesitation in obeying the mandate; nay, the courtier even feigned joy at the opportunity given him of serving the king by rooting out the religion which, in the secret depths of his heart, Pollux regarded as the only true one; for he could not obliterate from memory lessons once learned on his mother's knee. The poor wretch was, as it were, sunk in the quicksand up to his lips, and would have clutched at red-hot iron, had such been the only means of drawing him upwards out of the living grave in which he was being gradually entombed. Wearing the mask of mirth to conceal his misery, Pollux, before setting out on his hateful mission, jested in regard to the number of fanatic Jews whom he would enclose in his toils, and bring to make sport before the king, to fight wild beasts in the large gymnasium, which had been erected within Jerusalem for games which the Jews regarded as unlawful and sinful. The courtier, in the presence of Antiochus, affected the gay delight of the hunter, trying to cover with a garb of levity the remorse which was gnawing at his heart, and not betray even by a look, the secret torture which he felt. We know what followed the attack upon Salathiel's house: the flight of the Hebrews, the fall of Abishai, whose last word and dying look inflicted upon Pollux a pang keen enough to have satisfied the fiercest thirst for revenge. When tidings were brought to the palace that the result of the boasted exertions of Pollux was the death of a single Hebrew and the capture of one young girl, the wrath of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes rose higher than before. His courtiers, catching the infection of the anger of the king, showed something of what would have been the indignant rage of an audience crowding the Coliseum at Rome in the expectation of gloating on the sight of many victims flung to the lions, had the spectacle been reduced to the sacrifice of one. Antiochus, however, determined to have what sport he could out of the single poor gazelle that had been run down by his hounds. One who--albeit, of the weaker sex--had been venturesome enough to keep the Passover feast, might make sufficient resistance to his arbitrary will to afford him a little amusement, when none more exciting could be had. The monarch, therefore, after he had enjoyed his noonday siesta, gave command that the Hebrew prisoner should be brought into his presence in his grand hall of audience. There sat the tyrant of Syria on an ivory throne, his footstool a crouching silver lion, over his head a canopy of gold. In front of the king was a splendid altar, on which fire was constantly burning before a small image of Jupiter; and the luxurious fragrance of incense, frequently thrown on this fire, filled the magnificent hall. Many courtiers, in splendid apparel, clustered on either side below the dais which raised the throned monarch above them all. Behind these were numerous slaves, mostly Nubians, richly and gaudily dressed, some of whom held aloft large fans of the peacock's many-tinted plumes. The whole scene was one of gorgeous magnificence, the pomp and glory of the world throwing its false halo of beauty over guilty power. Antiochus himself wore a robe crusted over with sparkling jewels, worth the tribute of a conquered province. He was, as his appearance has been handed down to us on coins, a kingly-looking man, with short curled hair, and regular, strongly-marked features, but a receding forehead, and an expression cold and hard. No one would expect from him "the milk of human kindness." Antiochus looked what he was--a stern, merciless tyrant. There was at this period no premonitory sign in the appearance of the king of that frightful disease which, within a year's time, was to render him an object of horror and loathing to all who approached him--a disease so exquisitely painful, that it seemed to combine and exceed all the tortures which the tyrant had made his victims endure. Antiochus, glittering on his ivory throne, appeared to be in the prime of health as well as the zenith of power; none guessed how brief was the term of mortal existence remaining to the despot, on the breath of whose lips now hung fortune or ruin, whose angry frown was a sentence of death. CHAPTER XXI. THE MAIDEN'S TRIAL. Before this gorgeous assembly--before this terrible king--stood, surrounded by guards, a trembling, shrinking girl, wrapping closer and closer her linen veil around her slight form and drooping head. "Tear off her veil!" said the king. The command was instantly obeyed, and, like the painful glare of noonday to one brought suddenly out of darkness, the terrible splendour of the scene before her flashed upon Zarah. Her exquisite beauty, as her face now flushed crimson with shame at having to meet, without the protection of a veil, so many gazing eyes, then turned pale from overwhelming fear, caused an involuntary murmur of admiration to burst from the throng. "No Herculean task to bend this willow wand," observed Antiochus, even his hard stern countenance relaxing into a smile. "Bring her nearer." The guards obeyed. Zarah approached the king, but with timid, faltering steps; how different from the firm tread with which a captive Maccabeus would have drawn nigh to the oppressor who might slay but never subdue him! "There is the altar of Jupiter Olympus--that of Venus would have been more appropriate to so fair a votary," said Antiochus, with an oath; "but it little matters which deity receives the homage, so that it be duly paid. Maiden, throw some grains of yon incense into the flame, bend the knee in worship, and I promise you," the king added, with a laugh, "a gay house and a gallant husband, pearls and goodly array, and all else that a young maid's heart can desire." Zarah did not stir; she did not appear to have even understood or heard the words of the king, only her lips were moving in agonized prayer. Antiochus repeated more sternly his command to offer the incense. "Oh, my God, help me; let me not be tried beyond what I can bear!" was the silent ejaculation which rose from the heart of the terror-stricken girl, as she slightly shook her bended head as her only reply. "What! silent still," cried Antiochus, with displeasure. "Know you not, young mute, that we have workers of miracles here,"--he pointed to some black African slaves who performed the office of executioners; "these are skilful to bring sounds, and those some of the shrillest, from lips the most closely sealed." In terror Zarah raised her dark eyes and looked wildly around her, in the vain hope of seeing some one, perhaps Lycidas himself, from whom she might receive protection or pity. But there was not a single countenance amidst the gay throng of courtiers that promised anything but cold indifference to, if not cruel amusement in her sufferings or her degradation; unless, perhaps, that of Pollux formed an exception. Zarah's anxious gaze rested for a moment on his face with an imploring look of entreaty, which might have touched a harder heart than his. "I brook no more idle delay!" cried Antiochus; "as you love your life, do sacrifice at once to my god." "I cannot--I dare not!" exclaimed the young maid. Faint as was her utterance of the words, they were heard distinctly, so great was the silence which prevailed through the assembly in that marble hall. The answer surprised Antiochus and his courtiers. "Ha! there is some resistance in the willow-wand then, after all!" cried the king, half amused and half angry. "I warrant me tough boughs grow on the tree from which that slender twig has sprung. Tell me, fair rebel," he continued, "your name and lineage, and the place of your birth." Zarah had firmly resolved that, come what might, she would betray no friend; above all, that she would never draw down the fire of persecution upon the house of Hadassah. In the midst of all the misery which she was enduring from personal fear, Zarah forgot not this resolution. "My name is Zarah; I was born in Bethsura; my father was called Abner," faltered forth the young maid. Pollux involuntarily started and gasped, as if every word had been a live coal dropped upon his bare breast. It was well for him then that all eyes, even those of Lysimachus, were fixed at that moment on Zarah. "Is your father living?" inquired the king, who, in the common name of Abner, did not recognize the almost forgotten one previously borne by a favourite. "I know not," was the reply. "Was he not with you at the rebellious meeting?" asked Antiochus Epiphanes. "No; I went with my uncle, who was slain: he was my only companion thither," said the trembling maiden, thankful to be able with truth to say what would bring no person into peril. There was a brief pause, to Zarah inexpressibly awful; then Antiochus Epiphanes, he who had looked on the dying agonies of Solomona and her sons, said in his stern voice of command, "I am not wont to bid thrice, and woe to those who presume to neglect my bidding. Throw incense on that fire, or the consequences be upon your own head. Others have experienced ere this what it is to brave my displeasure and disobey my command." Bewildered and terrified, Zarah suffered, as if scarcely conscious of the import of the act, a few grains of incense to be put into her hand, then, recovering her self-possession, she flung them from her with a look of aversion and horror. "Ha! is it so?" thundered Antiochus; "if the incense go not into the fire, the hand that held it shall go. Executioners, do your work!" Four of the fierce black slaves approached the young Hebrew maiden. She clasped her hands, and shrieked out, "Father, save me!" It was no mortal to whom she addressed that wild cry for help. But the cry was answered by a mortal. Pollux, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, sprang forward, by a gesture of his hand arrested the movements of the executioners, and bent his knee before Epiphanes. "The mighty king," he began, with a great effort to appear indifferent and at his ease; "the mighty king has spoken of magicians who have skill to force out sounds from lips that are dumb. I dispute not the power of yonder black magi, but I should deem one their superior in the mysterious art who could bring songs rather than shrieks from a Hebrew; who could subdue the proud will rather than torture the body. Oh, illustrious monarch of the world, let me but for twenty-four hours try my potent spells upon this young rebel, and I will answer for it with my head that, before the twenty-four hours be past, she shall gladly and cheerfully do sacrifice to any god in Olympus, feast on swine's flesh, dance as a Bacchante, or drink wine, like Belshazzar of old, out of the vessels of the Temple. Try my powers, O king, and according to my failure or success, so be the maiden's fate and mine!" Antiochus hesitated; with a look of keen suspicion he regarded the kneeling courtier. Zarah watched the king's countenance with breathless anxiety--a respite even of twenty-four hours seemed to the poor captive so priceless a boon. Intense was her relief when she heard the tyrant's reply to Pollux:-- "Twenty-four hours' delay you have asked, and I grant. It were a nobler triumph to make a proselyte than to slay a victim. I myself, as you well know, Pollux," continued the tyrant, with sarcastic emphasis, "won such a triumph myself. Take yonder obstinate Jewess, and work upon her your spells, whatever they may be; but hear my final decision," the king raised his hand and uttered a deep oath: "if to-morrow you have failed in doing what you now undertake to perform, if the girl be obdurate still, the moment when she refuses to do sacrifice shall be your last upon earth--she shall go to the furnace, and her protector to the block." And then, with an imperious gesture of command, Antiochus dismissed the assembly. CHAPTER XXII. A BREATHING SPACE. The captive was not taken back to prison-chamber which she had occupied during the preceding night, but to an apartment in the palace--one belonging to the suite appropriated to Pollux. She was confined within a room so luxurious, that, save from the door being fastened to prevent her exit, and there being no possibility of escaping through the latticed window, Zarah could scarcely have realized that she was a prisoner still. The floor of the apartment was inlaid with costly marbles; on the walls were depicted scenes taken from mythological subjects; luxurious divans invited to repose; and vases, wreathed with brilliant flowers and filled with rose-water, were surrounded by others loaded with a profusion of fruit and a variety of dainties. The young Hebrew maiden, accustomed to the simplicity of Hadassah's humble home, gazed around in wonder. When left alone by the guards, the first impulse of the captive was to kneel and return thanks to her heavenly Protector for the merciful respite granted to her. Zarah was young, and hope was strong within her. What might not happen in the space of twenty-four hours to effect complete deliverance! She then laved her face, hands, and arms, and the tresses of her long hair, in the cool, fragrant water, and found great refreshment from her ablutions. It was then with a sense of enjoyment, at which she herself was surprised, that Zarah partook of the fruit before her. Nature had been almost exhausted, not only by the terrible excitement and alarm which the maiden had had to endure, but by sleeplessness and abstinence from food. Coarse bread had indeed been brought to her in her prison, but had remained untouched, not only because the poor captive had had no appetite for eating, but because the bread, being leavened, was not at that season lawful food for a Jewess. Zarah now carefully abstained from any part of the collation which she deemed might contain anything which Moses had judged unclean, and chiefly partook of the fruits, which were pure, as God Himself had made them, and which were, of all kinds of food, that most refreshing to her parched and burning lips. "How good is my Lord, to spread a table for me thus in this wilderness of trial!" murmured Zarah; and she felt much as the Israelites must have felt when they first saw the glistening bread of heaven lying on the face of the desert. The maiden's spirit was soothed and cheered, as well as her frame refreshed; and, reclining on one of the luxurious divans, she was able with tolerable calmness to review the exciting events of the day. "How thankful I am that, with all my cowardice and weakness, I was preserved by my Lord from doing anything very wicked!" thought Zarah. "I was not suffered either to betray my friends or to deny my God; and yet my faith almost failed me. I could scarcely endure the terror: how could I endure the pain? But will not He who supported me under the one sustain me also through the other, if I must die for my faith to-morrow before that terrible king? I will not weary myself by thinking; I will just trust all to my God. It is so sweet to rest in His love, like a babe on her mother's bosom." Zarah lay perfectly still for some time, letting her overstrained nerves regain their usual tone. It was such a comfort to be quite alone, with no sound to disturb save the cooing of doves from a garden which separated the palace of Epiphanes from Mount Zion. The young captive then arose, went to the lattice, and looked forth. Pleasant to the sight was the rich foliage of the juniper and acacia, the terebinth and the palm, the orange, almond, and citron, watered from marble-bordered tanks by artificial irrigation, which counteracted the effects of a season sultry and dry. Here and there fountains threw up their sparkling waters, transformed to diamonds in the sun. But the eyes of the maid of Judah wandered beyond this paradise of beauty, created for the pleasure of a tyrant, and rested on the holy Mount and the sacred Temple on its summit. If the very stones, nay, the dust, of Jerusalem have an interest to Gentile strangers, with what feelings must a child of Abraham regard the spot on which the Temple was reared! As Zarah gazed on the holy pile before her, words of Scripture came into the mind of Hadassah's grand-daughter, which filled her with a joy which was indeed nourished by the dew of heavenly hope, but had its root in earthly affection. Slowly and emphatically Zarah repeated to herself: "_Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant; even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer: for Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people_" (Isa. lvi. 6, 7). "Oh, blessed promise!" exclaimed Zarah. "Israel has been, like Joseph, the chosen amongst many brethren, to wear the many-coloured robe prepared by his Father, and to go first, through bondage and tribulation, to dignity and honour. But his brethren are not forgotten: he shall yet be a blessing to them all, even to them who have hated and sold him. Through Israel shall light spread throughout the dark world, and with the bread of life shall the hungry nations be fed." Zarah was interrupted in her musings by the entrance of Nubian slaves, who silently replenished the vases, lighted silver lamps as the day was closing, placed rich garments upon the divan, and then retired from her presence. Their coming had caused a flutter in the timid heart of the captive; and it was a relief when they had left her again to that solitude which scarcely seemed to be loneliness, so sweet were the thoughts which had been her companions. Zarah went up to the divan, and looked admiringly on the silken robes and richly-embroidered veil. "These are meant for my wear," said the maiden; "but I will not touch them. The Gentiles would allure me, as the serpent allured Eve our mother, by the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Embroidered robes are not for the prisoner, nor silver zone for the martyr. This simple blue garment, spun and woven by my own hands, is good enough to die in." Zarah watched the sun as it sank beneath the western horizon, its last beams lingering on the pinnacles of the Temple. "Perhaps this will be my last evening on earth," thought the prisoner. "Ere the sun set again, I may have entered into eternal rest." A deep sense of holy peace stole into the maiden's heart, though the expression of her beautiful countenance was pensive as she meditated on the future. "I shall no more join in worship with my brethren below; but perhaps, while they gather together in secret, with perils around them, my eyes shall see the King in His beauty, shall behold the land that is very far off. And will not He for whom I die hear now my feeble prayers for those whom I leave behind? Never have I felt that I could plead with such child-like confidence before Him as I do now; praying not only for myself, but for those who are dearer than self. Oh, may the Lord hear, and graciously answer, the supplications of His child!" Zarah knelt down, and poured out her simple Prayer. First, she besought God for Hadassah; that He would comfort the bereaved one, grant her rest from her tribulation, and give her the desire of her heart. Tears mingled with this prayer, as Zarah thought of the desolation to which the aged widow was left. "Let her not weep long for me," murmured the maiden; "and oh, never let her want a loving one to tend her in sickness and comfort her in sorrow, better than I could have done." The Hebrew girl then prayed for her country, and for those who were fighting for its freedom; especially for Judas Maccabeus, that God would be his shield and defender, and cover his head in the day of battle. Zarah forgot not her unknown father. She now pleaded for him more fervently than she had ever pleaded before; and, by some mysterious connection in her mind, thoughts of her lost parent linked themselves to remembrance of the generous courtier to whose intercession she had owed her present respite from torture and death. The young prisoner implored her Lord not to let the Syrian suffer for his kindness to a stranger, but to requite it sevenfold into his own bosom. Zarah did not yet rise from her knees. Her supplications became yet more fervent as she prayed for another, dearest of all. No fear of displeasing God now marred the comfort which the maiden found in supplication for a Gentile. It was not sinful, she thought, for the dying to love. Her misery might be the means which God would deign to employ in winning Lycidas from the errors of idolatrous worship. She might be permitted, as it were to beckon to her beloved from the other side of the grave. Zarah arose from her devotions feeling almost happy. It seemed to her as if the worst bitterness of death were already passed. She again partook, with a thankful spirit, of needful refreshment, and afterwards laid herself down to rest. The prisoner had had no refreshing sleep during the preceding terrible night, and now her eyelids were heavy. Soft slumber stole over Zarah, as the Psalmist's words were on her lips, _I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety_. CHAPTER XXIII. FOUND AT LAST. So profound was the slumber of the weary girl that she heard not the sound of opening the door, nor a step on the marble floor, and lay unconscious of the yearning, anxious, mournful gaze that was fixed upon her she slept. "Lovely, most lovely--fairer even than her mother!" murmured Pollux, as he stood beside the couch of Zarah, upon whose slumbering form softly fell the light from a silver lamp. "Even so beautiful and so pure lay my Naomi, when the angel of death had in mercy called her soul away, and bereft me of a gift of which I was so unworthy." What bitter memories of early years passed through the renegade's soul as he spoke! Happy days, when there was no shame on the brow, no gnawing worm in the conscience--when he had feared the face of no man, and had dared to lift his eyes towards heaven, and his heart to One who dwelt there! Blessed days, never, never to come again! "Hark! she speaks in her sleep. What says she?" Pollux bent down his head to listen, and caught the faint murmur, "My poor, poor father!" The groan which burst from the apostate's lips awoke the sleeper. Zarah started into a sitting posture, and, with a gesture of alarm, threw back the long tresses which had partly fallen over her face. "Fear not, poor child; I would not harm you," said Pollux, in a gentle, soothing tone, which restored Zarah's confidence at once. "Oh no! I will not fear you!" she cried, recognizing her protector; "it was you--the God of Jacob requite you for it!--it was you who saved me to-day." "And will do so again," said Pollux, as he seated himself at Zarah's side; "but I cannot save you in spite of yourself. You must let yourself be guided by me." "What would you have me do?" asked Zarah. "Bend to the force of circumstances, humour the mighty king, give an outward obedience to his will. I have pledged myself that you should do so. There is nothing so dreadful, after all," continued the courtier, forcing a smile, "in bowing the knee as others do, or in burning a few grains of incense. It is but a little matter." "A little matter!" repeated Zarah, opening wide her eyes in innocent surprise; "is it a little matter for me to throw away my soul, and break the heart of Hadassah?" Pollux winced on hearing the name, but quickly recovering himself, observed, "The heart of no woman would be thus broken. She would feel a pang less keen at your falling away for a time, than that which would wring her soul should you die by the executioner's hand." "You have never seen Hadassah; you do not know her!" exclaimed Zarah with spirit; "she has told me herself that she would rather lose seven children by death than one by apostasy from God!" Pollux bit his nether lip till the blood came. When he resumed speaking, his voice sounded hoarse and strange. "If you care not for your own danger, maiden, think of my peril; my head is staked upon your submission," he said. Zarah looked distressed and perplexed for a moment, then her fair face brightened again. "Even cruel Antiochus," she replied, "would never slay one of his nobles because he failed in persuading a Hebrew girl to violate conscience. You are not--cannot be in peril through me." "I am, whether you believe it or not," said the courtier. "But methinks, when speaking to a girl like yourself in the morning of life, with so much that might make existence delightful"--Pollux glanced at the luxurious decorations of the apartment--"one might be supposed to need small power of persuasion to convince her that music, dance, and feasting are better than torture; life than death; nature's sunshine and earth's love than a nameless grave. The king is munificent to those who oppose not his will; his hand is bounteous and open. Listen to me, fair maiden. Antiochus has promised, if you yield to his commands, to give you in marriage; it shall be my care that his choice for you shall fall upon one gentle and noble, one who will not deal harshly with you if you choose to follow your own religion, but who will accord to you in the privacy of your home all the freedom of worship which you could desire." Pollux paused, turning over in his mind who would be the noble most likely to fulfil these conditions; and thinking aloud, he uttered the words, "such a one as Lycidas the Athenian." How the heart of Zarah bounded at the name! The temptation was fearfully strong. She beheld life and Lycidas on the one hand; on the other the cold steel and the glowing flame, and those black fearful ministers of death, the remembrance of whom made her shudder. Pollux, skilful in the courtier's art of reading the thoughts of men, saw symptoms of yielding in the face of his prisoner, and pushed his advantage. He had appealed to Zarah's instincts, now he attempted to dazzle and pervert her reason. With subtle sophistry he brought forward arguments with which his mind was but too familiar. Pollux spoke of necessity, that artful plea of the tempter, who would try to make the Deity Himself answerable for the sin of His creatures, as having placed them under circumstances where such sin could not be avoided; as if strength of temptation were excuse sufficient for yielding to the temptation! Then the courtier spoke of the difference between spiritual worship, the assent of the soul to a lofty creed, and the mere outward posture of the body. The latter might bow down in the house of Rimmon, Pollux argued, while the spirit retained its allegiance to the only true God. Nay, the tempter quoted Scripture (as the devil himself can quote it) to show that what God demands is the heart, and that therefore He cares little for the homage of the knee. The courtier tried to involve the artless girl in the meshes of his false philosophy, but a woman's simple faith and love burst through them all. "Leave me--leave me!" cried Zarah passionately, at the first pause made by Pollux; "it is sinful, cruel, to tempt me thus! You would have tried to persuade the three children in Babylon to bow down to the image of gold! I cannot argue, I cannot reason with one so learned as you are, but I know that it is written in God's Law, _Thou shalt not bow down nor worship_, and that is enough for me." "But you never can endure the agonies which await you if you madly hold out in your obstinate resistance!" cried Pollux. "I know that I have no strength of my own; I know that I am a trembling, feeble, cowardly girl, weak as water!" exclaimed Zarah, bursting into tears; "but God--my God--once made a firm wall of water, and He who sends the trial will send the strength to endure it!" "Zarah, you will drive me to madness!" exclaimed Pollux, alarmed at the constancy shown by so timid and fragile a being; "nay, turn not away, I _will_ be heard! I command you to yield obedience to the king, and I have a right to command; Zarah, he who speaks to you is--your father!" Had not instinct suggested that before, had there not been something in the voice, the face of the courtier of Epiphanes which had reminded Zarah of Hadassah, and had strangely drawn the maiden's heart towards him? Up sprang Abner's daughter with a cry, her arms were around his neck, her head was pillowed on his bosom, his vest was wet with her tears; she sobbed forth, "My father! my father!" forgetting for the moment everything else in the delight of having found the lost one at last, and of being locked in the embrace of a parent. And Pollux, for a brief space, could think of nothing but the fact that his child was clasped in his arms. He drew her close to his heart, then held her back that he might gaze upon her face, and press kiss after kiss on the lips of her whom he called his darling, his pride, his beautiful child! But when the first burst of natural emotion was over, Pollux made his daughter sit close beside him, and with his arm round her slight form, resumed the conversation which had been interrupted by his revealing the intimate relationship in which they stood to each other. "You see, my child," said the courtier, "that you may now yield with an easy conscience. A parent's commands are law to a Hebrew maiden; if there be any sin in what you do, it lies upon me alone." "And think you that I would bring sin upon your head?" said Zarah. "Oh no, that would be to wrong a parent indeed!" "I have such a burden of my own to carry," observed Pollux, bitterly, "that I shall scarcely be sensible of so small an addition to its weight. Zarah, it is clearly your duty to submit, for my safety is involved in your submission. If you refuse to obey Antiochus, you seal the doom of your father." In anguish Zarah clasped her throbbing temples with both her hands; even the path of duty itself seemed dark and uncertain before her. Then a thought, sudden and bright, as if it were an inspiration, came into the young girl's mind. "Oh no, I will save my father!" she exclaimed; "save him from worse than death! Let us fly together at once," she continued; "no, not together, I would cumber your flight; but make your escape, O my father, from this wicked court, this barbarous king, this life which, to a son of Hadassah, must be misery and bondage indeed! Oh, fly, fly; be safe, be free; be again what you were once! it is not too late! it is not too late!" There was intense delight to Zarah in the new-born hope that she might draw her wretched parent from this den of infamy, this pit of destruction. Pollux was startled by the sudden suggestion. "Whither could I fly?" asked the renegade gloomily. "To Judas Maccabeus, our hero," cried Zarah; "his camp is the rallying-place for all fugitives from oppression." "Maccabeus!" exclaimed Pollux; "he would loathe--would spurn an apostate!" "Oh no, he would never spurn the father of Zarah," cried the maiden, for once realizing and exulting in the secret power which she exercised over the leader of the Hebrews; "Judas would welcome you, his brave companions would welcome, coming as you would come to redeem the past by devoting your sword to your country! God would receive you; and Hadassah," continued Zarah, her enthusiasm kindling into rapture as she went on, "Hadassah, in her joy, her ecstasy, would forget all her grief--the thought of her long-lost son being with Maccabeus would enable her almost to rejoice at her Zarah being--with God." "Impossible, impossible," muttered Pollux, rising from his seat as if to depart; but Zarah detected indecision in his tone. She threw herself at his feet, she clasped his knees, she pleaded with passionate fervour, for she deemed that a parent's life and soul were at stake. "Oh, father, if you would but consent to leave for ever this horrible, horrible place, to return to your people, your mother, your God, I feel as if I could die happy, so happy; we should then meet again in a brighter world, all, all re-united, and for ever!" It was as the voice of his guardian angel--as if his once fondly-loved wife had been suffered to visit Abner in mortal form, to counsel, warn, entreat; to tell him that there yet might be mercy for him if he would but turn and repent! There was a terrific struggle in the renegade's mind. He could not at once decide on taking so bold and sudden a leap as that to which he was urged, though conscious of the peril as well as misery of his present position at the court. As the deer, driven by wolves to the precipice's brink, hesitates on making the plunge down--though it give him the only chance of escape from the ravening jaws of his fierce pursuers--so hesitated the wretched Pollux. He would have felt no indecision had he known that, at the very time when Zarah was pleading in tears at his feet, Antiochus was signing, in the presence of the exulting Lysimachus, a warrant for the execution of Pollux on the morrow. His rival had succeeded in working his ruin; the only door of safety yet open to the apostate was that towards which his child, with fervent entreaties, was trying to draw him; shortly--little dreamed Pollux how shortly--that door of safety would be closed. Unable to form a sudden resolution, to come to a prompt decision, seeing difficulties and dangers on every side, fearing to remain where he was, yet afraid to fly, Pollux wasted the precious time yet given him, he let the golden moments escape. In a state of strong excitement, he at length quitted his daughter's presence, to seek that solitude in which his perturbed mind might become sufficiently calm to form a judgment which must be as the pivot upon which his whole future life would turn. Pollux left Zarah still on her knees, nor did she rise when he had torn himself from her clinging arms and left the apartment. When the daughter could no longer plead with, she pleaded for, her father--she implored that grace and wisdom might be given to him at this momentous crisis. There was no more sleep for Zarah on that eventful night. CHAPTER XXIV. DECISION. Tossed backwards and forwards on a wild sea of doubt--a vessel without ballast, compass, or rudder--was the mind of the miserable Pollux. The courtier paced for hours up and down a verandah where the cool breeze of heaven could fan him, and where he would be secure from interruption. Ever and anon Pollux tore his beard, or smote his breast; unconsciously giving expression by outward gesture to the inward torture which he felt. Was he to give up all at once--all for which he had bartered his soul, rank, wealth, position--to begin life again on the lowest round of the ladder, with the brand of disgrace, the burden of shame upon him? Could he endure to appear in the presence of Maccabeus, to sue from him the place of hewer of wood and drawer of water; to exchange the pride of power and pomp of wealth for hardship and want, poverty and peril? Pollux felt that he could not bring his pride to submit to the degradation, or his worldliness to the loss. The leap to be taken was from such a height, and into such an abyss, that it seemed as if he must be dashed in pieces by the fall. But what was the alternative, if the dreaded leap were not taken? If Zarah remained firm in the faith, she must die;--could the father endure to witness the martyrdom of his beautiful child? And his own life--was it not in danger? Was not instant flight from court the only means of affording a chance of safety either to parent or daughter? was it not the only means of delivering an apostate from the execrations of his countrymen, the curse of his mother, the impending vengeance of the Most High! Conscience would no longer be silenced--Zarah had aroused the sleeper; beside the faith and purity of his own child, Pollux had regarded himself almost as a demon! And Zarah had awakened not only conscience, but hope. She had clung to the apostate with tenderness, not shrunk back from him with horror. She had not, then, been taught to regard her parent as one who had forfeited all claim to her affection. Zarah had spoken of the possibility of his yet giving joy to the lofty-souled mother whom Pollux, in the midst of his guilt, had not ceased to reverence and love. For many years the apostate had tried to drive from his mind all thought of Hadassah; now her image came vividly before him, not in the attitude of uttering a malediction, but as holding out her arms to receive back her prodigal son. While Pollux was deliberating, and Zarah praying, Lysimachus was carousing amidst boon companions in the city. The ruin and approaching execution of his rival gave unwonted zest to the revels of the profligate Syrian. "Here's to our friend the magnificent Pollux!" exclaimed Lysimachus, raising on high a huge goblet of wine. "He is going on a long journey to-morrow; here's to his quick passage over Styx, and welcome at the shadowy court of King Pluto!" And those who listened were not ashamed to laugh at the jest, or to drink the toast, though they had mixed in familiar intercourse with Pollux, flattered and followed him, when he had basked in the sunshine of royal favour. One of the guests was calculating how he should now get possession of some coveted gem which he had seen sparkling on the girdle of the man to whom he had once sworn unalterable friendship; another fixed on the Arab steed of the ruined courtier as his share of the spoils. There was not one of the sycophants met together at that night-revel who had a word of warning or a thought of pity to give to him who had been the most admired, envied, and flattered of all the nobles who composed the brilliant court of Antiochus Epiphanes! Stars were paling, the night was waning, the door of safety was slowly, imperceptibly closing--soon, soon the decision of Pollux, if made, would be made too late! When once the course of duty is clear to the mind, perilous is every minute of delay: while we hesitate, the enemy steals on; while we doubt, we may find ourselves under his fangs! "Zarah shall decide for me!" exclaimed the unhappy waverer at last. "If I find her resolution immovable, come what may, I will give my child one chance of escape from the horrible fate with which she is threatened." In a few minutes, pale and haggard from his contending emotions, Pollux re-entered the apartment in which he had left his daughter. "Zarah!" he cried, in a hollow tone, as he grasped the maiden by the wrist, and scanned her countenance with an almost despairing gaze, "I come to ask what is your final decision. Are you still insane enough to choose tortures and death?" Zarah looked her father full in the face; she pale, but she blenched not. In a calm, unhesitating voice she replied, "I will never deny my faith." "Then the die is cast!" exclaimed Pollux, almost relieved by being at least freed from the misery of indecision. "We live or perish together!--we will make our escape before daybreak." There was little time left for words--none to express the thankful joy which swelled the heart of Zarah. She was rescuing her father from dishonour and guilt; she was giving him back to his country. "Put on this dress of a Syrian slave-girl, which I have brought for you," said Pollux. "Take up yon empty water-jar; it must appear as if you went to fill it at the tank. We cannot keep close together; that would awaken suspicion. We shall have guards to pass, and possibly other persons besides, though at this very early hour even slaves will scarcely have commenced their morning toils." "How shall I find my way, father?" inquired Zarah; "this vast palace is as a labyrinth to me." "You must never quite lose sight of me," Pollux replied; "though following at a sufficient distance to prevent its appearing that your movements are guided by mine. But no, that plan will not answer," he continued, pressing his forehead with his hand; "I should not then have you in view, and, should you be challenged, I should be unable to come to your help. You, my child, must go first." "Oh, my father, my presence will fearfully increase your danger!" cried Zarah. "Leave me here, I implore, and make your escape alone. No one will challenge you." Pollux silenced his daughter's expostulation with an impatient gesture of the hand. "Attend to my directions," he said; "we have wasted too much time already. You will follow me through the first court, and then you will precede me. Keep to the right till you pass the first sentries; then you will find yourself in a garden, in the centre of which is a tank. Fill, or make show of filling, your jar. Then the long dark passage which, you will see on the left will conduct you to a postern gate of the palace; there will be a guard at that also." "How shall I pass them?" asked Zarah, who began to realize the difficulties and perils of the undertaking before her. "I know not; but God, whom you serve, will help you, my brave and innocent child! I will be following at no great distance--every soldier or slave will know me--call me, and I will come to your aid." "Father, give me your blessing," faltered Zarah. "_My_ blessing!" ejaculated Pollux, drawing back; "does any one ask a blessing from a wretch from whom it would sear and blast more than a curse from the lips of another!" "Oh, never say so!" cried Zarah. "You doing now what is generous--noble--right! You are casting in your lot with the people of God; like Lot, you are turning your back upon Sodom." "And you are the angel leading me thence," exclaimed Pollux. "Oh, Zarah, Zarah, sainted child of a sainted woman, you who have been the first to cast a gleam of hope on the darkness of guilt and despair, if ever I find mercy from man or from God, if ever I look again on the face of my mother, if ever I escape the righteous doom of an apostate, it is owing to you! Whatever be the result of our perilous enterprise to-night, remember that I thank you, I bless you--and you shall be blessed, O my daughter!" Pollux laid both his trembling hands on the head of his kneeling child, and uttered for her the first prayer to the true God which the apostate had dared to utter for many guilty, miserable years. CHAPTER XXV. A RETROSPECT. Hadassah had, in the meantime, been enduring the martyrdom of the heart. When Zarah, under the escort of Abishai, left her home to attend the celebration of the holy feast, Hadassah sent her soul with her, though failing health chained back the aged lady's feeble body. In thought, Hadassah shared the memorial feast; in thought, partook of the sacrifice and joined in the hymns of praise. Her mind dwelt on the circumstances attending the celebration of the first Passover, when, with loins girded and staff in hand, the fathers of Israel had taken their last meal in Egypt, before starting for the Promised Land. "Is not this the _Promised Land_ still?" thought Hadassah; "though those who are as the Canaanites of old now hold it--though unhallowed worship be offered on Mount Zion, and images be set up within the walls of Jerusalem. Yea, it is to Israel the Promised Land, till _every_ prophecy be fulfilled; till the King come to Zion, _lowly and riding on an ass_ (Zech. ix. 9); till--oh, most mysterious word!--the thirty pieces of silver be weighed out as the price of the Lord and cast to the potter (Zech. xi. 12, 18); till He shall speak peace to the heathen, and His dominion be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Zech. ix. 10). Faith looks backward on fulfilled prophecy with gratitude, on yet unfulfilled prophecy with hope. Zion's brightest days are to come. Her Lord crowned her with glory in the days of old; but in the days which will rise on her yet, He shall Himself be to her as a diadem of beauty!" (Isa. xxviii. 5.) Absorbed in such high contemplations, with hopes intensified by the victories of Maccabeus--which seemed to her types and pledges of greater triumphs to come--time did not pass wearily with Hadassah until the hour arrived for Zarah's expected return. Even the delay of that return did not at first seriously alarm Hadassah; circumstances might render it safer for the maiden to linger at Salathiel's house; she might even be pressed to remain there during the night, should Syrians be lurking about in the paths amidst the hills. Hadassah had so often attended meetings in the elder's dwelling, with or without her grand-daughter, that habit had made her regard such attendance as less perilous than it was now to be proved to have been. But Hadassah on this night could not retire to rest. She could not close her eyes in sleep until they had again looked upon her whom the Hebrew lady fondly called her "white dove." Midnight stole on, and Hadassah's heart, notwithstanding her courage and faith, became burdened with heavy anxiety. She made Anna lie down and rest; while she herself, notwithstanding her state of indisposition, kept watch by the door. Presently her ear caught the sound of footsteps, hurried yet stealthy. Hadassah heard danger in that sound, and opened the door without waiting to know who came, or whether the steps would be arrested at her threshold. The light which the widow held in her hand fell on a countenance ghastly with fear; she recognized the face of Salathiel, and knew before he uttered a word that he had come as the messenger of disaster. "The enemy came--we fled over the roofs--Abishai is slain--Zarah in the hands of the Syrians!" Such were the tidings which fell like a sentence of death on the ear of Hadassah! Salathiel could not wait to tell more; he must overtake his family and with them flee for his life; and he passed away again into darkness, almost as swiftly as the lightning passes, but, like the lightning, leaving behind a token of where it has been in the tree which it has blasted! Hadassah did not shriek, nor sink, nor swoon, but she felt as one who has received a death-blow. She stood repeating over and over to herself the latter part of Salathiel's brief but fearful announcement, as if it were too terrible to be true. Had Zarah been taken from her by natural cause, the Hebrew lady would have bowed her head like Job, and have blessed the name of the Lord in mournful submission; but the thought of Zarah in the hands of the Syrians caused an agony of grief more like that of Jacob, when he gazed on the blood-stained garment of his son and refused to be comforted. For Hadassah loved the young maiden whom she had reared with the intensity of which a strong and fervent nature like hers perhaps alone is capable. Zarah was all that was left to her grandmother in the world, the sole relic remaining of the treasures which she once had possessed. It may be permitted to me here, as a digression, to give a brief account of Hadassah's former life, that the reader may better understand her position at the point reached in my story. Few women had appeared to enjoy a brighter lot than Hadassah, when beautiful, gifted, and beloved, a happy wife, a rejoicing mother, she had dwelt near Bethsura in Idumea, the possessor of more than competence, and the dispenser of benefits to many around her. Hadassah had in her youthful days an ambitious spirit, a somewhat haughty temper, and a love of command, which had to a certain degree marred the beauty of a character which was essentially noble. Grief soon came, however, to humble the spirit and to soften the temper. Hadassah was early left a widow, and heavily the grief of bereavement fell upon one whose love had been passionate and deep. Two children, however--a daughter and son--remained to console her. Around these, and especially her boy, the affections of Hadassah clung but too closely. Abner was almost idolized by his mother. If ambition remained in her heart, it was ambition for him. He was her pride, her delight, the object of her fondest hopes; Abner's very faults seemed almost to become graces, viewed through the medium of Hadassah's intense love. Many years now flowed on, with little to disturb their even tenor. Miriam, the only daughter of Hadassah, was married to Abishai; Abner was united to a fair maiden whom his mother could receive love as a daughter indeed. The Hebrew widow lived her early days over again in her children, and life was sweet to her still. Then came blow upon blow in fearful succession, each inflicting a deep wound on the heart of Hadassah. Both the young wives were taken in the prime of their days, within a few weeks of each other--Miriam dying childless, Naomi leaving but one little daughter behind. But the heaviest, most crushing stroke was to come! When Seleucus, King of Pergamos, with the concurrence of the Romans, had placed Antiochus on the throne of Syria, the new monarch had speedily shown himself an active enemy of the faith held by his subjects in Judaea. Onias, their venerable High Priest, was deposed, and the traitor Jason raised to hold an office which he disgraced. A gymnasium was built by him in Jerusalem; reverence for Mosaic rites was discouraged. Both by his example and his active exertions, Jason, the unworthy successor of Aaron, sought to obliterate the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and bring all to one uniformity of worldliness and irreligion. In the words of the historian:[1] "The example of a person in his commanding position drew forth and gave full scope to the more lax dispositions which existed among the people, especially among the younger class, who were enchanted with the ease and freedom of the Grecian customs, and weary of the restraints and limitations of their own. Such as these abandoned themselves with all the frenzy of a new excitement, from which all restraint had been withdrawn, to the license which was offered to them. The exercises of the gymnasium seem to have taken their minds with the force of fascination." To temptations such as these, a disposition like that of Abner was peculiarly accessible. His religion had never been the religion of the heart; his patriotism was cold, he prided himself upon being a citizen of the world. Unhappily, after the death of his wife, Abner had become weary of Bethsura, and had gone up to Jerusalem to divert his mind from painful associations. He there came under the influence of Jason, and plunged into amusement in a too successful effort to divert his mind from sorrow. Ambition soon added its powerful lure to that of pleasure. Abner met the newly-made king shortly after his accession, and at once attracted the attention and won the favour of the monarch. There was nothing but the Hebrew's faith between him and the highest distinctions which a royal friend could bestow. Abner yielded to the brilliant temptation; he parted with his religion (more than nominal it never had been), changed his name to that of Pollux, abandoned all his former friends and pursuits, and attached himself entirely to the Syrian court, then usually residing at Antioch. Abner, or, as we have called him, Pollux, dared not face his mother after he had turned his back upon all which she had taught him to revere. The apostate never went near Bethsura again; he kept far away from the place where he had passed his innocent childhood, the place where slept the relics of his young Jewish wife. Abner wrote to Hadassah to inform her of what he termed the change in his opinions; told her that he had given up an antiquated faith, commended his little daughter to her care, and asked her to forget that she herself had ever given birth to a son. Hadassah, after receiving this epistle, lay for weeks at the point of death, and fears were at first entertained for her reason. She arose at last from her sick-bed a changed, almost broken-hearted woman. As soon as it was possible for her to travel, the widow left Bethsura for ever. She could not endure the sight of aught to remind her of happier days; she could not bear to meet any one who might speak to her of her son. Hadassah's first object was to seek out Abner, and, with all the persuasions which a mother could use, to try to draw him back from a course which must end in eternal destruction. But Abner was not to be found in Jerusalem, nor in any part of the country around it. He had carefully concealed from his mother his new name--the Hebrew was lost in the Syrian--Abner was dead indeed to his family and to his country--and to Hadassah the courtier Pollux was utterly a stranger. It was long, very long, before Hadassah gave up her search for Abner, and she never gave up either her love or her hope for her son. Affection with her was like the vein in the marble, a part of itself, which nought can wash out or remove. There was scarcely a waking hour in which the mother did not pray for her wanderer; he was often present to her mind in dreams. And the character of Hadassah was elevated and purified by the grief which she silently endured. The dross of ambition and pride was burned away in the furnace of affliction; the impetuous high-spirited woman refined into the saint. Exquisitely beautiful is the remark made by a gifted writer:[2] "Everything of moment which befalls us in this life, which occasions us some great sorrow for which in this life we see not the uses, has nevertheless its definite object.... It may seem but a barren grief in the history of a life, it may prove a fruitful joy in the history of a soul." Hadassah's intense, undying affection for her unworthy son, led her to regard with peculiar affection the child whom he had left to her care. She loved Zarah both for his sake and her own. Zarah was the one flower left in the desert over which the simoom had swept; her smile was to the bereaved mother as the bright smile of hope. Hadassah, as she watched the opening virtues of Abner's daughter, could not, would not believe that the parent of Zarah could ever be finally lost. God would surely hear a mother's prayers, and save Abner from the fate of an apostate. All that Hadassah asked of Heaven was to see her son once again in the path of duty, and then she would die happy. The love for Abner which still lived in the widow's bosom, was like the unseen fires that glow unseen beneath the surface of the earth, only known by the warmth of the springs that gush up into light. Even as those springs was the love of the widow for Abner's daughter. [1] Dr. Kitto. [2] Lord Lytton. CHAPTER XXVI. WEARY WANDERINGS. Hadassah had believed years previously that she had suffered to the extreme limits of human endurance--that there were no deeper depths of misery to which she could descend; but the news brought on that fatal night by Salathiel showed her that she had been mistaken. The idea of her Zarah, her tender loving Zarah, in the hands of the Syrians, brought almost intolerable woe. So carefully had the maiden been nurtured, watched over, shielded from every wrong, like an unfledged bird that has always been kept under the warm, soft, protecting wing, that the utter defencelessness of her present position struck Hadassah with terror. And how--the widow could not help asking herself--how could one so timid and sensitive stand the test of persecution from which the boldest might shrink? Zarah would weep at a tale of suffering, turn faint at the sight of blood. She was not any means courageous, and her young cousins, Solomona's sons, had been wont to make mirth of her terror when a centipede had once been found nestling under a cushion near her. Could such a soft silken thread bear the strain of a blast which might snap the strongest cable? Hadassah trembled for her darling, and would willingly have consented to bear any torture, to have been able to exchange places with one so little fitted, as she thought, to endure. Sorely tried was the faith of the Hebrew lady; how little could she imagine that the prayers of many years were being answered by means of the very misfortune which was rending the cords of her heart. In the misery of her soul, all Hadassah's physical weakness and pain seemed forgotten. Before morning she had dragged her feeble steps to the gate of the prison which held her child, with the faithful Anna for her only attendant. In vain Hadassah implored for admission; in vain offered to share the captivity of Zarah, if she might be but permitted to see her. She was driven away by the guards, with insolent taunts, only to return again and again, like a bird to its plundered nest! But no complaining word, no murmuring against the decree of Him who had appointed her sore trial, was heard from Hadassah; only that sublime expression of unshaken faith, _Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him_. Then the widow thought of Lycidas the Greek. She had a claim upon his gratitude, and she knew that Zarah had a place in his affections. With his wealth, his talent, his eloquence, might he not help to save her child? "Anna," said Hadassah to her handmaid, "could we but find the Greek stranger, he might afford us aid and advice in this our sore need. But I know not where he abides." "Joab would know," observed the Jewess, "and I know the quarter of the town in which he dwells with his mother's sister, Hephzibah; for I have dealt with her for olives and melons. But, lady, you are weary, the heat of the sun is now great; seek some place of shelter and rest while I go in search of Joab." "There is no rest for me till I find my Zarah; and what care I for shelter when she has but that of a prison!" cried Hadassah. The two women then proceeded on their quest to a quarter of Jerusalem inhabited only by the poorest of the people. Simple as were the garments worn by the widow lady, she carried with her so unmistakably the stamp of a person of distinction, that her appearance there excited surprise amongst the half-clad, half-starved children that stared at her as she passed along. The street was so narrow that the women, meeting a loaded camel in it, had to stand close to the wall on one side, to suffer the unwieldy beast to pass on the other. Hungry lean dogs were growling over well-picked bones cast forth in the way, evil odours rendered the stifling air more oppressive. But Hadassah went forward as if insensible of any outward annoyance. Hephzibah, a miserable-looking old woman, with eyes disfigured and half blinded by ophthalmia, was standing in her doorway, throwing forth the refuse of vegetables, in which she dealt. Anna had frequently seen her before, and no introduction was needed. "Where is Joab?" asked the handmaid, at the bidding of Hadassah. The old crone through her bleared eyes peered curiously at the lady, as she replied to the maid, "Joab has gone forth, as he always goes at cockcrow, to lade his mule with leeks, and melons, and other vegetables and fruits. He will not be back till night-fall." Hadassah pressed her burning brow in thought, and then herself addressed the old woman. "Have you heard from Joab where dwells a week--an Athenian--Lycidas is his name?" "Lycidas? no; there be none of that name in our quarters," was the slowly mumbled reply. "Has Joab never spoken to you of a stranger, very goodly in person and graceful in mien?" persisted Hadassah, grasping at the hope that the singular beauty of Lycidas might make it less difficult to trace him. Hephzibah shook her head, and showed her few remaining teeth in a grin. "Were he goodly as David, I should hear and care nothing about it," said she. "The stranger has a very open hand, he gives freely," observed Anna. The words had an instant effect in improving the memory of the old Jewess. "Ay, ay," she said, brightening up; "I mind me of a stranger who gave Joab gold when another would have given him silver. He! he! he! Our mule is as strong a beast as any in the city, but it never brought us such a day's hire before." "When was that?" asked Hadassah. "Two days since, when Joab had taken the youth to his home." "Can you tell me where that home is?" inquired Hadassah with eagerness. "Wait--let me think," mumbled Hephzibah. Hadassah thrust a coin into the hand of seller of fruit. Hephzibah turned it round and round, looking at it as if she thought that the examination of the money would help her in giving her answer. It came at last, but slowly: "Ay, I mind me that Joab said that he took the stranger to the large house, with a court, on the left side of the west gate, which Apollonius" (she muttered a curse) "broke down." This was clue sufficient; and thankful at having gained one, Hadassah with her attendant left the stifling precincts of Hephzibah's dwelling to find out that of the Greek. Terrible were the glare and heat of the noonday sun, and long appeared the distance to be traversed, yet Hadassah did not even slacken her steps till she approached the gymnasium erected by the renegade high-priest Jason. With difficulty she made her way through crowds of Syrians and others hastening to the place of amusement. Hadassah groaned, but it was not from weariness; she turned away her eyes from the building which had been to so many of her people as the gate of perdition, and the merry voices of the pleasure-seekers sounded sadder to her ears than a wail uttered over the dead. Precious souls had been murdered in that gymnasium; the Hebrew mother thought of her own lost son! Almost dropping from fatigue, Hadassah reached at last the place which Hephzibah had described. It was an inn of the better sort, kept by an Athenian named Cimon, who had established himself in Jerusalem. Hadassah had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the host, who received her with the courtesy befitting a citizen of one of the most polished cities then to be found in the world. Cimon offered the lady a seat under the shadow of the massive gateway leading into his courtyard. "Dwells the Lord Lycidas here?" asked Hadassah faintly. She could hardly speak; her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth from heat, fatigue, and excitement. "The Lord Lycidas left this place yesterday lady," said the Greek. "Whither has he gone?" gasped Hadassah. "I know not--he told me not whither," answered Cimon, surveying his questioner with compassion and curiosity. "Months have elapsed since the Athenian lord, after honouring this roof by his sojourn under it, suddenly disappeared. Search was made for him in vain. I feared that evil had happened to my guest, and as time rolled on and brought no tidings, I sent word to his friends in Athens, asking what should be done with property left under my charge by him who, as I deemed, had met an untimely end. Ere the answer arrived, the Lord Lycidas himself appeared at my door, but in evil plight, weak in body and troubled in mind. He would give no account of the past; he said not where he had sojourned; and yester-morn, though scarcely strong enough to keep the saddle, he mounted his horse, and rode off--I know not whither; nor said he when he would return. If the lady be a friend of the Lord Lycidas," continued the Athenian, whose curiosity was strongly excited, "perhaps she may favour me by throwing light upon the mystery which attends his movements." But Hadassah had come to gain information, not to impart it. "I cannot linger here," she said, "but if Lycidas return tell him, I earnestly charge you, that the child of one who nursed him in sickness is now the prisoner of the Syrian king!" Grievously disappointed and disheartened by her failure, Hadassah then turned away from the dwelling of the Greek. "Oh, lady, rest, or you will sink from fatigue!" cried Anna, whose own sturdy frame was suffering from the effect of efforts of half of which, a day before, she would have dreamed her mistress utterly incapable. Hadassah made no reply; she sank rather than seated herself under the narrow strip of shade afforded by a dead wall. The lady covered her face; Anna knew from the slight movement of her bowed head that Hadassah was praying. Presently the Hebrew lady raised her head; she was deadly pale, but calm. "I cannot stay here," she murmured. "I must know the fate of my child. Anna, let us return to the prison." Even with the aid of her handmaid, the lady was scarcely able to rise. The twain reached the gate of the prison. A group of Syrian guards kept watch there. The appearance of the venerable sufferer, bowed down under such a weight of affliction, moved one of the soldiers to pity. "You come on a fruitless errand, lady," he said, "the maiden whom you seek is not here." "Dead?" faintly gasped forth Hadassah. "No, no; not dead," answered the Syrian promptly. "I know not all that has happened, but the young girl was certainly brought before the king." "Before him who murdered Solomona and her boys--the ruthless fiend!" was the scathing thought that passed through the brain of Hadassah. "And what followed?" she asked with her eyes, for her lips could not frame the question. "Belikes the king thought it shame to kill such a pretty bird, so kept it to make music for him in his gardens of joy," said the guard. "All that I can say is, that the maiden was not sent back to prison, but remains in the palace." "The palace!" ejaculated Hadassah; more distressed than reassured by such information. "Of course," cried another soldier, with a brutal jest; "the girl was not going to commit the folly of dying for her superstitions like a bigoted fanatic old woman, with no more sense than the staff she leans on! Of course, the maid did what any woman in her senses would do,--worshipped whatever the king bade her worship, the Muses, the Graces, or the Furies. Converts are easily made at her age, with all kinds of torments on the one side, all kinds of delights on the other." Hadassah turned slowly away from the spot. Could the soldier's words be true? had Zarah forsworn her faith as her father had done, though under circumstances so different? "Oh! God will forgive her--He will forgive my poor lost child, if she have failed under such an awful trial!" murmured the Hebrew lady, pressing her hand to her side, as if to keep her heart from bursting. But Hadassah was by no means sure that Zarah's resolution had indeed given way. She determined at all events and at any hazard to see the maiden; and, collecting all her strength, proceded at once to the palace. The unhappy lady ought have guessed beforehand that it would be a hopeless attempt to gain admittance into that magnificent abode of luxury, cruelty, and crime. The guards only mocked at her prayer to be permitted to see the captive Hebrew maiden. "Then I must speak to the king himself!" cried Hadassah. "I will watch till he leave the gate." "The king goes not forth to-day," said a Syrian noble who was quitting the palace, and who was struck by the earnestness of the aged widow, and, the anguish depicted on her noble features. "But Antiochus rides forth to-morrow, soon after sunrise." "Then," thought Hadassah, "daybreak shall find me here. I will cling to the stirrup of Antiochus. I will constrain the tyrant to listen. God will inspire my lips with eloquence. He will touch the heart of the king. I may yet persuade the tyrant to accept one life instead of another. Oh! my Zarah, child of my heart, it were bliss to suffer for you!" Clinging to this last forlorn hope, Hadassah allowed herself at last to be persuaded by Anna to seek the residence of a Hebrew family, with whom she was slightly acquainted; there to partake of a little food, lie down and attempt to sleep. Snatches of slumber came at last to the widow, slumber filled with dreams. Hadassah thought that she saw her son, her Abner, bright, joyous, and happy as he had been in his youth. Then the scene changed to own home. Hadassah fancied that Zarah had unexpectedly returned; in delight she clasped the rescued maid to her heart, and then, to her astonishment, found that it was not Zarah, but Zarah's father, whom she clasped in her arms! It was strange that dreams of joy should come in the midst of so much anguish, so that a smile should actually play on the grief-worn features of Hadassah. Was some good spirit whispering in her ear, "While you are sleeping your son is praying. Your supplications for him are answered at last?" But Hadassah lost little time in sleep. While the stars yet gleamed in the sky, the lady aroused Anna, who was slumbering heavily at her feet. The handmaid arose, and without awakening the household, Hadassah and her attendant noiselessly quitted the hospitable dwelling which had afforded them shelter, and turned their steps again in the direction of the stately palace of Antiochus Epiphanes. As the two women traversed the silent, narrow, deserted streets, they suddenly, at the angle formed by a transverse road, came upon a young man, whose rapid step indicated impatience or fear. He was moving with such eager speed that he almost struck against Hadassah, before he could arrest his quick movements. "Ha! Hadassah!" "Lycidas! Heaven be praised!" were the exclamations uttered in a breath by the Greek and the Hebrew. "Is it--can it be true--Zarah--captive--in peril?" cried the young man, whom the tidings of the attack on Salathiel's dwelling, and the capture of a maiden, had casually reached that night at Bethlehem, where he was sojourning, and whom these tidings had brought in all speed to Jerusalem. Lycidas had ridden first to the house of Cimon, where the message left by Hadassah had confirmed his worst fears. Leaving his horse, which had fallen lame on the rocky road, he had hurried off on foot to the palace, with no definite plan of action before him, but resolved at any rate to seek an interview with the king. "Zarah is prisoner in yon palace," said Hadassah, "you will do all in your power to save her?" "I would die for her!" was the reply, Hadassah in few words made known to the young Athenian her own intention to await at the palace gate the going forth of Antiochus, and plead with the Syrian king for the life and freedom of Zarah. The lady was thankful to accept the eager offer of Lycidas to remain beside her, and support her petition with the weight of any influence which he might have with the tyrant, small as he judged that influence to be. Hadassah, thankful at having found a zealous friend to aid her, leant on the arm of Lycidas as she might have done on that of a son. Difference in nation and creed was for awhile forgotten; the two were united by one great love and one great fear, and the Gentile could, with the soul's deepest fervour, say "Amen" to the Hebrew's prayer. CHAPTER XXVII. FLIGHT. It was with a strange sense of happiness mingling with fear that Zarah followed her father out of the apartment which had been her place of confinement. The blessing of Abner lay so warm at the heart of his daughter! Zarah was no longer like one peering into depths of darkness to catch a glimpse of some terrible object below; she had discovered what she had sought, and by the cords of love was, as it were, drawing up a perishing parent into security and light. It was rapture to Zarah to reflect on what would be the joy of Hadassah on the restoration of her son. The maiden could rejoice in past perils, and, with a courage which surprised herself, confront those before her; so clearly could she now perceive that her sufferings had been made a means of blessing to those whom she loved. With a light, noiseless step, Zarah, obeying the directions of her newly-found parent, and keeping his form in sight, crossed the first court which they had to traverse. It was paved, surrounded by pillars, and open to the sky, of which the deep azure was paling into morning. The place was perfectly silent. Zarah observed that her father glanced up anxiously towards the building which formed the south side of the court, where marble pillars, with wreathed columns and richly carved capitals, supported a magnificent frieze. Antiochus himself occupied that part of the palace. But no eye peered forth at that early hour on the forms that glided over the marble-paved court below. Under the shadow of the colonnade now reached, Pollux awaited his daughter;--the first point of danger was happily passed. Pollux now pointed to a broad, covered passage to the right, lighted by lamps, of which some had already burnt out, and others were flickering. Zarah saw at the further end forms of men dimly visible. The guards, weary with the long night-watch, were apparently sleeping; for they appeared to be half sitting, half reclining on the pavement, and perfectly still. Zarah had now to go first, and with a throbbing heart the maiden approached the soldiers, breathing an inaudible prayer, for she felt the peril to be very great. The passage at the end of which the guards kept ward opened into one of the small gardens which adorned the interior of the extensive edifice, with a tank in the centre, from which a graceful fountain usually rose from a statuary group of marble, representing Niobe and her children. The fountain was not playing at this hour, and there was not light sufficient to throw the shadow of the statues upon the still water below. It was impossible to reach the garden without passing between the two guards. Zarah could not tell whether they were indeed sleeping, and the space left between them was scarcely sufficiently wide to admit of her traversing it. Frightened, yet clinging to hope, Zarah, with her jar on her head walked slowly and cautiously on. Just as she was gliding by the guards, one of them started and caught hold of her dress. "Ha! slave, what mischief are you after at such an hour as this?" "My lord has bidden me dip my jar in yon tank," said Zarah, in as calm a tone as she could command. "I trow your lord has heated himself with a stronger kind of drink, or he would not need water to cool him now," said the Syrian, releasing Zarah, who, wondering at her own success, rapidly hurried into the garden. She almost forgot, in her haste to escape, that it was needful to dip her jar into water, as she was still within view of the Syrian. The maiden had to turn back one or two steps, and bend over the brink of the tank. Its cool waters refreshed her, as she dipped her slender fingers therein. "Now," thought Zarah, "there is a long dark passage to traverse--is it on the right or the left? I scarce can remember my father's directions; and a mistake now might be fatal both to him and to me. Oh, may Heaven direct me!" As Zarah glanced anxiously on either side, she perceived to the left a narrow opening in the mass of buildings which enclosed the garden. The opening was so utterly dark, that it looked to the trembling girl like the mouth of a sepulchre, and she feared to enter into it. As Zarah stood hesitating, she could hear Pollux behind her giving the password to the sentries. His voice strengthened the courage of his daughter; it was a comfort to know that he was near. Quitting the garden, Zarah entered the gloomy passage. It was not quite so dark within as it had appeared from without. The maiden could dimly distinguish a niche in the wall, in which she deposited her jar, which could now only burden her in her flight. The passage along which Zarah was groping her way was one merely intended as a back-way, along which slaves carrying viands or other burdens might pass, though it was not unfrequently used by courtiers bound on secret errands. It conducted to a much wider passage or corridor, which crossed it at right angles, and which led direct to a postern-door of the palace, by which four guards kept watch night and day. When Zarah reached the point where the smaller passage opened into the larger, she became aware of the most formidable obstacle which she had yet had to encounter--the presence of these guards; and to the young fugitive the obstacle seemed insuperable. The door was strongly bolted, and the soldiers were wide awake; there appeared to the mind of Zarah not the smallest chance that they would unbar the door for her, or suffer her to pass. The heart of the young fugitive sank within her. It was terrible to be so near to liberty, and yet have that impassable barrier between her and freedom! How formidable looked the deadly weapons of the soldiers as they gleamed in the waning torch-light; how stern the weather-beaten countenances of that warriors of Antiochus Epiphanes! Zarah leaned against the wall of the dark narrow passage, and listened for the footsteps of her father behind her. She dared not venture out of the shadow into the lighted corridor. Presently Pollux was at her side; she felt his hand gently laid on her shoulder. "All will be lost if you attempt to save me, father," murmured the trembling girl. "Oh, go on without me--leave me to God's care; I can never pass those guards." "When I raise my hand, come forward and go forth," whispered Pollux. Not like a prisoner escaping, but with the firm tread of a man who doubts not his right and power to go where he will, the courtier of Antiochus strode into the corridor and advanced towards the guards, who saluted, in Oriental fashion, a noble of high distinction, whose person was familiar to them all. "The word is 'The sword of Antiochus.' Unbar that door, and quickly; I am on business of importance which brooks no delay," said Pollux to the guards in a tone of command. The order was instantly obeyed. Zarah joyfully heard bolt after bolt withdrawn, and then the creaking of the door upon its hinges; and felt the freshness of outer air admitted through the opening. Pollux seemed to be about to pass out, when he suddenly raised his hand, as his appointed signal to his daughter. Zarah, gasping with breathless anxiety, obeyed the sign, and glided forward to go forth from the palace. One of the soldiers, however, instantly barred her passage with his weapon. "Let the slave pass," said Pollux sternly. The point of the guard's weapon was lowered; but another of the soldiers was about to remonstrate. "It is against orders," he began, when Pollux interrupted him. "Methinks you are one who served under me in the force of Giorgias," observed the courtier, with presence of mind. "Ay, my lord," answered the soldier. "When we next see Maccabeus, we must come to closer quarters with him," observed the noble. "Here, my brave men,"--he drew forth a purse heavy with gold--"share this among you, and drink success to the brave." The soldiers could scarcely repress a shout at the unexpected liberality of Pollux. Not one of them so much as looked at Zarah as she glided forth into the open air. Oh, transporting sense of liberty! How delicious was the breath of early morn on the fugitive's cheek; how glorious the open vault spread above her, blushing in the first light of dawn! Pollux experienced, though in a very inferior degree, some of the pleasure felt by his daughter, as he joined her on the broad marble steps which led down from the Grecian-built palace of Antiochus to the platform on which it erected. "This way, my child," whispered Pollux, as drew Zarah in the direction of one of the high narrow streets of Jerusalem. "We must put as much space as possible between us and pursuers before sunrise. Would that we had started hours ago! Many dangers yet are before us." One was nearer than the speaker was aware of. Scarcely had the fugitives entered the nearest street when they encountered a Syrian courtier, splendidly attired, whose unsteady gait betrayed in what manner he had been passing the night. More than half intoxicated as he was, Lysimachus instantly recognized Pollux. "Ha! whither bound?" exclaimed Lysimachus, standing, or rather staggering, in the narrow path directly in front of the fugitives. "I give an account of my movements only to such as have a right to demand it," said Pollux haughtily, attempting to pass his rival, while Zarah kept close behind her father. "The fox has caught sight of the trap--Pollux has found out that I hold his death-warrant," cried Lysimachus; "and that his head must fall at sunrise!" Pollux started at the words of his enemy. "He is making his escape!" continued Lysimachus, in a louder voice; "he's falling off to the Hebrews! but this shall stop him!" and with a quick, unexpected movement, the Syrian plunged a dagger into the breast of Pollux, then himself fell heavily rolling over into the dust! Lysimachus had been struck down by a blow from the hand of Lycidas, who had been but a few paces behind him! Zarah had caught sight of the Greek, and of the venerated form of Hadassah at that momentous crisis; her eyes riveted on them, she had not seen the blow inflicted on her father, who, though mortally wounded, did not instantly fall. For Pollux also beheld his mother, and the sudden, unexpected vision of her from whom he had so long been divided, seemed to have power to arrest even the hand of death. Parent and son met--they clasped--they locked each other in a first--a last embrace! "Oh, mother," exclaimed Zarah, "he has saved me; he is your own son again, devoted to his country--to his God!" Did Hadassah hear the joyful exclamation? If she did not, it mattered but little, for she had already grasped with ecstasy all that its meaning could convey; for the last sentence uttered by Lysimachus ere he fell had reached her ear. Her son--her beloved--was "falling away to the Hebrews," or rather was returning to the faith which he once had abjured; he was given back--he was saved from perdition--he was rescuing his child from death and his mother from despair! Hadassah's mind had received all this, conveyed as it were in a lightning flash of joy. She needed to know no more;--her son was folded in her arms! Pollux and Hadassah sank together on the paved way. The sight of a few drops of blood on the stones first startled Zarah into a knowledge that Lysimachus had inflicted an injury on her father. "Oh, he is wounded!" she exclaimed, throwing herself on her knees beside him. "Dead!" ejaculated Anna, who was vainly attempting to raise the head of Pollux. "No--no--not dead! Oh, Lycidas!--Lycidas!" exclaimed Zarah in horror, intuitively appealing to the Athenian to relieve her from the terrible fear which Anna had raised. "It is too true," said Lycidas sadly; for he could not look upon the countenance of Pollux and doubt that life was extinct. "We must gently separate the son from the arms of his mother." But they who had been so long separated in life could not be separated in death; man had now no power to divide them. Often had Hadassah thought that her heart would break with grief;--it had burst with joy! Her day of sorrow was over; her long Sabbath rest had begun. The happy smile which had lately played on her lips in sleep, now rested upon them in that last peaceful slumber from which she should never again awake to weep. She had been given her heart's desire, and so had departed in peace. Blessed death; most joyful departure! CHAPTER XXVIII. UNITED IN THE GRAVE. Lycidas dared not at first break to Zarah the mournful truth that one blow had bereft her of both her protectors, that she was now indeed an orphan, and alone in the world. Zarah saw that her father was dead, but believed that Hadassah had swooned. The subdued wail of Anne over the corpse of her mistress, first revealed to the bereaved girl the full extent of her loss. Its greatness, its suddenness, almost stunned her; it was a paralyzing grief. But this was no time for lamentation or wail. Lycidas remembered--though Zarah herself for the moment entirely forgot it--her imminent personal peril should she be discovered and arrested by the Syrians. To save her precious life, was now the Greek's most anxious care. He tried to persuade her to fly; but even his entreaties could not draw the mourner from the dead bodies of Hadassah and Pollux. It seemed as if Zarah could understand nothing but the greatness of her bereavements. A terrible fear arose in the mind of the Greek that all that the maiden had undergone during the last two days had unsettled her reason. "What can be done!" exclaimed Lycidas, almost in despair; "if the Syrians find her here, she is lost. The city will soon be astir; already I hear the sound of hoofs!" A man, leading a large mule with two empty panniers, appeared, trudging on his solitary way. As he approached the spot, Lycidas to his inexpressible relief recognized in him Joab, a man whose countenance was never likely to be forgotten by him--being connected with one of the most exciting passages in the life of the young Athenian. "Ha! the lady Hadassah!" exclaimed the muleteer, in a tone of surprise and regret, as his eye fell on the lifeless body, round which Zarah was clinging, with her face buried in the folds of its garments. "I have seen you before; I know you to be a good man and true," said Lycidas, hurriedly. "You risked your life to bury the martyrs, you will help us now in this our sore need. Assist us to lift these bodies on your mule, and take them as secretly and as swiftly as we may to the house of Hadassah." "I would risk anything for my old mistress," said Joab; "but as for yon silken-clad Syrian, I care not to burden my beast with his carcass." The muleteer looked with stern surprise on the corpse of Pollux. "Who is he," continued Joab, "and how comes he to be clasped in the arms of the Lady Hadassah?" "My father--he is my father!" sobbed Zarah. "Raise them both," said Lycidas; "we cannot divide them, and there is not a moment to be lost." The united efforts of the party hardly sufficed to raise the two bodies to the back of the mule, which, though a large and powerful animal, could scarcely carry the double burden. Joab took his large coarse mantle, and threw it over the corpses to hide them, then taking his beast by the halter, led it forward in silence. "Is there no danger from him?" said Anna to Lycidas, pointing to Lysimachus, who lay senseless and bleeding, his head having come into violent collision with a stone. By a brief examination Lycidas satisfied himself that the courtier was indeed in a state of unconsciousness, and knew nothing of what was passing around him. The Athenian then went up to Zarah, who, drooping like a broken lily, was slowly following the corpses of her parent and his mother. Lycidas offered her what support he could give; Zarah did not, could not reject it. A deadness seemed coming over her brain and heart; had not Lycidas upheld the poor girl, she must have dropped by the wayside. With what strange emotions did Lycidas through life remember that early walk in Jerusalem! The being whom he loved best was leaning upon him, too much exhausted to decline his aid; there was thrilling happiness in being so near her; but the uppermost feelings in the mind of Lycidas were agonising fear upon Zarah's account, and intense impatience to reach some place of safety. Fearfully slow to Lycidas appeared the progress of the heavily-laden mule, terribly long the way that was traversed. The muleteer purposely avoided that which would have been most direct; he dared not go through one of the city gates, but passed out into the open country at a spot little frequented, where a part of the wall of Jerusalem still lay in ruins, as it had been left by Apollonius. Most unwelcome to Lycidas was the brightening day, which awoke the world to life. Every human form, even that of a child, was to him an object of alarm. The brave young Greek was full of terrors for one who in her grief had lost the sense of personal fear. Partly owing to the skilful selection of paths by Joab, partly owing to the circumstance of the day being still so young, the party did not meet many persons on their way, and these few were of poorer class, early commencing their morning toils. Inquiring glances were cast at the singular cortege, but at that time of bondage and peril, a common sense of misery and danger taught caution and repressed curiosity. Only once was a question asked of the muleteer. "What have you there, Joab, under yon mantle?" inquired a woman with a large jar on her head, who stopped to survey the strange burden of the mule. "A ripe sheaf of the first-fruits, a wave-offering, Deborah," replied Joab, with significance. "There will be more, many more, cut down soon," replied the woman gloomily; "may desolation overtake the Syrian reapers!" Joab saw the Athenian's look of apprehension. "Fear not, stranger," he said; "no Hebrew will betray us; Deborah is true as steel, and knows me well." There is little of twilight in Judaea; day leaps almost at a bound upon his throne. The world was bathed in sunshine long before the slowly-moving party reached the lonely dwelling amongst the hills. How thankful was Lycidas for the seclusion of that wild spot, which seemed as if it had been chosen for purpose of concealment! Hadassah had left the door fastened when she had quitted the place on the preceding morning, full of anxious terrors on account of the peril of Zarah; but Anna had charge of the key. With what thankful joy would the Hebrew widow have for the last time crossed that threshold in life, could she have foreseen that her child would so soon return in safety, albeit as a mourner, following Hadassah's own corpse! The two bodies were reverentially laid on mats on the floor of the dwelling. Lycidas then went outside the door with Joab, to make such arrangements as circumstances permitted for the burial, which, according to the custom of the land, rendered necessary by the climate, must take place very soon. Joab undertook to find those who would aid him in digging a grave close to that of the martyrs, and promised to come for the bodies an hour after midnight. Lycidas drew forth gold, but the Hebrew refused to take it. "To bury the martyred dead is a pious office and acceptable to the Most High," said the brave muleteer; "but as for yon Syrian, son though he may be of the Lady Hadassah, I care not to lay his bones amongst those of martyrs. I trow he was nothing but a traitor." "He died by the hand of a Syrian, he died saving a Hebrew maiden, he died in his mother's arms," said Lycidas, with tender regard for the feelings of Zarah, who would he knew be sensitive in regard to respect paid to the corpse of her parent. "Deny him not a grave with his people." Joab merely shrugged his shoulders in reply, laid his hand on the halter of his mule, and departed. On the following night, Lycidas found himself again in that olive-girdled spot which he had such reason to remember. He stood under that tree behind the bending trunk of which he had crouched for concealment on the night when he had first seen Zarah. The ground was very hard from the long drought. Joab, and two companions whom he had brought to assist in the perilous service, had much difficulty in preparing a grave. "We need the strong arm of Maccabeus here," observed one of the men, stopping to brush the beaded drops from his brow. "Maccabeus is employed in making graves for his enemies, not for his friends," was the muleteer's stern reply. Thick heavy clouds obscured the starless sky, not a breath of wind was stirring, the air felt oppressively close and sultry even at the hour of midnight. A single torch was all the light which the grave-diggers dared to employ while engaged on their dangerous work. In almost perfect darkness were the remains of Hadassah and her unhappy son lowered into the dust. There was no silver moonlight streaming between the stems of the olives, as on the occasion of the martyrs' burial, nor was Zarah present to throw flowers into the open grave. With her the powers of nature had given way under the prolonged strain which they had had to endure; the poor girl lay in her desolate home, too ill to be even conscious of the removal from it of the remains over which she had watched and mourned as long as she had been capable of doing either. It was strange to Lycidas to be, as it were, only representative of Hadassah's family at the funeral of herself and her son,--he, who was not only no relative, but a foreigner in blood, and in religion an alien; but it was a privilege which he valued very highly, and which he would not have resigned to have held the chief place in the most pompous ceremonial upon earth. As soon as the displaced earth had been thrown back into the grave of Hadassah and her Abner, the night-clouds burst, and down came the long longed-for, long-desired latter rains. The parched dry sod seemed to drink in new life; the shrivelled foliage revived, all nature rejoiced in the gift from heaven. When the sun rose over the hills, water was again trickling from the stream behind the dwelling of Hadassah; the oleanders were not yet dead, they would bloom into beauty again. CHAPTER XXIX. THE MOURNER'S HOME. I shall pass lightly over the events of several succeeding months. The summer passed away, with its intense heat and its fierce simooms. Then came heavier dews by night, and temperature gradually decreased by day. The harvest was ended, but few of the inhabitants of Jerusalem had ventured to observe Pentecostal solemnities. The time for the Feast of Tabernacles arrived, but none dared raise leafy booths of palm and willow--to spend therein the week of rejoicing, according to the custom of happier years. Early in the summer Antiochus Epiphanes had quitted Judaea for Persia, to quell an insurrection which his cupidity had provoked in the latter country. The absence of the tyrant had somewhat mitigated the fierceness of the persecution against such Hebrews as sought to obey the law of Moses; but still no one dared openly to practise Jewish rites in Jerusalem, and the image of Jupiter Olympus still profaned the temple on Mount Zion. Judas Maccabeus, in the meantime, still maintained a bold front in Southern Judaea and the tract of country called Idumea; the power of his name was felt from the rich pasture-lands surrounding Hebron as far as the fair plains of Beersheba on the south-west--or on the south-east the desolate valley of salt. Wherever the Asmonean's influence extended, fields were sown or their harvests gathered in peace; the husbandman followed his team, and the shepherd folded his flocks; mothers rejoiced over the infants whom they could now present to the Lord without fear. But again the portentous war-cloud was rolling up from the direction of Antioch. Lycias, the regent of the western provinces, by the command of Antiochus had gathered around him a very large army, a force yet more formidable than that which had been led by Nicanor, and Syria was again collecting her hordes to crush by overwhelming numbers Judas and his patriot band. And how had the last half-year sped with Zarah? Very slowly and very heavily, as time usually passes with those who mourn. And deeply did Zarah mourn for Hadassah--her more than mother, her counsellor, her guide--the being round whom maiden's affections so closely had twined that she had felt that she could hardly sustain existence deprived of Hadassah. And much Zarah wept for her father--though in remembering him a deep spring of joy mingled with her sorrow. A thousand times did Zarah repeat to herself his words of blessing--a thousand times fervently thank God that she and her parent had met. The words of Lysimachus had lightened her heart of what would otherwise have painfully pressed upon it. Those words had told her that Pollux was a doomed man; that apostasy on her part could not have saved his life; that had he not fallen by the Syrian's dagger, he would have been but reserved for the headsman's axe. And had Pollux perished thus, there would have been none of that gleam of hope which, at least in Zarah's eyes, now rested upon his grave. Zarah never left the precincts of her secluded dwelling, except to visit her parents' grave--where she went as often as she dared venture forth, accompanied by the faithful Anna. No feet but their own ever crossed the threshold of their home. Zarah's simple wants were always supplied. Anna disposed in Jerusalem of the flax which her young mistress spun, as soon as Zarah had regained sufficient strength to resume her humble labours. During the period of the maiden's severe illness, Anna had secretly disposed of the precious rolls of Scripture from which Hadassah had made her copies, and had obtained for them such a price as enabled her for many weeks to procure every comfort and even luxury required by the sufferer. The copies themselves, traced by the dear hand now mouldering into dust, Zarah counted as her most precious possession; her most soothing occupation was to read them, pray over them, commit to memory their contents. During all this long period of time, Zarah never saw Lycidas, but she had an instinctive persuasion that he was not far away--that, like an unseen good angel, he was protecting her still. The name of the Athenian was never forgotten in Zarah's prayers. She felt that she owed a debt of gratitude to one who had struck down her father's murderer, who had paid the last honours to his remains and those of Hadassah, and to whose care she believed that she owed her own freedom and life. If there was something more than gratitude in the maiden's feelings towards the Greek, it was a sentiment so refined and purified by grief that it cast no dimness over the mirror of conscience. But Zarah knew that her life could not always flow on thus. It was a most unusual thing in her land for a maiden thus to dwell alone, without any apparent protection save that of a single handmaid. It was a violation of all the customs of her people, an unseemly thing which could only be justified by necessity. The daughter of Abner was also in constant peril of having her retreat discovered by those who had searched for herself and her father in vain, but who might at any day or any hour find and seize her as a condemned criminal, and either put her to death, or send her as a captive to Antiochus Epiphanes. Often, very often had Zarah turned over the subject of her peculiar position in her mind, and considered whether she ought not to leave the precincts of Jerusalem, and secretly depart for Bethsura. There the orphan could claim the hospitality of her aged relative Rachel, should she be living yet, or the protection of the Asmonean brothers, who, being her next of kin, were, according to Jewish customs, the maiden's natural guardians. But Zarah shrank from taking this difficult step. Very formidable to her was the idea of undertaking a journey even of but twenty miles' length, through a country where she would be liable to meet enemies at every step of the way. Zarah had no means of travelling save on foot, unless she disposed of some of the few jewels which she had inherited from her parents; and this she was not only unwilling to do, but she feared to do it lest, through the sale of these gems in Jerusalem, she should be tracked to her place of retreat. Anna was faithful as a servant, but could never be leaned upon as an adviser--she would obey, but she could not counsel; and her young mistress, timid and gentle, with no one to guide and protect her, felt her strength and courage alike insufficient for an adventurous journey from Jerusalem to Bethsura. The possible necessity which might arise of her having to place herself under the protection of Maccabeus, should Rachel be no longer living at Bethsura, greatly increased Zarah's reluctance to leave her present abode. The maiden remembered too well what Hadassah had disclosed of a proposed union between herself and Judas, not to feel that it would be peculiarly painful to have to throw herself upon the kindness of her brave kinsman. Zarah could not, as she thought, tell him why the idea of such a union was hateful to her soul--why she was averse to fulfilling the wishes of Mattathias and Hadassah. While Maccabeus often experienced an almost irrepressible yearning once more to look upon Zarah, whom he believed to be still with Hadassah, of whose death he never had heard, Zarah shrank with emotions of fear from meeting the Hebrew chieftain. Tender affection also made the orphan girl cling to her parents' grave and the home of her youth. Dear associations were linked with almost every object on which her eyes rested. Those to whom the present is a thorny waste, and the future a prospect darkened by gloomy mists, are wont to dwell more than others on the green spots which memory yet can survey in the past. It is natural to youth to look forward. Zarah, as regarded this world, dared only look back. It was well for her that she could do so with so little of remorse or regret. "Not to have known a treasure's worth Till time hath stolen away the slighted boon, Is cause of half the misery we feel, And makes this world the wilderness it is." When winter was drawing near, when the bursting cotton-pods had been gathered, and the vintage season was over, when the leaves were beginning to fall fast, and the cold grew sharp after sunset, circumstances occurred which compelled a change in Zarah's quiet routine of existence. She could no longer be left to indulge her lonely sorrow; the current of life was about to take a sudden turn which must of necessity bring her amongst new scenes, and expose her to fresh trials. CHAPTER XXX. CHANGES. One evening, towards the hour of sunset, Zarah sat alone at her wheel awaiting the return of Anna from the city, she was startled by the sound of a hand rapping hastily upon the panel of the door. The hand was assuredly not that of Anna, who, from precaution, had adopted a peculiar way of tapping to announce her return. As no visitor ever came to Zarah's dwelling, it was no marvel that she felt alarm at the unexpected sound, especially as she was aware that she had neglected her usual precaution of barring the door during the absence of Anna. As Zarah hastily rose to repair her omission, the door was opened from without, and Lycidas stood before her. The countenance of the Greek expressed anxiety and alarm. "Lady, forgive the intrusion," said Lycidas, bending in lowly salutation before the startled girl; "but regard for your safety compels me to seek this interview. I was to-day in company with Lysimachus, the Syrian courtier--how we chanced to be together, or wherefore he mentioned to me what I am about to disclose, matters little, and I would be brief. Lysimachus told me that, from information which he had received--how, I know not--he had cause to suspect that the maiden who some half-year back had been sentenced by the king to death if she refused to apostatize from her faith, was living secluded in a dwelling amongst the hills to the east of the city. The Syrian declared that he was resolved to-morrow morn to explore thoroughly every spot which could possibly afford a place of concealment to the maiden--whom he intends to seize and send as a prisoner into Persia, to the merciless tyrant whom he serves." Zarah turned very pale at the tidings, and leaned on her wheel for support. "You must fly to-night, dearest lady," said Lycidas; "this dwelling is no longer a safe asylum for you." "Whither can I fly, and how?" murmured the orphan girl. "I have no friend here except"--Zarah hesitated, and Lycidas completed the sentence. "Except one to whom your lightest wish is a command; to whom every hair of your head is dearer than life!" exclaimed the Athenian. "Speak not thus to me, Lycidas," said Zarah, in a tone of entreaty; "you know too well the impassable barrier which divides us." "Not impassable, Zarah," cried the Greek; "it has been thrown down, I have trampled over it, and it separates us no longer. Hear me, O daughter of Abraham! Much have I learned since last I stood on this threshold; deeply have I studied your Scriptures; long have I secretly conversed with the wise and learned who could instruct me in your faith. I am now persuaded that there is no God but one God--He who revealed Himself to Abraham: I have renounced every heathen superstition; I have in all things conformed to the law of Moses; I have been formally received as a proselyte into the Jewish Church; and am now, like Achor the Ammonite, in everything save name and birth, a Hebrew." Zarah could not refrain from uttering an exclamation of delight. Her whole countenance suddenly lighted up with an expression of happiness, which was reflected on that of him who stood before her--for in that blissful moment Lycidas felt that he must be beloved. "Oh, joy!" cried Zarah, clasping her hands. "Then have you also embraced the Holy Covenant, and you are numbered amongst the children of Abraham! Then may I look upon you as a brother indeed!" "Can you not look upon me as something more than a brother, Zarah?" exclaimed the Athenian. "Why should you not fly--since you needs must fly from this dangerous spot--under the protection, the loving, devoted care, of an affianced husband?" Zarah flushed, trembled, covered her face with her hands, and sank, rather than seated herself, upon the divan from which she had risen on hearing the knock of the Greek. Lycidas ventured to seat himself beside the young maiden, take one of her unresisting hands and press it first to his heart, then to his lips--for he read consent in the silence of Zarah. But the maiden had none of the calm tranquillity of happiness; she felt bewildered, doubtful of herself; again she covered her face and murmured, "Oh, that my mother were here to guide me!" "Hadassah would not have spurned a proselyte whom the elders have received; she was too large-minded, too just," said Lycidas, disappointed and somewhat mortified at the doubts which evidently disturbed the mind of the maiden. "Listen to the plan which I have formed for your escape, my Zarah. I have already made arrangements with the trusty Joab. He will bring a horse-litter an hour after dark to bear you and your handmaid hence; I will accompany you as your armed and mounted attendant. We will direct our course to the coast. At Joppa we shall, I hope, find a vessel, borne forward by whose white wings we shall soon reach my own beautiful and glorious land, where love, freedom, and happiness, shall await my fair Hebrew bride!" For some moments Zarah made no reply; how tempting was the vista thus suddenly opened before her--radiant with rosy light, like those seen in the clouds at sunrise! Then Zarah uncovered her face, but without raising it, or venturing to look at Lycidas, she said, in a voice that trembled with emotion, "Hadassah, my mother, would have deemed it unseemly for a maiden thus to flee from her country to a land where her God is not known and worshipped, and under the protection of one who is none of her kindred." "I thought that you had no kindred, Zarah," said Lycidas, with uneasiness; "that you had none left of your family whose guardianship you could seek." "I have--or had--an aged relative, Rachel of Bethsura," replied Zarah, "who, if she be yet living, will assuredly receive me into her home. But my next of kin are the Asmonean brothers." "The noblest family in the land!" exclaimed the Athenian. "If it be indeed impossible for you to escape with me into Greece--" "Not impossible, but wrong," said Zarah, softly; "it would be disobeying what I know would have been the will of her whose wishes are more sacred to me now than ever." "Then be mine in your own land," cried Lycidas, "where I may show that I merit to win you. Will the noble Judas and his brothers deem me unworthy to unite with one of their race if I devote my sword to the cause of which they are the champions--a cause as glorious as that for which my ancestor died at Marathon?" Still the cloud of doubt did not pass from the fair brow of Zarah. There was a difficulty in her mind which she shrank from disclosing to Lycidas. At last she timidly said, her cheeks glowing crimson as she spoke, "Shall I be candid with you, Lycidas? shall I tell all--as to a brother?" "All, all," replied the Athenian, with painful misgiving at his heart. "Beloved Hadassah is at rest, I can hear her dear voice no more, but--but I am not ignorant of what were her views and wishes," said Zarah. "I believe--indeed I know"--Zarah could hardly speak distinctly enough, in her confusion, for the strained ear of Lycidas to catch her words--"she had destined me for another; I am not quite certain whether I be not even betrothed." Lycidas could not refrain from a passionate outburst. "It was wicked--cruel--infamous," he cried, "to dispose of your hand without your consent!" "Such words must never be applied to aught that she did," said Zarah. "The revered mother ever consulted the happiness as well as the honour of her child. She would never have urged upon me any marriage from which my heart revolted, but she let me know her wishes. And the very last day that we were together"--tears flowed fast from under Zarah's long drooping lashes as she went on--"on that fatal day, ere I left her to attend the Passover feast, Hadassah charged me, by the love that I bore to her, never to take any important step in life without at least consulting him in whom she felt assured that I should find my best earthly protector." "And who may this chosen individual be?" asked Lycidas, almost fiercely; a pang of jealousy stirring in his breast as he demanded the name of his rival. Zarah murmured, "Judas Maccabeus." "Judas Maccabeus!" exclaimed the young Greek, starting to his feet, more alarmed at the sound of that name than had been the warriors of Nicanor, when hearing it suddenly at night in the death-shout. Lycidas, with all the enthusiastic admiration which noble deeds inspire in a poetic and generous nature like his, had regarded the career of the Hebrew hero. The history of Maccabeus was to the Greek an acted epic; in character, in renown, Judas, in his estimation, towered like a giant above all other men of his generation. Lycidas had met the chieftain but once; but in that one meeting had received impressions which made him idealize Maccabeus into a being more like the demi-gods of whom poets sang, whom worshippers adored, than one of the denizens of earth. He was in the eyes of the young enthusiast, conqueror, patriot, and prince--a breathing embodiment of "the heroism of virtue." The Greek had never thought of Maccabeus before as one subject to human passions, save love of country, and perhaps love of fame; or as one influenced by human affections, who might seek to win a woman's heart as well as to triumph over his foes. The idea of having him for a rival struck the young Athenian with something like despair; it seemed more than presumption to enter the arena against such an opponent as this. Lycidas believed that, had Antiochus Epiphanes laid the crown of Syria at the feet of Zarah, she would have rejected the gift; but breathed there a maiden in Judaea who could do aught but accept with pride the proffered hand of her country's hero--of him who was to all other mortals as snow-capped Lebanon to a mole-hill? Zarah felt that her disclosure had inspired more alarm in the mind of Lycidas than she had intended, or than was warranted by the true state of the relations between her and the Hebrew leader. She hastened to relieve the apprehensions of the Greek. "I reverence Maccabeus," said the maiden; "I would repose the greatest confidence alike in his wisdom and his honour; but, personally, Judas is no more to me than any of his brothers." Lycidas drew a deep sigh of relief. Grateful for the encouragement which he drew from this avowal, the Greek resumed his place by the side of Zarah. "What course will you then pursue towards Maccabeus?" he inquired. "I must consult him, as Hadassah bade me consult him," said the maiden: "he must know all that most nearly concerns me; it seems to me as if he stood to me now in the place of a father." The spirits of Lycidas rose at the word; again his heart was buoyant with hope. "Our first object now, beloved one," said he, "must be to place your person in safety. As you will not seek refuge in Attica, we will bend our course southward--if such be your wish--and find out your aged relative at Bethsura. I would fain that she dwelt in any other direction; for Bethsura itself holds a Syrian garrison, the army of Lysias is advancing, and southern Judaea is so infested by armed bands that travelling is scarcely safe. Have you no friends, no relatives, in Galilee, or on the sea-coast?" Zarah shook her head. "I know not of one," she replied. "Rachel dwells not in Bethsura but near it, and in a spot so retired that the enemy is scarcely likely to find it out. If the country be infested by armed bands--they are the followers of Maccabeus, and from them we have nothing to dread." Though Lycidas was not a little disappointed at having to give up his first scheme--that of bearing off Zarah to the coast, and thence to Attica--he could not but respect her scruples, and own that the course upon which she had decided was not only the most dutiful but the most wise. It was agreed therefore that Zarah, under the escort of Lycidas, should start at the hour which the Greek had first proposed; but that, instead of Joppa, her destination should be Bethsura--at which place, by travelling all night, she might hope to arrive before dawn. While Zarah was concluding these arrangements with Lycidas, Anna returned from Jerusalem. The face of the faithful servant expressed anxiety; a warning dropped in her ear by a Hebrew acquaintance had rendered her uneasy on account of her mistress. "Beware! dogs are on the scent of the deer." Heartily glad was the handmaid to find that the Athenian lord had come to aid the escape of Zarah; his talents, his courage, the gold which he so lavishly spent, would, as she thought, clear away all difficulties attending their flight. The Greek soon left the lady and her attendant to make needful preparations for a journey so sudden and unexpected as that which was before them. CHAPTER XXXI. NIGHT TRAVELLING. The enforced hastiness of Zarah's departure rendered it perhaps less painful than it would otherwise have been. Zarah had little time to indulge in tender regrets on leaving a spot which memory still peopled with loved forms, giving a life to lifeless objects, making the table at which Hadassah had sat so often, the wheel at which she had spun, the plants that she had nurtured, things too precious to be parted from without a pang. There was little which Zarah could take with her in a litter; save the parchments, some articles of dress and her few jewels, all must be left behind. Yet at this time of peril, while the wound inflicted by bereavement was yet unhealed, Zarah felt a spring of happiness which she had believed could never flow again, rising within her young heart. "Lycidas is an adopted son of Abraham! Lycidas, one of God's chosen people!" That thought sufficed to make Zarah's soft eyes bright and her step buoyant, to flood her spirit with hope and delight. Not that Zarah forgot Hadassah in her new sense of happiness; on the contrary, the memory of the sainted dead was linked with each thought of joy, and served to make it more holy. "How Hadassah would have praised and blessed God for this!" reflected Zarah. "Her words were the seeds of truth which fell on the richest of soils, where the harvest now gladdens her child. It was she who first saved the precious life of my Lycidas, and then led his yet more precious soul to the Fount of Salvation! Had Lycidas never listened to the voice of my mother, he had been an idolater still!" It was with more of pleasure than of apprehension that Zarah, timid as was her nature, anticipated the journey before her. Lycidas was to be her protector, Lycidas would be near her, his presence seemed to bring with it safety and joy. "And may it not be thus with all the future journey of life?" whispered hope to the maiden. "Will Judas Maccabeus make any very strong opposition to the union of his kinswoman to a proselyte, when he finds that her happiness is involved in it, and that Lycidas will be a gallant defender of the faith which he has adopted as his own?" Zarah felt some anxiety and doubt upon this question, but nothing approaching to despair. The maiden had little idea of the intensity of the affection concentrated upon herself by one who was wont to restrain outward expression of his feelings; she feared that Judas might be offended and displeased, but never imagined that she had the power of making him wretched. Was such a mighty hero, such an exalted leader, likely to care for the heart of a simple girl? Love was a weakness to which Zarah deemed that so calm and lofty a being as Maccabeus could scarce condescend. But is the forest oak less strong and majestic because spring drapes its branches with thousands of blossoms, or are those blossoms less truly flowers because their hue is too like that of the foliage to strike a careless beholder? Maccabeus, with his thoughtful reserved disposition, would as little have talked of his affection for Zarah as he would of the pulsations of his heart; but both were a part of his nature, a necessity of his existence. Joab was punctual to his appointment. An hour after dark the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard on the lonely hill-path which led to the house of Hadassah. Anna cautiously unclosed the door, peering forth anxiously to see whether those who came were friends or foes. "It is my Lord Lycidas!" she joyfully exclaimed, as the horseman who rode in front drew his rein at the door. The Athenian found Zarah and her attendant ready to start, and in a few minutes the two were seated in the horse-litter conducted by Joab, the crimson curtains were drawn, and the travellers departed from the lonely habitation upon their perilous journey. The weather at this advanced season was cold, almost frosty, at night; but Lycidas was glad of the cessation of the heavy rains which had, as usual, heralded the approach of winter. The night was cloudless and clear, the azure vault was spangled with stars. After some windings amongst the hills, the party entered the long valley of Rephaim, rich with corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards. The corn had long since been garnered, the grapes had been gathered, but the fig-trees were still laden with fruit. Zarah noticed little of the scenery around her, though brilliant star-light rendered it faintly visible. The rough motion of the litter over rocky roads precluded conversation, even had Zarah been disposed to enter into it with her attendant. The rocking of the litter rather invited sleep, and after the maiden had been for about an hour and a half slowly pursuing her journey, drowsiness was stealing over her, when she was startled by a sudden shock, which, though not violent, was sufficient somewhat to alarm, and thoroughly to arouse her. "Has anything happened?" asked the maiden, partly drawing back one of the crimson curtains of her litter. Lycidas had dismounted, and was at her side in a moment. "It is a trifling matter," he said; "be not alarmed, dear lady. One of the thongs has given way; Joab will speedily set all to rights; I only regret the delay." "Where are we now?" asked Zarah. "Close to the village of Bethlehem," was the Athenian's reply. "Ah! I must look upon Bethlehem again!" cried Zarah with emotion, drawing the curtain further back, so as to obtain a wider view of the dim landscape of swelling hills and soft pastures. "My loved mother Hadassah was wont to bring me every year to this place; she called its stones the Memorial of the Past, and the Cradle of the Future." "I know that Bethlehem is a place of great historical interest," observed Lycidas, glancing around; "it was here that David, the anointed shepherd, watched his flock, and encountered the lion and the bear. And it was here that the gentle Ruth gleaned barley amongst the reapers of Boaz." The young Greek was well pleased to show his recently-acquired knowledge of sacred story. "Yes; my mother was wont to point out to me the very spots where events took place which must ever render them dear to the Hebrews," observed Zarah. "But Hadassah always said that the chief interest of Bethlehem lies in the future rather than in the past. It is here," Zarah reverentially lowered her voice as she went on--"it is here that Messiah the Prince shall be born, as has been revealed to us by a prophet." "One would scarcely deem this village to be a place likely to be so honoured," observed Lycidas. "Ah! you remind me of what my dear mother once said in reply to words of mine, spoken several years ago, when I was very young," said Zarah. "'It will be a long time before the Prince can come,' I observed, 'for I have looked on every side, and cannot see so much as the first stone laid of the palace in which He will be born.'--'Think you, child,' said Hadassah, 'that a building ten thousand times more splendid than that raised by Solomon would add a whit to His glory? The presence of the king makes the palace, though it should be but a cave. Does it increase the value of the diamond if the earth in which it lies embedded show a few spangles of gold dust?'--I have never forgotten that gentle reproof," continued Zarah, "and it makes me look with something of reverence even on such a building as that mean inn which we see yonder, for who can say that the Prince of Peace may not be born even in a place so lowly!" As Joab was still occupied in repairing the thong, Lycidas, standing bridle in hand beside Zarah's litter, went on with the conversation. "The mind of Hadassah," he observed, "seemed especially to dwell upon humiliation, suffering and sacrifice in connection with the mysterious Being for whose advent she looked--we all look. If her view be correct, it may be possible that not only the death, but the earthly life of the Messiah may be one long sacrifice from the cradle to the grave." The conversation then turned to themes less lofty, till Joab had succeeded in effecting the slight needful repairs. Lycidas then remounted his horse, and the party resuming their journey, Bethlehem was soon left behind them. It is unnecessary to describe that night-journey, or tell how Lycidas and his companions passed the site of King Solomon's pleasure-grounds, his "gardens, and orchards and pools of water;" or how the road then led over the succession of barren hills which extend southward as far as Hebron. Travelling was slow and tedious, the road rough, and the horses grew weary. Lycidas was too anxious to place his charge in safety, to permit of a halt for refreshment and rest on the way. The Greek's uneasiness on Zarah's account was increased as, towards dawn, they met parties of peasants fleeing, as they said, from the Syrians, who, like a vast cloud of locusts, were carrying devastation through the land. Lycidas felt that danger was on all sides; he knew not whether to advance or to retreat; responsibility weighed heavily upon him, and he almost envied the stolid composure with which the hardy Joab trudged on his weary way. The Athenian would not disturb the serenity of Zarah's mind by imparting to her the anxious cares which perplexed his own. Lycidas was touched by the implicit confidence placed by the gentle girl in his power to protect and guide her; and he was thankful that while with him eye, ear, brain, were strained to the utmost to detect the most remote approach of danger, the weary Zarah in her litter was able to enjoy the refreshment of sleep. CHAPTER XXXII. FRIENDS OR FOES? "Hold! stand! who are ye, and whither go ye?" was the stern challenge, the sound of which startled Zarah out of a pleasant dream. The motion of the litter suddenly ceased, a strong hand was on the bridle of the horse which Lycidas was riding, a weapon was pointed at the breast of the Greek. There was not yet sufficient light to enable him to distinguish whether those who thus arrested the further progress of the party were Syrians or Hebrews. "We are quiet travellers," said the Athenian; "let us pursue our journey in peace. If gold be your object, I will give it." "If we want your gold we can take it," cried the leader of the band that now surrounded the litter. "Are you a follower of Antiochus Epiphanes?" "No," replied Lycidas boldly. To speak the simple truth is ever the manliest, and in this instance it also proved the safest course to pursue. The grasp on the Greek's bridle was relaxed, the point of the weapon was lowered, and in a more courteous tone the leader inquired, "Are you then a friend of Judas Maccabeus?" "May he be given the necks of his enemies!" exclaimed Joab, before Lycidas had time to reply. "It is his kinswoman whom we are taking in this litter to Bethsura, that we may put her in safety out of reach of the tyrant who has sworn to slay her because she will not burn incense to his idol!" "What, the lady Hadassah?" asked one of the men. "No, it is more than six months since that Mother in Israel departed to Abraham's bosom," replied Joab, lowering his tone. An exclamation of regret burst from more than one of those who surrounded the litter, and he who had first spoken observed, "These will be sorry tidings for Maccabeus and his brethren." Lycidas now addressed a Hebrew who appeared to be of superior condition to the others. "In this litter," he said, "is the grand-daughter of the lady Hadassah. She is fleeing from persecution, and seeks an asylum in the home of an aged relative who dwells near Bethsura." "Ah! Rachel the widow; we know her well," was the reply. "Then you can guide this lady to her abode." "Guide her into the wolf's den!" exclaimed the Hebrew; and one of his companions added with a laugh, "The only way to reach Rachel's dwelling from hence is over the corpses of defeated Syrians, as mayhap we shall do ere to-morrow." Alarmed at finding that he had conducted Zarah to the scene of an expected deadly conflict, Lycidas inquired with anxiety, "Where then can the lady and her attendant find shelter and protection?" "For protection, she has all that our swords can give--our fate must be her fate," replied the Hebrew whom the Greek had addressed. "As for shelter, there is a goatherd's hut hard by. Some of our men have passed the night there, though our leader slept on the ground." There was some whispering amongst the Hebrews, and Lycidas caught the words, uttered in a half-jesting tone, "An awkward matter for Maccabeus to have this his fair kinswoman coming on the eve of a battle on which the fate of Judah depends." "I pray you show us this hut at once," said the Greek, annoyed at Zarah's being exposed to such observations, and impatient to remove her as soon as possible to a place of as much retirement as could be found in the camping-ground of an army. "The lady has travelled all night, and is weary." "I will lead her to the hut," said one of the Hebrews; "and do you, Saul," he continued, addressing a companion, "go at once and announce to our prince the lady's arrival." Again the litter of Zarah moved onwards, and the weary horses were guided to a hut at no great distance. One of the Jewish soldiers ran on before to give notice, that the dwelling might be vacated of its warlike occupants, and put into such order for the reception of a lady as circumstances and haste would permit. The Hebrews who had passed the frosty night under the roof of the goatherd's dwelling, quitted it at once to make room for the lady and her handmaid, leaving a portion of their simple breakfast for the newly-arrived guests. A homely care occupied the mind of Zarah on her way to the hut. "Anna," she said to her attendant, "we are much beholden to Joab, and I have no shekels wherewith to pay for the hire of the litter and horses, or to requite him for his faithful service. It is not meet that the Lord Lycidas should be at charges for me. Let Joab speak to me when I quit the litter, or do you give him this jewel from me." The jewel was a massive silver bracelet, which had been worn by the unhappy Pollux. Zarah had selected this from the other ornaments which had belonged to her parents, on account of the weight of metal which it contained. There was also something heathenish in the fashion of the bracelet itself, which made the Hebrew maiden care not to keep it as a remembrance of her father. "Joab is not here," said Anna, glancing from between the curtains; "he has given up the guidance of the horses to one of the Hebrew warriors." Joab had in fact gone off with Saul, being eager to be the first to carry to Judas Maccabeus intelligence of what had occurred in Jerusalem since they had parted beside the martyrs' grave, and especially of the momentous events which had occurred in the family of Hadassah. "If I cannot see Joab himself," observed Zarah, "I must ask the Lord Lycidas to find him and do this my errand, for the muleteer must not go unrewarded by me." Accordingly, after the maiden, assisted by Lycidas, had descended from her litter, and explored with Anna the goatherd's abode, she bashfully asked her protector to execute for her this little commission, and with the heavy silver bracelet requite her obligation to Joab. "To yourself," added Zarah with downcast eyes, "I can proffer but heartfelt thanks." The spirits of Lycidas had risen: with him, as with nature, the gloom of night was now succeeded by the brilliance of morning. The rebound of a mind lately weighed down with intense anxiety and the pressure of heavy responsibility was so great that it seemed as if every care were flung off for ever. Lycidas had accomplished his dangerous mission; he had placed his beloved charge under the care of her relatives; and he felt assured that her heart was his own. The clang of martial preparation which he now heard around him was as music to the ardent spirit of the Greek. He was now going to join in a brave struggle under a heroic commander, to deserve Zarah, and then to win her! The heart of the gallant young Athenian beat high with hope. "Nay, Zarah," said Lycidas gaily, in reply to the maiden's words; "I may one day claim from you something better than thanks. As for the bracelet, rest assured that I will well requite faithful Joab; he shall be no loser if I keep the jewel in pledge, and never part with it, save to my bride." Lycidas clasped the bracelet on his arm, as with a proud and joyous step he quitted the goatherd's hut. "Stay, Lycidas," expostulated Zarah, following him over the threshold; but then arresting her steps, and watching his receding form for a moment with a smile as radiant as his own. "How could he fear a rival!" was the thought flitting through Zarah's mind as she gazed. She then turned to re-enter the hut, and saw before her--Judas Maccabeus! CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LEADER AND THE MAN. In the unsettled state of the Holy Land, where its brave sons had to maintain a kind of guerrilla warfare against the powerful enemy who held its strongholds and ruled in its capital--where communication between places not far remote from each other was difficult and dangerous, and a written letter was a thing almost unknown--the Asmonean brothers had been in ignorance of many events which have occupied a large space in these pages. Joab, therefore, on his arrival in the camp of the Hebrews, had much to tell that was to them entirely new. Judas with thrilling interest had listened to the muleteer's account of Zarah's peril and escape from the palace of Antiochus, and the deaths of Hadassah and Pollux. The fount of tenderness which lay concealed under the chief's usually calm and almost stern exterior was stirred to its inmost depths. Grief, admiration, love, swelled his brave heart. Maccabeus could hardly wait to hear the end of Joab's narration. Zarah was near him--his beauteous, his beloved, his chosen bride--she who had so suffered and so mourned--the tender orphan maiden bereaved of all love, all protection save his own--but dearer in her poverty and desolation than she could have been had she brought him the dowry of an empire! It was thus that Maccabeus thought of Zarah, as, with an eagerness of impatience which could not have brooked an instant's longer delay, he strode rapidly towards the hut which sheltered his treasure. He soon beheld her--could it indeed be she? No desolate, weeping, trembling fugitive met the gaze of the chief; but a maiden bright and fair as the morn, with a blush on her cheeks and a smile on her lips, her whole countenance beaming with hope, and her eyes fixed with a lingering look on a Greek who was disappearing from view in a direction opposite to that by which Judas had approached her! The depths of the leader's feelings were again stirred, but this time as by a bar of glowing red-hot iron. "Who is yon Gentile?" was the sudden fierce exclamation which burst from the warrior's lips. Never before had her kinsman looked so terrible to Zarah as when he startled her then by his sudden appearance. It was not because she now saw Maccabeus for the first time arrayed in the harness of battle, his tall powerful frame partly sheathed in glittering steel, and a plumed helmet on his head, giving him a resemblance to the description which she had heard from Lycidas of the fabled god of war; it was the eye, the manner, the tone of Judas that changed the smile of the maiden in a moment to a look of embarrassment and fear. Antiochus himself, on his judgment-seat, had scarcely appeared more formidable to the trembling captive before him, than did the kinsman who had come to welcome her, and who would have died to shield her from wrong! Maccabeus repeated his stern question before Zarah found courage to reply. "That is Lycidas, the Athenian lord," she faltered; "he whom you spared by the martyrs' tomb. He has well requited your mercy. He protected and aided Hadassah to the end, and paid the last honours to her dear remains; he struck down the Syrian who slew my father. Lycidas has embraced the Hebrew faith, and has come to fight, and, if need be, to die in the Hebrew cause!" The maiden spoke rapidly, and with a good deal of nervous excitement. She did not venture to glance up again into the face of her kinsman to see the effect of her explanation, for all the false hopes regarding his indifference with which she had buoyed herself, had vanished like a bubble at a touch. Maccabeus did not at once reply. Silently he led Zarah back into the hut, and motioned to her to take her seat upon a low heap of cushions which Anna had removed from the litter, and placed on the earthen floor for the accommodation of her young mistress. He then dismissed the attendant by a wave of his hand. The profound gloomy silence of her kinsman was by no means re-assuring to Zarah, who felt much as a criminal might feel in presence of a judge--albeit in regard to her conduct towards Lycidas her conscience was clear. Maccabeus stood before Zarah, the shadow of his form falling upon the maiden, as he towered tween her and the light, gloomily gazing down upon her. "Zarah," he said at last, "there must be no concealment between us. You know in what relation we stand to each other. You have told me what that Gentile has been to Hadassah, and to Abner your father; tell me now, What is he to _you_?" Zarah struggled to regain her courage, though she knew not how deeply her evident fear of him wounded the spirit of her kinsman. She did not dare to answer his question directly. "Lycidas is not a Gentile," she said; "he is, as you are, a servant of God, a true believer; he has been fully admitted into all the privileges held by our race." "Even the privilege of wedding a Hebrew maiden?" inquired Maccabeus with slow deliberation. Zarah fancied that his tone was less stern, and was thankful that Judas had been the one to break ground upon so delicate a subject. "Hadassah would not have blamed us," she said simply, blushing deeply as she spoke. Notwithstanding what had just passed, Zarah was utterly unprepared for the effect of what was in fact an artless confession. It was not a groan nor a cry that she heard, but a sound that partook of the nature of both; a sound that the last turn of the rack could not have forced from the breast that uttered it now! It was the expression of an agony which few hearts have affections strong enough to feel, fewer still could have fortitude to sustain. No death-wail, no cry of woe, no shriek of pain that Zarah had ever listened to, smote on her soul like that sound! She heard it but once--it was never heard but once--and before she had recovered from the shock which it gave her, Judas had rushed forth from the hut. He was as one possessed; so fierce were the demons of jealousy and hatred that for a space held reason, conscience, every power of mind and soul in subjection. One wild desire to kill his rival, to tear him limb from limb, seemed all that had any definite form in that fearful chaos of passion. It was well for Lycidas that he did not then cross the path of the lion! Maccabeus plunged into the depths of a wood that was near, seeking instinctively the thickest shade afforded by evergreen trees. He would fain have buried his anguish from the sight of man in the darkest cavern--in the deepest grave! The very sunlight was oppressive! All lost--all rent away from him for ever! What hope had clung to, what love had treasured through the long, long years of waiting, giving new courage to the brave, new energy to the weary! Youth, happiness, the cup of joy just filled to the brim by the coming of Zarah, without one moment's warning dashed from the lips of him who loved her, and the last drops sucked up by the thirsty sand! The miseries of a long life seemed to be crowded into the few minutes during which the leader of the Hebrews, the hope of Judah, lay prostrate on the earth, clinching the dust in his despair. Hatred and jealousy raged within; and a yet darker demon had joined them, one whose presence, above all others, makes the soul as a hell! Like burning venom-drops fell the suggestions of rebellious unbelief upon the spirit of the disappointed man. "Is it for this that you have washed your hands in innocency, and kept your feet in the paths of truth? Is it for this that you have devoted all your powers to God and your country, have shrunk from no toil, and dreaded no danger? He whom you were faithfully serving hath not watched over your peace, nor guarded for you that treasure which you had confided to his care. What profit is there in obedience, what benefit in devotion? Prayer has been but vanity, and faith but self-deception!" Such moments as these are the most terrible in the experience of a servant of the Lord. They afford a glimpse of the depths of guilt and misery to which the noblest human soul would sink without sustaining grace; they show that, like the brightest planet, such soul shines not with light of its own, but with an imparted radiance, deprived of which it would be enveloped in utter darkness. An Abraham, left to himself, could lie; a David stain his soul with innocent blood. All need the Sacrifice of Atonement, all require the grace which comes from above. But Judas Maccabeus was not left unaided to be carried away to an abyss of crime by his own wild passions. They were as a steed accustomed to obey the rein of conscience, that, smitten with agonizing pain, has taken the bit into its teeth, and rushed madly towards a precipice. But the hand of its rider still grasps the bridle, his eye sees the danger in front, and the frantic animal beneath him has but for a brief space burst from his master's powerful constraint. If the rider cannot otherwise stop his wild steed, he will strike it down with a heavy blow, that by a lesser fall the greater may be avoided; and so he leads it back to its starting-place, quivering, trembling in every limb, the sweat on its flanks, the foam on its bit, but subdued, submissive, under command. Even so with the Hebrew chief, conscience regained its habitual sway over the passions; as soon as the anguish of his soul found vent in prayer, the crisis of danger was past. Maccabeus rose from the earth, pale as one who has received a death-wound, but submissive and calm. "Shall one who has been so favoured, beyond his hopes, far beyond his deserts, dare to repine at the decree of Him who orders all things in wisdom and goodness?" Thus reflected the chief. "Who am I, that I should claim exemption from disappointment and loss? Shame on the leader who gives way to selfish passion, and at such a time as this! We shall shortly close in battle; and if in that battle I fall" (the thought brought strange consolation), "how shall I look back from the world of spirits on that which for a time could almost shake the trust of this unworthy heart in the God of my fathers? If I survive the perils of the day, better it is that there should be no selfish hopes, no selfish cares, to prevent me from concentrating all my energies and thoughts upon the work appointed me to do. I have been wasting my time in idle dreams of earthly enjoyment; I have been rudely awakened. O Lord of hosts, strengthen Thy servant to arise and gird up his spirit to perform fearlessly and faithfully the duties of the day!" Then, with slower step and calmer aspect, Judas Maccabeus returned to his camp. CHAPTER XXXIV. FANATICISM. We will now glance at the encampment of the Hebrew warriors, upon a wild expanse of undulating ground, in view of the towers of Bethsura, a strong fortress rebuilt by the Edomite settlers on the site of that raised in former times by Rehoboam. Bethsura is now garrisoned by the Syrians, and its environs occupied by the countless tents of their mighty host. On a small rising ground near the centre of the Hebrew camp stands, as on a rostrum, an old Jew clad in a camel-hair garment, with long gray unkempt hair hanging over his shoulders. His manner is excited, his gestures vehement, and the shrill accents of his voice are so raised as to be heard to a considerable distance. A gradually increasing circle of listeners gathers around him--stern, weather-beaten men, who have toiled and suffered much for their faith. What marvel if with some of these warriors religion have darkened into fanaticism, courage degenerated into savage fierceness? It is the tendency of war, especially if it be of a guerrilla character, to inflame the passions and harden the heart. Only terrible necessity can justify the unnatural strife which arms man against his brother man. Even the most noble struggle in which patriot can engage in defence of his country's freedom, draws along with it terrible evils, of which a vast amount of human suffering is not perhaps the greatest. "Yea, I do charge you, Joab, I do charge you, O son of Ahijah, with having brought a spy, a traitor, into our camp!" almost shrieked the wild orator Jasher, as he pointed with his shrivelled finger at the sturdy muleteer, who stood in the innermost rank of the circle. "Was not this Greek, by your own showing, present at the martyrdom of the blessed saint Solomona?--was he not tried for his life at her grave, where he was discovered coiling like a serpent in the darkness?--is he not one of a race of idolaters, worshippers of images made by man's hand?" "All that I can say," replied Joab, doggedly, "is, that whatever Lycidas may have been, he is not an idolater now." "Who are you that you should judge, you Nabal, you son of folly?" exclaimed the excited orator. "Mark you, men of Judah, mark you the blindness that falls on some men--ay, even on a reputed saint like the Lady Hadassah! Joab has learned from her handmaiden the astounding fact that for months this Lycidas, this viper, was nurtured and tended in her home, as if he had been a son of Abraham! Doubtless it was this act of worse than folly on the part of Hadassah that drew down a judgment on her and her house. Mark what followed. The warmed viper escapes from her dwelling, and the next day--ay, the very next day--Syrian dogs beset the house of Salathiel as he celebrates the holy Feast! Who guided them thither?" The question was asked with passionate energy, and the feelings of the speaker were evidently beginning to communicate themselves to the audience. "Who then lay a bleeding corpse on the threshold, slain by the murderous Syrians?" continued Jasher, with yet fiercer action; "who but Abishai, the brave, the faithful, he who had denounced the viper, and had sought, but in vain, to crush it--it was he who fell at last a victim to its treacherous sting!" Jasher ended his peroration with a hissing sound from between his clinched teeth, and the caldron of human feelings around him began, as it were, to seethe and boil. Fanaticism stops not to weigh evidence, or to listen to reason. Joab could hardly make his voice heard amidst the roar of angry voices that was rising around him. "Lycidas was present and helped at the burial of the Lady Hadassah; he has risked his life to protect her daughter," cried the honest defender of the Greek. "Ha! ha! how much he risked we know not, but we can well guess what he would win!" exclaimed Jasher, with a look of withering scorn. "He has crept into the favour of a foolish girl, who forgets the traditions of her people, who cares not for the afflictions of Jacob, who prefers a goodly person"--the old man's features writhed with the fierceness of his satire--"to all that a child of Abraham should regard with reverence and honour! But what can we expect from the daughter of a perjured traitor, an apostate? Had she not Abner for a father, and can we expect otherwise than that she should disgrace her family, her tribe, her nation, by wedding an accursed Gentile, a detestable Greek?" "Never! never!" yelled out a hundred fierce voices. And one of the crowd shouted aloud, "I would rather slay her with my own hand, were she my own daughter!" "I cannot believe Lycidas false!" cried out Joab, at the risk of drawing the tempest of rage upon himself. "You cannot believe him false, you son of the nether millstone!" screamed out the furious Jasher, stamping with passion; "as if you were a match for a wily Greek, born in that idolatrous, base, ungrateful Athens, that banished her only good citizen, and poisoned her only wise one!" The fierce prejudices of race were only too easily aroused in that assembly of Hebrew warriors, and if Jasher were blamed by some of his auditors, it was for allowing that any Athenian could be either wise or good. "Yet hear me for a moment--I must be heard," cried Joab, straining his voice to its loudest pitch, yet scarcely able to make his words audible; "Lycidas has been admitted into the Covenant by our priests; he can give proofs--" "Who talks of proofs?" exclaimed Jasher, stamping again on the earth. "Did you never hear of the proofs given by Zopyrus? Know you not how Babylon, the golden city, fell under the sword of Darius? Zopyrus, minion of that king, fled to the city which he was besieging, showed its defenders his ghastly hurts--nose, ears shorn off--and pointed to the bleeding wounds as _proofs_ that Darius the tyrant, by inflicting such injuries upon him, had won a right to his deathless hatred.[1] The Babylonians believed the proofs, they received the impostor, and ye know the result. Babylon fell, not because the courage of her defenders quailed, or famine thinned their numbers; not because the enemy stormed at her wall, or pestilence raged within it; but because she had received, and believed, and trusted a traitor, who had sacrificed his own members to gain the opportunity of destroying those who put faith in his honour! Hebrews! a Zopyrus has now come into our camp! Will ye open your arms, or draw your swords, to receive him?" A wild yell of fury arose from the listening throng, so fierce, so loud, that it drew towards the spot Hebrews from all parts of the encampment. It drew amongst others the young proselyte, who came eager to know the cause of the noise and excitement, quite unconscious that it was in any way connected with himself. As Lycidas made towards the centre of the crowd, it divided to let him pass into the immediate presence of Jasher, his accuser and self-constituted judge, and then ominously closed in behind him, so as to prevent the possibility of his retreat. Lycidas had come amongst the Hebrew warriors with all the frank confidence of a volunteer into their ranks; and the Greek's first emotion was that of amazement, when he found himself suddenly the object of universal indignation and hatred. There was no mistaking the expression of the angry eyes that glared upon him from every direction, nor the gestures of hands raising javelins on high, or unsheathing keen glittering blades. "Here he is, the traitor, the Gentile, led hither to die the death he deserves!" exclaimed Jasher. "What mean ye, Hebrews--friends? Slay me not unheard!" cried Lycidas, raising on high his voice and his hand. "I am a proselyte; I renounce my false gods,--" "He has their very effigies on his arm!" yelled out Jasher, pointing with frenzied action to the silver bracelet of Pollux worn by the Greek, on which had been fashioned heads of Apollo and Diana encircled with rays. Here was evidence deemed conclusive; nothing further was needed. "He dies! he dies!" was the almost unanimous cry. The life of Lycidas had not been in greater peril when he had been discovered at the midnight burial, or when he had wrestled with Abishai on the edge of the cliff. In a few moments the young Greek would have lain a shapeless trampled corpse beneath his murderers' feet, when the one word "Forbear!" uttered in a loud, clear voice whose tones of command had been heard above the din of battle, stayed hands uplifted to destroy; and with the exclamation, "Maccabeus! the prince!" the throng fell back on either side, and through the ranks of his followers the leader strode into the centre of the circle. One glance sufficed to inform him sufficiently of the nature of the disturbance; he saw that he had arrived on the spot barely in time to save his Athenian rival from being torn in pieces by the crowd. "What means this tumult? shame on ye!" exclaimed Maccabeus, sternly surveying the excited throng. "We would execute righteous judgment on a Greek--an idolater--a spy!" cried Jasher, pointing at Lycidas, but with less impassioned gesture; for the fanatic quailed in the presence of Maccabeus, who was the one man on earth whom he feared. "He is a Greek, but neither idolater nor spy," said the prince. "He is one of a gallant people who fought bravely for their own independence, and can sympathize with our love of freedom. He has come to offer us the aid of his arm; shame on ye thus to requite him." "I doubt but he will play us false," muttered one of the warriors, giving voice to the thoughts of the rest. "We shall soon have an opportunity of settling all such doubts," said Maccabeus; "we shall attack the enemy at noon, and then shall this Greek prove in the battle whether he be false man or true." The prospect of so soon closing with the enemy was sufficient to turn the attention of every Hebrew warrior present to something of more stirring interest than the fate of a solitary stranger. Jasher, however, would not so easily let his intended victim go free. "He's an Achan!" exclaimed the fanatic; "if he fight amongst us, he will bring a curse on our arms!" "He is a proselyte," replied Maccabeus in a loud voice, which was heard to the farthest edge of the crowd; "our priests and elders have received him--and I receive him--as a Hebrew by adoption, companion in arms, a brother in the faith!" The words of the prince were received with respectful submission, if not with satisfaction. Maccabeus was regarded with enthusiasm by his followers, not only as a gallant and successful leader, but as one whose prudence they could trust, and whose piety they must honour. No man dare lay a finger upon him over whom the chief had thrown the shield of his powerful protection. Lycidas felt that for the second time he owed his life to Judas Maccabeus. There was a gush of warm gratitude towards his preserver in the heart of the young Athenian; but something in the manner of the prince told Lycidas that he would not listen to thanks, that the expression of the Greek's sense of deep obligation would be regarded as an intrusion. Lycidas therefore, compelled, as it were, to silence, could only with fervour ask Heaven for an opportunity of showing his gratitude in the coming fight by actions more forcible than words. "Now, sound the trumpets to arms," exclaimed Maccabeus, "and gather my troops together. If God give us the victory to-day, the way to Jerusalem itself will be open before us! Here will I marshal our ranks for the fight." Maccabeus strode to the summit of the rising ground from which Jasher had just been addressing the crowd, and beckoned to his standard-bearer to plant his banner behind him, where it could be seen from all parts of the camp. Here, with folded arms, Maccabeus watched the movements of his warriors as, at the signal-call of the trumpet-blast, they hastened from every quarter to be marshalled in battle-array, by their respective captains, under the eye of their great commander. With rapid precision the columns were formed; but before they moved on to the attack, Maccabeus, in brief but earnest supplication, besought the Divine blessing on their arms. [1] The student of history need not be reminded that the fall of Babylon through the stratagem of Zopyrus was quite distinct from and subsequent to its conquest by Cyrus. (See Rollins's "Ancient History.") CHAPTER XXXV. THE BATTLE-PRAYER. Lycidas was a native of the very land of eloquence; he had been, as it were, cradled amidst "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." He had studied the philippics of Demosthenes, and felt the spirit of the dead orator living in them still. Lycidas had listened to the eloquence of the most gifted speakers of his own time, expressing in the magnificent language of Greece thoughts the most poetic. He had experienced the power possessed by the orator on the rostrum, the tragedian on the stage, the poet in the arena, to stir the passions, subdue by pathos, or excite by vehement action. But never had the Athenian listened to any oration which had so stirred his own soul, as the simple prayer of Judas Maccabeus before the battle of Bethsura. There was no eloquence in it, save the unstudied eloquence of the heart; the Hebrew but uttered aloud in the hearing of his men the thoughts which had made his own spirit as firm in the hour of danger as was the steel which covered his breast. There was much in the scene and in the congregation to add to the effect of the act of worship on the mind of Lycidas. He beheld adoration paid to no image formed by man's art, no fabled deity, capricious as the minds of those in whose imaginations alone he had existence, but to the holy, the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, "whose robe is the light, and whose canopy space." And it was in no building raised by mortal hands that Maccabeus bent his knee to the Lord of Hosts. He knelt on the soil of the glorious land which God had given to his fathers--the one spot chosen out from the expanse of the whole mighty globe to be the scene of events which would influence through eternity the destinies of the world! On the verge of the southern horizon lay Hebron, where had dwelt the father of the faithful, where the ground had been trodden by angels' feet, and the feet of the Lord of angels, with whom Abraham had pleaded for Sodom. It was that Hebron where David had reigned ere he was hailed king over all Israel. And the nearer objects were such as gave thrilling interest to the prayer of the Asmonean prince: the view of the towers of Bethsura which he was about to assail, the hosts of the enemy whom he--with far inferior numbers--was going to attack; this, perhaps, even more than associations connected with the past, made every word of Maccabeus fall with powerful effect on his audience. And that audience was in itself, probably, the noblest that could at that time have been gathered together in any laud, not excepting Italy or Greece. It was composed of men whom neither ambition nor the lust of gold had drawn from their homes to oppose an enemy whose force greatly exceeded their own. In face of the trained warriors of Syria were gathered together peasants, artizans, shepherds, animated by the purest patriotism, and the most simple faith in God. Every man in that kneeling army knew that he carried his life in his hand, that in case of defeat he had no mercy to expect, and that victory scarce lay within the verge of probability according to human calculation; yet not a countenance showed anything but undaunted courage, eager hope, firm faith, as the weather-beaten, toil-worn Hebrews listened to and joined in the supplications of their leader. But it was the character of that leader himself which gave the chief force to his words. If Maccabeus the Asmonean received the lofty title of "Prince of the sons of God," it was because his countrymen acknowledged, and that without envy, the stamp of a native royalty upon him, which needed not the anointing oil or the golden crown to add to its dignity. Any nation with pride might have numbered amongst its heroes a man possessing the military talents of a Miltiades, with the purity of an Aristides; one whose character was without reproach, whose fame was unstained with a blot. Simple, earnest faith was the mainspring of the actions of Maccabeus. The clear, piercing gaze of the eagle, energy like that with which the strong wing of the royal bird cleaves the air, marked the noble Asmonean; for the soul's gaze was upward toward its Sun, and the soul's pinion soared high above the petty interests, the paltry ambition of earth. As there was dignity in the single-mindedness of the character of Judas, so was there power in the very simplicity of his words. I will mar that simplicity by no interpolations of my own, but transfer unaltered to my pages the Asmonean's battle-prayer. "Blessed art Thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst quell the violence of the mighty man by the hand of Thy servant David, and gavest the host of strangers into the hand of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and his armour-bearer! Shut up this army in the hand of Thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their power and horsemen; make them to be of no courage, and cause the boldness of their strength to fall away, and let them quake in their destruction. Cast them down with the sword of them that love Thee, and let all those that know Thy Name praise Thee with thanksgiving!" When the tones of the leader's voice were silent, there was for a moment a solemn stillness throughout the martial throng; then from their knees arose the brave sons of Abraham, prepared to "do or die." CHAPTER XXXVI. BETHSURA. Her brief but momentous interview with Maccabeus had left a very painful impression upon the mind of Zarah. It had disclosed, to her distress as well as surprise, the depth of the wound which she was inflicting upon a loving heart; for Zarah had none of that miserable vanity which makes the meaner of her sex triumph in their power of giving pain. Zarah's apprehensions were also awakened on account of Lycidas; she could not but fear that very serious obstacles might arise to prevent her union with the Greek. Generous as Maccabeus might be, it was not in human nature that he should favour the claims of a rival; and determined opposition from her kinsman and prince must be annihilation to the hopes of the maiden. There would be in many Jewish minds prejudices against an Athenian; Zarah was aware of this, though not of the intense hatred to which such prejudices might lead. The short interview held with Maccabeus had sufficed to cover Zarah's bright sky with clouds, to darken her hopes, to distress her conscience, to make her uneasily question herself as to whether she were indeed erring by giving her heart to a stranger. Had she really spoken truth when she had said, "Hadassah would not have blamed us?" But when Anna, pale with excitement, brought tidings to her young mistress that the Hebrews were marching to battle, when Zarah heard that the decisive hour had come on which hung the fate of her country, and with it that of Lycidas, all other fears yielded for a time to one absorbing terror. On her knees, with hands clasped in attitude of prayer, yet scarcely able to pray, Zarah listened breathlessly to the fearful sounds which were borne on the breeze--the confused noises, the yells, the shouting--which brought vividly to her mind all the horrors of the scene passing so near her. It was not needful for her to look on the raging torrent of war; imagination but too readily pictured the streams of opposing warriors, like floods from opposite mountains, mingling and struggling together in a wild whirlpool of death; chariots dragged by maddened horses over gory heaps of the slain--the flight of hurtling arrows--the whirl of the deadly axe--the crash--the cry--the rush--the retreat--the rally--the flashing weapons, now dimmed with blood;--Zarah in thought beheld them all, and covered her eyes with horror, as if by so doing she could shut out the sight. For hours this agony lasted. The excitement of conflict may bear brave hearts through a battle with little sense of horror and none of fear; warriors, even the generous and humane, can see and do things in hot blood, from which their souls would revolt in calmer moments; but the woman whose earthly happiness is on the cast of the die, who cannot shield the being dearest to her upon earth from the crushing blow or the deadly thrust, to her the day of battle is one of unmixed anguish; suspense is agony, and yet she dreads to exchange that suspense for knowledge which might bring agony more intolerable still. The maiden found some slight alleviation of her distress in the occupation in which she and her handmaid engaged, that of making such preparations as circumstances permitted for the comfort of the wounded, though they knew too well that if the Syrians should win the day, there would be no wounded Hebrews to tend--the conqueror's sword would too thoroughly do its hideous work. Judas Maccabeus had displayed his accustomed judgment in choosing to be himself the assailant, instead of awaiting the assault of the myrmidons of Syria. His sudden, unexpected attack threw the enemy into some confusion, and gave an advantage in the commencement of the battle to the slender forces of the Hebrew prince. His men rushed to the conflict as those assured of success. Had they not measured swords with the warriors of Apollonius and Seron, and more recently those of Bacchides? Had they not scattered the thousands of Nicanor, and made Giorgias seek safety in ignominious retreat? Was not Maccabeus their leader, and saw they not the light flashing from his helmet in the fore-front of the battle? Yet was the struggle obstinate; and when the Syrians were at last forced to retire before the Hebrew heroes, a number of the troops of Lysias threw themselves into the fortress of Bethsura, to rally their forces behind its walls, and gather strength to renew the combat on the following day. But it was no part of the plan of their active adversary to leave such a rallying-point to the Syrians, or suffer them from thence to harass his rear, should he press onwards towards Jerusalem. His victory must not be incomplete, Bethsura must be his ere darkness should put an end to the conflict. "See you yon Syrian banner waving from the tower," cried Maccabeus,--"who will be the first to tear it down?" He was answered by a shout from his men. "To the walls! to the walls!" as the Hebrews pressed hard upon their retreating foes. Bethsura was not a place of much strength, though the height of its towers gave to their defenders the power to annoy and distress assailants with a shower of arrows and other missiles as they rushed to the assault. Maccabeus, foreseeing that Bethsura itself must become the scene of the closing struggle, had had scaling-ladders in readiness, roughly constructed by his own men from trees hewn down by their battle-axes. With cries and shouts these were now borne onwards towards the bulwarks of Bethsura, and notwithstanding the fierce opposition of the Syrians, two of them were planted against the wall. Who would mount them, who would be the first to climb upwards through the death-shower of darts, the first to meet the fierce downward blows and thrusts of those who stood to the defence of the beleaguered fortress? Lycidas had borne himself bravely in the battle, he had well maintained the honour of the land that had withstood the gigantic power of Xerxes; now his foot was the first on one of the ladders. It was a perilous moment. The rough spar, with branches fastened transversely at intervals across it, on which Lycidas was mounting (for the ladder was little more than this), swayed backwards and forwards with the struggle between those above to fling it down, and those below to sustain it, and it was with extreme difficulty that the climber could keep his footing. Stones and arrows rattled on the shield which the young Greek held with one arm above his head, as he used the other in climbing; but Lycidas neither flinched nor paused. "Well done--bravely done!" shouted the Hebrews who were rushing on from behind. "He is no Gentile, though he be a Greek!" cried the wild shrill voice of Jasher; "onwards, upwards, warriors of Judah! one struggle more, and Bethsura is ours!" Almost at the top of the ladder, almost close to the wall, gasping, straining, bleeding, struggles on the young Greek. A stone strikes his shield, smashes it, stuns, disables the left arm which upheld it; slain by a dart, the Hebrew just behind him falls crashing from the ladder! The brain of Lycidas is dizzy, his ears are filled with wild clamour, he is conscious only that honour and most probably death are before him, still he mounts, he mounts! Two powerful Syrians have seized the upper end of the ladder; with an effort of gigantic strength they thrust it back from the supporting wall with its living burden of clambering men, all but one, the foremost! Lycidas feels the ladder beneath him failing, with a tremendous effort of agility he springs as it falls at the wall, catches hold of it with his right hand, and flings himself up on the parapet. But not one moment's breathing-space is given him to start to his feet, or grasp the sword which he has carried hung round his neck. He cannot rise, he cannot resist; swords are gleaming above him; those who have thrown down the ladder seize the Greek to hurl him after it! A thought of Zarah flashes across the reeling brain of the young man, is it not his last?--no, a broad shield is suddenly thrust between Lycidas and his assailants, they shrink back from the sweep of a terrible sword; up the other ladder the strong and brave have pressed with irresistible force; Judas Maccabeus himself has planted his foot on the bulwarks, has driven back step by step their defenders before him, and has arrived at this crisis in the fate of Lycidas to preserve for the third time the life of his rival! The banner of Maccabeus is planted on the highest tower of Bethsura, and as it waves in the light of the evening sun, such a loud wild shout of triumph rises from the victors, as might be heard for miles around! It reaches Zarah in her hut, and sends a thrill of hope and exultation through her heart, for she knows the shout of her people, and none but conquerors could have rent the air with such a cheer as that! It is followed by the cry "Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" as from the Hebrew heroes, in that their hour of success, bursts that name of all earthly names most dear to the sons of Israel! Jerusalem, their mother, will be free, her liberty from a galling yoke will be the crowning reward of their labours and perils, no foe will now dare to oppose the conqueror's onward march towards the holy city. Maccabeus joins in the shout, and shares in the exultation; he tramples his own private griefs under his feet, that they may cast no gloom over the triumph which God has vouchsafed to the arms of his people. The prince raises his helmed head and his victorious right arm towards heaven, and cries aloud, not with pride, but with glad thanksgiving, "Behold! our enemies are discomfited! Let us go up to cleanse and dedicate the sanctuary of Zion!" CHAPTER XXXVII. AFTER THE BATTLE. There are joys as well as sorrows into which the stranger cannot enter, and which baffle the attempt of the pen to describe; such was that of Lycidas and Zarah when they first met after the battle of Bethsura. The maiden had her happiness tempered indeed with something of anxiety and even alarm, for she beheld the young Greek pale with loss of blood, exhausted by excessive fatigue, and with his left arm in a sling, but her mind was soon relieved, for Lycidas had sustained no serious or permanent injury. The young proselyte was rather glad than otherwise to carry on his person some token of his having fought under Judas Maccabeus, and been one of the foremost of those who had stormed Bethsura. With Zarah and her attendant for his deeply interested listeners, Lycidas gave a graphic and vivid description of the fight. Zarah held her breath and trembled when the narrator came to that thrilling part of his account which described his own position of imminent peril, when he would have been precipitated from the top of the wall, had not Judas Maccabeus come to his rescue. "I deemed that all was over with me," said Lycidas, "when the prince suddenly flashed on my sight! Had I not long since given to the winds the idle fables that I heard in my childhood, I should have deemed that Mars himself, radiant in his celestial panoply, had burst from the cloud of war. But the hero of Israel needs no borrowed lustre to be thrown around him by the imagination of a poet, he realizes the noblest conception of Homer." "And Maccabeus was the one to save and defend you! generous, noble!" murmured Zarah. "Ay, it seems destined that I should be overwhelmed with an ever-growing debt of obligation," cried Lycidas, playfully throwing a veil of discontent over the gratitude and admiration which he felt towards his preserver. "I would that it had been my part to play the rescuer; that it had been _my_ sword that had shielded his head; and that Maccabeus were not fated to eclipse me in everything, even in the power of showing generosity to a rival But I must not grudge him the harvest of laurels," added the young Athenian, with a joyous glance at Zarah, "since the garland of happiness has been awarded to me." On the morning after the battle of Bethsura, Simon and Eleazar, the Asmoneans, both visited their youthful kinswoman in the goat-herd's hut, where she and Anna had remained during the night. They regarded her still as their future sister, and offered her their escort to the house of Rachel, which was at no great distance from the fortress of Bethsura. As Zarah desired as soon as possible to place herself under the protection of a female relative, she gladly accepted the offer. The horse-litter was brought to the door of the lowly hut; and with the curtains closely drawn, the maiden and her attendant proceeded to the dwelling of old Rachel, who joyfully welcomed the child of Hadassah. Zarah, on that morning, saw nothing of Lycidas, and Judas Maccabeus avoided approaching her presence. The chief could not trust himself to look on that sweet face again. Through the Hebrew camp all was bustle and preparation. Tents were struck--all was made ready for the coming march to Jerusalem; the tired warriors forgot their weariness, and the wounded their pain, so eager were all to gather the rich fruits of their victory within the walls of Zion. But amidst all the excitement and confusion, with so many cares pressing upon him from every side, the mind of the prince dwelt much upon Zarah. He felt that she was lost to him--he would have scorned to have claimed her hand when he knew that her heart was another's; but he resolved at least to act the part of a brother towards the orphan maiden. Painful to Maccabeus as was the sight of his successful rival, the chief determined to have an interview with Lycidas, that he might judge for himself whether the stranger were indeed worthy to win a Hebrew bride. Lycidas had proved himself to be a brave warrior--he had won the admiration even of the fanatic Jasher; but would the Greek stand firm in his newly-adopted faith when fresh laurels were no longer to be won, or fair prize gained by adhesion to it? "The most remote hope of winning Zarah," mused Maccabeus, "were enough to make a man espouse the cause of her people, and renounce all idolatry--save idolatry of herself. I must question this Athenian myself. I must examine whether he have embraced the truth independently of earthly motives, and, as a true believer, can indeed be trusted with the most priceless of gems. If it be so, let him be happy, since her happiness is linked with his. Never will I darken the sunshine of her path with the shadow which will now rest for ever upon mine." It was with no small anxiety that Lycidas obeyed the summons of the prince, and entered his presence alone, in one of the apartments of the fortress which he had aided to capture. The Greek could not but conjecture that his fate, as regarded his union with Zarah, might hang on the result of this interview with his formidable rival. The interview was not a long one: what occurred in it never transpired. Not even to Zarah did Lycidas ever repeat the conversation between himself and the man whose earthly happiness he had wrecked. As the Greek passed forth from the presence of Maccabeus, he met Simon and Eleazar, who had just returned from escorting their young kinswoman to the dwelling of Rachel. The Asmonean brothers frankly and cordially greeted the stranger whom they had seen for the first time in the thick of the conflict of the preceding day. The bandage round his temples, the sling which supported his left arm, were as credentials which the Athenian carried with him--a passport to the favour and confidence of his new associates in the field. "You have leaped into fame with one bound, fair Greek!" cried Eleazar. "You had reached the highest round of the ladder ere I could plant my foot on the lowest. I could fain envy you the honour you have won." Eleazar, accompanied by Simon, then passed on into the presence of Maccabeus, while Lycidas pursued his way. The smile with which the young Hebrew had spoken was still on his lips when he entered the apartment in which the prince sat alone, but the first glance of Eleazar at Judas banished every trace of that smile. "You are ill!" he exclaimed anxiously, as he looked on the almost ghastly countenance of his brother; "you have received some deadly hurt!" The chief replied in the negative by a slight movement of the head. "The weight of responsibility, the lack of sleep, the exhaustion of yesterday's conflict, are sapping your strength," observed Simon gravely. "Judas, you are unfit to encounter the toils of the long march now before us." "I was never more ready--never more impatient for a march," said Maccabeus, rising abruptly, for it seemed to him as if violent physical exertions alone could render life endurable. "I marvel," said Eleazar, "if our graceful young proselyte will bear hardships as bravely as he has proved that he can encounter danger. Methinks he shows amongst our grim warriors as a marble column from Solomon's palace amongst the rough oaks that clothe the hill-side. If Lycidas is to be--" "He is to be--the husband of Zarah," interrupted Maccabeus. His voice sounded strange and harsh, and he turned away his face as he spoke. "The husband of Zarah!" re-echoed Eleazar in amazement; "why"--Simon's warning pressure on the young man's arm prevented his uttering more. The brothers exchanged significant glances. That was the last time that the name of Zarah was ever breathed by either of them in the hearing of Maccabeus. Zarah found that her residence in her new home would be but a brief one, and that she was likely to return to Jerusalem far sooner than she could have anticipated when she had set out on her night journey so short a time before. Rachel--a woman who, though well stricken in years, had lost none of the energy and enthusiasm of youth--was filled with triumphant joy at the victory of Bethsura, and declared to Zarah her intention of starting for the city in advance of the army. "I have a vow upon me--a solemn vow," said the old Jewess to the maiden. "Long have I mourned over the desolation of Zion; and I have promised to the Lord that if ever holy sacrifices should again be offered up in the Temple at Jerusalem, my heifer, my fair white heifer, should be the first peace-offering. I have vowed also to go up myself to the holy city, and make there with my own hands wafers anointed with oil, to eat with the sacrifice of thanksgiving. The time for keeping my vow has arrived. We will go up together, my daughter, and my bondsman shall drive the white heifer before us. My soul cannot depart in peace till I have looked upon the sanctuary in which my ancestors worshipped, and with a thankful heart have performed this my vow to the Lord." Zarah made no opposition to the wishes of her relative, which, indeed, coincided with her own. Arrangements for the proposed journey were speedily made. The horse-litter in which Zarah had travelled to Bethsura would avail for the accommodation of both the ladies on her return to the city. The faithful Joab would resume his office of attendant, and Anna join company with the handmaidens of Rachel. It was under joyful auspices that the travellers would set forth on their way to the city of David. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE VICTOR'S RETURN. Is there a more glorious, a more soul-stirring sight than that of a brave nation bursting from foreign bondage, casting from her the chains that bound and the sackcloth that covered her, rising victorious and free--free to worship the one God in purity and truth? Even so, when the shadow of the eclipse is over, the moon bursts forth into brightness, to shine again in beauty in the firmament of heaven. It was thus with Jerusalem when Maccabeus and his followers went up to the holy city which they had delivered, through God's blessing on their arms. The town was in a delirium of joy, which there was now no need to conceal. The voice of thanksgiving and rejoicing was heard in every street; women wept for very happiness; and while the younger inhabitants made the walls ring with their shouts, the old men blessed God that they had been spared to see such a day. The advanced season forbade any profusion of flowers; but on every side palm branches were waving, doors and windows were decked with evergreens, and goodly boughs were strewed in the way. Every trace of heathenism was eagerly destroyed in the streets, and the very children fiercely trampled under foot the fragments of idol or altar. Again was the song of Miriam heard, "Sing ye unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously;" and women went forth with timbrels to welcome the warriors of Judah. Though it was the month of Casleu,[1] the sun shone with cheerful radiance and warmth, as if Nature herself shared in the general rejoicing. Up Mount Zion they come, the brave, the true, the devout; they who through much tribulation have kept the faith; they who have never bowed the knee to idol, nor forsaken the covenant of God. Maccabeus is foremost now in glory as once in danger. Press ye to see him, children of Judah! shout to welcome him, sons of the free! A group of matrons and maidens surrounded the entrance to the Temple. Zarah and Rachel were amongst them. "You should stand foremost, my daughter, to greet the conquerors," cried Rachel to her fair young companion, who was rather inclined to shrink back. "The Asmonean blood flows in your veins; you are kinswoman to our prince; and you have yourself nobly suffered persecution for the faith. What! tears in your eyes, maiden, on such a morning as this!" "Oh, that my beloved mother, Hadassah, had lived to behold it!" thought Zarah. "She would have deemed this glorious day a type and forerunner of that even more blessed time when _the ransomed of the Lord shall return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away_" (Isa. xxxv. 10). Yes; as that bright, warm day in winter, soon to be succeeded by frosts and storms, was in regard to the long, glorious summer, so was the happiness of Judaea under the sway of her first Asmonean princes, compared to the glory which will be hers when her many ages of tribulation shall be ended. In the time of Maccabeus and his successors, the "discrowned queen" had arisen from the dust; but she has not yet, even at this late period, mounted her throne. More fearful judgments, more terrible desolation, were to succeed an interval of prosperity and freedom in the history of Zion. The Romans, more formidable even than the Syrians, were to give Jerusalem's sons to the sword and her Temple to the flames; and God's ancient people were to be scattered throughout all nations, to be a by-word and a hissing amongst them. But the glory is not departed for ever. We may--or our descendants must--see the Vine brought out of Egypt, budding into new beauty and life at the breath of the promised Spring. "He comes, he comes! Maccabeus, our hero!" Such were the shouts which burst from every side as the war-worn victors appeared, with palm branches in their hands. Was not exultation in the heart of Maccabeus at that moment? Perhaps not. Perhaps he would gladly have exchanged the shouts of all the people for a loving welcome from one dear voice. Judas caught a glimpse of Zarah. Hers were the only eyes in all the crowd that were not fixed upon himself. She was eagerly looking at the form of one a little way in the rear of the chief---the form of her betrothed husband, the Gentile proselyte whom she loved. The conquerors entered the Temple of Zion. They came, not only to worship, but to purify. No sacrifice could be offered in the sanctuary till what the heathen had denied the Hebrew should cleanse. With indignant horror Maccabeus and his followers beheld the image of Jupiter, which for years had desecrated the Temple. Since the departure of Antiochus, no worshipper indeed had bowed down before the idolatrous shrine: the edifice had been deserted and left to neglect. The place had now an appearance of wildness and desolation, as if the curse of God were upon it, and presented such a contrast to what it had been in former days as struck sadness into the hearts of Maccabeus and his warriors. In the words of the historian: "When they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burned up, and shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest or in one of the mountains, yea, and the priests' chambers pulled down, they rent their clothes and made great lamentations, and cast ashes upon their heads, and fell down to the ground upon their faces, and blew an alarm with the trumpets, and cried towards heaven." But no long time was given to lamentations. With all the energy of his nature, Maccabeus at once set about the work of restoration. He chose out the most zealous and virtuous of the priests to cleanse the sanctuary, destroy every vestige of idolatry, carry away even the stones that had been defiled, and pull down the altar which had been profaned. New vessels were made, shew-bread and incense were prepared, all in the renovated sanctuary was made ready, for the joyful Feast of Dedication, This festival was appointed by Judas Maccabeus to be annually held; and it was from thenceforth celebrated from year to year for more than two centuries--till her darkest, most lengthened trial came upon Jerusalem. Who shall now keep the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple when that glorious Temple has itself become a thing of the past? [1] Answering to December. Of this time of the year, Dr. Kitto tells us: "Gumpenberg in Jerusalem, on the 6th, 10th, 11th, and 16th, experienced weather which he describes as almost equal to that of May in our latitudes." CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. Loud was the burst of joyous music from citherns, harps, and cymbals--Mount Zion rang with songs of gladness--when in the early morning the worshippers of the Lord of Hosts appeared in His Temple, to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving! The front of the building was decked with crowns of gold, and with shields; and, in the forcible language of the ancient historian, "thus was there very great gladness among the people, for that the reproach of the heathen was put away." Then--emblem of thanksgivings from thousands of hearts--rose clouds of delicious fragrance from the altar of incense. Judas Maccabeus stood beside it--more pale and pensive, perhaps, than seemed to suit the occasion--watching the light curling smoke as it ascended and lost itself in the perfumed air. Presently the prince took something from his arm, and cast it into the flame. The movement was so quiet that it was noticed but by few by-standers; and none knew what that was which blazed brightly for a moment, and then left not even visible ashes behind. It was but a few threads of flax, which had bound up flowers long since withered; it seemed a worthless sacrifice indeed; but when, a few years later, Judas Maccabeus poured out his life's-blood on the fatal field of Eleasa, the steel which pierced his brave heart inflicted not on him so keen a pang. And here will I close my story, leaving the hero of Judah a victor over his enemies, and a victor over himself. Let the picture left on the reader's mind be that of Jerusalem in the hour of her triumph and rejoicing--when the Lord had turned again the captivity of Zion, and her exulting citizens were like unto them that dream! But, ere I lay down my pen, let me crave leave for a few moments to address my readers, both Christian and Hebrew. And to the first I would say: Think not of the record of the lives of Judah's heroes, and the deaths of her martyrs, as something in which we have no personal interest--merely to be admired, like the courage of the Greeks at Thermopylae, or the devotion of Regulus at Rome. Rather let us honour the children of Abraham who fought or died for the Covenant as our brethren in faith, heirs of all the promises on which we rest our hopes, as well as of some others peculiarly their own. Their Scriptures are our Scriptures--they guarded them at hazard of their lives; their Messiah is our Messiah, though He visited earth too late for them--as too early for us--to behold Him. Christianity rests on such Judaism as was held by Hebrew saints and martyrs; Christianity is in regard to the ancient religion as the capital to the column, the full-blown flower to the bud, as the cloud floating high above the sea is to the waters from which it drew its existence. Laws and rites which passed away when types had been accomplished and prophecies fulfilled, are as the salts which are necessary component parts of the sea but not of the cloud; when it rose on high it left them behind. It is an interesting subject for thought to inquire whether, if Daniel's weeks had run out in the times of the Maccabees, and the Messenger of the Covenant had then come suddenly into His Temple, Christ would not have found adoring worshippers instead of fierce persecutors--a throne instead of a cross? Would He not then have been welcomed by the heroes of Emmaus and Bethsura, instead of being despised and rejected of men? Would he not, humanly speaking, have escaped the scourge, the nails, and the spear? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled (Matt. xxvl. 54) that Christ should suffer these things? (Luke xxiv. 36). The Sacrifice must be slain, that the sinner may be pardoned and live. And if--as I would fain hope--some Hebrews peruse these pages, how earnestly would I desire power to speak to their hearts! Countrymen and countrywomen of Maccabeus, ye whose fathers fought side by side with the Asmonean brothers, does the history of their deeds rouse none of their spirit of patriotism in your breasts? Can ye, amidst the cares and toils of this working-day world, be indifferent to the state of your own land, your own city--yours by divine right--yours by a deed of gift signed and sealed by God Himself! Is it no grief to you that the mosque stands on the site of your holy Temple; that--under a corrupt form of so-called Christianity--idolatry is practised at this day in the city of David? _Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth!_ (Isa. lxii. 7, 8.) If Gentile Christians are longing and praying for that time, shall not Hebrews long, pray, and strive to hasten its coming? Shall they not search their hearts and ask, "Wherefore is it so long delayed? Wherefore are the heathen still suffered to prevail; the followers of the false prophet to hold the holy city in subjection? For what transgression doth the Lord God of Israel still hide His face from His people; what hath brought upon them a judgment enduring so much longer than Egyptian bondage, or Babylonish captivity, or the tyranny of an Antiochus Epiphanes?" Seek for the answer to this momentous question in your own Scriptures; read them in the light thrown by your own history;--that history will in the future flash into greater brilliancy than even in the days of the Hebrew heroes; we Christians are assured of this, because we, like yourselves, believe those Scriptures, and know that God's Word is pledged for your restoration, and that _the Word of the Lord endureth for ever_! 
44119	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * JESUS, THE MESSIAH; OR, THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES FULFILLED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. BY A LADY. _The Profits will be devoted to Charitable Purposes._ LONDON: PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE; AND SOLD BY L. B. SEELEY AND SONS, FLEET-STREET. MDCCCXXVIII. MILLS, JOWETT, AND MILLS, PRINTERS, BOLT-COURT, FLEET-STREET. DEDICATION. TO THE RIGHT REV. CHARLES RICHARD, LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. MY LORD, I have been induced to solicit the honour of dedicating this little work to your Lordship from the conviction that its contents are not only consonant with the Doctrines and Articles of that Church of which your Lordship is so bright an ornament, but that they are in unison with the truths of Divine Revelation, that perfect standard by which all Theology and Morality must be judged. My object in presenting it to the Public is a wish to render the Scriptures more familiar to the young: and while I feel grateful for the honour of your Lordship's sanction, allow me to express my sincere thanks for the favour you have conferred on one who is, with the greatest respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's very obliged Servant, THE AUTHORESS. _August 18th, 1828._ PREFACE. Custom demands a preface; and though the public is generally uninterested in the reasons which influence an author to appear before its tribunal, yet an introductory notice is usually expected. This little work was the employment of many a retired moment. In turning over the pages of the sacred volume, the writer was struck with the exact fulfilment in the person of the Messiah, as narrated in the New Testament, of the numerous predictions recorded of him in the Old. These were collected for her personal gratification; and as they accumulated, it occurred, that what had been some little source of pleasure to her own mind, might, by the blessing of God, prove useful to some young persons, who from circumstances, are debarred access to, or are not inclined to read, works of a more extensive kind. While the writer has no disposition to despise that criticism which, if impartially administered, is the best safeguard of the press, neither would she timidly shrink from investigation; aware that no partiality of friends can long buoy up an unworthy production. This is not intended as the language of indifference, but arises from a consciousness of the purity of motive, and the desire to do good, which have actuated her; compared with which, all other considerations are momentary and unsatisfying. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page I will put enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. iii. 15.) 1 CHAPTER II. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. (Gen. xxii. 18.) 4 CHAPTER III. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Gen. xlix. 10.) 6 CHAPTER IV. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. (Is. xi. 1. 10.) 8 CHAPTER V. Thus saith the Lord God,--remove the diadem, and take off the crown, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. (Ezekiel xxi. 26, 27.) For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea iii. 4, 5.) 10 CHAPTER VI. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken. (Deut. xviii. 15-19.) 12 CHAPTER VII. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah xl. 3.) 18 CHAPTER VIII. Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah vii. 14.) 22 CHAPTER IX. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah v. 2.) 27 CHAPTER X. Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. (Jeremiah xxxi. 15.) 31 CHAPTER XI. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. (Isaiah ix. 6, 7.) 33 CHAPTER XII. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Daniel ii. 44.) 45 CHAPTER XIII. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. (Hosea xi. 1.) 49 CHAPTER XIV. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: their visage is blacker than a coal: they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. (Lamentations iv. 7, 8.) 51 CHAPTER XV. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn. (Isaiah lxi. 1, 2, 3.) 53 CHAPTER XVI. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. (Psalm xci. 11, 12.) 57 CHAPTER XVII. And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. (Haggai ii. 7. 9.) 58 CHAPTER XVIII. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. (Mal. iii. 1.) 64 CHAPTER XIX. Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. (Isaiah ix. 1, 2.) 66 CHAPTER XX. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. (Zech. ix. 9.) 67 CHAPTER XXI. Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah vii. 11.) 69 CHAPTER XXII. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger. (Psalm viii. 2.) 72 CHAPTER XXIII. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. (Psalm xl. 9.) 74 CHAPTER XXIV. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old. (Psalm lxxviii. 2.) 76 CHAPTER XXV. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah xl. 11.) 78 CHAPTER XXVI. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. (Isaiah xi. 3.) 80 CHAPTER XXVII. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. (Isaiah xxxv. 5.) 82 CHAPTER XXVIII. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. (Is. xxxv. 6.) 88 CHAPTER XXIX. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. (Psalm xl. 7, 8.) 92 CHAPTER XXX. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. (Psalm lxix. 8.) 99 CHAPTER XXXI. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me; and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long. (Psalm xxxviii.) 102 CHAPTER XXXII. For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. (Psalm xxxi. 13.) 104 CHAPTER XXXIII. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. (Lamentation i. 12.) 107 CHAPTER XXXIV. Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. (Psalm xli. 9.) And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. (Zechariah xi. 12, 13.) 111 CHAPTER XXXV. When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. (Psalm xxvii. 2.) 115 CHAPTER XXXVI. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed. (Psalm ii. 1, 2.) 117 CHAPTER XXXVII. False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not. (Psalm xxxv. 11.) 121 CHAPTER XXXVIII. But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. (Psalm xxxviii. 13, 14.) 125 CHAPTER XXXIX. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off. (Psalm xxxviii. 11.) 127 CHAPTER XL. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. (Isaiah l. 6.) 129 CHAPTER XLI. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah liii. 3.) Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. (Isaiah xlix. 7.) 131 CHAPTER XLII. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. (Psalm xxii. 6.) 134 CHAPTER XLIII. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. (Isaiah liii. 7.) 137 CHAPTER XLIV. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (Isaiah liii. 8.) 139 CHAPTER XLV. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they have pierced my hands and my feet. (Psalm xxii. 16.) 141 CHAPTER XLVI. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? (Psalm xxii. 1.) 145 CHAPTER XLVII. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. (Zechariah xiii. 7.) 149 CHAPTER XLVIII. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. (Psalm xxii. 18.) 153 CHAPTER XLIX. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm lxix. 21.) 155 CHAPTER L. With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. (Psalm xxxv. 16.) All they that see me, laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver Him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. (Psalm xxii. 7, 8.) 157 CHAPTER LI. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah liii. 12.) 159 CHAPTER LII. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken. (Psalm xxxiv. 20.) 162 CHAPTER LIII. And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. (Zechariah xii. 10.) 163 CHAPTER LIV. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. (Isaiah 1. 3.) 165 CHAPTER LV. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he hath done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. (Isaiah liii. 9.) 168 CHAPTER LVI. The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. (Psalm lxxxix. 45.) 171 CHAPTER LVII. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah liii. 4, 5, 6.) 174 CHAPTER LVIII. For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. (Psalm xvi. 9, 10.) 182 CHAPTER LIX. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell amongst them. (Psalm lxviii. 18.) 190 CHAPTER LX. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. (Joel ii. 28, 29.) 195 CHAPTER LXI. And I will pour upon the House of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first born. (Zech. xii. 10.) 201 CHAPTER LXII. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. (Psalm cx. 4.) 210 CHAPTER LXIII. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (Daniel ix. 24, 25.) 214 CHAPTER LXIV. And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel ix. 26.) 224 CHAPTER LXV. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel ix. 27.) 229 CHAPTER LXVI. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. (Zechariah xiv. 2.) 235 CHAPTER LXVII. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young. (Deut. xxviii. 49, 50.) And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. (Luke xix. 41-44.) 240 CHAPTER LXVIII. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. (Micah iii. 12.) 243 CHAPTER LXIX. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Isaiah viii. 14.) 246 CHAPTER LXX. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. (Isaiah xlix. 6.) 256 CHAPTER LXXI. The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. (Psalm cx. 1.) 260 JESUS, THE MESSIAH. CHAPTER I. I will put enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.--Gen. iii. 15. This is the first intimation we meet with of the promised Messiah, and within this one verse is contained, as in the bud, the embryo flower, that goodly plant of renown,[1] which the Lord hath planted, and not man; he who is the rose of Sharon and the valley's lily.[2] It is an epitome of the whole plan of Redemption, and contains truths of the first importance; we shall do well to consider them in reference to Jesus of Nazareth. The prophecy declares there shall be enmity between the seed of the woman and the serpent. The incarnation and birth of Jesus have, by the Evangelists Matthew and Luke, been so fully stated, that none but a strongly prejudiced mind can deny that he was the son of Mary, then a virgin, and that Joseph was only his supposed father, because he married his mother.[3] The old serpent, or as he is frequently called, Satan, discovered his enmity towards Jesus from his birth; he stirred up the mind of Herod to destroy the holy child, Jesus, and thus originated the massacre of the infants of Bethlehem. Though disappointed, he personally attempted his destruction, and for forty days and nights did he try the force of his arts to tempt Jesus to sin.[4] And, though foiled, he again resumed the attack, and suggested to the minds of the Scribes and Pharisees, priests and people, to persecute the man "who spake as never man spake." It is said he entered into, _i.e._ took full possession of, the mind of Judas,[5] who betrayed Jesus, and also acted as guide to those who took him. Was not Satan the ringleader of those who crucified him, in whom his Judges declared, they could find no fault worthy of death? Let us now behold the opposition displayed by Jesus towards the serpent and his seed. A great part of his life appears to have been spent in casting out and dispossessing devils from the minds and bodies of men;[6] and in rebuking and threatening them, he proved that he came to destroy the power and works of darkness. His was an avowed and constant war, and the devils knew him as their greatest foe, and the destroyer of their power.[7] Although the heel, _i.e._ the human nature of Jesus, was bruised in the contest, yet, by his death, (in which Satan for the moment appeared triumphant,) he gave a mortal blow to his power and authority, by delivering the captives of the mighty, and the prey of the terrible one.[8] The cross, designed to display their scorn and abhorrence, is become the praise and glory of all the children of God, to whom, as unto their Lord and Master, the old serpent and his seed continue to manifest the same spirit of enmity and persecution.[9] Did devils confess Jesus to be the Son of the most high God, and shall not we acknowledge him to be the seed promised at the fall of man, and that he is, at the same time, Mary's son, and the Son of God?[10] The prince of the fallen spirits, the old serpent, or Satan, discovered his enmity to the human race in the garden of Eden; the woman was the first whom he deceived by his arts; but it was Jesus, her seed, who, in the after ages of the world, in the garden of Gethsemane, bruised the serpent's head, and at his resurrection, led captivity captive, and will eventually consign to utter darkness and perdition, this foe to God and man.[11] [1] Isaiah liii. 2. Ezek. xxxiv. 29. [2] Cant. ii. 1. [3] Matthew i. 18-25. Luke i. 27. 30-35., ii. 5, 6, 7. [4] Matthew iv. 1-11. Mark i. 12, 13. Luke iv. 2-13. [5] Luke xxii. 3. John vi. 70., xiii. 2-27. [6] Matthew iv. 24., viii. 16, 18-23., ix. 32-34., x. 1., xii. 24-28., xv. 22-28., xvi. 23., xvii. 14-19. Mark i. 23-27. 33, 34, 39., iii. 22-27., v. 2-19., vii. 25-30., viii. 33. Luke iv. 36-41., vi. 18., vii. 21., viii. 27-36., ix. 1, 38-42, 49. John xii. 31., Acts x. 38., 1 John, iii. 8. [7] Mark iii. 11, 12., v. 6, 7. Luke iv. 33, 34, 41., viii. 28. [8] Luke xxii. 53. John xiv. 30. [9] 1 Peter v. 8. [10] Gal. iv. 4. Col. i. 15., ii. 9. [11] Matthew xxv. 41. Rom. xvi. 20. Col. ii. 15. Heb. ii. 14. 2 Peter ii. 4. Jude vi. 9. Rev. xii. 7-17., xx. 1, 2, 3. 10. CHAPTER II. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.--Gen. xxii. 18. We now meet with a prophecy of the family from which Christ, after the flesh, should spring. The lineal descent from Abraham to Joseph, the husband of Mary, is given us by Matthew,[12] through forty-two generations; and Luke[13] gives the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam, through Abraham, in the whole seventy-four generations, showing at once that the seed promised to Adam and Abraham, is the same, even Jesus in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.[14] The reader will discover a difference between the names in the Old and New Testaments, which arises from the former being translated from the Hebrew, and the latter from the Greek language. It will also be observed, that the genealogies given by Matthew and Luke differ, but Matthew gives the pedigree of Joseph, and Luke that of Mary. Although the supposed father of Jesus is said by Luke to be the son of Heli, yet Matthew informs us Jacob begat Joseph,[15] who is called the son of Heli, only on account of the contract for marriage subsisting between Joseph and his daughter. This was a custom prevalent with the Jews, and these agreements were often made by the parents, before the parties most interested had ever seen each other, as was the case with Isaac and Rebecca. Although Abraham's posterity have been, as the sand on the sea shore, innumerable, and as a nation have enjoyed exceeding great and precious privileges, yet all the nations of the earth can never be said to be blessed in them, unless we take the prophecy in its true light, as pointing to Jesus "the promised blessing," whose day of "tabernacling" on earth, Abraham by faith saw afar off, "rejoiced, and was glad." [12] Mat. i. 1-17. [13] Luke iii. 23-38. [14] Genesis xii. 3., xviii. 18. Psalm lxxii. 17. [15] Matthew i. 16. Luke iii. 23. CHAPTER III. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.--Gen. xlix. 10. The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the dying patriarch, Jacob, has pointed to the epoch when he, of whom Moses and the prophets did write, should appear. It is worthy our particular attention, that, at the period of time when Jesus came, Judea was still governed by a Jewish king. It is true the power of the royal Asmonean or Maccabean race was destroyed, and Herod the Great had ascended the throne of Israel, yet the sceptre was not departed from Judah. Herod was an Idumean, which nation had, for nearly two centuries, been proselytes to Judaism, and so incorporated and mingled with the Jews, as to be regarded as one people. Judea bowed to the Roman power, yet Herod exercised the regal authority, and was universally acknowledged as the sovereign of Jewry, when Jesus, the prince of peace, the king of Israel, appeared a babe at Bethlehem but no sooner was the Shiloh come, than the sceptre departed from Judah. On the death of Herod, which happened soon after the birth of Christ, Augustus Cæsar divided the kingdom of Judea between Archelaus, Herod, and Philip, the three sons of Herod. Archelaus succeeded to the half of his father's dominions by the title of tetrarch, but not of king; his tyranny and oppression were so great, that, in less than ten years, he was deposed and banished to France by the emperor, who then reduced Judea to a Roman province, and ruled it afterwards by procurators or governors, who were sent thither and recalled at pleasure; the taxes were now paid more directly to the Roman empire, and gathered by the publicans; the power of life and death was taken out of the hands of the Jews, and placed in those of the Roman governors. The Lord, when he is pleased, can make the wrath of man to praise him, and his enemies to minister to his glory. This sentiment we have most strikingly illustrated in the conduct of Caiaphas, who, in the moment he was plotting the destruction of Jesus, and thirsting for his blood, delivered a very remarkable prophecy,[16] the exact counterpart of the one we are now considering, in which he declared Jesus to be the promised Shiloh, who should gather together in one, all the children of God which are scattered abroad, not the nations of the Jews only, but the Gentiles also. Yes, Jesus will seek out and bring his people from the mountains whence they are scattered; in the cloudy and dark day he will bring his sons from afar, and his daughters from the ends of the earth, and there shall be one fold under one shepherd, even the glorious Shiloh. [16] John xi. 49-52. CHAPTER IV. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.--Isaiah xi. 1. 10. The Jews, from these prophecies, expected the Messiah would spring from the family of David, the son of Jesse; and this led them to preserve, with unusual attention, the genealogy of his descendants. We have abundant testimony that Jesus is of "the house and lineage of David."[17] By comparing scripture with scripture,[18] we may venture to affirm, Jesus is the "glorious branch" Jehovah hath made strong for himself. With regard to his human and divine nature, he is both "David's son and David's Lord." He is the "root and offspring of David," and the "bright and morning star." The Gentiles shall come to "his light," and kings to the "brightness of his rising." He is not only a "rod out of the stem of Jesse," but he is the "tree of life" whose "leaves are for the healing of the nations," whose top shall "reach unto heaven," and his branches "cover the earth." He is Jehovah's ensign of mercy displayed to a rebel world, and both the Jewish and Gentile nations are invited to enlist under the banners of the cross. Those who seek an inheritance in the kingdom of the true David, if it be agreeable to the charter of Immanuel's land, shall find his rest to be glorious. [17] Since the destruction of Jerusalem, the genealogy of the Jews is lost; the tribe or family of David cannot be distinguished from that of Benjamin. [18] Psalm cxxxii. 11. Isaiah ix. 6, 7., lv. 3, 4, 5. Jerem. xxiii. 5, 6., xxxiii. 15. Zech. iii. 8., vi. 12, 13. CHAPTER V. Thus saith the Lord, remove the diadem and take off the crown, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.--Ezekiel xxi. 26, 27. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.--Hosea iii. 4, 5. The Jews themselves must confess this prophecy to be in part fulfilled. They are wanderers from their beloved Canaan, strangers in a strange land, scattered over all parts of the globe, and destitute of all the local privileges which constitute a nation, although they still retain a distinction of character; but it only tends to make them a reproach, and their name a by-word amongst all classes. They dwell alone, and are not now reckoned amongst the nations of the earth. The insignia of royal dignity are useless to them, having no king or prince on whom to bestow the crown or diadem. They are deprived of their temple and its services, and of all the glorious distinctions which marked it from those dedicated to false or unknown Gods. The latter clause of this prophecy shall as assuredly be fulfilled, for heaven and earth shall pass away, sooner than one of the promises of God fail to be accomplished. Yes, the children of Israel shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and him of whom David was only a type, even King Jesus,[19] who is of David's royal line, "and the government shall be upon his shoulders," for he is the "wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace." Hasten, Lord! we would say, the time "when the deliverer shall arise out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Assume the sceptre of thy power, Jesus, thou king of Zion, thou "Son of the Highest! for the Lord God has given unto thee the throne of thy father, David; thou shalt reign over the house of Jacob for ever." "Of the increase of thy government and peace there shall be no end; upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." [19] Ezek. xxi. 26, 27. CHAPTER VI. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.--Deut. xviii. 15-19. This is one of the many precious promises given by God to Israel. Moses is a character justly deserving our regard and veneration. The Jewish nation held him in high estimation, and almost idolized his memory. Perhaps our time may not be misemployed in searching for proofs of the fulfilment of this prophecy, and in examining the character of one (even Jesus) who declares himself to be not only a prophet like unto Moses, but in every respect his superior; which, if proved, will clearly warrant their giving unto Jesus far greater honour than was even due to Moses. In drawing a comparison between these illustrious personages, we observe; they both sprang from the family of Jacob or Israel; Moses, when a child, was, for a time, concealed by his parents from the persecuting Pharoah; the child Jesus also, was, by command of God the Father, taken into Egypt, to avoid the tyranny of Herod: thus both escaped the destruction executed on all the other male children. Moses was raised up from the midst of the people, from amongst his brethren the children of Israel; Jesus having taken on him our nature, is not ashamed to call us brethren. Moses was a prophet, called and taught of God; Jesus is the sent, the sealed, the anointed of God, at whose call he came forth. Moses saw God face to face; Jesus lay in the bosom of the Father. Moses wrought miracles by the command and aid of God; Jesus wrought many miracles in the days of his flesh, but all in his own name and by his own power. Moses was an honoured instrument in bringing Israel from the bondage of Egypt; but Jesus delivers his people Israel from worse than Egyptian taskmasters, even the bondage of sin and Satan. Moses fasted forty days before he gave the law to Israel. Jesus fasted forty days before he entered on his public ministry. When Moses wrought miracles in Egypt, the magicians were obliged to confess the divine power by which he acted. Jesus expelled the evil spirits, and they acknowledged his almighty power. Moses commanded the sea to retire, and it obeyed his voice. Jesus said to the tempestuous winds and sea, "Peace, be still!" and instantly there was a great calm. Moses cured one leper.[20] Jesus cured many. Moses chose and appointed seventy elders over the people, on whom God bestowed the spirit of prophecy. Jesus chose seventy apostles, whom he endowed with miraculous powers, and sent forth to teach in the villages. Moses chose twelve men, whom he sent to spy out the land the Israelites were about to conquer. Jesus chose twelve apostles, and commanded them to go forth and preach the gospel to all the world, and subject it to his allegiance, by a more glorious power than that of arms. Moses was in danger of being stoned by the rebellious and ungrateful people, whom he had constantly laboured to benefit. The Jews also took up stones to stone Jesus in return for his numerous favours. The relations of Moses were greatly offended with him for marrying an Ethiopian woman.[21] Jesus has espoused the Gentile church, to the no small displeasure of the Jews. When Moses was the prophet of Israel, they were fed with manna from heaven. Jesus miraculously fed five thousand and seven thousand persons; he could say "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." When Moses, by God's command, stretched forth his hand, darkness covered the land of Egypt, which was shortly followed by the awful destruction of its first-born; when Jesus was crucified, darkness covered the land, which, not many years after, was the scene of the most dire calamities. Was Moses a prophet? and did he not speak of the calamities that would befall the Jews? as such, see Jesus teaching the people, and foretelling the time and circumstances of his own decease, and also the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Was Moses as king in Jeshurun? Jesus is not only king in Zion, but King of kings, and Lord of lords; by him kings rule, and princes decree justice. Moses is described as an almost perfect character; Jesus as wholly free from the least spot or stain of sin. Moses was remarkable for meekness; Jesus, when led as a lamb to the slaughter, opened not his mouth; when reviled, he reviled not again; when persecuted, he blessed. Moses, by command of God, gave laws and statutes, and instituted ordinances in Israel; Jesus instituted the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and gave laws and commandments to his people. The law given by Moses tends only to condemnation, but Jesus "has brought light and immortality to light by his gospel." The law of Moses was designed "as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ;" the doctrine of Jesus is, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Moses acted as a mediator between God and Israel, at the giving of the covenant on Sinai; Jesus is the great day's-man, and the almighty mediator of the new covenant. Did Moses plead for the rebellious Israelites? we also hear Jesus interceding for transgressors, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Moses read the law in the ears of all Israel; Jesus writes his laws upon the hearts of his people, and his truths in their inward parts. When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, after holding converse with God, his face shone exceeding bright; we are told when Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor, his face shone as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. Did Moses choose rather "to suffer affliction with the people of God, than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season?" Jesus preferred suffering misery and woe for a time, rather than his people should endure the everlasting punishment which their sins deserved. Did Moses esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt? Jesus considers the odium affixed to his cross, as a more honourable distinction than the possession of thousands of gold and silver. Moses, as a servant, was faithful in all his house; Jesus could say "Father, I have finished the work thou hast given me to do," "I have glorified thee on the earth," and "those thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost." (See John xvii. 12) Moses was permitted, from the heights of Pisgah, to view the goodly land of promise; which was but a type of the heavenly rest Jesus has prepared for those who love him. Moses, as a prophet, was great in Israel; Jesus is the Lord God of the prophets, and unto him shall the people hearken; he will give them the hearing ear and the understanding heart, and make them willing in the day of his power. "Every soul that will not hearken unto this prophet, shall be cut off," for be it known to all people, "that there is none other name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we can be saved," but that of Jesus, who is of a truth "the prophet that was for to come." It was said, by way of reproach, thou art this man's disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. Let us not consider it a disgrace to own our attachment to him, who is in every point of view far superior to Moses, who was but his servant, and the creature of his power. Where shall we find a person who so closely resembles Moses, as Christ? Surely he was the prophet foretold! Yet the Jews rejected him, and by that rejection prove that Jesus was he of whom Moses wrote--for the Lord has executed the punishment he threatened should befall them, if they refused to hearken unto this prophet; thus the Jews are living monuments of the truth as it is in Jesus. Oh, may we take warning from their calamities, and receive the sent, the sealed, the anointed of the Father, as our prophet, priest, and king; even Jesus the Messiah, the Christ of God! [20] Numbers xii. 15. [21] Numbers xii. 1. CHAPTER VII. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.--Isaiah xl. 3. The Prophets Isaiah and Malachi[22] were commissioned to inform the church, that when the period should arrive for the coming of the Messiah, a messenger would be sent to announce his near approach. This promise was most strictly fulfilled: Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, did not visit this our world, without first directing an herald to proclaim his coming; even John, who was sent to prepare the way before him.[23] This harbinger deserves our attention; he was no ordinary character. An angel, even Gabriel, posted from heaven to speak of his birth, and declare he should be filled with the Holy Ghost from the first dawn of life. If such distinguishing honour was paid to the messenger, how great that due to the master! John demands our respect, on account of the sanctity of his life, the simplicity of his manners, and the active zeal and ardent love he manifested in the cause, and towards the person, of his Lord, and for the integrity and faithfulness exhibited in every part of his conduct towards man. He feared not to reprove sin in whatever class of persons he beheld it, from the common soldier even to the monarch on the throne. To a character so exemplary as John's, the highest respect and veneration are due; and the testimony of such a man deserves not to be lightly regarded. John's birth was six months prior to his Lord's,[24] and being the first who used water-baptism as a divine ordinance, he was surnamed the Baptist. He abode "in the deserts" of Judea "until the day of his showing unto Israel," and had never seen his Lord (who resided at Nazareth, in Galilee), until he came to Jordan for baptism. The testimony he then gave to the person of Jesus merits observation. He publicly acknowledged him to be the person whose way he was sent to prepare, and spoke of him as one whose shoe's latchet he was not worthy to unloose. We see John, when surrounded by his own disciples, point to Jesus, and say "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," and "this is he of whom I said, after me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me." John gave the most decided testimony to the Godhead of Jesus, for he said he would "baptise with the Holy Ghost," which is the prerogative only of God. What man can, by any means, redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for his soul? but John spake of his Lord as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Yes, he is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Under the Mosaic dispensation, the lamb slain, as a morning and evening sacrifice, and on the great day of atonement, was only a type of this Lamb of God's own providing, who offered himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of many. When the disciples of John appeared displeased at the growing popularity of Jesus, their master instantly checked them by saying "he must increase, but I must decrease; he that cometh from heaven is above all." After John was cast into prison, we find him sending two of his disciples to Jesus, to inquire if he were the Christ or not.[25] Having heard the testimony John had before given to the person of Jesus, we cannot suppose he had any doubts in his own mind as to his being the Messiah, but rather that he was fully convinced of the fact himself; and wishing his disciples to be firmly established in the same faith, he, as the most effectual method, sent them to Jesus for satisfactory proofs of a truth which he (John) had been continually teaching through the whole course of his ministry. John was a faithful witness in his master's cause, and to him we are much indebted. But let us not bestow on him the honours due to Jesus, who is deservedly preferred before him; for, as John justly observed, he was before him. This is strictly true, for although Jesus did not take on him our nature until six months after the birth of John, yet, being God as well as man, his existence is from everlasting to everlasting. [22] Mal. iii. 1., iv. 5. [23] Matt. iii. 3., xi. 2-15. Mark i. 2-8. Luke i. 5-26. [24] Luke i. 39-44. [25] Luke vii. 18-28. Josephus, in his history of the Jews, speaks of John the Baptist in the highest terms of respect and veneration: he says he had acquired such credit and authority amongst the people by the holiness of his life, and his disciples were so numerous, that Herod, dreading a revolt, confined John in the castle of Macharas, and afterwards beheaded him, for no other crime than his honest faithfulness.[26] Herod's army was soon after totally routed by the troops of Aretas, and the Jews considered it as a mark of Divine vengeance for his cruel treatment of the Holy Baptist. [26] Matt. xiv. 3-10. CHAPTER VIII. Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign, behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.--Isaiah vii. 14. The portion of scripture now before us is highly interesting, and demands serious attention. About seven hundred and eight years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah was commissioned to tell the church, a virgin should conceive and bear a son, and should call his name Immanuel. For proofs of the fulfilment of this prophecy, we would refer to Matthew and Luke,[27] and request their testimony may be read with the serious attention the subject demands. The unblushing infidel may treat it with scorn and ridicule; but let not one bearing the name of Christ, venture to speak with lightness, on this so highly momentous an article of the christian faith. We cannot suppose the Lord, after giving this promise, would be unmindful of its accomplishment: if the birth of Christ had been the result of natural causes, there would have been nothing to excite surprise, nor would it have been a sign, as the Lord himself declared it should be. If he had been born after the manner of the children of men, no doubt he must have partaken of their evil nature. Or if his body had been formed of the dust, as was Adam's, how could the promise given at the fall of man, have been fulfilled? And what relationship would there then have existed between Christ and his church? But now he is "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." For in the fulness of time, "God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them which are under the law." "Lo! in the volume of the book, it is written of him," "sacrifice and offerings for sin, thou wouldest not; but a body hast thou prepared for him." A body subject to all the infirmities of our nature, yet wholly free from the sinful principles, and evil propensities of the human race. His name shall be called "Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us," God in our nature.[28] Yes, the uncreated word was "made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." "In him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." The Socinian may smile with contempt when the Deity of Jesus is attested, but is it not written? "Behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish!" Shall not "he that sitteth upon the circle of the heavens, laugh?--the Lord shall have them in utter derision." We would candidly confess, there are mysteries in this doctrine above the powers of a finite mind fully to comprehend. But are we, for that cause, to refuse our belief of its truth? We should indeed be reduced to a most distressing dilemma, if we were to disbelieve every thing we cannot fully comprehend. Who can discover or fully explain the nature, order, and beauteous economy, displayed in the animate and inanimate creation? They are so many problems unsolvable by man, although by the dint of study, many of the causes and effects by which we are encircled, have been traced up to their mighty Author, and eagle-eyed genius has let in a world of wonders to our view; yet much, very much, both in the heavens, the earth, and mighty deep, remains enwrapt in clouds, or thick darkness. Even in the formation of a blade of grass, there are operations which man cannot define. We enjoy the genial rays of heaven's bright luminary, but who can prove to demonstration, the sources from whence he has derived such a constant supply of matter, as to furnish our system of worlds, with light and heat for nearly six thousand years? In short who can discover or fully explain the mysterious link which unites mind to matter? But surely we do not allow ourselves to disbelieve the reality of their existence, because we cannot enter into the minutiæ of their nature. If there was nothing revealed, in the New Testament, of the nature and person of Christ, but what we could fully comprehend, we should then have some cause to refuse our assent to its truth, and might confess it to be a cunningly devised fable. But while great is the mystery of godliness, remember it is God manifest in the flesh; not God putting off his Deity to take the human nature, but it is the second person in the revealed order of the triune Jehovah, who takes our nature into union with his divine person, and veils his Godhead beneath the human flesh. Thus is God and man united in the person of our glorious Immanuel; and as if no proof should be wanting of his Deity, the angel Gabriel when directing Mary to call his name Jesus, added: "for he shall save his people from their sins." Thus did he give the most decided testimony to his Godhead, for who but God, strictly speaking, can claim a people as his own? and none but God can save them from their sins. In regard to the Virgin Mary, we would cheerfully join in Gabriel's salutation, "Hail! thou highly favoured of the Lord;" but, at the same time, we would beg to observe a nice distinction with reference to Mary, who was only one of Eve's daughters, and, though highly honoured of the Lord in this particular instance, an honour which never was or can be conferred on another; yet Mary's salvation depended on the same foundation as the rest of God's children, and it is plain Mary viewed it in the same light, for we hear her saying, "My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour." Mary was only a creature, and consequently it is sinful to offer her adoration, for it is written "thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and none other." As to her having any particular interest at the court of heaven, Jesus has determined that point, by saying, "Woman what have I to do with thee, mine hour is not yet come." It is worthy observation, that whenever Jesus spoke of Mary, he invariably called her "woman," as if at once to silence all who he knew would in after ages bestow improper honours on the virgin. When one said "Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee," Jesus pointed to his disciples, and said, "behold my mother and my brethren;" and added, "whosoever shall do the will of my father who is in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother." Whether Mary had, or had not children, after the birth of Jesus, is to us a matter of no importance; all it concerns us is to know she had none before. [27] Matt. i. 18-25. Luke i. 26-38. [28] Col. ii. 9. 1 Cor. xv. 47. Rom. ix. 5. 1 Tim. iii. 16. John i. 1., i. 14. CHAPTER IX. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.--Micah v. 2. We find Boaz (the husband of Ruth) was of Bethlehem, a small city belonging to the tribe of Judah, situate about five or six miles from Jerusalem, and his posterity continued to possess it for some time, for it was the birth-place of David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, great grandson to Boaz. This was the city from which, according to prophecy, the Messiah should come. If we examine the records left by the Evangelists, we shall find a decree was issued by Augustus Cæsar, to tax all the people of the Jews, and every family was ordered to repair to the cities belonging to their respective tribes. This it was, which brought the Virgin Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, she being of the house and lineage of David. It is probable the whole family of David were cited to assemble for the purpose of being taxed; it might be with a design to humble and mortify them, for they had a rightful claim to the throne of Judah. If this had not been the case, it is more than probable Mary, from her situation, would have been permitted to remain at Nazareth. Whatever were the motives of the civil authorities, we have cause to bless our God for thus overruling events, which distinctively considered were oppressive, but now tend to establish the truth as it is in Jesus. What else, humanly speaking, could have brought Mary, a female in the humblest walk of life, to Bethlehem?--If it were not for this circumstance, we should have wanted this proof of Jesus being the Messiah; for we are told, he should be born at Bethlehem, a city little among the thousands of Judah.[29] Although a manger was the best accommodation offered for the royal babe, yet his birth was not altogether unnoticed, or passed by, as an event of little importance; for lo! amidst the stillness of the night, an angelic messenger is sent to announce to Jewish shepherds, the arrival of the chief Shepherd. No sooner are the glad tidings of great joy communicated, but a multitude of the heavenly hosts, who had followed with joyful haste, make the air re-echo with sounds, sweet as the music of heaven. While charmed with the delightful melody, and breathless to catch the strain, we distinctly hear, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men." The next object which arrests our attention, is a company of Eastern philosophers, who are come to pay their adorations to the sovereign stranger, and to welcome his arrival. But who could have directed them to this obscure retreat, to find the infant King? They were led thither, by a star of peculiar motion, appointed to direct these eastern sages (probably Chaldeans), to Israel's King. But how ill did his appearance accord with the dignity of his character; yet notwithstanding the poverty with which he was surrounded, they worshipped him. For he who was a babe at Bethlehem, by the mysterious union of the human nature with the divine person, is the same "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." We are told that when he went forth in the acts of creation, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." What wonder then if they tuned their golden harps afresh, when he went forth to accomplish redemption's work, which mystery the angels are represented as desiring to look into. He is also described as a Ruler not only in the armies of heaven, and amongst the inhabitants of earth; but, in a more near and interesting sense, does he reign and rule in the hearts of his redeemed. The symbol of his authority is not an iron rod; no, he rules them with the sceptre of his love. We would say "Gird on thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty; and go forth, conquering and to conquer; until every land shall own thy power, and all the nations of the earth shall call the Redeemer blessed." May we imitate these eastern sages, and not feel ashamed to confess our attachment to him, who once appeared as an infant at Bethlehem; for it became him, in taking our nature, to assume it from its earliest state, and in all things to be made like unto his brethren, sin only excepted. [29] It will be observed the chief priests and scribes, in quoting this passage (see Matt. ii. 6.) have not given it correctly, but have made it bend as much as possible to their ideas of a temporal prince. CHAPTER X. Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.--Jeremiah xxxi. 15. It will not be difficult to discover the mourning prophet referred to the murder of the infants of Bethlehem, when it is remembered that Rachel the beloved wife of Jacob, was the mother of Benjamin, which tribe, with that of Judah and the family of Levi, after the revolt of the ten tribes, formed the kingdom of Judah. We are told the wise men came to Jerusalem, to inquire from the Jews themselves, at what place their long promised King should be born; and when told Bethlehem was the honoured spot, they departed with a charge from Herod, then king of Judah, to return and bring him tidings, that he also might go and worship the infant King. But his hypocrisy was soon discovered. Under pretence, that the wise men had offered him an insult in not returning to Jerusalem, he issued an order, to destroy all the children in Bethlehem, from two years old and under. An order in every point of view, most cruel, unjust, and cowardly, and which the most hardened wretch must have shuddered to execute. The mind cannot conceive an act of greater barbarity, than the murder of so many innocent babes, in order to be sure of one, even the holy child Jesus. It does not appear that any of their parents had offended the cowardly tyrant, whose heart was harder than the nether mill-stone. What wonder if the voice of lamentation and wo was heard, when the murderer's sword was (to use the prophet's language) made drunk with blood, with the blood of helpless infants, who were torn from the arms of those who would gladly have shed their own blood in the rescue of their babes; but the armed ruffian band, like their master, were insensible to pity, and deaf to the cry of mercy. Well might Rachel, a mother in Israel, have wept, had she witnessed this cruel order executed on the infants of her race! How enviable the lot of those youthful martyrs for the cause of Christ, compared to his, who, though seated on a throne, trembled at the name of Jesus, even when an infant at Bethlehem. CHAPTER XI. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.--Isaiah ix. 6, 7. These words, like numerous other passages in the word of God, are far too sublime to be attached to a mere creature; at the same time, they certainly express ideas which cannot be attributed to Deity. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given," is language improper to be applied to Godhead, while the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, are titles too Godlike to belong to humanity. In what light are we to view them, if not as descriptive of the person of the God-man, Christ Jesus? To whom but the Messiah, are we to apply this, and the many expressions of a similar kind, which we find so profusely scattered through the sacred volume? It is to the wonderful person of the Messiah, God united to the man Christ Jesus, that we direct our thoughts, as the glorious object presented to the faith of the patriarchs and ancient Israel of God. To him give all the prophets witness. All the types prefigure him. All the shadows are designed to represent him, the substance. He is exhibited to our view in a variety of characters, relations, and offices; and is not God and man, united in one complex person, clearly revealed in this prophecy? Let us apply it to Jesus:--Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Behold him! a babe at Bethlehem, subject to all the wants, weakness and helplessness connected with a state of infancy and childhood; such was the holy child Jesus. Unto us a son is given, who is acknowledged to be of David's royal line; yet this son of humanity, is also declared to be the only begotten Son of God, a Son who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. But this Son is not given as a Saviour to fallen angels, they are passed by, although possessed of faculties and powers, far superior to the sons of earth; "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." Yes, Christ is the gift of God, and the richest, God could bestow; he parted with the choicest jewel in the treasury of heaven; and God has not such another son to give, even if the redemption of ten thousand worlds required it. How amazing the love that could prompt even God, to deliver up such a son; a son, in whom he declared himself always well pleased; a son whom all the angels of God are commanded to worship; yet he was given up to shame, reproach, and sufferings; yea, his Father became the chief executioner. "It pleased the Father to bruise him, and put him to shame." Well might the prophet exclaim, "Wonder O heaven and be astonished O earth!" Jesus declared that, as the son of man, all power in heaven and earth was given to him; and surely the government ought to be on his shoulders, for who so fit to manage all, as he who is the Wonderful Counsellor; he who, from all eternity, knew the plans and counsels of Jehovah, and with whom he concerted and contrived the creation and redemption of man; and was it not between the Father and this Son, that the council of peace was settled and established, and is it not "a covenant well ordered in all things[30] and sure," and does not that part of it published to us in the written word, proclaim it the work of a Wonderful Counsellor? He indeed is wonderful, both in his person and work: the wonders of his love are here past finding out; the wonders of his grace are now unsearchable, and it is reserved for an eternity to discover all the mysteries in the Wonderful Person of the God-man, Christ Jesus, which are here incomprehensible. [30] Zech. vi. 13 Are we not told that the child born, the son given, is the mighty God? which must surely mean, that the same divine essence dwells in the Father and the Son; that it is one true and essential Godhead, dwelling in the person of the Father, Son, and Spirit; not that they are three Gods, but three distinct persons, constituting one Godhead?--(Does not the body and spirit form one man?) Is not the Son declared equal to the Father as touching his Godhead? Are not their names more descriptive of the relations they sustain in the scheme of Redemption, than indicative of any superiority or inferiority in their essence, or Godhead? Is it not the second person in the glorious Trinity, who has taken the human nature into union with his divine person? And are not God and man united in the complex person of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel's long promised and expected Messiah? His humanity is fully proved by his birth, life, and death; and his Deity is fully attested in the strongest language, for to whom the names, titles, attributes, works and prerogatives of God are ascribed, and declared to belong, surely, He must be the true God; and we have only to search the record of truth, and we shall find ascribed to him, all the distinguishing names and titles of God, as:-- Jehovah, or the Lord,--Isaiah vi. 1. 9, 10. John xii. 37-41. Isaiah xlv. 24, 25. Rom. v. 18. 2 Cor. v. 21. Psalm lxxxiii. 18. Isaiah xlii. 8., xlv. 5, 6. Jeremiah xxiii. 6. 1 Cor. i. 30. Zech. xi. 12, 13. Math. xxvii. 9, 10. The true God,--John i. 2., xvii. 3. 1 John v. 20, 21. The Great and Mighty God,--Deut. x. 17. Jer. xxxii. 18, 19. Isaiah ix. 6. Titus ii. 13. The only God,--Rom. xiv. 9, 10, 11, 12. Deut. iv. 35. 39. Isaiah xlv. 5. 15. 18. 21-25. The only wise God,--Eph. iii. 25, 26, 27. Jude 24, 25. Rom. xvi. 27. 1 Tim i. 17. God blessed for ever,--Rom. i. 25. 2 Cor. xi. 31. Rom. ix. 5. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,--1 Tim. vi. 14, 15, 16. Rev. xvii. 14., xix. 13. 16. Deut. x. 17. The Lord of Hosts,--2 Sam. vi. 2., vii. 26. Psalm xxiv. 10. Isaiah i. 24., vi. 3., viii. 13, 14., xliv. 6. Hosea xii. 4, 5. Isaiah viii. 13, 14., xxviii. 16. Psalm cxviii. 22. Matt. xxi. 42. 44. Luke xx. 17, 18. 1 Peter ii. 6, 7, 8. Hosea xii. 4, 5. Isaiah liv. 5. Rom. ix. 33., x. 11. The First and the Last,--Isaiah xli. 4., xliv. 6., xlviii. 11, 12. Rev. i. 8. 11. 17, 18., ii. 8. _All the attributes of God ascribed to Christ._ Omniscience,--1 Kings viii. 39. Isaiah xli. 21, 22, 23. Jer. xvii. 9, 10. Matt. xii. 25. John ii. 24, 25., xxi. 17. Rev. ii. 23. Omnipresence,--Psalm xxiii. 4., cxxxix. 7-10. Isaiah xli. 10., xliii. 5. Jer. xxiii. 24. Matt. xviii. 20., xxviii. 20. Eph. i. 23. Omnipotence,--Gen. xvii. 1., xxxv. 11., xlviii. 3. Phil. iii. 21. Rev. i. 8. Eternity,--Psalm xlv. 6., xc. 2. Isaiah xliv. 6. Heb. i. 8., vii. 3. Rev. i. 18., ii. 8. Immutability,--Mal. iii. 6. Heb. i. 12., xiii. 8., i. 8. _Divine works ascribed to Christ._ Creation of the world,--Gen. i. 1. Psalm cii. 25, 26, 27. Isaiah xliv. 24. John i. 1, 2, 3. 10. Col. i. 16, 17. Heb. i. 3. 10., iii. 4. Final Judgment of the world,--Psalm 1. 6. Matt. xxv. 31-46. John v. 21, 22. 25. 27. Rom. iii. 6., xiv. 10. 2 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Cor. v. 10. _The Prerogatives of God ascribed to Christ._ To forgive sin,--Isaiah xliii. 25. Matt. ii. 5. 10. Acts vii. 59, 60. Col. iii. 13. To Baptise with the Holy Ghost,--Joel ii. 28, 29. Neh. ix. 20. Zech. xii. 10. Matt. iii. 11. Acts i. 5., ii. 33. John vii. 39., xvi. 7. Eph. iv. 8. _The Kingdom and Honours of God ascribed to Christ_. An everlasting Kingdom--Psalm xxix. 10., xlv. 6, 7. Heb. i. 8. An universal Kingdom,--Psalm ciii. 19. John xvii. 10. Acts x. 36. Rom. x. 12. Divine Worship,--Deut. vi. 13, 14, 15., x. 20. Exod. xxxiv. 14. Psalm xlv. 11. Matt. iv. 10. John v. 23., xiv. 1., xx. 28. Acts vii. 59. Rom x. 13., xiv. 11., xv. 12. Rev. v. 13. Is not God represented in his word, as highly jealous of his honour, and has he not solemnly declared, that he will not give his glory to another? Then, if Christ is not equal to the Lord of Hosts, whence is it, that the great God does allow, and sanction, his distinguishing names, titles, attributes and works, to be ascribed to Jesus? Can we imagine God to be unmindful of his own honour, or so unkind to his creatures, as to permit those names so descriptive of Deity, to be applied to any mere creature, however superior, or exalted? Has he not pronounced an awful curse on those who worship any but the true God? Can we suppose the blessed God so inattentive to the happiness of his creatures, as to suffer in his revealed word, language so strikingly calculated to lead men into a belief of the Deity of Jesus, if in fact he was not God? No, the God of Truth does not trifle thus with the children of men. He has set all the great and fundamental doctrines of the gospel in the fore-ground; all truths that are essential to be known in order to salvation, are written as with a sunbeam; the Deity of Jesus, foremost of the whole, is so plain, "that he who runs may read," and the "wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein." It does not require superior intellectual powers or attainments, to learn that Jesus is the Christ of God; but it does require art and skill in criticism, to give any other sense to the word of God. There are persons, who deny the Godhead of Jesus, and yet acknowledge him a being of exalted virtue, and a model of perfection, worthy of imitation. But do they not, in robbing him of Deity, destroy all his claim to our attention? in fact do they not make him an impostor and deceiver? Do they not, with the Jews, raise the cry of blasphemy against him? and bring him under the curse and punishment pronounced by the eternal and unchangeable Jehovah, against every blasphemer? Do we not hear Jesus saying--I and my Father are one, the Father dwelleth in me, and I in him, he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also? And did he not demand all men, to honour the Son, even as they honour the Father? Did he not declare himself equal to the Father, and did not the Jews so understand him, when they took up stones to stone him, because he being man, made himself equal with God? Yes, Jesus proclaimed his Godhead; he allowed and encouraged religious worship to be paid him; in truth, he claimed all the belief and honours due to Deity. Surely then, if he is not God, he has forfeited all claim to our regard and veneration, and appears as a false prophet and teacher; but the mind shudders at imputing deception there. Blessed Jesus! may I, with Thomas, acknowledge thee, from a full conviction of thy Divinity, to be my Lord and my God. Thou hast declared thyself to be the Son of God with power, by thy resurrection from the dead. Hail! thou Wonderful Counsellor, thou Mighty God, thou Everlasting Father; thou who didst from eternity engage to be the Father and head of thy Church; thou who art the second Adam, the Lord from heaven; thou who watchest over thy Church with more than fatherly care; who suppliest all their wants, healest all their diseases, and who, in love, dost "chasten every son whom thou receivest," and wilt at the last great day, present thyself with them to the Father, saying, "Behold I and the children whom thou hast given me." Yes, thou art the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace; and who so calculated to make peace between God and man, as he in whose person they are both united? He has peace to make between heaven and earth. He can know and satisfy the honour of God, for he is God; he can feel the wants and sorrows of man, for he is "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." When he entered our world, was there not a proclamation of peace on earth, and good will to man? Yes, for the Prince of Peace was come, to make peace and reconciliation, by the blood of his cross. He is a successful Peace-maker; he is, in fact, the only Mediator between God and man; nor is he yet weary of his office, but ever liveth to make intercession for us. Hail! thou Prince of Peace. Did not this glorious Mediator love to manifest himself in that character to the Church, from the earliest ages of the world? Did he not honour many of the patriarchs and prophets with a display of his person? Was it not the Messiah, who appeared to the Old Testament saints? Has he not ever been the only visible image of the invisible God? Are we not told that no man hath seen the Father, save the only begotten of the Father, who came down from heaven? Do we not find an opinion generally prevalent amongst the ancient Jews, that no man could see the face of God, and live? Moses, and the assembled multitude at mount Sinai, were of this opinion. Isaiah exclaimed, "Wo is me, I am undone, for I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Manoah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, and the other ancient worthies to whom God appeared, were filled with the same awful apprehensions. Is it not more than probable, that God, in the person of the Father, has ever been invisible to the inhabitants of earth? Would not the true majesty, and splendour of Godhead be more than man in his present state could bear? Might not the sight of unclouded Deity destroy a body of flesh? Are not all those passages where the great God is said to appear and converse with his creatures, more applicable to the God-man, Christ Jesus, than to the first person of the sacred Trinity? Is it not more becoming him, who, in after ages, was to take on him a body of flesh and blood, to appear as man, than that God the Father, should do so? Were not the three men who appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, as he sat at his tent door, in the heat of the day, this Messiah God-man, attended by two angels; and were not the two angels sent forward to destroy Sodom, while the Lord tarried behind to hear the intercession of Abraham, for that devoted city? Was not the same glorious personage the man with whom Jacob wrestled, when he is said to have had power with God and to have prevailed? Was he not _that_ Angel of God's presence, who led the children of Israel into Canaan, of whom God said, "beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him?" Did he not also appear to Joshua, as Captain of the Lord's hosts? Did he not in vision appear in the same form to Ezekiel and Daniel, as he afterwards did to John, in the Isle of Patmos? And are not all the other passages, of a similar kind, equally applicable to the Christ of God? Can we not enter into the prophet's meaning, and set our seal to the glorious truth, that "unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace?" CHAPTER XII. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.--Daniel ii. 44. The book of Daniel contains some very striking prophecies. The chapter from which this is selected, is not amongst the least interesting. The interpretation given by him to the king of Babylon's dream, demands our particular attention. He speaks of four kingdoms, as represented by the image.[31] The first, or head of gold, is the Chaldean monarchy; which gives way to that figured by the arms of silver, the kingdoms of Media and Persia. This is succeeded by the Grecian, represented by the brass. Then follows the fourth or iron, which is the Roman power, "in the days of whose kings, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed," &c. &c. We will search for proofs of its accomplishment. Daniel was an Israelitish captive at Babylon, and when he wrote the first part of his prophetical book, the kingdom of Chaldea was first in the scale of nations. In earthly pomp and grandeur it surpassed all other states. The land of Judea was then in its possession, and her people, its captives. Its capital, the mighty Babylon, was, from the solidity of its walls, the strength of its fortifications, and its gates of brass, considered impregnable; but, agreeably to scripture prophecy,[32] the city was taken by Cyrus: he entered it by the channel of the river Euphrates, whose waters he had directed into another course; and during a night of riotous festivity, in which the Babylonians had forgotten to shut their brasen gates, the city was taken by Cyrus, whom the Lord, at least one hundred and seventy years before, named as his servant to destroy the kingdom of Chaldea for their cruel treatment of his captive Israel. Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon (who issued a proclamation for the Jews to return to their beloved Jerusalem after seventy years captivity) was heir to the throne of Persia; and succeeded to that of Media, by virtue of his marriage with the daughter of Cyaxares (otherwise Darius) his uncle. The kingdoms of Media and Persia thus united under Cyrus (after the overthrow of Babylon) obtained the supremacy of the world, and preserved that pre-eminence two hundred and six years, when it was subdued by Alexander, styled the great, whose dissatisfaction amidst the shouts of victory, and the dazzling accompaniments of power, strikingly show the fallacy of seeking true happiness from sublunary objects. Alexander founded the Grecian empire, which continued one hundred and seventy seven years, when it was compelled to submit to Rome's conquering legions, to whom all nations bowed, and, by tribute, acknowledged as their superior. In the days of these kings, did the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: yes, in the reign of Augustus, did the mighty King Jesus first openly declare and set up his great spiritual kingdom. Its beginning, to human appearance, was small and unpromising. Yet, this stone which was cut out without hands, (i. e.) without human power or worldly policy, shall become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth. It is true, the Jewish nation expected the Messiah to come, surrounded by all the splendours of eastern magnificence; that he would deliver them from the Roman power, and, after a reign more glorious than Solomon's, establish a kingdom which should remain unshaken till time shall be no more. But, shall the unchangeable Jehovah alter his purposes or mould his plans, to meet the idle fancies or short-sighted schemes of the children of men? No, the Messiah has appeared, not in the style they had anticipated, but in the manner most agreeable to the mind of infinite Wisdom. Yet, because he did not assume the gaudy trappings of earthly state, the Jews reject him, and vainly look for another, although he appeared at the time predicted. The Roman power is now laid low, and according to all their prophecies, the period is passed when he, of whom Moses and the prophets did write, should appear. Jesus far exceeds in real excellence, even their own highly coloured portrait, for the blessings of his reign extend to ages yet unborn. They expected a temporal king, but no; the land of Canaan, although the glory of all lands, was far too insignificant for him to accept as the sphere of his government. He shall sway his kingly sceptre, not only over Judea's fruitful land; but his dominions extend from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. The mightiest monarchies are often swept away, as by the besom of destruction, and all are compelled to submit to the iron hand of time; yet his, is an everlasting kingdom, which cannot be moved by the revolutions of nations, but shall continue firm and unshaken even amidst the crash of worlds. It was expected the Messiah would deliver them from the Roman power; but mark, it was said, his name _shall_ be called Jesus, for he shall _save_ his people (not from their temporal oppressor but) from their sins.[33] Surely it must be confessed, that earth's greatest conqueror, is far below him who delivers from the bondage of sin and satan, which is the worst of slavery. Yes, Jesus saves his people, the true Israel of God, from the consequences and power of sin; from the former, by bearing the punishment himself, and from the latter, by his Spirit implanted in their hearts. The kingdom shall not be left to other people, but he will constantly direct and order all its affairs, and he shall reign and rule for ever. [31] Dan. ii. 31-45., vii. 1-27. [32] Isaiah xlv. 1-4. [33] Matt. i. 21. CHAPTER XIII. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.--Hosea xi. 1. We cannot entertain a doubt that this verse alludes to the call of the children of Israel from Egypt, yet we are not to suppose it refers exclusively to that event, but we are to behold it pointing to Israel's Lord. Christ is said to be the husband of his Church, and they are both called by the name of Israel;[34] and this verse is only one amongst the many instances which occur in the Old Testament. The patriarch Jacob, or (as he was surnamed by God) Israel, went with his descendants into Egypt, for shelter and sustenance in the days of famine, but they were afterwards cruelly entreated four hundred years; from which state of oppression and bondage, the Lord called and delivered them. In after ages Jesus, God's beloved son, our Israel, was taken into Egypt, to avoid the persecution of Herod; and when that tyrant was dead, God called the holy child Jesus from that land of heathens, by the ministration of an angel. In Egypt, Israel was first formed into a church; and thither did the great head of the Church also go; and the Holy Ghost, by the evangelist Matthew, has stated, that it was on purpose to fulfil this prediction. That Jesus was as much the beloved of the Father, when tabernacling here below, as when he lay in the Father's bosom, cannot be doubted;[35] indeed, all the honours of his mediatorial kingdom, are the fruits of his humiliation and suffering. We hear him saying, "for this cause doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." [34] Isaiah xliv. 21., xlix. 3. [35] Matt. iii. 17. xvii. 5. Mark i. 11., ix. 7. CHAPTER XIV. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.--Lamentations iv. 7, 8. In the Old Testament we find a description of the order of the Nazarites and their laws; we discover a Nazarite to be one set apart or separated for the Lord, either for a given time, as in the case of a vow, or for life, as Sampson, who was a Nazarite from his birth.[36] The order was one of Israel's glories; for the Lord when enumerating some of the many honours conferred by him on the nation, adds; "and I raised up of your young men to be Nazarites." They were all so many types, pointing to the one great Nazarite, even Jesus; whom it will not be difficult to recognise, under this description. Jesus is the true Nazarite unto God, in the eternal council of peace; he was set apart to accomplish the Lord's great work of redemption.[37] Of him it can truly be said, he is purer than snow, and whiter than milk: he, and he alone, is free from the least spot or stain of sin: being "holy, harmless, undefiled, and _separate_ from sinners. The Church describes her Lord, "as white and ruddy;" as the "altogether lovely and the chiefest among ten thousand." Yet when tabernacling here below "his visage was so marred more than any man's," and his "form more than the sons of men:" when seen in our streets he had "no form, comeliness, nor beauty, that those who saw him should desire him." This lamentation of the prophet was called forth, by the state of misery and wretchedness, to which the Chaldeans had reduced the nation; yet it had a peculiar reference to him, who in after ages was known by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. No doubt his having resided in a town of that name, was _one_ cause of his having so universally obtained the appellation. We find it used by the band of armed men when they came to apprehend him, and by the maid-servant in the hall; Pilate affixed it to the cross; the devils used it. It was also used by blind Bartimeus; by the apostles, both before, and after their Lord's resurrection; by the angels at the tomb, and by Jesus himself. And by the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, was one lame from his birth made to leap, arise, and walk.[38] We are told the word is derived from Natzar, which signifies a branch; and is not Jesus described as the man whose name is "the Branch?" yes, he is the branch out of Jesse's root, whom the Lord has made strong for himself. [36] Numbers vi. 2, 3. 13. 18-21. Judges xiii. 5 7., xvi. 17. [37] Hebrews ix. 14. 2 Tim. i. 9. [38] The first who appears to have called our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, was the Devil in the person of the poor maniac, and is it not probable that Satan influenced the minds of men to give him that distinction with a view to deceive them as to the place of his birth; which was not at Nazareth, but at Bethlehem? CHAPTER XV. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.--Isaiah lxi. 1, 2, 3. This is one of the many descriptions we meet with of the Messiah, who is represented as being especially anointed to his office.[39] We cannot be at a loss for a satisfactory proof of the fulfilment of this prophecy, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not come forth unsent or unanointed. When he publicly entered on the great work of his mission, he was anointed to the office by the visible outpouring of the Spirit. We are told, that immediately after his baptism in the waters of Jordan, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God, as a dove, descended and lighted upon him; and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Thus we hear the Father bearing testimony to the person of the Son, and we see the Holy Spirit descending and resting on Jesus. Thus, did the three persons of the glorious Trinity, at one time, distinctly manifest themselves, and that at the entrance of Jesus on his great work. It may be proper to observe that, as God, he needed not the anointing of the Spirit, for in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It was the human nature of the God-man, Christ Jesus, that was anointed to the great office of mediator, which work he had before, by covenant, engaged to perform. To him, the Spirit was not given in a limited measure; he is the "Wonderful Counsellor;" in "him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." It would be a recapitulation of a great part of the New Testament, to shew the exact method in which this prophecy was fulfilled. When the disciples of John came to Jesus, to inquire if he really was the Messiah, he, as one confirmation of the fact, told them that to the poor he preached the gospel. Yes, we find Jesus, when on earth, spending a great part of the three years and a half of his public ministry in journeying to the towns and villages, publishing the "glad tidings of great joy," of which angels were once the honoured messengers, namely, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." The common people, we are told, heard him gladly. Jesus can, with much propriety and justice, proclaim "liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;" he can say, with authority, "deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom." Jesus is also King in Zion, whose mourners he will never fail to comfort; they can celebrate their Lord's mercies in the language of the Church of old, "Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted." We cannot find an instance on record of any persons who in their trouble fled to Jesus when on earth, but whatever was the nature of their distress, he always removed it. We also hear him proclaiming the "acceptable year of the Lord," saying, Come now; even to-day, if ye will hear my voice; "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." While he proclaims "the year of his redeemed," he does not neglect to publish "the day of vengeance of our God." Though he delight in words of mercy and of comfort, he does not shun to declare the whole counsel of God. As a faithful monitor, we repeatedly hear him urging sinners to flee from the wrath to come, and solemnly warning them of the fearful punishment awaiting those, who reject the counsel of God against their own souls.[40] Nor did he fail to speak in the strongest language of the miseries which will be the portion of those, in another world, who, in this, reject and disobey him. When Jesus read aloud this prophecy in the Jewish synagogue, and declared it was that day fulfilled; we are told "all the people bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth." Every one who reads the history of Jesus with a candid mind, must be constrained to acknowledge that through every part of his active and eventful life, his conduct manifested, that the "Spirit of the Lord rested upon him;" that his was "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." [39] Psalm xlv. 7. [40] Hebrews x. 28. CHAPTER XVI. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.--Psalm xci. 11, 12. The psalm from which this is taken, describes, in glowing language, the blessed state of those who have God for their refuge; but we are not to limit the entire application of these verses to the sons of men. We find they have a reference to the God-Man, Christ Jesus. At his first entrance on the great work of his mission, he was for forty days and nights tempted by Satan, during which time the devil made use of every artifice to tempt and destroy him. Amongst other schemes, he set Jesus on a pinnacle of the temple, and desired him to prove his Godhead, by casting himself down from the height; for he said, it was written that the angels of God had charge concerning him, and in their hands they were to bear him up, lest at any time he dash his foot against a stone. Jesus gave other proof of his Deity than Satan desired: he told him he should not tempt the Lord his God, and he also added "Get thee hence Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." It is an undeniable fact that when Jesus was on earth, the devils knew his person and publicly acknowledged his Godhead. Yes, angels and devils own his power; and shall the sons of earth whom he formed from the dust, be the last to confess a truth which is acknowledged by all in heaven and hell--by the wisest and best created intelligences, and by the fallen angels, who were expelled the heavenly mansions, and consigned to the lake of fire and brimstone, for rebelling against the authority of the great Mediator between God and man,[41] who was, in after ages, known by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. [41] Daniel xii. 1. Revelations xii. 7. CHAPTER XVII. And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts.--Haggai ii. 7, 9. Haggai prophesied at that period of the Church's history, when, after the return from the Babylonish captivity, the Jews built the second temple: on which occasion, we are told the young men shouted for joy; but the old men wept,[42] for they had seen the glory of the former house, in comparison with which, the second was nothing. But the Lord commissioned Haggai to inform them, for their comfort, that the glory of the latter house should be greater than of the former. It appears by the descriptions given us of the temple built by Solomon, that it surpassed in grandeur and magnificence all other buildings, which in any age have appeared to astonish and delight the world. It has never been equalled, either as it respects the grandeur of the design, or the richness of its internal decorations; a great part was overlaid with pure gold. But these were not the most glorious distinctions of the former house. It contained the Ark, with the mercy seat and cherubim;[43] the Urim and Thummim,[44] the spirit of prophecy,[45] the holy fire,[46] and the Shechinah, or Divine Presence.[47] The Jews themselves must confess that the second temple was destitute of these five signs, which so eminently distinguished the first house. We hear nothing of them after the Babylonish captivity. Well might the old men weep, for Ichabod (the glory is departed) might with much propriety, have been written on the walls of their newly erected temple. It was afterwards considerably injured during the wars, but was repaired and beautified by Herod; yet none, when speaking of the splendour of the temple, can allow it to bear any comparison with the one built by Solomon: yet the Lord hath said, "the glory of the latter house should be greater than of the former;" and God is not unmindful of his promises, nor has he ever neglected to fulfil them. We will therefore endeavour to discover if this has not been accomplished. We observe, that the Lord would first "shake all nations; and the desire of all nations should come;" and then "would he fill the house with glory." This promise was made shortly after the return of the Jews from Babylon; which kingdom had been shaken to its centre, as were also in succession the kingdoms of Persia and Greece. The thrones and power of their kings had been subverted, the nations almost annihilated; and Rome was the mistress of the world, when Jesus, the "desire of all nations," appeared. Perhaps it may be said, that few nations had even heard of the promised Messiah, and still fewer desired his coming. But do not the guilty sigh for pardon, the captives for liberty, the oppressed for a deliverer? does not the debtor need a surety; the weary and heavy laden rest; the diseased a physician; the young a guide; the aged a support; the distressed a comforter; the hungry food; the thirsty water; the ignorant an instructor; and the wanderer shelter? That these things are desired by all people and nations, none can deny; but it is in Christ alone we can find a supply for all our spiritual wants, and a remedy for these, and a long list of unmentioned ills. In Jesus there is a fulness to supply all our need. He has pardon for the guilty, "liberty for the captive;" he is the "surety" of the debtor, and the "physician" of the sin-sick soul; he will be a guide to youth, and "even to hoar hairs he will be with them;" he is the "water of life," and the "bread that cometh down from heaven;" his "flesh is meat indeed," and his "blood drink indeed:" he will teach the ignorant wisdom, and "deliver the oppressed;" he calls to him the "weary and heavy laden," promising to "give them rest;" he bids the mourner be of good comfort, for he will give "the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;" and truly he is the refuge of the destitute. In short, it is only in him, and from him, we can find supplies for all our spiritual wants; with him is "life," "light," "liberty," and "joy." Surely if all nations did but know him, all nations would love him too; for he is justly described by the Church as "the altogether lovely, and the chiefest amongst ten thousand." The fulfilment of the latter clause of the prophecy, was literally accomplished when Jesus (the second person in the revealed order of the Trinity), in our nature, entered the temple. Surely that must be acknowledged a far more glorious distinction, than the ten thousands of gold and silver which ornamented the former house. Yea, it was a greater honour to have the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, personally teaching in the temple, than the five signs which constituted the greatest glory of the former house. They were only intended to exhibit to our view a God in Christ. The temple and its contents were but figures of the things signified, even the Messiah. The second temple was honoured not with types, but the person; not with the shadows of the good things to come, but the substance, even Jesus, the Son of the most High. At twelve years of age, Jesus was found in the temple, in the midst of the Doctors of the Law, both hearing and asking them questions. Often, in the days of his flesh, did he visit the temple, and from within its walls, did he instruct the people, and declare his divine mission. To those who deny that Jesus was the Messiah, this promise must for ever remain unfulfilled; for the second temple never did, either in its buildings, or decorations, surpass, or even equal the glory of the former. It is now seventeen hundred years since the second temple was destroyed, and all its stones laid level with the dust. Thus are they reduced to the alternative of representing God as failing to fulfil his promises; a sentiment, it might be supposed, any man would shudder to advance, and much less maintain. To those who receive "the truth as it is in Jesus," there appears a beautiful harmony between the promise, and the accomplishment; they can exclaim, truly did "the glory of the latter house exceed that of the former," for it was honoured with the personal presence of Jesus, the "Christ of God," "the Lord of life and glory," "the prince of peace." Of whom, it may be justly observed, that he is the only source from which true and lasting peace can be expected without the fear of a disappointment; and this "peace is made through the blood of his cross." [42] Ezra iii. 12. [43] Exod. xxv. 19. 20. 21. [44] Exod. xxviii. 30. Deut. xxxiii. 8. [45] 2 Kings xix. 14-37. [46] 2 Chron. vii. 1. 3. [47] 2 Chron. vii. 2. CHAPTER XVIII. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come saith the Lord of Hosts.--Mal. iii. 1. The coming of the Messiah was anticipated with much impatience and pleasure by the Jewish nation, and particularly about the time Augustus Cæsar was Emperor of Rome, in whose reign, it will be remembered, Jesus was born. The period according to Daniel's Prophecy being arrived, the attention of all classes of the people was so excited by his expected advent, that when John came, "all men mused in their hearts, if he were the Christ or not." But he disclaimed all pretensions to being the Messiah, and pointed to Jesus as the illustrious person, whose coming had been so long foretold. We find many instances recorded, which prove the Jews to have been on the look out for their long promised deliverer. Aged "Simeon waited for the consolation of Israel:" it had been revealed to him, by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had "seen the Lord's Christ:" when the child Jesus was brought into the temple, the aged prophet took him up in his arms, and exclaimed, with holy joy, "Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation &c., &c." Anna the prophetess, also, "spake of him to all that looked for redemption in Israel." Frequently during the life of Jesus do we hear the people exclaim,--surely this is "the prophet that was for to come." We find the Priests and Levites, persons, it must be supposed, best acquainted with the writings of the Old Testament, requesting Jesus to tell them plainly, if "he were the Christ or not." The Lord whom they "sought, suddenly came to his temple;" yet when "he came to his own" nation, "they received him not," for their minds were darkened by their false notions of a temporal king. This prophecy loudly proclaims the Godhead of Jesus, for to ascribe a temple to any but God is idolatry; a sin most strictly forbidden throughout every part of the word of God. Jesus is also the Messenger of the covenant. He publicly proclaimed the nature of the covenant ratified in the Court of Heaven, between the persons of the glorious Trinity, even the covenant of redemption, which is "well ordered in all things and sure," and was concluded ere the hills were made, or the mountains brought forth; when this "earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."[48] [48] Prov. viii. 22-31. CHAPTER XIX. Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.--Isaiah ix. 1. 2. From the days of Malachi, the last of the prophets, until the coming of John the Baptist, a period of four hundred and thirty-six years, the Church was in a state of great darkness and apparent desertion. This prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus resided, or personally preached in the towns of Galilee; then, "the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw a great light; and of them which sat in the region and shadow of death light sprung up." Jesus is "the true light, that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." He is given to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel." To whom we would say, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." For through the tender mercy of our God, Jesus, the day-spring from on high, hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace. "Light and immortality are brought to light by the gospel" of Jesus, who is himself the divine fountain, or source from whence must emanate all spiritual light. He is the light and the life of man; he came a light into this world, that whosoever believeth in him should not abide in "darkness." CHAPTER XX. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.--Zechariah ix. 9. We have so striking an accomplishment of this prophecy, that it is scarcely possible to imagine one can be found, who is unwilling to point to Jesus and exclaim, Zion behold your King. Was it ever known that any other king, except Jesus, made such an humble entry into the city of Jerusalem, or indeed any city. No, his was altogether the reverse of such processions. Here was no herald to proclaim his approach, no charger highly caparisoned to convey the Monarch, no royal purple or glittering attire to distinguish him from the throng, or dazzle the unthinking crowds. In himself and attendants, all was, to outward appearance, mean and contemptible. Yet the minds of this vast multitude, were for the moment so struck with the truth of his Messiah-ship, that with one simultaneous shout, they make the air resound with Hosannas to the Son of David; "blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest." This is not the only instance of their wishing to make him their king.[49] His disciples were impressed with the common error, that he would establish a temporal kingdom. After his resurrection we hear them saying, "Lord wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" But no, his kingdom is not of this world, else would his servants have been called on to fight for it. The weapons of their warfare, are "not carnal but spiritual, and mighty, through God, to pulling down the strong holds of sin and satan." We do not hear that Jesus made one visit to the court of monarchy, but many to the temple. The Roman authorities viewed him with a jealous eye, and passed sentence on him for avouching his kingly authority. It is worthy of remark, that the superscription affixed to his cross, instead of declaring him an usurper, did, in four languages, proclaim his innocence, and acknowledge his authority--"Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." Yes, the meek and lowly Jesus--Jehovah has set as king upon his holy hill of Zion; he is "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords." He is just, for "behold a King shall reign in righteousness." He not only has salvation, but he is Jehovah's salvation, to the ends of the earth. To him "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess," that "he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." It was a striking display of his Godhead, in directing his disciples where to find the colt, and in overruling the mind of the owner, to let the animal go only on their saying, "the Lord hath need of him." Yes, he is the Lord of the whole earth; "the beasts of the forests are his, and so are the cattle on a thousand hills." [49] John vi. 15. CHAPTER XXI. Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.--Jeremiah vii. 11. An attentive reader of the New Testament, will easily discover the correspondence between these words, and the circumstance of Jesus driving the buyers and sellers from the temple; which action deserves to be carefully considered. It may appear extraordinary, that persons should have dared to make the temple of God the seat of commerce, for it was still used as the high place for offering the daily sacrifice. But it is probable that, at the first, persons were allowed to bring for sale, into some of the outer courts or inclosures of the temple, doves, and those animals the Jews used for sacrifices; that persons who resided at a distance, and could not, without considerable inconvenience, bring their sacrifices with them to Jerusalem, might always be able to purchase such animals as they wished to offer.[50] In after years, this privilege was abused, and instead of a sale of animals exclusively for sacrifice, it became the busy scene of commerce; and buyers and sellers, merchants and money-changers, used it as the great mart for business. Thus a place set apart for the worship of the Most High God, was made the general rendezvous of men, whose only aim, was to get money, even though it were at the expense of their religion. Such was the disgraceful scene exhibited at the temple in the days of Jesus, who, indignant at the sight, would not suffer it to pass unreproved. Having made a scourge of small cords, he went into the temple, and drove before him, not only, the herds of cattle, but the buyers and sellers themselves; and even overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and poured out their money. One would imagine the Man who was able to drive so numerous an assemblage of persons from their long accustomed (and to many of them lucrative) seat of trade, must have been supported by the weight of the civil and military authorities of the state; but it was quite the contrary: yea, even the Priests who ought to have been most anxious to preserve the sanctity of the place, were the first to oppose this cleansing of the temple. Surely it must be matter of wonder, how this Man of Nazareth could, unaided by human power, so easily accomplish a change fraught with danger and difficulty: but such was the fact, and there appears but one way to account for the prompt submission of those buyers and sellers; which is, that, Jesus being both God and Man in one person, his Deity was not on this occasion so much concealed beneath the manhood, but shone forth with such majestic dignity, that none dared to resist or dispute his authority. All were awed into quiet submission to the command of the God-man Christ Jesus; when he said, "take these things hence, and make not my Father's house, an house of merchandise;" it is written, "my house, shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." Not only his acts, but his words, proclaim his Deity. Jesus can with propriety call God, Father, for he is his first begotten, well beloved Son, and, as such, he has rule over his Father's house.[51] The disciples who were observers of the event, struck at the display of his Godhead, applied to him the words of the psalmist; "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee, are fallen upon me." If we except the miracle recorded by John, of the armed men falling to the ground on the reply of Jesus, this certainly is one of the greatest miracles he performed in the days of his flesh. [50] Deut. xiv. 23-26. [51] John v. 22, 23. CHAPTER XXII. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger.--Psalm viii. 2. The manner in which this prophecy was fulfilled is very interesting. When Jesus drave out the buyers and sellers from the temple, we are told the children shouted hosannas to the Son of David. The Chief Priests and Scribes were filled with indignation to hear even children confess a truth they wished buried in eternal silence; and, coming to Jesus, they said, dost thou not hear what these say? But he mildly answered, "Yea, have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" It is more than probable that amongst the persons he had just expelled from the temple, were the parents of some of these children; it would not therefore have excited our astonishment so much, to have found them mocking and reviling the man of Nazareth, as it does to hear them shouting hosannas to the Son of David. There were none of those gay distinctions in the person of Jesus, which so usually please and delight children; all was as to outward appearance mean and unattractive; yet their youthful hearts were filled with love and admiration for the person of the Man, so generally treated with contempt; and they as with one voice shout the praises of this Son of David. Ought it not for ever to have put to silence the Priests and Scribes, and all those bitter enemies of Jesus, when he gave such clear proofs of his being the Messiah, that even these Jewish children, could discover him to be the very person their parents, from the first dawn of reason, had taught them to expect, as the long promised deliverer of Israel, who should spring from David's royal line. CHAPTER XXIII. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest.--Psalm xl. 9. It is said, to the immortal honour of Noah, that he was a preacher of righteousness to the Old World:[52] but as the glory of the latter dispensation far exceeds that of the former,[53] so is its founder greatly distinguished from all the prophets and teachers under the Jewish economy. We find Jesus actively engaged in preaching his own gospel, whenever opportunity offered, free from the trammels of form, and the circumscribed rules of human order. We see him in the temple, and the field; in the synagogue, and on a mountain; in the crowded street, and the wilderness; in the house, and by the sea shore: at one time to the crowded throng, and then to the little troop of disciples; now to learned rabbies and rulers, and then to a few fishermen of Galilee; but in every place and company he was a preacher of righteousness. He did not refrain his lips from fear of man. He did not hesitate to publish doctrines necessary to be known, because they were of a kind likely to be ungraciously received. He shunned not to proclaim the whole truth; whether men would hear, or whether they would forbear. Again, look at him as a preacher of righteousness. All he taught was pure and undefiled as the light of heaven. He did not flatter one vice, or countenance one folly. He described sin as hateful to God, whether in the priest or people, the ruler or the ruled. He taught the Jews, who rested in the mere letter of the law, that it is of a spiritual nature, "extending not only to the outward actions," but to the "thoughts and intents of the heart." He inculcated obedience, not on the narrow principle of self love, or to gain the praise of man; but he insisted, that it can only be acceptable to God when springing from a principle of love to God and man. He did not instruct his hearers to keep a fair exterior only, but he went at once to the seat of iniquity, the human heart; and declared that the fountain must be first cleansed before the streams can be made pure. Again, we behold him as a preacher of righteousness, declaring that "except our righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." He taught that we must be clothed with a better righteousness than our tattered rags, ere we can be allowed to sit down at the "marriage supper of the Lamb," where all the guests are arrayed in "fine linen, clean and white," which fine linen is the "righteousness of the saints." This wedding garment is provided by the Lord of the feast, and is the spotless robe of Jesus's perfect and complete righteousness. [52] 2 Peter ii. 5. [53] Heb. xii. 18-24. CHAPTER XXIV. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old.--Psalm lxxviii. 2. We hear Balaam, the son of Beor, from the heights of Moab, attended by an idolatrous king and prince, taking up his parable on the multitudes of Israel. We also find many of the prophets of the Lord in the different ages of the Church, presenting their Master's message in the dress of parable. The sweet singer of Israel is here said to open his mouth in a parable, and utter dark sayings, which have been kept secret since the foundation of the world. But we are compelled to pass by this son of Jesse, to direct our attention to one who may not unaptly be styled 'the man of parables.' Jesus so frequently used them in his discourse to the multitude, that it is said "that without a parable spake he not unto them;" and who can read his parables without exclaiming, "surely never man spake like this man." His discourses are adorned with the striking force and luxuriant imagery of the East. He made use of the most beautiful language and elegant ideas, to impress on the mind a knowledge of things which are not seen and spiritual, by similies drawn from things which are seen and temporal. Who can read the affecting representation of the pity and forgiveness God manifests towards the ungrateful, rebellious, but afterwards penitent sinner, so forcibly displayed in the parable of the Prodigal Son, without being charmed at the happy simplicity that pervades the whole. Unlike the productions of men, the words of Jesus, like the works of creation, display new beauties on every attentive examination. They lose nothing by a minute inspection--they are not mere empty words: at every perusal they are increasingly attractive, and we discover that the most sublime truths are taught, where, perhaps, at the first reading, we beheld nothing particularly instructive or engaging. CHAPTER XXV. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.--Isaiah xl. 11. The Messiah is here, and in several other parts of the old Testament, held forth to our view under the character of a shepherd. He is called, "Jehovah's shepherd," and to his care is committed the safeguard of God's flock. He is described as "seeking out and delivering his sheep from all places where they have been scattered, in the cloudy and dark day." He is said to "seek that which was lost," and to "bring again that which was driven away;" "to bind up that which was broken; to strengthen that which was sick; to gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom;" "to make them lie down in green pastures, and lead them forth beside the still waters;" in short, to him are attributed all the kind offices of a "good shepherd." It will not be difficult to recognise Jesus under this description. On examining the New Testament, we find in it an exact counterpart of this character. We hear Jesus describe himself as "the true shepherd," who "calleth his sheep by name, and leadeth them out, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice; but a stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers;" "he knoweth his sheep, and is known of them, and they go in and out, and find pasture." His watchfulness and power are such, that he will not suffer any, either by surprise or force, to pluck them out of his hands;[54] nor will he forsake them in the hour of danger; "he fleeth not, because he is not an hireling;" and he will eventually collect both the Gentile and Jewish flocks together, that there may "be one fold,[55] under one shepherd." Nor shall one of the least of the flock be missing; all "his sheep must pass again under the hands of him that telleth them;" even the "good shepherd who has laid down his life for the sheep;" and now liveth to watch over, defend, guide, and supply the wants of his flock, from whom he will withhold no "manner of thing that is good." [54] John x. 28, 29. [55] John x. 16. Certain it is, this "Chief Shepherd" will punish[56] the unfaithful hirelings "who feed themselves, but not their flocks;" "who have not strengthened the diseased, healed the sick, neither have bound up that which was broken, neither brought again that which was driven away, nor sought that which was lost; but with force and cruelty have ruled them." Therefore, O ye shepherds! hear the word of the Lord; thus saith the Lord God, "Behold I am against the shepherds, and will require my flock at their hands, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall they feed themselves any more." [56] Ezek. xxxiv. 10. CHAPTER XXVI. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.--Isaiah xi. 3. The deceptions practised by the human race are many and various. With no other clue to discover the real character of individuals than their professions and conduct, men are often led to form the most unjust opinions; and frequent and lamentable are the mistakes that arise. Falsehood often lurks beneath the warmest professions; the guise of friendship is made to conceal the perfidious spirit, the mask of sincerity is worn by the consummate deceiver, and man becomes the dread and fear of man. Who can look at Jesus, without being struck at the nice discrimination of character he discovered in his opinions of the men by whom he was surrounded. He could espy in Nathaniel "an Israelite in whom there was no guile." He discovered that the ardent zeal and warmth of Peter's attachment would induce him boldly to suffer death in his Master's cause, although the denial of that Master loudly proclaimed him a faithless coward. He could point out the perfidious Judas, fostered by the eleven disciples as a bosom friend. He could detect the hypocrisy and deceit that lay hid beneath the fair profession of the Scribes and Pharisees; he knew their public conduct was not in unison with the hidden man of the heart. He was not blinded by the semblance of virtue; nothing false passed with him for genuine; he instantly discovered the counterfeit, however well executed. Nor did the sterling pass by unknown to him, though its exterior was defaced and unattractive. He could look into the inmost recesses of the human heart, and discover there the seat of iniquity, he could behold the monster in his den, however ingeniously its exterior was adorned by art, and bring to light the hidden things of darkness. In his opinions there was no error; in his censures, no unjust severity--he always judged righteous judgment; "for he judged not after the sight of his eyes, neither reproved after the hearing of his ears." With righteousness did he "judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; righteousness was the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins;" and why? "Because my thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are my ways as your ways, saith the Lord of Hosts." CHAPTER XXVII. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.--Isaiah xxxv. 5. Is it not highly proper, that those who profess to be intrusted with offices of authority, should be able to exhibit the credentials of their appointment, in order to be accredited? The prophet Isaiah was commissioned to proclaim many of the marks by which the Messiah should be distinguished. Amongst other signs "the eyes of the blind were to be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped." Jesus of Nazareth not only declared himself to be that long-promised Messiah, but constantly exhibited, in the most public and open manner, the credentials of his high official character, and confirmed his claim to our belief by his numerous miracles. Could we inquire of Bartimeus, who, of old, sat by Israel's way-side begging, who was the skilful oculist that restored to his long sightless eyeballs the power of vision; joyfully would he point to Jesus the Son of David, as the gracious benefactor whose almighty word had again caused him to behold the gladsome light of day. Might we hold converse with him who had never beheld the cheerful face of man, whose eyes had rolled in gloom and darkness, deprived of the sight of nature's beauteous works; no doubt he would, with the same undaunted courage he displayed before the Jewish Pharisees, declare that Jesus of Nazareth had opened the eyes of one born blind. Nor were these the only recipients of his Divine bounty. By his almighty voice the deaf were made to hear: the 'ephphatha' of Jesus could "clear the obstructed paths of sound, and bid new music charm the unfolded ear," for it was the voice of one whose biddings were enablings. When the disciples of John came to inquire of Jesus if he were the illustrious personage so long promised, or if they were to look for another, we are told, "in the same hour Jesus cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind he gave sight," and requested the disciples of John "to return, and tell the things which they had seen and heard;" how that "the blind saw, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead were raised, and to the poor the gospel was preached." To one so well instructed, as we may presume John to have been in the writings of the Old Testament, he could not wish for more satisfactory evidence to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. John bore witness unto the truth, but Jesus "had greater witness than that of John, the works which the Father had given him to finish, the same works which he did, bore witness of him that the Father had sent him." That Jesus wrought miracles his enemies could not deny; but how absurd they should attribute them to satanic influence. The Devil is not wont to be a benefactor to our race; we should not expect to find him lending his power to destroy his own kingdom, or to benefit the children of men. The miracles of Jesus were not an useless display of power, wrought to gratify idle curiosity, or for sordid or ambitious motives; they were all designed to promote some honourable or useful purpose, and were of the most benevolent character, not unworthy the incarnate Deity whose pity for his creatures is commensurate with his power. His miracles were numerous and diversified; they were wrought openly, and proclaimed publicly; not confined to one place: Jesus went about healing all manner of sickness and disease among the people. The disciples were not the only witnesses to these extraordinary events. Jesus was surrounded by great multitudes when he healed the leper. Jairus's daughter was raised to life in the presence of her friends and the mourners. The Pharisees beheld the devil cast out of the dumb man--the whole congregation in the synagogue witnessed the instantaneous cure of the withered hand--four thousand, and five thousand men not only beheld the miraculous increase of twelve loaves and a few small fishes, but their bodies were refreshed by the plentiful repast. All the people of Gennesaret sent to collect the diseased, so convinced were they of the wondrous cures effected by a touch of the hem of his garment. When in Galilee, great multitudes came unto Jesus, bringing the lame, blind, dumb, and maimed, and he healed them all. When the poor father's lunatic son was cured, multitudes witnessed the fact. Jesus was surrounded by crowds when he gave sight to the two blind men. The Chief Priest and Scribes saw the wonderful things he did in the temple--driving out the merchants, and healing the lame and blind. In the synagogue he cast out an unclean spirit. When the widow of Nain's son was raised from the dead, much people of the city were with her. The lawyers and Pharisees watched Jesus when he cured the man of the dropsy. Many Jews were present when he called Lazarus from the grave. Jesus was surrounded by his persecutors when he healed the ear of Malchus. The enemies of Jesus witnessed his miracles; they possessed every opportunity that incredulity itself could desire, of examining the several objects on whom he had displayed his omnipotent power: this circumstance, together with the diversity of time and place, precluded all possibility of deception. Peter boldly declared to the "men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem," that "Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved of God among them, by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him, in the midst of them, as they themselves also knew." The intrepid disciple feared no contradiction, it was a fact too clearly established for any of that age to deny; and what madness is it for any in a later period to cavil against a truth they possess not a single fact to disprove. The more minutely the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ is examined, the clearer do its marks of divine authenticity appear. The exalted character of the Man of Nazareth requires only to be known to ensure admiration. Who, that attentively considers the sketch given of that model of all perfection, can imagine the history of the Evangelist to be only a cunningly devised fable? The schools of philosophy, with all their boasted learning and virtue, could not conceive any thing half so refined, or so far exalted above the most elevated of the human race. From whence, then, did the beloved physician, the tax-gatherer, and the two fishermen, obtain that beautiful model of holiness, presented to us in their writings? They must have copied from life--they must have witnessed the living character--those unlearned Jews could not have invented so correct a likeness of incarnate Deity. Even if they had taken the united virtues of the most eminent saints in the Old Testament for their pattern, it would not bear a comparison with the artless grandeur and majestic simplicity discoverable in this history of the life of Jesus of Nazareth; which, it should be remembered, was written at a time when the religion of the Jews was little more than superstition; for the law of God was made void by the absurd tradition of the fathers.[57] Yet no trait of false Judaism is discoverable in the character of Christ. In short, the history of the four evangelists is the very reverse of what might reasonably be expected from ignorant men, who had strongly imbibed their nation's bigotry and superstition. The gospels carry their own evidence, and prove the men who wrote them not only had the example of Jesus for their guide, but that they were divinely inspired.[58] They have mixed up none of their own corrupt notions or false ideas, but presented us with a book which is not unfitting the God of Truth to acknowledge as his own. [57] Mark vii. 9. 13. [58] 2 Tim. iii. 16. CHAPTER XXVIII. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.--Isaiah xxxv. 6. Blessed Jesus, we behold thee surrounded by the diseased and wretched. We see thee attend that seat of misery, the pool of Bethesda, whose cloisters oft resounded the plaintive voice of sorrow; for within its porches were assembled many of the sons and daughters of affliction. Amidst the group was one, who, for thirty-eight long years, had sighed over his poor enfeebled limbs, and who oft had heard the joyful sound of Bethesda's agitated waters. But, alas! this Angel of Mercy brought no healing balm for his diseased limbs. Oft had he seen a companion in misery hastily rush into the troubled pool; and beheld their diseased bodies healed by one plunge into those sacred waters. Yet his slow, though anxious steps, never reached its brink, until some happier object had possessed its healing properties. His case attracted the kind attention of Jesus, to whom, when questioned, he tells his tale of wo. But hark! a voice is heard, "Arise, take up thy bed, and walk." The astonished cripple no longer needs the friendly crutch, but treads with ease and joy his gladsome path. Yes, beneath the porches of Bethesda's pool, the Godhead of Jesus darts forth its clear and splendid rays. Well might the fame of this wondrous Physician spread, and multitudes of the afflicted press to share his favours. Behold, amidst the numbers who throng his door, a poor paralytic cripple, borne by four. Every effort to force a passage through the dense crowd is fruitless. Faith does not easily relinquish its subject, and the roof is even bared to admit this subject of misery into the immediate presence of the Healer of diseases. Nor were their efforts unsuccessful. One word from him does more than the united skill of all earth's physicians; and he, who, a few moments before, required a couch to support his palsied frame, is now seen forcing his passage through the astonished multitude, triumphantly carrying his own bed. Surely "it was never so seen before," even "in Israel," that land so famed for miracles. Jesus not only wrought miracles himself, but when he sent forth his disciples to preach the everlasting Gospel, he gave them authority to work miracles, in order to prove their commission to be from Heaven. We behold these fishermen of Galilee, in the name[59] of their divine Lord and Master, Jesus of Nazareth, healing all manner of sicknesses, diseases, and infirmities; testifying both to the friends and enemies of the crucified Jesus, that God was with them, indeed and of a truth, so mightily did the word of the Lord prosper. The blessings of the Messiah's reign are frequently exhibited to our view under the simile of water. Jehovah promises, "when the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them; but will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys." He will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. Rivers of water in a thirsty wild, are not more acceptable to the fainting traveller, than the salvation of Jesus is welcome to the convinced sinner; to such who believe he is precious. The conditions of obtaining it are inscribed by the finger of God; we behold them written in legible characters: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Ezekiel, in vision, beheld this holy water issuing from the temple of God. Its sovereign efficacy was such, that whithersoever it flowed, healing and life attended its course. John in the Apocalypse, describes it as the "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb;" its banks adorned with continual fruitfulness, and never-fading verdure. The salvation of Jesus is also described as a "fountain which is opened to the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." May _we_ know its purifying and refreshing qualities: may _we_ drink deep of the living waters, which are "a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." Jesus himself personally invites "all that are athirst, to come unto him and drink." [59] Acts iii. 6. This fountain of life, is not of recent discovery; the antedeluvian world beheld it as a small rivulet, which continued to increase as it flowed down the patriarchal age, widened under the Mosaic dispensation, and became broader and clearer, as it warbled along the prophetic course, and now displays itself as the grand and majestic fountain of living waters, whose streams make glad the city of our God. CHAPTER XXIX. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.--Psalm xl. 7, 8. The psalm from which these words are selected, was written by David, king of Israel, but never can they with justice be applied to him. We dare not venture to imagine he acted agreeably to the will of his God, in the matter of Uriah the Hittite; nor was the law of his God ruling in his heart, when his pride led him to number the children of Israel. But let us no longer dwell on the crimes and failings of this (in one sense of the word) great man; let us endeavour to discover some other, to whom it can, with more justice, be applied. But, alas! if we search to earth's remotest bounds, we cannot find, on this our globe, one to whom it may be applied without deserving the charge of flattery. If permitted to extend our search to the upper and brighter world, and allowed to inquire of the inhabitants of those realms of bliss, if they had ever known one of Adam's race, when sojourning here below, of whom it could with truth be said, his delight was to do the will of his God, yea that the law of his God was the constant ruling principle of his heart;[60] struck at our want of discernment, they would exclaim with holy indignation, was He so long an inhabitant of your world, and do ye not know him? Have ye not read of his life, of his acts, of his words, and ways; but above all, have ye not heard the oft told tale of his death? Do ye now need to be reminded that the words are a true description of the man ye call Jesus of Nazareth? Yes, angels know him, and glory in their knowledge; with joy would they tell us, that, with all their opportunities of observing his conduct, they could never discover in him the least imperfection or tendency to sin.[61] Yes, it is Jesus the son of David, and not David the son of Jesse; who is here speaking, as other parts of the psalm clearly prove. He alone could say, without presumption, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea thy law is within my heart." Jesus came from heaven to earth, to do the will of his Father who sent him; even to accomplish the work of redemption, which is as much the will and pleasure of the Father, as it is the delight of the Son. His zeal was discoverable at twelve years of age, when he was found in the temple, and, to the gentle reproof of Mary, answered, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business;" which he preferred before the refreshments of the body; yea, his meat was to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish the work. What devotedness marked his life! days of toil in travelling and preaching were often succeeded by whole nights spent in prayer: the returning sun found him again employed with the same unwearied diligence in the work he had undertaken. We should do well to bear in mind, that all Jesus did was voluntary. There was nothing, but his love to God and man, which led him to engage in the work. There was no compulsion, no obligation, it was entirely an act of his own free will; nor did he enter on the covenant, ignorant of the difficulties and sufferings connected with the work. He was well acquainted with their nature, and extent; he had counted the cost and weighed the price; and with a clear view of the immense load of sufferings before him, did he, with cheerful promptitude, go forth to the work. We cannot have a more striking exhibition of his zeal, than in the reply he made to Peter; Jesus had been warning his disciples of the circumstances of the death which awaited him; but Peter could not bear the idea of his beloved Master's exposing himself to so much suffering, and in the warmth of his attachment, he exclaimed, "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee:" But Jesus said unto Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Is this the language of the man, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, and when persecuted, he blessed? Can this be the answer of the meek and lowly Jesus to a beloved follower, who only spoke with an intention to prevent his Lord from suffering? Yes, it is; but Peter was little aware of the momentous consequences connected with that death. The advice he gave would, if followed, have been a more dire calamity than the world had ever known, yea, even worse than the ruin brought upon our race, when our first parents followed the counsel of that false reasoner Satan. Jesus, well aware of the immense benefits resulting from his expiatory death,[62] would not allow even a beloved disciple to use one argument against his voluntary sufferings. How different the conduct of Jesus, when Peter denied him! there was no reproof, no upbraidings; but all was love and pity for the weeping servant, to whom, after his resurrection, he gave many kind tokens of his forgiveness. We are told, when the time approached that Jesus should be offered up, he steadfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem, well known as the destined place of his sorrows. We hear him saying, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished." When Judas was about to betray him, Jesus said, "what thou doest do quickly." His delight to do the will of his God, was most conspicuous when the band of armed men came to apprehend him, in the garden. He did not attempt to flee, or endeavour to conceal himself from their pursuit. He did not shrink from the danger even when so near; for it is said, Jesus knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth to meet them; and said, "whom seek ye," and when told Jesus of Nazareth, he said, "I am _he_." There was no evasion, no reluctance, but he cheerfully and freely delivered himself into their hands, and met with promptitude the adversaries he had to encounter. When Peter, indignant at the insults offered his Master, and anxious for his rescue, drew his sword in the garden, and wounded the High Priest's servant, Jesus mildly reproved him, adding, "the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Jesus could have commanded twelve legions of angels to his rescue, yet he allowed himself to be bound, scourged, and crucified as a malefactor. Not all the powers of earth and hell combined, could have destroyed the body of Jesus, had he not given himself up a voluntary sacrifice.[63] He had power to lay down his life, but no man had power to take it from him. The human nature of Jesus, when united to his divine person, became in a manner omnipotent: unless he had freely consented, he could not have been made the subject of their cruelty, but for that "cause came he into this world." The active and passive obedience of Jesus has reflected more honour upon God, than the unsinning obedience of men and angels could have done to all eternity. The free and voluntary nature of that obedience adds a beauty and lustre to the whole. "Then said I, lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me." Moses wrote of Christ: the whole of the Old Testament (if we except some of the prophetical parts which relate to the then kingdoms of the earth,) have a reference to the person, work, or church of Christ. The ceremonies, institutions, and many of the characters, of the Old Testament, are shadows, types, and figures of Jesus the Messiah. Even the preceptive parts are not exempt. The great apostle of the Gentiles speaking of the law, says it is a "schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ." When from comparing our heart and conduct by the perfect standard of God's law, we discover our short comings, the law thus becomes a teacher, and shows us the necessity of an interest in the salvation of Jesus. He could truly say, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart: How I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day;" in fact, the law, which is holy, just, and true, is merely a transcript of his divine mind. [60] Psalm xiv. 1. Eccles. vii. 20. Rom. iii. 12. [61] John xiv. 30. [62] John xiv. 5. [63] John x. 18. CHAPTER XXX. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.--Psalm lxix. 8. Ah, my Lord, I know this to be thy voice of lamentation, at the unfeeling conduct of those, from whom thou oughtest to have received the kindest attentions. Thou wast as "a stranger unto thy brethren, and as an alien unto thy mother's children;" "for even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they dealt treacherously with thee." They cried "depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest, for there is no man that doest any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world." "For neither did his brethren believe in him." No sooner did he show himself unto the world, and multitudes thronged to behold his miracles, but they cry, thou art beside thyself. From his chosen friends, the disciples, he also experienced much unkindness and ingratitude. During his unparalleled agony in the Garden, instead of endeavouring to mitigate, and sooth his sorrows, they slept, as if careless of his woes. He marked their conduct, and exclaimed, "What! could ye not watch with me one hour?" In the time of danger, "all the disciples forsook him and fled." When in Pilate's hall, and surrounded by men who thirsted for his blood, Peter, with oaths and curses, thrice denied his Lord and Master, who heard, and cast a look of reproof, mingled with love, towards his faithless disciple. Blessed Jesus, how few of the tender charities of life were exercised towards thee, though thy heart, cast in nature's purest mould, was not insensible to the kindlier feelings of that nature. Jesus particularly testified his affection towards John, that beloved disciple, who laid in his bosom. He also discovered the tenderness of his regard towards the three highly favoured subjects of his friendship at Bethany. The sight of the sorrowing sisters at the tomb of their only and dearly beloved brother, his friend Lazarus, excited the tenderest sympathies of his soul, and drew tears from the eyes, and groans from the heart of Jesus. "Behold how he loved him," exclaimed the by-standers. Let us not think it beneath the dignity of the eternal Son of God, to have shared in the sorrows of such a scene; rather let us rejoice, that we have an High Priest, "who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and that in all our afflictions he was afflicted." Was not this event recorded to encourage us to present all our cares and trials before him. The cry, "Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick;" will not, cannot, be unnoticed by him who wept at the grave of Lazarus; for, though he has changed his place, he has not changed his nature. As Man, he can still sympathise with his people in all their sorrows and afflictions. As God, he is ever able to extend his all-powerful arm, and give the wished-for aid. CHAPTER XXXI. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me; and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.--Psalm xxxviii. 12. Where shall we find the person to whom these words are so applicable, as to Jesus. From the manger to the cross, he was constantly encircled by men who were plotting his destruction. If we trace the line from Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee, to Pilate, the Governor of Judea, we find that the enemies of Jesus were neither few nor weak. We see marshalled against him, kings, priests, and governors; Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees; the learned and the wealthy; the noble and the peasant; the Jewish nation and the Roman soldiery. No scheme that malice, iniquity, or falsehood could devise or suggest, was suffered to escape; all were pressed into their service, and made to bear against him. Every stratagem was resorted to, that they might entangle him in his discourse, to form an excuse for seizing his person. At one time, the Herodians are sent with the question, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar, or not?" and though they preface their inquiry with "Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth," yet he discovered their hypocrisy; and who but must admire the Godlike wisdom that sparkles in his bold reply? We next behold the Pharisees approach with cautious step and flattering tongue, to ask his opinion of the laws enacted by Moses for divorcement. On the other side, the Sadducees appear to present their queries touching the resurrection of the dead. However artfully their plans were laid, they could not surprise or deceive Infinite Wisdom. Their next scheme is to present before him a woman guilty of adultery, hoping, from the known kindness of his character, that he would pronounce her pardon, and then they could accuse him as a violator of the commands of their great lawgiver, Moses, who ordered all persons guilty of such offences to be stoned to death; but he, who knew what was in man, could foil his adversaries, whilst he pardoned the trembling penitent. "Let him that is without sin, first cast a stone at her," sent home to their conscience, proved the wisdom and Almighty power of him with whom they were contending. Yet still his enemies spake against him, and they that laid wait for his soul, took counsel together. CHAPTER XXXII. For I have heard the slander of many; fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.--Psalm xxxi. 13. It is not infrequent that the envious and the profligate are found speaking in terms of reproach of characters whose public and domestic conduct are a beautiful portrait of all that is honourable, amiable, and truly worthy of commendation. Yet persons will never be wanting who can truly appreciate and highly esteem the fair edifice of moral excellence, and bestow the just tribute of respect it deserves. It is possible for men to be so far deceived by personal prejudice, or swayed by the false opinions of others, that they not only view with indifference, but even treat with contempt and scorn, persons, to whom the Searcher of hearts will one day say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Examples of these facts are not wanting, but we no where behold so striking an illustration of this truth as in the reception the Holy Jesus met with from the men amongst whom he tabernacled. It must be confessed, that in the most perfect of the human race there are defects and blemishes, to which even the eye of friendship cannot be blind, yet in Jesus there was a freedom from all evil either in principle or practice. He could be weighed "in the balance of the sanctuary," and not found wanting either to God or man. His actions, when measured by the just standard of God's law, are pronounced perfect. Yet he, who was purity itself, was not exempt from slander, but was called a gluttonous man, and a wine bibber; a friend of publicans and sinners, an hypocrite, a man of sedition and strife, a Sabbath breaker, and a violator of all the laws of Moses. In scorn, they say, this fellow, and that deceiver, thou art a Samaritan; a race of men held by the Jews in the most sovereign contempt and hatred. By some, he is accused of disloyal and traitorous conduct toward the rulers of Jewry; others pronounced him guilty of blasphemy; and, to crown the whole, they declare him to be a devil; yea, Belzebub, the chief of devils. Blessed Jesus, thou didst, indeed, hear the slander of many. Every action was viewed through a false medium. Thy acts of mercy became an occasion of offence, and called forth the hatred of these self-deceived men, and thy whole conduct was vilified and spoken of in the harshest terms of disapprobation and scorn. Yet those ancient slanderers and persecutors of Jesus, were not without their fears. At one time, lest, from his growing popularity, the Romans should take away their place and nation; at another time, the purity of his doctrine becomes the source of disquietude. They all secretly dreaded his power. Fear was on every side, while they took counsel and devised to take away the life of Jesus. Pilate's wife could not forbear expressing her fears; and Pilate himself illy concealed the perturbation of his troubled conscience. How insufficient was water to cleanse the polluted hands of that wretched governor, so deeply stained with the blood of an innocent victim, sacrificed to his tame compliance; and, to seal his awful doom, he soon after impiously dared imbrue his hands in his own blood, and rush uncalled into the presence of his offended Judge. How tremendous the situation of Pilate when standing before the Judge of all the earth, even _that_ Jesus, he had unjustly condemned and crucified. How different the scene from that when Jesus appeared as the despised Nazarene in Pilate's hall. The mind shudders at contemplating the awful fate of those who dare to lift their puny arms in rebellion against Zion's King, and the language of whose hearts till death is, "we will not have this man to reign over us." CHAPTER XXXIII. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the days of his fierce anger.--Lamentation i. 12. These words are in some degree applicable to the mournful prophet Jeremiah, but it will do no violence to consider them as referring to Jesus, and to him they apply with tenfold force. Let us not pass him by unnoticed, but let us "behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow," who, by way of distinction, is called "the Man of Sorrows." We see Jesus, attended by three of his disciples, enter the garden of Gethsemane; we behold him withdraw from them about a stone's-throw, and, kneeling down, pour out his soul in prayer to God. Let us draw nigh to witness the scene, but let us approach with awe and reverence, for methinks we are about to tread on hallowed ground. Let the frame of our minds be solemn and attentive, whilst we view a scene so mysterious and sublime. We observe Jesus on his knees, begin to be sore amazed and very heavy: yea, his soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; and in the bitterness of his spirit, we hear him cry out, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." Being in an agony, he prays the more earnestly. Thrice we hear him present the same petition. His agony becomes so extreme, that he sweats great drops of blood, and so profusely, that it even falls upon the ground. Struck at a sight so mysterious and solemn, we turn towards the disciples for an explanation; but lo, they are fallen into a deep sleep, although requested by their Master to watch and pray. Desirous to ascertain the cause, we survey the wondrous scene, but find no external marks of punishment. True, the sufferings of the cross he viewed as near, but they were not yet commenced; nor can we discover any one afflicting him. The only visible object we perceive is an angel from heaven; but his was an errand of love, for he strengthened him. It is therefore quite clear, that it was from sorrow of soul, and not pains of body, Jesus then suffered. We eagerly inquire what powers could have had such influence over him, as to occasion so great anguish of spirit? We are told, the powers of heaven and hell;[64] and we immediately request to be informed, why the holy, harmless, and undefiled Jesus, is thus the object of God's displeasure, and the sport of Satan. We are directed to consult the records of truth for an explanation of the scene. We examine, and find that Jesus had voluntarily come forth, and offered himself as the surety of his people, having placed himself in their room, and the curses of the law taken hold upon him, his soul endured all the horrors of the tremendous load of our guilt imputed to him. Would you behold the awful consequences of sin; then go, visit Gethsemane, and see Jesus prostrate in the garden. Mark the extreme anguish of his spirit. What language is sufficiently strong to express the agonies of his soul in that awful hour, when the conflict of his mind forced through all the pores of his sacred body a bloody sweat; not merely a drop or two, but so copiously as to fall upon the ground, and that in the open air, in a night of such extreme cold, that, in the crowded hall of the High Priest's palace, the servants found it necessary to make a fire to warm themselves. We may well tremble and stand amazed at a sight so awful and mysterious as the soul-agonies of the God-Man Christ Jesus. "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow, which was done unto him, wherewith the Lord afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger." Yes, the hand of Jehovah was in it, he then stood up to punish the sins of his people, in the person of their surety. It was also the hour and power of darkness, and Satan then poured forth all his malice, and exerted all his fury, to worry and destroy this Lamb of God; although Jesus declared, the prince of this world had nothing in him, (_i. e._) no corrupt principles or evil passions as materials on which to work; yet was the soul of Jesus assaulted by all the malicious artifices of hell. It is more than probable, that the great adversary overpowered the three disciples with drowsiness, and caused them to fall into a deep sleep, in order to keep every source of creature-comfort from Jesus during this season of conflict and sorrow. In the garden of Eden, did Satan gain his first triumph over apostate man; but in Gethsemane's garden, did Jesus, as the representative and surety of man, give that decisive overthrow to the power of sin and Satan, which shook to its centre the throne of that arch-fiend. [64] Luke xxii. 53. CHAPTER XXXIV. Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.--Psalm xli. 9. And I said unto them, if ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the House of the Lord.--Zechariah xi. 12, 13. Surely every one acquainted with the history of Jesus, as connected with that of Judas, must acknowledge these remarkable verses to be prophetical of the traitorous conduct of that betrayer of Christ. They describe the base deeds of one of his followers. It was his own familiar friend, which did eat of his bread, that lifted up his heel against him. It was not an open enemy that did him this dishonour; it was one with whom, for near three years and a half, he had daily intercourse; during which period he had constant opportunities of witnessing the miracles of Jesus. He heard his divine discourses, he saw him display his power, and, in common with the other disciples, did he receive the kindest treatment from his Master, to whose person Judas publicly professed himself faithfully attached: yea, "he was numbered with the apostles, and obtained a part in their ministry;" but such was his hypocrisy, that the disciples were not conscious of his real character. To his care they intrusted the slender stock of money--Judas kept the bag. Though under the mask of friendship he artfully concealed his perfidious spirit from the eye of man, yet he could not deceive his Lord and Master. Jesus well knew, amongst the twelve whom he had chosen to be his apostles, one was a devil.[65] He knew this serpent, fostered in his bosom, would betray him. Yet we behold the meek and lowly Jesus condescending to wash those feet which were so shortly to run on an errand of the basest ingratitude. Judas was unmoved by this act of unparalleled humility; no kindness could soften his heart, by sin made hard as adamant; for it appears he instantly arose and, though night (a time best suited for such deeds of darkness), went to the Chief Priests, and said unto them, if ye think good, give me my price; so they weighed him thirty pieces of silver. For that paltry sum did this perfidious monster sell his Lord and Master, and engage to deliver him into the hands of his bitterest enemies; and then, to conceal his base and treacherous conduct, he mingled with his Master's family, and even dared to partake with them, not only of the paschal feast, but of the Lord's Supper, which was instituted immediately after the celebration of the feast of the passover. So callous was the wretch to every feeling of remorse and pity, that he could, unmoved and unrelentingly, even receive from the hands of the innocent victim of his treachery, the symbols of the Lord's bruised body, and blood-shedding. When Jesus mildly declared that one of them would betray him, the faithful disciples, filled with astonishment and grief at the bare intimation of such an act of perfidy, each eagerly exclaimed, "Lord, is it I? is it I?" The hardened Judas could join in the cry, and with all the effrontery of a child of satan, appeal for a confirmation of his innocence; but Jesus knew his treachery, though hid beneath the garb of friendship. Alas, wretched Judas! how little didst thou enjoy thy ill-gotten wealth! Thou hadst scarcely grasped the price of blood, ere thou didst cast it from thee; before even the victim of thy treachery was crucified, thou didst cut short thy race on earth, and madly rush on the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler; thou didst terminate thy wretched course of sin here, to enter on thine awful state of everlasting wo. Matthew the Evangelist informs us that Judas hung himself, but in the Acts of the Apostles we read, that he fell head-long, and all his bowels gushed out. These seeming contradictions are easily reconciled, if we suppose, which is not improbable, that he fell from the place whence he hung himself; and thus a double mark of infamy was affixed to his body. What a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy, in the purchase of Aceldama, that potter's field of blood. Indeed, these verses of Zechariah look more like the descriptions of a contemporary, than the predictions of one who lived at least five hundred and eighty years before the events narrated actually took place. [65] John vi. 70. By the Mosaic law, if a servant was goaded by an ox, the owner of the ox was to pay the master of that servant thirty pieces of silver:[66] and for that trifling sum it was the blessed Jesus was basely sold; he, whose price is far above rubies, and to whom all the good things thou canst desire are not to be compared. But, while we detest the treachery of Judas, let us be careful that we do not commit the like act. Let us not salute Jesus with the kiss of profession, while we are secretly in league with his worst enemy, sin: which, of old, nailed Jesus to the cross. No wounds are considered by him so severe, as those wherewith he is wounded in the house of his friends.[67] [66] Exodus xxi. 34. [67] Psalm lv. 12. CHAPTER XXXV. When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.--Psalm xxvii. 2. The Psalm from which this verse is selected, was written by David king of Israel, when under the teachings of the Holy Spirit. David unquestionably proved himself a mighty man of valour; and by the help of his God did he overcome troops of foes; indeed, as a warrior, he is surpassed by none. But still these words are not strictly applicable to David; though he slew many by the sword; yet we never hear that any of his unwounded enemies fell before him: and we find but one solitary instance on record, of a body of armed men falling to the ground, only on a single word spoken by their adversary. The instance to which we allude, was an event which occurred in the garden of Gethsemane, when a company of men went to apprehend Jesus. We find a band of Roman soldiers, armed as for war, (sent by the Chief Priest,) attended by their officers, and a large concourse of persons, who were also provided with weapons, lanterns, and torches, that they might secure Jesus, whom we see coming forth to meet them, unarmed, and accompanied only by the disciples. With all the dignity of conscious innocence, we hear him inquiring whom they seek; when told, Jesus of Nazareth, he mildly answered, _I am_;[68] but instead of instantly seizing their prey, they go backwards, and fall prostrate on the ground. Is this the conduct of Roman warriors? What was it which so soon relaxed the nerves, and damped the bravery of a soldiery, famed for their discipline and valour? It was not threats nor menaces; it was not promises nor bribes; nor was it the sight of a company more numerous than themselves. It was none of those causes which usually paralyze the exertions of soldiers. Surely then there was an almighty power accompanying the word spoken, for we find all this dismay and consternation was occasioned only at the simple word of Jesus. Then was that prophecy of Isaiah accomplished, who, when speaking of the Branch out of Jesse's Root, said, "He should smite the earth with the Rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips should he slay the wicked." Truly they had cause for dismay; for they were contending with none other than the glorious personage, the Great I AM, who appeared to Moses at the bush; and the same power which smote them to the earth, could, if he had pleased, deprive them of life. Surely this must be acknowledged to be one of the greatest miracles performed by Jesus in the days of his flesh, as it was produced by apparently the slightest exertion of his power. [68] _I am._ The reader will observe the word _He_ is written in italics, to denote that it was not in the original, but added by the translators. CHAPTER XXXVI. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed.--Psalm ii. 1, 2. The whole of this Psalm is descriptive of the Messiah, and we are not destitute of strong proofs to warrant our applying it to Jesus. We find persons of different denominations and rank in society, even kings, priests, scribes and pharisees, Jews and Gentiles, in league to persecute and destroy an innocent individual. Of the Jews we see Caiaphas the High Priest, at the head of the Sanhedrim, from day to day in consultation on the best and most effectual methods to secure and destroy the victim of their displeasure. Of the Gentile party are Herod and Pilate, deputy kings or governors under Cæsar, assisted by the Roman soldiers, seconding and consenting to the plans of the Jewish rulers and people. We see these men forget their national and personal animosities, to join in the scheme. Yea Herod and Pilate, although at enmity before, on this occasion lay aside their resentments, become friends, and act in unison. But why "do these heathens rage, and against whom do these kings of the earth set themselves," and wherefore all this consultation and contrivance? Is it to secure a powerful tyrant, the scourge of an oppressed nation? Is it to subdue an usurper who has arisen to trample on and overthrow the existing authorities of the state; or is it to bring to justice a wretch who has violated her laws, and by his crimes and enormities become the dread and fear of his race? No--but it is against the meek and lowly Jesus, who had never refused to pay tribute to whom tribute was due, who had never attempted to establish a kingdom amongst the princes of the earth; but when solicited to do so, had ever checked the proposition, as his kingdom was not of this world; he could challenge his bitterest enemies to prove against him any violation of the laws, either of Moses or Cæsar; nor did Jesus attempt to escape from them, but was daily to be found either in the temple, or about the city or its suburbs, attended by a handful of unarmed followers. There is one circumstance which deserves particular attention, as it tends to show the extreme warmth and rage of his persecutors. The night Jesus was apprehended, was the very night the Jews celebrated the passover: after which ordinance, the whole of the people were forbidden to go abroad, or leave their houses until the morning.[69] But so eager were these infuriated people to accomplish their plans, that in opposition to this Jewish command, they go out to seize Jesus, whom they take to the palace of the High Priest, where the scribes and the elders of the people also assemble, to contrive measures to get Jesus crucified. It appears more than probable that they sat in council the whole night, as we leave them late in the evening thus employed, and very early in the morning we find them still engaged on the same subject. So soon as it is day, they lead Jesus to the hall of Pilate. "But why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Against whom do the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together?" How sad their mistake, if they imagined they were only planning the destruction of a poor Jewish carpenter's son, when, in fact, their schemes were against the Lord, and against his anointed. It was not from any lack of evidence, that they denied Jesus to be the Christ of God. The language he used on another occasion, is strictly applicable to them, and to all those who do not acknowledge Jesus as the God Messiah. "Many good works have I showed you from the Father; for which of those works do you stone me? if I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him." The plea of ignorance when the means of better information are in our power, will only increase our condemnation. We may all peruse the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, for "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." [69] Exodus xii. 22. CHAPTER XXXVII. False witnesses did rise up: they laid to my charge things that I knew not.--Psalm xxxv. 11. Where shall we find one more unjustly accused, than Jesus. They falsely declare him to be a blasphemer and seducer of the people. His enemies, in order to give an appearance of justice to their proceedings, (for they were determined to destroy him) proceeded to call witnesses against him; a mock trial ensues before Caiaphas the High Priest; but, though the witnesses are perjured, their testimony agrees not together. They indeed _accuse_ him of having threatened to destroy their temple and build it again in three days; but they can _prove_ nothing. It is true, that Jesus, when speaking of his death and resurrection, said, destroy _this_ temple, and after three days I will raise it up again. But this he spake of his body, of which their temple was a type.[70] It was the honoured spot, in which the Lord met with and blessed his people, and the body of Jesus was honoured as the dwelling place or temple of the Lord of Glory. God did indeed dwell in an house of clay which, agreeably to his own prediction, was laid low, even to the ground, and, after three days, he raised it up again, without human aid or art. These words are made the subject of their accusation; but, the charge is so childish and ridiculous, that it deserves to be treated with contempt. It is a little extraordinary, that they did not bring against him the prophecy he had delivered of the utter ruin which, before that generation should have passed away, he had declared the Romans would bring upon their devoted city and temple. But they cautiously refrain from speaking on that subject, and proceed to accuse him of blasphemy, but here again they can prove nothing. Caiaphas artfully enough, adjures the condemned, by the living God, to tell him plainly, if he were the Christ, the Son of God. To which question Jesus replies, by boldly declaring his Godhead,[71] and saying, that hereafter they should see him coming in the clouds of Heaven, as their Judge. The High Priest then rent his mantle, and they pronounced him worthy of death. By the law of Moses, persons guilty of blasphemy, were to be stoned to death. The Jews being a conquered people, had not the power to inflict so severe a punishment, they, therefore, take Jesus before the Roman Governor, and vehemently accuse him of perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying, that, he himself was Christ a King, and that he stirred up the people, beginning from Galilee to Jerusalem. But how false and unjust the accusation. Cæsar, throughout his vast dominions, had not a more honourable or obedient subject, nor one who by example or precept, better taught the true interest of the king and nation. He, indeed, preached from Galilee to Jerusalem, but not with words of sedition and strife, for he stirred up the people to practise such a refined and exalted system of ethics, that those of the far-famed heathen moralists sink into insignificance and contempt, when their sentiments are compared with the doctrines of morality as taught by Jesus and his Apostles.--"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, and whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." He taught the people throughout all Jewry, to "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He even wrought a miracle to furnish the means of paying his own and disciples' tribute money. But we cannot find an instance of his working a miracle to supply his own necessities, although so poor that he had not where to lay his head. He ever taught the Jewish nation and his Apostles, and through them the world, to render unto all men their due, whether of tribute, custom, or honour. He enjoined them to submit themselves to the Powers that be, and, to obey the laws of their Sovereigns and civil Magistrates so far as they might be in unison with the commands of God. Although he spoke so freely of the duties of the subject, he treated the great ones of the earth as men accountable to God, for the talents entrusted to their charge. His Apostles, taught by their divine Lord and Master, neither flattered the vices, nor courted the favours of kings or nobles, for they were no sycophants. Although the doctrine of Jesus was so pure and Godlike, and his life displayed every virtue, (for in his spirit there was no guile) and, is the only one amongst Adam's race, who was free from sin, yet against him was the tongue of the slanderer busy, and calumny dared to raise her voice. Yea "false witnesses did rise up and lay to his charge things that he knew not." [70] John ii. 19-21. [71] Col. ii. 9. CHAPTER XXXVIII. But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus, I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. Psalm xxxviii. 13, 14. Does not the perusal of these words lead the mind back to the palace of Caiaphas, and the hall of Pilate, when Jesus appeared there, surrounded by his blood-thirsty persecutors, who, in the bitterness of their malice, vehemently and unjustly accuse him of crimes his soul abhorred. But, the meek and lowly Jesus heard their falsehoods with silent composure. Their calumnies aroused no angry passions in his spotless soul. Though conscious of the injustice of their proceedings, he made no remonstrance. Even Pilate marvelled at his silence, and exclaimed, hearest thou not how many things these witness against thee? But Jesus answered not a word. He was "as a deaf man who heard not, or as one that is dumb so he opened not his mouth." Yet his silence was not the effect of sullenness, and, though innocent of crimes alleged against him, he deigned not to vindicate his character, nor did his noble spirit stoop to load with reproach even his bitterest enemies. "Though reviled, he reviled not again; in his mouth there were no reproofs." Jesus, aware of the situation in which he stood as the sinner's surety, looked beyond the bar of Pilate, to the Tribunal of God's Justice: for though no sin was _in_ him, yet, by imputation, he was loaded _with_ sin.[72] Though he was unjustly condemned to death by the Roman Governor, he viewed the sentence gone forth against him in the Court of Heaven, and, seeing the hand of the Lord in this matter, he was dumb, and opened not his mouth, "because thou, O God, didst it." This is discovered in the reply he made to Pilate's imperious question, "Knowest thou not, that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" Jesus answered, "thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." Although innocent of the crimes preferred against him, at Pilate's bar, yet, Jesus knew that he stood charged before God, with the imputed mass of his people's sins for which he had made himself responsible. Is it not to this, we must attribute the otherwise extraordinary silence Jesus manifested at the injustice of Pilate's sentence? [72] Isaiah liii. 6. CHAPTER XXXIX. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off.--Psalm xxxviii. 11. How forcible and just the remark of the wisest of men, "that every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts." But, in the day of adversity, how few are treated with kindness and attention by their former acquaintance and professed friends. At one time we see five thousand, and at another four thousand persons, partaking of the bounty of Jesus. Afterwards we behold a multitude following him; but, he who knew their motives declared it was "for the sake of the loaves and fishes." When he was so actively engaged in healing the sick and diseased, from all parts they crowd around, and call him Lord and Master; but, no sooner does the black cloud of adversity lower over the head of this Benefactor of our race, than the cringing throng depart; even his immediate disciples, who had shared his friendship, forsook him, and fled at the very first appearance of danger. So precipitate were they that they stayed not to inquire or consider if mischief was likely to befal them, by their adherence to their Master. Only anxious for their own safety, they leave him alone and unprotected, to struggle with dangers and difficulties. But one disciple is found in the hall of Judgment, and even he, with oaths and curses, denies any knowledge of the despised Nazarene. But, were none found to espouse his cause? Did not the recipients of his bounty appear for his rescue? Were not those tongues whose powers of articulation Jesus had restored, heard to plead for mercy? Did not those eyes he had blessed with vision, with tears supplicate compassion for their benefactor? Were not those withered arms he had healed, upraised to shield from insult the giver of their strength? Did not those he had delivered from the power of the grave, boldly shed their hearts' blood to rescue, from the arm of cruelty and oppression, the restorer of their life? No! Silent as the grave was every tongue in his defence; no advocate was heard to plead his cause; no friendly arm was outstretched to succour or support the oppressed Saviour; "Lover and friends stood aloof from his sore, and his kinsmen stood afar off." CHAPTER XL. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.--Isaiah l. 6. For the fulfilment of this prophecy, we have only to go back to the hall Prætorium, where we behold the blessed Jesus surrounded by a band of Roman soldiers, who treat him with every species of indignity. Not content with having scourged him, (a punishment considered too ignoble to be inflicted on a free born Roman)[73] they proceed to insult his Kingly Office. The purple robe, the reedy sceptre, the crown of thorns, the bended knee, and the salutation, "Hail, King of the Jews," are all used in mockery. What cruelty, mixed with insult, was here; had sport only been intended, a crown of reeds had sufficed. But no, it must be a crown of thorns, and that not gently placed on his head, but its sharp points were forcibly struck in. His Prophetical Office is next profaned, by blindfolding and smiting him on the face, crying, prophesy who it was that smote thee. They even dare to spit in his face, which by every people is considered the greatest indignity that can be offered, but especially so by the Jewish nation, amongst whom, if a father did but spit in his daughter's face, she was treated as unclean seven days.[74] The Romans were accustomed to present a civic crown, composed of oak leaves, to him who had saved the life of a fellow citizen, but when Jesus literally laid down his life to save from everlasting death a countless multitude, whom no man can number, of the citizens of earth, no such civic honours were awarded him. When our first parents apostatized from God, the earth was cursed for their sake, and made to bring forth briars and thorns, but Jesus only, of Adam's race, was ever crowned with thorns. What a spectacle for the angels of light to witness! The God of glory insulted and mocked by worms of the earth! To behold that sacred face, before which they were wont to bow with adoration and love, covered with shame and spitting. But the season of sorrow and of suffering is now past, and Jesus, the Son of the Most High, is receiving the just reward of his sufferings and humiliation.[75] That head, torn and lacerated by the rugged thorn, is now adorned with many crowns, and that face, once obscured by shame and spitting, now shines with refulgent brightness. [73] Romans xvi. 37. [74] Numbers xii. 14. [75] Isaiah xl. 10. CHAPTER XLI. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.--Isaiah liii. 3. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.--Isaiah xlix. 7. Here again, we are called upon, to behold Jesus, exposed to shame, reproach, and sorrow. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, yet the world knew him not." "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Though his visit was an errand of mercy, yet he was treated as the offscouring of all things. "He was despised and rejected of men, himself a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." "Away with him; crucify him," was the public cry. And to Pilate's question, whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus? they all, as with one voice, instantly exclaim, "not this man, but Barabbas." Thus, he who had been cast into prison for sedition and murder, was released, and Jesus rejected. Yet it was "Jehovah's Holy One, the Redeemer of Israel, the Mighty God of Jacob, whom man despised, whom the nation abhorred, who was as a servant to Rulers." We may shudder at the indignities offered to the Son of God when he tabernacled on earth, and the thought may cross the mind, had I been present, I would not have joined in opposing and insulting the meek and lowly Jesus. Good, my friend, but allow me affectionately to remind you, that if you are still at enmity to God by wicked works; if you have not submitted your heart unreservedly to the Lord, nor accepted his free offers of pardon and reconciliation, through the blood and righteousness of Jesus; if you are not simply resting by faith on the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, as the only propitiation for sin, and trusting solely to his perfect, yet imputed, righteousness, as the ground of your acceptance with God, you are, to all intents and purposes, acting the like part, or even worse, than did the ancient rejecters of Jesus, for you despise and reject the Redeemer of Israel, amidst the full blaze of gospel light. "If he that despised Moses' law, died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" We know him that hath said, "Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord."[76] [76] Heb. x. 28-30. But let us not forsake our own mercies, nor longer despise and reject the Christ of God, nor lightly esteem that salvation, to purchase which, he was content to suffer ignominy and sorrow. Let us bow with humility and reverence "before the Redeemer of Israel." Let us bend the willing knee in adoration and gratitude before Jehovah's Holy One, of whom thus saith the Lord, "Kings shall see and arise; Princes also shall worship before him; the Gentiles shall come to his light, and Kings to the brightness of his rising." "Nations, the learned and the rude," shall bow before the Mighty One of Jacob, fall prostrate to his all conquering grace, and call the Redeemer blessed. CHAPTER XLII. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.--Psalm xxii. 6. Do we not here instantly recognise the language of the despised Nazarene? And is not the whole Psalm a striking description of his unparalleled sufferings, of his unprecedented degradation and humility? He whose will formed the universal law of nature; he who marshalled the stars, and called them all by name; who bid the planets roll, and the sun to shine; who gave the orb of day his splendid rays, and lent the moon her silvery light; he whose word the congregated waters of the ocean felt and owned, when he said, "hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed"--he who shared the throne of Deity,[77] and received the adorations of glorified saints, of Cherubim and Seraphim, and before whose footstool even Gabriel bowed and worshipped.[78] He whose right it was to reign in Heaven, condescended to visit this, his distant kingdom, and tabernacle here for a season in the garb of humanity. Surely, if the Lord of Heaven and Earth deigned, for great and wise purposes, to enter this lower world, it was undoubtedly his just right to have appeared in all the majesty and splendour becoming his rank, and thus to have displayed himself as the glorious God. Was it not a condescension in the second person of the glorious Trinity to assume the character and office of Mediator? But, how unspeakably great his condescension in taking our nature into union with his Divine Person, even if it had always retained the splendours exhibited to the three disciples on the mount of transfiguration. Is there not just reason to believe the human nature to which Deity was united, as far exceeded in its native powers and faculties the rest of mankind[79]; as that the intellectual powers of the justly celebrated Newton exceeded the mental capacities of an idiot? We behold the God-man, Christ Jesus, voluntarily waiving his just claim to glory, and appearing, as the Prophet described, "without form or comeliness;" for in the eyes of those who saw him "there was no beauty that they should desire him." He was exposed to every species of scorn and contempt, his name a reproach, himself an outcast, the sport and ridicule of the Jewish nation. We discover Jesus, as the surety of man, cheerfully lay aside for a season all his visible and personal glory[80], to recompense the injury God's manifested glory had sustained by the creature's sin. And as Adam the creature, sinned in aspiring to be as God[81], so Christ, the Son of God, in making restitution, condescended to assume the creature. The satisfaction of Jesus did not consist merely in his obedience and sufferings, but also in his abasement and humiliation. He emptied himself, as it were, of all personal glory[82] to honour God, who, in the person of God the Father, covenanted to maintain and demand the honour and dignity due to Godhead.[83] The apostasy and disobedience of man had reflected dishonour on God, therefore Jesus submitted to shame and reproach, and to have his personal glory debased to make reparation. The lower he humbled himself, the greater honour did he reflect upon God, and the greater was the display of his love to man. When we consider the character of him with whom it is no "robbery to be equal with God," and contrast the true dignity of his person, with his appearance and reception on earth, we are overwhelmed at the extent of his zeal for his Father's honour, and his love for the fallen race of Adam, which prompted him to descend from the heights of glory and blessedness to take the lowest rank, and most humbled situation[84], in society, to raise and exalt his enemies to a participation and share in the glories of his Heavenly Kingdom. Surely "this was compassion like a God." [77] Psalm cx. 1. Zech. xiii. 7. [78] Heb. i. 6. [79] John vii. 46. [80] John xvii. 5. [81] Gen. iii. 5. [82] Phil. ii. 7. [83] Matt. v. 18. [84] Luke xxii. 27. CHAPTER XLIII. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.--Isaiah liii. 7. It is scarcely possible not to see that it is Jesus who is here held forth to our view. Who so oppressed and afflicted as he? Who so patient under insult and tyrannical cruelty? Who so silent under the voice of calumny? What lamb so patient under the hand of the destroyer? He did not resist, he did not oppose; yea, he did not even attempt to vindicate his conduct; but, with meekness, gentleness, and cheerfulness did he hear, bear, and suffer, all that malice could devise, or cruelty inflict. Although he bore their unjust treatment without murmuring, yet his was not the tame submission of one insensible of wrong, or incapable of resistance.[85] [85] Matthew xxvi. 53. Under the law, the lamb intended as a sacrifice was first taken to the door of the tabernacle, that the priest might have any opportunity to discover if it was free from blemish;[86] and Jesus the Lamb of God was not offered as a sacrifice without being first brought bound before the High Priest. But he, blinded by prejudice and passion, neglected to perform this part of his office. Yet this spotless lamb was not led forth for slaughter, before his purity had been attested; and, though the Priest refused to do it, Herod and Pilate gave their testimony to the fact, that in him they could find no fault. He was perfectly free from spot or blemish. He alone is the Lamb whose sacrifice can benefit either Jew or Gentile. It would be easy to shew, that all other sacrifices were but typical of this Lamb, viewed as slain from the foundation of the world; but, as it is more connected with type than prophecy, it would be improper here. [86] Leviticus ix. 3. 5. CHAPTER XLIV. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken.--Isaiah liii. 8. Here the Prophet presents us with another sketch, which so exactly corresponds with many features in the sufferings of Jesus, that we cannot well mistake, if we consider him as the person intended. What supinness do we behold in the cause of truth, how faint are the exertions to promote the Glory of God, to whom are we indebted for all spiritual and temporal blessings. Surely, the disciples of Christ, in every age, must blush to compare their want of zeal for their Master's Glory, with the ardour and unwearied perseverance displayed by the adversaries of the Lord. What exertion and determination of purpose, is discoverable in the persecutors of Jesus. If they cannot accomplish their object in one way, they attempt it in another. If Annas or Caiaphas have not the power (Judea being under the Roman yoke) to execute Jesus, his enemies, nothing daunted, try Pilate and Herod, from whose tribunal, the innocent sufferer is again conveyed back to the Judgment Hall of Pilate, and eventually to Calvary. Thus was the blessed Jesus led bound by his insulting persecutors, from place to place, and compelled to walk many a wearisome mile, surrounded by an incensed rabble, who thirsted for his blood. He was, indeed, taken from prison and from judgment, but, who shall declare his generation. We may trace his journeys and count the number of his years on earth; but, we cannot name the period of time, when he first began his existence; for he existed as God, from everlasting to everlasting.[87] We hear the Jews saying "As for this fellow, we know not whence he is." As man, we see him cut off out of the land of the living. And the Prophets and Apostles, all join in stating, that it was "for the transgressions of his people, he was stricken." They again and again repeat the same sentiment. We are not left with a solitary proof or two, on a subject of so much importance; but it is written as with a sunbeam, throughout the whole canon of scripture. We should never view the sufferings of Jesus, but in connexion with the precious truth, that it was "for the transgression of his people he was stricken." [87] Romans xix. 5. Hebrews xiii. 8. CHAPTER XLV. For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.--Psalm xxii. 16. We cannot with any degree of consistency, apply these words to David. It is true he was often surrounded by foes, and encompassed by adversaries; but, never were his sorrows and sufferings of the kind here described. By the spirit of Prophecy, he spoke of the sufferings of Jesus, and to him alone can we with truth apply these words, or indeed, the whole Psalm. We see Jesus surrounded by men, who, for their ungovernable rage, are not unaptly compared to dogs; and the assemblies before whom he was brought, proved by their conduct towards him, that they were unjust Rulers. What they called the Hall of Judgment, was, in this case, the seat of injustice and oppression. On every side, did the assemblies of the wicked enclose him; yea, they crucified him, by which act they pierced his hands and his feet. Crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment, but one used by the Romans, and they considered it so disgraceful that it was not allowed to be executed on a Roman, however heinous his crimes. It was only slaves, and persons belonging to the conquered territories of the Roman Government, who were sentenced to a death alike ignominious,[88] painful, and lingering. It was shameful, as the condemned always suffered naked; it was extremely painful, for they placed the sufferer on the cross when on the ground, the feet and outstretched arms, were then nailed to the wood, which being upraised, and one end fixed in a hole in the ground, the sudden jirk occasioned the most excruciating pains to the whole body. And when we consider that the nails were driven through the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, the most nervous parts of the body, the mind sickens at the thought, and is unwilling to dwell longer on so distressing an object; humanity sends forth a wish that death may speedily relieve the sufferer. But, as no wound is inflicted on any part of the body absolutely necessary to existence, the unfortunate sufferer often lingers many an hour in this extreme agony, before the powers of nature are exhausted and death closes the scene. [88] Hebrews xii. 2. This is but a faint outline of the sufferings of crucifixion, to which the Priests and Rulers sentenced the blessed Jesus, whom we see going forth to the place of execution, carrying his own cross, and fainting beneath the load. His unfeeling persecutors, fearing, lest he should expire by the road, and thus disappoint them in their cruel design, lay hold of a Cyrenian, named Simon, whom they compel to bear the cross to Calvary, a spot, rendered sacred to memory by the sufferings of Jesus, who humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross. Yes, he who could command a legion of angels to his rescue, here submitted to a painful and ignominious death. Do we hear the Prophet inquire "Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-vat?" Jesus replies, I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me; and "I looked and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore, mine own arm brought salvation." Whenever we look to the cross of Jesus, we should eye him as "the surety of his people," as the "just suffering for the unjust, to bring sinners unto God." It was for them he wept, bled, groaned, agonized, and died. But while Christ crucified is to the "Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, it is unto them that are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, "suffered without the gate." "Let us therefore go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." Jesus suffered a painful, shameful, and ignominious death, to deliver his people from the bitter pains of eternal death. His crucifixion is the procuring cause of their salvation; for he died that they might live. Ought we not to admire and adore the wisdom of our God, who could cause such invaluable good to spring out of what, distinctly considered, was an act of such injustice and cruelty. We see the persecutors of Jesus full of fury and indignation, executing their cruelties on the innocent object of their abhorrence. But, at the same time, we discover, that by their instrumentality, the designs of God are accomplished. Not that their crime is in the least degree lessened. No, the hatred, malice, envy, injustice, rage, and cruelty, was all their own act and deed, and the sin and guilt, consequent on the foul transgression, is with justice laid to their charge. The moral evil of the act, is in nowise diminished by the Lord's overruling it to accomplish his purposes and making it minister to his glory. He can make "the wrath of man praise him, but the remainder of that wrath he will restrain." CHAPTER XLVI. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?--Psalm xxii. 1. If we would know whose language this is, we must by faith ascend the hill of Calvary; there, taking our stand at the foot of the cross of Jesus, we hear him utter the dolorous cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." We do not find a word of complaint of the pains and sufferings of his mangled body escape his lips. They are borne in patient silence, the cruelties inflicted by the puny arm of flesh, cannot extort a groan or a murmur from the holy sufferer. This mournful exclamation, was not occasioned by the agonies of his body. He was not incapable of feeling them in their highest extent, (for his human nature was left to its infirmities, that he might fully suffer) but he was so entirely swallowed up with the weight of his Father's wrath; that it overwhelmed the sense of bodily pain. Here again we are constrained to eye Jesus in the character of a surety. He had become a surety for rebel man, and he truly smarted for it. He felt the awful extent of the tremendous debt he had engaged to cancel, he found the wrath of God "as an overwhelming flood," as "deep waters in which there was no standing." At that soul-appalling season, the phials of divine vengeance were poured out, and he drank of the cup of trembling from the hand of the Lord; not a sip merely, but he drank of it to the very dregs. He felt by bitter experience that God's wrath is a consuming fire; for by it, his "heart was melted like wax, in the midst of his body." The sorrows of his soul, were occasioned by the sins of the world imputed to, and charged upon, him, and for which he then endured the wrath of God. Yes, in the six hours Jesus hung upon the cross, he had to struggle with the sorrows of death and with the fierce anger of God; he was forsaken by his Father, and suffered his divine wrath, which indeed constitutes the tremendous curse. If the thought should arise in the mind, how that Infinite Being who is emphatically described as a God of Love, could find in his heart to use such severity toward him, whom he styles "his only-begotten, well-beloved Son, he in whom the Father is always well pleased," it should be remembered, that God sustains two relations towards Christ; the love of a Father to him as a Son, and the claim of a Judge toward him as a surety. Although God never expressed so much anger toward Christ,[89] as when he hung upon the cross, yet in fact, he was never so well pleased with him as then.[90] Yea, he was more pleased with him, than he had been displeased by all the sins that creatures have committed or can commit. It is true, mercy is God's delight, but justice is his sceptre, whereby he rules, governs, and judges the world. His attribute of wisdom, gives to both their fullest demonstration and accomplishment. The plan of reconciliation, the scheme of redemption, by Jesus; is God's masterpiece: in which all his attributes meet, and harmonise.[91] If we would know the abhorrence God bears toward sin, then we must look at the cross of Jesus. There it is God has exhibited the greatest manifestation of his hatred toward it, by his treatment of him who became the sinner's surety. The drowning of the old world, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, together with the eternal punishment of the miserable inhabitants of the bottomless pit; never can display God's detestation of sin so forcibly, as the astonishing events which once transpired at Gethsemane and Calvary. If Jesus could not endure to be deprived of the light of God's countenance for a few short hours; then how wretched the state of those who are banished his presence for ever! Jesus well knew the blessedness of God's favour; he could bear with composure, the utmost torments that wanton cruelty could inflict; but he could not behold in silence, the angry countenance of his Father, or endure to be deprived of the refreshing presence of the Lord. Does not this display the love and compassion of our Jesus, in a most endearing point of view, when we behold him voluntarily submitting, not only to corporeal punishment, but also to the curse and wrath of God for us, and for our salvation? [89] Zechariah xiii. 7. [90] John x. 17. [91] Psalm lxxxv. 10. CHAPTER XLVII. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.--Zechariah xiii. 7. This verse, at the first reading, may appear involved in difficulty, but a little attention will enable us to discover to whom it refers. We hear a solemn call for a sword to awake. What sword? Surely it can be none other than the sword of divine justice, which had so long delayed to execute the punishment due to the violators of God's righteous law. But against whom is it directed? Against fallen and rebellious man? No, but against "my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts." The next interesting question which arises, is, Who is this Shepherd? We answer, Jesus. In the Old Testament, the Messiah is often discovered to us, in the character of a shepherd, and in the New, we find every description fully realised in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the true Shepherd of Israel. But why is the sword called upon to awake against him? This may require a little history, but is easily answered from the records of divine truth. Mankind in the person of Adam their federal head, and since, each individual, distinctively, has broken God's righteous law, not only the decalogue delivered to Moses, but the law of nature; man owing all to his bountiful Creator and Preserver, was, in point of common justice, bound to render to his Lord the tribute of his love and gratitude. But who, amongst the human race, can venture to stand forth, and appealing to Omniscience itself, affirm, that he has "loved the Lord his God, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; and his neighbour as himself?" No, it is in vain to endeavour to conceal a truth God has declared so publicly; that by "the deeds of the law, no flesh living shall be justified." Man having rendered himself amenable to God's holy law, stands exposed to all its awful consequences. But "be astonished, O heavens, and wonder, O earth," to behold this great, this good shepherd, stand forth as the voluntary surety of his flock, engaging to take all their guilt, and its punishment, upon himself. Thus becoming responsible, for all their mighty debt, having placed himself in their law room, the sword of divine justice was called upon to execute its tremendous punishment, (the punishment due to the whole flock) on the person of their surety shepherd. We would next direct our attention to the words, "The man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts:" and trace their application to Jesus. For proofs of his humanity, see him a babe at Bethlehem; view him labouring in the occupation of a carpenter; trace the innumerable instances given in the records of the Evangelists, of his humanity; behold him exposed to all the infirmities of our nature; see him enduring hunger, thirst, weariness, reproach, privations, pain, sorrow, and suffering; yes, as man he wept, groaned, bled, agonised, and died. As God, behold him giving sight to the blind, making the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk; cleansing the lepers, healing the sick, and all by a word or touch; yea, at his command, the dead again sprang into life, and devils themselves fled, or cried out for mercy at his approach. When he issued his mandate, be it observed, there was no exertion of physical power; and if he ever used outward means, they were such as carried conviction to the mind of every beholder, that the cure was not the effect of their application, but an exercise of his power, who is truly "fellow to the Lord of Hosts." All the essential attributes of God belong to Jesus: mark his omniscience in the instance of Nathaniel,[92] "when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." See him exercise his omnipotence at the lakes of Tiberias and Gennesaret, in the two miraculous draughts of fish; the one before, the other after his resurrection. In directing the fish to bring the piece of money; in walking on the sea: and the instances also, of his feeding five thousand persons from five loaves, and seven thousand from four loaves and a few small fishes, and it would appear that the fragments left, exceeded the slender stock at the commencement of the repast. Behold his omnipresence in the case of Lazarus, whom he declared to be dead although none brought the tidings. Indeed the instances are numberless, in which the unprejudiced mind may discover the deity of Jesus. It was often manifested in his declaring the thoughts and motives, not only of his immediate disciples, but of many who, under the guise of friendship, were secretly endeavouring to draw from his lips something which might give them a plea for seizing his person. Yes, Jesus discovered himself to be the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, heart-searching God. Although his humanity and deity are so closely united, yet they are easily to be discovered. See the humanity sleeping, but behold the God arising and rebuking the tempestuous winds and sea, which knew his voice and instantly obeyed. Above all, behold his body carried from the cross to the sepulchre, after having paid a debt, which the whole human race, through the countless ages of eternity, were unable to discharge: but it was fully cancelled by the man who is "fellow to the Lord of Hosts," and as such see him bursting the bars of death asunder, and arising, the triumphant Conqueror of death, hell, and the grave. [92] John i. 47-50. The latter clause of this prophecy was fulfilled, when Jesus was seized and hurried before his unjust judges; then the shepherd was smitten, and the sheep scattered, as those who have no keeper; for all his disciples forsook him, and fled. The mighty conflict is now past; for the sword of divine justice, which had long slumbered, awoke; and, guided by the arm of Omnipotence, was dipped in the heart's blood of Israel's chief Shepherd: the man who is "fellow to the Lord of Hosts." CHAPTER XLVIII. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.--Psalm xxii. 18. The circumstances attending the disposal of the garments of the crucified Jesus, are in themselves trifling and insignificant, but when viewed in connexion with this prophecy, it is no longer a matter of little importance. It is equally necessary that the small, as well as the great and conspicuous parts of prophecy should be fulfilled; and it is highly satisfactory to trace, amid the more minute events connected with the life and death of Jesus, so striking a correspondence with the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. In fact, if these were wanting, the whole, as an evidence, would be incomplete. How satisfactory is it to find, in this instance, the very raiment of Jesus become a witness for the truth that he is the Messiah. It was not the disciples, or friends of Jesus, who parted his garments among them, and cast lots upon his vesture: but it was the Roman soldiers, who, ignorant of the Jewish prophecies, could not be supposed to have divided the garments among them in that particular way, for the express purpose of fulfilling this prophecy; which might have been imagined, had it been the disciples instead of the soldiers. These men, alike ignorant and unconcerned about the fulfilment of prophecy, could not even be anxious to possess the garments of Jesus from their intrinsic worth; no, it was only the humble dress of a poor jew: nor were they led to attach any particular value to the clothes, from love to its late wearer, for whom they felt neither affection or respect. It is probable they were severally desirous to possess some part of the apparel, that they might exhibit it as a trophy that they shared in the destruction of the King of the Jews. CHAPTER XLIX. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.--Psalm lxix. 21. It was not unfrequent that cordials or opiates were given the unhappy objects sentenced to crucifixion, to blunt the severity of their agonies, and shorten the period of their sufferings. But, at the crucifixion of Jesus, no friendly hand presented the soothing draught. When faint from loss of blood, and parched by burning fever occasioned by excessive pain, the dying sufferer exclaimed "I thirst;" a sponge is conveyed on a reed to his parched lips; but, alas! it is absorbed in a liquid too nauseous, even for one in his famished state, to drink. Unfeeling wretches! thus to sport with the sufferings of such a distressed object; thus to mock the wishes of one in the last agonies of death! When the son of Jesse, in the cave of Adullam, longed, and said, "O that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate," three of the mightiest heroes in his valiant little band broke through the opposing ranks of the Philistine's army, to fetch the wished-for draught; but when the Son of God required the refreshment of a little water; when his tongue, from very thirst, clave to the roof of his mouth, and his strength was dried up as a potsherd, he was insulted with a mixture of vinegar and gall. But little did the thoughtless multitudes who surrounded the cross of Jesus imagine, that he was then drinking to the very dregs, the wormwood, and the gall, of Jehovah's wrath, which was far more bitter to his soul, than their offensive present to his taste. He was then redeeming his church from hell, that black abode of wo, whose wretched inhabitants are deprived of a drop of water, to assuage their tormenting thirst: and the horrors of the crucifixion were greatly augmented by the darkness that shrouded the scene, when the meridian sun was enveloped in the gloom of night. Blessed Jesus, though Lord of all, thou wast treated worse than earth's meanest slave. CHAPTER L. With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.--Psalm xxxv. 16. All they that see me, laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.--Psalm xxii. 7, 8. This prophecy is so exactly in accordance with the event, that one could readily believe the royal psalmist had stood on Calvary's mount, and literally recorded the insulting taunts and ironical reproaches used by the despisers of the suffering Jesus. The men, their actions, and the time, are exactly described, and even their insulting language noticed, with a minuteness that precludes a possibility of mistake. This disgraceful scene occurred at the passover; at that feast, when Israel was commanded to remember her Lord's mercies, in delivering her from Egyptian bondage; when he slew the strength of Egypt's land, even from the first-born of Pharoah that sat on the throne, to the first-born of the captive in the dungeon. At that solemn festival, did those merciless hypocrites discover (beneath the cloak of pharisaical sanctity) the rancorous enmity they cherished in their hearts towards virtue in its purest, loveliest form. But how void of every spark of magnanimity must be the wretch who can sport with the feelings of one writhing in all the agonies of death. How lost to all the kindlier feelings of our nature, thus to exult over suffering humanity. Surely the Chief Priests and scribes strangely forgot their station and their pride, when they could stoop to join the railing throng, and mingle their voice of mockery and insult with the Jewish rabble. How little did they intend to honour Jesus when they insultingly exclaimed, "he saved others, himself he cannot save." But we admit the fact, and glory in the truth. He indeed had then cured many a dire disease, and released some from the very jaws of death: and in those very hours of sorrow, he was saving "a countless multitude, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," who must inevitably have perished for ever, had he not been content to suffer for them. But though he saved others, himself he would not, yea, he could not, save. His honour was pledged in the council of peace; he must fulfil the covenants he had engaged to perform. God is not "a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent:" "hath he said, and shall he not do it?" or "hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" "Sing, O ye Heavens, for the Lord hath done it; and shout, ye lower parts of the earth, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel." CHAPTER LI. Therefore, will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.--Isaiah liii. 12. To whom but Jesus can we apply this. Do we not find him reckoned with Barabbas, a traitor and murderer, and were not two thieves crucified with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst? Thus we behold him numbered with the transgressors, and bearing the sin of many. All the Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, Martyrs, with the Church Militant, and the Church Triumphant, proclaim, as with one voice, his death as the expiatory sacrifice, his blood as the propitiation for the sins of his Church, and that he suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring sinners unto God. He died to redeem a countless multitude of the children of earth, who, freed from sin and sorrow, will for ever shout victory, through the blood of the Lamb. This is the great leading doctrine of the everlasting Gospel. This is the sum and substance of the Old and New Testaments. Thanks be unto God, for having given us line upon line, and precept upon precept, on this momentous article of the Christian Faith. We hear the blessed Jesus interceding for transgressors. Even when on the cross he was not unmindful of his priestly office, but amid all his personal sorrows and agonies, he did, as with his dying breath, send in a petition to the Heavenly Court, for the pardon of his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." This Great High Priest is now sitting at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens, where "He is able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by him; seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." The God-man Christ Jesus, is now exalted to high and distinguished honours, on account of his humiliation and sufferings, and his voluntarily pouring out his soul unto death.[93] He had power to lay down his life, and power to take it again, but no man had power to take it from him. He laid it down of himself. Therefore, God will "Divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong." The Man Jesus, now sits on the throne of Deity, and humanity participates in all the honours paid to the second Person in the Glorious Trinity. As he was openly put to shame on earth, is it not right that he should here also be publicly rewarded? Satan, who so long had reigned prince of this world, is now a conquered tyrant, his empire is weakened, for Jesus has spoiled the principalities and powers of darkness; and he will for one thousand years confine this destroyer of our race, a captive in the bottomless pit.[94] In that bright day of millennial glory, all shall know the Lord, and every tongue shall call our Emmanuel blessed; and he shall reign a triumphant King over earth's remotest bounds. [93] Ephesians i. 20-22. [94] Revelations xx. 2, 3. CHAPTER LII. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken.--Psalm xxxiv. 20. The soldiers (at the request of the Jews, and the command of Pilate) go forth to execute their last act of cruelty on Jesus and his companions, having broken the legs of the two malefactors, they approach the body of Jesus, but here they pause, hesitate, retire, and leave his bones unbroken. Whence this mark of respect, toward the object of their scorn and abhorrence? Why did not those voices, which a few hours before rent the air with cries of "Crucify him, crucify him," now urge the soldiers to commit the same act of violence on the body of the dead, though despised Nazarene. To what cause must we attribute this act of forbearance, on the part of the by-standers as well as soldiers? Surely, to none other than the over-ruling Providence of God. He who has the hearts of all men at his disposal, watched over the body of Jesus, and preserved it from that act of violence, "He kept all his bones, not one of them was broken." How exactly was the prophecy fulfilled! How striking a resemblance does the original bear to the portrait! The Lamb slain at the Passover, was intended to exhibit to ancient Israel a crucified Saviour. Of that typical Lamb, Jehovah expressly commanded, "A bone should not be broken." Though the whole of the flesh was to be consumed, yet not a bone was to be injured.[95] Does not that solemn Jewish sacrifice, point us to Jesus, the "Lamb of God, whose blood is able to cleanse from all sin;"[96] and applied by the Spirit, will "purge the conscience from dead works, to serve the living and true God." [95] Exodus xii. 46. [96] John i. 29. CHAPTER LIII. And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.--Zechariah xii. 10. One of the soldiers, with a spear, pierced the side of Jesus, and forthwith came thereout blood and water. "He that saw it bare record, and his record is true".[97] And we know that he saith true, that ye might believe, that it is Jesus of whom the scripture saith, they "Shall look on him whom they have pierced." There is another and higher use to be made of this circumstance. Simple as the fact at first sight may appear, yet it is the strongest proof of the death of Jesus. If only blood had issued from the wound, it would prove comparatively little. But, water was also seen to flow from the side; which was either the small quantity of water inclosed in the pericardium, in which the heart swims, or else the cruor was almost coagulated and separated from the serum. If it is to be attributed to the latter cause, it confirms what the evangelist relates; that Jesus had been some time dead. But, if we place it to the former, it is utterly impossible Jesus could have survived the wound, even if given in perfect health. In either case, it effectually proves his death. Not a reasonable doubt can remain to suppose he was taken alive from the cross. May the act of the soldier, (wanton and cruel as it certainly was,) convince the infidel, that Jesus was not taken from the cross before life was quite extinct; and may he be led to look on him "whom he has pierced, and mourn." Blessed Jesus, may we often meditate on those awful scenes, when the rugged thorn pierced thy sacred temples, the nails thy hands and feet, the spear thy side, and the wrath of God thy soul. And, while we eye thee as the just suffering for the unjust, may we learn to abhor sin, which is so hateful in the sight of a pure and Holy God, that the blood of his own well-beloved Son was shed ere it could be pardoned. Is not the view of a suffering Redeemer calculated to raise the Christian's confidence, even in seasons of the deepest affliction?[98] May he not fearlessly resign his spiritual and temporal concerns, his fondest hopes and most anxious cares, to the guidance and wisdom of him, who so loved him as to die for him? For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." [97] John xix. 34, 35. 1 John v. 8. [98] Romans viii. 32. CHAPTER LIV. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.--Isaiah l. 3. Isaiah, or, as he is generally called, the Evangelical Prophet, (from his writings referring more frequently to the person and offices of Christ, than those of the other prophets,) when speaking of his sufferings declares, that "The heavens shall become black as sackcloth of hair." This figurative description was realised at the crucifixion of Jesus. The sun at mid-day was eclipsed, darkness covered the land, from the sixth to the ninth hour, which, by our mode of computing time, was from twelve to three o'clock in the afternoon. The Jews begin their day at six o'clock in the morning. Perhaps it may be thought superstitious weakness, to imagine an eclipse portended some great event? We reply, _this_ was not the result of natural causes. It took place on the day the Jews killed the Passover, which festival they were commanded, and always did observe at the full of the moon;[99] therefore, it is evident, the moon's shadow could not _then_ fall on the sun, for then they were in opposition, or one hundred and eighty degrees apart; besides, a total eclipse of the sun never lasts ten minutes, yet, this was a total eclipse from the sixth to the ninth hour, so that darkness covered, at least the whole land of Judea, for three hours, which is contrary to the laws given by heaven's great architect, to these his works. This extraordinary eclipse is noticed in profane history; Dionysius, at Heliopolis, in Egypt, said of this darkness, "Aut Deus naturæ patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvitur."--Either the God of nature is suffering, or the machine of the world tumbling into ruin. It was a supernatural event, and designed to show, that when Jesus stood forth as the surety of his people, he felt all the dread punishment due to them. Man, by his rebellion, has not only forfeited all spiritual blessings; but to temporal mercies also he has no claim. When Jesus, as our Head and Representative, bore the curse due to our sins, he was deprived of the cheering rays of heaven's great luminary, which was but a faint resemblance of the withdrawing of the light of God's countenance.[100] Behold the awful effects of sin, although it was only _sin imputed_ to the Son of God. Yet, the lamp of day withdraws his shining, as if sickening at the sight. Unable to behold the astonishing event, he hides his head, and shrinks back, as if unwilling to shed his beams over a scene so tremendously awful. The event might also be designed to show the darkness of the Mosaic dispensation, which was then for ever to be done away. It was but a shadow of good things to come; but light and immortality are brought to light by the gospel. Jesus, the Son of Righteousness is arisen, with healing in his wings; and darkness, and its attendant superstition, shall flee away as the shadows upon the mountain's brow, on the appearance of the majesty of day in the rosy east. As the sun in the natural world is the source of light and heat, such is Jesus to the spiritual world; he is the Light of Life, and there is not a ray of hope or light to cheer the rugged path of sorrow, but what must emanate from this Fountain of Light; even amidst seasons of health and prosperity, all is darkness and gloom within, unless the soul is enlightened by his all-gladdening beams. [99] Exodus xii. 2. 6. 18. [100] Mark xv. 34. CHAPTER LV. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he hath done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.--Isaiah liii. 9. It is usual, amongst many nations, for the bodies of those who fall by the hand of the public executioner, not only to be denied the rites of burial, but to be exposed to marked contempt. Though Jesus made his grave with the wicked, yet it was also with the rich in his death. Crucified at Golgotha amidst two thieves, he shall receive an honourable burial. All the Evangelists have recorded the circumstances of his interment, and nobly distinguished the name of Joseph of Arimathea, for the marked respect with which he treated the body of the despised Nazarene. Timidity kept him from before publicly acknowledging his attachment to Jesus; yet it is remarked, though a member of the Sanhedrim he consented[101] not to the deed and counsel of those who condemned the Lord of life and glory. Fully aware of the contempt and scorn affixed to the followers of the crucified Jesus, his noble, disinterested spirit now led him resolutely to face it all; to rescue, if possible, the body from further abuse and dishonour. He went boldly unto Pilate, and begged the body. His request is granted, Pilate having ascertained from the centurion, that Jesus had been some time dead. Joseph is now joined by Nicodemus, (who at first came to Jesus by night,) and these two, high in rank and office, the one an honourable counsellor, the other a ruler of the Jews, are busily engaged in paying the last sad tribute of respect to the remains of their dear departed Lord. One having provided an hundred pounds weight of spices to embalm the body after the custom of the Jews, and the other supplying the fine linen, they proceed to deposit the body in the sacred chamber of the tomb. The receptacle of this mighty dead was not the royal mausoleum of Judah's kings, but a new sepulchre, hewn out of a rock, in Joseph of Arimathea's garden. There laid they Jesus, where never man before was laid. No funeral pomp or pageantry of state, that solemn mockery of wo, adorned his funeral procession. Though its attendants were few, yet the tears of affection and love bedewed his mangled body, and the voice of lamentation and sorrow reverberate through this solemn vault of death. How was the mighty fallen! That arm, then motionless in death, ne'er did a deed of violence; that tongue, whose universal law was kindness, was then silent as the grave; and that mouth, in which deceit ne'er found a place, was closed by the iron hand of death. Behold here "an Israelite indeed, in whose spirit was no guile." Surely the grave never before contained such a prisoner. Its triumphs were complete, when Jesus was brought into the dust of death. [101] Luke xxiii. 50, 51. CHAPTER LVI. The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.--Psalm lxxxix. 45. Blessed Jesus! we behold thee cut off in the prime of thy days, in the meridian of thy strength, and in the vigour of manhood. Thy body was not worn by disease, nor decrepit by age; but thy bones were full of marrow, and thy bow abode in strength, when, little more than thirty-three years old, thou didst cheerfully resign thy body to the cold arms of death! The periods of the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus, are very particularly marked by the sacred historians. His birth was in the year that Augustus Cæsar, Emperor of Rome, issued his decree for taxing the Jewish people; after which event, he reigned nearly fifteen years, and was succeeded by Tiberius, his adopted son. It was in the fifteenth year of his reign, that Jesus, who was then about thirty years of age, entered on his public ministry. By the Mosaic law, none were allowed to minister in the priest's office, until thirty, nor after fifty years old.[102] Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi, but Judah; yet, as the priesthood centred in him, it became him, when fulfilling all righteousness, to submit to this Jewish command. From the writings of the Apostle John, we can pretty clearly determine the public ministry of Jesus to have been three years and a half, that Evangelist having marked in the period four Passovers (annual Jewish festivals); one was celebrated not long after the baptism of Jesus, and two others are also recorded before the one at which Jesus was crucified; that memorable one when "the days of his youth were shortened, and he was covered with shame." A noble mind is far more sensible of shame, and feels it more acutely, than the body can any corporeal punishment, however severe. Yet Jesus, who possessed true nobility of spirit, was exposed to shame in all its varied forms. His companions were unlearned fishermen, publicans, and sinners; his character was vilified--he was accused of vices and crimes of the most odious nature, and his very name was a stigma of reproach. At his trial, he endured shameful indignities. The Jewish nation even preferred having a traitor and murderer restored to liberty, rather than Jesus. He was publicly scourged, spit upon, buffeted, and crucified as a malefactor. The only type of his crucifixion was the brazen serpent, and amidst all the irrational creation of God, the serpent only is pronounced accursed.[103] The circumstances attending the crucifixion, were of the most degrading and humiliating nature. Jesus suffered naked--his companions were two thieves. The spot was Golgotha, a place strewed with the unburied sculls of criminals. Nor were these things done in a corner, but at Jerusalem, the chief city of Jewry. The time chosen was the feast of the Passover, when all the Israelitish males[104] were wont to repair to the royal city, and thus became spectators of the shame and dishonour cast upon this despised man of Nazareth, "who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and is for ever set down at the right hand of the Majesty on High." [102] Numbers iv. 3. [103] Gen. iii. 14. John iii. 14. [104] Exod. xxiii. 17. Deut. xvi. 16. CHAPTER LVII. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.--Isaiah liii. 4, 5, 6. "I pray thee, of whom did the Prophet speak these words?" was the inquiry of an Eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, when reading this chapter. Philip replied by beginning at the same scripture, and preaching unto him Jesus. To him alone can we apply the whole chapter. In every part it bears so striking a resemblance, that it appears more like a history written by a contemporary, than the prediction of a Prophet who lived at least seven hundred years before the character described. These verses are more valuable than fine gold--they are the key of knowledge--they open to our view a work of immense wisdom and benefit--they make us acquainted with the counsel and plans of Jehovah.--By them, a circumstance in the moral government of God, which was before dark and mysterious, is now bright and attractive.--They shed a glorious light on the person of Jesus.--By them we understand why he who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," was treated with such contempt and cruelty. We no longer see this part of God's moral government, as "through a glass darkly." The veil which is cast around his designs is withdrawn, and the glorious scheme of redemption bursts forth to our astonished senses, sparkling with wisdom, justice, mercy, and love. By them, we are taught that Jesus suffered, not for any sin of his own, but for the sins of his people. The prophet is particular on this point. The life and conduct of Jesus proved him exempt from all the corrupt principles and evil passions of the children of men. He alone is free from imperfection, and his character forms the most perfect model of all that is lovely, amiable, and exalted. In him was no sin, and even the unjust judge who delivered him for crucifixion, was compelled to declare he could find nothing worthy of death against him; no, nor yet Herod, for he had sent Jesus to him. No doubt both Herod and Pilate examined his conduct with eagle-eyes, and gladly would have discovered, if possible, something which might give them a plea for condemning a man who so publicly declared himself the Messiah. The Jews had looked forward to his coming with much pleasure, for they considered he would deliver them from the Roman yoke, under which they then groaned. The slightest shadow of guilt would have been sufficient for the purpose of these partial Governors, and it deserves observation, that Jesus was brought before them on a charge of perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he was Christ, a King. But they can prove nothing against him, for the more his character is examined, the brighter it shines; and they are compelled to confess, "they can find nothing worthy of death against him." Pilate, from a clear conviction that Jesus was innocent, proposes to release him; but finding that he would draw on himself the malice and hatred of the priests, like a time-serving judge, he gave sentence as they desired, and in the same moment in which he declared he could find no fault in Jesus, did he deliver him over for crucifixion. Yet Pilate could not conceal the horrors of an accusing conscience; sensible of the black injustice of his conduct he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it." The people said, "his blood be on us, and on our children." In what court of judicature shall we find such another instance? We believe, in none. Never did any one suffer more unjustly than Jesus, if viewed as a private person; but these verses teach us to look upon him as the sinner's surety. Man, from his original corruption and actual transgression, is justly exposed to the condemnation of the law he has so much dishonoured. "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have forsaken the Lord's ways, and turned every one to his own ways." "We have all done that which we ought not to have done, and have left undone that which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us." We have no just plea why the sentence, "let the wicked be turned into hell, and all the nations who forget God," be not executed on us. We must lay our hand upon our mouth before the tribunal of God, who is an impartial and righteous Judge, for we justly deserve the curses of the broken law to fall on us. The Divine Being (be it spoken with reverence) cannot, without injustice to himself, and dishonour to his law, (which is holy, just, and good,) allow the guilty to go free. Man must suffer the punishment consequent on his offences, or God must lay aside his justice, which is impossible, for it is an attribute essential to his existence. The debtor must suffer, unless some one be found to discharge the debt for him. Die he, or justice must; unless for him Some other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. PARADISE LOST, b. iii. But where shall we find the man who can, by any means, "redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for his soul?" Nowhere; it is quite impossible for any mere man to deliver his own soul, and much more the soul of another. An angel, or all the mighty hosts of angels, cannot do it; they are the creatures of God's power, and consequently finite; and therefore cannot satisfy the justice of God, which is infinite. The mind of man could never have discovered a proper person. Human intellect is utterly unable to the task; it is incapable of soaring to such a height. But though man cannot find a surety, God has pointed one out, even Jesus, his own well-beloved son, who is the second person in the revealed order of the trinity; with him it is "no robbery to be equal with God;" for he is one with the Father, as touching his Godhead. Yet this great and glorious Personage voluntarily engaged to become the surety of his people; to expiate their guilt by suffering all the punishment due to them for sin.[105] In the fulness of time, this great head of his church left the joys of Heaven, and the praises of adoring saints and angels, to tabernacle on earth. Having veiled his glory beneath the human nature, which he took into union with his divine person, he came forth to accomplish the work he had, from the foundation of the world, covenanted to perform. As the surety, representative, and head of his people, he submitted to endure all the curses of the moral law they had broken. The Lord having accepted him in their place, and laid (by imputation) their iniquities on him, he also on him laid their punishment. Nor was it a mitigated punishment; he bore the whole weight of wo due to them. It is true, he did not go into hell, which was a part of the sentence denounced on guilty man; but he was not exempt from the buffeting of Satan. He was exposed to his malice in the garden; and when on the cross, he might be said to be in Satan's territories; for he is declared to be "the Prince of the power of the air," and having shot forth his most fiery darts, he appears to leave the scene of conflict like a triumphant conqueror, for his adversary is beheld breathless on the field of battle. Jesus needed not to descend into those abodes of wo to feel their sorrows, for he is heard to exclaim, that the pains of hell had got hold upon him. It is not the place, but the extent, and the kind of suffering, which constitutes misery; and Jesus felt it in a much greater degree, than even the miserable inhabitants of that wretched place, where hope never enters. They suffer for themselves as individuals, but he endured the weight of wo for a multitude so great, that no man can number them. Theirs are the sufferings of creatures, his was the sufferings of the infinite Creator; and this it is which gives such value, efficacy, and dignity, to all he did and suffered. His were the actions of one of Adam's race, for it was the children of earth who had rebelled, and whom he came to redeem; but what renders it beneficial to man, is that he is both God and man in one person. This union stamps a value upon his work: Jesus, by the dignity of his person, has made full satisfaction; yea, his sufferings have more than compensated for the indignity offered to God by sin. It has given a greater honour to God's holy law, than could have been done by the unsinning obedience of men and angels through time and eternity, for Jesus perfectly fulfilled all the commands of the moral law, and by that obedience he exalted, and made it honourable, and then suffered the penalty it denounced on the violators of its precepts. All his active and passive obedience was performed as the head of his people, and for their benefit. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." We must look beyond the Roman governors, soldiers, and the Jewish priests and people, to behold sin, as the great cause of all the buffetings, wounds, bruises, pains, and sorrows, of Jesus. This was the fruitful source of all his wo. Would you behold the justice of God? then look at the suffering Jesus, and remember that it was not _his own_, but _imputed_, guilt. Would you know the mercy of God, and see a display of his love to man? then look at Jesus. Let it sink deep into your heart, and may your soul be influenced by the truth, that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "For God can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." "He that believeth in him is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already; because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." "For there is none other name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we must be saved." "He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." In the work of redemption by Jesus, we behold "mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other." [105] John x. 18. CHAPTER LVIII. For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.--Psalm xvi. 9, 10. These words are not applicable to David, for after he had served his generation, he fell asleep, and his body, interred in the royal sepulchre of the kings of Judah, which was in the city of David, saw corruption. The sentence "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," has, for many a generation, been accomplished on Jesse's Royal Son. The remains of this mighty monarch cannot now be distinguished from those of earth's meanest slave. They are alike mingled in the dust of death, and must remain hid from the eye of man until the archangel's trump shall sound, and the command be given, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment. The hell (in Hebrew, scheol) here alluded to, cannot be that place of torment, prepared for the devil and his angels, from which a soul never did or will escape. When once consigned to that abode of wo, there is a great gulf fixed, even the unchangeable decree of Omnipotence; a barrier stronger than walls of brass, and cannot be surmounted, or destroyed.[106] The word here rendered hell, (in the Greek, hades,) is the same as the Jews, before the Babylonish captivity, used for the grave, and is the sense in which it must be here understood. This verse is prophetic of the resurrection of the Messiah; which doctrine is taught in many parts of the Old Testament, by type, figure, and prophecy; in the New, we behold it clearly confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. The circumstances attending this great event are repeatedly described, and the evidence clear and conclusive. The witnesses to this important fact are not few; both enemies and friends unite in giving their testimony to his death and resurrection. The soldiers having taken the dead body of Jesus from the cross, his friends deposit it in the tomb. We cannot but stop here, and admire the overruling hand of Providence in the more minute circumstances connected with the interment of the body of the Redeemer. The sepulchre was hewn out of the solid rock. No access could be gained to it but by one opening, on which a ponderous stone was placed, a seal set thereon, and the entrance strictly guarded by Roman soldiers. But wherefore all this care and attention over the dead body of one crucified at Golgotha? It is by order of the High Priest and Pharisees, who had requested Pilate to allow them to make the grave sure, as Jesus had declared he would rise again after three days. They, fully convinced of his death, and disbelieving his divinity, fear that the disciples should steal the dead body of their Master, and declare that he had risen; and thus the last error would be worse than the first. But we have cause to rejoice that they used so much caution, for it tends to establish the truth, and confirm the testimony, of the disciples. It fully proves the death and burial of Jesus, and that the body did not remain in the grave. On the first day of the week, certain women of the company hasted early to the sepulchre, to embalm, after the custom of the east, the body of their beloved Master; but lo, to their astonishment and grief, it is gone! They indeed see the place where the Lord had lain; for an angel, by an earthquake, had rolled away the stone; at whose appearance the keepers became as dead men; but to the women, filled with sorrow and surprise on not finding the body of their Lord, this heavenly messenger proclaimed the resurrection of that Jesus whom they sought. And as they run to tell the disciples, Jesus himself met them, saying, All hail! and they held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Some of the watch, also, went into the city, and told the Chief Priests all that was done; who, having assembled a council, give large sums of money to the soldiers to say, that the disciples came by night, and stole him away, whilst they slept. This report, though commonly believed amongst the Jews until this day, will not bear examination. The more we consider this tale, the clearer will the fact of the resurrection of Jesus appear. If the body was _indeed_ stolen, why are the soldiers allowed to go unpunished for their neglect, as they say it was stolen whilst they slept. We should not expect to find a Roman sentinel asleep at his post of duty, for their military discipline was the most severe in the world. Even if the soldiers had fallen asleep whilst watching the entrance of the sepulchre, it appears impossible for a number of persons to remove so ponderous a stone without considerable noise and bustle, or to pass among the guards without awaking some of them. But even allowing the body to have been gone whilst they slept, how could they possibly know, that it was the disciples who had taken it? But is it at all probable, that a few timid disciples, who had fled from their Master on his first apprehension, should now dare to go, in the face of a guard of Roman soldiers, justly famed for their courage, and attempt to steal, and much more to carry off, the body! Let it be observed, that though the disciples had hoped Jesus "had been he who would have redeemed Israel;" yet, when they saw him laid in the grave, all their hopes that he was the Messiah fled, for the minds of the disciples were strongly tainted by the Jewish prejudice, that the Messiah's would be a temporal kingdom. Their dreams of earthly splendour now vanished, and they were about to return to their occupations in common life; in fact, some had done so. Is it reasonable to imagine that the others would engage in a plan fraught with danger, for the sake of obtaining the body of one, in whom they began to imagine themselves deceived? Besides, what advantage could they hope to gain by such a scheme? What end was it designed to answer? They could not expect to keep the act concealed; and if discovered, they were fully convinced it would bring upon them the severest punishment. But if, as the soldiers proclaimed, the disciples did steal him away, why are these handful of fishermen allowed to retain possession? Why did not the Chief Priest, at the head of the Jewish Sanhedrim, supported by the Roman authority, instantly compel them to surrender the body? Why are not these men of Galilee brought to a judicial tribunal, examined, and openly punished, that the truth of the soldiers' tale may bear even the _appearance of_ fact? Surely this neglect is most extraordinary in men who had shown such vigilant care over the body when in the tomb. The more we examine the conduct of the parties, the more inconsistent does the Jewish tale appear. It is evident, the disciples were as ignorant as the rest of the nation, as to what the resurrection from the dead should mean. Jesus had again and again preached the doctrine, yet they were at the first as backward as his enemies to believe the fact, and discovered much unbelief on the first tidings of the great event. The incredulity of all of them is a strong presumption, that as they did not expect Jesus to rise from the grave, so neither did they steal the body, and falsely proclaim their Master risen. We have a still further confirmation of the fact from the events that followed. In the interval of forty days, between his resurrection and ascension, Jesus appeared to many of his disciples, and showed himself alive by many infallible proofs; the women who went early to their Lord's sepulchre, were first honoured with the sight of the risen Redeemer. He afterwards appeared to the two sorrowing disciples as they walked to Emmaus, then to the eleven as they sat at meat with the doors closed, and, eight days after, he again appeared to them, when the incredulous Thomas exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" He also showed himself to the seven disciples who were fishing at the sea of Tiberius; after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; and, though some had fallen asleep, yet, when the Apostle wrote, the greater part were then alive, and could testify to the truth of these things. How "vain the watch, the stone, the seal!" the grave could not contain the prisoner. Jesus burst the bands of death, and arose the triumphant victor. It was necessary that he, as the Head and Representative of his church, should conquer death and the grave for them. He died "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." He laid in the grave that he might subdue the power of the grave. He, as a surety, became subject unto death as a part of the curse; but, having paid the full ransom, justice demanded his release. Having satisfied the demands of the law, it was right that he should be honourably acquitted. Though "delivered for our offences, he must be raised again for our justification." The resurrection proves his atonement was accepted by God as fully adequate to all the requirements of justice, and declares him to be the Son of God with power. It is by reason of the incapacity of the damned in hell, to take in the full measure of God's wrath due to them for their sins, that their punishment, though it be eternal, yet never satisfies; because they can never endure all as Christ could, and did; theirs is truly less than what Christ underwent; and, therefore, his punishment ought not in justice to be eternal, as theirs, because he could more fully satisfy God's wrath in a few hours than they could to all eternity. By his complete satisfaction, the costly, inestimable price of redemption is paid, and the sinner's surety released from all the claims of the Law and justice. "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." Do we not hear him exclaim, "Thy dead men shall live together; with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction." May we not join in happy chorus, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But, thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." [106] Luke xvi. 26. CHAPTER LIX. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell amongst them.--Psalm lxviii. 18. We find amid the records of the Old Testament, very distinguished honour was conferred by God on two illustrious personages, whom he was pleased to exempt from the common lot of humanity, and admit into the Celestial City, by a new, and, till then, untrodden path. Their way led not across the dark valley of the shadow of death; they entered Canaan without passing the banks of Jordan's stormy waters. God was pleased to translate the bodies of Enoch and Elijah to heaven, without an execution of the sentence "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This was assuredly a high mark of favour; but we are in this verse presented with an event, in comparison with which, the cases of Enoch and Elijah sink into insignificance. It is a description of the return of a great and mighty conqueror, who, surrounded by the trophies of his victories, appears at court to receive the thanks and rewards his services so well deserve. And who is this mighty conqueror? It is Jesus! See him surrounded by the little band of faithful followers, on whom he bestows his parting blessing; having bidden them an affectionate farewell, he, with conscious majesty, mounts the air, and soars beyond the eagle's path, through the vast extent of space. Though he goes forth unattended, it is not long a secret that the victorious Saviour is on his way to the heavenly kingdom; for the myriads of spirits, who are anxiously watching his motions, no sooner observe that he bends his course toward the Celestial City, but they instantly proclaim the joyful news to its inhabitants; who, with holy impatience, are all anxious to fly on the wings of love and adoration to meet and welcome this illustrious Conqueror back to the realms of bliss. Wide are thrown the golden gates, and as they open, ten thousand voices are heard chaunting in chorus; "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of glory." Forth from heaven's portals there issued a goodly band, singing as they advance to meet and welcome their victorious King, whom they convey in celestial triumph to the presence of the eternal Father; seated on his throne of glory, he receives, with ineffable delight and joy, this, his only-begotten, always well-beloved, but now still more endeared Son, the Glorious Deliverer of the children of men. Great was the joy of that illustrious day, when the eternal Son of God, entered the city of the new Jerusalem, as the victorious Conqueror of sin, death, and hell, whom he led as captives to adorn his triumph, for, "having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them, and ascended on high, leading captivity captive." Then the eternal hills resounded to the melodious sound of ten thousand times ten thousand voices, who sing aloud, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." Then all in heaven said, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever, and ever." The spirits of the redeemed vie with elect angels, in testifying their love, reverence, and gratitude to the God of their salvation. They knew, if the eternal Son of God had not become their surety, not one of Adam's race could ever have entered the realms of bliss.[107] But in the eternal council of peace, he did covenant and promise, in the fulness of time, to become a sacrifice, and God who knew him to be faithful, did, on the credit of that promise, save all the Old Testament saints.[108] Jesus had now fulfilled that engagement; paid the full price of their redemption; "blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against them, taking it away by nailing it to his cross." What wonder, if his return was hailed with rapturous delight; his presence could not fail of adding fresh joy to the happy spirits of the redeemed in glory. Yes! Jesus has "ascended on high, he has led captivity captive, and received gifts for men." It is as the God-Man, it is in his human nature, that he is said to receive gifts; for, as God, all is his in common with the Father. It is in the office of Mediator, that he has "all power given him in heaven and on earth." It is as God-Man, that the Father set him "at his right hand, in the heavenly places; far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church." He is made the great Almoner of heaven, and he disposes of his gifts to the children of earth. He has received freely, and he gives freely,--witness the showers of ascension gifts, on the day of Pentecost. He then, as the apostle quotes the words, "gave gifts to men, yea, to the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." But while we view Christ as glorified, let us not fail to connect the scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary. The new song in heaven, to which their golden harps are ever tuned, is to the praise of him "who was slain, and has redeemed us to God by his blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and has made us unto our God kings and priests for ever." [107] John xiv. 6. [108] Psalm xl. 7, 8. CHAPTER LX. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.--Joel ii. 28, 29. That part of the prophet Joel from which this verse is selected, is highly interesting; and although not strictly prophetical of the person of the Messiah, yet it is so closely connected that it cannot be severed without injury to the whole. In fact, it serves as a test, whereby we may prove if Jesus be in truth that Messiah, of whom "Moses and the prophets did write." The "afterward" here noticed, alludes to the coming of the Messiah, after which great day of the Lord, the promise here made, of a glorious outpouring of the spirit, was to be fulfilled. It will be alike easy and delightful, to trace its accomplishment. The Holy Spirit, from the earliest ages of the world, has shed his sacred influences over the church; but no visible or open display of that divine person, God the Holy Ghost, had ever been made. That great event was reserved until after the Messiah's appearance; and, when that illustrious person had publicly manifested himself to the world, then was this promise to be fulfilled. Jesus declared himself to be the second person, in the revealed order of the Holy Trinity--the eternal Son of God--Christ the Messiah; and in such character he promised, when returned to glory, to send down the Holy Spirit. Again and again did Jesus direct his disciples to expect that event. On the last great day of the feast, he publicly proclaimed in the temple its near approach, and promised its fulfilment; "for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." When the faithful disciples were overwhelmed with grief, on learning from their beloved Master that he was shortly to leave them, Jesus cheered their drooping spirits with the promise of another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth; whom he would send from the Father. To reconcile them still more to his departure, he told them "it was expedient for them that he should go away," for, "if he went not away the Comforter would not come; but if he departed, he would send him unto them." After his resurrection, Jesus again taught the disciples to expect this great event, and on the morning of his ascension he repeated his promise, adding, as it would not be many days hence, they should tarry at Jerusalem until its accomplishment. After the ascension of Jesus, the disciples were so fully persuaded that he was the Christ of God, that they continued daily assembled together, waiting for the fulfilment of the great promise made to them by their risen Lord. It will be remembered, that all the Israelitish males were commanded to appear, three times in the year, before the Lord at Jerusalem, at the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The feast of Pentecost or weeks, was celebrated fifty days after the Passover. It was at the first great Jewish festival, the Passover, that Jesus was crucified. He arose from the dead on the third day, and as forty days intervened between his resurrection and return to glory, there could be only seven days from his ascension until the feast of Pentecost. It was on the morning of the ever-memorable day of Pentecost, the disciples being all of one accord, in one place; that "suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and filled all the house, where they were assembled; and there appeared cloven tongues, like as of fire, and sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Such a miraculous event was soon noised abroad, and multitudes crowd to learn the fact. As the Holy Spirit was graciously pleased to make this open display of his person and godhead, at one of the great Jewish festivals, the number of strangers who usually resorted to Jerusalem at that season, either for the purposes of worship or trade, became witnesses of the miraculous gifts bestowed on those hitherto unlearned, and many of them unlettered, Galilean fishermen. The inhabitants of Galilee were proverbial for their dulness and stupidity;[109] yet these men were taught, in an instant of time, to speak, with ease and fluency, languages whose very names, it is more than probable, they were an hour before unable to pronounce correctly. An opportunity was instantly offered for the apostles openly to display their extraordinary gifts. Amidst the assembled throng were men of sixteen different nations, to whom these poor fishermen publicly proclaimed, in their several languages, or dialects, the wonderful works of God. They needed no interpreter, in addressing this motley crowd. How preposterous to accuse the apostles of drunkenness! Truly, we should not imagine a state of inebriety the best calculated for acquiring a knowledge of any of the learned languages. We seldom know men, (however well their heads are furnished,) in a state of intoxication, speak any thing except it be the language of foolishness. Beside, it was only the third hour of the day, (nine o'clock) the time of offering the daily morning sacrifice in the temple, before which hour the Jews were forbidden to take any refreshment; and, as this was a solemn festival, no doubt the command was then more strictly observed. How mild, yet energetic, the reply of Peter, who declared the event to be a fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, accomplished on the return of Jesus to glory; "when being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he had shed forth that which they then saw and heard." The appearance of the Holy Spirit was sufficient to prove his personality. Might not the sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, be designed to show that the operations of God the Holy Spirit, are like the unknown and unexplored sources of the air. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." This was a lesson taught Nicodemus by Jesus, the wisdom and word of God. [109] John vii. 52. Acts ii. 7. On Shinar's plains, the Lord, to testify his divine displeasure, confounded the language of mankind. It was a curse pronounced on Babel's tower; but at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was pleased to use the diversity of language as a witness of his almighty power and Godhead; when he publicly and solemnly ordained the apostles ministers of the everlasting Gospel, and endowed them with extraordinary gifts, as the first ambassadors of Christ, sent forth to publish unto all nations the glad tidings of great joy. Might we not be tempted, when viewing the immoral and profane amusements of Whitsuntide, to imagine it an annual feast holden to Venus or Bacchus; instead of (as at first designed) a solemn festival, intended to commemorate the visible descent of the Spirit of Purity? Certainly the general character of the public assemblies, at that season, bears a much nearer resemblance to the sports holden in honour of the deified heroes in heathen mythology, than to the pure and spiritual nature of the Divine Person, whose first public appearance in our world it was wished annually to celebrate. What would the early disciples of Christ feel, could they behold the sad perversion of this sacred festival! CHAPTER LXI. And I will pour upon the House of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born.--Zech. xii. 10. The Prophet Zechariah here presents to our view one of the richest jewels in the treasury of God's promises. It sparkles clear and bright amid the records of divine truth. All earth's richest treasures cannot offer an adequate remuneration for the withdrawment of this precious promise. The words deserve our most careful examination. We will therefore consider the person here promising; the persons to whom the promise is made; the thing promised; and search for proofs of its fulfilment. The person here promising is the God-Man, Christ Jesus, for the words are, "I will pour, &c. &c., and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced, and mourn." We never find God the Father using such language as this when speaking of his disobedient creatures. God is justly displeased at man's apostasy. His law is dishonoured, his works defaced and injured by sin. Yet God, as God, cannot be the subject of pain and sorrow, he is beyond their reach. But if we look at the God-Man, Christ Jesus, we behold his sacred head pierced with a thorny crown, his hands and feet with nails of iron, his side with the soldier's spear, and his soul with the wrath of God. He who suffered thus on earth, did, as God, make this gracious promise. The persons to whom this promise literally applies, are the Jews, whose restoration as a nation to the divine favour, will form a prominent feature in the latter-day glories of the Church. The Lord has promised to gather together the dispersed in Judah, and the outcasts of Israel. "The deliverer shall arise out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob." This nation, who once refused and crucified the Messiah, shall, when partakers of this promised blessing, "look upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn." This promise is not confined to the Jews, but extends to the fallen race of Adam, whom our spiritual David will make inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, which is above, without regard to their being of Jewish or Gentile extraction.[110] He will not consider the trifling distinctions of colour, language, or nation, a barrier of such importance as to preclude their participating in his blessings. [110] Matt. xxviii. 19. Acts xi. 18., xiii. 46, 47., xv. 3. The thing promised is an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Adam, by his apostasy, lost the image of God stamped upon his soul at his creation. The sentence, "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was not suffered to go unexecuted. From that hapless hour, his soul, the most noble part, was dead to all spiritual life, and became the abode of corroding passions and depraved principles. He immediately shrank from holding intercourse with God, and tried to hide himself from the presence of his benefactor. As Adam begat a son in his own fallen likeness, all his race partake of the same corrupt nature. We are ignorant of God and his ways. We need divine teaching; we cannot naturally understand the things of God, which are spiritual, the eye of our understanding being darkened; God is not in all our thoughts; we are averse to communion with the Father of Spirits. We despise his offers of free grace--we prefer to be saved by our own rather than God's method--we see no beauty in Jesus that we should desire him--we dislike to renounce our own, and trust in his complete righteousness--we consider his commands grievous, and the language of our soul is, "we will not have this man to reign over us." But we are here told of a sovereign antidote for these deep-seated moral disorders of the soul. Here is a gracious promise of an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to "convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." He convinces the soul, into which he enters, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin--that it is the evil thing which God hates; and shows the divine law is spiritual, extending to the thoughts and intents of the heart.[111] He puts a cry for mercy into the soul, destroys the natural enmity of the mind against God's plan of salvation, and makes the object of his divine teaching willing and anxious to partake of the Lord's bounty, and be a debtor to mercy alone. The Holy Spirit teaches of righteousness by convincing that a better righteousness than our own tattered rags is absolutely necessary, ere we can see the face of God with peace. He makes the soul willing to be clothed with the wedding garment of Jesus' righteousness, which is the fine linen of the saints. It is indispensable that we be clothed with this livery of the court of Heaven, or we shall be denied admission into the mansions of the King of Glory. Would we behold the fulfilment of this prophetic promise, then let us direct our minds back to a survey of the glorious scenes exhibited on the ever memorable day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was, in so free and copious a manner, poured out from on high. Attend to the sermon Peter preached on the day of his ordination; mark its effects on the three thousand of the House of David, inhabitants of Jerusalem's much-famed city. Listen to their cry, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" Surely these were none of the stout hearts who dared even to crucify the Lord of life and glory? The same! yet how different their tone--how altered their conduct! To what cause can we attribute this astonishing change in the minds of three thousand persons in the same instant of time? Surely it was none other than the almighty work of God the Holy Ghost. It was his influence on the minds of these men which produced the Spirit of grace and supplication, and taught them to direct the anxious cry and supplicating look unto him whom they had pierced. Was not the anguish of their souls, under a sense of their sins, equal to the exquisite sorrow of those who bitterly bewail the death of their first-born? However skilfully Peter might wield the sword of the Spirit, (the word of God,) it was none other than the God of all grace, who directed and sent it home with saving power to the hearts and consciences of these Jerusalem sinners. Are not the other triumphs of the Spirit worthy of regard, when five thousand are made willing cordially to embrace Christ crucified? May we not, by the way, observe, that the reception of the Gospel by such numbers so immediately after the ascension of Jesus, proved the truth of the facts recorded by the apostles, of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ? Many, no doubt, of these early converts of Christianity, had been eye-witnesses of several of the events, and _all_ had an opportunity of discovering the deception, if there had existed any, in the apostles' narrative. But no sooner are they persuaded to compare the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, with all the circumstances in the history of Jesus of Nazareth, than they anxiously desire to be enlisted under the banners of the cross. Unable to resist the force of truth, they join the persecuted adherents of the crucified Jesus, and cast in their lot with his despised followers, although "a sect every where spoken against." When were converts to Christianity most numerous? Was it not when there existed the best possible opportunity of detecting the least imposition or falsehood, on the part of the writers of the New Testament? Let it not be forgotten that those early converts were neither won by the arm of worldly power, nor bribed by proffered gold. On the contrary, no sooner did they embrace the Gospel, but they were met at the very threshold by ignominy and persecution in every varied and frightful form, sufficiently terrific to deter all but men really convinced of the truth, and swayed by its sacred influence. [111] John xvi. 7-14. But we must not confine the accomplishment of this promise entirely to the days of Pentecost, although it then assumed a more splendid and attractive appearance, than it has done in these latter times. Yet through each succeeding age, the Lord the Spirit has not been unmindful of his covenant engagements. Could we draw aside the veil that separates between us and the holy of holies--could we obtain a glimpse of the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem which is above, and inquire of the goodly number that surround the throne of God and the Lamb, Who was the faithful instructor and guide, that taught them to walk in the way that led to everlasting life? they would direct us to the Lord the Spirit, as the almighty guide who pointed out the road, and taught their wandering feet to tread the strait, the narrow way, the only path, that leads to Zion's hill. In the Bible, that chart of life, the road is shown with clearness, and described with accuracy. It is called faith in the finished salvation of Christ, and obedience to his commands. The hand which drew this path to glory, is the very same that painted the splendid canopy of heaven. By this good old way, all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and reformers, entered the city of the Lord of Hosts. Their guide and comforter, through this waste howling wilderness, was the third person of the Triune-Jehovah. What countless myriads has this almighty guide led to the mount of God, from the antediluvian worthies, down to the happy spirit just entered into the joy of its Lord! Like them, led by the same unerring teacher, we shall not fail of arriving safely at the mansion of everlasting joy, for he is the only faithful conductor[112]to the heavenly Jerusalem; untaught by him, none can find the path of life, but will assuredly stumble on the dark mountains of sin and error, and run the downward road that leads to hell. [112] Psalm cxliii. 10. Eternal life is the gift of God. Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life: none can come unto God, but by him." The office of the Holy Spirit is to instruct the ignorant, comfort the mourners in Zion, and make us meet to be "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." May we be partakers of that inestimable blessing, for without _his_ influence on our hearts, vain will be even the electing love of God the Father--vain the vicarious sacrifice and imputed righteousness of Christ the Son--vain to us the plan of salvation; and vain, all the promises of the Gospel. As well for us, if those glad tidings of great joy, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," had not reached our ears. Unapplied, the most sovereign remedy is useless, for then not even Gilead's balm, can heal the dire disease.[113] Christ will prove no Saviour to us, unless applied to our individual case. It is the office of the Holy Spirit, to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. Faith is the hand by which we grasp Christ crucified. That saving faith, by which we apprehend the finished salvation of Jesus, and make it our own, is a grace wrought in the heart by the operation of the Spirit of God. Far better would it be for the children of men, if the sun were turned into darkness, the moon into blood, and all the stars of heaven withdraw their shining; than that this glorious promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, should be blotted from the book of God's remembrance! [113] Jeremiah viii. 22. May that blessed morning shortly dawn, "when all shall know the Lord!" Hasten, glorious Immanuel, that bright day, when "the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." CHAPTER LXII. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.--Psalm cx. 4. In the Old Testament, we find but little recorded of Melchizedek, that venerable priest of the most High God, who met and blessed the patriarch Abraham as he returned victorious from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the confederate kings. But from that little, we are led to regard him as a person of distinction. To him, the great father of the faithful and friend of God presented the tithes or tenths of the spoil. It is from the prophetical word of the royal Psalmist, "the Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek," that we are taught to view this ancient priest of God as a type: and of whom, if not of Christ? Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews,[114] speaks largely on the subject; he proves the fulfilment of the prophecy, and declares, that Christ's priestly office was prefigured in the person of Melchizedek, to Abraham the father of the Israelitish race. In the same epistle, we find blended the priesthood of Aaron, in order to show the vast superiority of that of Christ over the other two, though both instituted by God himself. But as we find no prophecy respecting the Aaronic priesthood, we make no further reference to that subject, in order to attend more immediately to the words, "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek." Was this priest of the most High God honoured with the title of King of Salem--by interpretation, King of Righteousness, and King of Peace? Is not Jesus proclaimed King of Zion; the Lord our Righteousness, and the Prince of Peace? Nor are these mere empty titles, but real characters, and offices, sustained by Him, who "abideth a priest upon his throne for ever." We have no historical account of the parentage or descendants of Melchizedek; he is presented to us as "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life;" but being made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually.[115] And Christ's priesthood was not derived by genealogy, or succession, he had neither father or mother of the family of Aaron, from whom his priesthood could descend. It is evident our Lord sprang "out of Judah, of which tribe no man gave attendance at the altar;"[116] neither did Christ die and leave it to others, by way of descent, but was constituted a single priest, without predecessor or successor. "He abideth a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek." It is impossible for a finite mind to comprehend the eternal sonship of the Son of God, whom the Father, before the foundation of the world, constituted a priest for ever; and therefore, the priesthood of Melchizedek was instituted to prefigure to us the nature of Christ's eternal priesthood. "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek." These words deserve particular attention. It is God the Father who swears to Christ; no oath of allegiance is required from him who is constituted our Priest. Jehovah, whose eye pierces through futurity, knew he would be faithful in his office, and he freely and unreservedly trusted him to maintain his divine honour and justice, and accomplish the salvation of sinners. The high-priestly office, though honourable, could not add to Christ's dignity; but his glorious person did confer honour and dignity upon the sacred office, for he who is constituted our High Priest, "is fellow to the Lord of Hosts." "Every high priest is ordained, to offer both gifts and sacrifices," and great was the sacrifice offered by Christ: he offered up himself; he would borrow nothing, but was both priest, sacrifice, altar, and temple: and "by that offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." "And because he continueth ever, he hath an unchangeable priesthood;" "wherefore he _is_ able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Blessed Jesus! thou priest of Melchizedek's order, while we would not withhold from thee a portion of all that thou givest us, let us not rest satisfied, till we are enabled to present "our bodies and souls a reasonable sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God." [114] Hebrews v. 5-11., vii. 1-28. [115] Hebrews vii. 3. [116] Hebrews vi. 20. CHAPTER LXIII. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.--Daniel ix. 24, 25. The harps of Judah were silent--the disconsolate Israelites hung them on the willows of Babylon--no songs of Zion were heard in that land of captivity, where, for seventy long years, they wore the galling yoke of bondage, bereft of home and all its blessings--the land of their forefathers in the possession of strangers--Jerusalem in ruins--her palaces consumed--the Temple destroyed--the spot trodden down by the Heathen--themselves exposed to the taunts of their conquerors, and compelled to bow before the idolatrous image of Chaldean superstition.[117] Well might Judah's sons weep by the waters of Babylon, whose murmurings recalled to their recollection the stream which gushed from Horeb's mount.[118] The remembrance of past blessings increases the weight of present misery. How changed their state, and changed to punish their awful rebellions against the Lord of Sabaoth! Yet the God of Israel was not unmindful of his promise--he cheered their drooping spirits with the assurance of speedy deliverance from their captive state. The prayer of Daniel entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts--the command was given--swiftly the angel, even Gabriel, flew to reveal his Lord's decrees unto the mourning prophet--that "man greatly beloved" of his God. Daniel was commissioned to foretel the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon--the building of Jerusalem and its walls in troublous times; and to him, Jehovah was graciously pleased to renew the promise of the Prince, Messiah, whose appearance all the patriarchs and prophets had foretold. The nearer that glorious epoch approached, the more minutely was it described. The Lord gave Daniel to "know and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, should be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks." The period here styled weeks, is generally allowed to be sabbaths of years. This appears to be the sense of the passage, for the Jews were accustomed to reckon their time and feasts by weeks or sabbaths. The week of days was from one seventh or sabbath day to another. The week of years was from one seventh or sabbatical year to another; in the seventh, or sabbatical year, they neither sowed their fields nor pruned their vineyards; it was a sabbath of rest unto the land.[119] In the regulation of the year of Jubilee, they were commanded to number "seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to thee forty and nine years."[120] We therefore only follow the Mosaic rule, (to which Moses' disciples cannot object,) if we consider these seven weeks, and three score and two weeks, as seven times sixty-nine, or four hundred and eighty-three years, which should be between "the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince." There were four distinct decrees or commandments granted by the kings of Persia, in favour of the Jews, who came under the dominion of that empire by its conquest of Babylon. This was the epoch of Daniel's vision. No sooner had Cyrus obtained possession of Chaldea, than he issued a decree allowing the Jews to quit the land of their captivity, and repair to Judea to build the temple of the Lord. He also restored to them the vessels and treasures which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple built by Solomon. On the grant of this decree,[121] five hundred and thirty-six years before Christ, many of the Jews returned to their own land, and laid the foundation of the temple; but they were hindered in the building of it by their several enemies, who were supported in their opposition by Artaxerxes, the successor of Cyrus. But when Darius Hystaspes ascended the throne of Persia, he issued a decree[122] five hundred and nineteen years before Christ, forbidding the enemies of the Jews to interrupt the building of the temple, and further commanded that materials requisite for the work, and the animals, oil, and wine for the sacrifices, should be supplied at his (the king's) cost. The third decree was granted to Ezra, the scribe, four hundred and sixty-seven years before Christ, by Artaxerxes Longimanus, in the seventh year of his reign, by which he bestowed great favours upon the Jews,[123] appointing Ezra Governor of Judea. He permitted all the Jews to return to Jerusalem, and commanded his treasurers beyond the river, to supply Ezra with such things as he needed for the house of his God, even to an hundred talents of silver, an hundred measures of wheat, an hundred baths of wine, and an hundred baths of oil. The king and his princes presented much silver and gold, and many vessels, and ordered that what else might be required for the house of God, should be supplied from the king's treasury. This is not the same Artaxerxes who listened to the slanderous reports of the enemies of the Jews, and stopped the building of their temple; but Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, supposed to be the person styled Ahasuerus, in the book of Esther, whose attachment to his Israelitish consort may account for the distinguished favours he conferred on the people of her nation. We find the queen was present when Nehemiah presented his petition, which was the second decree granted by this monarch, and was the fourth and last decree, being granted in the twentieth year of his reign, and four hundred and fifty-four years before Christ.[124] This was the most efficient decree, for by it Jerusalem and its walls were built. The high resolves of the court of Heaven were revealed; Daniel was made "to know and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, _unto_ the Messiah, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks, being sixty nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years. From the last, or fourth, decree to the birth of Christ, (vide Rollin, volume 8, page 265,) is four hundred and fifty-four years, to which we add twenty-nine years (the age at about which Christ entered on his public ministry);[125] these united, make the exact period of sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years. Daniel also declares that "seventy weeks (or four hundred and ninety years) are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." We find between the seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, and the sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years, a difference of one week, or seven years, which is the week evidently alluded to in the twenty-seventh verse of this chapter, in which "he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, &c." From the period of Christ's first entry into the ministry, and the calling of his apostles, until his crucifixion, were three and a half years, and, for three and a half years after that event, his apostles continued to minister amongst the Jews. This makes a period of seven years, (or one prophetic week,) in the midst of which the Messiah was cut off, and "the sacrifice and oblation" virtually ceased. The correspondence is exact: Jesus, the Messiah, not only entered on his public ministry at the very period pointed out ages before, but was actually cut off in the midst of the week, as was expressly foretold. These predictions of the Prince Messiah are peculiarly striking. The time for his appearance is marked, and the particular objects he should effect on his coming, are described with such minuteness, as scarcely to admit of the possibility of mistaking his person. The grand features of his mission were so strongly exhibited, that it was morally impossible the Messiah should appear and not be recognised. Prejudice must have blinded the eye of that mind which does not, on comparing the whole of the New Testament with this prophecy, acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah. It bears the stamp of divine prescience: none but the omniscient God could have given his features with such clearness so many ages before. This portrait of the Messiah, which bears so exact a resemblance to Jesus, was in the possession of the Jews, at least five hundred years before that glorious person was exhibited to the world, a God incarnate. [117] Dan. iii. 4-15. [118] Numbers xx. 11. [119] Lev. xxiii. 3., xxv. 3, 4. [120] Lev. xxv. 8. 10. [121] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. [122] Ezra vi. 7-12. [123] Ezra vii. 11-23. [124] Neh. ii. 1-8. [125] Luke iii. 23. Jesus declares himself to be the long promised Messiah--his claim rests on no slight or doubtful evidence--he came at the very precise time it was foretold the Messiah should appear to the people and the holy city. Christ's ministry was among the people of the Jews--Judea was the land of his nativity--the scene of his labours--the witness of his miracles--he was born at Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, and crucified just "without the gate" of the holy city. On Calvary "he finished the transgressions, and made an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity." There the God-man, Christ Jesus, offered up his life a ransom for the guilty--there the surety of the Church paid the full price for her redemption, and made peace by the blood of his cross--there "he suffered the just for the unjust to bring sinners unto God." He took away "the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, taking them out of the way by nailing them to the cross"--there he removed the iniquity of the land in one day, and so completely "finished the transgression," by suffering the punishment due for his people's sins, that when they are "sought for they shall not be found"--there he paid the full price of their redemption, he cancelled the bond, and made peace and reconciliation with offended justice. He "brought in an everlasting righteousness, and not only suffered the penalty due for their transgressions of God's law, 'which is holy, just, and good,' but, as the head of the Church, he obeyed all the precepts of the moral law; which he exalted and made honourable. Perfect was the obedience wrought out--complete was the righteousness brought in by the incarnate Deity, the Lord our righteousness, which is from everlasting to everlasting "unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference." Amidst the awful gloom on Calvary's mount, was heard the cry "it is finished!" It was the conqueror's shout--victory was achieved--Satan was vanquished--the sting of death was taken away--the power of the grave destroyed--the conflict was over--the ransom paid--the captives of the mighty delivered--the law was honoured--justice satisfied--God glorified--Heaven opened--man redeemed--and hell vanquished. That was the glorious event which types were intended to exhibit, and prophets were commissioned to proclaim. The appointed time of the vision was arrived--it had long tarried, but it was accomplished. The chain of prophecy was complete--the vision was sealed[126]--and the most holy anointed. The God-man, Christ Jesus, anointed by his Father king and priest of Zion, then exchanged his thorny crown for the royal diadem--then left the sorrows of earth for the glories of his mediatorial throne, which no enemy can touch--their opposition is vain--he that sitteth upon the circle of the heavens, will laugh them to scorn. Happy are they who have for their king and priest, _him_ whose kingdom is eternal, and priesthood unchangeable--who look to the Redeemer of Israel as the rock of their salvation, and crown the most holy, Lord of all. "Happy are the people that are in such a case, yea, blessed are the people whose God is the Lord." [126] Rev. xxii. 18, 19. CHAPTER LXIV. And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.--Daniel ix. 26. This vision of Daniel appears involved in considerable obscurity, by the diversity of time alluded to in the several parts of the prophecy, and renders it difficult to prove its exact accomplishment. But we hope we have shown in the preceding part, that it does not militate against "the truth as it is in Jesus," it rather tends to strengthen the testimony, by affording an additional opportunity of proving, from sacred and profane history, the fulfilment of the great event. The proof of its accomplishment does not rest on the insulated fact, but is established by a chain of evidence, derived from the annals of nations. For, whichever of the decrees we take, it is clear from ancient chronology, that the period alluded to is passed, and the Messiah did appear not far from the time named by any decree. As we have attempted to prove the fulfilment of the first part of the prophetic vision, it may not be improper if we now endeavour to show that the remaining part of this interesting prophecy has also been accomplished. "After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." "Secret things belong unto God; but things that are revealed, to you and your children." We cannot ascertain to a certainty when the seventy-two weeks commence, but it is evident they terminate at the cutting off of the Messiah. From the words "And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined," it appears, also, to allude to the destruction of the city, previous to which event the Messiah should be cut off. We hope we shall not offer any violence to the words, if we give them this interpretation. The destruction of Jerusalem is not the only event alluded to in this interesting prophecy; there is one of paramount importance to the ruin of Salem's palaces, though that involved the fate of Judah's sons. On the other momentous fact hang the highest interests of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, past, present, and future generations; not only the happiness of earth, but much of the glory of heaven, depends on its accomplishment. Without it no sweet song of "Salvation to God and the Lamb," would have echoed amidst the heavenly hills, none of the race of Adam would be seen worshipping before the presence of Jehovah with the angels of light; those melodious hymns of redemption, now chaunted by ten thousand times ten thousand glorified Saints, had not been heard but for the vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God,[127] who not only covenanted, but did actually lay down his life a ransom for sinners. When Jesus, the Christ of God, the Prince Messiah, appeared on earth, it was not simply to set the children of men an example of piety and virtue; we ardently admire his glorious example, and consider his followers bound to imitate the bright pattern he has left them; yet we dare not believe that _that_ was the only object he designed to accomplish when he visited our world.[128] No, he came as the federal Head, the Representative and Surety of his people.[129] He was "cut off from the land of the living," by a violent and cruel death; yet not for himself, not for any sin of his own,[130] nor purposely to set us a pattern of patience and resignation; but to discharge the debt of sin, he had covenanted to cancel on man's account. Jehovah executed towards him the severest justice, and permitted his crucifiers to exercise the blackest ingratitude, and most inhuman cruelty. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou who killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would the Lord have gathered thee under his protecting care as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not." Thy awful doom was sealed when thou didst reject the authority, and persecute unto death Jesus the Messiah, thy prophet and benefactor, thy God and King. The thought of thy approaching misery drew tears from the eyes, and groans from the heart, of Incarnate Deity; yet thy children beheld, with feelings of triumphant scorn, the sorrows and sufferings their wanton cruelty inflicted on the Holy Jesus. But heaven marked the impious deed.[131] The blood of Jesus, of prophets, of apostles, and of martyrs, called for vengeance on thy guilty land; the cry was heard, justice remembered thy black catalogue of crimes, the King of heaven beheld the insult offered to his beloved Son, and Jehovah arose to punish thy rejection of Jesus the Messiah, whom "ye would not have to reign over you." The crimes of Jerusalem were of the blackest and most awful character, and her punishment was tremendously dreadful.[132] The Israelites, once the peculiar favourites of Heaven[133]--nursed in the lap of plenty, instructed in the oracles of God--blessed with the temple of Jehovah--taught to adore the God of truth whom their forefathers worshipped; this people, who once had the Lord for their Law-giver and King,[134] were compelled to bow beneath the oppressive power of arbitrary despots--the law of truth was exchanged for the tyrant's mandate--equity and justice were banished the walls of Salem, and despotism, oppression, blasphemy, and pride, reigned within that devoted, miserable, city. Anarchy and confusion ruled that senate and sanctuary, once as gloriously "distinguished from the rest of the world by the purity of its government, as by the richness and elegance of its buildings. Jerusalem was devoted to destruction, and she sunk beneath the accumulated horrors of war, famine, fire, and pestilence. Internal faction and a foreign foe reduced that beauteous city and magnificent sanctuary, to a heap of ruins. The temple fell--not all the commands, promises, or threats of Titus, could save that splendid edifice from destruction; the people of the prince, regardless of their general's orders, helped to complete the work of desolation;--but prophecy was fulfilled, Jerusalem was overwhelmed with the flood of divine vengeance, and desolation prevailed even unto the end of the war. [127] John xiv. 6. [128] John xii, 27. [129] 1 Corinthians xv. 22. Romans v. 17-19. [130] Luke xxiii. 4. Isaiah liii. 5, 10. [131] Matthew xxiii. 35-37. [132] Matthew xxiv. 21. [133] Deuteronomy iv. 7. [134] Deuteronomy iv. 5, 8. CHAPTER LXV. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.--Daniel ix. 27. Some writers consider this verse prophetical of the desolate state of Jerusalem under Antiochus Epiphanes, that sacrilegious monarch who impiously profaned the sanctuary of the God of Israel. By him the temple was ransacked and despoiled of its holy vessels; its golden ornaments pulled off; its hidden treasures seized; and an unclean animal offered on the altar of burnt-offerings. Thus did this impious Syrian king dare profane the altar and temple dedicated to Jehovah. Neither was this all; Jerusalem again felt the force of his horrid cruelty and profaneness; men, women, and children, were either slain or taken captive; and the houses and city walls were destroyed. The Jews were not allowed to offer burnt offerings or sacrifices to the God of Israel--circumcision was forbidden--they were required to profane the Sabbath, and eat the flesh of swine, and other beasts forbidden by their law[135]--the sanctuary dedicated to Jehovah was called the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and his image set up on the altar--idol temples and altars were erected throughout all their cities--and the Holy Scriptures destroyed whenever they were met with--and death was the fate of those who read the word of the Lord. The most horrid and brutal cruelties were inflicted on such as chose to obey God, rather than this Syrian monster. Jerusalem was overspread by his abominations; desolation was indeed poured out "upon the desolate" when Antiochus Epiphanes held the blood stained sceptre, emblem of satanic power. Yet, closely as these circumstances resemble the description given by the prophet's vision, we cannot think it is the event alluded to in this prophecy. Daniel, in the three preceding verses, speaks of the Messiah, and the final destruction of the city and sanctuary: by Antiochus the temple certainly was _not_ destroyed. In the eleventh chapter there appears a striking prophecy of the events which happened in Jerusalem during the dominion of the Syrian tyrant, but we cannot think he is alluded to in any part of the ninth chapter. The first clause of this verse, "He shall confirm the covenant with many," cannot refer to Antiochus, but alludes to the same glorious person mentioned in the preceding verses. The latter part of this verse may with propriety be considered as a continuance of the prophecy of Jerusalem's final destruction, as it occurred under Titus. To Jesus the Messiah we direct our eyes. The one week, or the midst of the week, (seven years half expired,) alludes to the time of his Public Ministry, which was three years and a half; during which period he declared, the design of his mission was to confirm the well-ordered covenant of redemption and peace, which was drawn up in the counsels of eternity--sealed on earth with the blood of the Incarnate God--signed in the presence of Jehovah, angels, men, and devils--registered in the court of Heaven--and proclaimed good and valid by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.[136] It is true, the sacrifices and oblations of the temple service did not cease immediately on the death of Christ, they were continued some little time after that event; but they became unnecessary, they had lost their value, and were but idle ceremonies and useless rights, when the thing signified was accomplished. At best, they were only types of the Lamb of God, the blood of that one great sacrifice, which alone "cleanseth from all sin." "It is not possible for the blood of bulls or goats to take away sin." No, the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Mosaic economy were only efficacious so far as Christ, the substance, was viewed through the shadow.[137] In less than forty years after the death of Christ, the sacrifices and oblations ceased, for the temple was demolished. A spot so deeply stained with crime, needed the fire of divine vengeance to consume it from the face of the earth: it was erected for the worship of the God of Israel, but was turned into the seat of iniquity and profaneness. The horrid enormities observed in the temple of Juggernaut scarcely surpassed the impious practices exercised within the Jewish sanctuary. When Titus, the Roman general, approached the walls of the city, it more resembled the court of Mars and Bacchus, than the temple of Jehovah; the drunkard's voice--the clash of arms--the shouts of the victor--the cries of the vanquished--and the groans of the dying, echoed through that magnificent pile; human blood flowed in its courts, and sprinkled its altars and its walls. Jerusalem was a scene of slaughter; but it was not a war to support the glorious cause of freedom; nor were they fighting to repel the foreign foe, or shedding their blood to defend their beloved homes, and the still dearer objects of affection, around which the warm heart clings with fondest thought amidst the scene of danger and of death, and for whose preservation the weakest arm grows desperate, and the feeblest mind resolves to conquer or to die. But theirs was no such glorious contest; no--civil war had reared her hydra head; the horrid yell of intestine discord rang through Salem's courts, and echoed round her walls; that infernal power bursts the bands of brotherhood, severs the closest ties, dissolves the strongest link of union, and makes the man a monster. The sword of her own sons deluged Jerusalem with Jewish blood; the fire which destroyed her houses was kindled by her own children; death and destruction reigned through all her palaces; the city groaned beneath a three-fold faction, when the Roman legions approached her walls to complete the horrid scene of slaughter. The temple was the head-quarters of Eleazar and the Zealots; they had in their possession the stores of first fruits and offerings, and were frequently in a state of intoxication; but when not drunken with wine, they thirsted for the blood of their countrymen, and issued from their strong hold, to assault John and his party, who lay intrenched in the out-works of the temple. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the horrid enormities of the Zealot faction: surely that was the summit of wickedness, when the priests sold themselves to work iniquity, and the temple of the Lord was the seat of their crimes. That was "the overspreading of abomination," and it continued until the sanctuary was consumed, and "ruin was poured upon the desolators." It was the iniquitous practices of the Jews, rather than the Roman eagle, which profaned the courts of the Lord's House: the conquerors did not plant their standard to insult, but with a wish to preserve, the temple from total ruin and destruction. [135] Leviticus xi. 2, 7, 8. [136] 1 Timothy iii. 16. Acts ii. 24, 33. [137] Hebrews iv. 2. x. 1-10, 20. CHAPTER LXVI. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.--Zechariah xiv. 2. Imperial Rome, to whom the world once bowed, and whose power could command armies from "all nations," had conquered Judea, and received from her the yearly tribute of her subjection:[138] but, through the oppression of the Roman governors, and the madness of the people, the standard of revolt was planted, and the Jews attempted to break their yoke of bondage. The Roman legions, inured to war, and accustomed to the shout of victory, hastened to subdue the rebellious Israelites: they passed from city to city, and from province to province; slaughter and death marked their course; the strife was desperate; the conflict bloody; the Jews fought like men determined to conquer or to die: two hundred and forty-seven thousand seven hundred were slain before their provinces were subjugated, and an immense number made prisoners: amongst whom was Josephus, the historian of the war, who was governor of the two Galilees, and who defended them with skill and bravery. The Romans, having conquered the provinces, approached to assault Jerusalem, which was then a dreadful scene. The sound of war was heard through all her gates; regardless of the approaching foe, the Jews had turned their arms against each other; three several factions were busily engaged in the work of slaughter and destruction. Eleazar and the Zealots seized the temple; John of Gischala and his followers occupied its out-works; and Simon, the son of Gorias, possessed the whole of the lower, and a great part of the upper, town. Jerusalem was built on two hills; the highest, on which stood the temple, was called the upper town, and the other the lower: between these lay a valley covered with houses; the suburbs of the city were extensive, and encircled by a wall; two other walls also surrounded Jerusalem, the interior one of remarkable strength. Neither of the three factious parties had any just claim to supremacy or power, though all contended for dominion, and fought for plunder. The Zealots were the smallest party, but, from their situation, possessed the advantage: they sallied from their strong holds to attack John, who seized every opportunity of assaulting Simon; thus John maintained a double war, and was often obliged to divide his forces, being attacked by Eleazar and Simon at the same time. In these furious contests, no age or sex was spared; the slaughter was dreadful. When either party was repelled, the other set fire to the building, without any distinction. Regardless of their contents, they consumed granaries and store-houses, which contained a stock of corn and other necessaries of life, sufficient to maintain the inhabitants during a siege of many years; but nearly the whole was burnt, and this circumstance made way for a calamity more horrid than even war itself. Famine soon showed her meagre form, and all classes felt the dreadful effects of a scarcity of food. Such was the miserable state of Jerusalem when the Roman general Titus (son of the reigning emperor, Vespasian,) prepared to attack the city. The sight of a powerful foreign foe at their gates, with all the artillery of war, could not quell the factions within; it is true, when closely pressed by the Romans, the three parties joined to repel the common enemy, but no sooner had they breathing time, than the spirit of contention arose, and they resumed the slaughter of each other: thus they maintained a fierce contest with the besiegers, and, at the same time, seized every opportunity of destroying each other. The misery of the city was soon beyond precedent, from the dreadful effects of famine, the price of provisions became exorbitant, and, when no longer offered for sale, the houses were entered and searched, and the wretched owners tortured till they confessed where the slender pittance was concealed; at length the distress became so great, that persons parted with the whole of their property to obtain a bushel of wheat, which they eat before it could be baked, or even ground; and happy was he who could catch a morsel of meat, half roasted, half raw, from the fire. No kind of cruelty was omitted in search of food: at length their sufferings were so severe, that the wretched inhabitants were necessitated to search the vaults and sinks for sustenance, and even fed on articles too offensive to be named. The ties of nature and humanity were forgotten, the wife seized the food from her husband, the child from the parent, and even the mother from her infant.[139] The excruciating pain of famine so far overpowered the tenderest and finest affections in nature, that a woman, descended from a rich and respectable family, even killed, boiled, and ate, her own child, a son in all the artless and endearing simplicity of infancy! Well may the British mother tremble at the horrid sound, and pity the wretched Israelitish female, thus sunk below the brute. Pestilence now stalked abroad, for the air was tainted by the dead: though no less than six hundred thousand dead bodies were carried out of the city during the time Titus encamped before the walls, yet there was an incredible number who had no friends to bury them, and their bodies were enclosed in large buildings, or laid in heaps in the open air. "O Jerusalem, thou didst drink at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out" even desolation, destruction, famine and sword, "thy houses rifled, thy women ravished" by Jewish ruffians, and the city at length taken by the Roman general. Titus had again and again offered the Jews honourable terms of capitulation; but they rejected all his overtures with proud disdain, and when his soldiers took the city, exasperated at the hardships they had endured, they spared neither sex, age, or rank. Sword and fire destroyed Jerusalem and her children, and closed this horrid war, in which one million one hundred thousand Jews were slain, and ninety-seven thousand made prisoners. [138] Luke ii. 1. Matthew xxii. 17. [139] Deut. xxviii. 48-59. CHAPTER LXVII. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young.--Deut. xxviii. 49, 50. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.--Luke xix. 41-44. Judea was not conquered by the neighbouring Asiatic states, but by the Roman, Europeans of a "fierce and warlike countenance," who knew not the Jewish language, and regarded not "the persons of the old, nor showed favour to the young." It will not be difficult to trace the Roman soldiers in this eloquently descriptive character. No nation excelled them in their military prowess, or in the rapidity of their conquests. In comparatively a very short period of time, they extended their empire over all the then civilised part of the globe. The insignia of their legions was not more descriptive of their valour, than of the unexampled rapidity of their movements. The celebrated motto of Cæsar, "I came, I saw, I conquered," was neither of a doubtful, or boasting, character. Their career was indeed "as swift as the eagle flieth." No nation or people did long withstand the fierceness of their attacks, or the persevering energy of their generals. In their triumphs over their enemies, they frequently displayed a ferocity happily unknown in modern warfare. The most distinguished of their captives, without regard to age or sex, were dragged in triumph, amidst the shouts of the conquerors, and the insults of the rabble. Often, when exasperated by the protracted defence of a brave people struggling for their existence, instead of respecting such patriotic efforts, they inflicted the most horrid barbarities upon the unresisting and unhappy objects of their vengeance; and a slaughter, indiscriminating in its fury, and dreadful in its results, marked the blood-stained progress of the licentious soldiery, who "regarded not the person of the old, nor showed favour to the young." History informs us, that the Romans, under Titus and Vespasian, after a protracted siege, unparalleled in horror, and sanguinary beyond example, at length became masters of this once-favoured spot; and if we compare the predictions of Christ with the events which occurred, and followed at the taking of this devoted city, we shall be struck with the coincidence of the declaration, and its awful fulfilment. His foreknowledge of the dreadful calamities which should precede and accompany the destruction of Jerusalem, caused our blessed Saviour, when he beheld the city, to weep over it: and, surely, if this once-favoured race had then known the day of its visitation, the Lord would have turned from his fierce anger: but these things "were hid from their eyes." Having rejected the Lord of Glory, they were given over to judicial blindness, and the Lord brought upon them "a nation from afar" to execute his vengeance. Jerusalem was "trodden down by the Gentiles," and there was "great distress upon the land, and wrath upon the people." The sword and the spear from without, and famine and pestilence and civil discord within, were indeed unto them "the beginning of sorrows." The predicted day was now come, when their "enemies should cast a trench about them, and compass them round, and keep them in on every side." Their walls of strength, their beautiful palaces, and their magnificent temple, were laid "even with the ground." Not "one stone was left upon another" that was not thrown down; and all the princes and the nobles, the ruler and the ruled, the priest and the people, and "the children within thee," either "fell by the edge of the sword," or were "led away captive into all nations," for there was "great distress in the land, and wrath upon the people." CHAPTER LXVIII. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.--Micah iii. 12. "Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the towers thereof, mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces," are they still "beautiful for situation?" Is Jerusalem yet the "joy of the whole earth?" Within "her walls peace once reigned, and prosperity within her palaces." But how changed the spot! desolation and dismay reign in undisturbed possession, where elegance and art displayed their richest and most curious productions. Jerusalem is fallen--war destroyed her palaces, and levelled her temple--the fire which consumed that magnificent city was kindled by the hand of civil discord--the desolating element that blazed with awful glare, amidst the splendid sanctuary, was first lit by Jewish hands--and the enfuriated Roman soldiers applied the torch, which ultimately destroyed the temple of Jehovah. The Jews having burnt the greater part of the galleries around the temple, and the Roman soldiers set fire to the remainder, Titus commanded his troops to extinguish the flames; but no sooner were his orders executed than a Roman soldier threw a fire-brand into the temple, and the interior was instantly in a blaze; the flames spread with rapidity, and not all the commands, threatenings, or entreaties, of the Roman general, and his officers, were effectual to preserve the building. Whilst some were endeavouring to check the furious element, others set fire to several of the door-posts; the scene was dreadful; the Jews were filled with astonishment and horror, and their conquerors with fury. Amidst the crackling of the fire were heard the shouts of the victors, and the cries of the vanquished; the shrieks of the wounded, and the groans of the dying. The ground on every side was strewed with dead; while the courts flowed with Jewish blood, the fire raged above; the conflagration was awful, and the massacre dreadful.[140] Jerusalem and its walls were destroyed, the temple levelled, and the Jews conquered, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the same month and day as Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the former city and temple. The last temple, once celebrated for its magnificence, is now no more. That building which, by the solidity of its construction, seemed to defy the mouldering hand of time, soon became a heap of ruins, and "the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest."[141] Titus, before he withdrew his troops, commanded them to reduce the city and temple to a level with the ground, and they left not "one stone upon another," to mark the spot where the temple stood. So strictly was this order executed, that the demolished city scarcely appeared to have been the residence of human creatures. Only three strong towers remained of the once magnificent Jerusalem, and they were left to exhibit to future times the skill and power of the Roman troops, in becoming possessed of a place so strongly fortified by nature and art. Josephus and other Jews attribute the unparalleled calamities of their country-men, and the destruction of the temple, to the signal vengeance of heaven, inflicted to punish that deluded people for their cruelty and injustice to James the just, the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ: but a believer of the New Testament _must_ consider that _they_ were punished for their rejection and crucifixion of Jesus Christ himself, the Messiah of Israel, and Son of God; it was for _that_ cause "Zion was plowed as a field; Jerusalem became a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." [140] Matt. xxiv. 21, 22. [141] The walls were composed of the most durable kind of white stone, of massive size, each stone being twelve feet high, eighteen broad, and thirty-seven and a half in length. CHAPTER LXIX. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.--Isaiah viii. 14. These words are not prophetical of the person of the Messiah, yet they describe, in striking language, the effects that would follow his appearance and ministry upon earth. They foretel the opposition and enmity that would arise, in the minds of the Jewish nation, to the Christ of God. If the whole Israelitish race had gladly hailed Jesus as their Messiah, and if all, to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed, from its first promulgation down to the present hour; if all these countless multitudes, had cordially embraced the faith of Christ, it could not have proved a more decisive evidence of "the truth as it is in Jesus," than is afforded by the Jews in their rejection of Christ as the Messiah. Thereby the prophecies of God are fulfilled concerning _him_, who, though set for a sanctuary, became "a stumbling block, and rock of offence," to the house of Israel, "and a gin and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The Jews were not a little vain of the glorious pre-eminence their nation once sustained amidst the kingdoms of the world, on account of the wondrous works, which the Lord of Hosts had wrought for them, by "his mighty hand, and outstretched arm." Their religious distinctions and ceremonies had also tended to feed their pride, and nourish their haughty contempt, for the other nations of the earth. Their long promised Messiah was not forgotten by them. In his reign, their lively imaginations had blended all the splendid conquests and dazzling magnificence of regal power. Theirs was a tone of mind but ill-suited to bow before the despised Man of Nazareth; to embrace the commands, and follow as a master, one so poor, that "he had not where to lay his head." When we consider the natural pride of the human heart, as joined with the national pride of the Jewish people, we may cease to wonder at their rejection of Jesus. They could not stoop to acknowledge even the Son of God as their ruler, when offered to them void of the purple robe and golden sceptre. They could not swear allegiance to Zion's King, when they saw neither his royal pavilion, nor marshalled troops. They could not bow before one born in a stable, though Angels had descended to proclaim his glorious advent. What wonder, if the eye by gazing so long and frequently on the dazzling splendour they were wont to attach to the Messiah's reign, could not perceive the fainter rays of glory that glimmered around the retired path of the Man of Nazareth; they were offended at the absence of all temporal splendour in his person; the Cross of Christ proved a stumbling block and rock of offence. The Jews rejected, as unfit for their-building, "the precious corner stone, which the Lord God had lain in Zion, as a sure foundation." They could not admit the Carpenter's Son to be the head of God's Church, nor acknowledge the Man, untaught in the schools of worldly science, to be the prophet of God's people. Neither "has the offence of the cross yet ceased;" multitudes still despise and reject the Christ of God; they are ashamed to own allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth; they blush to acknowledge, as their Lord and Master, him who died upon the accursed tree; they dislike to be thought one of his real followers, and hate the humiliating and self-denying commands he enjoins on his disciples. They prefer building their hopes for eternity on the sandy foundation of human merit, rather than on the blood and righteousness of Jesus. But if we refuse to rest on Christ, that "sure foundation God has laid in Zion," all other grounds of hope will prove a treacherous rest, from which the floods of divine justice will sweep us to the dark abyss of wo. God has declared that "other foundation can no man lay, than is laid, which is Christ Jesus." Yet how little anxiety is evinced on a subject of such immense importance! How few are concerned to build their hopes for eternity, on Christ, the Rock of Ages, that precious corner stone; that tried stone; tried by countless myriads of happy saints, now in glory, who found him faithful to save from the overwhelming surge. Must not he, who paid the full price of a soul, know its worth? and has he not declared, that it will profit us little "to gain the whole world and lose our own soul?" One soul is of more real value than this world, with all its boasted riches and glories. The day is coming when "the heavens shall depart as a scroll, the elements melt with fervent heat," and this world, so loved and caressed by its votaries will be utterly consumed by the fire of divine vengeance. But the soul of every individual must exist for ever, either in eternal happiness or misery. Yet how is the method of man's reconciliation with God slighted? How is that glorious scheme of redemption, by the death of Christ, despised by the great majority of those to whom it is published. Do angels turn from the lofty pursuits and glories of the heavenly world, to pry into the mysteries of the cross; and shall man, for whose benefit it was contrived and accomplished, remain stupidly insensible to its excellence and glory, carelessly indifferent whether or not he partake of the blessing? Are we not taught in the case of our first parents, the absolute necessity there is for our knowing and receiving Christ? Was it not on the evening of the same day, in which they brake through the fence of God's command, that he was graciously pleased to discover to them his plan of reconciliation in the promised seed? And why so soon after their transgression? but that the knowledge of it was necessary to their salvation. Shall that scheme of Redemption, which required the depths of divine wisdom to contrive, and the extent of divine love to execute, be despised and rejected by man, as unworthy his acceptance? By man, that worm of the earth, that creature of a day, so insignificant amidst the stupendous works of God, that if he were annihilated, he would scarcely be missed amid the boundless immensity of space. Awful is the state of the Gentile or the Jew who "hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing." The Jews, where are they? or rather, where are they not? To what part of the world can we turn, without beholding some of the tribe of Israel. They dwell in every land, but have none they can call their own? They have lost their power, but preserved their national features and manners. Wanderers on the face of the globe for nearly eighteen hundred years, they are not assimilated with any people. What other nation has so long preserved a distinction? Where are the Britons, Romans, Saxons, Normans, ancient inhabitants of our Isle? They are all blended in the English. The Jews, though dwelling in every country, are still an unmixed people, yet that very distinction exposes them to persecution and scorn. The dispersion of the Jews is but a small part of their calamities. The Hebrews are a despised and persecuted race, compelled to endure, without the hope of redress, indignities the most revolting--barbarities the most cruel--insults the most degrading--losses the most severe. And this not merely from one nation, but nearly the whole world has wreaked its vengeance on this unhappy people. Even the most civilised and polished nations have stooped to load the Jews with obloquy and scorn; many and grievous are the disabilities to which they are subject. Yes, Jehovah has executed his threatened punishment upon this unhappy people, for their rejection of the Messiah. "He has scattered them among all people from one end of the earth even unto the other." "Their plagues have been wonderful, even great plagues, and of long continuance." They are become "an astonishment, a proverb, and by-word among all nations." All the prophecies of the Messiah which we possess, were handed down to us from the Jews. The Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old Testament were in their possession long before the gospel era. Its latest prophecy was at least four hundred and thirty years before the angel's shout was heard, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Nor do the Jews attempt to deny that Jesus of Nazareth appeared at the time related by the Evangelists. Josephus, the Jewish historian, in his antiquities of that nation, (book the 18th,) relates:--"About this period, (referring to the reign of Tiberius Cæsar,) there arose to notice one Jesus, a man of consummate wisdom, _if, indeed, he may be deemed a man_. He was eminently celebrated for his power of working miracles; and they who were curious and desirous to learn the truth, flocked to him in abundance. He was followed by immense numbers of people, as well Jews as Gentiles. This was that Christ, whom the princes and great men of our nation accused. He was delivered up to the cross by Pontius Pilate; notwithstanding which, those who originally adhered to him, never forsook him. On the third day after his crucifixion he was seen alive, agreeably to the predictions of several prophets: he wrought a great number of marvellous acts; and there remain, even to this day, a sect of people who bear the name of Christians, who acknowledge this Christ for their head." This honourable testimony is from an enemy--a Jew, whose writings were held in high estimation by his nation. Christ "came into his own nation, but they received him not." No evidence, however bright or clear, was sufficient to convince men so blinded by prejudice. Warned, invited, and threatened, still they persisted in rejecting the Messiah, because he did not assume the warrior's sword, or mount the throne of Judah. Should we not feel more disposed to pity and reclaim, that insult and oppress, this deluded people? Have they no claim to our gratitude? To "them were committed the Oracles of God," which we now enjoy. The prophets and apostles were all Jews; and from them, "according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for evermore." It is recorded, by ecclesiastical writers, that several of Christ's own disciples and apostles--Simon Peter, Simon Zelotes, James the son of Zebedee, Joseph of Arimathea, Aristobulus, and St. Paul himself, preached the gospel to this nation. If this, indeed, be correct, their nation has peculiar claims to our regard, for the services of their ancestors. Certainly, the Romans were instructed in Christianity by Paul and other Jews; and, in the first century, the Roman legions, and the standard of the gospel of Christ, were planted on Albion's coast. The Jews, though scattered and persecuted, are not destroyed; they are preserved monuments of the divine veracity. O, may we take warning from their awful fate! "Because of unbelief _they_ were broken off, and _we_ stand by faith." "Let us not be highminded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he spare not us. Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God; on them which fell, severity; but, towards us, goodness, if we continue in his goodness: otherwise, we also shall be cut off." It will avail us little to confess Jesus as the Messiah, if we are unconcerned to know and practise the doctrines he has taught. But may we "serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling." "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him," for his word is fate; immutability seals, and eternity executes, whatever he decrees. CHAPTER LXX. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.--Isaiah xlix. 6. The descendants of Abraham, the friend of God, were treated as the Lord's peculiar people; singled out from other nations as the favourites of heaven, the Lord was their lawgiver and king. No other nation had God "so nigh unto them in all things that they called upon him for," as the people of Israel. To benefit them, the laws of nature were reversed, and nations destroyed. They were employed by Jehovah to punish the idolatrous people for their crimes.[142] They were selected to maintain the knowledge and worship of the true God,[143] and to convey his pure and holy law to remote generations. Thus favoured and blessed, the Jews were accustomed contemptuously to regard all other nations, as common and unclean; they could not endure to have one stone thrown down of the partition wall, which had so long separated them from the Gentiles.[144] They proudly enough appropriated to themselves all the blessings connected with the appearance of the Messiah. But it would be a light thing that Christ should become Jehovah's servant, endure pain and scorn, merely to "raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel;" that nation which he knew would so long despise and reject him. But Messiah was given for "a light to the Gentiles," and Jehovah's "salvation unto the ends of the earth." He has asked, and received "the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." "Yea, all nations shall be blessed in him;" for the root of Jesse shall stand for "an ensign of the people, and to him shall the Gentiles seek:" to his glorious rest shall all nations flow. He shall have "dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." "They that dwell in the wilderness, shall bow before him; and his enemies lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba, shall offer gifts: yea, all kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall redeem their soul from violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. He shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Seba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. His name shall endure for ever, his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things." Yes, Christ is Jehovah's servant, in whom his soul delights; he has "put his spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles;" "he has given him for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." Numerous are the prophecies which refer to the call of the heathen world, and Jesus who declares himself the Messiah, is described in the New Testament as "a light to lighten the Gentiles," as well as "the glory of his people Israel." He preached himself in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim,[145] and Samaria:[146] the parting command he gave his disciples was, that they should "go forth into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." He endowed them with the gift of tongues, to enable them to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. And they went forth and preached every where, "the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." "The word of the Lord went forth from Jerusalem;" it rapidly spread through Jewry, Samaria, and Galilee. Distant cities soon heard the glad tidings. Within thirty years after their Lord's ascension, the faithful disciples had preached the doctrines of the gospel at Cæsarea, Damascus, Joppa, Antioch, Phrygia, Galatia, Derbe, Corinth, Iconium, Ephesus, Macedonia, Cyprus, Syria, Cilicia, Athens, Alexandria, at Rome, and numerous other places. [142] Deuteronomy xviii. 9, 12. [143] Isaiah xliii. 20, 21. [144] John iv. 9. [145] Matthew iv. 12, 13, 15, 16. [146] John iv. 4. The Christian faith was contrary to all existing opinions, religions, and habits; and decidedly opposed to the natural propensities of the human heart. Its teachers were Jewish fishermen, tent-makers, and tax-gatherers, poor and illiterate men,[147] unskilled in artifice. They preached not merely amongst men as simple as themselves, they taught at Athens and Rome, the very seats of learning and philosophy; they had to contend with men skilled in science, and were opposed by long-established customs and habits. The disciples had no eloquence to convince, no power to awe, no wealth to bribe; they were opposed by Jewish pride, Grecian philosophy, and worldly power; yet the gospel flourished rapidly over all opposition and persecution: ancient prejudice fell before the religion of Jesus; though it offered no worldly recompense to its followers, yet it spread, notwithstanding the kings and nobles of the earth set themselves in array against it. "The stone cut out without hands is become a great mountain, and shall fill the whole earth." The standard of the cross has been planted on every land. Nations, barbarous and learned, have bowed before it; may it go on "conquering and to conquer," till all nations and people call our Immanuel blessed. [147] Acts iv, 13. CHAPTER LXXI. The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.--Psalm cx. 1. We here find Jehovah, _the_ LORD, in the person of God the Father, addressing the Adonai, my Lord, in the person of God the Son, Christ Jesus _our_ Lord.[148] It is he, and he only, who shares the throne of Deity.[149] He who tabernacled on earth, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs," is now seated "on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come." "To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness, is the sceptre of thy kingdom." "This is he that liveth, and was dead, and behold he is alive for evermore; and hath the keys of hell and of death. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" "whom the heaven must receive, until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." "For he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him." "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?" Wo unto them who now dare to raise their puny arm in rebellion against the Majesty of heaven; who madly rush on the "thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler;" "trample under foot the blood of the Son of God;" and "heap unto themselves wrath, against the day of wrath." Christ will not always extend the golden sceptre of mercy, that sinners "may touch and live." The day is coming, when he will grasp the sword of justice, and arise to "judge the world in righteousness." "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." O that men "did but know in this their day, the things that belong unto their peace, before they are for ever hid from their eyes;" for "some shall awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt, but they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever." Ye watchmen on Zion's walls, ye ministers of the everlasting gospel, O "heal not the wound of the daughter of God's people slightly;" say not, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." "Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show the people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." Shrink not back, like Jonah of old, from delivering your Master's awful message. Be ye faithful to your God, to your conscience, and to souls. Let the sweet accents of mercy be heard, while ye boldly unfurl the blood-stained banners of the cross. Tell of the love and pity of him, who died that we might live: "Who suffered, the just for the unjust; to bring sinners unto God." "Pray them, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled unto God;" and accept of mercy while it may be found. Invite, exhort, entreat them to flee from the wrath to come, to lay down the weapons of their rebellion, and join your royal Master's cause; to quit the enemy's camp, those strong holds of sin and Satan, and rally round our Immanuel's standard. "Proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ," tell them "his yoke is easy, and his burden light," that "his ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all his paths are peace?" Tell them "he now waits to be gracious, but that, ere long, the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe." "He will swallow up death in victory; the Lord God will wipe away tears from of all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall be taken away from off all the earth," for the Lord hath spoken it. "It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him; we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." [148] In whatever part of the Bible the name of the LORD is written in capital letters, it means Jehovah; and the name of the Lord in small letters, signifies Adonai. The translators intended to show, by this method, that in the original there is a very material difference in the word. By the glorious incommunicable name of Jehovah (translated LORD in capital letters,) is meant the Self-existent, Independent, and Eternal Being, the promising and performing God. The word Adonai (translated Lord in small letters) conveys the idea of Lord or Ruler, an Almighty Helper or Supporter, and is particularly descriptive of the Mediatorial character of the Lord Jesus. [149] Zechariah xiii. 7. FINIS. Mills, Jowett, and Mills, Bolt-court, Fleet-street. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Page 125: The transcriber has inserted a missing anchor for footnote 71: Col. ii. 9. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where the missing quote should be placed. The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. 
2030	----	LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION By Leonard W. King, M.A., Litt.D., F.S.A. Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum Professor in the University of London King's College First Published 1918 by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press. THE BRITISH ACADEMY THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916 PREPARER'S NOTE This text was prepared from a 1920 edition of the book, hence the references to dates after 1916 in some places. Greek text has been transliterated within brackets "{}" using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. Diacritical marks have been lost. PREFACE In these lectures an attempt is made, not so much to restate familiar facts, as to accommodate them to new and supplementary evidence which has been published in America since the outbreak of the war. But even without the excuse of recent discovery, no apology would be needed for any comparison or contrast of Hebrew tradition with the mythological and legendary beliefs of Babylon and Egypt. Hebrew achievements in the sphere of religion and ethics are only thrown into stronger relief when studied against their contemporary background. The bulk of our new material is furnished by some early texts, written towards the close of the third millennium B.C. They incorporate traditions which extend in unbroken outline from their own period into the remote ages of the past, and claim to trace the history of man back to his creation. They represent the early national traditions of the Sumerian people, who preceded the Semites as the ruling race in Babylonia; and incidentally they necessitate a revision of current views with regard to the cradle of Babylonian civilization. The most remarkable of the new documents is one which relates in poetical narrative an account of the Creation, of Antediluvian history, and of the Deluge. It thus exhibits a close resemblance in structure to the corresponding Hebrew traditions, a resemblance that is not shared by the Semitic-Babylonian Versions at present known. But in matter the Sumerian tradition is more primitive than any of the Semitic versions. In spite of the fact that the text appears to have reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in epitomized form, this early document enables us to tap the stream of tradition at a point far above any at which approach has hitherto been possible. Though the resemblance of early Sumerian tradition to that of the Hebrews is striking, it furnishes a still closer parallel to the summaries preserved from the history of Berossus. The huge figures incorporated in the latter's chronological scheme are no longer to be treated as a product of Neo-Babylonian speculation; they reappear in their original surroundings in another of these early documents, the Sumerian Dynastic List. The sources of Berossus had inevitably been semitized by Babylon; but two of his three Antediluvian cities find their place among the five of primitive Sumerian belief, and two of his ten Antediluvian kings rejoin their Sumerian prototypes. Moreover, the recorded ages of Sumerian and Hebrew patriarchs are strangely alike. It may be added that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo Stele has enabled us to verify, by a very similar comparison, the accuracy of Manetho's sources for his prehistoric period, while at the same time it demonstrates the way in which possible inaccuracies in his system, deduced from independent evidence, may have arisen in remote antiquity. It is clear that both Hebrew and Hellenistic traditions were modelled on very early lines. Thus our new material enables us to check the age, and in some measure the accuracy, of the traditions concerning the dawn of history which the Greeks reproduced from native sources, both in Babylonia and Egypt, after the conquests of Alexander had brought the Near East within the range of their intimate acquaintance. The third body of tradition, that of the Hebrews, though unbacked by the prestige of secular achievement, has, through incorporation in the canons of two great religious systems, acquired an authority which the others have not enjoyed. In re-examining the sources of all three accounts, so far as they are affected by the new discoveries, it will be of interest to observe how the same problems were solved in antiquity by very different races, living under widely divergent conditions, but within easy reach of one another. Their periods of contact, ascertained in history or suggested by geographical considerations, will prompt the further question to what extent each body of belief was evolved in independence of the others. The close correspondence that has long been recognized and is now confirmed between the Hebrew and the Semitic-Babylonian systems, as compared with that of Egypt, naturally falls within the scope of our enquiry. Excavation has provided an extraordinarily full archaeological commentary to the legends of Egypt and Babylon; and when I received the invitation to deliver the Schweich Lectures for 1916, I was reminded of the terms of the Bequest and was asked to emphasize the archaeological side of the subject. Such material illustration was also calculated to bring out, in a more vivid manner than was possible with purely literary evidence, the contrasts and parallels presented by Hebrew tradition. Thanks to a special grant for photographs from the British Academy, I was enabled to illustrate by means of lantern slides many of the problems discussed in the lectures; and it was originally intended that the photographs then shown should appear as plates in this volume. But in view of the continued and increasing shortage of paper, it was afterwards felt to be only right that all illustrations should be omitted. This very necessary decision has involved a recasting of certain sections of the lectures as delivered, which in its turn has rendered possible a fuller treatment of the new literary evidence. To the consequent shifting of interest is also due a transposition of names in the title. On their literary side, and in virtue of the intimacy of their relation to Hebrew tradition, the legends of Babylon must be given precedence over those of Egypt. For the delay in the appearance of the volume I must plead the pressure of other work, on subjects far removed from archaeological study and affording little time and few facilities for a continuance of archaeological and textual research. It is hoped that the insertion of references throughout, and the more detailed discussion of problems suggested by our new literary material, may incline the reader to add his indulgence to that already extended to me by the British Academy. L. W. KING. LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION LECTURE I--EGYPT, BABYLON, AND PALESTINE, AND SOME TRADITIONAL ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION At the present moment most of us have little time or thought to spare for subjects not connected directly or indirectly with the war. We have put aside our own interests and studies; and after the war we shall all have a certain amount of leeway to make up in acquainting ourselves with what has been going on in countries not yet involved in the great struggle. Meanwhile the most we can do is to glance for a moment at any discovery of exceptional interest that may come to light. The main object of these lectures will be to examine certain Hebrew traditions in the light of new evidence which has been published in America since the outbreak of the war. The evidence is furnished by some literary texts, inscribed on tablets from Nippur, one of the oldest and most sacred cities of Babylonia. They are written in Sumerian, the language spoken by the non-Semitic people whom the Semitic Babylonians conquered and displaced; and they include a very primitive version of the Deluge story and Creation myth, and some texts which throw new light on the age of Babylonian civilization and on the area within which it had its rise. In them we have recovered some of the material from which Berossus derived his dynasty of Antediluvian kings, and we are thus enabled to test the accuracy of the Greek tradition by that of the Sumerians themselves. So far then as Babylonia is concerned, these documents will necessitate a re-examination of more than one problem. The myths and legends of ancient Egypt are also to some extent involved. The trend of much recent anthropological research has been in the direction of seeking a single place of origin for similar beliefs and practices, at least among races which were bound to one another by political or commercial ties. And we shall have occasion to test, by means of our new data, a recent theory of Egyptian influence. The Nile Valley was, of course, one the great centres from which civilization radiated throughout the ancient East; and, even when direct contact is unproved, Egyptian literature may furnish instructive parallels and contrasts in any study of Western Asiatic mythology. Moreover, by a strange coincidence, there has also been published in Egypt since the beginning of the war a record referring to the reigns of predynastic rulers in the Nile Valley. This, like some of the Nippur texts, takes us back to that dim period before the dawn of actual history, and, though the information it affords is not detailed like theirs, it provides fresh confirmation of the general accuracy of Manetho's sources, and suggests some interesting points for comparison. But the people with whose traditions we are ultimately concerned are the Hebrews. In the first series of Schweich Lectures, delivered in the year 1908, the late Canon Driver showed how the literature of Assyria and Babylon had thrown light upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early history of the world. The majority of the cuneiform documents, on which he based his comparison, date from a period no earlier than the seventh century B.C., and yet it was clear that the texts themselves, in some form or other, must have descended from a remote antiquity. He concluded his brief reference to the Creation and Deluge Tablets with these words: "The Babylonian narratives are both polytheistic, while the corresponding biblical narratives (Gen. i and vi-xi) are made the vehicle of a pure and exalted monotheism; but in spite of this fundamental difference, and also variations in detail, the resemblances are such as to leave no doubt that the Hebrew cosmogony and the Hebrew story of the Deluge are both derived ultimately from the same original as the Babylonian narratives, only transformed by the magic touch of Israel's religion, and infused by it with a new spirit."(1) Among the recently published documents from Nippur we have at last recovered one at least of those primitive originals from which the Babylonian accounts were derived, while others prove the existence of variant stories of the world's origin and early history which have not survived in the later cuneiform texts. In some of these early Sumerian records we may trace a faint but remarkable parallel with the Hebrew traditions of man's history between his Creation and the Flood. It will be our task, then, to examine the relations which the Hebrew narratives bear both to the early Sumerian and to the later Babylonian Versions, and to ascertain how far the new discoveries support or modify current views with regard to the contents of those early chapters of Genesis. (1) Driver, _Modern Research as illustrating the Bible_ (The Schweich Lectures, 1908), p. 23. I need not remind you that Genesis is the book of Hebrew origins, and that its contents mark it off to some extent from the other books of the Hebrew Bible. The object of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua is to describe in their origin the fundamental institutions of the national faith and to trace from the earliest times the course of events which led to the Hebrew settlement in Palestine. Of this national history the Book of Genesis forms the introductory section. Four centuries of complete silence lie between its close and the beginning of Exodus, where we enter on the history of a nation as contrasted with that of a family.(1) While Exodus and the succeeding books contain national traditions, Genesis is largely made up of individual biography. Chapters xii-l are concerned with the immediate ancestors of the Hebrew race, beginning with Abram's migration into Canaan and closing with Joseph's death in Egypt. But the aim of the book is not confined to recounting the ancestry of Israel. It seeks also to show her relation to other peoples in the world, and probing still deeper into the past it describes how the earth itself was prepared for man's habitation. Thus the patriarchal biographies are preceded, in chapters i-xi, by an account of the original of the world, the beginnings of civilization, and the distribution of the various races of mankind. It is, of course, with certain parts of this first group of chapters that such striking parallels have long been recognized in the cuneiform texts. (1) Cf., e.g., Skinner, _A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis_ (1912), p. ii f.; Driver, _The Book of Genesis_, 10th ed. (1916), pp. 1 ff.; Ryle, _The Book of Genesis_ (1914), pp. x ff. In approaching this particular body of Hebrew traditions, the necessity for some caution will be apparent. It is not as though we were dealing with the reported beliefs of a Malayan or Central Australian tribe. In such a case there would be no difficulty in applying a purely objective criticism, without regard to ulterior consequences. But here our own feelings are involved, having their roots deep in early associations. The ground too is well trodden; and, had there been no new material to discuss, I think I should have preferred a less contentious theme. The new material is my justification for the choice of subject, and also the fact that, whatever views we may hold, it will be necessary for us to assimilate it to them. I shall have no hesitation in giving you my own reading of the evidence; but at the same time it will be possible to indicate solutions which will probably appeal to those who view the subject from more conservative standpoints. That side of the discussion may well be postponed until after the examination of the new evidence in detail. And first of all it will be advisable to clear up some general aspects of the problem, and to define the limits within which our criticism may be applied. It must be admitted that both Egypt and Babylon bear a bad name in Hebrew tradition. Both are synonymous with captivity, the symbols of suffering endured at the beginning and at the close of the national life. And during the struggle against Assyrian aggression, the disappointment at the failure of expected help is reflected in prophecies of the period. These great crises in Hebrew history have tended to obscure in the national memory the part which both Babylon and Egypt may have played in moulding the civilization of the smaller nations with whom they came in contact. To such influence the races of Syria were, by geographical position, peculiarly subject. The country has often been compared to a bridge between the two great continents of Asia and Africa, flanked by the sea on one side and the desert on the other, a narrow causeway of highland and coastal plain connecting the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates.(1) For, except on the frontier of Egypt, desert and sea do not meet. Farther north the Arabian plateau is separated from the Mediterranean by a double mountain chain, which runs south from the Taurus at varying elevations, and encloses in its lower course the remarkable depression of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and the 'Arabah. The Judaean hills and the mountains of Moab are merely the southward prolongation of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and their neighbourhood to the sea endows this narrow tract of habitable country with its moisture and fertility. It thus formed the natural channel of intercourse between the two earliest centres of civilization, and was later the battle-ground of their opposing empires. (1) See G. A. Smith, _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, pp. 5 ff., 45 ff., and Myres, _Dawn of History_, pp. 137 ff.; and cf. Hogarth, _The Nearer East_, pp. 65 ff., and Reclus, _Nouvelle Géographie universelle_, t. IX, pp. 685 ff. The great trunk-roads of through communication run north and south, across the eastern plateaus of the Haurân and Moab, and along the coastal plains. The old highway from Egypt, which left the Delta at Pelusium, at first follows the coast, then trends eastward across the plain of Esdraelon, which breaks the coastal range, and passing under Hermon runs northward through Damascus and reaches the Euphrates at its most westerly point. Other through tracks in Palestine ran then as they do to-day, by Beesheba and Hebron, or along the 'Arabah and west of the Dead Sea, or through Edom and east of Jordan by the present Hajj route to Damascus. But the great highway from Egypt, the most westerly of the trunk-roads through Palestine, was that mainly followed, with some variant sections, by both caravans and armies, and was known by the Hebrews in its southern course as the "Way of the Philistines" and farther north as the "Way of the East". The plain of Esraelon, where the road first trends eastward, has been the battle-ground for most invaders of Palestine from the north, and though Egyptian armies often fought in the southern coastal plain, they too have battled there when they held the southern country. Megiddo, which commands the main pass into the plain through the low Samaritan hills to the southeast of Carmel, was the site of Thothmes III's famous battle against a Syrian confederation, and it inspired the writer of the Apocalypse with his vision of an Armageddon of the future. But invading armies always followed the beaten track of caravans, and movements represented by the great campaigns were reflected in the daily passage of international commerce. With so much through traffic continually passing within her borders, it may be matter for surprise that far more striking evidence of its cultural effect should not have been revealed by archaeological research in Palestine. Here again the explanation is mainly of a geographical character. For though the plains and plateaus could be crossed by the trunk-roads, the rest of the country is so broken up by mountain and valley that it presented few facilities either to foreign penetration or to external control. The physical barriers to local intercourse, reinforced by striking differences in soil, altitude, and climate, while they precluded Syria herself from attaining national unity, always tended to protect her separate provinces, or "kingdoms," from the full effects of foreign aggression. One city-state could be traversed, devastated, or annexed, without in the least degree affecting neighbouring areas. It is true that the population of Syria has always been predominantly Semitic, for she was on the fringe of the great breeding-ground of the Semitic race and her landward boundary was open to the Arabian nomad. Indeed, in the whole course of her history the only race that bade fair at one time to oust the Semite in Syria was the Greek. But the Greeks remained within the cities which they founded or rebuilt, and, as Robertson Smith pointed out, the death-rate in Eastern cities habitually exceeds the birth-rate; the urban population must be reinforced from the country if it is to be maintained, so that the type of population is ultimately determined by the blood of the peasantry.(1) Hence after the Arab conquest the Greek elements in Syria and Palestine tended rapidly to disappear. The Moslem invasion was only the last of a series of similar great inroads, which have followed one another since the dawn of history, and during all that time absorption was continually taking place from desert tribes that ranged the Syrian border. As we have seen, the country of his adoption was such as to encourage the Semitic nomad's particularism, which was inherent in his tribal organization. Thus the predominance of a single racial element in the population of Palestine and Syria did little to break down or overstep the natural barriers and lines of cleavage. (1) See Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 12 f.; and cf. Smith, _Hist. Geogr._, p. 10 f. These facts suffice to show why the influence of both Egypt and Babylon upon the various peoples and kingdoms of Palestine was only intensified at certain periods, when ambition for extended empire dictated the reduction of her provinces in detail. But in the long intervals, during which there was no attempt to enforce political control, regular relations were maintained along the lines of trade and barter. And in any estimate of the possible effect of foreign influence upon Hebrew thought, it is important to realize that some of the channels through which in later periods it may have acted had been flowing since the dawn of history, and even perhaps in prehistoric times. It is probable that Syria formed one of the links by which we may explain the Babylonian elements that are attested in prehistoric Egyptian culture.(1) But another possible line of advance may have been by way of Arabia and across the Red Sea into Upper Egypt. (1) Cf. _Sumer and Akkad_, pp. 322 ff.; and for a full discussion of the points of resemblance between the early Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, see Sayce, _The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_, chap. iv, pp. 101 ff. The latter line of contact is suggested by an interesting piece of evidence that has recently been obtained. A prehistoric flint knife, with a handle carved from the tooth of a hippopotamus, has been purchased lately by the Louvre,(1) and is said to have been found at Gebel el-'Arak near Naga' Hamâdi, which lies on the Nile not far below Koptos, where an ancient caravan-track leads by Wâdi Hammâmât to the Red Sea. On one side of the handle is a battle-scene including some remarkable representations of ancient boats. All the warriors are nude with the exception of a loin girdle, but, while one set of combatants have shaven heads or short hair, the others have abundant locks falling in a thick mass upon the shoulder. On the other face of the handle is carved a hunting scene, two hunters with dogs and desert animals being arranged around a central boss. But in the upper field is a very remarkable group, consisting of a personage struggling with two lions arranged symmetrically. The rest of the composition is not very unlike other examples of prehistoric Egyptian carving in low relief, but here attitude, figure, and clothing are quite un-Egyptian. The hero wears a sort of turban on his abundant hair, and a full and rounded beard descends upon his breast. A long garment clothes him from the waist and falls below the knees, his muscular calves ending in the claws of a bird of prey. There is nothing like this in prehistoric Egyptian art. (1) See Bénédite, "Le couteau de Gebel al-'Arak", in _Foundation Eugène Piot, Mon. et. Mém._, XXII. i. (1916). Perhaps Monsieur Bénédite is pressing his theme too far when he compares the close-cropped warriors on the handle with the shaven Sumerians and Elamites upon steles from Telloh and Susa, for their loin-girdles are African and quite foreign to the Euphrates Valley. And his suggestion that two of the boats, flat-bottomed and with high curved ends, seem only to have navigated the Tigris and Euphrates,(1) will hardly command acceptance. But there is no doubt that the heroic personage upon the other face is represented in the familiar attitude of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh struggling with lions, which formed so favourite a subject upon early Sumerian and Babylonian seals. His garment is Sumerian or Semitic rather than Egyptian, and the mixture of human and bird elements in the figure, though not precisely paralleled at this early period, is not out of harmony with Mesopotamian or Susan tradition. His beard, too, is quite different from that of the Libyan desert tribes which the early Egyptian kings adopted. Though the treatment of the lions is suggestive of proto-Elamite rather than of early Babylonian models, the design itself is unmistakably of Mesopotamian origin. This discovery intensifies the significance of other early parallels that have been noted between the civilizations of the Euphrates and the Nile, but its evidence, so far as it goes, does not point to Syria as the medium of prehistoric intercourse. Yet then, as later, there can have been no physical barrier to the use of the river-route from Mesopotamia into Syria and of the tracks thence southward along the land-bridge to the Nile's delta. (1) Op. cit., p. 32. In the early historic periods we have definite evidence that the eastern coast of the Levant exercised a strong fascination upon the rulers of both Egypt and Babylonia. It may be admitted that Syria had little to give in comparison to what she could borrow, but her local trade in wine and oil must have benefited by an increase in the through traffic which followed the working of copper in Cyprus and Sinai and of silver in the Taurus. Moreover, in the cedar forests of Lebanon and the north she possessed a product which was highly valued both in Egypt and the treeless plains of Babylonia. The cedars procured by Sneferu from Lebanon at the close of the IIIrd Dynasty were doubtless floated as rafts down the coast, and we may see in them evidence of a regular traffic in timber. It has long been known that the early Babylonian king Sharru-kin, or Sargon of Akkad, had pressed up the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and we now have information that he too was fired by a desire for precious wood and metal. One of the recently published Nippur inscriptions contains copies of a number of his texts, collected by an ancient scribe from his statues at Nippur, and from these we gather additional details of his campaigns. We learn that after his complete subjugation of Southern Babylonia he turned his attention to the west, and that Enlil gave him the lands "from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea", i.e. from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Fortunately this rather vague phrase, which survived in later tradition, is restated in greater detail in one of the contemporary versions, which records that Enlil "gave him the upper land, Mari, Iarmuti, and Ibla, as far as the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountains".(1) (1) See Poebel, _Historical Texts_ (Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. IV, No. 1, 1914), pp. 177 f., 222 ff. Mari was a city on the middle Euphrates, but the name may here signify the district of Mari which lay in the upper course of Sargon's march. Now we know that the later Sumerian monarch Gudea obtained his cedar beams from the Amanus range, which he names _Amanum_ and describes as the "cedar mountains".(1) Doubtless he felled his trees on the eastern slopes of the mountain. But we may infer from his texts that Sargon actually reached the coast, and his "Cedar Forest" may have lain farther to the south, perhaps as far south as the Lebanon. The "Silver Mountains" can only be identified with the Taurus, where silver mines were worked in antiquity. The reference to Iarmuti is interesting, for it is clearly the same place as Iarimuta or Iarimmuta, of which we find mention in the Tell el-Amarna letters. From the references to this district in the letters of Rib-Adda, governor of Byblos, we may infer that it was a level district on the coast, capable of producing a considerable quantity of grain for export, and that it was under Egyptian control at the time of Amenophis IV. Hitherto its position has been conjecturally placed in the Nile Delta, but from Sargon's reference we must probably seek it on the North Syrian or possibly the Cilician coast. Perhaps, as Dr. Poebel suggests, it was the plain of Antioch, along the lower course and at the mouth of the Orontes. But his further suggestion that the term is used by Sargon for the whole stretch of country between the sea and the Euphrates is hardly probable. For the geographical references need not be treated as exhaustive, but as confined to the more important districts through which the expedition passed. The district of Ibla which is also mentioned by Narâm-Sin and Gudea, lay probably to the north of Iarmuti, perhaps on the southern slopes of Taurus. It, too, we may regard as a district of restricted extent rather than as a general geographical term for the extreme north of Syria. (1) Thureau-Dangin, _Les inscriptions de Sumer de d'Akkad_, p. 108 f., Statue B, col. v. 1. 28; Germ. ed., p. 68 f. It is significant that Sargon does not allude to any battle when describing this expedition, nor does he claim to have devastated the western countries.(1) Indeed, most of these early expeditions to the west appear to have been inspired by motives of commercial enterprise rather than of conquest. But increase of wealth was naturally followed by political expansion, and Egypt's dream of an Asiatic empire was realized by Pharaohs of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The fact that Babylonian should then have been adopted as the medium of official intercourse in Syria points to the closeness of the commercial ties which had already united the Euphrates Valley with the west. Egyptian control had passed from Canaan at the time of the Hebrew settlement, which was indeed a comparatively late episode in the early history of Syria. Whether or not we identify the Khabiri with the Hebrews, the character of the latter's incursion is strikingly illustrated by some of the Tell el-Amarna letters. We see a nomad folk pressing in upon settled peoples and gaining a foothold here and there.(2) (1) In some versions of his new records Sargon states that "5,400 men daily eat bread before him" (see Poebel, op. cit., p. 178); though the figure may be intended to convey an idea of the size of Sargon's court, we may perhaps see in it a not inaccurate estimate of the total strength of his armed forces. (2) See especially Professor Burney's forthcoming commentary on Judges (passim), and his forthcoming Schweich Lectures (now delivered, in 1917). The great change from desert life consists in the adoption of agriculture, and when once that was made by the Hebrews any further advance in economic development was dictated by their new surroundings. The same process had been going on, as we have seen, in Syria since the dawn of history, the Semitic nomad passing gradually through the stages of agricultural and village life into that of the city. The country favoured the retention of tribal exclusiveness, but ultimate survival could only be purchased at the cost of some amalgamation with their new neighbours. Below the surface of Hebrew history these two tendencies may be traced in varying action and reaction. Some sections of the race engaged readily in the social and commercial life of Canaanite civilization with its rich inheritance from the past. Others, especially in the highlands of Judah and the south, at first succeeded in keeping themselves remote from foreign influence. During the later periods of the national life the country was again subjected, and in an intensified degree, to those forces of political aggression from Mesopotamia and Egypt which we have already noted as operating in Canaan. But throughout the settled Hebrew community as a whole the spark of desert fire was not extinguished, and by kindling the zeal of the Prophets it eventually affected nearly all the white races of mankind. In his Presidential Address before the British Association at Newcastle,(1) Sir Arthur Evans emphasized the part which recent archaeology has played in proving the continuity of human culture from the most remote periods. He showed how gaps in our knowledge had been bridged, and he traced the part which each great race had taken in increasing its inheritance. We have, in fact, ample grounds for assuming an interchange, not only of commercial products, but, in a minor degree, of ideas within areas geographically connected; and it is surely not derogatory to any Hebrew writer to suggest that he may have adopted, and used for his own purposes, conceptions current among his contemporaries. In other words, the vehicle of religious ideas may well be of composite origin; and, in the course of our study of early Hebrew tradition, I suggest that we hold ourselves justified in applying the comparative method to some at any rate of the ingredients which went to form the finished product. The process is purely literary, but it finds an analogy in the study of Semitic art, especially in the later periods. And I think it will make my meaning clearer if we consider for a moment a few examples of sculpture produced by races of Semitic origin. I do not suggest that we should regard the one process as in any way proving the existence of the other. We should rather treat the comparison as illustrating in another medium the effect of forces which, it is clear, were operative at various periods upon races of the same stock from which the Hebrews themselves were descended. In such material products the eye at once detects the Semite's readiness to avail himself of foreign models. In some cases direct borrowing is obvious; in others, to adapt a metaphor from music, it is possible to trace extraneous _motifs_ in the design.(2) (1) "New Archaeological Lights on the Origins of Civilization in Europe," British Association, Newcastle-on- Tyne, 1916. (2) The necessary omission of plates, representing the slides shown in the lectures, has involved a recasting of most passages in which points of archaeological detail were discussed; see Preface. But the following paragraphs have been retained as the majority of the monuments referred to are well known. Some of the most famous monuments of Semitic art date from the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and if we glance at them in this connexion it is in order to illustrate during its most obvious phase a tendency of which the earlier effects are less pronounced. In the sarcophagus of the Sidonian king Eshmu-'azar II, which is preserved in the Louvre,(1) we have indeed a monument to which no Semitic sculptor can lay claim. Workmanship and material are Egyptian, and there is no doubt that it was sculptured in Egypt and transported to Sidon by sea. But the king's own engravers added the long Phoenician inscription, in which he adjures princes and men not to open his resting-place since there are no jewels therein, concluding with some potent curses against any violation of his tomb. One of the latter implores the holy gods to deliver such violators up "to a mighty prince who shall rule over them", and was probably suggested by Alexander's recent occupation of Sidon in 332 B.C. after his reduction and drastic punishment of Tyre. King Eshmun-'zar was not unique in his choice of burial in an Egyptian coffin, for he merely followed the example of his royal father, Tabnîth, "priest of 'Ashtart and king of the Sidonians", whose sarcophagus, preserved at Constantinople, still bears in addition to his own epitaph that of its former occupant, a certain Egyptian general Penptah. But more instructive than these borrowed memorials is a genuine example of Phoenician work, the stele set up by Yehaw-milk, king of Byblos, and dating from the fourth or fifth century B.C.(2) In the sculptured panel at the head of the stele the king is represented in the Persian dress of the period standing in the presence of 'Ashtart or Astarte, his "Lady, Mistress of Byblos". There is no doubt that the stele is of native workmanship, but the influence of Egypt may be seen in the technique of the carving, in the winged disk above the figures, and still more in the representation of the goddess in her character as the Egyptian Hathor, with disk and horns, vulture head-dress and papyrus-sceptre. The inscription records the dedication of an altar and shrine to the goddess, and these too we may conjecture were fashioned on Egyptian lines. (1) _Corp. Inscr. Semit._, I. i, tab. II. (2) _C.I.S._, I. i, tab. I. The representation of Semitic deities under Egyptian forms and with Egyptian attributes was encouraged by the introduction of their cults into Egypt itself. In addition to Astarte of Byblos, Ba'al, Anath, and Reshef were all borrowed from Syria in comparatively early times and given Egyptian characters. The conical Syrian helmet of Reshef, a god of war and thunder, gradually gave place to the white Egyptian crown, so that as Reshpu he was represented as a royal warrior; and Qadesh, another form of Astarte, becoming popular with Egyptian women as a patroness of love and fecundity, was also sometimes modelled on Hathor.(1) (1) See W. Max Müller, _Egyptological Researches_, I, p. 32 f., pl. 41, and S. A. Cook, _Religion of Ancient Palestine_, pp. 83 ff. Semitic colonists on the Egyptian border were ever ready to adopt Egyptian symbolism in delineating the native gods to whom they owed allegiance, and a particularly striking example of this may be seen on a stele of the Persian period preserved in the Cairo Museum.(1) It was found at Tell Defenneh, on the right bank of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, close to the old Egyptian highway into Syria, a site which may be identified with that of the biblical Tahpanhes and the Daphnae of the Greeks. Here it was that the Jewish fugitives, fleeing with Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem, founded a Jewish colony beside a flourishing Phoenician and Aramaean settlement. One of the local gods of Tahpanhes is represented on the Cairo monument, an Egyptian stele in the form of a naos with the winged solar disk upon its frieze. He stands on the back of a lion and is clothed in Asiatic costume with the high Syrian tiara crowning his abundant hair. The Syrian workmanship is obvious, and the Syrian character of the cult may be recognized in such details as the small brazen fire-altar before the god, and the sacred pillar which is being anointed by the officiating priest. But the god holds in his left hand a purely Egyptian sceptre and in his right an emblem as purely Babylonian, the weapon of Marduk and Gilgamesh which was also wielded by early Sumerian kings. (1) Müller, op. cit., p. 30 f., pl. 40. Numismatic evidence exhibits a similar readiness on the part of local Syrian cults to adopt the veneer of Hellenistic civilization while retaining in great measure their own individuality; see Hill, "Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman Age", in _Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. V (1912). The Elephantine papyri have shown that the early Jews of the Diaspora, though untrammeled by the orthodoxy of Jerusalem, maintained the purity of their local cult in the face of considerable difficulties. Hence the gravestones of their Aramaean contemporaries, which have been found in Egypt, can only be cited to illustrate the temptations to which they were exposed.(1) Such was the memorial erected by Abseli to the memory of his parents, Abbâ and Ahatbû, in the fourth year of Xerxes, 481 B.C.(2) They had evidently adopted the religion of Osiris, and were buried at Saqqârah in accordance with the Egyptian rites. The upper scene engraved upon the stele represents Abbâ and his wife in the presence of Osiris, who is attended by Isis and Nephthys; and in the lower panel is the funeral scene, in which all the mourners with one exception are Asiatics. Certain details of the rites that are represented, and mistakes in the hieroglyphic version of the text, prove that the work is Aramaean throughout.(3) (1) It may be admitted that the Greek platonized cult of Isis and Osiris had its origin in the fusion of Greeks and Egyptians which took place in Ptolemaic times (cf. Scott- Moncrieff, _Paganism and Christianity in Egypt_, p. 33 f.). But we may assume that already in the Persian period the Osiris cult had begun to acquire a tinge of mysticism, which, though it did not affect the mechanical reproduction of the native texts, appealed to the Oriental mind as well as to certain elements in Greek religion. Persian influence probably prepared the way for the Platonic exegesis of the Osiris and Isis legends which we find in Plutarch; and the latter may have been in great measure a development, and not, as is often assumed, a complete misunderstanding of the later Egyptian cult. (2) _C.I.S._, II. i, tab. XI, No. 122. (3) A very similar monument is the Carpentras Stele (_C.I.S._, II., i, tab. XIII, No. 141), commemorating Taba, daughter of Tahapi, an Aramaean lady who was also a convert to Osiris. It is rather later than that of Abbâ and his wife, since the Aramaic characters are transitional from the archaic to the square alphabet; see Driver, _Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, pp. xviii ff., and Cooke, _North Semitic Inscriptions_, p. 205 f. The Vatican Stele (op. cit. tab. XIV. No. 142), which dates from the fourth century, represents inferior work. If our examples of Semitic art were confined to the Persian and later periods, they could only be employed to throw light on their own epoch, when through communication had been organized, and there was consequently a certain pooling of commercial and artistic products throughout the empire.(1) It is true that under the Great King the various petty states and provinces were encouraged to manage their own affairs so long as they paid the required tribute, but their horizon naturally expanded with increase of commerce and the necessity for service in the king's armies. At this time Aramaic was the speech of Syria, and the population, especially in the cities, was still largely Aramaean. As early as the thirteenth century sections of this interesting Semitic race had begun to press into Northern Syria from the middle Euphrates, and they absorbed not only the old Canaanite population but also the Hittite immigrants from Cappadocia. The latter indeed may for a time have furnished rulers to the vigorous North Syrian principalities which resulted from this racial combination, but the Aramaean element, thanks to continual reinforcement, was numerically dominant, and their art may legitimately be regarded as in great measure a Semitic product. Fortunately we have recovered examples of sculpture which prove that tendencies already noted in the Persian period were at work, though in a minor degree, under the later Assyrian empire. The discoveries made at Zenjirli, for example, illustrate the gradually increasing effect of Assyrian influence upon the artistic output of a small North Syrian state. (1) Cf. Bevan, _House of Seleucus_, Vol. I, pp. 5, 260 f. The artistic influence of Mesopotamia was even more widely spread than that of Egypt during the Persian period. This is suggested, for example, by the famous lion-weight discovered at Abydos in Mysia, the town on the Hellespont famed for the loves of Hero and Leander. The letters of its Aramaic inscription (_C.I.S._, II. i, tab. VII, No. 108) prove by their form that it dates from the Persian period, and its provenance is sufficiently attested. Its weight moreover suggests that it was not merely a Babylonian or Persian importation, but cast for local use, yet in design and technique it is scarcely distinguishable from the best Assyrian work of the seventh century. This village in north-western Syria, on the road between Antioch and Mar'ash, marks the site of a town which lay near the southern border or just within the Syrian district of Sam'al. The latter is first mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions by Shalmaneser III, the son and successor of the great conqueror, Ashur-nasir-pal; and in the first half of the eighth century, though within the radius of Assyrian influence, it was still an independent kingdom. It is to this period that we must assign the earliest of the inscribed monuments discovered at Zenjirli and its neighbourhood. At Gerjin, not far to the north-west, was found the colossal statue of Hadad, chief god of the Aramaeans, which was fashioned and set up in his honour by Panammu I, son of Qaral and king of Ya'di.(1) In the long Aramaic inscription engraved upon the statue Panammu records the prosperity of his reign, which he ascribes to the support he has received from Hadad and his other gods, El, Reshef, Rekub-el, and Shamash. He had evidently been left in peace by Assyria, and the monument he erected to his god is of Aramaean workmanship and design. But the influence of Assyria may be traced in Hadad's beard and in his horned head-dress, modelled on that worn by Babylonian and Assyrian gods as the symbol of divine power. (1) See F. von Luschan, _Sendschirli_, I. (1893), pp. 49 ff., pl. vi; and cf. Cooke, _North Sem. Inscr._, pp. 159 ff. The characters of the inscription on the statue are of the same archaic type as those of the Moabite Stone, though unlike them they are engraved in relief; so too are the inscriptions of Panammu's later successor Bar-rekub (see below). Gerjin was certainly in Ya'di, and Winckler's suggestion that Zenjirli itself also lay in that district but near the border of Sam'al may be provisionally accepted; the occurrence of the names in the inscriptions can be explained in more than one way (see Cooke, op. cit., p. 183). The political changes introduced into Ya'di and Sam'al by Tiglath-pileser IV are reflected in the inscriptions and monuments of Bar-rekub, a later king of the district. Internal strife had brought disaster upon Ya'di and the throne had been secured by Panammu II, son of Bar-sur, whose claims received Assyrian support. In the words of his son Bar-rekub, "he laid hold of the skirt of his lord, the king of Assyria", who was gracious to him; and it was probably at this time, and as a reward for his loyalty, that Ya'di was united with the neighbouring district of Sam'al. But Panammu's devotion to his foreign master led to his death, for he died at the siege of Damascus, in 733 or 732 B.C., "in the camp, while following his lord, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria". His kinsfolk and the whole camp bewailed him, and his body was sent back to Ya'di, where it was interred by his son, who set up an inscribed statue to his memory. Bar-rekub followed in his father's footsteps, as he leads us to infer in his palace-inscription found at Zenjirli: "I ran at the wheel of my lord, the king of Assyria, in the midst of mighty kings, possessors of silver and possessors of gold." It is not strange therefore that his art should reflect Assyrian influence far more strikingly than that of Panammu I. The figure of himself which he caused to be carved in relief on the left side of the palace-inscription is in the Assyrian style,(1) and so too is another of his reliefs from Zenjirli. On the latter Bar-rekub is represented seated upon his throne with eunuch and scribe in attendance, while in the field is the emblem of full moon and crescent, here ascribed to "Ba'al of Harran", the famous centre of moon-worship in Northern Mesopotamia.(2) (1) _Sendschirli_, IV (1911), pl. lxvii. Attitude and treatment of robes are both Assyrian, and so is the arrangement of divine symbols in the upper field, though some of the latter are given under unfamiliar forms. The king's close-fitting peaked cap was evidently the royal headdress of Sam'al; see the royal figure on a smaller stele of inferior design, op. cit., pl. lxvi. (2) Op. cit. pp. 257, 346 ff., and pl. lx. The general style of the sculpture and much of the detail are obviously Assyrian. Assyrian influence is particularly noticeable in Bar-rekub's throne; the details of its decoration are precisely similar to those of an Assyrian bronze throne in the British Museum. The full moon and crescent are not of the familiar form, but are mounted on a standard with tassels. The detailed history and artistic development of Sam'al and Ya'di convey a very vivid impression of the social and material effects upon the native population of Syria, which followed the westward advance of Assyria in the eighth century. We realize not only the readiness of one party in the state to defeat its rival with the help of Assyrian support, but also the manner in which the life and activities of the nation as a whole were unavoidably affected by their action. Other Hittite-Aramaean and Phoenician monuments, as yet undocumented with literary records, exhibit a strange but not unpleasing mixture of foreign _motifs_, such as we see on the stele from Amrith(1) in the inland district of Arvad. But perhaps the most remarkable example of Syrian art we possess is the king's gate recently discovered at Carchemish.(2) The presence of the hieroglyphic inscriptions points to the survival of Hittite tradition, but the figures represented in the reliefs are of Aramaean, not Hittite, type. Here the king is seen leading his eldest son by the hand in some stately ceremonial, and ranged in registers behind them are the younger members of the royal family, whose ages are indicated by their occupations.(3) The employment of basalt in place of limestone does not disguise the sculptor's debt to Assyria. But the design is entirely his own, and the combined dignity and homeliness of the composition are refreshingly superior to the arrogant spirit and hard execution which mar so much Assyrian work. This example is particularly instructive, as it shows how a borrowed art may be developed in skilled hands and made to serve a purpose in complete harmony with its new environment. (1) _Collection de Clercq_, t. II, pl. xxxvi. The stele is sculptured in relief with the figure of a North Syrian god. Here the winged disk is Egyptian, as well as the god's helmet with uraeus, and his loin-cloth; his attitude and his supporting lion are Hittite; and the lozenge-mountains, on which the lion stands, and the technique of the carving are Assyrian. But in spite of its composite character the design is quite successful and not in the least incongruous. (2) Hogarth, _Carchemish_, Pt. I (1914), pl. B. 7 f. (3) Two of the older boys play at knuckle-bones, others whip spinning-tops, and a little naked girl runs behind supporting herself with a stick, on the head of which is carved a bird. The procession is brought up by the queen- mother, who carries the youngest baby and leads a pet lamb. Such monuments surely illustrate the adaptability of the Semitic craftsman among men of Phoenician and Aramaean strain. Excavation in Palestine has failed to furnish examples of Hebrew work. But Hebrew tradition itself justifies us in regarding this _trait_ as of more general application, or at any rate as not repugnant to Hebrew thought, when it relates that Solomon employed Tyrian craftsmen for work upon the Temple and its furniture; for Phoenician art was essentially Egyptian in its origin and general character. Even Eshmun-'zar's desire for burial in an Egyptian sarcophagus may be paralleled in Hebrew tradition of a much earlier period, when, in the last verse of Genesis,(1) it is recorded that Joseph died, "and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt". Since it formed the subject of prophetic denunciation, I refrain for the moment from citing the notorious adoption of Assyrian customs at certain periods of the later Judaean monarchy. The two records I have referred to will suffice, for we have in them cherished traditions, of which the Hebrews themselves were proud, concerning the most famous example of Hebrew religious architecture and the burial of one of the patriarchs of the race. A similar readiness to make use of the best available resources, even of foreign origin, may on analogy be regarded as at least possible in the composition of Hebrew literature. (1) Gen. l. 26, assigned by critics to E. We shall see that the problems we have to face concern the possible influence of Babylon, rather than of Egypt, upon Hebrew tradition. And one last example, drawn from the later period, will serve to demonstrate how Babylonian influence penetrated the ancient world and has even left some trace upon modern civilization. It is a fact, though one perhaps not generally realized, that the twelve divisions on the dials of our clocks and watches have a Babylonian, and ultimately a Sumerian, ancestry. For why is it we divide the day into twenty-four hours? We have a decimal system of reckoning, we count by tens; why then should we divide the day and night into twelve hours each, instead of into ten or some multiple of ten? The reason is that the Babylonians divided the day into twelve double-hours; and the Greeks took over their ancient system of time-division along with their knowledge of astronomy and passed it on to us. So if we ourselves, after more than two thousand years, are making use of an old custom from Babylon, it would not be surprising if the Hebrews, a contemporary race, should have fallen under her influence even before they were carried away as captives and settled forcibly upon her river-banks. We may pass on, then, to the site from which our new material has been obtained--the ancient city of Nippur, in central Babylonia. Though the place has been deserted for at least nine hundred years, its ancient name still lingers on in local tradition, and to this day _Niffer_ or _Nuffar_ is the name the Arabs give the mounds which cover its extensive ruins. No modern town or village has been built upon them or in their immediate neighbourhood. The nearest considerable town is Dîwânîyah, on the left bank of the Hillah branch of the Euphrates, twenty miles to the south-west; but some four miles to the south of the ruins is the village of Sûq el-'Afej, on the eastern edge of the 'Afej marshes, which begin to the south of Nippur and stretch away westward. Protected by its swamps, the region contains a few primitive settlements of the wild 'Afej tribesmen, each a group of reed-huts clustering around the mud fort of its ruling sheikh. Their chief enemies are the Shammâr, who dispute with them possession of the pastures. In summer the marshes near the mounds are merely pools of water connected by channels through the reed-beds, but in spring the flood-water converts them into a vast lagoon, and all that meets the eye are a few small hamlets built on rising knolls above the water-level. Thus Nippur may be almost isolated during the floods, but the mounds are protected from the waters' encroachment by an outer ring of former habitation which has slightly raised the level of the encircling area. The ruins of the city stand from thirty to seventy feet above the plain, and in the north-eastern corner there rose, before the excavations, a conical mound, known by the Arabs as _Bint el-Emîr_ or "The Princess". This prominent landmark represents the temple-tower of Enlil's famous sanctuary, and even after excavation it is still the first object that the approaching traveller sees on the horizon. When he has climbed its summit he enjoys an uninterrupted view over desert and swamp. The cause of Nippur's present desolation is to be traced to the change in the bed of the Euphrates, which now lies far to the west. But in antiquity the stream flowed through the centre of the city, along the dry bed of the Shatt en-Nîl, which divides the mounds into an eastern and a western group. The latter covers the remains of the city proper and was occupied in part by the great business-houses and bazaars. Here more than thirty thousand contracts and accounts, dating from the fourth millennium to the fifth century B.C., were found in houses along the former river-bank. In the eastern half of the city was Enlil's great temple Ekur, with its temple-tower Imkharsag rising in successive stages beside it. The huge temple-enclosure contained not only the sacrificial shrines, but also the priests' apartments, store-chambers, and temple-magazines. Outside its enclosing wall, to the south-west, a large triangular mound, christened "Tablet Hill" by the excavators, yielded a further supply of records. In addition to business-documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon and of the later Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods, between two and three thousand literary texts and fragments were discovered here, many of them dating from the Sumerian period. And it is possible that some of the early literary texts that have been published were obtained in other parts of the city. No less than twenty-one different strata, representing separate periods of occupation, have been noted by the American excavators at various levels within the Nippur mounds,(1) the earliest descending to virgin soil some twenty feet below the present level of the surrounding plain. The remote date of Nippur's foundation as a city and cult-centre is attested by the fact that the pavement laid by Narâm-Sin in the south-eastern temple-court lies thirty feet above virgin soil, while only thirty-six feet of superimposed _débris_ represent the succeeding millennia of occupation down to Sassanian and early Arab times. In the period of the Hebrew captivity the city still ranked as a great commercial market and as one of the most sacred repositories of Babylonian religious tradition. We know that not far off was Tel-abib, the seat of one of the colonies of Jewish exiles, for that lay "by the river of Chebar",(2) which we may identify with the Kabaru Canal in Nippur's immediate neighbourhood. It was "among the captives by the river Chebar" that Ezekiel lived and prophesied, and it was on Chebar's banks that he saw his first vision of the Cherubim.(3) He and other of the Jewish exiles may perhaps have mingled with the motley crowd that once thronged the streets of Nippur, and they may often have gazed on the huge temple-tower which rose above the city's flat roofs. We know that the later population of Nippur itself included a considerable Jewish element, for the upper strata of the mounds have yielded numerous clay bowls with Hebrew, Mandaean, and Syriac magical inscriptions;(4) and not the least interesting of the objects recovered was the wooden box of a Jewish scribe, containing his pen and ink-vessel and a little scrap of crumbling parchment inscribed with a few Hebrew characters.(5) (1) See Hilprecht, _Explorations in Bible Lands_, pp. 289 ff., 540 ff.; and Fisher, _Excavations at Nippur_, Pt. I (1905), Pt. II (1906). (2) Ezek. iii. 15. (3) Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii. 23; and cf. x. 15, 20, 22, and xliii. 3. (4) See J. A. Montgomery, _Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur_, 1913 (5) Hilprecht, _Explorations_, p. 555 f. Of the many thousands of inscribed clay tablets which were found in the course of the expeditions, some were kept at Constantinople, while others were presented by the Sultan Abdul Hamid to the excavators, who had them conveyed to America. Since that time a large number have been published. The work was necessarily slow, for many of the texts were found to be in an extremely bad state of preservation. So it happened that a great number of the boxes containing tablets remained until recently still packed up in the store-rooms of the Pennsylvania Museum. But under the present energetic Director of the Museum, Dr. G. B. Gordon, the process of arranging and publishing the mass of literary material has been "speeded up". A staff of skilled workmen has been employed on the laborious task of cleaning the broken tablets and fitting the fragments together. At the same time the help of several Assyriologists was welcomed in the further task of running over and sorting the collections as they were prepared for study. Professor Clay, Professor Barton, Dr. Langdon, Dr. Edward Chiera, and Dr. Arno Poebel have all participated in the work. But the lion's share has fallen to the last-named scholar, who was given leave of absence by John Hopkins University in order to take up a temporary appointment at the Pennsylvania Museum. The result of his labours was published by the Museum at the end of 1914.(1) The texts thus made available for study are of very varied interest. A great body of them are grammatical and represent compilations made by Semitic scribes of the period of Hammurabi's dynasty for their study of the old Sumerian tongue. Containing, as most of them do, Semitic renderings of the Sumerian words and expressions collected, they are as great a help to us in our study of Sumerian language as they were to their compilers; in particular they have thrown much new light on the paradigms of the demonstrative and personal pronouns and on Sumerian verbal forms. But literary texts are also included in the recent publications. (1) Poebel, _Historical Texts_ and _Historical and Grammatical Texts_ (Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. IV, No. 1, and Vol. V), Philadelphia, 1914. When the Pennsylvania Museum sent out its first expedition, lively hopes were entertained that the site selected would yield material of interest from the biblical standpoint. The city of Nippur, as we have seen, was one of the most sacred and most ancient religious centres in the country, and Enlil, its city-god, was the head of the Babylonian pantheon. On such a site it seemed likely that we might find versions of the Babylonian legends which were current at the dawn of history before the city of Babylonia and its Semitic inhabitants came upon the scene. This expectation has proved to be not unfounded, for the literary texts include the Sumerian Deluge Version and Creation myth to which I referred at the beginning of the lecture. Other texts of almost equal interest consist of early though fragmentary lists of historical and semi-mythical rulers. They prove that Berossus and the later Babylonians depended on material of quite early origin in compiling their dynasties of semi-mythical kings. In them we obtain a glimpse of ages more remote than any on which excavation in Babylonia has yet thrown light, and for the first time we have recovered genuine native tradition of early date with regard to the cradle of Babylonian culture. Before we approach the Sumerian legends themselves, it will be as well to-day to trace back in this tradition the gradual merging of history into legend and myth, comparing at the same time the ancient Egyptian's picture of his own remote past. We will also ascertain whether any new light is thrown by our inquiry upon Hebrew traditions concerning the earliest history of the human race and the origins of civilization. In the study of both Egyptian and Babylonian chronology there has been a tendency of late years to reduce the very early dates that were formerly in fashion. But in Egypt, while the dynasties of Manetho have been telescoped in places, excavation has thrown light on predynastic periods, and we can now trace the history of culture in the Nile Valley back, through an unbroken sequence, to its neolithic stage. Quite recently, too, as I mentioned just now, a fresh literary record of these early predynastic periods has been recovered, on a fragment of the famous Palermo Stele, our most valuable monument for early Egyptian history and chronology. Egypt presents a striking contrast to Babylonia in the comparatively small number of written records which have survived for the reconstruction of her history. We might well spare much of her religious literature, enshrined in endless temple-inscriptions and papyri, if we could but exchange it for some of the royal annals of Egyptian Pharaohs. That historical records of this character were compiled by the Egyptian scribes, and that they were as detailed and precise in their information as those we have recovered from Assyrian sources, is clear from the few extracts from the annals of Thothmes III's wars which are engraved on the walls of the temple at Karnak.(1) As in Babylonia and Assyria, such records must have formed the foundation on which summaries of chronicles of past Egyptian history were based. In the Palermo Stele it is recognized that we possess a primitive chronicle of this character. (1) See Breasted, _Ancient Records_, I, p. 4, II, pp. 163 ff. Drawn up as early as the Vth Dynasty, its historical summary proves that from the beginning of the dynastic age onward a yearly record was kept of the most important achievements of the reigning Pharaoh. In this fragmentary but invaluable epitome, recording in outline much of the history of the Old Kingdom,(1) some interesting parallels have long been noted with Babylonian usage. The early system of time-reckoning, for example, was the same in both countries, each year being given an official title from the chief event that occurred in it. And although in Babylonia we are still without material for tracing the process by which this cumbrous method gave place to that of reckoning by regnal years, the Palermo Stele demonstrates the way in which the latter system was evolved in Egypt. For the events from which the year was named came gradually to be confined to the fiscal "numberings" of cattle and land. And when these, which at first had taken place at comparatively long intervals, had become annual events, the numbered sequence of their occurrence corresponded precisely to the years of the king's reign. On the stele, during the dynastic period, each regnal year is allotted its own space or rectangle,(2) arranged in horizontal sequence below the name and titles of the ruling king. (1) Op. cit., I, pp. 57 ff. (2) The spaces are not strictly rectangles, as each is divided vertically from the next by the Egyptian hieroglyph for "year". The text, which is engraved on both sides of a great block of black basalt, takes its name from the fact that the fragment hitherto known has been preserved since 1877 at the Museum of Palermo. Five other fragments of the text have now been published, of which one undoubtedly belongs to the same monument as the Palermo fragment, while the others may represent parts of one or more duplicate copies of that famous text. One of the four Cairo fragments(1) was found by a digger for _sebakh_ at Mitrahîneh (Memphis); the other three, which were purchased from a dealer, are said to have come from Minieh, while the fifth fragment, at University College, is also said to have come from Upper Egypt,(2) though it was purchased by Professor Petrie while at Memphis. These reports suggest that a number of duplicate copies were engraved and set up in different Egyptian towns, and it is possible that the whole of the text may eventually be recovered. The choice of basalt for the records was obviously dictated by a desire for their preservation, but it has had the contrary effect; for the blocks of this hard and precious stone have been cut up and reused in later times. The largest and most interesting of the new fragments has evidently been employed as a door-sill, with the result that its surface is much rubbed and parts of its text are unfortunately almost undecipherable. We shall see that the earliest section of its record has an important bearing on our knowledge of Egyptian predynastic history and on the traditions of that remote period which have come down to us from the history of Manetho. (1) See Gautier, _Le Musée �gyptien_, III (1915), pp. 29 ff., pl. xxiv ff., and Foucart, _Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale_, XII, ii (1916), pp. 161 ff.; and cf. Gardiner, _Journ. of Egypt. Arch._, III, pp. 143 ff., and Petrie, _Ancient Egypt_, 1916, Pt. III, pp. 114 ff. (2) Cf. Petrie, op. cit., pp. 115, 120. From the fragment of the stele preserved at Palermo we already knew that its record went back beyond the Ist Dynasty into predynastic times. For part of the top band of the inscription, which is there preserved, contains nine names borne by kings of Lower Egypt or the Delta, which, it had been conjectured, must follow the gods of Manetho and precede the "Worshippers of Horus", the immediate predecessors of the Egyptian dynasties.(1) But of contemporary rulers of Upper Egypt we had hitherto no knowledge, since the supposed royal names discovered at Abydos and assigned to the time of the "Worshippers of Horus" are probably not royal names at all.(2) With the possible exception of two very archaic slate palettes, the first historical memorials recovered from the south do not date from an earlier period than the beginning of the Ist Dynasty. The largest of the Cairo fragments now helps us to fill in this gap in our knowledge. (1) See Breasted, _Anc. Rec._, I, pp. 52, 57. (2) Cf. Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 99 f. On the top of the new fragment(1) we meet the same band of rectangles as at Palermo,(2) but here their upper portions are broken away, and there only remains at the base of each of them the outlined figure of a royal personage, seated in the same attitude as those on the Palermo stone. The remarkable fact about these figures is that, with the apparent exception of the third figure from the right,(3) each wears, not the Crown of the North, as at Palermo, but the Crown of the South. We have then to do with kings of Upper Egypt, not the Delta, and it is no longer possible to suppose that the predynastic rulers of the Palermo Stele were confined to those of Lower Egypt, as reflecting northern tradition. Rulers of both halves of the country are represented, and Monsieur Gautier has shown,(4) from data on the reverse of the inscription, that the kings of the Delta were arranged on the original stone before the rulers of the south who are outlined upon our new fragment. Moreover, we have now recovered definite proof that this band of the inscription is concerned with predynastic Egyptian princes; for the cartouche of the king, whose years are enumerated in the second band immediately below the kings of the south, reads Athet, a name we may with certainty identify with Athothes, the second successor of Menes, founder of the Ist Dynasty, which is already given under the form Ateth in the Abydos List of Kings.(5) It is thus quite certain that the first band of the inscription relates to the earlier periods before the two halves of the country were brought together under a single ruler. (1) Cairo No. 1; see Gautier, _Mus. �gypt._, III, pl. xxiv f. (2) In this upper band the spaces are true rectangles, being separated by vertical lines, not by the hieroglyph for "year" as in the lower bands; and each rectangle is assigned to a separate king, and not, as in the other bands, to a year of a king's reign. (3) The difference in the crown worn by this figure is probably only apparent and not intentional; M. Foucart, after a careful examination of the fragment, concludes that it is due to subsequent damage or to an original defect in the stone; cf. _Bulletin_, XII, ii, p. 162. (4) Op. cit., p. 32 f. (5) In Manetho's list he corresponds to {Kenkenos}, the second successor of Menes according to both Africanus and Eusebius, who assign the name Athothis to the second ruler of the dynasty only, the Teta of the Abydos List. The form Athothes is preserved by Eratosthenes for both of Menes' immediate successors. Though the tradition of these remote times is here recorded on a monument of the Vth Dynasty, there is no reason to doubt its general accuracy, or to suppose that we are dealing with purely mythological personages. It is perhaps possible, as Monsieur Foucart suggests, that missing portions of the text may have carried the record back through purely mythical periods to Ptah and the Creation. In that case we should have, as we shall see, a striking parallel to early Sumerian tradition. But in the first extant portions of the Palermo text we are already in the realm of genuine tradition. The names preserved appear to be those of individuals, not of mythological creations, and we may assume that their owners really existed. For though the invention of writing had not at that time been achieved, its place was probably taken by oral tradition. We know that with certain tribes of Africa at the present day, who possess no knowledge of writing, there are functionaries charged with the duty of preserving tribal traditions, who transmit orally to their successors a remembrance of past chiefs and some details of events that occurred centuries before.(1) The predynastic Egyptians may well have adopted similar means for preserving a remembrance of their past history. (1) M. Foucart illustrates this point by citing the case of the Bushongos, who have in this way preserved a list of no less than a hundred and twenty-one of their past kings; op. cit., p. 182, and cf. Tordey and Joyce, "Les Bushongos", in _Annales du Musée du Congo Belge_, sér. III, t. II, fasc. i (Brussels, 1911). Moreover, the new text furnishes fresh proof of the general accuracy of Manetho, even when dealing with traditions of this prehistoric age. On the stele there is no definite indication that these two sets of predynastic kings were contemporaneous rulers of Lower and Upper Egypt respectively; and since elsewhere the lists assign a single sovereign to each epoch, it has been suggested that we should regard them as successive representatives of the legitimate kingdom.(1) Now Manetho, after his dynasties of gods and demi-gods, states that thirty Memphite kings reigned for 1,790 years, and were followed by ten Thinite kings whose reigns covered a period of 350 years. Neglecting the figures as obviously erroneous, we may well admit that the Greek historian here alludes to our two pre-Menite dynasties. But the fact that he should regard them as ruling consecutively does not preclude the other alternative. The modern convention of arranging lines of contemporaneous rulers in parallel columns had not been evolved in antiquity, and without some such method of distinction contemporaneous rulers, when enumerated in a list, can only be registered consecutively. It would be natural to assume that, before the unification of Egypt by the founder of the Ist Dynasty, the rulers of North and South were independent princes, possessing no traditions of a united throne on which any claim to hegemony could be based. On the assumption that this was so, their arrangement in a consecutive series would not have deceived their immediate successors. But it would undoubtedly tend in course of time to obliterate the tradition of their true order, which even at the period of the Vth Dynasty may have been completely forgotten. Manetho would thus have introduced no strange or novel confusion; and this explanation would of course apply to other sections of his system where the dynasties he enumerates appear to be too many for their period. But his reproduction of two lines of predynastic rulers, supported as it now is by the early evidence of the Palermo text, only serves to increase our confidence in the general accuracy of his sources, while at the same time it illustrates very effectively the way in which possible inaccuracies, deduced from independent data, may have arisen in quite early times. (1) Foucart, loc. cit. In contrast to the dynasties of Manetho, those of Berossus are so imperfectly preserved that they have never formed the basis of Babylonian chronology.(1) But here too, in the chronological scheme, a similar process of reduction has taken place. Certain dynasties, recovered from native sources and at one time regarded as consecutive, were proved to have been contemporaneous; and archaeological evidence suggested that some of the great gaps, so freely assumed in the royal sequence, had no right to be there. As a result, the succession of known rulers was thrown into truer perspective, and such gaps as remained were being partially filled by later discoveries. Among the latter the most important find was that of an early list of kings, recently published by Père Scheil(2) and subsequently purchased by the British Museum shortly before the war. This had helped us to fill in the gap between the famous Sargon of Akkad and the later dynasties, but it did not carry us far beyond Sargon's own time. Our archaeological evidence also comes suddenly to an end. Thus the earliest picture we have hitherto obtained of the Sumerians has been that of a race employing an advanced system of writing and possessed of a knowledge of metal. We have found, in short, abundant remains of a bronze-age culture, but no traces of preceding ages of development such as meet us on early Egyptian sites. It was a natural inference that the advent of the Sumerians in the Euphrates Valley was sudden, and that they had brought their highly developed culture with them from some region of Central or Southern Asia. (1) While the evidence of Herodotus is extraordinarily valuable for the details he gives of the civilizations of both Egypt and Babylonia, and is especially full in the case of the former, it is of little practical use for the chronology. In Egypt his report of the early history is confused, and he hardly attempts one for Babylonia. It is probable that on such subjects he sometimes misunderstood his informants, the priests, whose traditions were more accurately reproduced by the later native writers Manetho and Berossus. For a detailed comparison of classical authorities in relation to both countries, see Griffith in Hogarth's _Authority and Archaeology_, pp. 161 ff. (2) See _Comptes rendus_, 1911 (Oct.), pp. 606 ff., and _Rev. d'Assyr._, IX (1912), p. 69. The newly published Nippur documents will cause us to modify that view. The lists of early kings were themselves drawn up under the Dynasty of Nîsin in the twenty-second century B.C., and they give us traces of possibly ten and at least eight other "kingdoms" before the earliest dynasty of the known lists.(1) One of their novel features is that they include summaries at the end, in which it is stated how often a city or district enjoyed the privilege of being the seat of supreme authority in Babylonia. The earliest of their sections lie within the legendary period, and though in the third dynasty preserved we begin to note signs of a firmer historical tradition, the great break that then occurs in the text is at present only bridged by titles of various "kingdoms" which the summaries give; a few even of these are missing and the relative order of the rest is not assured. But in spite of their imperfect state of preservation, these documents are of great historical value and will furnish a framework for future chronological schemes. Meanwhile we may attribute to some of the later dynasties titles in complete agreement with Sumerian tradition. The dynasty of Ur-Engur, for example, which preceded that of Nîsin, becomes, if we like, the Third Dynasty of Ur. Another important fact which strikes us after a scrutiny of the early royal names recovered is that, while two or three are Semitic,(2) the great majority of those borne by the earliest rulers of Kish, Erech, and Ur are as obviously Sumerian. (1) See Poebel, _Historical Texts_, pp. 73 ff. and _Historical and Grammatical Texts_, pl. ii-iv, Nos. 2-5. The best preserved of the lists is No. 2; Nos. 3 and 4 are comparatively small fragments; and of No. 5 the obverse only is here published for the first time, the contents of the reverse having been made known some years ago by Hilprecht (cf. _Mathematical, Metrological, and Chronological Tablets_, p. 46 f., pl. 30, No. 47). The fragments belong to separate copies of the Sumerian dynastic record, and it happens that the extant portions of their text in some places cover the same period and are duplicates of one another. (2) Cf., e.g., two of the earliest kings of Kish, Galumum and Zugagib. The former is probably the Semitic-Babylonian word _kalumum_, "young animal, lamb," the latter _zukakîbum_, "scorpion"; cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 111. The occurrence of these names points to Semitic infiltration into Northern Babylonia since the dawn of history, a state of things we should naturally expect. It is improbable that on this point Sumerian tradition should have merely reflected the conditions of a later period. It is clear that in native tradition, current among the Sumerians themselves before the close of the third millennium, their race was regarded as in possession of Babylonia since the dawn of history. This at any rate proves that their advent was not sudden nor comparatively recent, and it further suggests that Babylonia itself was the cradle of their civilization. It will be the province of future archaeological research to fill out the missing dynasties and to determine at what points in the list their strictly historical basis disappears. Some, which are fortunately preserved near the beginning, bear on their face their legendary character. But for our purpose they are none the worse for that. In the first two dynasties, which had their seats at the cities of Kish and Erech, we see gods mingling with men upon the earth. Tammuz, the god of vegetation, for whose annual death Ezekiel saw women weeping beside the Temple at Jerusalem, is here an earthly monarch. He appears to be described as "a hunter", a phrase which recalls the death of Adonis in Greek mythology. According to our Sumerian text he reigned in Erech for a hundred years. Another attractive Babylonian legend is that of Etana, the prototype of Icarus and hero of the earliest dream of human flight.(1) Clinging to the pinions of his friend the Eagle he beheld the world and its encircling stream recede beneath him; and he flew through the gate of heaven, only to fall headlong back to earth. He is here duly entered in the list, where we read that "Etana, the shepherd who ascended to heaven, who subdued all lands", ruled in the city of Kish for 635 years. (1) The Egyptian conception of the deceased Pharaoh ascending to heaven as a falcon and becoming merged into the sun, which first occurs in the Pyramid texts (see Gardiner in Cumont's _�tudes Syriennes_, pp. 109 ff.), belongs to a different range of ideas. But it may well have been combined with the Etana tradition to produce the funerary eagle employed so commonly in Roman Syria in representations of the emperor's apotheosis (cf. Cumont, op. cit., pp. 37 ff., 115). The god Lugal-banda is another hero of legend. When the hearts of the other gods failed them, he alone recovered the Tablets of Fate, stolen by the bird-god Zû from Enlil's palace. He is here recorded to have reigned in Erech for 1,200 years. Tradition already told us that Erech was the native city of Gilgamesh, the hero of the national epic, to whom his ancestor Ut-napishtim related the story of the Flood. Gilgamesh too is in our list, as king of Erech for 126 years. We have here in fact recovered traditions of Post-diluvian kings. Unfortunately our list goes no farther back than that, but it is probable that in its original form it presented a general correspondence to the system preserved from Berossus, which enumerates ten Antediluvian kings, the last of them Xisuthros, the hero of the Deluge. Indeed, for the dynastic period, the agreement of these old Sumerian lists with the chronological system of Berossus is striking. The latter, according to Syncellus, gives 34,090 or 34,080 years as the total duration of the historical period, apart from his preceding mythical ages, while the figure as preserved by Eusebius is 33,091 years.(1) The compiler of one of our new lists,(2) writing some 1,900 years earlier, reckons that the dynastic period in his day had lasted for 32,243 years. Of course all these figures are mythical, and even at the time of the Sumerian Dynasty of Nîsin variant traditions were current with regard to the number of historical and semi-mythical kings of Babylonia and the duration of their rule. For the earlier writer of another of our lists,(3) separated from the one already quoted by an interval of only sixty-seven years, gives 28,876(4) years as the total duration of the dynasties at his time. But in spite of these discrepancies, the general resemblance presented by the huge totals in the variant copies of the list to the alternative figures of Berossus, if we ignore his mythical period, is remarkable. They indicate a far closer correspondence of the Greek tradition with that of the early Sumerians themselves than was formerly suspected. (1) The figure 34,090 is that given by Syncellus (ed. Dindorf, p. 147); but it is 34,080 in the equivalent which is added in "sars", &c. The discrepancy is explained by some as due to an intentional omission of the units in the second reckoning; others would regard 34,080 as the correct figure (cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 114 f.). The reading of ninety against eighty is supported by the 33,091 of Eusebius (_Chron. lib. pri._, ed. Schoene, col. 25). (2) No. 4. (3) No. 2. (4) The figures are broken, but the reading given may be accepted with some confidence; see Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._, p. 103. Further proof of this correspondence may be seen in the fact that the new Sumerian Version of the Deluge Story, which I propose to discuss in the second lecture, gives us a connected account of the world's history down to that point. The Deluge hero is there a Sumerian king named Ziusudu, ruling in one of the newly created cities of Babylonia and ministering at the shrine of his city-god. He is continually given the royal title, and the foundation of the Babylonian "kingdom" is treated as an essential part of Creation. We may therefore assume that an Antediluvian period existed in Sumerian tradition as in Berossus.(1) And I think Dr. Poebel is right in assuming that the Nippur copies of the Dynastic List begin with the Post-diluvian period.(2) (1) Of course it does not necessarily follow that the figure assigned to the duration of the Antediluvian or mythical period by the Sumerians would show so close a resemblance to that of Berossus as we have already noted in their estimates of the dynastic or historical period. But there is no need to assume that Berossus' huge total of a hundred and twenty "sars" (432,000 years) is entirely a product of Neo- Babylonian speculation; the total 432,000 is explained as representing ten months of a cosmic year, each month consisting of twelve "sars", i.e. 12 x 3600 = 43,200 years. The Sumerians themselves had no difficulty in picturing two of their dynastic rulers as each reigning for two "ners" (1,200 years), and it would not be unlikely that "sars" were distributed among still earlier rulers; the numbers were easily written. For the unequal distribution of his hundred and twenty "sars" by Berossus among his ten Antediluvian kings, see Appendix II. (2) The exclusion of the Antediluvian period from the list may perhaps be explained on the assumption that its compiler confined his record to "kingdoms", and that the mythical rulers who preceded them did not form a "kingdom" within his definition of the term. In any case we have a clear indication that an earlier period was included before the true "kingdoms", or dynasties, in an Assyrian copy of the list, a fragment of which is preserved in the British Museum from the Library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh; see _Chron. conc. Early Bab. Kings_ (Studies in East. Hist., II f.), Vol. I, pp. 182 ff., Vol. II, pp. 48 ff., 143 f. There we find traces of an extra column of text preceding that in which the first Kingdom of Kish was recorded. It would seem almost certain that this extra column was devoted to Antediluvian kings. The only alternative explanation would be that it was inscribed with the summaries which conclude the Sumerian copies of our list. But later scribes do not so transpose their material, and the proper place for summaries is at the close, not at the beginning, of a list. In the Assyrian copy the Dynastic List is brought up to date, and extends down to the later Assyrian period. Formerly its compiler could only be credited with incorporating traditions of earlier times. But the correspondence of the small fragment preserved of its Second Column with part of the First Column of the Nippur texts (including the name of "Enmennunna") proves that the Assyrian scribe reproduced an actual copy of the Sumerian document. Though Professor Barton, on the other hand, holds that the Dynastic List had no concern with the Deluge, his suggestion that the early names preserved by it may have been the original source of Berossus' Antediluvian rulers(1) may yet be accepted in a modified form. In coming to his conclusion he may have been influenced by what seems to me an undoubted correspondence between one of the rulers in our list and the sixth Antediluvian king of Berossus. I think few will be disposed to dispute the equation {Daonos poimon} = Etana, a shepherd. Each list preserves the hero's shepherd origin and the correspondence of the names is very close, Daonos merely transposing the initial vowel of Etana.(2) That Berossus should have translated a Post-diluvian ruler into the Antediluvian dynasty would not be at all surprising in view of the absence of detailed correspondence between his later dynasties and those we know actually occupied the Babylonian throne. Moreover, the inclusion of Babylon in his list of Antediluvian cities should make us hesitate to regard all the rulers he assigns to his earliest dynasty as necessarily retaining in his list their original order in Sumerian tradition. Thus we may with a clear conscience seek equations between the names of Berossus' Antediluvian rulers and those preserved in the early part of our Dynastic List, although we may regard the latter as equally Post-diluvian in Sumerian belief. (1) See the brief statement he makes in the course of a review of Dr. Poebel's volumes in the _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature_, XXXI, April 1915, p. 225. He does not compare any of the names, but he promises a study of those preserved and a comparison of the list with Berossus and with Gen. iv and v. It is possible that Professor Barton has already fulfilled his promise of further discussion, perhaps in his _Archaeology and the Bible_, to the publication of which I have seen a reference in another connexion (cf. _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI, p. 291); but I have not yet been able to obtain sight of a copy. (2) The variant form {Daos} is evidently a mere contraction, and any claim it may have had to represent more closely the original form of the name is to be disregarded in view of our new equation. This reflection, and the result already obtained, encourage us to accept the following further equation, which is yielded by a renewed scrutiny of the lists: {'Ammenon} = Enmenunna. Here Ammenon, the fourth of Berossus' Antediluvian kings, presents a wonderfully close transcription of the Sumerian name. The _n_ of the first syllable has been assimilated to the following consonant in accordance with a recognized law of euphony, and the resultant doubling of the _m_ is faithfully preserved in the Greek. Precisely the same initial component, _Enme_, occurs in the name Enmeduranki, borne by a mythical king of Sippar, who has long been recognized as the original of Berossus' seventh Antediluvian king, {Euedorakhos}.(1) There too the original _n_ has been assimilated, but the Greek form retains no doubling of the _m_ and points to its further weakening. (1) Var. {Euedoreskhos}; the second half of the original name, Enmeduranki, is more closely preserved in _Edoranchus_, the form given by the Armenian translator of Eusebius. I do not propose to detain you with a detailed discussion of Sumerian royal names and their possible Greek equivalents. I will merely point out that the two suggested equations, which I venture to think we may regard as established, throw the study of Berossus' mythological personages upon a new plane. No equivalent has hitherto been suggested for {Daonos}; but {'Ammenon} has been confidently explained as the equivalent of a conjectured Babylonian original, Ummânu, lit. "Workman". The fact that we should now have recovered the Sumerian original of the name, which proves to have no connexion in form or meaning with the previously suggested Semitic equivalent, tends to cast doubt on other Semitic equations proposed. Perhaps {'Amelon} or {'Amillaros} may after all not prove to be the equivalent of Amêlu, "Man", nor {'Amempsinos} that of Amêl-Sin. Both may find their true equivalents in some of the missing royal names at the head of the Sumerian Dynastic List. There too we may provisionally seek {'Aloros}, the "first king", whose equation with Aruru, the Babylonian mother-goddess, never appeared a very happy suggestion.(1) The ingenious proposal,(2) on the other hand, that his successor, {'Alaparos}, represents a miscopied {'Adaparos}, a Greek rendering of the name of Adapa, may still hold good in view of Etana's presence in the Sumerian dynastic record. Ut-napishtim's title, Khasisatra or Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise", still of course remains the established equivalent of {Xisouthros}; but for {'Otiartes} (? {'Opartes}), a rival to Ubar-Tutu, Ut-napishtim's father, may perhaps appear. The new identifications do not of course dispose of the old ones, except in the case of Ummânu; but they open up a new line of approach and provide a fresh field for conjecture.(3) Semitic, and possibly contracted, originals are still possible for unidentified mythical kings of Berossus; but such equations will inspire greater confidence, should we be able to establish Sumerian originals for the Semitic renderings, from new material already in hand or to be obtained in the future. (1) Dr. Poebel (_Hist Inscr._, p. 42, n. 1) makes the interesting suggestion that {'Aloros} may represent an abbreviated and corrupt form of the name Lal-ur-alimma, which has come down to us as that of an early and mythical king of Nippur; see Rawlinson, _W.A.I._, IV, 60 (67), V, 47 and 44, and cf. _Sev. Tabl. of Creat._, Vol. I, p. 217, No. 32574, Rev., l. 2 f. It may be added that the sufferings with which the latter is associated in the tradition are perhaps such as might have attached themselves to the first human ruler of the world; but the suggested equation, though tempting by reason of the remote parallel it would thus furnish to Adam's fate, can at present hardly be accepted in view of the possibility that a closer equation to {'Aloros} may be forthcoming. (2) Hommel, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, Vol. XV (1893), p. 243. (3) See further Appendix II. But it is time I read you extracts from the earlier extant portions of the Sumerian Dynastic List, in order to illustrate the class of document with which we are dealing. From them it will be seen that the record is not a tabular list of names like the well-known King's Lists of the Neo-Babylonian period. It is cast in the form of an epitomized chronicle and gives under set formulae the length of each king's reign, and his father's name in cases of direct succession to father or brother. Short phrases are also sometimes added, or inserted in the sentence referring to a king, in order to indicate his humble origin or the achievement which made his name famous in tradition. The head of the First Column of the text is wanting, and the first royal name that is completely preserved is that of Galumum, the ninth or tenth ruler of the earliest "kingdom", or dynasty, of Kish. The text then runs on connectedly for several lines: Galumum ruled for nine hundred years. Zugagib ruled for eight hundred and forty years. Arpi, son of a man of the people, ruled for seven hundred and twenty years. Etana, the shepherd who ascended to heaven, who subdued all lands, ruled for six hundred and thirty-five years.(1) Pili . . ., son of Etana, ruled for four hundred and ten years. Enmenunna ruled for six hundred and eleven years. Melamkish, son of Enmenunna, ruled for nine hundred years. Barsalnunna, son of Enmenunna, ruled for twelve hundred years. Mesza(. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years. (. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years. (1) Possibly 625 years. A small gap then occurs in the text, but we know that the last two representatives of this dynasty of twenty-three kings are related to have ruled for nine hundred years and six hundred and twenty-five years respectively. In the Second Column of the text the lines are also fortunately preserved which record the passing of the first hegemony of Kish to the "Kingdom of Eanna", the latter taking its name from the famous temple of Anu and Ishtar in the old city of Erech. The text continues: The kingdom of Kish passed to Eanna. In Eanna, Meskingasher, son of the Sun-god, ruled as high priest and king for three hundred and twenty-five years. Meskingasher entered into(1) (. . .) and ascended to (. . .). Enmerkar, son of Meskingasher, the king of Erech who built (. . .) with the people of Erech,(2) ruled as king for four hundred and twenty years. Lugalbanda, the shepherd, ruled for twelve hundred years. Dumuzi,(3), the hunter(?), whose city was . . ., ruled for a hundred years. Gishbilgames,(4) whose father was A,(5) the high priest of Kullab, ruled for one hundred and twenty-six(6) years. (. . .)lugal, son of Gishbilgames, ruled for (. . .) years. (1) The verb may also imply descent into. (2) The phrase appears to have been imperfectly copied by the scribe. As it stands the subordinate sentence reads "the king of Erech who built with the people of Erech". Either the object governed by the verb has been omitted, in which case we might restore some such phrase as "the city"; or, perhaps, by a slight transposition, we should read "the king who built Erech with the people of Erech". In any case the first building of the city of Erech, as distinguished from its ancient cult-centre Eanna, appears to be recorded here in the tradition. This is the first reference to Erech in the text; and Enmerkar's father was high priest as well as king. (3) i.e. Tammuz. (4) i.e. Gilgamesh. (5) The name of the father of Gilgamesh is rather strangely expressed by the single sign for the vowel _a_ and must apparently be read as A. As there is a small break in the text at the end of this line, Dr. Poebel not unnaturally assumed that A was merely the first syllable of the name, of which the end was wanting. But it has now been shown that the complete name was A; see Förtsch, _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._, Vol. XVIII, No. 12 (Dec., 1915), col. 367 ff. The reading is deduced from the following entry in an Assyrian explanatory list of gods (_Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl. 25, ll. 29-31): "The god A, who is also equated to the god Dubbisaguri (i.e. 'Scribe of Ur'), is the priest of Kullab; his wife is the goddess Ninguesirka (i.e. 'Lady of the edge of the street')." A, the priest of Kullab and the husband of a goddess, is clearly to be identified with A, the priest of Kullab and father of Gilgamesh, for we know from the Gilgamesh Epic that the hero's mother was the goddess Ninsun. Whether Ninguesirka was a title of Ninsun, or represents a variant tradition with regard to the parentage of Gilgamesh on the mother's side, we have in any case confirmation of his descent from priest and goddess. It was natural that A should be subsequently deified. This was not the case at the time our text was inscribed, as the name is written without the divine determinative. (6) Possibly 186 years. This group of early kings of Erech is of exceptional interest. Apart from its inclusion of Gilgamesh and the gods Tammuz and Lugalbanda, its record of Meskingasher's reign possibly refers to one of the lost legends of Erech. Like him Melchizedek, who comes to us in a chapter of Genesis reflecting the troubled times of Babylon's First Dynasty,(1) was priest as well as king.(2) Tradition appears to have credited Meskingasher's son and successor, Enmerkar, with the building of Erech as a city around the first settlement Eanna, which had already given its name to the "kingdom". If so, Sumerian tradition confirms the assumption of modern research that the great cities of Babylonia arose around the still more ancient cult-centres of the land. We shall have occasion to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most famous member, Gilgamesh. Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers of the "Kingdom of Eanna" are wanting. When the text is again preserved, we read of the hegemony passing from Erech to Ur and thence to Awan: The k(ingdom of Erech(3) passed to) Ur. In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years. Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years. Elu(. . .) ruled for twenty-five years. Balu(. . .) ruled for thirty-six years. Four kings (thus) ruled for a hundred and seventy-one years. The kingdom of Ur passed to Awan. In Awan . . . (1) Cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 159 f. (2) Gen. xiv. 18. (3) The restoration of Erech here, in place of Eanna, is based on the absence of the latter name in the summary; after the building of Erech by Enmerkar, the kingdom was probably reckoned as that of Erech. With the "Kingdom of Ur" we appear to be approaching a firmer historical tradition, for the reigns of its rulers are recorded in decades, not hundreds of years. But we find in the summary, which concludes the main copy of our Dynastic List, that the kingdom of Awan, though it consisted of but three rulers, is credited with a total duration of three hundred and fifty-six years, implying that we are not yet out of the legendary stratum. Since Awan is proved by newly published historical inscriptions from Nippur to have been an important deity of Elam at the time of the Dynasty of Akkad,(1) we gather that the "Kingdom of Awan" represented in Sumerian tradition the first occasion on which the country passed for a time under Elamite rule. At this point a great gap occurs in the text, and when the detailed dynastic succession in Babylonia is again assured, we have passed definitely from the realm of myth and legend into that of history.(2) (1) Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._, p. 128. (2) See further, Appendix II. What new light, then, do these old Sumerian records throw on Hebrew traditions concerning the early ages of mankind? I think it will be admitted that there is something strangely familiar about some of those Sumerian extracts I read just now. We seem to hear in them the faint echo of another narrative, like them but not quite the same. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enosh: and Seth lived after he begat Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. . . . and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Throughout these extracts from "the book of the generations of Adam",(1) Galumum's nine hundred years(2) seem to run almost like a refrain; and Methuselah's great age, the recognized symbol for longevity, is even exceeded by two of the Sumerian patriarchs. The names in the two lists are not the same,(3) but in both we are moving in the same atmosphere and along similar lines of thought. Though each list adheres to its own set formulae, it estimates the length of human life in the early ages of the world on much the same gigantic scale as the other. Our Sumerian records are not quite so formal in their structure as the Hebrew narrative, but the short notes which here and there relieve their stiff monotony may be paralleled in the Cainite genealogy of the preceding chapter in Genesis.(4) There Cain's city-building, for example, may pair with that of Enmerkar; and though our new records may afford no precise equivalents to Jabal's patronage of nomad life, or to the invention of music and metal-working ascribed to Jubal and Tubal-cain, these too are quite in the spirit of Sumerian and Babylonian tradition, in their attempt to picture the beginnings of civilization. Thus Enmeduranki, the prototype of the seventh Antediluvian patriarch of Berossus, was traditionally revered as the first exponent of divination.(5) It is in the chronological and general setting, rather than in the Hebrew names and details, that an echo seems here to reach us from Sumer through Babylon. (1) Gen. v. 1 ff. (P). (2) The same length of reign is credited to Melamkish and to one and perhaps two other rulers of that first Sumerian "kingdom". (3) The possibility of the Babylonian origin of some of the Hebrew names in this geneaology and its Cainite parallel has long been canvassed; and considerable ingenuity has been expended in obtaining equations between Hebrew names and those of the Antediluvian kings of Berossus by tracing a common meaning for each suggested pair. It is unfortunate that our new identification of {'Ammenon} with the Sumerian _Enmenunna_ should dispose of one of the best parallels obtained, viz. {'Ammenon} = Bab. _ummânu_, "workman" || Cain, Kenan = "smith". Another satisfactory pair suggested is {'Amelon} = Bab. _amêlu_, "man" || Enosh = "man"; but the resemblance of the former to _amêlu_ may prove to be fortuitous, in view of the possibility of descent from a quite different Sumerian original. The alternative may perhaps have to be faced that the Hebrew parallels to Sumerian and Babylonian traditions are here confined to chronological structure and general contents, and do not extend to Hebrew renderings of Babylonian names. It may be added that such correspondence between personal names in different languages is not very significant by itself. The name of Zugagib of Kish, for example, is paralleled by the title borne by one of the earliest kings of the Ist Dynasty of Egypt, Narmer, whose carved slate palettes have been found at Kierakonpolis; he too was known as "the Scorpion." (4) Gen. iv. 17 ff. (J). (5) It may be noted that an account of the origin of divination is included in his description of the descendents of Noah by the writer of the Biblical Antiquities of Philo, a product of the same school as the Fourth Book of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch; see James, _The Biblical Antiquities of Philo_, p. 86. I may add that a parallel is provided by the new Sumerian records to the circumstances preceding the birth of the Nephilim at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Genesis.(1) For in them also great prowess or distinction is ascribed to the progeny of human and divine unions. We have already noted that, according to the traditions the records embody, the Sumerians looked back to a time when gods lived upon the earth with men, and we have seen such deities as Tammuz and Lugalbanda figuring as rulers of cities in the dynastic sequence. As in later periods, their names are there preceded by the determinative for divinity. But more significant still is the fact that we read of two Sumerian heroes, also rulers of cities, who were divine on the father's or mother's side but not on both. Meskingasher is entered in the list as "son of the Sun-god",(2) and no divine parentage is recorded on the mother's side. On the other hand, the human father of Gilgamesh is described as the high priest of Kullab, and we know from other sources that his mother was the goddess Ninsun.(3) That this is not a fanciful interpretation is proved by a passage in the Gilgamesh Epic itself,(4) in which its hero is described as two-thirds god and one-third man. We again find ourselves back in the same stratum of tradition with which the Hebrew narratives have made us so familiar. (1) Gen. vi. 1-4 (J). (2) The phrase recalls the familiar Egyptian royal designation "son of the Sun," and it is possible that we may connect with this same idea the Palermo Stele's inclusion of the mother's and omission of the father's name in its record of the early dynastic Pharaohs. This suggestion does not exclude the possibility of the prevalence of matrilineal (and perhaps originally also of matrilocal and matripotestal) conditions among the earliest inhabitants of Egypt. Indeed the early existence of some form of mother- right may have originated, and would certainly have encouraged, the growth of a tradition of solar parentage for the head of the state. (3) Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._, p. 124 f. (4) Tablet I, Col. ii, l. 1; and cf. Tablet IX, Col. ii. l. 16. What light then does our new material throw upon traditional origins of civilization? We have seen that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo Stele has confirmed in a remarkable way the tradition of the predynastic period which was incorporated in his history by Manetho. It has long been recognized that in Babylonia the sources of Berossus must have been refracted by the political atmosphere of that country during the preceding nineteen hundred years. This inference our new material supports; but when due allowance has been made for a resulting disturbance of vision, the Sumerian origin of the remainder of his evidence is notably confirmed. Two of his ten Antediluvian kings rejoin their Sumerian prototypes, and we shall see that two of his three Antediluvian cities find their place among the five of primitive Sumerian belief. It is clear that in Babylonia, as in Egypt, the local traditions of the dawn of history, current in the Hellenistic period, were modelled on very early lines. Both countries were the seats of ancient civilizations, and it is natural that each should stage its picture of beginnings upon its own soil and embellish it with local colouring. It is a tribute to the historical accuracy of Hebrew tradition to recognize that it never represented Palestine as the cradle of the human race. It looked to the East rather than to the South for evidence of man's earliest history and first progress in the arts of life. And it is in the East, in the soil of Babylonia, that we may legitimately seek material in which to verify the sources of that traditional belief. The new parallels I have to-day attempted to trace between some of the Hebrew traditions, preserved in Gen. iv-vi, and those of the early Sumerians, as presented by their great Dynastic List, are essentially general in character and do not apply to details of narrative or to proper names. If they stood alone, we should still have to consider whether they are such as to suggest cultural influence or independent origin. But fortunately they do not exhaust the evidence we have lately recovered from the site of Nippur, and we will postpone formulating our conclusions with regard to them until the whole field has been surveyed. From the biblical standpoint by far the most valuable of our new documents is one that incorporates a Sumerian version of the Deluge story. We shall see that it presents a variant and more primitive picture of that great catastrophe than those of the Babylonian and Hebrew versions. And what is of even greater interest, it connects the narrative of the Flood with that of Creation, and supplies a brief but intermediate account of the Antediluvian period. How then are we to explain this striking literary resemblance to the structure of the narrative in Genesis, a resemblance that is completely wanting in the Babylonian versions? But that is a problem we must reserve for the next lecture. LECTURE II -- DELUGE STORIES AND THE NEW SUMERIAN VERSION In the first lecture we saw how, both in Babylonia and Egypt, recent discoveries had thrown light upon periods regarded as prehistoric, and how we had lately recovered traditions concerning very early rulers both in the Nile Valley and along the lower Euphrates. On the strength of the latter discovery we noted the possibility that future excavation in Babylonia would lay bare stages of primitive culture similar to those we have already recovered in Egyptian soil. Meanwhile the documents from Nippur had shown us what the early Sumerians themselves believed about their own origin, and we traced in their tradition the gradual blending of history with legend and myth. We saw that the new Dynastic List took us back in the legendary sequence at least to the beginning of the Post-diluvian period. Now one of the newly published literary texts fills in the gap beyond, for it gives us a Sumerian account of the history of the world from the Creation to the Deluge, at about which point, as we saw, the extant portions of the Dynastic List take up the story. I propose to devote my lecture to-day to this early version of the Flood and to the effect of its discovery upon some current theories. The Babylonian account of the Deluge, which was discovered by George Smith in 1872 on tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh, is, as you know, embedded in a long epic of twelve Books recounting the adventures of the Old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh. Towards the end of this composite tale, Gilgamesh, desiring immortality, crosses the Waters of Death in order to beg the secret from his ancestor Ut-napishtim, who in the past had escaped the Deluge and had been granted immortality by the gods. The Eleventh Tablet, or Book, of the epic contains the account of the Deluge which Ut-napishtim related to his kinsman Gilgamesh. The close correspondence of this Babylonian story with that contained in Genesis is recognized by every one and need not detain us. You will remember that in some passages the accounts tally even in minute details, such, for example, as the device of sending out birds to test the abatement of the waters. It is true that in the Babylonian version a dove, a swallow, and a raven are sent forth in that order, instead of a raven and the dove three times. But such slight discrepancies only emphasize the general resemblance of the narratives. In any comparison it is usually admitted that two accounts have been combined in the Hebrew narrative. I should like to point out that this assumption may be made by any one, whatever his views may be with regard to the textual problems of the Hebrew Bible and the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch. And for our purpose at the moment it is immaterial whether we identify the compiler of these Hebrew narratives with Moses himself, or with some later Jewish historian whose name has not come down to us. Whoever he was, he has scrupulously preserved his two texts and, even when they differ, he has given each as he found it. Thanks to this fact, any one by a careful examination of the narrative can disentangle the two versions for himself. He will find each gives a consistent story. One of them appears to be simpler and more primitive than the other, and I will refer to them as the earlier and the later Hebrew Versions.(1) The Babylonian text in the Epic of Gilgamesh contains several peculiarities of each of the Hebrew versions, though the points of resemblance are more detailed in the earlier of the two. (1) In the combined account in Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, if the following passages be marked in the margin or underlined, and then read consecutively, it will be seen that they give a consistent and almost complete account of the Deluge: Gen. vi. 9-22; vii. 6, 11, 13-16 (down to "as God commanded him"), 17 (to "upon the earth"), 18-21, 24; viii. 1, 2 (to "were stopped"), 3 (from "and after")-5, 13 (to "from off the earth"), 14-19; and ix. 1-17. The marked passages represent the "later Hebrew Version." If the remaining passages be then read consecutively, they will be seen to give a different version of the same events, though not so completely preserved as the other; these passages substantially represent the "earlier Hebrew Version". In commentaries on the Hebrew text they are, of course, usually referred to under the convenient symbols J and P, representing respectively the earlier and the later versions. For further details, see any of the modern commentaries on Genesis, e.g. Driver, _Book of Genesis_, pp. 85 ff.; Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 147 ff.; Ryle, _Genesis_, p. 96 f. Now the tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh inscribed with the Gilgamesh Epic do not date from an earlier period than the seventh century B.C. But archaeological evidence has long shown that the traditions themselves were current during all periods of Babylonian history; for Gilgamesh and his half-human friend Enkidu were favourite subjects for the seal-engraver, whether he lived in Sumerian times or under the Achaemenian kings of Persia. We have also, for some years now, possessed two early fragments of the Deluge narrative, proving that the story was known to the Semitic inhabitants of the country at the time of Hammurabi's dynasty.(1) Our newly discovered text from Nippur was also written at about that period, probably before 2100 B.C. But the composition itself, apart from the tablet on which it is inscribed, must go back very much earlier than that. For instead of being composed in Semitic Babylonian, the text is in Sumerian, the language of the earliest known inhabitants of Babylonia, whom the Semites eventually displaced. This people, it is now recognized, were the originators of the Babylonian civilization, and we saw in the first lecture that, according to their own traditions, they had occupied that country since the dawn of history. (1) The earlier of the two fragments is dated in the eleventh year of Ammizaduga, the tenth king of Hammurabi's dynasty, i.e. in 1967 B.C.; it was published by Scheil, _Recueil de travaux_, Vol. XX, pp. 55 ff. Here the Deluge story does not form part of the Gilgamesh Epic, but is recounted in the second tablet of a different work; its hero bears the name Atrakhasis, as in the variant version of the Deluge from the Nineveh library. The other and smaller fragment, which must be dated by its script, was published by Hilprecht (_Babylonian Expedition_, series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 1, pp. 33 ff.), who assigned it to about the same period; but it is probably of a considerably later date. The most convenient translations of the legends that were known before the publication of the Nippur texts are those given by Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_ (Oxford, 1912), and Dhorme, _Choix de textes religieux Assyro-Babyloniens_ (Paris, 1907). The Semites as a ruling race came later, though the occurrence of Semitic names in the Sumerian Dynastic List suggests very early infiltration from Arabia. After a long struggle the immigrants succeeded in dominating the settled race; and in the process they in turn became civilized. They learnt and adopted the cuneiform writing, they took over the Sumerian literature. Towards the close of the third millennium, when our tablet was written, the Sumerians as a race had almost ceased to exist. They had been absorbed in the Semitic population and their language was no longer the general language of the country. But their ancient literature and sacred texts were carefully preserved and continued to be studied by the Semitic priests and scribes. So the fact that the tablet is written in the old Sumerian tongue proves that the story it tells had come down from a very much earlier period. This inference is not affected by certain small differences in idiom which its language presents when compared with that of Sumerian building-inscriptions. Such would naturally occur in the course of transmission, especially in a text which, as we shall see, had been employed for a practical purpose after being subjected to a process of reduction to suit it to its new setting. When we turn to the text itself, it will be obvious that the story also is very primitive. But before doing so we will inquire whether this very early version is likely to cast any light on the origin of Deluge stories such as are often met with in other parts of the world. Our inquiry will have an interest apart from the question itself, as it will illustrate the views of two divergent schools among students of primitive literature and tradition. According to one of these views, in its most extreme form, the tales which early or primitive man tells about his gods and the origin of the world he sees around him are never to be regarded as simple stories, but are to be consistently interpreted as symbolizing natural phenomena. It is, of course, quite certain that, both in Egypt and Babylonia, mythology in later periods received a strong astrological colouring; and it is equally clear that some legends derive their origin from nature myths. But the theory in the hands of its more enthusiastic adherents goes further than that. For them a complete absence of astrological colouring is no deterrent from an astrological interpretation; and, where such colouring does occur, the possibility of later embellishment is discounted, and it is treated without further proof as the base on which the original story rests. One such interpretation of the Deluge narrative in Babylonia, particularly favoured by recent German writers, would regard it as reflecting the passage of the Sun through a portion of the ecliptic. It is assumed that the primitive Babylonians were aware that in the course of ages the spring equinox must traverse the southern or watery region of the zodiac. This, on their system, signified a submergence of the whole universe in water, and the Deluge myth would symbolize the safe passage of the vernal Sun-god through that part of the ecliptic. But we need not spend time over that view, as its underlying conception is undoubtedly quite a late development of Babylonian astrology. More attractive is the simpler astrological theory that the voyage of any Deluge hero in his boat or ark represents the daily journey of the Sun-god across the heavenly ocean, a conception which is so often represented in Egyptian sculpture and painting. It used to be assumed by holders of the theory that this idea of the Sun as "the god in the boat" was common among primitive races, and that that would account for the widespread occurrence of Deluge-stories among scattered races of the world. But this view has recently undergone some modification in accordance with the general trend of other lines of research. In recent years there has been an increased readiness among archaeologists to recognize evidence of contact between the great civilizations of antiquity. This has been particularly the case in the area of the Eastern Mediterranean; but the possibility has also been mooted of the early use of land-routes running from the Near East to Central and Southern Asia. The discovery in Chinese Turkestan, to the east of the Caspian, of a prehistoric culture resembling that of Elam has now been followed by the finding of similar remains by Sir Aurel Stein in the course of the journey from which he has lately returned.(1) They were discovered in an old basin of the Helmand River in Persian Seistan, where they had been laid bare by wind-erosion. But more interesting still, and an incentive to further exploration in that region, is another of his discoveries last year, also made near the Afghan border. At two sites in the Helmand Delta, well above the level of inundation, he came across fragments of pottery inscribed in early Aramaic characters,(2) though, for obvious reasons, he has left them with all his other collections in India. This unexpected find, by the way, suggests for our problem possibilities of wide transmission in comparatively early times. (1) See his "Expedition in Central Asia", in _The Geographical Journal_, Vol. XLVII (Jan.-June, 1916), pp. 358 ff. (2) Op. cit., p. 363. The synthetic tendency among archaeologists has been reflected in anthropological research, which has begun to question the separate and independent origin, not only of the more useful arts and crafts, but also of many primitive customs and beliefs. It is suggested that too much stress has been laid on environment; and, though it is readily admitted that similar needs and experiences may in some cases have given rise to similar expedients and explanations, it is urged that man is an imitative animal and that inventive genius is far from common.(1) Consequently the wide dispersion of many beliefs and practices, which used generally to be explained as due to the similar and independent working of the human mind under like conditions, is now often provisionally registered as evidence of migratory movement or of cultural drift. Much good work has recently been done in tabulating the occurrence of many customs and beliefs, in order to ascertain their lines of distribution. Workers are as yet in the collecting stage, and it is hardly necessary to say that explanatory theories are still to be regarded as purely tentative and provisional. At the meetings of the British Association during the last few years, the most breezy discussions in the Anthropological Section have undoubtedly centred around this subject. There are several works in the field, but the most comprehensive theory as yet put forward is one that concerns us, as it has given a new lease of life to the old solar interpretation of the Deluge story. (1) See, e.g. Marett, _Anthropology_ (2nd ed., 1914), Chap. iv, "Environment," pp. 122 ff.; and for earlier tendencies, particularly in the sphere of mythological exegesis, see S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, t. IV (1912), pp. 1 ff. In a land such as Egypt, where there is little rain and the sky is always clear, the sun in its splendour tended from the earliest period to dominate the national consciousness. As intercourse increased along the Nile Valley, centres of Sun-worship ceased to be merely local, and the political rise of a city determined the fortunes of its cult. From the proto-dynastic period onward, the "King of the two Lands" had borne the title of "Horus" as the lineal descendant of the great Sun-god of Edfu, and the rise of Ra in the Vth Dynasty, through the priesthood of Heliopolis, was confirmed in the solar theology of the Middle Kingdom. Thus it was that other deities assumed a solar character as forms of Ra. Amen, the local god of Thebes, becomes Amen-Ra with the political rise of his city, and even the old Crocodile-god, Sebek, soars into the sky as Sebek-Ra. The only other movement in the religion of ancient Egypt, comparable in importance to this solar development, was the popular cult of Osiris as God of the Dead, and with it the official religion had to come to terms. Horus is reborn as the posthumous son of Osiris, and Ra gladdens his abode during his nightly journey through the Underworld. The theory with which we are concerned suggests that this dominant trait in Egyptian religion passed, with other elements of culture, beyond the bounds of the Nile Valley and influenced the practice and beliefs of distant races. This suggestion has been gradually elaborated by its author, Professor Elliot Smith, who has devoted much attention to the anatomical study of Egyptian mummification. Beginning with a scrutiny of megalithic building and sun-worship,(1) he has subsequently deduced, from evidence of common distribution, the existence of a culture-complex, including in addition to these two elements the varied practices of tattooing, circumcision, ear-piercing, that quaint custom known as couvade, head-deformation, and the prevalence of serpent-cults, myths of petrifaction and the Deluge, and finally of mummification. The last ingredient was added after an examination of Papuan mummies had disclosed their apparent resemblance in points of detail to Egyptian mummies of the XXIst Dynasty. As a result he assumes the existence of an early cultural movement, for which the descriptive title "heliolithic" has been coined.(2) Starting with Egypt as its centre, one of the principal lines of its advance is said to have lain through Syria and Mesopotamia and thence along the coastlands of Asia to the Far East. The method of distribution and the suggested part played by the Phoenicians have been already criticized sufficiently. But in a modified form the theory has found considerable support, especially among ethnologists interested in Indonesia. I do not propose to examine in detail the evidence for or against it. It will suffice to note that the Deluge story and its alleged Egyptian origin in solar worship form one of the prominent strands in its composition. (1) Cf. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911. (2) See in particular his monograph "On the significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification" in the _Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_, 1915. One weakness of this particular strand is that the Egyptians themselves possessed no tradition of the Deluge. Indeed the annual inundation of the Nile is not such as would give rise to a legend of world-destruction; and in this respect it presents a striking contrast to the Tigris and Euphrates. The ancient Egyptian's conception of his own gentle river is reflected in the form he gave the Nile-god, for Hapi is represented as no fierce warrior or monster. He is given a woman's breasts as a sign of his fecundity. The nearest Egyptian parallel to the Deluge story is the "Legend of the Destruction of Mankind", which is engraved on the walls of a chamber in the tomb of Seti I.(1) The late Sir Gaston Maspero indeed called it "a dry deluge myth", but his paradox was intended to emphasize the difference as much as the parallelism presented. It is true that in the Egyptian myth the Sun-god causes mankind to be slain because of their impiety, and he eventually pardons the survivors. The narrative thus betrays undoubted parallelism to the Babylonian and Hebrew stories, so far as concerns the attempted annihilation of mankind by the offended god, but there the resemblance ends. For water has no part in man's destruction, and the essential element of a Deluge story is thus absent.(2) Our new Sumerian document, on the other hand, contains what is by far the earliest example yet recovered of a genuine Deluge tale; and we may thus use it incidentally to test this theory of Egyptian influence, and also to ascertain whether it furnishes any positive evidence on the origin of Deluge stories in general. (1) It was first published by Monsieur Naville, _Tranc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, IV (1874), pp. 1 ff. The myth may be most conveniently studied in Dr. Budge's edition in _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, "Legends of the Gods" (1912), pp. 14 ff., where the hieroglyphic text and translation are printed on opposite pages; cf. the summary, op. cit., pp. xxiii ff., where the principal literature is also cited. See also his _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, chap. xii, pp. 388 ff. (2) The undoubted points of resemblance, as well as the equally striking points of divergence, presented by the Egyptian myth when compared with the Babylonian and Hebrew stories of a Deluge may be briefly indicated. The impiety of men in complaining of the age of Ra finds a parallel in the wickedness of man upon the earth (J) and the corruption of all flesh (P) of the Hebrew Versions. The summoning by Ra of the great Heliopolitan cosmic gods in council, including his personified Eye, the primaeval pair Shu and Tefnut, Keb the god of the earth and his consort Nut the sky-goddess, and Nu the primaeval water-god and originally Nut's male counterpart, is paralleled by the _puhur ilâni_, or "assembly of the gods", in the Babylonian Version (see Gilg. Epic. XI. l. 120 f., and cf. ll. 10 ff.); and they meet in "the Great House", or Sun-temple at Heliopolis, as the Babylonian gods deliberate in Shuruppak. Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hebrew narratives all agree in the divine determination to destroy mankind and in man's ultimate survival. But the close of the Egyptian story diverges into another sphere. The slaughter of men by the Eye of Ra in the form of the goddess Hathor, who during the night wades in their blood, is suggestive of Africa; and so too is her drinking of men's blood mixed with the narcotic mandrake and with seven thousand vessels of beer, with the result that through drunkenness she ceased from slaughter. The latter part of the narrative is directly connected with the cult- ritual and beer-drinking at the Festivals of Hathor and Ra; but the destruction of men by slaughter in place of drowning appears to belong to the original myth. Indeed, the only suggestion of a Deluge story is suggested by the presence of Nu, the primaeval water-god, at Ra's council, and that is explicable on other grounds. In any case the points of resemblance presented by the earlier part of the Egyptian myth to Semitic Deluge stories are general, not detailed; and though they may possibly be due to reflection from Asia, they are not such as to suggest an Egyptian origin for Deluge myths. The tablet on which our new version of the Deluge is inscribed was excavated at Nippur during the third Babylonian expedition sent out by the University of Pennsylvania; but it was not until the summer of 1912 that its contents were identified, when the several fragments of which it was composed were assembled and put together. It is a large document, containing six columns of writing, three on each side; but unfortunately only the lower half has been recovered, so that considerable gaps occur in the text.(1) The sharp edges of the broken surface, however, suggest that it was damaged after removal from the soil, and the possibility remains that some of the missing fragments may yet be recovered either at Pennsylvania or in the Museum at Constantinople. As it is not dated, its age must be determined mainly by the character of its script. A close examination of the writing suggests that it can hardly have been inscribed as late as the Kassite Dynasty, since two or three signs exhibit more archaic forms than occur on any tablets of that period;(2) and such linguistic corruptions as have been noted in its text may well be accounted for by the process of decay which must have already affected the Sumerian language at the time of the later kings of Nisin. Moreover, the tablet bears a close resemblance to one of the newly published copies of the Sumerian Dynastic List from Nippur;(3) for both are of the same shape and composed of the same reddish-brown clay, and both show the same peculiarities of writing. The two tablets in fact appear to have been written by the same hand, and as that copy of the Dynastic List was probably drawn up before the latter half of the First Dynasty of Babylon, we may assign the same approximate date for the writing of our text. This of course only fixes a lower limit for the age of the myth which it enshrines. (1) The breadth of the tablet is 5 5/8 in., and it originally measured about 7 in. in length from top to bottom; but only about one-third of its inscribed surface is preserved. (2) Cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, pp. 66 ff. (3) No. 5. That the composition is in the form of a poem may be seen at a glance from the external appearance of the tablet, the division of many of the lines and the blank spaces frequently left between the sign-groups being due to the rhythmical character of the text. The style of the poetry may be simple and abrupt, but it exhibits a familiar feature of both Semitic-Babylonian and Hebrew poetry, in its constant employment of partial repetition or paraphrase in parallel lines. The story it tells is very primitive and in many respects unlike the Babylonian Versions of the Deluge which we already possess. Perhaps its most striking peculiarity is the setting of the story, which opens with a record of the creation of man and animals, goes on to tell how the first cities were built, and ends with a version of the Deluge, which is thus recounted in its relation to the Sumerian history of the world. This literary connexion between the Creation and Deluge narratives is of unusual interest, in view of the age of our text. In the Babylonian Versions hitherto known they are included in separate epics with quite different contexts. Here they are recounted together in a single document, much as they probably were in the history of Berossus and as we find them in the present form of the Book of Genesis. This fact will open up some interesting problems when we attempt to trace the literary descent of the tradition. But one important point about the text should be emphasized at once, since it will affect our understanding of some very obscure passages, of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. The assumption has hitherto been made that the text is an epic pure and simple. It is quite true that the greater part of it is a myth, recounted as a narrative in poetical form, but there appear to me to be clear indications that the myth was really embedded in an incantation. If this was so, the mythological portion was recited for a magical purpose, with the object of invoking the aid of the chief deities whose actions in the past are there described, and of increasing by that means the potency of the spell.(1) In the third lecture I propose to treat in more detail the employment and significance of myth in magic, and we shall have occasion to refer to other instances, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian, in which a myth has reached us in a magical setting. (1) It will be seen that the subject-matter of any myth treated in this way has a close connexion with the object for which the incantation was performed. In the present case the inference of magical use is drawn from certain passages in the text itself, which appear to be explicable only on that hypothesis. In magical compositions of the later period intended for recitation, the sign for "Incantation" is usually prefixed. Unfortunately the beginning of our text is wanting; but its opening words are given in the colophon, or title, which is engraved on the left-hand edge of the tablet, and it is possible that the traces of the first sign there are to be read as EN, "Incantation".(1) Should a re-examination of the tablet establish this reading of the word, we should have definite proof of the suggested magical setting of the narrative. But even if we assume its absence, that would not invalidate the arguments that can be adduced in favour of recognizing the existence of a magical element, for they are based on internal evidence and enable us to explain certain features which are inexplicable on Dr. Poebel's hypothesis. Moreover, we shall later on examine another of the newly published Sumerian compositions from Nippur, which is not only semi-epical in character, but is of precisely the same shape, script, and period as our text, and is very probably a tablet of the same series. There also the opening signs of the text are wanting, but far more of its contents are preserved and they present unmistakable traces of magical use. Its evidence, as that of a parallel text, may therefore be cited in support of the present contention. It may be added that in Sumerian magical compositions of this early period, of which we have not yet recovered many quite obvious examples, it is possible that the prefix "Incantation" was not so invariable as in the later magical literature. (1) Cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 63, and _Hist. and Gram. Texts_, pl. i. In the photographic reproduction of the edges of the tablet given in the latter volume, pl. lxxxix, the traces of the sign suggest the reading EN (= Sem. _�iptu_, "incantation"). But the sign may very possibly be read AN. In the latter case we may read, in the traces of the two sign-groups at the beginning of the text, the names of both Anu and Enlil, who appear so frequently as the two presiding deities in the myth. It has already been remarked that only the lower half of our tablet has been recovered, and that consequently a number of gaps occur in the text. On the obverse the upper portion of each of the first three columns is missing, while of the remaining three columns, which are inscribed upon the reverse, the upper portions only are preserved. This difference in the relative positions of the textual fragments recovered is due to the fact that Sumerian scribes, like their later Babylonian and Assyrian imitators, when they had finished writing the obverse of a tablet, turned it over from bottom to top--not, as we should turn a sheet of paper, from right to left. But in spite of the lacunae, the sequence of events related in the mythological narrative may be followed without difficulty, since the main outline of the story is already familiar enough from the versions of the Semitic-Babylonian scribes and of Berossus. Some uncertainties naturally remain as to what exactly was included in the missing portions of the tablet; but the more important episodes are fortunately recounted in the extant fragments, and these suffice for a definition of the distinctive character of the Sumerian Version. In view of its literary importance it may be advisable to attempt a somewhat detailed discussion of its contents, column by column;(1) and the analysis may be most conveniently divided into numbered sections, each of which refers to one of the six columns of the tablet. The description of the First Column will serve to establish the general character of the text. Through the analysis of the tablet parallels and contrasts will be noted with the Babylonian and Hebrew Versions. It will then be possible to summarise, on a surer foundation, the literary history of the traditions, and finally to estimate the effect of our new evidence upon current theories as to the origin and wide dispersion of Deluge stories. (1) In the lecture as delivered the contents of each column were necessarily summarized rather briefly, and conclusions were given without discussion of the evidence. The following headings, under which the six numbered sections may be arranged, indicate the contents of each column and show at a glance the main features of the Sumerian Version: I. Introduction to the Myth, and account of Creation. II. The Antediluvian Cities. III. The Council of the Gods, and Ziusudu's piety. IV. The Dream-Warning. V. The Deluge, the Escape of the Great Boat, and the Sacrifice to the Sun-god. VI. The Propitiation of the Angry Gods, and Ziusudu's Immortality. I. INTRODUCTION TO THE MYTH, AND ACCOUNT OF CREATION The beginning of the text is wanting, and the earliest lines preserved of the First Column open with the closing sentences of a speech, probably by the chief of the four creating deities, who are later on referred to by name. In it there is a reference to a future destruction of mankind, but the context is broken; the lines in question begin: "As for my human race, from (_or_ in) its destruction will I cause it to be (. . .), For Nintu my creatures (. . .) will I (. . .)." From the reference to "my human race" it is clear that the speaker is a creating deity; and since the expression is exactly parallel to the term "my people" used by Ishtar, or Bêlit-ili, "the Lady of the gods", in the Babylonian Version of the Deluge story when she bewails the destruction of mankind, Dr. Poebel assigns the speech to Ninkharsagga, or Nintu,(1) the goddess who later in the column is associated with Anu, Enlil, and Enki in man's creation. But the mention of Nintu in her own speech is hardly consistent with that supposition,(2) if we assume with Dr. Poebel, as we are probably justified in doing, that the title Nintu is employed here and elsewhere in the narrative merely as a synonym of Ninkharsagga.(3) It appears to me far more probable that one of the two supreme gods, Anu or Enlil, is the speaker,(4) and additional grounds will be cited later in support of this view. It is indeed possible, in spite of the verbs and suffixes in the singular, that the speech is to be assigned to both Anu and Enlil, for in the last column, as we shall see, we find verb in the singular following references to both these deities. In any case one of the two chief gods may be regarded as speaking and acting on behalf of both, though it may be that the inclusion of the second name in the narrative was not original but simply due to a combination of variant traditions. Such a conflate use of Anu-Enlil would present a striking parallel to the Hebrew combination Yahweh-Elohim, though of course in the case of the former pair the subsequent stage of identification was never attained. But the evidence furnished by the text is not conclusive, and it is preferable here and elsewhere in the narrative to regard either Anu or Enlil as speaking and acting both on his own behalf and as the other's representative. (1) Op. cit., p. 21 f.; and cf. Jastrow, _Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions_, p. 336. (2) It necessitates the taking of (_dingir_) _Nin-tu-ra_ as a genitive, not a dative, and the very awkward rendering "my, Nintu's, creations". (3) Another of the recently published Sumerian mythological compositions from Nippur includes a number of myths in which Enki is associated first with Ninella, referred to also as Nintu, "the Goddess of Birth", then with Ninshar, referred to also as Ninkurra, and finally with Ninkharsagga. This text exhibits the process by which separate traditions with regard to goddesses originally distinct were combined together, with the result that their heroines were subsequently often identified with one another. There the myths that have not been subjected to a very severe process of editing, and in consequence the welding is not so complete as in the Sumerian Version of the Deluge. (4) If Enlil's name should prove to be the first word of the composition, we should naturally regard him as the speaker here and as the protagonist of the gods throughout the text, a _rôle_ he also plays in the Semitic-Babylonian Version. This reference to the Deluge, which occurs so early in the text, suggests the probability that the account of the Creation and of the founding of Antediluvian cities, included in the first two columns, is to be taken merely as summarizing the events that led up to the Deluge. And an almost certain proof of this may be seen in the opening words of the composition, which are preserved in its colophon or title on the left-hand edge of the tablet. We have already noted that the first two words are there to be read, either as the prefix "Incantation" followed by the name "Enlil", or as the two divine names "Anu (and) Enlil". Now the signs which follow the traces of Enlil's name are quite certain; they represent "Ziusudu", which, as we shall see in the Third Column, is the name of the Deluge hero in our Sumerian Version. He is thus mentioned in the opening words of the text, in some relation to one or both of the two chief gods of the subsequent narrative. But the natural place for his first introduction into the story is in the Third Column, where it is related that "at that time Ziusudu, the king" did so-and-so. The prominence given him at the beginning of the text, at nearly a column's interval before the lines which record the creation of man, is sufficient proof that the Deluge story is the writer's main interest, and that preceding episodes are merely introductory to it. What subject then may we conjecture was treated in the missing lines of this column, which precede the account of Creation and close with the speech of the chief creating deity? Now the Deluge narrative practically ends with the last lines of the tablet that are preserved, and the lower half of the Sixth Column is entirely wanting. We shall see reason to believe that the missing end of the tablet was not left blank and uninscribed, but contained an incantation, the magical efficacy of which was ensured by the preceding recitation of the Deluge myth. If that were so, it would be natural enough that the text should open with its main subject. The cause of the catastrophe and the reason for man's rescue from it might well be referred to by one of the creating deities in virtue of the analogy these aspects of the myth would present to the circumstances for which the incantation was designed. A brief account of the Creation and of Antediluvian history would then form a natural transition to the narrative of the Deluge itself. And even if the text contained no incantation, the narrative may well have been introduced in the manner suggested, since this explanation in any case fits in with what is still preserved of the First Column. For after his reference to the destruction of mankind, the deity proceeds to fix the chief duty of man, either as a preliminary to his creation, or as a reassertion of that duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood. It is noteworthy that this duty consists in the building of temples to the gods "in a clean spot", that is to say "in hallowed places". The passage may be given in full, including the two opening lines already discussed: "As for my human race, from (_or_ in) its destruction will I cause it to be (. . .), For Nintu my creatures (. . .) will I (. . .). The people will I cause to . . . in their settlements, Cities . . . shall (man) build, in there protection will I cause him to rest, That he may lay the brick of our houses in a clean spot, That in a clean spot he may establish our . . . !" In the reason here given for man's creation, or for his rescue from the Flood, we have an interesting parallel to the Sixth Tablet of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series. At the opening of that tablet Marduk, in response to "the word of the gods", is urged by his heart to devise a cunning plan which he imparts to Ea, namely the creation of man from his own divine blood and from bone which he will fashion. And the reason he gives for his proposal is precisely that which, as we have seen, prompted the Sumerian deity to create or preserve the human race. For Marduk continues: "I will create man who shall inhabit (. . .), That the service of the gods may be established and that their shrines may be built."(1) (1) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff. We shall see later, from the remainder of Marduk's speech, that the Semitic Version has been elaborated at this point in order to reconcile it with other ingredients in its narrative, which were entirely absent from the simpler Sumerian tradition. It will suffice here to note that, in both, the reason given for man's existence is the same, namely, that the gods themselves may have worshippers.(1) The conception is in full agreement with early Sumerian thought, and reflects the theocratic constitution of the earliest Sumerian communities. The idea was naturally not repugnant to the Semites, and it need not surprise us to find the very words of the principal Sumerian Creator put into the mouth of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. (1) It may be added that this is also the reason given for man's creation in the introduction to a text which celebrates the founding or rebuilding of a temple. The deity's speech perhaps comes to an end with the declaration of his purpose in creating mankind or in sanctioning their survival of the Deluge; and the following three lines appear to relate his establishment of the divine laws in accordance with which his intention was carried out. The passage includes a refrain, which is repeated in the Second Column: The sublime decrees he made perfect for it. It may probably be assumed that the refrain is employed in relation to the same deity in both passages. In the Second Column it precedes the foundation of the Babylonian kingdom and the building of the Antediluvian cities. In that passage there can be little doubt that the subject of the verb is the chief Sumerian deity, and we are therefore the more inclined to assign to him also the opening speech of the First Column, rather than to regard it as spoken by the Sumerian goddess whose share in the creation would justify her in claiming mankind as her own. In the last four lines of the column we have a brief record of the Creation itself. It was carried out by the three greatest gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil and Enki, with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga; the passage reads: When Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninkharsagga Created the blackheaded (i.e. mankind), The _niggil(ma)_ of the earth they caused the earth to produce(?), The animals, the four-legged creatures of the field, they artfully called into existence. The interpretation of the third line is obscure, but there is no doubt that it records the creation of something which is represented as having taken place between the creation of mankind and that of animals. This object, which is written as _nig-gil_ or _nig-gil-ma_, is referred to again in the Sixth Column, where the Sumerian hero of the Deluge assigns to it the honorific title, "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind". It must therefore have played an important part in man's preservation from the Flood; and the subsequent bestowal of the title may be paralleled in the early Semitic Deluge fragment from Nippur, where the boat in which Ut-napishtim escapes is assigned the very similar title "Preserver of Life".(1) But _niggilma_ is not the word used in the Sumerian Version of Ziusudu's boat, and I am inclined to suggest a meaning for it in connexion with the magical element in the text, of the existence of which there is other evidence. On that assumption, the prominence given to its creation may be paralleled in the introduction to a later magical text, which described, probably in connexion with an incantation, the creation of two small creatures, one white and one black, by Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", one of the titles borne by Enki or Ea. The time of their creation is indicated as after that of "cattle, beasts of the field and creatures of the city", and the composition opens in a way which is very like the opening of the present passage in our text.(2) In neither text is there any idea of giving a complete account of the creation of the world, only so much of the original myth being included in each case as suffices for the writer's purpose. Here we may assume that the creation of mankind and of animals is recorded because they were to be saved from the Flood, and that of the _niggilma_ because of the part it played in ensuring their survival. (1) See Hilprecht, _Babylonian Expedition_, Series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 1, plate, Rev., l. 8; the photographic reproduction clearly shows, as Dr. Poebel suggests (_Hist. Texts_, p. 61 n 3), that the line should read: _((isu)elippu) �i-i lu (isu)ma-gur-gur-ma �um-�a lu na-si-rat na-pi�-tim_, "That ship shall be a _magurgurru_ (giant boat), and its name shall be 'Preserver of Life' (lit. 'She that preserves life')." (2) See _Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. 122 ff. The text opens with the words "When the gods in their assembly had made (the world), and had created the heavens, and had formed the earth, and had brought living creatures into being . . .", the lines forming an introduction to the special act of creation with which the composition was concerned. The discussion of the meaning of _niggilma_ may best be postponed till the Sixth Column, where we find other references to the word. Meanwhile it may be noted that in the present passage the creation of man precedes that of animals, as it did in the earlier Hebrew Version of Creation, and probably also in the Babylonian version, though not in the later Hebrew Version. It may be added that in another Sumerian account of the Creation(1) the same order, of man before animals, is followed. (1) Cf. _Sev. Tabl._, Vol. I, p. 134 f.; but the text has been subjected to editing, and some of its episodes are obviously displaced. II. THE ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES As we saw was the case with the First Column of the text, the earliest part preserved of the Second Column contains the close of a speech by a deity, in which he proclaims an act he is about to perform. Here we may assume with some confidence that the speaker is Anu or Enlil, preferably the latter, since it would be natural to ascribe the political constitution of Babylonia, the foundation of which is foreshadowed, to the head of the Sumerian pantheon. It would appear that a beginning had already been made in the establishment of "the kingdom", and, before proceeding to his further work of founding the Antediluvian cities, he follows the example of the speaker in the First Column of the text and lays down the divine enactments by which his purpose was accomplished. The same refrain is repeated: The sub(lime decrees) he made perfect for it. The text then relates the founding by the god of five cities, probably "in clean places", that is to say on hallowed ground. He calls each by its name and assigns it to its own divine patron or city-god: (In clean place)s he founded (five) cit(ies). And after he had called their names and they had been allotted to divine rulers(?),-- The . . . of these cities, Eridu, he gave to the leader, Nu- dimmud, Secondly, to Nugira(?) he gave Bad-. . .,(1) Thirdly, Larak he gave to Pabilkharsag, Fourthly, Sippar he gave to the hero, the Sun-god, Fifthly, Shuruppak he gave to "the God of Shuruppak",-- After he had called the names of these cities, and they had been allotted to divine rulers(?), (1) In Semitic-Babylonian the first component of this city- name would read "Dûr". The completion of the sentence, in the last two lines of the column, cannot be rendered with any certainty, but the passage appears to have related the creation of small rivers and pools. It will be noted that the lines which contain the names of the five cities and their patron gods(1) form a long explanatory parenthesis, the preceding line being repeated after their enumeration. (1) The precise meaning of the sign-group here provisionally rendered "divine ruler" is not yet ascertained. As the first of the series of five cities of Eridu, the seat of Nudimmud or Enki, who was the third of the creating deities, it has been urged that the upper part of the Second Column must have included an account of the founding of Erech, the city of Anu, and of Nippur, Enlil's city.(1) But the numbered sequence of the cities would be difficult to reconcile with the earlier creation of other cities in the text, and the mention of Eridu as the first city to be created would be quite in accord with its great age and peculiarly sacred character as a cult-centre. Moreover the evidence of the Sumerian Dynastic List is definitely against any claim of Erech to Antediluvian existence. For when the hegemony passed from the first Post-diluvian "kingdom" to the second, it went not to Erech but to the shrine Eanna, which gave its name to the second "kingdom"; and the city itself was apparently not founded before the reign of Enmerkar, the second occupant of the throne, who is the first to be given the title "King of Erech". This conclusion with regard to Erech incidentally disposes of the arguments for Nippur's Antediluvian rank in primitive Sumerian tradition, which have been founded on the order of the cities mentioned at the beginning of the later Sumerian myth of Creation.(2) The evidence we thus obtain that the early Sumerians themselves regarded Eridu as the first city in the world to be created, increases the hope that future excavation at Abu Shahrain may reveal Sumerian remains of periods which, from an archaeological standpoint, must still be regarded as prehistoric. (1) Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 41. (2) The city of Nippur does not occur among the first four "kingdoms" of the Sumerian Dynastic List; but we may probably assume that it was the seat of at least one early "kingdom", in consequence of which Enlil, its city-god, attained his later pre-eminent rank in the Sumerian pantheon. It is noteworthy that no human rulers are mentioned in connexion with Eridu and the other four Antediluvian cities; and Ziusudu, the hero of the story, is apparently the only mortal whose name occurred in our text. But its author's principal subject is the Deluge, and the preceding history of the world is clearly not given in detail, but is merely summarized. In view of the obviously abbreviated form of the narrative, of which we have already noted striking evidence in its account of the Creation, we may conclude that in the fuller form of the tradition the cities were also assigned human rulers, each one the representative of his city-god. These would correspond to the Antediluvian dynasty of Berossus, the last member of which was Xisuthros, the later counterpart of Ziusudu. In support of the exclusion of Nippur and Erech from the myth, it will be noted that the second city in the list is not Adab,(1) which was probably the principal seat of the goddess Ninkharsagga, the fourth of the creating deities. The names of both deity and city in that line are strange to us. Larak, the third city in the series, is of greater interest, for it is clearly Larankha, which according to Berossus was the seat of the eighth and ninth of his Antediluvian kings. In commercial documents of the Persian period, which have been found during the excavations at Nippur, Larak is described as lying "on the bank of the old Tigris", a phrase which must be taken as referring to the Shatt el-Hai, in view of the situation of Lagash and other early cities upon it or in its immediate neighbourhood. The site of the city should perhaps be sought on the upper course of the stream, where it tends to approach Nippur. It would thus have lain in the neighbourhood of Bismâya, the site of Adab. Like Adab, Lagash, Shuruppak, and other early Sumerian cities, it was probably destroyed and deserted at a very early period, though it was reoccupied under its old name in Neo-Babylonian or Persian times. Its early disappearance from Babylonian history perhaps in part accounts for our own unfamiliarity with Pabilkharsag, its city-god, unless we may regard the name as a variant from of Pabilsag; but it is hardly likely that the two should be identified. (1) The site of Adab, now marked by the mounds of Bismâya, was partially excavated by an expedition sent out in 1903 by the University of Chicago, and has provided valuable material for the study of the earliest Sumerian period; see _Reports of the Expedition of the Oriental Exploration Fund_ (Babylonian Section of the University of Chicago), and Banks, _Bismya_ (1912). On grounds of antiquity alone we might perhaps have expected its inclusion in the myth. In Sibbar, the fourth of the Antediluvian cities in our series, we again have a parallel to Berossus. It has long been recognized that Pantibiblon, or Pantibiblia, from which the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh of his Antediluvian kings all came, was the city of Sippar in Northern Babylonia. For the seventh of these rulers, {Euedorakhos}, is clearly Enmeduranki, the mythical king of Sippar, who in Babylonian tradition was regarded as the founder of divination. In a fragmentary composition that has come down to us he is described, not only as king of Sippar, but as "beloved of Anu, Enlil, and Enki", the three creating gods of our text; and it is there recounted how the patron deities of divination, Shamash and Adad, themselves taught him to practise their art.(1) Moreover, Berossus directly implies the existence of Sippar before the Deluge, for in the summary of his version that has been preserved Xisuthros, under divine instruction, buries the sacred writings concerning the origin of the world in "Sispara", the city of the Sun-god, so that after the Deluge they might be dug up and transmitted to mankind. Ebabbar, the great Sun-temple, was at Sippar, and it is to the Sun-god that the city is naturally allotted in the new Sumerian Version. (1) Cf. Zimmern, _Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Bab. Relig._, pp. 116 ff. The last of the five Antediluvian cities in our list is Shuruppak, in which dwelt Ut-napishtim, the hero of the Babylonian version of the Deluge. Its site has been identified with the mounds of Fâra, in the neighbourhood of the Shatt el-Kâr, the former bed of the Euphrates; and the excavations that were conducted there in 1902 have been most productive of remains dating from the prehistoric period of Sumerian culture.(1) Since our text is concerned mainly with the Deluge, it is natural to assume that the foundation of the city from which the Deluge-hero came would be recorded last, in order to lead up to the central episode of the text. The city of Ziusudu, the hero of the Sumerian story, is unfortunately not given in the Third Column, but, in view of Shuruppak's place in the list of Antediluvian cities, it is not improbable that on this point the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions agreed. In the Gilgamesh Epic Shuruppak is the only Antediluvian city referred to, while in the Hebrew accounts no city at all is mentioned in connexion with Noah. The city of Xisuthros, too, is not recorded, but as his father came from Larankha or Larak, we may regard that city as his in the Greek Version. Besides Larankha, the only Antediluvian cities according to Berossus were Babylon and Sippar, and the influence of Babylonian theology, of which we here have evidence, would be sufficient to account for a disturbance of the original traditions. At the same time it is not excluded that Larak was also the scene of the Deluge in our text, though, as we have noted, the position of Shuruppak at the close of the Sumerian list points to it as the more probable of the two. It may be added that we cannot yet read the name of the deity to whom Shuruppak was allotted, but as it is expressed by the city's name preceded by the divine determinative, the rendering "the God of Shuruppak" will meanwhile serve. (1) See _Hist. of Sum. and Akk._, pp. 24 ff. The creation of small rivers and pools, which seems to have followed the foundation of the five sacred cities, is best explained on the assumption that they were intended for the supply of water to the cities and to the temples of their five patron gods. The creation of the Euphrates and the Tigris, if recorded in our text at all, or in its logical order, must have occurred in the upper portion of the column. The fact that in the later Sumerian account their creation is related between that of mankind and the building of Nippur and Erech cannot be cited in support of this suggestion, in view of the absence of those cities from our text and of the process of editing to which the later version has been subjected, with a consequent disarrangement of its episodes. III. THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S PIETY From the lower part of the Third Column, where its text is first preserved, it is clear that the gods had already decided to send a Deluge, for the goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga, here referred to also as "the holy Innanna", wails aloud for the intended destruction of "her people". That this decision has been decreed by the gods in council is clear from a passage in the Fourth Column, where it is stated that the sending of a flood to destroy mankind was "the word of the assembly (of the gods)". The first lines preserved in the present column describe the effect of the decision on the various gods concerned and their action at the close of the council. In the lines which described the Council of the Gods, broken references to "the people" and "a flood" are preserved, after which the text continues: At that time Nintu (. . .) like a (. . .), The holy Innanna lament(ed) on account of her people. Enki in his own heart (held) counsel; Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninkharsagga (. . .). The gods of heaven and earth in(voked) the name of Anu and Enlil. It is unfortunate that the ends of all the lines in this column are wanting, but enough remains to show a close correspondence of the first two lines quoted with a passage in the Gilgamesh Epic where Ishtar is described as lamenting the destruction of mankind.(1) This will be seen more clearly by printing the two couplets in parallel columns: SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION At that time Nintu (. . .) Ishtar cried aloud like a woman like a (. . .), in travail, The holy Innanna lament(ed) Bêlit-ili lamented with a loud on account of her people. voice. (1) Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 117 f. The expression Bêlit-ili, "the Lady of the Gods", is attested as a title borne both by the Semitic goddess Ishtar and by the Sumerian goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga. In the passage in the Babylonian Version, "the Lady of the Gods" has always been treated as a synonym of Ishtar, the second half of the couplet being regarded as a restatement of the first, according to a recognized law of Babylonian poetry. We may probably assume that this interpretation is correct, and we may conclude by analogy that "the holy Innanna" in the second half of the Sumerian couplet is there merely employed as a synonym of Nintu.(1) When the Sumerian myth was recast in accordance with Semitic ideas, the _rôle_ of creatress of mankind, which had been played by the old Sumerian goddess Ninkharsagga or Nintu, was naturally transferred to the Semitic Ishtar. And as Innanna was one of Ishtar's designations, it was possible to make the change by a simple transcription of the lines, the name Nintu being replaced by the synonymous title Bêlit-ili, which was also shared by Ishtar. Difficulties are at once introduced if we assume with Dr. Poebel that in each version two separate goddesses are represented as lamenting, Nintu or Bêlit-ili and Innanna or Ishtar. For Innanna as a separate goddess had no share in the Sumerian Creation, and the reference to "her people" is there only applicable to Nintu. Dr. Poebel has to assume that the Sumerian names should be reversed in order to restore them to their original order, which he suggests the Babylonian Version has preserved. But no such textual emendation is necessary. In the Semitic Version Ishtar definitely displaces Nintu as the mother of men, as is proved by a later passage in her speech where she refers to her own bearing of mankind.(2) The necessity for the substitution of her name in the later version is thus obvious, and we have already noted how simply this was effected. (1) Cf. also Jastrow, _Hebr. and Bab. Trad._, p. 336. (2) Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 123. Another feature in which the two versions differ is that in the Sumerian text the lamentation of the goddess precedes the sending of the Deluge, while in the Gilgamesh Epic it is occasioned by the actual advent of the storm. Since our text is not completely preserved, it is just possible that the couplet was repeated at the end of the Fourth Column after mankind's destruction had taken place. But a further apparent difference has been noted. While in the Sumerian Version the goddess at once deplores the divine decision, it is clear from Ishtar's words in the Gilgamesh Epic that in the assembly of the gods she had at any rate concurred in it.(1) On the other hand, in Bêlit-ili's later speech in the Epic, after Ut-napishtim's sacrifice upon the mountain, she appears to subscribe the decision to Enlil alone.(2) The passages in the Gilgamesh Epic are not really contradictory, for they can be interpreted as implying that, while Enlil forced his will upon the other gods against Bêlit-ili's protest, the goddess at first reproached herself with her concurrence, and later stigmatized Enlil as the real author of the catastrophe. The Semitic narrative thus does not appear, as has been suggested, to betray traces of two variant traditions which have been skilfully combined, though it may perhaps exhibit an expansion of the Sumerian story. On the other hand, most of the apparent discrepancies between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions disappear, on the recognition that our text gives in many passages only an epitome of the original Sumerian Version. (1) Cf. l. 121 f., "Since I commanded evil in the assembly of the gods, (and) commanded battle for the destruction of my people". (2) Cf. ll. 165 ff., "Ye gods that are here! So long as I forget not the (jewels of) lapis lazuli upon my neck, I will keep these days in my memory, never will I forget them! Let the gods come to the offering, but let not Enlil come to the offering, since he took not counsel but sent the deluge and surrendered my people to destruction." The lament of the goddess is followed by a brief account of the action taken by the other chief figures in the drama. Enki holds counsel with his own heart, evidently devising the project, which he afterwards carried into effect, of preserving the seed of mankind from destruction. Since the verb in the following line is wanting, we do not know what action is there recorded of the four creating deities; but the fact that the gods of heaven and earth invoked the name of Anu and Enlil suggests that it was their will which had been forced upon the other gods. We shall see that throughout the text Anu and Enlil are the ultimate rulers of both gods and men. The narrative then introduces the human hero of the Deluge story: At that time Ziusudu, the king, . . . priest of the god (. . .), Made a very great . . ., (. . .). In humility he prostrates himself, in reverence (. . .), Daily he stands in attendance (. . .). A dream,(1) such as had not been before, comes forth(2) . . . (. . .), By the Name of Heaven and Earth he conjures (. . .). (1) The word may also be rendered "dreams". (2) For this rendering of the verb _e-de_, for which Dr. Poebel does not hazard a translation, see Rawlinson, _W.A.I._, IV, pl. 26, l. 24 f.(a), _nu-e-de_ = Sem. _la us- su-u_ (Pres.); and cf. Brünnow, _Classified List_, p. 327. An alternative rendering "is created" is also possible, and would give equally good sense; cf. _nu-e-de_ = Sem. _la �u- pu-u_, _W.A.I._, IV, pl. 2, l. 5 (a), and Brünnow, op. cit., p. 328. The name of the hero, Ziusudu, is the fuller Sumerian equivalent of Ut-napishtim (or Uta-napishtim), the abbreviated Semitic form which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic. For not only are the first two elements of the Sumerian name identical with those of the Semitic Ut-napishtim, but the names themselves are equated in a later Babylonian syllabary or explanatory list of words.(1) We there find "Ut-napishte" given as the equivalent of the Sumerian "Zisuda", evidently an abbreviated form of the name Ziusudu;(2) and it is significant that the names occur in the syllabary between those of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, evidently in consequence of the association of the Deluge story by the Babylonians with their national epic of Gilgamesh. The name Ziusudu may be rendered "He who lengthened the day of life" or "He who made life long of days",(3) which in the Semitic form is abbreviated by the omission of the verb. The reference is probably to the immortality bestowed upon Ziusudu at the close of the story, and not to the prolongation of mankind's existence in which he was instrumental. It is scarcely necessary to add that the name has no linguistic connexion with the Hebrew name Noah, to which it also presents no parallel in meaning. (1) Cf. _Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XVIII, pl. 30, l. 9 (a). (2) The name in the Sumerian Version is read by Dr. Poebel as Ziugiddu, but there is much in favour of Prof. Zimmern's suggestion, based on the form Zisuda, that the third syllable of the name should be read as _su_. On a fragment of another Nippur text, No. 4611, Dr. Langdon reads the name as _Zi-u-sud-du_ (cf. Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sec., Vol. X, No. 1, p. 90, pl. iv a); the presence of the phonetic complement _du_ may be cited in favour of this reading, but it does not appear to be supported by the photographic reproductions of the name in the Sumerian Deluge Version given by Dr. Poebel (_Hist. and Gramm. Texts_, pl. lxxxviii f.). It may be added that, on either alternative, the meaning of the name is the same. (3) The meaning of the Sumerian element _u_ in the name, rendered as _utu_ in the Semitic form, is rather obscure, and Dr. Poebel left it unexplained. It is very probable, as suggested by Dr. Langdon (cf. _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, XXXVI, 1914, p. 190), that we should connect it with the Semitic _uddu_; in that case, in place of "breath", the rending he suggests, I should be inclined to render it here as "day", for _uddu_ as the meaning "dawn" and the sign UD is employed both for _urru_, "day-light", and _ûmu_, "day". It is an interesting fact that Ziusudu should be described simply as "the king", without any indication of the city or area he ruled; and in three of the five other passages in the text in which his name is mentioned it is followed by the same title without qualification. In most cases Berossus tells us the cities from which his Antediluvian rulers came; and if the end of the line had been preserved it might have been possible to determine definitely Ziusudu's city, and incidentally the scene of the Deluge in the Sumerian Version, by the name of the deity in whose service he acted as priest. We have already noted some grounds for believing that his city may have been Shuruppak, as in the Babylonian Version; and if that were so, the divine name reads as "the God of Shurrupak" should probably be restored at the end of the line.(1) (1) The remains that are preserved of the determinative, which is not combined with the sign EN, proves that Enki's name is not to be restored. Hence Ziusudu was not priest of Enki, and his city was probably not Eridu, the seat of his divine friend and counsellor, and the first of the Antediluvian cities. Sufficient reason for Enki's intervention on Ziusudu's behalf is furnished by the fact that, as God of the Deep, he was concerned in the proposed method of man's destruction. His rivalry of Enlil, the God of the Earth, is implied in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-42), and in the Sumerian Version this would naturally extend to Anu, the God of Heaven. The employment of the royal title by itself accords with the tradition from Berossus that before the Deluge, as in later periods, the land was governed by a succession of supreme rulers, and that the hero of the Deluge was the last of them. In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, Ut-napishtim is given no royal nor any other title. He is merely referred to as a "man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu", and he appears in the guise of an ancient hero or patriarch not invested with royal power. On this point Berossus evidently preserves the original Sumerian traditions, while the Hebrew Versions resemble the Semitic-Babylonian narrative. The Sumerian conception of a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers is of course merely a reflection from the historical period, when the hegemony in Babylonia was contested among the city-states. The growth of the tradition may have been encouraged by the early use of _lugal_, "king", which, though always a term of secular character, was not very sharply distinguished from that of _patesi_ and other religious titles, until, in accordance with political development, it was required to connote a wider dominion. In Sumer, at the time of the composition of our text, Ziusudu was still only one in a long line of Babylonian rulers, mainly historical but gradually receding into the realms of legend and myth. At the time of the later Semites there had been more than one complete break in the tradition and the historical setting of the old story had become dim. The fact that Hebrew tradition should range itself in this matter with Babylon rather than with Sumer is important as a clue in tracing the literary history of our texts. The rest of the column may be taken as descriptive of Ziusudu's activities. One line records his making of some very great object or the erection of a huge building;(1) and since the following lines are concerned solely with religious activities, the reference is possibly to a temple or some other structure of a sacred character. Its foundation may have been recorded as striking evidence of his devotion to his god; or, since the verb in this sentence depends on the words "at that time" in the preceding line, we may perhaps regard his action as directly connected with the revelation to be made to him. His personal piety is then described: daily he occupied himself in his god's service, prostrating himself in humility and constant in his attendance at the shrine. A dream (or possibly dreams), "such as had not been before", appears to him and he seems to be further described as conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth"; but as the ends of all these lines are broken, the exact connexion of the phrases is not quite certain. (1) The element _gur-gur_, "very large" or "huge", which occurs in the name of this great object or building, _an- sag-gur-gur_, is employed later in the term for the "huge boat", _(gish)ma-gur-gur_, in which Ziusudu rode out the storm. There was, of course, even at this early period a natural tendency to picture on a superhuman scale the lives and deeds of remote predecessors, a tendency which increased in later times and led, as we shall see, to the elaboration of extravagant detail. It is difficult not to associate the reference to a dream, or possibly to dream-divination, with the warning in which Enki reveals the purpose of the gods. For the later versions prepare us for a reference to a dream. If we take the line as describing Ziusudu's practice of dream-divination in general, "such as had not been before", he may have been represented as the first diviner of dreams, as Enmeduranki was held to be the first practitioner of divination in general. But it seems to me more probable that the reference is to a particular dream, by means of which he obtained knowledge of the gods' intentions. On the rendering of this passage depends our interpretation of the whole of the Fourth Column, where the point will be further discussed. Meanwhile it may be noted that the conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", which we may assume is ascribed to Ziusudu, gains in significance if we may regard the setting of the myth as a magical incantation, an inference in support of which we shall note further evidence. For we are furnished at once with the grounds for its magical employment. If Ziusudu, through conjuring by the Name of Heaven and earth, could profit by the warning sent him and so escape the impending fate of mankind, the application of such a myth to the special needs of a Sumerian in peril or distress will be obvious. For should he, too, conjure by the Name of Heaven and Earth, he might look for a similar deliverance; and his recital of the myth itself would tend to clinch the magical effect of his own incantation. The description of Ziusudu has also great interest in furnishing us with a close parallel to the piety of Noah in the Hebrew Versions. For in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus this feature of the story is completely absent. We are there given no reason why Ut-napishtim was selected by Ea, nor Xisuthros by Kronos. For all that those versions tell us, the favour of each deity might have been conferred arbitrarily, and not in recognition of, or in response to, any particular quality or action on the part of its recipient. The Sumerian Version now restores the original setting of the story and incidentally proves that, in this particular, the Hebrew Versions have not embroidered a simpler narrative for the purpose of edification, but have faithfully reproduced an original strand of the tradition. IV. THE DREAM-WARNING The top of the Fourth Column of the text follows immediately on the close of the Third Column, so that at this one point we have no great gap between the columns. But unfortunately the ends of all the lines in both columns are wanting, and the exact content of some phrases preserved and their relation to each other are consequently doubtful. This materially affects the interpretation of the passage as a whole, but the main thread of the narrative may be readily followed. Ziusudu is here warned that a flood is to be sent "to destroy the seed of mankind"; the doubt that exists concerns the manner in which the warning is conveyed. In the first line of the column, after a reference to "the gods", a building seems to be mentioned, and Ziusudu, standing beside it, apparently hears a voice, which bids him take his stand beside a wall and then conveys to him the warning of the coming flood. The destruction of mankind had been decreed in "the assembly (of the gods)" and would be carried out by the commands of Anu and Enlil. Before the text breaks off we again have a reference to the "kingdom" and "its rule", a further trace of the close association of the Deluge with the dynastic succession in the early traditions of Sumer. In the opening words of the warning to Ziusudu, with its prominent repetition of the word "wall", we must evidently trace some connexion with the puzzling words of Ea in the Gilgamesh Epic, when he begins his warning to Ut-napishtim. The warnings, as given in the two versions, are printed below in parallel columns for comparison.(1) The Gilgamesh Epic, after relating how the great gods in Shuruppak had decided to send a deluge, continues as follows in the right-hand column: SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION For (. . .) . . . the gods a Nin-igi-azag,(2) the god Ea, . . . (. . .); sat with them, Ziusudu standing at its side And he repeated their word to heard (. . .): the house of reeds: "At the wall on my left side take "Reed-hut, reed-hut! Wall, thy stand and (. . .), wall! At the wall I will speak a word O reed-hut, hear! O wall, to thee (. . .). understand! O my devout one . . . (. . .), Thou man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, By our hand(?) a flood(3) . . . Pull down thy house, build a (. . .) will be (sent). ship, To destroy the seed of mankind Leave thy possessions, take (. . .) heed for thy life, Is the decision, the word of the Abandon thy property, and save assembly(4) (of the gods) thy life. The commands of Anu (and) And bring living seed of every En(lil . . .) kind into the ship. Its kingdom, its rule (. . .) As for the ship, which thou shalt build, To his (. . .)" Of which the measurements shall be carefully measured, (. . .) Its breadth and length shall correspond. (. . .) In the deep shalt thou immerse it." (1) Col. IV, ll. 1 ff. are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 19-31. (2) Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", a title borne by Enki, or Ea, as God of Wisdom. (3) The Sumerian term _amaru_, here used for the flood and rendered as "rain-storm" by Dr. Poebel, is explained in a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian word _abûbu_ (cf. Meissner, _S.A.I._, No. 8909), the term employed for the flood both in the early Semitic version of the Atrakhasis story dated in Ammizaduga's reign and in the Gilgamesh Epic. The word _abûbu_ is often conventionally rendered "deluge", but should be more accurately translated "flood". It is true that the tempests of the Sumerian Version probably imply rain; and in the Gilgamesh Epic heavy rain in the evening begins the flood and is followed at dawn by a thunderstorm and hurricane. But in itself the term _abûbu_ implies flood, which could take place through a rise of the rivers unaccompanied by heavy local rain. The annual rainfall in Babylonia to-day is on an average only about 8 in., and there have been years in succession when the total rainfall has not exceeded 4 in.; and yet the _abûbu_ is not a thing of the past. (4) The word here rendered "assembly" is the Semitic loan- word _buhrum_, in Babylonian _puhrum_, the term employed for the "assembly" of the gods both in the Babylonian Creation Series and in the Gilgamesh Epic. Its employment in the Sumerian Version, in place of its Sumerian equivalent _ukkin_, is an interesting example of Semitic influence. Its occurrence does not necessarily imply the existence of a recognized Semitic Version at the period our text was inscribed. The substitution of _buhrum_ for _ukkin_ in the text may well date from the period of Hammurabi, when we may assume that the increased importance of the city-council was reflected in the general adoption of the Semitic term (cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 53). In the Semitic Version Ut-napishtim, who tells the story in the first person, then says that he "understood", and that, after assuring Ea that he would carry out his commands, he asked how he was to explain his action to "the city, the people, and the elders"; and the god told him what to say. Then follows an account of the building of the ship, introduced by the words "As soon as the dawn began to break". In the Sumerian Version the close of the warning, in which the ship was probably referred to, and the lines prescribing how Ziusudu carried out the divine instructions are not preserved. It will be seen that in the passage quoted from the Semitic Version there is no direct mention of a dream; the god is represented at first as addressing his words to a "house of reeds" and a "wall", and then as speaking to Ut-napishtim himself. But in a later passage in the Epic, when Ea seeks to excuse his action to Enlil, he says that the gods' decision was revealed to Atrakhasis through a dream.(1) Dr. Poebel rightly compares the direct warning of Ut-napishtim by Ea in the passage quoted above with the equally direct warning Ziusudu receives in the Sumerian Version. But he would have us divorce the direct warning from the dream-warning, and he concludes that no less than three different versions of the story have been worked together in the Gilgamesh Epic. In the first, corresponding to that in our text, Ea communicates the gods' decision directly to Ut-napishtim; in the second he sends a dream from which Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise one", guesses the impending peril; while in the third he relates the plan to a wall, taking care that Ut-napishtim overhears him.(2) The version of Berossus, that Kronos himself appears to Xisuthros in a dream and warns him, is rejected by Dr. Poebel, who remarks that here the "original significance of the dream has already been obliterated". Consequently there seems to him to be "no logical connexion" between the dreams or dream mentioned at the close of the Third Column and the communication of the plan of the gods at the beginning of the Fourth Column of our text.(3) (1) Cf. l. 195 f.; "I did not divulge the decision of the great gods. I caused Atrakhasis to behold a dream and thus he heard the decision of the gods." (2) Cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 51 f. With the god's apparent subterfuge in the third of these supposed versions Sir James Frazer (_Ancient Stories of a Great Flood_, p. 15) not inaptly compares the well-known story of King Midas's servant, who, unable to keep the secret of the king's deformity to himself, whispered it into a hole in the ground, with the result that the reeds which grew up there by their rustling in the wind proclaimed it to the world (Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, xi, 174 ff.). (3) Op. cit., p. 51; cf. also Jastrow, _Heb. and Bab. Trad._, p. 346. So far from Berossus having missed the original significance of the narrative he relates, I think it can be shown that he reproduces very accurately the sense of our Sumerian text; and that the apparent discrepancies in the Semitic Version, and the puzzling references to a wall in both it and the Sumerian Version, are capable of a simple explanation. There appears to me no justification for splitting the Semitic narrative into the several versions suggested, since the assumption that the direct warning and the dream-warning must be distinguished is really based on a misunderstanding of the character of Sumerian dreams by which important decisions of the gods in council were communicated to mankind. We fortunately possess an instructive Sumerian parallel to our passage. In it the will of the gods is revealed in a dream, which is not only described in full but is furnished with a detailed interpretation; and as it seems to clear up our difficulties, it may be well to summarize its main features. The occasion of the dream in this case was not a coming deluge but a great dearth of water in the rivers, in consequence of which the crops had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. This occurred in the reign of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, who lived some centuries before our Sumerian document was inscribed. In his own inscription(1) he tells us that he was at a loss to know by what means he might restore prosperity to his country, when one night he had a dream; and it was in consequence of the dream that he eventually erected one of the most sumptuously appointed of Sumerian temples and thereby restored his land to prosperity. Before recounting his dream he describes how the gods themselves took counsel. On the day in which destinies were fixed in heaven and earth, Enlil, the chief of the gods, and Ningirsu, the city-god of Lagash, held converse; and Enlil, turning to Ningirsu, described the sad condition of Southern Babylonia, and remarked that "the decrees of the temple Eninnû should be made glorious in heaven and upon earth", or, in other words, that Ningirsu's city-temple must be rebuilt. Thereupon Ningirsu did not communicate his orders directly to Gudea, but conveyed the will of the gods to him by means of a dream. (1) See Thureau-Dangin, _Les inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad_, Cyl. A, pp. 134 ff., Germ. ed., pp. 88 ff.; and cf. King and Hall, _Eg. and West. Asia_, pp. 196 ff. It will be noticed that we here have a very similar situation to that in the Deluge story. A conference of the gods has been held; a decision has been taken by the greatest god, Enlil; and, in consequence, another deity is anxious to inform a Sumerian ruler of that decision. The only difference is that here Enlil desires the communication to be made, while in the Deluge story it is made without his knowledge, and obviously against his wishes. So the fact that Ningirsu does not communicate directly with the patesi, but conveys his message by means of a dream, is particularly instructive. For here there can be no question of any subterfuge in the method employed, since Enlil was a consenting party. The story goes on to relate that, while the patesi slept, a vision of the night came to him, and he beheld a man whose stature was so great that it equalled the heavens and the earth. By the diadem he wore upon his head Gudea knew that the figure must be a god. Beside the god was the divine eagle, the emblem of Lagash; his feet rested upon the whirlwind, and a lion crouched upon his right hand and upon his left. The figure spoke to the patesi, but he did not understand the meaning of the words. Then it seemed to Gudea that the Sun rose from the earth; and he beheld a woman holding in her hand a pure reed, and she carried also a tablet on which was a star of the heavens, and she seemed to take counsel with herself. While Gudea was gazing, he seemed to see a second man, who was like a warrior; and he carried a slab of lapis lazuli, on which he drew out the plan of a temple. Before the patesi himself it seemed that a fair cushion was placed, and upon the cushion was set a mould, and within the mould was a brick. And on the right hand the patesi beheld an ass that lay upon the ground. Such was the dream of Gudea, and he was troubled because he could not interpret it.(1) (1) The resemblance its imagery bears to that of apocalyptic visions of a later period is interesting, as evidence of the latter's remote ancestry, and of the development in the use of primitive material to suit a completely changed political outlook. But those are points which do not concern our problem. To cut the long story short, Gudea decided to seek the help of Ninâ, "the child of Eridu", who, as daughter of Enki, the God of Wisdom, could divine all the mysteries of the gods. But first of all by sacrifices and libations he secured the mediation of his own city-god and goddess, Ningirsu and Gatumdug; and then, repairing to Ninâ's temple, he recounted to her the details of his vision. When the patesi had finished, the goddess addressed him and said she would explain to him the meaning of his dream. Here, no doubt, we are to understand that she spoke through the mouth of her chief priest. And this was the interpretation of the dream. The man whose stature was so great, and whose head was that of a god, was the god Ningirsu, and the words which he uttered were an order to the patesi to rebuild the temple Eninnû. The Sun which rose from the earth was the god Ningishzida, for like the Sun he goes forth from the earth. The maiden who held the pure reed and carried the tablet with the star was the goddess Nisaba; the star was the pure star of the temple's construction, which she proclaimed. The second man, who was like a warrior, was the god Nibub; and the plan of the temple which he drew was the plan of Eninnû; and the ass that lay upon the ground was the patesi himself.(1) (1) The symbolism of the ass, as a beast of burden, was applicable to the patesi in his task of carrying out the building of the temple. The essential feature of the vision is that the god himself appeared to the sleeper and delivered his message in words. That is precisely the manner in which Kronos warned Xisuthros of the coming Deluge in the version of Berossus; while in the Gilgamesh Epic the apparent contradiction between the direct warning and the dream-warning at once disappears. It is true that Gudea states that he did not understand the meaning of the god's message, and so required an interpretation; but he was equally at a loss as to the identity of the god who gave it, although Ningirsu was his own city-god and was accompanied by his own familiar city-emblem. We may thus assume that the god's words, as words, were equally intelligible to Gudea. But as they were uttered in a dream, it was necessary that the patesi, in view of his country's peril, should have divine assurance that they implied no other meaning. And in his case such assurance was the more essential, in view of the symbolism attaching to the other features of his vision. That this is sound reasoning is proved by a second vision vouchsafed to Gudea by Ningirsu. For the patesi, though he began to prepare for the building of the temple, was not content even with Ninâ's assurance. He offered a prayer to Ningirsu himself, saying that he wished to build the temple, but had received no sign that this was the will of the god; and he prayed for a sign. Then, as the patesi lay stretched upon the ground, the god again appeared to him and gave him detailed instructions, adding that he would grant the sign for which he asked. The sign was that he should feel his side touched as by a flame,(1) and thereby he should know that he was the man chosen by Ningirsu to carry out his commands. Here it is the sign which confirms the apparent meaning of the god's words. And Gudea was at last content and built the temple.(2) (1) Cyl. A., col. xii, l. 10 f.; cf. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., p. 150 f., Germ. ed., p. 102 f. The word translated "side" may also be rendered as "hand"; but "side" is the more probable rendering of the two. The touching of Gudea's side (or hand) presents an interesting resemblance to the touching of Jacob's thigh by the divine wrestler at Peniel in Gen. xxxii. 24 ff. (J or JE). Given a belief in the constant presence of the unseen and its frequent manifestation, such a story as that of Peniel might well arise from an unexplained injury to the sciatic muscle, while more than one ailment of the heart or liver might perhaps suggest the touch of a beckoning god. There is of course no connexion between the Sumerian and Hebrew stories beyond their common background. It may be added that those critics who would reverse the _rôles_ of Jacob and the wrestler miss the point of the Hebrew story. (2) Even so, before starting on the work, he took the further precautions of ascertaining that the omens were favourable and of purifying his city from all malign influence. We may conclude, then, that in the new Sumerian Version of the Deluge we have traced a logical connexion between the direct warning to Ziusudu in the Fourth Column of the text and the reference to a dream in the broken lines at the close of the Third Column. As in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, here too the god's warning is conveyed in a dream; and the accompanying reference to conjuring by the Name of Heaven and Earth probably represents the means by which Ziusudu was enabled to verify its apparent meaning. The assurance which Gudea obtained through the priest of Ninâ and the sign, the priest-king Ziusudu secured by his own act, in virtue of his piety and practice of divination. And his employment of the particular class of incantation referred to, that which conjures by the Name of Heaven and Earth, is singularly appropriate to the context. For by its use he was enabled to test the meaning of Enki's words, which related to the intentions of Anu and Enlil, the gods respectively of Heaven and of Earth. The symbolical setting of Gudea's vision also finds a parallel in the reed-house and wall of the Deluge story, though in the latter case we have not the benefit of interpretation by a goddess. In the Sumerian Version the wall is merely part of the vision and does not receive a direct address from the god. That appears as a later development in the Semitic Version, and it may perhaps have suggested the excuse, put in that version into the mouth of Ea, that he had not directly revealed the decision of the gods.(1) (1) In that case the parallel suggested by Sir James Frazer between the reed-house and wall of the Gilgamesh Epic, now regarded as a medium of communication, and the whispering reeds of the Midas story would still hold good. The omission of any reference to a dream before the warning in the Gilgamesh Epic may be accounted for on the assumption that readers of the poem would naturally suppose that the usual method of divine warning was implied; and the text does indicate that the warning took place at night, for Gilgamesh proceeds to carry out the divine instructions at the break of day. The direct warning of the Hebrew Versions, on the other hand, does not carry this implication, since according to Hebrew ideas direct speech, as well as vision, was included among the methods by which the divine will could be conveyed to man. V. THE FLOOD, THE ESCAPE OF THE GREAT BOAT, AND THE SACRIFICE TO THE SUN-GOD The missing portion of the Fourth Column must have described Ziusudu's building of his great boat in order to escape the Deluge, for at the beginning of the Fifth Column we are in the middle of the Deluge itself. The column begins: All the mighty wind-storms together blew, The flood . . . raged. When for seven days, for seven nights, The flood had overwhelmed the land When the wind-storm had driven the great boat over the mighty waters, The Sun-god came forth, shedding light over heaven and earth. Ziusudu opened the opening of the great boat; The light of the hero, the Sun-god, (he) causes to enter into the interior(?) of the great boat. Ziusudu, the king, Bows himself down before the Sun-god; The king sacrifices an ox, a sheep he slaughters(?). The connected text of the column then breaks off, only a sign or two remaining of the following half-dozen lines. It will be seen that in the eleven lines that are preserved we have several close parallels to the Babylonian Version and some equally striking differences. While attempting to define the latter, it will be well to point out how close the resemblances are, and at the same time to draw a comparison between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions of this part of the story and the corresponding Hebrew accounts. Here, as in the Babylonian Version, the Flood is accompanied by hurricanes of wind, though in the latter the description is worked up in considerable detail. We there read(1) that at the appointed time the ruler of the darkness at eventide sent a heavy rain. Ut-napishtim saw its beginning, but fearing to watch the storm, he entered the interior of the ship by Ea's instructions, closed the door, and handed over the direction of the vessel to the pilot Puzur-Amurri. Later a thunder-storm and hurricane added their terrors to the deluge. For at early dawn a black cloud came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god thundering in its midst, and his heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over mountain and plain. Nergal tore away the ship's anchor, while Ninib directed the storm; the Anunnaki carried their lightning-torches and lit up the land with their brightness; the whirlwind of the Storm-god reached the heavens, and all light was turned into darkness. The storm raged the whole day, covering mountain and people with water.(2) No man beheld his fellow; the gods themselves were afraid, so that they retreated into the highest heaven, where they crouched down, cowering like dogs. Then follows the lamentation of Ishtar, to which reference has already been made, the goddess reproaching herself for the part she had taken in the destruction of her people. This section of the Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping with her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together. (1) Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff. (2) In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of Ammizaduga, Col. I, l. 5, contains a reference to the "cry" of men when Adad the Storm-god, slays them with his flood. It is probable that the Sumerian Version, in the missing portion of its Fourth Column, contained some account of Ziusudu's entry into his boat; and this may have been preceded, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, by a reference to "the living seed of every kind", or at any rate to "the four-legged creatures of the field", and to his personal possessions, with which we may assume he had previously loaded it. But in the Fifth Column we have no mention of the pilot or of any other companions who may have accompanied the king; and we shall see that the Sixth Column contains no reference to Ziusudu's wife. The description of the storm may have begun with the closing lines of the Fourth Column, though it is also quite possible that the first line of the Fifth Column actually begins the account. However that may be, and in spite of the poetic imagery of the Semitic Babylonian narrative, the general character of the catastrophe is the same in both versions. We find an equally close parallel, between the Sumerian and Babylonian accounts, in the duration of the storm which accompanied the Flood, as will be seen by printing the two versions together:(3) SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION When for seven days, for seven For six days and nights nights, The flood had overwhelmed the The wind blew, the flood, the land, tempest overwhelmed the land. When the wind-storm had driven When the seventh day drew near, the great boat over the the tempest, the flood, ceased mighty waters, from the battle In which it had fought like a host. The Sun-god came forth shedding Then the sea rested and was light over heaven and earth. still, and the wind-storm, the flood, ceased. (3) Col. V, ll. 3-6 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 128-32. The two narratives do not precisely agree as to the duration of the storm, for while in the Sumerian account the storm lasts seven days and seven nights, in the Semitic-Babylonian Version it lasts only six days and nights, ceasing at dawn on the seventh day. The difference, however, is immaterial when we compare these estimates with those of the Hebrew Versions, the older of which speaks of forty days' rain, while the later version represents the Flood as rising for no less than a hundred and fifty days. The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is not, however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to some of the words and phrases employed. It has already been noted that the Sumerian term employed for "flood" or "deluge" is the attested equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word which may be rendered "great boat" or "great ship" in the Sumerian text is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters, which occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from Nippur.(1) In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary ideogram for "vessel" or "ship"(2) is employed, though the great size of the vessel is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew Version, by detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic verbs, which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for the "overwhelming" of the land, are given as synonyms in a late syllabary, while in another explanatory text the Sumerian verb is explained as applying to the destructive action of a flood.(3) Such close linguistic parallels are instructive as furnishing additional proof, if it were needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian Versions upon Sumerian originals. (1) The Sumerian word is _(gish)ma-gur-gur_, corresponding to the term written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as _(isu)ma-gur-gur_, which is probably to be read under its Semitized form _magurgurru_. In l. 6 of that fragment the vessel is referred to under the synonymous expression _(isu)elippu ra-be-tu_, "a great ship". (2) i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word, read in Semitic Babylonian as _elippu_, "ship"; when employed in the early Semitic fragment it is qualified by the adj. _ra-be-tu_, "great". There is no justification for assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that a measurement of the vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic fragment. (3) The Sumerian verb _ur_, which is employed in l. 2 of the Fifth Column in the expression _ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur_, translated as "raged", occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase _kalam-ma ba-ur-ra_, "had overwhelmed the land". That we are justified in regarding the latter phrase as the original of the Semitic _i-sap-pan mâta_ (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129) is proved by the equation Sum. _ur-ur_ = Sem. _sa-pa-nu_ (Rawlinson, _W.A.I._, Vol. V, pl. 42, l. 54 c) and by the explanation Sum. _ur-ur_ = Sem. _�a-ba-tu �a a-bu-bi_, i.e. "_ur-ur_ = to smite, of a flood" (_Cun. Texts_, Pt. XII, pl. 50, Obv., l. 23); cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 54, n. 1. It may be worth while to pause for a moment in our study of the text, in order to inquire what kind of boat it was in which Ziusudu escaped the Flood. It is only called "a great boat" or "a great ship" in the text, and this term, as we have noted, was taken over, semitized, and literally translated in an early Semitic-Babylonian Version. But the Gilgamesh Epic, representing the later Semitic-Babylonian Version, supplies fuller details, which have not, however, been satisfactorily explained. Either the obvious meaning of the description and figures there given has been ignored, or the measurements have been applied to a central structure placed upon a hull, much on the lines of a modern "house-boat" or the conventional Noah's ark.(1) For the latter interpretation the text itself affords no justification. The statement is definitely made that the length and breadth of the vessel itself are to be the same;(2) and a later passage gives ten _gar_ for the height of its sides and ten _gar_ for the breadth of its deck.(3) This description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure, which, in order to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull. (1) Cf., e.g., Jastrow, _Hebr. and Bab. Trad._, p. 329. (2) Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 28-30. (3) L. 58 f. The _gar_ contained twelve cubits, so that the vessel would have measured 120 cubits each way; taking the Babylonian cubit, on the basis of Gudea's scale, at 495 mm. (cf. Thureau-Dangin, _Journal Asiatique_, Dix. Sér., t. XIII, 1909, pp. 79 ff., 97), this would give a length, breadth, and height of nearly 195 ft. I do not think it has been noted in this connexion that a vessel, approximately with the relative proportions of that described in the Gilgamesh Epic, is in constant use to-day on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. A _kuffah_,(1) the familiar pitched coracle of Baghdad, would provide an admirable model for the gigantic vessel in which Ut-napishtim rode out the Deluge. "Without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield"--so Herodotus described the _kuffah_ of his day;2() so, too, is it represented on Assyrian slabs from Nineveh, where we see it employed for the transport of heavy building material;(3) its form and structure indeed suggest a prehistoric origin. The _kuffah_ is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to conditions of use which cannot be improved. Any one who has travelled in one of these craft will agree that their storage capacity is immense, for their circular form and steeply curved side allow every inch of space to be utilized. It is almost impossible to upset them, and their only disadvantage is lack of speed. For their guidance all that is required is a steersman with a paddle, as indicated in the Epic. It is true that the larger kuffah of to-day tends to increase in diameter as compared to height, but that detail might well be ignored in picturing the monster vessel of Ut-napishtim. Its seven horizontal stages and their nine lateral divisions would have been structurally sound in supporting the vessel's sides; and the selection of the latter uneven number, though prompted doubtless by its sacred character, is only suitable to a circular craft in which the interior walls would radiate from the centre. The use of pitch and bitumen for smearing the vessel inside and out, though unusual even in Mesopotamian shipbuilding, is precisely the method employed in the _kuffah's_ construction. (1) Arab. _kuffah_, pl. _kufaf_; in addition to its common use for the Baghdad coracle, the word is also employed for a large basket. (2) Herodotus, I, 194. (3) The _kuffah_ is formed of wicker-work coated with bitumen. Some of those represented on the Nineveh sculptures appear to be covered with skins; and Herodotus (I, 94) states that "the boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular and made of skins." But his further description shows that he is here referred to the _kelek_ or skin-raft, with which he has combined a description of the _kuffah_. The late Sir Henry Rawlinson has never seen or heard of a skin-covered _kuffah_ on either the Tigris or Euphrates, and there can be little doubt that bitumen was employed for their construction in antiquity, as it is to-day. These craft are often large enough to carry five or six horses and a dozen men. We have no detailed description of Ziusudu's "great boat", beyond the fact that it was covered in and had an opening, or light-hole, which could be closed. But the form of Ut-napishtim's vessel was no doubt traditional, and we may picture that of Ziusudu as also of the _kuffah_ type, though smaller and without its successor's elaborate internal structure. The gradual development of the huge coracle into a ship would have been encouraged by the Semitic use of the term "ship" to describe it; and the attempt to retain something of its original proportions resulted in producing the unwieldy ark of later tradition.(1) (1) The description of the ark is not preserved from the earlier Hebrew Version (J), but the latter Hebrew Version (P), while increasing the length of the vessel, has considerably reduced its height and breadth. Its measurements are there given (Gen. vi. 15) as 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in breadth, and 30 cubits in height; taking the ordinary Hebrew cubit at about 18 in., this would give a length of about 450 ft., a breadth of about 75 ft., and a height of about 45 ft. The interior stories are necessarily reduced to three. The vessel in Berossus measures five stadia by two, and thus had a length of over three thousand feet and a breadth of more than twelve hundred. We will now return to the text and resume the comparison we were making between it and the Gilgamesh Epic. In the latter no direct reference is made to the appearance of the Sun-god after the storm, nor is Ut-napishtim represented as praying to him. But the sequence of events in the Sumerian Version is very natural, and on that account alone, apart from other reasons, it may be held to represent the original form of the story. For the Sun-god would naturally reappear after the darkness of the storm had passed, and it would be equally natural that Ziusudu should address himself to the great light-god. Moreover, the Gilgamesh Epic still retains traces of the Sumerian Version, as will be seen from a comparison of their narratives,(1) the Semitic Version being quoted from the point where the hurricane ceased and the sea became still. (1) Col. V, ll. 7-11 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 133-9. SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION When I looked at the storm, the uproar had ceased, And all mankind was turned into clay; In place of fields there was a swamp. Ziusudu opened the opening of I opened the opening (lit. the great boat; "hole"), and daylight fell upon my countenance. The light of the hero, the Sun- god, (he) causes to enter into the interior(?) of the great boat. Ziusudu, the king, Bows himself down before the I bowed myself down and sat down Sun-god; weeping; The king sacrifices an ox, a Over my countenance flowed my sheep he slaughters(?). tears. I gazed upon the quarters (of the world)--all(?) was sea. It will be seen that in the Semitic Version the beams of the Sun-god have been reduced to "daylight", and Ziusudu's act of worship has become merely prostration in token of grief. Both in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus the sacrifice offered by the Deluge hero to the gods follows the episode of the birds, and it takes place on the top of the mountain after the landing from the vessel. It is hardly probable that two sacrifices were recounted in the Sumerian Version, one to the Sun-god in the boat and another on the mountain after landing; and if we are right in identifying Ziusudu's recorded sacrifice with that of Ut-napishtim and Xisuthros, it would seem that, according to the Sumerian Version, no birds were sent out to test the abatement of the waters. This conclusion cannot be regarded as quite certain, inasmuch as the greater part of the Fifth Column is waning. We have, moreover, already seen reason to believe that the account on our tablet is epitomized, and that consequently the omission of any episode from our text does not necessarily imply its absence from the original Sumerian Version which it follows. But here at least it is clear that nothing can have been omitted between the opening of the light-hole and the sacrifice, for the one act is the natural sequence of the other. On the whole it seems preferable to assume that we have recovered a simpler form of the story. As the storm itself is described in a few phrases, so the cessation of the flood may have been dismissed with equal brevity; the gradual abatement of the waters, as attested by the dove, the swallow, and the raven, may well be due to later elaboration or to combination with some variant account. Under its amended form the narrative leads naturally up to the landing on the mountain and the sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods. In the Sumerian Version, on the other hand, Ziusudu regards himself as saved when he sees the Sun shining; he needs no further tests to assure himself that the danger is over, and his sacrifice too is one of gratitude for his escape. The disappearance of the Sun-god from the Semitic Version was thus a necessity, to avoid an anti-climax; and the hero's attitude of worship had obviously to be translated into one of grief. An indication that the sacrifice was originally represented as having taken place on board the boat may be seen in the lines of the Gilgamesh Epic which recount how Enlil, after acquiescing in Ut-napishtim's survival of the Flood, went up into the ship and led him forth by the hand, although, in the preceding lines, he had already landed and had sacrificed upon the mountain. The two passages are hardly consistent as they stand, but they find a simple explanation of we regard the second of them as an unaltered survival from an earlier form of the story. If the above line of reasoning be sound, it follows that, while the earlier Hebrew Version closely resembles the Gilgamesh Epic, the later Hebrew Version, by its omission of the birds, would offer a parallel to the Sumerian Version. But whether we may draw any conclusion from this apparent grouping of our authorities will be best dealt with when we have concluded our survey of the new evidence. As we have seen, the text of the Fifth Column breaks off with Ziusudu's sacrifice to the Sun-god, after he had opened a light-hole in the boat and had seen by the god's beams that the storm was over. The missing portion of the Fifth Column must have included at least some account of the abatement of the waters, the stranding of the boat, and the manner in which Anu and Enlil became apprised of Ziusudu's escape, and consequently of the failure of their intention to annihilate mankind. For in the Sixth Column of the text we find these two deities reconciled to Ziusudu and bestowing immortality upon him, as Enlil bestows immortality upon Ut-napishtim at the close of the Semitic Version. In the latter account, after the vessel had grounded on Mount Nisir and Ut-napishtim had tested the abatement of the waters by means of the birds, he brings all out from the ship and offers his libation and sacrifice upon the mountain, heaping up reed, cedar-wood, and myrtle beneath his seven sacrificial vessels. And it was by this act on his part that the gods first had knowledge of his escape. For they smelt the sweet savour of the sacrifice, and "gathered like flies over the sacrificer".(1) (1) Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 162. It is possible in our text that Ziusudu's sacrifice in the boat was also the means by which the gods became acquainted with his survival; and it seems obvious that the Sun-god, to whom it was offered, should have continued to play some part in the narrative, perhaps by assisting Ziusudu in propitiating Anu and Enlil. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version, the first deity to approach the sacrifice is Bêlit-ili or Ishtar, who is indignant with Enlil for what he has done. When Enlil himself approaches and sees the ship he is filled with anger against the gods, and, asking who has escaped, exclaims that no man must live in the destruction. Thereupon Ninib accuses Ea, who by his pleading succeeds in turning Enlil's purpose. He bids Enlil visit the sinner with his sin and lay his transgression on the transgressor; Enlil should not again send a deluge to destroy the whole of mankind, but should be content with less wholesale destruction, such as that wrought by wild beasts, famine, and plague. Finally he confesses that it was he who warned Ziusudu of the gods' decision by sending him a dream. Enlil thereupon changes his intention, and going up into the ship, leads Ut-napishtim forth. Though Ea's intervention finds, of course, no parallel in either Hebrew version, the subject-matter of his speech is reflected in both. In the earlier Hebrew Version Yahweh smells the sweet savour of Noah's burnt offering and says in his heart he will no more destroy every living creature as he had done; while in the later Hebrew Version Elohim, after remembering Noah and causing the waters to abate, establishes his covenant to the same effect, and, as a sign of the covenant, sets his bow in the clouds. In its treatment of the climax of the story we shall see that the Sumerian Version, at any rate in the form it has reached us, is on a lower ethical level than the Babylonian and Hebrew Versions. Ea's argument that the sinner should bear his own sin and the transgressor his own transgression in some measure forestalls that of Ezekiel;(1) and both the Hebrew Versions represent the saving of Noah as part of the divine intention from the beginning. But the Sumerian Version introduces the element of magic as the means by which man can bend the will of the gods to his own ends. How far the details of the Sumerian myth at this point resembled that of the Gilgamesh Epic it is impossible to say, but the general course of the story must have been the same. In the latter Enlil's anger is appeased, in the former that of Anu and Enlil; and it is legitimate to suppose that Enki, like Ea, was Ziusudu's principal supporter, in view of the part he had already taken in ensuring his escape. (1) Cf. Ezek. xviii, passim, esp. xviii. 20. VI. THE PROPITIATION OF THE ANGRY GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S IMMORTALITY The presence of the puzzling lines, with which the Sixth Column of our text opens, was not explained by Dr. Poebel; indeed, they would be difficult to reconcile with his assumption that our text is an epic pure and simple. But if, as is suggested above, we are dealing with a myth in magical employment, they are quite capable of explanation. The problem these lines present will best be stated by giving a translation of the extant portion of the column, where they will be seen with their immediate context in relation to what follows them: "By the Soul of Heaven, by the soul of Earth, shall ye conjure him, That with you he may . . . ! Anu and Enlil by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth, shall ye conjure, And with you will he . . . ! "The _niggilma_ of the ground springs forth in abundance(?)!" Ziusudu, the king, Before Anu and Enlil bows himself down. Life like (that of) a god he gives to him, An eternal soul like (that of) a god he creates for him. At that time Ziusudu, the king, The name of the _niggilma_ (named) "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind". In a . . . land,(1) the land(1) of Dilmun(?), they caused him to dwell. (1) Possibly to be translated "mountain". The rendering of the proper name as that of Dilmun is very uncertain. For the probable identification of Dilmun with the island of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, cf. Rawlinson, _Journ. Roy. As. Soc._, 1880, pp. 20 ff.; and see further, Meissner, _Orient. Lit- Zeit._, XX. No. 7, col. 201 ff. The first two lines of the column are probably part of the speech of some deity, who urges the necessity of invoking or conjuring Anu and Enlil "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth", in order to secure their support or approval. Now Anu and Enlil are the two great gods who had determined on mankind's destruction, and whose wrath at his own escape from death Ziusudu must placate. It is an obvious inference that conjuring "by the Soul of Heaven" and "by the Soul of Earth" is either the method by which Ziusudu has already succeeded in appeasing their anger, or the means by which he is here enjoined to attain that end. Against the latter alternative it is to be noted that the god is addressing more than one person; and, further, at Ziusudu is evidently already pardoned, for, so far from following the deity's advice, he immediately prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil and receives immortality. We may conjecture that at the close of the Fifth Column Ziusudu had already performed the invocation and thereby had appeased the divine wrath; and that the lines at the beginning of the Sixth Column point the moral of the story by enjoining on Ziusudu and his descendants, in other words on mankind, the advisability of employing this powerful incantation at their need. The speaker may perhaps have been one of Ziusudu's divine helpers--the Sun-god to whom he had sacrificed, or Enki who had saved him from the Flood. But it seems to me more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil themselves.(1) For thereby they would be represented as giving their own sanction to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy. That the incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be appropriate is obvious, since each would be magically approached through his own sphere of control. (1) One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both. It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after the reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might possibly explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's piety: he may have been represented as continually practising this class of divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that in the final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods he conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it was suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and assume that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and Enlil's purpose by means of the magical incantation which was peculiarly associated with them. On either alternative the phrase fits into the story itself, and there is no need to suppose that the narrative is interrupted, either in the Third or in the Sixth Column, by an address to the hearers of the myth, urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf. On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested by, and developed from, the myth. In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.(1) The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read _nig-gil-ma_,(2) which, when preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word _mashkhalu_. Evidence that the word _mashkhalu_ was actually employed to denote a jar or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters which refers to "one silver _mashkhalu_" and "one (or two) stone _mashkhalu_".(3) In our text the determinative is absent, and it is possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column, where the creation of the _niggilma_ is apparently recorded; and his rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests that the first sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the _niggilma_ appears to be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship, "Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played an important part in man's preservation, which would account not only for the honorific title but for the special record of its creation. (1) See _American Journal of Semitic Languages_, Vol. XXXI, April 1915, p. 226. (2) It is written _nig-gil_ in the First Column. (3) See Winckler, _El-Amarna_, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col. II, l. 45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, _El-Am. Taf._, pp. 112, 122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to Burnaburiash. It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of the invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But the accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered, suggest rather some kind of plant;(1) and this, from its employment in magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh, after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power and bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming old age to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the three passages mentioning the _niggilma_ must be classed with those in which the invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the myth to further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view, the fifth line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the divine speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual would not be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be thrown on this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new fragments of the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a more definite rendering. (1) The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also tend to connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close association with the earth, which is, of course, independently attested, is explicitly referred to in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-42). Suggested reflections of this idea have long been traced in the Hebrew Versions; cf. Gen. viii. 21 (J), where Yahweh says he will not again curse the ground, and Gen. ix. 13 (P), where Elohim speaks of his covenant "between me and the earth". With the sixth line of the column it is clear that the original narrative of the myth is resumed.(1) Ziusudu, the king, prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil, who bestow immortality upon him and cause him to dwell in a land, or mountain, the name of which may perhaps be read as Dilmun. The close parallelism between this portion of the text and the end of the myth in the Gilgamesh Epic will be seen from the following extracts,(2) the magical portions being omitted from the Sumerian Version: (1) It will also be noted that with this line the text again falls naturally into couplets. (2) Col. VI, ll. 6-9 and 12 are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 198-205. SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION Then Enlil went up into the ship; Ziusudu, the king, He took me by the hand and led me forth. Before Anu and Enlil bows himself He brought out my wife and down. caused her to bow down at my side; He touched our brows, standing between us and blessing us: Life like (that of) a god he "Formerly was Ut-napishtim of gives to him. mankind, An eternal soul like (that of) a But now let Ut-napishtim be god he creates for him. like the gods, even us! And let Ut-napishtim dwell afar off at the mouth of the rivers!" In a . . . land, the land of(1) Then they took me and afar off, Dilmun(?), they caused him to at the mouth of the rivers, dwell. they caused me to dwell. (1) Or, "On a mountain, the mountain of", &c. The Sumerian Version thus apparently concludes with the familiar ending of the legend which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some variations in detail. In all three versions the prostration of the Deluge hero before the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality upon him, a fate which, according to Berossus, he shared with his wife, his daughter, and the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the Persian Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he is made to dwell on Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be cited in favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the great danger of their passage, was probably a later development associated with Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the original story, the Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind. Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the details which have been given it will have been seen that its story, so far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier version has reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend. That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But in view of the discussion that has taken place in the United States over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that have subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be well to formulate briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has actually been recovered. Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think, agree that the following conclusions may be drawn: (i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to show that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And this conclusion is further supported (a) by the occurrence throughout the text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word, employed in the Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and (b) by the use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great boat", which is already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version. (ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest that the one version was ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn is confirmed (a) by the identity in meaning of the Sumerian and Babylonian names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated in a late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in the Babylonian form of the story which correspond to later political and religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors. The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the validity of Dr. Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of its features a very primitive, form of the Deluge narrative which till now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the stream of tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which we have hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may ask, does this early Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary history of the Hebrew Versions? The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian legend as a whole has long been recognized, and needs no further demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms with the version in the Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.(1) In the course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking points of agreement or divergence, in relation to the Hebrew Versions, were noted under the different sections of its narrative. It was also obvious that, in many features in which the Hebrew Versions differ from the Gilgamesh Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These facts confirm the conclusion, which we should naturally base on grounds of historical probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian Versions were derived from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally clearly derived from Babylon. But there are one or two pieces of evidence which are apparently at variance with this conclusion, and these call for some explanation. (1) For details see especially Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 177 ff. Not too much significance should be attached to the apparent omission of the episode of the birds from the Sumerian narrative, in which it would agree with the later as against the earlier Hebrew Version; for, apart from its epitomized character, there is so much missing from the text that the absence of this episode cannot be regarded as established with certainty. And in any case it could be balanced by the Sumerian order of Creation of men before animals, which agrees with the earlier Hebrew Version against the later. But there is one very striking point in which our new Sumerian text agrees with both the Hebrew Versions as against the Gilgamesh Epic and Berossus; and that is in the character of Ziusudu, which presents so close a parallel to the piety of Noah. As we have already seen, the latter is due to no Hebrew idealization of the story, but represents a genuine strand of the original tradition, which is completely absent from the Babylonian Versions. But the Babylonian Versions are the media through which it has generally been assumed that the tradition of the Deluge reached the Hebrews. What explanation have we of this fact? This grouping of Sumerian and Hebrew authorities, against the extant sources from Babylon, is emphasized by the general framework of the Sumerian story. For the literary connexion which we have in Genesis between the Creation and the Deluge narratives has hitherto found no parallel in the cuneiform texts. In Babylon and Assyria the myth of Creation and the Deluge legend have been divorced. From the one a complete epic has been evolved in accordance with the tenets of Babylonian theology, the Creation myth being combined in the process with other myths of a somewhat analogous character. The Deluge legend has survived as an isolated story in more than one setting, the principal Semitic Version being recounted to the national hero Gilgamesh, towards the close of the composite epic of his adventures which grew up around the nucleus of his name. It is one of the chief surprises of the newly discovered Sumerian Version that the Hebrew connexion of the narratives is seen to be on the lines of very primitive tradition. Noah's reputation for piety does not stand alone. His line of descent from Adam, and the thread of narrative connecting the creation of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge, already appear in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon itself had not secured its later power. How then are we to account for this correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points completely wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which, however, other evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were derived? At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and Sumerian ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should be pointed out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from the evidence. Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the evidence we have summarized, while it would leave completely unexplained some significant features of the problem. It is true that certain important details of the Sumerian tradition, while not affecting Babylon and Assyria, have left their stamp upon the Hebrew narratives; but that is not an exhaustive statement of the case. For we have also seen that a more complete survival of Sumerian tradition has taken place in the history of Berossus. There we traced the same general framework of the narratives, with a far closer correspondence in detail. The kingly rank of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the Berossian conception of a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and the names of two of the Antediluvian cites are among those of their newly recovered Sumerian prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion that the Greek reproductions of the Sumerian tradition were in their turn due to Hebrew influence. On the contrary we have in them a parallel case of survival in a far more complete form. The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the original version, into the later historical periods. In this there would be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful preservation and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the later Semitic priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in Babylonia continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the Sumerian desire for their preservation, which was inherited by their Semitic guardians, was in great measure unaffected by political occurrences elsewhere. Hence it was that Ashur-bani-pal, when forming his library at Nineveh, was able to draw upon so rich a store of the more ancient literary texts of Babylonia. The Sumerian Version of the Deluge and of Antediluvian history may well have survived in a less epitomized form than that in which we have recovered it; and, like other ancient texts, it was probably provided with a Semitic translation. Indeed its literary study and reproduction may have continued without interruption in Babylon itself. But even if Sumerian tradition died out in the capital under the influence of the Babylonian priesthood, its re-introduction may well have taken place in Neo-Babylonian times. Perhaps the antiquarian researches of Nabonidus were characteristic of his period; and in any case the collection of his country's gods into the capital must have been accompanied by a renewed interest in the more ancient versions of the past with which their cults were peculiarly associated. In the extant summary from Berossus we may possibly see evidence of a subsequent attempt to combine with these more ancient traditions the continued religious dominance of Marduk and of Babylon. Our conclusion, that the Sumerian form of the tradition did not die out, leaves the question as to the periods during which Babylonian influence may have acted upon Hebrew tradition in great measure unaffected; and we may therefore postpone its further consideration to the next lecture. To-day the only question that remains to be considered concerns the effect of our new evidence upon the wider problem of Deluge stories as a whole. What light does it throw on the general character of Deluge stories and their suggested Egyptian origin? One thing that strikes me forcibly in reading this early text is the complete absence of any trace or indication of astrological _motif_. It is true that Ziusudu sacrifices to the Sun-god; but the episode is inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to the king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but is in complete harmony with its Babylonian setting. In the matter of floods the Tigris and Euphrates present a striking contrast to the Nile. It is true that the life-blood of each country is its river-water, but the conditions of its use are very different, and in Mesopotamia it becomes a curse when out of control. In both countries the river-water must be used for maturing the crops. But while the rains of Abyssinia cause the Nile to rise between August and October, thus securing both summer and winter crops, the melting snows of Armenia and the Taurus flood the Mesopotamian rivers between March and May. In Egypt the Nile flood is gentle; it is never abrupt, and the river gives ample warning of its rise and fall. It contains just enough sediment to enrich the land without choking the canals; and the water, after filling its historic basins, may when necessary be discharged into the falling river in November. Thus Egypt receives a full and regular supply of water, and there is no difficulty in disposing of any surplus. The growth in such a country of a legend of world-wide destruction by flood is inconceivable. In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the floods, which come too late for the winter crops, are followed by the rainless summer months; and not only must the flood-water be controlled, but some portion of it must be detained artificially, if it is to be of use during the burning months of July, August, and September, when the rivers are at their lowest. Moreover, heavy rain in April and a warm south wind melting the snow in the hills may bring down such floods that the channels cannot contain them; the dams are then breached and the country is laid waste. Here there is first too much water and then too little. The great danger from flood in Babylonia, both in its range of action and in its destructive effect, is due to the strangely flat character of the Tigris and Euphrates delta.(1) Hence after a severe breach in the Tigris or Euphrates, the river after inundating the country may make itself a new channel miles away from the old one. To mitigate the danger, the floods may be dealt with in two ways--by a multiplication of canals to spread the water, and by providing escapes for it into depressions in the surrounding desert, which in their turn become centres of fertility. Both methods were employed in antiquity; and it may be added that in any scheme for the future prosperity of the country they must be employed again, of course with the increased efficiency of modern apparatus.(2) But while the Babylonians succeeded in controlling the Euphrates, the Tigris was never really tamed,(3) and whenever it burst its right bank the southern plains were devastated. We could not have more suitable soil for the growth of a Deluge story. (1) Baghdad, though 300 miles by crow-fly from the sea and 500 by river, is only 120 ft. above sea-level. (2) The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the same time provided against its time of "low supply", by escapes into two depressions in the western desert to the NW. of Babylon, known to-day as the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions, which lie S. of the modern town of Ramâdi and N. of Kerbela. That these depressions were actually used as reservoirs in antiquity is proved by the presence along their edges of thick beds of Euphrates shells. In addition to canals and escapes, the Babylonian system included well- constructed dikes protected by brushwood. By cutting an eight-mile channel through a low hill between the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions and by building a short dam 50 ft. high across the latter's narrow outlet, Sir William Willcocks estimates that a reservoir could be obtained holding eighteen milliards of tons of water. See his work _The Irrigations of Mesopotamia_ (E. and F. N. Spon, 1911), _Geographical Journal_, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), pp. 129 ff., and the articles in _The Near East_ cited on p. 97, n. 1, and p. 98, n. 2. Sir William Willcocks's volume and subsequent papers form the best introduction to the study of Babylonian Deluge tradition on its material side. (3) Their works carried out on the Tigris were effective for irrigation; but the Babylonians never succeeded in controlling its floods as they did those of the Euphrates. A massive earthen dam, the remains of which are still known as "Nimrod's Dam", was thrown across the Tigris above the point where it entered its delta; this served to turn the river over hard conglomerate rock and kept it at a high level so that it could irrigate the country on both banks. Above the dam were the heads of the later Nahrwân Canal, a great stream 400 ft. wide and 17 ft. deep, which supplied the country east of the river. The Nâr Sharri or "King's Canal", the Nahar Malkha of the Greeks and the Nahr el-Malik of the Arabs, protected the right bank of the Tigris by its own high artificial banks, which can still be traced for hundreds of miles; but it took its supply from the Euphrates at Sippar, where the ground is some 25 ft. higher than on the Tigris. The Tigris usually flooded its left bank; it was the right bank which was protected, and a breach here meant disaster. Cf. Willcocks, op. cit., and _The Near East_, Sept. 29, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 282), p. 522. It was only by constant and unremitting attention that disaster from flood could be averted; and the difficulties of the problem were and are increased by the fact that the flood-water of the Mesopotamian rivers contains five times as much sediment as the Nile. In fact, one of the most pressing of the problems the Sumerian and early Babylonian engineers had to solve was the keeping of the canals free from silt.(1) What the floods, if left unchecked, may do in Mesopotamia, is well illustrated by the decay of the ancient canal-system, which has been the immediate cause of the country's present state of sordid desolation. That the decay was gradual was not the fault of the rivers, but was due to the sound principles on which the old system of control had been evolved through many centuries of labour. At the time of the Moslem conquest the system had already begun to fail. In the fifth century there had been bad floods; but worse came in A.D. 629, when both rivers burst their banks and played havoc with the dikes and embankments. It is related that the Sassanian king Parwiz, the contemporary of Mohammed, crucified in one day forty canal-workers at a certain breach, and yet was unable to master the flood.(2) All repairs were suspended during the anarchy of the Moslem invasion. As a consequence the Tigris left its old bed for the Shatt el-Hai at Kût, and pouring its own and its tributaries' waters into the Euphrates formed the Great Euphrates Swamp, two hundred miles long and fifty broad. But even then what was left of the old system was sufficient to support the splendour of the Eastern Caliphate. (1) Cf. _Letters of Hammurabi_, Vol. III, pp. xxxvi ff.; it was the duty of every village or town upon the banks of the main canals in Babylonia to keep its own section clear of silt, and of course it was also responsible for its own smaller irrigation-channels. While the invention of the system of basin-irrigation was practically forced on Egypt, the extraordinary fertility of Babylonia was won in the teeth of nature by the system of perennial irrigation, or irrigation all the year round. In Babylonia the water was led into small fields of two or three acres, while the Nile valley was irrigated in great basins each containing some thirty to forty thousand acres. The Babylonian method gives far more profitable results, and Sir William Willcocks points out that Egypt to-day is gradually abandoning its own system and adopting that of its ancient rival; see _The Near East_, Sept. 29, 1916, p. 521. (2) See Le Strange, _The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate_, p. 27. The second great blow to the system followed the Mongol conquest, when the Nahrwân Canal, to the east of the Tigris, had its head swept away by flood and the area it had irrigated became desert. Then, in about the fifteenth century, the Tigris returned to its old course; the Shatt el-Hai shrank, and much of the Great Swamp dried up into the desert it is to-day.(1) Things became worse during the centuries of Turkish misrule. But the silting up of the Hillah, or main, branch of the Euphrates about 1865, and the transference of a great part of its stream into the Hindîyah Canal, caused even the Turks to take action. They constructed the old Hindîyah Barrage in 1890, but it gave way in 1903 and the state of things was even worse than before; for the Hillah branch then dried entirely.(2) (1) This illustrates the damage the Tigris itself is capable of inflicting on the country. It may be added that Sir William Willcocks proposes to control the Tigris floods by an escape into the Tharthâr depression, a great salt pan at the tail of Wadi Tharthâr, which lies 14 ft. below sea level and is 200 ft. lower than the flood-level of the Tigris some thirty-two miles away. The escape would leave the Tigris to the S. of Sâmarra, the proposed Beled Barrage being built below it and up-stream of "Nimrod's Dam". The Tharthâr escape would drain into the Euphrates, and the latter's Habbânîyah escape would receive any surplus water from the Tigris, a second barrage being thrown across the Euphrates up-stream of Fallûjah, where there is an outcrop of limestone near the head of the Sakhlawîyah Canal. The Tharthâr depression, besides disposing of the Tigris flood- water, would thus probably feed the Euphrates; and a second barrage on the Tigris, to be built at Kût, would supply water to the Shatt el-Hai. When the country is freed from danger of flood, the Baghdad Railway could be run through the cultivated land instead of through the eastern desert; see Willcocks, _The Near East_, Oct. 6, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 283), p. 545 f. (2) It was then that Sir William Willcocks designed the new Hindîyah Barrage, which was completed in 1913. The Hindîyah branch, to-day the main stream of the Euphrates, is the old low-lying Pallacopas Canal, which branched westward above Babylon and discharged its waters into the western marshes. In antiquity the head of this branch had to be opened in high floods and then closed again immediately after the flood to keep the main stream full past Babylon, which entailed the employment of an enormous number of men. Alexander the Great's first work in Babylonia was cutting a new head for the Pallacopas in solid ground, for hitherto it had been in sandy soil; and it was while reclaiming the marshes farther down-stream that he contracted the fever that killed him. From this brief sketch of progressive disaster during the later historical period, the inevitable effect of neglected silt and flood, it will be gathered that the two great rivers of Mesopotamia present a very strong contrast to the Nile. For during the same period of misgovernment and neglect in Egypt the Nile did not turn its valley and delta into a desert. On the Tigris and Euphrates, during ages when the earliest dwellers on their banks were struggling to make effective their first efforts at control, the waters must often have regained the upper hand. Under such conditions the story of a great flood in the past would not be likely to die out in the future; the tradition would tend to gather illustrative detail suggested by later experience. Our new text reveals the Deluge tradition in Mesopotamia at an early stage of its development, and incidentally shows us that there is no need to postulate for its origin any convulsion of nature or even a series of seismic shocks accompanied by cyclone in the Persian Gulf. If this had been the only version of the story that had come down to us, we should hardly have regarded it as a record of world-wide catastrophe. It is true the gods' intention is to destroy mankind, but the scene throughout is laid in Southern Babylonia. After seven days' storm, the Sun comes out, and the vessel with the pious priest-king and his domestic animals on board grounds, apparently still in Babylonia, and not on any distant mountain, such as Mt. Nisir or the great mass of Ararat in Armenia. These are obviously details which tellers of the story have added as it passed down to later generations. When it was carried still farther afield, into the area of the Eastern Mediterranean, it was again adapted to local conditions. Thus Apollodorus makes Deucalion land upon Parnassus,(1) and the pseudo-Lucian relates how he founded the temple of Derketo at Hierapolis in Syria beside the hole in the earth which swallowed up the Flood.(2) To the Sumerians who first told the story, the great Flood appeared to have destroyed mankind, for Southern Babylonia was for them the world. Later peoples who heard it have fitted the story to their own geographical horizon, and in all good faith and by a purely logical process the mountain-tops are represented as submerged, and the ship, or ark, or chest, is made to come to ground on the highest peak known to the story-teller and his hearers. But in its early Sumerian form it is just a simple tradition of some great inundation, which overwhelmed the plain of Southern Babylonia and was peculiarly disastrous in its effects. And so its memory survived in the picture of Ziusudu's solitary coracle upon the face of the waters, which, seen through the mists of the Deluge tradition, has given us the Noah's ark of our nursery days. (1) Hesiod is our earliest authority for the Deucalion Flood story. For its probable Babylonian origin, cf. Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_ (1911), p. 184. (2) _De Syria dea_, 12 f. Thus the Babylonian, Hebrew, and Greek Deluge stories resolve themselves, not into a nature myth, but into an early legend, which has the basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. And it is probable that we may explain after a similar fashion the occurrence of tales of a like character at least in some other parts of the world. Among races dwelling in low-lying or well-watered districts it would be surprising if we did not find independent stories of past floods from which few inhabitants of the land escaped. It is only in hilly countries such as Palestine, where for the great part of the year water is scarce and precious, that we are forced to deduce borrowing; and there is no doubt that both the Babylonian and the biblical stories have been responsible for some at any rate of the scattered tales. But there is no need to adopt the theory of a single source for all of them, whether in Babylonia or, still less, in Egypt.(1) (1) This argument is taken from an article I published in Professor Headlam's _Church Quarterly Review_, Jan., 1916, pp. 280 ff., containing an account of Dr. Poebel's discovery. I should like to add, with regard to this reading of our new evidence, that I am very glad to know Sir James Frazer holds a very similar opinion. For, as you are doubtless all aware, Sir James is at present collecting Flood stories from all over the world, and is supplementing from a wider range the collections already made by Lenormant, Andree, Winternitz, and Gerland. When his work is complete it will be possible to conjecture with far greater confidence how particular traditions or groups of tradition arose, and to what extent transmission has taken place. Meanwhile, in his recent Huxley Memorial Lecture,(1) he has suggested a third possibility as to the way Deluge stories may have arisen. (1) Sir J. G. Frazer, _Ancient Stories of a Great Flood_ (the Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1916), Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 1916. Stated briefly, it is that a Deluge story may arise as a popular explanation of some striking natural feature in a country, although to the scientific eye the feature in question is due to causes other than catastrophic flood. And he worked out the suggestion in the case of the Greek traditions of a great deluge, associated with the names of Deucalion and Dardanus. Deucalion's deluge, in its later forms at any rate, is obviously coloured by Semitic tradition; but both Greek stories, in their origin, Sir James Frazer would trace to local conditions--the one suggested by the Gorge of Tempe in Thessaly, the other explaining the existence of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. As he pointed out, they would be instances, not of genuine historical traditions, but of what Sir James Tyler calls "observation myths". A third story of a great flood, regarded in Greek tradition as the earliest of the three, he would explain by an extraordinary inundation of the Copaic Lake in Boeotia, which to this day is liable to great fluctuations of level. His new theory applies only to the other two traditions. For in them no historical kernel is presupposed, though gradual erosion by water is not excluded as a cause of the surface features which may have suggested the myths. This valuable theory thus opens up a third possibility for our analysis. It may also, of course, be used in combination, if in any particular instance we have reason to believe that transmission, in some vague form, may already have taken place. And it would with all deference suggest the possibility that, in view of other evidence, this may have occurred in the case of the Greek traditions. With regard to the theory itself we may confidently expect that further examples will be found in its illustration and support. Meanwhile in the new Sumerian Version I think we may conclude that we have recovered beyond any doubt the origin of the Babylonian and Hebrew traditions and of the large group of stories to which they in their turn have given rise. LECTURE III -- CREATION AND THE DRAGON MYTH; AND THE PROBLEM OF BABYLONIAN PARALLELS IN HEBREW TRADITION In our discussion of the new Sumerian version of the Deluge story we came to the conclusion that it gave no support to any theory which would trace all such tales to a single origin, whether in Egypt or in Babylonia. In spite of strong astrological elements in both the Egyptian and Babylonian religious systems, we saw grounds for regarding the astrological tinge of much ancient mythology as a later embellishment and not as primitive material. And so far as our new version of the Deluge story was concerned, it resolved itself into a legend, which had a basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. It will be obvious that the same class of explanation cannot be applied to narratives of the Creation of the World. For there we are dealing, not with legends, but with myths, that is, stories exclusively about the gods. But where an examination of their earlier forms is possible, it would seem to show that many of these tales also, in their origin, are not to be interpreted as nature myths, and that none arose as mere reflections of the solar system. In their more primitive and simpler aspects they seem in many cases to have been suggested by very human and terrestrial experience. To-day we will examine the Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths of Creation, and, after we have noted the more striking features of our new material, we will consider the problem of foreign influences upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early history of the world. In Egypt, as until recently in Babylonia, we have to depend for our knowledge of Creation myths on documents of a comparatively late period. Moreover, Egyptian religious literature as a whole is textually corrupt, and in consequence it is often difficult to determine the original significance of its allusions. Thanks to the funerary inscriptions and that great body of magical formulae and ritual known as "The Chapters of Coming forth by Day", we are very fully informed on the Egyptian doctrines as to the future state of the dead. The Egyptian's intense interest in his own remote future, amounting almost to an obsession, may perhaps in part account for the comparatively meagre space in the extant literature which is occupied by myths relating solely to the past. And it is significant that the one cycle of myth, of which we are fully informed in its latest stage of development, should be that which gave its sanction to the hope of a future existence for man. The fact that Herodotus, though he claims a knowledge of the sufferings or "Mysteries" of Osiris, should deliberately refrain from describing them or from even uttering the name,(1) suggests that in his time at any rate some sections of the mythology had begun to acquire an esoteric character. There is no doubt that at all periods myth played an important part in the ritual of feast-days. But mythological references in the earlier texts are often obscure; and the late form in which a few of the stories have come to us is obviously artificial. The tradition, for example, which relates how mankind came from the tears which issued from Ra's eye undoubtedly arose from a play upon words. (1) Herodotus, II, 171. On the other hand, traces of myth, scattered in the religious literature of Egypt, may perhaps in some measure betray their relative age by the conceptions of the universe which underlie them. The Egyptian idea that the sky was a heavenly ocean, which is not unlike conceptions current among the Semitic Babylonians and Hebrews, presupposes some thought and reflection. In Egypt it may well have been evolved from the probably earlier but analogous idea of the river in heaven, which the Sun traversed daily in his boats. Such a river was clearly suggested by the Nile; and its world-embracing character is reminiscent of a time when through communication was regularly established, at least as far south as Elephantine. Possibly in an earlier period the long narrow valley, or even a section of it, may have suggested the figure of a man lying prone upon his back. Such was Keb, the Earth-god, whose counterpart in the sky was the goddess Nut, her feet and hands resting at the limits of the world and her curved body forming the vault of heaven. Perhaps still more primitive, and dating from a pastoral age, may be the notion that the sky was a great cow, her body, speckled with stars, alone visible from the earth beneath. Reference has already been made to the dominant influence of the Sun in Egyptian religion, and it is not surprising that he should so often appear as the first of created beings. His orb itself, or later the god in youthful human form, might be pictured as emerging from a lotus on the primaeval waters, or from a marsh-bird's egg, a conception which influenced the later Phoenician cosmogeny. The Scarabaeus, or great dung-feeding beetle of Egypt, rolling the ball before it in which it lays its eggs, is an obvious theme for the early myth-maker. And it was natural that the Beetle of Khepera should have been identified with the Sun at his rising, as the Hawk of Ra represented his noonday flight, and the aged form of Attun his setting in the west. But in all these varied conceptions and explanations of the universe it is difficult to determine how far the poetical imagery of later periods has transformed the original myths which may lie behind them. As the Egyptian Creator the claims of Ra, the Sun-god of Heliopolis, early superseded those of other deities. On the other hand, Ptah of Memphis, who for long ages had been merely the god of architects and craftsmen, became under the Empire the architect of the universe and is pictured as a potter moulding the world-egg. A short poem by a priest of Ptah, which has come down to us from that period, exhibits an attempt to develop this idea on philosophical lines.(1) Its author represents all gods and living creatures as proceeding directly from the mind and thought of Ptah. But this movement, which was more notably reflected in Akhenaton's religious revolution, died out in political disaster, and the original materialistic interpretation of the myths was restored with the cult of Amen. How materialistic this could be is well illustrated by two earlier members of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who have left us vivid representations of the potter's wheel employed in the process of man's creation. When the famous Hatshepsut, after the return of her expedition to Punt in the ninth year of her young consort Thothmes III, decided to build her temple at Deir el-Bahari in the necropolis of Western Thebes, she sought to emphasize her claim to the throne of Egypt by recording her own divine origin upon its walls. We have already noted the Egyptians' belief in the solar parentage of their legitimate rulers, a myth that goes back at least to the Old Kingdom and may have had its origin in prehistoric times. With the rise of Thebes, Amen inherited the prerogatives of Ra; and so Hatshepsut seeks to show, on the north side of the retaining wall of her temple's Upper Platform, that she was the daughter of Amen himself, "the great God, Lord of the sky, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, who resides at Thebes". The myth was no invention of her own, for obviously it must have followed traditional lines, and though it is only employed to exhibit the divine creation of a single personage, it as obviously reflects the procedure and methods of a general Creation myth. (1) See Breasted, _Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache_, XXXIX, pp. 39 ff., and _History of Egypt_, pp. 356 ff. This series of sculptures shared the deliberate mutilation that all her records suffered at the hands of Thothmes III after her death, but enough of the scenes and their accompanying text has survived to render the detailed interpretation of the myth quite certain.(1) Here, as in a general Creation myth, Amen's first act is to summon the great gods in council, in order to announce to them the future birth of the great princess. Of the twelve gods who attend, the first is Menthu, a form of the Sun-god and closely associated with Amen.(2) But the second deity is Atum, the great god of Heliopolis, and he is followed by his cycle of deities--Shu, "the son of Ra"; Tefnut, "the Lady of the sky"; Keb, "the Father of the Gods"; Nut, "the Mother of the Gods"; Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Hathor. We are here in the presence of cosmic deities, as befits a projected act of creation. The subsequent scenes exhibit the Egyptian's literal interpretation of the myth, which necessitates the god's bodily presence and personal participation. Thoth mentions to Amen the name of queen Aahmes as the future mother of Hatshepsut, and we later see Amen himself, in the form of her husband, Aa-kheperka-Ra (Thothmes I), sitting with Aahmes and giving her the Ankh, or sign of Life, which she receives in her hand and inhales through her nostrils.(3) God and queen are seated on thrones above a couch, and are supported by two goddesses. After leaving the queen, Amen calls on Khnum or Khnemu, the flat-horned ram-god, who in texts of all periods is referred to as the "builder" of gods and men;(4) and he instructs him to create the body of his future daughter and that of her _Ka_, or "double", which would be united to her from birth. (1) See Naville, _Deir el-Bahari_, Pt. II, pp. 12 ff., plates xlvi ff. (2) See Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. II, pp. 23 ff. His chief cult-centre was Hermonthis, but here as elsewhere he is given his usual title "Lord of Thebes". (3) Pl. xlvii. Similar scenes are presented in the "birth- temples" at Denderah, Edfu, Philae, Esneh, and Luxor; see Naville, op. cit., p. 14. (4) Cf. Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50. The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present connexion, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot,(1) and on the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the baby princess and her "double". It was always Hatshepsut's desire to be represented as a man, and so both the children are boys.(2) As yet they are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their nostrils by Heqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies birth and fertility. When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures for his own series at Luxor, he assigned this duty to the greater goddess Hathor, perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and the mother of the world. The subsequent scenes at Deir el-Bahari include the leading of queen Aahmes by Khnum and Heqet to the birth-chamber; the great birth scene where the queen is attended by the goddesses Nephthys and Isis, a number of divine nurses and midwives holding several of the "doubles" of the baby, and favourable genii, in human form or with the heads of crocodiles, jackals, and hawks, representing the four cardinal points and all bearing the gift of life; the presentation of the young child by the goddess Hathor to Amen, who is well pleased at the sight of his daughter; and the divine suckling of Hatshepsut and her "doubles". But these episodes do not concern us, as of course they merely reflect the procedure following a royal birth. But Khnum's part in the princess's origin stands on a different plane, for it illustrates the Egyptian myth of Creation by the divine Potter, who may take the form of either Khnum or Ptah. Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in detail which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek legend of Zeus and Alkmene, where the god takes the form of Amphitryon, Alkmene's husband, exactly as Amen appears to the queen;(3) and it may be added that the Egyptian origin of the Greek story was traditionally recognized in the ancestry ascribed to the human couple.(4) (1) This detail is not clearly preserved at Deir el-Bahari; but it is quite clear in the scene on the west wall of the "Birth-room" in the Temple at Luxor, which Amenophis III evidently copied from that of Hatshepsut. (2) In the similar scene at Luxor, where the future Amenophis III is represented on the Creator's wheel, the sculptor has distinguished the human child from its spiritual "double" by the quaint device of putting its finger in its mouth. (3) See Naville, op. cit., p. 12. (4) Cf., e.g., Herodotus, II, 43. The only complete Egyptian Creation myth yet recovered is preserved in a late papyrus in the British Museum, which was published some years ago by Dr. Budge.(1) It occurs under two separate versions embedded in "The Book of the Overthrowing of Apep, the Enemy of Ra". Here Ra, who utters the myth under his late title of Neb-er-tcher, "Lord to the utmost limit", is self-created as Khepera from Nu, the primaeval water; and then follow successive generations of divine pairs, male and female, such as we find at the beginning of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series.(2) Though the papyrus was written as late as the year 311 B.C., the myth is undoubtedly early. For the first two divine pairs Shu and Tefnut, Keb and Nut, and four of the latter pairs' five children, Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys, form with the Sun-god himself the Greater Ennead of Heliopolis, which exerted so wide an influence on Egyptian religious speculation. The Ennead combined the older solar elements with the cult of Osiris, and this is indicated in the myth by a break in the successive generations, Nut bringing forth at a single birth the five chief gods of the Osiris cycle, Osiris himself and his son Horus, with Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may see in the myth an early example of that religious syncretism which is so characteristic of later Egyptian belief. (1) See _Archaeologia_, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published a new edition of the whole papyrus in _Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum_ (1910), and the two versions of the Creation myth are given together in his _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I (1904), Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more recently in his _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, "Legends of the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An account of the papyrus is included in the Introduction to "Legends of the Gods", pp. xiii ff. (2) In _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288 ff., Dr. Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian pairs of primaeval deities with the very similar couples of the Babylonian myth. The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian Creation narrative.(1) The application of the Ankh, the Egyptian sign for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being is no true parallel to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath of life in the earlier Hebrew Version,(2) except in the sense that each process was suggested by our common human anatomy. We should naturally expect to find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of Creation as the work of a potter with his clay, for that figure appears in most ancient mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the conception as a metaphor or parable,(3) and it also underlies their earlier picture of man's creation. I have not touched on the grosser Egyptian conceptions concerning the origin of the universe, which we may probably connect with African ideas; but those I have referred to will serve to demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that presents a detailed resemblance of the Hebrew tradition. (1) For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples, of a vague theory that would trace all created things to a watery origin, see Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_, p. 180. (2) Gen. ii. 7 (J). (3) Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; and Jeremiah xviii. 2f. When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks to the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in which so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis have long been recognized, especially in the succession of creative acts and their relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the creation of the world is represented as the result of conflict, the emergence of order out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the personal triumph of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not appear in the more primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered. It will be remembered that in the second lecture I gave some account of the myth, which occurs in an epitomized form as an introduction to the Sumerian Version of the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded in the same document and connected with one another by a description of the Antediluvian cities. We there saw that Creation is ascribed to the three greatest gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the goddess Ninkharsagga. It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four deities are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we may see some indication of the period to which its composition must be assigned. Their association in the text suggests that the claims of local gods had already begun to compete with one another as a result of political combination between the cities of their cults. To the same general period we must also assign the compilation of the Sumerian Dynastic record, for that presupposes the existence of a supreme ruler among the Sumerian city-states. This form of political constitution must undoubtedly have been the result of a long process of development, and the fact that its existence should be regarded as dating from the Creation of the world indicates a comparatively developed stage of the tradition. But behind the combination of cities and their gods we may conjecturally trace anterior stages of development, when each local deity and his human representative seemed to their own adherents the sole objects for worship and allegiance. And even after the demands of other centres had been conceded, no deity ever quite gave up his local claims. Enlil, the second of the four Sumerian creating deities, eventually ousted his rivals. It has indeed long been recognized that the _rôle_ played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been borrowed from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil himself appears as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods figure as "his sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the leading part in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival. And though we possess no detailed account of Anu's creative work, the persistent ascription to him of the creation of heaven, and his familiar title, "the Father of the Gods", suggest that he once possessed a corresponding body of myth in Eanna, his temple at Erech. Enki, the third of the creating gods, was naturally credited, as God of Wisdom, with special creative activities, and fortunately in his case we have some independent evidence of the varied forms these could assume. According to one tradition that has come down to us,(1) after Anu had made the heavens, Enki created Apsû or the Deep, his own dwelling-place. Then taking from it a piece of clay(2) he proceeded to create the Brick-god, and reeds and forests for the supply of building material. From the same clay he continued to form other deities and materials, including the Carpenter-god; the Smith-god; Arazu, a patron deity of building; and mountains and seas for all that they produced; the Goldsmith-god, the Stone-cutter-god, and kindred deities, together with their rich products for offerings; the Grain-deities, Ashnan and Lakhar; Siris, a Wine-god; Ningishzida and Ninsar, a Garden-god, for the sake of the rich offerings they could make; and a deity described as "the High priest of the great gods," to lay down necessary ordinances and commands. Then he created "the King", for the equipment probably of a particular temple, and finally men, that they might practise the cult in the temple so elaborately prepared. (1) See Weissbach, _Babylonische Miscellen_, pp. 32 ff. (2) One of the titles of Enki was "the Potter"; cf. _Cun. Texts_ in the Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 14 f., ll. 41, 43. It will be seen from this summary of Enki's creative activities, that the text from which it is taken is not a general Creation myth, but in all probability the introductory paragraph of a composition which celebrated the building or restoration of a particular temple; and the latter's foundation is represented, on henotheistic lines, as the main object of creation. Composed with that special purpose, its narrative is not to be regarded as an exhaustive account of the creation of the world. The incidents are eclective, and only such gods and materials are mentioned as would have been required for the building and adornment of the temple and for the provision of its offerings and cult. But even so its mythological background is instructive. For while Anu's creation of heaven is postulated as the necessary precedent of Enki's activities, the latter creates the Deep, vegetation, mountains, seas, and mankind. Moreover, in his character as God of Wisdom, he is not only the teacher but the creator of those deities who were patrons of man's own constructive work. From such evidence we may infer that in his temple at Eridu, now covered by the mounds of Abu Shahrain in the extreme south of Babylonia, and regarded in early Sumerian tradition as the first city in the world, Enki himself was once celebrated as the sole creator of the universe. The combination of the three gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is persistent in the tradition; for not only were they the great gods of the universe, representing respectively heaven, earth, and the watery abyss, but they later shared the heavenly sphere between them. It is in their astrological character that we find them again in creative activity, though without the co-operation of any goddess, when they appear as creators of the great light-gods and as founders of time divisions, the day and the month. This Sumerian myth, though it reaches us only in an extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian schoolboy's exercise,(1) may well date from a comparatively early period, but probably from a time when the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and Enki had already been fixed in heaven and their later astrological characters had crystallized. (1) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. 124 ff. The tablet gives extracts from two very similar Sumerian and Semitic texts. In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear as creators "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian extract they create the Moon and ordain its monthly course, while in the Semitic text, after establishing heaven and earth, they create in addition to the New Moon the bright Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in the Gate of his going forth". The idea that a goddess should take part with a god in man's creation is already a familiar feature of Babylonian mythology. Thus the goddess Aruru, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the creation of the human race,(1) as she might also be pictured creating on her own initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic. The _rôle_ of mother of mankind was also shared, as we have seen, by the Semitic Ishtar. And though the old Sumerian goddess, Ninkharsagga, the "Lady of the Mountains", appears in our Sumerian text for the first time in the character of creatress, some of the titles we know she enjoyed, under her synonyms in the great God List of Babylonia, already reflected her cosmic activities.(2) For she was known as "The Builder of that which has Breath", "The Carpenter of Mankind", "The Carpenter of the Heart", "The Coppersmith of the Gods", "The Coppersmith of the Land", and "The Lady Potter". (1) Op. cit., p. 134 f. (2) Cf. _Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl. 12, ll. 32, 26, 27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 34. In the myth we are not told her method of creation, but from the above titles it is clear that in her own cycle of tradition Ninkhasagga was conceived as fashioning men not only from clay but also from wood, and perhaps as employing metal for the manufacture of her other works of creation. Moreover, in the great God List, where she is referred to under her title Makh, Ninkhasagga is associated with Anu, Enlil, and Enki; she there appears, with her dependent deities, after Enlil and before Enki. We thus have definite proof that her association with the three chief Sumerian gods was widely recognized in the early Sumerian period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,(1) especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords fully with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth. Eannatum and Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where she is referred to, she takes rank after Enki and before the other gods. In Sumer she was known as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was credited with the power of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia from one king to his successor. (1) See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff. Her supreme position as a goddess is attested by the relative insignificance of her husband Dunpae, whom she completely overshadows, in which respect she presents a contrast to the goddess Ninlil, Enlil's female counterpart. The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place. She does indeed appear in the north during the Sargonic period under her own name, though later she survives in her synonyms of Ninmakh, "the Sublime Lady", and Nintu, "the Lady of Child-bearing". It is under the latter title that Hammurabi refers to her in his Code of Laws, where she is tenth in a series of eleven deities. But as Goddess of Birth she retained only a pale reflection of her original cosmic character, and her functions were gradually specialized.(1) (1) Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 33. It is possible that, under one of her later synonyms, we should identify her, as Dr. Poebel suggests, with the Mylitta of Herodotus. From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of four deities in the Sumerian Creation. In fact the new text illustrates a well-known principle in the development of myth, the reconciliation of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once isolated, had been brought from political causes into contact with each other. In this aspect myth is the medium through which a working pantheon is evolved. Naturally all the deities concerned cannot continue to play their original parts in detail. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, where a single deity, and not a very prominent one, was to be raised to pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough. He could retain his own qualities and achievements while borrowing those of any former rival. In the Sumerian text we have the result of a far more delicate process of adjustment, and it is possible that the brevity of the text is here not entirely due to compression of a longer narrative, but may in part be regarded as evidence of early combination. As a result of the association of several competing deities in the work of creation, a tendency may be traced to avoid discrimination between rival claims. Thus it is that the assembled gods, the pantheon as a whole, are regarded as collectively responsible for the creation of the universe. It may be added that this use of _ilâni_, "the gods", forms an interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title Elohim. It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were directly related to the Deluge story. No doubt the selection of men and animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood; and emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the _niggilma_ because of the part it played in securing mankind's survival. Even so, we noted one striking parallel between the Sumerian Version and that of the Semitic Babylonians, in the reason both give for man's creation. But in the former there is no attempt to explain how the universe itself had come into being, and the existence of the earth is presupposed at the moment when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man. The Semitic-Babylonian Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied with events that led up to the acts of creation, and it concerns our problem to inquire how far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of Sumerian origin. A further question arises as to whether some strands of the narrative may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form independently of the Creation myth. The statement is sometimes made that there is no reason to assume a Sumerian original for the Semitic-Babylonian Version, as recorded on "the Seven Tablets of Creation";(1) and this remark, though true of that version as a whole, needs some qualification. The composite nature of the poem has long been recognized, and an analysis of the text has shown that no less than five principal strands have been combined for its formation. These consist of (i) The Birth of the Gods; (ii) The Legend of Ea and Apsû; (iii) The principal Dragon Myth; (iv) The actual account of Creation; and (v) the Hymn to Marduk under his fifty titles.(2) The Assyrian commentaries to the Hymn, from which considerable portions of its text are restored, quote throughout a Sumerian original, and explain it word for word by the phrases of the Semitic Version;(3) so that for one out of the Seven Tablets a Semitic origin is at once disproved. Moreover, the majority of the fifty titles, even in the forms in which they have reached us in the Semitic text, are demonstrably Sumerian, and since many of them celebrate details of their owner's creative work, a Sumerian original for other parts of the version is implied. Enlil and Ea are both represented as bestowing their own names upon Marduk,(4) and we may assume that many of the fifty titles were originally borne by Enlil as a Sumerian Creator.(5) Thus some portions of the actual account of Creation were probably derived from a Sumerian original in which "Father Enlil" figured as the hero. (1) Cf., e.g., Jastrow, _Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI (1916), p. 279. (2) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. lxvi ff.; and cf. Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 43 ff. (3) Cf. _Sev. Tabl._, Vol. I, pp. 157 ff. (4) Cf. Tabl. VII, ll. 116 ff. (5) The number fifty was suggested by an ideogram employed for Enlil's name. For what then were the Semitic Babylonians themselves responsible? It seems to me that, in the "Seven Tablets", we may credit them with considerable ingenuity in the combination of existing myths, but not with their invention. The whole poem in its present form is a glorification of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who is to be given pre-eminent rank among the gods to correspond with the political position recently attained by his city. It would have been quite out of keeping with the national thought to make a break in the tradition, and such a course would not have served the purpose of the Babylonian priesthood, which was to obtain recognition of their claims by the older cult-centres in the country. Hence they chose and combined the more important existing myths, only making such alterations as would fit them to their new hero. Babylon herself had won her position by her own exertions; and it would be a natural idea to give Marduk his opportunity of becoming Creator of the world as the result of successful conflict. A combination of the Dragon myth with the myth of Creation would have admirably served their purpose; and this is what we find in the Semitic poem. But even that combination may not have been their own invention; for, though, as we shall see, the idea of conflict had no part in the earlier forms of the Sumerian Creation myth, its combination with the Dragon _motif_ may have characterized the local Sumerian Version of Nippur. How mechanical was the Babylonian redactors' method of glorifying Marduk is seen in their use of the description of Tiamat and her monster brood, whom Marduk is made to conquer. To impress the hearers of the poem with his prowess, this is repeated at length no less than four times, one god carrying the news of her revolt to another. Direct proof of the manner in which the later redactors have been obliged to modify the original Sumerian Creation myth, in consequence of their incorporation of other elements, may be seen in the Sixth Tablet of the poem, where Marduk states the reason for man's creation. In the second lecture we noted how the very words of the principal Sumerian Creator were put into Marduk's mouth; but the rest of the Semitic god's speech finds no equivalent in the Sumerian Version and was evidently inserted in order to reconcile the narrative with its later ingredients. This will best be seen by printing the two passages in parallel columns:(1) (1) The extract from the Sumerian Version, which occurs in the lower part of the First Column, is here compared with the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series, Tablet VI, ll. 6-10 (see _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff.). The comparison is justified whether we regard the Sumerian speech as a direct preliminary to man's creation, or as a reassertion of his duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood. SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION "The people will I cause to . . . "I will make man, that man may in their settlements, (. . .). Cities . . . shall (man) build, I will create man who shall in their protection will I cause inhabit (. . .), him to rest, That he may lay the brick of our That the service of the gods may house in a clean spot, be established, and that (their) shrines (may be built). That in a clean spot he may But I will alter the ways of the establish our . . . !" gods, and I will change (their paths); Together shall they be oppressed, and unto evil shall (they . . .)!" The welding of incongruous elements is very apparent in the Semitic Version. For the statement that man will be created in order that the gods may have worshippers is at once followed by the announcement that the gods themselves must be punished and their "ways" changed. In the Sumerian Version the gods are united and all are naturally regarded as worthy of man's worship. The Sumerian Creator makes no distinctions; he refers to "our houses", or temples, that shall be established. But in the later version divine conflict has been introduced, and the future head of the pantheon has conquered and humiliated the revolting deities. Their "ways" must therefore be altered before they are fit to receive the worship which was accorded them by right in the simpler Sumerian tradition. In spite of the epitomized character of the Sumerian Version, a comparison of these passages suggests very forcibly that the Semitic-Babylonian myth of Creation is based upon a simpler Sumerian story, which has been elaborated to reconcile it with the Dragon myth. The Semitic poem itself also supplies evidence of the independent existence of the Dragon myth apart from the process of Creation, for the story of Ea and Apsû, which it incorporates, is merely the local Dragon myth of Eridu. Its inclusion in the story is again simply a tribute to Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk's father, could conquer Apsû, he was afraid of Tiamat, "and turned back".(1) The original Eridu myth no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery Abyss, which became his home; but there is nothing to connect this tradition with his early creative activities. We have long possessed part of another local version of the Dragon myth, which describes the conquest of a dragon by some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is there described as taking place, not before Creation, but at a time when men existed and cities had been built.(2) Men and gods were equally terrified at the monster's appearance, and it was to deliver the land from his clutches that one of the gods went out and slew him. Tradition delighted to dwell on the dragon's enormous size and terrible appearance. In this version he is described as fifty _bêru_(3) in length and one in height; his mouth measured six cubits and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged himself along in the water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when slain, his blood flowed for three years, three months, a day and a night. From this description we can see he was given the body of an enormous serpent.(4) (1) Tabl. III, l. 53, &c. In the story of Bel and the Dragon, the third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we have direct evidence of the late survival of the Dragon _motif_ apart from any trace of the Creation myth; in this connexion see Charles, _Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha_, Vol. I (1913), p. 653 f. (2) See _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f. The text is preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library of Ashur-bani-pal. (3) The _bêru_ was the space that could be covered in two hours' travelling. (4) The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later apocalyptic literature, where we find very similar descriptions of the creatures' size. Among them we may perhaps include the dragon in the Apocalypse of Baruch, who, according to the Slavonic Version, apparently every day drinks a cubit's depth from the sea, and yet the sea does not sink because of the three hundred and sixty rivers that flow into it (cf. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota", Second Series, in Armitage Robinson's _Texts and Studies_, V, No. 1, pp. lix ff.). But Egypt's Dragon _motif_ was even more prolific, and the _Pistis Sophia_ undoubtedly suggested descriptions of the Serpent, especially in connexion with Hades. A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,(1) and in it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon with legs. Like the one just described, he is a male monster. The description occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly preserved that only the contents of one column can be made out with any certainty. In it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the presence of the dragon: "In the water he lies and I (. . .)!" Thereupon a second god cries successively to Aruru, the mother-goddess, and to Pallil, another deity, for help in his predicament. And then follows the description of the dragon: In the sea was the Serpent cre(ated). Sixty _bêru_ is his length; Thirty _bêru_ high is his he(ad).(2) For half (a _bêru_) each stretches the surface of his ey(es);(3) For twenty _bêru_ go (his feet).(4) He devours fish, the creatures (of the sea), He devours birds, the creatures (of the heaven), He devours wild asses, the creatures (of the field), He devours men,(5) to the peoples (he . . .). (1) For the text, see Ebeling, _Assurtexte_ I, No. 6; it is translated by him in _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (April, 1916). (2) The line reads: _30 bêru �a-ka-a ri-(�a-a-�u)_. Dr. Ebeling renders _ri-�a-a_ as "heads" (Köpfe), implying that the dragon had more than one head. It may be pointed out that, if we could accept this translation, we should have an interesting parallel to the description of some of the primaeval monsters, preserved from Berossus, as {soma men ekhontas en, kephalas de duo}. But the common word for "head" is _kakkadu_, and there can be little doubt that _rî�â_ is here used in its ordinary sense of "head, summit, top" when applied to a high building. (3) The line reads: _a-na 1/2 ta-am la-bu-na li-bit ên(a- �u)_. Dr. Ebeling translates, "auf je eine Hälfte ist ein Ziegel (ihrer) Auge(n) gelegt". But _libittu_ is clearly used here, not with its ordinary meaning of "brick", which yields a strange rendering, but in its special sense, when applied to large buildings, of "foundation, floor-space, area", i.e. "surface". Dr. Ebeling reads _ênâ-�u_ at the end of the line, but the sign is broken; perhaps the traces may prove to be those of _uznâ �u_, "his ears", in which case _li-bit uz(nâ-�u)_ might be rendered either as "surface of his ears", or as "base (lit. foundation) of his ears". (4) i.e. the length of his pace was twenty _bêru_. (5) Lit. "the black-headed". The text here breaks off, at the moment when Pallil, whose help against the dragon had been invoked, begins to speak. Let us hope we shall recover the continuation of the narrative and learn what became of this carnivorous monster. There are ample grounds, then, for assuming the independent existence of the Babylonian Dragon-myth, and though both the versions recovered have come to us in Semitic form, there is no doubt that the myth itself existed among the Sumerians. The dragon _motif_ is constantly recurring in descriptions of Sumerian temple-decoration, and the twin dragons of Ningishzida on Gudea's libation-vase, carved in green steatite and inlaid with shell, are a notable product of Sumerian art.(1) The very names borne by Tiamat's brood of monsters in the "Seven Tablets" are stamped in most cases with their Sumerian descent, and Kingu, whom she appointed as her champion in place of Apsû, is equally Sumerian. It would be strange indeed if the Sumerians had not evolved a Dragon myth,(2) for the Dragon combat is the most obvious of nature myths and is found in most mythologies of Europe and the Near East. The trailing storm-clouds suggest his serpent form, his fiery tongue is seen in the forked lightning, and, though he may darken the world for a time, the Sun-god will always be victorious. In Egypt the myth of "the Overthrowing of Apep, the enemy of Ra" presents a close parallel to that of Tiamat;(3) but of all Eastern mythologies that of the Chinese has inspired in art the most beautiful treatment of the Dragon, who, however, under his varied forms was for them essentially beneficent. Doubtless the Semites of Babylonia had their own versions of the Dragon combat, both before and after their arrival on the Euphrates, but the particular version which the priests of Babylon wove into their epic is not one of them. (1) See E. de Sarzec, _Découvertes en Chaldée_, pl. xliv, Fig. 2, and Heuzey, _Catalogue des antiquités chaldéennes_, p. 281. (2) In his very interesting study of "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of Beginnings", contributed to the _Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 274 ff., Professor Jastrow suggests that the Dragon combat in the Semitic- Babylonian Creation poem is of Semitic not Sumerian origin. He does not examine the evidence of the poem itself in detail, but bases the suggestion mainly on the two hypotheses, that the Dragon combat of the poem was suggested by the winter storms and floods of the Euphrates Valley, and that the Sumerians came from a mountain region where water was not plentiful. If we grant both assumptions, the suggested conclusion does not seem to me necessarily to follow, in view of the evidence we now possess as to the remote date of the Sumerian settlement in the Euphrates Valley. Some evidence may still be held to point to a mountain home for the proto-Sumerians, such as the name of their early goddess Ninkharsagga, "the Lady of the Mountains". But, as we must now regard Babylonia itself as the cradle of their civilization, other data tend to lose something of their apparent significance. It is true that the same Sumerian sign means "land" and "mountain"; but it may have been difficult to obtain an intelligible profile for "land" without adopting a mountain form. Such a name as Ekur, the "Mountain House" of Nippur, may perhaps indicate size, not origin; and Enki's association with metal-working may be merely due to his character as God of Wisdom, and is not appropriate solely "to a god whose home is in the mountains where metals are found" (op. cit., p. 295). It should be added that Professor Jastrow's theory of the Dragon combat is bound up with his view of the origin of an interesting Sumerian "myth of beginnings", to which reference is made later. (3) Cf. Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, pp. 324 ff. The inclusion of the two versions of the Egyptian Creation myth, recording the Birth of the Gods in the "Book of Overthrowing Apep", does not present a very close parallel to the combination of Creation and Dragon myths in the Semitic-Babylonian poem, for in the Egyptian work the two myths are not really combined, the Creation Versions being inserted in the middle of the spells against Apep, without any attempt at assimilation (see Budge, _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, p. xvi). We have thus traced four out of the five strands which form the Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to a Sumerian ancestry. And we now come back to the first of the strands, the Birth of the Gods, from which our discussion started. For if this too should prove to be Sumerian, it would help to fill in the gap in our Sumerian Creation myth, and might furnish us with some idea of the Sumerian view of "beginnings", which preceded the acts of creation by the great gods. It will be remembered that the poem opens with the description of a time when heaven and earth did not exist, no field or marsh even had been created, and the universe consisted only of the primaeval water-gods, Apsû, Mummu, and Tiamat, whose waters were mingled together. Then follows the successive generation of two pairs of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, and Anshar and Kishar, long ages separating the two generations from each other and from the birth of the great gods which subsequently takes place. In the summary of the myth which is given by Damascius(1) the names of the various deities accurately correspond to those in the opening lines of the poem; but he makes some notable additions, as will be seen from the following table: DAMASCUS "SEVEN TABLETS" I {'Apason---Tauthe} Apsû---Tiamat | {Moumis} Mummu {Lakhos---Lakhe}(2) Lakhmu---Lakhamu {'Assoros---Kissare} Anshar---Kishar {'Anos, 'Illinos, 'Aos} Anu, ( ), Nudimmud (= Ea) {'Aos---Dauke} | {Belos} (1) _Quaestiones de primis principiis_, cap. 125; ed. Kopp, p. 384. (2) Emended from the reading {Dakhen kai Dakhon} of the text. In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos} and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in favour of the restoration;(1) and the omission of Enlil's name from this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of the World"(2) upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative. It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is presumably of Sumerian origin. (1) Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time at the beginning of a line, and the three lines following the reference to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with descriptions of his wisdom and power. It is also probable that the three preceding lines (ll. 14-16), all of which refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied with his description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any reference to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of their second halves do not suggestion the restoration. (2) Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116. Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in the Sumerian Version.(1) Before leaving the names, it may be added that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously Sumerian in form. (1) Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and Ninkharsagga is associated with Enki, as his consort, in another Sumerian myth. It may be noted that the character of Apsû and Tiamat in this portion of the poem(1) is quite at variance with their later actions. Their revolt at the ordered "way" of the gods was a necessary preliminary to the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the heroes. Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were generated.(2) This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem than any that has yet been proposed. That line is usually taken to imply that the gods were created "in the midst of (heaven)", but I think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better sense: When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not bear a name, And the primaeval Apsû who begat them,(3) And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them(3) all,-- Their waters were mingled together, . . . . . . . . . Then were created the gods in the midst of (their waters),(4) Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . . (1) Tabl. I, ll. 1-21. (2) We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat's original character in her control of the Tablets of Fate. The poem does not represent her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology they are "not his by right" (cf. Tabl. I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl. IV, l. 121). (3) i.e. the gods. (4) The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate (_Seven Tablets_, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the restoration _ki-rib �(a-ma-mi)_, "in the midst of heaven", as possible, since the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of _�a_. The restoration appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by supposing that _�amâmu_, or "heaven", was already vaguely conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl. i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the sign _me_; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo-Babylonian tablet as _ki-rib m(e-e-�u-nu)_, "in the midst of (their waters)", corresponding to the form _mu-u- �u-nu_ in l. 5 of this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version _mé(pl)-�u-nu_ would be read in both lines. It will be possible to verify the new reading, by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British Museum collections again become available for study after the war. If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in which living creatures, such as he had already described, were generated.(1) The primaeval waters are originally the source of life, not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was self-created, never ceased to be the Sun-god's supporter. The change in the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the combination of the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination that in Egypt would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From a study of some aspects of the names at the beginning of the Babylonian poem we have already seen reason to suspect that its version of the Birth of the Gods goes back to Sumerian times, and it is pertinent to ask whether we have any further evidence that in Sumerian belief water was the origin of all things. (1) {ugrou gar ontos tou pantos kai zoon en auto gegennemenon (toionde) ktl}. His creatures of the primaeval water were killed by the light; and terrestrial animals were then created which could bear (i.e. breathe and exist in) the air. For many years we have possessed a Sumerian myth of Creation, which has come to us on a late Babylonian tablet as the introductory section of an incantation. It is provided with a Semitic translation, and to judge from its record of the building of Babylon and Egasila, Marduk's temple, and its identification of Marduk himself with the Creator, it has clearly undergone some editing at the hands of the Babylonian priests. Moreover, the occurrence of various episodes out of their logical order, and the fact that the text records twice over the creation of swamps and marshes, reeds and trees or forests, animals and cities, indicate that two Sumerian myths have been combined. Thus we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant connexion with each other.(1) Of the actual cause of Creation the text appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal, and the other carried out by a god. But these two accounts are quite unlike the authorized version of Babylon, and we may confidently regard them as representing genuine Sumerian myths. The text resembles other early accounts of Creation by introducing its narrative with a series of negative statements, which serve to indicate the preceding non-existence of the world, as will be seen from the following extract:(2) No city had been created, no creature had been made, Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built, Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built, Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built, Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been created. All lands(3) were sea. At the time when a channel (was formed) in the midst of the sea, Then was Eridu created, Esagila built, etc. Here we have the definite statement that before Creation all the world was sea. And it is important to note that the primaeval water is not personified; the ordinary Sumerian word for "sea" is employed, which the Semitic translator has faithfully rendered in his version of the text.(4) The reference to a channel in the sea, as the cause of Creation, seems at first sight a little obscure; but the word implies a "drain" or "water-channel", not a current of the sea itself, and the reference may be explained as suggested by the drainage of a flood-area. No doubt the phrase was elaborated in the original myth, and it is possible that what appears to be a second version of Creation later on in the text is really part of the more detailed narrative of the first myth. There the Creator himself is named. He is the Sumerian god Gilimma, and in the Semitic translation Marduk's name is substituted. To the following couplet, which describes Gilimma's method of creation, is appended a further extract from a later portion of the text, there evidently displaced, giving additional details of the Creator's work: Gilimma bound reeds in the face of the waters, He formed soil and poured it out beside the reeds.(5) (He)(6) filled in a dike by the side of the sea, (He . . .) a swamp, he formed a marsh. (. . .), he brought into existence, (Reeds he form)ed,(7) trees he created. (1) The composite nature of the text is discussed by Professor Jastrow in his _Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions_, pp. 89 ff.; and in his paper in the _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 279 ff.; he has analysed it into two main versions, which he suggests originated in Eridu and Nippur respectively. The evidence of the text does not appear to me to support the view that any reference to a watery chaos preceding Creation must necessarily be of Semitic origin. For the literature of the text (first published by Pinches, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._, Vol. XXIII, pp. 393 ff.), see _Sev. Tabl._, Vol. I, p. 130. (2) Obv., ll. 5-12. (3) Sum. _nigin-kur-kur-ra-ge_, Sem. _nap-har ma-ta-a-tu_, lit. "all lands", i.e. Sumerian and Babylonian expressions for "the world". (4) Sum. _a-ab-ba_, "sea", is here rendered by _tâmtum_, not by its personified equivalent Tiamat. (5) The suggestion has been made that _amu_, the word in the Semitic version here translated "reeds", should be connected with _ammatu_, the word used for "earth" or "dry land" in the Babylonian Creation Series, Tabl. I, l. 2, and given some such meaning as "expanse". The couplet is thus explained to mean that the god made an expanse on the face of the waters, and then poured out dust "on the expanse". But the Semitic version in l. 18 reads _itti ami_, "beside the _a._", not _ina ami_, "on the _a._"; and in any case there does not seem much significance in the act of pouring out specially created dust on or beside land already formed. The Sumerian word translated by _amu_ is written _gi-dir_, with the element _gi_, "reed", in l. 17, and though in the following line it is written under its variant form _a-dir_ without _gi_, the equation _gi-a-dir_ = _amu_ is elsewhere attested (cf. Delitzsch, _Handwörterbuch_, p. 77). In favour of regarding _amu_ as some sort of reed, here used collectively, it may be pointed out that the Sumerian verb in l. 17 is _ke�da_, "to bind", accurately rendered by _raka�u_ in the Semitic version. Assuming that l. 34 belongs to the same account, the creation of reeds in general beside trees, after dry land is formed, would not of course be at variance with the god's use of some sort of reed in his first act of creation. He creates the reed-bundles, as he creates the soil, both of which go to form the first dike; the reed-beds, like the other vegetation, spring up from the ground when it appears. (6) The Semitic version here reads "the lord Marduk"; the corresponding name in the Sumerian text is not preserved. (7) The line is restored from l. 2 o the obverse of the text. Here the Sumerian Creator is pictured as forming dry land from the primaeval water in much the same way as the early cultivator in the Euphrates Valley procured the rich fields for his crops. The existence of the earth is here not really presupposed. All the world was sea until the god created land out of the waters by the only practical method that was possible in Mesopotamia. In another Sumerian myth, which has been recovered on one of the early tablets from Nippur, we have a rather different picture of beginnings. For there, though water is the source of life, the existence of the land is presupposed. But it is bare and desolate, as in the Mesopotamian season of "low water". The underlying idea is suggestive of a period when some progress in systematic irrigation had already been made, and the filling of the dry canals and subsequent irrigation of the parched ground by the rising flood of Enki was not dreaded but eagerly desired. The myth is only one of several that have been combined to form the introductory sections of an incantation; but in all of them Enki, the god of the deep water, plays the leading part, though associated with different consorts.(1) The incantation is directed against various diseases, and the recitation of the closing mythical section was evidently intended to enlist the aid of special gods in combating them. The creation of these deities is recited under set formulae in a sort of refrain, and the divine name assigned to each bears a magical connexion with the sickness he or she is intended to dispel.(2) (1) See Langdon, Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. X, No. 1 (1915), pl. i f., pp. 69 ff.; _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 140 ff.; cf. Prince, _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 90 ff.; Jastrow, _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 122 ff., and in particular his detailed study of the text in _Amer. Journ. Semit. Lang._, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 91 ff. Dr. Langdon's first description of the text, in _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, Vol. XXXVI (1914), pp. 188 ff., was based on a comparatively small fragment only; and on his completion of the text from other fragments in Pennsylvania. Professor Sayce at once realized that the preliminary diagnosis of a Deluge myth could not be sustained (cf. _Expos. Times_, Nov., 1915, pp. 88 ff.). He, Professor Prince, and Professor Jastrow independently showed that the action of Enki in the myth in sending water on the land was not punitive but beneficent; and the preceding section, in which animals are described as not performing their usual activities, was shown independently by Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow to have reference, not to their different nature in an ideal existence in Paradise, but, on familiar lines, to their non- existence in a desolate land. It may be added that Professor Barton and Dr. Peters agree generally with Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow in their interpretation of the text, which excludes the suggested biblical parallels; and I understand from Dr. Langdon that he very rightly recognizes that the text is not a Deluge myth. It is a subject for congratulation that the discussion has materially increased our knowledge of this difficult composition. (2) Cf. Col. VI, ll. 24 ff.; thus _Ab_-u was created for the sickness of the cow (_ab_); Nin-_tul_ for that of the flock (u-_tul_); Nin-_ka_-u-tu and Nin-_ka_-si for that of the mouth (_ka_); Na-zi for that of the _na-zi_ (meaning uncertain); _Da zi_-ma for that of the _da-zi_ (meaning uncertain); Nin-_til_ for that of _til_ (life); the name of the eighth and last deity is imperfectly preserved. We have already noted examples of a similar use of myth in magic, which was common to both Egypt and Babylonia; and to illustrate its employment against disease, as in the Nippur document, it will suffice to cite a well-known magical cure for the toothache which was adopted in Babylon.(1) There toothache was believed to be caused by the gnawing of a worm in the gum, and a myth was used in the incantation to relieve it. The worm's origin is traced from Anu, the god of heaven, through a descending scale of creation; Anu, the heavens, the earth, rivers, canals and marshes are represented as each giving rise to the next in order, until finally the marshes produce the worm. The myth then relates how the worm, on being offered tempting food by Ea in answer to her prayer, asked to be allowed to drink the blood of the teeth, and the incantation closes by invoking the curse of Ea because of the worm's misguided choice. It is clear that power over the worm was obtained by a recital of her creation and of her subsequent ingratitude, which led to her present occupation and the curse under which she laboured. When the myth and invocation had been recited three times over the proper mixture of beer, a plant, and oil, and the mixture had been applied to the offending tooth, the worm would fall under the spell of the curse and the patient would at once gain relief. The example is instructive, as the connexion of ideas is quite clear. In the Nippur document the recital of the creation of the eight deities evidently ensured their presence, and a demonstration of the mystic bond between their names and the corresponding diseases rendered the working of their powers effective. Our knowledge of a good many other myths is due solely to their magical employment. (1) See Thompson, _Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, Vol. II, pp. 160 ff.; for a number of other examples, see Jastrow, _J.A.O.S._, Vol. XXXVI, p. 279, n. 7. Perhaps the most interesting section of the new text is one in which divine instructions are given in the use of plants, the fruit or roots of which may be eaten. Here Usmû, a messenger from Enki, God of the Deep, names eight such plants by Enki's orders, thereby determining the character of each. As Professor Jastrow has pointed out, the passage forcibly recalls the story from Berossus, concerning the mythical creature Oannes, who came up from the Erythraean Sea, where it borders upon Babylonia, to instruct mankind in all things, including "seeds and the gathering of fruits".(1) But the only part of the text that concerns us here is the introductory section, where the life-giving flood, by which the dry fields are irrigated, is pictured as following the union of the water-deities, Enki and Ninella.(2) Professor Jastrow is right in emphasizing the complete absence of any conflict in this Sumerian myth of beginnings; but, as with the other Sumerian Versions we have examined, it seems to me there is no need to seek its origin elsewhere than in the Euphrates Valley. (1) Cf. Jastrow, _J.A.O.S._, Vol. XXXVI, p. 127, and _A.J.S.L._, Vol. XXXIII, p. 134 f. It may be added that the divine naming of the plants also presents a faint parallel to the naming of the beasts and birds by man himself in Gen. ii. 19 f. (2) Professor Jastrow (_A.J.S.L._, Vol. XXXIII, p. 115) compares similar myths collected by Sir James Frazer (_Magic Art_, Vol. II, chap. xi and chap. xii, § 2). He also notes the parallel the irrigation myth presents to the mist (or flood) of the earlier Hebrew Version (Gen. ii. 5 f). But Enki, like Ea, was no rain-god; he had his dwellings in the Euphrates and the Deep. Even in later periods, when the Sumerian myths of Creation had been superseded by that of Babylon, the Euphrates never ceased to be regarded as the source of life and the creator of all things. And this is well brought out in the following introductory lines of a Semitic incantation, of which we possess two Neo-Babylonian copies:(1) O thou River, who didst create all things, When the great gods dug thee out, They set prosperity upon thy banks, Within thee Ea, King of the Deep, created his dwelling. The Flood they sent not before thou wert! Here the river as creator is sharply distinguished from the Flood; and we may conclude that the water of the Euphrates Valley impressed the early Sumerians, as later the Semites, with its creative as well as with its destructive power. The reappearance of the fertile soil, after the receding inundation, doubtless suggested the idea of creation out of water, and the stream's slow but automatic fall would furnish a model for the age-long evolution of primaeval deities. When a god's active and artificial creation of the earth must be portrayed, it would have been natural for the primitive Sumerian to picture the Creator working as he himself would work when he reclaimed a field from flood. We are thus shown the old Sumerian god Gilimma piling reed-bundles in the water and heaping up soil beside them, till the ground within his dikes dries off and produces luxuriant vegetation. But here there is a hint of struggle in the process, and we perceive in it the myth-redactor's opportunity to weave in the Dragon _motif_. No such excuse is afforded by the other Sumerian myth, which pictures the life-producing inundation as the gift of the two deities of the Deep and the product of their union. But in their other aspect the rivers of Mesopotamia could be terrible; and the Dragon _motif_ itself, on the Tigris and Euphrates, drew its imagery as much from flood as from storm. When therefore a single deity must be made to appear, not only as Creator, but also as the champion of his divine allies and the conqueror of other gods, it was inevitable that the myths attaching to the waters under their two aspects should be combined. This may already have taken place at Nippur, when Enlil became the head of the pantheon; but the existence of his myth is conjectural.(1) In a later age we can trace the process in the light of history and of existing texts. There Marduk, identified wholly as the Sun-god, conquers the once featureless primaeval water, which in the process of redaction has now become the Dragon of flood and storm. (1) The aspect of Enlil as the Creator of Vegetation is emphasized in Tablet VII of the Babylonian poem of Creation. It is significant that his first title, Asara, should be interpreted as "Bestower of planting", "Founder of sowing", "Creator of grain and plants", "He who caused the green herb to spring up" (cf. _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, p. 92 f.). These opening phrases, by which the god is hailed, strike the key- note of the whole composition. It is true that, as Sukh-kur, he is "Destroyer of the foe"; but the great majority of the titles and their Semitic glosses refer to creative activities, not to the Dragon myth. Thus the dualism which is so characteristic a feature of the Semitic-Babylonian system, though absent from the earliest Sumerian ideas of Creation, was inherent in the nature of the local rivers, whose varied aspects gave rise to or coloured separate myths. Its presence in the later mythology may be traced as a reflection of political development, at first probably among the warring cities of Sumer, but certainly later in the Semitic triumph at Babylon. It was but to be expected that the conqueror, whether Sumerian or Semite, should represent his own god's victory as the establishment of order out of chaos. But this would be particularly in harmony with the character of the Semitic Babylonians of the First Dynasty, whose genius for method and organization produced alike Hammurabi's Code of Laws and the straight streets of the capital. We have thus been able to trace the various strands of the Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to Sumerian origins; and in the second lecture we arrived at a very similar conclusion with regard to the Semitic-Babylonian Version of the Deluge preserved in the Epic of Gilgamesh. We there saw that the literary structure of the Sumerian Version, in which Creation and Deluge are combined, must have survived under some form into the Neo-Babylonian period, since it was reproduced by Berossus. And we noted the fact that the same arrangement in Genesis did not therefore prove that the Hebrew accounts go back directly to early Sumerian originals. In fact, the structural resemblance presented by Genesis can only be regarded as an additional proof that the Sumerian originals continued to be studied and translated by the Semitic priesthood, although they had long been superseded officially by their later descendants, the Semitic epics. A detailed comparison of the Creation and Deluge narratives in the various versions at once discloses the fact that the connexion between those of the Semitic Babylonians and the Hebrews is far closer and more striking than that which can be traced when the latter are placed beside the Sumerian originals. We may therefore regard it as certain that the Hebrews derived their knowledge of Sumerian tradition, not directly from the Sumerians themselves, but through Semitic channels from Babylon. It will be unnecessary here to go in detail through the points of resemblance that are admitted to exist between the Hebrew account of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that preserved in the "Seven Tablets".(1) It will suffice to emphasize two of them, which gain in significance through our newly acquired knowledge of early Sumerian beliefs. It must be admitted that, on first reading the poem, one is struck more by the differences than by the parallels; but that is due to the polytheistic basis of the poem, which attracts attention when compared with the severe and dignified monotheism of the Hebrew writer. And if allowance be made for the change in theological standpoint, the material points of resemblance are seen to be very marked. The outline or general course of events is the same. In both we have an abyss of waters at the beginning denoted by almost the same Semitic word, the Hebrew _tehôm_, translated "the deep" in Gen. i. 2, being the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian _Tiamat_, the monster of storm and flood who presents so striking a contrast to the Sumerian primaeval water.(2) The second act of Creation in the Hebrew narrative is that of a "firmament", which divided the waters under it from those above.(3) But this, as we have seen, has no parallel in the early Sumerian conception until it was combined with the Dragon combat in the form in which we find it in the Babylonian poem. There the body of Tiamat is divided by Marduk, and from one half of her he constructs a covering or dome for heaven, that is to say a "firmament", to keep her upper waters in place. These will suffice as text passages, since they serve to point out quite clearly the Semitic source to which all the other detailed points of Hebrew resemblance may be traced. (1) See _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. lxxxi ff., and Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 45 ff. (2) The invariable use of the Hebrew word _tehôm_ without the article, except in two passages in the plural, proves that it is a proper name (cf. Skinner, op. cit., p. 17); and its correspondence with _Tiamat_ makes the resemblance of the versions far more significant than if their parallelism were confined solely to ideas. (3) Gen. i. 6-8. In the case of the Deluge traditions, so conclusive a demonstration is not possible, since we have no similar criterion to apply. And on one point, as we saw, the Hebrew Versions preserve an original Sumerian strand of the narrative that was not woven into the Gilgamesh Epic, where there is no parallel to the piety of Noah. But from the detailed description that was given in the second lecture, it will have been noted that the Sumerian account is on the whole far simpler and more primitive than the other versions. It is only in the Babylonian Epic, for example, that the later Hebrew writer finds material from which to construct the ark, while the sweet savour of Ut-napishtim's sacrifice, and possibly his sending forth of the birds, though reproduced in the earlier Hebrew Version, find no parallels in the Sumerian account.(1) As to the general character of the Flood, there is no direct reference to rain in the Sumerian Version, though its presence is probably implied in the storm. The heavy rain of the Babylonian Epic has been increased to forty days of rain in the earlier Hebrew Version, which would be suitable to a country where local rain was the sole cause of flood. But the later Hebrew writer's addition of "the fountains of the deep" to "the windows of heaven" certainly suggests a more intimate knowledge of Mesopotamia, where some contributary cause other than local rain must be sought for the sudden and overwhelming catastrophes of which the rivers are capable. (1) For detailed lists of the points of agreement presented by the Hebrew Versions J and P to the account in the Gilgamesh Epic, see Skinner, op. cit., p. 177 f.; Driver, _Genesis_, p. 106 f.; and Gordon, _Early Traditions of Genesis_ (1907), pp. 38 ff. Thus, viewed from a purely literary standpoint, we are now enabled to trace back to a primitive age the ancestry of the traditions, which, under a very different aspect, eventually found their way into Hebrew literature. And in the process we may note the changes they underwent as they passed from one race to another. The result of such literary analysis and comparison, so far from discrediting the narratives in Genesis, throws into still stronger relief the moral grandeur of the Hebrew text. We come then to the question, at what periods and by what process did the Hebrews become acquainted with Babylonian ideas? The tendency of the purely literary school of critics has been to explain the process by the direct use of Babylonian documents wholly within exilic times. If the Creation and Deluge narratives stood alone, a case might perhaps be made out for confining Babylonian influence to this late period. It is true that during the Captivity the Jews were directly exposed to such influence. They had the life and civilization of their captors immediately before their eyes, and it would have been only natural for the more learned among the Hebrew scribes and priests to interest themselves in the ancient literature of their new home. And any previous familiarity with the myths of Babylonia would undoubtedly have been increased by actual residence in the country. We may perhaps see a result of such acquaintance with Babylonian literature, after Jehoiachin's deportation, in an interesting literary parallel that has been pointed out between Ezek. xiv. 12-20 and a speech in the Babylonian account of the Deluge in the Gilgamesh Epic, XI, ii. 180-194.(1) The passage in Ezekiel occurs within chaps. i-xxiv, which correspond to the prophet's first period and consist in the main of his utterances in exile before the fall of Jerusalem. It forms, in fact, the introduction to the prophet's announcement of the coming of "four sore judgements upon Jerusalem", from which there "shall be left a remnant that shall be carried forth".(2) But in consequence, here and there, of traces of a later point of view, it is generally admitted that many of the chapters in this section may have been considerably amplified and altered by Ezekiel himself in the course of writing. And if we may regard the literary parallel that has been pointed out as anything more than fortuitous, it is open to us to assume that chap. xiv may have been worked up by Ezekiel many years after his prophetic call at Tel-abib. (1) See Daiches, "Ezekiel and the Babylonian Account of the Deluge", in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_, April 1905. It has of course long been recognized that Ezekiel, in announcing the punishment of the king of Egypt in xxxii. 2 ff., uses imagery which strongly recalls the Babylonian Creation myth. For he compares Pharaoh to a sea-monster over whom Yahweh will throw his net (as Marduk had thrown his over Tiamat); cf. Loisy, _Les mythes babyloniens et les premiers chaptires de la Genèse_ (1901), p. 87. (2) Ezek. xiv. 21 f. In the passage of the Babylonian Epic, Enlil had already sent the Flood and had destroyed the good with the wicked. Ea thereupon remonstrates with him, and he urges that in future the sinner only should be made to suffer for his sin; and, instead of again causing a flood, let there be discrimination in the divine punishments sent on men or lands. While the flood made the escape of the deserving impossible, other forms of punishment would affect the guilty only. In Ezekiel the subject is the same, but the point of view is different. The land the prophet has in his mind in verse 13 is evidently Judah, and his desire is to explain why it will suffer although not all its inhabitants deserved to share its fate. The discrimination, which Ea urges, Ezekiel asserts will be made; but the sinner must bear his own sin, and the righteous, however eminent, can only save themselves by their righteousness. The general principle propounded in the Epic is here applied to a special case. But the parallelism between the passages lies not only in the general principle but also in the literary setting. This will best be brought out by printing the passages in parallel columns. Gilg. Epic, XI, 180-194 Ezek. xiv. 12-20 Ea opened his mouth and spake, And the word of the Lord came He said to the warrior Enlil; unto me, saying, Thou director of the gods! O Son of man, when a land sinneth warrior! against me by committing a Why didst thou not take counsel trespass, and I stretch out but didst cause a flood? mine hand upon it, and break On the transgressor lay his the staff of the bread transgression! thereof, and send _famine_ Be merciful, so that (all) be not upon it, and cut off from it destroyed! Have patience, so man and beast; though these that (all) be not (cut off)! three men, Noah, Daniel, and Instead of causing a flood, Job, were in it, they should Let _lions_(1) come and diminish deliver but their own souls by mankind! their righteousness, saith the Instead of causing a flood, Lord God. Let _leopards_(1) come and If I cause _noisome beasts_ to diminish mankind! pass through the land, and Instead of causing a flood, they spoil it, so that it be Let _famine_ be caused and let it desolate, that no man may pass smite the land! through because of the beasts; Instead of causing a flood, though these three men were in Let the _Plague-god_ come and it, as I live, saith the Lord (slay) mankind! God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate. Or if I bring a _sword_ upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off from it man and beast; though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves. Or if I send a _pestilence_ into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast; though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. (1) Both Babylonian words are in the singular, but probably used collectively, as is the case with their Hebrew equivalent in Ezek. xiv. 15. It will be seen that, of the four kinds of divine punishment mentioned, three accurately correspond in both compositions. Famine and pestilence occur in both, while the lions and leopards of the Epic find an equivalent in "noisome beasts". The sword is not referred to in the Epic, but as this had already threatened Jerusalem at the time of the prophecy's utterance its inclusion by Ezekiel was inevitable. Moreover, the fact that Noah should be named in the refrain, as the first of the three proverbial examples of righteousness, shows that Ezekiel had the Deluge in his mind, and increases the significance of the underlying parallel between his argument and that of the Babylonian poet.(1) It may be added that Ezekiel has thrown his prophecy into poetical form, and the metre of the two passages in the Babylonian and Hebrew is, as Dr. Daiches points out, not dissimilar. (1) This suggestion is in some measure confirmed by the _Biblical Antiquities of Philo_, ascribed by Dr. James to the closing years of the first century A.D.; for its writer, in his account of the Flood, has actually used Ezek. xiv. 12 ff. in order to elaborate the divine speech in Gen. viii. 21 f. This will be seen from the following extract, in which the passage interpolated between verses 21 and 22 of Gen. viii is enclosed within brackets: "And God said: I will not again curse the earth for man's sake, for the guise of man's heart hath left off (sic) from his youth. And therefore I will not again destroy together all living as I have done. (But it shall be, when the dwellers upon earth have sinned, I will judge them by _famine_ or by the _sword_ or by fire or by _pestilence_ (lit. death), and there shall be earthquakes, and they shall be scattered into places not inhabited (or, the places of their habitation shall be scattered). But I will not again spoil the earth with the water of a flood, and) in all the days of the earth seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and autumn, day and night shall not cease . . ."; see James, _The Biblical Antiquities of Philo_, p. 81, iii. 9. Here wild beasts are omitted, and fire, earthquakes, and exile are added; but famine, sword, and pestilence are prominent, and the whole passage is clearly suggested by Ezekiel. As a result of the combination, we have in the _Biblical Antiquities_ a complete parallel to the passage in the Gilgamesh Epic. It may of course be urged that wild beasts, famine, and pestilence are such obvious forms of divine punishment that their enumeration by both writers is merely due to chance. But the parallelism should be considered with the other possible points of connexion, namely, the fact that each writer is dealing with discrimination in divine punishments of a wholesale character, and that while the one is inspired by the Babylonian tradition of the Flood, the other takes the hero of the Hebrew Flood story as the first of his selected types of righteousness. It is possible that Ezekiel may have heard the Babylonian Version recited after his arrival on the Chebar. And assuming that some form of the story had long been a cherished tradition of the Hebrews themselves, we could understand his intense interest in finding it confirmed by the Babylonians, who would show him where their Flood had taken place. To a man of his temperament, the one passage in the Babylonian poem that would have made a special appeal would have been that quoted above, where the poet urges that divine vengeance should be combined with mercy, and that all, righteous and wicked alike, should not again be destroyed. A problem continually in Ezekiel's thoughts was this very question of wholesale divine punishment, as exemplified in the case of Judah; and it would not have been unlikely that the literary structure of the Babylonian extract may have influenced the form in which he embodied his own conclusions. But even if we regard this suggestion as unproved or improbable, Ezekiel's reference to Noah surely presupposes that at least some version of the Flood story was familiar to the Hebrews before the Captivity. And this conclusion is confirmed by other Babylonian parallels in the early chapters of Genesis, in which oral tradition rather than documentary borrowing must have played the leading part.(1) Thus Babylonian parallels may be cited for many features in the story of Paradise,(2) though no equivalent of the story itself has been recovered. In the legend of Adapa, for example, wisdom and immortality are the prerogative of the gods, and the winning of immortality by man is bound up with eating the Food of Life and drinking the Water of Life; here too man is left with the gift of wisdom, but immortality is withheld. And the association of winged guardians with the Sacred Tree in Babylonian art is at least suggestive of the Cherubim and the Tree of Life. The very side of Eden has now been identified in Southern Babylonia by means of an old boundary-stone acquired by the British Museum a year or two ago.(3) (1) See Loisy, _Les mythes babyloniens_, pp. 10 ff., and cf. S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, t. II, pp. 386 ff. (2) Cf. especially Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 90 ff. For the latest discussion of the Serpent and the Tree of Life, suggested by Dr. Skinner's summary of the evidence, see Frazer in _Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway_ (1913), pp. 413 ff. (3) See _Babylonian Boundary Stones in the British Museum_ (1912), pp. 76 ff., and cf. _Geographical Journal_, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), p. 147. For the latest review of the evidence relating to the site of Paradise, see Boissier, "La situation du paradis terrestre", in _Le Globe_, t. LV, Mémoires (Geneva, 1916). But I need not now detain you by going over this familiar ground. Such possible echoes from Babylon seem to suggest pre-exilic influence rather than late borrowing, and they surely justify us in inquiring to what periods of direct or indirect contact, earlier than the Captivity, the resemblances between Hebrew and Babylonian ideas may be traced. One point, which we may regard as definitely settled by our new material, is that these stories of the Creation and of the early history of the world were not of Semitic origin. It is no longer possible to regard the Hebrew and Babylonian Versions as descended from common Semitic originals. For we have now recovered some of those originals, and they are not Semitic but Sumerian. The question thus resolves itself into an inquiry as to periods during which the Hebrews may have come into direct or indirect contact with Babylonia. There are three pre-exilic periods at which it has been suggested the Hebrews, or the ancestors of the race, may have acquired a knowledge of Babylonian traditions. The earliest of these is the age of the patriarchs, the traditional ancestors of the Hebrew nation. The second period is that of the settlement in Canaan, which we may put from 1200 B.C. to the establishment of David's kingdom at about 1000 B.C. The third period is that of the later Judaean monarch, from 734 B.C. to 586 B.C., the date of the fall of Jerusalem; and in this last period there are two reigns of special importance in this connexion, those of Ahaz (734-720 B.C.) and Manasseh (693-638 B.C.). With regard to the earliest of these periods, those who support the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch may quite consistently assume that Abraham heard the legends in Ur of the Chaldees. And a simple retention of the traditional view seems to me a far preferable attitude to any elaborate attempt at rationalizing it. It is admitted that Arabia was the cradle of the Semitic race; and the most natural line of advance from Arabia to Aram and thence to Palestine would be up the Euphrates Valley. Some writers therefore assume that nomad tribes, personified in the traditional figure of Abraham, may have camped for a time in the neighbourhood of Ur and Babylon; and that they may have carried the Babylonian stories with them in their wanderings, and continued to preserve them during their long subsequent history. But, even granting that such nomads would have taken any interest in traditions of settled folk, this view hardly commends itself. For stories received from foreign sources become more and more transformed in the course of centuries.(1) The vivid Babylonian colouring of the Genesis narratives cannot be reconciled with this explanation of their source. (1) This objection would not of course apply to M. Naville's suggested solution, that cuneiform tablets formed the medium of transmission. But its author himself adds that he does not deny its conjectural character; see _The Text of the Old Testament_ (Schweich Lectures, 1915), p. 32. A far greater number of writers hold that it was after their arrival in Palestine that the Hebrew patriarchs came into contact with Babylonian culture. It is true that from an early period Syria was the scene of Babylonian invasions, and in the first lecture we noted some newly recovered evidence upon this point. Moreover, the dynasty to which Hammurabi belonged came originally from the north-eastern border of Canaan and Hammurabi himself exercised authority in the west. Thus a plausible case could be made out by exponents of this theory, especially as many parallels were noted between the Mosaic legislation and that contained in Hammurabi's Code. But it is now generally recognized that the features common to both the Hebrew and the Babylonian legal systems may be paralleled to-day in the Semitic East and elsewhere,(1) and cannot therefore be cited as evidence of cultural contact. Thus the hypothesis that the Hebrew patriarchs were subjects of Babylon in Palestine is not required as an explanation of the facts; and our first period still stands or falls by the question of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which must be decided on quite other grounds. Those who do not accept the traditional view will probably be content to rule this first period out. (1) See Cook, _The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi_, p. 281 f.; Driver, _Genesis_, p. xxxvi f.; and cf. Johns, _The Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples_ (Schweich Lectures, 1912), pp. 50 ff. During the second period, that of the settlement in Canaan, the Hebrews came into contact with a people who had used the Babylonian language as the common medium of communication throughout the Near East. It is an interesting fact that among the numerous letters found at Tell el-Amarna were two texts of quite a different character. These were legends, both in the form of school exercises, which had been written out for practice in the Babylonian tongue. One of them was the legend of Adapa, in which we noted just now a distant resemblance to the Hebrew story of Paradise. It seems to me we are here standing on rather firmer ground; and provisionally we might place the beginning of our process after the time of Hebrew contact with the Canaanites. Under the earlier Hebrew monarchy there was no fresh influx of Babylonian culture into Palestine. That does not occur till our last main period, the later Judaean monarchy, when, in consequence of the westward advance of Assyria, the civilization of Babylon was once more carried among the petty Syrian states. Israel was first drawn into the circle of Assyrian influence, when Arab fought as the ally of Benhadad of Damascus at the battle of Karkar in 854 B.C.; and from that date onward the nation was menaced by the invading power. In 734 B.C., at the invitation of Ahaz of Judah, Tiglath-Pileser IV definitely intervened in the affairs of Israel. For Ahaz purchased his help against the allied armies of Israel and Syria in the Syro-Ephraimitish war. Tiglath-pileser threw his forces against Damascus and Israel, and Ahaz became his vassal.(1) To this period, when Ahaz, like Panammu II, "ran at the wheel of his lord, the king of Assyria", we may ascribe the first marked invasion of Assyrian influence over Judah. Traces of it may be seen in the altar which Ahaz caused to be erected in Jerusalem after the pattern of the Assyrian altar at Damascus.(2) We saw in the first lecture, in the monuments we have recovered of Panammu I and of Bar-rekub, how the life of another small Syrian state was inevitably changed and thrown into new channels by the presence of Tiglath-pileser and his armies in the West. (1) 2 Kings xvi. 7 ff. (2) 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff. Hezekiah's resistance checked the action of Assyrian influence on Judah for a time. But it was intensified under his son Manasseh, when Judah again became tributary to Assyria, and in the house of the Lord altars were built to all the host of heaven.(1) Towards the close of his long reign Manasseh himself was summoned by Ashur-bani-pal to Babylon.(2) So when in the year 586 B.C. the Jewish exiles came to Babylon they could not have found in its mythology an entirely new and unfamiliar subject. They must have recognized several of its stories as akin to those they had assimilated and now regarded as their own. And this would naturally have inclined them to further study and comparison. (1) 2 Kings xxi. 5. (2) Cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff. The answer I have outlined to this problem is the one that appears to me most probable, but I do not suggest that it is the only possible one that can be given. What I do suggest is that the Hebrews must have gained some acquaintance with the legends of Babylon in pre-exilic times. And it depends on our reading of the evidence into which of the three main periods the beginning of the process may be traced. So much, then, for the influence of Babylon. We have seen that no similar problem arises with regard to the legends of Egypt. At first sight this may seem strange, for Egypt lay nearer than Babylon to Palestine, and political and commercial intercourse was at least as close. We have already noted how Egypt influenced Semitic art, and how she offered an ideal, on the material side of her existence, which was readily adopted by her smaller neighbours. Moreover, the Joseph traditions in Genesis give a remarkably accurate picture of ancient Egyptian life; and even the Egyptian proper names embedded in that narrative may be paralleled with native Egyptian names than that to which the traditions refer. Why then is it that the actual myths and legends of Egypt concerning the origin of the world and its civilization should have failed to impress the Hebrew mind, which, on the other hand, was so responsive to those of Babylon? One obvious answer would be, that it was Nebuchadnezzar II, and not Necho, who carried the Jews captive. And we may readily admit that the Captivity must have tended to perpetuate and intensify the effects of any Babylonian influence that may have previously been felt. But I think there is a wider and in that sense a better answer than that. I do not propose to embark at this late hour on what ethnologists know as the "Hamitic" problem. But it is a fact that many striking parallels to Egyptian religious belief and practice have been traced among races of the Sudan and East Africa. These are perhaps in part to be explained as the result of contact and cultural inheritance. But at the same time they are evidence of an African, but non-Negroid, substratum in the religion of ancient Egypt. In spite of his proto-Semitic strain, the ancient Egyptian himself never became a Semite. The Nile Valley, at any rate until the Moslem conquest, was stronger than its invaders; it received and moulded them to its own ideal. This quality was shared in some degree by the Euphrates Valley. But Babylonia was not endowed with Egypt's isolation; she was always open on the south and west to the Arabian nomad, who at a far earlier period sealed her Semitic type. To such racial division and affinity I think we may confidently trace the influence exerted by Egypt and Babylon respectively upon Hebrew tradition. APPENDIX I COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE SUMERIAN, SEMITIC-BABYLONIAN, HELLENISTIC, AND HEBREW VERSIONS OF CREATION, ANTEDILUVIAN HISTORY, AND THE DELUGE N.B.--Parallels with the new Sumerian Version are in upper-case. Sumerian Version. Seven Tablets Gilgamesh Epic, XI Berossus('Damscius) Earlier Heb. (J) Later Heb. (P) (No heaven or earth No heaven or earth Darkness and water Creation of earth Earth without form First Creation from Primaeval water- (Primaeval water- and heaven and void; darkness primaeval water gods: Apsû-Tiamat, gods: {'Apason- No plant or herb on face of _tehôm_, without conflict; Mummu Tauthe}, {Moumis} Ground watered by the primaeval water cf. Later Sum. Ver. Generation of: Generation of: mist (or flood) Divine spirit moving Lakhmu-Lakhamu {Lakhos-Lakhe} (cf. Sumerian (hovering, brooding) Anshar-Kishar {'Assoros-Kissare} irrigation myth of upon face of waters Creation) The great gods: Birth of great gods: Birth of great gods: ANU, ENLIL, ENKI, ANU, Nudimmud (=EA) {'Anos, 'Illinos, and Ninkharsagga, Apsû and Tiamat 'Aos, 'Aois-Lauke, creating deities revolt Belos) Conquest of Tiamat Conquest of {'Omorka}, Creation of light by Marduk as Sun- or {Thamte}, by god {Belos} Creation of covering Creation of heaven and Creation of firmament, for heaven from earth from two halves or heaven, to divide half of Tiamat's of body of Thamte waters; followed by body, to keep her emergence of land waters in place Creation of vegetation Creation of luminaries Creation of luminaries Creation of luminaries (Creation of (probable order) Creation of animals vegetation) REASON FOR MAN'S REASON FOR MAN'S CREATION: worship of CREATION: worship of gods gods Creation of MAN Creation of MAN from Creation of MAN from Creation of MAN from Creation of MAN in Creator's blood and Creator's blood and dust and Creator's image of Creator, to from bone from earth breath of life have dominion Creation of ANIMALS (Creation of animals) Creation of ANIMALS Creation of vegetation Hymn on Seventh Tablet able to bear the air ANIMALS, and woman Rest on Seventh Day Creation of KINGDOM 10 Antediluvian KINGS The line of Cain Antediluvian 5 ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES: Antediluvian city: 3 ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES: The Nephilim (cf. patriarchs (cf. Eridu, Bad.., LARAK, SHURUPPAK Babylon, SIPPAR, Sumerian Dynastic Sumerian Dynastic SIPPAR, SHURUPPAK LARANKHA List) List) Gods decree MANKIND'S Gods decree flood, Destruction of MAN Destruction of all destruction by flood, goddess ISHTAR decreed, because of flesh decreed, because NINTU protesting protesting his wickedness of its corruption ZIUSUDU, hero of UT-NAPISHTIM, hero {Xisouthros} Noah, hero of Deluge Noah, hero of Deluge Deluge, KING and of Deluge (=Khasisatra), hero priest of Deluge, KING Ziusudu's PIETY Noah's FAVOUR Noah's RIGHTEOUSNESS WARNING of Ziusudu by WARNING of Ut-nap- WARNING of Xisuthros WARNING of Noah, and Enki in DREAM ishtim by Ea in DREAM by Kronos in DREAM instructions for ark Ziusudu's vessel a SHIP: 120x120x120 Size of SHIP: 5x2 Instructions to enter Size of ARK: 300x50x30 HUGE SHIP cubits; 7 stories; 9 stadia ark cubits; 3 stories divisions All kinds of animals All kinds of animals 7(x2) clean, 2 unclean 2 of all animals Flood and STORM for 7 FLOOD from heavy rain FLOOD FLOOD from rain for 40 FLOOD; founts. of deep days and STORM for 6 days days and rain, 150 days Ship on Mt. Nisir Ark on Ararat Abatement of waters Abatement of waters Abatement of waters Abatement of waters tested by birds tested by birds tested by birds through drying wind SACRIFICE to Sun-god SACRIFICE with sweet SACRIFICE to gods, SACRIFICE with sweet Landing from ark (after in ship savour on mountain after landing and savour after landing year (+10 days)) paying adoration to EARTH Anu and Enlil appeased Ea's protest to ENLIL APOTHEOSIS of X., Divine promise to Noah Divine covenant not (by "Heaven and Earth") IMMORTALITY of Ut-nap- wife, daughter, and not again to curse again to destroy EARTH IMMORTALITY of Ziusudu ishtim and his wife pilot the GROUND by flood; bow as sign APPENDIX II THE ANTEDILUVIAN KINGS OF BEROSSUS AND THE SUMERIAN DYNASTIC LIST It may be of assistance to the reader to repeat in tabular form the equivalents to the mythical kings of Berossus which are briefly discussed in Lecture I. In the following table the two new equations, obtained from the earliest section of the Sumerian Dynastic List, are in upper-case.(1) The established equations to other names are in normal case, while those for which we should possibly seek other equivalents are enclosed within brackets.(2) Aruru has not been included as a possible equivalent for {'Aloros}.(3) 1. {'Aloros} 2. {'Alaparos (? 'Adaparos)}, _Alaporus_, _Alapaurus_ (Adapa) 3. {'Amelon, 'Amillaros}, _Almelon_ (Amêlu) 4. {'Ammenon} ENMENUNNA 5. {Megalaros, Megalanos}, _Amegalarus_ 6. {Daonos, Daos} ETANA 7. {Euedorakhos, Euedoreskhos}, _Edoranchus_ Enmeduranki 8. {'Amemphinos}, _Amemphsinus_ (Amêl-Sin) 9. {'Otiartes (? 'Opartes)} (Ubar-Tutu) 10. {Xisouthros, Sisouthros, Sisithros} Khasisatra, Atrakhasis(4) (1) For the royal names of Berossus, see _Euseb. chron. lib. pri._, ed. Schoene, cols. 7 f., 31 ff. The latinized variants correspond to forms in the Armenian translation of Eusebius. (2) For the principal discussions of equivalents, see Hommel, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, Vol. XV (1893), pp. 243 ff., and _Die altorientalischen Denkmäler und das Alte Testament_ (1902), pp. 23 ff.; Zimmern, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_, 3rd ed. (1902), pp. 531 ff.; and cf. Lenormant, _Les origines de l'histoire_, I (1880), pp. 214 ff. See also Driver, _Genesis_, 10th ed. (1916), p. 80 f.; Skinner, _Genesis_, p. 137 f.; Ball, _Genesis_, p. 50; and Gordon, _Early Traditions of Genesis_, pp. 46 ff. (3) There is a suggested equation of Lal-ur-alimma with {'Aloros}. (4) The hundred and twenty "sars", or 432,000 years assigned by Berossus for the duration of the Antediluvian dynasty, are distributed as follows among the ten kings; the numbers are given below first in "sars", followed by their equivalents in years within brackets: 1. Ten "sars" (36,000); 2. Three (10,800); 3. Thirteen (46,800); 4. Twelve (43,200); 5. Eighteen (64,800); 6. Ten (36,000); 7. Eighteen (64,800); 8. Ten (36,000); 9. Eight (28,800); 10. Eighteen (64,800). For comparison with Berossus it may be useful to abstract from the Sumerian Dynastic List the royal names occurring in the earliest extant dynasties. They are given below with variant forms from duplicate copies of the list, and against each is added the number of years its owner is recorded to have ruled. The figures giving the total duration of each dynasty, either in the summaries or under the separate reigns, are sometimes not completely preserved; in such cases an x is added to the total of the figures still legible. Except in those cases referred to in the foot-notes, all the names are written in the Sumerian lists without the determinative for "god". KINGDOM OF KISH (23 kings; 18,000 + x years, 3 months, 3 days) . . .(1) 8. (. . .) 900(?) years 9. Galumum, Kalumum 900 " 10. Zugagib, Zugakib 830 " 11. Arpi, Arpiu, Arbum 720 " 12. Etana(2) 635 (or 625) years 13. Pili . . .(3) 410 years 14. Enmenunna, Enmennunna(4) 611 " 15. Melamkish 900 " 16. Barsalnunna 1,200 " 17. Mesza(. . .) (. . .) " . . .(5) 22. . . . 900 years 23. . . . 625 " KINGDOM OF EANNA (ERECH)(6) (About 10-12 kings; 2,171 + x years) 1. Meskingasher 325 years 2. Enmerkar 420 " 3. Lugalbanda(7) 1,200 " 4. Dumuzi(8) (i.e. Tammuz) 100 " 5. Gishbilgames(9) (i.e. Gilgamesh) 126 (or 186) years 6. (. . .)lugal (. . .) years . . .(10) KINGDOM OF UR (4 kings; 171 years) 1. Mesannipada 80 years 2. Meskiagnunna 30 " 3. Elu(. . .) 25 " 4. Balu(. . .) 36 " KINGDOM OF AWAN (3 kings; 356 years) . . .(11) (1) Gap of seven, or possibly eight, names. (2) The name Etana is written in the lists with and without the determinative for "god". (3) The reading of the last sign in the name is unknown. A variant form of the name possibly begins with Bali. (4) This form is given on a fragment of a late Assyrian copy of the list; cf. _Studies in Eastern History_, Vol. III, p. 143. (5) Gap of four, or possibly three, names. (6) Eanna was the great temple of Erech. In the Second Column of the list "the kingdom" is recorded to have passed from Kish to Eanna, but the latter name does not occur in the summary. (7) The name Lugalbanda is written in the lists with and without the determinative for "god". (8) The name Dumuzi is written in the list with the determinative for "god". (9) The name Gishbilgames is written in the list with the determinative for "god". (10) Gap of about four, five, or six kings. (11) Wanting. At this point a great gap occurs in our principal list. The names of some of the missing "kingdoms" may be inferred from the summaries, but their relative order is uncertain. Of two of them we know the duration, a second Kingdom of Ur containing four kings and lasting for a hundred and eight years, and another kingdom, the name of which is not preserved, consisting of only one king who ruled for seven years. The dynastic succession only again becomes assured with the opening of the Dynastic chronicle published by Père Scheil and recently acquired by the British Museum. It will be noted that with the Kingdom of Ur the separate reigns last for decades and not hundreds of years each, so that we here seem to approach genuine tradition, though the Kingdom of Awan makes a partial reversion to myth so far as its duration is concerned. The two suggested equations with Antediluvian kings of Berossus both occur in the earliest Kingdom of Kish and lie well within the Sumerian mythical period. The second of the rulers concerned, Enmenunna (Ammenon), is placed in Sumerian tradition several thousand years before the reputed succession of the gods Lugalbanda and Tammuz and of the national hero Gilgamesh to the throne of Erech. In the first lecture some remarkable points of general resemblance have already been pointed out between Hebrew and Sumerian traditions of these early ages of the world. 
1610	----	THE HOLY BIBLE Translated from the Latin Vulgate Diligently Compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in Divers Languages THE OLD TESTAMENT First Published by the English College at Douay A.D. 1609 & 1610 and THE NEW TESTAMENT First Published by the English College at Rheims A.D. 1582 With Annotations The Whole Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner A.D. 1749-1752 VOLUME II: THE SECOND PART OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CREDITS Without the assistance of many individuals and groups, this text of the Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible would not be available for the Project Gutenberg collection. Our most grateful and sincere thanks goes to those at 'Catholic Software' who have provided the electronic plain texts of the 73 books of the Bible. 'Catholic Software' also produces a Douay Bible program on CD-ROM that features a fully searchable Douay- Rheims Bible, footnotes, Latin text and dictionary, topical index, maps, Biblical art gallery, and other features. For more information of this and many other products contact: Catholic Software Box 1914 Murray, KY 42071 (502) 753-8198 http://www.catholicity.com/market/CSoftware/ waubrey@aol.com Additional production assistance has been provided by volunteers from the Atlanta Council of the Knights of Columbus. Tad Book compiled and reformatted the texts to Project Gutenberg standards. Dennis McCarthy assisted Mr. Book and transcribed selections from the first editions included as appendices. HISTORY This three volume e-text set comes from multiple editions of Challoner's revised Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible. The division of the Old Testaments into two parts follows the two tome format of the 1609/1610 printing of the Old Testament. In 1568 English exiles, many from Oxford, established the English College of Douay (Douai/Doway), Flanders, under William (later Cardinal) Allen. In October, 1578, Gregory Martin began the work of preparing an English translation of the Bible for Catholic readers, the first such translation into Modern English. Assisting were William Allen, Richard Bristow, Thomas Worthington, and William Reynolds who revised, criticized, and corrected Dr. Martin's work. The college published the New Testament at Rheims (Reims/Rhemes), France, in 1582 through John Fogny with a preface and explanatory notes, authored chiefly by Bristol, Allen, and Worthington. Later the Old Testament was published at Douay in two parts (1609 and 1610) by Laurence Kellam through the efforts of Dr. Worthington, then superior of the seminary. The translation had been prepared before the appearance of the New Testament, but the publication was delayed due to financial difficulties. The religious and scholarly adherence to the Latin Vulgate text led to the less elegant and idiomatic words and phrases often found in the translation. In some instances where no English word conveyed the full meaning of the Latin, a Latin word was Anglicized and its meaning defined in a glossary. Although ridiculed by critics, many of these words later found common usage in the English language. Spellings of proper names and the numbering of the Psalms are adopted from the Latin Vulgate. In 1749 Dr. Richard Challoner began a major revision of the Douay and Rheims texts, the spellings and phrasing of which had become increasingly archaic in the almost two centuries since the translations were first produced. He modernized the diction and introduced a more fluid style, while faithfully maintaining the accuracy of Dr. Martin's texts. This revision became the 'de facto' standard text for English speaking Catholics until the twentieth century. It is still highly regarded by many for its style, although it is now rarely used for liturgical purposes. The notes included in this electronic edition are generally attributed to Bishop Challoner. The 1610 printing of the second tome of the Old Testament includes an appendix containing the non-canonical books 'Prayer of Manasses,' 'Third Booke of Esdras,' and 'Fourth Booke of Esdras.' While not part of Challoner's revision, the 1610 texts are placed in the appendices of Vol. II of this e-text set. Also included are the original texts of two short books, 'The Prophecie of Abdias' (Vol. II) and 'The Catholike Epistle of Iude the Apostle' (Vol. III), to give the reader a sense of the language of the first editions in comparison to the Challoner revision. Further background on the Douay-Rheims version may be found in a selection from the preface to the 1582 edition and the original glossary included in the appendices of Vol. III. CONTENTS The Second Part of the Old Testament Book of Psalms Book of Proverbs Ecclesiastes Solomon's Canticle of Canticles Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus Prophecy of Isaias Prophecy of Jeremias Lamentations of Jeremias Prophecy of Baruch Prophecy of Ezechiel Prophecy of Daniel Prophecy of Osee Prophecy of Joel Prophecy of Amos Prophecy of Abdias Prophecy of Jonas Prophecy of Micheas Prophecy of Nahum Prophecy of Habacuc Prophecy of Sophonias Prophecy of Aggeus Prophecy of Zacharias Prophecy of Malachias First Book of Machabees Second Book of Machabees Appendices The Prayer of Manasses The Third Booke of Esdras The Fourth Booke of Esdras The Prophecie of Abdias THE BOOK OF PSALMS The psalms are called by the Hebrews TEHILLIM, that is, Hymns of Praise. The author, of a great part of them at least, was king David: but many are of opinion that some of them were made by Asaph, and others whose names are prefixed in the titles. Psalms Chapter 1 Beatus vir. The happiness of the just and the evil state of the wicked. 1:1. Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence: 1:2. But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night. 1:3. And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit, in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off: and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper. 1:4. Not so the wicked, not so: but like the dust, which the wind driveth from the face of the earth. 1:5. Therefore the wicked shall not rise again in judgment: nor sinners in the council of the just. 1:6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the just: and the way of the wicked shall perish. Psalms Chapter 2 Quare fremuerunt. The vain efforts of persecutors against Christ and his church. 2:1. Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? 2:2. The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against his Christ. 2:3. Let us break their bonds asunder: and let us cast away their yoke from us. 2:4. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. 2:5. Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his rage. 2:6. But I am appointed king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, preaching his commandment. 2:7. The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. 2:8. Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. 2:9. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 2:10. And now, O ye kings, understand: receive instruction, you that judge the earth. 2:11. Serve ye the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto him with trembling. 2:12. Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way. 2:13. When his wrath shall be kindled in a short time, blessed are all they that trust in him. Psalms Chapter 3 Domine, quid multiplicati. The prophet's danger and delivery from his son Absalom: mystically, the passion and resurrection of Christ. 3:1. The psalm of David when he fled from the face of his son Absalom. 3:2. Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. 3:4. But thou, O Lord, art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. 3:5. I have cried to the Lord with my voice: and he hath heard me from his holy hill. 3:6. I have slept and have taken my rest: and I have risen up, because the Lord hath protected me. 3:7. I will not fear thousands of the people surrounding me: arise, O Lord; save me, O my God. 3:8. For thou hast struck all them who are my adversaries without cause: thou hast broken the teeth of sinners. 3:9. Salvation is of the Lord: and thy blessing is upon thy people. Psalms Chapter 4 Cum invocarem. The prophet teacheth us to flee to God in tribulation, with confidence in him. 4:1. Unto the end, in verses. A psalm for David. Unto the end. . .Or, as St. Jerome renders it, victori, to him that overcometh: which some understand of the chief musician; to whom they suppose the psalms, which bear that title, were given to be sung: we rather understand the psalms thus inscribed to refer to Christ, who is the end of the law, and the great conqueror of death and hell, and to the New Testament.--Ibid. In verses, in carminibus. . .In the Hebrew, it is neghinoth, supposed by some to be a musical instrument, with which this psalm was to be sung.--Ibid. For David, or to David. . .That is, inspired to David himself, or to be sung. 4:2. When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me: when I was in distress, thou hast enlarged me. Have mercy on me: and hear my prayer. 4:3. O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart? why do you love vanity, and seek after lying? 4:4. Know ye also that the Lord hath made his holy one wonderful: the Lord will hear me when I shall cry unto him. 4:5. Be ye angry, and sin not: the things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them upon your beds. 4:6. Offer up the sacrifice of justice, and trust in the Lord: many say, Who sheweth us good things? 4:7. The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us: thou hast given gladness in my heart. 4:8. By the fruit of their corn, their wine, and oil, they rest: 4:9. In peace in the self same I will sleep, and I will rest: 4:10. For thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope. Psalms Chapter 5 Verba mea auribul. A prayer to God against the iniquities of men. 5:1. Unto the end, for her that obtaineth the inheritance. A psalm for David. For her that obtaineth the inheritance. . .That is, for the church of Christ. 5:2. Give ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry. 5:3. Hearken to the voice of my prayer, O my King and my God. 5:4. For to thee will I pray: O Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear my voice. 5:5. In the morning I will stand before thee, and I will see: because thou art not a God that willest iniquity. 5:6. Neither shall the wicked dwell near thee: nor shall the unjust abide before thy eyes. 5:7. Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity: thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the Lord will abhor. 5:8. But as for me in the multitude of thy mercy, I will come into thy house; I will worship towards thy holy temple, in thy fear. 5:9. Conduct me, O Lord, in thy justice: because of my enemies, direct my way in thy sight. 5:10. For there is no truth in their mouth: their heart is vain. 5:11. Their throat is an open sepulchre: they dealt deceitfully with their tongues: judge them, O God. Let them fall from their devices: according to the multitude of their wickednesses cast them out: for they have provoked thee, O Lord. 5:12. But let all them be glad that hope in thee: they shall rejoice for ever, and thou shalt dwell in them. And all they that love thy name shall glory in thee. 5:13. For thou wilt bless the just. O Lord, thou hast crowned us, as with a shield of thy good will. Psalms Chapter 6 Domine, ne in furore. A prayer of a penitent sinner, under the scourge of God. The first penitential psalm. 6:1. Unto the end, in verses, a psalm for David, for the octave. For the octave. . .That is, to be sung on an instrument of eight strings. St. Augustine understands it mystically, of the last resurrection, and the world to come; which is, as it were, the octave, or eighth day, after the seven days of this mortal life: and for this octave, sinners must dispose themselves, like David, by bewailing their sins, whilst they are here upon earth. 6:2. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath. 6:3. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. 6:4. And my soul is troubled exceedingly: but thou, O Lord, how long? 6:5. Turn to me, O Lord, and deliver my soul: O save me for thy mercy's sake. 6:6. For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee: and who shall confess to thee in hell? 6:7. I have laboured in my groanings, every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears. 6:8. My eye is troubled through indignation: I have grown old amongst all my enemies. 6:9. Depart from em, all ye workers of iniquity: for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. 6:10. The Lord hath heard my supplication: the Lord hath received my prayer. 6:11. Let all my enemies be ashamed, and be very much troubled: let them be turned back, and be ashamed very speedily. Psalms Chapter 7 Domine, Deus meus. David, trusting in the justice of his cause, prayeth for God's help against his enemies. 7:1. The psalm of David, which he sung to the Lord, for the words of Chusi, the son of Jemini. 7:2. O Lord, my God, in thee have I put my trust; same me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me. 7:3. Lest at any time he seize upon my soul like a lion, while there is no one to redeem me, nor to save. 7:4. O Lord, my God, if I have done this thing, if there be iniquity in my hands: 7:5. If I have rendered to them that repaid me evils, let me deservedly fall empty before my enemies. 7:6. Let the enemy pursue my soul, and take it, and tread down my life, on the earth, and bring down my glory to the dust. 7:7. Rise up, O Lord, in thy anger: and be thou exalted in the borders of my enemies. And arise, O Lord, my God, in the precept which thou hast commanded: 7:8. And a congregation of people shall surround thee. And for their sakes return thou on high. 7:9. The Lord judgeth the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my justice, and according to my innocence in me. 7:10. The wickedness of sinners shall be brought to nought; and thou shalt direct the just: the searcher of hearts and reins is God. Just 7:11. Is my help from the Lord; who saveth the upright of heart. 7:12. God is a just judge, strong and patient: is he angry every day? 7:13. Except you will be converted, he will brandish his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. 7:14. And in it he hath prepared to instruments of death, he hath made ready his arrows for them that burn. For them that burn. . .That is, against the persecutors of his saints. 7:15. Behold he hath been in labour with injustice: he hath conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity. 7:16. He hath opened a pit and dug it: and he is fallen into the hole he made. 7:17. His sorrow shall be turned on his own head: and his iniquity shall come down upon his crown. 7:18. I will give glory to the Lord according to his justice: and will sing to the name of the Lord the most high. Psalms Chapter 8 Domine, Dominus noster. God is wonderful in his works; especially in mankind, singularly exalted by the incarnation of Christ. 8:1. Unto the end, for the presses: a psalm for David. The presses. . .In Hebrew, Gittith, supposed to be a musical instrument. 8:2. O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens. 8:3. Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies, that thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger. 8:4. For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers: the moon and the stars which thou hast founded. 8:5. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? 8:6. Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: 8:7. And hast set him over the works of thy hands. 8:8. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen: moreover, the beasts also of the fields. 8:9. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea. 8:10. O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! Psalms Chapter 9 Confitebor tibi, Domine. The church praiseth God for his protection against her enemies. 9:1. Unto the end, for the hidden things of the Son. A psalm for David. The hidden things of the Son. . .The humility and sufferings of Christ, the Son of God; and of good Christians, who are his sons by adoption; are called hidden things, with regard to the children of this world, who know not the value and merit of them. 9:2. I will give praise to thee, O Lord, with my whole heart: I will relate all thy wonders. 9:3. I will be glad, and rejoice in thee: I will sing to thy name, O thou most high. 9:4. When my enemy shall be turned back: they shall be weakened, and perish before thy face. 9:5. For thou hast maintained my judgment and my cause: thou hast sat on the throne, who judgest justice. 9:6. Thou hast rebuked the Gentiles, and the wicked one hath perished; thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever. 9:7. The swords of the enemy have failed unto the end: and their cities thou hast destroyed. Their memory hath perished with a noise: 9:8. But the Lord remaineth for ever. He hath prepared his throne in judgment: 9:9. And he shall judge the world in equity, he shall judge the people in justice. 9:10. And the Lord is become a refuge for the poor: a helper in due time in tribulation. 9:11. And let them trust in thee who know thy name: for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee, O Lord. 9:12. Sing ye to the Lord, who dwelleth in Sion: declare his ways among the Gentiles: 9:13. For requiring their blood, he hath remembered them: he hath not forgotten the cry of the poor. 9:14. Have mercy on me, O Lord: see my humiliation which I suffer from my enemies. 9:15. Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death, that I may declare all thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion. 9:16. I will rejoice in thy salvation: the Gentiles have stuck fast in the destruction which they prepared. Their foot hath been taken in the very snare which they hid. 9:17. The Lord shall be known when he executeth judgments: the sinner hath been caught in the works of his own hands. 9:18. The wicked shall be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God. 9:19. For the poor man shall not be forgotten to the end: the patience of the poor shall not perish for ever. 9:20. Arise, O Lord, let not man be strengthened: let the Gentiles be judged in thy sight. 9:21. Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them: that the Gentiles may know themselves to be but men. Here the late Hebrew doctors divide this psalm into two, making ver. 22 the beginning of Psalm 10. And again they join Psalms 146 and 147 into one, in order that the whole number of psalms should not exceed 150. And in this manner the psalms are numbered in the Protestant Bible. Psalm 10 according to the Hebrews. 9a:1. Why, O Lord, hast thou retired afar off? why dost thou slight us in our wants, in the time of trouble? 9a:2. Whilst the wicked man is proud, the poor is set on fire: they are caught in the counsels which they devise. 9a:3. For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul: and the unjust man is blessed. 9a:4. The sinner hath provoked the Lord, according to the multitude of his wrath, he will not seek him: 9a:5. God is not before his eyes: his ways are filthy at all times. Thy judgments are removed form his sight: he shall rule over all his enemies. 9a:6. For he hath said in his heart: I shall not be moved from generation to generation, and shall be without evil. 9a:7. His mouth is full of cursing, and of bitterness, and of deceit: under his tongue are labour and sorrow. 9a:8. He sitteth in ambush with the rich, in private places, that he may kill the innocent. 9a:9. His eyes are upon the poor man: he lieth in wait, in secret, like a lion in his den. He lieth in ambush, that he may catch the poor man: so catch the poor, whilst he draweth him to him. 9a:10. In his net he will bring him down, he will crouch and fall, when he shall have power over the poor. 9a:11. For he hath said in his heart: God hath forgotten, he hath turned away his face, not to see to the end. 9a:12. Arise, O Lord God, let thy hand be exalted: forget not the poor. 9a:13. Wherefore hath the wicked provoked God? for he hath said in his heart: He will not require it. 9a:14. Thou seest it, for thou considerest labour and sorrow: that thou mayst deliver them into thy hands. To thee is the poor man left: thou wilt be a helper to the orphan. 9a:15. Break thou the arm of the sinner and of the malignant: his sin shall be sought, and shall not be found. 9a:16. The Lord shall reign to eternity, yea, for ever and ever: ye Gentiles shall perish from his land. 9a:17. The Lord hath heard the desire of the poor: thy ear hath heard the preparation of their heart. 9a:18. To judge for the fatherless and for the humble, that man may no more presume to magnify himself upon earth. Psalms Chapter 10 In Domino confido. The just man's confidence in God in the midst of persecutions. 10:1. Unto the end. A psalm to David. 10:2. In the Lord I put my trust: how then do you say to my soul: Get thee away from hence to the mountain, like a sparrow. 10:3. For, lo, the wicked have bent their bow: they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, to shoot in the dark the upright of heart. 10:4. For they have destroyed the things which thou hast made: but what has the just man done? 10:5. The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes look on the poor man: his eyelids examine the sons of men. 10:6. The Lord trieth the just and the wicked: but he that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul. 10:7. He shall rain snares upon sinners: fire and brimstone, and storms of winds, shall be the portion of their cup. 10:8. For the Lord is just, and hath loved justice: his countenance hath beheld righteousness. Psalms Chapter 11 Salvum me fac. The prophet calls for God's help against the wicked. 11:1. Unto the end: for the octave, a psalm for David. 11:2. Save me, O Lord, for there is now no saint: truths are decayed from among the children of men. 11:3. They have spoken vain things, every one to his neighbour: with deceitful lips, and with a double heart have they spoken. 11:4. May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. 11:5. Who have said: We will magnify our tongue: our lips are our own: who is Lord over us? 11:6. By reason of the misery of the needy, and the groans of the poor, now will I arise, saith the Lord. I will set him in safety: I will deal confidently in his regard. 11:7. The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried by the fire, purged from the earth, refined seven times. 11:8. Thou, O Lord, wilt preserve us: and keep us from this generation for ever. 11:9. The wicked walk round about: according to thy highness, thou hast multiplied the children of men. Psalms Chapter 12 Usquequo, Domine. A prayer in tribulation. 12:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me unto the end? how long dost thou turn away thy face from me? 12:2. How long shall I take counsels in my soul, sorrow in my heart all the day? 12:3. How long shall my enemy be exalted over Me? 12:4. Consider, and hear me, O Lord, my God. Enlighten my eyes, that I never sleep in death: 12:5. Lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him. They that trouble me, will rejoice when I am moved: 12:6. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation: I will sing to the Lord, who giveth me good things: yea, I will sing to the name of the Lord, the most high. Psalms Chapter 13 Dixit insipiens. The general corruption of man before our redemption by Christ. 13:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God. They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways: there is none that doth good, no not one. 13:2. The Lord hath looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. 13:3. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good: no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they acted deceitfully: the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. 13:4. Shall not all they know that work iniquity, who devour my people as they eat bread? 13:5. They have not called upon the Lord: there have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. 13:6. For the Lord is in the just generation: you have confounded the counsel of the poor man; but the Lord is his hope. 13:7. Who shall give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? when the Lord shall have turned away the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Psalms Chapter 14 Domine, quis habitabit. What kind of men shall dwell in the heavenly Sion. 14:1. A psalm for David. Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill? 14:2. He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice: 14:3. He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours. 14:4. In his sight the malignant is brought to nothing: but he glorifieth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his neighbour, and deceiveth not; 14:5. He that hath not put out his money to usury, nortaken bribes against the innocent: He that doth these things, shall not be moved for ever. Psalms Chapter 15 Conserva me, Domine. Christ's future victory and triumph over the world and death. 15:1. The inscription of a title to David himself. Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in thee. The inscription of a title. . .That is, of a pillar or monument, staylographia: which is as much as to say, that this psalm is most worthy to be engraved on an everlasting monument. 15:2. I have said to the Lord, thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods. 15:3. To the saints, who are in his land, he hath made wonderful all my desires in them. 15:4. Their infirmities were multiplied: afterwards they made haste. I will not gather together their meetings for bloodofferings: nor will I be mindful of their names by my lips. 15:5. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: it is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me. 15:6. The lines are fallen unto me in goodly places: for my inheritance is goodly to me. 15:7. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me understanding: moreover, my reins also have corrected me even till night. 15:8. I set the Lord always in my sight: for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved. 15:9. Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope. 15:10. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption. 15:11. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt fill me with joy with thy countenance: at thy right hand are delights even to the end. Psalms Chapter 16 Exaudi, Domine, justitiam. A just man's prayer in tribulation against the malice of his enemy. 16:1. The prayer of David. Hear, O Lord, my justice: attend to my supplication. Give ear unto my prayer, which proceedeth not from deceitful lips. 16:2. Let my judgment come forth from thy countenance: let thy eyes behold the things that are equitable. 16:3. Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me. 16:4. That my mouth may not speak the works of men: for the sake of the words of thy lips, I have kept hard ways. 16:5. Perfect thou my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps be not moved. 16:6. I have cried to thee, for thou, O God, hast heard me: O incline thy ear unto me, and hear my words. 16:7. Shew forth thy wonderful mercies; thou who savest them that trust in thee. 16:8. From them that resist thy right hand keep me, as the apple of thy eye. Protect me under the shadow of thy wings. 16:9. From the face of the wicked who have afflicted me. My enemies have surrounded my soul: 16:10. They have shut up their fat: their mouth hath spoken proudly. Their fat. . .That is, their bowels of compassion: for they have none for me. 16:11. They have cast me forth, and now they have surrounded me: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth. 16:12. They have taken me, as a lion prepared for the prey; and as a young lion dwelling in secret places. 16:13. Arise, O Lord, disappoint him and supplant him; deliver my soul from the wicked one; thy sword 16:14. From the enemies of thy hand. O Lord, divide them from the few of the earth in their life: their belly is filled from thy hidden stores. They are full of children: and they have left to their little ones the rest of their substance. Divide them from the few, etc. . .That is, cut them off from the earth, and the few trifling things thereof; which they are so proud of, or divide them from the few; that is, from thy elect, who are but few; that they may no longer have it in their power to oppress them. It is not meant by way of a curse or imprecation; but, as many other the like passages in the psalms, by way of a prediction, or prophecy of what should come upon them, in punishment of their wickedness. Ibid. Thy hidden stores. . .Thy secret treasures, out of which thou furnishest those earthly goods, which, with a bountiful hand thou hast distributed both to the good and the bad. 16:15. But as for me, I will appear before thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear. Psalms Chapter 17 Diligam te, Domine. David's thanks to God for his delivery from all his enemies. 17:1. Unto the end, for David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this canticle, in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: and he said: 17:2. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength: 17:3. The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and in him will I put my trust. My protector, and the horn of my salvation, and my support. 17:4. Praising, I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies. 17:5. The sorrows of death surrounded me: and the torrents of iniquity troubled me. 17:6. The sorrows of hell encompassed me: and the snares of death prevented me. 17:7. In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God: And he heard my voice from his holy temple: and my cry before him came into his ears. 17:8. The earth shook and trembled: the foundations of the mountains were troubled and were moved, because he was angry with them. 17:9. There went up a smoke in his wrath: and a fire flamed from his face: coals were kindled by it. 17:10. He bowed the heavens, and came down, and darkness was under his feet. 17:11. And he ascended upon the cherubim, and he flew; he flew upon the wings of the winds. 17:12. And he made darkness his covert, his pavilion round about him: dark waters in the clouds of the air. 17:13. At the brightness that was before him the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire. 17:14. And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Highest gave his voice: hail and coals of fire. 17:15. And he sent forth his arrows, and he scattered them: he multiplied lightnings, and troubled them. 17:16. Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were discovered: At thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the spirit of thy wrath. 17:17. He sent from on high, and took me: and received me out of many waters. 17:18. He delivered me from my strongest enemies, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me. 17:19. They prevented me in the day of my affliction: and the Lord became my protector. 17:20. And he brought me forth into a large place: he saved me, because he was well pleased with me. 17:21. And the Lord will reward me according to my justice; and will repay me according to the cleanness of my hands: 17:22. Because I have kept the ways of the Lord; and have not done wickedly against my God. 17:23. For all his judgments are in my sight: and his justices I have not put away from me. 17:24. And I shall be spotless with him: and shall keep myself from my iniquity. 17:25. And the Lord will reward me according to my justice: and according to the cleanness of my hands before his eyes. 17:26. With the holy thou wilt be holy; and with the innocent man thou wilt be innocent: 17:27. And withe the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted. 17:28. For thou wilt save the humble people; but wilt bring down the eyes of the proud. 17:29. For thou lightest my lamp, O Lord: O my God, enlighten my darkness. 17:30. For by thee I shall be delivered from temptation; and through my God I shall go over a wall. 17:31. As for my God, his way is undefiled: the words of the Lord are fire-tried: he is the protector of all that trust in him. 17:32. For who is God but the Lord? or who is God but our God? 17:33. God, who hath girt me with strength; and made my way blameless. 17:34. Who hath made my feet like the feet of harts: and who setteth me upon high places. 17:35. Who teacheth my hands to war: and thou hast made my arms like a brazen bow. 17:36. And thou hast given me the protection of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath held me up: And thy discipline hath corrected me unto the end: and thy discipline, the same shall teach me. 17:37. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; and my feet are not weakened. 17:38. I will pursue after my enemies, and overtake them: and I will not turn again till they are consumed. 17:39. I will break them, and they shall not be able to stand: they shall fall under my feet. 17:40. And thou hast girded me with strength unto battle; and hast subdued under me them that rose up against me. 17:41. And thou hast made my enemies furn their back upon me, and hast destroyed them that hated me. 17:42. They cried, but there was none to save them, to the Lord: but he heard them not. 17:43. And I shall beat them as small as the dust before the wind; I shall bring them to nought, like the dirt in the streets. 17:44. Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people; thou wilt make me head of the Gentiles. 17:45. A people which I knew not, hath served me: at the hearing of the ear they have obeyed me. 17:46. The children that are strangers have lied to me, strange children have faded away, and have halted from their paths. 17:47. The Lord liveth, and blessed by my God, and let the God of my salvation be exalted. 17:48. O God, who avengest me, and subduest the people under me, my deliverer from my enraged enemies. 17:49. And thou wilt lift me up above them that rise up against me: from the unjust man thou wilt deliver me. 17:50. Therefore will I give glory to thee, O Lord, among the nations, and I will sing a psalm to thy name. 17:51. Giving great deliverance to his king, and shewing mercy to David, his anointed: and to his seed for ever. Psalms Chapter 18 Coeli enarrant. The works of God shew forth his glory: his law is greatly to be esteemed and loved. 18:1. Unto the end. A Psalm for David. 18:2. The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. 18:3. Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night sheweth knowledge. 18:4. There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard. 18:5. Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the world. 18:6. He hath set his tabernacle in the sun: and he as a bridegroom coming out of his bridechamber, Hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way: 18:7. His going out is from the end of heaven, And his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat. 18:8. The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls: the testimony of the Lord is faithful, giving wisdom to little ones. 18:9. The justices of the Lord are right, rejoicing hearts: the commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes. 18:10. The fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever: the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves. 18:11. More to be desired than gold and many precious stones: and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. 18:12. For thy servant keepeth them, and in keeping them there is a great reward. 18:13. Who can understand sins? from my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord: 18:14. And from those of others spare thy servant. If they shall have no dominion over me, then shall I be without spot: and I shall be cleansed form the greatest sin. 18:15. And the words of my mouth shall be such as may please: and the meditation of my heart always in thy sight. O Lord, my helper and my Redeemer. Psalms Chapter 19 Exaudiat te Dominus. A prayer for the king. 19:1. Unto the end. A psalm for David. 19:2. May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation: may the name of the God of Jacob protect thee. 19:3. May he send thee help from the sanctuary: and defend thee out of Sion. 19:4. May he be mindful of all thy sacrifices: and may thy whole burntoffering be made fat. 19:5. May he give thee according to thy own heart; and confirm all thy counsels. 19:6. We will rejoice in thy salvation; and in the name of our God we shall be exalted. 19:7. The Lord fulfil all thy petitions: now have I known that the Lord hath saved his anointed. He will hear him from his holy heaven: the salvation of his right hand is in powers. The salvation of his right hand is in powers. . .That is, in strength. His right hand is strong and mighty to save them that trust in him. 19:8. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord, our God. 19:9. They are bound, and have fallen: but we are risen, and are set upright. O Lord, save the king: and hear us in the day that we shall call upon thee. Psalms Chapter 20 Domine, in virtute. Praise to God for Christ's exaltation after his passion. 20:1. Unto the end. A psalm for David. 20:2. In thy strength, O Lord, the king shall joy; and in thy salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly. 20:3. Thou hast given him his heart's desire: and hast not withholden from him the will of his lips. 20:4. For thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness: thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. 20:5. He asked life of thee: and thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever. 20:6. His glory is great in thy salvation: glory and great beauty shalt thou lay upon him. 20:7. For thou shalt give him to be a blessing for ever and ever: thou shalt make him joyful in gladness with thy countenance. 20:8. For the king hopeth in the Lord: and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved. 20:9. Let thy hand be found by all thy enemies: let thy right hand find out all them that hate thee. 20:10. Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire, in the time of thy anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath, and fire shall devour them. 20:11. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth: and their seed from among the children of men. 20:12. For they have intended evils against thee: they have devised counsels which they have not been able to establish. 20:13. For thou shalt make them turn their back: in thy remnants thou shalt prepare their face. In thy remnants thou shalt prepare their face. . .Or thou shalt set thy remnants against their faces. That is, thou shalt make them see what punishments remain for them hereafter from thy justice. Instead of remnants, St. Jerome renders it funes, that is, cords or strings, viz., of the bow of divine justice, from which God directs his arrows against the faces of his enemies. 20:14. Be thou exalted, O Lord, in thy own strength: we will sing and praise thy power. Psalms Chapter 21 Deus Deus meus. Christ's passion: and the conversion of the Gentiles. 21:1. Unto the end, for the morning protection, a psalm for David. 21:2. O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins. The words of my sins. . .That is, the sins of the world, which I have taken upon myself, cry out against me, and are the cause of all my sufferings. 21:3. O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear: and by night, and it shall not be reputed as folly in me. 21:4. But thou dwellest in the holy place, the praise of Israel. 21:5. In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them. 21:6. They cried to thee, and they were saved: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. 21:7. But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people. 21:8. All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head. 21:9. He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him. 21:10. For thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother. 21:11. I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother's womb thou art my God, 21:12. Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me. 21:13. Many calves have surrounded me: fat bulls have besieged me. 21:14.They have opened their mouths against me, as a lion ravening and roaring. 21:15. I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels. 21:16. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death. 21:17. For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet. 21:18. They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me. 21:19. They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots. 21:20. But thou, O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence. 21:21. Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog. 21:22. Save me from the lion's mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns. 21:23. I will declare thy name to my brethren: in the midst of the church will I praise thee. 21:24. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him. 21:25. Let all the seed of Israel fear him: because he hath not slighted nor despised the supplication of the poor man. Neither hath he turned away his face form me: and when I cried to him he heard me. 21:26. With thee is my praise in a great church: I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear him. 21:27. The poor shall eat and shall be filled: and they shall praise the Lord that seek him: their hearts shall live for ever and ever. 21:28. All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord: And all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight. 21:29. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and he shall have dominion over the nations. 21:30. All the fat ones of the earth have eaten and have adored: all they that go down to the earth shall fall before him. 21:31. And to him my soul shall live: and my seed shall serve him. 21:32. There shall be declared to the Lord a generation to come: and the heavens shall shew forth his justice to a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made. Psalms Chapter 22 Dominus regit me. God's spiritual benefits to faithful souls. 22:1. A psalm for David. The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing. Ruleth me. . .In Hebrew, Is my shepherd, viz., to feed, guide, and govern me. 22:2. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: 22:3. He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name's sake. 22:4. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me. 22:5. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreateth me, how goodly is it! 22:6. And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days. Psalms Chapter 23 Domini est terra. Who are they that shall ascend to heaven: Christ's triumphant ascension thither. 23:1. On the first day of the week, a psalm for David. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein. 23:2. For he hath founded it upon the seas; and hath prepared it upon the rivers. 23:3. Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place? 23:4. The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour. 23:5. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour. 23:6. This is the generation of them that seek him, of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob. 23:7. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in. 23:8. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord who is strong and mighty: the Lord mighty in battle. 23:9. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in. 23:10. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory. Psalms Chapter 24 Ad te, Domine, levavi. A prayer for grace, mercy, and protection against our enemies. 24:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. To thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul. 24:2. In thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed. 24:3. Neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on thee shall be confounded. 24:4. Let all them be confounded that act unjust things without cause. Shew, O Lord, thy ways to me, and teach me thy paths. 24:5. Direct me in thy truth, and teach me; for thou art God my Saviour; and on thee have I waited all the day long. 24:6. Remember, O Lord, thy bowels of compassion; and thy mercies that are from the beginning of the world. 24:7. The sins of my youth and my ignorances do not remember. According to thy mercy remember thou me: for thy goodness' sake, O Lord. 24:8. The Lord is sweet and righteous: therefore he will give a law to sinners in the way. 24:9. He will guide the mild in judgment: he will teach the meek his ways. 24:10. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, to them that seek after his covenant and his testimonies. 24:11. For thy name's sake, O Lord, thou wilt pardon my sin: for it is great. 24:12. Who is the man that feareth the Lord? He hath appointed him a law in the way he hath chosen. 24:13. His soul shall dwell in good things: and his seed shall inherit the land. 24:14. The Lord is a firmament to them that fear him: and his covenant shall be made manifest to them. 24:15. My eyes are ever towards the Lord: for he shall pluck my feet out of the snare. 24:16. Look thou upon me, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. 24:17. The troubles of my heart are multiplied: deliver me from my necessities. 24:18. See my abjection and my labour; and forgive me all my sins. 24:19. Consider my enemies for they are multiplied, and have hated me with an unjust hatred. 24:20. Deep thou my soul, and deliver me: I shall not be ashamed, for I have hoped in thee. 24:21. The innocent and the upright have adhered to me: because I have waited on thee. 24:22. Deliver Israel, O God, from all his tribulations. Psalms Chapter 25 Judica me, Domine. David's prayer to God in his distress, to be delivered, that he may come to worship him in his tabernacle. 25:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my innocence: and I have put my trust in the Lord, and shall not be weakened. 25:2. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart. 25:3. For thy mercy is before my eyes; and I am well pleased with thy truth. 25:4. I have not sat with the council of vanity: neither will I go in with the doers of unjust things. 25:5. I have hated the assembly of the malignant; and with the wicked I will not sit. 25:6. I will wash my hands among the innocent; and will compass thy altar, O Lord: 25:7. That I may hear the voice of thy praise: and tell of all thy wondrous works. 25:8. I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where thy glory dwelleth. 25:9. Take not away my soul, O God, with the wicked: nor my life with bloody men: 25:10. In whose hands are iniquities: their right hand is filled with gifts. 25:11. But as for me, I have walked in my innocence: redeem me, and have mercy on me. 25:12. My foot hath stood in the direct way: in the churches I will bless thee, O Lord. Psalms Chapter 26 Dominus illuminatio. David's faith and hope in God. 26:1. The psalm of David before he was anointed. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: of whom shall I be afraid? 26:2. Whilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh. My enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened, and have fallen. 26:3. If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. 26:4. One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple. 26:5. For he hath hidden me in his tabernacle; in the day of evils, he hath protected me in the secret place of his tabernacle. 26:6. He hath exalted me upon a rock: and now he hath lifted up my head above my enemies. I have gone round, and have offered up in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation: I will sing, and recite a psalm to the Lord. 26:7. Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee: have mercy on me and hear me. 26:8. My heart hath said to thee: My face hath sought thee: thy face, O Lord, will I still seek. 26:9. Turn not away thy face from me; decline not in thy wrath from thy servant. Be thou my helper, forsake me not; do not thou despise me, O God my Saviour. 26:10. For my father and my mother have left me: but the Lord hath taken me up. 26:11. Set me, O Lord, a law in thy way, and guide me in the right path, because of my enemies. 26:12. Deliver me not over to the will of them that trouble me; for unjust witnesses have risen up against me; and iniquity hath lied to itself. 26:13. I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. 26:14. Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord. Psalms Chapter 27 Ad te, Domine, clamabo. David's prayer that his enemies may not prevail over him. 27:1. A psalm for David himself. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord: O my God, be not thou silent to me: lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. 27:2. Hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication, when I pray to thee; when I lift up my hands to thy holy temple. 27:3. Draw me not away together with the wicked; and with the workers of iniquity destroy me not: Who speak peace with their neighbour, but evils are in their hearts. 27:4. Give them according to their works, and according to the wickedness of their inventions. According to the works of their hands give thou to them: render to them their reward. 27:5. Because they have not understood the works of the Lord, and the operations of his hands: thou shalt destroy them, and shalt not build them up. 27:6. Blessed be the Lord, for he hath heard the voice of my supplication. 27:7. The Lord is my helper and my protector: in him hath my heart confided, and I have been helped. And my flesh hath flourished again, and with my will I will give praise to him. 27:8. The Lord is the strength of his people, and the protector of the salvation of his anointed. 27:9. Save, O Lord, thy people, and bless thy inheritance: and rule them and exalt them for ever. Psalms Chapter 28 Afferte Domino. An invitation to glorify God, with a commemoration of his mighty works. 28:1. A psalm for David, at the finishing of the tabernacle. Bring to the Lord, O ye children of God: bring to the Lord the offspring of rams. 28:2. Bring to the Lord glory and honour: bring to the Lord glory to his name: adore ye the Lord in his holy court. 28:3. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of majesty hath thundered, The Lord is upon many waters. 28:4. The voice of the Lord is in power; the voice of the Lord in magnificence. 28:5. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars: yea, the Lord shall break the cedars of Libanus. 28:6. And shall reduce them to pieces, as a calf of Libanus, and as the beloved son of unicorns. Shall reduce them to pieces, etc. . .In Hebrew, shall make them to skip like a calf. The psalmist here describes the effects of thunder (which he calls the voice of the Lord) which sometimes breaks down the tallest and strongest trees; and makes their broken branches skip, etc. All this is to be understood mystically of the powerful voice of God's word in his church; which has broken the pride of the great ones of this world, and brought many of them meekly and joyfully to submit their necks to the sweet yoke of Christ. 28:7. The voice of the Lord divideth the flame of fire: 28:8. The voice of the Lord shaketh the desert: and the Lord shall shake the desert of Cades. 28:9. The voice of the Lord prepareth the stags: and he will discover the thick woods: and in his temple all shall speak his glory. 28:10. The Lord maketh the flood to dwell: and the Lord shall sit king for ever. The Lord will give strength to his people: the Lord will bless his people with peace. Psalms Chapter 29 Exaltabo te, Domine. David praiseth God for his deliverance, and his merciful dealings with him. 29:1. A psalm of a canticle, at the dedication of David's house. 29:2. I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast upheld me: and hast not made my enemies to rejoice over me. 29:3. O Lord my God, I have cried to thee, and thou hast healed me. 29:4. Thou hast brought forth, O Lord, my soul from hell: thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit. 29:5. Sing to the Lord, O ye his saints: and give praise to the memory of his holiness. 29:6. For wrath is in his indignation; and life in his good will. In the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness. 29:7. And in my abundance I said: I shall never be moved. 29:8. O Lord, in thy favour, thou gavest strength to my beauty. Thou turnedst away thy face from me, and I became troubled. 29:9. To thee, O Lord, will I cry: and I will make supplication to my God. 29:10. What profit is there in my blood, whilst I go down to corruption? Shall dust confess to thee, or declare thy truth? 29:11. The Lord hath heard, and hath had mercy on me: the Lord became my helper. 29:12. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into joy: thou hast cut my sackcloth, and hast compassed me with gladness: 29:13. To the end that my glory may sing to thee, and I may not regret: O Lord my God, I will give praise to thee for ever. Psalms Chapter 30 In te, Domine, speravi. A prayer of a just man under affliction. 30:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David, in an ecstasy. 30:2. In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded: deliver me in thy justice. 30:3. Bow down thy ear to me: make haste to deliver me. Be thou unto me a God, a protector, and a house of refuge, to save me. 30:4. For thou art my strength and my refuge; and for thy name's sake thou wilt lead me, and nourish me. 30:5. Thou wilt bring me out of this snare, which they have hidden for me: for thou art my protector. 30:6. Into thy hands I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth. 30:7. Thou hast hated them that regard vanities, to no purpose. But I have hoped in the Lord: 30:8. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy. For thou hast regarded my humility, thou hast saved my soul out of distresses. 30:9. And thou hast not shut me up in the hands of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a spacious place. 30:10. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted: my eye is troubled with wrath, my soul, and my belly: 30:11. For my life is wasted with grief: and my years in sighs. My strength is weakened through poverty and my bones are disturbed. 30:12. I am become a reproach among all my enemies, and very much to my neighbours; and a fear to my acquaintance. They that saw me without fled from me. 30:13. I am forgotten as one dead from the heart. I am become as a vessel that is destroyed. 30:14. For I have heard the blame of many that dwell round about. While they assembled together against me, they consulted to take away my life. 30:15. But I have put my trust in thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my God. 30:16. My lots are in thy hands. Deliver me out of the hands of my enemies; and from them that persecute me. 30:17. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me in thy mercy. 30:18. Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed, and be brought down to hell. 30:19. Let deceitful lips be made dumb. Which speak iniquity against the just, with pride and abuse. 30:20. O how great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee! Which thou hast wrought for them that hope in thee, in the sight of the sons of men. 30:21. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face, from the disturbance of men. Thou shalt protect them in thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues. 30:22. Blessed be the Lord, for he hath shewn his wonderful mercy to me in a fortified city. 30:23. But I said in the excess of my mind: I am cast away from before thy eyes. Therefore thou hast heard the voice of my prayer, when I cried to thee. 30:24. O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord will require truth, and will repay them abundantly that act proudly. 30:25. Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the Lord. Psalms Chapter 31 Beati quorum. The second penitential psalm. 31:1. To David himself, understanding. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 31:2. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile. 31:3. Because I was silent my bones grew old; whilst I cried out all the day long. Because I was silent, etc. . .That is, whilst I kept silence, by concealing, or refusing to confess my sins, thy hand was heavy upon me, etc. 31:4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: I am turned in my anguish, whilst the thorn is fastened. I am turned, etc. . .That is, I turn and roll about in my bed to seek for ease in my pain whilst the thorn of thy justice pierces my flesh, and sticks fast in me. Or, I am turned: that is, I am converted to thee, my God, by being brought to a better understanding by thy chastisements. In the Hebrew it is, my moisture is turned into the droughts of the summer. 31:5. I have acknowledged my sin to thee, and my injustice I have not concealed. I said I will confess against my self my injustice to the Lord: and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin. 31:6. For this shall every one that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time. And yet in a flood of many waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. 31:7. Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me: my joy, deliver me from them that surround me. 31:8. I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee in this way, in which thou shalt go: I will fix my eyes upon thee. 31:9. Do not become like the horse and the mule, who have no understanding. With bit and bridle bind fast their jaws, who come not near unto thee. 31:10. Many are the scourges of the sinner, but mercy shall encompass him that hopeth in the Lord. 31:11. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye just, and glory, all ye right of heart. Psalms Chapter 32 Exultate, justi. An exhortation to praise God, and to trust in him. 32:1. A psalm for David. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just: praise becometh the upright. 32:2. Give praise to the Lord on the harp; sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings. 32:3. Sing to him a new canticle, sing well unto him with a loud noise. 32:4. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done with faithfulness. 32:5. He loveth mercy and judgment; the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord. 32:6. By the word of the Lord the heavens were established; and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth: 32:7. Gathering together the waters of the sea, as in a vessel; laying up the depths in storehouses. 32:8. Let all the earth fear the Lord, and let all the inhabitants of the world be in awe of him. 32:9. For he spoke and they were made: he commanded and they were created. 32:10. The Lord bringeth to nought the counsels of nations; and he rejecteth the devices of people, and casteth away the counsels of princes. 32:11. But the counsel of the Lord standeth for ever: the thoughts of his heart to all generations. 32:12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord: the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance. 32:13. The Lord hath looked from heaven: he hath beheld all the sons of men. 32:14. From his habitation which he hath prepared, he hath looked upon all that dwell on the earth. 32:15. He who hath made the hearts of every one of them: who understandeth all their works. 32:16. The king is not saved by a great army: nor shall the giant be saved by his own great strength. 32:17. Vain is the horse for safety: neither shall he be saved by the abundance of his strength. 32:18. Behold the eyes of the Lord are on them that fear him: and on them that hope in his mercy. 32:19. To deliver their souls from death; and feed them in famine. 32:20. Our soul waiteth for the Lord: for he is our helper and protector. 32:21. For in him our heart shall rejoice: and in his holy name we have trusted. 32:22. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have hooped in thee. Psalms Chapter 33 Benedicam Dominum. An exhortation to the praise, and service of God. 33:1. For David, when he changed his countenance before Achimelech, who dismissed him, and he went his way. [1 Kings 21.] 33:2. I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be always in my mouth. 33:3. In the Lord shall my soul be praised: let the meek hear and rejoice. 33:4. O magnify the Lord with me; and let us extol his name together. 33:5. I sought the Lord, and he heard me; and he delivered me from all my troubles. 33:6. Come ye to him and be enlightened: and your faces shall not be confounded. 33:7. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him: and saved him out of all his troubles. 33:8. The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him: and shall deliver them. 33:9. O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet: blessed is the man that hopeth in him. 33:10. Fear the Lord, all ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. 33:11. The rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good. 33:12. Come, children, hearken to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 33:13. Who is the man that desireth life: who liveth to see good days? 33:14. Keep thy tongue form evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. 33:15. Turn away from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it. 33:16. The eyes of the Lord are upon the just: and his ears unto their prayers. 33:17. But the countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil things: to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. 33:18. The just cried, and the Lord heard them: and delivered them out of all their troubles. 33:19. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart: and he will save the humble of spirit. 33:20. Many are the afflictions of the just; but out of them all will the Lord deliver them. 33:21. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart: and he will save the humble of spirit. 33:22. The death of the wicked is very evil: and they that hate the just shall be guilty. 33:23. The Lord will redeem the souls of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall offend. Psalms Chapter 34 Judica, Domine, nocentes me. David, in the person of Christ, prayeth against his persecutors: prophetically foreshewing the punishments that shall fall upon them. 34:1. For David himself. Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me. 34:2. Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me. 34:3. Bring out the sword, and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul: I am thy salvation. 34:4. Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and be confounded that devise evil against me. 34:5. Let them become as dust before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord straiten them. 34:6. Let their way become dark and slippery; and let the angel of the Lord pursue them. 34:7. For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction: without cause they have upbraided my soul. 34:8. Let the snare which he knoweth not come upon him: and let the net which he hath hidden catch him: and into that very snare let them fall. 34:9. But my soul shall rejoice in the Lord; and shall be delighted in his salvation. 34:10. All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like to thee? Who deliverest the poor from the hand of them that are stronger than he; the needy and the poor from them that strip him. 34:11. Unjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew not. 34:12. They repaid me evil for good: to the depriving me of my soul. 34:13. But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom. 34:14. As a neighbour and as an own brother, so did I please: as one mourning and sorrowful so was I humbled. 34:15. But they rejoiced against me, and came together: scourges were gathered together upon me, and I knew not. 34:16. They were separated, and repented not: they tempted me, they scoffed at me with scorn: they gnashed upon me with their teeth. 34:17. Lord, when wilt thou look upon me? rescue thou my soul from their malice: my only one from the lions. 34:18. I will give thanks to thee in a great church; I will praise thee in a strong people. 34:19. Let not them that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: who have hated me without cause, and wink with the eyes. 34:20. For they spoke indeed peaceably to me; and speaking in the anger of the earth they devised guile. 34:21. And they opened their mouth wide against me; they said: Well done, well done, our eyes have seen it. 34:22. Thou hast seen, O Lord, be not thou silent: O Lord, depart not from me. 34:23. Arise, and be attentive to my judgment: to my cause, my God, and my Lord. 34:24. Judge me, O Lord my God according to thy justice, and let them not rejoice over me. 34:25. Let them not say in their hearts: It is well, it is well, to our mind: neither let them say: We have swallowed him up. 34:26. Let them blush: and be ashamed together, who rejoice at my evils. Let them be clothed with confusion and shame, who speak great things against me. 34:27. Let them rejoice and be glad, who are well pleased with my justice, and let them say always: The Lord be magnified, who delights in the peace of his servant. 34:28. And my tongue shall meditate thy justice, thy praise all the day long. Psalms Chapter 35 Dixit injustus. The malice of sinners, and the goodness of God. 35:1. Unto the end, for the servant of God, David himself. 35:2. The unjust hath said within himself, that he would sin: there is no fear of God before his eyes. 35:3. For in his sight he hath done deceitfully, that his iniquity may be found unto hatred. Unto hatred. . .That is, hateful to God. 35:4. The words of his mouth are iniquity and guile: he would not understand that he might do well. 35:5. He hath devised iniquity on his bed, he hath set himself on every way that is not good: but evil he hath not hated. 35:6. O Lord, thy mercy is in heaven, and thy truth reacheth even to the clouds. 35:7. Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord: 35:8. O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God! But the children of men shall put their trust under the covert of thy wings. 35:9. They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure. 35:10. For with thee is the fountain of life; and in thy light we shall see light. 35:11. Extend thy mercy to them that know thee, and thy justice to them that are right in heart. 35:12. Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me. 35:13. There the workers of iniquity are fallen, they are cast out, and could not stand. Psalms Chapter 36 Noli aemulari. An exhortation to despise this world; and the short prosperity of the wicked; and to trust in Providence. 36:1. Be not emulous of evildoers; nor envy them that work iniquity. 36:2. For they shall shortly wither away as grass, and as the green herbs shall quickly fall. 36:3. Trust in the Lord, and do good, and dwell in the land, and thou shalt be fed with its riches. 36:4. Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart. 36:5. Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in him, and he will do it. 36:6. And he will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. 36:7. Be subject to the Lord and pray to him. Envy not the man who prospereth in his way; the man who doth unjust things. 36:8. Cease from anger, and leave rage; have no emulation to do evil. 36:9. For evildoers shall be cut off: but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land. 36:10. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: and thou shalt seek his place, and shalt not find it. 36:11. But the meek shall inherit the land, and shall delight in abundance of peace. 36:12. The sinner shall watch the just man: and shall gnash upon him with his teeth. 36:13. But the Lord shall laugh at him: for he foreseeth that his day shall come. 36:14. The wicked have drawn out the sword: they have bent their bow. To cast down the poor and needy, to kill the upright of heart. 36:15. Let their sword enter into their own hearts, and let their bow be broken. 36:16. Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked. 36:17. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken in pieces; but the Lord strengtheneth the just. 36:18. The Lord knoweth the days of the undefiled; and their inheritance shall be for ever. 36:19. They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled: 36:20. Because the wicked shall perish. And the enemies of the Lord, presently after they shall be honoured and exalted, shall come to nothing and vanish like smoke. 36:21. The sinner shall borrow, and not pay again; but the just sheweth mercy and shall give. 36:22. For such as bless him shall inherit the land: but such as curse him shall perish. 36:23. With the Lord shall the steps of a man be directed, and he shall like well his way. 36:24. When he shall fall he shall not be bruised, for the Lord putteth his hand under him. 36:25. I have been young and now am old; and I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. 36:26. He sheweth mercy, and lendeth all the day long; and his seed shall be in blessing. 36:27. Decline from evil and do good, and dwell for ever and ever. 36:28. For the Lord loveth judgment, and will not forsake his saints: they shall be preserved for ever. The unjust shall be punished, and the seed of the wicked shall perish. 36:29. But the just shall inherit the land, and shall dwell therein for evermore. 36:30. The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom: and his tongue shall speak judgment. 36:31. The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be supplanted. 36:32. The wicked watcheth the just man, and seeketh to put him to death, 36:33. But the Lord will not leave him in his hands; nor condemn him when he shall be judged. 36:34. Expect the Lord and keep his way: and he will exalt thee to inherit the land: when the sinners shall perish thou shalt see. 36:35. I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. 36:36. And I passed by, and lo, he was not: and I sought him and his place was not found. 36:37. Keep innocence, and behold justice: for there are remnants for the peaceable man. 36:38. But the unjust shall be destroyed together: the remnants of the wicked shall perish. 36:39. But the salvation of the just is from the Lord, and he is their protector in the time of trouble. 36:40. And the Lord will help them and deliver them: and he will rescue them from the wicked, and save them because they have hoped in him. Psalms Chapter 37 Domine, ne in furore. A prayer of a penitent for the remission of his sins. The third penitential psalm. 37:1. A psalm for David, for a remembrance of the sabbath. For a remembrance. . .Viz., of our miseries and sins: and to be sung on the sabbath day. 37:2. Rebuke me not, O Lord, in thy indignation; nor chastise me in thy wrath. 37:3. For thy arrows are fastened in me: and thy hand hath been strong upon me. 37:4. There is no health in my flesh, because of thy wrath: there is no peace for my bones, because of my sins. 37:5. For my iniquities are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are become heavy upon me. 37:6. My sores are putrified and corrupted, because of my foolishness. 37:7. I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end: I walked sorrowful all the day long. 37:8. For my loins are filled with illusions; and there is no health in my flesh. 37:9. I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly: I roared with the groaning of my heart. 37:10. Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not hidden from thee. 37:11. My heart is troubled, my strength hath left me, and the light of my eyes itself is not with me. 37:12. My friends and my neighbours have drawn near, and stood against me. And they that were near me stood afar off: 37:13. And they that sought my soul used violence. And they that sought evils to me spoke vain things, and studied deceits all the day long. 37:14. But I, as a deaf man, heard not: and as a dumb man not opening his mouth. 37:15. And I became as a man that heareth not: and that hath no reproofs in his mouth. 37:16. For in thee, O Lord, have I hoped: thou wilt hear me, O Lord my God. 37:17. For I said: Lest at any time my enemies rejoice over me: and whilst my feet are moved, they speak great things against me. 37:18. For I am ready for scourges: and my sorrow is continually before me. 37:19. For I will declare my iniquity: and I will think for my sin. 37:20. But my enemies live, and are stronger than I: and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. 37:21. They that render evil for good, have detracted me, because I followed goodness. 37:22. For sake me not, O Lord my God: do not thou depart from me. 37:23. Attend unto my help, O Lord, the God of my salvation. Psalms Chapter 38 Dixi custodiam. A just man's peace and patience in his sufferings; considering the vanity of the world, and the providence of God. 38:1. Unto the end, for Idithun himself, a canticle of David. 38:2. I said: I will take heed to my ways: that I sin not with my tongue. I have set a guard to my mouth, when the sinner stood against me. 38:3. I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence from good things: and my sorrow was renewed. 38:4. My heart grew hot within me: and in my meditation a fire shall flame out. 38:5. I spoke with my tongue: O Lord, make me know my end. And what is the number of my days: that I may know what is wanting to me. 38:6. Behold thou hast made my days measurable. and my substance is as nothing before thee. And indeed all things are vanity: every man living. 38:7. Surely man passeth as an image: yea, and he is disquieted in vain. He storeth up: and he knoweth not for whom he shall gather these things. 38:8. And now what is my hope? is it not the Lord? and my substance is with thee. 38:9. Deliver thou me from all my iniquities: thou hast made me a reproach to the fool. 38:10. I was dumb, and I opened not my mouth, because thou hast done it. 38:11. Remove thy scourges from me. The strength of thy hand hath made me faint in rebukes: 38:12. Thou hast corrected man for iniquity. And thou hast made his soul to waste away like a spider: surely in vain is any man disquieted. 38:13. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and my supplication: give ear to my tears. Be no silent: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were. 38:14. O forgive me, that I may be refreshed, before I go hence, and be no more. Psalms Chapter 39 Expectans expectavi. Christ's coming, and redeeming mankind. 39:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David himself. 39:2. With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me. 39:3. And he heard my prayers, and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs. And he set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps. 39:4. And he put a new canticle into my mouth, a song to our God. Many shall see, and shall fear: and they shall hope in the Lord. 39:5. Blessed is the man whose trust is in the name of the Lord; and who hath not had regard to vanities, and lying follies. 39:6. Thou hast multiplied thy wonderful works, O Lord my God: and in thy thoughts there is no one like to thee. I have declared and I have spoken they are multiplied above number. 39:7. Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; but thou hast pierced ears for me. Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require: 39:8. Then said I, Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me 39:9. That I should do thy will: O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart. 39:10. I have declared thy justice in a great church, lo, I will not restrain my lips: O Lord, thou knowest it. 39:11. I have not hid thy justice within my heart: I have declared thy truth and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council. 39:12. Withhold not thou, O Lord, thy tender mercies from me: thy mercy and thy truth have always upheld me. 39:13. For evils without number have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I was not able to see. They are multiplied above the hairs of my head: and my heart hath forsaken me. My iniquities. . .That is, the sins of all mankind, which I have taken upon me. 39:14. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. look down, O Lord, to help me. 39:15. Let them be confounded and ashamed together, that seek after my soul to take it away. Let them be turned backward and be ashamed that desire evils to me. 39:16. Let them immediately bear their confusion, that say to me: 'T is well, t' is well. 'T is well. . .The Hebrew here is an interjection of insult and derision, like the Vah. Matt. 27.49. 39:17. Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say always: The Lord be magnified. 39:18. But I am a beggar and poor: the Lord is careful for me. Thou art my helper and my protector: O my God, be not slack. Psalms Chapter 40 Beatus qui intelligit. The happiness of him that shall believe in Christ; notwithstanding the humility and poverty in which he shall come: the malice of his enemies, especially of the traitor Judas. 40:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David himself. 40:2. Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day. 40:3. The Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth: and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies. 40:4. The Lord help him on his bed of sorrow: thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness. 40:5. I said: O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee. 40:6. My enemies have spoken evils against me: when shall he die and his name perish? 40:7. And if he came in to see me, he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out and spoke to the same purpose. 40:8. All my enemies whispered together against me: they devised evils to me. 40:9. They determined against me an unjust word: shall he that sleepeth rise again no more? 40:10. For even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me. 40:11. But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise my up again: and I will requite them. 40:12. By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me. 40:13. But thou hast upheld me by reason of my innocence: and hast established me in thy sight for ever. 40:14. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it. Psalms Chapter 41 Quemadmodum desiderat. The fervent desire of the just after God: hope in afflictions. 41:1. Unto the end, understanding for the sons of Core. 41:2. As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God. 41:3. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? 41:4. My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? 41:5. These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God: With the voice of joy and praise; the noise of one feasting. 41:6. Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, 41:7. And my God. My soul is troubled within my self: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and Hermoniim, from the little hill. 41:8. Deep calleth on deep, at the noise of thy flood-gates. All thy heights and thy billows have passed over me. 41:9. In the daytime the Lord hath commanded his mercy; and a canticle to him in the night. With me is prayer to the God of my life. 41:10. I will say to God: Thou art my support. Why hast thou forgotten me? and why go I mourning, whilst my enemy afflicteth me? 41:11. Whilst my bones are broken, my enemies who trouble me have reproached me; Whilst they say to me day by day: Where is thy God? 41:12. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? Hope thou in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God. Psalms Chapter 42 Judica me, Deus. The prophet aspireth after the temple and altar of God. 42:1. A psalm for David. Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. 42:2. For thou art God my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me? 42:3. Sent forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles. 42:4. And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth. 42:5. To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? 42:6. Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God. Psalms Chapter 43 Deus auribus nostris. The church commemorates former favours, and present afflictions; under which she prays for succour. 43:1. Unto the end, for the sons of Core, to give understanding. 43:2. We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us, The work thou hast wrought in their days, and in the days of old. 43:3. Thy hand destroyed the Gentiles, and thou plantedst them: thou didst afflict the people and cast them out. 43:4. For they got not the possession of the land by their own sword: neither did their own arm save them. But thy right hand and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance: because thou wast pleased with them. 43:5. Thou art thyself my king and my God, who commandest the saving of Jacob. 43:6. Through thee we will push down our enemies with the horn: and through thy name we will despise them that rise up against us. 43:7. For I will not trust in my bow: neither shall my sword save me. 43:8. But thou hast saved us from them that afflict us: and hast put them to shame that hate us. 43:9. In God shall we glory all the day long: and in thy name we will give praise for ever. 43:10. But now thou hast cast us off, and put us to shame: and thou , O God, wilt not go out with our armies. 43:11. Thou hast made us turn our back to our enemies: and they that hated us plundered for themselves. 43:12. Thou hast given us up like sheep to be eaten: thou hast scattered us among the nations. 43:13. Thou hast sold thy people for no price: and there was no reckoning in the exchange of them. 43:14. Thou hast made us a reproach to our neighbours, a scoff and derision to them that are round about us. 43:15. Thou hast made us a byword among the Gentiles: a shaking of the head among the people. 43:16. All the day long my shame is before me: and the confusion of my face hath covered me, 43:17. At the voice of him that reproacheth and detracteth me: at the face of the enemy and persecutor. 43:18. All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten thee: and we have not done wickedly in thy covenant. 43:19. And our heart hath not turned back: neither hast thou turned aside our steps from thy way. 43:20. For thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction: and the shadow of death hath covered us. 43:21. If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread forth our hands to a strange god: 43:22. Shall not God search out these things: for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. 43:23. Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end. 43:24. Why turnest thou thy face away? and forgettest our want and our trouble? 43:25. For our soul is humbled down to the dust: our belly cleaveth to the earth. 43:26. Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for thy name's sake. Psalms Chapter 44 Eructavit cor meum. The excellence of Christ's kingdom, and the endowments of his church. 44:1. Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the sons of Core, for understanding. A canticle for the Beloved. For them that shall be changed. . .i.e., for souls happily changed, by being converted to God.--Ibid. The Beloved. . .Viz., Our Lord Jesus Christ. 44:2. My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the king: My tongue is the pen of a scrivener that writeth swiftly. 44:3. Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips; therefore hath God blessed thee for ever. 44:4. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty. 44:5. With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously, and reign. Because of truth and meekness and justice: and thy right hand shall conduct thee wonderfully. 44:6. Thy arrows are sharp: under thee shall people fall, into the hearts of the king's enemies. 44:7. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. 44:8. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 44:9. Myrrh and stacte and cassia perfume thy garments, from the ivory houses: out of which 44:10. The daughters of kings have delighted thee in thy glory. The queen stood on thy right hand, in gilded clothing; surrounded with variety. 44:11. Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear: and forget thy people and thy father's house. 44:12. And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty; for he is the Lord thy God, and him they shall adore. 44:13. And the daughters of Tyre with gifts, yea, all the rich among the people, shall entreat thy countenance. 44:14. All the glory of the king's daughter is within in golden borders, 44:15. Clothed round about with varieties. After her shall virgins be brought to the king: her neighbours shall be brought to thee. 44:16. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they shall be brought into the temple of the king. 44:17. Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee: thou shalt make them princes over all the earth. 44:18. They shall remember thy name throughout all generations. Therefore shall people praise thee for ever; yea, for ever and ever. Psalms Chapter 45 Deus noster refugium. The church in persecution trusteth in the protection of God. 45:1. Unto the end, for the sons of Core, for the hidden. 45:2. Our God is our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles, which have found us exceedingly. 45:3. Therefore we will not fear, when the earth shall be troubled; and the mountains shall be removed into the heart of the sea. 45:4. Their waters roared and were troubled: the mountains were troubled with his strength. 45:5. The stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful: the most High hath sanctified his own tabernacle. 45:6. God is in the midst thereof, it shall not be moved: God will help it in the morning early. 45:7. Nations were troubled, and kingdoms were bowed down: he uttered his voice, the earth trembled. 45:8. The Lord of armies is with us: the God of Jacob is our protector. 45:9. Come and behold ye the works of the Lord: what wonders he hath done upon earth, 45:10. Making wars to cease even to the end of the earth. He shall destroy the bow, and break the weapons: and the shield he shall burn in the fire. 45:11. Be still and see that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. 45:12. The Lord of armies is with us: the God of Jacob is our protector. Psalms Chapter 46 Omnes gentes, plaudite. The Gentiles are invited to praise God for the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. 46:1. Unto the end, for the sons of Core. 46:2. O clap your hands, all ye nations: shout unto God with the voice of joy, 46:3. For the Lord is high, terrible: a great king over all the earth. 46:4. He hath subdued the people under us; and the nations under our feet. 46:5. He hath chosen for us his inheritance, the beauty of Jacob which he hath love. 46:6. God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of trumpet. 46:7. Sing praises to our God, sing ye: sing praises to our king, sing ye. 46:8. For God is the king of all the earth: sing ye wisely. 46:9. God shall reign over the nations: God sitteth on his holy throne. 46:10. The princes of the people are gathered together, with the God of Abraham: for the strong gods of the earth are exceedingly exalted. Psalms Chapter 47 Magnus Dominus. God is greatly to be praised for the establishment of his church. 47:1. A psalm of a canticle, for the sons of Core, on the second day of the week. 47:2. Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in his holy mountain. 47:3. With the joy of the whole earth is mount Sion founded, on the sides of the north, the city of the great king. 47:4. In her houses shall God be known, when he shall protect her. 47:5. For behold the kings of the earth assembled themselves: they gathered together. 47:6. So they saw, and they wondered, they were troubled, they were moved: 47:7. Trembling took hold of them. There were pains as of a woman in labour. 47:8. With a vehement wind thou shalt break in pieces the ships of Tharsis. 47:9. As we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God hath founded it for ever. 47:10. We have received thy mercy, O God, in the midst of thy temple. 47:11. According to thy name, O God, so also is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of justice. 47:12. Let mount Sion rejoice, and the daughters of Juda be glad; because of thy judgments, O Lord. 47:13. Surround Sion, and encompass her: tell lye in her towers. 47:14. Set your hearts on her strength; and distribute her houses, that ye may relate it in another generation. 47:15. For this is God, our God unto eternity, and for ever and ever: he shall rule us for evermore. Psalms Chapter 48 Audite haec, omnes gentes. The folly of worldlings, who live on in sin, without thinking of death or hell. 48:1. Unto the end, a psalm for the sons of Core. 48:2. Hear these things, all ye nations: give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world. 48:3. All you that are earthborn, and you sons of men: both rich and poor together. 48:4. My mouth shall speak wisdom: and the meditation of my heart understanding. 48:5. I will incline my ear to a parable; I will open my proposition on the psaltery. 48:6. Why shall I fear in the evil day? the iniquity of my heel shall encompass me. The iniquity of my heel. . .That is, the iniquity of my steps or ways: or the iniquity of my pride, with which as with the heel, I have spurned and kicked at my neighbours: or the iniquity of my heel, that is, the iniquity in which I shall be found in death. The meaning of this verse is, Why should I now indulge those passions and sinful affections, or commit now those sins, which will cause me so much fear and anguish in the evil day; when the sorrows of death shall compass me, and the perils of hell shall find me? 48:7. They that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches, They that trust, etc. . .As much as to say, let them fear that trust in their strength or riches: for they have great reason to fear: seeing no brother or other man, how much a friend soever, can by any price or labour rescue them from death. 48:8. No brother can redeem, nor shall man redeem: he shall not give to God his ransom, 48:9. Nor the price of the redemption of his soul: and shall labour for ever, And shall labour for ever, etc. . .This seems to be a continuation of the foregoing sentence: as much as to say no man can by any price or ransom prolong his life, that so he may still continue to labour here, and live to the end of the world. Others understand it of the eternal sorrows, and dying life of hell, which is the dreadful consequence of dying in sin. 48:10. And shall still live unto the end. 48:11. He shall not see destruction, when he shall see the wise dying: the senseless and the fool shall perish together: And they shall leave their riches to strangers: He shall not see destruction, etc. . .Or, shall he not see destruction? As much as to say, however thoughtless he may be of his death, he must not expect to escape; when even the wise and the good are not exempt from dying. 48:12. And their sepulchres shall be their houses for ever. Their dwelling places to all generations: they have called their lands by their names. They have called, etc. . .That is, they have left their names on their graves, which alone remain of their lands. 48:13. And man when he was in honour did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them. 48:14. This way of theirs is a stumblingblock to them: and afterwards they shall delight in their mouth. They shall delight in their mouth. . .Notwithstanding the wretched way in which they walk, they shall applaud themselves with their mouths, and glory in their doings. 48:15. They are laid in hell like sheep: death shall feed upon them. And the just shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their help shall decay in hell from their glory. In the morning. . .That is, in the resurrection to a new life; when the just shall judge and condemn the wicked. Ibid. From their glory. . .That is, when their short-lived glory in this world shall be past, and be no more. 48:16. But God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, when he shall receive me. 48:17. Be not thou afraid, when a man shall be made rick, and when the glory of his house shall be increased. 48:18. For when he shall die he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him. 48:19. For in his lifetime his soul will be blessed: and he will praise thee when thou shalt do well to him. 48:20. He shall go in to the generations of his fathers: and he shall never see light. 48:21. Man when he was in honour did not understand: he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them. Psalms Chapter 49 Deus deorum. The coming of Christ: who prefers virtue and inward purity before the blood of victims. 49:1. A psalm for Asaph. The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken: and he hath called the earth. From the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof: 49:2. Out of Sion the loveliness of his beauty. 49:3. God shall come manifestly: our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. A fire shall burn before him: and a mighty tempest shall be round about him. 49:4. He shall call heaven from above, and the earth, to judge his people. 49:5. Gather ye together his saints to him: who set his covenant before sacrifices. 49:6. And the heavens shall declare his justice: for God is judge. 49:7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak: O Israel, and I will testify to thee: I am God, thy God. 49:8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices: and thy burnt offerings are always in my sight. 49:9. I will not take calves out of thy house: nor he goats out of thy flocks. 49:10. For all the beasts of the woods are mine: the cattle on the hills, and the oxen. 49:11. I know all the fowls of the air: and with me is the beauty of the field. 49:12. If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 49:13. Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? or shall I drink the blood of goats? 49:14. Offer to God the sacrifice of praise: and pay thy vows to the most High. 49:15. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. 49:16. But to the sinner God hath said: Why dost thou declare my justices, and take my covenant in thy mouth? 49:17. Seeing thou hast hated discipline: and hast cast my words behind thee. 49:18. If thou didst see a thief thou didst run with him: and with adulterers thou hast been a partaker. 49:19. Thy mouth hath abounded with evil, and thy tongue framed deceits. 49:20. Sitting thou didst speak against thy brother, and didst lay a scandal against thy mother's son: 49:21. These things hast thou done, and I was silent. Thou thoughtest unjustly that I should be like to thee: but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face. 49:22. Understand these things, you that forget God; lest he snatch you away, and there be none to deliver you. 49:23. The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me: and there is the way by which I will shew him the salvation of God. Psalms Chapter 50 Miserere. The repentance and confession of David after his sin. The fourth penitential psalm. 50:1. Unto the end, a psalm of David, 50:2. When Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had sinned with Bethsabee. [2 Kings 12.] 50:3. Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity. 50:4. Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 50:5. For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me. 50:6. To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee: that thou mayst be justified in thy words, and mayst overcome when thou art judged. 50:7. For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me. 50:8. For behold thou hast loved truth: the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast made manifest to me. 50:9. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. 50:10. To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness: and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice. 50:11. Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 50:12. Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels. 50:13. Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 50:14. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit. 50:15. I will teach the unjust thy ways: and the wicked shall be converted to thee. 50:16. Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall extol thy justice. 50:17. O Lord, thou wilt open my lips: and my mouth shall declare thy praise. 50:18. For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted. 50:19. A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. 50:20. Deal favourably, O Lord, in thy good will with Sion; that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up. 50:21. Then shalt thou accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and whole burnt offerings: then shall they lay calves upon thy altar. Psalms Chapter 51 Quid gloriaris. David condemneth the wickedness of Doeg, and foretelleth his destruction. 51:1. Unto the end, understanding for David, 51:2. When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul: David went to the house of Achimelech. 51:3. Why dost thou glory in malice, thou that art mighty in iniquity? 51:4. All the day long thy tongue hath devised injustice: as a sharp razor, thou hast wrought deceit. 51:5. Thou hast loved malice more than goodness: and iniquity rather than to speak righteousness. 51:6. Thou hast loved all the words of ruin, O deceitful tongue. 51:7. Therefore will God destroy thee for ever: he will pluck thee out, and remove thee from thy dwelling place: and thy root out of the land of the living. 51:8. The just shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, and say: 51:9. Behold the man that made not God his helper: But trusted in the abundance of his riches: and prevailed in his vanity. 51:10. But I, as a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God for ever, yea for ever and ever. 51:11. I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name, for it is good in the sight of thy saints. Psalms Chapter 52 Dixit insipiens. The general corruption of man before the coming of Christ. 52:1. Unto the end, for Maeleth, understandings to David. The fool said in his heart: There is no God. Maeleth. . .Or Machalath. A musical instrument, or a chorus of musicians, for St. Jerome renders it, per chorum. 52:2. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities: there is none that doth good. 52:3. God looked down from heaven on the children of men: to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. 52:4. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. 52:5. Shall not all the workers of iniquity know, who eat up my people as they eat bread? 52:6. They have not called upon God: there have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. For God hath scattered the bones of them that please men: they have been confounded, because God hath despised them. God hath scattered the bones, etc. . .That is, God has brought to nothing the strength of all those that seek to please men, to the prejudice of their duty to their Maker. 52:7. Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? when God shall bring back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Psalms Chapter 53 Deus, in nomine tuo. A prayer for help in distress. 53:1. Unto the end, in verses, understanding for David. 53:2. When the en of Ziph had come and said to Saul: Is not David hidden with us? [1 Kings 23.19] 53:3. Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me in thy strength. 53:4. O God, hear my prayer: give ear to the words of my mouth. 53:5. For strangers have risen up against me; and the mighty have sought after my soul: and they have not set God before their eyes. 53:6. For behold God is my helper: and the Lord is the protector of my soul. 53:7. Turn back the evils upon my enemies; and cut them off in thy truth. 53:8. I will freely sacrifice to thee, and will give praise, O God, to thy name: because it is good: 53:9. For thou hast delivered me out of all trouble: and my eye hath looked down upon my enemies. Psalms Chapter 54 Exaudi, Deus. A prayer of a just man under persecution from the wicked. It agrees to Christ persecuted by the Jews, and betrayed by Judas. 54:1. Unto the end, in verses, understanding for David. 54:2. Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my supplication: 54:3. Be attentive to me and hear me. I am grieved in my exercise; and am troubled, 54:4. At the voice of the enemy, and at the tribulation of the sinner. For they have cast iniquities upon me: and in wrath they were troublesome to me. 54:5. My heart is troubled within me: and the fear of death is fallen upon me. 54:6. Fear and trembling are come upon me: and darkness hath covered me. 54:7. And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest? 54:8. Lo, I have gone far off flying away; and I abode in the wilderness. 54:9. I waited for him that hath saved me from pusillanimity of spirit, and a storm. 54:10. Cast down, O Lord, and divide their tongues; for I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city. 54:11. Day and night shall iniquity surround it upon its walls: and in the midst thereof are labour, 54:12. And injustice. And usury and deceit have not departed from its streets. 54:13. For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden my self from him. 54:14. But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar, 54:15. Who didst take sweetmeats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent. 54:16. Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell. For there is wickedness in their dwellings: in the midst of them. Let death, etc. . .This, and such like imprecations which occur in the psalms, are delivered prophetically; that is, by way of foretelling the punishments which shall fall upon the wicked from divine justice, and approving the righteous ways of God: but not by way of ill will, or uncharitable curses, which the law of God disallows. 54:17. But I have cried to God: and the Lord will save me. 54:18. Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice. 54:19. He shall redeem my soul in peace from them that draw near to me: for among many they were with me. Among many, etc. . .That is, they that drew near to attack me were many in company all combined to fight against me. 54:20. God shall hear, and the Eternal shall humble them. For there is no change with them, and they have not feared God: 54:21. He hath stretched forth his hand to repay. They have defiled his covenant, 54:22. They are divided by the wrath of his countenance, and his heart hath drawn near. His words are smoother than oil, and the same are darts. They are divided, etc. . .Dispersed, scattered, and brought to nothing, by the wrath of God; who looks with indignation on their wicked and deceitful ways. 54:23. Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall not suffer the just to waver for ever. 54:24. But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee, O Lord. Psalms Chapter 55 Miserere mei, Deus. A prayer of David in danger and distress. 55:1. Unto the end, for a people that is removed at a distance form the sanctuary: for David, for an inscription of a title (or pillar) when the Philistines held him in Geth. 55:2. Have mercy on me, O God, for man hath trodden me under foot; all the day long he hath afflicted me fighting against me. 55:3. My enemies have trodden on me all the day long; for they are many that make war against me. 55:4. From the height of the day I shall fear: but I will trust in thee. The height of the day. . .That is, even at noonday, when the sun is the highest, I am still in danger. 55:5. In God I will praise my words, in God I have put my trust: I will not fear what flesh can do against me. My words. . .The words or promises God has made in my favour. 55:6. All the day long they detested my words: all their thoughts were against me unto evil. 55:7. They will dwell and hide themselves: they will watch my heel. As they have waited for my soul, 55:8. For nothing shalt thou save them: in thy anger thou shalt break the people in pieces. O God, For nothing shalt thou save them. . .That is, since they lie in wait to ruin my soul, thou shalt for no consideration favour or assist them, but execute thy justice upon them. 55:9. I have declared to thee my life: thou hast set me tears in thy sight, As also in thy promise. 55:10. Then shall my enemies be turned back. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, behold I know thou art my God. 55:11. In God will I praise the word, in the Lord will I praise his speech. In God have I hoped, I will not fear what man can do to me. 55:12. In me, O God, are vows to thee, which I will pay, praises to thee: 55:13. Because thou hast delivered my soul from death, my feet from falling: that I may please in the sight of God, in the light of the living. Psalms Chapter 56 Miserere mei, Deus. The prophet prays in his affliction, and praises God for his delivery. 56:1. Unto the end, destroy not, for David, for an inscription of a title, when he fled from Saul into the cave. [1 Kings 24.] Destroy not. . .Suffer me not to be destroyed. 56:2. Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee. And in the shadow of thy wings will I hope, until iniquity pass away. 56:3. I will cry to God the most high; to God who hath done good to me. 56:4. He hath sent from heaven and delivered me: he hath made them a reproach that trod upon me. God hath sent his mercy and his truth, 56:5. And he hath delivered my soul from the midst of the young lions. I slept troubled. The sons of men, whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. 56:6. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth. 56:7. They prepared a snare for my feet; and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, and they are fallen into it. 56:8. My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing, and rehearse a psalm. 56:9. Arise, O my glory, arise psaltery and harp: I will arise early. 56:10. I will give praise to thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing a psalm to thee among the nations. 56:11. For thy mercy is magnified even to the heavens: and thy truth unto the clouds. 56:12. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth. Psalms Chapter 57 Si vere utique. David reproveth the wicked, and foretelleth their punishment. 57:1. Unto the end, destroy not, for David, for an inscription of a title. 57:2. If in very deed ye speak justice: judge right things, ye sons of men. 57:3. For in your heart you work iniquity: your hands forge injustice in the earth. 57:4. The wicked are alienated from the womb; they have gone astray from the womb: they have spoken false things. 57:5. Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent: like the deaf asp that stoppeth her ears: 57:6. Which will not hear the voice of the charmers; nor of the wizard that charmeth wisely. 57:7. God shall break in pieces their teeth in their mouth: the Lord shall break the grinders of the lions. 57:8. They shall come to nothing, like water running down; he hath bent his bow till they be weakened. 57:9. Like wax that melteth they shall be taken away: fire hath fallen on them, and they shall not see the sun. 57:10. Before your thorns could know the brier; he swalloweth them up, as alive, in his wrath. Before your thorns, etc. . .That is, before your thorns grow up, so as to become strong briers, they shall be overtaken and consumed by divine justice, swallowing them up, as it were, alive in his wrath. 57:11. The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. Shall wash his hands, etc. . .Shall applaud the justice of God, and take occasion from the consideration of the punishment of the wicked to wash and cleanse his hands from sin. 57:12. And man shall say: If indeed there be fruit to the just: there is indeed a God that judgeth them on the earth. Psalms Chapter 58 Eripe me. A prayer to be delivered from the wicked, with confidence in God's help and protection. It agrees to Christ and his enemies the Jews. 58:1. Unto the end, destroy not, for David for an inscription of a title, when Saul sent and watched his house to kill him. [1 Kings 19.] 58:2. Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; and defend me from them that rise up against me. 58:3. Deliver me from them that work iniquity, and save me from bloody men. 58:4. For behold they have caught my soul: the mighty have rushed in upon me: 58:5. Neither is it my iniquity, nor my sin, O Lord: without iniquity have I run, and directed my steps. 58:6. Rise up thou to meet me, and behold: even thou, O Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel. Attend to visit all the nations: have no mercy on all them that work iniquity. 58:7. They shall return at evening, and shall suffer hunger like dogs: and shall go round about the city. 58:8. Behold they shall speak with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips: for who, say they, hath heard us? 58:9. But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them: thou shalt bring all the nations to nothing. 58:10. I will keep my strength to thee: for thou art my protector: 58:11. My God, his mercy shall prevent me. 58:12. God shall let me see over my enemies: slay them not, lest at any time my people forget. Scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord, my protector: 58:13. For the sin of their mouth, and the word of their lips: and let them be taken in their pride. And for their cursing and lying they shall be talked of, 58:14. When they are consumed: when they are consumed by thy wrath, and they shall be no more. And they shall know that God will rule Jacob, and all the ends of the earth. 58:15. They shall return at evening and shall suffer hunger like dogs: and shall go round about the city. 58:16. They shall be scattered abroad to eat, and shall murmur if they be not filled. 58:17. But I will sing thy strength: and will extol thy mercy in the morning. For thou art become my support, and my refuge, in the day of my trouble. 58:18. Unto thee, O my helper, will I sing, for thou art God my defence: my God my mercy. Psalms Chapter 59 Deus, repulisti nos. After many afflictions, the church of Christ shall prevail. 59:1. Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the inscription of a title, to David himself, for doctrine, 59:2. When he set fire to Mesopotamia of Syria and Sobal: and Joab returned and slew of Edom, in the vale of the saltpits, twelve thousand men. 59:3. O God, thou hast cast us off, and hast destroyed us; thou hast been angry, and hast had mercy on us. 59:4. Thou hast moved the earth, and hast troubled it: heal thou the breaches thereof, for it has been moved. 59:5. Thou hast shewn thy people hard things; thou hast made us drink the wine of sorrow. 59:6. Thou hast given a warning to them that fear thee: that they may flee from before the bow: That thy beloved may be delivered. 59:7. Save me with thy right hand, and hear me. 59:8. God hath spoken in his holy place: I will rejoice, and I will divide Sichem; and will mete out the vale of tabernacles. 59:9. Galaad is mine, and Manasses is mine: and Ephraim is the strength of my head. Juda is my king: 59:10. Moab is the pot of my hope. Into Edom will I stretch out my shoe: to me the foreigners are made subject. The pot of my hope. . .Or my watering pot. That is, a vessel for meaner uses, by being reduced to serve me, even in the meanest employments.--Ibid. Foreigners. . .So the Philistines are called, who had no kindred with the Israelites; whereas the Edomites, Moabites, etc., were originally of the same family. 59:11. Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom? 59:12. Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off? and wilt not thou, O God, go out with our armies? 59:13. Give us help from trouble: for vain is the salvation of man. 59:14. Through God we shall do mightily: and he shall bring to nothing them that afflict us. Psalms Chapter 60 Exaudi, Deus. A prayer for the coming of the kingdom of Christ, which shall have no end. 60:1. Unto the end, in hymns, for David. 60:2. Hear, O God, my supplication: be attentive to my prayer. 60:3. To thee have I cried from the ends of the earth: when my heart was in anguish, thou hast exalted me on a rock. Thou hast conducted me; 60:4. For thou hast been my hope; a tower of strength against the face of the enemy. 60:5. In thy tabernacle I shall dwell for ever: I shall be protected under the covert of thy wings. 60:6. For thou, my God, hast heard my prayer: thou hast given an inheritance to them that fear thy name. 60:7. Thou wilt add days to the days of the king: his years even to generation and generation. 60:8. He abideth for ever in the sight of God: his mercy and truth who shall search? 60:9. So will I sing a psalm to thy name for ever and ever: that I may pay my vows from day to day. Psalms Chapter 61 Nonne Deo. The prophet encourageth himself and all others to trust in God, and serve him. 61:1. Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of David. 61:2. Shall not my soul be subject to God? for from him is my salvation. 61:3. For he is my God and my saviour: he is my protector, I shall be moved no more. 61:4. How long do you rush in upon a man? you all kill, as if you were thrusting down a leaning wall, and a tottering fence. 61:5. But they have thought to cast away my price; I ran in thirst: they blessed with their mouth, but cursed with their heart. 61:6. But be thou, O my soul, subject to God: for from him is my patience. 61:7. For he is my God and my saviour: he is my helper, I shall not be moved. 61:8. In God is my salvation and my glory: he is the God of my help, and my hope is in God. 61:9. Trust in him, all ye congregation of people: pour out your hearts before him. God is our helper for ever. 61:10. But vain are the sons of men, the sons of men are liars in the balances: that by vanity they may together deceive. Are liars in the balances, etc. . .They are so vain and light, that if they are put into the scales, they will be found to be of no weight; and to be mere lies, deceit, and vanity. Or, They are liars in their balances, by weighing things by false weights, and preferring the temporal before the eternal. 61:11. Trust not in iniquity, and cover not robberies: if riches abound, set not your heart upon them. 61:12. God hath spoken once, these two things have I heard, that power belongeth to God, 61:13. And mercy to thee, O Lord; for thou wilt render to every man according to his works. Psalms Chapter 62 Deus Deus meus, ad te. The prophet aspireth after God. 62:1. A psalm of David while he was in the desert of Edom. 62:2. O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day. For thee my soul hath thirsted; for thee my flesh, O how many ways! 62:3. In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water: so in the sanctuary have I come before thee, to see thy power and thy glory. 62:4. For thy mercy is better than lives: thee my lips will praise. 62:5. Thus will I bless thee all my life long: and in thy name I will lift up my hands. 62:6. Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. 62:7. If I have remembered thee upon my bed, I will meditate on thee in the morning: 62:8. Because thou hast been my helper. And I will rejoice under the covert of thy wings: 62:9. My soul hath stuck close to thee: thy right hand hath received me. 62:10. But they have fought my soul in vain, they shall go into the lower parts of the earth: 62:11. They shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be the portions of foxes. 62:12. But the king shall rejoice in God, all they shall be praised that swear by him: because the mouth is stopped of them that speak wicked things. Psalms Chapter 63 Exaudi Deus orationem. A prayer in affliction, with confidence in God that he will bring to nought the machinations of persecutors. 63:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. 63:2. Hear O God, my prayer, when I make supplication to thee: deliver my soul from the fear of the enemy. 63:3. Thou hast protected me from the assembly of the malignant; from the multitude of the workers of iniquity. 63:4. For they have whetted their tongues like a sword; they have bent their bow a bitter thing, 63:5. To shoot in secret the undefiled. 63:6. They will shoot at him on a sudden, and will not fear: they are resolute in wickedness. They have talked of hiding snares; they have said: Who shall see them? 63:7. They have searched after iniquities: they have failed in their search. Man shall come to a deep heart: A deep heart. . .That is, crafty, subtle, deep projects and designs; which nevertheless shall not succeed; for God shall be exalted in bringing them to nought by his wisdom and power. 63:8. And God shall be exalted. The arrows of children are their wounds: The arrows of children are their wounds. . .That is, the wounds, stripes, or blows, they seek to inflict upon the just, are but like the weak efforts of children's arrows, which can do no execution: and their tongues, that is, their speeches against them come to nothing. 63:9. And their tongues against them are made weak. All that saw them were troubled; 63:10. And every man was afraid. And they declared the works of God, and understood his doings. 63:11. The just shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall hope in him: and all the upright in heart shall be praised. Psalms Chapter 64 Te decet. God is to be praised in his church, to which all nations shall be called. 64:1. To the end, a psalm of David. The canticle of Jeremias and Ezechiel to the people of the captivity, when they began to go out. Of the captivity. . .That is, the people of the captivity of Babylon. This is not in the Hebrew, but is found in the ancient translation of the Septuagint. 64:2. A hymn, O God, becometh thee in Sion: and a vow shall be paid to thee in Jerusalem. 64:3. O hear my prayer: all flesh shall come to thee. 64:4. The words of the wicked have prevailed over us: and thou wilt pardon our transgressions. 64:5. Blessed is he whom thou hast chosen and taken to thee: he shall dwell in thy courts. We shall be filled with the good things of thy house; holy is thy temple, 64:6. Wonderful in justice. Hear us, O God our saviour, who art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar off. 64:7. Thou who preparest the mountains by thy strength, being girded with power: 64:8. Who troublest the depth of the sea, the noise of its waves. The Gentiles shall be troubled, 64:9. And they that dwell in the uttermost borders shall be afraid at thy signs: thou shalt make the outgoings of the morning and of the evening to be joyful. 64:10. Thou hast visited the earth, and hast plentifully watered it; thou hast many ways enriched it. The river of God is filled with water, thou hast prepared their food: for so is its preparation. 64:11. Fill up plentifully the streams thereof, multiply its fruits; it shall spring up and rejoice in its showers. 64:12. Thou shalt bless the crown of the year of thy goodness: and thy fields shall be filled with plenty. 64:13. The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow fat: and the hills shall be girded about with joy, 64:14. The rams of the flock are clothed, and the vales shall abound with corn: they shall shout, yea they shall sing a hymn. Psalms Chapter 65 Jubilate Deo. An invitation to praise God. 65:1. Unto the end, a canticle of a psalm of the resurrection. Shout with joy to God, all the earth, 65:2. Sing ye a psalm to his name; give glory to his praise. 65:3. Say unto God, How terrible are thy works, O Lord! in the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee. 65:4. Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name. 65:5. Come and see the works of God; who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. 65:6. Who turneth the sea into dry land, in the river they shall pass on foot: there shall we rejoice in him. 65:7. Who by his power ruleth for ever: his eyes behold the nations; let not them that provoke him be exalted in themselves. 65:8. O bless our God, ye Gentiles: and make the voice of his praise to be heard. 65:9. Who hath set my soul to live: and hath not suffered my feet to be moved: 65:10. For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us by fire, as silver is tried. 65:11. Thou hast brought us into a net, thou hast laid afflictions on our back: 65:12. Thou hast set men over our heads. We have passed through fire and water, and thou hast brought us out into a refreshment. 65:13. I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows, 65:14. Which my lips have uttered, And my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. 65:15. I will offer up to thee holocausts full of marrow, with burnt offerings of rams: I will offer to thee bullocks with goats. 65:16. Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what great things he hath done for my soul. 65:17. I cried to him with my mouth: and I extolled him with my tongue. 65:18. If I have looked at iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. 65:19. Therefore hath God heard me, and hath attended to the voice of my supplication. 65:20. Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. Psalms Chapter 66 Deus misereatur. A prayer for the propagation of the church. 66:1. Unto the end, in hymns, a psalm of a canticle for David. 66:2. May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may he cause the light of his countenance to shine upon us, and may he have mercy on us. 66:3. That we may know thy way upon earth: thy salvation in all nations. 66:4. Let people confess to thee, O God: let all people give praise to thee. 66:5. Let the nations be glad and rejoice: for thou judgest the people with justice, and directest the nations upon earth. 66:6. Let the people, O God, confess to thee: let all the people give praise to thee: 66:7. The earth hath yielded her fruit. May God, our God bless us, 66:8. May God bless us: and all the ends of the earth fear him. Psalms Chapter 67 Exurgat Deus. The glorious establishment of the church of the New Testament, prefigured by the benefits bestowed on the people of Israel. 67:1. Unto the end, a psalm of a canticle for David himself. 67:2. Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee from before his face. 67:3. As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. 67:4. And let the just feast, and rejoice before God: and be delighted with gladness. 67:5. Sing ye to God, sing a psalm to his name, make a way for him who ascendeth upon the west: the Lord is his name. Rejoice ye before him: but the wicked shall be troubled at his presence, Who ascendeth upon the west. . .Super occasum. St. Gregory understands it of Christ, who after his going down, like the sun, in the west, by his passion and death, ascended more glorious, and carried all before him. St. Jerome renders it, who ascendeth, or cometh up, through the deserts. 67:6. Who is the father of orphans, and the judge of widows. God in his holy place: 67:7. God who maketh men of one manner to dwell in a house: Who bringeth out them that were bound in strength; in like manner them that provoke, that dwell in sepulchres. Of one manner. . .That is, agreeing in faith, unanimous in love, and following the same manner of discipline. It is verified in the servants of God, living together in his house, which is the church. 1 Tim. 3.15.--Ibid. Them that were bound, etc. . .The power and mercy of God appears in his bringing out of their captivity those that were strongly bound in their sins: and in restoring to his grace those whose behaviour had been most provoking; and who by their evil habits were not only dead, but buried in their sepulchres. 67:8. O God, when thou didst go forth in the sight of thy people, when thou didst pass through the desert: 67:9. The earth was moved, and the heavens dropped at the presence of the God of Sina, at the presence of the God of Israel. 67:10. Thou shalt set aside for thy inheritance a free rain, O God: and it was weakened, but thou hast made it perfect. A free rain. . .the manna, which rained plentifully from heaven, in favour of God's inheritance, that is, of his people Israel: which was weakened indeed under a variety of afflictions, but was made perfect by God; that is, was still supported by divine providence, and brought on to the promised land. It agrees particularly to the church of Christ his true inheritance, which is plentifully watered with the free rain of heavenly grace; and through many infirmities, that is, crosses and tribulations, is made perfect, and fitted for eternal glory. 67:11. In it shall thy animals dwell; in thy sweetness, O God, thou hast provided for the poor. In it, etc. . .That is, in this church, which is thy fold and thy inheritance, shall thy animals, thy sheep, dwell: where thou hast plentifully provided for them. 67:12. The Lord shall give the word to them that preach good tidings with great power. To them that preach good tidings. . .Evangelizantibus. That is, to the preachers of the gospel; who receiving the word from the Lord, shall with great power and efficacy preach throughout the world the glad tidings of a Saviour, and of eternal salvation through him. 67:13. The king of powers is of the beloved, of the beloved; and the beauty of the house shall divide spoils. The king of powers. . .That is, the mighty King, the Lord of hosts, is of the beloved, of the beloved; that is, is on the side of Christ, his most beloved son: and his beautiful house, viz., the church, in which God dwells forever, shall by her spiritual conquests divide the spoils of many nations. The Hebrew (as it now stands pointed) is thus rendered, The kings of armies have fled, they have fled, and she that dwells at home (or the beauty of the house) shall divide the spoils. 67:14. If you sleep among the midst of lots, you shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and the hinder parts of her back with the paleness of gold. If you sleep among the midst of lots (intermedios cleros, etc.). . .Viz., in such dangers and persecutions, as if your enemies were casting lots for your goods and persons: or in the midst of the lots, (intermedios terminos, as St. Jerome renders it,) that is, upon the very bounds or borders of the dominions of your enemies: you shall be secure nevertheless under the divine protection; and shall be enabled to fly away, like a dove, with glittering wings and feathers shining like the palest and most precious gold; that is, with great increase of virtue, and glowing with the fervour of charity. 67:15. When he that is in heaven appointeth kings over her, they shall be whited with snow in Selmon. Kings over her. . .That is, pastors and rulers over his church, viz., the apostles and their successors. Then by their ministry shall men be made whiter than the snow which lies on the top of the high mountain Selmon. 67:16. The mountain of God is a fat mountain. A curdled mountain, a fat mountain. The mountain of God. . .The church, which, Isa. 2.2, is called The mountain of the house of the Lord upon the top of mountains. It is here called a fat and a curdled mountain; that is to say, most fruitful, and enriched by the spiritual gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost. 67:17. Why suspect, ye curdled mountains? A mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell: for there the Lord shall dwell unto the end. Why suspect, ye curdled mountains?. . .Why do you suppose or imagine there may be any other such curdled mountains? You are mistaken: the mountain thus favoured by God is but one; and this same he has chosen for his dwelling for ever. 67:18. The chariot of God is attended by ten thousands; thousands of them that rejoice: the Lord is among them in Sina, in the holy place. The chariot of God. . .Descending to give his law on mount Sina: as also of Jesus Christ his Son, ascending into heaven, to send from thence the Holy Ghost, to publish his new law, is attended with ten thousands, that is, with an innumerable multitude of joyful angels. 67:19. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts in men. Yea for those also that do not believe, the dwelling of the Lord God. Led captivity captive. . .Carrying away with thee to heaven those who before had been the captives of Satan; and receiving from God the Father gifts to be distributed to men; even to those who were before unbelievers. 67:20. Blessed be the Lord day by day: the God of our salvation will make our journey prosperous to us. 67:21. Our God is the God of salvation: and of the Lord, of the Lord are the issues from death. The issues from death. . .The Lord alone is master of the issues, by which we may escape from death. 67:22. But God shall break the heads of his enemies: the hairy crown of them that walk on in their sins. 67:23. The Lord said: I will turn them from Basan, I will turn them into the depth of the sea: I will turn them from Basan, etc. . .I will cast out my enemies from their rich possessions, signified by Basan, a fruitful country; and I will drive them into the depth of the sea: and make such a slaughter of them, that the feet of my servants may be dyed in their blood, etc. 67:24. That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thy enemies; the tongue of thy dogs be red with the same. 67:25. They have seen thy goings, O God, the goings of my God: of my king who is in his sanctuary. Thy goings. . .Thy ways, thy proceedings, by which thou didst formerly take possession of the promised land in favour of thy people; and shalt afterwards of the whole world, which thou shalt subdue to thy Son. 67:26. Princes went before joined with singers, in the midst of young damsels playing on timbrels. Princes. . .The apostles, the first converters of nations; attended by numbers of perfect souls, singing the divine praises, and virgins consecrated to God. 67:27. In the churches bless ye God the Lord, from the fountains of Israel. From the fountains of Israel. . .From whom both Christ and his apostles sprung. By Benjamin, the holy fathers on this place understand St. Paul, who was of that tribe, named here a youth, because he was the last called to the apostleship. By the princes of Juda, Zabulon, and Nephthali, we may understand the other apostles, who were of the tribe of Juda; or of the tribes of Zabulon, and Nephthali, where our Lord began to preach, Matt. 4.13, etc. 67:28. There is Benjamin a youth, in ecstasy of mind. The princes of Juda are their leaders: the princes of Zabulon, the princes of Nephthali. 67:29. Command thy strength, O God confirm, O God, what thou hast wrought in us. Command thy strength. . .Give orders that thy strength may be always with us. 67:30. From thy temple in Jerusalem, kings shall offer presents to thee. 67:31. Rebuke the wild beasts of the reeds, the congregation of bulls with the kine of the people; who seek to exclude them who are tried with silver. Scatter thou the nations that delight in wars: Rebuke the wild beasts of the reeds. . .or the wild beasts, which lie hid in the reeds. That is, the devils, who hide themselves in order to surprise their prey. Or by wild beasts, are here understood persecutors, who, for all their attempts against the Church, are but as weak reeds, which cannot prevail against them who are supported by the strength of the Almighty. The same are also called the congregation of bulls (from their rage against the Church) who assemble together all their kine, that is, the people their subjects, to exclude if they can, from Christ and his inheritance, his constant confessors, who are like silver tried by fire. 67:32. Ambassadors shall come out of Egypt: Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God. Ambassadors shall come, etc. . .It is a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles, and by name of the Egyptians and Ethiopians. 67:33. Sing to God, ye kingdoms of the earth: sing ye to the Lord: Sing ye to God, 67:34. Who mounteth above the heaven of heavens, to the east. Behold he will give to his voice the voice of power: To the east. . .From mount Olivet, which is on the east side of Jerusalem.--Ibid. The voice of power. . .That is, he will make his voice to be a powerful voice: by calling from death to life, such as were dead in mortal sin: as at the last day he will by the power of his voice call all the dead from their graves. 67:35. Give ye glory to God for Israel, his magnificence, and his power is in the clouds. 67:36. God is wonderful in his saints: the God of Israel is he who will give power and strength to his people. Blessed be God. Psalms Chapter 68 Salvum me fac, Deus. Christ in his passion declareth the greatness of his sufferings, and the malice of his persecutors the Jews; and foretelleth their reprobation. 68:1. Unto the end, for them that shall be changed; for David. For them that shall be changed. . .A psalm for Christian converts, to remember the passion of Christ. 68:2. Save me, O God: for the waters are come in even unto my soul. The waters. . .Of afflictions and sorrows. My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Matt. 26.38. 68:3. I stick fast in the mire of the deep and there is no sure standing. I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me. 68:4. I have laboured with crying; my jaws are become hoarse, my eyes have failed, whilst I hope in my God. 68:5. They are multiplied above the hairs of my head, who hate me without cause. My enemies are grown strong who have wrongfully persecuted me: then did I pay that which I took not away. I pay that which I took not away. . .Christ in his passion made restitution of what he had not taken away, by suffering the punishment due to our sins, and so repairing the injury we had done to God. 68:6. O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my offences are not hidden from thee: My foolishness and my offences. . .which my enemies impute to me: or the follies and sins of men, which I have taken upon myself. 68:7. Let not them be ashamed for me, who look for thee, O Lord, the Lord of hosts. Let them not be confounded on my account, who seek thee, O God of Israel. 68:8. Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. 68:9. I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother. 68:10. For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. 68:11. And I covered my soul in fasting: and it was made a reproach to me. 68:12. And I made haircloth my garment: and I became a byword to them. 68:13. They that sat in the gate spoke against me: and they that drank wine made me their song. 68:14. But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord; for the time of thy good pleasure, O God. In the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation. 68:15. Draw me out of the mire, that I may not stick fast: deliver me from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. 68:16. Let not the tempest of water drown me, nor the deep water swallow me up: and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. 68:17. Hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is kind; look upon me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. 68:18. And turn not away thy face from thy servant: for I am in trouble, hear me speedily. 68:19. Attend to my soul, and deliver it: save me because of my enemies. 68:20. Thou knowest my reproach, and my confusion, and my shame. 68:21. In thy sight are all they that afflict me; my heart hath expected reproach and misery. And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. 68:22. And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 68:23. Let their table become as a snare before them, and a recompense, and a stumblingblock. Let their table, etc. . .What here follows in the style of an imprecation, is a prophecy of the wretched state to which the Jews should be reduced in punishment of their wilful obstinacy. 68:24. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not; and their back bend thou down always. 68:25. Pour out thy indignation upon them: and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. 68:26. Let their habitation be made desolate: and let there be none to dwell in their tabernacles. 68:27. Because they have persecuted him whom thou hast smitten; and they have added to the grief of my wounds. 68:28. Add thou iniquity upon their iniquity: and let them not come into thy justice. 68:29. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; and with the just let them not be written. 68:30. But I am poor and sorrowful: thy salvation, O God, hath set me up. 68:31. I will praise the name of God with a canticle: and I will magnify him with praise. 68:32. And it shall please God better than a young calf, that bringeth forth horns and hoofs. 68:33. Let the poor see and rejoice: seek ye God, and your soul shall live. 68:34. For the Lord hath heard the poor: and hath not despised his prisoners. 68:35. Let the heavens and the earth praise him; the sea, and every thing that creepeth therein. 68:36. For God will save Sion, and the cities of Juda shall be built up. And they shall dwell there, and acquire it by inheritance. Sion. . .The catholic church. The cities of Juda, etc., her places of worship, which shall be established throughout the world. And there, viz., in this church of Christ, shall his servants dwell, etc. 68:37. And the seed of his servants shall possess it; and they that love his name shall dwell therein. Psalms Chapter 69 Deus in adjutorium. A prayer in persecution. 69:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David, to bring to remembrance that the Lord saved him. 69:2. O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me. 69:3. Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek my soul: 69:4. Let them be turned backward, and blush for shame that desire evils to me: Let them be presently turned away blushing for shame that say to me: 'Tis well, 'tis well. 'T is well, 't is well. . .Euge, euge. St. Jerome renders it, vah, vah! which is the voice of one insulting and deriding. Some understand it as a detestation of deceitful flatterers. 69:5. Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee; and let such as love thy salvation say always: The Lord be magnified. 69:6. But I am needy and poor; O God, help me. Thou art my helper and my deliverer: O lord, make no delay. Psalms Chapter 70 In te, Domine. A prayer for perseverance. 70:1. A psalm for David. Of the sons of Jonadab, and the former captives. In thee, O Lord, I have hoped, let me never be put to confusion: Of the sons of Jonadab. . .The Rechabites, of whom see Jer. 35. By this addition of the seventy-two interpreters, we gather that this psalm was usually sung in the synagogue, in the person of the Rechabites, and of those who were first carried away into captivity. 70:2. Deliver me in thy justice, and rescue me. Incline thy ear unto me, and save me. 70:3. Be thou unto me a God, a protector, and a place of strength: that thou mayst make me safe. For thou art my firmament and my refuge. 70:4. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the sinner, and out of the hand of the transgressor of the law and of the unjust. 70:5. For thou art my patience, O Lord: my hope, O Lord, from my youth. 70:6. By thee have I been confirmed from the womb: from my mother's womb thou art my protector. Of thee I shall continually sing: 70:7. I am become unto many as a wonder, but thou art a strong helper. 70:8. Let my mouth be filled with praise, that I may sing thy glory; thy greatness all the day long. 70:9. Cast me not off in the time of old age: when my strength shall fail, do not thou forsake me. 70:10. For my enemies have spoken against me; and they that watched my soul have consulted together, 70:11. Saying: God hath forsaken him: pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him. 70:12. O God, be not thou far from me: O my God, make haste to my help. 70:13. Let them be confounded and come to nothing that detract my soul; let them be covered with confusion and blame that seek my hurt. 70:14. But I will always hope; and will add to all thy praise. 70:15. My mouth shall shew forth thy justice; thy salvation all the day long. Because I have not known learning, Learning. . .As much as to say, I build not upon human learning, but only on the power and justice of God. 70:16. I will enter into the powers of the Lord: O Lord, I will be mindful of thy justice alone. 70:17. Thou hast taught me, O God, from my youth: and till now I will declare thy wonderful works. 70:18. And unto old age and grey hairs: O God, forsake me not, Until I shew forth thy arm to all the generation that is to come: Thy power, 70:19. And thy justice, O God, even to the highest great things thou hast done: O God, who is like to thee? 70:20. How great troubles hast thou shewn me, many and grievous: and turning thou hast brought me to life, and hast brought me back again from the depths of the earth: 70:21. Thou hast multiplied thy magnificence; and turning to me thou hast comforted me. 70:22. For I will also confess to thee thy truth with the instruments of psaltery: O God, I will sing to thee with the harp, thou holy one of Israel. 70:23. My lips shall greatly rejoice, when I shall sing to thee; and my soul which thou hast redeemed. 70:24. Yea and my tongue shall meditate on thy justice all the day; when they shall be confounded and put to shame that seek evils to me. Psalms Chapter 71 Deus, judicium tuum. A prophecy of the coming of Christ, and of his kingdom: prefigured by Solomon and his happy reign. 71:1. A psalm on Solomon. 71:2. Give to the king thy judgment, O God, and to the king's son thy justice: To judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment. 71:3. Let the mountains receive peace for the people: and the hills justice. 71:4. He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor: and he shall humble the oppressor. 71:5. And he shall continue with the sun and before the moon, throughout all generations. 71:6. He shall come down like rain upon the fleece; and as showers falling gently upon the earth. 71:7. In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away. 71:8. And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. 71:9. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down: and his enemies shall lick the ground. 71:10. The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts: 71:11. And all kings of the earth shall adore him: all nations shall serve him. 71:12. For he shall deliver the poor from the mighty: and the needy that had no helper. 71:13. He shall spare the poor and needy: and he shall save the souls of the poor. 71:14. He shall redeem their souls from usuries and iniquity: and their names shall be honourable in his sight. 71:15. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, for him they shall always adore: they shall bless him all the day. 71:16. And there shall be a firmament on the earth on the tops of mountains, above Libanus shall the fruit thereof be exalted: and they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth. A firmament on the earth, etc. . .This may be understood of the church of Christ, ever firm and visible: and of the flourishing condition of its congregation. 71:17. Let his name be blessed for evermore: his name continueth before the sun. And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed: all nations shall magnify him. 71:18. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone doth wonderful things. 71:19. And blessed be the name of his majesty for ever: and the whole earth shall be filled with his majesty. So be it. So be it. 71:20. The praises of David, the son of Jesse, are ended. Are ended. . .By this it appears that this psalm, though placed here, was in order of time the last of those which David composed. Psalms Chapter 72 Quam bonus Israel Deus. The temptation of the weak, upon seeing the prosperity of the wicked, is overcome by the consideration of the justice of God, who will quickly render to every one according to his works. 72:1. A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart! 72:2. But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped. 72:3. Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners. 72:4. For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes. 72:5. They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men. 72:6. Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness. 72:7. Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart. Fatness. . .Abundance and temporal prosperity, which hath encouraged them in their iniquity: and made them give themselves up to their irregular affections. 72:8. They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high. 72:9. They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth. 72:10. Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them. Return here. . .or hither. The weak among the servants of God, will be apt often to return to this thought, and will be shocked when they consider the full days, that is, the long and prosperous life of the wicked; and will be tempted to make the reflections against providence which are set down in the following verses. 72:11. And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? 72:12. Behold these are sinners; and yet, abounding in the world they have obtained riches. 72:13. And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent. 72:14. And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings. 72:15. If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children. If I said, etc. . .That is, if I should indulge such thoughts as these. 72:16. I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight: 72:17. Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends. 72:18. But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down. Thou hast put it to them. . .In punishment of their deceits, or for deceiving them, thou hast brought evils upon them in their last end, which, in their prosperity they never apprehended. 72:19. How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity. 72:20. As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing. 72:21. For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed: 72:22. And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not. 72:23. I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee. 72:24. Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me. 72:25. For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? 72:26. For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever. 72:27. For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee. 72:28. But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion. Psalms Chapter 73 Ut quid, Deus. A prayer of the church under grievous persecutions. 73:1. Understanding for Asaph. O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture? 73:2. Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt. 73:3. Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. 73:4. And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs, Their ensigns, etc. . .They have fixed their colours for signs and trophies, both on the gates, and on the highest top of the temple: and they knew not, that is, they regarded not the sanctity of the place. This psalm manifestly foretells the time of the Machabees, and the profanation of the temple by Antiochus. 73:5. And they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees, 73:6. They have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down. 73:7. They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth. 73:8. They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land. 73:9. Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more. 73:10. How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever? 73:11. Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever? 73:12. But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. 73:13. Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters. The sea firm. . .By making the waters of the Red Sea stand like firm walls, whilst Israel passed through: and destroying the Egyptians called here dragons from their cruelty, in the same waters, with their king: casting up their bodies on the shore to be stripped by the Ethiopians inhabiting in those days the coast of Arabia. 73:14. Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians. 73:15. Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers. Ethan rivers. . .That is, rivers which run with strong streams. This was verified in Jordan, Jos. 3, and in Arnon, Num. 21.14. 73:16. Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun. 73:17. Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee. 73:18. Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name. 73:19. Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor. 73:20. Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity. The obscure of the earth. . .Mean and ignoble wretches have been filled, that is, enriched, with houses of iniquity, that is, with our estates and possessions, which they have unjustly acquired. 73:21. Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name. 73:22. Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day. 73:23. Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually. Psalms Chapter 74 Confitebimur tibi. There is a just judgment to come: therefore let the wicked take care. 74:1. Unto the end, corrupt not, a psalm of a canticle for Asaph. Corrupt not. . .It is believed to have been the beginning of some ode or hymn, to the tune of which this psalm was to be sung. St. Augustine and other fathers take it to be an admonition of the spirit of God, not to faint or fail in our hope: but to persevere with constancy in good: because God will not fail in his due time to render to every man according to his works. 74:2. We will praise thee, O God: we will praise, and we will call upon thy name. We will relate thy wondrous works: 74:3. When I shall take a time, I will judge justices. When I shall take a time. . .In proper times: particularly at the last day, when the earth shall melt away at the presence of the great Judge: the same who originally laid the foundations of it, and as it were established its pillars. 74:4. The earth is melted, and all that dwell therein: I have established the pillars thereof. 74:5. I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly: and to the sinners: Lift not up the horn. 74:6. Lift not up your horn on high: speak not iniquity against God. 74:7. For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert hills: 74:8. For God is the judge. One he putteth down, and another he lifteth up: 74:9. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of strong wine full of mixture. And he hath poured it out from this to that: but the dregs thereof are not emptied: all the sinners of the earth shall drink. 74:10. But I will declare for ever: I will sing to the God of Jacob. 74:11. And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted. Psalms Chapter 75 Notus in Judaea. God is known in his church: and exerts his power in protecting it. It alludes to the slaughter of the Assyrians, in the days of king Ezechias. 75:1. Unto the end, in praises, a psalm for Asaph: a canticle to the Assyrians. 75:2. In Judea God is known: his name is great in Israel. 75:3. And his place is in peace: and his abode in Sion: 75:4. There hath he broken the powers of bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle. 75:5. Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills. 75:6. All the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands. 75:7. At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, they have all slumbered that mounted on horseback. 75:8. Thou art terrible, and who shall resist thee? from that time thy wrath. From that time, etc. . .From the time that thy wrath shall break out. 75:9. Thou hast caused judgment to be heard from heaven: the earth trembled and was still, 75:10. When God arose in judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. 75:11. For the thought of man shall give praise to thee: and the remainders of the thought shall keep holiday to thee. 75:12. Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God: all you that are round about him bring presents. To him that is terrible, 75:13. Even to him who taketh away the spirit of princes: to the terrible with the kings of the earth. Psalms Chapter 76 Voce mea. The faithful have recourse to God in trouble of mind, with confidence in his mercy and power. 76:1. Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of Asaph. 76:2. I cried to the Lord with my voice; to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me. 76:3. In the days of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted: 76:4. I remembered God, and was delighted, and was exercised, and my spirit swooned away. 76:5. My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not. 76:6. I thought upon the days of old: and I had in my mind the eternal years. 76:7. And I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercised and I swept my spirit. 76:8. Will God then cast off for ever? or will he never be more favourable again? 76:9. Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation? 76:10. Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies? 76:11. And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High. 76:12. I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning. 76:13. And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions. 76:14. Thy way, O God, is in the holy place: who is the great God like our God? 76:15. Thou art the God that dost wonders. Thou hast made thy power known among the nations: 76:16. With thy arm thou hast redeemed thy people the children of Jacob and of Joseph. 76:17. The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee: and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled. 76:18. Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass: 76:19. The voice of thy thunder in a wheel. Thy lightnings enlightened the world: the earth shook and trembled. 76:20. Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in many waters: and thy footsteps shall not be known. 76:21. Thou hast conducted thy people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Psalms Chapter 77 Attendite. God's great benefits to the people of Israel, notwithstanding their ingratitude. 77:1. Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 77:2. I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning. Propositions. . .Deep and mysterious sayings. By this it appears that the historical facts of ancient times, commemorated in this psalm, were deep and mysterious: as being figures of great truths appertaining to the time of the New Testament. 77:3. How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 77:4. They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done. 77:5. And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children: 77:6. That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children. 77:7. That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments. 77:8. That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God. 77:9. The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle. 77:10. They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk. 77:11. And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them. 77:12. Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis. 77:13. He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel. 77:14. And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire. 77:15. He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep. 77:16. He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers. 77:17. And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water. 77:18. And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires. 77:19. And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? 77:20. Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people? 77:21. Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel. 77:22. Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation. 77:23. And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven. 77:24. And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven. 77:25. Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance. 77:26. He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the southwest wind. 77:27. And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. 77:28. And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions. 77:29. So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire: 77:30. they were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth: 77:31. And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel. 77:32. In all these things they sinned still: and they behaved not for his wondrous works. 77:33. And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste. 77:34. When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning. 77:35. And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer. 77:36. And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him: 77:37. But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant. 77:38. But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath. 77:39. And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not. 77:40. How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water? 77:41. And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel. 77:42. They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them: 77:43. How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis. 77:44. And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might not drink. 77:45. He sent amongst them divers sorts of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them. 77:46. And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust. 77:47. And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost. 77:48. And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire. 77:49. And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels. 77:50. He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death. 77:51. And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham. 77:52. And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 77:53. And he brought them out in hope and they feared not: and the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 77:54. And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution. 77:55. And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles. 77:56. Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies. 77:57. And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow. 77:58. They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things. 77:59. God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing. 77:60. And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men. 77:61. And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy. 77:62. And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance. 77:63. Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented. 77:64. Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn. 77:65. And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine. 77:66. And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach. 77:67. And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: 77:68. But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved. 77:69. And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever. As of unicorns. . .That is, firm and strong like the horn of the unicorn. This is one of the chiefest of the propositions of this psalm, foreshewing the firm establishment of the one, true, and everlasting sanctuary of God, in his church. 77:70. And he chose his servant David, and took him from the flocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young, 77:71. To feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance. 77:72. And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skilfulness of his hands. Psalms Chapter 78 Deus, venerunt gentes. The church in time of persecution prayeth for relief. It seems to belong to the time of the Machabees. 78:1. A psalm for Asaph. O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit. 78:2. They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be meat for the fowls of the air: the flesh of thy saints for the beasts of the earth. 78:3. They have poured out their blood as water, round about Jerusalem and there was none to bury them. 78:4. We are become a reproach to our neighbours: a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. 78:5. How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry for ever: shall thy zeal be kindled like a fire? 78:6. Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that have not known thee: and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. 78:7. Because they have devoured Jacob; and have laid waste his place. 78:8. Remember not our former iniquities: let thy mercies speedily prevent us, for we are become exceeding poor. 78:9. Help us, O God, our saviour: and for the glory of thy name, O Lord, deliver us: and forgive us our sins for thy name's sake: 78:10. Lest they should say among the Gentiles: Where is their God? And let him be made known among the nations before our eyes, By the revenging the blood of thy servants, which hath been shed: 78:11. Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before thee. According to the greatness of thy arm, take possession of the children of them that have been put to death. 78:12. And render to our neighbours sevenfold in their bosom: the reproach wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord. 78:13. But we thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture, will give thanks to thee for ever. We will shew forth thy praise, unto generation and generation. Psalms Chapter 79 Qui regis Israel. A prayer for the church in tribulation, commemorating God's former favours. 79:1. Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, a testimony for Asaph, a psalm. 79:2. Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel: thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep. Thou that sittest upon the cherubims, shine forth 79:3. Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasses. Stir up thy might, and come to save us. 79:4. Convert us, O God: and shew us thy face, and we shall be saved. 79:5. O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy servant? 79:6. How long wilt thou feed us with the bread of tears: and give us for our drink tears in measure? 79:7. Thou hast made us to be a contradiction to our neighbours: and our enemies have scoffed at us. 79:8. O God of hosts, convert us: and shew thy face, and we shall be saved. 79:9. Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it. 79:10. Thou wast the guide of its journey in its sight: thou plantedst the roots thereof, and it filled the land. 79:11. The shadow of it covered the hills: and the branches thereof the cedars of God. 79:12. It stretched forth its branches unto the sea, and its boughs unto the river. 79:13. Why hast thou broken down the hedge thereof, so that all they who pass by the way do pluck it? 79:14. The boar out of the wood hath laid it waste: and a singular wild beast hath devoured it. 79:15. Turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard: 79:16. And perfect the same which thy right hand hath planted: and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself. 79:17. Things set on fire and dug down shall perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. Things set on fire, etc. . .So this vineyard of thine, almost consumed already, must perish, if thou continue thy rebukes. 79:18. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself. The man of thy right hand. . .Christ. 79:19. And we depart not from thee, thou shalt quicken us: and we will call upon thy name. 79:20. O Lord God of hosts, convert us and shew thy face, and we shall be saved. Psalms Chapter 80 Exultate Deo. An invitation to a solemn praising of God. 80:1. Unto the end, for the winepresses, a psalm for Asaph himself. For the winepresses, etc. . .Torcularibus. It either signifies a musical instrument, or that this psalm was to be sung at the feast of the tabernacles after the gathering in of the vintage. 80:2. Rejoice to God our helper: sing aloud to the God of Jacob. 80:3. Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel: the pleasant psaltery with the harp. 80:4. Blow up the trumpet on the new moon, on the noted day of your solemnity. 80:5. For it is a commandment in Israel, and a judgment to the God of Jacob. 80:6. He ordained it for a testimony in Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt: he heard a tongue which he knew not. 80:7. He removed his back from the burdens: his hands had served in baskets. 80:8. Thou calledst upon me in affliction, and I delivered thee: I heard thee in the secret place of tempest: I proved thee at the waters of contradiction. In the secret place of tempest. . .Heb., Of thunder. When thou soughtest to hide thyself from the tempest: or, when I came down to mount Sina, hidden from thy eyes in a storm of thunder. 80:9. Hear, O my people, and I will testify to thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken to me, 80:10. there shall be no new god in thee: neither shalt thou adore a strange god. 80:11. For I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 80:12. But my people heard not my voice: and Israel hearkened not to me. 80:13. So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions. 80:14. If my people had heard me: if Israel had walked in my ways: 80:15. I should soon have humbled their enemies, and laid my hand on them that troubled them. 80:16. The enemies of the Lord have lied to him: and their time shall be for ever. Their time shall be forever. . .Impenitent sinners shall suffer for ever. 80:17. And he fed them with the fat of wheat, and filled them with honey out of the rock. Psalms Chapter 81 Deus stetit. An exhortation to judges and men in power. 81:1. A psalm for Asaph. God hath stood in the congregation of gods: and being in the midst of them he judgeth gods. 81:2. How long will you judge unjustly: and accept the persons of the wicked? 81:3. Judge for the needy and fatherless: do justice to the humble and the poor. 81:4. Rescue the poor; and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner. 81:5. They have not known nor understood: they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth shall be moved. 81:6. I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High. 81:7. But you like men shall die: and shall fall like one of the princes. 81:8. Arise, O God, judge thou the earth: for thou shalt inherit among all the nations. Psalms Chapter 82 Deus, quis similis. A prayer against the enemies of God's church. 82:1. A canticle of a psalm for Asaph. 82:2. O God, who shall be like to thee? hold not thy peace, neither be thou still, O God. 82:3. For lo, thy enemies have made a noise: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. 82:4. They have taken a malicious counsel against thy people, and have consulted against thy saints. 82:5. They have said: Come and let us destroy them, so that they be not a nation: and let the name of Israel be remembered no more. 82:6. For they have contrived with one consent: they have made a covenant together against thee, 82:7. The tabernacle of the Edomites, and the Ishmahelites: Moab, and the Agarens, 82:8. Gebal, and Ammon and Amalec: the Philistines, with the inhabitants of Tyre. 82:9. Yea, and the Assyrian also is joined with them: they are come to the aid of the sons of Lot. 82:10. Do to them as thou didst to Madian and to Sisara: as to Jabin at the brook of Cisson. 82:11. Who perished at Endor: and became as dung for the earth. 82:12. Make their princes like Oreb, and Zeb, and Zebee, and Salmana. All their princes, 82:13. Who have said: Let us possess the sanctuary of God for an inheritance. 82:14. O my God, make them like a wheel; and as stubble before the wind. 82:15. As fire which burneth the wood: and as a flame burning mountains: 82:16. So shalt thou pursue them with thy tempest: and shalt trouble them in thy wrath. 82:17. Fill their faces with shame; and they shall seek thy name, O Lord. 82:18. Let them be ashamed and troubled for ever and ever: and let them be confounded and perish. 82:19. And let them know that the Lord is thy name: thou alone art the most High over all the earth. Psalms Chapter 83 Quam dilecta. The soul aspireth after heaven; rejoicing in the mean time, in being in the communion of God's church upon earth. 83:1. Unto the end, for the winepresses, a psalm for the sons of Core. 83:2. How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! 83:3. my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. 83:4. For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. 83:5. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee for ever and ever. 83:6. Blessed is the man whose help is from thee: in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, In his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, etc. . .Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit. As by steps men ascended to the temple of God situated on a hill; so the good Christian ascends towards the eternal temple by certain steps of virtue disposed or ordered within the heart: and this whilst he lives as yet in the body, in this vale of tears, the place which man hath set: that is, which he hath brought himself to: being cast out of paradise for his sin. 83:7. In the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set. 83:8. For the lawgiver shall give a blessing, they shall go from virtue to virtue: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion. 83:9. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. 83:10. Behold, O God our protector: and look on the face of thy Christ. 83:11. For better is one day in thy courts above thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners. 83:12. For God loveth mercy and truth: the Lord will give grace and glory. 83:13. He will not deprive of good things them that walk in innocence: O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. Psalms Chapter 84 Benedixisti, Domine. The coming of Christ, to bring peace and salvation to man. 84:1. Unto the end, for the sons of Core, a psalm. 84:2. Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. 84:3. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people: thou hast covered all their sins. 84:4. Thou hast mitigated all thy anger: thou hast turned away from the wrath of thy indignation. 84:5. Convert us, O God our saviour: and turn off thy anger from us. 84:6. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever: or wilt thou extend thy wrath from generation to generation? 84:7. Thou wilt turn, O God, and bring us to life: and thy people shall rejoice in thee. 84:8. Shew us, O Lord, thy mercy; and grant us thy salvation. 84:9. I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me: for he will speak peace unto his people: And unto his saints: and unto them that are converted to the heart. 84:10. Surely his salvation is near to them that fear him : that glory may dwell in our land. 84:11. Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed. 84:12. Truth is sprung out of the earth: and justice hath looked down from heaven. 84:13. For the Lord will give goodness: and our earth shall yield her fruit. 84:14. Justice shall walk before him: and ,shall set his steps in the way. Psalms Chapter 85 Inclina, Domine. A prayer for God's grace to assist us to the end. 85:1. A prayer for David himself. Incline thy ear, O Lord, and hear me: for I am needy and poor. 85:2. Preserve my soul, for I am holy: save thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee. I am holy. . .I am by my office and profession dedicated to thy service. 85:3. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to thee all the day. 85:4. Give joy to the soul of thy servant, for to thee, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul. 85:5. For thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild: and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee. 85:6. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer: and attend to the voice of my petition. 85:7. I have called upon thee in the day of my trouble: because thou hast heard me. 85:8. There is none among the gods like unto thee, O Lord: and there is none according to thy works. 85:9. All the nations thou hast made shall come and adore before thee, O Lord: and they shall glorify thy name. 85:10. For thou art great and dost wonderful things: thou art God alone. 85:11. Conduct me, O Lord, in thy way, and I will walk in thy truth: let my heart rejoice that it may fear thy name. 85:12. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy name for ever: 85:13. For thy mercy is great towards me: and thou hast delivered my soul out of the lower hell. 85:14. O God, the wicked are risen up against me, and the assembly of the mighty have sought my soul: and they have not set thee before their eyes. 85:15. And thou, O Lord, art a God of compassion, and merciful, patient, and of much mercy, and true. 85:16. O look upon me, and have mercy on me: give thy command to thy servant, and save the son of thy handmaid. 85:17. Shew me a token for good: that they who hate me may see, and be confounded, because thou, O Lord, hast helped me and hast comforted me. Psalms Chapter 86 Fundamenta ejus. The glory of the church of Christ. 86:1. For the sons of Core, a psalm of a canticle. The foundations thereof are the holy mountains: The holy mountains. . .The apostles and prophets. Eph. 2.20. 86:2. The Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. 86:3. Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God. 86:4. I will be mindful of Rahab and of Babylon knowing me. Behold the foreigners, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there. Rahab. . .Egypt, etc. To this Sion, which is the church of God, many shall resort from all nations. 86:5. Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? and the Highest himself hath founded her. Shall not Sion say, etc. . .The meaning is, that Sion, viz., the church, shall not only be able to commemorate this or that particular person of renown born in her, but also to glory in great multitudes of people and princes of her communion; who have been foretold in the writings of the prophets, and registered in the writings of the apostles. 86:6. The Lord shall tell in his writings of peoples and of princes, of them that have been in her. 86:7. The dwelling in thee is as it were of all rejoicing. Psalms Chapter 87 Domine, Deus salutis. A prayer of one under grievous affliction: it agrees to Christ in his passion, and alludes to his death and burial. 87:1. A canticle of a psalm for the sons of Core: unto the end, for Maheleth, to answer understanding of Eman the Ezrahite. Maheleth. . .A musical instrument, or chorus of musicians, to answer one another.--Ibid. Understanding. . .Or a psalm of instruction, composed by Eman the Ezrahite, or by David, in his name. 87:2. O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee. 87:3. Let my prayer come in before thee: incline thy ear to my petition. 87:4. For my soul is filled with evils: and my life hath drawn nigh to hell. 87:5. I am counted among them that go down to the pit: I am become as a man without help, 87:6. Free among the dead. Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchres, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. 87:7. They have laid me in the lower pit: in the dark places, and in the shadow of death. 87:8. Thy wrath is strong over me: and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me. 87:9. Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me: they have set me an abomination to themselves. I was delivered up, and came not forth: 87:10. My eyes languished through poverty. All the day I cried to thee, O Lord: I stretched out my hands to thee. 87:11. Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? or shall physicians raise to life, and give praise to thee? 87:12. Shall any one in the sepulchre declare thy mercy: and thy truth in destruction? 87:13. Shall thy wonders be known in the dark; and thy justice in the land of forgetfulness? 87:14. But I, O Lord, have cried to thee: and in the morning my prayer shall prevent thee. 87:15. Lord, why castest thou off my prayer: why turnest thou away thy face from me? 87:16. I am poor, and in labours from my youth: and being exalted have been humbled and troubled. 87:17. Thy wrath hath come upon me: and thy terrors have troubled me. 87:18. They have come round about me like water all the day: they have compassed me about together. 87:19. Friend and neighbour thou hast put far from me: and my acquaintance, because of misery. Psalms Chapter 88 Misericordias Domini. The perpetuity of the church of Christ, in consequence of the promise of God: which, notwithstanding, God permits her to suffer sometimes most grievous afflictions. 88:1. Of understanding, for Ethan the Ezrahite. 88:2. The mercies of the Lord I will sing for ever. I will shew forth thy truth with my mouth to generation and generation. 88:3. For thou hast said: Mercy shall be built up for ever in the heavens: thy truth shall be prepared in them. 88:4. I have made a covenant with my elect: I have sworn to David my servant: 88:5. Thy seed will I settle for ever. And I will build up thy throne unto generation and generation. 88:6. The heavens shall confess thy wonders, O Lord: and thy truth in the church of the saints. 88:7. For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord: or who among the sons of God shall be like to God? 88:8. God, who is glorified in the assembly of the saints: great and terrible above all them that are about him. 88:9. O Lord God of hosts, who is like to thee? thou art mighty, O Lord, and thy truth is round about thee. 88:10. Thou rulest the power of the sea: and appeasest the motion of the waves thereof. 88:11. Thou hast humbled the proud one, as one that is slain: with the arm of thy strength thou hast scattered thy enemies. 88:12. Thine are the heavens, and thine is the earth: the world and the fulness thereof thou hast founded: 88:13. The north and the sea thou hast created. Thabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name: 88:14. Thy arm is with might. Let thy hand be strengthened, and thy right hand exalted: 88:15. Justice and judgment are the preparation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face: 88:16. Blessed is the people that knoweth jubilation. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance: 88:17. And in thy name they shall rejoice all the day, and in thy justice they shall be exalted. 88:18. For thou art the glory of their strength: and in thy good pleasure shall our horn be exalted. 88:19. For our protection is of the Lord, and of our king the holy one of Israel. 88:20. Then thou spokest in a vision to thy saints, and saidst: I have laid help upon one that is mighty, and have exalted one chosen out of my people. 88:21. I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him. 88:22. For my hand shall help him: and my arm shall strengthen him. 88:23. The enemy shall have no advantage over him: nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt him. 88:24. And I will cut down his enemies before his face; and them that hate him I will put to flight. 88:25. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted. 88:26. And I will set his hand in the sea; and his right hand in the rivers. 88:27. He shall cry out to me: Thou art my father: my God, and the support of my salvation. 88:28. And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth. 88:29. I will keep my mercy for him for ever: and my covenant faithful to him. 88:30. And I will make his seed to endure for evermore: and his throne as the days of heaven. 88:31. And if his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments: 88:32. If they profane my justices: and keep not my commandments: 88:33. I will visit their iniquities with a rod and their sins with stripes. 88:34. But my mercy I will not take away from him: nor will I suffer my truth to fail. 88:35. Neither will I profane my covenant: and the words that proceed from my mouth I will not make void. 88:36. Once have I sworn by my holiness: I will not lie unto David: 88:37. His seed shall endure for ever. 88:38. And his throne as the sun before me: and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven. 88:39. But thou hast rejected and despised: thou hast been angry with my anointed. 88:40. Thou hast overthrown the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his sanctuary on the earth. Overthrown the covenant, etc. . .All this seems to relate to the time of the captivity of Babylon, in which, for the sins of the people and their princes, God seemed to have set aside for a while the covenant he made with David. 88:41. Thou hast broken down all his hedges: thou hast made his strength fear. 88:42. All that pass by the way have robbed him: he is become a reproach to his neighbours. 88:43. Thou hast set up the right hand of them that oppress him: thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. 88:44. Thou hast turned away the help of his sword; and hast not assisted him in battle. 88:45. Thou hast made his purification to cease: and thou hast cast his throne down to the ground. 88:46. Thou hast shortened the days of his time: thou hast covered him with confusion. 88:47. How long, O Lord, turnest thou away unto the end? shall thy anger burn like fire? 88:48. Remember what my substance is: for hast thou made all the children of men in vain? 88:49. Who is the man that shall live, and not see death: that shall deliver his soul from the hand of hell? 88:50. Lord, where are thy ancient mercies, according to what thou didst swear to David in thy truth? 88:51. Be mindful, O Lord, of the reproach of thy servants (which I have held in my bosom) of many nations: 88:52. Wherewith thy enemies have reproached, O Lord; wherewith they have reproached the change of thy anointed. 88:53. Blessed be the Lord for evermore. So be it. So be it. Psalms Chapter 89 Domine, refugium. A prayer for the mercy of God: recounting the shortness and miseries of the days of man. 89:1. A prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation. 89:2. Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world was formed; from eternity and to eternity thou art God. 89:3. Turn not man away to be brought low: and thou hast said: Be converted, O ye sons of men. Turn not man away, etc. . .Suffer him not quite to perish from thee, since thou art pleased to call upon him to be converted to thee. 89:4. For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past. And as a watch in the night, 89:5. Things that are counted nothing, shall their years be. 89:6. In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he shall flourish and pass away: in the evening he shall fall, grow dry, and wither. 89:7. For in thy wrath we have fainted away: and are troubled in thy indignation. 89:8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thy eyes: our life in the light of thy countenance. 89:9. For all our days are spent; and in thy wrath we have fainted away. Our years shall be considered as a spider: As a spider. . .As frail and weak as a spider's web; and miserable withal, whilst like a spider we spend our bowels in weaving webs to catch flies. 89:10. The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years. But if in the strong they be fourscore years: and what is more of them is labour and sorrow. For mildness is come upon us: and we shall be corrected. Mildness is come upon us, etc. . .God's mildness corrects us; inasmuch as he deals kindly with us, in shortening the days of this miserable life; and so weaning our affections from all its transitory enjoyments, and teaching us true wisdom. 89:11. Who knoweth the power of thy anger, and for thy fear 89:12. Can number thy wrath? So make thy right hand known: and men learned in heart, in wisdom. 89:13. Return, O Lord, how long? and be entreated in favour of thy servants. 89:14. We are filled in the morning with thy mercy: and we have rejoiced, and are delighted all our days. 89:15. We have rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled us: for the years in which we have seen evils. 89:16. Look upon thy servants and upon their works: and direct their children. 89:17. And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us: and direct thou the works of our hands over us; yea, the work of our hands do thou direct. Psalms Chapter 90 Qui habitat. The just is secure under the protection of God. 90:1. The praise of a canticle for David. He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob. 90:2. He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust. 90:3. For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word. 90:4. He will overshadow thee with his shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust. 90:5. His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. 90:6. Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil. 90:7. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee. 90:8. But thou shalt consider with thy eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked. 90:9. Because thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the most High thy refuge. 90:10. There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. 90:11. For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. 90:12. In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 90:13. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. 90:14. Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name. 90:15. He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. 90:16. I will fill him with length of days; and I will shew him my salvation. Psalms Chapter 91 Bonum est confiteri. God is to be praised for his wondrous works. 91:1. A psalm of a canticle on the sabbath day. 91:2. It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O most High. 91:3. To shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night: 91:4. Upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery: with a canticle upon the harp. 91:5. For thou hast given me, O Lord, a delight in thy doings: and in the works of thy hands I shall rejoice. 91:6. O Lord, how great are thy works! thy thoughts are exceeding deep. 91:7. The senseless man shall not know: nor will the fool understand these things. 91:8. When the wicked shall spring up as grass: and all the workers of iniquity shall appear: That they may perish for ever and ever: 91:9. But thou, O Lord, art most high for evermore. 91:10. For behold thy enemies, O lord, for behold thy enemies shall perish: and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 91:11. But my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn: and my old age in plentiful mercy. 91:12. My eye also hath looked down upon my enemies: and my ear shall hear of the downfall of the malignant that rise up against me. 91:13. The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus. 91:14. They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God. 91:15. They shall still increase in a fruitful old age: and shall be well treated, 91:16. That they may shew, That the Lord our God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him. Psalms Chapter 92 Dominus regnavit. The glory and stability of the kingdom; that is, of the church of Christ. Praise in the way of a canticle, for David himself, on the day before the sabbath, when the earth was founded. 92:1. The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with strength, and hath girded himself. For he hath established the world which shall not be moved. 92:2. My throne is prepared from of old: thou art from everlasting. 92:3. The floods have lifted up, O Lord: the floods have lifted up their voice. The floods have lifted up their waves, 92:4. With the noise of many waters. Wonderful are the surges of the sea: wonderful is the Lord on high. 92:5. Thy testimonies are become exceedingly credible: holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, unto length of days. Psalms Chapter 93 Deus ultionum. God shall judge and punish the oppressors of his people. A psalm for David himself on the fourth day of the week. 93:1. The Lord is the God to whom revenge belongeth: the God of revenge hath acted freely. 93:2. Lift up thyself, thou that judgest the earth: render a reward to the proud. 93:3. How long shall sinners, O Lord: how long shall sinners glory? 93:4. Shall they utter, and speak iniquity: shall all speak who work injustice? 93:5. Thy people, O Lord, they have brought low: and they have afflicted thy inheritance. 93:6. They have slain the widow and the stranger: and they have murdered the fatherless. 93:7. And they have said: The Lord shall not see: neither shall the God of Jacob understand. 93:8. Understand, ye senseless among the people: and, you fools, be wise at last. 93:9. He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? or he that formed the eye, doth he not consider? 93:10. He that chastiseth nations, shall he not rebuke: he that teacheth man knowledge? 93:11. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain. 93:12. Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct, O Lord: and shalt teach him out of thy law. 93:13. That thou mayst give him rest from the evil days: till a pit be dug for the wicked. Rest from the evil days. . .That thou mayst mitigate the sorrows, to which he is exposed, during the short and evil days of his mortality. 93:14. For the Lord will not cast off his people: neither will he forsake his own inheritance. 93:15. Until justice be turned into judgment: and they that are near it are all the upright in heart. Until justice be turned into judgment, etc. . .By being put in execution; which will be agreeable to all the upright in heart. 93:16. Who shall rise up for me against the evildoers? or who shall stand with me against the workers of iniquity? 93:17. Unless the Lord had been my helper, my soul had almost dwelt in hell. 93:18. If I said: My foot is moved: thy mercy, O Lord, assisted me. 93:19. According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy comforts have given joy to my soul. 93:20. Doth the seat of iniquity stick to thee, who framest labour in commandment? Doth the seat of iniquity stick to thee, etc. . .That is, wilt thou, O God, who art always just, admit of the seat of iniquity: that is, of injustice, or unjust judges, to have any partnership with thee? Thou who framest, or makest, labour in commandment, that is, thou who obligest us to labour with all diligence to keep thy commandments. 93:21. They will hunt after the soul of the just, and will condemn innocent blood. 93:22. But the Lord is my refuge: and my God the help of my hope. 93:23. And he will render them their iniquity : and in their malice he will destroy them: the Lord our God will destroy them. Psalms Chapter 94 Venite exultemus. An invitation to adore and serve God, and to hear his voice. Praise of a canticle for David himself. 94:1. Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our saviour. 94:2. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms. 94:3. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 94:4. For in his hand are all the ends of the earth: and the heights of the mountains are his. 94:5. For the sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. 94:6. Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us. 94:7. For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. 94:8. To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts: 94:9. As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works. 94:10. Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart. 94:11. And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest. Psalms Chapter 95 Cantate Domino. An exhortation to praise God for the coming of Christ and his kingdom. 95:1. A canticle for David himself, when the house was built after the captivity. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: sing to the Lord, all the earth. When the house was built, etc. . .Alluding to that time, and then ordered to be sung: but principally relating to the building of the church of Christ, after our redemption from the captivity of Satan. 95:2. Sing ye to the Lord and bless his name: shew forth his salvation from day to day. 95:3. Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people. 95:4. For the Lord is great, and exceedingly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. 95:5. For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. 95:6. Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary. 95:7. Bring ye to the Lord, O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring ye to the Lord glory and honour: 95:8. Bring to the Lord glory unto his name. Bring up sacrifices, and come into his courts: 95:9. Adore ye the Lord in his holy court. Let all the earth be moved at his presence. 95:10. Say ye among the Gentiles, the Lord hath reigned. For he hath corrected the world, which shall not be moved: he will judge the people with justice. 95:11. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea be moved, and the fulness thereof: 95:12. The fields and all things that are in them shall be joyful. Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice 95:13. before the face of the Lord, because he cometh: because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with his truth. Psalms Chapter 96 Dominus regnavit. All are invited to rejoice at the glorious coming and reign of Christ. 96:1. For the same David, when his land was restored again to him. The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice: let many islands be glad. 96:2. Clouds and darkness are round about him: justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne. Clouds and darkness. . .The coming of Christ in the clouds with great terror and majesty to judge the world, is here prophesied. 96:3. A fire shall go before him, and shall burn his enemies round about. 96:4. His lightnings have shone forth to the world: the earth saw and trembled. 96:5. The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth. 96:6. The heavens declared his justice: and all people saw his glory. 96:7. Let them be all confounded that adore graven things, and that glory in their idols. Adore him, all you his angels: 96:8. Sion heard, and was glad. And the daughters of Juda rejoiced, because of thy judgments, O Lord. 96:9. For thou art the most high Lord over all the earth: thou art exalted exceedingly above all gods. 96:10. You that love the Lord, hate evil: the Lord preserveth the souls of his saints, he will deliver them out of the hand of the sinner. 96:11. Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart. 96:12. Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness. Psalms Chapter 97 Cantate Domino. All are again invited to praise the Lord, for the victories of Christ. 97:1. A psalm for David himself. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things. His right hand hath wrought for him salvation, and his arm is holy. 97:2. The Lord hath made known his salvation: he hath revealed his justice in the sight of the Gentiles. 97:3. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. 97:4. Sing joyfully to God, all the earth; make melody, rejoice and sing. 97:5. Sing praise to the Lord on the harp, on the harp, and with the voice of a psalm: 97:6. With long trumpets, and sound of cornet. Make a joyful noise before the Lord our king: 97:7. Let the sea be moved and the fullness thereof: the world and they that dwell therein. 97:8. The rivers shall clap their hands, the mountains shall rejoice together 97:9. At the presence of the Lord: because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with equity. Psalms Chapter 98 Dominus regnavit. The reign of the Lord in Sion: that is, of Christ in his church. 98:1. A psalm for David himself. The Lord hath reigned, let the people be angry: he that sitteth on the cherubims: let the earth be moved. Let the people be angry. . .Though many enemies rage, and the whole earth be stirred up to oppose the reign of Christ, he shall still prevail. 98:2. The lord is great in Sion, and high above all people. 98:3. Let them give praise to thy great name: for it is terrible and holy: 98:4. And the king's honour loveth judgment. Thou hast prepared directions: thou hast done judgment and justice in Jacob. Loveth judgment. . .Requireth discretion.--Ibid. Directions. . .Most right and just laws to direct men. 98:5. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore his footstool, for it is holy. Adore his footstool. . .The ark of the covenant was called, in the Old Testament, God's footstool: over which he was understood to sit, on his propitiatory, or mercy seat, as on a throne, between the wings of the cherubims, in the sanctuary: to which the children of Israel paid a great veneration. But as this psalm evidently relates to Christ, and the New Testament, where the ark has no place, the holy fathers understand this text, of the worship paid by the church to the body and blood of Christ in the sacred mysteries: inasmuch as the humanity of Christ is, as it were, the footstool of the divinity. So St. Ambrose, L. 3. De Spiritu Sancto, c. 12. And St. Augustine upon this psalm. 98:6. Moses and Aaron among his priests: and Samuel among them that call upon his name. They called upon the Lord, and he heard them: Moses and Aaron among his priests. . .By this it is evident, that Moses also was a priest, and indeed the chief priest, inasmuch as he consecrated Aaron, and offered sacrifice for him. Lev. 8. So that his pre-eminence over Aaron makes nothing for lay church headship. 98:7. He spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud. They kept his testimonies, and the commandment which he gave them. 98:8. Thou didst hear them, O Lord our God: thou wast a merciful God to them, and taking vengeance on all their inventions. All their inventions. . .that is, all the enterprises of their enemies against them, as in the case of Core, Dathan, and Abiron. 98:9. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore at his holy mountain: for the Lord our God is holy. Psalms Chapter 99 Jubilate Deo. All are invited to rejoice in God the creator of all. 99:1. A psalm of praise. 99:2. Sing joyfully to God, all the earth: serve ye the Lord with gladness. Come in before his presence with exceeding great joy. 99:3. Know ye that the Lord he is God: he made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. 99:4. Go ye into his gates with praise, into his courts with hymns: and give glory to him. Praise ye his name: 99:5. For the Lord is sweet, his mercy endureth for ever, and his truth to generation and generation. Psalms Chapter 100 Misericordiam et judicium. The prophet exhorteth all by his example, to follow mercy and justice. 100:1. A psalm for David himself. Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord: I will sing, 100:2. And I will understand in the unspotted way, when thou shalt come to me. I walked in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house. I will understand, etc. . .That is, I will apply my mind, I will do my endeavour, to know and to follow the perfect way of thy commandments: not trusting to my own strength, but relying on thy coming to me by thy grace. 100:3. I will not set before my eyes any unjust thing: I hated the workers of iniquities. 100:4. The perverse heart did not cleave to me: and the malignant, that turned aside from me, I would not know. 100:5. The man that in private detracted his neighbour, him did I persecute. With him that had a proud eye, and an unsatiable heart, I would not eat. 100:6. My eyes were upon the faithful of the earth, to sit with me: the man that walked in the perfect way, he served me. 100:7. He that worketh pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house: he that speaketh unjust things did not prosper before my eyes. 100:8. In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land: that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord. Psalms Chapter 101 Domine, exaudi. A prayer for one in affliction: the fifth penitential psalm. 101:1. The prayer of the poor man, when he was anxious, and poured out his supplication before the Lord. 101:2. Hear, O Lord, my prayer: and let my cry come to thee. 101:3. Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am in trouble, incline thy ear to me. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, hear me speedily. 101:4. For my days are vanished like smoke, and my bones are grown dry like fuel for the fire. 101:5. I am smitten as grass, and my heart is withered: because I forgot to eat my bread. 101:6. Through the voice of my groaning, my bone hath cleaved to my flesh. 101:7. I am become like to a pelican of the wilderness: I am like a night raven in the house. A pelican, etc. . .I am become through grief, like birds that affect solitude and darkness. 101:8. I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop. 101:9. All the day long my enemies reproached me: and they that praised me did swear against me. 101:10. For I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. 101:11. Because of thy anger and indignation: for having lifted me up thou hast thrown me down. 101:12. My days have declined like a shadow, and I am withered like grass. 101:13. But thou, O Lord, endurest for ever: and thy memorial to all generations. 101:14. Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Sion: for it is time to have mercy on it, for the time is come. 101:15. For the stones thereof have pleased thy servants: and they shall have pity on the earth thereof. 101:16. All the Gentiles shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. 101:17. For the Lord hath built up Sion: and he shall be seen in his glory. 101:18. He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble: and he hath not despised their petition. 101:19. Let these things be written unto another generation: and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord: 101:20. Because he hath looked forth from his high sanctuary: from heaven the Lord hath looked upon the earth. 101:21. That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain: 101:22. That they may declare the name of the Lord in Sion: and his praise in Jerusalem; 101:23. When the people assemble together, and kings, to serve the Lord. 101:24. He answered him in the way of his strength: Declare unto me the fewness of my days. He answered him in the way of his strength. . .That is, the people, mentioned in the foregoing verse, or the penitent, in whose person this psalm is delivered, answered the Lord in the way of his strength: that is, according to the best of his power and strength: or when he was in the flower of his age and strength: inquiring after the fewness of his days: to know if he should live long enough to see the happy restoration of Sion, etc. 101:25. Call me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are unto generation and generation. 101:26. In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands. 101:27. They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. 101:28. But thou art always the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail. 101:29. The children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be directed for ever. Psalms Chapter 102 Benedic, anima. Thanksgiving to God for his mercies. 102:1. For David himself. Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless his holy name. 102:2. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all he hath done for thee. 102:3. Who forgiveth all thy iniquities: who healeth all thy diseases. 102:4. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction: who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion. 102:5. Who satisfieth thy desire with good things: thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. 102:6. The Lord doth mercies, and judgment for all that suffer wrong. 102:7. He hath made his ways known to Moses: his wills to the children of Israel. 102:8. The Lord is compassionate and merciful: longsuffering and plenteous in mercy. 102:9. He will not always be angry: nor will he threaten for ever. 102:10. He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 102:11. For according to the height of the heaven above the earth: he hath strengthened his mercy towards them that fear him. 102:12. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us. 102:13. As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him: 102:14. For he knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust: 102:15. Man's days are as grass, as the flower of the field so shall he flourish. 102:16. For the spirit shall pass in him, and he shall not be: and he shall know his place no more. 102:17. But the mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity upon them that fear him: And his justice unto children's children, 102:18. To such as keep his covenant, And are mindful of his commandments to do them. 102:19. The lord hath prepared his throne in heaven: and his kingdom shall rule over all. 102:20. Bless the Lord, all ye his angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word, hearkening to the voice of his orders. 102:21. Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts: you ministers of his that do his will. 102:22. Bless the Lord, all his works: in every place of his dominion, O my soul, bless thou the Lord. Psalms Chapter 103 Benedic, anima. God is to be praised for his mighty works, and wonderful providence. 103:1. For David himself. Bless the Lord, O my soul: O Lord my God, thou art exceedingly great. Thou hast put on praise and beauty: 103:2. And art clothed with light as with a garment. Who stretchest out the heaven like a pavilion: 103:3. Who coverest the higher rooms thereof with water. Who makest the clouds thy chariot: who walkest upon the wings of the winds. 103:4. Who makest thy angels spirits: and thy ministers a burning fire. 103:5. Who hast founded the earth upon its own bases: it shall not be moved for ever and ever. 103:6. The deep like a garment is its clothing: above the mountains shall the waters stand. 103:7. At thy rebuke they shall flee: at the voice of thy thunder they shall fear. 103:8. The mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which thou hast founded for them. 103:9. Thou hast set a bound which they shall not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. 103:10. Thou sendest forth springs in the vales: between the midst of the hills the waters shall pass. 103:11. All the beasts of the field shall drink: the wild asses shall expect in their thirst. 103:12. Over them the birds of the air shall dwell: from the midst of the rocks they shall give forth their voices. 103:13. Thou waterest the hills from thy upper rooms: the earth shall be filled with the fruit of thy works: 103:14. Bringing forth grass for cattle, and herb for the service of men. That thou mayst bring bread out of the earth: 103:15. And that wine may cheer the heart of man. That he may make the face cheerful with oil: and that bread may strengthen man's heart. 103:16. The trees of the field shall be filled, and the cedars of Libanus which he hath planted: 103:17. There the sparrows shall make their nests. The highest of them is the house of the heron. 103:18. The high hills are a refuge for the harts, the rock for the irchins. 103:19. He hath made the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. 103:20. Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night: in it shall all the beasts of the woods go about: 103:21. The young lions roaring after their prey, and seeking their meat from God. 103:22. The sun ariseth, and they are gathered together: and they shall lie down in their dens. 103:23. Man shall go forth to his work, and to his labour until the evening. 103:24. How great are thy works, O Lord ? thou hast made all things in wisdom: the earth is filled with thy riches. 103:25. So is this great sea, which stretcheth wide its arms: there are creeping things without number: Creatures little and great. 103:26. There the ships shall go. This sea dragon which thou hast formed to play therein. 103:27. All expect of thee that thou give them food in season. 103:28. What thou givest to them they shall gather up: when thou openest thy hand, they shall all be filled with good. 103:29. But if thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled: thou shalt take away their breath, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust. 103:30. Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. 103:31. May the glory of the Lord endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. 103:32. He looketh upon the earth, and maketh it tremble: he troubleth the mountains, and they smoke. 103:33. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. 103:34. Let my speech be acceptable to him: but I will take delight in the Lord. 103:35. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and the unjust, so that they be no more: O my soul, bless thou the Lord. Psalms Chapter 104 Confitemini Domino. A thanksgiving to God for his benefits to his people Israel. Alleluia. 104:1. Give glory to the Lord, and call upon his name: declare his deeds among the Gentiles. 104:2. Sing to him, yea sing praises to him: relate all his wondrous works. 104:3. Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. 104:4. Seek ye the lord, and be strengthened: seek his face evermore. 104:5. Remember his marvellous works which he hath done; his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth. 104:6. O ye seed of Abraham his servant; ye sons of Jacob his chosen. 104:7. He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth. 104:8. He hath remembered his covenant for ever: the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. 104:9. Which he made to Abraham; and his oath to Isaac: 104:10. And he appointed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting testament: 104:11. Saying: To thee will I give the land of Chanaan, the lot of your inheritance. 104:12. When they were but a small number: yea very few, and sojourners therein: 104:13. And they passed from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people. 104:14. He suffered no man to hurt them: and he reproved kings for their sakes. 104:15. Touch ye not my anointed: and do no evil to my prophets. 104:16. And he called a famine upon the land: and he broke in pieces all the support of bread. 104:17. He sent a man before them: Joseph, who was sold for a slave. 104:18. They humbled his feet in fetters: the iron pierced his soul, 104:19. Until his word came. The word of the Lord inflamed him. 104:20. The king sent, and he released him: the ruler of the people, and he set him at liberty. 104:21. He made him master of his house, and ruler of all his possession. 104:22. That he might instruct his princes as himself, and teach his ancients wisdom. 104:23. And Israel went into Egypt: and Jacob was a sojourner in the land of Cham. 104:24. And he increased his people exceedingly: and strengthened them over their enemies. 104:25. He turned their heart to hate his people: and to deal deceitfully with his servants. He turned their heart, etc. . .Not that God (who is never the author of sin) moved the Egyptians to hate and persecute his people; but that the Egyptians took occasion of hating and envying them, from the sight of the benefits which God bestowed upon them. 104:26. He sent Moses his servant: Aaron the man whom he had chosen. 104:27. He gave them power to shew them signs, and his wonders in the land of Cham. 104:28. He sent darkness, and made it obscure: and grieved not his words. Grieved not his words. . .That is, he was not wanting to fulfil his words: or he did not grieve Moses and Aaron, the carriers of his words: or he did not grieve his words, that is, his sons, the children of Israel, who enjoyed light whilst the Egyptians were oppressed with darkness. 104:29. He turned their waters into blood, and destroyed their fish. 104:30. Their land brought forth frogs, in the inner chambers of their kings. 104:31. He spoke, and there came divers sorts of flies and sciniphs in all their coasts. Sciniphs. . .See the annotation, Ex.8.16. 104:32. He gave them hail for rain, a burning fire in the land. 104:33. And he destroyed their vineyards and their fig trees: and he broke in pieces the trees of their coasts. 104:34. He spoke, and the locust came, and the bruchus, of which there was no number. Bruchus. . .An insect of the locust kind. 104:35. And they devoured all the grass in their land, and consumed all the fruit of their ground. 104:36. And he slew all the firstborn in their land: the firstfruits of all their labour. 104:37. And he brought them out with silver and gold: and there was not among their tribes one that was feeble. 104:38. Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them lay upon them. 104:39. He spread a cloud for their protection, and fire to give them light in the night. 104:40. They asked, and the quail came: and he filled them with the bread of heaven. 104:41. He opened the rock, and waters flowed: rivers ran down in the dry land. 104:42. Because he remembered his holy word, which he had spoken to his servant Abraham. 104:43. And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness. 104:44. And he gave them the lands of the Gentiles: and they possessed the labours of the people: 104:45. That they might observe his justifications, and seek after his law. His justifications. . .That is, his commandments; which here, and in many other places of the scripture, are called justifications, because the keeping of them makes man just. The Protestants render it by the word statutes, in favour of their doctrine, which does not allow good works to justify. Psalms Chapter 105 Confitemini Domino. A confession of the manifold sins and ingratitudes of the Israelites. Alleluia. 105:1. Give glory to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 105:2. Who shall declare the powers of the Lord? who shall set forth all his praises? 105:3. Blessed are they that keep judgment, and do justice at all times. 105:4. Remember us, O Lord, in the favour of thy people: visit us with thy salvation. 105:5. That we may see the good of thy chosen, that we may rejoice in the joy of thy nation: that thou mayst be praised with thy inheritance. 105:6. We have sinned with our fathers: we have acted unjustly, we have wrought iniquity. 105:7. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt: they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies: And they provoked to wrath going up to the sea, even the Red Sea. 105:8. And he saved them for his own name's sake: that he might make his power known. 105:9. And he rebuked the Red Sea and it was dried up: and he led them through the depths, as in a wilderness. 105:10. And he saved them from the hand of them that hated them: and he redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. 105:11. And the water covered them that afflicted them: there was not one of them left. 105:12. And they believed his words: and they sang his praises. 105:13. They had quickly done, they forgot his works: and they waited not for his counsel. 105:14. And they coveted their desire in the desert: and they tempted God in the place without water. 105:15. And he gave them their request: and sent fulness into their souls. 105:16. And they provoked Moses in the camp, Aaron the holy one of the Lord. 105:17. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan: and covered the congregation of Abiron. 105:18. And a fire was kindled in their congregation: the flame burned the wicked. 105:19. They made also a calf in Horeb: and they adored the graven thing. 105:20. And they changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass. 105:21. They forgot God, who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, 105:22. Wondrous works in the land of Cham: terrible things in the Red Sea. 105:23. And he said that he would destroy them: had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach: To turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. 105:24. And they set at nought the desirable land. They believed not his word, 105:25. And they murmured in their tents: they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord. 105:26. And he lifted up his hand over them: to overthrow them in the desert; 105:27. And to cast down their seed among the nations, and to scatter them in the countries. 105:28. They also were initiated to Beelphegor: and ate the sacrifices of the dead. Initiated. . .That is, they dedicated, or consecrated themselves to the idol of the Moabites and Madianites, called Beelphegor, or Baal-Peor. Num. 25.3.--Ibid. The dead. . .Viz., idols without life. 105:29. And they provoked him with their inventions: and destruction was multiplied among them. 105:30. Then Phinees stood up, and pacified him: and the slaughter ceased. 105:31. And it was reputed to him unto justice, to generation and generation for evermore. 105:32. They provoked him also at the waters of contradiction: and Moses was afflicted for their sakes: 105:33. Because they exasperated his spirit. And he distinguished with his lips. He distinguished with his lips. . .Moses, by occasion of the people's rebellion and incredulity, was guilty of distinguishing with his lips; when, instead of speaking to the rock, as God had commanded, he said to the people, with a certain hesitation in his faith, Hear ye, rebellious and incredulous: Can we from this rock bring out water for you? Num. 20.10. 105:34. They did not destroy the nations of which the Lord spoke unto them. 105:35. And they were mingled among the heathens, and learned their works: 105:36. And served their idols, and it became a stumblingblock to them. 105:37. And they sacrificed their sons, and their daughters to devils. 105:38. And they shed innocent blood: the blood of their sons and of their daughters which they sacrificed to the idols of Chanaan. And the land was polluted with blood, 105:39. And was defiled with their works: and they went aside after their own inventions. 105:40. And the Lord was exceedingly angry with his people: and he abhorred his inheritance. 105:41. And he delivered them into the hands of the nations: and they that hated them had dominion over them. 105:42. And their enemies afflicted them: and they were humbled under their hands: 105:43. Many times did he deliver them. But they provoked him with their counsel: and they were brought low by their iniquities. 105:44. And he saw when they were in tribulation: and he heard their prayer. 105:45. And he was mindful of his covenant: and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. 105:46. And he gave them unto mercies, in the sight of all those that had made them captives. 105:47. Save us, O Lord, our God: and gather us from among the nations: That we may give thanks to thy holy name, and may glory in thy praise. 105:48. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say: So be it, so be it. Psalms Chapter 106 Confitemini Domino. All are invited to give thanks to God for his perpetual providence over men. Alleluia. 106:1. Give glory to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 106:2. Let them say so that have been redeemed by the Lord, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy: and gathered out of the countries. 106:3. From the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea. 106:4. They wandered in a wilderness, in a place without water: they found not the way of a city for their habitation. 106:5. They were hungry and thirsty: their soul fainted in them. 106:6. And they cried to the Lord in their tribulation: and he delivered them out of their distresses. 106:7. And he led them into the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. 106:8. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him: and his wonderful works to the children of men. 106:9. For he hath satisfied the empty soul, and hath filled the hungry soul with good things. 106:10. Such as sat in darkness and in the shadow of death: bound in want and in iron. 106:11. Because they had exasperated the words of God: and provoked the counsel of the most High: 106:12. And their heart was humbled with labours: they were weakened, and there was none to help them. 106:13. Then they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he delivered them out of their distresses. 106:14. And he brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death; and broke their bonds in sunder. 106:15. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him, and his wonderful works to the children of men. 106:16. Because he hath broken gates of brass, and burst iron bars. 106:17. He took them out of the way of their iniquity: for they were brought low for their injustices. 106:18. Their soul abhorred all manner of meat: and they drew nigh even to the gates of death. 106:19. And they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he delivered them out of their distresses. 106:20. He sent his word, and healed them: and delivered them from their destructions. 106:21. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him: and his wonderful works to the children of men. 106:22. And let them sacrifice the sacrifice of praise: and declare his works with joy. 106:23. They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in the great waters: 106:24. These have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. 106:25. He said the word, and there arose a storm of wind: and the waves thereof were lifted up. 106:26. They mount up to the heavens, and they go down to the depths: their soul pined away with evils. 106:27. They were troubled, and reeled like a drunken man; and all their wisdom was swallowed up. 106:28. And they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he brought them out of their distresses. 106:29. And he turned the storm into a breeze: and its waves were still. 106:30. And they rejoiced because they were still: and he brought them to the haven which they wished for. 106:31. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him, and his wonderful works to the children of men. 106:32. And let them exalt him in the church of the people: and praise him in the chair of the ancients. 106:33. He hath turned rivers into a wilderness: and the sources of waters into dry ground: 106:34. A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. 106:35. He hath turned a wilderness into pools of waters, and a dry land into water springs. 106:36. And hath placed there the hungry; and they made a city for their habitation. 106:37. Anti they sowed fields, and planted vineyards: and they yielded fruit of birth. 106:38. And he blessed them, and they were multiplied exceedingly: and their cattle he suffered not to decrease. 106:39. Then they were brought to be few: and they were afflicted through the trouble of evils and sorrow. 106:40. Contempt was poured forth upon their princes: and he caused them to wander where there was no passing, and out of the way. 106:41. And he helped the poor out of poverty: and made him families like a flock of sheep. 106:42. The just shall see, and shall rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. 106:43. Who is wise, and will keep these things; and will understand the mercies of the Lord? Psalms Chapter 107 Paratum cor meum. The prophet praiseth God for benefits received. 107:1. A canticle of a psalm for David himself. 107:2. My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing, and will give praise, with my glory. 107:3. Arise, my glory; arise, psaltery and harp: I will arise in the morning early. 107:4. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: and I will sing unto thee among the nations. 107:5. For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and thy truth even unto the clouds. 107:6. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and thy glory over all the earth: 107:7. That thy beloved may be delivered. Save with thy right hand and hear me. 107:8. God hath spoken in his holiness. I will rejoice, and I will divide Sichem and I will mete out the vale of tabernacles. 107:9. Galaad is mine: and Manasses is mine and Ephraim the protection of my head. Juda is my king: 107:10. Moab the pot of my hope. Over Edom I will stretch out my shoe: the aliens are become my friends. 107:11. Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom? 107:12. Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off ? and wilt not thou, O God, go forth with our armies? 107:13. O grant us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. 107:14. Through God we shall do mightily: and he will bring our enemies to nothing. Psalms Chapter 108 Deus, laudem meam. David in the person of Christ, prayeth against his persecutors; more especially the traitor Judas: foretelling and approving his just punishment for his obstinacy in sin and final impenitence. 108:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David. 108:2. O God, be not thou silent in my praise: for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful man is opened against me. 108:3. They have spoken against me with deceitful tongues; and they have compassed me about with words of hatred; and have fought against me without cause. 108:4. Instead of making me a return of love, they detracted me: but I gave myself to prayer. 108:5. And they repaid me evil for good: and hatred for my love. 108:6. Set thou the sinner over him: and may the devil stand at his right hand. Set thou the sinner over him, etc. . .Give to the devil, that arch-sinner, power over him: let him enter into him, and possess him. The imprecations, contained in the thirty verses of this psalm, are opposed to the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed our Lord; and are to be taken as prophetic denunciations of the evils that should befall the traitor and his accomplices the Jews; and not properly as curses. 108:7. When he is judged, may he go out condemned; and may his prayer be turned to sin. 108:8. May his days be few: and his bishopric let another take. 108:9. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 108:10. Let his children be carried about vagabonds, and beg; and let them be cast out of their dwellings. 108:11. May the usurer search all his substance: and let strangers plunder his labours. 108:12. May there be none to help him: nor none to pity his fatherless offspring. 108:13. May his posterity be cut off; in one generation may his name be blotted out. 108:14. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered in the sight of the Lord: and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. 108:15. May they be before the Lord continually, and let the memory of them perish from the earth: 108:16. because he remembered not to shew mercy, 108:17. But persecuted the poor man and the beggar; and the broken in heart, to put him to death. 108:18. And he loved cursing, and it shall come unto him: and he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him. And he put on cursing, like a garment: and it went in like water into his entrails, and like oil in his bones. 108:19. May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him; and like a girdle with which he is girded continually. 108:20. This is the work of them who detract me before the Lord; and who speak evils against my soul. 108:21. But thou, O Lord, do with me for thy name's sake: because thy mercy is sweet. Do thou deliver me, 108:22. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is troubled within me. 108:23. I am taken away like the shadow when it declineth: and I am shaken off as locusts. 108:24. My knees are weakened through fasting: and my flesh is changed for oil. For oil. . .Propter oleum. The meaning is, my flesh is changed, being perfectly emaciated and dried up, as having lost all its oil or fatness. 108:25. And I am become a reproach to them: they saw me and they shaked their heads. 108:26. Help me, O Lord my God; save me; according to thy mercy. 108:27. And let them know that this is thy hand: and that thou, O Lord, hast done it. 108:28. They will curse and thou wilt bless: let them that rise up against me be confounded: but thy servant shall rejoice. 108:29. Let them that detract me be clothed with shame: and let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak. 108:30. I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth: and in the midst of many I will praise him. 108:31. Because he hath stood at the right hand of the poor, to save my soul from persecutors. Psalms Chapter 109 Dixit Dominus. Christ's exaltation and everlasting priesthood. 109:1. A psalm for David. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool. 109:2. The Lord will send forth the sceptre of thy power out of Sion: rule thou in the midst of thy enemies. 109:3. With thee is the principality in the day of thy strength: in the brightness of the saints: from the womb before the day star I begot thee. 109:4. The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. 109:5. The Lord at thy right hand hath broken kings in the day of his wrath. 109:6. He shall judge among nations, he shall fill ruins: he shall crush the heads in the land of many. 109:7. He shall drink of the torrent in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head. Psalms Chapter 110 Confitebor tibi, Domine. God is to be praised for his graces, and benefits to his church. Alleluia. 110:1. I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; in the council of the just, and in the congregation. 110:2. Great are the works of the Lord: sought out according to all his wills. 110:3. His work is praise and magnificence: and his justice continueth for ever and ever. 110:4. He hath made a remembrance of his wonderful works, being a merciful and gracious Lord: 110:5. He hath given food to them that fear him. He will be mindful for ever of his covenant: 110:6. He will shew forth to his people the power of his works. 110:7. That he may give them the inheritance of the Gentiles: the works of his hands are truth and judgment. 110:8. All his commandments are faithful: confirmed for ever and ever, made in truth and equity. 110:9. He hath sent redemption to his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever. Holy and terrible is his name: 110:10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding to all that do it: his praise continueth for ever and ever. Psalms Chapter 111 Beatus vir. The good man is happy. Alleluia, of the returning of Aggeus and Zacharias. Of the returning, etc. . .This is in the Greek and Latin, but not in the Hebrew. It signifies that this psalm was proper to be sung at the time of the return of the people from their captivity; to inculcate to them, how happy they might be, if they would be constant in the service of God. 111:1. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: he shall delight exceedingly in his commandments. 111:2. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the righteous shall be blessed. 111:3. Glory and wealth shall be in his house: and his justice remaineth for ever and ever. 111:4. To the righteous a light is risen up in darkness: he is merciful, and compassionate and just. 111:5. Acceptable is the man that sheweth mercy and lendeth: he shall order his words with judgment: 111:6. Because he shall not be moved for ever. 111:7. The just shall be in everlasting remembrance: he shall not fear the evil hearing. His heart is ready to hope in the Lord: 111:8. His heart is strengthened, he shall not be moved until he look over his enemies. 111:9. He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever: his horn shall be exalted in glory. 111:10. The wicked shall see, and shall be angry, he shall gnash with his teeth and pine away: the desire of the wicked shall perish. Psalms Chapter 112 Laudate, pueri. God is to be praised for his regard to the poor and humble. Alleluia. 112:1. Praise the Lord, ye children: praise ye the name of the Lord. 112:2. Blessed be the name of the Lord, from henceforth now and for ever. 112:3. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise. 112:4. The Lord is high above all nations; and his glory above the heavens. 112:5. Who is as the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high: 112:6. and looketh down on the low things in heaven and in earth? 112:7. Raising up the needy from the earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill: 112:8. That he may place him with princes, with the princes of his people. 112:9. Who maketh a barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children. Psalms Chapter 113 In exitu Israel. God hath shewn his power in delivering his people: idols are vain. The Hebrews divide this into two psalms. Alleluia. 113:1. When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: 113:2. Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. 113:3. The sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back. 113:4. The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the flock. 113:5. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back? 113:6. Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, and ye hills, like lambs of the flock? 113:7. At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, at the presence of the God of Jacob: 113:8. Who turned the rock into pools of water, and the stony hill into fountains of waters. 113:1. Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to thy name give glory. 113:2. For thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake: lest the Gentiles should say: Where is their God? 113:3. But our God is in heaven: he hath done all things whatsoever he would. 113:4. The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men. 113:5. They have mouths and speak not: they have eyes and see not. 113:6. They have ears and hear not: they have noses and smell not. 113:7. They have hands and feel not: they have feet and walk not: neither shall they cry out through their throat. 113:8. Let them that make them become like unto them: and all such as trust in them. 113:9. The house of Israel hath hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector. 113:10. The house of Aaron hath hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector. 113:11. They that fear the Lord have hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector. 113:12. The Lord hath been mindful of us, and hath blessed us. He hath blessed the house of Israel: he hath blessed the house of Aaron. 113:13. He hath blessed all that fear the Lord, both little and great. 113:14. May the Lord add blessings upon you: upon you, and upon your children. 113:15. Blessed be you of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 113:16. The heaven of heaven is the Lord's: but the earth he has given to the children of men. 113:17. The dead shall not praise thee, O Lord: nor any of them that go down to hell. 113:18. But we that live bless the Lord: from this time now and for ever. Psalms Chapter 114 Dilexi. The prayer of a just man in affliction, with a lively confidence in God. Alleluia. 114:1. I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. 114:2. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me: and in my days I will call upon him. 114:3. The sorrows of death have compassed me: and the perils of hell have found me. I met with trouble and sorrow: 114:4. And I called upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, deliver my soul. 114:5. The Lord is merciful and just, and our God sheweth mercy. 114:6. The Lord is the keeper of little ones: I was humbled, and he delivered me. 114:7. Turn, O my soul, into thy rest: for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee. 114:8. For he hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. 114:9. I will please the Lord in the land of the living. Psalms Chapter 115 Credidi. This in the Hebrew is joined with the foregoing psalm, and continues to express the faith and gratitude of the psalmist. Alleluia. 115:10. I have believed, therefore have I spoken; but I have been humbled exceedingly. 115:11. I said in my excess: Every man is a liar. 115:12. What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things that he hath rendered to me? 115:13. I will take the chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord. 115:14. I will pay my vows to the Lord before all his people: 115:15. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. 115:16. O Lord, for I am thy servant: I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast broken my bonds: 115:17. I will sacrifice to thee the sacrifice of praise, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. 115:18. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the sight of all his people: 115:19. In the courts of the house of the Lord, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Psalms Chapter 116 Laudate Dominum. All nations are called upon to praise God for his mercy and truth. Alleluia. 116:1. O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. 116:2. For his mercy is confirmed upon us: and the truth of the Lord remaineth for ever. Psalms Chapter 117 Confitemini Domino. The psalmist praiseth God for his delivery from evils: putteth his whole trust in him; and foretelleth the coming of Christ. Alleluia. 117:1. Give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 117:2. Let Israel now say, that he is good: that his mercy endureth for ever. 117:3. Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy endureth for ever. 117:4. Let them that fear the Lord now say, that his mercy endureth for ever. 117:5. In my trouble I called upon the Lord: and the Lord heard me, and enlarged me. 117:6. The Lord is my helper: I will not fear what man can do unto me. 117:7. The Lord is my helper: and I will look over my enemies. 117:8. It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man. 117:9. It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes. 117:10. All nations compassed me about; and, in the name of the Lord I have been revenged on them. 117:11. Surrounding me they compassed me about: and in the name of the Lord I have been revenged on them. 117:12. They surrounded me like bees, and they burned like fire among thorns: and in the name of the Lord I was revenged on them. 117:13. Being pushed I was overturned that I might fall: but the Lord supported me. 117:14. The Lord is my strength and my praise: and he is become my salvation. 117:15. The voice of rejoicing and of salvation is in the tabernacles of the just. 117:16. The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength: the right hand of the Lord hath exalted me: the right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength. 117:17. I shall not die, but live: and shall declare the works of the Lord. 117:18. The Lord chastising hath chastised me: but he hath not delivered me over to death. 117:19. Open ye to me the gates of justice: I will go in to them, and give praise to the Lord. 117:20. This is the gate of the Lord, the just shall enter into it. 117:21. I will give glory to thee because thou hast heard me: and art become my salvation. 117:22. The stone which the builders rejected; the same is become the head of the corner. 117:23. This is the Lord's doing , and it is wonderful in our eyes. 117:24. This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad and rejoice therein. 117:25. O Lord, save me: O Lord, give good success. 117:26. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. 117:27. The Lord is God, and he hath shone upon us. Appoint a solemn day, with shady boughs, even to the horn of the altar. 117:28. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, and I will exalt thee. I will praise thee, because thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation. 117:29. O praise ye the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Psalms Chapter 118 Beati immaculati. Of the excellence of virtue consisting in the love and observance of the commandments of God. Alleluia. ALEPH. Aleph. . .The first eight verses of this psalm in the original begin with Aleph, which is the name of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The second eight verses begin with Beth, the name of the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet; and so to the end of the whole alphabet, in all twenty-two letters, each letter having eight verses. This order is variously expounded by the holy fathers; which shews the difficulty of understanding the holy scriptures, and consequently with what humility, and submission to the Church they are to be read. 118:1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. 118:2. Blessed are they that search his testimonies: that seek him with their whole heart. His testimonies. . .The commandments of God are called his testimonies, because they testify his holy will unto us. Note here, that in almost every verse of this psalm (which in number are 176) the word and law of God, and the love and observance of it, is perpetually inculcated, under a variety of denominations, all signifying the same thing. 118:3. For they that work iniquity, have not walked in his ways. 118:4. Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept most diligently. 118:5. O! that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications. 118:6. Then shall I not be confounded, when I shall look into all thy commandments. 118:7. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned the judgments of thy justice. 118:8. I will keep thy justifications: O! do not thou utterly forsake me. BETH. 118:9. By what doth a young man correct his way? by observing thy words. 118:10. With my whole heart have I sought after thee: let me not stray from thy commandments. 118:11. Thy words have I hidden in my heart, that I may not sin against thee. 118:12. Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy justifications. 118:13. With my lips I have pronounced all the judgments of thy mouth. 118:14. I have been delighted in the way of thy testimonies, as in all riches. 118:15. I will meditate on thy commandments: and I will consider thy ways. 118:16. I will think of thy justifications: I will not forget thy words. GIMEL. 118:17. Give bountifully to thy servant, enliven me: and I shall keep thy words. 118:18. Open thou my eyes: and I will consider the wondrous things of thy law. 118:19. I am a sojourner on the earth: hide not thy commandments from me. 118:20. My soul hath coveted to long for thy justifications, at all times. 118:21. Thou hast rebuked the proud: they are cursed who decline from thy commandments. 118:22. Remove from me reproach and contempt: because I have sought after thy testimonies. 118:23. For princes sat, and spoke against me: but thy servant was employed in thy justifications. 118:24. For thy testimonies are my meditation: and thy justifications my counsel. DALETH. 118:25. My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken thou me according to thy word. 118:26. I have declared my ways, and thou hast heard me: teach me thy justifications. 118:27. Make me to understand the way of thy justifications: and I shall be exercised in thy wondrous works. 118:28. My soul hath slumbered through heaviness: strengthen thou me in thy words. 118:29. Remove from me the way of iniquity: and out of thy law have mercy on me. 118:30. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments I have not forgotten. 118:31. I have stuck to thy testimonies, O Lord: put me not to shame. 118:32. I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart. HE. 118:33. Set before me for a law the way of thy justifications, O Lord: and I will always seek after it. 118:34. Give me understanding, and I will search thy law; and I will keep it with my whole heart. 118:35. Lead me into the path of thy commandments; for this same I have desired. 118:36. Incline my heart into thy testimonies and not to covetousness. 118:37. Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity: quicken me in thy way. 118:38. Establish thy word to thy servant, in thy fear. 118:39. Turn away my reproach, which I have apprehended: for thy judgments are delightful. 118:40. Behold I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy justice. VAU. 118:41. Let thy mercy also come upon me, O Lord: thy salvation according to thy word. 118:42. So shall I answer them that reproach me in any thing; that I have trusted in thy words. 118:43. And take not thou the word of truth utterly out of my mouth: for in thy words, I have hoped exceedingly. 118:44. So shall I always keep thy law, for ever and ever. 118:45. And I walked at large: because I have sought after thy commandments. 118:46. And I spoke of thy testimonies before kings: and I was not ashamed. 118:47. I meditated also on thy commandments, which I loved. 118:48. And I lifted up my hands to thy commandments, which I loved: and I was exercised in thy justifications. ZAIN. 118:49. Be thou mindful of thy word to thy servant, in which thou hast given me hope. 118:50. This hath comforted me in my humiliation: because thy word hath enlivened me. 118:51. The proud did iniquitously altogether: but I declined not from thy law. 118:52. I remembered, O Lord, thy judgments of old: and I was comforted. 118:53. A fainting hath taken hold of me, because of the wicked that forsake thy law. 118:54. Thy justifications were the subject of my song, in the place of my pilgrimage. 118:55. In the night I have remembered thy name, O Lord: and have kept thy law. 118:56. This happened to me: because I sought after thy justifications. HETH. 118:57. O Lord, my portion, I have said, I would keep thy law. 118:58. I entreated thy face with all my heart: have mercy on me according to thy word. 118:59. I have thought on my ways: and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. 118:60. I am ready, and am not troubled: that I may keep thy commandments. 118:61. The cords of the wicked have encompassed me: but I have not forgotten thy law. 118:62. I rose at midnight to give praise to thee; for the judgments of thy justification. 118:63. I am a partaker with all them that fear thee, and that keep thy commandments. 118:64. The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy justifications. TETH. 118:65. Thou hast done well with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word. 118:66. Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge; for I have believed thy commandments. 118:67. Before I was humbled I offended; therefore have I kept thy word. 118:68. Thou art good; and in thy goodness teach me thy justifications. 118:69. The iniquity of the proud hath been multiplied over me: but I will seek thy commandments with my whole heart. 118:70. Their heart is curdled like milk: but I have meditated on thy law. 118:71. It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications. 118:72. The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver. JOD. 118:73. Thy hands have made me and formed me: give me understanding, and I will learn thy commandments. 118:74. They that fear thee shall see me, and shall be glad : because I have greatly hoped in thy words. 118:75. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are equity: and in thy truth thou hast humbled me. 118:76. O! let thy mercy be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant. 118:77. Let thy tender mercies come unto me, and I shall live: for thy law is my meditation. 118:78. Let the proud be ashamed, because they have done unjustly towards me: but I will be employed in thy commandments. 118:79. Let them that fear thee turn to me: and they that know thy testimonies. 118:80. Let my heart be undefiled in thy justifications, that I may not be confounded. CAPH. 118:81. My soul hath fainted after thy salvation: and in thy word I have very much hoped. 118:82. My eyes have failed for thy word, saying: When wilt thou comfort me? 118:83. For I am become like a bottle in the frost: I have not forgotten thy justifications. 118:84. How many are the days of thy servant: when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me? 118:85. The wicked have told me fables: but not as thy law. 118:86. All thy statutes are truth: they have persecuted me unjustly, do thou help me. 118:87. They had almost made an end of me upon earth: but I have not forsaken thy commandments. 118:88. Quicken thou me according to thy mercy: and I shall keep the testimonies of thy mouth. LAMED. 118:89. For ever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in heaven. 118:90. Thy truth unto all generations: thou hast founded the earth, and it continueth. 118:91. By thy ordinance the day goeth on: for all things serve thee. 118:92. Unless thy law had been my meditation, I had then perhaps perished in my abjection. 118:93. Thy justifications I will never forget: for by them thou hast given me life. 118:94. I am thine, save thou me: for I have sought thy justifications. 118:95. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I have understood thy testimonies. 118:96. I have seen an end of all perfection: thy commandment is exceeding broad. MEM. 118:97. O how have I loved thy law, O Lord! it is my meditation all the day. 118:98. Through thy commandment, thou hast made me wiser than my enemies: for it is ever with me. 118:99. I have understood more than all my teachers: because thy testimonies are my meditation. 118:100. I have had understanding above ancients: because I have sought thy commandments. 118:101. I have restrained my feet from every evil way: that I may keep thy words. 118:102. I have not declined from thy judgments, because thou hast set me a law. 118:103. How sweet are thy words to my palate! more than honey to my mouth. 118:104. By thy commandments I have had understanding: therefore have I hated every way of iniquity. NUN. 118:105. Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. 118:106. I have sworn and am determined to keep the judgments of thy justice. 118:107. I have been humbled, O Lord, exceedingly: quicken thou me according to thy word. 118:108. The free offerings of my mouth make acceptable, O Lord: and teach me thy judgments. 118:109. My soul is continually in my hands: and I have not forgotten thy law. 118:110. Sinners have laid a snare for me: but I have not erred from thy precepts. 118:111. I have purchased thy testimonies for an inheritance for ever: because they are the joy of my heart. 118:112. I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever, for the reward. SAMECH. 118:113. I have hated the unjust: and have loved thy law. 118:114. Thou art my helper and my protector: and in thy word I have greatly hoped. 118:115. Depart from me, ye malignant: and I will search the commandments of my God. 118:116. Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation. 118:117. Help me, and I shall be saved: and I will meditate always on thy justifications. 118:118. Thou hast despised all them that fall off from thy judgments; for their thought is unjust. 118:119. I have accounted all the sinners of the earth prevaricators: therefore have I loved thy testimonies. 118:120. Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear: for I am afraid of thy judgments. AIN. 118:121. I have done judgment and justice: give me not up to them that slander me. 118:122. Uphold thy servant unto good: let not the proud calumniate me. 118:123. My eyes have fainted after thy salvation: and for the word of thy justice. 118:124. Deal with thy servant according to thy mercy: and teach me thy justifications. 118:125. I am thy servant: give me understanding that I may know thy testimonies. 118:126. It is time, O Lord, to do: they have dissipated thy law. 118:127. Therefore have I loved thy commandments above gold and the topaz. 118:128. Therefore was I directed to all thy commandments: I have hated all wicked ways. PHE. 118:129. Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore my soul hath sought them. 118:130. The declaration of thy words giveth light: and giveth understanding to little ones. 118:131. I opened my mouth, and panted: because I longed for thy commandments. 118:132. Look thou upon me, and have mercy on me according to the judgment of them that love thy name. 118:133. Direct my steps according to thy word: and let no iniquity have dominion over me. 118:134. Redeem me from the calumnies of men: that I may keep thy commandments. 118:135. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: and teach me thy justifications. 118:136. My eyes have sent forth springs of water: because they have not kept thy law. SADE. 118:137. Thou art just, O Lord: and thy judgment is right. 118:138. Thou hast commanded justice thy testimonies: and thy truth exceedingly. 118:139. My zeal hath made me pine away: because my enemies forgot thy words. 118:140. Thy word is exceedingly refined: and thy servant hath loved it. 118:141. I am very young and despised; but I forget not thy justifications. 118:142. Thy justice is justice for ever: and thy law is the truth. 118:143. Trouble and anguish have found me: thy commandments are my meditation. 118:144. Thy testimonies are justice for ever: give me understanding, and I shall live. COPH. 118:145. I cried with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord: I will seek thy justifications. 118:146. I cried unto thee, save me: that I may keep thy commandments. 118:147. I prevented the dawning of the day, and cried: because in thy words I very much hoped. 118:148. My eyes to thee have prevented the morning: that I might meditate on thy words. 118:149. Hear thou my voice, O Lord, according to thy mercy: and quicken me according to thy judgment. 118:150. They that persecute me have drawn nigh to iniquity; but they are gone far off from thy law. 118:151. Thou art near, O Lord: and all thy ways are truth. 118:152. I have known from the beginning concerning thy testimonies: that thou hast founded them for ever. RES. 118:153. See my humiliation and deliver me for I have not forgotten thy law. 118:154. Judge my judgment and redeem me: quicken thou me for thy word's sake. 118:155. Salvation is far from sinners; because they have not sought thy justifications. 118:156. Many, O Lord, are thy mercies: quicken me according to thy judgment. 118:157. Many are they that persecute me and afflict me; but I have not declined from thy testimonies. 118:158. I beheld the transgressors, and pined away; because they kept not thy word. 118:159. Behold I have loved thy commandments, O Lord; quicken me thou in thy mercy. 118:160. The beginning of thy words is truth: all the judgments of thy justice are for ever. SIN. 118:161. Princes have persecuted me without cause: and my heart hath been in awe of thy words. 118:162. I will rejoice at thy words, as one that hath found great spoil. 118:163. I have hated and abhorred iniquity; but I have loved thy law. 118:164. Seven times a day I have given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy justice. 118:165. Much peace have they that love thy law, and to them there is no stumbling. block. 118:166. I looked for thy salvation, O Lord: and I loved thy commandments. 118:167. My soul hath kept thy testimonies and hath loved them exceedingly. 118:168. I have kept thy commandments and thy testimonies: because all my ways are in thy sight. TAU. 118:169. Let my supplication, O Lord, come near in thy sight: give me understanding according to thy word. 118:170. Let my request come in before thee; deliver thou me according to thy word. 118:171. My lips shall utter a hymn, when thou shalt teach me thy justifications. 118:172. My tongue shall pronounce thy word: because all thy commandments are justice. 118:173. Let thy hand be with me to save me; for I have chosen thy precepts. 118:174. I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; and thy law is my meditation. 118:175. My soul shall live and shall praise thee: and thy judgments shall help me. 118:176. I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost: seek thy servant, because I have not forgotten thy commandments. Psalms Chapter 119 Ad Dominum. A prayer in tribulation. A gradual canticle. A gradual canticle. . .The following psalms, in number fifteen, are called gradual psalms, or canticles, from the word gradus, signifying steps, ascensions, or degrees: either because they were appointed to be sung on the fifteen steps, by which the people ascended to the temple: or, that in the singing of them the voice was to be raised by certain steps or ascensions: or, that they were to be sung by the people returning from their captivity and ascending to Jerusalem, which was seated amongst mountains. The holy fathers, in a mystical sense, understand these steps, or ascensions, of the degrees by which Christians spiritually ascend to virtue and perfection; and to the true temple of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. 119:1. In my trouble I cried to the Lord: and he heard me. 119:2. O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips, and a deceitful tongue. 119:3. What shall be given to thee, or what shall be added to thee, to a deceitful tongue? 119:4. The sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals that lay waste. 119:5. Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar: 119:6. My soul hath been long a sojourner. 119:7. With them that hated peace I was peaceable: when I spoke to them they fought against me without cause. Psalms Chapter 120 Levavi oculos. God is the keeper of his servants. A gradual canticle. 120:1. I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me. 120:2. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 120:3. May he not suffer thy foot to be moved: neither let him slumber that keepeth thee. 120:4. Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel. 120:5. The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy protection upon thy right hand. 120:6. The sun shall not burn thee by day: nor the moon by night. 120:7. The Lord keepeth thee from all evil: may the Lord keep thy soul. 120:8. May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out; from henceforth now and for ever. Psalms Chapter 121 Laetatus sum in his. The desire and hope of the just for the coming of the kingdom of God, and the peace of his church. 121:1. A gradual canticle. I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. 121:2. Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem. 121:3. Jerusalem, which is built as a city, which is compact together. 121:4. For thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord: the testimony of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord. 121:5. Because their seats have sat in judgment, seats upon the house of David. 121:6. Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem: and abundance for them that love thee. 121:7. Let peace be in thy strength: and abundance in thy towers. 121:8. For the sake of my brethren, and of my neighbours, I spoke peace of thee. 121:9. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I have sought good things for thee. Psalms Chapter 122 Ad te levavi. A prayer in affliction, with confidence in God. A gradual canticle. 122:1. To thee have I lifted up my eyes, who dwellest in heaven. 122:2. Behold as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, As the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us. 122:3. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: for we are greatly filled with contempt. 122:4. For our soul is greatly filled: we are a reproach to the rich, and contempt to the proud. Psalms Chapter 123 Nisi quia Domini. The church giveth glory to God for her deliverance, from the hands of her enemies. 123:1. A gradual canticle. If it had not been that the Lord was with us, let Israel now say: 123:2. If it had not been that the Lord was with us, When men rose up against us, 123:3. Perhaps they had swallowed us up alive. When their fury was enkindled against us, 123:4. Perhaps the waters had swallowed us up. 123:5. Our soul hath passed through a torrent: perhaps our soul had passed through a water insupportable. 123:6. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us to be a prey to their teeth. 123:7. Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we are delivered. 123:8. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalms Chapter 124 Qui confidunt. The just are always under God's protection. 124:1. A gradual canticle. They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion: he shall not be moved for ever that dwelleth 124:2. In Jerusalem. Mountains are round about it: so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth now and for ever. 124:3. For the Lord will not leave the rod of sinners upon the lot of the just: that the just may not stretch forth their hands to iniquity. 124:4. Do good, O Lord, to those that are good, and to the upright of heart. 124:5. But such as turn aside into bonds, the Lord shall lead out with the workers of iniquity: peace upon Israel. Psalms Chapter 125 In convertendo. The people of God rejoice at their delivery from captivity. 125:1. A gradual canticle. When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became like men comforted. 125:2. Then was our mouth filled with gladness; and our tongue with joy. Then shall they say among the Gentiles: The Lord hath done great things for them. 125:3. The Lord hath done great things for us: we are become joyful. 125:4. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as a stream in the south. 125:5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. 125:6. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. 125:7. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves. Psalms Chapter 126 Nisi Dominus. Nothing can be done without God's grace and blessing. 126:1. A gradual canticle of Solomon. Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it. 126:2. It is vain for you to rise before light, rise ye after you have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow. When he shall give sleep to his beloved, It is vain for you to rise before light. . .That is, your early rising, your labour and worldly solicitude, will be vain, that is, will avail you nothing, without the light, grace, and blessing of God. 126:3. Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb. 126:4. As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that have been shaken. 126:5. Blessed is the man that hath filled the desire with them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate. Psalms Chapter 127 Beati omnes. The fear of God is the way to happiness. 127:1. A gradual canticle. Blessed are all they that fear the Lord: that walk in his ways. 127:2. For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands: blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee. 127:3. Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table. 127:4. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. 127:5. May the Lord bless thee out of Sion: and mayst thou see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. 127:6. And mayst thou see thy children's children, peace upon Israel. Psalms Chapter 128 Saepe expugnaverunt. The church of God is invincible : her persecutors come to nothing. 128:1. A gradual canticle. Often have they fought against me from my youth, let Israel now say. 128:2. Often have they fought against me from my youth: but they could not prevail over me. 128:3. The wicked have wrought upon my back: they have lengthened their iniquity. 128:4. The Lord who is just will cut the necks of sinners: 128:5. Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Sion. 128:6. Let them be as grass upon the tops of houses: which withereth before it be plucked up: 128:7. Who with the mower filleth not his hand: nor he that gathereth sheaves his bosom. 128:8. And they that passed by have not said: The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we have blessed you in the name of the Lord. Psalms Chapter 129 De profundis. A prayer of a sinner, trusting in the mercies of God. The sixth penitential psalm. 129:1. A gradual canticle. Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: 129:2. Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. 129:3. If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it. 129:4. For with thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of thy law, I have waited for thee, O Lord. My soul hath relied on his word: 129:5. my soul hath hoped in the Lord. 129:6. From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord. 129:7. Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption. 129:8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Psalms Chapter 130 Domine, none est. The prophet's humility. 130:1. A gradual canticle of David. Lord, my heart is not exalted: nor are my eyes lofty. Neither have I walked in great matters, nor in wonderful things above me. 130:2. If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul: As a child that is weaned is towards his mother, so reward in my soul. 130:3. Let Israel hope in the Lord, from henceforth now and for ever. Psalms Chapter 131 Memento, Domine. A prayer for the fulfilling of the promise made to David. 131:1. A gradual canticle. O Lord, remember David, and all his meekness. 131:2. How he swore to the Lord, he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob: 131:3. If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house: if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie: 131:4. If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, 131:5. Or rest to my temples: until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. 131:6. Behold we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood. We have heard of it in Ephrata. . .When I was young, and lived in Bethlehem, otherwise called Ephrata, I heard of God's tabernacle and ark, and had a devout desire of seeking it; and accordingly I found it at Cariathiarim, the city of the woods: where it was till it was removed to Jerusalem. See 1 Par. 13. 131:7. We will go into his tabernacle: we will adore in the place where his feet stood. 131:8. Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified. 131:9. Let thy priests be clothed with justice: and let thy saints rejoice. 131:10. For thy servant David's sake, turn not away the face of thy anointed. 131:11. The Lord hath sworn truth to David, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon thy throne. 131:12. If thy children will keep my covenant, and these my testimonies which I shall teach them: Their children also for evermore shall sit upon thy throne. 131:13. For the Lord hath chosen Sion: he hath chosen it for his dwelling. 131:14. This is my rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. 131:15. Blessing I will bless her widow: I will satisfy her poor with bread. 131:16. I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall rejoice with exceeding great joy. 131:17. There will I bring forth a horn to David: I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. 131:18. His enemies I will clothe with confusion: but upon him shall my sanctification flourish. Psalms Chapter 132 Ecce quam bonum. The happiness of brotherly love and concord. 132:1. A gradual canticle of David. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity: 132:2. Like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, Which ran down to the skirt of his garment: 132:3. As the dew of Hermon, which descendeth upon mount Sion. For there the Lord hath commanded blessing, and life for evermore. Psalms Chapter 133 Ecce nunc benedicite. An exhortation to praise God continually. 133:1. A gradual canticle. Behold now bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord: Who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 133:2. In the nights lift up your hands to the holy places, and bless ye the Lord. 133:3. May the Lord out of Sion bless thee, he that made heaven and earth. Psalms Chapter 134 Laudate nomen. An exhortation to praise God: the vanity of idols. 134:1. Alleluia. Praise ye the name of the Lord: O you his servants, praise the Lord: 134:2. You that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 134:3. Praise ye the Lord, for the Lord is good: sing ye to his name, for it is sweet. 134:4. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself: Israel for his own possession. 134:5. For I have known that the Lord is great, and our God is above all gods. 134:6. Whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps. 134:7. He bringeth up clouds from the end of the earth: he hath made lightnings for the rain. He bringeth forth winds out of his stores: 134:8. He slew the firstborn of Egypt from man even unto beast. 134:9. He sent forth signs and wonders in the midst of thee, O Egypt: upon Pharao, and upon all his servants. 134:10. He smote many nations, and slew mighty kings: 134:11. Sehon king of the Amorrhites, and Og king of Basan, and all the kingdoms of Chanaan. 134:12. And gave their land for an inheritance, for an inheritance to his people Israel. 134:13. Thy name, O Lord, is for ever: thy memorial, O Lord, unto all generations. 134:14. For the Lord will judge his people, and will be entreated in favour of his servants. 134:15. The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. 134:16. They have a mouth, but they speak not: they have eyes, but they see not. 134:17. They have ears, but they hear not: neither is there any breath in their mouths. 134:18. Let them that make them be like to them: and every one that trusteth in them. 134:19. Bless the Lord, O house of Israel: bless the Lord, O house of Aaron. 134:20. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi: you that fear the Lord, bless the Lord. 134:21. Blessed be the Lord out of Sion, who dwelleth in Jerusalem. Psalms Chapter 135 Confitemini Domino. God is to be praised for his wonderful works. 135:1. Alleluia. Praise the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Praise the Lord. . .By this invitation to praise the Lord, thrice repeated, we profess the Blessed Trinity, One God in three distinct Persons, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 135:2. Praise ye the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:3. Praise ye the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:4. Who alone doth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:5. Who made the heavens in understanding: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:6. Who established the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:7. Who made the great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:8. The sun to rule the day: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:9. The moon and the stars to rule the night: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:10. Who smote Egypt with their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:11. Who brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:12. With a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:13. Who divided the Red Sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:14. And brought out Israel through the midst thereof: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:15. And overthrew Pharao and his host in the Red Sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:16. Who led his people through the desert: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:17. Who smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:18. And slew strong kings: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:19. Sehon king of the Amorrhites: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:20. And Og king of Basan: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:21. And he gave their land for an inheritance: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:22. For an inheritance to his servant Israel: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:23. For he was mindful of us in our affliction: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:24. And he redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:25. Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:26. Give glory to the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever. 135:27. Give glory to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever. Psalms Chapter 136 Super flumina. The lamentation of the people of God in their captivity in Babylon. A psalm of David, for Jeremias. For Jeremias. . .For the time of Jeremias, and the captivity of Babylon. 136:1. Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion: 136:2. On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments. 136:3. For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion. 136:4. How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? 136:5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. 136:6. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy. 136:7. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: Who say: Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. 136:8. O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us. 136:9. Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock. Dash thy little ones, etc. . .In the spiritual sense, we dash the little ones of Babylon against the rock, when we mortify our passions, and stifle the first motions of them, by a speedy recourse to the rock which is Christ. Psalms Chapter 137 Confitebor tibi. Thanksgiving to God for his benefits. 137:1. For David himself. I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart: for thou hast heard the words of my mouth. I will sing praise to thee in the sight of the angels: 137:2. I will worship towards thy holy temple, and I will give glory to thy name. For thy mercy, and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy holy name above all. 137:3. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, hear me: thou shalt multiply strength in my soul. 137:4. May all the kings of the earth give glory to thee: for they have heard all the words of thy mouth. 137:5. And let them sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord. 137:6. For the Lord is high, and looketh on the low: and the high he knoweth afar off. 137:7. If I shall walk in the midst of tribulation, thou wilt quicken me: and thou hast stretched forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies: and thy right hand hath saved me. 137:8. The Lord will repay for me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever: O despise not the works of thy hands. Psalms Chapter 138 Domine, probasti. God's special providence over his servants. 138:1. Unto the end, a psalm of David. Lord, thou hast proved me, and known me: 138:2. Thou hast known my sitting down, and my rising up. 138:3. Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off: my path and my line thou hast searched out. 138:4. And thou hast foreseen all my ways: for there is no speech in my tongue. There is no speech, etc. . .Viz., unknown to thee: or when there is no speech in my tongue; yet my whole interior and my most secret thoughts are known to thee. 138:5. Behold, O Lord, thou hast known all things, the last and those of old: thou hast formed me, and hast laid thy hand upon me. 138:6. Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me: it is high, and I cannot reach to it. 138:7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? 138:8. If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present. 138:9. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: 138:10. Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me. 138:11. And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me: and night shall be my light in my pleasures. 138:12. But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light all the day: the darkness thereof, and the light thereof are alike to thee. 138:13. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast protected me from my mother's womb. 138:14. I will praise thee, for thou art fearfully magnified: wonderful are thy works, and my soul knoweth right well. 138:15. My bone is not hidden from thee, which thou hast made in secret: and my substance in the lower parts of the earth. 138:16. Thy eyes did see my imperfect being, and in thy book all shall be written: days shall be formed, and no one in them. 138:17. But to me thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable: their principality is exceedingly strengthened. 138:18. I will number them, and they shall be multiplied above the sand, I rose up and am still with thee. 138:19. If thou wilt kill the wicked, O God: ye men of blood, depart from me: 138:20. Because you say in thought: They shall receive thy cities in vain. Because you say in thought, etc. . .Depart from me, you wicked, who plot against the servants of God, and think to cast them out of the cities of their habitation; as if they have received them in vain, and to no purpose. 138:21. Have I not hated them, O Lord, that hated thee: and pined away because of thy enemies? 138:22. I have hated them with a perfect hatred: and they are become enemies to me. I have hated them. . .Not with an hatred of malice, but a zeal for the observance of God's commandments; which he saw were despised by the wicked, who are to be considered enemies to God. 138:23. Prove me, O God, and know my heart: examine me, and know my paths. 138:24. And see if there be in me the way of iniquity: and lead me in the eternal way. Psalms Chapter 139 Eripe me, Domine. A prayer to be delivered from the wicked. 139:1. Unto the end, a psalm of David. 139:2. Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: rescue me from the unjust man. 139:3. Who have devised iniquities in their hearts: all the day long they designed battles. 139:4. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent: the venom of asps is under their lips. 139:5. Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the wicked: and from unjust men deliver me. Who have proposed to supplant my steps: 139:6. The proud have hidden a net for me. And they have stretched out cords for a snare: they have laid for me a stumblingblock by the wayside. 139:7. I said to the Lord: Thou art my God: hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication. 139:8. O Lord, Lord, the strength of my salvation: thou hast overshadowed my head in the day of battle. 139:9. Give me not up, O Lord, from my desire to the wicked: they have plotted against me; do not thou forsake me, lest they should triumph. 139:10. The head of them compassing me about: the labour of their lips shall overwhelm them. 139:11. Burning coals shall fall upon them; thou wilt cast them down into the fire: in miseries they shall not be able to stand. 139:12. A man full of tongue shall not be established in the earth: evil shall catch the unjust man unto destruction. 139:13. I know that the Lord will do justice to the needy, and will revenge the poor. 139:14. But as for the just, they shall give glory to thy name: and the upright shall dwell with thy countenance. Psalms Chapter 140 Domine, clamavi. A prayer against sinful words, and deceitful flatterers. A psalm of David. 140:1. I have cried to thee, O Lord, hear me: hearken to my voice, when I cry to thee. 140:2. Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice. 140:3. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips. 140:4. Incline not my heart to evil words; to make excuses in sins. With men that work iniquity: and I will not communicate with the choicest of them. 140:5. The just man shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me: but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. For my prayer shall still be against the things with which they are well pleased: Let not the oil of the sinner, etc. . .That is, the flattery, or deceitful praise.--Ibid. For my prayer, etc. . .So far from coveting their praises, who are never well pleased but with things that are evil; I shall continually pray to be preserved from such things as they are delighted with. 140:6. Their judges falling upon the rock have been swallowed up. They shall hear my words, for they have prevailed: Their judges, etc. . .Their rulers, or chiefs, quickly vanish and perish, like ships dashed against the rocks, and swallowed up by the waves. Let them then hear my words, for they are powerful and will prevail; or, as it is in the Hebrew, for they are sweet. 140:7. As when the thickness of the earth is broken up upon the ground: Our bones are scattered by the side of hell. 140:8. But to thee, O Lord, Lord, are my eyes: in thee have I put my trust, take not away my soul. 140:9. Keep me from the snare, which they have laid for me, and from the stumblingblocks of them that work iniquity. 140:10. The wicked shall fall in his net: I am alone until I pass. I am alone, etc. . .Singularly protected by the Almighty, until I pass all their nets and snares. Psalms Chapter 141 Voce mea. A prayer of David in extremity of danger. 141:1. Of understanding for David, A prayer when he was in the cave. [1 Kings 24.] 141:2. I cried to the Lord with my voice: with my voice I made supplication to the Lord. 141:3. In his sight I pour out my prayer, and before him I declare my trouble: 141:4. When my spirit failed me, then thou knewest my paths. In this way wherein I walked, they have hidden a snare for me. 141:5. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, and there was no one that would know me. Flight hath failed me: and there is no one that hath regard to my soul. 141:6. I cried to thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living. 141:7. Attend to my supplication: for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. 141:8. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the just wait for me, until thou reward me. Psalms Chapter 142 Domine, exaudi. The psalmist in tribulation calleth upon God for his delivery. The seventh penitential psalm. 142:1. A psalm of David, when his son Absalom pursued him. [2 Kings 17.] Hear, O Lord, my prayer: give ear to my supplication in thy truth: hear me in thy justice. 142:2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight no man living shall be justified. 142:3. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old: 142:4. And my spirit is in anguish within me: my heart within me is troubled. 142:5. I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all thy works: I meditated upon the works of thy hands. 142:6. I stretched forth my hands to thee: my soul is as earth without water unto thee. 142:7. Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath fainted away. Turn not away thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. 142:8. Cause me to hear thy mercy in the morning; for in thee have I hoped. Make the way known to me, wherein I should walk: for I have lifted up my soul to thee. 142:9. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, to thee have I fled: 142:10. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land: 142:11. for thy name's sake, O Lord, thou wilt quicken me in thy justice. Thou wilt bring my soul out of trouble: 142:12. And in thy mercy thou wilt destroy my enemies. And thou wilt cut off all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant. Psalms Chapter 143 Benedictus Dominus. The prophet praiseth God, and prayeth to be delivered from his enemies. No worldly happiness is to be compared with that of serving God. A psalm of David against Goliath. 143:1. Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war. 143:2. My mercy, and my refuge: my support, and my deliverer: My protector, and I have hoped in him: who subdueth my people under me. 143:3. Lord, what is man, that thou art made known to him? or the son of man, that thou makest account of him? 143:4. Man is like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow. 143:5. Lord, bow down thy heavens and descend: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. 143:6. Send forth lightning, and thou shalt scatter them: shoot out thy arrows, and thou shalt trouble them. 143:7. Put forth thy hand from on high, take me out, and deliver me from many waters: from the hand of strange children: 143:8. Whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. 143:9. To thee, O God, I will sing a new canticle: on the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings I will sing praises to thee. 143:10. Who givest salvation to kings: who hast redeemed thy servant David from the malicious sword: 143:11. Deliver me, And rescue me out of the hand of strange children; whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity: 143:12. Whose sons are as new plants in their youth: Their daughters decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple: 143:13. Their storehouses full, flowing out of this into that. Their sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth: 143:14. Their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall, nor passage, nor crying out in their streets. 143:15. They have called the people happy, that hath these things: but happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Psalms Chapter 144 Exaltabo te, Deus. A psalm of praise, to the infinite majesty of God. 144:1. Praise, for David himself. I will extol thee, O God my king: and I will bless thy name for ever; yea, for ever and ever. 144:2. Every day will I bless thee: and I will praise thy name for ever; yea, for ever and ever. 144:3. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: and of his greatness there is no end. 144:4. Generation and generation shall praise thy works: and they shall declare thy power. 144:5. They shall speak of the magnificence of the glory of thy holiness: and shall tell thy wondrous works. 144:6. And they shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and shall declare thy greatness. 144:7. They shall publish the memory of the abundance of thy sweetness: and shall rejoice in thy justice. 144:8. The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. 144:9. The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. 144:10. Let all thy works, O lord, praise thee: and let thy saints bless thee. 144:11. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom: and shall tell of thy power: 144:12. To make thy might known to the sons of men: and the glory of the magnificence of thy kingdom. 144:13. Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words: and holy in all his works. 144:14. The Lord lifteth up all that fall: and setteth up all that are cast down. 144:15. The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord: and thou givest them meat in due season. 144:16. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature. 144:17. The Lord is just in all his ways: and holy in all his works. 144:18. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him: to all that call upon him in truth. 144:19. He will do the will of them that fear him: and he will hear their prayer, and save them. 144:20. The Lord keepeth all them that love him; but all the wicked he will destroy. 144:21. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh bless his holy name forever; yea, for ever and ever. Psalms Chapter 145 Lauda, anima. We are not to trust in men, but in God alone. 145:1. Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias. 145:2. Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes: 145:3. In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. 145:4. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. 145:5. Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God: 145:6. Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them. 145:7. Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered: 145:8. The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just. 145:9. The Lord keepeth the strangers, he will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy. 145:10. The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation. Psalms Chapter 146 Laudate Dominum. An exhortation to praise God for his benefits. 146:1. Alleluia. Praise ye the Lord, because psalm is good: to our God be joyful and comely praise. 146:2. The Lord buildeth up Jerusalem: he will gather together the dispersed of Israel. 146:3. Who healeth the broken of heart, and bindeth up their bruises. 146:4. Who telleth the number of the stars: and calleth them all by their names. 146:5. Great is our Lord, and great is his power: and of his wisdom there is no number. 146:6. The Lord lifteth up the meek, and bringeth the wicked down even to the ground. 146:7. Sing ye to the Lord with praise: sing to our God upon the harp. 146:8. Who covereth the heaven with clouds, and prepareth rain for the earth. Who maketh grass to grow on the mountains, and herbs for the service of men. 146:9. Who giveth to beasts their food: and to the young ravens that call upon him. 146:10. He shall not delight in the strength of the horse: nor take pleasure in the legs of a man. 146:11. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him: and in them that hope in his mercy. Psalms Chapter 147 Lauda, Jerusalem. The church is called upon to praise God for his peculiar graces and favours to his people. In the Hebrew, this psalm is joined to the foregoing. Alleluia. 147:12. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: praise thy God, O Sion. 147:13. Because he hath strengthened the bolts of thy gates, he hath blessed thy children within thee. 147:14. Who hath placed peace in thy borders: and filleth thee with the fat of corn. 147:15. Who sendeth forth his speech to the earth: his word runneth swiftly. 147:16. Who giveth snow like wool: scattereth mists like ashes. 147:17. He sendeth his crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of his cold? He sendeth his crystal. . .That is, his ice. Some understand it of hail, which is, as it were, ice, divided into particles or morsels. 147:18. He shall send out his word, and shall melt them: his wind shall blow, and the waters shall run. 147:19. Who declareth his word to Jacob: his justices and his judgments to Israel. 147:20. He hath not done in like manner to every nation: and his judgments he hath not made manifest to them. Alleluia. Psalms Chapter 148 Laudate Dominum de caelis. All creatures are invited to praise their Creator. Alleluia. 148:1. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise ye him in the high places. 148:2. Praise ye him, all his angels, praise ye him, all his hosts. 148:3. Praise ye him, O sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars and light. 148:4. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens: and let all the waters that are above the heavens 148:5. Praise the name of the Lord. For he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created. 148:6. He hath established them for ever, and for ages of ages: he hath made a decree, and it shall not pass away. 148:7. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all ye deeps: 148:8. Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds, which fulfil his word: 148:9. Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars: 148:10. Beasts and all cattle: serpents and feathered fowls: 148:11. Kings of the earth and all people: princes and all judges of the earth: 148:12. Young men and maidens: let the old with the younger, praise the name of the Lord: 148:13. For his name alone is exalted. 148:14. The praise of him is above heaven and earth: and he hath exalted the horn of his people. A hymn to all his saints to the children of Israel, a people approaching to him. Alleluia. Psalms Chapter 149 Cantate Domino. The church is particularly bound to praise God. Alleluia. 149:1. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let his praise be in the church of the saints. 149:2. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: and let the children of Sion be joyful in their king. 149:3. Let them praise his name in choir: let them sing to him with the timbrel and the psaltery. 149:4. For the Lord is well pleased with his people: and he will exalt the meek unto salvation. 149:5. The saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their beds. 149:6. The high praises of God shall be in their mouth: and two-edged swords in their hands: 149:7. To execute vengeance upon the nations, chastisements among the people: 149:8. To bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with manacles of iron. 149:9. To execute upon them the judgment that is written: this glory is to all his saints. Alleluia. Psalms Chapter 150 Laudate Dominum in sanctis. An exhortation to praise God with all sorts of instruments. Alleluia. 150:1. Praise ye the Lord in his holy places: praise ye him in the firmament of his power. 150:2. Praise ye him for his mighty acts: praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness. 150:3. Praise him with the sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp. 150:4. Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs. 150:5. Praise him on high sounding cymbals: praise him on cymbals of joy: let every spirit praise the Lord. Alleluia. THE BOOK OF PROVERBS This Book is so called, because it consists of wise and weighty sentences: regulating the morals of men: and directing them to wisdom and virtue. And these sentences are also called PARABLES, because great truths are often couched in them under certain figures and similitudes. Proverbs Chapter 1 The use and end of the proverbs. An exhortation to flee the company of the wicked: and to hearken to the voice of wisdom. 1:1. The parables of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, 1:2. To know wisdom, and instruction: 1:3. To understand the words of prudence: and to receive the instruction of doctrine, justice, and judgment, and equity: 1:4. To give subtilty to little ones, to the young man knowledge and understanding. 1:5. A wise man shall hear, and shall be wiser: and he that understandeth shall possess governments. 1:6. He shall understand a parable and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their mysterious sayings. 1:7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. 1:8. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 1:9. That grace may be added to thy head, and a chain of gold to thy neck. 1:10. My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them. 1:11. If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause: 1:12. Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit. 1:13. We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils. 1:14. Cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse. 1:15. My son, walk not thou with them, restrain thy foot from their paths. 1:16. For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 1:17. But a net is spread in vain before the eyes of them that have wings. 1:18. And they themselves lie in wait for their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls. 1:19. So the ways of every covetous man destroy the souls of the possessors. 1:20. Wisdom preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets: 1:21. At the head of multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying: 1:22. O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge? 1:23. Turn ye at my reproof: behold I will utter my spirit to you, and will shew you my words. 1:24. Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded. 1:25. You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reprehensions. 1:26. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared. 1:27. When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction, as a tempest, shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you: 1:28. Then shall they call upon me, and I will not hear: they shall rise in the morning, and shall not find me: 1:29. Because they have hated instruction, and received not the fear of the Lord, 1:30. Nor consented to my counsel, but despised all my reproof. 1:31. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and shall be filled with their own devices. 1:32. The turning away of little ones shall kill them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 1:33. But he that shall hear me, shall rest without terror, and shall enjoy abundance, without fear of evils. Proverbs Chapter 2 The advantages of wisdom: and the evils from which it delivers. 2:1. My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and wilt hide my commandments with thee, 2:2. That thy ear may hearken to wisdom: incline thy heart to know prudence. 2:3. For if thou shalt call for wisdom, and incline thy heart to prudence: 2:4. If thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure: 2:5. Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and shalt find the knowledge of God: 2:6. Because the Lord giveth wisdom: and out of his mouth cometh prudence and knowledge. 2:7. He wilt keep the salvation of the righteous, and protect them that walk in simplicity, 2:8. Keeping the paths of justice, and guarding the ways of saints. 2:9. Then shalt thou understand justice, and judgment, and equity, and every good path. 2:10. If wisdom shall enter into thy heart, and knowledge please thy soul: 2:11. Counsel shall keep thee, and prudence shall preserve thee, 2:12. That thou mayst be delivered from the evil way, and from the man that speaketh perverse things: 2:13. Who leave the right way, and walk by dark ways: 2:14. Who are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in the most wicked things: 2:15. Whose ways are perverse, and their steps infamous. 2:16. That thou mayst be delivered from the strange woman, and from the stranger, who softeneth her words; 2:17. And forsaketh the guide of her youth, 2:18. And hath forgotten the covenant of her God: for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths to hell. 2:19. None that go in unto her, shall return again, neither shall they take hold of the paths of life. 2:20. That thou mayst walk in a good way: and mayst keep the paths of the just. 2:21. For they that are upright, shall dwell in the earth; and the simple shall continue in it. 2:22. But the wicked shall be destroyed from the earth: and they that do unjustly, shall be taken away from it. Proverbs Chapter 3 An exhortation to the practice of virtue. 3:1. My son, forget not my law, and let thy heart keep my commandments. 3:2. For they shall add to thee length of days, and years of life, and peace. 3:3. Let not mercy aud truth leave thee, put them about thy neck, and write them in the tables of thy heart. 3:4. And thou shalt find grace, and good understanding before God and men. 3:5. Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence. 3:6. In all thy ways think on him, and he will direct thy steps. 3:7. Be not wise in thy own conceit: fear God, and depart from evil: 3:8. For it shall be health to thy navel, and moistening to thy bones. 3:9. Honour the Lord with thy substance, and give him of the first of all thy fruits; 3:10. And thy barns shall be filled with abundance, and thy presses shall run over with wine. 3:11. My son, reject not the correction of the Lord: and do not faint when thou art chastised by him: 3:12. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth: and as a father in the son he pleaseth himself. 3:13. Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and is rich in prudence: 3:14. The purchasing thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and her fruit than the chief and purest gold: 3:15. She is more precious than all riches: and all the things that are desired, are not to be compared to her. 3:16. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. 3:17. Her ways are beautiful ways, and all her paths are peaceable. 3:18. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her: and he that shall retain her is blessed. 3:19. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, hath established the heavens by prudence. 3:20. By his wisdom the depths have broken out, and the clouds grow thick with dew. 3:21. My son, let not these things depart from thy eyes: keep the law and counsel: 3:22. And there shall be life to thy soul, and grace to thy mouth. 3:23. Then shalt thou walk confidently in thy way, and thy foot shall not stumble: 3:24. If thou sleep, thou shalt not fear: thou shalt rest, and thy sleep shall be sweet. 3:25. Be not afraid of sudden fear, nor of the power of the wicked falling upon thee. 3:26. For the Lord will be at thy side, and will keep thy foot that thou be not taken. 3:27. Do not withhold him from doing good, who is able: if thou art able, do good thyself also. 3:28. Say not to thy friend: Go, and come again: and to morrow I will give to thee: when thou canst give at present. 3:29. Practise not evil against thy friend, when he hath confidence in thee. 3:30. Strive not against a man without cause, when he hath done thee no evil. 3:31. Envy not the unjust man, and do not follow his ways. 3:32. For every mocker is an abomination to the Lord, and his communication is with the simple. 3:33. Want is from the Lord in the house of the wicked: but the habitations of the just shall be blessed. 3:34. He shall scorn the scorners, and to the meek he will give grace. 3:35. The wise shall possess glory: the promotion of fools is disgrace. Proverbs Chapter 4 A further exhortation to seek after wisdom. 4:1. Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend, that you may know prudence. 4:2. I will give you a good gift, forsake not my law. 4:3. For I also was my father's son, tender, and as an only son in the sight of my mother: 4:4. And he taught me, and said: Let thy heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and thou shalt live. 4:5. Get wisdom, get prudence: forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. 4:6. Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her, and she shall preserve thee. 4:7. The beginning of wisdom, get wisdom, and with all thy possession purchase prudence. 4:8. Take hold on her, and she shall exalt thee: thou shalt be glorified by her, when thou shalt embrace her. 4:9. She shall give to thy head increase of graces, and protect thee with a noble crown. 4:10. Hear, O my son, and receive my words, that years of life may be multiplied to thee. 4:11. I will shew thee the way of wisdom, I will lead thee by the paths of equity: 4:12. Which when thou shalt have entered, thy steps shall not be straitened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not meet a stumblingblock. 4:13. Take hold on instruction, leave it not: keep it, because it is thy life. 4:14. Be not delighted in the paths of the wicked, neither let the way of evil men please thee. 4:15. Flee from it, pass not by it: go aside, and forsake it. 4:16. For they sleep not, except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall. 4:17. They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity. 4:18. But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards, and increaseth even to perfect day. 4:19. The way of the wicked is darksome: they know not where they fall. 4:20. My son, hearken to my words, and incline thy ear to my sayings. 4:21. Let them not depart from thy eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart: 4:22. For they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh. 4:23. With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it. 4:24. Remove from thee a froward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from thee. 4:25. Let thy eyes look straight on, and let thy eyelids go before thy steps. 4:26. Make straight the path for thy feet, and all thy ways shall be established. 4:27. Decline not to the right hand, nor to the left: turn away thy foot from evil. For the Lord knoweth the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will make thy courses straight, he will bring forward thy ways in peace. Proverbs Chapter 5 An exhortation to fly unlawful lust, and the occasions of it. 5:1. My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence, 5:2. That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman. 5:3. For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil. 5:4. But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword. 5:5. Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell. 5:6. They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable. 5:7. Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 5:8. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house. 5:9. Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel. 5:10. Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house, 5:11. And thou mourn at the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say; 5:12. Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof, 5:13. And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined my ear to masters? 5:14. I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation. 5:15. Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well: 5:16. Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters. 5:17. Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee. 5:18. Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth: 5:19. Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times: be thou delighted continually with her love. 5:20. Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another? 5:21. The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps. 5:22. His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins. 5:23. He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived. Proverbs Chapter 6 Documents on several heads. 6:1. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, thou hast engaged fast thy hand to a stranger, 6:2. Thou art ensnared with the words of thy mouth, and caught with thy own words. 6:3. Do, therefore, my son, what I say, and deliver thyself: because thou art fallen into the hand of thy neighbour. Run about, make haste, stir up thy friend: 6:4. Give not sleep to thy eyes, neither let thy eyelids slumber. 6:5. Deliver thyself as a doe from the hand, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. 6:6. Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom: 6:7. Which, although she hath no guide, nor master, nor captain, 6:8. Provideth her meat for herself in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. 6:9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 6:10. Thou wilt sleep a little, thou wilt slumber a little, thou wilt fold thy hands a little to sleep: 6:11. And want shall come upon thee, as a traveller, and poverty as a man armed. But if thou be diligent, thy harvest shall come as a fountain, and want shall flee far from thee. 6:12. A man that is an apostate, an unprofitable man, walketh with a perverse mouth, 6:13. He winketh with the eyes, presseth with the foot, speaketh with the finger. 6:14. With a wicked heart he deviseth evil, and at all times he soweth discord. 6:15. To such a one his destruction shall presently come, and he shall suddenly be destroyed, and shall no longer have any remedy. 6:16. Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth: 6:17. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 6:18. A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief, 6:19. A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren. 6:20. My son, keep the commandments of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother. 6:21. Bind them in thy heart continually, and put them about thy neck. 6:22. When thou walkest, let them go with thee: when thou sleepest, let them keep thee, and when thou awakest, talk with them. 6:23. Because the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 6:24. That they may keep thee from the evil woman, and from the flattering tongue of the stranger. 6:25. Let not thy heart covet her beauty, be not caught with her winks: 6:26. For the price of a harlot is scarce one loaf: but the woman catcheth the precious soul of a man. 6:27. Can a man hide fire in his bosom, and his garments not burn? 6:28. Or can he walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? 6:29. So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife, shall not be clean when he shall touch her. 6:30. The fault is not so great when a man hath stolen: for he stealeth to fill his hungry soul: The fault is not so great, etc. . .The sin of theft is not so great, as to be compared with adultery: especially when a person pressed with hunger (which is the case here spoken of) steals to satisfy nature. Moreover the damage done by theft may much more easily be repaired, than the wrong done by adultery. But this does not hinder, but that theft also is a mortal sin, forbidden by one of the ten commandments. 6:31. And if he be taken, he shall restore sevenfold, and shall give up all the substance of his house. 6:32. But he that is an adulterer, for the folly of his heart shall destroy his own soul: 6:33. He gathereth to himself shame and dishonour, and his reproach shall not be blotted out: 6:34. Because the jealousy and rage of the husband will not spare in the day of revenge, 6:35. Nor will he yield to any man's prayers, nor will he accept for satisfaction ever so many gifts. Proverbs Chapter 7 The love of wisdom is the best preservative from being led astray by temptation. 7:1. My son, keep my words, and lay up my precepts with thee. Son, 7:2. Keep my commandments, and thou shalt live: and my law as the apple of thy eye: 7:3. Bind it upon thy fingers, write it upon the tables of thy heart. 7:4. Say to wisdom: Thou art my sister: and call prudence thy friend, 7:5. That she may keep thee from the woman that is not thine, and from the stranger who sweeteneth her words. 7:6. For I looked out of the window of my house through the lattice, 7:7. And I see little ones, I behold a foolish young man, 7:8. Who passeth through the street by the corner, and goeth nigh the way of her house, 7:9. In the dark when it grows late, in the darkness and obscurity of the night. 7:10. And behold a woman meeteth him in harlot's attire, prepared to deceive souls: talkative and wandering, 7:11. Not bearing to be quiet, not able to abide still at home, 7:12. Now abroad, now in the streets, now lying in wait near the corners. 7:13. And catching the young man, she kisseth him, and with an impudent face, flattereth, saying: 7:14. I vowed victims for prosperity, this day I have paid my vows. 7:15. Therefore I am come out to meet thee, desirous to see thee, and I have found thee. 7:16. I have woven my bed with cords, I have covered it with painted tapestry, brought from Egypt. 7:17. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 7:18. Come, let us be inebriated with the breasts, and let us enjoy the desired embraces, till the day appear. 7:19. For my husband is not at home, he is gone a very long journey. 7:20. He took with him a bag of money: he will return home the day of the full moon. 7:21. She entangled him with many words, and drew him away with the flattery of her lips. 7:22. Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to be a victim, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and not knowing that he is drawn like a fool to bonds, 7:23. Till the arrow pierce his liver: as if a bird should make haste to the snare, and knoweth not that his life is in danger. 7:24. Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my mouth. 7:25. Let not thy mind be drawn away in her ways: neither be thou deceived with her paths. 7:26. For she hath cast down many wounded, and the strongest have been slain by her. 7:27. Her house is the way to hell, reaching even to the inner chambers of death. Proverbs Chapter 8 The preaching of wisdom. Her excellence. 8:1. Doth not wisdom cry aloud, and prudence put forth her voice? 8:2. Standing in the top of the highest places by the way, in the midst of the paths, 8:3. Beside the gates of the city, in the very doors she speaketh, saying: 8:4. O ye men, to you I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. 8:5. O little ones understand subtlety, and ye unwise, take notice. 8:6. Hear, for I will speak of great things: and my lips shall be opened to preach right things. 8:7. My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness. 8:8. All my words are just, there is nothing wicked, nor perverse in them. 8:9. They are right to them that understand, and just to them that find knowledge. 8:10. Receive my instruction, and not money: choose knowledge rather than gold. 8:11. For wisdom is better than all the most precious things: and whatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it. 8:12. I, wisdom, dwell in counsel, and am present in learned thoughts. 8:13. The fear of the Lord hateth evil; I hate arrogance, and pride, and every wicked way, and a mouth with a double tongue. 8:14. Counsel and equity is mine, prudence is mine, strength is mine. 8:15. By me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things. 8:16. By me princes rule, and the mighty decree justice. 8:17. I love them that love me: and they that in the morning early watch for me, shall find me. 8:18. With me are riches and glory, glorious riches and justice. 8:19. For my fruit is better than gold and the precious stone, and my blossoms than choice silver. 8:20. I walk in the way of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgment, 8:21. That I may enrich them that love me, and may fill their treasures. 8:22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. 8:23. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. 8:24. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out. 8:25. The mountains, with their huge bulk, had not as yet been established: before the hills, I was brought forth: 8:26. He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. 8:27. When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law, and compass, he enclosed the depths: 8:28. When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: 8:29. When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth; 8:30. I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times; 8:31. Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. 8:32. Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: blessed are they that keep my ways. 8:33. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. 8:34. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. 8:35. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord. 8:36. But he that shall sin against me shall hurt his own soul. All that hate me love death. Proverbs Chapter 9 Wisdom invites all to her feast. Folly calls another way. 9:1. Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars. 9:2. She hath slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table. 9:3. She hath sent her maids to invite to the tower, and to the walls of the city: 9:4. Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me. And to the unwise she said: 9:5. Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. 9:6. Forsake childishness, and live, and walk by the ways of prudence. 9:7. He that teacheth a scorner, doth an injury to himself; and he that rebuketh a wicked man, getteth himself a blot. 9:8. Rebuke not a scorner, lest he hate thee. Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. 9:9. Give an occasion to a wise man, and wisdom shall be added to him. Teach a just man, and he shall make haste to receive it. 9:10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is prudence. 9:11. For by me shall thy days be multiplied, and years of life shall be added to thee. 9:12. If thou be wise, thou shalt be so to thyself: and if a scorner, thou alone shalt bear the evil. 9:13. A foolish woman and clamorous, and full of allurements, and knowing nothing at all, 9:14. Sat at the door of her house, upon a seat, in a high place of the city, 9:15. To call them that pass by the way, and go on their journey: 9:16. He that is a little one, let him turn to me. And to the fool she said: 9:17. Stolen waters are sweeter, and hidden bread is more pleasant. 9:18. And he did not know that giants are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. Proverbs Chapter 10 In the twenty following chapters are contained many wise sayings and axioms, relating to wisdom and folly, virtue and vice. 10:1. A wise son maketh the father glad: but a foolish son is the sorrow of his mother. 10:2. Treasures of wickedness shall profit nothing: but justice shall deliver from death. 10:3. The Lord will not afflict the soul of the just with famine, and he will disappoint the deceitful practices of the wicked. 10:4. The slothful hand hath wrought poverty: but the hand of the industrious getteth riches. He that trusteth to lies feedeth the winds: and the same runneth after birds, that fly away. 10:5. He that gathereth in the harvest, is a wise son: but he that snorteth in the summer, is the son of confusion. 10:6. The blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just: but iniquity covereth the mouth of the wicked. 10:7. The memory of the just is with praises: and the name of the wicked shall rot. 10:8. The wise of heart receiveth precepts: a fool is beaten with lips. 10:9. He that walketh sincerely, walketh confidently: but he that perverteth his ways, shall be manifest. 10:10. He that winketh with the eye, shall cause sorrow: and the foolish in lips shall be beaten. 10:11. The mouth of the just is a vein of life: and the mouth of the wicked covereth iniquity. 10:12. Hatred stirreth up strifes: and charity covereth all sins. 10:13. In the lips of the wise is wisdom found: and a rod on the back of him that wanteth sense. 10:14. Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the fool is next to confusion. 10:15. The substance of a rich man is the city of his strength: the fear of the poor is their poverty. 10:16. The work of the just is unto life: but the fruit of the wicked unto sin. 10:17. The way of life, to him that observeth correction: but he that forsaketh reproofs, goeth astray. 10:18. Lying lips hide hatred: he that uttereth reproach, is foolish. 10:19. In the multitude of words there shall not want sin: but he that refraineth his lips, is most wise. 10:20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver: but the heart of the wicked is nothing worth. 10:21. The lips of the just teach many: but they that are ignorant, shall die in the want of understanding. 10:22. The blessing of the Lord maketh men rich: neither shall affliction be joined to them. 10:23. A fool worketh mischief as it were for sport: but wisdom is prudence to a man. 10:24. That which the wicked feareth, shall come upon him: to the just their desire shall be given. 10:25. As a tempest that passeth, so the wicked shall be no more: but the just is as an everlasting foundation. 10:26. As vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that sent him. 10:27. The fear of the Lord shall prolong days: and the years of the wicked shall be shortened. 10:28. The expectation of the just is joy: but the hope of the wicked shall perish. 10:29. The strength of the upright is the way of the Lord: and fear to them that work evil. 10:30. The just shall never be moved: but the wicked shall not dwell on the earth. 10:31. The mouth of the just shall bring forth wisdom: the tongue of the perverse shall perish. 10:32. The lips of the just consider what is acceptable: and the mouth of the wicked uttereth perverse things. Proverbs Chapter 11 11:1. A deceitful balance is an abomination before the Lord: and a just weight is his will. 11:2. Where pride is, there also shall be reproach: but where humility is, there also is wisdom. 11:3. The simplicity of the just shall guide them: and the deceitfulness of the wicked shall destroy them. 11:4. Riches shall not profit in the day of revenge: but justice shall deliver from death. 11:5. The justice of the upright shall make his way prosperous: and the wicked man shall fall by his own wickedness. 11:6. The justice of the righteous shall deliver them: and the unjust shall be caught in their own snares. 11:7. When the wicked man is dead, there shall be no hope any more: and the expectation of the solicitous shall perish. 11:8. The just is delivered out of distress: and the wicked shall be given up for him. 11:9. The dissembler with his mouth deceiveth his friend: but the just shall be delivered by knowledge. 11:10. When it goeth well with the just, the city shall rejoice: and when the wicked perish, there shall be praise. 11:11. By the blessing of the just the city shall be exalted: and by the mouth of the wicked it shall be overthrown. 11:12. He that despiseth his friend, is mean of heart: but the wise man will hold his peace. 11:13. He that walketh deceitfully, revealeth secrets: but he that is faithful, concealeth the thing committed to him by his friend. 11:14. Where there is no governor, the people shall fall: but there is safety where there is much counsel. 11:15. He shall be afflicted with evil, that is surety for a stranger: but he that is aware of snares, shall be secure. 11:16. A gracious woman shall find glory: and the strong shall have riches. 11:17. A merciful man doth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel casteth off even his own kindred. 11:18. The wicked maketh an unsteady work: but to him that soweth justice, there is a faithful reward. 11:19. Clemency prepareth life: and the pursuing of evil things, death. 11:20. A perverse heart is abominable to the Lord: and his will is in them that walk sincerely. 11:21. Hand in hand the evil man shall not be innocent: but the seed of the just shall be saved. 11:22. A golden ring in a swine's snout, a woman fair and foolish. 11:23. The desire of the just is all good, the expectation of the wicked is indignation. 11:24. Some distribute their own goods, and grow richer: others take away what is not their own, and are always in want. 11:25. The soul that blesseth, shall be made fat: and he that inebriateth, shall be inebriated also himself. 11:26. He that hideth up corn, shall be cursed among the people: but a blessing upon the head of them that sell. 11:27. Well doth he rise early who seeketh good things; but he that seeketh after evil things, shall be oppressed by them. 11:28. He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the just shall spring up as a green leaf. 11:29. He that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the winds: and the fool shall serve the wise. 11:30. The fruit of the just man is a tree of life: and he that gaineth souls is wise. 11:31. If the just man receive in the earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner. Proverbs Chapter 12 12:1. He that loveth correction, loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof, is foolish. 12:2. He that is good, shall draw grace from the Lord: but he that trusteth in his own devices, doth wickedly. 12:3. Man shall not be strengthened by wickedness: and the root of the just shall not be moved. 12:4. A diligent woman is a crown to her husband: and she that doth things worthy of confusion, is as rottenness in his bones. 12:5. The thoughts of the just are judgments: and the counsels of the wicked are deceitful. 12:6. The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood: the mouth of the just shall deliver them. 12:7. Turn the wicked, and they shall not be: but the house of the just shall stand firm. 12:8. A man shall be known by his learning: but he that is vain and foolish, shall be exposed to contempt. 12:9. Better is the poor man that provideth for himself, than he that is glorious and wanteth bread. 12:10. The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel. 12:11. He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that pursueth idleness is very foolish. 12:12. He that is delighted in passing his time over wine, leaveth a reproach in his strong holds. 12:12. The desire of the wicked is the fortification of evil men: but the root of the just shall prosper. 12:13. For the sins of the lips ruin draweth nigh to the evil man: but the just shall escape out of distress. 12:14. By the fruit of his own mouth shall a man be filled with good things, and according to the works of his hands it shall be repaid him. 12:15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that is wise hearkeneth unto counsels. 12:16. A fool immediately sheweth his anger: but he that dissembleth injuries is wise. 12:17. He that speaketh that which he knoweth, sheweth forth justice: but he that lieth, is a deceitful witness. 12:18. There is that promiseth, and is pricked as it were with a sword of conscience: but the tongue of the wise is health. 12:19. The lip of truth shall be steadfast for ever: but he that is a hasty witness, frameth a lying tongue. 12:20. Deceit is in the heart of them that think evil things: but joy followeth them that take counsels of peace. 12:21. Whatsoever shall befall the just man, shall not make him sad: but the wicked shall be filled with mischief. 12:22. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal faithfully, please him. 12:23. A cautious man concealeth knowledge: and the heart of fools publisheth folly. 12:24. The hand of the valiant shall bear rule: but that which is slothful shall be under tribute. 12:25. Grief in the heart of a man shall bring him low, but with a good word he shall be made glad. 12:26. He that neglecteth a loss for the sake of a friend, is just: but the way of the wicked shall deceive them. 12:27. The deceitful man shall not find gain: but the substance of a just man shall be precious gold. 12:28. In the path of justice is life: but the bye-way leadeth to death. Proverbs Chapter 13 13:1. A wise son heareth the doctrine of his father: but he that is a scorner, heareth not when he is reproved. 13:2. Of the fruit of his own month shall a man be filled with good things: but the soul of transgressors is wicked. 13:3. He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his soul: but he that hath no guard on his speech shall meet with evils. 13:4. The sluggard willeth, and willeth not: but the soul of them that work, shall be made fat. 13:5. The just shall hate a lying word: but the wicked confoundeth, and shall be confounded. 13:6. Justice keepeth the way of the innocent: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner. 13:7. One is as it were rich, when he hath nothing and another is as it were poor, when he hath great riches. 13:8. The ransom of a man's life are his riches: but he that is poor, beareth not reprehension. 13:9. The light of the just giveth joy: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out. 13:10. Among the proud there are always contentions: but they that do all things with counsel, are ruled by wisdom. 13:11. Substance got in haste shall be diminished: but that which by little and little is gathered with the hand, shall increase. 13:12. Hope that is deferred afflicteth the soul: desire when it cometh, is a tree of life. 13:13. Whosoever speaketh ill of any thing, bindeth himself for the time to come: but he that feareth the commandment, shall dwell in peace. Deceitful souls go astray in sins: the just are merciful, and shew mercy. 13:14. The law of the wise is a fountain of life, that he may decline from the ruin of death. 13:15. Good instruction shall give grace: in the way of scorners is a deep pit. 13:16. The prudent man doth all things with counsel: but he that is a fool, layeth open his folly. 13:17. The messenger of the wicked shall fall into mischief: but a faithful ambassador is health. 13:18. Poverty and shame to him that refuseth instruction: but he that yieldeth to reproof shall be glorified. 13:19. The desire that is accomplished, delighteth the soul: fools hate them that flee from evil things. 13:20. He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise: a friend of fools shall become like to them. 13:21. Evil pursueth sinners: and to the just good shall be repaid. 13:22. The good man leaveth heirs, sons, and grandsons: and the substance of the sinner is kept for the just. 13:23. Much food is in the tillage of fathers: but for others it is gathered without judgment. 13:24. He that spareth the rod, hateth his son: but he that loveth him, correcteth him betimes. 13:25. The just eateth and filleth his soul: but the belly of the wicked is never to be filled. Proverbs Chapter 14 14:1. A wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish will pull down with her hands that also which is built. 14:2. He that walketh in the right way, and feareth God, is despised by him that goeth by an infamous way. 14:3. In the mouth of a fool is the rod of pride: but the lips of the wise preserve them. 14:4. Where there are no oxen, the crib is empty: but where there is much corn, there the strength of the ox is manifest. 14:5. A faithful witness will not lie: but a deceitful witness uttereth a lie. 14:6. A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not: the learning of the wise is easy. 14:7. Go against a foolish man, and he knoweth not the lips of prudence. 14:8. The wisdom of a discreet man is to understand his way: and the imprudence of fools erreth. 14:9. A fool will laugh at sin, but among the just grace shall abide. 14:10. The heart that knoweth the bitterness of his own soul, in his joy the stranger shall not intermeddle. 14:11. The house of the wicked shall be destroyed: but the tabernacles of the just shall flourish. 14:12. There is a way which seemeth just to a man: but the ends thereof lead to death. 14:13. Laughter shall be mingled with sorrow, and mourning taketh hold of the ends of joy. 14:14. A fool shall be filled with his own ways, and the good man shall be above him. 14:15. The innocent believeth every word: the discreet man considereth his steps. No good shall come to the deceitful son: but the wise servant shall prosper in his dealings, and his way shall be made straight. 14:16. A wise man feareth, and declineth from evil: the fool leapeth over, and is confident. 14:17. The impatient man shall work folly: and the crafty man is hateful. 14:18. The childish shall possess folly, and the prudent shall look for knowledge. 14:19. The evil shall fall down before the good: and the wicked before the gates of the just. 14:20. The poor man shall be hateful even to his own neighbour: but the friends of the rich are many. 14:21. He that despiseth his neighbour, sinneth: but he that sheweth mercy to the poor, shall be blessed. He that believeth in the Lord, loveth mercy. 14:22. They err that work evil: but mercy and truth prepare good things. 14:23. In much work there shall be abundance: but where there are many words, there is oftentimes want. 14:24. The crown of the wise, is their riches: the folly of fools, imprudence. 14:25. A faithful witness delivereth souls: and the double dealer uttereth lies. 14:26. In the fear of the Lord is confidence of strength, and there shall be hope for his children. 14:27. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to decline from the ruin of death. 14:28. In the multitude of people is the dignity of the king: and in the small number of the people the dishonour of the prince. 14:29. He that is patient, is governed with much wisdom: but he that is impatient, exalteth his folly. 14:30. Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh: but envy is the rottenness of the bones. 14:31. He that oppresseth the poor, upbraideth his maker: but he that hath pity on the poor, honoureth him. 14:32. The wicked man shall be driven out in his wickedness: but the just hath hope in his death. 14:33. In the heart of the prudent resteth wisdom, and it shall instruct all the ignorant. 14:34. Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. 14:35. A wise servant is acceptable to the king: he that is good for nothing shall feel his anger. Proverbs Chapter 15 15:1. A mild answer breaketh wrath: but a harsh word stirreth up fury. 15:2. The tongue of the wise adorneth knowledge: but the mouth of fools bubbleth out folly. 15:3. The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil. 15:4. A peaceable tongue is a tree of life: but that which is immoderate, shall crush the spirit. 15:5. A fool laugheth at the instruction of his father: but he that regardeth reproofs shall become prudent. In abundant justice there is the greatest strength: but the devices of the wicked shall be rooted out. 15:6. The house of the just is very much strength: and in the fruits of the wicked is trouble. 15:7. The lips of the wise shall disperse knowledge: the heart of fools shall be unlike. 15:8. The victims of the wicked are abominable to the Lord: the vows of the just are acceptable. 15:9. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: he that followeth justice is beloved by him. 15:10. Instruction is grievous to him that forsaketh the way of life: he that hateth reproof shall die. 15:11. Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more the hearts of the children of men? 15:12. A corrupt man loveth not one that reproveth him: nor will he go to the wise. 15:13. A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by grief of mind the spirit is cast down. 15:14. The heart of the wise seeketh instruction: and the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. 15:15. All the days of the poor are evil: a secure mind is like a continual feast. 15:16. Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures without content. 15:17. It is better to be invited to herbs with love, than to a fatted calf with hatred. 15:18. A passionate man stirreth up strifes: he that is patient appeaseth those that are stirred up. 15:19. The way of the slothful is as a hedge of thorns: the way of the just is without offence. 15:20. A wise son maketh a father joyful: but the foolish man despiseth his mother. 15:21. Folly is joy to the fool: and the wise man maketh straight his steps. 15:22. Designs are brought to nothing where there is no counsel: but where there are many counsellors, they are established. 15:23. A man rejoiceth in the sentence of his mouth: and a word in due time is best. 15:24. The path of life is above for the wise, that he may decline from the lowest hell. 15:25. The Lord will destroy the house of the proud: and will strengthen the borders of the widow. 15:26. Evil thoughts are an abomination to the Lord: and pure words most beautiful shall be confirmed by him. 15:27. He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house: but he that hateth bribes shall live. By mercy and faith sins are purged away: and by the fear of the Lord every one declineth from evil. 15:28. The mind of the just studieth obedience: the mouth of the wicked overfloweth with evils. 15:29. The Lord is far from the wicked: and he will hear the prayers of the just. 15:30. The light of the eyes rejoiceth the soul: a good name maketh the bones fat. 15:31. The ear that heareth the reproofs of life, shall abide in the midst of the wise. 15:32. He that rejecteth instruction, despiseth his own soul: but he that yieldeth to reproof, possesseth understanding. 15:33. The fear of the Lord is the lesson of wisdom: and humility goeth before glory. Proverbs Chapter 16 16:1. It is the part of man to prepare the soul: and of the Lord to govern the tongue. It is the part of man, etc. . .That is, a man should prepare in his heart and soul what he is to say: but after all, it must be the Lord that must govern his tongue, to speak to the purpose. Not that we can think any thing of good without God's grace; but that after we have (with God's grace) thought and prepared within our souls what we would speak, if God does not govern our tongue, we shall not succeed in what we speak. 16:2. All the ways of a man are open to his eyes: the Lord is the weigher of spirits. 16:3. Lay open thy works to the Lord: and thy thoughts shall be directed. 16:4. The Lord hath made all things for himself: the wicked also for the evil day. 16:5. Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord: though hand should be joined to hand, he is not innocent. The beginning of a good way is to do justice: and this is more acceptable with God, than to offer sacrifices. 16:6. By mercy and truth iniquity is redeemed; and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. 16:7. When the ways of man shall please the Lord, he will convert even his enemies to peace. 16:8. Better is a little with justice, than great revenues with iniquity. 16:9. The heart of man disposeth his way: but the Lord must direct his steps. 16:10. Divination is in the lips of the king, his mouth shall not err in judgment. 16:11. Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord: and his work all the weights of the bag. 16:12. They that act wickedly are abominable to the king: for the throne is established by justice. 16:13. Just lips are the delight of kings: he that speaketh right things shall be loved. 16:14. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: and the wise man will pacify it. 16:15. In the cheerfulness of the king's countenance is life: and his clemency is like the latter rain. 16:16. Get wisdom, because it is better than gold: and purchase prudence, for it is more precious than silver. 16:17. The path of the just departeth from evils: he that keepeth his soul keepeth his way. 16:18. Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall. 16:19. It is better to be humbled with the meek, than to divide spoils with the proud. 16:20. The learned in word shall find good things: and he that trusteth in the Lord is blessed. 16:21. The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and he that is sweet in words, shall attain to greater things. 16:22. Knowledge is a fountain of life to him that possesseth it: the instruction of fools is foolishness. 16:23. The heart of the wise shall instruct his mouth: and shall add grace to his lips. 16:24. Well ordered words are as a honeycomb: sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 16:25. There is a way that seemeth to a man right: and the ends thereof lead to death. 16:26. The soul of him that laboureth, laboureth for himself, because his mouth hath obliged him to it. 16:27. The wicked man diggeth evil, and in his lips is a burning fire. 16:28. A perverse man stirreth up quarrels: and one full of words separateth princes. 16:29. An unjust man allureth his friend: and leadeth him into a way that is not good. 16:30. He that with fixed eyes deviseth wicked things, biting his lips, bringeth evil to pass. 16:31. Old age is a crown of dignity, when it is found in the ways of justice. 16:32. The patient man is better than the valiant: and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh cities. 16:33. Lots are cast into the lap, but they are disposed of by the Lord. Proverbs Chapter 17 17:1. Better is a dry morsel with joy, than a house full of victims with strife. 17:2. A wise servant shall rule over foolish sons, and shall divide the inheritance among the brethren. 17:3. As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace: so the Lord trieth the hearts. 17:4. The evil man obeyeth an unjust tongue: and the deceitful hearkeneth to lying lips. 17:5. He that despiseth the poor, reproacheth his maker: and he that rejoiceth at another man's ruin, shall not be unpunished. 17:6. Children's children are the crown of old men: and the glory of children are their fathers. 17:7. Eloquent words do not become a fool, nor lying lips a prince. 17:8. The expectation of him that expecteth is a most acceptable jewel: whithersoever he turneth himself, he understandeth wisely. 17:9. He that concealeth a transgression, seeketh friendships: he that repeateth it again, separateth friends. 17:10. A reproof availeth more with a wise man, than a hundred stripes with a fool. 17:11. An evil man always seeketh quarrels: but a cruel angel shall be sent against him. 17:12. It is better to meet a bear robbed of her whelps, than a fool trusting in his own folly. 17:13. He that rendereth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. 17:14. The beginning of quarrels is as when one letteth out water: and before he suffereth reproach, he forsaketh judgment. 17:15. He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, both are abominable before God. 17:16. What doth it avail a fool to have riches, seeing he cannot buy wisdom? He that maketh his house high, seeketh a downfall: and he that refuseth to learn, shall fall into evils. 17:17. He that is a friend loveth at all times: and a brother is proved in distress. 17:18. A foolish man will clap hands, when he is surety for his friend. 17:19. He that studieth discords, loveth quarrels: and he that exalteth his door, seeketh ruin. 17:20. He that is of a perverse heart, shall not find good: and he that perverteth his tongue, shall fall into evil. 17:21. A fool is born to his own disgrace: and even his father shall not rejoice in a fool. 17:22. A joyful mind maketh age flourishing: a sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones. 17:23. The wicked man taketh gifts out of the bosom, that he may pervert the paths of judgment. 17:24. Wisdom shineth in the face of the wise: the eyes of fools are in the ends of the earth. 17:25. A foolish son is the anger of the father: and the sorrow of the mother that bore him. 17:26. It is no good thing to do hurt to the just: nor to strike the prince, who judgeth right. 17:27. He that setteth bounds to his words, is knowing and wise: and the man of understanding is of a precious spirit. 17:28. Even a fool, if he will hold his peace, shall be counted wise: and if he close his lips, a man of understanding. Proverbs Chapter 18 18:1. He that hath a mind to depart from a friend, seeketh occasions: he shall ever be subject to reproach. 18:2. A fool receiveth not the words of prudence: unless thou say those things which are in his heart. 18:3. The wicked man, when he is come into the depths of sins, contemneth: but ignominy and reproach follow him. 18:4. Words from the mouth of a man are as deep water: and the fountain of wisdom is an overflowing stream. 18:5. It is not good to accept the person of the wicked, to decline from the truth of judgment. 18:6. The lips of a fool intermeddle with strife: and his mouth provoketh quarrels. 18:7. The mouth of a fool is his destruction: and his lips are the ruin of his soul. 18:8. The words of the double tongued are as if they were harmless: and they reach even to the inner parts of the bowels. Fear casteth down the slothful: and the souls of the effeminate shall be hungry. 18:9. He that is loose and slack in his work, is the brother of him that wasteth his own works. 18:10. The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the just runneth to it, and shall be exalted. 18:11. The substance of the rich man is the city of his strength, and as a strong wall compassing him about. 18:12. Before destruction, the heart of a man is exalted: and before he be glorified, it is humbled. 18:13. He that answereth before he heareth, sheweth himself to be a fool, and worthy of confusion. 18:14. The spirit of a man upholdeth his infirmity: but a spirit that is easily angered, who can bear? 18:15. A wise heart shall acquire knowledge: and the ear of the wise seeketh instruction. 18:16. A man's gift enlargeth his way, and maketh him room before princes. 18:17. The just is first accuser of himself: his friend cometh, and shall search him. 18:18. The lot suppresseth contentions, and determineth even between the mighty. 18:19. A brother that is helped by his brother, is like a strong city: and judgments are like the bars of cities. 18:20. Of the fruit of a man's mouth shall his belly be satisfied: and the offspring of his lips shall fill him. 18:21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: they that love it, shall eat the fruits thereof. 18:22. He that hath found a good wife, hath found a good thing, and shall receive a pleasure from the Lord. He that driveth away a good wife, driveth away a good thing: but he that keepeth an adulteress, is foolish and wicked. 18:23. The poor will speak with supplications, and the rich will speak roughly. 18:24. A man amiable in society, shall be more friendly than a brother. Proverbs Chapter 19 19:1. Better is the poor man, that walketh in his simplicity, than a rich man that is perverse in his lips and unwise. 19:2. Where there is no knowledge of the soul, there is no good: and he that is hasty with his feet shall stumble. 19:3. The folly of a man supplanteth his steps: and he fretteth in his mind against God. 19:4. Riches make many friends: but from the poor man, even they whom he had, depart. 19:5. A false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies, shall not escape. 19:6. Many honour the person of him that is mighty, and are friends of him that giveth gifts. 19:7. The brethren of the poor man hate him: moreover also his friends have departed far from him. He that followeth after words only, shall have nothing. 19:8. But he that possesseth a mind, loveth his own soul, and he that keepeth prudence, shall find good things. 19:9. A false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies, shall perish. 19:10. Delicacies are not seemly for a fool: nor for a servant to have rule over princes. 19:11. The learning of a man is known by patience: and his glory is to pass over wrongs. 19:12. As the roaring of a lion, so also is the anger of a king: and his cheerfulness as the dew upon the grass. 19:13. A foolish son is the grief of his father: and a wrangling wife is like a roof continually dropping through. 19:14. House and riches are given by parents: but a prudent wife is properly from the Lord. 19:15. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. 19:16. He that keepeth the commandment, keepeth his own soul: but he that neglecteth his own way, shall die. 19:17. He that hath mercy on the poor, lendeth to the Lord: and he will repay him. 19:18. Chastise thy son, despair not: but to the killing of him set not thy soul. 19:19. He that is impatient, shall suffer damage: and when he shall take away, he shall add another thing. 19:20. Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayst be wise in thy latter end. 19:21. There are many thoughts in the heart of a man: but the will of the Lord shall stand firm. 19:22. A needy man is merciful: and better is the poor than the lying man. 19:23. The fear of the Lord is unto life: and he shall abide in the fulness without being visited with evil. 19:24. The slothful hideth his hand under his armpit, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth. 19:25. The wicked man being scourged, the fool shall be wiser: but if thou rebuke a wise man, he will understand discipline. 19:26. He that afflicteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, is infamous and unhappy. 19:27. Cease not, O my son, to hear instruction, and be not ignorant of the words of knowledge. 19:28. An unjust witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. 19:29. Judgments are prepared for scorners: and striking hammers for the bodies of fools. Proverbs Chapter 20 20:1. Wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness riotous: whosoever is delighted therewith, shall not be wise. 20:2. As the roaring of a lion, so also is the dread of a king: he that provoketh him, sinneth against his own soul. 20:3. It is an honour for a man to separate himself from quarrels: but all fools are meddling with reproaches. 20:4. Because of the cold the sluggard would not plough: he shall beg therefore in the summer, and it shall not be given him. 20:5. Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water: but a wise man will draw it out. 20:6. Many men are called merciful: but who shall find a faithful man? 20:7. The just that walketh in his simplicity, shall leave behind him blessed children. 20:8. The king, that sitteth on the throne of judgment, scattereth away all evil with his look. 20:9. Who can say: My heart is clean, I am pure from sin? 20:10. Diverse weights and diverse measures, both are abominable before God. 20:11. By his inclinations a child is known, if his works be clean and right. 20:12. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made them both. 20:13. Love not sleep, lest poverty oppress thee: open thy eyes, and be filled with bread. 20:14. It is naught, it is naught, saith every buyer: and when he is gone away, then he will boast. 20:15. There is gold and a multitude of jewels: but the lips of knowledge are a precious vessel. 20:16. Take away the garment of him that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge from him for strangers. 20:17. The bread of lying is sweet to a man: but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. 20:18. Designs are strengthened by counsels: and wars are to be managed by governments. 20:19. Meddle not with him that revealeth secrets, and walketh deceitfully, and openeth wide his lips. 20:20. He that curseth his father, and mother, his lamp shall be put out in the midst of darkness. 20:21. The inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing. 20:22. Say not: I will return evil: wait for the Lord, and he will deliver thee. 20:23. Diverse weights are an abomination before the Lord: a deceitful balance is not good. 20:24. The steps of men are guided by the Lord: but who is the man that can understand his own way? 20:25. It is ruin to a man to devour holy ones, and after vows to retract. 20:26. A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth over them the wheel. 20:27. The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, which searcheth all the hidden things of the bowels. 20:28. Mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is strengthened by clemency. 20:29. The joy of young men is their strength: and the dignity of old men, their grey hairs. 20:30. The blueness of a wound shall wipe away evils: and stripes in the more inward parts of the belly. Proverbs Chapter 21 21:1. As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever he will, he shall turn it. 21:2. Every way of a man seemeth right to himself: but the Lord weigheth the hearts. 21:3. To do mercy and judgment, pleaseth the Lord more than victims. 21:4. Haughtiness of the eyes is the enlarging of the heart: the lamp of the wicked is sin. 21:5. The thoughts of the industrious always bring forth abundance: but every sluggard is always in want. 21:6. He that gathereth treasures by a lying tongue, is vain and foolish, and shall stumble upon the snares of death. 21:7. The robberies of the wicked shall be their downfall, because they would not do judgment. 21:8. The perverse way of a man is strange: but as for him that is pure, his work is right. 21:9. It is better to sit in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman, and in a common house. 21:10. The soul of the wicked desireth evil, he will not have pity on his neighbour. 21:11. When a pestilent man is punished, the little one will be wiser: and if he follow the wise, he will receive knowledge. 21:12. The just considereth seriously the house of the wicked, that he may withdraw the wicked from evil. 21:13. He that stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor, shall also cry himself, and shall not be heard. 21:14. A secret present quencheth anger: and a gift in the bosom, the greatest wrath. 21:15. It is joy to the just to do judgment: and dread to them that work iniquity. 21:16. A man that shall wander out of the way of doctrine, shall abide in the company of the giants. 21:17. He that loveth good cheer, shall be in want: he that loveth wine, and fat things, shall not be rich. 21:18. The wicked is delivered up for the just: and the unjust for the righteous. 21:19. It is better to dwell in a wilderness, than with a quarrelsome and passionate woman. 21:20. There is a treasure to be desired, and oil in the dwelling of the just: and the foolish man shall spend it. 21:21. He that followeth justice and mercy, shall find life, justice, and glory. 21:22. The wise man hath scaled the city of the strong, and hath cast down the strength of the confidence thereof. 21:23. He that keepeth his mouth and his tongue, keepeth his soul from distress. 21:24. The proud and the arrogant is called ignorant, who in anger worketh pride. 21:25. Desires kill the slothful: for his hands have refused to work at all. 21:26. He longeth and desireth all the day: but he that is just, will give, and will not cease. 21:27. The sacrifices of the wicked are abominable, because they are offered of wickedness. 21:28. A lying witness shall perish: an obedient man shall speak of victory. 21:29. The wicked man impudently hardeneth his face: but he that is righteous, correcteth his way. 21:30. There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord. 21:31. The horse is prepared for the day of battle: but the Lord giveth safety. Proverbs Chapter 22 22:1. A good name is better than great riches: and good favour is above silver and gold. 22:2. The rich and poor have met one another: the Lord is the maker of them both. 22:3. The prudent man saw the evil, and hid himself: the simple passed on, and suffered loss. 22:4. The fruit of humility is the fear of the Lord, riches and glory and life. 22:5. Arms and swords are in the way of the perverse: but he that keepeth his own soul, departeth far from them. 22:6. It is a proverb: A young man according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. 22:7. The rich ruleth over the poor: and the borrower is servant to him that lendeth. 22:8. He that soweth iniquity, shall reap evils, and with the rod of his anger he shall be consumed. 22:9. He that is inclined to mercy, shall be blessed: for of his bread he hath given to the poor. He that maketh presents, shall purchase victory and honour: but he carrieth away the souls of the receivers. 22:10. Cast out the scoffer, and contention shall go out with him, and quarrels and reproaches shall cease. 22:11. He that loveth cleanness of heart, for the grace of his lips shall have the king for his friend. 22:12. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge: and the words of the unjust are overthrown. 22:13. The slothful man saith: There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the midst of the streets. 22:14. The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit: he whom the Lord is angry with, shall fall into it. 22:15. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away. 22:16. He that oppresseth the poor, to increase his own riches, shall himself give to one that is richer, and shall be in need. 22:17. Incline thy ear, and hear the words of the wise: and apply thy heart to my doctrine: 22:18. Which shall be beautiful for thee, if thou keep it in thy bowels, and it shall flow in thy lips: 22:19. That thy trust may be in the Lord, wherefore I have also shewn it to thee this day. 22:20. Behold I have described it to thee three manner of ways, in thoughts and knowledge: 22:21. That I might shew thee the certainty, and the words of truth, to answer out of these to them that sent thee. 22:22. Do no violence to the poor, because he is poor: and do not oppress the needy in the gate: 22:23. Because the Lord will judge his cause: and will afflict them that have afflicted his soul. 22:24. Be not a friend to an angry man, and do not walk with a furious man: 22:25. Lest perhaps thou learn his ways, and take scandal to thy soul. 22:26. Be not with them that fasten down their hands, and that offer themselves sureties for debts: 22:27. For if thou have not wherewith to restore, what cause is there that he should take the covering from thy bed? 22:28. Pass not beyond the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set. 22:29. Hast thou seen a man swift in his work? he shall stand before kings, and shall not be before those that are obscure. Proverbs Chapter 23 23:1. When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face: 23:2. And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power. 23:3. Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit. 23:4. Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence. 23:5. Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven. 23:6. Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats: 23:7. Because, like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not with thee. 23:8. The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words. 23:9. Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech. 23:10. Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless: 23:11. For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee. 23:12. Let thy heart apply itself to instruction and thy ears to words of knowledge. 23:13. Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. 23:14. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell. 23:15. My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee: 23:16. And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right. 23:17. Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long: 23:18. Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away. 23:19. Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way. 23:20. Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat: 23:21. Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together, shall be consumed: and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags. 23:22. Hearken to thy father, that begot thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old. 23:23. Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. 23:24. The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him. 23:25. Let thy father and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee. 23:26. My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways. 23:27. For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit. 23:28. She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill. 23:29. Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? 23:30. Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink off their cups. 23:31. Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, 23:32. But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk. 23:33. Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things. 23:34. And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost. 23:35. And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake and find wine again? Proverbs Chapter 24 24:1. Seek not to be like evil men, neither desire to be with them: 24:2. Because their mind studieth robberies, and their lips speak deceits. 24:3. By wisdom the house shall be built, and by prudence it shall be strengthened. 24:4. By instruction the storerooms shall be filled with all precious and most beautiful wealth. 24:5. A wise man is strong: and a knowing man, stout and valiant. 24:6. Because war is managed by due ordering: and there shall be safety where there are many counsels. 24:7. Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he shall not open his mouth. 24:8. He that deviseth to do evils, shall be called a fool. 24:9. The thought of a fool is sin: and the detractor is the abomination of men. 24:10. If thou lose hope, being weary in the day of distress, thy strength shall be diminished. 24:11. Deliver them that are led to death: and those that are drawn to death, forbear not to deliver. 24:12. If thou say: I have not strength enough: he that seeth into the heart, he understandeth, and nothing deceiveth the keeper of thy soul, and he shall render to a man according to his works. 24:13. Eat honey, my son, because it is good, and the honeycomb most sweet to thy throat. 24:14. So also is the doctrine of wisdom to thy soul: which when thou hast found, thou shalt have hope in the end, and thy hope shall not perish. 24:15. Lie not in wait, nor seek after wickedness in the house of the just, nor spoil his rest. 24:16. For a just man shall fall seven times, and shall rise again: but the wicked shall fall down into evil. 24:17. When thy enemy shall fall, be not glad, and in his ruin let not thy heart rejoice: 24:18. Lest the Lord see, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. 24:19. Contend not with the wicked, nor seek to be like the ungodly. 24:20. For evil men have no hope of things to come, and the lamp of the wicked shall be put out. 24:21. My son, fear the Lord, and the king: and have nothing to do with detractors. 24:22. For their destruction shall rise suddenly: and who knoweth the ruin of both? 24:23. These things also to the wise: It is not good to have respect to persons in judgment. 24:24. They that say to the wicked man: Thou art just: shall be cursed by the people, and the tribes shall abhor them. 24:25. They that rebuke him shall be praised: and a blessing shall come upon them. 24:26. He shall kiss the lips, who answereth right words. 24:27. Prepare thy work without, and diligently till thy ground: that afterward thou mayst build thy house. 24:28. Be not witness without cause against thy neighbour: and deceive not any man with thy lips. 24:29. Say not: I will do to him as he hath done to me: I will render to every one according to his work. 24:30. I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man: 24:31. And behold it was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall was broken down. 24:32. Which when I had seen, I laid it up in my heart, and by the example I received instruction. 24:33. Thou wilt sleep a little, said I, thou wilt slumber a little, thou wilt fold thy hands a little to rest. 24:34. And poverty shall come to thee as a runner, and beggary as an armed man. Proverbs Chapter 25 25:1. These are also parables of Solomon, which the men of Ezechias, king of Juda, copied out. 25:2. It is the glory of God to conceal the word, and the glory of kings to search out the speech. 25:3. The heaven above and the earth beneath, and the heart of kings is unsearchable. 25:4. Take away the rust from silver, and there shall come forth a most pure vessel: 25:5. Take away wickedness from the face of the king, and his throne shall be established with justice. 25:6. Appear not glorious before the king, and stand not in the place of great men. 25:7. For it is better that it should be said to thee: Come up hither; than that thou shouldst be humbled before the prince. 25:8. The things which thy eyes have seen, utter not hastily in a quarrel: lest afterward thou mayst not be able to make amends, when thou hast dishonoured thy friend. 25:9. Treat thy cause with thy friend, and discover not the secret to a stranger: 25:10. Lest he insult over thee, when he hath heard it, and cease not to upbraid thee. Grace and friendship deliver a man: keep these for thyself, lest thou fall under reproach. 25:11. To speak a word in due time, is like apples of gold on beds of silver. 25:12. As an earring of gold and a bright pearl, so is he that reproveth the wise, and the obedient ear. 25:13. As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to him that sent him, for he refresheth his soul. 25:14. As clouds, and wind, when no rain followeth, so is the man that boasteth, and doth not fulfil his promises. 25:15. By patience a prince shall be appeased, and a soft tongue shall break hardness. 25:16. Thou hast found honey, eat what is sufficient for thee, lest being glutted therewith thou vomit it up. 25:17. Withdraw thy foot from the house of thy neighbour, lest having his fill he hate thee. 25:18. A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour, is like a dart and a sword and a sharp arrow. 25:19. To trust in an unfaithful man in the time of trouble, is like a rotten tooth, and weary foot, 25:20. And one that looseth his garment in cold weather. As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a very evil heart. As a moth doth by a garment, and a worm by the wood: so the sadness of a man consumeth the heart. 25:21. If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat: if he thirst, give him water to drink: 25:22. For thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee. 25:23. The north wind driveth away rain, as doth a sad countenance a backbiting tongue. 25:24. It is better to sit in a corner of the housetop: than with a brawling woman, and in a common house. 25:25. As cold water to a thirsty soul, so are good tidings from a far country. 25:26. A just man falling down before the wicked, is as a fountain troubled with the foot and a corrupted spring. 25:27. As it is not good for a man to eat much honey, so he that is a searcher of majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory. Majesty. . .Viz., of God. For to search into that incomprehensible Majesty, and to pretend to sound the depths of the wisdom of God, is exposing our weak understanding to be blinded with an excess of light and glory, which it cannot comprehend. 25:28. As a city that lieth open and is not compassed with walls, so is a man that cannot refrain his own spirit in speaking. Proverbs Chapter 26 26:1. As snow in summer, and rain in harvest, so glory is not seemly for a fool. 26:2. As a bird flying to other places, and a sparrow going here or there: so a curse uttered without cause shall come upon a man. As a bird, etc. . .The meaning is, that a curse uttered without cause shall do no harm to the person that is cursed, but will return upon him that curseth, as whithersoever a bird flies, it returns to its own nest. 26:3. A whip for a horse, and a snaffle for an ass, and a rod for the back of fools. 26:4. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be made like him. Answer not a fool, etc. . .Viz., so as to imitate him but only so as to reprove his folly. 26:5. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he imagine himself to be wise. 26:6. He that sendeth words by a foolish messenger, is lame of feet and drinketh iniquity. 26:7. As a lame man hath fair legs in vain: so a parable is unseemly in the mouth of fools. 26:8. As he that casteth a stone into the heap of Mercury: so is he that giveth honour to a fool. 26:9. As if a thorn should grow in the hand of a drunkard: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. 26:10. Judgment determineth causes: and he that putteth a fool to silence, appeaseth anger. 26:11. As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly. 26:12. Hast thou seen a man wise in his own conceit? there shall be more hope of a fool than of him. 26:13. The slothful man saith: There is a lion in the way, and a lioness in the roads. 26:14. As the door turneth upon its hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. 26:15. The slothful hideth his hand under his armpit, and it grieveth him to turn it to his mouth. 26:16. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit, than seven men that speak sentences. 26:17. As he that taketh a dog by the ears, so is he that passeth by in anger, and meddleth with another man's quarrel. 26:18. As he is guilty that shooteth arrows, and lances unto death. 26:19. So is the man that hurteth his friend deceitfully: and when he is taken, saith: I did it in jest. 26:20. When the wood faileth, the fire shall go out: and when the talebearer is taken away, contentions shall cease. 26:21. As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire, so an angry man stirreth up strife. 26:22. The words of a talebearer are as it were simple, but they reach to the innermost parts of the belly. 26:23. Swelling lips joined with a corrupt heart, are like an earthern vessel adorned with silver dross. 26:24. An enemy is known by his lips, when in his heart he entertaineth deceit. 26:25. When he shall speak low, trust him not: because there are seven mischiefs in his heart. 26:26. He that covereth hatred deceitfully, his malice shall be laid open in the public assembly. 26:27. He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return to him. 26:28. A deceitful tongue loveth not truth: and a slippery mouth worketh ruin. Proverbs Chapter 27 27:1. Boast not for to morrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth. 27:2. Let another praise thee, and not thy own mouth: a stranger, and not thy own lips. 27:3. A stone is heavy, and sand weighty: but the anger of a fool is heavier than them both. 27:4. Anger hath no mercy: nor fury, when it breaketh forth: and who can bear the violence of one provoked? 27:5. Open rebuke is better than hidden love. 27:6. Better are the wounds of a friend, than the deceitful kisses of an enemy. 27:7. A soul that is full shall tread upon the honeycomb: and a soul that is hungry shall take even bitter for sweet. 27:8. As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that leaveth his place. 27:9. Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart: and the good counsels of a friend are sweet to the soul. 27:10. Thy own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not: and go not into thy brother's house in the day of thy affliction. Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother afar off. 27:11. Study wisdom, my son, and make my heart joyful, that thou mayst give an answer to him that reproacheth. 27:12. The prudent man seeing evil hideth himself: little ones passing on have suffered losses. 27:13. Take away his garment that hath been surety for a stranger: and take from him a pledge for strangers. 27:14. He that blesseth his neighbour with a loud voice, rising in the night, shall be like to him that curseth. 27:15. Roofs dropping through in a cold day, and a contentious woman are alike. 27:16. He that retaineth her, is as he that would hold the wind, and shall call the oil of his right hand. 27:17. Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. 27:18. He that keepeth the fig tree, shall eat the fruit thereof: and he that is the keeper of his master, shall be glorified. 27:19. As the faces of them that look therein, shine in the water, so the hearts of men are laid open to the wise. 27:20. Hell and destruction are never filled: so the eyes of men are never satisfied. 27:21. As silver is tried in the fining-pot, and gold in the furnace: so a man is tried by the mouth of him that praiseth. The heart of the wicked seeketh after evils, but the righteous heart seeketh after knowledge. 27:22. Though thou shouldst bray a fool in the mortar, as when a pestle striketh upon sodden barley, his folly would not be taken from him. 27:23. Be diligent to know the countenance of thy cattle, and consider thy own flocks: 27:24. For thou shalt not always have power: but a crown shall be given to generation and generation. 27:25. The meadows are open, and the green herbs have appeared, and the hay is gathered out of the mountains. 27:26. Lambs are for thy clothing: and kids for the price of the field. 27:27. Let the milk of the goats be enough for thy food, and for the necessities of thy house, and for maintenance for thy handmaids. Proverbs Chapter 28 28:1. The wicked man fleeth, when no man pursueth: but the just, bold as a lion, shall be without dread. 28:2. For the sins of the land many are the princes thereof: and for the wisdom of a man, and the knowledge of those things that are said, the life of the prince shall be prolonged. 28:3. A poor man that oppresseth the poor, is like a violent shower, which bringeth a famine. 28:4. They that forsake the law, praise the wicked man: they that keep it, are incensed against him. 28:5. Evil men think not on judgment: but they that seek after the Lord, take notice of all things. 28:6. Better is the poor man walking in his simplicity, than the rich in crooked ways. 28:7. He that keepeth the law, is a wise son: but he that feedeth gluttons, shameth his father. 28:8. He that heapeth together riches by usury and loan, gathereth them for him that will be bountiful to the poor. 28:9. He that turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination. 28:10. He that deceiveth the just in a wicked way, shall fall in his own destruction: and the upright shall possess his goods. 28:11. The rich man seemeth to himself wise: but the poor man that is prudent shall search him out. 28:12. In the joy of the just there is great glory: when the wicked reign, men are ruined. 28:13. He that hideth his sins, shall not prosper: but he that shall confess, and forsake them, shall obtain mercy. 28:14. Blessed is the man that is always fearful: but he that is hardened in mind shall fall into evil. 28:15. As a roaring lion, and a hungry bear, so is a wicked prince over the poor people. 28:16. A prince void of prudence shall oppress many by calumny: but he that hateth covetousness, shall prolong his days. 28:17. A man that doth violence to the blood of a person, if he flee even to the pit, no man will stay him. 28:18. He that walketh uprightly, shall be saved: he that is perverse in his ways, shall fall at once. 28:19. He that tilleth his ground, shall be filled with bread: but he that followeth idleness, shall be filled with poverty. 28:20. A faithful man shall be much praised: but he that maketh haste to be rich, shall not be innocent. 28:21. He that hath respect to a person in judgment, doth not well: such a man even for a morsel of bread forsaketh the truth. 28:22. A man that maketh haste to be rich, and envieth others, is ignorant that poverty shall come upon him. 28:23. He that rebuketh a man, shall afterward find favour with him, more than he that by a flattering tongue deceiveth him. 28:24. He that stealeth any thing from his father, or from his mother: and saith, This is no sin, is the partner of a murderer. 28:26. He that boasteth and puffeth up himself, stirreth up quarrels: but he that trusteth in the Lord, shall be healed. 28:26. He that trusteth in his own heart, is a fool: but he that walketh wisely, he shall be saved. 28:27. He that giveth to the poor shall not want: he that despiseth his entreaty, shall suffer indigence. 28:28. When the wicked rise up, men shall hide themselves: when they perish, the just shall be multiplied. Proverbs Chapter 29 29:1. The man that with a stiff neck despiseth him that reproveth him, shall suddenly be destroyed: and health shall not follow him. 29:2. When just men increase, the people shall rejoice: when the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn. 29:3. A man that loveth wisdom, rejoiceth his father: but he that maintaineth harlots, shall squander away his substance. 29:4. A just king setteth up the land: a covetous man shall destroy it. 29:5. A man that speaketh to his friend with flattering and dissembling words, spreadeth a net for his feet. 29:6. A snare shall entangle the wicked man when he sinneth: and the just shall praise and rejoice. 29:7. The just taketh notice of the cause of the poor: the wicked is void of knowledge. 29:8. Corrupt men bring a city to ruin: but wise men turn away wrath. 29:9. If a wise man contend with a fool, whether he be angry, or laugh, he shall find no rest. 29:10. Bloodthirsty men hate the upright: but just men seek his soul. 29:11. A fool uttereth all his mind: a wise man deferreth, and keepeth it till afterwards. 29:12. A prince that gladly heareth lying words, hath all his servants wicked. 29:13. The poor man and the creditor have met one another: the Lord is the enlightener of them both. 29:14. The king that judgeth the poor in truth, his throne shall be established for ever. 29:15. The rod and reproof give wisdom: but the child that is left to his own will, bringeth his mother to shame. 29:16. When the wicked are multiplied, crimes shall be multiplied: but the just shall see their downfall. 29:17. Instruct thy son and he shall refresh thee, and shall give delight to thy soul. 29:18. When prophecy shall fail, the people shall be scattered abroad: but he that keepeth the law, is blessed. 29:19. A slave will not be corrected by words: because he understandeth what thou sayest, and will not answer. 29:20. Hast thou seen a man hasty to speak? folly is rather to be looked for, than his amendment. 29:21. He that nourisheth his servant delicately from his childhood, afterwards shall find him stubborn. 29:22. A passionate man provoketh quarrels: and he that is easily stirred up to wrath, shall be more prone to sin. 29:23. Humiliation followeth the proud: and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit. 29:24. He that is partaker with a thief, hateth his own soul: he heareth one putting him to his oath, and discovereth not. 29:25. He that feareth man shall quickly fall: he that trusteth in the Lord, shall be set on high. 29:26. Many seek the face of the prince: but the judgment of every one cometh forth from the Lord. 29:27. The just abhor a wicked man: and the wicked loathe them that are in the right way. The son that keepeth the word, shall be free from destruction. Proverbs Chapter 30 The wise man thinketh humbly of himself. His prayer and sentiments upon certain virtues and vices. 30:1. The words of Gatherer the son of Vomiter. The vision which the man spoke, with whom God is, and who being strengthened by God, abiding with him, said: Gatherer, etc. . .Or, as it is in the Latin, Congregans the son of Vomens. The Latin interpreter has given us in this place the signification of the Hebrew names, instead of the names themselves, which are in the Hebrew, Agur the son of Jakeh. But whether this Agur be the same person as Solomon, as many think, or a different person, whose doctrine was adopted by Solomon, and inserted among his parables or proverbs, is uncertain. 30:2. I am the most foolish of men, and the wisdom of men is not with me. 30:3. I have not learned wisdom, and have not known the science of saints. 30:4. Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? who hath held the wind in his hands? who hath bound up the waters together as in a garment? who hath raised up all the borders of the earth? what is his name, and what is the name of his son, if thou knowest? 30:5. Every word of God is fire tried: he is a buckler to them that hope in him. Is fire tried. . .That is, most pure, like gold purified by fire. 30:6. Add not any thing to his words, lest thou be reproved and found a liar: 30:7. Two things I have asked of thee, deny them not to me before I die. 30:8. Remove far from me vanity, and lying words. Give me neither beggary, nor riches: give me only the necessaries of life: 30:9. Lest perhaps being filled, I should be tempted to deny, and say: Who is the Lord? or being compelled by poverty, I should steal, and forswear the name of my God. 30:10. Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, and thou fall. 30:11. There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. 30:12. A generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness. 30:13. A generation, whose eyes are lofty, and their eyelids lifted up on high. 30:14. A generation that for teeth hath swords, and grindeth with their jaw teeth, to devour the needy from off the earth, and the poor from among men. 30:15. The horseleech hath two daughters that say: Bring, bring. There are three things that never are satisfied, and the fourth never saith: It is enough. The horseleech. . .Concupiscence, which hath two daughters that are never satisfied, viz., lust and avarice. 30:16. Hell and the mouth of the womb, and the earth which is not satisfied with water: and the fire never saith: It is enough. 30:17. The eye that mocketh at his father, and that despiseth the labour of his mother in bearing him, let the ravens of the brooks pick it out, and the young eagles eat it. 30:18. Three things are hard to me, and the fourth I am utterly ignorant of. 30:19. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man in youth. 30:20. Such also is the way of an adulterous woman, who eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith: I have done no evil. 30:21. By three things the earth is disturbed, and the fourth it cannot bear. 30:22. By a slave when he reigneth: by a fool when be is filled with meat: 30:23. By an odious woman when she is married: and by a bondwoman when she is heir to her mistress. 30:24. There are four very little things of the earth, and they are wiser than the wise. 30:25. The ants, a feeble people, which provide themselves food in the harvest: 30:26. The rabbit, a weak people, which maketh its bed in the rock: 30:27. The locust hath no king, yet they all go out by their bands: 30:28. The stellio supporteth itself on hands, and dwelleth in kings' houses. The stellio. . .A kind of house lizard marked with spots like stars, from whence it has its name. 30:19. There are three things, which go well, and the fourth that walketh happily: 30:30. A lion, the strongest of beasts, who hath no fear of any thing he meeteth: 30:31. A cock girded about the loins: and a ram: and a king, whom none can resist. 30:32. There is that hath appeared a fool after he was lifted up on high: for if he had understood, he would have laid his hand upon his mouth. 30:33. And he that strongly squeezeth the paps to bring out milk, straineth out butter: and he that violently bloweth his nose, bringeth out blood: and he that provoketh wrath, bringeth forth strife. Proverbs Chapter 31 An exhortation to chastity, temperance, and works of mercy; with the praise of a wise woman. 31:1. The words of king Lamuel. The vision wherewith his mother instructed him. Lamuel. . .This name signifies God with him, and is supposed to have been one of the names of Solomon. 31:2. What, O my beloved, what, O the beloved of my womb, what, O the beloved of my vows? 31:3. Give not thy substance to women, and thy riches to destroy kings. 31:4. Give not to kings, O Lamuel, give not wine to kings: because there is no secret where drunkenness reigneth: 31:5. And lest they drink and forget judgments, and pervert the cause of the children of the poor. 31:6. Give strong drink to them that are sad; and wine to them that are grieved in mind: 31:7. Let them drink, and forget their want, and remember their sorrow no more. 31:8. Open thy mouth for the dumb, and for the causes of all the children that pass. 31:9. Open thy mouth, decree that which is just, and do justice to the needy and poor. 31:10. Who shall find a valiant woman? far, and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her. 31:11. The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no need of spoils. 31:12. She will render him good, and not evil all the days of her life. 31:13. She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands. 31:14. She is like the merchant's ship, she bringeth her bread from afar. 31:15. And she hath risen in the night, and given a prey to her household, and victuals to her maidens. 31:16. She hath considered a field, and bought it: with the fruit of her hands she hath planted a vineyard. 31:17. She hath girded her loins with strength, and hath strengthened her arm. 31:18. She hath tasted, and seen that her traffic is good: her lamp shall not be put out in the night. 31:19. She hath put out her hand to strong things, and her fingers have taken hold of the spindle. 31:20. She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor. 31:21. She shall not fear for her house in the cold of snow: for all her domestics are clothed with double garments. 31:22. She hath made for herself clothing of tapestry: fine linen, and purple, is her covering. 31:23. Her husband is honourable in the gates, when he sitteth among the senators of the land. 31:24. She made fine linen, and sold it, and delivered a girdle to the Chanaanite. The Chanaanite. . .The merchant, for Chanaanite, in Hebrew, signifies a merchant. 31:25. Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day. 31:26. She hath opened her mouth to wisdom, and the law of clemency is on her tongue. 31:27. She hath looked well on the paths of her house, and hath not eaten her bread idle. 31:28. Her children rose up, and called her blessed: her husband, and he praised her. 31:29. Many daughters have gathered together riches: thou hast surpassed them all. 31:30. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. 31:31. Give her of the fruit of her hands: and let her works praise her in the gates. ECCLESIASTES This Book is called Ecclesiastes, or The Preacher, (in Hebrew, Coheleth,) because in it, Solomon, as an excellent preacher, setteth forth the vanity of the things of this world: to withdraw the hearts and affections of men from such empty toys. Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 The vanity of all temporal things. 1:1. The words of Ecclesiastes, the son of David, king of Jerusalem. 1:2. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. 1:3. What hath a man more of all his labour, that he taketh under the sun? 1:4. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth standeth for ever. 1:5. The sun riseth, and goeth down, and returneth to his place: and there rising again, 1:6. Maketh his round by the south, and turneth again to the north: the spirit goeth forward surveying all places round about, and returneth to his circuits. 1:7. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow: unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again. 1:8. All things are hard: man cannot explain them by word. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing. 1:9. What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. 1:10. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. 1:11. There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end. 1:12. I Ecclesiastes was king over Israel in Jerusalem, 1:13. And I proposed in my mind to seek and search out wisely concerning all things that are done under the sun. This painful occupation hath God given to the children of men, to be exercised therein. 1:14. I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. 1:15. The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite. 1:16. I have spoken in my heart, saying: Behold I am become great, and have gone beyond all in wisdom, that were before me in Jerusalem: and my mind hath contemplated many things wisely, and I have learned. 1:17. And I have given my heart to know prudence, and learning, and errors, and folly: and I have perceived that in these also there was labour, and vexation of spirit, 1:18. Because in much wisdom there is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour. Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 The vanity of pleasures, riches, and worldly labours. 2:1. I said in my heart: I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy good things. And I saw that this also was vanity. 2:2. Laughter I counted error: and to mirth I said: Why art thou vainly deceived? 2:3. I thought in my heart, to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might turn my mind to wisdom, and might avoid folly, till I might see what was profitable for the children of men: and what they ought to do under the sun, all the days of their life. 2:4. I made me great works, I built me houses, and planted vineyards, 2:5. I made gardens, and orchards, and set them with trees of all kinds, 2:6. And I made me ponds of water, to water therewith the wood of the young trees, 2:7. I got me menservants, and maidservants, and had a great family: and herds of oxen, and great flocks of sheep, above all that were before me in Jerusalem: 2:8. I heaped together for myself silver and gold, and the wealth of kings, and provinces: I made me singing men, and singing women, and the delights of the sons of men, cups and vessels to serve to pour out wine: 2:9. And I surpassed in riches all that were before me in Jerusalem: my wisdom also remained with me. 2:10. And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not: and I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared: and esteemed this my portion, to make use of my own labour. 2:11. And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun. 2:12. I passed further to behold wisdom, and errors and folly, (What is man, said I that he can follow the King his maker?) 2:13. And I saw that wisdom excelled folly, as much as light differeth from darkness. 2:14. The eyes of a wise man are in his head: the fool walketh in darkness: and I learned that they were to die both alike. 2:15. And I said in my heart: If the death of the fool and mine shall be one, what doth it avail me, that I have applied myself more to the study of wisdom? And speaking with my own mind, I perceived that this also was vanity. 2:16. For there shall be no remembrance of the wise no more than of the fool forever, and the times to come shall cover all things together with oblivion: the learned dieth in like manner as the unlearned. 2:17. And therefore I was weary of my life, when I saw that all things under the sun are evil, and all vanity and vexation of spirit. 2:18. Again I hated all my application wherewith I had earnestly laboured under the sun, being like to have an heir after me, 2:19. Whom I know not whether he will be a wise man or a fool, and he shall have rule over all my labours with which I have laboured and been solicitous: and is there anything so vain? 2:20. Wherefore I left off and my heart renounced labouring anymore under the sun. 2:21. For when a man laboureth in wisdom, and knowledge, and carefulness, he leaveth what he hath gotten to an idle man: so this also is vanity, and a great evil. 2:22. For what profit shall a man have of all his labour, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? 2:23. All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity? 2:24. Is it not better to eat and drink, and to shew his soul good things of his labours? and this is from the hand of God. 2:25. Who shall so feast and abound with delights as I? 2:26. God hath given to a man that is good in his sight, wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he hath given vexation, and superfluous care, to heap up and to gather together, and to give it to him that hath pleased God: but this also is vanity, and a fruitless solicitude of the mind. Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 All human things are liable to perpetual changes. We are to rest on God's providence, and cast away fruitless cares. 3:1. All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven. 3:2. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. 3:3. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. 3:4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. 3:5. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. 3:6. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. 3:7. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. 3:8. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace. 3:9. What hath man more of his labour? 3:10. I have seen the trouble, which God hath given the sons of men to be exercised in it. 3:11. He hath made all things good in their time, and hath delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work which God hath made from the beginning to the end. 3:12. And I have known that there was no better thing than to rejoice, and to do well in this life. 3:13. For every man that eateth and drinketh, and seeth good of his labour, this is the gift of God. 3:14. I have learned that all the works which God hath made, continue for ever: we cannot add any thing, nor take away from those things which God hath made that he may be feared. 3:15. That which hath been made, the same continueth: the things that shall be, have already been: and God restoreth that which is past. 3:16. I saw under the sun in the place of judgment wickedness, and in the place of justice iniquity. 3:17. And I said in my heart: God shall judge both the just and the wicked, and then shall be the time of every thing. 3:18. I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God would prove them, and shew them to be like beasts. 3:19. Therefore the death of man, and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dieth, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man hath nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity. Man hath nothing more, etc. . .Viz., as to the life of the body. 3:20. And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together. 3:21. Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward? Who knoweth, etc. . .Viz., experimentally: since no one in this life can see a spirit. But as to the spirit of the beasts, which is merely animal, and become extinct by the death of the beast, who can tell the manner it acts so as to give life and motion, and by death to descend downward, that is, to be no more? 3:22. And I have found that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his portion. For who shall bring him to know the things that shall be after him? Ecclesiastes Chapter 4 Other instances of human miseries. 4:1. I turned myself to other things, and I saw the oppressions that are done under the sun, and the tears of the innocent, and they had no comforter; and they were not able to resist their violence, being destitute of help from any. 4:2. And I praised the dead rather than the living: 4:3. And I judged him happier than them both, that is not yet born, nor hath seen the evils that are done under the sun. 4:4. Again I considered all the labours of men, and I remarked that their industries are exposed to the envy of their neighbour: so in this also there is vanity, and fruitless care. 4:5. The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh, saying: 4:6. Better is a handful with rest, than both hands full with labour, and vexation of mind. 4:7. Considering I found also another vanity under the sun: 4:8. There is but one, and he hath not a second, no child, no brother, and yet he ceaseth not to labour, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches, neither doth he reflect, saying: For whom do I labour, and defraud my soul of good things? in this also is vanity, and a grievous vexation. 4:9. It is better therefore that two should be together, than one: for they have the advantage of their society: 4:10. If one fall he shall be supported by the other: woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up. 4:11. And if two lie together, they shall warm one another: how shall one alone be warmed? 4:12. And if a man prevail against one, two shall withstand him: a threefold cord is not easily broken. 4:13. Better is a child that is poor and wise, than a king that is old and foolish, who knoweth not to foresee for hereafter. 4:14. Because out of prison and chains sometimes a man cometh forth to a kingdom: and another born king is consumed with poverty. 4:15. I saw all men living, that walk under the sun with the second young man, who shall rise up in his place. 4:16. The number of the people, of all that were before him is infinite: and they that shall come afterwards, shall not rejoice in him: but this also is vanity, and vexation of spirit. 4:17. Keep thy foot, when thou goest into the house of God, and draw nigh to hear. For much better is obedience, than the victims of fools, who know not what evil they do. Ecclesiastes Chapter 5 Caution in words. Vows are to be paid. Riches are often pernicious: the moderate use of them is the gift of God. 5:1. Speak not any thing rashly, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. 5:2. Dreams follow many cares: and in many words shall be found folly. 5:3. If thou hast vowed any thing to God, defer not to pay it: for an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth him: but whatsoever thou hast vowed, pay it. 5:4. And it is much better not to vow, than after a vow not to perform the things promised. 5:5. Give not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin: and say not before the angel: There is no providence: lest God be angry at thy words, and destroy all the works of thy hands. 5:6. Where there are many dreams, there are many vanities, and words without number: but do thou fear God. 5:7. If thou shalt see the oppressions of the poor, and violent judgments, and justice perverted in the province, wonder not at this matter: for he that is high hath another higher, and there are others still higher than these: 5:8. Moreover there is the king that reigneth over all the land subject to him. 5:9. A covetous man shall not be satisfied with money: and he that loveth riches shall reap no fruit from them: so this also is vanity. 5:10. Where there are great riches, there are also many to eat them. And what doth it profit the owner, but that he seeth the riches with his eyes? 5:11. Sleep is sweet to a labouring man, whether he eat little or much: but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. 5:12. There is also another grievous evil, which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the hurt of the owner. 5:13. For they are lost with very great affliction: he hath begotten a son, who shall be in extremity of want. 5:14. As he came forth naked from his mother's womb, so shall he return, and shall take nothing away with him of his labour. 5:15. A most deplorable evil: as he came, so shall he return. What then doth it profit him that he hath laboured for the wind? 5:16. All the days of his life he eateth in darkness, and in many cares, and in misery, and sorrow. 5:17. This therefore hath seemed good to me, that a man should eat and drink, and enjoy the fruit of his labour, wherewith he hath laboured under the sun, all the days of his life, which God hath given him: and this is his portion. 5:18. And every man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to enjoy his portion, and to rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God. 5:19. For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God entertaineth his heart with delight. Ecclesiastes Chapter 6 The misery of the covetous man. 6:1. There is also another evil, which I have seen under the sun, and that frequent among men: 6:2. A man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and honour, and his soul wanteth nothing of all that he desireth: yet God doth not give him power to eat thereof, but a stranger shall eat it up. This is vanity and a great misery. 6:3. If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, and attain to a great age, and his soul make no use of the goods of his substance, and he be without burial: of this man I pronounce, that the untimely born is better than he. 6:4. For he came in vain, and goeth to darkness, and his name shall be wholly forgotten. 6:5. He hath not seen the sun, nor known the distance of good and evil: 6:6. Although he lived two thousand years, and hath not enjoyed good things: do not all make haste to one place? 6:7. All the labour of man is for his mouth, but his soul shall not be filled. 6:8. What hath the wise man more than the fool? and what the poor man, but to go thither, where there is life? 6:9. Better it is to see what thou mayst desire, than to desire that which thou canst not know. But this also is vanity, and presumption of spirit. 6:10. He that shall be, his name is already called: and it is known, that he is a man, and cannot contend in judgment with him that is stronger than himself. 6:11. There are many words that have much vanity in disputing. Ecclesiastes Chapter 7 Prescriptions against worldly vanities: mortification, patience, and seeking wisdom. 7:1. What needeth a man to seek things that are above him, whereas he knoweth not what is profitable for him in his life, in all the days of his pilgrimage, and the time that passeth like a shadow? Or who can tell him what shall be after him under the sun? 7:2. A good name is better than precious ointments: and the day of death than the day of one's birth. 7:3. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting: for in that we are put in mind of the end of all, and the living thinketh what is to come. 7:4. Anger is better than laughter: because by the sadness of the countenance the mind of the offender is corrected. Anger. . .That is, correction, or just wrath and zeal against evil. 7:5. The heart of the wise is where there is mourning, and the heart of fools where there is mirth. 7:6. It is better to be rebuked by a wise man, than to be deceived by the flattery of fools. 7:7. For as the crackling of thorns burning under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool: now this also is vanity. 7:8. Oppression troubleth the wise, and shall destroy the strength of his heart. 7:9. Better is the end of a speech than the beginning. Better is the patient man than the presumptuous. 7:10. Be not quickly angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of a fool. 7:11. Say not: What thinkest thou is the cause that former times were better than they are now? for this manner of question is foolish. 7:12. Wisdom with riches is more profitable, and bringeth more advantage to them that see the sun. 7:13. For as wisdom is a defence, so money is a defence: but learning and wisdom excel in this, that they give life to him that possesseth them. 7:14. Consider the works of God, that no man can correct whom he hath despised. 7:15. In the good day enjoy good things, and beware beforehand of the evil day: for God hath made both the one and the other, that man may not find against him any just complaint. 7:16. These things also I saw in the days of my vanity: A just man perisheth in his justice, and a wicked man liveth a long time in his wickedness. 7:17. Be not over just: and be not more wise than is necessary, lest thou become stupid. Over just. . .Viz., By an excessive rigour in censuring the ways of God in bearing with the wicked. 7:18. Be not overmuch wicked: and be not foolish, lest thou die before thy time. Be not overmuch wicked. . .That is, lest by the greatness of your sin you leave no room for mercy. 7:19. It is good that thou shouldst hold up the just, yea and from him withdraw not thy hand: for he that feareth God, neglecteth nothing. 7:20. Wisdom hath strengthened the wise more than ten princes of the city. 7:21. For there is no just man upon earth, that doth good, and sinneth not. 7:22. But do not apply thy heart to all words that are spoken: lest perhaps thou hear thy servant reviling thee. 7:23. For thy conscience knoweth that thou also hast often spoken evil of others. 7:24. I have tried all things in wisdom. I have said: I will be wise: and it departed farther from me, 7:25. Much more than it was: it is a great depth, who shall find it out? 7:26. I have surveyed all things with my mind, to know, and consider, and seek out wisdom and reason: and to know the wickedness of the fool, and the error of the imprudent: 7:27. And I have found a woman more bitter than death, who is the hunter's snare, and her heart is a net, and her hands are bands. He that pleaseth God shall escape from her: but he that is a sinner, shall be caught by her. 7:28. Lo this have I found, said Ecclesiastes, weighing one thing after another, that I might find out the account, 7:29. Which yet my soul seeketh, and I have not found it. One man among a thousand I have found, a woman among them all I have not found. 7:30. Only this I have found, that God made man right, and he hath entangled himself with an infinity of questions. Who is as the wise man? and who hath known the resolution of the word? Of the word. . .That is, of this obscure and difficult matter. Ecclesiastes Chapter 8 True wisdom is to observe God's commandments. The ways of God are unsearchable. 8:1. The wisdom of a man shineth in his countenance, and the most mighty will change his face. 8:2. I observe the mouth of the king, and the commandments of the oath of God. 8:3. Be not hasty to depart from his face, and do not continue in an evil work: for he will do all that pleaseth him: 8:4. And his word is full of power: neither can any man say to him: Why dost thou so? 8:5. He that keepeth the commandment, shall find no evil. The heart of a wiser man understandeth time and answer. 8:6. There is a time and opportunity for every business, and great affliction for man: 8:7. Because he is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know by any messenger. 8:8. It is not in man's power to stop the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death, neither is he suffered to rest when war is at hand, neither shall wickedness save the wicked. 8:9. All these things I have considered, and applied my heart to all the works that are done under the sun. Sometimes one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. 8:10. I saw the wicked buried: who also when they were yet living were in the holy place, and were praised in the city as men of just works: but this also is vanity. 8:11. For because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the children of men commit evils without any fear. 8:12. But though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and by patience be borne withal, I know from thence that it shall be well with them that fear God, who dread his face. 8:13. But let it not be well with the wicked, neither let his days be prolonged, but as a shadow let them pass away that fear not the face of the Lord. 8:14. There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There are just men to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of the wicked: and there are wicked men, who are as secure as though they had the deeds of the just: but this also I judge most vain. 8:15. Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which God hath given him under the sun. No good for a man, etc. . .Some commentators think the wise man here speaks in the person of the libertine: representing the objections of these men against divine providence, and the inferences they draw from thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings, their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the unsearchable ways of divine providence. 8:16. And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes. 8:17. And I understood that man can find no reason of all those works of God that are done under the sun: and the more he shall labour to seek, so much the less shall he find: yea, though the wise man shall say, that he knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it. Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 Man knows not certainty that he is in God's grace. After death no more work or merit. 9:1. All these things have I considered in my heart, that I might carefully understand them: there are just men and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God: and yet man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love, or hatred: 9:2. But all things are kept uncertain for the time to come, because all things equally happen to the just and to the wicked, to the good and to the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that offereth victims, and to him that despiseth sacrifices. As the good is, so also is the sinner: as the perjured, so he also that sweareth truth. 9:3. This is a very great evil among all things that are done under the sun, that the same things happen to all men: whereby also the hearts of the children of men are filled with evil, and with contempt while they live, and afterwards they shall be brought down to hell. 9:4. There is no man that liveth always, or that hopeth for this: a living dog is better than a dead lion. 9:5. For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing more, neither have they a reward any more: for the memory of them is forgotten. Know nothing more. . .Viz., as to the transactions of this world, in which they have now no part, unless it be revealed to them; neither have they any knowledge or power now of doing any thing to secure their eternal state, (if they have not taken care of it in their lifetime:) nor can they now procure themselves any good, as the living always may do, by the grace of God. 9:6. Their love also, and their hatred, and their envy are all perished, neither have they any part in this world, and in the work that is done under the sun. 9:7. Go then, and eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with gladness: because thy works please God. 9:8. At all times let thy garments be white, and let not oil depart from thy head. 9:9. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy unsteady life, which are given to thee under the sun, all the time of thy vanity: for this is thy portion in life, and in thy labour wherewith thou labourest under the sun. 9:10. Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly: for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in hell, whither thou art hastening. 9:11. I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all. 9:12. Man knoweth not his own end: but as fishes are taken with the hook, and as birds are caught with the snare, so men are taken in the evil time, when it shall suddenly come upon them. 9:13. This wisdom also I have seen under the sun, and it seemed to me to be very great: 9:14. A little city, and few men in it: there came against it a great king, and invested it, and built bulwarks round about it, and the siege was perfect. 9:15. Now there was found in it a man poor and wise, and he delivered the city by his wisdom, and no man afterward remembered that poor man. 9:16. And I said that wisdom is better than strength: how then is the wisdom of the poor man slighted, and his words not heard? 9:17. The words of the wise are heard in silence, more than the cry of a prince among fools. 9:18. Better is wisdom, than weapons of war: and he that shall offend in one, shall lose many good things. Ecclesiastes Chapter 10 Observations on wisdom and folly, ambition and detraction. 10:1. Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment. Wisdom and glory is more precious than a small and shortlived folly. 10:2. The heart of a wise man is in his right hand, and the heart of a fool is in his left hand. 10:3. Yea, and the fool when he walketh in the way, whereas he himself is a fool, esteemeth all men fools. 10:4. If the spirit of him that hath power, ascend upon thee, leave not thy place: because care will make the greatest sins to cease. 10:5. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were by an error proceeding from the face of the prince: 10:6. A fool set in high dignity, and the rich sitting beneath. 10:7. I have seen servants upon horses: and princes walking on the ground as servants. 10:8. He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and he that breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. 10:9. He that removeth stones, shall be hurt by them: and he that cutteth trees, shall be wounded by them. 10:10. If the iron be blunt, and be not as before, but be made blunt, with much labour it shall be sharpened: and after industry shall follow wisdom. 10:11. If a serpent bite in silence, he is nothing better that backbiteth secretly. 10:12. The words of the mouth of a wise man are grace: but the lips of a fool shall throw him down headlong. 10:13. The beginning of his words is folly, and the end of his talk is a mischievous error. 10:14. A fool multiplieth words. A man cannot tell what hath been before him: and what shall be after him, who can tell him? 10:15. The labour of fools shall afflict them that know not how to go to the city. 10:16. Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and when the princes eat in the morning. 10:17. Blessed is the land, whose king is noble, and whose princes eat in due season for refreshment, and not for riotousness. 10:18. By slothfulness a building shall be brought down, and through the weakness of hands, the house shall drop through. 10:19. For laughter they make bread, and wine that the living may feast: and all things obey money. 10:20. Detract not the king, no not in thy thought; and speak not evil of the rich man in thy private chamber: because even the birds of the air will carry thy voice, and he that hath wings will tell what thou hast said. Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 Exhortation to works of mercy, while we have time, to diligence in good, and to the remembrance of death and judgment. 11:1. Cast thy bread upon the running waters: for after a long time thou shalt find it again. 11:2. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight: for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. 11:3. If the clouds be full, they will pour out rain upon the earth. If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be. If the tree fall, etc. . .The state of the soul is unchangeable when once she comes to heaven or hell: and a soul that departs this life in the state of grace, shall never fall from grace: as on the other side, a soul that dies out of the state of grace, shall never come to it. But this does not exclude a place of temporal punishments for such souls as die in the state of grace: yet not so as to be entirely pure: and therefore they shall be saved, indeed, yet so as by fire. 1 Cor. 3.13, 14, 15. 11:4. He that observeth the wind, shall not sow: and he that considereth the clouds, shall never reap. 11:5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones are joined together in the womb of her that is with child: so thou knowest not the works of God, who is the maker of all. 11:6. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening let not thy hand cease: for thou knowest not which may rather spring up, this or that: and if both together, it shall be the better. 11:7. The light is sweet, and it is delightful for the eyes to see the sun. 11:8. If a man live many years, and have rejoiced in them all, he must remember the darksome time, and the many days: which when they shall come, the things past shall be accused of vanity. 11:9. Rejoice therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart be in that which is good in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thy eyes: and know that for all these God will bring thee into judgment. 11:10. Remove anger from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh. For youth and pleasure are vain. Ecclesiastes Chapter 12 The Creator is to be remembered in the days of our youth: all worldly things are vain: we should fear God and keep his commandments. 12:1. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction come, and the years draw nigh of which thou shalt say: They please me not: 12:2. Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain: Before the sun, etc. . .That is, before old age: the effects of which upon all the senses and faculties are described in the following verses, under a variety of figures. 12:3. When the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall stagger, and the grinders shall be idle in a small number, and they that look through the holes shall be darkened: 12:4. And they shall shut the doors in the street, when the grinder's voice shall be low, and they shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall grow deaf. 12:5. And they shall fear high things, and they shall be afraid in the way, the almond tree shall flourish, the locust shall be made fat, and the caper tree shall be destroyed: because man shall go into the house of his eternity, and the mourners shall go round about in the street. 12:6. Before the silver cord be broken, and the golden fillet shrink back, and the pitcher be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel be broken upon the cistern, 12:7. And the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it. 12:8. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, and all things are vanity. 12:9. And whereas Ecclesiastes was very wise, he taught the people, and declared the things that he had done: and seeking out, he set forth many parables. 12:10. He sought profitable words, and wrote words most right, and full of truth. 12:11. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails deeply fastened in, which by the counsel of masters are given from one shepherd. 12:12. More than these, my son, require not. Of making many books there is no end: and much study is an affliction of the flesh. 12:13. Let us all hear together the conclusion of the discourse. Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is all man: All man. . .The whole business and duty of man. 12:14. And all things that are done, God will bring into judgment for every error, whether it be good or evil. Error. . .Or, hidden and secret thing. SOLOMON'S CANTICLE OF CANTICLES This Book is called the Canticle of Canticles, that is to say, the most excellent of all canticles: because it is full of high mysteries, relating to the happy union of Christ and his spouse: which is here begun by love; and is to be eternal in heaven. The spouse of Christ is the church: more especially as to the happiest part of it, viz., perfect souls, every one of which is his beloved, but, above all others, the immaculate and ever blessed virgin mother. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 1 The spouse aspires to an union with Christ, their mutual love for one another. 1:1. Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine, Let him kiss me. . .The church, the spouse of Christ, prays that he may love and have peace with her, which the spouse prefers to every thing delicious: and therefore expresses (ver. 2) that young maidens, that is the souls of the faithful, have loved thee. 1:2. Smelling sweet of the best ointments. Thy name is as oil poured out: therefore young maidens have loved thee. 1:3. Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments. The king hath brought me into his storerooms: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, remembering thy breasts more than wine: the rightous love thee. Draw me. . .That is, with thy grace: otherwise I should not be able to come to thee. This metaphor shews that we cannot of ourselves come to Christ our Lord, unless he draws us by his grace, which is laid up in his storerooms: that is, in the mysteries of Faith, which God in his goodness and love for mankind hath revealed, first by his servant Moses in the Old Law in figure only, and afterwards in reality by his only begotten Son Jesus Christ. 1:4. I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon. I am black but beautiful. . .That is, the church of Christ founded in humility appearing outwardly afflicted, and as it were black and contemptible; but inwardly, that is, in its doctrine and morality, fair and beautiful. 1:5. Do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath altered my colour: the sons of my mother have fought against me, they have made me the keeper in the vineyards: my vineyard I have not kept. 1:6. Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions. 1:7. If thou know not thyself, O fairest among women, go forth, and follow after the steps of the flocks, and feed thy kids beside the tents of the shepherds. If thou know not thyself, etc. . .Christ encourages his spouse to follow and watch her flock: and though she know not entirely the power at hand to assist her, he tells her, ver. 8, my company of horsemen, that is, his angels, are always watching and protecting her. And in the following verses he reminds her of the virtues and gifts with which he has endowed her. 1:8. To my company of horsemen, in Pharao's chariots, have I likened thee, O my love. 1:9. Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove's, thy neck as jewels. 1:10. We will make thee chains of gold, inlaid with silver. 1:11. While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof. 1:12. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts. 1:13. A cluster of cypress my love is to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. 1:14. Behold thou are fair, O my love, behold thou are fair, thy eyes are as those of doves. 1:15. Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely. Our bed is flourishing. 1:16. The beams of our houses are of cedar, our rafters of cypress trees. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 2 Christ caresses his spouse: he invites her to him. 2:1. I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. I am the flower of the field. . .Christ professes himself the flower of mankind, yea, the Lord of all creatures: and, ver. 2, declares the excellence of his spouse, the true church above all other societies, which are to be considered as thorns. 2:2. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. 2:3. As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired: and his fruit was sweet to my palate. 2:4. He brought me into the cellar of wine, he set in order charity in me. 2:5. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples: because I languish with love. 2:6. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. 2:7. I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and the harts of the field, that you stir not up, nor make the beloved to awake, till she please. 2:8. The voice of my beloved, behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. The voice of my beloved: that is, the preaching of the gospel surmounting difficulties figuratively here expressed by mountains and little hills. 2:9. My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart. Behold he standeth behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking through the lattices. 2:10. Behold my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. 2:11. For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. 2:12. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle is heard in our land: 2:13. The fig tree hath put forth her green figs: the vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come: 2:14. My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, shew me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears: for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely. 2:15. Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines: for our vineyard hath flourished. Catch us the little foxes. . .Christ commands his pastors to catch false teachers, by holding forth their fallacy and erroneous doctrine, which like foxes would bite and destroy the vines. 2:16. My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies, 2:17. Till the day break, and the shadows retire. Return: be like, my beloved, to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 3 The spouse seeks Christ. The glory of his humanity. 3:1. In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and found him not. In my bed by night, etc. . .The Gentiles as in the dark, and seeking in heathen delusion what they could not find, the true God, until Christ revealed his doctrine to them by his watchmen, (ver. 3,) that is, by the apostles, and teachers by whom they were converted to the true faith; and holding that faith firmly, the spouse (the Catholic Church) declares, ver. 4, That she will not let him go, till she bring him into her mother's house, etc., that is, till at last, the Jews also shall find him. 3:2. I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. 3:3. The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? 3:4. When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me. 3:5. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up, nor awake my beloved, till she please. 3:6. Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer? 3:7. Behold threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel, surrounded the bed of Solomon? 3:8. All holding swords, and most expert in war: every man's sword upon his thigh, because of fears in the night. 3:9. King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus: 3:10. The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple: the midst he covered with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem. 3:11. Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see king Solomon in the diadem, wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of the joy of his heart. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 4 Christ sets forth the graces of his spouse: and declares his love for her. 4:1. How beautiful art thou, my love, how beautiful art thou! thy eyes are doves' eyes, besides what is hid within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats, which come up from mount Galaad. How beautiful art thou. . .Christ again praises the beauties of his church, which through the whole of this chapter are exemplified by a variety of metaphors, setting forth her purity, her simplicity, and her stability. 4:2. Thy teeth as flocks of sheep, that are shorn, which come up from the washing, all with twins, and there is none barren among them. 4:3. Thy lips are as a scarlet lace: and thy speech sweet. Thy cheeks are as a piece of a pomegranate, besides that which lieth hid within. 4:4. Thy neck, is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armour of valiant men. 4:5. Thy two breasts like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. Thy two breasts, etc. . .Mystically to be understood: the love of God and the love of our neighbour, which are so united as twins which feed among the lilies: that is, the love of God and our neighbour, feeds on the divine mysteries and the holy sacraments, left by Christ to his spouse to feed and nourish her children. 4:6. Till the day break, and the shadows retire, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. 4:7. Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee. 4:8. Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned from the top of Amana, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards. 4:9. Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, and with one hair of thy neck. 4:10. How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my spouse! thy breasts are more beautiful than wine, and the sweet smell of thy ointments above all aromatical spices. 4:11. Thy lips, my spouse, are as a dropping honeycomb, honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments, as the smell of frankincense. 4:12. My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. My sister, etc., a garden enclosed. . .Figuratively the church is enclosed, containing only the faithful. A fountain sealed up. . .That none can drink of its waters, that is, the graces and spiritual benefits of the holy sacraments, but those who are within its walls. 4:13. Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard. Cypress with spikenard. 4:14. Spikenard and saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon, with all the trees of Libanus, myrrh and aloes with all the chief perfumes. 4:15. The fountain of gardens: the well of living waters, which run with a strong stream from Libanus. 4:16. Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 5 Christ calls his spouse: she languishes with love: and describes him by his graces. 5:1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apple trees. I am come into my garden, O my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrh, with my aromatical spices: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved. Let my beloved come into his garden, etc. . .Garden, mystically the church of Christ, abounding with fruit, that is, the good works of the elect. 5:2. I sleep, and my heart watcheth: the voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the nights. 5:3. I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? 5:4. My beloved put his hand through the key hole, and my bowels were moved at his touch. My beloved put his hand through the key hole, etc. . .The spouse of Christ, his church, at times as it were penned up by its persecutors, and in fears, expecting the divine assistance, here signified by his hand: and ver. 6, but he had turned aside and was gone, that is, Christ permitting a further trial of suffering: and again, ver. 7, the keepers, etc., signifying the violent and cruel persecutors of the church taking her veil, despoiling the church of its places of worship and ornaments for the divine service. 5:5. I arose up to open to my beloved: my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh. 5:6. I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: but he had turned aside, and was gone. My soul melted when he spoke: I sought him, and found him not: I called, and he did not answer me. 5:7. The keepers that go about the city found me: they struck me: and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. 5:8. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love. 5:9. What manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, O thou most beautiful among women? what manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, that thou hast so adjured us? 5:10. My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. My beloved, etc. . .In this and the following verses, the church mystically describes Christ to those who know him not, that is, to infidels in order to convert them to the true faith. 5:11. His head is as the finest gold: his locks as branches of palm trees, black as a raven. 5:12. His eyes as doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, and sit beside the plentiful streams. 5:13. His cheeks are as beds of aromatical spices set by the perfumers. His lips are as lilies dropping choice myrrh. 5:14. His hands are turned and as of gold, full of hyacinths. His belly as of ivory, set with sapphires. 5:15. His legs as pillars of marble, that are set upon bases of gold. His form as of Libanus, excellent as the cedars. 5:16. His throat most sweet, and he is all lovely: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. 5:17. Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside, and we will seek him with thee? Canticle of Canticles Chapter 6 The spouse of Christ is but one: she is fair and terrible. 6:1. My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the bed of aromatical spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. My beloved is gone down into his garden. . .Christ, pleased with the good works of his holy and devout servants labouring in his garden, is always present with them: but the words is gone down, are to be understood, that after trying his Church by permitting persecution, he comes to her assistance and she rejoices at his coming. 6:2. I to my beloved, and my beloved to me, who feedeth among the lilies. 6:3. Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem terrible as an army set in array. 6:4. Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away. Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Galaad. 6:5. Thy teeth as a flock of sheep, which come up from the washing, all with twins, and there is none barren among them. 6:6. Thy cheeks are as the bark of a pomegranate, beside what is hidden within thee. 6:7. There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and young maidens without number. 6:8. One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed: the queens and concubines, and they praised her. One is my dove, etc. . .That is, my church is one, and she only is perfect and blessed. 6:9. Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? Who is she, etc. . .Here is a beautiful metaphor describing the church from the beginning. As, the morning rising, signifying the church before the written law; fair as the moon, shewing her under the light of the gospel: and terrible as an army, the power of Christ's church against its enemies. 6:10. I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished, and the pomegranates budded. 6:11. I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab. 6:12. Return, return, O Sulamitess: return, return that we may behold thee. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 7 A further description of the graces of the church the spouse of Christ. 7:1. What shalt thou see in the Sulamitess but the companies of camps? How beautiful are thy steps in shoes, O prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, that are made by the hand of a skilful workman. How beautiful are thy steps, etc. . .By these metaphors are signified the power and mission of the church in propagating the true faith. 7:2. Thy navel is like a round bowl never wanting cups. Thy belly is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies. 7:3. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. 7:4. Thy neck as a tower of ivory. Thy eyes like the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude. Thy nose is as the tower of Libanus, that looketh toward Damascus. 7:5. Thy head is like Carmel: and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels. Thy head is like Carmel. . .Christ, the invisible head of his church, is here signified. 7:6. How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights! 7:7. Thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. 7:8. I said: I will go up into the palm tree, and will take hold of the fruit thereof: and thy breasts shall be as the clusters of the vine: and the odour of thy mouth like apples. 7:9. Thy throat like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and his teeth to ruminate. 7:10. I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me. 7:11. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages. 7:12. Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates flourish: there will I give thee my breasts. 7:13. The mandrakes give a smell. In our gates are all fruits: the new and the old, my beloved, I have kept for thee. Canticle of Canticles Chapter 8 The love of the church to Christ: his love to her. 8:1. Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find thee without, and kiss thee, and now no man may despise me? 8:2. I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother's house: there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine and new wine of my pomegranates. 8:3. His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. His left hand, etc. . .Words of the church to Christ. His left hand, signifying the Old Testament, and his right hand, the New. 8:4. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my love till she please. 8:5. Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee. Who is this, etc. . .The angels with admiration behold the Gentiles converted to the faith: coming up from the desert, that is, coming from heathenism and false worship: flowing with delights, that is, abounding with good works which are pleasing to God: leaning on her beloved, on the promise of Christ to his Church, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it; and supported by his grace conferred by the sacraments. Under the apple tree I raised thee up; that is, that Christ redeemed the Gentiles at the foot of the cross, where the synagogue of the Jews (the mother church) was corrupted by their denying him, and crucifying him. 8:6. Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. 8:7. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing. 8:8. Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to? Our sister is little, etc. . .Mystically signifies the Jews, who are to be spoken to: that is, converted towards the end of the world: and then shall become a wall, that is, a part of the building, the church of Christ. 8:9. If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar. 8:10. I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower since I am become in his presence as one finding peace. 8:11. The peaceable had a vineyard, in that which hath people: he let out the same to keepers, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver. 8:12. My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof. 8:13. Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice. 8:14. Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices. THE BOOK OF WISDOM This Book is so called, because it treats of the excellence of WISDOM, the means to obtain it, and the happy fruits it produces. It is written in the person of Solomon, and contains his sentiments. But it is uncertain who was the writer. It abounds with instructions and exhortations to kings and all magistrates to minister justice in the commonwealth, teaching all kinds of virtues under the general names of justice and wisdom. It contains also many prophecies of Christ's coming, passion, resurrection, and other Christian mysteries. The whole may be divided into three parts. In the first six chapters, the author admonishes all superiors to love and exercise justice and wisdom. In the next three, he teacheth that wisdom proceedeth only from God, and is procured by prayer and a good life. In the other ten chapters, he sheweth the excellent effects and utility of wisdom and justice. Wisdom Chapter 1 An exhortation to seek God sincerely, who cannot be deceived, and desireth not our death. 1:1. Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart: 1:2. For he is found by them that tempt him not: and he sheweth himself to them that have faith in him. 1:3. For perverse thoughts separate from God: and his power, when it is tried, reproveth the unwise: 1:4. For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins. 1:5. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he shall not abide when iniquity cometh in. 1:6. For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not acquit the evil speaker from his lips: for God is witness of his reins, and he is a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. 1:7. For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world: and that which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice. 1:8. Therefore he that speaketh unjust things, cannot be hid, neither shall the chastising judgment pass him by. 1:9. For inquisition shall be made into the thoughts of the ungodly, and the hearing of his words shall come to God, to the chastising of his iniquities. 1:10. For the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the tumult of murmuring shall not be hid. 1:11. Keep yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction, for an obscure speech shall not go for nought: and the mouth that belieth, killeth the soul. 1:12. Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands. 1:13. For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. 1:14. For he created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth. 1:15. For justice is perpetual and immortal. 1:16. But the wicked with works and words have called it to them: and esteeming it a friend, have fallen away and have made a covenant with it: because they are worthy to be of the part thereof. Wisdom Chapter 2 The vain reasonings of the wicked: their persecuting the just, especially the Son of God. 2:1. For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell: 2:2. For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our heart, 2:3. Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof: 2:4. And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works. 2:5. For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth: 2:6. Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. 2:7. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us. 2:8. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot. 2:9. Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us every where leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot. 2:10. Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged. 2:11. But let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth. 2:12. Let us, therefore, lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life. 2:13. He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God, and calleth himself the son of God. 2:14. He is become a censurer of our thoughts. 2:15. He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, and his ways are very different. 2:16. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and he preferreth the latter end of the just, and glorieth that he hath God for his father. 2:17. Let us see then if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen to him, and we shall know what his end shall be. 2:18. For if he be the true son of God, he will defend him, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies. 2:19. Let us examine him by outrages and tortures, that we may know his meekness, and try his patience. 2:20. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death: for there shall be respect had unto him by his words. 2:21. These things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them. 2:22. And they knew not the secrets of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice, nor esteemed the honour of holy souls. 2:23. For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him. 2:24. But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: 2:25. And they follow him that are of his side. Wisdom Chapter 3 The happiness of the just: and the unhappiness of the wicked. 3:1. But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. 3:2. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for misery: 3:3. And their going away from us, for utter destruction: but they are in peace. 3:4. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. 3:5. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself. 3:6. As gold in the furnace, he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust, he hath received them, and in time there shall be respect had to them. 3:7. The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. 3:8. They shall judge nations, and rule over people, and their Lord shall reign for ever. 3:9. They that trust in him shall understand the truth: and they that are faithful in love, shall rest in him: for grace and peace are to his elect. 3:10. But the wicked shall be punished according to their own devices: who have neglected the just, and have revolted from the Lord. 3:11. For he that rejecteth wisdom, and discipline, is unhappy: and their hope is vain, and their labours without fruit, and their works unprofitable. 3:12. Their wives are foolish, and their children wicked. 3:13. Their offspring is cursed, for happy is the barren: and the undefiled, that hath not known bed in sin, she shall have fruit in the visitation of holy souls. 3:14. And the eunuch, that hath not wrought iniquity with his hands, nor thought wicked things against God for the precious gift of faith shall be given to him, and a most acceptable lot in the temple of God. 3:15. For the fruit of good labours is glorious, and the root of wisdom never faileth. 3:16. But the children of adulterers shall not come to perfection, and the seed of the unlawful bed shall be rooted out. 3:17. And if they live long, they shall be nothing regarded, and their last old age shall be without honour. 3:18. And if they die quickly, they shall have no hope, nor speech of comfort in the day of trial. 3:19. For dreadful are the ends of a wicked race. Wisdom Chapter 4 The difference between the chaste and the adulterous generations: and between the death of the just and the wicked. 4:1. How beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men. 4:2. When it is present, they imitate it: and they desire it, when it hath withdrawn itself, and it triumpheth crowned for ever, winning the reward of undefiled conflicts. 4:3. But the multiplied brood of the wicked shall not thrive, and bastard slips shall not take deep root, nor any fast foundation. 4:4. And if they flourish in branches for a time, yet standing not fast, they shall be shaken with the wind, and through the force of winds they shall be rooted out. 4:5. For the branches not being perfect, shall be broken, and their fruits shall be unprofitable, and sour to eat, and fit for nothing. 4:6. For the children that are born of unlawful beds, are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial. 4:7. But the just man, if he be prevented with death, shall be in rest. 4:8. For venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs. 4:9. And a spotless life is old age. 4:10. He pleased God, and was beloved, and living among sinners, he was translated. 4:11. He was taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. 4:12. For the bewitching of vanity obscureth good things, and the wandering of concupiscence overturneth the innocent mind. 4:13. Being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled a long time. 4:14. For his soul pleased God: therefore he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities: but the people see this, and understand not, nor lay up such things in their hearts: 4:15. That the grace of God, and his mercy is with his saints, and that he hath respect to his chosen. 4:16. But the just that is dead, condemneth the wicked that are living, and youth soon ended, the long life of the unjust. 4:17. For they shall see the end of the wise man, and it shall not understand what God hath designed for him, and why the Lord hath set him in safety. 4:18. They shall see him, and shall despise him: but the Lord shall laugh them to scorn. 4:19. And they shall fall after this without honour, and be a reproach among the dead for ever: for he shall burst them puffed up and speechless, and shall shake them from the foundations, and they shall be utterly laid waste: they shall be in sorrow, and their memory shall perish. 4:20. They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins, and their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them. Wisdom Chapter 5 The fruitless repentance of the wicked in another world: the reward of the just. 5:1. Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those that have afflicted them, and taken away their labours. 5:2. These seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation, 5:3. Saying within themselves, repenting, and groaning for anguish of spirit: These are they, whom we had sometime in derision, and for a parable of reproach. 5:4. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. 5:5. Behold, how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints. 5:6. Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. 5:7. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. 5:8. What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? 5:9. All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a post that runneth on, 5:10. And as a ship, that passeth through the waves: whereof when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found. nor the path of its keel in the waters: 5:11. Or as when a bird flieth through the air, of the passage of which no mark can be found, but only the sound of the wings beating the light air, and parting it by the force of her flight: she moved her wings, and hath flown through, and there is no mark found afterwards of her way: 5:12. Or as when an arrow is shot at a mark, the divided air quickly cometh together again, so that the passage thereof is not known: 5:13. So we also being born, forthwith ceased to be: and have been able to shew no mark of virtue: but are consumed in our wickedness. 5:14. Such things as these the sinners said in hell: 5:15. For the hope of the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the wind, and as a thin froth which is dispersed by the storm: and a smoke that is scattered abroad by the wind: and as the remembrance of a guest of one day that passeth by. 5:16. But the just shall live for evermore: and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the most High. 5:17. Therefore shall they receive a kingdom of glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the Lord: for with his right hand he will cover them, and with his holy arm he will defend them. 5:18. And his zeal will take armour, and he will arm the creature for the revenge of his enemies. 5:19. He will put on justice as a breastplate, and will take true judgment instead of a helmet: 5:20. He will take equity for an invincible shield: 5:21. And he will sharpen his severe wrath for a spear, and the whole world shall fight with him against the unwise. 5:22. Then shafts of lightning shall go directly from the clouds, as from a bow well bent, they shall be shot out, and shall fly to the mark. 5:23. And thick hail shall be cast upon them from the stone casting wrath: the water of the sea shall rage against them, and the rivers shall run together in a terrible manner. 5:24. A mighty wind shall stand up against them, and as a whirlwind shall divide them: and their iniquity shall bring all the earth to a desert, and wickedness shall overthrow the thrones of the mighty. Wisdom Chapter 6 An address to princes to seek after wisdom: she is easily found by those that seek her. 6:1. Wisdom is better than strength: and a wise man is better than a strong man. 6:2. Hear, therefore, ye kings, and understand, learn ye that are judges of the ends of the earth. 6:3. Give ear, you that rule the people, and that please yourselves in multitudes of nations: 6:4. For power is given you by the Lord, and strength by the most High, who will examine your works: and search out your thoughts: 6:6. Because being ministers of his kingdom, you have not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God. 6:6. Horribly and speedily will he appear to you: for a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule. 6:7. For to him that is little, mercy is granted: but the mighty shall be mightily tormented. 6:8. For God will not except any man's person, neither will he stand in awe of any man's greatness: for he made the little and the great, and he hath equally care of all. 6:9. But a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty. 6:10. To you, therefore, O kings, are these my words, that you may learn wisdom, and not fall from it. 6:11. For they that have kept just things justly, shall be justified: and they that have learned these things, shall find what to answer. 6:12. Covet ye, therefore, my words, and love them, and you shall have instruction. 6:13. Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away, and is easily seen by them that love her, and is found by them that seek her. 6:14. She preventeth them that covet her, so that she first sheweth herself unto them. 6:15. He that awaketh early to seek her, shall not labour: for he shall find her sitting at his door. 6:16. To think, therefore, upon her, is perfect understanding: and he that watcheth for her, shall quickly be secure. 6:17. For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, and she sheweth herself to them cheerfully in the ways, and meeteth them with all providence. 6:18. For the beginning of her is the most true desire of discipline. 6:19. And the care of discipline is love: and love is the keeping of her laws: and the keeping of her laws is the firm foundation of incorruption: 6:20. And incorruption bringeth near to God. 6:21. Therefore the desire of wisdom bringeth to the everlasting kingdom. 6:22. If then your delight be in thrones, and sceptres, O ye kings of the people, love wisdom, that you may reign for ever. 6:23. Love the light of wisdom, all ye that bear rule over peoples. 6:24. Now what wisdom is, and what was her origin, I will declare: and I will not hide from you the mysteries of God, but will seek her out from the beginning of her birth, and bring the knowledge of her to light, and will not pass over the truth: 6:25. Neither will I go with consuming envy: for such a man shall not be partaker of wisdom. 6:26. Now the multitude of the wise is the welfare of the whole world: and a wise king is the upholding of the people. 6:27. Receive, therefore, instruction by my words, and it shall be profitable to you. Wisdom Chapter 7 The excellence of wisdom: how she is to be found. 7:1. I myself am a mortal man, like all others, and of the race of him, that was first made of the earth, and in the womb of my mother I was fashioned to be flesh. 7:2. In the time of ten months I was compacted in blood, of the seed of man, and the pleasure of sleep concurring. 7:3. And being born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, that is made alike, and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do. 7:4. I was nursed in swaddling clothes, and with great cares. 7:5. For none of the kings had any other beginning of birth. 7:6. For all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out. 7:7. Wherefore I wished, and understanding was given me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me: 7:8. And I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her. 7:9. Neither did I compare unto her any precious stone: for all gold, in comparison of her, is as a little sand; and silver, in respect to her, shall be counted as clay. 7:10. I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for her light cannot be put out. 7:11. Now all good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands, 7:12. And I rejoiced in all these: for this wisdom went before me, and I knew not that she was the mother of them all. 7:13. Which I have learned without guile, and communicate without envy, and her riches I hide not. 7:14. For she is an infinite treasure to men: which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts of discipline. 7:15. And God hath given to me to speak as I would, and to conceive thoughts worthy of those things that are given me: because he is the guide of wisdom, and the director of the wise: 7:16. For in his hand are both we, and our words, and all wisdom, and the knowledge and skill of works. 7:17. For he hath given me the true knowledge of the things that are: to know the disposition of the whole world, and the virtues of the elements, 7:18. The beginning, and ending, and midst of the times, the alterations of their courses, and the changes of seasons, 7:19. The revolutions of the year, and the dispositions of the stars, 7:20. The natures of living creatures, and rage of wild beasts, the force of winds, and reasonings of men, the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots, 7:21. And all such things as are hid, and not foreseen, I have learned: for wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me. 7:22. For in her is the spirit of understanding; holy, one, manifold, subtile, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, 7:23. Gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits: intelligible, pure, subtile: 7:24. For wisdom is more active than all active things; and reacheth everywhere, by reason of her purity. 7:25. For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emmanation of the glory of the Almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her. 7:26. For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness. 7:27. And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself the same, she reneweth all things, and through nations conveyeth herself into holy souls, she maketh the friends of God and prophets. 7:28. For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom. 7:29. For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it. 7:30. For after this cometh night, but no evil can overcome wisdom. Wisdom Chapter 8 Further praises of wisdom: and her fruits. 8:1. She reacheth, therefore, from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. 8:2. Her have I loved, and have sought her out from my youth, and have desired to take for my spouse, and I became a lover of her beauty. 8:3. She glorifieth her nobility by being conversant with God: yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her. 8:4. For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God and is the chooser of his works. 8:5. And if riches be desired in life, what is richer than wisdom, which maketh all things? 8:6. And if sense do work: who is a more artful worker than she of those things that are? 8:7. And if a man love justice: her labours have great virtues: for she teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life. 8:8. And if a man desire much knowledge: she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come: she knoweth the subtilties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments: she knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. 8:9. I purposed, therefore, to take her to me to live with me: knowing that she will communicate to me of her good things, and will be a comfort in my cares and grief. 8:10. For her sake I shall have glory among the multitude, and honour with the ancients, though I be young: 8:11. And I shall be found of a quick conceit in judgment, and shall be admired in the sight of the mighty, and the faces of princes shall wonder at me. 8:12. They shall wait for me when I hold my peace, and they shall look upon me when I speak; and if I talk much, they shall lay their hands on their mouth. 8:13. Moreover, by the means of her I shall have immortality: and shall leave behind me an everlasting memory to them that come after me. 8:14. I shall set the people in order: and nations shall be subject to me. 8:15. Terrible kings hearing, shall be afraid of me: among the multitude I shall be found good, and valiant in war. 8:16. When I go into my house, I shall repose myself with her: for her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness. 8:17. Thinking these things with myself, and pondering them in my heart, that to be allied to wisdom is immortality, 8:18. And that there is great delight in her friendship, and inexhaustible riches in the works of her hands, and in the exercise of conference with her, wisdom, and glory in the communication of her words: I went about seeking, that I might take her to myself. 8:19. And I was a witty child, and had received a good soul. 8:20. And whereas I was more good, I came to a body undefiled. 8:21. And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it, and this also was a point of wisdom, to know whose gift it was, I went to the Lord, and besought him, and said with my whole heart: Wisdom Chapter 9 Solomon's prayer for wisdom. 9:1. God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things with thy word, 9:2. And by thy wisdom hast appointed man, that he should have dominion over the creature that was made by thee, 9:3. That he should order the world according to equity and justice, and execute justice with an upright heart: 9:4. Give me wisdom, that sitteth by thy throne, and cast me not off from among thy children: 9:5. For I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid, a weak man, and of short time, and falling short of the understanding of judgment and laws. 9:6. For if one be perfect among the children of men, yet if thy wisdom be not with him, he shall be nothing regarded. 9:7. Thou hast chosen me to be king of thy people, and a judge of thy sons and daughters: 9:8. And hast commanded me to build a temple on thy holy mount, and an altar in the city of thy dwelling place, a resemblance of thy holy tabernacle, which thou hast prepared from the beginning: 9:9. And thy wisdom with thee, which knoweth thy works, which then also was present when thou madest the world, and knew what was agreeable to thy eyes, and what was right in thy commandments. 9:10. Send her out of thy holy heaven, and from the throne of thy majesty, that she may be with me, and may labour with me, that I may know what is acceptable with thee: 9:11. For she knoweth and understandeth all things, and shall lead me soberly in my works, and shall preserve me by her power. 9:12. So shall my works be acceptable, and I shall govern thy people justly, and shall be worthy of the throne of my father. 9:13. For who among men is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of God is? 9:14. For the thoughts of mortal men are fearful, and our counsels uncertain. 9:15. For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth upon many things. 9:16. And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth: and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But the things that are in heaven, who shall search out? 9:17. And who shall know thy thought, except thou give wisdom, and send thy holy Spirit from above: 9:18. And so the ways of them that are upon earth may be corrected, and men may learn the things that please thee? 9:19. For by wisdom they were healed, whosoever have pleased thee, O Lord, from the beginning. Wisdom Chapter 10 What wisdom did for Adam, Noe, Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, and the people of Israel. 10:1. She preserved him, that was first formed by God, the father of the world, when he was created alone, 10:2. And she brought him out of his sin, and gave him power to govern all things. 10:3. But when the unjust went away from her in his anger, he perished by the fury wherewith he murdered his brother. The unjust. . .Cain. 10:4. For whose cause, when water destroyed the earth, wisdom healed it again, directing the course of the just by contemptible wood. For whose cause. . .Viz., for the wickedness of the race of Cain.--Ibid. The just. . .Noe. 10:5. Moreover, when the nations had conspired together to consent to wickedness, she knew the just, and preserved him without blame to God, and kept him strong against the compassion for his son. She knew the just. . .She found out and approved Abraham. Ibid. And kept him strong, etc. . .Gave him strength to stand firm against the efforts of his natural tenderness, when he was ordered to sacrifice his son. 10:6. She delivered the just man, who fled from the wicked that were perishing, when the fire came down upon Pentapolis: The just man. . .Lot.--Ibid. Pentapolis. . .The land of the five cities, Sodom, Gomorrha, etc. 10:7. Whose land, for a testimony of their wickedness, is desolate, and smoketh to this day, and the trees bear fruits that ripen not, and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of an incredulous soul. 10:8. For regarding not wisdom, they did not only slip in this, that they were ignorant of good things; but they left also unto men a memorial of their folly, so that in the things in which they sinned, they could not so much as lie hid. 10:9. But wisdom hath delivered from sorrow them that attend upon her. 10:10. She conducted the just, when he fled from his brother's wrath, through the right ways, and shewed him the kingdom of God, and gave him the knowledge of the holy things, made him honourable in his labours, and accomplished his labours. The just. . .Jacob. 10:11. In the deceit of them that overreached him, she stood by him, and made him honourable. 10:12. She kept him safe from his enemies, and she defended him from seducers, and gave him a strong conflict, that he might overcome, and know that wisdom is mightier than all. Conflict. . .Viz., with the angel. 10:13. She forsook not the just when he was sold, but delivered him from sinners: she went down with him into the pit. The just when he was sold. . .Viz., Joseph. 10:14. And in bands she left him not, till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, and power against those that oppressed him: and shewed them to be liars that had accused him, and gave him everlasting glory. 10:15. She delivered the just people, and blameless seed, from the nations that oppressed them. 10:16. She entered into the soul of the servant of God and stood against dreadful kings in wonders and signs. The servant of God. . .Viz., Moses. 10:17. And she rendered to the just the wages of their labours, and conducted them in a wonderful way: and she was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night: 10:18. And she brought them through the Red Sea, and carried them over through a great water. 10:19. But their enemies she drowned in the sea, and from the depth of hell she brought them out. Therefore the just took the spoils of the wicked. 10:20. And they sung to thy holy name, O Lord, and they praised with one accord thy victorious hand. 10:21. For wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of infants eloquent. Wisdom Chapter 11 Other benefits of wisdom to the people of God. 11:1. She prospered their works in the hands of the holy prophet. The holy prophet. . .Moses. 11:2. They went through wildernesses that were not inhabited, and in desert places they pitched their tents. 11:3. They stood against their enemies, and revenged themselves of their adversaries. Their enemies. . .The Amalecites. 11:4. They were thirsty, and they called upon thee, and water was given them out of the high rock, and a refreshment of their thirst out of the hard stone. 11:5. For by what things their enemies were punished, when their drink failed them, while the children of Israel abounded therewith, and rejoiced: By what things, etc. . .The meaning is, that God, who wrought a miracle to punish the Egyptians by thirst, when he turned all their waters into blood, (at which time the Israelites, who were exempt from those plagues, had plenty of water,) wrought another miracle in favour of his own people in their thirst, by giving them water out of the rock. 11:6. By the same things they in their need were benefited. 11:7. For instead of a fountain of an ever running river, thou gavest human blood to the unjust. 11:8. And whilst they were diminished for a manifest reproof of their murdering the infants, thou gavest to thine abundant water unlooked for: 11:9. Shewing by the thirst that was then, how thou didst exalt thine, and didst kill their adversaries. 11:10. For when they were tried, and chastised with mercy, they knew how the wicked were judged with wrath, and tormented. 11:11. For thou didst admonish and try them as a father: but the others, as a severe king, thou didst examine and condemn. 11:12. For whether absent or present, they were tormented alike. 11:13. For a double affliction came upon them, and a groaning for the remembrance of things past. 11:14. For when they heard that by their punishments the others were benefited, they remembered the Lord, wondering at the end of what was come to pass. By their punishments, etc. . .That is, that the Israelites had been benefited and miraculously favoured in the same kind, in which they had been punished. 11:15. For whom they scorned before, when he was thrown out at the time of his being wickedly exposed to perish, him they admired in the end, when they saw the event: their thirsting being unlike to that of the just. 11:16. But for the foolish devices of their iniquity, because some being deceived worshipped dumb serpents and worthless beasts, thou didst send upon them a multitude of dumb beasts for vengeance: Dumb beasts. . .Viz., frogs, sciniphs, flies, and locusts. 11:17. That they might know that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented. 11:18. For thy almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions, 11:19. Or unknown beasts of a new kind, full of rage; either breathing out a fiery vapour, or sending forth a stinking smoke, or shooting horrible sparks out of their eyes: 11:20. Whereof not only the hurt might be able to destroy them, but also the very sight might kill them through fear. 11:21. Yea, and without these, they might have been slain with one blast, persecuted by their own deeds, and scattered by the breath of thy power: but thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. 11:22. For great power always belonged to thee alone: and who shall resist the strength of thy arm? 11:23. For the whole world before thee is as the least grain of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew, that falleth down upon tho earth. 11:24. But thou hast mercy upon all, because thou canst do all things, and overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance. 11:25. For thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made: for thou didst not appoint, or make any thing hating it. 11:26. And how could any thing endure, if thou wouldst not? or be preserved, if not called by thee? 11:27. But thou sparest all: because they are thine, O Lord, who lovest souls. Wisdom Chapter 12 God's wisdom and mercy in his proceedings with the Chanaanites. 12:1. O how good and sweet is thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things! 12:2. And therefore thou chastisest them that err, by little and little: and admonishest them, and speakest to them, concerning the things wherein they offend: that leaving their wickedness, they may believe in thee, O Lord. 12:3. For those ancient inhabitants of thy holy land, whom thou didst abhor, 12:4. Because they did works hateful to thee by their sorceries, and wicked sacrifices, 12:5. And those merciless murderers of their own children, and eaters of men's bowels, and devourers of blood from the midst of thy consecration, From the midst of thy consecration. . .Literally, sacrament. That is, the land sacred to thee, in which thy temple was to be established, and man's redemption to be wrought. 12:6. And those parents sacrificing with their own hands helpless souls, it was thy will to destroy by the hands of our parents, 12:7. That the land which of all is most dear to thee, might receive a worthy colony of the children of God. 12:8. Yet even those thou sparedst as men, and didst send wasps forerunners of thy host, to destroy them by little and little. 12:9. Not that thou wast unable to bring the wicked under the just by war, or by cruel beasts, or with one rough word to destroy them at once: 12:10. But executing thy judgments by degrees, thou gavest them place of repentance, not being ignorant that they were a wicked generation, and their malice natural, and that their thought could never be changed. 12:11. For it was a cursed seed from the beginning: neither didst thou for fear of any one give pardon to their sins. 12:12. For who shall say to thee: What hast thou done? or who shall withstand thy judgment? or who shall come before thee to be a revenger of wicked men? or who shall accuse thee, if the nations perish, which thou hast made ? 12:13. For there is no other God but thou, who hast care of all, that thou shouldst shew that thou dost not give judgment unjustly. 12:14. Neither shall king, nor tyrant, in thy sight inquire about them whom thou hast destroyed. 12:15. For so much then, as thou art just, thou orderest all things justly: thinking it not agreeable to the power, to condemn him who deserveth not to be punished. 12:16. For thy power is the beginning of justice: and because thou art Lord of all, thou makest thyself gracious to all. 12:17. For thou shewest thy power, when men will not believe thee to be absolute in power, and thou convincest the boldness of them that know thee not. 12:18. But thou being master of power, judgest with tranquillity, and with great favour disposest of us: for thy power is at hand when thou wilt. 12:19. But thou hast taught thy people by such works, that they must be just and humane, and hast made thy children to be of a good hope: because in judging, thou givest place for repentance for sins. 12:20. For if thou didst punish the enemies of thy servants, and that deserved to die, with so great deliberation, giving them time and place whereby they might be changed from their wickedness: 12:21. With what circumspection hast thou judged thy own children, to whose parents thou hast sworn, and made covenants of good promises? 12:22. Therefore whereas thou chastisest us, thou scourgest our enemies very many ways, to the end that when we judge we may think on thy goodness: and when we are judged, we may hope for thy mercy. 12:23. Wherefore thou hast also greatly tormented them, who, in their life, have lived foolishly and unjustly, by the same things which they worshipped. 12:24. For they went astray for a long time in the ways of error, holding those things for gods which are the most worthless among beasts, living after the manner of children without understanding. 12:25. Therefore thou hast sent a judgment upon them, as senseless children, to mock them. 12:26. But they that were not amended by mockeries and reprehensions, experienced the worthy judgment of God. 12:27. For seeing, with indignation, that they suffered by those very things which they took for gods, when they were destroyed by the same, they acknowledged him the true God, whom in time past they denied that they knew: for which cause the end also of their condemnation came upon them. Wisdom Chapter 13 Idolaters are inexcusable: and those most of all that worship for gods the works of the hands of men. 13:1. But all men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God: and who by these good things that are seen, could not understand him that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the workman: 13:2. But have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and moon, to be the gods that rule the world. 13:3. With whose beauty, if they, being delighted, took them to be gods: let them know how much the Lord of them is more beautiful than they: for the first author of beauty made all those things. 13:4. Or if they admired their power, and their effects, let them understand by them, that he that made them, is mightier than they: 13:5. For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby. 13:6. But yet as to these they are less to be blamed. For they perhaps err, seeking God, and desirous to find him. 13:7. For being conversant among his works, they search: and they are persuaded that the things are good which are seen. 13:8. But then again they are not to be pardoned. 13:9. For if they were able to know so much as to make a judgment of the world: how did they not more easily find out the Lord thereof? 13:10. But unhappy are they, and their hope is among the dead, who have called gods the works of the hand of men, gold and silver, the inventions of art, and the resemblances of beasts, or an unprofitable stone the work of an ancient hand. 13:11. Or if an artist, a carpenter, hath cut down a tree proper for his use in the wood, and skilfully taken off all the bark thereof, and with his art, diligently formeth a vessel profitable for the common uses of life, 13:12. And useth the chips of his work to dress his meat: 13:13. And taking what was left thereof, which is good for nothing, being a crooked piece of wood, and full of knots, carveth it diligently when he hath nothing else to do, and by the skill of his art fashioneth it, and maketh it like the image of a man: 13:14. Or the resemblance of some beast, laying it over with vermilion, and painting it red, and covering every spot that is in it: 13:15. And maketh a convenient dwelling place for it, and setting it in a wall, and fastening it with iron, 13:16. Providing for it, lest it should fall, knowing that it is unable to help itself: for it is an image, and hath need of help. 13:17. And then maketh prayer to it, enquiring concerning his substance, and his children, or his marriage. And he is not ashamed to speak to that which hath no life: 13:18. And for health he maketh supplication to the weak, and for life prayeth to that which is dead, and for help calleth upon that which is unprofitable: 13:19. And for a good journey he petitioneth him that cannot walk: and for getting, and for working, and for the event of all things he asketh him that is unable to do any thing. Wisdom Chapter 14 The beginning of worshipping idols: and the effects thereof. 14:1. Again, another designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carrieth him. 14:2. For this the desire of gain devised, and the workman built it by his skill. 14:3. But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path among the waves, 14:4. Shewing that thou art able to save out of all things, yea, though a man went to sea without art. 14:5. But that the works of thy wisdom might not be idle: therefore men also trust their lives even to a little wood, and passing over the sea by ship, are saved. 14:6. And from the beginning also, when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world fleeing to a vessel, which was governed by thy hand, left to the world seed of generation. 14:7. For blessed is the wood, by which justice cometh 14:8. But the idol that is made by hands, is cursed, as well it, as he that made it: he because he made it; and it because being frail it is called a god. 14:9. But to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike. 14:10. For that which is made, together with him that made it, shall suffer torments. 14:11. Therefore there shall be no respect had even to the idols of the Gentiles: because the creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise. 14:12. For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols: and the invention of them is the corruption of life. 14:13. For neither were they from the beginning, neither shall they be for ever. 14:14. For by the vanity of men they came into the world: and therefore they shall be found to come shortly to an end. 14:15. For a father being afflicted with bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son, who was quickly taken away: and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god, and appointed him rites and sacrifices among his servants. 14:16. Then, in process of time, wicked custom prevailing, this error was kept as a law, and statues were worshipped by the commandment of tyrants. 14:17. And those whom men could not honour in presence, because they dwelt far off, they brought their resemblance from afar, and made an express image of the king, whom they had a mind to honour: that by this their diligence, they might honour as present, him that was absent. 14:18. And to the worshipping of these, the singular diligence also of the artificer helped to set forward the ignorant. 14:19. For he being willing to please him that employed him, laboured with all his art to make the resemblance in the best manner. 14:20. And the multitude of men, carried away by the beauty of the work, took him now for a god, that little before was but honoured as a man. 14:21. And this was the occasion of deceiving human life: for men serving either their affection, or their kings, gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood. 14:22. And it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and so great evils peace. 14:23. For either they sacrifice their own children, or use hidden sacrifices, or keep watches full of madness, 14:24. So that now they neither keep life, nor marriage undefiled, but one killeth another through envy, or grieveth him by adultery: 14:25. And all things are mingled together, blood, murder, theft, and dissimulation, corruption and unfaithfulness, tumults and perjury, disquieting of the good, 14:26. Forgetfulness of God, defiling of souls, changing of nature, disorder in marriage, and the irregularity of adultery and uncleanness. 14:27. For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil. 14:28. For either they are mad when they are merry: or they prophesy lies, or they live unjustly, or easily forswear themselves. 14:29. For whilst they trust in idols, which are without life, though they swear amiss, they look not to be hurt. 14:30. But for both these things they shall be justly punished, because they have thought not well of God, giving heed to idols, and have sworn unjustly, in guile despising justice. 14:31. For it is not the power of them, by whom they swear, but the just vengeance of sinners always punisheth the transgression of the unjust. Wisdom Chapter 15 The servants of God praise him who hath delivered them from idolatry; condemning both the makers and the worshippers of idols. 15:1. But thou, our God, art gracious and true, patient, and ordering all things in mercy. 15:2. For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy greatness: and if we sin not, we know that we are counted with thee. 15:3. For to know thee is perfect justice: and to know thy justice, and thy power, is the root of immortality. 15:4. For the invention of mischievous men hath not deceived us, nor the shadow of a picture, a fruitless labour, a graven figure with divers colours, 15:5. The sight whereof enticeth the fool to lust after it, and he loveth the lifeless figure of a dead image. 15:6. The lovers of evil things deserve to have no better things to trust in, both they that make them, and they that love them, and they that worship them. 15:7. The potter also tempering soft earth, with labour fashioneth every vessel for our service, and of the same clay he maketh both vessels that are for clean uses, and likewise such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of these vessels, the potter is the judge. 15:8. And of the same clay by a vain labour he maketh a god: he who a little before was made of earth himself, and a little after returneth to the same out of which he was taken, when his life, which was lent him, shall be called for again. 15:9. But his care is, not that he shall labour, nor that his life is short, but he striveth with the goldsmiths and silversmiths: and he endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it a glory to make vain things. 15:10. For his heart is ashes, and his hope vain earth and his life more base than clay: 15:11. Forasmuch as he knew not his maker, and him that inspired into him the soul that worketh, and that breathed into him a living spirit. 15:12. Yea, and they have counted our life a pastime and the business of life to be gain, and that we must be getting every way, even out of evil. 15:13. For that man knoweth that he offendeth above all others, who of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels, and graven gods. 15:14. But all the enemies of thy people that hold them in subjection, are foolish, and unhappy, and proud beyond measure: 15:15. For they have esteemed all the idols of the heathens for gods, which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor fingers of hands to handle, and as for their feet, they are slow to walk. 15:16. For man made them: and he that borroweth his own breath, fashioned them. For no man can make a god like to himself. 15:17. For being mortal himself, he formeth a dead thing with his wicked hands. For he is better than they whom he worshippeth, because he indeed hath lived, though he were mortal, but they never. 15:18. Moreover, they worship also the vilest creatures: but things without sense, compared to these, are worse than they. 15:19. Yea, neither by sight can any man see good of these beasts. But they have fled from the praise of God, and from his blessing. Wisdom Chapter 16 God's different dealings with the Egyptians and with his own people. 16:1. For these things, and by the like things to these, they were worthily punished, and were destroyed by a multitude of beasts. 16:2. Instead of which punishment, dealing well with thy people, thou gavest them their desire of delicious food, of a new taste, preparing for them quails for their meat: 16:3. To the end, that they indeed desiring food, by means of those things that were shewn and sent among them, might loath even that which was necessary to satisfy their desire. But these, after suffering want for a short time, tasted a new meat. They indeed desiring food, etc. . .He means the Egyptians; who were restrained even from that food which was necessary, by the frogs and the flies that were sent amongst them, and spoiled all their meats.--Ibid. But these. . .Viz., the Israelites. 16:4. For it was requisite that inevitable destruction should come upon them that exercised tyranny: but to these it should only be shewn how their enemies were destroyed. 16:5. For when the fierce rage of beasts came upon these, they were destroyed by the bitings of crooked serpents. 16:6. But thy wrath endured not for ever, but they were troubled for a short time for their correction, having a sign of salvation, to put them in remembrance of the commandment of thy law. Sign of salvation. . .The brazen serpent, an emblem of Christ our Saviour. 16:7. For he that turned to it, was not healed by that which he saw, but by thee, the Saviour of all. 16:8. And in this thou didst shew to our enemies, that thou art he who deliverest from all evil. 16:9. For the bitings of locusts, and of flies, killed them, and there was found no remedy for their life: because they were worthy to be destroyed by such things. 16:10. But not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame thy children: for thy mercy came and healed them. 16:11. For they were examined for the remembrance of thy words, and were quickly healed, lest falling into deep forgetfulness, they might not be able to use thy help. 16:12. For it was neither herb, nor mollifying plaster, that healed them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things. 16:13. For it is thou, O Lord, that hast power of life and death, and leadest down to the gates of death, and bringest back again: 16:14. A man indeed killeth through malice, and when the spirit is gone forth, it shall not return, neither shall he call back the soul that is received: 16:15. But it is impossible to escape thy hand: 16:16. For the wicked that denied to know thee, were scourged by the strength of thy arm, being persecuted by strange waters, and hail, and rain, and consumed by fire. 16:17. And which was wonderful, in water, which extinguisheth all things, the fire had more force: for the world fighteth for the just. The fire had more force. . .Viz., when the fire and hail mingled together laid waste the land of Egypt. Ex. 9. 16:18. For at one time the fire was mitigated, that the beasts which were sent against the wicked might not be burnt, but that they might see, and perceive that they were persecuted by the judgment of God. 16:19. And at another time the fire, above its own power, burnt in the midst of water, to destroy the fruits of a wicked land. 16:20. Instead of which things, thou didst feed thy people with the food of angels, and gavest them bread from heaven, prepared without labour; having in it all that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste. 16:21. For thy sustenance shewed thy sweetness to thy children, and serving every man's will, it was turned to what every man liked. 16:22. But snow and ice endured the force of fire, and melted not: that they might know that the fire, burning in the hail, and flashing in the rain, destroyed the fruits of the enemies. 16:23. But this same again, that the just might be nourished, did even forget its own strength. 16:24. For the creature serving thee, the Creator, is made fierce against the unjust for their punishment: and abateth its strength for the benefit of them that trust in thee. 16:25. Therefore even then it was transformed into all things, and was obedient to thy grace, that nourisheth all, according to the will of them that desired it of thee: 16:26. That thy children, O Lord, whom thou lovedst, might know that it is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth men, but thy word preserveth them that believe in thee. 16:27. For that which could not be destroyed by fire, being warmed with a little sunbeam, presently melted away: 16:28. That it might be known to all, that we ought to prevent the sun to bless thee, and adore thee at the dawning of the light. 16:29. For the hope of the unthankful shall melt away as the winter's ice, and shall run off as unprofitable water. Wisdom Chapter 17 The Egyptian darkness. 17:1. For thy judgments, O Lord, are great, and thy words cannot be expressed: therefore undisciplined souls have erred. 17:2. For while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night, shut up in their houses, lay there exiled from the eternal providence. 17:3. And while they thought to lie hid in their obscure sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfullness, being horribly afraid, and troubled with exceeding great astonishment. 17:4. For neither did the den that held them, keep them from fear: for noises coming down troubled them, and sad visions appearing to them, affrighted them. 17:5. And no power of fire could give them light, neither could the bright flames of the stars enlighten that horrible night. 17:6. But there appeared to them a sudden fire, very dreadful: and being struck with the fear of that face, which was not seen, they thought the things which they saw to be worse: 17:7. And the delusions of their magic art were put down, and their boasting of wisdom was reproachfully rebuked. 17:8. For they who promised to drive away fears and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of a fear worthy to be laughed at. 17:9. For though no terrible thing disturbed them: yet being scared with the passing by of beasts, and hissing of serpents, they died for fear and denying that they saw the air, which could by no means be avoided. 17:10. For whereas wickedness is fearful, it beareth witness of its condemnation: for a troubled conscience always forecasteth grievous things. 17:11. For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the succours from thought. 17:12. And while there is less expectation from within, the greater doth it count the ignorance of that cause which bringeth the torment. 17:13. But they that during that night, in which nothing could be done, and which came upon them from the lowest and deepest hell, slept the same sleep, 17:14. Were sometimes molested with the fear of monsters, sometimes fainted away, their soul failing them: for a sudden and unlooked for fear was come upon them. 17:15. Moreover, if any of them had fallen down, he was kept shut up in prison without irons. 17:16. For if any one were a husbandman, or a shepherd, or a labourer in the field, and was suddenly overtaken, he endured a necessity from which he could not fly. 17:17. For they were all bound together with one chain of darkness. Whether it were a whistling wind, or the melodious voice of birds, among the spreading branches of trees, or a fall of water running down with violence, 17:18. Or the mighty noise of stones tumbling down, or the running that could not be seen of beasts playing together, or the roaring voice of wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the highest mountains: these things made them to swoon for fear. 17:19. For the whole world was enlightened, with a clear light, and none were hindered in their labours. 17:20. But over them only was spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which was to come upon them. But they were to themselves more grievous than the darkness. Wisdom Chapter 18 The slaughter of the firstborn in Egypt: the efficacy of Aaron's intercession, in the sedition on occasion of Core. 18:1. But thy saints had a very great light, and they heard their voice indeed, but did not see their shape. And because they also did not suffer the same things, they glorified thee: 18:2. And they that before had been wronged, gave thanks, because they were not hurt now: and asked this gift, that there might be a difference. 18:3. Therefore they received a burning pillar of fire for a guide of the way which they knew not, and thou gavest them a harmless sun of a good entertainment. A harmless sun. . .A light that should not hurt or molest them; but that should be an agreeable guest to them. 18:4. The others indeed were worthy to be deprived of light, and imprisoned in darkness, who kept thy children shut up, by whom the pure light of the law was to be given to the world. 18:5. And whereas they thought to kill the babes of the just: one child being cast forth, and saved to reprove them, thou tookest away a multitude of their children, and destroyedst them altogether in a mighty water. One child. . .Viz., Moses. 18:6. For that night was known before by our fathers, that assuredly knowing what oaths they had trusted to, they might be of better courage. 18:7. So thy people received the salvation of the just, and destruction of the unjust. 18:8. For as thou didst punish the adversaries so thou didst also encourage and glorify us. 18:9. For the just children of good men were offering sacrifice secretly, and they unanimously ordered a law of justice: that the just should receive both good and evil alike, singing now the praises of the fathers. Of good men. . .Viz., of the patriarchs. Their children, the Israelites, offered in private the sacrifice of the paschal lamb; and were regulating what they were to do in their journey, when that last and most dreadful plague was coming upon their enemies. 18:10. But on the other side there sounded an ill according cry of the enemies, and a lamentable mourning was heard for the children that were bewailed. 18:11. And the servant suffered the same punishment as the master, and a common man suffered in like manner as the king. 18:12. So all alike had innumerable dead, with one kind of death. Neither were the living sufficient to bury them: for in one moment the noblest offspring of them was destroyed. The noblest offspring. . .That is, the firstborn. 18:13. For whereas they would not believe any thing before by reason of the enchantments, then first upon the destruction of the firstborn, they acknowledged the people to be of God. 18:14. For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, 18:15. Thy Almighty word leaped down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction, 18:16. With a sharp sword carrying thy unfeigned commandment, and he stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth, reached even to heaven. 18:17. Then suddenly visions of evil dreams troubled them, and fears unlooked for came upon them. 18:18. And one thrown here, another there, half dead, shewed the cause of his death. 18:19. For the visions that troubled them foreshewed these things, lest they should perish, and not know why they suffered these evils. 18:20. But the just also were afterwards touched by an assault of death, and there was a disturbance of the multitude in the wilderness: but thy wrath did not long continue; 18:21. For a blameless man made haste to pry for the people, bringing forth the shield of his ministry, prayer, and by incense making supplication, withstood the wrath, and put an end to the calamity, shewing that he was thy servant. 18:22. And he overcame the disturbance, not by strength of body nor with force of arms, but with a word he subdued him that punished them, alleging the oath and covenant made with the fathers. 18:23. For when they were now fallen down dead by heaps one upon another, he stood between and stayed the assault, and cut off the way to the living. 18:24. For in the priestly robe which he wore, was the whole world: and in the four rows of the stones, the glory of the fathers was graven, and thy majesty was written upon the diadem of his head. 18:26. And to these the destroyer gave place, and was afraid of them: for the proof only of wrath was enough. Wisdom Chapter 19 Why God shewed no mercy to the Egyptians. His favour to the Israelites. All creatures obey God's orders for the service of the good, and the punishment of the wicked. 19:1. But as to the wicked, even to the end there came upon them wrath without mercy. For he knew before also what they would do: 19:2. For when they had given them leave to depart and had sent them away with great care, they repented and pursued after them. 19:3. For whilst they were yet mourning, and lamenting at the graves of the dead, they took up another foolish device: and pursued them as fugitives whom they had pressed to be gone: 19:4. For a necessity, of which they were worthy, brought them to this end: and they lost the remembrance of those things which had happened, that their punishment might fill up what was wanting to their torments: 19:5. And that thy people might wonderfully pass through, but they might find a new death. 19:6. For every creature, according to its kind was fashioned again as from the beginning, obeying thy commandments, that thy children might be kept without hurt. 19:7. For a cloud overshadowed their camps and where water was before, dry land appeared, and in the Red Sea a way without hindrance, and out of the great deep a springing field: 19:8. Through which all the nation passed which was protected with thy hand, seeing thy miracles and wonders. 19:9. For they fed on their food like horses, and they skipped like lambs, praising thee, O Lord, who hadst delivered them. 19:10. For they were yet mindful of those things which had been done in the time of their sojourning, how the ground brought forth flies instead of cattle, and how the river cast up a multitude of frogs instead of fishes. 19:11. And at length they saw a new generation of birds, when being led by their appetite, they asked for delicate meats. 19:12. For to satisfy their desire, the quail came up to them from the sea: and punishments came upon the sinners, not without foregoing signs by the force of thunders: for they suffered justly according to their own wickedness. 19:13. For they exercised a more detestable inhospitality than any: others indeed received not strangers unknown to them, but these brought their guests into bondage that had deserved well of them. 19:14. And not only so, but in another respect also they were worse: for the others against their will received the strangers. 19:15. But these grievously afflicted them whom they had received with joy, and who lived under the same laws. 19:16. But they were struck with blindness: as those others were at the doors of the just man, when they were covered with sudden darkness, and every one sought the passage of his own door. 19:17. For while the elements are changed in themselves, as in an instrument the sound of the quality is changed, yet all keep their sound: which may clearly be perceived by the very sight. Elements are changed, etc. . .The meaning is, that whatever changes God wrought in the elements by miracles in favour of his people, they still kept their harmony by obeying his will. 19:18. For the things of the land were turned into things of the water: and the things that before swam in the water passed upon the land. 19:19. The fire had power in water above its own virtue, and the water forgot its quenching nature. 19:20. On the other side, the flames wasted not the flesh of corruptible animals walking therein, neither did they melt that good food, which was apt to melt as ice. For in all things thou didst magnify thy people, O Lord, and didst honour them, and didst not despise them, but didst assist them at all times, and in every place. That good food. . .The manna. ECCLESIASTICUS This Book is so called from a Greek word that signifies a preacher: because, like an excellent preacher, it gives admirable lessons of all virtues. The author was Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. As it was written after the time of Esdras, it is not in the Jewish canon; but is received as canonical and divine by the Catholic Church, instructed by apostolical tradition, and directed by the spirit of God. It was first written in the Hebrew, but afterwards translated into Greek, by another Jesus, the grandson of the author, whose prologue to this book is the following: THE PROLOGUE. The knowledge of many and great things hath been shewn us by the law, and the prophets, and others that have followed them: for which things Israel is to be commended for doctrine and wisdom, because not only they that speak must needs be skilful, but strangers also, both speaking and writing, may by their means become most learned. My grandfather Jesus, after he had much given himself to a diligent reading of the law, and the prophets, and other books, that were delivered to us from our fathers, had a mind also to write something himself, pertaining to doctrine and wisdom; that such as are desirous to learn, and are made knowing in these things, may be more and more attentive in mind, and be strengthened to live according to the law. I entreat you therefore to come with benevolence, and to read with attention, and to pardon us for those things wherein we may seem, while we follow the image of wisdom, to come short in the composition of words; for the Hebrew words have not the same force in them when translated into another tongue. And not only these, but the law also itself, and the prophets, and the rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are spoken in their own language. For in the eight and thirtieth year coming into Egypt, when Ptolemy Evergetes was king, and continuing there a long time, I found there books left, of no small nor contemptible learning. Therefore I thought it good, and necessary for me to bestow some diligence and labour to interpret this book; and with much watching and study in some space of time, I brought the book to an end, and set it forth for the service of them that are willing to apply their mind, and to learn how they ought to conduct themselves, who purpose to lead their life according to the law of the Lord. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 1 All wisdom is from God, and is given to them that fear and love God. 1:1. All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him, and is before all time. 1:2. Who hath numbered the sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world? Who hath measured the height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss? 1:3. Who hath searched out the wisdom of God that goeth before all things? 1:4. Wisdom hath been created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting. 1:5. The word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom, and her ways are everlasting commandments. 1:6. To whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed, and who hath known her wise counsels? 1:7. To whom hath the discipline of wisdom been revealed and made manifest? and who hath understood the multiplicity of her steps? 1:8. There is one most high Creator Almighty, and a powerful king, and greatly to be feared, who sitteth upon his throne, and is the God of dominion. 1:9. He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. 1:10. And he poured her out upon all his works, and upon all flesh according to his gift, and hath given her to them that love him. 1:11. The fear of the Lord is honour, and glory, and gladness, and a crown of joy. 1:12. The fear of the Lord shall delight the heart, and shall give joy, and gladness, and length of days. 1:13. With him that feareth the Lord, it shall go well in the latter end, and in the day of his death he shall be blessed. 1:14. The love of God is honourable wisdom. 1:15. And they to whom she shall shew herself love her by the sight, and by the knowledge of her great works. 1:16. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and was created with the faithful in the womb, it walketh with chosen women, and is known with the just and faithful. 1:17. The fear of the Lord is the religiousness of knowledge. 1:18. Religiousness shall keep and justify the heart, it shall give joy and gladness. 1:19. It shall go well with him that feareth the Lord, and in the days of his end he shall be blessed. 1:20. To fear God is the fulness of wisdom, and fulness is from the fruits thereof. 1:21. She shall fill all her house with her increase, and the storehouses with her treasures. 1:22. The fear of the Lord is a crown of wisdom, filling up peace and the fruit of salvation: 1:23. And it hath seen, and numbered her: but both are the gifts of God. 1:24. Wisdom shall distribute knowledge, and understanding of prudence: and exalteth the glory of them that hold her. 1:25. The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord: and the branches thereof are long-lived. 1:26. In the treasures of wisdom is understanding, and religiousness of knowledge: but to sinners wisdom is an abomination. 1:27. The fear of the Lord driveth out sin: 1:28. For he that is without fear, cannot be justified: for the wrath of his high spirits is his ruin. 1:29. A patient man shall bear for a time, and afterwards joy shall be restored to him. 1:30. A good understanding will hide his words for a time, and the lips of many shall declare his wisdom. 1:31. In the treasures of wisdom is the signification of discipline: 1:32. But the worship of God is an abomination to a sinner. 1:33. Son, if thou desire wisdom, keep justice, and God will give her to thee. 1:34. For the fear of the Lord is wisdom and discipline: and that which is agreeable to him, 1:35. Is faith, and meekness: and he will fill up his treasures. 1:36. Be not incredulous to the fear of the Lord: and come not to him with a double heart. 1:37. Be not a hypocrite in the sight of men, and let not thy lips be a stumblingblock to thee. 1:38. Watch over them, lest thou fall, and bring dishonour upon thy soul, 1:39. And God discover thy secrets, and cast thee down in the midst of the congregation. 1:40. Because thou camest to the Lord wickedly, and thy heart is full of guile and deceit. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 2 God's servants must look for temptations: and must arm themselves with patience and confidence in God. 2:1. Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. 2:2. Humble thy heart, and endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds. 2:3. Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end. 2:4. Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience. 2:5. For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. 2:6. Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein. 2:7. Ye that fear the Lord, wait for his mercy: and go not aside from him lest ye fall. 2:8. Ye that fear the Lord, believe him: and your reward shall not be made void. 2:9. Ye that fear the Lord hope in him, and mercy shall come to you for your delight. 2:10. Ye that fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts shall be enlightened. 2:11. My children behold the generations of men: and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded. 2:12. For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? or who hath called upon him, and he despised him? 2:13. For God is compassionate and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation: and he is a protector to all that seek him in truth. 2:14. Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two ways. 2:15. Woe to them that are fainthearted, who believe not God: and therefore they shall not be protected by him. 2:16. Woe to them that have lost patience, and that have forsaken the right ways, and have gone aside into crooked ways. 2:17. And what will they do, when the Lord shall begin to examine? 2:18. They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his word: and they that love him, will keep his way. 2:19. They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him: and they that love him, shall be filled with his law. 2:20. They that fear the Lord, will prepare their hearts, and in his sight will sanctify their souls, 2:21. They that fear the Lord, keep his commandments, and will have patience even until his visitation, 2:22. Saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. 2:23. For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 3 Lessons concerning the honour of parents, and humility, and avoiding curiosity. 3:1. The sons of wisdom are the church of the just: and their generation, obedience and love. 3:2. Children, hear the judgment of your father, and so do that you may be saved. 3:3. For God hath made the father honourable to the children: and seeking the judgment of the mothers, hath confirmed it upon the children. 3:4. He that loveth God, shall obtain pardon for his sins by prayer, and shall refrain himself from them, and shall be heard in the prayer of days. 3:5. And he that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure. 3:6. He that honoureth his father shall have joy in his own children, and in the day of his prayer he shall be heard. 3:7. He that honoureth his father shall enjoy a long life: and he that obeyeth the father, shall be a comfort to his mother. 3:8. He that feareth the Lord, honoureth his parents, and will serve them as his masters that brought him into the world. 3:9. Honour thy father, in work and word, and all patience, 3:10. That a blessing may come upon thee from him, and his blessing may remain in the latter end. 3:11. The father's blessing establisheth the houses of the children: but the mother's curse rooteth up the foundation. 3:12. Glory not in the dishonour of thy father: for his shame is no glory to thee. 3:13. For the glory of a man is from the honour of his father, and a father without honour is the disgrace of the son. 3:14. Son, support the old age of thy father, and grieve him not in his life; 3:15. And if his understanding fail, have patience with him, and despise him not when thou art in thy strength: for the relieving of the father shall not be forgotten. 3:16. For good shall be repaid to thee for the sin of thy mother. 3:17. And in justice thou shalt be built up, and in the day of affliction thou shalt be remembered: and thy sins shall melt away as the ice in the fair warm weather. 3:18. Of what an evil fame is he that forsaketh his father: and he is cursed of God that angereth his mother. 3:19. My son, do thy works in meekness, and thou shalt be beloved above the glory of men. 3:20. The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God: 3:21. For great is the power of God alone, and he is honoured by the humble. 3:22. Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability: but the things that God hath commanded thee, think on them always, and in many of his works be not curious. 3:23. For it is not necessary for thee to see with thy eyes those things that are hid. 3:24. In unnecessary matters be not over curious, and in many of his works thou shalt not be inquisitive. 3:25. For many things are shewn to thee above the understanding of men. 3:26. And the suspicion of them hath deceived many, and hath detained their minds in vanity. 3:27. A hard heart shall fear evil at the last: and he that loveth danger shall perish in it. 3:28. A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success, and the perverse of heart shall be scandalized therein. 3:29. A wicked heart shall be laden with sorrows, and the sinner will add sin to sin. 3:30. The congregation of the proud shall not be healed: for the plant of wickedness shall take root in them, and it shall not be perceived. 3:31. The heart of the wise is understood in wisdom, and a good ear will hear wisdom with all desire. 3:32. A wise heart, and which hath understanding, will abstain from sins, and in the works of justice shall have success. 3:33. Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sins: 3:34. And God provideth for him that sheweth favour: he remembereth him afterwards, and in the time of his fall he shall find a sure stay. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 4 An exhortation to works of mercy, and to the love of wisdom. 4:1. Son, defraud not the poor of alms, and turn not away thy eyes from the poor. 4:2. Despise not the hungry soul: and provoke not the poor in his want. 4:3. Afflict not the heart of the needy, and defer not to gibe to him that is in distress. 4:4. Reject not the petition of the afflicted: and turn not away thy face from the needy. 4:5. Turn not away thy eyes from the poor for fear of anger: and leave not to them that ask of thee to curse thee behind thy back. 4:6. For the prayer of him that curseth thee in the bitterness of his soul, shall be heard, for he that made him will hear him. 4:7. Make thyself affable to the congregation of the poor, and humble thy soul to the ancient, and bow thy head to a great man. 4:8. Bow down thy ear cheerfully to the poor, and pay what thou owest, and answer him peaceable words with mildness. 4:9. Deliver him that suffereth wrong out of the hand of the proud: and be not fainthearted in thy soul. 4:10. In judging be merciful to the fatherless as a father, and as a husband to their mother. 4:11. And thou shalt be as the obedient son of the most High, and he will have mercy on thee more than a mother. 4:12. Wisdom inspireth life into her children, and protecteth them that seek after her, and will go before them in the way of justice. 4:13. And he that loveth her, loveth life: and they that watch for her, shall embrace her sweetness. 4:14. They that hold her fast, shall inherit life: and whithersoever she entereth, God will give a blessing. 4:15. They that serve her, shall be servants to the holy one: and God loveth them that love her. 4:16. He that hearkeneth to her, shall judge nations: and he that looketh upon her, shall remain secure. 4:17. If he trust to her, he shall inherit her, and his generation shall be in assurance. 4:18. For she walketh with him in temptation, and at the first she chooseth him. In temptation, etc. . .The meaning is, that before wisdom will choose any for her favourite, she will try them by leading them through contradictions, afflictions, and temptations, the usual noviceship of the children of God. 4:19. She will bring upon him fear and dread and trial: and she will scourge him with the affliction of her discipline, till she try him by her laws, and trust his soul. 4:20. Then she will strengthen him, and make a straight way to him, and give him joy, 4:21. And will disclose her secrets to him, and will heap upon him treasures of knowledge and understanding of justice. 4:22. But if he go astray, she will forsake him, and deliver him into the hands of his enemy. 4:23. Son, observe the time, and fly from evil. 4:24. For thy soul be not ashamed to say the truth. 4:25. For there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that bringeth glory and grace. 4:26. Accept no person against thy own person, nor against thy soul a lie. 4:27. Reverence not thy neighbour in his fall: 4:28. And refrain not to speak in the time of salvation. Hide not thy wisdom in her beauty. 4:29. For by the tongue wisdom is discerned: and understanding, and knowledge, and learning by the word of the wise, and steadfastness in the works of justice. 4:30. In nowise speak against the truth, but be ashamed of the lie of thy ignorance. 4:31. Be not ashamed to confess thy sins, but submit not thyself to every man for sin. 4:32. Resist not against the face of the mighty, and do not strive against the stream of the river. 4:33. Strive for justice for thy soul, and even unto death fight for justice, and God will overthrow thy enemies for thee. 4:34. Be not hasty in thy tongue: and slack and remiss in thy works. 4:35. Be not as a lion in thy house, terrifying them of thy household, and oppressing them that are under thee. 4:36. Let not thy hand be stretched out to receive, and shut when thou shouldst give. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 5 We must not presume of our wealth or strength: nor of the mercy of God, to go on in sin: we must be steadfast in virtue and truth. 5:1. Set not thy heart upon unjust possessions, and say not: I have enough to live on: for it shall be of no service in the time of vengeance and darkness. 5:2. Follow not in thy strength the desires of thy heart: 5:3. And say not: How mighty am I? and who shall bring me under for my deeds? for God will surely take revenge. 5:4. Say not: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? for the most High is a patient rewarder. 5:5. Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin: 5:6. And say not: The mercy of the Lord is great, he will have mercy on the multitude of my sins. 5:7. For mercy and wrath quickly come from him, and his wrath looketh upon sinners. 5:8. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. 5:9. For his wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy thee. 5:10. Be not anxious for goods unjustly gotten: for they shall not profit thee in the day of calamity and revenge. 5:11. Winnow not with every wind, and go not into every way: for so is every sinner proved by a double tongue. 5:12. Be steadfast in the way of the Lord, and in the truth of thy judgment, and in knowledge, and let the word of peace and justice keep with thee. 5:13. Be meek to hear the word, that thou mayst understand: and return a true answer with wisdom. 5:14. If thou have understanding, answer thy neighbour: but if not, let thy hand be upon thy mouth, lest thou be surprised in an unskilful word, and be confounded. 5:15. Honour and glory is in the word of the wise, but the tongue of the fool is his ruin. 5:16. Be not called a whisperer, and be not taken in thy tongue, and confounded. 5:17. For confusion and repentance is upon a thief, and an evil mark of disgrace upon the double tongued, but to the whisperer hatred, and enmity, and reproach. 5:18. Justify alike the small and the great. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 6 Of true and false friends: and of the of the fruits of wisdom. 6:1. Instead of a friend become not an enemy to thy neighbour: for an evil man shall inherit reproach and shame, so shall every sinner that is envious and double tongued. 6:2. Extol not thyself in the thoughts of thy soul like a bull: lest thy strength be quashed by folly, 6:3. And it eat up thy leaves, and destroy thy fruit, and thou be left as a dry tree in the wilderness. 6:4. For a wicked soul shall destroy him that hath it, and maketh him to be a joy to his enemies, and shall lead him into the lot of the wicked. 6:5. A sweet word multiplieth friends, and appeaseth enemies, and a gracious tongue in a good man aboundeth. 6:6. Be in peace with many, but let one of a thousand be thy counsellor. 6:7. If thou wouldst get a friend, try him before thou takest him, and do not credit him easily. 6:8. For there is a friend for his own occasion, and he will not abide in the day of thy trouble. 6:9. And there is a friend that turneth to enmity; and there is a friend that will disclose hatred and strife and reproaches. 6:10. And there is a friend a companion at the table, and he will not abide in the day of distress. 6:11. A friend if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee as thyself, and shall act with confidence among them of thy household. 6:12. If he humble himself before thee, and hide himself from thy face, thou shalt have unanimous friendship for good. 6:13. Separate thyself from thy enemies, and take heed of thy friends. 6:14. A faithful friend is a strong defence: and he that hath found him, hath found a treasure. 6:15. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is able to countervail the goodness of his fidelity. 6:16. A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality: and they that fear the Lord, shall find him. 6:17. He that feareth God, shall likewise have good friendship: because according to him shall his friend be. 6:18. My son, from thy youth up receive instruction, and even to thy grey hairs thou shalt find wisdom. 6:19. Come to her as one that plougheth, and soweth, and wait for her good fruits: 6:20. For in working about her thou shalt labour a little, and shalt quickly eat of her fruits. 6:21. How very unpleasant is wisdom to the unlearned, and the unwise will not continue with her. 6:22. She shall be to them as a mighty stone of trial, and they will cast her from them before it be long. 6:23. For the wisdom of doctrine is according to her name, and she is not manifest unto many, but with them to whom she is known, she continueth even to the sight of God. 6:24. Give ear, my son, and take wise counsel, and cast not away my advice. 6:25. Put thy feet into her fetters, and thy neck into her chains: 6:26. Bow down thy shoulder, and bear her, and be not grieved with her bands. 6:27. Come to her with all thy mind, and keep her ways with all thy power. 6:28. Search for her, and she shall be made known to thee, and when thou hast gotten her, let her not go: 6:29. For in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. 6:30. Then shall her fetters be a strong defence for thee, and a firm foundation, and her chain a robe of glory: 6:31. For in her is the beauty of life, and her bands are a healthful binding. 6:32. Thou shalt put her on as a robe of glory, and thou shalt set her upon thee as a crown of joy. 6:33. My son, if thou wilt attend to me, thou shalt learn: and if thou wilt apply thy mind, thou shalt be wise. 6:34. If thou wilt incline thy ear, thou shalt receive instruction: and if thou love to hear, thou shalt be wise. 6:35. Stand in the multitude of ancients that are wise, and join thyself from thy heart to their wisdom, that thou mayst hear every discourse of God, and the sayings of praise may not escape thee. 6:36. And if thou see a man of understanding, go to him early in the morning, and let thy foot wear the steps of his doors. 6:37. Let thy thoughts be upon the precepts of God, and meditate continually on his commandments: and he will give thee a heart, and the desire of wisdom shall be given to thee. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 7 Religious and moral duties. 7:1. Do no evils, and no evils shall lay hold of thee. 7:2. Depart from the unjust, and evils shall depart from thee. 7:3. My son, sow not evils in the furrows of injustice, and thou shalt not reap them sevenfold. 7:4. Seek not of the Lord a preeminence, nor of the king the seat of honour. 7:5. Justify not thyself before God, for he knoweth the heart: and desire not to appear wise before the king. 7:6. Seek not to be made a judge, unless thou have strength enough to extirpate iniquities: lest thou fear the person of the powerful, and lay a stumblingblock for thy integrity. 7:7. Offend not against the multitude of a city, neither cast thyself in upon the people, 7:8. Nor bind sin to sin: for even in one thou shalt not be unpunished. 7:9. Be not fainthearted in thy mind: 7:10. Neglect not to pray, and to give alms. 7:11. Say not: God will have respect to the multitude of my gifts, and when I offer to the most high God, he will accept my offerings. 7:12. Laugh no man to scorn in the bitterness of his soul: for there is one that humbleth and exalteth, God who seeth all. 7:13. Devise not a lie against thy brother: neither do the like against thy friend. 7:14. Be not willing to make any manner of lie: for the custom thereof is not good. 7:15. Be not full of words in a multitude of ancients, and repeat not the word in thy prayer. Repeat not, etc. . .Make not much babbling by repetition of words: but aim more at fervour of heart. 7:16. Hate not laborious works, nor husbandry ordained by the most High. 7:17. Number not thyself among the multitude of the disorderly. 7:18. Remember wrath, for it will not tarry long. 7:19. Humble thy spirit very much: for the vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms. 7:20. Do not transgress against thy friend deferring money, nor despise thy dear brother for the sake of gold. 7:21. Depart not from a wise and good wife, whom thou hast gotten in the fear of the Lord: for the grace of her modesty is above gold. 7:22. Hurt not the servant that worketh faithfully, nor the hired man that giveth thee his life. 7:23. Let a wise servant be dear to thee as thy own soul, defraud him not of liberty, nor leave him needy. 7:24. Hast thou cattle? have an eye to them: and if they be for thy profit, keep them with thee. 7:25. Hast thou children? instruct them, and bow down their neck from their childhood. 7:26. Hast thou daughters? have a care of their body, and shew not thy countenance gay towards them. 7:27. Marry thy daughter well, and thou shalt do a great work, and give her to a wise man. 7:28. If thou hast a wife according to thy soul, cast her not off: and to her that is hateful, trust not thyself. With thy whole heart, 7:29. Honour thy father, and forget not the groanings of thy mother: 7:30. Remember that thou hadst not been born but through them: and make a return to them as they have done for thee. 7:31. With all thy soul fear the Lord, and reverence his priests. 7:32. With all thy strength love him that made thee: and forsake not his ministers. 7:33. Honour God with all thy soul and give honour to the priests, and purify thyself with thy arms. Thy arms. . .That is, with all thy power: or else by arms (brachiis) are here signified the right shoulders of the victims, which by the law fell to the priests. See ver. 35. 7:34. Give them their portion, as it is commanded thee, of the firstfruits and of purifications: and for thy negligences purify thyself with a few. 7:35. Offer to the Lord the gift of thy shoulders, and the sacrifice of sanctification, and the firstfruits of the holy things: 7:36. And stretch out thy hand to the poor, that thy expiation and thy blessing may be perfected. 7:37. A gift hath grace in the sight of all the living, and restrain not grace from the dead. And restrain not grace from the dead. . .That is, withhold not from them the benefit of alms, prayers, and sacrifices. Such was the doctrine and practice of the church of God even in the time of the Old Testament. And the same has always been continued from the days of the apostles in the church of the New Testament. 7:38. Be not wanting in comforting them that weep, and walk with them that mourn. 7:39. Be not slow to visit the sick: for by these things thou shalt be confirmed in love. 7:40. In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 8 Other lessons of wisdom and virtue. 8:1. Strive not with a powerful man, lest thou fall into his hands. 8:2. Contend not with a rich man, lest he bring an action against thee. 8:3. For gold and silver hath destroyed many, and hath reached even to the heart of kings, and perverted them. 8:4. Strive not with a man that is full of tongue, and heap not wood upon his fire. 8:5. Communicate not with an ignorant man, lest he speak ill of thy family. 8:6. Despise not a man that turneth away from sin, nor reproach him therewith: remember that we are all worthy of reproof. 8:7. Despise not a man in his old age; for we also shall become old. 8:8. Rejoice not at the death of thy enemy; knowing that we all die, and are not willing that others should rejoice at our death. 8:9. Despise not the discourse of them that are ancient and wise, but acquaint thyself with their proverbs. 8:10. For of them thou shalt learn wisdom, and instruction of understanding, and to serve great men without blame. 8:11. Let not the discourse of the ancients escape thee, for they have learned of their fathers: 8:12. For of them thou shalt learn understanding, and to give an answer in time of need. 8:13. Kindle not the coals of sinners by rebuking them, lest thou be burnt with the flame of the fire of their sins. 8:14. Stand not against the face of an injurious person, lest he sit as a spy to entrap thee in thy words. 8:15. Lend not to a man that is mightier than thyself: and if thou lendest, count it as lost. 8:16. Be not surety above thy power: and if thou be surety, think as if thou wert to pay it. 8:17. Judge not against a judge: for he judgeth according to that which is just. 8:18. Go not on the way with a bold man, lest he burden thee with his evils: for he goeth according to his own will, and thou shalt perish together with his folly. 8:19. Quarrel not with a passionate man, and go not into the desert with a bold man: for blood is as nothing in his sight, and where there is no help he will overthrow thee. 8:20. Advise not with fools, for they cannot love but such things as please them. 8:21. Before a stranger do no matter of counsel: for thou knowest not what he will bring forth. 8:22. Open not thy heart to every man: lest he repay thee with an evil turn, and speak reproachfully to thee. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 9 Cautions with regard to women, and dangerous conversations. 9:1. Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom, lest she shew in thy regard the malice of a wicked lesson. 9:2. Give not the power of thy soul to a woman, lest she enter upon thy strength, and thou be confounded. 9:3. Look not upon a woman that hath a mind for many: lest thou fall into her snares. 9:4. Use not much the company of her that is a dancer, and hearken not to her, lest thou perish by the force of her charms. 9:5. Gaze not upon a maiden, lest her beauty be a stumblingblock to thee. 9:6. Give not thy soul to harlots in any point: lest thou destroy thyself and thy inheritance. 9:7. Look not round about thee in the ways of the city, nor wander up and down in the streets thereof. 9:8. Turn away thy face from a woman dressed up, and gaze not about upon another's beauty. 9:9. For many have perished by the beauty of a woman, and hereby lust is enkindled as a fire. 9:10. Every woman that is a harlot, shall be trodden upon as dung in the way. 9:11. Many by admiring the beauty of another man's wife, have become reprobate, for her conversation burneth as fire. 9:12. Sit not at all with another man's wife, nor repose upon the bed with her: 9:13. And strive not with her over wine, lest thy heart decline towards her and by thy blood thou fall into destruction. 9:14. Forsake not an old friend, for the new will not be like to him. 9:15. A new friend is as new wine: it shall grow old, and thou shalt drink it with pleasure. 9:16. Envy not the glory and riches of a sinner: for thou knowest not what his ruin shall be. 9:17. Be not pleased with the wrong done by the unjust, knowing that even to hell the wicked shall not please. 9:18. Keep thee far from the man that hath power to kill, so thou shalt not suspect the fear of death. 9:19. And if thou come to him, commit no fault, lest he take away thy life. 9:20. Know it to be a communication with death: for thou art going in the midst of snares, and walking upon the arms of them that are grieved. 9:21. According to thy power beware of thy neighbour, and treat with the wise and prudent. 9:22. Let just men be thy guests, and let thy glory be in the fear of God. 9:23. And let the thought of God be in thy mind, and all thy discourse on the commandments of the Highest. 9:24. Works shall be praised for the hand of the artificers, and the prince of the people for the wisdom of his speech, but the word of the ancients for the sense. 9:25. A man full of tongue is terrible in his city, and he that is rash in his word shall be hateful. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 10 The virtues and vices of men in power: the great evil of pride. 10:1. A wise judge shall judge his people, and the government of a prudent man shall be steady. Judge his people. . .In the Greek it is, instruct his people. 10:2. As the judge of the people is himself, so also are his ministers: and what manner of man the ruler of a city is, such also are they that dwell therein. 10:3. An unwise king shall be the ruin of his people: and cities shall be inhabited through the prudence of the rulers. 10:4. The power of the earth is in the hand of God, and in his time he will raise up a profitable ruler over it. 10:5. The prosperity of man is in the hand of God, and upon the person of the scribe he shall lay his honour. The scribe. . .That is, the man that is wise and learned in the law. 10:6. Remember not any injury done thee by thy neighbour, and do thou nothing by deeds of injury. 10:7. Pride is hateful before God and men: and all iniquity of nations is execrable. 10:8. A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of injustices, and wrongs, and injuries, and divers deceits. 10:9. But nothing is more wicked than the covetous man. Why is earth, and ashes proud? 10:10. There is not a more wicked thing than to love money: for such a one setteth even his own soul to sale: because while he liveth he hath cast away his bowels. 10:11. All power is of short life. A long sickness is troublesome to the physician. 10:12. The physician cutteth off a short sickness: so also a king is to day, and to morrow he shall die. 10:13. For when a man shall die, he shall inherit serpents, and beasts, and worms. 10:14. The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God: 10:15. Because his heart is departed from him that made him: for pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end. 10:16. Therefore hath the Lord disgraced the assemblies of the wicked, and hath utterly destroyed them. 10:17. God hath overturned the thrones of proud princes, and hath set up the meek in their stead. 10:18. God hath made the roots of proud nations to wither, and hath planted the humble of these nations. 10:19. The Lord hath overthrown the lands of the Gentiles, and hath destroyed them even to the foundation. 10:20. He hath made some of them to wither away, and hath destroyed them, and hath made the memory of them to cease from the earth. 10:21. God hath abolished the memory of the proud, and hath preserved the memory of them that are humble in mind. 10:22. Pride was not made for men: nor wrath for the race of women. 10:23. That seed of men shall be honoured, which feareth God: but that seed shall be dishonoured, which transgresseth the commandments of the Lord. 10:24. In the midst of brethren their chief is honourable: so shall they that fear the Lord, be in his eyes. 10:25. The fear of God is the glory of the rich, and of the honourable, and of the poor. 10:26. Despise not a just man that is poor, and do not magnify a sinful man that is rich. 10:27. The great man, and the judge, and the mighty is in honour: and there is none greater than he that feareth God. 10:28. They that are free shall serve a servant that is wise: and a man that is prudent and well instructed will not murmur when he is reproved; and he that is ignorant, shall not be honoured. 10:29. Extol not thyself in doing thy work, and linger not in the time of distress; 10:30. Better is he that laboureth, and aboundeth in all things, than he that boasteth himself and wanteth bread. 10:31. My son, keep thy soul in meekness, and give it honour according to its desert. 10:32. Who will justify him that sinneth against his own soul? and who will honour him that dishonoureth his own soul? 10:33. The poor man is glorified by his discipline and fear, and there is a man that is honoured for his wealth. 10:34. But he that is glorified in poverty, how much more in wealth? and he that is glorified in wealth, let him fear poverty. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 11 Lessons of humility and moderation in all things. 11:1. The wisdom of the humble shall exalt his head, and shall make him sit in the midst of great men. 11:2. Praise not a man for his beauty, neither despise a man for his look. 11:3. The bee is small among flying things but her fruit hath the chiefest sweetness. 11:4. Glory not in apparel at any time, and be not exalted in the day of thy honour: for the works of the Highest only are wonderful, and his works are glorious, and secret, and hidden. 11:5. Many tyrants have sat on the throne, and he whom no man would think on, hath worn the crown. 11:6. Many mighty men have been greatly brought down, and the glorious have been delivered into the hand of others. 11:7. Before thou inquire, blame no man: and when thou hast inquired, reprove justly. 11:8. Before thou hear, answer not a word: and interrupt not others in the midst of their discourse. 11:9. Strive not in a matter which doth not concern thee, and sit not in judgment with sinners. 11:10. My son, meddle not with many matters: and if thou be rich, thou shalt not be free from sin: for if thou pursue after thou shalt not overtake; and if thou run before thou shalt not escape. 11:11. There is an ungodly man that laboureth, and maketh haste, and is in sorrow, and is so much the more in want. 11:12. Again, there is an inactive man that wanteth help, is very weak in ability, and full of poverty: 11:13. Yet the eye of God hath looked upon him for good, and hath lifted him up from his low estate, and hath exalted his head: and many have wondered at him, and have glorified God. 11:14. Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from God. 11:15. Wisdom and discipline, and the knowledge of the law are with God. Love and the ways of good things are with him. 11:16. Error and darkness are created with sinners: and they that glory in evil things, grow old in evil. 11:17. The gift of God abideth with the just, and his advancement shall have success for ever. 11:18. There is one that is enriched by living sparingly, and this is the portion of his reward. 11:19. In that he saith: I have found me rest, and now I will eat of my goods alone: 11:20. And he knoweth not what time shall pass, and that death approacheth, and that he must leave all to others, and shall die. 11:21. Be steadfast in thy covenant, and be conversant therein, and grow old in the work of thy commandments. 11:22. Abide not in the works of sinners. But trust in God, and stay in thy place, 11:23. For it is easy in the eyes of God on a sudden to make the poor man rich. 11:24. The blessing of God maketh haste to reward the just, and in a swift hour his blessing beareth fruit. 11:25. Say not: What need I, and what good shall I have by this? 11:26. Say not: I am sufficient for myself: and what shall I be made worse by this? 11:27. In the day of good things be not unmindful of evils: and in the day of evils be not unmindful of good things: 11:28. For it is easy before God in the day of death to reward every one according to his ways. 11:29. The affliction of an hour maketh one forget great delights, and in the end of a man is the disclosing of his works. 11:30. Praise not any man before death, for a man is known by his children. 11:31. Bring not every man into thy house: for many are the snares of the deceitful. 11:32. For as corrupted bowels send forth stinking breath, and as the partridge is brought into the cage, and as the roe into the snare: so also is the heart of the proud, and as a spy that looketh on the fall of his neighbour. 11:33. For he lieth in wait and turneth good into evil, and on the elect he will lay a blot. 11:34. Of one spark cometh a great fire, and of one deceitful man much blood: and a sinful man lieth in wait for blood. 11:35. Take heed to thyself of a mischievous man, for he worketh evils: lest he bring upon thee reproach for ever. 11:36. Receive a stranger in, and he shall overthrow thee with a whirlwind, and shall turn thee out of thy own. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 12 We are to be liberal to the just: and not to trust the wicked. 12:1. If thou do good, know to whom thou dost it, and there shall be much thanks for thy good deeds. 12:2. Do good to the just, and thou shalt find great recompense: and if not of him, assuredly of the Lord. 12:3. For there is no good for him that is always occupied in evil, and that giveth no alms: for the Highest hateth sinners, and hath mercy on the penitent. 12:4. Give to the merciful and uphold not the sinner: God will repay vengeance to the ungodly and to sinners, and keep them against the day of vengeance. 12:5. Give to the good, and receive not a sinner. 12:6. Do good to the humble, and give not to the ungodly: hold back thy bread, and give it not to him, lest thereby he overmaster thee. 12:7. For thou shalt receive twice as much evil for all the good thou shalt have done to him: for the Highest also hateth sinners, and will repay vengeance to the ungodly. 12:8. A friend shall not be known in prosperity, and an enemy shall not be hidden in adversity. 12:9. In the prosperity of a man, his enemies are grieved: and a friend is known in his adversity. 12:10. Never trust thy enemy for as a brass pot his wickedness rusteth: 12:11. Though he humble himself and go crouching, yet take good heed and beware of him. 12:12. Set him not by thee, neither let him sit on thy right hand, lest he turn into thy place, and seek to take thy seat and at the last thou acknowledge my words, and be pricked with my sayings. 12:13. Who will pity an enchanter struck by a serpent, or any that come near wild beasts? so is it with him that keepeth company with a wicked man, and is involved in his sins. 12:14. For an hour he will abide with thee: but if thou begin to decline, he will not endure it. 12:15. An enemy speaketh sweetly with his lips, but in his heart he lieth in wait, to throw thee into a pit. 12:16. An enemy weepeth with his eyes: but if he find an opportunity he will not be satisfied with blood: 12:17. And if evils come upon thee, thou shalt find him there first. 12:18. An enemy hath tears in his eyes, and while he pretendeth to help thee, will undermine thy feet. 12:19. He will shake his head, and clap his hands, and whisper much, and change his countenance. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 13 Cautions in the choice of company. 13:1. He that toucheth pitch, shall be defiled with it: and he that hath fellowship with the proud, shall put on pride. 13:2. He shall take a burden upon him that hath fellowship with one more honourable than himself. And have no fellowship with one that is richer than thyself. 13:3. What agreement shall the earthen pot have with the kettle? for if they knock one against the other, it shall be broken. 13:4. The rich man hath done wrong, and yet he will fume: but the poor is wronged and must hold his peace. 13:5. If thou give, he will make use of thee: and if thou have nothing, he will forsake thee. 13:6. If thou have any thing, he will live with thee, and will make thee bare, and he will not be sorry for thee. 13:7. If he have need of thee he will deceive thee, and smiling upon thee will put thee in hope; he will speak thee fair, and will say: What wantest thou? 13:8. And he will shame thee by his meats, till he have drawn thee dry twice or thrice, and at last he will laugh at thee: and afterward when he seeth thee, he will forsake thee, and shake his head at thee. 13:9. Humble thyself to God, and wait for his hands. 13:10. Beware that thou be not deceived into folly, and be humbled. 13:11. Be not lowly in thy wisdom, lest being humbled thou be deceived into folly. 13:12. If thou be invited by one that is mightier, withdraw thyself: for so he will invite thee the more. 13:13. Be not troublesome to him, lest thou be put back: and keep not far from him, lest thou be forgotten. 13:14. Affect not to speak with him as an equal, and believe not his many words: for by much talk he will sift thee, and smiling will examine thee concerning thy secrets. 13:15. His cruel mind will lay up thy words: and he will not spare to do thee hurt, and to cast thee into prison. 13:16. Take heed to thyself, and attend diligently to what thou hearest: for thou walkest in danger of thy ruin. 13:17. When thou hearest those things, see as it were in sleep, and thou shalt awake. 13:18. Love God all thy life, and call upon him for thy salvation. 13:19. Every beast loveth its like: so also every man him that is nearest to himself. 13:20. All flesh shall consort with the like to itself, and every man shall associate himself to his like. 13:21. If the wolf shall at any time have fellowship with the lamb, so the sinner with the just. 13:22. What fellowship hath a holy man with a dog, or what part hath the rich with the poor? 13:23. The wild ass is the lion's prey in the desert: so also the poor are devoured by the rich. 13:24. And as humility is an abomination to the proud: so also the rich man abhorreth the poor. 13:25. When a rich man is shaken, he is kept up by his friends: but when a poor man is fallen down, he is thrust away even by his acquaintance. 13:26. When a rich man hath been deceived, he hath many helpers: he hath spoken proud things, and they have justified him. 13:27. The poor man was deceived, and he is rebuked also: he hath spoken wisely, and could have no place. 13:28. The rich man spoke, and all held their peace, and what he said they extol even to the clouds. 13:29. The poor man spoke, and they say: Who is this? and if he stumble, they will overthrow him. 13:30. Riches are good to him that hath no sin in his conscience: and poverty is very wicked in the mouth of the ungodly. 13:31. The heart of a man changeth his countenance, either for good, or for evil. 13:32. The token of a good heart, and a good countenance thou shalt hardly find, and with labour. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 14 The evil of avarice: works of mercy are recommended, and the love of wisdom. 14:1. Blessed is the man that hath not slipped by a word out of his mouth, and is not pricked with the remorse of sin. 14:2. Happy is he that hath had no sadness of his mind, and who is not fallen from his hope. 14:3. Riches are not comely for a covetous man and a niggard, and what should an envious man do with gold? 14:4. He that gathereth together by wronging his own soul, gathereth for others, and another will squander away his goods in rioting. 14:5. He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good? and he shall not take pleasure in his goods. 14:6. There is none worse than he that envieth himself, and this is the reward of his wickedness: 14:7. And if he do good, he doth it ignorantly, and unwillingly: and at the last he discovereth his wickedness. 14:8. The eye of the envious is wicked: and he turneth away his face, and despiseth his own soul. 14:9. The eye of the covetous man is insatiable in his portion of iniquity: he will not be satisfied till he consume his own soul, drying it up. 14:10. An evil eye is towards evil things: and he shall not have his fill of bread, but shall be needy and pensive at his own table. 14:11. My son, if thou have any thing, do good to thyself, and offer to God worthy offerings. 14:12. Remember that death is not slow, and that the covenant of hell hath been shewn to thee: for the covenant of this world shall surely die. Covenant of hell. . .The decree by which all are to go down to the regions of death. 14:13. Do good to thy friend before thou die, and according to thy ability, stretching out thy hand give to the poor. 14:14. Defraud not thyself of the good day, and let not the part of a good gift overpass thee. 14:15. Shalt thou not leave to others to divide by lot thy sorrows and labours? 14:16. Give and take, and justify thy soul. 14:17. Before thy death work justice: for in hell there is no finding food. 14:18. All flesh shall fade as grass, and as the leaf that springeth out on a green tree. 14:19. Some grow, and some fall off: so is the generation of flesh and blood, one cometh to an end, and another is born. 14:20. Every work that is corruptible shall fail in the end: and the worker thereof shall go with it. 14:21. And every excellent work shall be justified: and the worker thereof shall be honoured therein. 14:22. Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom, and that shall meditate in his justice, and in his mind shall think of the all seeing eye of God. 14:23. He that considereth her ways in his heart, and hath understanding in her secrets, who goeth after her as one that traceth, and stayeth in her ways. 14:24. He who looketh in at her windows, and hearkeneth at her door. 14:25. He that lodgeth near her house, and fastening a pin in her walls shall set up his tent high unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging for ever. 14:26. He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under her branches: 14:27. He shall be protected under her covering from the heat, and shall rest in her glory. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 15 Wisdom embraceth them that fear God. God is not the author of sin. 15:1. He that feareth God, will do good: and he that possesseth justice, shall lay hold on her, 15:2. And she will meet him as an honourable mother, and will receive him as a wife married of a virgin. 15:3. With the bread of life and understanding, she shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink: and she shall be made strong in him, and he shall not be moved. 15:4. And she shall hold him fast, and he shall not be confounded: and she shall exalt him among his neighbours. 15:5. And in the midst of the church she shall open his mouth, and shall fill him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and shall clothe him with a robe of glory. 15:6. She shall heap upon him a treasure of joy and gladness, and shall cause him to inherit an everlasting name. 15:7. But foolish men shall not obtain her, and wise men shall meet her, foolish men shall not see her: for she is far from pride and deceit. 15:8. Lying men shall be mindful of her: but men that speak truth shall be found with her, and shall advance, even till they come to the sight of God. 15:9. Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner: 15:10. For wisdom came forth from God: for praise shall be with the wisdom of God, and shall abound in a faithful mouth, and the sovereign Lord will give praise unto it. 15:11. Say not: It is through God, that she is not with me: for do not thou the things that he hateth. 15:12. Say not: He hath caused me to err: for he hath no need of wicked men. 15:13. The Lord hateth all abomination of error, and they that fear him shall not love it. 15:14. God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. 15:15. He added his commandments and precepts. 15:16. If thou wilt keep the commandments and perform acceptable fidelity for ever, they shall preserve thee. 15:17. He hath set water and fire before thee: stretch forth thy hand to which thou wilt. 15:18. Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him: 15:19. For the wisdom of God is great, and he is strong in power, seeing all men without ceasing. 15:20. The eyes of the Lord are towards them that fear him, and he knoweth al the work of man. 15:21. He hath commanded no man to do wickedly, and he hath given no man license to sin; 15:22. For he desireth not a multitude of faithless and unprofitable children. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 16 It is better to have none than many wicked children. Of the justice and mercy of God. His ways are unsearchable. 16:1. Rejoice not in ungodly children, if they be multiplied: neither be delighted in them, if the fear of God be not with them. 16:2. Trust not to their life, and respect not their labours. 16:3. For better is one that feareth God, than a thousand ungodly children. 16:4. And it is better to die without children, than to leave ungodly children. 16:5. By one that is wise a country shall be inhabited, the tribe of the ungodly shall become desolate. 16:6. Many such things hath my eyes seen, and greater things than these my ear hath heard. 16:7. In the congregation of sinners a fire shall be kindled, and in an unbelieving nation wrath shall flame out. 16:8. The ancient giants did not obtain pardon for their sins, who were destroyed trusting to their own strength: 16:9. And he spared not the place where Lot sojourned, but abhorred them for the pride of their word. 16:10. He had not pity on them, destroying the whole nation that extolled themselves in their sins. 16:11. So did he with the six hundred thousand footmen, who were gathered together in the hardness of their heart: and if one had been stiffnecked, it is a wonder if he had escaped unpunished: Six hundred thousand footmen, etc. . .Viz., the children of Israel, whom he sentenced to die in the wilderness. Num. 14. 16:12. For mercy and wrath are with him. He is mighty to forgive, and to pour out indignation: 16:13. According as his mercy is, so his correction judgeth a man according to his works. 16:14. The sinner shall not escape in his rapines, and the patience of him that sheweth mercy shall not be put off. 16:15. All mercy shall make a place for every man according to the merit of his works, and according to the wisdom of his sojournment. 16:16. Say not: I shall be hidden from God, and who shall remember me from on high? 16:17. In such a multitude I shall not be known: for what is my soul in such an immense creation? 16:18. Behold the heaven, and the heavens of heavens, the deep, and all the earth, and the things that are in them, shall be moved in his sight, 16:19. The mountains also, and the hills, and the foundations of the earth: when God shall look upon them, they shall be shaken with trembling. 16:20. And in all these things the heart is senseless: and every heart is understood by him. 16:21. And his ways who shall understand, and the storm, which no eye of man shall see? 16:22. For many of his works are hidden, but the works of his justice who shall declare? or who shall endure? for the testament is far from some, and the examination of all is in the end. 16:23. He that wanteth understanding thinketh vain things, and the foolish, and erring man, thinketh foolish things. 16:24. Hearken to me, my son, and learn the discipline of understanding, and attend to my words in thy heart. 16:25. And I will shew forth good doctrine in equity, and will seek to declare wisdom: and attend to my words in thy heart, whilst with equity of spirit I tell thee the virtues that God hath put upon his works from the beginning, and I shew forth in truth his knowledge. 16:26. The works of God are done in judgment from the beginning, and from the making of them he distinguished their parts, and their beginnings in their generations. 16:27. He beautified their works for ever, they have neither hungered, nor laboured, and they have not ceased from their works. 16:28. Nor shall any of them straiten his neighbour at any time. 16:29. Be not thou incredulous to his word. 16:30. After this God looked upon the earth, and filled it with his goods. 16:31. The soul of every living thing hath shewn forth before the face thereof, and into it they return again. Shewn forth. . .Viz., the glory and power of God upon the earth. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 17 The creation and favour of God to man. An exhortation to turn to God. 17:1. God created man of the earth, and made him after his own image. 17:2. And he turned him into it again, and clothed him with strength according to himself. 17:3. He gave him the number of his days and time, and gave him power over all things that are upon the earth. 17:4. He put the fear of him upon all flesh, and he had dominion over beasts and fowls. 17:5. He created of him a helpmate like to himself, he gave them counsel, and a tongue, and eyes, and ears, and a heart to devise: and he filled them with the knowledge of understanding. 17:6. He created in them the science of the spirit, he fired their heart with wisdom, and shewed them both good and evil. 17:7. He set his eye upon their hearts to shew them the greatness of his works: 17:8. That they might praise the name which he hath sanctified: and glory in his wondrous act that they might declare the glorious things of his works. 17:9. Moreover he gave them instructions, and the law of life for an inheritance. 17:10. He made an everlasting covenant with them, and he shewed them his justice and judgments. 17:11. And their eye saw the majesty of his glory, and their ears heard his glorious voice, and he said to them: Beware of all iniquity. Their eye saw, etc. . .Viz., when he gave the law on mount Sinai. 17:12. And he gave to every one of them commandment concerning his neighbour. 17:13. Their ways are always before him, they are not hidden from his eyes. 17:14. Over every nation he set a ruler. 17:15. And Israel was made the manifest portion of God. 17:16. And all their works are as the sun in the sight of God: and his eyes are continually upon their ways. 17:17. Their covenants were not hid by their iniquity, and all their iniquities are in the sight of God. 17:18. The alms of a man is as a signet with him, and shall preserve the grace of a man as the apple of the eye: 17:19. And afterward he shall rise up, and shall render them their reward, to every one upon their own head, and shall turn them down into the bowels of the earth. 17:20. But to the penitent he hath given the way of justice, and he hath strengthened them that were fainting in patience, and hath appointed to them the lot of truth. 17:21. Turn to the Lord, and forsake thy sins: 17:22. Make thy prayer before the face of the Lord, and offend less. Offend less. . .Minue offendicula. That is, remove sins and the occasions of sins. 17:23. Return to the Lord, and turn away from thy injustice, and greatly hate abomination. 17:24. And know the justices and judgments of God, and stand firm in the lot set before thee, and in prayer to the most high God. 17:25. Go to the side of the holy age, with them that live and give praise to God. Go to the side, etc. . .Fly from the side of Satan and sin, and join with the holy ones, that follow God and godliness. 17:26. Tarry not in the error of the ungodly, give glory before death. Praise perisheth from the dead as nothing. 17:27. Give thanks whilst thou art living, whilst thou art alive and in health thou shalt give thanks, and shalt praise God, and shalt glory in his mercies. 17:28. How great is the mercy of the Lord, and his forgiveness to them that turn to him ! 17:29. For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal, and they are delighted with the vanity of evil. 17:30. What is brighter than the sun; yet it shall be eclipsed. Or what is more wicked than that which flesh and blood hath invented? and this shall be reproved. 17:31. He beholdeth the power of the height of heaven: and all men are earth and ashes. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 18 God's works are wonderful: we must serve him, and not our lusts. 18:1. He that liveth for ever created all things together. God only shall be justified, and he remaineth an invincible king for ever. 18:2. Who is able to declare his works? 18:3. For who shall search out his glorious acts? 18:4. And who shall show forth the power of his majesty? or who shall be able to declare his mercy? 18:5. Nothing may be taken away, nor added, neither is it possible to find out the glorious works of God. 18:6. When a man hath done, then shall he begin: and when he leaveth off, he shall be at a loss. Then shall he begin. . .God is so great and incomprehensible, that when man has done all that he can to find out his greatness and boundless perfections, he is still to begin: for what he has found out, is but a mere nothing in comparison with his infinity. 18:7. What is man, and what is his grace? and what is his good, or what is his evil? 18:8. The number of the days of men at the most are a hundred years, as a drop of water of the sea are they esteemed: and as a pebble of the sand, so are a few years compared to eternity. 18:9. Therefore God is patient in them, and poureth forth his mercy upon them. 18:10. He hath seen the presumption of their heart that it is wicked, and hath known their end that it is evil. 18:11. Therefore hath he filled up his mercy in their favour, and hath shewn them the way of justice. 18:12. The compassion of man is toward his neighbour: but the mercy of God is upon all flesh. 18:13. He hath mercy, and teacheth, and correcteth, as a shepherd doth his flock. 18:14. He hath mercy on him that receiveth the discipline of mercy, and that maketh haste in his judgments. 18:15. My son, in thy good deeds, make no complaint, and when thou givest any thing, add not grief by an evil word. 18:16. Shall not the dew assuage the heat? so also the good word is better than the gift. 18:17. Lo, is not a word better than a gift? but both are with a justified man. 18:18. A fool will upbraid bitterly: and a gift of one ill taught consumeth the eyes. 18:19. Before judgment prepare thee justice, and learn before thou speak. 18:20. Before sickness take a medicine, and before judgment examine thyself, and thou shalt find mercy in the sight of God. 18:21. Humble thyself before thou art sick, and in the time of sickness shew thy conversation. 18:22. Let nothing hinder thee from praying always, and be not afraid to be justified even to death: for the reward of God continueth for ever. 18:23. Before prayer prepare thy soul: and be not as a man that tempteth God. 18:24. Remember the wrath that shall be at the last day, and the time of repaying when he shall turn away his face. 18:25. Remember poverty in the time of abundance, and the necessities of poverty in the day of riches. 18:26. From the morning until the evening the time shall be changed, and all these are swift in the eyes of God. 18:27. A wise man will fear in every thing, and in the days of sins will beware of sloth. 18:28. Every man of understanding knoweth wisdom, and will give praise to him that findeth her. 18:29. They that were of good understanding in words, have also done wisely themselves: and have understood truth and justice, and have poured forth proverbs and judgments. 18:30. Go not after thy lusts, but turn away from thy own will. 18:31. If thou give to thy soul her desires, she will make thee a joy to thy enemies. 18:32. Take no pleasure in riotous assemblies, be they ever so small: for their concertation is continual. 18:33. Make not thyself poor by borrowing to contribute to feasts when thou hast nothing in thy purse: for thou shalt be an enemy to thy own life. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 19 Admonition against sundry vices. 19:1. A workman that is a drunkard shall not be rich: and he that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little. 19:2. Wine and women make wise men fall off, and shall rebuke the prudent: 19:3. And he that joineth himself to harlots, will be wicked. Rottenness and worms shall inherit him, and he shall be lifted up for a greater example, and his soul shall be taken away out of the number. 19:4. He that is hasty to give credit, is light of heart, and shall be lessened: and he that sinneth against his own soul, shall be despised. 19:5. He that rejoiceth in iniquity, shall be censured, and he that hateth chastisement, shall have less life: and he that hateth babbling, extinguisheth evil. 19:6. He that sinneth against his own soul, shall repent: and he that is delighted with wickedness, shall be condemned. 19:7. Rehearse not again a wicked and harsh word, and thou shalt not fare the worse. 19:8. Tell not thy mind to friend or foe: and if there be a sin with thee, disclose it not. 19:9. For he will hearken to thee, and will watch thee, and as it were defending thy sin he will hate thee, and so will he be with thee always. 19:10. Hast thou heard a word against thy neighbour? let it die within thee, trusting that it will not burst thee. 19:11. At the hearing of a word the fool is in travail, as a woman groaning in the bringing forth a child. 19:12. As an arrow that sticketh in a man's thigh: so is a word in the heart of a fool. 19:13. Reprove a friend, lest he may not have understood, and say: I did it not: or if he did it, that he may do it no more. 19:14. Reprove thy neighbour, for it may be he hath not said it: and if he hath said it, that he may not say it again. 19:15. Admonish thy friend: for there is often a fault committed. 19:16. And believe not every word. There is one, that slippeth with the tongue, but not from his heart. 19:17. For who is there that hath not offended with his tongue? Admonish thy neighbour before thou threaten him. 19:18. And give place to the fear of the most High: for the fear of God is all wisdom, and therein is to fear God, and the disposition of the law is in all wisdom. 19:19. But the learning of wickedness is not wisdom: and the device of sinners is not prudence. 19:20. There is a subtle wickedness, and the same is detestable: and there is a man that is foolish, wanting in wisdom. 19:21. Better is a man that hath less wisdom, and wanteth understanding, with the fear of God, than he that aboundeth in understanding, and transgresseth the law of the most High. 19:22. There is an exquisite subtilty, and the same is unjust. 19:23. And there is one that uttereth an exact word telling the truth. There is one that humbleth himself wickedly, and his interior is full of deceit: 19:24. And there is one that submitteth himself exceedingly with a great lowliness: and there is one that casteth down his countenance, and maketh as if he did not see that which is unknown: 19:25. And if he be hindered from sinning for want of power, if he shall find opportunity to do evil, he will do it. 19:26. A man is known by his look, and a wise man, when thou meetest him, is known by his countenance. 19:27. The attire of the body, and the laughter of the teeth, and the gait of the man, shew what he is. 19:28. There is a lying rebuke in the anger of an injurious man: and there is a judgment that is not allowed to be good: and there is one that holdeth his peace, he is wise. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 20 Rules with regard to correction, discretion, and avoiding lies. 20:1. How much better is it to reprove, than to be angry, and not to hinder him that confesseth in prayer. 20:2. The lust of an eunuch shall deflour a young maiden: 20:3. So is he that by violence executeth of the unwise. 20:4. How good is it, when thou art reproved, to shew repentance! for so thou shalt escape wilful sin. 20:5. There is one that holdeth his peace, that is found wise: and there is another that is hateful, that is bold in speech. 20:6. There is one that holdeth his peace, because he knoweth not what to say: and there is another that holdeth his peace, knowing the proper time. 20:7. A wise man will hold his peace till he see opportunity: but a babbler, and a fool, will regard no time. 20:8. He that useth many words shall hurt his own soul: and he that taketh authority to himself unjustly shall be hated. 20:9. There is success in evil things to a man without discipline, and there is a finding that turneth to loss. 20:10. There is a gift that is not profitable: and there is a gift, the recompense of which is double. 20:11. There is an abasement because of glory: and there is one that shall lift up his head from a low estate. 20:12. There is that buyeth much for a small price, and restoreth the same sevenfold. 20:13. A man wise in words shall make himself beloved: but the graces of fools shall be poured out. 20:14. The gift of the fool shall do thee no good: for his eyes are sevenfold. 20:15. He will give a few things, and upbraid much: and the opening of his mouth is the kindling of a fire. 20:16. To day a man lendeth, and to morrow he asketh it again: such a man as this is hateful. 20:17. A fool shall have no friend, and there shall be no thanks for his good deeds. 20:18. For they that eat his bread, are of a false tongue. How often, and how many will laugh him to scorn! 20:19. For he doth not distribute with right understanding that which was to be had: in like manner also that which was not to be had. 20:20. The slipping of a false tongue is as one that falleth on the pavement: so the fall of the wicked shall come speedily. 20:21. A man without grace is as a vain fable, it shall be continually in the mouth of the unwise. 20:22. A parable coming out of a fool's mouth shall be rejected: for he doth not speak it in due season. 20:23. There is that is hindered from sinning through want, and in his rest he shall be pricked. 20:24. There is that will destroy his own soul through shamefacedness, and by occasion of an unwise person he will destroy it: and by respect of person he will destroy himself. 20:25. There is that for bashfulness promiseth to his friend, and maketh him his enemy for nothing. 20:26. A lie is a foul blot in a man, and yet it will be continually in the mouth of men without discipline. 20:27. A thief is better than a man that is always lying: but both of them shall inherit destruction. 20:28. The manners of lying men are without honour: and their confusion is with them without ceasing. 20:29. A wise man shall advance himself with his words, and a prudent man shall please the great ones. 20:30. He that tilleth his land shall make a high heap of corn: and he that worketh justice shall be exalted: and he that pleaseth great men shall escape iniquity. 20:31. Presents and gifts blind the eyes of judges, and make them dumb in the mouth, so that they cannot correct. 20:32. O Wisdom that is hid, and treasure that is not seen: what profit is there in them both? 20:33. Better is he that hideth his folly, than the man that hideth his wisdom. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 21 Cautions against sin in general, and some sins in particular. 21:1. My son, hast thou sinned? do so no more: but for thy former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee. 21:2. Flee from sins as from the face of a serpent: for if thou comest near them, they will take hold of thee. 21:3. The teeth thereof are the teeth of a lion, killing the souls of men. 21:4. All iniquity is like a two-edged sword, there is no remedy for the wound thereof. 21:5. Injuries and wrongs will waste riches: and the house that is very rich shall be brought to nothing by pride: so the substance of the proud shall be rooted out. 21:6. The prayer out of the mouth of the poor shall reach the ears of God, and judgment shall come for him speedily. 21:7. He that hateth to be reproved walketh in the trace of a sinner: and he that feareth God will turn to his own heart. 21:8. He that is mighty by a bold tongue is known afar off, but a wise man knoweth to slip by him. 21:9. He that buildeth his house at other men's charges, is as he that gathereth himself stones to build in the winter. 21:10. The congregation of sinners is like tow heaped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire. 21:11. The way of sinners is made plain with stones, and in their end is hell, and darkness, and pains. 21:12. He that keepeth justice shall get the understanding thereof. 21:13. The perfection of the fear of God is wisdom and understanding. 21:14. He that is not wise in good, will not be taught. 21:15. But there is a wisdom that aboundeth in evil: and there is no understanding where there is bitterness. 21:16. The knowledge of a wise man shall abound like a flood, and his counsel continueth like a fountain of life. 21:17. The heart of a fool is like a broken vessel, and no wisdom at all shall it hold. 21:18. A man of sense will praise every wise word he shall hear, and will apply it to himself: the luxurious man hath heard it, and it shall displease him, and he will cast it behind his back. 21:19. The talking of a fool is like a burden in the way: but in the lips of the wise, grace shall be found. 21:20. The mouth of the prudent is sought after in the church, and they will think upon his words in their hearts. 21:21. As a house that is destroyed, so is wisdom to a fool: and the knowledge of the unwise is as words without sense. 21:22. Doctrine to a fool is as fetters on the feet, and like manacles on the right hand. 21:23. A fool lifteth up his voice in laughter: but a wise man will scarce laugh low to himself. 21:24. Learning to the prudent is as an ornament of gold, and like a bracelet upon his right arm. 21:25. The foot of a fool is soon in his neighbour's house: but a man of experience will be abashed at the person of the mighty. 21:26. A fool will peep through the window into the house: but he that is well taught will stand without. 21:27. It is the folly of a man to hearken at the door: and a wise man will be grieved with the disgrace. 21:28. The lips of the unwise will be telling foolish things: but the words of the wise shall be weighed in a balance. 21:29. The heart of fools is in their mouth: and the mouth of wise men is in their heart. 21:30. While the ungodly curseth the devil, he curseth his own soul. While the ungodly, etc. . .He condemneth and curseth himself: inasmuch as by sin he takes part with the devil, and is, as it were, his member and subject. 21:31. The talebearer shall defile his own soul, and shall be hated by all: and he that shall abide with him shall be hateful: the silent and wise man shall be honoured. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 22 Wise sayings on divers subjects. 22:1. The sluggard is pelted with a dirty stone, and all men will speak of his disgrace. 22:2. The sluggard is pelted with the dung of oxen: and every one that toucheth him will shake his hands. 22:3. A son ill taught is the confusion of the father: and a foolish daughter shall be to his loss. 22:4. A wise daughter shall bring an inheritance to her husband: but she that confoundeth, becometh a disgrace to her father. 22:5. She that is bold shameth both her father and husband, and will not be inferior to the ungodly: and shall be disgraced by them both. 22:6. A tale out of time is like music in mourning: but the stripes and instruction of wisdom are never out of time. 22:7. He that teacheth a fool, is like one that glueth a potsherd together. 22:8. He that telleth a word to him that heareth not, is like one that waketh a man out of a deep sleep. 22:9. He speaketh with one that is asleep, who uttereth wisdom to a fool: and in the end of the discourse he saith: Who is this? 22:10. Weep for the dead, for his light hath failed: and weep for the fool, for his understanding faileth. For the fool. . .In the language of the Holy Ghost, he is styled a fool, that turns away from God to follow vanity and sin. And what is said by the wise man against fools is meant of such fools as these. 22:11. Weep but a little for the dead, for he is at rest. 22:12. For the wicked life of a wicked fool is worse than death. 22:13. The mourning for the dead is seven days: but for a fool and an ungodly man all the days of their life. 22:14. Talk not much with a fool and go not with him that hath no sense. 22:15. Keep thyself from him, that thou mayst not have trouble, and thou shalt not be defiled with his sin. 22:16. Turn away from him, and thou shalt find rest, and shalt not be wearied out with his folly. 22:17. What is heavier than lead? and what other name hath he but fool? 22:18. Sand and salt, and a mass of iron is easier to bear, than a man without sense, that is both foolish and wicked. 22:19. A frame of wood bound together in the foundation of a building, shall not be loosed: so neither shall the heart that is established by advised counsel. 22:20. The thought of him that is wise at all times, shall not be depraved by fear. 22:21. As pales set in high places, and plasterings made without cost, will not stand against the face of the wind: 22:22. So also a fearful heart in the imagination of a fool shall not resist against the violence of fear. 22:23. As a fearful heart in the thought of a fool at all times will not fear, so neither shall he that continueth always in the commandments of God. 22:24. He that pricketh the eye, bringeth out tears: and he that pricketh the heart, bringeth forth resentment. 22:25. He that flingeth a stone at birds, shall drive them away: so he that upbraideth his friend, breaketh friendship. 22:26. Although thou hast drawn a sword at a friend, despair not: for there may be a returning. To a friend, 22:27. If thou hast opened a sad mouth, fear not, for there may be a reconciliation: except upbraiding, and reproach, and pride, and disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound: for in all these cases a friend will flee away. 22:28. Keep fidelity with a friend in his poverty, that in his prosperity also thou mayst rejoice. 22:29. In the time of his trouble continue faithful to him, that thou mayst also be heir with him in his inheritance. 22:30. As the vapour of a chimney, and the smoke of the fire goeth up before the fire: so also injurious words, and reproaches, and threats, before blood. 22:31. I will not be ashamed to salute a friend, neither will I hide myself from his face: and if any evil happen to me by him, I will bear it. 22:32. But every one that shall hear it, will beware of him. 22:33. Who will set a guard before my mouth, and a sure seal upon my lips, that I fall not by them, and that my tongue destroy me not? Ecclesiasticus Chapter 23 A prayer for grace to flee sin: cautions against profane swearing and other vices. 23:1. O Lord, father, and sovereign ruler of my life, leave me not to their counsel: nor suffer me to fall by them. By them. . .Viz., the tongue and the lips, mentioned in the last verse of the foregoing chapter. 23:2. Who will set scourges over my thoughts, and the discipline of wisdom over my heart, that they spare me not in their ignorances, and that their sins may not appear: That they spare me not in their ignorances, etc. . .That is, that the scourges and discipline of wisdom may restrain the ignorances, that is, the slips and offences which are usually committed by the tongue and the lips. 23:3. Lest my ignorances increase, and my offences be multiplied, and my sins abound, and I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoice over me? 23:4. O Lord, father, and God of my life, leave me not to their devices. 23:5. Give me not haughtiness of my eyes, and turn away from me all coveting. 23:6. Take from me the greediness of the belly, and let not the lusts of the flesh take hold of me, and give me not over to a shameless and foolish mind. 23:7. Hear, O ye children, the discipline of the mouth, and he that will keep it shall not perish by his lips, nor be brought to fall into most wicked works. 23:8. A sinner is caught in his own vanity, and the proud and the evil speakers shall fall thereby. 23:9. Let not thy mouth be accustomed to swearing: for in it there are many falls. 23:10. And let not the naming of God be usual in thy mouth, and meddle not with the names of saints, for thou shalt not escape free from them. 23:11. For as a slave daily put to the question, is never without a blue mark: so every one that sweareth, and nameth, shall not be wholly pure from sin. 23:12. A man that sweareth much, shall be filled with iniquity, and a scourge shall not depart from his house. 23:13. And if he make it void, his sin shall be upon him, and if he dissemble it, he offendeth double: 23:14. And if he swear in vain, he shall not be justified: for his house shall be filled with his punishment. 23:15. There is also another speech opposite to death, let it not be found in the inheritance of Jacob. 23:16. For from the merciful all these things shall be taken away, and they shall not wallow in sins. 23:17. Let not thy mouth be accustomed to indiscreet speech: for therein is the word of sin. 23:18. Remember thy father and thy mother, for thou sittest in the midst of great men: 23:19. Lest God forget thee in their sight, and thou, by thy daily custom be infatuated and suffer reproach: and wish that thou hadst not been born, and curse the day of thy nativity. 23:20. The man that is accustomed to opprobrious words, will never be corrected all the days of his life. 23:21. Two sorts of men multiply sins, and the third bringeth wrath and destruction. 23:22. A hot soul is a burning fire, it will never be quenched, till it devour some thing. 23:23. And a man that is wicked in the mouth of his flesh, will not leave off till he hath kindled a fire. 23:24. To a man that is a fornicator all bread is sweet, he will not be weary of sinning unto the end. 23:25. Every man that passeth beyond his own bed, despising his own soul, and saying: Who seeth me? 23:26. Darkness compasseth me about, and the walls cover me, and no man seeth me: whom do I fear? the most High will not remember my sins. 23:27. And he understandeth not that his eye seeth all things, for such a man's fear driveth him from the fear of God, and the eyes of men fearing him: 23:28. And he knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men, and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men, into the most hidden parts. 23:29. For all things were known to the Lord God, before they were created: so also after they were perfected he beholdeth all things. 23:30. This man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and he shall be chased as a colt: and where he suspected not, he shall be taken. 23:31. And he shall be in disgrace with all men, because he understood not the fear of the Lord. 23:32. So every woman also that leaveth her husband, and bringeth in an heir by another: 23:33. For first she hath been unfaithful to the law of the most High: and secondly, she hath offended against her husband: thirdly, she hath fornicated in adultery, and hath gotten her children of another man. 23:34. This woman shall be brought into the assembly, and inquisition shall be made of her children. 23:35. Her children shall not take root, and her branches shall bring forth no fruit. 23:36. She shall leave her memory to be cursed, and her infamy shall not be blotted out. 23:37. And they that remain shall know, that there is nothing better than the fear of God: and that there is nothing sweeter than to have regard to the commandments of the Lord. 23:38. It is great glory to follow the Lord: for length of days shall be received from him. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 24 Wisdom praiseth herself: her origin, her dwelling, her dignity, and her fruits. 24:1. Wisdom shall praise her own self, and shall be honoured in God, and shall glory in the midst of her people, 24:2. And shall open her mouth in the churches of the most High, and shall glorify herself in the sight of his power, 24:3. And in the midst of her own people she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly. 24:4. And in the multitude of the elect she shall have praise, and among the blessed she shall be blessed, saying: 24:5. I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures: 24:6. I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth, and as a cloud I covered all the earth: 24:7. I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud. 24:8. I alone have compassed the circuit of heaven, and have penetrated into the bottom of the deep, and have walked in the waves of the sea, 24:9. And have stood in all the earth: and in every people, 24:10. And in every nation I have had the chief rule: 24:11. And by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low: and in all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord. 24:12. Then the creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and he that made me, rested in my tabernacle, 24:13. And he said to me: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in Israel, and take root in my elect. 24:14. From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling place I have ministered before him. 24:15. And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. 24:16. And I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God his inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints. 24:17. I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree on mount Sion. 24:18. I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho: 24:19. As a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted. 24:20. I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon, and aromatical balm: I yielded a sweet odour like the best myrrh: 24:21. And I perfumed my dwelling as storax, and galbanum, and onyx, and aloes, and as the frankincense not cut, and my odour is as the purest balm. 24:22. I have stretched out my branches as the turpentine tree, and my branches are of honour and grace. 24:23. As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odour: and my flowers are the fruit of honour and riches. 24:24. I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. 24:25. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. 24:26. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. 24:27. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. 24:28. My memory is unto everlasting generations. 24:29. They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst. 24:30. He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. 24:31. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. 24:32. All these things are the book of life, and the covenant of the most High, and the knowledge of truth. 24:33. Moses commanded a law in the precepts of justices, and an inheritance to the house of Jacob, and the promises to Israel. 24:34. He appointed to David his servant to raise up of him a most mighty king, and sitting on the throne of glory for ever. A most mighty king. . .Viz., Christ, who by his gospel, like an overflowing river, has enriched the earth with heavenly wisdom. 24:35. Who filleth up wisdom as the Phison, and as the Tigris in the days of the new fruits. 24:36. Who maketh understanding to abound as the Euphrates, who multiplieth it as the Jordan in the time of harvest. 24:37. Who sendeth knowledge as the light, and riseth up as Gehon in the time of the vintage. 24:38. Who first hath perfect knowledge of her, and a weaker shall not search her out. Who first hath perfect knowledge of her. . .Christ was the first that had perfect knowledge of heavenly wisdom. 24:39. For her thoughts are more vast than the sea, and her counsels more deep than the great ocean. 24:40. I, wisdom, have poured out rivers. 24:41. I, like a brook out of a river of a mighty water; I, like a channel of a river, and like an aqueduct, came out of paradise. 24:42. I said: I will water my garden of plants, and I will water abundantly the fruits of my meadow. 24:43. And behold my brook became a great river, and my river came near to a sea: 24:44. For I make doctrine to shine forth to all as the morning light, and I will declare it afar off. 24:45. I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the earth, and will behold all that sleep, and will enlighten all that hope in the Lord. 24:46. I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and will leave it to them that seek wisdom, and will not cease to instruct their offspring even to the holy age. 24:47. See ye that I have not laboured myself only, but for all that seek out the truth. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 25 Documents of wisdom on several subjects. 25:1. With three things my spirit is pleased, which are approved before God and men: 25:2. The concord of brethren, and the love of neighbours, and man and wife that agree well together. 25:3. Three sorts my soul hateth, and I am greatly grieved at their life: 25:4. A poor man that is proud: a rich man that is a liar: an old man that is a fool, and doting. 25:5. The things that thou hast not gathered in thy youth, how shalt thou find them in thy old age? 25:6. O how comely is judgment for a grey head, and for ancients to know counsel! 25:7. O how comely is wisdom for the aged, and understanding and counsel to men of honour! 25:8. Much experience is the crown of old men, and the fear of God is their glory. 25:9. Nine things that are not to be imagined by the heart have I magnified, and the tenth I will utter to men with my tongue. 25:10. A man that hath joy of his children: and he that liveth and seeth the fall of his enemies. 25:11. Blessed is he that dwelleth with a wise woman, and that hath not slipped with his tongue, and that hath not served such as are unworthy of him. 25:12. Blessed is he that findeth a true friend, and that declareth justice to an ear that heareth. 25:13. How great is he that findeth wisdom and knowledge! but there is none above him that feareth the Lord. 25:14. The fear of God hath set itself above all things: 25:15. Blessed is the man, to whom it is given to have the fear of God: he that holdeth it, to whom shall he be likened? 25:16. The fear of God is the beginning of his love: and the beginning of faith is to be fast joined unto it. 25:17. The sadness of the heart is every plague: and the wickedness of a woman is all evil. 25:18. And a man will choose any plague, but the plague of the heart: 25:19. And any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman: 25:20. And any affliction, but the affliction from them that hate him: 25:21. And any revenge, but the revenge of enemies. 25:22. There is no head worse than the head of a serpent: 25:23. And there is no anger above the anger of a woman. It will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon, than to dwell with a wicked woman. 25:24. The wickedness of a woman changeth her face: and she darkeneth her countenance as a bear: and sheweth it like sackcloth. In the midst of her neighbours, 25:25. Her husband groaned, and hearing he sighed a little. 25:26. All malice is short to the malice of a woman, let the lot of sinners fall upon her. 25:27. As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man. 25:28. Look not upon a woman's beauty, and desire not a woman for beauty. 25:29. A woman's anger, and impudence, and confusion is great. 25:30. A woman, if she have superiority, is contrary to her husband. 25:31. A wicked woman abateth the courage, and maketh a heavy countenance, and a wounded heart. 25:32. Feeble hands, and disjointed knees, a woman that doth not make her husband happy. 25:33. From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die. 25:34. Give no issue to thy water, no, not a little: nor to a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad. 25:35. If she walk not at thy hand, she will confound thee in the sight of thy enemies. 25:36. Cut her off from thy flesh, lest she always abuse thee. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 26 Of good and bad women. 26:1. Happy is the husband of a good wife: for the number of his years is double. 26:2. A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband, and shall fulfil the years of his life in peace. 26:3. A good wife is a good portion, she shall be given in the portion of them that fear God, to a man for his good deeds. 26:4. Rich or poor, if his heart is good, his countenance shall be cheerful at all times. 26:5. Of three things my heart hath been afraid, and at the fourth my face hath trembled: 26:6. The accusation of a city, and the gathering together of the people: 26:7. And a false calumny, all are more grievous than death. 26:8. A jealous woman is the grief and mourning of the heart. 26:9. With a jealous woman is a scourge of the tongue which communicateth with all. 26:10. As a yoke of oxen that is moved to and fro, so also is a wicked woman: he that hath hold of her, is as he that taketh hold of a scorpion. 26:11. A drunken woman is a great wrath: and her reproach and shame shall not be hid. 26:12. The fornication of a woman shall be known by the haughtiness of her eyes and by her eyelids. 26:13. On a daughter that turneth not away herself, set a strict watch: lest finding an opportunity she abuse herself. 26:14. Take heed of the impudence of her eyes, and wonder not if she slight thee. 26:15. She will open her mouth as a thirsty traveller to the fountain, and will drink of every water near her, and will sit down by every hedge, and open her quiver against every arrow, until she fail. 26:16. The grace of a diligent woman shall delight her husband, and shall fat his bones. 26:17. Her discipline is the gift of God. 26:18. Such is a wise and silent woman, and there is nothing so much worth as a well instructed soul. 26:19. A holy and shamefaced woman is grace upon grace. 26:20. And no price is worthy of a continent soul. 26:21. As the sun when it riseth to the world in the high places of God, so is the beauty of a good wife for the ornament of her house. 26:22. As the lamp shining upon the holy candlestick, so is the beauty of the face in a ripe age, 26:23. As golden pillars upon bases of silver, so are the firm feet upon the soles of a steady woman. 26:24. As everlasting foundations upon a solid rock, so the commandments of God in the heart of a holy woman. 26:25. At two things my heart is grieved, and the third bringeth anger upon me. 26:26. A man of war fainting through poverty, and a man of sense despised: 26:27. And he that passeth over from justice to sin, God hath prepared such an one for the sword. 26:28. Two sorts of callings have appeared to me hard and dangerous: a merchant is hardly free from negligence: and a huckster shall not be justified from the sins of the lips. From negligence. . .That is, from the neglect of the service of God: because the eager pursuit of the mammon of this world, is apt to make men of that calling forget the great duties of loving God above all things, and their neighbours as themselves.--Ibid. A huckster. . .Or, a retailer of wine. Men of that profession are both greatly exposed to danger of sin themselves, and are too often accessary to the sins of others. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 27 Dangers of sin from several heads: the fear of God is the best preservative. He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it. 27:1. Through poverty many have sinned: and he that seeketh to be enriched, turneth away his eye. 27:2. As a stake sticketh fast in the midst of the joining of stones, so also in the midst of selling and buying, sin shall stick fast. 27:3. Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner. 27:4. Unless thou hold thyself diligently in the fear of the Lord, thy house shall quickly be overthrown. 27:5. As when one sifteth with a sieve, the dust will remain: so will the perplexity of a man in his thoughts. 27:6. The furnace trieth the potter's vessels, and the trial of affliction just men. 27:7. As the dressing of a tree sheweth the fruit thereof, so a word out of the thought of the heart of man. 27:8. Praise not a man before he speaketh, for this is the trial of men. 27:9. If thou followest justice, thou shalt obtain her: and shalt put her on as a long robe of honour, and thou shalt dwell with her: and she shall protect thee for ever, and in the day of acknowledgment thou shalt find a strong foundation. 27:10. Birds resort unto their like: so truth will return to them that practise her. 27:11. The lion always lieth in wait for prey: so do sins for them that work iniquities. 27:12. A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun: but a fool is changed as the moon. 27:13. In the midst of the unwise keep in the word till its time: but be continually among men that think. 27:14. The discourse of sinners is hateful, and their laughter is at the pleasures of sin. 27:15. The speech that sweareth much shall make the hair of the head stand upright: and its irreverence shall make one stop his ears. 27:16. In the quarrels of the road is the shedding of blood: and their cursing is a grievous hearing. 27:17. He that discloseth the secret of a friend loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind. 27:18. Love thy neighbour, and be joined to him with fidelity. 27:19. But if thou discover his secrets, follow no more after him. 27:20. For as a man that destroyeth his friend, so is he that destroyeth the friendship of his neighbour. 27:21. And as one that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy neighbour go, and thou shalt not get him again. 27:22. Follow after him no more, for he is gone afar off, he is fled, as a roe escaped out of the snare because his soul is wounded. 27:23. Thou canst no more bind him up. And of a curse there is reconciliation: And of a curse there is reconciliation. . .That is, it is easier to obtain a reconciliation after a curse, than after disclosing a secret. 27:24. But to disclose the secrets of a friend, leaveth no hope to an unhappy soul. 27:25. He that winketh with the eye forgeth wicked things, and no man will cast him off: 27:26. In the sight of thy eyes he will sweeten his mouth, and will admire thy words: but at the last he will writhe his mouth, and on thy words he will lay a stumblingblock. 27:27. I have hated many things but not like him, and the Lord will hate him. 27:28. If one cast a stone on high, it will fall upon his own head: and the deceitful stroke will wound the deceitful. 27:29. He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and he that setteth a stone for his neighbour, shall stumble upon it: and he that layeth a snare for another, shall perish in it. 27:30. A mischievous counsel shall be rolled back upon the author, and he shall not know from whence it cometh to him. 27:31. Mockery and reproach are of the proud, and vengeance as a lion shall lie in wait for him. 27:32. They shall perish in a snare that are delighted with the fall of the just: and sorrow shall consume them before they die. 27:33. Anger and fury are both of them abominable, and the sinful man shall be subject to them. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 28 Lessons against revenge and quarrels. The evils of the tongue. 28:1. He that seeketh to revenge himself, shall find vengeance from the Lord, and he will surely keep his sins in remembrance. 28:2. Forgive thy neighbour if he hath hurt thee: and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest. 28:3. Man to man reserveth anger, and doth he seek remedy of God? 28:4. He hath no mercy on a man like himself, and doth he entreat for his own sins? 28:5. He that is but flesh, nourisheth anger, and doth he ask forgiveness of God? who shall obtain pardon for his sins? 28:6. Remember thy last things, and let enmity cease: 28:7. For corruption and death hang over in his commandments. In his commandments. . .Supply the sentence out of the Greek thus: Remember corruption and death, and abide in the commandments. 28:8. Remember the fear of God, and be not angry with thy neighbour. 28:9. Remember the covenant of the most High, and overlook the ignorance of thy neighbour. 28:10. Refrain from strife, and thou shalt diminish thy sins. 28:11. For a passionate man kindleth strife, and a sinful man will trouble his friends, and bring in debate in the midst of them that are at peace. 28:12. For as the wood of the forest is, so the fire burneth, and as a man's strength is, so shall his anger be, and according to his riches he shall increase his anger. 28:13. A hasty contention kindleth a fire and a hasty quarrel sheddeth blood and a tongue that beareth witness bringeth death. 28:14. If thou blow the spark, it shall burn as a fire: and if thou spit upon it, it shall be quenched: both come out of the mouth. 28:15. The whisperer and the double tongue is accursed: for he hath troubled many that were at peace. 28:16. The tongue of a third person hath disquieted many, and scattered them from nation to nation. 28:17. It hath destroyed the strong cities of the rich, and hath overthrown the houses of great men. 28:18. It hath cut in pieces the forces of people, and undone strong nations. 28:19. The tongue of a third person hath cast out valiant women, and deprived them of their labours. 28:20. He that hearkeneth to it, shall never have rest, neither shall he have a friend in whom he may repose. 28:21. The stroke of a whip maketh a blue mark: but the stroke of the tongue will break the bones. 28:22. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have perished by their own tongue. 28:23. Blessed is he that is defended from a wicked tongue, that hath not passed into the wrath thereof, and that hath not drawn the yoke thereof, and hath not been bound in its bands. 28:24. For its yoke is a yoke of iron: and its bands are bands of brass. 28:25. The death thereof is a most evil death: and hell is preferable to it. 28:26. Its continuance shall not be for a long time, but it shall possess the ways of the unjust: and the just shall not be burnt with its flame. 28:27. They that forsake God shall fall into it, and it shall burn in them, and shall not be quenched, and it shall be sent upon them as a lion, and as a leopard it shall tear them. 28:28. Hedge in thy ears with thorns, hear not a wicked tongue, and make doors and bars to thy mouth. 28:29. Melt down thy gold and silver, and make a balance for thy words, and a just bridle for thy mouth: 28:30. And take heed lest thou slip with thy tongue, and fall in the sight of thy enemies who lie in wait for thee, and thy fall be incurable unto death. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 29 Of charity in lending money, and justice in repaying. Of alms, and of being surety. 29:1. He that sheweth mercy, lendeth to his neighbour: and he that is stronger in hand, keepeth the commandments. And he that is stronger in hand. . .That is, he that is hearty and bountiful in lending to his neighbour in his necessity. 29:2. Lend to thy neighbour in the time of his need, and pay thou thy neighbour again in due time. 29:3. Keep thy word, and deal faithfully with him: and thou shalt always find that which is necessary for thee. 29:4. Many have looked upon a thing lent as a thing found, and have given trouble to them that helped them. 29:5. Till they receive, they kiss the hands of the lender, and in promises they humble their voice: 29:6. But when they should repay, they will ask time, and will return tedious and murmuring words, and will complain of the time: 29:7. And if he be able to pay, he will stand off, he will scarce pay one half, and will count it as if he had found it: 29:8. But if not, he will defraud him of his money, and he shall get him for an enemy without cause. 29:9. And he will pay him with reproaches and curses, and instead of honour and good turn will repay him injuries. 29:10. Many have refused to lend, not out of wickedness, but they were afraid to be defrauded without cause. 29:11. But yet towards the poor be thou more hearty, and delay not to shew him mercy. 29:12. Help the poor because of the commandment: and send him not away empty handed because of his poverty. 29:13. Lose thy money for thy brother and thy friend: and hide it not under a stone to be lost. 29:14. Place thy treasure in the commandments of the most High, and it shall bring thee more profit than gold. 29:15. Shut up alms in the heart of the poor, and it shall obtain help for thee against all evil. 29:16. Better than the shield of the mighty, and better than the spear: 29:17. It shall fight for thee against thy enemy. 29:18. A good man is surety for his neighbour: and he that hath lost shame, will leave him to himself. 29:19. Forget not the kindness of thy surety: for he hath given his life for thee. 29:20. The sinner and the unclean fleeth from his surety. 29:21. A sinner attributeth to himself the goods of his surety: and he that is of an unthankful mind will leave him that delivered him. 29:22. A man is surety for his neighbour: and when he hath lost all shame, he shall forsake him. 29:23. Evil suretyship hath undone many of good estate, and hath tossed them as a wave of the sea. 29:24. It hath made powerful men to go from place to place round about, and they have wandered in strange countries. 29:25. A sinner that transgresseth the commandment of the Lord, shall fall into an evil suretyship: and he that undertaketh many things, shall fall into judgment. 29:26. Recover thy neighbour according to thy power, and take heed to thyself that thou fall not. 29:27. The chief thing for man's life is water and bread, and clothing, and a house to cover shame. 29:28. Better is the poor man's fare under a roof of boards, than sumptuous cheer abroad in another man's house. 29:29. Be contented with little instead of much, and thou shalt not hear the reproach of going abroad. 29:30. It is a miserable life to go as a guest from house to house: for where a man is a stranger, he shall not deal confidently, nor open his mouth. 29:31. He shall entertain and feed, and give drink to the unthankful, and moreover he shall hear bitter words. 29:32. Go, stranger, and furnish the table, and give others to eat what thou hast in thy hand. 29:33. Give place to the honourable presence of my friends: for I want my house, my brother being to be lodged with me. 29:34. These things are grievous to a man of understanding: the upbraiding of houseroom, and the reproaching of the lender. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 30 Of correction of children. Health is better than wealth. Excessive grief is hurtful. 30:1. He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end, and not grope after the doors of his neighbours. 30:2. He that instructeth his son shall be praised in him, and shall glory in him in the midst of them of his household. 30:3. He that teacheth his son, maketh his enemy jealous, and in the midst of his friends he shall glory in him. 30:4. His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead: for he hath left one behind him that is like himself. 30:5. While he lived he saw and rejoiced in him: and when he died he was not sorrowful, neither was he confounded before his enemies. 30:6. For he left behind him a defender of his house against his enemies, and one that will requite kindness to his friends. 30:7. For the souls of his sons he shall bind up his wounds, and at every cry his bowels shall be troubled. 30:8. A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong. 30:9. Give thy son his way, and he shall make thee afraid: play with him, and he shall make thee sorrowful. 30:10. Laugh not with him, lest thou have sorrow, and at the last thy teeth be set on edge. 30:11. Give him not liberty in his youth, and wink not at his devices. 30:12. Bow down his neck while he is young, and beat his sides while he is a child, lest he grow stubborn, and regard thee not, and so be a sorrow of heart to thee. 30:13. Instruct thy son, and labour about him, lest his lewd behaviour be an offence to thee. 30:14. Better is a poor man who is sound, and strong of constitution, than a rich man who is weak and afflicted with evils. 30:15. Health of the soul in holiness of justice, is better than all gold and silver: and a sound body, than immense revenues. 30:16. There is no riches above the riches of the health of the body: and there is no pleasure above the joy of the heart. 30:17. Better is death than a bitter life, and everlasting rest, than continual sickness. 30:18. Good things that are hidden in a mouth that is shut, are as messes of meat set about a grave. 30:19. What good shall an offering do to an idol? for it can neither eat, nor smell: 30:20. So is he that is persecuted by the Lord, bearing the reward of his iniquity: 30:21. He seeth with his eyes, and groaneth, as an eunuch embracing a virgin, and sighing. 30:22. Give not up thy soul to sadness, and afflict not thyself in thy own counsel. 30:23. The joyfulness of the heart, is the life of a man, and a never failing treasure of holiness: and the joy of a man is length of life. 30:24. Have pity on thy own soul, pleasing God, and contain thyself: gather up thy heart in his holiness: and drive away sadness far from thee. 30:25. For sadness hath killed many, and there is no profit in it. 30:26. Envy and anger shorten a man's days, and pensiveness will bring old age before the time. 30:27. A cheerful and good heart is always feasting: for his banquets are prepared with diligence. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 31 Of the desire of riches, and of moderation in eating and drinking. 31:1. Watching for riches consumeth the flesh, and the thought thereof driveth away sleep. 31:2. The thinking beforehand turneth away the understanding, and a grievous sickness maketh the soul sober. 31:3. The rich man hath laboured in gathering riches together, and when he resteth he shall be filled with his goods. 31:4. The poor man hath laboured in his low way of life, and in the end he is still poor. 31:5. He that loveth gold, shall not be justified: and he that followeth after corruption, shall be filled with it. 31:6. Many have been brought to fall for gold, and the beauty thereof hath been their ruin. 31:7. Gold is a stumblingblock to them that sacrifice to it: woe to them that eagerly follow after it, and every fool shall perish by it. 31:8. Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures. 31:9. Who is he, and we will praise him? for he hath done wonderful things in his life. 31:10. Who hath been tried thereby, and made perfect, he shall have glory everlasting. He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed: and could do evil things, and hath not done them: 31:11. Therefore are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints shall declare his alms. 31:12. Art thou set at a great table? be not the first to open thy mouth upon it. 31:13. Say not: There are many things which are upon it. 31:14. Remember that a wicked eye is evil. 31:15. What is created more wicked than an eye? therefore shall it weep over all the face when it shall see. 31:16. Stretch not out thy hand first, lest being disgraced with envy thou be put to confusion. 31:17. Be not hasty in a feast. 31:18. Judge of the disposition of thy neighbour by thyself. 31:19. Use as a frugal man the things that are set before thee: lest if thou eatest much, thou be hated. 31:20. Leave off first, for manners' sake: and exceed not, lest thou offend. 31:21. And if thou sittest among many, reach not thy hand out first of all, and be not the first to ask for drink. 31:22. How sufficient is a little wine for a man well taught, and in sleeping thou shalt not be uneasy with it, and thou shalt feel no pain. 31:23. Watching, and choler, and gripes, are with an intemperate man: 31:24. Sound and wholesome sleep with a moderate man: he shall sleep till morning, and his soul shall be delighted with him. 31:25. And if thou hast been forced to eat much, arise, go out, and vomit: and it shall refresh thee, and thou shalt not bring sickness upon thy body. 31:26. Hear me, my son, and despise me not: and in the end thou shalt find my words. 31:27. In all thy works be quick, and no infirmity shall come to thee. 31:28. The lips of many shall bless him that is liberal of his bread, and the testimony of his truth is faithful. 31:29. Against him that is niggardly of his bread, the city will murmur, and the testimony of his niggardliness is true. 31:30. Challenge not them that love wine: for wine hath destroyed very many. 31:31. Fire trieth hard iron: so wine drunk to excess shall rebuke the hearts of the proud. 31:32. Wine taken with sobriety is equal life to men: if thou drink it moderately, thou shalt be sober. 31:33. What is his life, who is diminished with wine? 31:34. What taketh away life? death. 31:35. Wine was created from the beginning to make men joyful, and not to make them drunk. 31:36. Wine drunken with moderation is the joy of the soul and the heart. 31:37. Sober drinking is health to soul and body. 31:38. Wine drunken with excess raiseth quarrels, and wrath, and many ruins. 31:39. Wine drunken with excess is bitterness of the soul. 31:40. The heat of drunkenness is the stumblingblock of the fool, lessening strength and causing wounds. 31:41. Rebuke not thy neighbour in a banquet of wine: and despise him not in his mirth. 31:42. Speak not to him words of reproach: and press him not in demanding again. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 32 Lessons for superiors and inferiors. Advantages of fearing God, and doing nothing without counsel. 32:1. Have they made thee ruler? be not lifted up: be among them as one of them. 32:2. Have care of them, and so sit down, and when thou hast acquitted thyself of all thy charge, take thy place: 32:3. That thou mayst rejoice for them, and receive a crown as an ornament of grace, and get the honour of the contribution. 32:4. Speak, thou that art elder: for it becometh thee, 32:5. To speak the first word with careful knowledge, and hinder not music. 32:6. Where there is no hearing, pour not out words, and be not lifted up out of season with thy wisdom. 32:7. A concert of music in a banquet of wine is as a carbuncle set in gold. 32:8. As a signet of an emerald in a work of gold: so is the melody of music with pleasant and moderate wine. 32:9. Hear in silence, and for thy reverence good grace shall come to thee. 32:10. Young man, scarcely speak in thy own cause. 32:11. If thou be asked twice, let thy answer be short. 32:12. In many things be as if thou wert ignorant, and hear in silence and withal seeking. 32:13. In the company of great men take not upon thee: and when the ancients are present, speak not much. 32:14. Before a storm goeth lightning: and before shamefacedness goeth favour: and for thy reverence good grace shall come to thee. 32:15. And at the time of rising be not slack: but be first to run home to thy house, and there withdraw thyself, and there take thy pastime. 32:16. And do what thou hast a mind, but not in sin or proud speech. 32:17. And for all these things bless the Lord, that made thee, and that replenisheth thee with all his good things. 32:18. He that feareth the Lord, will receive his discipline: and they that will seek him early, shall find a blessing. 32:19. He that seeketh the law, shall be filled with it: and he that dealeth deceitfully, shall meet with a stumblingblock therein. 32:20. They that fear the Lord, shall find just judgment, and shall kindle justice as a light. 32:21. A sinful man will flee reproof, and will find an excuse according to his will. 32:22. A man of counsel will not neglect understanding, a strange and proud man will not dread fear: 32:23. Even after he hath done with fear without counsel, he shall be controlled by the things of his own seeking. 32:24. My son, do thou nothing without counsel, and thou shalt not repent when thou hast done. 32:25. Go not in the way of ruin, and thou shalt not stumble against the stones: trust not thyself to a rugged way, lest thou set a stumblingblock to thy soul. 32:26. And beware of thy own children, and take heed of them of thy household. 32:27. In every work of thine regard thy soul in faith: for this is the keeping of the commandments. In faith. . .That is, follow sincerely thy soul in her faith and conscience. 32:28. He that believeth God, taketh heed to the commandments: and he that trusteth in him, shall fare never the worse. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 33 The fear of God is the best security. Times and men are in the hands of God. Take care of thyself as long as thou livest, and look to thy servants. 33:1. No evils shall happen to him that feareth the Lord, but in temptation God will keep him and deliver him from evils. 33:2. A wise man hateth not the commandments and justices, and he shall not be dashed in pieces as a ship in a storm. 33:3. A man of understanding is faithful to the law of God, and the law is faithful to him. 33:4. He that cleareth up a question, shall prepare what to say, and so having prayed he shall be heard, and shall keep discipline, and then he shall answer. 33:5. The heart of a fool is as a wheel of a cart: and his thoughts are like a rolling axletree. 33:6. A friend that is a mocker, is like a stallion horse: he neigheth under every one that sitteth upon him. 33:7. Why doth one day excel another, and one light another, and one year another year, when all come of the sun? 33:8. By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, the sun being made, and keeping his commandment. 33:9. And he ordered the seasons, and holidays of them, and in them they celebrated festivals at an hour. 33:10. Some of them God made high and great days, and some of them he put in the number of ordinary days. And all men are from the ground, and out of the earth, from whence Adam was created. 33:11. With much knowledge the Lord hath divided them and diversified their ways. 33:12. Some of them hath he blessed, and exalted: and some of them hath he sanctified, and set near himself: and some of them hath he cursed and brought low, and turned them from their station. 33:13. As the potter's clay is in his hand, to fashion and order it: 33:14. All his ways are according to his ordering: so man is in the hand of him that made him, and he will render to him according to his judgment. 33:15. Good is set against evil, and life against death: so also is the sinner against a just man. And so look upon all the works of the most High. Two and two, and one against another. 33:16. And I awaked last of all, and as one that gathereth after the grapegatherers. 33:17. In the blessing of God I also have hoped: and as one that gathereth grapes, have I filled the winepress. 33:18. See that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all that seek discipline. 33:19. Hear me, ye great men, and all ye people, and hearken with your ears, ye rulers of the church. 33:20. Give not to son or wife, brother or friend, power over thee while thou livest; and give not thy estate to another, lest thou repent, and thou entreat for the same. 33:21. As long as thou livest, and hast breath in thee, let no man change thee. Change thee. . .That is, so as to have this power over thee. 33:22. For it is better that thy children should ask of thee, than that thou look toward the hands of thy children. 33:23. In all thy works keep the pre-eminence. The pre-eminence. . .That is, be master in thy own house, and part not with thy authority. 33:24. Let no stain sully thy glory. In the time when thou shalt end the days of thy life, and in the time of thy decease, distribute thy inheritance. 33:25. Fodder, and a wand, and a burden are for an ass: bread, and correction, and work for a slave. 33:26. He worketh under correction, and seeketh to rest: let his hands be idle, and he seeketh liberty. 33:27. The yoke and the thong bend a stiff neck, and continual labours bow a slave. 33:28. Torture and fetters are for a malicious slave: send him to work, that he be not idle: 33:29. For idleness hath taught much evil. 33:30. Set him to work: for so it is fit for him. And if he be not obedient, bring him down with fetters, but be not excessive towards any one, and do no grievous thing without judgment. 33:31. If thou have a faithful servant, let him be to thee as thy own soul: treat him as a brother: because in the blood of thy soul thou hast gotten him. 33:32. If thou hurt him unjustly, he will run away: 33:33. And if he rise up and depart, thou knowest not whom to ask, and in what way to seek him. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 34 The vanity of dreams. The advantage of experience, and of the fear of God. 34:1. The hopes of a man that is void of understanding are vain and deceitful: and dreams lift up fools. 34:2. The man that giveth heed to lying visions, is like to him that catcheth at a shadow, and followeth after the wind. 34:3. The vision of dreams is the resemblance of one thing to another: as when a man's likeness is before the face of a man. 34:4. What can be made clean by the unclean? and what truth can come from that which is false? 34:5. Deceitful divinations and lying omens and the dreams of evildoers, are vanity: 34:6. And the heart fancieth as that of a woman in travail: except it be a vision sent forth from the most High, set not thy heart upon them. 34:7. For dreams have deceived many, and they have failed that put their trust in them. 34:8. The word of the law shall be fulfilled without a lie, and wisdom shall be made plain in the mouth of the faithful. 34:9. What doth he know, that hath not been tried? A man that hath much experience, shall think of many things: and he that hath learned many things, shall shew forth understanding. 34:10. He that hath no experience, knoweth little: and he that hath been experienced in many things, multiplieth prudence. 34:11. He that hath not been tried, what manner of things doth he know? he that hath been surprised, shall abound with subtlety. 34:12. I have seen many things by travelling, and many customs of things. 34:13. Sometimes I have been in danger of death for these things, and I have been delivered by the grace of God. 34:14. The spirit of those that fear God, is sought after, and by his regard shall be blessed. 34:15. For their hope is on him that saveth them, and the eyes of God are upon them that love him. 34:16. He that feareth the Lord shall tremble at nothing, and shall not be afraid: for he is his hope. 34:17. The soul of him that feareth the Lord is blessed. 34:18. To whom doth he look, and who is his strength? 34:19. The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear him, he is their powerful protector, and strong stay, a defence from the heat, and a cover from the sun at noon, 34:20. A preservation from stumbling, and a help from falling: he raiseth up the soul, and enlighteneth the eyes, and giveth health, and life, and blessing. 34:21. The offering of him that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, is stained, and the mockeries of the unjust are not acceptable. 34:22. The Lord is only for them that wait upon him in the way of truth and justice. 34:23. The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked: neither hath he respect to the oblations of the unjust, nor will he be pacified for sins by the multitude of their sacrifices. 34:24. He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor, is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of his father. 34:25. The bread of the needy, is the life of the poor: he that defraudeth them thereof, is a man of blood. 34:26. He that taketh away the bread gotten by sweat, is like him that killeth his neighbour. 34:27. He that sheddeth blood, and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire, are brothers. 34:28. When one buildeth up, and another pulleth down: what profit have they but the labour? 34:29. When one prayeth, and another curseth: whose voice will God hear? 34:30. He that washeth himself after touching the dead, if he toucheth him again, what doth his washing avail? 34:31. So a man that fasteth for his sins, and doth the same again, what doth his humbling himself profit him? who will hear his prayer? Ecclesiasticus Chapter 35 What sacrifices are pleasing to God. 35:1. He that keepeth the law, multiplieth offerings. 35:2. It is a wholesome sacrifice to take heed to the commandments, and to depart from all iniquity. 35:3. And to depart from injustice, is to offer a propitiatory sacrifice for injustices, and a begging of pardon for sins. 35:4. He shall return thanks, that offereth fine flour: and he that doth mercy, offereth sacrifice. 35:5. To depart from iniquity is that which pleaseth the Lord, and to depart from injustice, is an entreaty for sins. 35:6. Thou shalt not appear empty in the sight of the Lord. 35:7. For all these things are to be done because of the commandment of God. 35:8. The oblation of the just maketh the altar fat, and is an odour of sweetness in the sight of the most High. 35:9. The sacrifice of the just is acceptable, and the Lord will not forget the memorial thereof. 35:10. Give glory to God with a good heart: and diminish not the firstfruits of thy hands. 35:11. In every gift shew a cheerful countenance, and sanctify thy tithes with joy. 35:12. Give to the most High according to what he hath given to thee, and with a good eye do according to the ability of thy hands: 35:13. For the Lord maketh recompense, and will give thee seven times as much. 35:14. Do not offer wicked gifts, for such he will not receive. 35:15. And look not upon an unjust sacrifice, for the Lord is judge, and there is not with him respect of person. 35:16. The Lord will not accept any person against a poor man, and he will hear the prayer of him that is wronged. 35:17. He will not despise the prayers of the fatherless: nor the widow, when she poureth out her complaint. 35:18. Do not the widow's tears run down the cheek, and her cry against him that causeth them to fall? 35:19. For from the cheek they go up even to heaven, and the Lord that heareth will not be delighted with them. 35:20. He that adoreth God with joy, shall be accepted, and his prayer shall approach even to the clouds. 35:21. The prayer of him that humbleth himself, shall pierce the clouds: and till it come nigh he will not be comforted: and he will not depart till the most High behold. 35:22. And the Lord will not be slack, but will judge for the just, and will do judgment: and the Almighty will not have patience with them, that he may crush their back: 35:23. And he will repay vengeance to the Gentiles, till he have taken away the multitude of the proud, and broken the sceptres of the unjust, 35:24. Till he have rendered to men according to their deeds: and according to the works of Adam, and according to his presumption, 35:25. Till he have judged the cause of his people, and he shall delight the just with his mercy. 35:26. The mercy of God is beautiful in the time of affliction, as a cloud of rain in the time of drought. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 36 A prayer for the church of God. Of a good heart, and a good wife. 36:1. Have mercy upon us, O God of all, and behold us, and shew us the light of thy mercies: 36:2. And send thy fear upon the nations, that have not sought after thee: that they may know that there is no God beside thee, and that they may shew forth thy wonders. 36:3. Lift up thy hand over the strange nations, that they may see thy power. 36:4. For as thou hast been sanctified in us in their sight, so thou shalt be magnified among them in our presence, 36:5. That they may know thee, as we also have known thee, that there is no God beside thee, O Lord. 36:6. Renew thy signs, and work new miracles. 36:7. Glorify thy hand, and thy right arm. 36:8. Raise up indignation, and pour out wrath. 36:9. Take away the adversary, and crush the enemy. 36:10. Hasten the time, and remember the end, that they may declare thy wonderful works. 36:11. Let him that escapeth be consumed by the rage of the fire: and let them perish that oppress thy people. 36:12. Crush the head of the princes of the enemies that say: There is no other beside us. 36:13. Gather together all the tribes of Jacob: that they may know that there no God besides thee, and may declare thy great works: and thou shalt inherit them as from the beginning. 36:14. Have mercy on thy people, upon whom thy name is invoked: and upon Israel, whom thou hast raised up to be thy firstborn. 36:15. Have mercy on Jerusalem, the city which thou hast sanctified, the city of thy rest. 36:16. Fill Sion with thy unspeakable words, and thy people with thy glory. 36:17. Give testimony to them that are thy creatures from the beginning, and raise up the prophecies which the former prophets spoke in thy name. 36:18. Reward them that patiently wait for thee, that thy prophets may be found faithful: and hear the prayers of thy servants, 36:19. According to the blessing of Aaron over thy people, and direct us into the way of justice, and let all know that dwell upon the earth, that thou art God the beholder of all ages. 36:20. The belly will devour all meat, yet one is better than another. 36:21. The palate tasteth venison and the wise heart false speeches. 36:22. A perverse heart will cause grief, and a man of experience will resist it. 36:23. A woman will receive every man: yet one daughter is better than another. A woman will receive every man. . .That is, any man that her parents propose to her to marry, though she does not like him, but marries in obedience to her parents, who make the choice for her. 36:24. The beauty of a woman cheereth the countenance of her husband, and a man desireth nothing more. 36:25. If she have a tongue that can cure, and likewise mitigate and shew mercy: her husband is not like other men. 36:26. He that possesseth a good wife, beginneth a possession: she is a help like to himself, and a pillar of rest. 36:27. Where there is no hedge, the possession shall be spoiled: and where there is no wife, he mourneth that is in want. 36:28. Who will trust him that hath no rest, and that lodgeth wheresoever the night taketh him, as a robber well appointed, that skippeth from city to city. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 37 Of the choice of friends and counsellors. 37:1. Every friend will say: I also am his friend: but there is a friend, that is only a friend in name. Is not this a grief even to death? 37:2. But a companion and a friend shall be turned to an enemy. 37:3. O wicked presumption, whence camest thou to cover the earth with thy malice, and deceitfulness? 37:4. There is a companion who rejoiceth with his friend in his joys, but in the time of trouble, he will be against him. 37:5. There is a companion who condoleth with his friend for his belly's sake, and he will take up a shield against the enemy. 37:6. Forget not thy friend in thy mind, and be not unmindful of him in thy riches. 37:7. Consult not with him that layeth a snare for thee, and hide thy counsel from them that envy thee. 37:8. Every counsellor giveth out counsel, but there is one that is a counsellor for himself. 37:9. Beware of a counsellor. And know before what need he hath: for he will devise to his own mind: 37:10. Lest he thrust a stake into the ground, and say to thee: 37:11. Thy way is good; and then stand on the other side to see what shall befall thee. 37:12. Treat not with a man without religion concerning holiness, nor with an unjust man concerning justice, nor with a woman touching her of whom she is jealous, nor with a coward concerning war, nor with a merchant about traffic, nor with a buyer of selling, nor with an envious man of giving thanks, 37:13. Nor with the ungodly of piety, nor with the dishonest of honesty, nor with the field laborer of every work, 37:14. Nor with him that worketh by the year of the finishing of the year, nor with an idle servant of much business: give no heed to these in any matter of counsel. 37:15. But be continually with a holy man, whomsoever thou shalt know to observe the fear of God, 37:16. Whose soul is according to thy own soul: and who, when thou shalt stumble in the dark, will be sorry for thee. 37:17. And establish within thyself a heart of good counsel: for there is no other thing of more worth to thee than it. 37:18. The soul of a holy man discovereth sometimes true things, more than seven watchmen that sit in a high place to watch. 37:19. But above all these things pray to the most High, that he may direct thy way in truth. 37:20. In all thy works let the true word go before thee, and steady counsel before every action. 37:21. A wicked word shall change the heart: out of which four manner of things arise, good and evil, life and death: and the tongue is continually the ruler of them. There is a man that is subtle and a teacher of many, and yet is unprofitable to his own soul. 37:22. A skilful man hath taught many, and is sweet to his own soul. 37:23. He that speaketh sophistically, is hateful: he shall be destitute of every thing. 37:24. Grace is not given him from the Lord: for he is deprived of all wisdom. 37:25. There is a wise man that is wise to his own soul: and the fruit of his understanding is commendable. 37:26. A wise man instructeth his own people, and the fruits of his understanding are faithful. 37:27. A wise man shall be filled with blessings, and they that see shall praise him. 37:28. The life of a man is in the number of his days: but the days of Israel are innumerable. 37:29. A wise man shall inherit honour among his people, and his name shall live for ever. 37:30. My son, prove thy soul in thy life: and if it be wicked, give it no power: 37:31. For all things are not expedient for all, and every kind pleaseth not every soul. 37:32. Be not greedy in any feasting, and pour not out thyself upon any meat: 37:33. For in many meats there will be sickness, and greediness will turn to choler. 37:34. By surfeiting many have perished, but he that is temperate, shall prolong life. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 38 Of physicians and medicines: what is to be done in sickness, and how we are to mourn for the dead. Of the employments of labourers and artificers. 38:1. Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him. 38:2. For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts of the king. 38:3. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised. 38:4. The most High hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them. 38:5. Was not bitter water made sweet with wood? 38:6. The virtue of these things is come to the knowledge of men, and the most High hath given knowledge to men, that he may be honoured in his wonders. 38:7. By these he shall cure and shall allay their pains, and of these the apothecary shall make sweet confections, and shall make up ointments of health, and of his works there shall be no end. 38:8. For the peace of God is over all the face of the earth. 38:9. My son, in thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and he shall heal thee. 38:10. Turn away from sin and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all offence. 38:11. Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering, and then give place to the physician. 38:12. For the Lord created him: and let him not depart from thee, for his works are necessary. 38:13. For there is a time when thou must fall into their hands: 38:14. And they shall beseech the Lord, that he would prosper what they give for ease and remedy, for their conversation. 38:15. He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker, shall fall into the hands of the physician. 38:16. My son, shed tears over the dead, and begin to lament as if thou hadst suffered some great harm, and according to judgment cover his body, and neglect not his burial. 38:17. And for fear of being ill spoken of weep bitterly for a day, and then comfort thyself in thy sadness. 38:18. And make mourning for him according to his merit for a day, or two, for fear of detraction. 38:19. For of sadness cometh death, and it overwhelmeth the strength, and the sorrow of the heart boweth down the neck. 38:20. In withdrawing aside sorrow remaineth: and the substance of the poor is according to his heart. 38:21. Give not up thy heart to sadness, but drive it from thee: and remember the latter end. 38:22. Forget it not: for there is no returning, and thou shalt do him no good, and shalt hurt thyself. 38:23. Remember my judgment: for thine also shall be so: yesterday for me, and to day for thee. 38:24. When the dead is at rest, let his remembrance rest, and comfort him in the departing of his spirit. 38:25. The wisdom of a scribe cometh by his time of leisure: and he that is less in action, shall receive wisdom. A scribe. . .That is, a doctor of the law, or, a learned man. 38:26. With what wisdom shall he be furnished that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth the oxen therewith, and is occupied in their labours, and his whole talk is about the offspring of bulls? 38:27. He shall give his mind to turn up furrows, and his care is to give the kine fodder. 38:28. So every craftsman and workmaster that laboureth night and day, he who maketh graven seals, and by his continual diligence varieth the figure: he shall give his mind to the resemblance of the picture, and by his watching shall finish the work. 38:29. So doth the smith sitting by the anvil and considering the iron work. The vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace. 38:30. The noise of the hammer is always in his ears, and his eye is upon the pattern of the vessel he maketh. 38:31. He setteth his mind to finish his work, and his watching to polish them to perfection. 38:32. So doth the potter sitting at his work, turning the wheel about with his feet, who is always carefully set to his work, and maketh all his work by number: 38:33. He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet: 38:34. He shall give his mind to finish the glazing, and his watching to make clean the furnace. 38:35. All these trust to their hands, and every one is wise in his own art. 38:36. Without these a city is not built. 38:37. And they shall not dwell, nor walk about therein, and they shall not go up into the assembly. 38:38. Upon the judges' seat they shall not sit, and the ordinance of judgment they shall not understand, neither shall they declare discipline and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken: 38:39. But they shall strengthen the state of the world, and their prayer shall be in the work of their craft, applying their soul, and searching in the law of the most High. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 39 The exercises of the wise man. The Lord is to be glorified for his works. 39:1. The wise man will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be occupied in the prophets. 39:2. He will keep the sayings of renowned men, and will enter withal into the subtilties of parables. 39:3. He will search out the hidden meanings of proverbs, and will be conversant in the secrets of parables. 39:4. He shall serve among great men, and appear before the governor. 39:5. He shall pass into strange countries: for he shall try good and evil among men. 39:6. He will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and he will pray in the sight of the most High. 39:7. He will open his mouth in prayer, and will make supplication for his sins. 39:8. For if it shall please the great Lord, he will fill him with the spirit of understanding: 39:9. And he will pour forth the words of his wisdom as showers, and in his prayer he will confess to the Lord. 39:10. And he shall direct his counsel, and his knowledge, and in his secrets shall he meditate. 39:11. He shall shew forth the discipline he hath learned, and shall glory in the law of the covenant of the Lord. 39:12. Many shall praise his wisdom, and it shall never be forgotten. 39:13. The memory of him shall not depart away, and his name shall be in request from generation to generation. 39:14. Nations shall declare his wisdom, and the church shall shew forth his praise. 39:15. If he continue, he shall leave a name above a thousand: and if he rest, it shall be to his advantage. 39:16. I will yet meditate that I may declare: for I am filled as with a holy transport. 39:17. By a voice he saith: Hear me, ye divine offspring, and bud forth as the rose planted by the brooks of waters. Ye divine offspring. . .He speaks to the children of Israel, the people of God: whom he exhorts to bud forth and flourish with virtue. 39:18. Give ye a sweet odour as frankincense. 39:19. Send forth flowers, as the lily, and yield a smell, and bring forth leaves in grace, and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in his works. 39:20. Magnify his name, and give glory to him with the voice of your lips, and with the canticles of your mouths, and with harps, and in praising him, you shall say in this manner: 39:21. All the works of the Lord are exceeding good. 39:22. At his word the waters stood as a heap: and at the words of his mouth the receptacles of waters: 39:23. For at his commandment favour is shewn, and there is no diminishing of his salvation. 39:24. The works of all flesh are before him, and there is nothing hid from his eyes. 39:25. He seeth from eternity to eternity, and there is nothing wonderful before him. 39:26. There is no saying: What is this, or what is that? for all things shall be sought in their time. 39:27. His blessing hath overflowed like a river. 39:28. And as a flood hath watered the earth; so shall his wrath inherit the nations, that have not sought after him. 39:29. Even as he turned the waters into a dry land, and the earth was made dry: and his ways were made plain for their journey: so to sinners they are stumblingblocks in his wrath. 39:30. Good things were created for the good from the beginning, so for the wicked, good and evil things. 39:31. The principal things necessary for the life of men, are water, fire, and iron, salt, milk, and bread of flour, and honey, and the cluster of the grape, and oil, and clothing. 39:32. All these things shall be for good to the holy, so to the sinners and the ungodly they shall be turned into evil. 39:33. There are spirits that are created for vengeance, and in their fury they lay on grievous torments. 39:34. In the time of destruction they shall pour out their force: and they shall appease the wrath of him that made them. 39:35. Fire, hail, famine, and death, all these were created for vengeance. 39:36. The teeth of beasts, and scorpions, and serpents, and the sword taking vengeance upon the ungodly unto destruction. 39:37. In his commandments they shall feast, and they shall be ready upon earth when need is, and when their time is come they shall not transgress his word. 39:38. Therefore from the beginning I was resolved, and I have meditated, and thought on these things and left them in writing, 39:39. All the works of the Lord are good, and he will furnish every work in due time. 39:40. It is not to be said: This is worse than that: for all shall be well approved in their time. 39:41. Now therefore with the whole heart and mouth praise ye him, and bless the name of the Lord. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 40 The miseries of the life of man are relieved by the grace of God and his fear. 40:1. Great labour is created for all men, and a heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb, until the day of their burial into the mother of all. 40:2. Their thoughts, and fears of the heart, their imagination of things to come, and the day of their end: 40:3. From him that sitteth on a glorious throne, unto him that is humbled in earth and ashes: 40:4. From him that weareth purple, and beareth the crown, even to him that is covered with rough linen: wrath, envy, trouble, unquietness, and the fear of death, continual anger, and strife, 40:5. And in the time of rest upon his bed, the sleep of the night changeth his knowledge. 40:6. A little and as nothing is his rest, and afterward in sleep, as in the day of keeping watch. 40:7. He is troubled in the vision of his heart, as if he had escaped in the day of battle. In the time of his safety he rose up, and wondereth that there is no fear. 40:8. Such things happen to all flesh, from man even to beast, and upon sinners are sevenfold more. 40:9. Moreover, death, and bloodshed, strife, and sword, oppressions, famine, and affliction, and scourges: 40:10. All these things are created for the wicked, and for their sakes came the flood. 40:11. All things that are of the earth, shall return to the earth again, and all waters shall return to the sea. 40:12. All bribery, and injustice shall be blotted out, and fidelity shall stand for ever. 40:13. The riches of the unjust shall be dried up like a river, and shall pass away with a noise like a great thunder in rain. 40:14. While he openeth his hands he shall rejoice: but transgressors shall pine away in the end. 40:15. The offspring of the ungodly shall not bring forth many branches, and make a noise as unclean roots upon the top of a rock. 40:16. The weed growing over every water, and at the bank of the river, shall be pulled up before all grass. 40:17. Grace is like a paradise in blessings, and mercy remaineth for ever. 40:18. The life of a laborer that is content with what he hath, shall be sweet, and in it thou shalt find a treasure. 40:19. Children, and the building of a city shall establish a name, but a blameless wife shall be counted above them both. 40:20. Wine and music rejoice the heart, but the love of wisdom is above them both. 40:21. The flute and the psaltery make a sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both. 40:22. Thy eye desireth favour and beauty, but more than these green sown fields. 40:23. A friend and companion meeting together in season, but above them both is a wife with her husband. 40:24. Brethren are a help in the time of trouble, but mercy shall deliver more than they. 40:25. Gold and silver make the feet stand sure: but wise counsel is above them both. 40:26. Riches and strength lift up the heart: but above these is the fear of the Lord. 40:27. There is no want in the fear of the Lord, and it needeth not to seek for help. 40:28. The fear of the Lord is like a paradise of blessing, and they have covered it above all glory. 40:29. My son, in thy lifetime be not indigent: for it is better to die than to want. 40:30. The life of him that looketh toward another man's table is not to be counted a life: for he feedeth his soul with another man's meat. 40:31. But a man, well instructed and taught, will look to himself. 40:32. Begging will be sweet in the mouth of the unwise, but in his belly there shall burn a fire. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 41 Of the remembrance of death: of an evil and of a good name: of what things we ought to be ashamed. 41:1. O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions! 41:2. To a man that is at rest, and whose ways are prosperous in all things, and that is yet able to take meat! 41:3. O death thy sentence is welcome to the man that is in need, and to him whose strength faileth: 41:4. Who is in a decrepit age, and that is in care about all things, and to the distrustful that loseth patience! 41:5. Fear not the sentence of death. Remember what things have been before thee, and what shall come after thee: this sentence is from the Lord upon all flesh. 41:6. And what shall come upon thee by the good pleasure of the most High? whether ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years. 41:7. For among the dead there is no accusing of life. 41:8. The children of sinners become children of abominations, and they that converse near the houses of the ungodly. 41:9. The inheritance of the children of sinners shall perish, and with their posterity shall be a perpetual reproach. 41:10. The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach. 41:11. Woe to you, ungodly men, who have forsaken the law of the most high Lord. 41:12. And if you be born, you shall be born in malediction: and if you die, in malediction shall be your portion. 41:13. All things that are of the earth, shall return into the earth: so the ungodly shall from malediction to destruction. 41:14. The mourning of men is about their body, but the name of the ungodly shall be blotted out. 41:15. Take care of a good name: for this shall continue with thee, more than a thousand treasures precious and great. 41:16. A good life hath its number of days: but a good name shall continue for ever. 41:17. My children, keep discipline in peace: for wisdom that is hid, and a treasure that is not seen, what profit is there in them both? 41:18. Better is the man that hideth his folly, than the man that hideth his wisdom. 41:19. Wherefore have a shame of these things I am now going to speak of. Have a shame, etc. . .That is to say, be ashamed of doing any of these things, which I am now going to mention; for though sometimes shamefacedness is not to be indulged: yet it is often good and necessary: as in the following cases. 41:20. For it is not good to keep all shamefacedness: and all things do not please all men in opinion. 41:21. Be ashamed of fornication before father and mother: and of a lie before a governor and a man in power: 41:22. Of an offence before a prince, and a judge: of iniquity before a congregation and a people: 41:23. Of injustice before a companion and friend: and in regard to the place where thou dwellest, 41:24. Of theft, and of the truth of God, and the covenant: of leaning with thy elbow over meat, and of deceit in giving and taking: 41:25. Of silence before them that salute thee: of looking upon a harlot: and of turning away thy face from thy kinsman. 41:26. Turn not away thy face from thy neighbour, and of taking away a portion and not restoring. 41:27. Gaze not upon another man's wife, and be not inquisitive after his handmaid, and approach not her bed. 41:28. Be ashamed of upbraiding speeches before friends: and after thou hast given, upbraid not. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 42 Of what things we ought not to be ashamed. Cautions with regard to women. The works and greatness of God. 42:1. Repeat not the word which thou hast heard, and disclose not the thing that is secret; so shalt thou be truly without confusion, and shalt find favour before all men: be not ashamed of any of these things, and accept no person to sin thereby: 42:2. Of the law of the most High, and of his covenant, and of judgment to justify the ungodly: 42:3. Of the affair of companions and travellers, and of the gift of the inheritance of friends: 42:4. Of exactness of balance and weights, of getting much or little: 42:5. Of the corruption of buying, and of merchants, and of much correction of children, and to make the side of a wicked slave to bleed. 42:6. Sure keeping is good over a wicked wife. 42:7. Where there are many hands, shut up, and deliver all things in number, and weight: and put all in writing that thou givest out or receivest in. 42:8. Be not ashamed to inform the unwise and foolish, and the aged, that are judged by young men: and thou shalt be well instructed in all things, and well approved in the sight of all men living. 42:9. The father waketh for the daughter when no man knoweth, and the care for her taketh away his sleep, when she is young, lest she pass away the flower of her age, and when she is married, lest she should be hateful: 42:10. In her virginity, lest she should be corrupted, and be found with child in her father's house: and having a husband, lest she should misbehave herself, or at the least become barren. 42:11. Keep a sure watch over a shameless daughter: lest at anytime she make thee become a laughingstock to thy enemies, and a byword in the city, and a reproach among the people, and she make thee ashamed before all the multitude. 42:12. Behold not everybody's beauty: and tarry not among women. 42:13. For from garments cometh a moth, and from a woman the iniquity of a man. 42:14. For better is the iniquity of a man, than a woman doing a good turn, and a woman bringing shame and reproach. Better is the iniquity, etc. . .That is, there is, commonly speaking, less danger to be apprehended to the soul from the churlishness, or injuries we receive from men, than from the flattering favours and familiarity of women. 42:15. I will now remember the works of the Lord, and I will declare the things I have seen. By the words of the Lord are his works. 42:16. The sun giving light hath looked upon all things, and full of the glory of the Lord is his work. 42:17. Hath not the Lord made the saints to declare all his wonderful works, which the Lord Almighty hath firmly settled to be established for his glory? 42:18. He hath searched out the deep, and the heart of men: and considered their crafty devices. 42:19. For the Lord knoweth all knowledge, and hath beheld the signs of the world, he declareth the things that are past, and the things that are to come, and revealeth the traces of hidden things. 42:20. No thought escapeth him, and no word can hide itself from him. 42:21. He hath beautified the glorious works of his wisdom: and he is from eternity to eternity, and to him nothing may be added, 42:22. Nor can he be diminished, and he hath no need of any counsellor. 42:23. O how desirable are all his works, and what we can know is but as a spark! 42:24. All these things live, and remain for ever, and for every use all things obey him. 42:25. All things are double, one against another, and he hath made nothing defective. 42:26. He hath established the good things of every one. And who shall be filled with beholding his glory? Ecclesiasticus Chapter 43 The works of God are exceedingly glorious and wonderful: no man is able sufficiently to praise him. 43:1. The firmament on high is his beauty, the beauty of heaven with its glorious shew. 43:2. The sun when he appeareth shewing forth at his rising, an admirable instrument, the work of the most High. 43:3. At noon he burneth the earth, and who can abide his burning heat? As one keeping a furnace in the works of heat: 43:4. The sun three times as much, burneth the mountains, breathing out fiery vapours, and shining with his beams, he blindeth the eyes. 43:5. Great is the Lord that made him, and at his words he hath hastened his course. 43:6. And the moon in all in her season, is for a declaration of times and a sign of the world. 43:7. From the moon is the sign of the festival day, a light that decreaseth in her perfection. 43:8. The month is called after her name, increasing wonderfully in her perfection. 43:9. Being an instrument of the armies on high, shining gloriously in the firmament of heaven. 43:10. The glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven; the Lord enlighteneth the world on high. 43:11. By the words of the holy one they stand in judgment, and shall never fall in their watches. 43:12. Look upon the rainbow, and bless him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness. 43:13. It encompasseth the heaven about with the circle of its glory, the hands of the most High have displayed it. 43:14. By his commandment he maketh the snow to fall apace, and sendeth forth swiftly the lightnings of his judgment. 43:15. Through this are the treasures opened, and the clouds fly out like birds. 43:16. By his greatness he hath fixed the clouds, and the hailstones are broken. 43:17. At his sight shall the mountains be shaken, and at his will the south wind shall blow. 43:18. The noise of his thunder shall strike the earth, so doth the northern storm, and the whirlwind: 43:19. And as the birds lighting upon the earth, he scattereth snow, and the falling thereof, is as the coming down of locusts. 43:20. The eye admireth at the beauty of the whiteness thereof, and the heart is astonished at the shower thereof. 43:21. He shall pour frost as salt upon the earth: and when it freezeth, it shall become like the tops of thistles. 43:22. The cold north wind bloweth, and the water is congealed into crystal; upon every gathering together of waters it shall rest, and shall clothe the waters as a breastplate. 43:23. And it shall devour the mountains, and burn the wilderness, and consume all that is green as with fire. 43:24. A present remedy of all is the speedy coming of a cloud, and a dew that meeteth it, by the heat that cometh, shall overpower it. 43:25. At his word the wind is still, and with his thought he appeaseth the deep, and the Lord hath planted islands therein. 43:26. Let them that sail on the sea, tell the dangers thereof: and when we hear with our ears, we shall admire. 43:27. There are great and wonderful works: a variety of beasts, and of all living things, and the monstrous creatures of whales. 43:28. Through him is established the end of their journey, and by his word all things are regulated. 43:29. We shall say much, and yet shall want words: but the sum of our words is, He is all. 43:30. What shall we be able to do to glorify him? for the Almighty himself is above all his works. 43:31. The Lord is terrible, and exceeding great, and his power is admirable. 43:32. Glorify the Lord as much as ever you can, for he will yet far exceed, and his magnificence is wonderful. 43:33. Blessing the Lord, exalt him as much as you can; for he is above all praise. 43:34. When you exalt him put forth all your strength, and be not weary: for you can never go far enough. 43:35. Who shall see him, and declare him? and who shall magnify him as he is from the beginning? 43:36. There are many things hidden from us that are greater than these: for we have seen but a few of his works. 43:37. But the Lord hath made all things, and to the godly he hath given wisdom. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 44 The praises of the holy fathers, in particular of Enoch, Noe, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 44:1. Let us now praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation. 44:2. The Lord hath wrought great glory through his magnificence from the beginning. 44:3. Such as have borne rule in their dominions, men of great power, and endued with their wisdom, shewing forth in the prophets the dignity of prophets, 44:4. And ruling over the present people, and by the strength of wisdom instructing the people in most holy words. 44:5. Such as by their skill sought out musical tunes, and published canticles of the scriptures. 44:6. Rich men in virtue, studying beautifulness: living at peace in their houses. 44:7. All these have gained glory in their generations, and were praised in their days. 44:8. They that were born of them have left a name behind them, that their praises might be related: 44:9. And there are some, of whom there is no memorial: who are perished, as if they had never been: and are become as if they had never been born, and their children with them. 44:10. But these were men of mercy, whose godly deeds have not failed: 44:11. Good things continue with their seed, 44:12. Their posterity are a holy inheritance, and their seed hath stood in the covenants. 44:13. And their children for their sakes remain for ever: their seed and their glory shall not be forsaken. 44:14. Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation. 44:15. Let the people shew forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise. 44:16. Henoch pleased God, and was translated into paradise, that he may give repentance to the nations. 44:17. Noe was found perfect, just, and in the time of wrath he was made a reconciliation. 44:18. Therefore was there a remnant left to the earth, when the flood came. 44:19. The covenants of the world were made with him, that all flesh should no more be destroyed with the flood. 44:20. Abraham was the great father of a multitude of nations, and there was not found the like to him in glory, who kept the law of the most High, and was in covenant with him. 44:21. In his flesh he established the covenant, and in temptation he was found faithful. 44:22. Therefore by an oath he gave him glory in his posterity, that he should increase as the dust of the earth, 44:23. And that he would exalt his seed as the stars, and they should inherit from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. 44:24. And he did in like manner with Isaac for the sake of Abraham his father. 44:25. The Lord gave him the blessing of all nations, and confirmed his covenant upon the head of Jacob. 44:26. He acknowledged him in his blessings, and gave him an inheritance, and divided him his portion in twelve tribes. 44:27. And he preserved for him men of mercy, that found grace in the eyes of all flesh. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 45 The praises of Moses, of Aaron, and of Phinees. 45:1. Moses was beloved of God, and men: whose memory is in benediction. 45:2. He made him like the saints in glory, and magnified him in the fear of his enemies, and with his words he made prodigies to cease. 45:3. He glorified him in the sight of kings, and gave him commandments in the sight of his people, and shewed him his glory. 45:4. He sanctified him in his faith, and meekness, and chose him out of all flesh. 45:5. For he heard him, and his voice, and brought him into a cloud. 45:6. And he gave him commandments before his face, and a law of life and instruction, that he might teach Jacob his covenant, and Israel his judgments. 45:7. He exalted Aaron his brother, and like to himself of the tribe of Levi: 45:8. He made an everlasting covenant with him, and gave him the priesthood of the nation, and made him blessed in glory, 45:9. And he girded him about with a glorious girdle, and clothed him with a robe of glory, and crowned him with majestic attire. 45:10. He put upon him a garment to the feet, and breeches, and an ephod, and he compassed him with many little bells of gold all round about, 45:11. That as he went there might be a sound, and a noise made that might be heard in the temple, for a memorial to the children of his people. 45:12. He gave him a holy robe of gold, and blue, and purple, a woven work of a wise man, endued with judgment and truth: 45:13. Of twisted scarlet the work of an artist, with precious stones cut and set in gold, and graven by the work of a lapidary for a memorial, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 45:14. And a crown of gold upon his mitre wherein was engraved Holiness, an ornament of honour: a work of power, and delightful to the eyes for its beauty. 45:15. Before him there were none so beautiful, even from the beginning. 45:16. No stranger was ever clothed with them, but only his children alone, and his grandchildren for ever. 45:17. His sacrifices were consumed with fire every day. 45:18. Moses filled his hands and anointed him with holy oil. 45:19. This was made to him for an everlasting testament, and to his seed as the days of heaven, to execute the office of the priesthood, and to have praise, and to glorify his people in his name. 45:20. He chose him out of all men living, to offer sacrifice to God, incense, and a good savour, for a memorial to make reconciliation for his people: 45:21. And he gave him power in his commandments, in the covenants of his judgments, that he should teach Jacob his testimonies, and give light to Israel in his law. 45:22. And strangers stood up against him, and through envy the men that were with Dathan and Abiron, compassed him about in the wilderness, and the congregation of Core in their wrath. 45:23. The Lord God saw and it pleased him not, and they were consumed in his wrathful indignation. 45:24. He wrought wonders upon them, and consumed them with a flame of fire. 45:25. And he added glory to Aaron, and gave him an inheritance, and divided unto him the firstfruits of the increase of the earth. 45:26. He prepared them bread in the first place unto fulness: for the sacrifices also of the Lord they shall eat, which he gave to him, and to his seed. 45:27. But he shall not inherit among the people in the land, and he hath no portion among the people: for he himself is his portion and inheritance. 45:28. Phinees the son of Eleazar is the third in glory, by imitating him in the fear of the Lord: 45:29. And he stood up in the shameful fall of the people: in the goodness and readiness of his soul he appeased God for Israel. 45:30. Therefore he made to him a covenant of peace, to be the prince of the sanctuary, and of his people, that the dignity of priesthood should be to him and to his seed for ever. 45:31. And a covenant to David the king, the son of Jesse of the tribe of Juda, an inheritance to him and to his seed, that he might give wisdom into our heart to judge his people in justice, that their good things might not be abolished, and he made their glory in their nation everlasting. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 46 The praise of Josue, of Caleb, and of Samuel. 46:1. Valiant in war was Jesus the son of Nave, who was successor of Moses among the prophets, who was great according to his name, Jesus the son of Nave. . .So Josue is named in the Greek Bibles. For Josue and Jesus signify the same thing, viz., a saviour. 46:2. Very great for the saving the elect of God, to overthrow the enemies that rose up against them, that he might get the inheritance for Israel. 46:3. How great glory did he gain when he lifted up his hands, and stretched out swords against the cities? 46:4. Who before him hath so resisted? for the Lord himself brought the enemies. 46:5. Was not the sun stopped in his anger, and one day made as two? 46:6. He called upon the most high Sovereign when the enemies assaulted him on every side, and the great and holy God heard him by hailstones of exceeding great force. 46:7. He made a violent assault against the nation of his enemies, and in the descent he destroyed the adversaries. And in the descent. . .Of Beth-horon (Jos. 10.). 46:8. That the nations might know his power, that it is not easy to fight against God. And he followed the mighty one: 46:9. And in the days of Moses he did a work of mercy, he and Caleb the son of Jephone, in standing against the enemy, and withholding the people from sins, and appeasing the wicked murmuring. 46:10. And they two being appointed, were delivered out of the danger from among the number of six hundred thousand men on foot, to bring them into their inheritance, into the land that floweth with milk and honey. 46:11. And the Lord gave strength also to Caleb, and his strength continued even to his old age, so that he went up to the high places of the land, and his seed obtained it for an inheritance: 46:12. That all the children of Israel might see, that it is good to obey the holy God. 46:13. Then all the judges, every one by name, whose heart was not corrupted: who turned not away from the Lord, 46:14. That their memory might be blessed, and their bones spring up out of their place, 46:15. And their name continue for ever, the glory of the holy men remaining unto their children. 46:16. Samuel the prophet of the Lord, the beloved of the Lord his God, established a new government, and anointed princes over his people. 46:17. By the law of the Lord he judged the congregation, and the God of Jacob beheld, and by his fidelity he was proved a prophet. 46:18. And he was known to be faithful in his words, because he saw the God of light: 46:19. And called upon the name of the Lord Almighty, in fighting against the enemies who beset him on every side, when he offered a lamb without blemish. 46:20. And the Lord thundered from heaven, and with a great noise made his voice to be heard. 46:21. And he crushed the princes of the Tyrians, and all the lords of the Philistines: 46:22. And before the time of the end of his life in the world, he protested before the Lord, and his anointed: money, or any thing else, even to a shoe, he had not taken of any man, and no man did accuse him. 46:23. And after this he slept, and he made known to the king, and shewed him the end of his life, and he lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy to blot out the wickedness of the nation. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 47 The praise of Nathan, of David, and of Solomon: Of his fall and punishment. 47:1. Then Nathan the prophet arose in the days of David. 47:2. And as the fat taken away from the flesh, so was David chosen from among the children of Israel. 47:3. He played with lions as with lambs: and with bears he did in like manner as with the lambs of the flock, in his youth. 47:4. Did not he kill the giant, and take away reproach from his people? 47:5. In lifting up his hand, with the stone in the sling he beat down the boasting of Goliath: 47:6. For he called upon the Lord the Almighty, and he gave strength in his right hand, to take away the mighty warrior, and to set up the horn of his nation. 47:7. So in ten thousand did he glorify him, and praised him in the blessings of the Lord, in offering to him a crown of glory: 47:8. For he destroyed the enemies on every side, and extirpated the Philistines the adversaries unto this day: he broke their horn for ever. 47:9. In all his works he gave thanks to the holy one, and to the most High, with words of glory. 47:10. With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and he gave him power against his enemies: 47:11. And he set singers before the altar, and by their voices he made sweet melody. 47:12. And to the festivals he added beauty, and set in order the solemn times even to the end of his life, that they should praise the holy name of the Lord, and magnify the holiness of God in the morning. 47:13. The Lord took away his sins, and exalted his horn for ever: and he gave him a covenant of the kingdom, and a throne of glory in Israel. 47:14. After him arose up a wise son, and for his sake he cast down all the power of the enemies. 47:15. Solomon reigned in days of peace, and God brought all his enemies under him, that he might build a house in his name, and prepare a sanctuary for ever: O how wise wast thou in thy youth! 47:16. And thou wast filled as a river with wisdom, and thy soul covered the earth. 47:17. And thou didst multiply riddles in parables: thy name went abroad to the islands far off, and thou wast beloved in thy peace. 47:18. The countries wondered at thee for thy canticles, and proverbs, and parables, and interpretations, 47:19. And at the name of the Lord God, whose surname is, God of Israel. 47:20. Thou didst gather gold as copper, and didst multiply silver as lead, 47:21. And thou didst bow thyself to women: and by thy body thou wast brought under subjection. 47:22. Thou hast stained thy glory, and defiled thy seed so as to bring wrath upon thy children, and to have thy folly kindled, 47:23. That thou shouldst make the kingdom to be divided, and out of Ephraim a rebellious kingdom to rule. 47:24. But God will not leave off his mercy, and he will not destroy, nor abolish his own works, neither will he cut up by the roots the offspring of his elect: and he will not utterly take away the seed of him that loveth the Lord. 47:25. Wherefore he gave a remnant to Jacob, and to David of the same stock. 47:26. And Solomon had an end with his fathers. 47:27. And he left behind him of his seed, the folly of the nation, 47:28. Even Roboam that had little wisdom, who turned away the people through his counsel: 47:29. And Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who caused Israel to sin, and shewed Ephraim the way of sin, and their sins were multiplied exceedingly. 47:30. They removed them far away from their land. 47:31. And they sought out all iniquities, till vengeance came upon them, and put an end to all their sins. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 48 The praise of Elias, of Eliseus, of Ezechias, and of Isaias. 48:1. And Elias the prophet stood up, as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch. 48:2. He brought a famine upon them, and they that provoked him in their envy, were reduced to a small number, for they could not endure the commandments of the Lord. 48:3. By the word of the Lord he shut up the heaven, and he brought down fire from heaven thrice. 48:4. Thus was Elias magnified in his wondrous works. And who can glory like to thee? 48:5. Who raisedst up a dead man from below, from the lot of death, by the word of the Lord God. 48:6. Who broughtest down kings to destruction, and brokest easily their power in pieces, and the glorious from their bed. 48:7. Who heardest judgment in Sina, and in Horeb the judgments of vengeance. 48:8. Who anointedst kings to penance, and madest prophets successors after thee. 48:9. Who wast taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. 48:10. Who art registered in the judgments of times to appease the wrath of the Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. 48:11. Blessed are they that saw thee, and were honoured with thy friendship. 48:12. For we live only in our life, but after death our name shall not be such. 48:13. Elias was indeed covered with the whirlwind, and his spirit was filled up in Eliseus: in his days he feared not the prince, and no man was more powerful than he. 48:14. No word could overcome him, and after death his body prophesied. 48:15. In his life he did great wonders, and in death he wrought miracles. 48:16. For all this the people repented not, neither did they depart from their sins till they were cast out of their land, and were scattered through all the earth. 48:17. And there was left but a small people, and a prince in the house of David. 48:18. Some of these did that which pleased God: but others committed many sins. 48:19. Ezechias fortified his city, and brought in water into the midst thereof, and he digged a rock with iron, and made a well for water. 48:20. In his days Sennacherib came up, and sent Rabsaces, and lifted up his hand against them, and he stretched out his hand against Sion, and became proud through his power. 48:21. Then their hearts and hands trembled, and they were in pain as women in travail. 48:22. And they called upon the Lord who is merciful, and spreading their hands, they lifted them up to heaven: and the holy Lord God quickly heard their voice. 48:23. He was not mindful of their sins, neither did he deliver them up to their enemies, but he purified them by the hand of Isaias, the holy prophet. 48:24. He overthrew the army of the Assyrians, and the angel of the Lord destroyed them. 48:25. For Ezechias did that which pleased God, and walked valiantly in the way of David his father, which Isaias, the great prophet, and faithful in the sight of God, had commanded him. 48:26. In his days the sun wen backward, and he lengthened the king's life. 48:27. With a great spirit he saw the things that are to come to pass at last, and comforted the mourners in Sion. 48:28. He showed what should come to pass for ever, and secret things before they came. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 49 The praise of Josias, of Jeremias, Ezechiel, and the twelve prophets. Also of Zorobabel, Jesus the son of Josedech, Nehemias, Enoch, Joseph, Seth, Sem, and Adam. 49:1. The memory of Josias is like the composition of a sweet smell made by the art of a perfumer: 49:2. His remembrance shall be sweet as honey in every mouth, and as music at a banquet of wine. 49:3. He was directed by God unto the repentance of the nation, and he took away the abominations of wickedness. 49:4. And he directed his heart towards the Lord, and in the days of sinners he strengthened godliness. 49:5. Except David, and Ezechias and Josias, all committed sin. 49:6. For the kings of Juda forsook the law of the most High, and despised the fear of God. 49:7. So they gave their kingdom to others, and their glory to a strange nation, 49:8. They burnt the chosen city of holiness, and made the streets thereof desolate according to the prediction of Jeremias. 49:9. For they treated him evil, who was consecrated a prophet from his mother's womb, to overthrow, and pluck up, and destroy, and to build again, and renew. 49:10. It was Ezechiel that saw the glorious vision, which was shewn him upon the chariot of cherubims. 49:11. For he made mention of the enemies under the figure of rain, and of doing good to them that shewed right ways. 49:12. And may the bones of the twelve prophets spring up out of their place: for they strengthened Jacob, and redeemed themselves by strong faith. 49:13. How shall we magnify Zorobabel? for he was as a signet on the right hand; 49:14. In like manner Jesus the son of Josedec who in their days built the house, and set up a holy temple to the Lord, prepared for everlasting glory. 49:15. And let Nehemias be a long time remembered, who raised up for us our walls that were cast down, and set up the gates and the bars, who rebuilt our houses. 49:16. No man was born upon earth like Henoch: for he also was taken up from the earth. 49:17. Nor as Joseph, who was a man born prince of his brethren, the support of his family, the ruler of his brethren, the stay of the people: 49:18. And his bones were visited, and after death they prophesied. They prophesied. . .That is, by their being carried out of Egypt they verified the prophetic prediction of Joseph. Gen. 50. 49:19. Seth and Sem obtained glory among men: and above every soul Adam in the beginning, Ecclesiasticus Chapter 50 The praises of Simon the high priest. The conclusion. 50:1. Simon the high priest, the son of Onias, who in his life propped up the house, and in his days fortified the temple. 50:2. By him also the height of the temple was founded, the double building and the high walls of the temple. 50:3. In his days the wells of water flowed out, and they were filled as the sea above measure. 50:4. He took care of his nation, and delivered it from destruction. 50:5. He prevailed to enlarge the city, and obtained glory in his conversation with the people: and enlarged the entrance of the house and the court. 50:6. He shone in his days as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full. 50:7. And as the sun when it shineth, so did he shine in the temple of God. 50:8. And as the rainbow giving light in bright clouds, and as the flower of roses in the days of the spring, and as the lilies that are on the brink of the water, and as the sweet smelling frankincense in the time of summer. 50:9. As a bright fire, and frankincense burning in the fire. 50:10. As a massy vessel of gold, adorned with every precious stone. 50:11. As an olive tree budding forth, and a cypress tree rearing itself on high, when he put on the robe of glory, and was clothed with the perfection of power. Clothed with the perfection of power. . .That is, with all the vestments denoting his dignity and authority. 50:12. When he went up to the holy altar, he honoured the vesture of holiness. 50:13. And when he took the portions out of the hands of the priests, he himself stood by the altar. And about him was the ring of his brethren: and as the cedar planted in mount Libanus, 50:14. And as branches of palm trees, they stood round about him, and all the sons of Aaron in their glory. 50:15. And the oblation of the Lord was in their hands, before all the congregation of Israel: and finishing his service, on the altar, to honour the offering of the most high King, 50:16. He stretched forth his hand to make a libation, and offered of the blood of the grape. 50:17. He poured out at the foot of the altar a divine odour to the most high Prince. 50:18. Then the sons of Aaron shouted, they sounded with beaten trumpets, and made a great noise to be heard for a remembrance before God. 50:19. Then all the people together made haste, and fell down to the earth upon their faces, to adore the Lord their God, and to pray to the Almighty God the most High. 50:20. And the singers lifted up their voices, and in the great house the sound of sweet melody was increased. 50:21. And the people in prayer besought the Lord the most High, until the worship of the Lord was perfected, and they had finished their office. 50:22. Then coming down, he lifted up his hands over all the congregation of the children of Israel, to give glory to God with his lips, and to glory in his name: 50:23. And he repeated his prayer, willing to shew the power of God. 50:24. And now pray ye to the God of all, who hath done great things in all the earth, who hath increased our days from our mother's womb, and hath done with us according to his mercy. 50:25. May he grant us joyfulness of heart, and that there be peace in our days in Israel for ever: 50:26. That Israel may believe that the mercy of God is with us, to deliver us in his days. 50:27. There are two nations which my soul abhorreth: and the third is no nation: which I hate: Abhorreth. . .Viz., with a holy indignation, as enemies of God and persecutors of his people. Such were then the Edomites who abode in mount Seir, the Philistines, and the Samaritans who dwelt in Sichem, and had their schismatical temple in that neighbourhood. 50:28. They that sit on mount Seir, and the Philistines, and the foolish people that dwell in Sichem. 50:29. Jesus the son of Sirach, of Jerusalem, hath written in this book the doctrine of wisdom and instruction, who renewed wisdom from his heart. 50:30. Blessed is he that is conversant in these good things and he that layeth them up in his heart, shall be wise always. 50:31. For if he do them, he shall be strong to do all things: because the light of God guideth his steps. Ecclesiasticus Chapter 51 A prayer of praise and thanksgiving. 51:1. A prayer of Jesus the son of Sirach. I will give glory to thee, O Lord, O King, and I will praise thee, O God my Saviour. 51:2. I will give glory to thy name: for thou hast been a helper and protector to me. 51:3. And hast preserved my body from destruction, from the snare of an unjust tongue, and from the lips of them that forge lies, and in the sight of them that stood by, thou hast been my helper. 51:4. And thou hast delivered me, according to the multitude of the mercy of thy name, from them that did roar, prepared to devour. 51:5. Out of the hands of them that sought my life, and from the gates of afflictions, which compassed me about: 51:6. From the oppression of the flame which surrounded me, and in the midst of the fire I was not burnt. 51:7. From the depth of the belly of hell, and from an unclean tongue, and from lying words, from an unjust king, and from a slanderous tongue: 51:8. My soul shall praise the Lord even to death. 51:9. And my life was drawing near to hell beneath. 51:10. They compassed me on every side, and there was no one that would help me. I looked for the succour of men, and there was none. 51:11. I remembered thy mercy, O Lord, and thy works, which are from the beginning of the world. 51:12. How thou deliverest them that wait for thee, O Lord, and savest them out of the hands of the nations. 51:13. Thou hast exalted my dwelling place upon the earth and I have prayed for death to pass away. 51:14. I called upon the Lord, the father of my Lord, that he would not leave me in the day of my trouble, and in the time of the proud without help. 51:15. I will praise thy name continually, and will praise it with thanksgiving, and my prayer was heard. 51:16. And thou hast saved me from destruction, and hast delivered me from the evil time. 51:17. Therefore I will give thanks, and praise thee, and bless the name of the Lord. 51:18. When I was yet young, before I wandered about, I sought for wisdom openly in my prayer. 51:19. I prayed for her before the temple, and unto the very end I will seek after her, and she flourished as a grape soon ripe. 51:20. My heart delighted in her, my foot walked in the right way, from my youth up I sought after her. 51:21. I bowed down my ear a little, and received her. 51:22. I found much wisdom in myself, and profited much therein. 51:23. To him that giveth me wisdom, will I give glory. 51:24. For I have determined to follow her: I have had a zeal for good, and shall not be confounded. 51:25. My soul hath wrestled for her, and in doing it I have been confirmed. 51:26. I stretched forth my hands on high, and I bewailed my ignorance of her. 51:27. I directed my soul to her, and in knowledge I found her. 51:28. I possessed my heart with her from the beginning: therefore I shall not be forsaken. 51:29. My entrails were troubled in seeking her: therefore shall I possess a good possession. 51:30. The Lord hath given me a tongue for my reward: and with it I will praise him. 51:31. Draw near to me, ye unlearned, and gather yourselves together into the hours of discipline. 51:32. Why are ye slow and what do you say of these things? your souls are exceeding thirsty. 51:33. I have opened my mouth, and have spoken: buy her for yourselves without silver, 51:34. And submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline: for she is near at hand to be found. 51:35. Behold with your eyes how I have laboured a little, and have found much rest to myself. 51:36. Receive ye discipline as a great sum of money, and possess abundance of gold by her. 51:37. Let your soul rejoice in his mercy and you shall not be confounded in his praise. 51:38. Work your work before the time, and he will give you your reward in his time. THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAS This inspired writer is called by the Holy Ghost, the great prophet, (Ecclesiasticus 48.25,) from the greatness of his prophetic spirit, by which he hath foretold so long before, and in so clear a manner, the coming of Christ, the mysteries of our redemption, the calling of the Gentiles, and the glorious establishment, and perpetual flourishing of the church of Christ: insomuch that he may seem to have been rather an evangelist than a prophet. His very name is not without mystery; for Isaias in Hebrew signifies the salvation of the Lord, or Jesus is the Lord. He was, according to the tradition of the Hebrews, of the blood royal of the kings of Juda: and after a most holy life, ended his days by a glorious martyrdom; being sawed in two, at the command of his wicked son in law, King Manasses, for reproving his evil ways. Isaias Chapter 1 The prophet complains of the sins of Juda and Jerusalem, and exhorts them to a sincere conversion. 1:1. The vision of Isaias the Son of Amos, which he saw concerning Juda and Jerusalem in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda. 1:2. Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me. 1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. 1:4. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards. 1:5. For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. 1:6. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil. 1:7. Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies. 1:8. And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste. 1:9. Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha. 1:10. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha. 1:11. To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. 1:12. When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts? 1:13. Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. 1:14. My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. 1:15. And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood. 1:16. Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes, cease to do perversely, 1:17. Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. 1:18. And then come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool. 1:19. If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. 1:20. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 1:21. How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers. 1:22. Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water. 1:23. Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and the widow's cause cometh not in to them. 1:24. Therefore saith the Lord the God of hosts, the mighty one of Israel: Ah! I will comfort myself over my adversaries: and I will be revenged of my enemies. 1:25. And I will turn my hand to thee, and I will clean purge away thy dross, and I will take away all thy tin. 1:26. And I will restore thy judges as they were before, and thy counsellors as of old. After this thou shalt be called the city of the just, a faithful city. 1:27. Sion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back in justice. 1:28. And he shall destroy the wicked, and the sinners together: and they that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed. 1:29. For they shall be confounded for the idols, to which they have sacrificed: and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen. 1:30. When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water. 1:31. And your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench it. Isaias Chapter 2 All nations shall flow to the church of Christ. The Jews shall be rejected for their sins. Idolatry shall be destroyed. 2:1. The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw, concerning Juda and Jerusalem. 2:2. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. The last days. . .The whole time of the new law, from the coming of Christ till the end of the world, is called in the scripture the last days; because no other age or time shall come after it, but only eternity.--Ibid. On the top of mountains, etc. . .This shews the perpetual visibility of the church of Christ: for a mountain upon the top of mountains cannot be hid. 2:3. And many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 2:4. And he shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people: and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war. 2:5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. 2:6. For thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob: because they are filled as in times past, and have had soothsayers as the Philistines, and have adhered to strange children. 2:7. Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of their treasures. 2:8. And their land is filled with horses: and their chariots are innumerable. Their land also is full of idols: they have adored the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made. 2:9. And man hath bowed himself down, and man hath been debased: therefore forgive them not. 2:10. Enter thou into the rock, and hide thee in the pit from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. 2:11. The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be made to stoop: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 2:12. Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and highminded, and upon every one that is arrogant, and he shall be humbled. 2:13. And upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Libanus, and upon all the oaks of Basan. 2:14. And upon all the high mountains and upon all the elevated hills. 2:15. And upon every high tower, and every fenced wall. 2:16. And upon all the ships of Tharsis, and upon all that is fair to behold. 2:17. And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 2:18. And idols shall be utterly destroyed. Idols shall be utterly destroyed. . .or utterly pass away. This was verified by the establishment of Christianity. And by this and other texts of the like nature, the wild system of some modern sectaries is abundantly confuted, who charge the whole Christian church with worshipping idols, for many ages. 2:19. And they shall go into the holes of rocks, and into the caves of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth. 2:20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats. 2:21. And he shall go into the clefts of rocks, and into the holes of stones from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth. 2:22. Cease ye therefore from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed high. Isaias Chapter 3 The confusion and other evils that shall come upon the Jews for their sins. The pride of their women shall be punished. 3:1. For behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem, and from Juda the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water. 3:2. The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet and the cunning man, and the ancient. 3:3. The captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skilful in eloquent speech. 3:4. And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them. 3:5. And the people shall rush one upon another, and every man against his neighbour: the child shall make a tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. 3:6. For a man shall take hold of his brother, one of the house of his father, saying: Thou hast a garment, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand. 3:7. In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people. 3:8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Juda is fallen: because their tongue, and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty. 3:9. The shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them. 3:10. Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings. 3:11. Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. 3:12. As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them. O my people, they that call thee blessed, the same deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps. 3:13. The Lord standeth up to judge, and he standeth to judge the people. 3:14. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your house. 3:15. Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord the God of hosts. 3:16. And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and have walked with stretched out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes, and made a noise as they walked with their feet and moved in a set pace: 3:17. The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair. 3:18. In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and little moons, 3:19. And chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets, 3:20. And bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and sweet balls, and earrings, 3:21. And rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead, 3:22. And changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and crisping pins, 3:23. And lookingglasses, and lawns, and headbands, and fine veils. 3:24. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, haircloth. 3:25. Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy valiant ones in battle. 3:26. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground. Isaias Chapter 4 After an extremity of evils that shall fall upon the Jews, a remnant shall be comforted by Christ. 4:1. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, take away our reproach. 4:2. In that day the bud of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be high, and a great joy to them that shall have escaped of Israel. The bud of the Lord. . .That is, Christ. 4:3. And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written in life in Jerusalem. 4:4. If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. 4:5. And the Lord will create upon every place of mount Sion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection. 4:6. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind, and from rain. Isaias Chapter 5 The reprobation of the Jews is foreshewn under the parable of a vineyard. A woe is pronounced against sinners: the army of God shall send against them. 5:1. I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place. My cousin. . .So the prophet calls Christ, as being of his family and kindred, by descending from the house of David. Ibid. On a hill, etc. . .Literally, in the horn, the son of oil. 5:2. And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 5:3. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. 5:4. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes? 5:5. And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. 5:6. And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. 5:7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Juda, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry. 5:8. Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth? 5:9. These things are in my ears, saith the Lord of hosts: Unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, without an inhabitant. 5:10. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little measure, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels. 5:11. Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink in the evening, to be inflamed with wine. 5:12. The harp, and the lyre, and, the timbrel and the pipe, and wine are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor do you consider the works of his hands. 5:13. Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up with thirst. 5:14. Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it. 5:15. And man shall be brought down, and man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low. 5:16. And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in justice. 5:17. And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness. 5:18. Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the rope of a cart. 5:19. That say: Let him make haste, and let his work come quickly, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it. 5:20. Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. 5:21. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits. 5:22. Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness. 5:23. That justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of the just from him. 5:24. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, and the heat of the flame consumeth it: so shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust: for they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel. 5:25. Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were troubles, and their carcasses became as dung in the midst of the streets. For after this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 5:26. And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly. 5:27. There is none that shall faint, nor labour among them: they shall not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken. 5:28. Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. The hoofs of their horses shall be like the flint, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest. 5:29. Their roaring like that of a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea they shall roar, and take hold of the prey, and they shall keep fast hold of it, and there shall be none to deliver it. 5:30. And they shall make a noise against them that day, like the roaring of the sea; we shall look towards the land, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened with the mist thereof. Isaias Chapter 6 A glorious vision, in which the prophet's lips are cleansed: he foretelleth the obstinacy of the Jews. 6:1. In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple. 6:2. Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew. 6:3. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory, 6:4. And the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 6:5. And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts. 6:6. And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar. 6:7. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed. 6:8. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me. 6:9. And he said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hearing, hear, and understand not: and see the vision, and know it not. 6:10. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them. 6:11. And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate. 6:12. And the Lord shall remove men far away, and she shall be multiplied that was left in the midst of the earth. 6:13. And there shall be still a tithing therein, and she shall turn, and shall be made a show as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that spreadeth its branches: that which shall stand therein, shall be a holy seed. Isaias Chapter 7 The prophet assures king Achaz that the two kings his enemies shall not take Jerusalem. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. 7:1. And it came to pass in the days of Achaz the son of Joathan, the son of Ozias, king of Juda, that Rasin king of Syria and Phacee the son of Romelia king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem, to fight against it: but they could not prevail over it. 7:2. And they told the house of David, saying: Syria hath rested upon Ephraim, and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. 7:3. And the Lord said to Isaias: Go forth to meet Achaz, thou and Jasub thy son that is left, to the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's field. 7:4. And thou shalt say to him: See thou be quiet: fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid of the two tails of these firebrands, smoking with the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, and of the son of Romelia. 7:5. Because Syria hath taken counsel against thee, unto the evil of Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying: 7:6. Let us go up to Juda, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and make the son of Tabeel king in the midst thereof. 7:7. Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be. 7:8. But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rasin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a people: 7:9. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue. 7:10. And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying: 7:11. Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God, either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above. 7:12. And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. 7:13. And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? 7:14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel. 7:15. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good. 7:16. For before the child know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings. 7:17. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days that have not come since the time of the separation of Ephraim from Juda with the king of the Assyrians. 7:18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 7:19. And they shall come, and shall all of them rest in the torrents of the valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all places set with shrubs, and in all hollow places. 7:20. In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired by them that are beyond the river, by the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hairs of the feet, and the whole beard. 7:21. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep. 7:22. And for the abundance of milk he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that shall be left in the midst of the land. 7:23. And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place where there were a thousand vines, at a thousand pieces of silver, shall become thorns and briers. 7:24. With arrows and with bows they shall go in thither: for briers and thorns shall be in all the land. 7:25. And as for the hills that shall be raked with a rake, the fear of thorns and briers shall not come thither, but they shall be for the ox to feed on, and the lesser cattle to tread upon. Isaias Chapter 8 The name of a child that is to be born: many evils shall come upon the Jews for their sins. 8:1. And the Lord said to me: Take thee a great book, and write in it with a man's pen. Take away the spoils with speed, quickly take the prey. 8:2. And I took unto me faithful witnesses, Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias. 8:3. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take away the spoils: Make hast to take away the prey. 8:4. For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians. 8:5. And the Lord spoke to me again, saying: 8:6. Forasmuch as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that go with silence, and hath rather taken Rasin, and the son of Romelia: 8:7. Therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the river strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his banks. 8:8. And shall pass through Juda, overflowing, and going over shall reach even to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy, land, O Emmanuel. 8:9. Gather yourselves together, O ye people, and be overcome, and give ear, all ye lands afar off: strengthen yourselves, and be overcome, gird yourselves, and be overcome. 8:10. Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done: because God is with us. 8:11. For thus saith the Lord to me: As he hath taught me, with a strong arm, that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying: 8:12. Say ye not: A conspiracy: for all that this people speaketh, is a conspiracy: neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. 8:13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 8:14. And he shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to the two houses of Israel, for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 8:15. And very many of them shall stumble and fall, and shall be broken in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken. 8:16. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 8:17. And I will wait for the Lord, who hath hid his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. 8:18. Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign, and for a wonder in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Sion. 8:19. And when they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners, who mutter in their enchantments: should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead? Seek of pythons. . .That is, people pretending to tell future things by a prophesying spirit.--Ibid. Should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?. . .Here is signified, that it is to God we should pray to be directed, and not to seek of the dead, (that is, of fortune-tellers dead in sin,) for the health of the living. 8:20. To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light. 8:21. And they shall pass by it, they shall fall, and be hungry: and when they shall be hungry, they will be angry, and curse their king, and their God, and look upwards. 8:22. And they shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and distress, and a mist following them, and they cannot fly away from their distress. Isaias Chapter 9 What joy shall come after afflictions by the birth and kingdom of Christ; which shall flourish for ever. Judgments upon Israel for their sins. 9:1. At the first time the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali was lightly touched: and at the last the way of the sea beyond the Jordan of the Galilee of the Gentiles was heavily loaded. 9:2. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen. 9:3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy. They shall rejoice before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils. 9:4. For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and the sceptre of their oppressor thou hast overcome, as in the day of Madian. 9:5. For every violent taking of spoils, with tumult, and garment mingled with blood, shall be burnt, and be fuel for the fire. 9:6. For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. 9:7. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. 9:8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9:9. And all the people of Ephraim shall know, and the inhabitants of Samaria that say in the pride and haughtiness of their heart: 9:10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with square stones: they have cut down the sycamores, but we will change them for cedars. 9:11. And the Lord shall set up the enemies of Rasin over him, and shall bring on his enemies in a crowd: 9:12. The Syrians from the east, and, the Philistines from the west: and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 9:13. And the people are not returned to him who hath struck them, and have not sought after the Lord of hosts. 9:14. And the Lord shall destroy out of Israel the head and the tail, him that bendeth down, and him that holdeth back, in one day. 9:15. The aged and honourable, he is the head: and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. 9:16. And they that call this people blessed, shall cause them to err: and they that are called blessed, shall be thrown down, headlong. 9:17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men: neither shall he have mercy on their fatherless, and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and wicked, and every mouth hath spoken folly. For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 9:18. For wickedness is kindled as a fire, it shall devour the brier and the thorn: and shall kindle in the thicket of the forest, and it shall be wrapped up in smoke ascending on high. 9:19. By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is troubled, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 9:20. And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shall eat the flesh of his own arm: Manasses Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasses, and they together shall be against Juda. 9:21. After all these things his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. Isaias Chapter 10 Woe to the makers of wicked laws. The Assyrian shall be a rod for punishing Israel: but for their pride they shall be destroyed: and a remnant of Israel saved. 10:1. Woe to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write injustice: 10:2. To oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble of my people: that widows might be their prey, and that they might rob the fatherless. 10:3. What will you do in the day of visitation, and of the calamity which cometh from afar? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? 10:4. That you be not bowed down under the bond, and fall with the slain? In all these things his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 10:5. Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in their hands. 10:6. I will send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him a charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 10:7. But he shall not take it so, and his heart shall not think so: but his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. 10:8. For he shall say: 10:9. Are not my princes as so many kings? is not Calano as Charcamis: and Emath as Arphad? is not Samaria as Damascus? 10:10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idol, so also their idols of Jerusalem, and of Samaria. 10:11. Shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? 10:12. And it shall come to pass, that when the Lord shall have performed all his works in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of the haughtiness of his eyes. 10:13. For he hath said: By the strength of my own hand I have done it, and by my own wisdom I have understood: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have taken the spoils of the princes, and as a mighty man hath pulled down them that sat on high. 10:14. And my hand hath found the strength of the people as a nest; and as eggs are gathered, that are left, so have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or made the least noise. 10:15. Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood. 10:16. Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a burning, as it were the burning of a fire. 10:17. And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire, and shall be devoured in one day. 10:18. And the glory of his forest, and of his beautiful hill, shall be consumed from the soul even to the flesh, and he shall run away through fear. 10:19. And they that remain of the trees of his forest shall be so few, that they shall easily be numbered, and a child shall write them down. 10:20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no more upon him that striketh them: but they shall lean upon the Lord the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 10:21. The remnant shall be converted, the remnant, I say, of Jacob, to the mighty God. 10:22. For if thy people, O Israel, shall be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be converted, the consumption abridged shall overflow with justice. A remnant of them shall be converted. . .This was partly verified in the children of Israel who remained after the devastations of the Assyrians, in the time of king Ezechias: and partly in the conversion of a remnant of the Jews to the faithful of Christ.--Ibid. The consumption abridged, etc. . .That is, the number of them cut short, and reduced to few, shall flourish in abundance of justice. 10:23. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, and an abridgment in the midst of all the land. 10:24. Therefore, thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: O my people that dwellest in Sion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike thee with his rod, and he shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of Egypt. 10:25. For yet a little and a very little while, and my indignation shall cease, and my wrath shall be upon their wickedness. 10:26. And the Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him, according to the slaughter of Madian in the rock of Oreb, and his rod over the sea, and he shall lift it up in the way of Egypt. 10:27. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall putrefy at the presence of the oil. At the presence of the oil. . .That is, by the sweet unction of divine mercy. 10:28. He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas he shall lay up his carriages. Into Aiath, etc. . .Here the prophet describes the march of the Assyrians under Sennacherib; and the terror they should carry with them; and how they should suddenly be destroyed. 10:29. They have passed in haste, Gaba is our lodging: Rama was astonished, Gabaath of Saul fled away. 10:30. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim, attend, O Laisa, poor Anathoth. 10:31. Medemena is removed: ye inhabitants of Gabim, take courage. 10:32. It is yet day enough, to remain in Nobe: he shall shake his hand against the mountain of the daughter of Sion, the hill of Jerusalem. 10:33. Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall break the earthen vessel with terror, and the tall of stature shall be cut down, and the lofty shall be humbled. 10:34. And the thickets of the forest shall be cut down with iron, and Libanus with its high ones shall fall. Isaias Chapter 11 Of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, to which all nations shall repair. 11:1. And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. 11:2. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. 11:3. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears. 11:4. But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity the meek of the earth: and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. 11:5. And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins. 11:6. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. 11:7. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 11:8. And the sucking child shall play on other hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk. 11:9. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea. 11:10. In that day the root of Jesse, who standeth for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious. 11:11. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Sennaar, and from Emath, and from the islands of the sea. 11:12. And he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth. 11:13. And the envy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of Juda shall perish: Ephraim shall not envy Juda, and Juda shall not fight against Ephraim. 11:14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines by the sea, they together shall spoil the children of the east: Edom, till Moab shall be under the rule of their hand, and the children of Ammon shall be obedient. 11:15. And the Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and shall lift up his hand over the river in the strength of his spirit: and he shall strike it in the seven streams, so that men may pass through it in their shoes. 11:16. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of my people, which shall be left from the Assyrians: as there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. Isaias Chapter 12 A canticle of thanksgiving for the benefits of Christ. 12:1. And thou shalt say in that day: I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou wast angry with me: thy wrath is turned away, and thou hast comforted me. 12:2. Behold, God is my saviour, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and he is become my salvation. 12:3. Thou shall draw waters with joy out of the saviour's fountains: 12:4. And you shall say in that day: Praise ye the Lord, and call upon his name: make his works known among the people: remember that his name is high. 12:5. Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath done great things: shew this forth in all the earth. 12:6. Rejoice, and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great is he that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel. Isaias Chapter 13 The desolation of Babylon. 13:1. The burden of Babylon which Isaias the son of Amos saw. The burden of Babylon. . .That is, a prophecy against Babylon. 13:2. Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates. 13:3. I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory. 13:4. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the troops of war. 13:5. To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven: the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land. 13:6. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord. 13:7. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall melt, 13:8. And shall be broken. Gripings and pains, shall take hold of them, they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour, their countenances shall be as faces burnt. 13:9. Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. 13:10. For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light. 13:11. And I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty. 13:12. A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest of gold. 13:13. For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the day of his fierce wrath. 13:14. And they shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his own people, and every one shall flee to his own land. 13:15. Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword. 13:16. Their inhabitants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be ravished. 13:17. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold: 13:18. But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons. 13:19. And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. 13:20. It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there. 13:21. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there: 13:22. And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure. Isaias Chapter 14 The restoration of Israel after their captivity. The parable or song insulting over the king of Babylon. A prophecy against the Philistines. 14:1. Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose out of Israel, and will make them rest upon their own ground: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and shall adhere to the house of Jacob. 14:2. And the people shall take them, and bring them into their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall make them captives that had taken them, and shall subdue their oppressors. 14:3. And it shall come to pass in that day, that when God shall give thee rest from thy labour, and from thy vexation, and from the hard bondage, wherewith thou didst serve before, 14:4. Thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and shalt say: How is the oppressor come to nothing, the tribute hath ceased? 14:5. The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers, 14:6. That struck the people in wrath with an incurable wound, that brought nations under in fury, that persecuted in a cruel manner. 14:7. The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath rejoiced. 14:8. The fir trees also have rejoiced over thee, and the cedars of Libanus, saying: Since thou hast slept, there hath none come up to cut us down. 14:9. Hell below was in an uproar to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred up the giants for thee. All the princes of the earth are risen up from their thrones, all the princes of nations. 14:10. All shall answer, and say to thee: Thou also art wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. 14:11. Thy pride is brought down to hell, thy carcass is fallen down: under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering. 14:12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations? O Lucifer. . .O day star. All this, according to the letter, is spoken of the king of Babylon. It may also be applied, in a spiritual sense, to Lucifer the prince of devils, who was created a bright angel, but fell by pride and rebellion against God. 14:13. And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. 14:14. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. 14:15. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit. 14:16. They that shall see thee, shall turn toward thee, and behold thee. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms, 14:17. That made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners? 14:18. All the kings of the nations have all of them slept in glory, every one in his own house. 14:19. But thou art cast out of thy grave, as an unprofitable branch defiled, and wrapped up among them that were slain by the sword, and art gone down to the bottom of the pit, as a rotten carcass. 14:20. Thou shalt not keep company with them, even in burial: for thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people: the seed of the wicked shall not be named for ever. 14:21. Prepare his children for slaughter for the iniquity of their fathers: they shall not rise up, nor inherit the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. 14:22. And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remains, and the bud, and the offspring, saith the Lord. 14:23. And I will make it a possession for the ericius and pools of waters, and I will sweep it and wear it out with a besom, saith the Lord of hosts. 14:24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought, so shall it be: and as I have purposed, 14:25. So shall it fall out: That I will destroy the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: and his yoke shall be taken away from them, and his burden shall be taken off their shoulder. 14:26. This is the counsel, that I have purposed upon all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations. 14:27. For the Lord of hosts hath decreed, and who can disannul it? and his hand is stretched out: and who shall turn it away? 14:28. In the year that king Achaz died, was this burden: 14:29. Rejoice not thou, whole Philistia, that the rod of him that struck thee is broken in pieces: for out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the bird. 14:30. And the firstborn of the poor shall be fed, and the poor shall rest with confidence: and I will make thy root perish with famine, and I will kill thy remnant. 14:31. Howl, O gate; cry, O city: all Philistia is thrown down: for a smoke shall come from the north, and there is none that shall escape his troop. 14:32. And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Sion, and the poor of his people shall hope in him. Isaias Chapter 15 A prophecy of the desolation of the Moabites. 15:1. The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is silent. 15:2. The house is gone up, and Dibon to the high places to mourn over Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab hath howled: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard shall be shaven. 15:3. In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping. 15:4. Hesebon shall cry, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa. For this shall the well appointed men of Moab howl, his soul shall howl to itself. 15:5. My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of destruction. 15:6. For the waters of Nemrim shall be desolate, for the grass is withered away, the spring is faded, all the greenness is perished. 15:7. According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows. Torrent of the willows. . .That is, as some say, the waters of Babylon: others render it, a valley of the Arabians. 15:8. For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling thereof unto Gallim, and unto the well of Elim the cry thereof. 15:9. For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land. Isaias Chapter 16 The prophet prayeth for Christ's coming. The affliction of the Moabites for their pride. 16:1. Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion. 16:2. And it shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the passage of Arnon. 16:3. Take counsel, gather a council: make thy shadow as the night in the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about. 16:4. My fugitives shall dwell with thee: O Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed: he hath failed, that trod the earth under foot. 16:5. And a throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and quickly rendering that which is just. 16:6. We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his pride and his arrogancy, and his indignation is more than his strength. 16:7. Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, every one shall howl: to them that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell ye their stripes. 16:8. For the suburbs of Hesebon are desolate, and the lords of the nations have destroyed the vineyard of Sabama: the branches thereof have reached even to Jazer: they have wandered in the wilderness, the branches thereof are left, they are gone over the sea. 16:9. Therefore I will lament with the weeping of Jazer the vineyard of Sabama: I will water thee with my tears, O Hesebon, and Eleale: for the voice of the treaders hath rushed in upon thy vintage, and upon thy harvest. 16:10. And gladness and joy shall be taken away from Carmel, and there shall be no rejoicing nor shouting in the vineyards. He shall not tread out wine in the press that was wont to tread it out: the voice of the treaders I have taken away. Carmel. . .This name is often taken to signify a fair and fruitful hill or field, such as mount Carmel is. 16:11. Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for the brick wall. 16:12. And it shall come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is wearied on his high places, that he shall go in to his sanctuaries to pray, and shall not prevail. 16:13. This is the word, that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time: 16:14. And now the Lord hath spoken, saying: In three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be taken away for all the multitude of the people, and it shall be left small and feeble, not many. Isaias Chapter 17 Judgments upon Damascus and Samaria. The overthrow of the Assyrians. 17:1. The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones. 17:2. The cities of Aroer shall be left for flocks, and they shall rest there, and there shall be none to make them afraid. 17:3. And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel: saith the Lord of hosts. 17:4. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean. 17:5. And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which remaineth, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as he that seeketh ears in the vale of Raphaim. 17:6. And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, saith the Lord the God of Israel. 17:7. In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel. 17:8. And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made; and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples. 17:9. In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel, and thou shalt be desolate. That were left. . .Viz., by the Chanaanites, when the children of Israel came into their land. 17:10. Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not remembered thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant good plants, and shalt sow strange seed. 17:11. In the day of thy planting shall be the wild grape, and in the morning thy seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and shall grieve thee much. 17:12. Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters. The multitude, etc. . .This and all that follows to the end of the chapter, relates to the Assyrian army under Sennacherib. 17:13. Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing, but he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be carried away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a whirlwind before a tempest. 17:14. In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us. Isaias Chapter 18 A woe to the Ethiopians, who fed Israel with vain hopes, their future conversion. 18:1. Woe to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, 18:2. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled. Angels. . .Or messengers. 18:3. All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet. 18:4. For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest. 18:5. For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out. 18:6. And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. 18:7. At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion. Isaias Chapter 19 The punishment of Egypt: their call to the church. 19:1. The burden of Egypt. Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof. 19:2. And I will set the Egyptians to fight against the Egyptians: and they shall fight brother against brother, and friend against friend, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. 19:3. And the spirit of Egypt shall be broken in the bowels thereof, and I will cast down their counsel: and they shall consult their idols, and their diviners, and their wizards, and soothsayers. 19:4. And I will deliver Egypt into the hand of cruel masters, and a strong king shall rule over them, saith the Lord the God of hosts. 19:5. And the water of the sea shall be dried up, and the river shall be wasted and dry. 19:6. And the rivers shall fail: the streams of the banks shall be diminished, and be dried up. The reed and the bulrush shall wither away. 19:7. The channel of the river shall be laid bare from its fountain, and every thing sown by the water shall be dried up, it shall wither away, and shall be no more. 19:8. The fishers also shall mourn, and all that cast a hook into the river shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish away. 19:9. They shall be confounded that wrought in flax, combing and weaving fine linen. 19:10. And its watery places shall be dry, all they shall mourn that made pools to take fishes. 19:11. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the wise counsellors of Pharao have given foolish counsel: how will you say to Pharao: I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? 19:12. Where are now thy wise men? let them tell thee, and shew what the Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt. 19:13. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the princes of Memphis are gone astray, they have deceived Egypt, the stay of the people thereof. 19:14. The Lord hath mingled in the midst thereof the spirit of giddiness: and they have caused Egypt to err in all its works, as a drunken man staggereth and vomiteth. 19:15. And there shall be no work for Egypt, to make head or tail, him that bendeth down, or that holdeth back. 19:16. In that day Egypt shall be like unto women, and they shall be amazed, and afraid, because of the moving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which he shall move over it. 19:17. And the land of Juda shall be a terror to Egypt: everyone that shall remember it shall tremble because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he hath determined concerning it. 19:18. In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt, speaking the language of Chanaan, and swearing by the Lord of hosts: one shall be called the city of the sun. 19:19. In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a monument of the Lord at the borders thereof: 19:20. It shall be for a sign, and for a testimony to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry to the Lord because of the oppressor, and he shall send them a Saviour and a defender to deliver them. 19:21. And the Lord shall be known by Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall worship him with sacrifices and offerings: and they shall make vows to the Lord, and perform them. 19:22. And the Lord shall strike Egypt with a scourge, and shall heal it, and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be pacified towards them, and heal them. 19:23. In that day there shall be a way from Egypt to the Assyrians, and the Assyrian shall enter into Egypt, and the Egyptian to the Assyrians, and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian. 19:24. In that day shall Israel be the third to the Egyptian and the Assyrian: a blessing in the midst of the land, 19:25. Which the Lord of hosts hath blessed, saying: Blessed be my people of Egypt, and the work of my hands to the Assyrian: but Israel is my inheritance. Isaias Chapter 20 The ignominious captivity of the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians. 20:1. In the year that Tharthan entered into Azotus, when Sargon the king of the Assyrians had sent him, and he had fought against Azotus, and had taken it: 20:2. At that same time the Lord spoke by the hand of Isaias the son of Amos, saying Go, and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and take off thy shoes from thy feet. And he did so, and went naked, and barefoot. 20:3. And the Lord said: As my servant Isaias hath walked, naked and barefoot, it shall be a sign and a wonder of three years upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia, 20:4. So shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt. 20:5. And they shall be afraid, and ashamed of Ethiopia their hope, and of Egypt their glory. 20:6. And the inhabitants of this isle shall say in that day: Lo this was our hope, to whom we fled for help, to deliver us from the face of the king of the Assyrians: and how shall we be able to escape? Isaias Chapter 21 The destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians: a prophecy against the Edomites and the Arabians. 21:1. The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds come from the south, it cometh from the desert from a terrible land. The desert of the sea. . .So Babylon is here called, because from a city as full of people as the sea is with water, it was become a desert. 21:2. A grievous vision is told me: he that is unfaithful dealeth unfaithfully: and he that is a spoiler, spoileth. Go up, O Elam, besiege, O Mede: I have made all the mourning thereof to cease. O Elam. . .That is, O Persia. 21:3. Therefore are my loins filled with pain, anguish hath taken hold of me, as the anguish of a woman in labour: I fell down at the hearing of it, I was troubled at the seeing of it. 21:4. My heart failed, darkness amazed me: Babylon my beloved is become a wonder to me. 21:5. Prepare the table, behold in the watchtower them that eat and drink: arise, ye princes, take up the shield. 21:6. For thus hath the Lord said to me: Go, and set a watchman: and whatsoever he shall see, let him tell. 21:7. And he saw a chariot with two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel: and he beheld them diligently with much heed. A rider upon an ass, etc. . .These two riders are the kings of the Persians and Medes. 21:8. And a lion cried out: I am upon the watchtower of the Lord, standing continually by day: and I am upon my ward, standing whole nights. And a lion cried out. . .That is, I Isaias seeing the approaching ruin of Babylon, have cried out as a lion roaring. 21:9. Behold this man cometh, the rider upon the chariot with two horsemen, and he answered, and said: Babylon is fallen, she is fallen, and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground. 21:10. O my thrashing, and the children of my floor, that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you. 21:11. The burden of Duma calleth to me out of Seir: Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night? Duma. . .That is, Idumea, or Edom. 21:12. The watchman said: The morning cometh, also the night: if you seek, seek: return, come. 21:13. The burden in Arabia. In the forest at evening you shall sleep, in the paths of Dedanim. 21:14. Meeting the thirsty bring him water, you that inhabit the land of the south, meet with bread him that fleeth. 21:15. For they are fled from before the swords, from the sword that hung over them, from the bent bow, from the face of a grievous battle. 21:16. For thus saith the Lord to me: Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away. Cedar. . .Arabia. 21:17. And the residue of the number of strong archers of the children of Cedar shall be diminished: for the Lord the God of Israel hath spoken it. Isaias Chapter 22 The prophet laments the devastation of Juda. He foretells the deprivation of Sobna, and the substitution of Eliacim, a figure of Christ. 22:1. The burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee also, that thou too art wholly gone up to the housetops? The valley of vision. . .Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was built upon mount Moria, or the mountain of vision. But the city is here called the valley of vision; either because it was lower than the temple, or because of the low condition to which it was to be reduced. 22:2. Full of clamour, a populous city, a joyous city: thy slain are not slain by the sword, nor dead in battle. 22:3. All the princes are fled together, and are bound hard: all that were found, are bound together, they are fled far off. 22:4. Therefore have I said: Depart from me, I will weep bitterly: labour not to comfort me, for the devastation of the daughter of my people. 22:5. For it is a day of slaughter and of treading down, and of weeping to the Lord the God of hosts in the valley of vision, searching the wall, and magnificent upon the mountain. 22:6. And Elam took the quiver, the chariot of the horseman, and the shield was taken down from the wall. 22:7. And thy choice valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall place themselves in the gate. 22:8. And the covering of Juda shall be discovered, and thou shalt see in that day the armoury of the house of the forest. 22:9. And you shall see the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and you have gathered together the waters of the lower pool, 22:10. And have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and broken down houses to fortify the wall. 22:11. And you made a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: and you have not looked up to the maker thereof, nor regarded him even at a distance, that wrought it long ago. 22:12. And the Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to weeping, and to mourning, to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: 22:13. And behold joy and gladness, killing calves, and slaying rams, eating flesh, and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. 22:14. And the voice of the Lord of hosts was revealed in my ears: Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till you die, saith the Lord God of hosts. 22:15. Thus saith the Lord God of hosts: Go, get thee in to him that dwelleth in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple: and thou shalt say to him: 22:16. What dost thou here, or as if thou wert somebody here? for thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, thou hast hewed out a monument carefully in a high place, a dwelling for thyself in a rock. 22:17. Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is carried away, and he will lift thee up as a garment. 22:18. He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation, he will toss thee like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shalt thou die, and there shall the chariot of thy glory be, the shame of the house of thy Lord. 22:19. And I will drive thee out from thy station, and depose thee from thy ministry. 22:20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias, 22:21. And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda. 22:22. And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open. 22:23. And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father. 22:24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music. 22:25. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath spoken it. Isaias Chapter 23 The destruction of Tyre. It shall be repaired again after seventy years. 23:1. The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed, from whence they were wont to come: from the land of Cethim it is revealed to them. 23:2. Be silent, you that dwell in the island: the merchants of Sidon passing over the sea, have filled thee. 23:3. The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is her revenue: and she is become the mart of the nations. 23:4. Be thou ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea speaketh, even the strength of the sea, saying: I have not been in labour, nor have I brought forth, nor have I nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins. 23:5. When it shall be heard in Egypt, they will be sorry when they shall hear of Tyre: 23:6. Pass over the seas, howl, ye inhabitants of the island. 23:7. Is not this your city, which gloried from of old in her antiquity? her feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn. 23:8. Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, that was formerly crowned, whose merchants were princes, and her traders the nobles of the earth? 23:9. The Lord of hosts hath designed it, to pull down the pride of all glory, and bring to disgrace all the glorious ones of the earth. 23:10. Pass thy land as a river, O daughter of the sea, thou hast a girdle no more. 23:11. He stretched out his hand over the sea, he troubled kingdoms: the Lord hath given a charge against Chanaan, to destroy the strong ones thereof. 23:12. And he said: Thou shalt glory no more, O virgin daughter of Sidon, who art oppressed: arise and sail over to Cethim, there also thou shalt have no rest. 23:13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have, brought it to ruin. 23:14. Howl, O ye ships of the sea, for your strength is laid waste. 23:15. And it shall come to pass in that day that thou, O Tyre, shalt be forgotten, seventy years, according to the days of one king: but after seventy years, there shall be unto Tyre as the song of a harlot. 23:16. Take a harp, go about the city, harlot that hast been forgotten: sing well, sing many a song, that thou mayst be remembered. 23:17. And it shall come to pass after seventy years, that the Lord will visit Tyre, and will bring her back again to her traffic: and she shall commit fornication again with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. 23:18. And her merchandise and her hire shall be sanctified to the Lord: they shall not be kept in store, nor laid up: for her merchandise shall be for them that shall dwell before the Lord, that they may eat unto fulness, and be clothed for a continuance. Sanctified to the Lord. . .This alludes to the conversion of the Gentiles. Isaias Chapter 24 The judgments of God upon all the sinners of the world. A remnant shall joyfully praise him. 24:1. Behold the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof. 24:2. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest: and as with the servant so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller: as with the lender, so with the borrower: as with him that calleth for his money, so with him that oweth. 24:3. With desolation shall the earth be laid waste, and it shall be utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. 24:4. The earth mourned, and faded away, and is weakened: the world faded away, the height of the people of the earth is weakened. 24:5. And the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting covenant. 24:6. Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left. 24:7. The vintage hath mourned, the vine hath languished away, all the merry have sighed. 24:8. The mirth of timbrels hath ceased, the noise of them that rejoice is ended, the melody of the harp is silent. 24:9. They shall not drink wine with a song: the drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. 24:10. The city of vanity is broken down, every house is shut up, no man cometh in. 24:11. There shall be a crying for wine in the streets: all mirth is forsaken: the joy of the earth is gone away. 24:12. Desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the gates. 24:13. For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended. 24:14. These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise: when the Lord shall be glorified, they shall make a joyful noise from the sea. 24:15. Therefore glorify ye the Lord in instruction: the name of the Lord God of Israel in the islands of the sea. 24:16. From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of the just one. And I said: My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe is me: the prevaricators have prevaricated, and with the prevarication of transgressors they have prevaricated. 24:17. Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O thou inhabitant of the earth. 24:18. And it shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. 24:19. With breaking shall the earth be broken, with crushing shall the earth be crushed, with trembling shall the earth be moved. 24:20. With shaking shall the earth be shaken as a drunken man, and shall be removed as the tent of one night: and the iniquity thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again. 24:21. And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth, on the earth. The host of heaven on high. . .The stars, which in many places of the Scripture are so called. Some commentators explain that these words here signify the demons of the air. 24:22. And they shall be gathered together as in the gathering of one bundle into the pit, and they shall be shut up there in prison: and after many days they shall be visited. 24:23. And the moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified in the sight of his ancients. Isaias Chapter 25 A canticle of thanksgiving for God's judgments and benefits. 25:1. O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt O thee, and give glory to thy name: for thou hast done wonderful things, thy designs of old faithful, amen. 25:2. For thou hast reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin, the house of strangers, to be no city, and to be no more built up for ever. 25:3. Therefore shall a strong people praise thee, the city of mighty nations shall fear thee. 25:4. Because thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall. 25:5. Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst: and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of the mighty to wither away. 25:6. And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees. 25:7. And he shall destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with which all people were tied, and the web that he began over all nations. 25:8. He shall cast death down headlong for ever: and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he shall take away from off the whole earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. 25:9. And they shall say in that day: Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for him, we shall rejoice and be joyful in his salvation. 25:10. For the hand of the Lord shall rest in this mountain: and Moab shall be trodden down under him, as straw is broken in pieces with the wain. Moab. . .That is, the reprobate, whose eternal punishment, from which they can no way escape, is described under these figures. 25:11. And he shall stretch forth his hands under him, as he that swimmeth stretcheth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down his glory with the dashing of his hands. 25:12. And the bulwarks of thy high walls shall fall, and be brought low, and shall be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust. Isaias Chapter 26 A canticle of thanks for the deliverance of God's people. 26:1. In that day shall this canticle be sung in the land of Juda. Sion the city of our strength a saviour, a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein. 26:2. Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in. 26:3. The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee. 26:4. You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God mighty for ever. 26:5. For he shall bring down them that dwell on high, the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground, he shall pull it down even to the dust. 26:6. The foot shall tread it down, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. 26:7. The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to walk in. 26:8. And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul. 26:9. My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice. 26:10. Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord. 26:11. Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies. 26:12. Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us. 26:13. O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, only in thee let us remember thy name. 26:14. Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore hast visited and destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory. 26:15. Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the ends of the earth far off. 26:16. Lord, they have sought after thee in distress, in the tribulation of murmuring thy instruction was with them. 26:17. As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs: so are we become in thy presence, O Lord. 26:18. We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen. 26:19. Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin. 26:20. Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away. 26:21. For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more. Shall cover her slain no more. . .This is said with relation to the martyrs, and their happy resurrection. Isaias Chapter 27 The punishment of the oppressors of God's people. The Lord's favour to his church. 27:1. In that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword shall visit leviathan the bar serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea. Leviathan. . .That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God. He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent from his wiles; and the whale of the sea, from the tyranny he exercises in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of Christ, when his power was destroyed. 27:2. In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine. The vineyard, etc. . .The church of Christ. 27:3. I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day. I will suddenly give it drink. . .Or, as the Hebrew may also be rendered, I will continually water it. 27:4. There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle: shall I march against it, shall, I set it on fire together? No indignation in me, etc. . .Viz., against the church: nor shall I become as a thorn or brier in its regard; or march against it, or set it on fire: but it shall always take fast hold of me, and keep an everlasting peace with me. 27:5. Or rather shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace with me, shall it make peace with me? 27:6. When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed. When they shall rush in, etc. . .Some understand this of the enemies of the true Israel, that shall invade it in vain. Others of the spiritual invasion made by the apostles of Christ. 27:7. Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him? Hath he struck him, etc. . .Hath God punished the carnal persecuting Jews, in proportion to their doings against Christ and his saints? 27:8. In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it. He hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat. When it shall be cast off, etc. . .When the synagogue shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it in measure, and in proportion to its crimes.--Ibid. He hath meditated, etc. . .God hath designed severe punishments in the day of his wrath. 27:9. Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand. Of the house of Jacob. . .Viz., of such of them as shall be converted. 27:10. For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness: there the calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches. The strong city. . .Jerusalem. 27:11. Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it. 27:12. And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel. 27:13. And it shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made with a great trumpet, and they that were lost, shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem. A great trumpet. . .The preaching of the gospel for the conversion of the Jews. Isaias Chapter 28 The punishment of the Israelites, for their pride, intemperance, and contempt of religion. Christ the cornerstone. 28:1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower the glory his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine. Ephraim. . .That is, the kingdom of the ten tribes.--Ibid. The head of the fat valley. . .Samaria, situate on a hill, having under it a most fertile valley. 28:2. Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and sent forth upon a spacious land. 28:3. The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet. 28:4. And the fading tower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn: which when he that seeth it shall behold, as soon he taketh it in his hand, he will eat it up. 28:5. In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people: 28:6. And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate. 28:7. But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that seeth, they have been ignorant of judgment. These also. . .The kingdom of Juda. 28:8. For all the tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place. 28:9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing? them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away from the breasts. 28:10. For command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; a little there, a little there. Command, command again, etc. . .This is said in the person of the Jews, resisting the repeated commands of God, and still putting him off. 28:11. For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will speak to this people. 28:12. To whom he said: This is my rest, refresh the weary, and this is my refreshing: and they would not hear. 28:13. And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; a little there, a little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. 28:14. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem. 28:15. For you have said: We have entered into a league with death, and we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected. 28:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten. A stone in the foundations. . .Viz., Christ.--Ibid. Let him not hasten, etc. . .Let him expect his coming with patience. 28:17. And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection. 28:18. And your league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it. 28:19. Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear. 28:20. For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering cannot cover both. The bed is straitened, etc. . .It is too narrow to hold two: God will have the bed of our heart all to himself. 28:21. For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him. As in the mountain, etc. . .As the Lord fought against the Philistines in Baal Pharasim, 2 Kings 5., and against the Chanaanites, in the valley of Gabaon, Jos. 10. 28:22. And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth. 28:23. Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech. 28:24. Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground? 28:25. Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds? 28:26. For he will instruct him in judgment: his God will teach him. 28:27. For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a staff. 28:28. But breadcorn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth. 28:29. This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice. This also, etc. . .Such also is the proceeding of the Lord with his land, and the divers seeds he throws therein. Isaias Chapter 29 God's heavy judgments upon Jerusalem, for their obstinacy: with a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles. 29:1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to year. the solemnities are at an end. Ariel. . .This word signifies, the lion of God, and here is taken for the strong city of Jerusalem. 29:2. And I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel. 29:3. And I will make a circle round about thee, and I will cast up a rampart against thee, and raise up bulwarks to besiege thee. 29:4. Thou shalt be brought down, thou shall speak out of the earth, and thy speech shall be heard out of the ground: and thy voice shall be from the earth like that of the python, and out of the earth thy speech shall mutter. 29:5. And the multitude of them that fan thee, shall be like small dust: and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed against thee. 29:6. And it shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and tempest; and with the flame of devouring fire. 29:7. And the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel, shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought, and besieged and prevailed against it. 29:8. And as he that is hungry dreameth, and eateth, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth, and drinketh and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have fought against mount Sion. 29:9. Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness. 29:10. For the Lord hath mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that see visions. 29:11. And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed. 29:12. And the book shall be given to one that knoweth no letters, and it shall be said to him: Read: and he shall answer: I know no letters. 29:13. And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men: 29:14. Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people, by a great and wonderful miracle: for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. 29:15. Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? 29:16. This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter, and the work should say to the maker thereof: Thou madest me not: or the thing framed should say to him that fashioned it: Thou understandest not. 29:17. Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned into charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest? Charmel. . .This word signifies a fruitful field. 29:18. And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see. 29:19. And the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 29:20. For he that did prevail hath failed, the scorner is consumed, and they are all cut off that watched for iniquity: 29:21. That made men sin by word, and supplanted him that reproved them in the gate, and declined in vain from the just. 29:22. Therefore thus saith the Lord to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not now be confounded, neither shall his countenance now be ashamed: 29:23. But when he shall see his children, the work of my hands in the midst of him sanctifying my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall glorify the God of Israel: 29:24. And they that erred in spirit, shall know understanding, and they that murmured, shall learn the law. Isaias Chapter 30 The people are blamed for their confidence in Egypt. God's mercies towards his church. The punishment of sinners. 30:1. Woe to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, that you would take counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit, that you might add sin upon sin: 30:2. Who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, hoping for help in the strength of Pharao, and trusting in the shadow of Egypt. 30:3. And the strength of Pharao shall be to your confusion, and the confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame. 30:4. For thy princes were in Tanis, and thy messengers came even to Hanes. 30:5. They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach. 30:6. The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not be able to profit them. 30:7. For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still. 30:8. Now therefore go in and write for them upon box, and note it diligently in a book, and it shall be in the latter days for a testimony for ever. 30:9. For it is a people that provoketh to wrath, and lying children that will not hear the law of God. 30:10. Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold not for us those things that are right: speak unto us pleasant things, see errors for us. 30:11. Take away from me the way, turn away the path from me, let the Holy One of Israel cease from before us. 30:12. Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because you have rejected this word, and have trusted in oppression and tumult, and have leaned upon it: 30:13. Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falleth, and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall come on a sudden, when it is not looked for. 30:14. And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a little water be drawn out of the pit. 30:15. For thus saith the Lord God the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be. And you would not: 30:16. But have said: No, but we will flee to horses: therefore shall you flee. And we will mount upon swift ones: therefore shall they be swifter that shall pursue after you. 30:17. A thousand men shall flee for fear of one: and for fear of five shall you flee, till you be left as the mast of ship on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign upon a hill. 30:18. Therefore the Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you: and therefore shall he be exalted sparing you: because the Lord is the God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. 30:19. For the people of Sion shall dwell in Jerusalem: weeping thou shalt not weep, he will surely have pity on thee: at the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee. 30:20. And the Lord will give you spare bread, and short water: and will not cause thy teacher to flee away from thee any more, and thy eyes shall see thy teacher. 30:21. And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: This is the way, walk ye in it: and go not aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left. 30:22. And thou shalt defile the plates of thy graven things of silver, and the garment of thy molten things of gold, and shalt cast them away as the uncleanness of a menstruous woman. Thou shalt say to it: Get thee hence. 30:23. And rain shall be given to thy seed, wheresoever thou shalt sow in the land: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most plentiful, and fat. The lamb in that day shall feed at large in thy possession: 30:24. And thy oxen, and the ass colts that till the ground, shall eat mingled provender as it was winnowed in the floor. 30:25. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every elevated hill rivers of running waters in the day of the slaughter of many, when the tower shall fall. 30:26. And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days: in the day when the Lord shall bind up the wound of his people, and shall heal the stroke of their wound. 30:27. Behold the name of the Lord cometh from afar, his wrath burneth, and is heavy to bear: his lips are filled with indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. 30:28. His breath as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the neck, to destroy the nations unto nothing, and the bridle of error that was in the jaws of the people. 30:29. You shall have a song as in the night of the sanctified solemnity, and joy of heart, as where one goeth with a pipe, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel. 30:30. And the Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard, and shall shew the terror of his arm, in the threatening of wrath, and the flame of devouring fire: he shall crush to pieces with whirlwind, and hailstones. 30:31. For at the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall fear being struck with the rod. 30:32. And the passage of the rod shall be strongly grounded, which the Lord shall make to rest upon him with timbrels and harps, and in great battles he shall overthrow them. 30:33. For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king, deep, and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindling it. Topheth. . .It is the same as Gehenna, and is taken for hell. Isaias Chapter 31 The folly of trusting to Egypt, and forgetting God. He will fight for his people against the Assyrians. 31:1. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses, and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in horsemen, because they are very strong: and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord. 31:2. But he that is the wise one hath brought evil, and hath not removed his words: and he will rise up against the house of the wicked, and against the aid of them that work iniquity. 31:3. Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses, flesh, and not spirit: and the Lord shall put down his hand, and the helper shall fall, and he that is helped shall fall, and they shall all be confounded together. 31:4. For thus saith the Lord to me: Like as the lion roareth, and the lions whelp upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds shall come against him, he will not fear at their voice, nor be afraid of their multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon mount Sion, and upon the hill thereof. 31:5. As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, passing over and saving. 31:6. Return as you had deeply revolted, O children of Israel. 31:7. For in that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your hands have made for you to sin. 31:8. And the Assyrian shall fall by the sword not of a man, and the sword not of a man shall devour him, and he shall flee not at the face of the sword, and his young men shall be tributaries. 31:9. And his strength shall pass away with dread, and his princes fleeing shall be afraid: the Lord hath said it, whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem. Isaias Chapter 32 The blessings of the reign of Christ. The desolation of the Jews, and prosperity of the church of Christ. 32:1. Behold a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule in judgment. 32:2. And a man shall be as when one is hid from the wind, and hideth himself from a storm, as rivers of waters in drought, and the shadow of a rock that standeth out in a desert land. 32:3. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken diligently. 32:4. And the heart of fools shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of stammerers shall speak readily and plain. 32:5. The fool shall no more be called prince: neither shall the deceitful be called great: 32:6. For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and speak to the Lord deceitfully, and to make empty the soul of the hungry, and take away drink from the thirsty. 32:7. The vessels of the deceitful are most wicked: for he hath framed devices to destroy the meek, with lying words, when the poor man speaketh judgment. 32:8. But the prince will devise such things as are worthy of a prince, and he shall stand above the rulers. 32:9. Rise up, ye rich women, and hear my voice: ye confident daughters, give ear to my speech. 32:10. For after days and a year, you that are confident shall be troubled: for the vintage is at an end, the gathering shall come no more. 32:11. Be astonished, ye rich women, be troubled, ye confident ones: strip you, and be confounded, gird your loins. 32:12. Mourn for your breasts, for the delightful country, for the fruitful vineyard. 32:13. Upon the land of my people shall thorns and briers come up: how much more upon all the houses of joy, of the city that rejoiced? 32:14. For the house is forsaken, the multitude of the city is left, darkness and obscurity are come upon its dens for ever. A joy of wild asses, the pastures of flocks. 32:15. Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high: and the desert shall be as a charmel, and charmel shall be counted for a forest. 32:16. An judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and justice shall sit in charmel. 32:17. And the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice quietness, and security for ever. 32:18. And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest. 32:19. But hail shall be in the descent of the forest, and the city shall be made very low. 32:20. Blessed are ye that sow upon all waters, sending thither the foot of the ox and the ass. Isaias Chapter 33 God's revenge against the enemies of his church. The happiness of the heavenly Jerusalem. 33:1. Woe to thee that spoilest, shalt not thou thyself also be spoiled? and thou that despisest, shalt not thyself also be despised? when thou shalt have made an end of spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled: when being wearied thou shalt cease to despise, thou shalt be despised. That spoilest, etc. . .This is particularly directed to Sennacherib. 33:2. O Lord, have mercy on us: for we have waited for thee: be thou our arm in the morning, and our salvation in the time of trouble. 33:3. At the voice of the angel the people fled, and at the lifting up thyself the nations are scattered. 33:4. And your spoils shall be gathered together as the locusts are gathered, as when the ditches are full of them. 33:5. The Lord is magnified, for he hath dwelt on high: he hath filled Sion with judgment and justice. 33:6. And there shall be faith in thy times: riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is his treasure. 33:7. Behold they that see shall cry without, the angels of peace shall weep bitterly. The angels of peace. . .The messengers or deputies sent to negotiate a peace. 33:8. The ways are made desolate, no one passeth by the road, the covenant is made void, he hath rejected the cities, he hath not regarded the men. 33:9. The land hath mourned, and languished: Libanus is confounded, and become foul, and Saron is become as a desert: and Basan and Carmel are shaken. 33:10. Now will I rise up, saith the Lord: now will I be exalted, now will I lift up myself. 33:11. You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath as fire shall devour you. 33:12. And the people shall be as ashes after a fire, as a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire. 33:13. Hear, you that are far off, what I have done, and you that are near know my strength. 33:14. The sinners in Sion are afraid, trembling hath seized upon the hypocrites. Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings? 33:15. He that walketh in justices, and speaketh truth, that casteth away avarice by oppression, and shaketh his hands from all bribes, that stoppeth his ears lest he hear blood, and shutteth his eyes that he may see no evil. 33:16. He shall dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks shall be his highness: bread is given him, his waters are sure. 33:17. His eyes shall see the king in his beauty, they shall see the land far off. 33:18. Thy heart shall meditate fear: where is the learned? where is he that pondered the words of the law? where is the teacher of little ones? 33:19. The shameless people thou shalt not see, the people of profound speech: so that thou canst not understand the eloquence of his tongue, in whom there is no wisdom. 33:20. Look upon Sion the city of our solemnity: thy eyes shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed: neither shall the nails thereof be taken away for ever, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. 33:21. Because only there our Lord is magnificent: a place of rivers, very broad and spacious streams: no ship with oars shall pass by it, neither shall the great galley pass through it. Of rivers. . .He speaks of the rivers of endless joys that flow from the throne of God to water the heavenly Jerusalem, where no enemy's ship can come, etc. 33:22. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king: he will save us. 33:23. Thy tacklings are loosed, and they shall be of no strength: thy mast shall be in such condition, that thou shalt not be able to spread the flag. Then shall the spoils of much prey be divided: the lame shall take the spoil. Thy tacklings. . .He speaks of the enemies of the church, under the allegory of a ship that is disabled. 33:24. Neither shall he that is near, say: I am feeble. The people that dwell therein, shall have their iniquity taken away from them. Isaias Chapter 34 The general judgment of the wicked. 34:1. Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that cometh forth of it. 34:2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to slaughter. 34:3. Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood. 34:4. And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree. And all the host of the heavens. . .That is, the sun, moon, and stars. 34:5. For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment. Idumea. . .Under the name of Idumea, or Edom a people that were enemies of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of God and his church. 34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 34:7. And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with the fat of fat ones. The unicorns. . .That is, the great and mighty. 34:8. For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompenses of the judgment of Sion. The year of recompenses, etc. . .When the persecutors of Sion, that is, of the church, shall receive their reward. 34:9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. 34:10. Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever. 34:11. The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation. 34:12. The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing. 34:13. And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches. 34:14. And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself. 34:15. There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another. 34:16. Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them. 34:17. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation they shall dwell therein. Isaias Chapter 35 The joyful flourishing of Christ's kingdom: in his church shall be a holy and secure way. 35:1. The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. 35:2. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel, and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God. 35:3. Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees. 35:4. Say to the fainthearted: Take courage, and fear not: behold your God will bring the revenge of recompense: God himself will come and will save you. 35:5. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 35:6. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness. 35:7. And that which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush. 35:8. And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein. 35:9. No lion shall be there, nor shall any mischievous beast go up by it, nor be found there: but they shall walk there that shall be delivered. 35:10. And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. Isaias Chapter 36 Sennacherib invades Juda: his blasphemies. 36:1. And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced cities of Juda, and took them. 36:2. And the king of the Assyrians sent Rabsaces from Lachis to Jerusalem, to king Ezechias with a great army, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's field. 36:3. And there went out to him Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder. 36:4. And Rabsaces said to them: Tell Ezechias: Thus saith the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence wherein thou trustest? 36:5. Or with what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for war? on whom dost thou trust, that thou art revolted from me? 36:6. Lo thou trustest upon this broken staff of a reed, upon Egypt: upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharao king of Egypt to all that trust in him. 36:7. But if thou wilt answer me: We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and hath said to Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar? 36:8. And now deliver thyself up to my lord the king of the Assyrians, and I will give thee two thousand horses, and thou wilt not be able on thy part to find riders for them. 36:9. And how wilt thou stand against the face of the judge of one place, of the least of my master's servants? But if thou trust in Egypt, in chariots and in horsemen: 36:10. And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up against this land, and destroy it. 36:11. And Eliacim, and Sobna, and Joahe said to Rabsaces: Speak to thy servants in the Syrian tongue: for we understand it: speak not to us in the Jews' language in the hearing of the people, that are upon the wall. 36:12. And Rabsaces said to them: Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee, to speak all these words; and not rather to the men that sit on the wall; that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine with you? 36:13. Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said: Hear the words of the great king, the king of the Assyrians. 36:14. Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you. 36:15. And let not Ezechias make you trust in the Lord, saying: The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. 36:16. Do not hearken to Ezechias: for thus said the king of the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me, and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the water of his cistern, 36:17. Till I come and take you away to a land, like to your own, a land of corn and of wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 36:18. Neither let Ezechias trouble you, saying: The Lord will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians? 36:19. Where is the god of Emath and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 36:20. Who is there among all the gods of these lands, that hath delivered his country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? 36:21. And they held their peace, and answered him not a word. For the king had commanded, saying: Answer him not. 36:22. And Eliacim the son of Helcias, that was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder, went in to Ezechias with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces. Isaias Chapter 37 Ezechias, his mourning and prayer. God's promise of protection. The Assyrian army is destroyed. Sennacherib is slain. 37:1. And it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it, that he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 37:2. And he sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaias the son of Amos the prophet. 37:3. And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. 37:4. It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to blaspheme the living God, and to reproach with words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up by prayer for the remnant that is left. 37:5. And the servants of Ezechias came to Isaias. 37:6. And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me. 37:7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own country. 37:8. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis. 37:9. And he heard say about Tharaca the king of Ethiopia: He is come forth to fight against thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying: 37:10. Thus shall you speak to Ezechias the king of Juda, saying: Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest, saying: Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. 37:11. Behold thou hast heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have done to all countries which they have destroyed, and canst thou be delivered? 37:12. Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozam, and Haram, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thalassar? 37:13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava? 37:14. And Ezechias took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Ezechias spread it before the Lord. 37:15. And Ezechias prayed to the Lord, saying: 37:16. Lord of hosts, God of Israel who sitteth upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. 37:17. Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to blaspheme the living God. 37:18. For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste lands, and their countries. 37:19. And they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the works of men's hands, of wood and stone: and they broke them in pieces. 37:20. And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and let all the kingdoms of the earth know, that thou only art the Lord. 37:21. And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: For the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians: 37:22. This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged the head after thee. 37:23. Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. 37:24. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord: and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to the forest of its Carmel. Carmel. . .See these figurative expressions explained in the annotations on the nineteenth chapter of the fourth book of Kings. 37:25. I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks. 37:26. Hast thou not heard what I have done to him of old? from the days of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and it hath come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should be destroyed. 37:27. The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled, and were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the herb of the pasture, and like the grass of the housetops, which withered before it was ripe. 37:28. I know thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. 37:29. When thou wast mad against me, thy pride came up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest. 37:30. But to thee this shall be a sign: Eat this year the things that spring of themselves, and in the second year eat fruits: but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 37:31. And that which shall be saved of the house of Juda, and which is left, shall take root downward, and shall bear fruit upward: 37:32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 37:33. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it. 37:34. By the way that he came, he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord. 37:35. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant. 37:36. And the angel of the Lord went out and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses. 37:37. And Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive. 37:38. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead. Isaias Chapter 38 Ezechias being advertised that he shall die, obtains by prayer a prolongation of his life: in confirmation of which the sun goes back. The canticle of Ezechias. 38:1. In those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and Isaias the son of Amos the prophet cane unto him, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live. 38:2. And Ezechias turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, 38:3. And said: I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Ezechias wept with great weeping. 38:4. And the word of the Lord came to Isaias, saying: 38:5. Go and say to Ezechias: Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: behold I will add to thy days fifteen years: 38:6. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect it. 38:7. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he hath spoken: 38:8. Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by which it is now gone down in the sun dial of Achaz with the sun, ten lines backward. And the sun returned ten lines by the degrees by which it was gone down. 38:9. The writing of Ezechias king of Juda, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. 38:10. I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell: I sought for the residue of my years. Hell. . .Sheol, or Hades, the region of the dead. 38:11. I said: I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. I shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest. 38:12. My generation is at an end, and it is rolled away from me, as a shepherd's tent. My life is cut off, as by a weaver: whilst I was yet but beginning, he cut me off: from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me. 38:13. I hoped till morning, as a lion so hath he broken all my bones: from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me. 38:14. I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like a dove: my eyes are weakened looking upward: Lord, I suffer violence, answer thou for me. 38:15. What shall I say, or what shall he answer for me, whereas he himself hath done it? I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul. 38:16. O Lord, if man's life be such, and the life of my spirit be in such things as these, thou shalt correct me, and make me to live. 38:17. Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter: but thou hast delivered my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. 38:18. For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall death praise thee: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for thy truth. 38:19. The living, the living, he shall give praise to thee, as I do this day: the father shall make the truth known to the children. 38:20. O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of the Lord. 38:21. Now Isaias had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and lay it as a plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed. 38:22. And Ezechias had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? Isaias Chapter 39 Ezechias shews all his treasures to the ambassadors of Babylon: upon which Isaias foretells the Babylonish captivity. 39:1. At that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, sent letters and presents to Ezechias: for he had heard that he had been sick and was recovered. 39:2. And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he shewed them the storehouses of his aromatical spices, and of the silver, and of the gold, and of the sweet odours, and of the precious ointment, and all the storehouses of his furniture, and all things that were found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion that Ezechias shewed them not. 39:3. Then Isaias the prophet came to king Ezechias, and said to him: What said these men, and from whence came they to thee? And Ezechias said: From a far country they came to me, from Babylon. 39:4. And he said: What saw they in thy house? And Ezechias said: All things that are in my house have they seen, there was not any thing which I have not shewn them in my treasures. 39:5. And Isaias said to Ezechias: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. 39:6. Behold the days shall come that all that is in thy house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried away into Babylon: there shall not any thing be left, saith the Lord. 39:7. And of thy children, that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 39:8. And Ezechias said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which he hath spoken, is good. And he said: Only let peace and truth be in my days. Isaias Chapter 40 The prophet comforts the people with the promise of the coming of Christ to forgive their sins. God's almighty power and majesty. 40:1. Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. 40:2. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. 40:3. The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. 40:4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. 40:5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. 40:6. The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. 40:7. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass: 40:8. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever. 40:9. Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God: 40:10. Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him. 40:11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young. 40:12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 40:13. Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him? 40:14. With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding? 40:15. Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust. 40:16. And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 40:17. All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity. 40:18. To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make for him? 40:19. Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver? 40:20. He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved. 40:21. Do you not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood the foundations of the earth? 40:22. It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. 40:23. He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing, that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity. 40:24. And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 40:25. And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy One? 40:26. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of them was missing. 40:27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 40:28. Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom. 40:29. It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not. 40:30. You shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity. 40:31. But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaias Chapter 41 The reign of the just one: the vanity of idols. 41:1. Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together. 41:2. Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven by the wind, to his bow. 41:3. He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear after his feet. 41:4. Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last. 41:5. The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came. 41:6. Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother: Be of good courage. 41:7. The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved. 41:8. But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend: 41:9. In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away. 41:10. Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee. 41:11. Behold all that fight against thee shall be confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive against thee. 41:12. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that resist thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war against thee. 41:13. For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee. 41:14. Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. 41:15. I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt make the hills as chaff. 41:16. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful. 41:17. The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 41:18. I will open rivers in the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters. 41:19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together: The thorn. . .In Hebrew, the shitta, or setim, a tree resembling the white thorn. 41:20. That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. 41:21. Bring your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege, saith the King of Jacob. 41:22. Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to come. 41:23. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak, and see together. 41:24. Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination. 41:25. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay. 41:26. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that sheweth, nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words. 41:27. The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist. 41:28. And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word. 41:29. Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity. Isaias Chapter 42 The office of Christ. The preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. The blindness and reprobation of the Jews. 42:1. Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. My servant. . .Christ, who according to his humanity, is the servant of God. 42:2. He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his voice be heard abroad. 42:3. The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 42:4. He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set judgment in the earth, and the islands shall wait for his law. 42:5. Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens, and stretched them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out of it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that tread thereon. 42:6. I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee by the hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles: 42:7. That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. 42:8. I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven things. 42:9. The things that were first, behold they are come: and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I will make you hear them. 42:10. Sing ye to the Lord a new song, his praise is from the ends of the earth: you that go down to the sea, and all that are therein: ye islands, and ye inhabitants of them. 42:11. Let the desert and the cities thereof be exalted: Cedar shall dwell in houses: ye inhabitants of Petra, give praise, they shall cry from the top of the mountains. Petra. . .A city that gives name to Arabia Petraea. 42:12. They shall give glory to the Lord, and shall declare his praise in the islands. 42:13. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war shall he stir up zeal: he shall shout and cry: he shall prevail against his enemies. 42:14. I have always held my peace, I have kept silence, I have been patient, I will speak now as a woman in labour: I will destroy, and swallow up at once. 42:15. I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and will make all their grass to wither: and I will turn rivers into islands, and will dry up the standing pools. 42:16. And I will lead the blind into the way which they know not: and in the paths which they were ignorant of I will make them walk: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things have I done to them, and have not forsaken them. 42:17. They are turned back: let them be greatly confounded, that trust in a graven thing, that say to a molten thing: You are our god. 42:18. Hear, ye deaf, and, ye blind, behold that you may see. 42:19. Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he to whom I have sent my messengers? Who is blind, but he that is sold? or who is blind, but the servant of the Lord? 42:20. Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe them? thou that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear? 42:21. And the Lord was willing to sanctify him, and to magnify the law, and exalt it. 42:22. But this is a people that is robbed and wasted: they are all the snare of young men, and they are hid in the houses of prisons: they are made a prey, and there is none to deliver them: a spoil, and there is none that saith: Restore. 42:23. Who is there among you that will give ear to this, that will attend and hearken for times to come? 42:24. Who hath given Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to robbers? hath not the Lord himself, against whom we have sinned? And they would not walk in his ways, and they have not hearkened to his law. 42:25. And he hath poured out upon him the indignation of his fury, and a strong battle, and hath burnt him round about, and he knew not: and set him on fire, and he understood not. Isaias Chapter 43 God comforts his church, promising to protect her for ever: he expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude. 43:1. And now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name: thou art mine. 43:2. When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee: when thou shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, and the flames shall not burn in thee: 43:3. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I have given Egypt for thy atonement, Ethiopia and Saba for thee. 43:4. Since thou becamest honourable in my eyes, thou art glorious: I have loved thee, and I will give men for thee, and people for thy life. 43:5. Fear not, for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west. 43:6. I will say to the north: Give up: and to the south: Keep not back: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. 43:7. And every one that calleth upon my name, I have created him for my glory. I have formed him, and made him. 43:8. Bring forth the people that are blind, and have eyes: that are deaf, and have ears. 43:9. All the nations are assembled together, and the tribes are gathered: who among you can declare this, and shall make us hear the former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, let them be justified, and hear, and say: It is truth. 43:10. You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may know, and believe me, and understand that I myself am. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none. 43:11. I am, I am the Lord: and there is no saviour besides me. 43:12. I have declared, and have saved. I have made it heard, and there was no strange one among you. You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am God. 43:13. And from the beginning I am the same, and there is none that can deliver out of my hind: I will work, and who shall turn it away? 43:14. Thus saith the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their bars, and the Chaldeans glorying in their ships. 43:15. I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. 43:16. Thus saith the Lord, who made a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters. 43:17. Who brought forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the strong: they lay down to sleep together, and they shall not rise again: they are broken as flax, and are extinct. 43:18. Remember not former things, and look not on things of old. 43:19. Behold I do new things, and now they shall spring forth, verily you shall know them: I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 43:20. The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, to my chosen. 43:21. This people have I formed for myself, they shall shew forth my praise. 43:22. But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, neither hast thou laboured about me, O Israel. 43:23. Thou hast not offered me the ram of thy holocaust, nor hast thou glorified me with thy victims: I have not caused thee to serve with oblations, nor wearied thee with incense. 43:24. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy victims. But thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities. 43:25. I am, I am he that blot out thy iniquities for my own sake, and I will not remember thy sins. 43:26. Put me in remembrance, and let us plead together: tell if thou hast any thing to justify thyself. 43:27. Thy first father sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. 43:28. And I have profaned the holy princes, I have given Jacob to slaughter, and Israel to reproach. Isaias Chapter 44 God's favour to his church. The folly of idolatry. The people shall be delivered from captivity. 44:1. And now hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen. 44:2. Thus saith the Lord that made and formed thee, thy helper from the womb: Fear not, O my servant Jacob, and thou most righteous whom I have chosen. 44:3. For I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground, and streams upon the dry land: I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy stock. 44:4. And they shall spring up among the herbs, as willows beside the running waters. 44:5. One shall say: I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand, To the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. 44:6. Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God. 44:7. Who is like to me? let him call and declare: and let him set before me the order, since I appointed the ancient people: and the things to come, and that shall be hereafter, let them shew unto them. 44:8. Fear ye not, neither be ye troubled from that time I have made thee to hear, and have declared: you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me, a maker, whom I have not known? 44:9. The makers of idols are all of them nothing, and their best beloved things shall not profit them. They are their witnesses, that they do not see, nor understand, that they may be ashamed. 44:10. Who hath formed a god, and made a graven thing that is profitable for nothing? 44:11. Behold, all the partakers thereof shall be confounded: for the makers are men: they shall all assemble together, they shall stand and fear, and shall be confounded together. 44:12. The smith hath wrought with his file, with coals, and with hammers he hath formed it, and hath wrought with the strength of his arm: he shall hunger and faint, he shall drink no water, and shall be weary. 44:13. The carpenter hath stretched out his rule, he hath formed it with a plane: he hath made it with corners, and hath fashioned it round with the compass: and he hath made the image of a man as it were a beautiful man dwelling in a house. 44:14. He hath cut down cedars, taken the holm, and the oak that stood among the trees of the forest: he hath planted the pine tree, which the rain hath nourished. 44:15. And it hath served men for fuel: he took thereof, and warmed himself: and he kindled it, and baked bread: but of the rest he made a god, and adored it: he made a graven thing, and bowed down before it. 44:16. Part of it he burnt with fire, and with part of it he dressed his meat: he boiled pottage, and was filled, and was warmed, and said: Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire. 44:17. But the residue thereof he made a god, and a graven thing for himself: he boweth down before it, and adoreth it, and prayeth unto it, saying: Deliver me, for thou art my God. 44:18. They have not known, nor understood: for their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart. 44:19. They do not consider in their mind, nor know, nor have the thought to say: I have burnt part of it in the fire, and I have baked bread upon the coals thereof: I have broiled flesh and have eaten, and of the residue thereof shall I make an idol? shall I fall down before the stock of a tree? 44:20. Part thereof is ashes: his foolish heart adoreth it, and he will not save his soul, nor say: Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand. 44:21. Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed thee, thou art my servant, O Israel, forget me not. 44:22. I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist: return to me, for I have redeemed thee. 44:23. Give praise, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath shewn mercy: shout with joy, ye ends of the earth: ye mountains, resound with praise, thou, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and Israel shall be glorified. 44:24. Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, and thy maker, from the womb: I am the Lord, that make all things, that alone stretch out the heavens, that established the earth, and there is none with me. 44:25. That make void the tokens of diviners, and make the soothsayers mad. That turn the wise backward, and that make their knowledge foolish. 44:26. That raise up the word of my servant and perform the counsel of my messengers, who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be inhabited: and to the cities of Juda: You shall be built, and I will raise up the wastes thereof. 44:27. Who say to the deep: Be thou desolate, and I will dry up thy rivers. 44:28. Who say to Cyrus: Thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt perform all my pleasure. Who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be built: and to the temple: Thy foundations shall be laid. Isaias Chapter 45 A prophecy of Cyrus, as a figure of Christ, the great deliverer of God's people. 45:1. Thus saith the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of, to subdue nations before his face, and to turn the backs of kings, and to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut. 45:2. I will go before thee, and will humble the great ones of the earth: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and will burst the bars of iron. 45:3. And I will give thee hidden treasures, and the concealed riches of secret places: that thou mayest know that I am the Lord who call thee by thy name, the God of Israel. 45:4. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have made a likeness of thee, and thou hast not known me. 45:5. I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no God besides me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me: 45:6. That they may know who are from the rising of the sun, and they who are from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else: 45:7. I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things. Create evil, etc. . .The evils of afflictions and punishments, but not the evil of sin. 45:8. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour: and let justice spring up together: I the Lord have created him. 45:9. Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker, a sherd of the earthen pots: shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it: What art thou making, and thy work is without hands? 45:10. Woe to him that saith to his father: Why begettest thou? and to the woman: Why dost thou bring forth? 45:11. Thus saith the Lord the Holy One of Israel, his maker: Ask me of things to come, concerning my children, and concerning the work of my hands give ye charge to me. 45:12. I made the earth: and I created man upon it: my hand stretched forth the heavens, and I have commanded all their host. 45:13. I have raised him up to justice, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for ransom, nor for presents, saith the Lord the God of hosts. 45:14. Thus saith the Lord: The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and of Sabaim, men of stature shall come over to thee, and shall be thine: they shall walk after thee, they shall go bound with manacles: and they shall worship thee, and shall make supplication to thee: only in thee is God, and there is no God besides thee. 45:15. Verily thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel the saviour. 45:16. They are all confounded and ashamed: the forgers of errors are gone together into confusion. 45:17. Israel is saved in the Lord with an eternal salvation: you shall not be confounded, and you shall not be ashamed for ever and ever. 45:18. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth, and made it, the very maker thereof: he did not create it in vain: he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is no other. 45:19. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I have not said to the seed of Jacob: Seek me in vain. I am the Lord that speak justice, that declare right things. 45:20. Assemble yourselves, and come, and draw near together, ye that are saved of the Gentiles: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven work, and pray to a god that cannot save. 45:21. Tell ye, and come, and consult together: who hath declared this from the beginning, who hath foretold this from that time? Have not I the Lord, and there is no God else besides me? A just God and a saviour, there is none besides me. 45:22. Be converted to me, and you shall be saved, all ye ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other. 45:23. I have sworn by myself, the word of justice shall go out of my mouth, and shall not return: 45:24. For every knee shall be bowed to me, and every tongue shall swear. 45:25. Therefore shall he say: In the Lord are my justices and empire: they shall come to him, and all that resist him shall be confounded. 45:26. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and praised. Isaias Chapter 46 The idols of Babylon shall be destroyed. Salvation is promised through Christ. 46:1. Bel is broken, Nebo is destroyed: their idols are put upon beasts and cattle, your burdens of heavy weight even unto weariness. 46:2. They are consumed, and are broken together: they could not save him that carried them, and they themselves shall go into captivity. 46:3. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel who are carried by my bowels, are borne up by my womb. 46:4. Even to your old age I am the same, and to your grey hairs I will carry you: I have made you, and I will bear: I will carry and will save. 46:5. To whom have you likened me, and made me equal, and compared me, and made me like? 46:6. You that contribute gold out of the bag, and weigh out silver in the scales: and hire a goldsmith to make a god: and they fall down and worship. 46:7. They bear him on their shoulders and carry him, and set him in his place, and he shall stand, and shall not stir out of his place. Yea, when they shall cry also unto him, he shall not hear: he shall not save them from tribulation. 46:8. Remember this, and be ashamed: return, ye transgressors, to the heart. 46:9. Remember the former age, for I am God, and there is no God beside, neither is there the like to me: 46:10. Who shew from the beginning the things that shall be at last, and from ancient times the things that as yet are not done, saying: My counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done: 46:11. Who call a bird from the east, and from a far country the man of my own will, and I have spoken, and will bring it to pass: I have created, and I will do it. Hear me, O ye hardhearted, who are far from justice. 46:12. I have brought my justice near, it shall not be afar off: and my salvation shall not tarry. I will give salvation in Sion, and my glory in Israel. Isaias Chapter 47 God's judgment upon Babylon. 47:1. Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne for the daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called delicate and tender. 47:2. Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers. 47:3. Thy nakedness shall be discovered, and thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and no man shall resist me. 47:4. Our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. 47:5. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms. 47:6. I was angry with my people, I have polluted my inheritance, and have given them into thy hand: thou hast shewn no mercy to them: upon the ancient thou hast laid thy yoke exceeding heavy. 47:7. And thou hast said: I shall be a lady for ever: thou hast not laid these things to thy heart, neither hast thou remembered thy latter end. 47:8. And now hear these things, thou that art delicate, and dwellest confidently, that sayest in thy heart: I am, and there is none else besides me: I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know barrenness. 47:9. These two things shall come upon thee suddenly in one day, barrenness and widowhood. All things are come upon thee, because of the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great hardness of thy enchanters. 47:10. And thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, and hast said: There is none that seeth me. Thy wisdom, and, thy knowledge, this hath deceived thee. And thou hast said in thy heart: I am, and besides me there is no other. 47:11. Evil shall come upon thee, and thou shalt not know the rising thereof: and calamity shall fall violently upon thee, which thou canst not keep off: misery shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. 47:12. Stand now with thy enchanters, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth, if so be it may profit thee any thing, or if thou mayst become stronger. 47:13. Thou hast failed in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers stand and save thee, they that gazed at the stars, and counted the months, that from them they might tell the things that shall come to thee. 47:14. Behold they are as stubble, fire hath burnt them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flames: there are no coals wherewith they may be warmed, nor fire, that they may sit thereat. 47:15. Such are all the things become to thee, in which thou hast laboured: thy merchants from thy youth, every one hath erred in his own way, there is none that can save thee. Isaias Chapter 48 He reproaches the Jews for their obstinacy: he will deliver them out of their captivity, for his own name's sake. 48:1. Hear ye these things, O house of Jacob, you that are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Juda, you who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in justice. 48:2. For they are called of the holy city, and are established upon the God of Israel: the Lord of hosts is his name. 48:3. The former things of old, I have declared, and they went forth out of my mouth, and I have made them to be heard: I did them suddenly and they came to pass. 48:4. For I knew that thou art stubborn, and thy neck is as an iron sinew, and thy forehead as brass. 48:5. I foretold thee of old, before they came to pass I told thee, lest thou shouldst say: My idols have done these things, and my graven and molten things have commanded them. 48:6. See now all the things which thou hast heard: but have you declared them? I have shewn thee new things from that time, and things are kept which thou knowest not: 48:7. They are created now, and not of old: and before the day, when thou heardest them not, lest thou shouldst say: Behold I knew them. 48:8. Thou hast neither heard, nor known, neither was thy ear opened of old. For I know that transgressing thou wilt transgress, and I have called thee a transgressor from the womb. 48:9. For my name's sake I will remove my wrath far off: and for my praise I will bridle thee, lest thou shouldst perish. 48:10. Behold I have refined thee, but not as silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of poverty. 48:11. For my own sake, for my own sake will I do it, that I may not be blasphemed: and I will not give my glory to another. 48:12. Hearken to me, O Jacob, and thou Israel whom I call: I am he, I am the first, and I am the last. 48:13. My hand also hath founded the earth, and my right hand hath measured the heavens: I shall call them, and they shall stand together. 48:14. Assemble yourselves together, all you, and hear: who among them hath declared these things? the Lord hath loved him, he will do his pleasure in Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. 48:15. I, even I have spoken and called him: I have brought him, and his way is made prosperous. 48:16. Come ye near unto me, and hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning: from the time before it was done, I was there, and now the Lord God hath sent me, and his spirit. 48:17. Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord thy God that teach thee profitable things, that govern thee in the way that thou walkest. 48:18. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments: thy peace had been as a river, and thy justice as the waves of the sea, 48:19. And thy seed had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: his name should not have perished, nor have been destroyed from before my face. 48:20. Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, declare it with the voice of joy: make this to be heard, and speak it out even to the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. 48:21. They thirsted not in the desert, when he led them out: he brought forth water out of the rock for them, and he clove the rock, and the waters gushed out. 48:22. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord. Isaias Chapter 49 Christ shall bring the Gentiles to salvation. God's love to his church is perpetual. 49:1. Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar. The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been mindful of my name. 49:2. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the shadow of his hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow: in his quiver he hath hidden me. 49:3. And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in thee will I glory. 49:4. And I said: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength without cause and in vain: therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. 49:5. And now saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I may bring back Jacob unto him, and Israel will not be gathered together: and I am glorified in the eyes of the Lord, and my God is made my strength. 49:6. And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold, I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth. 49:7. Thus saith the Lord the redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to the soul that is despised, to the nation that is abhorred, to the servant of rulers: Kings shall see, and princes shall rise up, and adore for the Lord's sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee. 49:8. Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped thee: and I have preserved thee, and given thee to be a covenant of the people, that thou mightest raise up the earth, and possess the inheritances that were destroyed: 49:9. That thou mightest say to them that are bound: Come forth: and to them that are in darkness: Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in every plain. 49:10. They shall not hunger, nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun strike them: for he that is merciful to them, shall be their shepherd, and at the fountains of waters he shall give them drink. 49:11. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my paths shall be exalted. 49:12. Behold these shall come from afar, and behold these from the north and from the sea, and these from the south country. 49:13. Give praise, O ye heavens, and rejoice, O earth, ye mountains, give praise with jubilation: because the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy on his poor ones. 49:14. And Sion said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. 49:15. Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee. 49:16. Behold, I have graven thee in my hands: thy walls are always before my eyes. 49:17. Thy builders are come: they that destroy thee and make thee waste shall go out of thee. 49:18. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see all these are gathered together, they are come to thee: I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt be clothed with all these as with an ornament, and as a bride thou shalt put them about thee. 49:19. For thy deserts, and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction shall now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be chased far away. 49:20. The children of thy barrenness shall still say in thy ears: The place is too strait for me, make me room to dwell in. 49:21. And thou shalt say in thy heart: Who hath begotten these? I was barren and brought not forth, led away, and captive: and who hath brought up these? I was destitute and alone: and these, where were they? 49:22. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders. 49:23. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their face toward the earth, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be confounded that wait for him. 49:24. Shall the prey be taken from the strong? or can that which was taken by the mighty, be delivered? 49:25. For thus saith the Lord: Yea verily, even the captivity shall be taken away from the strong: and that which was taken by the mighty, shall be delivered. But I will judge those that have judged thee, and thy children I will save. 49:26. And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine: and all flesh shall know, that I am the Lord that save thee, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob. Isaias Chapter 50 The synagogue shall be divorced for her iniquities. Christ for her sake will endure ignominious afflictions. 50:1. Thus saith the Lord: What is this bill of the divorce of your mother, with which I have put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you: behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds have I put your mother away. 50:2. Because I came, and there was not a man: I called, and there was none that would hear. Is my hand shortened and become little, that I cannot redeem? or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold at my rebuke I will make the sea a desert, I will turn the rivers into dry land: the fishes shall rot for want of water, and shall die for thirst. 50:3. I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make sackcloth their covering. 50:4. The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master. 50:5. The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back. 50:6. I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me. 50:7. The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded. 50:8. He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with me? let us stand together, who is my adversary? let him come near to me. 50:9. Behold the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat them up. 50:10. Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the voice of his servant, that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light? let him hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God. 50:11. Behold all you that kindle a fire, encompassed with flames, walk in the light of your fire, and in the flames which you have kindled: this is done to you by my hand, you shall sleep in sorrows. Isaias Chapter 51 An exhortation to trust in Christ. He shall protect the children of his church. 51:1. Give ear to me, you that follow that which is just, and you that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are dug out. 51:2. Look unto Abraham your father, and to Sara that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him. 51:3. The Lord therefore will comfort Sion, and will comfort all the ruins thereof: and he will make her desert as a place of pleasure, and her wilderness as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of praise. 51:4. Hearken unto me, O my people, and give ear to me, O my tribes: for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment shall rest to be a light of the nations. 51:5. My just one is near at hand, my saviour is gone forth, and my arms shall judge the people: the islands shall look for me, and shall patiently wait for my arm. 51:6. Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down to the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall be worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice shall not fail. 51:7. Hearken to me, you that know what is just, my people who have my law in your heart: fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their blasphemies. 51:8. For the worm shall eat them up as a garment: and the moth shall consume them as wool: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice from generation to generation. 51:9. Arise, arise, put on strength, O thou arm of the Lord, arise as in the days of old, in the ancient generations. Hast not thou struck the proud one, and wounded the dragon? 51:10. Hast not thou dried up the sea, the water of the mighty deep, who madest the depth of the sea a way, that the delivered might pass over? 51:11. And now they that are redeemed by the Lord, shall return, and shall come into Sion singing praises, and joy everlasting shall be upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning shall flee away. 51:12. I myself will comfort you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a mortal man, and of the son of man, who shall wither away like grass? 51:13. And thou hast forgotten the Lord thy maker, who stretched out the heavens, and founded the earth: and thou hast been afraid continually all the day at the presence of his fury who afflicted thee, and had prepared himself to destroy thee: where is now the fury of the oppressor? 51:14. He shall quickly come that is going to open unto you, and he shall not kill unto utter destruction, neither shall his bread fail. 51:15. But I am the Lord thy God, who trouble the sea, and the waves thereof swell: the Lord of hosts is my name. 51:16. I have put my words in thy mouth, and have protected thee in the shadow of my hand, that thou mightest plant the heavens, and found the earth: and mightest say to Sion: Thou art my people. 51:17. Arise, arise, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath; thou hast drunk even to the bottom of the cup of dead sleep, and thou hast drunk even to the dregs. 51:18. There is none that can uphold her among all the children that she hath brought forth: and there is none that taketh her by the hand among all the children that she hath brought up. 51:19. There are two things that have happened to thee: who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword, who shall comfort thee? 51:20. Thy children are cast forth, they have slept at the head of all the ways, and the wild ox that is snared: full of the indignation of the Lord, of the rebuke of thy God. 51:21. Therefore hear this, thou poor little one, and thou that art drunk but not with wine. 51:22. Thus saith thy Sovereign the Lord, and thy God, who will fight for his people: Behold I have taken out of thy hand the cup of dead sleep, the dregs of the cup of my indignation, thou shalt not drink it again any more. 51:23. And I will put it in the hand of them that have oppressed thee, and have said to thy soul: Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as a way to them that went over. Isaias Chapter 52 Under the figure of the deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, the church is invited to rejoice for her redemption from sin. Christ's kingdom shall be exalted. 52:1. Arise, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion, put on the garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One: for henceforth the uncircumcised, and unclean shall no more pass through thee. 52:2. Shake thyself from the dust, arise, sit up, O Jerusalem: loose the bonds from off thy neck, O captive daughter of Sion. 52:3. For thus saith the Lord: You were sold gratis, and you shall be redeemed, without money. 52:4. For thus saith the Lord God: My people went down into Egypt at the beginning to sojourn there: and the Assyrian hath oppressed them without any cause at all. 52:5. And now what have I here, saith the Lord: for my people is taken away gratis. They that rule over them treat them unjustly, saith the Lord, and my name is continually blasphemed all the day long. 52:6. Therefore my people shall know my name in that day: for I myself that spoke, behold I am here. 52:7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that sheweth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign! 52:8. The voice of thy watchmen: they have lifted up their voice, they shall praise together: for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall convert Sion. 52:9. Rejoice, and give praise together, O ye deserts of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people: he hath redeemed Jerusalem. 52:10. The Lord hath prepared his holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles: and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. 52:11. Depart, depart, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing: go out of the midst of her, be ye clean, you that carry the vessels of the Lord. 52:12. For you shall not go out in a tumult, neither shall you make haste by flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will gather you together. 52:13. Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high. 52:14. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men. 52:15. He shall sprinkle many nations, kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it was not told of him, have seen: and they that heard not, have beheld. Isaias Chapter 53 A prophecy of the passion of Christ. 53:1. Who a hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? 53:2. And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: 53:3. Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not. 53:4. Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. 53:5. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed. 53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 53:7. He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth. 53:8. He was taken away from distress, and from judgment: who shall declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him. 53:9. And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth. 53:10. And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a longlived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand. 53:11. Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled: by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. 53:12. Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors. Isaias Chapter 54 The Gentiles, who were barren before, shall multiply in the church of Christ: from which God's mercy shall never depart. 54:1. Give praise, O thou barren, that bearest not: sing forth praise, and make a joyful noise, thou that didst not travail with child: for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband, saith the Lord. 54:2. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch out the skins of thy tabernacles, spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. 54:3. For thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the left: and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall inhabit the desolate cities. 54:4. Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded, nor blush: for thou shalt not be put to shame, because thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt remember no more the reproach of thy widowhood. 54:5. For he that made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord of hosts is his name: and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, shall be called the God of all the earth. 54:6. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and mourning in spirit, and as a wife cast off from her youth, said thy God. 54:7. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. 54:8. In a moment of indignation have I hid my face a little while from thee, but with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee, said the Lord thy Redeemer. 54:9. This thing is to me as in the days of Noe, to whom I swore, that I would no more bring in the waters of Noe upon the earth: so have I sworn not to be angry with thee, and not to rebuke thee. 54:10. For the mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble; but my mercy shall not depart from thee, and the covenant of my peace shall not be moved: said the Lord that hath mercy on thee. 54:11. O poor little one, tossed with tempest, without all comfort, behold I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires, 54:12. And I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates of graven stones, and all thy borders of desirable stones. 54:13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of thy children. 54:14. And thou shalt be founded in justice: depart far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near thee. 54:15. Behold, an inhabitant shall come, who was not with me, he that was a stranger to thee before, shall be joined to thee. 54:16. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have created the killer to destroy. 54:17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper: and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their justice with me, saith the Lord. Isaias Chapter 55 God promises abundance of spiritual graces to the faithful, that shall believe in Christ out of all nations, and sincerely serve him. 55:1. All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money make haste, buy, and eat: come ye, buy wine and milk without money, and without any price. 55:2. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and your soul shall be delighted in fatness. 55:3. Incline your ear and come to me: hear and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the faithful mercies of David. 55:4. Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and a master to the Gentiles. 55:5. Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest not: and the nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. 55:6. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near. 55:7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God: for he is bountiful to forgive. 55:8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 55:9. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. 55:10. And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 55:11. So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it. 55:12. For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands. 55:13. Instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the nettle, shall come up the myrtle tree: and the Lord shall be named for an everlasting sign, that shall not be taken away. Isaias Chapter 56 God invites all to keep his commandments: the Gentiles that keep them shall be the people of God: the Jewish pastors are reproved. 56:1. Thus saith the Lord: Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my justice to be revealed. 56:2. Blessed is the man that doth this, and the son of man that shall lay hold on this: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, that keepeth his hands from doing any evil. 56:3. And let not the son of the stranger, that adhereth to the Lord, speak, saying: The Lord will divide and separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree. 56:4. For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, They that shall keep my sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall hold fast my covenant: 56:5. I will give to them in my house, and within my walls, a place, and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name which shall never perish. 56:6. And the children of the stranger that adhere to the Lord, to worship him, and to love his name, to be his servants: every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and that holdeth fast my covenant: 56:7. I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations. 56:8. The Lord God, who gathereth the scattered of Israel, saith: I will still gather unto him his congregation. 56:9. All ye beasts of the field come to devour, all ye beasts of the forest. 56:10. His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams. 56:11. And most impudent dogs, they never had enough: the shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last. 56:12. Come, let us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness: and it shall be as to day, so also to morrow, and much more. Isaias Chapter 57 The infidelity of the Jews: their idolatry. Promises to humble penitents. 57:1. The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and men of mercy are taken away, because there is none that understandeth; for the just man is taken away from before the face of evil. 57:2. Let peace come, let him rest in his bed that hath walked in his uprightness. 57:3. But draw near hither, you sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer, and of the harlot. 57:4. Upon whom have you jested? upon whom have you opened your mouth wide, and put out your tongue? are not you wicked children, a false seed, 57:5. Who seek your comfort in idols under every green tree, sacrificing children in the torrents, under the high rocks? 57:6. In the parts of the torrent is thy portion, this is thy lot: and thou hast poured out libations to them, thou hast offered sacrifice. Shall I not be angry at these things? 57:7. Upon a high and lofty mountain thou hast laid thy bed, and hast gone up thither to offer victims. 57:8. And behind the door, and behind the post thou hast set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself near me, and hast received an adulterer: thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made a covenant with them: thou hast loved their bed with open hand. 57:9. And thou hast adorned thyself for the king with ointment, and hast multiplied thy perfumes. Thou hast sent thy messengers far off, and wast debased even to hell. 57:10. Thou hast been wearied in the multitude of thy ways: yet thou saidst not: I will rest: thou has found life of thy hand, therefore thou hast not asked. 57:11. For whom hast thou been solicitous and afraid, that thou hast lied, and hast not been mindful of me, nor thought on me in thy heart? for I am silent, and as one that seeth not, and thou hast forgotten me. 57:12. I will declare thy justice, and thy works shall not profit thee. 57:13. When thou shalt cry, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all off, a breeze shall take them away, but he that putteth his trust in me, shall inherit the land, and shall possess my holy mount. 57:14. And I will say: Make a way: give free passage, turn out of the path, take away the stumblingblocks out of the way of my people. 57:15. For thus saith the High and the Eminent that inhabiteth eternity: and his name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, and with a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. 57:16. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be angry unto the end: because the spirit shall go forth from my face, and breathings I will make. 57:17. For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, and I struck him: I hid my face from thee, and was angry: and he went away wandering in his own heart. 57:18. I saw his ways, and I healed him, and brought him back, and restored comforts to him, and to them that mourn for him. 57:19. I created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, said the Lord, and I healed him. 57:20. But the wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest, and the waves thereof cast up dirt and mire. 57:21. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord God. Isaias Chapter 58 God rejects the hypocritical fasts of the Jews: recommends works of mercy, and sincere godliness. 58:1. Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins. 58:2. For they seek me from day to day, and desire to know my ways, as a nation that hath done justice, and hath not forsaken the judgment of their God: they ask of me the judgments of justice: they are willing to approach to God. 58:3. Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded: have we humbled our souls, and thou hast not taken notice? Behold in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. 58:4. Behold you fast for debates and strife, and strike with the fist wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry to be heard on high. 58:5. Is this such a fast as I have chosen: for a man to afflict his soul for a day? is this it, to wind his head about like a circle, and to spread sackcloth and ashes? wilt thou call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? 58:6. Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden. 58:7. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harbourless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh. 58:8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up. 58:9. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou wilt take away the chain out of the midst of thee, and cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not. 58:10. When thou shalt pour out thy soul to the hungry, and shalt satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday. 58:11. And the Lord will give thee rest continually, and will fill thy soul with brightness, and deliver thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters shall not fail. 58:12. And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in thee: thou shalt raise up the foundation of generation and generation: and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths into rest. 58:13. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy own will in my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful, and the holy of the Lord glorious, and glorify him, while thou dost not thy own ways, and thy own will is not found, to speak a word: 58:14. Then shalt thou be delighted in the Lord, and I will lift thee up above the high places of the earth, and will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Isaias Chapter 59 The dreadful evil of sin is displayed, as the great obstacle to all good from God: yet he will send a Redeemer, and make an everlasting covenant with his church. 59:1. Behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. 59:2. But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear. 59:3. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity. 59:4. There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity. 59:5. They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the webs of spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk. 59:6. Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. 59:7. Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and destruction are in their ways. 59:8. They have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that treadeth in them knoweth no peace. 59:9. Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have walked in the dark. 59:10. We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places, as dead men. 59:11. We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us. 59:12. For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and have known our iniquities: 59:13. In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood. 59:14. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood far off: because truth hath fallen down in the street, and equity could not come in. 59:15. And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed from evil, lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his eyes, because there is no judgment. 59:16. And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own justice supported him. 59:17. He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak. 59:18. As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his adversaries, and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands. 59:19. And they from the west, shall fear the name of the Lord: and they from the rising of the sun, his glory when he shall come as a violent stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on: 59:20. And there shall come a redeemer to Sion, and to them that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord. 59:21. This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. This is my covenant, etc. . .Note here a clear promise of perpetual orthodoxy to the church of Christ. Isaias Chapter 60 The light of true faith shall shine forth in the church of Christ, and shall be spread through all nations, and continue for all ages. 60:1. Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 60:2. For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 60:3. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. 60:4. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they are come to thee: thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. 60:5. Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee. 60:6. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord. 60:7. All the flocks of Cedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nabaioth shall minister to thee: they shall be offered upon my acceptable altar, and I will glorify the house of my majesty. 60:8. Who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows? 60:9. For, the islands wait for me, and the ships of the sea in the beginning: that I may bring thy sons from afar: their silver, and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. 60:10. And the children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee: for in my wrath have I struck thee, and in my reconciliation have I had mercy upon thee. 60:11. And thy gates shall be open continually: they shall not be shut day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may be brought to thee, and their kings may be brought. 60:12. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, shall perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation. 60:13. The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the fir tree, and the box tree, and the pine tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of my feet. 60:14. And the children of them that afflict thee, shall come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel. 60:15. Because thou wast forsaken, and hated, and there was none that passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy unto generation and generation: 60:16. And thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt be nursed with the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 60:17. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver: and for wood brass, and for stones iron: and I will make thy visitation peace, and thy overseers justice. 60:18. Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction in thy borders, and salvation shall possess thy walls, and praise thy gates. 60:19. Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory. Thou shalt no more, etc. . .In this latter part of the chapter, the prophet passes from the illustrious promises made to the church militant on earth, to the glory of the church triumphant in heaven. 60:20. Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease: for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 60:21. And thy people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hand to glorify me. 60:22. The least shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong nation: I the Lord will suddenly do this thing in its time. Isaias Chapter 61 The office of Christ: the mission of the Apostles; the happiness of their converts. 61:1. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up. 61:2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn: 61:3. To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify him. 61:4. And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation. 61:5. And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandman, and the dressers of your vines. 61:6. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory. 61:7. For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them. 61:8. For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them. 61:9. And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. 61:10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels. 61:11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations. Isaias Chapter 62 The prophet will not cease from preaching Christ: to whom all nations shall be converted: and whose church shall continue for ever. 62:1. For Sion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not rest till her just one come forth as brightness, and her saviour be lighted as a lamp. 62:2. And the Gentiles shall see thy just one, and all kings thy glorious one: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. 62:3. And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 62:4. Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: and thy land shall no more be called Desolate: but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her, and thy land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee: and thy land shall be inhabited. 62:5. For the young man shall dwell with the virgin, and thy children shall dwell in thee. And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, and thy God shall rejoice over thee. 62:6. Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace, 62:7. And give him no silence till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. 62:8. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength: Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies: and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine, for which thou hast laboured. 62:9. For they that gather it, shall eat it, and shall praise the Lord: and they that bring it together, shall drink it in my holy courts. 62:10. Go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, make the road plain, pick out the stones, and lift up the standard to the people. 62:11. Behold the Lord hath made it to be heard in the ends of the earth, tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Saviour cometh: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him. 62:12. And they shall call them, The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. But thou shalt be called: A city sought after, and not forsaken. Isaias Chapter 63 Christ's victory over his enemies: his mercies to his people: their complaint. 63:1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength. I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save. Edom. . .Edom and Bosra (a strong city of Edom) are here taken in a mystical sense for the enemies of Christ and his church. 63:2. Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress? 63:3. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel. 63:4. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption is come. 63:5. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me. 63:6. And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the earth. 63:7. I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and for the multitude of his good things to the house of Israel, which he hath given them according to his kindness, and according to the multitude of his mercies. 63:8. And he said: Surely they are my people, children that will not deny: so he became their saviour. 63:9. In all their affliction he was not troubled, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them, and he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old. 63:10. But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of his Holy One: and he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. 63:11. And he remembered the days of old of Moses, and of his people: Where is he that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of his flock? where is he that put in the midst of them the spirit of his Holy One? 63:12. He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the arm of his majesty: that divided the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name. 63:13. He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness that stumbleth not. 63:14. As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit of the Lord was their leader: so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a glorious name. 63:15. Look down from heaven, and behold from thy holy habitation and the place of thy glory: where is thy zeal, and thy strength, the multitude of thy bowels, and of thy mercies? they have held back themselves from me. They have held back, etc. . .This is spoken by the prophet in the person of the Jews at the time when, for their sins, they were given up to their enemies. 63:16. For thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer, from everlasting is thy name. Abraham hath not know us, etc. . .That is, Abraham will not now acknowledge us for his children, by reason of our degeneracy; but thou, O Lord, art our true father and our redeemer, and no other can be called our parent in comparison with thee. 63:17. Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways: why hast thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear thee? return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy inheritance. Made us to err, etc. Hardened our heart, etc. . .The meaning is, that God in punishment of their great and manifold crimes, and their long abuse of his mercy and grace, had withdrawn his graces from them, and so given them up to error and hardness of heart. 63:18. They have possessed thy holy people as nothing: our enemies have trodden down thy sanctuary. 63:19. We are become as in the beginning, when thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not called by thy name. Isaias Chapter 64 The prophet prays for the release of his people; and for the remission of their sins. 64:1. O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence. 64:2. They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters would burn with fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the nations might tremble at thy presence. 64:3. When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear them: thou didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away. 64:4. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee. 64:5. Thou hast met him that rejoiceth, and doth justice: in thy ways they shall remember thee: behold thou art angry, and we have sinned: in them we have been always, and we shall be saved. 64:6. And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Our justices, etc. . .That is, the works by which we pretended to make ourselves just. This is spoken particularly of the sacrifices, sacraments, and ceremonies of the Jews, after the death of Christ, and the promulgation of the new law. 64:7. There is none that calleth upon thy name: that riseth up, and taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us in the hand of our iniquity. 64:8. And now, O Lord, thou art our father, and we are clay: and thou art our maker, and we all are the works of thy hands. 64:9. Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see we are all thy people. 64:10. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate. 64:11. The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are turned into ruins. 64:12. Wilt thou refrain thyself, O Lord, upon these things, wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us vehemently? Isaias Chapter 65 The Gentiles shall seek and find Christ, but the Jews will persecute him, and be rejected, only a remnant shall be reserved. The church shall multiply, and abound with graces. 65:1. They have sought me that before asked not for me, they have found me that sought me not. I said: Behold me, behold me, to a nation that did not call upon my name. 65:2. I have spread forth my hands all the day to an unbelieving people, who walk in a way that is not good after their own thoughts. 65:3. A people that continually provoke me to anger before my face, that immolate in gardens, and sacrifice upon bricks. 65:4. That dwell in sepulchres, and sleep in the temple of idols: that eat swine's flesh, and profane broth is in their vessels. 65:5. That say: Depart from me, come not near me, because thou art unclean: these shall be smoke in my anger, a fire burning all the day. 65:6. Behold it is written before me: I will not be silent, but I will render and repay into their bosom. 65:7. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord, who have sacrificed upon the mountains, and have reproached me upon the hills; and I will measure back their first work in their bosom. 65:8. Thus saith the Lord: As if a grain be found in a cluster, and it be said: Destroy it not, because it is a blessing: so will I do for the sake of my servants, that I may not destroy the whole. 65:9. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Juda a possessor of my mountains: and my elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. 65:10. And the plains shall be turned to folds of flocks, and the valley of Achor into a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me. 65:11. And you, that have forsaken the Lord, that have forgotten my holy mount, that set a table for fortune, and offer libations upon it, 65:12. I will number you in the sword, and you shall all fall by slaughter: because I called and you did not answer: I spoke, and you did not hear: and you did evil in my eyes, and you have chosen the things that displease me. 65:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty. 65:14. Behold my servants shall rejoice, and you shall be confounded: behold my servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for grief of spirit. 65:15. And you shall leave your name for an execration to my elect: and the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name. 65:16. In which he that is blessed upon the earth, shall be blessed in God, amen: and he that sweareth in the earth, shall swear by God, amen: because the former distresses are forgotten, and because they are hid from my eyes. 65:17. For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former things shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come upon the heart. 65:18. But you shall be glad and rejoice for ever in these things, which I create: for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and the people thereof joy. 65:19. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. 65:20. There shall no more be an infant of days there, nor an old man that shall not fill up his days: for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. 65:21. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruits of them. 65:22. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of my people, and the works of their hands shall be of long continuance. 65:23. My elect shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth in trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their posterity with them. 65:24. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will hear; as they are yet speaking, I will hear. 65:25. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion and the ox shall eat straw; and dust shall be the serpent's food: they shall not hurt nor kill in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. Isaias Chapter 66 More of the reprobation of the Jews, and of the call of the Gentiles. 66:1. Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool: what is this house that you will build to me? and what is this place of my rest? What is this house, etc. . .This is a prophecy that the temple should be cast off. 66:2. My hand made all these things, and all these things were made, saith the Lord. But to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my words? 66:3. He that sacrificeth an ox, is as if he slew a man: he that killeth a sheep in sacrifice, as if he should brain a dog: he that offereth an oblation, as if he should offer swine's blood; he that remembereth incense, as if he should bless an idol. All these things have they chosen in their ways, and their soul is delighted in their abominations. He that sacrificeth an ox, etc. . .This is a prophecy that the sacrifices which were offered in the old law should be abolished in the new; and that the offering of them should be a crime.--Ibid. Remembereth incense. . .Viz., to offer it in the way of a sacrifice. 66:4. Wherefore I also will choose their mockeries, and will bring upon them the things they feared: because I called, and there was none that would answer; I have spoken, and they heard not; and they have done evil in my eyes, and have chosen the things that displease me. I will choose their mockeries. . .I will turn their mockeries upon themselves; and will cause them to be mocked by their enemies. 66:5. Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at his word: Your brethren that hate you, and cast you out for my name's sake, have said: Let the Lord be glorified, and we shall see in your joy: but they shall be confounded. 66:6. A voice of the people from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies. 66:7. Before she was in labour, she brought forth; before her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a man child. Before she was in labour, etc. . .This relates to the conversion of the Gentiles, who were born, as it were, all on a sudden to the church of God. 66:8. Who hath ever heard such a thing? and who hath seen the like to this? shall the earth bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be brought forth at once, because Sion hath been in labour, and hath brought forth her children? 66:9. Shall not I that make others to bring forth children, myself bring forth, saith the Lord? shall I, that give generation to others, be barren, saith the Lord thy God? 66:10. Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all you that mourn for her. 66:11. That you may suck, and be filled with the breasts of her consolations: that you may milk out, and flow with delights, from the abundance of her glory. 66:12. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring upon her as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the Gentiles, which you shall suck; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you. 66:13. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 66:14. You shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb, and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, and he shall be angry with his enemies. 66:15. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and his rebuke with flames of fire. 66:16. For the Lord shall judge by fire, and by his sword unto all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. 66:17. They that were sanctified, thought themselves clean in the gardens behind the gate within, they that did eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse: they shall be consumed together, saith the Lord. 66:18. But I know their works, and their thoughts: I come that I may gather them together with all nations and tongues: and they shall come and shall see my glory. 66:19. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send of them that shall be saved, to the Gentiles into the sea, into Africa, and Lydia them that draw the bow: into Italy, and Greece, to the islands afar off, to them that have not heard of me, and have not seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory to the Gentiles: 66:20. And they shall bring all your brethren out of all nations for a gift to the Lord, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and in coaches, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as if the children of Israel should bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. 66:21. And I will take of them to be priests, and Levites, saith the Lord. 66:22. For as the new heavens, and the new earth, which I will make to stand before me, saith the Lord: so shall your seed stand, and your name. 66:23. And there shall be month after month, and sabbath after sabbath: and all flesh shall come to adore before my face, saith the Lord. 66:24. And they shall go out, and see the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched: and they shall be a loathsome sight to all flesh. THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAS Jeremias was a priest, a native of Anathoth, a priestly city in the tribe of Benjamin: and was sanctified from his mother's womb, to be a prophet of God; which office he began to execute when he was yet a child in age. He was in his whole life, according to the signification of his name, Great before the Lord; and a special figure of Jesus Christ, in the persecutions he underwent for discharging his duty; in his charity for his persecutors; and in the violent death he suffered at their hands: it being an ancient tradition of the Hebrews, that he was stoned to death by the remnant of the Jews who had retired into Egypt. Jeremias Chapter 1 The time, and the calling, of Jeremias: his prophetical visions. God encourages him. 1:1. The words of Jeremias the son of Helcias, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin. 1:2. The word of the Lord which came to him in the days of Josias the son of Amon king of Juda, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 1:3. And which came to him in the days of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, unto the end of the eleventh year of Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda, even unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive, in the fifth month. 1:4. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 1:5. Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations. 1:6. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. 1:7. And the Lord said to me: Say not: I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee: and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. 1:8. Be not afraid at their presence: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 1:9. And the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth: and the Lord said to me: Behold I have given my words in thy mouth: 1:10. Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant. 1:11. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: I see a rod watching. 1:12. And the Lord said to me: Thou hast seen well: for I will watch over my word to perform it. 1:13. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time saying: What seest thou? And I said: I see a boiling caldron, and the face thereof from the face of the north. 1:14. And the Lord said to me: From the north shall an evil break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. 1:15. For behold I will call together all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord: and they shall come, and shall set every one his throne in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and upon all the walls thereof round about, and upon all the cities of Juda. 1:16. And I will pronounce my judgments against them, touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have sacrificed to strange gods, and have adored the work of their own hands. 1:17. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command thee. Be not afraid at their presence: for I will make thee not to fear their countenance. 1:18. For behold I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, over all the land, to the kings of Juda, to the princes thereof, and to the priests, and to the people of the land. 1:19. And they shall fight against them, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee. Jeremias Chapter 2 God expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude and infidelity. 2:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2:2. Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou followedst me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. 2:3. Israel is holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his increase: all they that devour him offend: evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord. 2:4. Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all ye families of the house of Israel: 2:5. Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? 2:6. And they have not said: Where is the Lord, that made us come up out of the land of Egypt? that led us through the desert, through a land uninhabited and unpassable, through a land of drought, and the image of death, through a land wherein no man walked, nor any man dwelt? 2:7. And I brought you into the land of Carmel, to eat the fruit thereof, and the best things thereof: and when ye entered in, you defiled my land and made my inheritance an abomination. Carmel. . .That is, a fruitful, plentiful land. 2:8. The priests did not say: Where is the Lord? and they that held the law knew me not, and the pastors transgressed against me: and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and followed idols. 2:9. Therefore will I yet contend in judgment with you, saith the Lord, and I will plead with your children. 2:10. Pass over to the isles of Cethim, and see: and send into Cedar, and consider diligently: and see if there hath been done any thing like this. 2:11. If a nation hath changed their gods, and indeed they are not gods: but my people have changed their glory into an idol. 2:12. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof, be very desolate, saith the Lord. 2:13. For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. 2:14. Is Israel a bondman, or a homeborn slave? why then is he become a prey? 2:15. The lions have roared upon him, and have made a noise, they have made his land a wilderness: his cities are burnt down, and there is none to dwell in them. 2:16. The children also of Memphis, and of Taphnes have defloured thee, even to the crown of the head. 2:17. Hath not this been done to thee, because thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God at that time, when he led thee by the way? 2:18. And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? And what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river? 2:19. Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not with thee, saith the Lord the God of hosts. 2:20. Of old time thou hast broken my yoke, thou hast burst my bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill, and under every green tree thou didst prostitute thyself. 2:21. Yet, I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard? 2:22. Though thou wash thyself with nitre, and multiply to thyself the herb borith, thou art stained in thy iniquity before me, saith the Lord God. Borith. . .An herb used to clean clothes, and take out spots and dirt. 2:23. How canst thou say: I am not polluted, I have not walked after Baalim? see thy ways in the valley, know what thou hast done: as a swift runner pursuing his course. 2:24. A wild ass accustomed to the wilderness in the desire of his heart, snuffed up the wind of his love: none shall turn her away: all that seek her shall not fail: in her monthly filth they shall find her. 2:25. Keep thy foot from being bare, and thy throat from thirst. But thou saidst: I have lost all hope, I will not do it: for I have loved strangers, and I will walk after them. 2:26. As the thief is confounded when he is taken, so is the house of Israel confounded, they and their kings, their princes and their priests, and their prophets. 2:27. Saying to a stock: Thou art my father: and to a stone: Thou hast begotten me: they have turned their back to me, and not their face: and in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us. 2:28. Where are the gods, whom thou hast made thee? let them arise and deliver thee in the time of thy affliction: for according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Juda. 2:29. Why will you contend with me in judgment? you have all forsaken me, saith the Lord. 2:30. In vain have I struck your children, they have not received correction: your sword hath devoured your prophets, your generation is like a ravaging lion. 2:31. See ye the word of the Lord: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land? why then have my people said: We are revolted, we will come to thee no more? 2:32. Will a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride her stomacher? but my people hath forgotten me days without number. 2:33. Why dost thou endeavour to shew thy way good to seek my love, thou who hast also taught thy malices to be thy ways, 2:34. And in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor and innocent? not in ditches have I found them, but in all places, which I mentioned before. 2:35. And thou hast said: I am without sin and am innocent: and therefore let thy anger be turned away from me. Behold, I will contend with thee in judgment, because thou hast said: I have not sinned. 2:36. How exceeding base art thou become, going the same ways over again! and thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria. 2:37. For from thence thou shalt go, and thy hand shall be upon thy head: for the Lord hath destroyed thy trust, and thou shalt have nothing prosperous therein. Jeremias Chapter 3 God invites the rebel Jews to return to him, with a promise to receive them: he foretells the conversion of the Gentiles. 3:1. It is commonly said: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? shall not that woman be polluted, and defiled? but thou hast prostituted thyself to many lovers: nevertheless return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee. 3:2. Lift up thy eyes on high: and see where thou hast not prostituted thyself: thou didst sit in the ways, waiting for them as a robber in the wilderness: and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications, and with thy wickedness. 3:3. Therefore the showers were withholden, and there was no lateward rain: thou hadst a harlot's forehead, thou wouldst not blush. 3:4. Therefore at the least from this time call to me: Thou art my father, the guide of my virginity: 3:5. Wilt thou be angry for ever, or wilt thou continue unto the end? Behold, thou hast spoken, and hast done evil things, and hast been able. 3:6. And the Lord said to me in the days of king Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hath done? she hath gone of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and hath played the harlot there. 3:7. And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw, 3:8. That because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself. 3:9. And by the facility of her fornication she defiled the land, and played the harlot with stones and with stocks. 3:10. And after all this, her treacherous sister Juda hath not returned to me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith the Lord. 3:11. And the Lord said to me: The rebellious Israel hath justified her soul, in comparison of the treacherous Juda. 3:12. Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and thou shalt say: Return, O rebellious Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not turn away my face from you: for I am holy, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever. 3:13. But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God: and thou hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree, and hast not heard my voice, saith the Lord. 3:14. Return, O ye revolting children, saith the Lord: for I am your I husband: and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a kindred, and will bring you into Sion. 3:15. And I will give you pastors according to my own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine. 3:16. And when you shall be multiplied, and increase in the land in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more: The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come upon the heart, neither shall they remember it, neither shall it be visited, neither shall that be done any more. 3:17. At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord: and all the nations shall be gathered together to it, in the name of the Lord to Jerusalem, and they shall not walk after the perversity of their most wicked heart. 3:18. In those days the house of Juda shall go to the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land which I gave to your fathers. 3:19. But I said: How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a lovely land, the goodly inheritance of the armies of the Gentiles? And I said: Thou shalt call me father and shalt not cease to walk after me. 3:20. But as a woman that despiseth her lover, so hath the house of Israel despised me, saith the Lord. 3:21. A voice was heard in the highways, weeping and howling of the children of Israel: because they have made their way wicked, they have forgotten the Lord their God. 3:22. Return, you rebellious children, and I will heal your rebellions. Behold we come to thee: for thou art the Lord our God. 3:23. In very deed the hills were liars, and the multitude of the mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. 3:24. Confusion hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 3:25. We shall sleep in our confusion, and our shame shall cover us, because we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth even to this day, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God. Jeremias Chapter 4 And admonition to sincere repentance, and circumcision of the heart, with threats of grievous punishment to those that persist in sin. 4:1. If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return to me: if thou wilt take away thy stumblingblocks out of my sight, thou shalt not be moved. 4:2. And thou shalt swear: As the Lord liveth, in truth, and in judgment, and in justice: and the Gentiles shall bless him, and shall praise him. 4:3. For thus saith the Lord to the men of Juda and Jerusalem: Break up anew your fallow ground, and sow not upon thorns: 4:4. Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, ye men of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my indignation come forth like fire, and burn, and there be none that can quench it because of the wickedness of your thoughts. 4:5. Declare ye in Juda, and make it heard in Jerusalem: speak, and sound with the trumpet in the land: cry aloud, and say: Assemble yourselves, and let us go into strong cities. 4:6. Set up the standard in Sion. Strengthen yourselves, stay not: for I bring evil from the north, and great destruction. 4:7. The lion is come up out of his den, and the robber of nations hath roused himself: he is come forth out of his place, to make thy land desolate: thy cities shall be laid waste, remaining without an inhabitant. 4:8. For this gird yourselves with haircloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned away from us. 4:9. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord: That the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes: and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall be amazed. 4:10. And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, hast thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: You shall have peace: and behold the sword reacheth even to the soul? 4:11. At that time it shall be said to this people, and to Jerusalem: A burning wind is in the ways that are in the desert of the way of the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse. 4:12. A full wind from these places shall come to me: and now I will speak my judgments with them. 4:13. Behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe unto us, for we are laid waste. 4:14. Wash thy heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayst be saved: how long shall hurtful thoughts abide in thee? 4:15. For a voice of one declaring from Dan, and giving notice of the idol from mount Ephraim. 4:16. Say ye to the nations: Behold it is heard in Jerusalem, that guards are coming from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Juda. 4:17. They are set round about her, as keepers of fields: because she hath provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord. 4:18. Thy ways, and thy devices have brought these things upon thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it hath touched thy heart. 4:19. My bowels, my bowels are in part, the senses of my heart are troubled within me, I will not hold my peace, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle. 4:20. Destruction upon destruction is called for, and all the earth is laid waste: my tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my pavilions in a moment. 4:21. How long shall I see men fleeing away, how long shall I hear the sound of the trumpet? 4:22. For my foolish people have not known me: they are foolish and senseless children: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. 4:23. I beheld the earth, and lo it was void, and nothing: and the heavens, and there was no light in them. 4:24. I looked upon the mountains, and behold they trembled: and all the hills were troubled. 4:25. I beheld, and lo there was no man: and all the birds of the air were gone. 4:26. I looked, and behold Carmel was a wilderness: and all its cities were destroyed at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of the wrath of his indignation. 4:27. For thus saith the Lord: All the land shall be desolate, but yet I will not utterly destroy. 4:28. The Earth shall mourn, and the heavens shall lament from above: because I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not repented, neither am I turned away from it. 4:29. At the voice of the horsemen, and the archers, all the city is fled away: they have entered into thickets and climbed up the rocks: all the cities are forsaken, and there dwelleth not a man in them. 4:30. But when thou art spoiled what wilt thou do? though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, and paintest thy eyes with stibic stone, thou shalt dress thyself out in vain: thy lovers have despised thee, they will seek thy life. 4:31. For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, anguishes as of a woman in labour of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain. Jeremias Chapter 5 The judgments of God shall fall upon the Jews for their manifold sins. 5:1. Go about through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and consider, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man that executeth judgment, and seeketh faith: and I will be merciful unto it. 5:2. And though they say: The Lord liveth; this also they will swear falsely. 5:3. O Lord, thy eyes are upon truth: thou hast struck them, and they have not grieved: thou hast bruised them, and they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than the rock, and they have refused to return. 5:4. But I said: Perhaps these are poor and foolish, that know not the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. 5:5. I will go therefore to the great men, and will speak to them: for they have known the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God: and behold these have altogether broken the yoke more, and have burst the bonds. 5:6. Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions are strengthened. 5:7. How can I be merciful to thee? thy children have forsaken me, and swear by them that are not gods: I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery, and rioted in the harlot's house. 5:8. They are become as amorous horses and stallions: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. 5:9. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? and shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation? 5:10. Scale the walls thereof, and throw them down, but do not utterly destroy: take away the branches thereof, because they are not the Lord's. 5:11. For the house of Israel, and the house of Juda have greatly transgressed against me, saith the Lord. 5:12. They have denied the Lord, and said, It is not he: and the evil shall not come upon us: we shall not see the sword and famine. 5:13. The prophets have spoken in the wind, and there was no word of God in them: these things therefore shall befall them. 5:14. Thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: because you have spoken this word, behold I will make my words in thy mouth as fire, and this people as wood, and it shall devour them. 5:15. Behold I will bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, saith the Lord: a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou shalt not know, nor understand what they say. 5:16. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all valiant. 5:17. And they shall eat up thy corn, and thy bread: they shall devour thy sons, and thy daughters: they shall eat up thy flocks, and thy herds: they shall eat thy vineyards, and thy figs: and with the sword they shall destroy thy strong cities, wherein thou trustest. 5:18. Nevertheless in those days, saith the Lord, I will not bring you to utter destruction. 5:19. And if you shall say: Why hath the Lord our God done all these things to us? thou shalt say to them: As you have forsaken me, and served a strange god in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own. 5:20. Declare ye this to the house of Jacob, and publish it in Juda, saying: 5:21. Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not. 5:22. Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it. 5:23. But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away. 5:24. And they have not said in their heart: Let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fulness of the yearly harvest. 5:25. Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withholden good things from you. 5:26. For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men. 5:27. As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched. 5:28. They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, and they have not judged the judgment of the poor. 5:29. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation? 5:30. Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land. 5:31. The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof? Jeremias Chapter 6 The evils that threaten Jerusalem. She is invited to return, and walk in the good way, and not to rely on sacrifices without obedience. 6:1. Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction. 6:2. I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman. 6:3. The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand. 6:4. Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday: woe unto us, for the day is declined, for the shadows of the evening are grown longer. 6:5. Arise, and let us go up in the night, and destroy her houses. 6:6. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her. 6:7. As a cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her wickedness cold: violence and spoil shall be heard in her, infirmity and stripes are continually before me. 6:8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited. 6:9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall gather the remains of Israel, as in a vine, even to one cluster: turn back thy hand, as a grapegatherer into the basket. 6:10. To whom shall I speak? and to whom shall I testify, that he may hear? behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear: behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: and they will not receive it. 6:11. Therefore am I full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the child abroad, and upon the council of the young men together: for man and woman shall be taken, the ancient and he that is full of days. 6:12. And their houses shall be turned over to others, with their lands and their wives together: for I will stretch forth my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. 6:13. For from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness: and from the prophet even to the priest, all are guilty of deceit. 6:14. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: and there was no peace. 6:15. They were confounded, because they committed abomination: yea, rather they were not confounded with confusion, and they knew not how to blush: wherefore they shall fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall fall down, saith the Lord. 6:16. Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: We will not walk. 6:17. And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. And they said: We will not hearken. 6:18. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what great things I will do to them. 6:19. Hear, O earth: Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts: because they have not heard my words, and they have cast away my law. 6:20. To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Saba, and the sweet smelling cane from a far country? your holocausts are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me. 6:21. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring destruction upon this people, by which fathers and sons together shall fall, neighbour and kinsman shall perish. 6:22. Thus saith the Lord: Behold a people cometh from the land of the north, and a great nation shall rise up from the ends of the earth. 6:23. They shall lay hold on arrow and shield: they are cruel, and will have no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea: and they shall mount upon horses, prepared as men for war, against thee, O daughter of Sion. 6:24. We have heard the fame thereof, our hands grow feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, as a woman in labour. 6:25. Go not out into the fields, nor walk in the highway: for the sword of the enemy, and fear is on every side. 6:26. Gird thee with sackcloth, O daughter of my people, and sprinkle thee with ashes: make thee mourning as for an only son, a bitter lamentation, because the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us. 6:27. I have set thee for a strong trier among my people: and thou shalt know, and prove their way. 6:28. All these princes go out of the way, they walk deceitfully, they are brass and iron: they are all corrupted. 6:29. The bellows have failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder hath melted in vain: for their wicked deeds are not consumed. 6:30. Call them reprobate silver, for the Lord hath rejected them. Jeremias Chapter 7 The temple of God shall not protect a sinful people, without a sincere conversion. The Lord will not receive the prayers of the prophet for them: because they are obstinate in their sins. 7:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: 7:2. Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all ye men of Juda, that enter in at these gates, to adore the Lord. 7:3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Make your ways and your doings good: and I will dwell with you in this place. 7:4. Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord. 7:5. For if you will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will execute judgment between a man and his neighbour, 7:6. If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods to your own hurt, 7:7. I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore. 7:8. Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit you: 7:9. To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not. 7:10. And you have come, and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have done all these abominations. 7:11. Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in your eyes become a den of robbers? I, I am he: I have seen it, saith the Lord. 7:12. Go ye to my place in Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning: and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel: 7:13. And now, because you have done all these works, saith the Lord: and I have spoken to you rising up early, and speaking, and you have not heard: and I have called you, and you have not answered: 7:14. I will do to this house, in which my name is called upon, and in which you trust, and to the place which I have given you and your fathers, as I did to Silo. 7:15. And I will cast you away from before my face, as I have cast away all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim. 7:16. Therefore do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will not hear thee. 7:17. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem? 7:18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to offer libations to strange gods, and to provoke me to anger. Queen of heaven. . .That is, the moon, which they worshipped under that name. 7:19. Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own countenance? 7:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation is enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. 7:21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh. 7:22. For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices. I commanded them not. . .Viz., such sacrifices as the Jews at this time offered, without obedience; which was the thing principally commanded: so that in comparison with it, the offering of the holocausts and sacrifices was of small account. 7:23. But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. 7:24. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went backward and not forward, 7:25. From the day that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, from day to day, rising up early and sending. 7:26. And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers. 7:27. And thou shalt speak to them all these words, but they will not hearken to thee: and thou shalt call them, but they will not answer thee. 7:28. And thou shalt say to them: This is a nation which hath not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction: faith is lost, and is taken away out of their mouth. 7:29. Cut off thy hair, and cast it away: and take up a lamentation on high: for the Lord hath rejected, and forsaken the generation of his wrath, 7:30. Because the children of Juda have done evil in my eyes, saith the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house in which my name is called upon, to pollute it; 7:31. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons, and their daughters in the fire: which I commanded not, nor thought on in my heart. 7:32. Therefore behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom: but the valley of slaughter: and they shall bury in Topheth, because there is no place. 7:33. And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to drive them away. 7:34. And I will cause to cease out of the cities of Juda, and out of the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate. Jeremias Chapter 8 Other evils that shall fall upon the Jews for their impenitence. 8:1. At that time, saith the Lord, they shall cast out the bones of the kings of Juda, and the bones of the princes thereof, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. 8:2. And they shall spread them abroad to the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom have walked, and whom they have sought, and adored: they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth. 8:3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all that shall remain of this wicked kindred in all places, which are left, to which I have cast them out, saith the Lord of hosts. 8:4. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Shall not he that falleth, rise again? and he that is turned away, shall he not turn again? 8:5. Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn revolting? they have laid hold on lying, and have refused to return. 8:6. I attended, and hearkened; no man speaketh what is good, there is none that doth penance for his sin, saying: What have I done? They are all turned to their own course, as a horse rushing to the battle. 8:7. The kite in the air hath known her time: the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord. 8:8. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Indeed the lying pens of the scribes hath wrought falsehood. 8:9. The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed, and taken: for they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them. 8:10. Therefore will I give their women to strangers, their fields to others for an inheritance: because from the least even to the greatest all follow covetousness: from the prophet even to the priest all deal deceitfully. 8:11. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace. 8:12. They are confounded, because they have committed abomination: yea rather they are not confounded with confusion, and they have not known how to blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall fall, saith the Lord. 8:13. Gathering I will gather them together, saith the Lord, there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig tree, the leaf is fallen: and I have given them the things that are passed away. 8:14. Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord. 8:15. We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear. 8:16. The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan, all the land was moved at the sound of the neighing of his warriors: and they came and devoured the land, and all that was in it: the city and its inhabitants. 8:17. For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, saith the Lord. 8:18. My sorrow is above sorrow, my heart mourneth within me. 8:19. Behold the voice of the daughter of my people from a far country: Is not the Lord in Sion, or is not her king in her? why then have they provoked me to wrath with their idols, and strange vanities? 8:20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 8:21. For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me. 8:22. Is there no balm in Galaad? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed? Jeremias Chapter 9 The prophet laments the miseries of his people: and their sins, which are the cause of them. He exhorts them to repentance. 9:1. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. 9:2. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors. 9:3. And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord. 9:4. Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully. 9:5. And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity. 9:6. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord. 9:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people? 9:8. Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him. 9:9. Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation? 9:10. For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed. 9:11. And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant. 9:12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through? 9:13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it. 9:14. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them. 9:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 9:16. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them till they be consumed. 9:17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste: 9:18. Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters. 9:19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down. 9:20. Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbour mourning. 9:21. For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets. 9:22. Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it. 9:23. Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches: 9:24. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord. 9:25. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised. 9:26. Upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. Jeremias Chapter 10 Neither stars nor idols are to be feared, but the great Creator of all things. The chastisement of Jerusalem for her sins. 10:1. Hear ye the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O house of Israel. 10:2. Thus saith the Lord: Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles: and be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear: 10:3. For the laws of the people are vain: for the works of the hand of the workman hath cut a tree out of the forest with an axe. 10:4. He hath decked it with silver and gold: he hath put it together with nails and hammers, that it may not fall asunder. 10:5. They are framed after the likeness of a palm tree, and shall not speak: they must be carried to be removed, because they cannot go. Therefore fear them not, for they can neither do evil nor good. 10:6. There is none like to thee, O Lord: thou art great, and great is thy name in might. 10:7. Who shall not fear thee, O king of nations? for thine is the glory: among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms there is none like unto thee. 10:8. They shall be all proved together to be senseless and foolish: the doctrine of their vanity is wood. 10:9. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tharsis, and gold from Ophaz: the work of the artificer, and of the hand of the coppersmith: violet and purple is their clothing: all these things are the work of artificers. 10:10. But the Lord is the true God: he is the living God, and the everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his threatening. 10:11. Thus then shall you say to them: The gods that have not made heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth, and from among those places that are under heaven. 10:12. He that maketh the earth by his power, that prepareth the world by his wisdom, and stretcheth out the heavens by his knowledge. 10:13. At his voice he giveth a multitude of waters in the heaven, and lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings for rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures. 10:14. Every man is become a fool for knowledge, every artist is confounded in his graven idol: for what he hath cast is false, and there is no spirit in them. 10:15. They are vain things, and a ridiculous work: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 10:16. The portion of Jacob is not like these: for it is he who formed all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name. 10:17. Gather up thy shame out of the land, thou that dwellest in a siege. 10:18. For thus saith he Lord: Behold I will cast away far off the inhabitants of the land at this time: and I will afflict them, so that they may be found. 10:19. Woe is me for my destruction, my wound is very grievous. But I said: Truly this is my own evil, and I will bear it. 10:20. My tabernacle is laid waste, all my cords are broken: my children are gone out from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. 10:21. Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord: therefore have they not understood, and all their flock is scattered. 10:22. Behold the sound of a noise cometh, a great commotion out of the land of the north: to make the cities of Juda a desert, and a dwelling for dragons. 10:23. I know, O Lord, that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a man to walk, and to direct his steps. The way of a man is not his. . .The meaning is, that notwithstanding man's free will, yet he can do no good without God's help, nor evil without his permission. So that, in the present case, all the evils which Nabuchodonosor was about to bring upon Jerusalem, could not have come but by the will of God. 10:24. Correct me, O Lord, but yet with judgment: and not in thy fury, lest thou bring me to nothing. 10:25. Pour out thy indignation upon the nations that have not known thee, and upon the provinces that have not called upon thy name: because they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have destroyed his glory. Jeremias Chapter 11 The prophet proclaims the covenant of God: and denounces evils to the obstinate transgressors of it. The conspiracy of the Jews against him, a figure of their conspiracy against Christ. 11:1. The word that came from the Lord to Jeremias, saying: 11:2. Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 11:3. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Cursed is the man that shall not hearken to the words of this covenant, 11:4. Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying: Hear ye my voice, and do all things that I command you: and you shall be my people, and I will be your God: 11:5. That I may accomplish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. And I answered and said: Amen, O Lord. 11:6. And the Lord said to me: Proclaim aloud all these words in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of the covenant, and do them: 11:7. For protesting I conjured your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt even to this day: rising early I conjured them, and said: Hearken ye to my voice: 11:8. And they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear: but walked every one in the perverseness of his own wicked heart: and I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not. 11:9. And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy is found among the men of Juda, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 11:10. They are returned to the former iniquities of their fathers, who refused to hear my words: so these likewise have gone after strange gods, to serve them: the house of Israel, and the house of Juda have made void my covenant, which I made with their fathers. 11:11. Wherefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring in evils upon them, which they shall not be able to escape: and they shall cry to me, and I will not hearken to them. 11:12. And the cities of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall go, and cry to the gods to whom they offer sacrifice, and they shall not save them in the time of their affliction. 11:13. For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Juda: and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem thou hast set up altars of confusion, altars to offer sacrifice to Baalim. 11:14. Therefore do not thou pray for this people, and do not take up praise and prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time of their cry to me, in the time of their affliction. 11:15. What is the meaning that my beloved hath wrought much wickedness in my house? shall the holy flesh take away from thee thy crimes, in which thou hast boasted? 11:16. The Lord called thy name, a plentiful olive tree, fair, fruitful, and beautiful: at the noise of a word, a great fire was kindled in it, and the branches thereof are burnt. 11:17. And the Lord of hosts that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee: for the evils of the house of Israel, and of the house of Juda, which they have done to themselves, to provoke me, offering sacrifice to Baalim. 11:18. But thou, O Lord, hast shewn me, and I have known: then thou shewedst me their doings. 11:19. And I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more. 11:20. But thou, O Lord of Sabaoth, who judgest justly, and triest the reins and the hearts, let me see thy revenge on them: for to thee have I revealed my cause. Sabaoth. . .That is, of hosts or armies, a name frequently given to God in the scriptures.--Ibid. Thy revenge. . .This was rather a prediction of what was to happen, with an approbation of the divine justice, than an imprecation. 11:21. Therefore thus saith the Lord to the men of Anathoth, who seek thy life, and say: Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of the Lord, and thou shalt not die in our hands. 11:22. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will visit upon them: their young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine. 11:23. And there shall be no remains of them: for I will bring in evil upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their visitation. Jeremias Chapter 12 The prosperity of the wicked shall be but for a short time. The desolation of the Jews for their sins. Their return from their captivity. 12:1. Thou indeed, O Lord, art just, if I plead with thee, but yet I will speak what is just to thee: Why doth the way of the wicked prosper: why is it well with all them that transgress, and do wickedly? 12:2. Thou hast planted them, and they have taken root: they prosper and bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins. 12:3. And thou, O Lord, hast known me, thou hast seen me, and proved my heart with thee: gather them together as for the day of slaughter. 12:4. How long shall the land mourn, and the herb of every field wither for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? The beasts and the birds are consumed: because they have said: He shall not see our last end. 12:5. If thou hast been wearied with running with footmen, how canst thou contend with horses? and if thou hast been secure in a land of peace, what wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan? 12:6. For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have fought against thee, and have cried after thee with full voice: believe them not when they speak good things to thee. 12:7. I have forsaken my house, I have left my inheritance: I have given my dear soul into the hand of her enemies. 12:8. My inheritance is become to me as a lion in the wood: it hath cried out against me, therefore have I hated it. 12:9. Is my inheritance to me as a speckled bird? is it as a bird dyed throughout? come ye, assemble yourselves, all ye beasts of the earth, make haste to devour. 12:10. Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot: they have changed my delightful portion into a desolate wilderness. 12:11. They have laid it waste, and it hath mourned for me. With desolation is all the land made desolate; because there is none that considereth in the heart. 12:12. The spoilers are come upon all the ways of the wilderness, for the sword of the Lord shall devour from one end of the land to the other end thereof: there is no peace for all flesh. 12:13. They have sown wheat, and reaped thorns: they have received an inheritance, and it shall not profit them: you shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce wrath of the Lord. 12:14. Thus saith the Lord against all wicked neighbours, that touch the inheritance that I have shared out to my people Israel: Behold I will pluck them out of their land, and I will pluck the house of Juda out of the midst of them. 12:15. And when I shall have plucked them out, I will return, and have mercy on them: and will bring them back, every man to his inheritance, and every man into his land. 12:16. And it shall come to pass, if they will be taught, and will learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name: The Lord liveth, as they have taught my people to swear by Baal: that they shall be built up in the midst of my people. 12:17. But if they will not hear, I will utterly pluck out and destroy that nation, saith the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 13 Under the figure of a linen girdle is foretold the destruction of the Jews. Their obstinacy in sin brings all miseries upon them. 13:1. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and get thee a linen girdle, and thou shalt put it about thy loins, and shalt not put it into water. 13:2. And I got a girdle according to the word of the Lord, and put it about my loins. 13:3. And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying: 13:4. Take the girdle which thou hast got, which is about thy loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock. 13:5. And I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me. 13:6. And it came to pass after many days, that the Lord said to me: Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from thence the girdle, which I commanded thee to hide there. 13:7. And I went to the Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle out of the place where I had hid it and behold the girdle was rotten, so that it was fit for no use. 13:8. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 13:9. Thus saith the Lord: After this manner will I make the pride of Juda, and the great pride of Jerusalem to rot. 13:10. This wicked people, that will not hear my words, and that walk in the perverseness of their heart, and have gone after strange gods to serve them, and to adore them: and they shall be as this girdle ,which is fit for no use. 13:11. For as the girdle sticketh close to the loins of a man, so have I brought close to me all the house of Israel, and all the house of Juda, saith the Lord: that they might be my people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear. 13:12. Thou shalt speak therefore to them this word: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Every bottle shall be filled with wine. And they shall say to thee: Do we not know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? 13:13. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings of the race of David that sit upon his throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. 13:14. And I will scatter them every man from his brother, and fathers and sons in like manner, saith the Lord: I will not spare, and I will not pardon: nor will I have mercy, but to destroy them. 13:15. Hear ye, and give ear: Be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken. 13:16. Give ye glory to the Lord your God, before it be dark, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains: you shall look for light, and he will turn it into the shadow of death, and into darkness. 13:17. But if you will not hear this, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride: weeping it shall weep, and my eyes shall run down with tears, because the flock of the Lord is carried away captive. 13:18. Say to the king, and to the queen: Humble yourselves, sit down: for the crown of your glory is come down from your head. 13:19. The cities of the south are shut up, and there is none to open them: all Juda is carried away captive with an entire captivity. 13:20. Lift up your eyes, and see, you that come from the north: where is the flock that is given thee, thy beautiful cattle? 13:21. What wilt thou say when he shall visit thee? for thou hast taught them against thee, and instructed them against thy own head: shall not sorrows lay hold on thee, as a woman in labour? 13:22. And if thou shalt say in thy heart: Why are these things come upon me? For the greatness of thy iniquity, thy nakedness is discovered, the soles of thy feet are defiled. 13:23. If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots: you also may do well, when you have learned evil. 13:24. And I will scatter them as stubble, which is carried away by the wind in the desert. 13:25. This is thy lot, and the portion of thy measure from me, saith the Lord, because thou hast forgotten me, and hast trusted in falsehood. 13:26. Wherefore I have also bared thy thighs against thy face, and thy shame hath appeared. 13:27. I have seen thy adulteries, and thy neighing, the wickedness of thy fornication: and thy abominations, upon the hills in the field. Woe to thee, Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean after me: how long yet? Jeremias Chapter 14 A grievous famine: and the prophet's prayer on that occasion. Evils denounced to false prophets. The prophet mourns for his people. 14:1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremias concerning the words of the drought. 14:2. Judea hath mourned, and the gates thereof are fallen, and are become obscure on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 14:3. The great ones sent their inferiors to the water: they came to draw, they found no water, they carried back their vessels empty: they were confounded and afflicted, and covered their heads. 14:4. For the destruction of the land, because there came no rain upon the earth, the husbandman were confounded, they covered their heads. 14:5. Yea, the hind also brought forth in the field, and left it, because there was no grass. 14:6. And the wild asses stood upon the rocks, they snuffed up the wind like dragons, their eyes failed, because there was no grass. 14:7. If our iniquities have testified against us, O Lord, do thou it for thy name's sake, for our rebellions are many, we have sinned against thee. 14:8. O expectation of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble: why wilt thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man turning in to lodge? 14:9. Why wilt thou be as a wandering man, as a mighty man that cannot save? but thou, O Lord, art among us, and thy name is called upon by us, forsake us not. 14:10. Thus saith the Lord to this people, that have loved to move their feet, and have not rested, and have not pleased the Lord: He will now remember their iniquities, and visit their sins. 14:11. And the Lord said to me: Pray not for this people for their good. 14:12. When they fast I will not hear their prayers: and if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not receive them: for I will consume them by the sword, and by famine, and by the pestilence. 14:13. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, the prophets say to them: You shall not see the sword, and there shall be no famine among you, but he will give you true peace in this place. 14:14. And the Lord said to me: The prophets prophesy falsely in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them: they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination and deceit, and the seduction of their own heart. 14:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, whom I did not send, that say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. 14:16. And the people to whom they prophesy, shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there shall be none to bury them: they and their wives, their sons and their daughters, and I will pour out their own wickedness upon them. 14:17. And thou shalt speak this word to them: Let my eyes shed down tears night and day, and let them not cease, because the virgin daughter of my people is afflicted with a great affliction, with an exceeding grievous evil. 14:18. If I go forth into the fields, behold the slain with the sword: and if I enter into the city, behold them that are consumed with famine. The prophet also and the priest are gone into a land which they knew not. 14:19. Hast thou utterly cast away Juda, or hath thy soul abhorred Sion? why then hast thou struck us, so that there is no healing for us? we have looked for peace, and there is no good: and for the time of healing, and behold trouble. 14:20. We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, the iniquities of our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. 14:21. Give us not to be a reproach, for thy name's sake, and do not disgrace in us the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. 14:22. Are there any among the graven things of the Gentiles that can send rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou the Lord our God, whom we have looked for? for thou hast made all these things. Jeremias Chapter 15 God is determined to punish the Jews for their sins. The prophet's complaint, and God's promise to him. 15:1. And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not towards this people: cast them out from my sight, and let them go forth. 15:2. And if they shall say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death: and such as are for the sword, to the sword: and such as are for famine, to famine: and such as are for captivity, to captivity. 15:3. And I will visit them with four kinds, saith the Lord: The sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. 15:4. And I will give them up to the rage of all the kingdoms of the earth: because of Manasses the son of Ezechias the king of Juda, for all that he did in Jerusalem. 15:5. For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go to pray for thy peace? 15:6. Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and I will destroy thee: I am weary of entreating thee. 15:7. And I will scatter them with a fan in the gates of the land: I have killed and destroyed my people, and yet they are not returned from their ways. 15:8. Their widows are multiplied unto me above the sand of the sea: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young man a spoiler at noonday: I have cast a terror on a sudden upon the cities. 15:9. She that hath borne seven is become weak, her soul hath fainted away: her sun is gone down, while it was yet day: she is confounded, and ashamed: and the residue of them I will give up to the sword in the sight of their enemies, saith the Lord. 15:10. Woe is me, my mother: why hast thou borne me a man of strife, a man of contention to all the earth? I have not lent on usury, neither hath any man lent to me on usury: yet all curse me. 15:11. The Lord saith to me: Assuredly it shall be well with thy remnant, assuredly I shall help thee in the time of affliction, and in the time of tribulation against the enemy. 15:12. Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass? Shall iron be allied, etc. . .Shall the iron, that is, the strength of Juda, stand against the stronger iron of the north, that is, of Babylon: or enter into an alliance upon equal footing with it? No certainly: but it must be broken by it. 15:13. Thy riches and thy treasures I will give unto spoil for nothing, because of all thy sins, even in all thy borders. 15:14. And I will bring thy enemies out of a land, which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in my rage, it shall burn upon you. 15:15. O Lord, thou knowest, remember me, and visit me, and defend me from them that persecute me, do not defend me in thy patience: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach. Do not defend me in thy patience. . .That is, let not thy patience and longsuffering, which thou usest towards sinners, keep thee from making haste to my assistance. 15:16. Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was to me a joy and gladness of my heart: for thy name is called upon me, O Lord God of hosts. 15:17. I sat not in the assembly of jesters, nor did I make a boast of the presence of thy hand: I sat alone, because thou hast filled me with threats. 15:18. Why is my sorrow become perpetual, and my wound desperate so as to refuse to be healed? it is become to me as the falsehood of deceitful waters that cannot be trusted. 15:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord: If thou wilt be converted, I will convert thee, and thou shalt stand before my face; and thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them. 15:20. And I will make thee to this people as a strong wall of brass: and they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 15:21. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the mighty. Jeremias Chapter 16 The prophet is forbid to marry. The Jews shall be utterly ruined for their idolatry: but shall at length be released from their captivity, and the Gentiles shall be converted. 16:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 16:2. Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons and daughters in this place. 16:3. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and daughters, that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them: and concerning their fathers, of whom they were born in this land: 16:4. They shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed with the sword, and with famine: and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth. 16:5. For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor to comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, my mercy and commiserations. 16:6. Both the great and the little shall die in this land: they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. 16:7. And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them for their father and mother. 16:8. And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink: 16:9. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will take away out of this place in your sight, and in your days the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride. 16:10. And when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced against us all this great evil? what is our iniquity? and what is our sin, that we have sinned against the Lord our God? 16:11. Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord: and went after strange gods, and served them, and adored them: and they forsook me, and kept not my law. 16:12. And you also have done worse than your fathers: for behold every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me. 16:13. So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor your fathers: and there you shall serve strange gods day and night, which shall not give you any rest. 16:14. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. 16:15. But, The Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the north, and out of all the lands to which I cast them out: and I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers. 16:16. Behold I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks. 16:17. For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes. 16:18. And I will repay first their double iniquities, and their sins: because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations. 16:19. O Lord, my might, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them. 16:20. Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods? 16:21. Therefore behold I will this once cause them to know, I will shew them my hand and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 17 For their obstinacy in sin the Jews shall be led captive. He is cursed that trusteth in flesh. God alone searcheth the heart, giving to every one as he deserves. The prophet prayeth to be delivered from his enemies, and preacheth up the observance of the sabbath. 17:1. The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars. 17:2. When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon the high mountains, 17:3. Sacrificing in the field: I will give thy strength, and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders. 17:4. And thou shalt be left stripped of thy inheritance, which I gave thee: and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in my wrath, it shall burn for ever. 17:5. Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. 17:6. For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert in a salt land, and not inhabited. Tamaric. . .A barren shrub that grows in the driest parts of the wilderness. 17:7. Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. 17:8. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit. 17:9. The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it? 17:10. I am the Lord who search the heart, and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices. 17:11. As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool. 17:12. A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification. 17:13. O Lord, the hope of Israel: all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters. 17:14. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise. 17:15. Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come. 17:16. And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight. 17:17. Be not thou a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of affliction. 17:18. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them. Let them be confounded, etc. . .Such expressions as these in the writings of the prophets, are not to be understood as imprecations proceeding from malice or desire of revenge: but as prophetic predictions of evils that were about to fall upon impenitent sinners, and approbations of the ways of divine justice. 17:19. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem: 17:20. And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda, and al Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates. 17:21. Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls, and carry no burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem. 17:22. And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. 17:23. But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction. 17:24. And it shall come to pass: if you will hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burdens by the gates of this city on the sabbath day: and if you will sanctify the sabbath day, to do no work therein: 17:25. Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited for ever. 17:26. And they shall come from the cities of Juda, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plains, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing holocausts, and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense, and they shall bring in an offering into the house of the Lord. 17:27. But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to carry burdens, and not to bring them in by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day: I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. Jeremias Chapter 18 As the clay in the hand of the potter, so is Israel in God's hand. He pardoneth penitents, and punisheth the obstinate. They conspire against Jeremias, for which he denounceth to them the miseries that hang over them. 18:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: 18:2. Arise, and go down into the potter's house, and there thou shalt hear my words. 18:3. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold he was doing a work on the wheel. 18:4. And the vessel was broken which he was making of clay with his hands: and turning he made another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make it. 18:5. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 18:6. Cannot I do with you, as this potter, O house of Israel, saith the Lord? behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 18:7. I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it. 18:8. If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them. 18:9. And I will suddenly speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build up and plant it. 18:10. If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it. 18:11. Now therefore tell the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: let every man of you return from his evil way, and make ye your ways and your doings good. 18:12. And they said; We have no hopes: for we will go after our own thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his evil heart. 18:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who hath heard such horrible things, as the virgin of Israel hath done to excess? 18:14. Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can the cold waters that gush out and run down, be taken away? 18:15. Because my people have forgotten me, sacrificing in vain, and stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk by them in a way not trodden: 18:16. That their land might be given up to desolation, and to a perpetual hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and wag his head. 18:17. As a burning wind will I scatter them before the enemy: I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction. 18:18. And they said: Come, and let us invent devices against Jeremias: for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words. 18:19. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries. 18:20. Shall evil be rendered for good, because they have digged a pit for my soul? Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for them, and to turn away thy indignation from them. Remember, etc. . .This is spoken in the person of Christ, persecuted by the Jews, and prophetically denouncing the evils that should fall upon them in punishment of their crimes. 18:21. Therefore deliver up their children to famine, and bring them into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of children and widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be stabbed with the sword in battle. 18:22. Let a cry be heard out of their houses: for thou shalt bring the robber upon them suddenly: because they have digged a pit to take me, and have hid snares for my feet. 18:23. But thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me unto death: not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from thy sight: let them be overthrown before thy eyes, in the time of thy wrath do thou destroy them. Jeremias Chapter 19 Under the type of breaking a potter's vessel, the prophet foresheweth the desolation of the Jews for their sins. 19:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go, and take a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests: 19:2. And go forth into the valley of the son of Ennom, which is by the entry of the earthen gate: and there thou shalt proclaim the words that I shall tell thee. 19:3. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, O ye kings of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle: 19:4. Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place : and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Juda: and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents. 19:5. And they have built the high places of Baalim, to burn their children with fire for a holocaust to Baalim: which I did not command, nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind. 19:6. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom, but the valley of slaughter. 19:7. And I will defeat the counsel of Juda and of Jerusalem in this place: and I will destroy them with the sword in the sight of their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and I will give their carcasses to be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth. 19:8. And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss because of all the plagues thereof. 19:9. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons, and with the flesh of their daughters: and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege, and in the distress wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. 19:10. And thou shalt break the bottle in the sight of the men that shall go with thee. 19:11. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people, and this city, as the potter's vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again: and they shall be buried in Topheth, because there is no other place to bury in. 19:12. Thus will I do to this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof: and I will make this city as Topheth. 19:13. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Juda shall be unclean as the place of Topheth: all the houses upon whose roofs they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings to strange gods. 19:14. Then Jeremias came from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord, and said to all the people: 19:15. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring in upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof all the evils that I have spoken against it: because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words. Jeremias Chapter 20 The prophet is persecuted: he denounces captivity to his persecutors, and bemoans himself. 20:1. Now Phassur the son of Emmer, the priest, who was appointed chief in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremias prophesying these words. 20:2. And Phassur struck Jeremias the prophet, and put him in the stocks, that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord. 20:3. And when it was light the next day, Phassur brought Jeremias out of the stocks. And Jeremias said to him: The Lord hath not called thy name Phassur, but fear on every side. Phassur. . .This name signifies increase and principality: and therefore is here changed to Magor-Missabib, or fear on every side: to denote the evils that should come upon him in punishment of his opposing the word of God. 20:4. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver thee up to fear, thee and all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thy eyes shall see it, and I will give all Juda into the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall carry them away to Babylon, and shall strike them with the sword. 20:5. And I will give all the substance of this city, and all its labour, and every precious thing thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Juda will I give into the hands of their enemies: and they shall pillage them, and take them away, and carry them to Babylon. 20:6. But thou Phassur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall go into captivity, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there thou shalt be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied a lie. 20:7. Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived: thou hast been stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I am become a laughingstock all the day, all scoff at me. Thou hast deceived, etc. . .The meaning of the prophet, is not to charge God with any untruth; but what he calls deceiving, was only the concealing from him, when he accepted of the prophetical commission, the greatness of the evils which the execution of that commission was to bring upon him. 20:8. For I am speaking now this long time, crying out against iniquity, and I often proclaim devastation: and the word of the Lord is made a reproach to me, and a derision all the day. 20:9. Then I said: I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name: and there came in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it. 20:10. For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him. 20:11. But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore they that persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, because they have not understood the everlasting reproach, which never shall be effaced. 20:12. And thou, O Lord of hosts, prover of the just, who seest the reins and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them: for to thee I have laid open my cause. Let me see, etc. . .This prayer proceeded not from hatred or ill will, but zeal of justice. 20:13. Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered the soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked. 20:14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day in which my mother bore me, be blessed. Cursed be the day, etc. . .In these, and the following words of the prophet, there is a certain figure of speech to express with more energy the greatness of the evils to which his birth had exposed him. 20:15. Cursed be the man that brought the tidings to my father, saying: A man child is born to thee: and made him greatly rejoice. 20:16. Let that man be as the cities which the Lord hath overthrown, and hath not repented: let him hear a cry in the morning, and howling at noontide: 20:17. Who slew me not from the womb, that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb an everlasting conception. 20:18. Why came I out of the womb, to see labour and sorrow, and that my days should be spent in confusion? Jeremias Chapter 21 The prophet's answer to the messengers of Sedecias, when Jerusalem was besieged. 21:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, when king Sedecias sent unto him Phassur, the son of Melchias, and Sophonias, the son of Maasias the priest, saying: 21:2. Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon maketh war against us: if so be the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful works, that he may depart from us. 21:3. And Jeremias said to them: Thus shall you say to Sedecias: 21:4. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, and with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans, that besiege you round about the walls: and I will gather them together in the midst of this city. 21:5. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, and with a strong arm, and in fury, and in indignation, and in great wrath. 21:6. And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, men and beasts shall die of a great pestilence. 21:7. And after this, saith the Lord, I will give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his servants, and his people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, and the sword, and the famine, into the hand of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword, and he shall not be moved to pity, nor spare them, nor shew mercy to them. 21:8. And to this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of death. 21:9. He that shall abide in this city, shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that shall go out and flee over to the Chaldeans, that besiege you, shall live, and his life shall be to him as a spoil. 21:10. For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 21:11. And to the house of the king of Juda: Hear ye the word of the Lord, 21:12. O house of David, thus saith the Lord: Judge ye judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is oppressed by violence out of the hand of the oppressor: lest my indignation go forth like a fire, and be kindled, and there be none to quench it, because of the evil of your ways. 21:13. Behold I come to thee that dwellest in a valley upon a rock above a plain, saith the Lord: and you say: Who shall strike us and who shall enter into our houses? To thee that dwellest, etc. . .He speaks to Jerusalem, confiding in the strength of her situation upon rocks, surrounded with a deep valley. 21:14. But I will visit upon you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the Lord: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof: and it shall devour all things round about it. Jeremias Chapter 22 An exhortation both to king and people to return of God. The sentence of God upon Joachaz, Joakim, and Jechonias. 22:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Juda, and there thou shalt speak this word, Go down, etc. . .The contents of this chapter are of a more ancient date than those of the foregoing chapter: for the order of time is not always observed in the writings of the prophets. 22:2. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Juda, that sittest upon the throne of David: thou and thy servants, and thy people, who enter in by these gates. 22:3. Thus saith the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and deliver him that is oppressed out of the hand of the oppressor: and afflict not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly: and shed not innocent blood in this place. 22:4. For if you will do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house, kings of the race of David sitting upon his throne, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants, and their people. 22:5. But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. 22:6. For thus saith the Lord to the house of the king of Juda: Thou art to me Galaad the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities not habitable. Galaad the head of Libanus. . .By Galaad, a rich and fruitful country, is here signified the royal palace of the kings of the house of David: by Libanus, a high mountain abounding in cedar trees, the populous city of Jerusalem. 22:7. And I will prepare against thee the destroyer and his weapons: and they shall cut down thy chosen cedars, and shall cast them headlong into the fire. Prepare. . .Literally, sanctify. 22:8. And many nations shall pass by this city: and they shall say every man to his neighbour: Why hath the Lord done so to this great city? 22:9. And they shall answer: Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and have adored strange gods, and served them. 22:10. Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears: lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. Weep not for him that is dead, etc. . .He means the good king Josias, who by death was taken away, so as not to see the miseries of his country.--Ibid. Him that goeth away. . .Viz., sellum, alias Joachaz, who was carried captive into Egypt. 22:11. For thus saith the Lord to Sellum the son of Josias the king of Juda, who reigned instead of his father, who went forth out of this place: He shall return hither no more: 22:12. But in the place, to which I have removed him, there shall he die, and he shall not see this land any more. 22:13. Woe to him that buildeth up his house by injustice, and his chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages. 22:14. Who saith: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers: who openeth to himself windows, and maketh roofs of cedar, and painteth them with vermilion. 22:15. Shalt thou reign, because thou comparest thyself to the cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and it was then well with him? 22:16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy for his own good: was it not therefore because he knew me, saith the Lord? 22:17. But thy eyes and thy heart are set upon covetousness, and upon shedding innocent blood, and upon oppression, and running after evil works. 22:18. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda: They shall not mourn for him, Alas, my brother, and, Alas, sister: they shall not lament for him, Alas, my lord, or, Alas, the noble one. 22:19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem. 22:20. Go up to Libanus, and cry: and lift up thy voice in Basan, and cry to them that pass by, for all thy lovers are destroyed. 22:21. I spoke to thee in thy prosperity: and thou saidst: I will not hear: this hath been thy way from thy youth, because thou hast not heard my voice. 22:22. The wind shall feed all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity and then shalt thou be confounded, and ashamed of all thy wickedness. 22:23. Thou that sittest in Libanus, and makest thy nest in the cedars, how hast thou mourned when sorrows came upon thee, as the pains of a woman in labour? 22:24. As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence. 22:25. And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 22:26. And I will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a strange country, in which you were not born, and there you shall die: 22:27. And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up their mind to return thither. 22:28. Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? 22:29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. 22:30. Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David, and have power any more in Juda. Write this man barren. . .That is, childless: not that he had no children, but that his children should never sit on the throne of Juda. Jeremias Chapter 23 God reproves evil governors; and promises to send good pastors; and Christ himself the prince of the pastors. He inveighs against false prophets preaching without being sent. 23:1. Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. 23:2. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. 23:3. And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied. 23:4. And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them: they shall fear no more, and they shall not be dismayed: and none shall be wanting of their number, saith the Lord. 23:5. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. 23:6. In those days shall Juda be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our just one. 23:7. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and they shall say no more: The Lord liveth, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt: 23:8. But, The Lord liveth, who hath brought out, and brought hither the seed of the house of Israel from the land of the north, and out of all the lands, to which I had cast them forth: and they shall dwell in their own land. 23:9. To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble: I am become as a drunken man, and as a man full of wine, at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of his holy words. 23:10. Because the land is full of adulterers, because the land hath mourned by reason of cursing, the fields of the desert are dried up: and their course is become evil, and their strength unlike. 23:11. For the prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I have found their wickedness, saith the Lord. 23:12. Therefore their way shall be as a slippery way in the dark: for they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evils upon them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. 23:13. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied in Baal and deceived my people Israel. 23:14. And I have seen the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying in the prophets of Jerusalem: and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, that no man should return from his evil doings, they are all become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrha. 23:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold I will feed them with wormwood, and will give them gall to drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption is gone forth into all the land. 23:16. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hearken not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you, and deceive you: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. 23:17. They say to them that blaspheme me: The Lord hath said: You shall have peace: and to every one that walketh in the perverseness of his own heart, they have said: No evil shall come upon you. 23:18. For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath seen and heard his word? Who hath considered his word and heard it? 23:19. Behold the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall come forth, and a tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked. 23:20. The wrath of the Lord shall not return till he execute it, and till he accomplish the thought of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand his counsel. 23:21. I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. 23:22. If they had stood in my counsel, and had made my words known to my people, I should have turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked doings. 23:23. Am I, think ye, a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? 23:24. Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? 23:25. I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, and say: I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 23:26. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and that prophesy the delusions of their own heart? 23:27. Who seek to make my people forget my name through their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour: as their fathers forgot my name for Baal. 23:28. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word, let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord? 23:29. Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? 23:30. Therefore behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who steal my words every one from his neighbour. 23:31. Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who use their tongues, and say: The Lord saith it. 23:32. Behold I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord: and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lying, and by their wonders: when I sent them not, nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord. 23:33. If therefore this people, or the prophet, or the priest shall ask thee, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt say to them: You are the burden: for I will cast you away, saith the Lord. 23:34. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say: The burden of the Lord: I will visit upon that man, and upon his house. Burden of the Lord. . .This expression is here rejected and disallowed, at least for those times: because it was then used in mockery and contempt by the false prophets, and unbelieving people, who ridiculed the repeated threats of Jeremias under the name of his burdens. 23:35. Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour, and to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and what hath the Lord spoken? 23:36. And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for every man's word shall be his burden: for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God. 23:37. Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: What hath the Lord answered thee? and what hath the Lord spoken? 23:38. But if you shall say: The burden of the Lord: therefore thus saith the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord: and I have sent to you, saying: Say not, The burden of the Lord: 23:39. Therefore behold I will take you away carrying you, and will forsake you, and the city which I gave to you, and to your fathers, out of my presence. Out of my presence. . .That is, the Lord declares that out of his presence he will cast them, and bring them to captivity for their transgressions. 23:40. And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall never be forgotten. Jeremias Chapter 24 Under the type of good and bad figs, he foretells the restoration of the Jews that had been carried away captive with Jechonias, and the desolation of those that were left behind. 24:1. The Lord shewed me: and behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of the Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his chief men, and the craftsmen, and engravers of Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 24:2. One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first season: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, because they were bad. 24:3. And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: Figs, the good figs, very good: and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad. 24:4. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 24:5. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Juda, whom I have sent forth out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good. 24:6. And I will set my eyes upon them to be pacified, and I will bring them again into this land: and I will build them up, and not pull them down: and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 24:7. And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: because they shall return to me with their whole heart. 24:8. And as the very bad figs, that cannot be eaten, because they are bad: thus saith the Lord: So will I give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that have remained in this city, and that dwell in the land of Egypt. 24:9. And I will deliver them up to vexation, and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a reproach, and a byword, and a proverb, and to be a curse in all places, to which I have cast them out. 24:10. And I will send among them the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: till they be consumed out of the land which I gave to them, and their fathers. Jeremias Chapter 25 The prophet foretells the seventy years captivity; after that the destruction of Babylon, and other nations. 25:1. The word that came to Jeremias concerning all the people of Juda, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, (the same is the first year of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon,) 25:2. Which Jeremias the prophet spoke to all the people of Juda, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: 25:3. From the thirteenth year of Josias the son of Ammon king of Juda until this day: this is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising before day, and speaking, and you have not hearkened. 25:4. And the Lord hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ears to hear. 25:5. When he said: Return ye, every one from his evil way, and from your wicked devices, and you shall dwell in the land which the Lord hath given to you, and your fathers for ever and ever. 25:6. And go not after strange gods to serve them, and adore them: nor provoke me to wrath by the works of your hands, and I will not afflict you. 25:7. And you have not heard me, saith the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own hurt. 25:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Because you have not heard my words: 25:9. Behold I will send, and take all the kindreds of the north, saith the Lord, and Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon my servant: and I will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all the nations that are round about it: and I will destroy them, and make them an astonishment and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. My servant. . .So this wicked king is here called; because God made him his instrument in punishing the sins of his people. 25:10. And I will take away from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp. 25:11. And all this land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment: and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 25:12. And when the seventy years shall be expired, I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans: and I will make it perpetual desolations. Punish. . .Literally, visit upon. 25:13. And I will bring upon that land all my words, that I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book, all that Jeremias hath prophesied against all nations: 25:14. For they have served them, whereas they were many nations, and great kings: and I will repay them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their hands. 25:15. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Take the cup of wine of this fury at my hand: and thou shalt make all the nations to drink thereof, into which I shall send thee. 25:16. And they shall drink, and be troubled, and be mad because of the sword, which I shall send among them. 25:17. And I took the cup at the hand of the Lord, and I presented it to all the nations to drink of it, to which the Lord sent me: 25:18. To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Juda, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof: to make them a desolation, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a curse, as it is at this day. 25:19. Pharao the king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people, 25:20. And all in general: all the kings of the land of Ausitis, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ascalon, and Gaza, and Accaron, and the remnant of Azotus. 25:21. And Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon. 25:22. And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon: and the kings of the land of the islands that are beyond the sea. 25:23. And Dedan, and Thema, and Buz, and all that have their hair cut round. 25:24. And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the west, that dwell in the desert. 25:25. And all the kings of Zambri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes: 25:26. And all the kings of the north far and near, every one against his brother: and all the kingdoms of the earth, which are upon the face thereof: and the king of Sesac shall drink after them. Sesac. . .That is, Babel, or Babylon; which after bringing all these people under her yoke, should quickly fall and be destroyed herself. 25:27. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and vomit: and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword, which I shall send among you. 25:28. And if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Drinking you shall drink: 25:29. For behold I begin to bring evil on the city wherein my name is called upon: and shall you be as innocent and escape free? you shall not escape free: for I will call for the sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. 25:30. And thou shalt prophesy unto them all these words, and thou shalt say to them: I The Lord shall roar from on high, and shall utter his voice from his holy habitation: roaring he shall roar upon the place of his beauty: the shout as it were of them that tread grapes shall be given out against all the inhabitants of the earth. 25:31. The noise is come even to the ends of the earth: for the Lord entereth into judgment with the nations: he entereth into judgment with all flesh; the wicked I have delivered up to the sword, saith the Lord. 25:32. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation: and a great whirlwind shall go forth from the ends of the earth. 25:33. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end thereof: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be gathered up, nor buried: they shall lie as dung upon the face of the earth. 25:34. Howl, ye shepherds, and cry: and sprinkle yourselves with ashes, ye leaders of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and your dispersion are accomplished, and you shall fall like precious vessels. 25:35. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the leaders of the flock to save themselves. 25:36. A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the principal of the flock: because the Lord hath wasted their pastures. 25:37. And the fields of peace have been silent because of the fierce anger of the Lord. 25:38. He hath forsaken his covert as the lion, for the land is laid waste because of the wrath of the dove, and because of the fierce anger of the Lord. The dove. . .This is commonly understood of Nabuchodonosor, whose military standard, it is said, was a dove. But the Hebrew word Jonah, which is here rendered a dove, may also signify a waster or oppressor, which name better agrees to that unmerciful prince; or by comparison, as a dove's flight is the swiftest, so would their destruction come upon them. Jeremias Chapter 26 The prophet is apprehended and accused by the priests: but discharged by the princes. 26:1. In the beginning of the reign of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, came this word from the Lord, saying: 26:2. Thus saith the Lord: stand in the court of the house of the Lord, and speak to all the cities of Juda, out of which they come, to adore in the house of the Lord, all the words which I have commanded thee to speak unto them: leave not out one word. 26:3. If so be they will hearken and be converted every one from his evil way; that I may repent me of the evil that I think to do unto them for the wickedness of their doings. 26:4. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: If you will not hearken to me to walk in my law, which I have given you: 26:5. To give ear to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent to you rising up early: and sending, and you have not hearkened: 26:6. I will make this house like Silo: and I will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. 26:7. And the priests, and the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremias speaking these words in the house of the Lord. 26:8. And when Jeremias had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests, and the prophets, and all the people laid hold on him, saying: Let him be put to death. 26:9. Why hath he prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying: This house shall be like Silo; and this city shall be made desolate, without an inhabitant? And all the people were gathered together against Jeremias in the house of the Lord. 26:10. And the princes of Juda heard these words: and they went up from the king's house into the house of the Lord, and sat in the entry of the new gate of the house of the Lord. 26:11. And the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes, and to all the people, saying: The judgment of death is for this man: because he hath prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears. 26:12. Then Jeremias spoke to all the princes, and to all the people, saying: The Lord sent me to prophesy concerning this house, and concerning this city all the words that you have heard. 26:13. Now therefore amend your ways, and your doings, and hearken to the voice of the Lord your God: and the Lord will repent him of the evil that he hath spoken against you. 26:14. But as for me, behold I am in your hands: do with me what is good and right in your eyes: 26:15. But know ye, and understand, that if you put me to death, you will shed innocent blood against your own selves, and against this city, and the inhabitants thereof. For in truth the Lord sent me to you, to speak all these words in your hearing. 26:16. Then the princes, and all the people said to the priests, and to the prophets: There is no judgment of death for this man: for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God. 26:17. And some of the ancients of the land rose up: and they spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying: 26:18. Micheas of Morasthi was a prophet in the days of Ezechias king of Juda, and he spoke to all the people of Juda, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Sion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall be a heap of stones: and the mountain of the house the high places of woods. 26:19. Did Ezechias king of Juda, and all Juda, condemn him to death? did they not fear the Lord, and beseech the face of the Lord: and the Lord repented of the evil that he had spoken against them? therefore we are doing a great evil against our souls. 26:20. There was also a man that prophesied in the name of the Lord, Urias the son of Semei of Cariathiarim: and he prophesied against this city, and against this land, according to all the words of Jeremias. 26:21. And Joakim, and all his men in power, and his princes heard these words: and the king sought to put him to death. And Urias heard it, and was afraid, and fled and went into Egypt. 26:22. And king Joakim sent men into Egypt, Elnathan the son of Achobor, and men with him into Egypt. 26:23. And they brought Urias out of Egypt: and brought him to king Joakim, and he slew him with the sword: and he cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. 26:24. So the hand of Ahicam the son of Saphan was with Jeremias, that he should not be delivered into the hands of the people, to put him to death. Jeremias Chapter 27 The prophet sends chains to divers kings, signifying that they must bend their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon. The vessels of the temple shall not be brought back till all the rest are carried away. 27:1. In the beginning of the reign of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, this word came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: Joakim. . .This revelation was made to the prophet in the beginning of the reign of Joakim: but the bands were not sent to the princes here named before the reign of Sedecias, ver. 3. 27:2. Thus saith the Lord to me: Make thee bands, and chains: and thou shalt put them on thy neck. 27:3. And thou shalt send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon: by the hand of the messengers that are come to Jerusalem to Sedecias the king of Juda. 27:4. And thou shalt command them to speak to their masters: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Thus shall you say to your masters: 27:5. I made the earth, and the men and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power, and by my stretched out arm: and I have given it to whom it seemed good in my eyes. 27:6. And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon my servant: moreover also the beasts of the field I have given him to serve him. 27:7. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son: till the time come for his land and himself: and many nations and great kings shall serve him. His son. . .Viz., Evilmerodach; and his son's son, Nabonydus, or Nabonadius, the Baltassar of Daniel, chap. 5., and the last of the Chaldean kings. 27:8. But the nation and kingdom that will not serve Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and whosoever will not bend his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon: I will visit upon that nation with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, saith the Lord: till I consume them by his hand. 27:9. Therefore hearken not to your prophets, and diviners, and dreamers, and soothsayers, and sorcerers, that say to you: You shall not serve the king of Babylon. 27:10. For they prophesy lies to you: to remove you far from your country, and cast you out, and to make you perish. 27:11. But the nation that shall bend down their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and shall serve him: I will let them remain in their own land, saith the Lord: and they shall till it, and dwell in it. 27:12. And I spoke to Sedecias the king of Juda according to all these words, saying: Bend down your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, and his people, and you shall live. 27:13. Why will you die, thou and thy people by the sword, and by famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? 27:14. Hearken not to the words of the prophets that say to you: You shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they tell you a lie. 27:15. For I have not sent them, saith the Lord: and they prophesy in my name falsely: to drive you out, and that you may perish, both you, and the prophets that prophesy to you. 27:16. I spoke also to the priests, and to this people, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Hearken not to the words of your prophets, that prophesy to you, saying: Behold the vessels of the Lord shall now in a short time be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you. 27:17. Therefore hearken not to them, but serve the king of Babylon, that you may live. Why should this city be given up to desolation? 27:18. But if they be prophets, and the word of the Lord be in them: let them interpose themselves before the Lord of hosts, that the vessels which were left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Juda, and in Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon. 27:19. For thus saith the Lord of hosts to the pillars, and to the sea, and to the bases, and to the rest of the vessels that remain in this city: 27:20. Which Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon did not take, when he carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the great men of Juda and Jerusalem. 27:21. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to the vessels that are left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Juda and Jerusalem: 27:22. They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall be until the day of their visitation, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to be brought, and to be restored in this place. Jeremias Chapter 28 The false prophecy of Hananias: he dies that same year, as Jeremias foretold. 28:1. And it came to pass in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Sedecias king of Juda, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananias the son of Azur, a prophet of Gabaon spoke to me, in the house of the Lord before the priests, and all the people, saying: 28:2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 28:3. As yet two years of days, and I will cause all the vessels of the house of the Lord to be brought back into this place, which Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon. 28:4. And I will bring back to this place Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Juda, and all the captives of Juda, that are gone to Babylon, saith the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. 28:5. And Jeremias the prophet said to Hananias the prophet in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the Lord: 28:6. And Jeremias the prophet said: Amen, the Lord do so: the Lord perform thy words, which thou hast prophesied: that the vessels may be brought again into the house of the Lord, and all the captives may return out of Babylon to this place. 28:7. Nevertheless hear this word that I speak in thy ears, and in the ears of all the people: 28:8. The prophets that have been before me, and before thee from the beginning, and have prophesied concerning many countries, and concerning great kingdoms, of war, and of affliction, and of famine. 28:9. The prophet that prophesied peace: when his word shall come to pass, the prophet shall be known, whom the hath sent in truth. 28:10. And Hananias the prophet took the chain from the neck of Jeremias the prophet, and broke it. 28:11. And Hananias spoke in the presence of all the people, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Even so will I break the yoke of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon after two full years from off the neck of all the nations. 28:12. And Jeremias the prophet went his way. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, after that Hananias the prophet had broken the chain from off the neck of Jeremias the prophet, saying: 28:13. Go, and tell Hananias: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast broken chains of wood, and thou shalt make for them chains of iron. 28:14. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, to serve Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and they shall serve him: moreover also I have given him the beasts of the earth. 28:15. And Jeremias the prophet said to Hananias the prophet: Hear now, Hananias: the Lord hath not sent thee, and thou hast made this people to trust in a lie. 28:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will send thee away from off the face of the earth: this year shalt thou die: for thou hast spoken against the Lord. 28:17. And Hananias the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month. Jeremias Chapter 29 Jeremias writeth to the captives in Babylon, exhorting them to be easy there, and not to hearken to false prophets. That they shall be delivered after seventy years. But those that remain in Jerusalem shall perish by the sword, famine, and pestilence. And that Achab, Sedecias, and Semeias, false prophets, shall die miserably. 29:1. Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremias the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the ancients that were carried into captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nabuchodonosor had carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 29:2. After that Jechonias the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, and the princes of Juda, and of Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the engravers were departed out of Jerusalem: 29:3. By the hand of Elasa the son of Saphan, and Gamarias the son of Helcias, whom Sedecias king of Juda sent to Babylon to Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, saying: 29:4. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 29:5. Build ye houses, and dwell in them: and plant orchards, and eat the fruit of them. 29:6. Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters: and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, and let them bear sons and daughters: and be ye multiplied there, and be not few in number. 29:7. And seek the peace of the city, to which I have caused you to be carried away captives; and pray to the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall be your peace. 29:8. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Let not your prophets that are in the midst of you, and your diviners deceive you: and give no heed to your dreams which you dream: 29:9. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name: and I have not sent them, saith the Lord. 29:10. For thus saith the Lord: When the seventy years shall begin to be accomplished in Babylon, I will visit you: and I will perform my good word in your favour, to bring you again to this place. 29:11. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction, to give you an end and patience. 29:12. And you shall call upon me, and you shall go. and you shall pray to me, and I will hear you. 29:13. You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart. 29:14. And I will be found by you, saith the Lord: and I will bring back your captivity, and I will gather you out of all nations, and from all the places to which I have driven you out, saith the Lord: and I will bring you back from the place to which I caused you to be carried away captive. 29:15. Because you have said: The Lord hath raised us up prophets in Babylon: 29:16. For thus saith the Lord to the king that sitteth upon the throne of David, and to all the people that dwell in this city, to your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity. 29:17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will send upon them the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: and I will make them like bad figs that cannot be eaten, because they are very bad. 29:18. And I will persecute them with the sword, and with famine, and with the pestilence: and I will give them up unto affliction to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach to all the nations to which I have driven them out: 29:19. Because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the Lord: which I sent to them by my servants the prophets, rising by night, and sending: and you have not heard, saith the Lord. 29:20. Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent out from Jerusalem to Babylon. 29:21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to Achab the son of Colias, and to Sedecias the son of Maasias, who prophesy unto you in my name falsely: Behold I will deliver them up into the hands of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon: and he shall kill them before your eyes. 29:22. And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Juda, that are in Babylon, saying: The Lord make thee like Sedecias, and like Achab, whom the king of Babylon fried in the fire: 29:23. Because they have acted folly in Israel, and have committed adultery with the wives of their friends, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I commanded them not: I am the judge and the witness, saith the Lord. 29:24. And to Semeias the Nehelamite thou shalt say: 29:25. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Because thou hast sent letters in thy name to all the people that are in Jerusalem, and to Sophonias the son of Maasias the priest, and to all the priests, saying: 29:26. The Lord hath made thee priest instead of Joiada the priest, that thou shouldst be ruler in the house of the Lord, over every man that raveth and prophesieth, to put him in the stocks, and into prison. 29:27. And now why hast thou not rebuked Jeremias the Anathothite, who prophesieth to you? 29:28. For he hath also sent to us in Babylon, saying: It is a long time: build ye houses, and dwell in them: and plant gardens, and eat the fruits of them. 29:29. So Sophonias the priest read this letter, in the hearing of Jeremias the prophet. 29:30. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, saying: 29:31. Send to all them of the captivity, saying: Thus saith the Lord to Semeias the Nehelamite: Because Semeias hath prophesied to you, and I sent him not: and hath caused you to trust in a lie: 29:32. Therefore thus saith the Lord: behold I will visit upon Semeias the Nehelamite, and upon his seed: he shall not have a man to sit in the midst of this people, and he shall not see the good that I will do to my people, saith the Lord: because he hath spoken treason against the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 30 God will deliver his people from their captivity: Christ shall be their king: and his church shall be glorious for ever. 30:1. This is the word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: 30:2. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, saying: Write thee all the words that I have spoken to thee, in a book. 30:3. For behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Juda, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. 30:4. And these are the words that the Lord hath spoken to Israel and to Juda: 30:5. For thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of terror: there is fear and no peace. 30:6. Ask ye, and see if a man bear children? why then have I seen every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in labour, and all faces are turned yellow? 30:7. Alas, for that day is great, neither is there the like to it; and it is the time of tribulation to Jacob, but he shall be saved out of it. 30:8. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst his bands: and strangers shall no more rule over him: 30:9. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up to them. David. . .That is, Christ of the house of David. 30:10. Therefore fear thou not, my servant Jacob, saith the Lord, neither be dismayed, O Israel: for behold, I will save thee from a country afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity: and Jacob shall return, and be at rest, and abound with all good things, and there shall be none whom he may fear: 30:11. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: for I will utterly consume all the nations, among which I have scattered thee: but I will not utterly consume thee: but I will chastise thee in judgment, that thou mayst not seem to thyself innocent. 30:12. For thus saith the Lord: Thy bruise is incurable, thy wound is very grievous. 30:13. There is none to judge thy judgment to bind it up: thou hast no healing medicines. 30:14. All thy lovers have forgotten thee, and will not seek after thee: for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with cruel chastisement: by reason of the multitude of thy iniquities, thy sins are hardened. 30:15. Why criest thou for thy affliction? thy sorrow is incurable: for the multitude of thy iniquity, and for thy hardened sins I have done these things to thee. 30:16. Therefore all they that devour thee, shall be devoured: and all thy enemies shall be carried into captivity: and they that waste thee shall be wasted, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. 30:17. For I will close up thy scar, and will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord. Because they have called thee, O Sion, an outcast: This is she that hath none to seek after her. 30:18. Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring back the captivity of the pavilions of Jacob, and will have pity on his houses, and the city shall be built in her high place, and the temple shall be founded according to the order thereof. 30:19. And out of them shall come forth praise, and the voice of them that play: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be made few: and I will glorify them, and they shall not be lessened. 30:20. And their children shall be as from the beginning, and their assembly shall be permanent before me: and I will visit against all that afflict them. 30:21. And their leader shall be of themselves: and their prince shall come forth from the midst of them: and I will bring him near, and he shall come to me: for who is this that setteth his heart to approach to me, saith the Lord? 30:22. And you shall be my people: and I will be your God. 30:23. Behold the whirlwind of the Lord, his fury going forth, a violent storm, it shall rest upon the head of the wicked. 30:24. The Lord will not turn away the wrath of his indignation, till he have executed and performed the thought of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand these things. Jeremias Chapter 31 The restoration of Israel. Rachel shall cease from morning. The new covenant. The church shall never fail. 31:1. At that time, saith the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 31:2. Thus saith the Lord: The people that were left and escaped from the sword, found grace in the desert: Israel shall go to his rest. 31:3. The Lord hath appeared from afar to me. Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee. 31:4. And I will build thee again, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy timbrels, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. 31:5. Thou shalt yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and they shall not gather the vintage before the time. 31:6. For there shall be a day, in which the watchmen on mount Ephraim, shall cry: Arise, and let us go up to Sion to the Lord our God. 31:7. For thus saith the Lord: Rejoice ye in the joy of Jacob, and neigh before the head of the Gentiles: shout ye, and sing, and say: Save, O Lord, thy people, the remnant of Israel. 31:8. Behold I will bring them from the north country, and will gather them from the ends of the earth and among them shall be the blind, and the lame, the woman with child, and she that is bringing forth, together, a great company of them returning hither. 31:9. They shall come with weeping: and I will bring them back in mercy: and I will bring them through the torrents of waters in a right way, and they shall not stumble in it: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. 31:10. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the islands that are afar off, and say: He that scattered Israel will gather him: and he will keep him as the shepherd doth his flock. 31:11. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and delivered him out of the hand of one that was mightier than he. 31:12. And they shall come, and shall give praise in mount Sion: and they shall flow together to the good things of the Lord, for the corn, and wine, and oil, and the increase of cattle and herds, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall be hungry no more. 31:13. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, the young men and old men together: and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them joyful after their sorrow. 31:14. And I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness: and my people shall be filled with my good things, saith the Lord. 31:15. Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not. 31:16. Thus saith the Lord: Let thy voice cease from weeping, and thy eyes tears: for there is a reward for thy work, saith the Lord: and they shall return out of the land of the enemy. 31:17. And there is hope for thy last end, saith the Lord: and the children shall return to their own borders. 31:18. Hearing I heard Ephraim when he went into captivity: thou hast chastised me, and I was instructed, as a young bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Convert me, and I shall be converted, for thou art the Lord my God. 31:19. For after thou didst convert me, I did penance: and after thou didst shew unto me, I struck my thigh: I am confounded and ashamed, because I have borne the reproach of my youth. 31:20. Surely Ephraim is an honourable son to me, surely he is a tender child: for since I spoke of him, I will still remember him. Therefore are my bowels troubled for him: pitying I will pity him, saith the Lord. 31:21. Set thee up a watchtower, make to thee bitterness: direct thy heart into the right way, wherein thou hast walked: return, O virgin of Israel, return to these thy cities. 31:22. How long wilt thou be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth: A WOMAN SHALL COMPASS A MAN. 31:23. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As yet shall they say this word in the land of Juda, and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring back their captivity: The Lord bless thee, the beauty of justice, the holy mountain. 31:24. And Juda and all his cities shall dwell therein together: the husbandman and they that drive the flocks. 31:25. For I have inebriated the weary soul: and I have filled every hungry soul. 31:26. Upon this I was as it were awaked out of a sleep, and I saw, and my sleep was sweet to me. 31:27. Behold the days come, saith the Lord: and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Juda with the seed of men, and with the seed of beasts. 31:28. And as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to throw down, and to scatter, and destroy, and afflict: so will I watch over them, to build up, and to plant them, saith the Lord. 31:29. In those days they shall say no more: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge. 31:30. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that shall eat the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31:31. Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: 31:32. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord. 31:33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 31:34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. 31:35. Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for the light of the day, the order of the moon and of the stars, for the light of the night: who stirreth up the sea, and the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. 31:36. If these ordinances shall fail before me, saith the Lord: then also the seed of Israel shall fail, so as not to be a nation before me for ever. 31:37. Thus saith the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I also will cast away all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord. 31:38. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hanameel even to the gate of the corner. 31:39. And the measuring line shall go out farther in his sight upon the hill Gareb: and it shall compass Goatha, 31:40. And the whole valley of dead bodies, and of ashes, and all the country of death, even to the torrent Cedron, and to the corner of the horse gate towards the east, the Holy of the Lord: it shall not be plucked up, and it shall not be destroyed any more for ever. Jeremias Chapter 32 Jeremias by God's commandment purchases a field of his kinsman: and prophesies the return of the people out of captivity: and the everlasting covenant God will make with his church. 32:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord in the tenth year of Sedecias king of Juda: the same is the eighteenth year of Nabuchodonosor. 32:2. At that time the army of the king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremias the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the house of the king of Juda. 32:3. For Sedecias king of Juda had shut him up, saying: Why dost thou prophesy, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it? 32:4. And Sedecias king of Juda shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans: but he shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon: and he shall speak to him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes. 32:5. And he shall lead Sedecias to Babylon: and he shall be there till I visit him, saith the Lord. But if you will fight against the Chaldeans, you shall have no success. 32:6. And Jeremias said: The word of the Lord came to me, saying: 32:7. Behold, Hanameel the son of Sellum thy cousin shall come to thee, saying: Buy thee my field, which is in Anathoth, for it is thy right to buy it, being next akin. 32:8. And Hanameel my uncle's son came to me, according to the word of the Lord, to the entry of the prison, and said to me: Buy my field, which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and thou art next of kin to possess it. And I understood that this was the word of the Lord. 32:9. And I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle's son, that is in Anathoth: and I weighed him the money, seven staters, and ten pieces of silver. 32:10. And I wrote it in a book and sealed it, and took witnesses: and I weighed him the money in the balances. 32:11. And I took the deed of the purchase that was sealed, and the stipulations, and the ratifications with the seals that were on the outside. 32:12. And I gave the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neri the son of Maasias in the sight of Hanameel my uncle's son, in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase, and before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison. 32:13. And I charged Baruch before them, saying: 32:14. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Take these writings, this deed of the purchase that is sealed up, and this deed that is open: and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days. 32:15. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. 32:16. And after I had delivered the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neri, I prayed to the Lord, saying: 32:17. Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, behold thou hast made heaven and earth by thy great power, and thy stretched out arm: no word shall be hard to thee: 32:18. Thou shewest mercy unto thousands, and returnest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: O most mighty, great, and powerful, the Lord of hosts is thy name. 32:19. Great in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought: whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the children of Adam, to render unto every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his devices. 32:20. Who hast set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even until this day, and in Israel, and amongst men, and hast made thee a name as at this day. 32:21. And hast brought forth thy people Israel, out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, and with great terror. 32:22. And hast given them this land which thou didst swear to their fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey. 32:23. And they came in, and possessed it: but they obeyed not thy voice, and they walked not in thy law: and they did not any of those things that thou didst command them to do, and all these evils are come upon them. 32:24. Behold works are built up against the city to take it: and the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans, who fight against it, by the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: and what thou hast spoken, is all come to pass, as thou thyself seest. 32:25. And sayest thou to me, O Lord God: Buy a field for money, and take witnesses, whereas the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans? 32:26. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, saying: 32:27. Behold I am the Lord the God of all flesh: shall any thing be hard for me? 32:28. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans, and into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they shall take it. 32:29. And the Chaldeans that fight against this city, shall come and set it on fire, and burn it, with the houses upon whose roofs they offered sacrifice to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to strange gods, to provoke me to wrath. 32:30. For the children of Israel, and the children of Juda, have continually done evil in my eyes from their youth: the children of Israel who even till now provoke me with the work of their hands, saith the Lord. 32:31. For this city hath been to me a provocation and indignation from the day that they built it, until this day, in which it shall be taken out of my sight. 32:32. Because of all the evil of the children of Israel, and of the children of Juda, which they have done, provoking me to wrath, they and their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 32:33. And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction. 32:34. And they have set their idols in the house, in which my name is called upon, to defile it. 32:35. And they have built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Ennom, to consecrate their sons and their daughters to Moloch: which I commanded them not, neither entered it into my heart, that they should do this abomination, and cause Juda to sin. 32:36. And now, therefore, thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to this city, whereof you say that it shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: 32:37. Behold I will gather them together out of all the lands to which I have cast them out in my anger, and in my wrath, and in my great indignation: and I will bring them again into this place, and will cause them to dwell securely. 32:38. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 32:39. And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all days: and that it may be well with them, and with their children after them. 32:40. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and will not cease to do them good: and I will give my fear in their heart, that they may not revolt from me. 32:41. And I will rejoice over them, when I shall do them good: and I will plant them in this land in truth, with my whole heart, and with all my soul. 32:42. For thus saith the Lord: As I have brought upon this people all this great evil: so will I bring upon them all the good that I now speak to them. 32:43. And fields shall be purchased in this land: whereof you say that it is desolate, because there remaineth neither man nor beast, and it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. 32:44. Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be written, and sealed, and witnesses shall be taken, in the land of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem, in the cities of Juda, and in the cities on the mountains, and in the cities of the plains, and in the cities that are towards the south: for I will bring back their captivity, saith the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 33 God promises reduction from captivity, and other blessings: especially the coming of Christ, whose reign in his church shall be glorious and perpetual. 33:1. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying: 33:2. Thus saith the Lord, who will do, and will form it, and prepare it, the Lord is his name. 33:3. Cry to me and I will hear thee: and I will shew thee great things, and sure things which thou knowest not. 33:4. For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the houses of this city, and to the houses of the king of Juda, which are destroyed, and to the bulwarks, and to the sword. 33:5. Of them that come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of the men whom I have slain in my wrath, and in my indignation, hiding my face from this city because of all their wickedness. 33:6. Behold I will close their wounds and give them health, and I will cure them: and I will reveal to them the prayer of peace and truth. The prayer of peace. . .That is, the peace and welfare which they pray for. 33:7. And I will bring back the captivity of Juda, and the captivity of Jerusalem: and I will build them as from the beginning. 33:8. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me: and I will forgive all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and despised me. 33:9. And it shall be to me a name, and a joy, and a praise, and a gladness before all the nations of the earth, that shall hear of all the good things which I will do to them: and they shall fear and be troubled for all the good things, and for all the peace that I will make for them. 33:10. Thus saith the Lord: There shall be heard again in this place (which you say is desolate, because there is neither man nor beast: in the cities of Juda, and without Jerusalem, which are desolate without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast) 33:11. The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say: Give ye glory to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall bring their vows into the house of the Lord: for I will bring back the captivity of the land as at the first, saith the Lord. 33:12. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall be again in this place that is desolate without man, and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. 33:13. And in the cities on the mountains, and in the cities of the plains, and in the cities that are towards the south: and in the land of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Juda shall the flocks pass again under the hand of him that numbereth them, saith the Lord. 33:14. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform the good word that I have spoken to the house of Israel, and to the house of Juda. 33:15. In those days, and at that time, I will make the bud of justice to spring forth unto David, and he shall do judgment and justice in the earth. 33:16. In those days shall Juda be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell securely: and this is the name that they shall call him, The Lord our just one. 33:17. For thus saith the Lord: There shall not be cut off from David a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel. There shall not be cut off from David, etc. . .This was verified in Christ, who is of the house of David; and whose kingdom in his church shall have no end. 33:18. Neither shall there be cut off from the priests and Levites a man before my face to offer holocausts, and to burn sacrifices, and to kill victims continually. Neither shall there be cut off from the priests, etc. . .This promise relates to the Christian priesthood; which shall also continue for ever: the functions of which (more especially the great sacrifice of the altar) are here expressed by the name of holocausts, and other offerings of the law, which were so many figures of the Christian sacrifice. 33:19. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, saying: 33:20. Thus saith the Lord: if my covenant, with the day can be made void, and my covenant with the night, that there should not be day and night in their season: 33:21. Also my covenant with David my servant may be made void, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites and priests my ministers. 33:22. As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea be measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites my ministers. 33:23. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, saying: 33:24. Hast thou not seen what this people hath spoken, saying: The two families which the Lord had chosen, are cast off: and they have despised my people, so that it is no more a nation before them? Two families, etc. . .Viz., the families of the kings and priests. 33:25. Thus saith the Lord. If I have not set my covenant between day and night, and laws to heaven and earth: 33:26. Surely I will also cast off the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so as not to take any of his seed to be rulers of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will bring back their captivity, and will have mercy on them. Jeremias Chapter 34 The prophet foretells that Sedecias shall fall into the hands of Nabuchodonosor: God's sentence upon the princes and people that had broken his covenant. 34:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, when Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth, that were under the power of his hand, and all the people fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities thereof, saying: 34:2. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Go, and speak to Sedecias king of Juda, and say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 34:3. And thou shalt not escape out of his hand: but thou shalt surely be taken, and thou shalt be delivered into his hand: and thy eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and his mouth shall speak with thy mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. 34:4. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Sedecias king of Juda: Thus saith the Lord to thee: Thou shalt not die by the sword. 34:5. But thou shalt die in peace, and according to the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings that were before thee, so shall they burn thee: and they shall mourn for thee, saying: Alas, Lord: for I have spoken the word, saith the Lord. Die in peace. . .That is, by a natural death. 34:6. And Jeremias the prophet spoke all these words to Sedecias the king of Juda in Jerusalem. 34:7. And the army of the king of Babylon fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Juda that were left, against Lachis, and against Azecha: for these remained of the cities of Juda, fenced cities. 34:8. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, after that king Sedecias had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem making a proclamation: 34:9. That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free: and that they should not lord it over them, to wit, over the Jews their brethren. 34:10. And all the princes, and all the people who entered into the covenant, heard that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant go free, and should no more have dominion over them: and they obeyed, and let them go free. 34:11. But afterwards they turned: and brought back again their servants and their handmaids, whom they had let go free, and brought them into subjection as menservants and maidservants. 34:12. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: 34:13. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: 34:14. At the end of seven years, let ye go every man his brother being a Hebrew, who hath been sold to thee, so he shall serve thee six years: and thou shalt let him go free from thee: and your fathers did not hearken to me, nor did they incline their ear. 34:15. And you turned to day, and did that which was right in my eyes, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother: and you made a covenant in my sight, in the house upon which my name is invocated. 34:16. And you are fallen back, and have defiled my name: and you have brought back again every man his manservant, and every man his maidservant, whom you had let go free, and set at liberty: and you have brought them into subjection to be your servants and handmaids. 34:17. Therefore thus saith the Lord: You have not hearkened to me, in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother and every man to his friend: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine: and I will cause you to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth. 34:18. And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, and have not performed the words of the covenant which they agreed to in my presence, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts thereof: 34:19. The princes of Juda, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land that passed between the parts of the calf: 34:20. And I will give them into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the earth. 34:21. And Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, I will give into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their lives, and into the hands of the armies of the king of Babylon, which are gone from you. 34:22. Behold I will command, saith the Lord, and I will bring them again to this city, and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Juda a desolation, without an inhabitant. Jeremias Chapter 35 The obedience of the Rechabites condemns the disobedience of the Jews. The reward of the Rechabites. 35:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord in the days of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, saying: 35:2. Go to the house of the Rechabites: and speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers of the treasures, and thou shalt give them wine to drink. Rechabites. . .These were of the race of Jethro, father in law to Moses. 35:3. And I took Jezonias the son of Jeremias the son of Habsanias, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites. 35:4. And I brought them into the house of the Lord, to the treasure house of the sons of Hanan, the son of Jegedelias the man of God, which was by the treasure house of the princes, above the treasure of Maasias the son of Sellum, who was keeper of the entry. 35:5. And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups: and I said to them: Drink ye wine. 35:6. And they answered : We will not drink wine: because Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying: You shall drink no wine, neither you, nor your children, for ever: 35:7. Neither shall ye build houses, nor sow reed, nor plant vineyards, nor have any: but you shall dwell in tents all your days, that you may live many days upon the face of the earth, in which you are strangers. 35:8. Therefore we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all things that he commanded us: so as to drink no wine all our days: neither we, nor our wives, nor our sons, nor our daughters: 35:9. Nor to build houses to dwell in, nor to have vineyard, or field, or seed: 35:10. But we have dwelt in tents, and have been obedient according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us. 35:11. But when Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon came up to our land, we said: Come, let us go into Jerusalem from the face of the army of the Chaldeans, and from the face of the army of Syria: and we have remained in Jerusalem. 35:12. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, saying: 35:13. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Go, and say to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Will you not receive instruction, to obey my words, saith the Lord? 35:14. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, by which he commanded his sons not to drink wine, have prevailed: and they have drunk none to this day, because they have obeyed the commandment of their father: but I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, and you have not obeyed me. 35:15. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early, and sending and saying: Return ye every man from his wicked way, and make your ways good: and follow not strange gods, nor worship them, and you shall dwell in the land, which I gave you and your fathers: and you have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened to me. 35:16. So the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have constantly kept the commandment of their father, which he commanded them: but this people hath not obeyed me. 35:17. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will bring upon Juda, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them, and they have not heard: I have called to them, and they have not answered me. 35:18. And Jeremias said to the house of the Rechabites: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and have kept all his precepts, and have done all that he commanded you: 35:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: There shall not be wanting a man of the race of Jonadab the son of Rechab, standing before me for ever. Jeremias Chapter 36 Jeremias sends Baruch to read his prophecies in the temple; the book is brought to king Joakim, who burns it. The prophet denounces his judgment, and causes Baruch to write a new copy. 36:1. And it came to pass in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, that this word came to Jeremias by the Lord, saying: 36:2. Take thee a roll of a book, and thou shalt write in it all the words that I have spoken to thee against Israel and Juda, and against all the nations from the day that I spoke to thee, from the days of Josias even to this day. 36:3. If so be, when the house of Juda shall hear all the evils that I purpose to do unto them, that they may return every man from his wicked way: and I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin. 36:4. So Jeremias called Baruch the son of Nerias: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremias all the words of the Lord, which he spoke to him, upon the roll of a book. 36:5. And Jeremias commanded Baruch, saying: I am shut up, and cannot go into the house of the Lord. Shut up. . .Not that the prophet was now in prison; for the contrary appears from ver. 19, but that he kept himself shut up, by reason of the persecutions he had lately met with. See chap. 26. 36:6. Go thou in therefore, and read out of the volume, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people in the house of the Lord on the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the hearing of all Juda that come out of their cities: 36:7. If so be they may present their supplication before the Lord, and may return every one from his wicked way: for great is the wrath and indignation which the Lord hath pronounced against this people. 36:8. And Baruch the son of Nerias did according to all that Jeremias the prophet ,had commanded him, reading out of the volume the words of the Lord in the house of the Lord. 36:9. And it came to pass in the fifth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that were come together out of the cities of Juda to Jerusalem. 36:10. And Baruch read out of the volume the words of Jeremias in the house of the Lord, in the treasury of Gamarias the son of Saphan the scribe, in the upper court, in the entry of the new gate of the house of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people. 36:11. And when Micheas the son of Gamarias the son of Saphan had heard out of the book all the words of the Lord, 36:12. He went down into the king's house to the secretary's chamber: and behold all the princes sat there, Elisama the scribe, and Dalaias the son of Semeias, and Elnathan the son of Achobor, and Gamarias the son of Saphan, and Sedecias the son of Hananias, and all the princes. 36:13. And Micheas told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read out of the volume in the hearing of the people. 36:14. Therefore all the princes sent Judi the son of Nathanias, the son of Selemias, the son of Chusi, to Baruch, saying: Take in thy hand the volume in which thou hast read in the hearing of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Nerias took the volume in his hand, and came to them. 36:15. And they said to him: Sit down and read these things in our hearing. And Baruch read in their hearing. 36:16. And when they had heard all the words, they looked upon one another with astonishment, and they said to Baruch: We must tell the king all these words. 36:17. And they asked him, saying: Tell us how didst thou write all these words from his mouth. 36:18. And Baruch said to them: With his mouth he pronounced all these words as if he were reading to me: and I wrote in a volume with ink. 36:19. And the princes said to Baruch: Go, and hide thee, both thou and Jeremias, and let no man know where you are. 36:20. And they went in to the king into the court: but they laid up the volume in the chamber of Elisama the scribe: and they told all the words in the hearing of the king. 36:21. And the king sent Judi that he should take the volume: who bringing it out of the chamber of Elisama the scribe, read it in the hearing of the king, and of all the princes that stood about the king. 36:22. Now the king sat in the winter house, in the ninth month: and there was a hearth before him full of burning coals. 36:23. And when Judi had read three or four pages, he cut it with the penknife, and he cast it into the fire, that was upon the hearth, till all the volume was consumed with the fire that was on the hearth. 36:24. And the king and all his servants that heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments. 36:25. But yet Elnathan, and Dalaias, and Gamarias spoke to the king, not to burn the book: and he heard them not. 36:26. And the king commanded Jeremiel the son of Amelech, and Saraias the son of Ezriel, and Selemias the son of Abdeel, to take up Baruch the scribe, and Jeremias the prophet: but the Lord hid them. 36:27. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias the prophet, after that the king had burnt the volume, and the words that Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremias, saying: 36:28. Take thee again another volume: and write in it all the former words that were in the first volume which Joakim the king of Juda both burnt. 36:29. And thou shalt say to Joakim the king of Juda: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast burnt that volume, saying: Why hast thou written therein, and said: The king of Babylon shall come speedily, and shall lay waste this land: and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? 36:30. Therefore thus saith the Lord against Joakim the king of Juda: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day, and to the frost by night. He shall have none, etc. . .Because his son Joachin or Jechonias, within three months after the death of his father, was carried away to Babylon, so that his reign is not worthy of notice. 36:31. And I will punish him, and his seed and his servants, for their iniquities, and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Juda all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they have not heard. 36:32. And Jeremias took another volume, and gave it to Baruch the son of Nerias the scribe: who wrote in it from the mouth of Jeremias all the words of the book which Joakim the king of Juda had burnt with fire: and there were added besides many more words than had been before. Jeremias Chapter 37 Jeremias prophesies that the Chaldeans, who had departed from Jerusalem, would return and burn the city. He is cast into prison. His conference with Sedecias. 37:1. Now king Sedecias the son of Josias reigned instead of Jechonias the son of Joakim: whom Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon made king in the land of Juda. 37:2. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land did obey the words of the Lord, that he spoke in the hand of Jeremias the prophet. 37:3. And king Sedecias sent Juchal the son of Selemias, and Sophonias the son of Maasias the priest to Jeremias the prophet, saying: Pray to the Lord our God for us. 37:4. Now Jeremias walked freely in the midst of the people: for they had not as yet cast him into prison. And the army of Pharao was come out of Egypt: and the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem, hearing these tidings, departed from Jerusalem. 37:5. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias the prophet, saying: 37:6. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Thus shall you say to the king of Juda, who sent you to inquire of me: Behold the army of Pharao, which is come forth to help you, shall return into their own land, into Egypt. 37:7. And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire. 37:8. Thus saith the Lord: Deceive not your souls, saying: The Chaldeans shall surely depart and go away from us: for they shall not go away. 37:9. But if you should even beat all the army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there should be left of them some wounded men: they shall rise up, every man from his heart, and burn this city with fire. 37:10. Now when the army of the Chaldeans was gone away from Jerusalem, because of Pharao's army, 37:11. Jeremias went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin: and to divide a possession there in the presence of the citizens, 37:12. And when he was come to the gate of Benjamin, the captain of the gate, who was there in his turn, was one named Jerias, the son of Selemias, the son of Hananias: and he took hold of Jeremias the prophet, saying: Thou art fleeing to the Chaldeans. 37:13. And Jeremias answered: It is not so, I am not fleeing to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Jerias took Jeremias and brought him to the princes. 37:14. Wherefore the princes were angry with Jeremias, and they beat him, and cast him into the prison that was in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for he was chief over the prison. 37:15. So Jeremias went into the house of the prison, and into the dungeon: and Jeremias remained there many days. 37:16. Then Sedecias the king, sending, took him: and asked him secretly in his house, and said: Is there, thinkest thou, any word from the Lord? And Jeremias said. There is. And he said: Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon. 37:17. And Jeremias said to king Sedecias: In what have I offended against thee, or thy servants, or thy people, that thou hast cast me into prison? 37:18. Where are your prophets that prophesied to you, and said: The king of Babylon shall not come against you, and against this land? 37:19. Now therefore hear, I beseech thee, my lord the king: let my petition be accepted in thy sight: and send me not back into the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there. 37:20. Then king Sedecias commanded that Jeremias should be committed into the entry of the prison: and that they should give him daily a piece of bread, beside broth, till all the bread in the city were spent: and Jeremias remained in the entry of the prison. Jeremias Chapter 38 The prophet at the instance of the great men is cast into a filthy dungeon: he is drawn out by Abdemelech, and has another conference with the king. 38:1. Now Saphatias the son of Mathan, and Gedelias the son of Phassur, and Juchal the son of Selemias, and Phassur the son of Melchias heard the words that Jeremias spoke to all the people, saying: 38:2. Thus saith the Lord: Whosoever shall remain in this city, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: but he that shall go forth to the Chaldeans, shall live, and his life shall be safe, and he shall live. 38:3. Thus saith the Lord: This city shall surely be delivered into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. 38:4. And the princes said to the king. We beseech thee that this man may be put to death: for on purpose he weakeneth the hands of the men of war, that remain in this city, and the hands of the people, speaking to them according to these words: for this man seeketh not peace to this people, but evil. 38:5. And king Sedecias said: Behold he is in your hands: for it is not lawful for the king to deny you any thing. 38:6. Then they took Jeremias and cast him into the dungeon of Melchias the son of Amelech, which was in the entry of the prison: and they let down Jeremias by ropes into the dungeon, wherein there was no water, but mire. And Jeremias sunk into the mire. 38:7. Now Abdemelech the Ethiopian, an eunuch that was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremias in the dungeon: but the king was sitting in the gate of Benjamin. 38:8. And Abdemelech went out of the king's house, and spoke to the king, saying: 38:9. My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done against Jeremias the prophet, casting him into the dungeon to die there with hunger, for there is no more bread in the city. 38:10. Then the king commanded Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying: Take from hence thirty men with thee, and draw up Jeremias the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. 38:11. So Abdemelech taking the men with him, went into the king's house that was under the storehouse: and he took from thence old rags, and old rotten things, and he let them down by cords to Jeremias into the dungeon. 38:12. And Abdemelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremias: Put these old rags and these rent and rotten things under thy arms, and upon the cords: and Jeremias did so. 38:13. And they drew up Jeremias with the cords, and brought him forth out of the dungeon. And Jeremias remained in the entry of the prison. 38:14. And king Sedecias sent, and took Jeremias the prophet to him to the third gate, that was in the house of the Lord: and the king said to Jeremias: I will ask thee a thing, hide nothing from me. 38:15. Then Jeremias said to Sedecias: If I shall declare it to thee, wilt thou not put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken to me. 38:16. Then king Sedecias swore to Jeremias, in private, saying: As the Lord liveth, that, made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, nor will I deliver thee into the hands of these men that seek thy life. 38:17. And Jeremias said to Sedecias: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: If thou wilt take a resolution and go out to the princes of the king of Babylon, thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burnt with fire: and thou shalt be safe, and thy house. 38:18. But if thou wilt not go out to the princes of the king of Babylon, this city shall be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. 38:19. And king Sedecias said to Jeremias: I am afraid because of the Jews that are fled over to the Chaldeans: lest I should be delivered into their hands, and they should abuse me. 38:20. But Jeremias answered: They shall not deliver thee: hearken, I beseech thee, to the word of the Lord, which I speak to the, and it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live. 38:21. But if thou wilt not go forth, this is the word which the Lord hath shewn me: 38:22. Behold all the women that are left in the house of the king of Juda, shall be brought out to the princes of the king of Babylon: and they shall say: Thy men of peace have deceived thee, and have prevailed against thee, they have plunged thy feet in the mire, and in a slippery place and they have departed from thee. Thy men of peace. . .Viri pacifici tui. That is thy false friends promising thee peace and happiness, and by their evil counsels involving thee in misery. 38:23. And all thy wives, and thy children shall be brought out to the Chaldeans, and thou shalt not escape their hands, but thou shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall burn this city with fire. 38:24. Then Sedecias said to Jeremias: Let no man know these words, and thou shalt not die. 38:25. But if the princes shall hear that I have spoken with thee, and shall come to thee, and say to thee: Tell us what thou hast said to the king, hide it not from us, and we will not kill thee: and also what the king said to thee: 38:26. Thou shalt say to them: I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not command me to be carried back into the house of Jonathan, to die there. 38:27. So all the princes came to Jeremias, and asked him: and he spoke to them according to all the words that the king had commanded him: and they left him: for nothing had been heard. 38:28. But Jeremias remained in the entry of the prison, until the day that Jerusalem was taken: and it came to pass that Jerusalem was taken. Jeremias Chapter 39 After two years' siege Jerusalem is taken. Sedecias is carried before Nabuchodonosor, who kills his sons in his sight, and then puts out his eyes. Jeremias is set at liberty. 39:1. In the ninth year of Sedecias king of Juda, in the tenth month, came Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and all his army to Jerusalem, and they besieged it. 39:2. And in the eleventh year of Sedecias, in the fourth month, the fifth day of the month, the city was opened. 39:3. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Neregel, Sereser, Semegarnabu, Sarsachim, Rabsares, Neregel, Serezer, Rebmag, and all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. 39:4. And when Sedecias the king of Juda and all the men of war saw them, they fled: and they went forth in the night out of the city by the way of the king's garden, and by the gate that was between the two walls, and they went out to the way of the desert. 39:5. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them: and they took Sedecias in the plain of the desert of Jericho, and when they had taken him, they brought him to Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon to Reblatha, which is in the land of Emath: and he gave judgment upon him. 39:6. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Sedecias, in Reblatha, before his eyes: and the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Juda. 39:7. He also put out the eyes of Sedecias: and bound him with fetters, to be carried to Babylon. 39:8. And the Chaldeans burnt the king's house, and the houses of the people with fire, and they threw down the wall of Jerusalem. 39:9. And Nabuzardan the general of the army carried away captive to Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and the fugitives that had gone over to him, and the rest of the people that remained. 39:10. But Nabuzardan the general left some of the poor people that had nothing at all, in the land of Juda, and he gave them vineyards, and cisterns at that time. 39:11. Now Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had given charge to Nabuzardan the general concerning Jeremias, saying: 39:12. Take him, and set thy eyes upon him, and do him no harm: but as he hath a mind, so do with him. 39:13. Therefore Nabuzardan the general sent, and Nabuzardan, and Rabsares, and Neregel, and Sereser, and Rebmag, and all the nobles of the king of Babylon, 39:14. Sent and took Jeremias out of the court of the prison, and committed him to Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, that he might go home, and dwell among the people. 39:15. But the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, when he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying: Go, and tell Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying: 39:16. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will bring my words upon this city unto evil, and not unto good: and they shall be accomplished in thy sight in that day. 39:17. And I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord: and thou shalt not be given into the hands of the men whom thou fearest: 39:18. But delivering, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword: but thy life shall be saved for thee, because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 40 Jeremias remains with Godolias the governor; who receives all the Jews that resort to him. 40:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, after that Nabuzardan the general had let him go from Rama, when he had taken him, being bound with chains, among all them that were carried away from Jerusalem and Juda, and were carried to Babylon. 40:2. And the general of the army taking Jeremias, said to him: The Lord thy God hath pronounced this evil upon this place, 40:3. And he hath brought it: and the Lord hath done as he hath said: because you have sinned against the Lord, and have not hearkened to his voice, and this word is come upon you. 40:4. Now then behold I have loosed thee this day from the chains which were upon thy hands: if it please thee to come with me to Babylon, come: and I will set my eyes upon thee: but if it do not please thee to come with me to Babylon, stay here: behold all the land is before thee, as thou shalt choose, and whither it shall please thee to go, thither go. 40:5. And come not with me: but dwell with Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Juda: dwell therefore with him in the midst of the people: or whithersoever it shall please thee to go, go. And the general of the army gave him victuals and presents, and let him go. 40:6. And Jeremias went to Godolias the son of Ahicam to Masphath: and dwelt with him in the midst of the people that were left in the land. 40:7. And when all the captains of the army that were scattered through the countries, they and their companions, had heard that the king of Babylon had made Godolias the son of Ahicam governor of the country, and that he had committed unto him men and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, them that had not been carried away captive to Babylon: 40:8. They came to Godolias to Masphath: and Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and Johanan, and Jonathan, the sons of Caree, and Sareas the son of Thanehumeth, and the children of Ophi, that were of Netophathi, and Jezonias the son of Maachati, they and their men. 40:9. And Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan swore to them and to their companions, saying: Fear not to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. 40:10. Behold I dwell in Masphath, that I may answer the commandment of the Chaldeans that are sent to us: but as for you, gather ye the vintage, and the harvest, and the oil, and lay it up in your vessels, and abide in your cities which you hold. 40:11. Moreover all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and in all the countries, when they heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant in Judea, and that he had made Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan ruler over them: 40:12. All the Jews, I say, returned out of all the places to which they had fled, and they came into the land of Juda to Godolias to Masphath: and they gathered wine, and a very great harvest. 40:13. Then Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the army, that had been scattered about in the countries, came to Godolias to Masphath. 40:14. And they said to him: Know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ismahel the son of Nathanias to kill thee. And Godolias the son of Ahicam believed them not. 40:15. But Johanan the son of Caree, spoke to Godolias privately in Masphath, saying: I will go, and I will kill Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and no man shall know it, lest he kill thee, and all the Jews be scattered, that are gathered unto thee, and the remnant of Juda perish. 40:16. And Godolias the son of Ahicam said to Johanan the son of Caree: Do not this thing: for what thou sayst of Ismahel is false. Jeremias Chapter 41 Godolias is slain: the Jews that were with him are apprehensive of the Chaldeans. 41:1. And it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ismahel the son of Nathanias, the son of Elisama of the royal blood, and the nobles of the king, and ten men with him, came to Godolias the son of Ahicam into Masphath: and they ate bread there together in Masphath. 41:2. And Ismahel the son of Nathanias arose, and the ten men that were with him, and they struck Godolias the son of Ahicam, the son of Saphan with the sword, and slew him whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. 41:3. Ismahel slew also all the Jews that were with Godolias in Masphath, and the Chaldeans that were found there, and the soldiers. 41:4. And on the second day after he had killed Godolias, no man yet knowing it, 41:5. There came some from Sichem, and from Silo, and from Samaria, fourscore men, with their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and mourning: and they had offerings and incense in their hand, to offer in the house of the Lord. 41:6. And Ismahel the son of Nathanias went forth from Masphath to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and when he had met them, he said to them: Come to Godolias, the son of Ahicam. 41:7. And when they were come to the midst of the city, Ismahel the son of Nathanias, slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he and the men that were with him. 41:8. But ten men were found among them, that said to Ismahel: Kill us not: for we have stores in the field, of wheat, and barley, and oil, and honey. And he forbore, and slew them not with their brethren. 41:9. And the pit into which Ismahel cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he slew because of Godolias, is the same that king Asa made, for fear of Baasa the king of Israel: the same did Ismahel the son of Nathanias fill with them that were slain. 41:10. Then Ismahel carried away captive all the remnant of the people that were in Masphath: the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Masphath: whom Nabuzardan the general of the army had committed to Godolias the son of Ahicam. And Ismahel the son of Nathanias took them, and he departed, to go over to the children of Ammon. 41:11. But Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, heard of the evil that Ismahel the son of Nathanias had done. 41:12. And taking all the men, they went out to fight against Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and they found him by the great waters that are in Gabaon. 41:13. And when all the people that were with Ismahel, had seen Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, they rejoiced. 41:14. And all the people whom Ismahel had taken, went back to Masphath: and they returned and went to Johanan the son of Caree. 41:15. But Ismahel the son of Nathanias fled with eight men, from the face of Johanan, and went to the children of Ammon. 41:16. Then Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers that were with him, took all the remnant of the people whom they had recovered from Ismahel the son of Nathanias, from Masphath, after that he had slain Godolias the son of Ahicam: valiant men for war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs whom he had brought back from Gabaon. 41:17. And they departed, and sat as sojourners in Chamaam, which is near Bethlehem: in order to go forward, and enter into Egypt, 41:18. From the face of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ismahel the son of Nathanias had slain Godolias the son of Ahicam, whom the king of Babylon had made governor in the land of Juda. Jeremias Chapter 42 Jeremias assures the remnant of the people, that if they will stay in Juda, they shall be safe; but if they go down into Egypt, they shall perish. 42:1. Then all the captains of the warriors, and Johanan the son of Caree, and Jezonias, the son of Osaias, and the rest of the people from the least to the greatest came near: 42:2. And they said to Jeremias the prophet: Let our supplication fall before thee: and pray thou for us to the Lord thy God for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as thy eyes do behold us. 42:3. And let the Lord thy God shew us the way by which we may walk, and the thing that we must do. 42:4. And Jeremias the prophet said to them: I have heard you: behold I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words: and whatsoever thing he shall answer me, I will declare it to you: and I will hide nothing from you. 42:5. And they said to Jeremias: The Lord be witness between us of truth and faithfulness, if we do not according to every thing for which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us. 42:6. Whether it be good or evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee: that it may be well with us when we shall hearken to the voice of the Lord our God. Good or evil. . .That is, agreeable or disagreeable. 42:7. Now after ten days, the word of the Lord came to Jeremias. 42:8. And he called Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest. 42:9. And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, to whom you sent me, to present your supplications before him: 42:10. If you will be quiet and remain in this land, I will build you up, and not pull you down: I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for now I am appeased for the evil that I have done to you. I am appeased for the evil that I have done to you. . .That is, I am appeased, as I have sufficiently punished you, and now I am reconciled with you. 42:11. Fear not because of the king of Babylon, of whom you are greatly afraid: fear him not, saith the Lord: for I am with you, to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. 42:12. And I will shew mercies to you, and will take pity on you, and will cause you to dwell in your own land. 42:13. But if you say: We will not dwell in this land, neither will we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God, 42:14. Saying: No, but we will go into the land of Egypt: where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor suffer hunger: and there we will dwell. 42:15. For this now hear the word of the Lord, ye remnant of Juda: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to go into Egypt, and enter in to dwell there: 42:16. The sword which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt: and the famine, whereof you are afraid, shall cleave to you in Egypt, and there you shall die. 42:17. And all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt, to dwell there, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: none of them shall remain, nor escape from the face of the evil that I will bring upon them. 42:18. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my indignation hath been kindled against the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so shall my indignation be kindled against you, when you shall enter into Egypt, and you shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach: and you shall see this place no more. 42:19. This is the word of the Lord concerning you, O ye remnant of Juda: Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have adjured you this day. 42:20. For you have deceived your own souls: for you sent me to the Lord our God, saying: Pray for us to the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say to thee, so declare unto us, and we will do it. 42:21. And now I have declared it to you this day, and you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, with regard to all the things for which he hath sent me to you. 42:22. Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence in the place to which you desire to go to dwell there. Jeremias Chapter 43 The Jews, contrary to the orders of God by the prophet, go into Egypt, carrying Jeremias with them. He foretells the devastation of that land by the king of Babylon. 43:1. And it came to pass, that when Jeremias had made an end of speaking to the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him to them, all these words: 43:2. Azarias the son of Osaias, and Johanan the son of Caree, and all the proud men, made answer, saying to Jeremias: Thou tellest a lie: the Lord our God hath not sent thee, saying: Go not into Egypt, to dwell there. 43:3. But Baruch the son of Nerias setteth thee on against us, to deliver us into the hands of the Chaldeans, to kill us, and to cause us to be carried away captives to Babylon. 43:4. So Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the Lord, to remain in the land of Juda. 43:5. But Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers took all the remnant of Juda, that were returned out of all nations, to which they had before been scattered, to dwell in the land of Juda: 43:6. Men, and women, and children, and the king's daughters, and every soul, which Nabuzardan the general had left with Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, and Jeremias the prophet, and Baruch the son of Nerias. 43:7. And they went into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: and they came as far as Taphnis. 43:8. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias in Taphnis, saying: 43:9. Take great stones in thy hand, and thou shalt hide them in the vault that is under the brick wall at the gate of Pharao's house in Taphnis: in the sight of the men of Juda. 43:10. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will send, and take Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon my servant: and I will set his throne over these stones which I have hid, and he shall set his throne over them. 43:11. And he shall come and strike the land of Egypt: such as are for death, to death: and such as are for captivity, to captivity: and such as are for the sword, to the sword. 43:12. And he shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them, and he shall carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment: and he shall go forth from thence in peace. 43:13. And he shall break the statues of the house of the sun, that are in the land of Egypt; and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire. Jeremias Chapter 44 The prophet's admonition to the Jews in Egypt against idolatry is not regarded: he denounces to them their destruction. 44:1. The word that came to Jeremias, concerning all the Jews that dwelt in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Magdal, and in Taphnis, and in Memphis, and in the land of Phatures, saying: 44:2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: You have seen all this evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Juda: and behold they are desolate this day, and there is not an inhabitant in them: 44:3. Because of the wickedness which they have committed, to provoke me to wrath, and to go and offer sacrifice, and worship other gods, which neither they, nor you, nor your fathers knew. 44:4. And I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and saying: Do not commit this abominable thing, which I hate. 44:5. But they heard not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their evil ways, and not to sacrifice to strange gods. 44:6. Wherefore my indignation and my fury was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem: and they are turned to desolation and waste, as at this day. 44:7. And now thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil against your own souls, that there should die of you man and woman, child and suckling out of the midst of Juda, and no remnant should be left you: 44:8. In that you provoke me to wrath with the works of your hands, by sacrificing to other gods in the land of Egypt, into which you are come to dwell there: and that you should perish, and be a curse, and a reproach to all the nations of the earth? 44:9. Have you forgotten the evils of your fathers, and the evils of the kings of Juda, and the evils of their wives, and your evils, and the evils of your wives, that they have done in the land of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem? 44:10. They are not cleansed even to this day: neither have they feared, nor walked in the law of the Lord, nor in my commandments, which I set before you and your fathers. 44:11. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will set my face upon you for evil: and I will destroy all Juda. 44:12. And I will take the remnant of Juda that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt, and to dwell there; and they shall be all consumed in the land of Egypt: they shall fall by the sword, and by the famine: and they shall be consumed from the least even to the greatest, by the sword, and by the famine shall they die: and they shall be for an execration, and for a wonder, and for a curse, and for a reproach. 44:13. And I will visit them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have visited Jerusalem by the sword, and by famine and by pestilence. 44:14. And there shall be none that shall escape, and remain of the remnant of the Jews that are gone to sojourn in the land of Egypt: and that shall return into the land of Juda, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there: there shall none return but they that shall flee. 44:15. Then all the men that knew that their wives sacrificed to other gods: and all the women of whom there stood by a great multitude, and all the people of them that dwelt in the land of Egypt in Phatures, answered Jeremias, saying: 44:16. As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to thee: 44:17. But we will certainly do every word that shall proceed out of our own mouth, to sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we and our fathers have done, our kings, and our princes in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem: and we were filled with bread, and it was well with us, and we saw no evil. The queen of heaven. . .The moon, which they worshipped under this name. 44:18. But since we left off to offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out frank offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by famine. 44:19. And if we offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and pour out drink offerings to her: did we make cakes to worship her, to pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands? 44:20. And Jeremias spoke to all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying: 44:21. Was it not the sacrifice that you offered in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, which the Lord hath remembered, and hath it not entered into his heart? 44:22. So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed: therefore your land is become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. 44:23. Because you have sacrificed to idols, and have sinned against the Lord: and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have not walked in his law, and in his commandments, and in his testimonies: therefore are these evils come upon you, as at this day. 44:24. And Jeremias said to all the people and to all the women: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all Juda, you that dwell in the land of Egypt: 44:25. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, saying: You and your wives have spoken with your mouth, and fulfilled with your hands, saying: Let us perform our vows which we have made, to offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her: you have fulfilled your vows, and have performed them indeed. 44:26. Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Juda, you that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold I have sworn by my great name, saith the Lord: that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Juda, in the land of Egypt, saying: The Lord God liveth. 44:27. Behold I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Juda that are in the land of Egypt, shall be consumed, by the sword, and by famine, till there be an end of them. 44:28. And a few men that shall flee from the sword, shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Juda: and all the remnant of Juda that are gone into the land of Egypt to dwell there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, or theirs. 44:29. And this shall be a sign to you, saith the Lord, that I will punish you in this place: that you may know that my words shall be accomplished indeed against you for evil. 44:30. Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver Pharao Nechao king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life: as I delivered Sedecias king of Juda into the land of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon his enemy, and that sought his life. Jeremias Chapter 45 The prophet comforts Baruch in his affliction. 45:1. The word that Jeremias the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Nerias, when he had written these words in a book, out of the mouth of Jeremias, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, saying: 45:2. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to thee, Baruch: 45:3. Thou hast said: Woe is me, wretch that I am, for the Lord hath added sorrow to my sorrow: I am wearied with my groans, and I find no rest. 45:4. Thus saith the Lord: Thus shalt thou say to him: Behold, them whom I have built, I do destroy: and them whom I have planted, I do pluck up, and all this land. 45:5. And dost thou seek great things for thyself? Seek not: for behold I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord! but I will give thee thy life, and save thee in all places whithersoever thou shalt go. Jeremias Chapter 46 A prophecy against Egypt. The Jews shall return from captivity. 46:1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremias the prophet against the Gentiles, 46:2. Against Egypt, against the army of Pharao Nechao king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Charcamis, whom Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon defeated, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda. 46:3. Prepare ye the shield and buckler, and go forth to battle. 46:4. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen: stand forth with helmets, furbish the spears, put on coats of mail. 46:5. What then? I have seen them dismayed, and turning their backs, their valiant ones slain: they fled apace, and they looked not back: terror was round about, saith the Lord. 46:6. Let not the swift flee away, nor the strong think to escape: they are overthrown, and fallen down, towards the north by the river Euphrates. 46:7. Who is this that cometh up as a flood: and his streams swell like those of rivers? 46:8. Egypt riseth up like a flood, and the waves thereof shall be moved as rivers, and he shall say: I will go up and will cover the earth: I will destroy the city, and its inhabitants. 46:9. Get ye up on horses, and glory in chariots, and let the valiant men come forth, the Ethiopians, and the Libyans that hold the shield, and the Lydians that take, and shoot arrows. 46:10. For this is the day of the Lord the God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may revenge himself of his enemies: the sword shall devour, and shall be filled, and shall be drunk with their blood: for there is a sacrifice of the Lord God of hosts in the north country, by the river Euphrates. 46:11. Go up into Galaad, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain dost thou multiply medicines, there shall be no cure for thee. 46:12. The nations have heard of thy disgrace, and thy howling hath filled the land: for the strong hath stumbled against the strong, and both are fallen together. 46:13. The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremias the prophet, how Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt: 46:14. Declare ye to Egypt, and publish it in Magdal, and let it be known in Memphis, and in Taphnis: say ye: Stand up, and prepare thyself: for the sword shall devour all round about thee. 46:15. Why are thy valiant men come to nothing? they stood not: because the Lord hath overthrown them. 46:16. He hath multiplied them that fall, and one hath fallen upon another, and they shall say: Arise, and let us return to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the sword of the dove. The dove. . .See the annotation on chap. 25., ver. 38. 46:17. Call ye the name of Pharao king of Egypt, a tumult time hath brought. 46:18. As I live, saith the King, (whose name is the Lord of hosts,) as Thabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come. 46:19. Furnish thyself to go into captivity, thou daughter inhabitant of Egypt: for Memphis shall be made desolate, and shall be forsaken and uninhabited. 46:20. Egypt is like a fair and beautiful heifer: there shall come from the north one that shall goad her. 46:21. Her hirelings also that lived in the midst of her, like fatted calves are turned back, and are fled away together, and they could not stand, for the day of their slaughter is come upon them, the time of their visitation. 46:22. Her voice shall sound like brass, for they shall hasten with an army, and with axes they shall come against her, as hewers of wood. 46:23. They have cut down her forest, saith the Lord, which cannot be counted: they are multiplied above locusts, and are without number. 46:24. The daughter of Egypt is confounded, and delivered into the hand of the people of the north. 46:25. The Lord of hosts the God of Israel hath said: Behold I will visit upon the tumult of Alexandria, and upon Pharao, and upon Egypt, and upon her gods, and upon her kings, and upon Pharao, and upon them that trust in him. Visit upon. . .That is, punish.--Ibid. Alexandria. . .In the Hebrew, No, which was the ancient name of the city, to which Alexander gave afterwards the name of Alexandria. 46:26. And I will deliver them into the hand of them that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the Lord. 46:27. And thou my servant Jacob, fear not and be not thou dismayed, O Israel: for behold I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed out of the land of thy captivity: and Jacob shall return and be at rest, and prosper: and there shall be none to terrify him. 46:28. And thou, my servant Jacob, fear not, saith the Lord: because I am with thee, for I will consume all the nations to which I have cast thee out: but thee I will not consume, but I will correct thee in judgment, neither will I spare thee as if thou wert innocent. Jeremias Chapter 47 A prophecy of the desolation of the Philistines, of Tyre, Sidon, Gaza, and Ascalon. 47:1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremias the prophet against the people of Palestine, before Pharao took Gaza. 47:2. Thus saith the Lord: Behold there come up waters out of the north, and they shall be as an overflowing torrent, and they shall cover the land, and all that is therein, the city and the inhabitants thereof: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl, 47:3. At the noise of the marching of arms, and of his soldiers, at the rushing of his chariots, and the multitude of his wheels. The fathers have not looked back to the children, for feebleness of hands, 47:4. Because of the coming of the day, in which all the Philistines shall be laid waste, and Tyre and Sidon shall be destroyed, with all the rest of their helpers. For the Lord hath wasted the Philistines, the remnant of the isle of Cappadocia. 47:5. Baldness is come upon Gaza: Ascalon hath held her peace with the remnant of their valley: how long shalt thou cut thyself? 47:6. O thou sword of the Lord, how long wilt thou not be quiet? Go into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. 47:7. How shall it be quiet, when the Lord hath given it a charge against Ascalon, and against the countries thereof by the sea side, and there hath made an appointment for it? Jeremias Chapter 48 A prophecy of the desolation of Moab for their pride: but their captivity shall at last be released. 48:1. Against Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Woe to Nabo, for it is laid waste, and confounded: Cariathaim is taken: the strong city is confounded and hath trembled. 48:2. There is no more rejoicing in Moab over Hesebon: they have devised evil. Come, and let us cut it off from being a nation. Therefore shalt thou in silence hold thy peace, and the sword shall follow thee. 48:3. A voice of crying from Oronaim: waste, and great destruction. 48:4. Moab is destroyed: proclaim a cry for her little ones. 48:5. For by the ascent of Luith shall the mourner go up with weeping: for in the descent of Oronaim the enemies have heard a howling of destruction. 48:6. Flee, save your lives: and be as heath in the wilderness. 48:7. For because thou hast trusted in thy bulwarks, and in thy treasures, thou also shalt be taken: and Chamos shall go into captivity, his priests, and his princes together. Chamos. . .The idol of the Moabites. 48:8. And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape: and the valleys shall perish, and the plains shall be destroyed, for the Lord hath spoken: 48:9. Give a flower to Moab, for in its flower it shall go out: and the cities thereof shall be desolate, and uninhabited. 48:10. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully: and cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood. Deceitfully. . .In the Greek, negligently. The work of God here spoken of, is the punishment of the Moabites. 48:11. Moab hath been fruitful from his youth, and hath rested upon his lees: and hath not been poured out from vessel to vessel, nor hath gone into captivity: therefore his taste hath remained in him, and his scent is not changed. Moab hath been fruitful. . .That is, rich and flourishing. And hath rested upon his lees. . .That is, remained in its bad morals; as wine not decanted has its lees mixed and remains muddy. 48:12. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send him men that shall order and overturn his bottles, and they shall cast him down, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles one against another. 48:13. And Moab shall be ashamed of Chamos, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, in which they trusted. Of Bethel. . .That is, of their golden calf which they worshipped in Bethel. 48:14. How do you say: We are valiant and stout men in battle? 48:15. Moab is laid waste, and they have cast down her cities: and her choice young men are gone down to the slaughter: saith the king, whose name is the Lord of hosts. 48:16. The destruction of Moab is near to come: the calamity thereof shall come on exceeding swiftly. 48:17. Comfort him, all you that are round about him, and all you that know his name, say: How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful rod? 48:18. Come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst, O dwelling of the daughter of Dibon: because the spoiler of Moab is come up to thee, he hath destroyed thy bulwarks. 48:19. Stand in the way, and look out, O habitation of Aroer: inquire of him that fleeth: and say to him that hath escaped: What is done? 48:20. Moab is confounded, because he is overthrown: howl ye, and cry, tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is wasted. 48:21. And judgment is come upon the plain country: upon Helon, and upon Jasa, and upon Mephaath. 48:22. And upon Dibon, and upon Nabo, and upon the house of Deblathaim, 48:23. And upon Cariathaim, and upon Bethgamul, and upon Bethmaon, 48:24. And upon Carioth, and upon Bosra: and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near. 48:25. The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the Lord. The horn of Moab is cut off. . .That is, the strength of Moab is cut off. A metaphor drawn from animals whose strength is in their horns. 48:26. Make him drunk, because he lifted up himself against the Lord: and Moab shall dash his hand in his own vomit, and he also shall be in derision. 48:27. For Israel hath been a derision unto them: as though thou hadst found him amongst thieves: for thy words therefore, which thou hast spoken against him, thou shalt be led away captive. 48:28. Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, you that dwell in Moab: and be ye like the dove that maketh her nest in the mouth of the hole in the highest place. 48:29. We have heard the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his haughtiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the loftiness of his heart. 48:30. I know, saith the Lord, his boasting, and that the strength thereof is not according to it, neither hath it endeavoured to do according as it was able. 48:31. Therefore will I lament for Moab, and I will cry out to all Moab, for the men of the brick wall that mourn. 48:32. O vineyard of Sabama, I will weep for thee, with the mourning of Jazer: thy branches are gone over the sea, they are come even to the sea of Jazer: the robber hath rushed in upon thy harvest and thy vintage. 48:33. Joy and gladness is taken away from Carmel, and from the land of Moab, and I have taken away the wine out of the presses: the treader of the grapes shall not sing the accustomed cheerful tune. 48:34. From the cry of Hesebon even to Eleale, and to Jasa, they have uttered their voice: from Segor to Oronaim, as a heifer of three years old: the waters also of Nemrim shall be very bad. 48:35. And I will take away from Moab, saith the Lord, him that offereth in the high places, and that sacrificeth to his gods. 48:36. Therefore my heart shall sound for Moab like pipes and my heart shall sound like pipes for the men of the brick wall: because he hath done more than he could, therefore they have perished. 48:37. For every head shall be bald, and every beard shall be shaven: all hands shall be tied together, and upon every back there shall be haircloth. 48:38. Upon all the housetops of Moab, and in the streets thereof general mourning: because I have broken Moab as an useless vessel, saith the Lord. 48:39. How is it overthrown, and they have howled! How hath Moab bowed down the neck, and is confounded! And Moab shall be a derision, and an example to all round about him. 48:40. Thus saith the Lord: Behold he shall fly as an eagle, and shall stretch forth his wings to Moab. 48:41. Carioth is taken, and the strongholds are won: and the heart of the valiant men of Moab in that day shall be as the heart of a woman in labour. 48:42. And Moab shall cease to be a people: because he hath gloried against the Lord. 48:43. Fear, and the pit, and the snare come upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the Lord. Fear. . .That is, the sword of the enemy. The pit. . .That is, unforeseen calamities. The snare. . .That is, the ambushes laid by the enemy. 48:44. He that shall flee from the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall get up out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon Moab the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. 48:45. They that fled from the snare stood in the shadow of Hesebon: but there came a fire out of Hesebon, and a flame out of the midst of Seon, and it shall devour part of Moab, and the crown of the head of the children of tumult. 48:46. Woe to thee, Moab, thou hast persisted, O people of Chamos: for thy sons, and thy daughters are taken captives. 48:47. And I will bring back the captivity of Moab in the last days, saith the Lord. Hitherto the judgments of Moab. Jeremias Chapter 49 The like desolation of Ammon, of Idumea, of the Syrians, of the Agarenes, and of the Elamites. 49:1. Against the children of Ammon. Thus saith the Lord: Hath Israel no sons? or hath he no heir? Why then hath Melchom inherited Gad: and his people dwelt in his cities? Melchom. . .The idol of the Ammonites. 49:2. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will cause the noise of war to be heard in Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and it shall be destroyed into a heap, and her daughters shall be burnt with fire, and Israel shall possess them that have possessed him, saith the Lord. 49:3. Howl, O Hesebon, for Hai is wasted. Cry, ye daughters of Rabbath, gird yourselves with haircloth: mourn and go about by the hedges: for Melchom shall be carried into captivity, his priests, and his princes together. 49:4. Why gloriest thou in the valleys? thy valley hath flowed away, O delicate daughter, that hast trusted in thy treasures, and hast said: Who shall come to me? 49:5. Behold I will bring a fear upon thee, saith the Lord God of hosts, from all that are round about thee: and you shall be scattered every one out of one another's sight, neither shall there be any to gather together them that flee. 49:6. And afterwards I will cause the captives of the children of Ammon to return, saith the Lord. 49:7. Against Edom. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Theman? counsel is perished from her children: their wisdom is become unprofitable. 49:8. Flee and turn your backs, go down into the deep hole, ye inhabitants of Dedan: for I have brought the destruction of Esau upon him, the time of his visitation. 49:9. If grapegatherers had come to thee, would they not have left a bunch? if thieves in the night, they would have taken what was enough for them. 49:10. But I have made Esau bare, I have revealed his secrets, and he cannot be hid: his seed is laid waste, and his brethren, and his neighbours, and he shall not be. 49:11. Leave thy fatherless children: I will make them live: and thy widows shall hope in me. 49:12. For thus saith the Lord: Behold they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, shall certainly drink: and shalt thou come off as innocent? thou shalt not come off as innocent, but drinking thou shalt drink. 49:13. For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bosra shall become a desolation, and a reproach, and a desert, and a curse: and all her cities shall be everlasting wastes. 49:14. I have heard a rumour from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent to the nations: Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and let us rise up to battle. 49:15. For behold I have made thee a little one among the nations, despicable among men. 49:16. Thy arrogancy hath deceived thee, and the pride of thy heart: O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, and endeavourest to lay hold on the height of the hill: but though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as an eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord. 49:17. And Edom shall be desolate: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all its plagues. 49:18. As Sodom was overthrown and Gomorrha, and the neighbours thereof, saith the Lord: there shall not a man dwell there, and there shall no son of man inhabit it. 49:19. Behold one shall come up as a lion from the swelling of the Jordan, against the strong and beautiful: for I will make him run suddenly upon her: and who shall be the chosen one whom I may appoint over her? for who is like to me? and who shall abide me? and who is that shepherd that can withstand my countenance? 49:20. Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord, which he hath taken concerning Edom: and his thoughts which he hath thought concerning the inhabitants of Theman: surely the little ones of the flock shall cast them down, of a truth they shall destroy them with their habitation. 49:21. The earth is moved at the noise of their fall: the cry of their voice is heard in the Red Sea. 49:22. Behold he shall come up as an eagle, and fly: and he shall spread his wings over Bosra: and in that day the heart of the valiant ones of Edom shall be as the heart of a woman in labour. 49:23. Against Damascus. Emath is confounded and Arphad: for they have heard very bad tidings, they are troubled as in the sea: through care they could not rest. 49:24. Damascus is undone, she is put to flight, trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her as a woman in labour. 49:25. How have they forsaken the city of renown, the city of joy! 49:26. Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets: and all the men of war shall be silent in that day, saith the Lord of hosts. 49:27. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the strong holds of Benadad. 49:28. Against Cedar and against the kingdoms of Asor, which Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon destroyed. Thus saith the Lord: Arise, and go ye up to Cedar, and waste the children of the east. Cedar and Asor. . .Were parts of Arabia; which with Moab, Ammon, Edom, etc., were all brought under the yoke of Nabuchodonosor. 49:29. They shall take their tents, and their flocks: and shall carry off for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels: and they shall call fear upon them round about. 49:30. Flee ye, get away speedily, sit in deep holes, you that inhabit Asor, saith the Lord: for Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived designs against you. 49:31. Arise, and go up to a nation that is at ease, and that dwelleth securely, saith the Lord: they have neither gates, nor bars: they dwell alone. 49:32. And their camels shall be for a spoil and the multitude of their cattle for a booty, and I will scatter into every wind them that have their hair cut round, and I will bring destruction upon them from all their confines, saith the Lord. 49:33. And Asor shall be a habitation for dragons, desolate for ever: no man shall abide there, nor son of man inhabit it. 49:34. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremias the prophet against Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Sedecias king of Juda, saying: Elam. . .A part of Persia. 49:35. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will break the bow of Elam, and their chief strength. 49:36. And I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven: and I will scatter them into all these winds: and there shall be no nation, to which the fugitives of Elam shall not come. 49:37. And I will cause Elam to be afraid before their enemies, and in the sight of them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, my fierce wrath, saith the Lord: and I will send the sword after them, till I consume them. 49:38. And I will set my throne in Elam, and destroy kings and princes from thence, saith the Lord. 49:39. But in the latter days I will cause the captives of Elam, to return, saith the Lord. Jeremias Chapter 50 Babylon, which hath afflicted the Israelites, after their restoration, shall be utterly destroyed. 50:1. The word that the Lord hath spoken against Babylon, and against the land of the Chaldeans in the hand of Jeremias the prophet. 50:2. Declare ye among the nations, and publish it, lift up a standard: proclaim, and conceal it not: say: Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is overthrown, their graven things are confounded, their idols are overthrown. Bel, etc. . .Bel and Merodach were worshipped for gods by the men of Babylon. 50:3. For a nation is come up against her out of the north, which shall make her land desolate: and there shall be none to dwell therein, from man even to beast: yea they are removed, and gone away. A nation, etc. . .Viz., the Medes. 50:4. In those days, and at that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Juda together: going and weeping they shall make haste, and shall seek the Lord their God. 50:5. They shall ask the way to Sion, their faces are hitherward. They shall come, and shall be joined to the Lord by an everlasting covenant, which shall never be forgotten. 50:6. My people have been a lost flock, their shepherds have caused them to go astray, and have made them wander in the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place. 50:7. All that found them, have devoured them: and their enemies said: We have not sinned in so doing: because they have sinned against the Lord the beauty of justice, and against the Lord the hope of their fathers. 50:8. Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans: and be ye as kids at the head of the flock. 50:9. For behold I raise up, and will bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north: and they shall be prepared against her, and from thence she shall be taken: their arrows, like those of a mighty man, a destroyer, shall not return in vain. 50:10. And Chaldea shall be made a prey: all that waste her shall be filled, saith the Lord. 50:11. Because you rejoice, and speak great things, pillaging my inheritance: because you are spread abroad as calves upon the grass, and have bellowed as bulls. 50:12. Your mother is confounded exceedingly, and she that bore you is made even with the dust: behold she shall be the last among the nations, a wilderness unpassable, and dry. 50:13. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but shall be wholly desolate: every one that shall pass by Babylon, shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all her plagues. 50:14. Prepare yourselves against Babylon round about, all you that bend the bow: fight against her, spare not arrows: because she hath sinned against the Lord. 50:15. Shout against her, she hath every where given her hand, her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down, for it is the vengeance of the Lord. Take vengeance upon her: as she hath done, so do to her. 50:16. Destroy the sower out of Babylon, and him that holdeth the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the sword of the dove every man shall return to his people, and every one shall flee to his own land. The dove. . .Or the destroyer; for the Hebrew word signifies either the one or the other. 50:17. Israel is a scattered flock, the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria devoured him: and last this Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath broken his bones. 50:18. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will visit the king of Babylon and his land, as I have visited the king of Assyria. 50:19. And I will bring Israel again to his habitation: and he shall feed on Carmel, and Bason, and his soul shall be satisfied in mount Ephraim, and Galaad. 50:20. In those days, and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none: and the sin of Juda, and there shall none be found: for I will be merciful to them, whom I shall leave. 50:21. Go up against the land of the rulers, and punish the inhabitants thereof, waste, and destroy all behind them, saith the Lord: and do according to all that I have commanded thee. 50:22. A noise of war in the land, and a great destruction. 50:23. How is the hammer of the whole earth broken, and destroyed! how is Babylon turned into a desert among the nations! 50:24. I have caused thee to fall into a snare, and thou art taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware of it: thou art found and caught, because thou hast provoked the Lord. 50:25. The Lord hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his wrath: for the Lord the God of hosts hath a work to be done in the land of the Chaldeans. 50:26. Come ye against her from the uttermost borders: open that they may go forth that shall tread her down: take the stones out of the way, and make heaps, and destroy her: and let nothing of her be left. 50:27. Destroy all her valiant men, let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them, for their day is come, the time of their visitation. 50:28. The voice of them that flee, and of them that have escaped out of the land of Babylon: to declare in Sion the revenge of the Lord our God, the revenge of his temple. 50:29. Declare to many against Babylon, to all that bend the bow: stand together against her round about, and let none escape; pay her according to her work: according to all that she hath done, do ye to her: for she hath lifted up herself against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel. 50:30. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets: and all her men of war shall hold their peace in that day, saith the Lord. 50:31. Behold I come against thee, O proud one, saith the Lord the God of hosts: for thy day is come, the time of thy visitation. 50:32. And the proud one shall fall, he shall fall down, and there shall be none to lift him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all round about him. 50:33. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The children of Israel, and the children of Juda are oppressed together: all that have taken them captives, hold them fast, they will not let them go. 50:34. Their redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is his name: he will defend their cause in judgment, to terrify the land, and to disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. 50:35. A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. 50:36. A sword upon her diviners, and they shall be foolish: a sword upon her valiant ones, and they shall be dismayed. 50:37. A sword upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the people that are in the midst of her: and they shall become as women: a sword upon her treasures, and they shall be made a spoil. 50:38. A drought upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: because it is a land of idols, and they glory in monstrous things. 50:39. Therefore shall dragons dwell there with the fig fauns: and ostriches shall dwell therein, and it shall be no more inhabited for ever, neither shall it be built up from generation to generation. Fig fauns. . .Monsters of the desert, or demons in monstrous shapes: such as the ancients called fauns and satyrs; and as they imagined them to live upon wild figs, they called them fauni ficarii or fig fauns. 50:40. As the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha, and their neighbour cities, saith the Lord: no man shall dwell there, neither shall the son of man inhabit it. 50:41. Behold a people cometh from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall rise from the ends of the earth. 50:42. They shall take the bow and the shield: they are cruel and unmerciful: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses: like a man prepared for battle against thee, O daughter of Babylon. 50:43. The king of Babylon hath heard the report of them, and his hands are grown feeble: anguish hath taken hold of him, pangs as a woman in labour. 50:44. Behold he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of the Jordan to the strong and beautiful: for I will make him run suddenly upon her: and who shall be the chosen one whom I may appoint over her? for who is like to me? and who shall bear up against me? and who is that shepherd that can withstand my countenance? 50:45. Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord, which he hath taken against Babylon: and his thoughts which he hath thought against the land of the Chaldeans: surely the little ones of the flocks shall pull them down, of a truth their habitation shall be destroyed with them. 50:46. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard amongst the nations. Jeremias Chapter 51 The miseries that shall fall upon Babylon from the Medes: the destruction of her idols. 51:1. Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will raise up as it were a pestilential wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants thereof, who have lifted up their heart against me. 51:2. And I will send to Babylon fanners, and they shall fan her, and shall destroy her land: for they are come upon her on every side in the day of her affliction. 51:3. Let not him that bendeth, bend his bow, and let not him go up that is armed with a coat of mail: spare not her young men, destroy all her army. 51:4. And the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in the regions thereof. 51:5. For Israel and Juda have not been forsaken by their God the Lord of hosts: but their land hath been filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. 51:6. Flee ye from the midst of Babylon, and let every one save his own life: be not silent upon her iniquity: for it is the time of revenge from the Lord, he will render unto her what she hath deserved. 51:7. Babylon hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine, and therefore they have staggered. 51:8. Babylon is suddenly fallen, and destroyed: howl for her, take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed. 51:9. We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgment hath reached even to the heavens, and is lifted up to the clouds. 51:10. The Lord hath brought forth our justices: Come, and let us declare in Sion the work of the Lord our God. 51:11. Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers, the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: and his mind is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple. 51:12. Upon the walls of Babylon set up the standard, strengthen the watch: set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord hath both purposed, and done all that he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon. 51:13. O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come for thy entire destruction. 51:14. The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying: I will fill thee with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a joyful shout against thee. 51:15. He that made the earth by his power, that hath prepared the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. 51:16. When he uttereth his voice the waters are multiplied in heaven: he lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth, he hath turned lightning into rain: and hath brought forth the wind out of his treasures. 51:17. Every man is become foolish by his knowledge: every founder is confounded by his idol, for what he hath cast is a lie, and there is no breath in them. 51:18. They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 51:19. The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he that made all things he it is, and Israel is the sceptre of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name. 51:20. Thou dashest together for me the weapons of war, and with thee I will dash nations together, and with thee I will destroy kingdoms: 51:21. And with thee I will break in pieces the horse, and his rider, and with thee I will break in pieces the chariot, and him that getteth up into it: 51:22. And with thee I will break in pieces man and woman, and with thee I will break in pieces the old man and the child, and with thee I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin: 51:23. And with thee I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock, and with thee I will break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen, and with thee I will break in pieces captains and rulers. 51:24. And I will render to Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil, that they have done in Sion, before your eyes, saith the Lord. 51:25. Behold I come against thee, thou destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which corruptest the whole earth: and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and will roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. 51:26. And they shall not take of thee a stone for the corner, nor a stone for foundations, but thou shalt be destroyed for ever, saith the Lord. 51:27. Set ye up a standard in the land: sound with the trumpet among the nations: prepare the nations against her: call together against her the kings of Ararat, Menni, and Ascenez: number Taphsar against her, bring the horse as the stinging locust. 51:28. Prepare the nations against her, the kings of Media, their captains, and all their rulers, and all the land of their dominion. 51:29. And the land shall be in a commotion, and shall be troubled: for the design of the Lord against Babylon shall awake, to make the land of Babylon desert and uninhabitable. 51:30. The valiant men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they have dwelt in holds: their strength hath failed, and they are become as women: her dwelling places are burnt, her bars are broken. 51:31. One running post shall meet another, and messenger shall meet messenger: to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from one end to the other: 51:32. And that the fords are taken, and the marshes are burnt with fire, and the men of war are affrighted. 51:33. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a thrashingfloor, this is the time of her thrashing: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come. 51:34. Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath eaten me up, he hath devoured me: he hath made me as an empty vessel: he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicate meats, and he hath cast me out. 51:35. The wrong done to me, and my flesh be upon Babylon, saith the habitation of Sion: and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, saith Jerusalem. 51:36. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will judge thy cause, and will take vengeance for thee, and I will make her sea desolate, I and will dry up her spring. 51:37. And Babylon shall be reduced to heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, because there is no inhabitant. 51:38. They shall roar together like lions, they shall shake their manes like young lions. 51:39. In their heat I will set them drink: and I will make them drunk, that they may slumber, and sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more, saith the Lord. 51:40. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids. 51:41. How is Sesach taken, and the renowned one of all the earth surprised? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations? 51:42. The sea is come up over Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. 51:43. Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it. 51:44. And I will visit against Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he had swallowed down: and the nations shall no more flow together to him, for the wall also of Babylon shall fall. 51:45. Go out of the midst of her, my people: that every man may save his life from the fierce wrath of the Lord. 51:46. And lest your hearts faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land: and a rumour shall come in one year, and after this year another rumour: and iniquity in the land, and ruler upon ruler. 51:47. Therefore behold the days come, and I will visit the idols of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. 51:48. And the heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them shall give praise for Babylon: for spoilers shall come to her from the north, saith the Lord. 51:49. And as Babylon caused that there should fall slain in Israel: so of Babylon there shall fall slain in all the earth. 51:50. You that have escaped the sword, come away, stand not still: remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. 51:51. We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: because strangers are come upon the sanctuaries of the house of the Lord. 51:52. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit her graven things, and in all her land the wounded shall groan: 51:53. If Babylon should mount up to heaven, and establish her strength on high: from me there should come spoilers upon her, saith the Lord. 51:54. The noise of a cry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans: 51:55. Because the Lord hath laid Babylon waste, and destroyed out of her the great voice: and their wave shall roar like many waters: their voice hath made a noise: 51:56. Because the spoiler is come upon her, that is, upon Babylon, and her valiant men are taken, and their bow is weakened, because the Lord, who is a strong revenger, will surely repay. 51:57. And I will make her princes drunk, and her wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her valiant men: and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep, and shall awake no more, saith the king whose name is Lord of hosts. 51:58. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: That broad wall of Babylon shall be utterly broken down, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire, and the labours of the people shall come to nothing, and of the nations shall go to the fire, and shall perish. 51:59. The word that Jeremias the prophet commanded Saraias the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, when he went with king Sedecias to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign: now Saraias was chief over the prophecy. 51:60. And Jeremias wrote in one book all the evil that was to come upon Babylon: all these words that are written against Babylon. 51:61. And Jeremias said to Saraias: When thou shalt come into Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words, 51:62. Thou shalt say: O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place to destroy it: so that there should be neither man nor beast to dwell therein, and that it should be desolate for ever. 51:63. And when thou shalt have made an end of reading this book, thou shalt tie a stone to it, and shalt throw it into the midst of the Euphrates: 51:64. And thou shalt say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and she shall not rise up from the affliction that I will bring upon her, and she shall be utterly destroyed. Thus far are the words of Jeremias. Jeremias Chapter 52 A recapitulation of the reign of Sedecias, and the destruction of Jerusalem. The number of the captives. 52:1. Sedecias was one and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and the name of his mother was Amital, the daughter of Jeremias of Lobna. 52:2. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Joakim had done. 52:3. For the wrath of the Lord was against Jerusalem, and against Juda, till he cast them out from his presence: and Sedecias revolted from the king of Babylon. 52:4. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, that Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and they besieged it, and built forts against it round about. 52:5. And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Sedecias. 52:6. And in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a famine overpowered the city: and there was no food for the people of the land. 52:7. And the city was broken up, and the men of war fled, and went out of the city in the night by the way of the gate that is between the two walls, and leadeth to the king's garden, (the Chaldeans besieging the city round about,) and they went by the way that leadeth to the wilderness. 52:8. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king: and they overtook Sedecias in the desert which is near Jericho: and all his companions were scattered from him. 52:9. And when they had taken the king, they carried him to the king of Babylon to Reblatha, which is in the land of Emath: and he gave judgment upon him. 52:10. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Sedecias before his eyes: and he slew all the princes of Juda in Reblatha. 52:11. And he put out the eyes of Sedecias, and bound him with fetters, and the king of Babylon brought him into Babylon, and he put him in prison till the day of his death. 52:12. And in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, the same is the nineteenth year of Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came Nabuzardan the general of the army, who stood before the king of Babylon in Jerusalem. 52:13. And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great house he burnt with fire. 52:14. And all the army of the Chaldeans that were with the general broke down all the wall of Jerusalem round about. 52:15. But Nabuzardan the general carried away captives some of the poor people, and of the rest of the common sort who remained in the city, and of the fugitives that were fled over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude. 52:16. But of the poor of the land, Nabuzardan the general left some for vinedressers, and for husbandmen. 52:17. The Chaldeans also broke in pieces the brazen pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the sea of brass that was in the house of the Lord: and they carried all the brass of them to Babylon. 52:18. And they took the caldrons, and the fleshhooks, and the psalteries, and the bowls, and the little mortars, and all the brazen vessels that had been used in the ministry: and 52:19. The general took away the pitchers, and the censers, and the pots, and the basins, and the candlesticks, and the mortars, and the cups: as many as were of gold, in gold: and as many as were of silver, in silver: 52:20. And the two pillars, and one sea, and twelve oxen of brass that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the Lord: there was no weight of the brass of all these vessels. 52:21. And concerning the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high: and a cord of twelve cubits compassed it about: but the thickness thereof was four fingers, and it was hollow within. 52:22. And chapiters of brass were upon both: and the height of one chapiter was five cubits: and network, and pomegranates were upon the chapiters round about, all of brass. The same of the second pillar, and the pomegranates. 52:23. And there were ninety-six pomegranates hanging down: and the pomegranates being a hundred in all, were compassed with network. 52:24. And the general took Saraias the chief priest, and Sophonias the second priest, and the three keepers of the entry. 52:25. He also took out of the city one eunuch that was chief over the men of war: and seven men of them that were near the king's person, that were found in the city: and a scribe, an officer of the army who exercised the young soldiers: and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city. 52:26. And Nabuzardan the general took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon, to Reblatha. 52:27. And the king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death in Reblatha, in the land of Emath: and Juda was carried away captive out of his land. 52:28. This is the people whom Nabuchodonosor carried away captive: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews. 52:29. In the eighteenth year of Nabuchodonosor, eight hundred and thirty-two souls from Jerusalem. 52:30. In the three and twentieth year of Nabuchodonosor, Nabuzardan the general carried away of the Jews seven hundred and forty-five souls. So all the souls were four thousand six hundred. 52:31. And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Joachin king of Juda, in the twelfth month, the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Joachin king of Juda, and brought him forth out of prison. 52:32. And he spoke kindly to him, and he set his throne above the thrones of the kings that were with him in Babylon. 52:33. And he changed his prison garments, and he ate bread before him always all the days of his life. 52:34. And for his diet a continual provision was allowed him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion, until the day of his death, all the days of his life. THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAS In these JEREMIAS laments in a most pathetical manner the miseries of his people, and the destruction of JERUSALEM and the temple, in Hebrew verses, beginning with different letters according to the order of the Hebrew alphabet. Lamentations Chapter 1 PREFACE: And it came to pass, after Israel was carried into captivity, and Jerusalem was desolate, that Jeremias the prophet sat weeping, and mourned with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and with a sorrowful mind, sighing and moaning, he said: And it came to pass, etc. . .This preface was not written by Jeremias, but was added by the seventy interpreters, to give the reader to understand upon what occasion the Lamentations were published. 1:1. Aleph. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is the mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: the princes of provinces made tributary! 1:2. Beth. Weeping, she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are become her enemies. 1:3. Ghimel. Juda hath removed her dwelling place, because of her affliction, and the greatness of her bondage; she hath dwelt among the nations, and she hath found no rest; all her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits. 1:4. Daleth. The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast: all her gates are broken down; her priests sigh; her virgins are in affliction; and she is oppressed with bitterness. 1:5. He. Her adversaries are become her lords; her enemies are enriched; because the Lord hath spoken against her for the multitude of her iniquities; her children are led into captivity, before the face of the oppressor. 1:6. Vau. And from the daughter of Sion, all her beauty is departed; her princes are become like rams that find no pastures; and they are gone away without strength before the face of the pursuer. 1:7. Zain. Jerusalem hath remembered the days of her affliction, and prevarication of all her desirable things which she had from the days of old, when her people fell in the enemy's hand, and there was no helper; the enemies have seen her, and have mocked at her sabbaths. 1:8. Heth. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable; all that honoured her, have despised her, because they have seen her shame; but she sighed, and turned backward. 1:9. Teth. Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end; she is wonderfully cast down, not having a comforter: behold, O Lord, my affliction, because the enemy is lifted up. 1:10. Jod. The enemy hath put out his hand to all her desirable things: for she hath seen the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, of whom thou gavest commandment that they should not enter into thy church. 1:11. Caph. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given all their precious things for food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile. 1:12. Lamed. O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for he hath made a vintage of me, as the Lord spoke in the day of his fierce anger. 1:13. Mem. From above he hath sent fire into my bones, and hath chastised me: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate, wasted with sorrow all the day long. 1:14. Nun. The yoke of my iniquities hath watched: they are folded together in his hand, and put upon my neck: my strength is weakened: the Lord hath delivered me into a hand, out of which I am not able to rise. 1:15. Samech. The Lord hath taken away all my mighty men out of the midst of me: he hath called against me the time, to destroy my chosen men: the Lord hath trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Juda. 1:16. Ain. Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water: because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me: my children are desolate because the enemy hath prevailed. 1:17. Phe. Sion hath spread forth her hands, there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded against Jacob, his enemies are round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. 1:18. Sade. The Lord is just, for I have provoked his mouth to wrath: hear, I pray you, all ye people, and see my sorrow: my virgins, and my young men are gone into captivity. 1:19. Coph. I called for my friends, but they deceived me: my priests and my ancients pined away in the city: while they sought their food, to relieve their souls. 1:20. Res. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword destroyeth and at home there is death alike. 1:21. Sin. They have heard that I sigh, and there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my evil, they have rejoiced that thou hast done it: thou hast brought a day of consolation, and they shall be like unto me. 1:22. Thau. Let all their evil be present before thee: and make vintage of them, as thou hast made vintage of me for all my iniquities: for my sighs are many, and my heart is sorrowful. Lamentations Chapter 2 2:1. Aleph. How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! how hath he cast down from heaven to the earth the glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. 2:2. Beth. The Lord hath cast down headlong, and hath not spared, all that was beautiful in Jacob: he hath destroyed in his wrath the strong holds of the virgin of Juda, and brought them down to the ground: he hath made the kingdom unclean, and the princes thereof. 2:3. Ghimel. He hath broken in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: and he hath kindled in Jacob as it were a flaming fire devouring round about. 2:4. Daleth. He hath bent his bow as an enemy, he hath fixed his right hand as an adversary: and he hath killed all that was fair to behold in the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion, he hath poured out his indignation like fire. 2:5. He. The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath cast down Israel headlong, he hath overthrown all the walls thereof: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Juda the afflicted, both men and women. 2:6. Vau. And he hath destroyed his tent as a garden, he hath thrown down his tabernacle: the Lord hath caused feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Sion: and hath delivered up king and priest to reproach, and to the indignation of his wrath. 2:7. Zain. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath cursed his sanctuary: he hath delivered the walls of the towers thereof into the hand of the enemy: they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast. He hath cursed his sanctuary. . .That is, he permitted his sanctuary to be destroyed, as if it had not been consecrated, but execrable. 2:8. Heth. The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Sion: he hath stretched out his line, and hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: and the bulwark hath mourned, and the wall hath been destroyed together. 2:9. Teth. Her gates are sunk into the ground: he hath destroyed, and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more, and her prophets have found no vision from the Lord. 2:10. Jod. The ancients of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground, they have held their peace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust, they are girded with haircloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 2:11. Caph. My eyes have failed with weeping, my bowels are troubled: my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, when the children, and the sucklings, fainted away in the streets of the city. 2:12. Lamed. They said to their mothers: Where is corn and wine? when they fainted away as the wounded in the streets of the city: when they breathed out their souls in the bosoms of their mothers. 2:13. Mem. To what shall I compare thee? or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion? for great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee? 2:14. Nun. Thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee: and they have not laid open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance: but they have seen for thee false revelations and banishments. 2:15. Samech. All they that passed by the way have clapped their hands at thee: they have hissed, and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all the earth? 2:16. Phe. All thy enemies have opened their month against thee: they have hissed, and gnashed with the teeth, and have said: We will swallow her up: lo, this is the day which we looked for: we have found it, we have seen it. 2:17. Ain. The Lord hath done that which he purposed, he hath fulfilled his word, which he commanded in the days of old: he hath destroyed, and hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, and hath set up the horn of thy adversaries. 2:18. Sade. Their heart cried to the Lord upon the walls of the daughter of Sion: Let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no rest, and let not the apple of thy eye cease. 2:19. Coph. Arise, give praise in the night, in the beginning of the watches: pour out thy heart like water, before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy little children, that have fainted for hunger at the top of all the streets. 2:20. Res. Behold, O Lord, and consider whom thou hast thus dealt with: shall women then eat their own fruit, their children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 2:21. Sin. The child and the old man lie without on the ground: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain them in the day of thy wrath: thou hast killed, and shewn them no pity. 2:22. Thau. Thou hast called as to a festival, those that should terrify me round about, and there was none in the day of the wrath of the Lord that escaped and was left: those that I brought up, and nourished, my enemy hath consumed them. Lamentations Chapter 3 3:1. Aleph. I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of his indignation. 3:2. Aleph. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light. 3:3. Aleph. Only against me he hath turned, and turned again his hand all the day. 3:4. Beth. My skin and my flesh he hath made old, he hath broken my bones. 3:5. Beth. He hath built round about me, and he hath compassed me with gall, and labour. 3:6. Beth. He hath set me in dark places as those that are dead for ever. 3:7. Ghimel. He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out: he hath made my fetters heavy. 3:8. Ghimel. Yea, and when I cry, and entreat, he hath shut out my prayer. 3:9. Ghimel. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, he hath turned my paths upside down. 3:10. Daleth. He is become to me as a bear lying in wait: as a lion in secret places. 3:11. Daleth. He hath turned aside my paths, and hath broken me in pieces, he hath made me desolate. 3:12. Daleth. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for his arrows. 3:13. He. He hath shot into my reins the daughters of his quiver. 3:14. He. I am made a derision to all my people, their song all the day long. 3:15. He. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriated me with wormwood. 3:16. Vau. And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes. 3:17. Vau. And my soul is removed far off from peace, I have forgotten good things. 3:18. Vau. And I said: My end and my hope is perished from the Lord. 3:19. Zain. Remember my poverty, and transgression, the wormwood and the gall. 3:20. Zain. I will be mindful and remember, and my soul shall languish within me. 3:21. Zain. These things I shall think over in my heart, therefore will I hope. 3:22. Heth. The mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed: because his commiserations have not failed. 3:23. Heth. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. 3:24. Heth. The Lord is my portion, said my soul: therefore will I wait for him. 3:25. Teth. The Lord is good to them that hope in him, to the soul that seeketh him. 3:26. Teth. It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of God. 3:27. Teth. It is good for a man, when he hath borne the yoke from his youth. 3:28. Jod. He shall sit solitary, and hold his peace: because he hath taken it up upon himself. 3:29. Jod. He shall put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. 3:30. Jod. He shall give his cheek to him that striketh him, he shall be filled with reproaches. 3:31. Caph. For the Lord will not cast off for ever. 3:32. Caph. For if he hath cast off, he will also have mercy, according to the multitude of his mercies. 3:33. Caph. For he hath not willingly afflicted, nor cast off the children of men. 3:34. Lamed. To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the land, 3:35. Lamed. To turn aside the judgment of a man before the face of the most High, 3:36. Lamed. To destroy a man wrongfully in his judgment, the Lord hath not approved. 3:37. Mem. Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not? 3:38. Mem. Shall not both evil and good proceed out of the mouth of the Highest? 3:39. Mem. Why hath a living man murmured, man suffering for his sins? 3:40. Nun. Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. 3:41. Nun. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens. 3:42. Nun. We have done wickedly, and provoked thee to wrath: therefore thou art inexorable. 3:43. Samech. Thou hast covered in thy wrath, and hast struck us: thou hast killed and hast not spared. 3:44. Samech. Thou hast set a cloud before thee, that our prayer may not pass through. 3:45. Samech. Thou hast made me as an outcast, and refuse in the midst of the people. 3:46. Phe. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 3:47. Phe. Prophecy is become to us a fear, and a snare, and destruction. 3:48. Phe. My eye hath run down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 3:49. Ain. My eye is afflicted, and hath not been quiet, because there was no rest: 3:50. Ain. Till the Lord regarded and looked down from the heavens. 3:51. Ain. My eye hath wasted my soul because of all the daughters of my city. 3:52. Sade. My enemies have chased me and caught me like a bird, without cause. 3:53. Sade. My life is fallen into the pit, and they have laid a stone over me. 3:54. Sade. Waters have flowed over my head: I said: I am cut off. 3:55. Coph. I have called upon thy name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. 3:56. Coph. Thou hast heard my voice: turn not away thy ear from my sighs, and cries. 3:57. Coph. Thou drewest near in the day, when I called upon thee, thou saidst: Fear not. 3:58. Res. Thou hast judged, O Lord, the cause of my soul, thou the Redeemer of my life. 3:59. Res. Thou hast seen, O Lord, their iniquity against me: judge thou my judgment. 3:60. Res. Thou hast seen all their fury, and all their thoughts against me. 3:61. Sin. Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, all their imaginations against me. 3:62. Sin. The lips of them that rise up against me: and their devices against me all the day. 3:63. Sin. Behold their sitting down, and their rising up, I am their song. 3:64. Thau. Thou shalt render them a recompense, O Lord, according to the works of their hands. 3:65. Thau. Thou shalt give them a buckler of heart, thy labour. 3:66. Thau. Thou shalt persecute them in anger, and shalt destroy them from under the heavens, O Lord. Lamentations Chapter 4 4:1. Aleph. How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed, the stones of the sanctuary are scattered in the top of every street? 4:2. Beth. The noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best gold: how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, the work of the potter's hands? 4:3. Ghimel. Even the sea monsters have drawn out the breast, they have given suck to their young: the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostrich in the desert. 4:4. Daleth. The tongue of the sucking child hath stuck to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the little ones have asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them. 4:5. He. They that were fed delicately have died in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced the dung. 4:6. Vau. And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and hands took nothing in her. 4:7. Zain. Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, purer than milk, more ruddy than the old ivory, fairer than the sapphire. 4:8. Heth. Their face is now made blacker than coals, and they are not known in the streets: their skin hath stuck to their bones, it is withered, and is become like wood. 4:9. Teth. It was better with them that were slain by the sword, than with them that died with hunger: for these pined away being consumed for want of the fruits of the earth. 4:10. Jod. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. 4:11. Caph. The Lord hath accomplished his wrath, he hath poured out his fierce anger: and he hath kindled a fire in Sion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof. 4:12. Lamed. The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed, that the adversary and the enemy should enter in by the gates of Jerusalem. 4:13. Mem. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. 4:14. Nun. They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they were defiled with blood: and when they could not help walking in it, they held up their skirts. 4:15. Samech. Depart you that are defiled, they cried out to them: Depart, get ye hence, touch not: for they quarrelled, and being removed, they said among the Gentiles: He will no more dwell among them. 4:16. Phe. The face of the Lord hath divided them, he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, neither had they pity on the ancient. 4:17. Ain. While we were yet standing, our eyes failed, expecting help for us in vain, when we looked attentively towards a nation that was not able to save. 4:18. Sade. Our steps have slipped in the way of our streets, our end draweth near: our days are fulfilled, for our end is come. 4:19. Coph. Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the air: they pursued us upon the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness. 4:20. Res. The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord, is taken in our sins: to whom we said: Under thy shadow we shall live among the Gentiles. Christ, etc. . .This, according to the letter, is spoken of their king, who is called the Christ, that is, the Anointed of the Lord. But it also relates, in the spiritual sense, to Christ our Lord, suffering for our sins. 4:21. Sin. Rejoice, and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Hus: to thee also shall the cup come, thou shalt be made drunk, and naked. 4:22. Thau. Thy iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Sion, he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he hath visited thy iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he hath discovered thy sins. THE PRAYER OF JEREMIAS THE PROPHET Lamentations Chapter 5 5:1. Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach. 5:2. Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers. 5:3. We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows. 5:4. We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood. 5:6. We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us. 5:6. We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread. 5:7. Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities. 5:8. Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand. 5:9. We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert. 5:10. Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine. 5:11. They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda. 5:12. The princes were hanged up by their hand: they did not respect the persons of the ancients. 5:13. They abused the young men indecently: and the children fell under the wood. 5:14. The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers. 5:15. The joy of our heart is ceased, our dancing is turned into mourning. 5:16. The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us, because we have sinned. 5:17. Therefore is our heart sorrowful, therefore are our eyes become dim. 5:18. For mount Sion, because it is destroyed, foxes have walked upon it. 5:19. But thou, O Lord, shalt remain for ever, thy throne from generation to generation. 5:20. Why wilt thou forget us for ever? why wilt thou forsake us for a long time? 5:21. Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning. 5:22. But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry with us. THE PROPHECY OF BARUCH BARUCH was a man of noble extraction, and learned in the law, secretary and disciple to the prophet JEREMIAS, and a sharer in his labours and persecutions: which is the reason why the ancient fathers have considered this book as a part of the prophecy of JEREMIAS, and have usually quoted it under his name. Baruch Chapter 1 The Jews of Babylon send the book of Baruch with money to Jerusalem, requesting their brethren there to offer sacrifice, and to pray for the king and for them, acknowledging their manifold sins. 1:1. And these are the words of the book, which Baruch the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Sedei, the son Helcias, wrote in Babylonia. 1:2. In the fifth year, in the seventh day of the month, at the time that the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire. 1:3. And Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Juda, and in the hearing of all the people that came to hear the book. 1:4. And in the hearing of the nobles, the sons of the kings, and in the hearing of the ancients, and in the hearing of the people, from the least even to the greatest of them that dwelt in Babylonia, by the river Sedi. 1:5. And when they heard it they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord. 1:6. And they made a collection of money according to every man's power. 1:7. And they sent it to Jerusalem to Joakim the priest, the son of Helcias, the son of Salom, and to the priests, and to all the people, that were found with him in Jerusalem: 1:8. At the time when he received the vessels of the temple of the Lord, which had been taken away out of the temple, to return them into the land of Juda the tenth day of the month Sivan, the silver vessels, which Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda had made, 1:9. After that Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias, and the princes, and all the powerful men, and the people of the land from Jerusalem, and brought them bound to Babylon. 1:10. And they said: Behold we have sent you money, buy with it holocausts, and frankincense, and make meat offerings, and offerings for sin at the altar of the Lord our God: 1:11. And pray ye for the life of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and for the life of Balthasar his son, that their days may be upon earth as the days of heaven: 1:12. And that the Lord may give us strength, and enlighten our eyes, that we may live under the shadow of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and under the shadow of Balthasar his son, and may serve them many days, and may find favour in their sight. 1:13. And pray ye for us to the Lord our God: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and his wrath is not turned away from us even to this day. 1:14. And read ye this book, which we have sent to you to be read in the temple of the Lord, on feasts, and proper days. 1:15. And you shall say: To the Lord our God belongeth justice, but to us confusion of our face: as it is come to pass at this day to all Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 1:16. To our kings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers. 1:17. We have sinned before the Lord our God, and have not believed him, nor put our trust in him: 1:18. And we were not obedient to him, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his commandments which he hath given us. 1:19. From the day that he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, we were disobedient to the Lord our God: and going astray we turned away from hearing his voice. 1:20. And many evils have cleaved to us, and the curses which the Lord foretold by Moses his servant: who brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. 1:21. And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God according to all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us: 1:22. And we have gone away every man after the inclinations of his own wicked heart, to serve strange gods, and to do evil in the sight of the Lord our God. Baruch Chapter 2 A further confession of the sins of the people, and of the justice of God. 2:1. Wherefore the Lord our God hath made good his word, that he spoke to us, and to our judges that have judged Israel, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to all Israel and Juda: 2:2. That the Lord would bring upon us great evils, such as never happened under heaven, as they have come to pass in Jerusalem, according to the things that are written in the law of Moses: 2:3. That a man should eat the flesh of his own son, and the flesh of his own daughter. 2:4. And he hath delivered them up to be under the hand of all the kings that are round about us, to be a reproach, and desolation among all the people, among whom the Lord hath scattered us. 2:5. And we are brought under, and are not uppermost: because we have sinned against the Lord our God, by not obeying his voice. 2:6. To the Lord our God belongeth justice: but to us, and to our fathers confusion of face, as at this day. 2:7. For the Lord hath pronounced against us all these evils that are come upon us: 2:8. And we have not entreated the face of the Lord our God, that we might return every one of us from our most wicked ways. 2:9. And the Lord hath watched over us for evil, and hath brought it upon us: for the Lord is just in all his works which he hath commanded us: 2:10. And we have not hearkened to his voice to walk in the commandments of the Lord which he hath set before us. 2:11. And now, O Lord God of Israel, who hast brought thy people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and with signs, and with wonders, and with thy great power, and with a mighty arm, and hast made thee a name as at this day, 2:12. We have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have acted unjustly, O Lord our God, against all thy justices. 2:13. Let thy wrath be turned away from us: for we are left a few among the nations where thou hast scattered us. 2:14. Hear, O Lord, our prayers, and our petitions, and deliver us for thy own sake: and grant that we may find favour in the sight of them that have led us away: 2:15. That all the earth may know that thou art the Lord our God, and that thy name is called upon Israel, and upon his posterity. 2:16. Look down upon us, O Lord, from thy holy house, and incline thy ear, and hear us. 2:17. Open thy eyes, and behold: for the dead that are in hell, whose spirit is taken away from their bowels, shall not give glory and justice to the Lord: Justice, etc. . .They that are in hell shall not give justice to God; that is, they shall not acknowledge and glorify his justice as penitent sinners do upon earth. 2:18. But the soul that is sorrowful for the greatness of evil she hath done, and goeth bowed down, and feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul giveth glory and justice to thee the Lord. 2:19. For it is not for the justices of our fathers that we pour out our prayers, and beg mercy in thy sight, O Lord our God: 2:20. But because thou hast sent out thy wrath, and thy indignation upon us, as thou hast spoken by the hand of thy servants the prophets, saying: 2:21. Thus saith the Lord: Bow down your shoulder, and your neck, and serve the king of Babylon: and you shall remain in the land which I have given to your fathers. 2:22. But if you will not hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to serve the king of Babylon: I will cause you to depart out of the cities of Juda, and from without Jerusalem. 2:23. And I will take away from you the voice of mirth, and the voice of joy, and the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, and all the land shall be without any footstep of inhabitants. 2:24. And they hearkened not to thy voice, to serve the king of Babylon: and thou hast made good thy words, which thou spokest by the hands of thy servants the prophets, that the bones of our kings, and the bones of our fathers should be removed out of their place: 2:25. And behold they are cast out to the heat of the sun, and to the frost of the night: and they have died in grievous pains, by famine, and by the sword, and in banishment. 2:26. And thou hast made the temple, in which thy name was called upon, as it is at this day, for the iniquity of the house of Israel, and the house of Juda. 2:27. And thou hast dealt with us, O Lord our God, according to all thy goodness, and according to all that great mercy of thine: 2:28. As thou spokest by the hand of thy servant Moses, in the day when thou didst command him to write thy law before the children of Israel, 2:29. Saying: If you will not hear my voice, this great multitude shall be turned into a very small number among the nations, where I will scatter them: 2:30. For I know that the people will not hear me, for they are a people of a stiff neck: but they shall turn to their heart in the land of their captivity: 2:31. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God: and I will give them a heart, and they shall understand: and ears, and they shall hear. 2:32. And they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and shall be mindful of my name. 2:33. And they shall turn away themselves from their stiff neck, and from their wicked deeds: for they shall remember the way of their fathers, that sinned against me. 2:34. And I will bring them back again into the land which I promised with an oath to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they shall be masters thereof: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished. 2:35. And I will make with them another covenant that shall be everlasting, to be their God, and they shall be my people: and I will no more remove my people, the children of Israel, out of the land that I have given them. Baruch Chapter 3 They pray for mercy, acknowledging that they are justly punished for forsaking true wisdom. A prophecy of Christ. 3:1. And now, O Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, the soul in anguish, and the troubled spirit crieth to thee: 3:2. Hear, O Lord, and have mercy, for thou art a merciful God, and have pity on us: for we have sinned before thee. 3:3. For thou remainest for ever, and shall we perish everlastingly? 3:4. O Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead of Israel, and of their children, that have sinned before thee, and have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, wherefore evils have cleaved fast to us. 3:5. Remember not the iniquities of our fathers, but think upon thy hand, and upon thy name at this time: 3:6. For thou art the Lord our God, and we will praise thee, O Lord: 3:7. Because for this end thou hast put thy fear in our hearts, to the intent that we should call upon thy name, and praise thee in our captivity, for we are converted from the iniquity of our fathers, who sinned before thee. 3:8. And behold we are at this day in our captivity, whereby thou hast scattered us to be a reproach, and a curse, and an offence, according to all the iniquities of our fathers, who departed from thee, O Lord our God. 3:9. Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life: give ear, that thou mayst learn wisdom. 3:10. How happeneth it, O Israel, that thou art in thy enemies' land? 3:11. Thou art grown old in a strange country, thou art defiled with the dead: thou art counted with them that go down into hell. 3:12. Thou hast forsaken the fountain of wisdom: 3:13. For if thou hadst walked in the way of God, thou hadst surely dwelt in peace for ever. 3:14. Learn where is wisdom, where is strength, where is understanding: that thou mayst know also where is length of days and life, where is the light of the eyes, and peace. 3:15. Who hath found out her place? and who hath gone in to her treasures? 3:16. Where are the princes of the nations, and they that rule over the beasts that are upon the earth? 3:17. That take their diversion with the birds of the air. 3:18. That hoard up silver and gold, wherein men trust, and there is no end of their getting? who work in silver and are solicitous, and their works are unsearchable. 3:19. They are cut off, and are gone down to hell, and others are risen up in their place. 3:20. Young men have seen the light, and dwelt upon the earth: but the way of knowledge they have not known, 3:21. Nor have they understood the paths thereof, neither have their children received it, it is far from their face. 3:22. It hath not been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman. Theman. . .The capital city of Edom. 3:23. The children of Agar also, that search after the wisdom that is of the earth, the merchants of Merrha, and of Theman, and the tellers of fables, and searchers of prudence and understanding: but the way of wisdom they have not known, neither have they remembered her paths. Agar. . .The mother of the Ismaelites. 3:24. O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast is the place of his possession! 3:25. It is great, and hath no end: it is high and immense. 3:26. There were the giants, those renowned men that were from the beginning, of great stature, expert in war. 3:27. The Lord chose not them, neither did they find the way of knowledge: therefore did they perish. 3:28. And because they had not wisdom, they perished through their folly. 3:29. Who hath gone up into heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds? 3:30. Who hath passed over the sea, and found her, and brought her preferably to chosen gold? 3:31. There is none that is able to know her ways, nor that can search out her paths: 3:32. But he that knoweth all things, knoweth her, and hath found her out with his understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore, and filled it with cattle and fourfooted beasts: 3:33. He that sendeth forth the light, and it goeth: and hath called it, and it obeyeth him with trembling. 3:34. And the stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced: 3:35. They were called, and they said: Here we are: and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to him that made them. 3:36. This is our God, and there shall no other be accounted of in comparison of him. 3:37. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. 3:38. Afterwards he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men. Was seen upon earth, etc. . .viz., by the mystery of the incarnation, by means of which the son of God came visibly amongst us, and conversed with men. The prophets often speak of things to come as if they were past, to express the certainty of the event of the things foretold. Baruch Chapter 4 The prophet exhorts to the keeping of the law of wisdom, and encourages the people to be patient, and to hope for their deliverance. 4:1. This is the book of the commandments of God, and the law, that is for ever: all they that keep it, shall come to life: but they that have forsaken it, to death. 4:2. Return, O Jacob, and take hold of it, walk in the way by its brightness, in the presence of the light thereof. 4:3. Give not thy honour to another, nor thy dignity to a strange nation. 4:4. We are happy, O Israel: because the things that are pleasing to God, are made known to us. 4:5. Be of good comfort, O people of God, the memorial of Israel: 4:6. You have been sold to the Gentiles, not for your destruction: but because you provoked God to wrath, you are delivered to your adversaries. 4:7. For you have provoked him who made you, the eternal God, offering sacrifice to devils, and not to God. 4:8. For you have forgotten God, who brought you up, and you have grieved Jerusalem that nursed you. 4:9. For she saw the wrath of God coming upon you, and she said: Give ear, all you that dwell near Sion, for God hath brought upon me great mourning: 4:10. For I have seen the captivity of my people, of my sons, and my daughters, which the Eternal hath brought upon them. 4:11. For I nourished them with joy: but I sent them away with weeping and mourning. 4:12. Let no man rejoice over me, a widow, and desolate: I am forsaken of many for the sins of my children, because they departed from the law of God. 4:13. And they have not known his justices, nor walked by the ways of God's commandments, neither have they entered by the paths of his truth and justice. 4:14. Let them that dwell about Sion come, and remember the captivity of my sons and daughters, which the Eternal hath brought upon them. 4:15. For he hath brought a nation upon them from afar, a wicked nation, and of a strange tongue: 4:16. Who have neither reverenced the ancient, nor pitied children, and have carried away the beloved of the widow, and have left me all alone without children. 4:17. But as for me, what help can I give you? 4:18. But he that hath brought the evils upon you, he will deliver you out of the hands of your enemies. 4:19. Go your way, my children, go your way: for I am left alone. 4:20. I have put off the robe of peace, and have put upon me the sackcloth of supplication, and I will cry to the most High in my days. 4:21. Be of good comfort, my children, cry to the Lord, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the princes your enemies. 4:22. For my hope is in the Eternal that he will save you: and joy is come upon me from the Holy One, because of the mercy which shall come to you from our everlasting Saviour. 4:23. For I sent you forth with mourning and weeping: but the Lord will bring you back to me with joy and gladness for ever. 4:24. For as the neighbours of Sion have now seen your captivity from God: so shall they also shortly see your salvation from God, which shall come upon you with great honour, and everlasting glory. 4:25. My children, suffer patiently the wrath that is come upon you: for thy enemy hath persecuted thee, but thou shalt quickly see his destruction: and thou shalt get up upon his neck. 4:26. My delicate ones have walked rough ways, for they were taken away as a flock made a prey by the enemies. 4:27. Be of good comfort, my children, and cry to the Lord: for you shall be remembered by him that hath led you away. 4:28. For as it was your mind to go astray from God; so when you return again you shall seek him ten times as much. 4:29. For he that hath brought evils upon you, shall bring you everlasting joy again with your salvation. 4:30. Be of good heart, O Jerusalem: for he exhorteth thee, that named thee. 4:31. The wicked that have afflicted thee, shall perish: and they that have rejoiced at thy ruin, shall be punished. 4:32. The cities which thy children have served, shall be punished: and she that received thy sons. She that received, etc. . .viz., Babylon. 4:33. For as she rejoiced at thy ruin, and was glad of thy fall: so shall she be grieved for her own desolation. 4:34. And the joy of her multitude shall be cut off: and her gladness shall be turned to mourning. 4:35. For fire shall come upon her from the Eternal, long to endure, and she shall be inhabited by devils for a great time. 4:36. Look about thee, O Jerusalem, towards the east, and behold the joy that cometh to thee from God. 4:37. For behold thy children come, whom thou sentest away scattered, they come gathered together from the east even to the west, at the word of the Holy One rejoicing for the honour of God. Baruch Chapter 5 Jerusalem is invited to rejoice and behold the return of her children out of their captivity. 5:1. Put off, O Jerusalem, the garment of thy mourning, and affliction: and put on the beauty, and honour of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. 5:2. God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honour. 5:3. For God will shew his brightness in thee, to every one under heaven. 5:4. For thy name shall be named to thee by God for ever: the peace of justice, and honour of piety. 5:5. Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high: and look about towards the east, and behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God. 5:6. For they went out from thee on foot, led by the enemies: but the Lord will bring them to thee exalted with honour as children of the kingdom. 5:7. For God hath appointed to bring down every high mountain, and the everlasting rocks, and to fill up the valleys to make them even with the ground: that Israel may walk diligently to the honour of God. 5:8. Moreover the woods, and every sweetsmelling tree have overshadowed Israel by the commandment of God. 5:9. For God will bring Israel with joy in the light of his majesty, with mercy, and justice, that cometh from him. Baruch Chapter 6 The epistle of Jeremias to the captives, as a preservative against idolatry. A copy of the epistle that Jeremias sent to them that were to be led away captives into Babylon, by the king of Babylon, to declare to them according to what was commanded him by God. 6:1. For the sins that you have committed before God, you shall be carried away captives into Babylon by Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon. 6:2. And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace. Seven generations. . .That is, seventy years. 6:3. But now, you shall see in Babylon gods of gold, and of silver, and of stone, and of wood borne upon shoulders, causing fear to the Gentiles. 6:4. Beware therefore that you imitate not the doings of others, and be afraid, and the fear of them should seize upon you. 6:5. But when you see the multitude behind, and before, adoring them, say you in your hearts: Thou oughtest to be adored, O Lord. 6:6. For my angel is with you: And I myself will demand an account of your souls. 6:7. For their tongue that is polished by the craftsman, and themselves laid over with gold and silver, are false things, and they cannot speak. 6:8. And as if it were for a maiden that loveth to go gay: so do they take gold and make them up. 6:9. Their gods have golden crowns upon their heads: whereof the priests secretly convey away from them gold, and silver, and bestow it on themselves. 6:10. Yea and they give thereof to prostitutes, and they dress out harlots: and again when they receive it of the harlots, they adorn their gods. 6:11. And these gods cannot defend themselves from the rust, and the moth. 6:12. But when they have covered them with a purple garment, they wipe their face because of the dust of the house, which is very much among them. 6:13. This holdeth a sceptre as a man, as a judge of the country, but cannot put to death one that offendeth him. 6:14. And this hath in his hand a sword, or an axe, but cannot save himself from war, or from robbers, whereby be it known to you, that they are not gods. 6:15. Therefore fear them not. For as a vessel that a man uses when it is broken becometh useless, even so are their gods: 6:16. When they are placed in the house, their eyes are full of dust by the feet of them that go in. 6:17. And as the gates are made sure on every side upon one that hath offended the king, or like a dead man carried to the grave, so do the priests secure the doors with bars and locks, lest they be stripped by thieves. 6:18. They light candles to them, and in great number, of which they cannot see one: but they are like beams in the house. 6:19. And they say that the creeping things which are of the earth, gnaw their hearts, while they eat them and their garments, and they feel it not. 6:20. Their faces are black with the smoke that is made in the house. 6:21. Owls, and swallows, and other birds fly upon their bodies, and upon their heads, and cats in like manner. 6:22. Whereby you may know that they are no gods. Therefore fear them not. 6:23. The gold also which they have, is for shew, but except a man wipe off the rust, they will not shine: for neither when they were molten, did they feel it. 6:24. Men buy them at a high price, whereas there is no breath in them. 6:25. And having not the use of feet they are carried upon shoulders, declaring to men how vile they are. Be they confounded also that worship them. 6:26. Therefore if they fall to the ground, they rise not up again of themselves, nor if a man set them upright, will they stand by themselves, but their gifts shall be set before them, as to the dead. 6:27. The things that are sacrificed to them, their priests sell and abuse: in like manner also their wives take part of them, but give nothing of it either to the sick, or to the poor. 6:28. The childbearing and menstruous women touch their sacrifices: knowing, therefore, by these things that they are not gods, fear them not. 6:29. For how can they be called gods? because women set offerings before the gods of silver, and of gold, and of wood: 6:30. And priests sit in their temples, having their garments rent, and their heads and beards shaven, and nothing upon their heads. 6:31. And they roar and cry before their gods, as men do at the feast when one is dead. 6:32. The priests take away their garments, and clothe their wives and their children. 6:33. And whether it be evil that one doth unto them, or good, they are not able to recompense it: neither can they set up a king, nor put him down: 6:34. In like manner they can neither give riches, nor requite evil. If a man make a vow to them, and perform it not: they cannot require it. 6:35. They cannot deliver a man from death, nor save the weak from the mighty. 6:36. They cannot restore the blind man to his sight: nor deliver a man from distress. 36:7. They shall not pity the widow, nor do good to the fatherless. 6:38. Their gods, of wood, and of stone, and of gold, and of silver, are like the stones that are hewn out of the mountains: and they that worship them shall be confounded. 6:39. How then is it to be supposed, or to be said, that they are gods? 6:40. Even the Chaldeans themselves dishonor them: who when they here of one dumb that cannot speak, they present him to Bel, entreating him, that he may speak. 6:41. As though they could be sensible that have no motion themselves: and they, when they shall perceive this, will leave them: for their gods themselves have no sense. 6:42. The women also, with cords about them, sit in the ways, burning olive-stones. 6:43. And when any one of them, drawn away by some passenger, lieth with him, she upbraideth her neighbor, that she was not thought as worthy as herself, nor her cord broken. 6:44. But all things that are done about them, are false: how is it then to be thought, or to be said, that they are gods? 6:45. And they are made by workmen, and by goldsmiths. They shall be nothing else but what the priests will have them to be. 6:46. For the artificers themselves that make them, are of no long continuance. Can those things then that are made by them, be gods? 6:47. But they have left false things and reproach to them that come after. 6:48. For when war cometh upon them , or evils: the priests consult with themselves, where they may hide themselves with them. 6:49. How then can they be thought to be gods, that can neither deliver themselves from war, nor save themselves from evils? 6:50. For seeing they are but of wood, and laid over with gold, and with silver, it shall be known hereafter that they are false things, by all nations, and kings: and it shall be manifest that they are no gods, but the work of men's hands, and that there is no work of God in them. 6:51. Whence, therefore, is it known that they are not gods, but the work of men's hands, and no work of God is in them? 6:52. They cannot set up a king over the land, nor give rain to men. 6:53. They determine no causes, nor deliver countries from oppression: because they can do nothing, and are as daws between heaven and earth. 6:54. For when fire shall fall upon the house of these gods of wood, and of silver, and of gold, their priests indeed will flee away, and be saved: but they themselves shall be burnt in the midst like beams. 6:55. And they cannot withstand a king and war. How then can it be supposed, or admitted, that they are gods? 6:56. Neither are these gods of wood, and of stone, and laid over with gold, and with silver, able to deliver themselves from thieves or robbers: they that are stronger than them, They that are stronger than them. . .That is, robbers and thieves are stronger than these idols, being things without life or motion. 6:57. Shall take from them the gold, and silver, and the raiment wherewith they are clothed, and shall go their way, neither shall they help themselves. 6:58. Therefore it is better to be a king that sheweth his power: or else a profitable vessel in the house, with which the owner thereof will be well satisfied: or a door in the house, to keep things safe that are therein, than such false gods. 6:59. The sun, and the moon, and the stars being bright, and sent forth for profitable uses, are obedient. 6:60. In like manner the lightning, when it breaketh forth, is easy to be seen: and after the same manner the wind bloweth in every country. 6:61. And the clouds, when God commandeth them to go over the whole world, do that which is commanded them. 6:62. The fire also being sent from above to consume mountains, and woods, doth as it is commanded. But these neither in shew, nor in power, are alike to any one of them. 6:63. Wherefore it is neither to be thought, nor to be said, that they are gods: since they are neither able to judge causes, nor to do any good to men. 6:64. Knowing, therefore, that they are not gods, fear them not. 6:65. For neither can they curse kings, nor bless them. 6:66. Neither do they shew signs in the heaven to the nations, nor shine as the sun, nor give light as the moon. 6:67. Beasts are better than they, which can fly under a covert, and help themselves. 6:68. Therefore there is no manner of appearance that they are gods: so fear them not. 6:69. For as a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers keepeth nothing, so are their gods of wood, and of silver, and laid over with gold. 6:70. They are no better than a white thorn in a garden, upon which every bird sitteth. In like manner also their gods of wood, and laid over with gold, and with silver, are like to a dead body cast forth in the dark. 6:71. By the purple also and the scarlet which are motheaten upon them, you shall know that they are not gods. And they themselves at last are consumed, and shall be a reproach in the country. 6:72. Better, therefore, is the just man that hath no idols: for he shall be far from reproach. THE PROPHECY OF EZECHIEL EZECHIEL, whose name signifies the STRENGTH OF GOD, was of the priestly race; and of the number of captives that were carried away to Babylon with king JOACHIN. He was contemporary with JEREMIAS, and prophesied to the same effect in Babylon, as JEREMIAS did in Jerusalem; and is said to have ended his days in like manner, by martyrdom. Ezechiel Chapter 1 The time of Ezechiel's prophecy: he sees a glorious vision. 1:1. Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was in the midst of the captives by the river Chobar, the heavens were opened, and I saw the visions of God. The thirtieth year. . .Either of the age of Ezechiel; or, as others will have it, from the solemn covenant made in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josias. 4 Kings 23. 1:2. On the fifth day of the month, the same was the fifth year of the captivity of king Joachin, 1:3. The word of the Lord came to Ezechiel the priest the son of Buzi in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chobar: and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. 1:4. And I saw, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north: and a great cloud, and a fire infolding it, and brightness was about it: and out of the midst thereof, that is, out of the midst of the fire, as it were the resemblance of amber: 1:5. And in the midst thereof the likeness of four living creatures: and this was their appearance: there was the likeness of a man in them. Living creatures. . .Cherubims (as appears from Ecclesiasticus 49.10) represented to the prophet under these mysterious shapes, as supporting the throne of God, and as it were drawing his chariot. All this chapter appeared so obscure, and so full of mysteries to the ancient Hebrews, that, as we learn from St. Jerome, (Ep. ad Paulin.,) they suffered none to read it before they were thirty years old. 1:6. Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. 1:7. Their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their foot was like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like the appearance of glowing brass. 1:8. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides: and they had faces, and wings on the four sides, 1:9. And the wings of one were joined to the wings of another. They turned not when they went: but every one went straight forward. 1:10. And as for the likeness of their faces: there was the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side of all the four: and the face of an ox, on the left side of all the four: and the face of an eagle over all the four. 1:11. And their faces, and their wings were stretched upward: two wings of every one were joined, and two covered their bodies: 1:12. And every one of them went straight forward: whither the impulse of the spirit was to go, thither they went: and they turned not when they went. 1:13. And as for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like that of burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps. This was the vision running to and fro in the midst of the living creatures, a bright fire, and lightning going forth from the fire. 1:14. And the living creatures ran and returned like flashes of lightning. 1:15. Now as I beheld the living creatures, there appeared upon the earth by the living creatures one wheel with four faces. 1:16. And the appearance of the wheels, and the work of them was like the appearance of the sea: and the four had all one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the midst of a wheel. 1:17. When they went, they went by their four parts: and they turned not when they went. When they went, they went by their four parts. . .That is, indifferently to any of their sides either forward or backward: to the right or to the left. 1:18. The wheels had also a size, and a height, and a dreadful appearance: and the whole body was full of eyes round about all the four. 1:19. And, when the living creatures went, the wheels also went together by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels also were lifted up with them. 1:20. Withersoever the spirit went, thither as the spirit went the wheels also were lifted up withal, and followed it: for the spirit of life was in the wheels. 1:21. When those went these went, and when those stood these stood, and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up together, and followed them: for the spirit of life was in the wheels. 1:22. And over the heads of the living creatures was the likeness of the firmament, the appearance of crystal terrible to behold, and stretched out over their heads above. 1:23. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other, every one with two wings covered his body, and the other was covered in like manner. 1:24. And I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, as it were the voice of the most high God: when they walked, it was like the voice of a multitude, like the noise of an army, and when they stood, their wings were let down. 1:25. For when a voice came from above the firmament, that was over their heads, they stood, and let down their wings. 1:26. And above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of the sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne, was the likeness of the appearance of a man above upon it. 1:27. And I saw as it were the resemblance of amber as the appearance of fire within it round about: from his loins and upward, and from his loins downward, I saw as it were the resemblance of fire shining round about. 1:28. As the appearance of the rainbow when it is in a cloud on a rainy day: this was the appearance of the brightness round about. Ezechiel Chapter 2 The prophet receives his commission. 2:1. This was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord, and I saw, and I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one that spoke, and he said to me: Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee. 2:2. And the spirit entered into me after that he spoke to me, and he set me upon my feet: and I heard him speaking to me, 2:3. And saying: Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious people, that hath revolted from me, they, and their fathers, have transgressed my covenant even unto this day. 2:4. And they to whom I send thee are children of a hard face, and of an obstinate heart: and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: 2:5. If so be they at least will hear, and if so be they will forbear, for they are a provoking house: and they shall know that there hath been a prophet in the midst of them. 2:6. And thou, O son of man, fear not, neither be thou afraid of their words: for thou art among unbelievers and destroyers, and thou dwellest with scorpions. Fear not their words, neither be thou dismayed at their looks: for they are a provoking house. 2:7. And thou shalt speak my words to them, if perhaps they will hear, and forbear: for they provoke me to anger. 2:8. But thou, O son of man, hear all that I say to thee: and do not thou provoke me, as that house provoketh me: open thy mouth, and eat what I give thee. 2:9. And I looked, and behold, a hand was sent to me, wherein was a book rolled up: and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without: and there were written in it lamentations, and canticles, and woe. Ezechiel Chapter 3 The prophet eats the book, and receives further instructions: the office of a watchman. 3:1. And he said to me: Son of man, eat all that thou shalt find: eat this book, and go speak to the children of Israel. Eat this book, and go speak to the children of Israel. . .By this eating of the book was signified the diligent attention and affection with which we are to receive, and embrace the word of God; and to let it, as it were, sink into our interior by devout meditation. 3:2. And I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that book: 3:3. And he said to me: Son of man, thy belly shall eat, and thy bowels shall be filled with this book, which I give thee, and I did eat it: and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. 3:4. And he said to me: Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and thou shalt speak my words to them. 3:5. For thou art not sent to a people of a profound speech, and of an unknown tongue, but to the house of Israel: 3:6. Nor to many nations of a strange speech, and of an unknown tongue, whose words thou canst not understand: and if thou wert sent to them, they would hearken to thee. 3:7. But the house of Israel will not hearken to thee: because they will not hearken to me: for all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and an obstinate heart. 3:8. Behold I have made thy face stronger than their faces: and thy forehead harder than their foreheads. 3:9. I have made thy face like an adamant and like flint: fear them not, neither be thou dismayed at their presence: for they are a provoking house. 3:10. And he said to me: Son of man, receive in thy heart, and hear with thy ears, all the words that I speak to thee: 3:11. And go get thee in to them of the captivity, to the children of thy people, and thou shalt speak to them, and shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: If so be they will hear, and will forbear. 3:12. And the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great commotion, saying: Blessed be the glory of the Lord, from his place. 3:13. The noise of the wings of the living creatures striking one against another, and the noise of the wheels following the living creatures, and the noise of a great commotion. 3:14. The spirit also lifted me, and took me up: and I went away in bitterness in the indignation of my spirit: for the hand of the Lord was with me, strengthening me. 3:15. And I came to them of the captivity, to the heap of new corn, to them that dwelt by the river Chobar, and I sat where they sat: and I remained there seven days mourning in the midst of them. The heap of new corn. . .It was the name of a place: in Hebrew, tel abib. 3:16. And at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 3:17. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: and thou shalt hear the word out of my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me. 3:18. If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand. 3:19. But if thou give warning to the wicked, and he be not converted from his wickedness, and from his evil way: he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. 3:20. Moreover if the just man shall turn away from his justice, and shall commit iniquity: I will lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die, because thou hast not given him warning: he shall die in his sin, and his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered: but I will require his blood at thy hand. 3:21. But if thou warn the just man, that the just may not sin, and he doth not sin: living he shall live, because thou hast warned him, and thou hast delivered thy soul. 3:22. And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he said to me: Rise and go forth into the plain, and there I will speak to thee. 3:23. And I rose up, and went forth into the plain: and behold the glory of the Lord stood there, like the glory which I saw by the river Chobar: and I fell upon my face. 3:24. And the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet: and he spoke to me, and said to me: Go in; and shut thyself up in the midst of thy house. 3:25. And thou, O son of man, behold they shall put bands upon thee, and they shall bind thee with them: and thou shalt not go forth from the midst of them. 3:26. And I will make thy tongue stick fast to the roof of thy mouth, and thou shalt be dumb, and not as a man that reproveth: because they are a provoking house. 3:27. But when I shall speak to thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: He that heareth, let him hear: and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a provoking house. Ezechiel Chapter 4 A prophetic description of the siege of Jerusalem, and the famine that shall reign there. 4:1. And thou, O son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee: and draw upon it the plan of the city of Jerusalem. 4:2. And lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set a camp against it, and place battering rams round about it. 4:3. And take unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face resolutely against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: it is a sign to the house of Israel. 4:4. And thou shalt sleep upon thy left side, and shalt lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the days that thou shalt sleep upon it, and thou shalt take upon thee their iniquity. 4:5. And I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days three hundred and ninety days: and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 4:6. And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for a year, yea, a day for a year I have appointed to thee. 4:7. And thou shalt turn thy face to the siege of Jerusalem and thy arm shall be stretched out: and thou shalt prophesy against it. 4:8. Behold I have encompassed thee with bands: and thou shalt not turn thyself from one side to the other, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege. 4:9. And take to thee wheat and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. 4:10. And thy meat that thou shalt eat, shall be in weight twenty staters a day: from time to time thou shalt eat it. 4:11. And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time thou shalt drink it, Hin. . .That is, a measure of liquids containing about ten pints. 4:12. And thou shalt eat it as barley bread baked under the ashes: and thou shalt cover it, in their sight, with the dung that cometh out of a man. 4:13. And the Lord said: So shall the children of Israel eat their bread all filthy among the nations whither I will cast them out. 4:14. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, behold my soul hath not been defiled, and from my infancy even till now, I have not eaten any thing that died of itself, or was torn by beasts, and no unclean flesh hath entered into my mouth. 4:15. And he said to me: Behold I have given thee neat's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt make thy bread therewith. 4:16. And he said to me: Son of man: Behold, I will break in pieces the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care: and they shall drink water by measure, and in distress. 4:17. So that when bread and water fail, every man may fall against his brother, and they may pine away in their iniquities. Ezechiel Chapter 5 The judgments of God upon the Jews are foreshewn under the type of the prophet's hair. 5:1. And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife that shaveth the hair: and cause it to pass over thy head, and over thy beard: and take thee a balance to weigh in, and divide the hair. 5:2. A third part thou shalt burn with fire in the midst of the city, according to the fulfilling of the days of the siege: and thou shalt take a third part, and cut it in pieces with the knife all round about: and the other third part thou shalt scatter in the wind, and I will draw out the sword after them. 5:3. And thou shalt take thereof a small number: and shalt bind them in the skirt of thy cloak. 5:4. And thou shalt take of them again, and shalt cast them in the midst of the fire, and shalt burn them with fire: and out of it shall come forth a fire into all the house of Israel. 5:5. Thus saith the Lord God: This is Jerusalem, I have set her in the midst of the nations, and the countries round about her. 5:6. And she hath despised my judgments, so as to be more wicked than the Gentiles; and my commandments, more than the countries that are round about her: for they have cast off my judgments, and have not walked in my commandments. 5:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have surpassed the Gentiles that are round about you, and have not walked in my commandments, and have not kept my judgments, and have not done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you: 5:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, and I myself will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the Gentiles. 5:9. And I will do in thee that which I have not done: and the like to which I will do no more, because of all thy abominations. 5:10. Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers: and I will execute judgments in thee, and I will scatter thy whole remnant into every wind. 5:11. Therefore as I live, saith the Lord God: Because thou hast violated my sanctuary with all thy offences, and with all thy abominations: I will also break thee in pieces, and my eye shall not spare, and I will not have any pity. 5:12. A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and shall be consumed with famine in the midst of thee: and a third part of thee shall fall by the sword round about thee: and a third part of thee will I scatter into every wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. 5:13. And I will accomplish my fury, and will cause my indignation to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in my zeal, when I shall have accomplished my indignation in them. 5:14. And I will make thee desolate, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of every one that passeth by. 5:15. And thou shalt be a reproach, and a scoff, an example, and an astonishment amongst the nations that are round about thee, when I shall have executed judgments in thee in anger, and in indignation, and in wrathful rebukes. 5:16. I the Lord have spoken it: When I shall send upon them the grievous arrows of famine, which shall bring death, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will gather together famine against you: and I will break among you the staff of bread. 5:17. And I will send in upon you famine, and evil beasts unto utter destruction: and pestilence, and blood shall pass through thee, and I will bring in the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it. Ezechiel Chapter 6 The punishment of Israel for their idolatry: a remnant shall be saved. 6:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 6:2. Son of man set thy face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them. 6:3. And say: Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, and to the rocks, and the valleys: Behold, I will bring upon you the sword, and I will destroy your high places. 6:4. And I will throw down your altars, and your idols shall be broken in pieces: and I will cast down your slain before your idols. 6:5. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before your idols: and I will scatter your bones round about your altars, 6:6. In all your dwelling places. The cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be thrown down, and destroyed, and your altars shall be abolished, and shall be broken in pieces: and your idols shall be no more, and your temples shall be destroyed, and your works shall be defaced. 6:7. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 6:8. And I will leave in you some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when I shall have scattered you through the countries. 6:9. And they that are saved of you shall remember me amongst the nations, to which they are carried captives: because I have broken their heart that was faithless, and revolted from me: and their eyes that went a fornicating after their idols: and they shall be displeased with themselves because of the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. 6:10. And they shall know that I the Lord have not spoken in vain that I would do this evil to them. 6:11. Thus saith the Lord God: Strike with thy hand and stamp with thy foot, and say: Alas, for all the abominations of the evils of the house of Israel: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. 6:12. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence: and he that is near, shall fall by the sword: and he that remaineth, and is besieged, shall die by the famine: and I will accomplish my indignation upon them. 6:13. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when your slain shall be amongst your idols, round about your altars, in every high hill, and on all the tops of mountains, and under every woody tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they burnt sweet smelling frankincense to all their idols. 6:14. And I will stretch forth my hand upon them: and I will make the land desolate, and abandoned from the desert of Deblatha in all their dwelling places: and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 7 The final desolation of Israel: from which few shall escape. 7:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 7:2. And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God to the land of Israel: The end is come, the end is come upon the four quarters of the land. 7:3. Now is an end come upon thee, and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee according to thy ways: and I will set all thy abominations against thee. 7:4. And my eye shall not spare thee, and I will shew thee no pity: but I will lay thy ways upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 7:5. Thus saith the Lord God: One affliction, behold an affliction is come. 7:6. An end is come, the end is come, it hath awaked against thee: behold it is come. 7:7. Destruction is come upon thee that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of slaughter is near, and not of the joy of mountains. 7:8. Now very shortly I will pour out my wrath upon thee, and I will accomplish my anger in thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and I will lay upon thee all thy crimes. 7:9. And my eye shall not spare, neither will I shew mercy: but I will lay thy ways upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and you shall know that I am the Lord that strike. 7:10. Behold the day, behold it is come: destruction is gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. 7:11. Iniquity is risen up into a rod of impiety: nothing of them shall remain, nor of their people, nor of the noise of them: and there shall be no rest among them. 7:12. The time is come, the day is at hand: let not the buyer rejoice: nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the people thereof. 7:13. For the seller shall not return to that which he hath sold, although their life be yet among the living. For the vision which regardeth all the multitude thereof, shall not go back: neither shall man be strengthened in the iniquity of his life. 7:14. Blow the trumpet, let all be made ready, yet there is none to go to the battle: for my wrath shall be upon all the people thereof. 7:15. The sword without: and the pestilence, and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die by the sword: and they that are in the city, shall be devoured by the pestilence, and the famine. 7:16. And such of them as shall flee shall escape: and they shall be in the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them trembling, every one for his iniquity. 7:17. All hands shall be made feeble, and all knees shall run with water. 7:18. And they shall gird themselves with haircloth, and fear shall cover them and shame shall be upon every face, and baldness upon all their heads. 7:19. Their silver shall be cast forth, and their gold shall become a dunghill. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their soul, and their bellies shall not be filled: because it hath been the stumblingblock of their iniquity. 7:20. And they have turned the ornament of their jewels into pride, and have made of it the images of their abominations, and idols: therefore I have made it an uncleanness to them. 7:21. And I will give it into the hands of strangers for spoil, and to the wicked of the earth for a prey, and they shall defile it. 7:22. And I will turn away my face from them, and they shall violate my secret place: and robbers shall enter into it, and defile it. Secret place, etc. . .Viz., the inward sanctuary, the holy of holies. 7:23. Make a shutting up: for the land is full of the judgment of blood, and the city is full of iniquity. Make a shutting up. . .In Hebrew, a chain, viz., for imprisonment and captivity. 7:24. And I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses: and I will make the pride of the mighty to cease, and they shall possess their sanctuary. 7:25. When distress cometh upon them, they will seek for peace and there shall be none. 7:26. Trouble shall come upon trouble, and rumour upon rumour, and they shall seek a vision of the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. 7:27. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with sorrow, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. I will do to them according to their way, and will judge them according to their judgments: and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 8 The prophet sees in a vision the abominations committed in Jerusalem; which determine the Lord to spare them no longer. 8:1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the ancients of Juda sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me. 8:2. And I saw, and behold a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins, and downward, fire: and from his loins, and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the appearance of amber. 8:3. And the likeness of a hand was put forth and took me by a lock of my head: and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the vision of God into Jerusalem, near the inner gate, that looked toward the north, where was set the idol of jealousy to provoke to jealousy. 8:4. And behold the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision which I had seen in the plain. 8:5. And he said to me: Son of man, lift up thy eyes towards the way of the north, and I lifted up my eyes towards the way of the north: and behold on the north side of the gate of the altar the idol of jealousy in the very entry. 8:6. And he said to me: Son of man, dost thou see, thinkest thou, what these are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should depart far off from my sanctuary? and turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations. 8:7. And he brought me in to the door of the court: and I saw, and behold a hole in the wall. 8:8. And he said to me: Son of man, dig in the wall, and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. 8:9. And he said to me: Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they commit here. 8:10. And I went in and saw, and behold every form of creeping things, and of living creatures, the abominations, and all the idols of the house of Israel, were painted on the wall all round about. 8:11. And seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and Jezonias the son of Saaphan stood in the midst of them, that stood before the pictures: and every one had a censer in his hand: and a cloud of smoke went up from the incense. 8:12. And he said to me: Surely thou seest, O son of man, what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in private in his chamber: for they say: The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth. 8:13. And he said to me: If thou turn thee again, thou shalt see greater abominations which these commit. 8:14. And he brought me in by the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which looked to the north: and behold women sat there mourning for Adonis. Adonis. . .The favourite of Venus, slain by a wild boar, as feigned by the heathen poets, and which being here represented by an idol, is lamented by the female worshippers of that goddess. In the Hebrew, the name is Tammuz. 8:15. And he said to me: Surely thou hast seen, O son of man: but turn thee again, thou shalt see greater abominations than these. 8:16. And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord: and behold at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men having their backs towards the temple of the Lord, in their faces to the east: and they adored towards the rising of the sun. 8:17. And he said to me: Surely thou hast seen, O son of man: is this a light thing to the house of Juda, that they should commit these abominations which they have committed here: because they have filled the land with iniquity, and have turned to provoke me to anger? and behold they put a branch to their nose. 8:18. Therefore I also will deal with them in my wrath: my eye shall not spare them, neither will I shew mercy: and when they shall cry to my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them. Ezechiel Chapter 9 All are ordered to be destroyed that are not marked in their foreheads. God will not be entreated for them. 9:1. And he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying: The visitations of the city are at hand, and every one hath a destroying weapon in his hand. 9:2. And behold six men came from the way of the upper gate, which looketh to the north: and each one had his weapon of destruction in his hand: and there was one man in the midst of them clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn at his reins: and they went in, and stood by the brazen altar. 9:3. And the glory of the Lord of Israel went up from the cherub, upon which he was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man that was clothed with linen, and had a writer's inkhorn at his loins. 9:4. And the Lord said to him: Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof. Mark Thau. . .Thau, or Tau, is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and signifies a sign, or a mark; which is the reason why some translators render this place set a mark, or mark a mark without specifying what this mark was. But St. Jerome, and other interpreters, conclude it was the form of the letter Thau, which in the ancient Hebrew character, was the form of a cross. 9:5. And to the others he said in my hearing: Go ye after him through the city, and strike: let not your eyes spare, nor be ye moved with pity. 9:6. Utterly destroy old and young, maidens, children and women: but upon whomsoever you shall see Thau, kill him not, and begin ye at my sanctuary. So they began at the ancient men who were before the house. 9:7. And he said to them: Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew them that were in the city. 9:8. And the slaughter being ended I was left; and I fell upon my face, and crying, I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, wilt thou then destroy all the remnant of Israel, by pouring out thy fury upon Jerusalem? 9:9. And he said to me: The iniquity of the house of Israel, and of Juda, is exceeding great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is filled with perverseness: for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. 9:10. Therefore neither shall my eye spare, nor will I have pity: I will requite their way upon their head. 9:11. And behold the man that was clothed with linen, that had the inkhorn at his back, returned the word, saying: I have done as thou hast commanded me. Ezechiel Chapter 10 Fire is taken from the midst of the wheels under the cherubims, and scattered over the city. A description of the cherubims. 10:1. And I saw and behold in the firmament that was over the heads of the cherubims, there appeared over them as it were the sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne. 10:2. And he spoke to the man, that was clothed with linen, and said: Go in between the wheels that are under the cherubims and fill thy hand with the coals of fire that are between the cherubims, and pour them out upon the city. And he went in, in my sight: 10:3. And the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. 10:4. And the glory of the Lord was lifted up from above the cherub to the threshold of the house: and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. 10:5. And the sound of the wings of the cherubims was heard even to the outward court as the voice of God Almighty speaking. 10:6. And when he had commanded the man that was clothed with linen, saying: Take fire from the midst of the wheels that are between the cherubims: he went in and stood beside the wheel. 10:7. And one cherub stretched out his arm from the midst of the cherubims to the fire that was between the cherubims: and he took, and put it into the hands of him that was clothed with linen: who took it and went forth. 10:8. And there appeared in the cherubims the likeness of a man's hand under their wings. 10:9. And I saw, and behold there were four wheels by the cherubims: one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was to the sight like the chrysolite stone: 10:10. And as to their appearance, all four were alike: as if a wheel were in the midst of a wheel. 10:11. And when they went, they went by four ways: and they turned not when they went: but to the place whither they first turned, the rest also followed, and did not turn back. By four ways. . .That is, by any of the four ways, forward, backward, to the right or to the left. 10:12. And their whole body, and their necks, and their hands, and their wings, and the circles were full of eyes, round about the four wheels. 10:13. And these wheels he called voluble, in my hearing. Voluble. . .That is, rolling wheels, galgal. 10:14. And every one had four faces: one face was the face of a cherub, and the second face, the face of a man: and in the third was the face of a lion: and in the fourth the face of an eagle. 10:15. And the cherubims were lifted up: this is the living creature that I had seen by the river Chobar. 10:16. And when the cherubims went, the wheels also went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their wings, to mount up from the earth, the wheels stayed not behind, but were by them. 10:17. When they stood, these stood: and when they were lifted up, these were lifted up: for the spirit of life was in them. 10:18. And the glory of the Lord went forth from the threshold of the temple: and stood over the cherubims. 10:19. And the cherubims lifting up their wings, were raised from the earth before me: and as they went out, the wheels also followed: and it stood in the entry of the east gate of the house of the Lord: and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. 10:20. This is the living creature, which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chobar: and I understood that they were cherubims. 10:21. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings: and the likeness of a man's hand was under their wings. 10:22. And as to the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces which I had seen by the river Chobar, and their looks, and the impulse of every one to go straight forward. Ezechiel Chapter 11 A prophecy against the presumptuous assurance of the great ones. A remnant shall be saved, and receive a new spirit, and a new heart. 11:1. And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the east gate of the house of the Lord, which looketh towards the rising of the sun: and behold in the entry of the gate five and twenty men: and I saw in the midst of them Jezonias the son of Azur, and Pheltias the son of Banaias, princes of the people. 11:2. And he said to me: Son of man, these are the men that study iniquity, and frame a wicked counsel in this city, 11:3. Saying: Were not houses lately built? This city is the caldron, and we the flesh. Were not houses lately built, etc. . .These men despised the predictions and threats of the prophets; who declared to them from God, that the city should be destroyed, and the inhabitants carried into captivity: and they made use of this kind of argument against the prophets, that the city, so far from being like to be destroyed, had lately been augmented by the building of new houses; from whence they further inferred, by way of a proverb, using the similitude of a cauldron, out of which the flesh is not taken, till it is thoroughly boiled, and fit to be eaten, that they should not be carried away out of their city, but there end their days in peace. 11:4. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, thou son of man. 11:5. And the spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said to me: Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Thus have you spoken, O house of Israel, for I know the thoughts of your heart. 11:6. You have killed a great many in this city, and you have filled the streets thereof with the slain. 11:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Your slain, whom you have laid in the midst thereof, they are the flesh, all this is the caldron: and I will bring you forth out of the midst thereof. 11:8. You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you, saith the Lord God. 11:9. And I will cast you out of the midst thereof, and I will deliver you into the hand of the enemies, and I will execute judgments upon you. 11:10. You shall fall by the sword: I will judge you in the borders of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. In the borders of Israel. . .They pretended that they should die in peace in Jerusalem; God tells them it should not be so; but that they should be judged and condemned, and fall by the sword in the borders of Israel: viz., in Reblatha in the land of Emath, where all their chief men were put to death by Nabuchodonosor. 4 Kings 25., and Jer. 52.10, 27. 11:11. This shall not be as a caldron to you, and you shall not be as flesh in the midst thereof: I will judge you in the borders of Israel. 11:12. And you shall know that I am the Lord: because you have not walked in my commandments, and have not done my judgments, but you have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you. 11:13. And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pheltias the son of Banaias died: and I fell down upon my face, and I cried with a loud voice: and said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God: wilt thou make an end of all the remnant of Israel? 11:14. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 11:15. Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy kinsmen, and all the house of Israel, all they to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said: Get ye far from the Lord, the land is given in possession to us. Thy brethren, etc. . .He speaks of them that had been carried away captives before; who were despised by them that remained in Jerusalem: but as the prophet here declares to them from God, should be in a more happy condition than they, and after some time return from their captivity. 11:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because I have removed them far off among the Gentiles, and because I have scattered them among the countries: I will be to them a little sanctuary in the countries whither they are come. 11:17. Therefore speak to them: Thus saith the Lord God: I will gather you from among the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries wherein you are scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 11:18. And they shall go in thither, and shall take away all the scandals, and all the abominations thereof from thence. 11:19. And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: 11:20. That they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and that they may be my people, and I may be their God. 11:21. But as for them whose heart walketh after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God. 11:22. And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and the wheels with them: and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. 11:23. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood over the mount that is on the east side of the city. 11:24. And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into Chaldea, to them of the captivity, in vision, by the spirit of God: and the vision which I had seen was taken up from me. 11:25. And I spoke to them of the captivity all the words of the Lord, which he had shewn me. Ezechiel Chapter 12 The prophet forsheweth, by signs, the captivity of Sedecias, and the desolation of the people: all which shall quickly come to pass. 12:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 12:2. Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house. 12:3. Thou, therefore, O son of man, prepare thee all necessaries for removing, and remove by day into their sight: and thou shalt remove out of thy place to another place in their sight, if so be they will regard it: for they are a provoking house. 12:4. And thou shalt bring forth thy furniture as the furniture of one that is removing by day in their sight: and thou shalt go forth in the evening in their presence, as one goeth forth that removeth his dwelling. 12:5. Dig thee a way through the wall before their eyes: and thou shalt go forth through it. 12:6. In their sight thou shalt be carried out upon men's shoulders, thou shalt be carried out in the dark: thou shalt cover thy face, and shalt not see the ground: for I have set thee for a sign of things to come to the house of Israel. 12:7. I did therefore as he had commanded me: I brought forth my goods by day, as the goods of one that removeth: and in the evening I digged through the wall with my hand, and I went forth in the dark, and was carried on men's shoulders in their sight. 12:8. And the word of the Lord came to me in the morning, saying: 12:9. Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, the provoking house, said to thee: What art thou doing? 12:10. Say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: This burden concerneth my prince that is in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel, that are among them. 12:11. Say: I am a sign of things to come to you: as I have done, so shall it be done to them: they shall be removed from their dwellings, and go into captivity. 12:12. And the prince that is in the midst of them, shall be carried on shoulders, he shall go forth in the dark: they shall dig through the wall to bring him out: his face shall be covered, that he may not see the ground with his eyes. 12:13. And I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my net: and I will bring him into Babylon, into the land of the Chaldeans, and he shall not see it, and there he shall die. He shall not see it. . .Because his eyes shall be put out by Nabuchodonosor. 12:14. And all that are about him, his guards, and his troops I will scatter into every wind: and I will draw out the sword after them. 12:15. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have dispersed them among the nations, and scattered them in the countries. 12:16. And I will leave a few men of them from the sword, and from the famine, and from the pestilence: that they may declare all their wicked deeds among the nations whither they shall go: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 12:17. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 12:18. Son of man, eat thy bread in trouble and drink thy water in hurry and sorrow. 12:19. And say to the people of the land: Thus saith the Lord God to them that dwell in Jerusalem in the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread in care, and drink their water in desolation: that the land may become desolate from the multitude that is therein, for the iniquity of all that dwell therein. 12:20. And the cities that are now inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 12:21. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 12:22. Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel? saying: The days shall be prolonged, and every vision shall fail. 12:23. Say to them therefore: Thus saith the Lord God: I will make this proverb to cease, neither shall it be any more a common saying in Israel: and tell them that the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision. 12:24. For there shall be no more any vain visions, nor doubtful divination in the midst of the children of Israel. 12:25. For I the Lord will speak: and what word soever I shall speak, it shall come to pass, and shall not be prolonged any more: but in your days, ye provoking house, I will speak the word, and will do it, saith the Lord God. 12:26. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 12:27. Son of man, behold the house of Israel, they that say: The visions that this man seeth, is for many days to come: and this man prophesieth of times afar off. 12:28. Therefore say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: not one word of mine shall be prolonged any more: the word that I shall speak shall be accomplished, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 13 God declares against false prophets and prophetesses, that deceive the people with lies. 13:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 13:2. Son of man, prophesy thou against the prophets of Israel that prophesy: and thou shalt say to them that prophesy out of their own heart: Hear ye the word of the Lord: 13:3. Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and see nothing. 13:4. Thy prophets, O Israel, were like foxes in the deserts. 13:5. You have not gone up to face the enemy, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle in the day of the Lord. 13:6. They see vain things, and they foretell lies, saying: The Lord saith: whereas the Lord hath not sent them: and they have persisted to confirm what they have said. 13:7. Have you not seen a vain vision and spoken a lying divination: and you say: The Lord saith: whereas I have not spoken. 13:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have spoken vain things, and have seen lies: therefore behold I come against you, saith the Lord God. 13:9. And my hand shall be upon the prophets that see vain things, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the council of my people, nor shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord God. 13:10. Because they have deceived my people, saying: Peace, and there is no peace: and the people built up a wall, and they daubed it with dirt without straw. 13:11. Say to them that daub without tempering, that it shall fall: for there shall be an overflowing shower, and I will cause great hailstones to fall violently from above, and a stormy wind to throw it down. 13:12. Behold, when the wall is fallen: shall it not be said to you: Where is the daubing wherewith you have daubed it? 13:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Lo, I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in my indignation, and there shall be an overflowing shower in my anger: and great hailstones in my wrath to consume. 13:14. And I will break down the wall that you have daubed with untempered mortar: and I will make it even with the ground, and the foundation thereof shall be laid bare: and it shall fall, and shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 13:15. And I will accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that daub it without tempering the mortar, and I will say to you: The wall is no more, and they that daub it are no more. 13:16. Even the prophets of Israel that prophesy to Jerusalem, and that see visions of peace for her: and there is no peace, saith the Lord God. 13:17. And thou, son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people that prophesy out of their own heart: and do thou prophesy against them, 13:18. And say: Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to them that sew cushions under every elbow: and make pillows for the heads of persons of every age to catch souls: and when they caught the souls of my people, they gave life to their souls. Sew cushions, etc. . .Viz., by making people easy in their sins, and promising them impunity.--Ibid. They gave life to their souls. . .That is, they flattered them with promises of life, peace, and security. 13:19. And they violated me among my people, for a handful of barley, and a piece of bread, to kill souls which should not die, and to save souls alive which should not live, telling lies to my people that believe lies. Violated me. . .That is, dishonoured and discredited me. Ibid. To kill souls, etc. . .That is, to sentence souls to death, which are not to die; and to promise life to them who are not to live. 13:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I declare against your cushions, wherewith you catch flying souls: and I will tear them off from your arms: and I will let go the soul that you catch, the souls that should fly. 13:21. And I will tear your pillows, and will deliver my people out of your hand, neither shall they be any more in your hands to be a prey: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 13:22. Because with lies you have made the heart of the just to mourn, whom I have not made sorrowful: and have strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his evil way, and live. 13:23. Therefore you shall not see vain things, nor divine divinations any more, and I will deliver my people out of your hand: and you shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 14 God suffers the wicked to be deceived in punishment of their wickedness. The evils that shall come upon them for their sins: for which they shall not be delivered by the prayers of Noe, Daniel, and Job. But a remnant shall be preserved. 14:1. And some of the ancients of Israel came to me, and sat before me. 14:2. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 14:3. Son of man, these men have placed their uncleannesses in their hearts, and have set up before their face the stumblingblock of their iniquity: and shall I answer when they inquire of me? Uncleanness. . .That is, their filthy idols, upon which they have set their hearts: and which are a stumblingblock to their souls. 14:4. Therefore speak to them, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Man, man of the house of Israel that shall place his uncleannesses in his heart, and set up the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and shall come to the prophet inquiring of me by him: I the Lord will answer him according to the multitude of his uncleannesses: Man, man. . .That is, every man, an Hebrew expression. 14:5. That the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols. 14:6. Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Be converted, and depart from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. 14:7. For every man of the house of Israel, and every stranger among the proselytes in Israel, if he separate himself from me, and place his idols in his heart, and set the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and come to the prophet to inquire of me by him: I the Lord will answer him by myself. 14:8. And I will set my face against that man, and will make him an example, and a proverb, and will cut him off from the midst of my people: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 14:9. And when the prophet shall err, and speak a word: I the Lord have deceived that prophet: and I will stretch forth my hand upon him, and will cut him off from the midst of my people Israel. The prophet shall err, etc. . .He speaks of false prophets, answering out of their own heads and according to their own corrupt inclinations.--Ibid. I have deceived that prophet. . .God Almighty deceives false prophets, partly by withdrawing his light from them; and abandoning them to their own corrupt inclinations, which push them on to prophesy such things as are agreeable to those who consult them: and partly by disappointing them, and causing all thing to happen contrary to what they have said. 14:10. And they shall bear their iniquity: according to the iniquity of him that inquireth, so shall the iniquity of the prophet be. 14:11. That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, nor be polluted with all their transgressions: but may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord of hosts. 14:12. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 14:13. Son of man, when a land shall sin against me, so as to transgress grievously, I will stretch forth my hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof: and I will send famine upon it, and will destroy man and beast out of it. 14:14. And if these three men, Noe, Daniel, and Job, shall be in it: they shall deliver their own souls by their justice, saith the Lord of hosts. 14:15. And if I shall bring mischievous beasts also upon the land to waste it, and it be desolate, so that there is none that can pass because of the beasts: 14:16. If these three men shall be in it, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters: but they only shall be delivered, and the land shall be made desolate. 14:17. Or if I bring the sword upon that land, and say to the sword: Pass through the land: and I destroy man and beast out of it: 14:18. And these three men be in the midst thereof: as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they themselves alone shall be delivered. 14:19. Or if I also send the pestilence upon that land, and pour out my indignation upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: 14:20. And Noe, and Daniel, and Job be in the midst thereof: as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter: but they shall only deliver their own souls by their justice. 14:21. For thus saith the Lord: Although I shall send in upon Jerusalem my four grievous judgments, the sword, and the famine, and the mischievous beasts, and the pestilence, to destroy out of it man and beast, 14:22. Yet there shall be left in it some that shall be saved, who shall bring away their sons and daughters: behold they shall come among you, and you shall see their way, and their doings: and you shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, in all things that I have brought upon it. 14:23. And they shall comfort you, when you shall see their ways, and their doings: and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 15 As a vine cut down is fit for nothing but the fire; so it shall be with Jerusalem, for her sins. 15:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 15:2. Son of man, what shall be made of the wood of the vine, out of all the trees of the woods that are among the trees of the forests? 15:3. Shall wood be taken of it, to do any work, or shall a pin be made of it for any vessel to hang thereon? 15:4. Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel: the fire hath consumed both ends thereof, and the midst thereof is reduced to ashes: shall it be useful for any work? 15:5. Even when it was whole it was not fit for work: how much less, when the fire hath devoured and consumed it, shall any work be made of it? 15:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: As the vine tree among the trees of the forests which I have given to the fire to be consumed, so will I deliver up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15:7. And I will set my face against them: they shall go out from fire, and fire shall consume them: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have set my face against them. 15:8. And I shall have made their land a wilderness, and desolate, because they have been transgressors, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 16 Under the figure of an unfaithful wife, God upbraids Jerusalem with her ingratitude and manifold disloyalties: but promiseth mercy by a new covenant. 16:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 16:2. Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations. Make known to Jerusalem. . .That is, by letters, for the prophet was then in Babylon. 16:3. And thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God to Jerusalem: Thy root, and thy nativity is of the land of Chanaan, thy father was an Amorrhite, and thy mother a Cethite. 16:4. And when thou wast born, in the day of thy nativity thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed with water for thy health, nor salted with salt, nor swaddled with clouts. 16:5. No eye had pity on thee to do any of these things for thee, out of compassion to thee: but thou wast cast out upon the face of the earth in the abjection of thy soul, in the day that thou wast born. 16:6. And passing by thee, I saw that thou wast trodden under foot in thy own blood: and I said to thee when thou wast in thy blood: Live: I have said to thee: Live in thy blood. 16:7. I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field: and thou didst increase and grow great, and advancedst, and camest to woman's ornament: thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair grew: and thou was naked, and full of confusion. 16:8. And I passed by thee, and saw thee: and behold thy time was the time of lovers: and I spread my garment over thee, and covered thy ignominy. and I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God: and thou becamest mine. 16:9. And I washed thee with water, and cleansed away thy blood from thee: and I anointed thee with oil. 16:10. And I clothed thee with embroidery, and shod thee with violet coloured shoes: and I girded thee about with fine linen, and clothed thee with fine garments. 16:11. I decked thee also with ornaments, and put bracelets on thy hands, and a chain about thy neck. I decked thee also with ornaments, etc. . .That is, with spiritual benefits, giving you a law with sacrifices, sacraments, and other holy rites. 16:12. And I put a jewel upon thy forehead and earrings in thy ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. 16:13. And thou wast adorned with gold, and silver, and wast clothed with fine linen, and embroidered work, and many colours: thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil, and wast made exceeding beautiful: and wast advanced to be a queen. 16:14. And thy renown went forth among the nations for thy beauty: for thou wast perfect through my beauty, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. 16:15. But trusting in thy beauty, thou playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and thou hast prostituted thyself to every passenger, to be his. 16:16. And taking of thy garments thou hast made thee high places sewed together on each side: and hast played the harlot upon them, as hath not been done before, nor shall be hereafter. 16:17. And thou tookest thy beautiful vessels, of my gold, and my silver, which I gave thee, and thou madest thee images of men, and hast committed fornication with them. 16:18. And thou tookest thy garments of divers colours, and coveredst them: and settest my oil and my sweet incense before them. 16:19. And my bread which I gave thee, the fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast set before them for a sweet odour; and it was done, saith the Lord God. 16:20. And thou hast taken thy sons, and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne to me: and hast sacrificed the same to them to be devoured. Is thy fornication small? 16:21. Thou hast sacrificed and given my children to them, consecrating them by fire. Thou hast sacrificed, etc. . .As there is nothing more base and abominable than the crimes mentioned throughout this chapter; so the infidelities of the Israelites in forsaking God, and sacrificing even their children to idols, are strongly figured by these allegories. 16:22. And after all thy abominations, and fornications, thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked, and full of confusion, trodden under foot in thy own blood. 16:23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness (woe, woe to thee, saith the Lord God) 16:24. That thou didst also build thee a common stew, and madest thee a brothel house in every street. 16:25. At every head of the way thou hast set up a sign of thy prostitution: and hast made thy beauty to be abominable: and hast prostituted thyself to every one that passed by, and hast multiplied thy fornications. 16:26. And thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, men of large bodies, and hast multiplied thy fornications to provoke me. 16:27. Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and will take away thy justification: and I will deliver thee up to the will of the daughters of the Philistines that hate thee, that are ashamed of thy wicked way. 16:28. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Assyrians, because thou wast not yet satisfied: and after thou hadst played the harlot with them, even so thou wast not contented. 16:29. Thou hast also multiplied thy fornications in the land of Chanaan with the Chaldeans: and neither so wast thou satisfied. 16:30. Wherein shall I cleanse thy heart, saith Lord God: seeing thou dost all these the works of a shameless prostitute? 16:31. Because thou hast built thy brothel house at the head of every way, and thou hast made thy high place in every street: and wast not as a harlot that by disdain enhanceth her price, 16:32. But is an adulteress, that bringeth in strangers over her husband. 16:33. Gifts are given to all harlots: but thou hast given hire to all thy lovers, and thou hast given them gifts to come to thee from every side, to commit fornication with thee. 16:34. And it hath happened in thee contrary to the custom of women in thy fornications, and after thee there shall be no such fornication, for in that thou gavest rewards, and didst not take rewards, the contrary hath been done in thee. 16:35. Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. 16:36. Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy money hath been poured out, and thy shame discovered through thy fornications with thy lovers, and with the idols of thy abominations, by the blood of thy children whom thou gavest them: 16:37. Behold, I will gather together all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all whom thou hast loved, with all whom thou hast hated: and I will gather them together against thee on every side, and will discover thy shame in their sight, and they shall see all thy nakedness. 16:38. And I will judge thee as adulteresses, and they that shed blood are judged: and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 16:39. And I will deliver thee into their hands, and they shall destroy thy brothel house, and throw down thy stews: and they shall strip thee of thy garments, and shall take away the vessels of thy beauty: and leave thee naked, and full of disgrace. 16:40. And they shall bring upon thee a multitude, and they shall stone thee with stones, and shall slay thee with their swords. 16:41. And they shall burn thy houses with fire, and shall execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and thou shalt cease from fornication, and shalt give no hire any more. 16:42. And my indignation shall rest in thee: and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will cease and be angry no more. 16:43. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast provoked me in all these things: wherefore I also have turned all thy ways upon thy head, saith the Lord God, and I have not done according to thy wicked deeds in all thy abominations. 16:44. Behold every one that useth a common proverb, shall use this against thee, saying: As the mother was, so also is her daughter. 16:45. Thou art thy mother's daughter, that cast off her husband, and her children: and thou art the sister of thy sisters, who cast off their husbands, and their children: your mother was a Cethite, and your father an Amorrhite. 16:46. And thy elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister that dwelleth at thy right hand is Sodom, and her daughters. 16:47. But neither hast thou walked in their ways, nor hast thou done a little less than they according to their wickednesses: thou hast done almost more wicked things than they in all thy ways. 16:48. As I live, saith the Lord God, thy sister Sodom herself, and her daughters, have not done as thou hast done, and thy daughters. 16:49. Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom thy sister, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. This was the iniquity of Sodom, etc. . .That is, these were the steps by which the Sodomites came to fall into those abominations for which they were destroyed. For pride, gluttony, and idleness are the highroad to all kinds of lust; especially when they are accompanied with a neglect of the works of mercy. 16:50. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me: and I took them away as thou hast seen. 16:51. And Samaria committed not half thy sins: but thou hast surpassed them with thy crimes, and hast justified thy sisters by all thy abominations which thou hast done. 16:52. Therefore do thou also bear thy confusion, thou that hast surpassed thy sisters with thy sins, doing more wickedly than they: for they are justified above thee, therefore be thou also confounded, and bear thy shame, thou that hast justified thy sisters. 16:53. And I will bring back and restore them by bringing back Sodom, with her daughters, and by bringing back Samaria, and her daughters: and I will bring those that return of thee in the midst of them. I will bring back, etc. . .This relates to the conversion of the Gentiles out of all nations, and of many of the Jews, to the church of Christ. 16:54. That thou mayest bear thy shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, comforting them. 16:55. And thy sister Sodom and her daughters shall return to their ancient state: and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their ancient state: and thou and thy daughters shall return to your ancient state. Ancient state. . .That is, to their former state of liberty, and their ancient possessions. In the spiritual sense, to the true liberty, and the happy inheritance of the children of God, through faith in Christ. 16:56. And Sodom thy sister was not heard of in thy mouth, in the day of thy pride, 16:57. Before thy malice was laid open: as it is at this time, making thee a reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all the daughters of Palestine round about thee, that encompass thee on all sides. 16:58. Thou hast borne thy wickedness, and thy disgrace, saith the Lord God. 16:59. For thus saith the Lord God: I will deal with thee, as thou hast despised the oath, in breaking the covenant: 16:60. And I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth: and I will establish with thee an everlasting covenant. 16:61. And thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed: when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thy elder and thy younger: and I will give them to thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant. 16:62. And I will establish my covenant with thee: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, 16:63. That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and mayest no more open thy mouth because of thy confusion, when I shall be pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 17 The parable of the two eagles and the vine. A promise of the cedar of Christ and his church. 17:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 17:2. Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel, 17:3. And say: Thus saith the Lord God; A large eagle with great wings, long-limbed, full of feathers, and of variety, came to Libanus, and took away the marrow of the cedar. A large eagle. . .Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon.--Ibid. Came to Libanus. . .That is, to Jerusalem.--Ibid. Took away the marrow of the cedar. . .King Jechonias. 17:4. He cropped off the top of the twigs thereof: and carried it away into the land of Chanaan, and he set it in a city of merchants. Chanaan. . .This name, which signifies traffic, is not taken here for Palestine, but for Chaldea: and the city of merchants here mentioned is Babylon. 17:5. And he took of the seed of the land, and put it in the ground for seed, that it might take a firm root over many waters: he planted it on the surface of the earth. Of the seed of the land, etc. . .Viz., Sedecias, whom he made king. 17:6. And it sprung up and grew into a spreading vine of low stature, and the branches thereof looked towards him: and the roots thereof were under him. So it became a vine, and grew into branches, and shot forth sprigs. Towards him. . .Nabuchodonosor, to whom Sedecias swore allegiance. 17:7. And there was another large eagle, with great wings, and many feathers: and behold this vine, bending as it were her roots towards him, stretched forth her branches to him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. Another large eagle. . .Viz., the king of Egypt. 17:8. It was planted in a good ground upon many waters, that it might bring forth branches, and bear fruit, that it might become a large vine. 17:9. Say thou: Thus saith the Lord God: Shall it prosper then? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and strip off its fruit, and dry up all the branches it hath shot forth, and make it wither: and this without a strong arm, or many people to pluck it up by the root? 17:10. Behold, it is planted: shall it prosper then? shall it not be dried up when the burning wind shall touch it, and shall it not wither in the furrows where it grew? 17:11. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 17:12. Say to the provoking house: Know you not what these things mean? Tell them: Behold the king of Babylon cometh to Jerusalem: and he shall take away the king and the princes thereof and carry them with him to Babylon. Shall take away. . .Or, hath taken away, etc., for all this was now done. 17:13. And he shall take one of the king's seed, and make a covenant with him, and take an oath of him. Yea, and he shall take away the mighty men of the land, 17:14. That it may be a low kingdom and not lift itself up, but keep his covenant and observe it. 17:15. But he hath revolted from him and sent ambassadors to Egypt, that it might give him horses, and much people. And shall he that hath done thus prosper, or be saved? and shall he escape that hath broken the covenant? 17:16. As I live, saith the Lord God: In the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose oath he hath made void, and whose covenant he broke, even in the midst of Babylon shall he die. 17:17. And not with a great army, nor with much people shall Pharao fight against him: when he shall cast up mounts, and build forts, to cut off many souls. 17:18. For he had despised the oath, breaking his covenant, and behold he hath given his hand: and having done all these things, he shall not escape. 17:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: As I live, I will lay upon his head the oath he hath despised, and the covenant he hath broken. 17:20. And I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my net: and I will bring him into Babylon, and will judge him there for the transgression by which he hath despised me. 17:21. And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall by the sword: and the residue shall be scattered into every wind: and you shall know that I the Lord have spoken. 17:22. Thus saith the Lord God: I myself will take of the marrow of the high cedar, and will set it: I will crop off a tender twig from the top of the branches thereof, and I will plant it on a mountain high and eminent. Of the marrow of the high cedar, etc. . .Of the royal stock of David.--Ibid. A tender twig. . .Viz., Jesus Christ, whom God hath planted in mount Sion, that is, the high mountain of his church, to which all nations flow. 17:23. On the high mountains of Israel will I plant it, and it shall shoot forth into branches and shall bear fruit, and it shall become a great cedar: and all birds shall dwell under it, and every fowl shall make its nest under the shadow of the branches thereof. 17:24. And all the trees of the country shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, and exalted the low tree: and have dried up the green tree, and have caused the dry tree to flourish. I the Lord have spoken and have done it. Ezechiel Chapter 18 One man shall not bear the sins of another, but every one his own; if a wicked man truly repent, he shall be saved; and if a just man leave his justice, he shall perish. 18:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What is the meaning? 18:2. That you use among you this parable as a proverb in the land of Israel, saying: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge. 18:3. As I live, saith the Lord God, this parable shall be no more to you a proverb in Israel. 18:4. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die. 18:5. And if a man be just, and do judgment and justice, 18:6. And hath not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel: and hath not defiled his neighbour's wife, nor come near to a menstruous woman: Not eaten upon the mountains. . .That is, of the sacrifices there offered to idols. 18:7. And hath not wronged any man: but hath restored the pledge to the debtor, hath taken nothing away by violence: hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment: 18:8. Hath not lent upon usury, nor taken any increase: hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, and hath executed true judgment between man and man: 18:9. Hath walked in my commandments, and kept my judgments, to do truth: he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God. To do truth. . .That is, to act according to truth; for the Hebrews called everything that was just, truth. 18:10. And if he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that hath done some one of these things: 18:11. Though he doth not all these things, but that eateth upon the mountains, and that defileth his neighbour's wife: 18:12. That grieveth the needy and the poor, that taketh away by violence, that restoreth not the pledge, and that lifteth up his eyes to idols, that comitteth abomination: 18:13. That giveth upon usury, and that taketh an increase: shall such a one live? he shall not live. Seeing he hath done all these detestable things, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him. 18:14. But if he beget a son, who, seeing all his father's sins, which he hath done, is afraid, and shall not do the like to them: 18:15. That hath not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and hath not defiled his neighbour's wife: 18:16. And hath not grieved any man, nor withholden the pledge, nor taken away with violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and covered the naked with a garment: 18:17. That hath turned away his hand from injuring the poor, hath not taken usury and increase, but hath executed my judgments, and hath walked in my commandments: this man shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but living he shall live. 18:18. As for his father, because he oppressed and offered violence to his brother, and wrought evil in the midst of his people, behold he is dead in his own iniquity. 18:19. And you say: Why hath not the son borne the iniquity of his father? Verily, because the son hath wrought judgment and justice, hath kept all my commandments, and done them, living, he shall live. 18:20. The soul that sinneth, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. 18:21. But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. 18:22. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live. 18:23. Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? 18:24. But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? all his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die. 18:25. And you have said: The way of the Lord is not right. Hear ye, therefore, O house of Israel: Is it my way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? 18:26. For when the just turneth himself away from his justice, and comitteth iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die. 18:27. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment, and justice: he shall save his soul alive. 18:28. Because he considereth and turneth away himself from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, he shall surely live, and not die. 18:29. And the children of Israel say: The way of the Lord is not right. Are not my ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? 18:30. Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin. 18:31. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel? 18:32. For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live. Ezechiel Chapter 19 The parable of the young lions, and of the vineyard that is wasted. 19:1. Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 19:2. And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions, and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions? Thy mother the lioness. . .Jerusalem. 19:3. And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men. One of her whelps. . .Viz., Joachaz, alias Sellum. 19:4. And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt. 19:5. But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion. One of her young lions. . .Joakim. 19:6. And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men. 19:7. He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring. 19:8. And the nations came together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken. 19:9. And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel. 19:10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters. 19:11. And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches. 19:12. But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her. 19:13. And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry. 19:14. And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation. Ezechiel Chapter 20 God refuses to answer the ancients of Israel inquiring by the prophet: but by him setteth his benefits before their eyes, and their heinous sins: threatening yet greater punishments: but still mixed with mercy. 20:1. And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month: there came men of the ancients of Israel to inquire of the Lord, and they sat before me. 20:2. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 20:3. Son of man, speak to the ancients of Israel and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Are you come to inquire of me? As I live, I will not answer you, saith the Lord God. 20:4. If thou judgest them, if thou judgest, O son of man, declare to them the abominations of their fathers. If thou judgest them. . .Or, if thou wilt enter into the cause and plead against them. 20:5. And say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up my hand for the race of the house of Jacob: and appeared to them in the land of Egypt, and lifted up my hand for them, saying: I am the Lord your God: 20:6. In that day I lifted up my hand for them to bring them out of the land of Egypt, into a land which I had provided for them, flowing with milk and honey, which excelled amongst all lands. 20:7. And I said to them: Let every man cast away the scandals of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Scandals, etc. . .Offensiones. That is, the abominations or idols, to the worship of which they were allured by their eyes. 20:8. But they provoked me, and would not hearken to me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of his eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: and I said I would pour out my indignation upon them, and accomplish my wrath against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. 20:9. But I did otherwise for my name's sake, that it might not be violated before the nations, in the midst of whom they were, and among whom I made myself known to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. 20:10. Therefore I brought them out from the land of Egypt, and brought them into the desert. 20:11. And I gave them my statutes, and I shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. 20:12. Moreover I gave them also my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them: and that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. 20:13. But the house of Israel provoked me in the desert: they walked not in my statutes, and they cast away my judgments, which if a man do he shall live in them: and they grievously violated my sabbaths. I said therefore that I would pour out my indignation upon them in the desert, and would consume them. 20:14. But I spared them for the sake of my name, lest it should be profaned before the nations, from which I brought them out, in their sight. 20:15. So I lifted up my hand over them in the desert, not to bring them into the land which I had given them flowing with milk and honey, the best of all lands. 20:16. Because they cast off my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, and violated my sabbaths: for their heart went after idols. 20:17. Yet my eye spared them, so that I destroyed them not: neither did I consume them in the desert. 20:18. And I said to their children in the wilderness: Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, and observe not their judgments, nor be ye defiled with their idols: 20:19. I am the Lord your God: walk ye in my statutes, and observe my judgments, and do them. 20:20. And sanctify my sabbaths, that they may be a sign between me and you: and that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 20:21. But their children provoked me, they walked not in my commandments, nor observed my judgments to do them: which if a man do, he shall live in them: and they violated my sabbaths: and I threatened to pour out my indignation upon them, and to accomplish my wrath in them in the desert. 20:22. But I turned away my hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it might not be violated before the nations, out of which I brought them forth in their sight. 20:23. Again I lifted up my hand upon them in the wilderness, to disperse them among the nations, and scatter them through the countries: 20:24. Because they had not done my judgments, and had cast off my statutes, and had violated my sabbaths, and their eyes had been after the idols of their fathers. 20:25. Therefore I also gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments, in which they shall not live. Statutes that were not good, etc. . .Viz., the laws and ordinances of their enemies; or those imposes upon them by that cruel tyrant the devil, to whose power they were delivered up for their sins. 20:26. And I polluted them in their own gifts, when they offered all that opened the womb, for their offences: and they shall know that I am the Lord. I polluted them, etc. . .That is, I gave them up to such blindness in punishment of their offences, as to pollute themselves with the blood of all their firstborn, whom they offered up to their idols in compliance with their wicked devices. 20:27. Wherefore speak to the house of Israel, O son of man, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Moreover in this also your fathers blaspheme me, when they had despised and contemned me; 20:28. And I had brought them into the land, for which I lifted up my hand to give it them: they saw every high hill, and every shady tree, and there they sacrificed their victims: and there they presented the provocation of their offerings, and there they set their sweet odours, and poured forth their libations. 20:29. And I said to them: What meaneth the high place to which you go? and the name thereof was called High-place even to this day. 20:30. Wherefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Verily, you are defiled in the way of your fathers, and you commit fornication with their abominations. 20:31. And you defile yourselves with all your idols unto this day, in the offering of your gifts, when you make your children pass through the fire: and shall I answer you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not answer you. 20:32. Neither shall the thought of your mind come to pass, by which you say: We will be as the Gentiles, and as the families of the earth, to worship stocks and stones. 20:33. As I live, saith the Lord God, I will reign over you with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 20:34. And I will bring you out from the people, and I will gather you out of the countries, in which you are scattered, I will reign over you with a strong hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 20:35. And I will bring you into the wilderness of people, and there will I plead with you face to face. The wilderness of people. . .That is, a desert in which there are no people. 20:36. As I pleaded against your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt; even so will I judge you, saith the Lord God. 20:37. And I will make you subject to my sceptre, and will bring you into the bands of the covenant. 20:38. And I will pick out from among you the transgressors, and the wicked, and will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 20:39. And as for you, O house of Israel: thus saith the Lord God: Walk ye every one after your idols, and serve them. But if in this also you hear me not, but defile my holy name any more with your gifts, and with your idols; Walk ye every one, etc. . .It is not an allowance, much less a commandment to serve idols; but a figure of speech, by which God would have them to understand that if they would walk after their idols, they must not pretend to serve him at the same time: for that he would by no means suffer such a mixture of worship. 20:40. In my holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel serve me; all of them I say, in the land in which they shall please me, and there will I require your firstfruits, and the chief of your tithes with all your sanctifications. In my holy mountain, etc. . .The foregoing verse, to make the sense complete, must be understood so as to condemn and reject that mixture of worship which the Jews then followed. In this verse, God promises to the true Israelites, especially to those of the Christian church, that they shall serve him in another manner, in his holy mountain, the spiritual Sion: and shall by accepted of by him. 20:41. I will accept of you for an odour of sweetness, when I shall have brought you out from the people, and shall have gathered you out of the lands into which you are scattered, and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations. 20:42. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have brought you into the land of Israel, into the land for which I lifted up my hand to give it to your fathers. 20:43. And there you shall remember your ways, and all your wicked doings with which you have been defiled; and you shall be displeased with yourselves in your own sight, for all your wicked deeds which you committed. 20:44. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have done well by you for my own name's sake, and not according to your evil ways, nor according to your wicked deeds, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. 20:45. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 20:46. Son of man, set thy face against the way of the south, and drop towards the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field. Of the south. . .Jerusalem lay towards the south of Babylon, (where the prophet then was,) and is here called the forest of the south field, and is threatened with utter desolation. 20:47. And say to the south forest: Hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and will burn in thee every green tree, and every dry tree: the flame of the fire shall not be quenched: and every face shall be burned in it, from the south even to the north. 20:48. And all flesh shall see, that I the Lord have kindled it, and it shall not be quenched. 20:49. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God: they say of me: Doth not this man speak by parables? Ezechiel Chapter 21 The destruction of Jerusalem by the sword is further described: the ruin also of the Ammonites is forshewn. And finally Babylon, the destroyer of others, shall be destroyed. 21:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 21:2. Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and let thy speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel: 21:3. And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in thee the just, and the wicked. 21:4. And forasmuch as I have cut off in thee the just and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, from the south even to the north. 21:5. That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn my sword out of its sheath not to be turned back. 21:6. And thou, son of man, mourn with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before them. 21:7. And when they shall say to thee: Why mournest thou? thou shalt say: For that which I hear: because it cometh, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be made feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and water shall run down every knee: behold it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord God. 21:8. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 21:9. Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Say: The sword, the sword is sharpened, and furbished. 21:10. It is sharpened to kill victims: it is furbished that it may glitter: thou removest the sceptre of my son, thou hast cut down every tree. Thou removest the sceptre of my son. . .He speaks (according to St. Jerome) to the sword of Nabuchodonosor: which was about to remove the sceptre of Israel, whom God here calls his son. 21:11. And I have given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, that it may be in the hand of the slayer. 21:12. Cry, and howl, O son of man, for this sword is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel, that are fled: they are delivered up to the sword with my people, strike therefore upon thy thigh, 21:13. Because it is tried: and that when it shall overthrow the sceptre, and it shall not be, saith the Lord God. 21:14. Thou therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled, and let the sword of the slain be tripled: this is the sword of a great slaughter, that maketh them stand amazed, 21:15. And languish in heart, and that multiplieth ruins. In all their gates I have set the dread of the sharp sword, the sword that is furbished to glitter, that is made ready for slaughter. 21:16. Be thou sharpened, go to the right hand, or to the left, which way soever thou hast a mind to set thy face. 21:17. And I will clap my hands together, and will satisfy my indignation: I the Lord have spoken. 21:18. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 21:19. And thou son of man, set thee two ways, for the sword of the king of Babylon to come: both shall come forth out of one land: and with his hand he shall draw lots, he shall consult at the head of the way of the city. 21:20. Thou shalt make a way that the sword may come to Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and to Juda unto Jerusalem the strong city. 21:21. For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails. 21:22. On his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice in howling, to set engines against the gates, to cast up a mount, to build forts. 21:23. And he shall be in their eyes as one consulting the oracle in vain, and imitating the leisure of sabbaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken. 21:24. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have remembered your iniquity, and have discovered your prevarications, and your sins have appeared in all your devices: because, I say, You have remembered, you shall be taken with the hand. 21:25. But thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come that hath been appointed in the time of iniquity: Thou profane, etc. . .He speaks to king Sedecias, who had broken his oath, and was otherwise a wicked prince. 21:26. Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that hath exalted the low one, and brought down him that was high? Is it not this that hath exalted the low one. . .The royal crown of Juda had exalted Sedecias from a private state and condition to the sovereign power, as the loss of it had brought down Jechonias, etc. 21:27. I will shew it to be iniquity, iniquity, iniquity: but this was not done till he came to whom judgment belongeth, and I will give it him. I will shew it to be iniquity, etc. . .Or, I will overturn it, viz., the crown of Juda for the manifold iniquities of the kings: but it shall not be utterly removed, till Christ come whose right it is: and who shall reign in the spiritual house of Jacob, that is, in his church, for evermore. 21:28. And thou son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and thou shalt say: O sword, O sword, come out of the scabbard to kill, be furbished to destroy, and to glitter, Concerning their reproach. . .By which they had reproached and insulted over the Jews, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. 21:29. Whilst they see vain things in thy regard, and they divine lies: to bring thee upon the necks of the wicked that are wounded, whose appointed day is come in the time of iniquity. 21:30. Return into thy sheath. I will judge thee in the place wherein thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity. Return into thy sheath, etc. . .The sword of Babylon, after raging against many nations, was shortly to be judged and destroyed at home by the Medes and Persians. 21:31. And I will pour out upon thee my indignation: in the fire of my rage will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hands of men that are brutish and contrive thy destruction. 21:32. Thou shalt be fuel for the fire, thy blood shall be in the midst of the land, thou shalt be forgotten: for I the Lord have spoken it. Ezechiel Chapter 22 The general corruption of the inhabitants of Jerusalem: for which God will consume them as dross in his furnace. 22:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 22:2. And thou son of man, dost thou not judge, dost thou not judge the city of blood? 22:3. And thou shalt shew her all her abominations, and shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God: This is the city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come: and that hath made idols against herself, to defile herself. 22:4. Thou art become guilty in thy blood which thou hast shed: and thou art defiled in thy idols which thou hast made: and thou hast made thy days to draw near, and hast brought on the time of thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach to the Gentiles, and a mockery to all countries. 22:5. Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall triumph over thee: thou filthy one, infamous, great in destruction. 22:6. Behold the princes of Israel, every one hath employed his arm in thee to shed blood. 22:7. They have abused father and mother in thee, they have oppressed the stranger in the midst of thee, they have grieved the fatherless and widow in thee. 22:8. Thou hast despised my sanctuaries, and profaned my sabbaths. 22:9. Slanderers have been in thee to shed blood, and they have eaten upon the mountains in thee, they have committed wickedness in the midst of thee. 22:10. They have discovered the nakedness of their father in thee, they have humbled the uncleanness of the menstruous woman in thee. 22:11. And every one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife, and the father in law hath wickedly defiled his daughter in law, the brother hath oppressed his sister the daughter of his father in thee. 22:12. They have taken gifts in thee to shed blood: thou hast taken usury and increase, and hast covetously oppressed thy neighbours: and thou hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God. 22:13. Behold, I have clapped my hands at thy covetousness, which thou hast exercised: and at the blood that hath been shed in the midst of thee. 22:14. Shall thy heart endure, or shall thy hands prevail in the days which I will bring upon thee: I the Lord have spoken, and will do it. 22:15. And I will disperse thee in the nations, and will scatter thee among the countries, and I will put an end to thy uncleanness in thee. 22:16. And I will possess thee in the sight of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 22:17. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 22:18. Son of man, the house of Israel is become dross to me: all these are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace: they are become the dross of silver. 22:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you are all turned into dross, therefore behold I will gather you together in the midst of Jerusalem. 22:20. As they gather silver, and brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: that I may kindle a fire in it to melt it: so will I gather you together in my fury and in my wrath, and will take my rest, and I will melt you down. 22:21. And will gather you together, and will burn you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst thereof. 22:22. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be in the midst thereof: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have poured out my indignation upon you. 22:23. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 22:24. Son of man, say to her: Thou art a land that is unclean, and not rained upon in the day of wrath. 22:25. There is a conspiracy of prophets in the midst thereof: like a lion that roareth and catcheth the prey, they have devoured souls, they have taken riches and hire, they have made many widows in the midst thereof. 22:26. Her priests have despised my law, and have defiled my sanctuaries: they have put no difference between holy and profane: nor have distinguished between the polluted and the clean: and they have turned away their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned in the midst of them. 22:27. Her princes in the midst of her, are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, and to run after gains through covetousness. 22:28. And her prophets have daubed them without tempering the mortar, seeing vain things, and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the Lord God: when the Lord hath not spoken. 22:29. The people of the land have used oppression, and committed robbery: they afflicted the needy and poor, and they oppressed the stranger by calumny without judgment. 22:30. And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge, and stand in the gap before me in favour of the land, that I might not destroy it: and I found none. 22:31. And I poured out my indignation upon them, in the fire of my wrath I consumed them: I have rendered their way upon their own head, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 23 Under the names of the two harlots, Oolla and Ooliba, are described the manifold disloyalties of Samaria and Jerusalem, with the punishment of them both. 23:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 23:2. Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother. 23:3. And they committed fornication in Egypt, in their youth they committed fornication: there were their breasts pressed down, and the teats of their virginity were bruised. Committed fornication. . .That is, idolatry. 23:4. And their names were Oolla the elder, and Ooliba her younger sister: and I took them, and they bore sons and daughters. Now for their names, Samaria is Oolla, and Jerusalem is Ooliba. Oolla and Ooliba. . .God calls the kingdom of Israel Oolla, which signifies their own habitation, because they separated themselves from his temple: and the kingdom of Juda, Ooliba, which signifies his habitation in her, because of his temple among them in Jerusalem. 23:5. And Oolla committed fornication against me, and doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians that came to her, On the Assyraians, etc. . .That is, the idols of the Assyrians: for all that is said in this chapter of the fornications of Israel and Juda, is to be understood in a spiritual sense, of their disloyalty to the Lord, by worshipping strange gods. 23:6. Who were clothed with blue, princes, and rulers, beautiful youths, all horsemen, mounted upon horses. 23:7. And she committed her fornications with those chosen men, all sons of the Assyrians: and she defiled herself with the uncleanness of all them on whom she doted. 23:8. Moreover also she did not forsake her fornications which she had committed in Egypt: for they also lay with her in her youth, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured out their fornication upon her. 23:9. Therefore have I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the sons of the Assyrians, upon whose lust she doted. 23:10. They discovered her disgrace, took away her sons and daughters, and slew her with the sword: and they became infamous women, and they executed judgments in her. 23:11. And when her sister Ooliba saw this, she was mad with lust more than she: and she carried her fornication beyond the fornication of her sister. 23:12. Impudently prostituting herself to the children of the Assyrians, the princes, and rulers that came to her, clothed with divers colours, to the horsemen that rode upon horses, and to young men all of great beauty. 23:13. And I saw that she was defiled, and that they both took one way. 23:14. And she increased her fornications: and when she had seen men painted on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans set forth in colours, 23:15. And girded with girdles about their reins, and with dyed turbans on their heads, the resemblance of all the captains, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, and of the land of the Chaldeans wherein they were born, 23:16. She doted upon them with the lust of her eyes, and she sent messengers to them into Chaldea. 23:17. And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them. 23:18. And she discovered her fornications, and discovered her disgrace: and my soul was alienated from her, as my soul was alienated from her sister. 23:19. For she multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth, in which she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. 23:20. And she was mad with lust after lying with them whose flesh is as the flesh of asses: and whose issue as the issue of horses. 23:21. And thou hast renewed the wickedness of thy youth, when thy breasts were pressed in Egypt, and the paps of thy virginity broken. 23:22. Therefore, Ooliba, thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will raise up against thee all thy lovers with whom thy soul hath been glutted: and I will gather them together against thee round about. 23:23. The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, the nobles, and the kings, and princes, all the sons of the Assyrians, beautiful young men, all the captains, and rulers, the princes of princes, and the renowned horsemen. 23:24. And they shall come upon thee well appointed with chariot and wheel, a multitude of people: they shall be armed against thee on every side with breastplate, and buckler, and helmet: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee by their judgments. 23:25. And I will set my jealousy against thee, which they shall execute upon thee with fury: they shall cut off thy nose and thy ears: and what remains shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons, and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by fire. 23:26. And they shall strip thee of thy garments, and take away the instruments of thy glory. 23:27. And I will put an end to thy wickedness in thee, and thy fornication brought out of the land of Egypt: neither shalt thou lift up thy eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more. 23:28. For thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver thee into the hands of them whom thou hatest, into their hands with whom thy soul hath been glutted. 23:29. And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and they shall take away all thy labours, and shall let thee go naked, and full of disgrace, and the disgrace of thy fornication shall be discovered, thy wickedness, and thy fornications. 23:30. They have done these things to thee, because thou hast played the harlot with the nations among which thou wast defiled with their idols. 23:31. Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister and I will give her cup into thy hand. 23:32. Thus saith the Lord God: Thou shalt drink thy sister's cup, deep and wide: thou shalt be had in derision and scorn, which containeth very much. 23:33. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness, and sorrow: with the cup of grief and sadness, with the cup of thy sister Samaria. 23:34. And thou shalt drink it, and shalt drink it up even to the dregs, and thou shalt devour the fragments thereof, thou shalt rend thy breasts: because I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 23:35. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten me, and hast cast me off behind thy back, bear thou also thy wickedness, and thy fornications. 23:36. And the Lord spoke to me, saying: Son of man, dost thou judge Oolla, and Ooliba, and dost thou declare to them their wicked deeds? 23:37. Because they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and they have committed fornication with their idols: moreover also their children, whom they bore to me, they have offered to them to be devoured. 23:38. Yea, and they have done this to me. They polluted my sanctuary on the same day, and profaned my sabbaths. 23:39. And when they sacrificed their children to their idols, and went into my sanctuary the same day to profane it: they did these things even in the midst of my house. 23:40. They sent for men coming from afar, to whom they had sent a messenger: and behold they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, and didst paint thy eyes, and wast adorned with women's ornaments. 23:41. Thou sattest on a very fine bed, and a table was decked before thee: whereupon thou didst set my incense, and my ointment. 23:42. And there was in her the voice of a multitude rejoicing: and to some that were brought of the multitude of men, and that came from the desert, they put bracelets on their hands, and beautiful crowns on their heads. 23:43. And I said to her that was worn out in her adulteries: Now will this woman still continue in her fornication. 23:44. And they went in to her, as to a harlot: so went they in unto Oolla, and Ooliba, wicked women. 23:45. They therefore are just men: these shall judge them as adulteresses are judged, and as shedders of blood are judged: because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands. 23:46. For thus saith the Lord God: Bring a multitude upon them, and deliver them over to tumult and rapine: 23:47. And let the people stone them with stone, and let them be stabbed with their swords: they shall kill their sons and daughters, and their houses they shall burn with fire. 23:48. And I will take away wickedness out of the land: and all women shall learn, not to do according to the wickedness of them. 23:49. And they shall render your wickedness upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols: and you shall know that I am the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 24 Under the parable of a boiling pot is shewn the utter destruction of Jerusalem: for which the Jews at Babylon shall not dare to mourn. 24:1. And the word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, saying: 24:2. Son of man, write thee the name of this day, on which the king of Babylon hath set himself against Jerusalem to day. 24:3. And thou shalt speak by a figure a parable to the provoking house, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Set on a pot, set it on, I say, and put water in it. 24:4. Heap together into it the pieces thereof, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, choice pieces and full of bones. 24:5. Take the fattest of the flock, and lay together piles of bones under it: the seething thereof is boiling hot, and the bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst of it. 24:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose rust is in it, and its rust is not gone out of it: cast it out piece by piece, there hath no lot fallen upon it. 24:7. For her blood is in the midst of her, she hath shed it upon the smooth rock: she hath not shed it upon the ground, that it might be covered with dust. 24:8. And that I might bring my indignation upon her, and take my vengeance: I have shed her blood upon the smooth rock, that it should not be covered. 24:9. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city, of which I will make a great bonfire. 24:10. Heap together the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be sodden, and the bones shall be consumed. 24:11. Then set it empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the brass thereof may be melted: and let the filth of it be melted in the midst thereof, and let the rust of it be consumed. 24:12. Great pains have been taken, and the great rust thereof is not gone out, not even by fire. 24:13. Thy uncleanness is execrable: because I desired to cleanse thee, and thou art not cleansed from thy filthiness: neither shalt thou be cleansed, before I cause my indignation to rest in thee. 24:14. I the Lord have spoken: it shall come to pass, and I will do it: I will not pass by, nor spare, nor be pacified: I will judge thee according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, saith the Lord. 24:15. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 24:16. Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of thy eyes with a stroke, and thou shall not lament, nor weep; neither shall thy tears run down. 24:17. Sigh in silence, make no mourning for the dead: let the tire of thy head be upon thee, and thy shoes on thy feet, and cover not thy face, nor eat the meat of mourners. 24:18. So I spoke to the people in the morning, and my wife died in the evening: and I did in the morning as he had commanded me. 24:19. And the people said to me: Why dost thou not tell us what these things mean that thou doest? 24:20. And I said to them: The word of the Lord came to me, saying: 24:21. Speak to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will profane my sanctuary, the glory of your realm, and the thing that your eyes desire, and for which your soul feareth: your sons, and your daughters, whom you have left, shall fall by the sword. 24:22. And you shall do as I have done: you shall not cover your faces, nor shall you eat the meat of mourners. 24:23. You shall have crowns on your heads, and shoes on your feet: you shall not lament nor weep, but you shall pine away for your iniquities, and every one shall sigh with his brother. 24:24. And Ezechiel shall be unto you for a sign of things to come: according to all that he hath done, so shall you do, when this shall come to pass: and you shall know that I am the Lord God. 24:25. And thou, O son of man, behold in the day wherein I will take away from them their strength, and the joy of their glory, and the desire of their eyes, upon which their souls rest, their sons and their daughters. 24:26. In that day when he that escapeth shall come to thee, to tell thee: 24:27. In that day, I say, shall thy mouth be opened to him that hath escaped, and thou shalt speak, and shalt be silent no more: and thou shalt be unto them for a sign of things to come, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 25 A prophecy against the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines, for their malice against the Israelites. 25:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 25:2. Son of man, set thy face against the children of Ammon, and thou shalt prophesy of them. 25:3. And thou shalt say to the children of Ammon: Hear ye the word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast said: Ha, ha, upon my sanctuary, because it was profaned: and upon the land of Israel, because it was laid waste: and upon the house of Juda, because they are led into captivity: 25:4. Therefore will I deliver thee to the men of the east for an inheritance, and they shall place their sheepcotes in thee, and shall set up their tents in thee: they shall eat thy fruits: and they shall drink thy milk. 25:5. And I will make Rabbath a stable for camels, and the children of Ammon a couching place for flocks: and you shall know that I am the Lord. Rabbath. . .The capital city of the Ammonites: it was afterwards called Philadelphia. 25:6. For thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast clapped thy hands and stamped with thy foot, and hast rejoiced with all thy heart against the land of Israel: 25:7. Therefore behold I will stretch forth my hand upon thee, and will deliver thee to be the spoil of nations, and will cut thee off from among the people, and destroy thee out of the lands, and break thee in pieces: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 25:8. Thus saith the Lord God: Because Moab and Seir have said: Behold the house of Juda is like all other nations: 25:9. Therefore behold I will open the shoulder of Moab from the cities, from his cities, I say, and his borders, the noble cities of the land of Bethiesimoth, and Beelmeon, and Cariathaim, 25:10. To the people of the east with the children of Ammon, and I will give it them for an inheritance: that there may be no more any remembrance of the children of Ammon among the nations. 25:11. And I will execute judgments in Moab: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 25:12. Thus saith the Lord God: Because Edom hath taken vengeance to revenge herself of the children of Juda, and hath greatly offended, and hath sought revenge of them: 25:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: I will stretch forth my hand upon Edom, and will take away out of it man and beast, and will make it desolate from the south: and they that are in Dedan shall fall by the sword. 25:14. And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to my wrath, and my fury: and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord God. 25:15. Thus saith the Lord God: Because the Philistines have taken vengeance, and have revenged themselves with all their mind, destroying and satisfying old enmities: 25:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will stretch forth my hand upon the Philistines, and will kill the killers, and will destroy the remnant of the sea coast. 25:17. And I will execute great vengeance upon them, rebuking them in fury: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them. Ezechiel Chapter 26 A prophecy of the destruction of the famous city of Tyre by Nabuchodonosor. 26:1. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 26:2. Son of man, because Tyre hath said of Jerusalem: Aha, the gates of the people are broken, she is turned to me: I shall be filled, now she is laid waste. 26:3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, O Tyre, and I will cause many nations to come up to thee, as the waves of the sea rise up. 26:4. And they shall break down the walls of Tyre, and destroy the towers thereof: and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like a smooth rock. 26:5. She shall be a drying place for nets in the midst of the sea, because I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and she shall be a spoil to the nations. 26:6. Her daughters also that are in the field, shall be slain by the sword: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 26:7. For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will bring against Tyre Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, the king of kings, from the north, with horses, and chariots, and horsemen, and companies, and much people. 26:8. Thy daughters that are in the field, he shall kill with the sword: and he shall compass thee with forts, and shall cast up a mount round about: and he shall lift up the buckler against thee. 26:9. And he shall set engines of war and battering rams against thy walls, and shall destroy thy towers with his arms. 26:10. By reason of the multitude of his horses, their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and wheels, and chariots, when they shall go in at thy gates, as by the entrance of a city that is destroyed. 26:11. With the hoofs of his horses he shall tread down all thy streets, thy people he shall kill with the sword, and thy famous statues shall fall to the ground. 26:12. They shall waste thy riches, they shall make a spoil of thy merchandise: and they shall destroy thy walls, and pull down thy fine houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the waters. 26:13. And I will make the multitude of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be heard no more. 26:14. And I will make thee like a naked rock, thou shalt be a drying place for nets, neither shalt thou be built any more: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 26:15. Thus saith the Lord God to Tyre: Shall not the islands shake at the sound of thy fall, and the groans of thy slain when they shall be killed in the midst of thee? 26:16. Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones: and take off their robes, and cast away their broidered garments, and be clothed with astonishment: they shall sit on the ground, and with amazement shall wonder at thy sudden fall. 26:17. And taking up a lamentation over thee, they shall say to thee: How art thou fallen, that dwellest in the sea, renowned city that wast strong in the sea, with thy inhabitants whom all did dread? 26:18. Now shall the ships be astonished in the day of thy terror: and the islands in the sea shall be troubled because no one cometh out of thee. 26:19. For thus saith the Lord God: When I shall make thee a desolate city like the cities that are not inhabited: and shall bring the deep upon thee, and many waters shall cover thee: 26:20. And when I shall bring thee down with those that descend into the pit to the everlasting people, and shall set thee in the lowest parts of the earth, as places desolate of old, with them that are brought down into the pit, that thou be not inhabited: and when I shall give glory in the land of the living, 26:21. I will bring thee to nothing, and thou shalt not be, and if thou be sought for, thou shalt not be found any more for ever, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 27 A description of the glory and riches of Tyre: and of her irrecoverable fall. 27:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 27:2. Thou therefore, O son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre: 27:3. And say to Tyre that dwelleth at the entry of the sea, being the mart of the people for many islands: Thus saith the Lord God: O Tyre, thou hast said: I am of perfect beauty, 27:4. And situate in the heart of the sea. Thy neighbours, that built thee, have perfected thy beauty: 27:5. With fir trees of Sanir they have built thee with all sea planks: they have taken cedars from Libanus to make thee masts. Sea planks. . .That is, timber brought by sea to build the city. 27:6. They have cut thy oars out of the oaks of Basan: and they have made thee benches of Indian ivory and cabins with things brought from the islands of Italy. 27:7. Fine broidered linen from Egypt was woven for thy sail, to be spread on thy mast: blue and purple from the islands of Elisa, were made thy covering. 27:8. The inhabitants of Sidon, and the Arabians were thy rowers: thy wise men, O Tyre, were thy pilots. 27:9. The ancients of Gebal, and the wise men thereof furnished mariners for the service of thy various furniture: all the ships of the sea, and their mariners were thy factors. 27:10. The Persians, and Lydians, and the Libyans were thy soldiers in thy army: they hung up the buckler and the helmet in thee for thy ornament. 27:11. The men of Arad were with thy army upon thy walls round about: the Pygmeans also that were in thy towers, hung up their quivers on thy walls round about: they perfected thy beauty. Pygmeans. . .That is, strong and valiant men. In Hebrew, Gammadim. 27:12. The Carthaginians thy merchants supplied thy fairs with a multitude of all kinds of riches, with silver, iron, tin, and lead, 27:13. Greece, Thubal, and Mosoch, they were thy merchants, they brought to thy people slaves and vessels of brass. 27:14. From the house of Thogorma they brought horses, and horsemen, and mules to thy market. 27:15. The men of Dedan were thy merchants: many islands were the traffic of thy hand, they exchanged for thy price teeth of ivory and ebony. 27:16. The Syrian was thy merchant: by reason of the multitude of thy works, they set forth precious stories, and purple, and broidered works, and fine linen, and silk, and chodchod in thy market. Chodchod. . .It is the Hebrew name for some precious stone; but of what kind in particular interpreters are not agreed. 27:17. Juda and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants with the best corn: they set forth balm, and honey, and oil and rosin in thy fairs. 27:18. The men of Damascus were thy merchants in the multitude of thy works, the multitude of divers riches, in rich wine, in wool of the best colour. 27:19. Dan, and Greece, and Mosel have set forth in thy marts wrought iron: stacte, and calamus were in thy market. 27:20. The men of Dedan were thy merchants in tapestry for seats. 27:21. Arabia, and all the princes of Cedar, they were the merchants of thy hand: thy merchants came to thee with lambs, and rams, and kids. 27:22. The sellers of Saba, and Reema, they were thy merchants: with all the best spices, and precious stones, and gold, which they set forth in thy market. 27:23. Haran, and Chene, and Eden were thy merchants; Saba, Assur, and Chelmad sold to thee. 27:24. They were thy merchants in divers manners, with bales of blue cloth, and of embroidered work, and of precious riches, which were wrapped up and bound with cords: they had cedars also in thy merchandise. 27:25. The ships of the sea, were thy chief in thy merchandise: and thou wast replenished, and glorified exceedingly in the heart of the sea. 27:26. Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the south wind hath broken thee in the heart of the sea. 27:27. Thy riches, and thy treasures, and thy manifold furniture, thy mariners, and thy pilots, who kept thy goods, and were chief over thy people: thy men of war also, that were in thee, with all thy multitude that is in the midst of thee: shall fall in the heart of the sea in the day of thy ruin. 27:28. Thy fleets shall be troubled at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. 27:29. And all that handled the oar shall come down from their ships: the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea shall stand upon the land: 27:30. And they shall mourn over thee with a loud voice and shall cry bitterly: and they shall cast up dust upon their heads and shall be sprinkled with ashes. 27:31. And they shall shave themselves bald for thee, and shall be girded with haircloth: and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of soul, with most bitter weeping. 27:32. And they shall take up a mournful song for thee, and shall lament thee: What city is like Tyre, which is become silent in the midst of the sea? 27:33. Which by thy merchandise that went from thee by sea didst fill many people: which by the multitude of thy riches, and of thy people didst enrich the kings of the earth. 27:34. Now thou art destroyed by the sea, thy riches are in the bottom of the waters, and all the multitude that was in the midst of thee is fallen. 27:35. All the inhabitants of the islands are astonished at thee: and all their kings being struck with the storm have changed their countenance. 27:36. The merchants of people have hissed at thee: thou art brought to nothing, and thou shalt never be any more. Ezechiel Chapter 28 The king of Tyre, who affected to be like to God, shall fall under the like sentence with Lucifer. The judgment of Sidon. The restoration of Israel. 28:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 28:2. Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am God, and I sit in the chair of God in the heart of the sea: whereas thou art a man, and not God: and hast set thy heart as if it were the heart of God. 28:3. Behold thou art wiser than Daniel: no secret is hid from thee. Thou art wiser than Daniel. . .Viz., in thy own conceit. The wisdom of Daniel was so much celebrated in his days, that it became a proverb amongst the Chaldeans, when any one would express an extraordinary wisdom, to say he was as wise as Daniel. 28:4. In thy wisdom and thy understanding thou hast made thyself strong: and hast gotten gold an silver into thy treasures. 28:5. By the greatness of thy wisdom, and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy strength: and thy heart is lifted up with thy strength. 28:6. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up as the heart of God: 28:7. Therefore behold, I will bring upon thee strangers: the strongest of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy beauty. 28:8. They shall kill thee, and bring thee down: and thou shalt die the death of them that are slain in the heart of the sea. 28:9. Wilt thou yet say before them that slay thee: I am God; whereas thou art a man, and not God, in the hand of them that slay thee? 28:10. Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 28:11. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre: 28:12. And say to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast the seal of resemblance. . .The king of Tyre, by his dignity and his natural perfections, bore in himself a certain resemblance to God, by reason of which he might be called the seal of resemblance, etc. But what is here said to him is commonly understood of Lucifer, the king over all the children of pride. 28:13. Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God: every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald: gold the work of thy beauty: and thy pipes were prepared in the day that thou wast created. 28:14. Thou a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked in the midst of the stones of fire. A cherub stretched out. . .That is, thy wings extended. This alludes to the figure of the cherubims in the sanctuary, which with stretched out wings covered the ark.--Ibid. The stones of fire. . .That is, bright and precious stones which sparkle like fire. 28:15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee. 28:16. By the multitude of thy merchandise, thy inner parts were filled with iniquity, and thou hast sinned: and I cast thee out from the mountain of God, and destroyed thee, O covering cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire. 28:17. And thy heart was lifted up with thy beauty: thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty, I have cast thee to the ground: I have set thee before the face of kings, that they might behold thee. 28:18. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities, and by the iniquity of thy traffic: therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, to devour thee, and I will make thee as ashes upon the earth in the sight of all that see thee. 28:19. All that shall see thee among the nations, shall be astonished at thee: thou art brought to nothing, and thou shalt never be any more. 28:20. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 28:21. Son of man, set thy face against Sidon: and thou shalt prophesy of it, 28:22. And shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall execute judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her. 28:23. And I will send into her pestilence, and blood in her streets: and they shall fall being slain by the sword on all sides in the midst thereof: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 28:24. And the house of Israel shall have no more a stumblingblock of bitterness, nor a thorn causing pain on every side round about them, of them that are against them: and they shall know that I am the Lord God. 28:25. Thus saith the Lord God: When I shall have gathered together the house of Israel out of the people among whom they are scattered: I will be sanctified in them before the Gentiles: and they shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. 28:26. And they shall dwell therein secure, and they shall build houses, and shall plant vineyards, and shall dwell with confidence, when I shall have executed judgments upon all that are their enemies round about: and they shall know that I am the Lord their God. Ezechiel Chapter 29 The king of Egypt shall be overthrown, and his kingdom wasted: it shall be given to Nabuchodonosor for his service against Tyre. 29:1. In the tenth year, the tenth month, the eleventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 29:2. Son of man, set thy face against Pharao king of Egypt: and thou shalt prophesy of him, and of all Egypt: 29:3. Speak, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, Pharao king of Egypt, thou great dragon that liest in the midst of thy rivers, and sayest: The river is mine, and I made myself. 29:4. But I will put a bridle in thy jaws: and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick to thy scales: and I will draw thee out of the midst of thy rivers, and all thy fish shall stick to thy scales. 29:5. And I will cast thee forth into the desert, and all the fish of thy river: thou shalt fall upon the face of the earth, thou shalt not be taken up, nor gathered together: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the air. 29:6. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord: because thou hast been a staff of a reed to the house of Israel. 29:7. When they took hold of thee with the hand thou didst break, and rent all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brokest, and weakenest all their loins. 29:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring the sword upon thee: and cut off man and beast out of thee. 29:9. And the land of Egypt shall become a desert, and a wilderness: and they shall know that I am the Lord, because thou hast said: The river is mine, and I made it. 29:10. Therefore, behold I come against thee, and thy rivers: and I will make the land of Egypt utterly desolate, and wasted by the sword, from the tower of Syene, even to the borders of Ethiopia. 29:11. The foot of man shall not pass through it, neither shall the foot of beasts go through it: nor shall it be inhabited during forty years. 29:12. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the lands that are desolate, and the cities thereof in the midst of the cites that are destroyed, and they shall be desolate for forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries. 29:13. For thus saith the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the people among whom they had been scattered. 29:14. And I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will place them in the land of Phatures, in the land of their nativity, and they shall be there a low kingdom: 29:15. It shall be the lowest among other kingdoms, and it shall no more be exalted over the nations, and I will diminish them that they shall rule no more over the nations. 29:16. And they shall be no more a confidence to the house of Israel, teaching iniquity, that they may flee, and follow them: and they shall know that I am the Lord God. 29:17. And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year in the first month, in the first of the month: that the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 29:18. Son of man, Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath made his army to undergo hard service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled and there hath been no reward given him, nor his army for Tyre, for the service that he rendered me against it. 29:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will set Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon in the land of Egypt: and he shall take her multitude, and take the booty thereof for a prey, and rifle the spoils thereof: and it shall be wages for his army. 29:20. And for the service that he hath done me against it: I have given him the land of Egypt, because he hath laboured for me, saith the Lord God. 29:21. In that day a horn shall bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give thee an open mouth in the midst of them: and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 30 The desolation of Egypt and her helpers: all her cities shall be wasted. 30:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 30:2. Son of man prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Howl ye, Woe, woe to the day: 30:3. For the day is near, yea the day of the Lord is near: a cloudy day, it shall be the time of the nations. 30:4. And the sword shall come upon Egypt: and there shall be dread in Ethiopia, when the wounded shall fall in Egypt, and the multitude thereof shall be taken away, and the foundations thereof shall be destroyed. 30:5. Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the rest of the crowd, and Chub, and the children of the land of the covenant, shall fall with them by the sword. 30:6. Thus saith the Lord God: They also that uphold Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her empire shall be brought down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord the God of hosts. 30:7. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the lands that are desolate, and the cities thereof shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. 30:8. And they shall know that I am the Lord: when I shall have set a fire in Egypt, and all the helpers thereof shall be destroyed. 30:9. In that day shall messengers go forth from my face in ships to destroy the confidence of Ethiopia, and there shall be dread among them in the day of Egypt: because it shall certainly come. 30:10. Thus saith the Lord God: I will make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon. 30:11. He and his people with him, the strongest of nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords upon Egypt: and shall fill the land with the slain. 30:12. And I will make the channels of the rivers dry, and will deliver the land into the hand of the wicked: and will lay waste the land and all that is therein by the hands of strangers, I the Lord have spoken it. 30:13. Thus saith the Lord God: I will also destroy the idols, and I will make an end of the idols of Memphis: and there shall: be no more a prince of the land of Egypt and I will cause a terror in the land of Egypt. 30:14. And I will destroy the land of Phatures, and will make a fire in Taphnis, and will execute judgments in Alexandria. Alexandria. . .In the Hebrew, No: which was the ancient name of that city, which was afterwards rebuilt by Alexander the Great, and from his name called Alexandria. 30:15. And I will pour out my indignation upon Pelusium the strength of Egypt, and will cut off the multitude of Alexandria. 30:16. And I will make a fire in Egypt: Pelusium shall be in pain like a woman in labour, and Alexandria shall be laid waste, and in Memphis there shall be daily distresses. 30:17. The young men of Heliopolis, and of Bubastus shall fall by the sword, and they themselves shall go into captivity. 30:18. And in Taphnis the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the sceptres of Egypt, and the pride of her power shall cease in her: a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall be led into captivity. 30:19. And I will execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 30:20. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, that the word of the Lord came, me, saying: 30:21. Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharao king of Egypt: and behold it is not bound up, to be healed, to be tied up with clothes, and swathed with linen, that it might recover strength, and hold the sword. 30:22. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against Pharao king of Egypt, and I will break into pieces his strong arm, which is already broken: and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand: 30:23. And I will disperse Egypt among the nations, and scatter them through the countries. 30:24. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and will put my sword in his hand: and I will break the arms of Pharao, and they shall groan bitterly being slain before his face. 30:25. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharao shall fall: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have given my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall have stretched it forth upon the land of Egypt. 30:26. And I will disperse Egypt among the nations, and will scatter them through the countries, and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 31 The Assyrian empire fell for their pride: the Egyptian shall fall in like manner. 31:1. And it came to pass, in the eleventh year, the third month the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 31:2. Son of man, speak to Pharao king of Egypt, and to his people: To whom art thou like in thy greatness? 31:3. Behold, the Assyrian like a cedar in Libanus, with fair branches, and full of leaves, of a high stature, and his top was elevated among the thick boughs. 31:4. The waters nourished him, the deep set him tip on high, the streams thereof ran round about his roots, and it sent, forth its rivulets to all the trees of the country. 31:5. Therefore was his height exalted above all the trees of the country and his branches were multiplied, and his boughs were elevated because of many waters. 31:6. And when he had spread forth his shadow, all the fowls of the air made their nests in his boughs, and all the beasts of the forest brought forth their young under his branches, and the assembly of many nations dwelt under his shadow. 31:7. And he was most beautiful for his greatness, and for the spreading of his branches: for his root was near great waters. 31:8. The cedars in the paradise of God were not higher than he, the fir trees did not equal his top, neither were the plane trees to be compared with him for branches: no tree in the paradise of God was like him in his beauty. 31:9. For I made him beautiful and thick set with many branches: and all the trees of pleasure, that were in the paradise of God, envied him. 31:10. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because he was exalted in height, and shot up his top green and thick, and his heart was lifted up in his height: 31:11. I have delivered him into the hands of the mighty one of the nations, he shall deal with him: I have cast him out according to his wickedness. I have delivered. . .Here the time past is put for the future, i. e., I shall deliver.--Ibid. The mighty one, etc. . .Viz., Nabuchodonosor, who conquered both the Assyrians and Egyptians. 31:12. And strangers, and the most cruel of the nations shall cut him down, and cast him away upon the mountains, and his boughs shall fall in every valley, and his branches shall be broken on every rock of the country: and all the people of the earth shall depart from his shadow, and leave him. 31:13. All the fowls of the air dwelt upon his ruins, and all the beasts of the field were among his branches. 31:14. For which cause none of the trees by the waters shall exalt themselves for their height: nor shoot up their tops among the thick branches and leaves, neither shall any of them that are watered stand up in their height: for they are all delivered unto death to the lowest parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down into the pit. 31:15. Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when he went down to hell, I brought in mourning, I covered him with the deep: and I withheld its rivers, and restrained the many waters: Libanus grieved for him, and all the trees of the field trembled. 31:16. I shook the nations with the sound of his fall, when I brought him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of pleasure, the choice and best in Libanus, all that were moistened with waters, were comforted in the lowest parts of the earth. 31:17. For they also shall go down with him to hell to them that are slain by the sword; and the arm of every one shall sit down under his shadow in the midst of the nations. 31:18. To whom art thou like, O thou that art famous and lofty among the trees of pleasure? Behold, thou art brought down with the trees of pleasure to the lowest parts of the earth: thou shalt sleep in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword: this is Pharao, and all his multitude, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 32 The prophet's lamentation for the king of Egypt. 32:1. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 32:2. Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharao the king of Egypt, and say to him: Thou art like the lion of the nations, and the dragon that is in the sea: and thou didst push with the horn in thy rivers, and didst trouble the waters with thy feet, and didst trample upon their streams. 32:3. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: I will spread out my net over thee with the multitude of many people, and I will draw thee up in my net. 32:4. And I will throw thee out on the land, I will cast thee away into the open field and I will cause all the fowls of the air to dwell upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of all the earth with thee. 32:5. And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and will fill thy hills with thy corruption, 32:6. And I will water the earth with thy stinking blood upon the mountains, and the valleys shall be filled with thee. 32:7. And I will cover the heavens, when thou shalt be put out, and I will make the stars thereof dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. 32:8. I will make all the lights of heaven to mourn over thee and I will cause darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God, when thy wounded shall fall in the midst of the land, saith the Lord God. 32:9. And I shall provoke to anger the heart of many people, when I shall have brought in thy destruction among the nations upon the lands, which thou knowest not. 32:10. And I will make many people to be amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when my sword shall begin to fly upon their faces: and they shall be astonished on a sudden, every one for his own life, in the day of their ruin. 32:11. For thus saith the Lord God: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee, 32:12. By the swords of the mighty I will overthrow thy multitude: all these nations are invincible: and they shall waste the pride of Egypt, and the multitude thereof shall be destroyed. 32:13. I will destroy also all the beasts thereof that were beside the great waters: and the foot of man shall trouble them no more, neither shall the hoof of beasts trouble them. 32:14. Then will I make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord God: 32:15. When I shall have made the land of Egypt desolate: and the land shall be destitute of her fulness, when I shall have struck all the inhabitants thereof and they shall know that I am the Lord. 32:16. This is the lamentation, and they shall lament therewith: the daughters of the nations shall lament therewith for Egypt, and for the multitude thereof they shall lament therewith, saith the Lord God. 32:17. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me saying: 32:18. Son of man, sing a mournful song for the multitude of Egypt: and cast her down, both her, and the daughters of the mighty nations to the lowest part of the earth, with them that go down into the pit. 32:19. Whom dost thou excel in beauty? go down and sleep with the uncircumcised. 32:20. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain with the sword: the sword is given, they have drawn her down, and all her people. 32:21. The most mighty among the strong ones shall speak to him from the midst of hell, they that went down with his helpers and slept uncircumcised, slain by the sword. 32:22. Assur is there, and all his multitude: their graves are round about him, all of them slain, and that fell by the sword. 32:23. Whose graves are set in the lowest parts of the pit: and his multitude lay round about his grave: all of them slain, and fallen by the sword, they that heretofore spread terror in the land of the living. 32:24. There is Elam and all his multitude round about his grave, all of them slain, and fallen by the sword; that went down uncircumcised to the lowest parts of the earth: that caused their terror in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with them that go down into the pit. 32:25. In the midst of the slain they have set him a bed among all his people: their graves are round about him: all these are uncircumcised, and slain by the sword: for they spread their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with them that descend into the pit: they are laid in the midst of the slain. 32:26. There is Mosoch, and Thubal, and all their multitude: their graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised and slain, and fallen by the sword: though they spread their terror in the land of the living. 32:27. And they shall not sleep with the brave, and with them that fell uncircumcised, that went down to hell with their weapons, and laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities were in their bones, because they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. 32:28. So thou also shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt sleep with them that are slain by the sword. 32:29. There is Edom, and her kings, and all her princes, who with their army are joined with them that are slain by the sword: and have slept with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down into the pit. 32:30. There are all the princes of the north, and all the hunters: who were brought down with the slain, fearing, and confounded in their strength: who slept uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword, and have borne their shame with them that go down into the pit. 32:31. Pharao saw them, and he was comforted concerning all his multitude, which was slain by the sword: Pharao, and all his army, saith the Lord God: 32:32. Because I have spread my terror in the land of the living, and he hath slept in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword: Pharao and all his multitude, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 33 The duty of the watchman appointed by God: the justice of God's ways: his judgments upon the Jews. 33:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 33:2. Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say to them: When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man, one of their meanest, and make him a watchman over them: 33:3. And he sees the sword coming upon the land, and sound the trumpet, and tell the people: 33:4. Then he that heareth the sound of the trumpet, whosoever he be, and doth not look to himself, if the sword come, and cut him off: his blood shall be upon his own head. 33:5. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and did not look to himself, his blood shall be upon him: but if he look to himself, he shall save his life. 33:6. And if the watchman see the sword coming, and sound not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves, and the sword come, and cut off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman. 33:7. So thou, O son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: therefore thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me. 33:8. When I say to the wicked: O wicked man, thou shalt surely die: if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked man from his way: that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand. 33:9. But if thou tell the wicked man, that he may be converted from his ways, and he be not converted from his way he shall die in his iniquity: but thou hast delivered thy soul. 33:10. Thou therefore, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: Thus you have spoken, saying: Our iniquities, and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them: how then can we live? 33:11. Say to them: As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: and why will you die, O house of Israel? 33:12. Thou therefore, O son of man, say to the children of thy people: The justice of the just shall not deliver him, in what day soever he shall sin: and the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him, in what day soever he shall turn from his wickedness: and the just shall not be able to live in his justice, in what day soever he shall sin. 33:13. Yea, if I shall say to the just that he shall surely live, and he, trusting in his justice, commit iniquity: all his justices shall be forgotten, and his iniquity, which he hath committed, in the same shall he die. 33:14. And it I shall say to the wicked: Thou shalt surely die: and he do penance for his sin, and do judgment and justice, 33:15. And if that wicked man restore the pledge, and render what he had robbed, and walk in the commandments of life, and do no unjust thing: he shall surely live, and shall not die. 33:16. None of his sins, which he hath committed, shall be imputed to him: he hath done judgment and justice, he shall surely live. 33:17. And the children of thy people have said: The way of the Lord is not equitable: whereas their own way is unjust. 33:18. For when the just shall depart from his justice, and commit iniquities, he shall die in them. 33:19. And when the wicked shall depart from his wickedness, and shall do judgments, and justice, he shall live in them. 33:20. And you say: The way of the Lord is not right, I will judge every one of you according to his ways, O house of Israel. 33:21. And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that there came to me one that was fled from Jerusalem, saying: The city is laid waste. 33:22. And the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening, before he that was fled came: and he opened my mouth till he came to me in the morning, and my mouth being opened, I was silent no more. 33:23. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 33:24. Son of man, they that dwell in these ruinous places in the land of Israel, speak, saying: Abraham was one, and he inherited the land, but we are many, the land is given us in possession. 33:25. Therefore say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: You that eat with the blood and lift up your eyes to your uncleannesses, and that shed blood: shall you possess the land by inheritance? 33:26. You stood on your swords, you have committed abominations, and every one hath defiled his neighbours wife; and shall you possess the land by inheritance? 33:27. Say thou thus to them: Thus saith the Lord God: As I live, they that dwell in the ruinous places, shall fall by the sword: and he that is in the field, shall be given to the beasts to be devoured: and they that are in holds, and caves, shall die of the pestilence. 33:28. And I will make the land a wilderness, and a desert, and the proud strength thereof shall fail, and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, because there is none to pass by them, 33:29. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have made their land waste and desolate, for all their abominations which they have committed. 33:30. And thou son of man: the children of thy people, that talk of thee by the walls, and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another each man to his neighbour, saying: Come, and let us hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. 33:31. And they come to thee, as if people were coming in, and my people sit before thee: and hear thy words, and do them not: for they turn them into a song of their mouth, and their heart goeth after their covetousness. 33:32. And thou art to them as a musical song which is sung with a sweet and agreeable voice: and they hear thy words, and do them not. 33:33. And when that which was foretold shall come to pass, for behold it is coming, then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them. Ezechiel Chapter 34 Evil pastors are reproved. Christ the true pastor shall come, and gather together his flock from all parts of the earth, and preserve it for ever. 34:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, it saying: 34:2. Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to the shepherds: Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the shepherds of Israel, that fed themselves: should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? Shepherds. . .That is, princes, magistrates, chief priests, and scribes. 34:3. You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but my flock you did not feed. 34:4. The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost: but you ruled over them with rigour, and with a high hand. 34:5. And my sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. 34:6. My sheep have wandered in every mountain, and in every high hill: and my flocks were scattered upon the face of the earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them. 34:7. Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 34:8. As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as my flocks have been made a spoil, and my sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd: for my shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flocks: 34:9. Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 34:10. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more: and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them. 34:11. For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them. 34:12. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. 34:13. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land. 34:14. I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. 34:15. I will feed my sheep: and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. 34:16. I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve, and I will feed them in judgment. 34:17. And as for you, O my flocks, thus saith the Lord God: Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, of rams and of he goats. 34:18. Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures? but you must also tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures: and when you drank the clearest water, you troubled the rest with your feet. 34:19. And my sheep were fed with that which you had trodden with your feet: and they drank what your feet had troubled. 34:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God to you: Behold, I myself will judge between the fat cattle and the lean. 34:21. Because you thrusted with sides and shoulders, and struck all the weak cattle with your horns, till they were scattered abroad: 34:22. I will save my flock, and it shall be no more a spoil, and I will judge between cattle and cattle. 34:23. And I WILL SET UP ONE SHEPHERD OVER THEM, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. David. . .Christ, who is of the house of David. 34:24. And I the Lord will be their God: and my servant David the prince in the midst of them: I the Lord have spoken it. 34:25. And I will make a covenant of peace with them, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they that dwell in the wilderness shall sleep secure in the forests. 34:26. And I will make them a blessing round about my hill: and I will send down the rain in its season, there shall be showers of blessing. 34:27. And the tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be in their land without fear: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have broken the bonds of their yoke, and shall have delivered them out of the hand of those that rule over them. 34:28. And they shall be no more for a spoil to the nations, neither shall the beasts of the earth devour them: but they shall dwell securely without, any terror. 34:29. And I will raise up for them a bud of renown: and they shall be no more consumed with famine in the land, neither shall they bear any more the reproach of the Gentiles. A bud of renown. . .Germen nominatum. He speaks of Christ our Lord, the illustrious bud of the house of David, renowned over all the earth. See Jer. 33.15. 34:30. And they shall know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they are my people the house of Israel: saith the Lord God. 34:31. And you my flocks, the flocks of my pasture are men: and I am the Lord your God, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 35 The judgment of mount Seir, for their hatred of Israel. 35:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 35:2. Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy concerning it, and say to it: 35:3. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, mount Seir, and I will stretch forth my hand upon thee, and I will make thee desolate and waste. 35:4. I will destroy thy cities, and thou shalt be desolate: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 35:5. Because thou hast been an everlasting enemy, and hast shut up the children of Israel in the hands of the sword in the time of their affliction, in the time of their last iniquity. 35:6. Therefore as I live, saith the Lord God, I will deliver thee up to blood, and blood shall pursue thee: and whereas thou hast hated blood, blood shall pursue thee. 35:7. And I will make mount Seir waste and desolate: and I will take away from it him that goeth and him that returneth. 35:8. And I will fill his mountains with his men that are slain: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in thy torrents they shall fall that are slain with the sword. 35:9. I will make thee everlasting desolations, and thy cities shall not be inhabited: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord God. 35:10. Because thou hast said: The two nations, and the two lands shall be mine, and I will possess them by inheritance: whereas the Lord was there. 35:11. Therefore as I live, saith the Lord God, I will do according to thy wrath, and according to thy envy, which thou hast exercised in hatred to them: and I will be made known by them, when I shall have judged thee. 35:12. And thou shalt know that I the Lord have heard all thy reproaches, that thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying. They are desolate, they are given to us to consume. 35:13. And you rose up against me with your mouth, and have derogated from me by your words: I have heard them. 35:14. Thus saith the Lord God: When the whole earth shall rejoice, I will make thee a wilderness. 35:15. As thou hast rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was laid waste, so will I do to thee: thou shalt be laid waste, O mount Seir, and all Idumea: and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 36 The restoration of Israel, not for their merits, but by God's special grace. Christ's baptism. 36:1. And thou son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say: Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord: 36:2. Thus saith the Lord God: Because the enemy hath said to you: Aha, the everlasting heights are given to us for an inheritance. 36:3. Therefore prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Because you have been desolate, and trodden under foot on every side, and made an inheritance to the rest of the nations, and are become the subject of the talk, and the reproach of the people: 36:4. Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the brooks, and to the valleys, and to desolate places, and ruinous walls, and to the cities that are forsaken, that are spoiled, and derided by the rest of the nations round about. 36:5. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: In the fire of my zeal I have spoken of the rest of the nations, and of all Edom, who have taken my land to themselves, for an inheritance with joy, and with all the heart, and with the mind: and have cast it out to lay it waste. 36:6. Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, and to the hills, to the ridges, and to the valleys: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I have spoken in my zeal, and in my indignation, because you have borne the shame of the Gentiles. 36:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: I have lifted up my hand, that the Gentiles who are round about you, shall themselves bear their shame. 36:8. But as for you, O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel: for they are at hand to come. 36:9. For I, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be ploughed and sown. 36:10. And I will multiply men upon you, and all the house of Israel: and the cities ball be inhabited, and the ruinous places shall be repaired. 36:11. And I will make you abound with men and with beasts: and they shall be multiplied, and increased: and I will settle you as from the beginning, and will give you greater gifts, than you had from the beginning: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 36:12. And I will bring men upon you, my people Israel, and they shall possess thee for their inheritance: and thou shalt be their inheritance, and shalt no more henceforth be without them. 36:13. Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy say of you: Thou art a devourer of men, and one that suffocatest thy nation: 36:14. Therefore thou shalt devour men no more nor destroy thy nation any more, saith the Lord God. 36:15. Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the nations any more, nor shalt thou bear the reproach of the people, nor lose thy nation any more, saith the Lord God. Nor lose thy nation any more. . .This whole promise principally relates to the church of Christ, and God's perpetual protection of her: for as the carnal Jews, they have been removed out of their land these sixteen hundred years. 36:16. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 36:17. Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it with their ways, and with their doings: their way was before me like the uncleanness of a menstruous woman. 36:18. And I poured out my indignation upon them for the blood which they had shed upon the land, and with their idols they defiled it. 36:19. And I scattered them among the nations, and they are dispersed through the countries: I have judged them according to their ways, and their devices. 36:20. And when they entered among the nations whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when it was said of them: This is the people of the Lord, and they are come forth out of his land. 36:21. And I have regarded my own holy name, which the house of Israel hath profaned among the nations to which they went in. 36:22. Therefore thou shalt say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: It is not for your sake that I will do this, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations whither you went. 36:23. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the Gentiles, which you have profaned in the midst of them: that the Gentiles may know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord of hosts, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. 36:24. For I will take you from among the Gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. 36:25. And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols. 36:26. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. 36:27. And I will put my spirit in the midst of you: and I will cause you to walk in my commandments, and to keep my judgments, and do them. 36:28. And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 36:29. And I will save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for corn, and will multiply it, and will lay no famine upon you. 36:30. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that you bear no more the reproach of famine among the nations. 36:31. And you shall remember your wicked ways, and your doings that were not good: and your iniquities, and your wicked deeds shall displease you. 36:32. It is not for your sakes that I will do this, saith the Lord God, be it known to you: be confounded, and ashamed at your own ways, O house of Israel. 36:33. Thus saith the Lord God: In the day that I shall cleanse you from all your iniquities, and shall cause the cities to be inhabited, and shall repair the ruinous places, 36:34. And the desolate land shall be tilled, which before was waste in the sight of all that passed by, 36:35. They shall say: This land that was untilled is become as a garden of pleasure: and the cities that were abandoned, and desolate, and destroyed, are peopled and fenced. 36:36. And the nations, that shall be left round about you, shall know that I the Lord have built up what was destroyed, and planted what was desolate, that I the Lord have spoken and done it. 36:37. Thus saith the Lord God: Moreover in this shall the house of Israel find me, that I will do it for them: I will multiply them as a flock of men, 36:38. As a holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts: so shall the waste cities be full of flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 37 A vision of the resurrection of dry bones, foreshewing the deliverance of the people from their captivity. Juda and Israel shall be all one kingdom under Christ. God's everlasting covenant with the church. 37:1. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me forth in the spirit of the Lord: and set me down in the midst of a plain that was full of bones. 37:2. And he led me about through them on every side: now they were very many upon the face of the plain, and they were exceeding dry. 37:3. And he said to me: Son of man, dost thou think these bones shall live and I answered: O Lord God, thou knowest. 37:4. And he said to me: Prophesy concerning these bones; and say to them: Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 37:5. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live. Spirit. . .That is, soul, life, and breath. 37:6. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you with skin: and I will give you spirit and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. 37:7. And I prophesied as he had commanded me: and as I prophesied there was a noise, and behold a commotion: and the bones came together, each one, its joint. 37:8. And I saw, and behold the sinews, and the flesh came up upon them: and the skin was stretched out over them, but there was no spirit in them. 37:9. And he said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus saith the Lord God: Come, spirit, from the four winds, and blow upon these slain, and let them live again. 37:10. And I prophesied as he had commanded me: and the spirit came into them, and they lived: and they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 37:11. And he said to me: Son of man: All these bones are the house of Israel: they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off. 37:12. Therefore prophesy, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people: and will bring you into the land of Israel. 37:13. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have opened your sepulchres, and shall have brought you out of your graves, O my people: 37:14. And shall have put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall make you rest upon your own land: and you shall know that I the Lord have spoken, and done it, saith the Lord God: 37:15. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 37:16. And thou son of man, take thee a stick: and write upon it: Of Juda, and of the children of Israel his associates: and take another stick and write upon it: For Joseph the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, and of his associates. 37:17. And join them one to the other into one stick, and they shall become one in thy hand. 37:18. And when the children of thy people shall speak to thee, saying: Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by this? 37:19. Say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel that are associated with him, and I will put them together with the stick of Juda, and will make them one stick: and they shall be one in his hand. 37:20. And the sticks whereon thou hast written, shall be in thy hand, before their eyes. 37:21. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take of the children of Israel from the midst of the nations whither they are gone: and I will gather them on every side, and will bring them to their own land. 37:22. And I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all: and they shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided any more into two kingdoms. 37:23. Nor shall they be defiled any more with their idols, nor with their abominations, nor with all their iniquities: and I will save them out of all the places in which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 37:24. And my servant David shall be king over them, and they shall have one shepherd: they shall walk in my judgments, and shall keep my commandments, and shall do them. 37:25. And they shall dwell in the land which I gave to my servant Jacob, wherein your fathers dwelt, and they shall dwell in it, they and their children, and their children's children, for ever: and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. 37:26. And I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will establish them, and will multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever. 37:27. And my tabernacle shall be with them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 37:28. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for ever. Ezechiel Chapter 38 Gog shall persecute the church in the latter days. He shall be overthrown. 38:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 38:2. Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal: and prophesy of him, Gog. . .This name, which signifies hidden or covered, is taken in this place, either for the persecutors of the church of God in general, or some arch-persecutor in particular: such as Antichrist shall be in the latter days. See Apoc. 20.8. And what is said of the punishment of Gog, is verified by the unhappy ends of persecutors.--Ibid. Magog. . .Scythia or Tartary, from whence the Turks, and other enemies of the church of Christ, originally sprung. 38:3. And say to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal. 38:4. And I will turn thee about, and I will put a bit in thy jaws: and I will bring thee forth, and all thy army, horses and horsemen all clothed with coats of mail, a great multitude, armed with spears and shields and swords. 38:5. The Persians, Ethiopians, and Libyans with them, all with shields and helmets. 38:6. Gomer, and all his bands, the house of Thogorma, the northern parts and all his strength, and many peoples with thee. 38:7. Prepare and make thyself ready, and all thy multitude that is assembled about thee, and be thou commander over them. 38:8. After many days thou shalt be visited: at the end of years thou shalt come to the land that is returned from the sword, and is gathered out of many nations, to the mountains of Israel which have been continually waste: but it hath been brought forth out of the nations, and they shall all of them dwell securely in it. 38:9. And thou shalt go up and come like a storm, and like a cloud to cover the land, thou and all thy bands and many people with thee. 38:10. Thus saith the Lord God: In that day projects shall enter into thy heart, and thou shalt conceive a mischievous design. 38:11. And thou shalt say: I will go up to the land which is without a wall, I will come to them that are at rest, and dwell securely: all these dwell without a wall, they have no bars nor gates: 38:12. To take spoils, and lay hold on the prey, to lay thy hand upon them that had been wasted, and afterwards restored, and upon the people that is gathered together out of the nations, which hath begun to possess and to dwell in the midst of the earth. 38:13. Saba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tharsis, and all the lions thereof shall say to thee: Art thou come to take spoils? behold, thou hast gathered thy multitude to take a prey, to take silver, and gold, and to carry away goods and substance, and to take rich spoils. 38:14. Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy and say to Gog: Thus saith the Lord God: Shalt thou not know, in that day, when my people of Israel shall dwell securely? 38:15. And thou shalt come out of thy place from the northern parts, thou and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army. 38:16. And thou shalt come upon my people of Israel like a cloud, to cover the earth. Thou shalt be in the latter days, and I will bring thee upon my land: that the nations may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. 38:17. Thus saith the Lord God: Thou then art he, of whom I have spoken in the days of old, by my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in the days of those times that I would bring thee upon them. 38:18. And it shall come to pass in that day, in the day of the coming of Gog upon the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my indignation shall come up in my wrath. 38:19. And I have spoken in my zeal, and in the fire of my anger, that in that day there shall be a great commotion upon the land of Israel: 38:20. So that the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the ground, and all men that are upon the face of the earth, shall be moved at my presence: and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the hedges shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. 38:21. And I will call in the sword against him in all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be pointed against his brother. 38:22. And I will judge him with pestilence, and with blood, and with violent rain, and vast hailstones: I will rain fire and brimstone upon him, and upon his army, and upon the many nations that are with him. 38:23. And I will be magnified, and I will be sanctified: and I will be known in the eyes of many nations and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezechiel Chapter 39 God's judgments upon Gog. God's people were punished for their sins: but shall be favoured with everlasting kindness. 39:1. And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal. 39:2. And I will turn thee round, and I will lead thee out, and will make thee go up from the northern parts: and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel. 39:3. And I will break thy bow in thy left hand, and I will cause thy arrows to fall out of thy right hand. 39:4. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy bands, and thy nations that are with thee: I have given thee to the wild beasts, to the birds, and to every fowl, and to the beasts of the earth to be devoured. 39:5. Thou shalt fall upon the face of the field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 39:6. And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell confidently in the islands: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 39:7. And I will make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel, and my holy name shall be profaned no more: and the Gentiles shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. 39:8. Behold it cometh, and it is done, saith the Lord God: this is the day whereof I have spoken. 39:9. And the inhabitants shall go forth of the cities of Israel, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, the shields, and the spears, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves and the pikes: and they shall burn them with fire seven years. 39:10. And they shall not bring wood out of the countries, nor cut down out of the forests: for they shall burn the weapons with fire, and shall make a prey of them to whom they had been a prey, and they shall rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God. 39:11. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give Gog a noted place for a sepulchre in Israel: the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea, which shall cause astonishment in them that pass by: and there shall they bury Gog, and all his multitude, and it shall be called the valley of the multitude of Gog. 39:12. And the house of Israel shall bury them for seven months to cleanse the land. 39:13. And all the people of the land shall bury him, and it shall be unto them a noted day, wherein I was glorified, saith the Lord God. 39:14. And they shall appoint men to go continually about the land, to bury and to seek out them that were remaining upon the face of the earth, that they may cleanse it: and after seven months they shall begin to seek. 39:15. And they shall go about passing through the land: and when they shall see the bone of a man, they shall set up sign by it, till the buriers bury it in the valley, of the multitude of Gog. 39:16. And the name of the city shall be Amona, and they shall cleanse the land. 39:17. And thou, O son of man, saith the Lord God, say to every fowl, and to all the birds, and to all the beasts of the field: Assemble yourselves, make haste, come together from every side to my victim, which I slay for you, a great victim upon the mountains of Israel: to eat flesh, and drink blood. 39:18. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and you shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, and of lambs, and of he goats, and bullocks, and of all that are well fed and fat. 39:19. And you shall eat the fat till you be full, and shall drink blood till you be drunk of the victim which I shall slay for you. 39:20. And you shall be filled at my table with horses, and mighty horsemen, and all the men of war, saith the Lord God. 39:21. And I will set my glory among the nations: and all nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. 39:22. And the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward. 39:23. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel were made captives for their iniquity, because they forsook me, and I hid my face from them: and I delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and they fell all by the sword. 39:24. I have dealt with them according to their uncleanness, and wickedness, and hid my face from them. 39:25. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and will have mercy on all the house of Israel and I will be jealous for my holy name. 39:26. And they shall bear their confusion, and all the transgressions wherewith they have transgressed against me, when they shall dwell in their land securely fearing no man: 39:27. And I shall have brought them back from among the nations, and shall have gathered them together out of the lands of their enemies, and shall be sanctified in them, in the sight of many nations. 39:28. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I caused them to be carried away among the nations; and I have gathered them together unto their own land, and have not left any of them there. 39:29. And I will hide my face no more from them, for I have poured out my spirit upon all the house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 40 The prophet sees in a vision the rebuilding of the temple: the dimensions of several parts thereof. 40:1. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, the tenth day of the month, the fourteenth year after the city was destroyed: in the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me thither. 40:2. In the visions of God he brought me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain: upon which there was as the building of a city, bending towards the south. 40:3. And he brought me in thither, and behold a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed in his hand, and he stood in the gate. 40:4. And this man said to me: Son of man, see with thy eyes, and hear with thy ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall shew thee: for thou art brought hither that they may be shewn to thee: declare all that thou seest, to the house of Israel. 40:5. And behold there was a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six cubits and a handbreadth: and he measured the breadth of the building one reed, and the height one reed. 40:6. And he came to the gate that looked toward the east, and he went up the steps thereof: and he measured the breadth of the threshold of the gate one reed, that is, one threshold was one reed broad; 40:7. And every little chamber was one reed long, and one reed broad: and between the little chambers were five cubits: 40:8. And the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate within, was one reed. 40:9. And he measured the porch of the gate eight cubits, and the front thereof two cubits: and the porch of the gate was inward. 40:10. And the little chambers of the gate that looked eastward were three on this side, and three on that side: all three were of one measure, and the fronts of one measure, on both parts. 40:11. And he measured the breadth of the threshold of the gate ten cubits: and the length of the gate thirteen cubits: 40:12. And the border before the little chambers one cubit: and one cubit was the border on both sides: and the little chambers were six cubits on this side and that side. 40:13. And he measured the gate from the roof of one little chamber to the roof of another, in breadth five and twenty cubits: door against door. 40:14. He made also fronts of sixty cubits: and to the front the court of the gate on every side round about. 40:15. And before the face of the gate which reached even to the face of the porch of the inner gate, fifty cubits. 40:16. And slanting windows in the little chambers, and in their fronts, which were within the gate on every side round about: and in like manner there were also in the porches windows round about within, and before the fronts the representation of palm trees. 40:17. And he brought me into the outward court, and behold there were chambers, and a pavement of stone in the court round about: thirty chambers encompassed the pavement. There were chambers. . .Gazophylacia, so called, because the priests and Levites kept in them the stores and vessels that belonged to the temple. 40:18. And the pavement in the front of the gates according to the length of the gates was lower. 40:19. And he measured the breadth from the face of the lower gate to the front of the inner court without, a hundred cubits to the east, and to the north. 40:20. He measured also both the length and the breadth of the gate of the outward court, which looked northward. 40:21. And the little chambers thereof three on this side, and three on that side: and the front thereof, and the porch thereof according to the measure of the former gate, fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad. 40:22. And the windows thereof, and the porch, and the gravings according to the measure of the gate that looked to the east, and they went up to it by seven steps, and a porch was before it. 40:23. And the gate of the inner court was over against the gate of the north, and that of the east: and he measured from gate to gate a hundred cubits. 40:24. And he brought me out to the way of the south, and behold the gate that looked to the south: and he measured the front thereof, and the porch thereof according to the former measures. 40:25. And the windows thereof, and the porches round about, as the other windows: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. 40:26. And there were seven steps to go up to it: and a porch before the doors thereof: and there were graven palm trees, one on this side, and another on that side in the front thereof. 40:27. And there was a gate of the inner court towards the south: and he measured from gate to gate towards the south, a hundred cubits. 40:28. And he brought me into the inner court at the south gate: and he measured the gate according to the former measures. 40:29. The little chamber thereof, and the front thereof, and the porch thereof with the same measures: and the windows thereof, and the porch thereof round about it was fifty cubits in length, and five and twenty cubits in breadth. 40:30. And the porch round about was five and twenty cubits long, and five cubits broad. 40:31. And the porch thereof to the outward court, and the palm trees thereof in the front: and there were eight steps to go up to it. 40:32. And he brought me into the inner court by the way of the east: and he measured the gate according to the former measures. 40:33. The little chamber thereof, and the front thereof, and the porch thereof as before: and the windows thereof, and the porches thereof round about it was fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad. 40:34. And the porch thereof, that is, of the outward court: and the graven palm trees in the front thereof on this side and on that side: and the going up thereof was by eight steps. 40:35. And he brought me into the gate that looked to the north: and he measured according to the former measures. 40:36. The little chamber thereof, and the front thereof, and the porch thereof, and the windows thereof round about it was fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad. 40:37. And the porch thereof looked to the outward court: and the graving of palm trees in the front thereof was on this side and on that side: and the going up to it was by eight steps. 40:38. And at every chamber was a door in the forefronts of the gates: there they washed the holocaust. 40:39. And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side: that the holocaust, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering might be slain thereon. 40:40. And on the outward side, which goeth up to the entry of the gate that looketh toward the north, were two tables: and at the other side before the porch of the gate were two tables, 40:41. Four tables were on this side, and four tables on that side at the sides of the gate were eight tables, upon which they slew the victims. 40:42. And the four tables for the holocausts were made of square stones: one cubit and a half long, and one cubit and a half broad, and one cubit high: to lay the vessels upon, in which the holocaust and the victim is slain. 40:43. And the borders of them were of one handbreadth, turned inwards round about: and upon the tables was the flesh of the offering. 40:44. And without the inner gate were the chambers of the singing men in the inner court, which was on the side of the gate that looketh to the north: and their prospect was towards the south, one at the side of the east gate, which looketh toward the north. 40:45. And he said to me: This chamber, which looketh toward the south shall be for the priests that watch in the wards of the temple. 40:46. But the chamber that looketh towards the north shall be for the priests that watch over the ministry of the altar. These are the sons of Sadoc, who among the sons of Levi, come near to the Lord, to minister to him. 40:47. And he measured the court a hundred cubits long, and a hundred cubits broad foursquare: and the altar that was before the face of the temple. 40:48. And he brought me into the porch of the temple: and he measured the porch five cubits on this side, and five cubits on that side: and the breadth of the gate three cubits on this side, and three cubits on that side. 40:49. And the length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits, and there were eight steps to go up to it. And there were pillars in the fronts: one on this side, and another on that side. Ezechiel Chapter 41 A description of the temple, and of all the parts of it. 41:1. And he brought me into the temple, and he measured the fronts six cubits broad on this side, and six cubits on that side, the breadth of the tabernacle. The temple. . .This plan of a temple, which was here shewn to the prophet in a vision, partly had relation to the material temple, which was to be rebuilt: and partly, in a mystical sense, to the spiritual temple of God, the church of Christ. 41:2. And the breadth of the gate was ten cubits: and the sides of the gate five cubits on this side, and five cubits on that side: and he measured the length thereof forty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits. 41:3. Then going inward he measured the front of the gate two cubits: and the gate six cubits, and the breadth of the gate seven cubits. 41:4. And he measured the length thereof twenty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits, before the face of the temple: and he said to me: This is the holy of holies. 41:5. And he measured the wall of the house six cubits: and the breadth of every side chamber four cubits round about the house on every side. 41:6. And the side chambers one by another, were twice thirty-three: and they bore outwards, that they might enter in through the wall of the house in the sides round about, to hold in, and not to touch the wall of the temple. One by another. . .Or one over another; literally, side to side, or side upon side. 41:7. And there was a broad passage round about, going up by winding stairs, and it led into the upper loft of the temple all round: therefore was the temple broader in the higher parts: and so from the lower parts they went to the higher by the midst. 41:8. And I saw in the house the height round about, the foundations of the side chambers which were the measure of a reed the space of six cubits: 41:9. And the thickness of the wall for the side chamber without, which was five cubits: and the inner house was within the side chambers of the house, And the inner house was within the side chambers of the house. . .Because these side chambers were in the very walls of the temple all round. Or, it may also be rendered (more agreeably to the Hebrew) so as to signify that the thickness of the wall for the side chamber within, was the same as that of the wall without; that is, equally five cubits. 41:10. And between the chambers was the breadth of twenty cubits round about the house on every side. 41:11. And the door of the side chambers was turned towards the place of prayer: one door was toward the north, and another door was toward the south: and the breadth of the place for prayer, was five cubits round about. 41:12. And the building that was separate, and turned to the way that looked toward the sea, was seventy cubits broad and the wall of the building, five cubits thick round about: and ninety cubits long. 41:13. And he measured the length of the house, a hundred cubits: and the separate building, and the walls thereof, a hundred cubits in length. 41:14. And the breadth before the face of the house, and of the separate place toward the east, a hundred cubits. 41:15. And he measured the length of the building over against it, which was separated at the back of it: and the galleries on both sides a hundred cubits: and the inner temple, and the porches of the court. 41:16. The thresholds, and the oblique windows, and the galleries round about on three sides, over against the threshold of every one, and floored with wood all round about: and the ground was up to the windows, and the windows were shut over the doors. 41:17. And even to the inner house, and without all the wall round about within and without, by measure. 41:18. And there were cherubims and palm trees wrought, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub, and every cherub had two faces. 41:19. The face of a man was toward the palm tree on one side, and the face of a lion was toward the palm tree on the other side: set forth through all the house round about. 41:20. From the ground even to the upper parts of the gate, were cherubims and palm trees wrought in the wall of the temple. 41:21. The threshold was foursquare, and the face of the sanctuary sight to sight. The threshold was foursquare. . .That is, the gate of the temple was foursquare: and so placed as to answer the gate of the sanctuary within. 41:22. The altar of wood was three cubits high: and the length thereof was two cubits: and the corners thereof, aid the length thereof, and the walls thereof, were of wood. And he said to me: This is the table before the Lord. 41:23. And there were two doors in the temple, and in the sanctuary. 41:24. And in the two doors on both sides were two little doors, which were folded within each other: for there were two wickets on both sides of the doors. 41:25. And there were cherubims also wrought in the doors of the temple, and the figures of palm trees, like as were made on the walls: for which cause also the planks were thicker in the front of the porch without. 41:26. Upon which were the oblique windows, and the representation of palm trees on this side, and on that side in the sides of the porch, according to the sides of the house, and the breadth of the walls. Ezechiel Chapter 42 A description of the courts, chambers, and other places belonging to the temple. 42:1. And he brought me forth into the outward court by the way that leadeth to the north, and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate building, and over against the house toward the north. 42:2. In the face of the north door was the length of hundred cubits, and the breadth of fifty cubits. 42:3. Over against the twenty cubits of the inner court, and over against the pavement of the outward court that was paved with stone, where there was a gallery joined to a triple gallery. 42:4. And before the chambers was a walk ten cubits broad, looking to the inner parts of a way of one cubit. And their doors were toward the north. 42:5. Where were the store chambers lower above: because they bore up the galleries, which appeared above out of them from he lower parts, and from the midst of the building. 42:6. For they were of three stories, and had not pillars, as the pillars of the courts: therefore did they appear above out of the lower places, and out of the middle places, fifty cubits from the ground. 42:7. And the outward wall that went about by the chambers, which were towards the outward court on the forepart of the chambers, was fifty cubits long. 42:8. For the length of the chambers of the outward court was fifty cubits: and the length before the face of the temple, a hundred cubits. 42:9. And there was under these chambers, an entrance from the east, for them that went into them out of the outward court. 42:10. In the breadth of the outward wall of the court that was toward the east, over against the separate building, and there were chambers before the building. 42:11. And the way before them was like the chambers which were toward the north: they were as long as they, and as broad as they: and all the going in to them, and their fashions, and their doors were alike. 42:12. According to the doors of the chambers that were towards the south: there was a door in the head of the way, which way was before the porch, separated towards the east as one entereth in. 42:13. And he said to me: The chambers of the north, and the chambers of the south, which are before the separate building: they are holy chambers, in which the priests shall eat, that approach to the Lord into the holy of holies: there they shall lay the most holy things, and the offering for sin, and for trespass: for it is a holy place. 42:14. And when the priests shall have entered in, they shall not go out of the holy places into the outward court: but there they shall lay their vestments, wherein they minister, for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and so they shall go forth to the people. 42:15. Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me out by the way of the gate that looked toward the east: and he measured it on every side round about. 42:16. And he measured toward the east with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about. 42:17. And he measured toward the north five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about. 42:18. And towards the south he measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about. 42:19. And toward the west he measured five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed. 42:20. By the four winds he measured the wall thereof on every side round about, five hundred cubits and five hundred cubits broad, making a separation between the sanctuary and the place of the people. Ezechiel Chapter 43 The glory of God returns to the new temple. The Israelites shall no more profane God's name by idolatry: the prophet is commanded to shew them the dimensions, and form of the temple, and of the altar, with the sacrifices to be offered thereon. 43:1. And he brought me to the gate that looked towards the east. 43:2. And behold the glory of the God of Israel came in by the way of the east: and his voice was like the noise of many waters, and the earth shone with his majesty. 43:3. And I saw the vision according to the appearance which I had seen when he came to destroy the city: and the appearance was according to the vision which I had seen by the river Chobar: and I fell upon my face. 43:4. And the majesty of the Lord went into the temple by the way of the gate that looked to the east. 43:5. And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court: and behold the house was filled with the glory of the Lord. 43:6. And I heard one speaking to me out of the house, and the man that stood by me, 43:7. Said to me: Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever: and the house of Israel shall no more profane my holy name, they and their kings by their fornications, and by the carcasses of their kings, and by the high places. 43:8. They who have set their threshold by my threshold, and their posts by my posts: and there was but a wall between me, and them: and they profaned my holy name by the abominations which they committed: for which reason I consumed them in my wrath. 43:9. Now therefore let them put away their fornications, and the carcasses of their kings far from me: and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. 43:10. But thou, son of man, shew to the house of Israel the temple, and let them be ashamed of their iniquities, and let them measure the building: 43:11. And be ashamed of all that they have done. Shew them the form of the house, and of the fashion thereof, the goings out and the comings in, and the whole plan thereof, and all its ordinances, and all its order, and all its laws, and thou shalt write it in their sight: that they may keep the whole form thereof, and its ordinances, and do them. 43:12. This is the law of the house upon the top of the mountain: All its border round about; most holy: this then is the law of the house. 43:13. And these are the measures of the altar by the truest cubit, which is a cubit and a handbreadth: the bottom thereof was a cubit, and the breadth a cubit: and the border thereof unto its edge, and round about, one handbreadth: and this was the trench of the altar. 43:14. And from the bottom of the ground to the lowest brim two cubits, and the breadth of one cubit: and from the lesser brim to the greater brim four cubits, and the breadth of one cubit. 43:15. And the Ariel itself was four cubits: and from the Ariel upward were four horns. The Ariel. . .That is, the altar itself, or rather the highest part of it, upon which the burnt offerings were laid. In the Hebrew it is Harel, that is, the mountain of God: but in the following verse Haariel, that is, the lion of God; a figure, from its consuming, and as it were devouring the sacrifices, as a lion devours its prey. 43:16. And the Ariel was twelve cubits long, and twelve cubits broad, foursquare, with equal sides. 43:17. And the brim was fourteen cubits long, and fourteen cubits broad in the four corners thereof: and the crown round about it was half a cubit, and the bottom of it one cubit round about: and its steps turned toward the east. 43:18. And he said to me: Son of man, thus saith the Lord God: These are the ceremonies of the altar, in what day soever it shall be made: that holocausts may be offered upon it, and blood poured out. 43:19. And thou shalt give to the priests, and the Levites, that are of the race of Sadoc, who approach to me, saith the Lord God, to offer to me a calf of the herd for sin. 43:20. And thou shalt take of his blood, and shalt put it upon the four horns thereof, and upon the four corners of the brim, and upon the crown round about: and thou shalt cleanse, and expiate it. 43:21. And thou shalt take the calf, that is offered for sin: and thou shalt burn him in a separate place of the house without the sanctuary. 43:22. And in the second day thou shalt offer a he goat without blemish for sin: and they shall expiate the altar, as they expiated it with the calf. 43:23. And when thou shalt have made an end of the expiation thereof, thou shalt offer a calf of the herd without blemish, and a ram of the flock without blemish. 43:24. And thou shalt offer them in the sight of the Lord, and the priests shall put salt upon them, and shall offer them a holocaust to the Lord. 43:25. Seven days shalt thou offer a he goat for sin daily: they shall offer also a calf of the herd, and a ram of the flock without blemish. 43:26. Seven days shall they expiate the altar, and shall cleanse it: and they shall consecrate it. Consecrate it. . .Literally, fill its hand, that is, dedicate and apply it to holy service. 43:27. And the days being expired, on the eighth day and thenceforward, the priests shall offer your holocausts upon the altar, and the peace offerings: and I will be pacified towards you, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 44 The east gate of the sanctuary shall be always shut. The uncircumcised shall not enter into the sanctuary: nor the Levites that have served idols: but the sons of Sadoc shall do the priestly functions, who stood firm in the worst of times. 44:1. And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east: and it was shut. 44:2. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut 44:3. For the prince. The prince himself shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord: he shall enter in by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the same way. 44:4. And he brought me by the way of the north gate, in the sight of the house: and I saw, and behold the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord: and I fell on my face. 44:5. And the Lord said to me: Son of man, attend with thy heart and behold with thy eyes, and hear with thy ears, all that I say to thee concerning all the ceremonies of the house of the Lord, and concerning all the laws thereof: and mark well the ways of the temple, with all the goings out of the sanctuary. 44:6. And thou shalt say to the house of Israel that provoketh me: Thus saith the Lord God: Let all your wicked doings suffice you, O house of Israel: 44:7. In that you have brought in strangers uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, and to defile my house: and you offer my bread, the fat, and the blood: and you have broken my covenant by all your wicked doings. 44:8. And you have not kept the ordinances of my sanctuary: but you have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. 44:9. Thus saith the Lord God: No stranger uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, no stranger that is in the midst of the children of Israel. 44:10. Moreover the Levites that went away far from me, when the children of Israel went astray, and have wandered from me after their idols, and have borne their iniquity: 44:11. They shall be officers in my sanctuary, and doorkeepers of the gates of the house, and ministers to the house: they shall slay the holocausts, and the victims of the people: and they shall stand in their sight, to minister to them. 44:12. Because they ministered to them before their idols, and were a stumblingblock of iniquity to the house of Israel: therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, saith the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity: 44:13. And they shall not come near to me, to do the office of priest to me, neither shall they come near to any of my holy things that are by the holy of holies: but they shall bear their shame, and their wickednesses which they have committed. 44:14. And I will make them doorkeepers of the house, for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein. 44:15. But the priests, and Levites, the sons of Sadoc, who kept the ceremonies of my sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me, to minister to me: and they shall stand before me, to offer me the fat, and the blood, saith the Lord God. 44:16. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and to keep my ceremonies. 44:17. And when they shall enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments: neither shall any woollen come upon them, when they minister in the gates of the inner court and within. 44:18. They shall have linen mitres on their heads, and linen breeches on their loins, and they shall not be girded with any thing that causeth sweat. 44:19. And when they shall go forth to the outward court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them up in the store chamber of the sanctuary, and they shall clothe themselves with other garments: and they shall not sanctify the people with their vestments. Shall not sanctify the people with their vestments. . .By exposing them to the danger of touching the sacred vestments, which none were to touch but they that were sanctified. 44:20. Neither shall they shave their heads, nor wear long hair: but they shall only poll their heads. 44:21. And no priest shall drink wine when he is to go into the inner court. 44:22. Neither shall they take to wife a widow, nor one that is divorced, but they shall take virgins of the seed of the house of Israel: but they may take a widow also, that is, the widow of a priest. 44:23. And they shall teach my people the difference between holy and profane, and shew them how to discern between clean and unclean. 44:24. And when there shall be a controversy, they shall stand in my judgments, and shall judge: they shall keep my laws, and my ordinances in all my solemnities, and sanctify my sabbaths. 44:25. And they shall come near no dead person, lest they be defiled, only their father and mother, and son and daughter, and brother and sister, that hath not had another husband: for whom they may become unclean. 44:26. And after one is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days. 44:27. And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, to the inner court, to minister unto me in the sanctuary, he shall offer for his sin, saith the Lord God. 44:28. And they shall have no inheritance, I am their inheritance: neither shall you give them any possession in Israel, for I am their possession. 44:29. They shall eat the victim both for sin and for trespass: and every vowed thing in Israel shall be theirs. 30. And the firstfruits of all the firstborn, and all the libations of all things that are offered, shall be the priest's: and you shall give the firstfruits of your meats to the priest, that he may return a blessing upon thy house. 44:31. The priests shall not eat of any thing that is dead of itself or caught by a beast, whether it be fowl or cattle. Ezechiel Chapter 45 Portions of land for the sanctuary, for the city, and for the prince. Ordinances for the prince. 45:1. And when you shall begin to divide the land by lot, separate ye firstfruits to the Lord, a portion of the land to be holy, in length twenty-five thousand and in breadth ten thousand: it shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about. Twenty-five thousand. . .Viz., reeds or cubits. 45:2. And there shall be for the sanctuary on every side five hundred by five hundred, foursquare round about: and fifty cubits for the suburbs thereof round about. 45:3. And with this measure thou shalt measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand, and in it shall be the temple and the holy of holies. 45:4. The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to the ministry of the Lord: and it shall be a place for their houses, and for the holy place of the sanctuary. 45:5. And five and twenty thousand of length, and ten thousand of breadth shall be for the Levites, that minister in the house: they shall possess twenty store chambers. 45:6. And you shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, according to the separation of the sanctuary, for the whole house of Israel. 45:7. For the prince also on the one side and on the other side, according to the separation of the sanctuary, and according to the possession of the city, over against the separation of the sanctuary, and over against the possession of the city: from the side of the sea even to the sea, and from the side of the east even to the east. And the length according to every part from the west border to the east border. 45:8. He shall have a portion of the land in Israel: and the princes shall no more rob my people: but they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes: 45:9. Thus saith the Lord God: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: cease from iniquity and robberies, and execute judgment and justice, separate your confines from my people, saith the Lord God. 45:10. You shall have just balances, and a just ephi, and a just bate. 45:11. The ephi and the bate shall be equal, and of one measure: that the bate may contain the tenth part of a core, and the ephi the tenth part of a core: their weight shall be equal according to the measure of a core. The ephi and the bate. . .These measures were of equal capacity, but the bate served for liquids, and the ephi for dry things. 45:12. And the sicle hath twenty obols. Now twenty sicles, and five and twenty sicles, and fifteen sicles, make a mna, 45:13. And these are the firstfruits, which you shall take: the sixth part of an ephi of a core of wheat, and the sixth part of an ephi of a core of barley. 45:14. The measure of oil also, a bate of oil is the tenth part of a core: and ten bates make a core: for ten bates fill a core. 45:15. And one ram out of a flock of two hundred, of those that Israel feedeth for sacrifice, and for holocausts, and for peace offerings, to make atonement for them, saith the Lord God. 45:16. All the people of the land shall be bound to these firstfruits for the prince in Israel. 45:17. And the prince shall give the holocaust, and the sacrifice, and the libations on the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the sabbaths, and on all the solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall offer the sacrifice for sin, and the holocaust, and the peace offerings to make expiation for the house of Israel. 45:18. Thus saith the Lord God: In the first month, the first of the month, thou shalt take a calf of the herd without blemish, and thou shalt expiate the sanctuary. 45:19. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering: and he shall put it on the posts of the house, and on the four corners of the brim of the altar, and oil the posts of the gate of the inner court. 45:20. And so shalt thou do in the seventh day of the month, for every one that hath been ignorant, and hath been deceived by error, and thou shalt make expiation for the house. 45:21. In the first month, the fourteenth day of the month, you shall observe the solemnity of the pasch: seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. 45:22. And the prince on that day shall offer for himself, and for all the people of the land, a calf for sin. 45:23. And in the solemnity of the seven days he shall offer for a holocaust to the Lord, seven calves, and seven rams without blemish daily for seven days: and for sin a he goat daily. 45:24. And he shall offer the sacrifice of an ephi for every calf, and an ephi for every ram: and a hin of oil for every ephi. 45:25. In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, in the solemn feast, he shall do the like for the seven days: as well in regard to the sin offering, as to the holocaust, and the sacrifice, and the oil. Ezechiel Chapter 46 Other ordinances for the prince and for the sacrifices. 46:1. Thus saith the Lord God: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east, shall be shut the six days, on which work is done; but on the sabbath day it shall be opened, yea and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened. 46:2. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate from without, and he shall stand at the threshold of the gate: and the priests shall offer his holocaust, and his peace offerings: and he shall adore upon the threshold of the gate, and shall go out: but the gate shall not be shut till the evening. 46:3. And the people of the land shall adore at the door of that gate before the Lord on the sabbaths, and on the new moons. 46:4. And the holocaust that the prince shall offer to the Lord on the sabbath day, shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish. 46:5. And the sacrifice of all ephi for a ram: but for the lambs what sacrifice his hand shall allow: and a hin of oil for every ephi. 46:6. And on the day of the new moon a calf of the herd without blemish: and the six lambs, and the rams shall be without blemish. 46:7. And he shall offer in sacrifice an ephi for calf, an ephi also for a ram: but for the lambs, as his hand shall find: and a hin of oil for every ephi. 46:8. And when the prince is to go in, let him go in by the way of the porch of the gate, and let him go out the same way. 46:9. But when the people of the land shall go in before the Lord in the solemn feasts, he that goeth in by the north gate to adore, shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that goeth in by the way of the south gate, shall go out by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go out at that over against it. 46:10. And the prince in the midst of them, shall go in when they go in, and go out when they go out. 46:11. And in the fairs, and in the solemnities there shall be the sacrifice of an ephi to a calf, and an ephi to a ram: and to the lambs, the sacrifice shall be as his hand shall find: and a hin of oil to every ephi. 46:12. But when the prince shall offer a voluntary holocaust, or voluntary peace offering to the Lord: the gate that looketh towards the east shall be opened to him, and he shall offer his holocaust, and his peace offerings, as it is wont to be done on the sabbath day: and he shall go out, and the gate shall be shut after he is gone forth. 46:13. And he shall offer every day for a holocaust to the Lord, a lamb of the same year without blemish: he shall offer it always in the morning. 46:14. And he shall offer the sacrifice for it morning by morning, the sixth part of an ephi: and the third part of a hin of oil to be mingled with the fine flour: a sacrifice to the Lord by ordinance continual and everlasting. 46:15. He shall offer the lamb, and the sacrifice, and the oil morning by morning: an everlasting holocaust. 46:16. Thus saith the Lord God: If the prince give a gift to any of his sons: the inheritance of it shall go to his children, they shall possess it by inheritance. 46:17. But if he give a legacy out of his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his until the year of release, and it shall return to the prince: but his inheritance shall go to his sons. 46:18. And the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance by violence, nor of their possession: but out of his own possession he shall give an inheritance to his sons: that my people be not dispersed every man from his possession. 46:19. And he brought me in by the entry that was at the side of the gate, into the chambers of the sanctuary that were for the priests, which looked toward the north. And there was a place bending to the west. 46:20. And he said to me: This is the place where the priests shall boil the sin offering, and the trespass offering: where they shall dress the sacrifice, that they may not bring it out into the outward court, and the people be sanctified. 46:21. And he brought me into the outward court, and he led me about by the four corners of the court: and behold there was a little court in the corner of the court, to every corner of the court there was a little court. 46:22. In the four corners of the court were little courts disposed, forty cubits long, and thirty broad, all the four were of one measure. 46:23. And there was a wall round about compassing the four little courts, and there were kitchens built under the rows round about. 46:24. And he said to me: This is the house of the kitchens wherein the ministers of the house of the Lord shall boil the victims of the people. Ezechiel Chapter 47 The vision of the holy waters issuing out from under the temple: the borders of the land to be divided among the twelve tribes. 47:1. And he brought me again to the gate of the house, and behold waters issued out from under the threshold of the house toward the east: for the forefront of the house looked toward the east: but the waters came down to the right side of the temple to the south part of the altar. Waters. . .These waters are not to be understood literally (for there were none such that flowed from the temple); but mystically, of the baptism of Christ, and of his doctrine and his grace: the trees that grow on the banks are Christian virtues: the fishes are Christians, that spiritually live in and by these holy waters, the fishermen are the apostles, and apostolic preachers: the fenny places, where there is no health, are such as by being out of the church are separated from these waters of life. 47:2. And he led me out by the way of the north gate, and he caused me to turn to the way without the outward gate to the way that looked toward the east: and behold there ran out waters on the right side. 47:3. And when the man that had the line in his hand went out towards the east, he measured a thousand cubits: and he brought me through the water up to the ankles. 47:4. And again he measured a thousand, and he brought me through the water up to the knees. 47:5. And he measured a thousand, and he brought me through the water up to the loins. And he measured a thousand, and it was a torrent, which I could not pass over: for the waters were risen so as to make a deep torrent, which could not be passed over. 47:6. And he said to me: Surely thou hast seen, O son of man. And he brought me out, and he caused me to turn to the bank of the torrent. 47:7. And when I had turned myself, behold on the bank of the torrent were very many trees on both sides. 47:8. And he said to me: These waters that issue forth toward the hillocks of sand to the east, and go down to the plains of the desert, shall go into the sea, and shall go out, and the waters shall be healed. 47:9. And every living creature that creepeth whithersoever the torrent shall come, shall live: and there shall be fishes in abundance after these waters shall come thither, and they shall be healed, and all things shall live to which the torrent shall come. 47:10. And the fishers shall stand over these waters, from Engaddi even to Engallim there shall be drying of nets: there shall be many sorts of the fishes thereof, as the fishes of the great sea, a very great multitude: 47:11. But on the shore thereof, and in the fenny places they shall not be healed, because they shall be turned into saltpits. 47:12. And by the torrent on the banks thereof on both sides shall grow all trees that bear fruit: their leaf shall not fall off, and their fruit shall not fail: every month shall they bring forth firstfruits, because the waters thereof shall issue out of the sanctuary: and the fruits thereof shall be for food, and the leaves thereof for medicine. 47:13. Thus saith the Lord God: This is the border, by which you shall possess the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: for Joseph hath a double portion. 47:14. And you shall possess it, every man in like manner as his brother: concerning which I lifted up my hand to give it to your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for a possession. 47:15. And this is the border of the land: toward the north side, from the great sea by the way of Hethalon, as men go to Sedada, 47:16. Emath, Berotha, Sabarim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Emath the house of Tichon, which is by the border of Auran. 47:17. And the border from the sea even to the court of Enan, shall be the border of Damascus, and from the north to the north: the border of Emath, this is the north side. 47:18. And the east side is from the midst of Auran, and from the midst of Damascus, and from the midst of Galaad, and from the midst of the land of Israel, Jordan making the bound to the east sea, and thus you shall measure the east side. 47:19. And the south side southward is, from Thamar even to the waters of contradiction of Cades: and, the torrent even to the great sea: and this is the south side southward. 47:20. And the side toward the sea, is the great sea from the borders straight on, till thou come to Emath: this is the side of the sea. 47:21. And you shall divide this land unto you by the tribes of Israel: 47:22. And you shall divide it by lot for an inheritance to you, and to the strangers that shall come over to you, that shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as men of the same country born among the children of Israel: they shall divide the possession with you in the midst of the tribes of Israel. 47:23. And in what tribe soever the stranger shall be, there shall you give him possession, saith the Lord God. Ezechiel Chapter 48 The portions of the twelve tribes, of the sanctuary, of the city, and of the prince. The dimensions and gates of the city. 48:1. And these are the names of the tribes from the borders of the north, by the way of Hethalon, as they go to Emath, the court of Enan the border of Damascus northward, by the way off Emath. And from the east side thereof to the sea shall be one portion for Dan. 48:2. And by the border of Dan, from the east side even to the side of the sea, one portion for Aser: 48:3. And by the border of Aser, from the east side even to the side of the sea one portion for Nephthali. 48:4. And by the border of Nephthali, from the east side even to the side of the one portion for Manasses. 48:5. And by the border of Manasses, from the east side even to the side of the sea, one portion for Ephraim. 48:6. And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even to the side of the sea, one portion for Ruben. 48:7. And by the border of Ruben, from the east side even to the side of the sea, one portion for Juda. 48:8. And by the border of Juda, from the east side even to the side of the sea, shall be the firstfruits which you shall set apart, five and twenty thousand in breadth, and length, as every one of the portions from the east side to the side of the sea: and the sanctuary shall be in the midst thereof. 48:9. The firstfruits which you shall set apart for the Lord will be the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand. 48:10. And these shall be the firstfruits of the sanctuary for the priests: toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the sea ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east also ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length: and the sanctuary of the Lord shall be in the midst thereof. 48:11. The sanctuary shall be for the priests of the sons of Sadoc, who kept my ceremonies, and went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites also went astray. 48:12. And for them shall be the firstfruits of the firstfruits of the land holy of holies, by the border of the Levites, 48:13. And the Levites in like manner shall have by the borders of the priests five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth. All the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand. 48:14. And they shall not sell thereof, nor exchange, neither shall the firstfruits of the land be alienated, because they are sanctified to the Lord. 48:15. But the five thousand that remain in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city for dwelling, and for suburbs and the city shall be in the midst thereof. 48:16. And these are the measures thereof: on the north side four thousand and five hundred: and on the south side four thousand and five hundred: and on the east side four thousand and five hundred: and on the west side four thousand and five hundred. 48:17. And the suburbs of the city shall be to the north two hundred and fifty, and the south two hundred and fifty, and to the east two hundred and fifty, and to the sea two hundred and fifty. 48:18. And the residue in length by the firstfruits of the sanctuary, ten thousand toward the east, and ten thousand toward the west, shall be as the firstfruits of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for bread to them that serve the city. 48:19. And they that serve the city, shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel. 48:20. All the firstfruits, of five and twenty thousand, by five and twenty thousand foursquare, shall be set apart for the firstfruits of the sanctuary, and for the possession of the city. 48:21. And the residue shall be for the prince on every side of the firstfruits of the sanctuary, and of the possession of the city over against the five and twenty thousand of the firstfruits unto the east border: toward the sea also over against the five and twenty thousand, unto the border of the sea, shall likewise be the portion of the prince: and the firstfruits of the sanctuary, and the sanctuary of the temple shall be in the midst thereof. 48:22. And from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city which are in the midst of the prince's portions: what shall be to the border of Juda, and to the border of Benjamin, shall also belong to the prince. 48:23. And for the rest of the tribes: from the east side to the west side, one portion for Benjamin. 48:24. And over against the border of Benjamin, from the east side to the west side, one portion for Simeon. 48:25. And by the border of Simeon, from the east side to the west side, one portion for Issachar. 48:26. And by the border of Issachar, from the east side to the west side, one portion for Zabulon. 48:27. And by the border of Zabulon, from the east side to the side of the sea, one portion for Gad. 48:28. And by the border of Gad, the south side southward: and the border shall be from Thamar, even to the waters of contradiction of Cades, the inheritance over against the great sea. 48:29. This is the land which you shall divide by lot to the tribes of Israel: and these are the portions of them, saith the Lord God. 48:30. And these are the goings out of the city: on the north side thou shalt measure four thousand and five hundred. 48:31. And the gates of the city according to the names of the tribes of Israel, three gates on the north side, the gate of Ruben one, the gate of Juda one, the gate of Levi one. 48:32. And at the east side, four thousand and five hundred: and three gates, the gate of Joseph one, the gate of Benjamin one, the gate of Dan one. 48:33. And at the south side, thou shalt measure four thousand and five hundred: and three gates, the gate of Simeon one, the gate of Issachar one, the gate of Zabulon one. 48:34. And at the west side, four thousand and five hundred, and their three gates, the gate of Gad one, the gate of Aser one, the gate of Nephthali one. 48:35. Its circumference was eighteen thousand: and the name of the city from that day, The Lord is there. The Lord is there. . . This name is here given to the city, that is, to the church of Christ: because the Lord is always with her till the end of the world. Matt. 28.20. THE PROPHECY OF DANIEL DANIEL, whose name signifies THE JUDGMENT OF GOD, was of the royal blood of the kings of Juda: and one of those that were first of all carried away into captivity. He was so renowned for wisdom and knowledge, that it became a proverb among the Babylonians, AS WISE AS DANIEL (Ezech. 28.3). And his holiness was so great from his very childhood, that at the time when he was as yet but a young man, he is joined by the SPIRIT of GOD with NOE and JOB, as three persons most eminent for virtue and sanctity, Ezech. 14. He is not commonly numbered by the Hebrews among THE PROPHETS: because he lived at court, and in high station in the world: but if we consider his many clear predictions of things to come, we shall find that no one better deserves the name and title of A PROPHET: which also has been given him by the SON of GOD himself, Matt. 24, Mark 13., Luke 21. Daniel Chapter 1 Daniel and his companions are taken into the palace of the king of Babylon: they abstain from his meat and wine, and succeed better with pulse and water. Their excellence and wisdom. 1:1. In the third year of the reign of Joakim, king of Juda, Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and beseiged it. 1:2. And the Lord delivered into his hands Joakim, the king of Juda, and part of the vessels of the house of God: and he carried them away into the land of Sennaar, to the house of his god, and the vessels he brought into the treasure house of his god. His god. . .Bel or Belus, the principal idol of the Chaldeans. 1:3. And the king spoke to Asphenez, the master of the eunuchs, that he should bring in some of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes, 1:4. Children in whom there was no blemish, well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, acute in knowledge, and instructed in science, and such as might stand in the king's palace, that he might teach them the learning, and tongue of the Chaldeans. 1:5. And the king appointed them a daily provision, of his own meat, and of the wine of which he drank himself, that being nourished three years, afterwards they might stand before the king. 1:6. Now there was among them of the children of Juda, Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias. 1:7. And the master of the eunuchs gave them names: to Daniel, Baltassar: to Ananias, Sidrach: to Misael, Misach: and to Azarias, Abdenago. 1:8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not be defiled with the king's table, nor with the wine which he drank: and he requested the master of the eunuchs that he might not be defiled. Be defiled, etc. . .Viz., either by eating meat forbidden by the law, or which had before been offered to idols. 1:9. And God gave to Daniel grace and mercy in the sight of the prince of the eunuchs. 1:10. And the prince of the eunuchs said to Daniel: I fear my lord, the king, who hath appointed you meat and drink: who if he should see your faces leaner than those of the other youths, your equals, you shall endanger my head to the king. 1:11. And Daniel said to Malasar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had appointed over Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias: 1:12. Try, I beseech thee, thy servants for ten days, and let pulse be given us to eat, and water to drink: Pulse. . .That is, pease, beans, and such like. 1:13. And look upon our faces, and the faces of the children that eat of the king's meat: and as thou shalt see, deal with thy servants. 1:14. And when he had heard these words, he tried them for ten days. 1:15. And after ten days, their faces appeared fairer and fatter than all the children that ate of the king's meat. 1:16. So Malasar took their portions, and the wine that they should drink: and he gave them pulse. 1:17. And to these children God gave knowledge, and understanding in every book, and wisdom: but to Daniel the understanding also of all visions and dreams. 1:18. And when the days were ended, after which the king had ordered they should be brought in: the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nabuchodonosor. 1:19. And when the king had spoken to them, there were not found among them all such as Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias: and they stood in the king's presence. 1:20. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the diviners, and wise men, that were in all his kingdom. 1:21. And Daniel continued even to the first year of king Cyrus. Daniel Chapter 2 Daniel, by divine revelation, declares the dream of Nabuchodonosor, and the interpretation of it. He is highly honoured by the king. 2:1. In the second year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, Nabuchodonosor had a dream, and his spirit was terrified, and his dream went out of his mind. The second year. . .Viz., from the death of his father Nabopolassar; for he had reigned before as partner with his father in the empire. 2:2. Then the king commanded to call together the diviners and the wise men, and the magicians, and the Chaldeans: to declare to the king his dreams: so they came and stood before the king. The Chaldeeans. . .That is, the astrologers, that pretended to divine by stars. 2:3. And the king said to them: I saw a dream: and being troubled in mind I know not what I saw. 2:4. And the Chaldeans answered the king in Syriac: O king, live for ever: tell to thy servants thy dream, and we will declare the interpretation thereof. 2:5. And the king, answering, said to the Chaldeans: The thing is gone out of my mind: unless you tell me the dream, and the meaning thereof, you shall be put to death, and your houses shall be confiscated. 2:6. but if you tell the dream, and the meaning of it, you shall receive of me rewards, and gifts, and great honour: therefore, tell me the dream, and the interpretation thereof. 2:7. They answered again and said: Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will declare the interpretation of it. 2:8. The king answered and said: I know for certain, that you seek to gain time, since you know that the thing is gone from me. 2:9. If, therefore, you tell me not the dream, there is one sentence concerning you, that you have also framed a lying interpretation, and full of deceit, to speak before me till the time pass away. Tell me, therefore, the dream, that I may know that you also give a true interpretation thereof. 2:10. Then the Chaldeans answered before the king, and said: There is no man upon earth, that can accomplish thy word, O king; neither doth any king, though great and mighty, ask such a thing of any diviner, or wise man, or Chaldean. 2:11. For the thing that thou asketh, O king, is difficult: nor can any one be found that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose conversation is not with men. 2:12. Upon hearing this, the king in fury, and in great wrath, commanded that all the wise men of Babylon should be put to death. 2:13. And the decree being gone forth, the wise men were slain: and Daniel and his companions were sought for, to be put to death. 2:14. Then Daniel inquired concerning the law and the sentence, of Arioch, the general of the king's army, who was gone forth to kill the wise men of Babylon. 2:15. And he asked him that had received the orders of the king, why so cruel a sentence was gone forth from the face of the king. And when Arioch had told the matter to Daniel, 2:16. Daniel went in, and desired of the king, that he would give him time to resolve the question, and declare it to the king. 2:17. And he went into his house, and told the matter to Ananias, and Misael, and Azarias, his companions: 2:18. To the end that they should ask mercy at the face of the God of heaven, concerning this secret, and that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 2:19. Then was the mystery revealed to Daniel by a vision in the night: and Daniel blessed the God of heaven, 2:20. And speaking, he said: Blessed be the name of the Lord from eternity and for evermore: for wisdom and fortitude are his. 2:21. And he changeth times and ages: taketh away kingdoms, and establisheth them: giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that have understanding: 2:22. He revealeth deep and hidden things, and knoweth what is in darkness: and light is with him. 2:23. To thee, O God of our fathers, I give thanks, and I praise thee: because thou hast given me wisdom and strength: and now thou hast shewn me what we desired of thee, for thou hast made known to us the king's discourse. 2:24. After this Daniel went in to Arioch, to whom the king had given orders to destroy the wise men of Babylon, and he spoke thus to him: Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will tell the solution to the king. 2:25. Then Arioch in haste brought in Daniel to the king, and said to him: I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Juda, that will resolve the question to the king. 2:26. The king answered, and said to Daniel, whose name was Baltassar: Thinkest thou indeed that thou canst tell me the dream that I saw, and the interpretation thereof? 2:27. And Daniel made answer before the king, and said: The secret that the king desireth to know, none of the wise men, or the philosophers, or the diviners, or the soothsayers, can declare to the king. 2:28. But there is a God in heaven that revealeth mysteries, who hath shewn to thee, O king Nabuchodonosor, what is to come to pass in the latter times. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these: 2:29. Thou, O king, didst begin to think in thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth mysteries shewed thee what shall come to pass. 2:30. To me also this secret is revealed, not by any wisdom that I have more than all men alive: but that the interpretation might be made manifest to the king, and thou mightest know the thought of thy mind. 2:31. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold there was as it were a great statue: this statue, which was great and high, tall of stature, stood before thee, and the look thereof was terrible. 2:32. The head of this statue was of fine gold, but the breast and the arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass. 2:33. And the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay. 2:34. Thus thou sawest, till a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue upon the feet thereof that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 2:35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of a summer's threshing floor, and they were carried away by the wind: and there was no place found for them: but the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. 2:36. This is the dream: we will also tell the interpretation thereof before thee, O king. 2:37. Thou art a king of kings: and the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, and strength, and power, and glory: 2:38. And all places wherein the children of men, and the beasts of the field do dwell: he hath also given the birds of the air into thy hand, and hath put all things under thy power: thou, therefore, art the head of gold. 2:39. And after thee shall rise up another kingdom, inferior to thee, of silver: and another third kingdom of brass, which shall rule over all the world. Another kingdom. . .Viz., that of the Medes and Persians. Ibid. Third kingdom. . .Viz., that of Alexander the Great. 2:40. And the fourth kingdom shall be as iron. As iron breaketh into pieces, and subdueth all things, so shall that break, and destroy all these. The fourth kingdom, etc. . .Some understand this of the successors of Alexander, the kings of Syria and Egypt, others of the Roman empire, and its civil wars. 2:41. And whereas thou sawest the feet, and the toes, part of potter's clay, and part of iron: the kingdom shall be divided, but yet it shall take its origin from the iron, according as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay. 2:42. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay: the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 2:43. And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall be mingled indeed together with the seed of man, but they shall not stick fast one to another, as iron cannot be mixed with clay. 2:44. But in the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never by destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people: and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms: and itself shall stand for ever. A kingdom. . .Viz., the kingdom of Christ in the Catholic Church which cannot be destroyed. 2:45. According as thou sawest, that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and broke in pieces the clay and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold, the great God hath shewn the king what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof is faithful. 2:46. Then king Nabuchodonosor fell on his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer in sacrifice to him victims and incense. 2:47. And the king spoke to Daniel, and said: Verily, your God is the God of gods, and Lord of kings, and a revealer of hidden things: seeing thou couldst discover this secret. 2:48. Then the king advanced Daniel to a high station, and gave him many and great gifts: and he made him governor over all the provinces of Babylon: and chief of the magistrates over all the wise men of Babylon. 2:49. And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, over the works of the province of Babylon: but Daniel himself was in the king's palace. Daniel Chapter 3 Nabuchodonosor set up a golden statue; which he commands all to adore: the three children for refusing to do it are cast into the fiery furnace; but are not hurt by the flames. Their prayer and canticle of praise. 3:1. King Nabuchodonosor made a statue of gold, of sixty cubits high, and six cubits broad, and he set it up in the plain of Dura, of the province of Babylon. 3:2. Then Nabuchodonosor, the king, sent to call together the nobles, the magistrates, and the judges, the captains, the rulers, and governors, and all the chief men of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. 3:3. Then the nobles, the magistrates, and the judges, the captains, and rulers, and the great men that were placed in authority, and all the princes of the provinces, were gathered together to come to the dedication of the statue, which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. And they stood before the statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. 3:4. Then a herald cried with a strong voice: To you it is commanded, O nations, tribes and languages: 3:5. That in the hour that you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, and of the flute, and of the harp, of the sackbut, and of the psaltery, and of the symphony, and of all kind of music, ye fall down and adore the golden statue which king Nabuchodonosor hath set up. 3:6. But if any man shall not fall down and adore, he shall the same hour be cast into a furnace of burning fire. 3:7. Upon this, therefore, at the time when all the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, all the nations, tribes, and languages fell down and adored the golden statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. 3:8. And presently at that very time some Chaldeans came and accused the Jews, 3:9. And said to king Nabuchodonosor: O king, live for ever: 3:10. Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue: 3:11. And that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. 3:12. Now there are certain Jews, whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago: these men, O king, have slighted thy decree: they worship not thy gods, nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up. 3:13. Then Nabuchodonosor in fury, and in wrath, commanded that Sidrach, Misach, ad Abdenago should be brought: who immediately were brought before the king. 3:14. And Nabuchodonosor, the king, spoke to them, and said: Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have set up? 3:15. Now, therefore, if you be ready, at what hour soever, you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, flute, harp, sackbut, and psaltery, and symphony, and of all kind of music, prostrate yourselves, and adore the statue which I have made: but if you do not adore, you shall be cast the same hour into the furnace of burning fire: and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand? 3:16. Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, answered, and said to king Nabuchodonosor: We have no occasion to answer thee concerning this matter. 3:17. For behold our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king. 3:18. But if he will not, be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up. 3:19. Then was Nabuchodonosor filled with fury: and the countenance of his face was changed against Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and he commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. 3:20. And he commanded the strongest men that were in his army, to bind the feet of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire. 3:21. And immediately these men were bound, and were cast into the furnace of burning fire, with their coats, and their caps, and their shoes, and their garments. 3:22. For the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace was heated exceedingly. And the flame of the fire slew those men that had cast in Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. 3:23. But these three men, that is, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, fell down bound in the midst of the furnace of burning fire. 3:24. And they walked in the midst of the flame, praising God, and blessing the Lord. And they walked, etc. . .Here St. Jerome takes notice, that from this verse, to ver. 91, was not in the Hebrew in his time. But as it was in all the Greek Bibles, (which were originally translated from the Hebrew,) it is more than probable that it had been formerly in the Hebrew or rather in the Chaldaic, in which the book of Daniel was written. But this is certain: that it is, and has been of old, received by the church, and read as canonical scripture in her liturgy, and divine offices. 3:25. Then Azarias standing up, prayed in this manner, and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire, he said: 3:26. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and thy name is worthy of praise, and glorious for ever: 3:27. For thou art just in all that thou hast done to us, and all thy works are true, and thy ways right, and all thy judgments true. 3:28. For thou hast executed true judgments in all the things that thou hast brought upon us, and upon Jerusalem, the holy city of our fathers: for according to truth and judgment, thou hast brought all these things upon us for our sins. 3:29. For we have sinned, and committed iniquity, departing from thee: and we have trespassed in all things: 3:30. And we have not hearkened to thy commandments, nor have we observed nor done as thou hadst commanded us, that it might go well with us. 3:31. Wherefore, all that thou hast brought upon us, and every thing that thou hast done to us, thou hast done in true judgment: 3:32. And thou hast delivered us into the hands of our enemies that are unjust, and most wicked, and prevaricators, and to a king unjust, and most wicked beyond all that are upon the earth. 3:33. And now we cannot open our mouths: we are become a shame, and a reproach to thy servants, and to them that worship thee. 3:34. Deliver us not up for ever, we beseech thee, for thy name's sake, and abolish not thy covenant. 3:35. And take not away thy mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, thy beloved, and Isaac, thy servant, and Israel, thy holy one: 3:36. To whom thou hast spoken, promising that thou wouldst multiply their seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the sea shore. 3:37. For we, O Lord, are diminished more than any nation, and are brought low in all the earth this day for our sins. 3:38. Neither is there at this time prince, or leader, or prophet, or holocaust, or sacrifice, or oblation, or incense, or place of first fruits before thee, 3:39. That we may find thy mercy: nevertheless, in a contrite heart and humble spirit let us be accepted. 3:40. As in holocausts of rams, and bullocks, and as in thousands of fat lambs: so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day, that it may please thee: for there is no confusion to them that trust in thee. 3:41. And now we follow thee with all our heart, and we fear thee, and seek thy face. 3:42. Put us not to confusion, but deal with us according to thy meekness, and according to the multitude of thy mercies. 3:43. And deliver us, according to thy wonderful works, and give glory to thy name, O Lord: 3:44. And let all them be confounded that shew evils to thy servants, let them be confounded in all thy might, and let their strength be broken: 3:45. And let them know that thou art the Lord, the only God, and glorious over all the world. 3:46. Now the king's servants that had cast them in, ceased not to heat the furnace with brimstone and tow, and pitch, and dry sticks, 3:47. And the flame mounted up above the furnace nine and forth cubits: 3:48. And it broke forth, and burnt such of the Chaldeans as it found near the furnace. 3:49. But the angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace: and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, 3:50. And made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm. 3:51. Then these three, as with one mouth, praised and glorified and blessed God, in the furnace, saying: 3:52. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers; and worthy to be praised, and glorified, and exalted above all for ever: and blessed is the holy name of thy glory: and worthy to be praised and exalted above all, in all ages. 3:53. Blessed art thou in the holy temple of thy glory: and exceedingly to be praised and exalted above all for ever. 3:54 Blessed art thou on the throne of thy kingdom, and exceedingly to be praised, and exalted above all forever. 3:55. Blessed art thou that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims: and worthy to be praised and exalted above all for ever. 3:56. Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven: and worthy of praise, and glorious for ever. 3:57. All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:58. O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:59. O ye heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:60. O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:61. O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:62. O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:63. O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:64. O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:65. O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:66. O ye fire and heat, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:67. O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:68. O ye dews and hoar frost, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:69. O ye frost and cold, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:70. O ye ice and snow, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:71. O ye nights and days, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:72. O ye light and darkness, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:73. O ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:74. O let the earth bless the Lord: let it praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:75 O ye mountains and hills, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:76. O all ye things that spring up in the earth, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:77. O ye fountains, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:78. O ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:79. O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:80. O all ye fowls of the air, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:81. O all ye beasts and cattle, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:82. O ye sons of men, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:83. O let Israel bless the Lord: let them praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:84. O ye priests of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:85. O ye servants of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:86. O ye spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:87. O ye holy and humble of heart, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 3:88. O Ananias, Azarias, Misael, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. For he hath delivered us from hell, ad saved us out of the hand of death, and delivered us out of the midst of the burning flame, and saved us out of the midst of the fire. 3:89. O give thanks to the Lord, because he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever and ever. 3:90. O all ye religious, bless the Lord, the God of gods: praise him, and give him thanks, because his mercy endureth for ever and ever. 3:91. Then Nabuchodonosor, the king, was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles: Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered the king, and said: True, O king. 3:92. He answered, and said: Behold, I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the son of God. 3:93. Then Nabuchodonosor came to the door of the burning fiery furnace, and said: Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, ye servants of the most high God, go ye forth, and come. And immediately Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, went out from the midst of the fire. 3:94. And the nobles, and the magistrates, and the judges, and the great men of the king, being gathered together, considered these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, and that not a hair of their head had been singed, nor their garments altered, nor the smell of the fire had passed on them. 3:95. Then Nabuchodonosor breaking forth, said: Blessed be the God of them, to wit, of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that believed in him: and they changed the king's word, and delivered up their bodies, that they might not serve nor adore any god except their own God. 3:96. By me, therefore, this decree is made: That every people, tribe, and tongue, which shall speak blasphemy against the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, shall be destroyed, and their houses laid waste: for there is no other God that can save in this manner. 3:97. Then the king promoted Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, in the province of Babylon. 3:98. Nabuchodonosor, the king, to all peoples, nations, and tongues, that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied unto you. Nabuchodonosor, etc. . .These last three verses are a kind of preface to the following chapter, which is written in the style of an epistle from the king. 3:99. The most high God hath wrought signs and wonders towards me. It hath seemed good to me, therefore, to publish 3:100. His signs, because they are great: and his wonders, because they are mighty: and his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his power to all generations. Daniel Chapter 4 Nabuchodonosor's dream, by which the judgments of God are denounced against him for his pride, is interpreted by Daniel, and verified by the event. 4:1. I, Nabuchodonosor, was at rest in my house, and flourishing in my palace: 4:2. I saw a dream that affrighted me: and my thoughts in my bed, and the visions of my head, troubled me. 4:3. Then I set forth a decree, that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought in before me, and that they should shew me the interpretation of the dream. 4:4. Then came in the diviners, the wise men, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers, and I told the dream before them: but they did not shew me the interpretation thereof. 4:5. Till their colleague, Daniel, came in before me, whose name is Baltassar, according to the name of my god, who hath in him the spirit of the holy gods: and I told the dream before him. Baltassar, according to the name of my god. . .He says this, because the name of Baltassar, or Belteshazzar, is derived from the name of Bel, the chief god of the Babylonians. 4:6. Baltassar, prince of the diviners, because I know that thou hast in thee the spirit of the holy gods, and that no secret is impossible to thee, tell me the visions of my dreams that I have seen, and the interpretation of them? 4:7. This was the vision of my head in my bed: I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was exceeding great. 4:8. The tree was great and strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven: the sight thereof was even to the ends of all the earth. 4:9. Its leaves were most beautiful, and its fruit exceeding much: and in it was food for all: under it dwelt cattle and beasts, and in the branches thereof the fowls of the air had their abode: and all flesh did eat of it. 4:10. I saw in the vision of my head upon my bed, and behold a watcher, and a holy one came down from heaven. A watcher. . .A vigilant angel, perhaps the guardian of Israel. 4:11. He cried aloud, and said thus: Cut down the tree, and chop off the branches thereof: shake off its leaves, and scatter its fruits: let the beasts fly away that are under it, and the birds from its branches. 4:12. Nevertheless, leave the stump of its roots in the earth, and let it be tied with a band of iron and of brass, among the grass, that is without, and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let its portion be with the wild beasts in the grass of the earth. 4:13. Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given him: and let seven times pass over him. Let his heart be changed, etc. . .It does not appear by scripture that Nabuchodonosor was changed from human shape; much less that he was changed into an ox; but only that he lost his reason, and became mad; and in this condition remained abroad in the company of beasts, eating grass like an ox, till his hair grew in such manner as to resemble the feathers of eagles, and his nails to be like birds' claws. 4:14. This is the decree by the sentence of the watchers, and the word and demand of the holy ones: till the living know, that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men: and he will give it to whomsoever it shall please him, and he will appoint the basest man over it. 4:15. I, king Nabuchodonosor, saw this dream: thou, therefore, O Baltassar, tell me quickly the interpretation: for all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to declare the meaning of it to me: but thou art able, because the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. 4:16. Then Daniel, whose name was Baltassar, began silently to think within himself for about one hour: and his thought troubled him. But the king answering, said: Baltassar, let not the dream and the interpretation thereof trouble thee. Baltassar answered, and said: My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thy enemies. 4:17. The tree which thou sawest, which was high and strong, whose height reached to the skies, and the sight thereof into all the earth: 4:18. And the branches thereof were most beautiful, and its fruit exceeding much, and in it was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and the birds of the air had their abode in its branches. 4:19. It is thou, O king, who art grown great, and become mighty: for thy greatness hath grown, and hath reached to heaven, and thy power unto the ends of the earth. 4:20. And whereas the king saw a watcher, and a holy one come down from heaven, and say: Cut down the tree, and destroy it, but leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, and let it be bound with iron and brass, among the grass without, and let it be sprinkled with the dew of heaven, and let his feeding be with the wild beasts, till seven times pass over him. 4:21. This is the interpretation of the sentence of the most High, which is come upon my lord, the king. 4:22. They shall cast thee out from among men, and thy dwelling shall be with cattle, and with wild beasts, and thou shalt eat grass, as an ox, and shalt be wet with the dew of heaven: and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth over the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 4:23. But whereas he commanded, that the stump of the roots thereof, that is, of the tree, should be left: thy kingdom shall remain to thee, after thou shalt have known that power is from heaven. 4:24. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences. 4:25. All these things came upon king Nabuchodonosor. 4:26. At the end of twelve months he was walking in the palace of Babylon. 4:27. And the king answered, and said: Is not this the great Babylon, which I have built, to be the seat of the kingdom, by the strength of my power, and in the glory of my excellence? 4:28. And while the word was yet in the king's mouth, a voice came down from heaven: To thee, O king Nabuchodonosor, it is said: Thy kingdom shall pass from thee. 4:29. And they shall cast thee out from among men, and thy dwelling shall be with cattle and wild beasts: thou shalt eat grass like an ox, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 4:30. The same hour the word was fulfilled upon Nabuchodonosor, and he was driven away from among men, and did eat grass, like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven: till his hairs grew like the feathers of eagles, and his nails like birds' claws. 4:31. Now at the end of the days, I, Nabuchodonosor, lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my sense was restored to me: and I blessed the most High, and I praised and glorified him that liveth for ever: for his power is an everlasting power, and his kingdom is to all generations. 4:32. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing before him: for he doth according to his will, as well with the powers of heaven, as among the inhabitants of the earth: and there is none that can resist his hand, and say to him: Why hast thou done it? 4:33. At the same time my sense returned to me, and I came to the honour and glory of my kingdom: and my shape returned to me: and my nobles, and my magistrates, sought for me, and I was restored to my kingdom: and greater majesty was added to me. 4:34. Therefore I, Nabuchodonosor, do now praise, and magnify, and glorify the King of heaven: because all his works are true, and his ways judgments, and them that walk in pride he is able to abase. I, Nabuchodonosor, do now, etc. . .From this place some commentators infer that this king became a true convert, and dying not long after, was probably saved. Daniel Chapter 5 Baltasar's profane banquet: his sentence is denounced by a handwriting on the wall, which Daniel reads and interprets. 5:1. Baltasar, the king, made a great feast for a thousand of his nobles: and every one drank according to his age. Baltasar. . .He is believed to be the same as Nabonydus, the last of the Chaldean kings, grandson to Nabuchodonosor. He is called his son, ver. 2, 11, etc., according to the style of the scriptures, because he was a descendant from him. 5:2. And being now drunk, he commanded that they should bring the vessels of gold and silver, which Nabuchodonosor, his father, had brought away out of the temple, that was in Jerusalem, that the king and his nobles, and his wives, and his concubines, might drink in them. 5:3. Then were the golden and silver vessels brought, which he had brought away out of the temple that was in Jerusalem: and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. 5:4. They drank wine, and praised their gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, and of wood, and of stone. 5:5. In the same hour there appeared fingers, as it were of the hand of a man, writing over against the candlestick, upon the surface of the wall of the king's palace: and the king beheld the joints of the hand that wrote. 5:6. Then was the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him: and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees struck one against the other. 5:7. And the king cried out aloud to bring in the wise men, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spoke, and said to the wise men of Babylon: Whosoever shall read this writing, and shall make known to me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple, and shall have a golden chain on his neck, and shall be the third man in my kingdom. 5:8. Then came in all the king's wise men, but they could neither read the writing, nor declare the interpretation to the king. 5:9. Wherewith king Baltasar was much troubled, and his countenance was changed: and his nobles also were troubled. 5:10. Then the queen, on occasion of what had happened to the king, and his nobles, came into the banquet-house: and she spoke, and said: O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, neither let thy countenance be changed. The queen. . .Not the wife, but the mother of the king. 5:11. There is a man in thy kingdom that hath the spirit of the holy gods in him: and in the days of thy father knowledge and wisdom were found in him: for king Nabuchodonosor, thy father, appointed him prince of the wise men, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers, thy father, I say, O king: 5:12. Because a greater spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, and interpretation of dreams, and shewing of secrets, and resolving of difficult things, were found in him, that is, in Daniel: whom the king named Baltassar. Now, therefore, let Daniel be called for, and he will tell the interpretation. 5:13. Then Daniel was brought in before the king. And the king spoke, and said to him: Art thou Daniel, of the children of the captivity of Juda, whom my father, the king, brought out of Judea? 5:14. I have heard of thee, that thou hast the spirit of the gods, and excellent knowledge, and understanding, and wisdom are found in thee. 5:15. And now the wise men, the magicians, have come in before me, to read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof; and they could not declare to me the meaning of this writing. 5:16. But I have heard of thee, that thou canst interpret obscure things, and resolve difficult things: now if thou art able to read the writing, and to shew me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with purple, and shalt have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third prince in my kingdom. 5:17. To which Daniel made answer, and said before the king: thy rewards be to thyself, and the gifts of thy house give to another: but the writing I will read to thee, O king, and shew thee the interpretation thereof. 5:18. O king, the most high God gave to Nabuchodonosor, thy father, a kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and honour. 5:19. And for the greatness that he gave to him, all people, tribes, and languages trembled, and were afraid of him: whom he would, he slew: and whom he would, he destroyed: and whom he would, he set up: and whom he would, he brought down. 5:20. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit hardened unto pride, he was put down from the throne of his kingdom, and his glory was taken away. 5:21. And he was driven out from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses, and he did eat grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven: till he knew that the most High ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he will set over it whomsoever it shall please him. 5:22. Thou also, his son, O Baltasar, hast not humbled thy heart, whereas thou knewest all these things: 5:23. But hast lifted thyself up against the Lord of heaven: and the vessels of his house have been brought before thee: and thou, and thy nobles, and thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them: and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and of gold, and of brass, of iron, and of wood, and of stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor feel: but the God who hath thy breath in his hand, and all thy ways, thou hast not glorified. 5:24. Wherefore, he hath sent the part of the hand which hath written this that is set down. 5:25. And this is the writing that is written: MANE, THECEL, PHARES. 5:26. And this is the interpretation of the word. MANE: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and hath finished it. 5:27. THECEL: thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting. 5:28. PHARES: thy kingdom is divided, and is given to the Medes and Persians. 5:29. Then by the king's command, Daniel was clothed with purple, and a chain of gold was put about his neck: and it was proclaimed of him that he had power as the third man in the kingdom. 5:30. The same night Baltasar, the Chaldean king, was slain. 5:31. And Darius, the Mede, succeeded to the kingdom, being threescore and two years old. Darius. . .He is called Cyaxares by the historians; and was the son of Astyages, and uncle to Cyrus. Daniel Chapter 6 Daniel is promoted by Darius: his enemies procure a law forbidding prayer; for the transgression of this law Daniel is cast into the lions' den: but miraculously delivered. 6:1. It seemed good to Darius, and he appointed over the kingdom a hundred and twenty governors, to be over his whole kingdom. 6:2. And three princes over them of whom Daniel was one: that the governors might give an account to them, and the king might have no trouble. 6:3. And Daniel excelled all the princes, and governors: because a greater spirit of God was in him. 6:4. And the king thought to set him over all the kingdom; whereupon the princes, and the governors, sought to find occasion against Daniel, with regard to the king: and they could find no cause, nor suspicion, because he was faithful, and no fault, nor suspicion was found in him. 6:5. Then these men said: We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, unless perhaps concerning the law of his God. 6:6. Then the princes, and the governors, craftily suggested to the king, and spoke thus unto him: King Darius, live for ever: 6:7. All the princes of the kingdom, the magistrates, and governors, the senators, and judges, have consulted together, that an imperial decree, and an edict be published: That whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, but of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of the lions. 6:8. Now, therefore, O king, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree: that what is decreed by the Medes and Persians may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it. 6:9. So king Darius set forth the decree, and established it. 6:10. Now, when Daniel knew this, that is to say, that the law was made, he went into his house: and opening the windows in his upper chamber towards Jerusalem, he knelt down three times a day, and adored and gave thanks before his God, as he had been accustomed to do before. 6:11. Wherefore those men carefully watching him, found Daniel praying and making supplication to his God. 6:12. And they came and spoke to the king concerning the edict: O king, hast thou not decreed, that every man that should make a request to any of the gods, or men, for thirty days, but to thyself, O king, should be cast into the den of the lions? And the king answered them, saying: The word is true, according to the decree of the Medes and Persians, which it is not lawful to violate. 6:13. Then they answered, and said before the king: Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Juda, hath not regarded thy law, nor the decree that thou hast made: but three times a day he maketh his prayer. 6:14. Now when the king had heard these words, he was very much grieved, and in behalf of Daniel he set his heart to deliver him, and even till sunset he laboured to save him. 6:15. But those men perceiving the king's design, said to him: Know thou, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, that no decree which the king hath made, may be altered. 6:16. Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of the lions. And the king said to Daniel: Thy God, whom thou always servest, he will deliver thee. 6:17. And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den: which the king sealed with his own ring, and with the ring of his nobles, that nothing should be done against Daniel. 6:18. And the king went away to his house, and laid himself down without taking supper, and meat was not set before him, and even sleep departed from him. 6:19. Then the king rising very early in the morning, went in haste to the lions' den: 6:20. And coming near to the den, cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him: Daniel, servant of the living God, hath thy God, whom thou servest always, been able, thinkest thou, to deliver thee from the lions? 6:21. And Daniel answering the king, said: O king, live for ever: 6:22. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him justice hath been found in me: yea, and before thee, O king, I have done no offence. 6:23. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and he commanded that Daniel should be taken out of the den: and Daniel was taken out of the den, and no hurt was found in him, because he believed in his God. 6:24. And by the king's commandment, those men were brought that had accused Daniel: and they were cast into the lions' den, they and their children, and their wives: and they did not reach the bottom of the den, before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces. 6:25. Then king Darius wrote to all people, tribes, and languages, dwelling in the whole earth: PEACE be multiplied unto you. 6:26. It is decreed by me, that in all my empire and my kingdom, all men dread and fear the God of Daniel. For he is the living and eternal God for ever: and his kingdom shall not be destroyed, and his power shall be for ever. 6:27. He is the deliverer, and saviour, doing signs and wonders in heaven, and in earth: who hath delivered Daniel out of the lions' den. 6:28. Now Daniel continued unto the reign of Darius, and the reign of Cyrus, the Persian. Daniel Chapter 7 Daniel's vision of the four beasts, signifying four kingdoms: of God sitting on his throne: and of the opposite kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist. 7:1. In the first year of Baltasar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream: and the vision of his head was upon his bed: and writing the dream, he comprehended it in a few words: and relating the sum of it in short, he said: 7:2. I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea. 7:3. And four great beasts, different one from another, came up out of the sea. Four great beasts. . .Viz., the Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires. But some rather choose to understand the fourth beast of the successors of Alexander the Great, more especially of them that reigned in Asia and Syria. 7:4. The first was like a lioness, and had the wings of an eagle: I beheld till her wings were plucked off, and she was lifted up from the earth, and stood upon her feet as a man, and the heart of a man was given to her. 7:5. And behold another beast, like a bear, stood up on one side: and there were three rows in the mouth thereof, and in the teeth thereof, and thus they said to it: Arise, devour much flesh. 7:6. After this I beheld, and lo, another like a leopard, and it had upon it four wings, as of a fowl, and the beast had four heads, and power was given to it. 7:7. After this I beheld in the vision of the night, and lo, a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful, and exceeding strong, it had great iron teeth, eating and breaking in pieces, and treading down the rest with his feet: and it was unlike to the other beasts which I had seen before it, and had ten horns. Ten horns. . .That is, ten kingdoms, (as Apoc. 17.12,) among which the empire of the fourth beast shall be parcelled. Or ten kings of the number of the successors of Alexander; as figures of such as shall be about the time of Antichrist. 7:8. I considered the horns, and behold another little horn sprung out of the midst of them: and three of the first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof: and behold eyes like the eyes of a man were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things. Another little horn. . .This is commonly understood of Antichrist. It may also be applied to that great persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes, as a figure of Antichrist. 7:9. I beheld till thrones were placed, and the ancient of days sat: his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like clean wool: his throne like flames of fire: the wheels of it like a burning fire. 7:10. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before him: thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him: the judgment sat, and the books were opened. 7:11. I beheld, because of the voice of the great words which that horn spoke: and I saw that the beast was slain, and the body thereof was destroyed, and given to the fire to be burnt: 7:12. And that the power of the other beasts was taken away: and that times of life were appointed them for a time, and a time. 7:13. I beheld, therefore, in the vision of the night, and lo, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the ancient of days: and they presented him before him. 7:14. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed. 7:15. My spirit trembled; I, Daniel, was affrighted at these things, and the visions of my head troubled me. 7:16. I went near to one of them that stood by, and asked the truth of him concerning all these things, and he told me the interpretation of the words, and instructed me: 7:17. These four great beasts, are four kingdoms, which shall arise out of the earth. 7:18. But the saints of the most high God shall take the kingdom: and they shall possess the kingdom for ever and ever. 7:19. After this I would diligently learn concerning the fourth beast, which was very different from all, and exceeding terrible: his teeth and claws were of iron: he devoured and broke in pieces, and the rest he stamped upon with his feet: 7:20. And concerning the ten horns that he had on his head: and concerning the other that came up, before which three horns fell: and of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and was greater than the rest. 7:21. I beheld, and lo, that horn made war against the saints, and prevailed over them, 7:22. Till the ancient of days came and gave judgment to the saints of the most High, and the time came, and the saints obtained the kingdom. 7:23. And thus he said: The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be greater than all the kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. 7:24. And the ten horns of the same kingdom, shall be ten kings: and another shall rise up after them, and he shall be mightier than the former, and he shall bring down three kings. 7:25. And he shall speak words against the High One, and shall crush the saints of the most High: and he shall think himself able to change times and laws, and they shall be delivered into his hand until a time, and times, and half a time. A time, and times, and half a time. . .That is, three years and a half; which is supposed to be the length of the duration of the persecution of Antichrist. 7:26. And a judgment shall sit, that his power may be taken away, and be broken in pieces, and perish even to the end. 7:27. And that the kingdom, and power, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heaven, may be given to the people of the saints of the most High: whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all kings shall serve him, and shall obey him. 7:28. Hitherto is the end of the word. I, Daniel, was much troubled with my thoughts, and my countenance was changed in me: but I kept the word in my heart. Daniel Chapter 8 Daniel's vision of the ram and the he goat interpreted by the angel Gabriel. 8:1. In the third year of the reign of king Baltasar, a vision appeared to me. I, Daniel, after what I had seen in the beginning, 8:2. Saw in my vision when I was in the castle of Susa, which is in the province of Elam: and I saw in the vision that I was over the gate of Ulai. 8:3. And I lifted up my eyes, and saw: and behold a ram stood before the water, having two high horns, and one higher than the other, and growing up. Afterward A ram. . .The empire of the Medes and Persians. 8:4. I saw the ram pushing with his horns against the west, and against the north, and against the south: and no beasts could withstand him, nor be delivered out of his hand: and he did according to his own will, and became great. 8:5. And I understood: and behold a he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and he touched not the ground, and the he goat had a notable horn between his eyes. A he goat. . .The empire of the Greeks, or Macedonians. Ibid. He touched not the ground. . .He conquered all before him, with so much rapidity, that he seemed rather to fly, than to walk upon the earth.--Ibid. A notable horn. . .Alexander the Great. 8:6. And he went up to the ram that had the horns, which I had seen standing before the gate, and he ran towards him in the force of his strength. 8:7. And when he was come near the ram, he was enraged against him, and struck the ram: and broke his two horns, and the ram could not withstand him: and when he had cast him down on the ground, he stamped upon him, and none could deliver the ram out of his hand. 8:8. And the he goat became exceeding great: and when he was grown, the great horn was broken, and there came up four horns under it towards the four winds of heaven. Four horns. . .Seleucus, Antigonus, Philip, and Ptolemeus, the successors of Alexander, who divided his empire among them. 8:9. And out of one of them came forth a little horn: and it became great against the south, and against the east, and against the strength. A little horn. . .Antiochus Epiphanes, a descendant of Seleucus. He grew against the south, and the east, by his victories over the kings of Egypt and Armenia: and against the strength, that is, against Jerusalem and the people of God. 8:10. And it was magnified even unto the strength of heaven: and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them. Unto the strength of heaven. . .or, against the strength of heaven. So are here called the army of the Jews, the people of God. 8:11. And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary. 8:12. And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper. 8:13. And I heard one of the saints speaking, and one saint said to another I know not to whom, that was speaking: How long shall be the vision, concerning the continual sacrifice, and the sin of the desolation that is made: and the sanctuary, and the strength be trodden under foot? 8:14. And he said to him: Unto evening and morning two thousand three hundred days: and the sanctuary shall be cleansed. Unto evening and morning two thousand three hundred days. . .That is, six years and almost four months: which was the whole time from the beginning of the persecution of Antiochus till his death. 8:15. And it came to pass when I, Daniel, saw the vision, and sought the meaning, that behold there stood before me as it were the appearance of a man. 8:16. And I heard the voice of a man between Ulai: and he called, and said: Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. 8:17. And he came, and stood near where I stood: and when he was come, I fell on my face, trembling, and he said to me: Understand, O son of man, for in the time of the end the vision shall be fulfilled. 8:18. And when he spoke to me, I fell flat on the ground: and he touched me, and set me upright. 8:19. And he said to me: I will shew thee what things are to come to pass in the end of the malediction: for the time hath its end. 8:20. The ram, which thou sawest with horns, is the king of the Medes and Persians. 8:21. And the he goat, is the king of the Greeks, and the great horn that was between his eyes, the same is the first king. 8:22. But whereas when that was broken, there arose up four for it, four kings shall rise up of his nation, but not with his strength. 8:23. And after their reign, when iniquities shall be grown up, there shall arise a king of a shameless face, and understanding dark sentences. 8:24. And his power shall be strengthened, but not by his own force: and he shall lay all things waste, and shall prosper, and do more than can be believed. And he shall destroy the mighty, and the people of the saints, 8:25. According to his will, and craft shall be successful in his hand: and his heart shall be puffed up, and in the abundance of all things he shall kill many: and he shall rise up against the prince of princes, and shall be broken without hand. 8:26. And the vision of the evening and the morning, which was told, is true: thou, therefore, seal up the vision, because it shall come to pass after many days. 8:27. And I, Daniel, languished, and was sick for some days: and when I was risen up, I did the king's business, and I was astonished at the vision, and there was none that could interpret it. Daniel Chapter 9 Daniel's confession and prayer: Gabriel informs him concerning the seventy weeks to the coming of Christ. 9:1. In the first year of Darius, the son of Assuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans: 9:2. The first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years, concerning which the word of the Lord came to Jeremias, the prophet, that seventy years should be accomplished of the desolation of Jerusalem. 9:3. And I set my face to the Lord, my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes. 9:4. And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I made my confession, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord God, great and terrible, who keepest the covenant, and mercy to them that love thee, and keep thy commandments. 9:5. We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly, and have revolted: and we have gone aside from thy commandments, and thy judgments. 9:6. We have not hearkened to thy servants, the prophets, that have spoken in thy name to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 9:7. To thee, O Lord, justice: but to us confusion of face, as at this day to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, to them that are near, and to them that are far off, in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, for their iniquities, by which they have sinned against thee. 9:8. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our princes, and to our fathers, that have sinned. 9:9. But to thee, the Lord our God, mercy and forgiveness, for we have departed from thee: 9:10. And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, our God, to walk in his law, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets. 9:11. And all Israel have transgressed thy law, and have turned away from hearing thy voice, and the malediction, and the curse, which is written in the book of Moses, the servant of God, is fallen upon us, because we have sinned against him. 9:12. And he hath confirmed his words which he spoke against us, and against our princes that judged us, that he would bring in upon us a great evil, such as never was under all the heaven, according to that which hath been done in Jerusalem. 9:13. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: and we entreated not thy face, O Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and think on thy truth. 9:14. And the Lord hath watched upon the evil, and hath brought it upon us: the Lord, our God, is just in all his works which he hath done: for we have not hearkened to his voice. 9:15. And now, O Lord, our God, who hast brought forth thy people out of the land of Egypt, with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name as at this day: we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, 9:16. O Lord, against all thy justice: let thy wrath and thy indignation be turned away, I beseech thee, from thy city, Jerusalem, and from thy holy mountain. For by reason of our sins, and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem, and thy people, are a reproach to all that are round about us. 9:17. Now, therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of thy servant, and his prayers: and shew thy face upon thy sanctuary, which is desolate, for thy own sake. 9:18. Incline, O my God, thy ear, and hear: open thy eyes, and see our desolation, and the city upon which thy name is called: for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before thy face, but for the multitude of thy tender mercies. 9:19. O Lord, hear: O Lord, be appeased: hearken, and do: delay not, for thy own sake, O my God: because thy name is invocated upon thy city, and upon thy people. 9:20. Now while I was yet speaking, and praying, and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people of Israel, and presenting my supplications in the sight of my God, for the holy mountain of my God: 9:21. As I was yet speaking in prayer, behold the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly, touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice. The man Gabriel. . .The angel Gabriel in the shape of a man. 9:22. And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said: O Daniel, I am now come forth to teach thee, and that thou mightest understand. 9:23. From the beginning of thy prayers the word came forth: and I am come to shew it to thee, because thou art a man of desires: therefore, do thou mark the word, and understand the vision. Man of desires. . .that is, ardently praying for the Jews then in captivity. 9:24. Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the Saint of saints may be anointed. Seventy weeks. . .Viz., of years, (or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years,) are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer. 9:25. Know thou, therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ, the prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls, in straitness of times. From the going forth of the word, etc. . .That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when by his commandment Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esd. 2. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is, 483 years to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias.--Ibid. In straitness of times. . .angustia temporum: which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building: and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz., fifty-two days. 9:26. And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people, with their leader, that shall come, shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation. A people with their leader. . .The Romans under Titus. 9:27. And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week: and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fail: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end. In the half of the week. . .or, in the middle of the week, etc. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then by his sacrifice upon the cross abolished all the sacrifices of the law.--Ibid. The abomination of desolation. . .Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz., that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world under Antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation. Daniel Chapter 10 Daniel having humbled himself by fasting and penance seeth a vision, with which he is much terrified; but he is comforted by an angel. 10:1. In the third year of Cyrus, king of the Persians, a word was revealed to Daniel, surnamed Baltassar, and a true word, and great strength: and he understood the word: for there is need of understanding in a vision. 10:2. In those days I, Daniel, mourned the days of three weeks. 10:3. I ate no desirable bread, and neither flesh, nor wine, entered into my mouth, neither was I anointed with ointment: till the days of three weeks were accomplished. 10:4. And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, I was by the great river, which is the Tigris. 10:5. And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw: and behold a man clothed in linen, and his loins were girded with the finest gold: 10:6. And his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp: and his arms, and all downward even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass: and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude. 10:7. And I, Daniel alone, saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw it not: but an exceeding great terror fell upon them, and they fled away, and hid themselves. 10:8. And I, being left alone, saw this great vision: and there remained no strength in me, and the appearance of my countenance was changed in me, and I fainted away, and retained no strength. 10:9. And I heard the voice of his words: and when I heard I lay in a consternation upon my face, and my face was close to the ground. 10:10. And behold a hand touched me, and lifted me up upon my knees, and upon the joints of my hands. 10:11. And he said to me: Daniel, thou man of desires, understand the words that I speak to thee, and stand upright: for I am sent now to thee. And when he had said this word to me, I stood trembling. 10:12. And he said to me: Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, to afflict thyself in the sight of thy God, thy words have been heard: and I am come for thy words. 10:13. But the prince of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me one and twenty days: and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there by the king of the Persians. The prince, etc. . .That is, the angel guardian of Persia: who according to his office, seeking the spiritual good of the Persians was desirous that many of the Jews should remain among them. 10:14. But I am come to teach thee what things shall befall thy people in the latter days, for as yet the vision is for days. 10:15. And when he was speaking such words to me, I cast down my countenance to the ground, and held my peace. 10:16. And behold as it were the likeness of a son of man touched my lips: then I opened my mouth and spoke, and said to him that stood before me: O my lord, at the sight of thee my joints are loosed, and no strength hath remained in me. 10:17. And how can the servant of my lord speak with my lord? for no strength remaineth in me; moreover, my breath is stopped. 10:18. Therefore, he that looked like a man, touched me again, and strengthened me. 10:19. And he said: Fear not, O man of desires, peace be to thee: take courage, and be strong. And when he spoke to me, I grew strong, and I said: Speak, O my lord, for thou hast strengthened me. 10:20. And he said: Dost thou know wherefore I am come to thee? And now I will return, to fight against the prince of the Persians. When I went forth, there appeared the prince of the Greeks coming. 10:21. But I will tell thee what is set down in the scripture of truth: and none is my helper in all these things, but Michael your prince. Michael your prince. . .The guardian general of the church of God. Daniel Chapter 11 The angel declares to Daniel many things to come, with regard to the Persian and Grecian kings: more especially with regard to Antiochus as a figure of Antichrist. 11:1. And from the first year of Darius, the Mede, I stood up, that he might be strengthened, and confirmed. 11:2. And now I will shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand yet three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be enriched exceedingly above them all: and when he shall be grown mighty by his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. Three kings. . .Viz., Cambyses, Smerdes Magus, and Darius, the son of Hystaspes.--Ibid. The fourth. . .Xerxes. 11:3. But there shall rise up a strong king, and shall rule with great power: and he shall do what he pleaseth. A strong king. . .Alexander. 11:4. And when he shall come to his height, his kingdom shall be broken, and it shall be divided towards the four winds of the heaven: but not to his posterity, nor according to his power with which he ruled. For his kingdom shall be rent in peices, even for strangers, besides these. 11:5. And the king of the south shall be strengthened, and one of his princes shall prevail over him, and he shall rule with great power: for his dominions shall be great. The king of the south. . .Ptolemeus the son of Lagus, king of Egypt, which lies south of Jerusalem.--Ibid. One of his princes. . .that is, one of Alexander's princes, shall prevail over him: that is, shall be stronger than the king of Egypt. He speaks of Seleucus Nicator, king of Asia and Syria, whose successors are here called the kings of the north, because their dominions lay to the north in respect to Jerusalem. 11:6. And after the end of years they shall be in league together: and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make friendship, but she shall not obtain the strength of the arm, neither shall her seed stand: and she shall be given up, and her young men that brought her, and they that strengthened her in these times. The daughter of the king of the south. . .Viz., Berenice, daughter of Ptolemeus Philadelphus, given in marriage to Antiochus Theos, grandson of Seleucus. 11:7. And a plant of the bud of her roots shall stand up: and he shall come with an army, and shall enter into the province of the king of the north: and he shall abuse them, and shall prevail. A plant, etc. . .Ptolemeus Evergetes, the son of Philadelphus. 11:8. And he shall also carry away captive into Egypt their gods, and their graven things, and their precious vessels of gold and silver: he shall prevail against the king of the north. The king of the north. . .Seleucus Callinicus. 11:9. And the king of the south shall enter into the kingdom, and shall return to his own land. 11:10. And his sons shall be provoked, and they shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and he shall come with haste like a flood: and he shall return, and be stirred up, and he shall join battle with his force. His sons. . .Seleucus Ceraunius, and Antiochus the Great, the sons of Callinicus.--Ibid. He shall come. . .Viz., Antiochus the Great. 11:11. And the king of the south being provoked, shall go forth, and shall fight against the king of the north, and shall prepare an exceeding great multitude, and a multitude shall be given into his hands. The king of the south. . .Ptolemeus Philopator, son of Evergetes. 11:12. And he shall take a multitude, and his heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast down many thousands: but he shall not prevail. 11:13. For the king of the north shall return, and shall prepare a multitude much greater than before: and in the end of times, and years, he shall come in haste with a great army, and much riches. 11:14. And in those times many shall rise up against the king of the south, and the children of prevaricators of thy people shall lift up themselves to fulfil the vision, and they shall fall. 11:15. And the king of the north shall come, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take the best fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, and his chosen ones shall rise up to resist, and they shall not have strength. 11:16. And he shall come upon him, and do according to his pleasure, and there shall be none to stand against his face: and he shall stand in the glorious land, and it shall be consumed by his hand. He shall come upon him. . .Viz., Antiochus shall come upon the king of the south.--Ibid. The glorious land. . .Judea. 11:17. And he shall set his face to come to possess all his kingdom, and he shall make upright conditions with him: and he shall give him a daughter of women, to overthrow it: and she shall not stand, neither shall she be for him. All his kingdom. . .Viz., all the kingdom of Ptolemeus Epiphanes, son of Philopator.--Ibid. A daughter of women. . .That is, a most beautiful woman, viz., his daughter Cleopatra.--Ibid. To overthrow it. . .Viz., the kingdom of Epiphanes: but his policy shall not succeed; for Cleopatra shall take more to heart the interest of her husband, than that of her father. 11:18. And he shall turn his face to the islands, and shall take many: and he shall cause the prince of his reproach to cease, and his reproach shall be turned upon him. The prince of his reproach. . .Seipio the Roman general, called the prince of his reproach, because he overthrew Antiochus, and obliged him to submit to very dishonourable terms, before he would cease from the war. 11:19. And he shall turn his face to the empire of his own land, and he shall stumble, and fall, ans shall not be found. 11:20. And there shall stand up in his place one most vile, and unworthy of kingly honour: and in a few days he shall be destroyed, not in rage nor in battle. One most vile. . .Seleucus Philopator, who sent Heliodorus to plunder the temple: and was shortly after slain by the same Heliodorus. 11:21. And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honour shall not be given him: and he shall come privately, and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud. One despised. . .Viz., Antiochus Epiphanes, who at first was despised and not received for king. What is here said of this prince, is accommodated by St. Jerome and others to Antichrist; of whom this Antiochus was a figure. 11:22. And the arms of the fighter shall be overcome before his face, and shall be broken: yea, also the prince of the covenant. Of the fighter. . .That is, of them that shall oppose him, and shall fight against him.--Ibid. The prince of the covenant. . .or, of the league. The chief of them that conspired against him: or the king of Egypt his most powerful adversary. 11:23. And after friendships, he will deal deceitfully with him: and he shall go up, and shall overcome with a small people. 11:24. And he shall enter into rich and plentiful cities: and he shall do that which his fathers never did, nor his fathers' fathers: he shall scatter their spoils, and their prey, and their riches, and shall forecast devices against the best fenced places: and this until a time. 11:25. And his strength, and his heart, shall be stirred up against the king of the south, with a great army: and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with many and very strong succours: and they shall not stand, for they shall form designs against him. The king. . .Ptolemeus Philometor. 11:26. And they that eat bread with him, shall destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown: and many shall fall down slain. 11:27. And the heart of the two kings shall be to do evil, and they shall speak lies at one table, and they shall not prosper: because as yet the end is unto another time. 11:28. And he shall return into his land with much riches: and his heart shall be against the holy covenant, and he shall succeed, and shall return into his own land. 11:29. At the time appointed he shall return, and he shall come to the south, but the latter time shall not be like the former. 11:30. And the galleys and the Romans shall come upon him, and he shall be struck, and shall return, and shall have indignation against the covenant of the sanctuary, and he shall succeed: and he shall return, and shall devise against them that have forsaken the covenant of the sanctuary. The galleys and the Romans. . .Popilius, and the other Roman ambassadors, who came in galleys, and obliged him to depart from Egypt. 11:31. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall defile the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the continual sacrifice: and they shall place there the abomination unto desolation. They shall place there the abomination, etc. . .The idol of Jupiter Olympius, which Antiochus ordered to be set up in the sanctuary of the temple: which is here called the sanctuary of strength, from the Almighty that was worshipped there. 11:32. And such as deal wickedly against the covenant shall deceitfully dissemble: but the people that know their God shall prevail and succeed. 11:33. And they that are learned among the people shall teach many: and they shall fall by the sword, and by fire, and by captivity, and by spoil for many days. 11:34. And when they shall have fallen, they shall be relieved with a small help: and many shall be joined to them deceitfully. 11:35. And some of the learned shall fall, that they may be tried, and may be chosen, and made white, even to the appointed time: because yet there shall be another time. 11:36. And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall be lifted up, and shall magnify himself against every god: and he shall speak great things against the God of gods, and shall prosper, till the wrath be accomplished. For the determination is made. 11:37. And he shall make no account of the God of his fathers: and he shall follow the lust of women, and he shall not regard any gods: for he shall rise up against all things. 11:38. But he shall worship the god Maozim, in his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not, he shall worship with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things of great price. The god Maozim. . .That is, the god of forces or strong holds. 11:39. And he shall do this to fortify Maozim with a strange god, whom he hath acknowledged, and he shall increase glory, and shall give them power over many, and shall divide the land gratis. And he shall increase glory, etc. . .He shall bestow honours, riches and lands, upon them that shall worship his god. 11:40. And at the time prefixed the king of the south shall fight against him, and the king of the north shall come against him like a tempest, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with a great navy, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall destroy, and pass through. 11:41. And he shall enter into the glorious land, and many shall fall: and these only shall be saved out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the principality of the children of Ammon. 11:42. And he shall lay his hand upon the lands: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. 11:43. And he shall have power over the treasures of gold, and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt: and he shall pass through Lybia, and Ethiopia. 11:44. And tidings out of the east, and out of the north, shall trouble him: and he shall come with a great multitude to destroy and slay many. 11:45. And he shall fix his tabernacle, Apadno, between the seas, upon a glorious and holy mountain: and he shall come even to the top thereof, and none shall help him. Apadno. . .Some take it for the proper name of a place: others, from the Hebrew, translate it his palace. Daniel Chapter 12 Michael shall stand up for the people of God: with other things relating to Antichrist, and the end of the world. 12:1. But at that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people: and a time shall come, such as never was from the time that nations began, even until that time. And at that time shall thy people be saved, every one that shall be found written in the book. 12:2. And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake: some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, to see it always. 12:3. But they that are learned, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity. Learned. . .Viz., in the law of God and true wisdom, which consists in knowing and loving God. 12:4. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time appointed: many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold. 12:5. And I, Daniel, looked, and behold as it were two others stood: one on this side upon the bank of the river, and another on that side, on the other bank of the river. 12:6. And I said to the man that was clothed in linen, that stood upon the waters of the river: How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? 12:7. And I heard the man that was clothed in linen, that stood upon the waters of the river, when he had lifted up his right hand, and his left hand to heaven, and had sworn by him that liveth for ever, that it should be unto a time, and times, and half a time. And when the scattering of the band of the holy people shall be accomplished, all these things shall be finished. 12:8. And I heard, and understood not. And I said: O my lord, what shall be after these things? 12:9. And he said: Go, Daniel, because the words are shut up, and sealed until the appointed time. 12:10. Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire: and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand. 12:11. And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days. 12:12. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh unto a thousand three hundred thirty-five days. 12:13. But go thou thy ways until the time appointed: and thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot unto the end of the days. Daniel Chapter 13 The history of Susanna and the two elders. This history of Susanna, in all the ancient Greek and Latin Bibles, was placed in the beginning of the book of Daniel: till St. Jerome, in his translation, detached it from thence; because he did not find it in the Hebrew: which is also the case of the history of Bel and the Dragon. But both the one and the other are received by the Catholic Church: and were from the very beginning a part of the Christian Bible. 13:1. Now there was a man that dwelt in Babylon, and his name was Joakim: 13:2. And he took a wife, whose name was Susanna, the daughter of Helcias, a very beautiful woman, and one that feared God. 13:3. For her parents being just, had instructed their daughter according to the law of Moses. 13:4. Now Joakim was very rich, and had an orchard near his house: and the Jews resorted to him, because he was the most honourable of them all. 13:5. And there were two of the ancients of the people appointed judges that year, of whom the Lord said: That iniquity came out from Babylon, from the ancient judges, that seemed to govern the people. 13:6. These men frequented the house of Joakim, and all that hand any matters of judgment came to them. 13:7. And when the people departed away at noon, Susanna went in, and walked in her husband's orchard. 13:8. And the old men saw her going in every day, and walking: and they were inflamed with lust towards her: 13:9. And they perverted their own mind, and turned away their eyes, that they might not look unto heaven, nor remember just judgments. 13:10. So they were both wounded with the love of her, yet they did not make known their grief one to the other. 13:11. For they were ashamed to declare to one another their lust, being desirous to have to do with her: 13:12. And they watched carefully every day to see her. And one said to the other: 13:13. Let us now go home, for it is dinner time. So going out, they departed one from another. 13:14. And turning back again, they came both to the same place: and asking one another the cause, they acknowledged their lust: and then they agreed together upon a time, when they might find her alone. 13:15. And it fell out, as they watched a fit day, she went in on a time, as yesterday and the day before, with two maids only, and was desirous to wash herself in the orchard: for it was hot weather. 13:16. And there was nobody there, but the two old men that had hid themselves, and were beholding her. 13:17. So she said to the maids: Bring me oil, and washing balls, and shut the doors of the orchard, that I may wash me. 13:18. And they did as she bade them: and they shut the doors of the orchard, and went out by a back door to fetch what she had commanded them, and they knew not that the elders were hid within. 13:19. Now when the maids were gone forth, the two elders arose, and ran to her, and said: 13:20. Behold the doors of the orchard are shut, and nobody seeth us, and we are in love with thee: wherefore consent to us, and lie with us. 13:21. But if thou wilt not, we will bear witness against thee, that a young man was with thee, and therefore thou didst send away thy maids form thee. 13:22. Susanna sighed, and said: I am straitened on every side: for if I do this thing, it is death to me: and if I do it not, I shall not escape your hands. 13:23. But it is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord. 13:24. With that Susanna cried out with a loud voice: and the elders also cried out against her. 13:25. And one of them ran to the door of the orchard, and opened it. 13:26. So when the servants of the house heard the cry in the orchard, they rushed in by the back door, to see what was the matter. 13:27. But after the old men had spoken, the servants were greatly ashamed: for never had there been any such word said of Susanna. And on the next day, 13:28. When the people were come to Joakim, her husband, the two elders also came full of wicked device against Susanna, to put her to death. 13:29. And they said before the people: Send to Susanna, daughter of Helcias, the wife of Joakim. And presently they sent. 13:30. And she came with her parents, and children and all her kindred. 13:31. Now Susanna was exceeding delicate, and beautiful to behold. 13:32. But those wicked men commanded that her face should be uncovered, (for she was covered) that so at least they might be satisfied with her beauty. 13:33. Therefore her friends, and all her acquaintance wept. 13:34. But the two elders rising up in the midst of the people, laid their hands upon her head. 13:35. And she weeping, looked up to heaven, for her heart had confidence in the Lord. 13:36. And the elders said: As we walked in the orchard alone, this woman came in with two maids, and shut the doors of the orchard, ans sent away the maids from her. 13:37. Then a young man that was there hid came to her, and lay with her. 13:38. But we that were in a corner of the orchard, seeing this wickedness, ran up to them, and we saw them lie together. 13:39. And him indeed we could not take, because he was stronger than us, and opening the doors, he leaped out: 13:40. But having taken this woman, we asked who the young man was, but she would not tell us: of this thing we are witnesses. 13:41. The multitude believed them, as being the elders, and the judges of the people, and they condemned her to death. 13:42. Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said: O eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass, 13:43. Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me: and behold I must die, whereas I have done none of these things, which these men have maliciously forged against me. 13:44. And the Lord heard her voice. 13:45. And when she was led to be put to death, the Lord raised up the holy spirit of a young boy, whose name was Daniel: 13:46. And he cried out with a loud voice: I am clear from the blood of this woman. 13:47. Then all the people turning themselves towards him, said: What meaneth this word that thou hast spoken? 13:48. But he standing in the midst of them, said: Are ye so foolish, ye children of Israel, that without examination or knowledge of the truth, you have condemned a daughter of Israel? 13:49. Return to judgment, for they have borne false witness against her. 13:50. So all the people turned again in haste, and the old men said to him: Come, and sit thou down among us, and shew it us: seeing God hath given thee the honour of old age. 13:51. And Daniel said to the people: Separate these two far from one another, and I will examine them. 13:52. So when they were put asunder one from the other, he called one of them, and said to him: O thou that art grown old in evil days, now are thy sins come out, which thou hast committed before: 13:53. In judging unjust judgments, oppressing the innocent, and letting the guilty to go free, whereas the Lord saith: The innocent and the just thou shalt not kill. 13:54. Now then if thou sawest her, tell me under what tree thou sawest them conversing together: He said: Under a mastic tree. 13:55. And Daniel said: Well hast thou lied against thy own head: for behold the angel of God having received the sentence of him, shall cut thee in two. 13:56. And having put him aside, he commanded that the other should come, and he said to him: O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived tee, and lust hath perverted thy heart: 13:57. Thus did you do to the daughters of Israel, and they for fear conversed with you: but a daughter of Juda would not abide your wickedness. 13:58. Now, therefore, tell me, under what tree didst thou take them conversing together. And he answered: Under a holm tree. 13:59. And Daniel said to him: Well hast thou also lied against thy own head: for the angel of the Lord waiteth with a sword to cut thee in two, and to destroy you. 13:60. With that all the assembly cried out with a loud voice, and they blessed God, who saveth them that trust in him. 13:61. And they rose up against the two elders, (for Daniel had convicted them of false witness by their own mouth) and they did to them as they had maliciously dealt against their neighbour, 13:62. To fulfil the law of Moses: and they put them to death, and innocent blood was saved in that day. 13:63. But Helcias, and his wife, praised God, for their daughter, Susanna, with Joakim, her husband, and all her kindred, because there was no dishonesty found in her. 13:64. And Daniel became great in the sight of the people from that day, and thence forward. 13:65. And king Astyages was gathered to his fathers; and Cyrus, the Persian, received his kingdom. Daniel Chapter 14 The history of Bel, and of the great serpent worshipped by the Babylonians. 14:1. And Daniel was the king's guest, and was honoured above all his friends. The king's guest. . .It seems most probable, that the king here spoken of was Evilmerodach, the son and successor of Nabuchodonosor, and a great favourer of the Jews. 14:2. Now the Babylonians had an idol called Bel: and there was spent upon him every day twelve great measures of fine flour, and forty sheep, and six vessels of wine. 14:3. The king also worshipped him, and went every day to adore him: but Daniel adored his God. And the king said to him: Why dost thou not adore Bel? 14:4. And he answered, and said to him: Because I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, that created heaven and earth, and hath power over all flesh. 14:5. And the king said to him: Doth not Bel seem to thee to be a living god? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? 14:6. Then Daniel smiled, and said: O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, neither hath he eaten at any time. 14:7. And the king being angry, called for his priests, and said to them: If you tell me not who it is that eateth up these expenses, you shall die. 14:8. But if you can shew that Bel eateth these things, Daniel shall die, because he hath blasphemed against Bel. And Daniel said to the king: Be it done according to thy word. 14:9. Now the priests of Bel were seventy, beside their wives, and little ones, and children. And the king went with Daniel into the temple of Bel. 14:10. And the priests of Bel said: Behold, we go out: and do thou, O king, set on the meats, and make ready the wine, and shut the door fast, and seal it with thy own ring: 14:11. And when thou comest in the morning, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten up all, we will suffer death, or else Daniel, that hath lied against us. 14:12. And they little regarded it, because they had made under the table a secret entrance, and they always came in by it, and consumed those things. 14:13. So it came to pass after they were gone out, the king set the meats before Bel: and Daniel commanded his servants, and they brought ashes, and he sifted them all over the temple before the king: and going forth, they shut the door, and having sealed it with the king's ring, they departed. 14:14. But the priests went in by night, according to their custom, with their wives, and their children: and they eat and drank up all. 14:15. And the king arose early in the morning, and Daniel with him. 14:16. And the king said: Are the seals whole, Daniel? And he answered: They are whole, O king. 14:17. And as soon as he had opened the door, the king looked upon the table, and cried out with a loud voice: Great art thou, O Bel, and there is not any deceit with thee. 14:18. And Daniel laughed: and he held the king, that he should not go in: and he said: Behold the pavement, mark whose footsteps these are. 14:19. And the king said: I see the footsteps of men, and women, and children. And the king was angry. 14:20. Then he took the priests, and their wives, and their children: and they shewed him the private doors by which they came in, and consumed the things that were on the table. 14:21. The king, therefore, put them to death, and delivered Bel into the power of Daniel: who destroyed him and his temple. 14:22. And there was a great dragon in that place, and the Babylonians worshipped him. 14:23. And the king said to Daniel: Behold, thou canst not say now, that this is not a living god: adore him, therefore. 14:24. And Daniel said: I adore the Lord, my God: for he is the living God: but that is no living god. 14:25. But give me leave, O king, and I will kill this dragon without sword or club. And the king said, I give thee leave. 14:26. Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and boiled them together: and he made lumps, and put them into the dragon's mouth, and the dragon burst asunder. And he said: Behold him whom you worship. 14:27. And when the Babylonians had heard this, they took great indignation: and being gathered together against the king, they said: The king is become a Jew. He hath destroyed Bel, he hath killed the dragon, and he hath put the priests to death. 14:28. And they came to the king, and said: Deliver us Daniel, or else we will destroy thee and thy house. 14:29. And the king saw that they pressed upon him violently: and being constrained by necessity: he delivered Daniel to them. 14:30. And they cast him into the den of lions, and he was there six days. The den of lions. . .Daniel was twice cast into the den of lions; one under Darius the Mede, because he had transgressed the king's edict, by praying three times a day: and another time under Evilmerodach by a sedition of the people. This time he remained six days in the lions' den; the other time only one night. 14:31. And in the den there were seven lions, and they had given to them two carcasses every day, and two sheep: but then they were not given unto them, that they might devour Daniel. 14:32. Now there was in Judea a prophet called Habacuc, and he had boiled pottage, and had broken bread in a bowl: and was going into the field, to carry it to the reapers. Habacuc. . .The same, as some think whose prophecy is found among the lesser prophets but others believe him to be different. 14:33. And the angel of the Lord said to Habacuc: Carry the dinner which thou hast into Babylon, to Daniel, who is in the lions' den. 14:34. And Habacuc said: Lord, I never saw Babylon, nor do I know the den. 14:35. And the angel of the Lord took him by the top of his head, and carried him by the hair of his head, and set him in Babylon, over the den, in the force of his spirit. 14:36. And Habacuc cried, saying: O Daniel, thou servant of God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee. 14:37. And Daniel said, Thou hast remembered me, O God, and thou hast not forsaken them that love thee. 14:38. And Daniel arose, and eat. And the angel of the Lord presently set Habacuc again in his own place. 14:39. And upon the seventh day the king came to bewail Daniel: and he came to the den, and looked in, and behold Daniel was sitting in the midst of the lions. 14:40. And the king cried out with a loud voice, saying: Great art thou, O Lord, the God of Daniel. And he drew him out of the lions' den. 14:41. But those that had been the cause of his destruction, he cast into the den, and they were devoured in a moment before him. 14:42. Then the king said: Let all the inhabitants of the whole earth fear the God of Daniel: for he is the Saviour, working signs, and wonders in the earth: who hath delivered Daniel out of the lions' den. THE PROPHECY OF OSEE OSEE, or Hosea, whose name signifies A saviour, was the first in the order of time among those who are commonly called lesser prophets, because their prophecies are short. He prophesied in the kingdom of Israel, that is, of the ten tribes, about the same time that Isaias prophesied in the kingdom of Juda. Osee Chapter 1 By marrying a harlot, and by the names of his children, the prophet sets forth the crimes of Israel and their punishment. He foretells their redemption by Christ. 1:1. The word of the Lord, that came to Osee, the son of Beeri, in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joas, king of Israel. 1:2. The beginning of the Lord's speaking by Osee: and the Lord said to Osee: Go, take thee a wife of fornications, and have of her children of fornications: for the land by fornication shall depart from the Lord. A wife of fornications. . .That is, a wife that has been given to fornication. This was to represent the Lord's proceedings with his people Israel, who, by spiritual fornication, were continually offending him.--Ibid. Children of fornications. . .So called from the character of their mother, if not also from their own wicked dispositions. 1:3. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Debelaim: and she conceived, and bore him a son. 1:4. And the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezrahel: for yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. 1:5. And in that day I will break in pieces the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezrahel. 1:6. And she conceived again, and bore a daughter, and he said to him: Call her name, Without mercy: for I will not add any more to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly forget them. Without mercy. . .Lo-Ruhamah. 1:7. And I will have mercy on the house of Juda, and I will save them by the Lord, their God: and I will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen. 1:8. And she weaned her that was called Without mercy. And she conceived, and bore a son. 1:9. And he said: Call his name, Not my people: for you are not my people, and I will not be yours. Not my people. . .Lo-ammi. 1:10. And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, that is without measure, and shall not be numbered. And it shall be in the place where it shall be said to them: You are not my people: it shall be said to them: Ye are the sons of the living God. The number, etc. . .Viz., of the true Israelites, the children of the church of Christ. 1:11. And the children of Juda, and the children of Israel, shall be gathered together: and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall come up out of the land: for great is the day of Jezrahel. One head. . .viz., Christ.--Ibid. Great is the day of Jezrahel. . .That is, of the seed of God; for Jezrahel signifies the seed of God. Osee Chapter 2 Israel is justly punished for leaving God. The abundance of grace in the church of Christ. 2:1. Say ye to your brethren: You are my people: and to your sister: Thou hast obtained mercy. Say to your brethren, etc. . .or, Call your brethren, My people: and your sister, Her that hath obtained mercy. This is connected with the latter end of the foregoing chapter, and relates to the converts of Israel. 2:2. Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts. Your mother. . .The synagogue. 2:3. Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born: and I will make her as a wilderness, and will set her as a land that none can pass through and will kill her with drought. 2:4. And I will not have mercy on her children. for they are the children of fornications. 2:5. For their mother hath committed fornication, she that conceived them is covered with shame: for she said: I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread, and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink. 2:6. Wherefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will stop it up with a wall, and she shall not find her paths. 2:7. And she shall follow after her lovers, and shall not overtake them: and she shall seek them, and shall not find, and she shall say: I will go, and return to my first husband: because it was better with me then than now. 2:8. And she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver, and gold, which they have used in the service of Baal. 2:9. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its season, and I will set at liberty my wool, and my flax, which covered her disgrace. 2:10. And now I will lay open her folly in the eyes of her lovers: and no man shall deliver her out of my hand: 2:11. And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnities, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festival times. 2:12. And I will destroy her vines, and her fig trees, of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her as a forest and the beasts of the field shall devour her. 2:13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, to whom she burnt incense, and decked herself out with her earrings, and with her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord. 2:14. Therefore, behold I will allure her, and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart. I will allure her, etc. . .After all her disloyalties, I will still allure her by my grace etc., and send her vinedressers, viz., the apostles: originally her own children, who shall open to her the gates of hope; as heretofore at her coming into the land of promise, she had all good success after she had satisfied the divine justice by the execution of Achan in the valley of Achor. Jos. 7. 2:15. And I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor for an opening of hope: and she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her coming up out of the land of Egypt. 2:16. And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord: That she shall call me: My husband, and she shall call me no more Banli. My husband. . .In Hebrew, Ishi. Baali, my lord. The meaning of this verse is: that whereas Ishi and Baali were used indifferently in those days by wives speaking to their husbands; the synagogue, whom God was pleased to consider as his spouse, should call him only Ishi, and abstain from the name of Baali, because of its affinity with the idol Baal. 2:17. And I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and she shall no more remember their name. Baalim. . .It is the plural number of Baal: for there were divers idols of Baal. 2:18. And in that day I will make a covenant with them, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air, and with the creeping things of the earth: and I will destroy the bow, and the sword, and war out of the land: and I will make them sleep secure. 2:19. And I will espouse thee to me for ever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. I will espouse thee, etc. . .This relates to the happy espousals of Christ with his church: which shall never be dissolved. 2:20. And I will espouse thee to me in faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 2:21. And it shall come to pass in that day: I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth. Hear the heavens, etc. . .All shall conspire in favour of the church, which in the following verse is called Jezrahel, that is, the seed of God. 2:22. And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and these shall hear Jezrahel. 2:23. And I will sow her unto me in the earth, and I will have mercy on her that was without mercy. 2:24. And I will say to that which is not my people: Thou art my people: and they shall say: Thou art my God. That which was not my people, etc. . .This relates to the conversion of the Gentiles. Osee Chapter 3 The prophet is commanded again to love an adulteress; to signify God's love to the synagogue. The wretched state of the Jews for a long time, till at last they shall be converted. 3:1. And the Lord said to me: Go yet again, and love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress: as the Lord loveth the children of Israel, and they look to strange gods, and love the husks of the grapes. 3:2. And I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a core of barley, and for half a core of barley. 3:3. And I said to her: Thou shalt wait for me many days: thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt be no man's, and I also will wait for thee. 3:4. For the children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod, and without theraphim. Theraphim. . .Images or representations. 3:5. And after this the children of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord, their God, and David, their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and his goodness, in the last days. David their king. . .That is, Christ, who is of the house of David. Osee Chapter 4 God's judgment against the sins of Israel: Juda is warned not to follow their example. 4:1. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land. 4:2. Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery, have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood. 4:3. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish with the heat of the field, and with the fowls of the air: yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together. 4:4. But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest. Let not any man judge, etc. . .As if he would say: It is in vain to strive with them, or reprove them, they are so obstinate in evil. 4:5. And thou shalt fall today, and the prophet also shall fall with thee: in the night I have made thy mother to be silent. 4:6. My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children. 4:7. According to the multitude of them, so have they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame. 4:8. They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity. 4:9. And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices. 4:10. And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing the law. 4:11. Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness, take away the understanding. 4:12. My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God. 4:13. They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, aud your spouses shall be adulteresses. 4:14. I will not visit upon your daughters, when they shall commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten. 4:15. If thou play the harlot, O Israel, at least let not Juda offend: and go ye not into Galgal, and come not up into Bethaven, and do not swear: The Lord liveth. Galgal and Bethaven. . .Places where idols were worshipped. Bethel, which signifies the house of God, is called by the prophet, Bethaven, that is, the house of vanity, from Jeroboam's golden calf that was worshipped there. 4:16. For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place. 4:17. Ephraim is a partaker with idols, let him alone. 4:18. Their banquet is separated, they have gone astray by fornication: they that should have protected them have loved to bring shame upon them. 4:19. The wind hath bound them up in its wings, and they shall be confounded because of their sacrifices. Osee Chapter 5 God's threats against the priests, the people, and princes of Israel, for their idolatry. 5:1. Hear ye this, O priests, and hearken, O ye house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king: for there is a judgment against you, because you have been a snare to them whom you should have watched over and a net spread upon Thabor. O priests. . .What is said of priests in this prophecy is chiefly understood of the priests of the kingdom of Israel; who were not true priests of the race of Aaron; but served the calves at Bethel and Dan. 5:2. And you have turned aside victims into the depth and I am the teacher of them all. 5:3. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me for now Ephraim hath committed fornication, Israel is defiled. 5:4. They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord. 5:5. And the pride of Israel shall answer in his face: and Israel, and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity, Juda also shall fall with them. 5:6. With their flocks and with their herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is withdrawn from them. 5:7. They have transgressed against the Lord: for they have begotten children that are strangers: now shall a month devour them with their portions. Children that are strangers. . .That is, aliens from God: and therefore they are threatened with speedy destruction. 5:8. Blow ye the cornet in Gabaa, the trumpet in Rama: howl ye in Bethaven, behind thy back, O Benjamin. 5:9. Ephraim shall be in desolation in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel I have shewn that which shall surely be. 5:10. The princes of Juda are become as they that take up the bound: I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. As they that take up the bound. . .That is, they that remove the boundary, encroaching on the property of their neighbors: figuratively: going beyond the boundary of the laws of God. 5:11. Ephraim is under oppression, and broken in judgment: because he began to go after filthiness. 5:12. And I will be like a moth to Ephraim: and like rottenness to the house of Juda. 5:13. And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Juda his band: and Ephraim went to the Assyrian, and sent to the avenging king: and he shall not be able to heal you, neither shall he be able to take off the band from you. 5:14. For I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion's whelp to the house of Juda: I, I will catch, and go: I will take away, and there is none that can rescue. 5:15. I will go and return to my place: until you are consumed, and seek my face. Osee Chapter 6 Affliction shall be a means to bring many to Christ, a complaint of the untowardness of the Jews. God loves mercy more than sacrifice. 6:1. In their affliction they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord. 6:2. For he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us. 6:3. He will revive us after two days: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning light, and he will come to us as the early and the latter rain to the earth. 6:4. What shall I do to thee, O Ephraim? what shall I do to thee, O Juda? your mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth away in the morning. 6:5. For this reason have I hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments shall go forth as the light. 6:6. For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts. 6:7. But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me. 6:8. Galaad is a city of workers of idols, supplanted with blood. Supplanted with blood. . .that is, undermined and brought to ruin, for shedding of blood: and, as it is signified in the following verse, for conspiring with the priests (of Bethel) like robbers, to murder in the way such as passed out of Sichem to go towards the temple of Jerusalem. Or else . . .upplanted with blood. . .signifies flowing in such manner with blood, as to suffer none to walk there without imbruing the soles of their feet in blood. 6:9. And like the jaws of highway robbers, they conspire with the priests who murder in the way those that pass out of Sichem: for they have wrought wickedness. 6:10. I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: the fornications of Ephraim there: Israel is defiled. 6:11. And thou also, O Juda, set thee a harvest, when I shall bring back the captivity of my people. Osee Chapter 7 The manifold sins of Israel, and of their kings, hinder the Lord from healing them. 7:1. When I would have healed Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they have committed falsehood, and the thief is come in to steal, the robber is without. 7:2. And lest they may say in their hearts, that I remember all their wickedness: their own devices now have beset them about, they have been done before my face. 7:3. They have made the king glad with their wickedness: and the princes with their lies. Made the king glad, etc. . .To please Jeroboam, and their other kings they have given themselves up to the wicked worship of idols, which are mere falsehood and lies. 7:4. They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker: the city rested a little from the mingling of the leaven, till the whole was leavened. 7:5. The day of our king, the princes began to be mad with wine: he stretched out his hand with scorners. 7:6. Because they have applied their heart like an oven, when he laid snares for them: he slept all the night baking them, in the morning he himself was heated as a flaming fire. 7:7. They were all heated like an oven, and have devoured their judges: all their kings have fallen: there is none amongst them that calleth unto me. 7:8. Ephraim himself is mixed among the nations: Ephraim is become as bread baked under the ashes, that is not turned. 7:9. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not: yea, grey hairs also are spread about upon him, and he is ignorant of it. 7:10. And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face: and they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him in all these. 7:11. And Ephraim is become as a dove that is decoyed, not having a heart: they called upon Egypt, they went to the Assyrians. 7:12. And when they shall go, I will spread my net upon them: I will bring them down as the fowl of the air, I will strike them as their congregation hath heard. 7:13. Woe to them, for they have departed from me: they shall be wasted because they have transgressed against me: and I redeemed them: and they have spoken lies against me. 7:14. And they have not cried to me with their heart, but they howled in their beds: they have thought upon wheat and wine, they are departed from me. 7:15. And I have chastised them, and strengthened their arms: and they have imagined evil against me. 7:16. They returned, that they might be without yoke: they became like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword, for the rage of their tongue. This is their derision in the land of Egypt. Osee Chapter 8 The Israelites are threatened with destruction for their impiety and idolatry. 8:1. Let there be a trumpet in thy throat like an eagle upon the house of the Lord: because they have transgressed my covenant, and have violated my law. 8:2. They shall call upon me: O my God, we, Israel, know thee. 8:3. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good, the enemy shall pursue him. 8:4. They have reigned, but not by me: they have been princes, and I knew not: of their silver and their gold they have made idols to themselves, that they might perish. 8:5. Thy calf, O Samaria, is cast off, my wrath is kindled against them. How long will they be incapable of being cleansed? 8:6. For itself also is the invention of Israel: a workman made it, and it is no god: for the calf of Samaria shall be turned to spiders' webs. 8:7. For they shall sow wind, and reap a whirlwind, there is no standing stalk in it, the bud shall yield no meal; and if it should yield, strangers shall eat it. 8:8. Israel is swallowed up: now is he become among the nations like an unclean vessel. 8:9. For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath given gifts to his lovers. 8:10. But even though they shall have hired the nations, now will I gather them together: and they shall rest a while from the burden of the king, and the princes. 8:11. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin: altars are become to him unto sin. 8:12. I shall write to him my manifold laws, which have been accounted as foreign. 8:13. They shall offer victims, they shall sacrifice flesh, and shall eat it, and the Lord will not receive them: now will he remember their iniquity, and will visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt. 8:14. And Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and hath built temples: and Juda hath built many fenced cities: and I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the houses thereof. Osee Chapter 9 The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins and idolatry. 9:1. Rejoice not, O Israel: rejoice not as the nations do: for thou hast committed fornication against thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor. 9:2. The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the wine shall deceive them. 9:3. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land: Ephraim is returned to Egypt, and hath eaten unclean things among the Assyrians. 9:4. They shall not offer wine to the Lord, neither shall they please him: their sacrifices shall be like the bread of mourners: all that shall eat it shall be defiled: for their bread is life for their soul, it shall not enter into the house of the Lord. 9:5. What will you do in the solemn day, in the day of the feast of the Lord? 9:6. For behold they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them together, Memphis shall bury them: nettles shall inherit their beloved silver, the bur shall be in their tabernacles. 9:7. The days of visitation are come, the days of repaying are come: know ye, O Israel, that the prophet was foolish, the spiritual man was mad, for the multitude of thy iniquity, and the multitude of thy madness. 9:8. The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: the prophet is become a snare of ruin upon all his ways, madness is in the house of his God. 9:9. They have sinned deeply, as in the days of Gabaa: he will remember their iniquity, and will visit their sin. 9:10. I found Israel like grapes in the desert, I saw their fathers like the firstfruits of the fig tree in the top thereof: but they went in to Beelphegor, and alienated themselves to that confusion, and became abominable, as those things were, which they loved. 9:11. As for Ephraim, their glory hath flown away like bird from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. 9:12. And though they should bring up their children, I will make them without children among men: yea, and woe to them, when I shall depart from them. 9:13. Ephraim, as I saw, was a Tyre, founded in beauty: and Ephraim shall bring out his children to the murderer. 9:14. Give them, O Lord. What wilt thou give them? Give them a womb without children, and dry breasts. 9:15. All their wickedness is in Galgal, for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their devices I will cast them forth out of my house: I will love them no more, all their princes are revolters. 9:16. Ephraim is struck, their root is dried up, they shall yield no fruit. And if they should have issue, I will slay the best beloved fruit of their womb. 9:17. My God will cast them away, because they hearkened not to him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations. Osee Chapter 10 After many benefits, great affliction shall fall upon the ten tribes, for their ingratitude to God. 10:1. Israel a vine full of branches, the fruit is agreeable to it: according to the multitude of his fruit, he hath multiplied altars, according to the plenty of his land he hath abounded with idols. 10:2. Their heart is divided: now they shall perish: he shall break down their idols, he shall destroy their altars. 10:3. For now they shall say: We have no king: because we fear not the Lord: and what shall a king do to us? 10:4. You speak words of an unprofitable vision, and you shall make a covenant: and judgment shall spring up as bitterness in the furrows of the field. 10:5. The inhabitants of Samaria have worshipped the kine of Bethaven: for the people thereof have mourned over it, and the wardens of its temple that rejoiced over it in its glory because it is departed from it. The kine of Bethaven. . .The golden calves of Jeroboam. 10:6. For itself also is carried into Assyria, a present to the avenging king: shame shall fall upon Ephraim, and Israel shall be confounded in his own will. Itself also is carried, etc. . .One of the golden calves was given by king Manahem, to Phul, king of the Assyrians, to engage him to stand by him. 10:7. Samaria hath made her king to pass as froth upon the face of the water. 10:8. And the high places of the idol, the sin of Israel shall be destroyed: the bur and the thistle shall grow up over their altars: and they shall say to the mountains Cover us; and to the hills: Fall upon us. 10:9. From the days of Gabaa, Israel hath sinned, there they stood: the battle in Gabaa against the children of iniquity shall not overtake them. 10:10. According to my desire, I will chastise them: and the nations shall be gathered together against them, when they shall be chastised for their two iniquities. Their two iniquities. . .Their two calves. 10:11. Ephraim is a heifer taught to love to tread out corn, but I passed over upon the beauty of her neck: I will ride upon Ephraim, Juda shall plough, Jacob shall break the furrows for himself. 10:12. Sow for yourselves in justice, and reap in the mouth of mercy, break up your fallow ground: but the time to seek the Lord is, when he shall come that shall teach you justice. 10:13. You have ploughed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lying: because thou hast trusted in thy ways, in the multitude of thy strong ones. 10:14. A tumult shall arise among thy people: and all thy fortresses shall be destroyed as Salmana was destroyed, by the house of him that judged Baal in the day of battle, the mother being dashed in pieces upon her children. As Salmana, king of the Midianites, was destroyed by the house, that is, by the followers of him that judged Baal; that is, of Gideon, who threw down the altar of Baal; and was therefore called Jerubaal. See Judges 6 and 8. 10:15. So hath Bethel done to you, because of the evil of your iniquities. Osee Chapter 11 God proceeds in threatening Israel for their ingratitude: yet he will not utterly destroy them. 11:1. As the morning passeth, so hath the king of Israel passed away. Because Israel was a child, and I loved him: and I called my son out of Egypt. I called my son. . .Viz., Israel. But as the calling of Israel out of Egypt, was a figure of the calling of Christ from thence; therefore this text is also applicable to Christ, as we learn from Matthew 2.15. 11:2. As they called them, they went away from before their face: they offered victims to Baalim, and sacrificed to idols. They called. . .Viz., Moses and Aaron called; but they went away after other gods and would not hear. 11:3. And I was like a foster father to Ephraim, I carried them in my arms: and they knew not that I healed them. 11:4. I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love: and I will be to them as one that taketh off the yoke on their jaws: and I put his meat to him that he might eat. 11:5. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king: because they would not be converted. 11:6. The sword hath begun in his cities, and it shall consume his chosen men, and shall devour their heads. 11:7. And my people shall long for my return: but a yoke shall be put upon them together, which shall not be taken off. 11:8. How shall I deal with thee, O Ephraim, shall I protect thee, O Israel? how shall I make thee as Adama, shall I set thee as Seboim? my heart is turned within me, my repentance is stirred up. Adama, etc. . .Adama and Seboim were two cities in the neighborhood of Sodom: and underwent the like destruction. 11:9. I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath: I will not return to destroy Ephraim: because I am God, and not man: the holy one in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the city. 11:10. They shall walk after the Lord, he shall roar as a lion: because he shall roar, and the children of the sea shall fear. 11:11. And they shall fly away like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of the Assyrians: and I will place them in their own houses, saith the Lord. 11:12. Ephraim hath compassed me about with denials, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Juda went down as a witness with God, and is faithful with the saints. Osee Chapter 12 Israel is reproved for sin. God's favours to them. 12:1. Ephraim feedeth on the wind, and followeth the burning heat: all the day long he multiplied lies and desolation: and he hath made a covenant with the Assyrians, and carried oil into Egypt. 12:2. Therefore there is a judgment of the Lord with Juda, and a visitation for Jacob: he will render to him according to his ways, and according to his devices. 12:3. In the womb he supplanted his brother: and by his strength he had success with an angel. 12:4. And he prevailed over the angel, and was strengthened: he wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spoke with us. 12:5. Even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial. 12:6. Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and hope in thy God always. 12:7. He is like Chanaan, there is a deceitful balance in his hand, he hath loved oppression. 12:8. And Ephraim said: But yet I am become rich, I have found me an idol: all my labours shall not find me the iniquity that I have committed. 12:9. And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, will yet cause thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the feast. 12:10. And I have spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and I have used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets. 12:11. If Galaad be an idol, then in vain were they in Galgal offering sacrifices with bullocks: for their altars also are as heaps in the furrows of the field. If Galaad be an idol, etc. . .That is, if Galaad with all its idols and sacrifices be like a mere idol itself, being brought to nothing by Theglathphalasar: how vain is it to expect, that the idols worshipped in Galgal shall be of any service to the tribes that remain. 12:12. Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and was a keeper for a wife. 12:13. But the Lord by a prophet brought Israel out of Egypt: and he was preserved by a prophet. 12:14. Ephraim hath provoked me to wrath with his bitterness, and his blood shall come upon him, and his Lord will render his reproach unto him. Osee Chapter 13 The judgments of God upon Israel for their sins. Christ shall one day redeem them. 13:1. When Ephraim spoke, a horror seized Israel: and he sinned in Baal, and died. 13:2. And now they have sinned more and more: and they have made to themselves a molten thing of their silver as the likeness of idols: the whole is the work of craftsmen: to these that say: Sacrifice men, ye that adore calves. 13:3. Therefore they shall be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the dust that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. 13:4. But I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt: and thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no saviour beside me. 13:5. I knew thee in the desert, in the land of the wilderness. 13:6. According to their pastures they were filled, and were made full: and they lifted up their heart, and have forgotten me. 13:7. And I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians. 13:8. I will meet them as a bear that is robbed of her whelps, and I will rend the inner parts of their liver: and I will devour them there as a lion, the beast of the field shall tear them. 13:9. Destruction is thy own, O Israel: thy help is only in me. 13:10. Where is thy king? now especially let him save thee in all thy cities: and thy judges, of whom thou saidst: Give me kings and princes. 13:11. I will give thee a king in my wrath, and will take him away in my indignation. 13:12. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hidden. 13:13. The sorrows of a woman in labour shall come upon him, he is an unwise son: for now he shall not stand in the breach of the children. 13:14. I will deliver them out of the hand of death. I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite: comfort is hidden from my eyes. 13:15. Because he shall make a separation between brothers: the Lord will bring a burning wind that shall rise from the desert, and it shall dry up his springs, and shall make his fountain desolate, and he shall carry off the treasure of every desirable vessel. Osee Chapter 14 Samaria shall be destroyed. An exhortation to repentance: God's favour through Christ to the penitent. 14:1. Let Samaria perish, because she hath stirred up her God to bitterness: let them perish by the sword, let their little ones be dashed, and let the women with child be ripped up. Perish, because she hath stirred up her God to bitterness. . .It is not a curse or imprecation, but a prophecy of what should come to pass. 14:2. Return, O Israel, to the Lord thy God: for thou hast fallen down by thy iniquity. 14:3. Take with you words, and return to the Lord, and say to him: Take away all iniquity, and receive the good: and we will render the calves of our lips. 14:4. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more: The works of our hands are our gods: for thou wilt have mercy on the fatherless that is in thee. 14:5. I will heal their breaches, I will love them freely: for my wrath is turned away from them. 14:6. I will be as the dew, Israel shall spring as the lily, and his root shall shoot forth as that of Libanus. 14:7. His branches shall spread, and his glory shall be as the olive tree: and his smell as that of Libanus. 14:8. They shall be converted that sit under his shadow: they shall live upon wheat, and they shall blossom as a vine: his memorial shall be as the wine of Libanus. 14:9. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I will hear him, and I will make him flourish like a green fir tree: from me is thy fruit found. 14:10. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know these things? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them. THE PROPHECY OF JOEL JOEL, whose name, according to ST. JEROME, signifies THE LORD GOD: or, as others say, THE COMING DOWN OF GOD: prophesied about the same time in the kingdom of Judea, as OSEE did in the kingdom of Israel. He foretells under figure the great evils that were coming upon the people for their sins: earnestly exhorts them to repentance: and comforts them with the promise of a TEACHER OF JUSTICE, viz., CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD, and of the coming down of his holy SPIRIT. Joel Chapter 1 The prophet describes the judgments that shall fall upon the people, and invites them to fasting and prayer. 1:1. The word of the Lord, that came to Joel, the son of Phatuel. 1:2. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: did this ever happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 1:3. Tell ye of this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. 1:4. That which the palmerworm hath left, the locust hath eaten: and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten: and that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed. That which the palmerworm hath left, etc. . .Some understand this literally of the desolation of the land by these insects: others understand it of the different invasions of the Chaldeans, or other enemies. 1:5. Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, and mourn all ye that take delight; in drinking sweet wine: for it is cut off from your mouth. 1:6. For a nation come up upon my land, strong, and without number: his teeth are like the teeth of a lion: and his cheek teeth as of a lion's whelp. 1:7. He hath laid my vineyard waste, and hath pilled off the bark of my fig tree: he hath stripped it bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. 1:8. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 1:9. Sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of the Lord: the priests, the Lord's ministers, have mourned: 1:10. The country is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: for the corn is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished. 1:11. The husbandmen are ashamed, the vinedressers have howled for the wheat, and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished. 1:12. The vineyard is confounded, and the fig tree hath languished: the pomegranate tree, and the palm tree, and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field are withered: because joy is withdrawn from the children of men. 1:13. Gird yourselves, and lament, O ye priests, howl, ye ministers of the altars: go in, lie in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: because sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of your God. 1:14. Sanctify ye a fast, call an assembly, gather together the ancients, all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God: and cry ye to the Lord: 1:15. Ah, ah, ah, for the day: because the day of the Lord is at hand, and it shall come like destruction from the mighty. 1:16. Is not your food cut off before your eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 1:17. The beasts have rotted in their dung, the barns are destroyed, the storehouses are broken down: because the corn is confounded. 1:18. Why did the beasts groan, why did the herds of cattle low? because there is no pasture for them: yea, and the flocks of sheep are perished. 1:19. To thee, O Lord, will I cry: because fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness: and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the country. 1:20. Yea, and the beasts of the field have looked up to thee, as a garden bed that thirsteth after rain, for the springs of waters are dried up, and fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness. Joel Chapter 2 2:1. Blow ye the trumpet in Sion, sound an alarm in my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: because the day of the Lord cometh, because it is nigh at hand. The day of the Lord. . .That is, the time when he will execute justice upon sinners. 2:2. A day of darkness, and of gloominess, a day of clouds and whirlwinds: a numerous and strong people as the morning spread upon the mountains: the like to it hath not been from the beginning, nor shall be after it, even to the years of generation and generation. A numerous and strong people. . .The Assyrians, or Chaldeans. Others understand all this of an army of locusts laying waste the land. 2:3. Before the face thereof a devouring fire, and behind it a burning flame: the land is like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it a desolate wilderness, neither is there any one that can escape it. 2:4. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, and they shall run like horsemen. 2:5. They shall leap like the noise of chariots upon the tops of mountains, like the noise of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, as a strong people prepared to battle. 2:6. At their presence the people shall be in grievous pains: all faces shall be made like a kettle. 2:7. They shall run like valiant men: like men of war they shall scale the wall: the men shall march every one on his way, and they shall not turn aside from their ranks. 2:8. No one shall press upon his brother: they shall walk every one in his path: yea, and they shall fall through the windows, and shall take no harm. 2:9. They shall enter into the city: they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up the houses, they shall come in at the windows, as a thief. 2:10. At their presence the earth hath trembled, the heavens are moved: the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. 2:11. And the Lord hath uttered his voice before the face of his army: for his armies are exceedingly great, for they are strong, and execute his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible: and who can stand it? 2:12. Now, therefore, saith the Lord. Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and mourning. 2:13. And rend your hearts, and not your garments and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. 2:14. Who knoweth but he will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? 2:15. Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, 2:16. Gather together the people, sanctify the church, assemble the ancients, gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bridal chamber. 2:17. Between the porch and the altar the priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep, and shall say: Spare, O Lord, spare thy people: and give not thy inheritance to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations: Where is their God? 2:18. The Lord hath been zealous for his land, and hath spared his people. 2:19. And the Lord answered, and said to his people: Behold I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. 2:20. And I will remove far off from you the northern enemy: and I will drive him into a land unpassable, and desert, with his face towards the east sea, and his hinder part towards the utmost sea: and his stench shall ascend, and his rottenness shall go up, because he hath done proudly. The northern enemy. . .Some understand this of Holofernes and his army: others, of the locusts. 2:21. Fear not, O land, be glad, and rejoice: for the Lord hath done great things. 2:22. Fear not, ye beasts of the fields: for the beautiful places of the wilderness are sprung, for the tree hath brought forth its fruit, the fig tree, and the vine have yielded their strength. 2:23. And you, O children of Sion, rejoice, and be joyful in the Lord your God: because he hath given you a teacher of justice, and he will make the early and the latter rain to come down to you as in the beginning. 2:24. And the floors shall be filled with wheat, and the presses shall overflow with wine, and oil. 2:25. And I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm hath eaten; my great host which I sent upon you. 2:26. And you shall eat in plenty, and shall be filled and you shall praise the name of the Lord your God; who hath done wonders with you, and my people shall not be confounded for ever. 2:27. And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: and I am the Lord your God, and there is none besides: and my people shall not be confounded forever. 2:28. And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 2:29. Moreover, upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour forth my spirit. 2:30. And I will shew wonders in heaven; and in earth, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke. 2:31. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come. 2:32. And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved: for in Mount Sion, and in Jerusalem shall be salvation, as the Lord hath said, and in the residue whom the Lord shall call. Joel Chapter 3 3:1. For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda, and Jerusalem: 3:2. I will gather together all nations and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land. 3:3. And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink. 3:4. But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head. 3:5. For you have taken away my silver, and my gold: and my desirable, and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples. 3:6. And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem, you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country. 3:7. Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads. 3:8. And I will sell your sons, and your daughters, by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it. 3:9. Proclaim ye this among the nations: Prepare war, raise up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up. 3:10. Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong. 3:11. Break forth, and come, all ye nations from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down. 3:12. Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about. 3:13. Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied. 3:14. Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction. 3:15. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. 3:16. And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 3:17. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall pass through it no more. 3:18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, aud the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns. A fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, etc. . .Viz., the fountain of grace in the church militant, and of glory in the church triumphant: which shall water the torrent or valley of thorns, that is, the souls that before, like barren ground brought forth nothing but thorns; or that were afflicted with the thorns of crosses and tribulations. 3:19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land. 3:20. And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation. Judea--and Jerusalem. . .That is, the spiritual Jerusalem, viz., the church of Christ. 3:21. And I will cleanse their blood, which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion. THE PROPHECY OF AMOS AMOS prophesied in Israel about the same time as OSEE: and was called from following the cattle to denounce GOD'S judgments to the people of Israel, and the neighbouring nations, for their repeated crimes, in which they continued without repentance. Amos Chapter 1 The prophet threatens Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, and Ammon with the judgments of God, for their obstinacy in sin. 1:1. The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Thecua: which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Ozias king of Juda, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joas king of Israel two years before the earthquake. The earthquake. . .Many understand this of a great earthquake, which they say was felt at the time that king Ozias attempted to offer incense in the temple. But the best chronologists prove that the earthquake here spoken of must have been before that time: because Jeroboam the second, under whom Amos prophesied, was dead long before that attempt of Ozias. 1:2. And he said: The Lord will roar from Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the beautiful places of the shepherds have mourned, and the top of Carmel is withered. 1:3. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four I will not convert it: because they have thrashed Galaad with iron wains. For three crimes--and for four. . .That is, for their many unrepented of crimes.--Ibid. I will not convert it. . .That is, I will not spare them, nor turn away the punishments I design to inflict upon them. 1:4. And I will send a fire into the house of Azael, and it shall devour the houses of Benadad. 1:5. And I will break the bar of Damascus: and I will cut off the inhabitants from the plain of the idol, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of pleasure: and the people of Syria shall be carried away to Cyrene, saith the Lord. 1:6. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Gaza, and for four I will not convert it: because they have carried away a perfect captivity to shut them up in Edom. 1:7. And I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the houses thereof. 1:8. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Azotus, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ascalon: and I will turn my hand against Accaron, and the rest of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. 1:9. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Tyre, and for four I will not convert it: because they have shut up an entire captivity in Edom, and have not remembered the covenant of brethren. 1:10. And I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour the houses thereof. 1:11. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Edom, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath pursued his brother with the sword, and hath carried on his fury, and hath kept his wrath to the end. 1:12. I will send a fire into Theman: and it shall devour the houses of Bosra. 1:13. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath ripped up the women with child of Galaad to enlarge his border. 1:14. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabba: and it shall devour the houses thereof with shouting in the day of battle, and with a whirlwind in the day of trouble. 1:15. And Melchom shall go into captivity, both he, and his princes together, saith the Lord. Melchom. . .The god or idol of the Ammonites, otherwise called Moloch, and Melech: which in Hebrew signifies a king, and Melchom their king. Amos Chapter 2 The judgments with which God threatens Moab, Juda, and Israel for their sins, and their ingratitude. 2:1. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath burnt the bones of the king of Edom even to ashes. 2:2. And I will send a fire into Moab, and it shall devour the houses of Carioth: and Moab shall die with a noise, with the sound of the trumpet: 2:3. And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all his princes with him, saith the Lord. 2:4. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Juda, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath cast away the law of the Lord, and hath not kept his commandments: for their idols have caused them to err, after which their fathers have walked. 2:5. And I will send a fire into Juda, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem. 2:6. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath sold the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of shoes. 2:7. They bruise the heads of the poor upon the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the humble: and the son and his father have gone to the same young woman, to profane my holy name. 2:8. And they sat down upon garments laid to pledge by every altar: and drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their God. 2:9. Yet I cast out the Amorrhite before their face: whose height was like the height of cedars, and who was strong as an oak: and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots beneath. 2:10. It is I that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and I led you forty years through the wilderness, that you might possess the land of the Amorrhite. 2:11. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not so, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord? 2:12. And you will present wine to the Nazarites: and command the prophets, saying: Prophesy not. 2:13. Behold, I will screak under you as a wain screaketh that is laden with hay. I will screak. . .Unable to bear any longer the enormous load of your sins, etc. The spirit of God, as St. Jerome takes notice, accommodates himself to the education of the prophet and inspires him with comparisons taken from country affairs. 2:14. And flight shall perish from the swift, and the valiant shall not possess his strength, neither shall the strong save his life. 2:15. And he that holdeth the bow shall not stand, and the swift of foot shall not escape, neither shall the rider of the horse save his life. 2:16. And the stout of heart among the valiant shall flee away naked in that day, saith the Lord. Amos Chapter 3 The evils that shall fall upon Israel for their sins. 3:1. Hear the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O ye children of Israel: concerning the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying: 3:2. You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities. Visit upon. . .That is, punish. 3:3. Shall two walk together except they be agreed? 3:4. Will a lion roar in the forest, if he have no prey? will the lion's whelp cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? 3:5. Will the bird fall into the snare upon the earth, if there be no fowler? Shall the snare be taken up from the earth, before it hath taken somewhat? 3:6. Shall the trumpet sound in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done? Evil in a city. . .He speaks of the evil of punishments of war, famine, pestilence, desolation, etc., but not of the evil of sin, of which God is not the author. 3:7. For the Lord God doth nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. 3:8. The lion shall roar, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who shall not prophesy? 3:9. Publish it in the houses of Azotus, and in the houses of the land of Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the many follies in the midst thereof, and them that suffer oppression in the inner rooms thereof. 3:10. And they have not known to do the right thing, saith the Lord, storing up iniquity, and robberies in their houses. 3:11. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: The land shall be in tribulation, and shall be compassed about: and thy strength shall be taken away from thee, and thy houses shall be spoiled. 3:12. Thus saith the Lord: As if a shepherd should get out of the lion's mouth two legs, or the tip of the ear: so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria, in a place of a bed, and in the couch of Damascus. 3:13. Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord the God of hosts: 3:14. That in the day when I shall begin to visit the transgressions of Israel, I will visit upon him, and upon the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altars shall be cut off, and shall fall to the ground. 3:15. And I will strike the winter house with the summer house: and the houses of ivory shall perish, and many houses shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. Amos Chapter 4 The Israelites are reproved for their oppressing the poor, for their idolatry, and their incorrigibleness. 4:1. Hear this word, ye fat kine that are in the mountains of Samaria: you that oppress the needy, and crush the poor: that say to your masters: Bring, and we will drink. Fat kine. . .He means the great ones that lived in plenty and wealth. 4:2. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that lo, the days shall come upon you, when they shall lift you up on pikes, and what shall remain of you in boiling pots. 4:3. And you shall go out at the breaches one over against the other, and you shall be cast forth into Armon, saith the Lord. Armon. . .A foreign country; some understand it of Armenia. 4:4. Come ye to Bethel, and do wickedly: to Galgal, and multiply transgressions: and bring in the morning your victims, your tithes in three days. 4:5. And offer a sacrifice of praise with leaven: and call free offerings, and proclaim it: for so you would do, O children of Israel, saith the Lord God. 4:6. Whereupon I also have given you dulness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. 4:7. I also have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon on city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon: and the piece whereupon I rained not, withered. 4:8. And two and three cities went to one city to drink water, and were not filled: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. 4:9. I struck you with a burning wind, and with mildew, the palmerworm hath eaten up your many gardens, and your vineyards: your olive groves, and fig groves: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. 4:10. I sent death upon you in the way of Egypt, I slew your young men with the sword, even to the captivity of your horses: and I made the stench of your camp to come up into your nostrils: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. 4:11. I destroyed some of you, as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, and you were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. 4:12. Therefore I will do these things to thee, O Israel: and after I shall have done these things to thee, be prepared to meet thy God, O Israel. 4:13. For behold he that formeth the mountains and createth the wind, and declareth his word to man, he that maketh the morning mist, and walketh upon the high places of the earth: the Lord the God of hosts is his name. Amos Chapter 5 A lamentation for Israel: an exhortation to return to God. 5:1. Hear ye this word, which I take up concerning you for a lamentation. The house of Israel is fallen, and it shall rise no more. 5:2. The virgin of Israel is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her up. 5:3. For thus saith the Lord God: The city, out of which came forth a thousand, there shall be left in it a hundred: and out of which there came a hundred, there shall be left in it ten, in the house of Israel. 5:4. For thus saith the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek ye me, and you shall live. 5:5. But seek not Bethel, and go not into Galgal, neither shall you pass over to Bersabee: for Galgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall be unprofitable. Bethel,--Galgal,--Bersabee. . .The places where they worshipped their idols. 5:6. Seek ye the Lord, and live: lest the house of Joseph be burnt with fire, and it shall devour, and there shall be none to quench Bethel. 5:7. You that turn judgment into wormwood, and forsake justice in the land, 5:8. Seek him that maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and that turneth darkness into morning, and that changeth day into night: that calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name. Arcturus and Orion. . .Arcturus is a bright star in the north: Orion a beautiful constellation in the south. 5:9. He that with a smile bringeth destruction upon the strong, and waste upon the mighty. With a smile. . .That is, with all ease, and without making any effort. 5:10. They have hated him that rebuketh in the gate: and have abhorred him that speaketh perfectly. 5:11. Therefore because you robbed the poor, and took the choice prey from him: you shall build houses with square stone, and shall not dwell in them: you shall plant most delightful vineyards, and shall not drink the wine of them. 5:12. Because I know your manifold crimes, and your grievous sins: enemies of the just, taking bribes, and oppressing the poor in the gate. 5:13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence at that time, for it is an evil time. 5:14. Seek ye good, and not evil, that you may live: and the Lord the God of hosts will be with you, as you have said. 5:15. Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be the Lord the God of hosts may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. 5:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of hosts the sovereign Lord: In every street there shall be wailing: and in all places that are without, they shall say: Alas, alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful in lamentation to lament. 5:17. And in all vineyards there shall be wailing: because I will pass through in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. 5:18. Woe to them that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. 5:19. As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him: or enter into the house, and lean with his hand upon the wall, and a serpent should bite him. 5:20. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light: and obscurity, and no brightness in it? 5:21. I hate, and have rejected your festivities: and I will not receive the odour of your assemblies. 5:22. And if you offer me holocausts, and your gifts, I will not receive them: neither will I regard the vows of your fat beasts. 5:23. Take away from me the tumult of thy songs: and I will not hear the canticles of thy harp. 5:24. But judgment shall be revealed as water, and justice as a mighty torrent. 5:25. Did you offer victims and sacrifices to me in the desert for forty years, O house of Israel? Did you offer, etc. . .Except the sacrifices that were offered at the first, in the dedication of the tabernacle, the Israelites offered no sacrifices in the desert. 5:26.But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves. A tabernacle, etc. . .All this alludes to the idolatry which they committed, when they were drawn away by the daughters of Moab to the worship of their gods. Num. 25. 5:27. And I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, the God of hosts is his name. Amos Chapter 6 The desolation of Israel for their pride and luxury. 6:1. Woe to you that are wealthy in Sion, and to you that have confidence in the mountain of Samaria: ye great men, heads of the people, that go in with state into the house of Israel. 6:2. Pass ye over to Chalane, and see, and go from thence into Emath the great: and go down into Geth of the Philistines, and to all the best kingdoms of these: if their border be larger than your border. 6:3. You that are separated unto the evil day: and that approach to the throne of iniquity; 6:4. You that sleep upon beds of ivory, and are wanton on your couches: that eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the herd; 6:5. You that sing to the sound of the psaltery: they have thought themselves to have instruments of music like David; 6:6. That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best ointments: and they are not concerned for the affliction of Joseph. 6:7. Wherefore now they shall go captive at the head of them that go into captivity: and the faction of the luxurious ones shall be taken away. 6:8. The Lord God hath sworn by his own soul, saith the Lord the God of hosts: I detest the pride of Jacob, and I hate his houses, and I will deliver up the city with the inhabitants thereof. 6:9. And if there remain ten men in one house, they also shall die. 6:10. And a man's kinsman shall take him up, and shall burn him, that he may carry the bones out of the house; and he shall say to him that is in the inner rooms of the house: Is there yet any with thee? 6:11. And he shall answer: There is an end. And he shall say to him: Hold thy peace, and mention not the name of the Lord. 6:12. For behold the Lord hath commanded, and he will strike the greater house with breaches, and the lesser house with clefts. 6:13. Can horses run upon the rocks, or can any one plough with buffles? for you have turned judgment into bitterness, and the fruit of justice into wormwood. 6:14. You that rejoice in a thing of nought: you that say: Have we not taken unto us horns by our own strength? 6:15. But behold, I will raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of hosts; and they shall destroy you from the entrance of Emath, even to the torrent of the desert. Amos Chapter 7 The prophet sees, in three visions, evils coming upon Israel: he is accused of treason by the false priest of Bethel. 7:1. These things the Lord God shewed to me: and behold the locust was formed in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter rain, and lo, it was the latter rain after the king's mowing. The locust, etc. . .These judgments by locusts and fire, which, by the prophet's intercession, were moderated, signify the former invasions of the Assyrians under Phul and Theglathphalasar, before the utter desolation of Israel by Salmanasar. 7:2. And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, I said: O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech thee: who shall raise up Jacob, for he is very little? 7:3. The Lord had pity upon this: It shall not be, said the Lord. 7:4. These things the Lord God shewed to me: and behold the Lord called for judgment unto fire, and it devoured the great deep, and ate up a part at the same time. 7:5. And I said: O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee, who shall raise up Jacob, for he is a little one? 7:6. The Lord had pity upon this. Yea this also shall not be, said the Lord God. 7:7. These things the Lord shewed to me: and behold the Lord was standing upon a plastered wall, and in his hand a mason's trowel. 7:8. And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Amos? And I said: A mason's trowel. And the Lord said: Behold, I will lay down the trowel in the midst of my people Israel. I will plaster them over no more. 7:9. And the high places of the idol shall be thrown down, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste: and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. 7:10. And Amasias the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos hath rebelled against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. 7:11. For thus saith Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be carried away captive out of their own land. Jeroboam shall die by the sword. . .The prophet did not say this; but that the Lord would rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword: which was verified, when Zacharias, the son and successor of Jeroboam, was slain by the sword. 4 Kings 15.10. 7:12. And Amasias said to Amos: Thou seer, go, flee away into the land of Juda: and eat bread there, and prophesy there. 7:13. But prophesy not again any more in Bethel: because it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the house of the kingdom. 7:14. And Amos answered and said to Amasias: I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet: but I am a herdsman plucking wild figs. I am not a prophet. . .That is, I am not a prophet by education: nor is prophesying my calling or profession: but I am a herdsman, whom God was pleased to send hither to prophesy to Israel. 7:15. And the Lord took me when I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me: Go, prophesy to my people Israel. 7:16. And now hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, thou shalt not prophesy against Israel, and thou shalt not drop thy word upon the house of the idol. The house of the idol. . .Viz., of the calf worshipped in Bethel. 7:17. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Thy wife shall play the harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be measured by a line: and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall go into captivity out of their land. Amos Chapter 8 Under the figure of a hook, which bringeth down the fruit, the approaching desolation of Israel is foreshewed for their avarice and injustices. 8:1. These things the Lord shewed to me: and behold a hook to draw down the fruit. 8:2. And he said: What seest thou, Amos? And I said: A hook to draw down fruit. And the Lord said to me: The end is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more. 8:3. And the hinges of the temple shall screak in that day, saith the Lord God: many shall die: silence shall be cast in every place. 8:4. Hear this, you that crush the poor, and make the needy of the land to fail, 8:5. Saying: When will the month be over, and we shall sell our wares: and the sabbath, and we shall open the corn: that we may lessen the measure, and increase the sicle, and may convey in deceitful balances, 8:6. That we may possess the needy for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and may sell the refuse of the corn? 8:7. The Lord hath sworn against the pride of Jacob: surely I will never forget all their works. 8:8. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein: and rise up altogether as a river, and be cast out, and run down as the river of Egypt? 8:9. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light: 8:10. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring up sackcloth upon every back of yours, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day. 8:11. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. 8:12. And they shall move from sea to sea, and from the north to the east: they shall go about seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. 8:13. In that day the fair virgins, and the young men shall faint for thirst. 8:14. They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say: Thy God, O Dan, liveth: and the way of Bersabee liveth: and they shall fall, and shall rise no more. Amos Chapter 9 The certainty of the desolation of Israel: the restoring of the tabernacle of David, and the conversion of the Gentiles to the church; which shall flourish for ever. 9:1. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said: Strike the hinges, and let the lintels be shook: for there is covetousness in the head of them all, and I will slay the last of them with the sword: there shall be no flight for them: they shall flee, and he that shall flee of them shall not be delivered. 9:2. Though they go down even to hell, thence shall my hand bring them out: and though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. 9:3. And though they be hid in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them away from thence: and though they hide themselves from my eyes in the depth of the sea, there will I command the serpent and he shall bite them. 9:4. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall kill them. And I will set my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good. 9:5. And the Lord the God of hosts is he who toucheth the earth, and it shall melt: and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up as a river, and shall run down as the river of Egypt. 9:6. He that buildeth his ascension in heaven, and hath founded his bundle upon the earth: who calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord is his name. His ascension. . .That is, his high throne.--Ibid. His bundle. . .That is, his church bound up together by the bands of one faith and communion. 9:7. Are not you as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? did not I bring up Israel, out of the land of Egypt: and the Philistines out of Cappadocia, and the Syrians out of Cyrene? As the children of the Ethiopians. . .That is, as black as they, by your iniquities. 9:8. Behold the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth: but yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. 9:9. For behold I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as corn is sifted in a sieve: and there shall not a little stone fall to the ground. 9:10. All the sinners of my people shall fall by the sword: who say: The evils shall not approach, and shall not come upon us. 9:11. In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, that is fallen: and I will close up the breaches of the walls thereof, and repair what was fallen: and I will rebuild it as in the days of old. 9:12. That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all nations, because my name is invoked upon them: saith the Lord that doth these things. 9:13. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed: and the mountains shall drop sweetness, and every hill shall be tilled. Shall overtake, etc. . .By this is meant the great abundance of spiritual blessings; which, as it were, by a constant succession, shall enrich the church of Christ. 9:14. And I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel: and they shall build the abandoned cities, and inhabit them: and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine of them: and shall make gardens, and eat the fruits of them. And I will plant them upon their own land: and I will no more pluck them out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God. THE PROPHECY OF ABDIAS ABDIAS, whose name is interpreted THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, is believed to have prophesied about the same time as OSEE, JOEL, and AMOS: though some of the Hebrews, who believe him to be the same with ACHAB's steward, make him much more ancient. His prophecy is the shortest of any in number of words, but yields to none, says ST. JEROME, in the sublimity of mysteries. It contains but one chapter. Abdias Chapter 1 The destruction of Edom for their pride: and the wrongs they did to Jacob: the salvation and victory of Israel. 1:1. The vision of Abdias. Thus saith the Lord God to Edom: We have heard a rumour from the Lord, and he hath sent an ambassador to the nations: Arise, and let us rise up to battle against him. 1:2. Behold I have made thee small among the nations: thou art exceeding contemptible. 1:3. The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, who dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, and settest up thy throne on high: who sayest in thy heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground? 1:4. Though thou be exalted as an eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars: thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. 1:5. If thieves had gone in to thee, if robbers by night, how wouldst thou have held thy peace? would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers had come in to thee, would they not have left thee at the least a cluster? 1:6. How have they searched Esau, how have they sought out his hidden things? 1:7. They have sent thee out even to the border: all the men of thy confederacy have deceived thee: the men of thy peace have prevailed against thee: they that eat with thee shall lay snares under thee: there is no wisdom in him. 1:8. Shall not I in that day, saith the Lord, destroy the wise out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau? 1:9. And thy valiant men of the south shall be afraid, that man may be cut off from the mount of Esau. 1:10. For the slaughter, and for the iniquity against thy brother Jacob, confusion shall cover thee, and thou shalt perish for ever. 1:11. In the day when thou stoodest against him, when strangers carried away his army captive, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem: thou also wast as one of them. 1:12. But thou shalt not look on in the day of thy brother, in the day of his leaving his country: and thou shalt not rejoice over the children of Juda, in the day of their destruction: and thou shalt not magnify thy mouth in the day of distress. Thou shalt not look, etc. . .or, thou shouldst not, etc. It is a reprehension for what they had done, and at the same time a declaration that these things should not pass unpunished.--Ibid. Thou shalt not magnify thy mouth. . .That is, thou shalt not speak arrogantly against the children of Juda as insulting them in their distress. 1:13. Neither shalt thou enter into the gate of my people in the day of their ruin: neither shalt thou also look on in his evils in the day of his calamity: and thou shalt not be sent out against his army in the day of his desolation. 1:14. Neither shalt thou stand in the crossways to kill them that flee: and thou shalt not shut up them that remain of him in the day of tribulation. 1:15. For the day of the Lord is at hand upon all nations: as thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee: he will turn thy reward upon thy own head. 1:16. For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so all nations shall drink continually: and they shall drink, and sup up, and they shall be as though they were not. 1:17. And in mount Sion shall be salvation, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess those that possessed them. 1:18. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble: and they shall be kindled in them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no remains of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it. 1:19. And they that are toward the south, shall inherit the mount of Esau, and they that are in the plains, the Philistines: and they shall possess the country of Ephraim, and the country of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Galaad. 1:20. And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, all the places of the Chanaanites even to Sarepta: and the captivity of Jerusalem that is in Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the south. 1:21. And saviours shall come up into mount Sion to judge the mount of Esau: and the kingdom shall be for the Lord. THE PROPHECY OF JONAS JONAS prophesied in the reign of JEREBOAM the second: as we learn from 4 Kings 14.25. To whom also he foretold his success in restoring all the borders of Israel. He was of GETH OPHER in the tribe of ZABULON, and consequently of GALILEE: which confutes that assertion of the Pharisees, John 7.52, that no prophet ever rose out of GALILEE. He prophesied and prefigured in his own person the death and resurrection of CHRIST: and was the only one among the prophets that was sent to preach to the Gentiles. Jonas Chapter 1 Jonas being sent to preach in Ninive, fleeth away by sea: a tempest riseth: of which he being found, by lot, to be the cause, is cast into the sea, which thereupon is calmed. 1:1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonas, the son of Amathi, saying: 1:2. Arise and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it: For the wickedness thereof is come up before me. Nineve. . .The capital city of the Assyrian empire. 1:3. And Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord, and he went down to Joppe, and found a ship going to Tharsis: and he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord, Tharsis. . .Which some take to be Tharsus of Cilicia, others to be Tartessus of Spain, others to be Carthage. 1:4. But the Lord sent a great wind to the sea: and a great tempest was raised in the sea, and the ship was in danger to be broken. 1:5. And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried to their god: and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship, into the sea, to lighten it of them: and Jonas went down into the inner part of the ship, and fell into a deep sleep. A deep sleep. . .This is a lively image of the insensibility of sinners, fleeing from God, and threatened on every side with his judgments: and yet sleeping as if they were secure. 1:6. And the ship master came to him and said to him: Why art thou fast asleep? rise up call upon thy God, if so be that God will think of us that we may not perish. 1:7. And they said every one to his fellow: Come and let us cast lots, that we may know why this evil is upon us. And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonas. 1:8. And they said to him: Tell us for what cause this evil is upon us, what is thy business? of what country art thou? and whither goest thou? or of what people art thou? 1:9. And he said to them: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, and the God of heaven, who made both the sea and the dry land. 1:10. And the men were greatly afraid, and they said to him: Why hast thou done this? (For the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord: because he had told them.) 1:11. And they said to him: What shall we do with thee, that the sea may be calm to us? for the sea flowed and swelled. 1:12. And he said to them: take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be calm to you: for I know for my sake this great tempest is upon you. 1:13. And the men rowed hard to return the land, but they were not able: because the sea tossed and swelled upon them. 1:14. And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech thee, O Lord let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, oh Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. 1:15. And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging. 1:16. And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and sacrificed victims to the Lord, and made vows. Jonas Chapter 2 Jonas is swallowed up by a great fish: he prayeth with confidence in God; and the fish casteth him out on the dry land. 2:1. Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights. 2:2. And Jonas prayed to the Lord, his God, out of the belly of the fish. 2:3. And he said: I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and thou hast heard my voice. 2:4. And thou hast cast me forth into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and a flood hast compassed me: all thy billows, and thy waves have passed over me. 2:5. And I said: I am cast away out of the sight of thy eyes: but yet I shall see the holy temple again. 2:6. The waters compassed me about even to the soul: the deep hath closed me round about, the sea hath covered my head. 2:7. I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains: the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever: and thou wilt bring up my life from corruption, O Lord, my God. 2:8. When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord: that my prayer may come to thee, unto the holy temple. 2:9. They that in vain observe vanities, forsake their own mercy. 2:10. But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to thee: I will pay whatsoever I have vowed for my salvation to the Lord. 2:11. And the Lord spoke to the fish: and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry land. Spoke to the fish. . .God's speaking to the fish, was nothing else but his will, which all things obey. Jonas Chapter 3 Jonas is sent again to preach in Ninive. Upon their fasting and repentance, God recalleth the sentence by which they were to be destroyed. 3:1. And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time saying: 3:2. Arise, and go to Ninive, the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee. 3:3. And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days' journey. Of three days' journey. . .By the computation of some ancient historians, Ninive was about fifty miles round: so that to go through all the chief streets and public places was three days' journey. 3:4. And Jonas began to enter into the city one day's journey: and he cried and said: Yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed. 3:5. And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. 3:6. And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed in sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 3:7. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen, nor sheep taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water. 3:8. And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. 3:9. Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? 3:10. And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not. Jonas Chapter 4 4:1. And Jonas was exceedingly troubled, and was angry: Was exceedingly troubled, etc. . .His concern was lest he should pass for a false prophet; or rather, lest God's word, by this occasion, might come to be slighted and disbelieved. 4:2. And he prayed to the Lord, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, is not this what I said, when I was yet in my own country? therefore I went before to flee into Tharsis: for I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient, and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil. 4:3. And now, O Lord, I beseech thee take my life from me: for it is better for me to die than to live. 4:4. And the Lord said: Dost thou think thou hast reason to be angry? 4:5. Then Jonas went out of the city, and sat toward the east side of the city: and he made himself a booth there, and he sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would befall the city. 4:6. And the Lord God prepared an ivy, and it came up over the head of Jonas, to be a shadow over his head, and to cover him (for he was fatigued): and Jonas was exceeding glad of the ivy. The Lord God prepared an ivy. . .Hederam. In the Hebrew it is Kikajon, which some render a gourd: others a palmerist, or palma Christi. 4:7. But God prepared a worm, when the morning arose on the following day: and it struck the ivy and it withered. 4:8. And when the sun was risen, the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind: and the sun beat upon the head of Jonas, and he broiled with the heat: and he desired for his soul that he might die, and said: It is better for me to die than to live. 4:9. And the Lord said to Jonas: Dost thou think thou hast reason to be angry, for the ivy? And he said: I am angry with reason even unto death. 4:10. And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made it to grow, which in one night came up, and in one night perished. 4:11. And shall I not spare Ninive, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many beasts? THE PROPHECY OF MICHEAS MICHEAS, of Morasti, a little town in the tribe of JUDA, was contemporary with the prophet ISAIAS: whom he resembles both in his spirit and his style. He is different from the prophet MICHEAS mentioned in the third book of Kings, chap. 22. For that MICHEAS lived in the days of king ACHAB, one hundred and fifty years before the time of EZECHIAS, under whom this MICHEAS prophesied. Micheas Chapter 1 Samaria for her sins shall be destroyed by the Assyrians; they shall also invade Juda and Jerusalem. 1:1. The word of the Lord, that came to Micheas, the Morasthite, in the days of Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda: which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. 1:2. Hear, all ye people: and let the earth give ear, and all that is therein: and let the Lord God be a witness to you, the Lord from his holy temple. 1:3. For behold the Lord will come forth out of his place: and he will come down, and will tread upon the high places of the earth. 1:4. And the mountains shall be melted under him: and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as waters that run down a steep place. 1:5. For the wickedness of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the wickedness of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Juda? are they not Jerusalem? 1:6. And I will make Samaria as a heap of stones in the field when a vineyard is planted: and I will bring down the stones thereof into the valley, and will lay her foundations bare. 1:7. And all her graven things shall be cut in pieces, and all her wages shall be burnt with fire, and I will bring to destruction all her idols: for they were gathered together of the hire of a harlot, and unto the hire of a harlot they shall return. Her wages. . .That is, her donaries or presents offered to her idols: or the hire of all her traffic and labour.--Ibid. Of the hire of a harlot, etc. . .They were gathered together by one idolatrous city, viz., Samaria: and they shall be carried away to another idolatrous city, viz., Ninive. 1:8. Therefore will I lament, and howl: I will go stript and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches. 1:9. Because her wound is desperate, because it is come even to Juda, it hath touched the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. It hath touched the gate, etc. . .That is, the destruction of Samaria shall be followed by the invasion of my people of Juda, and the Assyrians shall come and lay all waste even to the confines of Jerusalem. 1:10. Declare ye it not in Geth, weep ye not with tears: in the house of Dust sprinkle yourselves with dust. Declare ye it not in Geth. . .Viz., amongst the Philistines, lest they rejoice at your calamity.--Ibid. Weep ye not, etc. . .Keep in your tears, that you may not give your enemies an occasion of insulting over you; but in your own houses, or in your house of dust, your earthly habitation, sprinkle yourselves with dust, and put on the habit of penitents. Some take the house of dust (in Hebrew, Aphrah) to be the proper name of a city. 1:11. And pass away, O thou that dwellest in the beautiful place, covered with thy shame: she went not forth that dwelleth in the confines: the house adjoining shall receive mourning from you, which stood by herself. Thou that dwellest in the Beautiful place, viz., in Samaria. In the Hebrew the Beautiful place is expressed by the word Sapir, which some take for the proper name of a city.--Ibid. She went not forth, etc. . .that is, they that dwelt in the confines came not forth, but kept themselves within, for fear.--Ibid. The house adjoining, etc. . .Viz., Judea and Jerusalem, neighbours to Samaria, and partners in her sins, shall share also in her mourning and calamity; though they have pretended to stand by themselves, trusting in their strength. 1:12. For she is become weak unto good that dwelleth in bitterness: for evil is come down from the Lord into the gate of Jerusalem. She is become weak, etc. . .Jerusalem is become weak unto any good; because she dwells in the bitterness of sin. 1:13. A tumult of chariots hath astonished the inhabitants of Lachis: it is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Sion for in thee were found the crimes of Israel. It is the beginning, etc. . .That is, Lachis was the first city of Juda that learned from Samaria the worship of idols, and communicated it to Jerusalem. 1:14. Therefore shall she send messengers to the inheritance of Geth: the houses of lying to deceive the kings of Israel. Therefore shall she send, etc. . .Lachis shall send to Geth for help: but in vain: for Geth, instead of helping, shall be found to be a house of lying and deceit to Israel. 1:15. Yet will I bring an heir to thee that dwellest in Maresa: even to Odollam shall the glory of Israel come. An heir, etc. . .Maresa (which was the name of a city of Juda) signifies inheritance: but here God by his prophet tells the Jews, that he will bring them an heir to take possession of their inheritance: and that the glory of Israel shall be obliged to give place, and to retire even to Odollam, a city in the extremity of their dominions. And therefore he exhorts them to penance in the following verse. 1:16. Make thee bald, and be polled for thy delicate children: enlarge thy baldness as the eagle: for they are carried into captivity from thee. Micheas Chapter 2 The Israelites by their crying injustices provoke God to punish them. He shall at last restore Jacob. 2:1. Woe to you that devise that which is unprofitable, and work evil in your beds: in the morning light they execute it, because their hand is against God. 2:2. And they have coveted fields, and taken them by violence, and houses they have forcibly taken away: and oppressed a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. 2:3. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I devise an evil against this family: from which you shall not withdraw your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for this is a very evil time. 2:4. In that day a parable shall be taken up upon you, and a song shall be sung with melody by them that say: We are laid waste and spoiled: the portion of my people is changed: how shall he depart from me, whereas he is returning that will divide our land? How shall he depart, etc. . .How do you pretend to say that the Assyrian is departing; when indeed he is coming to divide our lands amongst his subjects? 2:5. Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast the cord of a lot in the assembly of the Lord. Thou shalt have none, etc. . .Thou shalt have no longer any lot or inheritance in the land of the people of the Lord. 2:6. Speak ye not, saying: It shall not drop upon these, confusion shall not take them. It shall not drop, etc. . .That is, the prophecy shall not come upon these. Such were the sentiments of the people that were unwilling to believe the threats of the prophets. 2:7. The house of Jacob saith: Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened or are these his thoughts? Are not my words good to him that walketh uprightly? 2:8. But my people, on the contrary, are risen up as an enemy: you have taken away the cloak off from the coat: and them that passed harmless you have turned to war. You have taken away, etc. . .You have even stripped people of their necessary garments: and have treated such as were innocently passing on the way, as if they were at war with you. 2:9. You have cast out the women of my people from their houses, in which they took delight: you have taken my praise forever from their children. You have cast out, etc. . .either by depriving them of their houses: or, by your crimes, given occasion to their being carried away captives, and their children, by that means, never learning to praise the Lord. 2:10. Arise ye, and depart, for there is no rest here for you. For that uncleanness of the land, it shall be corrupted with a grievous corruption. 2:11. Would God I were not a man that hath the spirit, and that I rather spoke a lie: I will let drop to thee of wine, and of drunkenness: and it shall be this people upon whom it shall drop. Would God, etc. . .The prophet could have wished, out of his love to his people, that he might be deceived in denouncing to them these evils that were to fall upon them: but by conforming himself to the will of God, he declares to them, that he is sent to prophesy, literally to let drop upon them, the wine of God's indignation, with which they should be made drunk; that is, stupified and cast down. 2:12. I will assemble and gather together all of thee, O Jacob: I will bring together the remnant of Israel, I will put them together as a flock in the fold, as sheep in the midst of the sheepcotes, they shall make a tumult by reason of the multitude of men. 2:13. For he shall go up that shall open the way before them: they shall divide and pass through the gate, and shall come in by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at the head of them. Micheas Chapter 3 For the sins of the rich oppressing the poor, of false prophets flattering for lucre, and of judges perverting justice, Jerusalem and the temple shall be destroyed. 3:1. And I said: Hear, O ye princes of Jacob, and ye chiefs of the house of Israel: Is it not your part to know judgment, 3:2. You that hate good, and love evil: that violently pluck off their skins from them and their flesh from their bones? 3:3. Who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin off them: and have broken, and chopped their bones as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot. 3:4. Then shall they cry to the Lord, and he will not hear them: and he will hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly in their devices. 3:5. Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err: that bite with their teeth, and preach peace: and if a man give not something into their mouth, they prepare war against him. 3:6. Therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination: and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them. 3:7. And they shall be confounded that see visions, and the diviners shall be confounded: and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer of God. 3:8. But yet I am filled with the strength of the spirit of the Lord, with judgment and power: to declare unto Jacob his wickedness and to Israel his sin. 3:9. Hear this, ye princes of the house of Jacob, and ye judges of the house of Israel: you that abhor judgment and pervert all that is right. 3:10. You that build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 3:11. Her princes have judged for bribes: and her priests have taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money: and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come among us. 3:12. Therefore because of you, Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests. Micheas Chapter 4 The glory of the church of Christ, by the conversion of the Gentiles. The Jews shall be carried captives to Babylon, and be delivered again. 4:1. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of the mountains, and high above the hills: and people shall flow to it. 4:2. And many nations shall come in haste, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. 4:3. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into spades: nation shall not take sword against nation: neither shall they learn war anymore. Neither shall they learn, etc. . .The law of Christ is a law of peace; and all his true subjects, as much as lies in them love and keep peace with all the world. 4:4. And every man shall sit under his vine, and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken. 4:5. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god: but we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God, for ever and ever. 4:6. In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather up her that halteth: and her that I had cast out, I will gather up: and her whom I had afflicted. 4:7. And I will make her that halted, a remnant: and her that had been afflicted, a mighty nation: and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Sion, from this time now and forever. 4:8. And thou, O cloudy tower of the flock, of the daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come: yea the first power shall come, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem. 4:9. Now, why art thou drawn together with grief? Hast thou no king in thee, or is thy counselor perished, because sorrow hath taken thee as a woman in labour. 4:10. Be in pain and labour, O daughter of Sion, as a woman that bringeth forth: for now shalt thou go out of the city, and shalt dwell in the country, and shalt come even to Babylon, there thou shalt be delivered: there the Lord will redeem thee out of the hand of thy enemies. 4:11. And now many nations are gathered together against thee, and they say: Let her be stoned: and let our eye look upon Sion. 4:12. But they have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood his counsel: because he hath gathered them together as the hay of the floor. 4:13. Arise, and tread, O daughter of Sion: for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs I will make brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples, and shalt immolate the spoils of them to the Lord, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth. Micheas Chapter 5 The birth of Christ in Bethlehem: his reign and spiritual conquests. 5:1. Now shalt thou be laid waste, O daughter of the robber: they have laid siege against us, with a rod shall they strike the cheek of the judge of Israel. Daughter of the robber. . .Some understand this of Babylon; which robbed and pillaged the temple of God: others understand it of Jerusalem; by reason of the many rapines and oppressions committed there. 5:2. And thou Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda, out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. His going forth, etc. . .That is, he who as man shall be born in thee, as God was born of his Father from all eternity. 5:3. Therefore will he give them up even till the time wherein she that travaileth shall bring forth: and the remnant of his brethren shall be converted to the children of Israel. 5:4. And he shall stand, and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the height of the name of the Lord, his God: and they shall be converted, for now shall he be magnified even to the ends of the earth. 5:5. And this man shall be our peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall set his foot in our houses: and we shall raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. The Assyrian. . .That is, the persecutors of the church: who are here called Assyrians by the prophet: because the Assyrians were at that time the chief enemies and persecutors of the people of God.--Ibid. Seven shepherds, etc. . .Viz., the pastors of God's church, and the defenders of the faith. The number seven in scripture is taken to signify many: and when eight is joined with it, we are to understand that the number will be very great. 5:6. And they shall feed the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nemrod with the spears thereof: and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our borders. They shall feed, etc. . .They shall make spiritual conquests in the lands of their persecutors, with the word of the spirit, which is the word of God. Eph. 6.17. 5:7. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, as a dew from the Lord, and as drops upon the grass, which waiteth not for man, nor tarrieth for the children of men. The remnant of Jacob. . .Viz., the apostles, and the first preachers of the Jewish nation; whose doctrine, like dew, shall make the plants of the converted Gentiles grow up, without waiting for any man to cultivate them by human learning. 5:8. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the beasts of the forests, and as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, when he shall go through, and tread down, and take there is none to deliver. As a lion, etc. . .This denotes the fortitude of these first preachers; and their success in their spiritual enterprises. 5:9. Thy hand shall be lifted up over thy enemies, and all thy enemies shall be cut off. 5:10. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will take away thy horses out of the midst of thee, and will destroy thy chariots. I will take away thy horses, etc. . .Some understand this, and all that follows to the end of the chapter, as addressed to the enemies of the church. But it may as well be understood of the converts to the church: who should no longer put their trust in any of these things. 5:11. And I will destroy the cities of thy land, and will throw down all thy strong holds, and I will take away sorceries out of thy hand, and there shall be no divinations in thee. 5:12. And I will destroy thy graven things, and thy statues, out of the midst of thee: and thou shalt no more adore the works of thy hands. 5:13. And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: and will crush thy cities. 5:14. And I will execute vengeance in wrath, and in indignation, among all the nations that have not given ear. Micheas Chapter 6 God expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude and sins: for which they shall be punished. 6:1. Hear ye what the Lord saith: Arise, contend thou in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. The mountains, etc. . .That is, the great ones, the princes of the people. 6:2. Let the mountains hear the judgment of the Lord, and the strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord will enter into judgment with his people, and he will plead against Israel. 6:3. O my people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I molested thee? answer thou me. 6:4. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and delivered thee out of the house of slaves: and I sent before thy face Moses, and Aaron, and Mary. 6:5. O my people, remember, I pray thee, what Balach, the king of Moab, purposed: and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him, from Setim to Galgal, that thou mightest know the justice of the Lord. From Setim to Galgal. . .He puts them in mind of the favour he did them, in not suffering them to be quite destroyed by the evil purpose of Balach, and the wicked counsel of Balaam: and then gives them a hint of the wonders he wrought, in order to bring them into the land of Promise, by stopping the course of the Jordan, in their march from Setim to Galgal. 6:6. What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy? wherewith shall I kneel before the high God? shall I offer holocausts unto him, and calves of a year old? What shall I offer, etc. . .This is spoken in the person of the people, desiring to be informed what they are to do to please God. 6:7. May the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams, or with many thousands of fat he goats? shall I give my firstborn for my wickedness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 6:8. I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God. 6:9. The voice of the Lord crieth to the city, and salvation shall be to them that fear thy name: hear O ye tribes, and who shall approve it? 6:10. As yet there is a fire in the house of the wicked, the treasures of iniquity, and a scant measure full of wrath. Full of wrath, etc. . .That is, highly provoking in the sight of God. 6:11. Shall I justify wicked balances, and the deceitful weights of the bag? 6:12. By which her rich men were filled with iniquity, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue was deceitful in their mouth. 6:13. And I therefore began to strike thee with desolation for thy sins. 6:14. Thou shalt eat, but shalt not be filled: and thy humiliation shall be in the midst of thee: and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not save: and those whom thou shalt save, I will give up to the sword. 6:15. Thou shalt sow, but shalt not reap: thou shalt tread the olives, but shalt not be anointed with oil: and the new wine, but shalt not drink the wine. 6:16. For thou hast kept the statutes of Amri, and all the works of the house of Achab: and thou hast walked according their wills, that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof a hissing, and you shall bear the reproach of my people. The statutes of Amri, etc. . .The wicked ways of Amri and Achab, idolatrous kings. Micheas Chapter 7 The prophet laments, that notwithstanding all his preaching, the generality are still corrupt in their manners: therefore their desolation is at hand: but they shall be restored again and prosper; and all mankind shall be redeemed by Christ. 7:1. Woe is me, for I am become as one that gleaneth in autumn the grapes of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat, my soul desired the first ripe figs. 7:2. The holy man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood, every one hunteth his brother to death. 7:3. The evil of their hands they call good: the prince requireth, and the judge is for giving: and the great man hath uttered the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it. 7:4. He that is best among them, is as a brier, and he that is righteous, as the thorn of the hedge. The day of thy inspection, thy visitation cometh: now shall be their destruction. 7:5. Believe not a friend, and trust not in a prince: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that sleepeth in thy bosom. 7:6. For the son dishonoureth the father, and the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man's enemies are they of his own household. 7:7. But I will look towards the Lord, I will wait for God, my saviour: my God will hear me. 7:8. Rejoice not, thou my enemy, over me, because I am fallen: I shall arise, when I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light. 7:9. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him: until he judge my cause, and execute judgement for me: he will bring me forth into the light, I shall behold his justice. 7:10. And my enemy shall behold, and she shall be covered with shame, who saith to me: Where is the Lord thy God? my eyes shall look down upon her: now shall she be trodden under foot as the mire of the streets. She shall be covered, etc. . .Viz., Babylon my enemy. 7:11. The day shall come, that thy walls may be built up: in that day shall the law be far removed. The law. . .Viz., of thy enemies, who have tyrannized over thee. 7:12. In that day they shall come even from Assyria to thee, and to the fortified cities: and from the fortified cities even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. 7:13. And the land shall be made desolate because of the inhabitants thereof, and for the fruit of their devices. The land, etc. . .Viz., of Babylon. 7:14. Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy inheritance, them that dwell alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in Basan and Galaad, according to the days of old. 7:15. According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, I will shew him wonders. 7:16. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their strength: they shall put the hand upon the mouth, their ears shall be deaf. 7:17. They shall lick the dust like serpents, as the creeping things of the earth, they shall be disturbed in their houses: they shall dread the Lord, our God, and shall fear thee. 7:18. Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? he will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy. 7:19. He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea. 7:20. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham: which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old. THE PROPHECY OF NAHUM NAHUM, whose name signifies A COMFORTER, was a native of Elcese, or Elcesai, supposed to be a little town in Galilee. He prophesied, after the ten tribes were carried into captivity, and foretold the utter destruction of Ninive, by the Babylonians and Medes: which happened in the reign of JOSIAS. Nahum Chapter 1 The majesty of God, his goodness to his people, and severity to his enemies. 1:1. The burden of Ninive. The book of the vision of Nahum, the Elcesite. 1:2. The Lord is a jealous God, and a revenger: the Lord is a revenger, and hath wrath: the Lord taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he is angry with his enemies. 1:3. The Lord is patient, and great in power, and will not cleanse and acquit the guilty. The Lord's ways are in a tempest, and a whirlwind, and clouds are the dust of his feet. 1:4. He rebuketh the sea and drieth it up: and bringeth all the rivers to be a desert. Basan languisheth and Carmel: and the flower of Libanus fadeth away. 1:5. The mountains tremble at him, and the hills are made desolate: and the earth hath quaked at his presence, and the world, and all that dwell therein. 1:6. Who can stand before the face of his indignation? and who shall resist in the fierceness of his anger? his indignation is poured out like fire: and the rocks are melted by him. 1:7. The Lord is good, and giveth strength in the day of trouble: and knoweth them that hope in him. 1:8. But with a flood that passeth by, he will make an utter end of the place thereof: and darkness shall pursue his enemies. Of the place thereof. . .Viz., of Ninive. 1:9. What do ye devise against the Lord? he will make an utter end: there shall not rise a double affliction. 1:10. For as thorns embrace one another: so while they are feasting and drinking together, they shall be consumed as stubble that is fully dry. 1:11. Out of thee shall come forth one that imagineth evil against the Lord, contriving treachery in his mind. Shall come forth one, etc. . .Some understand this of Sennacherib. But as his attempt against the people seems to have been prior to the prophecy of Nahum, we may better understand it of Holofernes. 1:12. Thus saith the Lord: Though they were perfect: and many of them so, yet thus shall they be cut off, and he shall pass: I have afflicted thee, and I will afflict thee no more. Though they were perfect, etc. . .That is, however strong or numerous their forces may be, they shall be cut off; and their prince or leader shall pass away and disappear. 1:13. And now I will break in pieces his rod with which he struck thy back, and I will burst thy bonds asunder. 1:14. And the Lord will give a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name shall be sown: I will destroy the graven and molten thing out of the house of thy God, I will make it thy grave, for thou art disgraced. Will give a commandment. . .That is, a decree, concerning thee, O king of Ninive, thy seed shall fail, etc. 1:15. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: O Juda, keep thy festivals, and pay thy vows: for Belial shall no more pass through thee again, he is utterly cut off. Belial. . .The wicked one, viz., the Assyrian. Nahum Chapter 2 God sends his armies against Ninive to destroy it. 2:1. He is come up that shall destroy before thy face, that shall keep the siege: watch the way, fortify thy loins, strengthen thy power exceedingly. 2:2. For the Lord hath rendered the pride of Jacob, as the pride of Israel: because the spoilers have laid them waste, and have marred their vine branches. Hath rendered the pride of Jacob, etc. . .He hath punished Jacob for his pride; and therefore Ninive must not expect to escape. Or else, rendering the pride of Jacob means rewarding, that is, punishing Ninive for the pride they exercised against Jacob. 2:3. The shield of his mighty men is like fire, the men of the army are clad in scarlet, the reins of the chariot are flaming in the day of his preparation, and the drivers are stupefied. Of his mighty men, etc. . .He speaks of the Chaldeans and Medes sent to destroy Ninive.--Ibid. Stupefied. . .consopiti. That is, they drive on furiously like men intoxicated with wine. 2:4. They are in confusion in the ways, the chariots jostle one against another in the streets: their looks are like torches, like lightning running to and fro. 2:5. He will muster up his valiant men, they shall stumble in their march: they shall quickly get upon the walls thereof: and a covering shall be prepared. Stumble in their march. . .By running hastily on. 2:6. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the temple is thrown down to the ground. 2:7. And the soldier is led away captive: and her bondwomen were led away mourning as doves, murmuring in their hearts. 2:8. And as for Ninive, her waters are like a great pool: but the men flee away. They cry: Stand, stand, but there is none that will return back. 2:9. Take ye the spoil of the silver, take the spoil of the gold: for there is no end of the riches of all the precious furniture. 2:10. She is destroyed, and rent, and torn: the heart melteth, and the knees fail, and all the loins lose their strength: and the faces of them all are as the blackness of a kettle. 2:11. Where is now the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, to which the lion went, to enter in thither, the young lion, and there was none to make them afraid? 2:12. The lion caught enough for his whelps, and killed for his lionesses: and he filled his holes with prey, and his den with rapine. 2:13. Behold I come against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn thy chariots even to smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey out of the land, and the voice of thy messengers shall be heard no more. Nahum Chapter 3 The miserable destruction of Ninive. 3:1. Woe to thee, O city of blood, all full of lies and violence: rapine shall not depart from thee. 3:2. The noise of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the neighing horse; and of the running chariot, and of the horsemen coming up, 3:3. And of the shining sword, and of the glittering spear, and of a multitude slain, and of a grievous destruction: and there is no end of carcasses, and they shall fall down on their dead bodies. 3:4. Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot that was beautiful and agreeable, and that made use of witchcraft, that sold nations through her fornications, and families through her witchcrafts. 3:5. Behold I come against thee, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will discover thy shame to thy face, and will shew thy nakedness to the nations, and thy shame to kingdoms. 3:6. And I will cast abominations upon thee, and will disgrace thee, and will make an example of thee. 3:7. And it shall come to pass that every one that shall see thee, shall flee from thee, and shall say: Ninive is laid waste: who shall bemoan thee? whence shall I seek a comforter for thee? 3:8. Art thou better than the populous Alexandria, that dwelleth among the rivers? waters are round about it: the sea is its riches: the waters are its walls. Populous Alexandria. . .No-Ammon. A populous city of Egypt destroyed by the Chaldeans, and afterwards rebuilt by Alexander, and called Alexandria. Others suppose No-Ammon to be the same as Diospolis. 3:9. Ethiopia and Egypt were the strength thereof, and there is no end: Africa and the Libyans were thy helpers. 3:10. Yet she also was removed and carried into captivity: her young children were dashed in pieces at the top of every street, and they cast lots upon her nobles, and all her great men were bound in fetters. 3:11. Therefore thou also shalt be made drunk, and shalt be despised: and thou shalt seek help from the enemies. 3:12. All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with their green figs: if they be shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater. 3:13. Behold thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open to thy enemies, the fire shall devour thy bars. 3:14. Draw thee water for the siege, build up thy bulwarks: go into the clay, and tread, work it and make brick. 3:15. There shall the fire devour thee: thou shalt perish by the sword, it shall devour thee like the bruchus: assemble together like the bruchus, make thyself many like the locust. 3:16. Thou hast multiplied thy merchandises above the stars of heaven: the bruchus hath spread himself and flown away. 3:17. Thy guards are like the locusts: and thy little ones like the locusts of locusts which swarm on the hedges in the day of cold: the sun arose, and they flew away, and their place was not known where they were. Locusts of locusts. . .The young locusts. 3:18. Thy shepherds have slumbered, O king of Assyria, thy princes shall be buried: thy people are hid in the mountains, and there is none to gather them. 3:19. Thy destruction is not hidden, thy wound is grievous: all that have heard the fame of thee, have clapped their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? THE PROPHECY OF HABACUC HABACUC was a native of Bezocher, and prophesied in JUDA, some time before the invasion of the CHALDEANS, which he foretold. He lived to see this prophecy fulfilled, and for many years after, according to the general opinion, which supposes him to be the same that was brought by the ANGEL to DANIEL in BABYLON, Dan. 14. Habacuc Chapter 1 The prophet complains of the wickedness of the people: God reveals to him the vengeance he is going to take of them by the Chaldeans. 1:1. The burden that Habacuc the prophet saw. Burden. . .Such prophecies more especially are called burdens, as threaten grievous evils and punishments. 1:2. How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? shall I cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save? 1:3. Why hast thou shewn me iniquity and grievance, to see rapine and injustice before me? and there is a judgment, but opposition is more powerful. 1:4. Therefore the law is torn in pieces, and judgment cometh not to the end: because the wicked prevaileth against the just, therefore wrong judgment goeth forth. 1:5. Behold ye among the nations, and see: wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no man will believe when it shall be told. 1:6. For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching upon the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not their own. 1:7. They are dreadful, and terrible: from themselves shall their judgment, and their burden proceed. 1:8. Their horses are lighter than leopards, and swifter than evening wolves; and their horsemen shall be spread abroad: for their horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that maketh haste to eat. 1:9. They shall all come to the prey, their face is like a burning wind: and they shall gather together captives as the sand. 1:10. And their prince shall triumph over kings, and princes shall be his laughingstock: and he shall laugh at every strong hold, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take it. 1:11. Then shall his spirit be changed, and he shall pass, and fall: this is his strength of his god. Then shall his spirit, etc. . .Viz., the spirit of the king of Babylon. It alludes to the judgment of God upon Nabuchodonosor, recorded Dan. 4., and to the speedy fall of the Chaldean empire. 1:12. Wast thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my holy one, and we shall not die? Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment: and made him strong for correction. 1:13. Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself? 1:14. And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler. 1:15. He lifted up all them with his hook, he drew them in his drag, and gathered them into his net: for this he will be glad and rejoice. 1:16. Therefore will he offer victims to his drag, and he will sacrifice to his net: because through them his portion is made fat, and his meat dainty. 1:17. For this cause therefore he spreadeth his net, and will not spare continually to slay the nations. Habacuc Chapter 2 The prophet is admonished to wait with faith. The enemies of God's people shall assuredly be punished. 2:1. I will stand upon my watch, and fix my foot upon the tower: and I will watch, to see what will be said to me, and what I may answer to him that reproveth me. Will stand, etc. . .Waiting to see what the Lord will answer to my complaint, viz., that the Chaldeans, who are worse than the Jews, and who attribute all their success to their own strength, or to their idols, should nevertheless prevail over the people of the Lord. The Lord's answer is, that the prophet must wait with patience and faith: that all should be set right in due time; and the enemies of God and his people punished according to their deserts. 2:2. And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables: that he that readeth it may run over it. 2:3. For as yet the vision is far off, and it shall appear at the end, and shall not lie: if it make any delay, wait for it: for it shall surely come, and it shall not be slack. 2:4. Behold, he that is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself: but the just shall live in his faith. 2:5. And as wine deceiveth him that drinketh it: so shall the proud man be, and he shall not be honoured: who hath enlarged his desire like hell: and is himself like death, and he is never satisfied: but will gather together unto him all nations, and heap together unto him all people. As wine deceiveth, etc. . .Viz., by affording only a short passing pleasure; followed by the evils and disgrace that are the usual consequences of drunkenness; so shall it be with the proud enemies of the people of God; whose success affordeth them only a momentary pleasure, followed by innumerable and everlasting evils. 2:6. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a dark speech concerning him: and it shall be said: Woe to him that heapeth together that which is not his own? how long also doth he load himself with thick clay? Thick clay. . .Ill-gotten goods, that, like mire, both burden and defile the soul. 2:7. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee: and they be stirred up that shall tear thee, and thou shalt be a spoil to them? 2:8. Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all that shall be left of the people shall spoil thee: because of men's blood, and for the iniquity of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein. 2:9. Woe to him that gathereth together an evil covetousness to his house, that his nest may be on high, and thinketh he may be delivered out of the hand of evil. 2:10. Thou hast devised confusion to thy house, thou hast cut off many people, and thy soul hath sinned. 2:11. For the stone shall cry out of the wall: and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer. 2:12. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. 2:13. Are not these things from the Lord of hosts? for the people shall labour in a great fire: and the nations in vain, and they shall faint. Are not these things, etc. . .That is, shall not these punishments that are here recorded, come from the Lord upon him that is guilty of such crimes.--Ibid. The people shall labour, etc. . .Viz., the enemies of God's people. 2:14. For the earth shall be filled, that men may know the glory of the Lord, as waters covering the sea. 2:15. Woe to him that giveth drink to his friend, and presenteth his gall, and maketh him drunk, that he may behold his nakedness. 2:16. Thou art filled with shame instead of glory: drink thou also, and fall fast asleep: the cup of the right hand of the Lord shall compass thee, and shameful vomiting shall be on thy glory. 2:17. For the iniquity of Libanus shall cover thee, and the ravaging of beasts shall terrify them because of the blood of men, and the iniquity of the land, and of the city, and of all that dwell therein. The iniquity of Libanus. . .That is, the iniquity committed by the Chaldeans against the temple of God, signified here by the name of Libanus. 2:18. What doth the graven thing avail, because the maker thereof hath graven it, a molten, and a false image? because the forger thereof hath trusted in a thing of his own forging, to make dumb idols. 2:19. Woe to him that saith to wood: Awake: to the dumb stone: Arise: can it teach? Behold, it is laid over with gold, and silver, and there is no spirit in the bowels thereof. 2:20. But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. Habacuc Chapter 3 3:1. A PRAYER OF HABACUC THE PROPHET FOR IGNORANCES. For ignorances. . .That is, for the sins of his people. In the Hebrew, it is Sigionoth: which some take to signify a musical instrument, or tune; with which this sublime prayer and canticle was to be sung. 3:2. O Lord, I have heard thy hearing, and was afraid. O Lord, thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life: In the midst of the years thou shalt make it known: when thou art angry, thou wilt remember mercy. Thy hearing, etc. . .That is, thy oracles, the great and wonderful things thou hast revealed to me; and I was struck with a reverential fear and awe.--Ibid. Thy work. . .The great work of the redemption of man, which thou wilt bring to life and light in the midst of the years, when our calamities and miseries shall be at their height. 3:3. God will come from the south, and the holy one from mount Pharan: His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. God will come from the south, etc. . .God himself will come to give us his law, and to conduct us into the true land of promise: as heretofore he came from the South (in the Hebrew Theman) and from mount Pharan to give his law to his people in the desert. See Deut. 33.2. 3:4. His brightness shall be as the light: horns are in his hands: There is his strength hid: Horns, etc. . .That is, strength and power, which, by a Hebrew phrase, are called horns. Or beams of light, which come forth from his hands. Or it may allude to the cross, in the horns of which the hands of Christ were fastened, where his strength was hidden, by which he overcame the world, and drove out death and the devil. 3:5. Death shall go before his face. And the devil shall go forth before his feet. Death shall go before his face, etc. . .Both death and the devil shall be the executioners of his justice against his enemies: as they were heretofore against the Egyptians and Chanaanites. 3:6. He stood and measured the earth. He beheld, and melted the nations: and the ancient mountains were crushed to pieces. The hills of the world were bowed down by the journeys of his eternity. He beheld, etc. . .One look of his eye is enough to melt all the nations, and to reduce them to nothing. For all heaven and earth disappear when they come before his light. Apoc. 20.11. Ibid. The ancient mountains, etc. . .By the mountains and hills are signified the great ones of the world, that persecute the church, whose power was quickly crushed by the Almighty. 3:7. I saw the tents of Ethiopia for their iniquity, the curtains of the land of Madian shall be troubled. Ethiopia. . .the land of the Blacks, and Madian, are here taken for the enemies of God and his people: who shall perish for their iniquity. 3:8. Wast thou angry, O Lord, with the rivers? or was thy wrath upon the rivers? or thy indignation in the sea? Who will ride upon thy horses: and thy chariots are salvation. With the rivers, etc. . .He alludes to the wonders wrought heretofore by the Lord in favour of his people Israel, when the waters of the rivers, viz., of Arnon and Jordan, and of the Red Sea, retired before their face: when he came as it were with his horses and chariots to save them when he took up his bow for their defence, in consequence of the oath he had made to their tribes: when the mountains trembled, and the deep stood with its waves raised up in a heap, as with hands lifted up to heaven: when the sun and the moon stood still at his command, etc., to comply with his anger, not against the rivers and sea, but against the enemies of his people. How much more will he do in favour of his Son: and against the enemies of his church? 3:9. Thou wilt surely take up thy bow: according to the oaths which thou hast spoken to the tribes. Thou wilt divide the rivers of the earth. 3:10. The mountains saw thee, and were grieved: the great body of waters passed away. The deep put forth its voice: the deep lifted up its hands. 3:11. The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation, in the light of thy arrows, they shall go in the brightness of thy glittering spear. 3:12. In thy anger thou wilt tread the earth under foot: in thy wrath thou wilt astonish the nations. 3:13. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people: for salvation with thy Christ. Thou struckest the head of the house of the wicked: thou hast laid bare his foundation even to the neck. The head of the house of the wicked. . .Such was Pharao heretofore: such shall Antichrist be hereafter. 3:14. Thou hast cursed his sceptres, the head of his warriors, them that came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their joy was like that of him that devoureth the poor man in secret. 3:15. Thou madest a way in the sea for thy horses, in the mud of many waters. Thou madest a way in the sea, etc. . .To deliver thy people from the Egyptian bondage: and thou shalt work the like wonders in the spiritual way, to rescue the children of the church from their enemies. 3:16. I have heard and my bowels were troubled: my lips trembled at the voice. Let rottenness enter into my bones, and swarm under me. That I may rest in the day of tribulation: that I may go up to our people that are girded. I have heard, etc. . .Viz., the evils that are now coming upon the Israelites for their sins; and that shall come hereafter upon all impenitent sinners; and the foresight that I have of these miseries makes me willing to die, that I may be at rest, before this general tribulation comes, in which all good things shall be withdrawn from the wicked.--Ibid. That I may go up to our people, etc. . .That I may join the happy company in the bosom of Abraham, that are girded, that is, prepared for their journey, by which they shall attend their Lord, when he shall ascend into heaven. To which high and happy place, my Jesus, that is, my Saviour, the great conqueror of death and hell, shall one day conduct me rejoicing and singing psalms of praise, ver. 18 and 19. 3:17. For the fig tree shall not blossom: and there shall be no spring in the vines. The labour of the olive tree shall fail: and the fields shall yield no food: the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. 3:18. But I will rejoice in the Lord: and I will joy in God my Jesus. 3:19. The Lord God is my strength: and he will make my feet like the feet of harts: and he the conqueror will lead me upon my high places singing psalms. THE PROPHECY OF SOPHONIAS SOPHONIAS, whose name, saith St. Jerome, signifies The Watchman of the Lord, or The hidden of the Lord, prophesied in the beginning of the reign of Josias. He was a native of Sarabatha, and of the tribe of Simeon, according to the more general opinion. He prophesied the punishments of the Jews, for their idolatry and other crimes; also the punishments that were to come on divers nations; the coming of Christ, the conversion of the Gentiles, the blindness of the Jews, and their conversion towards the end of the world. Sophonias Chapter 1 For divers enormous sins, the kingdom of Juda is threatened with severe judgment. 1:1. The word of the Lord that came to Sophonias the son of Chusi, the son of Godolias, the son of Amarias, the son of Ezechias, in the days of Josias, the son of Amon king of Juda. 1:2. Gathering, I will gather together all things from off the face of the land, saith the Lord: Gathering, I will gather, etc. . .That is, I will assuredly take away, and wholly consume, either by captivity, or death, both men and beasts out of this land. 1:3. I will gather man, and beast, I will gather the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea: and the ungodly shall meet with ruin: and I will destroy men from off the face of the land, saith the Lord. 1:4. And I will stretch out my hand upon Juda, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and I will destroy out of this place the remnant of Baal, and the names of the wardens of the temples with the priests: The wardens, etc. . .Viz., of the temples of the idols. AEdituos, in Hebrew, the Chemarims, that is, such as kindle the fires, or burn incense. 1:5. And them that worship the host of heaven upon the tops of houses, and them that adore, and swear by the Lord, and swear by Melchom. Melchom. . .The idol of the Ammonites. 1:6. And them that turn away from following after the Lord, and that have not sought the Lord, nor searched after him. 1:7. Be silent before the face of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is near, for the Lord hath prepared a victim, he hath sanctified his guests. 1:8. And it shall come to pass in the day of the victim of the Lord, that I will visit upon the princes, and upon the king's sons, and upon all such as are clothed with strange apparel: 1:9. And I will visit in that day upon every one that entereth arrogantly over the threshold: them that fill the house of the Lord their God with iniquity and deceit. 1:10. And there shall be in that day, saith the Lord, the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and a howling from the Second, and a great destruction from the hills. The Second. . .A part of the city so called. 1:11. Howl, ye inhabitants of the Morter. All the people of Chanaan is hush, all are cut off that were wrapped up in silver. The Morter. . .Maktesh. A valley in or near Jerusalem. Ibid. The people of Chanaan. . .So he calls the Jews, from their following the wicked ways of the Chanaanites. 1:12. And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and will visit upon the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their hearts: The Lord will not do good, nor will he do evil. Settled on their lees. . .That is, the wealthy, and such as live at their ease, resting upon their riches, like wine upon the lees. 1:13. And their strength shall become a booty, and their houses as a desert: and they shall build houses, and shall not dwell in them: and they shall plant vineyards, and shall not drink the wine of them. 1:14. The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and exceeding swift: the voice of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man shall there meet with tribulation. 1:15. That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds, 1:16. A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high bulwarks. 1:17. And I will distress men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as earth, and their bodies as dung. 1:18. Neither shall their silver and their gold be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: all the land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy destruction of all them that dwell in the land. Sophonias Chapter 2 An exhortation to repentance. The judgment of the Philistines, of the Moabites, and the Ammonites; of the Ethiopians and the Assyrians. 2:1.Assemble yourselves together, be gathered together, O nation not worthy to be loved: 2:2. Before the decree bring forth the day as dust passing away, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's indignation come upon you. 2:3. Seek the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, you that have wrought his judgment: seek the just, seek the meek: if by any means you may be hid in the day of the Lord's indignation. 2:4. For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ascalon shall be a desert, they shall cast out Azotus at noonday, and Accaron shall be rooted up. 2:5. Woe to you that inhabit the sea coast, O nation of reprobates: the word of the Lord upon you, O Chanaan, the land of the Philistines, and I will destroy thee, so that there shall not be an inhabitant. 2:6. And the sea coast shall be the resting place of shepherds, and folds for cattle: 2:7. And it shall be the portion of him that shall remain of the house of Juda, there they shall feed: in the houses of Ascalon they shall rest in the evening: because the Lord their God will visit them, and bring back their captivity. 2:8. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon, with which they reproached my people, and have magnified themselves upon their borders. 2:9. Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrha, the dryness of thorns, and heaps of salt, and a desert even for ever: the remnant of my people shall make a spoil of them, and the residue of my nation shall possess them. 2:10. This shall befall them for their pride: because they have blasphemed, and have been magnified against the people of the Lord of hosts. 2:11. The Lord shall be terrible upon them, and shall consume all the gods of the earth: and they shall adore him every man from his own place, all the islands of the Gentiles. 2:12. You Ethiopians, also shall be slain with my sword. 2:13. And he will stretch out his hand upon the north, and will destroy Assyria: and he will make the beautiful city a wilderness, and as a place not passable, and as a desert. The beautiful city, viz. . .Ninive, which was destroyed soon after this, viz., in the sixteenth year of the reign of Josias. 2:14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst thereof, all the beasts of the nations: and the bittern and the urchin shall lodge in the threshold thereof: the voice of the singing bird in the window, the raven on the upper post, for I will consume her strength. 2:15. This is the glorious city that dwelt in security: that said in her heart: I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desert, a place for beasts to lie down in? every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand. Sophonias Chapter 3 A woe to Jerusalem for her sins. A prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles, and of the poor of Israel: God shall be with them. The Jews shall be converted at last. 3:1. Woe to the provoking and redeemed city, the dove. 3:2. She hath not hearkened to the voice, neither hath she received discipline: she hath not trusted in the Lord, she drew not near to her God. 3:3. Her princes are in the midst of her as roaring lions: her judges are evening wolves, they left nothing for the morning. 3:4. Her prophets are senseless, men without faith: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have acted unjustly against the law. 3:5. The just Lord is in the midst thereof, he will not do iniquity: in the morning, in the morning he will bring his judgment to light, and it shall not be hid: but the wicked man hath not known shame. 3:6. I have destroyed the nations, and their towers are beaten down: I have made their ways desert, so that there is none that passeth by: their cities are desolate, there is not a man remaining, nor any inhabitant. 3:7. I said: Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive correction: and her dwelling shall not perish, for all things wherein I have visited her: but they rose early, and corrupted all their thoughts. 3:8. Wherefore expect me, saith the Lord, in the day of my resurrection that is to come, for my judgment is to assemble the Gentiles, and to gather the kingdoms: and to pour upon them my indignation, all my fierce anger: for with the fire of my jealousy shall all the earth be devoured. 3:9. Because then I will restore to the people a chosen lip, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, and may serve him with one shoulder. 3:10. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, shall my suppliants, the children of my dispersed people, bring me an offering. 3:11. In that day thou shalt not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me for then I will take away out of the midst of thee thy proud boasters, and thou shalt no more be lifted up because of my holy mountain. 3:12. And I will leave in the midst of thee a poor and needy people: and they shall hope in the name of the Lord. 3:13. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed, and shall lie down, and there shall be none to make them afraid. 3:14. Give praise, O daughter of Sion: shout, O Israel: be glad, and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 3:15. The Lord hath taken away thy judgment, he hath turned away thy enemies: the king of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of thee, thou shalt fear evil no more. 3:16. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Fear not: to Sion: Let not thy hands be weakened. 3:17. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, he will save: he will rejoice over thee with gladness, he will be silent in his love, he will be joyful over thee in praise. 3:18. The triflers that were departed from the law, I will gather together, because they were of thee: that thou mayest no more suffer reproach for them. 3:19. Behold I will cut off all that have afflicted thee at that time: and I will save her that halteth, and will gather her that was cast out: and I will get them praise, and a name, in all the land where they had been put to confusion. 3:20. At that time, when I will bring you: and at the time that I will gather you: for I will give you a name, and praise among all the people of the earth, when I shall have brought back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord. THE PROPHECY OF AGGEUS AGGEUS was one of those that returned from the captivity of Babylon, in the first year of the reign of king Cyrus. He was sent by the Lord, in the second year of the reign of king Darius, the son of Hystaspes, to exhort Zorobabel the prince of Juda, and Jesus the high priest, to the building of the temple; which they had begun, but left off again through the opposition of the Samaritans. In consequence of this exhortation they proceeded in the building and finished the temple. And the prophet was commissioned by the Lord to assure them that this second temple should be more glorious than the former, because the Messiah should honour it with his presence: signifying withal how much the church of the New Testament should excel that of the Old Testament. Aggeus Chapter 1 The people are reproved for neglecting to build the temple. They are encouraged to set about the work. 1:1. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Aggeus the prophet, to Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, governor of Juda, and to Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, saying: 1:2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: This people saith: The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord. 1:3. And the word of the Lord came by the hand of Aggeus the prophet, saying: 1:4. Is it time for you to dwell in ceiled houses, and this house lie desolate? 1:5. And now thus saith the Lord of hosts: Set your hearts to consider your ways. 1:6. You have sowed much, and brought in little: you have eaten, but have not had enough: you have drunk, but have not been filled with drink: you have clothed yourselves, but have not been warmed: and he that hath earned wages, put them into a bag with holes. 1:7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Set your hearts upon your ways: 1:8. Go up to the mountain, bring timber, and build the house: and it shall be acceptable to me, and I shall be glorified, saith the Lord. 1:9. You have looked for more, and behold it became less, and you brought it home, and I blowed it away: why, saith the Lord of hosts? because my house is desolate, and you make haste every man to his own house. 1:10. Therefore the heavens over you were stayed from giving dew, and the earth was hindered from yielding her fruits: 1:11. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon all that the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon beasts, and upon all the labour of the hands. 1:12. Then Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and all the remnant of the people hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, and to the words of Aggeus the prophet, as the Lord their God sent him to them: and the people feared before the Lord. 1:13. And Aggeus the messenger of the Lord, as one of the messengers of the Lord, spoke, saying to the people: I am with you, saith the Lord. 1:14. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zorobabel the son of Salathiel governor of Juda, and the spirit of Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people: and they went in, and did the work in the house of the Lord of Hosts their God. Aggeus Chapter 2 Christ by his coming shall make the latter temple more glorious than the former. The blessing of God shall reward their labour in building. God's promise to Zorobabel. 2:1. In the four and twentieth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king, they began. 2:2. And in the seventh month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Aggeus the prophet, saying: 2:3. Speak to Zorobabel the son of Salathiel the governor of Juda, and to Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and to the rest of the people, saying: 2:4. Who is left among you, that saw this house in its first glory? and how do you see it now? is it not in comparison to that as nothing in your eyes? 2:5. Yet now take courage, O Zorobabel, saith the Lord, and take courage, Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and take courage, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord of hosts: and perform (for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts) 2:6. The word that I convenanted with you when you came out of the land of Egypt: and my spirit shall be in the midst of you: fear not. 2:7. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. 2:8. And I will move all nations: AND THE DESIRED OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME: and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of hosts. 2:9. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. 2:10. Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place I will give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. 2:11. In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius the king, the word of the Lord came to Aggeus the prophet, saying: 2:12. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests the law, saying: 2:13. If a man carry sanctified flesh in the skirt of his garment, and touch with his skirt, bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat: shall it be sanctified? And the priests answered, and said: No. 2:14. And Aggeus said: If one that is unclean by occasion of a soul touch any of all these things, shall it be defiled? And the priests answered, and said: It shall be defiled. By occasion of a soul. . .That is, by having touched the dead; in which case, according to the prescription of the law, Num. 19.13, 22, a person not only became unclean himself, but made every thing that he touched unclean. The prophet applies all this to the people, whose souls remained unclean by neglecting the temple of God; and therefore were not sanctified by the flesh they offered in sacrifice: but rather defiled their sacrifices by approaching to them in the state of uncleanness. 2:15. And Aggeus answered, and said: So is this people, and so is this nation before my face, saith the Lord, and so is all the work of their hands: and all that they have offered there, shall be defiled. 2:16. And now consider in your hearts, from this day and upward, before there was a stone laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord. 2:17. When you went to a heap of twenty bushels, and they became ten: and you went into the press, to press out fifty vessels, and they became twenty. 2:18. I struck you with a blasting wind, and all the works of your hand with the mildew and with hail, yet there was none among you that returned to me, saith the Lord. 2:19. Set your hearts from this day, and henceforward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month: from the day that the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid, and lay it up in your hearts. 2:20. Is the seed as yet sprung up? or hath the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree as yet flourished? from this day I will bless you. 2:21. And the word of the Lord came a second time to Aggeus in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying: 2:22. Speak to Zorobabel the governor of Juda, saying: I will move both heaven and earth. 2:23. And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and will destroy the strength of the kingdom of the Gentiles: and I will overthrow the chariot, and him that rideth therein: and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. 2:24. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, I will take thee, O Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, my servant, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts. O Zorobabel. . .This promise principally relates to Christ, who was of the race of Zorobabel. THE PROPHECY OF ZACHARIAS ZACHARIAS began to prophesy in the same year as Aggeus, and upon the same occasion. His prophecy is full of mysterious figures and promises of blessings, partly relating to the synagogue, and partly to the church of Christ. Zacharias Chapter 1 The prophet exhorts the people to return to God, and declares his visions, by which he puts them in hopes of better times. 1:1. In the eighth month, in the second year of king Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias the son of Barachias, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying: 1:2. The Lord hath been exceeding angry with your fathers. 1:3. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts. 1:4. Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have cried, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye from your evil ways, and from your wicked thoughts: but they did not give ear, neither did they hearken to me, saith the Lord. 1:5. Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, shall they live always? 1:6. But yet my words, and my ordinances, which I gave in charge to my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers, and they returned, and said: As the Lord of hosts thought to do to us according to our ways, and according to our devices, so he hath done to us. 1:7. In the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month which is called Sabath, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias the son of Barachias, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying: 1:8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, that were in the bottom: and behind him were horses, red, speckled, and white. A man. . .An angel in the shape of a man. It was probably Michael, the guardian angel of the church of God. 1:9. And I said: What are these, my Lord? and the angel that spoke in me, said to me: I will shew thee what these are: 1:10. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered, and said: These are they, whom the Lord hath sent to walk through the earth. These are they, etc. . .The guardian angels of provinces and nations. 1:11. And they answered the angel of the Lord, that stood among the myrtle trees, and said: We have walked through the earth, and behold all the earth is inhabited, and is at rest. 1:12. And the angel of the Lord answered, and said: O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Juda, with which thou hast been angry? this is now the seventieth year. The seventieth year. . .Viz., from the beginning of the seige of Jerusalem, in the ninth year of king Sedecias, to the second year of king Darius. These seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem and the cities of Juda, are different from the seventy years of captivity foretold by Jeremias; which began in the fourth year of Joakim, and ended in the first year of king Cyrus. 1:13. And the Lord answered the angel, that spoke in me, good words, comfortable words. 1:14. And the angel that spoke in me, said to me: Cry thou, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am zealous for Jerusalem, and Sion with a great zeal. 1:15. And I am angry with a great anger with the wealthy nations: for I was angry a little, but they helped forward the evil. 1:16. Therefore thus saith the Lord: I will return to Jerusalem in mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts: and the building line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. 1:17. Cry yet, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: My cities shall yet flow with good things: and the Lord will yet comfort Sion, and he will yet choose Jerusalem. 1:18. And I lifted up my eyes, and saw: and behold four horns. Four horns. . .The four horns represent the empires, or kingdoms, that persecute and oppress the kingdom of God. 1:19. And I said to the angel that spoke in me: What are these? And he said to me: These are the horns that have scattered Juda, and Israel, and Jerusalem. 1:20. And the Lord shewed me four smiths. Four smiths. . .The four smiths, or carpenters ( for faber may signify either) represent those whom God makes his instruments in bringing to nothing the power of persecutors. 1:21. And I said: What come these to do? and he spoke, saying: These are the horns which have scattered Juda every man apart, and none of them lifted up his head: and these are come to fray them, to cast down the horns of the nations, that have lifted up the horn upon the land of Juda to scatter it. Zacharias Chapter 2 Under the name of Jerusalem, he prophesieth the progress of the church of Christ, by the conversion of some Jews and many Gentiles. 2:1. And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold a man, with a measuring line in his hand. 2:2. And I said: Whither goest thou? and he said to me: To measure Jerusalem, and to see how great is the breadth thereof, and how great the length thereof. 2:3. And behold the angel that spoke in me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him. 2:4. And he said to him: Run, speak to this young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls, by reason of the multitude of men, and of the beasts in the midst thereof. Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls. . .This must be understood of the spiritual Jerusalem, the church of Christ. 2:5. And I will be to it, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round about: and I will be in glory in the midst thereof. 2:6. O, O flee ye out of the land of the north, saith the Lord, for I have scattered you into the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. 2:7. O Sion, flee, thou that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon: 2:8. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: After the glory he hath sent me to the nations that have robbed you: for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye: 2:9. For behold, I lift up my hand upon them, and they shall be a prey to those that served them: and you shall know that the Lord of hosts sent me. 2:10. Sing praise, and rejoice, O daughter of Sion: for behold I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee: saith the Lord. 2:11. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of thee: and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me to thee. 2:12. And the Lord shall possess Juda his portion in the sanctified land: and he shall yet choose Jerusalem. 2:13. Let all flesh be silent at the presence of the Lord: for he is risen up out of his holy habitation. Zacharias Chapter 3 In a vision Satan appeareth accusing the high priest. He is cleansed from his sins. Christ is promised, and great fruit from his passion. 3:1. And the Lord shewed me Jesus the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord: and Satan stood on his right hand to be his adversary. Jesus. . .Alias, Josue, the son of Josedec, the high priest of that time. 3:2. And the Lord said to Satan: The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan: and the Lord that chose Jerusalem rebuke thee: Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? 3:3. And Jesus was clothed with filthy garments: and he stood before the face of the angel. With filthy garments. . .Negligences and sins. 3:4. Who answered, and said to them that stood before him, saying: Take away the filthy garments from him. And he said to him: Behold I have taken away thy iniquity, and have clothed thee with change of garments. 3:5. And he said: Put a clean mitre upon his head: and they put a clean mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the Lord stood. 3:6. And the angel of the Lord protested to Jesus, saying: 3:7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: If thou wilt walk in my ways, and keep my charge, thou also shalt judge my house, and shalt keep my courts, and I will give thee some of them that are now present here to walk with thee. I will give thee, etc. . .Angels to attend and assist thee. 3:8. Hear, O Jesus thou high priest, thou and thy friends that dwell before thee, for they are portending men: for behold, I WILL BRING MY SERVANT THE ORIENT. Portending men. . .That is, men, who by words and actions are to foreshew wonders that are to come.--Ibid. My servant the Orient. . .Christ, who according to his humanity is the servant of God, is called the Orient from his rising like the sun in the east to enlighten the world. 3:9. For behold the stone that I have laid before Jesus: upon one stone there are seven eyes: behold I will grave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will take away the iniquity of that land in one day. The stone. . .Another emblem of Christ, the rock, foundation, and corner stone of his church.--Ibid. Seven eyes. . .The manifold providence of Christ over his church, or the seven gifts of the spirit of God.--Ibid. One day. . .Viz., the day of the passion of Christ, the source of all our good: when this precious stone shall be graved, that is, cut and pierced, with whips, thorns, nails, and spear. 3:10. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, every man shall call his friend under the vine and under the fig tree. Zacharias Chapter 4 The vision of the golden candlestick and seven lamps, and of the two olive trees. 4:1. And the angel that spoke in me came again: and he waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. 4:2. And he said to me: What seest thou? And I said: I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, and its lamp upon the top of it: and the seven lights thereof upon it: and seven funnels for the lights that were upon the top thereof. A candlestick, etc. . .The temple of God that was then in building; and in a more sublime sense, the church of Christ. 4:3. And two olive trees over it: one upon the right side of the lamp, and the other upon the left side thereof. 4:4. And I answered, and said to the angel that spoke in me, saying: What are these things, my lord? 4:5. And the angel that spoke in me answered, and said to me: Knowest thou not what these things are? And I said: No, my lord. 4:6. And he answered, and spoke to me, saying: This is the word of the Lord to Zorobabel, saying: Not with an army, nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. To Zorobabel. . .This vision was in favour of Zorobabel: to assure him of success in the building of the temple, which he had begun, signified by the candlestick; the lamp of which, without any other industry, was supplied with oil, dropping from the two olive trees, and distributed by the seven funnels or pipes, to maintain the seven lights. 4:7. Who art thou, O great mountain, before Zorobabel? thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring out the chief stone, and shall give equal grace to the grace thereof. Great mountain. . .So he calls the opposition made by the enemies of God's people; which nevertheless, without an army or might on their side, was quashed by divine providence.--Ibid. Shall give equal grace, etc. . .Shall add grace to grace, or beauty to beauty. 4:8. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 4:9. The hands of Zorobabel have laid the foundations of this house, and his hands shall finish it: and you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me to you. 4:10. For who hath despised little days? and they shall rejoice, and shall see the tin plummet in the hand of Zorobabel. These are the seven eyes of the Lord, that run to and fro through the whole earth. Little days. . .That is, these small and feeble beginnings of the temple of God.--Ibid. The tin plummet. . .Literally, the stone of tin. He means the builder's plummet, which Zorobabel shall hold in his hand for the finishing the building.--Ibid. The seven eyes. . .The providence of God, that oversees and orders all things. 4:11. And I answered, and said to him: What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick, and upon the left side thereof ? 4:12. And I answered again, and said to him: What are the two olive branches, that are by the two golden beaks, in which are the funnels of gold? 4:13. And he spoke to me, saying: Knowest thou not what these are? And I said: No, my lord. 4:14. And he said: These are two sons of oil who stand before the Lord of the whole earth. Two sons of oil. . .That is, the two anointed ones of the Lord; viz., Jesus the high priest, and Zorobabel the prince. Zacharias Chapter 5 The vision of the flying volume, and of the woman in the vessel. 5:1. And I turned and lifted up my eyes: and I saw, and behold a volume flying. A volume. . .That is, a parchment, according to the form of the ancient books, which, from being rolled up, were called volumes. 5:2. And he said to me: What seest thou? And I said: I see a volume flying: the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. 5:3. And he said to me: This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth: for every thief shall be judged as is there written: and every one that sweareth in like manner shall be judged by it. 5:4. I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts: and it shall come to the house of the thief, and to the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it, with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof. 5:5. And the angel went forth that spoke in me, and he said to me: Lift up thy eyes, and see what this is, that goeth forth. 5:6. And I said: What is it? And he said: This is a vessel going forth. And he said: This is their eye in all the earth. This is their eye. . .This is what they fix their eye upon: or this is a resemblance and figure of them, viz., of sinners. 5:7. And behold a talent of lead was carried, and behold a woman sitting in the midst of the vessel. 5:8. And he said: This is wickedness. And he cast her into the midst of the vessel, and cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. 5:9. And I lifted up my eyes and looked: and behold there came out two women, and wind was in their wings, and they had wings like the wings of a kite: and they lifted up the vessel between the earth and the heaven. 5:10. And I said to the angel that spoke in me: Whither do these carry the vessel? 5:11. And he said to me: That a house may be built for it in the land of Sennaar, and that it may be established, and set there upon its own basis. The land of Sennaar. . .Where Babel or Babylon was built, Gen. 11., where note, that Babylon in holy writ is often taken for the city of the devil: that is, for the whole congregation of the wicked: as Jerusalem is taken for the city and people of God. Zacharias Chapter 6 The vision of the four chariots. Crowns are ordered for Jesus the high priest, as a type of Christ. 6:1. And I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and saw: and behold four chariots came out from the midst of two mountains: and the mountains were mountains of brass. Four chariots. . .The four great empires of the Chaldeans, Persians, Grecians, and Romans. Or perhaps by the fourth chariot are represented the kings of Egypt and of Asia, the descendants of Ptolemeus and Seleucus. 6:2. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses. 6:3. And in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot grisled horses, and strong ones. 6:4. And I answered, and said to the angel that spoke in me: What are these, my lord? 6:5. And the angel answered, and said to me: These are the four winds of the heaven, which go forth to stand before the Lord of all the earth. 6:6. That in which were the black horses went forth into the land of the north, and the white went forth after them: and the grisled went forth to the land the south. The land of the north. . .So Babylon is called; because it lay to the north in respect of Jerusalem. The black horses, that is, the Medes and Persians: and after them Alexander and his Greeks, signified by the white horses, went thither because they conquered Babylon, executed upon it the judgments of God, which is signified, ver. 8, by the expression of quieting his spirit.--Ibid. The land of the south. . .Egypt, which lay to the south of Jerusalem, and was occupied first by Ptolemeus, and then by the Romans. 6:7. And they that were most strong, went out, and sought to go, and to run to and fro through all the earth. And he said: Go, walk throughout the earth: and they walked throughout the earth. 6:8. And he called me, and spoke to me, saying: Behold they that go forth into the land of the north, have quieted my spirit in the land of the north. 6:9. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 6:10. Take of them of the captivity, of Holdai, and of Tobias, and of Idaias; thou shalt come in that day, a shalt go into the house of Josias, the son of Sophonias, who came out of Babylon. 6:11. And thou shalt take gold and silver: and shalt make crowns, and thou shalt set them on the head of Jesus the son of Josedec, the high priest. 6:12. And thou shalt speak to him, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: BEHOLD A MAN, THE ORIENT IS HIS NAME: and under him shall he spring up, a shall build a temple to the Lord. 6:13. Yea, he shall build a temple to the Lord: and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit, and rule upon his throne: and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both. Between them both. . .That is, he shall unite in himself the two offices or dignities of king and priest. 6:14. And the crowns shall be to Helem, and Tobias, and Idaias, and to Hem, the son of Sophonias, a memorial in the temple of the Lord. 6:15. And they that are far off, shall come and shall build in the temple of the Lord: and you shall know that the Lord of hosts sent me to you. But this shall come to pass, if hearing you will hear the voice of the Lord your God. Zacharias Chapter 7 The people inquire concerning fasting: they are admonished to fast from sin. 7:1. And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, in the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Casleu. 7:2. When Sarasar, and Rogommelech, and the men that were with him, sent to the house of God, to entreat the face of the Lord: 7:3. To speak to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying: Must I weep in the fifth month, or must I sanctify myself as I have now done for many years? The fifth month. . .They fasted on the tenth day of the fifth month; because on that day the temple was burnt. Therefore they inquire whether they are to continue the fast, after the temple is rebuilt. See this query answered in the 19th verse of the following chapter. 7:4. And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: 7:5. Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: When you fasted, and mourned in the fifth and the seventh month for these seventy years: did you keep a fast unto me? 7:6. And when you did eat and drink, did you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? 7:7. Are not these the words which the Lord spoke by the hand of the former prophets, when Jerusalem as yet was inhabited, and was wealthy, both itself and the cities round about it, and there were inhabitants towards the south, and in the plain? 7:8. And the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, saying: 7:9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: Judge ye true judgment, and shew ye mercy and compassion every man to his brother. 7:10. And oppress not the widow, and the fatherless, and the stranger, and the poor: and let not a man devise evil in his heart against his brother. 7:11. But they would not hearken, and they turned away the shoulder to depart: and they stopped their ears, not to hear. 7:12. And they made their heart as the adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts sent in his spirit by the hand of the former prophets: so a great indignation came from Lord of hosts. 7:13. And it came to pass that as he spoke, and they heard not: so shall they cry, and I will not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. 7:14. And I dispersed them throughout all kingdoms, which they know not: and the land was left desolate behind them, so that no man passed through or returned: and they changed the delightful land into a wilderness. Zacharias Chapter 8 Joyful promises to Jerusalem: fully verified in the church of Christ. 8:1. And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: 8:2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I have been jealous for Sion with a great jealousy, and with a great indignation have I been jealous for her. 8:3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am returned to Sion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called The city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, The sanctified mountain. 8:4. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem: and every man with his staff in his hand through multitude of days. 8:5. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof. 8:6. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: If it seem hard in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days: shall it be hard in my eyes, saith the Lord of hosts? 8:7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will save my people from the land of the east, and from the land of the going down of the sun. 8:8. And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in truth and in justice. 8:9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Let your hands be strengthened, you that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, in the day that the house of the Lord of hosts was founded, that the temple might be built. 8:10. For before those days there was no hire for men, neither was there hire for beasts, neither was there peace to him that came in, nor to him that went out, because of the tribulation: and I let all men go every one against his neighbour. 8:11. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people according to the former days, saith the Lord of hosts. 8:12. But there shall be the seed of peace: the vine shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew: and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. 8:13. And it shall come to pass, that as you were a curse among the Gentiles, O house of Juda, and house of Israel: so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing: fear not, let your hands be strengthened. 8:14. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: As I purposed io afflict you, when your fathers had provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord, 8:15. And I had no mercy: so turning again I have thought in these days to do good to the house of Juda, and Jerusalem: fear not. 8:16. These then are the things, which you shall do: Speak ye truth every one to his neighbour; judge ye truth and judgment of peace in your gates. 8:17. And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his friend: and love not a false oath: for all these are the things that I hate, saith the Lord. 8:18. And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: 8:19. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace. The fast of the fourth month, etc. . .They fasted, on the ninth day of the fourth month, because on that day Nabuchodonosor took Jerusalem, Jer. 52.6. On the tenth day of the fifth month, because on that day the temple was burnt, Jer. 52.12. On the third day of the seventh month, for the murder of Godolias, Jer. 41.2. And on the tenth day of the tenth month, because on that day the Chaldeans began to besiege Jerusalem, 4 Kings 25.1. All these fasts, if they will be obedient for the future, shall be changed, as is here promised, into joyful solemnities. 8:20. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, until people come and dwell in many cities, 8:21. And the inhabitants go one to another, saying: Let us go, and entreat the face of the Lord, and let us seek the Lord of hosts: I also will go. 8:22. And many peoples, and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the face of the Lord. 8:23. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: In those days, wherein ten men of all languages of the Gentiles shall take hold, and shall hold fast the skirt of one that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you. Ten men, etc. . .Many of the Gentiles became proselytes to the Jewish religion before Christ: but many more were converted to Christ by the apostles and other preachers of the Jewish nation. Zacharias Chapter 9 God will defend his church, and bring over even her enemies to the faith. The meek coming of Christ, to bring peace, to deliver the captives by his blood, and to give us all good things. 9:1. The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and of Damascus the rest thereof: for the eye of man, and of all the tribes of Israel is the Lord's. Hadrach. . .Syria. 9:2. Emath also in the borders thereof, and Tyre, and Sidon: for they have taken to themselves to be exceeding wise. 9:3. And Tyre hath built herself a strong hold, and heaped together silver as earth, and gold as the mire of the streets. 9:4. Behold the Lord shall possess her, and shall strike her strength in the sea, and she shall be devoured with fire. 9:5. Ascalon shall see, and shall fear, and Gaza, and shall be very sorrowful: and Accaron, because her hope is confounded: and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ascalon shall not be inhabited. 9:6. And the divider shall sit in Azotus, and I will destroy the pride of the Philistines. 9:7. And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth: and even he shall be left to our God, and he shall be as a governor in Juda, and Accaron as a Jebusite. His blood. . .It is spoken of the Philistines, and particularly of Azotus, (where the temple of Dagon was,) and contains a prophecy of the conversion of that people from their bloody sacrifices and abominations to the worship of the true God. 9:8. And I will encompass my house with them that serve me in war, going and returning, and the oppressor shall no more pass through them: for now I have seen with my eyes. That serve me in war. . .Viz., the Machabees. 9:9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: BEHOLD THY KING will come to thee, the just and saviour: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. 9:10. And I will destroy the chariot out of Ephraim, and the horse out of Jerusalem, and the bow for war shall be broken: and he shall speak peace to the Gentiles, and his power shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the end of the earth. 9:11. Thou also by the blood of thy testament hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water. 9:12. Return to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope, I will render thee double as I declare today. 9:13. Because I have bent Juda for me as a bow, I have filled Ephraim: and I will raise up thy sons, O Sion, above thy sons, O Greece, and I will make thee as the sword of the mighty. Thy sons, O Sion, etc. . .Viz., the apostles, who, in the spiritual way, conquered the Greeks, and subdued them to Christ. 9:14. And the Lord God shall be seen over them, and his dart shall go forth as lightning: and the Lord God will sound the trumpet, and go in the whirlwind of the south. 9:15. The Lord of hosts will protect them: and they shall devour, and subdue with the stones of the sling: and drinking they shall be inebriated as it were with wine, and they shall be filled as bowls, and as the horns of the altar. 9:16. And the Lord their God will save them in that day, as the flock of his people: for holy stones shall be lifted up over his land. Holy stones. . .The apostles, who shall be as pillars and monuments in the church. 9:17. For what is the good thing of him, and what is his beautiful thing, but the corn of the elect, and wine springing forth virgins? The corn, etc. . .His most excellent gift is the blessed Eucharist, called here The corn, that is, the bread of the elect, and the wine springing forth virgins; that is, maketh virgins to bud, or spring forth, as it were, like flowers among thorns; because it has a wonderful efficacy to give and preserve purity. Zacharias Chapter 10 God is to be sought to, and not idols. The victories of his church, which shall arise originally from the Jewish nation. 10:1. Ask ye of the Lord rain in the latter season, and the Lord will make snows, and will give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. 10:2. For the idols have spoken what was unprofitable, and the diviners have seen a lie, and the dreamers have spoken vanity: they comforted in vain: therefore they were led away as a flock: they shall be afflicted, because they have no shepherd. 10:3. My wrath is kindled against the shepherds, and I will visit upon the buck goats: for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock, the house of Juda, and hath made them as the horse of his glory in the battle. 10:4. Out of him shall come forth the corner, out of him the pin, out of him the bow of battle, out of him ever exacter together. 10:5. And they shall be as mighty men, treading under foot the mire of the ways in battle: and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, and the riders of horses shall be confounded. 10:6. And I will strengthen the house of Juda, and save the house of Joseph: and I will bring them back again, because I will have mercy on them: and they shall be as they were when I had not cast them off, for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them. 10:7. And they shall be as the valiant men of Ephraim, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: and their children shall see, and shall rejoice, and their heart shall be joyful in the Lord. 10:8. I will whistle for them, and I will gather them together, because I have redeemed them: and I will multiply them as they were multiplied before. 10:9. And I will sow them among peoples: and from afar they shall remember me: and they shall live with their children, and shall return. 10:10. And I will bring them back out of the land of Egypt, and I will gather them from among the Assyrians: and will bring them to the land of Galaad, and Libanus, and place shall not be found for them. 10:11. And he shall pass over the strait of the sea, and shall strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the river shall be confounded, and the pride of Assyria shall be humbled, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart. 10:12. I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they shall walk in his name, saith the Lord. Zacharias Chapter 11 The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. God's dealings with the Jews, and their reprobation. 11:1. Open thy gates, O Libanus, and let fire devour thy cedars. O Libanus. . .So Jerusalem, and more particularly the temple, is called by the prophets, from its height, and from its being built of the cedars of Libanus.--Ibid. Thy cedars. . .Thy princes and chief men. 11:2. Howl, thou fir tree, for the cedar is fallen, for the mighty are laid waste: howl, ye oaks of Basan, because the fenced forest is cut down. 11:3. The voice of the howling of the shepherds, because their glory is laid waste: the voice of the roaring of the lions, because the pride of the Jordan is spoiled. 11:4. Thus saith the Lord my God: Feed the flock of the slaughter, 11:5. Which they that possessed, slew, and repented not, and they sold them, saying: Blessed be the Lord, we are become rich: and their shepherds spared them not. 11:6. And I will no more spare the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord: behold I will deliver the men, every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall destroy the land, and I will not deliver it out of their hand. Every one into his neighbour's hand, etc. . .This alludes to the last siege of Jerusalem, in which the different factions of the Jews destroyed one another; and they that remained fell into the hands of their king, that is, of the Roman emperor, of whom they had said, John 19.15, we have no king but Caesar. 11:7. And I will feed the flock of slaughter for this, O ye poor of the flock. And I took unto me two rods, one I called Beauty, and the other I called a Cord, and I fed the flock. Two rods. . .Or shepherd's staves, meaning the different ways of God's dealing with his people; the one, by sweet means, called the rod of Beauty: the other, by bands and punishments, called the Cord. And where both these rods are made of no use or effect by the obstinacy of sinners, the rods are broken, and such sinners are given up to a reprobate sense, as the Jews were. 11:8. And I cut off three shepherds in one month, and my soul was straitened in their regard: for their soul also varied in my regard. Three shepherds in one month. . .That is, in a very short time. By these three shepherds probably are meant the latter princes and high priests of the Jews, whose reign was short. 11:9. And I said: I will not feed you: that which dieth, let it die: and that which is cut off, let it be cut off: and let the rest devour every one the flesh of his neighbour. 11:10. And I took my rod that was called Beauty, and I cut it asunder to make void my covenant, which I had made with all people. 11:11. And it was made void in that day: and so the poor of the flock that keep for me, understood that it is the word of the Lord. 11:12. And I said to them: If it be good in your eyes, bring hither my wages: and if not, be quiet. And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. 11:13. And the Lord said to me: Cast it to the statuary, a handsome price, that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord to the statuary. The statuary. . .The Hebrew word signifies also a potter. 11:14. And I cut off my second rod that was called a Cord, that I might break the brotherhood between Juda and Israel. 11:15. And the Lord said to me: Take to thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. A foolish shepherd. . .This was to represent the foolish, that is, the wicked princes and priests that should rule the people, before their utter desolation. 11:16. For behold I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who shall not visit what is forsaken, nor seek what is scattered, nor heal what is broken, nor nourish that which standeth, and he shall eat the flesh of the fat ones, and break their hoofs. 11:17. O shepherd, and idol, that forsaketh the flock: the sword upon his arm and upon his right eye: his arm shall quite wither away, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. Zacharias Chapter 12 God shall protect his church against her persecutors. The mourning of Jerusalem. 12:1. The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel. Thus saith the Lord, who stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man in him: 12:2. Behold I will make Jerusalem a lintel of surfeiting to all the people round about: and Juda also shall be in the siege against Jerusalem. A lintel of surfeiting. . .That is, a door into which they shall seek to enter, to glut themselves with blood; but they shall stumble, and fall like men stupefied with wine. It seems to allude to the times of Antiochus, and to the victories of the Machabees. 12:3. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone to all people: all that shall lift it up shall be rent and torn, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall be gathered together against her. 12:4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will strike every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open my eyes upon the house of Juda, and will strike every horse of the nations with blindness. 12:5. And the governors of Juda shall say in their heart: Let the inhabitants of Jerusalem be strengthened for me in the Lord of hosts, their God. 12:6. In that day I will make the governors of Juda like a furnace of fire amongst wood, and as a firebrand amongst hay: and they shall devour all the people round about, to the right hand, and to the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place in Jerusalem. 12:7. And the Lord shall save the tabernacles of Jada, as in the beginning: that the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, may not boast and magnify themselves against Juda. 12:8. In that day shall the Lord protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that hath offended among them in that day shall be as David: and the house of David, as that of God, as an angel of the Lord in their sight. 12:9. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 12:10. And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn. 12:11. In that day there shall be a great lamentation in Jerusalem like the lamentation of Adadremmon in the plain of Mageddon. Adadremmon. . .A place near Mageddon, where the good king Josias was slain, and much lamented by his people. 12:12. And the land shall mourn: families and families apart: the families of the house of David apart, and their women apart: 12:13. The families of the house of Nathan apart, and their women apart: the families of the house of Levi apart, and their women apart: the families of Semei apart, and their women apart. 12:14. All the rest of the families, families and families apart, and their women apart. Zacharias Chapter 13 The fountain of Christ. Idols and false prophets shall be extirpated: Christ shall suffer: his people shall be tried by fire. 13:1. In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: for the washing of the sinner, and of the unclean woman. 13:2. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will destroy the names of idols out of the earth, and they shall be remembered no more: and I will take away the false prophets, and the unclean spirit out of the earth. 13:3. And it shall come to pass, that when any man shall prophesy any more, his father and his mother that brought him into the world, shall say to him: Thou shalt not live: because thou hast spoken a lie in the name of the Lord. And his father, and his mother, his parents, shall thrust him through, when he shall prophesy. 13:4. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be confounded, every one by his own vision, when he shall prophesy, neither shall they be clad with a garment of sackcloth, to deceive: 13:5. But he shall say: I am no prophet, I am a husbandman: for Adam is my example from my youth. 13:6. And they shall say to him: What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands? And he shall say: With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me. 13:7. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that cleaveth to me, saith the Lord of hosts: strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand to the little ones. 13:8. And there shall be in all the earth, saith the Lord, two parts in it shall be scattered, and shall perish: but the third part shall be left therein. 13:9. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined: and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say: Thou art my people: and they shall say: The Lord is my God. Zacharias Chapter 14 After the persecutions of the church shall follow great prosperity. Persecutors shall be punished: so shall all that will not serve God in his church. 14:1. Behold the days of the Lord shall come, and thy spoils shall be divided in the midst of thee. 14:2. And I will gather all nations to Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses shall be rifled, and the women shall be defiled: and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the rest of the people shall not be taken away out of the city. I will gather, etc. . .This seems to be a prophecy of what was done by Antiochus. 14:3. Then the Lord shall go forth, and shall fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. 14:4. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem towards the east: and the mount of Olives shall be divided in the midst thereof to the east, and to the west with a very great opening, and half of the mountain shall be separated to the north, and half thereof to the south. 14:5. And you shall flee to the valley of those mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall be joined even to the next, and you shall flee as you fled from the face of the earthquake in the days of Ozias king of Juda: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with him. 14:6. And it shall come to pass in that day, that there shall be no light, but cold and frost. No light. . .Viz., in that dismal time of persecution of Antiochus, when it was neither day nor night: (ver. 7) because they neither had the comfortable light of the day, nor the repose of the night. 14:7. And there shall be one day, which is known to the Lord, not day nor night: and in the time of the evening there shall be light: In the time of the evening there shall be light. . .An unexpected light shall arise by the means of the Machabees, when things shall seem to be at the worst. 14:8. And it shall come to pass in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem: half of them to the east sea, and half of them to the last sea: they shall be in summer and in winter. Living waters. . .Viz., the gospel of Christ. 14:9. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name shall be one. 14:10. And all the land shall return even to the desert, from the hill to Remmon to the south of Jerusalem: and she shall be exalted, and shall dwell in her own place, from the gate of Benjamin even to the place of the former gate, and even to the gate of the corners: and from the tower of Hananeel even to the king's winepresses. All the land shall return, etc. . .This, in some measure, was verified by the means of the Machabees: but is rather to be taken in a spiritual sense, as relating to the propagation of the church, and kingdom of Christ, the true Jerusalem, which alone shall never fall under the anathema of destruction, or God's curse. 14:11. And people shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more an anathema: but Jerusalem shall sit secure. 14:12. And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall strike all nations that have fought against Jerusalem: the flesh of every one shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. The flesh of every one shall consume, etc. . .Such judgments as these have often fallen upon the persecutors of God's church, as appears by many instances in history. 14:13. In that day there shall be a great tumult from the Lord among them: and a man shall take the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall be clasped upon his neighbour's hand. 14:14. And even Juda shall fight against Jerusalem: and the riches of all nations round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and garments in great abundance. Even Juda, etc. . .The carnal Jews, and other false brothers, shall join in persecuting the church. 14:15. And the destruction of the horse, and of the mule, and of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts, that shall be in those tents, shall be like this destruction. Shall be like this destruction. . .That is, the beasts shall be destroyed as well as the men: the common soldiers as well as their leaders. 14:16. And all they that shall be left of all nations that came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year, to adore the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. They that shall be left, etc. . .That is, many of them that persecuted the church shall be converted to its faith and communion.--Ibid. To keep the feast of tabernacles. . .This feast was kept by the Jews in memory of their sojourning forty years in the desert, in their way to the land of promise. And in the spiritual sense is duly kept by all such Christians as in their earthly pilgrimage are continually advancing toward their true home, the heavenly Jerusalem; by the help of the sacraments and sacrifice of the church. And they that neglect this must not look for the kind showers of divine grace, to give fruitfulness to their souls. 14:17. And it shall come to pass, that he that shall not go up of the families of the land to Jerusalem, to adore the King, the Lord of hosts, there shall be no rain upon them. 14:18. And if the family of Egypt go not up nor come: neither shall it be upon them, but there shall be destruction wherewith the Lord will strike all nations that will not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles. 14:19. This shall be the sin of Egypt, and this the sin of all nations, that will not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles. 14:20. In that day that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord: and the caldrons in the house of the Lord shall be as the phials before the altar. That which is upon the bridle, etc. . .The golden ornaments of the bridles, etc., shall be turned into offerings in the house of God. And there shall be an abundance of caldrons and phials for the sacrifices of the temple; by which is meant, under a figure, the great resort there shall be to the temple, that is, to the church of Christ, and her sacrifice. 14:21. And every caldron in Jerusalem and Juda shall be sanctified to the Lord of hosts: and all that sacrifice shall come, and take of them, and shall seethe in them: and the merchant shall be no more in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day. The merchant shall be no more, etc. . .Or, as some render it, The Chanaanite shall be no more, etc., that is, the profane and unbelievers shall have no title to be in the house of the Lord. Or there shall be no occasion for buyers or sellers of oxen, or sheep, or doves, in the house of God, such as Jesus Christ cast out of the temple. THE PROPHECY OF MALACHIAS MALACHIAS, whose name signifies The Angel of the Lord, was contemporary with NEHEMIAS, and by some is believed to have been the same person as ESDRAS. He was the last of the prophets, in the order of time, and flourished about four hundred years before Christ. He foretells the coming of Christ; the reprobation of the Jews and their sacrifices; and the calling of the Gentiles, who shall offer up to God in every place an acceptable sacrifice. Malachias Chapter 1 God reproaches the Jews with their ingratitude: and the priests for not offering pure sacrifices. He will accept of the sacrifice that shall be offered in every place among the Gentiles. 1:1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachias. 1:2. I have loved you, saith the Lord: and you have said: Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau brother to Jacob, saith the Lord, and I have loved Jacob, I have loved Jacob, etc. . .I have preferred his posterity, to make them my chosen people, and to lead them with my blessings, without any merit on their part, and though they have been always ungrateful; whilst I have rejected Esau, and executed severe judgments upon his posterity. Not that God punished Esau, or his posterity, beyond their desert: but that by his free election and grace he loved Jacob, and favoured his posterity above their deserts. See the annotations upon Rom. 9. 1:3. But have hated Esau? and I have made his mountains a wilderness, and given his inheritance to the dragons of the desert. 1:4. But if Edom shall say: We are destroyed, but we will return and build up what hath been destroyed: thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall build up, and I will throw down: and they shall be called the borders of wickedness, and the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever. 1:5. And your eyes shall see: and you shall say: The Lord be magnified upon the border of Israel. 1:6. The son honoureth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear: saith the Lord of hosts. 1:7. To you, O priests, that despise my name, and have said: Wherein have we despised thy name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say: Wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say: The table of the Lord is contemptible. 1:8. If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? offer it to thy prince, if he will be pleased with it, or if he will regard thy face, saith the Lord of hosts. 1:9. And now beseech ye the face of God, that he may have mercy on you, (for by your hand hath this been done,) if by any means he will receive your faces, saith the Lord of hosts. 1:10. Who is there among you, that will shut the doors, and will kindle the fire on my altar gratis? I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand. 1:11. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. A clean oblation. . .Viz., the precious body and blood of Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice. 1:12. And you have profaned it in that you say: The table of the Lord is defiled: and that which is laid thereupon is contemptible with the fire that devoureth it. 1:13. And you have said: Behold of our labour, and you puffed it away, saith the Lord of hosts, and you brought in of rapine the lame, and the sick, and brought in an offering: shall I accept it at your hands, saith the Lord? Behold of our labour, etc. . .You pretended labour and weariness, when you brought your offering; and so made it of no value, by offering it with an evil mind. Moreover, what you offered was both defective in itself, and gotten by rapine and extortion. 1:14. Cursed is the deceitful man that hath in his flock a male, and making a vow offereth in sacrifice that which is feeble to the Lord: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the Gentiles. Malachias Chapter 2 The priests are sharply reproved for neglecting their covenant. The evil of marrying with idolaters: and too easily putting away their wives. 2:1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment is to you. 2:2. If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, saith the Lord of hosts: I will send poverty upon you, and will curse your blessings, yea I will curse them, because you have not laid it to heart. 2:3. Behold, I will cast the shoulder to you, and will scatter upon your face the dung of your solemnities, and it shall take you away with it. I will cast the shoulder to you. . .I will cast away the shoulder, which in the law was appointed to be your portion, and fling it at you in my anger: and will reject both you and your festivals like dung. 2:4. And you shall know that I sent you this commandment, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. 2:5. My covenant was with him of life and peace: and I gave him fear: and he feared me, and he was afraid before my name. 2:6. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace, and in equity, and turned many away from iniquity. 2:7. For the lips of the priests shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth: because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts. The angel. . .Viz., the minister and messenger. 2:8. But you have departed out of the way, and have caused many to stumble at the law: you have made void the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. 2:9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible, and base before all people, as you have not kept my ways, and have accepted persons in the law. 2:10. Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why then doth every one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers? 2:11. Juda hath transgressed, and abomination hath been committed in Israel, and in Jerusalem: for Juda hath profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 2:12. The Lord will cut off the man that hath done this, both the master, and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering to the Lord of hosts. 2:13. And this again have you done, you have covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and bellowing, so that I have no more a regard to sacrifice, neither do I accept any atonement at your hands. With tears. . .Viz., by occasion of your wives, whom you have put away: and who came to weep and lament before the altar. 2:14. And you have said: For what cause? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee, and the wife of thy youth, whom thou hast despised: yet she was thy partner, and the wife of thy covenant. 2:15. Did not one make her, and she is the residue of his spirit? And what doth one seek, but the seed of God? Keep then your spirit, and despise not the wife of thy youth. 2:16. When thou shalt hate her put her away, saith the Lord, the God of Israel: but iniquity shalt cover his garment, saith the Lord of hosts, keep your spirit, and despise not. Iniquity shall cover his garment. . .Viz., of every man that putteth away his wife without just cause; notwithstanding that God permitted it in the law, to prevent the evil of murder. 2:17. You have wearied the Lord with your words, and you said: Wherein have we wearied him? In that you say: Every one that doth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please him: or surely where is the God of judgment? Malachias Chapter 3 Christ shall come to his temple, and purify the priesthood. They that continue in their evil ways shall be punished: but true penitents shall receive a blessing. 3:1. Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple. Behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts. My angel. . .Viz., John the Baptist, the messenger of God, and forerunner of Christ. 3:2. And who shall be able to think of the day of his coming? and who shall stand to see him? for he is like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb: 3:3. And he shall sit refining and cleansing the silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold, and as silver, and they shall offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice. 3:4. And the sacrifice of Juda and of Jerusalem shall please the Lord, as in the days of old, and in the ancient years. 3:5. And I will come to you in judgment, and will be a speedy witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and false swearers, and them that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widows, and the fatherless: and oppress the stranger, and have not feared me, saith the Lord of hosts. 3:6. For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed. 3:7. For from the days of your fathers you have departed from my ordinances, and have not kept them: Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have said: Wherein shall we return? 3:8. Shall a man afflict God, for you afflict me. And you have said: Wherein do we afflict thee? in tithes and in firstfruits. 3:9. And you are cursed with want, and you afflict me, even the whole nation of you. 3:10. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and try me in this, saith the Lord: if I open not unto you the flood-gates of heaven, and pour you out a blessing even to abundance. 3:11. And I will rebuke for your sakes the devourer, and he shall not spoil the fruit of your land: neither shall the vine in the field be barren, saith the Lord of hosts. 3:12. And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, saith the Lord of hosts. 3:13. Your words have been unsufferable to me, saith the Lord. 3:14. And you have said: What have we spoken against thee? You have said: He laboureth in vain that serveth God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of hosts? 3:15. Wherefore now we call the proud people happy, for they that work wickedness are built up, and they have tempted God and are preserved. 3:16. Then they that feared the Lord, spoke every one with his neighbour: and the Lord gave ear, and heard it: and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that fear the Lord, and think on his name. 3:17. And they shall be my special possession, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do judgment: and I will spare them, as a man spareth his son that serveth him. 3:18. And you shall return, and shall see the difference between the just and the wicked: and between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. Malachias Chapter 4 The judgment of the wicked, and reward of the just. An exhortation to observe the law. Elias shall come for the conversion of the Jews. 4:1. For behold the day shall come kindled as a furnace: and all the proud, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall set them on fire, saith the Lord of hosts, it shall not leave them root, nor branch. 4:2. But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in his wings: and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd. 4:3. And you shall tread down the wicked when they shall be ashes under the sole of your feet in the day that I do this, saith the Lord of hosts. 4:4. Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, the precepts, and judgments. 4:5. Behold, I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 4:6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come, and strike the earth with anathema. He shall turn the heart, etc. . .By bringing over the Jews to the faith of Christ, he shall reconcile them to their fathers, viz., the partiarchs and prophets; whose hearts for many ages have been turned away from them, because of their refusing to believe in Christ.--Ibid. With anathema. . .In the Hebrew, Cherem, that is, with utter destruction. THE FIRST BOOK OF MACHABEES These books are so called, because they contain the history of the people of God under the command of Judas Machabeus and his brethren: and he, as some will have it, was surnamed Machabeus, from carrying in his ensigns, or standards, those words of Exodus 15.11, Who is like to thee among the strong, O Lord: in which the initial letters, in the Hebrew, are M. C. B. E. I. It is not known who is the author of these books. But as to their authority, though they are not received by the Jews, saith St. Augustine, (lib. 18, De Civ. Dei, c. 36,) they are received by the church: who, in settling her canon of the scriptures, chose rather to be directed by the tradition she had received from the apostles of Christ, than by that of the scribes and Pharisees. And as the church has declared these two Books canonical, even in two general councils, viz., Florence and Trent, there can be no doubt of their authenticity. 1 Machabees Chapter 1 The reign of Alexander and his successors: Antiochus rifles and profanes the temple of God: and persecutes unto death all that will not forsake the law of God, and the religion of their fathers. 1:1. Now it came to pass, after that Alexander the son of Philip the Macedonian, who first reigned in Greece, coming out of the land of Cethim, had overthrown Darius, king of the Persians and Medes: 1:2. He fought many battles, and took the strong holds of all, and slew the kings of the earth: 1:3. And he went through even to the ends of the earth: and took the spoils of many nations: and the earth was quiet before him. 1:4. And he gathered a power, and a very strong army: and his heart was exalted and lifted up: 1:5. And he subdued countries of nations, and princes; and they became tributaries to him. 1:6. And after these things, he fell down upon his bed, and knew that he should die. 1:7. And he called his servants, the nobles that were brought up with him from his youth: and he divided his kingdom among them, while he was yet alive. Divided his kingdom, etc. . .This is otherwise related by Q. Curtius; though he acknowledges that divers were of that opinion, and that it had been delivered by some authors, lib. 10. But here we find from the sacred text, that he was in error. 1:8. And Alexander reigned twelve years, and he died. 1:9. And his servants made themselves kings, every one in his place: 1:10. And they all put crowns upon themselves after his death, and their sons after them, many years; and evils were multiplied in the earth. 1:11. And there came out of them a wicked root, Antiochus the Illustrious, the son of king Antiochus, who had been a hostage at Rome: and he reigned in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks. Antiochus the Illustrius. . .Epiphanes, the younger son of Antiochus the Great, who usurped the kingdom, to the prejudice of his nephew Demetrius, son of his elder brother Seleucus Philopater.--Ibid. Of the kingdom of the Greeks. . .Counting, not from the beginning of the reign of Alexander, but from the first year of Seleucus Nicator. 1:12. In those days there went out of Israel wicked men, and they persuaded many, saying: Let us go and make a covenant with the heathens that are round about us: for since we departed from them, many evils have befallen us. 1:13. And the word seemed good in their eyes. 1:14. And some of the people determined to do this, and went to the king: and he gave them license to do after the ordinances of the heathens. 1:15. And they built a place of exercise in Jerusalem, according to the laws of the nations: 1:16. And they made themselves prepuces, and departed from the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathens, and were sold to do evil: 1:17. And the kingdom was established before Antiochus, and he had a mind to reign over the land of Egypt, that he might reign over two kingdoms. 1:18. And he entered into Egypt with a great multitude, with chariots, and elephants, and horsemen, and a great number of ships: 1:19. And he made war against Ptolemee king of Egypt; but Ptolemee was afraid at his presence and fled, and many were wounded unto death. 1:20. And he took the strong cities in the land of Egypt: and he took the spoils of the land of Egypt. 1:21. And after Antiochus had ravaged Egypt, in the hundred and forty-third year, he returned and went up against Israel. 1:22. And he went up to Jerusalem, with a great multitude. 1:23. And he proudly entered into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the table of proposition, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the little mortars of gold, and the veil, and the crowns, and the golden ornament that was before the temple: and he broke them all in pieces. 1:24. And he took the silver and gold, and the precious vessels: and he took the hidden treasures, which he found: and when he had taken all away, he departed into his own country. 1:25. And he made a great slaughter of men, and spoke very proudly. 1:26. And there was great mourning in Israel, and in every place where they were: 1:27. And the princes, and the ancients mourned, and the virgins and the young men were made feeble, and the beauty of the women was changed. 1:28. Every bridegroom took up lamentation: and the bride that sat in the marriage bed, mourned: 1:29. And the land was moved for the inhabitants thereof, and all the house of Jacob was covered with confusion. 1:30. And after two full years, the king sent the chief collector of his tributes to the cities of Juda, and he came to Jerusalem with a great multitude. The chief collector, etc. . .Apollonius. 1:31. And he spoke to them peaceable words in deceit; and they believed him. 1:32. And he fell upon the city suddenly, and struck it with a great slaughter, and destroyed much people in Israel. 1:33. And he took the spoils of the city, and burnt it with fire, and threw down the houses thereof, and the walls thereof round about: 1:34. And they took the women captive, and the children, and the cattle they possessed. 1:35. And they built the city of David with a great and strong wall, and with strong towers, and made it a fortress for them: The city of David. . .That is, the castle of Sion. 1:36. And they placed there a sinful nation, wicked men, and they fortified themselves therein: and they stored up armour; and victuals, and gathered together the spoils of Jerusalem; 1:37. And laid them up there: and they became a great snare. 1:38. And this was a place to lie in wait against the sanctuary, and an evil devil in Israel. An evil devil. . .That is, an adversary watching constantly to do harm, as the evil spirit is always watching and seeking whom he may devour. 1:39. And they shed innocent blood round about the sanctuary, and defiled the holy place. 1:40. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled away by reason of them and the city was made the habitation of strangers, and she became a stranger to her own seed, and her children forsook her. 1:41. Her sanctuary was desolate like a wilderness, her festival days were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach, her honours were brought to nothing. 1:42. Her dishonour was increased according to her glory, and her excellency was turned into mourning. 1:43. And king Antiochus wrote to all his kingdom, that all the people should be one: and every one should leave his own law. 1:44. And all nations consented, according to the word of king Antiochus. 1:45. And many of Israel consented to his service, and they sacrificed to idols, and profaned the sabbath. 1:46. And the king sent letters by the hands of messengers to Jerusalem, and to all the cities of Juda; that they should follow the law of the nations of the earth. 1:47. And should forbid holocausts and sacrifices, and atonements to be made in the temple of God. 1:48. And should prohibit the sabbath, and the festival days to be celebrated. 1:49. And he commanded the holy places to be profaned, and the holy people of Israel. 1:50. And he commanded altars to be built, and temples, and idols, and swine's flesh to be immolated, and unclean beasts, 1:51. And that they should leave their children uncircumcised, and let their souls be defiled with all uncleannesses, and abominations, to the end that they should forget the law, and should change all the justifications of God. 1:52. And that whosoever would not do according to the word of king Antiochus, should be put to death. 1:53. According to all these words he wrote to his whole kingdom: and he appointed rulers over the people that should force them to do these things. 1:54. And they commanded the cities of Juda to sacrifice. 1:55. Then many of the people were gathered to them that had forsaken the law of the Lord: and they committed evils in the land: 1:56. And they drove away the people of Israel into lurking holes, and into the secret places of fugitives. 1:57. On the fifteenth day of the month, Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, king Antiochus set up the abominable idol of desolation upon the altar of God, and they built altars throughout all the cities of Juda round about: The abominable idol, etc. . .Viz., the statue of Jupiter Olympius. 1:58. And they burnt incense, and sacrificed at the doors of the houses and in the streets. 1:59. And they cut in pieces, and burnt with fire the books of the law of God: 1:60. And every one with whom the books of the testament of the Lord were found, and whosoever observed the law of the Lord, they put to death, according to the edict of the king. 1:61. Thus by their power did they deal with the people of Israel, that were found in the cities month after month. 1:62. And on the five and twentieth day of the month they sacrificed upon the altar of the idol that was over against the altar of God. 1:63. Now the women that circumcised their children were slain according to the commandment of king Antiochus, 1:64. And they hanged the children about their neck in all their houses: and those that had circumcised them, they put to death. 1:65. And many of the people of Israel determined with themselves, that they would not eat unclean things: and they chose rather to die, than to be defiled with unclean meats: 1:66. And they would not break the holy law of God and they were put to death: 1:67. And there was very great wrath upon the people. 1 Machabees Chapter 2 The zeal and success of Mathathias. His exhortation to his sons at his death. 2:1. In those days arose Mathathias, the son of John, the son of Simeon, a priest of the sons of Joarib, from Jerusalem, and he abode in the mountain of Modin: 2:2. And he had five sons: John, who was surnamed Gaddis: 2:3. And Simon, who was surnamed Thasi; 2:4. And Judas, who was called Machabeus; 2:5. And Eleazar, who was surnamed Abaron; and Jonathan, who was surnamed Apphus. 2:6. These saw the evils that were done in the people of Juda, and in Jerusalem. 2:7. And Mathathias said: Woe is me, wherefore was I born to see the ruin of my people, and the ruin of the holy city, and to dwell there, when it is given into the hands of the enemies? 2:8. The holy places are come into the hands of strangers her temple is become as a man without honour. 2:9. The vessels of her glory are carried away captive; her old men are murdered in the streets, and her young men are fallen by the sword of the enemies. 2:10. What nation hath not inherited her kingdom, and gotten of her spoils? 2:11. All her ornaments are taken away. She that was free is made a slave. 2:12. And behold our sanctuary, and our beauty, and our glory is laid waste, and the Gentiles have defiled them. 2:13. To what end then should we live any longer? 2:14. And Mathathias and his sons rent their garments, and they covered themselves with haircloth, and made great lamentation. 2:15. And they that were sent from king Antiochus, came thither, to compel them that were fled into the city of Modin, to sacrifice, and to burn incense, and to depart from the law of God. 2:16. And many of the people of Israel consented and came to them: but Mathathias and his sons stood firm. 2:17. And they that were sent from Antiochus, answering, said to Mathathias: Thou art a ruler, and an honourable, and great man in this city, and adorned with sons, and brethren. 2:18. Therefore, come thou first, and obey the king's commandment, as all nations have done, and the men of Juda, and they that remain in Jerusalem: and thou, and thy sons shall be in the number of the king's friends, and enriched with gold, and silver, and many presents. 2:19. Then Mathathias answered, and said with a loud voice: Although all nations obey king Antiochus, so as to depart every man from the service of the law of his fathers, and consent to his commandments: 2:20. I and my sons, and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers. 2:21. God be merciful unto us: it is not profitable for us to forsake the law, and the justices of God: 2:22. We will not hearken to the words of king Antiochus, neither will we sacrifice and transgress the commandments of our law, to go another way. 2:23. Now as he left off speaking these words, there came a certain Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice to the idols upon the altar in the city of Modin, according to the king's commandment. 2:24. And Mathathias saw, and was grieved, and his reins trembled, and his wrath was kindled according to the judgment of the law, and running upon him he slew him upon the altar: 2:25. Moreover the man whom king Antiochus had sent, who compelled them to sacrifice, he slew at the same time, and pulled down the altar, 2:26. And shewed zeal for the law, as Phinees did by Zamri, the son of Salomi. 2:27. And Mathathias cried out in the city with a loud voice, saying: Every one that hath zeal for the law, and maintaineth the testament, let him follow me. 2:28. So he and his sons fled into the mountains, and left all that they had in the city. 2:29. Then many that sought after judgment, and justice, went down into the desert 2:30. And they abode there, they and their children, and their wives, and their cattle: because afflictions increased upon them. 2:31. And it was told to the king's men, and to the army that was in Jerusalem, in the city of David, that certain men, who had broken the king's commandment, were gone away into the secret places in the wilderness, and that many were gone after them. 2:32. And forthwith they went out towards them, and made war against them on the sabbath day. 2:33. And they said to them: Do you still resist? come forth, and do according to the edict of king Antiochus, and you shall live. 2:34. And they said: We will not come forth, neither will we obey the king's edict, to profane the sabbath day. 2:35. And they made haste to give them battle. 2:36. But they answered them not, neither did they cast a stone at them, nor stopped up the secret places, 2:37. Saying: Let us all die in our innocency: and heaven and earth shall be witnesses for us, that you put us to death wrongfully. 2:38. So they gave them battle on the sabbath: and they were slain, with their wives, and their children, and their cattle, to the number of a thousand persons. 2:39. And Mathathias and his friends heard of it, and they mourned for them exceedingly. 2:40. And every man said to his neighbour: If we shall all do as our brethren have done, and not fight against the heathens for our lives, and our justifications, they will now quickly root us out of the earth. 2:41. And they determined in that day, saying: Whosoever shall come up against us to fight on the sabbath day, we will fight against him: and we will not all die, as our brethren that were slain in the secret places. 2:42. Then was assembled to them the congregation of the Assideans, the stoutest of Israel, every one that had a good will for the law. The Assideans. . .A set of men that led a religious life; and were zealous for the law and worship of God. 2:43. And all they that fled from the evils, joined themselves to them, and were a support to them. 2:44. And they gathered an army, and slew the sinners in their wrath, and the wicked men in their indignation: and the rest fled to the nations for safety. 2:45. And Mathathias and his friends went round about, and they threw down the altars: 2:46. And they circumcised all the children whom they found in the confines of Israel that were uncircumcised: and they did valiantly. 2:47. And they pursued after the children of pride, and the work prospered in their hands: 2:48. And they recovered the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings: and they yielded not the horn to the sinner. They yielded not the horn, etc. . .That is, they suffered not the power of Antiochus, that man of sin, to abolish the law and religion of God. 2:49. Now the days drew near that Mathathias should die, and he said to his sons: Now hath pride and chastisement gotten strength, and the time of destruction, and the wrath of indignation: 2:50. Now, therefore, O my sons, be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers. 2:51. And call to remembrance the works of the fathers, which they have done in their generations: and you shall receive great glory, and an everlasting name. 2:52. Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was reputed to him unto justice? 2:53. Joseph, in the time of his distress, kept the commandment, and he was made lord of Egypt. 2:54. Phinees, our father, by being fervent in the zeal of God, received the covenant of an everlasting priesthood. 2:55. Jesus, whilst he fulfilled the word, was made ruler in Israel. Jesus. . .That is, Josue. 2:56. Caleb, for bearing witness before the congregation, received an inheritance. 2:57. David, by his mercy, obtained the throne of an everlasting kingdom. 2:58. Elias, while he is full of zeal for the law, was taken up into heaven. 2:59. Ananias and Azarias and Misael, by believing, were delivered out of the flame. 2:60. Daniel, in his innocency, was delivered out of the mouth of the lions. 2:61. And thus consider, through all generations: that none that trust in him, fail in strength. 2:62. And fear not the words of a sinful man, for his glory is dung and worms: 2:63. Today he is lifted up, and tomorrow he shall not be found, because he is returned into his earth and his thought is come to nothing. 2:64. You, therefore, my sons, take courage, and behave manfully in the law: for by it you shall be glorious. 2:65. And behold, I know that your brother Simon is a man of counsel: give ear to him always, and he shall be a father to you. 2:66. And Judas Machabeus, who is valiant and strong from his youth up, let him be the leader of your army, and he shall manage the war of the people. 2:67. And you shall take to you all that observe the law: and revenge ye the wrong of your people. 2:68. Render to the Gentiles their reward, and take heed to the precepts of the law. 2:69. And he blessed them, and was joined to his fathers. 2:70. And he died in the hundred and forty-sixth year: and he was buried by his sons in the sepulchres of his fathers, in Modin, and all Israel mourned for him with great mourning. 1 Machabees Chapter 3 Judas Machabeus succeeds his father, and overthrows Apollonius and Seron. A great army is sent against him out of Syria. He prepares his people for battle by fasting and prayer. 3:1. Then his son Judas, called Machabeus, rose up in his stead. 3:2. And all his brethren helped him, and all they that had joined themselves to his father, and they fought with cheerfulness the battle of Israel. 3:3. And he got his people great honour, and put on a breastplate as a giant, and girt his warlike armour about him in battles, and protected the camp with his sword. 3:4. In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey. 3:5. And he pursued the wicked and sought them out, and them that troubled his people he burnt with fire: 3:6. And his enemies were driven away for fear of him, and all the workers of iniquity were troubled: and salvation prospered in his hand. 3:7. And he grieved many kings, and made Jacob glad with his works, and his memory is blessed for ever. 3:8. And he went through the cities of Juda, and destroyed the wicked out of them, and turned away wrath from Israel. 3:9. And he was renowned even to the utmost part of the earth, and he gathered them that were perishing. 3:10. And Apollonius gathered together the Gentiles, and a numerous and great army from Samaria, to make war against Israel. 3:11. And Judas understood it, and went forth to meet him: and he overthrew him, and killed him: and many fell down slain, and the rest fled away. 3:12. And he took their spoils, and Judas took the sword of Apollonius, and fought with it all his lifetime. 3:13. And Seron, captain of the army of Syria, heard that Judas had assembled a company of the faithful, and a congregation with him, 3:14. And he said I will get me a name, and will be glorified in the kingdom, and will overthrow Judas, and those that are with him, that have despised the edict of the king. 3:15. And he made himself ready; and the host of the wicked went up with him, strong succours, to be revenged of the children of Israel. 3:16. And they approached even as far as Bethoron: and Judas went forth to meet him, with a small company. 3:17. But when they saw the army coming to meet them, they said to Judas: How shall we, being few, be able to fight against so great a multitude, and so strong, and we are ready to faint with fasting today? 3:18. And Judas said: It is an easy matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few: and there is no difference in the sight of the God of heaven to deliver with a great multitude, or with a small company: 3:19. For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from heaven. 3:20. They come against us with an insolent multitude, and with pride, to destroy us, and our wives, and our children, and to take our spoils. 3:21. But we will fight for our lives, and our laws: 3:22. And the Lord himself will overthrow them before our face, but as for you, fear them not 3:23. And as soon as he had made an end of speaking, he rushed suddenly upon them: and Seron, and his host were overthrown before him: 3:24. And he pursued him by the descent of Bethoron, even to the plain, and there fell of them eight hundred men, and the rest fled into the land of the Philistines. 3:25. And the fear of Judas, and of his brethren, and the dread of them, fell upon all the nations round about them. 3:26. And his fame came to the king, and all nations told of the battles of Judas. 3:27. Now when king Antiochus heard these words, he was angry in his mind: and he sent, and gathered the forces of all his kingdom, an exceeding strong army. 3:28. And he opened his treasury, and gave out pay to the army for a year: and he commanded them, that they should be ready for all things. 3:29. And he perceived that the money of his treasures failed, and that the tributes of the country were small, because of the dissension, and the evil that he had brought upon the land, that he might take away the laws of old times: 3:30. And he feared that he should not have as formerly enough for charges and gifts, which he had given before with a liberal hand: for he had abounded more than the kings that had been before him. 3:31. And he was greatly perplexed in mind, and purposed to go into Persia, and to take tributes of the countries, and to gather much money. 3:32. And he left Lysias, a nobleman of the blood royal to oversee the affairs of the kingdom from the river Euphrates even to the river of Egypt: 3:33. And to bring up his son, Antiochus, till he came again. 3:34. And he delivered to him half the army, and the elephants: and he gave him charge concerning all that he would have done, and concerning the inhabitants of Judea, and Jerusalem. 3:35. And that he should send an army against them to destroy and root out the strength of Israel, and the remnant of Jerusalem, and to take away the memory of them from that place. 3:36. And that he should settle strangers, to dwell in all their coasts, and divide their land by lot. 3:37. So the king took the half of the army that remained, and went forth from Antioch, the chief city of his kingdom, in the hundred and forty-seventh year: and he passed over the river Euphrates, and went through the higher countries. 3:38. Then Lysias chose Ptolemee, the son of Dorymenus, and Nicanor, and Gorgias, mighty men of the king's friends. 3:39. And he sent with them forty thousand men, and seven thousand horsemen: to go into the land of Juda, and to destroy it, according to the king's orders. 3:40. So they went forth with all their power, and came, and pitched near Emmaus, in the plain country. 3:41. And the merchants of the countries heard the fame of them: and they took silver and gold in abundance, and servants: and they came into the camp, to buy the children of Israel for slaves: and there were joined to them the forces of Syria, and of the land of the strangers. 3:42. And Judas, and his brethren, saw that evils were multiplied, and that the armies approached to their borders: and they knew the orders the king had given to destroy the people, and utterly abolish them. 3:43. And they said, every man to his neighbour: Let us raise up the low condition of our people, and let us fight for our people, and our sanctuary. 3:44. And the assembly was gathered, that they might be ready for battle, and that they might pray, and ask mercy and compassion. 3:45. Now Jerusalem was not inhabited, but was like a desert: there was none of her children that went in or out: and the sanctuary was trodden down: and the children of strangers were in the castle, there was the habitation of the Gentiles: and joy was taken away from Jacob, and the pipe and harp ceased there. 3:46. And they assembled together, and came to Maspha, over against Jerusalem: for in Maspha was a place of prayer heretofore in Israel. 3:47. And they fasted that day, and put on haircloth, and put ashes upon their heads: and they rent their garments: 3:48. And they laid open the books of the law, in which the Gentiles searched for the likeness of their idols: 3:49. And they brought the priestly ornaments, and the first fruits and tithes, and stirred up the Nazarites that had fulfilled their days: 3:50. And they cried with a loud voice toward heaven, saying: What shall we do with these, and whither shall we carry them? 3:51. For thy holies are trodden down, and are profaned, and thy priests are in mourning, and are brought low. 3:52. And behold the nations are come together against us, to destroy us: thou knowest what they intend against us. 3:53. How shall we be able to stand before their face, unless thou, O God, help us? 3:64. Then they sounded with trumpets, and cried out with a loud voice. 3:66. And after this, Judas appointed captains over the people, over thousands, and over hundreds, and over fifties, and over tens. 3:66. And he said to them that were building houses, or had betrothed wives, or were planting vineyards, or were fearful, that they should return every man to his house, according to the law. 3:67. So they removed the camp, and pitched on the south side of Emmaus. 3:68. And Judas said: Gird yourselves, and be valiant men, and be ready against the morning, that you may fight with these nations that are assembled against us to destroy us and our sanctuary. 3:59. For it is better for us to die in battle, than to see the evils of our nation, and of the holies: 3:60. Nevertheless, as it shall be the will of God in heaven, so be it done. 1 Machabees Chapter 4 Judas routs the king's army. Gorgias flies before him. Lysias comes against him with a great army, but is defeated. Judas cleanses the temple, sets up a new altar, and fortifies the sanctuary. 4:1. Then Gorgias took five thousand men, and a thousand of the best horsemen; and they removed out of the camp by night. 4:2. That they might come upon the camp of the Jews and strike them suddenly: and the men that were of the castle were their guides. 4:3. And Judas heard of it, and rose up, he and the valiant men, to attack the king's forces that were in Emmaus. 4:4. For as yet the army was dispersed from the camp The army was dispersed. . .That is, in different divisions, not altogether encamped. 4:5. And Gorgias came by night into the camp of Judas, and found no man; and he sought them in the mountains: for he said: These men flee from us. 4:6. And when it was day, Judas shewed himself in the plain with three thousand men only, who neither had armour nor swords: Who neither had armour nor swords. . .Such as they wished for. 4:7. And they saw the camp of the Gentiles that it was strong, and the men in breastplates, and the horsemen round about them, and these were trained up to war. 4:8. And Judas said to the men that were with him: Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault. 4:9. Remember in what manner our fathers were saved in the Red Sea, when Pharaoh pursued them with a great army. 4:10. And now let us cry to heaven, and the Lord will have mercy on us, and will remember the covenant of our fathers, and will destroy this army before our face this day: 4:11. And all nations shall know that there is one that redeemeth and delivereth Israel. 4:12. And the strangers lifted up their eyes, and saw them coming against them. 4:13. And they went out of the camp to battle, and they that were with Judas sounded the trumpet. 4:14. And they joined battle: and the Gentiles were routed, and fled into the plain. 4:15. But all the hindmost of them fell by the sword and they pursued them as far as Gezeron, and even to the plains of Idumea, and of Azotus, and of Jamnia: and there fell of them to the number of three thousand men. 4:16. And Judas returned again with his army that followed him. 4:17. And he said to the people: Be not greedy of the spoils; for there is war before us: 4:18. And Gorgias and his army are near us in the mountain: but stand ye now against our enemies, and overthrow them, and you shall take the spoils afterwards with safety. 4:19. And as Judas was speaking these words, behold part of them appeared, looking forth from the mountain. 4:20. And Gorgias saw that his men were put to flight, and that they had set fire to the camp: for the smoke that was seen declared what was done. 4:21. And when they had seen this, they were seized with great fear, seeing at the same time Judas and his army in the plain ready to fight. 4:22. So they all fled away into the land of the strangers. 4:23. And Judas returned to take the spoils of the camp, and they got much gold, and silver, and blue silk, and purple of the sea, and great riches. 4:24. And returning home, they sung a hymn, and blessed God in heaven, because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever. 4:25. So Israel had a great deliverance that day. 4:26. And such of the strangers as escaped, went and told Lysias all that had happened. 4:27. And when he heard these things, he was amazed and discouraged: because things had not succeeded in Israel according to his mind, and as the king had commanded. 4:28. So the year following, Lysias gathered together threescore thousand chosen men, and five thousand horsemen, that he might subdue them. 4:29. And they came into Judea, and pitched their tents in Bethoron, and Judas met them with ten thousand men. 4:30. And they saw that the army was strong, and he prayed and said: Blessed art thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of thy servant David, and didst deliver up the camp of the strangers into the hands of Jonathan the son of Saul, and of his armour bearer. 4:31. Shut up this army in the hands of thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their host and their horsemen. 4:32. Strike them with fear, and cause the boldness of their strength to languish, and let them quake at their own destruction. 4:33. Cast them down with the sword of them that love thee: and let all that know thy name praise thee with hymns. 4:34. And they joined battle: and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men. 4:35. And when Lysias saw that his men were put to flight, and how bold the Jews were, and that they were ready either to live, or to die manfully, he went to Antioch, and chose soldiers, that they might come again into Judea with greater numbers. 4:36. Then Judas, and his brethren said: Behold our enemies are discomfited: let us go up now to cleanse the holy places, and to repair them. 4:37. And all the army assembled together, and they went up into Mount Sion. 4:38. And they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burnt, and shrubs growing up in the courts as in a forest, or on the mountains, and the chambers joining to the temple thrown down. 4:39. And they rent their garments, and made great lamentation, and put ashes on their heads: 4:40. And they fell down to the ground on their faces, and they sounded with the trumpets of alarm, and they cried towards heaven. 4:41. Then Judas appointed men to fight against them that were in the castle, till they had cleansed the holy places, 4:42. And he chose priests without blemish, whose will was set upon the law of God. 4:43. And they cleansed the holy places, and took away the stones that had been defiled into an unclean place. 4:44. And he considered about the altar of holocausts that had been profaned, what he should do with it. 4:45. And a good counsel came into their minds, to pull it down: lest it should be a reproach to them, because the Gentiles had defiled it; so they threw it down. 4:46. And they laid up the stones in the mountain of the temple, in a convenient place, till there should come a prophet, and give answer concerning them. 4:47. Then they took whole stones, according to the law and built a new altar, according to the former: 4:48. And they built up the holy places, and the things that were within the temple: and they sanctified the temple and the courts. 4:49. And they made new holy vessels, and brought in the candlestick, and the altar of incense, and the table, into the temple. 4:50. And they put incense upon the altar, and lighted up the lamps that were upon the candlestick, and they gave light in the temple. 4:51. And they set the loaves upon the table, and hung up the veils, and finished all the works that they had begun to make. 4:52. And they arose before the morning on the five and twentieth day of the ninth month, (which is the month of Casleu) in the hundred and forty-eighth year. 4:53. And they offered sacrifice, according to the law, upon the new altar of holocausts which they had made. 4:54. According to the time, and according to the day wherein the heathens had defiled it, in the same was it dedicated anew with canticles, and harps, and lutes, and cymbals. 4:55. And all the people fell upon their faces, and adored, and blessed up to heaven, him that had prospered them. 4:56. And they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and they offered holocausts with joy, and sacrifices of salvation, and of praise. 4:57. And they adorned the front of the temple with crowns of gold, and escutcheons, and they renewed the gates, and the chambers, and hanged doors upon them. 4:58. And there was exceeding great joy among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was turned away. 4:59. And Judas, and his brethren, and all the church of Israel decreed, that the day of the dedication of the altar should be kept in its season from year to year for eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu, with joy and gladness. 4:60. They built up also at that time Mount Sion, with high walls, and strong towers round about, lest the Gentiles should at any time come, and tread it down, as they did before. 4:61. And he placed a garrison there, to keep it, and he fortified it, to secure Bethsura, that the people might have a defence against Idumea. 1 Machabees Chapter 5 Judas and his brethren attack the enemies of their country, and deliver them that were distressed. Josephus and Azarius, attempting contrary to order to fight against their enemies, are defeated. 5:1. Now it came to pass, when the nations round about heard that the altar and the sanctuary were built up, as before, that they were exceeding angry. 5:2. And they thought to destroy the generation of Jacob that were among them, and they began to kill some of the people, and to persecute them. 5:3. Then Judas fought against the children of Esau in Idumea, and them that were in Acrabathane: because they beset the Israelites round about, and he made a great slaughter of them. 5:4. And he remembered the malice of the children of Bean: who were a snare and a stumblingblock to the people, by lying in wait for them in the way. 5:5. And they were shut up by him in towers, and he set upon them, and devoted them to utter destruction, and burnt their towers with fire, and all that were in them. 5:6. Then he passed over to the children of Ammon, where he found a mighty power, and much people, and Timotheus was their captain: 5:7. And he fought many battles with them, and they were discomfited in their sight, and he smote them: 5:8. And he took the city of Gazer and her towns, and returned into Judea. 5:9. And the Gentiles that were in Galaad, assembled themselves together against the Israelites that were in their quarters, to destroy them: and they fled into the fortress of Datheman. 5:10. And they sent letters to Judas, and his brethren, saying: The heathens that are round about are gathered together against us to destroy us: 5:11. And they are preparing to come, and to take the fortress into which we are fled: and Timotheus is the captain of their host. 5:12. Now therefore come, and deliver us out of their hands, for many of us are slain. 5:13. And all our brethren that were in the places of Tubin, are killed: and they have carried away their wives, and their children, captives, and taken their spoils, and they have slain there almost a thousand men. 5:14. And while they were yet reading these letters, behold there came other messengers out of Galilee with their garments rent, who related according to these words: 5:15. Saying, that they of Ptolemais, and of Tyre, and of Sidon, were assembled against them, and all Galilee is filled with strangers, in order to consume us. 5:16. Now when Judas and the people heard these words, a great assembly met together to consider what they should do for their brethren that were in trouble, and were assaulted by them. 5:17. And Judas said to Simon, his brother: Choose thee men, and go, and deliver thy brethren in Galilee: and I, and my brother Jonathan, will go into the country of Galaad: 5:18. And he left Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, captains of the people, with the remnant of the army in Judea, to keep it: 5:19. And he commanded them, saying: Take ye the charge of this people; but make no war against the heathens, till we return. 5:20. Now three thousand men were allotted to Simon, to go into Galilee: and eight thousand to Judas, to go into the land of Galaad. 5:21. And Simon went into Galilee, and fought many battles with the heathens: and the heathens were discomfited before his face, and he pursued them even to the gate of Ptolemais. 5:22. And there fell of the heathens almost three thousand men, and he took the spoils of them. 5:23. And he took with him those that were in Galilee and in Arbatis, with their wives, and children, and all that they had, and he brought them into Judea with great joy. 5:24. And Judas Machabeus, and Jonathan, his brother, passed over the Jordan, and went three days' journey through the desert. 5:25. And the Nabutheans met them, and received them in a peaceable manner, and told them all that happened to their brethren in the land of Galaad, 5:26. And that many of them were shut up in Barasa, and in Bosor, and in Alima, and in Casphor, and in Mageth, and in Carnaim; all these strong and great cities. 5:27. Yea, and that they were kept shut up in the rest of the cities of Galaad, and that they had appointed to bring their army on the morrow near to these cities, and to take them, and to destroy them all in one day. 5:28. Then Judas and his army suddenly turned their march into the desert, to Bosor, and took the city: and he slew every male by the edge of the sword, and took all their spoils, and burnt it with fire. 5:29. And they removed from thence by night, and went till they came to the fortress. 5:30. And it came to pass that early in the morning, when they lifted up their eyes, behold there were people without number, carrying ladders and engines to take the fortress, and assault them. 5:31. And Judas saw that the fight was begun, and the cry of the battle went up to heaven like a trumpet, and a great cry out of the city: 5:32. And he said to his host: Fight ye today for your brethren. 5:33. And he came with three companies behind them, and they sounded their trumpets, and cried out in prayer. 5:34. And the host of Timotheus understood that it was Machabeus, and they fled away before his face and they made a great slaughter of them, and there fell of them in that day almost eight thousand men. 5:35. And Judas turned aside to Maspha, and assaulted, and took it, and he slew every male thereof, and took the spoils thereof, and burnt it with fire. 5:36. From thence he marched, and took Casbon, and Mageth, and Bosor, and the rest of the cities of Galaad. 5:37. But after this Timotheus gathered another army, and camped over against Raphon, beyond the torrent. 5:38. And Judas sent men to view the army: and they brought him word, saying: All the nations, that are round about us, are assembled unto him an army exceeding great: 5:39. And they have hired the Arabians to help them, and they have pitched their tents beyond the torrent, ready to come to fight against thee. And Judas went to meet them. 5:40. And Timotheus said to the captains of his army: When Judas and his army come near the torrent of water, if he pass over unto us first, we shall not be able to withstand him: for he will certainly prevail over us. 5:41. But if he be afraid to pass over, and camp on the other side of the river, we will pass over to them, and shall prevail against him. 5:42. Now when Judas came near the torrent of water, he set the scribes of the people by the torrent, and commanded them, saying: Suffer no man to stay behind: but let all come to the battle. 5:43. And he passed over to them first, and all the people after him, and all the heathens were discomfited before them, and they threw away their weapons, and fled to the temple that was in Carnaim. 5:44. And he took that city, and the temple he burnt with fire, with all things that were therein: and Carnaim was subdued, and could not stand against the face of Judas. 5:45. And Judas gathered together all the Israelites that were in the land of Galaad, from the least even to the greatest, and their wives and children, and an army exceeding great, to come into the land of Juda. 5:46. And they came as far as Ephron: now this was a great city, situate in the way, strongly fortified, and there was no means to turn from it on the right hand or on the left, but the way was through the midst of it. 5:47. And they that were in the city shut themselves in, and stopped up the gates with stones: and Judas sent to them with peaceable words, 5:48. Saying: Let us pass through your land, to go into our own country, and no man shall hurt you; we will only pass through on foot. But they would not open to them. 5:49. Then Judas commanded proclamation to be made in the camp, that they should make an assault, every man in the place where he was. 5:50. And the men of the army drew near, and he assaulted that city all the day, and all the night; and the city was delivered into his hands: 5:51. And they slew every male with the edge of the sword, and he razed the city, and took the spoils thereof, and passed through all the city over them that were slain. 5:52. Then they passed over the Jordan to the great plain that is over against Bethsan. 5:53. And Judas gathered together the hindmost, and he exhorted the people, all the way through, till they came into the land of Juda. 5:54. And they went up to mount Sion with joy and gladness, and offered holocausts, because not one of them was slain, till they had returned in peace. 5:55. Now in the days that Judas and Jonathan were in the land of Galaad, and Simon his brother in Galilee, before Ptolemais, 5:56. Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, captain of the soldiers, heard of the good success, and the battles that were fought, 5:57. And he said: Let us also get us a name, and let us go fight against the Gentiles that are round about us. 5:58. And he gave charge to them that were in his army, and they went towards Jamnia. 5:59. And Gorgias and his men went out of the city, to give them battle. 5:60. And Joseph and Azarias were put to flight, and were pursued unto the borders of Judea: and there fell on that day, of the people of Israel, about two thousand men, and there was a great overthrow of the people: 5:61. Because they did not hearken to Judas and his brethren, thinking that they should do manfully. 5:62. But they were not of the seed of those men by whom salvation was brought to Israel. 5:63. And the men of Juda were magnified exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and of all the nations where their name was heard. 5:64. And the people assembled to them with joyful acclamations. 5:65. Then Judas and his brethren went forth and attacked the children of Esau, in the land towards the south, and he took Chebron and her towns: and he burnt the walls thereof, and the towers all round it. 5:66. And he removed his camp to go into the land of the aliens, and he went through Samaria. 5:67. In that day some priests fell in battle, while desiring to do manfully they went out unadvisedly to fight. 5:68. And Judas turned to Azotus, into the land of the strangers, and he threw down their altars, and he burnt the statues of their gods with fire: and he took the spoils of the cities, and returned into the land of Juda. 1 Machabees Chapter 6 The fruitless repentance and death of Antiochus. His son comes against Judas with a formidable army. He besieges Sion: but at last makes peace with the Jews. 6:1. Now king Antiochus was going through the higher countries, and he heard that the city of Elymais in Persia, was greatly renowned, and abounding in silver and gold, 6:2. And that there was in it a temple exceeding rich; and coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields, which king Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, that reigned first in Greece, had left there. 6:3. So he came, and sought to take the city and to pillage it; but he was not able, because the design was known to them that were in the city. 6:4. And they rose up against him in battle, and he fled away from thence, and departed with great sadness, and returned towards Babylonia. 6:5. And whilst he was in Persia there came one that told him how the armies that were in the land of Juda were put to flight: 6:6. And that Lysias went with a very great power, and was put to flight before the face of the Jews, and that they were grown strong by the armour, and power, and store of spoils which they had gotten out of the camps which they had destroyed: 6:7. And that they had thrown down the abomination which he had set up upon the altar in Jerusalem, and that they had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls as before, and Bethsura also, his city. 6:8. And it came to pass, when the king heard these words, that he was struck with fear, and exceedingly moved: and he laid himself down upon his bed, and fell sick for grief, because it had not fallen out to him as he imagined. 6:9. And he remained there many days: for great grief came more and more upon him, and he made account that he should die. 6:10. And he called for all his friends, and said to them: Sleep is gone from my eyes, and I am fallen away, and my heart is cast down for anxiety: 6:11. And I said in my heart: Into how much tribulation am I come, and into what floods of sorrow wherein now I am: I that was pleasant and beloved in my power! 6:12. But now I remember the evils that I did in Jerusalem, from whence also I took away all the spoils of gold, and of silver, that were in it, and I sent to destroy the inhabitants of Juda without cause. 6:13. I know, therefore, that for this cause these evils have found me: and behold I perish with great grief in a strange land. 6:14. Then he called Philip, one of his friends, and he made him regent over all his kingdom. 6:15. And he gave him the crown, and his robe, and his ring, that he should go to Antiochus, his son, and should bring him up for the kingdom. 6:16. So king Antiochus died there in the year one hundred and forty-nine. 6:17. And Lysias understood that the king was dead, and he set up Antiochus, his son, to reign, whom he had brought up young: and he called his name Eupator. 6:18. Now they that were in the castle, had shut up the Israelites round about the holy places: and they were continually seeking their hurt, and to strengthen the Gentiles. 6:19. And Judas purposed to destroy them: and he called together all the people, to besiege them. 6:20. And they came together, and besieged them in the year one hundred and fifty, and they made battering slings and engines. 6:21. And some of the besieged got out: and some wicked men of Israel joined themselves unto them. 6:22. And they went to the king, and said: How long dost thou delay to execute judgment, and to revenge our brethren? 6:23. We determined to serve thy father, and to do according to his orders, and obey his edicts: 6:24. And for this they of our nation are alienated from us, and have slain as many of us as they could find, and have spoiled our inheritances. 6:25. Neither have they put forth their hand against us only, but also against all our borders. 6:26. And behold they have approached this day to the castle of Jerusalem to take it, and they have fortified the strong hold of Bethsura: 6:27. And unless thou speedily prevent them, they will do greater things than these, and thou shalt not be able to subdue them. 6:28. Now when the king heard this, he was angry: and he called together all his friends, and the captains of his army, and them that were over the horsemen. 6:29. There came also to him from other realms, and from the islands of the sea, hired troops. 6:30. And the number of his army was an hundred thousand footmen, and twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants trained to battle. 6:31. And they went through Idumea, and approached to Bethsura, and fought many days, and they made engines: but they sallied forth, and burnt them with fire, and fought manfully. But they sallied forth. . .That is, the citizens of Bethsura sallied forth and burnt them, that is, burnt the engines of the besiegers. 6:32. And Judas departed from the castle, and removed the camp to Bethzacharam, over against the king's camp. 6:33. And the king rose before it was light, and made his troops march on fiercely towards the way of Bethzacharam: and the armies made themselves ready for the battle, and they sounded the trumpets: 6:34. And they shewed the elephants the blood of grapes, and mulberries, to provoke them to fight. 6:35. And they distributed the beasts by the legions: and there stood by every elephant a thousand men in coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads: and five hundred horsemen set in order were chosen for every beast. 6:36. These before the time wheresoever the beast was they were there: and whithersoever it went, they went, and they departed not from it. These before the time. . .That is, these were ready for every occasion. 6:37. And upon the beast, there were strong wooden towers which covered every one of them: and engines upon them, and upon every one thirty-two valiant men, who fought from above: and an Indian to rule the beast. 6:38. And the rest of the horsemen he placed on this side and on that side, at the two wings, with trumpets to stir up the army, and to hasten them forward that stood thick together in the legions thereof. 6:39. Now when the sun shone upon the shields of gold, and of brass, the mountains glittered therewith, and they shone like lamps of fire. 6:40. And part of the king's army was distinguished by the high mountains, and the other part by the low places: and they marched on warily and orderly. 6:41. And all the inhabitants of the land were moved at the noise of their multitude, and the marching of the company, and the rattling of the armour, for the army was exceeding great and strong. 6:42. And Judas and his army drew near for battle: and there fell of the king's army six hundred men. 6:43. And Eleazar, the son of Saura, saw one of the beasts harnessed with the king's harness: and it was higher than the other beasts; and it seemed to him that the king was on it: 6:44. And he exposed himself to deliver his people, and to get himself an everlasting name. 6:45. And he ran up to it boldly in the midst of the legion, killing on the right hand, and on the left, and they fell by him on this side and that side. 6:46. And he went between the feet of the elephant, and put himself under it: and slew it, and it fell to the ground upon him, and he died there. 6:47. Then they seeing the strength of the king and the fierceness of his army, turned away from them. 6:48. But the king's army went up against them to Jerusalem: and the king's army pitched their tents against Judea and Mount Sion. 6:49. And he made peace with them that were in Bethsura: and they came forth out of the city, because they had no victuals, being shut up there, for it was the year of rest to the land. 6:50. And the king took Bethsura: and he placed there a garrison to keep it. 6:51. And he turned his army against the sanctuary for many days: and he set up there battering slings, and engines, and instruments to cast fire, and engines to cast stones and javelins, and pieces to shoot arrows, and slings. 6:52. And they also made engines against their engines, and they fought for many days. 6:53. But there were no victuals in the city, because it was the seventh year: and such as had stayed in Judea of them that came from among the nations, had eaten the residue of all that which had been stored up. 6:54. And there remained in the holy places but a few, for the famine had prevailed over them: and they were dispersed every man to his own place. 6:55. Now Lysias heard that Philip; whom king Antiochus while he lived had appointed to bring up his son, Antiochus, and to reign, 6:56. Was returned from Persia, and Media, with the army that went with him and that he sought to take upon him the affairs of the kingdom: 6:57. Wherefore he made haste to go, and say to the king and to the captains of the army: We decay daily, and our provision of victuals is small, and the place that we lay siege to is strong, and it lieth upon us to take order for the affairs of the kingdom. 6:58. Now, therefore, let us come to an agreement with these men, and make peace with them and with all their nation. 6:59. And let us covenant with them, that they may live according to their own laws, as before. For because of our despising their laws, they have been provoked, and have done all these things. 6:60. And the proposal was acceptable in the sight of the king, and of the princes: and he sent to them to make peace: and they accepted of it. 6:61. And the king and the princes swore to them: and they came out of the strong hold. 6:62. Then the king entered into Mount Sion, and saw the strength of the place: and he quickly broke the oath that he had taken, and gave commandment to throw down the wall round about. 6:63. And he departed in haste and returned to Antioch, where he found Philip master of the city: and he fought against him, and took the city. 1 Machabees Chapter 7 Demetrius is made king, and sends Bacchides and Alcimus the priest into Judea, and after them Nicanor, who is slain by Judas with all his army. 7:1. In the hundred and fifty-first year, Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, departed from the city of Rome, and came up with few men into a city of the sea coast, and reigned there. 7:2. And it came to pass as he entered into the house of the kingdom of his fathers, that the army seized upon Antiochus, and Lysias, to bring them unto him. 7:3. And when he knew it, he said: Let me not see their face. 7:4. So the army slew them. And Demetrius sat upon the throne of his kingdom: 7:5. And there came to him the wicked and ungodly men of Israel: and Alcimus was at the head of them, who desired to be made high priest. 7:6. And they accused the people to the king, saying: Judas and his brethren have destroyed all thy friends, and he hath driven us out of our land. 7:7. Now, therefore, send some men whom thou trustest, and let him go, and see all the havoc he hath made amongst us, and in the king's lands: and let him punish all his friends and their helpers. 7:8. Then the king chose Bacchides, one of his friends, that ruled beyond the great river in the kingdom, and was faithful to the king: and he sent him, 7:9. To see the havoc that Judas had made: and the wicked Alcimus he made high priest, and commanded him to take revenge upon the children of Israel. 7:10. And they arose, and came with a great army into the land of Juda: and they sent messengers, and spoke to Judas and his brethren with peaceable words, deceitfully. 7:11. But they gave no heed to their words: for they saw that they were come with a great army. 7:12. Then there assembled to Alcimus and Bacchides a company of the scribes, to require things that are just: 7:13. And first the Assideans, that were among the children of Israel, and they sought peace of them. 7:14. For they said: One that is a priest of the seed of Aaron is come, he will not deceive us. 7:15. And he spoke to them peaceably: and he swore to them, saying: We will do you no harm, nor your friends. 7:16. And they believed him. And he took threescore of them, and slew them in one day, according to the word that is written: 7:17. The flesh of thy saints, and the blood of them they have shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. 7:18. Then fear and trembling fell upon all the people: for they said: There is no truth, nor justice among them: for they have broken the covenant, and the oath which they made. 7:19. And Bacchides removed the camp from Jerusalem, and pitched in Bethzecha: and he sent, and took many of them that were fled away from him, and some of the people he killed, and threw them into a great pit. 7:20. Then he committed the country to Alcimus, and left with him troops to help him. So Bacchides went away to the king. 7:21. But Alcimus did what he could to maintain his chief priesthood. 7:22. And they that disturbed the people resorted to him, and they got the land of Juda into their power, and did much hurt in Israel. 7:23. And Judas saw all the evils that Alcimus, and they that were with him, did to the children of Israel, much more than the Gentiles. 7:24. And he went out into all the coasts of Judea round about, and took vengeance upon the men that had revolted, and they ceased to go forth any more into the country. 7:25. And Alcimus saw that Judas and they that were with him, prevailed: and he knew that he could not stand against them, and he went back to the king, and accused them of many crimes. 7:26. And the king sent Nicanor, one of his principal lords, who was a great enemy to Israel: and he commanded him to destroy the people. 7:27. And Nicanor came to Jerusalem with a great army, and he sent to Judas and to his brethren deceitfully, with friendly words, 7:28. Saying: Let there be no fighting between me and you: I will come with a few men, to see your faces with peace. 7:29. And he came to Judas, and they saluted one another peaceably: and the enemies were prepared to take away Judas by force. 7:30. And the thing was known to Judas that he was come to him with deceit: and he was much afraid of him, and would not see his face any more. 7:31. And Nicanor knew that his counsel was discovered: and he went out to fight against Judas, near Capharsalama. 7:32. And there fell of Nicanor's army almost five thousand men, and they fled into the city of David. 7:33. And after this Nicanor went up into mount Sion: and some of the priests and the people came out to salute him peaceably, and to shew him the holocausts that were offered for the king. 7:34. But he mocked and despised them, and abused them: and he spoke proudly, 7:35. And swore in anger, saying: Unless Judas and his army be delivered into my hands, as soon as ever I return in peace, I will burn this house. And he went out in a great rage. 7:36. And the priests went in, and stood before the face of the altar and the temple: and weeping, they said: 7:37. Thou, O Lord, hast chosen this house for thy name to be called upon therein, that it might be a house of prayer and supplication for thy people. 7:38. Be avenged of this man, and his army, and let them fall by the sword: remember their blasphemies, and suffer them not to continue any longer. 7:39. Then Nicanor went out from Jerusalem, and encamped near to Bethoron: and an army of Syria joined him. 7:40. But Judas pitched in Adarsa with three thousand men: and Judas prayed, and said: 7:41. O Lord, when they that were sent by king Sennacherib blasphemed thee, an angel went out, and slew of them a hundred and eighty-five thousand: 7:42. Even so destroy this army in our sight today and let the rest know that he hath spoken ill against thy sanctuary: and judge thou him according to his wickedness. 7:43. And the armies joined battle on the thirteenth day of the month, Adar: and the army of Nicanor was defeated, and he himself was first slain in the battle. 7:44. And when his army saw that Nicanor was slain they threw away their weapons, and fled: 7:45. And they pursued after them one day's journey from Adazer, even till ye come to Gazara, and they sounded the trumpets after them with signals. 7:46. And they went forth out of all the towns of Judea round about, and they pushed them with the horns, and they turned again to them, and they were all slain with the sword, and there was not left of them so much as one. 7:47. And they took the spoils of them for a booty, and they cut off Nicanor's head, and his right hand, which he had proudly stretched out, and they brought it, and hung it up over against Jerusalem. 7:48. And the people rejoiced exceedingly, and they spent that day with great joy. 7:49. And he ordained that this day should be kept every year, being the thirteenth of the month of Adar 7:50. And the land of Juda was quiet for a short time. 1 Machabees Chapter 8 Judas hears of the great character of the Romans: he makes a league with them. 8:1. Now Judas heard of the fame of the Romans, that they are powerful and strong, and willingly agree to all things that are requested of them: and that whosoever have come to them, they have made amity with them, and that they are mighty in power. 8:2. And they heard of their battles, and their noble acts which they had done in Galatia, how they had conquered them, and brought them under tribute: They heard, etc. . .What is here set down of the history and character of the ancient Romans, is not an assertion, or affirmation of the sacred writer: but only a relation of what Judas had heard of them. 8:3. And how great things they had done in the land of Spain, and that they had brought under their power the mines of silver and of gold that are there, and had gotten possession of all the place by their counsel and patience: 8:4. And had conquered places that were very far off from them, and kings that came against them from the ends of the earth, and had overthrown them with great slaughter: and the rest pay them tribute every year. 8:5. And that they had defeated in battle Philip and Perses the king of the Ceteans, and the rest that had borne arms against them, and had conquered them: Ceteans. . .That is, the Macedonians. 8:6. And how Antiochus, the great king of Asia, who went to fight against them, having a hundred and twenty elephants, with horsemen, and chariots, and a very great army, was routed by them. 8:7. And how they took him alive, and appointed to him, that both he and they that should reign after him, should pay a great tribute, and that he should give hostages, and that which was agreed upon, 8:8. And the country of the Indians, and of the Medes, and of the Lydians, some of their best provinces: and those which they had taken from them, they gave to king Eumenes. Eumenes. . .King of Pergamus. 8:9. And that they who were in Greece, had a mind to go and to destroy them: and they had knowledge thereof, 8:10. And they sent a general against them, and fought with them, and many of them were slain, and they carried away their wives, and their children captives, and spoiled them, and took possession of their land, and threw down their walls, and brought them to be their servants unto this day. 8:11. And the other kingdoms, and islands, that at any time had resisted them, they had destroyed and brought under their power. 8:12. But with their friends, and such as relied upon them, they kept amity, and had conquered kingdoms that were near, and that were far off: for all that heard their name, were afraid of them. 8:13. That whom they had a mind to help to a kingdom, those reigned: and whom they would, they deposed from the kingdom: and they were greatly exalted. 8:14. And none of all these wore a crown, or was clothed in purple, to be magnified thereby. 8:15. And that they had made themselves a senate house, and consulted daily three hundred and twenty men, that sat in counsel always for the people, that they might do the things that were right: 8:16. And that they committed their government to one man every year, to rule over all their country, and they all obey one, and there is no envy nor jealousy amongst them. To one man. . .There were two consuls: but one only ruled at one time, each in his day.--Ibid. No envy, etc. . .So Judas had heard: and it was so far true, with regard to the ancient Romans, that as yet no envy or jealousy had divided them into such open factions and civil wars, as they afterwards experienced in the time of Marius and Sylla, etc. 8:17. So Judas chose Eupolemus, the son of John, the son of Jacob, and Jason, the son of Eleazar, and he sent them to Rome to make a league of amity and confederacy with them: 8:18. And that they might take off from them the yoke of the Grecians, for they saw that they oppressed the kingdom of Israel with servitude. 8:19. And they went to Rome, a very long journey, and they entered into the senate house, and said: 8:20. Judas Machabeus, and his brethren, and the people of the Jews, have sent us to you to make alliance and peace with you, and that we may be registered your confederates and friends. 8:21. And the proposal was pleasing in their sight. 8:22. And this is the copy of the writing that they wrote back again, graven in tables of brass, and sent to Jerusalem, that it might be with them there for a memorial of the peace, and alliance. 8:23. GOOD SUCCESS BE TO THE ROMANS, and to the people of the Jews by sea, and by land, for ever: and far be the sword and enemy from them. 8:24. But if there come first any war upon the Romans, or any of their confederates, in all their dominions: 8:25. The nation of the Jews shall help them according as the time shall direct, with all their heart: 8:26. Neither shall they give them, whilst they are fighting, or furnish them with wheat, or arms, or money, or ships, as it hath seemed good to the Romans: and they shall obey their orders, without taking any thing of them. 8:27. In like manner also if war shall come first upon the nation of the Jews, the Romans shall help them with all their heart, according as the time shall permit them: 8:28. And there shall not be given to them that come to their aid, either wheat, or arms, or money, or ships, as it hath seemed good to the Romans: and they shall observe their orders without deceit. 8:29. According to these articles did the Romans covenant with the people of the Jews. 8:30. And, if after this, one party or the other shall have a mind to add to these articles, or take away any thing, they may do it at their pleasure: and whatsoever they shall add, or take away, shall be ratified. 8:31. Moreover, concerning the evils that Demetrius, the king, hath done against them, we have written to him, saying: Why hast thou made thy yoke heavy upon our friends and allies, the Jews. 8:32. If, therefore, they come again to us complaining of thee, we will do them justice, and will make war against thee by sea and land. 1 Machabees Chapter 9 Bacchides is sent again into Judea: Judas fights against him with eight hundred men and is slain. Jonathan succeeds him and revenges the murder of his brother John. He fights against Bacchides. Alcimus dies miserably. Bacchides besieges Bethbessen. He is forced to raise the siege and leave the country. 9:1. In the mean time, when Demetrius heard that Nicanor and his army were fallen in battle, he sent again Bacchides and Alcimus into Judea; and the right wing of his army with them. 9:2. And they took the road that leadeth to Galgal, and they camped in Masaloth, which is in Arabella: and they made themselves masters of it, and slew many people. 9:3. In the first month of the hundred and fifty-second year they brought the army to Jerusalem: 9:4. And they arose and went to Berea, with twenty thousand men, and two thousand horsemen. 9:5. Now Judas had pitched his tents in Laisa, and three thousand chosen men with him: 9:6. And they saw the multitude of the army that they were many, and they were seized with great fear: and many withdrew themselves out of the camp, and there remained of them no more than eight hundred men. 9:7. And Judas saw that his army slipped away, and the battle pressed upon him, and his heart was cast down: because he had not time to gather them together, and he was discouraged. 9:8. Then he said to them that remained: Let us arise, and go against our enemies, if we may be able to fight against them. 9:9. But they dissuaded him, saying: We shall not be able, but let us save our lives now, and return to our brethren, and then we will fight against them: for we are but few. 9:10. Then Judas said: God forbid we should do this thing, and flee away from them: but if our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our glory. 9:11. And the army removed out of the camp, and they stood over against them: and the horsemen were divided into two troops, and the slingers, and the archers, went before the army, and they that were in the front were all men of valour. 9:12. And Bacchides was in the right wing, and the legion drew near on two sides, and they sounded the trumpets: 9:13. And they also that were on Judas's side, even they also cried out, and the earth shook at the noise of the armies: and the battle was fought from morning even unto the evening. 9:14. And Judas perceived that the stronger part of the army of Bacchides was on the right side, and all the stout of heart came together with him: 9:15. And the right wing was discomfited by them, and he pursued them even to the mount Azotus. 9:16. And they that were in the left wing saw that the right wing was discomfited, and they followed after Judas, and them that were with him, at their back: 9:17. And the battle was hard fought, and there fell many wounded of the one side and of the other. 9:18. And Judas was slain, and the rest fled away. 9:19. And Jonathan and Simon took Judas, their brother, and buried him in the sepulchre of their fathers, in the city of Modin. 9:20. And all the people of Israel bewailed him with great lamentation, and they mourned for him many days. 9:21. And said: How is the mighty man fallen, that saved the people of Israel! 9:22. But the rest of the words of the wars of Judas, and of the noble acts that he did, and of his greatness, are not written: for they were very many. 9:23. And it came to pass, after the death of Judas, that the wicked began to put forth their heads in all the confines of Israel, and all the workers of iniquity rose up. 9:24. In those days there was a very great famine, and they and all their country yielded to Bacchides. 9:25. And Bacchides chose the wicked men, and made them lords of the country: 9:26. And they sought out, and made diligent search after the friends of Judas, and brought them to Bacchides, and he took vengeance of them, and abused them. 9:27. And there was a great tribulation in Israel, such as was not since the day, that there was no prophet seen in Israel. 9:28. And all the friends of Judas came together, and said to Jonathan: 9:29. Since thy brother Judas died there is not a man like him to go forth against our enemies, Bacchides, and them that are the enemies of our nation. 9:30. Now, therefore, we have chosen thee this day to be our prince, and captain, in his stead, to fight our battles. 9:31. So Jonathan took upon him the government at that time, and rose up in the place of Judas, his brother 9:32. And Bacchides had knowledge of it, and sought to kill him. 9:33. And Jonathan, and Simon, his brother, knew it, and all that were with them: and they fled into the desert of Thecua, and they pitched by the water of the lake Asphar, 9:34. And Bacchides understood it, and he came himself, with all his army, over the Jordan, on the sabbath day. 9:35. And Jonathan sent his brother, a captain of the people, to desire the Nabutheans his friends, that they would lend them their equipage, which was copious. 9:36. And the children of Jambri came forth out of Madaba, and took John, and all that he had, and went away with them. 9:37. After this it was told Jonathan, and Simon, his brother, that the children of Jambri made a great marriage, and were bringing the bride out of Madaba, the daughter of one of the great princes of Chanaan, with great pomp. 9:38. And they remembered the blood of John, their brother: and they went up, and hid themselves under the covert of the mountain. 9:39. And they lifted up their eyes, and saw: and behold a tumult, and great preparation: and the bridegroom came forth, and his friends, and his brethren to meet them with timbrels, and musical instruments and many weapons. 9:40. And they rose up against them from the place where they lay in ambush, and slew them, and there fell many wounded, and the rest fled into the mountains, and they took all their spoils: 9:41. And the marriage was turned into mourning, and the noise of their musical instruments into lamentation. 9:42. And they took revenge for the blood of their brother: and they returned to the bank of the Jordan. 9:43. And Bacchides heard it, and he came on the sabbath day even to the bank of the Jordan, with a great power. 9:44. And Jonathan said to his company: Let us arise, and fight against our enemies: for it is not now as yesterday, and the day before. 9:45. For behold the battle is before us, and the water of the Jordan on this side and on that side, and banks, and marshes, and woods: and there is no place for us to turn aside. 9:46. Now, therefore, cry ye to heaven, that ye may be delivered from the hand of your enemies. And they joined battle. 9:47. And Jonathan stretched forth his hand to strike Bacchides, but he turned away from him backwards. 9:48. And Jonathan, and they that were with him, leapt into the Jordan, and swam over the Jordan to them. 9:49. And there fell of Bacchides' side that day a thousand men: and they returned to Jerusalem, 9:50. And they built strong cities in Judea, the fortress that was in Jericho, and in Ammaus, and in Bethoron, and in Bethel, and Thamnata, and Phara, and Thopo, with high walls, and gates, and bars. 9:51. And he placed garrisons in them, that they might wage war against Israel: 9:52. And he fortified the city of Bethsura, and Gazara, and the castle, and set garrisons in them, and provisions of victuals: 9:53. And he took the sons of the chief men of the country for hostages, and put them in the castle in Jerusalem in custody. 9:54. Now in the year one hundred and fifty-three, the second month, Alcimus commanded the walls of the inner court of the sanctuary to be thrown down, and the works of the prophets to be destroyed: and he began to destroy. 9:55. At that time Alcimus was struck: and his works were hindered, and his mouth was stopped, and he was taken with a palsy, so that he could no more speak a word, nor give order concerning his house. 9:56. And Alcimus died at that time in great torment. 9:57. And Bacchides saw that Alcimus was dead: and he returned to the king, and the land was quiet for two years. 9:58. And all the wicked held a council, saying: Behold Jonathan, and they that are with him, dwell at ease and without fear: now, therefore, let us bring Bacchides hither, and he shall take them all in one night. 9:59. So they went, and gave him counsel. 9:60. And he arose to come with a great army: and he sent secretly letters to his adherents that were in Judea to seize upon Jonathan, and them that were with him: but they could not, for their design was known to them. 9:61. And he apprehended of the men of the country, that were the principal authors of the mischief, fifty men, and he slew them. 9:62. And Jonathan, and Simon, and they that were with him, retired into Bethbessen, which is in the desert: and he repaired the breaches thereof, and they fortified it. 9:63. And when Bacchides knew it, he gathered together all his multitude: and sent word to them that were of Judea. 9:64. And he came, and camped above Bethbessen, and fought against it many days, and made engines. 9:65. But Jonathan left his brother, Simon, in the city and went forth into the country, and came with a number of men, 9:66. And struck Odares, and his brethren, and the children of Phaseron, in their tents, and he began to slay, and to increase in forces. 9:67. But Simon, and they that were with him, sallied out of the city, and burnt the engines, 9:68. And they fought against Bacchides, and he was discomfited by them: and they afflicted him exceedingly, for his counsel, and his enterprise was in vain. 9:69. And he was angry with the wicked men that had given him counsel to come into their country, and he slew many of them: and he purposed to return with the rest into their country. 9:70. And Jonathan had knowledge of it, and he sent ambassadors to him to make peace with him, and to restore to him the prisoners. 9:71. And he accepted it willingly, and did according to his words, and swore that he would do him no harm all the days of his life. 9:72. And he restored to him the prisoners which he before had taken out of the land of Juda: and he returned, and went away into his own country, and he came no more into their borders. 9:73. So the sword ceased from Israel: and Jonathan dwelt in Machmas, and Jonathan began there to judge the people, and he destroyed the wicked out of Israel. 1 Machabees Chapter 10 Alexander Bales sets himself up for king: both he and Demetrius seek to make Jonathan their friend. Alexander kills Demetrius in battle, and honours Jonathan. His victory over Apollonius. 10:1. Now in the hundred and sixtieth year, Alexander, the son of Antiochus, surnamed the Illustrious, came up and took Ptolemais, and they received him, and he reigned there. 10:2. And king Demetrius heard of it, and gathered together an exceeding great army, and went forth against him to fight. 10:3. And Demetrius sent a letter to Jonathan, with peaceable words, to magnify him. 10:4. For he said: Let us first make a peace with him, before he make one with Alexander against us. 10:5. For he will remember all the evils that we have done against him, and against his brother, and against his nation. 10:6. And he gave him authority to gather together a army, and to make arms, and that he should be his confederate: and the hostages that were in the castle, he commanded to be delivered to him. 10:7. And Jonathan came to Jerusalem, and read the letters in the hearing of all the people, and of them that were in the castle. 10:8. And they were struck with great fear, because they heard that the king had given him authority to gather together an army. 10:9. And the hostages were delivered to Jonathan, and he restored them to their parents. 10:10. And Jonathan dwelt in Jerusalem, and began to build, and to repair the city. 10:11. And he ordered workmen to build the walls, and mount Sion round about with square stones for fortification: and so they did. 10:12. Then the strangers that were in the strong holds, which Bacchides had built, fled away. 10:13. And every man left his place, and departed into his own country: 10:14. Only in Bethsura there remained some of them, that had forsaken the law, and the commandments of God: for this was a place of refuge for them. 10:15. And king Alexander heard of the promises that Demetrius had made Jonathan: and they told him of the battles, and the worthy acts that he and his brethren had done, and the labours that they had endured. 10:16. And he said: Shall we find such another man? now, therefore, we will make him our friend and our confederate. 10:17. So he wrote a letter, and sent it to him according to these words, saying: 10:18. King Alexander to his brother, Jonathan, greetings. 10:19. We have heard of thee, that thou art a man of great power, and fit to be our friend: 10:20. Now therefore, we make thee this day high priest of thy nation, and that thou be called the king's friend, (and he sent him a purple robe, and a crown of gold) and that thou be of one mind with us in our affairs, and keep friendship with us. 10:21. Then Jonathan put on the holy vestment in the seventh month, in the year one hundred and threescore, at the feast day of the tabernacles: and he gathered together an army, and made a great number of arms. 10:22. And Demetrius heard these words, and was exceeding sorry, and said: 10:23. What is this that we have done, that Alexander hath prevented us to gain the friendship of the Jews to strengthen himself? 10:24. I also will write to them words of request, and offer dignities, and gifts: that they may be with me to aid me. 10:25. And he wrote to them in these words: King Demetrius to the nation of the Jews, greeting. 10:26. Whereas you have kept covenant with us, and have continued in our friendship, and have not joined with our enemies, we have heard of it, and are glad. 10:27. Wherefore now continue still to keep fidelity towards us, and we will reward you with good things, for what you have done in our behalf. 10:28. And we will remit to you many charges, and will give you gifts. 10:29. And now I free you, and all the Jews, from tributes, and I release you from the customs of salt, and remit the crowns, and the thirds of the seed: 10:30. And the half of the fruit of trees, which is my share, I leave to you from this day forward, so that it shall not be taken of the land of Juda, and of the three cities that are added thereto out of Samaria and Galilee, from this day forth, and for ever: 10:31. And let Jerusalem be holy and free, with the borders thereof: and let the tenths, and tributes be for itself. 10:32. I yield up also the power of the castle that is in Jerusalem, and I give it to the high priest, to place therein such men as he shall choose, to keep it. 10:33. And every soul of the Jews that hath been carried captive from the land of Juda in all my kingdom, I set at liberty freely, that all be discharged from tributes, even of their cattle. 10:34. And I will that all the feasts, and the sabbaths, and the new moons, and the days appointed, and three days before the solemn day, and three days after the solemn day, be all days of immunity and freedom, for all the Jews that are in my kingdom: 10:35. And no man shall have power to do any thing against them, or to molest any of them, in any cause. 10:36. And let there be enrolled in the king's army to the number of thirty thousand of the Jews: and allowance shall be made them, as is due to all the king's forces and certain of them shall be appointed to be in the fortresses of the great king: 10:37. And some of them shall be set over the affairs of the kingdom, that are of trust, and let the governors be taken from among themselves, and let them walk in their own laws, as the king hath commanded in the land of Juda. 10:38. And the three cities that are added to Judea, out of the country of Samaria, let them be accounted with Judea: that they may be under one, and obey no other authority but that of the high priest: 10:39. Ptolemais and the confines thereof, I give as a free gift to the holy places that are in Jerusalem, for the necessary charges of the holy things. 10:40. And I give every year fifteen thousand sickles of silver out of the king's accounts, of what belongs to me: 10:41. And all that is above, which they that were over the affairs the years before, had not paid, from this time they shall give it to the works of the house. 10:42. Moreover, the five thousand sickles of silver, which they received from the account of the holy places, every year, shall also belong to the priests that execute the ministry. 10:43. And whosoever shall flee into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and in all the borders thereof, being indebted to the king for any matter, let them be set at liberty, and all that they have in my kingdom, let them have it free. 10:44. For the building also, or repairing the works of the holy places, the charges shall be given out of the king's revenues: 10:45. For the building also of the walls of Jerusalem, and the fortifying thereof round about, the charges shall be given out of the king's account, as also for the building of the walls in Judea. 10:46. Now when Jonathan and the people heard these words, they gave no credit to them, nor received them because they remembered the great evil that he had done in Israel, for he had afflicted them exceedingly. 10:47. And their inclinations were towards Alexander, because he had been the chief promoter of peace in their regard, and him they always helped. 10:48. And king Alexander gathered together a great army, and moved his camp near to Demetrius. 10:49. And the two kings joined battle, and the army of Demetrius fled away, and Alexander pursued after him, and pressed them close. 10:50. And the battle was hard fought, till the sun went down: and Demetrius was slain that day. 10:51. And Alexander sent ambassadors to Ptolemee king of Egypt, with words to this effect, saying: Ptolemee. . .Surnamed Philometer. 10:52. Forasmuch as I am returned into my kingdom and am set in the throne of my ancestors, and have gotten the dominion, and have overthrown Demetrius and possessed our country, 10:53. And have joined battle with him, and both he and his army have been destroyed by us, and we are placed in the throne of his kingdom: 10:54. Now, therefore, let us make friendship one with another: and give me now thy daughter to wife, and I will be thy son in law, and I will give both thee and her gifts worthy of thee. 10:55. And king Ptolomee answered, saying: Happy is the day wherein thou didst return to the land of thy fathers, and sattest in the throne of their kingdom. 10:56. And now I will do to thee as thou hast written but meet me at Ptolemais, that we may see one another, and I may give her to thee as thou hast said. 10:57. So Ptolemee went out of Egypt, with Cleopatra his daughter, and he came to Ptolemais, in the hundred and sixty-second year. 10:58. And king Alexander met him, and he gave him his daughter, Cleopatra: and he celebrated her marriage at Ptolemais with great glory, after the manner of kings. 10:59. And king Alexander wrote to Jonathan, that he should come and meet him. 10:60. And he went honourably to Ptolemais, and he met there the two kings, and he gave them much silver, and gold, and presents: and he found favour in their sight. 10:61. And some pestilent men of Israel, men of a wicked life, assembled themselves against him, to accuse him: and the king gave no heed to them. 10:62. And he commanded that Jonathan's garments should be taken off, and that he should be clothed with purple: and they did so. And the king made him sit by himself. 10:63. And he said to his princes: Go out with him into the midst of the city, and make proclamation, that no man complain against him of any matter, and that no man trouble him for any manner of cause. 10:64. So when his accusers saw his glory proclaimed, and him clothed with purple, they all fled away. 10:65. And the king magnified him, and enrolled him amongst his chief friends, and made him governor, and partaker of his dominion. 10:66. And Jonathan returned into Jerusalem with peace and joy. 10:67. In the year one hundred and sixty-five, Demetrius, the son of Demetrius, came from Crete into the land of his fathers. 10:68. And king Alexander heard of it, and was much troubled, and returned to Antioch. 10:69. And king Demetrius made Apollonius his general, who was governor of Celesyria: and he gathered together a great army, and came to Jamnia: and he sent to Jonathan, the high priest, 10:70. Saying: Thou alone standest against us, and I am laughed at and reproached, because thou shewest thy power against us in the mountains. 10:71. Now, therefore, if thou trustest in thy forces, come down to us into the plain, and there let us try one another: for with me is the strength of war. 10:72. Ask, and learn who I am, and the rest that help me, who also say that your foot cannot stand before our face, for thy fathers have twice been put to flight in their own land: 10:73. And now how wilt thou be able to abide the horsemen, and so great an army in the plain, where there is no stone, nor rock, nor place to flee to? 10:74. Now when Jonathan heard the words of Apollonius, he was moved in his mind: and he chose ten thousand men, and went out of Jerusalem, and Simon, his brother, met him to help him. 10:75. And they pitched their tents near Joppe, but they shut him out of the city: because a garrison of Apollonius was in Joppe, and he laid siege to it. 10:76. And they that were in the city being affrighted, opened the gates to him: so Jonathan took Joppe. 10:77. And Apollonius heard of it, and he took three thousand horsemen, and a great army. 10:78. And he went to Azotus, as one that was making a journey, and immediately he went forth into the plain: because he had a great number of horsemen, and he trusted in them. And Jonathan followed after him to Azotus, and they joined battle. 10:79. And Apollonius left privately in the camp a thousand horsemen behind them. 10:80. And Jonathan knew that there was an ambush behind him, and they surrounded his army, and cast darts at the people from morning till evening. 10:81. But the people stood still, as Jonathan had commanded them: and so their horses were fatigued. 10:82. Then Simon drew forth his army, and attacked the legion: for the horsemen were wearied: and they were discomfited by him, and fled. 10:83. And they that were scattered about the plain fled into Azotus, and went into Bethdagon, their idol's temple, there to save themselves. 10:84. But Jonathan set fire to Azotus, and the cities that were round about it, and took the spoils of them and the temple of Dagon: and all them that were fled into it, he burnt with fire. 10:85. So they that were slain by the sword, with them that were burnt, were almost eight thousand men. 10:86. And Jonathan, removed his army from thence and camped against Ascalon: and they went out of the city to meet him with great honour. 10:87. And Jonathan returned into Jerusalem with his people, having many spoils. 10:88. And it came to pass, when Alexander, the king heard these words, that he honoured Jonathan yet more. 10:89. And he sent him a buckle of gold, as the custom is, to be given to such as are of the royal blood. And he gave him Accaron, and all the borders thereof, in possession. 1 Machabees Chapter 11 Ptolemee invades the kingdom of Alexander: the latter is slain: and the former dies soon after. Demetrius honours Jonathan, and is rescued by the Jews from his own subjects in Antioch. Antiochus the younger favours Jonathan. His exploits in divers places. 11:1. And the king of Egypt gathered together an army, like the sand that lieth upon the sea shore, and many ships: and he sought to get the kingdom of Alexander by deceit, and join it to his own kingdom. 11:2. And he went out into Syria with peaceable words and they opened to him the cities, and met him: for king Alexander had ordered them to go forth to meet him, because he was his father in law. 11:3. Now when Ptolemee entered into the cities, he put garrisons of soldiers in every city. 11:4. And when he came near to Azotns, they shewed him the temple of Dagon that was burnt with fire, and Azotus, and the suburbs thereof, that were destroyed, and the bodies that were cast abroad, and the graves of them that were slain in the battle, which they had made near the way. 11:5. And they told the king that Jonathan had done these things, to make him odious: but the king held his peace. 11:6. And Jonathan came to meet the king at Joppe with glory, and they saluted one another, and they lodged there. 11:7. And Jonathan went with the king as far as the river, called Eleutherus: and he returned into Jerusalem. 11:8. And king Ptolemee got the dominion of the cities by the sea side, even to Seleucia, and he devised evil designs against Alexander. 11:9. And he sent ambassadors to Demetrius, saying: Come, let us make a league between us, and I will give thee my daughter whom Alexander hath, and thou shalt reign in the kingdom of thy father. 11:10. For I repent that I have given him my daughter: for he hath sought to kill me. 11:11. And he slandered him, because he coveted his kingdom, 11:12. And he took away his daughter, and gave her to Demetrius, and alienated himself from Alexander, and his enmities were made manifest. 11:13. And Ptolemee entered into Antioch, and set two crowns upon his head, that of Egypt, and that of Asia. 11:14. Now king Alexander was in Cilicia at that time: because they that were in those places had rebelled. 11:15. And when Alexander heard of it, he came to give him battle: and king Ptolemee brought forth his army, and met him with a strong power, and put him to flight. 11:16. And Alexander fled into Arabia, there to be protected: and king Ptolemee was exalted. 11:17. And Zabdiel the Arabian took off Alexander's head, and sent it to Ptolemee. 11:18. And king Ptolemee died the third day after: and they that were in the strong holds were destroyed by them that were within the camp. 11:19. And Demetrius reigned in the hundred and sixty-seventh year. 11:20. In those days Jonathan gathered together them that were in Judea, to take the castle that was in Jerusalem: and they made many engines of war against it. 11:21. Then some wicked men that hated their own nation, went away to king Demetrius, and told him that Jonathan was besieging the castle. 11:22. And when he heard it, he was angry: and forthwith he came to Ptolemais, and wrote to Jonathan that he should not besiege the castle, but should come to him in haste, and speak to him. 11:23. But when Jonathan heard this, he bade them besiege it still: and he chose some of the ancients of Israel, and of the priests, and put himself in danger 11:24. And he took gold, and silver, and raiment, and many other presents, and went to the king to Ptolemais and he found favour in his sight. 11:25. And certain wicked men of his nation made complaints against him. 11:26. And the king treated him as his predecessors had done before: and he exalted him in the sight of all his friends. 11:27. And he confirmed him in the high priesthood and all the honours he had before, and he made him the chief of his friends. 11:28. And Jonathan requested of the king that he would make Judea free from tribute, and the three governments, and Samaria, and the confines thereof: and he promised him three hundred talents. 11:29. And the king consented: and he wrote letters to Jonathan of all these things, to this effect. 11:30. King Demetrius to his brother, Jonathan, and to the nation of the Jews, greeting. 11:31. We send you here a copy of the letter which we have written to Lasthenes, our parent, concerning you, that you might know it. 11:32. King Demetrius to Lasthenes, his parent, greetings. 11:33. We have determined to do good to the nation of the Jews, who are our friends, and keep the things that are just with us, for their good will which they bear towards us. 11:34. We have ratified, therefore, unto them all the borders of Judea, and the three cities, Apherema, Lydda, and Ramatha, which are added to Judea, out of Samaria, and all their confines, to be set apart to all them that sacrifice in Jerusalem, instead of the payments which the king received of them every year, and for the fruits of the land, and of the trees. Apherema. . .is found only in the Greek version. 11:35. And as for other things that belonged to us of the tithes, and of the tributes, from this time we discharge them of them: the saltpans also, and the crowns that were presented to us. 11:36. We give all to them, and nothing hereof shall be revoked from this time forth and for ever. 11:37. Now, therefore, see that thou make a copy of these things, and let it be given to Jonathan, and set upon the holy mountain, in a conspicuous place. 11:38. And king Demetrius, seeing that the land was quiet before him, and nothing resisted him, sent away all his forces, every man to his own place, except the foreign army, which he had drawn together from the islands of the nations: so all the troops of his fathers hated him. 11:39. Now there was one Tryphon who had been of Alexander's party before: who seeing that all the army murmured against Demetrius, went to Emalchuel, the Arabian, who brought up Antiochus, the son of Alexander: 11:40. And he pressed him much to deliver him to him, that he might be king in his father's place: and he told him all that Demetrius had done, and how his soldiers hated him. And he remained there many days. 11:41. And Jonathan sent to king Demetrius, desiring that he would cast out them that were in the castle in Jerusalem, and those that were in the strong holds: because they fought against Israel. 11:42. And Demetrius sent to Jonathan, saying: I will not only do this for thee, and for thy people, but I will greatly honour thee, and thy nation, when opportunity shall serve. 11:43. Now, therefore, thou shalt do well if thou send me men to help me: for all my army is gone from me. 11:44. And Jonathan sent him three thousand valiant men to Antioch: and they came to the king, and the king was very glad of their coming. 11:45. And they that were of the city assembled themselves together, to the number of a hundred and twenty thousand men, and would have killed the king. 11:46. And the king fled into the palace: and they of the city kept the passages of the city, and began to fight. 11:47. And the king called the Jews to his assistance: and they came to him all at once, and they all dispersed themselves through the city. 11:48. And they slew in that day a hundred thousand men, and they set fire to the city, and got many spoils that day, and delivered the king. 11:49. And they that were of the city saw that the Jews had got the city as they would: and they were discouraged in their mind, and cried to the king, making supplication, and saying 1:50. Grant us peace, and let the Jews cease from assaulting us, and the city. 11:51. And they threw down their arms, and made peace, and the Jews were glorified in the sight of the king, and in the sight of all that were in his realm, and were renowned throughout the kingdom, and returned to Jerusalem with many spoils. 11:52. So king Demetrius sat in the throne of his kingdom: and the land was quiet before him. 11:53. And he falsified all whatsoever he had said, and alienated himself from Jonathan, and did not reward him according to the benefits he had received from him, but gave him great trouble. 11:54. And after this Tryphon returned, and with him Antiochus, the young boy, who was made king, and put on the diadem. 11:55. And there assembled unto him all the hands which Demetrius had sent away, and they fought against Demetrius who turned his back and fled. 11:56. And Tryphon took the elephants, and made himself master of Antioch. 11:57. And young Antiochus wrote to Jonathan, saying: I confirm thee in the high priesthood, and I appoint thee ruler over the four cities, and to be one of the king's friends. 11:58. And he sent him vessels of gold for his service, and he gave him leave to drink in gold, and to be clothed in purple, and to wear a golden buckle: 11:59. And he made his brother, Simon, governor, from the borders of Tyre even to the confines of Egypt. 11:60. Then Jonathan went forth, and passed through the cities beyond the river, and all the forces of Syria gathered themselves to him to help him, and he came to Ascalon, and they met him honourably out of the city. 11:61. And he went from thence to Gaza: and they that were in Gaza shut him out: and he besieged it, and burnt all the suburbs round about, and took the spoils. 11:62. And the men of Gaza made supplication to Jonathan, and he gave them the right hand: and he took their sons for hostages, and sent them to Jerusalem: and he went through the country, as far as Damascus. 11:63. And Jonathan heard that the generals of Demetrius were come treacherously to Cades, which is in Galilee, with a great army, purposing to remove him from the affairs of the kingdom. 11:64. And he went against them: but left his brother, Simon, in the country. 11:65. And Simon encamped against Bethsura, and assaulted it many days, and shut them up. 11:66. And they desired him to make peace, and he granted it them: and he cast them out from thence, and took the city, and placed a garrison in it. 11:67. And Jonathan and his army encamped by the water of Genesar, and before it was light they were ready in the plain of Asor. 11:68. And behold the army of the strangers met him in the plain, and they laid an ambush for him in the mountains: but he went out against them. 11:69. And they that lay in ambush rose out of their places, and joined battle. 11:70. And all that were on Jonathan's side fled, and none was left of them, but Mathathias, the son of Absalom, and Judas, the son of Calphi, chief captain of the army. 11:71. And Jonathan rent his garments, and cast earth upon his head, and prayed. 11:72. And Jonathan turned again to them to battle, and he put them to flight, and they fought. 11:73. And they of his part that fled saw this, and they turned again to him, and they all with him pursued the enemies, even to Cades, to their own camp, and they came even thither. 11:74. And there fell of the aliens in that day three thousand men: and Jonathan returned to Jerusalem. 1 Machabees Chapter 12 Jonathan renews his league with the Romans and Lacedemonians. The forces of Demetrius flee away from him. He is deceived and made prisoner by Tryphon. 12:1. And Jonathan saw that the time served him, and he chose certain men, and sent them to Rome, to confirm and to renew the amity with them: 12:2. And he sent letters to the Spartans, and to other places, according to the same form. 12:3. And they went to Rome, and entered into the senate house, and said: Jonathan, the high priest, and the nation of the Jews, have sent us to renew the amity, and alliance, as it was before. 12:4. And they gave them letters to their governors in every place, to conduct them into the land of Juda with peace. 12:5. And this is a copy of the letters which Jonathan wrote to the Spartans: 12:6. Jonathan, the high priest, and the ancients of the nation, and the priests, and the rest of the people of the Jews, to the Spartans, their brethren, greeting. 12:7. There were letters sent long ago to Onias the high priest, from Arius, who reigned then among you to signify that you are our brethren, as the copy here underwritten doth specify. 12:8. And Onias received the ambassador with honour and received the letters, wherein there was mention made of the alliance, and amity. 12:9. We, though we needed none of these things having for our comfort the holy books that are in our hands, 12:10. Chose rather to send to you to renew the brotherhood and friendship, lest we should become stranger to you altogether: for there is a long time passed since you sent to us. 12:11. We, therefore, at all times without ceasing, both in our festivals, and other days wherein it is convenient, remember you in the sacrifices that we offer, and in our observances, as it is meet and becoming to remember brethren. 12:12. And we rejoice at your glory. 12:13. But we have had many troubles and wars on every side; and the kings that are round about us have fought against us. 12:14. But we would not be troublesome to you, nor to the rest of our allies and friends, in these wars. 12:15. For we have had help from heaven, and we have been delivered, and our enemies are humbled. 12:16. We have chosen, therefore, Numenius the son of Antiochus, and Antipater, the son of Jason, and have sent them to the Romans, to renew with them the former amity and alliance. 12:17. And we have commanded them to go also to you, and salute you, and to deliver you our letters, concerning the renewing of our brotherhood. 12:18. And now you shall do well to give us an answer hereto. 12:19. And this is the copy of the letter which he had sent to Onias: 12:20. Arius, king of the Spartans, to Onias, the high priest, greeting. 12:21. It is found in writing concerning the Spartans, and the Jews, that they are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham. 12:22. And now since this is come to our knowledge, you do well to write to us of your prosperity. 12:23. And we also have written back to you, That our cattle, and our possessions, are yours: and yours, ours. We, therefore, have commanded that these things should be told you. 12:24. Now Jonathan heard that the generals of Demetrius were come again with a greater army than before to fight against him. 12:25. So he went out from Jerusalem, and met them in the land of Amath: for he gave them no time to enter into his country. 12:26. And he sent spies into their camp, and they came back, and brought him word that they designed to come upon them in the night. 12:27. And when the sun was set, Jonathan commanded his men to watch, and to be in arms all night long ready to fight, and he set sentinels round about the camp. 12:28. And the enemies heard that Jonathan and his men were ready for battle: and they were struck with fear and dread in their heart: and they kindled fires in their camp. 12:29. But Jonathan, and they that were with him, knew it not till the morning: for they saw the lights burning. 12:30. And Jonathan pursued after them, but overtook them not: for they had passed the river Eleutherus. 12:31. And Jonathan turned upon the Arabians, that are called Zabadeans: and he defeated them, and took the spoils of them. 12:32. And he went forward, and came to Damascus, and passed through all that country. 12:33. Simon also went forth, and came as far as Ascalon, and the neighbouring fortresses, and he turned aside to Joppe, and took possession of it, 12:34. (For he heard that they designed to deliver the hold to them that took part with Demetrius) and he put a garrison there to keep it. 12:35. And Jonathan came back, and called together the ancients of the people; and he took a resolution with them to build fortresses in Judea, 12:36. And to build up walls in Jerusalem, and raise a mount between the castle and the city, to separate it from the city, that so it might have no communication, and that they might neither buy nor sell. 12:37. And they came together to build up the city: for the wall that was upon the brook, towards the east, was broken down, and he repaired that which is called Caphetetha: 12:38. And Simon built Adiada in Sephela, and fortified it, and set up gates and bars. 12:39. Now when Tryphon had conceived a design to make himself king of Asia and to take the crown, and to stretch out his hand against king Antiochus: 12:40. Fearing lest Jonathan would not suffer him, but would fight against him: he sought to seize upon him, and to kill him. So he rose up and came to Bethsan. 12:41. And Jonathan went out to meet him with forty thousand men chosen for battle, and came to Bethsan. 12:42. Now when Tryphon saw that Jonathan came with a great army, he durst not stretch forth his hand against him. 12:43. But received him with honour, and commended him to all his friends, and gave him presents: and he commanded his troops to obey him, as himself. 12:44. And he said to Jonathan: Why hast thou troubled all the people, whereas we have no war? 12:45. Now, therefore, send them back to their own houses: and choose thee a few men that may be with thee, and come with me to Ptolemais, and I will deliver it to thee, and the rest of the strong holds, and the army, and all that have any charge, and I will return and go away: for this is the cause of my coming. 12:46. And Jonathan believed him, and did as he said: and sent away his army, and they departed into the land of Juda: 12:47. But he kept with him three thousand men: of whom he sent two thousand into Galilee, and one thousand went with him. 12:48. Now as soon as Jonathan entered into Ptolemais, they of Ptolemais shut the gates of the city, and took him: and all them that came in with him they slew with the sword. 12:49. Then Tryphon sent an army and horsemen into Galilee, and into the great plain, to destroy all Jonathan's company. 12:50. But they, when they understood that Jonathan, and all that were with him, were taken and slain, encouraged one another, and went out ready for battle. 12:51. Then they that had come after them, seeing that they stood for their lives, returned back. 12:52. Whereupon they all came peaceably into the land of Juda and they bewailed Jonathan, and them that had been with him, exceedingly: and Israel mourned with great lamentation. 12:53. Then all the heathens that were round about them, sought to destroy them. For they said: 12:54. They have no prince, nor any to help them: now therefore, let us make war upon them, and take away the memory of them from amongst men. 1 Machabees Chapter 13 Simon is made captain general in the room of his brother. Jonathan is slain by Tryphon. Simon is favoured by Demetrius: he taketh Gaza, and the castle of Jerusalem. 13:1. Now Simon heard that Tryphon was gathering together a very great army to invade the land of Juda, and to destroy it. 13:2. And seeing that the people was in dread and in fear, he went up to Jerusalem, and assembled the people, 13:3. And exhorted them, saying: You know what great battles I and my brethren, and the house of my father, have fought for the laws, and the sanctuary, and the distresses that we have seen: 13:4. By reason whereof all my brethren have lost their lives for Israel's sake, and I am left alone. 13:5. And now far be it from me to spare my life in any time of trouble: for I am not better than my brethren. 13:6. I will avenge then my nation and the sanctuary, and our children, and wives: for all the heathens are gathered together to destroy us out of mere malice. 13:7. And the spirit of the people was enkindled as soon as they heard these words: 13:8. And they answered with a loud voice, saying: Thou art our leader in the place of Judas, and Jonathan, thy brother: 13:9. Fight thou our battles, and we will do whatsoever thou shalt say to us. 13:10. So gathering together all the men of war, he made haste to finish all the walls of Jerusalem, and he fortified it round about. 13:11. And he sent Jonathan, the son of Absalom, and with him a new army, into Joppe, and he cast out them that were in it, and himself remained there. 13:12. And Tryphon removed from Ptolemais with a great army, to invade the land of Juda, and Jonathan was with him in custody. 13:13. But Simon pitched in Addus, over against the plain. 13:14. And when Tryphon understood that Simon was risen up in the place of his brother, Jonathan, and that he meant to join battle with him, he sent messengers to him, 13:15. Saying: We have detained thy brother, Jonathan, for the money that he owed in the king's account, by reason of the affairs which he had the management of. 13:16. But now send a hundred talents of silver, and his two sons for hostages, that when he is set at liberty he may not revolt from us, and we will release him. 13:17. Now Simon knew that he spoke deceitfully to him; nevertheless, he ordered the money and the children to be sent, lest he should bring upon himself a great hatred of the people of Israel, who might have said: 13:18. Because he sent not the money and the children therefore is he lost. 13:19. So he sent the children and the hundred talents and he lied, and did not let Jonathan go. 13:20. And after this, Tryphon entered within the country, to destroy it: and they went about by the way that leadeth to Ador: and Simon and his army marched to every place whithersoever they went. Simon and his army marched to every place whithersoever they went. . .That is, whithersoever Tryphon and his horsemen went in order to oppose them. 13:21. And they that were in the castle, sent messengers to Tryphon, that he should make haste to come through the desert, and send them victuals. 13:22. And Tryphon made ready all his horsemen to come that night; but there fell a very great snow, and he came not into the country of Galaad. 13:23. And when he approached to Bascama, he slew Jonathan and his sons there. 13:24. And Tryphon returned, and went into his own country. 13:25. And Simon sent, and took the bones of Jonathan, his brother, and buried them in Modin, the city of his fathers. 13:26. And all Israel bewailed him with great lamentation: and they mourned for him many days. 13:27. And Simon built over the sepulchre of his father and of his brethren, a building lofty to the sight, of polished stone, behind and before: 13:28. And he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father, and his mother, and his four brethren: 13:29. And round about these he set great pillars; and upon the pillars, arms, for a perpetual memory; and by the arms, ships carved, which might be seen by all that sailed on the sea. 13:30. This is the sepulchre that he made in Modin, even unto this day. 13:31. But Tryphon, when he was upon a journey with the young king, Antiochus, treacherously slew him. 13:32. And he reigned in his place, and put on the crown of Asia: and brought great evils upon the land. 13:33. And Simon built up the strong holds of Judea, fortifying them with high towers, and great walls, and gates and bars: and he stored up victuals in the fortresses. 13:34. And Simon chose men, and sent to king Demetrius, to the end that he should grant an immunity to the land; for all that Tryphon did, was to spoil. 13:35. And king Demetrius, in answer to this request, wrote a letter in this manner: 13:36. King Demetrius to Simon, the high priest, and friend of kings, and to the ancients, and to the nation of the Jews, greeting: 13:37. The golden crown, and the palm, which you sent, we have received: and we are ready to make a firm peace with you, and to write to the king's chief officers to release you the things that we have released. 13:38. For all that we have decreed in your favour shall stand in force. The strong holds that you have built, shall be your own. 13:39. And as for any oversight or fault committed unto this day, we forgive it: and the crown which you owed: and if any other thing were taxed in Jerusalem, now let it not be taxed. 13:40. And if any of you be fit to be enrolled among ours, let them be enrolled, and let there be peace between us. 13:41. In the year one hundred and seventy, the yoke of the Gentiles was taken off from Israel. 13:42. And the people of Israel began to write in the instruments, and public records, The first year under Simon, the high priest, the great captain, and prince of the Jews. 13:43. In those days Simon besieged Gaza, and camped round about it, and he made engines, and set them to the city, and he struck one tower, and took it. 13:44. And they that were within the engine leapt into the city: and there was a great uproar in the city. 13:45. And they that were in the city went up, with their wives and children, upon the wall, with their garments rent, and they cried with a loud voice, beseeching Simon to grant them peace. 13:46. And they said: Deal not with us according to our evil deeds, but according to thy mercy. 13:47. And Simon being moved, did not destroy them but yet he cast them out of the city, and cleansed the houses wherein there had been idols, and then he entered into it with hymns, blessing the Lord: 13:48. And having cast out of it all uncleanness, he placed in it men that should observe the law: and he fortified it, and made it his habitation. 13:49. But they that were in the castle of Jerusalem were hindered from going out and coming into the country, and from buying and selling: and they were straitened with hunger, and many of them perished through famine. 13:50. And they cried to Simon for peace, and he granted it to them: and he cast them out from thence and cleansed the castle from uncleannesses. 13:51. And they entered into it the three and twentieth day of the second month, in the year one hundred and seventy-one, with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and harps, and cymbals, and psalteries, and hymns, and canticles, because the great enemy was destroyed out of Israel. 13:52. And he ordained that these days should be kept every year with gladness. 13:53. And he fortified the mountain of the temple that was near the castle, and he dwelt there himself, and they that were with him. 13:54. And Simon saw that John, his son, was a valiant man for war: and he made him captain of all the forces: and he dwelt in Gazara. 1 Machabees Chapter 14 Demetrius is taken by the king of Persia. Judea flourishes under the government of Simon. 14:1. In the year one hundred and seventy-two king Demetrius assembled his army, and went into Media to get him succours to fight against Tryphon. 14:2. And Arsaces, the king of Persia and Media, heard that Demetrius was entered within his borders, and he sent one of his princes to take him alive, and bring him to him. 14:3. And he went, and defeated the army of Demetrius: and took him, and brought him to Arsaces, and he put him into custody. 14:4. And all the land of Juda was at rest all the days of Simon, and he sought the good of his nation: and his power, and his glory pleased them well all his days. 14:5. And with all his glory he took Joppe for a haven, and made an entrance to the isles of the sea. 14:6. And he enlarged the bounds of his nation, and made himself master of the country. 14:7. And he gathered together a great number of captives, and had the dominion of Gazara, and of Bethsura, and of the castle: and took away all uncleanness out of it, and there was none that resisted him. 14:8. And every man tilled his land with peace, and the land of Juda yielded her increase, and the trees of the fields their fruit. 14:9. The ancient men sat all in the streets, and treated together of the good things of the land, and the young men put on them glory, and the robes of war. 14:10. And he provided victuals for the cities, and he appointed that they should be furnished with ammunition, so that the fame of his glory was renowned even to the end of the earth. 14:11. He made peace in the land, and Israel rejoiced with great joy. 14:12. And every man sat under his vine, and under his fig tree: and there was none to make them afraid. 14:13. There was none left in the land to fight against them: kings were discomfited in those days. 14:14. And he strengthened all those of his people that were brought low, and he sought the law, and took away every unjust and wicked man. 14:15. He glorified the sanctuary, and multiplied the vessels of the holy places. 14:16. And it was heard at Rome, and as far as Sparta, that Jonathan was dead: and they were very sorry. 14:17. But when they heard that Simon, his brother, was made high priest in his place, and was possessed of all the country, and the cities therein: 14:18. They wrote to him in tables of brass, to renew the friendship and alliance which they had made with Judas and with Jonathan, his brethren. 14:19. And they were read before the assembly in Jerusalem. And this is the copy of the letters that the Spartans sent. 14:20. The princes and the cities of the Spartans, to Simon, the high priest, and to the ancients, and the priests, and the rest of the people of the Jews, their brethren, greeting. 14:21. The ambassadors that were sent to our people, have told us of your glory, and honour, and joy: and we rejoiced at their coming. 14:22. And we registered what was said by them in the councils of the people, in this manner: Numenius, the son of Antiochus, and Antipater, the son of Jason, ambassadors of the Jews, came to us to renew the former friendship with us. 14:23. And it pleased the people to receive the men honourably, and to put a copy of their words in the public records, to be a memorial to the people of the Spartans. And we have written a copy of them to Simon, the high priest. 14:24. And after this Simon sent Numenius to Rome, with a great shield of gold, of the weight of a thousand pounds, to confirm the league with them. And when the people of Rome had heard 14:25. These words, they said: What thanks shall we give to Simon, and his sons: 14:26. For he hath restored his brethren, and hath driven away in fight the enemies of Israel from them: and they decreed him liberty, and registered it in tables of brass, and set it upon pillars in mount Sion. 14:27. And this is a copy of the writing. The eighteenth day of the month Elul, in the year one hundred and seventy-two, being the third year under Simon, the high priest, at Asaramel, 14:28. In a great assembly of the priests, and of the people, and the princes of the nation, and the ancients of the country, these things were notified: Forasmuch as there have often been wars in our country, 14:29. And Simon, the son of Mathathias, of the children of Jarib, and his brethren, have put themselves in danger, and resisted the enemies of their nation, for the maintenance of their holy places, and the law: and have raised their nation to great glory. 14:30. And Jonathan gathered together his nation, and was made their high priest, and he was laid to his people. 14:31. And their enemies desired to tread down and destroy their country, and to stretch forth their hands against their holy places. 14:32. Then Simon resisted and fought for his nation, and laid out much of his money, and armed the valiant men of his nation, and gave them wages. 14:33. And he fortified the cities of Judea and Bethsura that lieth in the borders of Judea, where the armour of the enemies was before: and he placed there a garrison of Jews. 14:34. And he fortified Joppe, which lieth by the sea: and Gazara, which bordereth upon Azotus, wherein the enemies dwelt before, and he placed Jews here: and furnished them with all things convenient for their reparation. 14:35. And the people seeing the acts of Simon, and to what glory he meant to bring his nation, made him their prince and high priest, because he had done all these things, and for the justice and faith which he kept to his nation, and for that he sought by all means to advance his people. 14:36. And in his days things prospered in his hands, so that the heathens were taken away out of their country, and they also that were in the city of David, in Jerusalem, in the castle, out of which they issued forth, and profaned all places round about the sanctuary, and did much evil to purity. 14:37. And he placed therein Jews for the defence of the country, and of the city, and he raised up the walls of Jerusalem. 14:38. And king Demetrius confirmed him in the high priesthood. 14:39. According to these things he made him his friend, and glorified him with great glory. 14:40. For he had heard that the Romans had called the Jews their friends, and confederates, and brethren, and that they had received Simon's ambassadors with honour: 14:41. And that the Jews, and their priests, had consented that he should be their prince and high priest for ever, till there should arise a faithful prophet: 14:42. And that he should be chief over them, and that he should have the charge of the sanctuary, and that he should appoint rulers over their works, and over the country, and over the armour, and over the strong holds; 14:43. And that he should have care of the holy places; and that he should be obeyed by all, and that all the writings in the country should be made in his name; and that he should be clothed with purple and gold: 14:44. And that it should not be lawful for any of the people, or of the priests, to disannul any of these things, or to gainsay his words, or to call together an assembly in the country without him: or to be clothed with purple, or to wear a buckle of gold. 14:45. And whosoever shall do otherwise, or shall make void any of these things, shall be punished. 14:46. And it pleased all the people to establish Simon, and to do according to these words. 14:47. And Simon accepted thereof, and was well pleased to execute the office of the high priesthood, and to be captain, and prince of the nation of the Jews, and of the priests, and to be chief over all. 14:48. And they commanded that this writing should be put in tables of brass, and that they should be set up within the compass of the sanctuary, in a conspicuous place: 14:49. And that a copy thereof should be put in the treasury, that Simon, and his sons, may have it. 1 Machabees Chapter 15 Antiochus son of Demetrius honours Simon. The Romans write to divers nations in favour of the Jews. Antiochus quarrels with Simon, and sends troops to annoy him. 15:1. And king Antiochus, the son of Demetrius, sent letters from the isles of the sea to Simon, the priest, and prince of the nation of the Jews, and to all the people: 15:2. And the contents were these: King Antiochus to Simon, the high priest, and to the nation of the Jews, greeting. 15:3. Forasmuch as certain pestilent men have usurped the kingdom of our fathers, and my purpose is to challenge the kingdom, and to restore it to its former estate; and I have chosen a great army, and have built ships of war. 15:4. And I design to go through the country, that I may take revenge of them that have destroyed our country, and that have made many cities desolate in my realm. 15:5. Now, therefore, I confirm unto thee all the oblations which all the kings before me remitted to thee, and what other gifts soever they remitted to thee: 15:6. And I give thee leave to coin thy own money in thy country: 15:7. And let Jerusalem be holy and free, and all the armour that hath been made, and the fortresses which thou hast built, and which thou keepest in thy hands, let them remain to thee. 15:8. And all that is due to the king, and what should be the king's hereafter, from this present and for ever, is forgiven thee. 15:9. And when we shall have recovered our kingdom, we will glorify thee, and thy nation, and the temple, with great glory, so that your glory shall be made manifest in all the earth. 15:10. In the year one hundred and seventy-four, Antiochus entered into the land of his fathers, and all the forces assembled to him, so that few were left with Tryphon. 15:11. And king Antiochus pursued after him, and he fled along by the sea coast and came to Dora. 15:12. For he perceived that evils were gathered together upon him, and his troops had forsaken him. 15:13. And Antiochus camped above Dora with a hundred and twenty thousand men of war, and eight thousand horsemen: 15:14. And he invested the city, and the ships drew near by sea: and they annoyed the city by land, and by sea, and suffered none to come in, or to go out. 15:15. And Numenius, and they that had been with him, came from the city of Rome, having letters written to the kings, and countries, the contents whereof were these: 15:16. Lucius, the consul of the Romans, to king Ptolemee, greeting. Ptolemee. . .Surnamed Physeon, brother and successor to Philometer. 15:17. The ambassadors of the Jews, our friends, came to us, to renew the former friendship and alliance, being sent from Simon, the high priest, and the people of the Jews. 15:18. And they brought also a shield of gold of a thousand pounds. 15:19. It hath seemed good therefore to us, to write to the kings and countries, that they should do them no harm, nor fight against them, their cities, or countries: and that they should give no aid to them that fight against them. 15:20. And it hath seemed good to us to receive the shield of them. 15:21. If, therefore, any pestilent men are fled out of their country to you, deliver them to Simon, the high priest, that he may punish them according to their law. 15:22. These same things were written to king Demetrius, and to Attalus, and to Ariarathes, and to Arsaces, Attalus, etc. . .Attalus was king of Pergamus; Ariarathes was king of Cappadocia; and Arsaces was king of the Parthians. 15:23. And to all the countries: and to Lampsacus and to the Spartans, and to Delus, and Myndus, and Sicyon, and Caria, and Samus, and Pamphylia, and Lycia, and Alicarnassus, and Cos, and Side, and Aradus, and Rhodes, and Phaselis, and Gortyna, and Gnidus, and Cyprus, and Cyrene. 15:24. And they wrote a copy thereof to Simon, the high priest, and to the people of the Jews. 15:25. But king Antiochus moved his camp to Dora the second time, assaulting it continually, and making engines: and he shut up Tryphon, that he could not go out. 15:26. And Simon sent to him two thousand chosen men to aid him, silver also, and gold, and abundance of furniture. 15:27. And he would not receive them, but broke all the covenant that he had made with him before, and alienated himself from him. 15:28. And he sent to him Athenobius, one of his friends, to treat with him, saying: You hold Joppe and Gazara, and the castle that is in Jerusalem, which are cities of my kingdom: 15:29. Their borders you have wasted, and you have made great havoc in the land, and have got the dominion of many places in my kingdom. 15:30. Now, therefore, deliver up the cities that you have taken, and the tributes of the places whereof you have gotten the dominion without the borders of Judea. 15:31. But if not, give me for them five hundred talents of silver, and for the havoc that you have made, and the tributes of the cities, other five hundred talents: or else we will come and fight against you. 15:32. So Athenobius, the king's friend came to Jerusalem, and saw the glory of Simon and his magnificence in gold, and silver, and his great equipage, and he was astonished, and told him the king's words. 15:33. And Simon answered him, and said to him: We have neither taken other men's land, neither do we hold that which is other men's, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was for some time unjustly possessed by our enemies. 15:34. But we having opportunity, claim the inheritance of our fathers. 15:35. And as to thy complaints concerning Joppe and Gazara, they did great harm to the people, and to our country: yet for these we will give a hundred talents. And Athenobius answered him not a word. 15:36. But returning in a rage to the king, made report to him of these words, and of the glory of Simon, and of all that he had seen, and the king was exceeding angry. 15:37. And Tryphon fled away by ship to Orthosias. 15:38. And the king appointed Cendebeus captain of the sea coast, and gave him an army of footmen and horsemen. 15:39. And he commanded him to march with his army towards Judea: and he commanded him to build up Gedor, and to fortify the gates of the city, and to war against the people. But the king himself pursued after Tryphon. 15:40. And Cendebeus came to Jamnia, and began to provoke the people, and to ravage Judea, and to take the people prisoners, and to kill, and to build Gedor. 15:41. And he placed there horsemen, and an army: that they might issue forth, and make incursions upon the ways of Judea, as the king had commanded him. 1 Machabees Chapter 16 The sons of Simon defeat the troops of Antiochus. Simon with two of his sons are treacherously murdered by Ptolemee his son in law. 16:1. Then John came up from Gazara, and told Simon, his father, what Cendebeus had done against their people. John. . .He was afterwards surnamed Hircanus, and succeeded his father in both his dignities of high priest and prince. He conquered the Edomites, and obliged them to a conformity with the Jews in religion; and destroyed the schismatical temple of the Samaritans. 16:2. And Simon called his two eldest sons, Judas and John, and said to them: I and my brethren, and my father's house, have fought against the enemies of Israel from our youth even to this day: and things have prospered so well in our hands, that we have delivered Israel oftentimes. 16:3. And now I am old, but be you instead of me, and my brethren, and go out, and fight for our nation: and the help from heaven be with you. 16:4. Then he chose out of the country twenty thousand fighting men, and horsemen, and they went forth against Cendebeus: and they rested in Modin. 16:5. And they arose in the morning, and went into the plain: and behold a very great army of footmen and horsemen came against them, and there was a running river between them. 16:6. And he and his people pitched their camp over against them, and he saw that the people were afraid to go over the river, so he went over first: then the men seeing him, passed over after him. He. . .Viz., John. 16:7. And he divided the people, and set the horsemen in the midst of the footmen: but the horsemen of the enemies were very numerous. 16:8. And they sounded the holy trumpets: and Cendebeus and his army were put to flight: and there fell many of them wounded, and the rest fled into the strong hold. 16:9. At that time, Judas, John's brother, was wounded: but John pursued after them, till he came to Cedron, which he had built: Cedron. . .Otherwise called Gedon, the city that Cendebeus was fortifying. 16:10. And they fled even to the towers that were in the fields of Azotus, and he burnt them with fire. And there fell of them two thousand men, and he returned into Judea in peace. 16:11. Now Ptolemee, the son of Abobus, was appointed captain in the plain of Jericho, and he had abundance of silver and gold. 16:12. For he was son in law of the high priest. 16:13. And his heart was lifted up, and he designed to make himself master of the country, and he purposed treachery against Simon and his sons, to destroy them. 16:14. Now Simon, as he was going through the cities that were in the country of Judea, and taking care for the good ordering of them, went down to Jericho, he and Mathathias and Judas, his sons, in the year one hundred and seventy-seven, the eleventh month: the same is the month Sabath. 16:15. And the son of Abobus received them deceitfully into a little fortress, that is called Doch, which he had built: and he made them a great feast, and hid men there. 16:16. And when Simon and his sons had drunk plentifully, Ptolemee and his men rose up, and took their weapons, and entered into the banqueting place, and slew him, and his two sons, and some of his servants. 16:17. And he committed a great treachery in Israel, and rendered evil for good. 16:18. And Ptolemee wrote these things, and sent to the king that he should send him an army to aid him, and he would deliver him the country, and their cities, and tributes. 16:19. And he sent others to Gazara to kill John: and to the tribunes he sent letters to come to him, and that he would give them silver, and gold, and gifts. 16:20. And he sent others to take Jerusalem, and the mountain of the temple. 16:21. Now one running before, told John in Gazara, that his father and his brethren were slain, and that he hath sent men to kill thee also. 16:22. But when he heard it, he was exceedingly afraid: and he apprehended the men that came to kill him, and he put them to death: for he knew that they sought to make him away. 16:23. And as concerning the rest of the acts of John, and his wars, and the worthy deeds, which he bravely achieved, and the building of the walls, which he made, and the things that he did: 16:24. Behold, these are written in the book of the days of his priesthood, from the time that he was made high priest after his father. THE SECOND BOOK OF MACHABEES This second book of MACHABEES is not a continuation of the history contained in the first: nor does is come down so low as the first does: but relates many of the same facts more at large, and adds other remarkable particulars, omitted in the first book, relating to the state of the Jews, as well before as under the persecution of ANTIOCHUS. The author, who is not the same with that of the first book, has given (as we learn from chap. 2.20, etc.) a short abstract of what JASON of Cyrene had written in the five volumes, concerning JUDAS and his brethren. He wrote in Greek, and begins with two letters, sent by the Jews of Jerusalem to their brethren in Egypt. 2 Machabees Chapter 1 Letters of the Jews of Jerusalem to them that were in Egypt. They give thanks for their delivery from Antiochus: and exhort their brethren to keep the feast of the dedication of the altar, and of the miraculous fire. 1:1. To the brethren, the Jews that are throughout Egypt; the brethren, the Jews that are in Jerusalem, and in the land of Judea, send health and good peace. 1:2. May God be gracious to you, and remember his covenant that he made with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, his faithful servants: 1:3. And give you all a heart to worship him, and to do his will with a great heart, and a willing mind. 1:4. May he open your heart in his law, and in his commandments, and send you peace. 1:5. May he hear your prayers, and be reconciled unto you, and never forsake you in the evil time. 1:6. And now here we are praying for you. 1:7. When Demetrius reigned, in the year one hundred and sixty-nine, we Jews wrote to you in the trouble and violence that came upon us in those years, after Jason withdrew himself from the holy land, and from the kingdom. 1:8. They burnt the gate, and shed innocent blood: then we prayed to the Lord, and were heard, and we offered sacrifices, and fine flour, and lighted the lamps, and set forth the loaves. 1:9. And now celebrate ye the days of Scenopegia in the month of Casleu. Scenopegia. . .Viz., the Encenia, or feast of the dedication of the altar, called here Scenopegia, or feast of tabernacles, from being celebrated with the like solemnity. 1:10. In the year one hundred and eighty-eight, the people that is at Jerusalem, and in Judea, and the senate, and Judas, to Aristobolus, the preceptor of king Ptolemee, who is of the stock of the anointed priests, and to the Jews that are in Egypt, health and welfare. 1:11. Having been delivered by God out of great dangers, we give him great thanks, forasmuch as we have been in war with such a king. Such a king. . .Viz., Antiochus Sidetes, who began to make war upon the Jews, whilst Simon was yet alive. 1 Mac. 15.39. And afterwards besieged Jerusalem under John Hircanus. So that the Judas here mentioned, ver. 10, is not Judas Machabeus, who was dead long before the year 188 of the kingdom of the Greeks, for he died in the year 146 of that epoch, (see above 1 Mac. chap. 2., ver. 70, also the note on chap. 1, ver. 2,) but either Judas the eldest son of John Hircanus, or Judas the Essene, renowned for the gift of prophecy, who flourished about that time. 1:12. For he made numbers of men swarm out of Persia, that have fought against us, and the holy city. 1:13. For when the leader himself was in Persia, and with him a very great army, he fell in the temple of Nanea, being deceived by the counsel of the priests of Nanea. Nanea. . .A Persian goddess, which some have taken for Diana, others for Venus. 1:14. For Antiochus, with his friends, came to the place as though he would marry her, and that he might receive great sums of money under the title of a dowry. 1:15. And when the priests of Nanea had set it forth, and he with a small company had entered into the compass of the temple, they shut the temple, 1:16. When Antiochus was come in: and opening a secret entrance of the temple, they cast stones and slew the leader, and them that were with him, and hewed them in pieces; and cutting off their heads, they threw them forth. 1:17. Blessed be God in all things, who hath delivered up the wicked. 1:18. Therefore, whereas we purpose to keep the purification of the temple on the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu, we thought it necessary to signify it to you: that you also may keep the day of Scenopegia, and the day of the fire, that was given when Nehemias offered sacrifice, after the temple and the altar was built. 1:19. For when our fathers were led into Persia, the priests that then were worshippers of God, took privately the fire from the altar, and hid it in a valley where there was a deep pit without water, and there they kept it safe, so that the place was unknown to all men. Persia. . .Babylonia, called here Persia, from being afterwards a part of the Persian empire. 1:20. But when many years had passed, and it pleased God that Nehemias should be sent by the king of Persia, he sent some of the posterity of those priests that had hid it, to seek for the fire: and as they told us, they found no fire, but thick water. 1:21. Then he bade them draw it up, and bring it to him: and the priest, Nehemias, commanded the sacrifices that were laid on, to be sprinkled with the same water, both the wood, and the things that were laid upon it. 1:22. And when this was done, and the time came that the sun shone out, which before was in a cloud, there was a great fire kindled, so that all wondered. 1:23. And all the priests made prayer, while the sacrifice was consuming, Jonathan beginning, and the rest answering. 1:24. And the prayer of Nehemias was after this manner: O Lord God, Creator of all things, dreadful and strong, just and merciful, who alone art the good king, 1:25. Who alone art gracious, who alone art just, and almighty, and eternal, who deliverest Israel from all evil, who didst choose the fathers, and didst sanctify them: 1:26. Receive the sacrifice for all thy people Israel, and preserve thy own portion, and sanctify it. 1:27. Gather together our scattered people, deliver them that are slaves to the Gentiles, and look upon them that are despised and abhorred: that the Gentiles may know that thou art our God 1:28. Punish them that oppress us, and that treat us injuriously with pride. 1:29. Establish thy people in thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken. 1:30. And the priests sung hymns till the sacrifice was consumed. 1:31. And when the sacrifice was consumed, Nehemias commanded the water that was left to be poured out upon the great stones. 1:32. Which being done, there was kindled a flame from them: but it was consumed by the light that shined from the altar. 1:33. And when this matter became public, it was told to the king of Persia, that in the place where the priests that were led away, had hid the fire, there appeared water, with which Nehemias and they that were with him had purified the sacrifices. 1:34. And the king considering, and diligently examining the matter, made a temple for it, that he might prove what had happened. A temple. . .That is, an enclosure, or a wall round about the place where the fire was hid, to separate it from profane uses, to the end that it might be respected as a holy place. 1:35. And when he had proved it, he gave the priests many goods, and divers presents, and he took and distributed them to them with his own hand. 1:36. And Nehemias called this place Nephthar, which is interpreted purification. But many call it Nephi. 2 Machabees Chapter 2 A continuation of the second letter. Of Jeremias' hiding the ark at the time of the captivity. The author's preface. 2:1.Now it is found in the descriptions of Jeremias, the prophet, that he commanded them that went into captivity, to take the fire, as it hath been signified, and how he gave charge to them that were carried away into captivity. The descriptions. . .That is, the records or memoirs of Jeremias, a work that is now lost. 2:2. And how he gave them the law, that they should not forget the commandments of the Lord, and that they should not err in their minds, seeing the idols of gold, and silver, and the ornaments of them. 2:3. And with other such like speeches, he exhorted them that they would not remove the law from their heart. 2:4. It was also contained in the same writing, how the prophet, being warned by God, commanded that the tabernacle and the ark should accompany him, till he came forth to the mountain where Moses went up, and saw the inheritance of God. 2:5. And when Jeremias came thither he found a hollow cave: and he carried in thither the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. 2:6. Then some of them that followed him, came up to mark the place: but they could not find it. 2:7. And when Jeremias perceived it, he blamed them, saying: The place shall be unknown, till God gather together the congregation of the people, and receive them to mercy. 2:8. And then the Lord will shew these things, and the majesty of the Lord shall appear, and there shall be a cloud as it was also shewed to Moses, and he shewed it when Solomon prayed that the place might be sanctified to the great God. 2:9. For he treated wisdom in a magnificent manner: and like a wise man, he offered the sacrifice of the dedication, and of the finishing of the temple. 2:10. And as Moses prayed to the Lord, and fire came down from heaven, and consumed the holocaust: so Solomon also prayed, and fire came down from heaven and consumed the holocaust. 2:11. And Moses said: Because the sin offering was not eaten, it was consumed. 2:12. So Solomon also celebrated the dedication eight days. 2:13. And these same things were set down in the memoirs, and commentaries of Nehemias: and how he made a library, and gathered together out of the countries, the books both of the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the kings, and concerning the holy gifts. 2:14. And in like manner Judas also gathered together all such things as were lost by the war we had, and they are in our possession. 2:15. Wherefore, if you want these things, send some that may fetch them to you. 2:16. As we are then about to celebrate the purification, we have written unto you: and you shall do well, if you keep the same days. The purification. . .That is, the feast of the purifying or cleansing of the temple. 2:17. And we hope that God, who hath delivered his people, and hath rendered to all the inheritance, and the kingdom, and the priesthood, and the sanctuary, 2:18. As he promised in the law, will shortly have mercy upon us, and will gather us together from every land under heaven into the holy place. 2:19. For he hath delivered us out of great perils, and hath cleansed the place. 2:20. Now as concerning Judas Machabeus, and his brethren, and the purification of the great temple, and the dedication of the altar: 2:21. As also the wars against Antiochus, the Illustrious, and his son, Eupator: 2:22. And the manifestations that came from heaven to them, that behaved themselves manfully on the behalf of the Jews, so that, being but a few they made themselves masters of the whole country, and put to flight the barbarous multitude: 2:23. And recovered again the most renowned temple in all the world, and delivered the city, and restored the laws that were abolished, the Lord with all clemency shewing mercy to them. 2:24. And all such things as have been comprised in five books by Jason, of Cyrene, we have attempted to abridge in one book. 2:25. For considering the multitude of books, and the difficulty that they find that desire to undertake the narrations of histories, because of the multitude of the matter, 2:26. We have taken care for those indeed that are willing to read, that it might be a pleasure of mind: and for the studious, that they may more easily commit to memory: and that all that read might receive profit. 2:27. And as to ourselves indeed, in undertaking this work of abridging, we have taken in hand no easy task; yea, rather a business full of watching and sweat. No easy task, etc. . .The spirit of God, that assists the sacred penmen, does not exempt them from labour in seeking out the matter which they are to treat of, and the order and manner in which they are to deliver it. So St. Luke writ the gospel having diligently attained to all things. Luke 1. ver. 3. 2:28. But as they that prepare a feast, and seek to satisfy the will of others: for the sake of many, we willingly undergo the labour. 2:29. Leaving to the authors the exact handling of every particular, and as for ourselves, according to the plan proposed, studying to be brief. 2:30. For as the master builder of a new house must have care of the whole building: but he that taketh care to paint it, must seek out fit things for the adorning of it: so must it be judged of us. 2:31. For to collect all that is to be known, to put the discourse in order, and curiously to discuss every particular point, is the duty of the author of a history: 2:32. But to pursue brevity of speech, and to avoid nice declarations of things, is to be granted to him that maketh an abridgment. 2:33. Here then we will begin the narration: let this be enough by way of a preface: for it is a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and to be short in the story itself. 2 Machabees Chapter 3 Heliodorus is sent by king Seleucus to take away the treasures deposited in the temple. He is struck by God, and healed by the prayers of the high priest. 3:1. Therefore, when the holy city was inhabited with all peace, and the laws as yet were very well kept, because of the godliness of Onias, the high priest and the hatred his soul had of evil, 3:2. It came to pass that even the kings themselves and the princes esteemed the place worthy of the highest honour, and glorified the temple with very great gifts: 3:3. So that Seleucus, king of Asia, allowed out of his revenues all the charges belonging to the ministry of the sacrifices. Seleucus. . .Son of Antiochus the Great, and elder brother of Antiochus Epiphanes. 3:4. But one Simon, of the tribe of Benjamin, who was appointed overseer of the temple, strove in opposition to the high priest, to bring about some unjust thing in the city. 3:5. And when he could not overcome Onias, he went to Apollonius, the son of Tharseas, who at that time was governor of Celesyria, and Phenicia: 3:6. And told him, that the treasury in Jerusalem was full of immense sums of money, and the common store was infinite, which did not belong to the account of the sacrifices: and that it was possible to bring all into the king's hands. 3:7. Now when Apollonius had given the king notice concerning the money that he was told of, he called for Heliodorus, who had the charge over his affairs, and sent him with commission to bring him the foresaid money. 3:8. So Heliodorus forthwith began his journey, under a colour of visiting the cities of Celesyria and Phenicia, but indeed to fulfil the king's purpose. 3:9. And when he was come to Jerusalem, and had been courteously received in the city by the high priest, he told him what information had been given concerning the money: and declared the cause for which he was come: and asked if these things were so indeed. 3:10. Then the high priest told him that these were sums deposited, and provisions for the subsistence of the widows and the fatherless: 3:11. And that some part of that which wicked Simon had given intelligence of belonged to Hircanus, son of Tobias, a man of great dignity; and that the whole was four hundred talents of silver, and two hundred of gold. 3:12. But that to deceive them who had trusted to the place and temple which is honoured throughout the whole world, for the reverence and holiness of it, was a thing which could not by any means be done. 3:13. But he, by reason of the orders he had received from the king, said, that by all means the money must be carried to the king. 3:14. So on the day he had appointed, Heliodorus entered in to order this matter. But there was no small terror throughout the whole city. 3:15. And the priests prostrated themselves before the altar in their priests' vestments, and called upon him from heaven, who made the law concerning things given to be kept, that he would preserve them safe, for them that had deposited them. 3:16. Now whosoever saw the countenance of the high priest, was wounded in heart: for his face, and the changing of his colour, declared the inward sorrow of his mind. 3:17. For the man was so compassed with sadness and horror of the body, that it was manifest to them that beheld him, what sorrow he had in his heart. 3:18. Others also came flocking together out of their houses, praying and making public supplication, because the place was like to come into contempt. 3:19. And the women, girded with haircloth about their breasts, came together in the streets. And the virgins also that were shut up, came forth, some to Onias, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows. 3:20. And all holding up their hands towards heaven made supplication. 3:21. For the expectation of the mixed multitude, and of the high priest, who was in an agony, would have moved any one to pity. 3:22. And these indeed called upon almighty God, to preserve the things that had been committed to them safe and sure for those that had committed them. 3:23. But Heliodorus executed that which he had resolved on, himself being present in the same place with his guard about the treasury. 3:24. But the spirit of the Almighty God gave a great evidence of his presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread. 3:25. For there appeared to them a horse, with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armour of gold. 3:26. Moreover there appeared two other young men, beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. 3:27. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up, covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter, they carried him out. 3:28. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard, into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. 3:29. And he indeed, by the power of God, lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery. 3:30. But they praised the Lord, because he had glorified his place: and the temple, that a little before was full of fear and trouble, when the Almighty Lord appeared, was filled with joy and gladness. 3:31. Then some of the friends of Heliodorus forthwith begged of Onias, that he would call upon the Most High to grant him his life, who was ready to give up the ghost. 3:32. So the high priest, considering that the king might perhaps suspect that some mischief had been done to Heliodorus by the Jews, offered a sacrifice of health for the recovery of the man. 3:33. And when the high priest was praying, the same young men in the same clothing stood by Heliodorus, and said to him: Give thanks to Onias the priest: because for his sake the Lord hath granted thee life. 3:34. And thou having been scourged by God, declare unto all men the great works and the power of God. And having spoken thus, they appeared no more. 3:35. So Heliodorus, after he had offered a sacrifice to God, and made great vows to him, that had granted him life, and given thanks to Onias, taking his troops with him, returned to the king. 3:36. And he testified to all men the works of the great God, which he had seen with his own eyes. 3:37. And when the king asked Heliodorus, who might be a fit man to be sent yet once more to Jerusalem, he said: 3:38. If thou hast any enemy, or traitor to thy king dom, send him thither, and thou shalt receive him again scourged, if so be he escape: for there is undoubtedly in that place a certain power of God. 3:39. For he that hath his dwelling in the heavens, is the visitor and protector of that place, and he striketh and destroyeth them that come to do evil to it. 3:40. And the things concerning Heliodorus, and the keeping of the treasury, fell out in this manner. 2 Machabees Chapter 4 Onias has recourse to the king. The ambition and wickedness of Jason and Menelaus. Onias is treacherously murdered. 4:1. But Simon, of whom we spoke before, who was the betrayer of the money, and of his country, spoke ill of Onias, as though he had incited Heliodorus to do these things, and had been the promoter of evils: 4:2. And he presumed to call him a traitor to the kingdom, who provided for the city, and defended his nation, and was zealous for the law of God. 4:3. But when the enmities proceeded so far, that murders also were committed by some of Simon's friends: 4:4. Onias, considering the danger of this contention, and that Apollonius, who was the governor of Celesyia, and Phenicia, was outrageous, which increased the malice of Simon, went to the king, 4:5. Not to be an accuser of his countrymen, but with view to the common good of all the people. 4:6. For he saw that, except the king took care, it was impossible that matters should be settled in peace, or that Simon would cease from his folly. 4:7. But after the death of Seleucus, when Antiochus, who was called the Illustrious, had taken possession of the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias, ambitiously sought the high priesthood: 4:8. And went to the king, promising him three hundred and sixty talents of silver, and out of other revenues fourscore talents. 4:9. Besides this he promised also a hundred and fifty more, if he might have license to set him up a place for exercise, and a place for youth, and to entitle them that were at Jerusalem, Antiochians. 4:10. Which when the king had granted, and he had gotten the rule into his hands, forthwith he began to bring over his countrymen to the fashion of the heathens. 4:11. And abolishing those things, which had been decreed of special favour by the kings in behalf of the Jews, by the means of John, the father of that Eupolemus, who went ambassador to Rome to make amity and alliance, he disannulled the lawful ordinances of the citizens, and brought in fashions that were perverse. 4:12. For he had the boldness to set up, under the very castle, a place of exercise, and to put all the choicest youths in brothel houses. 4:13. Now this was not the beginning, but an increase, and progress of heathenish and foreign manners, through the abominable and unheard of wickedness of Jason, that impious wretch, and no priest. 4:14. Insomuch that the priests were not now occupied about the offices of the altar, but despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the games, and of the unlawful allowance thereof, and of the exercise of the discus. 4:15. And setting nought by the honours of their fathers, they esteemed the Grecian glories for the best: 4:16. For the sake of which they incurred a dangerous contention, and followed earnestly their ordinances, and in all things they coveted to be like them, who were their enemies and murderers. 4:17. For acting wickedly against the laws of God doth not pass unpunished: but this the time following will declare. 4:18. Now when the game that was used every fifth year was kept at Tyre, the king being present, 4:19. The wicked Jason sent from Jerusalem sinful men, to carry three hundred didrachmas of silver for the sacrifice of Hercules; but the bearers thereof desired it might not be bestowed on the sacrifices, because it was not necessary, but might be deputed for other charges. 4:20. So the money was appointed by him that sent it to the sacrifice of Hercules: but because of them that carried it was employed for the making of galleys. 4:21. Now when Apollonius, the son of Mnestheus was sent into Egypt to treat with the nobles of king Philometor, and Antiochus understood that he was wholly excluded from the affairs of the kingdom, consulting his own interest, he departed thence and came to Joppe, and from thence to Jerusalem. 4:22. Where he was received in a magnificent manner by Jason, and the city, and came in with torch lights, and with praises, and from thence he returned with his army into Phenicia. 4:23. Three years afterwards Jason sent Menelaus, brother of the aforesaid Simon, to carry money to the king, and to bring answers from him concerning certain necessary affairs. 4:24. But he being recommended to the king, when he had magnified the appearance of his power, got the high priesthood for himself, by offering more than Jason by three hundred talents of silver. 4:25. So having received the king's mandate, he returned, bringing nothing worthy of the high priesthood: but having the mind of a cruel tyrant, and the rage of a savage beast. 4:26. Then Jason, who had undermined his own brother, being himself undermined, was driven out a fugitive into the country of the Ammonites. 4:27. So Menelaus got the principality: but as for the money he had promised to the king, he took no care, when Sostratus, the governor of the castle, called for it. 4:28. For to him appertained the gathering of the taxes: wherefore they were both called before the king. 4:29. And Menelaus was removed from the priesthood, Lysimachus, his brother, succeeding: and Sostratus alas made governor of the Cyprians. 4:30. When these things were in doing, it fell out that they of Tharsus, and Mallos, raised a sedition, because they were given for a gift to Antiochus, the king's concubine. 4:31. The king, therefore, went in all haste to appease them, leaving Andronicus, one of his nobles, for his deputy. 4:32. Then Menelaus supposing that he had found a convenient time, having stolen certain vessels of gold out of the temple, gave them to Andronicus, and others he had sold at Tyre, and in the neighbouring cities: 4:33. Which when Onias understood most certainly, he reproved him, keeping himself in a safe place at Antioch, beside Daphne. 4:34. Whereupon Menelaus coming to Andronicus, desired him to kill Onias. And he went to Onias, and gave him his right hand with an oath, and (though he were suspected by him) persuaded him to come forth out of the sanctuary, and immediately slew him, without any regard to justice. 4:35. For which cause not only the Jews, but also the other nations, conceived indignation, and were much grieved for the unjust murder of so great a man. 4:36. And when the king was come back from the places of Cilicia, the Jews that were at Antioch, and also the Greeks, went to him: complaining of the unjust murder of Onias. 4:37. Antiochus, therefore, was grieved in his mind for Onias, and being moved to pity, shed tears, remembering the sobriety and modesty of the deceased. 4:38. And being inflamed to anger, he commanded Andronicus to be stripped of his purple, and to be led about through all the city: and that in the same place wherein he had committed the impiety against Onias, the sacrilegious wretch should be put to death, the Lord repaying him his deserved punishment. 4:39. Now when many sacrileges had been committed by Lysimachus in the temple, by the counsel of Menelaus, and the rumour of it was spread abroad, the multitude gathered themselves together against Lysimachus, a great quantity of gold being already carried away. 4:40. Wherefore the multitude making an insurrection, and their minds being filled with anger, Lysimachus armed about three thousand men, and began to use violence, one Tyrannus being captain, a man far gone both in age and in madness. 4:41. But when they perceived the attempt of Lysimachus, some caught up stones, some strong clubs, and some threw ashes upon Lysimachus. 4:42. And many of them were wounded, and some struck down to the ground, but all were put to flight: and as for the sacrilegious fellow himself, they slew him beside the treasury. 4:43. Now concerning these matters, an accusation was laid against Menelaus. 4:44. And when the king was come to Tyre, three men were sent from the ancients to plead the cause before him. 4:45. But Menelaus being convicted, promised Ptolemee to give him much money to persuade the king to favour him. Ptolemee. . .The son of Dorymenus, a favourite of the king. 4:46. So Ptolemee went to the king in a certain court where he was, as it were to cool himself, and brought him to be of another mind: 4:47. So Menelaus, who was guilty of all the evil, was acquitted by him of the accusations: and those poor men, who, if they had pleaded their cause even before Scythians, should have been judged innocent, were condemned to death. 4:48. Thus they that persecuted the cause for the city, and for the people, and the sacred vessels, did soon suffer unjust punishment. 4:49. Wherefore even the Tyrians, being moved with indignation, were very liberal towards their burial. 4:50. And so through the covetousness of them that were in power, Menelaus continued in authority, increasing in malice to the betraying of the citizens. 2 Machabees Chapter 5 Wonderful signs are seen in the air. Jason's wickedness and end. Antiochus takes Jerusalem, and plunders the temple. 5:1. At the same time Antiochus prepared for a second journey into Egypt. 5:2. And it came to pass, that through the whole city of Jerusalem, for the space of forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air, in gilded raiment, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. 5:3. And horses set in order by ranks, running one against another, with the shakings of shields, and a multitude of men in helmets, with drawn swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden armour, and of harnesses of all sorts. 5:4. Wherefore all men prayed that these prodigies might turn to good. 5:5. Now when there was gone forth a false rumour as though Antiochus had been dead, Jason taking with him no fewer than a thousand men, suddenly assaulted the city: and though the citizens ran together to the wall, the city at length was taken, and Menelaus fled into the castle. 5:6. But Jason slew his countrymen without mercy, not considering that prosperity against one's own kindred is a very great evil, thinking they had been enemies, and not citizens, whom he conquered. 5:7. Yet he did not get the principality, but received confusion at the end, for the reward of his treachery, and fled again into the country of the Ammonites. 5:8. At the last, having been shut up by Aretas, the king of the Arabians, in order for his destruction, flying from city to city, hated by all men, as a forsaker of the laws and execrable, as an enemy of his country and countrymen, he was thrust out into Egypt: 5:9. And he that had driven many out of their country perished in a strange land, going to Lacedemon, as if for kindred sake he should have refuge there: 5:10. But he that had cast out many unburied, was himself cast forth both unlamented and unburied, neither having foreign burial, nor being partaker of the sepulchre of his fathers. 5:11. Now when these things were done, the king suspected that the Jews would forsake the alliance: whereupon departing out of Egypt with a furious mind, he took the city by force of arms, 5:12. And commanded the soldiers to kill, and not to spare any that came in their way, and to go up into the houses to slay. 5:13. Thus there was a slaughter of young and old, destruction of women and children, and killing of virgins and infants. 5:14. And there were slain in the space of three whole days fourscore thousand, forty thousand were made prisoners, and as many sold. 5:15. But this was not enough, he presumed also to enter into the temple, the most holy in all the world Menelaus, that traitor to the laws, and to his country, being his guide. 5:16. And taking in his wicked hands the holy vessels, which were given by other kings and cities, for the ornament and the glory of the place, he unworthily handled and profaned them. 5:17. Thus Antiochus going astray in mind, did not consider that God was angry for a while, because of the sins of the inhabitants of the city: and therefore this contempt had happened to the place: 5:18. Otherwise had they not been involved in many sins, as Heliodorus, who was sent by king Seleucus to rob the treasury, so this man also, as soon as he had come, had been forthwith scourged, and put back from his presumption. 5:19. But God did not choose the people for the place's sake, but the place for the people's sake. 5:20. And, therefore, the place also itself was made partaker of the evils of the people: but afterwards shall communicate in the good things thereof, and as it was forsaken in the wrath of Almighty God, shall be exalted again with great glory, when the great Lord shall be reconciled. 5:21. So when Antiochus had taken away out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he went back in all haste to Antioch, thinking through pride that he might now make the land navigable, and the sea passable on foot: such was the haughtiness of his mind. 5:22. He left also governors to afflict the people: at Jerusalem, Philip, a Phrygian by birth, but in manners more barbarous than he that set him there: 5:23. And in Gazarim, Andronicus and Menelaus, who bore a more heavy hand upon the citizens than the rest. 5:24. And whereas he was set against the Jews, he sent that hateful prince, Apollonius, with an army of two and twenty thousand men, commanding him to kill all that were of perfect age, and to sell the women and the younger sort. 5:25. Who, when he was come to Jerusalem, pretending peace, rested till the holy day of the sabbath: and then the Jews keeping holiday, he commanded his men to take arms. 5:26. And he slew all that were come forth to flee: and running through the city with armed men, he destroyed a very great multitude. 5:27. But Judas Machabeus, who was the tenth, had withdrawn himself into a desert place, and there lived amongst wild beasts in the mountains with his company: and they continued feeding on herbs, that they might not be partakers of the pollution. Was the tenth. . .That is, he had nine others in his company. 2 Machabees Chapter 6 Antiochus commands the law to be abolished, sets up an idol in the temple, and persecutes the faithful. The martyrdom of Eleazar. 6:1. But not long after the king sent a certain old man of Antioch, to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers and of God: 6:2. And to defile the temple that was in Jerusalem, and to call it the temple of Jupiter Olympius: and that in Garazim of Jupiter Hospitalis, according as they were that inhabited the place. That in Gazarim. . .Viz., the temple of the Samaritans. And as they were originally strangers, the name of Hospitalis (which signifies of or belonging to strangers) was applicable to the idol set up in their temple. 6:3. And very bad was this invasion of evils, and grievous to all. 6:4. For the temple was full of the riot and revellings of the Gentiles: and of men lying with lewd women. And women thrust themselves of their accord into the holy places, and brought in things that were not lawful. 6:5. The altar also was filled with unlawful things, which were forbidden by the laws. 6:6. And neither were the sabbaths kept, nor the solemn days of the fathers observed, neither did any man plainly profess himself to be a Jew. 6:7. But they were led by bitter constraint on the king's birthday to the sacrifices: and when the feast of Bacchus was kept, they were compelled to go about crowned with ivy in honour of Bacchus. 6:8. And there went out a decree into the neighbouring cities of the Gentiles, by the suggestion of the Ptolemeans, that they also should act in like manner against the Jews, to oblige them to sacrifice: 6:9. And whosoever would not conform themselves to the ways of the Gentiles, should be put to death: then was misery to be seen. 6:10. For two women were accused to have circumcised their children: whom, when they had openly led about through the city, with the infants hanging at their breasts, they threw down headlong from the walls. 6:11. And others that had met together in caves that were near, and were keeping the sabbath day privately, being discovered by Philip, were burnt with fire, because they made a conscience to help themselves with their hands, by reason of the religious observance of the day. Philip. . .The governor of Jerusalem. 6:12. Now I beseech those that shall read this book, that they be not shocked at these calamities, but that they consider the things that happened, not as being for the destruction, but for the correction of our nation. 6:13. For it is a token of great goodness, when sinners are not suffered to go on in their ways for a long time, but are presently punished. 6:14. For, not as with other nations, (whom the Lord patiently expecteth, that when the day of judgment shall come, he may punish them in the fulness of their sins:) 6:15. Doth he also deal with us, so as to suffer our sins to come to their height, and then take vengeance on us. 6:16. And therefore he never withdraweth his mercy from us: but though he chastise his people with adversity he forsaketh them not. 6:17. But let this suffice in a few words for a warning to the readers. And now we must come to the narration. 6:18. Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes, a man advanced in years, and of a comely countenance, was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine's flesh. 6:19. But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment. 6:20. And considering in what manner he was to come to it, patiently bearing, he determined not to do any unlawful things for the love of life. 6:21. But they that stood by, being moved with wicked pity, for the old friendship they had with the man, taking him aside, desired that flesh might be brought which it was lawful for him to eat, that he might make as if he had eaten, as the king had commanded, of the flesh of the sacrifice: Wicked pity. . .Their pity was wicked, inasmuch as it suggested that wicked proposal of saving his life by dissimulation. 6:22. That by so doing he might be delivered from death; and for the sake of their old friendship with the man, they did him this courtesy. 6:23. But he began to consider the dignity of his age, and his ancient years, and the inbred honour of his grey head, and his good life and conversation from a child; and he answered without delay, according to the ordinances of the holy law made by God, saying, that he would rather be sent into the other world. 6:24. For it doth not become our age, said he, to dissemble: whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar, at the age of fourscore and ten years, was gone over to the life of the heathens: 6:25. And so they, through my dissimulation, and for a little time of a corruptible life, should be deceived, and hereby I should bring a stain and a curse upon my old age. 6:26. For though, for the present time, I should be delivered from the punishments of men, yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty neither alive nor dead. 6:27. Wherefore, by departing manfully out of this life, I shall shew myself worthy of my old age: 6:28. And I shall leave an example of fortitude to young men, if with a ready mind and constancy I suffer an honourable death, for the most venerable and most holy laws. And having spoken thus, he was forthwith carried to execution. 6:29. And they that led him, and had been a little before more mild, were changed to wrath for the words he had spoken, which they thought were uttered out of arrogancy. 6:30. But when be was now ready to die with the stripes, he groaned: and said: O Lord, who hast the holy knowledge, thou knowest manifestly that whereas I might be delivered from death, I suffer grievous pains in body: but in soul am well content to suffer these things, because I fear thee. 6:31. Thus did this man die, leaving not only to young men, but also to the whole nation, the memory of his death, for an example of virtue and fortitude. 2 Machabees Chapter 7 The glorious martyrdom of the seven brethren and their mother. 7:1. It came to pass also, that seven brethren, together with their mother, were apprehended, and compelled by the king to eat swine's flesh against the law, for which end they were tormented with whips and scourges. 7:2. But one of them, who was the eldest, said thus: What wouldst thou ask, or learn of us? we are ready to die, rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers. 7:3. Then the king being angry, commanded fryingpans and brazen caldrons to be made hot: which forthwith being heated, 7:4. He commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had spoken first: and the skin of his head being drawn off, to chop off also the extremities of his hands and feet, the rest of his brethren and his mother looking on. 7:6. And when he was now maimed in all parts, he commanded him, being yet alive, to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in the fryingpan: and while he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully, 7:6. Saying: The Lord God will look upon the truth, and will take pleasure in us, as Moses declared in the profession of the canticle; And in his servants he will take pleasure. 7:7. So when the first was dead after this manner, they brought the next to make him a mocking stock: and when they had pulled off the skin of his head with the hair, they asked him if he would eat, before he were punished throughout the whole body in every limb. 7:8. But he answered in his own language, and said: I will not do it. Wherefore he also, in the next place, received the torments of the first: 7:9. And when he was at the last gasp, he said thus: Thou indeed, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life: but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for his laws, in the resurrection of eternal life. 7:10. After him the third was made a mocking-stock, and when he was required, he quickly put forth his tongue, and courageously stretched out his hands: 7:11. And said with confidence: These I have from heaven, but for the laws of God I now despise them, because I hope to receive them again from him. 7:12. So that the king, and they that were with him, wondered at the young man's courage, because he esteemed the torments as nothing. 7:13. And after he was thus dead, they tormented the fourth in the like manner. 7:14. And when he was now ready to die, he spoke thus: It is better, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by him; for, as to thee, thou shalt have no resurrection unto life. 7:15. And when they had brought the fifth, they tormented him. But he, looking upon the king, 7:16. Said: Whereas thou hast power among men though thou art corruptible, thou dost what thou wilt but think not that our nation is forsaken by God. 7:17. But stay patiently a while, and thou shalt see his great power, in what manner he will torment thee and thy seed. 7:18. After him they brought the sixth, and he being ready to die, spoke thus: Be not deceived without cause: for we suffer these things for ourselves, having sinned against our God, and things worthy of admiration are done to us: 7:19. But do not think that thou shalt escape unpunished, for that thou hast attempted to fight against God. 7:20. Now the mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld her seven sons slain in the space of one day, and bore it with a good courage, for the hope that she had in God: 7:21. And she bravely exhorted every one of them in her own language, being filled with wisdom; and joining a man's heart to a woman's thought, 7:22. She said to them: I know not how you were formed in my womb; for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. 7:23. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again, in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws. 7:24. Now Antiochus, thinking himself despised, and withal despising the voice of the upbraider, when the youngest was yet alive, did not only exhort him by words, but also assured him with an oath, that he would make him a rich and a happy man, and, if he would turn from the laws of his fathers, would take him for a friend, and furnish him with things necessary. 7:25. But when the young man was not moved with these things, the king called the mother, and counselled her to deal with the young man to save his life. 7:26. And when he had exhorted her with many words she promised that she would counsel her son. 7:27. So bending herself towards him, mocking the cruel tyrant, she said in her own language: My son have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. 7:28. I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also: 7:29. So thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren. 7:30. While she was yet speaking these words, the young man said: For whom do you stay? I will not obey the commandment of the king, but the commandment of the law which was given us by Moses. 7:31. But thou that hast been the author of all mischief against the Hebrews, shalt not escape the hand of God. 7:32. For we suffer thus for our sins. 7:33. And though the Lord, our God, is angry with us a little while, for our chastisement and correction, yet he will be reconciled again to his servants. 7:34. But thou, O wicked, and of all men most flagitious, be not lifted up without cause with vain hopes, whilst thou art raging against his servants. 7:35. For thou hast not yet escaped the judgment of the Almighty God, who beholdeth all things. 7:36. For my brethren having now undergone a short pain, are under the covenant of eternal life: but thou, by the judgment of God, shalt receive just punishment for thy pride. 7:37. But I, like my brethren, offer up my life and my body for the laws of our fathers: calling upon God to be speedily merciful to our nation, and that thou by torments and stripes mayst confess that he alone is God. 7:38. But in me, and in my brethren, the wrath of the Almighty, which hath justly been brought upon all our nation, shall cease. 7:39. Then the king being incensed with anger, raged against him more cruelly than all the rest, taking it grievously that he was mocked. 7:40. So this man also died undefiled, wholly trusting in the Lord. 7:41. And last of all, after the sons, the mother also was consumed. 7:42. But now there is enough said of the sacrifices and of the excessive cruelties. 2 Machabees Chapter 8 Judas Machabeus gathering an army gains divers victories. 8:1. But Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, went privately into the towns: and calling together their kinsmen and friends, and taking unto them such as continued in the Jews' religion, they assembled six thousand men. 8:2. And they called upon the Lord, that he would look upon his people that was trodden down by all and would have pity on the temple, that was defiled by the wicked: 8:3. That he would have pity also upon the city that was destroyed, that was ready to be made even with the ground, and would hear the voice of the blood that cried to him: 8:4. That he would remember also the most unjust deaths of innocent children, and the blasphemies offered to his name, and would shew his indignation on this occasion. 8:5. Now when Machabeus had gathered a multitude, he could not be withstood by the heathens: for the wrath of the Lord was turned into mercy. 8:6. So coming unawares upon the towns and cities, he set them on fire, and taking possession of the most commodious places, he made no small slaughter of the enemies: 8:7. And especially in the nights he went upon these expeditions, and the fame of his valour was spread abroad every where. 8:8. Then Philip seeing that the man gained ground by little and little, and that things for the most part succeeded prosperously with him, wrote to Ptolemee, the governor of Celesyria and Phenicia, to send aid to the king's affairs. Philip seeing, etc. . .The governor of Jerusalem found himself unable to contend with Judas, especially after the victories he had obtained over Apollonius and Seron. 1 Mac. 3. 8:9. And he with all speed sent Nicanor, the son of Patroclus, one of his special friends, giving him no fewer than twenty thousand armed men of different nations, to root out the whole race of the Jews, joining also with him Gorgias, a good soldier, and of great experience in matters of war. Twenty thousand. . .The whole number of the forces sent at that time into Judea, was 40,000 footmen, and 7000 horsemen, 1 Mac. 3.30. But only 20,000 are here taken notice of, because there were no more with Nicanor at the time of the battle. 8:10. And Nicanor purposed to raise for the king the tribute of two thousand talents, that was to be given to the Romans, by making so much money of the captive Jews: 8:11. Wherefore he sent immediately to the cities upon the sea coast, to invite men together to buy up the Jewish slaves, promising that they should have ninety slaves for one talent, not reflecting on the vengeance which was to follow him from the Almighty. 8:12. Now when Judas found that Nicanor was coming, he imparted to the Jews that were with him, that the enemy was at hand. 8:13. And some of them being afraid, and distrusting the justice of God, fled away. 8:14. Others sold all that they had left, and withal besought the Lord, that he would deliver them from the wicked Nicanor, who had sold them before he came near them: 8:15. And if not for their sakes, yet for the covenant that he had made with their fathers, and for the sake of his holy and glorious name that was invoked upon them. 8:16. But Machabeus calling together seven thousand that were with him, exhorted them not to be reconciled to the enemies, nor to fear the multitude of the enemies who came wrongfully against them, but to fight manfully: Seven thousand. . .In the Greek it is six thousand. But then three thousand of them had no arms. 1 Mac. 4.6. 8:17. Setting before their eyes the injury they had unjustly done the holy place, and also the injury they had done to the city, which had been shamefully abused, besides their destroying the ordinances of the fathers. 8:18. For, said he, they trust in their weapons, and in their boldness: but we trust in the Almighty Lord, who at a beck can utterly destroy both them that come against us, and the whole world. 8:19. Moreover, he put them in mind also of the helps their fathers had received from God: and how, under Sennacherib, a hundred and eighty-five thousand had been destroyed. 8:20. And of the battle that they had fought against the Galatians, in Babylonia; how they, being in all but six thousand, when it came to the point, and the Macedonians, their companions, were at a stand, slew a hundred and twenty thousand, because of the help they had from heaven, and for this they received many favours. Galatians. . .That is, the Gauls, who having ravaged Italy and Greece, poured themselves in upon Asia, in immense multitudes, where also they founded the kingdom of Galatia or Gallo Graecia. 8:21. With these words they were greatly encouraged and disposed even to die for the laws and their country. 8:22. So he appointed his brethren captains over each division of his army; Simon, and Joseph, and Jonathan, giving to each one fifteen hundred men. 8:23. And after the holy book had been read to them by Esdras, and he had given them for a watchword, The help of God: himself leading the first band, he joined battle with Nicanor: 8:24. And the Almighty being their helper, they slew above nine thousand men: and having wounded and disabled the greater part of Nicanor's army, they obliged them to fly. Above nine thousand. . .Viz., including the three thousand slain in the pursuit. 8:25. And they took the money of them that came to buy them, and they pursued them on every side. 8:26. But they came back for want of time: for it was the day before the sabbath: and therefore they did not continue the pursuit. 8:27. But when they had gathered together their arms and their spoils, they kept the sabbath: blessing the Lord who had delivered them that day, distilling the beginning of mercy upon them. 8:28. Then after the sabbath they divided the spoils to the feeble and the orphans, and the widows, and the rest they took for themselves and their servants. 8:29. When this was done, and they had all made a common supplication, they besought the merciful Lord, to be reconciled to his servants unto the end. 8:30. Moreover, they slew above twenty thousand of them that were with Timotheus and Bacchides, who fought against them, and they made themselves masters of the high strong holds: and they divided amongst them many spoils, giving equal portions to the feeble, the fatherless, and the widows; yea, and the aged also 8:31. And when they had carefully gathered together their arms, they laid them all up in convenient places, and the residue of their spoils they carried to Jerusalem: 8:32. They slew also Philarches, who was with Timotheus, a wicked man, who had many ways afflicted the Jews. 8:33. And when they kept the feast of the victory at Jerusalem, they burnt Callisthenes, that had set fire to the holy gates, who had taken refuge in a certain house, rendering to him a worthy reward for his impieties: 8:34. But as for that most wicked man, Nicanor, who had brought a thousand merchants to the sale of the Jews, 8:35. Being, through the help of the Lord, brought down by them, of whom he had made no account, laying aside his garment of glory, fleeing through the midland country, he came alone to Antioch, being rendered very unhappy by the destruction of his army. Laying aside his garment of glory. . .That is, his splendid apparel, which he wore through ostentation; he now throws it off, lest he should be known on his flight. 8:36. And he that had promised to levy the tribute for the Romans, by the means of the captives of Jerusalem, now professed that the Jews had God for their protector, and therefore they could not be hurt, because they followed the laws appointed by him. 2 Machabees Chapter 9 The wretched end, and fruitless repentance of king Antiochus. 9:1. At that time Antiochus returned with dishonour out of Persia. 9:2. For he had entered into the city called Persepolis, and attempted to rob the temple, and to oppress the city, but the multitude running together to arms, put them to flight: and so it fell out that Antiochus being put to flight, returned with disgrace. Persepolis. . .Otherwise called Elymais. 9:3. Now when he was come about Ecbatana, he received the news of what had happened to Nicanor and Timotheus. 9:4. And swelling with anger, he thought to revenge upon the Jews the injury done by them that had put him to flight. And therefore he commanded his chariot to be driven, without stopping in his journey, the judgment of heaven urging him forward, because he had spoken so proudly, that he would come to Jerusalem, and make it a common burying place of the Jews. 9:5. But the Lord, the God of Israel, that seeth all things, struck him with an incurable and an invisible plague. For as soon as he had ended these words, a dreadful pain in his bowels came upon him, and bitter torments of the inner parts. 9:6. And indeed very justly, seeing he had tormented the bowels of others with many and new torments, albeit he by no means ceased from his malice. 9:7. Moreover, being filled with pride, breathing out fire in his rage against the Jews, and commanding the matter to be hastened, it happened as he was going with violence, that he fell from the chariot, so that his limbs were much pained by a grievous bruising of the body. 9:8. Thus he that seemed to himself to command even the waves of the sea, being proud above the condition of man, and to weigh the heights of the mountains in a balance, now being cast down to the ground, was carried in a litter, bearing witness to the manifest power of God in himself: 9:9. So that worms swarmed out of the body of this man, and whilst he lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell off, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome to the army. 9:10. And the man that thought a little before he could reach to the stars of heaven, no man could endure to carry, for the intolerable stench. 9:11. And by this means, being brought from his great pride, he began to come to the knowledge of himself, being admonished by the scourge of God, his pains increasing every moment. 9:12. And when he himself could not now abide his own stench, he spoke thus: It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal man should not equal himself to God. 9:13. Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not like to obtain mercy. Of whom he was not like to obtain mercy. . .Because his repentance was not for the offence committed against God: but barely on account of his present sufferings. 9:14. And the city, to which he was going in haste to lay it even with the ground, and to make it a common burying place, he now desireth to make free: 9:15. And the Jews, whom he said he would not account worthy to be so much as buried, but would give them up to be devoured by the birds and wild beasts, and would utterly destroy them with their children, he now promiseth to make equal with the Athenians. 9:16. The holy temple also, which before he had spoiled, he promised to adorn with goodly gifts, and to multiply the holy vessels, and to allow out of his revenues the charges pertaining to the sacrifices. 9:17. Yea also, that he would become a Jew himself, and would go through every place of the earth, and declare the power of God. 9:18. But his pains not ceasing, (for the just judgment of God was come upon him) despairing of life, he wrote to the Jews, in the manner of a supplication, a letter in these words: 9:19. To his very good subjects the Jews, Antiochus, king and ruler, wisheth much health, and welfare, and happiness. 9:20. If you and your children are well, and if all matters go with you to your mind, we give very great thanks. 9:21. As for me, being infirm, but yet kindly remembering you, returning out of the places of Persia, and being taken with a grievous disease, I thought it necessary to take care for the common good: 9:22. Not distrusting my life, but having great hope to escape the sickness. 9:23. But considering that my father also, at what time he led an army into the higher countries, appointed who should reign after him: 9:24. To the end that if any thing contrary to expectation should fall out, or any bad tidings should be brought, they that were in the countries, knowing to whom the whole government was left, might not be troubled. 9:25. Moreover, considering that neighbouring princes, and borderers, wait for opportunities, and expect what shall be the event, I have appointed my son, Antiochus, king, whom I often recommended to many of you, when I went into the higher provinces: and I have written to him what I have joined here below. 9:26. I pray you, therefore, and request of you, that, remembering favours both public and private, you will every man of you continue to be faithful to me and to my son. 9:27. For I trust that he will behave with moderation and humanity, and following my intentions, will be gracious unto you. 9:28. Thus the murderer and blasphemer being grievously struck, as himself had treated others, died a miserable death in a strange country, among the mountains. 9:29. But Philip, that was brought up with him, carried away his body: and out of fear of the son of Antiochus, went into Egypt to Ptolemee Philometor. 2 Machabees Chapter 10 The purification of the temple and city. Other exploits of Judas. His victory over Timotheus. 10:1. But Machabeus, and they that were with him, by the protection of the Lord, recovered the temple and the city again. 10:2. But he threw down the altars which the heathens had set up in the streets, as also the temples of the idols. 10:3. And having purified the temple, they made another altar: and taking fire out of the fiery stones, they offered sacrifices after two years, and set forth incense, and lamps, and the loaves of proposition. 10:4. And when they had done these things, they besought the Lord, lying prostrate on the ground, that they might no more fall into such evils; but if they should at any time sin, that they might be chastised by him more gently, and not be delivered up to barbarians and blasphemous men. 10:5. Now upon the same day that the temple had been polluted by the strangers on the very same day it was cleansed again; to wit, on the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu. 10:6. And they kept eight days with joy, after the manner of the feast of the tabernacles, remembering that not long before they had kept the feast of the tabernacles when they were in the mountains, and in dens like wild beasts. 10:7. Therefore they now carried boughs and green branches and palms, for him that had given them good success in cleansing his place. 10:8. And they ordained by a common statute, and decree, that all the nation of the Jews should keep those days every year. 10:9. And this was the end of Antiochus, that was called the Illustrious. 10:10. But now we will repeat the acts of Eupator, the son of that wicked Antiochus, abridging the account of the evils that happened in the wars. 10:11. For when he was come to the crown, he appointed over the affairs of his realm one Lysias, general of the army of Phenicia and Syria. 10:12. For Ptolemee, that was called Macer, was determined to be strictly just to the Jews and especially by reason of the wrong that had been done them, and to deal peaceably with them. 10:13. But being accused for this to Eupator by his friends, and being oftentimes called traitor, because he had left Cyprus, which Philometor had committed to him, and coming over to Antiochus the Illustrious, had revolted also from him, he put an end to his life by poison. 10:14. But Gorgias, who was governor of the holds, taking with him the strangers, often fought against the Jews. 10:15. And the Jews that occupied the most commodious holds, received those that were driven out of Jerusalem, and attempted to make war. The Jews, etc. . .He speaks of them that had fallen from their religion, and were enemies of their country, who joining with the Idumeans or Edomites, kept possession of the strong holds, and from thence annoyed their countrymen. 10:16. Then they that were with Machabeus, beseeching the Lord by prayers to be their helper, made a strong attack upon the strong holds of the Idumeans: 10:17. And assaulting them with great force, won the holds, killed them that came in the way, and slew altogether no fewer than twenty thousand. 10:18. And whereas some were fled into very strong towers, having all manner of provision to sustain a siege, 10:19. Machabeus left Simon and Joseph, and Zacheus, and them that were with them, in sufficient number to besiege them, and departed to those expeditions which urged more. 10:20. Now they that were with Simon, being led with covetousness, were persuaded for the sake of money by some that were in the towers: and taking seventy thousand didrachmas, let some of them escape. 10:21. But when it was told Machabeus what was done, he assembled the rulers of the people, and accused those men that they had sold their brethren for money, having let their adversaries escape. 10:22. So he put these traitors to death, and forthwith took the two towers. 10:23. And having good success in arms, and all things he took in hand, he slew more than twenty thousand in the two holds. 10:24. But Timotheus, who before had been overcome by the Jews, having called together a multitude of foreign troops, and assembled horsemen out of Asia, came as though he would take Judea by force of arms. 10:26. But Machabeus, and they that were with him, when he drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads, and girding their loins with haircloth, 10:26. And lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the law saith. 10:27. And so after prayer taking their arms, they went forth further from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies they rested. 10:28. But as soon as the sun was risen both sides joined battle: the one part having, with their valour, the Lord for a surety of victory, and success: but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. 10:29. But when they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared to the enemies from heaven five men upon horses, comely, with golden bridles, conducting the Jews: 10:30. Two of them took Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe; but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. 10:31. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen. 10:32. But Timotheus fled into Gazara, a strong hold where Chereas was governor. 10:33. Then Machabeus, and they that were with him cheerfully laid siege to the fortress four days. 10:34. But they that were within, trusting to the strength of the place, blasphemed exceedingly, and cast forth abominable words. 10:35. But when the fifth day appeared, twenty young men of them that were with Machabeus, inflamed in their minds, because of the blasphemy, approached manfully to the wall, and pushing forward with fierce courage, got up upon it: 10:36. Moreover, others also getting up after them, went to set fire to the towers and the gates, and to burn the blasphemers alive. 10:37. And having for two days together pillaged and sacked the fortress, they killed Timotheus, who was found hid in a certain place: they slew also his brother Chereas, and Apollophanes. Timotheus. . .This man, who was killed at the taking of Gazara, is different from that Timotheus who is mentioned in the fifth chapter of the first book of Machabees, and of whom there is mention in the following chapter. 10:38. And when this was done, they blessed the Lord with hymns and thanksgiving, who had done great things in Israel, and given them the victory. 2 Machabees Chapter 11 Lysias is overthrown by Judas. He sues for peace. 11:1. A short time after this Lysias, the king's lieutenant, and cousin, and who had chief charge over all the affairs, being greatly displeased with what had happened, 11:2. Gathered together fourscore thousand men, and all the horsemen, and came against the Jews, thinking to take the city, and make it a habitation of the Gentiles: 11:3. And to make a gain of the temple, as of the other temples of the Gentiles and to set the high priesthood to sale every year: 11:4. Never considering the power of God, but puffed up in mind, and trusting in the multitude of his foot soldiers, and the thousands of his horsemen, and his fourscore elephants. 11:5. So he came into Judea, and approaching to Bethsura, which was in a narrow place, the space of five furlongs from Jerusalem, he laid siege to that fortress. 11:6. But when Machabeus, and they that were with him, understood that the strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel. 11:7. Then Machabeus himself first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves together with him, to the danger, and to succour their brethren. 11:8. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman going before them in white clothing, with golden armour, shaking a spear. 11:9. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage: being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. 11:10. So they went on courageously, having a helper from heaven, and the Lord, who shewed mercy to them. 11:11. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen: 11:12. And put all the rest to flight; and many of them being wounded, escaped naked: Yea, and Lysias himself fled away shamefully, and escaped. 11:13. And as he was a man of understanding, considering with himself the loss he had suffered, and perceiving that the Hebrews could not be overcome, because they relied upon the help of the Almighty God, he sent to them: 11:14. And promised that he would agree to all things that are just, and that he would persuade the king to be their friend. 11:15. Then Machabeus consented to the request of Lysias, providing for the common good in all things; and whatsoever Machabeus wrote to Lysias, concerning the Jews, the king allowed of. 11:16. For there were letters written to the Jews from Lysias, to this effect: Lysias, to the people of the Jews, greeting. 11:17. John, and Abesalom, who were sent from you, delivering your writings, requested that I would accomplish those things which were signified by them. 11:18. Therefore whatsoever things could be reported to the king, I have represented to him: and he hath granted as much as the matter permitted. 11:19. If, therefore, you will keep yourselves loyal in affairs, hereafter also I will endeavour to be a means of your good. 11:20. But as concerning other particulars, I have given orders by word both to these, and to them that are sent by me, to commune with you. 11:21. Fare ye well. In the year one hundred and forty-eight, the four and twentieth day of the month of Dioscorus. In the year 148. . .Viz., according to the computation followed by the Greeks; which was different from that of the Hebrews, followed by the writer of the first book of Machabees. However, by this date, as well as by other circumstances, it appears that the expedition of Lysias, mentioned in this chapter, is different from that which is recorded, 1 Mac. 6. 11:22. But the king's letter contained these words King Antiochus to Lysias, his brother, greeting. 11:23. Our father being translated amongst the gods we are desirous that they that are in our realm should live quietly, and apply themselves diligently to their own concerns. 11:24. And we have heard that the Jews would not consent to my father to turn to the rites of the Greeks but that they would keep to their own manner of living and therefore that they request us to allow them to live after their own laws. 11:25. Wherefore being desirous that this nation also should be at rest, we have ordained and decreed, that the temple should be restored to them, and that they may live according to the custom of their ancestors. 11:26. Thou shalt do well, therefore, to send to them, and grant them peace, that our pleasure being known, they may be of good comfort, and look to their own affairs. 11:27. But the king's letter to the Jews was in this manner: King Antiochus to the senate of the Jews, and to the rest of the Jews, greeting. 11:28. If you are well, you are as we desire: we ourselves also are well. 11:29. Menelaus came to us, saying that you desired to come down to your countrymen, that are with us. 11:30. We grant, therefore, a safe conduct to all that come and go, until the thirtieth day of the month of Xanthicus, 11:31. That the Jews may use their own kind of meats, and their own laws, as before: and that none of them any manner of ways be molested for things which have been done by ignorance. 11:32. And we have sent also Menelaus to speak to you. 11:33. Fare ye well. In the year one hundred and forty-eight, the fifteenth day of the month of Xanthicus. 11:34. The Romans also sent them a letter, to this effect: Quintus Memmius, and Titus Manilius, ambassadors of the Romans, to the people of the Jews, greeting. 11:35. Whatsoever Lysias, the king's cousin, hath granted to you, we also have granted. 11:36. But touching such things as he thought should be referred to the king, after you have diligently conferred among yourselves, send some one forthwith, that we may decree as it is convenient for you: for we are going to Antioch. 11:37. And therefore make haste to write back, that we may know of what mind you are. 11:38. Fare ye well. In the year one hundred and forty-eight, the fifteenth day of the month of Xanthicus. 2 Machabees Chapter 12 The Jews are still molested by their neighbours. Judas gains divers victories over them. He orders sacrifice and prayers for the dead. 12:1. When these covenants were made, Lysias went to the king, and the Jews gave themselves to husbandry. 12:2. But they that were behind, viz. Timotheus, and Apollonius, the son of Genneus, also Hieronymus, and Demophon, and besides them Nicanor, the governor of Cyprus, would not suffer them to live in peace, and to be quiet. 12:3. The men of Joppe also were guilty of this kind of wickedness: they desired the Jews, who dwelt among them, to go with their wives and children into the boats, which they had prepared, as though they had no enmity to them. 12:4. Which when they had consented to, according to the common decree of the city, suspecting nothing, because of the peace: when they were gone forth into the deep, they drowned no fewer than two hundred of them. 12:5. But as soon as Judas heard of this cruelty done to his countrymen, he commanded the men that were with him: and after having called upon God, the just judge, 12:6. He came against those murderers of his brethren, and set the haven on fire in the night, burnt the boats, and slew with the sword them that escaped from the fire. 12:7. And when he had done these things in this manner, he departed as if he would return again, and root out all the Joppites. 12:8. But when he understood that the men of Jamnia also designed to do in like manner to the Jews that dwelt among them, 12:9. He came upon the Jamnites also by night, and set the haven on fire, with the ships, so that the light of the fire was seen at Jerusalem, two hundred and forty furlongs off. 12:10. And when they were now gone from thence nine furlongs, and were marching towards Timotheus, five thousand footmen, and five hundred horsemen of the Arabians, set upon them. 12:11. And after a hard fight, in which, by the help of God, they got the victory, the rest of the Arabians being overcome, besought Judas for peace, promising to give him pastures, and to assist him in other things. 12:12. And Judas thinking that they might be profitable indeed in many things, promised them peace, and after having joined hands, they departed to their tents. 12:13. He also laid siege to a certain strong city, encompassed with bridges and walls, and inhabited by multitudes of different nations, the name of which is Casphin. 12:14. But they that were within it, trusting in the strength of the walls, and the provision of victuals, behaved in a more negligent manner, and provoked Judas with railing and blaspheming, and uttering such words as were not to be spoken. 12:15. But Machabeus calling upon the great Lord of the world, who without any rams or engines of war threw down the walls of Jericho, in the time of Josue, fiercely assaulted the walls. Rams. . .That is, engines for battering walls, etc., which were used in sieges in those times. 12:16. And having taken the city by the will of the Lord, he made an unspeakable slaughter, so that a pool adjoining, of two furlongs broad, seemed to run with the blood of the slain. 12:17. From thence they departed seven hundred and fifty furlongs, and came to Characa, to the Jews that are called Tubianites. 12:18. But as for Timotheus, they found him not in those places, for before he had dispatched any thing he went back, having left a very strong garrison in a certain hold: 12:19. But Dositheus, and Sosipater, who were captains with Machabeus, slew them that were left by Timotheus in the hold, to the number of ten thousand men. 12:20. And Machabeus having set in order about him six thousand men, and divided them by bands, went forth against Timotheus, who had with him a hundred and twenty thousand footmen, and two thousand five hundred horsemen. 12:21. Now when Timotheus had knowledge of the coming of Judas, he sent the women and children, and the other baggage, before him into a fortress, called Carnion: for it was impregnable, and hard to come at, by reason of the straitness of the places. 12:22. But when the first band of Judas came in sight, the enemies were struck with fear, by the presence of God, who seeth all things, and they were put to flight one from another, so that they were often thrown down by their own companions, and wounded with the strokes of their own swords. 12:23. But Judas pursued them close, punishing the profane, of whom he slew thirty thousand men. 12:24. And Timotheus himself fell into the hands of the band of Dositheus and Sosipater, and with many prayers he besought them to let him go with his life, because he had the parents and brethren of many of the Jews, who, by his death, might happen to be deceived. 12:25. And when he had given his faith that he would restore them according to the agreement, they let him go without hurt, for the saving of their brethren. 12:26. Then Judas went away to Carnion, where he slew five and twenty thousand persons. 12:27. And after he had put to flight and destroyed these, he removed his army to Ephron, a strong city, wherein there dwelt a multitude of divers nations: and stout young men standing upon the walls, made a vigorous resistance: and in this place there were many engines of war, and a provision of darts. 12:28. But when they had invocated the Almighty, who with his power breaketh the strength of the enemies, they took the city: and slew five and twenty thousand of them that were within. 12:29. From thence they departed to Scythopolis, which lieth six hundred furlongs from Jerusalem. Scythopolis. . .Formerly called Bethsan. 12:30. But the Jews that were among the Scythopolitans testifying that they were used kindly by them, and that even in the times of their adversity they had treated them with humanity: 12:31. They gave them thanks, exhorting them to be still friendly to their nation, and so they came to Jerusalem, the feast of the weeks being at hand. 12:32. And after Pentecost they marched against Gorgias, the governor of Idumea. 12:33. And he came out with three thousand footmen and four hundred horsemen. 12:34. And when they had joined battle, it happened that a few of the Jews were slain. 12:35. But Dositheus, a horseman, one of Bacenor's band, a valiant man, took hold of Gorgias: and when he would have taken him alive, a certain horseman of the Thracians came upon him, and cut off his shoulder: and so Gorgias escaped to Maresa. 12:36. But when they that were with Esdrin had fought long, and were weary, Judas called upon the Lord to be their helper, and leader of the battle: 12:37. Then beginning in his own language, and singing hymns with a loud voice, he put Gorgias's soldiers to flight. 12:38. So Judas having gathered together his army, came into the city Odollam: and when the seventh day came, they purified themselves according to the custom, and kept the sabbath in the same place. 12:39. And the day following Judas came with his company, to take away the bodies of them that were slain, and to bury them with their kinsmen, in the sepulchres of their fathers. 12:40. And they found under the coats of the slain, some of the donaries of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the Jews: so that all plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain. Of the donaries, etc. . .That is, of the votive offerings, which had been hung up in the temples of the idols, which they had taken away when they burnt the port of Jamnia, ver. 9., contrary to the prohibition of the law, Deut. 7.25. 12:41. Then they all blessed the just judgment of the Lord, who had discovered the things that were hidden. 12:42. And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten. But the most valiant Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because of the sins of those that were slain. 12:43. And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection. 12:44. (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,) 12:45. And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. With godliness. . .Judas hoped that these men who died fighting for the cause of God and religion, might find mercy: either because they might be excused from mortal sin by ignorance; or might have repented of their sin, at least at their death. 12:46. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead. . .Here is an evident and undeniable proof of the practice of praying for the dead under the old law, which was then strictly observed by the Jews, and consequently could not be introduced at that time by Judas, their chief and high priest, if it had not been always their custom. 2 Machabees Chapter 13 Antiochus and Lysias again invade Judea. Menelaus is put to death. The king's great army is worsted twice. The peace is renewed. 13:1. In the year one hundred and forty-nine, Judas understood that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea, 13:2. And with him Lysias, the regent, who had charge over the affairs of the realm, having with him a hundred and ten thousand footmen, five thousand horsemen, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots. A hundred and ten thousand, etc. . .The difference between the numbers here set down, and those recorded, 1 Mac. 4, is easily accounted for; if we consider that such armies as these are liable to be at one time more numerous than at another; either by sending away large detachments, or being diminished by sickness; or increased by receiving fresh supplies of troops, according to different exigencies or occurrences. 13:3. Menelaus also joined himself with them: and with great deceitfulness besought Antiochus, not for the welfare of his country, but in hopes that he should be appointed chief ruler. 13:4. But the King of kings stirred up the mind of Antiochus against the sinner, and upon Lysias suggesting that he was the cause of all the evils, he commanded (as the custom is with them) that he should be apprehended and put to death in the same place. 13:5. Now there was in that place a tower fifty cubits high, having a heap of ashes on every side: this had a prospect steep down. 13:6. From thence he commanded the sacrilegious wretch to be thrown down into the ashes, all men thrusting him forward unto death. 13:7. And by such a law it happened that Menelaus the transgressor of the law, was put to death: not having so much as burial in the earth. 13:8. And indeed very justly, for insomuch as he had committed many sins against the altar of God, the fire and ashes of which were holy: he was condemned to die in ashes. 13:9. But the king, with his mind full of rage, came on to shew himself worse to the Jews than his father was. 13:10. Which when Judas understood, he commanded the people to call upon the Lord day and night, that as he had always done, so now also he would help them: 13:11. Because they were afraid to be deprived of the law, and of their country, and of the holy temple: and that he would not suffer the people, that had of late taken breath for a little while, to be again in subjection to blasphemous nations. 13:12. So when they had all done this together, and had craved mercy of the Lord with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually, Judas exhorted them to make themselves ready. 13:13. But he, with the ancients, determined before the king should bring his army into Judea, and make himself master of the city, to go out, and to commit the event of the thing to the judgment of the Lord. 13:14. So committing all to God, the Creator of the world, and having exhorted his people to fight manfully, and to stand up even to death for the laws, the temple, the city, their country, and citizens: he placed his army about Modin. 13:15. And having given his company for a watchword, The victory of God, with most valiant chosen young men, he set upon the king's quarter by night, and slew four thousand men in the camp, and the greatest of the elephants, with them that had been upon him, 13:16. And having filled the camp of the enemies with exceeding great fear and tumult, they went off with good success. 13:17. Now this was done at the break of day, by the protection and help of the Lord. 13:18. But the king having taken a taste of the hardiness of the Jews, attempted to take the strong places by policy: 13:19. And he marched with his army to Bethsura, which was a strong hold of the Jews: but he was repulsed, he failed, he lost his men. 13:20. Now Judas sent necessaries to them that were within 13:21. But Rhodocus, one of the Jews' army, disclosed the secrets to the enemies, so he was sought out, and taken up, and put in prison. 13:22. Again the king treated with them that were in Bethsura: gave his right hand: took theirs: and went away. 13:23. He fought with Judas: and was overcome. And when he understood that Philip, who had been left over the affairs, had rebelled at Antioch, he was in a consternation of mind, and entreating the Jews, and yielding to them, he swore to all things that seemed reasonable, and, being reconciled, offered sacrifice, honoured the temple, and left gifts. 13:24. He embraced Machabeus, and made him governor and prince from Ptolemais unto the Gerrenians. 13:25. But when he was come to Ptolemais, the men of that city were much displeased with the conditions of the peace, being angry for fear they should break the covenant. 13:26. Then Lysias went up to the judgment seat, and set forth the reason, and appeased the people, and returned to Antioch: and thus matters went with regard to the king's coming and his return. 2 Machabees Chapter 14 Demetrius challenges the kingdom. Alcimus applies to him to be made high priest: Nicanor is sent into Judea: his dealings with Judas: his threats. The history of Razias. 14:1. But after the space of three years Judas, and they that were with him, understood that Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, was come up with a great power, and a navy by the haven of Tripolis, to places proper for his purpose, 14:2. And had made himself master of the countries against Antiochus, and his general, Lysias. 14:3. Now one Alcimus, who had been chief priest, but had wilfully defiled himself in the time of mingling with the heathens, seeing that there was no safety for him, nor access to the altar, Now Alcimus, who had been chief priest. . .This Alcimus was of the stock of Aaron, but for his apostasy here mentioned was incapable of the high priesthood, but king Antiochus Eupator appointed him in place of the high priest, (see above, 1 Mac. chap. 7., ver. 9,) as Menelaus had been before him, set up by Antiochus (above chap. 4.), yet neither of them were truly high priests; for the true high priesthood was amongst the Machabees, who were also of the stock of Aaron, and had strictly held their religion, and were ordained according to the rites commanded in the law of Moses.--Ibid. Mingling. . .with the heathens; that is, in their idolatrous worship. 14:4. Came to king Demetrius in the year one hundred and fifty, presenting unto him a crown of gold, and a palm, and besides these, some boughs that seemed to belong to the temple. And that day indeed he held his peace. 14:5. But having gotten a convenient time to further his madness, being called to counsel by Demetrius, and asked what the Jews relied upon, and what were their counsels, 14:6. He answered thereunto: They among the Jews that are called Assideans, of whom Judas Machabeus is captain, nourish wars, and raise seditions, and will not suffer the realm to be in peace. 14:7. For I also being deprived of my ancestor's glory (I mean of the high priesthood) am now come hither: 14:8. Principally indeed out of fidelity to the king's interests, but in the next place also to provide for the good of my countrymen: for all our nation suffereth much from the evil proceedings of these men. 14:9. Wherefore, O king, seeing thou knowest all these things, take care, I beseech thee, both of the country, and of our nation, according to thy humanity which is known to all men. 14:10. For as long as Judas liveth it is not possible that the state should be quiet. 14:11. Now when this man had spoken to this effect the rest also of the king's friends, who were enemies of Judas, incensed Demetrius against him. 14:12. And forthwith he sent Nicanor, the commander over the elephants, governor into Judea: 14:13. Giving him in charge, to take Judas himself: and disperse all them that were with him, and to make Alcimus the high priest of the great temple. 14:14. Then the Gentiles who had fled out of Judea, from Judas, came to Nicanor by flocks, thinking the miseries and calamities of the Jews to be the welfare of their affairs. 14:15. Now when the Jews heard of Nicanor's coming, and that the nations were assembled against them, they cast earth upon their heads, and made supplication to him who chose his people to keep them for ever, and who protected his portion by evident signs. 14:16. Then at the commandment of their captain, they forthwith removed from the place where they were, and went to the town of Dessau, to meet them. 14:17. Now Simon, the brother of Judas, had joined battle with Nicanor: but was frightened with the sudden coming of the adversaries. 14:18. Nevertheless Nicanor hearing of the valour of Judas's companions, and the greatness of courage, with which they fought for their country, was afraid to try the matter by the sword. 14:19. Wherefore he sent Posidonius, and Theodotius and Matthias before to present and receive the right hands. 14:20. And when there had been a consultation thereupon, and the captain had acquainted the multitude with it, they were all of one mind to consent to covenants. 14:21. So they appointed a day upon which they might come together by themselves: and seats were brought out, and set for each one. 14:22. But Judas ordered armed men to be ready in convenient places, lest some mischief might be suddenly practised by the enemies: so they made an agreeable conference. 14:23. And Nicanor abode in Jerusalem, and did no wrong, but sent away the flocks of the multitudes that had been gathered together. 14:24. And Judas was always dear to him from the heart, and he was well affected to the man. 14:25. And he desired him to marry a wife, and to have children. So he married: he lived quietly, and they lived in common. 14:26. But Alcimus seeing the love they had one to another, and the covenants, came to Demetrius, and told him that Nicanor had assented to the foreign interest, for that he meant to make Judas, who was a traitor to the kingdom, his successor. 14:27. Then the king, being in a rage, and provoked with this man's wicked accusation, wrote to Nicanor, signifying that he was greatly displeased with the covenant of friendship: and that he commanded him nevertheless to send Machabeus prisoner in all haste to Antioch. 14:28. When this was known, Nicanor was in a consternation, and took it grievously that he should make void the articles that were agreed upon, having received no injury from the man. 14:29. But because he could not oppose the king, he watched an opportunity to comply with the orders 14:30. But when Machabeus perceived that Nicanor was more stern to him, and that when they met together as usual he behaved himself in a rough manner; and was sensible that this rough behaviour came not of good, he gathered together a few of his men, and hid himself from Nicanor. 14:31. But he finding himself notably prevented by the man, came to the great and holy temple: and commanded the priests that were offering the accustomed sacrifices, to deliver him the man. 14:32. And when they swore unto him, that they knew not where the man was whom he sought, he stretched out his hand to the temple, 14:33. And swore, saying: Unless you deliver Judas prisoner to me, I will lay this temple of God even with the ground, and will beat down the altar, and I will dedicate this temple to Bacchus. 14:34. And when he had spoken thus, he departed. But the priests stretching forth their hands to heaven, called upon him that was ever the defender of their nation, saying in this manner: 14:35. Thou, O Lord of all things, who wantest nothing, wast pleased that the temple of thy habitation should be amongst us. 14:36. Therefore now, O Lord, the holy of all holies, keep this house for ever undefiled, which was lately cleansed. 14:37. Now Razias, one of the ancients of Jerusalem, was accused to Nicanor, a man that was a lover of the city, and of good report, who for his kindness was called the father of the Jews. 14:38. This man, for a long time, had held fast his purpose of keeping himself pure in the Jews' religion, and was ready to expose his body and life, that he might persevere therein. 14:39. So Nicanor being willing to declare the hatred that he bore the Jews, sent five hundred soldiers to take him. 14:40. For he thought by ensnaring him to hurt the Jews very much. 14:41. Now as the multitude sought to rush into his house, and to break open the door, and to set fire to it, when he was ready to be taken, he struck himself with his sword: He struck himself, etc. . .St. Augustine, (Epist. 61, ad Dulcitium, et lib. 2, cap. 23, ad Epist. 2, Gaud.) discussing this fact of Razias, says, that the holy scripture relates it, but doth not praise it, as to be admired or imitated, and that either it was not well done by him, or at least not proper in this time of grace. 14:42. Choosing to die nobly rather than to fall into the hands of the wicked, and to suffer abuses unbecoming his noble birth. 14:43. But whereas through haste he missed of giving a sure wound, and the crowd was breaking into the doors, he ran boldly to the wall, and manfully threw himself down to the crowd: 14:44. But they quickly making room for his fall, he came upon the midst of the neck. He came upon the midst of the neck. . .Venit per mediam cervicem. In the Greek it is keneona, which signifies a void place, where there is no building. 14:45. And as he had yet breath in him, being inflamed in mind, he arose: and while his blood ran down with a great stream, and he was grievously wounded, he ran through the crowd: 14:46. And standing upon a steep rock, when he was now almost without blood, grasping his bowels, with both hands he cast them upon the throng, calling upon the Lord of life and spirit, to restore these to him again: and so he departed this life. 2 Machabees Chapter 15 Judas encouraged by a vision gains a glorious victory over Nicanor. The conclusion. 15:1. But when Nicanor understood that Judas was in the places of Samaria, he purposed to set upon him with all violence, on the sabbath day. 15:2. And when the Jews that were constrained to follow him, said: Do not act so fiercely and barbarously, but give honour to the day that is sanctified: and reverence him that beholdeth all things: 15:3. That unhappy man asked, if there were a mighty One in heaven, that had commanded the sabbath day to be kept. 15:4. And when they answered: There is the living Lord himself in heaven, the mighty One, that commanded the seventh day to be kept. 15:5. Then he said: And I am mighty upon the earth, and I command to take arms, and to do the king's business. Nevertheless he prevailed not to accomplish his design. 15:6. So Nicanor being puffed up with exceeding great pride, thought to set up a public monument of his victory over Judas. 15:7. But Machabeus ever trusted with all hope that God would help them. 15:8. And he exhorted his people not to fear the coming of the nations, but to remember the help they had before received from heaven, and now to hope for victory from the Almighty. 15:9. And speaking to them out of the law, and the prophets, and withal putting them in mind of the battles they had fought before, he made them more cheerful: 15:10. Then after he had encouraged them, he shewed withal the falsehood of the Gentiles, and their breach of oaths. 15:11. So he armed every one of them, not with defence of shield and spear, but with very good speeches, and exhortations, and told them a dream worthy to be believed, whereby he rejoiced them all. 15:12. Now the vision was in this manner. Onias, who had been high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in his looks, gentle in his manners, and graceful in speech, and who from a child was exercised in virtues holding up his hands, prayed for all the people of the Jews: 15:13. After this there appeared also another man, admirable for age, and glory, and environed with great beauty and majesty: 15:14. Then Onias answering, said: This is a lover of his brethren, and of the people of Israel: this is he that prayeth much for the people, and for all the holy city, Jeremias, the prophet of God. 15:15. Whereupon Jeremias stretched forth his right hand, and gave to Judas a sword of gold, saying: 15:16. Take this holy sword, a gift from God, wherewith thou shalt overthrow the adversaries of my people Israel. 15:17. Thus being exhorted with the words of Judas, which were very good, and proper to stir up the courage, and strengthen the hearts of the young men, they resolved to fight, and to set upon them manfully: that valour might decide the matter, because the holy city, and the temple were in danger. 15:18. For their concern was less for their wives, and children, and for their brethren, and kinsfolks: but their greatest and principal fear was for the holiness of the temple. 15:19. And they also that were in the city, had no little concern for them that were to be engaged in battle. 15:20. And now when all expected what judgment would be given, and the enemies were at hand, and the army was set in array, the beasts and the horsemen ranged in convenient places, 15:21. Machabeus considering the coming of the multitude, and the divers preparations of armour, and the fierceness of the beasts, stretching out his hands to heaven, called upon the Lord, that worketh wonders, who giveth victory to them that are worthy, not according to the power of their arms, but according as it seemeth good to him. 15:22. And in his prayer he said after this manner: Thou, O Lord, who didst send thy angel in the time of Ezechias, king of Juda, and didst kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the army of Sennacherib: 15:23. Send now also, O Lord of heaven, thy good angel before us, for the fear and dread of the greatness of thy arm, 15:24. That they may be afraid, who come with blasphemy against thy holy people. And thus he concluded his prayer. 15:25. But Nicanor, and they that were with him came forward, with trumpets and songs. 15:26. But Judas, and they that were with him, encountered them, calling upon God by prayers: 15:27. So fighting with their hands, but praying to the Lord with their hearts, they slew no less than five and thirty thousand, being greatly cheered with the presence of God. 15:28. And when the battle was over, and they were returning with joy, they understood that Nicanor was slain in his armour. 15:29. Then making a shout, and a great noise, they blessed the Almighty Lord in their own language. 15:30. And Judas, who was altogether ready, in body and mind, to die for his countrymen, commanded that Nicanor's head, and his hand, with the shoulder, should be cut off, and carried to Jerusalem. 15:31. And when he was come thither, having called together his countrymen, and the priests to the altar, he sent also for them that were in the castle, 15:32. And shewing them the head of Nicanor, and the wicked hand, which he had stretched out, with proud boasts, against the holy house of the Almighty God, 15:33. He commanded also, that the tongue of the wicked Nicanor should be cut out, and given by pieces to birds, and the hand of the furious man to be hanged up over against the temple. 15:34. Then all blessed the Lord of heaven, saying: Blessed be he that hath kept his own place undefiled. 15:35. And he hung up Nicanor's head in the top of the castle, that it might be an evident and manifest sign of the help of God. 15:36. And they all ordained by a common decree, by no means to let this day pass without solemnity: 15:37. But to celebrate the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, called in the Syrian language, the day before Mardochias' day. 15:38. So these things being done with relation to Nicanor, and from that time the city being possessed by the Hebrews, I also will here make an end of my narration. 15:39. Which if I have done well, and as it becometh the history, it is what I desired: but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me. If not so perfectly, etc. . .This is not said with regard to the truth of the narration; but with regard to the style and manner of writing: which in the sacred penmen is not always the most accurate. See St. Paul, 2 Cor. 11.6. 15:40. For as it is hurtful to drink always wine, or always water, but pleasant to use sometimes the one, and sometimes the other: so if the speech be always nicely framed, it will not be grateful to the readers. But here it shall be ended. APPENDICES These texts come from the 1610 Doway printing of the second tome of the Old Testament (see the 'History' section at the top of the e-text). The primary sources provide a glimpse both into the history of the Douay- Rheims version and the English language itself. The reader will quickly notice that the letter 'j' does not appear in the texts, rather 'i' functions either as a vowel or a consonant. Likewise 'u' is not a distinct letter; it is employed typographically in the lower-case in place of 'v' where not starting a word. The letters 'u' and 'v' both function either as vowels or consonants. The word 'vniuersity' demonstrates this rule. The letter 'w' is often employed, but in some cases the earlier form of a double-v (vv) appears instead. The transcriber has done his best to render the text accurately. Note the relaxed spelling standards of the time; many variants appear. While the errata section from the 1610 edition observed: "We haue also found some other faultes of lesse importance; and feare there be more. But we trust the reader may easely correct them, as they occurre." only obvious errors have been amended. Where the transcriber has doubt between whether an irregular spelling is either an error and a variant, the printed text stands. 7-bit ASCII cannot fully represent the typographical standards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many special characters have been replaced with modern equivalents. Where verse numbers stand in the margins of the printed texts, they have been transferred to the body; the verse numbers in the 'Prayer of Manasses' have been supplied from other versions. Reference notes have been transferred from the margins, and their abbreviations modernized. ADDITIONAL BOOKS The prayer of Manasses, vvith the third & fourth Bookes of Esdras, extant in most Latin and vulgare Bibles, are here placed after al the Canonical bookes, of the old Testament: because they are not receiued into the Canon of Diuine Scriptures by the Catholique Church. THE PRAYER OF MANASSES KING OF IVDA, WHEN HE WAS HELD CAPTIVE IN BABYLON. LORD omnipotent God of our fathers, Abraham, & Isaac, and Iacob, and of their iust sede, (2 Par 33:12) [2] which didst make heauen and earth: with al the ornamentes of them, [3] which hast bound the sea with the word of thy precept, which hast shut vp the depth, and sealed it with thy terrible and laudable name: [4] whom al thinges dread, & tremble at the countinance of thy powre, [5] because the magnificence of thy glorie is importable, & the wrath of thy threatning vpon sinners is intollerable: [6] but the mercie of thy promise is infinite and vnsearchable: [7] because thou art our Lord, most high, benigne, long suffering, and very merciful, and penitent vpon the wickednes of men. Thou Lord according to the multitude of thy goodnes hast promised penance, and remission to them that haue sinned to thee, and by the multitude of thy mercies thou hast decreed penance to sinners, vnto saluation. [8] Thou therfore Lord God of the iust, hast not appointed penance to the iust, Abraham, & Isaac and Iacob, them that haue not sinned to thee, but hast appointed penance for me a sinner: [9] because I haue sinned aboue the number of the sand of the sea. Myne iniquities Lord be multiplied, mine iniquities be multiplied, and I am not worthie to behold, & looke vpon the height of heauen, for the multitude of mine iniquities. [10] I am made crooked with manie a band of yron, that I can not lift vp my head, and I haue not respiration: because I haue stirred vp thy wrath, and haue done euil before thee: I haue not done thy wil, and thy commandmentes I haue not kept: I haue set vp abominations, and multiplied offenses. [11] And now I bowe the knee of my hart, beseeching goodnes of thee. [12] I haue sinned Lord, I haue sinned, & I acknowlege myne iniquities. [13] Wherefore I beseech disiring thee, forgeue me Lord, forgeue me: and destroy me not together with myne iniquities, neither reserue thou for euer, being angrie, euils for me, neither damme me into the lowest places of the earth: because thou art Lord, God, I say, of the penitent: [14] in me thou shalt shew al thy goodnes because thou shalt saue me vnworthie according to thy great mercie, [15] and I wil prayse thee alwayes al the dayes of my life: because al the power of the heauens prayseth thee, and to thee is glorie for euer and euer. Amen. THE THIRD BOOKE OF ESDRAS. For helpe of the readers, especially such as haue not leysure to read al, vve haue gathered the contentes of the chapters; but made no Annotations: because the text it self is but as a Commentarie to the Canonical bookes; and therfore we haue only added the concordance of other Scriptures in the margin. CHAP. I. Iosias king of Iuda maketh a great Pasch, 7. geuing manie hostes to such as wanted for sacrifice: 14. the Priestes and Leuites performing their functions therin: 22. in the eightenth yeare of his reigne, 25. He is slayne in battel by the king of AEgypt, 32. and much lamented by the Iewes. 34. His sonne Ieconias succedeth. 37. After him Ioacim, 40. who is deposed by the king of Babylon. 43. Ioachim reigneth three monethes, and is caried into Babylon. 46. Sedecias reigneth eleuen yeares wickedly. 52. and he with his people is caried captiue into Babylon, the citie and temple are destroyed. 57. so remayned til the Monarchie of the Persians. AND Iosias made a Pasch in Ierusalem to our Lord & immolated the Phase the fourtenth moone of the moneth: (4 Kings 23:21 / 2 Par 35:1) 2 appointing the Priestes by courses of dayes clothed with stoles in the temple of our Lord. 3 And he spake to the Leuites the sacred seruantes of Isreal, that they should sanctifie them selues to our Lord in the placing of the holie arke of our Lord in the house, which king Salomon sonne of Dauid built. 4 It shal not be for you to take it vpon your shoulders. And now serue your Lord, and take the care of that nation Israel, in part according to your villages and tribes, 5 according to the writing of Dauid king of Israel, and according to the magnificence of Salomon his sonne, al in the temple, and according to your fathers portion of principalitie, among them that stand in the sight of your brethren the children of Isreal. 6 Immolate the Pasch, and prepare the sacrifices for your bretheren, and doe according to the precept of our Lord which was geuen to Moyses. (Ex 12 / Lev 23 / Num 28) 7 And Iosias gaue vnto the people that was found of sheepe, lambes, and kiddes, and goates thirtie thousand, calues there thousand. 8 These thinges were geuen to the people of the kinges goodes according to promisse: and to the priestes for the Phase, sheepe in number two thousand, and calues an hundred. 9 And Iechonias, and Semeias, and Nathanael bretheren, and Hasabias, and Oziel, and Coraba for the Phase sheepe fiue thousand, calues fiue hundred. 10 And when these thinges were done in good order, the Priestes an the Leuites stood hauing azymes by tribes. 11 And according to the portions of their fathers principalitie, in the sight of the people they did offer, to our Lord according to those thinges, which were written in the booke of Moyses: 12 and rosted the Phase with fire as it ought: and the hostes they boyled in cauldrons, and in pottes with beneuolence: 13 and they brought to al that were of the people: and afterward they prepared for them selues and the priestes. 14 For the Priestes offered the fatte, vntil the houre was ended: and the Leuites prepared for them selues, and their brethren, the children of Aaron. 15 And the sacred singing men, the children of Asaph were by order according to the precept of Dauid and Asaph, and Zacharias, and Ieddimus, which was from the king. 16 And the porters at euerie gate, so that none transgressed his owne: for their brethren prepared for them. 17 And the thinges were consummate that perteyned to the sacrifice of our Lord. 18 In that day they celebrated the Phase, and offered hostes vpon the sacrifice of our Lord, according to the precept of king Iosias. 19 And the children of Israel, that were found at that time, celebrated the Phase: and the festiual day of Azymes for seuen dayes: 20 and there was not celebrated such a Phase in Isreal, from the times of Samuel the prophet: 21 and al the kinges of Israel did not celebrate such a Phase as Iosias did, and the Priestes, and the Leuites, and the Iewes, and al Israel, that were found in their abode at Ierusalem. 22 In the eightenth yeare, Iosias reigning was the Phase celebrated. 23 And the workes of Iosias were directed in the sight of his Lord in a hart ful of feare: 24 and the thinges concerning him are writen in the ancient times, touching them that sinned, and were irreligous against our Lord aboue al nations, and that sought not the wordes of our Lord vpon Israel. 25 And after al this fact of Iosias, came vp Pharao the king of AEgypt comming in Charcamis from the way vpon Euphrates, and Iosias went forth to meete him. (4 Kings 23:29 / 2 Par 35:20) 26 And the king of AEgypt sent to Iosias saying: What is there betwen me & thee king of Iuda? 27 I was not sent of the Lord to fight against thee: for my battel is vpon Euphrates, goe downe in hast. 28 And Iosias did not returne vpon his chariote: but endeuoured to ouerthrow him, not attending the word of the prophet from the mouth of our Lord: 29 but he made battel against him in the field of Mageddo. And princes went downe to king Iosias. 30 And the king said to his seruantes: Remoue me from the battel, for I am weakned excedingly. And forthwith his seruantes remoued him out of the battel. 31 And he went vp into his second chariote: & comming to Ierusalem, dyed, and was buried in his fathers sepulchre. 32 And in al Iurie they mourned for Iosias, & the rulers with their wiues lamented him vntil this day. And this was geuen out to be done alwayes vnto al the stocke of Israel. 33 But these thinges were writen before in the booke of the histories of the kinges of Iuda: and al the actes of the doing of Iosias, and his glorie and his vnderstanding in the law of our Lord: and the thinges that were done by him, and that are not writen in the booke of the kinges of Israel and Iuda. 34 And they that were of the nation, taking Iechonias the sonne of Iosias, made him king for Iosias his father, when he was three and twentie yeares old. (4 Kings 23:30 / 2 Par 36:1) 35 And he reigned ouer Israel three monethes. And the king of AEgypt remoued him, that he should not reigne in Ierusalem: 36 and he put a taxe vpon the nation of siluer an hundred talentes, and of gold one talent. 37 And the king of AEgypt made Ioacim his brother king of Iuda and Ierusalem: 38 and he bound the magistrates of Ioacim, and Zaracel his brother, and taking them brought them backe into AEgypt. 39 Ioacim was fiue and twentie yeares old when he began to reigne in the land of Iuda and Ierusalem: and he did euil in the sight of our Lord. 40 And after this man came vp Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and binding him with a bande of brasse, brought him into Babylon. 41 And Nabuchodonosor tooke the sacred vessels of our Lord, and carried away, and consecrated them in his temple in Babylon. 42 For his vncleanes, and lacke of religion is written in the booke of the times of the kinges. 43 And Ioachin his sonne reigned for him. And when he was made king, he was eightene yeares old. 44 And reigned three monethes and ten dayes in Ierusalem, and did euil in the sight of our Lord: 45 and after a yeare Nabuchodonosor sending, transported him into Babylon together with the sacred vessels of our Lord. (4 Kings 24:13) 46 And he made Sedecias king of Iuda and Ierusalem, when he was one and twentie yeares old: (4 Kings 24:17) and he reigned eleuen yeares. 47 And he did euil in the sight of our Lord, and was not afraid of the wordes which were spoken by Ieremie the prophet from the mouth of our Lord: (Jer 37:2) 48 and being sworne of king Nabuchodonosor, forsworne he did reuolt: and his necke being hardened, & his hart, he transgressed the ordinances of our Lord the God of Israel. 49 And the princes of the people of our Lord did manie thinges wickedly, and they did impiously aboue al the vncleannes of the nations: and they polluted the temple of our Lord that was holie of Ierusalem. 50 And the God of their fathers sent by his messenger to reclame them, for that he would spare them, and his tabernacle. 51 But they scorned at his messengers: and in the day that our Lord spake to them, they were mocking his prophetes. 52 Who was moued euen vnto wrath vpon his nation for their impietie, and commanded the kinges of the Chaldees to come vp. 53 These slewe their yong men with the sword, round about their holie temple, and spared not yong man, and old man, and virgin, and youth: 54 but al were deliuered into their handes: & taking al the sacred vessels of our Lord, and the kinges treasures, they caried them into Babylon, 55 and burnt the house of our Lord, and threwe downe the walles of Ierusalem: and the towres therof they burnt with fire, 56 and consumed al their honorable thinges, and brought them to naught, and those that were left of the sword, they led into Babylon. 57 And they were his seruants vntil the Persians reigned in the fulfilling of the word of our Lord by the mouth of Ieremie: (Jer 25:12 / Jer 29:10 / Dan 9:2) 58 as long as the land quietly kept her sabbathes, al the time of her desolation she sabbathized in the application of seuentie yeares. CHAP. II. Cyrus king of Persia permitteth the Iewes to returne into their countrie: 10. and deliuereth to them the holie vessels, which Nabuchodonosor had taken from the temple. 16. Certaine aduersaries writing to king Artaxerxes, hinder those that would repayre the ruines of Ierusalem. CYRVS king of the Persians reigning for the accomplishment of the word of our Lord by the mouth of Ieremie, (2 Par 36:22 / 1 Esd 1:1 / 1 Esd 6:3 / Jer 25:12 / Jer 29:10 / Dan 9:2) 2 our Lord raysed vp the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians, and he proclaymed in al his kingdomes, and that by writing, 3 saying: Thus sayth Cyrus king of the Persians: The Lord of Israel, the high Lord, hath made me king ouer the whole earth. 4 and hath signified to me to build him a house in Ierusalem, which is in Iurie. 5 If there be any of your kinred, his Lord goe vp with him into Ierusalem. 6 Whosoeuer therefore dwel about the places, let them helpe them that are in the same place, in gold and siluer, 7 in giftes, with horses, and beastes, and with other thinges which by vowes are added into the temple of our Lord, which is in Ierusalem. 8 And the princes of the tribes, of the villages and of Iurie, of the tribe of Beniamin, & the Priestes, and the Leuites standing vp, whom our Lord moued to goe vp, and to build the house of our Lord which is in Ierusalem, and they that were round about them, 9 did helpe them with al their gold and siluer, and beastes, and manie whose minde was stirred vp, with many vowes. 10 And Cyrus the king brought forth the sacred vessel of our Lord, which Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon transported out of Ierusalem, and consecrated them to his Idol. 11 And Cyrus the king of Persians bringing them forth, deliuered them to Mithridatus, who was ouer his treasures. 12 And by him they were deliuered to Salmanasar president of Iurie. 13 And of these this was the number: Cuppes for libamentes of siluer two thousand foure hundred, basens of siluer thirtie: phials of gold thirtie, also of siluer two thousand foure hundred: and other vessels a thousand. 14 and al the vessels of gold and siluer, were fiue thousand eight hundred sixtie. 15 And they were numbered to Salmanasar together with them, that came out of the captiuite of Babylon into Ierusalem. 16 But in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, there wrote to him of them that dwelt in Iurie and Ierusalem, Balsamus, and Mithridatus, and Sabellius, and Rathimus, Balthemus, Sabellius scribe, and the rest dweling in Samaria, and other places the epistle folowing to king Artaxerxes. (1 Esd 4:7) 17 SIR, thy seruantes Rathimus ouer occurrentes, and Sabellius the scribe, and the other iudges of thy court in Caelesyria, and Phenice. 18 And now be it knowen to our Lord the king, that Iewes came vp from you to vs, coming into Ierusalem a rebellious, & very naughty citie, do build the fornaces thereof, and set vp the walles, and rayse the temple. 19 And if this citie, and the walles shal be finished, they wil not onlie not abyde to pay tributes, but also wil resist the kinges. 20 And because that is in doing about the temple, we thought it should doe wel not to neglect this same thing: 21 but to make it knowen to our Lord the king, that if it shal seme good, o king it may be sought in the bookes of thy fathers, 22 and thou shalt find in the recordes, thinges writen of these, and thou shalt know that this citie hath bene rebellious, and trubling kinges, and cities, 23 and the Iewes rebelles, & making battels in it from time out of mind, for the which cause this citie was made desolate. 24 Now therfore we doe thee to vnderstand, Lord king, that if this citie shal be built, and the walles therof shal be erected, there wil be no comming downe for thee into Caelesyria, & Phenice. 25 Then wrote the king to Rathimus, the writer of the occurrentes, and to Balthemus, and to Sabellius the scribe, and to the rest ioyned with them, and to the dwellers in Syria, and Phenice, as foloweth: 26 I haue read the epistle that you sent me. I commanded therfore search to be made, & it was found that the same citie is from the beginning rebellious to kinges, 27 and the men rebelles, and making battels in it, & there were most valient kinges ruling in Ierusalem, and exacting tributes in Caelesyria, & Phenice. 28 Now therfore I haue geuen commandment to forbid those men to build the citie, and to stay them that nothing be done more then is: 29 and that they proceeded not farder, wherof are euils, so that there may be truble brougt vpon the kinges. 30 Then these things being read which were writen of king Artaxerxes, Rathimus, and Sabellius the scribe, and they that were apointed with them ioyning together in hast came to Ierusalem with a troupe of horsemen, and multitude, & companie: 31 and they begane to forbid the builders, and they ceased from building of the temple in Ierusalem, til in the second yeare of the reigne of Darius king of the Persians. CHAP. III. After a solemne supper made to al the court, and chief princes, king Darius sleeping: 4. three esquires of the bodie keeping watch, proposed the question: 10. VVhether wine, or a King, or wemen, or the truth doth excel? 17. The first prayseth wine. KING Darius made a great supper to al his domestical seruantes, and to al the magistrates of Media and Persia, 2 and to al that were purple, and to the praetors, and counsuls, and liuetenantes vnder him from India vnto AEthiopia, an hundred twentie seuen prouinces. 3 And when they had eaten and drunken, and returned ful, then Darius went vp into his chamber, and slept, and awaked. 4 Then those three youngmen kepers of his bodie, which garded the kings bodie, sayd one to an other; 5 Let euerie one of vs say a word that may excel: & whose word soeuer shal appeare wiser then the others, to him wil king Darius geue great giftes, 6 to be couered with purple, & to drinke in gold, and to sleepe vpon gold, & a chariote with a bridle of gold, & a bonet of silke, and a cheyne about his necke: 7 and he shal sit in the second place next Darius for his wisdome. And he shal be called the cosin of Darius. 8 Then euerie one writing his word signed it, and they put it vnder the pillow of Darius the king, 9 and they sayd. When the king shal rise, we wil geue him our writinges: and which soeuer of the three the king shal iudge, and the magistrates of Persia, that his word is the wiser, to him shal the victorie be geuen as is writen. 10 One wrote: Wine is strong. 11 An other wrote, a King is stronger. 12 The third wrote, Wemen are more strong: but aboue al thinges truth ouercometh. 13 And when the king was risen, they tooke their writinges, and gaue him, and he read. 14 And sending he called al the Magistrates of Persians, and the Medes, and them that weare purple, and the pretors, and the ouerseers; 15 and they sate in the councel: and the writinges were read before them. 16 And he sayd: Cal the youngmen, and they shal declare their owne wordes. And they were called, and went in. 17 And he sayd to them: Declare vnto vs concerning these thinges which are writen. And the first began, he that had spoken of the strength of wine, 18 and sayd: O ye men, how doth wine preuaile ouer al men that drinke! it seduceth the minde. 19 And also the mind of king and orphane it maketh vaine. Also of the bondman and the free, of the rich man and the poore, 20 and euerie mind it turneth into securitie and pleasantnes, and it remembreth not any sorow and dewtie, 21 and al hartes it maketh honest, and it remembreth not king, nor magistrate, and it maketh a man speake al thinges by talentes. 22 And when they haue drunke, they remember not frendship, nor brotherhood: yea and not long after they take swordes. 23 And when they are recouered and risen from the wine, they remember not what they haue done. 24 O ye men, doth not wine excel? who thinketh to doe so? And hauing sayd this, he held his peace. CHAP. IIII. The second prayseth the excellencie of a king: 13. The third (which is Zorobabel) commendeth wemen: 33. but preferreth truth aboue al. 41. VVhich is so approued, and he is rewarded. 42. The king moreouer at his request restoreth the holie vessels of the temple, and granteth meanes to build the citie of Ierusalem, and the temple. AND the next began to speake, he that spake of the strength of a king. 2 O ye men doe not the men excel, which obteyne land and sea, and al thinges that are in them? 3 But a king excelleth aboue al thinges, and hath dominion ouer them: and euerie thing whatsoeuer he shal say to them, they doe. 4 And if he send them to warryers, they goe, and throw downe mountaines, and the walles, and towers. 5 They kil, and are killed: and the kinges word they transgresse not. For if they shal ouercome, they bring to the king al thinges whatsoeuer they haue taken for a praye. 6 In like maner also al others, for so many as are not souldiars, nor fight, but til the ground: when they shal reape, againe they bring tributes to the king. 7 And he being one onlie if he say: Kil ye, they kil: say he: forgeue, the forgeue. 8 say he: strike: they strike: say he, destroy, they destroy: say he build, they build. 9 say he, cut downe, they cut downe, say he plant, they plant: 10 and al the people, & potestates here him, and beside this he sitteth downe, and drinketh, and sleepeth. 11 And others gard him round about, and can not goe euerie one, and doe their owne workes, but at a word are obedient to him. 12 O ye men, how doth not a king excel that is so renowmed? And he held his peace. 13 The third that spake of wemen and truth, this is Zorobabel, began to speake. 14 O ye men, not the great king, & many men, neither is it wine that dothe excel. Who is it then that hath the dominion of them? 15 Haue not wemen brought forth the king, and al the people, that ruleth ouer land & sea: 16 and were they not borne of them, and did not they bring vp them which planted the vineyardes, whereof wine is made? 17 And they make the garmentes of al men, & they doe honor to al men, and men can not be separed from wemen. 18 If they haue gathered gold and siluer, and euerie beutiful thing, & see a woman comelie and fayre, 19 leauing al these thinges they fixe their looke vpon her, & with open mouth beholde her, and allure her more then gold and siluer, and euerie precious thing. 20 Man forsaketh his father that brought him vp, and his countrie, and ioyneth himself to a woman. 21 And with a woman he refresheth his soul: and neither doth he remember father, nor mother, nor countrie. 22 And hereby you must know that wemen rule ouer you. Are you not sorie? 23 And a man taketh his sword, & goeth into the way to commit theftes and murders, & to sayle seas & riuers, 24 and seeth a lyon, and goeth in darkenes: and when he hath committed theft, and fraude, and spoyles, he bringeth it to his beloued. 25 And againe, man loueth his wife more then father or mother. 26 And many haue become madde for their wiues: and haue been made bondmen for them: 27 and many haue perished and bene slayne, and haue sinned for wemen. 28 And now beleue me, that the king is great in his powre: because al countries are afrayd to touch him. 29 Neuertheles I saw Apemes the daughter of Bezaces the concubine of a meruelous king, sitting by the king at his right hand, 30 and taking of the crowne from his head, and putting it vpon her self, and with the palme of her left hand she stroke the king. 31 And beside these thinges he with open mouth beheld her: and if she smiled he laugheth, and if she be angrie with him, he flattereth, til he be reconciled to her fauour. 32 O ye men, why are not wemen stronger? Great is the earth, and high is the heauen: who doeth these thinges? 33 And then the king and they that weare purple looked one vpon an other. And he began to speake of truth. 34 O ye men, are not wemen strong? The earth is great and heauen is high: & the swift course of the sunne turneth the heauen round into his place in one day. 35 Is not he magnifical that doth these thinges, and the truth great, and stronger aboue al thinges? 36 Al the earth calleth vpon the truth, heauen also blesseth it, and al workes are moued, and tremble at it, and there is not any thing with it vniust. 37 Wine is vniust, the king is vniust, wemen are vniust, al the sonnes of men are vniust, and al their workes are vniust, and in them is not truth, and they shal perish in their iniquitie: 38 and truth abydeth, and groweth strong for euer, and liueth, and preuayleth for euer and euer. 39 Neither is there with it acception of persons, nor differences: but the thinges that are iust it doth to al men, to the vniust and malignant, and al men are wel pleased in the workes thereof. 40 And there is no vniust thing in the iudgement therof, but strength, and reigne, and power, and maiestie of worldes. Blessed be the God of truth. 41 And he left speaking. And al the people cryed, and sayd: Great is truth and it preuaileth. 42 Then the king sayd to him: Aske, if thou wilt any more, then the thinges that are writen, and I wil geue it thee, according as thou art found wiser then thy neighbours, & thou shalt sitte next to me, and shalt be called my cosin. 43 Then sayd he to the king: Be midful of thy vow, which thou hast vowed, to build Ierusalem in the day that thou didst receiue the kingdom: 44 and to send backe al the vessels that were taken out of Ierusalem, which Cyrus separated, when he sacked Babylon, and would haue sent them backe thither. 45 And thou hast vowed to build the temple, which the Idumeians burnt, when Iurie was destroyed of the Chaldees. 46 And now this is that which I aske Lord, & which I desire, this is the maiestie which I desire of thee, that thou performe the vowe which thou hast vowed to the king of heauen by thy mouth. 47 Then Darius the king rising vp, kissed him: and wrote letters to al the officers, and ouerseers, and them that weare purple, that they should conduct him, and them that were with him, al going vp to build Ierusalem. 48 And to al the ouerseers that were in Syria, and Phoenice, and Libanus he wrote letters, that they should draw Ceder trees from Libanus into Ierusalem, to build the citie with them. 49 And he wrote to al the Iewes which went vp from the kingdome into Iurie for libertie, euerie mightie man, & magistrate, & ouerseer not to come vpon them to their gates, 50 and al the countrie which they had obtayned to be free vnto them, & that the Idumeians leaue the castels which they possesse of the Iewes, 51 and to the building of the temple to geue euerie yeare twentie talentes vntil it were throughly built: 52 & vpon the altars to burne holocausts dayly, as they haue commandment: to offer other ten talentes euery yeare, 53 & to al that go forth from Babylon to build the citie, that there should be libertie as wel to them as to their children, and to al the priestes that goe before. 54 And he wrote a quantitie also, and commanded the sacred stole to be geuen, wherein they should serue; 55 and to the Leuites he wrote to geue preceptes, vntil the day wherein the house shal be finished, and Ierusalem builded. 56 And to al that kepe the citie, he wrote portions and wages to be geuen to them. 57 And he sent away al the vessels whatsoeuer Cyrus had separated from Babylon, and al thinges whatsoeuer Cyrus sayd, he also commanded to be donne, and to be sent to Ierusalem. 58 And when that yong man was gone forth, lyfting vp his face toward Ierusalem, he blessed the king of heauen, 59 & sayd: Of thee is victorie, and of thee is wisdome, and glorie. And I am thy seruant. 60 Blessed art thou which hast geuen me wisedom, and I wil confesse to thee Lord God of our fathers. 61 And he toke the letters, and went into Babylon. And he came, and told al his brethren that were in Babylon: 62 and they blessed the God of their fathers, because he gaue them remission and refreshing, 63 that they should goe vp and build Ierusalem, and the temple wherein his name was renowmed, and they reioyced with musike and ioy seuen dayes. CHAP. V. Those that returned from captiuitie of Bablyon into Ierusalem, and Iurie, are recited. 47. They restore Gods seruice: 66. but are hindered from building. AFTER these thinges there were chosen, to goe vp the princes of townes by their houses, and tribes, and their wiues, and their sonnes and daughters, and their men seruantes and wemen seruantes, and their cattel. (1 Esd 2:1) 2 And Darius the king sent together with them a thousand horsmen, til they conducted them to Ierusalem with peace, & with musicke & with tymbrels, and shaulmes: 3 and al the brethren were playing, and he made them goe vp together with them. 4 And these are the names of the men that went vp by their townes according to tribes, and according to the portion of their principalitie. 5 Priestes: The children of Phinees, the sonne of Aaron, Iesus the sonne of Iosedec, Ioacim the sonne of Zorobabel, the sonne of Salatheil of the house of Dauid, of the progenie of Phares, of the tribe of Iuda. 6 Who spake vnder Darius king of the Persians the meruelous wordes in the second yeare of his reigne the first moneth Nisan. 7 And they are these, that of Iurie came vp from the captiuitie of the transmigration, whom Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon transported into Babylon, and returned into Ierusalem. (1 Esd 2:2 / 2 Esd 7:6) 8 And euerie one sought a part of Iurie according to his owne citie, they that came with Zorobabel, and Iesus, Nehemias, Areores, Elimeo, Emmanio, Mardocheo, Beelsuro, Mechpsatochor, Olioro, Emonia one of their princes. 9 And the number of them of the same nation, of their rulers the children of Phares, two thousand an hundred seuentie two: 10 The children of Ares, three thousand an hundred fiftie seuen: 11 The children of Phoemo, an hundred fourtie two: in the children of Iesus and Ioabes, a thousand three hundred two: 12 the children of Demu, two thousand foure hundred seuentie: the children of Choraba, two hundred fiue: the children of Banica, an hundred sixtie eight, 13 the children of Bebech, foure hundred three: the children of Archad, foure hundred twentie seuen: 14 the children of Cham, thirtie seuen: the children of Zoroar, two thousand sixtie seuen: the children of Adin, foure hundred sixtie one: 15 the children of Aderectes, an hundred eight: the children of Ciaso and Zelas an hundred seuen: the children of Azoroc, foure hundred thirtie nine: 16 the children of Iedarbone, an hundred thirtie two: the children of Ananias, an hundred thirtie: the children of Asoni, ninetie: 17 the children of Marsar, foure hundred twentie two: the children of Zabarus, nintie fiue: the children of Sepolemon, an hundred twentie three: 18 the children of Nepopas, fiftie fiue: the children of Hechanatus, an hundred fiftie eight: the children of Cebethamus, an hundred thirite two: 19 the children of Crearpatros, which are of Enocadie and Modia, foure hundred twentie three: they of Gramas and Babea, an hundred twentie one. 20 They of Besselon, and Ceagge, sixtie fiue: they of Bastraro, an hundred twentie two: 21 they of Bechenobes, fiftie fiue: the children of Liptis, an hundred fiftie fiue: the children of Labonni, three hundred fiftie seuen: 22 the children of Sichem, three hundred seuentie: the children of Suadon, & Cliomus, three hundred seuentie eight: 23 the children of Ericus, two thousand an hundred fourtie fiue: the children of Anaas, three hundred seuentie. The priestes: 24 the children of Ieddus, the sonne of Euther, the sonne of Eliasib, three hundred seuenty two: the children of Emerus, two hundred fiftie two: 25 the children of Phasurius, three hundred fiftie seuen the children of Caree, two hundred twentie seuen. 26 The Leuites: The children of Iesus in Caduhel, and Bamis, and Serebias, and Edias, seuentie foure, the whole number from the twelfth yeare, thiritie thousand foure hundred sixtie two. 27 The sonnes, and daughters, and wiues, the whole number, fourtie thousand two hundred fourtie two. 28 The children of the Priestes, that sang in the temple: the children of Asaph, an hundred twentie eight. 29 And the porters: the children of Esmeni, the children of Azer, the children of Amon, the children of Accuba, of Topa, the children of Tobi, al an hundred thirtie nine. 30 Priestes that serued in the temple: the children of Sel, the children of Gaspha, the children of Tobloch, the children of Caria, the children of Su, the children of Hellu, the children of Lobana, the children of Armacha, the children of Accub, the children of Vtha, the children of Cetha, the children of Aggab, the children of Obai, the children of Anani, the children of Canna, the children of Geddu, 31 the children or An, the children of Radin, the children of Desanon, the children of Nachoba, the children of Caseba, the children of Gaze, the children of Ozui, the children of Sinone, the children of Attre, the children of Hasten, the children of Asiana, the children of Manei, the children of Nasissim, the children of Acusu, the children of Agista, the children of Azui, the children of Fauon, the children of Phasalon, 32 the children of Meedda, the children of Phusa, the children of Caree, the children of Burcus, the children of Saree, the children of Coesi, the children of Nasith, the children of Agisti, the children of Pedon. 33 Salomon his children, the children of Asophot, the children of Phasida, the children of Celi, the children of Dedon, the children of Gaddehel, the children of Sephegi, 34 the children of Aggia, the children of Sachareth, the children of Sabathen, the children of Caroneth, the children of Malsith, the children of Ama, the children of Sasus, the children of Addus, the children of Suba, the children of Eura, the children of Rahotis, the children of Phasphat, the children of Malmon. 35 Al that serued the sanctuarie, and the seruantes of Salomon, foure hundred eightie two. 36 These are the children that came vp from Thelmela, Thelharsa: the princes of them, Carmellam, and Careth: 37 and they could not declare their cities, and their progenies, how they are of Israel. The children of Dalari, the children of Tubal, the children of Nechodaici, 38 of the Priestes, that did the function of priesthood: and there were not found the children of Obia, the children of Achisos, the children of Addin, who tooke a wife of the daughters of Pargeleu: 39 and they were called by his name, and the writing of the kinred of these was sought in the register, and it was not found, and they were forbid to doe the function of priesthood. 40 And Nehemias and Astharus sayd to them: Let not the holie thinges be participated, til there arise a hiegh priest lerned for declaration and truth. 41 And al Israel was beside men seruantes, and wemen seruantes, fourtie two thousand three hundred fourtie. 42 Their men seruantes and wemen seruantes, seuen thousand three hundred thirtie seuen. Singing men and singing wemen, two hundred three score fiue. 43 Camels, foure hundred thiritie fiue. Horses, seuen thousand thirtie six. Mules, two hundred thousand fourtie fiue. Beastes vnder yoke, fiue thousand twentie fiue. 44 And of the rulers themselues by their villages, when they came into the temple of God, which was in Ierusalem, to renew and raise vp the temple in his place, according to their power: 45 and to be geuen into the temple to the sacred treasure of the workes, of gold twelue thousand mnas, and fiue thousand mnas of siluer, and stoles for Priestes an hundred. 46 And the Priestes and Leuites, and they that came out of the people, dwelt in Ierusalem, and in the countrie, and the sacred singingmen, and porters, and al Israel in their countries. 47 And the seuenth moneth being at hand, and when the children of Israel were euerie man in his owne affayres, they came together with one minde into the court, that was before the east gate. (1 Esd 3:1) 48 And Iesus the sonne of Iosedec, and his brethren the priestes: Zorobabel the sonne of Salathiel, and his brethren standing vp, prepared an altar, 49 that they might offer vpon it holocaustes, according to the thinges that are writen in the booke of Moyses the man of God. 50 And there assembled there of other nations of the land, and al the nations of the land erected the altar in his place, and they offered hostes, and morning holocaustes to our Lord. 51 And they celebrated the feast of Tabernacles, and the solemne day, as it is commanded in the lawe: and sacrifices dayly, as it behoued: 52 and after these the appointed oblations, and the hostes of the sabbathes, and of the newmoones, and of al the solemne sanctified dayes. 53 And as manie as vowed to our Lord from the new moone of the seuenth moneth, began to offer the hostes to God, and the temple of our Lord was not yet built. 54 And they gaue monie to the masones and workemen, and drinke and victuals with ioy. 55 And they gaue cartes to the Sidonians, and Tyrianes, that with them they should carie ceder beames from Lybanus, and should make boates in the hauen Ioppe, according to the decre that was writen for them by Cyrus king of the Persians. 56 And in the second yeare coming into the temple of God in Ierusalem, in the second moneth began Zorobel the sonne of Salathiel, and Iosue the sonne of Iosedec, and their bretheren, and the Priestes and Leuites, and al that were come from the captiuitie into Ierusalem. 57 and they founded the temple of God in the newmoone of the second moneth of the second yeare, after that they came into Iurie and Ierusalem. 58 And they appoynted the Leuites from twentie yeares, ouer the workes of our Lord: and Iesus stood and his sonne, and the bretheren, al Leuites ioyning together, & executors of the lawe, doing the workes in the house of our Lord. 59 And al the Priestes stood, hauing stoles with trumpettes: 60 and Leuites the children of Asaph, hauing cymbals together praysing our Lord, and blessing him according to Dauid king of Israel. 61 And they song a song to our Lord, because his sweetenes, and honour is for euer vpon Israel. 62 And al the people sounded with trumpet, and cried out with a loud voice, praysing our Lord in the raysing vp of the house of our Lord. 63 And there came of the Priestes and Leuites, and presidentes by their villages the more ancientes, which had sene the old house: 64 and to the building of this with crie and great lamentation, and manie with trumpettes and great ioy: 65 in so much that the people heard not the trumpettes for the lamentatinon of the people. For the multitude was sounding with trumpettes magnifically, so that it was heard far of. 66 And the enimes of the tribe of Iuda, and Beniamin heard it, and they came to knowe what the voyce of the trumpettes was: 67 And they knew that they which were of the captiuitie doe build a temple to our Lord the God of Israel. 68 And coming to Zorobabel & Iesus, the ouerseers of the villages, they sayd to them: We will build together with you: (1 Esd 4:2) 69 For we haue in like maner heard your Lord, & we walke like from the dayes of Asbazareth king of the Assyrians, who transported vs hither. 70 And Zorobabel, and Iesus, & the princes of the villages of Israel, sayd to them: 71 It is not for vs and you to build the house of our God. For we alone wil build to our Lord of Israel according as Cyrus the king of the Persians hath commanded. 72 And the nations of the land lying vpon them that are in Iurie, and lifting vp the worke of the building, and bringing ambushmentes, and peoples, prohibited them to build. 73 and practising assaultes hindred them, that the building might not be finished al the time of the life of king Cyrus, and they differred the building for two yeares vntil the reigne of Darius. CHAP. VI. The Iewes by assistance of king Darius build vp the Temple in Ierusalem. AND in the second yeare of the reigne of Darius prophecied Aggeus, and Zacharias the sonne of Addo the prophet to Iurie and Ierusalem in the name of God of Israel vpon them. (1 Esd 5:1) 2 Then Zorobabel the sonne of Salathiel standing vp, and Iesus the sonne of Iosedec begane to build the house of our Lord, which is in Ierusalem. 3 When the prophetes of our Lord were present with them, and did helpe them. At the same time came Sisennes to them, the deputie of Syria, and of Phenice, and Satrabuzanes, and his felowes: 4 and they sayd to them: By whose commandment, build ye this house, and this roofe, and perfite al other thinges? And who are the workmen that build these thinges? 5 And the ancientes of the Iewes, which were left of the captiuitie by our Lord, had fauoure when the visitation was made vpon them. 6 And they were not hindered from building, til it was signified to Darius of al these thinges, and answer was receiued. 7 A copie of the letter, which they sent to Darius. SISENNES deputie of Syria and Phenice, and Satrabuzanes, and his felowes in Syria and Phenice presidents, to king Darius greetings: 8 Be al thinges knowen to our Lord the king, that when we came into the countrie of Iurie, and had entered into Ierusalem, we found them building the great house of God. 9 And the temple of polished stones, and of great and precious matter in the walles. 10 And the workes to be a doing earnestly, and to succede, and prosper in their handes, and in al glorie to be perfited most diligently. 11 Then we asked the ancients saying, by whose permission build ye this house, & found these workes? 12 And therfore we asked them, that we might doe thee to know the men & the ouerseers, and we required of them a rolle of the names of the ouerseers. 13 But they answered vs saying: We are the seruantes of the Lord, which made heauen and earth. 14 And this house was built these manie yeares past by a king of Israel, that was great and most valiant, and was finished. 15 And because our fathers were prouoking to wrath, and sinned agaynst God of Israel, he deliuered them into the handes of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, king of the Chaldees. 16 And throwing downe this house they burnt it, and they led the people captiue into Babylon. 17 In the first yeare when Cyrus reigned the king of Babylon, Cyrus the king wrote to build this house. 18 And these sacred vessels of gold and siluer which Nabuchodonosor had taken out of the house which is in Ierusalem, and had consecrated them in his owne temple, Cyrus brought them forth agayne out of the temple which was in Babylon, and they were deliuered to Zorobabel, & to Salmanasar the deputie. 19 And it was commanded them that they should offer these vessels, & lay them vp in the temple, which was in Ierusalem, and build the temple of God itself in his place. 20 Then did Salmanasar lay the fundations of the house of our Lord, which is in Ierusalem: and from that time vntil now it is a building, and is not accomplished. 21 Now therfore if thou thincke it good o king, let it be sought in the kings liberaries of Cyrus the king, which are in Babylon: 22 and if it shal be found, that the building of the house of the Lord, which is in Ierusalem, begane by the counsel of Cyrus the king, and it be thought good of our Lord the king, let him write to vs of these thinges. 23 Then Darius the king commanded search to be made in the libraries: and there was found in Ecbatana a towne that is in the countrie of Media, one place wherin were writen these wordes: (1 Esd 6:1) 24 IN THE FIRST YEARE of the reigne of Cyrus, king Cyrus commanded to build the house of the Lord which is in Ierusalem, where they did burne incense with dayly fire, 25 the height wherof shal be of ten cubits, & the bredth three score cubites, foure square with three stones polished, and with a loft galerie of wood of the same countrie, & one new galerie, and the expenses to be geuen out of the house of Cyrus the king. 26 And the sacred vesseles of the house of the Lord, as wel of gold as of siluer, which Nabuchodonosor tooke from the house of our Lord, which is in Ierusalem where they were layed, that they be put there: 27 And he commanded Sisennes the deputie of Syria & Phoenice, and Satrabuzanes, and his felowes & them that were ordayned presidentes in Syria & Phoenice, that they should refraine themselues from that place. 28 And I also haue geuen commandment to build it wholly: and haue prouided, that they helpe them, which are of the captiuitie of the Iewes, til the temple of the house of the Lord be accomplished. 29 And from the vexation of the tributes of Coelesyria & Phoenice, a quantitie to be geuen diligently to these men for the sacrifice of the Lord, to Zorobabel the gouernour, for oxen, and rammes, and lambes. 30 And in like maner corne also, and salt, and wine, and oyle continually yeare by yeare, according as the priestes which are in Ierusalem, haue prescribed to be spent dayly: 31 that libamentes may be offered to the most high God for the king & his children, & that they may pray for their life. 32 And that it be denounced, that whosoeuer shal transgresse anie thing of these which are writen, or shal despise it, a beame be taken of theyr owne, & they be hanged, & their goodes be confiscate to the king. 33 Therfore the Lord also, whose name is inuocated there, destroy euery king & nation, that shal extend their hand to hinder or to handle il the house of the Lord which is in Ierusalem. 34 I Darius the king haue decreed that it be most diligently done according to these thinges. CHAP. VII. The house of God is finished, 7. and dedicated, 10. the feast of Pasch is also celebrated seuen dayes with Azimes. THEN Sisennes the deputie of Coelesyria, and Phaenice, and Satrabuzames, and their felowes, obeying those thinges which were decreed of Darius the king, (1 Esd 6:13) 2 applied the sacred workes most diligently, working together with the ancientes of the Iewes, the princes of Syria. 3 And the sacred workes prospered, Aggeus & Zacharias the prophetes prophecying. 4 And they accomplished al thinges by the precept of our Lord the God of Israel, and by the counsel of Cyrus, & Darius, and Artaxerxes the king of the Persians. 5 And our house was a finishing vntil the three and twentith day of the moneth of Adar, the sixth yeare of Darius the king. 6 And the children of Israel, and the Priestes and Leuites, and the rest that were of the captiuitie, which were added did according to those thinges that are written in the booke of Moyses. 7 And they offered for the dedication of the temple of our Lord, oxen an hundred, rammes two hundred, lambes foure hundred. 8 And kiddes for the sinnes of al Israel, twelue, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 9 And the Priestes and Leuites stood clothed with stoles by tribes, ouer al the workes of our Lord the God of Israel, according to the booke of Moyses, and the porters at euerie gate. 10 And the children of Israel, wih them that were of the captiuitie celebrated the phase of the fourtenth moone of the first moneth, when the Priestes and Leuites were sanctified. 11 Al the children of the captiuitie were not sanctified together, because al the Leuites were sanctified together. 12 And al the children of the captuitie immolated the phase, both for their brethren the Priestes, and for them selues. 13 And the children of Israel did eate, they that were of the captiuitie al that remayned apart from al the abominations of the nations of the land seeking our Lord. 14 And they celebrated the festiual day of Azymes seuen dayes feasting in the sight of our Lord. 15 Because he turned the counsel of the king of the Assirians toward them, to strengthen their handes to the workes of our Lord the God of Israel. CHAP. VIII. Esdras going from Babylon to Ierusalem, 9. carieth king Artaxerxes fauourable letters, 14. with licence to take gold, siluer, and al thinges necessarie at their pleasure. 31. The chief men that goe with him are recited. 51. He voweth a fast praying for good success in their iorney. 56. weigheth the gold and siluer, which he deliuereth to the Priestes, and Leuites. 69. And seuerely admonisheth the people to repentance, for their mariages made with infideles. AND after him when Artaxerxes king of the Persians reigned, came Esdras the sonne of Azarias, the sonne of Helcias the sonne of Salome, (1 Esd 7:1) 2 the sonne of Sadoc, the sonne of Achitob, the sonne of Ameri, the sonne of Azahel, the sonne of Bocci, the sonne of Abisue, the sonne of Phinees the sonne of Eleazar, the sonne of Aaron the first priest. 3 This Esdras came vp from Babylon being scribe & wise in the law of Moyses, which was geuen of our Lord the God of Israel to teach and to doe. 4 And the king gaue him glorie, because he had found grace in al dignitie and desire in his sight. 5 And there went vp with him of the children of Israel, and the Priestes, and the Leuites, and the sacred singers of the temple, and the porters, and the seuantes of the temple into Ierusalem. 6 In the seuenth yeare when Artaxerxes reigned in the fifth moneth, this is the seuenth yeare of his reigne, going forth of Babylon in the newmoone of the fifth moneth, 7 they came to Ierusalem according to his commandment, according to the prosperitie of their iourney, which their Lord gaue them. 8 For in these Esdras had great knowlege, that he would not pretermitte anie of those thinges, which were according to the law, and the preceptes of our Lord, and in teaching al Israel al iusticie and iudgement. 9 And they that wrote the writinges of Araxerxes the king, coming deliuered the writing which was granted of Artaxerxes the king to Esdras the Priest, & the reader of the law of our Lord, the copie wherof here foloweth. 10 KING Artaxerxes to Esdras the Priest, and reader of the law of the Lord, greeting. 11 I of curtesie esteming it among benifites, haue commanded them that of their owne accord are desirous of the nation of the Iewes, and of the Priestes and Leuites, which are in my kingdom, to goe with thee into Ierusalem. 12 If anie therfore desire to goe with thee, let them come together, and set forward as it hath pleased me, and my seuen freindes my counselers: 13 that they may visite those thinges which are done touching Iurie and Ierusalem, obseruing as thou hast in the law of the Lord. 14 And let them carie the giftes to the Lord the God of Israel, which I haue vowed and my freindes to Ierusalem, and al the gold and siluer, that shal be found in the countrie of Babylon to the Lord in Ierusalem, with that, 15 which is geuen for the nation it self vnto the temple of their Lord which is in Ierusalem: that this gold and siluer be gathered for oxen, and rammes, and lambes, and kiddes, and for the thinges that are agreable to these, 16 that they may offer hostes to the Lord vpon the altar of their Lord, which is in Ierusalem. 17 And al thinges whatsoeuer thou with thy brethren wilt doe with gold and siluer, doe it at thy pleasure according to the precept of the Lord thy God. 18 And the sacred vessels, which are geuen thee to the workes of the house of the Lord thy God, which is in Ierusalem. 19 And other thinges whatsoeuer shal helpe thee to the workes of the temple of thy God, thou shalt geue it out of the kings treasure. 20 When thou with thy brethren wilt doe ought with gold and siluer, doe according to the wil of the Lord. 21 And I king Artaxerxes haue geuen commandment to the keepers of the treasure of Syria and Phaenice, that what thinges soeuer Esdras the Priest and reader of the law of the Lord, shal write for, they geue him vnto an hundred talentes of siluer, likewise also of gold. 22 And vnto an hundred measures of corne, & an hundred vessels of wine, and other thinges whatsoeuer abound without taxing. 23 Let al thinges be done to the most high God according to the law of God, lest perhaps there arise wrath in the reigne of the king, and of his sonne, and his sonnes. 24 And to you it is sayd, that vpon al the Priestes, and Leuites, and sacred singers, and seruantes of the temple, & scribes of this temple 25 no tribute, nor any other taxe be sette, and that no man haue auctoritie to obiect any thing to them. 26 But thou Esdras according to the wisedom of God appoynt iudges, and arbitrers in al Syria and Phaenice: and teach al them that know no the law of thy God: 27 that whosoeuer shal transgresse the law, they be diligently punished either with death, or with torment, or els with a forfeite of money, or with banishment. 28 And Esdras the scribe sayd: Blessed be the God of our fathers, which hath geuen this wil into the kings hart, to glorifie his house, which is in Ierusalem. 29 And hath honoured me in the sight of the king, and of his counselers, and freindes, and them that weare purple. 30 And I was made constant in minde according to the ayde of our Lord my God, and gathered together of Israel men, that should goe vp together with me. 31 And these are the princes according to their kindredes, and seueral principalities of them that came vp from Babylon the kingdom of Artaxerxes. (1 Esd 8:1) 32 Of the children of Phares, Gerfomus: and of the children of Siemarith, Amenus: of the children of Dauid, Acchus the sonne of Scecilia: 33 Of the children of Phares, Zacharias, and with him returned an hundred fiftie men. 34 Of the children of leader Moabilion, Zaraei, and with him two hundred fiftie men: 35 Of the children of Zachues, Iechonias of Zechoel, and with him two hundred fiftie men: 36 of the children of Sala, Maasias of Gotholia, & with him seuentie men: 37 of the children of Saphatia, Zarias of Michel, and with him eightie men: 38 of the children of Iob, Abdias of Iehel, and with him two hundred twelue men: 39 of the children of Bania, Salimoth, the sonne of Iosaphia, and with him an hundred sixtie men: 40 of the children of Beer, Zacharias Bebei, and with him two hundred eight men: 41 of the children of Ezead, Ioannes of Eccetan, and with him an hundred ten men: 42 of the children of Adonicam, which were last, and these are their names, Eliphalam the sonne of Gebel, and Semeias, and with him seuentie men. 43 And I gathered them together to the riuer that is called Thia, and we camped there three dayes, and vewed them againe. 44 And of the children of the Priestes and Leuites I found not there. 45 And I sent to Eleazarus, and Eccelon, and Masman, and Maloban, and Enaathan, and Samea, and Ioribum, Nathan, Enuaugam, Zacharias, and Mosolam the leaders them selues, and that were skilful. 46 And I sayd to them that they should come to Loddeus, who was at the place of the treasurie. 47 And I commanded them to say to Loddeus, and his brethren, and to them that were in the treasurie, that they should send vs them that might doe the function of priesthood in the house of the Lord our God. 48 And they brought vnto vs according to the mightie hand of the Lord our God cunning men: of the children of Moholi, the sonne of Leui, the sonne of Israel, Sebebia, & his sonnes and brethren, which were eightene: 49 Asbia, and Amin of the sonnes of the children of Chananeus, and their children twentie men. 50 And of them that serued the temple, whom Dauid gaue, and the princes themselues to the ministerie of the Leuites of them that serued the temple, two hundred twentie. Al their names were signified in writings. 51 And I vowed there a fast to the yong men in the sight of God, that I might aske of him a good iourney for vs, and them that were with vs, and for the children, and the cattel because of ambushementes. 52 For I was ashamed to aske of the king footemen and horsemen in my companie, to guard vs, against our aduersaries. 53 For we sayd to the king that the power of our Lord wil be with them that seeke him with al affection. 54 And agayne we besought the Lord our God according to these thinges: whom also we had propicious, and we obteyned of our God. 55 And I separated of the rulers of the people, and of the Priestes of the temple, twelue men, and Sedebia, and Asanna, and with them of their brethren ten men. 56 And I weyed to them the gold and siluer, and the vessels of the house of our God perteyning to the Priestes, which the king had geuen, and his counselers, and the princes, and al Israel. 57 And when I had weyed it, I deliuered of siluer an hundred fiftie talentes, and siluer vessels of an hundred talentes, and of gold an hundred talentes. 58 And of vessels of gold seuen score and twelue brasen vessels good of shyning brasse, resembling the forme of gold. 59 And I sayd to them: You are also sanctified to our Lord, and the vessels be holie, and the gold and siluer is vowed to our Lord the God of our fathers. 60 Watch and keepe, til you deliuer them to some of the rulers of the people, and to the Priestes, and Leuites, and to the princes of the cities of Israel in Ierusalem, in the treasurie of the house of our God. 61 And those Priestes and Leuites that receiued the gold and siluer and vessels, brought it to Ierusalem into the temple of our Lord. 62 And we went forward from the riuer Thia, the twelfth day of the first moneth, til we entred into Ierusalem. 63 And when the third day was come, in the fourth day the gold being weyed, and the siluer, was deliuered in the house of the Lord our God, to Marimoth Priest the sonne of Iori. 64 And with him was Eleazar the sonne of Phinees: and with them were Iosadus the sonne of Iesus, and Medias, and Banni the sonne of a Leuite, by number and weight al thinges. 65 And the weight of them was writen the same houre. 66 And they that came out of the captiuitie, offered sacrifice to our Lord the God of Israel, oxen twelue, for al Israel, rammes eightie six, 67 lambes seuentie two, bucke goates for sinne twelue, and for health twelue kyne, al for the sacrifice of our Lord. 68 And they read againe the preceptes of the king to the kinges officers, and to the deputies of Coelesyria, and Phoenice: and they honored the nation, and the temple of our Lord. 69 And these thinges being finished, the rulers came to me, saying: The stocke of Isreal, and the princes, and the Priestes, and the Leuites, (1 Esd 9:1) 70 and the strange people, and nations of the land haue not separated their vncleannes from the Chananeites, and Hetheites, and Pherezeites, and Iebuseites, and Moobites, & AEgyptians, and Idumeians. 71 For they are ioyned to their daughters both themselues, and their sonnes: and the holie sede is mingled with the strange nations of the earth, and the rulers and magistrates were partakers of that iniquitie from the beginning of the reigne it self. 72 And forthwith as I heard these thinges, I rent my garmentes and sacred tunike: and tearing the heares of my head, and my beard, I sate sorowful and heauie. 73 And there assembled to me mourning vpon this iniquitie, as manie as were then moued by the word of our Lord the God of Israel, and I sate sad vntil the euening sacrifice. 74 And I rising vp from fasting, hauing my garmentes rent and the sacred tunike, kneeling, and stretching forth my handes to our Lord, 75 I sayd: Lord I am confounded, and ashamed before thy face, 76 for our sinnes are multiplied ouer our heades, and our iniquities are exalted euen to heauen. 77 Because from the times of our fathers we are in great sinne vnto this day. 78 And for the sinnes of vs, and of our fathers we haue bene deliuered with our brethren, and with our Priestes to the kinges of the earth, into sword and captiuitie, and spoile with confusion vnto this present day. 79 And now what a great thing is this that mercie hath happened to vs from thee o Lord God, & leaue thou vnto vs a roote, and a name in the place of thy sanctification, 80 to discouer our light in the house of the Lord our God, to geue vs meate in al the time of our bondage. 81 And when we serued, we were not forsaken of the Lord our God: but he sette vs in fauour, appointing the kinges of the Persians to geue us meate, 82 and to glorifie the temple of the Lord our God, and to build the desolations of Sion, to geue vs stabilitie in Iurie, and Ierusalem. 83 And now what say we Lord, hauing these thinges? For we haue transgressed thy preceptes, which thou gauest into the handes of thy seruantes the prophetes, 84 saying: That the land into which ye entred to possesse the inheritance therof, is a land polluted with the coinquinations of the strangers of the land, and their vncleanes hath filled it wholy with their filthines. 85 And now your daughters you shal not match with their sonnes, and their daughters you shal not take for your sonnes. 86 And you shal not seeke to haue peace with them for euer, that growing strong you may eate the best things of the land, and may distribute the inheritance to your children for euer. 87 And the thinges that happen to vs, al are done for our nauhtie workes, and our great sinnes. 88 And thou gauest vs such a roote, and we are returned againe to transgresse thy ordinances, that we would be mingled with the vncleannes of the nations of this land. 89 Wilt not thou be wrath with vs to destroy vs, til there be no roote left nor our name? 90 Lord God of Israel thou art true. For there is a roote left vntil this present day. 91 Behold, now we are in thy sight in our iniquities. For it is not to stand any longer before thee in these matters. 92 And when Esdras with adoration confessed weeping, lying flat on the ground before the temple, there were gathered before him out of Ierusalem a verie great multitude, men and wemen, and yong men and yong wemen. For there was great weeping in the multitude it self. (1 Esd 10:1) 93 And when he had cried, Iechonias of Ieheli of the children of Israel, sayd to Esdras: We haue sinned against our Lord, for that we haue taken vnto vs in mariage strange wemen of the nations of the land. 94 And now thou art ouer al Israel, in these therfore let there be an othe from our Lord to expel al our wiues that are of strangers with their children. 95 As it was decreed to thee of the ancesters according to the law of our Lord, rising vp declare it. 96 For to thee the busines perteineth, and we are with thee: doe manfully. 97 And Esdras rysing vp adiured the princes of the Priestes and Leuites, and al Israel to doe according to these thinges and they sware. CHAP. IX. Esdras fasting for the sinnes of the people, commandeth that they separate al strange wemen from them. 18. The Priestes and Leuites, which had offended herein, are recited. 38 He readeth the law before the people: 48 certaine doe expound to the multitudes in seueral places. 52 And so they are dismissed with ioy. AND Esdras rysing vp from before the court of the temple, went into the chamber of Ionathas the sonne of Nasabi. (1 Esd 10:6) 2 And lodging there he tasted no bread, nor dranke water for the iniquitie of the multitude. 3 And there was proclamation made in al Iurie, & in Ierusalem to al that were of the captiuitie gathered in Ierusalem, 4 that whosoeuer shal not appeare with in two or three dayes, according to the iudgement of the ancients sitting vpon it, their goods should be taken away, and himselfe should be iudged an alien from the multitude of the captiuitie. 5 And al were gathered that were of the tribe of Iuda, and of Beniamin within three dayes in Ierusalem: this is the ninth moneth, the twentith day of the moneth. 6 And al the multitude sate in the court of the temple trembling, for the present winter. 7 And Esdras rysing vp sayd to them: You haue done vnlawfully taking to you in mariage strang wiues, that you might adde to the sinnes of Israel. 8 And now geue confession, & magnificence to our Lord the God of our fathers: 9 and accomplish his wil, and depart from the nations of the land, and from your wiues the strangers. 10 And al the multitude cried, and they sayd with a lowde voice: As thou hast sayd, we wil doe. 11 But because the multitude is great, and winter time, and we can not stand in the ayre without succour: and this is a worke for vs not of one day, nor of two, for we haue sinned much in these thinges: 12 Let the rulers of the multitude stand, and that dwel with vs, and as manie as haue with them forreine wiues, 13 and at a time appointed let the priestes out of euerie place, and the iudges assist, vntil they appeaze the wrath of our Lord concerning this busines. 14 And Ionathas the sonne of Ezeli, and Ozias of Thecam tooke vpon them according to these wordes: and Bosoramus, and Leuis, and Sabbathaeus, wrought together with them. 15 And al that were of the captiuitie stood according to al these thinges. 16 And Esdras the priest chose vnto him men the great princes of their fathers according to their names: & they sate together in the newmoone of the tenth moneth to examine this busines. 17 And they determined of the men that had outlandish wiues, vntil the newmoone of the first moneth. 18 And there were found of the priestes entermingled that had outlandish wiues. 19 Of the sonnes of Iesus the sonne of Iosedec, and his brethren: Maseas, and Eleazarus, and Ioribus, and Ioadeus, 20 and they put to their handes to expel their wiues: and to offer a ramme to obtayne pardon for their ignorance. 21 And the sonnes of Semmeri: Maseas and Esses, Ieelech, and Azarias. 22 And of the children of Fofere: Limosias, Hismaenis, and Nathanee, Iussio, Reddus, and Thalsas. 23 And of the Leuites: Iorabdus, and Semeis, and Colnis, and Calitas, and Facteas, and Coluas, and Eliomas, 24 and of the sacred singing men, Eliasib, Zaccarus. 25 And of the porters, Salumus, and Tolbanes. 26 And of Israel: of the sonnes of Foro, Ozi, and Remias, and Geddias, & Melchias, and Michelus, Eleazarus, and Iammebias, and Bannas. 27 And of the sonnes of Iolaman: Chamas, and Zacharias, and Iezuelus, and Ioddius, and Erimoth, and Helias. 28 And of the sonnes of Zathoim: Eliadas, and Liasumus, Zochias, and Larimoth, & Zabdis, and Thebedias. 29 And of the sonnes of Zebes: Ioannes, and Amanias, and Zabdias, and Emeus. 30 And of the sonnes of Banni: Olamus, & Maluchus, and Ieddeus, and Iasub, and Azabus, & Ierimoth. 31 And of the sonnes of Addin: Nathus, and Moosias, & Caleus, and Raanas, Maaseas, Mathathias, and Beseel, and Bonnus, and Manasses. 32 And of the sonnes of Nuae: Noneas, and Aseas, and Melchias, and Sameas, and Simon, Beniamin, and Malchus, and Marras. 33 And of the sonnes of Asom: Carianeus, Mathathias, & Bannus, & Eliphalach, and Manasses, and Semei. 34 And of the sonnes of Banni: Ieremias, and Moadias, and Abramus, & Iohel, and Baneas, & Pelias, and Ionas, and Marimoth, & Eliasib, and Matheneus, and Eliasis, and Orizas, and Dielus, and Semedius, & Zambris, and Iosephus. 35 And of the sonnes of Nobei: Idelus, and Mathathias, and Sabadus, and Zecheda, Zedmi, and Iessei, Baneas. 36 Al these maried outlandish wiues, and did put them away with their children. 37 And the Priestes and the Leuites, and they that were of Israel, dwelt in Ierusalem, and in the whole countrie in the newmoone of the seuenth moneth. And the children of Israel were in their habitations. 38 And al the multitude was gathered together into the court, which is on the east of the sacred gate: 39 and they sayd to Esdras the high priest, and reader, that he should bring the law of Moyses, which was deliuered of our Lord the God of Israel. 40 And Esdras the high priest brought the law to al the multitude of them from man vnto woman, and to al the priestes to heare the law in the newmoone of the seuenth moneth. 41 And he read in the court, which is before the sacred gate of the temple, from breake of day vntil euening before men and wemen. And they al gaue their minde to the law. 42 And Esdras the priest, and reader of the law stoode vpon a tribunal of wood, which was made. 43 And by him stood Mathathias, and Samus, and Ananias, Azarias, Vrias, Ezechias, and Balsamus on the right hand, 44 and on the left Faldeus, Misael, Malachias, Ambusthas, Sabus, Nabadias, and Zacharias. 45 And Esdras tooke the booke before al the multitude: for he was chiefe in glorie in the sight of al. 46 And when he had ended the law, they stood al vpright: and Esdras blessed our Lord the most high God, the God of Sabaoth omnipotent. 47 And al the people answered: Amen. And lifting vp their handes falling on the ground, they adored our Lord. 48 Iesus and Banaeus, and Sarebias, and Iaddimus, and Accubus, and Sabbathaeus, and Calithes, & Azarias, and Ioradus, and Ananias, and Philias Leuites, 49 who taught the law of our Lord, and read the same in the multitude, & euerie one preferred them that vnderstood the lesson. 50 And Atharathes sayd to Esdras the high priest and the reader, and to the Leuites, that taught the multitude, 51 saying: This day is sancitified to our Lord. And they al wept, when they had heard the law. 52 And Esdras sayd, departing therfore eate ye al the fattest thinges, & drinke al most swete things, and send giftes to them that haue not. 53 For this is the holy day of our Lord, & be not sad. For our Lord wil glorifie you. 54 And the Leuites denounced openly to al, saying: This day is holie, be not sad. 55 And they went al to eate, and drinke, and make merie, and to geue giftes to them that had not, that they might make merie, for they were excedingly exalted with the wordes that they were taught. 56 And they were al gathered in Ierusalem to celebrate the ioy, according to the testament of our Lord the God of Israel. THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF ESDRAS. CHAP. I. Esdras is sent to expostulate with the vngratful Iewes for neglecting Gods manie great benefites. THE second book of Esdras the prophet, the sonne of Sarei, the sonne of Azarei, the sonne of Helcias, the sonne of Sadanias, the sonne of Sadoch, the sonne of Achitob, (1 Esd 7:1) 2 the sonne of Achias, the sonne of Phinees, the sonne of Heli, the sonne of Amerias, the sonne of Asiel, the sonne of Marimoth, the sonne of Arna, the sonne of Ozias, the sonne of Borith, the sonne of Abisei, the sonne of Phinees, the sonne of Eleazar, 3 the sonne of Aaron of the tribe of Leui; who was captiue in the countrie of the Medes, in the reigne of Artaxerxes king of the Persians. 4 And the word of our Lord came to me, saying: 5 Goe, and tel my people their wicked deedes, and their children the iniquities, that they haue done against me, that they may tel their childrens children: 6 because the sinnes of their parentes are increased in them, for they being forgetful of me haue sacrified to strange goddes. 7 Did not I bring them out of the land of AEgypt from the house of bondage? But they haue prouoked me, & haue despised my counsels. 8 But doe thou shake of the heare of thy head, and throw al euils vpon them: because they haue not obeyed my law. And it is a people without discipline. 9 How long shal I beare with them, on whom I haue bestowed so great benefiates? 10 I haue ouer throwen manie kinges from them. I haue stroke Pharao with his seruantes, and al his hoste. (Ex 14) 11 Al nations did I destroy before their face, & in the East I dissipated the peoples of two prouinces Tyre and Sidon, and I slew al their aduersaries. 12 But speake thou to them, saying: Thus sayth our Lord: 13 I made you passe through the sea, and gaue you fensed streates from the beginning. I gaue you Moyses for your gouernour, and Aaron for the Priest: 14 I gaue you light by the piller of fire, & did manie meruelous things among you: but you haue forgotten me, sayth our Lord. (Ex 13) 15 Thus sayth our Lord omnipotent: The quayle was a signe to you, I gaue you a campe for defense, and there you murmured: 16 And you triumphed not in my name for the destruction of your enemies, but yet vntil now you haue murmured. (Ex 16) 17 Where are the benefites, that I haue geuen you? Did you not crie out to me when you were hungrie in the desert, 18 saying: Why hast thou brought vs into this desert to kil vs? it had bene better for vs to serue the AEgyptians, then to dye in this desert. (Num 14) 19 I was sorie for your mournings, & gaue you manna to eate. You did eate bread of Angels. (Ex 16 / Wis 16:20) 20 When you thirsted did not I cleaue the rocke, & waters flowed in abundance? for the heates I couered you with the leaues of trees. 21 I deliuered vnto you fatte landes: The Chananeites, and Pherezeites, and Philistheans I threw out from your face: what shal I yet doe to you, sayth our Lord? (Isa 9:4) 22 Thus sayth our Lord omnipotent: In the desert when you were thirstie in the riuer of the Amorrheites, and blasphemeing my name, (Ex 15:25) 23 I gaue you not fire for blasphemies, but casting wood into the water, I made the riuer swete. 24 What shal I doe to thee Iacob? Thou wouldest not obey o Iuda. I wil transferre my self to other nations, and wil geue them my name, that they may keepe my ordinances. (Ex 32) 25 Because you haue forsaken me, I aslo forsake you: when you aske mercie of me, I wil not haue mercie. (Isa 1:15) 26 When you shal inuocate me, I wil not heare you. For you haue defiled your handes with bloud, and your fete are quicke to commit murders. 27 Not as though you haue forsaken me, but yourselues, sayth our Lord. 28 Thus saith our Lord omnipotent, haue not I desired you, as a father his sonnes, and a mother her daughters, and as a nurce her litle ones, 29 that you would be my people, and I your God, and to me for children, and I to you for a father? 30 So haue I gathered you, as the henne her chickenes vnder her winges. But now what shal I doe to you? I wil throw you from my face. (Matt 23:37) 31 When you shal bring me oblation, I wil turne away my face from you. (Isa 66:5) For I haue refused your festiual dayes, & newmoones, and circumcisions. 32 I sent my seruantes the prophetes to you, whom being taken you slew, and mangled their bodies, whose bloud I wil require, sayth our Lord. 33 Thus sayth our Lord omnipotent, your house is made desolate, I wil throw you away, as the winde doth stubble, 34 and your children shal not haue issue: because they haue neglected my commandment, and haue done that which is euil before me. 35 I wil deliuer your houses to a people comming, who not hearing me do beleue: to whom I haue not shewed signes, they wil do the thinges that I haue commanded. 36 The prophetes they haue not sene, and they wil be mindful of their iniquities. 37 I cal to witnes the grace of the people comming, whose litle ones reioyce with ioy, not seing me with their carnal eyes, but in spirit beleuing the thinges that I haue sayd. 38 And now brother behold what glorie: and see people comming from the east, 39 to whom I wil geue the conduction of Abraham, Isaac, and Iacob, and of Osee, and Amos, and of Ioel, and Abdias, and Ionas, and Michaeas, 40 and Naum and Habacuc, of Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, and Malachias, who also is called the Angel of our Lord. (Mal 3:1) CHAP. II. The Synagogue expostulateth with her children for their ingratitude; 10. shewing that they shal be forsaken, and the gentiles called. THVS saith our Lord: I brought this people out of bondage, to whom I gaue commandment by my seruantes the Prophetes, whom they would not heare, but made my counsel frustrate. 2 Their mother that bare them, sayth to them: Goe children, because I am a wydow and forsaken. 3 I brought you vp with ioy, & haue lost you with mourning & sorow, because you haue sinned before our Lord your God, & haue done that which is euil before him. 4 But now what shal I doe to you? I am a wydow and desolote, goe my children, & aske mercie of our Lord. 5 And I cal thee o father a witnes vpon the mother of the children, that would not keepe my testament, 6 that thou geue them confusion, & their mother into spoile, that there be no generation of them. 7 Let their names be dispersed into the Gentiles, let them be destroyed out of the land: because they haue despised my sacrament. 8 Woe be to thee Assur, which hidest the wicked with thee. Thou naughtie nation, remember what I did to Sodom & Gomorrha: (Gen 19:24) 9 whose land lieth in cloddes of pitch, & heapes of ashes: so wil I make them, that haue not heard me, saith our Lord omnipotent. 10 Thus saith our Lord to Esdras: Tel my pople, that I wil geue them the kingdom of Ierusalem, which I ment to geue to Isreal. 11 And I wil take to me the glorie of them, and wil geue them eternal tabernacles, which I had prepared for them. 12 The wood of life shal be to them for an odour of oyntment, and they shal not labour, nor be wearied. 13 Goe & you shal receiue. Aske for your selues a few dayes, that they may abide. Now the kingdom is prepared for you, watch ye. 14 Cal thou heauen and earth to witnes: for I haue destroyed euil, and haue created good, because I liue sayth our Lord. 15 Mother embrace thy children, bring them vp with ioy. As a doue confirme their feete: because I haue chosen thee, sayth our Lord. 16 And I wil raise againe the dead out of their places, and out of the monumentes I wil bring them forth, because I haue knowen my name in Israel. 17 Feare not o mother of the children, because I haue chosen thee, saith our Lord. 18 I wil send thee ayde, my seruantes I saie, and Ieremie, at whose counsel I haue sanctified, and prepared for thee tweleue trees loden with diuerse fruites, 19 and as manie fountaines flowing milke and honie: and seuen huge mountaines, hauing the rose and the lilie, in the which I wil fil thy children with ioy. (Ex 15:27) 20 Iustifie thou the widow, iudge for the pupil, geue to the needie, defend the orphane, cloth the naked, 21 cure the broken & feeble, mocke not the lame, defend the maimed, and admitte the blind to the vision of my glorie. 22 The old man & the yong keepe with in thy walles: 23 where thou shalt finde the dead, committe them to the graue signing it, & I wil geue thee the first seate in my resurrection. (Tob 1:20) 24 Pause and rest my people, because thy rest shal come. 25 As a good nurce nourish thy children, confirme their feete. 26 The seruantes that I haue geuen thee, none of them shal perish. For I wil require them of thy number. 27 Be not wearied. For when the day of affliction and distresse shal come, others shal weepe, and be sad, but thou shalt be merie and plenteous. 28 The gentiles shal enuie, and shal be able to doe nothing against thee, sayth our Lord. 29 My handes shal couer thee, that thy children see not hel. 30 Be pleasant thou mother with thy children, because I wil deliuer thee sayth our Lord. 31 Remember thy children that sleepe, for I wil bring them out of the sides of the earth, & wil doe mercie with them: because I am merciful, sayth our Lord omnipotent. 32 Embrace thy children til I come, & shew them mercie: because my fountaines runne ouer, and my grace shal not faile. 33 I Esdras receiued commandment of our Lord, in mount Oreb; that I should goe to Israel: to whom when I came, they refused me, and reiected the commandement of our Lord. 34 And therfore, I say vnto you gentiles, which heare, and vnderstand, Looke for your pastor, he wil geue you the rest of eternitie: because he is at hand, that shal come in the end of the world. 35 Be ye readie for the rewardes of the kingdom, because perpetual light shal shine to you for time euerlasting. 36 Flee from the shadow of this world: receiue ye the pleasantnes of your glorie. I openly cal to witnes my sauiour. 37 Receiue the commended gift and be pleasant, geuing thankes to him that called you to the heauenlie kingdomes. 38 Arise, & stand & see the number of them that are signed in the feast of our Lord. 39 They that haue transferred them selues from the shadow of the world, haue receiued glorious garmentes of our Lord. 40 Receiue o Sion thy number, and shut vp thyne made white, which haue accomplished the law of our Lord. 41 The number of thy children, which thou didst wish is ful. Desire the powre of our Lord that thy people may be sanctified, which was called from the beginning. 42 I Esdras saw in mount Sion a great multiude, which I could not number, and they did al prayse our Lord with songes. (Apoc 7:9) 43 And in the middes of them was a young man high of stature, appearing aboue ouer them al, & he put crownes vpon euerie one of their heades, and he was more exalted. And I was astonied at the miracle. 44 Then asked I an Angel, and sayd: Who are these Lord? 45 Who answering sayd to me: These are they that haue laid of the mortal garment, and taken an immortal, and haue confessed the name of God. Now they are crowned, and receiue palmes. 46 And I sayd to the Angel: That yongman what is he, which putteth the crownes vpon them, and geueth palmes into their handes? 47 And answering he sayd to me: The same is the Sonne of God, whom they did confesse in the world: & I begane to magnifie them, that stood strongly for the name of our Lord. 48 Then sayd the Angel to me: Goe, tel my people, what maner of meruelous thinges and how great, thou hast sene of the Lord God. CHAP. III. The workes of God are wonderful from the beginning, 7. and men vngrateful 13. In Abraham God chose to himself a peculiar people: who neuertheles were froward, and obstinate. 23. He also chose Dauid, but stil the people were sinful: 28. the Babylonians also, by whom the are afflicted, are no lesse but rather greater sinners. IN the thirteth yeare of the ruine of the citie I was in Babylon, and was trubled lying in my chamber, and my cogitations came vp ouer my hart: 2 because I saw the desolation of Sion, and the abundance of them that dwelt in Babylon. 3 And my spirit was tossed excedingly, and I began to speake to the highest timorous wordes, 4 and sayd: O Lord dominatour thou spakest from the beginning, when thou didst plant the earth, and that alone, and didst rule ouer the people, (Gen 1) 5 and gauest Adam a dead bodie: but that also was the worke of thy handes, & didst breath into him the spirit of life, and he was made to liue before thee: (Gen 2:7) 6 and thou broughst him into paradise, which thy right hand had planted, before the earth came. 7 And him thou didst command to loue thy way, and he transgressed it, & forth with thou didst institute death in him, and in his posteritie, and there were borne nations, and tribes, and peoples, and kindreds, wherof there is no number. 8 And euerie nation walked in their owne wil, & they did meruelous thinges before thee, and despised thy preceptes. 9 And agane in time thou broughst in the floud vpon inhabitantes of the world, and didst destroy them. (Gen 7) 10 And there was made in euery one of them, as vnto Adam to dye, so to them the floud, 11 But thou didst leaue one of them, Noe with his house and of him were al the iust. 12 And it came to passe, when they began to be multiplied, that dwelt vpon the earth, & multiplied children and peoples and manie nations: and they begane againe to doe impietie more then the former. 13 And it came to passe when they did iniquitie before thee, thou didst choose thee a man of them whose name was Abraham. 14 And thou didst loue him and to him onlie thou didst shew thy wil. (Gen 12) 15 And thou didst dispose vnto him an euerlasting testament, and toldst him that thou wouldst neuer forsake his seede. And thou gauest him Issac, and to Isaac thou gauest Iacob and Esau. 16 And Iacob thou didst seuer to thy selfe, but Esau thou didst separate. And Iacob grewe to a great multitude. 17 And it came to passe when thou didst bring forth his sede out of AEgypt, thou broughst it vpon mount Sinai. (Ex 19) 18 And thou didst bowe the heauens, and fasten the earth, and didst shake the world, and madest the depthes to tremble, and trubledst the world, 19 and thy glorie passed foure gates of fire, and of earthquake, and winde, and frost, that thou mightst geue a law to the seede of Iacob, and to the generation of Israel diligence. 20 And thou didst not take away from them a malignant hart, that thy law might bring forth fruite in them. 21 For Adam the first bearing a vicious hart transgressed and was ouercome, yea and al that were borne of him. 22 And it was made a permanent infirmitie, and the law with the hart of the people, with the wickednes of the roote, and that which is good departed, and the wicked remayned. 23 And the times passed, & the yeares were ended: and thou didst raise vp vnto thee a seruant named Dauid, 24 and spakest vnto him to build a citie of thy name, and to offer vnto thee in it frankencense, and oblations. 25 And this was done manie yeares, and they that inhabited the citie forsooke thee, 26 in al things as Adam and al his generations. For they also vsed a wicked hart. 27 And thou didst deliuer thy citie into the hands of thyne enimies. 28 Why, doe they better thinges, that inhabite Babylon? And for this shal she rule ouer Sion? (Jer 12) 29 It came to passe when I was come hither, and had sene the impieties that can not be numbred: and my soul saw manie offending this thirteth yeare, & my hart was astonied: 30 because I saw how thou bearest with their sinne, and didst spare them that did impiously, and didst destroy thine owne people, and preserue thine enimies, and didst not signifie it. 31 I nothing remember how this way should be forsaken: doth Babylon better thinges then Sion? 32 Or hath anie nation knowen thee beside Israel: or what tribes haue beleued thy testamentes as Iacob? 33 Whose reward hath not appeared, nor their labour fructified. For passing through I passed among the nations, and I saw them abound, and not mindeful of thy commandmentes. 34 Now therfore wey our iniquities in a ballance, and theirs that dwel in the world: & thy name shal not be found, but in Israel. 35 Or when haue not they sinned in thy sight, that inhabite the earth? or what nation hath so obserued thy commandmentes? 36 These certes by their names thou shalt finde to haue kept thy commandments, but the nations thou shalt not finde. CHAP. IIII. Mans witte and reason is not able to vnderstand the counsel and iudgement of God, 22. why his people are afflicted by wicked nations, 33. nor of times, and thinges to come. AND the Angel answered me, that was sent to me, whose name was Vriel, 2 and sayd to me: Thy hart exceding hath exceded in this world, & thou thinkest to comprehend the way of the Highest. 3 And I sayd: It is so my Lord. And he answered me, & sayd: I am sent to shew thee three wayes, & to propose to thee three similitudes. 4 Of the which if thou shalt declare to me one of them, I also wil shew thee the way which thou desirest to see, and wil teach thee whence a wicked hart is. 5 And I sayd, Speak my Lord. And he sayd to me: Goe, wey me the weight of the fire, or measure me the blast of the winde, or cal me backe the day that is past. 6 And I answered, and sayd: what man borne can doe it, that thou askest me of these thinges? 7 And he sayd to me: If I should aske thee, saying: How great habitations are there in the hart of the sea, or how great vaines be there in the beginning of the depth, or how great vaines be there aboue the firmament, and what are the issues of paradise: 8 thou wouldest perhaps say to me: I haue not descended into the depth, nor into hel as yet, neither haue I ascended at anie time into heauen. 9 But now I haue not asked thee, sauing of the fire, and the winde, and the day by the which thou hast passed, and from the which thou canst not be separated: and thou hast not answered me of them. 10 And he sayd to me: Thou canst not know the thinges that are thine which grow together with thee: 11 and how can thy vessel comprehend the way of the Highest, and now the world being outwardly corrupted, vnderstand the corruption euident in my sight: 12 I sayd to him: Better were it for vs not to be, then yet liuing to liue in impieties, and to suffer, and not to vnderstand for what thing. 13 And he answered me, & said: Going forth I went forward to a wood of trees in the filde, and they deuised a deuise, (Judges 9 / 2 Par 25) 14 and said: Come and let vs goe, and make warre against the sea, that it may retyre backe before vs, and we may make vs other woodes. 15 And in like maner the waues of the sea they also deuised a deuise, and sayd: Come let vs goe vp, let vs ouerthrow the woodes of the filde, that there also we may consummate an other countrie for our selues. 16 And the woodes deuise was made vaine, for fire came, and consumed it. 17 Likewise also the deuise of the waues of the sea. For the sand stood, & stayed them. 18 For if thou wert iudge of these, whom wouldest thou begin to iustifie, or whom to condemne? 19 And I answered, and sayd: Verely they deuised a vayne deuise. For the earth is geuen to the wood, and a place to the sea to carie her waues. 20 And he answered me, and sayed: Thou hast iudged wel, and why hast thou not iudged for thy self? 21 For as the earth is geuen to the wood, and the sea for the waues therof: so they that inhabite vpon the earth, can vnderstand onlie the thinges that are vpon the earth: and they vpon the heauens, the thinges that are aboue the height of the heauens. 22 And I answered, and sayd: I besech thee Lord, that sense may be geuen me to vnderstand. 23 For I meant not to aske of thy superiour thinges, but of those that passe by vs dayly. For what cause Israel is geuen into reproche to the gentiles, the people whom thou hast loued, is geuen to impious tribes, & the law of our fathers is brought to destruction, & the written ordinances are no where: 24 and we haue passed out of the world, as locustes, and our life is astonishment and dreade, and we are not worthie to obtaine mercie. 25 But what wil he doe to his name that is inuocated vpon vs? and of these thinges I did aske. 26 And he answered me, and sayd: If thou search very much, thou shalt often meruail: because the world hastening hasteneth to passe, 27 and can not comprehend the thinges which in times to come are promised to the iust: because this world is ful of iniustice and infirmities. 28 But conerning the thinges that thou demandest I wil tel thee: for the euil is sowed, and the destruction therof is not yet come. 29 If then that which is sowen be not turned vp, and the place depart where the euil is sowen, that shal not come where the good is sowen. 30 Because the grayne of il seede hath bene sowen in the hart of Adam from the beginning: and how much impietie hath it ingendered vntil now, and doth ingender vntil the floore come? 31 And esteme with thy self the graine of the il seede, how much fruite of impietie it hath ingendred: 32 When the eares shal be cut, which are innumerable, what a great floore wil they begin to make? 33 And I answered, and sayd: How, and when shal these things be? why are our yeares few and euil? 34 And he answered me, and sayd to me, Hasten not aboue the Highest. For thou doest hasten in vaine to be aboue him, for thy excesse is much. 35 Did not the soules of the iust in the cellars, aske of these things, saying: How hope I so, and when shal the fruite come of the floore of our reward? 36 And Ieremiel the Archangel answered to those things, and sayd: When the number of the sedes in you shal be filled, because he hath weyed the world in a balance, 37 and with a measure hath he measured the times, and in number he hath numbered the times, and hath not moued, nor stirred them, vntil the foresayd measure be filled. 38 And I answered, and sayd: O Lord Dominatour, we also are al ful of impietie. 39 And left perhaps for vs the floores of the iust be not filled, for the sinnes of the inhabitantes vpon the earth. 40 And he answered me, and sayd: Goe, and aske a woman with childe, if when she hath accomplished her nine monethes, her wombe can yet hold the infant within it? 41 And I sayd it can not Lord. And he sayd to me, in hel the cellars of the soules are like to the matrice. 42 For as she that is: In trauail maketh hast, to escape the necessitie of trauailing: so this also hasteneth to render those thinges which are commended to it. 43 From the beginning it shal be shewed thee touching those thinges, which thou doest couet to see. 44 And I answered, and sayd: If I haue found grace before thine eyes, & if it be possible, and if I by fitte, 45 shew mee if there be more to come then is passed, or more things haue passed, then are to come. 46 What passed, I know: but what is to come, I know not. 47 And he sayd to me: Stand vpon the right side, and I wil shew thee the interpretation of the similitude. 48 And I stood, and saw: and behold a burning fornace passed before me, & it came to passe when the flame passed, I saw: and behold the smoke ouercame. 49 And these thinges there passed before me a clowd ful of water, and with violence casting in much raine: and when the violence of raine was cast, the droppes therin ouercame. 50 And he sayd to me: Thinke with thyself, as the raine increaseth more then the droppes, and the fire then the smoke: so did the measure that passed, more a bound. But the droppes, and the smoke ouercame: 51 and I prayed, & sayd, shal I liue thinkest thou vntil these dayes? or what shal be in those dayes? 52 He answered me, and sayd: Of the signes wherof thou askest me, in part I can tel thee, howbeit of thy life I was not sent to tel thee, neither doe I know. CHAP. V. Diuers signes of thinges to come are shewed to Esdras by an Angel: 16. for the comforth of the people in captiuitie. BVT concerning signes: behold the dayes shal come, wherin they that inhabite the earth shal be taken in a great number: and the way of truth shal be hid: and the countrie shal be barren from fayth. 2 And iniustice shal be multiplied aboue that which thy self seest, & aboue that which thou hast heard in time past. (Matt 24) 3 And they shal put their foote into the countrie which now thou seest to reigne, and they shal see it desolate. 4 And if the Highest geue thee life, thou shalt see after the third trumpet, and the sunne shal sodenly shine agayne in the night, and the moone thrise in a day, 5 and out of wood bloud shal distil, and the stone shal geue his voice, and the peoples shal be moued: 6 and he reigne, whom they hope not that inhabite vpon the earth, and soules shal make their flight away. 7 & the sea of Sodom shal cast the fishes, and shal make a noise in the night, which manie knew not, and al shal heare the voice therof, 8 and there shal be made a confusion in manie places, and the fire shal often be sent backe, and the sauage beastes shal goe to other places, and wemen in their monethlie flowers shal bring forth monsters, 9 and in swete waters shal salt waters be found, and al frendes shal ouerthrow one an other: and then shal witte be hid, and vnderstanding shal be separated into his cellar: 10 and it shal be sought of manie, and shal not be found: and iniustice shal be multiplied, and incontinencie vpon the earth. 11 And one countrie shal aske her neighbour, and shal say: Hath iustice doing iust passed throught thee? and she shal denie it. 12 And it shal be in that time, men shal hope, and shal not obtaine: they shal labour, and their wayes shal not haue successe. 13 These signes I am permitted to tel thee: and if thou pray againe and weepe, as also now, and fast seuen dayes, thou shalt heare againe greater thinges then these. 14 And I awaked, and my bodie did shiuer excedingly: and my soule laboured, that it fainted: 15 and the Angel that came, that spake in me, held me, and strengthened me, and sette me vpon my feete. 16 And it came to passe in the second night, and Salathiel the prince of the people came to me, and sayd to me: Where wast thou? and why is thy countenance heauie? 17 Knowest thou not that Isreal is committed to thee in the countrie of their transmigration? 18 Rise vp therfore, and taste bread, and forsake vs not, as the pastour his flocke in the hand of wicked wolues. 19 And I sayd to him: Goe from me, & approch not vnto me. And he heard, as I sayd: and he departed from me. 20 And I fasted seuen dayes howling & weeping, as Vriel the Angel commanded me. 21 And it came to passe after seuen dayes, and againe cogitations of my hart molested me very much, 22 and my soule resumed the spirit of vnderstanding: & agayne I began to speake wordes before the Highest: 23 and I sayd: Lord Dominatour of euerie wood of the earth, & al the trees therof, thou hast chosen one vineyard: 24 & of euerie land of the world thou hast chosen thee one ditch: & of al the flowers of the world thou hast chosen thee one lilie: 25 and of al depthes of the sea, thou hast filled thee one riuer: and of al the builded cities, thou hast sanctified vnto thyself Sion: 26 and of al created soules, thou hast named thee one doue: and of al beastes that were made, thou hast prouided thee one shepe: 27 and of al multiplied peoples, thou host purchased thee one people: and a law approued of al thou hast geuen to this people, whom thou didst desire. 28 And now Lord, why hast thou deliuered one vnto manie? And thou hast perpared vpon one roote others, and hast dispersed thy onlie one in manie: 29 and they haue troden vpon it, which gainesayd thy couenants, and which beleued not thy testamentes. 30 And if hating thou hatest thy people, it ought to be chastised with thy handes. 31 And it came to passe, when I had spoken the wordes, and the Angel was sent to me, that came to me before the night past, 32 and he sayd to me: Heare me, and I wil instruct thee: and harken to me, and I wil adde before thee. 33 And I sayd: Speake my Lord. And he sayd to me: Thou art become excedingly in excesse of minde for Israel: hast thou loued it more then him that made it? 34 And I sayd to him: No Lord, but for sorow I haue spoken, for my veynes torment me euerie houre, to apprehend the pathe of the Highest, and to search part of his iudgement. 35 And he sayd to me: Thou canst not. And I sayd: Why Lord? To what was I borne, or why was not my mothers wombe my graue, that I might not see the labour of Iacob, & the wearines of the stocke of Israel? 36 And he sayd to me: Number me the thinges that are not yet come, and gather me the dispersed droppes, and make me the withered flowers grene againe, 37 and open me the shut cellars, & bring me forth the blastes inclosed in them, shew me the image of a voice: and then wil I shew thee the labour that thou desirest to see. 38 And I sayd: Lord Dominatour, for who is there that can know these thinges, but he that hath not his habitation with men? 39 And I am vnwise, and how can I speake of these thinges, which thou hast asked me? 40 And he sayd to me: As thou canst not doe one of these thiges, which haue bene sayd: so canst thou not finde my iudgement, or in the end the charitie, which I haue promised to the people. 41 And I sayd: But behold Lord thou art nigh to them that are nere the end: and what shal they doe that haue bene before me, or we, or they after vs? 42 And he sayd to me: I wil resemble my iudgement to a crowne. As there shal not be slacknes of the last, so neither swiftnes of the former. 43 And I answered, and sayd: Couldst thou not make them that haue bene, and that are, and that shal be, at once, that thou mayst shew thy iudgement the quicker? 44 And he answered me, and sayd: The creature can not hasten aboue the Creatour, nor the world sustayne them that are to be created in it, at once. 45 And I sayd: As thou didst say to thy seruant, that quickening thou didst quicken the creature created by thee at once, and the creature susteined it: it may now also beare them present at once. 46 And he sayd to me: Aske the matrice of a woman, & thou shalt say to it: And if thou bring forth children, why by times? Aske it therfore, that it geue ten at once. 47 And I sayd, it can not verily: but according to time. 48 And he sayd to me: And I haue geuen a matrice to the earth for them, that are sowen vpon it by time. 49 For as the infant bringeth not forth the thinges that perteyne to the aged, so haue I disposed the world created of me. 50 And I asked, and sayd: Wheras thou hast now geuen me a way, I wil speake before thee: for our mother, of whom thou toldest me, yet she is yong: now draweth nigh to old age. 51 And he answered me, and sayd: Aske her that beareth children, and she wil tel thee. 52 For thou shalt say to her: Why are not they whom thou hast brought forth, now like to them that were before thee, but lesse of stature? 53 And she also wil say vnto thee: They that are borne in the youth of streingth are of one sort, and they of an other, that are borne about the time of old age, when the matrice fayleth. 54 Consider therfore thou also, that you are of lesse stature, then they that were before you: 55 and they that are after you, of lesser then you, as it were creatures now waxing old, and past the strength of youth. 56 And I sayd: I besech thee Lord, if I haue found grace before thine eyes, shew vnto thy seruant, by whom thou doest visite thy creature. CHAP. VI. God knowing al thinges before they were made, created them 54. for man: and considerth the endes of al. AND he sayd to me: In the beginning of the earthlie world, and before the endes of the world stood, and before the congregation of the windes did blow, (Prov 8) 2 and before the voyces of thunders sounded, & before the flashinges of lightenings shined, and before the fundations of paradise were confirmed, 3 and before beautiful flowers were sene, and before the moued powers were established, and before the innumerable hostes of Angels were gathered, 4 and before the heightes of the ayre were aduanced, and before the measures of the firmaments were named, and before the chymneies were hote in Sion, 5 and before the present yeares were searched out, and before their inuentions that now sinne, were put away, and they signed that made fayth their treasure: 6 then I thought, and they were made by me only, and not by any other: and the end by me, and not by any other. 7 And I answered, and sayd: What separation of times shal there be? and when shal the end of the former be, and the begynning of that which foloweth? 8 And he sayd to me, from Abraham vnto Isaac, when Iacob and Esau were borne of him, the hand of Iacob held from the begynning the heele of Esau, 9 for the end of this world is Esau, and the begynning of the next Iacob. 10 The hand of a man betwen the heele and the hand. Aske no other thing Esdras. 11 And I answered, and sayd: O Lord dominatour, if I haue found grace before thyne eyes, 12 I pray thee shew thy seruant the end of thy signes, wherof thou didst shew me part the night before. 13 And he answered, and sayd to me: Arise vpon thy feete, and heare a voice most ful of sound. 14 And it shal be as it were a commotion, neither shal the place be moued wherin thou standest. 15 Therfore when it speaketh be not thou afrayd, because of the end is the word, and the fundation of the earth vnderstood, 16 for concerning them the word trembleth and is moued, for it knoweth that their end must be changed. 17 And it came to passe, when I had heard, I rose vpon my feete, and I heard: and behold a voice speaking, and the sound therof as the sound of manie waters: 18 and it sayd: Behold the dayes come, and the time shal be when I wil begyne to approch, that I may visite the inhabitantes vpon the earth. 19 And when I wil begin to enquire of them that vniustly haue hurt with their iniustice, and when the humilitie of Sion shal be accomplished. 20 And when the world shal be ouersigned that shal beginne to passe, I wil doe these signes: Bookes shal be opened before the face of the firmament, and al shal see together, 21 and infantes of one yeare shal speake with their voices, & wemen with child shal bring forth vntimely infantes not ripe of three or foure monethes, and shal liue, and shal be raysed vp. 22 And sodenly shal appeare sowen places not sowen, & ful cellers shal sodenly be found emptie: 23 and a trumpet shal sound; which when al shal heare, they wil sodenly be afrayd. 24 And it shal be in that time, freindes as enimies shal ouerthrow freindes, and the earth shal be afrayd with them: & the vaynes of fountaynes shal stand, and shal not runne in three howres: 25 and it shal be, euerie one that shal be leaft of al these, of whom I haue foretold thee, he shal be saued, and shal see my saluation, & the end of your world. 26 And the men that are receiued, shal see, they that tasted not death from their natiuitie, and the hart of the inhabitantes shal be turned into an other sense. 27 For euil shal be put out, and deceite shal be extinguished, 28 but fayth shal florish, and corruption shal be ouercome, and truth shal be shewed, which was without fruite so manie dayes. 29 And it came to passe, when he spake to me, & I loe by litle & litle looked on him before whom I stood, 30 and he sayd to me these wordes: I am come to shew thee the time of the night to come. 31 If therfore thou pray agayne, and fast agayne seuen dayes, agayne I wil tel thee greater thinges by the day which I haue heard. 32 For thy voice is heard before the Highest. For the strong hath sene thy direction, and hath fore sene the chastitie which thou hast had from thy youth: 33 and for this cause he hath sent me to shew thee al these thinges, and to say to thee, haue confidence, and feare not, 34 and hasten not with the former times to thinke vayne thinges, that thou hasten not from the last times. 35 And it came to passe after these thinges, and I wept againe, and in like maner I fasted seuen dayes, to accomplish the three weekes, that were told me. 36 And it came to passe in the eight night, and my hart was trubled againe in me, and I began to speake before the Highest. 37 For my spirit was inflamed excedingly, and my soul was distressed. 38 And I sayd: O Lord, speaking thou didst speake from the beginning of creature from the first day, saying: Let heauen be made and earth: and thy word was a perfect worke. 39 And then there was spirit, and darknesse was caried about, and silence, the sound of the voyce of man was not yet from thee. 40 Then thou didst command the lighsome light to be brought forth of thy treasures, wherby thy worke might appeare. 41 And in the second day thou didst create the spirit of the firmament, and commandest it to diuide, and to make a diuision betwen the waters, that a certayn part should depart vpward, and part should remaine beneth. 42 And in the third day thou didst command the waters to be gathered together in the seuenth part of the earth: but sixe partes thou didst drie and preserue, that of them might be seruing before thee thinges sowen of God, and tilled. 43 For thy word proceded, and the worke forth with was made. 44 For sodenly came forth fruite of multitude infinite, and diurse tastes of concupiscence, and flowers of vnchangeable colour, and odours of vnsearcheable smel, and in the third day these thinges were made. 45 And in the fourth day thou didst command to be made the brightnesse of the sunne, the light of the moone, the disposition of the starres: 46 and didst command them that they should serue man, that should be made. 47 And in the fifth day: thou saydst to the seuenth part, where the water was gathered together, that it should bring forth beastes, and foules, and fishes: and so was it done, 48 the dumme water and without life, the thinges that by Gods appointement were commanded, made beastes, that therby the nations may declare thy meruelous workes. 49 And then thou didst preserue two soules: the name of one thou didst cal Henoch, and the name of the second thou didst cal Leuiathan, 50 and thou didst separate them from eche other. For the seuenth part, where the water was gathered together, could not hold them. 51 And thou gauest to Henoch one part, which was dried the third day, to dwelt therin, where are a thousand mountaynes. 52 But to Leuiathan thou gauest the seuenth part being moyst, and kepst it, that it might be to deuoure whom thou wilt, and when thou wilt. 53 And in the sixt day thou didst command the earth, to create before thee cattel, and beastes, and creeping creatures: 54 and ouer these Adam, whom thou madest ruler ouer al the workes, which thou didst make, & out of him are al we brought forth, and the people whom thou hast chosen. 55 And al these thinges I haue sayd before thee o Lord, because thou didst create the world for vs. 56 But the residue of the nations borne of Adam thou saydst that they were nothing, and that they were like to spittle, and as it were the droping out of a vessel thou didst liken the abundance of them. 57 And now Lord, behold these nations which are reputed for nothing, haue begune to rule ouer vs, and to deuoure vs: 58 but we thy people whom thou didst cal thy first onlie begotten emulatour, are deliuered into their handes: 59 and if the world was created for vs, why doe not we possesse inheritance with the world? how long these thinges? CHAP. VII. Without tribulations no man can attayne immortal life: 17. which the iust shal inherite: and the wicked shal perish. 28. Christ wil come, and dye for mankind. 36. Prayers of the iust shal profite til the end of this world, but not after the general iudgement. 48. Al sinned in Adam. 52. and haue added more sinnes, 57. but it is in mans powre, 62. by Gods grace, to liue eternally. AND it came to passe when I had ended to speake these wordes, the Angel was sent to me, which had bene sent to me the first nights, 2 and he sayd to me: Arise Esdras, and heare the wordes which I am come to speake to thee. 3 And I sayd: Speake my God. And he sayd to me: The sea is set in a large place, that it might be deepe and wide: 4 but the entrance to it shal be set in a straict place, that it might be like to riuers. 5 For who witting wil enter into the sea, and see it, or rule ouer it: if he passe not the streite, how shal he come into the bredth? 6 Also an other thing: A citie is built, and set in a plaine place, and it is ful of al goodes. 7 The entrance therof narrow, and set in a stepe place, so that on the right hand there was fire, & on the left depe water: 8 and there is one onlie pathe set betwen them, that is, betwen the fire and the water, so that the pathe can not conteyne, but onlie a mans steppe. 9 And if the citie shal be geuen a man for inheritance, if he neuer passe through the peril set before it, how shal he receiue his inhertance? 10 And I sayd: So Lord. And he sayd to me, So it is: Israel also a part. 11 For I made the world for them: and when Adam transgressed my constitution, that was iudged which was done. 12 And the entrance of this world were made streite, and sorowful, & paynful, and few and euil, and ful of dangers, & stuffed very much with labour. 13 For the entrances of the greater world are large andsecure, and making fruite of immortalitie. 14 If then they that liue entring in enter into these streite and vayne thinges: they can not receiue the thinges that are layd vp. 15 Now therfore why art thou trubled, wheras thou art corruptible? and why art thou moued, wheras thou art mortal? 16 And why hast thou not taken in thy hart that which is to come, but that which is present? 17 I answered, and sayd: Lord dominatour: behold thou hast disposed by thy law that the iust shal inherite these thinges, and the impious shal perish. (Deut 8) 18 But the iust shal suffer the streites, hoping for the wyde places, for they that haue done impiously, haue both suffered the streites, and shal not see the wide places. 19 And he sayd to me: There is no iudge aboue God, nor that vnderstandeth aboue the Highest. 20 For manie present doe perish, because the law of God which was set before, is neglected. 21 For God commanding commanded them that came, when they came, what doing they should liue, and what obseruing they should not be punished. 22 But they were not perswaded, and gaynesayd him, and made to them selues a cogitation of vanitie, 23 and proposed to them selues deceites of sinnes, & they sayd to the Highest that he was not, and they knew not his wayes, 24 and dispised his law, and denyed his couenaunces, and had not fidelitie in his ordinances, and did not accomplish his workes. 25 For this cause Esdras, the emptie to the emptie, and the ful to the ful. 26 Behold the time shal come, and it shal be when the signes shal come, which I haue foretold thee, and the bride shal appeare, and appearing she shal be shewed that now is hid with the earth: 27 and euerie one that is deliuered from the foresaid euils, he shal see my meruelous thinges. 28 For my sonne IESVS shal be reueled with them that are with him, and they shal be merie that are leaft in the foure hundred yeares. 29 And it shal be after these yeares, and my sonne CHRIST shal dye: and al men that haue breath, 30 and the world shal be turned into the old silence seuen dayes, as in the former iudgementes, so that none shal be leaft. 31 And it shal be after seuen dayes, and the world shal be raysed vp that yet waketh not, and shal dye corrupted: 32 and the earth shal render the thinges that sleepe in it, & the dust them that dwel in it with silence, and the cellars shal render the soules that are commended to them. 33 And the Highest shal be reueled vpon the seate of iudgement, and miseries shal passe, and long sufferance shal be gathered together. 34 And iudgement onlie shal remayne, truth shal stand, and fayth shal waxe strong, 35 and the worke shal folow, and the reward shal be shewed, and iustice shal awake, and iniustice shal not haue dominion. [See note below.] 36 And I sayd: First Abraham prayed for the Sodomites, and Moyses for the fathers that sinned in the desert. (Gen 18 / Ex 32) 37 And they that were after him for Isreal in the dayes of Achaz, and of Samuel, 38 and Dauid for the destruction, and Salomon for them that came vnto the sanctification. (2 Kings 24:17 / 2 Par 6:13) 39 And Elias for them that receiued raine, and for the dead that he might liue, (3 Kings 17 & 18) 40 and Ezechias for the people in the dayes of Sennacherib, and manie for manie. (4 Kings 19:15) 41 If therfore now when corruptible did increase, and iniustice was multiplied, and the iust prayed for the impious: why now also shal it not be so? 42 And he answered me and sayd: This present world is not the end, much glorie remaineth in it: for this cause they prayed for the impotent. 43 For the day of iudgement shal be the end of this time, and the beginning of the immortalitie to come, wherein corruption is past: 44 intemperance is dissolued, incredulitie is cut of: and iustice hath increased, truth is strong. 45 For then no man can saue him that hath perished, nor drowne him that hath ouercome. And I answered, 46 and sayd: This is my word the first and the last, that it had bene better not to geue the earth to Adam, or when he had now geuen it, to restraine him that he should not sinne. 47 For what doth it profit men presently to liue in sorow, and being dead to hope for punishment? 48 O what hast thou done Adam? For if thou didst sinne, it was not made thy fal only, but ours also which came of thee. (Rom 5:12) 49 For what doth it profit vs if immortal time be promised to vs: but we haue done mortal workes? 50 And that euerlasting hope is foretold vs: but we most wicked are become vayne? 51 And that habitations of health and securitie are reserued for vs, but we haue conuerst naughtely? 52 And that the glorie of the Highest is reserued to protect them that haue slowly conuerst: but we haue walked in most wicked wayes. 53 And that paradise shal be shewed, whose fruite continueth incorrupted, wherin is securitie and remedie: 54 but we shal not enter in: for we haue conuerst in vnlawful places. 55 And their faces which haue had abstinence, shal shyne aboue the starres: but our faces blacke aboue darkenes. 56 For we did not thinke liuing when we did iniquitie, that we shal beginne after death to suffer. 57 And he answered, and sayd: This is the cogitation of the battel which man shal fight, who is borne vpon the earth, 58 that if he shal be ouercome, he suffer that which thou hast sayd: but if he ouercome he shal receiue that which I say: 59 for this is the life which Moyses spake of when he liued, to the people, saying: Choose vnto thee life, that thou mayst liue. (Deut 30:19) 60 But they beleued him not, no nor the Prophetes after him, no nor me which haue spoken to them. 61 Because there should not be sorow vnto their perdition, as there shal be ioy vpon them, to whom saluation is perswaded. 62 And I answered, and sayd: I know Lord, that the Highest is called merciful in that, that he hath mercie on them which are not yet come into the world, 63 and that he hath mercie on them which conuerse in his law: 64 and he is long suffering, because he sheweth long sufferance to them that haue sinned, as it were with their owne workes: 65 and he is bountiful, because he wil geue according to exigentes: 66 and of freat mercie, because he multiplieth more mercies to them that are present, and that are past, and that are to come. 67 For if he shal not multiplie his mercies, the world shal not be made aliue with them that did inherite it. 68 And he geueth: for if he shal not geue of his bountie, that they may be releeued which haue done iniquitie, the tenth thousand part of men can not be quickned from their iniquities. 69 And the iudge if he shal not forgeue them that are cured with his word, and wype away a multitude of contentions: there should not perhaps be leaft in an innumerable multitiude, but very few. CHAP. VIII. God is merciful in this world, yet fewe are saued. 6. Gods workes, and disposition of his creatures are meruelous. 15. Esdras prayeth for the people of Israel: 37. and saluation is promised to the iust, and punishment threatned to the wicked. AND he answered me, & sayd: This world the Highest made for manie, but that to come for few. 2 And I wil speake a similitude Esdras before thee. For as thou shalt aske the earth, and it wil tel thee, that it wil geue much more earth wherof earthen worke may be made, but a litle dust wherof gold is made: so also is the act of this present world. 3 Manie in deede are created, but few shal be saued. (Matt 20:16) 4 And I answered, and sayd: Then o soul swallow vp the sense, and deuoure that which is wise. 5 For thou art agred to obey, and willing to prophecie. For there is no space geuen thee but only to liue. 6 O Lord if thou wilt not permitte thy seruant, that we pray before thee, and thou geue vs seede to the hart, and tillage to the vnderstanding, wherof may the fruite be made, wherby euerie corrupt person may liue, that shal beare the place of a man? 7 For thou art alone, and we are one workmanshippe of thy handes, as thou hast spoken: 8 and as now the bodie made in the matrice, and thou doest geue the members, thy creature is preserued in fire & water: and nine monethes thy workemanship doth suffer thy creature that is created in it: 9 and it self that keepeth, and that which is kept, both shal be preserued: and the matrice being preserued rendreth agayne at some time the thinges that are growen in it. 10 For thou hast commanded of the members, that is the brestes to geue milke vnto the fruite of the brestes, 11 that the thing which is made, may be nourished til a certayne time, and afterward thou mayst dispose him to thy mercie. 12 For thou hast, brought him vp in thy iustice, and hast instructed him in thy law, and hast corrected him in thy vnderstanding: 13 and thou shalt mortifie him, as thy creature: and shalt geue him life, as thy worke. 14 If then thou wilt destroy him that is made with so great labours: it is easie by thy commandment to be ordayned, that also which was made, might be preserued. 15 And now Lord I wil speake, of euerie man thou rather knowest: but concerning thy people, for which I am sorowful: 16 and concerning thine inheritance, for which I mourne, and for Israel for whom I am pensiue, and concerning Iacob, for whom I am sorowful. 17 Therfore wil I begin to pray before thee for me, & for them: because I see our defaultes that inhabite the earth. 18 But I haue heard of the celeritie of the iudge that shal be. 19 Therfore heare my voyce, and vnderstand my word, and I wil speake before thee. 20 The beginning of the wordes of Esdras before he was assumpted: and I sayd: Lord which inhabitest the world, whose eyes are eleuated vnto thinges on high and in the ayre: 21 and whose throne is inestimable, and glorie incomprehensible: by whom standeth an host of Angels with trembling, 22 whose keping is turned in wynde and fire, thou whose word is true, and sayings premanent: 23 whose commandment is strong, and disposition terrible: whose looke dryeth vp the depthes, and indignation maketh the mountaynes to melt, and truth doth testifie. 24 Heare the prayer of thy seruant, & with thine eares receiue the petition of thy creature. 25 For whiles I liue, I wil speake: and whiles I vnderstand, I wil answere: 26 Neither doe thou respect the sinnes of thy people, but them that serue thee in truth. 27 Neither doe thou attend the impious endeuours of the nations, but them that with sorowes haue kept thy testimonies. 28 Neither thinke thou of them that in thy sight haue conuerst falsly, but remember them that according to thy wil haue knowen thy feare. 29 Neither be thou willing to destroy them that haue had the maners of beastes: but respect them that haue taught thy law gloriously. 30 Neither haue indignation towards them, which are iudged worse then beastes: but loue them that alwayes haue confidence in thy iustice, and glorie. 31 Because we and our fatheres languish with such diseases: but thou for sinners shalt be called merciful. 32 For if thou shalt be desirous to haue mercie on vs, then thou shalt be called merciful, to vs hauing no workes of iustice. 33 For the iust which haue manie workes layd vp, of their owne workes shal receiue reward. 34 For what is man, that thou art angrie with him: or the corruptible kinde, that thou art so bitter touching it? 35 For in truth there is no man of them that be borne, which hath not done impiously, and of them that confesse, which haue not sinned. (3 Kings 8:46 / 2 Par 6:36) 36 For in this shal thy iustice be declared, and thy goodnes, o Lord, when thou shalt haue mercie on them, that haue no substance of good workes. 37 And he answered me, and sayd: Thou hast spoken somethinges rightly: and according to thy wordes, so also shal it be done, 38 because I wil not in dede thinke vpon the worke of them that haue sinned before death, before the iudgement, before perdition: 39 but I wil reioyce vpon the creature of the iust, and I wil remember their pilgrimage also, and saluation, and receiuing of reward. 40 Therfore as I haue spoken, so also it is. 41 For as the husbandman soweth vpon the ground manie seedes, and planteth manie plantes, but not al which were sowen in time, are preserued, nor yet al that were planted, shal take roote: so they also that are sowen in the world, shal not al be saued. (Matt 13 & 20) 42 And I answered, and sayd: If I haue found grace, let me speake. 43 As the seede of the husbandman, if it come not vp, or receiue not the rayne in time, if it be corupted with much rayne, perisheth: 44 so likewise also man who made with thy handes, and thou named his image: because thou art likened to him, for whom thou hast made al thinges, and hast likened him to the seede of the husbandman. 45 Be not angrie vpon vs, but spare thy people, and haue mercie on thy inheritance. And thou hast mercie on thy creature. 46 And he answered me, and sayd: The thinges that are present to them that are present, and that shal be, to them that shal be. 47 For thou lackest much to be able to loue my creature aboue me: and to thee often times, euen to thyselfe I haue approched, but to the vniust neuer. 48 But in this also thou art meruelous before the Highest, 49 because thou hast humbled thyself as becometh thee: & hast not iudged thyself, that among the iust thou maist be very much glorified. 50 For which cause manie miseries, and miserable thinges shal be done to them that inhabite the world in the later dayes: because they haue walked in much pride. 51 But thou for thyselfe vnderstand, & for them that are like vnto thee seeke glorie. 52 For to you paradise is open, the tree of life is planted, time to come is prepared, abundance is prepared, a citie is builded, rest is approued, goodnes is perfited, & perfit wisdome. 53 The roote of euil is signed from you: infirmitie, and mothe is hid from you: & corruption is fled into hel in obliuion. 54 Sorowes are past, & the treasure of immortalitie is shewed in the end. 55 Adde not therfore inquiring of the multitude of them that perish. 56 For they also receiuing libertie, haue despised the Highest, and contemned his lawe, and forsaken his wayes. 57 Yea and moreouer they haue troden downe his iust ones, 58 and haue sayd in their hart, that there is no God: and that, knowing that they dye. (Ps 13 & 52) 59 For as the thinges aforesayd shal receiue you: so thirst and torment, which are prepared shal take them: for he would not man to be destroyed. 60 But they them selues also which are created, haue defyled his name which made them: & haue bene vnkind to him that prepared life. 61 Wherfore my iudgement now approcheth. 62 Which thinges I haue not shewed to al, but to thee, & to few like vnto thee. And I answered, and sayd: 63 Behold now Lord thou hast shewed me a multitude of signes, which thou wilt beginne to doe in the latter times: but thou hast not shewed me at what time. CHAP. IX. Certaine signes shal goe before the day of iudgement. 14. More shal perish then be saued. 25. Prayer with other good workes, are meanes to saluation. AND he answered me, and sayd: Measuring measure thou the time in it selfe: and it shal be when thou seest, after a certaine part of the signes which are spoken of before shal passe, 2 then shalt thou vnderstand, that the same is the time wherin the Highest wil beginne to visite the world that was made by him. 3 And when there shal be sene in the world mouing of places, and truble of peoples, 4 then shalt thou vnderstand, that of these spake the Highest, from the dayes that were before thee, from the beginning. 5 For as al that is made in the world hath a beginning, and also a consummation, and the consummation is manifest: 6 so also the times of the Highest haue the beginning manifest in wonders and powers, and the consummations in worke and in signes. 7 And it shal be, euery one that shal be saued, and that can escape by his workes, and by fayth, in which you haue beleeued, 8 shal be leaft out of the foresayd dangers, and shal see my saluation in my land, and in my costes, because I haue sancitifed my selfe from the world. 9 And then shal they be in miserie, that now haue abused my wayes: and they that haue reiected them in contempt, shal abide in torments. 10 For they that knew not me, hauing obtained benefits when they liued: 11 and they that loathed my law, when they yet had libertie, 12 and when as yet place of penance was open to them vnderstoode not, but despised: they must after death in torment know it. 13 Thou therfore be not yet curious, how the impious shal be tormented: but inquire how the iust shal be saued, and whose the world is, and for whom the world is, and when. 14 And I answered, and sayd: 15 I haue spoken hertofore, and now I say, and hereafter wil say: that they are more which perish then that shal be saued: (Matt 10) 16 as a floud is multiplied aboue, more then a droppe. 17 And he ansvvered me, and sayd: Like as the field so also the sedes: and as the flovvers, such also the colours: and as the workeman, such also the worke: and such as the husbandman, such is the husbandrie: because it was the time of the world. 18 And now when I was preparing for them, for these that now are before the world was made, wherin they should dwel: and no man gaynsayd me. 19 For then euery man, and now the creator in this world prepared, and haruest not fayling, and law vnsearchable their manners are corrupted. 20 And I considered the world, and behold there was danger because of the cogitations that came in it. 21 And I saw, and spared it very much: and I kept vnto my selfe a grape kernel of a cluster, and a plant of a great trybe. 22 Let the multitude therfore perish, which was borne without cause, and let my kernel be kept, & my plant: because I finished it with much labour. 23 And thou if thou adde yet seuen other dayes, but thou shalt not fast in them, 24 thou shalt goe into a field of flowers, where no house is built: & thou shalt eate only of the flowers of the field, and flesh thou shalt not tast, and wine thou shalt not drinke, but only flowers. 25 Pray to the Highest without intermission, and I wil come, and wil speake with thee. 26 And I went forth, as he sayd to me, into a field which is called Ardath, and I sate there among the flowers. And I did eate of the herbes of the field, and the meate of them made me ful. 27 And it came to passe after seuen dayes, and I sate downe vpon the grasse, and my hart was trubled ayayne as before. 28 And my mouth was opened, and I beganne to speake before the Highest, and sayd: 29 O Lord thou shewing thy selfe to vs, wast shewed to our fathers in the desert, which is not troden, and vnfruitful, when they came out of AEgypt: and saying thou saydst: (Ex 19 & 24 / Deut 4) 30 Thou Israel heare me, and sede of Iacob attend to my wordes. 31 For behold, I sow my lawe in you, and it shal bring forth fruite in you, and you shal be glorified in it for euer. 32 For our fathers receiuing the law obserued it not, and kept not my ordinances, and the fruite of the law did not appeare: for it could not, because it was thine. 33 For they that receiued it, perished, not keeping that which had bene sowen in them. (Ex 32) 34 And behold it is the custome, that when the earth hath receiued sede, or the sea a shippe, or some vessel meate or drinke: when that shal be destroyed wherin it was sowne, or into the which it was cast: 35 that which was sowne, or cast in, or the thinges that were receiued, are destroyed withal, and the thinges receiued now tarye not with vs: but it is not so done to vs. 36 We in dede that receiued the law, sinning haue perished, and our hart that receiued it: 37 For the law hath not perished, but hath remayned in his labour. (Ezech 48) 38 And when I spake these thinges in my hart, I looked backe with myne eyes, and saw a woman on the right side, and behold she mourned, and wept with a lowd voice, and was sorrowful in mynde exceedingly, and her garments rent, and ashes vpon her heade. 39 And I left the cogitations, wherin I was thinking, and I turned to her and sayd to her: 40 Why weepest thou? and why art thou sorie in mynde. And she sayd to me: 41 Suffer me my Lord, that I may lament myselfe, & adde sorrow: because I am of a very pensiue mynde, and am humbled exceedingly. 42 And I sayd to her, What ayleth thee: tel me. And she sayd to me: 43 I thy seruant haue beene barren, and haue not borne childe, hauing a husband thirty yeares. 44 For I euery howre, and euerie day, and these thirty yeares do beseche the Highest night and day. 45 And it came to passe, after thirtie yeares God heard me thy handmayd, and saw my humilitie, and attended to my tribulation, and gaue me a sonne: and I was very ioyful vpon him, and my husband, and al my citizens, and we did glorifie the Strong exceedingly. 46 And I nourished him with much labour. 47 And it came to passe when he was growen, and came to take a wife, I made a feast day. CHAP. X. The state of Ierusalem is prefigured by a woman mourning, 25. and afterwardes reioycing. AND it came to passe, when my sonne was entred into his inner chamber, he fel downe, and dyed: 2 and we al ouerthrewe the lights, and al my citizens rose vp to comfort me, and I was quiet vntil the other day at night. 3 And it came to passe, when al were quiet to comfort me, that I might be quiet: and I arose in the night, and fled: and came as thou seest into this field. 4 And I meane nowe not to returne into the citie, but to stay here: and neither eate, nor drinke, but without intermission to mourne, and to fast vntil I dye. 5 And I left the talke wherin I was, and with anger answered her, & sayd: 6 Thou foole aboue al wemen, seest thou not our mourning, & what thinges chance to vs? 7 Because Sion our mother is sorroweful with al sorrowe, and humbled, and mourneth most bitterly. 8 And now wheras we al mourne, and are sadde: wheras we are sorrowful, and art thou sorrowful for one sonne? 9 For aske the earth, and it wil tel thee: that it is she, that ought to lament the fal of so manie thinges that spring vpon it. 10 And of her were al borne from the beginning, and others shal come: and behold, almost al walke into perdition, and the multitude of them commeth to destruction. 11 And who then ought to mourne more, but she that hath lost so great a multitude, rather then thou which art sorie for one? 12 And if thou say vnto me, that my mourning is not lyke the earthes: because I haue lost the fruite of my wombe, which I bare with sorrowes, and brought forth with paynes: 13 but the earth according to the maner of the earth, and the present multitude in it hath departed as it came: and I saye to thee, 14 as thou hast brought forth with payne, so the earth also geueth her fruite for man from the beginning to him that made her. 15 Now therfore kepe in with thy sorrowe, and beare stoutly the chances that haue befallen thee. 16 For if thou iustifie the end of God, thou shalt in time both receiue his counsel, and also in such thinges thou shalt be praysed. 17 Goe in therfore into the citie to thy husband. And she sayd to me: 18 I wil not doe it, neither wil I enter into the citie, but here wil I dye. 19 And I added yet to speake to her, & sayd: 20 Doe not this word, but consent to him that counseleth thee. For how manie are the chances of Sion? Take comfort for the sorrowe of Ierusalem. 21 For thou seest that our sanctification is made desert, and our altar is throwen downe, and our temple is destroyed, 22 and our psalter is humbled, and hymne is silent, and our exultation is dissolued, and the light of our candelsticke is extinguished, and the arke of our testament is taken for spoyle, & our holie thinges are contaminated, and the name that is inuocated vpon vs, is almost prophaned: and our children haue suffred contumelie, and our Priestes are burnt, & our Leuites are gone into captiuitie, & our virgins are defloured, and our wiues haue suffered rape, and our iust men are violently taken, and our litle ones are lost, and our yong men are in bondage, and our valiants are made impotent: 23 and that which is greatest of al, the seale of Sion, because she is vnsealed of her glorie: For she is also deliuered into the handes of them that hate vs. 24 Thou therfore shake of thy great heauines, and lay away from thee the multitude of sorrowes, that the Strong may be propicious to thee agayne, and the Highest wil geue thee rest, rest from thy labours. 25 And it came to passe, when I spake to her, her face did shine suddenly, and her shape, and her visage was made glistering, so that I was afrayde excedingly at her, & thought what this thing should be. 26 And Behold, suddenly she put forth a great sound of a voyce ful of feare, that the earth was moued at the womans sound. And I saw: 27 and behold, the woman did no more appeare vnto me, but a citie was built, & a place was shewed of great fundations: and I was afrayd, & crying with a loude voyce I sayd: 28 Where is Vriel the Angel, that from the beginning came to me? for he made me come in multitude in excesse of this minde, and my end is made into corruption, & my prayer into reproch. 29 And when I was speaking these thinges, behold he came to me, and sawe me. 30 And behold I was layd as dead, & my vnderstanding was alienated, and he held my right hand, and strengthned me, & set me vpon my feete, & sayd to me: 31 What ayleth thee? and why is thy vnderstanding, and the sense of thy hart trubled, & why art thou trubled? And I sayd: 32 Because thou hast forsaken me, and I in dede haue done according to thy wordes, & went out into the field: & behold, I haue seene, & doe see that which I cannot vtter. And he sayd to me: 33 Stand like a man, & I wil moue thee. And I sayd: 34 Speake thou my Lord in me, forsake me not, that I die not in vaine: 35 because I haue seene thinges that I knew not, & I doe heare thinges that I know not. 36 Or is my sense deceiued, & doth my soule dreame? 37 Now therfore I besech thee, that thou shew vnto thy seruant concerning this trance. And he answered me, & sayd: 38 Heare me, and I wil teach thee, and wil tel thee of what thinges thou art afrayd: because the Highest hath reuealed vnto thee manie mysteries. 39 He hath seene thy right way, that without intermission thou was forrowful for thy people, and didst mourne exceedingly for Sion. 40 This therfore is the vnderstanding of the vision which appeared to thee a litle before. 41 The woman whom thou sawest mourning, thou beganst to comfort her. 42 And now thou seest not the forme of the woman, but there appeared to thee a citie to be built. 43 And because she tolde thee of the fal of her sonne, this is the interpretation. 44 This woman which thou sawest, she is Sion, and wheras she told thee of her, whom now also thou shalt see, as a citie builded. 45 And whereas she told thee, that she was barren thirtie yeares: for the which there were thirtie yeares, when there was not yet oblation offered in it. 46 And it came to passe after thirtie yeares, Salomon built the citie, and offered oblations: then it was, when the barren bare a childe. 47 And that which she sayd vnto thee, that she nourished him with labour, this was the habitation in Ierusalem. 48 And wheras she sayd to thee, that my sonne comming into the bryde chamber dyed, and that a fal chanced vnto him, this was the ruine of Ierusalem that is made. 49 And behold, thou hast seene the similitude of her: and because she lamented her sonne, thou beganst to comfort her: and of these thinges that haue chanced, these were to be opened to thee. 50 And now the Highest seeth that thou wast sorie from the hart: and because with thy whole hart thou sufferest for her, he hath shewed thee the clearnes of her glorie, and the fayrenes of her beautie. 51 For therfore did he say to thee, that thou shouldest tarie in a field where house is not built. 52 For I knew that the Highest beganne to shew thee these thinges: 53 therfore I sayd vnto thee, that thou shouldest goe into a field, where is no fundation of building. 54 For the worke of mans building could not be borne in the place, where the citie of the Highest began to be shewed. 55 Thou therfore feare not, neither let thy hart dread: but goe in, and see the beautie, and greatnes of the building, as much as the sight of thyne eyes is capable to see: 56 & afterward thou shalt heare as much, as the hearing of thyne eares is capable to heare. 57 For thou art blessed aboue manie, and art called with the Highest as few. 58 And to morrow night thou shalt tarie here: 59 and the Highest wil shew thee those visions of the thinges on high, which the Highest wil doe to them that inhabite vpon the earth in the later dayes. 60 And I slept that night, and the other next, as he had sayd to me. CHAP. XI. An eagle appeareth to Esdras coming forth of the sea, with three heades, and twelue winges: sometimes one reigning in the world, sometimes an other, but euerie one vanisheth away. 36. A lion also appeareth coming forth of the wood, to suppresse the eagle. AND I sawe a dreame, & behold an eagle came vp out of the sea: which had twelue winges of fethers, and three heades. 2 And I saw, and behold she spred her winges into al the earth, and al the windes of heauen blew vpon her, and were gathered together. 3 And I saw, and of her fethers sprang contrarie feathers, and they became litle winges, and smale. 4 For her heades were at rest, and the midle head was greater then the other heades, but she rested with them. 5 And I saw, and behold the eagle flew with her winges, and reigned ouer the earth, and ouer them that dwel in it. 6 And I saw, that al thinges vnder heauen were subiect to her, and no man gaynesayd her, no not one of the creature that is vpon the earth. 7 And I saw, and behold the eagle rose vp vpon her talons, and made a voice with her winges, saying: 8 Watch not al together, sleepe euerie one in his place, & watch according to time. 9 But let the heades be preserued to the last. 10 And I saw, and behold the voice came not out of her heades, but from the middes of her bodie. 11 And I numbered her contrarie winges, and behold they were eight. 12 And I saw, and behold on the right side rose one wing, and reighned ouer al the earth. 13 And it came to passe, when it reigned, an end came to it, and the place therof appeared not: and the next rose vp, & reigned, that held much time. 14 And it came to passe, when it reigned, & the end of it also came, that it appeared not as the former. 15 And behold, a voice was sent forth to it, saying: 16 Heare thou that hast held the earth of long time. Thus I tel thee before thou beginne not to appeare. 17 None after thee shal hold thy time, no nor the halfe therof. 18 And the third lifted vp it selfe, and held the principalitie as also the former: and that also appeared not. 19 And so it chanced to al the other by one & by one to haue the principalitie, & agayne to appeare nowhere. 20 And I saw, and behold in time the rest of the winges were sent vp on the right side, that they also might hold the principalitie: and of them there were that held it, but yet forthwith they appeared not. 21 For some also of them stoode vp, but they held not the principalitie. 22 And I saw after these thinges, and behold the twelue winges, and two litle winges appeared not: 23 and nothing remayned in the bodie of the eagle but two heades resting, and six litle winges. 24 And I saw, and behold from the six litle winges two were diuided, and they remayned vnder the head, that is on the right side. For foure taried in their place. 25 And I saw, and behold the vnderwinges thought to set vp them selues, and to hold the principalities. 26 And I saw, and behold one was set vp, but forthwith it appeared not. 27 And they that were second did sooner vanish away then the former. 28 And I saw, and behold the two that remayned, thought with them selues that they also would reigne: 29 and when they were thincking thereon, behold one of the resting heades, which was the midde one awaked, for this was greater then the other two heades. 30 And I saw that the two heades were complete with themselues. 31 And behold the head with them that were with him turned, and did eate the two vnderwinges that thought to reigne. 32 And this head terrified al the earth, & ruled in it ouer them that inhabite the earth with much labour, and he that held the dominion of the whole world aboue al the winges that were. 33 And I saw after these thinges, and behold the midle head sodenly appeared not, as did the winges. 34 And there remained two heads, which reigned also themselues ouer the earth, and ouer them that dwelt therein. 35 And I saw, and behold the head on the right side deuoured that which was on the left. 36 And I heard a voice saying to me, Looke against thee, and consider what thou seest. 37 And I saw, & behold as a lion raysed out of the wood roaring: and I saw that he sent out a mans voyce to the eagle. And he spake saying. 38 Heare thou, and I wil speake to thee, and the Highest wil say to thee: 39 Is it not thou that hast ouercome of the foure beastes, which I made to reigne in my world, and that by them the end of their times might come? 40 And the fourth coming ouercame al the beastes that were past, and by might held the world with much feare, and al the world with most wicked laboure, and he inhabitied the whole earth so long time with deceipte. 41 And thou hast iudged the earth not with truth. 42 For thou hast afflicted the meeke, and hast trubled them that were quiet, and hast loued lyers, & hast destroyed their habitations that did fructifie, and hast ouerthrowen their walles that did not hurt thee. 43 And thy contumelie is ascended euen to the Highest, and thy pride to the Strong. 44 And the Highest hath looked vpon the proud times: and behold they are ended, and the abominations therof are accomplished. 45 Therfore thou eagle appeare no more, and thy horrible winges, & thy litle winges most wicked, and thy heades malignant, and thy talons most wicked, and al thy bodie vayne, 46 that al the earth may be refreshed, and may returne deliuered from thy violence, and may hope for his iudgement, and mercie that made it. CHAP. XII. The eagle vanisheth away, 5. Esdras prayeth, 10. and the former visions are declared to him. AND it came to passe, whiles the lyon spake these wordes to the eagle: I saw, 2 and behold the head that had ouercome, and those foure winges appeared not which passed to him, and were set vp to reigne: and their reigne was smal, and ful of tumult. 3 And I saw, and behold they appeared not, and al the bodie of the eagle was burnt, & the earth was afrayd excedingly, and I by the tumult and traunce of minde, and for great feare awaked, and sayd to my spirit: 4 Behold thou hast geuen me this, in that, that thou searchest the wayes of the Highest. 5 Behold yet I am wearie in minde, and in my spirit I am very feeble, and there is not so much as a litle strength in me for the great feare, that I was afrayd of this night. 6 Now therfore I wil pray the Highest, that he strengthen me euen to the end. 7 And I sayd: Lord Dominatour, if I haue found grace before thine eyes, and if I am iustified before thee aboue manie, and if in deede my prayer be ascended before thy face, 8 strengthen me, and shew vnto me thy seruant the interpretation, and distinction of this horrible vision, that thou mayst comfort my soule most fully. 9 For thou hast counted me worthie to shew vnto me the later times. And he sayd to me: 10 This is the interpretation of this vision. 11 The eagle which thou sawest coming vp from the sea, this is the kingdom which was sene in a vision to Daniel thy brother. (Dan 7:7) 12 But it was not interpreted to him, therfore I do now interprete it to thee. 13 Behold the dayes come, and there shal rise a kingdon vpon the earth, and the feare shal be more terrible then of al the kingdomes that were before it. 14 And there shal twelue kinges reigne in it, one after an other. 15 For the second shal beginne to reigne, and he shal continew more time then the rest of the twelue. 16 This is the interpretation of the twelue winges which thou sawest. 17 And the voice that spake which thou heardst, not coming forth of her heads, but from the middes of her bodie, 18 this is the interpretation, that after the time of that kingdom shal rise no smal contentions, and it shal be in danger to fal: and it shal not fal then, but shal be constituted againe according to the beginning therof. 19 And wheras thou sawest eight vnderwings cleauing to the wings therof, 20 this is the interpretation, eight kinges shal arise in it, whose times shal be light, and yeares swift, and two of them shal perish. 21 But when the middest time approcheth, foure shal be kept til a time, when the time therof shal beginne to approch to be ended, yet two shal be kept to the end. 22 And wheras thou sawest three heads resting, 23 this is the interpretation: in her last dayes the Highest wil rayse vp three kingdoms, and wil cal backe manie thinges into them, and they shal rule ouer the earth, 24 and them that dwel in it, with much labour aboue al them that vvere before them. For this cause they are called the heads of the eagle. 25 For these shal be they that shal recapitulate her impieties, and that shal accomplish her last thinges. 26 And wheras thou sawest a greater head not appearing, this is the interpretation therof: that one of them shal dye vpon his bed, and yet with torments. 27 For the two that shal remayne, the sword shal eate them. 28 For the sword of one shal deuoure him that is with him: but yet this also at the last shal fal by the sword. 29 And wheras thou sawest two vnderwings passing ouer the head that is on the right side, 30 this is the interpretation: these are they whom the Highest hath kept to their end, this is a smal kingdom, and ful of truble. 31 As thou sawest the lyon also, whom thou sawest awaking out of the wood, and roaring, and speaking to the eagle, and rebuking her, and her iniustices by al his wordes as thou hast heard: 32 this is the wynde which the Highest hath kept vnto the end for them, and their impieties: and he shal rebuke them, and shal cast in their spoyles before them. 33 For he shal sette them in iudgment aliue: and it shal be, when he hath reproued them, then shal he chastise them. 34 For the rest of my people he shal deliuer with miserie, them that are saued vpon my borders, and he shal make them ioyful til the end shal come, the day of iudgment, wherof I haue spoken to thee from the beginning. 35 This is the dreame which thou sawest, and these be the interpretations. 36 Thou therfore only hast bene worthie to know this secrete of the Highest. 37 Write therfore in a booke al these thinges which thou hast sene, and put them in a hidden place: 38 and thou shalt teach them the wise men of thy people, whose harts thou knowest able to take, and to kepe these secretes. 39 But doe thou stay here yet other seuen dayes, that there may be shewed thee whatsoeuer shal seme good to the Highest to shew thee. 40 And he departed from me. And it came to passe, when al the people had heard that the seuen dayes were past, and I had not returned into the citie, and al gathered them selues together from the least vnto the greatest: & came to me, & spake to me saying: 41 What haue we sinned to thee, or what haue we done vniustly against thee, that leauing vs thou hast sitten in this place? 42 For thou alone art remayning to vs of al peoples, as a cluster of grapes of the vineyard, and as a candle in a darke place, and as an hauen and shippe saued from the tempest. 43 Or are not the euiles that chance, sufficient for vs? 44 If then thou shalt forsake vs, how much better had it bene to vs, if we also had bene burnt with the burning of Sion? 45 For we are not better then they that dyed there. And they wept with a lowd voice. And I answered them, and sayd: 46 Be of good chere Israel, and be not sorowful thou house of Iacob. 47 For there is remebrance of you before the Highest, and the Strong hath not forgotten you in tentation. 48 For I haue not forsaken you, neither did I depart form you: but I came into this place, to pray for the desolation of Sion, and to seeke mercie for the low estate of your sanctification. 49 And now goe euery one of you into his house, and I wil come to you after these dayes. 50 And the people departed, as I sayd to them, into the citie: 51 but I sate in the fielde seuen dayes, as he commanded me: and I did eate of the flowers of the field only, of the herbes was my meate made in those dayes. CHAP. XIII. A vision of a winde (as it first semed, but) in dede, v. 3. of a man: 5. strong against the enimies: 21. with the interpretation. AND it came to passe after seuen dayse, and I dreamed a dreame in the night. 2 And behold there rose a winde from the sea, that trubled al the waues therof. 3 And I saw, and behold that man grew strong with thousandes of heauen: and when he turned his countenance to consider, al thinges trembled that were sene vnder him: 4 and whersoeuer voyce proceded out of his mouth, al that heard his voices begane to burne, as the earth is quiet when it feeleth the fire. 5 And I saw after these, and behold a multitude of men was gathered together, of whom there was no number, from the foure windes of heauen, to fight against the man that was come vp out of the sea. 6 And I saw, and behold he had grauen to himself a great mountaine, & he flew vpon it. 7 And I sought to see the countrie, or the place whence the mountaine was grauen, & I could not. 8 And after these thinges I saw, and behold al that were gathered to him, to ouerthrowe him, feared exceedingly, yet they were bold to fieght. 9 And behold as he sawe the violence of the multitude that came, he lifted not vp his hand, nor held sword, nor anie warlyke instrument but only as I saw, 10 that he sent forth out of his mouth as it were a blaste of fire, and from his lippes a spirit of flame, & from his tongue he sentforth sparkles & tempests, and al thinges were mingled together with this blast of fire, & spirit of flame, & multitude of tempests. 11 And it fel with violence vpon the multitude, that was prepared to fight, and burned them al, that suddenly there was nothing sene of an innumerable multitude, but only dust, & the sauour of smoke: and I saw, and was afrayd. 12 And after these thinges I saw the man himself descending from the mountaine, and calling to him an other peaceable multitude, 13 and there came to him the countenance of manie men some reioycing, and some sorrowing: and some bond, some bringing of them them that were offered. And I was sicke for much feare, and awaked, and sayd. 14 Thou from the beginning hast shewed thy seruant these meruelous thinges, and hast counted me worthie that thou wouldest receiue my petition. 15 And now shew me yet the interpretation of this dreame. 16 For as I thinke in my iudgement, woe to them that were leaft in those dayes: & much more woe to them that were not leaft. 17 For they that were not leaft, were sorrowful. 18 I vnderstand now what thinges are layde vp in the later dayes, and they shal happen to them, yea and to them that are leaft. 19 For therefore they came into great dangers, and manie necessities, as these dreames do shew. 20 But yet it is easier, aduenturing to come into it, then to passe, as a cloud from the world, and vow to see the thinges that happen in the later time. And he answered me, and sayd: 21 Both the interpretation of the vision I wil tel thee: and also concerning the thinges that thou hast spoken I wil open to thee. 22 Wheras thou speakest of them that were leaft, this is the interpretation. 23 He that taketh away danger at that time, he hath garded himself. They that haue fallen into danger, these are they that haue workes, and fayth in the Strongest. 24 Know therefore that they are more blessed which are leaft, then they that are dead. 25 These are the interpretations of the vision, wheras thou sawest a man coming from the hart of the sea, 26 the same is he whom the Highest preserueth much time, which by himself shal deliuer his creature: and he shal dispose them that are leaft. 27 And wheras thou sawest proceede out of his mouth, as it were winde, and fire, and tempest: 28 and wheras he held no sworde, nor warlike instrument: for his violence destroyed the multitude that came to ouerthrow him: this is the interpretation. 29 Behold the dayes come, when the Highest shal begin to deliuer them, that are vpon the earth: 30 and he shal come in excesse of minde vpon them that inhabit the earth. 31 And one shal thinke to ouerthrow an other: one citie an other citie, one place an other place, and nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. (Matt 24 / Luke 21) 32 And it shal be, when these thinges shal come to passe, and the signes shal happen, which I shewed thee before: and then shal my sonne be reueled, whom thou sawest, as a man coming vp. 33 And it shal be when al nations shal heare his voice: and euery one in his countrie shal leaue their warre, that they haue toward each other: 34 and an innumerable multitude shal be gathered in one, as willing to come to ouerthrow him. 35 But he shal stand vpon the top of mount Sion. 36 And Sion shal come, and it shal be shewed to al prepared and builded, as thou sawest the mountaine to be grauen without handes. 37 And the same my sonne shal reproue the thinges that the gentils haue inuented, these their impieties which came nere to the tempest, because of their euil cogitaitons, and torments wherewith they shal begin to be tormented. 38 Which were likened to the flame, and he shal destroy them without labour by the law that was likened to the fyre. 39 And wheras thou sawest him gathering vnto him an other peaceable multitude. 40 These are the ten tribes, which were made captiue out of their land in the dayes of Osee the King, whom Salmanasar the King of the Assyrians led captiue: and he transported them beyond the riuer, and they were transported into an other land. (4 Kings 17) 41 But they gaue themselues this counsel, to forsake the multitude of nations, and to goe forth into a farther countrie, where mankind neuer inhabited. 42 Or there to obserue their ordinances, which they had not kept in their countrie. 43 And they entred in by the narrow entrances of the riuer Euphrates. 44 For the Highest then wrought them signes, and stayed the vaines of the riuer til they passed. (Ex 14 / Jos 3) 45 For by that countie was a great way to goe, of one yeare and a half: for the countrie is called Arsareth. 46 Then did they inhabite there til in the later time: and now againe when they beginne to come, 47 againe the Highest shal stay the vaines of the riuer, that they may passe: for these thou sawest a multitiude with peace. 48 But they also that were leaft of the people, these are they that be within my border. 49 In shal come to passe therefore, when he shal begine to destroy the multitude of these nations, that are gathered, he shal protect them that haue ouercome the people: 50 and then shal he shew them very manie wonders. 51 And I sayd: Lord dominatour, shew me this, why I saw a man comming vp from the hart of the sea, and he sayd to me: 52 As thou canst not either search these thinges, or know what thinges are in the depth of the sea: so can not any man vpon the earth see my sonne, or them that are with him, but in the time of a day. 53 This is the interpretation of the dreame which thou sawest, and for the which thou only art here illuminated. 54 For thou hast leaft thyne owne law, and hast bene occupied about my law, and hast sought it. 55 For thou hast disposed thy lyfe in wisdom, and thyne vnderstanding thou hast called mother: 56 and for this I haue shewed thee riches with the Highest. For it shal be after other three dayes, I wil speake other thinges to thee, and I wil expound to thee weightie and meruelous thinges. 57 And I went forth, and passed into the fielde, much glorifying & praising the Highest for the meruelous thinges that he did by time. 58 And because he gouerneth it, and the thinges that are brought in times, & I sate there three dayes. CHAP. XIIII. God appeareth in a bush, 6. reuealing some thinges to be published, and some thinges to be hid. 10. As the world waxeth old, al thinges become worse. 27. The people of Israel are vngratful. 32. Al shal be iudged in the Resurrection according to their deedes. AND it came to passe the third day, and I sate vnder an oke. 2 And behold a voice came forth against me out of a bush, and sayd: Esdras, Esdras: and I sayd: Loe here I am Lord. And I arose vpon my feete. And he sayd to me: 3 Reueling I was reueled vpon the bush, and spake to Moyses, when the people serued in AEgypt, (Ex 3) 4 and I sent him, and brought my people out of AEgypt, and brought him vpon mount Sina, & held him with me manie dayes. 5 And I told him manie meruelous thinges, & shewed him the secrets of times, and the end: and I commanded him, saying: 6 These wordes thou shalt publish abroade, and these thou shalt hyde. 7 And now to thee I say: 8 The signes which I haue shewed, and the dreames which thou hast sene, and the interpretations which thou hast sene, lay them vp in thy hart. 9 For thou shalt be receiued of al, thou shalt be conuerted the residue with thy counsel, and with the like to thee, til the times be finished: 10 Because the world hath lost his youth, and the times draw nere to waxe old. 11 For the world is diuided by twelue partes, & the tenth part, & half of the tenth part are passed: 12 and there remaineth hereafter the half of the tenth part. 13 Now therefore dispose thy house, and correct thy people, & comfort the humble of them, & forsake now corruption, 14 and put from thee mortal cogitations, and cast from thee humane burdens, and doe from thee now infirme nature, & lay at one side cogitations most trublesome to thee, & make speedie transmigration from these times, 15 for the euiles which thou hast sene to haue chanced now, worse then these wil they doe againe: (Matt 24 / 1 John 2) 16 for looke how much the world shal become weake by age, so much shal euiles be multiplied vpon the inhabitants. 17 For truth hath remoued it self farther of, and lying hath approched, for now the vision which thou sawest, hasteneth to come. 18 And I answered, and sayd before thee o Lord: 19 For behold I wil goe, as thou hast commanded me, & wil rebuke the people that now is. But them that shal yet be born, who shal admonish? 20 The world therfore is set in darknes, and they that dwel in it without light. 21 Because thy law is burnt, therefore no man knowth the workes that haue bene done by thee, or that shal begin. 22 For if I haue found grace with thee, send the Holie Ghost to me, & I wil write al that hath bene done in the world from the beginning, the thinges that were written in thy law, that men may finde the pathe: and they that wil liue in the later times, may liue. 23 And he answered me, and sayd: Goe gather together the people, and thou shalt say to them, that they seeke thee not for fourtie dayes. 24 And doe thou prepare thee manie tables of boxe, & take with thee Sarea, Dabria, Salemia, Echanus, and Asiel, these fiue which are readie to write sweeftly. 25 And come hither, & I wil light in thy hart a candle of vnderstanding, which shal not be put out til the things be finished, which thou shalt begine to write. 26 And then some thinges thou shalt open to the perfect, some thou shalt deliuer secretly to the wyse. For to morrow this houre thou shalt begine to write. 27 And I went as he commanded me, & gathered together al the people, and sayd: 28 Heare Israel these wordes: 29 Our fathers were pilgrimes from the beginning in AEgypt, and were deliuered from thence. (Gen 47) 30 And they receiued the law of life, which they kept not, which you also after them haue transgressed: (Deut 4 / Acts 7) 31 and the land was geuen you by lotte, and the land of Sion, and your fathers, and you haue done iniquitie, and haue not kept the wayes which the Highest commanded you. 32 And whereas he is a iust iudge, he hath taken from you in time that which he had geuen. 33 And now you are here, and your brethren are among you. 34 If then you wil rule ouer your sense, & instruct your hart, you shal be preserued aliue, and after death shal obtaine mercie. 35 For the iudgement shal come after death, when we shal returne to lyfe againe: and then the names of the iust shal appeare, and the dedes of the impious shal be shewed. 36 Let no man therfore come to me now, nor aske for me vntil fourtie dayes. 37 And I tooke the fiue men, as he commandede me, and we went forth into the field, and taried there. 38 And I was come to the morrow, & behold as voice called me, saying: Esdras open thy mouth, and drinke that which I wil geue thee to drinke. (Ezech 3) 39 And I opened my mouth, & behold a ful cuppe was brought me, this was ful as it were with water: but the colour therof like as fire. 40 And I tooke it, and dranke; and when I had drunken of it, my hart was tormented with vnderstanding, and wisdome grewe into my brest. For my spirit was kept by memorie. 41 And my mouth was opened, and was shut no more. 42 The Highest gaue vnderstanding vnto the fiue men, and they wrote excesses of the night which were spoken, which they knewe not. 43 And at night they did eate breade, but I spake by day, & by night held not my peace. 44 And there were written in the fourtie dayes two hundred foure bookes. 45 And it came to passe when they had ended the fourtie daies, the Highest spake, saying: 46 The former thinges which thou hast written, set abrode, and let the worthie and vnworthiereade: but the last seuentie bookes thou shalt keepe, that thou mayest deliuer them to the wyse of thy people. 47 For in these is the vaine of vnderstanding, and the fountaine of wisdome, and the streame of knowledge. and I did soe. CHAP. XV. Esdras is bid to denounce, that assuredly manie euiles wil come to the world. 9. God wil protect his people, the wicked shal be punished, and lament their final miseries, God reuenging for the good. BEHOLD speake into the eares of my people the wordes of prophecie, which I shal put into thy mouth, sayth our Lord: 2 and see that they be written in paper, because they be faithful and true. 3 Be not afrayd of the cogitations against thee, neither let the incredulities truble thee of them that speake. 4 Because euerie incredulous person shal dye in his incredulitie. 5 Behold I bring in, sayth our Lord, vpon the whole earth euils, sword, and famine, and death, and destruction. 6 Because iniquitie hath fully polluted ouer al the earth, and their hurtful workes are accomplished. 7 Therefore sayth our Lord: 8 I wil not now kepe silence of their impieties which they doe irreligiously, neither wil I beare with those thinges, which they practise vniustly. Behold the innocent & iust bloud crieth to me, & the soules of the iust crie continually. 9 Reuenging I wil reuenge them, sayth our Lord, and I wil take al innocent bloud out of them vnto me. (Apoc 6:10 & 19:2) 10 Behold my people is led to slaughter as a flocke, I wil no more suffer it to dwel in the land of AEgypt. 11 But I wil bring them forth in a mightie hand and valiant arme, and wil strike with plague as before, and wil corrupt al the land thereof. 12 AEgypt shal mourne, and fundations thereof beaten with plague, and with the chastisement which God wil bring vpon it. 13 The husbandmen that til the ground shal mourne, because their seedes shal perish by blasting, and haile, and by a terible starre. 14 Woe to the world and them that dwel therein. 15 Because the sword is at hand and the destruction of them, and nation shal rise vp against nation to fight, & sword in their handes. (Matt 24 / Luke 21) 16 For there shal be instabilitie to men, & growing one against an other they shal not care for their king, & the princes of the way of their doinges, in their might. 17 For a man shal desire to go into the citie & can not. 18 Because of their prides the cities shal be trubled, the houses raised, the men shal feare. 19 Man shal not pitie his neighbour, to make their houses nothing worth in the sword, to spoyle their goodes for famine of bread, & much tribulation. 20 Behold, I cal together sayth God, al the kinges of the earth to feare me, that are from the Orient, & from the South, from the East, & from Libanus, to be turned vpon themselues, and to render the thinges that they haue geuen them. 21 As they doe vntil this day to myne elect, so wil I doe, and render in their bosome. Thus sayth our Lord God: 22 My right hand shal not spare sinners, neither shal the sword cease vpon them that shede innocent bloud vpon the earth. 23 Fire came forth from his wrath, and hath deuoured the fundations of the earth, and sinners as it were straw set on fire. 24 Woe to them that sinne, and obserue not my comandmentes, sayth our Lord. 25 I wil not spare them: depart o children from the powre. Defile not my sanctification: 26 because the Lord knoweth al that sinne against him; therefore hath he deliuered them into death and into slaughter. 27 For now are euils come vpon the world, and you shal tarrie in them. For God wil not deliuer you, because you haue sinned against him. 28 Behold an horrible vision, and the face of it from the east. 29 And the nations of dragons of Arabians shal come forth in manie chariots, & as a winde the number of them is caried vpon the earth, so that now al doe feare and tremble, that shal heare them. 30 the Carmonians madde for anger, and they shal goe forth as wild boares out of the wood, & they shal come with great power, and shal stand in fight with them, & they shal waste the portion of the land of the Assirians. 31 And after these thinges the dragons shal preuaile mindful of their natiuitie, and conspiring shal turne themselues in great force to pursue them. 32 These shal be trubled and hold their peace at their force, and shal turne their fete into flight. 33 And from the territorie of the Assirians the besiegers shal beseige them, and shal consume one of them, and there shal be feare and trembling in their armie, and contention against their kinges. 34 Behold cloudes from the east, and from the north vnto the south, and their face very horrible, ful of wrath and storme. 35 And they shal beate one against an other, and they shal beate downe manie starres, and their starre vpon the earth, and bloud shal be from the sword vnto the bellie. 36 And mans dung vnto the camels litter, and there shal be much feare, and trembling vpon the earth. 37 And they shal shake that shal see that wrath, and tremble shal take them: and after these thinges there shal manie showers be moued: 38 from the south, and the north: and an other portion from the weast. 39 And the windes from the east shal reuaile vpon it, and shal shut it vp, and the cloudes which he raised in wrath, and the starre to make terrour to the east winde, and the west shal be destroyed. 40 And there shal be exalted great and mightie cloudes ful of wrath, and a starre to terrifie al the earth, and the inhabitantes therof, and they shal powre in vpon euerie high, and eminent place a terrible starre, 41 fire, and haile, and flying swordes, and manie waters, so that al fildes also shal be filled, and al riuers with the fulnes of manie waters. 42 And they shal throw downe cities, and walles, and mountaines, and hilles, and the trees of the woodes, and the grasse of the medowes, and their corne. 43 And they shal passe constant vnto Babylon, and shal raise her. (Apoc 18) 44 They shal come together against her, and shal compasse her, and shal power out the starre, and al wrath vpon her, and the dust and smoke shal goe vp euen into heauen, and round about shal lament her. 45 And they that shal remaine vnder her, shal serue them that terified her. 46 And thou Asia agreeing into the hope of Babylon, and the glorie of her person, 47 woe be to thee thou wretch, because thou art like to her, and hast adorned thy daughters in fornication, to please & glorie in thy louers, which haue desired alwayes to fornicate with thee. 48 Thou hast imitated the odious in al her workes, and in her inuentions: therefore sayth God: 49 I wil send in euils vpon thee, widowhood, pouertie, and famine, and sword, and pestilence, to destroy thy houses by violation, and death, and glorie of thy vertue. 50 As a flower shal be withered, when the heate shal rise that is sent forth vpon thee, 51 thou shalt be weakned as a litle poore soule plaged and chastised of wemen, that the mightie and the louers may not receiue thee. 52 Wil I be zealous against thee sayth our Lord, 53 vnles thou hadst slayne myne elect at al times, exalting the slaughter of the handes, and saying vpon their death, when thou wast drunken. 54 Adorne the beautie of thy countenance. 55 The reward of thy fornication is in thy bosome, therefore thou shalt receiue recompence. 56 As thou shalt doe to my elect, sayth our Lord, so shal God do to thee, and shal deliuer thee vnto euil. 57 And thy children shal dye for famine: and thou shalt fal by the sword, and thy cities shal be destroyed, & al thyne shal fal in the filde by the sword. 58 And they that are in the mountaines, shal perish, with famine, and shal eate their owne flesh, & drinke bloud, for the famine of bread and thirst of waters. 59 Vnhappie by the seas shalt thou come, and againe thou shalt receuie euils. 60 And in the passage they shal beate against the idle citie, and shal destroy some portion of thy land, and shal deface part of thy glorie, againe returning to Babylon ourethrowen. 61 And being throwen downe thou shalt be to them for stubble, and they shal be to thee fire: 62 and deuoure thee, and thy cities, thy land, and thy mountaynes, al thy woodes and fruitful trees they wil burne with fire. 63 Thy children they shal lead captiue, & shal haue thy goodes for a praye, and the glorie of thy face they shal destroy. CHAP. XVI. Al are admonished, that extreme calamities shal fal vpon this world, 36. the penitent returning to iustice shal escape, 55. & as al thinges were made by Gods omnipotent powre at his wil, so al thinges shal serue to the reward of the blessed, and punishment of the wicked. VVOE to thee Babylon & Asia, woe to thee AEgypt, and Syria. 2 Gird yourselues with sackclothes and shirtes of heare, & mourne for your children, & be sorie: because your destruction is at hand. 3 The sword is sent in vpon you, and who is he that can turne it away? 4 Fire is sent in vpon you, and who is he that can quench it? 5 Euiles are sent in vpon you, and who is he that can repel them? 6 Shal anie man repel the lion being hungrie in the woode, or quench the fire in stubble, forthwith when it beginneth to burne? 7 Shal anie man repel the arrow shot of a strong archer? 8 Our strong Lord sendeth in euiles, and who is he that can repel them? 9 Fire came forth from his wrath, and who is he that can quench it? 10 He wil lighten, who shal not feare, he wil thunder, and who shal not be afrayed? 11 Our Lord wil threaten, and who shal not vtterly be destroyed before his face? 12 The earth hath trembled, and the fundations thereof, the sea tosseth vp waues from the depth, and the floudes of it shal be destroyed, and the fishes thereof at the face of our Lord, and at the glorie of his powre: 13 because his right hand is strong which bendeth the bow, his arrowes be sharpe that are shot of him, they shal not misse, when they shal begine to be shot into the endes of the earth. 14 Behold euiles are sent, and they shal not returne til they come vpon the earth. 15 The fire is kindled and it shal not be quenched, til it consume the fundations of the earth. 16 For as the arrow shot of a strong archer returneth not, so shal not the euils returne backe, that shal be sent vpon the earth. 17 Woe is me, woe is me: who shal deliuer me in those dayes? 18 The beginning of sorrowes and much mourning, the beginning of famine and much destruction. The beginning of warres and the potestates shal feare, the beginning of euiles and al shal tremble. 19 In these what shal I doe, when the euils shal come? 20 Behold famine, and plague, and tribulation, and distresse are sent al as scourges for amendment, 21 and in al these they wil not conuert themselues from their iniquities, neither wil they be alwayes mindful of the scourges. 22 Behold, there shal be good cheape victuals vpon the earth, so that they may thinke that peace is directly coming toward them, and then shal euiles spring vpon the earth, sword, famine, and great confusion. 23 For by famine manie that inhabit the earth shal dye, and the sword shal destroy the rest that remained aliue of the famine, 24 and the dead shal be cast forth as dung, and there shal be none to comfort them. For the earth shal be left desert, and the cities therof shal be throwen downe. 25 There shal not be left a man to til the ground and to sow it. 26 The trees shal yeeld fruites, and who shal gather them? 27 The grape shal become ripe, & who shal tread it? For there shal be great desolation to places. 28 For a man shal desire to see a man, or to heare his voyce. 29 For there shal be leaft ten of a citie, and two of the field that haue hid themselues in thicke woodes, and cliffes of rockes. 30 As there are left in the oliuet, and on euerie tree, three of foure oliues. 31 Or as in a vinyeard when it is gathered there are grapes left by them, that diligently search the vineyard: 32 so shal there be left in those dayes three or foure, by them that search their houses in the sword. 33 And the earth shal be left desolate, and the fildes thereof shal waxe old, & the wayes thereof, and al the pathes thereof shal bringforth thornes, because no man shal passe by it. 34 Virgins shal mourne hauing no bridegromes, wemen shal mourne hauing no husbandes, their daughters shal mourne hauing no helpe: 35 their bridegromes shal be consumed in battel, and their husbandes be destroyed in famine. 36 But heare these thinges, and know them ye seruantes of our Lord. 37 Behold the word of our Lord, receiue it: beleue not the goddes of whom our Lord speaketh. 38 Behold the euiles approch, and slacke not. 39 As a woman with childe when shee bringeth forth her child in the ninth moneth, the houre of her deliuerance approching, two or three howres before, paines come about her wombe, and the infants coming out of her wombe, they wil not tarrie one moment. 40 So the euiles shal not slacke to come forth vpon the earth, and the world shal lament, and sorowes shal hold it round about. 41 Heare the word, my people: prepare yourselues vnto the fight, & in the euiles so be ye as strangers of the earth. 42 He that selleth as if he should flee, and he that byeth as he that should lose it. 43 He that playeth the marchant, as he that should take no fruite: and he that buildeth as he that should not inhabite. 44 He that soweth, as he that shal not reape: so he also that pruneth a vinyeard, as if he should not haue the vintage. 45 They that marie so as if they should not get children, & they that marie not, so as if were widowes. 46 Wherfore they that labour, labour without cause: 47 for foreners shal reape their fruites, & shal violently take their goodes, and ouerthrow their houses, and lead theire children captiue, because in captiuitie, and famine they beget their children. 48 And they that play the marchantes by robrie, the longer they adorne their cities and houses, and their possessions and persons: 49 so much the more wil I be zealous toward them, vpon their sinnes, sayth our Lord. 50 As a whore enuieth an honest & very good woman: 51 so shal iustice hate impietie when she adorneth herselfe, and accuseth her to her face, when he shal come that may defend him that searcheth out al vpon the earth. 52 Therefore be not made like to her, nor to her workes. 53 For yet a little whyle & iniquitie shal be taken away from the earth, & iustice shal reigne ouer you. 54 Let not the sinner say he hath not sinned: because he shal burne coales of fire vpon his head, that sayth I haue not sinned before our Lord God and his glorie. 55 Behold our Lord shal know al the workes of men, and their inuentions, & their cogitations, and their hartes. (Eccli 23 / Luke 16) 56 For he sayd: Let the earth be made, and it was made: let the heauen be made, & it was made. (Gen 1) 57 And by his worde the starrs were made, & he noweth the number of the starres. (Ps 146:4) 58 Who searcheth the depth and the treasures therof: who hath measured the sea, & capacitie therof. (Job 38) 59 Who hath shut vp the sea in the midest of waters, & hath hanged the earth vpon the waters with his word. 60 Who hath spred heauen as it were a vault, ouer the waters he hath founded it. 61 Who hath put fountaines of waters in the desert, and lakes vpon the toppes of mountaines, to send forth riuers from the high rocke to watter the earth. 62 Who made man & put his hart in the midds of the bodie, and gaue him spirit, life and vnderstanding. 63 And the inspiration of God omnipotent that made al thinges, and searcheth al hid thinges, in the secretes of the earth. 64 He knoweth your inuention, and what you thinke in your hartes sinning, and willing to hide your sinnes. 65 Wherfore our Lord in searching hath searched al your workes, and he wil put you al to open shame, 66 and you shal be confounded when your sinnes shal come forth before men, and the iniquities shal be they, that shal stand accusers in that day. 67 What wil you doe? or how shal you hide your sinnes before God and his Angels? 68 Behold God is the Iudge, feare him. Cease from your sinnes, and now forget your iniquities to doe them anie more, & God wil bring you out, and deliuer you from al tribulation. 69 For behold the heate of a great multitude is kindled ouer you, and they shal take certaine of you by violence, & shal make the slaine to be meate for idols. 70 And they that shal consent vnto them, shal be to them in derision, and in reproch, and in conculcation. 71 For there shal be place against places, and against the next cities great insurrection vpon them that feare our Lord. 72 They shal be as it were madde sparing no bodie, to spoyle and waste yet them that feare our Lord. 73 because they shal waste and spoyle the goodes, and shal cast them out of their houses. 74 Then shal appeare the probation of mine elect, as gold that is proued by the fire. 75 Heare be beloued, sayth our Lord: Behold the dayes of tribulation are come: and out of them I wil deliuer you. 76 Doe not feare, nor stagger, because God is your guide. 77 And he that kepeth my commandmentes, and precepts, sayth our Lord God: Let not your sinnes ouerway you, nor your inquities be aduanced ouer you. 78 Woe to them that are entangled with their sinnes, and are couered with their iniquities, as a filde is entangled with the wood, & the path therof couered with thornes, by which no man passeth, & it is closed out, & cast to be deuoured of the fire. FINIS. Note: This translation comes from the Latin text, usually printed in an appendix to editions of the Vulgate, but these editions miss seventy verses between 7:35 and 7:36. The missing fragment was discovered in a Latin manuscript by Robert Lubbock Bensly in 1874. Below is a translation of this fragment from a revised Authorized Version. Although often numbered 7:36-7:105, they are here number as A:1-A:70 to avoid any repetition in chapter:verse designations. A:1. And the pit of torment shall appear, and over against it shall be the place of rest: and the furnace of hell shall be shewed, and over against it the paradise of delight. A:2. And then shall the Most High say to the nations that are raised from the dead, See ye and understand whom ye have denied, or whom ye have not served, or whose commandments ye have despised. A:3. Look on this side and on that: here is delight and rest, and there fire and torments. Thus shall he speak unto them in the day of judgement: A:4. This is a day that hath neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, A:5. neither cloud, nor thunder, nor lightning, neither wind, nor water, nor air, neither darkness, nor evening, nor morning, A:6. neither summer, nor spring, nor heat, nor winter, neither frost, nor cold, nor hail, nor rain, nor dew, A:7. neither noon, nor night, nor dawn, neither shining, nor brightness, nor light, save only the splendour of the glory of the Most High, whereby all shall see the things that are set before them: A:8. for it shall endure as it were a week of years. A:9. This is my judgement and the ordinance thereof; but to thee only have I shewed these things. A:10. And I answered, I said even then, O Lord, and I say now: Blessed are they that be now alive and keep the statutes ordained of thee. A:11. But as touching them for whom my prayer was made, what shall I say? for who is there of them that be alive that hath not sinned, and who of the sons of men that hath not transgressed thy covenant? A:12. And now I see, that the world to come shall bring delight to few, but torments unto many. A:13. For an evil heart hath grown up in us, which hath led us astray from these statutes, and hath brought us into corruption and into the ways of death, hath shewed us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life; and that, not a few only, but well nigh all that have been created. A:14. And he answered me, and said, Hearken unto me, and I will instruct thee; and I will admonish thee yet again: A:15. for this cause the Most High hath not made one world, but two. A:16. For whereas thou hast said that the just are not many, but few, and the ungodly abound, hear the answer thereunto. A:17. If thou have choice stones exceeding few, wilt thou set for thee over against them according to their number things of lead and clay? A:18. And I say, Lord, how shall this be? A:19. And he said unto me, Not only this, but ask the earth, and she shall tell thee; intreat her, and she shall declare unto thee. A:20. For thou shalt say unto her, Thou bringest forth gold and silver and brass, and iron also and lead and clay: A:21. but silver is more abundant than gold, and brass than silver, and iron than brass, lead than iron, and clay than lead. A:22. Judge thou therefore which things are precious and to be desired, whatso is abundant or what is rare. A:23. And I said, O Lord that bearest rule, that which is plentiful is of less worth, for that which is more rare is more precious. A:24. And he answered me, and said, Weigh within thyself the things that thou hast thought, for he that hath what is hard to get rejoiceth over him that hath what is plentiful. A:25. So also is the judgement which I have promised: for I will rejoice over the few that shall be saved, inasmuch as these are they that have made my glory now to prevail, and of whom my name is now named. A:26. And I will not grieve over the multitude of them that perish; for these are they that are now like unto vapour, and are become as flame and smoke; they are set on fire and burn hotly, and are quenched. A:27. And I answered and said, O thou earth, wherefore hast thou brought forth, if the mind is made out of dust, like as all other created things? A:28. For it were better that the dust itself had been unborn, so that the mind might not have been made therefrom. A:29. But now the mind groweth with us, and by reason of this we are tormented, because we perish and know it. A:30. Let the race of men lament and the beasts of the field be glad; let all that are born lament, but let the fourfooted beasts and the cattle rejoice. A:31. For it is far better with them than with us; for they look not for judgement, neither do they know of torments or of salvation promised unto them after death. A:32. For what doth it profit us, that we shall be preserved alive, but yet be afflicted with torment? A:33. For all that are born are defiled with iniquities, and are full of sins and laden with offences: A:34. and if after death we were not to come into judgement, peradventure it had been better for us. A:35. And he answered me, and said, When the Most High made the world, and Adam and all them that came of him, he first prepared the judgement and the things that pertain unto the judgement. A:36. And now understand from thine own words, for thou hast said that the mind groweth with us. A:37. They therefore that dwell upon the earth shall be tormented for this reason, that having understanding they have wrought iniquity, and receiving commandments have not kept them, and having obtained a law they dealt unfaithfully with that which they received. A:38. What then will they have to say in the judgement, or how will they answer in the last times? A:39. For how great a time hath the Most High been longsuffering with them that inhabit the world, and not for their sakes, but because of the times which he hath foreordained! A:40. And I answered and said, If I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, shew this also unto thy servant, whether after death, even now when every one of us giveth up his soul, we shall be kept in rest until those times come, in which thou shalt renew the creation, of whether we shall be tormented forthwith. A:41. And he answered me, and said, I will shew thee this also; but join not thyself with them that are scorners, nor number thyself with them that are tormented. A:42. For thou hast a treasure of good works laid up with the Most High, but it shall not be shewed thee until the last times. A:43. For concerning death the teaching is: When the determinate sentence hath gone forth from the Most High that a man should die, as the spirit leaveth the body to return again to him who gave it, it adoreth the glory of the Most High first of all. A:44. And if it be one of those that have been scorners and have not kept the way of the Most High, and that have despised his law, and that hate them that fear God, A:45. these spirits shall not enter into habitations, but shall wander and be in torments forthwith, ever grieving and sad, in seven ways. A:46. The first way, because they have despised the law of the Most High. A:47. The second way, because they cannot now make a good returning that they may live. A:48. The third way, they shall see the reward laid up for them that have believed the covenants of the Most High. A:49. The fourth way, they shall consider the torment laid up for themselves in the last days. A:50. The fifth way, they shall see the dwelling places of the others guarded by angels, with great quietness. A:51. The sixth way, they shall see how forthwith some of them shall pass into torment. A:52. The seventh way, which is more grievous than all the aforesaid ways, because they shall pine away in confusion and be consumed with shame, and shall be withered up by fears, seeing the glory of the Most High before whom they have sinned whilst living, and before whom they shall be judged in the last times. A:53. Now this is the order of those who have kept the ways of the Most High, when they shall be separated from the corruptible vessel. A:54. In the time that they dwelt therin they painfully served the Most High, and were in jeopardy every hour, that they might keep the law of the lawgiver perfectly. A:55. Wherefore this is the teaching concerning them: A:56. First of all they shall see with great joy the glory of him who taketh them up, for they shall have rest in seven orders. A:57. The first order, because they have striven with great labour to overcome the evil thought which was fashioned together with them, that it might not lead them astray from life into death. A:58. The second order, because they see the perplexity in which the souls of the ungodly wander, and the punishment that awaiteth them. A:59. The third order, they see the witness which he that fashioned them beareth concerning them, that while they lived they kept the law which was given them in trust. A:60. The fourth order, they understand the rest which, being gathered in their chambers, they now enjoy with great quietness, guarded by angels, and the glory that awaiteth them in the last days. A:61. The fifth order, they rejoice, seeing how they have now escaped from that which is corruptible, and how they shall inherit that which is to come, while they see moreover the straitness and the painfulness from which they have been delivered, and the large room which they shall receive with joy and immortality. A:62. The sixth order, when it is shewed unto them how their face shall shine as the sun, and how they shall be made like unto the light of the stars, being henceforth incorruptible. A:63. The seventh order, which is greater than all the aforesaid orders, because they shall rejoice with confidence, and because they shall be bold without confusion, and shall be glad without fear, for they hasten to behold the face of him whom in their lifetime they served, and from whom they shall receive their reward in glory. A:64. This is the order of the souls of the just, as from henceforth is announced unto them, and aforesaid are the ways of torture which they that would not give heed shall suffer from henceforth. A:65. And I answered and said, Shall time therefore be given unto the souls after they are separated from the bodies, that they may see that whereof thou hast spoken unto me? A:66. And he said, Their freedom shall be for seven days, that for seven days they may see the things whereof thou hast been told, and afterwards they shall be gathered together in their habitations. A:67. And I answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, shew further unto me thy servant whether in the day of judgement the just will be able to intercede for the ungodly or to intreat the Most High for them, A:68. whether fathers for children, or children for parents, or brethren for brethren, or kinsfolk for their next of kin, or friends for them that are most dear. A:69. And he answered me, and said, Since thou hast found favour in my sight, I will shew thee this also: The day of judgement is a day of decision, and displayeth unto all the seal of truth; even as now a father sendeth not his son, or a son his father, or a master his slave, or a friend him that is most dear, that in his stead he may be sick, or sleep, or eat, or be healed: A:70. so never shall any one pray for another in that day, neither shall one lay a burden on another, for then shall all bear every one his own righteousness or unrighteousness. BOOK FOR COMPARISON THE PROPHECIE OF ABDIAS. ABDIAS borne in Sichem, of the tribe Ephraim, prophecied the same time with Amos; so briefly that his prophecie is not parted into chapters: 1. against the Idumeans; foreshewing their destruction; 10. for their perpetual emnitie against the Iewes, and confederacie with the Chaldees. 17. The captiuitie and relaxation of the Iewes. 19. And redemption of the whole world by Christ. THE vision of Abdias. Thus sayth our Lord God to Edom: We haue heard a bruit from our Lord, and he hath sent a legate to the Gentils: Rise ye, and let vs arise against him into battel. 2 Behold I haue geuen thee a litle one in the Gentils: thou art contemptible excedingly. 3 The pride of thy hart hath extolled thee, dwelling in the clefts of rockes, exalting thy throne: which sayst in thy hart: Who shal plucke me downe to the earth. 4 If thou shalt be exalted as an eagle, and if thou shalt set thy nest among the starres: thence wil I plucke thee downe, sayth our Lord. 5 If theues had gone in to thee, if robbers by night, how hadst thou held thy peace. would not they haue stolen thinges sufficent for themselues. if the grape gathereres had entered in to thee, would they not haue left thee at the least a cluster. 6 How haue they searched Esau, haue they sought out his hidden thinges. 7 Euen to the border haue they cast thee out: al the men of thy league haue mocked thee: the men of thy peace haue peuailed against thee: they that eate with thee, shal lay embushments vnder thee: there is no wisedom in him. 8 Why, shal not I in that day, sayth our Lord, destroy the wise out of Idumea, and prudence from the mount of Esau, 9 And thy valients of the South shal feare, that man may perish from the mount of Esau. 10 For the slaughter, and for the iniquitie against thy brother Iacob, confusion shal couer thee, and thou shalt perish for euer. 11 In the day when thou stoodest against him, when strangers tooke his armie, and foreners entered his gates, and vpon Ierusalem cast lotte: thou also wast as one of them. 12 And thou shalt not dispise in the day of thy brother, in the day of his peregrination: and thou shalt not reioyce ouer the children of Iuda, in the day of their perdition: & thou shalt not magnifie thy mouth in the day of distresse. 13 Neither shalt thou enter the gate of my people in the day of their ruine: neither shalt thou also dispise in his euils in the day of his distruction: and thou shalt not be sent out against his armie in the day of his destruction. 14 Neither shalt thou stand in the outgoings to kil them that flee: and thou shalt not shut vp his remnant in the day of tribulation. 15 Because the day of our Lord is at hand vpon al nations: as thou hast done, so shal it be done to thee: thy retribution he wil returne vpon thine owne head. 16 For as you haue drunke vpon my holie mount, shal al Gentils drinke continually: & they shal drinke, and swallow vp, and they shal be as though they were not. 17 And in mount Sion shal be saluation, and it shal be holie: and the house of Iacob shal possesse those that had possessed them. 18 And the house of Iacob shal be a fyre, and the house of Ioseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble: and they shal be kindled in them, and shal deuoure them: and there shal be no remaynes of the house of Esau, because our Lord hath spoken. 19 And they that are toward the South, shal inherite the mount of Esau, and they in the champaine countries, Philisthiims: and they shal possesse the region of Ephraim, and the region of Samaria: and Beniamin shal possesse Galaad. 20 And the transmigration of this host of the children of Israel, al places of the Chananeits euen to Sarepta: and the transmigration of Ierusalem, that is in Bosphorus, shal possesse the cities of the South. 21 And sauiours shal ascend into mount Sion to iudge the mount of Esau: and the kingdom shal be to our Lord. 
4732	----	P R O L E G O M E N A to the HISTORY OF ISRAEL. WITH A REPRINT OF THE ARTICLE "ISRAEL" FROM THE "ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA." by JULIUS WELLHAUSEN, PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG. TRANSLATED FR0M THE GERMAN, UNDER THE AUTHOR'S SUPERVISION, by J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., and ALLAN MENZIES, B.D. with a preface by PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. P R E F A C E. The work which forms the greater part of the present volume first appeared in 1878 under the title "History of Israel. By J. Wellhausen. In two volumes. Volume I." The book produced a great impression throughout Europe, and its main thesis, that "the Mosaic history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, but for the history of Judaism," was felt to be so powerfully maintained that many of the leading Hebrew teachers of Germany who had till then stood aloof from the so-called "Grafian hypothesis"--the doctrine, that is, that the Levitical Law and connected parts of the Pentateuch were not written till after the fall of the kingdom of Judah, and that the Pentateuch in its present compass was not publicly accepted as authoritative till the reformation of Ezra--declared themselves convinced by Wellhausen's arguments. Before 1878 the Grafian hypothesis was neglected or treated as a paradox in most German universities, although some individual scholars of great name were known to have reached by independent inquiry similar views to those for which Graf was the recognised sponsor, and although in Holland the writings of Professor Kuenen, who has been aptly termed Graf's goel, had shown in an admirable and conclusive manner that the objections usually taken to Graf's arguments did not touch the substance of the thesis for which he contended. Since 1878, partly through the growing influence of Kuenen, but mainly through the impression produced by Wellhausen's book, all this has been changed. Almost every younger scholar of mark is on the side of Vatke and Reuss, Lagarde and Graf, Kuenen and Wellhausen, and the renewed interest in Old Testament study which is making itself felt throughout all the schools of Europe must be traced almost entirely to the stimulus derived from a new view of the history of the Law which sets all Old Testament problems in a new light. Our author, who since 1878 had been largely engaged in the study of other parts of Semitic antiquity, has not yet given to the world his promised second volume. But the first volume was a complete book in itself; the plan was to reserve the whole narrative of the history of Israel for vol.ii., so that vol.i. was entirely occupied in laying the critical foundations on which alone a real history of the Hebrew nation could be built. Accordingly, the second edition of the History, vol.i., appeared in 1883 (Berlin, Reimer), under the new title of "Prolegomena to the History of Israel." In this form it is professedly, as it really was before, a complete and self-contained work; and this is the form of which a translation, carefully revised by the author, is now offered to the public. All English readers interested in the Old Testament will certainly be grateful to the translators and publishers for a volume which in its German garb has already produced so profound an impression on the scholarship of Europe; and even in this country the author's name is too well known to make it necessary to introduce him at length to a new public. But the title of the book has a somewhat unfamiliar sound to English ears, and may be apt to suggest a series of dry and learned dissertations meant only for Hebrew scholars. It is worth while therefore to point out in a few words that this would be quite a false impression; that the matters with which Professor Wellhausen deals are such as no intelligent student of the Old Testament can afford to neglect; and that the present volume gives the English reader, for the first time, an opportunity to form his own judgment on questions which are within the scope of any one who reads the English Bible carefully and is able to think clearly, and without prejudice, about its contents. The history of Israel is part of the history of the faith by which we live, the New Testament cannot be rightly understood without understanding the Old, and the main reason why so many parts of the Old Testament are practically a sealed book even to thoughtful people is simply that they have not the historical key to the interpretation of that wonderful literature. The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it supplies the materials from which such a history can be constructed. For example, the narrative of Kings gives but the merest outline of the events that preceded the fall of Samaria; to understand the inner history of thc time we must fill up this outline with the aid of the prophets Amos and Hosea. But the more the Old Testament has been studied, the more plain has it become that for many parts of the history something more is needed than merely to read each part of the narrative books in connection with the other books that illustrate the same period. The Historical Books and the Pentateuch are themselves very composite structures, in which old narratives occur imbedded in later compilations, and groups of old laws are overlaid by ordinances of comparatively recent date. Now, to take one point only, but that the most important, it must plainly make a vast difference to our whole view of the providential course of Israel's history if it appear that instead of the whole Pentateuchal law having been given to Israel before the tribes crossed the Jordan, that law really grew up little by little from its Mosaic germ, and did not attain its present form till the Israelites were the captives or the subjects of a foreign power. This is what the new school of Pentateuch criticism undertakes to prove, and it does so in a way that should interest every one. For in the course of the argument it appears that the plain natural sense of the old history has constantly been distorted by the false presuppositions with which we have been accustomed to approach it--that having a false idea of the legal and religious culture of the Hebrews when they first entered Canaan, we continually miss the point of the most interesting parts of the subsequent story, and above all fail to understand the great work accomplished by the prophets in destroying Old Israel and preparing the way first for Judaism and then for the Gospel. These surely are inquiries which no conscientious student of the Bible can afford to ignore. The process of disentangling the twisted skein of tradition is necessarily a very delicate and complicated one, and involves certain operations for which special scholarship is indispensable. Historical criticism is a comparatively modern science, and in its application to this, as to other histories, it has made many false and uncertain steps. But in this, as in other sciences, when the truth has been reached it can generally be presented in a comparatively simple form, and the main positions can be justified even to the general reader by methods much less complicated, and much more lucid, than those originally followed by the investigators themselves. The modern view as to the age of the Pentateuchal law, which is the key to the right understanding of the History of Israel, has been reached by a mass of investigations and discussions of which no satisfactory general account has ever been laid before the English reader. Indeed, even on the Continent, where the subject has been much more studied than among us, Professor Wellhausen's book was the first complete and sustained argument which took up the question in all its historical bearings. More recently Professor Kuenen of Leyden, whose discussions of the more complicated questions of Pentateuch analysis are perhaps the finest things that modern criticism can show, has brought out the second edition of the first volume of his Onderzoek, and when this appears in English, as it is soon to do, our Hebrew students will have in their hands an admirable manual of what I may call the anatomy of the Pentateuch, in which they can follow from chapter to chapter the process by which the Pentateuch grew to its present form. But for the mass of Bible-readers such detailed analysis will always be too difficult. What every one can understand and ought to try to master, is the broad historical aspect of the matter. And this the present volume sets forth in a way that must be full of interest to every one who has tasted the intense pleasure of following institutions and ideas in their growth, and who has faith enough to see the hand of God as clearly in a long providential development as in a sudden miracle. The reader will find that every part of the "Prolegomena" is instinct with historical interest, and contributes something to a vivid realisation of what Old Israel really was, and why it has so great a part in the history of spiritual faith. In the first essay of the Prolegomena a complete picture is given of the history of the ordinances of worship in Israel, and the sacrifices, the feasts, the priesthood, are all set in a fresh light. The second essay, the history of what the Israelites themselves believed and recorded about their past, will perhaps to some readers seem less inviting, and may perhaps best be read after perusal of the article, reprinted from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica", which stands at the close of the volume and affords a general view of the course of the history of Israel, as our author constructs it on the basis of the researches in his Prolegomena. The essay on Israel and Judaism with which the Prolegomena close, may in like manner be profitably compared with sect. II of the appended sketch--a section which is not taken directly from the "Encyclopaedia", but translated from the German edition of the article "Israel", where the subject is expanded by the author. Here the reader will learn how close are the bonds that connect the critical study of the Old Testament with the deepest and unchanging problems of living faith. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. TRANSLATORS' NOTE. Pages 237 [chapter IV . 3] to 425 [end] of the "Prolegomena" and section II of "Israel" are translated by Mr. Menzies; for the rest of the volume Mr. Black is responsible. Both desire to express their indebtedness to Professor Robertson Smith for many valuable suggestions made as the sheets were passing through the press. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PROLEGOMENA. INTRODUCTION-- 1. Is the Law the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel or for that of Judaism ? The latter possibility is not precluded a priori by the history of the Canon. Reasons for considering it. De Wette, George, Vatke, Reuss, Graf 2. The three strata of the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy, Priestly Code, Jehovist 3. The question is as to the Priestly Code and its historical position. Method of the investigation A. HISTORY OF WORSHIP. CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP-- I.I.1. The historical and prophetical books show no trace in Hebrew antiquity of a sanctuary of exclusive legitimacy I.I.2. Polemic of the prophets against the sanctuaries. Fall of Samaria. Reformation of Josiah I.I.3. Influence of the Babylonian exile I.II.1. The Jehovist (JE) sanctions a multiplicity of altars I.II.2. Deuteronomy (D) demands local unity of worship I.II.3. The Priestly Code (RQ) presupposes that unity, and transfers it, by means of the Tabernacle, to primitive times I.III.1. The tabernacle, as a central sanctuary and dwelling for the ark, can nowhere be found in the historical tradition I.III.2. Noldeke's view untenable CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE-- II.I.1. The ritual is according to RQ the main subject of the Mosaic legislation, according to JE it is pre-Mosaic usage; in RQ the point is How, according to JE and D To Whom, it is offered II.I.2. The historical books agree with JE; the prophets down to Ezekiel contradict RQ II.II.1. Material innovations in RQ. Preliminary remarks on the notion, contents, mode of offering, and propitiatory effects of sacrifice. II.II.2. Material and ideal refinement of the offerings in RQ II.II.3. The sacrificial meal gives way to holocausts II.II.4. Development of the trespass-offering. II.III.1. The centralisation of worship at Jerusalem destroyed the connection of sacrifice with the natural occasions of life, so that it lost its original character CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS-- III.I.1. In JE and D there is a rotation of three festivals. Easter and Pentecost mark the beginning and the end of the corn-harvest, and the autumn feast the vintage and the bringing home the corn from the threshing-floor. With the feast of unleavened bread (Massoth) is conjoined, especially in D, the feast of the sacrifice of the male firstborn of cattle (Pesah). III.I.2. The feasts based on the offering of firstlings of the field and of the herd. Significance of the land and of agriculture for religion III.II.1. In the historical and prophetical books, the autumn feast only is distinctly attested, and it is the most important in JE and D also: of the others there are only faint traces . III.II.2. But the nature of the festivals is the same as in JE and D III.III.1. In RQ the feasts have lost their reference to harvest and the first fruits; and this essentially changes their nature III.III.2. The metamorphosis was due to the centralisation of worship, and may he traced down through Deuteronomy and Ezekiel to RQ, III.III.3. To the three festivals RQ adds the great day of atonement, which arose out of the fast-days of the exile III.IV.1. The Sabbath, which is connected with the new moon, was originally a lunar festival Exaggeration of the Sabbath rest in the Priestly Code III.IV.2. Sabbatical year, and year of Jubilee CHAP. IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES-- IV.I.1. According to Ezek. xliv., only the Levites of Jerusalem, the sons of Zadok, are to continue priests in the new Jerusalem; the other Levites are to be degraded to their servants and denuded of their priestly rights. According to RQ the Levites never possessed the priestly right, but only the sons of Aaron IV.I.2. These answer to the sons of Zadok IV.II.1. In the earliest period of the history of Israel there is no distinction between clergy and laity. Every one may slaughter and sacrifice; there are professional priests only at the great sanctuaries. Priestly families at Sihiloh and Dan. No setting apart of what is holy IV.II.2. Royal temples of the kings; priests at them as royal officials IV.II.3. Importance of the North-Israelite priesthood in the time of the kings IV.II.4. The family of Zadok at Jerusalem IV.III.1. In the oldest part of JE there are no priests; no Aaron by the side of Moses IV.III.2. In D the Levites are priests. They occur in that character, not to speak of Judges xviii. seq., only in the literature of the exile. Their descent from Moses or Aaron. The spiritual and the secular tribe of Levi. Difficulty of bringing them together IV.III.3. Consolidation of the spiritual tribe in RQ; separation of priests and Levites. Further development of the clergy after the exile. The high priest as head of the theocracy CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY-- V.I.1. The sacrificial dues raised in RQ V.I.2. The firstlings were turned into contributions to the priests, and doubled in amount V.II.1. Levitical towns V.II.2. The historical situation underlying the priestly pretensions in RQ B. HISTORY OF TRADITION. CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES-- VI.I.1. David becomes Saul's successor without any exertion, all Israel being already on his side, namely, the priests and Levites Distortion of the original story of the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem. Omission of unedifying incidents in David's life VI.I.2. Preparation for the building of the temple. Delight of the narrator in numbers and names. Inconsistency with 1Kings i, ii. Picture of David in Chronicles VI.I.3. Solomon's sacrifice at the tabernacle at Gibeah. Building of the temple. Retouching of the original narrative VI.II.1. Estimate of the relation between Judah and Israel; the Israelites do not belong to the temple, nor, consequently, to the theocracy VI.II.2. Levitical idealising of Judah. View taken of those acts of rulers in the temple-worship which the books of Kings condemn or approve. Inconsistencies with the narrative of the sources; importation of priests and Levites. VI.II.3. Divine pragmatism of the sacred history, and its results VI.II.4. The books of Kings obviously present throughout VI.III.1. The genealogical registers of I Chron.i-ix The ten tribes VI.III.2. Judah and Levi VI.III.3. Chronicles had no other sources for the period before the exile than the historical books preserved to us in the Canon. The diversity of historical view is due to the influence of the law, especially the Priestly Code. The Midrash CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS-- VII.I.1. The formula on which the book of Judges is constructed in point of chronology and of religion VII.I.2. Its relation to the stem of the tradition. Judg. xix.-xxi. VI.II.3. Occasional additions to the original narratives VII.I.4. Difference of religious attitude in the latter VII.II.1. Chronological and religious formulas in the books of Samuel VII.II.2. The stories of the rise of the monarchy and the elevation of Saul entirely recast VII.II.3. Saul's relation to Samuel VII.II.4. The narrative of David's youth The view taken of Samuel may be regarded as a measure of the growth of the tradition Saul and David VII.III.1. The last religious chronological revision of the books of Kings. Similar in kind to that of Judges and Samuel Its standpoint Judaean and Deuteronomistic VII.III.2. Its relation to the materials received from tradition VII.III.3. Differences of sentiment in the sources VII.III.4. In Chronicles the history of ancient Israel is recast in accordance with the ideas of the Priestly Code; in the older historical books it is judged according to the standard of Deuteronomy CHAPTER VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH-- VIII.I.1. Genesis i. and Genesis ii. iii. VIII.I.2. Genesis iv.-xi. VIII.I.3. The primitive world-history in JE and in Q VIII.II.1. The history of the patriarchs in JE VIII.II.2. The history of the patriarchs in Q VIII.II.3. Periods, numbers, covenants, sacrifices in the patriarchal age in Q VIII.III.1. The Mosaic history in JE and in Q VII.III.2. Comparison of the various narratives VII.III.3. Conclusion . C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM. CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW-- IX.I.1. The veto of critical analysis IX.I.2. The historical presuppositions of Deuteronomy IX.I.3. The Deuteronomistic revision does not extend over the Priestly Code IX.II.1. The final revision of the Hexateuch proceeds from the Priestly Code, as we see from Leviticus xvii. seq. IX.II.2. Examination of Leviticus xxvi. IX.II.3. R cannnot be separated from RQ IX.III<.1.> The language of the Priestly Code <IX.III.2. ?> CHAPTER X. THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN TORAH-- X.I.1. No written law in ancient Israel. The Decalogue X.I.2. The Torah of Jehovah in the mouth of priests and prophets X.I.3. View of revelation in Jeremiah, Zechariah, and the writer of Isa. xl.-lxvi. X.II.1. Deuteronomy was the first law in our sense of the word. It obtains authority during the exile. End of prophecy X.II.2. The reforming legislation supplemented by that of the restoration. The usages of worship codified and systematised by Ezekiel and his successors. The Priestly Code--its introduction by Ezra X.II.3. The Torah the basis of the Canon. Extension of the notion originally attached to the Torah to the other books CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION-- XI.I.1. Freshness and naturalness of early Israelite history XI.I.2. Rise of the state. Relation of Religion and of the Deity to the life of state and nation. XI.I.3. The Messianic theocracy of the older prophets is built up on the foundations afforded by the actual community of their time XI.I.4. The idea of the covenant XI.II.1. Foundation of the theocratic constitution under the foreign domination XI.II.2. The law and the prophets. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* I S R A E L. 1. The beginnings of the nation 2. The settlement in Palestine. 3. The foundation of the kingdom, and the first three kings 4. From Jeroboam I. to Jeroboam II. 5. God, the world, and the life of men in Old Israel 6. The fall of Samaria 7. The deliverance of Judah 8. The prophetic reformation . 9. Jeremiah and the destruction of Jerusalem . 10. The captivity and the restoration 11. Judaism and Christianity 12. The Hellenistic period 13. The Hasmonaeans 14. Herod and the Romans 15. The Rabbins 16. The Jewish Dispersion INTRODUCTION. In the following pages it is proposed to discuss the place in history of the "law of Moses;" more precisely, the question to be considered is whether that law is the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, or not rather for that of Judaism, ie., of the religious communion which survived the destruction of the nation by the Assyrians and Chaldaeans. I. It is an opinion very extensively held that the great mass of the books of the Old Testament not only relate to the pre-exilic period, but date from it. According to this view, they are remnants of the literature of ancient Israel which the Jews rescued as a heritage from the past, and on which they continued to subsist in the decay of independent intellectual life. In dogmatic theology Judaism is a mere empty chasm over which one springs from the Old Testament to the New; and even where this estimate is modified, the belief still prevails in a general way that the Judaism which received the books of Scripture into the canon had, as a rule, nothing to do with their production. But the exceptions to this principle which are conceded as regards the second and third divisions of the Hebrew canon cannot be called so very slight. Of the Hagiograpba, by far the larger portion is demonstrably post-exilic, and no part demonstrably older than the exile. Daniel comes as far down as the Maccabaean wars, and Esther is perhaps even later. Of the prophetical literature a very appreciable fraction is later than the fall of the Hebrew kingdom; and the associated historical books (the "earlier prophets" of the Hebrew canon) date, in the form in which we now possess them, from a period subsequent to the death of Jeconiah, who must have survived the year 560 B.C. for some time. Making all allowance for the older sources utilised, and to a large extent transcribed word for word, in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, we find that apart from the Pentateuch the preexilic portion of the Old Testament amounts in bulk to little more than the half of the entire volume. All the rest belongs to the later period, and it includes not merely the feeble after-growths of a failing vegetation, but also productions of the vigour and originality of Isa. xl.lxvi. and Ps.Ixxiii. We come then to the Law. Here, as for most parts of the Old Testament, we have no express information as to the author and date of composition, and to get even approximately at the truth we are shut up to the use of such data as can be derived from an analysis of the contents, taken in conjunction with what we may happen to know from other sources as to the course of Israel's history. But the habit has been to assume that the historical period to be considered in this connection ends with the Babylonian exile as certainly as it begins with the exodus from Egypt. At first sight this assumption seems to be justified by the history of the canon; it was the Law that first became canonical through the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah; the Prophets became so considerably later, and the Hagiographa last of all. Now it is not unnatural, from the chronological order in which these writings were received into the canon, to proceed to an inference as to their approximate relative age, and so not only to place the Prophets before the Hagiographa, but also the five books of Moses before the Prophets. If the Prophets are for the most part older than the exile, how much more so the Law! But however trustworthy such a mode of comparison may be when applied to the middle as contrasted with the latest portion of the canon, it is not at all to be relied on when the first part is contrasted with the other two. The very idea of canonicity was originally associated with the Torah, and was only afterwards extended to the other books, which slowly and by a gradual process acquired a certain measure of the validity given to the Torah by a single public and formal act, through which it was introduced at once as the Magna Charta of the Jewish communion (Nehemiah viii.-x.) In their case the canonical-- that is, legal--character was not intrinsic, but was only subsequently acquired; there must therefore have been some interval, and there may have been a very long one, between the date of their origin and that of their receiving public sanction. To the Law, on the other hand, the canonical character is much more essential, and serious difficulties beset the assumption that the Law of Moses came into existence at a period long before the exile, aml did not attain the force of law until many centuries afterwards, and in totally different circumstances from those under which it had arisen. At least the fact that a collection claiming public recognition as an ecclesiastical book should have attained such recognition earlier than other writings which make no such claim is no proof of superior antiquity. We cannot, then, peremptorily refuse to regard it as possible that what was the law of Judaism may also have been its product; and there are urgent reasons for taking the suggestion into very careful consideration. It may not be out of place here to refer to personal experience. In my early student days I was attracted by the stories of Saul and David, Ahab and Elijah; the discourses of Amos and Isaiah laid strong hold on me, and I read myself well into the prophetic and historical books of the Old Testament. Thanks to such aids as were accessible to me, I even considered that I understood them tolerably, but at the same time was troubled with a bad conscience, as if I were beginning with the roof instead of the foundation; for I had no thorough acquaintance with the Law, of which I was accustomed to be told that it was the basis and postulate of the whole literature. At last I took courage and made my way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and even through Knobel's Commentary to these books. But it was in vain that I looked for the light which was to be shed from this source on the historical and prophetical books. On the contrary, my enjoyment of the latter was marred by the Law; it did not bring them any nearer me, but intruded itself uneasily, like a ghost that makes a noise indeed, but is not visible and really effects nothing. Even where there were points of contact between it and them, differences also made themselves felt, and I found it impossible to give a candid decision in favour of the priority of the Law. Dimly I began to perceive that throughout there was between them all the difference that separates two wholly distinct worlds. Yet, so far from attaining clear conceptions, I only fell into deeper confusion, which was worse confounded by the explanations of Ewald in the second volume of history of Israel. At last, in the course of a casual visit in Gottingen in the summer of 1867, I learned through Ritschl that Karl Heinrich Graf placed the law later than the Prophets, and, almost without knowing his reasons for the hypothesis, I was prepared to accept it; I readily acknowledged to myself thc possibility of understanding Hebrew antiquity without the book of the Torah. The hypothesis usually associated with Graf's name is really not his, but-that of his teacher, Eduard Reuss. It would be still more correct to call it after Leopold Gcorge and Wiihelm Vatke, who, independent alike of Reuss and of each other, were the first to give it literary currency. All three, again, are disciples of Martin Lebrecht de Wette, the epochmaking pioneer of historical criticism in this field./1/ ******************************* 1. M. W. L. de Wette, Beitraege zur Einleitung in das A. T. (Bd. I. Kritischer Versuch ueber die Glaubwuerdigkeit der Buecher der Chronik; Bd. II. Kritik der Mosaischen Geschichte, Halle, 1806-07); J. F. L. George, Die alterer Juedischen Feste mit einer Kritik der Gesetzgebung des Pentateuch (Berlin, 1835; preface dated 12th October); W. Vatke, Die biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich dargestellt (Berlin, 1835; preface dated 18th October; publication did not get beyond first part of the first volume); K. H. Graf, Die geschichtlicher Buecher des Alten Testaments (Leipsic, 1866). That Graf as well as J. Orth (Nouv. Rev. de Theol., iii. 84 sqq., iv. 350 sqq., Paris, 1859-60) owed the impulse to his critical labours to his Strassburg master was not unknown; but how great must have been the share of Reuss in the hypothesis of Graf has only been revealed in 1879, by the publication of certain theses which he had formulated as early as 1833, but had hesitated to lay in print before the general theological public. These are as follows:-- "1. L'element historique du Pentateuque peut et doit etre examine a part et ne pas etre confondu avec l'element legal. 2. L'un et l'autre ont pu exister sans redaction ecrite. La mention, chez d'anciens ecrivains, de certaines traditions patriarcales ou mosaiques, ne prouve pas l'existence du Pentateuque, et une nation peut avoir un droit coutumier sans code ecrit. Les traditions nationales des Israelites remontent plus haut que les lois du Pentateuque et la redaction des premieres est anterieure a celle des secondes. 4. L'interet principal de l'historien doit porter sur la date des lois, parce que sur ce terrain il a plus de chance d'arriver a des resultats certains. II faut en consequence proceder a l'interrogatoire des temoins. 5. L'histoire racontee, dans les livres des Juges et de Samuel, et meme en partie celle comprise dans les livres des Rois, est en contradiction avec des lois dites mosaiques; donc celles-ci etaient inconnues a l'epoque de la redaction de ces livres, a plus forte raison elles n'ont pas existe dans les temps qui y vent decrits. 6. Les prophetes du 8e et du 7e siecle ne savent rien du code mosaique. 7. Jeremie est le premier prophete qui connaisse une loi ecrite et ses citations rapportent au Deuteronome. 8. Le Deuteronome (iv.45-xxviii.68) est le livre que les pretres pretendaient avoir trouve dans le temple du temps du roi Josias. Ce code est la partie la plus ancienne de la legislation (redigee) comprise dans le Pentateuque. 9. L'histoire des Israelites, en tant qu'il s'agit du developpement national determine par des lois ecrites, se divisera en deux periodes, avant et apres Josias. 10. Ezechiel est anterieur a la redaction du code rituel et des lois qui ont definitivement organise la hierarchie. 11. Le livre du Josue n'est pas, tant s'en faut, la partie la plus recente de l'ouvrage entier. 12. Le redacteur du Pentateuque se distingue clairement de l'ancien prophete Moyse." --L'Histoire Sainte et la Loi, Paris, 1879, pp. 23, 24. ****************************************** He indeed did not himself succeed in reaching a sure position, but he was the first clearly to perceive and point out how disconnected are the alleged starting-point of Israel's history and that history itself. The religious community set up on so broad a basis in the wilderness, with its sacred centre and uniform organisation, disappears and leaves no trace as soon as Israel settles in a land of its own, and becomes, in any proper sense, a nation. The period of the Judges presents itself to us as a confused chaos, out of which order and coherence are gradually evolved under the pressure of external circumstances, but perfectly naturally and without the faintest reminiscence of a sacred unifying constitution that had formerly existed. Hebrew antiquity shows absolutely no tendencies towards a hierocracy; power is wielded solely by the heads of families and of tribes, and by the kings, who exercise control over religious worship also, and appoint and depose its priests. The influence possessed by the latter is purely moral; the Torah of God is not a document in their hands which guarantees their own position, but merely an instruction for others in their mouths; like the word of the prophets, it has divine authority but not political sanction, and has validity only in so far as it is voluntarily accepted. And as for the literature which has come down to us from the period of the Kings, it would puzzle the very best intentions to beat up so many as two or three unambiguous allusions to the Law, and these cannot be held to prove anything when one considers, by way of contrast, what Homer was to the Greeks. To complete the marvel, in post-exile Judaism the Mosaism which until then had been only latent suddenly emerges into prominence everywhere. We now find the Book regarded as the foundation of all higher life, and the Jews, to borrow the phrase of the Koran, are "the people of the Book;" we have the sanctuary with its priests and Levites occupying the central position, and the people as a congregation encamped around it; the cultus, with its burnt-offerings and sin-offerings, its purifications and its abstinences, its feasts and Sabbaths, strictly observed as prescribed by the Law, is now the principal business of life. When we take the community of the second temple and compare it with the ancient people of Israel, we are at once able to realise how far removed was thc latter from so-called Mosaism. The Jews themselves were thoroughly conscious of the distance. The revision of the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, undertaken towards the end of the Babylonian exile, a revision much more thorough than is commonly assumed, condemns as heretical the whole age of the Kings. At a later date, as the past became more invested with a certain nimbus of sanctity, men preferred to clothe it with the characters of legitimacy rather than sit in judgment upon it. The Book of Chronicles shows in what manner it was necessary to deal with the history of bygone times when it was assumed that the Mosaic hierocracy was their fundamental institution. 2. The foregoing remarks are designed merely to make it plain that the problem we have set before us is not an imaginary one, but actual and urgent. They are intended to introduce it; but to solve it is by no means so easy. The question what is the historical place of the Law does not even admit of being put in these simple terms. For the Law, If by that word we understand the entire Pentateuch, is no literary unity, and no simple historical quantity./1/ ************************* 1. Compare the article "Pentateuch" in the Ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xviii. ************************* Since the days of Peyrerius and Spinoza, criticism has acknowledged the complex character of that remarkable literary production, and from Jean Astruc onwards has laboured, not without success, at disentangling its original elements. At present there are a number of results that can be regarded as settled. The following are some of them. The five Books of Moses and the Book of Joshua constitute one whole, the conquest of the Promised Land rather than the death of Moses forming the true conclusion of the patriarchal history, the exodus, and the wandering in the wilderness. From a literary point of view, accordingly, it is more accurate to speak of the Hexateuch than of the Pentateuch. Out of this whole, the Book of Deuteronomy, as essentially an independent law-book, admits of being separated most easily. Of what remains, the parts most easily distinguished belong to the so-called "main stock" ("Grundschrift"), formerly also called the Elohistic document, on account of the use it makes of the divine name Elohim up to the time of Moses, and designated by Ewald, with reference to the regularly recurring superscriptions in Genesis, as the Book of Origins. It is distinguished by its liking for number, and measure, and formula generally, by its stiff pedantic style, by its constant use of certain phrases and turns of expression which do not occur elsewhere in the older Hebrew; its characteristics are more strongly marked than those of any of the others, and make it accordingly the easiest to recognise with certainty. Its basis is the Book of Leviticus and thc allied portions of the adjoining books,-- Exodus xxv.-xl., with the exception of chaps. xxxii.-xxxiv., and Num.i.-x., xv.-xix., xxv.-xxxvi., with trifling exceptions. It thus contains legislation chiefly, and, in point of fact, relates substantially to the worship of the tabernacle and cognate matters. It is historical only in form; the history serves merely as a framework on which to arrange thc legislative material, or as a mask to disguise it. For the most part, the thread of the narrative is extremely thin, and often serves merely to carry out the chronology, which is kept up without a hiatus from the Creation to the Exodus; it becomes fuller only on the occasions in which other interests come into play, as, for example, in Genesis, with regard to the three preludes to the Mosaic covenant which are connected with the names of Adam, Noah, and Abraham respectively. When this fundamental document is also separated out as well as Deuteronomy, there remains the Jehovistic history-book, which, in contrast with the two others, is essentially of a narrative character, and sets forth with full sympathy and enjoyment the materials handed down by tradition. The story of the patriarchs, which belongs to this document almost entirely, is what best marks its character; that story is not here dealt with merely as a summary introduction to something of greater importance which is to follow, but as a subject of primary importance, deserving the fullest treatment possible. Legislative elements have been taken into it only at one point, where they fit into the historical connection, namely, when the giving of the Law at Sinai is spoken of (Exodusxx.-xxiii., xxxiv.) Scholars long rested satisfied with this twofold division of the non-Deuteronomic Hexateuch, until Hupfeld demonstrated in certain parts of Genesis, which until then had been assigned partly to the "main stock" and partly to the Jehovist, the existence of a third continuous source, the work of the so-called younger Elohist. The choice of this name was due to the circumstance that in this document also Elohim is the ordinary name of the Deity, as it is in the "main stock" up to Exodus vi.; the epithet "younger," however, is better left out, as it involves an unproved assumption, and besides, is no longer required for distinction's sake, now that the "main stock" is no longer referred to under so unsuitable a name as that of Elohist. Hupfeld further assumed that all the three sources continued to exist separately until some one at a later date brought them together simultaneously into a single whole. But this is a view that cannot be maintained: not merely is the Elohist in his matter and in his manner of looking at things most closely akin to the Jehovist; his document has come down to us as Noldeke was thc first to perceive, only in extracts embodied in the Jehovist narrative./1/ *************************** Hermann Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis u. die Art ihrer Zusammersetzung, Berlin, 1853; Theodor Noldeke, Die s. g. Grundschrift des Pentateuch, in Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments, Kiel, 1869. *************************** Thus, notwithstanding Hupfeld's discovery, the old division into two great sections continues to hold good, and there is every reason for adhering to this primary distinction as the basis of further historical research, in spite of the fact, which is coming to be more and more clearly perceived, that not only the Jehovistic document, but the "main stock" as well, are complex products, and that alongside of them occur hybrid or posthumous elements which do not admit of being simply referred to either the one or the other formation. /2/ ************************ 2. J. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs, in Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theologie, 1876, pp. 392-450, 531-602; 1877, pp. 407-479. I do not insist on all the details, but, as regards the way in which the literary process which resulted in the formation of the Pentateuch is to be looked at in general, I believe I had indicated the proper line of investigation. Hitherto the only important corrections I have received have been those of Kuenen in his Contributions to the Criticism of the Pentateuch and Joshua, published in the Leyden Theologisch Tijdschrift; but these are altogether welcome, inasmuch as they only free my own fundamental view from some relics of the old leaven of a mechanical separation of sources which had continued to adhere to it. For what Kuenen points out is, that certain elements assigned by me to the Elohist are not fragments of a once independent whole, but interpolated and parasitic additions. What effect this demonstration may have on the judgment we form of the Elohist himself is as yet uncertain. In the following pages the Jehovistic history-book is denoted by the symbol JE, its Jehovistic part by J, and the Elohistic by E; the "main stock" pure and simple, which is distinguished by its systematising history and is seen unalloyed in Genesis, is called the Book of the Four Covenants and is symbolised by Q; for the "main stock" as a whole (as modified by an editorial process) the title of Priestly Code and the symbol RQ (Q and Revisers) are employed. ************************* Now the Law, whose historical position we have to determine, is the so-called "main stack," which, both by its contents and by its origin, is entitled to be called the Priestly Code, and will accordingly be so designated. The Priestly Code preponderates over the rest of the legislation in force, as well as in bulk; in all matters of primary importance it is the normal and final authority. It was according to the mode furnished by it that the Jews under Ezra ordered their sacred community, and upon it are formed our conceptions of the Mosaic theocracy, with the tabernacle at its centre, the high priest at its head, the priests and Levites as its organs, the legitimate cultus as its regular function. It is precisely this Law, so called par exceIlence, that creates the difficulties out of which our problem rises, and it is only in connection with it that the great difference of opinion exists as to date. With regard to the Jehovistic document, all are happily agreed that, substantially at all events, in language, horizon, and other features, it dates from the golden age of Hebrew literature, to which the finest parts of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the oldest extant prophetical writings also belong,--the period of the kings and prophets which preceded the dissolution of the two Israelite kingdoms by the Assyrians. About the origin of Deuteronomy there is still less dispute; in all circles where appreciation of scientific results can be looked for at all, it is recognised that it was composed in the same age as that in which it was discovered, and that it was made the rule of Josiah's reformation, which took place about a generation before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans. It is only in the case of the Priestly Code that opinions differ widely; for it tries hard to imitate the costume of the Mosaic period, and, with whatever success, to disguise its own. This is not nearly so much the case with Deuteronomy, which, in fact, allows the real situation (that of the period during which, Samaria having been destroyed, only the kingdom of Judah continued to subsist) to reveal itself very plainly through that which is assumed (xii.8, xix.8). And the Jehovist does not even pretend to being a Mosaic law of any kind; it aims at being a simple book of history; the distance between the present and the past spoken of is not concealed in the very least. It is here that all the marks are found which attracted the attention of Abenezra and afterwards of Spinoza, such as Gen. xii. 6 ("And the Canaanite was then in the land"), Gen.xxxvi.31 ("These are the kings who reigned in Edom before the children of Israel had a king"), Num. xii.6, 7, Deut. xxxiv.10 ("There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses"). The Priestly Code, on the other hand, guards itself against all reference to later times and settled life in Canaan, which both in the Jehovistic Book of the Covenant (Exodus xxi.-xxiii.) and in Deuteronomy are the express basis of the legislation: it keeps itself carefully and strictly within the limits of the situation in the wilderness, for which in all seriousness it seeks to give the law. It has actually been successful, with its movable tabernacle, its wandering camp, and other archaic details, in so concealing the true date of its composition that its many serious inconsistencies with what we know, from other sources, of Hebrew antiquity previous to the exile, are only taken as proving that it lies far beyond all known history, and on account of its enormous antiquity can hardly be brought into any connection with it. It is the Priestly Code, then, that presents us with our problem. 3. The instinct was a sound one which led criticism for the time being to turn aside from the historical problem which had originally presented itself to De Wette, and afterwards had been more distinctly apprehended by George and Vatke, in order, in the first instance, to come to some sort of clear understanding as to the composition of the Pentateuch. But a mistake was committed when it was supposed that by a separation of the sources (in which operation attention was quite properly directed chiefly to Genesis) that great historical question had been incidentally answered. The fact was, that it had been merely put to sleep, and Graf has the credit of having, after a considerable interval, awakened it again. In doing so, indeed, he in turn laboured under the disadvantage of not knowing what success had been achieved in separating the sources, and thereby he became involved in a desperate and utterly untenable assumption. This assumption, however, had no necessary connection with his own hypothesis, and at once fell to the ground when the level to which Hupfeld brought the criticism of the text had been reached. Graf originally followed the older view, espoused by Tuch in particular, that in Genesis the Priestly Code, with its so obtrusively bare skeleton, is the "main stock," and that it is the Jehovist who supplements, and is therefore of course the later. But since, on the other hand, he regarded the ritual legislature of the middle books as much more recent than the work of the Jehovist, he was compelled to tear it asunder as best he could from its introduction in Genesis, and to separate the two halves of the Priestly Code by half a millennium. But Hupfeld had long before made it quite clear that the Jehovist is no mere supplementer, but the author of a perfectly independent work, and that the passages, such as Gen. xx.-xxii., usually cited as examples of the way in which the Jehovist worked over the "main stock," really proceed from quite another source,--the Elohist. Thus the stumbling-block of Graf had already been taken out of the way, and his path had been made clear by an unlooked-for ally. Following Kuenen's suggestion, he did not hesitate to take the helping-hand extended to him; he gave up his violent division of the Priestly Code, and then had no difficulty in deducing from the results which he had obtained with respect to the main legal portion similar consequences with regard to the narrative part in Genesis. /1/ *************************** 1. K. H. Graf, Die s. g. Grundschrift des Pentateucks, in Merx's Archiv (1869), pp. 466-477. As early as 1866 he had already expressed himself in a letter to Kuenen November 12) as follows:-- "Vous me faites pressentir une solution de cette enigme...c'est que les parties elohistiques de la Genese seraient posterieures aux parties jehovistiques." Compare Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschrift (1870), p.412. Graf had also in this respect followed Reuss, who (ut supra, p. 24) says of himself: "Le cote faible de ma critique a ete que, a l'egard de tout ce qui ne rentrait pas dans les points enumeres ci-dessus, je restais dans l'orniere tracee par mes devanciers, admettant sans plus ample examen que le Pentateuque etait l'ouvrage de l'HISTORIEN elohiste, complete par l'HISTORIEN jehoviste, et ne me rendant pas compte de la maniere dont l'element legal, dont je m'etais occupe exclusivement, serait venu se joindre a l'element historique. *************************** The foundations were now laid; it is Kuenen who has since done most for the further development of the hypothesis./2/ ************************** 2. A. Kuenen, Die Godsdienst van Israel, Haarlem, 1869-70 (Eng. transl. Religion of Israel, 1874-5), and De priesterlijke Bestanddeelen van Pentateuch en Josua, in Theol. Tijdschr.(1870), pp. 391-426. ************************** The defenders of the prevailing opinion maintained their ground as well as they could, but from long possession had got somewhat settled on their lees. They raised against the assailants a series of objections, all of which, however, laboured more or less under the disadvantage that they rested upon the foundation which had already been shattered. Passages were quoted from Amos and Hosea as implying an acquaintance with the Priestly Code, but they were not such as could make any impression on those who were already persuaded that the latter was the more recent. Again it was asserted, and almost with violence, that the Priestly Code could not be later than Deuteronomy, and that the Deuteronomist actually had it before him. But the evidences of this proved extremely problematical, while, on the other hand, the dependence of Deuteronomy, as a whole, on the Jehovist came out with the utmost clearness. Appeal was made to the latest redaction of the entire Hexateuch, a redaction which was assumed to be Deuteronomistic; but this yielded the result that the deuteronomistic redaction could nowhere be traced in any of the parts belonging to the Priestly Code. Even the history of the language itself was forced to render service against Graf: it had already been too much the custom to deal with that as if it were soft wax. To say all in a word, the arguments which were brought into play as a rule derived all their force from a moral conviction that the ritual legislation must be old, and could not possibly have been committed to writing for the first time within the period of Judaism; that it was not operative before then, that it did not even admit of being carried into effect in the conditions that prevailed previous to the exile, could not shake the conviction-- all the firmer because it did not rest on argument--that at least it existed previously. The firemen never came near the spot where the conflagration raged; for it is only within the region of religious antiquities and dominant religious ideas,--the region which Vatke in his Biblische Theologie had occupied in its full breadth, and where the real battle first kindled--that the controversy can be brought to a definite issue. In making the following attempt in this direction, I start from the comparison of the three constituents of the Pentateuch,--the Priestly Code, Deuteronomy, and the work of the Jehovist. The contents of the first two are, of course, legislation, as we have seen; those of the third are narrative; but, as the Decalogue (Exodus xx.), the Law of the two Tables (Exodus xxxiv.), and the Book of the Covenant (Exodus xxi.-xxiii.) show, the legislative element is not wholly absent from the Jehovist, and much less is the historical absent from the Priestly Code or Deuteronomy. Further, each writer's legal standpoint is mirrored in his account of the history, and conversely; thus there is no lack either of indirect or of direct points of comparison. Now it is admitted that the three constituent elements are separated from each other by wide intervals; the question then arises, In what order? Deuteronomy stands in a relation of comparative nearness both to the Jehovist and to the Priestly Code; the distance between the last two is by far the greatest,--so great that on this ground alone Ewald as early as the year 183I (Stud. u. Krit., p. 604) declared it impossible that the one could have been written to supplement the other. Combining this observation with the undisputed priority of the Jehovist over Deuteronomy, it will follow that the Priestly Code stands last in the series. But such a consideration, although, so far as I know, proceeding upon admitted data, has no value as long as it confines itself to such mere generalities. It is necessary to trace the succession of the three elements in detail, and at once to test and to fix each by reference to an independent standard, namely, the inner development of the history of Israel so far as that is known to us by trustworthy testimonies, from independent sources. The literary and historical investigation on which we thus enter is both wide and difficult. It falls into three parts. In the first, which lays the foundations, the data relating to sacred archaeology are brought together and arranged in such a way as to show that in the Pentateuch the elements follow upon one another and from one another precisely as the steps of the development demonstrably do in the history. Almost involuntarily this argument has taken the shape of a sort of history of the ordinances of worship. Rude and colourless that history must be confessed to be,--a fault due to the materials, which hardly allow us to do more than mark the contrast between pre-exilic and post-exilic, and, in a secondary measure, that between Deuteronomic and pre-Deuteronomic. At the same time there is this advantage arising out of the breadth of the periods treated: they cannot fail to distinguish themselves from each other in a tangible manner; it must be possible in the case of historical, and even of legal works, to recognise whether they were written before or after the exile. The second part, in many respects dependent on the first, traces the influence of the successively prevailing ideas and tendencies upon the shaping of historical tradition, and follows the various phases in which that was conceived and set forth. It contains, so to speak, a history of tradition. The third part sums up the critical results of the preceding two, with some further determining considerations, and concludes with a more general survey. The assumptions I make will find an ever-recurring justification in the course of the investigation; the two principal are, that the work of the Jehovist, so far as the nucleus of it is concerned, belongs to the course of the Assyrian period, and that Deuteronomy belongs to its close. Moreover, however strongly I am convinced that the latter is to be dated in accordance with 2Kings xxii., I do not, like Graf, so use this position as to make it the fulcrum for my lever. Deuteronomy is the starting-point, not in the sense that without it it would be impossible to accomplish anything, but only because, when its position has been historically ascertained, we cannot decline to go on, but must demand that the position of the Priestly Code should also be fixed by reference to history. My inquiry proceeds on a broader basis than that of Graf, and comes nearer to that of Vatke, from whom indeed I gratefully acknowledge myself to have learnt best and most. A. HISTORY OF THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP. " Legem non habentes natura faciunt legis opera."--Romans ii. [ "(When Gentiles) who do not have the law, do instinctively what the law requires...." Romans 2:14 NRSV ] CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP. As we learn from the New Testament, the Jews and the Samaritans in the days of Jesus were not agreed on the question which was the proper place of worship, but that there could be only one was taken to be as certain as the unity of God Himself. The Jews maintained that place to be the temple at Jerusalem, and when it was destroyed they ceased to sacrifice. But this oneness of the sanctuary in Israel was not originally recognised either in fact or in law; it was a slow growth of time. With the help of the Old Testament we are still quite able to trace the process. In doing so, it is possible to distinguish several stages of development. We shall accordingly proceed to inquire whether the three constituent parts of the Pentateuch give tokens of any relationship to one or other of these; whether and how they fall in with the course of the historical development which we are able to follow by the aid of the historical and prophetic books from the period of the Judges onwards. I.I.1. For the earliest period of the history of Israel, all that precedes the building of the temple, not a trace can be found of any sanctuary of exclusive legitimacy. In the Books of Judges and Samuel hardly a place is mentioned at which we have not at least casual mention of an altar and of sacrifice. In great measure this multiplicity of sanctuaries was part of the heritage taken over from the Canaanites by the Hebrews; as they appropriated the towns and the culture generally of the previous inhabitants, so also did they take possession of their sacred piaces. The system of high places (Bamoth), with all the apparatus thereto belonging, is certainly Canaanite originally (Deut. xii.2, 30; Num. xxxiii.52; Exodus xxxiv.12 seq.), but afterwards is of quite general occurrence among the Hebrews. At Shechem and Gibeon the transition takes place almost in the full light of history; some other old-Israelite places of worship, certain of which are afterwards represented as Levitical towns, betray their origin by their names at least, e.g., Bethshemesh or Ir Heres (Sun-town), and Ashtaroth Karnaim (the two-horned Astarte). In the popular recollection, also, the memory of the fact that many of the most prominent sacrificial seats were already in existence at the date of the immigration continues to survive. Shechem, Bethel, Beersheba, figure in Genesis as instituted by the patriarchs; other equally important holy sites, not so. The reason for the distinction can only lie in a consciousness of the more recent origin of the latter; those of the one class had been found by the people when they came, those of the other category they had themselves established. For of course, if the Hebrews did not hesitate to appropriate to themselves the old holy places of the country, neither did they feel any difficulty in instituting new ones. In Gilgal and Shiloh, in the fixed camps where, in the first instance, they had found a permanent foothold in Palestine proper, there forthwith arose important centres of worship; so likewise in other places of political importance, even in such as only temporarily come into prominence, as Ophrah, Ramah, and Nob near Gibeah. And, apart from the greater cities with their more or less regular religious service, it is perfectly permissible to erect an altar extempore, and offer sacrifice wherever an occasion presents itself. When, after the battle of Michmash, the people, tired and hungry, fell upon the cattle they had taken, and began to devour the flesh with the blood (that is, without pouring out the blood on the altar), Saul caused a great stone to be erected, and ordered that every man should slaughter his ox or his sheep there. This was the first altar which Saul erected to Jehovah, adds the narrator, certainly not as a reproach, nor even to signalise his conduct as anything surprising or exceptional. The instance is all the more instructive, because it shows how the prohibition to eat flesh without rendering the blood back to God at a time when the people did not live crowded together within a quite limited area necessarily presupposed liberty to sacrifice anywhere--or to slaughter anywhere; for originally the two words are absolutely synonymous. It need not be said that the sacrificial seats (even when the improvised ones are left out of account) were not all alike in the regard in which they were held, or in the frequency with which they were resorted to. Besides purely local ones, there were others to which pilgrimages were made from far and near. Towards the close of the period of the judges, Shiloh appears to have acquired an importance that perhaps extended even beyond the limits of the tribe of Joseph. By a later age the temple there was even regarded as the prototype of the temple of Solomon, that is, as the one legitimate place of worship to which Jehovah had made a grant of all the burnt-offerings of the children of Israel (Jer. vii.12; 1Samuel ii. 27-36). But, in point-of fact, if a prosperous man of Ephraim or Benjamin made a pilgrimage to the joyful festival at Shiloh at the turn of the year, the reason for his doing so was not that he could have had no opportunity at his home in Ramah or Gibeah for eating and drinking before the Lord. Any strict centralisation is for that period inconceivable, alike in the religious as in every other sphere. This is seen even in the circumstance that the destruction of the temple of Shiloh, the priesthood of which we find officiating at Nob a little later, did not exercise the smallest modifying influence upon the character and position of the cultus; Shiloh disappears quietly from the scene, and is not mentioned again until we learn from Jeremiah that at least from the time when Solomon's temple was founded its temple lay in ruins. For the period during which the temple of Jerusalem was not yet in existence, even the latest redaction of the historical books (which perhaps does not everywhere proceed from the same hand, but all dates from the same period--that of the Babylonian exile--and has its origin in the same spirit) leaves untouched the multiplicity of altars and of holy places. No king after Solomon is left uncensured for having tolerated the high places, but Samuel is permitted in his proper person to preside over a sacrificial feast at the Bamah of his native town, and Solomon at the beginning of his reign to institute a similar one at the great Bamah of Gibeon, without being blamed. The offensive name is again and again employed in the most innocent manner in 1Samuel ix., x., and the later editors allow it to pass unchallenged. The principle which guides this apparently unequal distribution of censure becomes clear from 1Kings iii. 2: "The people sacrificed upon the high places, for as yet no house to the name of Jehovah had been built." Not until the house had been built to the name of Jehovah--such is the idea--did the law come into force which forbade having other places of worship besides./1/ ********************************** 1. Compare 1Kings viii. 16. According to Deut. xii.10 seq., the local unity of worship becomes law from the time when the Israelites have found rest (menuha). Comparing 2Samuel vii.11 and 1Kings v. 18 (A.V., v.4), we find that "menuha" first came in with David and Solomon. The period of the judges must at that time have been regarded as much shorter than appears in the present chronology. *********************************** From the building of the temple of Solomon, which is also treated as a leading epoch in chronology, a new period in the history of worship is accordingly dated,--and to a certain extent with justice. The monarchy in Israel owed its origin to the need which, under severe external pressure, had come to be felt for bringing together into the oneness of a people and a kingdom the hitherto very loosely connected tribes and families of the Hebrews; it had an avowedly centralising tendency, which very naturally laid hold of the cultus as an appropriate means for the attainment of the political end. Gideon even, the first who came near a regal position, erected a costly sanctuary in his city, Ophrah. David caused the ark of Jehovah to be fetched into his fortress on Mount Sion, and attached value to the circumstance of having for its priest the representative of the old family which had formerly kept it at Shiloh. Solomon's temple also was designed to increase the attractiveness of the city of his residence. It is indubitable that in this way political centralisation gave an impulse to a greater centralisation of worship also, and the tendency towards the latter continued to operate after the separation of the two kingdoms,--in Israel not quite in the same manner as in Judah. Royal priests, great national temples, festal gatherings of the whole people, sacrifices on an enormous scale, these were the traits by which the cultus, previously (as it would seem) very simple, now showed the impress of a new time. One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as social circles widened and life became more public. But this way of regarding the influence of the monarchy upon the history of the worship is not that of the author of the Books of Kings. He views the temple of Solomon as a work undertaken exclusively in the interests of pure worship, and as differing entirely in origin from the sacred buildings of the kings of Israel, with which accordingly it is not compared, but contrasted as the genuine is contrasted with the spurious. It is in its nature unique, and from the outset had the design of setting aside all other holy places,--a religious design independent of and unconnected with politics. The view, however, is unhistorical; it carries back to the original date of the temple, and imports into the purpose of its foundation the significance which it had acquired in Judah shortly before the exile. In reality the temple was not at the outset all that it afterwards became. Its influence was due to its own weight, and not to a monopoly conferred by Solomon. We nowhere learn that that king, like a forerunner of Josiah, in order to favour his new sanctuary sought to abolish all the others; there is not the faintest historical trace of any such sudden and violent interference with the previously existing arrangements of worship. Never once did Solomon's successors, confined though they were to the little territory of Judah, and therefore in a position in which the experiment might perhaps have been practicable, make the attempt (which certainly would have been in their interest) to concentrate all public worship within their own temple, though in other directions we find them exercising a very arbitrary control over affairs of religion. The high places were not removed; this is what is regularly told us in the case of them all. For Israel properly so called, Jerusalem was at no time, properly speaking, the place which Jehovah had chosen; least of all was it so after the division of the kingdom. The Ephraimites flocked in troops through the entire length of the southern kingdom as pilgrims to Beersheba, and, in common with the men of Judah, to Gilgal on the frontier. Jerusalem they left unvisited. In their own land they served Jehovah at Bethel and Dan, at Shechem and Samaria, at Penuel and Mizpah, and at many other places. Every town had its Bamah, in the earlier times generally on an open site at the top of the hill on the slopes of which the houses were. Elijah, that great zealot for purity of worship, was so far from being offended by the high places and the multiplicity of altars to Jehovah that their destruction brought bitterness to his soul as the height of wickedness, and with his own hand he rebuilt the altar that had fallen into ruins on Mount Carmel. And that the improvised offering on extraordinary occasions had also not fallen into disuse is shown by the case of Elisha, who, when his call came as he was following the plough, hewed his oxen to pieces on the spot and sacrificed. In this respect matters after the building of Solomon's temple continued to be just as they had been before. If people and judges or kings alike, priests and prophets, men like Samuel and Elijah, sacrificed without hesitation whenever occasion and opportunity presented themselves, it is manifest that during the whole of that period nobody had the faintest suspicion that such conduct was heretical and forbidden. If a theophany made known to Joshua the sanctity of Gilgal, gave occasion to Gideon and Manoah to rear altars at their homes, drew the attention of David to the threshing-floor of Araunah, Jehovah Himself was regarded as the proper founder of all these sanctuaries,--and this not merely at the period of the Judges, but more indubitably still at that of the narrator of these legends. He rewarded Solomon's first sacrifice on the great Bamah at Gibeon with a gracious revelation, and cannot, therefore, have been displeased by it. After all this, it is absurd to speak of any want of legality in what was then the ordinary practice; throughout the whole of the earlier period of the history of Israel, the restriction of worship to a single selected place was unknown to any one even as a pious desire. Men believed themselves indeed to be nearer God at Bethel or at Jerusalem than at any indifferent place, but of such gates of heaven there were several; and after all, the ruling idea was that which finds its most distinct expression in 2Kings v.17,--that Palestine as a whole was Jehovah's house, His ground and territory. Not outside of Jerusalem, but outside of Canaan had one to sojourn far from His presence, under the dominion and (cujus regio ejus religio) in the service of strange gods. The sanctity of the land did not depend on that of the temple; the reverse was the case. /1/ *********************************** 1. Gen. iv.14, 16: when Cain is driven out of the land (Canaan), he is driven from the presence of Jehovah (Jonah i.3, 10). Gen. xlvi.4: Jacob is not to hesitate about going down into Egypt, for Jehovah will, by a special act of grace, change His dwelling-place along with him. Exodus xv.17: "Thou broughtest thy people to the mountain of thine inheritance, to the place which thou hadst prepared for thyself to dwell in," the explanation which follows, "to the sanctuary which thy hand had established," is out of place, for the mountain of the inheritance can only be the mountainous land of Palestine. 1Samuel xxvi.19: David, driven by Saul into foreign parts, is thereby violently sundered from his family share in the inheritance of Jehovah, and compelled to serve other gods. Hos. viii.1: one like an eagle comes against the house of Jehovah, i.e., the Assyrian comes against Jehovah's land. Hos. ix.15: "I will drive them out of mine house," i.e., the Israelites out of their land. Most distinct is the language of Hos. ix.3-5: "They shall not continue to dwell in Jehovah's land; Ephraim must back to Egypt, and must eat that which is unclean in Assyria. They shall not any more offer wine-offerings to Jehovah, or set forth offerings [read with Kuenen Y(RKW for Y(RBW ] before Him; their bread is as the bread of mourners; whosoever eats of it is polluted, for their bread shall be only for the staying of hunger, and shall not be brought into the house of Jehovah. What indeed will ye do in the time of the solemn assembly and in the day of the feast of Jehovah? "Compare Jer. xvi.13; Ezek. iv.13; Mal. ii.11; 2Kings xvii.25 seq. It is also possible that the "great indignation" of 2Kings iii.27 is regarded less as Jehovah's than as that of Chemosh, in whose land the army of Israel is at the time. ******************************************* I.I.2. A change in this respect first begins to be prepared at that important epoch of the religious history of Israel which is marked by the fall of Samaria and the rise of the prophets connected therewith. Amos and Hosea presuppose a condition of matters just such as has been described: everywhere--in the towns, on the mountains, under green trees--a multitude of sanctuaries and altars, at which Jehovah is served in good faith, not with the purpose of provoking Him, but in order to gain His favour. The language held by these men was one hitherto unheard of when they declared that Gilgal, and Bethel, and Beersheba, Jehovah's favourite seats, were an abomination to Him; that the gifts and offerings with which He was honoured there kindled His wrath instead of appeasing it; that Israel was destined to be buried under the ruins of His temples, where protection and refuge were sought (Amos ix.). What did they mean ? It would be to misunderstand the prophets to suppose that they took offence at the holy places-- which Amos still calls Bamoth (vii.9), and that too not in scorn, but with the deepest pathos--in and by themselves, on account of their being more than one, or not being the right ones. Their zeal is directed, not against the places, but against the cultus there carried on, and, in fact not merely against its false character as containing all manner of abuses, but almost more against itself, against the false value attached to it. The common idea was that just as Moab showed itself to be the people of Chemosh because it brought to Chemosh its offerings and gifts, so Israel proved itself Jehovah's people by dedicating its worship to Him, and was such all the more surely as its worship was zealous and splendid; in times of danger and need, when His help was peculiarly required, the zeal of the worshippers was doubled and trebled. It is against this that the prophets raise their protest while they demand quite other performances as a living manifestation of the relation of Israel to Jehovah. This was the reason of their so great hostility to the cultus, and the source of their antipathy to the great sanctuaries, where superstitious zeal outdid itself; it was this that provoked their wrath against the multiplicity of the altars which flourished so luxuriantly on the soil of a false confidence. That the holy places should be abolished, but the cultus itself remain as before the main concern of religion, only limited to a single locality was by no means their wish; but at the same time, in point of fact, it came about as an incidental result of their teaching that the high place in Jerusalem ultimately abolished all the other Bamoth. External circumstances, it must be added, contributed most essentially towards the result. As long as the northern kingdom stood, it was there that the main current of lsraelite life manifested itself; a glance into the Books of Kings or into that of Amos is enough to make this clear. In Jerusalem, indeed, the days of David and of Solomon remained unforgotten; yearning memories went back to them, and great pretensions were based upon them, but with these the actual state of matters only faintly corresponded. When Samaria fell, Israel shrivelled up to the narrow dimensions of Judah, which alone survived as the people of Jehovah. Thereby the field was left clear for Jerusalem. The royal city had always had a weighty preponderance over the little kingdom, and within it, again, the town had yielded in importance to the temple. From the few narratives we have relating to Judah one almost gathers an impression as if it had no other concern besides those of the temple; the kings in particular appear to have regarded the charge of their palace sanctuary as the chief of all their cares./1/ ****************************************** 1. Nearly all the Judaean narratives in the Books of Kings relate to the temple and the measures taken by the ruling princes with reference to this their sanctuary. ********************************************** In this way the increased importance of Judah after the fall of Samaria accrued in the first instance to the benefit of the capital and its sanctuary, especially as what Judah gained by the fall of her rival was not so much political strength as an increase of religious self-consciousness. If the great house of God upon Mount Zion had always overtopped the other shrines in Judah, it now stood without any equal in all Israel. But it was the prophets who led the way in determining the inferences to be drawn from the change in the face of things. Hitherto they had principally had their eyes upon the northern kingdom, its threatened collapse, and the wickedness of its inhabitants, and thus had poured out their wrath more particularly upon the places of worship there. Judah they judged more favourably, both on personal and on substantial grounds, and they hoped for its preservation, not concealing their sympathies for Jerusalem (Amos i.2). Under the impression produced by their discourses accordingly, the fall of Samaria was interpreted as a judgment of God against the sinful kingdom and in favour of the fallen house of David, and the destruction of the sanctuaries of Israel was accepted as an unmistakable declaration on Jehovah's part against His older seats on behalf of His favourite dwelling on Zion. Finally, the fact that twenty years afterwards Jerusalem made her triumphant escape from the danger which had proved fatal to her haughty rival, that at the critical moment the Assyrians under Sennacherib were suddenly constrained to withdraw from her, raised to the highest pitch the veneration in which the temple was held. In this connection special emphasis is usually laid-- and with justice--upon the prophetical activity of Isaiah, whose confidence in the firm foundation of Zion continued unmoved, even when the rock began to shake in an alarming way. Only it must not be forgotten that the significance of Jerusalem to Isaiah did not arise from the temple of Solomon, but from the fact that it was the city of David and the focus of his kingdom, the central point, not of the cultus, but of the sovereignty of Jehovah over His people. The holy mount was to him the entire city as a political unity, with its citizens, councillors, and judges (xi.9); his faith in the sure foundation on which Zion rested was nothing more than a faith in the living presence of Jehovah in the camp of Israel. But the contemporaries of the prophet interpreted otherwise his words and the events which had occurred. In their view Jehovah dwelt on Zion because His house was there; it was the temple that had been shown by history to be His true seat, and its inviolability was accordingly the pledge of the indestructibility of the nation. This belief was quite general in Jeremiah's time, as is seen in the extremely vivid picture of the seventh chapter of his book; but even as early as the time of Micah, in the first third of the seventh century, the temple must have been reckoned a house of God of an altogether peculiar order, so as to make it a paradox to put it on a level with the Bamoth of Judah, and a thing unheard of to believe in its destruction. At the same time, notwithstanding the high and universal reverence in which the temple was held, the other sanctuaries still continued, in the first instance, to subsist alongside of it. King Hezekiah indeed is said to have even then made an attempt to abolish them, but the attempt, having passed away without leaving any trace, is of a doubtful nature. It is certain that the prophet Isaiah did not labour for the removal of the Bamoth. In one of his latest discourses his anticipation for that time of righteousness and the fear of God which is to dawn after the Assyrian crisis is: "Then shall ye defile the silver covering of your graven images and the golden plating of your molten images--ye shall cast them away as a thing polluted; Begone! shall ye say unto them" (xxx.22). If he thus hopes for a purification from superstitious accretions of the places where Jehovah is worshipped, it is clear that he is not thinking of their total abolition. Not until about a century after the destruction of Samaria did men venture to draw the practical conclusion from the belief in the unique character of the temple at Jerusalem. That this was not done from a mere desire to be logical, but with a view to further reforms, need not be said. With the tone of repudiation in which the earlier prophets, in the zeal of their opposition, had occasionally spoken of practices of worship at large, there was nothing to be achieved; the thing to be aimed at was not abolition, but reformation, and the end it was believed would be helped by concentration of all ritual in the capital. Prophets and priests appear to have made common cause in the prosecution of the work. It was the high priest Hilkiah who in the first instance called attention to the discovered book which was to be made the basis of action; the prophetess Huldah confirmed its divine contents; the priests and prophets were a prominent element in the assembly at which the new law was promulgated and sworn to. Now an intimate fellowship between these two leading classes appears to be characteristic of the whole course of the religious movement in Judah, and to have been necessarily connected with the lines on which that movement advanced; /1/ ****************************** 1. While Hosea, the man of northern Israel, frequently assails the clergy of his home, and lays upon them the chief share of the blame for the depraved and blinded condition of the people, Isaiah even in his fiercest declamation against the superstitious worship of the multitude, has not a word to say against the priests, with whose chief, Uriah, on the contrary, he stands in a relation of great intimacy. But it is from the Book of Jeremiah, the best mirror of the contemporary relations in Judah, that the close connection between priests and prophets can be gathered most particularly. To a certain extent they shared the possession of the sanctuary between them. (Compare Lam. ii.20.) *************************************** we shall be justified therefore in assuming that the display of harmony between them on this occasion was not got up merely for the purposes of scenic effect, but that the change in the national cultus now proposed was really the common suggestion of prophets and priests. In point of fact, such a change was equally in accordance with the interests of the temple and with those of the prophetic party of reform. To the last named the restriction of the sacrificial worship must have in itself seemed an advantage; to it in later times the complete abolition of sacrifice was mainly due, and something of the later effect doubtless lay in the original intention. Then, too, the Jehovah of Hebron was only too easily regarded as distinct from the Jehovah of Bethshemesh or of Bethel, and so a strictly monarchical conception of God naturally led to the conclusion that the place of His dwelling and of His worship could also only be one. All writers of the Chaldaean period associate monotheism in the closest way with unity of worship (Jer. ii.28, xi.13). And the choice of the locality could present no difficulty; the central point of the kingdom had of necessity also to become the central point of the worship. Even Jerusalem and the house of Jehovah there might need some cleansing, but it was clearly entitled to a preference over the obscure local altars. It was the seat of all higher culture, Iying under the prophets' eyes, much more readily accessible to light and air, reform and control. It is also possible, moreover, that the Canaanite origin of most of the Bamoth, which is not unknown, for example, to Deuteronomy, may have helped to discredit them, while, on the other hand, the founding of Jerusalem belonged to the proudest memories of Israelite history, and the Ark, which had been the origin of the temple there, had a certain right to be considered the one genuine Mosaic sanctuary. /1/ ************************************ 1. Luther in his address to the princes of Germany counsels in the twentieth place that the field chapels and churches be destroyed, as devices of the devil used by him to strengthen covetousness, to set up a false and spurious faith, to weaken parochial churches, to increase taverns and fornication, to squander money and labour to no purpose, and merely to lead the poor people about by the nose. (Niemeyer's Reprint, p. 54 ) ************************************* In the eighteenth year of Josiah, 601 B.C., the first heavy blow fell upon the local sacrificial places. How vigorously the king set to work, how new were the measures taken, and how deeply they cut, can be learned from the narrative of 2Kings xxiii. Yet what a vitality did the green trees upon the high mountains still continue to show! Even now they were but polled, not uprooted. After Josiah's death we again see Bamoth appearing on all hands, not merely in the country, but even in the capital itself. Jeremiah has to lament that there are as many altars as towns in Judah. All that had been attained by the reforming party was that they could now appeal to a written law that had been solemnly sworn to by the whole people, standing ever an immovable witness to the rights of God. But to bring it again into force and to carry it out was no easy matter, and would certainly have been impossible to the unaided efforts of the prophets--a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel. I.3 Had the people of Judah remained in peaceful possession of their land, the reformation of Josiah would hardly have penetrated to the masses; the threads uniting the present with the past were too strong. To induce the people to regard as idolatrous and heretical centres of iniquity the Bamoth, with which from ancestral times the holiest memories were associated, and some of which, like Hebron and Beersheba, had been set up by Abraham and Isaac in person, required a complete breaking-off of the natural tradition of life, a total severance of all connection with inherited conditions. This was accomplished by means of the Babylonian exile, which violently tore the nation away from its native soil, and kept it apart for half a century,--a breach of historical continuity than which it is almost impossible to conceive a greater. The new generation had no natural, but only an artificial relation to the times of old; the firmly rooted growths of the old soil, regarded as thorns by the pious, were extirpated, and the freshly ploughed fallows ready for a new sowing. It is, of course, far from being the case that the whole people at that time underwent a general conversion in the sense of the prophets. Perhaps the majority totally gave up the past, but just on that account became lost among the heathen, and never subsequently came into notice. Only the pious ones, who with trembling followed Jehovah's word, were left as a remnant; they alone had the strength to maintain the Jewish individuality amid the medley of nationalities into which they had been thrown. From the exile there returned, not the nation, but a religious sect,--those, namely, who had given themselves up body and soul to the reformation ideas. It is no wonder that to these people, who, besides, on their return, all settled in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, the thought never once occurred of restoring the local cults. It cost them no struggle to allow the destroyed Bamoth to continue Iying in ruins; the principle had become part of their very being, that the one God had also but one place of worship, and thenceforward for all time coming this was regarded as a thing of course. I.II Such was the actual historical course of the centralisation of the cultus, and such the three stadia which can be distinguished. The question now presents itself, whether it is possible to detect a correspondence between the phases of the actual course of events and those of the legislation relating to this subject. All three portions of the legislation contain ordinances on the subject of sacrificial places and offerings. It may be taken for granted that in some way or other these have their roots in history, and do not merely hang in the air, quite away from or above the solid ground of actuality. I.II.1. The main Jehovistic law, the so-called Book of the Covenant, contains (Exodus xx.24-26) the following ordinance: "An altar of earth shalt thou make unto me, and thereon shalt thou sacrifice thy burnt offerings and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen; in place where I cause my name to be honoured will I come unto and will bless thee. Or if thou wilt make me an altar of stones, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones, for if thou hast lifted up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it. And thou shalt not go up to mine altar by steps, that thy nakedness be not discovered before it." Unquestionably it is not the altar of the tabernacle, which was made of wood and plated over with brass, nor that of Solomon's temple, which on its eastern side had a flight of steps, /1/ ************************************** 1. The altar of the second temple had no steps, but a sloping ascent to it, as also, according to the belief of the Jews, had that of the tabernacle. The reason, moreover, for which in Exodus xx.26 steps are forbidden, disappears when the priests are provided with breeches (Exodus xxviii.42). **************************************** and had a passage right round it at half its height, that is here described as the only true one. On the other hand, it is obvious that a multiplicity of altars is not merely regarded as permissible, but assumed as a matter of course. For no stress at all is laid upon having always the same sacrificial seat, whether fixed or to be moved about from place to place; earth and unhewn stones /2/ of the field **************************************** 2. The plural "stones" is perhaps worthy of note. There were also sacrificial places consisting of one great stone (1Samuel xiv.33, vi.14, 15; 2Samuel xx.8; Judges vi.20, xiii.19, 20; 1Kings i.9); to the same category also doubtless belongs originally the threshing-floor of Araunah, 2Samuel xxiv.21; compare Ezra iii.3, [ (L MKWNTW ]. But inasmuch as such single sacred stones easily came into a mythological relation to the Deity, offence was taken at them, as appears from Judges vi.22-24, where the rock altar, the stone under the oak which was conceived of as the seat of the theophany, upon which Gideon offers, and out of which the flame issues (vi.19-21), is corrected into an altar upon the rock. The macceboth are distinguished from the altar in Exodus xxiv.4, yet elsewhere clearly put on the same plane with it (Gen. xxxiii.20), and everywhere more or less identified with the Deity (Gen. xxviii.). ******************************************** can be found everywhere, and such an altar falls to pieces just as readily as it is built. A choice of two kinds of material is also given, which surely implies that the lawgiver thought of more than one altar; and not at the place, but at every place where He causes His name to be honoured will Jehovah come to His worshippers and bless them. Thus the law now under consideration is in harmony with the custom and usage of the first historical period, has its root therein, and gives sanction to it. Certainly the liberty to sacrifice everywhere seems to be somewhat restricted by the added clause, "in every place where I cause my name to be honoured." But this means nothing more than that the spots where intercourse between earth and heaven took place were not willingly regarded as arbitrarily chosen, but, on the contrary, were considered as having been somehow or other selected by the Deity Himself for His service. In perfect correspondence with the Jehovistic law is the Jehovistic narrative of the Pentateuch, as, in particular, the story of the patriarchs in J and E very clearly shows. At every place where they take up their abode or make a passing stay, the fathers of the nation, according to this authority, erect altars, set up memorial stones, plant trees, dig wells. This does not take place at indifferent and casual localities, but at Shechem and Bethel in Ephraim, at Hebron and Beersheba in Judah, at Mizpah, Mahanaim, and Penuel in Gilead; nowhere but at famous and immemorially holy places of worship. It is on this that the interest of such notifications depends; they are no mere antiquarian facts, but full of the most living significance for the present of the narrator. The altar built by Abraham at Shechem is the altar on which sacrifice still continues to be made, and bears "even unto this day" the name which the patriarch gave it. On the spot where at Hebron he first entertained Jehovah, there down to the present day the table has continued to be spread; even as Isaac himself did, so do his sons still swear Amosos viii.14; Hos. iv.15) by the sacred well of Beersheba, which he digged, and sacrifice there upon the altar which he built, under the tamarisk which he planted. The stone which Jacob consecrated at Bethel the generation of the living continues to anoint, paying the tithes which of old he vowed to the house of God there. This also is the reason why the sacred localities are so well known to the narrator, and are punctually and accurately recorded notwithstanding the four hundred years of the Egyptian sojourn, which otherwise would have made their identification a matter of some little difficulty. The altar which Abraham built at Bethel stands upon the hill to the east of the town, between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; others are determined by means of a tree or a well, as that of Shechem or Beersheba. /1/ ******************************* 1. The correct explanation of this is found in Ewald, Gesch. d. V. lsraels, i. 436 seq. (3d edit.). A. Bernstein (Ursprung der Sagen von Abrabam, etc., Berlin, 1871) drags in politics in a repulsive way. "He does not indeed actually enter Shechem and Bethel-- these are places hostile to Judah--but in a genuine spirit of Jewish demonstration he builds altars in their vicinity and calls on the name of Jehovah" (p. 22). Rather, he builds the altars precisely on the places where, as can be shown, they afterwards stood, and that was not inside the towns. In Gen. xviii. also the oak of Mamre is employed to fix not Abraham's residence, but the place of Jehovah's appearing. **************************************************************** But of course it was not intended to throw dishonour upon the cultus of the present when its institution was ascribed to the fathers of the nation. Rather, on the contrary, do these legends glorify the origin of the sanctuaries to which they are attached, and surround them with the nimbus of a venerable consecration. All the more as the altars, as a rule, are not built by the patriarchs according to their own private judgment wheresoever they please; on the contrary, a theophany calls attention to, or at least afterwards confirms, the holiness of the place. Jehovah appears at Shechem to Abraham, who thereupon builds the altar "to Jehovah who had appeared unto him;" he partakes of his hospitality under the oak of Mamre, which is the origin of the sacrificial service there; He shows him the place where he is to make an offering of his son, and here the sanctuary continues to exist. On the first night of Isaac's sleeping on the sacred soil of Beersheba (xxvi.24) he receives a visit from the Numen there residing, and in consequence rears his altar. Surprised by profane glances, Jehovah acts as a destroyer, but Himself spontaneously points out to His favoured ones the places where it is His pleasure to allow Himself to be seen; and where men have seen Him and yet lived, there a sanctuary marks the open way of access to Him. The substance of the revelation is in these cases comparatively indifferent: "I am God." What is of importance is the theophany in and for itself, its occurrence on that particular place. It must not be regarded as an isolated fact, but rather as the striking commencement of an intercourse [ R)H PNY YHWH ] between God and man which is destined to be continued at this spot, and also as the first and strongest expression of the sanctity of the soil. This way of looking at the thing appears most clearly and with incomparable charm in the story of the ladder which Jacob saw at Bethel. "He dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." The ladder stands at the place not at this moment merely, but continually, and, as it were, by nature. Bethel--so Jacob perceives from this--is a place where heaven and earth meet, where the angels ascend and descend, to carry on the communication between earth and heaven ordained by God at this gate. All this is only to be understood as a glorification of the relations and arrangements of the cultus as we find them (say) in the first centuries of the divided kingdom. All that seems offensive and heathenish to a later age is here consecrated and countenanced by Jehovah Himself and His favoured ones,-- the high places, the memorial stones (maccceboth), the trees, the wells. /1/ ****************************** 1. But it is only the public cultus and that of certain leading sanctuaries that is thus glorified; on the other hand, the domestic worship of seraphim, to which the women are specially attached, is already discountenanced (in E) by Jacob. Asherim are not alluded to, molten images are rejected, particularly by E. Here perhaps a correction of the ancient legend has already taken place in JE. ************************************ An essential agreement prevails between the Jehovistic law which sanctions the existing seats of worship and the Jehovistic narrative; the latter is as regards its nucleus perhaps somewhat older. Both obviously belong to the pre-prophetic period; a later revision of the narrative in the prophetic sense has not altered the essential character of its fundamental elements. It is inconceivable that Amos or Hosea, or any like-minded person, could go with such sympathising love and believing reverence into narratives which only served to invest with a still brighter nimbus and higher respect the existing religious worship, carried on by the people on the high places of Isaac as their holiest occupation. I.II.2. The Jehovistic Book of the Covenant lies indeed at the foundation of Deuteronomy, but in one point they differ materially, and that precisely the one which concerns us here. As there, so here also, the legislation properly so called begins (Deut. xii.) with an ordinance relating to the service of the altar; but now we have Moses addressing the Israeites in the following terms: "When ye come into the land of Canaan, ye shall utterly destroy all the places of worship which ye find there, and ye shall not worship Jehovah your God after the manner in which the heathen serve theirs. Nay, but only unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes for His habitation shall ye seek, and thither shall ye bring your offerings and gifts, and there shall ye eat before Him and rejoice. Here at this day we do every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes, but when ye have found fixed abodes, and rest from your enemies round about, then shall the place which Jehovah shall choose for His habitation in one of your tribes be the one place to which ye shall bring your offerings and gifts. Take heed that ye offer not in every place that ye see; ye may not eat your holy gifts in every town, but only in the place which Jehovah shall choose." The Law is never weary of again and again repeating its injunction of local unity of worship. In doing so, it is in conscious opposition to "the things that we do here this day," and throughout has a polemical and reforming attitude towards existing usage. It is rightly therefore assigned by historical criticism to the period of the attacks made on the Bamoth by the reforming party at Jerusalem. As the Book of the Covenant, and the whole Jehovistic writing in genera], reflects the first pre-prophetic period in the history of the cultus, so Deuteronomy is the legal expression of the second period of struggle and transition. The historical order is all the more certain because the literary dependence of Deuteronomy on the Jehovistic laws and narratives can be demonstrated independently, and is an admitted fact. From this the step is easy to the belief that the work whose discovery gave occasion to King Josiah to destroy the local sanctuaries was this very Book of Deuteronomy, which originally must have had an independent existence, and a shorter form than at present. This alone, at least, of all the books of the Pentateuch, gives so imperious an expression to the restriction of the sacrificial worship to the one chosen place; here only does the demand make itself so felt in its aggressive novelty and dominate the whole tendency of the law-maker. The old material which he makes use of is invariably shaped with a view to this, and on all hands he follows the rule out to its logical consequences. To make its fulfilment possible, he changes former arrangements, permitting what had been forbidden, and prohibiting what had been allowed; in almost every case this motive lies at the foundation of all his other innovations. This is seen, for example, when he permits slaying without sacrificing, and that too anywhere; when, in order not to abolish the right of asylum (Exodus xxi.13, 14; 1Kings ii. 28) along with the altars, he appoints special cities of refuge for the innocent who are pursued by the avenger of blood; when he provides for the priests of the suppressed sanctuaries, recommending the provincials to take them along with them on their sacrificial pilgrimages, and giving them the right to officiate in the temple at Jerusalem just like the hereditarily permanent clergy there. In other respects also the dominance of the same point of view is seen: for example, it is chiefly from regard to it that the old ordinances and customs relating to the religious dues and the festivals are set forth in the form which they must henceforth assume. A law so living, which stands at every point in immediate contact with reality, which is at war with traditionary custom, and which proceeds with constant reference to the demands of practical life, is no mere velleity, no mere cobweb of an idle brain, but has as certainly arisen out of historical occasions as it is designed to operate powerfully on the course of the subsequent history. A judgment pronounced in accordance with the facts can therefore assign to it an historical place only within that movement of reformation which was brought to a victorious issue by King Josiah. I.II.3. It is often supposed that the Priestly Code is somewhat indifferent to the question of the one sanctuary, neither permitting multiplicity of sacrificial centres nor laying stress upon the unity, and that on account of this attitude it must be assigned to an earlier date than Deuteronomy. /1/ ************************************** 1. De Wette, in the fifth place of his Habilitationsschrift ueber das Deuteronomium (Jena, 1805): "De hoc unico cultus sacri loco... priores libri nihil omnino habent. De sacrificiis tantum unice ante tabernaculum conventus offerendis lex quaedam extat. Sed in legibus de diebus festis, de primitiis et decimis, tam saepe repetitis, nihil omnino monitum est de loco unico, ubi celebrari et offerri debeant " (Opusc. Theol, p. 163-165). **************************************** Such an idea is, to say the least, in the highest degree superficial. The assumption that worship is restricted to one single centre runs everywhere throughout the entire document. To appeal specially, in proof of the restriction, to Leviticus xvii. or Josh xxii., is to indicate a complete failure to apprehend the whole tenor of Exodus xxv.-Leviticus ix. Before so much as a single regulation having reference to the matter of worship can be given (such is the meaning of the large section referred to), the one rightful place wherein to engage in it must be specified. The tabernacle is not narrative merely, but, like all the narratives in that book, law as well; it expresses the legal unity of the worship as an historical fact, which, from the very beginning, ever since the exodus, has held good in Israel. One God one sanctuary, that is the idea. With the ordinances of the tabernacle, which form the sum of the divine revelation on Sinai, the theocracy was founded; where the one is, there is the other. The description of it, therefore, stands at the head of the Priestly Code, just as that of the temple stands at the head of the legislation in Ezekiel. It is the basis and indispensable foundation, without which all else would merely float in the air: first must the seat of the Divine Presence on earth be given before the sacred community can come into life and the cultus into force. Is it supposes that the tabernacle tolerates other sanctuaries besides itself? Why then the encampment of the twelve tribes around it, which has no military, but a purely religious significance, and derives its whole meaning from its sacred centre? Whence this concentration of all Israel into one great congregation [ QHL, (DH ], without its like anywhere else in the Old Testament? On the contrary, there is no other place besides this at which God dwells and suffers Himself to be seen; no place but this alone where man can draw near to Him and seek His face with offerings and gifts. This view is the axiom that underlies the whole ritual legislation of the middle part of the Pentateuch. It is indicated with special clearness by the LPNY (HL MW(D (before the tabernacle), introduced at every turn in the ordinances for sacrifice. What then are we to infer from this as to the historical place of the Priestly Code, if it be judged necessary to assign it such a place at all? By all the laws of logic it can no more belong to the first period than Deuteronomy does. But is it older or younger than Deuteronomy? In that book the unity of the cultus is COMMANDED, in the Priestly Code it is PRESUPPOSED. Everywhere it is tacitly assumed as a fundamental postulate, but nowhere does it find actual expression; /1/ it is nothing new, but quite a thing ******************************************* 1. Except in Leviticus xvii.; but the small body of legislation contained in Leviticus xvii-xxvi is the transition from Deuteronomy to the Priestly Code. ******************************** of course. What follows from this for the question before us? To my thinking, this:--that the Priestly Code rests upon the result which is only the aim of Deuteronomy. The latter is in the midst of movement and conflict: it clearly speaks out its reforming intention, its opposition to the traditional "what we do here this day;" the former stands outside of and above the struggle,--the end has been reached and made a secure possession. On the basis of the Priestly Code no reformation would ever have taken place, no Josiah would ever have observed from it that the actual condition of affairs was perverse and required to be set right; it proceeds as if everything had been for long in the best of order. It is only in Deuteronomy, moreover, that one sees to the root of the matter, and recognises its connection with the anxiety for a strict monotheism and for the elimination from the worship of the popular heathenish elements, and thus with a deep and really worthy aim; in the Priestly Code the reason of the appointments, in themselves by no means rational, rests upon their own legitimacy, just as everything that is actual ordinarily seems natural and in no need of explanation. Nowhere does it become apparent that the abolition of the Bamoth and Asherim and memorial stones is the real object contemplated; these institutions are now almost unknown, and what is really only intelligible as a negative and polemical ordinance is regarded as full of meaning in itself. The idea as idea is older than the idea as history. In Deuteronomy it appears in its native colours, comes forward with its aggressive challenge to do battle with the actual. One step indeed is taken towards investing it with an historical character, in so far as it is put into the mouth of Moses; but the beginning thus made keeps within modest limits. Moses only lays down the law; for its execution he makes no provision as regards his own time, nor does he demand it for the immediate future. Rather it is represented as not destined to come into force until the people shall have concluded the conquest of the country and secured a settled peace. We have already found reason to surmise that the reference to "menuha" is intended to defer the date when the Law shall come into force to the days of David and Solomon (1Kings viii.16). This is all the more probable inasmuch as there is required for its fulfilment "the place which Jehovah shall choose," by which only the capital of Judah can be meant. Deuteronomy, therefore, knows nothing of the principle that what ought to be must actually have been from the beginning. Until the building of Solomon's temple the unity of worship according to it had, properly speaking, never had any existence; and, moreover, it is easy to read between the lines that even after that date it was more a pious wish than a practical demand. The Priestly Code, on the other hand, is unable to think of religion without the one sanctuary, and cannot for a moment imagine Israel without it, carrying its actual existence back to the very beginning of the theocracy, and, in accordance with this, completely altering the ancient history. The temple, the focus to which the worship was concentrated, and which in reality was not built until Solomon's time, is by this document regarded as so indispensable, even for the troubled days of the wanderings before the settlement, that it is made portable, and in the form of a tabernacle set up in the very beginning of things. For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy, not the prototype, of the temple at Jerusalem. The resemblance of the two is indeed unmistakable, /1/ **************************** 1. In Wisdom of Solomon ix. 8 the temple is called MIMHMA SKHNHS HAGIAS. Josephus (Antiquities iii. 6,1) says of the tabernacle, (H D'OUDEN METAFEROMENOU NAOU DIEFERE. ******************************* but it is not said in 1Kings vi. that Solomon made use of the old pattern and ordered his Tyrian workmen to follow it. The posteriority of the Mosaic structure comes into clearer light from the two following considerations brought forward by Graf (p. 60 seq.). In the first place, in the description of the tabernacle mention is repeatedly made of its south, north, and west side, without any preceding rubric as to a definite and constantly uniform orientation; the latter is tacitly taken for granted, being borrowed from that of the temple, which was a fixed building, and did not change its site. In the second place, the brazen altar is, strictly speaking, described as an altar of wood merely plated with brass,--for a fireplace of very large size, upon which a strong fire continually burns, a perfectly absurd construction, which is only to be accounted for by the wish to make the brazen altar which Solomon cast (1Kings xvi. 14) transportable, by changing its interior into wood. The main point, however, is this, that the tabernacle of the Priestly Code in its essential meaning is not a mere provisional shelter for the ark on the march, but the sole legitimate sanctuary for the community of the twelve tribes prior to the days of Solomon, and so in fact a projection of the later temple. How modest, one might almost say how awkwardly bashful, is the Deuteronomic reference to the future place which Jehovah is to choose when compared with this calm matter-of-fact assumption that the necessary centre of unity of worship was given from the first! In the one case we have, so to speak, only the idea as it exists in the mind of the lawgiver, but making no claim to be realised till a much later date; in the other, the Mosaic idea has acquired also a Mosaic embodiment, with which it entered the world at the very first. By the same simple historical method which carries the central sanctuary back into the period before Solomon does the Priestly author abolish the other places of worship. His forty-eight Levitical cities are for the most part demonstrably a metamorphosis of the old Bamoth to meet the exigencies of the time. The altar which the tribes eastward of Jordan build (Josh. xxii.) is erected with no intention that it should be used, but merely in commemoration of something. Even the pre-Mosaic period is rendered orthodox in the same fashion. The patriarchs, having no tabernacle, have no worship at all; according to the Priestly Code they build no altars, bring no offerings, and scrupulously abstain from everything by which they might in any way encroach on the privilege of the one true sanctuary. This manner of shaping the patriarchal history is only the extreme consequence of the effort to carry out with uniformity in history the semper ubique et ab omnibus of the legal unity of worship. Thus in Deuteronomy the institution is only in its birth-throes, and has still to struggle for the victory against the praxis of the present, but in the Priestly Code claims immemorial legitimacy and strives to bring the past into conformity with itself, obviously because it already dominates the present; the carrying back of the new into the olden time always takes place at a later date than the ushering into existence of the new itself. Deuteronomy has its position in the very midst of the historical crisis, and still stands in a close relation with the older period of worship, the conditions of which it can contest, but is unable to ignore, and still less to deny. But, on the other hand, the Priestly Code is hindered by no survival to present times of the older usage from projecting an image of antiquity such as it must have been; unhampered by visible relics or living tradition of an older state, it can idealise the past to its heart's content. Its place, then, is after Deuteronomy, and in the third post-exilian period of the history of the cultus, in which, on the one hand, the unity of the sanctuary was an established fact, contested by no one and impugned by nothing, and in which, on the other hand, the natural connection between the present and the past had been so severed by the exile that there was no obstacle to prevent an artificial and ideal repristination of the latter. I.III. The reverse of this is what is usually held. In Deuteronomy, it is considered, there occur clear references to the period of the kings; but the Priestly Code, with its historical presuppositions, does not fit in with any situation belonging to that time, and is therefore older. When the cultus rests upon the temple of Solomon as its foundation, as in Ezekiel, then every one recognises the later date; but when it is based upon the tabernacle, the case is regarded as quite different. The great antiquity of the priestly legislation is proved by relegating it to an historical sphere, created by itself out of its own legal premisses, but which is nowhere to be found within, and therefore must have preceded actual history. Thus (so to speak) it holds itself up in the air by its own waistband. I.III.1. It may, however, seem as if hitherto it had only been asserted that the tabernacle rests on an historical fiction. In truth it is proved; but yet it may be well to add some things which have indeed been said long before now, but never as yet properly laid to heart. The subject of discussion, be it premised, is the tabernacle of the Priestly Code; for some kind of tent for the ark there may well have been: in fact, tents were in Palestine the earliest dwellings of idols (Hos. ix.6), and only afterwards gave place to fixed houses; and even the Jehovistic tradition (although not J) knows of a sacred tent /1/ ************************************* 1. It is never, however, employed for legislative purposes, but is simply a shelter for the ark; it stands without the camp, as the oldest sanctuaries were wont to do outside the cities. It is kept by Joshua as aedituus, who sleeps in it, as did Samuel the aedituus for Eli. **************************************** in connection with the Mosaic camp, and outside it, just as the older high places generally had open sites without the city. The question before us has reference exclusively to the particular tent which, according to Exodus xxv. seq., was erected at the command of God as the basis of the theocracy, the pre-Solomonic central sanctuary, which also in outward details was the prototype of the temple. At the outset its very possibility is doubtful. Very strange is the contrast between this splendid structure, on which the costliest material is lavished and wrought in the most advanced style of Oriental art, and the soil on which it rises, in the wilderness amongst the native Hebrew nomad tribes, who are represented as having got it ready offhand, and without external help. The incompatibility has long been noticed, and gave rise to doubts as early as the time of Voltaire. These may, however, be left to themselves; suffice it that Hebrew tradition, even from the time of the judges and the first kings, for which the Mosaic tabernacle was strictly speaking intended, knows nothing at all about it. It appears a bold thing to say so when one sees how much many a modern author who knows how to make a skilful use of the Book of Chronicles has to tell about the tabernacle. For in 2 Chron. i.3 seq. we are told that Solomon celebrated his accession to the throne with a great sacrificial feast at Gibeon, because the tabernacle and the brazen altar of Moses were there. In like manner in 1Chron. xxi.29 it is said that David offered sacrifice indeed on the threshing-floor of Araunah, but that Jehovah's dwelling-place and the legitimate altar were at that time at Gibeon; and further (xvi. 39), that Zadok, the legitimate high priest, officiated there. From these data the Rabbins first, and in recent times Keil and Movers especially, have constructed a systematic history of the tabernacle down to the building of the temple. Under David and Solomon, as long as the ark was on Mount Zion, the tabernacle was at Gibeon, as is also shown by the fact that (2Samuel xxi.6, 9) offerings were sacrificed to Jehovah there. Before that it was at Nob, where ephod and shewbread (1Samuel xxi.) are mentioned, and still earlier, from Joshua's time onward, it was at Shiloh. But these were only its permanent sites, apart from which it was temporarily set up now here, now there, saving by its rapidity of movement--one might almost say ubiquity--the unity of the cultus, notwithstanding the variety and great distances of the places at which that cultus was celebrated. In every case in which a manifestation of Jehovah and an offering to Him are spoken of, the tabernacle must be tacitly understood. /1/ ************************************ 1. Josh. xxiv. 24, 33 (LXX): after the death of Joshua and Eleazar, LABONTES (OI )UIOI )ISRAHL THN KIBWTON TOU QEOU PERIFEROSAN )EN )EAUTOIS. After J. Buxtorf and Sal. van Til (Ugol., Thes. viii.), this theory has been, worked out specially by Movers. See, on the other hand, De Wette, Beitraege, p. 108 seq., and Vatke, ut supra, p. 316, note. ************************************ The dogmatic character of this way of making history, and the absurd consequences to which it leads, need not in the meantime be insisted on; what is of greatest importance is that the point from which it starts is in the last degree insecure; for the statement of Chronicles that Solomon offered the offering of his accession upon the altar of the tabernacle at Gibeon is in contradiction with that of the older parallel narrative of 1Kings iii.1-4. The latter not only is silent about the Mosaic tabernacle, which is alleged to have stood at Gibeon, but expressly says that Solomon offered upon a high place (as such), and excuses him for this on the plea that at that time no house to the name of Jehovah had as yet been built. That the Chronicler draws from this narrative is certain on general grounds, and is shown particularly by this, that he designates the tabernacle at Gibeon by the name of Bamah--a contradictio in adjecto which is only to be explained by the desire to give an authentic interpretation of "the great Bamah at Gibeon" in 1Kings iii. Here, as elsewhere, he brings the history into agreement with the Law: the young and pious Solomon can have offered his sacrifice only at the legal place which therefore must be that high place at Gibeon. Along with 2 Chron. i.3 seq. also fall the two other statements (1Chron. xvi.39, xxi.29 both of which are dependent on that leading passage, as is clear revealed by the recurring phrase "the Bamah of Gibeon." The tabernacle does not elsewhere occur in Chronicles; it has not yet brought its consequences with it, and not yet permeated the historical view of the author. He would certainly have experienced some embarrassment at the question whether it had previously stood at Nob, for he lays stress upon the connection between the legitimate sanctuary and the legitimate Zadok-Eleazar priestly family, which it is indeed possible to assume for Shiloh, but not for Nob. /1/ ************************************ 1. Of the priests at Nob, Abiathar alone escaped the massacre (1Samuel. xxii.); Gad therefore was not one of them. ************************************ The fact that Chronicles represents the Israelite history in accordance with the Priestly Code has had the effect of causing its view of the history to be involuntarily taken as fundamental, but ought much rather to have caused it to be left altogether out of account where the object to ascertain what was the real and genuine tradition. The Books of Judges and Samuel make mention indeed of many sanctuaries, but never among them of the tabernacle, the most important of all. For the single passage where the name Ohel Moed occurs (1Samuel ii.22 is badly attested, and from its contents open to suspicion. /2/ ************************************** 2. The passage does not occur in the LXX, and everywhere else in 1Samueli-iii the sanctuary of Shiloh is called hekal, that is to say, certainly not a tent. *************************************** Of the existence of the ark of Jehovah there certainly are distinct traces towards the end of the period of the judges (compare 1Samuel iv.-vi.) But is the ark a guarantee of the existence of the tabernacle? On the contrary its whole history down to the period of its being deposited in the temple of Solomon is a proof that it was regarded as quite independent of any tent specially consecrated for its reception. But this abolishes the notion of the Mosaic tabernacle; for according to the law, the two things belong necessarily to each other; the one cannot exist without the other; both are of equally great importance. The tabernacle must everywhere accompany the symbol of its presence; the darkness of the holy of holies is at the same time the life-element of the ark; only under compulsion of necessity, and even then not except under the covering of the curtains, does it leave its lodging during a march, only to return to it again as soon as the new halting-place is reached. But according to 1Samuel iv. seq., on the other hand, it is only the ark that goes to the campaign; it alone falls into the hands of the Philistines. Even in chap. v., where the symbol of Jehovah is placed in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod, not a word is said of the tabernacle or of the altar which is necessarily connected with it; and chap. vi. is equally silent, although here the enemy plainly gives back the whole of his sacred spoil. It is assumed that the housing of the ark was left behind at Shiloh. Very likely; but that was not the Mosaic tabernacle, the inseparable companion of the ark. In fact, the narrator speaks of a permanent house at Shiloh with doors and doorposts; that possibly may be an anachronism /1/ (yet why ?) ; ***************************************** 1. Compare similar passages in Josh. vi.19, 24, ix.27, where the very anachronism shows that the idea of the tabernacle was unknown to the narrator. That, moreover. a permanent house did actually exist then at Shiloh follows from the circumstance that Jeremiah (vii. 12) speaks of its ruins. For he could not regard any other than a pre-Solomonic sanctuary as preceding that of Jerusalem; and besides, there is not the faintest trace of a more important temple having arisen at Shiloh within the period of the kings. ***************************************** but so much at least may be inferred from it that he had not any idea of the tabernacle, which, however, would have had to go with the ark to the field. If on this one occasion only an illegal exception to the Law was made, why in that case was not the ark, at least after its surrender, again restored to the lodging from which, strictly speaking, it ought never to have been separated at all? Instead of this it is brought to Bethshemesh, where it causes disaster, because the people show curiosity about it. Thence it comes to Kirjathjearim, where it stays for many years in the house of a private person. From here David causes it to be brought to Jerusalem,-- one naturally supposes, if one thinks in the lines of the view given in the Pentateuch and in Chronicles, in order that it may be at last restored to the tabernacle, to be simultaneously brought to Jerusalem. But no thought of this, however obvious it may seem, occurs to the king. In the first instance, his intention is to have the ark beside himself in the citadel; but he is terrified out of this, and, at a loss where else to put it, he at last places it in the house of one of his principal people, Obed-Edom of Gath. Had he known anything about the tabernacle, had he had any suspicion that it was standing empty at Gibeon, in the immediate neighbourhood, he would have been relieved of all difficulty. But inasmuch as the ark brings blessing to the house of Obed-Edom,--the ark, be it remembered, in the house of a soldier and a Philistine, yet bringing down, not wrath, but blessing,--/1/ ********************************************* 1. The Chronicle has good reason for making him a Levite. But Gath without any qualifying epithet, and particularly in connection with David, is the Philistine Gath, and Obed-Edom belongs to the bodyquard, which consisted chiefly of foreigners and Philistines. His name, moreover, is hardly Israelite. ********************************************** the king is thereby encouraged to persevere after all with his original proposal, and establish it upon his citadel. And this he does in a tent he had caused to be made for it (2Samuel vi.17), which tent of David in Zion continued to be its lodging until the temple was built. Some mention of the tabernacle, had it existed, would have been inevitable when the temple took its place. That it did not serve as the model of the temple has already been said; but it might have been expected at least that in the account of the building of the new sanctuary some word might have escaped about the whereabouts of the old. And this expectation seems to be realised in 1Kings viii.4, which says that when the temple was finished there were brought into it, besides the ark, the Ohel Moed and all the sacred vessels that were therein. Interpreters hesitate as to whether they ought to understand by the Ohel Moed the tent of the ark upon Zion, to which alone reference has been made in the preceding narrative (1Kings i.39, ii.28-30), or whether it is the Mosaic tent, which, according to Chronicles, was standing at Gibeon, but of which the Book of Kings tells nothing, and also knows nothing (iii.2-4). It is probable that the author of viii.4 mixed up both together; but we have to face the following alternative. Either the statement belongs to the original context of the narrative in which it occurs, and in that case the Ohel Moed can only be the tent on Mount Zion, or the Ohel Moed of 1Kings viii.4 is the Mosaic tabernacle which was removed from Gibeon into Solomon's temple, and in that case the allegation has no connection with its context, and does not hang together with the premisses which that furnishes; in other words, it is the interpolation of a later hand. The former alternative, though possible, is improbable, for the name Ohel Moed occurs absolutely nowhere in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings (apart from the interpolation in 1Samuel ii.22b), and particularly it is not used to denote David's tent upon Mount Zion; and, moreover, that tent had received too little of the consecration of antiquity, and according to 2Samuel vii. was too insignificant and provisional to be thought worthy of preservation in the temple. But if the Ohel Moed is here (what it everywhere else is) the tabernacle, as is indicated also by the sacred vessels, then the verse is, as has been said, an interpolation. The motive for such a thing is easily understood; the same difficulty as that with which we set out must have made it natural for any Jew who started from the ideas of the Pentateuch to look for the tabernacle here, and, if he did not find it, to introduce it. Yet even the interpolation does not remove the difficulties. Where is the Mosaic altar of burnt-offering? It was quite as important and holy as the tabernacle itself; even in Chronicles it is invariably mentioned expressly in connection with it, and did not deserve to be permitted to go to ruin at Gibeon, which, from another point of view, would also have been extremely dangerous to the unity of the sacrificial worship. Further, if the sacred vessels were transferred from the tabernacle to the temple, why then was it that Solomon, according to 1Kings vii., cast a completely new set? /1/ ************************************* 1. The brazen altar cast by Solomon (1Kings viii.64; 2Kings xvi.14, 15) is not now found in the inventory of the temple furniture in 1Kings vii.; but originally it cannot have been absent, for it is the most important article. It has therefore been struck out in order to avoid collision with the brazen altar of Moses. The deletion is the negative counterpart to the interpolation of the tabernacle in 1Kings viii.4. *************************************** The old ones were costly enough, in part even costlier than the new, and, moreover, had been consecrated by long use. It is clear that in Solomon's time neither tabernacle, nor holy vessels, nor brazen altar of Moses had any existence. But if there was no tabernacle in the time of the last judges and first kings, as little was it in existence during the whole of the previous period. This is seen from 2Samuel vii., a section with whose historicity we have here nothing to do, but which at all events reflects the view of a pre-exilian author. It is there told that David, after he had obtained rest from all his enemies, contemplated building a worthy home for the ark, and expressed his determination to the prophet Nathan in the words, "I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God within curtains." According to vi.17, he can only mean the tent which he had set up, that is to say, not the Mosaic tabernacle, which, moreover, according to the description of Exodus xxv. seq., could not appropriately be contrasted with a timber erection, still less be regarded as a mean structure or unworthy of the Deity, for in point of magnificence it at least competed with the temple of Solomon. Nathan at first approves of the king's intention, but afterwards discountenances it, saying that at present God does not wish to have anything different from that which He has hitherto had. "I have dwelt in no house since the day that I brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, but have wandered about under tent and covering." Nathan also, of course, has not in his eye the Mosaic tabernacle as the present lodging of the ark, but David's tent upon Zion. Now he does not say that the ark has formerly been always in the tabernacle, and that its present harbourage is therefore in the highest degree unlawful, but, on the contrary, that the present state of matters is the right one,--that until now the ark has invariably been housed under an equally simple and unpretentious roof. As David's tent does not date back to the Exodus, Nathan is necessarily speaking of changing tents and dwellings; the reading of the parallel passage in 1Chron. xvii.5, therefore, correctly interprets the sense. There could be no more fundamental contradiction to the representation contained in the Pentateuch than that embodied in these words: the ark has not as its correlate a single definite sacred tent of state, but is quite indifferent to the shelter it enjoys--has frequently changed its abode, but never had any particularly fine one. Such has been the state of matters since the time of Moses. Such is the position of affairs as regards the tabernacle; if it is determined that the age of the Priestly Code is to hang by these threads, I have no objection. The representation of the tabernacle arose out of the temple of Solomon as its root, in dependence on the sacred ark, for which there is early testimony, and which in the time of David, and also before it, was sheltered by a tent. From the temple it derives at once its inner character and its central importance for the cultus as well as its external form. I.III.2. A peculiar point of view is taken up by Theodor Noldeke. He grants the premisses that the tabernacle is a fiction, of which the object is to give pre-existence to the temple and to the unity of worship, but he denies the conclusion that in that case the Priestly Code presuppose; the unity of worship as already existing in its day, and therefore is late, than Deuteronomy. In his Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments (p. 127 seq.) he says:-- "A strong tendency towards unity of worship MUST have arisen as soon as Solomon's temple was built. Over against the splendid sanctuary with its imageless worship at the centre of the kingdom of Judah, the older holy places MUST ever have shrunk farther into the background, and that not merely in the eyes of the people, but quite specially also in those of the better classes and of those whose spiritual advancement was greatest (compare Amos iv. 4,viii.14). If even Hezekiah carried out the unification in Judah with tolerable thoroughness, the effort after it MUST surely have been of very early date; for the determination violently to suppress old sacred usages would not have been easily made, unless this had been long previously demanded by theory. The priests at Jerusalem MUST very specially at an early date have arrived at the conception that their temple with the sacred ark and the great altar was the one true place of worship, and an author has clothed this very laudable effort on behalf of the purity of religion in the form of a law, which certainly in its strictness was quite impracticable (ILeviticus xvii.4 seq.), and which, therefore, was modified later by the Deuteronomist with a view to practice." What MUST have happened is of less consequence to know than what actually took place. Noldeke relies solely upon the statement of 2Kings xviii.4, 22, that Hezekiah abolished the high places and altars of Jehovah, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, "Before this altar shall ye worship in Jerusalem." With reference to that statement doubts have already been raised above. How startling was the effect produced at a later date by the similar ordinance of Josiah! Is it likely then that the other, although the earlier, should have passed off so quietly and have left so little mark that the reinforcement of it, after an interval of seventy or eighty years, is not in the least brought into connection with it, but in every respect figures as a new first step upon a path until then absolutely untrodden? Note too how casual is the allusion to a matter which is elsewhere the chief and most favoured theme of the Book of Kings! And there is besides all this the serious difficulty, also already referred to above, that the man from whom Hezekiah must, from the nature of the case, have received the impulse to his reformatory movement, the prophet Isaiah, in one of his latest discourses expressly insists on a cleansing merely of the local sanctuaries from molten and graven images, that is to say, does not desire their complete removal. So much at least is certain that, if the alleged fact at present under discussion amounts to anything at all /1/ ********************************** 1. Little importance is to be attached to 2Kings xviii.22. The narrative of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem is not a contemporary one, as appears generally from the entirely indefinite character of the statements about the sudden withdrawal of the Assyrians and its causes, and particularly from xix.7, 36, 37. For in this passage the meaning certainly is that Sennacherib was assassinated soon after the unsuccessful expedition of 701, but in point of fact he actually reigned until 684 or 681 (Smith, Assyrian Eponym Canon, pp. 90, 170). Thus the narrator writes not twenty years merely after the event, but so long after it as to make possible the elision of those twenty years: probably he is already under the influence of Deuteronomy. 2Kings xviii.4 is certainly of greater weight than 2Kings xviii.22. But although highly authentic statements have been preserved to us in the epitome of the Book of Kings, they have all, nevertheless, been subjected not merely to the selection, but also to the revision of the Deuteronomic redactor, and it may very well be that the author thought himself justified in giving his subject a generalised treatment, according to which the cleansing (of the temple at Jerusalem in the first instance) from idols, urged by Isaiah and carried out by Hezekiah, was changed into an abolition of the Bamoth with their Macceboth and Asherim. It is well known how indifferent later writers are to distinctions of time and degree in the heresy of unlawful worship; they always go at once to the completed product. But in actual experience the reformation was doubtless accomplished step by step. At first we have in Hosea and Isaiah the polemic directed against molten and graven images, then in Jeremiah that against wood and stone, i.e., against Macceboth and Asherim; the movement originated with the prophets, and the chief, or rather the only, weight is to be attached to their authentic testimony. ************************************* Hezekiah only made a feeble and wholly ineffectual attempt in this direction, and by no means "carried out the unification in Judah with tolerable thoroughness." At the same time, one might concede even this last point, and yet not give any ground for the theory at which Noldeke wishes to arrive. For his assumption is that the effort after unity had its old and original seat precisely in the priestly circles of Jerusalem. If the Priestly Code is older than Deuteronomy, then of course the prophetic agitation for reform of worship in which Deuteronomy had its origin must have been only the repetition of an older priestly movement in the same direction. But of the latter we hear not a single word, while we can follow the course of the former fairly well from its beginnings in thought down to its issue in a practical result. It was Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah who introduced the movement against the old popular worship of the high places; in doing so they are not in the least actuated by a deep-rooted preference for the temple of Jerusalem, but by ethical motives, which manifest themselves in them for the first time in history, and which we can see springing up in them before our very eyes: their utterances, though historically occasioned by the sanctuaries of northern Israel, are quite general, and are directed against the cultus as a whole. Of the influence of a point of view even remotely akin to the priestly position that worship in this or that special place is of more value than anywhere else, and on that account alone deserves to be preserved, no trace is to be found in them; their polemic is a purely prophetic one, i.e., individual, "theopneust" in the sense that it is independent of all traditional and preconceived human opinions. But the subsequent development is dependent upon this absolutely original commencement, and has its issue, not in the Priestly Code, but in Deuteronomy, a book that, with all reasonable regard for the priests (though not more for those of Jerusalem than for the others), still does not belie its prophetic origin, and above all things is absolutely free from all and every hierocratic tendency. And finally, it was Deuteronomy that brought about the historical result of Josiah's reformation. Thus the whole historical movement now under our consideration, so far as it was effective and thereby has come to our knowledge, is in its origin and essence prophetic, even if latterly it may have been aided by priestly influences; and it not merely can, but must be understood from itself. Any older or independent contemporary priestly movement in the same direction remained at least entirely without result, and so also has left no witnesses to itself. Perhaps it occurs to us that the priests of Jerusalem must after all have been the first to catch sight of the goal, the attainment of which afterwards brought so great advantage to themselves, but it does not appear that they were so clever beforehand as we are after the event. At least there are no other grounds for the hypothesis of a long previously latent tendency towards centralisation on the part of the Jerusalem priesthood beyond the presumption that the Priestiy Code must chronologically precede, not Deuteronomy merely, but also the prophets. For the sake of this presumption there is constructed a purely abstract (and as such perfectly irrefragable) possibility that furnishes a door of escape from the historical probability, which nevertheless it is impossible to evade. How absolutely unknown the Priestly Code continued to be even down to the middle of the exile can be seen from the Books of Kings, which cannot have received their present shape earlier than the death of Nebuchadnezzar. The redactor, who cites the Deuteronomic law and constantly forms his judgment in accordance with it, considered (as we have learned from 1Kings iii.2) that the Bamoth were permissible prior to the building of Solomon's temple; the tabernacle therefore did not exist for him. Jeremiah, who flourished about a generation earlier, is equally ignorant of it, but--on account of the ark, though not necessarily in agreement with traditional opinion--regards the house of God at Shiloh (whose ruins, it would seem, were at that time still visible) as the forerunner of the temple of Jerusalem, and in this he is followed by the anonymous prophecy of 1Samuel ii.27-36, the comparatively recent date of which appears from the language (ii.33), and from the circumstance that it anticipates the following threatening in iii. In all these writers, and still more in the case of the Deuteronomist himself, who in xii. actually makes the unity of the cultus dependent on the previous choice of Jerusalem, it is an exceedingly remarkable thing that, if the Priestly Code had been then already a long time in existence, they should have been ignorant of a book so important and so profound in its practical bearings. In ancient Hebrew literature such an oversight could not be made so easily as, in similar circumstances, with the literature of the present day. And how comes it to pass that in the Book of Chronicles, dating from the third century, the Priestly Code suddenly ceases to be, to all outward seeming, dead, but asserts its influence everywhere over the narrative in only too active and unmistakable a way? To these difficulties Noldeke is unreasonably indifferent. He seems to be of the opinion that the post-exilian time would not have ventured to take in hand so thoroughgoing an alteration, or rather reconstruction, of tradition as is implied in antedating the temple of Solomon by means of the tabernacle. /1/ ************************************************ 1. Jahrb. fuer prot. Theol., i. p. 352: "And now let me ask whether a document of this kind presenting, as it does, a picture of the history, land distribution, and sacrificial rites of Israel, as a whole, which in so many particulars departs from the actual truth, can belong to a time in which Israel clung to what was traditional with such timid anxiety?" ************************************************* But it is, on the contrary, precisely the mark which distinguished the post-exile writers that they treat in the freest possible manner, in accordance with their own ideas, the institutions of the bygone past, with which their time was no longer connected by any living bond. For what reason does Chronicles stand in the canon at all, if not in order to teach us this? But when Noldeke excuses the ignorance with regard to the tabernacle on the plea that it is a mere creature of the brain, /2/ ************************************* 1. Unters., p. 130: "It must always be remembered that the author in his statements, as in his laws, does not depict actual relations, but in the first instance his own theories and ideals. Hence the glorification of the tabernacle," &c. &c. ************************************* he for the moment forgets that there underlies this creation the very real idea of unity of worship, for the sake of which it would surely have been very welcome, to the Deuteronomist, for example, even as a mere idea. It is only the embodiment of the tabernacle that is fancy; the idea of it springs from the ground of history, and it is by its idea that it is to be apprehended. And when Noldeke finally urges in this connection as a plea for the priority of the Priestly Code that, in spite of the limitation of sacrifice to a single locality, it nevertheless maintains the old provision that every act of killing must be a sacrifice, while Deuteronomy, going a step farther, departs from this, here also his argument breaks down. For we read in Leviticus xvii., "What man soever there be of the house of Israel that killeth an ox or sheep or goat in the camp, or out of the camp, and bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle, to offer them as an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that man: he hath shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people: to the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they offer in the open field, even that they may bring them to the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle, to the priest, and offer them for peace-offerings unto the Lord....And they shall no more offer sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring." The intention of this prescription is simply and solely to secure the exclusive legitimation of the one lawful place of sacrifice; it is only for this, obviously, that the profane slaughtering outside of Jerusalem, which Deuteronomy had permitted, is forbidden. Plainly the common man did not quite understand the newly drawn and previously quite unknown distinction between the religious and the profane act, and when he slaughtered at home (as he was entitled to do), he in doing so still observed, half-unconsciously perhaps, the old sacred sacrificial ritual. From this arose the danger of a multiplicity of altars again furtively creeping in, and such a danger is met, in an utterly impracticable way indeed, in Leviticus xvii. And it is worth noticing how much this law, which, for the rest, is based upon the Book of Deuteronomy, has grown in the narrowness of its legitimistic mode of viewing things. Deuteronomy thoroughly recognises that offerings, even though offered outside of Jerusalem, are still offered to Jehovah; for the author of Leviticus xvii. this is an impossible Idea, and he regards such offerings simply as made to devils. /1/ ************************************* 1. With reference to these rural demons, compare my note in Vakidi's Maghazi (Berlin, 1882), p. 113. It is somewhat similar, though not quite the same thing, when the Moslems say that the old Arabs dedicated their worship to the Jinns; and other instances may be compared in which divinities have been degraded to demons. ************************************ I refuse to believe that any such thing could have been possible for one who lived before the Deuteronomic reformation, or even under the old conditions that were in existence immediately before the exile. Leviticus xvii., moreover, belongs confessedly to a peculiar little collection of laws, which has indeed been taken up into the Priestly Code, but which in many respects disagrees with it, and particularly in respect of this prohibition of profane slaughterings. With reference to the Priestly Code as a whole, Noldeke's assertion is quite off the mark. The code, on the contrary, already allows slaughter without sacrifice in the precepts of Noah, which are valid not merely for all the world, but also for the Jews. Farther on this permission is not expressly repeated indeed, but it is regarded as a thing of course. This alone can account for the fact that the thank-offering is treated so entirely as a subordinate affair and the sacrificial meal almost ignored, while in Leviticus vii.22-27 rules are even given for procedure in the slaughter of such animals as are not sacrificed. /2/ *********************************** 2. That Leviticus vii.22-27 is not a repetition of the old and fuller regulations about the thank-offering, but an appendix containing new ones relating to slaughtering, is clear from "the beast of which men offer an offering unto the Lord" (ver. 25), and "in all your dwellings" (ver. z6), as well as from the praxis of Judaism. ********************************** Here accordingly is another instance of what we have already so often observed: what is brought forward in Deuteronomy as an innovation is assumed in the Priestly Code to be an ancient custom dating as far back as to Noah. And therefore the latter code is a growth of the soil that has been prepared by means of the former. CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE. With the Hebrews, as with the whole ancient world, sacrifice constituted the main part of worship. The question is whether their worship did not also in this most important respect pass through a history the stages of which are reflected in the Pentateuch. From the results already reached this must be regarded at the outset as probable, but the sources of information accessible to us seem hardly sufficient to enable us actually to follow the process, or even so much as definitely to fix its two termini. II.I.1. The Priestly Code alone occupies itself much with the subject; it gives a minute classification of the various kinds of offerings, and a description of the procedure to be followed in the case of each. In this way it furnishes also the normative scheme for modern accounts of the matter, into which all the other casual notices of the Old Testament on the subject must be made to fit as best they can. This point accordingly presents us with an important feature by which the character of the book can be determined. In it the sacrificial ritual is a constituent, and indeed a very essential element, of the Mosaic legislation: that ritual is not represented as ancient use handed down to the Israelites by living practice from ancestral times: it was Moses who gave them the theory of it--a very elaborate one too--and he himself received his instruction from God (Exodus xxv. seq.; Leviticus i. seq.). An altogether disproportionate emphasis is accordingly laid upon the technique of sacrifice corresponding to the theory, alike upon the when, the where, and the by whom, and also in a very special manner upon the how. It is from these that the sacrifice obtains its specific value; one could almost suppose that even if it were offered to another God, it would by means of the legitimate rite alone be at once made essentially Jehovistic. The cultus of Israel is essentially distinguished from all others by its form, the distinctive and constitutive mark of the holy community. With it the theocracy begins and it with the theocracy; the latter is nothing more than the institution for the purpose of carrying on the cultus after the manner ordained by God. For this reason also the ritual, which appears to concern the priests only, finds its place in a law-book intended for the whole community; in order to participate in the life of the theocracy, all must of course, have clear knowledge of its essential nature, and in this the theory of sacrifice holds a first place. The Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch also knows of no other kind of divine worship besides the sacrificial, and does not attach to it less importance than the Priestly Code. But we do not find many traces of the view that the sacrificial system of Israel is distinguished from all others by a special form revealed to Moses, which makes it the [sic] alone legitimate. Sacrifice is sacrifice: when offered to Baal, it is heathenish; when offered to Jehovah, it is Israelite. In the Book of the Covenant and in both Decalogues it is enjoined before everything to serve no other God besides Jehovah, but also at the proper season to offer firstlings and gifts to Him. Negative determinations, for the most part directed against one heathenish peculiarity or another, occur but there are no positive ordinances relating to the ritual. How one is to set about offering sacrifice is taken for granted as already known, and nowhere figures as an affair for the legislation, which, on the contrary, occupies itself with quite other things. What the Book of the Covenant and the Decalogue leave still perhaps doubtful becomes abundantly clear from the Jehovistic narrative. The narrative has much more to say about sacrifice than the incorporated law books, and this may be regarded as characteristic; in the Priestly Code it is quite the other way. But what is specially important is that, according to the Jehovistic history, the praxis of sacrifice, and that too of the regular and God-pleasing sort, extends far beyond the Mosaic legislation, and, strictly speaking, is as old as the world itself. A sacrificial feast which the Hebrews wish to celebrate in the wilderness is the occasion of the Exodus; Moses already builds an altar at Rephidim (Exodus xvii.), and, still before the ratification of the covenant on Sinai, a solemn meal in the presence of Jehovah is set on foot on occasion of Jethro's visit (Exodus xviii.). But the custom is much older still; it was known and practiced by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Noah, the father of all mankind, built the first altar after the Flood, and long before him Cain and Abel sacrificed in the same way as was usual in Palestine thousands of years afterwards. Balaam the Aramaean understands just as well as any Israelite how to offer sacrifices to Jehovah that do not fail of their effect. All this brings out, with as much clearness as could be desired, that sacrifice is a very ancient and quite universal mode of honouring the Deity, and that Israelite sacrifice is distinguished not by the manner in which, but by the being to whom, it is offered, in being offered to the God of Israel. According to this representation of the matter, Moses left the procedure in sacrifice, as he left the procedure in prayer, to be regulated by the traditional praxis; if there was any definite origination of the cultus of Israel, the patriarchs must be thought of, but even they were not the discoverers of the ritual; they were merely the founders of those holy places at which the Israelites dedicated gifts to Jehovah, a usage which was common to the whole world. The contrast with the Priestly Code is extremely striking, for it is well known that the latter work makes mention of no sacrificial act prior to the time of Moses, neither in Genesis nor in Exodus, although from the time of Noah slaughtering is permitted. The offering of a sacrifice of sheep and oxen as the occasion of the exodus is omitted, and in place of the sacrifice of the firstlings we have the paschal lamb, which is slaughtered and eaten without altar, without priest, and not in the presence of Jehovah. /1/ ******************************************* 1. With regard to sacrifice, Deuteronomy still occupies the same standpoint as JE. ******************************************* The belief that the cultus goes back to pre-Mosaic usage is unquestionably more natural than the belief that it is the main element of the Sinaitic legislation; the thought would be a strange one that God should suddenly have revealed, or Moses discovered and introduced, the proper sacrificial ritual. At the same time this does not necessitate the conclusion that the Priestly Code is later than the Jehovist. Nor does this follow from the very elaborately-developed technique of the agenda, for elaborate ritual may have existed in the great sanctuaries at a very early period,--though that, indeed, would not prove it to be genuinely Mosaic. On the other hand, it is certainly a consideration deserving of great weight that the representation of the exclusive legitimacy of so definite a sacrificial ritual, treated in the Priestly Code as the only possible one in Israel, is one which can have arisen only as a consequence of the centralisation of the cultus at Jerusalem. Yet by urging this the decision of the question at present before us would only be referred back to the result already arrived at in the preceding chapter, and it is much to be desired that it should be solved independently, so as not to throw too much weight upon a single support. II.I.2. In this case also the elements of a decision can only be obtained from the historical documents dating from the pre-exilic time,--the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings on the one hand, and the writings of the prophets on the other. As regards those of the first class, they represent the cultus and sacrifice on all occasions as occupying a large place in the life of the nation and of the individual. But, although it would be wrong to say that absolutely no weight is attached to the RITE, it is certainly not the fact that the main stress is laid upon it; the antithesis is not between RITE and NON-RITE, but between sacrifice TO JEHOVAH and sacrifice TO STRANGE GODS, the reverse of what we find in the Priestly Code. Alongside of splendid sacrifices, such as those of the kings, presumably offered in accordance with all the rules of priestly skill, there occur others also of the simplest and most primitive type, as, for example, those of Saul (1Samuel xiv.35) and Elisha (1Kings xix.2I); both kinds are proper if only they be dedicated to the proper deity. Apart from the exilian redaction of the Book of Kings, which reckons the cultus outside of Jerusalem as heretical, it is nowhere represented that a sacrifice could be dedicated to the God of Israel, and yet be illegitimate. Naaman (2Kings v. 17), it is to be supposed, followed his native Syrian ritual, but this does not in the least impair the acceptability of his offering. For reasons easily explained, it is seldom that an occasion arises to describe the ritual, but when such a description is given it is only with violence that it can be forced into accordance with the formula of the law. Most striking of all is the procedure of Gideon in Judges vi.19-21, in which it is manifest that the procedure still usual at Ophrah in the time of the narrator is also set forth. Gideon boils a he-goat and bakes in the ashes cakes of unleavened bread, places upon the bread the flesh in a basket and the broth in a pot, and then the meal thus prepared is burnt in the altar flame. It is possible that instances may have also occurred in which the rule of the Pentateuch is followed, but the important point is that the distinction between legitimate and heretical is altogether wanting. When the Book of Chronicles is compared the difference is at once perceived. The impression derived from the historical books is confirmed by the prophets. It is true that in their polemic against confounding worship with religion they reveal the fact that in their day the cultus was carried on with the utmost zeal and splendour, and was held in the highest estimation. But this estimation does not rest upon the opinion that the cultus, as regards its matter, goes back to Moses or to Jehovah Himself, gives to the theocracy its distinctive character, and even constitutes the supernatural priesthood of Israel among the nations, but simply upon the belief that Jehovah must be honoured by His dependents, just as other gods are by their subjects, by means of offerings and gifts as being the natural and (like prayer) universally current expressions of religious homage. The larger the quantity, and the finer the quality, so much the better; but that the merit arising from the presentation depends upon strict observance of etiquette regarded as Jehovah's law is not suggested. Thus it is that the prophets are able to ask whether then Jehovah has commanded His people to tax their energies with such exertions? the fact presupposed being that no such command exists, and that no one knows anything at all about a ritual Torah. Amos, the leader of the chorus, says (iv.4 seq.), "Come to Bethel to sin, to Gilgal to sin yet more, and bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days, for so ye like, ye children of Israel." In passing sentence of rejection upon the value of the cultus he is in opposition to the faith of his time; but if the opinion had been a current one that precisely the cultus was what Jehovah had instituted in Israel, he would not have been able to say, "For so ye like." "Ye," not Jehovah; it is an idle and arbitrary worship. He expresses himself still more clearly in v.21 seq. "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I smell not on your holy days; though ye offer me burnt-offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them; neither do I regard your thank-offerings of fatted calves. Away from me with the noise of thy songs, the melody of thy viols I will not hear; but let judgment roll on like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Did ye offer unto me sacrifices and gifts in the wilderness the forty years, O house of Israel?" In asking this last question Amos has not the slightest fear of raising any controversy; on the contrary, he is following the generally received belief. His polemic is directed against the praxis of his contemporaries, but here he rests it upon a theoretical foundation in which they are at one with him,--on this, namely, that the sacrificial worship is not of Mosaic origin. Lastly, if ii.4 be genuine, it teaches the same lesson. By the Law of Jehovah which the people of Judah have despised it is impossible that Amos can have understood anything in the remotest degree resembling a ritual legislation. Are we to take it then that he formed his own special private notion of the Torah? How in that case would it have been possible for him to make himself understood by the people, or to exercise influence over them? Of all unlikely suppositions, at all events it is the least likely that the herdsman of Tekoah, under the influence of prophetic tradition (which in fact he so earnestly disclaims), should have taken the Torah for something quite different from what it actually was. Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah are in agreement with Amos. The first mentioned complains bitterly (iv.6 seq.) that the priests cultivate the system of sacrifices instead of the Torah. The Torah, committed by Jehovah to their order, lays it on them as their vocation to diffuse the knowledge of God in Israel,--the knowledge that He seeks truthfulness and love, justice and considerateness, and no gifts; but they, on the contrary, in a spirit of base self-seeking, foster the tendency of the nation towards cultus, in their superstitions over-estimate of which lies their sin and their ruin. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; ye yourselves (ye priests!) reject knowledge, and I too will reject you that ye shall not be priests unto me; seeing ye have forgotten the law of your God, so will I also forget you. The more they are, the more they sin against me; their glory they barter for shame. They eat the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity." From this we see how idle it is to believe that the prophets opposed "the Law;" they defend the priestly Torah, which, however, has nothing to do with cultus, but only with justice and morality. In another passage (viii.11 seq.) we read, "Ephraim has built for himself many altars, to sin; the altars are there for him, to sin. How many soever my instructions (torothai) may be, they are counted those of a stranger." This text has had the unmerited misfortune of having been forced to do service as a proof that Hosea knew of copious writings similar in contents to our Pentateuch. All that can be drawn from the contrast "instead of following my instructions they offer sacrifice" (for that is the meaning of the passage) is that the prophet had never once dreamed of the possibility of cultus being made the subject of Jehovah's directions. In Isaiah's discourses the well-known passage of the first chapter belongs to this connection: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I am weary with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks and of lambs and of he-goats. When ye come to look upon my face, who hath required this at your hands?--to trample my courts!" This expression has long been a source of trouble, and certainly the prophet could not possibly have uttered it if the sacrificial worship had, according to any tradition whatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic. Isaiah uses the word Torah to denote not the priestly but the prophetical instruction (i.10, ii.3, v.24, viii.16, 20, xxx.9); as both have a common source and Jehovah is the proper instructor (xxx.20), this is easily explicable, and is moreover full of instruction as regards the idea involved; the contents of the Priestly Code fit badly in with the Torah of i.10. Lastly, Micah's answer to the people's question, how a return of the favour of an angry God is to be secured, is of conspicuous significance (vi.6 seq.): "Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old? Is the Lord pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body as atonement for my soul?--It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what Jehovah requireth of thee. Nay, it is to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God." Although the blunt statement of the contrast between cultus and religion is peculiarly prophetic, Micah can still take his stand upon this, "It hath been told thee, O man, what Jehovah requires." It is no new matter, but a thing well known, that sacrifices are not what the Torah of the Lord contains. That we have not inferred too much from these utterances of the older prophets is clear from the way in which they are taken up and carried on by Jeremiah, who lived shortly before the Babylonian exile. Just as in vi.19 seq. he opposes the Torah to the cultus, so in vii.11 seq. he thus expresses himself: "Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh! For I said nought unto your fathers, and commanded them nought, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them: hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and walk ye in the way that I shall always teach you, that it may be well with you." The view indeed, that the prophets (who, from the connection, are the ever-living voice to which Israel is to hearken) are the proper soul of the theocracy, the organ by which Jehovah influences and rules it, has no claim to immemorial antiquity. But no stress lies upon the positive element here; enough that at all events Jeremiah is unacquainted with the Mosaic legislation as it is contained in the Priestly Code. His ignoring of it is not intentional, for he is far from hating the cultus (xvii.26). But, as priest and prophet, staying continually in the temple at Jerusalem, he must have known it, if it had existed and actually been codified. The fact is one which it is difficult to get over. Thus the historical witnesses, particularly the prophets, decide the matter in favour of the Jehovistic tradition. According to the universal opinion of the pre-exilic period, the cultus is indeed of very old and (to the people) very sacred usage, but not a Mosaic institution; the ritual is not the main thing in it, and is in no sense the subject with which the Torah deals. /1/ ********************************* 1. That the priests were not mere teachers of law and morals, but also gave ritual instruction (e.g, regarding cleanness and uncleanness), is of course not denied by this. All that is asserted is that in pre-exilian antiquity the priests' own praxis (at the altar) never constituted the contents of the Torah, but that their Torah always consisted of instructions to the laity. The distinction is easily intelligible to those who choose to understand it. ******************************** In other words, no trace can be found of acquaintance with the Priestly Code, but, on the other hand, very clear indications of ignorance of its contents. II.I.3. In this matter the transition from the pre-exilic to the post-exilic period is effected, not by Deuteronomy, but by Ezekiel the priest in prophet's mantle, who was one of the first to be carried into exile. He stands in striking contrast with his elder contemporary Jeremiah. In the picture of Israel's future which he drew in B.C. 573 (chaps. xl.-xlviii.), in which fantastic hopes are indeed built upon Jehovah, but no impossible demand made of man, the temple and cultus hold a central place. Whence this sudden change? Perhaps because now the Priestly Code has suddenly awakened to life after its long trance, and become the inspiration of Ezekiel? The explanation is certainly not to be sought in any such occurrence, but simply in the historical circumstances. So long as the sacrificial worship remained in actual use, it was zealously carried on, but people did not concern themselves with it theoretically, and had not the least occasion for reducing it to a code. But once the temple was in ruins, the cultus at an end, its PERSONNEL out of employment, it is easy to understand how the sacred praxis should have become a matter of theory and writing, so that it might not altogether perish, and how an exiled priest should have begun to paint the picture of it as he carried it in his memory, and to publish it as a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy. Nor is there any difficulty if arrangements, which as long as they were actually in force were simply regarded as natural, were seen after their abolition in a transfiguring light, and from the study devoted to them gained artificially a still higher value. These historical conditions supplied by the exile sufffice to make clear the transition from Jeremiah to Ezekiel, and the genesis of Ezekiel xl.-xlviii. The co-operation of the Priestly Code is here not merely unnecessary, it would be absolutely disconcerting. Ezekiel's departure from the ritual of the Pentateuch cannot be explained as intentional alterations of the original; they are too casual and insignificant. The prophet, moreover, has the rights of authorship as regards the end of his book as well as for the rest of it; he has also his right to his picture of the future as the earlier prophets had to theirs. And finally, let its due weight be given to the simple fact that an exiled priest saw occasion to draft such a sketch of the temple worship. What need would there have been for it, if the realised picture, corresponding completely to his views, had actually existed, and, being already written in a book, wholly obviated any danger lest the cultus should become extinct through the mere fact of its temporary cessation? Here again a way of escape is open by assuming a lifeless existence of the law down to Ezra's time. But if this is done it is unallowable to date that existence, not from Moses, but from some other intermediate point in the history of Israel. Moreover, the assumption of a codification either as preceding all praxis, or as alongside and independent of it, is precisely in the case of sacrificial ritual one of enormous difficulty, for it is obvious that such a codification can only be the final result of an old and highly developed use, and not the invention of an idle brain. This consideration also makes retreat into the theory of an illegal praxis impossible, and renders the legitimacy of the actually subsisting indisputable. II.II. At all times, then, the sacrificial worship of Israel existed, and had great importance attached to it, but in the earlier period it rested upon custom, inherited from the fathers, in the post-exilian on the law of Jehovah, given through Moses. At first it was naive, and what was chiefly considered was the quantity and quality of the gifts; afterwards it became legal,--the scrupulous fulfilment of the law, that is, of the prescribed ritual, was what was looked to before everything. Was there then, apart from this, strictly speaking, no material difference? To answer this question our researches must be carried further afield, after some preliminary observations have been made in order to fix our position. II.II.1. In the Pentateuch the sacrificial ritual is indeed copiously described, but nowhere in the Old Testament is its significance formally explained; this is treated as on the whole self-evident and familiar to every one. The general notion of a sacrifice is in the Priestly Code that of _qorban_, in the rest of the Old Testament that of _minha_, /1/ ie., "gift;" *************************************** 1. Genesis iv. 3-5, Numbers xvi. 15; 1Samuel ii. 17, 29, xxvi. 19; Isaiah i. 13; Malachi i. 10-13, ii. 12, 13, iii. 3, 4. In the Priestly Code _minha_ is exclusively a terminus technicus for the meal-offering. The general name in the LXX and in the New Testament is DWRON (Matthew v. 23-24, viii. 4, xv. 5, xxiii. 18, 19). Compare Spencer, "De ratione et origine sacrificiorum" (De Legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, iii.2), by far the best thing that has ever been written on the subject. *************************************** the corresponding verbs are _haqrib_ and _haggish_, i.e., "to bring near." Both nouns and both verbs are used originally for the offering of a present to the king (or the nobles) to do him homage, to make him gracious, to support a petition (Judges iii. 17 seq.; 1Samuel x. 27; 1Kings v. 1 [A.V. iv.21]), and from this are employed with reference to the highest King (Malachi i.8). DWRA QEOUS PEIQAI, DWR' )AIDOIOUS BASILHAS The gift must not be unseasonably or awkwardly thrust upon the recipient, not when the king's anger is at white heat, and not by one the sight of whom he hates. With respect to the matter of it, the idea of a sacrifice is in itself indifferent, if the thing offered only have value of some sort, and is the property of the offerer. Under _qorban_ and _minha_ is included also that which the Greeks called _anathema_. The sacred dues which at a later date fall to the priest were without doubt originally ordinary offerings, and amongst these are found even wool and flax (Deut. xviii. 4; Hos. ii. 7, 11 [A.V. 5, 9] ). But it is quite in harmony with the naivete of antiquity that as to man so also to God that which is eatable is by preference offered; in this there was the additional advantage, that what God had caused to grow was thus rendered back to Him. In doing this, the regular form observed is that a meal is prepared in honour of the Deity, of which man partakes as God's guest. Offering without any qualifying expression always means a meat or drink offering. On this account the altar is called a table, on this account also salt goes along with flesh, oil with meal and bread, and wine with both; and thus also are we to explain why the flesh, according to rule, is put upon the altar in pieces and (in the earlier period) boiled, the corn ground or baked. Hence also the name "bread of Jehovah" for the offering (Leviticus xxi.22). It is of course true that "in his offering the enlightened Hebrew saw no banquet to Jehovah:" but we hardly think of taking the enlightened Protestant as a standard for the original character of Protestantism. The manner in which the portions pertaining to God are conveyed to Him varies. The most primitive is the simple "setting in order" [ (RK, struere] and "pouring out" [#pk, fundere) in the case of the shewbread and drink offerings; to this a simple eating and drinking would correspond. But the most usual is burning, or, as the Hebrews express it, "making a savour" (HQ+YR), to which corresponds the more delicate form of enjoyment, that of smelling. Originally, however, it is God Himself who consumes what the flame consumes. In any case the burning is a means of conveying the offering, not, as one might perhaps be disposed to infer from the "sweet savour" (RYX HNYXX Genesis viii.21), a means of preparing it. For in ancient times the Hebrews did not roast the flesh, but boiled it; in what is demonstrably the oldest ritual (Judges vi. 19), the sacrifice also is delivered to the altar flame boiled; and, moreover, not the flesh only but also the bread and the meal are burnt. As regards the distinction between bloodless and bloody offerings, the latter, it is well known, are preferred in the Old Testament, but, strictly speaking, the former also have the same value and the same efficacy. The incense-offering is represented as a means of propitiation (Leviticus xvi., Numbers xvii. 12 [A.V. xvi. 47] ), so also are the ten thousands of rivers of oil figuring between the thousands of rams and the human sacrifice in Micah vi. That the cereal offering is never anything but an accompaniment of the animal sacrifice is a rule which does not hold, either in the case of the shewbread or in that of the high priest's daily minxa (Leviticus vi. 13 [A.V. 20]; Nehemiahx.35). Only the drink-offering has no independent position, and was not in any way the importance it had among the Greeks. When a sacrifice is killed, the offering consists not of the blood but of the eatable portions of the flesh. Only these can be designated as the "bread of Jehovah," and, moreover, only the eatable domestic animals can be presented. At the same time, however, it is true that in the case of the bloody offerings a new motive ultimately came to be associated with the original idea of the gift. The life of which the blood was regarded as the substance (2Samuel xxiii.17) had for the ancient Semites something mysterious and divine about it; they felt a certain religious scruple about destroying it. With them flesh was an uncommon luxury, and they ate it with quite different feelings from those with which they partook of fruits or of milk. Thus the act of killing was not so indifferent or merely preparatory a step as for example the cleansing and preparing of corn; on the contrary, the pouring out of blood was ventured upon only in such a way as to give it back to the Deity, the source of life. In this way, not by any means every meal indeed, but every slaughtering, came to be a sacrifice. What was primarily aimed at in it was a mere restoration of His own to the Deity, but there readily resulted a combination with the idea of sacrifice, whereby the latter was itself modified in a peculiar manner. The atoning efficacy of the gift began to be ascribed mainly to the blood and to the vicarious value of the life taken away. The outpouring and sprinkling of blood was in all sacrifices a rite of conspicuous importance, and even the act of slaughtering in the case of some, and these the most valued, a holy act. II.II.2. The features presented by the various literary sources harmonise with the foregoing sketch. But the Priestly Code exhibits some peculiarities by which it is distinguished from the pre-exilian remains in matters sacrificial. In the first place, it is characterised in the case of bloodless offerings by a certain refinement of the material. Thus in the meal-offerings it will have SLT (simila) not QMX (far). In the whole pre-exilian literature the former is mentioned only three times altogether, but never in connection with sacrifice, where, on the contrary, the ordinary meal is used (Judges vi. 19; 1Samuel i. 24). That this is no mere accident appears on the one hand from the fact that in the later literature, from Ezekiel onwards, QMX as sacrificial meal entirely disappears, and SLT invariably take its place; on the other hand, from this that the LXX (or the Hebrew text from which that version was taken) is offended by the illegality of the material in 1Samuel i. 24, and alters the reading so as to bring it to conformity with the Law. /1/ *************************************** 1. Ezekiel xvi. 13, 19, xlvi. 14; I Chronicles ix. 29, xxiii. 22; Ecclus. xxxv.2, xxxviii. 11, xxxix. 32; Isaiah i. 13 (LXX); lxvi. 3 (LXX). In the Priestly Code slt occurs more than forty times. ************************************** So also a striking preference is shown for incense. With every meal-offering incense is offered upon the altar; in the inner sanctuary a special mixture of spices is employed, the accurately given recipe for which is not to be followed for private purposes. The offering of incense is the privilege of the higher priesthood; in the ritual of the great Day of Atonement, the sole one in which Aaron must discharge the duties in person, it occupies a conspicuous place. It has an altogether dangerous sanctity; Aaron's own sons died for not having made use of the proper fire. It is the cause of death and destruction to the Levites of Korah's company who are not entitled to use it, while immediately afterwards, in the hands of the legitimate high priest, it becomes the means of appeasing the anger of Jehovah, and of staying the plague. Now of this offering, thus invested with such a halo of sanctity, the older literature of the Jewish Canon, down to Jeremiah and Zephaniah, knows absolutely nothing. The verb Q++R there used invariably and exclusively of the BURNING of fat or meal, and thereby making to God a sweet-smelling savour; it is never used to denote the OFFERING OF INCENSE, and the substantive Q+RT as a sacrificial term has the quite general signification of that which is burnt on the altar. /2/ ************************************** 2. The verb is used in _piel_ by the older writers, in _hiphil_ by the Priestly Code (Chronicles), and promiscuously in both forms during the transition period by the author of the Books of Kings. This is the case, at least, where the forms can with certainty be distinguished, namely, in the perfect, imperative, and infinitive; the distinction between YQ+R and YQ+YR, MQ+R and MQ+YR rests, as is well known, upon no secure tradition. Compare, for example, _qatter jaqtirun_, 1Samuel ii. 16; the transcribers and punctuators under the influence of the Pentateuch preferred the hiphil. In the Priestly Code (Chronicles) HQ+YR has both meanings alongside of each other, but when used without a qualifying phrase it generally means incensing, and when consuming a sacrifice is intended HMZBXH is usually added, "on the altar," that is, the place on which the incense-offering strictly so called was NOT offered. The substantive Q+RT in the sense of "an offering of incense" in which it occurs exclusively and very frequently in the Priestly Code, is first found in Ezekiel (viii. 11, xvi. 18, xxiii. 41) and often afterwards in Chronicles, but in the rest of the Old Testament only in Proverbs xxvii. 9, but there in a profane sense. Elsewhere never, not even in passages so late as 1Samuel ii.28; Psalms lxvi. 15, cxli. 2. In authors of a certainly pre-exilian date the word occurs only twice, both times in a perfectly general sense. Isaiah i. 13: "Bring me no more oblations; it is an abominable incense to me." Deuteronomy xxxiii. 10: "The Levites shall put incense (i.e.,the fat of thank-offerings) before thee, and whole burnt-offerings upon thine altar." The name LBNT (frankincense) first occurs in Jeremiah (vi. 20, xvii. 26, xli. 5); elsewhere only in the Priestly Code (nine times), in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. (three times), in Chronicles and Nehemiah (three times), and in Canticles (three times). Compare Zephaniah iii. 10; 1Kings ix. 25. ************************************ In enumerations where the prophets exhaust everything pertaining to sacred gifts and liturgic performances, in which, for the sake of lengthening the catalogue, they do not shrink from repetitions even, there is not any mention of incense-offerings, neither in Amos (iv. 4 seq., v. 21 seq.) nor in Isaiah (i. 11 seq.) nor in Micah (vi. 6 seq.). Shall we suppose that they all of them forget this subject by mere accident, or that they conspired to ignore it? If it had really existed, and been of so great consequence, surely one of them at least would not have failed to speak of it. The Jehovistic section of the Hexateuch is equally silent, so also the historical books, except Chronicles, and so the rest of the prophets, down to Jeremiah, who (vi.20) selects incense as the example of a rare and far-fetched offering: "To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the precious cane from a far country?" Thenceforward it is mentioned in Ezekiel, in Isaiah (xl.-lxvi.), in Nehemiah, and in Chronicles; the references are continuous. The introduction of incense is a natural result of increased luxury; one is tempted to conjecture that its use must have first crept into the Jehovah worship as an innovation from a more luxuriously-developed foreign cultus. But the importance which it has attained in the ritual legislation of the Pentateuch is manifest above all from this, that it has led to the invention of a peculiar new and highly sacred piece of furniture, namely, the golden altar in the inner tabernacle, which is unknown to history, and which is foreign even to the kernel of the Priestly Code itself. We expect to find the altar of incense in Exodus xxv.-xxix., but find it instead as an appendix at the beginning of Exodus xxx. Why not until now? why thus separated from the other furnishings of the inner sanctuary? and not only so, but even after the ordinances relating to the adornment of the priests, and the inauguration of the divine service? The reason why the author of chaps. xxv.-xxix. is thus silent about the altar of incense in the passage in which the furniture of the tabernacle, consisting of ark, table, and candlestick, is described, is, that he does not know of it. There is no other possibility; for he cannot have forgotten it. /1/ *************************************** 1. There is a peculiar perversity in meeting the objection by alleging other singularities in the ordinance as for example, that the vessels of the tabernacle are appointed (chap. xxv.) before the tabernacle itself (chap. xxvi.). This last is no eccentricity; the order in commanding is first the end, and then the means; but in obeying, the order is reversed. In like manner, it is not at all surprising if subsidiary implements, such as benches for slaughtering. or basins for washing, which have no importance for the cultus, properly so called, should be either passed over altogether, or merely brought in as an appendix. The case is not at all parallel with the omission of the most important utensil of the sanctuary from the very passage to which it necessarily belongs. ***************************************** And the phenomenon is repeated; the altar of incense occurs only in certain portions of the Priestly Code, and is absent from others where it could not possibly have been omitted, had it been known. The rite of the most solemn atoning sacrifice takes place in Leviticus iv. indeed on the golden altar, but in Exodus xxix., Leviticus viii., ix., without its use. A still more striking circumstance is, that in passages where the holiest incense-offering itself is spoken of, no trace can be discovered of the corresponding altar. This is particularly the case in Leviticus xvi. To burn incense in the sanctuary, Aaron takes a censer, fills it with coals from the altar of burnt-offering (ver. 12, 18-20), and lays the incense upon them in the adytum. Similarly in Leviticus x., Numbers xvi., xvii., incense is offered on censers, of which each priest possesses one. The coals are taken from the altar of burnt-offering (Numbers xvii. 11; [A.V. xvi. 46]), which is plated with the censers of the Korahite Levites (xvii. 3, 4; [A.V. xvi. 38, 39]); whoever takes fire from any other source, incurs the penalty of death (Leviticus x. 1 seq.). The altar of incense is everywhere unknown here; the altar of burnt-offering is the only altar, and, moreover, is always called simply 'the altar', as for example, even in Exodus xxvii., where it would have been specially necessary to add the qualifying expression. Only in certain later portions of the Priestly Code does the name altar of burnt-offering occur, viz, in those passages which do recognise the altar of incense. In this connection the command of Exodus xxvii. as compared with the execution in Exodus xxxviii. is characteristic. The golden altar in the sanctuary is originally simply the golden table; the variation of the expression has led to a doubling of the thing. Ezekiel does not distinguish between the table and the altar in the temple, but uses either expression indifferently. For he says (xii.21 seq. ): "Before the adytum stood what looked like an altar of wood, three cubits in height, two cubits in length and breadth, and it had projecting corners, and its frame and its walls were of wood; this is the table which is before the Lord." In like manner he designates the service of the priests in the inner sanctuary as table-service (xliv.16); table is the name, altar the function. /1/ **************************************** 1. Malachi, on the other hand, designates the so-called altar of burnt-offering as a table. **************************************** In 1Kings vii. 48, it is true that the golden altar and the golden table are mentioned together. It seems strange, however, that in this case the concluding summary mentions one piece of furniture more-- and that piece one of so great importance--than the preceding detailed description; for in the latter only the preparation of the golden altar is spoken of, and nothing is said of the golden table (vi. 20-22). As matters stand, nothing is less improbable than that some later transcriber should have interpolated the golden table in vii. 48, regarding it, in accordance with the Pentateuch, as distinct from the golden altar, and therefore considering its absence as an omission. From other considerations also, it is clear that the text of the whole chapter is in many ways corrupt and interpolated. It is not to be wondered at if in the post-exilian temple there existed both a golden altar and a golden table. We learn from 1Maccabees i. 21 seq., iv. 49, that both were carried off by Antiochus Epiphanes, and renewed at the Feast of the Dedication. But it causes no small surprise to find that at the destruction of Jerusalem the Romans found and carried off table and candlestick only. What can have become, in the meantime, of the golden altar of incense? And it is further worth remarking that in the LXX the passage Exodus xxxvii.25-29 is absent; that is to say, the altar of incense is indeed commanded, but there is no word of its execution. In these circumstances, finally, the vacillating statement as to its position in Exodus xxx. 6, and the supposed mistake of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, are important and intelligible. Compare also 2Maccabees ii.5, where only the table, but not the altar, is hidden by Jeremiah. So much for the offering of incense and its altar. We may in like manner venture to regard it as a kind of refinement, though rather a refinement of idea, that the flesh of the sacrifice in the Priestly Code is no longer boiled, but consigned to the altar flames in its raw condition. Such was not the ancient custom, as is seen, not only from the case of Gideon already cited (Judges vi.), but also from the procedure at Shiloh, described in 1Samuel ii., where the sons of Eli will not wait until the flesh of the sacrifice has been boiled, and the altar pieces burnt, but demand their share raw for roasting. The meal which the Deity shares with men is prepared in the same way as for men. This naive conception gave way before advancing culture, and that at a comparatively early date. It is possible that another cause may also have co-operated towards this result. The old method of preparing flesh in general use among the people, at a later period also, was by boiling. The word B#L (to seethe in water) occurs with extreme frequency; CLH (to roast), on the other hand, only in Exodus xii. 8, and Isaiah xliv. 16, 19. All sacrificial flesh (B#LH) was boiled, and there was no other kind. /1/ *********************************************** 1. Accordingly one must understand (#H also of boiling (Judges vi. 19). Compare the boiling-houses of the temple still found in Ezekiel xlvi. 20-24. In I Sam. i. 9 pronounce _beshela_ instead of _beshilo_, and delete W)XRY #TH. ********************************************** But among persons of the upper class roasting must also have come into use at an early period. "Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw," says the servant of the sons of Eli in 1Samuel ii. 15. The fact that in the interval the custom of boiling had gone generally somewhat out of fashion may accordingly have also contributed to bring about the abandonment of the old usage of offering the sacrificial portions boiled. In any case this is the explanation of the circumstance that the paschal lamb, which originally was boiled like all other offerings, could, according to the express appointment of the Priestly Code, be eaten roasted only. /2/ ********************************** 2. Compare the polemical ordinance of Exodus xii. 9 with Deuteronomy xvi. 7. ********************************* The phenomenon that in the Law meal is by preference offered raw, while in the earlier period, even as an adjunct of the burnt-offering, it was presented baked, belongs to the same category. The latter is the case in Judges vi. 19 at least, and the statement of 1Samuel i. 24 is also to be understood in the same sense; the sacrificer brings meal along with him in order to bake it into _maccah_ on the spot (Ezekiel xlvi. 20). But he may bring along with him common, that is leavened, cakes also (1Samuel x. 3), which seem originally by no means to have been considered unfit to be offered as in Leviticus ii. 11. For under this law of Leviticus ii. even the presentation of the shewbread would be inexplicable, and moreover it is certain that at first the loaves of the feast of weeks were offerings, properly so called, and not merely dues to the priests. According, to Amos iv. 5, leavened bread was made use of precisely at a particularly solemn sacrifice, and a reminiscence of this usage has been preserved even in Leviticus vii. 13, although of course without any practical weight being attached to it. /1/ *********************************************** 1. The loaves are passed over in silence in Leviticus vii. 29 seq., although it is in this very place that the matter of presenting on the part of the offerer is most fully described. And when it is said (vii. 12), "If he offer it for a thanksgiving (Todah), then he shall offer with it unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil and fine flour (LXX), mingled with oil ;" vii. 13, "[With] leavened cakes shall he offer as a gift with the thank-offering of the Todah," the suspicion very readily occurs that verse 12 is an authentic interpretation prefixed, to obviate beforehand the difficulty presented by verse 13, and that similarly the first (l in verse 13 is also a later correction, which does not harmonise well by any means with the second. Verse 13 connects itself better with verse 11 than with verse 12.--Exod xxxiv. 25. ********************************************* Moreover, massah also means, properly speaking, only the bread that is prepared in haste and in the most primitive manner for immediate use, and originally implies no contrast with leaven, but simply with the more artificial and tedious manners of producing ordinary bread /2/ ************************************* 2. Compare Genesis xviii. 6 with xix.3. ************************************* In the Priestly Code the materials are finer, but they are as much as possible left in their raw condition; both are steps in advance. II.II.3. There is another and much more important difference in the case of the animal sacrifice. Of this the older practice knows only two kinds apart from extraordinary varieties, which may be left out of account. These two are the burnt-offering (`Olah) and the thank-offering (Shelem, Zebah, Zebah Shelamim). In the case of the first the whole animal is offered on the altar; in the other God receives, besides the blood, only an honorary portion, while the rest of the flesh is eaten by the sacrificial guests. Now it is worth noticing how seldom the burnt-offering occurs alone. It is necessarily so in the case of human sacrifice (Genesis xxii. 2 seq.; Judges xi. 31; /1/ 2Kings iii. 27; Jeremiah xix.5); ********************************** 3. It is probable that Jephthah expected a human creature and not an animal to meet him from his house. ********************************* otherwise it is not usual (Genesis viii. 20; Numbers xxiii. 1 seq.; Judges vi. 20, 26, xiii. 16, 23; 1Samuel vii. 9 seq.; 1Kings iii. 4, xviii. 34,38); /1/ moreover, all the examples **************************************** 1. In the above list of passages no notice is taken of the _sacrificium juge_ of 2Kings xvi.15. The statement in 1Kings iii. 4 is perhaps to be taken along with iii. 15, but does not become at all more credible on that account. Of course it is understood that only those passages are cited here in which mention is made of offerings actually made, and not merely general statements about one or more kinds of offering. The latter could very well fix attention upon the `Olah alone without thereby throwing any light upon the question as to the actual practice. **************************************** just cited are extraordinary or mythical in their character, a circumstance that may not affect the evidence of the existence of the custom in itself, but is important as regards the statistics of its frequency. As a rule, the `Olah occurs only in conjunction with Zebahim, and when this is the case the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while on the other hand the first is frequently in the singular. /2/ ******************************************** 1. Exodus x. 25, xviii. 12, xxiv. 5, xxxii. 6; Joshua viii. 31; Judges xx. 26, xxi. 4; 1Samuel vi. 14 seq., x. 8, xiii. 9-12; 2Samuel vi. 17 seq., xxiv. 23-25, 1Kings iii. 15, viii. 63 seq.; 2Kings v. 17, x. 24, 25. The zeugma in Judges xx. 26, xxi.4 is inconsistent with the older _usus loquendi_. The proper name for the holocaust appears to be KLYL (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 10; 1Samuel vii.9) not (LH. It is impossible to decide whether the sacrificial due in all sorts of Zebah was the same, but most probably it was not. Probably the Shelamim are a more solemn kind of sacrifice than the simple Zebah. The word 'fat' is used in Genesis iv. 4; Exodus xxiii. 18 in a very general sense. It is not quite clear what is meant by the blessing of the Zebah in 1Samuel ix. 13; perhaps a kind of grace before meat. ******************************************** They supplement each other like two corresponding halves; the `Olah is, as the name implies, properly speaking, nothing more than the part of a great offering that reaches the altar. One might therefore designate as `Olah also that part of a single animal which is consecrated to the Deity; this, however, is never done; neither of the blood nor of the fat [Q+R] is the verb H(LH used, but only of the pieces of the flesh, of which in the case of the minor offering nothing was burnt. But the distinction is merely one of degree; there is none in kind; a small Zebah, enlarged and augmented, becomes an `Olah and Zebahim; out of a certain number of slaughtered animals which are eaten by the sacrificial company, one is devoted to God and wholly given to the flames. For the rest, it must be borne in mind that as a rule it is only great sacrificial feasts that the historical books take occasion to mention, and that consequently the burnt-offering, notwithstanding what has been said, comes before us with greater prominence than can have been the average case in ordinary life. Customarily, It is certain, none but thank-offerings were offered; necessarily so if slaughtering could only be done beside the altar. Where mention is made of a simple offering in the Books of Samuel and Kings, that it is a thank-offering is matter of course. 1Samuel ii. 12 seq. is in this connection also particularly instructive. From what has been said it results that according to the praxis of the older period a meal was almost always connected with a sacrifice. It was the rule that only blood and fat were laid upon the altar, but the people ate the flesh; only in the case of very great sacrificial feasts was a large animal (one or more) given to Jehovah. Where a sacrifice took place, there was also eating and drinking (Exodus xxxii. 6; Judges ix. 27; 2Samuel xv. 11 seq.; Amos ii. 7); there was no offering without a meal, and no meal without an offering (1Kings i. 9); at no important Bamah was entertainment wholly wanting, such a LESXH as that in which Samuel feasted Saul, or Jeremiah the Rechabites (1Samuel ix. 22; Jeremiah xxxv. 2). To be merry, to eat and drink before Jehovah, is a usual form of speech down to the period of Deuteronomy; even Ezekiel calls the cultus on the high places an eating upon the mountains (1Samuel ix. 13,19 seq ), and in Zechariah the pots in the temple have a special sanctity (Zech. xiv. 20). By means of the meal in presence of Jehovah is established a covenant fellowship on the one hand between Him and the guests, and on the other hand between the guests themselves reciprocally, which is essential for the idea of sacrifice and gives their name to the Shelamim (compare Exodus xviii. 12, xxiv. 11). In ordinary slaughterings this notion is not strongly present, but in solemn sacrifices it was in full vigour. It is God who invites, for the house is His; His also is the gift, which must be brought to Him entire by the offerer before the altar, and the greater portion of which He gives up to His guests only affer that. Thus in a certain sense they eat at God's table, and must accordingly propare or sanctify themselves for it. /1/ *************************************** 1. In order to appear before Jehovah the guest adorns himself with clothes and ornaments (Exodus iii. 22, xi. 2 seq.; Hosea ii. 15 [A.V. 13]; Ezekiel xvi. 13; compare Koran, Sur. xx. 61), sanctifies himself (Numbers xi. 18) and is sanctified (1Samuel xvi. 5; Exodus xix. 10, 14). The sacrificial meal is regarded as Kodesh (hallowed) for not only the priests, but all the sanctified persons eat Kodesh (1Samuel xxi. 5 seq. On what is meant by sanctification light is thrown by 1Samuel xxi. 5; 2Samuel xi. 2. Compare L) LPNW XNP YB) ( Job xiii. 16; Leviticus vii. 20; Matthew xxii. 11-13). Jehovah invites the armies of the nations to His sacrifice, for which He delivers over to them some other nation, and calls the Medes, to whom He gives Babylon over, His sanctified ones, that is, His guests (Zephaniah i. 7 seq.; Jeremiah xlvi. 10; Ezekiel xxxix 17; Isaiah xiii. 3). **************************************** Even on occasions that, to our way of thinking, seem highly unsuitable, the meal is nevertheless not wanting (Judges xx. 26, xxi. 4; 1Sam xiii. 9-12). That perfect propriety was not always observed might be taken for granted, and is proved by Isaiah xxviii. 8 even with regard to the temple of Jerusalem; "all tables are full of vomit, there is no room." Hence also Eli's suspicion regarding Hannah was a natural one, and by no means so startling as it appears. How different from this picture is that suggested by the Priestly Code! Here one no longer remarks that a meal accompanies every sacrifice; eating before Jehovah, which even in Deuteronomy is just the expression for sacrificing, nowhere occurs, or at all events is no act of divine worship. Slaying and sacrificing are no longer coincident, the thank-offering of which the breast and right shoulder are to be consecrated is something different from the old simple Zebah. But, precisely for this reason, it has lost its former broad significance. The _mizbeah_, that is, the place where the _zebahim_ are to be offered, has been transformed into a _mizbah ha-'olah_. The burnt-offering has become quite independent and comes everywhere into the foreground, the sacrifices which are unconnected with a meal altogether predominate,--so much that, as is well known, Theophrastus could declare there were no others among the Jews, who in this way were differentiated from all other nations. /1/ Where formerly a **************************************** 1. Porphyry, De Abstin. ii.26. Compare Joseph., Contra Apion, ii. 13: )OUTOI )EUXONTAI <?> UEIN (EKATOMBAS TOIS QEOIS KAI XRWNTAI TOIS (IEREIOIS PROS )EUWXIAN. ****************************************** thank-offering which was eaten before Jehovah, and which might with greater clearness be called a sacrificial meal, was prescribed, the Priestly Code, as we shall afterwards see, has made out of it simple dues to the priests, as, for example, in the case of the first-born and of firstlings. Only in this point it still bears involuntary testimony to the old custom by applying the names _Todah, Neder, and Nedabah_, of which the last two in particular must necessarily have a quite general meaning (Leviticus xxii. 18; Ezekiel xlvi. 12), exclusively to the thank-offering, while _Milluim_ and paschal sacrifice are merely subordinate varieties of it. II.II.4. What the thank-offering has lost, the sin and trespass offering have gained; the voluntary private offering which the sacrificer ate in a joyful company at the holy place has given way before the compulsory, of which he obtains no share, and from which the character of the sacred meal has been altogether taken away. The burnt-offering, it is true, still continues to be a meal, if only a one-sided one, of which God alone partakes; but in the case of the sin-offering everything is kept far out of sight which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of meal and wine, oil and salt; of the flesh no portion reaches the altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest. Now, of this kind of sacrifice, which has an enormous importance in the Priestly Code, not a single trace occurs in the rest of the Old Testament before Ezekiel, neither in the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, nor in the historical and prophetical books. /1/ ********************************************** 1. How great is the difference in Deuteronomy xxi. 1-9; how very remote the sacrificial idea! ********************************************* `Olah and Zebah comprehend all animal sacrifices, `Olah and Minhah, or Zebah and Minhah, all sacrifices whatsoever; nowhere is a special kind of sacrifice for atonement met with (1Samuel iii. 14). Hos. iv. 8 does indeed say: "They eat the sin of my people, and they are greedy for its guilts," but the interpretation which will have it that the priests are here reproached with in the first instance themselves inducing the people to falsification of the sacred dues, in order to make these up again with the produce of the sin and trespass offerings, is either too subtle or too dull. /2/ **************************************** 2. The sin and guilt are the sacrificial worship generally as carried on by the people (viii. 11; Amos iv. 4); in the entire section the prophet is preparing the way for the here sharply accentuated reproach against the priests that they neglect the Torah and encourage the popular propensity to superstitious and impure religious service. Besides, where is there any reproach at all, according to the Pentateuch, in the first section of iv. 8? And the second speaks of (WNM, not of )#MM. ******************************************* It would be less unreasonable to co-ordinate with the similarly named sin and trespass offering of the Pentateuch the five golden mice, and the five golden emerods with which the Philistines send back the ark, and which in 1Samuel vi. 3, 4, 8 are designated _asham_, or, still better, the sin and trespass monies which, according to 2Kings xii. 17 [A.V. 16], fell to the share of the Jerusalem priests. Only the fact is that even in the second passage the _asham_ and _hattath_ are no sacrifices, but, more exactly to render the original meaning of the words, mere fines, and in fact money fines. On the other hand, the _hattath_ referred to in Micah vi. 7 has nothing to do with a due of the priests, but simply denotes the guilt which eventually another takes upon himself. Even in Isaiah liii. 10, a passage which is certainly late, _asham_ must not be taken in the technical sense of the ritual legislation, but simply (as in Micah) in the sense of guilt, borne by the innocent for the guilty. For the explanation of this prophetic passage Gramberg has rightly had recourse to the narrative of 2Samuel xi. 1-14. "Upon Saul and upon his house lies blood-guiltiness, for having slain the Gibeonites" is announced to David as the cause of a three years' famine. When asked how it can be taken away, the Gibeonites answer, "It is not a matter of silver and gold to us with respect to Saul and his house; let seven men of his family be delivered to us that we may hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul upon the mountain of the Lord." This was done; all the seven were hanged. _A*sham_ and _hattath_ as offerings occur for the first time in Ezekiel, and appear, not long before his day to have come into the place of the earlier pecuniary fines (2Kings xii. 17 [16]), which perhaps already also admitted of being paid in kind; probably in the seventh century, which seems to have been very open to the mystery of atonement and bloodshedding, and very fertile in the introduction of new religious usages. /1/ ********************************************* 1. Consider for example the prevalence of child sacrifice precisely at this time, the introduction of incense, the new fashions which King Manasseh brought in, and of which certainly much survived that suited the temper of the period, and admitted of being conjoined with the worship of Jehovah, or even seemed to enhance its dignity and solemnity. ********************************************** The sin and trespass offerings of the Pentateuch still bear traces of their origin in fines and penalties; they are not gifts to God, they are not even symbolical, they are simply mulcts payable to the priests, partly of fixed commutation value (Leviticus v. 15). Apart from the mechanical burning of the fat they have in common with the sacrifice only the shedding of blood, originally a secondary matter, which has here become the chief thing. This circumstance is an additional proof of our thesis. The ritual of the simple offering has three acts: (1.) the presentation of the living animal before Jehovah, and the laying on of hands as a token of manumission on the part of the offerer; (2.) the slaughtering and the sprinkling of the blood on the altar; (3.) the real or seeming gift of the sacrificial portions to the Deity, and the meal of the human guests. In the case of the burnt-offering the meal in the third act disappears, and the slaughtering in the second comes into prominence as significant and sacred, inasmuch as (what is always expressly stated) it must take place in the presence of Jehovah, at the north side of the altar. In the case of the sin and trespass offering the third act is dropped entirely, and accordingly the whole significance of the rite attaches to the slaughtering, which of course also takes place before the altar, and to the sprinkling of the blood, which has become peculiarly developed here. It is obvious how the metamorphosis of the gift and the meal into a bloody atonement advances and reaches its acme in this last sacrificial act. This ritual seems to betray its novelty even within the Priestly Code itself by a certain vacillation. In the older corpus of law (Leviticus xvii.-xxvi.) which has been taken into that document, all sacrifices are still embraced under one or other of the two heads ZBX and (LH (xvii. 8, xxii. 18, 21); there are no others. The _asham_ indeed occurs in xix. 21 seq., but, as is recognised, only in a later addition; on the other hand,it is not demanded /1/ in xxii.14, ************************************ 1. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the _asham_ here, in the case of property unlawfully held, is simply the impost of a fifth part of the value, and not the sacrifice of a ram, which in Leviticus v. is required in addition. In Numbers v. also, precisely this fifth part is called _asham_. ************************************* where it must have been according to Leviticus v. and Numbers v. And even apart from Leviticus xvii.-xxvi there is on this point no sort of agreement between the kernel of the Priestly Code and the later additions, or "novels," so to speak. For one thing, there is a difference as to the ritual of the most solemn sin-offering between Exodus xxix., Leviticus ix. on the one hand, and Leviticus iv. on the other; and what is still more serious, the trespass-offering never occurs in the primary but only in the secondary passages, Leviticus iv.-vii., xiv.; Numbers v.7, 8, vi. 1, xviii. 9. In the latter, moreover, the distinction between _asham_ and _hattath_ is not very clear, but only the intention to make it, perhaps because in the old praxis there actually was a distinction between KSP XT)WT and KSP )#M, and in Ezekiel between X+)T and )#M. /2/ *************************************** 2. The three sections, Leviticus iv. 1-35 (hattath), v.1-13 (hattath-asham), and v. 14-26 (asham), are essentially not co-ordinate parts of one whole, but independent pieces proceeding from the same school. For v. 1-13 is no continuation of or appendix to iv. 27-35, but a quite independent treatment of the same material, with important differences of form. The place of the systematic generality of chap. iv. is here taken by the definite individual case, and what is analogous to it; the ritual is given with less minuteness, and the hierarchical subordination of ranks has no influence on the classification of offences. In this section also _asham_ and _hattath_ occur interchangeably as synonymous. In the third section a ram as an _asham_ is prescribed (v. 17-19) for the very case in which in the first a he-goat or a she-goat is required as _hattath_ (iv. 22, 27). The third section has indeed in form greater similarity to the second, but cannot be regarded as its true completion, for this simple reason, that the latter does not distiguish between _hattath_ and _asham_. If Leviticus v. 13-16, 20-26 be followed simply without regard being had to vers. 17-19, the _asham_ comes in only in the case of voluntary restitution of property illegally come by or detained, more particularly of the sacred dues. The goods must be restored to their owner augmented by a fifth part of their value; and as an _asham_ there must be added a ram, which falls to the sanctuary. In Num v. 5-10 the state of the case is indeed the same, but the language employed is different, for in this passage it is the restored property that is called _asham_, and the ram is called )YL HKPRYM. Comp. Leviticus xxii. 14. **************************************** II.III. The turning-point in the history of the sacrificial system was the reformation of Josiah; what we find in the Priestly Code is the matured result of that event. It is precisely in the distinctions that are characteristic of the sacrificial law as compared with the ancient sacrificial praxis that we have evidence of the fact that, if not all exactly occasioned by the centralisation of the worship, they were almost all somehow at least connected with that change. In the early days, worship arose out of the midst of ordinary life, and was in most intimate and manifold connection with it. A sacrifice was a meal, a fact showing how remote was the idea of antithesis between spiritual earnestness and secular joyousness. A meal unites a definite circle of guests, and in this way the sacrifice brought into connection the members of the family, the associates of the corporation, the soldiers of the army, and, generally speaking, the constituents of any permanent or temporary society. It is earthly relationships that receive their consecration thereby, and in correspondence are the natural festal occasions presented by the vicissitudes of life. Year after year the return of vintage, corn-harvest, and sheep-shearing brought together the members of the household to eat and to drink in the presence of Jehovah; and besides these there were less regularly recurring events which were celebrated in one circle after another. There was no warlike expedition which was not inaugurated in this fashion, no agreement that was not thus ratified, no important undertaking of any kind was gone about without a sacrifice! /1/ ****************************************** 1. Sacrifice is used as a pretext in 1Samuel xvi. 1 seq.; 1Kings i. 9 seq. Compare Proverbs vii. 14. ***************************************** When an honoured guest arrives, there is slaughtered for him a calf, not without an offering of the blood and fat to the Deity. The occasion arising out of daily life is thus inseparable from the holy action, and is what gives it meaning and character; an end corresponding to the situation always underlies it. Hence also prayer must not be wanting. The verb H(TYR, to "burn" (fat and _minha_), means simply to "pray," and conversely BQ# )T YHWH, "to seek Jehovah," in point of fact not unfrequently means to "sacrifice." The gift serves to reinforce the question or the request, and to express thankfulness; and the prayer is its interpretation. This of course is rather incidentally indicated than expressly said (Hos. v. 6; Isaiah i. 15; Jeremiah xiv. 12; 1Kings viii. 27 seq.; Proverbs xv. 8); we have a specimen of a grace for the offering of the festival gift only in Deuteronomy xxvi. 3 seq.; a blessing is pronounced when the slaughtering takes place (1Samuel ix. 13). The prayer of course is simply the expression of the feeling of the occasion, with which accordingly it varies in manifold ways. Arising out of the exigencies and directed to the objects of daily life, the sacrifices reflect in themselves a correspondingly rich variety. Our wedding, baptismal, and funeral feasts on the one hand, and our banquets for all sorts of occasions on the other, might still be adduced as the most obvious comparison, were it not that here too the divorce between sacred and secular destroys it. Religious worship was a natural thing in Hebrew antiquity; it was the blossom of life, the heights and depths of which it was its business to transfigure and glorify. The law which abolished all sacrificial seats, with a single exception, severed this connection. Deuteronomy indeed does not contemplate such a result. Here, in marked opposition to what we find in the Priestly Code, to eat and be merry before Jehovah is the standing phrase for sacrificing; the idea is that in concentrating all the worship towards Jerusalem, all that is effected is a mere change of place, the essence of the thing remaining unaltered. This, however, was a mistake. To celebrate the vintage festival among one's native hills, and to celebrate it at Jerusalem, were two very different things; it was not a matter of indifference whether one could seize on the spot any occasion that casually offered itself for a sacrificial meal, or whether it was necessary that one should first enter upon a journey. And it was not the same thing to appear by oneself at home before Jehovah and to lose oneself in a large congregation at the common seat of worship. Human life has its root in local environment, and so also had the ancient cultus; in being transplanted from its natural soil it was deprived of its natural nourishment. A separation between it and the daily life was inevitable, and Deuteronomy itself paved the way for this result by permitting profane slaughtering. A man lived in Hebron, but sacrificed in Jerusalem; life and worship fell apart. The consequences which lie dormant in the Deuteronomic law are fully developed in the Priestly Code. This is the reason why the sacrifice combined with a meal, formerly by far the chief, now falls completely into the background. One could eat flesh at home, but in Jerusalem one's business was to do worship. Accordingly, those sacrifices were preferred in which the religious character came to the front with the utmost possible purity and without any admixture of natural elements, sacrifices of which God received everything and man nothing,--burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and trespass-offerings. If formerly the sacrifice had taken its complexion from the quality of the occasion which led to it, it now had essentially but one uniform purpose--to be a medium of worship. The warm pulse of life no longer throbbed in it to animate it; it was no longer the blossom and the fruit of every branch of life; it had its own meaning all to itself. It symbolised worship, and that was enough. The soul was fled; the shell remained, upon the shaping out of which every energy was now concentrated. A manifoldness of rites took the place of individualising occasions; technique was the main thing, and strict fidelity to rubric. Once cultus was spontaneous, now it is a thing of statute. The satisfaction which it affords is, properly speaking, something which lies outside of itself and consists in the moral satisfaction arising out of the conscientiousness with which the ritual precepts, once for all enjoined by God on His people, are fulfilled. The freewill offering is not indeed forbidden, but value in the strict sense is attached only to those which have been prescribed, and which accordingly preponderate everywhere. And even in the case of the freewill offering, everything must strictly and accurately comply with the restrictions of the ordinance; if any one in the fulness of his heart had offered in a _zebah shelamim_ more pieces of flesh than the ritual enjoined, it would have been the worse for him. Of old the sacrifice combined with a meal had established a special relation between the Deity and a definite society of guests; the natural sacrificial society was the family or the clan (1Samuel i. 1seq., xvi. 1 seq., xx. 6). Now the smaller sacred fellowships get lost, the varied groups of social life disappear in the neutral shadow of the universal congregation or church [(DH, QHL]. The notion of this last is foreign to Hebrew antiquity, but runs through the Priestly Code from beginning to end. Like the worship itself, its subject also became abstract, a spiritual entity which could be kept together by no other means except worship. As now the participation of the "congregation of the children of Israel" in the sacrifice was of necessity always mainly ideal, the consequence was that the sacred action came to be regarded as essentially perfect by virtue of its own efficacy in being performed by the priest, even though no one was present. Hence later the necessity for a special sacrificial deputation, the _anshe ma'amad_. The connection of all this with the Judaising tendency to remove God to a distance from man, it may be added, is clear. /1/ ************************************* 1. It is not asserted that the cultus before the Iaw (of which the darker sides are known from Amos and Hosea) was better than the legal, but merely that it was more original; the standard of judgment being, not the moral element, but merely the idea, the primary meaning of worship. Nor is it disputed further that the belief in the dependence of sacrifices and other sacred acts upon a laboriously strict compliance with traditional and prescriptive rites occurs in the case of certain peoples, even in the remotest antiquity. But with the Israelites, judging by the testimony of the historical and prophetical books, this was not on the whole the case any more than with the ancient Greeks; there were no Brahmans or Magians in either case. Moreover, it must be carefully noted that not even in the Priestly Code do we yet find the same childish appreciation of the cultus as occurs in such a work as the Rigveda, and that the strict rules are not prescribed and maintained with any such notion in view as that by their observance alone can the taste of the Deity be pleased; the idea of God is here even strikingly remote from the anthropomorphic, and the whole cultus is nothing more than an exercise in piety which has simply been enjoined so once for all without any one being in any way the better for it. ****************************************** Two details still deserve special prominence here. In the Priestly Code the most important sacrifice is the burnt-offering; that is to say, in point of fact, the _tamid_, the _holocaustum juge_, consisting of two yearling lambs which are daily consumed upon the "altar of burnt-offering," one in the morning, another in the evening. The custom of daily offering a fixed sacrifice at a definite time existed indeed, in a simpler form, /2/ **************************************** 2. See Kuenen, Godsdietzst van Israel, ii. 271. According to 2Kings xvi. 15, an (LH in the morning and a MNXH in the evening were daily offered in the temple of Jerusalem, in the time of Ahaz. Ezekiel also (xlvi. 13-15) speaks only of the morning (LH. Compare also Ezra ix. 4; Nehemiah x. 33. In the Priestly Code the evening _minhah_ has risen to the dignity of a second _`olah_; but at the same time survives in the daily _minhah_ of the high priest, and is now offered in the morning also (Leviticus vi. 12-16). The daily _minhah_ appears to be older than the daily _`olah_. For while it was a natural thing to prepare a meal regularly for the Deity, the expense of a daily `olah was too great for an ordinary place of worship, and, besides, it was not in accordance with the custom of men to eat flesh every day. The offering of the daily _minhah_ is already employed in 1Kings xviii. 29, 36, as a mark of time to denote the afternoon, and this use is continued down to the latest period, while the tamid, ie., the `olah, is never so utilised. The oddest custom of all, however, was doubtless not the daily _minhah_, but the offering of the shewbread, which served the same purpose, but was not laid out fresh every day. ***************************************** even in the pre-exilian period, but alongside of it at that time, the freewill private offerings had a much more important place, and bulked much more largely. In the law the _tamid_ is in point of fact the fundamental element of the worship, for even the sacrifices of Sabbaths and feast days consist only of its numerical increase (compare Numbers xxviii., xxix.). Still later, when it is said in the Book of Daniel that the _tamid_ was done away, this is equivalent to saying that the worship was abolished (viii. 11-13, xi. 31, xii. 11). But now the dominant position of the daily, Sabbath day, and festival _tamid_ means that the sacrificial worship had assumed a perfectly firm shape, which was independent of every special motive and of all spontaneity; and further (what is closely connected with this), that it took place for the sake of the congregation,--the "congregation" in the technical sense attached to that word in the Law. Hence the necessity for the general temple-tax, the prototype of which is found in the poll-tax of half a shekel for the service of the tabernacle in Exodus xxx. 11 seq. Prior to the exile, the regular sacrifice was paid for by the Kings of Judah, and in Ezekiel the monarch still continues to defray the expenses not only of the Sabbath day and festival sacrifices (xiv. 17 seq.), but also of the _tamid_ (xlvi. 13-15). /1/ ************************************* 1. Compare LXX*. The Massoretic text has corrected the third person (referring to the princes) into the second, making it an address to the priests, which, however, is quite impossible in Ezekiel. ************************************* It is also a mark of the date that, according to Exodus xxx., the expenses of the temple worship are met directly out of the poll-tax levied from the community, which can only be explained by the fact that at that time there had ceased to be any sovereign. So completely was the sacrifice the affair of the community in Judaism that the voluntary _qorban_ of the individual became metamorphosed into a money payment as a contribution to the cost of the public worship (Mark vii., xii. 42 seq; Matthew xxvii. 6). The second point is this: Just as the special purposes and occasions of sacrifice fall out of sight, there comes into increasing prominence the one uniform and universal occasion--that of sin; and one uniform and universal purpose--that of propitiation. In the Priestly Code the peculiar mystery in the case of all animal sacrifices is atonement by blood; this appears in its purest development in the case of the sin and trespass offerings, which are offered as well for individuals as for the congregation and for its head. In a certain sense the great day of atonement is the culmination of the whole religious and sacrificial service, to which, amid all diversities of ritual, continuously underlying reference to sin is common throughout. Of this feature the ancient sacrifices present few traces. It was indeed sought at a very early period to influence the doubtful or threatening mood of Deity, and make His countenance gracious by means of rich gifts, but the gift had, as was natural then, the character of a tentative effort only (Micah vi. 6). There was no such thought as that a definite guilt must and could be taken away by means of a prescribed offering. When the law discriminates between such sins as are covered by an offering and such sins as relentlessly are visited with wrath, it makes a distinction very remote from the antique; to Hebrew antiquity the wrath of God was something quite incalculable, its causes were never known, much less was it possible to enumerate beforehand those sins which kindled it and those which did not. /1/ ********************************** 1. When the wrath is regulated by the conditions of the "covenant," the original notion (which scorns the thought of adjustment) is completely changed. What gave the thing its mysterious awfulness was precisely this: that in no way was it possible to guard against it, and that nothing could avail to counteract it. Under the pressure of Jehovah's wrath not only was sacrifice abandoned, but even the mention of His name was shunned so as to avoid attracting His attention (Hos iii. 4, ix. 4; Amos vi. 10). *********************************** An underlying reference of sacrifice to sin, speaking generally, was entirely absent. The ancient offerings were wholly of a joyous nature,--a merrymaking before Jehovah with music and song, timbrels, flutes, and stringed instruments (Hos. ix. 1 seq.; Amos v. 23, viii. 3; Isa xxx. 3). No greater contrast could be conceived than the monotonous seriousness of the so-called Mosaic worship. NOMOS <de> PAREISHLQEN (INA PLEONASH| TO PARAPTWMA ["But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied". Romans 5:20 NRSV)] In this way the spiritualisation of the worship is seen in the Priestly Code as advancing _pari passu_ with its centralisation. It receives, so to speak, an abstract religious character; it separates itself in the first instance from daily life, and then absorbs the latter by becoming, strictly speaking, its proper business. The consequences for the future were momentous. The Mosaic "congregation" is the mother of the Christian church; the Jews were the creators of that idea. We may compare the cultus in the olden time to the green tree which grows up out of the soil as it will and can; later it becomes the regularly shapen timber, ever more artificially shaped with square and compass. Obviously there is a close connection between the qualitative antithesis we have just been expounding and the formal one of law and custom from which we set out. Between "naturaliter ea quae legis sunt facere" ["do instinctively what the law requires" Romans 2:14 NRSV] and "secundum legem agere" there is indeed a more than external difference. If at the end of our first section we found improbable precisely in this region the independent co-existence of ancient praxis and Mosaic law, the improbability becomes still greater from the fact that the latter is filled with a quite different spirit, which can be apprehended only as Spirit of the age (Zeitgeist). It is not from the atmosphere of the old kingdom, but from that of the church of the second temple, that the Priestly Code draws its breath. It is in accordance with this that the sacrificial ordinances as regards their positive contents are no less completely ignored by antiquity than they are scrupulously followed by the post-exilian time. CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS. The feasts, strictly speaking, belong to the preceding chapter, for originally they were simply regularly recurring occasions for sacrifice. The results of the investigation there made accordingly repeat themselves here, but with such clearness and precision as make it worth while to give the subject a separate consideration. In the first place and chiefly, the history of the solar festivals, that of those festivals which follow the seasons of the year, claims our attention. III.I.1 In the Jehovistic and Deuteronomistic parts of the Pentateuch there predominates a rotation of three great festivals, which alone receive the proper designation of _hag_: "Three times in the year shalt thou keep festival unto me, three times in the year shall all thy men appear before the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel" (Exodus xxiii. 14, 17, xxxiv. 23; Deuteronomy xvi. 16). "The feast of unleavened bread (maccoth) shalt thou keep; seven days shalt thou eat _maccoth_ as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it thou camest out from Egypt; and none shall appear before me empty; and the feast of harvest (qasir), the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field; and the feast of ingathering (asiph), in the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field." So runs the command in the Book of the Covenant (Exodus xxiii. 15, 16). The Law of the Two Tables (Exodus xxxiv. 18 seq.) is similar: "The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out of Egypt. All that openeth the womb is mine; every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. The firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou redeem. And none shall appear before me empty. Six days shalt thou work; but on the seventh day shalt thou rest: even in ploughing time and in harvest shalt thou rest. And the feast of weeks (shabuoth) shalt thou observe, the feasts of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering (asiph) at the change of the year." Minuter, on the other hand, and of a somewhat different character, are the precepts laid down in Deuteronomy xvi.: "Take heed to the month Abib, and keep the passover unto Jehovah thy God, for in the month Abib did Jehovah thy God bring thee forth out of Egypt by night. Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto Jehovah thy God, of the flock or of the herd, in the place which Jehovah shall choose for the habitation of His name. Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread (maccoth) therewith, the bread of affliction, for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in anxious haste, that all the days of thy life thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt. There shall no leavened bread be seen with thee in all thy border seven days, and of the flesh which thou didst sacrifice on the first day, in the evening, nothing shall remain all night until the morning. Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, but at the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose for the habitation of His name, there shalt thou sacrifice the passover, in the evening, at the going down of the sun, at the time of thy coming forth out of Egypt. And thou shalt boil and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and in the morning shalt thou return to thy home. Six days shalt thou eat _maccoth_, and on the seventh day shall be the closing feast to Jehovah thy God; thou shalt do no work therein" (ver. 1-8). "Seven weeks thenceforward shalt thou number unto thee; from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn shalt thou begin to number seven weeks, and then thou shalt keep the feast of weeks (shabuoth) to Jehovah thy God, with a tribute of freewill offerings in thy hand, which thou shalt give, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. And thou shalt rejoice before Jehovah thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-senant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow that are among you in the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose for the habitation of His name. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and thou shalt observe and do these statutes" (ver. 9-12). "The feast of tabernacles (sukkoth) thou shalt observe seven days after thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine; and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast,--thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow that are within thy gates. Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto Jehovah thy God in the place which Jehovah shall choose, because Jehovah thy God cloth bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thy hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. Three times in a year shall all thy men appear before Jehovah thy God in the place which He shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, of weeks, and of tabernacles (hag ha-maccoth,-- shabuoth,--sukkoth), and they shall not appear before me empty; every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of Jehovah thy God, which He hath given thee" (ver. 13-17). As regards the essential nature of the two last-named feasts, these passages are at one. The _sukkoth_ of Deuteronomy and the _asiph_ of the Jehovistic legislation do not coincide in time merely, but are in fact one and the same feast, the autumnal ingathering of the wine and of the oil from the vat and press, and of the corn from the threshing-floor. The name _asiph_ refers immediately to the vintage and olive-gathering, to which the word _sukkoth_ seems also to relate, being most easily explained from the custom of the whole household, old and young, going out to the vineyard in time of harvest, and there camping out in the open air under the improvised shelter of booths made with branches (Isaiah i. 8). _Qacir_ and _shabuoth_ in like manner are only different names for the same reality, namely, for the feast of the corn-reaping, or, more strictly, the wheat-reaping, which takes place in the beginning of summer. Thus both festivals have a purely natural occasion. On the other hand, the spring festival, which always opens the series, has a historical motive assigned to it, the exodus--most expressly in Deuteronomy--being given as the event on which it rests. The cycle nevertheless seems to presuppose and to require the original homogeneity of all its members. Now the twofold ritual of the _pesah_ and the maccoth points to a twofold character of the feast. The _hag_, properly so named, is called not _hag ha-pesah_, /1/ but hag ha-maccoth, ******************************** 1. The original form of the expression of Exodus xxxiv. 25 has been preserved in Exodus xxiii. 18 (XGGY not XG HPSX). In Deuteronomy, although PSX is more prominent, it is called XG HMCWT in xvi. 16. ******************************** and it is only the latter that is co-ordinated with the other two _haggim_; the name _pesah_ indeed does not occur at all until Deuteronomy, although in the law of the two tables the sacrifice of the first-born seems to be brought into connection with the feast of unleavened bread. It follows that only the _maccoth_ can be taken into account for purposes of comparison with _qasir_ and _asiph_. As to the proper significance of _maccoth_, the Jehovistic legislation does not find it needful to instruct its contemporaries, but it is incidentally disclosed in Deuteronomy. There the festival of harvest is brought into a definite relation in point of time with that of _maccoth_; it is to be celebrated seven weeks later. This is no new ordinance, but one that rests upon old custom, for the name, "feast of weeks," occurs in a passage so early as Exodus xxxiv. (comp Jeremiah v. 24). Now "seven weeks after Easter " (Deuteronomy xvi. 9) is further explained with greater elaborateness as meaning seven weeks after the putting of the sickle to the corn. Thus the festival of _maccoth_ is equivalent to that of the putting of the sickle to the corn, and thereby light is thrown on its fixed relation to Pentecost. Pentecost celebrates the close of the reaping, which commences with barley harvest, and ends with that of wheat; Easter its beginning in the "month of corn ears;" and between the two extends the duration of harvest time, computed at seven weeks. The whole of this _tempus classicum_ is a great festal season rounded off by the two festivals. We gain further light from Leviticus xxiii. 9-22. /1/ ****************************************** 1. Against this there is of course possible the objection that the passage at present forms part of the Priestly Code. But the collection of laws embraced in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi, it is well known, has merely been redacted and incorporated by the author of the Priestly Code, and originally was an independent corpus marking the transition from Deuteronomy to the Priestly Code, sometimes approximating more to the one, and at other times to the other, and the use of Leviticus xxiii. 9-22 in this connection is completely justified by the consideration that only in this way do the rites it describes find meaning and vitality. ******************************************* The Easter point is here, as in Deuteronomy, fixed as being the beginning of harvest, but is still more definitely determined as the day after the first Sabbath falling within harvest time, and Pentecost follows the same reckoning. And the special Easter ritual consists in the offering of a barley sheaf; before this it is not lawful to taste of the new crop; and the corresponding Pentecostal rite is the offering of ordinary wheaten loaves. The corn harvest begins with barley and ends with wheat; at the beginning the first-fruits are presented in their crude state as a sheaf, just as men in like manner partake of the new growth in the form of parched ears (Leviticus xxiii. 14; Josh. v. 11); at the end they are prepared in the form of common bread. Thus the _maccoth_ now begin to be intelligible. As has been already said (see p. 69), they are not, strictly speaking, duly prepared loaves, but the bread that is hurriedly baked to meet a pressing emergency (1Sam. xxviii. 24); thus they are quite correctly associated with the haste of the exodus, and described as bread of affliction. At first people do not take time in a leisurely way to leaven, knead, and bake the year's new bread, but a hasty cake is prepared in the ashes; this is what is meant by maccoth. They are contrasted with the Pentecostal loaves precisely as are the sheaf and the parched ears, which last, according to Josh. v. 11, may be eaten in their stead, and without a doubt they were originally not the Easter food of men merely, but also of the Deity, so that the sheaf comes under the category of the later spiritual refinements of sacrificial material. Easter then is the opening, as Pentecost is the closing festivity, or (what means the same thing) `acereth, /1/ of the seven ******************************************* 1. Haneberg, Alterhuemer, 2d edit., p. 656. In Deuteronomy Pentecost as _`acereth_ lasts for only one day, while Easter and the feast of tabernacles each ]ast a week. ******************************************* weeks' "joy of harvest," and the spring festival no longer puzzles us by the place it holds in the cycle of the three yearly festivities. But what is the state of the case as regards the _pesah_? The meaning of the name is not clear; as we have seen, the word first occurs in Deuteronomy, and there also the time of the celebration is restricted to the evening and night of the first day of _maccoth_, from sunset until the following morning. In point of fact, the _pesah_ points back to the sacrifice of the firstlings (Exodus xxxiv. 18 seq., xiii. 12 seq.; Deuteronomy xv. 19 seq., xvi. 1 seq.), and it is principally upon this that the historical character of the whole festivity hinges. It is because Jehovah smote the first-born of Egypt and spared those of Israel that the latter thenceforward are held sacred to Him. Such is the representation given not merely in the Priestly Code but also in Exodus xiii. 11 seq. But in neither of its sources does the Jehovistic tradition know anything of this. "Let my people go, that they may keep a feast unto me in the wilderness with sacrifices and cattle and sheep: "this from the first is the demand made upon Pharaoh, and it is in order to be suitably adorned for this purpose, contemplated by them from the first, that the departing Israelites borrow festal robes and ornaments from the Egyptians. Because Pharaoh refuses to allow the Hebrews to offer to their God the firstlings of cattle that are His due, Jebovah seizes from him the first-born of men. Thus the exodus is not the occasion of the festival, but the festival the occasion, if only a pretended one, of the exodus. If this relationship is inverted in Exodus xiii, it is because that passage is not one of the sources of the Jehovistic tradition, but is part of the redaction, and in fact (as is plain from other reasons with regard to the entire section xiii. 1-16) of a Deuteronomic redaction. From this it follows that the elaboration of the historical motive of the passover is not earlier than Deuteronomy, although perhaps a certain inclination to that way of explaining it appears before then, just as in the case of the _maccoth_ (Exodus xii. 34). What has led to it is evidently the coincidence of the spring festival with the exodus, already accepted by the older tradition, the relation of cause and effect having become inverted in course of time. The only view sanctioned by the nature of the case is that the Israelite custom of offering the firstlings gave rise to the narrative of the slaying of the first-born of Egypt; unless the custom be pre-supposed the story is inexplicable, and the peculiar selection of its victims by the plague is left without a motive. The sacrifice of the first-born, of the male first-born, that is to say--for the females were reared as with us--does not require an historical explanation, but can be accounted for very simply: it is the expression of thankfulness to the Deity for fruitful flocks and herds. If claim is also laid to the human first-born, this is merely a later generalisation which after all resolves itself merely into a substitution of an animal offering and an extension of the original sacrifice. In Exodus xx. 28, 29 and xxxiv. 19 this consequence does not yet seem to be deduced or even to be suspected as possible; it first appears in xxxiv. 20 and presents itself most distinctly in the latest passage (xiii. 12), for there P+R RXM is contrasted with P+R #GR, and for the first the expression H(BYR, a technical one in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel for child sacrifice, is used. The view of some scholars (most of them mere casual visitors in the field of Old Testament research) that the slaying of the first-born male children was originally precisely the main feature of the passover, hardly deserves refutation. Like the other festivals, this also, apart from the view taken of it in the Priestly Code, has a thoroughly joyous character (Exodus x. 9); Deuteronomy xvi. 7; comp. Isaiah xxx. 29). There are some historical instances indeed of the surrender of an only child or of the dearest one, but always as a voluntary and quite exceptional act; the contrary is not proved by Hosea xiii. 2. /1/ The offering of ******************************************* 1. "They make them molten images of their silver, idols according to their fancy. To them they speak, men doing sacrifice kiss calves!" The prophet would hardly blame human sacrifices only thus incidentally, more in ridicule than in high moral indignation; he would bring it to prominence the horrible and revolting character of the action much more than its absurdity. Thus ZBXY )DM means most probably, "offerers belonging to the human race." At the same time, even if the expression did mean "sacrificers of men," it would prove nothing regarding regular sacrifices of children. ******************************************** human first-born was certainly no regular or commanded exaction in ancient times; there are no traces of so enormous a blood tax, but, on the contrary, many of a great preference for eldest sons. It was not until shortly before the exile that the burning of children was introduced on a grand scale along with many other innovations, and supported by a strict interpretation of the command regarding firstlings (Jeremiah vii. 31, xix. 5; Ezekiel xx. 26). In harmony with this is the fact that the law of Exodus xiii. 3-16 comes from the hand of the latest redactor of the Jehovistic history. III.I.2. "Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a husbandman. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord; and Abel also brought an offering of the firstlings of his sheep." It is out of the simplest, most natural, and most wide-spread offerings, those of the first-fruits of the flock, herd, and field, the occasions for which recur regularly with the seasons of the year, that the annual festivals took their rise. The passover corresponds with the firstlings of Abel the shepherd, the other three with the fruits presented by Cain the husbandman; apart from this difference, in essence and foundation they are all precisely alike. Their connection with the _aparchai_ of the *[first-fruits; firstlings for sacrifice or offering]* yearly seasons is indeed assumed rather than expressly stated in the Jehovistic and Deuteronomistic legislation. Yet in Exodus xxiii. 17-19, xxxiv. 23-26 we read: "Three times in the year shall all thy men appear before the Lord Jehovah; thou shalt not mingle the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning. The best of the first-fruits of thy land shalt thou bring into the house of Jehovah thy God; thou shalt not seethe the kid in the milk of its mother." It is forbidden to appear before Jehovah empty, hence the connection between the first general sentence and the details which follow it. Of these, the first seems to relate to the passover; doubtless indeed it holds good of all animal sacrifices, but in point of fact these are offered in preponderating numbers at the great festival after the herds and flocks have produced their young. The remaining sentences relate to the feasts of harvest and ingathering, whose connection with the fruits of the field is otherwise clear. As for Deuteronomy, there also it is required on the one hand that the dues from the flock and herd and field shall be personally offered at Jerusalem, and made the occasion of joyous sacrificial feasts; on the other hand, that three appearances in the year shall be made at Jerusalem, at Easter, at Pentecost, and at the feast of tabernacles, and not with empty hands. These requirements can only be explained on the assumption that the material of the feasts was that furnished by the dues. Clearly in Deuteronomy all three coincide; sacrifices, dues, feasts; other sacrifices than those occasioned by the dues can hardly be thought of for the purpose of holding a joyous festival before Jehovah; the dues are, properly speaking, simply those sacrifices prescribed by popular custom, and therefore fixed and festal, of which alone the law has occasion to treat. /1/ ***************************************** 1. Deuteronomy xii. 6 seq., 11 seq., xiv. 23-26, xvi. 7, 11, 14. In the section xiv. 22-xvi. 17, dues and feasts are taken together. In the first half (xiv. 22-xv. 18) there is a progression from those acts which are repeated within the course of a year to those which occur every three years, and finally to those which occur every seven; in the second half (xv. 19-xvi. 17) recurrence is again made to the principal, that is, the seasonal dues, first to the firstlings and the passover feast, and afterwards to the two others, in connection with which the tithes of the fruits are offered. **************************************** It results from the very nature of the case that the people come together to offer thanks for Jehovah's blessing, but no special emphasis is laid upon this. In the Jehovistic legislation (Exodus xxiii., xxxiv.) the terms have not yet come to be fixed, so that it is hardly possible to speak of a "dies festus" in the strict sense; festal seasons rather than festal days are what we have. Easter is celebrated in the month Abib, when the corn is in the ear (Exodus ix. 31, 32), Pentecost when the wheat is cut, the autumn festival when the vintage has been completed,--rather vague and shifting determinations. Deuteronomy advances a step towards fixing the terms and intervals more accurately, a circumstance very intimately connected with the centralisation of the worship in Jerusalem. Even here, however, we do not meet with one general festive offering on the part of the community, but only with isolated private offerings by individuals. In correspondence with this the amount of the gifts is left with considerable vagueness to the good-will of the offerers. Only the firstlings are definitely demanded. The redemption allowed in Deuteronomy by means of money which buys a substitute in Jerusalem has no proper meaning for the earlier time; yet even then the offerer may in individual instances have availed himself of liberty of exchange, all the more because even then his gift, as a sacrificial meal, was essentially a benefit to himself (Exodus xxiii. 18; Genesis iv. 4, WMXBL<Y>HN). For the first-fruits of the field Exodus prescribes no measure at all, Deuteromony demands the tithe of corn, wine, and oil, which, however, is not to be understood with mathematical strictness, inasmuch as it is used at sacrificial meals, is not made over to a second party, and thus does not require to be accounted for. The tithe, as appears from Deuteronomy xxvi., is offered in autumn, that is, at the feast of tabernacles; this is the proper autumn festival of thanksgiving, not only for the wine harvest, but also for that of the threshing-floor (xvi. 13); it demands seven days, which must all be spent in Jerusalem, while in the case of maccoth only one need be spent there. It is self-evident that there is no restriction to the use of vegetable gifts merely, but sacrifices of flesh are also assumed--purchased perhaps with the proceeds of the sale of the tithe. In this way the special character of the feasts, and their connection with the first-fruits peculiar to them, could easily disappear, a thing which seems actually to have occurred in Deuteronomy, and perhaps even earlier. It is not to be wondered at that much should seem unclear to us which must have been obvious to contemporaries; in Deuteronomy, moreover, almost everything is left to standing custom, and only the one main point insisted on, that the religious worship, and thus also the festivals, must be celebrated only in Jerusalem. Leaving out of account the passover, which originally had an independent standing, and only afterwards through its connection with maccoth was taken into the regular cycle of the _haggim_, it cannot be doubted, generally speaking and on the whole, that not only in the Jehovistic but also in the Deuteronomic legislation the festivals rest upon agriculture, the basis at once of life and of religion. The soil, the fruitful soil, is the object of religion; it takes the place alike of heaven and of hell. Jehovah gives the land and its produce; He receives the best of what it yields as an expression of thankfulness, the tithes in recognition of His seigniorial right. The relation between Himself and His people first arose from His having given them the land in fee; it continues to be maintained, inasmuch as good weather and fertility come from Him. It is in Deuteronomy that one detects the first very perceptible traces of a historical dress being given to the religion and the worship, but this process is still confined within modest limits. The historical event to which recurrence is always made is the bringing up of Israel out of Egypt, and this is significant in so far as the bringing up out of Egypt coincides with the leading into Canaan, that is, with the giving of the land, so that the historical motive again resolves itself into the natural. In this way it can be said that not merely the Easter festival but all festivals are dependent upon the introduction of Israel into Canaan, and this is what we actually find very clearly in the prayer (Deuteronomy xxvi.) with which at the feast of tabernacles the share of the festal gifts falling to the priest is offered to the Deity. A basket containing fruits is laid upon the altar, and the following words are spoken: "A wandering Aramaean was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, a few men strong, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians evil-entreated them and oppressed them, and laid upon them hard bondage. Then called we upon ]ehovah the God of our fathers, and He heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labour and our oppression. And Jehovah brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs and with wonders, _and brought us unto this place, and gave us this land, a land where milk and honey flow!. And now, behold, I have brought the best of the fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me._" Observe here how the act of salvation whereby Israel was founded issues in the gift of a fruitful land. III.II. With this account of the Jehovistic-Deuteronomistic legislation harmonises the pre-exilic practice so far as that can be traced or is borne witness to in the historical and prophetical books. Ancient festivals in Israel must have had the pastoral life as their basis; only the passover therefore can be regarded as belonging, to the number of these. /1/ It is ********************************************* 1. The ancient Arabs also observed the sacrifice of the firstlings as a solemnity in the sacred month Rajab, which originally fell in spring (comp. Ewald, Ztschr. f.d. Kunde des Morgenlandes, 1840, p. 419; Robertson Smith, Prophets, p. 383 sq). A festivity mentioned among the earliest, and that for pastoral Judah, is the sheep-shearing (1Samuel xxv. 2 seq.; Genesis xxxviii. 12); but it does not appear to have ever developed into a regular and independent festival. _Aparchai_ of wool and flax are mentioned in Hosea (ii. 7, 11 [A.V. 5, 9]) as of wool alone in Deuteronomy (xviii. 4). ********************************************* with perfect accuracy accordingly that precisely the passover is postulated as having been the occasion of the exodus, as being a sacrificial feast that has to be celebrated in the wilderness and has nothing to do with agriculture or harvest. But it is curious to notice how little prominence is afterwards given to this festival, which from the nature of the case is the oldest of all. It cannot have been known at all to the Book of the Covenant, for there (Exodus xxii. 29, 30) the command is to leave the firstling seven days with its dam and on the eighth day to give it to Jehovah. Probably through the predominance gained by agriculture and the feasts founded on it the passover fell into disuse in many parts of Israel, and kept its ground only in districts where the pastoral and wilderness life still retained its importance. This would also explain why the passover first comes clearly into light when Judah alone survives after the fall of Samaria. In 2Kings xxiii. 21 seq. we are told that in the eighteenth year of King Josiah the passover was held according to the precept of the law (Deut xvi.), and that for the first time,--never until then from the days of the Judges had it been so observed. If in this passage the novelty of the institution is so strongly insisted on, the reference is less to the essence of the thing than to the manner of celebration as enjoined in Deuteronomy. Agriculture was learned by the Hebrews from the Canaanites in whose land they settled, and in commingling with whom they, during the period of the Judges, made the transition to a sedentary life. Before the metamorphosis of shepherds into peasants was effected, they could not possibly have had feasts which related to agriculture. It would have been very strange if they had not taken them also over from the Canaanites. The latter owed the land and its fruits to Baal, and for this they paid him the due tribute; the Israelites stood in the same relation to Jehovah. Materially and in itself, the act was neither heathenish nor Israelite; its character either way was determined by its destination. There was, therefore, nothing against a transference of the feasts from Baal to Jehovah; on the contrary, the transference was a profession of faith that the land and its produce, and thus all that lay at the foundations of the national existence, were due not to the heathen deity but to the God of Israel. The earliest testimony is that which we have to the existence of the vintage festival in autumn,--in the first instance as a custom of the Canaanite population of Shechem. In the old and instructive story of Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal we are told (Judges ix. 27) of the citizens of Shechem that "they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grapes, and celebrated _hillulim_, and went into the house of their god, and ate and drank, and cursed Abimelech." But this festival must also have taken root among the Israelites at a tolerably early period. According to Judges xxi. 19 seq. there was observed yearly at Shiloh in the vineyards a feast to Jehovah, at which the maidens went out to dance. Even if the narrative of Judges xix. seq. be as a whole untrustworthy as history, this does not apply to the casual trait just mentioned, especially as it is confirmed by 1Samuel i. In this last-cited passage a feast at Shiloh is also spoken of, as occurring at the end of the year, that is, in autumn at the time of the _asiph_, /1/ and as being an attraction to pilgrims ********************************************* 1. LTQPT HYMYM (i.e., at the new year) 1Samuel i. 20; Exodus xxxiv. 22. In this sense is also to be understood MYMYM YMYMH Judges xxi. 19, 1Samuel i. 3. Comp. Zechariah xiv. 16. ********************************************** from the neighbourhood. Obviously the feast does not occur in all places at once, but at certain definite places (in Ephraim) which then influence the surrounding district. The thing is connected with the origin of larger sanctuaries towards the end of the period of the Judges, or, more properly speaking, with their being taken over from the previous inhabitants; thus, for example, on Shechem becoming an Israelite town the _hillulim_ were no more abolished than was the sanctuary itself. Over and above this the erection of great royal temples must have exerted an important influence. Alike at Jerusalem and at Bethel "the feast" was celebrated from the days of Solomon and Jeroboam just as previously at Shechem and Shiloh, in the former place in September, in the latter perhaps somewhat later. /2/ ******************************************** 2. 1Kings xii. 32 is, it must be owned, far from trustworthy. 1Kings viii. 2 is difficult to harmonise with vi. 38, if the interpretation of Bul and Ethanim is correct. ******************************************** This was at that period the sole actual _panegyris_. [national festivall The feasts at the beginning of summer may indeed also have been observed at this early period (Isa ix. 2), but in smaller local circles. This distinction is still discernible in Deuteronomy, for although in that book the feast of tabernacles is not theoretically higher than the others, in point of fact it alone is observed from beginning to end at the central sanctuary, while Easter, on the other hand, is for the most part kept at home, being only during the first day observed at Jerusalem; moreover, the smaller demand is much more emphatically insisted on than the larger, so that the first seems to have been an innovation, the latter to have had the sanction of older custom. Amos and Hosea, presupposing as they do a splendid cultus and great sanctuaries, doubtless also knew of a variety of festivals, but they have no occasion to mention any one by name. More definite notices occur in Isaiah. The threatening that within a year's time the Assyrians will be in the land is thus (xxix. 1) given: "Add ye year to year, let the feasts come round, yet I will distress Jerusalem," and at the close of the same discourse the prophet expresses himself as follows (xxxii. 9 seq.): "Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Days upon a year shall ye be troubled, ye careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come. Ye shall smite upon the breasts, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine." When the two passages are taken together we gather that Isaiah, following the universal custom of the prophets in coming forward at great popular gatherings, is here speaking at the time of the autumn festival, in which the women also took an active part (Judges xxi. 19 seq.). But this autumn festival, the joyous and natural character of which is unmistakably revealed, takes place with him at the change of the year, as may be inferred from a comparison between the YNQPW of xxix. I, and the TQPT of Exodus xxxiv. 22, 1Samuel i. 20, and closes a cycle of festivals here for the first time indicated. 2. The preceding survey, it must be admitted, scarcely seems fully to establish the alleged agreement between the Jehovistic law and the older praxis. Names are nowhere to be found, and in point of fact it is only the autumn festival that is well attested, and this, it would appear, as the only festival, as THE feast. And doubtless it was also the oldest and most important of the harvest festivals, as it never ceased to be the concluding solemnity of the year. What has been prosperously brought to close is what people celebrate most rightly; the conclusion of the ingathering, both of the threshing and of the vintage, is the most appropriate of all occasions for a great joint festival,--for this additional reason, that the term is fixed, not, as in the case of the joy of reaping, by nature alone, but is in man's hands and can be regulated by him. Yet even under the older monarchy the previous festivals must also have already existed as well (Isaiah xxix. 1). The peculiarity of the feast of tabernacles would then reduce itself to this, that it was the only general festival at Jerusalem and Bethel; local celebrations "at all threshing floors "--i.e., on all high places--are not thereby excluded (Host ix. 1). But the Jehovistic legislation makes no distinction of local and central, for it ignores the great temples throughout. /1/ Possibly, ************************************** 1. Exodus xx. 24-26 looks almost like a protest against the arrangements of the temple of Solomon,--especially ver. 26. ************************************** also, it to some extent systematises the hitherto somewhat vaguer custom; the transition from the _aparchai_ to a feast was perhaps in practice still somewhat incomplete. In the paucity of positive data one is justified, however, in speaking of a substantial agreement, inasmuch as in the two cases the idea of the festivals is the same. Very instructive in this respect are two sections of Hosea (chaps. ii. and ix.), which on this account deserve to be fully gone into. In the first of these Israel is figured as a woman who receives her maintenance from her husband, that is, from the Deity; this is the basis of the covenant relationship. But she falls into error as to the giver of her meat and drink and clothing, supposing them to come from the idols, and not from Jehovah. "She hath said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. Doth she then not know that it is I (Jehovah) who have given her the corn and the wine and the oil, and silver in abundance, and gold--out of which she maketh false gods? Therefore will I take back again my corn in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax that should cover her nakedness; and now will I discover her shame before the eyes of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand. And I will bring all her mirth to an end, her festival days, her new moons and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees whereof she saith, 'They are my hire, that my lovers have given me,' and I will make them a wilderness, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. Thus will I visit upon her the days of the false gods, wherein she burnt fat offerings to them and decked herself with her rings and her jewels, and went after her lovers and forget me, saith the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and there I will assign her her vineyards: then shall she be docile as in her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. Thereafter I betroth thee unto me anew for ever, in righteousness and in judgment, in loving kindness and in mercies. In that day, saith the Lord, will I answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the corn and the wine and the oil, and these shall answer Jezreel" (ii. 7-24 [5-22]). The blessing of the land is here the end of religion, and that quite generally,--alike of the false heathenish and of the true Israelitish. /1/ ********************************************* 1. Comp. Zech. xiv. 16 seq. All that are left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship Jehovah of hosts and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And whoso of the families of the earth shall not come up unto Jerusalem to worship Jehovah of hosts, UPON THEM SHALL BE NO RAIN,. But for the Egyptians--who on account of the Nile are independent of rain--another punishment is threatened if they do not come to keep the feast of tabernacles. ********************************************** It has for its basis no historical acts of salvation, but nature simply, which, however, is regarded only as God's domain and as man's field of labour, and is in no manner itself deified. The land is Jehovah's house (viii. 1, ix. 15), wherein He lodges and entertains the nation; in the land and through the land it is that Israel first becomes the people of Jehovah, just as a marriage is constituted by the wife's reception into the house of the husband, and her maintenance there. And as divorce consists in the wife's dismissal from the house, so is Jehovah's relation to His people dissolved by His making the land into a wilderness, or as in the last resort by His actually driving them forth into the wilderness; He restores it again by "sowing the nation into the land" anew, causing the heavens to give rain and the earth to bear, and thereby bringing into honour the name of "God sown" for Israel (ii. 25 [23]). In accordance with this' worship consists simply of the thanksgiving due for the gifts of the soil, the vassalage payable to the superior who has given the land and its fruits. It _ipso facto_ ceases when the corn and wine cease; in the wilderness it cannot be thought of, for if God bestows nothing then man cannot rejoice, and religious worship is simply rejoicing over blessings bestowed. It has, therefore, invariably and throughout the character given in the Jehovistic legislation to the feasts, in which also, according to Hosea's description, it culminates and is brought to a focus. For the days of the false gods, on which people adorned themselves and sacrificed, are just the feasts, and in fact the feasts of Jehovah, whom however the people worshipped by images, which the prophet regards as absolutely heathenish. Equally instructive is the second passage (ix. 1-6). "Rejoice not too loudly, O Israel, like the heathen, that thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, and lovest the harlot's hire upon every threshing-floor. The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them. They shall not dwell in Jehovah's land; Ephraim must return to Egypt, and eat what is unclean in Assyria. Then shall they no more pour out wine to Jehovah, or set in order sacrifices to Him; like bread of mourners is their bread, /1/ all that eat thereof become unclean, for ************************************** 1. For Y(RBW (ix. 4) read Y(RKW, and LXMM for LXM. See Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions (1882), p. 312 seq. ************************************** their bread shall only be for their hunger, it shall not come into the house of the Lord. What will ye do in the day of festival and in the day of the feast of the Lord? For lo, after they have gone away from among the ruins, Egypt shall keep hold of them, Memphis shall bury them; their pleasant things of silver shall nettles possess, the thornbush shall be in their tents." It need not surprise us that here again the prophet places the worship which in intention is obviously meant for Jehovah on the same footing with the heathen worship which actually has little to distinguish it externally therefrom, being constrained to regard the "pleasant things of silver" in the tents in the high places not as symbols of Jehovah, but as idols, and their worship as whoredom. Enough that once more we have a clear view of the character of the popular worship in Israel at that period. Threshing-floor and wine-press, corn and wine, are its motives,--vociferous joy, merry shoutings, its expression. All the pleasure of life is concentrated in the house of Jehovah at the joyous banquets held to celebrate the coming of the gifts of His mild beneficence; no more dreadful thought than that a man must eat his bread like unclean food, like bread of mourners, without having offered the _aparchai_ at the festival. /2/ It is this *********************************************** 2. Times of mourning are, so to speak, times of interdict, during which intercourse between God and man is suspended. Further, nothing at all was ever eaten except that of which God had in the first instance received His share;--not only no flesh but also no vegetable food, for the "first-fruits" of corn and wine represented the produce of the year and sanctified the whole. All else was unclean. Comp. Ezekiel iv. 13. ********************************************** thought which gives its sting to the threatened exile; for sacrifice and feast are dependent upon the land, which is the nursing-mother and the settled home of the nation, the foundation of its existence and of its worship. The complete harmony of this with the essential character of the worship and of the festivals in the Book of the Covenant, in the law of the Two Tables, and in Deuteronomy, is clear in itself, but becomes still more evident by a comparison with the Priestly Code, to which we now proceed. III.III. In the Priestly Code the festal cycle is dealt with in two separate passages (Leviticus xxiii; Numbers xxviii., xxix.), of which the first contains a fragment (xxiii. 9-22, and partly also xxiii. 39-44) not quite homogeneous with the kernel of the document. In both these accounts also the three great feasts occur, but with considerable alteration of their essential character. III.III.1. The festal celebration, properly so called, is exhausted by a prescribed joint offering. There are offered (I.) during Easter week and also on the day of Pentecost, besides the _tamid_, two bullocks, one ram, seven lambs as a burnt-offering, and one he-goat as a sin-offering daily; (2.) at the feast of tabernacles, from the first to the seventh day two rams, fourteen lambs, and, in descending series, from thirteen to seven bullocks; on the eighth day one bullock, one ram, seven lambs as a burnt offering, besides one he-goat daily as a sin-offering. Additional voluntary offerings on the part of individuals are not excluded, but are treated as of secondary importance. Elsewhere, alike in the older practice (1Samuel i. 4 seq.) and in the law (Exodus xxiii. 18) it is precisely the festal offering that is a sacrificial meal, that is to say, a private sacrifice. In Deuteronomy it has been possible to find anything surprising in the joyous meals only because people are wont to know their Old Testament merely through the perspective of the Priestly Code; at most the only peculiar thing in that book is a certain humane application of the festal offering, the offerer being required to invite to it the poor and landless of his acquaintance. But this is a development which harmonises much more with the old idea of an offering as a communion between God and man than does the other self-sufficing general churchly sacrifice. The passover alone continues in the Priestly Code also to be a sacrificial meal, and participation therein to be restricted to the family or a limited society. But this last remnant of the old custom shows itself here as a peculiar exception; the festival in the house instead of "before Jehovah " has also something ambiguous about it, and turns the sacrifice into an entirely profane act of slaughtering almost--until we come to the rite of expiation, which is characteristically retained (Exodus xii. 7; comp. Ezekiel xiv. 19). Of a piece with this is the circumstance that the "first-fruits" of the season have come to be separated from the festivals still more than had been previously the case. While in Deuteronomy they are still offered at the three great sacrificial meals in the presence of Jehovah, in the Priestly Code they have altogether ceased to be offerings at all, and thus also of course have ceased to be festal offerings, being merely dues payable to the priests (by whom they are in part collected) and not in any case brought before the altar. Thus the feasts entirely lose their peculiar characteristics, the occasions by which they are inspired and distinguished; by the monotonous sameness of the unvarying burnt-offering and sin-offering of the community as a whole they are all put on the same even level, deprived of their natural spontaneity, and degraded into mere "exercises of religion." Only some very slight traces continue to bear witness to, we might rather say, to betray, what was the point from which the development started, namely, the rites of the barley sheaf, the loaves of bread, and the booths (Leviticus xxiii.). But these are mere rites, petrified remains of the old custom; the actual first-fruits belonging to the owners of the soil are collected by the priests, the shadow of them is retained at the festival in the form of the sheaf offered by the whole community--a piece of symbolism which has now become quite separated from its connection and is no longer understood. And since the giving of thanks for the fruits of the field has ceased to have any substantial place in the feasts, the very shadow of connection between the two also begins to disappear, for the rites of Leviticus xxiii. are taken over from an older legislation, and for the most part are passed over in silence in Numbers xxviii., xxix. Here, again, the passover has followed a path of its own. Even at an earlier period, substitution of other cattle and sheep was permitted. But now in the Priestly Code the firstlings are strictly demanded indeed, but merely as dues, not as sacrifices; the passover, always a yearling lamb or kid, has neither in fact nor in time anything to do with them, but occupies a separate position alongside. But as it is represented to have been instituted in order that the Hebrew first born may be spared in the destruction of those of the Egyptians, this connection betrays the fact that the yearling lambs are after all only a substitute for the firstlings of all animals fit for sacrifice, but in comparison with the cattle and sheep of the Jehovistic tradition and Deuteronomy a secondary substitute, and one for the uniformity of which there is no motive; and we see further that if the firstlings are now over and above assigned to the priests this is equivalent to a reduplication, which has been made possible first by a complete obscuration, and afterwards by an artificial revival of the original custom. A further symptom also proper to be mentioned here is the fixing of harvest festival terms by the days of the month, which is to be found exclusively in the Priestly Code. Easter falls upon the fifteenth, that is, at full moon, of the first, the feast of tabernacles upon the same day of the seventh month; Pentecost, which, strange to say, is left undetermined in Numbers xxviii., falls, according to Leviticus xxiii., seven weeks after Easter. This definite dating points not merely to a fixed and uniform regulation of the cultus, but also to a change in its contents. For it is not a matter of indifference that according to the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic legislation Easter is observed in "the month of corn ears" when the sickle is put to the corn, Pentecost at the end of the wheat harvest, and the feast of tabernacles after the ingathering; as harvest feasts they are from their very nature regulated by the condition of the fruits of the soil. When they cease to be so, when they are made to depend upon the phases of the moon, this means that their connection with their natural occasion is being lost sight of. Doubtless the accurate determination of dates is correlated with the other circumstance that the festivals are no longer kept in an isolated way by people at any place they may choose, but by the whole united nation at a single spot. It is therefore probable that the fixing of the date w as accomplished at first in the case of the autumn festival, which was the first to divest itself of its local character and most readily suffered a transposition of a week or two. It was hardest to change in the case of the _maccoth_ festival; the putting of the sickle to the corn is very inconvenient to shift. But here the passover seems to have exerted an influence. For the passover is indeed an annual feast, but not by the nature of things connected with any particular season of the year; rather was it dependent originally on the phases of the moon. Its character as a _pannychis_ [vigil] (Exodus xii. 42 [LYL #MWRYM]) points in this direction, as also does the analogy of the Arab feasts. The verification of the alleged denaturalisation of the feasts in the Priestly Code lies in this, that their historical interpretation, for which the way is already paved by the Jehovistic tradition, here attains its full development. For after they have lost their original contents and degenerated into mere prescribed religious forms, there is nothing to prevent the refilling of the empty bottles in any way accordant with the tastes of the period. Now, accordingly, the feast of tabernacles also becomes historical (Leviticus xxiii.), instituted to commemorate the booths under which the people had to shelter themselves during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. In the case of Easter a new step in advance is made beyond the assignation of its motive to the exodus, which is already found in Deuteronomy and in Exodus xiii. 3 seq. For in the Priestly Code this feast, which precisely on account of its eminently historical character is here regarded as by far the most important of all, is much more than the mere commemoration of a divine act of salvation, it is itself a saving deed. It is not because Jehovah smote the firstborn of Egypt that the passover is afterwards instituted on the contrary, it is instituted beforehand, at the moment of the exodus, in order that the firstborn of Israel may be spared. Thus not merely is a historical motive assigned for the custom; its beginning is itself raised to the dignity of a historical fact upon which the feast rests,--the shadow elsewhere thrown only by another historical event here becomes substantial and casts itself. The state of matters in the case of the unleavened cakes is very similar. Instead of having it as their occasion and object to keep in remembrance the hasty midnight departure in which the travellers were compelled to carry with them their dough unleavened as it was (Exodus xii. 34), in the Priestly Code they also are spoken of as having being enjoined beforehand (xii. 15 seq.), and thus the festival is celebrated in commemoration of itself; in other words, not merely is a historical motive assigned to it, it is itself made a historical fact. For this reason also, the law relating to Easter is removed from all connection with the tabernacle legislation (Exodus xii. 1 seq.), and the difficuity that now in the case of the passover the sanctuary which elsewhere in the Priestly Code is indispensable must be left out of sight is got over by divesting it as much as possible of its sacrificial character. /1/ ******************************************* 1. The ignoring of the sanctuary has a reason only in the case of the first passover, and perhaps ought to be regarded as holding good for that only. The distinction between the PSX MCRYM and the PSX HDWRWT is necessary, if only for the reason that the former is a historical fact, the latter a commemorative observance. When it is argued for the originality of the passover ritual in the Priestly Code that it alone fits in with the conditions of the sojourn in Egypt, the position is not to be disputed. ******************************************* In the case of Pentecost alone is there no tendency to historical explanation; that in this instance has been reserved for later Judaism, which from the chronology of the Book of Exodus discerned in the feast a commemoration of the giving of the law at Sinai. But one detects the drift of the later time. It has been already pointed out, in what has just been said, that as regards this development the centralisation of the cultus was epochmaking. Centralisation is synonymous with generalisation and fixity, and these are the external features by which the festivals of the Priestly Code are distinguished from those which preceded them. In evidence I point to the prescribed sacrifice of the community instead of the spontaneous sacrifice of the individual, to the date fixed for the 15th of the month, to the complete separation between sacrifices and dues, to the reduction of the passover to uniformity; nothing is free or the spontaneous growth of nature, nothing is indefinite and still in process of becoming; all is statutory, sharply defined, distinct. But the centralisation of the cultus had also not a little to do with the inner change which the feasts underwent. At first the gifts of the various seasons of the year are offered by the individual houses as each one finds convenient; afterwards they are combined, and festivals come into existence; last of all, the united offerings of individuals fall into the back ground when compared with the single joint-offering on behalf of the entire community. According as stress is laid upon the common character of the festival and uniformity in its observance, in precisely the same degree does it become separated from the roots from which it sprang, and grow more and more abstract. That it is then very ready to assume a historical meaning may partly also be attributed to the circumstance that history is not, like harvest, a personal experience of individual households, but rather an experience of the nation as a whole. One does not fail to observe, of course, that the festivals--which always to a certain degree have a centralising tendency--have IN THEMSELVES a disposition to become removed from the particular motives of their institution, but in no part of the legislation has this gone so far as in the Priestly Code. While everywhere else they still continue to stand, as we have seen, in a clear relationship to the land and its increase, and are at one and the same time the great days of homage and tribute for the superior and grantor of the soil, here this connection falls entirely out of sight. As in opposition to the Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy, nay, even to the corpus itself which forms the basis of Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., one can characterise the entire Priestly Code as the wilderness legislation, inasmuch as it abstracts from the natural conditions and motives of the actual life of the people in the land of Canaan and rears the hierocracy on the _tabula rasa_ of the wilderness, the negation of nature, by means of the bald statutes of arbitrary absolutism, so also the festivals, in which the connection of the cultus with agriculture appears most strongly, have as much as possible been turned into wilderness festivals, but most of all the Easter festival, which at the same time has become the most important. III.III.2. The centralisation of the cultus, the revolutionising influence of which is seen in the Priestly Code, is begun by Deuteronomy. The former rests upon the latter, and draws its as yet unsuspected consequences. This general relation is maintained also in details; in the first place, in the names of the feasts, which are the same in both,--_pesah, shabuoth, sukkoth_. This is not without its inner significance, for _asiph_ (ingathering) would have placed much greater hindrances in the way of the introduction of a historical interpretation than does sukkoth (booths). So also with the prominence given to the passover, a festival mentioned nowhere previously--a prominence which is much more striking in the Priestly Code than in Deuteronomy. Next, this relation is observed in the duration of the feasts. While Deuteronomy certainly does not fix their date of commencement with the same definiteness, it nevertheless in this respect makes a great advance upon the Jehovistic legislation, inasmuch as it lays down the rule of a week for Easter and Tabernacles, and of a day for Pentecost. The Priestly Code is on the whole in agreement with this, and also with the time determination of the relation of Pentecost to Easter, but its provisions are more fully developed in details. The passover, in the first month, on the evening of the 14th, here also indeed begins the feast, but does not, as in Deuteronomy xvi. 4, 8, count as the first day of Easter week; on the contrary, the latter does not begin until the 15th and closes with the 21st (comp. Leviticus xxiii. 6; Numbers xxviii. 17; Exodus xii. 18). The beginning of the festival week being thus distinctly indicated, there arises in this way not merely an ordinary but also an extra-ordinary feast day more, the day after the passover, on which already, according to the injunctions of Deuteronomy, the pilgrims were required to set out early in the morning on the return journey to their homes. /1/ ********************************************* 1. It is impossible to explain away this discrepancy by the circumstance that in the Priestly Code the day is reckoned from the evening; for (1.) this fact has no practical bearing, as the dating reckons at any rate from the morning, and the evening preceding the 15th is always called the 14th of the month (Leviticus xiii. 27, 32); (2.) the first day of the feast in Deuteronomy is just the day on the evening of which the passover is held, and upon it there follow not seven but six days more, whereas in the Priestly Code the celebration extends from the 14th to the 21st of the month (Exodus xii. 18). When the MXRT H#BT: is made to refer, not as in Josh. v. 11 to the 14th, but as in Jewish tradition (LXX on Leviticus xxiii. 11) to the day following the 15th of Nisan, thee 16th of Nisan is added to the 14th and 15th as a special feast day. *********************************************** Another advance consists in this, that not only the passover, as in Deuteronomy, or the additional first day of the feast besides, but also the seventh (which, according to Deuteronomy xvi. 8, is marked only by rest), must be observed as _miqra qodesh_ in Jerusalem. In other words, such pilgrims as do not live in the immediate neighbourhood are compelled to pass the whole week there, an exaction which enables us to mark the progress made with centralisation, when the much more moderate demands of Deuteronomy are compared. The feast of tabernacles is in the latter law also observed from beginning to end at Jerusalem, but the Priestly Code has contrived to add to it an eighth day as an _`acereth_ to the principal feast, which indeed still appears to be wanting in the older portion of Leviticus xxiii. From all this it is indisputable that the Priestly Code has its nearest relations with Deuteronomy, but goes beyond it in the same direction as that in which Deuteronomy itself goes beyond the Jehovistic legislation. In any case the intermediate place in the series belongs to Deuteronomy, and if we begin that series with the Priestly Code, we must in consistency close it with the Sinaitic Book of the Covenant (Exodus xx. 23 seq.). After King Josiah had published Deuteronomy and had made it the Book of the Covenant by a solemn engagement of the people (621 B.C.), he commanded them to "keep the passover to Jehovah your God as it is written in this Book;" such a passover had never been observed from the days of the judges, or throughout the entire period of the kings (2Kings xxiii. 21, 22). And when Ezra the scribe introduced the Pentateuch as we now have it as the fundamental law of the church of the second temple (444 B.C.), it was found written in the Torah which Jehovah had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel were to live in booths during the feast in the seventh month, and further, to use branches of olive and myrtle and palm for this purpose, and that the people went and made to themselves booths accordingly; such a thing had not been done "since the days of Joshua the son of Nun even unto that day " (Nehemiah viii. 14 seq.). That Josiah's passover rests upon Deuteronomy xvi. and not upon Exodus xii. is sufficiently proved by the circumstance that the observance of the festival stands in connection with the new unity of the cultus, and is intended to be an exemplification of it, while the precept of Exodus xii., if literally followed, could only have served to destroy it. We thus find that the two promulgations of the law, so great in their importance and so like one another in their character, both take place at the time of a festival, the one in spring, the other in harvest; and we also discover that the festal observance of the Priestly Code first began to show life and to gain currency about two hundred years later than that of Deuteronomy. This can be proved in yet another way. The author of the Book of Kings knows only of a seven days' duration of the feast of tabernacles (1Kings viii. 66); Solomon dismisses the people on the eighth day. On the other hand, in the parallel passage in Chronicles (2Chronicles vii. 9) the king holds the _`acereth_ on the eighth, and does not dismiss the people until the following day, the twenty-third of the month; that is to say, the Deuteronomic use, which is followed by the older author and by Ezekiel (xiv. 25) who was, roughly speaking, his contemporary, is corrected by the later writer into conformity with that of the Priestly Code in force since the time of Ezra (Nehemiah viii. 18). In later Judaism the inclination to assert most strongly precisely that which is most open to dispute led to the well-known result that the eighth day of the feast was regarded as the most splendid of all (John vii. 37). On this question also the Book of Ezekiel stands nearest the Priestly Code, ordaining as follows (xiv. 21-25):-- "In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall keep the passover, ye shall eat maccoth seven days; on that day shall the prince offer for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin-offering, and during the seven days he shall offer a burnt-offering to the Lord, seven bullocks and seven rams daily for the seven days, and a he-goat daily for a sin offering; and he shall offer as a meal-offering an ephah for every bullock and every ram and a hin of oil for the ephah. In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, in the feast shall he do the like for seven days, according to the sin-offering, according to the burnt-offering, and according to the meal-offering, and according to the oil." Here indeed in details hardly any point is in agreement with the prescriptions of the ritual law of Leviticus xxiii., Numbers xxviii., xxix. Apart from the fact that the day of Pentecost is omitted (it is restored in the Massoretic text by an absurd correction in ver. 11), in the first place there is a discrepancy as to the DURATION of the feasts; both last seven and not eight days, and the passover is taken for the first day of Easter, as in Deuteronomy. Further, the offerings differ, alike by their never-varying number and by their quality; in particular, nothing is said of the passover lamb, but a bullock as a general sin-offering is mentioned instead. From the _minha_ the wine is wanting, but this must be left out of the account, for Ezekiel banishes wine from the service on principle. Lastly, it is not the CONGREGATION that sacrifices, but the prince for himself and for the PEOPLE. But in spite of all differences the general similarity is apparent; one sees that here for the first time we have something which at all points admits of correlation with the Priestly Code, but is quite disparate with the Jehovistic legislation, and half so with that of Deuteronomy. On both hands we find the term fixed according to the day of the month, the strictly prescribed joint burnt-offering and sin-offering, the absence of relation first-fruits and agriculture, the obliteration of natural distinctions so as to make one general churchly festival. But Ezekiel surely could hardly have had any motive for reproducing Leviticus xxiii. and Numbers xxviii. seq., and still less for the introduction of a number of aimless variations as he did so. Let it be observed that in no one detail does he contradict Deuteronomy, while yet he stands so infinitely nearer to the Priestly Code; the relationship is not an arbitrary one, but arises from their place in time. Ezekiel is the forerunner of the priestly legislator in the Pentateuch; his pence and people, to some extent invested with the colouring of the bygone period of the monarchy, are the antecedents of the congregation of the tabernacle and the second temple. Against this supposition there is nothing to be alleged, and it is the rational one, for this reason, that it was not Ezekiel but the Priestly Code that furnished the norm for the praxis of the later period. For, as the festival system of the Priestly Code absolutely refuses to accommodate itself to the manner of the older worship as we are made acquainted with it in Hos. ii., ix. and elsewhere, in the same degree does it furnish in every respect the standard for the praxis of post-exilian Judaism, and, therefore, also for our ideas thence derived. No one in reading the New Testament dreams of any other manner of keeping the passover than that of Exodus xii., or of any other offering than the paschal lamb there prescribed. One might perhaps hazard the conjecture that if in the wilderness legislation of the Code there is no trace of agriculture being regarded as the basis of life, which it still is in Deuteronomy and even in the kernel of Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., this also is a proof that the Code belongs to a very recent rather than to a very early period, when agriculture was no longer rather than not yet. With the Babylonian captivity the Jews lost their fixed seats, and so became a trading people. III.III.3. No notice has as yet been taken of one phenomenon which distinguishes the Priestly Code, namely, that in it the tripartite cycle of the feasts is extended and interrupted. In the chronologically arranged enumeration of Leviticus xxiii. and Numbers xxviii., xxix., two other feast days are interpolated between Pentecost and Tabernacles: new year on the first, and the great day of atonement on the tenth of the seventh month. One perceives to what an extent the three originally connected harvest feasts have lost their distinctive character, when it is observed that these two heterogeneous days make their appearance in the midst of them;--the _yom kippur_ in the same series with the old _haggim_, i.e., dances, which were occasions of pure pleasure and joy, not to be named in the same day with fasts and mournings. The following points demand notice in detail. In the period of the kings the change of the year occurred in autumn. The autumn festival marked the close of the year and of the festal cycle (Exodus xxiii. 16, xxxiv. 22; 1Samuel i. 21, 21; Isaiah xxix. 1, xxxii. 10). Deuteronomy was discovered in the eighteenth year of Josiah, and in the very same year Easter was observed in accordance with the prescriptions of that law--which could not have been unless the year had begun in autumn. Now the ECCLESIASTICAL festival of new year in the Priestly Code is also autumnal. /1/ The _yom teruah_ (Leviticus xxiii 24, 2;; ******************************************** 1. In this way Tabernacles comes not before but after new year; this probably is connected with the more definite dating (on the fifteenth day of the month), but is quite contrary to the old custom and the meaning of the feast. ******************************************* Numbers xxix. 1 seq.) falls on the first new moon of autumn, and it follows from a tradition confirmed by Leviticus xxv. 9, 10, that this day was celebrated as new year [R)# H#NH). But it is always spoken of as the first of the seventh month. That is to say, the civil new year has been separated from the ecclesiastical and been transferred to spring; the ecclesiastical can only be regarded as a relic surviving from an earlier period, and betrays strikingly the priority of the division of the year that prevailed in the time of the older monarchy. It appears to have first begun to give way under the influence of the Babylonians, who observed the spring era. /1/ For the designation of the *************************************************** 1. In Exodus xii. 2 this change of era is formally commanded by Moses: "This month (the passover month) shall be the beginning of months unto you, it shall be to you the first of the months of the year." According to George Smith, the Assyrian year commenced at the vernal equinox; the Assyrian use depends on the Babylonian (Assyrian Eponym Canon, p. 19). *************************************************** months by numbers instead of by the old Hebrew names, Abib, Zif, Bul, Ethanim and the like,--a style which arises together with the use of the spring era,--does not yet occur in Deuteronomy (xvi.1), but apart from the Priestly Code, and the last redactor of the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy i. 3) is found for the first time in writers of the period of the exile. It is first found in Jeremiah, but only in those portions of his book which were not committed to writing by him, or at least have been edited by a later hand; /2/ **************************************************** 2. Kuenen, Hist.-Krit. Onderzoek (1863), ii. pp. 197, 214. **************************************************** then in Ezekiel and the author of the Book of Kings, who explains the names he found in his source by giving the numbers (1Kings vi. 37, 38, viii. 2); next in Haggai and Zechariah; and lastly in Chronicles, though here already the Babylonio-Syrian names of the months, which at first were not used in Hebrew, have begun to find their way in (Nehemiah i. 1, ii. 1; Zech. i. 7). The Syrian names are always given along with the numbers in the Book of Esther, and are used to the exclusion of all others in that of Maccabees. It would be absurd to attempt to explain this demonstrable change which took place in the calendar after the exile as a mere incidental effect of the Priestly Code, hitherto in a state of suspended animation, rather than by reference to general causes arising from the circumstances of the time, under whose influence the Priestly Code itself also stood, and which then had for their result a complete change in the greater accuracy and more general applicability of the methods by which time was reckoned. A similar phenomenon presents itself in connection with the metric system. The "shekel of the sanctuary," often mentioned in the Priestly Code, and there only, cannot possibly have borne this name until the most natural objects of the old Israelite _regime_ had begun to appear surrounded by a legendary nimbus, because themselves no longer in actual existence. Over against it we have the "king's weight" mentioned in a gloss in 2Samuel xiv. 26, the king being none other than the great king of Babylon. It is an interesting circumstance that the "shekel of the sanctuary "spoken of in the Priestly Code is still the ordinary shekel in Ezekiel; compare Exodus xxx. 13 with Ezekiel xliv. 12. During the exile the observance of the ecclesiastical new year seems to have taken place not on the first but on the tenth of the seventh month (Leviticus xxv. 9; Ezekiel xl. 1), and there is nothing to be wondered at in this, after once it had come to be separated from the actual beginning of the year. /1/ This fact alone *********************************************** 1. The tenth of the month is to be taken in Ezekiel as strictly new year's day; for the designation R)# H#NH occurs in no other meaning than this, and moreover it is by no mere accident that the prophet has his vision of the new Jerusalem precisely at the new year. But according to Leviticus xxv. 9 it is the seventh month that is meant, on the tenth day of which the trumpets are blown at the commencement of the year of jubilee. ************************************************ would suffice to bring into a clear light the late origin of the great day of atonement in Leviticus xvi., which at a subsequent period was observed on this date; for although as a ceremonial of general purification that day occurs appropriately enough at the change of the year, the joyful sound of the new year trumpets ill befits its quiet solemnity, the YWM TRW(H in the Priestly Code being in fact fixed for the first of the seventh month. Notwithstanding its conspicuous importance, there is nothing known of the great day of atonement either in the Jehovistic and Deuteronomic portions of the Pentateuch or in the historical and prophetical books. It first begins to show itself in embryo during the exile. Ezekiel (xiv. 18-20) appoints two great expiations at the beginning of the two halves of the year; for in xiv. 20 the LXX must be accepted, which reads B#B(Y BXD#, "in the seventh month at new moon." The second of these, in autumn, is similar to that of the Priestly Code, only that it falls on the first and new year on the tenth, while in the latter, on the contrary, new year is observed on the first and the atonement on the tenth; the ritual is also much simpler. Zechariah towards the end of the sixth century looks back upon two regular fast days, in the fifth and the seventh month, as having been in observance for seventy years, that is, from the beginning of the exile (vii. 5), and to these he adds (viii. 19) two others in the fourth and in the tenth. They refer, according to the very probable explanation of C. B. Michaelis, to the historical days of calamity which preceded the exile. On the ninth day of the fourth month Jerusalem was taken (Jeremiah xxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth the city and the temple were burnt (2Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was murdered, and all that remained of the Jewish state annihilated (Jeremiah xli.); in the tenth the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar was begun (2Kings xxv. 1). Zechariah also still knows nothing of the great day of atonement in Leviticus xvi., but only mentions among others the fast of the seventh month as having subsisted for seventy years. Even in 444 B.C., the year of the publication of the Pentateuch by Ezra, the great day of atonement has not yet come into force. Ezra begins the reading of the law in the beginning of the seventh month, and afterwards the feast of tabernacles is observed on the fifteenth; of an atoning solemnity on the tenth of the month not a word is said in the circumstantial narrative, which, moreover, is one specially interested in the liturgical element, but it is made up for on the twenty-fourth (Nehemiah viii., ix.). This _testimonium e silentio_ is enough; down to that date the great day of the Priestly Code (now introduced for the first time) had not existed. /1/ The term is ************************************************ 1. "If Leviticus xvi. belongs to the original of the Priestly Code, and the entire Pentateuch was published by Ezra in the year 444, and yet the day was not then celebrated, then it has _ipso facto_ been conceded that it is possible that there can be laws which yet are not carried into effect." So writes Dillmann in his introduction to Leviticus xvi. (1880, p. 525); every one will grant him that the law, before it could attain public currency, must have been previously written and promulgated. *********************************************** partly fixed, following Ezekiel, by reference to the old new year's day (Leviticus xxv. 9); partly, following Zechariah, by reference to the fast of Gedaliah, which indeed was still observed later as a separate solemnity. Even before the exile general fast days doubtless occurred, but they were specially appointed, and always arose out of extraordinary occasions, when some sin was brought home to the public conscience, or when the divine anger threatened, especially in connection with calamities affecting the produce of the soil (1Kings xxi. 9, 12; Jeremiah xiv. 12, xxxvi. 6, 9; Joel i. 14, ii. 12, 15). In the exile they began to be a regular custom (Isaiah lviii.), doubtless in the first instance in remembrance of the _dies atri_ that had been experienced, but also in a certain measure as a surrogate, suited to the circumstances, for the joyous popular gatherings of Easter, Pentecost, and Tabernacles which were possible only in the Holy Land. /l/ ************************************** 1. After the second destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the system of fasts received such an impulse that it was necessary to draw up a list of the days on which fasting was forbidden. ************************************* At last they came into a position of co-ordination with the feasts, and became a stated and very important element of the ordinary worship. In the Priestly Code, the great fast in the tenth of the seventh month is the holiest day of all the year. Nothing could illustrate more clearly the contrast between the new cultus and the old; fixing its regard at all points on sin and its atonement, it reaches its culmination in a great atoning solemnity. It is as if the temper of the exile had carried itself into the time of liberation also, at least during the opening centuries; as if men had felt themselves not as in an earlier age only momentarily and in special circumstances, but unceasingly, under the leaden pressure of sin and wrath. It is hardly necessary to add here expressly that also in regard to the day of atonement as a day sacred above all others the Priestly Code became authoritative for the post-exilian period. "Ritual and sacrifice have through the misfortunes of the times disappeared, but this has retained all its old sacredness; unless a man has wholly cut himself adrift from Judaism he keeps this day, however indifferent he may be to all its other usages and feasts." III.IV. [.1?] A word, lastly, on the lunar feasts, that is, new moon and Sabbath. That the two are connected cannot be gathered from the Pentateuch, but something of the sort is implied in Amos viii. 5, and 2Kings iv. 22, 23. In Amos the corn-dealers, impatient of every interruption of their trade, exclaim, "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn; and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" In the other passage the husband of the woman of Shunem, when she begs him for an ass and a servant that she may go to the prophet Elisha, asks why it is that she proposes such a journey now, for "it is neither new moon nor Sabbath;" it is not Sunday, as we might say. Probably the Sabbath was originally regulated by the phases of the moon, and thus occurred on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first (and twenty-eighth) day of the month, the new moon being reckoned as the first; at least no other explanation can be discovered. /2/ For that the week should ************************************ 2 George Smith, Assyrian Eponymn Canon, pp. 19, 20. "Among the Assyrians the first twenty-eight days of every month were divided into four weeks of seven days each, the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eight days respectively being Sabbaths; and there was a general prohibition of work on these days." See further Hyde, Hist. Rel. Vet. Pers., p. 239. Among the Syrians $bbh means the week, just as among the Arabs _sanba_ and _sanbata_ (Pl. _sanabit_), dim. _suneibita_) mean a period of time (Lagarde, Ps. Hieronymi; p. 158), and in fact, according to the lexicographers, a comparatively long one. But in the sole case cited by the _Tag al 'Arus_, it means rather a short interval. "What is youth? It is the beginning of a _sanbata_," meaning something like the Sunday of a week. According to this it would appear as if the sabbath had been originally the week itself, and only afterwards became the weekly festival day. The identity of the Syriac word (ta sabbata) in the New Testament) with the Hebrew is guaranteed by the twofold Arabic form. *************************************** be conditioned by the seven planets seems very barely credible. It was not until after people had got their seven days that they began to call them after the seven planets; /1/ ********************************************** 1. The peculiar order in which the names of the planets are used to designate the days of the week makes this very clear; see Ideler, Handb. d. Chron. i. 178 seq., ii 77 seq. ****************************************** the number seven is the only bond of connection between them. Doubtless the week is older than the names of its days. Lunar feasts, we may safely say, are in every case older than annual or harvest feasts; and certainly they are so in the case of the Hebrews. In the pre-historic period the new moon must have been observed with such preference that an ancient name for it, which is no longer found in Biblical Hebrew, even furnished the root of the general word for a festive occasion, which is used for the vintage feast in a passage so early as Judges ix. 27. /2/ ***************************************** 2. Sprenger (Leben Moh. iii. 527) and Lagarde have rightly correlated the Hebrew _hallel_ with the Arabic _ahalla_ (to call out, _labbaika_, see, for example Abulf. i. p. 180). But there is no uncertainty as to the derivation of _ahalla_ from _hilal_ (new moon) ***************************************** But it is established by historical testimonies besides that the new moon festival anciently stood, at least, on a level with that of the Sabbath. Compare 1Samuel xx. 5, 6; ~2Kings iv. 23; Annos viii. 5; Isa i. 13; Hos. ii. 13 (A.V. 11). In the Jehovistic and Deuteronomic legislation, however, it is completely ignored, and if it comes into somewhat greater prominence in that of Ezekiel and the Priestly Code (but without being for a moment to be compared with the Sabbath), this perhaps has to do with the circumstance that in the latter the great festivals are regulated by the new moon, and that therefore it is important that this should be observed. It may have been with a deliberate intention that the new moon festival was thrust aside on account of all sorts of heathenish superstition which readily associated themselves with it; but, on the other hand, it is possible that the undersigned preponderance gained by the Sabbath may have ultimately given it independence, and led to the reckoning of time by regular intervals of seven days without regard to new moon, with which now it came into collision, instead of, as formerly, being supported by it. As a lunar festival doubtless the Sabbath also went back to a very remote antiquity. But with the Israelites the day acquired an altogether peculiar significance whereby it was distinguished from all other feast days; it became the day of rest _par excellence_. Originally the rest is only a consequence of the feast, e.g. that of the harvest festival after the period of severe labour; the new moons also were marked in this way (Amos viii. 5; 2Kings iv. 23). In the case of the Sabbath also, rest is, properly speaking, only the consequence of the fact that the day is the festal and sacrificial day of the week (Isaiah i. 13; Ezekiel xlvi. 1 seq.), on which the shewbread was laid out; but here, doubtless on account of the regularity with which it every eighth day interrupted the round of everyday work, this gradually became the essential attribute. In the end even its name came to be interpreted as if derived from the verb "to rest." But as a day of rest it cannot be so very primitive in its origin; in this attribute it presupposes agriculture and a tolerably hard-pressed working-day life. With this it agrees that an intensification of the rest of the Sabbath among the Israelites admits of being traced in the course of the history. The highest development, amounting even to a change of quality, is seen in the Priestly Code. According to 2Kings iv. 22, 23, one has on Sabbath time for occupations that are not of an everyday kind; servant and ass can be taken on a journey which is longer than that "of a Sabbath day." In Hos. ii. 13 (11) we read, "I make an end of all your joy, your feasts, your new moons and your Sabbaths," that is to say, the last-named share with the first the happy joyousness which is impossible in the exile which Jehovah threatens. With the Jehovist and the Deuteronomist the Sabbath, which, it is true, is already extended in Amos viii. 5 to commerce, is an institution specially for agriculture; it is the day of refreshment for the people and the cattle, and is accordingly employed for social ends in the same way as the sacrificial meal is (Exodus xx. 10, xxiii. 12, xxxiv. 21; Deuteronomy v. 13, 14). Although the moral turn given to the observance is genuinely Israelitic and not original, yet the rest even here still continues to be a feast, a satisfaction for the labouring classes; for what is enjoined as a duty--upon the Israelite rulers, that is, to whom the legislation is directed--is less that they should rest than that they should give rest. In the Priestly Code, on the contrary, the rest of the Sabbath has nothing at all of the nature of the joyous breathing-time from the load of life which a festival affords, but is a thing for itself, which separates the Sabbath not only from the week days, but also from the festival days, and approaches an ascetic exercise much more nearly than a restful refreshment. It is taken in a perfectly abstract manner, not as rest from ordinary work, but as rest absolutely. On the holy day it is not lawful to leave the camp to gather sticks or manna (Exod. xvi.; Numbers xv.), not even to kindle a fire or cook a meal (Exodus xxxv. 3); this rest is in fact a sacrifice of abstinence from all occupation, for which preparation must already begin on the preceding day (Exodus xvi.). Of the Sabbath of the Priestly Code in fact it could not be said that it was made for man (Mark ii. 27); rather is it a statute that presents itself with all the rigour of a law of nature, having its reason with itself, and being observed even by the Creator. The original narrative of the Creation, according to which God finished His work on the seventh day, and therefore sanctified it, is amended so as to be made to say that He finished in six days and rested on the seventh. /1/ ************************************** 1 The contradiction is indubitable when in Genesis ii. 2 it is said in the first place that on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made; and then that He rested on the seventh day from His work. Obviously the second clause is an authentic interpretation added from very intelligible motives. *************************************** Tendencies to such an exaggeration of the Sabbath rest as would make it absolute are found from the Chaldaean period. While Isaiah, regarding the Sabbath purely as a sacrificial day, says, "Bring no more vain oblations; it is an abominable incense unto me; new moon and Sabbath, the temple assembly---I cannot endure iniquity and solemn meeting," Jeremiah, on the other hand, is the first of the prophets who stands up for a stricter sanctification of the seventh day, treating it, however, merely as a day of rest: "Bear no burden on the Sabbath day, neither bring in by the gates of Jerusalem nor carry forth a burden out of your houses, neither do ye any work" (xvii. 21, 22). He adds that this precept had indeed been given to the fathers, but hitherto has not been kept; thus, what was traditional appears to have been only the abstinence from field work and perhaps also from professional pursuits. In this respect the attitude of Jeremiah is that which is taken also by his exilian followers, not merely by Ezekiel (xx. 16, xxii. 263 but also by the Great Unknown (Isaiah lvi. 2, lviii. 13), who does not otherwise manifest any express partiality for cultus. While according to Hos. ii. 13, and even Lam. ii. 6, the Sabbath, as well as the rest of the acts of divine worship, must cease outside of the Holy Land, it in fact gained in importance to an extraordinary degree during the exile, having severed itself completely, not merely from agriculture, but in particular also from the sacrificial system, and gained entire independence as a holy solemnity of rest. Accordingly, it became along with circumcision the symbol that bound together the Jewish diaspora; thus already in the Priestly Code the two institutions are the general distinguishing marks of religion [)WT Genesis xvii. 10, 11; Exodus xxxi. 13] which also continue to subsist under circumstances where as in the exile the conditions of the Mosaic worship are not present (Genesis ii. 3, xvii. 12, 13). The trouble which in the meantime the organisers of the church of the second temple had in forcing into effect the new and strict regulations is clear from Nehemiah xiii. 15 seq. But they were ultimately successful. The solemnisation of the Sabbath in Judaism continued to develop logically on the basis of the priestly legislation, but always approximating with increasing nearness to the idea; of absolute rest, so that for the straitest sect of the Pharisees the business of preparing for the sacred day absorbed the whole week, and half man's life, so to speak, existed for it alone. "From Sunday onwards think of the Sabbath," says Shammai. Two details are worthy of special prominence; the distinction between _yom tob_ and _shabbath_, comparable to that drawn by the Puritans between Sundays and feast days, and the discussion as to whether the Sabbath was broken by divine worship; both bring into recognition that tendency of the Priestly Code in which the later custom separates itself from its original roots. III.IV.2. Connected with the Sabbath is the sabbatical year. In the Book of the Covenant it is commanded that a Hebrew who has been bought as a slave must after six years of service be liberated on the seventh unless he himself wishes to remain (Exodus xxi. 2-6). By the same authority it is ordained in another passage that the land and fruit-gardens are to be wrought and their produce gathered for six years, but on the seventh the produce is to be surrendered (#M+), that the poor of the people may eat, and what they leave the beasts of the field may <e>at (xxiii. 10, 11). Here there is no word of a sabbatical year. The liberation of the Hebrew slave takes place six years after his purchase, that is, the term is a relative one. In like manner, in the other ordinance there is nothing to indicate an absolute seventh year; and besides, it is not a Sabbath or fallow time for the _land_ that is contemplated, but a surrender of the _harvest_. The first of these commands is repeated in Deuteronomy without material alteration, and to a certain extent word for word (xv. 12-18). The other has at least an analogue in Deuteronomy xv. 1-6: "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release (surrender, s*m+h), and this is the manner of it; no creditor that lendeth aught shall exact it of his neighbour or of his brother, because Jehovah's release has been proclaimed; of a foreigner thou mayst exact it again, but that which is of thine with thy brother, thy hand shall release." That this precept is parallel with Exodus xxiii. 10, 11, is shown by the word #m+h~; but this has a different meaning put upon it which plainly is introduced as new. Here it is not landed property that is being dealt with, but money, and what has to be surrendered is not the interest of the debt merely (comparable to the fruit of the soil), but the capital itself; the last clause admits of no other construction, however unsuitable the regulation may be. A step towards the sabbatical year is discernible in it, in so far as the seventh year term is not a different one for each individual debt according to the date when it was incurred (in which case it might have been simply a period of prescription), but is a uniform and common term publicly fixed: it is absolute, not relative. But it does not embrace the whole seventh year, it does not come in at the end of six years as in Exodus, but at the end of seven; the surrender of the harvest demands the whole year, the remission of debts, comparatively speaking, only a moment. The sabbatical year is peculiar to the Priestly Code, or, to speak more correctly, to that collection of laws incorporated and edited by it, which lies at the basis of Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. In Leviticus xxv. 1-7 we read: "When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath to Jehovah. Six years shalt thou sow thy field and prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall the land keep a Sabbath of rest unto Jehovah: thy field shalt thou not sow, thy vineyard shalt thou not prune; that which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest shalt thou not reap, neither shalt thou gather the grapes of thy vine undressed; the land shall have a year of rest, and the Sabbath of the land shall be food for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy cattle, and for all the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be food." The expressions make it impossible to doubt that Exodus xxiii. 10, 11 lies at the foundation of this law; but out of this as a basis it is something different that has been framed. The seventh year, which is there a relative one, has here become fixed,--not varying for the various properties, but common for the whole land, a sabbatical year after the manner of the Sabbath day. This amounts to a serious increase in the difficulty of the matter, for it is not one and the same thing to have the abstinence from harvest spread over seven years and to have it concentrated into one out of every seven. In like manner a heightening of the demand is also seen in the circumstance that not merely harvesting but also sowing and dressing are forbidden. In the original commandment this was not the case; all that was provided for was that in the seventh year the harvest should not fall to the lot of the proprietor of the soil, but should be _publici juris_,--a relic perhaps of communistic agriculture. Through a mere misunderstanding of the verbal suffix in Exodus xxiii. 11, as has been conjectured by Hupfeld, a surrender of the _fruit_ of the land has been construed into a surrender of the land itself--a general fallow year (Leviticus xxv. 4). The misunderstanding, however, is not accidental, but highly characteristic. In Exodus xxiii. the arrangement is made for man; it is a limitation, for the common good, of private rights of property in land,--in fact, for the benefit of the landless, who in the seventh year are to have the usufruct of the soil; in Leviticus xxv. the arrangement is for the sake of the land,--that it may rest, if not on the seventh day, at least on the seventh year, and for the sake of the Sabbath-- that it may extend its supremacy over nature also. Of course this presupposes the extreme degree of Sabbath observance by absolute rest, and becomes comprehensible only when viewed as an outgrowth from that. For the rest, a universal fallow season is possible only under circumstances in which a people are to a considerable extent independent of the products of their own agriculture; prior to the exile even the idea of such a thing could hardly have occurred. In the Priestly Code the year of jubilee is further added to supplement in turn the sabbatical year (Leviticus xxv. 8 seq.). As the latter is framed to correspond with the seventh day, so the former corresponds with the fiftieth, i.e., with Pentecost, as is easily perceived from the parallelism of Leviticus xxv. 8 with Leviticus xxiii. 15. Asthe fiftieth day after the seven Sabbath days is celebrated as a closing festival of the forty-nine days' period, so is the fiftieth year after the seven sabbatic years as rounding off the larger interval; the seven Sabbaths falling on harvest time, which are usually reckoned specially (Luke vi. 1 ), have, in the circumstance of their interrupting harvest work, a particular resemblance to the sabbatic years which interrupt agriculture altogether. Jubilee is thus an artificial institution superimposed upon the years of fallow regarded as harvest Sabbaths after the analogy of Pentecost. Both its functions appear originally to have belonged also to the Sabbath year and to be deduced from the two corresponding regulations in Deuteronomy relating to the seventh year, so that thus Exod xxiii. would be the basis of Leviticus xxv. 1-7 and Deuteronomy xv. that of xxv. 8 seq. The emancipation of the Hebrew slave originally had to take place on the seventh year after the purchase, afterwards (it would seem) on the seventh vear absolutely; for practical reasons it was transferred from that to the fiftieth. Analogous also, doubtless, is the growth of the other element in the jubilee--the return of mortgaged property to its hereditary owner--out of the remission of debts enjoined in Deuteronomy xv. for the end of the seventh year; for the two hang very closely together, as Leviticus xxv. 23 seq. shows. As for the evidence for these various arrangements, those of the Book of the Covenant are presupposed alike by Deuteronomy and by the Priestly Code. It seems to have been due to the prompting of Deuteronomy that towards the end of the reign of Zedekiah the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves was seriously gone about; the expressions in Jeremiah xxxiv. 14 point to Deuteronomy xv. 12, and not to Exodus xxi. 2. The injunction not having had practical effect previously, it was in this instance carried through by all parties at the same date: this was of course inevitable when it was introduced as an extraordinary innovation; perhaps it is in connexion with this that a fixed seventh year grew out of a relative one. The sabbatical year, according to the legislator's own declaration, was never observed throughout the whole pre-exilic period; for, according to Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35, the desolation of the land during the exile is to be a compensation made for the previously neglected fallow years: "Then shall the land pay its Sabbaths as long as it lieth desolate; when ye are in your enemies' land then shall the land rest and pay its Sabbaths; all the days that it lieth desolate shall it rest, which it rested not in your Sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it." The verse is quoted in 2Chronicles xxxvi. 21 as the language of Jeremiah,-- a correct and unprejudiced indication of its exilic origin. But as the author of Leviticus xxvi. was also the writer of Leviticus xxv. 1-7, that is to say, the framer of the law of the sabbatic year, the recent date of the latter regulation also follows at once. The year of jubilee, certainly derived from the Sabbath year, is of still later origin. Jeremiah (xxxiv. 14) has not the faintest idea that the emancipation of the slaves must according to "law" take place in the fiftieth year. The name drwr, borne by the jubilee in Leviticus xxv. 10, is applied by him to the seventh year; and this is decisive also for Ezekiel xlvi. 17: the gift of land bestowed by the prince on one of his servants remains in his possession only until the seventh year. CHAPTER IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES. IV.I. IV.I.1 The problem now to be dealt with is exhibited with peculiar distinctness in one pregnant case with which it will be well to set out. The Mosaic law, that is to say, the Priestly Code, distinguishes, as is well known, between the twelve secular tribes and Levi, and further within the spiritual tribe itself, between the sons of Aaron and the Levites, simply so called. The one distinction is made visible in the ordering of the camp in Numbers ii., where Levi forms around the sanctuary a cordon of protection against the immediate contact of the remaining tribes; on the whole, however, it is rather treated as a matter of course, and not brought into special prominence (Numbers xviii. 22). The other is accentuated with incomparably greater emphasis. Aaron and his sons alone are priests, qualified for sacrificing and burning incense; the Levites are hieroduli (3 Esdras i. 3), bestowed upon the Aaronidae for the discharge of the inferior services (Numbers iii. 9). They are indeed their tribe fellows, but it is not because he belongs to Levi that Aaron is chosen, and his priesthood cannot be said to be the acme and flower of the general vocation of his tribe. On the contrary, rather was he a priest long before the Levites were set apart; for a considerable time after the cultus has been established and set on foot these do not make any appearance,--not at all in the whole of the third book, which thus far does little honour to its name _Leviticus_. Strictly speaking, the Levites do not even belong to the clergy: they are not called by Jehovah, but consecrated by the children of Israel to the sanctuary,--consecrated in the place of the first-born, not however as priests (neither in Numbers iii., iv., viii., nor anywhere else in the Old Testament, is there a single trace of the priesthood of the first-born), but as a gift due to the priests, as such being even required to undergo the usual "waving" before the altar, to symbolise their being cast into the altar flame (Numbers viii.). The relationship between Aaron and Levi, and the circumstance that precisely this tribe is set apart for the sanctuary in compensation for the first-born, appears almost accidental, but at all events cannot be explained by the theory that Aaron rose on the shoulders of Levi; on the contrary, it rather means that Levi has mounted up by means of Aaron, whose priesthood everywhere is treated as having the priority. Equality between the two is not to be spoken of; their office and their blood relationship separates them more than it binds them together. Now, the prophet Ezekiel, in the plan of the new Jerusalem which he sketched in the year 573, takes up among other things the reform of the relations of the _personnel_ of the temple, and in this connection expresses himself as follows (xliv. 6-16):-- "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Let it suffice you of all your abominations, O house of Israel! in that ye have brought in strangers, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and have broken my covenant by all your abominations. And ye have not kept the charge of my holy things, inasmuch as ye have set these /1/ to be keepers of my ******************************************* In ver. 7 for WYPRW read WTPRW, in ver. 8 for WT#YMWN read WT#YMWM, and for LKM read LKN, in each case following the LXX. ****************************************** charge in my sanctuary. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, No stranger uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into my sanctuary; none, of all that are among the children of Israel. But the Levites who went away far from me when Israel went astray from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity, and they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, officers at the gates of the house and ministers of the house; they shall slay for the people the burnt-offering and the thank-offering, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them. Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, saith the Lord Jehovah, and they shall bear their iniquity. They shall not come near unto me to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, but they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. And I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its service, and for all that shall be done therein. But the priests, the Levites, sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord Jehovah; they shall enter into my sanctuary, and come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge." From this passage two things are to be learned. First, that the systematic separation of that which was holy from profane contact did not exist from the very beginning; that in the temple of Solomon even heathen (Zech. xiv. 21), probably captives, were employed to do hierodulic services which, according to the law, ought to have been rendered by Levites, and which afterwards actually were so rendered. Ezekiel, it is indeed true, holds this custom to be a frightful abuse, and one might therefore maintain it to have been a breach of the temple ordinances suffered by the Jerusalem priests against their better knowledge, and in this way escape accusing them of ignorance of their own law. But the second fact, made manifest by the above-quoted passage, quite excludes the existence of the Priestly Code so far as Ezekiel and his time are concerned. The place of the heathen temple-slaves is in future to be taken by the Levites. Hitherto the latter had held the priesthood, and that too not by arbitrary usurpation, but in virtue of their oun good right. For it is no mere relegation back to within the limits of their lawful position when they are made to be no longer priests but temple ministrants, it is no restoration of the _status quo ante_, the conditions of which they had illegally broken; it is expressly a degradation, a withdrawal of their right, which appears as a punishment and which must be justified as being deserved; "they shall bear their iniquity." They have forfeited their priesthood, by abusing it to preside over the cultus of the high places, which the prophet regards as idolatry and hates in his inmost soul. Naturally those Levites are exempted from the penalty who have discharged their functions at the legal place,--the Levites the sons of Zadok,--namely, at Jerusalem, who now remain sole priests and receive a position of pre-eminence above those who hitherto have been their equals in office, and who are still associated with them by Ezekiel, under the same common name, but now are reduced to being their assistants and hieroduli. It is an extraordinary sort of justice when the priests of the abolished Bamoth are punished simply for having been so, and conversely the priests of the temple at Jerusalem rewarded for this; the fault of the former and the merit of the latter consist simply in their existence. In other words, Ezekiel merely drapes the logic of facts with a mantle of morality. From the abolition of the popular sanctuaries in the provinces in favour of the royal one at Jerusalem, there necessarily followed the setting aside of the provincial priesthoods in favour of the sons of Zadok at the temple of Solomon. The original author of the centralisation, the Deuteronomic lawgiver, seeks indeed to prevent this consequence by giving to the extraneous Levites an equal right of sacrificing in Jerusalem with their brethren hereditarily settled there, but it was not possible to separate the fate of the priests from that of their altars in this manner. The sons of Zadok were well enough pleased that all sacrifices should be concentrated within their temple, but they did not see their way to sharing their inheritance with the priesthood of the high places, and the idea was not carried out (2Kings xxiii. 9). Ezekiel, a thorough Jerusalemite, finds a moral way of putting this departure from the law, a way of putting it which does not explain the fact, but is merely a periphrastic statement of it. With Deuteronomy as a basis it is quite easy to understand Ezekiel's ordinance, but it is absolutely impossible if one starts from the Priestly Code. What he regards as the original right of the Levites, the performance of priestly services, is treated in the latter document as an unfounded and highly wicked pretension which once in the olden times brought destruction upon Korah and his company; what he considers to be a subsequent withdrawal of their right, as a degradation in consequence of a fault, the other holds to have been their hereditary and natural destination. The distinction between priest and Levite which Ezekiel introduces and justifies as an innovation, according to the Priestly Code has always existed; what in the former appears as a beginning, in the latter has been in force ever since Moses,--an original datum, not a thing that has become or been made./1/ That the prophet should know ********************************************** 1. "If by reason of their birth it was impossible for the Levites to become priests, then it would be more than strange to deprive them of the priesthood on account of their faults,--much as if one were to threaten the commons with the punishment of disqualification to sit or vote in a house of lords" (Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr., iii. 465). ********************************************* nothing about a priestly law with whose tendencies he is in thorough sympathy admits of only one explanation,--that it did not then exist. His own ordinances are only to be understood as preparatory steps towards its own exactment. IV.I.2. Noldeke, however, interprets the parallelism between the sons of Aaron and the sons of Zadok in favour of the priority of the Priestly Code, which, after all, he points out, is not quite so exclusive as Ezekiel. /1/ But, in the first place, this is a ******************************************* 1 Jahrb. f. prot. Theol., 1875, p. 351: "Its doctrine that the Aaronidae alone are true priests has its parallel in Ezekiel, who _still more exclusively_ recognises only the sons of Zadok as priests." ****************************************** point of subordinate importance, the main thing being that Ezekiel has to make the distinction between priests and Levites, which is regarded in the Priestly Code as very ancient. In presence of the fact that the former introduces as a new thing the separation which the latter presupposes, the precise degree of the distinction drawn by the two is of no consequence whatever. In the next place, to bring the sons of Aaron into comparison with the sons of Zadok, as a proof of their higher antiquity, is just as reasonable as to bring the tabernacle into comparison with the temple of Jerusalem for a similar purpose. The former are priests of the tabernacle, the latter of the temple; but as in point of fact the only distinction to be drawn between the Mosaic and the actual central sanctuary is that between shadow and substance, so neither can any other be made between the Mosaic and the actual central priesthood. In the Priestly Code the ancient name is introduced instead of the historical one, simply in order to maintain the semblance of the Mosaic time; if the circumstance is to be taken as betokening the earlier origin of the work, then a similar inference must be drawn also from the fact that in it the origin and character of the Levites is quite obscure, while in Ezekiel it is palpably evident that they are the priests thrown out of employment by the abolition of the Bamoth, whom necessity has compelled to take a position of subordination under their haughty fellow-priests at Jerusalem. In truth it is, quite on the contrary, a proof of the post-exilian date of the Priestly Code that it makes sons of Aaron of the priests of the central sanctuary, who, even in the traditional understanding (2Chronicles xiii. 10), are in one way or other simply the priests of Jerusalem. By this means it carries their origin back to the foundation of the theocracy, and gives them out as from the first having been alone legitimate. But such an idea no one could have ventured to broach before the exile. At that time it was too well known that the priesthood of the Jerusalem sept could not be traced further back than David's time, but dated from Zadok, who in Solomon's reign ousted the hereditary house of Eli from the position it had long previously held, first at Shiloh and Nob, and afterwards at Jerusalem, at what had become the most prominent sanctuary of Israel. In a passage of Deuteronomic complexion, which cannot have been written long before the exile, we read in a prediction made to Eli regarding the overthrow of his house by Zadok: "I said indeed, saith Jehovah the God of Israel, that thy house and the house of thy father shall walk before me for ever; but now I say, Be it far from me, for them that honour me I will honour, but they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm and the arm of thy father's house, ...and I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever" (1Samuel ii. 27-36). Here it is the house of Eli, and of Eli's father, that is the priestly family duly chosen in Egypt; _contrary_ to hereditary title, and contrary to a promise of perpetual continuance, is it deposed at the higher claims of justice. The faithful priest who is to fill the vacant place is Zadok. This is expressly said in 1Kings 2:27; and no other than he ever had a "sure house" and walked uninterruptedly as its head and ruler before the kings of Judah. This Zadok, accordingly, belongs neither to Eli's house nor to that of Eli's father; his priesthood does not go back as far as the time of the founding of the theocracy, and is not in any proper sense "legitimate;" rather has he obtained it by the infringement of what might be called a constitutional privilege, to which there were no other heirs besides Eli and his family. Obviously he does not figure as an intermediate link in the line of Aaron, but as the beginner of an entirely new genealogy; the Jerusalem priests, whose ancestor he is, are interlopers dating from the beginning of the monarchical period, in whom the old Mosaic _sacerdotium_ is not continued, but is broken off. If then they are called in the Priestly Code "sons of Aaron," or at least figure there among the sons of Aaron, with whom they can only in point of fact be contrasted, the circumstance is an unmistakable indication that at this point the threads of tradition from the pre-exilic period have been snapped completely, which was not yet the case in Ezekiel's time. /1/ ******************************************** 1. To satisfy the Pentateuch it is shown in the Book of Chronicles, by means of artificial genalogies, how the sons of Zadok derived their origin in an unbroken line from Aaron and Eleazar. Compare my Pharisaer u. Sadducaer, p. 48 seq. This point was first observed by Vatke (p. 344 seq.), then by Kuenen (Theol. Tijdschr., iii. p. 463-509) and lastly by me (Text der BB. Sam., p. 48-51). ******************************************** The relation between the priestly legislation and the Book of Ezekiel, which has now been shown, gives direction and aim to the following sketch, in which it is sought to exhibit the individual phenomenon in its general connection. IV.II. IV.II.1. The setting apart from the rest of the people of an entire tribe as holy, and the strongly accentuated distinction of ranks within that tribe, presuppose a highly systematised separation between sacred and profane, and an elaborate machinery connected with cultus. In fact, according to the representation given in the Priestly Code, the Israelites from the beginning were organised as a hierocracy, the clergy being the skeleton, the high priest the head, and the tabernacle the heart. But the suddenness with which this full-grown hierocracy descended on the wilderness from the skies is only matched by the suddenness with which it afterwards disappeared in Canaan, leaving no trace behind it. In the time of the Judges, priests and Levites, and the congregation of the children of Israel assembled around them, have utterly vanished; there is hardly a _people_ Israel,--only individual tribes which do not combine even under the most pressing necessities, far less support at a common expense a clerical _personnel_ numbering thousands of men, besides their wives and families. Instead of the Ecclesiastical History of the Hexateuch, the Book of Judges forthwith enters upon a secular history completely devoid of all churchly character. The high priest, who according to the Priestly Code is the central authority by the grace of God, is here quite left out in the cold, for the really acting heads of the people are the Judges, people of an entirely different stamp, whose authority, resting on no official position, but on strength of personality and on the force of circumstances, seldom extends beyond the limits of their tribe. And it is plain that in this we behold not the sorry remains of an ecclesiastico-political system once flourishing under Moses and Joshua, now completely fallen into ruins, but the first natural beginnings of a civil authority which after a course of further development finally led to the monarchy. In the kernel of the Book of Judges (chaps. iii.-xvi.) there nowhere occurs a single individual whose profession is to take charge of the cultus. Sacrifice is in two instances offered, by Gideon and Manoah; but in neither case is a priest held to be necessary. In a gloss upon 1Samuel vi. 13 seq. the divergence of later custom reveals itself. When the ark of Jehovah was brought back from exile in Philistia upon the new cart, it halted in the field of Bethshemesh beside the great stone, and the inhabitants of Bethshemesh, who were at the time busy with the wheat harvest, broke up the cart and made on the stone a burnt-offering of the kine by which it had been drawn. After they have finished, the Levites come up (ver. 15) (in the pluperfect tense) and proceed as if nothing had happened, lift the ark from the now no longer existent cart, and set it upon the stone on which the sacrifice is already burning;- of course only in order to fulfil the law, the demands of which have been completely ignored in the original narrative. Until the cultus has become in some measure centralised the priests have no _locus standi_; for when each man sacrifices for himself and his household, upon an altar which he improvises as best he can for the passing need, where is the occasion for people whose professional and essential function is that of sacrificing for others? The circumstance of their being thus inconspicuous in the earliest period of the history of Israel is connected with the fact that as yet there are few great sanctuaries. But as soon as these begin to occur, the priests immediately appear. Thus we find Eli and his sons at the old house of God belonging to the tribe of Ephraim at Shiloh. Eli holds a very exalted position, his sons are depicted as high and mighty men, who deal with the worshippers not directly but through a servant, and show arrogant disregard of their duties to Jehovah. The office is hereditary, and the priesthood already very numerous. At least in the time of Saul, after they had migrated from Shiloh to Nob, on account of the destruction by the Philistines of the temple at the former place, they numbered more than eighty-five men, who, however, are not necessarily proper blood-relations of Eli, although reckoning themselves as belonging to his clan (1Samuel xxii. 11). /1/ *********************************************** 1. In 1Samuel i. seq., indeed, we read only of Eli and his two sons and one servant, and even David and Solomon appear to have had only a priest or two at the chief temple. Are we to suppose that Doeg, single-handed, could have made away with eighty-five men ? ************************************************ One sanctuary more is referred to towards the close of the period of the Judges,--that at Dan beside the source of the Jordan. A rich Ephraimite, Micah, had set up to Jehovah a silver-covered image, and lodged it in an appropriate house. At first he appointed one of his sons to be its priest, afterwards Jonathan ben Gershom ben Moses, a homeless Levite of Bethlehem-Judah, whom he counted himself happy in being able to retain for a yearly salary of ten pieces of silver, besides clothing and maintenance. When, however, the Danites, hard pressed by the Philistines, removed from their ancient settlements in order to establish a new home for themselves on the slopes of Hermon in the north, they in passing carried off both Micah's image and his priest; what led them to do so was the report of their spies who had formerly lodged with Micah and there obtained an oracle. It was in this way that Jonathan came to Dan and became the founder of the family which retained the priesthood at this afterwards so important sanctuary down to the period of the deportation of the Danites at the Assyrian captivity (Judges xvii., xviii.). His position seems very different from that of Eli. The only point of resemblance is that both are hereditary priests, Levites so called, and trace their descent from the family of Moses,-- of which more anon. But while Eli is a man of distinction, perhaps the owner of the sanctuary, at all events in a position of thorough independence and the head of a great house, Jonathan is a solitary wandering Levite who enters the service of the proprietor of a sanctuary for pay and maintenance, and is indeed nourished as a son by his patron, but by no means treated with special respect by the Danites. The latter case, it may well be conjectured, more nearly represents the normal state of matters than the former. An independent and influential priesthood could develop itself only at the larger and more public centres of worship, but that of Shiloh seems to have been the only one of this class. The remaining houses of God, of which we hear some word from the transition period which preceded the monarchy, are not of importance, and are in private hands, thus corresponding to that of Micah on Mount Ephraim. That of Ophra belongs to Gideon, and that of Kirjathjearim to Abinadab. In fact, it appears that Micah, in appointing one to minister at his sanctuary for hire, would seem to have followed a more general practice. For the expression ML( YDW, which still survived as a _terminus technicus_ for the ordination of priests long after they had attained a perfectly independent position, can originally in this connection hardly have meant anything else than a filling of the hand with money or its equivalent; thus the priestly office would appear in the older time to have been a paid one, perhaps the only one that was paid. Whom he shall appoint is at the discretion of the proprietor: if no one else is available, he gives it to one of his sons (Judges xvii. 5; 1Samuel vii. 1),-- of a "character indelibilis" there is of course in such a case no idea, as one can learn from the earliest example, in which Micah's son retires again from the service after a brief interval. David, when he removed the ark, intrusted it in the first instance to the house of Obededom, a captain of his, a Philistine of Gath, whom he made its keeper. A priest of regular calling, a Levite, is, according to Judges xvii. 13, a very unusual person to find at an ordinary sanctuary. Even at Shiloh, where, however, the conditions are extraordinary, the privilege of the sons of Eli is not an exclusive one; Samuel, who is not a member of the family, is nevertheless adopted as a priest. The service for which a stated minister was needed was not that of offering sacrifice; this was not so regular an occurrence as not to admit of being attended to by one's self. For a simple altar no priest was required, but only for a house which contained a sacred image; /1/ ******************************************** 1. BYT (LHYM, "house of God," is never anything but the house of an image. Outside of the Priestly Code, _ephod_ is the image, _ephod bad_ the priestly garment. ******************************************** this demanded watching and attendance (1 Sam. vii. 1)--in fact, an ephod like that of Gideon or that of Micah (Judges viii. 26, 27, XVii. 4) was an article well worth stealing, and the houses of God ordinarily lay in an open place (Exodus xxxiii. 7). The expressions #MR and #RT to denote the sacred service were retained in use from this period to later times; and, while every one knows how to sacrifice, the art of dealing with the ephod and winning its oracle from it continues from time immemorial to be the exclusive secret of the priest. In exceptional cases, the attendant is occasionally not the priest himself, but his disciple. Thus Moses has Joshua with him as his _aedituus_ /2/ ******************************************************* 2 M#RT M#H, more precisely m'' (T YY PNY M#H HKHN, 1Samuel. ii. 11. ******************************************************** (Exodus xxxiii. 11), who does not quit the tent of Jehovah; so also Eli has Samuel, who sleeps at night in the inner portion of the temple beside the ark of the covenant; even if perhaps the narrative of Samuel's early years is not quite in accordance with the actual circumstances as they existed at Shiloh, it is still in any case a perfectly good witness to a custom of the existence of which we are apprised from other sources. Compare now with this simple state of affairs the fact that in the Priestly Code the sons of Aaron have something like the half of a total of 22,000 Levites to assist them as watchers and ministers of the sanctuary. Any one may slaughter and offer sacrifice (1Samuel xiv. 34 seq.); and, even in cases where priests are present, there is not a single trace of a systematic setting apart of what is holy, or of shrinking from touching it. When David "entered into the house of God and did eat the shew-bread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him" (Mark ii. 26), this is not represented in 1Sam. xxi. as illegitimate when those who eat are sanctified, that is, have abstained on the previous day from women. Hunted fugitives lay hold of the horns of the altar without being held guilty of profanation. A woman, such as Hannah, comes before Jehovah, that is, before the altar, to pray; the words WTTYCB LPNY YY (1Samuel i. 9) supplied by the LXX, are necessary for the connection, and have been omitted from the Massoretic text as offensive. In doing so she is observed by the priest, who sits quietly, as is his wont, on his seat at the temple door. The history of the ark particularly, as Vatke justly remarks (pp. 317, 332), affords more than one proof of the fact that the notion of the unapproachableness of the holy was quite unknown; I shall content myself with the most striking of these. Samuel the Ephraimite sleeps by virtue of his office every night beside the ark of Jehovah, a place whither, according to Leviticus xvi., the high priest may come only once in the year, and even he only after the strictest preparation and with the most elaborate atoning rites. The contrast in the TONE OF FEELING is so great that no one as yet has even ventured to realise it clearly to himself. IV.II.2. With the commencement of the monarchical period the priests forthwith begin to come into greater prominence along with the kings; the advance in centralisation and in publicity of life makes itself noticeable also in the department of worship. At the beginning of Saul's reign we find the distinguished Ephraimitic priesthood, the house of Eli, no longer at Shiloh, but at Nob, in the vicinity of the king, and to a certain degree in league with him; for their head, Ahijah the priest, is in immediate attendance on him when arms are first raised against the Phiiistines, shares the danger with him, and consults the ephod on his behalf. Subsequently the _entente cordiale_ was disturbed, Ahijah and his brethren fell a sacrifice to the king's jealousy, and thus the solitary instance of an independent and considerable priesthood to be met with in the old history of Israel came for ever to an end. Abiathar, who alone escaped the massacre of Nob (1Samuel xxii.), fled with the ephod to David, for which he was rewarded afterwards with high honours, but all that he became he became as servant of David. Under David the regius priesthood began to grow towards the importance which it from that time forward had. This king exercised unfettered control over the sanctuary of the ark which stood in his citadel, as also over the appointment of the priests, who were merely his officials. Alongside of Abiathar he placed Zadok (and subsequently Ira also), as well as some of his own sons. For when it is stated in 2Sam. viii. 18 that the sons of David were priests, the words must not out of regard to the Pentateuch be twisted so as to mean something different from what they say. We also (1Kings iv. 5) find the son of the prophet Nathan figuring as a priest, and on the other hand the son of Zadok holding a high secular office (ver. 2); even at this date the line of demarcation afterwards drawn between holy and non-holy persons has no existence. What under David was still wanting to the institution of the royal worship and the regius priests--a fixed centre--was added by the erection of the temple under his successor. At the beginning of Solomon's reign there was still no ISRAELITE place of sacrifice such as sufficed for the greater contingencies; he was compelled to celebrate his accession at the great Bamah at Gibeon, a town in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which, although it had been subjugated for a considerable time, was still entirely Canaanite. He now took care to make it possible that his colossal festivals should be celebrated at his own sanctuary. And next he made Zadok its priest after having previously deposed and relegated to his patrimonial property at Anathoth, a village adjoining Jerusalem, the aged Abiathar, a man of pure and honourable priestly descent, on account of the support he had given to the legitimate heir to the crown, thereby bringing to pass the fate with which the once so proud and powerful family of Eli had in 1Samuel ii. been threatened. Doubtless other priests also by degrees attached themselves to the family of Zadok, and ultimately came even to call themselves his sons, just as the Rechabites regarded Jonathan ben Rechab, or the "children of the prophets" one or other of the great prophets, as their father. Regarding their sanctuaries as their own private property, precisely as Micah does in the classical instance recorded in Judges xvii., xviii., and proceeding quite untrammelled in the appointment and removal of the officials employed, neither do these early kings hesitate in the least to exercise personally the rights which had emanated from themselves, and been delegated to others. Of Saul, who indeed was in the habit of delegating but seldom, and of doing with his own hand all that required to be done, it is several times mentioned that he sacrificed in person; and it is clear that this is not brought as a charge against him in 1Samuel xiv. and xv. David sacrificed on the occasion of his having successfully brought the ark to Jerusalem; that it was he himself who officiated appears from the fact that he wore the priestly ephod--_the ephod bad_--and at the close of the offering pronounced the benediction (2Samuel vi. 14, 18). In the same way was the consecration of the temple conducted by Solomon; it was he who went before the altar, and after praying there upon his knees with outstretched arms, rose and blessed the people (1Kings viii. 22, 54, 53),--doubtless also it was he who with his own hands offered the first sacrifice. The priests' technical skill is necessary only for inquiring of the oracle before the ephod (1Samuel xiv. 18). IV.II.3. These beginnings are continued in the history of the priesthood after the division of the kingdom. Jeroboam I., the founder of the kingdom of Israel, is treated by the historian as the founder also of Israel's worship in so far as the latter differed from the Judaean ideal: "he made the two calves of gold, and set them up at Bethel and at Dan; he made the Bamoth-houses and made priests from the mass of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi, and ordained a feast in the eighth month and ascended to the altar to burn incense" (1Kings xii. 28 seq., xiii. 33). Here indeed after the well-known manner of pious pragmatism retrospective validity is given to the Deuteronomic law which did not come into force until three centuries afterwards, and judgment is thus passed in accordance with a historically inadmissable standard; moreover, the facts on which the judgment is based are on the one hand too much generalised, and on the other hand laid too exclusively to the charge of Jeroboam. The first king bears the weight of all the sins in worship of all his successors and of the whole body of the people. But the recognition of the sovereign priesthood of the ruler, of the formative influence which he exercised over the worship, is just. The most important temples were royal ones, and the priests who attended at them were the king's priests (Amos vii. 10 seq.). When therefore Jehu overthrew the house of Ahab, he did not extirpate all its members merely, and its officials and courtiers, but also its priests as well; they too were servants of the crown and in positions of trust (2Kings x. 11I; comp. 1Kings iv. 5). The statement that they were chosen at the pleasure of the king is therefore to be taken as implying that, as in David's and Solomon's time, so also later they could and might be chosen at pleasure; on the other hand, in point of fact the sacred office, in Dan at least, continued from the period of the Judges down to the Assyrian deportation hereditary in the family of Jonathan. One must, moreover, avoid imagining that all the "houses of the high places" and all the priestly posts /1/ belonged to the king; it was impossible that the ******************************************** 1. The parallelism between "Bamoth-houses" and a priestly appointment in 1Kings xii. 31 seems not to be casual merely. Whilst a Bamah may be a simple altar, a "Bamoth-house" presupposes a divine image, and renders an _aedituus_ necessary. ******************************************** government should be so all-pervading in such matters. At this period most of the sanctuaries were public, but not therefore as yet on that account royal, and so also doubtless there were numerous priests who were not servants of the king. The preponderance of official cultus and of an official personnel to carry it on was counteracted in the northern kingdom by the frequent dynastic changes and the unattached particularism of the separate tribes; the conditions may be presumed to have developed themselves with great variety and freedom, hereditary and unhereditary priests, priests with independent benefices and others in complete poverty, subsisting side by side; the variety and the equality of rights enjoyed by all is the distinguishing mark of the time. Speaking generally, however, the priesthood has distinctly consolidated itself as compared with its former condition, and gained not a little alike in number and in influence; it has become an important power in public life, without which the nation cannot be imagined. It would perhaps be somewhat bold to assert this on the strength merely of the brief and inadequate indications in the Book of Kings, which is chiefly interested in the extraordinary interventions of the prophets in the course of Israel's history, but other and more authentic testimonies justify us in doing so. First of these is the Blessing of Moses, an independent document of northern Israel which speaks for itself. Here we read: "Thy Thummim and thy Urim belong to the man of thy friendship, whom thou didst prove at Massah, for whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who saith of father and mother, I have never seen them, and acknowledgeth not his brethren nor knoweth his own children-- for they observe thy word and keep thy covenant, they teach Jacob thy judgments and Israel thy law; they bring savour of fat before thee and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar; bless, O Lord, his strength, and accept the work of his hands; smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, and of them that hate him that they rise not again" (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8-11). In this passage the priests appear as a strictly close corporation, so close that they are mentioned only exceptionally in the plural number, and for the most part are spoken of collectively in the singular, as an organic unity which embraces not merely the contemporary members, but also their ancestors, and which begins its life with Moses, the friend of Jehovah who as its beginning is identified with the continuation just as the man is identified with the child out of which he has grown. The history of Moses is at the same time the history of the priests, the Urim and Thummim belong--one is not quite sure to which, but it comes to the same thing; every priest to whom the care of an ephod has been intrusted interrogates before it the sacred oracle. The first relative clause relating to Moses passes over without change of subject into one that refers to the priests, so that the singular immediately falls into plural and the plural back to the singular. Yet this so strongly marked solidarity of the priesthood as a profession rests by no means upon the natural basis of family or clan unity; it is not blood, but on the contrary the abnegation of blood that constitutes the priest, as is brought out with great emphasis. He must act for Jehovah's sake as if he had neither father nor mother, neither brethren nor children. Blind prepossession in people's conceptions of Judaism has hitherto prevented the understanding of these words, but they are thoroughly unambiguous. What they say is, that in consecrating himself to the service of Jehovah a man abandons his natural relationships, and severs himself from family ties; thus, with the brotherhood of the priests in northern Israel the case is precisely similar as with that of the religious guilds of the sons of the prophets--the Rechabites, and doubtless too the Nazarites (Amos ii. 11 seq.)--also native there. Whosoever chose (or, whomsoever he chose) was made priest by Jeroboam--such is the expression of the Deuteronomic redactor of the Book of Kings (1Kings xiii. 33). A historical example of what has been said is afforded by the young Samuel, as he figures in the narrative of his early years contained in 1Samuel i.-iii.--a narrative which certainly reflects the condition of things in Ephraim at the period of the monarchy. The child of a well-to-do middle class family at Ramah, in the district of Zuph Ephraim, he is even before his birth vowed to Jehovah by his mother, and as soon as possible afterwards is handed over to the sanctuary at Shiloh,--not to become a Nazarite or one of the Nethinim in the sense of the Pentateuch, but to be a priest,--for in his ministry he wears the linen ephod, the _ephod bad_, and even the pallium (1Samuel ii. 18) /1/ And it is made very plain that *********************************************** 1. Comp. Koran, iii. 31: "I vow to thee that which is in my womb as a devotee of the mosque, to serve it." *[pallium. "1.Antiq. A large rectangular cloak or mantle worn by men' chiefly among the Greeks; esp. by philosophers and by early Christian ascetics...Himation...2.Eccl. A vestment of wool worn by patriarchs and metropolitans... SOED. Heb. m(yl q+n ii.19?]* ********************************************** the mother's act, in thus giving up her son, who is properly hers, or (as she expresses it) lending him to Jehovah for ever (1Samuel i. 28: #MW)L=MW#)L), is regarded as a renunciation of family rights. The circumstance that it is by the parents and not by Samuel himself that the consecration is made makes no material difference; the one thing is on the same plane with the other, and doubtless occurred as well as the other, although seldomer. But, on the other hand, it can hardly have been the rule that any one should abandon not parents and brethren merely, but also wife and children as well in order to enter the priesthood; in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9 this is adduced only as an extreme instance of the spirit of self-sacrifice. In any case it is not to be inferred that celibacy was demanded, but only that the priestly office was often barely sufficient to support the man, not to speak of a family. So fixed and influential, so independent and exclusive had the priesthood become at the date of the composition of the Blessing of Moses, that it takes a place of its own alongside of the tribes of the nation, is itself a tribe, constituted, however, not by blood, but by community of spiritual interests. Its importance is brought into clearness even by the opposition which it encounters, and which occasions so vigorous a denunciation of its enemies that one might well believe the person who committed it to writing to have been himself a priest. The cause of the hostility is not stated, but it seems to be directed simply against the very existence of a professional and firmly organised clergy, and to proceed from laymen who hold fast by the rights of the old priestless days. Next to the Blessing of Moses the discourses of Hosea contain our most important materials for an estimate of the priesthood of Northern Israel. How important that institution was for public life is clear from his expressions also. The priests are the spiritual leaders of the people; the reproach that they do not fulfil their high vocation proves in the first place that they have it. Degenerate they are, to be sure; in Hosea's representation they are seen in the same light as that in which the sons of Eli appear as described in 1Samuel ii. 22 seq., from which description one conjectures the author to have derived his colours from a state of matters nearer his own day than the period of the judges. The priests of Shechem are even taxed by the prophet with open highway robbery (vi. 9), and in one charge after another he accuses them of taking advantage of their office for base gain, of neglecting its most sacred duties, and in this way having the principal blame for the ruin of the people. "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. (2.) There is swearing, and Iying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they use violence and add murder to murder. (3.) Therefore the land mourneth, and every creature that dwelleth therein languisheth, even to the wild beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven; and even the fishes of the sea are taken away. (4.) Yet let no man strive and no man reprove; for the people do just as their priests. (5.) Therefore shall ye (priests) stumble on that day, and also the prophets with you on that night; and I will destroy your kin. (6.) My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because ye yourselves reject knowledge; I will therefore reject you that ye shall be no longer priests unto me; ye have forgotten the doctrine of your God, so will I forget your children. (7.) The more they are, the more they sin against me; their glory they turn into shame. (8.) They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. (9.) And it shall be as with the people so with the priest; I will punish them for their ways and requite them for their doings. (10.) They shall eat and not have enough, they shall commit whoredom and shall not increase, because they have ceased to take heed to the Lord" (Hosea iv. 1-10). /1/ ********************************************** 1. In the introductory words the people are invited to hear what it is that Jehovah complains of them for; sin prevails to such an extent that the complete ruin of the country is inevitable (vers. 1-3). With the word "yet" at the beginning of the following verse the prophet changes the course of his thought; from the people he passes to the priests; the root of the general corruption is the want of divine knowledge (the knowledge, namely, that "I will have mercy and not sacrifice; "compare Jeremiah xxii. 16), and for this the priests are to blame, whose task it was to diffuse "knowledge," but who, instead of this for their own selfish interests fostered the tendency of the people to seek Jehovah's grace by sacrifice rather than by righteousness. For if it be conceded that it is the priests who are addressed from ver. 6 onwards, then it is not easy to see why a change in the address should take place between ver. 5 and ver. 6, especially as the co-ordination of priests with prophets seems more reasonable in ver. 5 than that of prophets and people. As ver. 4 in this way occupies an intermediate position between the complaint made against the people in vers. 1-3, and that against the priests in vers. 5-10, the transition from the one to the other, indicated by the "yet," must occur in it. Hosea abruptly breaks off from reproaching the people, "Yet let no man strive and no man reprove"--why not, the words that follow must explain. In verse 4b some circumstance must be mentioned which excuses the people, and at the same time draws down indignation upon the priests who are the subjects of the following. These considerations necessarily determine the thought which we are to expect, namely, this--"for the people do just as their priests." This meaning is obtained by the conjectural reading W(MY KKMRYW instead of W(MKKMRYB. Comp. ver. 9. The remaining YKH must be deleted. The ordinary view of ver. 4 is hardly worth refuting. The )L YWKH, it is said, is spoken from the people's point of view. The people repel the prophet's reproach and rebuke, because (such is the interpretation of ver. 4b) they themselves have no scruples in striving EVEN with the priest. "Even," for want of subjection to the priests is held to be specially wicked. But the prophet Hosea would hardly have considered it a capital offence if the people had withheld from the priests the respect of which, according to his own language, they were so utterly unworthy. Moreover, every exegesis which finds in ver. 4 a reproach brought against the people, leaves in obscurity the point at which the transition is made from reproach of the people to reproach of the priests. *********************************************** In the northern kingdom, according to this, the spiritual ascendancy of the priests over the people seems hardly to have been less than that of the prophets, and if in the history we hear less about it, /1/ the explanation is to be sought in the ******************************************** 1. According to 2Kings xvii. 27, 28, the foreign colonies introduced by the Assyrians into Samaria after it had been depopulated, were at first devoured by lions because they were ignorant of the right way of honouring the deity of the land. Esarhaddon therefore sent one of the exiled Samaritan priests, who fixed his abode at Bethel, the ancient chief sanctuary, and instructed (MWRH) the settlers in the religion of the god of the country. This presupposes a definite priesthood, which maintained itself even in exile for a considerable time. ******************************************* fact that they laboured quietly and regularly in limited circles, taking no part in politics, and fully submissive to the established order, and that for this reason they attracted less notice and were less talked about than the prophets who, like Elijah and Elisha, stirred up Israel by their extraordinary and oppositional action. IV.II.4. In Judah the nucleus of the development was the same as in Israel. The idea that in Judah the genuine Mosaic priesthood had by the grace of God been maintained, while in Israel, on the other hand, a schismatic priesthood had intruded itself by the favour of the king and man's device, is that of the later Judaeans who had the last word, and were therefore of course in the right. The B'ne Zadok of Jerusalem as contrasted with the B'ne Eli whom they superseded were originally illegitimate (if one may venture to apply a conception which at that time was quite unknown), and did not inherit their right from the fathers, but had it from David and Solomon. They always remained in this dependent condition, they at all times walked, as 1Samuel ii. 35 has it, "before Jehovah's anointed," as his servants and officers. To the kings the temple was a part of their palace which, as is shown by 1Kings vii. and 2Kings xi., stood upon the same hill and was contiguous with it; they placed their threshold alongside of that of Jehovah, and made their door-posts adjoin to His, so that only the wall intervened between Jehovah and them (Ezekiel xliii. 8). They shaped the official cultus entirely as they chose, and regarded the management of it, at least so far as one gathers from the epitome of the "Book of the Kings," as the main business of their government. They introduced new usages and abolished old ones; and as they did so the priests always bent to their will and were merely their executive organs. /1/ That they were at ******************************************* 1. Compare for example 2Kings xii. 5 seq. (Joash and Jehoiada), xvi. 10 seq. Ahaz and Urijah), and, finally, chap. xxii. (Josiah and Hilkiah). ****************************************** liberty to offer sacrifice also is a thing of course; they did it, however, only on exceptional occasions, such as, perhaps, at the dedication of a new altar (2Kings xvi. 12, 13). Even with Jeremiah, who as a rule does not consider sacrifice and drawing near to Jehovah (Numbers xvi 5) as every man's business, the king as such is held to be also the supreme priest; for at the beginning of the exile and the foreign domination his hope for the future is: "Their potentate shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them, and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me; for who else should have the courage to approach unto me? saith the Lord" (xxx. 21). Ezekiel is the first to protest against dealing with the temple as a royal dependency; for him the prerogative of the prince is reduced to this, that it is his duty to support the public cultus at his own expense. The distinction between the Judaean and the Israelite priesthood did not exist at first, but arose out of the course of events. The sheltered and quiet life of the little state in the south presents a marked contrast with the external and internal conflicts, the easily raised turmoil, of the northern kingdom. In the latter, the continual agitation brought extraordinary personalities up to the surface; in the former, institutions based upon the permanent order of things and supported by permanent powers were consolidated./1/ ************************************************* 1. The Rechabites, who arose in the northern kingdom, continued to subsist in Judah, and Jeremiah prophesied to them that there should never fail them a priestly head of the family of their founder (xxxv. 19). ************************************************** Naturally the monarchy itself benefited most by this stability. The king's cultus, which in the kingdom of Samaria was in no position to supersede the popular and independent worship, easily obtained a perceptible preponderance in the smaller Judah; the king's priesthood, which in the former was incidentally involved in disaster by the overthrow of the dynasty, in the latter gained in strength side by side with the house of David--even Aaron and Amminadab were according to the Priestly Code related to the royal family, as Jehoiada and Ahaziah were in actual fact. Thus at an early period was the way paved for the Act of Uniformity by which Josiah made the king's cultus the official and the only one. One effect which accompanied the measures he took was naturally the exclusive legitimation of the king's priesthood at Jerusalem. But the principle of heredity had already pervaded the other priestly families so thoroughly that to enter any secular calling was nowhere expected of them. The Deuteronomic legislator had conferred upon them the right of carrying on their office at Jerusalem, and of executing it there on behalf of any one who requested their services; but this regulation, from the opposition of the B'ne Zadok, was found on the whole impracticable (2Kings xxiii. 9), although doubtless some extraneous elements may at that time have succeeded in making their way into the temple nobility. The bulk of the priests of the high places who had been superseded had to content themselves (since they could not now get rid of their spiritual character) with being degraded among their brethren at Jerusalem, and with admission to a subordinate share in the service of the sanctuary (comp. 1Samuel ii. 36). It was thus, at the close of the pre-exilic history, that the distinction between priests and Levites arose to which Ezekiel is at pains to give the sanction of law. IV.III. IV.III.1. On the whole it is easy here to bring the successive strata of the Pentateuch into co-ordination with the recognisable steps of the historical development. In the Jehovistic legislation there is no word of priests (Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.), and even such precepts as "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon " (Exodus xx. 26) are directed to the general "thou," that is, to the people. With this corresponds the fact that in the solemn ratification of the covenant of Sinai (Exodus xxiv. 3-8), it is young men of the children of Israel who officiate as sacrificers. Elsewhere in the Jehovist Aaron (Exodus iv. 14, xxxii. 1 seq.) and Moses (xxxiii. 7-lI; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8) figure as the founders of the clerical order. Twice (in Exodus xix. 22 and xxxii 29) mention is made of other priests besides; but Exodus xxxii. 29 rests upon Deuteronomy, and even Exodus xix. 22 can hardly have been an original constituent of one of the Jehovistic sources. IV.III.2. In Deuteronomy the priests, as compared with the judges and the prophets, take a very prominent position (xvi. 18-xviii. 22) and constitute a clerical order, hereditary in numerous families, whose privilege is uncontested and therefore also does not require protection. Here now for the first time begins the regular use of the name of Levites for the priests,--a name of which the consideration has been postponed until now. In the pre-exilic literature apart from the Pentateuch it occurs very seldom. First in the prophets, once in the Book of Jeremiah (xxxiii. 17-22), in a passage which in any case is later than the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, and certainly was not written by Jeremiah. /1/ The use of the name is an ********************************************** 1. In the LXX, chap. xxxiii. 14-26 is wanting. The parallelism between vers. 17-22 and 23-26 is striking. It looks as if David and Levi arose out of a misunderstanding of the families mentioned in ver. 24, namely, Judah and Ephraim. In any case wdwd in ver. 26 is an interpolation. ************************************************ established thing in Ezekiel (573 B.C.), and henceforward occurs without interruption in the writings of the later prophets, a sign that its earlier absence is not to be explained as accidental, not even in Jeremiah, who speaks so frequently of the priests. /2/ ******************************************** 1. Ezekiel xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 10, 15, xlv. 5, xlviii. 11-13, 22, 31; Isaiah lxvi. 21; Zechariah xii. 13; Malachi ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. ******************************************* In the historical books the Levites (leaving out of account 1Samuel vi. 15, 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4, xii. 31) /1/ ********************************************** 1. Upon 1Samuel vi. 15 all that is necessary has been said at IV.II.1; on 1Kings viii. 4 see. I.III.1. That 1Kings xii. 31 proceeds from the Deuteronomic redactor, the date of whose writing is not earlier than the second half of the exile, needs no proof. The hopeless corruptness of 2Samuel xv. 24 I have shown in Text. d. BB. Sam. (Goettingen, 1871). ****************************************** occur only in the two appendices to the Book of Judges (chaps. xvii., xviii., and xix., xx.), of which, however, the second is unhistorical and late, and only the first is certainly pre-exilic. But in this case it is not the Levites who are spoken of, as elsewhere, but A LEVITE, who passes for a great rarity, and who is forcibly carried off by the tribe of Dan, which has none. Now this Jonathan, the ancestor of the priests of Dan, notwithstanding that he belongs to the tribe of Judah, is represented as a descendant of Gershom the son of Moses (Judges xviii. 30). The other ancient priestly family that goes back to the period of the Judges, the Ephraimitic, of Shiloh, appears also to be brought into connection with Moses; at least in 1Samuel ii. 27 (a passage, however, which is certainly post-Deuteronomic), where Jehovah is spoken of as having made himself known to the ancestors of Eli in Egypt, and as thereby having laid the foundation for the bestowal of the priesthood, it is clearly Moses who is thought of as the recipient of the revelation. Historical probability admits of the family being traced back to Phinehas, who during the early period of the judges was priest of the ark, and from whom the inheritance on Mount Ephraim and also the second son of Eli were named; it is not to be supposed that he is the mere shadow of his younger namesake, as the latter predeceased his father and was of quite secondary importance beside him. But Phinehas is both in the Priestly Code and in Josh. xxiv. 33 (E) the son of Eleazar, and Eleazar is, according to normal tradition, indeed a son of Aaron, but according to the sound of his name (Eliezer) a son of Moses along with Gershom. Between Aaron and Moses in the Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch no great distinction is made; if Aaron, in contradistinction from his brother, is characterised as THE LEVITE (Exodus iv. 14), Moses on the other hand bears the priestly staff, is over the sanctuary, and has Joshua to assist him as Eli had Samuel (Exodus xxxiii. 7-11). Plainly the older claims are his; in the main Jehovistic source, in J, Aaron originally does not occur at all, /2/ neither ************************************** 1. That Aaron was not originally present in J, but owed his introduction to tile redactor who combined J nnd E together into JE, can be shown best from Exod vii. x. For Jehovah's COMMAND to appear before Pharaoh is in J given to Moses alone (vii. 14, 26 [viii. 1], viii. 16 [20], ix. 1, 13, x. 1); it is only in the sequel that Aaron appears along with him four times, always when Pharaoh in distress summons Moses and Aaron in order to ask their intercession. But strangely enough Aaron is afterwards completely ignored again; Moses alone makes answer, speaking solely in his own name and not in Aaron's also (viii. 5, 22, 25 [9, 26, 29]; ix. 29), and although he has not come alone ; he goes so and makes his prayer in the singular (viii. 8, 26 [12, 30], ix. 33, x. 18), the change of the number in x. 17 is under these circumstances suspicious enough. It appears as if the Jehovistic editor had held Aaron's presence to be appropriate precisely at the intercession. *********************************** is he mentioned in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8. In the genealogies of the Priestly Code one main branch of the tribe of Levi is still called, like the eldest son of Moses, Gershom, and another important member is actually called Mushi, 2:e., the Mosaite. It is not impossible that the holy office may have continued in the family of Moses, and it is very likely that the two oldest houses in which it was hereditary, those at Dan and at Shiloh, may have claimed in all seriousness to have been descended from him. Afterwards, as Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8 seq. informs us, all priests honoured Moses as their father, not as being the head of their clan but as being the founder of their order. The same took place in Judah, but there the clerical guild ultimately acquired a hereditary character, and the order became a sort of clan. _Levite_, previously an official name, now became a patronymic at the same time, and all the Levites together formed a blood-kinship, /1/ ********************************************** 1. The instance of the Rechabites shows how easily the transition could made. ********************************************** a race which had not received any land of its own indeed, but in compensation had obtained the priesthood for its heritage. This hereditary clergy was alleged to have existed from the very beginning of the history of Israel, and even then as a numerous body, consisting of many others besides Moses and Aaron. Such is the representation made by Deuteronomist and subsequent writers, but in Deuteronomy we read chiefly of the _Levites_ in the provincial towns of Judah and of the _priests_, the _Levites_ in Jerusalem, seldom of Levi as a whole (x. 8 seq., xviii. 1) /2/ ************************************************ 2. On Deut xxvii. compare Kuenen, Theol. Tidjdschr., 1878, p. 297. *********************************************** That the hereditary character of the priesthood is here antedated and really first arose in the later period of the Kings, has already been shown in the particular instance of the sons of Zadok of Jerusalem, who were at first parvenus and afterwards became the most legitimate of the legitimate. But it is very remarkable how this artificial construction of a priestly family,--a construction which has absolutely nothing perplexing in itself-- was suggested and favoured by the circumstance that in remote antiquity there once actually did exist a veritable tribe of Levi which had already disappeared before the period of the rise of the monarchy. This tribe belonged to the group of the four oldest sons of Leah,--Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,--who are always enumerated together in this order, and who settled on both sides of the Dead Sea, towards the wilderness. Singularly no one of them succeeded in holding its own except Judah; all the others became absorbed among the inhabitants of the wilderness or in other branches of their kindred. The earliest to find this destiny were the two tribes of Simeon and Levi (in Genesis xlix. regarded as one), in consequence of a catastrophe which must have befallen them at some time during the period of the judges. "Simeon and Levi are brethren, their shepherds' staves are weapons of slaughter; O my soul, come not thou into their assembly! mine honour, be thou far from their band! for they slew men in their anger, and in their self-will they houghed oxen; cursed be their anger--so fierce! and their wrath--so cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them over Israel!" (Genesis xlix.5-7). The offence of Simeon and Levi here rebuked cannot have been committed against Israelites, for in such a case the thought could not have occurred, which is here emphatically repelled, that Jacob, that is to say, Israel as a whole, could have made common cause with them. What is here spoken of must be some crime against the Canaanites, very probably the identical crime which is charged upon the two brothers in Genesis xxxiv., and which there also Jacob (ver. 30) repudiates,--the treacherous attack upon Shechem and massacre of its inhabitants, in disregard of the treaty which had been made. In Judges ix. it is related that Shechem, until then a flourishing town of the Canaanites, with whom moreover Israelite elements were already beginning to blend, was conquered and destroyed by Abimelech, but it is quite impossible to bring into any connection with this the violent deed of Simeon and Levi, which must have taken place earlier, although also within the period of the judges. The consequences of their act, the vengeance of the Canaanites, the two tribes had to bear alone; Israel, according to the indication given in Genesis xlix. 6, xxxiv. 30, did not feel any call to interfere on their behalf or make common cause with them. Thus they fell to pieces and passed out of sight,--in the opinion of their own nation a just fate. In the historical books they are never again mentioned. It is quite impossible to regard this Levi of the Book of Genesis as a mere shadow of the caste which towards the end of the monarchy arose out of the separate priestly families of Judah. The utterance given in Genesis xlix. 5-7 puts the brothers on an exact equality, and assigns to them an extremely secular and blood-thirsty character. There is not the faintest idea of Levi's sacred calling or of his dispersion as being conditioned thereby; the dispersion is a curse and no blessing, an annihilation and no establishment of his special character. But it is equally an impossibility to derive the caste from the tribe; there is no real connection between the two, all the intermediate links are wanting; the tribe succumbed at an early date, and the rise of the caste was very late, and demonstrably from unconnected beginnings. But in these circumstances the coincidence of name is also very puzzling: Levi the third son of Jacob, perhaps a mere patronymic derived form his mother Leah, and levi the official priest. If it were practicable to find a convincing derivation of levi in its later use from the appellative meaning of the root, then one might believe the coincidence to be merley fortuitous, but it is impossible to do so. the solution therefore has been suggested that the violent dissolution of the tribe in the period of the judges led the individual Levites, who now were landless, to seek their maintenance by the exercise of sacrificial functions; this lay to their hand and was successful because Moses them an of God had belonged to their number and had transmitted to them by hereditary succession a certain preferential claim to the sacred office. But at that time priestly posts were not numerous, and such an entrance of the levites _en masse_ into the service of Jehovah in that early time is in view of the infrequency of the larger sanctuaries a very difficult assumption. It is perhaps correct to say that Moses actually was descended from Levi, and that the later significance of the name Levite is to be explained by reference to him. In point of fact, the name does appear to have been given in the first instance only to the descendants of Moses, and not to have been transferred until a later period to those priests as a body, who were quite unconnected with him by blood, but who all desired to stand related to him as their head. Here it will never be possible to get beyond conjecture. IV.III.3 While the clerical _tribe of the Levites_ is still brought forward only modestly in Deuteronomy (x. 8 seq. xviii. 1; Joshua xiii. 14, 33), it is dealt with in very real earnest in the Priestly Code. The _tribe of Levi_ (Numbers i. 47, 49, iii. 6, xvii. 3, xviii. 2) is given over by the remaining tribes to the sanctuary, is catalogued according to the genealogical system of its families, reckons 22,000 male members, and even receives a sort of tribal territory, the forty-eight Levitical cities (Josh. xxi.). At the beginning of this chapter we have already spoken of a forward step made in the Priestly Code, connected with this enlargement of the clergy, but of much greater importance; hitherto the distinction has been between clergy and laity, while here there is introduced the great division of the order itself into sons of Aaron and Levites. Not in Deuteronomy only, but everywhere in the Old Testament, apart from Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, Levite is the priest's title of honour. /1/ Aaron himself is so styled in the ************************************************ 1. Exodus iv. 14; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8; Judges xvii. seq.; Exodus xxxii. 26-28; Deuteronomy x. 8 seq., xii. 12, 18 seq. xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 11, 14, xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1-8, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, 14, xxxi. 9, 25; Joshua iii. 3,xiii. 14, 33, xiv. 3 seq., xviii. 7; Judges xix. seq., 1Samuel v1. 15; 1Kings xii. 31, Jeremiah xxxiii 17-22; Ezekiel xliv. 8 seq.; Isaiah lxvi. 2, Zechariah xii. 13, Malachi Ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. Only the glosses 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4 (compare, however, 2Chronicles v. 5) can rest upon the Priestly Code. ******************************************** often-quoted passage, Exodus iv. 14, and that too to denote his calling, not his family, for the latter he has in common with Moses, from whom, nevertheless, it is intended to distinguish him by the style, "thy brother the Levite." In Deuteronomy we are struck by the deliberate emphasis laid on the equal right of all the Levites to sacrificial service in Jerusalem-- "The priests, the Levites, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of Jehovah and his inheritance....And if a Levite come from any of thy cities out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come to the place which Jehovah shall choose, then he shall minister in the name of Jehovah his God as all his brethren the Levites do who stand there before Jehovah" (Deuteronomy xviii. 1, 6, 7). Here the legislator has in view his main enactment, viz., the abolition of all places of worship except the temple of Solomon; those who had hitherto been the priests of these could not be allowed to starve. Therefore it is that he impresses it so often and so earnestly on the people of the provinces that in their sacrificial pilgrimages to Jerusalem they ought not to forget the Levite of their native place, but should carry him with them. For an understanding of the subsequent development this is very important, in so far as it shows how the position of the Levites outside of Jerusalem was threatened by the centralisation of the worship. In point of fact, the good intention of the Deuteronomist proved impossible of realisation; with the high places fell also the priests of the high places. In so far as they continued to have any part at all in the sacred service, they had to accept a position of subordination under the sons of Zadok (2Kings xxiii. 9). Perhaps Graf was correct in referring to this the prophecy of 1Samuel ii. 36 according to which the descendants of the fallen house of Eli are to come to the firmly established regius priest, to beg for an alms, or to say, "Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a piece of bread:" that historically the deposed Levites had no very intimate connection with those ancient companions in misfortune is no serious objection to such an interpretation in the case of a post-Deuteronomic writer. In this way arose as an illegal consequence of Josiah's reformation, the distinction between priests and Levites. With Ezekiel this distinction is still an innovation requiring justification and sanction; with the Priestly Code it is a "statute for ever," although even yet not absolutely undisputed, as appears from the Priestly version of the story of Korah's company. /1/ For all Judaism subsequent to Ezra, and so for *********************************************** 1. Distorted references to the historical truth are round also in Numbers xvii. 25 and xviii. 23, passages which are unintelligible apart from Ezekiel xliv. Compare Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr., 1878, p. 138 seq. ********************************************* Christian tradition, the Priestly Code in this matter also has been authoritative. Instead of the Deuteronomic formula "the priests the Levites," we henceforward have "the priests and the Levites," particularly in Chronicles, /2/ and in the *********************************************** 2. Except in 2 Chrom v. 5, xxx. 27. ********************************************* ancient versions the old _usus_ loquendi is frequently corrected. /3/ ********************************************* 3. E.g., Josh. iii. 3 and Isaiah lxvi. 21 in the LXX, Deuteronomy xviii. 1 and Judges xvii. 13 in "Jerome; and many passages in the Syriac. On the carrying out of the new organisation of the temple _personnel_ after the exile, see Vatke, p. 568, Graf (in Merx's Archiv, i., p. 225 seq.), and Kuenen (Godsdienst, ii. p. 104 seq ). With Zerubbabel and Joshua, four priestly families, 4289 persons in all, returned from Babylon in 538 (Ezra iv. 36-39); with Ezra in 458 came two families in addition, but the number of persons is not stated (viii. 2). Of Levites there came on the first occasion 74 (ii. 40); on the second, of the 1500 men who met at the rendezvous appointed by Ezra to make the journey through the wilderness, not one was a Levite, and it was only on the urgent representations of the scribe that some thirty were at last induced to join the company (viii. 15-20). How can we explain this preponderance of priests over Levites, which is still surprising even if the individual figures are not to be taken as exact? Certainly it cannot be accounted for if the state of matters for a thousand years had been that represented in the Priestly Code and in Chronicles. On the other hand, all perplexity vanishes if the Levites were the degraded priests of the high places of Judah. These were certainly not on the whole more numerous than the Jerusalem college, and the prospect of thenceforward not being permitted to sacrifice in their native land, but of having slaughtering and washing for sole duties, cannot have been in any way very attractive to them; one can hardly blame them if they were disinclined voluntarily to lower themselves to the position of mere laborers under the sons of Zadok. Besides, it may be taken for granted that many (and more particularly Levitical) elements not originally belonging to it had managed to make way into the ranks of the Solomonic priesthood; that all were not successful (Ezra ii. 61) shows that many made the attempt, and considering the ease with which genealogies hoary with age were then manufactured and accepted, every such attempt cannot have failed. How then came it to pass that afterwards, as one must conclude from the statements in Chronicles, the Levites stood to the priests in a proportion so much more nearly, if even then not quite fully corresponding to the law? Simply by the "Levitising" of alien families. At first in the community of the second temple the Levites continued to be distinguished from the singers, porters, and Nethinim (Ezra ii. 41-58), guilds which from the outset were much more numerous and which rapidly grew (Nehemiah xi. 17, 19, 36, xii. 28 seq.; 1Chronicles ix. 16, 22, 25). But the distinction had in fact no longer any actual basis, once the Levites had been degraded to the rank of temple-servitors and become Nethinim to the priests (Numbers iii. 9). Hence, where the Chronicler, who is at the same time the author of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is not reproducing old sources but is writing freely, he regards the singers also and the porters as Levites. By artificial genealogies of rather a rough and ready kind the three families of singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan are traced up (1Chronicles v1.. 1 seq.) to the old Levitical families of Kohath, Gershon, and Merari (see Graf, as above, p. 231; and Ewald, iii. p. 380 seq.). How far the distinction between the Nethinim and the Levites was afterwards maintained (Josh. ix. 21 seq., I Esdras i. 3; Ezra viii. 20) is not clear. It would not be amiss if Ezekiel's intention of banishing foreigners from the temple found its fulfilment only through these heathen hieroduli, the Mehunim, the Nephisim, the sons of Shalmai, and the others whose foreign-sounding names are given in Ezra ii. 43 seq., obtaining admission into the tribe of Levi by artificial genealogies. A peculiar side light is thrown upon the course of development by the fact that the singers who in Ezra's time were not yet even Levites, afterwards felt shame in being so, and desired at least externally to be placed on all equality with priests. They begged of King Agrippa II. to obtain for them the permission of the synedrium to wear the white priestly dress. *********************************************** The copestone of the sacred structure reared by the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch is the high priest. As the Aaronites are above the Levites so is Aaron himself above his sons; in his person culminates thc development of the unity of worship inaugurated by Deuteronomy and the agency of Josiah. No figure of such incomparable importance occurs anywhere else in the Old Testament; a high priest of pre-eminent sanctity is still unknown to Ezekiel even. Even before the exile, it is true, the temple worship at Jerusalem had become so magnificent and its personnel so numerous as to render necessary an orderly division of offices and a gradation of ranks. In Jeremiah's time the priests constituted a guild divided into classes or families with elders at their head; the principal priest had a potent voice in the appointment of his inferior colleagues (1Samuel ii. 36); alongside of him stood the second priest, the keepers of the threshold, the captain of the watch as holders of prominent charges. /1/ But in the Law the position of Aaron is not merely *********************************************** I The Kohen ha-rosh first occurs in 2Samuel xv. 27, but here HR)# (so read, instead of HRW)H) comes from the interpolator of ver. 24. So again 2Kings xii. 11, HKHN HGDWL, but 2Kings xii. is from the same hand as 2Kings xvi. 10 seq. Elsewhere we have simply "the priest," compare besides 2Kings xix. 2; Jeremiah xix. 1; 2Kings xxiii. 4; xxv. 18; Jeremiah xx. 1; xxix. 25, 26; In 1Samuel ii. 36 SPXNY "incorporate me" shows that KHNH must mean "priestly guild" or "order." In connection with the name LWY it is noteworthy that SPX is parallel with LWH in Isaiah xiv. 1. ********************************************** superior but unique, like that of the Pope in relation to the episcopate; his sons act under his oversight (Numbers iii. 4); he alone is the one fully qualified priest, the embodiment of all that is holy in Israel He alone bears the Urim and Thummim and the Ephod; the Priestly Code indeed no longer knows what those articles are for, and it confounds the ephod of gold with the ephod of linen, the plated image with the priestly robe; but the dim recollections of these serve to enhance the magical charm of Aaron's majestic adornment. He alone may enter into the holy of holies and there offer incense; the way at other times inaccessible (Nehemiah vi. 10, 11) is open to him on the great day of atonement. Only in him, at a single point and in a single moment, has Israel immediate contact with Jehovah. The apex of the pyramid touches heaven. The high priest stands forth as absolutely sovereign in his own domain. Down to the exile, as we have seen, the sanctuary was the property of the king, and the priest was his servant; even in Ezekiel who on the whole is labouring towards emancipation, the prince has nevertheless a very great importance in the temple still; to him the dues of the people are paid, and the sacrificial expenses are in return defrayed by him. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand, the dues are paid direct into the sanctuary, the worship is perfectly autonomous, and has its own head, holding not from man but from the grace of God. Nor is it merely the autonomy of religion that is represented by the high priest; he exhibits also its supremacy over Israel. He does not carry sceptre and sword; nowhere, as Vatke (p. 539) well remarks, is any attempt made to claim for him secular power. But just in virtue of his spiritual dignity, as the head of the priesthood, he is head of the theocracy, and so much so that there is no room for any other alongside of him; a theocratic king beside him cannot be thought of (Numbers xxvii. 21). He alone is the responsible representative of the collective nation, the names of the twelve tribes are written on his breast and shoulders; his transgression involves the whole people in guilt, and is atoned for as that of the whole people, while the princes, when their sin-offerings are compared with his, appear as mere private persons (Leviticus iv. 3, 13, 22, ix. 7, xvi. 6). His death makes an epoch; it is when the high priest--not the king--dies that the fugitive slayer obtains his amnesty (Numbers xxxv. 28). At his investiture he receives the chrism like a king, and is called accordingly the anointed priest; he is adorned with the diadem and tiara (Ezekiel xxi. 31, A.V. 26) like a king, and like a king too he wears the purple, that most unpriestly of all raiment, of which he therefore must divest himself when he goes into the holy of holies (Lev. xvi. 4). What now can be the meaning of this fact,--that he who is at the head of the worship, in this quality alone, and without any political attributes besides, or any share in the government, is at the same time at the head of the nation? What but that civil power has been withdrawn from the nation and is in the hands of foreigners; that Israel has now merely a spiritual and ecclesiastical existence? In the eyes of the Priestly Code Israel in point of fact is not a people, but a church; worldly affairs are far removed from it and are never touched by its laws; its life is spent in religious services. Here we are face to face with the church of the second temple, the Jewish hierocracy, in a form possible only under foreign domination. It is customary indeed to designate in the Law by the ideal, or in other words blind, name of theocracy that which in historical reality is usually called hierarchy; but to imagine that with the two names one has gained a real distinction is merely to deceive oneself. But, this self-deception accomplished, it is easy further to carry back the hierocratic churchly constitution to the time of Moses, because it excludes the kingship, and then either to assert that it was kept secret throughout the entire period of the judges and the monarchy, or to use the fiction as a lever by which to dislocate the whole of the traditional history. To any one who knows anything about history it is not necessary to prove that the so-called Mosaic theocracy, which nowhere suits the circumstances of the earlier periods, and of which the prophets, even in their most ideal delineations of the Israelite state as it ought to be, have not the faintest shadow of an idea, is, so to speak, a perfect fit for post-exilian Judaism, and had its actuality only there. Foreign rulers had then relieved the Jews of all concern about secular affairs; they had it in their power, and were indeed compelled to give themselves wholly up to sacred things, in which they were left completely unhampered. Thus the temple became the sole centre of life, and the prince of the temple the head of the spiritual commonwealth, to which also the control of political affairs, so far as these were still left to the nation, naturally fell there being no other head! /1/ *********************************************** 1. Very interesting and instructive is Ewald's proof of the way in which Zech. vi. 9-15 has been tampered with, so as to eliminate Zerubbabel and leave the high priest alone. Just so in dealing with Caliphs and Sultans, the Patriarchs were and are the natural heads of the Greek and Oriental Christians even in secular matters. *********************************************** The Chronicler gave a corresponding number of high priests to the twice twelve generations of forty years each which were usually assumed to have elapsed between the exodus and the building of Solomon's temple, and again between that and the close of the captivity; the official terms of office of these high priests, of whom history knows nothing, have taken the place of the reigns of judges and kings, according to which reckoning was previously made (1Chronicles v. 29, seq.). One sees clearly from Sirach l., and from more than one statement of Josephus (e.g., Ant., xviii. 4, 3, xx. 1, 11), how in the decorations of Aaron (where, however, the Urim and Thummim were wanting; Nehemiah vii. 65) people reverenced a transcendent majesty which had been left to the people of God as in some sense a compensation for the earthly dignity which had been lost. Under the rule of the Greeks the high priest became ethnarch and president of the synedrium; only through the pontificate was it possible for the Hasmonaeans to attain to power, but when they conjoined it with full-blown secular sovereignty, they created a dilemma to the consequences of which they succumbed. CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY. The power and independence of the clergy run parallel with its material endowment, which accordingly passes through the same course of development. Its successive steps are reflected even in the language that is employed, in the gradual loss of point sustained by the phrase "to fill the hand," at all times used to denote ordination. Originally it cannot have had any other meaning than that of filling the hand with money or its equivalent; we have seen that at one time the priest was appointed by the owner of a sanctuary for a salary, and that, without being thus dependent upon a particular employer, he could not then live on the income derived from those who might employ him sacrificially. But when the Levitical hereditary priesthood arose in the later kingdom of Judah the hands of the priests were no longer filled by another who had the right to appoint and to dismiss, but they themselves at God's command "filled their own hand," or rather they had done so in the days of Moses once for all, as is said in Exodus xxxii. 26-29, an insertion corresponding with the position of Deuteronomy. It is obvious that such a statement, when carefully looked at, is absurd, but is to be explained by the desire to protest against outside interference. Even here the etymological sense is still sufficiently felt to create an involuntary jar and leads to a change of the construction; but finally all sense of it is lost, and the expression becomes quite colourless: "to fill the hand " means simply "to consecrate." In Ezekiel not only the priest but also the altar has its "hand filled" (xliii. 26); in the Priestly Code the abstract _milluim_ ["consecrations"] is chiefly used, with subject and object left out, as the name of a mere inaugural ceremony which lasts for several days (Leviticus viii. 33; Exodus xxix. 34), essentially consists in the bringing of an offering on the part of the person to be consecrated, and has no longer even the remotest connection with actual filling of the hand (2Chronicles xiii. 7; comp. xxix. 31). The verb, therefore, now means simply the performance of this ceremony, and the subject is quite indifferent (Leviticus xvi. 32, xxi. 10; Numbers iii. 3); the installation does not depend upon the person who performs the rite, but upon the rite itself, upon the unction, investiture, and other formalities (Exodus xxix. 29). This variation in the _usus Ioquendi_ is the echo of real changes in the outuard condition of the clergy, which we must now proceed to consider more in detail. V.I. V.I.1. Of the offerings, it was the custom in the earlier time to dedicate a portion to the deity but to use the greater part in sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course allowed also in one way or another to participate. But he does not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of flesh. "Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came (that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while the flesh was in seething, with a three-pronged flesh-hook in his hand, and stuck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Even before the fat was burnt, the servant of the priest came and said to the man that sacrificed: "Give flesh to roast for the priest; he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if the other said to him: Let the fat first be burnt, and then take according to thy soul's desire; then he would answer: Nay, but thou shalt give it now; and if not, I will take it by force" (1Samuel ii. 12-16). The tribute of raw portions of flesh before the burning of the fat is here treated as a shameless demand which is fitted to bring Jehovah's offering into contempt (ver. 17), and which has the ruin of the sons of Eli as its merited reward. More tolerable is it, though even that is an abuse, when the priests cause boiled flesh to be brought them from the pot, though not seeking out the best for themselves, but leaving the selection to chance; they ought to wait and see what is given to them, or be contented with an invitation to the banquet. On the other hand we have it in Deuteronomy as "the priest's due from the people" (xviii. 3 = 1Samuel ii. 12) that he receives the shoulder and the two cheeks and the maw of the slaughtered animal; and yet this is a modest claim compared with what the sons of Aaron have in the Priestly Code (Leviticus vii. 34),--the right leg and the breast. The course of the development is plain; the Priestly Code became law for Judaism. In sacrifice, ITS demands were those which were regarded; but in order to fulfil all righteousness the precept of Deuteronomy was also maintained, this being applied--against the obvious meaning and certainly only as a result of later scrupulosity of the scribes--not to sacrifices but to ordinary secular slaughterings, from which also accordingly the priests received a portion, the cheeks (according to Jerome on Malachi ii. 3), including the tongue, the precept being thus harmonistically doubled. /1/ At an earlier ******************************************** 1. Philo, De praem. sacerd., sec. 3. Josephus, Ant., iii. 9. 2; iv. 4, 4. ******************************************** date the priests at Jerusalem received money from those who employed them (Deuteronomy xviii. 8), but for this had the obligation of maintaining the temple; from this one can discern that the money was properly speaking paid to the sanctuary, and was only conditionally delivered to its servitors. When they failed to observe the condition, King Jehoash took the money also from them (2Kings xii. 7 seq.). The meal-offerings are in the Priestly Code a subordinate matter, and the share that falls to the priests is here trifling compared with what they receive of the other sacrifices. The meal, of which only a handful is sprinkled upon the altar, the baked bread, and the minha altogether are theirs entirely, so also the sin and trespass offerings so frequently demanded, of which God receives only the blood and the fat and the offerer nothing at all (Ezekiel xliv. 29); of the burnt-offering at least the skin falls to their lot, These perquisites, however, none of them in their definite form demonstrably old, and some of them demonstrably the reverse, may be presumed to have had their analogues in the earlier period, so that they cannot be regarded absolutely as augmentation of the priestly income. In Josiah's time the mac,c,oth were among the principal means of support of the priests (2Kings xxiii. 9); doubtless they came for the most part from the minha. Instead of sin and trespass offerings, which are still unknown to Deuteronomy, there were formerly sin and trespass dues in the form of money payments to the priests,--payments which cannot, however, have been so regular (2Kings xii. 17). It is as if money payments were in the eye of the law too profane; for atonement there must be shedding of blood. That the skin of the holocaust, which cannot well be consumed on the altar, should fall to the priest is so natural an arrangement, that one will hardly be disposed to regard it as new, although Ezekiel is silent about a due which was not quite worthless (xliv. 28-31). So far then as departures from earlier custom can be shown in the sacrificial dues enjoined by the Priestly Code, they must not indeed be treated as purely local differences, but neither are they to be regarded as on the whole showing a serious raising of the tariff. But in the Code the sacrificial dues are only a subordinate part of the income of the priests. In Deuteronomy the priests are entirely thrown upon the sacrifices; they live upon them (xviii. 1) and upon invitations to the sacred banquets (xii. I2, 18 seq.); if they are not exercising the priestly function they must starve (1Samuel ii. 36). On the other hand, the Aaronidae of the Priestly Code do not need to sacrifice at all, and yet have means of support, for their chief revenue consists of the rich dues which must be paid them from the products of the soil. V.I.2. The dues falling to the priests according to the law were all originally offerings--the regular offerings which had to be brought on the festivals; and these all originally were for sacred banquets, of which the priests received nothing more than the share which was generally customary. This is true in the first instance of the male firstlings of cattle. As we have seen in the chapter on the sacred feasts, these are sacrifices and sacrificial meals, alike in the Jehovistic legislation and in the Jehovistic narrative of the exodus and of Abel, as were all the offerings brought by private individuals in the olden time. When in Exodus xxii. 29 it is said that they must be given to JEHOVAH, this does not mean that they must be given to THE PRIESTS; no such thing is anywhere said in thc Book of the Covenant. Matters still stand on essentially the same footing in Deuteronomy also: "THOU SHALT SANCTIFY THEM UNTO JEHOVAH; thou shalt not plough with the firstling of the bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep; THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE JEHOVAH year by year in the place which He shall choose; and if there be any blemish therein, thou shalt not OFFER IT TO JEHOVAH THY GOD" (Deuteronomy xv. 19, 20). To sanctify to Jehovah, to eat before Jehovah, to offer to Jehovah, are here three equivalent ideas. If now, in Numbers xviii. 15 seq., every first birth is assigned without circumlocution to the priest, and a special paschal offering is appointed in addition, this can only be understood as the last phase in the development, partly because the idea of dues altogether is secondary to that of offerings, and partly because the immense augmentation in the income of the priests points to an increase of the hierocratic power. Ezekiel does not yet reckon the firstlings among the revenues of the clergy (xliv. 28-3I); the praxis of Judaism, on the other hand, since Nehemiah x. 37, is regulated, as usual, in accordance with the norm of the Priestly Code. The tithe also is originally given to God, and treated just as the other offerings are; that is to say, it is not appropriated by the priests, but eaten by those who bring it in sacred banquets. It does not occur in the Jehovistic legislation, but Jacob dedicates it (Genesis xxviii. 22) to the God of Bethel, a place where, although the whole story is a projection out of a later time, it would hardly be in harmony with the conceptions of the narrator to think of the presence of priests. The prophet Amos, who probably represents much the same stage of the cultus as the Jehovist does, says: "Come to Bethel to transgress, to Gilgal to sin still more; and bring every morning your sacrifices, every three days your tithes, and offer with bread pieces of flesh to the flames, and proclaim free offerings aloud, for so ye like, ye children of Israel" (Amos iv. 4 seq.). He ironically recommends them to persevere in the efforts they have hitherto made in honour of God, and to double them; to offer daily, instead of, as was usual (1Samuel i.), yearly at the chief festival; to pay tithes every three days, instead of, as was the custom, every three years. It is clear that the tithe here holds rank with Zebah, Toda, and Nedaba; it is a sacrifice of joy, and a splendid element of the public cultus, no mere due to the priests. Now, in this point also Deuteronomy has left the old custom, on the whole, unchanged. According to xiv. 22 seq. the tithe of the produce of the soil, or its equivalent in money, must be brought year by year to the sanctuary, and there consumed before Jehovah that is, as a sacrificial meal; only every third year it is not to be offered in Jerusalem, but is to be given as alms to the people of the locality who have no land, to which category the Levites in particular belong. This last application is an innovation, connected on the one hand with the abolition of the sanctuaries, and on the other with the tendency of the Deuteronomist to utilise festal mirth for humane ends. /1/ ********************************************* 1. Connection is, however, possible with some older custom, such as must certainly be assumed for Amos iv. 4. Comp. Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, "the year of tithing." ********************************************** But this is a mere trifle compared with what we find in the Priestly Code, where the whole tithe has become a mere due to be collected by the Levites (Nehemiah x. 38 [37]) on behalf of the clergy, whose endowment thereby is again very largely increased. Ezekiel is silent on this point also (xliv. 18-31), but as the tithe is demanded in Numbers (xviii. 21 seq.), so was it paid from the days of Nehemiah (x. 38 [37] seq.) by the church of the second temple. Later there was added over and above, so as to meet the divergent requirement of Deuteronomy, the so-called second tithe, which usually was consumed at Jerusalem, but in every third year was given to the poor (so Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, LXX), and in the end the tithe for the poor was paid separately over and above the first and second (Tobit i. 7, 8; Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 22). It is absolutely astounding that the tithe which in its proper nature should apply only to products of definite measure, such as corn and wine and oil (Deuteronomy xiv. 23), comes to be extended in the Priestly Code to cattle also, so that besides the male firstlings every tenth head of cattle and of sheep must also be paid to the priests. This demand, however, is not yet met with in Numbers xviii., nor even in Nehemiah x. 38, 39, but first occurs as a novel in Lev. xxvii. 32 (1Samuel viii. 17). Whether it ever came into the actual practice of Judaism seems doubtful; in 2Chronicles xxxi. 6 the tithe of cattle is indeed mentioned, but on the other hand the firstlings are not; in the pre-rabbinical literature no traces of it are discoverable,--especially not in Philo, who knows only of the ordinary tithes due to the Levites, and not of the tithes of cattle due to the priests (De praem. sacerd. 6). With the tithe of the fruit of the soil the first fruits are at bottom identical; the latter were reduced to definite measure later and through the influence of the former. This is no doubt the reason why in the Jehovistic legislation tithe and first fruits are not both demanded, but only a gift of the first and best of corn, wine, and oil, left to the free discretion of the offerer, which is conjoined with the firstling of cattle and sheep (Exodus xxii. 28 [29]. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26). In a precisely similar way the TITHE of the field stands conjoined with the firstlings of cattle in Deuteronomy (xiv. 22, 23, xv. 19 seq.). But also the _reshith_, usually translated first-fruits, occurs in Deuteronomy,--as a payment of corn, wine, oil, and wool to the priests (xviii. 4); a small portion, a basketful, thereof is brought before the altar and dedicated with a significant liturgy (xxvi. 1 seq.). It appears that it is taken from the tithe, as might be inferred from xxvi. 12 seq. taken as the continuation of vers. 1-11; in one passage, xxvi. 2, the more general _usus loquendi_ reappears, according to which the _reshith_ means the entire consecrated fruit, which as a whole is consumed by the offerers before Jehovah, and of which the priests receive only a portion. But in the Priestly Code not only is the entire tithe demanded as a due of the clergy, the _reshith_ also is demanded in addition (Numbers xviii. 12), and it is further multiplied, inasmuch as it is demanded from the kneading-trough as well as from the threshing-floor: in every leavening the _halla_ belongs to Jehovah (xv. 20). Nor is this all; to the _reshith_ (xviii. 12) are added the _bikkurim_ also (xviii. 13), as something distinct. The distinction does not occur elsewhere (Exodus xxxiv. 26); prepared fruits alone are invariably spoken of, the yield of the threshing-floor and the wine-press, of which first produce--"the fulness and the overflow "--was to be consecrated. The FAT of oil, wine, and corn is the main thing in Numbers xviii. also, and is called _reshith_ (ver 12) or _terumah_ (ver. 27); but the _bikkurim_ (ver. 13) seem to be a separate thing, and, if this be really the case, must mean those raw fruits which have ripened earliest. Judaism, here once more moulding itself essentially in accordance with the tenor of the Priestly Code, actually drew this distinction; from the publication of the Law through Ezra the community pledged itself to bring up yearly the _bikkurim_ to the house of Jehovah, and to deliver the _reshith_ into the temple cells (Nehemiah x. 36 [35]). The former was a religious solemnity, associated with processions, and the use of the ritual in Deuteronomy xxvi.; the latter was rather a simple tax paid from natural products,--a distinction which perhaps is connected with the different expressions _they shall bring_ (Numbers xviii. 13) and _they shall give_ (xviii. 12). The LXX keeps )APARXH and PRWTOGENNHMATA strictly apart, as also do Philo (De praem. sacerd. 1, 2) and Josephus (Ant., iv. 4, 8, 22). V.I.3. The amount which at last is required to be given is enormous. What originally were alternatives are thrown together, what originally was left free and undetermined becomes precisely measured and prescribed. The priests receive all the sin and trespass offerings, the greater share of the vegetable offerings, the hides of the burnt offerings, the shoulder and breast of meat offerings. Over and above are the firstlings, to which are added the tithes and first-fruits in a duplicate form, in short, all _kodashim_, which originally were demanded merely as ordinary meat offerings (Deuteronomy xii. 26 = ver. 6, 7, and so on), and were consumed at holy places and by consecrated guests indeed, but not by the priest. And, notwithstanding all this, the clergy are not even asked (as in Ezekiel is the prince, who there receives the dues, xlv. 13 seq.) to defray the cost of public worship; for this there is a poll-tax, which is not indeed enjoined in the body of the Priestly Code, but which from the time of Nehemiah x. 33 [32] was paid at the rate of a third of a shekel, till a novel of the law (Exodus xxx. 15) raised it to half a shekel. V.II. V.II.1. To the endowment of the clergy in the Priestly Code belong finally the forty-eight cities assigned by Joshua in accordance with the appointment of Moses (Numbers xxxv.; Josh. xxi.). The tribes gave them up freely; the smaller giving few and the larger more (Numbers xxxv. 8). The Aaronidae and the three families of the Levites cast lots about them in four divisions; the sons of Aaron get thirteen cities in Judah, the Levites ten in Ephraim-Manasseh, thirteen in Galilee, and twelve in the territory eastward of Jordan. It is not merely the right to inhabit, but, in spite of all apologetic rationalism, the right of absolute possession that they receive (Josh. xxi. 12), inclusive of a portion of land two thousand ells square (square in the strictly literal sense; Numbers xxxv. 5), which serves as public common. The physical impracticability of such an arrangement has been conclusively shown, after Gramberg, by Graf (Merx, Archiv, i. p. 83). The 4 x 12 or the substituted 13+10+13+12 cities, of which in spite of Numbers xxxv. 8 for the most part four belong to each of the twelve tribes, are already sufficient to suggest a suspicion of artificial construction; but the regulation that a rectangular territory of two thousand ells square should be measured off as pasture for the Levites around each city (which at the same time is itself regarded only as a point; Numbers xxxv. 4) might, to speak with Graf, be very well carried out perhaps in a South Russian steppe or in newly founded townships in the western States of America, but not in a mountainous country like Palestine, where territory that can be thus geometrically portioned off does not exist, and where it is by no means left to arbitrary legal enactments to determine what pieces of ground are adapted for pasturage and what for tillage and gardening; there, too, the cities were already in existence, the land was already under cultivation, as the Israelites slowly conquered it in the course of centuries. Besides, from the time of Joshua there is not a historical trace of the existence of the Levitical cities. Quite a number of them were in the days of the judges and down to the early monarchy still in the hands of the Canaanites,-- Gibeon, Shechem, Gezer, Taanach; some perhaps may even have so continued permanently. Those on the other hand which passed into the possession of the Israelites at no time belonged to the Levites. Shechem, Hebron, Ramoth, were the capital cities of Ephraim, Judah, and Gilead; and Gibeon, Gezer, Heshbon were in like manner important but by no means ecclesiastical towns. In the Deuteronomic period the Levites were scattered throughout Judah in such a manner that each locality had its own Levites or Levite; nowhere did they live separated from the rest of the world in compact masses together, for they made their living by sacrificing for others, and without a community they could not exercise their calling. Some indeed possessed land and heritage; such were at an earlier period the Silonic family at Gibeath-Phineas, Amaziah at Bethel, and Abiathar at Anathoth, and at a later period Jeremiah, also at Anathoth. But Anathoth (for example) was not on that account a priestly city in the sense of Joshua xxi.; Jeremiah had his holding there as a citizen and not as a priest, and he shared not with the priests but with the people (xxxvii. 12). As a tribe Levi was distinguished from the other tribes precisely by holding no land, and its members joined themselves to the settled citizens and peasants, for the most part as dependent inmates (Deuteronomy x. 9, xviii. 1). Even after the exile, indeed, matters were not different in this respect. "Ab excidio templi prioris sublatum est Levitis jus suburbiorum," says R. Nachman (B. Sotah, 48b), and he is borne out by the silence of Nehemiah x. The execution of the law was probably postponed to the days of the Messiah; it was not in truth within the power of man, and cannot be seriously demanded in the Priestiy Code itself, which contemplates a purely ideal Israel, with ideal boundaries, and leaves the sober reality so far out of sight that on archaeological grounds it never once so much as mentions Jerusalem, the historical capital of the priests. The circumstance that these towns lay _in partibus infiidelium_ seems to make them unavailable as a means of fixing the antiquity of the Priestly Code. It is possible with Bleek to explain the transcendence of history as Mosaicity; such a view is not to be argued against. But it is also possible with Noldeke to insist that an invention so bold cannot possibly be imputed to the spirit of the exilic and post-exilic time, which in everything is only anxiously concerned to cleave to what is old and to restore it; and such a contention deserves and admits of refutation. It is not the case that the Jews had any profound respect for their ancient history; rather they condemned the whole earlier development, and allowed only the Mosaic time along with its Davidic reflex to stand; in other words, not history but the ideal. The theocratic ideal was from the exile onwards the centre of all thought and effort, and it annihilated the sense for objective truth, all regard and interest for the actual facts as they had been handed down. It is well known that there never have been more audacious history-makers than the Rabbins. But Chronicles affords evidence sufficient that this evil propensity goes back to a very early time, its root the dominating influence of the Law, being the root of Judaism itself. Judaism is just the right soil for such an artificial growth as the forty-eight priestly and Levitical cities. It would hardly have occurred to an author living in the monarchical period, when the continuity of the older history was still unbroken, to look so completely away from all the conditions of the then existing reality; had he done so, he would have produced upon his contemporaries the impression merely that he had scarcely all his wits about him. But after the exile had annihilated the ancient Israel, and violently and completely broken the old connection with the ancient conditions, there was nothing to hinder from planting and partitioning the _tabula rasa_ in thought at pleasure, just as geographers are wont to do with their map as long as the countries are unknown. But, of course, no fancy is pure fancy; every imagination has underlying it some elements of reality by which it can be laid hold of, even should these only be certain prevailing notions of a particular period. It is clear, if a proper territory is assigned to the clergy, that the notion of the clerical tribe which already had begun to strike root in Deuteronomy has here grown and gathered strength to such a degree that even the last and differentiating distinction is abolished which separates the actual tribes from the Levites, viz. communal independence and the degree of concentration which expresses itself in separate settlements. For when we read, notwithstanding, in the Priestly Code that Aaron and Levi are to have no lot nor inheritance in Israel (Numbers xviii. 20, 23), this is merely a form of speech taken over from Deuteronomy and at the same time an involuntary concession to fact; what would the forty-eight cities have been, had they actually existed, if not a lot, a territorial possession, and that too a comparatively large one? The general basis which serves as starting-point for the historical fiction being thus far recognisable, we are able also to gain a closer view of its concrete material. The priestly and Levitical cities stand in close connection with the so-called cities of refuge. These are also appointed in Deuteronomy (xix.), although not enumerated by name (for Deuteronomy iv. 41-43 cannot be regarded as genuine). Originally the altars were asylums (Exodus xxi. 14; 1Kings ii. 28), some in a higher degree than others (Exodus xxi. 13). In order not to abolish the asylums also along with the altars, the Deuteronomic legislator desired that certain holy places should continue as places of refuge, primarily three for Judah, to which, when the territory of the kingdom extended, three others were to be afterwards added. The Priestly Code adopts the arrangement, and specifies three definite cities on this side and three on the other side of Jordan (Numbers xxxv.; Joshua xx.), four of which are demonstrably famous old seats of worship,--all the three western ones, and Ramoth, that is, Mizpah, of the eastern ones (Genesis xxxi.; Judges xi. 11). But as all these asylums are at the same time priestly and Levitical cities, it is an obvious conjecture that these also in like manner arose out of old sanctuaries. We need not suppose that there is more in this than an echo of the general recollection that there were once in Israel many holy places and residences of priesthoods; it is by no means necessary to assert that each of the towns enumerated in Joshua xxi. had actually been an ancient sanctuary. In many cases, however, this also admits of being shown, /1/ although some of the ********************************************* 1. In the cases of Hebron, Gibeon, Shechem, Ramoth, Mahanaim and Tabor (Host v. 1) by historical data; in those of Bethshemesh, Ashtaroth, Kadesh,, perhaps also Rimmon, by the names. Not even here can one venture to credit the Priestly Code with consistent fidelity to history. As for Hosea v. 1, 2, the original meaning seems to be: "A snare have ye become for Mizpah, and an outspread net upon Tabor, and the pit-fall of Shittim (#XT H#+YM) have they made deep." Shittim as a camping-place under Moses and Joshua must certainly have been a sanctuary, just like Kadesh, Gilgal, and Shiloh; the prophet names these seats at which in his opinion the worship was especially seductive and soul-destroying; his reproach is levelled at the priests most famous (or according to the later view, infamous) high places, such as Bethel, Dan, Gilgal, and Beersheba are omitted, probably of set purpose. The immediate starting-point, however, for this territorial donation to the Levites is perhaps to be sought in Ezekiel, in the picture of the future Israel which he draws at the close of his book. He concerns himself there in a thorough-going manner about the demarcation of the national and tribal boundaries, and in doing so sets quite freely to work, taking, so to speak, the yard measure in his hand. Leaving the land eastward of Jordan wholly to the Saracens, he divides the western portion into thirteen parallel transverse sections; in the middle of the thirteenth (the rest of which is assigned to the prince), lying between Judah and Benjamin, the twelve tribes give up a square with a base line of 25,000 ells as a sacred offering to Jehovah. This square is divided into three parallelograms, 25,000 ells long, running east and west; the southernmost of these, 5000 ells broad, includes the capital with its territory; the middle one, 10,000 ells broad, contains the temple and the priestly territory; the northernmost, also 10,000 ells broad, has the inheritance and the cities of the Levites. /1/ ********************************************** 1. For (S#RYM L#KT (xlv. 5), read, with the LXX, #(RYM L#BT "to dwell within the gates." Compare a similar transposition of letters in xiii. 3, LXX. The expression "gates" for "cities" has its origin in Deuteronomy. ********************************************* Thus we have here also a surrender of land to the clergy on the part of the tribes; the comparison with Josh. xxi. is not to be put aside,--all the less, because nowhere else in the Old Testament is anything similar met with. Now Ezekiel is quite transparent, and requires no interpreter but himself. In order that the temple may be protected in its sanctity in the best possible manner, it is placed in the centre of the priestly territory, which in its turn is covered by the city on the south, and by the Levites on the north. At the same time the _personnel_ connected with the function of worship is to dwell as much as possible apart on its own soil and territory, which _shall serve them for separate houses to sanctify them_, as is expressly remarked for the priests (xiv. 4), and in an inferior degree holds good also, of course, for the Levites beside them. Here everything starts from, and has its explanation in, the temple. Its original is unmistakably the temple of Solomon; its site is beside the capital, in the heart of the sacred centre of the land between Judah and Benjamin; there the sons of Zadok have their abode, and beside them are the Levites whom Josiah had brought up from all the country to Jerusalem. Obviously the motives are not here far to seek. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand, which was not in a position to shape the future freely out of the present, but was compelled to accept archaeological restrictions, the motives are historically concealed and almost paralysed. The result has remained, namely, the holding of separate territory by the clergy, but the cause or the purpose of it can no longer be recognised on account of the sanctuary being now an abstract idea. Jerusalem and the temple, which, properly speaking, occasioned the whole arrangement, are buried in silence with a diligence which is in the highest degree surprising; and on the other hand, in remembrance of the priesthoods scattered everywhere among the high places of Israel in earlier days, forty-eight fresh Levitical cities are created, from which, however, their proper focus, a temple to wit, is withheld only in the circumstance that precisely the thirteen cities of Judah and Benjamin happen to fall to the lot of the sons of Aaron, does the influence of Jerusalem unconsciously betray itself. V.II.2. Apart from this historical fiction, the other claims that are made for the endowment of the clergy are, however exorbitant, nevertheless practicable and seriously meant. So far as the circumstances of their origin are concerned, two possibilities present themselves. Either the priests demanded what they could hope to obtain, in which case they were actually supreme over the nation, or they set up claims which at the time were neither justified nor even possible; in which case they were not indeed quite sober, yet at the same time so sane prophetically, that centuries afterwards the revenues they dreamed of became in actuality theirs. Is it to be supposed that it was (say) Moses, who encouraged his people as they were struggling for bare life in the wilderness to concern themselves about a superabundantly rich endowment of their clergy? Or is it believed that it was in the period of the judges, when the individual tribes and families of Israel, after having forced their way among the Canaanites, had a hard fight to maintain their position, get somehow settled in their new dwelling-places and surroundings, that the thought first arose of exacting such taxes from a people that was only beginning to grow into a national unity, for an end that was altogether remote from its interest? What power could then have been able in those days, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, to compel the individual to pay? But even when actually, under the pressure of circumstances, a political organisation had arisen which embraced all the tribes, it could hardly have occurred to the priests to utilise the secular arm as a means for giving to themselves a place of sovereignty; and still less could they have succeeded WITHOUT the king on whom they were so completely dependent. In short, the claims they make in the Law would in the pre-exilic period have been regarded as utopian in the strict sense of that word; they allow of explanation only by the circumstances which from the beginning of the Chaldaean rule, and still more that of the Persians, lent themselves to the formation of a hierocracy, to which, as to the truly national and moreover divine authority, the people gave voluntary obedience, and to which the Persians also conceded rights they could not have granted to the family of David. At the very beginning of the exile, Ezekiel begins to augment the revenues of the priests (xliv. 28-30), yet he still confines himself on the whole to the lines of Deuteronomy, and makes no mention of tithes and firstlings. Of the demands of the Priestly Code in their full extent we hear historically in Nehemiah x. for the first time; there it is stated that they were carried through by men who had the authority of Artaxerxes behind them. This was the most difficult and at the same time the most important part of the work Ezra and Nehemiah had to do in introducing the Pentateuch as the law of the Jewish Church; and that is the reason why it is so specially and minutely spoken of. Here plainly lies the material basis of the hierocracy from which the royal throne was ultimately reached. For all these dues, apart from sacrificial perquisites, flowed into a common coffer, and benefited those who had the control of this, viz., the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, whom it helped to rise to a truly princely position. The ordinary priests, and especially the Levites, did not gain by all this wealth. The latter indeed ought, according to law, to have had the tithes, and to have handed over the tithes of these again to the sons of Aaron, but as the general tendency of the time was to depress the Levites, this legal revenue was also gradually withdrawn from them and appropriated by the priests. Afterwards the chief priests claimed the tithes for themselves alone, while their inferior brethren had to suffer severe privation and even hunger itself (Josephus, Ant., xx. 8, 8; 9, 2). Upon the difference just stated between the later practice and the Law, one argument more has recently been founded against assigning the latter to the Babylonio-Persian period. "Another testimony borne by tradition completely excludes the idea of the Elohistic torah (i.e., the Priestly Code) having been composed by Ezra. As is well known, it is the Elohistic torah that carefully regulates the mutual relations of priests and Levites, while Deuteronomy groups the two together without bringing forward the distinction. It is the former that assigns the tithes to the Levites, while requiring these in their turn to hand over the tithe of their tithes as a due to the priests. Such was also the practice (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.) soon after the exile [i.e., a hundred years later; Nehemiah vii. 5]. But subsequently the payment of the tithes to the Levites fell entirely into disuse; these were rendered immediately and exclusively to the priests, so that Jose ben Hanina actually confesses: "We do not pay the tithes according to the command of God" (Sota, 47b). But everywhere the Talmud refers this practice back to Ezra. Ezra it was who punished the Levites by withdrawal of the tithes, and that because they had not come out from Babylon (Jebam. 386b; Chullin 11b). The point to be noted is that Ezra, according to the testimony of tradition, superseded a precept of the Elohistic torah, supporting himself in this perhaps by reference to the Deuteronomic torah." So Delitzsch in the Zeitschr. fuer luth. Theol., 1877, p. 448 seq. That Ezra is not the author of the Priestly Code may readily be granted--only not on such an argument as this. If the genuine historical tradition expressly names Ezra as the man who introduced the Levites' tithe just as prescribed by law (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.), what conscientious man can attach any weight to the opposite assertion of the Talmud ? But, even assuming that the divergence of practice from the legal statute actually does go back to the time of Ezra, what would follow from that against the post-exilic origin of the Priestly Code? For this is what the question comes to, not to Ezra's authorship, which is made the main point by a mere piece of transparent controversial tactics. The demands of the Priestly Code, which demonstrably were neither laid down, nor in any sense acted on before the exile, attained the force of law one hundred years after the return from Babylon (Nehemiah x.); the whole taxation system of Judaism ever afterwards rested upon it;- - shall this be held to have no meaning as against the trifling circumstance that the tithe also was indeed paid to the clergy, in full accordance with the Priestly Code, and inconsistently with ancient custom, but paid to the higher, and not to the lower order? In point of fact any other difference whatever between Jewish practice and the Law might better have been adduced against the thesis of Graf,--for example, the absence of Urim and Thummim (Nehemiah vii. 65), or of the forty-eight Levitical cities, the church of the returned exiles instead of that of the twelve tribes of Israel, the second temple instead of the tabernacle, Ezra instead of Moses, the sons of Zadok instead of the sons of Aaron, the absence of the other marks of Mosaicity. For the position of the Levites is the Achilles heel of the Priestly Code. If the Levites at a later date were still further lowered beneath the priests, and put into a worse position in favour of these, this nevertheless presupposes the distinction between the two; let it first then be shown that the distinction is known to the genuine Old Testament, and that, in particular, it is introduced by Ezekiel not as a new thing, but as of immemorial antiquity. Or is the primary fact that the separation between priests and Levites was set up only in the Priestly Code and in Judaism, and that its genesis can be traced with confidence from the time of Josiah downwards, a fact of less importance than the secondary one that the distinction extended itself somewhat further still in the subsequent development of Judaism ? B. HISTORY OF TRADITION. _________________ PLEON (HMISU PANTOS-- Hesiod <Op. 40> CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES Under the influence of the spirit of each successive age, traditions originally derived from one source were very variously apprehended and shaped; one way in the ninth and eighth centuries, another way in the seventh and sixth, and yet another in the fifth and fourth. Now, the strata of the tradition show the same arrangement as do those of the legislation. And here it makes no difference whether the tradition be legendary or historical, whether it relates to pre-historic or to historic times; the change in the prevailing ideas shows itself equally in either case. To show the truth of this in the case of the Hexateuch is of course our primary object, but we make our commencement rather with the properly historical books. For on various grounds we are here able with greater certainty to assert: Such was the aspect of history at this period and such at that; such were the influences that had the ascendancy at one time, and such those which prevailed at another. We begin the inquiry where the matter is clearest--namely, with the Book of Chronicles. Chronicles, which properly speaking forms but a single book along with Ezra and Nehemiah, is a second history running parallel with the Books of Samuel and Kings, and we are here in the favourable position of starting with the objects of comparison distinctly defined, instead of having as usual to begin by a critical separation of sources of various age combined in one document. And, what is more, we can also date the rival histories with tolerable certainty. The Books of Samuel and of Kings were edited in the Babylonian exile; Chronicles, on the other hand, was composed fully three hundred years later, after the downfall of the Persian empire, out of the very midst of fully developed Judaism. We shall now proceed to show that the mere difference of date fully accounts for the varying ways in which the two histories represent the same facts and events, and the difference of spirit arises from the influence of the Priestly Code which came into existence in the interval. De Wette's "Critical Essay on the Credibility of the Books of Chronicles" (Beitraege, i.; 1806), is throughout taken as the basis of the discussion: that essay has not been improved on by Graf (Gesch. Bucher d. A. T. p. 114 seq.), for here the difficulty, better grappled with by the former, is not to collect the details of evidence, but so to shape the superabundant material as to convey a right total impression. VI.I. VI.I.1. After Jehovah had slain Saul (so begins the narrative of Chronicles), He turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse. All Israel gathered themselves unto David to Hebron and anointed him king over Israel, according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel (I Chronicles x. 1.-xi. 3). How simply and smoothly and wholly without human intervention according to this version did the thing come to pass! Quite otherwise is it in the narrative of the Book of Samuel. This also indeed has the statement of Chronicles word for word, but it has something over and above which gives a quite different aspect to the matter. Here David, on the lowest step to the throne, is the guerilla leader in the wilderness of Judah who finally is compelled by Saul's persecutions to pass over to Philistine territory, there under the protection of the enemies of his nation, carrying on his freebooter life. After the battle of Gilboa he avails himself of the dissolution of the kingdom to set up a separate principality in the south as a vassal of the Philistines; he is not chosen, but comes with a following six hundred strong, and offers himself to the elders of Judah, whom he has already at an earlier period laid under obligations to him by various favours and gifts. In the meantime Saul's cousin Abner takes over what of the kingdom there is, not for himself but for the legitimate heir Ishbaal; from Gilead, whither the government had been transferred after the great catastrophe, he gradually reconquers the territory west of Jordan, and is scheming how to recover also the lost Judah. Thus it comes to protracted struggles between Abner and David, in which fortune is most on the side of the latter; yet he does not leave the defensive or gain the sovereignty over Israel. That falls into his hands rather by treachery. Abner himself, indignant at the ingratitude of his royal nephew, offers the crown to his rival, and enters into negotiations with him about it; but as he immediately afterwards falls a victim to blood revenge, nothing comes of the matter until Ishbaal is privily murdered in his sleep by two of his captains; then at last the elders of Israel come to Hebron, and David becomes king in succession to Saul. What a length of time these affairs demand, how natural is their development, how many human elements mingle in their course,--cunning, and treachery, and battle, and murder! Chronicles indeed knows them all well enough, as is clear from incidental expressions in chaps. xi. and xii., but they are passed over in silence. Immediately after his predecessor's death the son of Jesse is freely chosen by all Israel to be king, according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel. The sequence of x. 13, 14, xi. 1 does not admit of being understood in any other way, nor is it in point of fact otherwise understood, for it has actually been successful, at least to this extent, that the kingship of Ishbaal has virtually dropped out of traditional Bible history; after Saul came David is what is said. We have before us a deliberate and in its motives a very transparent mutilation of the original narrative as preserved for us in the Book of Samuel. As all Israel has made David the successor of Saul, and all Israel gone out with him to the conquest of Jerusalem (xi. 4),--in 2Samuel v. 6 we hear only of David's following,--so now immediately afterwards, the noblest representatives of all the tribes of Israel, who even before he had attained the throne were in sympathy and indeed already on his side, are enumerated by name and numbers in three lists (xi. 10-xii. 40), which are introduced between what is said in 2Samuel v. 1-1110 and in 2Samuel v. 11 seq. The first (xi. 10-47: "these are the mighty men who took part with him with all Israel to make him king") is the list of 2Samuel xxiii., which the Chronicler, as he betrays in chaps. xx., xxi., was acquainted with as it stood in that place, and here gives much too early, for it is for the most part warriors of David's later campaigns who are enumerated. /1/ The second list (xii. ************************************** 1. The division into a group of three and another of thirty heroes, obscured in 2Samuel xxiii. by corruption of the text (Text der BB. Sam. p. 213-216), has not been understood by the Chronicler, and thus been made quite unrecognisable. In this way he has been able to bring in at the end (xi. 42-47) a string of additional names exceeding the number of thirty. In ver. 42 his style unmistakably betrays itself, wherever it may be that he met with the elements. **************************************** 1-22: "these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul") is not taken from the Book of Samuel, but one also observes this difference: along with old and genuine there are extremely common names, and hardly one that occurs here only; the notes of ancestry carefully given in chap. xi. are almost always wanting; and instead of performing before our eyes such deeds as the rescue of a field of barley from the enemy, the purchase of a draught of water with blood, the slaying of a lion in a pit, the heroes receive all sorts of _epitheta ornantia_ (xii. 1-3) and titles of honour (xii. 14, 20), and ordinarily talk a highly spiritual language (xii. 17, 18). And as for the historical situation, how impossible that a great Israelite army should have been gathered around David as the feudatory of the Philistines in Ziklag (xii. 2 2), with a crowd of captains of hundreds and thousands! Plainly the banished fugitive is according to this representation the splendid king and illustrious ancestor of the established dynasty; hence also the naive remark of ver. 29. No better is it with the third list (xii. 23-40: "these are the numbers of the bands, ready armed for the war, who came to David to Hebron"). Observe the regular enumeration of the twelve tribes, which nowhere occurs in the older historical books, and is quite artificial; then the vast numbers, which are not matters of indifference here, but the principal thing and make up the entire contents; finally, the 4600 Levites and 3700 priests, who also take their place in the martial train, and constitute the proper guard of the king; to Chronicles the distinction between secular and spiritual soldiers is not altogether clear. There are but a few details of a special kind; the remark in xii. 32 is perhaps connected with 2Samuel xx. 18; Jehoiada the prince of the house of Aaron, i.e., the high priest, alongside of the historically certain series,--Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub, Ahiah (Ahimelech ), Abiathar,--an utterly impossible person, is a reflection of the Jehoiada of 2Kings xi., xii., and the allegation that Zadok at that time joined David at the head of twenty-two chief priests is a hardly credible substitute for what is stated in Samuel, according to which Abiathar, whose older claims were disagreeable to the B'ne Zadok and those who came later, was the priest who from the beginning held with David; the twenty-two chief priests appear to correspond to the heads of the twenty-two post-exilian priestly families (Nehemiah xii. 1-7, 12-21, x. 3-9; 1Chronicles xxiv. 7-18). Yet it is hardly necessary to go so minutely into the contents of the above lists, for the purpose with which they are given is stated without circumlocution at the close (2Chronicles xii. 38, 39): "All these men of war, in order of battle, came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel, and all the rest of Israel also were of one heart to make David king. And they were there with David three days, eating and drinking, for there was joy in Israel." After the explication of the idea "all Israel" thus inappropriately interpolated, the narrative proceeds to reproduce the contents of 2 Samuel v.-vii. David's first deed, after the conquest of the stronghold of Jebus, is in Chronicles to make it the holy city by transferring the ark of Jehovah thither (xiii. 1 seq.). It seems as if the building of a palace and the Philistine war (2Samuel v. 11-25) were to be omitted; but after the narrative in 2Samuel vi. 1 seq. has been given down to the place "and the ark of Jehovah abode in the house of Obed-edom three months " (1Chronicles xiii. 14 = 2Samuel vi. 11), the pause of a quarter of a year is utilised for the purpose of overtaking what had been left out (xiv. 1-17 = 2Samuel v. 11-25), and then the history of the ark is completed. This indeed is to separate things mutually connected, but at the same time the secular business which, according to the older narrative, is the nearest and most pressing, is reduced to the level of a mere episode in the midst of the sacred. That there is no room for the building of a house and a Philistine war within the three months which offer themselves so conveniently for the interpolation is a subordinate affair. As regards the sacred business, the transference of the ark to Zion, almost everything that is said in 2Samuel vi. is repeated word for word in Chronicles also (xiii., xv., xvi., xvii. 1). Two traits only are absent in Chronicles, and in neither case is the omission helpful to the connection David's wife Michal, it is said in 2Samuel vi. 16, 20-23, when she saw the king dancing and leaping in the procession, despised him in her heart; afterwards when he came home she told him what she thought of his unworthy conduct. The first of these two statements is found in Chronicles also (xv. 29), but the second is (all but the introductory notice, xvi. 43 = 2Samuel vi. 20, here torn from its connection) omitted, although it contains the principal fact, for the historical event was the expression of her contempt, not its psychological origin; a woman--such is the idea--must not say a thing like that to David. The other case is quite similar. On account of the calamity by which those who were bringing up the ark were overtaken, David does not at first venture to receive it into his citadel, but deposits it in the house of Obed-edom, one of his captains; but when Jehovah blesses the house of Obed-edom, he takes courage to bring the ark to his own home (2Samuel vi. 10-12). Chronicles also tells that Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-edom (xiii. 14), but mentions no consequent result; again the cause is given without the effect. Another explanation is substituted; David perceived that the disaster connected with the removal of the ark was due to the fact of its not having been carried by the Levites in accordance with the Law; the Levites accordingly were made to bear it and no harm ensued (xv. 2, 13-15). This is in complete and manifest contradiction to the older narrative, and as Chronicles (chapter xiii.) copies that narrative, it also contradicts itself (xiii. 10), and that all the more strikingly as by the addition in xiii. 2 it represents the accompanying clergy as tacitly approving the carrying of the ark on the ox-cart. Then due participation in the sacred procession having been thus once secured them, 1Chronicles xv. positively revels in priests and Levites, of whom not a sing]e word is to be found in 2 Samuel vi., and moreover a sort of musical service is instituted by David himself before the ark, and a festal cantata made up by him out of post-exilian psalms is quoted (chapter xvi.). In this way, out of the original narrative, the scattered fragments of which now show themselves very strangely in the new connection, something quite different has grown. "In the former everything is free, simply the affair of king and people, here all is priestly ceremonial; there the people with their king shout and dance with joy before the ark,, here the levites are the musicians and singers in formal order. To seek to combine the two versions is wholly against the laws of historical interpretation. If the first were curt and condensed the unification of the two might perhaps be possible, but no story could be more particular or graphic, and could it have been that the Levites alone should be passed over in silence if they had played so very important a part? The author of Chronicles was able to introduce them only by distorting and mutilating his original and landing himself in contradiction after all. He cannot allow anything to happen without Levites; and was the ark of the covenant to be fetched to Jerusalem without them? was the Law to be even a second time broken under the pious king David? This seemed to him impossible. That Uzzah perished in the first attempt to fetch the ark, and that on the second occasion--when only a quite short journey is spoken of--the ark was carried, ~2Samuel vi. 13, may have been the suggestions by which he was led. Fertile in combinations, he profited by the hint." So, justly, De Wette (Beitraege, i. 88-91). The narrative of 2Samuel vi. having been broken off at the first half of ver. 19 (1Chronicles xvi. 3), the second half of the verse and the beginning of the next are reproduced (xvi. 43) after the interpolation of xvi. 4-42, and then 2Samuel vii. is appended word for word (1Chronicles xvii.),--the resolution of David to build a house for the ark, and what Jehovah said to him about the subject through Nathan. The point of the prophet's address turns on the antithesis (2Samuel vii.). "Thou wilt build a house FOR ME? rather will I build a house FOR THEE;" the house of David is of course the Davidic dynasty. But an interpolation has already crept into the text of Samuel (vii. 13), which apprehends the antithesis thus: "THOU wilt build a house for me? Nay, THY SON shall build a house for me." Now Chronicles, for which David comes into consideration merely as the proper founder of the Solomonic temple, takes up the narrative of 2 Samuel vii. precisely on account of this interpolation, as is clear from xxii. 9, 10-- increases the misunderstanding by going back to it in an addition (xvii. 14)--and at the outset destroys the original antithesis by the innocent alteration, "Thou shalt not build THE HOUSE for me" instead of "Wilt thou build A house for me? "The house can here mean only that imperatively needed one, long kept in view alike by God and men, which must by all means he built, only not by David but by Solomon; it is without any ambiguity the temple, and does not, like a house, contain that possibility of a double meaning on which the original point depends. It is interesting also to compare 2Samuel vii. 14 with 1Chronicles xvii. 13: "I will be to thy seed a father, and he shall be to me a son. _If he commit iniquity, then I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men; but_ my mercy shall not depart from him." The words in italics are wanting in Chronicles; the meaning, that Jehovah will not withdraw His grace from the dynasty of Judah altogether, even though some of its members should deserve punishment, is thereby destroyed and volatilised into an abstract idealism, which shows that to the writer the Davidic kingly family is known only as a dissolving view, and not by historical experience as it is to the author of 2Samuel vii. In chaps xviii.-xx., Chronicles seems to refresh itself with a little variety, relating as it does the foreign wars of David after the order of 2Samuel, viii., x., xi. 1, xii. 30, 30, xxi. 18-22. But in this it still keeps in view its purpose, which is directed towards David as founder of the Jerusalem worship; those wars brought him the wealth that was required for the building of the temple. On the other hand, everything so fully and beautifully told in the Book of Samuel about the home occurrences of that period is omitted, for after all it does not contribute much to the glorification of the king. So the story of Meribaal and Ziba (chap. ix.), of Bathsheba and Uriah (xi., xii.), of Tamar and Amnon (xiii., xiv.), of Absalom's rebellion (xv.-xx.), and of the delivering-up of the sons of Saul (xxi. 1-14). The rude and mechanical manner in which statements about foreign wars are torn from the connection with domestic events in which they stand in the older narrative is shown in 1Chronicles xx. 1, 2, as compared with 2Samuel xi. 1, xii. 30. In 2Samuel xi. the mention of the fact that David remained in Jerusalem when the army set out against Rabbah, prepares for the story of his adultery with the wife of a captain engaged in active service in the field; but 1Chronicles xx. 1 is meaningless, and involves a contradiction with ver. 2. according to which David appears after all in the camp at Rabbah, although the connection,--namely, that he followed the army--and all the intermediate occurrences relating to Bathsheba and Uriah, are left out (De Wette, pp. 19, 20, 60). To what extent the veil is drawn over the scandalous falls of saints may be judged also from the fact that from the list of David's foreign encounters also, which are otherwise fully given, a single one is omitted which he is supposed not to have come through with absolute honour, that with the giant Ishbi-benob (2Samuel xxi. 15-17). Lastly, the alteration made in 1Chronicles xx. 5 is remarkable. Elhanan the son of Jair of Bethlehem, we read in 2Samuel xxi. 19, was he who slew Goliath of Gath, the shaft of whose spear was as thick as a weaver's beam. But on the other hand, had not David of Bethlehem according to 1Samuel xvii. vanquished Goliath the giant, the shaft of whose spear was as thick as a weaver's beam? In Chronicles accordingly Elhanan smites the brother of the veritable Goliath. 2. The closing chapters of 2Samuel (xxi.-xxiv.) are, admittedly, an appendix of very peculiar structure. The thread of xxi. 1-14 is continued in xxiv. 1-25, but in the interval between the two passages occurs xxi. 15-xxiii. 39, in a very irrational manner, perhaps wholly due to chance. In this interposed passage itself, again, the quite similar lists xxi. 15-22 and xxiii. 8-39 are very closely connected; and the two songs, xxii. 1-51, xxiii. 1-7, are thus an interpolation within an interpolation. This want of order is imitated by the author of Chronicles also, who takes 2Samuel xxiii. 8-39 as separated from xxi. 15-22, and gives 2Samuel xxiv. last, a position which does not belong to it from any material considerations, but merely because it had originally been tagged on as an appendix, and besides had been separated from its connection with xxi. 1-14 by a large interpolation. 1Chronicles xxi. (the pestilence as punishment of David's sin in numbering the people, and the theophany as occasioning the building of an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah) is on the whole a copy of 2Samuel xxiv., but with omission of the precise and interesting geographical details of ver. 5 seq, and with introduction of a variety of improving touches. Thus (xxi. 1): "And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David;" instead of: "And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David." Similarly (xxi. 6): "Levi and Benjamin Joab counted not among them; for the king's word was abominable to him,"-- an addition which finds its explanation on the one hand in Numbers i. 49, and on the other in the circumstance that the holy city lay within the territory of Benjamin. Again (xxi. 16, 27): "David saw the angel of Jehovah standing between heaven and earth, and his sword drawn in his hand and stretched out towards Jerusalem;" compare this with Sam xxiv. 16 (1Chronicles xxi. t5): "The angel stretched out his hand to Jerusalem to destroy it, and he was by the threshing floor of Araunah;" according to the older view, angels have no wings (Genesis xxviii.). Further (xxi. 25): "David gave to Araunah for his threshing-floor 600 shekels of gold ;" compare with 2Samuel xxiv. 24, 50 shekels of silver; to make the king pay right royally costs the Chronicler nothing. But lastly, his most significant addition is the fire from heaven which consumes the burnt-offering (xxi. 26); by this means the altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah, in other words, that of the sanctuary of Jerusalem, is intended to be put on a level with that of the tabernacle, its predecessor, the fire on which was also kindled from heaven (Leviticus ix. 24). Whoever has understood the narratives of altar-buildings by the Patriarchs, by Joshua, Gideon, and Manoah, will grant that the author of Chronicles has quite correctly understood the intention of 2Samuel xxiv., in accordance with which he here proposes to relate the divine inauguration of the place of worship at Jerusalem; but what in that passage, as in similar older legends about the indication of consecrated places by means of a theophany, is only hinted at for contemporaries who understood the idea conveyed, he requires to retouch strongly in order that a later generation may notice it; and yet he has half spoiled the point by making the angel not stand by the threshing-floor of Araunah on the sacred spot, but hover aloft in the air. 2Samuel xxiv. = 1Chronicles xxi. serves further as a starting point for the free construction of 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix. The circumstance that in the last chapter of the Book of Samuel David builds the altar at Jerusalem is expanded into the statement that in the last year of his reign he prepared beforehand the building of the temple of Solomon in all its parts down to the minutest detail. Unhampered by historical tradition, the author here expatiates with absolute freedom in his proper element. All that has hitherto been said about the king on the basis of the older source is by means of additions and omissions fashioned into what shall serve as a mere prologue to the proper work of his life, which is now described thoroughly _con amore_. He himself unfortunately has not been allowed to build the house, having shed much blood and carried on great wars (xxii. 8, xxviii. 3), but he yet in the last year of his reign forestalls from his successor the whole merit of the business (xxiii. 1, xxviii. 1). My son Solomon, he says, is young and tender, but the house to be built for Jehovah must be great and glorious; I will therefore prepare it for him (xxii. 5). Accordingly he gets ready beforehand the workmen and artificers, in particular bringing into requisition the non-Israelitic population; he provides the material, stone and wood and brass and iron, and gold and silver and jewels without number; he also gives the plan or rather receives it direct from Jehovah, and that in black and white (xxviii. 19), while Moses built the tabernacle only according to his recollection of the heavenly pattern which had been shown to him on Sinai. But before all he appoints the _personnel_ for the temple service,--priests, Levites, porters, singers,-divides their thousands into classes, and assigns to them their functions by lot. In doing so he interests himself, naturally, with special preference, in the music, being the designer of the instruments (xxiii. 5), and himself acting as principal conductor (xxv. 2, 6). And as he is still king after all, he at the close takes an inventory also of his secular state, after having duly ordered the spiritual. All this he does for the future, for his son and successor; not in reality, but only in plan, are the door-keepers, for example, assigned to their posts (xxvi. 12 seq.), but none the less with strictest specification and designation of the localities of the temple,--and that too the second temple! His preparations concluded, David calls a great assembly of prelates and notables (xxiii. 1, xxviii. 1), has Solomon anointed as king, and Zadok as priest (xxix. 22), and in a long discourse hands over to the former along with the kingdom the task of his reign, namely, the execution of what he himself has prepared and appointed; on this occasion yet more precious stones and noble metals--among them gold of Ophir and Persian darics--are presented by David and the princes for the sacred building. The whole section 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix. is a startling instance of that statistical phantasy of the Jews which revels in vast sums of money on paper (xxii. 14), in artificial marshallings of names and numbers (xxiii.-xxvii.), in the enumeration of mere subjects without predicates, which simply stand on parade and neither signify nor do anything. The monotony is occasionally broken only by unctuous phrases, but without refreshing the reader. Let the experiment of reading the chapters through be tried. According to 1Kings i., ii., King David in his closing days was sick and feeble in body and mind, and very far from being in a condition thus to make preparations on behalf of his successor shortly before his own death, or to prepare his bread for him so far that nothing remained but to put it into the oven. His purpose of building a house to Jehovah is indeed spoken of in 2 Samuel vii. in connection with vi. 17, but it is definitively abandoned in consequence of Jehovah's refusal, on the ground that it is not man's part to build a house for God, but God's to build a house for man. In strange contrast with this explanation is that of Chronicles that David is a man of war and has shed much blood, and therefore dare not set up the temple; that he had waged the wars of Jehovah, that Jehovah had given victory by his hand, would in the older warlike time have seemed no reason against but rather an argument establishing his fitness for such a work. But the worst discrepancy is that between the solemn installation of Solomon as king and of Zadok as priest with all the forms of law and publicity as related in 1Chronicles xxviii., xxix. (comp. xxii., xxiii. 1) and the older narrative of 1Kings i., ii. According to the latter it was much more an ordinary palace intrigue, by means of which one party at court succeeded in obtaining from the old king, enfeebled with age, his sanction for Solomon's succession. Until then Adonijah had been regarded as heir-apparent to the throne, by David himself, by all Israel, and the great officers of the kingdom, Joab and Abiathar; what above all things turned the scale in favour of Solomon was the weight of Benaiah's six hundred praetorians, a formidable force in the circumstances of the period. The author of Chronicles naively supposes he has successfully evaded all difficulties by giving out the coronation of Solomon related by himself to be the second (xxix. 22),--an advertence to 1Kings i., ii. which does not remove but only betrays the contradiction. Yet this is as nothing over against the disharmony of the total impression. See what Chronicles has made out of David! The founder of the kingdom has become the founder of the temple and the public worship, the king and hero at the head of his companions in arms has become the singer and master of ceremonies at the head of a swarm of priests and Levites; his clearly cut figure has become a feeble holy picture, seen through a cloud of incense. It is obviously vain to try to combine the fundamentally different portraits into one stereoscopic image; it is only the tradition of the older source that possesses historical value. In Chronicles this is clericalised in the taste of the post-exilian time, which had no feeling longer for anything but cultus and torah, which accordingly treated as alien the old history (which, nevertheless, was bound to be a sacred history), if it did not conform with its ideas and metamorphose itself into church history. Just as the law framed by Ezra as the foundation of Judaism was regarded as having been the work of Moses, so what upon this basis had been developed after Moses--particularly the music of the sanctuary and the ordering of the temple _personnel_---was carried back to King David, the sweet singer of Israel, who had now to place his music at the service of the cultus, and write psalms along with Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, the Levitical singing families. VI.I.3. With regard to Solomon, Chronicles (2Chronicles i.-ix.) nowhere departs very far from the lines of the Book of Kings. As the story of 1Kings i., ii., which is not an edifying one, and mercilessly assails that of 1Chronicles xxii.-xxix., required to be omitted, the narrative accordingly begins with 1Kings iii., with Solomon's accession, sacrifices on the great altar at Gibeon, and the revelation of Jehovah, which was thereupon communicated to him in a dream. This last is transcribed with slight alterations, but at the outset a characteristic divergence is found. "Solomon loved Jehovah, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places (because there was no house built unto the name of Jehovah until those days). And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place; a thousand burnt-offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar, and Jehovah appeared unto him in a dream: Ask what I shall give thee." So 1Kings iii. 2 seq. Chronicles, after its manner, first surrounds the king with a great assemblage of captains of hundreds and thousands, of judges and princes and heads of houses, and purely Pentateuchal dignities, and then proceeds: "And Solomon and all the congregation with him went to the high place in Gibeon, for there was God's tent of meeting, which Moses, the servant of God, had made in the wilderness. But the ark of God had David brought up from Kirjath-jearim, where he had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. But the brazen altar that Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, stood there, before the tabernacle of Jehovah, and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it. And Solomon offered there, upon the brazen altar, before Jehovah, by the tent of meeting, he offered a thousand burnt-offerings, and God appeared to him in a dream, saying, Ask what I shall give thee" (2Chronicles i. 3 seq.). In the older narrative there is nothing about the tabernacle, it being assumed that no apology would be either necessary or possible for Solomon having sacrificed on a high place. Chronicles, dominated in its views of antiquity by the Priestly Code, has missed the presence of the tabernacle and supplied the want in accordance with that norm; the young and pious king could not possibly have made his solemn inaugural sacrifice, for which he had expressly left Jerusalem, anywhere else than at the legally prescribed place; and still less could Jehovah otherwise have bestowed on him His blessing. It betokens the narrowness, and at the same time the boldness of the author, that he retains the expression _high place_ used in 1Kings iii. 3, and co-ordinates it with _tabernacle_, although the one means precisely the opposite of the other. But it is instructive to notice how, on other occasions, he is hampered by his Mosaic central sanctuary, which he has introduced _ad hoc_ into the history. According to 1Chronicles xvi. David is in the best position to institute also a sacrificial service beside the ark of Jehovah, which he has transferred to Zion; but he dare not, for the Mosaic altar stands at Gibeon, and he must content himself with a musical surrogate (vers. 37-42). The narrative of 1Chronicles xxi., that David was led by the theophany at the threshing-floor of Araunah to build an altar there, and present upon it an offering that was accepted by heaven, is at its close maimed and spoiled in a similar way by the remark, with anticipatory reference to 2Chronicles i., that the Mosaic tabernacle and altar of burnt offering were indeed at that time in the high place at Gibeon, but that the king had not the strength to go before it to inquire of Jehovah, being so smitten with fear of the angel with the drawn sword. So also must the sacrifice which Solomon should have offered on his return from Gibeon before the ark at Jerusalem be similarly ignored (2Chronicles i. 13), because it uould destroy the force of the previous explanation of the high place at Gibeon. Thus the shadow takes the air from the body. In other places the tabernacle is significantly confounded with the temple of Jerusalem (Graf, p. 56), but on the whole it remains a tolerably inert conception, only made use of in the passage before us (2Chronicles i.) in an _ex machina_ manner in order to clear Solomon of a heavy reproach. Upon the last solemn act of worship at the Mosaic sanctuary immediately follows the building of the temple (i. 18 [ii.1]-vii. 11), 1Kings iii. 10-v. 14 [AV. 34] being passed over. A few little touches are however brought in to show the wealth of Solomon (i. 14-17); they do not occur in Kings until chap. x. (vers. 26-29), and are also repeated in Chronicles (ix. 25 seq.) in this much more appropriate connection (comp. 1Kings iii., LXX). Strictly speaking indeed, David has taken the preparations for the sacred building out of the hands of his successor, but the latter appears not to be satisfied with these (ii. 16 [17]) and looks after them once more (i. 18-ii. 17 [ii. 1-18]). A comparison with Ezra iii. (preparation of the second temple) shows that the story is an elaboration of the author, although suggested by 1Kings v. 16 [2] seq., and with preservation of many verbal reminiscences. While Hiram and Solomon according to the older record are on a footing of equality and make a contract based on reciprocity of service, the Tyrian king is here the vassal of the Israelite, and renders to him what he requires as tribute; instead of as there explaining himself by word of mouth, he here writes a letter in which he not only openly avows his faith in Jehovah the God of Israel, the maker of heaven and earth, but also betrays an extraordinary acquaintance with the Pentateuchal Priestly Code. The brassfounder whom Solomon brings from Tyre (1Kings vii. 13, 14) is (ii. 13) described as a very Daedalus and prodigy of artistic skill, like Bezaleel (Exodus xxxi. 2 seq.); his being made the son of a woman of Dan and not of a widow of Naphtali supplies interpreters with the materials for the construction of a little family romance, /1/ ****************************************** 1. She was by birth a woman of Dan, married into the tribe of Napthali, lost her husband, and as widow out of the tribe of Naphtali became the wife of the Tyrian. So Bertheau _in loc_. *************************************** but has no more real value than the idea that sandalwood is obtained from Lebanon. The statement of 1Kings v. 27 [13] (xi. 28, xii. 4) that Israel was requisitioned in large numbers to render forced service to the king has substituted for it by the Chronicler that which occurs in another place (1Kings ix. 2I), that only the Canaanite serfs were employed for this purpose; at the same time, he reckons their number from the figures supplied in 1Kings v. 29 [15] seq. Lastly, the manner in which Solomon (ii. 2 [3] ) assures Hiram that he will arrange the divine service in the new house in a thoroughly correct manner according to the ordinance of the Priestly Code, is also characteristic; similar remarks, from which the uninterrupted practice of the Mosaic cultus according to the rules of the Law is made to appear, are afterwards repeated from time to time (viii. 12-16, xiii. 11). In chaps. iii., iv. the author repeats the description of the temple in 1Kings vi., vii., with the omission of what relates to profane buildings. Perhaps in one passage (1Kings vii. 23) he found the now very corrupt text in a better state; otherwise he has excerpted from it in a wretchedly careless style or word for word transcribed it, adding merely a few extravagances or appointments of later date (e.g., the specification of the gold in iii. 4 seq. 8, 9, of the ten golden tables and hundred golden basins in iv. 8, of the brass-covered doors of the outer gateway in iv. 9, of the court of the priests in iv. 9, of the curtain between the holy place and the holy of holies in iii. 14; compare Vatke, pp. 332, 333, 340, 341). To deny that the original (to which reference must in many places be made in order that the meaning may be understood) exists in 1Kings vi., vii., requires an exercise of courage which might be much better employed, all the more because in 2Chronicles iv. 11-v. 1, the summary list follows the description of details precisely as in 1Kings vii. 40 - 51. While the concrete and material details of 1Kings vi., vii. are reproduced only in an imperfect and cursory manner, the act of consecration on the other hand, and the discourse delivered by Solomon on the occasion, is accurately and fully given (v. 2-vii. 10) in accordance with 1Kings viii.; such additions and omissions as occur are all deliberate. In 1Kings viii. the priests and Levites on an occasion which so closely concerned their interests do not play any adequate part, and in particular give none of the music which nevertheless is quite indispensable at any such solemnity. Accordingly, the Chronicler at the word "priests" inserts between the violently separated clauses of 1Kings viii. 10, 11, the following: "For all the priests present had sanctified themselves without distinction of classes, and the Levites, the singers, all stood in white linen with cymbals and psalteries and harps at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets. And it came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when the music began with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments, and the song of praise, Praise ye Jehovah, for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever, then the house was filled with a cloud" (v. 11-13). Proceeding, the narrative of 1Kings viii. 22 that Solomon came in front of the altar and there prayed is indeed in the first instance copied (vi. 12), but forthwith authoritatively interpreted in the sense that the king did not really and actually stand before the altar (which was lawful for the priests alone), but upon an improvised pulpit in the inner court upon a propped-up caldron of brass (vi. 13), an excellent idea, which has met with the due commendation of expositors. The close of Solomon's prayer (1Kings viii. 49-53) is abridged (vi. 39, 40)--perhaps in order to get rid of viii. 50--and there is substituted for it an original epilogue (vi. 41, 42) recalling post-exilian psalms. Then comes a larger omission, that of 1Kings viii. 54-61, explained by the difficulty involved in the king's here kneeling, not upon the caldron, but before the altar, then standing up and blessing like a priest; in place of this it is told (vii. 1-3) how the altar was consecrated by fire from heaven, which indeed had already descended upon it (1Chronicles xxi.26), but as it appears had unaccountably gone out. In vii. 4 the author again returns to his original at 1Kings viii. 62 seq., but tricks it out, wherever it appears to him too bare, with trumpeting priests and singing Levites (vii. 6), and finally dismisses the people, not on the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles (1Kings viii. 66), but on the ninth (vii. to), in accordance with the enactment in Numbers xxix. 35. The rest of Solomon's history (vii. 11-ix. 28) is taken over from 1Kings ix., x. In doing so what is said in 1Kings ix. 10-IO, to the effect that Solomon handed over to Hiram twenty Galilaean cities, is changed into the opposite--that Hiram ceded the cities to Solomon, who settled them with Israelites (viii. 1, 2); and similarly the already observed statement of 1Kings ix. 24 about the removal of Solomon's Egyptian wife out of the city of David into his new palace /1/ is altered and put in quite a **************************************** 1. Even in the text of Kings this statement has been obscured; Comp. 1Kings iii. 1. In ix. 24 we must at least say _betho asher bana lo_, but this perhaps is not enough. **************************************** false light: "Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her; for he said, No woman shall dwell in the house of David, for the place is holy whereunto the ark of Jehovah hath come" (viii. 11). There is no further need to speak of viii. 12-16 (1Kings ix. 25); more indifferent in their character are the addition in vii. 12-15, a mere compilation of reminiscences, the embellishment in viii. 3-6, derived from 1Kings ix. 17-19, and the variations in viii. 17 seq., ix. 2I, misunderstood from 1Kings ix. 26 seq., x. 22. The concluding chapter on Solomon's reign (1Kings xi.), in which the king does not appear in his most glorious aspect, is passed over in silence, for the same motives as those which dictated the omission of the two chapters at the beginning. The history of the son is treated after the same plan and by the same means as that of the father, only the subject accommodates itself more readily to the purpose of the change. The old picture is retouched in such wise that all dark and repulsive features are removed, and their place taken by new and brilliant bits of colour not in the style of the original but in the taste of the author's period,--priests and Levites and fire from heaven, and the fulfilment of all righteousness of the law, and much music, and all sorts of harmless legendary anachronisms and exaggerations besides. The material of tradition seems broken up in an extraneous medium, the spirit of post-exilian Judaism. VI.II. VI.II.1. After Solomon's death the history of Israel in Chronicles is traced only through Jehovah's kingdom in the hand of the sons of David, and all that relates to the ten tribes is put aside. For according to the notions of the Judaistic period Israel is the congregation of true worship, and this last is connected with the temple at Jerusalem, in which of course the Samaritans have no part. Abijah of Judah makes this point of view clear to Jeroboam I. and his army in a speech delivered from Mount Zemaraim before the battle. "Think ye to withstand the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David, because ye are a great multitude, and with you are the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods ? Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and made for yourselves priests after the manner of the Gentiles? so that whosoever cometh to fill his hands with a young bullock and seven rams, even he may become a priest for the false gods? But as for us, we have not forsaken Jehovah our God, and our priests minister to Jehovah, the sons of Aaron and the Levites in the service; and they burn unto Jehovah every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense; the shewbread also is upon the pure table; for we have maintained the service of Jehovah our God, but ye have forsaken Him. And behold, God Himself is with us at our head, and His priests, and the loud-sounding trumpets to cry an alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against Jehovah the God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper" (2Chronicles xiii. 8-12; comp. xi. 13-17). The kingdom which bore the name of Israel was actually in point of fact in the olden time the proper Israel, and Judah was merely a kind of appendage to it. When Amaziah of Judah after the conquest of the Edomites challenged to battle King Jehoash of Samaria, whose territory had at that time suffered to the utmost under the continual wars with the Syrians, the latter bid say to him: "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife;--then passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon and trode down the thistle. Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, and thy heart hath lifted thee up. Enjoy thy glory, but tarry at home." (2Kings xiv. 9, 10). And as the other would not listen, he punished him as if he had been a naughty boy and then let him go. Religiously the relative importance of the two corresponded pretty nearly to what it was politically and historically. Israel was the cradle of prophecy; Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha exercised their activity there; what contemporary figure from Judah is there to place alongside of these? Assuredly the author of the Book of Kings would not have forgotten them had any such there been, for he is a Judaean with all his heart, yet is compelled purely by the nature of the case to interest himself chiefly about the northern kingdom. And yet again at the very close it was the impending fall of Samaria that called into life a new phase of prophecy; he who inaugurated it, the Judaean Amos of Tekoah, was sent not to Judah but to Israel, the history of which had the first and fullest sympathy of his inmost soul as that of the people of Jehovah. Isaiah was the first who placed Jerusalem in the centre of his field of vision and turned away from Israel; for at the time of his first public appearance war was raging between the sister nations, and when his activity was at its acme all was over with the northern kingdom and all hope had to cling to the remnant,-- the fallen tabernacle of David. As regards the cultus, certainly, matters may have been somewhat less satisfactory in Israel than in Judah, at least in the last century before the Assyrian captivity, but at the outset there was no essential difference. On all hands Jehovah was worshipped as the peculiar divinity of the nation at numerous fanes, in the service at the high places there were wanting neither in the one nor in the other sacred trees, posts, and stones, images of silver and gold (Isaiah ii. 8 seq., xvii. 8, xxxi. 22; Micah v. 12). It is a question whether in the time before Hezekiah the cultus of the kingdom at Jerusalem had so much to distinguish it above that at Bethel or at Dan; against Jeroboam's golden calves must be set the brazen serpent of Moses, and the ark of Jehovah itself--which in ancient times was an idol (1Samuel iv.-vi.) and did not become idealised into an ark of the covenant, ie., of the law, until probably it had actually disappeared. As for the prophetic reaction against the popular cultus, the instance of Hosea shows that it came into activity as early and as powerfully in Israel as in Judah. Even after Josiah's reformation Jeremiah complains that the sister who hitherto had been spared is in no respect better than the other who a hundred years before had fallen a victim to the Assyrians (iii. 6-1O); and though in principle the author of the Book of Kings, taking his stand upon Deuteronomy, prefers Judah and Jerusalem, yet he does not out of deference to this judgment alter the facts which show that old Israel was not further than old Judah from compliance with the Deuteronomic precepts. Chronicles, on the other hand, not only takes the Law--the Penta<teu>chal Law as a whole, but more particularly the Priestly Code therein preponderating--as its rule of judgment on the past; but also idealises the facts in accordance with that norm, and figures to itself the old Hebrew people as in exact conformity with the pattern of the later Jewish community,--as a monarchically graded hierocracy with a strictly centralised cultus of rigidly prescribed form at the holy place of Jerusalem. When, accordingly, the ten tribes fail to exhibit all the marks of the kingdom of God, this is taken to mean their falling away from the true Israel; they have made goats and calves their gods, driven away the priests and Levites, and in a word broken quite away from the institutions which shaped themselves in Judah during the period subsequent to Josiah and received their finishing-touches from Ezra. /1/ *************************************** 1. The Chronicler indeed is unable, even in the case of these schismatics, to divest himself of his legal notions, as appears almost comically in the circumstance that the priests of Jeroboam set about their heretical practices quite in accordance with the prescriptions of the Priestly Code, and procure their consecration by means of a great sacrifice (2 Chron xiii. 9). **************************************** Like other heathen, therefore, they are taken account of by the sacred history only in so far as they stood in relations of friendship or hostility with the people of Jehovah properly so called, the Israel in the land of Judah (2Chronicles xxiii. 2), and in all references to them the most sedulous and undisguised partisanship on behalf of Judah is manifested, even by the inhabitants of the northern kingdom itself. /2/ If one seriously *********************************** 2. Compare xi. 16, xv. 9, xix. 2, xx. 35 seq.. xxv 7, xxviii. 9 seq., xxx. 6. *********************************** takes the Pentateuch as Mosaic law, this exclusion of the ten tribes is, in point of fact, an inevitable consequence, for the mere fact of their belonging to the people of Jehovah destroys the fundamental pre-supposition of that document, the unity and legitimacy of the worship as basis of the theocracy, the priests and Levites as its most important organs, "the sinews and muscles of the body politic, which keep the organism together as a living and moving whole." VI.II.2. The reverse side is, of course, the idealisation of Judah from the point of view of the legitimate worship,--a process which the reader can imagine from the specimens already given with reference to David and Solomon. The priests and Levites who migrated from Israel are represented as having strengthened the southern kingdom (xi. 17), and here constitute the truly dominant element in the history. It is for their sake that kings exist as protectors and guardians of the cultus, with the internal arrangements of which, however, they dare not intermeddle (xxvi. 16 seq.); to deliver discourses and ordain spiritual solemnities (which figure as the culminating points in the narrative) are among the leading duties of their reign. /1/ ************************************** 1. xiii. 7 seq., xv. 10 seq., xx. 6 seq., xxix. 5 seq., xxx. 1 seq., xxxv. 1 seq. ************************************** Those among them who are good apprehend their task and are inseparable from the holy servants of Jehovah,--so, in particular, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Of the first mentioned we are told that in the third year of his reign he appointed a royal commission of notables, priests, and Levites, to go about with the Book of the Law, and teach in the cities of Judah (xvii. 7-9); in the larger places, in the strongholds, he further instituted colleges of justice, and over them a supreme tribunal at Jerusalem, also consisting of priests, Levites, and notables, under the presidency of the high priest for spiritual, and of the Prince of the house of Judah for secular affairs (xix. 5-11). There is nothing about this in the Book of Kings, although what is of less importance is noticed (1Kings xxii. 47); the Chronicler makes the statement in his own language, which is unmistakable, especially in the pious speeches. Probably it is the organisation of justice as existing in his own day that he here carries back to Jehoshaphat, so that here most likely we have the oldest testimony to the synedrium of Jerusalem as a court of highest instance over the provincial synedria, as also to its composition and presidency. The impossibility of such a judiciary system in antiquity is clear from its presupposing the Book of the Law as its basis, from its co-ordination of priests and Levites, and also from its actual inconsistency with incidental notices, particularly in Isaiah and the older prophets (down to Jeremiah xxvi.), in which it everywhere is taken for granted as a thing of course that the rulers are also at the same time the natural judges. Moreover, Chronicles already tells us about David something similar to what it says about Jehoshaphat (1Chronicles xxiii. 4, xxvi. 29-32); the reason why the latter is selected by preference for this work lies simply in his name " Jehovah is Judge," as he himself is made to indicate in various ways (xix. 5-11; compare Joel iv. 12). But the king of Judah is strengthened by the priests and Levites, not only in these domestic affairs, but also for war. As the trumpets of the priests give to Abijah courage and the victory against Jeroboam of Israel, so do the Levites also to Jehoshaphat against Moab and Ammon. Having fasted, and received, while praying, the comfortable assurance of the singer Jahaziel ("See God"), he advances next morning, with his army, against the enemy, having in the van the Levites, who march in sacred attire in front of the armed men and sing: "Praise ye the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever." He then finds that the fighting has already been done by the enemy themselves, who, at the sound of that song of praise, have fallen upon and annihilated one another. Three days are spent in dividing the spoil, and then he returns as he came, the Levitical music leading the van, with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets to the house of Jehovah (2Chronicles xx. 1-28). Hezekiah is glorified in a similar manner. Of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem and the memorable relief, comparatively little is made (xxxii. 1 seq.; comp. De Wette, i. 75); according to Chronicles, his master-work is that, as soon as he has mounted the throne, in the first month of the year, and of his reign (Exodus xl. 2; Leviticus ix. 1). he institutes by means of the priests and Levites, whom he addresses quite paternally as his children (xxix. 11), a great feast of consecration of the temple, alleged to have been closed and wasted by Ahaz; thereupon in the second month to celebrate the passover in the most sumptuous manner; and finally, from the third to the seventh month to concern himself about the accurate rendering of their dues to the clergy. All is described in the accustomed style, in the course of three long chapters, which tell us nothing indeed about the time of Hezekiah, but are full of information for the period in which the writer lived, particularly with reference to the method then followed in offering the sacred dues (xxix. 1-xxxi. 21). In the case of Josiah also the account of his epoch-making reformation of the worship is, on the whole, reproduced in Chronicles only in a mutilated manner, but the short notice of 2Kings xxiii. 21-23 is amplified into a very minute description of a splendid passover feast, in which, as always, the priests and above all the Levites figure as the leading personalities. In this last connection one little trait worth noticing remains, namely, that the great assembly in which the king causes the Book of the Law to be sworn to, is, in every other respect, made up in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 29 seq. exactly as it is in 2Kings xxiii. 1, , except that instead of "the priests and _prophets_" we find "the priests and _Levites_." The significance of this is best seen from the Targum, where "the priests and prophets" are translated into "the priests and scribes." By this projection of the legitimate cultus prescribed in the Law and realised in Judaism, the Chronicler is brought however into a peculiar conflict with the statements of his authority, which show that the said cultus was not a mature thing which preceded all history, but came gradually into being in the course of history; he makes his escape as well as he can, but yet not without a strange vacillation between the timeless manner of looking at things which is natural to him, and the historical tradition which he uses and appropriates. The verses in 1Kings (xiv. 22, 23): Judah (not Rehoboam merely) did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah and provoked Him to jealousy by their sins which they sinned, above all that their fathers had done; and they set up for themselves high places, macceboth and asherim, &c., which in the passage where they occur are, like the parallel statement regarding Israel (xii. 25 seq.), of primary importance, and cancel by one bold stroke the alleged difference of worship between the Levitical and non-Levitical kingdom, are omitted as quite too impossible, although the whole remaining context is preserved (2Chronicles xii. 1-16). In the same way the unfavourable judgment upon Rehoboam's successor Abijah (1Kings xv. 3-5) is dropped, because the first kings of Judah, inasmuch as they maintain the true religion against those of Israel who have fallen away from it, must of necessity have been good. But though the Chronicler is silent about what is bad, for the sake of Judah's honour, he cannot venture to pass over the improvement which, according to 1Kings xv. 12 seq., was introduced in Asa's day, although one does not in the least know what need there was for it, everything already having been in the best possible state. Nay, he even exaggerates this improvement, and makes of Asa another Josiah (2Chronicles xv. 1-15), represents him also (xiv. 3) as abolishing the high places, and yet after all (xv. 1 7) repeats the statement of 1Kings xv. 14 that the high places were not removed. So also of Jehoshaphat, we are told in the first place that he walked in the first ways of his father Asa and abolished the high places in Judah (2Chronicles xvii. 3, 6, xix. 3), a false generalisation from 1Kings (xxii. 43, 47); and then afterwards we learn (xx. 32, 33) that the high places still remained, word for word according to 1Kings xxii. 43, 44. To thc author it seems on the one hand an impossibility that the worship of the high places, which in spite of xxxiii.17 is to him fundamentally idolatry, should not have been repressed even by pious, i.e., law-observing kings, and yet on the other hand he mechanically transcribes his copy. In the case of the notoriously wicked rulers his resort is to make them simply heathen and persecutors of the covenant religion, for to him they are inconceivable within the limits of Jehovism, which always in his view has had the Law for its norm, and is one and the same with the exclusive Mosaism cf Judaism. So first, in the case of Joram: he makes high places on the hills of Judah and seduces the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and Judah to apostatise (xxi. 11), and moreover slays all his brethren with the sword (ver. 4)--the one follows from the other. His widow Athaliah breaks up the house of Jehovah by the hand of her sons (who had been murdered, but for this purpose are revived), and makes images of Baal out of the dedicated things (xxiv. 7); none the less on that account does the public worship of Jehovah go on uninterrupted under Jehoiada the priest. Most unsparing is the treatment that Ahaz receives. According to 2Kings xvi. 10 seq., be saw at Damascus an altar which took his fancy, and he caused a similar one to be set up at Jerusalem after its pattern, while Solomon's brazen altar was probably sent to the melting-pot; it was Urijah the priest who carried out the orders of the king. One observes no sign of autonomy, or of the inviolable divine right of the sanctuary; the king commands and the priest obeys. To the Chronicler the story so told is quite incomprehensible; what does he make of it? Ahaz introduced the idolatrous worship of Damascus, abolished the worship of Jehovah, and shut up the temple (2Chronicles xxviii. 23 seq.). He regards not the person of a man, the inflexible unity of the Mosaic cultus is everything to the Chronicler, and its historical identity would be destroyed if an orthodox priest, a friend of the prophet Isaiah, had lent a helping hand to set up a foreign altar. To make idolaters pure and simple of Manasseh and Amon any heightening of what is said in 2Kings xxi. was hardly necessary; and besides, there were here special reasons against drawing the picture in too dark colours. It is wonderful also to see how the people, which is always animated with alacrity and zeal for the Law, and rewards its pious rulers for their fidelity to the covenant (xv. 15, xvii. 5, xxiv. 10, xxxi. 10), marks its censure of these wicked kings by withholding from them, or impairing, the honour of royal burial (xxi. 19, 20, xxviii. 27, xxxiii. 10),--in spite of 2Kings ix. 28, xvi. 20, xxi. 1 8. The periodically recurring invasions of heathenism help, at the same time, to an understanding of the consequent reforms, which otherwise surpass the comprehension of the Jewish scribe. According to the Books of Kings, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah hit upon praiseworthy innovations in the temple cultus, set aside deeply rooted and immemorial customs, and reformed the public worship of Jehovah. These advances WITHIN Jehovism, which, of course, are quite incompatible with its Mosaic fixity, are made by the Chronicler to be simple restorations of the pure religion following upon its temporary violent suspension. It is in Hezekiah's case that this is done in the most thoroughgoing manner. After his predecessor has shut the doors of the house of Jehovah, put out the lights, and brought the service to an end, he sets all in operation again by means of the resuscitated priests and Levites; the first and most important act of his reign is the consecration of the temple (2Chronicles xxix.), with which is connected (xxx., xxx).) the restoration of the passover and the restitution of the temporalia to the clergy, who, as it seems, have hitherto been deprived of them. That 2Kings xviii. 1-7, although very different, has supplied the basis for all these extravagances, is seen by comparing 2Chronicles xxix. 1, 2, xxxi. 1, 20, 21, xxxii. 22 only, that the king destroyed the brazen serpent Nehushtan (2Kings xviii. 4) is passed over in silence, as if it were incredible that such an image should have been worshipped down to that date in the belief that it had come down from the time of Moses; the not less offensive statement, on the other hand, that he took away _the Asherah_ (by which only that of the temple altar can be understood; comp. Deuteronomy xvi. 21) is got over by charging the singular into the plural; he took away _the Asherahs_ (xxx). 1 ), which occurred here and there throughout Judah, of course at heathen altars. In the cases of Joash and Josiah the free flight of the Chronicler's law-crazed fancy is hampered by the copy to which he is tied, and which gives not the results merely, but the details of the proceedings themselves (2Chronicles xxii., xxiii.; 2Kings xi., xii.). It is precisely such histories as these, almost the only circumstantially told ones relating to Judah in the Book of Kings, which though in their nature most akin to our author's preference for cultus, bring him into the greatest embarrassment, by introducing details which to his notions are wholly against the Law, and yet must not be represented otherwise than in the most favourable light. It cannot be doubted that the sections about Joash in 2Kings (xi. 1-xii. 17 [16]), having their scene end subject laid in the temple, are at bottom identical with 2Chronicles xxii. 10-xxiv. 14. In the case of 2Kings xi., to begin with, the beginning and the close, vers. 1-3, vers. 13-20, recur verbatim in 2Chronicles xxii. 10-12, xxiii. 12-21, if trifling alterations be left out of account. But in the central portion also there occur passages which are taken over into 2Chronicles without any change. Only here they are inappropriate, while in the original connection they are intelligible. For the meaning and colour of the whole is entirely altered in Chronicles, as the following comparison in the main passage will show; to understand it one must bear in mind that the regent Athaliah has put to death all the members of the house of David who had escaped the massacre of Jehu, with the exception of the child Joash, who, with the knowledge of Jehoiada, the priest, has found hiding and protection in the temple. 2 KINGS xi 2CHRONICLES xxiii. 4. In the seventh year Jehoiada 1. _In the seventh year Jehoiada_ sent and took the captains of sent and took the captains of the Carians and runners, strengthened himself and _took the captains_, Azariah the son of Jeroham, and Ishmael the son of Jehohanan, and Azariah the son of Obed, and Maaseiah the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat the son of Zichri, into covenant with him. 2. And they went about in Judah and gathered the Levites out of all the cities in Judah, and the chiefs of the fathers of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. and brought them to him into 3. And the whole congregation the house of Jehovah, and made a made _a covenant in the house of covenant with them, and took God_ with the king. And he said an oath of them in the house of unto them, _Behold, the king's Jehovah, and showed them the son_ shall reign, as Jehovah said king's son; concerning the sons of David. 5. And commanded them, saying, 4. _This is the thing that ye shall This is the thing that ye shall do: the third part of you, which do; the third part of you which enter on the Sabbath_, of the enter on the Sabbath and keep the priests and of the Levites, watch of the king's house, shall keep the doors. [6. And the third part in the 5. And the third part of you shall gate of Jesod, and the third be _in the house of the king_, and part in the gate behind the the third part in the gate Jesod; and runners, and ye shall keep all the people shall be in the courts the watch in the house...]: of the house of Jehovah. 7. And the two other third parts of you, those who go 6. And no one shall come into the forth on the Sabbath and house of Jehovah save the priests keep the watch in the house and they of the Levites that minister; of Jehovah about the king. but all the people shall keep the ordinance of Jehovah. 8. Ye shall encompass the king 7. And the Levites shall _compass round about, every man with the king round about, every man his weapons in his hand, with his weapons in his hands, and and whosoever cometh within whosoever cometh_ into the house, the ranks, shall be put to _shall be put to death; and they shall death, and ye shall be with be with the king whithersoever he the king whithersoever he goeth. goeth._ 9. And the captains did according 8. And the Levites and all Judah to all that Jehoiada the priest _did according to all that Jehoiada had commanded, and took each his the priest had commanded, and took men, those that were to come in each his men, those that were to come on the Sabbath with those that in on the Sabbath with those that were to go out on the Sabbath, were to go out on the Sabbath_, for and came to Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada the priest dismissed not the divisions. 10. And to the captains the 9. And Jehoiada the priest delivered priest gave King David's to the captains of hundreds the spears spears and shields that were and the bucklers and the shields that in the house of Jehovah. King David had, which were in the house of God. 11. And the runners stood, every 10. And he set all the people, _every man with his weapons in his hand, man having his weapon in his hand, from the south side of the house from the south side of the house to to the north side, along by the north side, along by the altar the altar and the house, and the house, round about the king_. round about the king. 12. And he brought forth the 11. _And they brought out the king's king's son and put upon him son and put upon him the crown and the crown and the bracelet, the bracelet and they made him king_, and they made him king and and Jehoiada and his sons _anointed anointed him, and they clapped him and said: their hands and said: Long live the king_. Long live the king. Can the enthronement of Joash, as on a former occasion that of Solomon, possibly have been accomplished by the agency of the bodyguard of the kings of Judah? Is it possible that the high priest should have made a covenant with the captains within the house of Jehovah, and himself have held out the inducement to those half-pagan mercenaries to penetrate into the temple precincts? That were indeed an outrage upon the Law not lightly to be imputed to so holy a man! Why then did not Jehoiada make use of his own guard, the myriads of Levites who were at his command? Such a course was the only right one, and therefore that which was followed. "No one shall come into the house of Jehovah save the priests and they of the Levites that minister:" in accordance with this fundamental principle stated by himself (xxiii. 6; comp ver. 7 INTO THE HOUSE instead of WITHIN THE RANKS), our pious historian substitutes his priests and Levites for the Carians and runners. Hereby also Jehoiada comes into the place that belongs to him as sovereign of the sanctuary and of the congregation. He therefore needs no longer to set on foot in secret a conspiracy with the chiefs of the body-guard, but through his own spiritual officers calls together the Levites and heads of houses from all the cities of Judah into the temple, and causes the whole assemblage there to enter into a covenant with the young king. The glaring inconsistencies inevitably produced by the new colouring thus given to individual parts of the old picture must simply be taken as part of the bargain. If Jehoiada has unrestricted sway over such a force and sets about his revolution with the utmost publicity, then it is he and not Athaliah who has the substance of power; why then all this trouble about the deposition of the tyrant? Out of mere delight in Levitical pomp and high solemnities? What moreover is to be done with the captains who are retained in xxiii. 1, 9, and in ver. 14 are even called officers of the host as in 2Kings xi 15, after their soldiers have been taken from them or metamorphosed? Had the Levites a military organisation, and, divided into three companies, did they change places every week in the temple service? The commentators are inclined to call in to their aid such inventive assumptions, with which, however, they may go on for ever without attaining their end, for the error multiplies itself. As a specially striking instance of the manner in which the procedure of Chronicles avenges itself may be mentioned chapter xxiii. 8: "and they took each his men," &c. The words are taken from 2Kings xi. 9, but there refer to the captains, while here the antecedents are the Levites and all the men of Judah--as if each one of these last had a company of his own which entered upon service, or left it, every Sabbath day. The comparison of 2Chronicles xxiv. 4-14 with 2Kings xii. 5-17 [4-16] is not much less instructive. According to 2Kings xii. Joash enjoined that all the money dues payable to the temple should in future fall to the priests, who in turn were to be under obligation to maintain the building in good repair. But they took the money and neglected the other side of the bargain, and when they and Jehoiada in particular were blamed by the king on that account, they gave up the dues so as not to be liable to the burden. Thereupon the king set up a kind of sacred treasury, a chest with a hole in the lid, near the altar, "on the right hand as one goes into the temple," into which the priests were to cast the money which came in, with the exception of the sin and trespass moneys, which still belonged to them. And as often as the chest became full, the king's scribes and the chief priest removed the money, weighed it, and handed it over to the contractors for payment of the workmen; that none of it was to be employed for sacred vessels is expressly said (ver. 14). This arrangement by King Joash was a lasting one, and still subsisted in Josiah's time (2Kings . . xxii. 3 seq.). The arbitrary proceeding of Joash did not well suit the ideas of an autonomous hierocracy. According to the Law the current money dues fell to the priests; no king had the right to take them away and dispose of them at his pleasure. How was it possible that Jehoiada should waive his divine right and suffer such a sacrilegious invasion of sacred privileges? how was it possible that he should be blamed for his (at first) passive resistance of the illegal invasion; how was it possible at all that the priest in his own proper department should be called to account by the king? Chronicles knows better than that. The wicked Athaliah had wasted and plundered the temple; Joash determined to restore it, and for this purpose to cause money to be collected throughout all Israel by the agency of the Levites. But as these last were in no hurry, he made a chest and set it outside in the doorway of the sanctuary; there the people streamed past, and gentle and simple with joyful heart cast in their gifts until the chest was full. This being announced by the keepers of the door, the king's scribe and the delegate of the high priest came to remove the money; with it the king and the high priest paid the workmen, and what remained over was made into costly vessels (2Chronicles xxiv. 5-14). According to this account Joash makes no arrangement whatever about the sacred dues, but sets on foot an extraordinary collection, as had once been done by Moses for the building of the tabernacle (xxiv. 6, 9); following upon this, everything else also which in 2Kings xii. is a permanent arrangement, here figures as an isolated occurrence; instead of necessary repairs of the temple constantly recurring, only one extraordinary restoration of it is mentioned, and for this occasional purpose only is the treasure chest set up,-- not, however, beside the altar, but only at the doorway (xxiv. 8; comp. 2Kings xii. 10). The clergy, the Levites, are charged only with making the collection, not with maintaining the building out of the sacred revenues; consequently they are not reproached with keeping the money to themselves, but only with not being heartily enough disposed towards the collection. It appears, however, that they were perfectly justified in this backwardness, for the king has only to set up the "treasury of God," when forthwith it overflows with the voluntary offerings of the people who flock to it, so that out of the proceeds something remains over (ver. 14) for certain other purposes--which according to 2Kings xii. 14 [13] were expressly excluded. Joash imposes no demands at all upon the priests, and Jehoiada in particular stands over against him as invested with perfectly equal rights; if the king sends his scribe, the high priest also does not appear personally, but causes himself to be represented by a delegate (xxiv. 11; comp. 2Kings xii. 11 [10]). Here also many a new piece does not come well into the old garment, as De Wette (i. 10O) shows. Chronicles itself tacitly gives the honour to the older narrative by making Joash at last apostatise from Mosaism and refuse the grateful deference which he owed to the high priest; this is the consequence of the unpleasant impression, derived not from its own story, but from that of the Book of Kings, with regard to the undue interference of the otherwise pious king in the affairs of the sanctuary and of the priests. Chronicles reaps the fruits of its perversion of 2Kings xii. in its reproduction of the nearly related and closely connected section 2Kings xxii. 3-IO. It is worth while once more to bring the passages together. 2Kings xxii. 2Chronicles xxxiv. 3. And in the eighteenth year 8. And in the eighteenth year of king Josiah the king sent of his reign, to cleanse the Shaphan the son of Azaliah, land and the house, he sent the son of Meshullam, the scribe, Shaphan the son of Azaliah, to the house of Jehovah, saying, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of 4. Go up to Hilkiah the high Joahaz the recorder, to repair priest, that he may empty the the house of Jehovah his God. money which hath been brought into the house of Jehovah 9. And they came to Hilkiah which the keepers of the the high priest, and they threshold have gathered of delivered the money that had the people. been brought into the house of God which the Levites that 5. And let them deliver it into kept the threshold had gathered the hand of the doers of the from Ephraim and Manasseh and work that have the oversight all the remnant of Israel and of the house of Jehovah, and from all Judah and Benjamin, let them give it to the doers and had returned therewith of the work who are in the to Jerusalem. house of Jehovah to repair the breaches of the house. 10. And they gave it into the hand of the workmen that had the 6. Unto carpenters, and builders, oversight of the house of Jehovah, and masons, and to buy timber and of the workmen that wrought in and hewn stones to repair the the house of Jehovah to repair house. and amend the house. 7. But let no reckoning be 11. They gave it to the artificers made with them as to the money and to the builders to buy that is delivered into their hewn stone and timber for roofs hand, because they deal faithfully. and beams of the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed. 12. And the men did the work faithfully. And the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the Kohathites, to preside; and all the Levites that had skill in instruments of music 13. Were over the bearers of burdens and overseers of all that wrought the work in any manner of service; and others of the Levites were scribes and officers and porters. 14. And when they brought out the money that had been brought into the house of Jehovah, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of Jehovah by the hand of Moses. 8. And Hilkiah the high priest 15. And Hilkiah answered and said unto Shaphan the scribe: said to Shaphan the scribe: I have found the book of the I have found the book of the law law in the house of Jehovah. in the house of Jehovah. And And Hilkiah gave the book to Hilkiah delivered the book Shaphan, and he read it. to Shaphan. 9. And Shaphan the scribe came 16. And Shaphan carried the book to the king and brought the king to the king, and besides brought word again, and said: Thy word back to the king, saying: servants have emptied out the All that was committed to thy money that was found in the servants they are doing. house and have delivered it into the hand of them that 17. And they have emptied out do the work, that have the the money that was found in the oversight of the house of house of Jehovah, and have Jehovah. delivered it into the hand of the overseers and into 10. And Shaphan the scribe the hand of the workmen. told the king, saying: Hilkiah the priest hath delivered 18. And Shaphan the scribe to me a book. And Shaphan told the king, saying: Hilkiah read it before the king. the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read out of it before the king. The occasion on which the priest introduces the Book of the Law to the notice of Shaphan has presuppositions in the arrangement made by Joash which Chronicles has destroyed, substituting others in its place,--that the temple had been destroyed under the predecessors of Josiah, but that under the latter money was raised by the agency of peripatetic Levites throughout all Israel for the restoration, and in the first instance deposited in the treasure-chest. At the emptying of this chest the priest is then alleged to have found the book (ver. 14, after Deuteronomy xxxi. 26), notwithstanding that on this occasion Shaphan also and the two accountants added in ver. 8 were present, and ought therefore to have had a share in the discovery which, however, is excluded by ver. 15 (= 2Kings xxii. 8). There are other misunderstandings besides; in particular, the superintendents of the works (_muphkadim_), to whom, according to the original narrative, the money is handed over for payment, are degraded to the rank of simple workmen, from whom, nevertheless, they are again afterwards distinguished; and while in 2Kings xxii. 7 they are represented as dealing faithfully _in paying out the money_, in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 12 they deal faithfully in their work. Perhaps, however, this is no mere misunderstanding, but is connected with the endeavour to keep profane hands as far off as possible from that which is holy, and, in particular, to give the management of the work to the Levites (vers. 12,13). To what length the anxiety of later ages went in this matter is seen in the statement of Josephus (Ant., xv. 11, 2), that Herod caused one thousand priests to be trained as masons and carpenters for the building of his temple. The two most interesting alterations in Chronicles are easily overlooked. In ver. 1 8 the words: "He read the book to the king," are changed into "He read out of the book to the king;" and after "Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan" (ver. 15) the words "and he read it" are omitted. In 2Kings the book appears as of very moderate size, but the author of Chronicles figures to himself the whole Pentateuch under that name. In the sequel 2Kings xxii. 11-xxiii.3 is indeed repeated verbatim in 2Chronicles xxxiv. 19-32, but the incomparably more important section connected with it (xxiii. 4-10), giving a detailed account of Josiah's vigorous reformation, is omitted, and its place taken by the meagre remark that the king removed all abominations out of Israel (xxxiv. 33); in compensation his passover feast is described all the more fully (chap. xxxv.). In recording also the finding and publication of the Law, Chronicles fails to realise that this document begins now for the first time to be historically operative, and acquires its great importance quite suddenly. On the contrary, it had been from the days of Moses the basis on which the community rested, and had been in force and validity at all normal times; only temporarily could this life-principle of the theocracy be repressed by wicked kings, forthwith to become vigorous and active again as soon as the pressure was removed. As soon as Ahaz has closed his eyes, Hezekiah, in the first month of his first year, again restores the Mosaic cultus; and as soon as Josiah reaches years of discretion he makes good the sins of his fathers. Being at his accession still too young, the eighth year of his reign is, as a tribute to propriety, selected instead of the eighth year of his life, and the great reformation assigned to that period which in point of fact he undertook at a much later date (xxxiv. 3-7 = 2Kings xxiii. 4-20> Thus the movement happily becomes separated from its historical occasion, and in character the innovation appears rather as a simple recovery of the spring after the pressure on it has been removed. The mist disappears before the sun of the Law, which appears in its old strength; its light passes through no phases, but shines from the beginning with uniform brightness. What Josiah did had also been done before him already by Asa, then by Jehoshaphat, then by Hezekiah; the reforms are not steps in a progressive development, but have all the same unchanging contents. Such is the influence upon historical vision of that transcendental Mosaism raised far above all growth and process of becoming, which can be traced even in the Book of Kings, but is so much more palpable in the Book of Chronicles. VI.II.3. Apart from the fact that it represents the abiding tradition of the legitimate cultus at Jerusalem, the history of Judah in the Book of Chronicles has yet another instructive purpose. In the kingdom of Judah it is not a natural and human, but a divine pragmatism that is operative. To give expression to this is what the prophets exist for in unbroken succession side by side with high priests and kings; they connect the deeds of men with the events of the course of the world, and utilise the sacred history as a theme for their preaching, as a collection of examples illustrative of the promptest operation of the righteousness of Jehovah. In doing so they do not preach what is new or free, but have at their command, like Jehovah Himself, only the Law of Moses, setting before their hearers prosperity and adversity in conformity with the stencil pattern, just as the law is faithfully fulfilled or neglected. Of course their prophecies always come exactly true, and in this way is seen an astonishing harmony between inward worth and outward circumstance. Never does sin miss its punishment, and never where misfortune occurs is guilt wanting. In the fifth year of Rehoboam Judah and Jerusalem were ravaged by Pharaoh Shishak (1Kings xiv. 25). The explanation is that three years they walked in the ways of David and Solomon, because for three years they were strengthened and reinforced by the priests and Levites and other pious persons who had immigrated from the northern kingdom (2Chronicles xi. 17); but thereafter in the fourth year, after the kingdom of Rehoboam had been strengthened and confirmed, he forsook the Law and all Israel with him (xii. 1)-- and in the fifth year followed the invasion of Shishak. A prophet announces this, and in consequence the king humbles himself along with his people and escapes with comparatively trifling punishment, being thought worthy to reign yet other twelve years. Asa in his old age was diseased in his feet (1Kings xv. 23). According to 2Chronicles xvi. 12, he died of this illness, which is described as extremely dangerous, in the forty-first year of his reign, after having already been otherwise unfortunate in his later years. And why? He had invoked foreign aid, instead of the divine, against Baasha of Israel. Now, as Baasha survived only to the twenty-sixth year of Asa, the wickedness must have been perpetrated before that date. But in that case its connection with the punishment which overtook the king only towards the close of his life would not be clear. Baasha's expedition against Jerusalem, accordingly, and the Syrian invasion of Israel occasioned by Asa on that account are brought down in Chronicles to the thirty-sixth year of the latter (xvi. 1). It has been properly observed that Baasha was at that date long dead, and the proposal has accordingly been made to change the number thirty-six into sixteen,--without considering that the first half of the reign of Asa is expressly characterised as having been prosperous, that the thirty-fifth year is already reached in chap. xv. 19, and that the correction destroys the connection of the passage with what follows (xvi. 7 seq.). For it is in connection with that flagitious appeal for aid to the Syrians that the usual prophet makes his appearance (xvi. 7), and makes the usual announcement of impending punishment. It is Hanani, a man of Northern Israel (1Kings xvi. 7), but Asa treats him as if he were one of his own subjects, handles him severely, and shuts him in prison. By this he hastens and increases his punishment, under which he falls in the forty-first year of his reign. Jehoshaphat, the pious king, according to 1Kings xxii., took part in the expedition of the godless Ahab of Israel against the Damascenes. Chronicles cannot allow this to pass unrebuked, and accordingly when the king returns in peace, the same Hanani announces his punishment, albeit a gracious one (2Chronicles xix. I-3). And gracious indeed it is; the Moabites and Ammonites invade the land, but Jehoshaphat without any effort on his part wins a glorious victory, and inexhaustible plunder (xx. 1 seq.). One cannot blame him, therefore, for once more entering into an alliance with Ahab's successor for a naval expedition to be undertaken in common, which is to sail from a port of the Red Sea, probably round Africa, to Tarshish (Spain, 2Chronicles ix. 21). But this time he is punished more seriously as Eliezer the son of Dodavah had prophesied, the ships are wrecked. Compare on the other hand 1Kings xxii. 48, 49: "Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they went not, for the ships were wrecked in the harbour on the Red Sea. At that time Ahaziah the son of Ahab had said to Jehoshaphat: Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships; but Jehoshaphat would not." So the original statement. But in Chronicles a moral ground must be found for the misfortune, and Jehoshaphat therefore makes with the king of Samaria a sinful alliance, which in point of fact he had declined, not indeed from religious motives. Joram, the son of Jehoshaphat, conducted himself very ill, it is said in 2Kings viii. 18; Chronicles enhances his offence, and above all adds the merited reward (xxi. 4, seq.). Elijah, although he had quitted this earth long before (2Kings iii. 11 seq.), must write to the offender a letter, the threats of which are duly put into execution by Jehovah. The Philistines and Arabians having previously pressed him hard, he falls into an incurable sickness of the bowels, which afflicts him for years, and finally brings him to his end in a most frightful manner (xxi. 12, seq.). In concurrence with the judgment of God, the people withhold from the dead king the honours of royalty, and he is not buried beside his fathers, notwithstanding 2Kings viii. 24. Joash, according to 2Kings xii., was a pious ruler, but met with misfortune; he was compelled to buy off Hazael, who had laid siege to Jerusalem, at a heavy price, and finally he died by the assassin's hand. Chronicles is able to tell how he deserved this fate. In the sentence: "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the high priest had instructed him " (2Kings xii. 3 [2]), it alters the last expression into "all the days of Jehoiada the priest," (xxiv. 2). After the death of his benefactor he fell away, and showed his family the basest ingratitude; at the end of that very year the Syrians invade him; after their departure his misfortunes are increased by a dreadful illness, under which he is murdered (xxiv. 17 seq.). Amaziah was defeated, made prisoner, and severely punished by Jehoash, king of Samaria, whom he had audaciously challenged (2Kings xiv. 8 seq.). Why? because he had set up in Jerusalem idols which had been carried off from Edom, and served them (2Chronicles xxv. 1 4). He prefers the plundered gods of a vanquished people to Jehovah at the very moment when the latter has proved victorious over them! From the time of this apostasy-- a crime for which no punishment could be too great--his own servants are also stated to have conspired against him and put him to death (xxv. 27), and yet we are assured in ver. 25 (after 2Kings xiv. I;) that Amaziah survived his adversary by fifteen years. Uzziah, one of the best kings of Judah, became a leper, and was compelled to hand over the regency to his son Jotham (2Kings xv. 5); for, adds Chronicles, "when he had become strong, his heart was lifted up, even to ruin, so that he transgressed against Jehovah his God, and went into the temple of Jehovah, to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of Jehovah, and withstood him and said: It is not for thee to burn incense, but only for the sons of Aaron who are consecrated thereto. Then Uzziah was wroth and laid not the censer aside, and the leprosy rose up in his forehead, and the priests thrust him out from thence" (xxvi. 16-20). The matter is now no longer a mystery. Ahaz was a king of little worth, and yet he got fairly well out of the difficulty into which the invasion of the allied Syrians and Israelites had brought him by making his kingdom tributary to the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser (2Kings xvi. 1 seq.). But Chronicles could not possibly let him off so cheaply. By it he is delivered into the hand of the enemy: the Israelites alone slaughter 120,000 men of Judah, including the king's son and his most prominent servants, and carry off to Samaria 200,000 women and children, along with a large quantity of other booty. The Edomites and Philistines also fall upon Ahaz, while the Assyrians whom he has summoned to his aid misunderstand him, and come up against Jerusalem with hostile intent; they do not, indeed, carry the city, but yet become possessors, without trouble, of its treasures, which the king himself hands over to them (xxviii. 1-21). The Book of Kings knows no worse ruler than Manasseh was; yet he reigned undisturbed for fifty-five years--a longer period than was enjoyed by any other king (2Kings xxi.1-18). This is a stone of stumbling that Chronicles must remove. It tells that Manasseh was carried in chains by the Assyrians to Babylon, but there prayed to Jehovah, who restored him to his kingdom; he then abolished idolatry in Judah (xxxiii. 11-20). Thus on the one hand he does not escape punishment, while on the other hand the length of his reign is nevertheless explained. Recently indeed it has been sought to support the credibility of these statements by means of an Assyrian inscription, from which it appears that Manasseh did pay tribute to Esarhaddon. That is to say, he had been overpowered by the Assyrians; that is again to say, that he had been thrown into chains and carried off by them. Not so rapid, but perhaps quite as accurate, would be the inference that as a tributary prince he must have kept his seat on the throne of Judah, and not have exchanged it for the prison of Babylon. In truth, Manasseh's temporary deposition is entirely on the same plane with Nebuchadnezzar's temporary grass-eating. The unhistorical character of the intermezzo (the motives of which are perfectly transparent) follows not only from the silence of the Book of Kings (a circumstance of no small importance indeed), but also, for example, from Jeremiah xv. 4; for when it is there said that all Judah and Jerusalem are to be given up to destruction because of Manasseh, it is not presupposed that his guilt has been already borne and atoned for by himself. To justify the fact of Josiah's defeat and death at Megiddo, there is attached to him the blame of not having given heed to the words of Necho from the mouth of God warning him against the struggle (xxxv. 21, 22). Contrariwise, the punishment of the godless Jehoiakim is magnified; he is stated to have been put in irons by the Chaldaeans and carried to Babylon (xxxvi. 6)--an impossibility of course before the capture of Jerusalem, which did not take place until the third month of his successor. The last prince of David's house, Zedekiah, having suffered more severely than all his predecessors, must therefore have been stiff-necked and rebellious (xxxvi.12, 13),--characteristics to which, according to the authentic evidence of the prophet Jeremiah, he had in reality the least possible claim. It is thus apparent how inventions of the most circumstantial kind have arisen out of this plan of writing history, as it is euphemistically called. One is hardly warranted, therefore, in taking the definiteness of statements vouched for by Chronicles alone as proof of their accuracy. The story about Zerah the Ethiopian (2Chronicles xiv. 9 seq.) is just as apocryphal as that of Chushan-Rishathaim (Judges iii 10). Des Vignoles has indeed identified the first-named with the Osorthon of Manetho, who again occurs in the Egyptian monuments as Osorkon, son of Shishak, though not as renewing the war against Palestine; but Osorkon was an Egyptian, Zerah an Ethiopian, and the resemblance of the names is after all not too obvious. But, even if Zerah were really a historical personage, of what avail would this be for the unhistorical connection? With a million of men the king of the Libyans and Moors, stepping over Egypt, comes against Judah. Asa, ruler of a land of about sixty German square miles, goes to meet the enemy with 580,000, and defeats him on the plain to the north of Mareshah so effectually that not a single soul survives. Shall it be said that this story, on account of the accurate statement of locality (although Mareshah instead of Gath is not after all suggestive of an old source), is credible-at all events after deduction of the incredibilities? If the incredibilities are deducted, nothing at all is left. The invasion of Judah by Baasha of Israel, and Asa's deportment towards him (1Kings xv. 17 seq.), are quite enough fully to dispose of the great previous victory over the Ethiopians claimed for Asa. The case is no better with the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Ammonites and Moabites (2Chronicles xx.); here we have probably an echo of 2Kings iii., where we read of Jehoshaphat's taking part in a campaign against Moab, and where also recurs that characteristic feature of the self-destruction of the enemy, so that for the opposing force nothing remains but the work of collecting the booty (iii. 23; compare 2Chronicles xx. 23). The Chronicler has enemies always at his command when needed,--Arabians, Ethiopians (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxii. 1, xxvi. 7), Mehunims (xx. 1, xxvi. 1), Philistines (xvii. 11, xxi. 16, xxvi. 6 seq., xxviii. 18), Ammonites (xx. 1, xxvi. 8, xxvii. 5), whose very names in some cases put them out of the question for the older time. Such statements as that the Ammonites became subject to Kings Uzziah and Jotham, are, in the perfect silence of the credible sources, condemned by their inherent impossibility; for at that period the highway to Ammon was Moab, and this country was by no means then in the possession of Judah, nor is it anywhere said that it was. The Philistines as vindictive enemies are rendered necessary by the plan of the history (xxi. 16, xxviii. 18), and this of itself throws suspicion upon the previous statements (xvii. 11, xxvi. 6 seq.) that they were laid under tribute by Jehoshaphat, and subjugated by Uzziah; it is utterly impossible to believe that the latter should have broken down the walls of Ashdod (Amos i. 7), or have established fortresses in Philistia. According to the Book of Kings, he did indeed conquer Edom anew; Edom is according to this authority the one land to which the descendants of David lay claim and against which they wage war, while Moab and Philistia (the most important towns being excepted, however, in the case of the latter) virtually belong to the territory of Ephraim. The triumphs given by the Chronicler to his favourites have none of them any historical effect, but merely serve to add a momentary splendour to their reigns. Merit is always the obverse of success. Joram, Joash, Ahaz, who are all depicted as reprobates, build no fortresses, command no great armies, have no wealth of wives and children; it is only in the case of the pious kings (to the number of whom even Rehoboam and Abijah also belong) that the blessing of God manifests itself by such tokens. Power is the index of piety, with which accordingly It rises and fall. Apart from this it is of no consequence if, for example, Jehoshaphat possesses more than 1,100.000 soldiers (xvii, 14 seq.), for they are not used for purposes of war; the victory comes from God and from the music of the Levites (chap. xx.). In the statements about fortress-building which regularly recur in connection with the names of good rulers, /1/ **************************************** 1 viii. 3-6, xi. 5-12, xiii. 19, xiv. 5, 6 [6, 7], xvii. 12, xix. 5, xxvi. 9, 10, xxvii. 4, xxxii. 5,, xxxiii. 14. *************************************** general statements, such as those of Hosea viii. 14, 2Kings xviii. 13, are illustrated by concrete examples, a few elements of tradition being also employed (Lachish). It is not possible, but, indeed, neither is it necessary, to demonstrate in every case the imaginary character of the statements; according to xix. 5 it would appear as if simply every city of any kind of consequence was regarded as a fortress and in the list given in chap. xi. 6 seq., we chiefly meet with names which were also familiar in the post-exile period. That Abijah deprived Jeroboam of Bethel amongst others, and that Jehoshaphat set governors over the Ephraimite cities which had been taken by Asa his father (xiii. 19, xvii. 2), would excite surprise if it stood anywhere else than in Chronicles. In forming a judgment on its family history of the descendants of David, the statement contained in xiii. 21 is specially helpful both in manner and substance: "And Abijah waxed mighty, and he married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters." This can only be taken as referring to the reign of Abijah, and that too after the alleged victory over Jeroboam; but he reigned altogether for only three years, and is it to be supposed that within this interval one of his sons should even have attained to man's estate? In reality, however, Abijah had no son at all, but was succeeded by his brother, for the definite and doubtless authentic statement that Maachah, the wife of Rehoboam, was the mother both of Abijah and of Asa, and that the latter removed her from her position at court (1Kings xv. 2, 10, 13), must override the allegation of ver. 8, that the successor of Abijah was his son. After Jehoshaphat's death it is said in the first place that Jehoram slew all his brethren (2 Chr. xxi. 4), and afterwards that the Arabians slew all Jehoram's children with the exception of one (xxii. 1); how many of the Davidic house in that case survive for Jehu, who nevertheless slew forty-two of them (2Kings x. 14)? In short, the family history of the house of David is of equal historical value with all the other matters on which the Chronicler is more widely and better informed than all the older canonical books. The remark applies to names and numbers as well; about such trifles, which produce an appearance of accuracy, the author is never in any embarrassment. VI.II.4. The Book of Kings then everywhere crops up as the real foundation of the portion of Chronicles relating to Judah after the period of Solomon. Where the narrative of the former is detailed and minute, our author also has fuller and more interesting material at his command; so, for example, in the history relating to the temple and to the common and mutual relations of Judah and Israel (2 Chr. x., xviii., xxiii., seq., xxv. 17-24, xxxiii. seq.). Elsewhere he is restricted to the epitome that constitutes the framework of the Book of Kings; by it he is guided in his verdicts as to the general character of the successive sovereigns as well as in his chronological statements, although, in accordance with his plan, he as a rule omits the synchronisms (xiii. 1, xxv. 25). The positive data also, given by the epitome with reference to the legislation in matters of worship by the various kings, are for the most part reproduced word for word, and float in a fragmentary and readily distinguishable way in the mixture of festivals, sermons, choruses, law, and prophets. For this is an important verification of all the results already obtained; all in Chronicles that is not derived from Samuel and Kings, has a uniform character not only in its substance, but also in its awkward and frequently unintelligible language--plainly belonging to a time in which Hebrew was approaching extinction--in its artificiality of style, deriving its vitality exclusively from Biblical reminiscences. This is not the place for the proof of these points, but the reader may compare Staehelin's Einleitung (1862), p. 139 seq.; Bertheau, p. xiv. seq., and Graf, p. 116. VI.III. VI.III.1. When the narrative of Chronicles runs parallel with the older historical books of the canon, it makes no real additions, but the tradition is merely differently coloured, under the influence of contemporary motives. In the picture it gives the writer's own present is reflected, not antiquity. But neither is the case very different with the genealogical lists prefixed by way of introduction in 1Chronicles i.-ix.; they also are in the main valid only for the period at which they were drawn up--whether for its actual condition or for its conceptions of the past. The penchant for pedigrees and genealogical registers, made up from a mixture of genealogico-historical and ethnologico-statistical elements, is a characteristic feature of Judaism; along with the thing the word YX# also first came into use during the later times. Compendious histories are written in the form of TLDWT and YWX#YN. The thread is thin and inconspicuous, and yet apparently strong and coherent; one does not commit oneself to much, and yet has opportunity to introduce all kinds of interesting matter. Material comes to one's hand, given a beginning and an end, the bridge is soon completed. Another expression of the same tendency is the inclination to give a genealogical expression to all connections and associations of human society whatsoever, to create artificial families on all hands and bring them into blood relationship, as if the whole of public life resolved itself into a matter of cousinship,--an inclination indicative of the times of political stagnation then prevalent. We hear of the families of the scribes at Jabesh, of the potters and gardeners and byssus-workers, of the sons of the goldsmiths, apothecaries, and fullers, these corporations being placed on the same plane with actual families. The division into classes of the persons engaged in religious service is merely the most logical development of this artificial system which is applied to all other social relations as well. Proceeding now to a fuller examination of the contents of 1 Chron i.-ix. and other texts connected with that, we have here, apart from the first chapter, which does not demand further attention, an ethno-genealogical survey of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is based mostly on the data of the Priestly Code (Genesis xlvi.; um. <?> xxvi.), expanded now more now less. But while the statements of the Priestly Code have to hold good for the Mosaic period only, those of Chronicles have also to apply to the succeeding ages,--those, for example, of Saul and David, of Tiglath-Pileser and Hezekiah. As early as the time of the judges, however, very important changes had taken place in the conditions. While Dan continued to subsist with difficulty, Simeon and Levi had been completely broken up (Genesis xlix. 7); in the Blessing of Moses the latter name denotes something quite different from a tribe, and the former is not even so much as named, although the enumeration is supposed to be complete; in David's time it had already been absorbed by families of mingled Judaic and Edomitic descent in the district where it had once had independent footing. Eastward of Jordan Leah's first-born had a similar fate, although somewhat later. After it has been deposed from its primacy in Genesis xlix. and twitted in Judges v. with its brave words unaccompanied by corresponding deeds, the faint and desponding wish is expressed in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 6 that "Reuben may live and not die," and King Mesha is unaware that any other than the Gadite had ever dwelt in the land which, properly speaking, was the heritage of Reuben. But in Chronicles these extinct tribes again come to life--and not Levi alone, which is a special case, but also Simeon and Reuben, with which alone we are here to deal--and they exist as independent integral twelfths of Israel, precisely like Ephraim and Manasseh, throughout the whole period of the monarchy down to the destruction of the kingdom by the Assyrians. /1/ This is ***************************************** 1. For Reuben see (in addition to 1Chronicles v. 1-10) v. 18, xi. 42, xii. 37. xxvi. 32, xxvii. 16, for Simeon, 1Chronicles iv. 24-43, with xii. 25, and 2Chronicles xv. 9, xxxiv. 6, observing that in the last two passages Simeon is reckoned as belonging to the northern kingdom, so as to complete the number of the ten tribes. **************************************** diametrically opposed to all authentic tradition; for to maintain that nothing else is intended than a continued subsistence of individual Simeonite and Reubenite families within other tribes is merely a desperate resort of the harmonists, and every attempt to tone down the fact that those extinct and half-mythical tribes are in Chronicles placed side by side with the rest without any distinction is equally illegitimate. The historical value thus lost by the narrative as a whole cannot be restored by the seeming truthfulness of certain details. Or is more significance really to be attached to the wars of the Simeonites and Reubenites against the Arabians than to the rest of the extemporised wars of the kings of Judah against these children of the wilderness? If only at least the names had not been "sons of Ham, and Mehunim and Hagarenes " (iv. 40 seq. [Heb.], v. 10)! As for the pedigrees and genealogical lists, are they to be accepted as historical merely because their construction is not apparent to us, and they evade our criticism? The language affords no room for the conjecture that we here possess extracts from documents of high antiquity (iv. 33, 38, 4I, v. 1 seq., 7, 9 seq.), and proper names such as Elioenai and the like (iv. 35 seq.) are not striking for their antique originality. Of the remaining tribes, so far as they belong to Israel and not to Judah, the next in the series after Reuben are the trans-Jordanic (v. 11-26). They are said to have been numbered in the days of Jotham of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel, on which occasion 44,760 warriors were returned; they took the field against the Hagarenes, Ituraeans, Nephishites, and Nabataeans, gaining the victory and carrying off much booty, "for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them because they put their trust in Him." But afterwards they fell away from the God of their fathers, and as a punishment were carried off by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser to Armenia by the Chaboras and the river of Gozan. Apart from the language, which in its edifying tone is that of late Judaism, and leaving out of account the enumeration "the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half of the tribe of Manasseh," the astonishing and highly doubtful combinations are eloquent: Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Chaboras and the river of Gozan, are hardly distinguished from each other; Jotham and Jeroboam, on the other hand, make so impossible a synchronism that the partisans of Chronicles will have it that none is intended,--forgetful, to be sure, of Hosea i. 2, and omitting to say what in that case Jotham of Judah has to do here at all in this connection. The Hagarenes and Ituraeans too, instead of (say) the Moabites and Ammonites, furnish food for reflection, as also do the geographical statements that Gad had his seat in Bashan and Manasseh in and near Lebanon. As for the proper names of families and their heads, they are certainly beyond our means of judging; the phrases however of the scheme they fill (anshe shemoth rashe l'beth abotham, migrash, jahes) are peculiar to the Priestly Code and Chronicles, and alongside of elements which are old and attested from other quarters, occur others that look very recent, as for example (v. 24) Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, Jahdiel. In the introduction the Galilaean tribes have no prominent place, but in the rest of the book they make a favourable appearance (see especially 1Chronicles xii. 32-34, 40, and 2Chronicles xxx. 10, 11, 18); it readily occurs to one, especially in the last-cited passage, to think of the later Judaising process in Galilee. In Issachar there are stated to have been 87,000 fighting men in David's time (misparam l'toledotham l'beth abotham, vii. 1-5); out of Zebulun and Naphtali, again, exactly 87,000 men came to David at Hebron, to anoint him and be feasted three days,--it is carefully mentioned, however (xii. 40), that they took their provisions up with them. The proper kernel of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, is, in comparison with Simeon, Reuben, Gad, Issachar, treated with very scant kindness (vii. 14-29),--a suspicious sign. The list of the families of Manasseh is an artificial _rechauffe_ of elements gleaned anywhere; Maachah passes for the wife as well as the sister of Machir, but being a Gileaditess (Beth-Maachah), ought not to have been mentioned at all in this place where the cis-Jordanic Manasseh is being spoken of; to fill up blanks every contribution is thankfully received. /1/ In the case of Ephraim a long and meagre genealogy ***************************************** 1 Kuenen, Th. Tijdschr., 1877, pp. 484, 488; Godsdienst v. Isr., i. 165. **************************************** only is given, which, begun in vers. 20, 21, and continued in ver. 25, constantly repeats the same names (Tahath, Tahan, 1Samuel i. 1; Eladah, Laadan, Shuthelah, Telah), and finally reaches its end and goal in Joshua, whose father Nun alone is known to the older sources! Into the genealogy a wonderful account of the slaying of the children of Ephraim by the men of Gath (1Samuel iv.?) has found its way, and (like viii. 6, 7) according to the prevailing view must be of venerable antiquity. But in that case the statement of iv. 9 must also be very ancient, which yet obviously is connected with the rise of the schools of the scribes stated in ii. 55 to have existed in Jabez. Everywhere it is presupposed that Israel throughout the entire period of the monarchy was organised on the basis of the twelve tribes (ii.-ix.; xii.; xxvii.), but the assumption is certainly utterly false, as can be seen for example from 1Kings iv. Further, the _penchant_ of later Judaism for statistics is carried back to the earlier time, to which surveys and censuses were repugnant in the extreme. In spite of 2Samuel xxiv., we are told that under David enumerations both of the spiritual and of the secular tribes were made again and again; so also under his successors, as may be inferred partly from express statements and partly from the precise statistics given as to the number of men capable of bearing arms: in these cases the most astounding figures are set down,--always, however, as resting on original documents and accurate enumeration. In the statistical information of Chronicles, then, so far as it relates to pre-exilic antiquity, we have to do with artificial compositions. It is possible, and occasionally demonstrable, that in these some elements derived from tradition have been used. But it is certain that quite as many have been simply invented; and the combination of the elements--the point of chief importance-- dates, as both form and matter show, from the very latest period. One might as well try to hear the grass growing as attempt to derive from such a source as this a historical knowledge of the conditions of ancient Israel. VI.III.2. As regards Judah and Benjamin, and to a certain extent Levi also, the case of course is somewhat different from that of the ten extinct tribes. It is conceivable that here a living ethno-genealogical tradition may have kept the present connected with the past. Nevertheless, on closer examination, it comes out that most of what the Chronicler here relates has reference to the post-exilic time, and that the few fragments which go up to a higher antiquity are wrought into a connection which on the whole is of a very recent date. Most obtrusively striking is it that the list of the heads of the people dwelling in Jerusalem given in ix. 4--17 is simply identical with Nehemiah xi. 3-19. In this passage, introducing as it does the history of the kings (x. seq.), one is by no means prepared to hear statements about the community of the second temple; but our author is under the impression that in going there he is letting us know about the old Jerusalem; from David to Nehemiah is no leap for him, the times are not distinct from one another to his mind. For chap. viii. also, containing a full enumeration of the Benjamite families, with special reference to those which had their seat in the capital, Bertheau has proved the post-exilic reference; it is interesting that in the later Jerusalem there existed a widespread family which wished to deduce its origin from Saul and rested its claims to this descent on a long genealogy (viii. 33-40). /1/ ***************************************** 1. Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later interpolation of ix. 1-34. *************************************** It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii. 6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai, and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all 59,434 fighting men). The registers of greatest historical value are those relating to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23). But in this statement the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted (chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel, the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon, and in Jeremiah. According to iii. 5, the first four of David's sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii. 3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is given out to be the son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim. Similar things occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with a mistaken piety. Whoever has eyes to see cannot assign any high value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii. and iv. Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. /1/ ************************************** 1. For further details the reader is referred to the author's dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870. ************************************** Apart from the introduction, vers.1-8, chap. ii. is a genealogy of the children of Hezron, a tribe which in David's time had not yet been wholly amalgamated with Judah, but which even then constituted the real strength of that tribe and afterwards became completely one with it. The following scheme discloses itself amid the accompanying matters: "The sons of Hezron are Jerahmeel and Celubai" (Caleb) (ver. 9). "and the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were..." (ver. 25). "These were the sons of Jerahmeel. And the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were..." (ver. 42). "These were the sons of Caleb " (ver. 50 a). That which is thus formally defined and kept by itself apart (compare in this connection "Jerahmeel the first-born of Hezron," "Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel") is materially also distinguished from all else. It is the kernel of the whole, and refers to the pre-exilian time. Even the unusual _et fuerunt_ (vers. 25, 33, 50) points to this conclusion, as well as, in the case of Caleb, the positive fact that the towns named in ver. 42-49 are all situated near Hebron and in the Negeb of Judah, where after the exile the Idumaeans were settled, and, in the case of Jerahmeel, the negative circumstance that here no towns at all are mentioned among the families, Molid, ver. 29, being perhaps a single exception, and thus the extreme south is indicated. But this kernel is amplified by a number of post-exilian additions. In the first place, in connection with Jerahmeel, an appendix (vers. 34-41) is given which is not ethnological but purely genealogical, and brings a pedigree of fifteen members manifestly down to near the age of the Chronicler, and which moreover is only in apparent connection with what precedes it (comp. ver. 34 with ver. 31), and invariably uses the hiphil form _holid_, a form which occurs in vers. 25-33 never, and in vers. 42-50 only sporadically in three places open to the suspicion of later redaction (comp. especially ver. 47). Much more important, however, are the additions under Caleb; of these the one is prefixed (vers. 18-24), the other, more appropriately, brought in at the close (vers. 50-55, beginning with "and the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath," Caleb's second wife, ver. 19). Here Caleb no longer presents himself in the extreme south of Judah and the vicinity of Jerahmeel (1Samuel xxv. 3, xxvii. 10, xxx. 14, 29), where he had his settlement prior to the exile, but his families, which are all of them descended from his son Hur, inhabit Bethlehem, Kirjath-jearim, Zorah, Esthaol, and other towns in the north, frequently mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah. Thus the Calebites in consequence of the exile have forsaken their old seats and have taken up new ones on their return; this fact is expressed in ver. 18 to the effect that Caleb's first wife Azubah bath Jerioth (Deserta filia Nomadum) had died, and that he had then married a second, Ephrath, by whom he became the father of Hur: Ephrath is the name of the district in which Bethlehem and Kirjath- jearim are situated, and properly speaking is merely another form of Ephraim, as is shown by the word Ephrathite. In addition to these appendices to Jerahmeel and Caleb, we have also the genealogy of David (vers. 10-17). The Book of Samuel knows only of his father Jesse; on the other hand, Saul's genealogy is carried further back, and there was no reason for not doing so in David's case also if the materials had existed. But here, as in Ruth, the pedigree is traced backwards through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, up to Salma. Salma is the father of Bethlehem (ii. 54), and hence the father of David. But Salma is the father of Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns or fractions of towns AFTER THE EXILE; he belongs to Kaleb Abi Hur. /1/ ***************************************** I In the Targum, Caleb's kindred the Kenites are designated as Salmaeans; the name also occurs in Canticles (i. 5, the tents of Kedar, the curtains of Salmah), and also as the name of a Nabataean tribe in Pliny. Among the families of the Nethinim enumerated in Nehemiah vii. 46-60 the B'ne Salmah also occur, along with several other names which enable us distinctly to recognise (Ezekiel xliv.) the non-Israelite and foreign origin of these temple slaves; see, for example, vers. 48, 52, 55, 57. *************************************** But if anything at all is certain, it is this, that in ancient times the Calebites lived in the south and not in the north of Judah, and in particular that David by his nativity belonged not to them but rather to the older portion of Judah which gravitated towards Israel properly so called, and stood in most intimate relations with Benjamin. Of the first three members of the genealogy, Nahshon and Amminadab occur as princes of Judah in the Priestly Code, and are fitly regarded as the ancestors of those who come after them; Ram is the first-born of Hezron's first-born (ver. 25), and by the meaning of his name also (Ram = the high one), is, like Abram, qualified to stand at the head of the princely line. While in chap ii. we thus in point of fact fall in with an old kernel, and one that necessarily goes back to sound tradition (apparently preserved indeed, however, merely for the sake of the later additions), the quite independent and parallel list, on the other hand, contained in iv. 1-23 is shown by many unmistakable indications to be a later composition having its reference only to post-exilian conditions, perhaps incorporating a few older elements, which, however, it is impossible with any certainty to detect. /2/ ***************************************** I Pharez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, Shobal (iv. 1), is a genealogically descending series; Chelubai must therefore of necessity be read instead of Carmi, all the more because Chelub and not Carmi appears in the third place in the subsequent expansion; for this, ascending from below, begins with Shobal (ver. 2), then goes on to Hur (vers. 5-10), who stands in the same relation to Ash-hur as Tob to Ish-tob, and finally deals with Chelub or Caleb (vers. 11-15). ******************************************** Levi of course receives the fullest treatment (1Chronicles v. 27 [vi. 1]-vi. 66 [81], ix. 10 seq., xv., xvi., xxiii.-xxvii., &c.). We know that this clerical tribe is an artificial production, and that its hierarchical subdivision, as worked out in the Priestly Code, was the result of the centralisation of the cultus in Jerusalem. Further, it has been already shown that in the history as recorded in Chronicles the effort is most conspicuous to represent the sons of Aaron and the Levites, in all cases where they are absent from the older historical books of the canon, as playing the part to which they are entitled according to the Priestly Code. How immediate is the connection with the last-named document, how in a certain sense that code is even carried further by Chronicles, can be seen for example from this circumstance, that in the former Moses in a novel reduces the period of beginning public service in the case of a Levite from thirty years of age to twenty-five (Numbers iv. 3 seq., viii. 23 seq.), while in the latter David (1Chronicles xxiii. 3, 24 seq.) brings it down still further to the age of twenty; matters are still to some extent in a state of flux, and the ordering of the temple worship is a continuation of the beginning made with the tabernacle service by Moses. Now, in so far as the statistics of the clergy have a real basis at all, that basis is post-exilian. It has long ago been remarked how many of the individuals figuring under David and his successors (e.g., Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun) bear names identical with families or guilds of a later time, how the two indeed are constantly becoming confluent, and difficulty is felt in determining whether by the expression "head" a person or a family ought to be understood. But, inasmuch as the Chronicler nevertheless desires to depict the older time and not his own, he by no means adheres closely to contemporary statistics, but gives free play at the same time to his idealising imagination; whence it comes that in spite of the numerous and apparently precise data afforded, the reader still finds himself unable to form any clear picture of the organisation of the clergy,--the ordering of the families and tribes, the distribution of the offices,--nay, rather, is involved in a maze of contradictions. Obededom, Jeduthun, Shelomith, Korah, occur in the most different connections, belong now to one, now to another section of the Levites, and discharge at one time this function, at another, that. Naturally the commentators are prompt with their help by distinguishing names that are alike, and identifying names that are different. Some characteristic details may still be mentioned here. The names of the six Levitical classes according to 1Chronicles xxv. 4, Giddalti, V'romamti-Ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth, are simply the fragments of a consecutive sentence which runs: I have magnified | and exalted the help | of him who sat in need: | I have spoken | abundance of | prophecies. The watchman or singer Obededom who is alleged to have discharged his functions in the days of David and Amaziah, is no other than the captain to whom David intrusted for three months the custody of the ark, a Philistine of Gath. The composition of the singers' pedigrees is very transparent, especially in the case of Heman (1Chronicles vi. 7-l2 [22-27] = ver 18-23, [33-37]). Apart from Exodus vi. 16-l9, use is chiefly made of what is said about the family of Samuel (1Samuel i. 1, viii. 2), who must of course have been of Levitical descent, because his mother consecrated him to the service of the sanctuary. Heman is the son of Joel b. Samuel b. Elkanah b. Jeroham b. Eliab b. Tahath b. Zuph, only the line does not terminate with Ephraim as in 1Samuel i. 1 (LXX) because it is Levi who is the goal; Zuph. <sic> however, is an Ephraitic district, and Tahath (Tohu, Toah, Tahan, Nahath) is an Ephraimite family (vii. 20). Further back the same elements are individually repeated more than once, Elkanah four times in all; he occurs once as early as in Exodus vi. 24, where also he is doubtless borrowed from 1Samuel i. The best of it is that, contrary to the scope of the genealogies recorded in1 Chronicles vi., which is to provide a Levitical origin for the guilds of singers, there is found in close contiguity the statement (ii. 6) that Heman and Ethan were descendants of Zerah b. Pharez, b. JUDAH. The commentators are indeed assisted in their efforts to differentiate the homonyms by their ignorance of the fact that even as late as Nehemiah's time the singers did not yet pass for Levites, but their endeavours are wrecked by the circumstance that the names of fathers as well as of sons are identical (Psalm lxxxviii. 1, lxxxix. 1; Ewald, iii. 380 seq.). In point of history these musicians of the second temple are descended of course neither from Levi nor from the sons of Mahol (1Kings v. 11 [iv. 31), but they have at least derived their names from the latter. On all hands we meet with such artificial names in the case of Levites. One is called Issachar; it would not be surprising to meet with a Naphtali Cebi, or Judah b. Jacob. Jeduthun is, properly speaking, the name of a tune or musical mode (Psalm xxxix. 1, lxii. 1, [xxvii. 1), whence also of a choir trained in that. Particularly interesting are a few pagan names, as for example Henadad, Bakbuk, and some others, which, originally borne by the temple servitors (Nehemiah vii. 46 seq.), were doubtless transferred along with these to the Levites. With the priests, of whom so many are named at all periods of the history of Israel, matters are no better than with the inferior Levites, so far as the Books of Samuel and Kings are not drawn upon. In particular, the twenty-four priestly courses or orders are an institution, not of King David, but of the post-exilic period. When Hitzig, annotating Ezekiel viii. 16, remarks that the five-and-twenty men standing between the temple and the altar worshipping the sun toward the east are the heads of the twenty-four priestly courses with the high priest at their head (because no one else had the right to stand in the inner court between temple and altar), he reveals a trait that is characteristic, not only of himself, but also of the entire so-called historico-critical school, who exert their whole subtlety on case after case, but never give themselves time to think matters over in their connection with each other; nay, rather simply retain the traditional view as a whole, only allowing themselves by way of gratification a number of heresies. It is almost impossible to believe that Hitzig, when he annotated Ezekiel viii., could have read those passages Ezekiel xliii. 7 seq., xliv. 6 seq, from which it is most unambiguously clear that the later exclusion of the laity from the sanctuary was quite unknown in the pre-exilic period. The extent of the Chronicler's knowledge about the pre-exilic priesthood is revealed most clearly in the list of the twenty-two high priests in 1Chronicles v. 29-41 (vi. 3-15). From the ninth to the eighteenth the series runs--Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, Ahimaaz, Azariah, Johanan, Azariah, Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok. As for the first five, Azariah was not the son, but the brother of Ahimaaz, and the latter apparently not a priest (1Kings iv. 2); but Ahitub, the alleged father of Zadok, was, on the contrary, the grandfather of Zadok's rival, Abiathar, of the family of Eli (1Samuel xiv. 3, xxii. 20); the whole of the old and famous line--Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub; Ahimelech, Abiathar--which held the priesthood of the ark from thc time of the judges down into the days of David, is passed over in absolute silence, and the line of Zadok, by which it was not superseded until Solomon (1Kings ii. 35), is represented as having held the leadership of the priesthood since Moses. As for the last four in the above-cited list, they simply repeat the earlier. In the Book of Kings, Azariah II., Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok, do not occur, but, on the contrary, other contemporary high priests, Jehoiada and Urijah, omitted from the enumeration in Chronicles. At the same time this enumeration cannot be asserted to be defective; for, according to Jewish chronology, the ancient history is divided into two periods, each of 480 years, the one extending from the exodus to the building of the temple, the other from that epoch down to the establishment of the second theocracy. Now, 480 years are twelve generations of forty years, and in 1Chronicles v. there are twelve high priests reckoned to the period during which there was no temple (ver. 36b to come after ver. 35a), and thence eleven down to the exile; that is to say, twelve generations, when the exile is included. The historical value of the genealogy in 1Chronicles v. 26-41 is thus inevitably condemned. But if Chronicles knew nothing about the priestly princes of the olden time, its statements about ordinary priests are obviously little to be relied on. VI.III.3. To speak of a tradition handed down from pre-exilic times as being found in Chronicles, either in 1Chronicles i.-ix. or in 1Chronicles x.-2Chronicles xxxvi., is thus manifestly out of the question. As early as 1806 this had been conclusively shown by the youthful De Wette (then twenty-six years of age). But since that date many a theological Sisyphus has toiled to roll the stone again wholly or half-way up the hill--Movers especially, in genius it might seem the superior of the sober Protestant critic--with peculiar results. This scholar mixed up the inquiry into the historical value of those statements in Chronicles which we are able to control, with the other question as to the probable sources of its variations from the older historical books of the canon. In vain had De Wette, at the outset, protested against such a procedure, contending that it was not only possible, but conceded that Chronicles, where at variance or in contradiction, was following older authority, but that the problem still really was, as before, how to explain the complete difference of general conception and the multitude of discrepancies in details; that the hypothesis of "sources," as held before Movers by Eichhorn, was of no service in dealing with this question, and that in the critical comparison of the two narratives, and in testing their historical character, it was after all incumbent to stick to what lay before one (Beitr., i. pp. 24, 29, 38). For so ingenious an age such principles were too obvious; Movers produced a great impression, especially as he was not so simple as to treat the letters of Hiram and Elijah as authentic documents, but was by way of being very critical. At present even Dillmann also unfortunately perceives "that the Chronicler everywhere has worked according to sources, and that in his case deliberate invention or distortion of the history are not for a moment to be spoken of" (Herzog, Realencyk., ii. p. 693, 1st edit.; iii. 223, 2d edit.). And from the lofty heights of science the author of Part V. of the Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament looks compassionately down upon K. H. Graf, "who has loitered so far behind the march of Old Testament research, as to have thought of resuscitating the views of De Wette;" in fact, that Chronicles may be established on an independent footing and placed on a level with the Books of Samuel and Kings, he utterly denies any indebtedness at all, on its part, to these, and in cases where the transcription is word for word, maintains that separate independent sources were made use of,--a needless exaggeration of the scientific spirit, for the author of the Book of Kings himself wrote the prayer of Solomon and the epitome, at least, without borrowing from another source; the Chronicler therefore can have derived it, directly or indirectly, only from him. In reply to all this, one can only repeat what has already been said by De Wette. It may be that the Chronicler has produced this picture of old Israel, so different in outline and colour from the genuine tradition, not of his own suggestion and on his own responsibility, but on the ground of documents that lay before him. But the historical character of the work is not hereby altered in the smallest degree, it is merely shared by the so-called "sources." 2Maccabees and a multitude of other compositions have also made use of "sources," but how does this enhance the value of their statements? That value must in the long run be estimated according to their contents, which, again, must be judged, not by means of the primary sources which have been lost, but by means of the secondary literary products which have survived. The whole question ultimately resolves itself into that of historical credibility; and to what conclusions this ]eads we have already seen. The alterations and additions of Chronicles are all traceable to the same fountain-head--the Judaising of the past, in which otherwise the people of that day would have been unable to recognise their ideal. It was not because tradition gave the Law and the hierocracy and the _Deus ex Machina_ as sole efficient factor in the sacred narrative, but because these elements were felt to be missing, that they were thus introduced. If we are to explain the _omissions_ by reference to the "author's plan," why may we not apply the same principle to the _additions_? The passion displayed by Ewald ( Jahrbb. x. 261) when, in speaking of the view that Manasseh's captivity has its basis in Jewish dogmatic, he calls it "an absurdly infelicitous idea, and a gross injustice besides to the Book of Chronicles," recalls B. Schaefer's suggestive remark about the Preacher of Solomon, that God would not use a liar to write a canonical book. What then does Ewald say to the narratives of Daniel or Jonah? Why must the new turn given to history in the case of Manasseh be judged by a different standard than in the equally gross case of Ahaz, and in the numerous analogous instances enumerated in preceding pages (p. 203 seq.). With what show of justice can the Chronicler, after his statements have over and over again been shown to be incredible, be held at discretion to pass for an unimpeachable narrator? In those cases at least where its connection with his "plan" is obvious, one ought surely to exercise some scepticism in regard to his testimony; but it ought at the same time to be considered that such connections may occur much oftener than is discernible by us, or at least by the less sharp-sighted of us. It is indeed possible that occasionally a grain of good corn may occur among the chaff, but to be conscientious one must neglect this possibility of exceptions, and give due honour to the probability of the rule. For it is only too easy to deceive oneself in thinking that one has come upon some sound particular in a tainted whole. To what is said in 2Samuel v. 9, "So David dwelt in the stronghold (Jebus), and he called it the city of David, and he built round about from the rampart and inward," there is added in 1Chronicles xi. 8, the statement that "Joab restored the rest of the city (Jerusalem)." This looks innocent enough, and is generally accepted as a fact. But the word XYH for BNH shows the comparatively modern date of the statement, and on closer consideration one remembers also that the town of Jebus at the time of its conquest by David consisted only of the citadel, and the new town did not come into existence at all until later, and therefore could not have been repaired by Joab; in what interest the statement was made can be gathered from Nehemiah vii. 11. In many cases it is usual to regard such additions as having had their origin in a better text of Samuel and Kings which lay before the Chronicler; and this certainly is the most likely way in which good additions could have got in. But the textual critics of the _Exegetical Handbook_ are only too like-minded with the Chronicler, and are always eagerly seizing with both hands his paste pearls and the similar gifts of the Septuagint. It must be allowed that Chronicles owes its origin, not to the arbitrary caprice of an individual, but to a general tendency of its period. It is the inevitable product of the conviction that the Mosaic law is the starting-point of Israel's history, and that in it these is operative a play of sacred forces such as finds no other analogy; this conviction could not but lead to a complete transformation of the ancient tradition. Starting from a similar assumption, such an author as C. F. Keil could even at the present day write a book of Chronicles, if this were not already in existence. Now, in this aspect, for the purpose of appraising Chronicles as the type of that conception of history which the scribes cherished, the inquiry into its "sources" is really important and interesting. References to other writings, from which further particulars can be learned, are appended as a rule, to the account of each sovereign's reign, the exceptions being in the cases of Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah. The titles referred to in this way may be classed under two groups: (1.) The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, or of Judah and Israel (in the cases of Asa, Amaziah, Jotham; Ahaz, Josiah, and Jehoiakim), with which the Book of the Kings of Israel (in the cases of Jehoshaphat and Manasseh; comp. 1Chronicles ix. 1) is identical, for the kingdom of the ten tribes is not reckoned by the Chronicler. (2.) The Words of Samuel the Seer, Nathan the Prophet, and Gad the Seer (for David; 1Chronicles xxix. 29; comp. xxvii. 24; Ecclus. xlvi. 13, xlvii. 1); the Words of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah of Shiloh and the Vision of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam ben Nebat (for Solomon; 2Chronicles ix. 29); the Words of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer (for Rehoboam; xii. 15); the words of Jehu ben Hanani, which are taken over into the Book of the Kings of Israel (Jehoshaphat; xx. 34); a writing of Isaiah the prophet (Uzziah; xxvi. 22), more precisely cited as the Vision of Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (Hezekiah; xxxii. 32); the Words of the Seer in the Book of the Kings of Israel (Manasseh; xxxiii. 18; comp. also ver. 19). Following in the footsteps of Movers, Bertheau and others have shown that under these different citations it is always one and the same book that is intended, whether by its collective title, or by the conventional sub-titles of its separate sections. /1/ Bertheau calls ******************************************* 1. In Ezra and Nehemiah also the Chronicler has not used so many sources as are usually supposed. There is no reason for refusing to identify the "lamentations" of 2Chronicles xxxv. 25, with our Lamentations of Jeremiah: at least the reference to the death of Josiah (Jos., Ant. x. 5, 1), erroneously attributed to them, ought not in candour to be regarded as such. ******************************************* attention to the fact that ordinarily it is either the one or the other title that is given, and when, as is less usual, there are two, then for the most part the prophetic writing is designated as a portion of the Book of the Kings of Israel (xx. 34, xxxii. 32; and, quite vaguely, xxxiii. 18). The peculiar mode of naming the individual section-/1/-at a time when chapters and verses were ****************************************** 1 Romans xi. 2: )EN (HLLLA| TI LEGEI )H GRAFH i.e., How stands it written in the section relating to Elijah? ******************************************* unknown--has its origin in the idea that each period of the sacred history has its leading prophet [)AXRIBHS TWN PROFHTWN DIADOXH; Jos., c. Ap. i. 8), but also at the same time involves (according to xxvi. 22, in spite of ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22; 1Chronicles xxix. 29) the notion that each prophet has himself written the history of his own period. Obviously, this is the explanation of the title _prophetae priores_ borne by the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in the Jewish canon, and of the view which led to the introduction of 2Kings xviii. 18 seq. into the Book of Isaiah. The claims of history being slight, it was easy to find the needful _propheta eponymus_ for each section. Jehu ben Hanani, a northern Israelite of Baasha's time, has to do duty for Asa, and also for Jehoshaphat as well. Iddo the seer, who prophesied against Jeroboam ben Nebat, is the anonymous prophet of 1Kings xiii. (Jos., Ant. viii. 8, 5; Jer. on Zechariah i. 1); by this time it was possible, also, to give the names of the wives of Cain, and of the patriarchs. As regards a more definite determination of the date of the "Book of Kings" which lies at the foundation of Chronicles, a co-ordination of the two series of the Kings of Israel and Judah can only have been made after both had been brought to a close; in other words, not before the Babylonian exile. And in the Babylonian exile it was that the canonical Book of Kings actually came into existence, and the "Chronicles" of Israel and those of Judah were for the first time worked together by its author; at least he refers only to the separate works and knows of no previous combination of them. It would seem, therefore, very natural to identify the work alluded to in Chronicles with our present canonical book, which is similar in title and has corresponding contents. But this we cannot do, for in the former there were matters of which there are in the latter no trace; for example, according to 1Chronicles ix. 1, it contained family and numerical statistics for the whole of Israel after the manner of 1Chronicles i.-ix. (chapters for the most part borrowed from it) and according to 1Chronicles xxxiii 19, the Prayer of Manasseh. From these two data, as well as from the character of the items of information which may have been conjectured to have been derived from this source, the conclusion is forced upon us that the Book of Kings cited by the Chronicler is a late compilation far removed from actual tradition, and in relation to the canonical Book of Kings it can only be explained as an apocryphal amplification after the manner in which the scribes treated the sacred history. This conclusion, derived from the contents themselves, is supported by an important positive datum, namely, the citation in 2Chronicles xxiv. 27 of the Midrash [A.V. "Story"] of the Book of Kings, and in xiii. 22 of the Midrash of the prophet Iddo. Ewald is undoubtedly right when he recognises here the true title of the writing elsewhere named simply the Book of Kings. Of course the commentators assert that the word Midrash, which occurs in the Bible only in these two passages, there means something quite different from what it means everywhere else; but the natural sense suits admirably well and in Chronicles we find ourselves fully within the period of the scribes. Midrash is the consequence of the conservation of all the relics of antiquity, a wholly peculiar artificial reawakening of dry bones, especially by literary means, as is shown by the preference for lists of names and numbers. Like ivy it overspreads the dead trunk with extraneous life, blending old and new in a strange combination. It is a high estimate of tradition that leads to its being thus modernised; but in the process it is twisted and perverted, and set off with foreign accretions in the most arbitrary way. Jonah as well as Daniel and a multitude of apocryphal writings (2Maccabees ii. 13) are connected with this tendency to cast the reflection of the present back into the past; the Prayer of Manasseh, which now survives only in Greek, appears, as Ewald has conjectured, actually to have been taken direct from the book quoted in 2Chronicles xxxiii. 19. Within this sphere, wherein all Judaism moves, Chronicles also has had its rise. Thus whether one says Chromcles or Midrash of the Book of Kings is on the whole a matter of perfect indifference; they are children of the same mother, and indistinguishable in spirit and language, while on the other hand the portions which have been retained verbatim from the canonical Book of Kings at once betray themselves in both respects. CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS. In the history of Hebrew literature, so full as it is of unfortunate accidents, one lucky circumstance at least requires to be specially mentioned. Chronicles did not succeed in superseding the historical books upon which it was founded; the older and the newer version have been preserved together. But in Judges, Samuel, and Kings even, we are not presented with tradition purely in its original condition; already it is overgrown with later accretions. Alongside of an older narrative a new one has sprung up, formerly independent, and intelligible in itself, though in many instances of course adapting itself to the former. More frequently the new forces have not caused the old root to send forth a new stock, or even so much as a complete branch; they have only nourished parasitic growths; the earlier narrative has become clothed with minor and dependent additions. To vary the metaphor, the whole area of tradition has finally been uniformly covered with an alluvial deposit by which the configuration of the surface has been determined. It is with this last that we have to deal in the first instance; to ascertain its character, to find out what the active forces were by which it was produced. Only afterwards are we in a position to attempt to discern in the earlier underlying formation the changing spirit of each successive period. VII.I. VII.I.1. The following prologue supplies us with the point of view from which the period of the judges is estimated. "After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, the Baals and Astartes. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers, that spoiled them and sold them into the hand of their enemies round about; whithersoever they went out the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless the Lord raised up unto them judges, and was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for it repented the Lord because of their groanings, by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel," &c. &c. (Judges ii.). Such is the text, afterwards come the examples. "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forget the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Astartes. Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Chushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, and they served him eight years. And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up to them a helper, Othniel b. Kenaz, and delivered the king of Mesopotamia into his hand, and the land had rest forty years. And Othniel b. Kenaz died." The same points of view and also for the most part the same expressions as those which in the case of Othniel fill up the entire cadre, recur in the cases of Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, but there form only at the beginning and at the end of the narratives a frame which encloses more copious and richer contents, occasionally they expand into more exhaustive disquisitions, as in vi. 7, x. 6. It is in this way that Judges ii.-xvi. has been constructed with the workman-like regularity it displays. Only the six great judges, however are included within the scheme; the six small ones stand in an external relation to it, and have a special scheme to themselves, doubtless having been first added by way of appendix to complete the number twelve. The features which characterise this method of historical work are few and strongly distinctive. A continuous chronology connects the times of rest and their separating intervals, and thereby the continuity of the periods is secured. In order justly to estimate this chronology, it is necessary to travel somewhat beyond the limits of Judges. The key to it is to be found in 1Kings vi. 1. "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, he began to build the house of the Lord." As observed by Bertheau, and afterwards by Noldeke, who has still farther pursued the subject, these 480 years correspond to 12 generations of 40 years each. Analogously in 1Chronicles v. 29-34 [vi. 2-8], 12 high priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz are assumed for the same period of time, and the attempt was made to make their successions determine those of the generations (Numbers xxxv. 28). Now it is certainly by no means at once clear how this total is to be brought into accord with the individual entries. Yet even these make it abundantly plain that 40 is the fundamental number of the reckoning. The wandering in the wilderness, during which the generation born in Egypt dies out, lasts for 40 years; the land has 40 years of rest under Othniel, Deborah, and again under Gideon; it has 80 under Ehud; the domination of the Philistines lasts for 40 years, the duration also of David's reign. On the necessary assumption that the period of the Philistines (Judges xiii. 1), which far exceeds the ordinary duration of the foreign dominations, coincides with that of Eli (1Samuel iv. 18), and at the same time includes the 20 years of Samson (Judges xvi. 31), and the 20 of the interregnum before Samuel (1Samuel vii. 2), we have already 8 x 40 accounted for, while 4 x 40 still remain. For these we must take into account first the years of the two generations for which no numbers are given, namely, the generation of Joshua and his surviving contemporaries (Judges ii. 7), and that of Samuel to Saul, each, it may be conjectured, having the normal 40, and the two together certainly reckoning 80 years. For the remaining 80 the most disputable elements are the 71 years of interregna or of foreign dominations, and the 70 of the minor judges. One perceives that these two figures cannot both be counted in,--they are mutually exclusive equivalents. For my own part, I prefer to retain the interregna; they alone, so far as we can see at present, being appropriate to the peculiar scheme of the Book of Judges. The balance of 9 or IO years still remaining to be applied are distributed between Jephthah (6 years), and Solomon (down to the building of the temple), who claims 3 or 4 years, or, if these are left out of account, 3 years may be given to Abimelech. The main thing, however, is not the chronology, but the religious connection of the events. The two are intimately associated, not only formally, as can be gathered from the scheme, but also by a real inner connection. For what is aimed at in both alike is a connected view of large periods of time, a continuous survey of the connection and succession of race after race, the detailed particulars of the occurrences being disregarded; the historical factors with which the religious pragmatism here has to do are so uniform that the individual periods in reality need only to be filled up with the numbers of the years. One is reminded of the "Satz," `"Gegensatz," and "Vermittelung" of the Hegelian philosophy when one's ear has once been caught by the monotonous beat with which the history here advances, or rather moves in a circle. Rebellion, affliction, conversion, peace; rebellion, affliction, conversion, peace. The sole subjects of all that is said are Jehovah and Israel; their mutual relation alone it is that keeps the course of things in motion, and that too in opposite directions, so that in the end matters always return to their original position. "They did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, they went a-whoring after strange gods,"-such is the uninterrupted key-note. Although Jehovistic monolatry is so potently recommended from without, it yet takes no firm root, never becomes natural to the people, always remains a precept above and beyond their powers. For decennia on end indeed they hold fast to it, but soon their idolatrous tendency, which has only been repressed by fear of the judge during his lifetime, again finds expression; they must have a change. Now this rebellion is indeed quite indispensable for the pragmatism, because otherwise there would be nothing at all to tell; it is on the unrest in the clock that the whole movement depends. But at the same time this is of course no extenuation; the conduct of the people is manifestly totally inexcusable, the main actions, the deeds of the judges, are for this manner of historical treatment always only proofs of Israel's sin and of the unmerited grace of Jehovah that puts them to shame. That all this is no part of the original contents of the tradition, but merely a uniform in which it is clothed, is admitted. _Numero Deus impare gaudet_. It is usual to call this later revision Deuteronomistic. The law which Jehovah has enjoined upon the fathers, and the breach of which He has threatened severely to punish (ii. 15, 21), is not indeed more definitely characterised, but it is impossible to doubt that its quintessence is the injunction to worship Jehovah alone and no other God. Now in this connection it is impossible to think of the Priestly Code, for in that document such a command is nowhere expressly enjoined, but, on the contrary, is assumed as a matter of course. Deuteronomy, on the other hand, has in fact no precept on which it lays greater emphasis than the "Hear, O Israel-"-that Jehovah is the only God, and the worship of strange gods the sin of sins. This precept was apprehended much more clearly by contemporaries than the moral demands in the interest of humanity and kindness which are also insisted on in Deuteronomy, but are not new, being derived from older collections; on this side alone, in so far as it follows up the monotheism of the prophets into its practical consequences within the sphere of worship, has Josiah's law-book had historical importance, on this side alone has it continued to act upon Ezekiel and those who came after him. If, then, the norm of the theocratic relationship assumed in the redaction of the Book of Judges is to be sought in a written Torah, this can indubitably only be that of Deuteronomy. The decisive settlement of the question depends in a comparison with the Book of Kings, and must accordingly be postponed until then. VII.I.2. As for the relation between this superstructure and that on which it rests, there is a striking difference between the two styles. The revised form in which the Book of Judges found its way into the canon is unquestionably of Judaean origin, but the histories themselves are not such,--nay, in the song of Deborah, Judah is not reckoned at all as belonging to Israel. The one judge who belongs to the tribe of Judah is Othniel, who however is not a person, but only a clan. What is said of him is quite void of contents, and is made up merely of the schematic devices of the redactor, who has set himself to work here, so as to make the series open with a man of Judah; the selection of Othniel was readily suggested by Judges i. 12-15. Here again we have an exception which proves the rule. More important are the inner differences which reveal themselves. To begin with the most general,--the historical continuity on which so much stress is laid by the scheme, is in no way shown in the individual narratives of the Book of Judges. These stand beside one another unconnectedly and without any regard to order or sequence, like isolated points of light which emerge here and there out of the darkness of forgetfulness. They make no presence of actually filling up any considerable space of time; they afford no points of attachment whereon to fasten a chronology. In truth, it is hardly the dim semblance of a continuity that is imparted to the tradition by the empty framework of the scheme. The conception of a period of the judges between Joshua and Saul, during which judges ruled over Israel and succeeded one another almost as regularly as did the kings at a later period, is quite foreign to that tradition. It is impossible to doubt that Judges i., xvii., xviii. have the best right to be reckoned as belonging to the original stock; but these portions are excluded from reception within the scheme, because they have nothing to say about any judges, and give a picture of the general state of affairs which accords but ill with that plan. /1/ ********************************************** 1. The redaction, as is well knows, extends only from ii. 6 xvi. 31, thus excluding both i. 1-ii. 5, and xvii. 1-xxi. 24. But it is easy to perceive how excellently the first portion fits into its place as a general introduction to the period between Moses and the monarchy, and how much more informing and instructive it is in this respect than the section which follows. There exists besides a formal connection between i. 16 and iv. 11. As regards chaps. xvii., xviii., this story relating to the migration of Dan northwards is plainly connected with that immediately preceding where the tribe still finds itself "in the camp of Dan," but is hard pressed and obtains no relief even with the aid of Samson. In the case of chaps. xix.-xxi., indeed, it admits of doubt whether they were excluded from the redaction, or whether they were not extant as yet; but it is worth noticing that here also chaps. xvii., xviii. are assumed as having gone before. The Levite of Bethlehem-Judah testifies to this, and especially the reminiscence contained in xix. 1, which, as we shall see, has nothing to rest on in chaps. xix.-xxi. Compare further xx. 19 with i. 1 seq. ******************************************** At the bottom of the spurious continuity lies an erroneous widening of the areas in which the judges exerted their influence. Out of local contiguity has arisen succession in time, what was true of the part having been transferred to the whole; it is always the children of Israel in a body who come upon the scene, are oppressed by the enemy, and ruled by the judges. In reality it is only the individual tribes that come into the action; the judges are tribal heroes,--Ehud of Benjamin, Barak and Deborah of Issachar, Gideon of Joseph, Jephthah of Gilead, Samson of Dan. It was only for the struggle against Sisera that a number of tribes were united, receiving on that account extraordinary praise in the song of Deborah. It is nowhere said "at the time when the judges ruled," but "at the time when there was yet no king over Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes; " the regular constitution of the period is the patriarchal anarchy of the system of families and septs. And in chap. i, division and isolation are made to appear not unclearly as the reason why the Canaanites were so long of being driven out from the greater cities; matters did not change until Israel became strong, that is to say, until his forces were welded into one by means of the monarchy. But the unity of Israel is the presupposition upon which rests the theocratic relation, the reciprocal attitude between Israel and Jehovah, whereby according to the scheme the course of the history is solely conditioned. In the genuine tradition the presupposition disappears, and in connection with this the whole historical process assumes an essentially different, not to say a more natural aspect. The people are no longer as a body driven hither and thither by the same internal and external impulses, and everything that happens is no longer made to depend on the attraction and repulsion exercised by Jehovah. Instead of the alternating see-saw of absolute peace and absolute affliction, there prevails throughout the whole period a relative unrest; here peace, there struggle and conflict. Failure and success alternate, but not as the uniform consequences of loyalty or disobedience to the covenant. When the anonymous prophet who, in the insertion in the last redaction (chap. vi. 7-10), makes his appearance as suddenly as his withdrawal is abrupt, improves the visitation of the Midianites as the text for a penitential discourse, the matter is nevertheless looked at immediately thereafter with quite different eyes. For to the greeting of the angel, "Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of velour," Gideon answers, "If Jehovah be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all His miracles, of which our fathers told us ? "He knows nothing about any guilt on the part of Israel. Similarly the heroic figures of the judges refuse to fit in with the story of sin and rebellion: they are the pride of their countrymen, and not humiliating reminders that Jehovah had undeservedly again and again made good that which men had destroyed. Finally, with what artificiality the sins which appear to be called for are produced, is incidentally made very clear. After the death of Gideon we read in chap. viii. 33, "the children of Israel went a-whoring after the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god." But from the following chapter it appears that Baal or El Berith was only the patron god of Shechem and some other cities belonging to the Canaanites; the redactor transforms the local worship of the Canaanites into an idolatrous worship on the part of all Israel. In other cases his procedure is still more simple,--for example, in x. 6 seq., where the number seven in the case of the deities corresponds with the number seven of the nations mentioned in that connection. Ordinarily he is content with "Baals " or "Astartes " or "Asheras," where the plural number is enough to show how little of what is individual or positive underlies the idea, not to mention that Asheras are no divinities at all, but only sacred trees or poles. In short, what is usually given out as the peculiar theocratic element in the history of Israel is the element which has been introduced by the redaction. There sin and grace are introduced as forces into the order of events in the most mechanical way, the course of events is systematically withdrawn from all analogy, miracles are nothing extraordinary, but are the regular form in which things occur, are matters of course, and produce absolutely no impression. This pedantic supra-naturalism, "sacred history" according to the approved recipe, is not to be found in the original accounts. In these Israel is a people just like other people, nor is even his relationship to Jehovah otherwise conceived of than is for example that of Moab to Chemosh (chap. xi. 24). Of theophanies and manifestations of the Godhead there is no lack, but the wonders are such as to make one really wonder. Once and again they interrupt the earthly nexus, but at the same time they form no connected system; they are poetry, not prose and dogma. But on the whole the process of history, although to appearance rougher and more perplexed, is nevertheless in reality much more intelligible, and though seemingly more broken up, actually advances more continuously. There is an ascent upward to the monarchy, not a descent from the splendid times of Moses and Joshua (Judges i. 28-35, xiii. 5, xviii. 1). One narrative, it is true, apart from that relating to Othniel, which is not to be reckoned here, is exactly what sacred history ought to be in order to fit into the theoretical scheme,--I mean Judges xix.-xxi. To appreciate it rightly it will be well first of all to cast a glance upon the preceding narrative relating to the migration of the tribe of Dan to the north. The Danites, 600 strong, fall upon the Canaanite town of Laish not because it lies within the limits assigned to the people of God, and because its conquest is a duty--though they inquire of the oracle, they are nevertheless far from relying on the divine right so plainly made known in the Book of Joshua--but because it is inhabited by a peaceable and unsuspecting people, which is quite defenceless against such a band of desperadoes; and they have as little scruple in practicing the same treachery to Israelites such as Micah. They take it that might is right, and recognise no restraining consideration; their conduct is natural to the verge of absolute shamelessness. And yet they are pious in their way; how highly they value Jehovah they show by this, that they steal His image out of the house of God, and the priest who keeps it into the bargain. As for the religious usages mentioned in the two chapters, hardly an abomination forbidden by the Law is wanting: the private sanctuary in the possession of the Ephraimite Micah, the grandson of Moses as priest in his service and pay, ephod and teraphim as the requisite necessaries in the worship of Jehovah; and yet all this is so recounted by the narrator as if it were all quite regular and void of offence, although his purpose in doing so is not to narrate temporary departures from rule, but the origin of permanent institutions at a chief sanctuary of ancient Israel. One is translated into another world on passing from this to the narrative immediately following, about the shameful deed of the Benjamites and their exemplary punishment; a greater or more instructive contrast as regards religious history is hardly to be found in all the Old Testament. In Judges xx.-xxi. it is not as invariably elsewhere the individual tribes which act, not even the people Israel, but the congregation of the covenant, which has its basis in the unity of worship. The occasion of their action is a sin committed in their midst which must be done away; it is the sanctity of the theocracy which brings these 400,000 men to arms and fills them at once with unction and with sanguinary zeal. The clerical instincts have entirely taken possession of this uniform mass, have passed into their flesh and blood, and moulded them into a single automaton, so that all that takes place is invariably done by all at once. No individuals come to the front, not even by name, still less by deeds of velour; the moral tone is anything but heroic. When the godless reprobates of Gibeah seek to assail the person of the Levite who is passing the night there, he hands over to them his wife in order to save himself, and all Israel finds nothing objectionable in this revolting act of cowardice, the opinion probably being that by his conduct the holy man had kept the sinners from still graver guilt. "Of the Mosaic law not a word is said in these chapters, but who could fail to perceive that the spirit which finds its expression in the law pervaded the community which acted thus? Had we more narratives of similar contents we should be able to solve many a riddle of the Pentateuch. Where under the monarchy could we find an Israel so united, vigorous, earnest, so willing to enter upon the severest conflict for the sake of the highest ends? "Thus Bertheau, rightly feeling that this story has a quite exceptional position, and contradicts all that we learn from other quarters of the period of the judges or even the kings. Only we cannot reckon it a proof of the historic value of the story, that it gives the lie to the rest of the tradition in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and is homogeneous not with these books but with the Law. On the other hand, the writer betrays himself with a self-contradiction, when, unconsciously remembering the preceding chapters, he laments the disorganisation of the time he is dealing with (xix. 1, xxi. 25), and yet describes Israel to us as existing in a religious centralisation, such as demonstrably was never attained in the earlier life of the nation, but only came about as a consequence of the exile, and is the distinctive mark of Judaism. As this narrative is not one of those included in the Deuteronomistic scheme of the Book of Judges, there may be a question whether it presupposes the Deuteronomic law only, or the priestly law as well. Its language has most points of contact with Deuteronomy; but one extremely important expression and notion, that of "the congregation of the children of Israel," points rather to the Priestly Code. The same may be said of Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aaron (xx. 28). The latter, however, occurs but once, and that in a gloss which forms a very awkward interruption between "and the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah," and the word "saying" which belongs to that phrase. We have also to remark that there is no mention of the tabernacle, for which there is no room in addition to Mizpeh (p. 256), so that the principal mark of the Priestly Code is wanting. It is only in preparation, it has not yet appeared: we are still standing on the ground of Deuteronomy, but the way is being prepared for the transition. VII.I.3. Going a step further back from the last revision we meet with an earlier effort in the same direction, which, however, is less systematically worked out, in certain supplements and emendations, which have here and there been patched on to the original narratives. These may be due in part to the mere love of amplification or of talking for talking's sake, and in so far we have no further business with them here. But they originated partly in the difficulty felt by a later age in sympathising with the religious usages and ideas of older times. Two instances of this kind occur in the history of Gideon. We read (vi. 25-32), that in the night after his call Gideon destroyed, at the commandment of Jehovah, the altar of Baal in Ophra, his native town, as well as the Ashera which stood beside it; and that in place of it he built an altar to Jehovah, and burned on it a yearling bullock, with the wood of the Ashera for fuel. The next morning the people of Ophra were full of indignation, and demanded that the author of the outrage should be given up to them to be put to death; his father, however, withstood them, saying, "Will ye contend for Baal? Will ye save him? If he be a god, let Baal contend (Heb. Jareb Baal) for himself." In consequence of this speech Gideon received his second name of Jerubbaal. This conflicts with what is said in an earlier part of the chapter. There Gideon has already made an altar of the great stone under the oak of Ophra, where he saw Jehovah sitting, and has offered upon it the first sacrifice, which was devoured by flames breaking out of themselves, the Deity Himself ascending in the flames to heaven. Why the two altars and the two stories of their inauguration, both tracing their origin to the patron of Ophra? They do not agree together, and the reason is plain why the second was added. The altar of a single stone, the flames bursting out of it, the evergreen tree, the very name of which, Ela, seems to indicate a natural connection with El, /1/--all this was in the eyes of a later *************************************** 1. )LH, )LWN, in Aramaic simply tree, in Hebrew the evergreen, and in general the holy tree (Isaiah i. 29 seq.) mostly without distinguishing the species. Not only are oaks and terebinths included, but also palms. For the )LWN DBWRH at Bethel is elsewhere called TMR; Elim derives its names from the 70 palms, and the same may be the case with Elath on the Red sea. *************************************** generation far from correct, indeed it was Baal-work. A desire that the piety of Gideon should be above suspicion gave rise to the second story, in which he erects an altar of Jehovah in place of the former altar of Baal. How far this desire attained its end we may best judge from the kindred effort to remove another ground of offence, which lies in the name Jerubbaal. In accordance with the occasion out of which the name is said to have arisen it is said to mean, "Let Baal contend." Etymologically this derivation is extremely far-fetched, and from every point of view impossible: the name of a god is only assumed by those who are his worshippers. In Hebrew antiquity Baal and El are interchangeable and used indifferently; Jehovah Himself is spoken of up to the times of the prophet Hosea as the Baal, i.e., the lord. This is distinctly proved by a series of proper names in the families of Saul and David, Ishbaal, Meribaal, Baaljada, to which we may now add the name Jerubbaal given to the conqueror of Midian. If then even in the time of the kings Baal was by no means simply the antipode of Jehovah, whence the hostile relation of the two deities, which Jerubbaal displays by the acts he does, although he praises the great Baal by wearing his name? The view, also, that the Ashera was incompatible with the worship of Jehovah, does not agree with the belief of the earlier age; according to Deuteronomy xvi. 21, these artificial trees must have stood often enough beside the altars of Jehovah. The inserted passage itself betrays in a remarkable manner that its writer felt this sort of zeal for the legitimate worship to be above the level of the age in question. We receive the impression that the inhabitants of Ophra do not know their worship of Baal to be illegitimate, that Gideon also had taken part in it in good faith, and that there had never been an altar of Jehovah in the place before. Of a somewhat different form is a correction which is to be found at the close of the history of Gideon (viii. 22 seq.). After the victory over the Midianites the Israelites are said to have asked Gideon to be king over them. This he declined out of regard to Jehovah the sole ruler of Israel, but he asked for the gold nose-rings which had been taken from the enemy, and made of them an image of Jehovah, an ephod, which he set up in Ophra to be worshipped. "And all Israel went thither a-whoring after it, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house." Now the way in which such a man acts in such a moment is good authority for the state of the worship of Israel at the time, and not only so, but we cannot impute it to the original narrator that he chose to represent his hero as showing his thankfulness to the Deity by the most gratuitous declension from His worship, as in fact crowning His victory with an act of idolatry. This is seen to be the more impossible when we consider that according to the testimony of Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, such images were even in the Assyrian period a regular part of the belongings of the "houses of God" not only in Samaria but in Judah as well. We have also to remember that the contradiction between a human kingship and the kingship of Jehovah, such as is spoken of in these verses, rests upon theories which arose later, and of which we shall have more to say. /1/ Studer will thus be correct in his assertion that the ****************************************** 1. "The words of Gideon are only intelligible on the presupposition that the rule of Jehovah had a visible representative prophet or priest. But this was not the case in the period of the judges, as Gideon's own history shows us." Vatke, p. 263. We see besides from ix. 1 seq. that Gideon really was the ruler of Ephraim and Manasseh. ***************************************** old tradition could not see anything in Gideon's refusing the gold for himself and dedicating it to God but a fine proof of his unselfishness and piety, and that in viii. 22-27 we have a secondary product, in which the original features of the story are distorted so as to make them suit later tastes. The second hand has unfortunately supplanted in this instance the work of the first. The older narrative breaks off (viii. 21) with the words: "Gideon took away the ornaments that were on the necks of the camels of the kings." What he did with them we do not learn, but naturally we must suppose that it was of them that he made the ephod. According to the secondary passage, which begins immediately after viii. 21, he used for this purpose the nose-rings which the whole of Israel had taken from all the Midianites, amounting in weight to 1700 shekels, besides the ornaments of the kings and of their camels. The proportion is similar to that between the 600 Danites in chap. xviii. and the 25,700 Benjamites in chap. xx., or between the 40,000 men of Israel in v. 8, and the 400,000 in xx. 2. VII.I.4. In the last place it is possible to trace even in the original narratives themselves certain differences of religious attitude which indicate to us unobtrusively and yet clearly that tendency in the development of the tradition which reached its end in the revision and ornamentation of which we have hitherto been speaking. This is especially the case with regard to those narratives which are preserved to us in a double form. These are not frequent in Judges, but they do occur. A very simple case of the kind is seen on comparing chap. iv. with chap. v. The Canaanites again lift their heads under their great king Sisera, and from their towns in the plains harass the hill villages of the new settlers. Deborah unites the Hebrew tribes for the contest. From the North and from the South the hosts of Jehovah descend before our eyes towards Jezreel, the prophetess Deborah at their head, the warrior Barak at her side. The conflict takes place at the brook Kishon, and ends with the defeat of the kings of Canaan. Sisera himself is killed in the flight by Jael, the wife of a nomad Kenite. Such are the contents of the song in chap. v. In the preceding narrative (chap. iv.) we should expect to find a historical commentary on the song, but we find a mere reproduction in which the special features of the story are blurred and falsified. Instead of the kings of Canaan we have the king of Canaan, as if Canaan had been a kingdom. Sisera, the head of the Canaanite kings, is transformed into a mere general; the oppression of the Hebrews is made general and indefinite. Jael murders Sisera when he is Iying in a deep sleep by driving a tent-peg into the ground through his temples. There is nothing of this in the song: there he is drinking when she strikes the blow, and is conceived as standing at the time, else he could not bow down at her feet and fall, and lie struck dead where he fell (ver. 27). In the song the campaign is prepared with human means. Negotiations are carried on among the tribes, and in the course of these differences crop up. The lukewarmness or the swelling words of some tribes are reproved, the energetic public spirit and warlike courage of others praised. In the narrative, on the contrary, the deliverance is the work of Jehovah alone; the men of Israel are mere dummies, who show no merit and deserve no praise. To make up for this, interest is concentrated on the act of Jael, which instead of being an episode becomes the central point of the whole narrative. Indeed it is announced as being so, for Deborah prophesies to Barak that the glory of the conflict will not be his but a woman's, into whose hand the enemy is to be sold; it is not the hero, not human strength, that accomplishes what is done: Jehovah shows His strength in man's weakness. And Barak's part in the work is depreciated in yet another way. Deborah summons him to go not to the battle, but to the holy hill of Tabor, where Jehovah will bring about what is further to happen; he, however, objects to this, and insists that the prophetess herself shall go with him. This is regarded as a caprice of unbelief, because the prophetess is thought to have exhausted her mission when she transmitted the command of the Deity to His instrument: she has appeared for no end but to make it known through her prophecy that Jehovah alone brings everything to pass. In the song this is different. There Barak is not summoned against his will; on the contrary, he has a personal motive for taking up arms: "Arise, Barak; take captive thy captors, thou son of Ahinoam." And the prophetess has not only to prophesy; she works in a more psychological manner; she is part of the battle, and inflames with her song the courage of the fighting battalions: "Awake, Deborah, awake, sing the song!" /1/ Throughout these variations of ********************************************** 1. Ver. 12 is a summons to begin the battle, and Deborah cannot here be singing the song of triumph which celebrates its happy issue. For a similar reason the translation given above, "take captive thy captors," is the more natural and correct. ************************************************ the prose reproduction we feel that the rich colour of the events as they occurred is bleached out of them by the one universal first cause, Jehovah. The presence and energy of Jehovah are not wanting in the song; they are felt in the enthusiasm which fills the Hebrew warriors, and in the terror and panic which confound the prancing vigour of the foe. But in the prose narrative, the Divine action is stripped of all mystery, and mechanic prophecy finds no difficulty in showing distinctly and with sober accuracy what the part of the Deity in the history has been. But the more special the intervention of Deity, the further is it from us; the more precise the statements about it, the less do we feel it to be there. There is another instance in the Book of Judges of the occurrence of the same historical material in two different forms; it is the story of Gideon of the Manassite house of Abiezer. Studer saw that there is a break between viii. 3 and viii. 4, and that the two stories, from the one of which we pass to the other at that point, have to be understood separately; viii. 1-3 is the conclusion of the first story. We have been told how, after the success of the first attack on the Midianites, Gideon raised the levy of all Israel for the pursuit, and how then the Ephraimites seized the fords of the Jordan before the arrival of the flying nomads and got the two leaders of the Midianites into their hands. Now we hear in conclusion that the Ephraimites, elated by their success began to find fault with Gideon, but that he pacified their wrath by saying, "What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? God hath delivered into your hand the princes of Midian, and what was I able to do in comparison of you?" A domestic contention like this about the respective shares in the victory could only arise when the victory had been gained, when the strife with the enemy was fought out; the metaphor of harvest and gleaning shows that the victory was complete and all the fruits of it gathered in. Chapter viii. 1-3 concludes the business, and the following narrative is not a continuation of what has gone before, but a second version of the story in which many of the circumstances are quite different. According to vii. 23 seq. there was a great army on foot, but in viii. 4 seq. Gideon has only his own three hundred men with him. In viii. 1-3 the vintage and the gleaning are over and the object of the fighting is attained; but in viii. 4 seq. Gideon pursues the enemy without any interruption, and when he asks the men of Succoth and Penuel for bread for his wearied and hungry troops, they inquire sarcastically whether he is already certain of success, so that it should be necessary for them to espouse his cause. The two chiefs who in the former account are called the princes Oreb and Zeeb, and are already taken, are here called the kings Zebah and Zalmunna, and are not taken yet. Unfortunately the beginning of viii. 4 seq. is not preserved, and we cannot make out whether the pursuit in which we find Gideon here engaged was preceded by an action. Such a supposition is not exactly impossible, yet the distance to which the nomads had carried their booty, and their carelessness in camp, make it more likely that the occurrence was like that in 1Samuel xxx. This, however, makes no difference as to the particulars with regard to which the two narratives conflict with each other. But how did the difference arise? This we shall best learn by comparing the beginnings of the two stories. We remarked that the second, as it stands, wanted a beginning, but what is wanting may be to some extent supplied from what follows. According to viii. 4 seq., Gideon's aim is to get hold of the two kings of the Midianites: these appear all through as the particular enemies whom he is pursuing: as to the rest of the Midianites he is more or less indifferent. And the reason, as we learn from viii. 18 seq., is that the two kings had slain his brothers at Tabor; it is to take vengeance for them that he sets out to pursue the slayers, and does not rest till they are in his hand. It is the duty of blood-revenge which causes him to take the war-path with his household, unconcerned by the disproportion in numbers between his followers and theirs: it is the powerful sentiment of family which sets him in motion and causes him to become, as it were incidentally, the liberator of Israel from the spoilers. In the first account (vi. 11-viii. 3) these natural motives have completely disappeared, and others have taken their place which are almost of an opposite character. Before anything has happened, before the Midianites have made their yearly incursion, Gideon, who expects nothing of the kind, is summoned by a theophany to battle against them. When they arrive he is seized by the Spirit and sets out against them. What is human in him has no part in the act he is called to do; flesh and blood set themselves against it. He is impelled by the direct impulse of Jehovah, and here, of course, he goes forth in behalf of the public interests of Israel, against the Midianites, not against their princes personally. And accordingly everything possible is done to cast the man into the shade behind the Deity. Gideon, according to the second account a distinguished and royal man, is in the first of a poor house and family; in the second story he is remarkable for irrepressible energy, but here he is timid and shrinking up to the last moment, and new miracles have constantly to be wrought to encourage and strengthen him. The 32,000 men with whom he takes the field he is ordered by Jehovah to send away all but l,000 and again all but 300, "lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, and say, Mine own hand hath saved me." The weapons with which the nocturnal attack of the 300 is made are torches, pitchers, and trumpets; the men have not a hand left to hold swords (vii. 20); and the hostile army has accordingly to do itself the work of its own destruction (vii. 22). Few of the deviations of the religious version from the natural one are not transparent; one of these few is the removal of the scene to this side of the Jordan. Most of them are at once recognisable as due to the process of glorification, illumination, and religious inflation, by which the body of the tradition is etherealised and the story lifted up into the region of the air. For example, the company of Gideon at the main action, the attack on the hostile camp, consists of 300 men in chap. vii. as well as in chap viii.; but in chap. vii., to draw out the significance of the small number, they are treated as the last residuum of what was at first quite a considerable army; and this gives rise to a long story. We may also remark that chap. vi. begins with the relation in which the judge stood to the sanctuary of his native town, while chap. viii. closes with this. In the one case he discovers by a theophany, like the patriarchs in Genesis, the sacredness of the altar-stone under the oak; in the other he sets up, in far more realistic fashion, the plated image (ephod) he has made of the golden ornaments of the Midianite kings. History has to take account principally, if not exclusively, of the natural version, which is dry in tone and lets things speak for themselves, not overlaying the simple story with the significance of its consequences. The relation, however, is somewhat different from that which we found existing between Judges iv. and v. Chapter vi. seq. is not based directly on chap. viii., but was probably formed from independent oral material Though the local colour is lively, the historical reminiscences are extremely vague, and there has been a much freer growth of legend than in Jud. iv., producing pictures of greater art and more naivete. But in the field of miracle poetry is manifestly earlier than prose. In the case of those narratives which have come down to us in double form, the difference of standpoint is unmistakable; but it may also be perceived in cases where we have no direct parallels to compare. How noticeably does the story of Abimelech differ, say from that of Jephthah which follows it, in the rich detail of its facts, and in the spontaneous interest it shows in the secondary and subordinate links in the chain of events! There is no gilding with a supernatural nimbus; facts are simply and plainly set down such as they are; the moral is left to speak for itself as the story goes on. In the Samson legends again we find two souls united, as it were, in one body. Traits belonging to the rough life and spirit of the people are wrought, especially at the beginning and end of the narrative, into a religious national form; yet the two stand in an inner contrast to each other, and it is scarcely probable that the exploits of this grotesque religious hero were at first conceived in the Spirit of Jehovah, of which, in the story as we have it, they are the product. More probably the religious way of telling the story was preceded by a way considerably more profane; but we cannot now separate the older stage from that which is more recent. We may also remark that the contrast of historical and unhistorical is obviously inapplicable to this case, and, moreover, is unessential for the end we have in view. Only it may stand as a general principle, that the nearer history is to its origin the more profane it is. In the pre-Deuteronomic narratives, the difference is to be recognised less in the _kind_ of piety than in the _degree_ of it. VII.II. VII.II.1. The comprehensive revision which we noticed in the Book of Judges has left its mark on the Books of Samuel too. As, however, in this case the period is short, and extremely rich in incident, and really forms a connected whole, the artificial frame- and net-work does not make itself so much felt. Yet it is by no means wanting, as the dates of themselves indicate, whose place in the chronological system was shown above. It is worthy of notice how very loosely these are fitted into their context. In 1Samuel iv. 18 seq. we read: "And when the messenger made mention of the ark of God, Eli fell backwards off his seat, and his neck brake, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy, and _he judged Israel forty years_; and when his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, who was with child, heard the tidings," etc. The statement of the date is not altogether inappropriately dragged in, indeed, yet it is easy to see that it is dragged in. In 2Samuel ii. 8-13 we read: "Abner, the captain of Saul's host, took Ishbaal the son of Saul, and brought him over the Jordan to Mahanaim, and made him king over Gilead and Geshur, and Jezreel, and Ephraim, and Benjamin, and all Israel. _Ishbaal was forty years old when he began to reign over lsrael, and he reigned two years_. But the house of Judah followed David. And the time that David was king in Hebron was seven years and six months. And Abner and the servants of Ishbaal went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon, and Joab with the servants of David went out to meet him." The words in italics <_..._> manifestly interrupt the connection; and with regard to Ishbaal's dates we have also to remark that from what we learn of him elsewhere he was, in the first place, still in the years of pupilage, and in the next must have reigned as long in Mahanaim as Oavid in Hebron. The number two connected with his reign is to be explained as in the case of Saul (1Samuel xiii. 1): _Saul was...years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel_. In this verse, which is not found in the LXX, the number for the years of his life is wanting; and originally the number for the years of his reign was left out too: the _two_ is quite absurd, and has grown out of the following word for year, which in Hebrew has a somewhat similar appearance. In company with the chronological formulas, we find also the religious (1Samuel vii. 2-4). "While the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, it was twenty years; and all the house of Israel came together after Jehovah. And Samuel spake unto the whole house of Israel, saying: 'If ye do return to Jehovah with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and the Astartes from among you, and prepare your hearts unto Jehovah, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.' And the children of Israel did put away the Baals and Astartes, and served Jehovah only." We are not told, in what precedes this passage, of any act of declension from Jehovah, and according to chap. iv. the Israelites showed no want of faith in Jehovah in the unfortunate battle with the Philistines. This taking for granted that the yoke of a foreign rule was laid on them as a punishment for their sins is characteristic. A further example occurs in the speech of Samuel (1Samuel. xii.), which, as the introduction to the time of the kings, may be compared with Judges ii., the introduction to the time of the judges. "Stand still that I may reason with you before Jehovah of all the righteous acts of Jehovah with which He did right to you and to your fathers! When Jacob was come into Egypt, your fathers cried to Jehovah, and He sent Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this land. And when they forget Jehovah their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and the Moabites, and they fought against them. And they cried unto Jehovah, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken Jehovah and have served Baal and Astarte, but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies and we will serve Thee. And Jehovah sent Jerubbaal, and Barak, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe. And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your God is your king. Now therefore behold the king whom ye have desired; behold, Jehovah has set a king over you. If ye will hear Jehovah and serve Him and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment of Jehovah, good: but if ye rebel against the commandment of Jehovah, then shall the hand of Jehovah be against you as it was against your fathers." It is the familiar strain: rebellion, affliction, conversion, peace, Jehovah the keynote, and the first word and the last. The eye does not dwell on the details of the story; the gaps in the tradition are turned to account as well as its contents, which are concentrated at so few points. Details are regarded only as they bear on the whole; the periods are passed in review in a broad and general style, and the law enunciated which connects them with one another. In doing this Samuel seems to presuppose in his hearers a knowledge of the biblical history in a distinct form; and he even speaks without hesitation of his own historical significance. The hearers are bidden to look back upon a period in the living movement of which they themselves are standing, as if it were a dead past. As they are thus lifted up to the height of an objective contemplation of themselves and their fathers, in the end the result which was to be expected takes place: they become conscious of their grievous sin. Confronted with the Deity they have always an uneasy feeling that they deserve to be punished. VII.II.2. The Deuteronomist revision asserts itself, it is true, only in these two places, or rather this one place; but this is the principal epoch in the book--the transition to the monarchy which is associated with the name of Samuel. And on this account the revision here acts the more trenchantly; it is not only an addition to give a new flavour to the older tradition; it changes the nature of the tradition entirely. For the passages we have just quoted from it are merely fragments of a considerable connected historical scheme. The first piece of this scheme, vii. 2-17, first claims our attention. After summoning the children of Israel to repentance (vii. 2-4), Samuel convokes an assembly of them at Mizpeh, near Jerusalem, in order to entreat for them that the Philistine affliction may be turned away. This measure is of course closely connected with the previously-mentioned abolition of idolatry: for, after the guilt has ceased, the punishment also must be removed. They assemble, draw water to pour it out before Jehovah, fast, and confess their sins, at Mizpeh. When the Philistines hear this, they are on the spot the very same day and fall upon the assembly at its prayers. Samuel, however, sacrifices a sucking lamb and cries for help to Jehovah, and the engagement takes place while he is so occupied. Jehovah thunders terribly against the Philistines and throws them into disorder, so that they are forced to yield, and are pursued to a great distance. And the Philistines, this is the end of the narrative, were humbled and came no more into the coasts of Israel; and the hand of Jehovah was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel, and the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were recovered; Ekron and Gath and their coasts did Israel take from the Philistines, and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. The mere recapitulation of the contents of this narrative makes us feel at once what a pious make-up it is and how full of inherent impossibilities: to think of all that is compressed into the space of this one day! But we have also to remark the utter contradiction of the whole of the rest of the tradition. In the history which follows we find the domination of the Philistines by no means at an end; not only do they invade the Israelite territory several times in Samuel's lifetime, they are in possession of the land of lsrael, and one of their governors lives at Gibeah in the midst of Benjamin. The struggle with them is the true and real origin and task of the monarchy. The writer had no idea that Samuel had discharged this labour and won this victory already, and had even "restored " Ekron and Gath. On the contrary, the yoke of the Philistines lay most heavily on Israel just in his days. There cannot be a word of truth in the whole narrative. Its motives, however, are easily seen. Samuel is a saint of the first degree (Jeremiah xv. 1), and in the theocracy, i.e., in the religious community such as ancient Israel is represented to have been, cut to the pattern of Judaism, such a man must take his place at the head of the whole. His influence must have prevailed to exclude idolatry and unfaithfulness to Jehovah on the part of the people; and the general character of the time must on the whole have answered to the type he set before it. But here a very unpleasant difficulty suggests itself. If the fact of Samuel being at the head is sufficient guarantee that all was as it should be within the state, how can there have been such great pressure externally, so as to endanger the very existence of the people? If men do their part, how can Jehovah fail to do His? On the contrary, it must be believed that the righteousness which prevailed within had its counterpart in the external vindication of His people by Jehovah. Even under Samuel the Philistines were with God's help driven across the border, and as long as he lived they were not seen within it again. The piety of a praying assembly was suitably acknowledged by Jehovah, who dropped into its lap a success such as in after times the sword of warlike kings sought long and in vain to achieve. But this example of history corrected does not stand alone, and becomes completely intelligible only when taken in connection with the similar pieces which belong to it. 1Samuel vii. is continued in chap. viii., and chap. viii. again in x. 17-xii. 25. Samuel, after setting the land free from foreign tyranny, conducts a quiet and successful reign till old age comes upon him. His sons, however, whom he has made his assessors, do not walk in his steps; and the elders of Israel make this the occasion to ask him to give them a king. But this is a mere pretext for their sinful desire to shake off the divine rule and to be like the heathen round about them. Samuel is extremely indignant at their ingratitude, but is directed by Jehovah to comply with their request. "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them; according to all the works that they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, wherewith they have forsaken Me and served other gods. so do they also unto thee." It is in vain that Samuel exhibits to them an alarming catalogue of the rights of the king: they are not to be moved from their determination, and he accordingly summons a general convention of the people at Mizpeh (viii. 22, x. 17). There, after the opening lecture, lots are drawn for the king, and Saul is chosen, whereupon Samuel has still to write down the law of the kingdom and lay it up before Jehovah. The people are then dismissed; "and Saul also went home to Gibeah, and with him the warriors whose heart God had touched, but the children of Belial despised him, and said 'How shall this man save us!'" But Saul is at this point only king _de jure_; he does not become king _de facto_ until after he has proved himself, chap. xi. After an interval of a month (x. 27 LXX) the men of Jabesh, besieged by the Ammonites and in great straits, send messengers throughout Israel to implore speedy assistance, since in seven days they have to surrender to their enemies and each of them to lose his right eye. The messengers come to the town of Saul, Gibeah in Benjamin, and tell their message before the people; the people lift up their voices and weep. Saul meanwhile comes from the field with a yoke of oxen, and, observing the general weeping, asks what has happened. The story is told him, and at once the Spirit of God comes upon him and his anger is kindled greatly; he hews in pieces his oxen and sends the pieces throughout Israel with the summons: Whoever does not come forth to the battle, so shall it be done to his oxen! And the fear of Jehovah falls on the people, and they go out as one man and relieve the besieged town. Hereupon "the kingdom is renewed" for Saul at Gilgal, and only now does Samuel abdicate his government, in the long speech (chap. xii.) a considerable portion of which was given above. That chap. xi. is now an integral part of this version of the history is clear from xii. 12, and also from xi. 12-14. But it was not originally designed for this connection. For we hear nothing of the warriors who according to x. 26 were in company with Saul; it is not on his account that the messengers of Jabesh came to Gibeah. When the supposed king comes home from ploughing, nothing is done to indicate that the news concerns him specially: no one tells him what has happened, he has to ask the reason of the general weeping. He summons the levy of Israel not in virtue of his office as king, but in the authority of the Spirit, and it is owing to the Spirit acting on the people that he is obeyed. Only after he has showed his power and defeated the Ammonites do the people make him king (xi. 15); the "renewal" of the kingdom (xi. 14), after a month's interval, is a transparent artifice of the author of viii. 10, 1) seq. to incorporate in his own narrative the piece which he had borrowed from some other quarter: the verses xi. 12-14 are due to him. Chapter xi. stood originally in connection with the other narrative of the elevation of Saul (ix. 1-X. 16). Hero Saul first appears engaged in searching for strayed she-asses. After a vain search of several days he arrives in the neighbourhood of Ramah, and at the suggestion of his servant applies for information as to the asses to a seer there, to Samuel. His approach has been announced to the seer by Jehovah the day before: "To-morrow I will send to thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be ruler over My people Israel; he shall save them from the Philistines." He was accordingly expecting him, and had instituted a sacrificial feast on the bamah for him even before he arrived. At this moment Samuel has gone down to the town between the sacrificial act and the meal which followed it, and just as he is going back to his guests he meets in the gate Saul, who is asking for him, and at a whisper from Jehovah he recognises in him his man. He takes him up with him to the bamah, reassures him about the asses, and then at once tells him to what high things he is called, and gives him convincing proofs that he had reckoned on his presence at the feast as the guest of the occasion. He then gives him lodgings for the night, and accompanies him on his way next morning. The servant is sent on a little way before, Samuel stands still and anoints Saul, for a sign that he is chosen by Jehovah to be the king and deliverer of Israel, and in conclusion instructs him that, when the opportunity for action comes, he is to use it, in the consciousness that God is with him. On his way home three signs come to pass which the seer had announced to him. He is thus assured that all that was said to him was true; his heart is changed by degrees till he cannot contain himself; on his arrival at Gibeah his acquaintances are struck with his strange demeanour, but he does not disclose even to his most intimate friend at home what Samuel had said to him, but waits for the things that shall come to pass. This is the point arrived at in x. 16. It is clear that thus far no conclusion has yet been reached: the seed that is sown must spring up, the changed spirit must produce its effects. And this requirement is abundantly satisfied if chap. xi. is regarded as immediately continuing the story from x. 16. After about a month, the opportunity presents itself for Saul to act, which Samuel had bidden him to look for. While others are weeping at the disgrace which threatens an Israelite town at the hands of the Ammonites, he is filled with the Spirit and with rage, the arrow is still in his heart from that conversation, and he now does "what his hand finds to do." The result is a great success; the word of the seer finds its fulfilment in the most natural way in the world. If chap. xi. belongs originally to the narrative of ix. 1.-x. 16, it follows at once that the other sections are dependent and later. But what is the inner relation of the one version to the other? They coincide in their ideas here and there. In the one story Saul seeks the asses and finds the crown, in the other he hides himself among the stuff and is drawn forth king. In the one he is called by the seer, in the other he is chosen by lot--the divine causality operative in both cases. But how the idea is exaggerated at the later stage, and how nakedly it is put forward! And if there is this similarity of view, yet the deviation of the secondary version from the original is much more striking than the resemblance. For its tendency we are prepared by chapter vii. Samuel has set his countrymen free from their enemies, and ruled over them afterwards in righteousness and prosperity; why then should they desire a change in the form of government? They have just as much and as little reason for desiring this as for the falling away from Jehovah, which also is a periodical craving on their part, whenever they have had some years' rest: it is the expression of the deep-seated heathenism of their nature. That is the account of chapter viii. with what belongs to it. Chapter ix. seq., however, gives quite a different account. Here, at the end of the period of the judges, Israel is not at the summit of power and prosperity, but in a state of the deepest humiliation and the means of saving the people from this state is seen in the monarchy alone. And this difference is closely connected with another as to the view taken of the authority of Samuel. In chap. viii. as in chap. vii. he is the vicegerent of Jehovah, with unlimited authority. He feels the institution of the monarchy to be his own deposition, yet the children of Israel by no means rebel against him; they come to him to ask him for a king. He might have refused the request; he might also have given them a ruler according to his own good pleasure, but as a correct theocrat he leaves the decision to Jehovah. At the end he solemnly lays down the government he has hitherto carried on, and hands it over to his successor. The latter is superior to him in point of title, but not in point of power: indeed in the latter respect he is rather inferior to Samuel, being a mere earthly prince (xii. 23 seq.). But how do matters stand in chap. ix. seq.? Here Samuel is quite a stranger to Saul, who knows neither his name nor his residence. Only his servant has heard of Samuel, who enjoys a high reputation as a seer in his own neighbourhood. What we are to think of when we read of a seer of that period, we are clearly and circumstantially informed: for Samuel is consulted as to the whereabouts of strayed she-asses, and a fee of a quarter of a silver shekel is tendered to him for his advice. This seer stands, it is clear, above the average of those who practiced the same calling; yet his action on the history is quite within the limits of what was possible, say to Calchas: it exhibits not a trace of the legislative and executive power of a regent of the theocracy. He does not bring help; he only descries help and the helper. The very event which, according to chap. viii. seq., involved the removal of Samuel from his place and his withdrawal to the background of the history, is here the sole basis of his reputation: the monarchy of Saul, if not his work, is his idea. He announces to the Benjamite his high calling, interpreting in this the thoughts of the man's own heart (ix. 19). With this his work is done; he has no commission and no power to nominate his successor in the government. Everything else he leaves to the course of events and to the Spirit of Jehovah which will place Saul on his own feet. In the great difference which separates these two narratives we recognise the mental interval between two different ages. In the eyes of Israel before the exile the monarchy is the culminating point of the history, and the greatest blessing of Jehovah. It was preceded by a period of unrest and affliction, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, and the enemies of Israel accordingly got everything their own way. Under it the people dwell securely and respected by those round about; guarded by the shelter of civil order, the citizen can sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree. That is the work of the first two kings, who saved Israel from his spoilers, and gave him power and rest. No difference is made between them in this respect: the one commenced the work which the other completed (1Samuel ix. 16, xiv. 48; 2Samuel iii. 18, xix. 9). Before them there was no breathing space left in the hard work of fighting, but now there is time to think of other things. Even Deuteronomy, which was written not long before the exile, regards the period before the monarchy as a time of preparation and transition, not to be counted complete in itself: Israel must first acquire fixed seats and a settled way of living, and then Jehovah also will choose a seat for Himself and make known His desires with regard to the cultus. David brought things so far that the people had room and struck firm roots into the ground, and ceased to tremble before their enemies, who had kept them on the strain from the beginning, and all the days of the judges; and under his successor the time came when the temple could be built and higher interests receive attention. That Hebrew antiquity knew nothing of any hostility or incompatibility between the heavenly and the earthly ruler is plain from the title Anointed of Jehovah, and from the hope of the prophets, whose ideal future would be incomplete without a human king. The ancient Israelites were as fully conscious as any other people of the gratitude they owed to the men and to the institutions by whose aid they had been lifted out of anarchy and oppression, and formed into an orderly community, capable of self-defence. Of this the Books of Samuel afford the most eloquent testimony. /1/ ***************************************** l In Balaam's view of the happy future of Israel (Numbers xxiii. seq.), the monarchy is spoken of as one of Israel's chief blessings. Generally (xxiii. 21): "Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them." With reference to Saul (xxiv. 7): "And his king triumphs over Agag. and his kingdom shall be exalted." To David (xxiv. 17): "I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not nigh: there rises (ZRX) a star out of Jacob and a rod out of Israel, and smites in pieces the temples of Moab and the skull of all the sons of Seth: and Edom also becomes a conquest." According to Deuteronomy xxxiii. 4, 5, the monarchy and the Torah are the two great gifts of God's grace to Israel. ****************************************** The position taken up in the version of 1 Samuel vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii., presents the greatest possible contrast to this way of thinking. There, the erection of the monarchy only forms a worse stage of backsliding from Jehovah. There can be no progress beyond the Mosaic ideal; the greater the departure from it the greater the declension. The capital sin of placing a human ruler on the throne of Jehovah makes even the period of the judges appear not quite black. Dark as the colours are with which that period is generally painted, it held fast to the original form of the theocracy, and so appears somewhat brighter: at last indeed, to heighten the contrast, it is represented as a splendid age. Under the rule of Samuel, everything was as it should be. Should we ask, _how_ were things then? what was exactly the nature of the theocratic constitution? we receive, it is true, no satisfactory answer to the question. We might draw conclusions with regard to the body from the head: but what sort of an idea can we form of the position of Samuel? As he appears in these chapters, we entirely fail to dispose of him in any of the categories applicable to the subject; he is not a judge, not a priest, not a prophet,--if at least we use these words with their true historical meaning. He is a second Moses? Yes, but that does not tell us much. So much only is clear, that the theocracy is arranged on quite a different footing from the kingdoms of this world, and that it amounts to a falling away into heathenism when the Israelites place a king at their head like other nations, and he keeps courtiers and ministers, officers and soldiers, horses and chariots. It is accordingly a spiritual community: the spiritual character of the regent places this beyond doubt. Samuel admonishes the people to give up idolatry; he presides at the great day of repentance at Mizpeh, which forms an epoch in the sacred history; and Jehovah can refuse nothing to his prayers and cries (xii. 1 7). "God forbid," he says in taking leave of them (xii. 23), "that I should cease to pray for you and teach you the good way." Such is his position: and the citizens of the theocracy have the corresponding duty of cultivating the worship of Jehovah, and not withdrawing themselves from the guidance of the representative of Deity. They do not need to trouble themselves about means for warding off the attacks of their enemies; if they fast and pray, and give up their sins, Jehovah hurls back the foe with His thunder and lightning, and so long as they are pious He will not allow their land to be invaded. All the expenses are then naturally superfluous by which a people usually safeguards it own existence. That this view is unhistorical is self-evident; and that it contradicts the genuine tradition we have seen. The ancient Israelites did not build a church first of all: what they built first was a house to live in, and they rejoiced not a little when they got it happily roofed over (xi. 15). But we have still to add, in conclusion, that the idea here before us can only have arisen in an age which had no knowledge of Israel as a people and a state, and which had no experience of the real conditions of existence in these forms; in other words. It is the offspring of exilic or post-exilic Judaism. At that time the nation was transformed into a religious community, whose members were at liberty to concentrate themselves on what they held to be the great business of life, worship and religiousness, because the Chaldeans or the Persians had relieved them of all care for worldly concerns. At that time, accordingly, the theocracy _existed_, and it is from that time that it is transported in an idealised form to early times. The material basis on which the theocracy rested in fact, namely, the foreign domination, is put out of sight, and it is counted heathenism in the old Israelites that they cared for the external conditions of their national existence, that they are a people in the full sense of the word, and seek to maintain themselves as such with the weapons which are found necessary in the work-a-day world. It naturally never came into the heads of these epigoni to conceive that the political organisation and centralisation which the monarchy called into being provided the basis for the organisation and centralisation of the worship, and that their church was merely a spiritualised survival of the nation. What is added to Moses is taken away from the monarchy. One more point has to be noticed. The chapters vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii. betray a close relationship with Judges xix.-xxi., not only by their general tendency, but by a geographical detail in which the two passages agree. It is only here that Mizpeh, near Jerusalem, occurs as the place of meeting of all Israel; we find no further mention of the place in the whole period of the judges and the kings. Only after the destruction of Jerusalem is it mentioned, and there as the centre of the new Jewish community instituted by the Chaldeans (Jeremiah xl. seq.) as the substitute of the old capital. It appears once more, and in a similar character, in I Maccabees iii. 46 seq. at a time when the temple of Jerusalem was in the hands of the Syrians, and the Jews could not get to it. The Mizpeh of Judges xx., 1Samuel vii. 10, is probably the same as that of Jeremiah xl. seq., and intended to be, like these, in place of Jerusalem, the only legitimate sanctuary, which, however, did not exist at that early time. This is a further proof of the post-Deuteronomic and Jewish origin of these narratives, but at the same time an indication that, with every inclination to the views of the Priestly Code, the writer yet had not that code before him. For in that work the projection of Jerusalem into the period before Solomon is carried out in quite a different way: the tabernacle renders Mizpeh superfluous. It has also to be remarked that the rite of pouring out water (1Samuel vii.) is foreign to the Priestly Code. VII.II.3. The relation of Saul to Samuel is a subject which lends itself readily to general views, and the development of the tradition is visible in it in other particulars besides those we have mentioned. Taking the view of 1Samuel vii. viii. xii. as the lower limit, the narrative nearest in character is the story about Samuel contained in an insertion in chap. xiii. After Saul is made king at Gilgal by the levy with which he relieved Jabesh, he selects from it a body of men who camp with him and Jonathan at Gibeah and the neighbouring Michmash: and Jonathan, by killing the officer at Gibeah, gives the signal for battle with the old enemy of his race. The Philistines advance, and take up a position to the north of Gibeah, with only a deep valley between them and the Israelites. But Saul, we hear all at once, xiii. 7 (cf. ver. 4) was yet in Gilgal, and waited seven days for Samuel, according to the set time the latter had appointed; but Samuel did not come, and the warriors began to scatter. As he was himself offering the sacrifice without which no campaign could be commenced, Samuel arrived, and at once opened upon him. Saul defended his act with great force: the people were scattering, and Samuel had not come at the appointed time, and as the Philistines had advanced close up to Gibeah, he had found it impossible to delay longer, and had offered the sacrifice in order to advance against them. To all this Samuel's only answer was: "Thou hast done foolishly; if thou hadst kept the commandment of Jehovah, He would have established thy kingdom for ever, but now thy kingdom shall not continue; Jehovah has sought Him a man after His own heart, and appointed him to be ruler over His people, because thou hast not kept that which Jehovah commanded thee." So he said, and walked off; but Saul went with the army from Gilgal to Gibeah. At Gibeah, the following verse (xiii. 16) goes on, abode Saul and Jonathan, and their men, when the Philistines encamped in Michmash. The change of place distinctly shows the whole passage about the meeting of the king with the prophet at Gilgal (xiii. 7-15) to be an insertion by a later hand. At the beginning of the narrative Saul is at Gibeah (ver. 2, 3), and the Philistines seek him there, and halt before the place because they meet with resistance. All at once, at ver. 7, it is assumed without being stated, that Saul had stayed at Gilgal since he was chosen king till now, and had only now advanced from there against the Philistines who were waiting for him before Gibeah. Verse 16, however, gives us the impression that Saul had been posted at Gibeah with his men for some time, when the Philistines took up their camp over against them. Only in this way is justice done to the contrasted participle of state (_sedentes_) and inchoative perfect (_castrametati sunt_). And in the sequel the triumphant continuation of the story, especially in chap. xiv., shows no indication that the ominous scene in Gilgal weighed on the mind of Saul, or of the people, or of the historian. According to xiii. 7-15, Saul is to wait seven days for Samuel at Gilgal. Here there is a reference to x. 8, where the seer says to the future king, "Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and I will come after thee there to offer sacrifices; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come and show thee what thou shalt do." This verse is condemned by other arguments than its connection with xii. 7-15. Samuel's object at this point, according to x. I-7, is to overcome the reluctance of the Benjamite who had gone forth to seek his asses, to undertake the high calling announced to him, and to inspire him with faith and confidence,--not to give him unintelligible directions as to what he is to do first when he has actually become king, and how long he has to wait for the seer at Gilgal. The schoolmaster tone of x. 8 is particularly out of place after the preceding words of ver. 7, that, when the three signs have come to pass, Saul is to do what his hand finds, because God is with him. This is surely giving him perfect freedom of action, and for the reason that God's Spirit is working in him, which "bloweth where it listeth," and suffers no interference from any authority. /1/ ************************************* 1. It is also clear that the writer of x. 8, xiii. 7-15 cannot possibly have found Samuel in Gilgal in chap. xi. before making him go there in chap. xiii. We have already seen xi. 12-14 to be a later addition; the name of Samuel must be interpolated in xi.7, too. In fact in xi. 15 the people, i.e., the army, acts quite of itself even in our present text. Hence it follows also, that x. 8, xiii. 7-15 are older than vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii. *************************************** This insertion is based on an older account of the breach between Samuel and Saul in 1Samuel xv. Here also the matter of dispute is a sacrifice, and Gilgal is the scene; and this alone serves to explain how Gilgal is adhered to in xiii. 7-15 in spite of all impossibility, as being the right and necessary place for the occurrence. Jehovah, by the mouth of Samuel, commands the king to devote the Amalekites to destruction because of an act of treachery they had committed against Israel in ancient times, and to spare no living thing. Saul accordingly makes war on the Amalekites and defeats them; but he does not carry out the proscription entirely, as he spares the best of their cattle and their king Agag, whom he takes prisoner. At Gilgal, where the victory is celebrated before Jehovah, he is called to account for this by Samuel, and states that he intended the booty for a sacrifice to Jehovah. His statement, however, makes no impression. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams: behold, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He also hath rejected thee." The king acknowledges his guilt, and tries to pacify Samuel; but the latter turns from him in anger, and when Saul lays hold of him, his mantle tears. "Jehovah hath torn the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and given it to one better than thee; and the Truthful One of Israel will not lie nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent." Yet at Saul's entreaty that he would at least not refuse to honour him before the people, Samuel takes part in the sacrifice, and even begins it by hewing Agag in pieces before Jehovah. Then they part, never to see each other again; but Samuel mourns for Saul, that Jehovah had repented of having made him king over Israel. There is another narrative intimately connected with this one in subject and treatment, thought and expression, namely, that of the witch of Endor. When Saul, shortly before the battle in which he fell, surveyed the hostile army, he was seized with anxiety and terror. He inquired of Jehovah, but received no answer, neither by dreams, nor by the ephod, nor by prophets. In his extremity he was driven into the arms of a black art which he had formerly persecuted and sought to extirpate. By night and in disguise, with two companions, he sought out a woman at Endor who practiced the raising of the dead, and after reassuring her with regard to the mortal danger connected with the practice of her art, he bade her call up Samuel. She, on seeing the spirit ascending, at once perceives that the man he had come up to converse with is the king himself; she cries out loud, but allows herself to be reassured, and describes the appearance of the dead person. Saul does not see him, only hears him speak. "Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? Jehovah doeth to thee as He spake by me: He rends the kingdom out of thy hand, and gives it to another, because thou obeyedst not the voice of Jehovah, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon Amalek; to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, and Jehovah also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hands of the Philistines." At these words Saul falls all his length on the ground. He had eaten nothing all the day before and all night; he is with difficulty induced to take some food: then he rises up with his men to go and meet his fate (1 Samuel xxviii. 3-25). Comparing with this original the copy in xiii. 7-15, we are struck, in the first place, with the placing of the rupture so much earlier. Scarcely is Saul made king when he is deposed, on the spot, at Gilgal. And for what reason? Samuel has fixed, in a purely arbitrary fashion, the time he is to wait, and Saul waits, and makes arrangements for departure only when the time has run out, although the need is pressing; and for this he is rejected! It is clear that Samuel has from the first felt towards him as a legitimate prince feels to a usurper; he has arranged so as to find an occasion to show unmistakably where they both stand. Strictly speaking he did not find the occasion, Saul having observed the appointed time; but the opinion is present, though unexpressed, that the king was not entitled to sacrifice, either before the expiry of the seven days or at any time: his sacrificing is regarded as sacrilege. And thus the autonomous theocracy stands all at once before our eyes, which no one thought of before Ezekiel. We are reminded of the stories of Joash and Uzziah in the Chronicles. The incidents in 1Samuel xv. xxviii. are similar, but the spirit of the narrative is different and more antique. The rejection does not come here with such mad haste, and we do not get the impression that Samuel is glad of the opportunity to wash his hands of the king. On the contrary, he honours him before the people, he mourns that Jehovah has rejected him; and Saul, who never again sees him alive, turns to him dead in the hour of his extremity, and does not regard him as his implacable enemy. Again, in the former case the king's offence is that he has too low an estimate of the sacredness of sacrifice, and fails to regard the altar as unapproachable to the laity: while in the latter case he is reproached with attaching. to sacrifice far too high a value. In the former case, in fine, the Deity and the representative of the Deity act with absolute caprice, confront men stiffly with commands of incredible smallness, and challenge them to opposition; in the latter, the conduct of Samuel is not (supposing it to have been the custom to devote enemies to destruction) unintelligible, nor his demeanour devoid of natural spirit; he appeals not to an irresponsible position, but to the manifest truth that obedience is better than the fat of rams. Not that chapters xv. and xxviii. belong to the original growth of the tradition. In the case of xxviii. 3-25 it is easy to show the insertion: the thread of xxviii. 1, 2, coming from chapter xxvii. is continued at xxix. 1. According to xxviii. 4 the Philistines have advanced as far as Shunem in Jezreel; in xxix. 1 they are only at Aphek in Sharon, and they do not go on to Jezreel till xxix. 11. To prove an insertion in the case of chap. xv. we might point to the fact that there is a direct connection between xiv. 52 and xvi. 14; but this must be proved somewhat circumstantially. Let it suffice, then, to say that in the preceding narrative of Saul's history, the war with the Amalekites appears in quite a different light (ix. 1-X. 16, xi. xiii. xiv.; cf. also Numbers xxiv. 7). The occasion of it, according to xiv. 48, lay in the needs of the time, and the object was the very practical one of "saving Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them." There is nothing here to suggest that the campaign was undertaken in consequence of a religious command, to punish the Amalekites for an offence over which long ages had passed, and information about which could only be gathered from historical books dealing with the age of Moses. Both the narratives, chap. xv. as well as chap. xxviii, are preludes of events afterwards to happen. At chap. xvi. David appears upon the scene; he is thenceforth the principal person of the story, and thrusts Saul on one side. Chapter xv. is the prophetic introduction to this change. The fact had been handed down that Saul was chosen by Jehovah to be king. How was it possible that in spite of this his rule had no continuance? Jehovah, who as a rule does not change His mind, was mistaken in him; and Samuel, who called the king, had now to his great sorrow to pronounce the sentence of rejection against him. The occasion on which he does this is evidently historical, namely, the festival of victory at Gilgal, at which the captured leader of the Amalekites was offered up as the principal victim. The sacrifice of Agag being quite repugnant to later custom, it was sought to account for it by saying that Saul spared the king, but Jehovah required his death, and caused him to be hewn in pieces at the altar by Samuel. The rest could easily be spun out of this; it is superfluous to discuss how. Chapter xxviii., again, is related to chap. xv. as the second step to the first. No proof is wanted to show that this is the prophetic shadow cast before the fall of Saul in his last fight with the Philistines. His turning to the witch to call up to him the departed Samuel suggests in the most powerful way his condition of God-forsakenness since Samuel turned away from him. And, to conclude-the general colouring of the hostile relation between Saul and Samuel is borrowed from the actual relations which must have come to subsist between the prophets and the kings, particularly in the kingdom of Samaria (I Kings xiv. 7). In their treatment of this relation our narratives manifestly take up the prophetic position; and the doctrinal ideas of which they are made the vehicles clearly show them to be prophetic conceptions. VII.II.4. David is the first hero of Judah whom we meet with; and he at once throws all others into the shade. His acts are narrated to us in two detailed and connected works which are mutually complementary. The first of these is contained in 1Samuel xiv. 52-2 Sam viii 18, and in it we are circumstantially informed how David rose to the throne. There follows his principal achievement as king, the humiliation of the Philistines and the foundation of Jerusalem, the work concluding with a short notice of other remarkable circumstances. This narrative is preserved to us complete, only not in the earliest form, but with many interruptions and alterations. The second work, 2Samuel ix.-2Kings ii. is mutilated at its commencement, but otherwise almost completely intact, if 2Samuel xxi.-xxiv. be removed. It tells chiefly of the occurrences at the court of Jerusalem in the later years of the king, and carefully traces the steps by which Solomon, whose birth, with its attendant circumstances, is narrated at the outset, reached the throne over the heads of his brothers Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, who stood before him. Both works are marked by an essentially historical character. The treatment is much more detailed, while not nearly so poetical as in the history of Saul (1Samuel ix. seq.). There are no exaggerations, such as xiv. 46 seq. The second is the better work of the two, and frequently affords us a glance into the very heart of events, showing us the natural occasions and human motives which gave rise to the different actions. The point of view is, however, the narrow one of Jerusalem; for example, the real reasons of the revolt of the men of Judah under Absalom are scarcely even hinted at. The leading sentiment of the writer, there can be no doubt, is enthusiasm for David, but his weaknesses are not concealed; the relations prevailing at his court, far from edifying as they are, are faithfully reported, and the palace intrigue which placed Solomon upon the throne is narrated with a naivete which is almost malicious. The first work (1Samuel xvi.- 2Samuel viii.) gives a less circumstantial narrative, but follows the thread of events not less conscientiously, and is based on information little inferior to that of the second. The author's partisanship is more noticeable, as he follows the style of a biographer, and makes David the hero of the history from his very first appearance, although king Saul is the ruling and motive power in it. But Judaistic leanings were unavoidable, and they have not gone so far as to transform the facts, nor indeed operated in a different way or to a greater degree here than local interest in the tribal hero, which is always the earliest motive for narration, has done in other cases. This praise applies to 1Samuel xvi. seq., however, only so far as its original form goes. It is different with the insertions, here very numerous, which have crept into the older connection, or replaced a genuine piece of the old story with a newer edition of it. In these the tendency to idealise the founder of the dynasty of Judah has worked creatively, and here we find rich materials for the history of the tradition, in the rude style in which alone it is possible as yet to construct that history. The beginning of the first work especially is overgrown with later legendary formations. David, known as a man of courage and prudence, and of a skilful tongue, and recommended, moreover, by his skill on the harp, came to the king's court and became his armour-bearer (xvi. 14-23). He so approved himself in the war with the Philistines that Saul advanced him step after step, and gave him his daughter in marriage (xviii. 6 seq.). But the success and fame of the man of Judah filled Saul with jealousy, and in one of his fits of frenzy (to which x. 10 also shows him to have been subject) he threw his javelin at David, who was seeking to drive away the evil spirit by his playing (xix. 8-10). David agreed with Jonathan that it was advisable for him to absent himself, but this only confirmed the king's suspicions, which prompted him to destroy the priests of Nob, because their head had provided David with food and consulted the oracle for him (xxi 2-7, xxii. 6-23). The fugitive himself Saul failed to lay hands on; he gathered round him his own family and other desperate men, and became their leader in the wilderness of Judah (xxii. 1-5, xxiii. 1-13, xxv. 2 seq.). To escape the repeated persecutions of Saul, he at length passed over to the country of the Philistines, and received the town of Ziklag in Judah as a fief from the hands of the prince Achish (xxvii. 1 seq.). Such is the beginning of the history of David according to the simple thread of the old narrative. The first accretion we notice is the legend of the encounter of the shepherd boy with Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5), which is involved in contradiction both with what goes before and with what follows it. According to xvi. 14-23, David, when he first came in contact with Saul, was no raw lad, ignorant of the arts of war, but "a mighty valiant man, skilful in speech, and of a goodly presence;" and according to xviii. 6 the women sang at the victorious return of the army, "Saul has slain his thousands of the Philistines, and David his tens of thousands," so that the latter was the leader of Israel beside the king, and a proved and well-known man. Evidently something of a different nature must originally have stood between xvi. 23 and xviii. 6. Now the fate of the story of Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5) involves that of the story of the anointing of David (xvi. 1-13), which is dependent on it (xvi. 12, xvii. 42); and, as we have already decided that chapter xv. is a secondary production, xiv. 52 joins on at once to xvi. 14. In xviii. 6 seq., where we are told of the origin of Saul's jealousy, several of the worst additions and interruptions are wanting in the LXX, especially the first throwing of the javelin (xviii. 9-11) and the betrothal to Merab (xviii. 17-19). The insertions are most varied and confusing in the account of the outbreak of the hostility of Saul and of David's flight (chapters xix. xx). Chapter xix. 1-7, a pointless and artificial passage, betrays its later origin by its acquaintance with chapter xvii.; xviii. 29a (LXX) is continued at xix. 8. After Saul's spear-cast David takes flight for the first time, but at verse 11 he is still at home, and makes his escape the second time with the aid of feminine artifice, going to Samuel at Ramah, but to appear in chap. xx. at Gibeah as before. The king remarks his absence from table; Jonathan assures him of his father's favour, which, however, David doubts, though he has no distinct evidence to the contrary. When quite certain of the deadly hatred of the king, David takes flight in earnest; in chapter xxi. seq. we find him at Nob on his way to Judah, but at xxi. 10 he goes away afresh from the face of Saul. It is evident that in reality and in the original narrative the flight took place only once, and that it must from the first have been directed to the place of refuge, i.e., to Judah. This is enough to dispose of xix. 11-24: the twentieth chapter is impossible in the connection, at least in its present form, and in chapter xxi. verses 8-10 and 11-16 must be left out. In the section which deals with the freebooter life of David, chaps. xxiii-xxvii., considerable pieces have been added; xxvii. 7-12 of course is one; but also the encounters of David with his pursuers. There are two versions: the one, xxvi. 1-25, is placed before chapter xxvii. on account of verse 19; the other, xxiii. 14-xxiv. 22, is placed before chapter xxv. to avoid too near a contact. There is a good deal of verbal coincidence between the two, and we are entitled to regard the shorter and more pointed version (chapter xxvi.) as the basis. But the sequence (xxvi. 25, xxvii. 1) shows beyond a doubt that chapter xxvi. does not belong to the original tradition. The process of inserting the additions naturally was not completed without all sorts of editorial changes in the older materials, e.g., xvi. 14. Though proceeding from the same root, these offshoots are by no means of the same nature, nor do they all belong to the same stage of the process. Some of them are popular legends and unconscious fictions. Of this nature is the story of Michal, who takes the part of her husband against her father, lets him down in the evening with a rope through the window, detains the spies for a time by saying that David is sick, and then shows them the household god which she has arranged on the bed and covered with the counterpane (xix. 11-17). The scenes in which Saul and David meet are of a somewhat different colour, yet we notice that the conviction that the latter is the king of the future does not interfere with the recognition of the former as the king _de facto_ and the anointed of Jehovah; Saul too appears not wicked, but blinded. The secondary version (xxiii. 14 seq.) contains (not to speak of the distinctly later insertion between verse 15 and 19), in addition to the touching features of the story, a good-natured jest, telling how the two played hide-and-seek round a hill, which took its name from the circumstance. These stories present certain marks which serve to fix their date in the history of the religion: one is, that the image in David's house is spoken of quite simply; another, the expression in xxvi. 19, "If Jehovah have stirred thee up against me, let Him accept an offering, but if it be men, cursed be they before Jehovah, because they have driven me out this day from the fellowship in the land of Jehovah, and obliged me to serve other gods." It is perhaps not by mere chance that this speech is wanting in the parallel version, and that there is added in place of it a formal act of recognition which Saul pays at the end to his destined successor. As for the story of Goliath, it is also quite artless, but its religious colouring is much more marked. The speech with which David goes to meet the giant is characteristic on this side (xvii. 4 seq.): "Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear, but I come unto thee in the name of Jehovah of hosts, whom thou hast defied. This day will He deliver thee into mine hand, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that this assembly (hqhl = Israel) may know that Jehovah saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is His." This approaches to the religious language of the post-Deuteronomic time. According to 2Samuel xxi. 19, Goliath of Gath, whose spear-shaft was as thick as a weaver's beam, /1/ fought in the ******************************************** 1. This expression occurs in I Samuel xvii., and shows this legend to be dependent on 2Samuel xxi. xxiii., a collection of anecdotes about heroes from the Philistine wars of David in the genuine short popular style. Cf., on 1Chronicles xii., supra, p. 173. ******************************************** wars, not in Saul's time, but in that of his successor, and was killed, not by a shepherd boy but by a warrior of Bethlehem named Elhanan. The theme of David and Jonathan has no doubt a historical basis, but for us it is found only in second-hand versions. The story of the farewell (chapter xx.) must be placed in this category. Yet it appears to point back to an earlier basis, and the earlier story may very possibly have belonged to the connection of the original work. For the shooting of the arrow could only have a meaning if it was impossible for the two friends to have an interview. But as the story goes, they come together and speak out freely what they have in their hearts, and so the dumb signal is not only superfluous, but unintelligible and meaningless. But if the most characteristic trait of the whole story does not fit into it as it now stands, that is just saying that the story has not come down to us in its true form. Originally Jonathan only discharged the arrow, and called to his boy where it lay; and David, hid in the neighbourhood of the shooting range, heard in the call to the boy the preconcerted signal. In calling that the arrow was nearer him or beyond him, Jonathan was apparently telling the boy, but in reality telling his friend, to come towards him or go farther away from him. The latter was the case, and if so, the friends could not enter into conversation; the tearful farewell then disappears, and the sentimental speeches spoken before it in the same style, in which Jonathan virtually admits that his father is right, and yet decidedly espouses David's cause, disregarding the fact that David will deprive him of his inheritance. /2/ ********************************************* 2. Only in one direction does he set limits to his self-denial: he makes the future king solemnly promise to spare his family. Here manifests itself an interest belonging to the time of the narrator. The oriental custom according to which the new ruler extirpates the preceding dynasty, was not systematically carried out by David, and a special exception was made in favour of a son left by Jonathan. "All my father's house," says Meribaal (2Samuel xix. 28), "were dead men before my lord the king yet thou didst set me at thy table: what right have I therefore yet to complain unto the king (even about injustice)?" Now this son of Jonathan was the ancestor of a Jerusalem family which flourished till after the exile. Older traits in 1Samuel xx. are the importance attached to the new moon, the family sacrifice at Bethlehem, perhaps the stone )BN )CL which appears to have implied something inconsistent with later orthodoxy, the name being in two passages so singularly corrupted. ************************************************* Chapter xviii. 6 seq. manifests tendency in a bad sense, even apart from the additions of the Masoretic text. Here Saul's enmity against David is carried back to the very beginning of their relations together, and even his friendship is represented as dissembled hatred. All the honours with which the king covers his armour-bearer are interpreted as practices to get rid of him. He makes him his son-in-law in order to expose him to deadly danger in his efforts to procure the hundred foreskins of the Philistines which were the price of the daughter. The connection cannot dispense with xviii. 6 seq, but at the same time it is beyond doubt that the venomous way of interpreting the facts is a mark of later revision. For Saul here practices his perfidies with the cognisance of his servants, who must therefore have been well aware of his disposition towards David; but the old narrator proceeds on the opposite assumption, that his hatred appeared all at once, and that David had been held by all up to that time to be one of the king's favourite servants: cf. xxi. 2-xxii. 14 seq., not to speak of chapter xx. And this alone agrees with the nature of Saul as it is everywhere described to us. It is a characteristic circumstance that the corruption of the tradition is greatest in those narratives in which Samuel enters into the history of David. There are two insertions of this kind. According to xix. 18-24 David flees to the old man at Ramah, where the school of the prophets is; Saul sends messengers to take him, but these, when they come near Samuel and see him in command of a troop of ecstatic enthusiasts, are seized by the frenzy like the rest. The second set of messengers whom Saul sends, and the third, fare no better; and Saul has at last to come himself. But he also is drawn into the vortex, tears off his clothes and dances before Samuel and David, the only self-possessed spectators of the bacchantic company, till he falls down; and he lies naked as he is a whole day and a whole night upon the ground--whence the proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" But that David when he fled, fled in earnest and went in the direction of Judah, instead of amusing himself by going first towards the north, is perfectly evident, as much so as that it is a serious abuse of the spirit of prophecy to make it serve ends which are foreign to its nature, and turn it into a mere instrument for the personal safety of David, who had no need whatever to wait for Saul at Ramah to play him a trick there. The narrative, which is unknown to the author of xv. 35, arose out of the proverb which is quoted in it, but this receives elsewhere (x. 12) a much more worthy interpretation. We can scarcely avoid the suspicion that what we have before us here is a pious caricature; the point can be nothing but Samuel's and David's enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king. For the general history of the tradition the most interesting circumstance is that Samuel has here become the head of a school of prophets and the leader of their exercises. In the original view of the matter (chaps. ix. x.) he appears alone and independent, and has nothing to do with the companies of the ecstatics, the Nebiim. He is a _Roeh_ or seer, not a _Nabi_ or prophet. True, it is asserted in the gloss, ix. 9, that the two words mean the same thing, that what is now called _Nabi_ was formerly called _Roeh_. But that is scarcely quite correct. The author of ix. x. knows the name _Nabi_ very well too, but he never applies it to Samuel; he only uses it, in the plural, of the troops of Jehovah--intoxicated dervishes. He gives it quite a different meaning from _Roeh_, and also quite a different meaning from that in which Isaiah and Jeremiah use the word _Nabi_. /1/ ***************************************** 1 As the words are used in 1Samuel i.Y., Isaiah and Jeremiah would rather be called Roeh; and this is the justification of the gloss, ix. 9. *************************************** We cannot doubt that these distinctions rest on a historical basis, and only gradually melted away in later times: so that Samuel the seer need not be degraded into one of the flagellants. David's flight to Samuel presupposes some previous relation to him, and xix. 18 seq. seems to point back to xvi. 1-13. In this piece David's career begins with his being anointed king in Saul's place at Jehovah's command, when a mere shepherd boy, who was not even counted in the family he belonged to. But in the sequel no one knows anything about this. Even in the story of Goliath (which in other respects harmonizes better with xvi. 1-13 than any other piece) the older brothers, here three, not seven, know nothing of the anointing of the youngest, although they were present and heard their own claims discussed (xvii. 28). In the stories of David's persecution also, chapter xxiv. xxvi., Saul alone is the sacred person, the anointed of Jehovah, not David. A belief that David is chosen for high things by God is quite a different matter from an anointing which has already taken place in fact. And if consequent and antecedent be inseparable, we must remember how, according to xv. 35, Samuel not only withdraws himself from Saul till his death, but also feels grieved for him till his death. It is a harsh transition from xv. 35: "Samuel came no more to see Saul till the day of his death, because he mourned over him," to xvi. 1: "and Jehovah spake to him, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him?" But it appears clearly that the appointment of the successor was connected with, and a consequence of, the deposition of the predecessor. The anointing of David by Samuel is at the same time the set-off to the anointing of Saul by Samuel. This is clearly seen on comparing x. 6, xi. 6, "and the Spirit of God leapt upon Saul," with xvi. 13, 14, "and the Spirit of Jehovah leapt upon David, and it departed from Saul." In the former case the inspiration is a momentary foaming over, in the latter (the leaping notwithstanding) it is a permanent property; and this difference alone leaves no doubt as to where the original is to be looked for, and where the imitation. Saul alone, according to the old tradition, was made king in a divine, i.e. an overpowering and ideal manner: David was made king in a tedious human way, and after many intermediate stages. Of Saul alone was it originally told that the sudden outbreak of the spirit with which he, unelected as he was, summoned the levy of Israel, placed himself at its head, defeated the Ammonites, and became king, was quietly prepared by an old seer, who pointed out to him his great calling, and filled him with confidence in himself by secretly anointing him in the name of Jehovah. All that was known of David was how by his own energy he raised himself from a soldier to be the leader of a band, from that to be the vassal prince, under the Philistines, of Ziklag and Judah, and from a vassal prince to be the independent and powerful king of Israel. He also was anointed, not, however, beforehand by God, but after his elevation, by the elders of Judah and Israel. But this human origin and this inferiority in point of divine consecration to a predecessor whose kingdom, as it turned out, Jehovah had not made to stand, was found by a later age to be unworthy of him: he must at least have received his anointing from Samuel as well as Saul. And this was accordingly made good by the legend (xvi. 1-13). It is a step further on this downward path that in the Judaistic version (x. 17 seq.) all mention is omitted of the anointing of Saul. We return to Samuel. The Books of Samuel take their name from him, and he is a figure of great importance, if not for the history itself, yet for the history of the tradition, the progress of which may be measured by the change of view about his person. In the views taken about him we may distinguish four stages. Originally (ix. 1-x. 16) he is simply a seer, but at the same time a patriotic Israelite, who feels deeply the need of his country, and uses his authority as seer to suggest to the ear and to the mind of one whom he recognises as fit for the purpose, his destination to be Israel's deliverer and leader. This relation between seer and warrior must be held fast and regarded as historical if Samuel is to mean anything at all. Similar instances are those of Deborah and Barak in earlier times, and later, that of Elisha and Hazael, and still more, that of Elisha and Jehu. Samuel's greatness consists in this, that he rouses to activity the man who comes after him, and is greater than he: after kindling the light which now burns in its full brightness, he himself disappears. But his meteoric appearance and disappearance excited wonder, and this in early times produced a story of his youth, in which, while still a boy, he predicts the ruin of pre-monarchical Israel (1Samuel i.-iii.). After he has done this, darkness closes completely around him. Even in chapter iv. he has completely disappeared, and when we meet him again he is an old man. On the other side the circumstance that we hear nothing more of the seer after his meeting with Saul, caused it to be believed that a rupture very soon took place between the two. This belief we meet with at the second stage of the tradition which is represented by the prophetical narratives recorded in chaps. xvi. and xxviii. It arose out of the inconsistency involved in the fact that Jehovah did not afterwards confirm in his reign the man whom He had chosen to be king, but overthrew his dynasty. Thus it becomes necessary that Samuel, who anointed Saul, should afterwards sorrowfully reject him. Even here he appears no longer as the simple seer, but as a prophet in the style of Elijah and Elisha who regards the Lord's anointed as his own handiwork, and lays on him despotic commands (xv. 1), though according to x. 7 he had expressly left him to be guided by his own inspiration. The transition from the second to the third stage is easy. Here Samuel, after withdrawing the unction from Saul, at once transfers it to David, and sets him up against his rejected predecessor as being now de jure king by the grace of God. The respect with v.hich he is regarded has meanwhile increased still further; when he comes to Bethlehem the elders tremble at his approach (xvi. 4 seq.); and in xix. 18 seq. he has a magical power over men. Up to this stage, however, he has always been regarded as intellectually the author of the monarchy. It is reserved for the last (exilian or post-exilian) stage of the development of the tradition to place him in the opposite position of one who resists to the uttermost the desire of the people to have a king. Here pre-monarchical Israel is advanced to a theocracy, and Samuel is the head of the theocracy, which accounts for the feelings aroused in him by their demand. The modern judgment has been prejudiced in Saul's favour by Samuel's curse, and to David's disadvantage by Samuel's blessing; the picture of the one has not suffered from the blackening so much as that of the other from the glorification. /1/ ************************************* 1. The efforts of later writers to glorify David are at their worst in their account of his last testament (1Kings ii. 1-12). Even the language betrays this piece as a post-Deuteronomic insertion (v. 2-4); the contents are borrowed from the succeeding narrative. But in the narrative Solomon's conduct towards Adonijah, Abiathar, Joab, and Shimei is not dictated by any means by the testament, but by other considerations; and it is the declared object of the narrator to show how Solomon's throne was established by the removal of the elements of danger. Nor do the acute calculations of the weak old king agree very well with the general impression given of him at this time by 1Kings i. ii. **************************************** Some critics, who are unencumbered either by prejudice or by knowledge of the subject, regard Saul as the antagonist and David as the creature of the clerical lust of rule, of which they see the embodiment in Samuel. But this view gives Samuel a powerful position over against the king such as he cannot have possessed unless he had broad ground under his feet and an influence well and extensively organised. Did he find support in the Nebiim? These were only then rising into view out of an irregular enthusiasm which was not yet confined to any definite circle or school; and besides, the old tradition speaks of a close connection between them and the king, but not between them and the seer. The belief that the latter was the founder and president of their guild is based on the worthless anachronistic anecdote, 1Samuel xix. 18 seq. Or was Samuel in conspiracy with the priests against Saul? This is inferred from 1Samuel xxi.-xxii. where Abimelech of Nob provides David with bread on his wanderings, and expiates this offence with his own death and that of the whole race of Eli. But in the first place these priests have no connection with Samuel. In the second place there is nothing to make it probable that they had an understanding with David, or were acquainted with his ambitious plans if he had then begun to cherish them. In the third place, it is positively certain that they represented no distinct power in the state as against the king, but on the contrary were entirely the creatures of his smile or frown; on the occurrence of a faint suspicion they were put to death to a man without a dog barking to remonstrate. The liberal view we are discussing of Samuel's relation to Saul and David is based on the erroneous assumption that Samuel had the hierocracy to rest on in his acts of opposition to the monarchy. But the student who carries back the hierocracy to these early times has still to learn the very elements of what is necessary to a true historical appreciation of Hebrew antiquity. VI.III. It is in the Book of Kings that the last revision works most unrestrictedly. Here also chronological and religious elements combine to the building up of the framework, and we begin with examining the chronological system. From the exodus from Egypt to the beginning of the building of the temple was a period of 430 years; and from the latter to the destruction of Jerusalem, a period, according to the numbers of the kings of Judah, of 430 years, or reckoning the exile, of 480 years, as before. In Chronicles, the succession from Azariah ben Ahimaaz, who was, according to the correct reading, the first to officiate in the temple of Solomon, to Jozadak, who was carried away in the captivity, consists of eleven high priests; thus, reckoning the exile, we have again twelve generations of 40 years each. The detailed figures which compose the total are here more complicated, which is no doubt partly due to the fact that some of them are dates which the reviser found given. Yet in this instance also the number 40 is the basis of calculation, as we see in the reigns of the kings of Judah. From the division of the kingdom to the destruction of Samaria in the 6th year of Hezekiah, the numbers are as follows: Rehoboam and Abijam, 20; Asa, 41; Jehoshaphat, Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, 40; Joash, 40; Amaziah and Uzziah, 81; Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, 38. From the destruction of Samaria to the last date in Kings (2Kings xxv. 27), Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, have 80; Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, 79 1/4. Let him believe who can that it is a mere chance that the figures 41 + 81 + 38 make up exactly 40 + 80 + 40. The series of the kings of Israel is in point of chronology dependent on the series of Judah. According to the numbers of the latter, 393 years elapsed from the division of the kingdom to the Babylonian captivity; and if we assume with Ezekiel (iv. 4) that Samaria fell 150 years earlier than Judah, 243 years remain for the duration of the northern kingdom. The figures given amount in fact to 242 years. These 150 Israelite years, from the destruction of Samaria to the destruction of Jerusalem, exceed, it is true, by 17 the sum of the parallel years of Judah; and the Israelite years from 1 Jeroboam to 9 Hosea fall short of the years in Judah from 1 Rehoboam to 6 Hezekiah by about the same number. This shows that no effort was made at first to synchronise the individual reigns in the two series. The 242 years of the northern kingdom are divided, by the epoch of 1 Jehu, into 98 and 144. If we take them at 240, the half of 480, the 98 must be changed into 96, which then agree with the contemporary 96 Jewish years. The deduction must be made at the reign of Baasha. Then we get the following play of figures: Jeroboam 22, Nadab 2, Baasha 22, Elah 2, Omri 12, Ahab 22, Ahaziah 2, Joram 12. That is to say, the eight kings have together 96 years, the first four and the last four 48 each. Two have the average number 12; the other 6 consists of three pairs of father and son; and the twice 12 years belonging to each pair are divided so that the father gets 12 + 10, and the son 12 - 10, obviously because the father was considered much more important than the son. /1/ *************************************** 1. Numbers of the kings of Judah from Solomon : 37+ 17+ 3 + 41 + 25 + 8 + 1 + 6 + 40 + 29 + 52 + 16 + 29 + 55 + 2 + 31 + 11 + 11=430 years. Jehoahaz and Jechoiachin are not counted; if they are included and a year allowed for them, we must say 36 for Solomon. Numbers of the kings of Israel from 1 Jeroboam: 22 + 2 + 24 +2+ 12 + 22 + 2+ 12 + 28 + 17 + 16 + 41 + 1 + 10 + 2 + 20 + 9. The artificial relations of the numbers, as explained above, were communicated to me by Ernst Krey. On the point that the synchronisms do not belong to the original arrangement, see Jahrb. fur Deutsche Theol., 1875, p. 607 seq. The correct view of Ezekiel iv. was first published by Bernhard Duhm (Theol. dir Proph., p. 253). The number 390, given in the Massoretic text in verse 5 for the duration of the captivity of the northern Israelites, is impossible. For Ezekiel cannot mean that they have been 350 years in exile already, and on the other hand he cannot reckon the remaining period of their punishment at more than 40 years, because 40 years is his calculation of the period of exile of Judah, and the restitution of Israel and that of Judah are in his view to take place at the same time; and indeed that of Egypt as well, obviously because brought about by the same cause (xxix. 1 1-16), the fall of the Chaldeans, which may be expected to take place in 40 years. The number 390 has got into verse 5 by mistake from verse 9, where it is used of a quite different subject, not the years of the exile, but the days of the last siege of Jerusalem. The gloss verse 13 rests on a similar confusion. The Septuagint correctly gives for the Israelite exile the number of 150 years, or 190, according as the last 40 years in which their punishment continued, along with that of Judah, were included or omitted. It may be remarked that 390 = 240 + 150. Compare further Robertson Smith, in the Journal of Philologie, vol x., p. 209-213. ********************************************** The great period thus marked off and artificially divided into subperiods, is surveyed and appraised at every important epoch in sermon-like discourses. These are much more frequent in Kings than in Judges and Samuel. It makes no difference whether the writer speaks in his own person, or by the mouth of another; in reviews of the past he speaks himself, 2Kings xvii.; in anticipations of the future he makes another speak (1Kings viii. ix.). A few examples must be cited to show what we mean. The great epoch of the work is the building of the temple. On this occasion Solomon makes a great dedicatory oration, in which he entreats Jehovah to hear from heaven the prayer of those who shall seek Him in this place. He concludes as follows: "If they sin against Thee (for there is no man that sinneth not) and Thou be angry with them and deliver them to be carried away captive into the land of the enemy, far or near, if they then bethink themselves and make supplication to Thee, saying, We have sinned and have done perversely and are guilty, and so return unto Thee with all their heart and all their soul in the land of the enemies which led them away captive, and pray unto Thee toward their land which Thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which Thou hast chosen, and the house which Thou hast built for Thy name, then hear Thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people their unfaithfulness, and give them compassion before them that carried them away captive, that they may have compassion upon them. For they be Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou broughtest forth out of Egypt from the midst of the furnace of iron, and didst separate them to Thyself from among all the people of the earth, as Thou spakest by Moses thy servant." What Jehovah answered to this we learn in chapter ix. "I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication which thou hast made before me; I have hallowed this house, to put my name there for ever, and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. If thou wilt walk before me, as did David thy father, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments, I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. But if YE or YOUR CHILDREN turn away from me, and will not keep my statutes and my judgments which I have set before you, but worship other gods, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them, and this house which I have hallowed for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people, and this house a ruin. And when they ask: Why hath Jehovah done thus to this land and to this house? the answer shall be: Because they forsook Jehovah their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them and served them." The division of the kingdom is also a very marked era in the history. It is introduced by a prophecy of Abijah to the first Jeroboam. "Behold, I rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee; but he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen; because he has forsaken me, and worshipped Astarte of Sidon, and Chemosh of Moab, and Milcom of Ammon, and has not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my eyes, my statutes, and my judgments, like David his father. And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments as David my servant did, that I will be with thee and build thee a sure house as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever." We pass over a series of prophecies in a similar strain which occur regularly at the changes of dynasty in the northern kingdom, and cite only the concluding words which accompany the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes (2Kings xvii.). This fall came about "because the children of Israel sinned against Jehovah their God, which brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen whom they had driven out, and in the innovations of the kings of Israel; and because the children of Israel imputed to Jehovah their God things which are not so, and built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city; and they set up pillars and Asheras on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they sacrificed in all the high places, as did the people whom Jehovah had driven out before them: and wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger, and served the abominations which Jehovah had forbidden. Yet Jehovah testified to them by all the prophets and seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the torah which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent unto you by my servants the prophets; but they would not hear, but hardened their necks like their fathers, that they did not believe in Jehovah their God; and they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies with which He warned them, and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them. And they left all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images and an Asherah, and worshipped the whole host of heaven, and served Baal; and they caused their children to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger. And Jehovah was very wroth with Israel, and removed them out of His sight; there was none left but the men of Judah only. But they of Judah also kept not the commandment of their God, but walked in the manner of Israel: and Jehovah rejected the whole race of Israel, and humbled them, and delivered them unto the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight." No special concluding discourse is given for Judah, but that for Israel applies to Judah as well. This we see both directly from the last words of the passage cited, and from the circumstance that two very characteristic abominations in the foregoing catalogue, the worship of the host of heaven and the sacrifice of children, were introduced, according to the testimony of the prophets, which alone can determine the point, not in the eighth but only in the seventh century, under Manasseh, and accordingly are not chargeable on Israel, but only on Judah. The water accumulates, so to speak, at these gathering places of the more important historical epochs: but from these reservoirs it finds its way in smaller channels on all sides. /1/ The first ************************************ 1. Such additions as MCWT YHWH, 1Kings xviii. 18 [LXX has correctly YHWH, without MCWT] (ZBW BRYTK [LXX correctly (ZBW without BRYTK] and more extensive ones, as 1Kings xviii. 31, 32a; 2Samuel vii. 2b [)#R NQR) WGW''] <error! read vi. 2b> ) I do not reckon because they proceed from various periods, and are mostly younger than the Deuteronomic revision, and belong rather to textual than to literary criticism. It is certainly in itself very important to detect and remove these re-touchings. The whole old tradition is covered with them. ***************************************** question asked with regard to each ruler is, what position he took up to the pure religion--whether he did what was right or what was evil in the sight of Jehovah. Even in the case of those who only reigned a week, this question receives an answer. In general it has to be stated that they did evil. All except David and Hezekiah and Josiah, were defective, says Jesus Sirach (xlix. 4),--not quite accurately perhaps, but yet truly in so far as there is always some objection even to the good kings. But the sin here reproved is no longer, at least not principally, the worship of strange gods; it is the perverted worship of Jehovah. A more special standard, and therefore a stricter one, is now employed, and we know the reason of this: the temple having once been built in the place which Jehovah has chosen for Himself, the kindly naturalness hitherto belonging to His worship comes to an end (Deuteronomy xii. 8): and in particular the prohibition of the bamoth comes into force (1Kings iii. 2). That these continued to exist is the special sin of the period, a sin widespread and persistent. It is aggravated by the fact, that with the bamoth all kinds of unlawful abuses crept into the worship of Jehovah, Maccebas and Asheras, evergreen trees, and prostitutes of both sexes. Israel, continually compared with Judah in the matter, is further charged with a second great sin, the sin of Jeroboam, i.e., the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan. The religious estimate combines with the chronological facts to form that scheme in which every single reign of the kings of Israel and Judah is uniformly framed. Sometimes the frame is well filled in with interesting matter, but in not a few cases historical matter is almost entirely absent. The scheme appears most nakedly in such chapters as 1Kings xv. xvi., 2Kings xiii. xiv. xv. That this redaction of our book is essentially uniform with that of the two historical books which precede it, requires no proof. Only it has here a warmer and more lively tone, and a much closer relation to the facts. In consequence of this we find it much easier to determine the point of view from which it proceeds. The mere fact that the narrative extends to the destruction of Jerusalem, nay, to the death of the captive king Jehoiachin, shows that we must place the date of the work not earlier than the Babylonian exile, and, indeed, the second part of the exile. The chronology reckons the exile in the period of 480 years, giving 50 years to it; and this would bring us still lower down; but it is open to us to assume that this is a later modification, which has not further affected the general character of the work. /1/ ************************************** 1. Krey surmises that the last date mentioned, the liberation from prison of, Jehoiachin in the 37th year after his accession to the throne, was originally intended to form the lower limit of the chronology, especially as the periods of 40 years under which, as we have seen, the Jewish figures naturally fall, come exactly to this date. But if this be the case, we cannot regard the 4th or 5th year of Solomon as the era started from, for then there is no room for the 36 or 37 remaining years of Solomon's reign. But such a starting-point is entirely unnatural; Solomon's 40 years cannot be torn up in this way: if we are to make a division at all in that period, it must be at the disruption of the monarchy, the natural point of departure for the series of kings of Israel and of Judah. It deserves remark, that the 37 years of Jehoiachin, at the close of the older mode of calculation, which perhaps only tried to bring out generations of 40 years, but also perhaps a period of 500 years from David (40+40+20+ 41+40+40+81 + 38+ 80 + 79 1/4), answer to the 37 years of Solomon at the beginning of the method now carried through. That a process of alteration and improvement of the chronology was busily carried on in later times, we see from the added svnchronisms of the kings of Israel and Judah, from the uncertain statements in the Book of Judges, some of them parallel with each other (e.g., the interregna and minor judges, and the threefold counting of the time of the Philistines) and even from the variants of the LXX. *************************************************** The writer looks back on the time of the kings as a period past and closed, on which judgment has already been declared. Even at the consecration of the temple the thought of its destruction is not to be restrained; and throughout the book the ruin of the nation and its two kingdoms is present to the writer's mind. This is the light in which the work is to be read; it shows why the catastrophe was unavoidable. It was so because of unfaithfulness to Jehovah, because of the utterly perverted tendency obstinately followed by the people in spite of the Torah of Jehovah and His prophets. The narrative becomes, as it were, a great confession--of sins of the exiled nation looking back on its history. Not only the existing generation, but the whole previous historical development is condemned--a fashion which we meet with first in Jeremiah (ii. 1 seq., iv. 3), who was actually confronted with the question as to the cause of the calamity. /2/ ************************************** 1. The fall of Samaria suggested similar reflections to the earlier prophets with reference to the northern kingdom, but their views are, as a rule (Amos v., Isaiah ix.), not nearly so radical nor so far-fetched. Hosea does certainly trace the guilt of the present up to the commencement, but he exemplifies the principle (like Micah, chapter vi.) chiefly from the early history of Jacob and Moses: as for the really historical period he belongs to it too much himself to survey it from so high a point of view. In this also he is a precursor of later writers, that he regards the human monarchy as one of the great evils of Israel: he certainly had very great occasion for this in the circumstances of the time he lived in. ******************************************* Ezekiel carried out this negative criticism of the past to greater lengths, with particular reference to the abominations of the older worship (chapter xvi., xx., xxiii.); and it is also to be found in Isaiah xl.-xlvi. (xlii. 24, xliii. 27), though here it is supplemented by a positive and greatly more suggestive view; we find it also in Deuteronomy xxviii.-xxx., and in Leviticus xxvi. The whole of the past is regarded as one enormous sin, which is to be expiated in the exile (Jeremiah xxxii. 30; Ezekiel xviii. 2, xxxiii. 10; Isaiah xl. 1); the duration of the punishment is even calculated from that of the sin (Leviticus xxvi. 34). The same attitude towards old times is continued after the return (Zechariah viii. 13 seq., ix. 7 seq.; Nehemiah ix. 7 seq.). The treatment is naturally from a Judaean point of view. Outside of Jerusalem the worship of Jehovah is heretical, so that the political revolt of the Northern Israelites was at the same time an ecclesiastical schism. Yet they are not excluded in consequence from community with the people of God, as in the Chronicles: the old traditions are not thrown so completely overboard as yet: only after the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians does Judah continue the history alone. Almost the same reverence is paid to David and his house as to the city and the temple. His house has the promise of eternal continuance, with regard to which the writer likes to make use of the words of Jeremiah xxxiii. 17. The book closes, doubtless not by chance, with the liberation from prison of the Davidide Jehoiachin; this is the earnest of greater things yet in store. In the words of Abijah to Jeroboam, also, when he says that the humiliation of the house of David and the revolt from it of the ten tribes will not last for ever, we see the Messianic hope appear, which, as we learn from Haggai and Zechariah, largely occupied the minds of the Jews at the time of the exile and after it. In the case of the books of Judges and Samuel it is not perhaps possible to decide with perfect certainty what was the norm applied by the last reviser in forming his estimates of the past. In the Books of Kings there can be no doubt on this point. The writer deals not only in indefinite references to the will of Jehovah, which Israel ought to obey, but resists; he speaks now and again (1Kings ii. 3, 2Kings xiv. 6, xvii. 37) of the written Torah in which the judgments and statutes of Jehovah are contained, a difference which indicates, one must allow, a historical feeling. Now the code which is implicitly regarded as the standard is that the discovery of which under Josiah is circumstantially narrated in 2Kings xxii. xxiii., viz., Deuteronomy. We are led to this conclusion, it is allowed on all hands, both by the phraseology of the reviser and by the spirit of his judgments. He condemns those sins specially against which Deuteronomy and the reformation of King Josiah were directed. And the one verbal quotation made from the book of the Torah is from Deuteronomy (2Kings xiv. 6; Deuteronomy xxiv. 16). On the other hand, there are clear signs that the author of the revision was not acquainted with the Priestly Code. Nowhere is any distinction drawn between priests and Levites; the sons of Aaron are never mentioned. The idea of a central sanctuary before Solomon is contradicted by 1Kings iii. 2. In one section only, a section which has been greatly exposed to corrections and interpolations of all kinds, namely, the description of the temple and its consecration, 1Kings vi.-viii., do we meet with signs of the influence of the Priestly Code, especially in the Massoretic text; in the Septuagint this is not so much the case. The most important example of this has already been investigated, p. 43, 44. If, accordingly, we are fully justified in calling the revision Deuteronomistic, this means no more than that it came into existence under the influence of Deuteronomy, which pervaded the whole century of the exile. The difference between Deuteronomistic and Deuteronomic is one not of time only but of matter as well: /1/ Deuteronomy itself has not yet come to regard ****************************************** 1. Post-deuteronomic, but still from the time of the kings, are 1Samuel ii. 27 seq.; 2Samuel vii, 1 seq.; 2Kings xviii. 13, 17 seq., xix. 1 seq.; chaps. xi. xii. xxi. xxiii. ******************************************* the cultus in this way as the chief end of Israel, and is much closer to the realism of the actual life of the people. A difference in detail which allows of easy demonstration is connected with the mode of dating. The last reviser distinguishes the months not by their old Hebrew names, Zif, Bul, Ethanim, but by numbers, commencing with spring as the beginning of the year. In this he differs not only from his older sources (1Kings vi. 37, 38, viii. 2), but also from Deuteronomy. VII.III.2. This revision is, as we expect to find, alien to the materials it found to work on, so that it does violence to them. They have been altered in particular by a very one-sided selection, which is determined by certain religious views. In these views an interest in the prophets mingles with the interest in worship. It is not meant that the selection is due entirely to the last reviser, though it is thoroughly according to his taste; others had probably worked before him in this direction. But for us it is neither possible nor important to distinguish the different steps in the process of sifting through which the traditions of the time of the kings had to pass. The culminating point of the whole book is the building of the temple; almost all that is told about Solomon has reference to it. This at once indicates to us the point of view; it is one which dominates all Judaistic history: the history is that of the temple rather than of the kingdom. The fortunes of the sanctuary and its treasures, the institution and arrangements of the kings with reference to worship--we are kept _au courant_ about these, but about hardly anything else. The few detailed narratives given (2Kings xi seq. xvi. xxii. seq.) have the temple for their scene, and turn on the temple. Only in <2Kings?> xviii. seq. does the prophetical interest predominate. As for the kingdom of Israel, the statements about the cultus of that state are very scanty and for the most part rather vague. Here the prophetical narratives come to the front, generally such as are told from the prophetic point of view, or at least tell of the public appearances and acts of the prophets. Here and there we are told of occasions on which the Northern kingdom came in contact with Judah; here the Jewish feeling appears which dictated the selection. What is merely historical, purely secular, is communicated only in the scantiest measure: often there is nothing but the names and succession of the kings. We learn hardly anything about King Omri, the founder of the town of Samaria and re-founder of the kingdom, who seems to have reduced Judah also to the position of a dependent ally, nor do we learn more about Jeroboam II., the last great ruler of Israel; while the conflict with the Assyrians and the fall of Samaria are despatched in a couple of verses which tell us scarcely anything at all. Sometimes a brilliant breaks in on the surrounding night (2Kings ix. x.), but after it we grope in the dark again. Only so much of the old tradition has been preserved as those of a later age held to be of religious value: it has lost its original centre of gravity, and assumed an attitude which it certainly had not at first. It may have been the case in Judah that the temple was of more importance than the kingdom, but there can be no doubt that the history of Israel was not entirely, not even principally, the history of prophecy. The losses we have to deplore must have affected the Israelitish tradition most seriously. The damage done by the revision by its _positive_ meddling with the materials as found in the sources, is not so irreparable; yet it is considerable enough. The change of colour which was effected may be best seen and characterised in the far-reaching observations which introduce the Israelite series of kings; "Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David; if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again to their rightful lord, and they will kill me, and become subject again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, Cease to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; for the people went as one man, even unto Dan. And he made temples of high places, and took priests from the midst of the people which were not of the house of Levi; whomsoever he would he installed as priest of the high places " (1Kings xii. 26-30, xiii. 33). The perversion is scarcely so great as in Chronicles, but the anachronism is sufficiently glaring in the mode of view discernible in these reflections of Jeroboam, who appears to feel that the Ephraimite kingdom was illegitimate in its origin and could only be kept separate from the south by artificial means. The blessing of Jacob and the blessing of Moses show us what the sentiment of Northern Israel actually was. In the former Joseph is called the crowned of his brethren, in the second we read "His first-born bullock, full of majesty (the king), has the horns of a buffalo, with which he thrusts down the peoples; these are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh." Whence came the charm of the name of Ephraim but from its being the royal tribe, and the most distinguished representative of the proud name of Israel? Of Judah we read in the same chapter, "Hear, Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him back to his people." There can be no doubt what the people is to which Judah belongs: we cannot but agree with Graf, that this tribe is here regarded as the alienated member, and its reunion with the greater kingdom spoken of as the desire of Judah itself, and this is not so remarkable when we reflect that the part belongs to the whole and not the whole to the part. Only by long experience did Judah learn the blessing of a settled dynasty, and Ephraim the curse of perpetual changes on the throne. Judah's power of attraction for the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom is thought to lie in the cultus of the Solomonic temple; and Jeroboam is said to have tried to meet this by creating new sanctuaries, a new form of the worship of Jehovah, and a new order of priesthood. The features in which the Samaritan worship differed from the Jewish pattern are represented as intentional innovations of the first king, in whose sin posterity persisted. But in making Bethel and Dan temples of the kingdom--that he set up high places, is a statement which need not be considered--Jeroboam did nothing more than Solomon had done before him; only he had firmer ground under his feet than Solomon, Bethel and Dan being old sanctuaries, which Jerusalem was not. The golden calves, again, which he set up, differed in their gold but not in their object from the ephods and idols of other kinds which were everywhere to be found in the older "houses of God"; e.g. from the brazen serpent at Jerusalem. /l/ ***************************************** 1. "Although Jeroboam had lived in Egypt, it would he wrong to say that he brought animal worship with him from that country, as wrong as to regard Aaron's golden calf as a copy of Apis. The peculiarity of the animal-worship of Egypt, and of its bull-worship in particular, was that sanctity was attributed to _living_ animals." Vatke, p. 398. Egyptian gods cannot help against Egypt, Exodus xxxii. 4; 1Kings xii. 28. **************************************** Even Eichhorn remarked with force and point, that though Elijah and Elisha protested against the imported worship of Baal of Tyre, they were the actual champions of the Jehovah of Bethel and Dan, and did not think of protesting against His pictorial representation; even Amos makes no such protest, Hosea is the first who does so. As for the non-Levitical priests whom the king is said to have installed, all that is necessary has been said on this subject above (p. 138 seq.). A remarkable criticism on this estimate of the Samaritan worship follows immediately afterwards in the avowal that that of Judah was not different at the time, at any rate not better. In the report of Rehoboam's reign we read (1Kings xiv. 22 seq.): "They of Judah also set up high places and pillars on every high hill, and under every green tree, and whoredom at sacred places was practiced in the land." This state of things continued to exist, with some fluctuations, till near the time of the exile. If then the standard according to which Samaria is judged never attained to reality in Judah either, it never existed in ancient Israel at all. We know the standard is the book of the law of Josiah: but we see how the facts were not merely judged, but also framed, in accordance with it. One more instance is worthy of mention in this connection. King Solomon, we are told, had, besides the daughter of Pharaoh, many foreign wives, from Moab, Ammon, and other peoples, intermarriage with whom Jehovah had forbidden (Deuteronomy xvii 17). And when he was old, they seduced him to the worship of their gods, and he erected on the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem high places for Chemosh of Moab, and for Milcom of Ammon, and for the gods of his other wives. As a punishment for this Jehovah announced to him that his kingdom should be torn from him after his death and given to his servant, and also raised up adversaries to him, in Hadad the Edomite, who freed Edom, and in the Syrian Rezon teen Eliadah, who made Damascus independent. And by the prophet Abijah of Shiloh, he caused the Ephraimite Jeroboam, who then had the supervision of the forced labour of the house of Joseph in the fortification of the city of David, to be nominated as the future king of the ten tribes. So we read in 1Kings xi. But Edom, and, as it appears, Damascus as well, broke away from the kingdom of David immediately after his death (xi. 2I seq., 25); and the fortification of the citadel, in which Jeroboam was employed when incited to revolt by Abijah, though it falls somewhat later, yet belongs to the first half of Solomon's reign, since it is connected with the rest of his buildings (ix. 15, 24). Now Solomon cannot have been punished by anticipation, in his youth, for an offence which he only committed in his old age, and the moral connected with these events is contradicted by chronology and cannot possibly be ascribed to the original narrator. The Deuteronomistic revision betrays itself, in fact, in every word of xi. 1-13. To the original tradition belongs only the mention of the many wives--without the reprobation attached to it,--and the statement about the building of the altars of Chemosh and Milcom and perhaps Astarte, on the Mount of Olives, where they stood till the time of Josiah (2Kings xxiii. 13). The connection of the two events, in the relation of cause and effect, belongs to the last editor, as well as the general statement that the king erected altars of the gods of all the nationalities represented by his wives. In the Books of Kings, it is true, the tradition is not systematically translated into the mode of view of the Law, as is the case in Chronicles. What reminds us most strongly of Chronicles is the introduction from time to time of a prophet who expresses himself in the spirit of Deuteronomy and in the language of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and then disappears. /l/ ****************************************** 1. Cf. Kuenen, Profeten onder Israel (1875), ii. p. 143; English translation (1877), p 398. One of these Deuteronomistic prophecies is cited above, p. 275. They are in part anonymous, e.g, 2Kings x. 30, xxi. 10 seq, in part connected with old names, e.g 1Kings xvi. 1 seq. In many instances no doubt the reviser found flints in his sources and worked them out in his own style; thus, 1Kings xiv. 7 seq., xxi 21 seq. 2Kings ix. 7 seq. In these passages the Deuteronomistic ideas and the phraseology of Jeremiah and Ezekiel are distinctly present [ HNNY MBY) R(h ], but detached expressions of an original type also occur,--which, it is true, are then constantly repeated, e.g. (CWN W(ZWB. Names, too, like Jehu ben Hanani, are certainly not fictitious: we are not so far advanced as in Chronicles. Cf. 1Samuel ii. 27 seq.; 2Samuel vii. 1 seq. **************************************** In this way the Law is introduced into the history in a living way; the prophets keep it effective and see it applied, according to the principle stated, 2Kings xvii. 13, which is founded on Jeremiah vii. 25; Deuteronomy xviii. 18: "Jehovah testified to them by all the prophets and seers saying, Turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes, according to all the Torah which I commanded your fathers and which I sent unto you by my servants the prophets." The most unblushing example of this kind, a piece which, for historical worthlessness may compare with Judges xix.-xxi. or 1Samuel vii. seq., or even stands a step lower, is 1Kings xiii. A man of God from Judah here denounces the altar of Bethel, at which King Jeroboam is in the act of offering sacrifice, in these terms: "O altar, altar, behold a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places, that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burned upon thee." And to guarantee the truth of this prophecy, to be fulfilled three hundred years afterwards, he gives the sign that the altar shall burst asunder, and the ashes of the sacrifice upon it be poured out--which at once takes place. This legend, however, does not really belong to the Deuteronomist, but is a still later addition, as is easily to be seen from the fact that the sentence xii. 31 is only completed at xiii. 34. It deserves remark that in the two verses which introduce the thirteenth chapter, xii. 32 seq., the feast of tabernacles is fixed, in accordance with the Priestly Code, as the 15th of the 7th month. VII.III.3. In this case also we are able to discern considerable shades and gradations in the sources the reviser had at command. In the Books of Kings for the first time we meet with a series of short notices which arrest attention, in the surroundings they are in, by their brevity and directness of statement and the terseness of their form, and have the semblance of contemporary records. In spite of their looseness of arrangement these form the real basis of our connected knowledge of the period; and the religious chronological framework is regularly filled in with them (e.g. 1Kings xiv.-xvi.); their loose connection and neutral tone made it specially easy for later editors to interweave with them additions of their own, as has actually been done to no small extent. /1/ ***************************************** 1. The passage discussed above, 1Kings xi. 1 seq., gives a good example of this; we at once pick out the terse )z ybnh wgw'' from the barren diffuseness surrounding it. **************************************** These valuable notes commence even with Solomon, though here they are largely mixed with anecdotic chaff. They are afterwards found principally, almost exclusively, in the series of Judah. Several precise dates point to something of the nature of annals, /2/ **************************************** 2. 5th of Rehoboam (1Kings xiv. 25); 23rd of Jehoash (2Kings xii, 6); 14th of Hezekiah (2Kings xviii. 13); 18th of Josiah (2Kings xxii. 3); 4th and 5th of Solomon (1Kings vi. 37, 38). These dates occur, it is true, partly in circumstantial Jewish narratives, but these are intimately related to the brief notices spoken of above, and appear to be based on them. It may be surmised that such definite numbers, existing at one time in much greater abundance, afforded the data for an approximate calculation of the figures on which the systematic chronology is built up. These single dates at any rate are not themselves parts of the system. The same is true of the statements of the age of the Jewish kings when they ascended the throne. These also perhaps go back to the "Annals." The )Z is found 1Kings iii. 16, viii. 1, 12, ix. 11, xi. 7, xvi. 21, xxii. 50; 2Kings viii. 22, xii. 18, xiv. 8, xv. 16, xvi. 5. ***************************************** and with these the characteristic then might be thought to be connected, which frequently introduces the short sentences, and as it now stands is generally meaningless. In what circles these records were made, we can scarcely even surmise. Could we be certain that the reference to the royal temple of Judah, which is a prevailing feature of them, is due not to selection at a later time but to the interest of the first hands, we should be led to think of the priesthood at Jerusalem. The loyalist, perfectly official tone would agree very well with this theory, for the sons of Zadok were, down to Josiah's time, nothing else than the obedient servants of the successors of David, and regarded the unconditional authority claimed by these kings over their sanctuary as a matter of course (2Kings xvi. TO seq., xii. 18). These notices, however, as we have them, are not drawn from the documents themselves, but from a secondary compilation, perhaps from the two sets of chronicles cited at the end of each reign of the kings of Israel and those of Judah, from which at all events the succession of the rulers appears to the drawn. These chronicles are not to be identified, it is clear, with the original annals. The _book_ of the annals must be distinguished from the Dibre-hajamim themselves. Whether the chronicle of Israel_-hardly anything out of which is communicated to us--was composed much earlier than the chronicle of Judah (which seems to close with Jehoiachim), and whether it and the chronicle of Solomon (1Kings xi. 41) are a quite independent work, I am inclined to consider doubtful. The excerpts from the annals are interrupted by more extensive episodes which are interwoven with them, and are also embraced in the Deuteronomistic scheme. Of these the Jewish ones are the minority, the greater part are Samaritan, but they all belong to a very limited period of time. I select the miraculous history of Elijah as an example of these, to show the sentiment and the change of sentiment in this instance also. The prophet Elijah, from Tishbeh in Gilead, appears before King Ahab of Samaria, and says, "By the life of Jehovah the God of Israel, whom I serve, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." The story begins abruptly; we require to know that Ahab, stirred up by Jezebel, has been propagating in Israel the worship of the Tyrian Baal, and has killed the prophets of Jehovah by hundreds: this is the reason of the punishment which comes on him and his land (xviii. 13, 22). Elijah vanishes as suddenly as he appeared. We find him again at the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan; then in the land of Baal with a widow at Zarepta; while following his fortunes we are made to feel in a simple and beautiful way the severity of the famine. Ahab in the meantime had sent out messengers to take him, and had required of every state to which the vain search had extended, an oath that he was not to be found there. Now, however, necessity obliged him to think of other things; he had to go out himself with his minister Obadiah to seek fodder for the still remaining war-horses (Amos vii. 1). In this humiliating situation he all at once met the banished man. He did not believe his eyes. "Is it thou, O troubler of Israel?" "I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house!" After this greeting Elijah challenged the king to institute a contest between the 450 prophets of Baal, and him, the only prophet of Jehovah left remaining. A trial by sacrifice took place on Mount Carmel before the whole people. Each party was to prepare a bullock and lay it on the altar without setting fire to the wood; and the divinity who should answer by fire was the true God. The prophets of Baal came first and sought after their own manner to influence their deity. They shouted and leapt wildly, wounded themselves with swords and lances till they were covered with blood, and kept up their raving ecstasy from morning till mid-day, and from mid-day till evening. During this time Elijah looked at them and mocked them, saying, "Cry louder, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is somehow engaged, or he is asleep and must be awaked." At last his turn came; he repaired the altar of Jehovah, which was broken down, spread the pieces of the sacrifice upon it, and, to make the miracle still more miraculous, caused them to be flooded two or three times with water. Then he prayed to Jehovah, and fire fell from heaven, and consumed the sacrifice. The people, up to this point divided in their mind, now took the side of the zealot for Jehovah, laid hold of the prophets of Baal, and slaughtered them down below at the brook. A great storm of rain at once came to refresh the land. This triumph of Elijah was only a prelude. When Jezebel heard what had happened she swore vengeance against him, and he fled for his life to Beersheba in Judah, the sanctuary of Isaac. Wearied to death he lay down under a juniper-bush in the wilderness, and with the prayer, It is enough: now, O Jehovah, take away my life, he fell asleep. Then he was strengthened with miraculous food by a heavenly messenger, and bidden to go to Horeb, the mount of God. He arrived there after a long journey, and withdrew into a cave; a rushing wind sweeps past; the wind and the earthquake and the lightning are the forerunners of Jehovah; and after them He comes Himself in the low whispering that follows the storm. His head covered, Elijah steps out of the cave and hears a voice ask what ails him. Having poured out his heart, he receives the divine consolation that his cause is by no means lost; that the direst vengeance, the instruments of which he is himself to summon to their task, is to go forth on all the worshippers of Baal, and that those 7000 who have not bowed their knee to Baal shall gain the day--"Thou shalt anoint Hazael to be King over Damascus, and Jehu ben Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be iiing over Israel, and Elisha ben Shaphat to be prophet in thy room; and him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay, and him that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay." The account of the execution of these commands by Elijah is at present wanting; we shall soon see why it was omitted. The conclusion of chapter xix. only tells us that he called Elisha from the plough to follow him. Of the account of the judgment which overtook the worshippers of Baal, this group of narratives contains only the beginning, in chapter xxi. Ahab wanted to have a vineyard which was situated beside his palace in Jezreel, his favourite residence: but Naboth, the owner, was unwilling to enter on a sale or an exchange. The king was angry, yet thought he could do no more in the matter; but Jezebel of Tyre had other notions of might and right and said to him, "Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? be of good courage; I will get thee the vineyard." She wrote a letter to the authorities of the town, and got Naboth put out of the way by means of corrupt judges. As Ahab was just going to take possession of the vineyard which had fallen into his hands, his enemy came upon him. The prophet Elijah, always on the spot at the right moment, hurled the word at him, "Hast thou killed and also taken possession? Behold, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood also." Here this story breaks off. What follows is not the true continuation. The thread of the narrative xvii.-xix. xxi. is also broken off here, without reaching its proper conclusion. The victory of Jehovah over Baal, of the prophet over the king, is wanting; the story of Naboth is, as we said, only the introduction to it. We are sufficiently informed about the facts, but in form the narratives do not answer to the announcement in chapter xix. and xxi.; they are drawn from other sources. According to xix. 1 7 the Syrian wars ought to result in vengeance on the worshippers of Baal, and specially on the idolatrous royal house; but in the narrative of the wars (1Kings xx. xxii. 2Kings vii. ix. ) this point of view does not prevail. On the contrary, Ahab and Joram there maintain themselves in a manly and honourable way against the superior power of Damascus it is ONLY AFTER the extirpation of Baal worship under Jehu that affairs took an unfortunate turn, and Hazael, who brought about this change, was not anointed by Elijah but by Elisha (2Kings viii. 7 seq.) /.l/ ************************************* 1. The same applies to Jehu (2Kings ix. 1 seq.). This is the reason of the above remarked omission after 1Kings xix. 21: cf. Thenius's commentary. ************************************* The massacre at Jezreel, too, which is predicted in the threat of 1Kings xxi. 19, would need to be told otherwise than in 2Kings ix. x., to form a proper literary sequel to the story of Naboth. According to 1Kings xxi. 19 the blood of Ahab is to be shed at Jezreel; according to 2Kings ix. 25 his son's blood was shed there, to avenge Naboth. It is true, the explanation is appended in xxi. 27-29, that, as the king took to heart the threats of Elijah, Jehovah made a supplementary communication to the prophet that the threat against Ahab's house would only be fulfilled in the days of his son; but who does not see in this an attempt to harmonise conflicting narratives? /2/ A whole series of *************************************** 2 In spite of xxi. 27-29, an attempt is made at xxii. 38 to show that the threat was fulfilled in Ahab himself. We are told that Ahab was shot in his chariot and that his servants brought his body from Ramoth-Gilead to bury it there. Then we read xxii. 38 "and they washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood, and the harlots bathed in it, according to the word of Jehovah." Thus it is explained how the dogs were able to lick his blood in Samaria, though it had had plenty of time to dry up after the battle! The fact was unfortunately over-looked that according to xxi. 19 the dogs were to lick the blood of Ahab not at Samaria but at Jezreel, the place of Naboth. The verse xxii. 38 is an interpolation which does credit to Jewish acuteness. *************************************** subordinate discrepancies might be mentioned, which prove that 2Kings ix. x. does not look back to the story of the murder of Naboth as told in 1Kings xxi. According to ix. 25, 26, the dispute was not about the vineyard, but about the field of Naboth, which lay some distance from the town. His family was put to death along with him, and on the following day, when Ahab rode out IN COMPANY WITH JEHU and Ben Deker to take possession of the field, the word of the prophet (not framed so specially against him personally) met him: "Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and of his sons, and I will requite it in this plat." With the help of these other accounts, among which there is a considerable group of uniform character (1Kings xx. xxii. 2Kings iii. vi. 24-xii. 20. ix. 1-x. 27) favourably distinguished from the rest, we are placed in a position to criticise the history of Elijah, and to reach a result which is very instructive for the history of the tradition, namely that the influence of the mighty prophet on his age has after all been appraised much too highly. His reputation could not be what it is but for the wide diffusion of Baal worship in Israel: and this is not a little exaggerated. Anything like a suppression of the national religion at the time of Elijah is quite out of the question, and there is no truth in the statement that the prophets of Jehovah were entirely extirpated at the time and Elijah alone left surviving. The prophetic guilds at Bethel, Jericho, and Gilgal continued without any interruption. In the Syrian wars prophets of Jehovah stand by the side of Ahab; before his last campaign there are four hundred of them collected in his capital, one of them at least long known to the king as a prophet of evil, but left alive before and left alive now, though he persisted in his disagreeable practices. Of the sons whom Jezebel bore him, Ahab called one Ahaziah, i.e. Jehovah holds, and another Jehoram, i.e. Jehovah is exalted: he adhered to Jehovah as the god of Israel, though to please his wife he founded at Samaria a temple and a cultus of the Syrian goddess. This being so, Elijah's contest with Baal cannot have possessed the importance attributed to it from the point of view of a later time. In the group of popular narratives above referred to, there is no trace of a religious commotion that tore Israel asunder: the whole strength of the people is absorbed in the Syrian wars. The kings are the prominent figures, and do well and according to their office in battle: Elijah stands in the background. From several indications, though from no direct statements, we learn of the high esteem which Ahab enjoyed from friend and foe alike (xx. 3I, xxii. 32-34 seq.). Joram also, and even Jezebel, are drawn not without sympathy (2Kings vi. 30, ix. 31). We can scarcely say the same of Jehu, the murderer, instigated by the prophets, of the house of Ahab (2Kings ix. 10). It is the fact, certainly, that the prophets' hatred of Baal succeeded at last in overturning the dynasty of Omri. But in what manner was this done? At a time when King Joram was prevented by a wound he had received from being with his army in the field, a messenger of Elisha went to the camp, called the captain apart from a banquet at which he found him, to a secret interview, and anointed him king. When Jehu returned to his comrades at their wine, they asked him what that mad fellow had wanted, and, his evasive answers failing to satisfy them, he told them the truth. They at once raised him on an improvised throne, and caused the trumpets to proclaim him king: they were quite ready for such an exploit, not that they cared in the least for "that mad fellow." Jehu justified their confidence by his astounding mastery in treachery and bloodshed, but he placed his reliance entirely on the resources of his own talent for murder. He was not borne along by any general movement against the dynasty; the people, which he despised (x. 9), stood motionless and horrified at the sight of the crimes which came so quickly one after another; even a hundred years afterwards the horror at the massacre of Jezreel still lived (Hosea i. 4). The crown once gained, the reckless player showed his gratitude to the fanatics, and sent the priests and worshippers of Baal after the priests of Jehovah whom he had slaughtered along with all belonging to the royal house (x. 11). The manner in which he led them into the snare (x. 18 seq.) shows that no one had thought before this of regarding him as the champion of Jehovah; and even at this time his zeal was manifestly only ostensible: he was not fighting for an idea (x. 15. seq.). Thus we see that Baal did not bring about the fall of the house of Ahab, but common treason; the zealots employed for their purposes a most unholy instrument, which employed them in turn as a holy instrument for its purposes; they did not succeed in rousing the people to a storm against Baal, far from it. The execution of Naboth seems to have excited greater indignation: it was a crime against morals, not against religion. Even in the history of Elijah the admission is made that this struggle against Baal, in spite of his sacrificial victory on Carmel, was in the end without result, and that only the judicial murder of Naboth brought about a change in the popular sentiment. But according to 2Kings ix. 25, this murder proved a momentous event, not because it led, as we should expect, to a popular agitation, but from the fortuitous circumstance that Jehu was a witness of the never-to-be-forgotten scene between Ahab and Elijah, and seemed therefore to the prophets to be a fit person to carry out his threatenings. It is certainly the case that the grand figure of Elijah could not have been drawn as we have it except from the impression produced by a real character. /1/ But it is too much torn away from the ************************************* 1. The distance of the narrator is not so very great in point of time from the events he deals with. He is a North-Israelite, as the )#R LYHWDH of xix. 3 shows: this may also be gathered from xix. 8 compared with Deuteronomy i. 2. A man of Judah could not easily make so considerable a mistake about the distance, though we have to remember that with this narrator the situation of Horeb can scarcely have been that which we have long been accustomed to assume. Another sign of antiquity is the way in which Elijah is represented as combating Baal in Israel, and in the land of Sidon associating with the worshippers of Baal on the most friendly terms (Luke iv. 25 seq.). ********************************************* historical position it belongs to, and is thereby magnified to colossal proportions. It may be said of this class of narratives generally, that the prophets are brought too much into the foreground in them, as if they had been even in their lifetime the principal force of Israelite history, and as if the influence which moved them had ruled and pervaded their age as well. That was not the case; in the eyes of their contemporaries they were completely overshadowed by the kings; only to later generations did they become the principal personages. They were important ideally, and influenced the future rather than the present; but this was not enough, a real tangible importance is attributed to them. In the time of Ahab and Jehu the Nebiim were a widespread body, and organised in orders of their own, but were not highly respected; the average of them were miserable fellows, who ate out of the king's hand and were treated with disdain by members of the leading classes. Amos of Tekoa, who, it is true, belonged to a younger generation, felt it an insult to be counted one of them. Elijah and Elisha rose certainly above the level of their order; but the first, whose hands remained pure, while he no doubt produced a great impression at the time by his fearless words, effected nothing against the king, and quite failed to draw the people over to his side: while Elisha, who did effect something, made use of means which could not bear the light, and which attest rather the weakness than the strength of prophecy in Israel. VII.III.4. Let us conclude by summing up the results to which we have been led by our eclectic pilgrimage through the historical books. What in the common view appears to be the specific character of Israelite history, and has chiefly led to its being called sacred history, rests for the most part on a later re-painting of the original picture. The discolouring influences begin early. I do not reckon among these the entrance of mythical elements, such as are not wanting even in the first beginnings to which we can trace the course of the tradition, nor the inevitable local colour, which is quite a different thing from tendency. I think only of that uniform stamp impressed on the tradition by men who regarded history exclusively from the point of view of their own principles. Here we observe first a religious influence, which in the Books of Samuel and Kings turns out to be the prophetical one. The view appears to me erroneous that it is to the prophets that the Hebrew people owe their history as a whole. The song, Judges v., though perhaps the oldest historical monument in the Old Testament, cannot be cited in support of that view, for even if it were actually composed by Deborah, the seer stands in no connection with the prophets. Least of all can the colleges of the B'ne Nebiim at Gilgal and other places be regarded as nurseries of historic tradition: the products which are to be traced to these circles betray a somewhat narrow field of vision (2Kings ii., iv. 1-6, 23). The prophets did not form the tradition at first, but came after, shedding upon it their peculiar light. Their interest in history was not so great that they felt it necessary to write it down; they only infused their own spirit into it subsequently. But the systematic recoining of the tradition was only effected when a firmer stamp had become available than the free ideas of the prophets, the will of God having been formulated in writing. When this point was reached, no one could fail to see the discrepancy between the ideal commencement, which was now sought to be restored as it stood in the book, and the succeeding development. The old books of the people, which spoke in the most innocent way of the most objectionable practices and institutions, had to be thoroughly remodelled according to the Mosaic form, in order to make them valuable, digestible, and edifying, for the new generation. A continuous revision of them was made, not only in the Chronicles, at the beginning of the Greek domination, but, as we have seen in this chapter, even in the Babylonian exile. The style of the latter revision differed from that of the former. In Chronicles the past is remodelled on the basis of the law: transgressions take place now and then, but as exceptions from the rule. In the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the fact of the radical difference of the old practice from the law is not disputed. In these works also the past is in some cases remodelled on the basis of the ideal, but as a rule it is simply condemned. That is one difference; another has to be added which is of far greater importance. In the Chronicles the pattern according to which the history of ancient Israel is represented is the Pentateuch, i.e. the Priestly Code. In the source of Chronicles, in the older historical books, the revision does not proceed upon the basis of the Priestly Code, which indeed is completely unknown to them, but on the basis of Deuteronomy. Thus in the question of the order of sequence of the two great bodies of laws, the history of the tradition leads us to the same conclusion as the history of the cultus. CHAPTER VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH. In the historical books the tradition is developed by means of supplement and revision; double narratives occur here and there, but not great parallel pieces of connected matter side by side. In the Hexateuch additions and supplements have certainly taken place on the most extensive scale, but the significant feature is here that continuous narratives which can and must be understood each by itself are woven together in a double or threefold cord. Critics have shown a disposition, if not in principle yet in fact, to take the independence of these so-called sources of the Hexateuch as if it implied that in point of matter also each is a distinct and independent source. But this is, even _a priori_, very improbable. Even in the case of the prophets who received their word from the Lord the later writer knows and founds upon the earlier one. How much more must this be the case with narrators whose express business is with the tradition? Criticism has not done its work when it has completed the mechanical distribution; it must aim further at bringing the different writings when thus arranged into relation with each other, must seek to render them intelligible as phases of a living process, and thus to make it possible to trace a graduated development of the tradition. The striking agreement of the different works, not only in matter, but in their arrangement of the narratives, makes the office of criticism as now described not less but more necessary. There is no primitive legend, it is well known, so well knit as the biblical one, and thus it is no wonder that it became the frame for many others and infused into them some of its own colour. This connection is common in its main features to all the sources alike. The Priestly Code runs, as to its historical thread, quite parallel to the Jehovist history. This alone made it possible to interfuse the two writings as we now have them in the Pentateuch. That this was not done altogether without violence is less to be wondered at than that the violence which was done is so small, and particularly that the structure of each writing is left almost unimpaired. This can only be explained from the intimate agreement of the two works in point of plan. When the subject treated is not history but legends about pre-historic times, the arrangement of the materials does not come with the materials themselves, but must arise out of the plan of a narrator: even the architecture of the generations, which forms the scaffolding of Genesis, is not inseparably bound up with the matters to be disposed of in it. From the mouth of the people there comes nothing but the detached narratives, which may or may not happen to have some bearing on each other: to weave them together in a connected whole is the work of the poetical or literary artist. Thus the agreement of the sources in the plan of the narrative is not a matter of course, but a matter requiring explanation, and only to be explained on the ground of the literary dependence of one source on the other. The question how this relation of dependence is to be defined is thus a much more pressing one than is commonly assumed. /1/ ***************************************** 1. The agreement extends not only to the thread of the narrative, but also to particulars, and even to expressions. I do not speak of _mabbul_ (flood), or _tebah_ (ark), but the following examples have struck me:-In Q Genesis vi. 9, Noah is said to be _righteous in his generations_, in J E vii. 1 he is _righteous in his generation_-- an unusual form of speech, which gave a vast amount of trouble to the Rabbins and to Jerome. Similarly Q Genesis xvii. 21, _the son whom Sarah shall bear at this set time next year_, and JE xviii. 14: _at the same time I will come to thee again next year, and then Sarah shall have a son_. In the same way Q Exodus vi. 12 vii. 1. (Moses) _I am of uncircumcised lips_. (Jehovah) _See, I make thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet_; compared with JE iv. 10, 16. (Moses) _I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue_; (Jehovah) _Aaron shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God_. Comp. Genesis xxvii. 46, with xxv: 22. ************************************* This, however, is not the place to attempt a history of the development of the Israelite legend. We are only to lay the foundation for such a work, by comparing the narrative of the Priestly Code with the Jehovistic one. In doing so we shall see that Buttmann (Mythologus, i. p. 122 seq.) is right in asserting against de Wette (Beitraege, ii.), that, the Jehovistic form of the legend is the earlier of the two . /2/ **************************************** 2. The line indicated by Buttmann was first taken up again by Th. Noldeke in his Essay on the main-stock of the Pentateuch, which opened the way to a proper estimate of the narrative part of the work. **************************************** VIII.I. VIII.I.1 The Bible begins with the account of the Priestly Code of the creation of the world. In the beginning is chaos; darkness, water, brooding spirit, which engenders life, and fertilises the dead mass. The primal stuff contains in itself all beings, as yet undistinguished: from it proceeds step by step the ordered world; by a process of unmixing, first of all by separating out the great elements. The chaotic primal gloom yields to the contrast of light and darkness; the primal water is separated by the vault of heaven into the heavenly water, out of which there grows the world above the firmament which is withdrawn from our gaze, and the water of the earth: the latter, a slimy mixture, is divided into land and sea, whereupon the land at once puts on its green attire. The elements thus brought into existence, light, heaven, water, land, are then enlivened, pretty much in the order in which they were created, with individual beings; to the light correspond the lamps of the stars, fishes to the water, to the heaven the birds of heaven, and the other creatures to the land. The last act of creation is markedly emphasised. "And God said: Let us make man after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the living creatures of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man after His own image, in the image of God created He him, and He created them male and female. And God blessed them, and said: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the face of the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given unto you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed-fruits: to you it shall be for food: and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given the green herb for meat. Thus the heavens and the earth were made and all the host of them, and on the seventh day God ended His work, and blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." (Genesis i. 1-ii. 4a). It is commonly said that the aim of this narrative is a purely religious one. The Israelite certainly does not deny himself in it: the religious spirit with which it is penetrated even comes at some points into conflict with the nature of its materials. The notion of chaos is that of uncreated matter; here we find the remarkable idea that it is created in the beginning by God. Brooded over by the Spirit, it is further of a nature for development to take place out of it, and the trait that the creation is represented throughout as a separation of elements which in chaos were mixed together, betrays even now the original design: but in the Hebrew narrative the immanent Spirit has yielded to the transcendent God, and the principle of evolution is put aside in favour of the fiat of creation. Yet for all this the aim of the narrator is not mainly a religious one. Had he only meant to say that God made the world out of nothing, and made it good, he could have said so in simpler words, and at the same time more distinctly. There is no doubt that he means to describe the actual course of the genesis of the world, and to be true to nature in doing so; he means to give a cosmogonic theory. Whoever denies this confounds two different things--the value of history for us, and the aim of the writer. While our religious views are or seem to be in conformity with his, we have other ideas about the beginning of the world, because we have other ideas about the world itself, and see in the heavens no vault, in the stars no lamps, nor in the earth the foundation of the universe. But this must not prevent us from recognising what the theoretical aim of the writer of Genesis i. really was. He seeks to deduce things as they are from each other: he asks how they are likely to have issued at first from the primal matter, and the world he has before his eyes in doing this is not a mythical world but the present and ordinary one. The pale colour which generally marks the productions of the earliest reflection about nature, when they are not mythical theories, is characteristic of Genesis i. also. We are indeed accustomed to regard this first leaf of the Bible as surrounded with all the charm that can be derived from the combination of high antiquity and childlike form. lt would be vain to deny the exalted ease and the uniform greatness that give the narrative its character. The beginning especially is incomparable: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness lay upon the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the water. Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light." But chaos being given, all the rest is spun out of it: all that follows is reflection, systematic construction; we can easily follow the calculation from point to point. The considerations are very simple which lead the writer to make first what is great appear, and then what is small; first the foundation and then that which exists upon it, the water before the fishes, heaven before the birds of heaven, land and plants before the animals. The arrangement of the things to be explained stands here for the explanation; there is nothing more than a succession which proceeds from the simple to the complicated; there is no effort of fancy to describe the process more closely; everywhere cautious consideration which shrinks from going beyond generalities. Only the framework of creation, in fact, is given; it is not filled up. Hence also the form of the whole, the effect of which cannot be reproduced in an epitome; the formula gets the better of the contents, and instead of descriptions our ears are filled with logical definitions. The graduated arrangement in separating particular things out of chaos indicates the awakening of a "natural" way of looking at nature, and of a reasoned reflection about natural objects, just as this is manifest in the attempts of Thales and his successors, which are also remarkable as beginnings of the theory of nature and of an objective interest in the things of the outer world, but further than this do not exactly rouse us to enthusiasm. /1/ *********************************************** 1. "There is nothing whatever in the piece that merits the name of invention but the chronological order of the various creations." Buttmann, p. 133. ********************************************** The first sentence of the Jehovistic account of the beginning of the world's history has been cut off by the reviser. [It was all a dry waste] when Jehovah formed the earth, and nowhere did the green herb spring up, for Jehovah had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But a mist (?) went up out of the earth, and watered the face of the ground. And Jehovah formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Then he planted a garden far to the eastward in Eden, in the place where the four chief rivers of the earth part asunder from their common source; there grow among other fine trees the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. In this garden Jehovah placed the man, to dress it and keep it and to eat of all the trees, forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge only. But the man is utterly alone in his garden: he must have company that is suitable for him. So Jehovah first forms the beasts, if perchance the man will associate with them and make friends with them. He brings them to him one after another to see what impression they make on him, and what the man will call them. He calls them by their right names, ox, ass, bear, thus expressing his feeling that he finds in them nothing relate to himself, and Jehovah has to seek other counsel. Then he forms the woman out of a rib of the sleeping man, and causes him to awake. Wearied as it were by all the fruitless experiments with the beasts, the man cries out delighted when he looks at the woman: This surely is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone; she may be called wo-man. Thus the scene is drawn, the persons introduced, and an action secretly prepared: now the tragedy begins, which ends with the expulsion of man from the garden. Seduced by the serpent, man stretches out his hand after the food which is forbidden him, in order to become like God, and eats of the tree of knowledge. The first consequence of this is the beginning of dress, the first step in civilisation; other and sadder consequences soon follow. In the evening the man and his wife hear Jehovah walking in the garden; they hide before Him, and by doing so betray themselves. It is useless to think of denying what has taken place, and as each of them puts the blame on the other, they show themselves one after the other to be guilty. The sentence of the judge concludes the investigation. The serpent is to creep on its belly, to eat dust, and to perish in the unequal contest with man. The woman is to bear many children with sorrow, and to long for the man, who yet will be her tyrant. The principal curse is directed against the man. "Cursed be the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to, thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Sentence being thus spoken, Jehovah prepares the man and woman for their future life by making coats of skins to dress them with. Then turning to His celestial company, "Behold," He says, "the man is become like one of us to know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." With these words he drives man out of Paradise, and places before it the cherubs, and the flaming sword, which turns every way, to keep the way of the tree of Life (Genesis i. 4b-iii. 24). The gloomiest view of life as it now is, lies at the root of this story. Man's days are mere hardship and labour and task-work, a task-work with no prospect of relief, for the only reward of it is that he returns to the earth from which he was taken. No thought appears of any life AFTER death, and life WITHOUT death might have been, but has been forfeited, now the cherub guards the approach to the tree of life, of which man might have eaten when in Paradise but did not. This actual, cheerless lot of man upon the earth is the real problem of the story. It is felt to be the very opposite of our true destiny; at first, things must have been otherwise. Man's lot now is a perversion of what it was at first, it is the punishment of primeval guilt now resting on us all. At first man lived in Paradise; he had a happy existence, and one worthy of his nature, and held familiar intercourse with Jehovah; it was his forbidden striving after the knowledge of good and evil that drove him out of Paradise and brought all his miseries upon him. What is the knowledge of good and evil? The commentators say it is the faculty of moral distinction,--conscience, in fact. They assume accordingly that man was in Paradise morally indifferent, in a state which allowed of no self-conscious action and could not be called either good or evil. A state like this not being an ideal one, some of them consider that man gained more than he lost by the fall, while others admit that it could not be the divine intention to keep him always at this stage of childish irresponsibility, and that this cannot be the view of the narrator either. But it is plain that the narrator is not speaking of a relative prohibition of knowledge, but an absolute one: he means that it is only for God, and that when man stretches out his hand towards it he is transcending his limits and seeking to be as God. On the other side he cannot of course mean to say that conscience is a doubtful blessing, and its possession to be deplored, or that it is a thing that God in fact refuses to men and reserves to Himself alone. The knowledge spoken of cannot be moral knowledge. What could the assertion mean that God would have no one but Himself know the difference between good and evil, and would deny to man this knowledge? One would think that conscience is a thing belonging specifically to man and not to God. And what could be the sense of representing Adam and Eve as so intent to know what was sin and what was virtue? No one is curious about that, and sin never came into existence in the way of ethical experiment, by men's desiring to know what it is. And it is manifestly assumed that men knew in paradise that obedience to Jehovah was good and disobedience evil. And finally, it conflicts with the common tradition of all peoples to represent the first man as a sort of beast; he is regarded as undeveloped only in point of outward culture. The knowledge which is here forbidden is rather knowledge as such, general knowledge, or getting the eyes opened, as it is afterwards called. This is what transcends, in the writer's view, the limits of our nature; prying out the secret of things, the secret of the world, and overlooking, as it were, God's hand to see how He goes to work in His living activity, so as, perhaps, to learn His secret and imitate Him. For knowledge is to the ancient world also power, and no mere metaphysic. This knowing in the highest sense is the attribute of God alone, who stands in the creative centre of things and penetrates and surveys the whole; it is sealed to man, who has to labour and weary himself at little things. And yet the forbidden good has the most powerful attraction for him; he burns to possess it, and instead of resigning himself in trust and reverence he seeks to steal the jewel which is jealously guarded from him, and so to become like God--to his own sorrow. This explanation is not new; it is the old and popular one, for which reason also Goethe adopted it in Faust. One objection certainly may be taken to it; the words are not merely _knowledge_, but _knowledge of good and evil_. But good and evil in Hebrew mean primarily nothing more than salutary and hurtful; the application of the words to virtue and sin is a secondary one, these being regarded as serviceable or hurtful in their effects. Good and evil as spoken of in Genesis ii. iii. point to no contrast of some actions with others according to their moral distinctions: the phrase is only a comprehensive one for things generally, according to the contradictory attributes which constitute their interest to man, as they help or injure him: for, as said, he desires to know not what things are metaphysically, but what is the use of them. /1/ Besides the *************************************** I Sur. 20, 91. Hudh. 22, 10 (Agh. xv. 105, 12). Hamasa, 292, 8 seq. Tabari i. 847, 18 *************************************** lengthier expression we have the shorter one, knowledge, simply (iii. 6); and it must also be remarked that the phrase is not: know the good and the evil, but know good and evil. But more, we must regard this knowledge not as it affects the individual, but in the light of history; what is meant is what we call civilisation. As the human race goes forward in civilisation, it goes backward in the fear of God. The first step in civilisation is clothing; and here this is the first result of the fall. The story is continued in chapter iv. Adam's sons begin to found cities, Jubal is the first musician, Cain discovers the oldest and the most important of the arts, that of the smith-- hence the sword and bloody vengeance. Of the same tendency is the connected story of the city and the tower of Babel, in which is represented the foundation of the great empires and cities of the world, which concentrate human strength and seek to use it to press into heaven itself. In all this we have the steps of man's emancipation; with his growing civilisation grows also his alienation from the highest good; and--this is evidently the idea, though it is not stated--the restless advance never reaches its goal after all; it is a Sisyphus-labour; the tower of Babel, which is incomplete to all eternity, is the proper symbol for it. The strain is that strain of unsatisfied longing which is to be heard among all peoples. On attaining to civilisation they become aware of the value of those blessings which they have sacrificed for it. /1/ *************************************** 1. Dillmann thinks this idea insipid: Genesis (1882), p. 44 ************************************** It was necessary to discuss the notion of knowledge at some length, because the misunderstanding of this point on the part of philosophers and theologians has cast over our story an appearance of modernness, which has, in its turn, done something to influence general opinion as to the age of this story compared with the other. Having got rid of this impression we turn to those features of Genesis ii. iii. which help to determine positively its relation to chapter i. What has been untruly asserted of Genesis i. is true of Genesis ii. iii. The Jehovist narrative does shine by the absence of all efforts after rationalistic explanation, by its contempt for every kind of cosmological speculation. The earth is regarded as being at first not moist and plastic but (as in Job xxxviii. 38) hard and dry: it must rain first in order that the desert may be turned into a green meadow, as is the case still every year when the showers of spring come. The ground further requires cultivation by man that the seed may spring forth. No regard is paid to any natural sequence of the acts of creation: man, the most helpless of all beings, appears first, and finds himself placed on a world entirely bare, without tree or bush, without the animals, without woman. Man is confessedly the exclusive object of interest, the other creatures are accounted for by their importance to him, as if this only conferred on them a right to exist. The idea explains matter: mechanical possibility is never consulted, and we do not think of asking about it. Want of taste could find no lower deeps than when this or that scholar goes from Genesis ii. 21 to count his ribs, or comes to the conclusion that the first man was hermaphrodite. In the first account we stand before the first beginnings of sober reflection about nature, in the second we are on the ground of marvel and myth. Where reflection found its materials we do not think of asking; ordinary contemplation of things could furnish it. But the materials for myth could not be derived from contemplation, at least so far as regards the view of nature which is chiefly before us here; they came from the many-coloured traditions of the old world of Western Asia. Here we are in the enchanted garden of the ideas of genuine antiquity; the fresh early smell of earth meets us on the breeze. The Hebrews breathed the air which surrounded them; the stories they told on the Jordan, of the land of Eden and the fall, were told in the same way on the Euphrates and the Tigris, on the Oxus and the Arius. The true land of the world, where dwells the Deity, is Eden. It was not removed from the earth after the fall; it is there still, else whence the need of cherubs to guard the access to it? The rivers that proceed from it are real rivers, all well known to the narrator, they and the countries they flow through and the products that come from these countries. Three of them, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, are well known to us also; and if we only knew how the narrator conceived their courses to lie, it would be easy to determine the position of their common source and the situation of Paradise. Other peoples of antiquity define the situation of their holy land in a similar manner; the streams have different names, but the thing is the same. The wonderful trees also in the garden of Eden have many analogies even in the Germanic mythology. The belief in the cherubs which guard Paradise is also widely diffused. _Krub_ is perhaps the same name, and certainly represents the same idea, as _Gryp_ in Greek, and _Grei_f in German. We find everywhere these beings wonderfully compounded out of lion, eagle, and man. They are everywhere guardians of the divine and sacred, and then also of gold and of treasures. The ingredients of the story seem certainly to have parted with some of their original colour under the influence of monotheism. The Hebrew people no doubt had something more to tell about the tree of life than now appears. It is said to have been in the midst of the garden, and so it seems to have stood at the point whence the four streams issued, at the fountain of life, which was so important to the faith of the East, and which Alexander marched out to discover. Paradise, moreover, was certainly not planted originally for man, it was the dwelling of the Deity Himself. Traces of this may still be recognised. Jehovah does not descend to it from heaven, but goes out walking in the garden in the evening as if He were at home. The garden of Deity is, however, on the whole somewhat naturalised. A similar weakening down of the mythic element is apparent in the matter of the serpent; it is not seen at once that the serpent is a demon. Yet parting with these foreign elements has made the story no poorer, and it has gained in noble simplicity. The mythic background gives it a tremulous brightness: we feel that we are in the golden age when heaven was still on earth; and yet unintelligible enchantment is avoided, and the limit of a sober chiaroscuro is not transgressed. The story of the creation in six days played, we know, a great part in the earlier stages of cosmological and geological science. It is not by chance that natural science has kept off Genesis ii. iii. There is scarcely any nature there. But poetry has at all times inclined to the story of Paradise. Now we do not require to ask at this time of day, nor to argue the question, whether mythic poetry or sober prose is the earlier stage in the contemplation of the world. Intimately connected with the advanced views of nature, which we find in Genesis i., is the "purified" notion of God found there. The most important point is that a special word is employed, which stands for nothing else than the creative agency of God, and so dissociates it from all analogy with human making and shaping-- a word of such exclusive significance that it cannot be reproduced either in Latin, or in Greek, or in German. In a youthful people such a theological abstraction is unheard of; and so with the Hebrews we find both the word and the notion only coming into use after the Babylonian exile; they appear along with the emphatic statement of the creative omnipotence of Jehovah with reference to nature, which makes its appearance, we may say suddenly, in the literature of the exile, plays a great part in the Book of Job, and frequently presents itself in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. In Genesis ii. iii., not nature but man is the beginning of the world and of history; whether a creation out of nothing is assumed there at all, is a question which only the mutilation of the commencement (before ii. 4b) makes it not quite impossible to answer in the affirmative. At any rate it is not the case here that the command of the Creator sets things in motion at the first so that they develop themselves to separate species out of the universal chaos; Jehovah Himself puts His hand to the work, and this supposes that the world in its main features was already in existence. He plants and waters the garden, He forms man and breathes life into his nostrils, He builds the woman out of the man's rib, having made a previous attempt, which was unsuccessful, to provide him with company; the beasts are living witnesses of the failure of His experiments. In other respects, too, He proceeds like a man. In the evening when it grows cool He goes to walk in the garden, and when there discovers by chance the transgression which has taken place, and holds an investigation in which He makes not the least use of His omniscience. And when He says: "Behold, the man is become like one of us to know good and evil: and now lest he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever," that is not said in irony, any more than when He expresses Himself on the occasion of the building of Babel; "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of their doings, and now nothing will be too difficult for them that they have imagined to do; go to, let us go down and confound their language." That at the same time the majesty of Jehovah is in no way compromised is the mystery of poetic genius. How would the colourless God of abstraction fare in such a situation ? The treatment, finally, of the microcosm in the two accounts, reflects the difference between them. In chapter i. man is directed at the very outset to the ground on which he moves to this day: "Replenish the earth, and subdue it," he is told; a perfectly natural task. In chaps. ii. iii. he is placed in Paradise, and his sphere of activity there, nestled, as he may be said still to be, in the lap of the Deity, is very limited. The circumstances of his life as it now is, the man's toil in the fields, the woman's toil in bearing children, do not answer to his original destiny; they are not a blessing, but a curse. In the Jehovistic narrative man is as wonderful to himself as the external world; in the other he is as much a matter of course as it is. In the one he sees astonishing mysteries in the difference of the sexes, in marriage, in child-birth (iv. 1); in the other these are physiological facts which raise no questions or reflections: "He made them male and female, and said, Be fruitful and multiply." There his attitude towards the beasts is one of mixed familiarity and bewilderment; he does not know exactly what to make of them; they are allied to him and yet not quite suitable society for him; here they are beings not related to him, over which he rules. The chief point in which the difference between the two accounts comes to a head is this. In Genesis ii. iii., man is virtually forbidden to lift the veil of things, and to know the world, represented in the tree of knowledge. In Genesis i. this is the task set him from the beginning; he is to rule over the whole earth, and rule and knowledge come to the same thing--they mean civilisation. There nature is to him a sacred mystery: here it is a mere fact, an object; he is no longer bewildered over against nature, but free and superior. There it is a robbery for man to seek to be equal with God: here God makes him at first in His own image and after His own likeness, and appoints him His representative in the realm of nature. We cannot regard it as fortuitous that in this point Genesis i. asserts the opposite of Genesis ii. iii.; the words spoken with such emphasis, and repeated i. 27, v. 1, ix. 6, sound exactly like a protest against the view underlying Genesis ii. iii., a protest to be explained partly by the growth of moral and religious cultivation, but partly also no doubt due to the convulsive efforts of later Judaism to deny that most firmly established of all the lessons of history, that the sons suffer for the sins of the fathers. /1/ ***************************************** 1. A coarser counterpart to Genesis ii. iii, is Genesis vi. 1-4. Here also there is a kind of fall of man in an attempt to overpass the boundary between the human race and the divine. In the priestly narrative (Q) the gulf between spirit, which is divine substance, and flesh, which is human substance, is bridged over by the doctrine of man's creation in the image of God. ***************************************** What are generally cited as points of superiority in Genesis i. over Genesis ii. iii. are beyond doubt signs of progress in outward culture. The mental individuality of the two writers, the systematiser and the genius, cannot be compared, and the difference in this respect tells nothing of their respective dates; but in its general views of God, nature, and man, Genesis i. stands on a higher, certainly on a later, level. To our way of thinking its views are more intelligible, simpler, more natural, and on this account they have been held to be also older. But this is on the one hand to identify naturalness with originality, two things which every one knows not to be the same, and on the other hand it is applying a standard to prehistoric tradition which applies to historical tradition only: freedom from miracle and myth count in favour of the latter, but not of the former. But the secret root of the manifest preference long shown by historic-critical theology for Genesis i. appears to lie in this, that scholars felt themselves responsible for what the Bible says, and therefore liked it to come as little as possible in conflict with general culture. /1/ ******************************************** 1. I merely assert that Genesis ii. iii. is prior to Genesis i.; I do not believe the story of Paradise and of the Fall to be very old with the Israelites. We are led to think so by the fact that the man and the woman stand at the head of the genealogy of the human race; a place we should rather expect to be assigned to the serpent (according to primitive Semitic belief the serpent was by no means opposed to God). This is the case in the Chronicon Edessenum and in Abyssinian legend, and a trace of this is perhaps preserved in the name of Eve, as Noldeke thinks. The name certainly receives this interpretation in Philo (de agric. Noe, # 21) and in the Midrash Rabba on Genesis iii. 20 (D. M. Z. 1877, p. 239, 326). Moreover, the true seat of God to the Hebrews was Mount Sinai, and the original Hebrew life was the nomadic life of the patriarchs, not gardening or agriculture. And finally we cannot believe barbarians to have indulged in reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of civilisation. The materials of Genesis ii. iii. can hardly have been imported before the time of Solomon. Where they came from we can scarcely guess; it would be most natural to think of the Phoenicians or the Canaanites generally, and this theory is favoured by Genesis iv. But in JE Babel is regarded as the last home of the primitive human race, Eden and Nod having preceded it; and the Hebrews probably derived the legend in the last instance from Babylon. But this does not prove that this or that parallel brought forward by Assyriologists is necessarily of value. ********************************************** VIII.I.2. After the beginning of the world we have in Genesis i.-xi., both in the Priestly Code and in the Jehovist, the transition from Adam to Noah (chapters iv. v.), then the flood (vi.-ix.), then the transition from Noah to Abraham (chapters x. xi.). In the dry names, which are enumerated in Genesis v. and Genesis iv. Buttmann recognised the remains of an historical connection once woven together out of primitive stories. These narratives were evidently mythological: their original contents are destroyed both in Genesis v. (Q) and in Genesis iv. (JE), but only the list of the Jehovist now bears the appearance of a ruin. In the other the fragments have been used for a careful new building in which they no longer look like fragments. Here they are made to serve as the pillars of a chronology which descends from Adam to Moses, computing the period from the one to the other as 2666 years. These 2666 years represent 26 2/3 generations of a hundred years each: namely, 1-20 Adam to Abraham, 21 Isaac, 22 Jacob, 23 Levi, 24 Kohath, 25 Amram, 26 Aaron; the last 2/3 of a generation is Eleazar, who was a man of mature years at the time of the Exodus. /2/ ************************************** 2. So Noldeke in the Jahrbb. fuer protest. Theol., 1875, p. 344. Genesis xv. 13-16 expressly states that the generation is reckoned as 100 years in this period. ************************************** Such a chronology is totally at variance with the simplicity of the legend. /1/ It is also evident, that if even in the case of the ************************************* 1. "Exact chronological dates are a sure sign of later working up of old poetical legends." Buttmann, I. p. 181. ************************************* historical books the systematic chronology is no older than the period of the exile, that of the Pentateuch must be of still later origin. For the historical period there were certain fixed points for chronology to lay hold of; it cannot have begun with the patriarchs and gone on to the kings, it must have begun with the kings and then gone higher up to the patriarchs; it must have begun at the lower end, where alone it had any firm ground to stand on. The belief that the men of the early world lived to a great age is no doubt old, but the settled chronology, based on the years in which each patriarch begat his son, is an artifice in which we manifestly see the doctrinaire treatment of history which was coming into vogue for later periods, attempting to lay hold of the earliest legends as well. Only when the living contents of the legend had completely disappeared could its skeleton be used as a framework of chronology. Buttmann has also shown that the elements of the ten-membered genealogy of Q (Genesis v.) and of the seven-membered of JE (Genesis iv.) are identical. In Q, Noah comes after Lamech at the end, and at the beginning Adam Cain is doubled and becomes Adam Seth Enos Cainan. Adam and Enos being synonymous, this amounts to Adam Seth Adam Cainan: that is to say Adam Seth are prefixed, and the series begins anew with Enos Cainan, just as in JE. The Priestly Code itself offers a remarkable testimony to the superior originality of the Jehovist genealogy, by ascribing to Lamech, here the ninth in order, the age of 777 years. This can only be explained from JE, where Lamech is seventh in order, and moreover specially connects himself with the number seven by his speech. Cain is avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy times seven. Another circumstance shows Q to be posterior to E. The first man is called here not Ha Adam as in JE, but always Adam, without the article (v. 1-5), a difference which Kuenen pertinently compares with that between ho Xristos and Xristos. But in Q itself (Genesis i.) the first man is only the generic man; if in spite of this he is called simply Adam (Genesis v.), as if that were his proper name, the only way to account for this is to suppose a reminiscence of Genesis ii. iii., though here the personification does not as yet extend to the name. We come to the story of the flood, Genesis vi.-ix. In JE the flood is well led up to: in Q we should be inclined to ask in surprise how the earth has come all at once to be so corrupted, after being so far in the best of order, did we not know from JE. In omitting the fall, the fratricide of Cain, the sword-song of Lamech, the intercourse of the sons of God with the daughters of men, and parting with the distinctive gloomy colouring which is unmistakably spread over the whole early history of man in JE, the Priestly Code has entirely lost the preparation for the flood, which now appears in the most abrupt and unaccountable way. As to the contents of the story, the priestly version here agrees to an unusual extent with the Jehovistic one; differing from it chiefly in the artificial, mathematical marking out of the framework. The flood lasts twelve months and ten days, i.e., exactly a solar year. It begins in the six hundredth year of Noah, on the seventeenth of the second month, rises for one hundred and fifty days, and begins to fall on the seventeenth of the seventh month. On the first month the tops of the mountains become visible; in the six hundred and first year, on the first of the first month, the water has abated; on the twenty-seventh of the second month the earth is dry. God Himself gives instructions and measurements for the building of the ark, as for the tabernacle: it is to be three stories high, and divided throughout into small compartments; three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits broad, thirty cubits high; and Noah is to make it accurately according to the cubit. When the water is at its height, on the seventeenth of the second month, the flood is fifteen cubits above the highest mountains--Noah having apparently not forgotten, in spite of his anxiety, to heave the lead and to mark the date in his log-book. This prematurely modern measuring and counting cannot be thought by any one to make the narrative more lifelike; it simply destroys the illusion. All that is idyllic and naive is consistently stripped off the legend as far as possible. As the duration of the flood is advanced from forty days (JE) to a whole year, its area also is immeasurably increased. The Priestly Code states with particular emphasis that it was quite universal, and went over the tops of the highest mountains; indeed it is compelled to take this view by its assumption that the human race was diffused from the first over the whole earth. Such traits as the missions of the birds and the broken-off olive-leaf are passed over: poetic legend is smoothed down into historic prose. But the value and the charm of the story depend on such little traits as these; they are not mere incidents, to poetry they are the most important thing of all. These are the features which are found just in the same way in the Babylonian story of the flood; and if the Jehovist has a much greater affinity with the Babylonian story than the Priestly Code, that shows it to have preserved more faithfully the international character of those early legends. This appears most plainly in his accounting for the flood by the confounding of the boundaries between spirit and flesh, and the intercourse of the sons of God and the daughters of men: the Jehovist here gives us a piece, but little adulterated, of mythical heathenism--a thing quite inconceivable in Q. The Priestly Code has the rainbow, which the Jehovist, as we now have him, wants. But we have to remember that in Genesis vi.-ix. the Jehovist account is mutilated, but the priestly one preserved entire. If the rainbow occurred both in JE and in Q, one of the accounts of it had to be omitted, and according to the editor's usual procedure the omission had to be from JE. It is accordingly very possible that it was not at first wanting in JE; it agrees better, indeed, with the simple rain, which here brings about the flood, than with the opening of the sluices of heaven and the fountains of the deep, which produce it in Q, and it would stand much better after viii. 21, 22 than after ix. 1-7. In the Priestly Code, moreover, the meaning of the rainbow is half obliterated. On the one hand, the story is clumsily turned into history, and we receive the impression either that the rainbow only appeared in the heavens at this one time after the flood, or that it had been there ever since; on the other hand, it is made the token of the covenant between Elohim and Noah, and the use of language in other passages, with the analogy of Genesis xvii., would point to the covenant described in ix. 1-7: the rainbow would then be the counterpart of circumcision. /1/ The covenant, ************************************* 1. The celestial bow is originally the instrument of the arrow-darting God, and therefore a symbol of His hostility; but He lays it out of His hand to signify that He has laid aside His wrath, and it is a token of His reconciliation and favour. When there has been such a storm that one might dread a repetition of the flood, the rainbow appears in heaven, the sun, and grace, breaking forth again. In the 0. T. Q#T has not the meaning of a mere arc, it always means the war-bow. And what is most important of all, the Arabs also always take the iris to be the war-bow of God; Kuzah shoots arrows from his bow, and then hangs it up in the clouds (D. M. Z. 1849, p. 200 seq.). With the Jews and their kin, the rainbow has retained far into Christian times a remarkably near relation to the Deity. It is singular that the Edomites have a God named Kaus, as well as Kuzah. ************************************* i.e., the law of ch. ix. 1-7, a modification of the first ordinance given to Adam (i.229, 30) for the world after the flood which still subsists, is for the Priestly Code the crown, the end, the substance, of the whole narrative. Its interest in the law always completely absorbs the simple interest of its story. We have also to remark that in this source vengeance for the spilling of blood is not the affair of the relatives but the affair of God; and that it is demanded for man as man, whether master or slave, and no money compensation allowed. The words sound simple and solemn: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man." Yet the religious notion of HUMANITY underlying this sentence is not ancient with the Hebrews any more than with other nations; cf. Genesis iv. 15, 24, and Exodus xxi. 20 seq. /1/ ******************************************* 1. De Wette, Beitrage, p. 57. The religious notion of the people is old. ******************************************** The ark lands, according to Q, on Mount Ararat. In JE, as we have it, no landing-place is named. But this is not original, as mythic geography belongs to the Jehovist in all other passages where it occurs. In Q the primitive history is never localised, the whole earth is given to man for a dwelling from the first. In JE, on the contrary, they live first in the land of Eden far to the East, and presumably high up in the North; expelled from Eden they come to the land of Nod, where Cain builds the town of Enoch, and departing from this district, which is still far to the East, they settle in the land of Shinar, at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, where they build the town of Babel. Shinar is the point of departure of that history of the world which is no longer merely mythical, it is the home of the present human race. In this point the contrast is very noticeable between the local definiteness of the Jehovist legend, which lends it the character of the idyllic, and the vague generalness of the other. In Shinar, according to JE, Genesis xi. 1-9, men are still all together, and they desire to remain together there. Not to be scattered, they build a great city, which is to hold them all; and to make themselves a name, they add to it a high tower which is to reach heaven. Jehovah, perceiving in these attempts the danger of further progress in the same direction, comes down to confound their language, and by such violent means brings about the dispersion of the human race by the unity of which He feels himself threatened. In Q it is understood that men are scattered over the whole earth; they are never represented as all living at one point, and pains are accordingly taken to describe the flood as quite universal. The division of the people comes about quite simply in the way of genealogy, and the division of the languages is not the cause but the result of it. Accompanying this we find once more a notable difference in point of mental attitude; what JE regards as unnatural, and only to be understood as a violent perversion of the original order, is in Q the most natural thing in the world. The period between the flood and Abraham is filled up in Q by another ten-membered genealogy, which, to judge from the analogy of Genesis iv., had probably only seven members in JE. It cannot have been wanting there, and may have passed straight from Shem to Heber, and left out the grandfather Nahor (x. 21, 24, xxiv. 15, xxix. 5), who is even less to be distinguished from his grandson of the same name than Adam from Enos. The original dwelling-place of the Terahites is, according to Q, not the Mesopotamian Haran (Carrhae), as in JE (xii. 1, xxiv. 4), but Ur Casdim, which can only mean Ur of the Chaldees. From there Terah, the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran, is said to have emigrated with Abraham and Lot, the son of Haran, who was already dead. If this was so, Nahor must have stayed at Ur Casdim, and Haran must have died there. But neither of these assumptions is consistent with the indications of the narrative. The different aspirates notwithstanding, it is scarcely allowable to separate the man Haran from the town Haran and to make him die elsewhere. It is equally impossible to regard Ur in Chaldaea as the residence of Nahor, whether the grandfather or the grandson of the same name matters nothing; for it is obviously not without relation to real facts that the place, which in any case must be in Syria, where the Nahorides Laban and Rebecca dwell, is called in J the town of Nahor, and in E Haran. Even in Q though Nahor stays in Ur, Laban and Rebecca do not live in Chaldaea, but in Padan Aram, ie., in Mesopotamian Syria. What helps to show that Ur Casdim does not belong to the original form of the tradition, is that even in Serug the father of Nahor, we are far away from Babylon towards the West. Serug is the name of a district which borders Haran on the North; how can the son of Serug all at once leap back to Ur Casdim? What the reasons were for making Babylon Abraham's point of departure, we need not now consider; but after having left Ur Casdim with Terah, it is curious how he only gets as far as Haran, and stays there till his father's death. In Q also it is from Haran that he enters Palestine. Here, if anywhere, we have in the doubling of the point of departure an attempt to harmonise and to gain a connection with JE. VII.I.3. The view is happily gaining ground that, in the mythical universal history of mankind in Genesis i.-xi., the Jehovist version is more primitive than the priestly one. And we are, in fact, compelled to adopt this view when we observe that the materials of the narratives in question have not an Israelite, but a universal ethnic origin. The traces of this origin are much more distinctly preserved in the Jehovist, whence it comes that comparative mythology occupies itself chiefly with his narratives, though without knowing that it is doing so. The primitive legend has certainly undergone alterations in his hands too; its mythic character is much obliterated, and all sorts of Israelite elements have crept in. Even the fratricide of Cain, with the contrast in the background between the peaceful life of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan and the restless wanderings of the Cainites (Kenites) in the neighbouring desert, quite falls out of the universal historical and geographical framework. Still more does the curse of Canaan do so; here the trait is evidently old, that Noah was the first to make wine, but this has been made a merely subordinate feature of a pronouncedly national Israelite narrative. But in the Jehovist the process of emptying the primitive legend of its true meaning and contents has not gone nearly so far as in the Priestly Code, where it actually creates surprise when some mythic element shines through, as in the cases of Enoch, and of the rainbow. The mythic materials of the primitive world-history are suffused in the Jehovist with a peculiar sombre earnestness, a kind of antique philosophy of history, almost bordering on pessimism: as if mankind were groaning under some dreadful weight, the pressure not so much of sin as of creaturehood (vi. 1-4). We notice a shy, timid spirit, which belongs more to heathenism. The rattling of the chains at intervals only aggravates the feeling of confinement that belongs to human nature; the gulf of alienation between man and God is not to be bridged over. Jehovah does not stand high enough, does not feel Himself secure enough, to allow the earth-dwellers to come very near Him; there is almost a suggestion of the notion of the jealousy of the gods. This mood, though in many ways softened, is yet recognisable enough in Genesis ii. iii., in vi. 1-4, and xi. 1-9. In the Priestly Code it has entirely disappeared; here man no longer feels himself under a secret curse, but allied to God and free, as lord of nature. True, the Priestly Code also recognises in its own fashion the power of sin--this we saw in the chapter on sacrifice; but sin as the root of ruin, explaining it and capable of being got rid of, is the very opposite of blind, not-to-be-averted fate. The slavery of sin and the freedom of the children of God are in the Gospel correlated. The mythical mode of view is destroyed by the autonomy of morality; and closely connected with this is the rational way of looking at nature, of which we find the beginnings in the Priestly Code. This view of nature presupposes that man places himself as a person over and outside of nature, which he regards as simply a thing. We may perhaps assert that were it not for this dualism of Judaism, mechanical natural science would not exist. The removal of colour from the myths is the same thing as the process of Hebraising them. The Priestly Code appears to Hebraise less than the Jehovist; it refrains on principle from confounding different times and customs. But in fact it Hebraises much more: it cuts and shapes the whole of the materials so that they may serve as an introduction to the Mosaic legislation. It is true that the Jehovist also placed these ethnic legends at the entrance to his sacred legend, and perhaps selected them with a view to their forming an introduction to it; for they are all ethical and historical in their nature, and bear on the problems of the world of man, and not the world of nature. /1/ ************************************* 1 Yet it is possible the selection presented him with no difficulty, since cosmological myths were not popular tales, but priestly speculations, with which he was quite unacquainted. *************************************** But with the Jehovist justice was yet done to some extent to the individuality of the different narratives: in the Priestly Code their individuality is not only modified to suit the purpose of the whole, but completely destroyed. The connection leading up to the Torah of Moses is everything, the individual pieces have no significance but this. It follows of course from this mode of treatment that the connection itself loses all living reality; it consists, apart from the successive covenants, in mere genealogy and chronology. De Wette thinks all this beautiful because it is symmetrical and intelligible, and leads well up to a conclusion. But this will not be every one's taste; there is such a thing as poetical material without manufacture. How loosely the narratives of the primitive history are connected with each other in the Jehovist we see very clearly in the section dealing with the flood. It disagrees both with what goes before and with what follows it. The genealogy Genesis iv. 16-24 issues not in Noah but in Lamech; instead of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the sons of Noah, we have Jabal, Jubal, Tubal, the sons of Lamech, as the inaugurators of the second period. We have also the characteristic difference, that Shem, Ham, and Japhet give us a division of mankind according to nations, while Jabal, Jubal, Tubal give a division according to guilds, which are necessarily those of the same people, as no people consists entirely of musicians or entirely of smiths. And it is undoubtedly the aim of chapter iv. 16 seq. to describe the origin of the present civilisation, not of that which is extinct, having been destroyed by the flood. Tubal-Cain is the father of the smiths of the present, not of those before the flood; Jubal the father of the musicians, Jabal of the shepherds of the narrator's own period; hence they stand at the end of the genealogy and open the second period. But as Genesis iv. 16-24 does not look forward to the flood, so neither does Genesis xi. 1-9 (the building of the tower of Babel) look back to it. This piece is obviously not the continuation of chapter x. That chapter brought us to a point at which the earth was occupied by different peoples and different tongues; and here (xi. 1) we are suddenly carried back to a time when the whole earth was of one language and one speech. Can this have been the time when Noah's family made up the whole population of the earth? or in other words, does xi. 1-9 go back before chap x. and join on to vi.-ix.? Manifestly not: "the whole earth" (xi. 1) is not merely Shem and Ham and Japhet; the multitude of men who seek by artificial means to concentrate themselves, and are then split up into different peoples, cannot consist of only one family. The point of view is quite different from what it would be if chaps. vi.-ix. were taken into account; the narrator knows nothing of the flood, which left Noah's family alone surviving out of the whole world. Nor would it avail to place xi. 1 at a period so long subsequent to the flood that the family might have increased again to a great people; even this would not give the requisite connection with the idea of Noah and his three sons. If the latter united themselves afterwards in one family, and one coherent people thus grew out of them, which was then split up by a higher power into different languages, then Shem, Ham, and Japhet entirely lose their significance as the great heads of the nations. The fact is simply this, that the whole section of the flood (Genesis vi.-ix.) is an isolated piece without any connection with the rest of the narrative of the Jehovist. Another strange erratic boulder is the intercourse of the sons of God with the daughters of men (Genesis vi. 1-4). /l/ The connection between ************************************* 1 See p. 307, note. ************************************* this piece and the story of the flood which follows it, is of the loosest; and it is in entire disagreement with the preceding part of the Jehovist narrative, as it tells of a second fall of man, with a point of view morally and mentally so different from that of the first, that this story can in no wise be regarded as supplementing or continuing that one. In Genesis vi. 1-4 morality has nothing to do with the guilt that is incurred. We have further examples which illustrate the fragmentary character of the Jehovist primitive history as we have it, in the story of the fratricide of Cain, and the curse of Canaan, which indeed ought not to be here at all, but belong by rights to the history of the patriarchs. We may close this section by reproducing the words in which Buttmann (i. 208 seq.) indicates his disagreement with De Wette in regard to the treatment of the early legends of the Bible: they are well worth noting. "Thoroughly familiar with the antiquities of the race in whose sacred writings these monuments have been preserved to us, De Wette recognises and follows the national spirit of that race in their most ancient records. In this way he discovers amidst these ruins the thread of an old connection, a kind of epos, the theme of which was the glorification of the people of Israel, a theme which finds a prelude even in the primitive history of the human race. This view is of the first importance for the object he has before him, which is the true criticism of these books; and for the moment other considerations must necessarily yield to it. My object in this whole investigation is only to find the universal element in the legends of different nations, and especially to discover what is common property in the myths of the different branches of the great family of nations to which the Hebrews and the Greeks and we ourselves alike belong. Thus each myth reveals itself to me as existing for itself, having a basis and completeness of its own, and even when I find it in other nations I at once assert for it its character as already known to me. Thus De Wette and I come to differ in the view we take of individual myths. To him they commonly appear as spontaneous free inventions of individual men for their own purposes; not in the ignoble sense in which the vulgar view speaks of the religious narratives of ancient peoples, but free inventions in which there is no intention to deceive. I, on the contrary, can allow no invention in these oldest portions of mythology. A true myth is never invented; it is handed down. It is not true, but it is honest. From small elements which fancy offered as true, these myths arose and grew, without any contributor to their growth feeling that he had of himself added to them. Those only had any conscious intention in the matter, who touched up the oldest pure myths, and drew them into the great circle of their national history; and their intention, though conscious, was quite innocent and harmless, as De Wette describes it. Now De Wette sees the chief traces of that unity, or of that national epos which winds its way through the Mosaic history, in the Elohim document. For his critical purpose, therefore, this document is the most important, and it he for the most part follows. My aim forbids me to attend to anything but the inner completeness of the stories taken one by one, and this I see most clearly in the Jehovah fragments; whence I have had to yield the preference to them in the foregoing discussions. Should each of us attain his end, our views will excellently supplement each other." We may add that just that linked unity of its narrative, which has procured for the Priestly Code the title of the "mainstock," shows that it presents us with a more developed form of the myths; while the Jehovist, just because of the defective connection (in form) of his "fragments," which long caused him to be regarded as a mere filler-up of the fundamental work, must be judged to stand nearer to the fountain. VIII.II. VIII.II.1. In the history of the patriarchs also, the outlines of the narrative are the same in Q and in JE. We find in both Abraham's immigration into Canaan with Sarah and Lot, his separation from Lot, the birth of Ishmael by Hagar, the appearance of God for the promise of Isaac, Isaac's birth, the death of Sarah and Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac's marriage with Rebecca, Jacob and Esau, Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia and the foundation of his family there, his return, Esau, Joseph in Egypt, Jacob in Egypt, Jacob's blessing on Joseph and his other sons, his death and burial. The materials here are not mythical but national, and therefore more transparent, and in a certain sense more historical. It is true, we attain to no historical knowledge of the patriarchs, but only of the time when the stories about them arose in the Israelite people; this later age is here unconsciously projected, in its inner and its outward features, into hoar antiquity, and is reflected there like a glorified mirage. The skeleton of the patriarchal history consists, it is well known, of ethnographic genealogy. The Leah-tribes are connected with the Rachel-tribes under the common father Jacob-Israel: then entire Israel is connected with the people of Edom under the old name of Isaac (Amos vii 9, 16). Isaac again is connected under Abraham with Lot, the father of Moab and Ammon. All these nearly related and once closely allied Hebrew tribes are shown to be intimately connected with the inhabitants of the Mesopotamian desert, and sharply marked off from the Canaanites, in whose land they dwelt. The narrative speaks of its characters as succeeding each other in time or contemporary; in this form it indicates logical or statistical subordination and co-ordination. As a fact the elements are generally older than the groups and the smaller groups than the greater. The migrations which are mentioned of peoples and tribes are necessary consequences of the assumed relationship. It would be quite possible to present the composition and relative position of any given people at a given time in a similar way in the form of a genealogical early history. True genealogy can scarcely represent precisely the existing relations. It cannot always be determined as a matter of fact whether a tribe is the cousin or the brother or the twin-brother of another tribe, or whether there is any affinity at all between the two; the affinity can be understood and interpreted in different ways, the grouping always depends to some extent on the point of view of the genealogist, or even on his likings and antipathies. The reason why the Arameans are made so nearly related to the Israelites is probably that the patriarchal legend arose in Middle and North Israel; as indeed the pronounced preference shown for Rachel and Joseph clearly proves to have been the case. Did the legend belong originally to Judah, it is likely that more prominence would be given to the Cainite (Kenite) tribes of the peninsula of Sinai, which, as it is, are too much thrust into the background; for there can be no doubt that in the earliest history of Israel these tribes were of no small importance. Nor are apparent contradictions wanting in the ethnographic genealogy. Ishmael, Edom, and the Cainite tribes first mentioned, come into mutual contact in different ways, which may be quite naturally explained from different views and arrangements of their mutual relationships. And lastly we may add that the genealogical form lends itself to the reception of every sort of materials. In the patriarchal legend, however, the ethnographic element is always predominant. Abraham alone is certainly not the name of a people like Isaac and Lot: he is somewhat difficult to interpret. That is not to say that in such a connection as this we may regard him as a historical person; he might with more likelihood be regarded as a free creation of unconscious art. He is perhaps the youngest figure in the company, and it was probably at a comparatively late period that he was put before his son Isaac. /1/ ****************************************** 1. The stories about Abraham and those about Isaac are so similar, that they cannot possibly be held to be independent of each other. The stories about Isaac, however, are more original, as may be seen in a striking way on comparing Genesis xx. 2-16 with xxvi 6-12. The short nnd profane version, of which Isaac is the hero, is more lively and pointed; the long and edifying version in which Abraham replaces Isaac, makes the danger not possible but actual, thus necessitating the intervention of the Deity and so bringing about a glorification of the patriarch, which he little deserved. All the commentators on Genesis indeed, regard chapter xx. as the original of xxvi.; they do not base their judgment, however, on a comparison of the parallel passages, but merely consider that as the father is older than the son, the story about the father is older than the corresponding story about the son; and they regard Isaac generally as a mere echo of Abraham. The obviousness of this principle is too great, and against it we have to consider that the later development of the legend shows a manifest tendency to make Abraham the patriarch par excellence and cast the others into the shade. In the earlier literature, on the other hand, Isaac is mentioned even by Amos, Abraham first appears in Isaiah xl.-lxvii. Micah vii 20 belongs to the exile, and the words "who redeemed Abraham" in Isaiah xxix. 22 are not genuine; they have no possible position in the sentence, and the idea of the salvation of Abraham (from the fire of the Chaldaeans) is of late occurrence. I certainly do not mean to maintain that Abraham was not yet known when Amos wrote; but he scarcely stood by this time at the same stage as Isaac and Jacob. As a saint of Hebron he might he of Calibite ordain, and have something to do with Ram (1Chronicles ii.). Abram may stand for Abiram, as Abner for Abiner and Ahab for Ahiab. The name Abu Ruham occurs in the Hadith as _nomen proprium viri_. ************************************* In the Jehovist this skeleton of ethnographic genealogy is found covered throughout with flesh and blood. The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are not mere names, but living forms, ideal prototypes of the true Israelite. They are all peace-loving shepherds, inclined to live quietly beside their tents, anxious to steer clear of strife and clamour, in no circumstances prepared to meet force with force and oppose injustice with the sword. Brave and manly they are not, but they are good fathers of families, a little under the dominion of their wives, who are endowed with more temper. They serve Jehovah in essentially the same way as their descendants in historical times; religion with them does not consist of sacrifice alone, but also of an upright conversation and trustful resignation to God's providence. Jacob is sketched with a more realistic touch than the other two; he has a strong dash of artifice and desire of gain, qualities which do not fail to secure the ends he aims at. He escapes from every difficulty and danger, not only safely but with profit: Jehovah helps him, but above all he helps himself, without showing, as we should judge, any great scruple in his choice of means. The stories about him do not pretend to be moral, the feeling they betray is in fact that of undissembled joy in all the successful artifices and tricks of the patriarchal rogue. Of the subordinate figures Esau is drawn with some liking for him, then Laban, and the weak-kneed saint, Lot. Ishmael is drawn as the prototype of the Bedouin, as a wild ass of a man, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against him. It is remarkable that the heroes of Israelite legend show so little taste for war, and in this point they seem to be scarcely a true reflection of the character of the Israelites as known from their history. Yet it is not difficult to understand that a people which found itself incessantly driven into war, not only dreamed of an eternal peace in the future, but also embodied the wishes of its heart in these peaceful forms of the golden age in the past. We have also to consider that the peaceful shepherd life of the patriarchs is necessary to the idyllic form in which the early history of the people is cast; only peoples or tribes can make war, not single men. /1/ This also must serve to explain why ******************************************* 1. This consideration is certainly less decisive than the foregoing one. Jacob is a peaceful shepherd, not only because of the idyllic form of the narrative, but in his own being and character. He forms the strongest contrast to his brother Esau, who in spite of the idyllic form is a man of war. Such exceptions as Genesis xiv. and xlviii.'22 (chapter xxxiv.) only prove the rule. ******************************************* the historical self-consciousness of the nation finds so little expression in the personal character of the patriarchs. It makes vent for itself only in the inserted prophecies of the future; in these we trace that national pride which was the fruit of the exploits of David, yet always in a glorified form, rising to religious exaltation. In the traits of personal character ascribed to the patriarchs they represent substantially the nature and the aspirations of the individual Israelite. The historic-political relations of Israel are reflected with more life in the relations borne by the patriarchs to their brothers; cousins, and other relatives. The background is never long concealed here, the temper of the period of the kings is everywhere discernible. This is the case most clearly perhaps in the story about Jacob and Esau. The twins are at variance, even in the womb; even in the matter of his birth the younger refuses precedence to the elder, and tries to hold him back by the heel. This is interpreted to the anxious mother by the oracle at Beersheba as follows: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples are separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." The boys grow up very different. Esau is a rough and sunburnt hunter, ranges about in the desert, and lives from day to day without care: Jacob, a pious, smooth man, stays at home beside the tents, and understands the value of things which his unsophisticated brother disregards. The former is the favourite of his father, the autochthonous Isaac, the latter is preferred by the mother, the Aramaean Rebecca; the former stays in his own land and takes his wives from the original population of south Canaan and the Sinaitic peninsula, the latter emigrates, and brings his wives from Mesopotamia. Thus the contrast is distinctly prefigured, which at a later time appeared, between the rough Edom, sprung from the soil and having his roots in it, and smoother, more civilised Israel, which had more affinity with the great powers of the world. By means of deceit and trickery the younger brother succeeds in depriving the elder of the paternal blessing and of the right of the first-born; the elder, in consequence of this, determines to kill him, and the situation becomes strained. Edom was a people and a kingdom before Israel, but was then overshadowed by Israel, and even subjugated at last by David: hence the fierce hatred between the brother nations, of which Amos speaks. The words of the blessing of Jacob show this quite distinctly to be the historical basis of the legend, a basis of which the Jews were perfectly conscious: we hear in the blessing of repeated attempts of the Edomites to cast off the yoke of Israel, and it is predicted that these efforts will be at last successful. Thus the stories about Jacob and Esau cannot have taken form even in outline, before the time of David; in their present form (Genesis xxvii. 40) their outlook extends to times still later. The roots of the legend being thus traceable in later history, a circumstance which the Jehovist does not attempt to conceal, it is no more than an apparent anachronism when he takes occasion to give a complete list of the Edomite kings down to David, interspersing it with historical notes, as, for example, that Hadad ben Bedad (possibly a contemporary of Gideon) defeated the Midianites on the plains of Moab. In the story of Jacob and Laban, again, the contemporary background shines through the patriarchal history very distinctly. The Hebrew, on his half-migration, half-flight from Mesopotamia to the land of Jordan, is hotly pursued by his Aramean father-in-law, who overtakes him at Gilead. There they treat with each other and pile up a heap of stones, which is to be the boundary between them, and which they mutually pledge themselves not to overstep with hostile intentions. This answers to the actual state of the facts. The Hebrew migration into Canaan was followed by the Aramaean, which threatened to overwhelm it. Gilead was the boundary between the two peoples, and the arena, during a long period, of fierce conflicts which they waged with each other. The blessing of Jacob, in the oracle on Joseph, also mentions the Syrian wars: the archers who press Joseph hard, but are not able to overcome him, can be no other than the Arameans of Damascus, to whose attacks he was exposed for a whole century. Joseph here appears always as the pillar of the North-Israelite monarchy, the wearer of the crown among his brethren, a position for which he was marked out by his early dreams. The story of Joseph, however, in so far as historical elements can be traced in it at all, and not merely the free work of poetry, is based on much earlier events, from a time when the union was just being accomplished of the two sections which together became the people of Israel. The trait of his brother's jealousy of him points perhaps to later events. /1/ ****************************************** 1. It deserves to be considered that at first Joseph is in Egypt alone, and that his brothers came after, at his request. When the notion of united Israel was transferred to the distant past, one consequence was that the fortunes of the part could not be separated from those of the whole. In the same way, Rachel being an Aramaean, Leah must be one too. Perhaps the combination of Rachel and Leah in a national unity was only accomplished by Moses. Moses came from the peninsula of Sinai (Leah) to lead the Israelites there from Goshen (Joseph). The designation of Levite he could not receive in Joseph, only in Leah. ******************************************* The historical associations which form the groundwork of the stories of the other sons of Jacob are also comparatively old. They afford us almost the only information we possess about the great change which must have taken place in the league of the tribes soon after Moses. This change principally affected the group of the four old Leah tribes which were closely connected with each other. Reuben assumes the rights of his father prematurely and loses the leadership. Simeon and Levi make, apart from the others, a faithless attack on the Canaanites, and collective Israel lets them suffer the consequences alone, so that they succumb to the vengeance of their enemies and cease to be tribes. Hence the primogeniture is transferred to Judah. Judah also suffers great losses, no doubt in the conflict which accompanied the settlement in the land of Canaan, and is reduced to a fraction of his former importance. But this breach is made good by fresh accessions from the mother-stock of the Leah tribes, by the union of Pharez and Zarah, i.e. of Caleb, Kenaz, Cain (Ken), Jerahmeel, with the remnant of ancient Judah. The Jehovist narratives about Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, are undoubtedly based on occurrences connected with the period of the conquest of the holy land; but this is not the place to trace the historical interpretation of the stories further. /1/ **************************************** 1. See "Israel," sec. 2, infra. Genesis iv. 1-15 is a similar tribal history. The old tribe of Cain, the name of which is indicative of settlement and culture, appears to have been broken up and scattered to the four winds in very early times (Judges v. 24) in the same way as Levi, with which it appears to have divided the priesthood. We have already said that Genesis iv. 1-l5 can only have found its way into the primitive legend by interpolation. **************************************** It may, however, be remarked, and it is important to do so, that even where true historic motives are indisputably present in the patriarchal legend, it is not exactly a reproduction of the facts as they occurred. In reality Edom always kept up his hatred against Israel and suppressed his feeling of relationship (Amos i. 11); in Genesis he meets his brother returning from Mesopotamia, and trembling with anxiety at the encounter, in a conciliatory temper which is quite affecting. The touch is one to reflect no small honour on the ancient Israelite. To set against this we have the touch, manifestly inspired by hatred, of Genesis xix. 30-38. No one can fail to wonder why the daughters of Lot are nameless, but this shows that they are inserted between Lot and his sons Moab and Ammon purely for the sake of the incest. Sympathies and antipathies are everywhere at work, and the standpoint is throughout that of Northern Israel, as appears most evidently from the circumstance that Rachel is the fair and the beloved wife of Jacob, whom alone in fact he wished to marry, and Leah the ugly and despised one who was imposed on him by a trick. /2. On the whole, the rivalries *************************************** 2 This, however, only warrants us to conclude that these legends first arose in Ephraim, not that they were written down there in the form in which we have them. *************************************** which really existed are rather softened than exaggerated in this poetical illustration of them; what tends to unity is more prominent and is more carefully treated than what tends to separation. There is no trace of any side glances at persons and events of the day, as, e.g., at the unseemly occurrences at the court of David, and as little of any twisting or otherwise doctoring the materials to make them advance this or that tendency. But these stories would be without point were it not for other elements which enter into them and attach them to this and that particular locality. In this aspect we have first of all to consider that the patriarchs are regarded as the founders of the popular worship at Shechem, Bethel, Beersheba, and Hebron, as we saw above, <I.II.1. "In perfect correspondence...">. A whole series of stories about them are cultus-myths; in these they discover by means of a theophany that a certain spot of earth is holy ground; there they erect an altar, and give it the name of the place. They dwell exclusively at places which were afterwards regarded as primeval sanctuaries and inaugurate the sacrifices which are offered there. The significance of these stories is entirely bound up with the locality; they possess an interest only for those who still sacrifice to Jehovah on the same altar as Abraham once did, under the same sacred oak of Moreh or Mamre. In the same way the patriarchs discover or excavate the caves, or springs, or wells, and plant the trees, which their posterity still count sacred or at least honourable, after the lapse of thousands of years. In some cases also striking or significant formations of the earth's surface receive a legendary explanation from the patriarchal age. Were the Dead Sea not there, Sodom and Gomorrha would not have perished; were there not a small flat tongue of land projecting into the marsh from the south-east, Lot would have directed his flight straight to the mountains of his sons Moab and Ammon, and would not have made the detour by Zoar, which only serves to explain why this corner was not included in the ruin to the area of which it properly belongs. The pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned was still pointed out in the days of Josephus; perhaps the smoke of the furnace which Abraham saw from the Jewish shore the morning after the catastrophe has some connection with the town of the same name which was situated there. /1/ ****************************************** 1 Joshua HNB#N xv. 62 is no doubt more correctly HKB#N: the name, having the article prefixed to it, must be susceptible of a clear meaning. ***************************************** The origin of Mount Gilead is explained from its historical significance: it is an immense mound which was once heaped up by Laban and Jacob in order to serve as a boundary between Aram and Israel. In many instances the names of places gave rise to a legend which does not always hit upon the true reason of the name. The spring of Lahai Roi, for example, is an instance of this. The discovery of this spring saved Hagar and Ishmael from dying of thirst. Hagar called the name of Jehovah who spoke with her, El Roi (God of Seeing), for she said, "Have I seen God, and am I kept in life after my seeing?" Wherefore the well is called Beer Lahai Roi (he lives who sees me); it is between Kadesh and Berdan. According to Judges xv. 18-20, 2Samuel xxiii. 11, a more correct interpretation of Lahai Roi would be " jawbone of the antelope "--this being the appearance presented by a series of rocky teeth standing close together there. /1/ ************************************ 1 Compare Onugnathos and the camel's jawbone in Vakidi, op. cit. p. 298, note 2: Jakut iv. 353, 9 seq. R)Y is an obsolete name of an animal. For HLM, Genesis xvi. 15, we should read )LHYM (cf. 1Samuel iii. 13), and before )XRY we should probably insert W)XY. ************************************ The original motive of the legend, however, as we have now indicated it, appears in the Jehovist always and everywhere covered over with the many-coloured robe of fancy. The longer a story was spread by oral tradition among the people, the more was its root concealed by the shoots springing from it. For example, we may assume with regard to the story of Joseph that, just because it has almost grown into a romance, its origin stretches back to a remote antiquity. The popular fancy plays as it will; yet it does not make such leaps as to make it impossible to trace its course. Miracles, angels, theophanies, dreams, are never absent from the palette. When Rachel eats the mandrakes which Reuben had found, and which Leah had given up to her, and they remove her barrenness so that she becomes the mother of Joseph, we have a story based on a vulgar superstition. Purely mythical elements are found isolated in the story of Jacob's wrestling with the Deity at the ford of the Jabbok. Etymology and proverbs are a favourite motive, and often give rise to lively and diversified tales. Even in pieces which we should be inclined to attribute to the art of individuals, old and characteristic themes may be involved. The story of Jacob and Laban, for example, is entirely composed of such materials. The courtship at the well is twice repeated with no great variation. The trait of the father-in-law's wish to get his oldest daughter first off his hands and craftily bringing her to the son-in-law after the wedding-feast, is scarcely due to the invention of an individual. The shepherd's tricks, by which Jacob colours the sheep as he likes, have quite the flavour of a popular jest. The observance of hospitality or transgressions against it, occupy a prominent place in the Genesis of the Jehovist; Lot's entertainment, and the Sodomites' insulting maltreatment, of the Deity who comes among them in disguise, is an incident that appears in the legends of many races. There is little psychological embellishment, little actual making-up; for the most part we have the product of a countless number of narrators, unconsciously modifying each other's work. How plastic and living the materials must have been even in the ninth and eighth century, we see from the manifold variants and repetitions of the same stories, which, however, scarcely change the essential character of the themes. One more trait must be added to the character of the Jehovist. Each of his narratives may be understood by itself apart from the rest; the genealogy serves merely to string them together; their interest and significance is not derived from the connection in which they stand. Many of them have a local colour which bespeaks a local origin; and how many of them are in substance inconsistent with each other, and stand side by side only by compulsion! The whole literary character and loose connection of the Jehovist story of the patriarchs reveals how gradually its different elements were brought together, and how little they have coalesced to a unity. In this point the patriarchal history of the Jehovist, stands quite on the same footing with his legend of the origins of the human race, the nature of which we have already demonstrated. VIII.II.2. It is from the Jehovistic form of the legends that we derive our picture of the patriarchs, that picture which children learn at school and which they find it easy to retain. To compare the parallel of the Priestly Code it is necessary to restore it as a whole, for few are aware of the impression it produces. "And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came (xii. 4b, 5). And the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their substance was great so that they could not dwell together. And they separated themselves the one from the other; Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the Kikkar. /1/ ******************************************* 1. Where the Dead Sea was afterwards. ****************************************** And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the Kikkar, that God remembered Abram, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow-, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt... (xiii. 6, 11b, 12ab, xix. 29). And Sarai was barren: she had no child. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And Hagar bare Abram a son; and Abram called his son's name which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram" (xi. 30, xvi. 3, 15, 16) Then follows the covenant of God with Abram, whose name he now changes to Abraham, and the institution of circumcision as the mark of those who belong to the covenant; then the announcement of the birth of Isaac by Sarai, now ninety years old, who is henceforth to be called Sarah, and Isaac's nomination as heir of the covenant in place of Ishmael (chapter xvii.). "And Sarah bore Abraham a son at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, after eight days, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old when Isaac his son was born unto him (xxi. 2-5). And the life of Sarah was an hundred and twenty seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-Arba, the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan" (xxiii. 1, 2). Then comes the treaty of Abraham, reported with all due legal accuracy, with Ephron the Hittite, from whom he purchases the cave of Machpelah, which is over against Mamre, for a family burying-place (xxiii.). "And these are the days of the years of Abraham's life which he lived, a hundred and seventy five years. And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years; and was gathered to his fellow tribesmen. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron ben Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; the field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth; there was Abraham buried and Sarah his wife. And after Abraham was dead, God blessed his son Isaac" (xxv. 7-11a). Next come the Toledoth (generations) of Ishmael according to the regular practice of first exhausting the collaterals (xxv. 12-17). "These are the Toledoth of Isaac the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac...and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan Aram, the sister to Laban the Syrian....And Isaac was 60 years old when Esau and Jacob were born (xxv. 19, 20, 26c). And Esau was 40 years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah. And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob also take such wives of the daughters of Heth, of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do to me? Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; arise, go to Padan-Aram to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. And El Shaddai will bless thee, and make thee fruitful and multiply thee, and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Padan-Aram unto Laban ben Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebecca, Jacob and Esau's mother. And Esau saw that Isaac blessed Jacob, and sent him to Padan-Aram to take him a wife from thence, and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Now Jacob hearkened to his father, and went to Padan-Aram. But Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the sister of Nebaioth to be his wife (xxvi. 34 seq., xxvii. 46, xxviii. 1-9). And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for her handmaid. And he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid (xxix.24, 28b, 29). And the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid: Gad and Asher; these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-Aram (xxxv. 23-26)....[and Jacob took] all his goods which he had gotten, the gear of his property which he had gotten in Padan-Aram, to go home to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan (xxx). 18). And God appeared unto Jacob when he was coming home from Padan-Aram, and blessed him; and God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And God said unto him; I am El Shaddai; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him Bethel (xxxv. 9-13, 15). And they departed from Bethel; and when there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath, Rachel died, and was buried there in the way to Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem (xxxv. 16a, 19, cf. xlviii. 7, xlix. 3I). And Jacob came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre, unto Kirjath-Arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac dwelt as strangers. And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years. And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him" (xxxv. 27-29.) Then follow the generations of Esau in chapter xxxvi. /1/ *********************************** 1. Only part of this chapter, however, belongs to the Priestly Code. *********************************** "And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the souls of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the land of Seir from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together, and the land of their sojourn could not bear them because of their cattle. And Esau dwelt in Mount Seir; Esau is Edom. And Jacob dwelt in the land of the sojourn of his father, in the land of Canaan (xxxvi. 6-8, xxxvii. 1). These are the Toledoth of Jacob...(xxxxvii. 2). And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him, his sons, and his sons' sons, and all his seed, brought he with him into Egypt" (xlvi. 6, 7). Then follows the enumeration of the seventy souls of which his seed was then composed. "And Jacob and his sons came to Egypt to Joseph; and Pharaoh the king of Egypt heard it. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many are the days of the years of thy life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded (xlvii. 5b, 6, LXX, xlvii. 7-11). And they settled there, and grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and the whole age of Jacob was 7 years and 140 years (xlvii. 27b, 28)....And Jacob said unto Joseph, El Shaddai appeared unto me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. And now thy two sons which were born unto thee in Egypt, before I came unto thee in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon. And the issue which thou begettest after them shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. And when I came from Padan, Rachel died to me in the land of Canaan, in the way, when there was but a little way to come into Ephrath, and I buried her there, in the way to Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem (xlviii. 3-7, and v. 7, cf. xlix. 31)...[and his other sons also] he blessed; and he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which field Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite, for a hereditary burying-place-there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah--the possession of the field and of the cave that is therein from the children of Heth. And Jacob made an end of commanding his sons, and he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his fellow-tribesmen (xlix. 28b-33). And his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought for a hereditary burying-place from Ephron the Hittite, over against Mamre (l. 12, 13). And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt, with Jacob they came, every one with his house; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher. And all the souls that came out of Jacob's loins were seventy souls; and Joseph was in Egypt. And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and the land was filled with them, and the Egyptians made the children of Israel their servants with rigour, in all their work which they wrought by them with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage (Exodus i. 1-7, 13, 14). And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage; and they cried, and their cry because of the bondage came up unto God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God took notice (ii. 23-25). And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah. I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them; and I made a covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, that the Egyptians keep them in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant" (vi. 2 seq.). That is the whole of it. As a rule nothing more is aimed at than to give the mere links and articulations of the narrative. It is as if Q were the scarlet thread on which the pearls of JE are hung. In place of the somewhat loose connections of the Jehovist, the narrative of the Priestly Code shows a firmly jointed literary form; one remarkable feature of which is to be seen in the regular titles which stand at the head of the various sections. Each section begins with the words )LH TWLDWT (_hae sunt generationes_), from which Genesis derives its name. /l/ **************************************** 1 *)AUTH (H BIBLOS GENESEWS ii. 4 LXX. Hence Ewald's name for the Priestly Code, which is very appropriate for Genesis, or perhaps generally for the book of the four covenants--the Book of Origins. ***************************************** In the rest of the historical literature of the Old Testament nothing like this as yet appears. It is also characteristic that whenever the title occurs, introducing a new, section, the contents of the preceding section are first of all briefly recapitulated so as to show the place of the link upon the chain. The Priestly Code enters as little as possible on the contents of the various narratives. The predicates are stripped off, so far as they admit of such treatment, and the subjects duly entered in a catalogue with connecting text. In this way the history almost shrinks to the compass of a genealogy with explanations-- the genealogy at least forms the principal contents of the history, and here appears in such proportions and such systematic fashion as nowhere else. This has been regarded as a proof that Q belongs to an older stage of development of Hebrew historiography than JE. There can be no doubt, it is said, /1/ that the oldest Hebrew, *************************************** I Riehm, "die s.g. Grundschrift des Pentateuchs" in Studien und Kritiken, 1872, p. 296. *************************************** or indeed Oriental, history began with the historical notices and traditions inserted in the tribal or family catalogues. Yet we know positively that in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, there are no genealogical statistics at all, while Chronicles, and what belongs to Chronicles, is full of them. We know also that songs such as those in Josh. x. 12, 13; Jud. v.; 2Samuel i. 19 seq., iii. 33 seq. are the oldest historical monuments, and that a number of them are found in JE and not a single one in Q. Herder's theory of the development of history out of genealogy will not apply here, /2/ but indeed what we have *********************************** 2 Nor in the case of the Arabs, as has been well shown by Sprenger against Caussin de Perceval (Essai, preface, p. ix.). *********************************** to do with here is not history proper at all, but folklore. It is true that with the Jehovist also the genealogy underlies the narrative as its skeleton. It is the natural chain to link the different stories together, and even at a time when the latter were still separate and only circulated orally, the genealogy was not unknown to the people. When stories were told of Isaac and Ishmael, and Lot and Esau, every one knew at once who these personages were, and how they were related to Israel and to one another. But this was merely the presupposition of the narratives, known as a matter of course to the hearers; the interesting element in them consisted in those traits which the Priestly Code omits. Stories of this kind compel attention because they set forth the peculiarities of different peoples as historically and really related to each other, not according to an empty embryological relation. It is the temper displayed by different races, not the stem of their relationship, that makes the point of the stories; their charm and their very life depend on their being transparent and reflecting the historic attitude of the time which gave them birth. The clearer the traces they display of love and hatred, jealousy of rivals and joy in their fall, the nearer are we to the forces which originated the tradition about early times. In the Priestly Code all those stories are absent in which there is anything morally objectionable,-- those for example in which the cowardice of the patriarchs endangers the honour of their wives, those of Sarah's cruel jealousy of Hagar, and of the unlovely contention of Leah and Rachel for husband and children, of the incest of Lot's daughters, of the violation of Dinah. All hatred, and strife, and deceit in the patriarchal family disappear: Lot and Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, agree to separate: of the tricks of Laban and Jacob to each other, of the treachery of Simeon and Levi to Shechem, of the enmity Joseph's brethren bore to him, there is not a word in the Priestly Code. It is not merely that "psychological decorations," as they have been called, are left out; the very heart of the business has been cut out. That Moab and Ammon, Ishmael and Edom, were Hebrew peoples, all more nearly or more distantly related to the Israelites, that the Aramaeans too were closely connected with the Hebrews by blood and by marriage, that this tribe lives in one district contiguous to Palestine, that in another--this is what the Priestly Code has to tell. Dry ethnographical and geographical facts like these are presented in a genealogical form; all we learn of the patriarchs is their marriages and births and how they separated to the various dwelling-places of their descendants. And folklore could not possibly be directed to such facts as these at a period when these relations were all matters of fact and familiar to every child. The Priestly Code, moreover, strips the legends of the patriarchs of their local as well as their historical colour; they are kept at a distance from all the places of the sacredness of which the Jehovist makes them the founders. /1/ ********************************************** 1. Hupteld gives a curious turn to this, saying that in the Priestly Code Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have much more permanent settlements. But it is this work that insists so often on the fact that the patriarchs were pilgrims and had nowhere a fixed residence: it only says that Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan, and names no particular place even as the scene of the theophany in chapter xvii. It is only when the question of burying Sarah and Abraham arises that there is a change. Something must be done, and the field of Machpelah near Hebron is acquired (no doubt JE reported this, but the account of it in that source is lost) as a possession of the patriarchal family, where it now settles more permanently. That Isaac and Jacob continue to dwell at the grave of Abraham is a statement of which the significance is negative rather than positive, and on the other hand the patriarchal journeys up and down in JE are not designed to represent them as wandering nomads, but serve to bring them in contact with all the sacred places with which they had special associations, *********************************************** No historical geography is needed in order to understand the narrative of the Priestly Code in Genesis: but that is only to say that it stands quite away from the soil out of which oral tradition arises. It deals in no etymology, no proverbs nor songs, no miracles, theophanies nor dreams, and is destitute of all that many-coloured poetic charm which adorns the Jehovistic narratives. But this proves not its original simplicity but its neglect of the springs from which legend arises, and of its most essential elements. /1/ What remains is anything but historical objectivity: it is the formula and nothing more. ******************************************** 1. Riehm (op. cit. p. 302 seq.) thinks it is made out that the religious tradition of remote antiquity is distinguished by its "modest simplicity", and by a "style suited to its exalted subject." Only in the course of time was it adorned with all sorts of miraculous and mysterious elements, and that by the "fancy of the people," which, however, does not so easily gain entrance into serious literature(!) He appeals to the fact that the conception of angels, though certainly long developed with the people, occurs in the earlier prophets only in isolated instances, and in the later prophets, as Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, more frequently. It is difficult to sift out what is true and what is false in this confused argument. In the Priestly Code there are, it is true, no angels, but on the other hand we have Azazel and Seirim (2Chronicles xi. 15; Isaiah xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14, comp. supra), for where the gods are not, the ghosts have sway. In one of the two main sources of the Jehovist (J), we find chiefly the Mal'ak Jahve (message of Jehovah); that is Jehovah Himself in so far as He appears and manifests Himself, whether in a natural phenomenon or in human form. Different are the B'ne Elohim, beings of divine substance: they perhaps are indicated in the 1st plural in the mouth of Jehovah (Genesis iii. 22, xi. 7). Both of these are doubtless very old. In the other principal source (E) a mixture appears to have taken place: the heavenly hosts are not only the children and companions of Deity, but also its messengers, conductors of the communication between heaven and earth (:xviii. 12); here we have the Mal'akim beside God and in the plural. This view also is not exactly a late one, as we see from the vision of Micaiah (t Kings xxii. 19). What does Riehm mean by high antiquity? A period from which no monuments are preserved to us? Why does he limit his attention to the prophetic literature? He concedes that the idea of angels was early present "in the fancy of the people," and he should have been equal to the further concession that those who wrote down the FOLKLORE occupied a somewhat different position to POPULAR BELIEF from that of the prophetic preachers of repentance. Not even the historical books admit of being measured by the same standard in this matter as the pre-historic tradition. And which is the more original--that the angels use a ladder as in Genesis, or that they have wings as in Isaiah? And finally as for the reference to Ezekiel (?), Zechariah, and Daniel, the difference appears to me to be tolerably plain between a systematic angelology which operates always with numbers and names and the childlike belief in angels. The former removes God to a distance, the latter brings Him near. ************************************************* As with the legend of the beginnings of things, so with the legend of the patriarchs: what is essential and original is the individual element in the several stories; the connection is a secondary matter, and only introduced on the stories being collected and reduced to writing. But in the Priestly Code the individuality of the several stories is simply destroyed: to such an extent is the connection dwelt on. What meaning is there in the statement that Jacob was all at once called Israel, i.e., Fight-God (xxxv. 10), if no mention is made of his wrestling with El, which was the occasion of his change of name? Have we anything like the true history of Joseph in the Priestly Code? Can we regard it as the original history, when the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is dismissed in a subordinate clause, as is done in xix. 29 ? The remarkable admission has been made, /1/ that it is plain from the summary ***************************************** 1. Riehm, op.. cit. p. 292. **************************************** manner of reporting of the Priestly Code, that the author could have told his story at much greater length, had it been consistent with the plan of his work to do so, and that this certainly points to sources where greater detail was used. The more detailed source, however, which is thus taken for granted, need by no means, it is said, have been a written one, and least of all the Jehovistic narrative before us; on the contrary, we are told, the state of the case is best satisfied by the assumption that the author held a more detailed narrative to be unnecessary, because the oral tradition, living in the mouth of the people, was quite able to fill in the colours in his outlines and to convert his chronistic notices into living pictures. But this is merely an attempt to elude the necessity for exactly comparing the Priestly Code and the Jehovist. The question is, which of the two writings stands nearest to the starting-point? Is it the one which attaches most importance to elements which are foreign to the nature of oral tradition altogether and only added in literary composition? It would be a curious thing if the writing down of the tradition began with writing down what the legend did not contain. What is set before us in the Priestly Code is the quintessence not of the oral tradition, but of the tradition when already written down. And the written account of the primitive history which it employs is the Jehovistic narrative. The order in which the popular legends are there placed here becomes the very kernel of the narrative. There the plan was hidden behind the execution, but here it comes forward not indeed essentially changed, but sharp and accentuated, as the principal feature of the whole. VIII.II.3. The Jehovist still lives in the spirit of the legend, but the Priestly Code is strange to that spirit, and does violence to the legend, by treating it from its own point of view, which is quite different from the old one. Moral and religious culture is further advanced; and hence the removal of real or apparent offences against morality and of notions which are too childish, or superstitious, or even mythical. If the Godhead appears, it must not be patent to the senses, at least it must not be seen in visible form. Jehovah speaks with Jacob, but not in a dream from the heavenly ladder; He reveals Himself to Moses, but not in the burning bush; the notion of revelation is retained, but the subsidiary incidents which must be added to make a concrete of the abstract, are stripped off. It is a matter of indifference under what forms or through what media a man receives revelation, if only the fact stands sure; in other words, revelation is no longer a living reality of the present, but a dead dogma for the past. The progress of culture in the Priestly Code is most of all evident in the learned historical treatment with which the legend is overlaid. First of all there is the chronology, which we encountered even in the legend of the origins of mankind, and which is naturally continued in the patriarchal legend. Here indeed we see with special plainness how foreign learned calculation is to the poetical materials; in some instances the facts lead to quite a different view from that of the numbers. Following the numbers of the Priestly Code we may, with the Rabbis, regard Shem and Eber as the venerable heads of the Jewish school in which the child Jacob learned his letters and the Torah. Then Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia lasts about eighty years, and all this time Isaac is Iying on his death-bed; after being long dead for us, he suddenly appears again, but only to die. And hand in hand with the chronology there goes the general predilection of the Priestly Code for numbers and names, which displays itself even in Genesis, though not nearly so marked there as in the later books of the Pentateuch. Oral folklore can very well contain round numbers, such as the twelve sons and the seventy souls of the family of Jacob, the twelve wells and the seventy palm trees at Elim, the seventy elders and the twelve spies; but a chronological system, whole lists of exact and considerable numbers, bare catalogues of personal names, none of them having any significance, dates and measurements such as those in the account of the flood in the Priestly Code, require writing even to originate, not to speak of transmitting them. These art-products of pedantry toke the place of the living poetic detail of the Jehovist narrative; the element of episode has to give way to the seriousness of dry history. It is also a mark of historical pedantry that the mixing up of the period of the patriarchs with a later period is avoided as anachronistic. In the Jehovist the present everywhere shines through, he in no way conceals his own age; we are told that Babylon is the great world-city, that the Assyrian Empire is in existence, with the cities of Niniveh and Calah and Resen; that the Canaanites had once dwelt in Palestine, but had long been absorbed in the Israelites. The writer of the Priestly Code is very careful not to do anything like this. /1/ He brushes up the **************************************** 1. Hence also archaisms such as Kirjath-Arba, Luz, Ephrath. Compare the antiquarian lore in Deuteronomy i.-iv. and in Genesis xiv. ****************************************** legend and makes history of it according to the rules of art; he kills it as legend, and deprives it of all real value, such as it possesses, not indeed for the history of primitive times, but for that of the age of the kings. The history of the first men and of the patriarchs is divided by the Priestly Code into three periods, each of them opened by a covenant. The covenant with Adam (Genesis i. 28-ii. 4) is the simplest; it is not called a covenant, but it is the basis of the second covenant with Noah (ix. 1-17), which modifies it in important particulars, and brings it nearer to the present age. The covenant with Abraham (Genesis xvii.), which alone is ratified with the succeeding patriarchs, does not apply to the whole of mankind, but only to Abraham's seed, and especially to Israel. The first sign of the covenant is the Sabbath (Genesis ii. 3; comp. Exodus xxxi. 12 seq.; Ezekiel xx. 12, 20), the second the rainbow (Genesis ix. 12), the third circumcision (xvii. 10). The first parent of mankind is enjoined to use a purely vegetable diet, the father of mankind after the, flood receives permission to slaughter animals; but he is expressly ordered not to eat flesh in the blood, and besides, to shed the blood of no man. What is said to Noah remains good for Abraham; but to the latter God promises that his posterity by Sarah shall possess the land of Canaan, and this is further assured by the purchase of the cave of Machpelah for a family burying-place, the purchase being executed according to all the forms of law, with prolonged negotiations. Further, God reveals Himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, and under this name He also manifests Himself to Isaac (xxviii. 3) and Jacob (xxxv. 11), repeating to them the promise of the possession of the land. It is pointed out with emphasis that God was not known to the pre-Mosaic time under His Israelite name, that He revealed Himself to the patriarchs only as El Shaddai, and as Jehovah first to Moses (Exod. vi. 2, 3). With a similar intention, which is not far to seek, the time of the patriarchs is kept free of the other Mosaic forms of worship; hence we have here no sacrifices nor altars, no distinction of clean and unclean beasts, nor anything of the kind. Now till within a short time ago, there was a great inclination (no one will be found at this date to acknowledge that he felt it) to admire the sobriety and faithfulness of the Priestly Code, as shown in this observance of the different religious stages. But in fact we can only admire these advantages in it, if we believe that the religion was at first naturalistic, that then all at once it became a good deal more positive, and then quite positive in the year 1500 B.C. How can we regard it as showing historical faithfulness, that the patriarchs were allowed to slaughter, but not to sacrifice, and that first the Sabbath was introduced, then the rainbow, then circumcision, and at last sacrifice, under Moses? It is natural that Jacob at Bethel should give tithes of all that he possesses, unnatural that the eponymous hero should not in worship above all things have left a good example to his posterity. What is it but a theory, that the name Jehovah was first revealed to Moses, and through him to the Israelites, and that it was quite unknown before?--a theory which certainly cannot be upheld, for Moses could have done nothing more irrational than to introduce a new name for the God of their fathers, to whom he directed his people,--and yet a theory which, from the correlation between Jehovah the God of Israel and Israel the people of Jehovah, readily suggests itself, and is not altogether peculiar to the author of the Priestly Code. /1/. He had a pattern which suggested **************************************** 1. Exodus vi. 2, 3 (Q) = iii. 13, 14 (JE). The burning bush shows the theophany in the Jehovist to be the earlier. In the Priestly Code it almost loses the character of a theophany entirely. But this is also quite clear on a comparison of Exodus vii. 1 (Q) and iv. 16 (JE). The phrase vii. 1, " Behold, I make thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet," is a degradation of the corresponding passage, iv. 16 "Aaron shall be to thee for a mouth, and thou shalt be to him for a god." For if Aaron is the prophet or the mouth of Moses, then in the original and only appropriate way of thinking of the matter, Moses is a god for Aaron, not for Pharaoh. By the way is there anything in the similarity between Sene and Sinai? ****************************************** certain lines, and these he traces strongly and with a system; and he even goes so far as to avoid the name of Jehovah even in his own narrative of the pre-Mosaic period. Even when speaking in his own person, he says Elohim, not Jehovah, down to Exodus vi. The three periods and the three corresponding covenants of the early age are preliminaries to the fourth period and the fourth covenant. The narrator everywhere has an eye to the Mosaic law, and the thought of it determined the plan which comes so prominently into view in his representation of the origins of human history. The great features of this plan are the great official transactions of Jehovah with the patriarchs. In these we have not a narrative but only speeches and negotiations; the preliminary laws are given in them, which, as they advance step by step, prepare the way for the great Law, namely, the Mosaic. The law of worship has taken the place of the legend of worship. In the legend the sacred usages and customs arise, as it were, spontaneously, in connection with any occasion, placed in the early sacred time, which may serve to account for them. Jehovah does not make it statutory that the sinew of the thigh may not be eaten; but He wrestles with Israel, and injures the sinew of his thigh during the wrestling, and for this reason the children of Israel do not eat thereof. In the following story it is explained how it came about that the Israelites circumcise young boys (Exodus iv. 25 seq.). As Moses was returning from Midian to Goshen, he spent a night on the road, and Jehovah fell upon him with the intention of killing him. His wife, Zipporah, however, took a flint and cut off the foreskin of her son, and touched Moses L:RAGLFYW with it, saying, Thou art a blood-bridegroom to me. Then Jehovah let him go. Thus Zipporah circumcises her son instead of her husband, makes the latter symbolically a blood-bridegroom, and thereby delivers him from the wrath of Jehovah to which he is exposed, because he is not a blood-bridegroom, ie., because he has not submitted to circumcision before his marriage. In other words, the circumcision of male infants is here explained as a milder substitute for the original circumcision of young men before marriage. /1/ Compare with this the style in which in Genesis xvii ************************************************ 1. That this is in fact the original custom is clear from the word XTN, which signifies both circumcision and bridegroom (or in Arabic, son-in-law). This explains the meaning of XTN DMYM in Exodus iv. 25. The original usage is still in force with some Arab tribes. In Genesis xxxiv. Shechem has to submit to circumcision before marriage. *************************************************** the Priestly Code institutes the circumcision of male children on the eighth day after birth. This institution completely throws into the shade and spoils the story out of which it arose, namely, the promise of the birth of Isaac as a reward to Abraham of the hospitality he showed Jehovah at Hebron. But there is more than a difference in form, there is a material contradiction between the Jehovistic legend and the priestly law. The law purifies the legend, that is to say, denies all its main features and motives. As we saw in the first chapter there is a conscious polemic at work in the representation in the Priestly Code that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob erect no altars, and practice no religious rites, and that they have no connection with the sacred places with which in JE they are inseparably associated. The popular religious book preserved to us in the Jehovistic Genesis, not corrected to any great extent, though certainly to some extent, tells how the ancestors and representatives of Israel founded the old popular worship at the principal sites at which it was kept up. The law of the legitimate cultus of Jerusalem, as it lies before us in the Priestly Code, reforms and destroys the old popular worship on the basis of Mosaic, i.e., prophetical ideas. The tabernacle does not harmonize with the sanctuaries of Hebron, Beersheba, Shechem, Kadesh, Mahanaim, Lahai-Roi, Bethel; the patriarchs live at Hebron only because they are to be buried there, not to entertain the Deity under the oak of Mamre and to build an altar there. The heretical mac,c,ebas, trees and wells, disappear, and with them the objectionable customs: that God should have summoned Abraham to offer up to Him his only son is an idea the Priestly Code could not possibly entertain. The whole material of the legend is subordinated to legislative designs: the modifying influence of the law on the narrative is everywhere apparent. The attitude of Judaism to the old legend is on the whole negative, but it added some new elements. While the patriarchs are not allowed to sacrifice, only to slaughter, they have, on the other hand, the Sabbath /1/ and circumcision. In this they are like **************************************** I The Sabbath is not a Mosaic institution according to the Priestly Code. But it is presupposed in Exodus xvi., and according to Genesis ii. 3, it was in force from the beginning of the world. With the old Israelites the Sabbath was much less important in relation to worship than the festivals: in Judaism the opposite was the case. ***************************************** the Jews in Babylon, who were deprived of the national cultus, and replaced it with these two symbols of religious membership and union, which were independent of the temple of Jerusalem. In the exile, after the cessation of the service of the altar, the Sabbath and circumcision attained that significance as symbols--in the genuine old meaning of the Greek word--as practical symbols of Judaism, which they retain to the present day. The emphasis is noteworthy with which the Priestly Code always insists on the fact that the patriarchs sojourned in a strange land, that they were _Gerim_. If we also consider that Abraham is said to have migrated into Palestine from Ur, from Chaldaea, it is hardly possible to reject the idea that the circumstances of the exile had some influence in moulding the priestly form of the patriarchal legend. In spite of all the efforts of the historian, and all the archaic appearance of his work, it may in that case still be the fact that the surroundings of the narrator found positive expression in his description of the patriarchal times. VIII.III. <VIII.III.1.> In the Jehovistic history-book Genesis is a most important part, and occupies at least a half of the whole work: in the Priestly Code, Genesis quite disappears in comparison with the later books. Only with the Mosaic legislation does this work arrive at its own ground, and it at once stifles the narrative under a mass of legislative matter. Here also there is a thin historical thread running parallel to the Jehovist, but we constantly lose sight of it from the repeated interruptions made by extensive ritual laws and statistical statements. "These last four books of Moses have been made quite unreadable by a most melancholy, most incomprehensible, revision. The course of the history is everywhere interrupted by the insertion of innumerable laws, with regard to the greater part of which it is impossible to see any reason for their being inserted where they are." The dislocation of the narrative by these monstrous growths of legislative matter is not, as Goethe thinks, to be imputed to the editor; it is the work of the unedited Priestly Code itself, and is certainly intolerable; nor can it be original; the literary form of the work at once shows this. It is still possible to trace how the legal matter forces its way into the narrative, and once there spreads itself and takes up more and more room. In the Jehovist, one form of the tradition may still be discerned, according to which the Israelites on crossing the Red Sea at once proceeded towards Kadesh, without making the detour to Sinai. We only get to Sinai in Exodus xix., but in Exodus xvii. we are already at Massah and Meribah, ie., on the ground of Kadesh. That is the scene of the story of Moses striking water out of the rock with his staff: there the fight with the Amalekites took place--they lived there and not at Sinai--there also the visit of Jethro, which requires a locality at some distance from his home (at Sinai), a place where the people had not merely a temporary encampment, but their permanent seat of justice. /1/ ******************************************* 1. Kadesh is also called Meribah, the seat of justice, or Meribath Kadesh, the seat of justice at the holy spring. Meribah is in its meaning the same as Midian. ********************************************* Hence the narratives which are told before the arrival at Sinai are repeated after the departure from it, because the locality is the same before and after, namely, the wilderness of Kadesh, the true scene of the Mosaic history. The institution of judges and elders concludes the narrative before the great Sinai section, and begins the narrative after it (Ex. xviii., Numbers xi ). The story of the manna and the quails occurs not only in Exodus xvi., but also in Numbers xi; and the rocky spring called forth by Moses at Massah and Meribah is both in Exodus xvii. and Numbers xx. In other words, the Israelites arrived at Kadesh, the original object of their wanderings, not after the digression to Sinai but immediately after the Exodus, and they spent there the forty years of their residence in the wilderness. Kadesh is also the original scene of the legislation. "There He made them statute and judgment, and there He proved them," we read in a poetical fragment, before the Sinai section (Exodus xv. 25), which is now placed in the narrative of the healing of the waters at Marah, but stands there quite isolated and without bearing on its context. The curious conjunction of judgment and trial points unmistakably to Massah and Meribah (ie., judgment and trial-place), that is, to Kadesh, as the place spoken of. But the legislation at the seat of judgment at Kadesh is not represented as a single act in which Moses promulgates to the Israelites once for all a complete and comprehensive body of laws; it goes on for forty years, and consists in the dispensation of justice at the sanctuary, which he begins and the priests and judges carry on after him according to the pattern he set. This is the idea in the extremely instructive narrative in Exodus xviii., of which Kadesh is the scene. And in this way the Torah has its place in the historical narrative, not in virtue of its matter as the contents of a code, but from its form as constituting the professional activity of Moses. It is in the history not as a result, as the sum of the laws and usages binding on Israel, but as a process; it is shown how it originated, how the foundation was laid for the living institution of that Torah which still exists and is in force in Israel. The true and original significance of Sinai is quite independent of the legislation. It was the seat of the Deity, the sacred mountain, doubtless not only for the Israelites, but generally for all the Hebrew and Cainite (Kenite) tribes of the surrounding region. The priesthood of Moses and his successors was derived from the priesthood there: there Jehovah appeared to him in the burning bush when he was keeping the sheep of the priest of Midian, from there He sent him to Egypt. There, to the Israelites, Jehovah still dwelt long after they had settled in Palestine; in the song of Deborah He is summoned to come from Sinai to succour His oppressed people and to place Himself at the head of His warriors. According to the view of the poet of Deuteronomy xxxiii. the Israelites did not go to Jehovah to Sinai, but the converse; He came to them from Sinai to Kadesh: "Jehovah came from Sinai and shone from Seir unto them; He lightened from Mount Paran and came to Meribath Kadesh." /1/ ************************************** 1. We do not know where Sinai was situated, and the Bible is scarcely at one on the subject. Only dilettanti care much for controversy on the matter. The Midian of Exodus ii. tells us most: it is probably Madian on the Arabic shore of the Ked sea. In our passage Sinai seems to be S.E. of Edom; the way from Sinai to Kadesh is by Seir and Paran. ****************************************** But it is not difficult to see how it came to be thought more seemly that the Israelites should undertake the journey to Jehovah. This was at first put in the form that they appeared there before the face of Jehovah to worship Him and offer Him a sacrifice (Exodus iii. 12), and at their departure they received the ark instead of Jehovah Himself, who continued to dwell on Sinai (Exodus xxxiii.); for the ark represents Jehovah, that constitutes its significance, and not the tables of the law, which were not in it at first. It was a further step to make Sinai the scene of the solemn inauguration of the historical relation between Jehovah and Israel. This was done under the poetic impulse to represent the constituting of the people of Jehovah as a dramatic act on an exalted stage. What in the older tradition was a process which went on quietly and slowly, occupied completely the whole period of Moses, and was at the beginning just such as it still continued to be, was now, for the sake of solemnity and vividness, compressed into a striking scene of inauguration. If this were done, the covenant between Jehovah and Israel must receive a positive (as well as a negative) character, that is to say, Jehovah Himself must announce to the people the basis and the conditions of it. Thus the necessity arose to communicate in this place the contents of the fundamental laws, and so the matter of the legislation made its way into the historical narrative. But that it did not belong originally to this place we see from the confusion which obtains even in the Jehovistic Sinai section (Exodus xix.-xxiv., xxxii.-xxxiv.). The small bodies of laws which are here communicated may in themselves be old enough, but they are forced into the narrative. It is only of what is relatively the most recent corpus, the Decalogue (in E), that this cannot be asserted. As the Jehovistic work was originally a pure history-book, so Deuteronomy, when it was first discovered, was a pure law-book. /1/ **************************************************** 1. Chapters xii.-xxvii. The two historical introductions, chapter i.-iv. and chapter v.-xi. were added later, as well as the appendices, chapter xxviii. seq. **************************************************** These two works, the historical and legal, were at first quite independent of each other; only afterwards were they conjoined, perhaps that the new law might share in the popularity of the old people's book, and at the same time infuse into it its own spirit. It made it the easier to do this, that, as we have just seen, a piece of law had already been taken up into the Jehovistic history-book. To the Decalogue, at the beginning of the period of the forty years, was now added Deuteronomy at the close of that period. The situation--of which the law itself knows nothing--is very well chosen, not only because Moses is entitled when making his testament to anticipate the future and make a law for the time to come, but also because, the law being placed at the close of his life, the thread of the narrative is not further interrupted, the law being simply inserted between the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. This combination of Deuteronomy with the Jehovist was the beginning of the combination of narrative and law; and the fact that this precedent was before the author of the Priestly Code explains how, though his concern was with the Torah alone, he yet went to work from the very outset and comprised in his work the history of the creation, as if it also belonged to the Torah. This manner of setting forth the Torah in the form of a history book is not in the least involved in the nature of the case; on the contrary, it introduces the greatest amount of awkwardness. How it came about can only be explained in the way above described; an antecedent process of the same nature in literary history led the way and made the suggestion. /2/ ******************************************* 2. That the author of the Priestly Code had before him the combination of the Sinai legislation of the Jehovist and Deuteronomy is shown further by the circumstance that he has both a legislation at Mount Sinai and a legislation in the Arboth Moah, and in addition to these one in the wilderness of Sinai. ******************************************** As from the literary point of view, so also from the historical, the Moses of the Jehovist appears more original than the Moses of the Priestly Code. To prove this is, it is true, the aim of the entire present work: yet it will not on that account be thought out of place if we take advantage of this convenient opportunity for a brief sketch and criticism of the conflicting historical views of Moses and his work in the two main sources of the Pentateuch. According to the Priestly Code Moses is a religious founder and legislator, as we are accustomed to think of him. He receives and promulgates the Torah, /1/ perhaps not as a book--though, when we ************************************** 1. The law might accordingly be called Moses, as with the Ethiopians the Psalter is called David, ************************************** come to think of it, we can hardly represent the transaction to ourselves in any other way--but certainly fixed and finished as an elaborate and minutely organised system, which comprises the sacred constitution of the congregation for all time to come. The whole significance of Moses consists in the office of messenger which he holds as mediator of the law; what else he does is of no importance. That the law is given once for all is the great event of the time, not that the people of Israel begins to appear on the stage of the world. The people is there for the sake of the law, not the law for the sake of the people. With the Jehovist, on the contrary, Moses' work consists in this, that he delivers his people from the Egyptians and cares for it in every way in the wilderness. In the prelude scene from his youth, when he smites the Egyptian and seeks to adjust the dispute of his brethren (Exodus ii. 11 seq.), his whole history is prefigured. His care for the Israelites embraces both catering for their sustenance, and making and preserving peace and order among them (Numbers xi.). The Torah is but a part of his activity, and proceeds from his more general office as the guardian of the young people, who has, as it were, to teach the fledgling to fly (Numbers xi. xii.). According to Exodus xviii. his Torah is nothing but a giving of counsel, a finding the way out of complications and difficulties which had actually arisen. Individuals bring their different cases before him; he pronounces judgment or gives advice, and in so doing teaches the people the way they should go. Thus he is the beginner of the teaching of Jehovah which lives on after him in priest and prophet. Here all is life and movement: as Jehovah Himself, so the man of God, is working in a medium which is alive; is working practically, by no means theoretically, in history, not in literature. His work and activity may be told in a narrative, but the contents of it are more than a system, and are not to be reduced to a compendium; it is not done and finished off, it is the beginning of a series of infinite activities. In the Priestly Code the work of Moses lies before us clearly defined and rounded off; one living a thousand years after knows it as well as one who saw it with his eyes. It is detached from its originator and from his age: lifeless itself, it has driven the life out of Moses and out of the people, nay, out of the very Deity. This precipitate of history, appearing as law at the beginning of the history, stifles and kills the history itself. Which of the two views is the more historical, we can accordingly be at no loss to decide. It may be added that in the older Hebrew literature the founding of the nation and not the giving of the law is regarded as the theocratic creative act of Jehovah. The very notion of the law is absent: only covenants are spoken of, in which the representatives of the people undertake solemn obligations to do or leave undone something which is described in general terms. Another point of difference must be mentioned here, though indeed it is a matter which has been before us more than once already. That which is in the Priestly Code the subject-matter of the Torah of Moses, namely, the institution of the cultus, the Jehovist traces to the practice of the patriarchs--one more result of the difference between law and legend. The Moses of the Priestly Code conflicts not only with the future, but with the past; he comes into collision with history on every side. That view is manifestly the only natural one according to which the worship is not specifically Israelite, not a thing instituted by Moses in obedience to a sudden command of the Deity, but an ancestral tradition. But at the time when the Priestly Code was drawn up the worship was certainly the one thing that made Israel Israel. In it the church, the one congregation of worship, takes the place of the people even in the Mosaic age--sorely against history, but characteristically for the author's point of view. Now even such authorities as Bleek, Hupfeld, and Knobel have been misled by the appearance of historical reality which the Priestly Code creates by its learned art here as well as in the history of the patriarchs. They have regarded the multiplicity of numbers and names, the minute technical descriptions, the strict keeping up of the scenery of camp-life, as so many signs of authentic objectivity. Noldeke made an end of this critical position once for all, but Colenso is properly entitled to the credit of having first torn the web asunder. /1/ ***************************************** 1. See Kuenen in the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1870, p. 393-401. ****************************************** The boldness with which numbers and names are stated, and the preciseness of the details about indifferent matters of furniture, do not prove them to be reliable: they are not drawn from contemporary records, but are the fruit solely of late Jewish fancy, a fancy which, it is well known, does not design nor sketch, but counts and constructs, and produces nothing more than barren plans. Without repeating the description of the tabernacle in Exodus xxv. word for word, it is difficult to give an idea how circumstantial it is; we must go to the source to satisfy ourselves what the narrator can do in this line. One would imagine that he was giving specifications to measurers for estimates, or that he was writing for carpet-makers and upholsterers; but they could not proceed upon his information, for the incredibly matter- of-fact statements are fancy all the same, as was shown in chapter i. The description of the tabernacle is supplemented in the Book of Numbers by that of the camp; the former being the centre, this is the circle drawn about it, and consists of an outer ring, the twelve secular tribes, a middle ring, the Levites, and an innermost one, the sons of Aaron: a mathematical demonstration of the theocracy in the wilderness. The two first chapters contain the census of the twelve tribes, and their allocation in four quarters, nothing but names and numbers. To this first census chapter xxxiv. adds another at the close of the forty years, in which the various detailed figures are different, but the total is about the same. This total, 600,000 warriors, comes from the older tradition, but is proved to be quite worthless by the fact that in a really authentic document the levy of Israel in the time of Deborah is stated to be 40,000 strong. Still, the Priestly Code is entitled to the credit of having made the total a little less round, and of having broken it up into artificial component parts. The muster of the people is followed in Numbers iii. iv. by the dedication of the tribe of Levi to the sanctuary, in compensation for the firstborn males of the Israelites who up to that time had not been sacrificed nor yet redeemed. There are 22,273 firstborn males to be provided for, and there are 22,000 male Levites above a month old. The 273 extra firstborn males are specially redeemed at five shekels a head. What accuracy! But what of the fact that a people of at least two millions has only 22,273 firstborn males, or say 50,000 firstborn of both sexes? This gives an average of forty children to every woman, for the firstborn in the sense of the law is that which first opens the womb. The continuation of Numbers iii. iv. is in chapter viii. As the Levites are an offering of firstlings to the sanctuary on the part of the people, which, however, is not to be sacrificed but made over to the priests, the characteristic rite of this sort of sacred due has to be gone through with them, namely, an act imitating that of throwing into the flame of the altar (Aristeas 31,1. 5). To think of Moses and Aaron heaving the 22,000 men! Not less striking as an example of this kind of fiction is the story of Numbers xxxi. Twelve thousand Israelites, a thousand from each tribe, take the field against Midian, extirpate without any fighting--at least nothing is anywhere said of this important point--the whole people, slay all the men and a part of the women, take captive the unmarried girls, and suffer themselves no loss whatever. The latter point is asserted very definitely. "The captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds came to Moses, and said to him, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh not one of us." Of the immeasurable booty of men and cattle Jehovah assigns half to those who took the field and took part in the battle, the other half to the congregation; and the former are to give the 500th part to the priests, the latter the 50th part to the Levites. The execution of this order is especially reported as follows: "The booty which the men of war had taken was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 beeves, 61,000 asses, and 32,000 women that had not lain by man. And the half which was the portion of them that went out to war was 337,500 sheep, and Jehovah's tribute of the sheep was 675; 36,000 beeves, tribute to Jehovah 72; 30,500 asses, tribute to Jehovah 61; 16,000 persons, tribute to Jehovah 32. And Moses gave the tribute to Jehovah to Eleazar the priest. But the other half, which Moses divided to the children of Israel, the half due to the congregation, was 337,500 sheep, 36,000 beeves, 30,500 asses, 16,000 persons, and of the children of Israel's half Moses took one of fifty and gave them to the Levites." The calculation of the contribution to Jehovah was quite easy for Moses, as the 500th part of the half is equivalent to the 1000th part of the whole; he had only to leave off the thousands from the first totals. In conclusion, the captains brought offerings to Jehovah of golden dishes, chains, bracelets, rings, and earrings, altogether 16,750 shekels weight, as atonement for their souls "But that was only the gold which the captains had taken as booty, for the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself." We may perhaps be allowed to speculate as to the relation between these 16,750 shekels which in this passage the captains alone offer to the tabernacle OF THE GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDIANITES, and the 1700 shekels which in Judges viii. the whole people dedicate OF THE GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDIANITES to set up an image in Ophra. It is less easy to account on the theory of pure fiction for the numerous names sometimes arranged together like a catalogue than for reported circumstances and numbers. There can certainly be no doubt that the forty places which are mentioned in the list of encampments in the wanderings, really existed in the region the Israelites are reported to have traversed. But he who is satisfied with this as evidence that we have before us here a historical document of primitive antiquity, will never be disturbed by criticism. Was it such a difficult matter to find out forty definite stations in the wilderness for the forty years of the wanderings? Even if the elements of the composition are not fictitious, that is far from proving the composition itself to be authentic. And in the case of lists of the names of persons, the elements are often of an extremely doubtful nature; and here it is well to keep in view the principle of Vatke (op. cit. p. 675) that no confidence is to be placed in subjects devoid of predicates, and that persons are not to be taken for real who have nothing to do. The dozens of names in Numbers i. vii. x. are almost all made to the same pattern, and have no similarity whatever to the names genuinely old. The fact that the name of Jehovah does not enter into their composition only shows that the composer was not forgetful of his religio-historical theory. By its taste for barren names and numbers and technical descriptions, the Priestly Code comes to stand on the same line with the Chronicles and the other literature of Judaism which labours at an artificial revival of the old tradition [VI.I.2 VI.III.2., VI.III.3. ad fin.]. Of a piece with this tendency is an indescribable pedantry, belonging to the very being of the author of the Priestly Code. He has a very passion for classifying and drawing plans; if he has once dissected a genus into different species, we get all the species named to us one by one every time he has occasion to mention the genus. The subsuming use of the prepositions Lamed and Beth is characteristic of him. He selects a long-drawn expression wherever he can; he does not weary of repeating for the hundredth time what is a matter of course (Numbers viii.), he hates pronouns and all abbreviating substitutes. What is interesting is passed over, what is of no importance is described with minuteness, his exhaustive clearness is such as with its numerous details to confuse our apprehension of what is in itself perfectly clear. This is what used to be described in the phraseology of historical criticism as epic breadth. /1/ ************************************** 1. Riehm, p. 292. "The style is quiet, simple, free from all rhetorical and poetical ornament, and the expression in speaking of similar objects has an epic uniformity. Impressive as many pieces are, just from their unassuming simplicity and objectivity, there is nowhere any apparent effort to produce effect or to raise the interest of the reader by the resources of literary art." For an opposite opinion compare Lichtenberg, Werke, ii. 162. *************************************** VIII.III.2. Having thus attempted to describe the general contrast of the Priestly Code and the Jehovist in the Mosaic period, it remains for us to compare the several stories in the two works. The Exodus from Egypt is everywhere regarded as the commencement of Israelite history. In the Priestly Code it is made the epoch of an era (Exodus xii. 2), which is afterwards dated from, not only in years but even in months and days. It is unquestionable that this precise style of dating only came into use among the Hebrews at a very late period. *We find in the historical books only one statement of the month in which an event took place (1Kings vi. 38), and in that case the day is not given. To the prophetic writers dates were of some importance, and the growth of the practice may to some extent be traced with them. Amos first came forward "two years before the earthquake." /2/ ***************************************** 2. Agh. xv. 11, 17: when al-Walid b. al-Mughira was dead, the Arabs dated after his death to the year of the elephant, which thereafter was made an epoch. According to others they reckoned nine years after the death of Hisham b. al-Mughira, to the time when they built the Caaba, and then they dated from the building of the Caaba. Comp. the 'Am al Ramada and the 'Am al Ru'af. ****************************************** The most precise date in Isaiah is "the year in which king Uzziah died." Numbers of years are first found in Jeremiah, "the thirteenth year of king Josiah," and a few more instances. All at once there was a change: Haggai and Zechariah, prophets who grew up in the Babylonian exile, always give dates, not only the year and month, but the day of the month as well. In the Priestly Code this precise reckoning, which the Jews obviously learned from the Chaldeans, is in use from the age of Moses onwards. In the Jehovist the ostensible occasion of the Exodus is a festival which the children of Israel desire to hold in honour of their God in the wilderness. In the Priestly Code this occasion disappears; there can be no pre-Mosaic festivals. But with this the reason falls away for which Jehovah kills the firstborn of the Egyptians, He does it because the king of Egypt is keeping from Him the firstborn of the Israelites, which ought to be offered to Him at the festival; for the celebration in question is the sacrificial festival of the first-fruits of cattle in spring. In the older tradition the festival is the first thing; it explains the circumstances of the Exodus and the time of year at which it took place: in the later one the relation is reversed--the killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians leads to the sacrifice of the firstborn of Israel, the Exodus in spring is followed by the festival in spring as its consequence. The Priestly Code follows this younger tradition, and deviates from the original account still more widely in the view it gives of the passover. It obliterates completely the connection between the passover and the sacrifice of the firstborn, and represents it not as a giving of thanks to Jehovah for having slain the firstborn of Egypt, but as instituted at the moment of the Exodus to induce Jehovah to spare the firstborn of Israel. How all this is to be understood and judged of we have discussed more at large in the chapter on the festivals (III.I.1., III.III.1.). As to the accounts given in the two sources of the crossing of the Red Sea, all we can say is that that of the Jehovist (J) is the more complicated. According to him the sea is dried up by a strong wind, and the Egyptians succeed at first in crossing it, and encounter the Hebrews on the eastern shore during he night. "But in the morning watch Jehovah turned, in the pillar of fire and of the cloud, against the host of the Egyptian, and overthrew the host of the Egyptian, and hindered the wheels of his chariot and caused him to drive heavily. Then the Egyptian said: I will flee before Israel, for Jehovah fighteth for them against Egypt. But the sea turned back towards morning to its ordinary level, and the Egyptians fled against it, and Jehovah shook them into the midst of the sea" (Exodus xiv. 24, 25, 27). According to the Priestly Code /1/ the waves meet over the pursuers, ************************************** 1. And the younger tradition generally: also according to the song Exodus xv., which apart from the beginning, which is old, is a psalm in the manner of the Psalms and has no similarity with the historical songs, Judges v., 2Samuel i., Numbers xxi. ************************************* before they reach the further shore; the idea is much simpler, but poorer in incidental features. The miracle of the manna (Exodus xvi.) is taken advantage of in the Priestly Code as a very suitable occasion for urging on the people a strict sanctification of the Sabbath: none falls on the seventh day, but what is gathered on the sixth keeps two days, while at other times it requires to be eaten quite fresh. This pursuit of a legal object destroys the story and obscures its original meaning, as no one can help seeing. Nor is it any sign of originality, rather of senility, that in the Priestly Code the manna is not eaten raw, but boiled and baked. At Mount Sinai Moses receives, according to the Priestly Code, the revelation of--the model of the tabernacle, and he follows the pattern thus presented to him in the construction, down below, of the real tabernacle. All further revelation takes place, even in Moses' time, as far as possible in the tabernacle (Exodus xxv. 22). Even Sinai must not stand any longer than necessary by the side of the one legitimate seat of Deity. /1/ ****************************************** 1. Compare, however, Jahrbb.fur Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 453, note 1. ******************************************* The tables of the law, it appears, are silently presupposed without being mentioned beforehand, it being of course assumed that the readers would know all about them from the old tradition. The outside of the ark, however, is furnished in the most extravagant style, and with a splendour which other descriptions of the chest of acacia-wood are far from suggesting. The ark in the Priestly Code differs indeed in every way from the appearance of it in 1Kings vii. 23 seq. We are reminded of the Haggada by the covering which Moses has to put before his face, which is shining with the reflection of the glory of Jehovah (Exodus xxxiv. 29-35), and by the making of the brazen laver of the looking-glasses of the women who serve the temple (Exodus xxxviii. 8, cf. Numbers xvii. 1, 9); these traits do not, it is true, belong to the original contents of the Priestly Code, but they belong to its circle. From Sinai the old tradition takes us by this and that station, mentioned by name, without delay to Kadesh. Here the chief part of the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness is spent; this, as we said before, is the true scene of all the stories that are told about Moses. The Priestly Code takes us in this period, as in the legend of the patriarchs, not to definite places, but up and down in the wilderness of Sinai, in the wilderness of Paran, in the wilderness of Sin. Kadesh is with evident intention thrust as far as possible into the background--no doubt on account of the high sanctity the place originally had as the encampment for many years of the Israelites under Moses. The spies are sent out according to the Jehovist from Kadesh, according to the Priestly Code from the wilderness of Paran. In the former authority they penetrate to Hebron, whence they bring back with them fine grapes, but they find that the land where these grow is not to be conquered. In the latter they proceed without any difficulty throughout the whole of Palestine to Lebanon, but have nothing to bring back with them, and advise against attacking the land because they have not found it particularly desirable, as if its advantages had been accessible to faith alone and not to be discovered by unbelieving eyes, as was actually the case in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, and at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. To the genuine Israelite of old, however, the goodness of his beloved land was not a mere point of faith which he could ever have doubted. In the former source, as we judge from Deuteronomy i. 23, only the number of the spies was given; in the latter all the twelve are named. In the former Caleb is the only good spy, in the latter Caleb and Joshua. At first probably neither the one nor the other belonged to this story; but Caleb easily came to be named as an exception, because he actually conquered the district from Kadesh to Hebron, which the spies had declared it impossible to take, and which the Israelites, alarmed by their account, had not ventured to attack. Joshua, again, was added from the consideration that, according to the principle enunciated by the Jehovist in Numbers xiv. 23, 24, he must have shared the merit of Caleb, because he partook of the same exceptional reward with him. In the Jehovist Moses alone instructs the spies and receives their report on their return; in the Priestly Code Moses and Aaron do so. In the oldest source of the Jehovist (J) Aaron has not yet made his appearance; in the Priestly Code Moses must not do any public act without him. /1/ ******************************************* 1. In the same way, in the former source Joshua always acts alone; in the latter, he always has the priest Eleazar at his side. Compare notes [in IV.III.2.] ******************************************* Moses is still the moving spirit here as well as there, but Aaron is the representative of the theocracy, and pains are taken to secure that he shall never be absent where the representatives of the theocracy are brought face to face with the community. The desire to introduce the leader of the hierocracy, and with its leader the hierocracy itself, into the Mosaic history, has borne the most remarkable fruits in the so-called story of the rebellion of the company of Korah. According to the Jehovistic tradition the rebellion proceeds from the Reubenites, Dathan, and Abiram, prominent members of the firstborn tribe of Israel, and is directed against MOSES AS LEADER AND JUDGE OF THE PEOPLE. According to the version of the main-stock of the Priestly Code (Q), the author of the agitation is Korah, a prince of the tribe of Judah, and he rebels not only against Moses, but against MOSES AND AARON AS REPRESENTING THE PRIESTHOOD. In a later addition, which, to judge from its style, belongs likewise to the Priestly Code, but not to its original contents, the Levite Korah appears at the head of a revolt of the Levites against AARON AS HIGH PRIEST, and demands the equalisation of the lower with the higher clergy. Starting from the Jehovistic version, the historical basis of which is dimly discerned to be the fall of Reuben from its old place at the head of the brother-tribes, we have no difficulty in seeing how the second version arose out of it. The people of the congregation, i.e., of the church, having once come on the scene, the spiritual heads, Moses and Aaron, take the place of the popular leader Moses, and the jealousy of the secular grandees is now directed against the class of hereditary priests, instead of against the extraordinary influence on the community of a heaven-sent hero. All these changes are the natural outcome of the importation of the hierocracy into Mosaic times. From the second version we can go further and understand the origin of the third. In the earlier version the princes of the tribe of Reuben were forced to give way to a prince of the tribe of Judah. In the progress of time Korah the prince of the tribe of Judah is replaced by the eponymous head of a post-exilic Levitical family, of the same name. The contest between clergy and aristocracy is here transformed into a domestic strife between the higher and the inferior clergy, which was no doubt raging in the time of the narrator. Thus the three versions are developed, the origin and collocation of which appears from every other point of view to be an insoluble enigma. The one arises out of the other in the direct line of descent: the metamorphoses took place under the influence of great historical changes which are well known to us; and in the light of Jewish history from Josiah downwards they are by no means unintelligible. /1/ ******************************************** 1 The details of the demonstration will be found in the Jahrbb. fuer Deutsche Theologie, 1776, p. 572 seq., 1877, p. 454, note, and in the Leyden Theol. Tijdschrift, 1878, p. 139 seq. ******************************************** We come to the migration of the Israelites to the land east of the Jordan. According to the Jehovist the neighbouring tribes place obstacles in their way, and the land in which they desire to settle has to be conquered with the sword. The Priestly Code tells us as little of all this as in an earlier instance of the war with Amalek; from all it says we should imagine that the Israelites went straight to their mark and met with no difficulty in the region in question; the land is ownerless, and the possession of it is granted by Moses and Eleazar to the two tribes Reuben and Gad (Numbers xxxii.). But that war may not be completely wanting under Moses, we have afterwards the war with the Midianites, on which we have already commented (Numbers xxxi.). There is not much story about it, only numbers and directions; and in verse 27 there is a suspicion of 1Samuel xxx. 24, as if that passage were the groundwork of the whole. The passage is extremely interesting as showing us the views taken of war by the Jews of the later time who had grown quite unaccustomed to it. The occasion of the war also is noticeable; it is undertaken not for the acquisition of territory, nor with any other practical object, but only to take vengeance on the Midianites for having seduced some of the Israelites to uncleanness. The elders of Midian, so the story goes, went to the soothsayer Balaam to ask his advice as to what should be done against the Israelite invaders. He suggested a means by which the edge of the invasion might be broken; the Midianites should give their daughters to the Israelites for wives, and so deprive the holy people of their strength, the secret of which lay in their isolation from other peoples. The Midianites took Balaam's advice and succeeded in entangling many of the Israelites with the charms of their women; in consequence of which Jehovah visited the faithless people with a severe plague. The narrative of the Priestly Code up to this point has to be pieced together from Numbers xxxi. 8, 16 and Joshua xiii. 22, and from what is implied in the sequel of it; at this point the portion of it begins which is preserved to us (Numbers xxv. 6 seq.), and we are told how the plague was ultimately stayed. A certain man coolly brings a Midianitish woman into the camp before the very eyes of Moses and the weeping children of Israel: then the young hereditary priest Phinehas takes a spear, transfixes the godless pair, and by this zeal averts the anger of Jehovah. This narrative is based on the Jehovistic one, which is also preserved to us only in part (Numbers xxv. 1-5), about the backsliding of Israel in the camp of Shittim to the service of Baal-Peor, to which they were seduced by the daughters of Moab. In the Priestly Code the idolatry has quite disappeared, all but some unconscious reminiscences, and no sin is alleged but that of whoredom, which in the original story merely led up to the main offence. This is done manifestly with the idea that marriage with foreign women is in itself a falling away from Jehovah, a breach of the covenant. This change was extremely suitable to the circumstances of exilic and post-exilic Judaism, for in these later days there was no immediate danger of gross idolatry, but it took a good deal of trouble to prevent heathenism from making its way into the midst of the people under the friendly form of mixed marriages. The version of the Priestly Code, however, mixes up with the Baal-Peor story of the Jehovist the figure of Balaam, which is also borrowed from the Jehovist but entirely transformed in the process. In the form under which he appears in the early history he transgresses all the ideas of the Priestly Code. An Aramaean seer, who is hired for money and makes all sorts of heathen preparations to prophesy, but who yet is not an impostor, but a true prophet as much as any in Israel, who even stands in the most intimate relations with Jehovah, though cherishing the intention of cursing Jehovah's people--that is too much for exclusive Judaism. The correction is effected by the simple device of connecting Balaam with the following section, and making him the intellectual instigator of the devilry of the Midianitish women; and in this new form which he assumes in the Priestly Code he lives on in the Haggada. The reason for changing the Moabites into Midianites is not made clear; but the fact is undoubted that the Midianites never lived in that part of the world. In the Book of Numbers the narrative sections, which are in the style and colour of the Priestly Code, have more and more the character of mere additions and editorial supplements to a connection which was already there and had a different origin. The independent main stock of the Priestly Code, the Book of the Four Covenants, or the Book of Origins (Q), more and more gives way to later additions, and ceases altogether, it appears, at the death of Moses. It is at least nowhere to be traced in the first half of the Book of Joshua, and so we cannot reckon as part of it those extensive sections of the second half, belonging to the Priestly Code, which treat of the division of the land. Without a preceding history of the conquest these sections are quite in the air; they cannot be taken as telling a continuous story of their own, but presuppose the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic work. In spite of distaste to war and to records of war (1Chronicles xxii. 8, xxviii. 3), an independent work like the Book of the Four Covenants could not possibly have passed over the wars of Joshua in silence. A comparison of the different accounts of the entry of the Israelite tribes into the occupation of the conquered land may close this discussion. The Priestly Code, agreeing in this with the Deuteronomistic revision, represents the whole of Canaan as having been made a _tabula rasa_, and then, masterless and denuded of population, submitted to the lot. First the tribe of Judah receives its lot, then Manasseh and Ephraim, then the two tribes which attached themselves to Ephraim and Judah, Benjamin and Simeon, and lastly the five northern tribes, Zebulon, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan. "These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua ben Nun, and the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle." According to the Jehovist, Judah and Joseph appear to have had their territory allocated to them at Gilgal (xiv. 6), and not by lot, and to have entered into occupation of it from there. A good while afterwards the land remaining over is divided by lot among the seven small tribes still unprovided for, from Shiloh, or perhaps originally from Shechem (xviii. 2-10). Joshua alone casts the lot and gives instructions; Eleazar the priest does not act with him. Even here the general principle of the Priestly Code, which knows no differences among the tribes, is somewhat limited; but it is much more decidedly contradicted by the important chapter, Judges i. The chapter is, in fact, not a continuation of the Book of Joshua at all, but a parallel to it, which, while it presupposes the conquest of the east-Jordan lands, does not speak of the west-Jordan lands as conquered, but tells the story of the conquest, and that in a manner somewhat differing from the other source. From Gilgal, where the "Angel of Jehovah" first set up his tent, the tribes march out one by one to conquer their "lot" by fighting; first Judah, then Joseph. We hear only of these two, and with regard to Joseph we only hear of the very beginning of the conquest of his land. There is no mention of Joshua; nor would his figure as commander-general of Israel suit the view here given of the situation; though it would very well admit of him as leader of his tribe. The incompleteness of the conquest is acknowledged unreservedly; the Canaanites lived on quietly in the cities of the plain, and not till the period of the monarchy, when Israel had grown strong, were they subdued and made tributary. This chapter, as well as the main stem of the Book of Judges, corresponds to the Jehovistic stratum of the tradition, to which also passages in Joshua, of an identical or similar import, may be added without hesitation. The Angel of Jehovah is enough to tell us this. The difference which exists between it and the Jehovistic main version in the Book of Joshua is to be explained for the most part by the fact that the latter is of Ephraimite origin, and in consequence ascribes the conquest of the whole land to the hero of Ephraim or of Joseph, while Judges i. leans more to the tribe of Judah. Moreover, we find in the Book of Joshua itself the remnant of a version (ix. 4-7, 12-14) in which, just as in Judges i., the actors are the "men of Israel," who "ask counsel of the mouth of Jehovah," while elsewhere Joshua alone has anything to say, being the successor of Moses, and drawing his decisions from no source but the authority of his own spirit. And finally, we have to consider Exodus xxiii., 20 seq., where also there is a correspondence with Judges i., in the fact that not Joshua but the Angel of Jehovah (Judges v. 23) is the leader of Israel, and that the promised land is not conquered all at once but gradually, in the process of time. Judges i. presents certain anachronisms, and is partly made up of anecdotes, but these should not prevent us from acknowledging that the general view given in this chapter of the process of the conquest, is, when judged by what we know of the subsequent period of Israel, incomparably more historical than that in the Book of Joshua, where the whole thing is done at once with systematic thoroughness, the whole land being first denuded of its inhabitants, and then divided by lot among the different tribes. The latter view may have come about partly from a literal interpretation of "lot" (Judges xviii. 1), an expression which properly applies to the farm of a family but is here used for the territory of a tribe. It was also favoured no doubt by the tendency to compress a long development into its first great act; and as this tendency is carried out with the greatest thoroughness in the Priestly Code, that document stands furthest from the origin of the tradition. /1/ The same conclusion is led up ****************************************** 1. In the Deuteronomistic revision (Joshua xxi, 43-45) there is still a trace of hesitation, a certain difficulty in parting with the old view altogether (Deuteronomy vii. 22; Judg. iii. 1, 2); and besides the motives for the change are much plainer here: the Canaanites are extirpated to guard against the infection of the new settlers with their idolatary. ***************************************** to by the circumstance that the tribe of Joseph is never mentioned, one of the two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, being always spoken of instead, and that these two tribes are almost put out of sight by Judah. And yet Joshua, the leader of Ephraim, is leader here also of all Israel, having been preserved from the old original tradition, which was Ephraimitic. It involves no contradiction that, in comparing the versions of the tradition, we should decline the historical standard in the case of the legend of the origins of mankind and of the legend of the patriarchs, while we employ it to a certain extent for the epic period of Moses and Joshua. The epic tradition certainly contains elements which cannot be explained on any other hypothesis than that there are historical facts underlying them; its source is in the period it deals with, while the patriarchal legend has no connection whatever with the times of the patriarchs. /1/ This justifies the difference of treatment. ********************************************* 1. Some isolated statements there are here also to which the historical standard may be applied. We may call it a more accurate representation that Hebron was inhabited in the time of Abraham by the, Canaanites and Perizzites, than that the Hittites dwelt there at that time. The latter, according to 2Samuel xxiv. 6 (Bleek, Einleitung, 4th edition, pp. 228, 597), dwelt in Coele-Syria, and according to 2Kings vii. 6, in the neihbourhood of the Aramaeans of Damascus. The statement that the Israelites received from Pharaoh because they were shepherds the pasture-land of Goshen on the north-east frontier of Egypt and there dwelt by themselves, is to be preferred to the statement that they were settled among the Egyptians in the best part of the land, ********************************************** Our last result is still the same: whether tried by the standard of poetry or by that of history, the Priestly Code stands both in value and in time far below the Jehovist. VIII.III.3. In rough strokes I have sought to place before the reader's view the contrast between the beginning and the end of the tradition of the Hexateuch. It would not be impossible to trace the inner development of the tradition in the intermediate stages between the two extremities. To do this we should have to make use of the more delicate results of the process of source-sifting, and to call to our aid the hints, not numerous indeed, but important, which are to be found in Deuteronomy and in the historical and prophetical books, especially Hosea. It would appear that legend from its very nature causes those who deal with it to strike out variations, that it cannot be represented objectively at all. Even at the first act of reducing it to writing the discolouring influences are at work, without any violence being done to the meaning which dwells in the matter. We can trace first of all the influence on the tradition of that specific prophetism which we are able to follow from Amos onwards. This is least traceable in the old main source of the Jehovist, in J; and yet it is remarkable that the Asheras never occur in the worship of the patriarchs. The second Jehovistic source, E, breathes the air of the prophets much more markedly, and shows a more advanced and thorough-going religiosity. Significant in this view are the introduction of Abraham as a Nabi, Jacob's burying the teraphim, the view taken of the macceba at Shechem (Jos. xxiv. 27), and above all the story of the golden calf. The Deity appears less primitive than in J, and does not approach men in bodily form, but calls to them from heaven, or appears to them in dreams. The religious element has become more refined, but at the same time more energetic, and has laid hold even of elements heterogeneous to itself, producing on occasion such strange mixtures as that in Genesis xxxi. 10-13. Then the law comes in and leavens the Jehovistic narrative, first the Deuteronomic (in Genesis even, and then quite strongly in Exodus and Joshua), while last of all, in the Priestly Code, under the influence of the legislation of the post-exile restoration, there is brought about a complete metamorphosis of the old tradition. The law is the key to the understanding even of the narrative of the Priestly Code. All the distinctive peculiarities of the work are connected with the influence of the law: everywhere we hear the voice of theory, rule, judgment. What was said above of the cultus may be repeated word for word of the legend: in the early time it may be likened to the green tree which grows out of the ground as it will and can; at a later time it is dry wood that is cut and made to a pattern with compass and square. It is an extraordinary objection to this when it is said that the post-exile period had no genius for productions such as the tabernacle or the chronology. It certainly was not an original age, but the matter was all there in writing, and did not require to be invented. What great genius was needed to transform the temple into a portable tent? What sort of creative power is that which brings forth nothing but numbers and names? In connection with such an age there can be no question at least of youthful freshness. With infinitely greater justice may it be maintained that such theoretical modelling and adaptation of the legend as is practiced in the Priestly Code, could only gain an entrance when the legend had died away from the memory and the heart of the people, and was dead at the root. The history of the pre-historic and the epic tradition thus passed through the same stages as that of the historic; and in this parallel the Priestly Code answers both as a whole, and in every detail, to the Chronicles. The connecting link between old and new, between Israel and Judaism, is everywhere Deuteronomy. The Antar-romance says of itself, that it had attained an age of 670 years, 400 years of which it had spent in the age of ignorance (i.e. old Arabic heathenism), and the other 270 in Islam. The historical books of the Bible might say something similar, if they were personified, and their life considered to begin with the reduction to writing of the oldest kernel of the tradition and to close with the last great revision. The time of ignorance would extend to the appearance of "the book," which, it is true, did not in the Old Testament come down from heaven all at once like the Koran, but came into existence during a longer period, and passed through various phases. C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM. "The Law came in between."--VATKE, p. 183. CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW. Objections have been made to the general style of the proof on which Graf's hypothesis is based. It is said to be an illicit argument _ex silentio_ to conclude from the fact that the priestly legislation is latent in Ezekiel, where it should be in operation, unknown where it should be known, that in his time it had not yet come into existence. But what would the objectors have? Do they expect to find positive statements of the non-existence of what had not yet come into being? Is it more rational, to deduce _ex silentio_, as they do, a positive proof that it did exist?-_to say, that as there are no traces of the hierocracy in the times of the judges and the kings it must have originated in the most remote antiquity, with Moses? The problem would in this case still be the same, namely, to explain how it is that with and after the exile the hierocracy begins to come into practical activity. What the opponents of Graf's hypothesis call its argument _ex silentio_, is nothing more or less than the universally valid method of historical investigation. The protest against the argument _ex silentio_ takes another form. It is pointed out that laws are in many cases theories, and that it is no disproof of the existence of a theory that it has not got itself carried out into practice. Deuteronomy was really nothing more than a theory during the pre-exile period, but who would argue from this that it was not there at all? Though laws are not kept, this does not prove they are not there,--provided, that is to say, that there is sufficient proof of their existence on other grounds. But these other proofs of the existence of the Priestly Code are not to be found--not a trace of them. It is, moreover, rarely the case with laws that they are theory and nothing more: the possibility that a thing may be mere theory is not to be asserted generally, but only in particular cases. And even where law is undoubtedly theory, the fact does not prevent us from fixing its position in history. Even legislative fancy always proceeds upon some definite presupposition or other; and these presuppositions, rather than the laws themselves, must guide the steps of historical criticism. /1/ ******************************************* 1. Cf. <I.III.2. ad fin., IV.III.3., V.II.1., VII.II.2.>. This is the reason why the strata of the tradition require to be compared as carefully as those of the law. ****************************************** An argument which is the very opposite of this is also urged. The fact is insisted on that the laws of the Priestly Code are actually attested everywhere in the practice of the historical period; that there were always sacrifices and festivals, priests and purifications, and everything of the kind in early Israel. These statements must, though this seems scarcely possible, proceed on the assumption that on Graf's hypothesis the whole cultus was invented all at once by the Priestly Code, and only introduced after the exile. But the defenders of Graf's hypothesis do not go so far as to believe that the Israelite cultus entered the world of a sudden,--as little by Ezekiel or by Ezra as by Moses,--else why should they be accused of Darwinism by Zoeckler and Delitzsch? They merely consider that the works of the law were done before the law, that there is a difference between traditional usage and formulated law, and that even where this difference appears to be only in form it yet has a material basis, being connected with the centralisation of the worship and the hierocracy which that centralisation called into existence. Here also the important point is not the matter, but the spirit which is behind it, and may everywhere be recognised as the spirit of the age at one period or another. /2/ ****************************************** 2. Comp. <II.III., III.III.1.> ****************************************** All these objections, meanwhile, labour under the same defect, namely, that they leave out of view that which is the real point at issue. The point is not to prove that the Mosaic law was not in force in the period before the exile. There are in the Pentateuch three strata of law and three strata of tradition, and the problem is to place them in their true historical order. So far as the Jehovist and Deuteronomy are concerned, the problem has found a solution which may be said to be accepted universally, and all that remains is to apply to the Priestly Code also the procedure by which the succession and the date of these two works has been determined--that procedure consisting in the comparison of them with the ascertained facts of Israelite history. /3/ ************************************** 3. The method is stated in the introduction: and special pains are taken to bring it out distinctly in the first chapter, that about the place of worship. ***************************************** One would imagine that this could not be objected to. But objections have been raised; the procedure which, when applied to Deuteronomy, is called historico-critical method, is called, when applied to the Priestly Code, construction of history. But history, it is well known, has always to be constructed: the order, Priestly Code, Jehovist, Deuteronomy, is not a thing handed down by tradition or prescribed by the nature of the case, but a hypothesis as yet only a score of years old or thereby, the reasons for which were somewhat incomprehensible, so that people have forgotten them and begun to regard the hypothesis as something objective, partaking of the character of dogma. The question is whether one constructs well or ill. Count Baudissin thinks a grave warning necessary of a certain danger, that, namely, of an exaggerated application of logic: that the laws follow each other in a certain order logically, he says, does not prove that they appeared in the same order in history. But it is not for the sake of logical sequence that we consider the development which began with the prophets to have issued finally in the laws of cultus; and those who set out from "sound human reason" have generally forced the reverse process of this on the history, in spite of the traces which have come down to us, and which point the other way. /1/ ************************************** 1. And it would not be surprising when we consider the whole character of the polemic against Graf's hypothesis, if the next objection should be the very opposite of the above, viz. that it is not able to construct the history. ************************************* After laboriously collecting the data offered by the historical and prophetical books, we constructed a sketch of the Israelite history of worship; we then compared the Pentateuch with this sketch, and recognised that one element of the Pentateuch bore a definite relation to this phase of the history of worship, and another element of the Pentateuch to that phase of it. This is not putting logic in the place of historical investigation. The new doctrine of the irrationality of what exists is surely not to be pushed so far, as that we should regard the correspondence between an element of the law and a particular phase of the history as a reason for placing the two as far as possible asunder. At least this principle would have to be applied to the Jehovist and Deuteronomy too, and not to the Priestly Code only. What is right in the one case is fair in the other too; a little logic unfortunately is almost unavoidable. Not everything that I have brought forward in the history of the cultus and the tradition, is a proof of the hypothesis; there is much that serves merely to explain phenomena at the basis of the hypothesis, and cannot be used as proving it. This is a matter of course. My procedure has intentionally differed from that of Graf in this respect. He brought forward his arguments somewhat unconnectedly, not seeking to change the general view which prevailed of the history of Israel. For this reason he made no impression on the majority of those who study these subjects; they did not see into the root of the matter, they could still regard the system as unshaken, and the numerous attacks on details of it as unimportant. I differ from Graf chiefly in this, that I always go back to the centralisation of the cultus, and deduce from it the particular divergences. My whole position is contained in my first chapter: there I have placed in a clear light that which is of such importance for Israelite history, namely, the part taken by the prophetical party in the great metamorphosis of the worship, which by no means came about of itself. Again I attach much more weight than Graf did to the change of ruling ideas which runs parallel with the change in the institutions and usages of worship; this has been shown mostly in the second part of the present work. Almost more important to me than the phenomena themselves, are the presuppositions which lie behind them. Not everything that we have hitherto discussed proves, or is meant to prove, Graf's hypothesis. On the other hand, however, there is abundance of evidence, which has not yet been noticed. To discuss it all in detail, would take another book: in this work only a selection can be with all brevity indicated, if the limits are not to be transgressed which are imposed by the essentially historical character of these prolegomena. In these discussions the Pro will as a rule naturally suggest itself in the refutation of the Contra. IX.I. IX.I.1. Eberhard Schrader mentions, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, that Graf assigns the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch to the period after the exile; but he does not give the least idea of the arguments on which that position is built up, simply dismissing it with the remark, that "even critical analysis enters its veto" against it. Even critical analysis? How does it manage that? How can it prove that the one and sole cultus, worked out on every side to a great system, the denaturalising of the sacrifices and festivals, the distinction between the priests and Levites, and the autonomous hierarchy, are older than the Deuteronomic reform? Schrader's meaning is perhaps, that while the signs collected by a comparison of the sources as bearing on the history of worship show the order of succession to be Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Priestly Code, other signs of a more formal and literary nature would show the Priestly Code to be entitled to the first place, or at any rate not the last, and that the latter kind of evidence is of as much force as the former. Were this so, the scales would be equally balanced, and the question would not admit of a decision. But this awkward situation would only occur if the arguments of a literary nature to be urged on that side really balanced those belonging to the substance of the case which plead for Graf's hypothesis. In discussing the composition of the Hexateuch, /1/ ******************************************** 1. Jahrb. Deutsche Theol., 1876, p. 392 seq, 531 seq; 1877, p. 407 seq. ********************************************* I have shown, following in the steps of other scholars, that this is by no means the case; and for the sake of completeness I will here repeat the principal points of that discussion. IX.I.2. It is asserted that the historical situation of Deuteronomy is based not only on the Jehovistic, but also on the Priestly narrative. Deuteronomy proper (chaps. xii.-xxvi.) contains scarcely any historical matter, but before Moses comes to the business in hand, we have two introductions, chapter v.-xi. and chapter i.-iv., to explain the situation in which he promulgates "this Torah" shortly before his death. We are in the Amorite kingdom, east of the Jordan, which has already been conquered. The forty years' wanderings are about to close: the passage to the land of Canaan, for which this legislation is intended, is just approaching. Till this time, we hear in chapter v. 9, 10, the only law was that which is binding in all circumstances, and was therefore promulgated by God Himself from Horeb, the Law of the Ten Words on that occasion. The people deprecated any further direct revelation by Jehovah, and commissioned Moses to be their representative; and he accordingly betook himself to the sacred mount, stayed there forty days and forty nights, and received the two tables of the decalogue, and besides them the statutes and laws which now, forty years after, he is on the point of publishing, as they will come into force at the settlement. In the meantime the golden calf had been made down below; and when Moses descended from the mount, in his anger he broke the tables and destroyed the idol. Then he betook himself for a second period of forty days and nights to the mount, pleaded for mercy for the people and for Aaron; and after he had made, according to divine command, two new tables and a wooden chest for them, Jehovah once more wrote down exactly what stood on the tables which were broken. On this occasion, it is remarked in x. 8 seq., the Levites received their appointment as priests. This is evidently a reproduction of the Jehovistic narrative, Exodus xix. xx. xxiv. xxxii-xxxiv. The Priestly Code, on the contrary, is entirely ignored. Deuteronomy knows only two laws, the decalogue, which the people received, and the statutes and judgments which Moses received, at Mount Horeb. They were both given at the same time, one directly after the other: but only the decalogue had till now been made public. Where is the whole wilderness-legislation as given from the tabernacle? Is it not denying the very notion of its existence, that Moses only publishes the Torah at the passage into the Holy Land, because it has application and force for that land, and not for the wilderness? Apart from the fact that the Deuteronomist, according to chapter xii., knew nothing of a Mosaic central sanctuary, can he have read what we now read between Exodus xxiv. and xxxii.? He passes over all that is there inserted from the Priestly Code. Noldeke finds, it is true, /1 / ********************************************* 1. Jahrbb. fuer prot. Theologie, 1875, p. 350. ********************************************** a reminiscence of that code in the ark of acacia wood, Deuteronomy x. 1. But the ark is here spoken of in a connection which answers exactly to that of the Jehovist (Exod xxxii. xxxiii.), and is quite inconsistent with that, of the Priestly Code (Exodus xxv. seq.). It is only instituted after the erection of the golden calf, not at the very beginning of the divine revelation, as the foundation-stone of the theocracy. True, the ark is not mentioned in JE, Exodus xxxiii., as we now have it, but in the next Jehovistic piece (Numbers x. 33) it suddenly appears, and there must have been some statement in the work as to how it came there. The tabernacle also appears ready set up in xxxiii. 7, without any foregoing account of its erection. The institution of the ark as well as the erection of the tabernacle must have been narrated between xxxiii. 6 and 7, and then omitted by the present editor of the Pentateuch from the necessity of paying some regard to Q, Exodus xxv.; that this is the case many other considerations also tend to prove. /2/ ***************************************************** 2. Without the ark there is no use of the tabernacle, and the distinction in Exodus xxxiii. which is treated as one of importance, between the representation (Mal'ak) of Jehovah and Jehovah Himself, has no meaning. By making an image the Israelites showed that they could not do without a sensible representation of the Deity, and Jehovah therefore gave them the ark instead of the calf. ***************************************************** That the Deuteronomist found JE in a more complete form, before it was worked up with Q, than that in which we have it after the working up, is not such a difficult assumption that one should be driven into utter impossibilities in order to avoid it. For according to Noldeke either the author of Deuteronomy v.-xi. had before him the Pentateuch as it now is, and was enabled, very curiously, to sift out JE from it, or he used JE as an independent work, but read Q as well, only in such a way that his general view was in no way influenced by that of the priestly work, but on the contrary contradicts it entirely and yet unconsciously--since his work leaves no opening for a ritual legislation given side by side with the Decalogue, and that ritual legislation is the whole sum and substance of the Priestly Code. To such a dilemma are we to make up our minds, because one trait or another of the Deuteronomic narrative cannot be traced in JE as we now have it, and is preserved in Q? Does this amount, in the circumstances, to a proof that such traits were derived from that source? Must not some regard in fairness be paid to the ensemble of the question ? We may, further, remember in this connection Vatke's remark, that the wooden ark in Deuteronomy x. 1, is by no means very similar to that of Exodus xxv., which, to judge by the analogy of the golden table and altar, must rather have been called a golden ark. It takes even more good will to regard the statement about Aaron's death and burial in Mosera and the induction of Eleazar in his place (Deuteronomy x. 6, 7) as a reminiscence of Q (Numbers xx. 22 seq.), where Aaron dies and is buried on Mount Hor. In JE also the priests Aaron and Eleazar stand by the side of Moses and Joshua (cf. Joshua xxiv. 33). The death and burial of Aaron are certainly no longer preserved in JE; but we cannot require of the editor of the Pentateuch that he should make a man die twice, once according to Q and once according to JE. And it must further be said that Deuteronomy x. 6, 7 is an interpolation; for the following verses x. 8 seq., in which not only Aaron and Eleazar, but all the Levites are in possession of the priesthood, are the continuation of x. 5, and rest on Exodus xxxii. Here we are still in Horeb, not in Mosera. The historical thread which runs through Deuteronomy v. ix. x. may be traced further in chaps. i.-iv. After their departure from Horeb the Israelites come straight to Kadesh Barnea, and from this point, being commanded to invade the hill-land of Judaea, they first send twelve spies to reconnoitre the country, guided thereto by their own prudence, but also with the approval of Moses. Caleb is one of the spies, but not Joshua. After penetrating as far as the brook Eshcol they return; and though they praise the goodness of the land, yet the people are so discouraged by their report, that they murmur and do not venture to advance. Jehovah is angry at this, and orders them to turn back to the wilderness, where they are to wander up and down till the old generation is extinct and a new one grown up. Seized with shame they advance after all, but are beaten and driven back. Now they retreat to the wilderness, where for many years they march up and down in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir, till at length, 38 years after the departure from Kadesh, they are commanded to advance towards the north, but to spare the brother-peoples of Moab and Ammon. They conquer the territory of the Amorite kings, Sihon of Heshbon and Og of Bashan. Moses assigns it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, on condition that their army is to yield assistance in the remaining war. The continuous report comes to an end with the nomination of Joshua as future leader of the people. This same narrative, with the addition of some scattered particulars in the Book of Deuteronomy, /1/ will serve perfectly ************************************** 1. Appointment of judges and wardens (#W+RYM = peace-officials, who, according to xx. 9, are in war replaced by the captains), i. 9-18, Taberah, Massah, Kibroth Taavah (ix. 22), Dathan and Abiram (xi. 6), Balaam (xxiii. 5), Baal-peor (iv. 3). Only the Jehovist narrative of Numbers xii. seems to be nowhere referred to. In Deuteronomy i. 9-18 the scene is still at Horeb, but this passage shows acquaintance with Numbers xi. and uses both versions for a new and somewhat different one. *************************************** well as a thread to understand JE. What, on the contrary, is peculiar to the Priestly Code is passed over in deep silence, and from Exodus xxxiv. Deuteronomy takes us at once to Numbers x. While not a few of the narratives which Deuteronomy repeats or alludes to, occur only in JE and not in Q, the converse does not occur at all. And in those narratives which are found both in JE and in Q, Deuteronomy follows, in every case in which there is a distinct divergence, the version of JE. The spies are sent out from Kadesh, not from the wilderness of Paran; they only reach Hebron, not the neighbourhood of Hamath; Caleb is one of them, and not Joshua. The rebels of Numbers xvi. are the Reubenites Dathan and Abiram, not Korah and the Levites. After the settlement in the land east of Jordan the people have to do with Moab and Ammon, not with Midian: Balaam is connected with the former, not with the latter. The same of Baal-peor: Deuteronomy iv. 3 agrees with JE (Numbers xxv. 1-5), not with Q (Numbers xxv. 6 seq.). Things being so, we cannot, with Noldeke, see in the number of the spies (Deuteronomy i. 23) an unmistakable sign of the influence of Q (Numbers xiii. 2). Had the author read the narrative as it is now before us in Numbers xiii. xiv., it would be impossible to understand how, as we have seen, the Jehovist version alone made any impression on him. He must, accordingly, have known Q as a separate work, but it is a bold step to argue from such a small particular to the use of a source which everywhere else is entirely without influence and unknown, especially as the priority of this source is by no means established on independent grounds, but is to be proved by this alleged use of it. lf there were a palpable difference between JE and Q in this point, if we could say that in Q there were twelve spies sent out, and in JE; three, the case would be different; but in Numbers xiii. the beginning of the narrative of JE has been removed and that of Q put in place of it, so that we do not know how the narrative of JE began, and what number, if any, was given in it. In such a state of matters the only reasonable course is to supply what is lacking in JE from Deuteronomy, which generally follows the Jehovist alone, and to conclude that the spies were twelve in number in this source also. The instance in which the proof would be strongest that Deuteronomy was acquainted with the narrative of the Priestly Code, is x. 22. For the seventy souls which make up the whole of Israel at the immigration into Egypt, are not mentioned in JE, and there is no gap that we are aware of in the Jehovist tradition at this point. But they are by no means in conflict with that tradition, and even should we not take Deuteronomy x. 22 for a proof that the seventy souls found a place in it also, yet it must at least be acknowledged, that that passage is by no means sufficient to break down the evidence that the priestly legislation has the legislation of Deuteronomy for its starting-point. /1/ ******************************************** 1. Noldeke frequently argues from such numbers as 12 and 70, as if they only occurred in Q. But that is not the case. As Q in the beginning of Genesis has groups of 10, JE has groups of 7; 12 and 40 occur in JE as frequently as in Q, and 70 not less frequently. It is therefore surprising to find the story of the 12 springs of water and the 70 palm-trees of Elim ascribed to Q for no other reason than because of the 12 and the 70. Not even the statements of the age of the patriarchs--except so far as they serve the chronological system--are a certain mark of Q: compare Genesis xxxi. 18, xxxvii. 2, xli. 26, l. 26; Deuteronomy xxxiv. 7; Joshua xxiv. 29. Only the names of the 12 spies and the 70 souls are incontestably the property of the Priestly Code, but it is by no means diflicult to show (especially in Genesis xlvi. 8-27) that they are far less original than the figures. The numbers are round numbers, and in fact do not admit of such a recital of the items of which they are made up. *********************************************** VIII.I.3. As a further objection to Graf's hypothesis, the Deuteronomistic revision of the Hexateuch is brought into the field. That revision appears most clearly, it is said, in those parts which follow the Deuteronomic Torah and point back to it. It used to be taken for granted that it extends over the Priestly portions as well as the Jehovistic; but since the occasion arose to look into this point, it is found that it is not so. The traces which Noldeke brings together on the point are trifling, and besides this do not stand the test. He says that the Deuteronomistic account of the death of Moses (Deuteronomy xxxii. 48 seq., xxxiv. 1 seq.) cannot be regarded as anything else than an amplification of the account of the main stem (Q), which is preserved almost in the same words. But Deuteronomy xxxiv. 1b-7 contains nothing of Q and xxxii. 48-52 has not undergone Deuteronomistic revision. He also refers to Josh. ix. 27: "Joshua made the Gibeonites at that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of Jehovah even unto this day, in the place which He should choose." The second part of this sentence, he says, is a Deuteronomistic addition to the first, which belongs to the Priestly narrative. But Noldeke himself acknowledges that the Deuteronomistically-revised verses ix. 22 seq. are not the continuation of the priestly version 15c, 17-21, but of the Jehovistic version 15ab, 16; and between verse 16 and verse 22 there is nothing wanting but the circumstance referred to in verse 26. The phrase _hewer of wood and drawer of water_ is not enough to warrant us to separate verse 27 from 22-26; the phrase occurs not only in verse 21 but also in JE verse 23. The words FOR THE CONGREGATION do certainly point to the Priestly Code, but are balanced by the words which follow, FOR THE ALTAR OF JEHOVAH, which is according to the Jehovistic view. The original statement is undoubtedly that the Gibeonites are assigned to the altar or the house of Jehovah. But according to Ezekiel xliv. the hierodulic services in the temple were not to be undertaken by foreigners, but by Levites; hence in the Priestly Code the servants of the altar appear as servants of the congregation. From this it results that LMZBX is to be preferred in verse 27 to L(DH W, the latter being a later correction. As such it affords a proof that the last revision of the Hexateuch proceeded from the Priestly Code, and not from Deuteronomy. As for Joshua xviii. 3-10, where Noldeke sees in the account of the division of the land another instance of Deuteronomistic addition, I have already indicated my opinion, <VIII.III.2.>. The piece is Jehovistic, and if the view were to be found in the Priestly Code at all, that Joshua first allotted their territory to Judah and Ephraim, and then, a good while after, to the other seven tribes, that source must have derived such a view from JE, where alone it has its roots. /1/ ******************************************** 1. Jahrbb. fur Deutsche Theol., 1876, p. 596 seq. ******************************************** And lastly, Noldeke considers Josh. xxii. to speak quite decidedly for his view; but in the narrative of the Priestly Code, xxii. 9-34, to which the verses l-8 do not belong, there is no sign of Deuteronomistic revision to be found. /2/ ********************************************** 2. Joh. Hollenberg in Stud. und Krit., 1874, p. 462 seq. ********************************************** There is a more serious difficulty only in the case of the short chapter, Josh. xx., of which the kernel belongs to the Priestly Code, though it contains all sorts of additions which savour strongly of the Deuteronomistic revision. Kayser declares these awkward accretions to be glosses of quite a late period. This may seem to be pure tendency-criticism; but it is reinforced by the confirmation of the Septuagint, which did not find any of those alleged Deuteronomistic additions where they now are. /3/ ************************************************ 3. Aug. Kayser, Das vorexilische Buch der Urgeschichtc Israels (Strassburg, 1874), p. 147, seq.; Joh. Hollenberg, der Charactcr der Alex. Uebersetzung des B. Josua (Programm des Gymn. zu Moers, 1876), p. 15. ************************************************** But were it the case that some probable traces of Deuteronomistic revision were actually to be found in the Priestly Code, we must still ask for an explanation of the disproportionately greater frequency of such traces in JE. Why, for example, are there none of them in the mass of laws of the middle books of the Hexateuch? This is undoubtedly and everywhere the fact, and this must dispose us a priori to attach less weight to isolated instances to the contrary: the more so, as Joshua xx. shows that the later retouchings of the canonical text often imitate the tone of the Deuteronomist. IX.II. IX.II.1. I have said that in the L)DH W of Josh. ix. 27, we have the addition of a final priestly revision. Such a revision must be assumed to have taken place, if the Priestly Code is younger than Deuteronomy. But the assumption of its existence does not depend on deduction merely: Kuenen argued for it inductively, even before he became a supporter of Graf's hypothesis. /1/ ********************************************** 1. Historisch-Kritisch Onderzoek I. (Leyden, 1861), p. 165; the reviser of the Pentateuch must be sought in the same circles in which the Book of Origins (Q) arose and was gradually extended and modified, i.e., among the priests of Jerusalem, p. 194; it is generally thought that the Deuteronomist is the reviser of the whole Book of Joshua, but his hand is not to be traced everywhere,--not, for example, in the priestly sections; the last reviser is to be distinguished from the Deuteronomist. In certain narratives of Numbers and Joshua, Kuenen detected very considerable additions by the last reviser, and the results of his investigation have now been published in the first part of the second edition of his great isagogic work (Leyden, 1885). *********************************************** This may be best demonstrated by examining the chapters Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. At present they are incorporated in the Priestly Code, having undergone a revision with that view, which in some places adds little, in others a good deal. Viewed, however, as they originally were, they form a work of a peculiar character by themselves, a work pervaded by a somewhat affected religious hortatory tone, which harmonises but little with the Priestly Code. The author worked largely from earlier authorities, which explains, for example, how chapter xviii. and chapter xx. both find a place in his production. Leviticus xvii.-xxvi is incomparably instructive for the knowledge it affords of literary relationships: it is a perfect compendium of the literary history of the Pentateuch. /2/ ********************************************* 2. Compare Jahrbb. fur Deutsche Theol., 1877, p. 422-444, especially on the elimination of the additions of the reviser. In the present discussion I shall not take these into account. In chapter xxiii., for example, I only take account of verses 9-22, 39-44, in chapter xxiv. only of vers. 15-22 *********************************************** As with Deuteronomy, so with this legislation; it is clear that it goes back to the Jehovistic legislation of Sinai (Exodus xx.-xxiii.) as its source. It also bears to have been given on Mount Sinai (xxv. 1, xxvi. 46). It is addressed to the people, and is popular in its contents, which are chiefly of a civic and moral character. It is meant only for the promised land and for settled life, not for the wilderness as well. The festivals are three in number, and have not quite parted with their character as feasts of harvest. Among the sacrifices the sin-offering and the trespass-offering are wanting. The legislation does deal with the cultus to a disproportionate extent, but the directions about it do not go into technical details, and are always addressed to the people. Even in those directions which concern the priests the people are addressed, and the priests are spoken of in the third person. Nor are palpable points of contact wanting. Leviticus xix. 2-8, 9-18, may be regarded as counterparts of the first and second tables of the decalogue. The precept, "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty," xix. 15, is a development of that in Exodus xxiii. 3, and a number of other precepts in Leviticus xix. could stand with equal appropriateness in Exodus xxii. 17 seq. The directions in Leviticus xxii. 27-29 are similar to those of Exodus xxii. 29, xxiii. 18, 19. In the same way those of Leviticus xxiv. 15-22 are based both in contents and form on Exodus xxi. 12. /1/ ******************************************** 1. Compare xxiv. 15 seq. with Exodus xxii. 27 (xxi. 17); xxiv. 18 with Exodus xxi. 28 seq.; xxiv. 19, 20 with Exodus xxi. 33, 34; xxiv. 21 with Exodus xxi. 28 seq. ********************************************* In xxiv. 22 we notice a polemical reference to Exodus xxi. 20 seq., 26 seq. In xxv. 1-7 the whole of the expressions of Exodus xxiii. 10, 11 are repeated. In xx. 24, we have the Jehovistic phrase, "a land flowing with milk and honey." Yet Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. only takes its starting-point from the Jehovistic legislation, and modifies it very considerably, somewhat in the manner of Deuteronomy. There is a demonstrable affinity with Deuteronomy both in the ideas and in the expressions. Common to both is the care for the poor and the undefended: to both humanity is a main object of legislation. "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him; he shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xix. 34). Leviticus xvii. seq. attaches great importance to unity of worship. It is still a demand, not a presupposition (xvii. 8 seq., xix. 30, xxvi. 2); the motive of it is to guard against heathen influences and to secure the establishment of a monotheism without images. /2/ ****************************************** 2. xvii. 7 (cf. 2Chronicles xi. 15), xviii. 21, xix. 4, 19, 26, 29, 31, xx. 2 seq. 6, xxvi. 1, 30. With regard to the date we have to note the stern prohibition of the service of Moloch. On Lev, xvii. see above, p. 376. ****************************************** This is quite recognisable, and forms an important point of contact with Deuteronomy. The same contact may be observed in the prohibition of certain observances of mourning (xix. 27 seq.), the calculation of Pentecost from the beginning of barley harvest (xxiii. 15), the seven days' duration of the feast of tabernacles, and the cheerful sacrificial feasts which are to accompany its observance. Add to this a similarity by no means slight in the colour of the language, e.g., in xviii. 1-5, 24-30, xix. 33-37, xx. 22 seq., xxv. 35 seq. Some of the phrases may be mentioned. "When ye are come into the land that I shall give you." "Ye shall rejoice before Jehovah." "I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt." "Ye shall keep my commandments and statutes and laws, to do them." But the legislation we have here is further advanced than Deuteronomy. In the festivals the joint sacrifice of the congregation is already prominent (xxiii. 9-22). The priests are not the Levites, but the sons and brothers of Aaron, their income has grown materially, their separate holiness has reached a higher point. Stricter demands are also made on the laity for personal holiness, especially as regards continence from the sins of the flesh, and the marriage of relatives (Leviticus xviii. xx.). Marriage with an uncle's wife is forbidden (xviii. 14, xx. 20), whereas in Deuteronomy it is still legal. The work dates from a time when exile was a familiar idea: xviii. 26 seq.: "Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of those abominations; for the men that were in the land before you did these things, and the land vomited them out. Take care that the land spue not you out also as it spued out the nations that were before you." Similarly xx. 23 seq.: and in a legislative work such utterances prove more than they would in a prophecy. Now as our section departs from Deuteronomy, it approaches to Ezekiel. This is its closest relationship, and that to which attention has been most drawn. It appears in the peculiar fusion of cultus and morality, in the notion of holiness, in a somewhat materialistic sense, as the great requirement of religion, and in the fact that the demand of holiness is made to rest on the residence of the people near the sanctuary and in the holy land. /1/ ****************************************** 1. On Leviticus xxii. 24, 25, compare Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures. ****************************************** But the affinity is still more striking in the language: many unusual phrases, and even whole sentences, from Ezekiel, are repeated in Leviticus xvii. seq. /2/ ******************************************* 2. Compare Colenso, Pentateuch and Joshua, vi. p. 3-23. Kayser, op. cit. p. 177- 179. Smend on Ezekiel, p. xxv. ******************************************** The 10th of the 7th month is in Leviticus xxv. 9 as in Ezekiel, new-year's day, not, as in the Priestly Code, the great day of atonement. This led Graf to regard Ezekiel himself as the author of this collection of laws in Leviticus; and Colenso and Kayser followed him. But this is out of the question; notwithstanding the numerous points of contact both in linguistic and material respects, the agreement is by no means complete. Ezekiel knows no seed of Aaron, and no wine at the sacrifices (Leviticus xxiii. 13); his festival legislation shows considerable differences, and in spirit is more akin to the Priestly Code. And if he were the author he would have said something about the proper place in the cultus of the Levites and of the prince. The corpus in question, which Klostermann called, not inappropriately, the Law of Holiness, inclines from Ezekiel towards the Priestly Code: in such pieces as xvii. xxi. xxii. it takes some closeness of attention to see the differences from the latter, though in fact they are not inconsiderable. It stands between the two, somewhat nearer, no doubt, to Ezekiel. How are we to regard this fact? Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, are a historical series; Ezekiel, Law of Holiness, Priestly Code, must also be taken as historical steps, and this in such a way as to explain at the same time the dependence of the Law of Holiness on the Jehovist and on Deuteronomy. To assume that Ezekiel, having the Pentateuch in all other respects as we have it, had a great liking for this piece of it, and made it his model in the foundation of his style of thought and expression--such an assumption does not free us from the necessity of seeking the historical order, and of assigning his natural place in that order to Ezekiel; we cannot argue on such a mere chance. Now the question is not a complicated one, whether in the Law of Holiness we are passing from the Priestly Code to Ezekiel or from Ezekiel to the Priestly Code. The Law of Holiness underwent a last revision, which represents, not the views of Ezekiel, but those of the Priestly Code, and by means of which it is incorporated in that code. This revision has not been equally incisive in all parts. Some of its corrections and supplements are very considerable, e.g., xxiii. 1-8, 23-38; xxiv. 1-14, 23. Some of them are quite unimportant, e.g., the importation of the Ohel Moed (instead of the Mikdash or the Mishkan), xvii. 4, 6, 9, xix. 21 seq.; the trespass-offering, xix. 21 seq.; the Kodesh Kodashim, xxi. 22. Only in xxv. 8 seq. is the elimination of the additions difficult. But the fact that the last edition of the Law of Holiness proceeds from the Priestly Code, is universally acknowledged. Its importance for the literary history of Israel cannot be over-estimated. /1/ ************************************************* 1. L. Horst, in his discussion on Leviticus XVii,-XXYi, and Ezekiel (Colmar, 1881), has strikingly shown that the mechanical style of criticism in which Dillmann even surpasses his predecessor Knobel, is not equal to the problem presented by the Law of Holiness. He goes on, however, to an attempt to save, by modifying it, the old Strassburg view of Ezekiel's authorship; and as Kuenen justly remarks, he makes ship-wreck on Leviticus xxvi. (Theol. Tijdschr. 1882, p. 646). Cf. <next note, beginning "Horst...">. ************************************************** IX.II.2. The concluding oration, Leviticus xxvi. 3-46, calls for special consideration. Earlier scholars silently assumed that this piece belonged to Leviticus xvii. 1-XXVI. 2; but many critics, Noldeke for example, now regard it as an interpolation in Leviticus of a piece which from its character should be elsewhere. At any rate the oration is composed with special reference to what precedes it. If it is not taken as a peroration, such as Exodus xxiii. 30-33, Deuteronomy xxviii., its position in such a part of the Priestly Code is quite incomprehensible. It has, moreover, a palpable connection with the laws in xvii.-xxv. The _land_, and _agriculture_, have here the same significance for religion as in chaps. xix. xxiii. xxv.; the threat of vomiting out (xviii. 25 seq., xx. 22) is repeated here more circumstantially; the only statute actually named is that of the fallow of the seventh year (xxvi. 34, xxv. 1-7). The piece begins with the expression, which is so characteristic of the author of chapter xvii. seq. "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them," and the same phrase recurs, with slight alteration, in vers. 15 and 43. The conclusion, verse 46, is, "These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Jehovah gave, to regulate the relation between Him and Israel on Mount Sinai, by Moses." This is obviously the subscription of a preceding corpus of statutes and judgments, such as we have in, xvii. 1-xxvi. 2. Mount Sinai is mentioned also in xxv. 1 as the place of revelation. If Leviticus xxvi. is incontestably intended to form the conclusion of chaps. xvii.-xxv., it would be natural to suppose that the author of that collection was also the author of the oration. Noldeke thinks, however, that the language differs too much from that of xvii.-xxv. Yet he is obliged to acknowledge several resemblances, and these not unimportant; while some of the differences which he adduces (Bamoth, Gillulim, Hammanim, xxvi. 30) are really examples of similarity. Rare and original words may be found in the preceding chapters also. It may be that in chapter xxvi they are more frequent in proportion: yet this does not entitle us to say that the language generally is very original. On the contrary, it is everywhere characterised by borrowed expressions. So much of linguistic difference as actually remains is sufficiently accounted for by the difference of subject: first come laws in a dry matter-of-fact style, then prophecy in a poetical pathetic style. The idiosyncrasy of the writer has no scope in the former case, from the nature of the materials, some of which had already assumed their form before he made use of them. In the latter case he can express himself freely; and it is fair that this should not be overlooked. The arguments brought forward by Noldeke against the probability that Leviticus xxvi. belongs to chaps. xvii.-xxv. and is not merely tacked on to them, disappear completely on a closer comparison of the literary character of the two pieces. Chapter xxvi. reminds us most strongly of Ezekiel's style, both in thought and language. The most significant passage is Leviticus xxvi. 39. The threat has been uttered that Israel is to be destroyed as a people, and that the remnant which escapes the destroying sword of the enemy is to be carried into exile, to sink under the weight of past calamity and present affliction. Then the speech goes on: "And they that are left of you shall _pine away_ in their iniquity in your enemies' land; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they _pine away_. Then they will confess their own sin and the sin of their fathers." In Ezekiel, this confession actually occurs in the mouth of one of his fellow-exiles: they say (xxxiii. 10), "Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we _pine away_ in them, and cannot live." In the same strain the prophet says (xxiv. 23) that in his dull sorrow for the death of his wife he will be an emblem of the people: "ye shall not mourn nor weep, but ye shall _pine away_ in your iniquities." Nor are the other traits wanting in the oration which, as we say, accompanied the Ezekielic colouring of the preceding chapters. We do not expect to find traces of the influence of the Jehovist legislation (further than that Exodus xxiii. 20 seq. formed the model both for Deuteronomy xxviii. and Leviticus xxvi.); but to make up for this we find very distinct marks of the influence of the prophets, the older prophets too, as Amos (verse 31). We can as little conceive the existence of the Book of Ezekiel as of this chapter without the prophetic literature having preceded it and laid the foundation for it. As for the relation to Deuteronomy, the resemblance of Leviticus xxvi. to Deuteronomy xxviii. is very great, in the arrangement as well as in the ideas. True, there are not many verbal coincidences, but the few which do occur are important. The expressions of xxvi. 16 occur nowhere in the Old Testament but in Deuteronomy xxviii. 22, 65: similarly R)#YM with the meaning it has in verse 45 only occurs in Deuteronomy xix. 14 and in the later literature (Isaiah lxi. 6). The metaphor of the uncircumcised heart (verse 41) only occurs in one other passage in the law, in Deuteronomy; the other instances of it are in prophecy, of contemporary or later date (Jeremiah iv. 4, ix. 24, 25, Ezekiel xliv. 7, 9). There are several more reminiscences of Jeremiah, most of them, however, not very distinct. We may remark on the relation between Jeremiah xvi. 18 in one respect to verse 30, and in another to verse 18 of our chapter. Here the sin is punished sevenfold, in Jeremiah double. The same is said in Isaiah xl. 2, lx. 7; and our chapter has also in common with this prophet the remarkable use of rtc,h (with sin or trespass as object). Did not the chapter stand in Leviticus, it would, doubtless, be held to be a reproduction, some small part of it of the older prophecies, the most of it of those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Leviticus xxvi. 34 is actually quoted in 2Chronicles xxxvi 22 as a word of the prophet Jeremiah. Leviticus xxvi. has points of contact, finally, with the Priestly Code, in PRH WRBH, HQYM BRYT, HTWDH, )NY, (never )NKY), in the excessive use of the accusative participle and avoidance of verbal suffixes, and in its preferring the colourless NTN to verbs of more special meaning. The only reason for the attempt to separate Leviticus xxvi. from xvii.-xxv. lies in the fact, that the exilic or post-exilic origin of this hortatory and denunciatory oration is too plain to be mistaken. To us, this circumstance can only prove that it belongs to xvii.-xxv., providing a weighty confirmation of the opinion we have already formed on other grounds as to the period which produced these laws. "If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you in fury; and I will chastise you seven times for your sins. Ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters, and I will destroy your high places, and cast down your sun-pillars' and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who settle therein shall be astonished at it; and I will scatter you among the peoples, and will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities ruins. Then shall the land pay her sabbaths all the years of the desolation when you are in your enemies' land: even then shall the land rest and pay her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall make up the celebration of the sabbaths which it did not celebrate as long as you dwelt in it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies, and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another as it were before a sword when none pursueth, and there shall be no stopping in the flight before your enemies. And ye shall lose yourselves among the peoples, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away. And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in regard to their unfaithfulness which they committed against me, and that because they have walked contrary to me, I also walk contrary to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they pay their penalty, and I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, and I remember the land. The land also, left by them, pays its sabbaths, while she lieth without inhabitant and waste, and they themselves pay the penalty of their iniquity because, even because, they despised my judgments, and their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I have not rejected them, neither have I abhorred them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am Jehovah their God. And I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the peoples, that I might be their God: I am Jehovah" (xxvi. 27-45). These words undoubtedly cannot have been written before the Babylonian exile. It is said that the Assyrian exile will explain the passage: but where is there any similarity between the oration before us and the old genuine Isaiah? In Ezekiel's day such thoughts, feelings, and expressions as we have here can be shown to have prevailed: but it would be difficult to show that the fall of Samaria gave rise to such depression at Jerusalem: and Leviticus xxvi. was not written outside Jerusalem, for it presupposes unity of worship. The _Jews_ are addressed here, as in Deuteronomy xxix., xxx., and they had no such lively feeling of solidarity with the deported Israelites as to think of them in connection with such threats. I even think it certain that the writer lived either towards the end of the Babylonian exile or after it, since at the close of the oration he turns his eyes to the restoration. In such prophets as Jeremiah and Ezekiel there is a meaning in such forecasting of the joyful future but here it contradicts both the historical position and the object of the threats, and appears to be explained most naturally as the result of an accident, i.e., of actuality. That in a comparison of Leviticus xxvi. with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the former cannot claim priority, appears distinctly from the comparative use of the phrase _uncircumised heart_. That phrase originates in Jeremiah (iv. 4, ix. 24 seq.), but in Leviticus xxvi. it is used as a well-known set term. In the same way the phrase _pine away in their iniquity_ is repeated by Ezekiel as he heard it in the mouth of the people. He is its originator in literature; in Leviticus xxvi. it is borrowed. /1/ *********************************************** 1. Horst tries to find a place for Leviticus xxvi. in the last years of king Zedekiah (op. cit. p. 65, 66), but in this he is merely working out his theory that the author was the youthful Ezekiel; and the theory is sufficiently condemned if it leads to this consequence. Delitzsch (Zeitschr. fur Kirchl. Wissench. 1880, p. 619) thinks it a piece of impertinence in me to read out of Ezekiel xxxiii. what that passage says. On Deuteronomy x. 16, xxx. 6, and generally on the color Hieremianus in Deuteronomy, see Jahrb. fur D. Thhcol., 1877, p. 464. ********************************************** The criticism of Leviticus xvii. seq. Ieads us to the result, that a collection of laws which took form during the period of the exile was received into the Priestly Code, and there clothed with fresh life. We need not then tremble at Schrader's threatening us with "critical analysis," and Graf's hypothesis will not be thereby overturned. IX.II.3. Two or three further important traces of the final priestly revision of the Hexateuch may here find mention. In the story of the flood the verses vii. 6-9 are an editorial addition, with the object of removing a contradiction between JE and Q; it shares the ideas and speaks the language of the Priestly Code. In the title of Deuteronomy the verse, "It came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh [(#TY] month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel according to all that Jehovah had given him in commandment unto them" (i. 3) is shown by the most undoubted signs to belong to the Priestly Code, and is intended to incorporate Deuteronomy in that work. We have already shown that the Priestly Code in the Book of Joshua is simply a filling-up of the Jehovistic-Deuteronomistic narrative. That the Priestly Code consists of elements of two kinds, first of an independent stem, the Book of the Four Covenants (Q), and second, of innumerable additions and supplements which attach themselves principally to the Book of the Four Covenants, but not to it alone, and indeed to the whole of the Hexateuch--this assertion has not, strange to say, met with the opposition which might have been expected. Ryssel has even seen in the twofold nature of the Priestly Code a means to maintain the position of the Book of the Four Covenants before the exile: he sacrifices the additions, and places the necessary interval between them and the main body of the work. He thinks the close affinity between the two parts is sufficiently explained by the supposition that they both issued from the same circle, that of the priesthood of Jerusalem. Were it the case that the temple of Jerusalem was as autonomous and as solely legitimate in the days of Solomon as in those of the foreign domination, that the priests had as much to say under Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Josiah as after the exile, if it were allowable to represent them according as it suits one's views, and not according to the historical evidence, if, in short, there were no Israelite history at all, such an explanation might be allowed to stand. The secondary part of the Priestly Code of necessity draws the primary part with it. The similarity in matter and in form, the perfect agreement in tendencies and ideas, in expressions and ways of putting things, all compel us to think that the whole, if not a literary, is yet a historical, unity. IX.III. <IX.III.1.> It has lately been the fashion to regard the language of the Priestly Code as an insuperable barrier to the destructive efforts of tendency criticism. But it is unfortunate that this veto of language is left as destitute of detailed proof, by Delitzsch, Riehm, and Dillmann, as the veto of critical analysis by Schrader; and we cannot be called upon to show proof against a contention which is unsupported by evidence. But I take advantage of the opportunity to communicate some detached observations, which I may perhaps remark did not occur to me in connection with the investigation of the Pentateuch, but on a quite different occasion. In the passage 2Samuel vi. 12 I was exceedingly struck with L(MT, and not less with BR) in the two passages Isaiah iv. 5, Amos iv. 13, and while following out the distribution of these two words I came on the traces of similar phenomena. The language of the pre-exilic historical books is in general much akin to that of the Jehovistic work; that of the Priestly Code, on the contrary, is quite different. It is common enough to interpret this fact, as if the latter belonged to an earlier period. But not to mention that in that case the Code must have been entirely without influence on the history of the language, it agrees ill with this view, that on going back to the oldest documents preserved to us of the historical literature of the Hebrews we find the difference increasing rather than diminishing. Take Judges v. and 2Samuel i.; the poetical pieces in JE may be compared with them, but in Q there is nothing like them. And on the other hand, it is in the narratives which were introduced very late into the history, such as Judges xix.-xxi.; 1Samuel vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii.; 1Kings xiii., and the apocryphal additions in 1Kings vi.-viii. that we recognise most readily some linguistic approximation to the Priestly Code. And as in the historical so also in the prophetical literature. The speech of Amos, Isaiah, Micah, answers on the whole to that of the Jehovist, not to that of the priestly author. Deuteronomy and the Book of Jeremiah first agree with the Priestly Code in certain important expressions. In Ezekiel such expressions are much more numerous, and the agreement is by no means with Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. alone. /1/ ****************************************** I Especially noticeable is P)T NGB TYMNH in Ezekiel and the Priestly Code. In the latter Negeb, even when it refers to the actual Negeb, yet is used as denoting south (Numbers xxxiv. 3, xxv. 2-4), i.e., it has completely lost its original meaning. ****************************************** In the subsequent post-exilic prophets down to Malachi the points of contact are limited to details, but do not cease to occur; they occur also in the Psalms and in Ecclesiastes. Reminiscences of the Priestly Code are found nowhere but in the Chronicles and some of the Psalms. For that Amos iv. 11 is borrowed from Genesis xix. 29 is not a whit more clear than that the original of Amos i. 2 must be sought in Joel iv. 19 [iii. 16]. The Priestly Code maintains its isolated literary character as against the later literature also. This is the result partly of the use of a number of technical terms, partly of the incessant repetition of the same formulae, and of its great poverty of language. But if we neglect what is due to the stiff and hard idiosyncrasy of the author, it is undoubtedly the case that he makes use of a whole series of characteristic expressions which are not found before the exile, but gradually emerge and come into use after it. The fact is not even denied, it is merely put aside. To show what weight is due to it we may find room here for a short statement of the interesting points for the history of language to be found in Genesis i. Genesis i. 1, R)#YT means in the older Hebrew, not the COMMENCEMENT of a process which goes forward in time, but the FIRST (and generally the BEST) part of a thing. In the sense of a beginning in time, as the contrary to )XRYT, it is first found in a passage of Deuteronomy, xi. 12; then in the titles in the Book of Jeremiah, xxvi. 1, xxvii. 1, xxviii. 1, xlix. 34, and in Isaiah xlvi. 10, and lastly in the Hagiographa, Job viii. 7, xili. 12; Proverbs xvii. 14; Ecclesiastes vii. 8. In Genesis x. 10 R)#YT MMLKTW has a different meaning from that in Jeremiah xxvi. 1 in the one it is the principal part of the kingdom; in the other it is the beginning of the reign. _In the beginning_ was in the early time, if absolute, BFR)#NH, BATTXLH; if relative, BTXLT TXLT. /1/ ******************************************* 1 The vocalisation B:R#YT is very curious: we should expect BFRA$YT. It has been attempted to do justice to it by translating: "In the beginning, when God created heaven and earth--but the earth was without form and void, and darkness lay upon the deep, and the spirit of God brooded over the water--then God spake: Let there be light." But this translation is desperate, and certainly not that followed by the punctuators, for the Jewish tradition (Septuagint, Aquila, Onkelos) is unanimous in translating: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." In Aramaic, on the contrary, such adverbs take, as is well known, the form of the _status constructus_. Cf. RBT Psalm lxvv. 10, cxx. 6. ******************************************** We have already spoken <VIII.I.1. "a special word"> of the word BR), a word remarkable for its specific theological import. Apart from Amos iv. 13 and Isaiah iv. 5 it is first found outside the Priestly Code in the Deuteronomist in Exodus xxxiv. 10, Numbers xvi. 30 (?), Deuteronomy iv. 32, and in the Book of Jeremiah, xxxi. 22: then in Ezekiel xxi. 35, xxviii. 13, 15; Malachi ii. 10; in Psalms li. 12, lxxxix. 13, 48, cii. 19, civ. 30, cxlviii. 5; Ecclesiastes xii. 1. It occurs, however, most frequently, 20 times in fact, in Isaiah xl.-lxvi.; and curiously enough, never in Job, where we should expect to find it. It has nothing to do with B"R") (cut down wood) and BRY) (fat). /2/ ********************************************* 2. I do not speak of the use of _Elohim_ and the application of the names of God in the Priestly Code: the matter is not yet clear to me. Very curious is H#M, Leviticus xxiv. 11. ******************************************** Genesis i. 2, THW WBHW occurs also in Jeremiah iv. 23; Isaiah xxxiv. 11. THW alone is not so rare, but it also occurs, Isaiah xxix. 21 excepted, only in the later literature Deuteronomy xxxii. 10; 1Samuel xii. 21; Isaiah xxiv. 10, xl. 17, 23, xli. 29, xliv. 9, xlv. 18 seq., xlix. 4, lix. 4; Job vi. 18, xii.24, xxvi. 7; Psalm cvii. 40. The verb RXP (brood), which is common in Aramaic, only recurs in a single passage in the Old Testament, and that a late one, Deuteronomy xxxii. 11. Yet the possibility must be conceded that there was no occasion for its more frequent employment. Genesis i. 4, HBDYL and NBDL (divide and divide one's self), common in the Priestly Code, is first used by Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomist (Deuteronomy iv. 41, x.8, xix. 7, xxix. 10; 1Kings viii. 53), then by Ezekiel (xxii. 26, xxxix. 14, xlii. 10) and the author of Isaiah xl. seq. (lvi. 3, lix. 2). It is most used by the writer of Chronicles, (1Chronicles xii. 8, xxiii. 13, xxv. 1; 2Chronicles xxv. 10; Ezra vi. 21, viii.24, ix. 1, x. 8, 11, 16 ; Nehemiah x. 2, 29, xiii. 3). On YWM )XD Genesis i. 5 compare Josephus, Antiquities I. i. 1: "That now would be the FIRST day, but Moses says ONE day; I could give the reason of this here, but as I have promised (in the Introduction) to give such reasons for everything in a separate work, I shall defer the exposition till then." The Rabbis also, in Genesis Rabba, feel the difficulty of the expression, which, however, has its parallel in the )XD LXD#, which belongs to the later way of speaking. In Syriac the ordinary expression is XD B#B); hence in the New Testament MIA SABBATWN for the first day of the week. Genesis i. 6, RQY( (firmament) is found, outside the Priestly Code, only in Ezekiel (i. 22-26, x. 1), and in still later writers ; Psalms xix. 2, cl. 1 ; Daniel xii. 3; cf. Job xxxviii. 18. /1/ ********************************************* 1. It does not mean, as is generally assumed, that which is beaten out thin, is stretched out. For, firstly, the heaven is never considered to be made of sheet-metal; secondly, the meaning in question only belongs to the Piel, and the substantive derived from it is RIQQUA(. The Kal, with which RQY( must be connected, is found in Isaiah xiii. 5, xliv. 24; Psalms cxxxvi. 6. It is generally translated _spread out_, but quite unwarrantably. Parallel with it are YSD and KWNN (compare Psalms xxiv. 2 with cxxxvi. 6); the Septuagint translates in all three passages with stereoun, and accordingly renders RQY( with STEREWMA (firmamentum). This rendering, which alone is supported by tradition, and which is very satisfactory, is confirmed by the Syriac, where the verb RQ( is frequent in the sense of _fortify_. ********************************************* Genesis i. 10 YMYM (the sea, singular, see i. 22; Leviticus xi. 9, 10), is rare in older times, and belongs to lofty poetical language; it is, on the contrary, frequent in Ezekiel (ten times), and in the Psalms (seven times); and occurs besides in Job vi. 3; Nehemiah ix. 6 ; Jonah ii. 4 ; Daniel xi. 45. Genesis i. 11 MYN (kind), a very peculiar word, especially in the form _Jeminehu_, is found outside of this chapter and Leviticus xiv., Genesis vi. 20, vii. 14, only in Deuteronomy xiv. and Ezekiel xlvii. 10. Genesis i. 26, DMWT (likeness, verses 1, 3) does not occur in the earlier literature. It first appears in 2Kings xvi. 10, in a post-Deuteronomic passage, for the writer is that of chapter xi. seq., xxi. seq. Then in Ezekiel (15 times), Isaiah xiii. 4, xl. 18; 2Chronicles iv. 3; Psalms lxviii. 5. It is a borrowed word from Aramaic; and the corresponding verb only came into use in the period when Aramaic began to find its way in. Genesis i. 27 ZFKFR (male) is in earlier times ZFKW.R; for this is the vocalization in Exodus xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23; Deuteronomy xvi. 16, xx. 13; and if it is right in these passages, as we cannot doubt it is, it must be introduced in Exodus xxxiv. 19; Deuteronomy xv. 19; 1Kings xi. 15 seq. as well. In the Priestly Code ZFKFR occurs with great frequency, and elsewhere only in the later literature, Deuteronomy iv. 16; Jeremiah xx. 15, xxx. 6; Ezekiel xvi. 17; Isaiah lxvi. 7; Malachi i. 14; Judges xxi. 11, 12; 2Chronicles xxxi. 16; Ezra viii. As for NQBH (female), matters are even worse. Outside the Priestly Code it is only found in Jeremiah (xxxi. 22) and the Deuteronomist (iv. 16). The Jehovist, it is well known, always says )Y#, W)Y#H even of the lower animals: the editor of the Hexateuch, on the contrary, always follows the usage of the Priestly Code. Genesis i. 28 XYH HRM#T attracts attention by the omission of the article with the substantive and its being merely prefixed to the following adjective; as if one should say in Greek, )ANHR (O )AGATHOS instead of (O )ANER (O )AGATHOS. In the same way i. 21 YWM H##Y, and ii. 3 YWM H#BY(Y. In Arabic there are some analogies for this, but on seeking one in Hebrew we have to come down to the period when it was usual to say KNST HGDWLH. KB# and RDH are Aramaisms. In KBSHWH we find the only verbal suffix in Genesis i. Instead we have always the forms )TM )TW; this is so in the Priestly Code generally. In the Jehovistic main work, in J, these substitutes with )T are only used sometimes and for special reasons: it may be generally asserted that they are more used the later we come down. Parallel with this is the use of )nky in J and )ny in the Priestly Code; the latter form grows always more frequent in later times. These remarks carry us beyond Genesis i.; for the Priestly Code generally I am now able to refer to F. Giesebrecht's essay on the criticism of the Hexateuch. Such words as QRBN, (CM, L(MT, (#TY are each, by itself, strong arguments for assuming a late date for the production of the Priestly Code. We cannot believe that such everyday words should never have come into use in the other literature before the exile, if they were in existence. They cannot be counted technical terms: QRBN used in Hebrew for sacrifice and offering is simply as if an English writer should say priere instead of worship. In such comparisons of the vocabulary we have, however, to consider first the working up and revision which has been at work in every part of the books of the Bible, and secondly the caprice of the writers in apparent trifles, such as )NKY and )NY, especially outside the Pentateuch. These two agencies have so dislocated the original facts in this matter, that in general we can only deal in proportions, and must be content with showing that a word occurs say 3 times in the other literature and 27 times in an equal extent of the later. /1/ *************************************** 1. Too much importance must not be attached to Aramaisms: even when they admit of clear demonstration they prove little while occurring merely in single instances. We early find remarkable phenomena, such as NDR for NZR (hence NZYR = vovens), N+R for NCR (Amos i. 11 , Y+R for Y+RP?), comp. Arabic _lata_ for _laisa_, Sur. 38, 2. Hudh. 84, 1. And yet such an Aramaism as BT #NTH in Numbers xv. 27, or even QRBN, is very remarkable. *************************************** IX.III.2. The study of the history of language is still at a very elementary stage in Hebrew. In that which pertains to the lexicographer it would do well to include in its scope the proper names of the Old Testament; when it would probably appear that not only Parnach (Numbers xxxiv. 25) but also composite names such as Peda-zur, Peda-el, Nathana-el, Pazi-el, Eli-asaph, point less to the Mosaic than to the Persian period, and have their analogies in the Chronicles. On the other hand, the prepositions and particles would have to be examined the use of the prepositions Beth and Lamed in the Priestly Code is very peculiar. That would lead further, to syntax; or better still, to rhetoric and style--a diffcult and little cultivated field of study, but one of great importance and lending itself readily to comparative treatment. This treatment yields the most far-reaching results in the case of those parallels which have an undoubted and direct relation to each other. The dependence of the Priestly Code on the Jehovist cannot be more strikingly demonstrated than by comparing its CDYQ, Genesis vi. 9, with the CDYQ BDWR HZH, of Genesis vii. 1 (JE.). The plural DRWT is quite on a line with the MYNYM, and the (MY H)RC, of the Rabbis, and the SPERMATA of Galatians iii. 15; it does not denote the successive generations, but contemporaries, the contemporaneous individuals of one and the same generation. From words we are brought back to things again by noting that the age of the word depends in many cases on the introduction of the thing. The name BTR in the Song of Songs, for example, presupposes the cultivation of the malobathron in Syria and Palestine. The Priestly Code enumerates colours, stuffs, goldsmiths' work and jewels, which nowhere occur in the older literature: along with the Book of Ezekiel it is the principal quarry in the Old Testament for the history of art; and this is the less likely to be due to chance, as the geographical horizon of the two works is also the same. There is also some contact in this respect, though to a less degree, between the Priestly Code and Isaiah xl.-lxvi., and this must doubtless receive a historical explanation in the circumstances of the Babylonian age. /l/ ********************************************* 1. On Canticles cf. Schuerer's Theol. Lit. Z., 1879, p. 31. It also, by the names of plants and similar details mentioned in it, is an important source for the history of external civilisation. In Isaiah liv. 11, read with the Septuagint NPK: instead of the meaningless PWK:, and )DNYK instead of )BNYK. ******************************************** CHAPTER X. THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN TORAH. What importance the written letter, the book of the law, possessed for the Jews, we all know from the New Testament. Of ancient Israel, again, it is said in the introductory poem of Goethe's West-Oestlicher Divan, that the word was so important there, because it was a spoken word. The contrast which Goethe evidently perceived is really characteristic, and deserves some further attention. X.I. X.I.1. Even if it be the case that Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code were only reduced to writing at a late period, still there remains the Jehovistic legislation (Exodus xx.-xxiii. xxxiv.) which might be regarded as the document which formed the starting-point of the religious history of Israel. And this position is in fact generally claimed for it; yet not for the whole of it, since it is commonly recognised that the Sinaitic Book of the Covenant (Exodus xx.-xxiii. 19) was given to a people who were settled and thoroughly accustomed to agriculture, and who, moreover, had passed somewhat beyond the earliest stage in the use of money. /1/ **************************************** 1. Exodus xxi. 35: compare xxi. 33 with Judges ix. 4 **************************************** The Decalogue alone is commonly maintained to be in the strictest sense Mosaic. This is principally on account of the statement that it was written down on the two stone tables of the sacred ark. Yet of Deuteronomy also we read, both that it was written on twelve stones and that it was deposited in the sacred ark (Deuteronomy xxxi. 26). We cannot therefore place implicit reliance on such statements. What is attested in this way of the Decalogue seems to find confirmation in 1Kings viii. 9. But the authority of this statement is greatly weakened by the fact that it occurs in a passage which has undergone the Deuteronomistic revision, and has been, in addition to this, subjected to interpolation. The more weight must we therefore allow to the circumstance, which makes for a different conclusion, that the name "The Ark of the Covenant" (i.e., the box of the law) /1/ is peculiar to the later writers, ***************************************** 1. Compare 1Kings viii. 21, "the ark wherein is the covenant of Jehovah," and viii 9, "there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, the tables of the covenant which Jehovah had made with the children of Israel." The Deuteronomistic expression "tables of the covenant", alternates in the Priestly Code with that of "tables of testimony"; i e., likewise of the law. For H(DWT, "the testimony," 2Kings xi. 12, read HC(DWT, "the bracelets," according to 2Samuel i. 10. ******************************************* and, when it occurs in older narratives, is proved by its sporadic appearance, as well as by a comparison of the Septuagint with the Massoretic text, to be a correction. In early times the ark was not a mere casket for the law; the "the ark of Jehovah" was of itself important, as we see clearly enough from 1Samuel iv.-vi. Like the twelve maccebas which surrounded the altar on the holy hill of Shechem, and which only later assumed the character of monuments of the law, so the ark of the covenant no doubt arose by a change of meaning out of the old idol. If there were stones in it at all, they probably served some other purpose than that of writing materials, otherwise they would not have been hidden as a mystery in the darkness of the sanctuary; they must have been exposed to public view. Add to this that the tradition is not agreed as to the tenor of the ten words said to have been inserted on the two tables; two decalogues being preserved to us, Exodus xx. and Exodus xxxiv., which are quite different from each other. It results from this that there was no real or certain knowledge as to what stood on the tables, and further that if there were such stones in the ark--and probably there were--there was nothing written on them. This is not the place to decide which of the two versions is prior to the other; the negative result we have obtained is sufficient for our present purpose. X.I.2. Ancient Israel was certainly not without God-given bases for the ordering of human life; only they were not fixed in writing. Usage and tradition were looked on to a large extent as the institution of the Deity. Thus, for example, the ways and rules of agriculture. Jehovah had instructed the husbandman and taught him the right way. He it was whose authority gave to the unwritten laws of custom their binding power. "It is never so done in Israel," "that is folly in Israel," and similar expressions of insulted public conscience are of frequent occurrence, and show the power of custom: the fear of God acts as a motive for respecting it. "Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake," so Abraham says to himself in Gerar. "How shall I do such great wrong and sin against God?" says Joseph to the woman in Egypt. "The people of Sodom were wicked and sinned grievously against Jehovah," we read in Genesis xiii. 13. Similarly Deuteronomy xxv. 18: "The Amalekites attacked Israel on the march, and killed the stragglers, all that were feeble and fell behind, and feared not God." We see that the requirements of the Deity are known and of force, not to the Israelites only, but to all the world; and accordingly they are not to be identified with any positive commands. The patriarchs observed them long before Moses. "I know Abraham," Jehovah says, xviii. 19, "that he will command his children to keep the way of Jehovah, to do justice and judgment." Much greater importance is attached to the special Torah of Jehovah, which not only sets up laws of action of universal validity, but shows man the way in special cases of difficulty, where he is at a loss. This Torah is one of the special gifts with which Israel is endowed (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 4); and it is intrusted to the priests, whose influence, during the period of the Hebrew kings, of which we are now speaking, rested much more on this possession than on the privilege of sacrifice. The verb from which Torah is derived signifies in its earliest usage to give direction, decision. The participle signifies _giver of oracles_ in the two, examples _gibeath moreh_ and _allon moreh_. The latter expression is explained by another which alternates with it, "oak of the soothsayers." Now we know that the priests in the days of Saul and David gave divine oracles by the ephod and the lots connected with it, which answered one way or the other to a question put in an alternative form. Their Torah grew no doubt out of this practice. /1/ The Urim and Thummim are regarded, ************************************* 1. 1Sam xiv. xxiii. xxx. In connection with 1Samuel xxxi. 3 I have conjectured that the verb of which Torah is the abstract means originally to throw the lot-arrows. The Thummim have been compared in the most felicitous way by Freytag, and by Lagarde independently of him (Proph. Chald. p. xlvii.) with the Arabian Tamaim, which not only signifies children's amulets but any means of "averruncatio". Urim is probably connected with )RR "to curse" (cf. Iliad i. 11 and Numbers xxiii. 23): the two words of the formula seem mutually to supplement each other. ************************************ according to Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8, as the true and universal insignia of the priesthood; the ephod is last mentioned in the historical books in 1Kings ii. 26, /1/ ************************************** 1 Bleek, Einleiung in das A. T., 1878, p. 642. ************************************** but appears to have remained in use down to the time of Isaiah (Hosea iii. 4; Isaiah xxx. 22). The Torah freed itself in the process of time, following the general mental movement, from such heathenish media and vehicles (Hab. ii. 19). But it continued to be an oral decision and direction. As a whole it is only a power and activity of God, or of the priests. Of this subject there can be no abstract; the TEACHING; is only thought of as the action of the TEACHER. There is no torah as a ready-made product, as a system existing independently of its originator and accessible to every one: it becomes actual only in the various utterances, which naturally form by degrees the basis of a fixed tradition. "They preserve Thy word, and keep Thy law; they teach Jacob Thy judgments and Israel Thy statutes " (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9, 10). The Torah of the priests appears to have had primarily a legal character. In cases which there was no regular authority to decide, or which were too difficult for human decision, the latter was brought in the last instance before God, i.e., before the sanctuary or the priests (Exodus xviii. 25 seq.). The priests thus formed a kind of supreme court, which, however, rested on a voluntary recognition of its moral authority, and could not support its decisions by force. "If a man sin against another, God shall judge him," 1Samuel ii. 25 says, very indefinitely. Certain legal transactions of special solemnity are executed before God (Exodus xxi. 6). Now in proportion as the executive gained strength under the monarchy, _jus_--civil justice--necessarily grew up into a separate existence from the older sacred _fas_. The knowledge of God, which Hosea (chapter iv.) regards as the contents of the torah, has as yet a closer connection with jurisprudence than with theology; but as its practical issue is that God requires of man righteousness, and faithfulness, and good-will, it is fundamentally and essentially morality, though morality at that time addressed its demands less to the conscience than to society. A ritual tradition naturally developed itself even before the exile (2Kings xvii. 27, 28). But only those rites were included in the Torah which the priests had to teach others, not those which they discharged themselves; even in Leviticus this distinction may be traced; the instructions characterised as toroth being chiefly those as to animals which might or might not be eaten, as to clean and unclean states, as to leprosy and its marks (cf. Deuteronomy xxiv. 8). So it was in Israel, to which the testimony applies which we have cited: and so it was in Judah also. There was a common proverb in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, "The Torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the ancient, nor the word from the prophet:" but no doubt the saying was not new in their time, and at any rate it will apply to the earlier time as well. Not because they sacrifice but because they teach, do the priests here appear as pillars of the religious order of things; and their Torah is a living power, equal to the occasion and never-failing. Micah reproaches them with judging for reward (iii. 11), and this shows their wisdom to have been based on a tradition accessible to them alone; this is also shown by some expressions of Deuteronomy (xvii. 10 seq., xxiv. 8). We have the counterpart to the proverb above cited (Jeremiah xviii. 18; Ezekiel vii. 26) in the complaint in Lamentations (ii. 9): "Jerusalem is destroyed; her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the Torah is no more; the prophets obtain no vision from Jehovah;" after the ruin of the sanctuary and the priests there is no longer any Torah; and if that be so, the axe is laid to the root of the life of the people. In the post-exile prophets the torah, which even in Deuteronomy (xvii. 11) was mainly legal in its nature, acquires a strong savour of ritual which one did not notice before; yet even here it is still an oral teaching of the priests (Haggai ii. 11). The priests derived their Torah from Moses: they claimed only to preserve and guard what Moses had left (Deuteronomy xxxiii 4, 9 seq.). He counted as their ancestor (xxxiii. 8; Judges xviii. 30); his father in-law is the PRIEST of Midian at Mount Sinai, as Jehovah also is derived in a certain sense from the older deity of Sinai. But at the same time Moses was reputed to be the incomparable originator and practicer of PROPHECY (Numbers xii. 6 seq.; Deuteronomy xxxiv. 10; Hos. xii. 14), as his brother Aaron also is not only a Levite (Exodus iv. 14), but also a prophet (iv. 15; Numbers xii. 2). There is thus a close relation between priests and prophets, i.e., seers; as with other peoples (1Samuel vi.,; 1Kings xviii. 19, compare with 2Kings x. 19), so also with the Hebrews. In the earliest time it was not knowing the technique of worship, which was still very simple and undeveloped, but being a man of God, standing on an intimate footing with God, that made a man a priest, that is one who keeps up the communication with heaven for others; and the seer is better qualified than others for the office (1Kings xviii. 30 seq.). There is no fixed distinction in early times between the two offices; Samuel is in 1Samuel i.-iii. an aspirant to the priesthood; in ix. x. he is regarded as a seer. In later times also, when priests and prophets drew off and separated from each other, they yet remained connected, both in the kingdom of Israel (Host iv. 5) and in Judah. In the latter this was very markedly the case (2Kings xxiii. 2; Jeremiah xxvi. 7 seq., v. 31; Deuteronomy xviii. 1-8, 9-22; Zechariah vii. 3). What connected them with each other was the revelation of Jehovah which went on and was kept alive in both of them. It is Jehovah from whom the torah of the priest and the word of the prophet proceeds: He is the true DIRECTOR, as Isaiah calls Him in the passage xxx. 20 seq., where, speaking of the Messianic time, he says to the people, "Then thy director (MWRYK) is no more concealed, but thine eyes see thy director, and thine ears hear the words of One calling behind thee; this is the way, walk ye in it; when ye are turning to the right hand or to the left." TORAH and WORD are cognate notions, and capable of being interchanged (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9; Isaiah i. 10, ii. 3, v. 24, viii. 16, 20). This explains how both priests and prophets claimed Moses for their order: he was not regarded as the founder of the cultus. The difference, in the period when it had fully developed itself, may be said to be this: the Torah of the priests was like a spring which runs always, that of the prophets like a spring which is intermittent, but when it does break forth, flows with all the greater force. The priests take precedence of the prophets when both are named together; they obviously consolidated themselves earlier and more strongly. The order, and the tradition which propagates itself within the order, are essential to them: they observe and keep the torah (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9). For this reason, that they take their stand so entirely on the tradition, and depend on it, their claim to have Moses for their father, the beginner and founder of their tradition, is in itself the better founded of the two. /l/ *********************************** 1 It is also more firmly rooted in history; for if Moses did anything at all, he certainly founded the sanctuary at Kadesh and the torah there, which the priests of the ark carried on after him, thus continuing the thread of the history of Israel, which was taken up again in power by the monarchy. The prophets only appeared among the Hebrews from the time of Samuel onwards, but the seers were older than Moses, and can scarcely have had such a close connection with his tradition as the priests at the sanctuary of the ark of Jehovah. ********************************** In the ordinary parlance of the Hebrews torah always meant first, and chiefly the Priestly Torah. The prophets have notoriously no father (1Samuel x. 12), their importance rests on the individuals; it is characteristic that only names and sketches of their lives have reached us. They do indeed, following the tendency of the times, draw together in corporations; but in doing so they really renounce their own distinctive characteristics: the representative men are always single, resting on nothing outside themselves. We have thus on the one side the tradition of a class, which suffices for the occasions of ordinary life, and on the other the inspiration of awakened individuals, stirred up by occasions which are more than ordinary. After the spirit of the oldest men of God, Moses at the head of them, had been in a fashion laid to sleep in institutions, it sought and found in the prophets a new opening; the old fire burst out like a volcano through the strata which once, too, rose fluid from the deep, but now were fixed and dead. The element in which the prophets live is the storm of the world's history, which sweeps away human institutions; in which the rubbish of past generations with the houses built on it begins to shake, and that foundation alone remains firm, which needs no support but itself. When the earth trembles and seems to be passing away, then they triumph because Jehovah alone is exalted. They do not preach on set texts; they speak out of the spirit which judges all things and itself is judged of no man. Where do they ever lean on any other authority than the truth of what they say; where do they rest on any other foundation than their own certainty? It belongs to the notion of prophecy of true revelation, that Jehovah, overlooking all the media of ordinances and institutions, communicates Himself to the INDIVIDUAL, the called one, in whom that mysterious and irreducible rapport in which the deity stands with man clothes itself with energy. Apart from the prophet, _in abstracto_, there is no revelation; it lives in his divine-human ego. This gives rise to a synthesis of apparent contradictions: the subjective in the highest sense, which is exalted above all ordinances, is the truly objective, the divine. This it proves itself to be by the consent of the conscience of all, on which the prophets count, just as Jesus does in the Gospel of John, in spite of all their polemic against the traditional religion. They are not saying anything new: they are only proclaiming old truth. While acting in the most creative way they feel entirely passive: the _homo tantum et audacia_ which may with perfect justice be applied to such men as Elijah, Amos, and Isaiah, is with them equivalent to _deus tantum et servitus_. But their creed is not to be found in any book. It is barbarism, in dealing with such a phenomenon, to distort its physiognomy by introducing the law. X.I.3. It is a vain imagination to suppose that the prophets expounded and applied the law. Malachi (circa 450 B.C.) says, it is true, iv. 4, "Remember ye the torah of Moses my servant;" but where shall we look for any second expression of this nature? Much more correctly than modern scholars did these men judge, who at the close of the preexilic history looked back on the forces which had moulded it, both the divine and those opposed to God. In their eyes the prophets are not the expounders of Moses, but his continuators and equals; the word of God in their mouth is not less weighty than in the mouth of Moses; they, as well as he, are organs of the spirit of Jehovah by which He is present in Israel. The immediate revelation to the people, we read in Deuteronomy xviii., ceased with the ten commandments: from that point onwards Jehovah uses the prophets as His mouth: "A prophet like unto thee," He says to Moses, "will I raise up to them from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him; and whosoever shall not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." We find it the same in Jeremiah; the voice of the prophets, always sounding when there is need for it, occupies the place which, according to the prevailing view, should have been filled by the law: this living command of Jehovah is all he knows of, and not any testament given once for all. "This only I commanded your fathers when I brought them up out of Egypt: Obey my voice, and walk ye in all the ways that I will command you. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of Egypt, I have sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them; but ye would not hear." And even after the exile we meet in Zechariah (520 B.C.) the following view of the significance of the prophets: "Thus spake Jehovah of hosts [to the fathers before the exile], Speak true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother, and oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger nor the poor: and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in his heart. But they refused to hearken, and shrugged the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as a flint, lest they should hear the Torah and the words which Jehovah Sebaoth hath sent by His Spirit through the old prophets: therefore came a great wrath from Jehovah Sebaoth. And as He cried and they would not hear, so now shall they cry and I will not hear, and I will blow them away among the peoples.... Thus saith Jehovah Sebaoth [after the exile to the present generation], As I thought to punish you without pity because your fathers provoked me to anger, so again have I thought in these days to do well to the house of Judah: fear ye not. These are the things that ye shall do: Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates; and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour, and love no false oath, for all these are things which I hate, saith Jehovah" (Zechariah vii. 9-11, viii. 14-16). The contents of the Torah, on obedience to which the theocracy is here based, are very suggestive, as also its derivation from the "old" prophets. Even Ezra can say (ix. 10, 11): "We have forsaken Thy commandments which Thou hast commanded by the servants the prophets, saying, The land unto which ye go to possess it is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the land, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness." He is thinking of Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. Of those who at the end reflected on the meaning of the development which had run its course, the writer of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. occupies the first place. The Torah, which he also calls _mishpat_, right (i.e., truth), appears to him to be the divine and imperishable element in Israel. With him, however, it is inseparable from its mouthpiece, the servant of Jehovah, xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12. The name would denote the prophet, but here it stands for the people, a prophet on a large scale. Israel's calling is not that of the world-monarchies, to make sensation and noise in the streets (xiii. 1-4), but the greater one of promulgating the Torah and getting it received. This is to be done both in Israel and among the heathen. What makes Israel a prophet is not his own inner qualities, but his relation to Jehovah, his calling as the depository of divine truth: hence it involves no contradiction that the servant should begin his work in Israel itself. /1/ ************************************* 1. This is as if one were to say that there is much to be done before we Evangelicals are truly evangelical. Yet the distinction as worked out in Isaiah xl. seq. is certainly very remarkable, and speaks for a surprising degree of profound meditation. ************************************ Till now he has spent his strength only in the bosom of his own people, which is always inclined to fall away from Jehovah and from itself: heedless of reproach and suffering he has laboured unweariedly in carrying out the behests of his Master and has declared His word. All in vain. He has not been able to avert the victory of heathenism in Israel, now followed by its victory over Israel. Now in the exile Jehovah has severed His relation with His people; the individual Hebrews survive, but the servant, the people of Jehovah, is dead. Then is the Torah to die with him, and truth itself to succumb to falsehood, to heathenism? That cannot be; truth must prevail, must come to the light. As to the Apostle Paul the Spirit is the earnest of the resurrection of those who are born again, so to our author the Torah is the pledge of the resurrection of Israel, the justification of the servant of Jehovah. The final triumph of the cause, which is God's, will surpass all expectations. Not only in Israel itself will the Torah, will the servant of Jehovah prevail and bring about a regeneration of the people: the truth will in the future shine forth from Israel into the whole world, and obtain the victory among all the Gentiles (xlix. 6). Then it will appear that the work of the servant, resultless as it seemed to be up to the exile, has yet not been in vain. It is surely unnecessary for me to demonstrate how uncommonly vivid, I might say how uncommonly historical, the notion of the Torah is as here set forth, and how entirely incompatible that notion is with "the Torah of Moses." It might most fitly be compared with the Logos of the prologue of John, if the latter is understood in accordance with John x. 35, an utterance certainly authentic, and not according to Philo. As Jesus is the revelation of God made man, so the servant of Jehovah is the revelation of God made a people. The similarity of their nature and their significance involves the similarity of their work and of their sufferings, so that the Messianic interpretation of Isaiah lii. 13-liii. 12 is in fact one which could not fail to suggest itself. /1/ ****************************************** 1. The personification is carried further in this passage than anywhere else, and it is possible that the colours of the sketch are borrowed from some actual instance of a prophet-martyr: yet the Ebed Jahve cannot have a different meaning here from that which it has everywhere else. It is to be noted that the sufferings and death of the servant are in the past, and his glorification in the future, a long pause lying between them in the present. A resurrection of the individual could not be in the mind of the writer of Isaiah xl seq., nor do the details of the description, lii. 12 seq., at all agree with such an idea. Moreover, it is clear that liv. 1-lvi. 8 is a kind of sermon on the text lii. 13-liii. 12; and there the prophecy of the glorification of the servant has reference to Zion. See Vatke, p. 528 seq. ******************************************* X.II. X.II.1. In the 18th year of King Josiah (621 B.C) Deuteronomy was found and published. In the account of the discovery, 2Kings xxii. xxiii., it is always called simply _the book of the Torah_; it was accordingly the first, and in its time the only book of the kind. It is certainly the case that the prophets had written down some of their speeches before this, and the priests also may before this time have written down many of their precepts: it appears in fact, as Vatke surmises, that we have a monument of their spirit, e.g., in the Sinaitic Book of the Covenant. Deuteronomy presupposes earlier attempts of this kind, and borrows its materials largely from them; but on the other hand it is distinguished from them not only by its greater compass but also by its much higher claims. It is written with the distinct intention not to remain a private memorandum, but to obtain public authority as a book. The idea of making a definite formulated written Torah the law of the land, is the important point /1/ ************************************** 1. Duhm, ap. Cil. p. 201. ************************************** it was a first attempt and succeeded at the outset beyond expectation. A reaction set in afterwards, it is true; but the Babylonian exile completed the triumph of the law. Extraordinary excitement was at that time followed by the deepest depression (Amos viii. 11 seq.). At such a time those who did not despair of the future clung anxiously to the religious acquisitions of the past. These had been put in a book just in time in Deuteronomy, with a view to practical use in the civil and religious life of the people . The book of the Torah did not perish in the general ruin, but remained in existence, and was the compass of those who were shaping their course for a new Israel. How thoroughly determined they were to use it as their rule we see from the revision of the Hexateuch and of the historical books which was taken in hand during the exile. With the appearance of the law came to an end the old freedom, not only in the sphere of worship, now restricted to Jerusalem, but in the sphere of the religious spirit as well. There was now in existence an authority as objective as could be; and this was the death of prophecy. For it was a necessary condition of prophecy that the tares should be at liberty to grow up beside the wheat. The signs given in Deuteronomy to distinguish the true from the false prophet, are no doubt vague and unpractical: still they show the tendency towards control and the introduction of uniformity; that is the great step which is new. /1/ **************************************** 1. The difference between Deuteronomy xviii. 22 and 1Kings xxii. 19-23 may be thought to throw light on the two positions. In the former passage we read that if a prophet says something in the name of Jehovah which does not come to pass, it is a word which Jehovah has not spoken. Here, on the contrary, Micaiah ben Imlah, when the prophets of Jehovah promise the king of Israel a happy issue of the campaign against the Syrians, regards the prediction as contrary to the truth, but as none the less on that account inspired by the spirit of prophecy; Jehovah, he said, had made his spirit a Iying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. It may be that this difference reflects to us the interval between two different ages: but on the whole Micaiah's view appears to be rather a piece of ingenuity which might have been resorted to in later times as well. In the seventh century the command, "every firstborn is mine," was held to apply to the human firstborn as well, the sacrifice of which Jehovah was thought to require: this appears from Jeremiah's protest, "I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind," vii. 31, xix. 5. With reference to this Ezekiel says that because the Israelites despised the wholesome commandments of Jehovah, He gave them laws which were not good and statutes by which they could not live. That is a similar ingenious escape from a difficulty, without deeper meaning. See the converse, Koran, Sura ii. 174. ********************************************* It certainly was not the intention of the legislator to encroach upon the spoken Torah or the free word. But the consequence, favoured by outward circumstances, was not to be avoided: the feeling that the prophets had come to an end did not arise in the Maccabean wars only. In the exile we hear the complaint that the instruction of the priests and the word of the prophets are silent (Lamentations ii. 9); it is asked, where he is who in former times put his spirit in Israel (Isa lxiii. 11); in Nehemiah's time a doubtful question is left unsettled, at least theoretically, till the priest with Urim and Thummim, i.e., with a trustworthy prophecy, shall appear (Nehemiah vii. 69). We may call Jeremiah the last of the prophets: /2/ ********************************* 2. In his early years Jeremiah had a share in the introduction of the law: but in later times he shows himself little edified by the effects it produced: the Iying pen of the scribes, he says, has written for a lie. People despised the prophetic word because they had the Torah in black and white (viii. 7-9). ********************************** those who came after him were prophets only in name. Ezekiel had swallowed a book (iii. 1-3), and gave it out again. He also, like Zechariah, calls the pre-exilic prophets the old prophets, conscious that he himself belongs to the epigoni: he meditates on their words like Daniel and comments on them in his own prophecy (xxxviii. 17, xxxix. 8). The writer of Isaiah xl. seq. might with much more reason be called a prophet, but he does not claim to be one; his anonymity, which is evidently intentional, leaves no doubt as to this. He is, in fact, more of a theologian: he is principally occupied in reflecting on the results of the foregoing development, of which prophecy had been the leaven; these are fixed possessions now secured; he is gathering in the harvest. As for the prophets after the exile, we have already seen how Zechariah speaks of the old prophets as a series which is closed, in which he and those like him are not to be reckoned. In the writing of an anonymous contemporary which is appended to his book we find the following notable expression: "In that (hoped-for) day, saith Jehovah, I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, that they be no more remembered, and also I will cause to cease the prophets and the unclean spirit; and if a man will yet prophesy, his parents shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live, for thou speakest lies in the name of Jehovah, and his parents shall thrust him through when he prophesieth" (xiii. 2-3). X.II.2. Deuteronomy was the programme of a reform, not of a restoration. It took for granted the existence of the cultus, and only corrected it in certain general respects. But the temple was now destroyed and the worship interrupted, and the practice of past times had to be written down if it was not to be lost. Thus it came about that in the exile the conduct of worship became the subject of the Torah, and in this process reformation was naturally aimed at as well as restoration. We have seen <II.II.1.>) that Ezekiel was the first to take this step which the circumstances of the time indicated. In the last part of his work he made the first attempt to record the ritual which had been customary in the temple of Jerusalem. Other priests attached themselves to him (Leviticus xvii.-xxvi.), and thus there grew up in the exile from among the members of this profession a kind of school of people who reduced to writing and to a system what they had formerly practiced in the way of their calling. After the temple was restored this theoretical zeal still continued to work, and the ritual when renewed was still further developed by the action and reaction on each other of theory and practice: the priests who had stayed in Babylon took as great a part, from a distance, in the sacred services, as their brothers at Jerusalem who had actually to conduct them. The latter indeed lived in adverse circumstances and do not appear to have conformed with great strictness or accuracy to the observances which had been agreed upon. The last result of this labour of many years is the Priestly Code. It has indeed been said that we cannot ascribe the creation of such a work to an age which was bent on nothing but repristination. Granted that this is a correct description of it, such an age is peculiarly fitted for an artificial systematising of given materials, and this is what the originality of the Priestly Code in substance amounts to. /1/ ******************************************** 1. Dillmann arrives at the conclusion that the assumption is the most natural one in the world, and still capable of proof from ACD (!) that the priesthood of the central sanctuary wrote down their toroth even in early times; and that it is absurd to suppose that the priestly and ceremonial laws were first written down, or even made, in the exile and in Babylon, where there was no worship. We will let it be absurd, if it is true. It is not progress, though it is a fact, that the kings were succeeded by the high-priests, and the prophets by the Rabbis. Yet it is a thing which is likely to occur, that a body of traditional practice should only be written down when it is threatening to die out, and that a book should be, as it were, the ghost of a life which is closed. ******************************************** The Priestly Code, worked into the Pentateuch as the standard legislative element in it, became the definite "Mosaic law." As such it was published and introduced in the year 444 B.C., a century after the exile . In the interval, the duration of which is frequently under-estimated, Deuteronomy alone had been known and recognised as the written Torah, though as a fact the essays of Ezekiel and his successors may have had no inconsiderable influence in leading circles. The man who made the Pentateuch the constitution of Judaism was the Babylonian priest and scribe, Ezra. He had come from Babylon to Jerusalem as early as the year 458 B.C., the seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus, at the head of a considerable company of zealous Jews, provided it is said with a mandate from the Persian king, empowering him to reform according to the law the congregation of the temple, which had not yet been able to consolidate itself inwardly nor to shut itself off sufficiently from those without. "Thou art sent of the king and of his seven counsellors to hold an inquiry concerning Judah and Jerusalem _according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand_....And thou Ezra, according to _the wisdom of thy God which is in thine hand_, set magistrates and judges which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as acknowledge the laws of thy God, and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God and the law of the king, let him be prosecuted." So we read in the commission of the Persian king to Ezra, vii. 12-26; which, even should it be spurious, must yet reflect the views of his contemporaries. The expression taken from Ezra's own memoirs, vii. 27, leaves no doubt that he was assisted by Artaxerxes in the objects he had in view. /1/ *************************************** 1. With regard to his relation to the law, we have to consider the following points: he was a scribe (SWPR = literatus), at home in the Torah of Moses, vii. 6. He had directed his mind to study the Torah of Jehovah, and to do and to teach in Israel judgment and statute, vii. 10. "The priest Ezra, the master of the law of the God of heaven," vii. 21. The most important expression, however, is that which states that the law (the wisdom) of his God was in his hand: thus it was his private property, though it claimed authority for all Israel. With this agree the statements as to the object of the learned priest's mission. ************************************** But Ezra did not, as we should expect, at once introduce the law on his arrival in Judah. In concert with the heads of the people, and proceeding on the existing Torah, that, namely, of Deuteronony, he ordained and relentlessly carried out a strict separation of the returned exiles from the heathen and half-heathen inhabitants of the land. This was done a few months after his arrival in Jerusalem. But a long time, at least fourteen years, elapsed before he produced the law which he had brought with him. Why he delayed so long we can at the best only surmise, as no accounts have reached us of what he did in the interval; there is a great gap in the narrative of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah between the 7th and the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Perhaps the outward circumstances of the young community, which, probably in consequence of the repellent attitude taken up to the surrounding peoples, were not of the happiest, made it unadvisable at once to introduce a legislative innovation; perhaps, too, Ezra desired to wait to see the correcting influence of the practice of Jerusalem on the product of Babylonian scholarship, and moreover to train up assistants for the work. The principal reason, however, appears to have been, that in spite of the good-will of the king he did not enjoy the energetic support of the Persian authorities on the spot, and could not without it get the authority of the new law recognised. But in the year 445 it came about that a Jew and a sympathiser of Ezra, Nehemiah ben Hakkelejah, cup-bearer and favourite of Artaxerxes, appeared in Judea as Persian governor. With straightforward earnestness he first addressed himself to the task of liberating the Jewish community from outward pressure and lifting them up from their depressed condition; and, this being accomplished, the time had come to go forward with the introduction of the Pentateuch. Ezra and Nehemiah were manifestly in concert as to this. On the 1st day of the 7th month--we do not know the year, but it cannot have been earlier than 444 B.C.--the whole people came together as one man before the water-gate, and Ezra was called on to produce the book of the law of Moses, which Jehovah had commanded Israel. The scribe mounted a wooden pulpit; seven priests stood beside him on the right hand, and seven on the left. When he opened the book all present stood up, both men and women; with loud Amen they joined in the opening blessing, lifted up their heads, and cast themselves on the ground. Then he read the book, from early morning till mid-day, in small sections, which were repeated and expounded by a number of Levites dispersed throughout the crowd. The effect was that a general weeping arose, the people being aware that they had not till then followed the commandments of God. Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites had to allay the excitement, and said: "This day is holy unto Jehovah your God; mourn not nor weep. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and give unto them that have brought nothing with them." The assembled people then dispersed and set on foot a "great mirth," because they had understood the words which had been communicated to them. The reading was continued the next day, but before the heads of families only, and a very appropriate section was read, viz., the ordinances as to festivals, and particularly that about the feast of tabernacles, which was to be kept under branches of trees on the 15th day of the 7th month, the month then just beginning. The matter was taken up with the greatest zeal, and the festival, which had not been kept RITE <sic!> since the days of Joshua ben Nun, was now instituted in accordance with the precepts of Leviticus xxiii. and celebrated with general enthusiasm from the 15th to the 22nd of the month. /1/ *************************************** 1. For eight days, according to Leviticus xxiii. 39: as against Deuteronomy xvi. 13-15. *************************************** On the 24th, however, a great day of humiliation was held, with sackcloth and ashes. On this occasion also the proceedings began with reading the law, and then followed a confession of sins spoken by the Levites in the name of the people, and concluding with a prayer for mercy and compassion. This was preparatory to the principal and concluding act, in which the secular and spiritual officials and elders, 85 in number, bound themselves in writing to the Book of the Law, published by Ezra, and all the rest undertook an obligation, with oath and curse, to walk in the Torah of God, given by His servant Moses, and to keep all the commandments of Jehovah and His statutes and laws. Special attention was directed to such provisions of the Pentateuch as were of immediate importance for the people in the circumstances of the day--the greater part of the whole work is about the ritual of the priests--and those were in particular insisted on which refer to the contributions of the laity to the priesthood, on which the very existence of the hierocracy depended. /1/ *************************************** 1. Nehemiah viii. 1-x. 40. The credibility of the narrative appears on the face of it. The writer of Chronicles did not write it himself, but took it from his main source, from which also he drew the fragments he gives us of the memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah. This we see from the fact that while copying Nehemiah vii. in Ezra ii. he unconsciously goes on with the beginning of Nehemiah viii. (= Ezra iii. 1). That shows that he found Nehemiah vii. and viii. in their present connection, and did not write viii. seq. himself, as we might suppose. ************************************** Lagarde expresses great surprise--and the surprise is reasonable-- that so little importance is attributed to this narrative by Old Testament critics; only Kuenen had rightly appreciated its significance. /2/ ****************************************** 2 Goettinger Gel. Anzeigen, 1870, p. 1557 seq. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, vol. ii. chapter viii. ****************************************** It is obvious that Nehemiah viii.-x. is a close parallel to 2Kings xxii. xxiii., especially to xxiii. 1-3. There we read that Josiah caused all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to come together, and went up with the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with the priests and the prophets and all the people, high and low, to the house of Jehovah; where he read to the assemblage all the words of the Book of the Law, and bound himself with all the people before Jehovah to keep all the words of the book. Just as it is in evidence that Deuteronomy became known in the year 621, and that it was unknown up to that date, so it is in evidence that the remaining Torah of the Pentateuch--for there is no doubt that the law of Ezra was the whole Pentateuch--became known in the year 444 and was unknown till then. This shows in the first place, and puts it beyond question, that Deuteronomy is the first, and the priestly Torah the second, stage of the legislation. But in the second place, as we are accustomed to infer the date of the composition of Deuteronomy from its publication and introduction by Josiah, so we must infer the date of the composition of the Priestly Code from its publication and introduction by Ezra and Nehemiah. It would require very strong internal evidence to destroy the probability, thus based on a most positive statement of facts, that the codification of the ritual only took place in the post-exile period. We have already seen of what nature the internal evidence is which is brought forward with this view. /1/ ******************************************** 1. It is not, however, necessary, and it can scarcely be correct, to make Ezra more than the editor, the real and principal editor, of the Hexateuch: and in particular he is not likely to have been the author of Q. Nor on the other hand is it meant to deny that many new features may have been added and alterations made after Ezra. A body of customs is a subject which can scarcely be treated quite exhaustively. There are no directions about the _nervus ischiadicus_ <**sciatic nerve??**>, about the priests having their feet bare, about shutting up before Jehovah (1Samuel xxi cf. Jeremiah xxxvi. 5), or about the stoning of adulterers. ******************************************* X.II.3. Ezra and Nehemiah, and the eighty-five men of the great assembly (Nehemiah viii. seq.), who are named as signatories of the covenant, are regarded by later tradition as the founders of the canon. And not without reason: only King Josiah has a still stronger claim to this place of honour. The introduction of the law, first Deuteronomy, and then the whole Pentateuch, was in fact the decisive step, by which the written took the place of the spoken word, and the people of the word became a "people of the book." To THE BOOK were added in course of time THE BOOKS; the former was formally and solemnly introduced in two successive acts, the latter acquired imperceptibly a similar public authority for the Jewish church. The notion of the canon proceeds entirely from that of the written Torah; the prophets and the hagiographa are also called Torah by the Jews, though not Torah of Moses. The origin of the canon thus lies, thanks to the two narratives 2Kings xxii. xxiii., Nehemiah viii.-x. in the full light of history; but the traditional science of Biblical introduction has no clear or satisfactory account to give of it. Josiah, the ordinary notion is, introduced the law, but not the canon; Ezra, on the other hand, the canon and not the law. An analogy drawn from the secondary part of the canon, the prophets and hagiographa, is applied without consideration to the primary part, the Torah of Moses. The historical and prophetical books were, in part at least, a long time in existence before they became canonical, and the same, it is thought, might be the case with the law. But the case of the law is essentially different. The law claims to have public authority, to be a book of the community; the difference between law and canon, does not exist. Hence it is easy to understand that the Torah, though as a literary product later than the historical and prophetical books, is yet as law older than these writings, which have originally and in their nature no legal character, but only acquired such a character in a sort of metaphorical way, through their association with the law itself. When it is recognised that THE CANON is what distinguishes Judaism from ancient Israel, it is recognised at the same time that what distinguishes Judaism from ancient Israel is THE WRITTEN TORAH. The water which in old times rose from a spring, the Epigoni stored up in cisterns. CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION. Writers of the present day play with the expressions "theocracy," and "theocratic" without making it clear to themselves what these words mean and how far they are entitled to use them. But we know that the word theokratia was only coined by Josephus; /1/ *************************************** 1. )OUKOUN )APEIROI MEN (AI KATA MEROS TWN )ETHWN KAI TWN NOMWN PARA TOIS )APASIN )ANTHRWPOS DIAFORAI. )OI MEN GAR MONARXIAIS, (OI DE TAIS )OLIGWN DUNASTEIAIS, )ALLOI DE TOIS PLHTHESIN )EPETREPYAN THN 'ECOUSIAN TWN POLITEUMATWN. (O D' (HMETEROS NOMOQETHS )EIS MEN TOUTWN OUD' (OTIOUN )APEIDEN, (WS D' )AN TIS )EIPOI BIASAMENOS TON LOGON QEOKRATIAN )APEDEICE TO POLITEUMA, QEW| THN )ARXHN KAI TO KRATOS )ANAQEIS (contra Apion ii. 17). (" There are innumerable differences in the particular customs and laws that are among mankind; some have intrusted the power of their states to monarchies, some to oligarchies, and some to democracies: but our legislator had no regard to any of these forms, _but he ordered our governmernt to be what I may call by a strained expression a theocracy_, attributing the power and the authority to God." Compare also, on this whole chapter, Die Pharisaer und die Sadducaer, Greifswald, 1874. ***************************************** and when this writer speaks of the Mosaic constitution, he has before his eyes, it is well known, the sacred community of his own day as it existed down to the year 70 A.D. In ancient Israel the theocracy never existed in fact as a form of constitution. The rule of Jehovah is here an ideal representation; only after the exile was it attempted to realise it in the shape of a Rule of the Holy with outward means. It is perhaps the principal merit of Vatke's Biblical Theology to have traced through the centuries the rise of the theocracy and the metamorphosis of the idea to an institution. XI.I. XI.I.1. The upholders of the prevailing view do not assert that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but they maintain all the more firmly that he organised the congregation of the tabernacle in the wilderness after the fashion described in the Priestly Code. They seem to think that Moses had no importance further than this; as if it were an act of no moment to cast into the field of time a seed which the action and reaction thence arising bring an immeasurable time after to maturity (Mark iv. 26 seq.). In fact Moses is the originator of the Mosaic constitution in about the same way as Peter is the founder of the Roman hierarchy. Of the sacred organisation supposed to have existed from the earliest times, there is no trace in the time of the judges and the kings. It is thought to have been a sort of pedagogic strait-waistcoat, to subdue the ungovernable obstinacy of the Hebrews and to guard them from evil influences from without. But even should it be conceded that a constitution could come into existence in ancient times which was so utterly out of relation to the peculiar life and temper of the people, the history of the ancient Israelites shows us nothing so distinctly as the uncommon freshness and naturalness of their impulses. The persons who appear always act from the constraining impulse of their nature, the men of God not less than the murderers and adulterers: they are such figures as could only grow up in the open air. Judaism, which realised the Mosaic constitution and carried it out logically, left no free scope for the individual; but in ancient Israel the divine right did not attach to the institution but was in the Creator Spirit, in individuals. Not only did they speak like the prophets, they also acted like the judges and kings, from their own free impulse, not in accordance with an outward norm, and yet, or just because of this, in the Spirit of Jehovah. The different view of different times is seen very characteristically in the views taken of Saul by the two versions above sifted and compared <VII.II.2 >. XI.I.2. It is a simple and yet a very important remark of Vatke, that the sacred constitution of the congregation, so circumstantially described to us in the Priestly Code, is after all very defective, and presupposes the existence of that which it was the chief task of the age of Moses to bring about, namely the state, in the absence of which the church cannot have any subsistence either. To maintain an elaborate and expensive worship, and an immense swarm of clergy, must have required considerable rates and taxes: and to raise these, as well as to uphold the authority of the sacred persons and institutions, and most of all to enforce the strict centralization and uniformity of the legitimate worship, all this among a people not yet very civilised, must have required an executive power which embraced and was able to control, the whole people. But where is this central authority in the period of the judges? Judicial competence resided at that time chiefly in the smallest circles, the families and houses. These were but little controlled, as it appears, by the superior power of the tribe, and the very notion of the state or of the kingdom did not as yet exist. Houses related to each other sometimes united for common undertakings, as no doubt also did neighbouring tribes; but this was not on the basis of any constitutional order, but from necessity, when it happened that a well-known man came forward to take the command and his summons to the levy was obeyed. These transient combinations under generals were the forerunners of a permanent union under a king: and even at the time of the Midianite war an attempt seems to have been made in this direction, which, however, was not quite successful. In the severe and protracted struggle with the Philistines the necessity for a solid union of the tribes was cryingly manifest, and the man came forward to meet the hour. Saul, a distinguished Benjamite of Gibeah, was overcome by anger at the scornful challenge which even the Ammonites ventured at such a time to cast in the teeth of his people: he called his fellow-countrymen to battle, not in virtue of any office he held, but on the strength of his own impulses; his enthusiasm proved contagious, none dared to say him nay. He began his career just like one of the earlier judges, but after he had led his people to victory they did not let him retire again. The person sought for, the king, was found. Out of such natural beginnings did the state at that time arise: it owed nothing to the pattern of the "Mosaic theocracy," but bears all the marks of a new creation. Saul and David first made out of the Hebrew tribes a real people in the political sense (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 5). David was in the eyes of later generations inseparable from the idea of Israel: he was the king par excellence: Saul was thrown into the shade, but both together are the founders of the kingdom, and have thus a much wider importance than any of their successors. It was they who drew the life of the people together at a centre, and gave it an aim; to them the nation is indebted for its historical self-consciousness. All the order of aftertimes is built up on the monarchy; it is the soil out of which all the other institutions of Israel grow up. In the time of the judges, we read, every man did that which was right in his own eyes, not because the Mosaic constitution was not in force, but because there was no king in those days. The consequences were very important in the sphere of religion as well: since the political advance of the people brought the historic and national character of Jehovah to the front again. During the time of the judges the Canaanite festival cultus had gradually been coming to be embodied in the worship of Jehovah, a process which was certainly necessary; but in this process there was for some time a danger that Jehovah would become a God of husbandry and of cattle, like Baal-Dionysus. The festivals long continued to be a source of heathenism, but now they were gradually divested of their character as nature-festivals, and forced at length to have reference to the nation and to its history, if they were not to disappear completely. The relation of Jehovah to people and kingdom remained firm as a rock: even to the worst idolaters He was the God of Israel; in war no one thought of looking for victory and success to any other God. This was the result of Israel's becoming a kingdom: the kingship of Jehovah, in that precise sense which we associate with it, is the religious expression of the fact of the foundation of the kingdom by Saul and David. The theocracy was the state of itself; the ancient Israelites regarded the civil state as a miracle, or, in their own words, a help of God. When the later Jews thought or spoke of the theocracy, they took the state for granted as already there, and so they could build the theocracy on the top of it as a specially spiritual feature: just as we moderns sometimes see the divine element in settled ordinances, such as marriage, not in their own nature, but in the consecration added to them by the church. XI.I.3. The kingdom of Saul and David did not long remain at its height. Decay set in even at the separation, and when once the Assyrians were heard at the door, it advanced with steps not to be arrested. But the memory of the period of glory and power was all the greener, and the hope arose of its return. From the contrast between the sorrowful present and the brilliant past there arose the picture of the state as it should be; when ruin was seen without and anarchy within, the prophets set against this the pattern of the theocracy. The theocracy as the prophets represent it to themselves is not a thing essentially different from the political community, as a spiritual differs from a secular power; rather, it rests on the same foundations and is in fact the ideal of the state. Isaiah gave this ideal its classical form in those pictures of the future which we are accustomed to call Messianic prophecies. These passages are not predictions of this or that occurrence, but announcements of the aims which, it is true, the prophet only expects the future to realise, but which are of force or ought to be of force in the present, and towards which the community, if true to its own nature, must strive. The first feature of these Messianic descriptions is the expulsion of the Assyrians; but most emphasis is laid on the restoration of the inner bases of the state, the rottenness of which has brought about and rendered inevitable the present crisis. The collapse of the government, the paralysis fallen on the law, the spoliation of the weak by the strong, these are the evils that call for redress. "How is the honourable city become a harlot; it was full of judgment, righteousness lodged in it--but now murderers! Thy princes are rascals and companions of thieves, every one loveth gifts and followeth after bribes; they judge not the fatherless, neither cloth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord: Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies! And I will turn my hand against thee, Zion, and as with Iye I will purge away thy dross, and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning; afterwards thou shalt be called a righteous and honourable city. Zion shall be redeemed by judgment and her inhabitants by righteousness" (Isaiah i. 21-27). The state the prophet has before his eye is always the natural state as it exists, never a community distinguished by a peculiar holiness in its organisation. The kingdom of Jehovah is with him entirely identical with the kingdom of David; the tasks he sets before it are political in their nature, similar, we might say, to the demands one would address to the Turkish Empire in our own days. He is unconscious of any difference between human and divine law: law in itself, jurist's law in the proper juristic sense of the word, is divine, and has behind it the authority of the Holy One of Israel. In that day shall Jehovah of hosts be for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty unto the residue of His people, and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and a spirit of strength to them that drive back the battle from the borders " (xxviii. 5, 6). Jehovah is a true and perfect King, hence justice is His principal attribute and His chief demand. And this justice is a purely forensic or social notion: the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount can only come into consideration when civil justice and order have come to be a matter of course--which at that time they had not yet done. The representative of Jehovah is the human king. The earthly ruler is not in the way of the heavenly: even the glorious kingdom of the future cannot dispense with him. "Then a king shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment; each of them shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of waters in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (xxxii. 1, 2). As the reigning king is in general unsatisfactory, Isaiah hopes for a new one who will answer the pattern of David of old, the Messiah. "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of warlike might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and His breath shall be drawn in the fear of Jehovah. And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor decide by hearsay: but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and give sentence with equity for the meek of the earth; but He shall smite the scorners with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, so that righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins. Then the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: and the calf and the young lion together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox: and the sucking child shall stroke the head of the adder, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the eye-ball of the basilisk. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (xi. 1-9) This is generally considered to be a prediction of a universal golden age on earth; but Isaiah only speaks of the holy mountain as the scene, meaning by this the whole city of David as the centre of his kingdom. The just and strict government of the descendant of David is to bring it about that righteousness and truth kiss each other, and that the strong do not dare to injure the weak. Fear of the severity of the law engenders general confidence; the lamb is no longer afraid of the wolf. The opposite of this ideal is lawlessness and anarchy within, not war without; the hope is not that of international peace, as we see both from verse 1-5 and from verse 9. The Messiah is adorned just with the virtues which befit a ruler; and this shows sufficiently what is the nature of the kingdom of which he is to be the head, i.e., what is the notion of the theocracy. The other prophets of this period agree with Isaiah (Lamentations iv. 20), only Hosea is peculiar in this as in other points. He appears to have regarded the kingdom as such as an evil; in more than one expression he makes it the antithesis of the rule of Jehovah. But we have to remember that this judgment of his is based entirely on his historical experience. In the kingdom of the ten tribes the supreme power was constantly being seized by usurpers, so that instead of being the pillar of order and law it was the plaything of parties and the occasion of incessant disturbances. It is this North-Israelite kingdom that Hosea has in view; and he reprobates it for no other reason than that, in the three hundred years of its existence, it has not approved itself, and does not approve itself in the present time of need. He does not proceed as on _a priori_ theory, he does not apply as his rule a pattern of the theocratic constitution given antecedently to any historical development. There can be no doubt that it never entered his head that the form God desired the community to take was not a thing to be determined by circumstances, but had been revealed at Mount Sinai. /1/ ***************************************** 1. He even speaks with favour of David and the kingdom of Judah, but I consider all such references in Hosea (as well as in Amos) to, be interpolations. In i. 7 there is a reference to the deliverance of Jerusalem under Hezekiah. ***************************************** XI.I.4. Nor did the theocracy exist from the time of Moses in the form of the covenant, though that was afterwards a favourite mode of regarding it. The relation of Jehovah to Israel was in its nature and origin a natural one; there was no interval between Him and His people to call for thought or question. Only when the existence of Israel had come to be threatened by the Syrians and Assyrians, did such prophets as Elijah and Amos raise the Deity high above the people, sever the natural bond between them, and put in its place a relation depending on conditions, conditions of a moral character. To them Jehovah was the God of righteousness in the first place, and the God of Israel in the second place, and even that only so far as Israel came up to the righteous demands which in His grace He had revealed to him. They inverted the order of these two fundamental articles of faith. "If your sins are as scarlet, how should they be reckoned white as snow? If they are red like crimson, how should they be as wool? If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land, but if ye refuse and rebel, ye must eat the sword, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." Thus the nature of the conditions which Jehovah required of His people came to the very front in considering His relations with them: the Torah of Jehovah, which originally, like all His dealings, fell under the category of divine aid, especially in the doing of justice, of divine guidance in the solution of difficult questions, was now conceived of as incorporating the demands on the fulfilment of which His attitude towards Israel entirely depended. In this way arose, from ideas which easily suggested it, but yet as an entirely new thing, the substance of the notion of covenant or treaty. The name Berith, however, does not occur in the old prophets, not even in Hosea, who certainly presents us as clearly as possible with the thing, in his figure of the marriage of Jehovah and Israel (Isaiah i. 21). That he was unacquainted with the technical usage of Berith is strikingly proved by ii. 20 and vi. 7; and these passages must decide the view we take of viii. 1, a passage which is probably interpolated. The NAME Berith comes, it is likely, from quite a different quarter. The ancient Hebrews had no other conception of law nor any other designation for it than that of a treaty. A law only obtained force by the fact of those to whom it was given binding themselves to keep it. So it is in Exodus xxiv. 3-8, and in 2Kings xxiii. 1-3; so also in Jeremiah xxxiv. 8 seq.--curiously enough just as with the people of Mecca at the time of Mohammed (lbn Hisham, p. 230 seq.). Hence also the term Sepher Berith for the Deuteronomic as well as the Jehovistic Book of the Law. This use of the phrase Berith (ie., treaty) for law, fitted very well with the great idea of the prophets, and received from it in turn an interpretation, according to which the relation of Jehovah to Israel was conditioned by the demands of His righteousness, as set forth in His word and instruction. In this view of the matter Jehovah and Israel came to be regarded as the contracting parties of the covenant by which the various representatives of the people had originally pledged each other to keep, say, the Deuteronomic law. /1/ ***************************************** I This variation gained entrance the more easily as Berith is used in various applications, e.g:, of the capitulation, the terms of which are imposed by the stronger on the weaker party: that the contracting parties had equal rights was by no means involved in the notion of the Berith. See the wavering of the notion in Jeremiah xxxiv. 13-18. ******************************************* After the solemn and far-reaching act by which Josiah introduced this law, the notion of covenant-making between Jehovah and Israel appears to have occupied the central position in religious thought: it prevails in Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, in Isaiah xl.-lxvi., Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and most of all in the Book of the Four Covenants. The Babylonian exile no doubt helped, as the Assyrian exile had previously done, to familiarise the Jewish mind with the idea that the covenant depended on conditions, and might possibly be dissolved. XI.II. XI.II.1. The tabernacle of David fell at last, and no king was born to set it up again. The state suffered not a crisis, but destruction. And the result was that such of the religious hopes of the people as they still held fast, were no longer limited to existing political conditions, but now took a freer flight, became tinged with enthusiasm, and cast off all restrictions. In former times there was always an enemy threatening in the background, a danger really approaching, to give rise to the expectation of a great conflagration, the materials for which had long been collected in the nation itself: but after the exile fancy dealt in general coalitions of God knows what peoples against the New Jerusalem, vaticinations for which there was no ground whatever in reality. /1/ ****************************************** 1 Ezekiel xxxviii. xxxix.; Isaiah lxvi. 18-24; Joel iv.; Zechariah xii. xiv. In Isaiah v. 26, on the other hand, we must, of course, read GWY, for GWYM, the singular instead of the plural. ***************************************** In earlier times the national state as it had existed under David was the goal of all wishes. Now a universal world empire was erected in imagination, which was to lift up its head at Jerusalem over the ruins of the heathen powers. Prophecy was no longer tied to history, nor supported by it. But the extravagant hopes now built on Jehovah were balanced on the other side by sober and realisable aims which the course of history presented. Those who waited for the consolation of Israel were then confronted from the nature of their situation with practical tasks. The old prophets were satisfied with expressing their ideas, with criticising existing evils; as to practical points they had nothing to say, the leadership of the people was in other hands. But the old community being now gone and its heads having fallen with it, the godly both had the power and felt the obligation to place themselves at the head of the Israel now to be anew created, after which they had long been striving, and their faith in which was still unshaken. In former times the nation had not been so seriously threatened as that its continued existence, notwithstanding the dangerous crises it might have to pass through, should ever cease to be regarded as natural, as a thing of course. But now this was by no means a thing of course, the danger was a pressing one that the Jewish exiles, like the Samaritan exiles before them, would be absorbed by the heathens among whom they dwelt. In that case the Messianic hopes also would have lost their point of application, for, however true it was that the realising of them was Jehovah's concern, the men must still be there to whom they were to be fulfilled. Thus everything depended on getting the sacred remnant safe across this danger, and giving it so solid an organisation that it might survive the storms and keep alive the expectation of the promise. But in the eyes of those whose words had weight in the restoration the old community, as it had existed formerly, was not in good repute. They could not but allow Jehovah's sentence of condemnation to be just which He had spoken by the mouth of His servants and through the voice of history. The utterances of the prophets, that fortresses and horses and men of war, that kings and princes, cannot help, were called to mind and turned into practical principles: the sole rule of Jehovah was to be carried out in earnest. Circumstances favoured the design, and this was the great point. As matters then were, the reconstitution of an actual state was not to be thought of, the foreign rule would not admit of it (Ezra iv. 19 seq.). What plan was to be taken, what materials to be used for such a building as the times allowed? The prophetic ideas would not serve as building stones; they were not sufficiently practical. Then appeared the importance of institutions, of traditional forms, for the conservation even of the spiritual side of the religion. The Jewish royal temple had early overshadowed the other sanctuaries, and in the course of the seventh century they were extinct or verging on extinction. Under the shelter of the monarchy the priests of Jerusalem had grown great and had at last attained, as against their professional brethren elsewhere, a position of exclusive legitimacy. The weaker the state grew, the deeper it sank from the fall of Josiah onwards, the higher became the prestige of the temple in the eyes of the people, and the greater and the more independent grew the power of its numerous priesthood; how much more do we feel it in Jeremiah's time than in that of Isaiah! This advance of the priesthood indicates unmistakably the rise into prominence of the cultus in the seventh century, a rise rather helped than hindered by the long reign of Manasseh, evil as is the reputation of that reign. It shows itself not only in the introduction of more luxurious materials, incense, for example, but even more in the importance given to great and striking services, e.g., the sacrifice of children, and the expiatory offering. Even after the abolition of the horrid atrocities of Manasseh's time, the bloody earnestness remained behind with which the performance of divine service was gone about. So closely was the cultus of Jerusalem interwoven with the consciousness of the Jewish people, and so strongly had the priesthood established their order, that after the collapse of the kingdom the elements still survived here for the new formation of a "congregation" answering to the circumstances and needs of the time. Around the ruined sanctuary the community once more lifted up its head (1Kings viii.; Haggai i. seq.; Zechariah i. seq.). The usages and ordinances were, though everywhere changes in detail, yet not created afresh. Whatever creating there was lay in this, that these usages were bound together in a system and made the instruments of restoring an organisation of "the remnant." Ezekiel first pointed out the way which was suited for the time. He is the connecting link between the prophets and the law. He claims to be a prophet, and starts from prophetic ideas: but they are not his own ideas, they are those of his predecessors which he turns into dogmas. He is by nature a priest, and his peculiar merit is that he enclosed the soul of prophecy in the body of a community which was not political, but founded on the temple and the cultus. The chapters xl.-xlviii. are the most important in his book, and have been called by J. Orth, not incorrectly, the key of the Old Testament. Thus arose that artificial product, the sacred constitution of Judaism. In the Priestly Code we have the picture of it in detail. /1/ ****************************************** 1. It is not the case that the hierocracy is based on the Priestly Code: that code was only introduced after the hierocracy was already in existence, but helped, no doubt, to consolidate and legalise it. The written law afterwards undermined the rule of the priests; and the scriptures played into the hands of the scribes and Pharisees. (Compare the case of the Parsees and Sabians, and <the reference given here,.. namely "p.157, note" is in error. There is no note on p. 157 and I do not know what is being referred to ..>.) ****************************************** The distinction, drawn with such pains between the Mosaic theocracy and the post-exilic hierocracy, is too fine. Theocracy as a constitution is hierocracy. If Moses founded such a constitution, he did it prophetically, with a view to circumstances which only arose a thousand years after his day, <V.II.1.; VII.II.4.>. Old Israel had not shrunk to a religious congregation, public life was not quite absorbed in the service of the sanctuary; the high priest and the dwelling of Jehovah were not the centre round which all revolved <p.170 is not correct; >. These great changes were wrought by the destruction of the political existence first of Samaria, then of Judah. In this way the people became "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," as we read in a Deuteronomistic passage, Exodus xix. 6. If the divine rule was formerly a belief supporting the natural ordinances of human society, it was now set forth in visible form as a divine state, in an artificial sphere peculiar to itself and transcending the ordinary life of the people. The idea had formerly informed and possessed the natural body, but now, in order that it might be thoroughly realised, it was to have spiritual body of its own. There arose a material, external antithesis of a sacred and profane; men's minds came to be full of this, and it was their great endeavour to draw the line as sharply as possible and to repress the natural sphere more and more. Holiness is the ruling idea in Ezekiel, in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and in the Priestly Code. The notion is a somewhat empty one, expressing rather what a thing is not than what it is; at first it meant the same as divine, but now it is used mainly in the sense of spiritual, priestly, as if the divine could be distinguished from the worldly, the natural, by outward visible marks of that kind. The Mosaic theocracy, the residuum of a ruined state, is itself not a state at all, but an unpolitical artificial product created in spite of unfavourable circumstances by the impulse of an ever-memorable energy: and foreign rule is its necessary counterpart. In its nature it is intimately allied to the old Catholic church, which was in fact its child. As a matter of taste it may be objectionable to speak of the Jewish church, but as a matter of history it is not inaccurate, and the name is perhaps preferable to that of theocracy, which shelters such confusion of ideas. XI.II.2. The Mosaic theocracy appears to show an immense retrogression. The law of Jehovah should denote what is characteristic of His people over against the heathen. But this certainly did not consist in the cultus of Israel: it would be vain labour to seek in this and that slight variation between the Hebrew and the Greek ritual a difference of principle between them. The cultus is the heathen element in the Israelite religion-- the word heathen not being understood, of course, in an ignoble or unworthy sense. If the Priestly Code makes the cultus the principal thing, that appears to amount to a systematic decline into the heathenism which the prophets incessantly combated and yet were unable to eradicate. It will be readily acknowledged that at the constitution of the new Jerusalem the prophetic impulses were deflected by a previously existing natural tendency of the mass on which they had to operate. Yet in every part of the legal worship we see the most decided traces of their influence. We have seen to what a large extent that worship is everywhere marked by a centralising tendency. This tendency is not connected in the Priestly Code with opposition to improper or foreign worship; yet it must be interpreted as a polemical measure; and if it be regarded as an axiom necessary in the Priestly Code from the nature of the case, that is only saving that the demands of the prophets had prevailed most completely in a field where they had the greatest obstacles to contend with. Exclusive monolatry is by no means innate in the cultus; it can only be deduced from considerations which are foreign to the nature of the cultus: it is the antitype of strict monotheism. The prohibition of images, too, in the worship of the Deity, is not expressly insisted on, as in Deuteronomy, but is a provision which is taken for granted; so little is this position in danger of question that even doubtful and repugnant elements are embodied in the worship and assimilated by it without hesitation. The golden ephod, denounced by Isaiah, has become an insignificant decoration of the high-priest: talismans, forbidden even by Ezekiel, are allowed (Numbers xv. 37-41), but the object of them is "that ye may look upon them and remember all the commandments of Jehovah, and do them, and that ye follow not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye used to go a whoring." The gross idolatry, with which the expression znh is always connected in other passages, is by this time out of the question: the heart itself with its lawless motions is the strange God, whose service is forbidden. We may go further and say that by the cultus-legislation the cultus is estranged from its own nature, and overthrown in its own sphere. That is most unmistakably the case with regard to the festivals. They have lost their reference to harvest and cattle, and have become historical commemorations: they deny their birth from nature, and celebrate the institution of supernatural religion and the gracious acts of Jehovah therewith connected. The broadly human, the indigenous element falls away, they receive a statutory character and a significance limited to Israel. They no longer draw down the Deity into human life on all important occasions, to take part in its joys and its necessities: they are not HUMAN ATTEMPTS with such naive means as are at command to please the Deity and render Him favourable. They are removed from the natural sphere, and made DIVINE MEANS OF GRACE, which Jehovah has instituted in Israel as sacraments of the theocracy. The worshipper no longer thinks that in his gift he is doing God a pleasure, providing Him with an enjoyment: what pleases Him and is effectual is only the strict observance of the rite. The sacrifices must be offered exactly according to prescription: at the right place, at the right time, by the right individuals, in the right way. They are not based on the inner value of what is done, on the impulse arising out of fresh occasions, but on the positive command of a will outside the worshipper, which is not explained, and which prescribes every particular. The bond between cultus and sensuality is severed: no danger can arise of an admixture of impure immoral elements, a danger which was always present in Hebrew antiquity. Worship no longer springs from an inner impulse, it has come to be an exercise of religiosity. It has no natural significance; its significance is transcendental, incomparable, not to be defined; the chief effect of it, which is always produced with certainty, is atonement. For after the exile the consciousness of sin, called forth by the rejection of the people from the face of Jehovah, was to a certain extent permanent: even when the hard service of Israel was accomplished and the wrath really blown over, it would not disappear. If then the value of the sacred offerings lay not in themselves but in obedience to the commandments of God, the centre of gravity of the cultus was removed from that exercise itself and transferred to another field, that of morality. The consequence was that sacrifices and gifts gave way to ascetic exerctses, which were more strictly and more simply connected with morality. Precepts given originally in reference to the consecration of the priests for their religious functions were extended to the laity: the observance of these laws of physical cleanliness was of much more radical importance in Judaism than the great public cultus, and led by the straightest road towards the theocratic ideal of holiness and of universal priesthood. The whole of life was compressed into a certain holy path; there was always a divine command to be fulfilled, and by thinking of it a man kept himself from following after the desires and lusts of his own heart. On the other hand this private cultus, which constantly required attention, kept alive and active the individual sense of sin. The great pathologist of Judaism is quite right: in the Mosaic theocracy the cultus became a pedagogic instrument of discipline. It is estranged from the heart; its revival was due to old custom, it would never have blossomed again of itself. It no longer has its roots in childlike impulse, it is a dead work, in spite of all the importance attached to it, nay, just because of the anxious conscientiousness with which it was gone about. At the restoration of Judaism the old usages were patched together in a new system, which, however, only served as the form to preserve something that was nobler in its nature, but could not have been saved otherwise than in a narrow shell that stoutly resisted all foreign influences. That heathenism in Israel against which the prophets vainly protested was inwardly overcome by the law on its own ground; and the cultus, after nature had been killed in it, became the shield of supernaturalistic monotheism. The end of the Prolegomena ISRAEL Reprinted from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" I S R A E L. 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NATION. According to the Book of Genesis, Israel was the brother of Edom, and the cousin of Moab and Ammon. These four petty peoples, which may be classed together as the Hebrew group, must at one time have formed some sort of a unity and have passed through a common history which resulted in their settlement in south-eastern Palestine. The Israelites, or rather that section of the Hebrew group which afterwards developed into Israel, appear at first to have been the immediate neighbours of Edom, and to have extended westwards towards the border of Egypt. As regards the ethnological position of the Hebrews as a whole, tradition has it that they had connexions not only with the Aramaeans of Osrhoene (Nahor), but also with certain of the old half-Arab inhabitants of the Sinaitic peninsula (Kenites, Amalek, Midian). To the Canaanites, whose language they had adopted, their relation was that of foreign conquerors and lords to a subject race (Gen. ix, 26). Some fifteen centuries before our era a section of the Hebrew group left its ancient seat in the extreme south of Palestine to occupy the not distant pasture lands of Egypt (Goshen), where they carried on their old calling, that of shepherds and goatherds. Although settled within the territory of the Pharaohs, and recognising their authority, they continued to retain all their old characteristics,--their language, their patriarchal institutions, their nomad habits of life. But in course of time these foreign guests were subjected to changed treatment. Forced labour was exacted of them for the construction of new public works in Goshen, an exaction which was felt to be an assault upon their freedom and honour, and which in point of fact was fitted to take away all that was distinctive of their nationality. But they had no remedy at hand, and had submitted in despair, until Moses at last saw a favourable opportunity of deliverance. Reminding his oppressed brethren of the God of their fathers, and urging that their cause was His, he taught them to regard self-assertion against the Egyptians as an article of religion; and they became once more a united people in a determination to seek refuge from oppression in the wilderness which was the dwelling-place of their kindred and the seat of their God. At a time when Egypt was scourged by a grievous plague, the Hebrews broke up their settlement in Goshen one night in spring, and directed their steps towards their old home again. According to the accounts, the king had consented to the exodus, and latterly had even forced it on, but it was none the less a secret flight. To a not very numerous pastoral people such an undertaking presented no great difficulty. Nevertheless its execution was not to be carried out unimpeded. The Hebrews, compelled to abandon the direct eastward road (Exod. xiii. 17, 18), turned towards the south-west and encamped at last on the Egyptian shore of the northern arm of the Red Sea, where they were overtaken by Pharaoh's army. The situation was a critical one; but a high wind during the night left the shallow sea so low that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted the suggestion, and made the venture with success. The Egyptians, rushing after, came up with them on the further shore, and a struggle ensued. But the assailants fought at a disadvantage, the ground being ill suited for their chariots and horsemen; they fell into confusion and attempted a retreat. Meanwhile the wind had changed; the waters returned, apd the pursuers were annihilated./1/ ************************************ 1. Exod. xvi. 21, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31. According to the Old Testament the exodus took place 480 years before the building of Solomon's temple, and 960 years before the end of the Babylonian captivity. These figures are "systematic" or at least systematised, but even so they are certainly more trustworthy than the combinations of the Egyptologists. ************************************ After turning aside to visit Sinai as related in Exodus, the emigrants settled at Kadesh, eastwards from Goshen, on the southern borders of Palestine, /2/ *********************************** 2. The site of Sinai (= Horeb?) hardly admits of ascertainment. The best datum would be the sanctuary of Jethro, if we could identify it with Midian (Jakut, iv. 451), which lies on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea obliquely facing the traditional Sinai. With regard to Qadesh, see Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund (1871), pp. 20, 21. ************************************* where they remained for many years, having at the well of Kadesh their sanctuary and judgment-seat only, while with their flocks they ranged over an extensive tract. In all probability their stay at Kadesh was no involuntary detention; rather was it this locality they had more immediately had in view in setting out. For a civilised community of from two to three millions such a settlement would, of course, have been impossible; but it was quite sufficient for the immediate requirements of the Goshen shepherds, few in number as they were and inured to the life of the desert. That attempts may have been made by them to obtain possession of the more fertile country to the north is very likely; but that from the outset they contemplated the conquest of the whole of Palestine proper, and that it was only in expiation of a fault that they were held back at the gate of the promised land until the whole generation of the disobedient had died out, is not historically probable. We can assign a definite reason for their final departure from Kadesh. In the district to the east of Jordan the (Canaanite) Amorites had, sometime previously, driven the Ammonites from the lower Jabbok and deprived the Moabites of all their territory to the north of the Arnon; on the plateau opposite Jericho Heshbon had become the capital of Sihon, the Amorite king. This sovereign now set himself to subdue southern Moab also, and not without success. "Fire went out from Heshbon, flame from the stronghold of Sihon, devoured the cities of Moab upon the heights of Arnon. Woe to thee, O Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh!" From these straits the Moabites were rescued by their cousins, the nomads of the wilderness of Kadesh. The Israelites came forward on behalf of what was at once the common Hebrew cause and their own particular interest; they took the field against the Amorites, vanquished them in battle, and broke up the kingdom of Sihon. The consequence was that the land to the south of the Arnon remained in the undisputed possession of Moab, while the victors themselves became masters of the territory immediately to the north. Settled thus between Moab and Ammon their kinsmen, the Israelites supplied the link that was wanting in the chain of petty Hebrew nationalities established in the south of eastern Palestine. The army that went out against the Amorites from Kadesh was certainly not exclusively composed of men who, or whose fathers, had accomplished the passage of the Red Sea Israel was not a formed nation when it left Egypt; and throughout the whole period of its sojourn in the wilderness it continued to be in process of growth. Instead of excluding the kindred elements which offered themselves to it on its new soil, it received and assimilated them. The life they had lived together under Moses had been the first thing to awaken a feeling of solidarity among the tribes which afterwards constituted the nation; whether they had previously been a unity in any sense of the word is doubtful. On the other hand, the basis of the unification of the tribes must certainly have been laid before the conquest of Palestine proper; for with that it broke up, though the memory of it continued. At the same time it must not be supposed that all the twelve tribes already existed side be side in Kadesh. The sons of the concubines of Jacob--Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher--manifestly do not pertain to Israel in the same sense as do those of Leah and Rachel; probably they were late arrivals and of very mixed origin. We know, besides, that Benjamin was not born until afterwards, in Palestine. If this view be correct, Israel at first consisted of seven tribes, of which one only, that of Joseph, traced its descent to Rachel, though in point of numbers and physical strength it was the equal of all the others together, while in intellectual force it surpassed them. The remaining six were the sons of Leah:--Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah; Issachar, Zebulon. They are always enumerated in this order; the fact that the last two are also invariably mentioned apart from the rest and after Joseph has its explanation in geographical considerations. The time of Moses is invariably regarded as the properly creative period in Israel's history, and on that account also as giving the pattern and norm for the ages which followed. In point of fact the history of Israel must be held to have begun then, and the foundations of a new epoch to have been laid. The prophets who came after gave, it is true, greater distinctness to the peculiar character of the nation, but they did not make it; on the contrary, it made them. Again, it is true that the movement which resulted in the establishment of the monarchy brought together for the first time into organic unity the elements which previously had existed only in an isolated condition; but Israel's sense of national personality was a thing of much earlier origin, which even in the time of the judges bound the various tribes and families together, and must have had a great hold on the mind of the nation, although there was no formal and binding constitution to give it support. When the Israelites settled in Palestine they found it inhabited by a population superior to themselves both in numbers and in civilisation, which they did not extirpate, but on the contrary gradually subdued and absorbed. The process was favoured by affinity of race and similarity of speech; but, however far it went, it never had the effect of making Israelites Canaanites; on the contrary, it made Canaanites Israelites. Notwithstanding their inferiority, numerical and otherwise, they maintained their individuality, and that without the support of any external organisation. Thus a certain inner unity actually subsisted long before it had found any outward political expression; it goes back to the time of Moses, who is to be regarded as its author. The foundation upon which, at all periods, Israel's sense of its national unity rested was religious in its character. It was the faith which may be summed up in the formula, Jehovah is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of Jehovah. Moses was not the first discoverer of this faith, but it was through him that it came to be the fundamental basis of the national existence and history. /1/ ***************************************** 1. Jehovah is to be regarded as having originally been a family or tribal god, either of the family to which Moses belonged or of the tribe of Joseph, in the possession of which we find the ark of Jehovah, and within which occurs the earliest certain instance of a composite proper name with the word Jehovah for one of its elements (Jeho-shua, Joshua). No essential distinction was felt to exist between Jehovah and El, any more than between Asshur and El; Jehovah was only a special name of El which had become current within a powerful circle, and which on that account was all the more fitted to become the designation of a national god. **************************************** The exigencies of their position severe a number of kindred clans from their customary surroundings, and drove them into his arms. He undertook the responsibilities of their leader, and the confidence of success which he manifested was justified by the result. But it was not through any merit of his that the undertaking (of which he was the soul) prospered as it did; his design was aided in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a marvellous occurrence quite beyond his control, and which no sagacity could possibly have foreseen. One whom the wind and sea obeyed had given him His aid. Behind him stood One higher than he, whose spirit wrought in him and whose arm wrought for him,--not for his personal aggrandisement indeed, but for the weal of the nation. It was Jehovah. Alike what was done by the deliberate purpose of Moses and what was done without any human contrivance by nature and by accident came to be regarded in one great totality as the doing of Jehovah for Israel. Jehovah it was who had directed each step in that process through which these so diverse elements, brought together by the pressure of necessity, had been caused to pass, and in the course of which the first beginnings of a feeling of national unity had been made to grow. This feeling Moses was the first to elicit; he it was also who maintained it in life and cherished its growth. The extraordinary set of circumstances which had first occasioned the new national movement continued to subsist, though in a less degree, throughout the sojourn of the people in the wilderness, and it was under their pressure that Israel continued to be moulded. To Moses, who had been the means of so brilliantly helping out of their first straits the Hebrews who had accompanied him out of Egypt, they naturally turned in all subsequent difficulties; before him they brought all affairs with which they were not themselves able to cope. The authority which his antecedents had secured for him made him as matter of course the great national "Kadhi" in the wilderness. Equally as matter of course did he exercise his judicial functions, neither in his own interest nor in his own name, but in the interest of the whole community and in the name of Jehovah. By connecting them with the sanctuary of Jehovah, which stood at the well of Kadesh, he made these functions independent of his person, and thus he laid a firm basis for a consuetudinary law and became the originator of the Torah in Israel. In doing this he succeeded in inspiring the national being with that which was the very life of his own soul; through the Torah he gave a definite positive expression to their sense of nationality and their idea of God. Jehovah was not merely the God of Israel; as such he was the God at once of law and of justice, the basis, the informing principle, and the implied postulate of their national consciousness. The relationship was carried on in precisely the same manner as that in which it had been begun. It was most especially in the graver moments of its history that Israel awoke to full consciousness of itself and of Jehovah. Now, at that time and for centuries afterwards, the highwater marks of history were indicated by the wars it recorded. The name "Israel" means "El does battle," and Jehovah was the warrior El, after whom the nation styled itself. The camp was, so to speak, at once the cradle in which the nation was nursed and the smithy in which it was welded into unity; it was also the primitive sanctuary. There Israel was, and there was Jehovah. If in times of peace the relations between the two had become dormant, they were at once called forth into fullest activity when the alarm of danger was raised; Israel's awakening was always preceded by the awakening of Jehovah. Jehovah awakened men who under the guidance of His spirit placed themselves at the nation's head; in them His proper leadership was visibly expressed. Jehovah went forth with the host to battle, and in its enthusiasm His presence was seen (Judges. v. 13, 23). With signs and wonders from heaven Jehovah decided the struggle carried on upon earth. In it He was always upon Israel's side; on Israel was His whole interest concentrated, although His power (for He was God) reached far beyond their local limits. Thus Jehovah was in a very real sense a living God; but the manifestations of His life in the great crises of His people's history were of necessity separated by considerable intervals of time. His activity had something abrupt and tumultuary about it, better suited for extraordinary occasions than for ordinary daily life. Traces of this feeling appear very prominently in the later stages of the development. But although the relations between Israel and Israel's God came most strongly into prominence in times of excitement, yet it did not altogether die out in the periods of comparative repose. It was in the case of Jehovah just as in the case of the human leaders of the people, who did not in times of peace wholly lose the influence they had gained in war. Jehovah had His permanent court at the places of worship where in times of quietude men clung to Him that they might not lose Him in times of trouble. His chief, perhaps in the time of Moses His only, sanctuary was with the so-called ark of the covenant. It was a standard, adapted primarily to the requirements of a wandering and warlike life; brought back from the field, it became, as symbol of Jehovah's presence, the central seat of His worship. The cultus itself was more than a mere paying of court to Jehovah, more than a mere expedient for retaining His sympathies against times of necessity; the Torah of Jehovah, the holy administration of law, was conjoined with it. This had first of all been exercised, at the instance of the priest of Midian, by Moses at the well of Kadesh; it was continued after him, at the sanctuary, within the circle of those who had attached themselves to him and were spiritually his heirs. In cases where the wisdom or the competency of the ordinary judges failed, men turned direct to the Godhead, i.e., to the sanctuary and those who served it. Their decisions, whether given according to their own lights or by lot (according to the character of the question), were not derived from any law, but were received direct from Jehovah. /1/ ***************************************** 1 They were consulted chiefly on points of law, but also on all sorts of difficulties as to what was right and to be done, or wrong and to be avoided. **************************************** The execution of their decisions did not lie with them; they could only advise and teach. Their authority was divine, or, as we should say, moral, in its character; it rested upon that spontaneous recognition of the idea of right which, though unexpressed, was alive and working among the tribes--upon Jehovah Himself, who was the author of this generally diffused sense of right, but revealed the proper determinations on points of detail only to certain individuals. The priestly Torah was an entirely unpolitical or rather prepolitical institution; it had an existence before the state had, and it was one of the invisible foundation pillars on which the state rested. War and the administration of justice were regarded as matters of religion before they became matters of obligation and civil order; this is all that is really meant when a theocracy is spoken of. Moses certainly organised no formal state, endowed with specific holiness, upon the basis of the proposition "Jehovah is the God of Israel;" or, at all events, if he did so, the fact had not in the slightest degree any practical consequence or historical significance. The old patriarchal system of families and clans continued as before to be the ordinary constitution, if one can apply such a word as constitution at all to an unorganised conglomeration of homogeneous elements. What there was of permanent official authority lay in the hands of the elders and heads of houses; in time of war they commanded each his own household force, and in peace they dispensed justice each within his own circle. But this obviously imperfect and inefficient form of government showed a growing tendency to break down just in proportion to the magnitude of the tasks which the nation in the course of its history was called upon to undertake. Appeal to Jehovah was always in these circumstances resorted to; His court was properly that of last resort, but the ordinary authorities were so inadequate that it had often enough to be applied to. Theocracy, if one may so say, arose as the complement of anarchy. Actual and legal existence (in the modern sense) was predicable only of each of the many clans; the unity of the nation was realised in the first instance only through its religion. It was out of the religion of Israel that the commonwealth of Israel unfolded itself,--not a HOLY state, but THE state. And the state continued to be, consciously, rooted in religion, which prevented it from quitting or losing its rapport with the soil from which it had originally sprung. With the intermediate and higher stages of political organisation, with the building of the upper structure, however, religion had no concern; they were too far removed from the foundation. The derivative, which did not carry immediately in itself its own title to exist, was a matter of indifference to it; what had come into being it suffered to go its own way as soon as it was capable of asserting its independence. For this reason it always turned by preference to the future, not in a utopian but in a thoroughly practical way; by a single step only did it keep ahead of the present. It prepared the way for such developments as are not derived from existing institutions, but spring immediately from the depths in which human society has its secret and mysterious roots. The expression "Jehovah is the God of Israel," accordingly, meant that every tosk of the nation, internal as well as external, was conceived as holy. It certainly did not mean that the almighty Creator of heaven and earth was conceived of as having first made a covenant with this one people that by them He might be truly known and worshipped. It was not as if Jehovah had originally been regarded as the God of the universe who subsequently became the God of Israel; on the contrary, He was primarily Israel's God, and only afterwards (very long afterwards) did He come to be regarded as the God of the universe. For Moses to have given to the Israelites an "enlightened conception of God" would have been to have given them a stone instead of bread; it is in the highest degree probable that, with regard to the essential nature of Jehovah, as distinct from His relation to men, he allowed them to continue in the same way of thinking with their fathers. With theoretical truths, which were not at all in demand, He did not occupy himself, but purely with practical questions which were put and urged by the pressure of the times. The religious starting-point of the history of Israel was remarkable, not for its novelty, but for its normal character. In all ancient primitive peoples the relation in which God is conceived to stand to the circumstances of the nation--in other words, religion--furnishes a motive for law and morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as in that of the Israelites. Whatever Jehovah may have been conceived to be in His essential nature-God of the thunderstorm or the like--this fell more and more into the background as mysterious and transcendental; the subject was not one for inquiry. All stress was laid upon His activity within the world of mankind, whose ends He made one with His own. Religion thus did not make men partakers in a divine life, but contrariwise it made God a partaker in the life of men; life in this way was not straitened by it, but enlarged. The so-called "particularism" of Israel's idea of God was in fact the real strength of Israel's religion; it thus escaped from barren mythologisings, and became free to apply itself to the moral tasks which are always given, and admit of being discharged, only in definite spheres. As God of the nation, Jehovah became the God of justice and of right; as God of justice and right, He came to be thought of as the highest, and at last as the only, power in heaven and earth. ***** In the preceding sketch the attempt has been made to exhibit Mosaism as it must be supposed to have existed on the assumption that the history of Israel commenced with it, and that for centuries it continued to be the ideal root out of which that history continued to grow. This being assumed, we cannot treat the legislative portion of the Pentateuch as a source from which our knowledge of what Mosaism really was can be derived; for it cannot in any sense be regarded as the starting-point of the subsequent development. If it was the work of Moses, then we must suppose it to have remained a dead letter for centuries, and only through King Josiah and Ezra the scribe to have become operative in the national history (compare sections 8 and 10). The historical tradition which has reached us relating to the period of the judges and of the kings of Israel is the main source, though only of course in an indirect way, of our knowledge of Mosaism. But within the Pentateuch itself also the historical tradition about Moses (which admits of being distinguished, and must carefully be separated, from the legislative, although the latter often clothes itself in narrative form) is in its main features manifestly trustworthy, and can only be explained as resting on actual facts. From the historical tradition, then, it is certain that Moses was the founder of the Torah. But the legislative tradition cannot tell us what were the positive contents of his Torah. In fact it can be shown that throughout the whole of the older period the Torah was no finished legislative code, but consisted entirely of the oral decisions and instructions of the priests, as a whole it was potential only; what actually existed were the individual sentences given by the priesthood as they were asked for. Thus Moses was not regarded as the promulgator once for all of a national constitution, but rather as the first to call into activity the actual sense for law and justice, and to begin the series of oral decisions which were continued after him by the priests. He was the founder of the nation out of which the Torah and prophecy came as later growths. He laid the basis of Israel's subsequent peculiar individuality, not by any one formal act, but in virtue of his having throughout the whole of his long life been the people's leader, judge, and centre of union. A correct conception of the manner in which the Torah was made by him can be derived from the narrative contained in Exod. xviii., but not from the long section which follows, relating to the Sinaitic covenant (chap. xix. seq.). The giving of the law at Sinai has only a formal, not to say dramatic, significance. It is the product of the poetic necessity for such a representation of the manner in which the people was constituted Jehovah's people as should appeal directly and graphically to the imagination. Only so can we justly interpret those expressions according to which Jehovah with His own mouth thundered the ten commandments down from the mountain to the people below, and afterwards for forty days held a confidential conference with Moses alone on the summit. For the sake of producing a solemn and vivid impression, that is represented as having taken place in a single thrilling moment which in reality occurred slowly and almost unobserved. Why Sinai should have been chosen as the scene admits of ready explanation. It was the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples, the earthly seat of the Godhead, and as such it continued to be regarded by the Israelites even after their settlement in Palestine (Judges v. 4, 5). This immemorial sanctity of Sinai it was that led to its being selected as the ideal scene of the giving of the law, not conversely. If we eliminate from the historical narrative the long Sinaitic section which has but a loose connection with it, the wilderness of Kadesh becomes the locality of the preceding and subsequent events. It was during the sojourn of many years here that the organisation of the nation, in any historical sense, took place. "There He made for them statute and ordinance, and there He proved them," as we read in Exod. xv. 26 in a dislocated poetical fragment. "Judgment and trial," "Massa and Meribah," point to Kadesh as the place referred to; there at all events is the scene of the narrative immediately following (Exod. xvii. = Num. xx.), and doubtless also of Exod. xviii. If the legislation of the Pentateuch cease as a whole to be regarded as an authentic source for our knowledge of what Mosaism was, it becomes a somewhat precarious matter to make any exception in favour of the Decalogue. In particular, the following arguments against its authenticity must be taken into account. (1) According to Exod. xxxiv. the commandments which stood upon the two tables were quite different. (2) The prohibition of images was during the older period quite unknown; Moses himself is said to have made a brazen serpent which down to Hezekiah's time continued to be worshipped at Jerusalem as an image of Jehovah. (3) The essentially and necessarily national character of the older phases of the religion of Jehovah completely disappears in the quite universal code of morals which is given in the Decalogue as the fundamental law of Israel; but the entire series of religious personalities throughout the period of the judges and the kings-- from Deborah, who praised Jael's treacherous act of murder, to David, who treated his prisoners of war with the utmost cruelty--make it very difficult to believe that the religion of Israel was from the outset one of a specifically moral character. The true spirit of the old religion may be gathered much more truly from Judges v. than from Exod. xx. (4) It is extremely doubtful whether the actual monotheism which is undoubtedly pre-supposed in the universal moral precepts of the Decalogue could have formed the foundation of a national religion. It was first developed out of the national religion at the downfall of the nation, and thereupon kept its hold upon the people in an artificial manner by means of the idea of a covenant formed by the God of the universe with, in the first instance, Israel alone (compare sections 6-10). As for the question regarding the historical presuppositions of Mosaism, there generally underlies it a misunderstanding arising out of theological intellectualism-an attribute found with special frequency among nontheologians. Moses gave no new idea of God to his people. The question whence he could have derived it therefore need not be raised. It could not possibly be worse answered, however, than by a reference to his relations witb the priestly caste of Egypt and their wisdom. It is not to be believed that an Egyptian deity could inspire the Hebrews of Goshen with courage for the struggle against the Egyptians, or that an abstraction of esoteric speculation could become the national deity of Israel. It is not inconceivable indeed, although at the same time quite incapable of proof, that Moses was indebted to the Egyptian priests for certain advantages of personal culture, or that he borrowed from them on all hands in external details of organisation or in matters of ritual. But the origin of the germ which developed into Israel is not to be sought for in Egypt, and Jehovah has nothing in common with the colourless divinity of Penta-ur or with the God-forsaken dreariness of certain modern Egyptologists. That monotheism must have been a foreign importation, because it is contrary to that sexual dualism of Godhead which is the fundamental characteristic of Semitic religion, is an untenable exaggeration which has recently become popular out of opposition to the familiar thesis about the monotheistic instinct of the Semites (Noldeke, Literar. Centralbl., 1877, p. 365). Moab, Ammon, and Edom, Israel's nearest kinsfolk and neighbours, were monotheists in precisely the same sense in which Israel itself was; but it would be foolish surely in their case to think of foreign importation. Manetho's statements about the Israelites are for the most part to be regarded as malicious inventions: whether any genuine tradition underlies them at all is a point much needing to be investigated. The story of Exod. ii. 1 seq. is a mythus of frequent recurrence elsewhere, to which no further significance is attached, for that Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians is vouched for by no earlier authorities than Philo and the New Testament. According to the Old Testament tradition his connexion is with Jethro's priesthood or with that of the Kenites. This historical presupposition of Mosaism has external evidence in its favour, and is inherently quite probable. ******* 2. THE SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE. The kingdom of Sihon did not permanently suffice the Israelites, and the disintegration of the Canaanites to the west of Jordan in an endless number of kingdoms and cities invited attack. The first essay was made by Judah in conjunction with Simeon and Levi, but was far from prosperous. Simeon and Levi were annihilated; Judah also, though successful in mastering the mountain land to the west of the Dead Sea, was so only at the cost of severe losses which were not again made up until the accession of the Kenite families of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of the secession of these tribes, a new division of the nation into Israel and Judah took the place of that which had previously subsisted between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel were included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah, which three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all the others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a second, which was stronger and attended with much better results. It was led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the others attached themselves, Reuben and Gad only remaining behind in the old settlements. The district to the north of Judah, inhabited afterwards by Benjamin, was the first to be attacked. It was not until after several towns of this district had one by one fallen into the hands of the conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united resistance. They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua in the neighbourhood of Gibeon; and by this victory the Israelites became masters of the whole central plateau of Palestine. The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan, which had been maintained until then, was now removed, and the ark of Jehovah brought further inland (perhaps by way of Bethel) to Shiloh, where henceforward the headquarters were fixed, in a position which seemed as if it had been expressly made to favour attacks upon the fertile tract Iying beneath it on the north. The Bne Rachel now occupied the new territory which up to that time had been acquired,--Benjamin, in immediate contiguity with the frontier of Judah, then Ephraim, stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly Manasseh, furthest to the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel. The centre of gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim, to which belonged Joshua and that is mentioned as the last achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee, thereby opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. It is quite what we should expect that a great and united blow had to be struck at the Canaanites of the north before the new comers could occupy it in peace; and King Jabin, who reappears at a later date, certainly does not suit the situation described in Judges iv. v. ******* The Book of Joshua represents the conquest of western Palestine as having been the common undertaking of all the tribes together, which, after the original inhabitants have been extirpated, are exhibited as laying the ownerless country at Joshua's feet in order that he may divide it by lot amongst them. But this is a "systematic" generalisation, contradicted by the facts which we otherwise know. For we possess another account of the conquest of Palestine, that of Judges i., which runs parallel with the Book of Joshua. It is shorter indeed and more superficial, yet in its entire mode of presenting the subject more historical. According to its narrative, it appears that Joshua was the leader of Joseph and Benjamin only, with whom indeed Issachar, Zebulon, Dan, Naphtali, and Asher made common cause. But before his time the tribe of Judah had already crossed the Jordan and effected a lodgment in the territory which lay between the earlier seat of the nation in the wilderness of Kadesh and its then settlement on the plateau of Moab, forming in some degree a link of connection between the two. It might be supposed that the tribe of Judah had not taken the longer route to the eastward of the Dead Sea at all, but had already at Kadesh broken off from the main body and thence turned its steps directly northward. But the representation actually given in Judges i., to the effect that it was from the direction of the Jordan and not from that of the Negeb that they came to take possession of their land, finds its confirmation in the fact that the southern portion of their territory was the last to come into their possession. The tradition is unwavering that Hebron was taken not by Judah but by Caleb, a family which stood in friendly relations with Israel, but had no connexion with it by blood. It was only through the policy of David that Caleb, Othniel, Jerachmeel, and the rest of the Kenites who had their homes in the Negeb became completely incorporated with Judah, so that Hebron became at last the capital of that tribe. Its oldest seats, however, lay further to the north, in the region of Tekoa, Bethlehem, Baal Judah. It harmonises well with this view to suppose that Simeon and Levi must have made at the same time their attempt to effect a settlement in the hill country of Ephraim. One of their families, Dinah bath Leah, met with a favourable reception in the town of Shechem, and began to mix freely with its population, and thus the way was paved for the establishment of peaceable relations between the old inhabitants of the land and the new importations. But these relations were brought to an end by the two brothers who, in concert it must be supposed with their sister, fell upon the Shechemites and massacred them. The final result proved disastrous. The Canaanites of the surrounding country united against them and completely destroyed them. There can be no doubt as to the trustworthiness of the somewhat enigmatical records of those events which are given in Gen. xlix. and xxxiv.; in no other way is it possible to explain why Simeon and Levi, which originally came upon the stage of history on an equal footing with Reuben and Judah, should have already disappeared as independent tribes at the very beginning of the period of the judges. Now, that the destruction of Shechem by the Manassite Abimelech is quite distinct from the attack made by Simeon and Levi need hardly be said. On the other hand, the occurrence cannot be regarded as pre-Mosaic, but must be assigned to a time previous to the conquest of the hill country of Ephraim by Joseph; for after Joseph's settlement there the two sons of Leah had manifestly nothing more to hope for in that locality. We are shut up, therefore, to the conclusion that they crossed the Jordan at the same time as Judah separated himself from the main body in search of a suitable territory. That Simeon accompanied Judah in the first westward attempt is expressly stated in Judges i. The fate of Levi, again, cannot be separated from that of Simeon (Gen. xlix. 5-7); that he is not expressly mentioned in Judges i. ought not to cause surprise, when it is considered that later generations which regarded Levi as neither more nor less than a priest would have some difficulty in representing him as a thoroughly secular tribe. Such nevertheless he must have been, for the poet in Genesis xlix. 5-7 puts him on a footing of perfect equality with Simeon, and attributes to both brothers a very secular and bloodthirsty character; he has no conception that Levi has a sacred vocation which is the reason of the dispersion of the tribe; the dispersion, on the contrary, is regarded as a curse and no blessing, an annihilation and not the means of giving permanence to its tribal individuality. The shattered remains of Simeon, and doubtless those of Levi also, became incorporated with Judah, which thenceforward was the sole representative of the three sons of Leah, who according to the genealogy had been born immediately after Reuben the first-born. Judah itself seems at the same time to have suffered severely. Of its three older branches, Er, Onan, and Shelah, one only survived, and only by the accession of foreign elements did the tribe regain its vigour,--by the fresh blood which the Kenites of the Negeb brought. For Zarah and Pharez, which took the place of Er and Onan after these had disappeared, belonged originally, not to Israel, but to Hezron or the Kenites; under this designation are included families like those of Othniel, Jerachmeel, and Caleb, and, as has been already remarked, even in David's time these were not reckoned as strictly belonging to Judah. Thus the depletion which the tribe had to suffer in the struggle with the Canaanites at the beginning of the period of the judges was the remote cause of the prominence which, according to 1Chronicles ii., the Bne Hezron afterwards attained in Judah. The survivors of Simeon also appear to have been forced back upon these Hezronites in the Negeb; the cities assigned to them in the Book of Joshua all belong to that region. ******* Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been broken, each individual community had still enough to do before it could take firm hold of the spot which it had searched out for itself or to which it had been assigned. The business of effecting permanent settlement was just a continuation of the former struggle, only on a diminished scale; every tribe and every family now fought for its own land after the preliminary work had been accomplished by a united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All that was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the mountainous land, particularly the southern hill country of "Mount Ephraim;" yet, even here the Canaanites retained possession of not a few cities, such as Jebus, Shechem, Thebez. It was only after the lapse of centuries that all the lacunae were filled up, and the Canaanite enclaves made tributary. The Israelites had the extraordinarily disintegrated state of the enemy to thank for the ease with which they had achieved success. The first storm subsided comparatively soon, and conquerors and conquered alike learned to accommodate themselves to the new circumstances. Then the Canaanites once more collected all their energies to strike a blow for freedom. Under the hegemony of Sisera a great league was formed, and the plain of Jezreel became the centre of the reorganised power which made itself felt by its attacks both northwards and southwards. The Israelites were strangely helpless; it was as if neither shield nor spear could be found among their 40,000 fighting men. But at last there came an impulse from above, and brought life and soul to the unorganised mass; Deborah sent out the summons to the tribes, Barak came forward as their leader against the kings of Canaan who had assembled under Sisera's command by the brook of Kishon. The cavalry of the enemy was unable to withstand the impetuous rush of the army of Jehovah, and Sisera himself perished in the flight. From that day the Canaanites, although many strong towns continued to be held by them, never again raised their heads. After these occurrences some further changes of a fundamental character took place in the relations of the tribes. The Danites proved unable to hold against the forward pressure of the Philistines their territory on the coast to the west of Benjamin and Ephraim; they accordingly sought a new settlement, which was found in the north at the foot of Hermon. In this way all the secondary tribes westward of Jordan (Asher, Naphtali, Dan) came to have their seats beside each other in the northern division of the land. Eastward of Jordan, Reuben rapidly fell from his old prominence, sharing the fate of his next eldest brethren Simeon and Levi. When Eglon of Moab took Jericho, and laid Benjamin under tribute, it is obvious that he must previously have made himself master of Reuben's territory. This territory became thenceforward a subject of constant dispute between Moab and Israel; the efforts to recover it, however, did not proceed from Reuben himself, but from Gad, a tribe which knew how to assert itself with vigour against the enemies by which it was surrounded. But if the Hebrews lost ground in the south, they materially enlarged their borders in the north of the land eastward of Jordan. Various Manassite families, finding their holdings at home too small, crossed the Jordan and founded colonies at Bashan and northern Gilead. Although this colonisation, on account of the rivalry of the Aramaeans, who were also pressing forward in this direction, was but imperfectly successful, it nevertheless was of very great importance, inasmuch as it seemed to give new strength to the bonds that united the eastern with the western tribes. Not only was Gilead not lost; it even became a very vigorous member of the body politic. /1/ ***************************** 1. It is probable that Manasseh's migration to the territory eastward of Jordan took place from the west, and later than the time of Moses. The older portions of the Hexateuch speak not of two and a half but only of two trans-Jordanic tribes, and exclude Manasseh; according to them the kingdom of Sihon alone was subdued by Moses, not that of Og also, the latter, indeed, being a wholly legendary personage. In the song of Deborah, Machir is reckoned among the western tribes, and it was not until much later that this became the designation of the Manassites eastward of Jordan. It is also worth noticing that Jair's colonisation of northern Gilead did not take place until the time of the judges (Judges x. 3 seq.), but is related also in Num. xxxii. 39-42. ***************************** The times of agitation and insecurity which followed upon the conquest of Palestine invited attacks by the eastern nomads, and once more the Israelite peasantry showed all its old helplessness, until at last the indignation of a Manassite of good family, Gideon or Jerubbaal, was roused by the Midianites, who had captured some of his brothers and put them to death. With his family, that of Abiezer, he gave pursuit, and, overtaking the enemy on the borders of the wilderness, inflicted on them such chastisement as put an end to these incursions. His heroism had consequences which reached far beyond the scope of his original purpose. He became the champion of the peasantry against the freebooters, of the cultivated land against the waste; social respect and predominance were his rewards. In his native town of Ophrah he kept up a great establishment, where also he built a temple with an image of Jehovah overlaid with the gold which he had taken from the Midianites. He transmitted to his sons an authority, which was not limited to Abiezer and Manasseh alone, but, however slightly and indirectly, extended over Ephraim as well. On the foundations laid by Gideon Abimelech his son sought to establish a kingship over Israel, that is, over Ephraim and Manasseh. The predominance, however, which had been naturally accorded to his father in virtue of his personal merits, Abimelech looked upon as a thing seized by force and to be maintained with injustice; and in this way he soon destroyed those fair beginnings out of which even at that time a kingdom might have arisen within the house of Joseph. The one permanent fruit of his activity was that Shechem was destroyed as a Canaanite city and rebuilt for Israel. /1/ ************************************ 1. On the narratives contained in the Book of Judges see Bleek, Einl. ins Alte Testament (4th ed.), 88-98, and especially the sections on Barak and Sisera, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, the Danite migration, and the Benjamites of Gibeah (93-98). *********************************** The most important change of the period of the judges went on gradually and in silence. The old population of the country, which, according to Deuteronomy, was to have been exterminated, slowly became amalgamated with the new. In this way the Israelites received a very important accession to their numbers. In Deborah's time the fighting men of Israel numbered 40,000; the tribe of Dan when it migrated to Laish, counted 600 warriors; Gideon pursued the Midianites with 300. But in the reigns of Saul and David we find a population reckoned by millions. The rapid increase is to be accounted for by the incorporation of the Canaanites. At the same time the Hebrews learned to participate in the culture of the Canaanites, and quietly entered into the enjoyment of the labours of their predecessors. From the pastoral they advanced to the agricultural stage; corn and wine, the olive and the fig, with them are habitually spoken of as the necessaries of life. It was not strange that this change in the manner of their everyday life should be attended with certain consequences in the sphere of religion also. It is inconceivable that the Israelites should have brought with them out of the desert the cultus they observed in the time of the kings (Exod. xxii. xxiii. xxiv.), which throughout presupposed the fields and gardens of Palestine; they borrowed it from the Canaanites. /1/ ****************************** 1. In the earliest case where the feast of the ingathering, afterwards the chief feast of the Israelites, is mentioned, it is celebrated by Canaanites of Shechem in honour of Baal (Judges ix. 27). ***************************** This is confirmed by the fact that they took over from these the "Bamoth" or "high places" also, notwithstanding the prohibition in Deuteronomy xii. It was natural enough that the Hebrews should also appropriate the divinity worshipped by the Canaanite peasants as the giver of their corn, wine, and oil, the Baal whom the Greeks identified with Dionysus. The apostasy to Baal, on the part of the first generation which had quitted the wilderness and adopted a settled agricultural life, is attested alike by historical and prophetical tradition. Doubtless Baal, as the god of the land of Canaan, and Jehovah, as the God of the nation of Israel, were in the first instance co-ordinated. /2/ ***************************** 2. In Judges v. Jehovah retains his original abode in the wilderness of Sinai, and only on occasions of necessity quits it to come to Palestine. **************************** But it was not to be expected that the divinity of the land should permanently be different from the God of the dominant people. In proportion as Israel identified itself with the conquered territory, the divinities also were identified. Hence arose a certain syncretism between Baal and Jehovah, which had not been got over even in the time of the prophet Hosea. At the same time the functions of Baal were more frequently transferred to Jehovah than conversely. Canaan and Baal represented the female, Israel and Jehovah the male, principle in this union. Had the Israelites remained in the wilderness and in barbarism, the historical development they subsequently reached would hardly have been possible; their career would have been like that of Amalek, or, at best, like those of Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Their acceptance of civilisation was undoubtedly a step in the forward direction; but as certainly did it also involve a peril. It involved an overloading, as it were, of the system with materials which it was incapable of assimilating at once. The material tasks imposed threatened to destroy the religious basis of the old national life. The offensive and defensive alliances among the tribes gradually dissolved under the continuance of peace; the subsequent occupation of the country dispersed those whom the camp had united. The enthusiastic _elan_ with which the conquest had been achieved gave way to the petty drudgery by which the individual families, each in its own circle, had to accommodate themselves to their new surroundings. Yet under the ashes the embers were still aglow; and the course of history ever fanned them anew into flame, bringing home to Israel the truths that man does not live by bread alone, and that there are other things of worth than those which Baal can bestow; it brought ever again into the foreground the divineness of heroical self sacrifice of the individual for the good of the nation. 3. THE FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM, AND THE FIRST THREE KINGS. The Philistines were the means of arousing from their slumber Israel and Jehovah. From their settlements by the sea on the low-lying plain which skirts the mountains of Judah on the west, they pressed northwards into the plain of Sharon, and thence into the plain of Jezreel beyond, which is connected with that of Sharon by the upland valley of Dothan. Here, having driven out the Danites, they came into direct contact with the tribe of Joseph, the chief bulwark of Israel, and a great battle took place at Aphek, where the plain of Sharon merges into the valley of Dothan. The Philistines were victorious and carried off as a trophy the Israelite standard, the ark of Jehovah. Their further conquests included, not only the plain of Jezreel and the hill country bordering it on the south, but also the proper citadel of the country, "Mount Ephraim." The old sanctuary at Shiloh was destroyed by them; its temple of Jehovah thenceforward lay in ruins. Their supremacy extended as far as to Benjamin; the Philistines had a nec,ib in Gibeah. /1/ ************************** 1. _nec,ib_ is an Aramaic word of uncertain meaning. In the name of the town _Nec,ibin_ (Nisibis) it certainly seems to mean "pillars;" according to 1Kings iv. 5 and xxii. 48 (where it is pointed niccab), "governor", seems the best translation, and this is the only rendering consistent with the expression in 1Samuel xiii. 3 ("Jonathan slew the _necib_," &c.). *************************** But the assertion that they had confiscated all weapons and removed all smiths must be regarded as an unhistorical exaggeration; under their regime at all events it was possible for the messengers of a beleaguered city on the east of Jordan to summon their countrymen in the west to their relief. The shame of the Israelites under the reproach of Philistine oppression led, in the first instance, to a widespread exaltation of religious feeling. Troops of ecstatic enthusiasts showed themselves here and there, and went about with musical accompaniments in processions which often took the shape of wild dances; even men of the most sedate temperament were sometimes smitten with the contagion, and drawn into the charmed circle. In such a phenomenon, occurring in the East, there was nothing intrinsically strange; among the Canaanites, such "Nebiim"--for so they were styled--had long been familiar, and they continued to exist in the country after the old fashion, long after their original character, so far as Israel was concerned, had been wholly lost. The new thing at this juncture was that this spirit passed over upon Israel, and that the best members of the community were seized by it. It afforded an outlet for the suppressed excitement of the nation. The new-kindled zeal had for its object, not the abolition of Baal worship, but resistance to the enemies of Israel. Religion and patriotism were then identical. This spirit of the times was understood by an old man, Samuel ben Elkanah, who lived at Ramah in south-western Ephraim. He was not himself one of the Nebiim; on the contrary, he was a seer of that old type which had for a long time existed amongst the Hebrews much as we find it amongst the Greeks or Arabs. Raised by his foreseeing talent to a position of great prominence, he found opportunity to occupy himself with other questions besides those which he was professionally called on to answer. The national distress weighed upon his heart; the neighbouring peoples had taught him to recognise the advantages which are secured by the consolidation of families and tribes into a kingdom. But Samuel's peculiar merit lay, not in discovering what it was that the nation needed, but in finding out the man who was capable of supplying that need. Having come to know Saul ben Kish, a Benjamite of the town of Gibeah, a man of gigantic form, and swift, enthusiastic nature, he declared to him his destiny to become king over Israel. Saul very soon had an opportunity for showing whether Samuel had been a true seer or no. The city of Jabesh in Gilead was besieged by the Ammonites, and the inhabitants declared themselves ready to surrender should they fail in obtaining speedy succour from their countrymen. Their messengers had passed through all Israel without meeting with anything more helpful than pity, until at last tidings of their case reached Saul as he was returning with a yoke of oxen from the field. Hewing his cattle in pieces, he caused the portions to be sent in all directions, with the threat that so should it be done with the oxen of every one who should refuse to help in relieving Jabesh. The people obeyed the summons, fell suddenly one morning upon the Ammonites, and delivered the beleaguered city. Having thus found Saul the man for their need, they refused to let him go. In Gilgal, Joshua's old camp, they anointed him king. The act was equivalent to imposing upon him the conduct of the struggle against the Philistines, and so he understood it. The first signal for the attack was given by his son Jonathan, when he slew the _necib_ of the Philistines at Gibeah. These in consequence advanced in force towards the focus of the revolt, and took up a position opposite Gibeah on the north, being divided from it only by the gorge of Michmash. Only a few hundred Benjamites ventured to remain with Saul. The struggle opened with a piece of genuine old heroic daring. While the Philistines were dispersed over the country in foraging expeditions, Jonathan, accompanied by his armour-bearer only, and without the knowledge of Saul, made an attack upon the weak post which they had left behind at the pass of Michmash. After the first had been surprised and overmastered, the others took to flight, no doubt in the belief that the two assailants were supported. They carried their panic with them into the half-deserted camp, whence it spread among the various foraging bands. The commotion was observed from Gibeah opposite, and, without pausing to consult the priestly oracle, King Saul determined to attack the camp. The attempt was completely successful, but involved no more than the camp and its stores; the Philistines themselves effected an unmolested retreat by the difficult road of Bethhoron. Saul was no mere raw stripling when he ascended the throne; he already had a grown-up son at his side. Nor was he of insignificant descent, the family to which he belonged being a widespread one, and his heritage considerable. His establishment at Gibeah was throughout his entire reign the nucleus of his kingdom. The men on whom he could always reckon were his Benjamite kinsmen. He recognised as belonging to him no other public function besides that of war; the internal affairs of the country he permitted to remain as they had been before his accession. War was at once the business and the resource of the new kingdom. It was carried on against the Philistines without interruption, though for the most part not in the grand style but rather in a series of border skirmishes. /1/ ********************************* 1 As regards the position of Samuel in the theocracy and the relation in which the stood to Saul, the several narratives in the Book of Samuel differ widely. The preceding account, so far as it relates to Samuel, is based upon 1Samuel ix., x. 1-15, xi., where he appears simply as a Roeh at Ramah, and has nothing to do either with the administration of the theocracy or with the Nebiim. Compare Prolegomena above, chap. VII. ********************************* It is not without significance that the warlike revival of the nation proceeded from Benjamin. By the battle of Aphek Ephraim had lost at once the hegemony and its symbols (the camp-sanctuary at Shiloh, the ark of the covenant). The centre of Israel gravitated southward, and Benjamin became the connecting link between Ephraim and Judah. It would appear that there the tyranny of the Philistines was not so much felt. Their attacks never were made through Judah, but always came from the north; on the other hand, people fled from them southwards, as is instanced by the priests of Shiloh, who settled in Nob near Jerusalem. Through Saul Judah entered definitely into the history of Israel; it belonged to his kingdom, and it more than most others supplied him with energetic and faithful supporters. His famous expedition against the Amalekites had been undertaken purely in the interests of Judah, for it only could possibly suffer from their marauding hordes. Among the men of Judah whom the war brought to Gibeah, David ben Jesse of Bethlehem took a conspicuous place; his skill on the harp brought him into close relations with the king. He became Saul's armour-bearer, afterwards the most intimate friend of his son, finally the husband of his daughter. While he was thus winning the affections of the court, he at the same time became the declared favourite of the people, the more so because unexampled good fortune attended him in all he undertook. This excited the jealousy of Saul, naturally enough in an age in which the king always required to be the best man. Its first outburst admitted of explanation as occasioned by an attack of illness; but soon it became obtrusively clear that the king's love for his son-in-law had changed into bitter hatred. Jonathan warned his friend and facilitated his flight, the priests of Nob at the same time providing him with arms and food. He went into the wilderness of Judah, and became the leader of a miscellaneous band of outlaws who had been attracted by his name to lead a roving life under his leadership. His kinsmen from Bethlehem were of their number, but also Philistines and Hittites. Out of this band David's bodyguard subsequently grew, the nucleus of his army. They reckoned also a priest among them, Abiathar ben Ahimelech ben Ahitub ben Phinehas ben Eli, the solitary survivor of the massacre of the sons of Eli at Nob which Saul had ordered on account of suspected conspiracy with David. Through him David was able to have recourse to the sacred lot before the ephod. In the end he found it impossible to hold his own in Judah against Saul's persecutions, especially as his countrymen for the most part withheld their assistance. He therefore took the desperate step of placing his services at the disposal of Achish the Philistine king of Gath, by whom he was received with open arms, the town of Ziklag being assigned him as a residence. Here with his band he continued to follow his old manner of life as an independent prince, subject only to an obligation to render military service to Achish. Meanwhile the Philistines had once more mustered their forces and marched by the usual route against Israel. Saul did not allow them to advance upon Gibeah, but awaited their attack in the plain of Jezreel. A disastrous battle on Mount Gilboa ensued; after seeing his three eldest sons fall one after another at his side, Saul threw himself upon his sword, and was followed by his armour-bearer. The defeat seemed to have undone the work of his life. The immediate consequence at least was that the Philistines regained their lost ascendancy over the country to the west of Jordan. Beyond Jordan, however, Abner, the cousin and generalissimo of Saul, made his son Ishbaal, still a minor, king in Mahanaim, and he was successful in again establishing the dominion of the house over Jezreel, Ephraim, and Benjamin, of course in uninterrupted struggle with the Philistines. But he did not regain hold of Judah. David seized the opportunity to set up for himself, with the sanction of the Philistines, and, it may safely be presumed, as their vassal, a separate principality which had its centre of gravity in the south, which was inhabited, not by the tribe of Judah properly so called, but by the Calebites and Jerachmeelites. This territory Abner disputed with him in vain. In the protracted feud between the houses of Saul and David, the fortunes of war declared themselves ever increasingly for the latter. Personal causes at last brought matters to a crisis. Abner, by taking to himself a concubine of Saul's called Rizpah, had roused Ishbaal's suspicions that he was aiming at the inheritance, and was challenged on the point. This proved too much for his patience, and forthwith he abandoned the cause of his ward (the hopelessness of which had already perhaps become apparent), and entered into negotiations with David at Hebron. When about to set out on his return he fell by the hand of Joab in the gate of Hebron, a victim of jealousy and blood-feud. His plans nevertheless were realised. His death left Israel leaderless and in great confusion; Ishbaal was personally insignificant, and the people's homage continued to be rendered to him only out of grateful fidelity to his father's memory. At this juncture he also fell by assassins' hands. As he was taking his midday rest, and even the portress had gone to sleep over her task of cleaning wheat, two Benjamite captains introduced themselves into his palace at Mahanaim and murdered him in the vain hope of earning David's thanks. The elders of Israel no longer hesitated about offering David the crown, which he accepted. His residence was immediately transferred from Hebron to Jebus, which until then had remained in possession of the Canaanites, and first derives historical importance from him. It lay on the border between Israel and Judah,--still within the territory of Benjamin, but not far from Bethlehem; near also to Nob, the old priestly city. David made it not only the political but also the religious metropolis by transferring thither from Kirjathjearim the ark of the covenant, which he placed within his citadel on what afterwards became the temple hill. Still the crown was far from being a merely honorary possession; it involved heavy responsibilities, and doubtless what contributed more than anything else to David's elevation to the throne was the general recognition of the fact that he was the man best fitted on the whole to overtake the labour it brought with it, viz., the prosecution of the war with the Philistines, a war which was as it were the forge in which the kingdom of Israel was welded into one. The struggle began with the transference of the seat of royalty to Jerusalem; unfortunately we possess only scanty details as to its progress, hardly anything more indeed than a few anecdotes about deeds of prowess by individual heroes. The result was in the end that David completed what Saul had begun, and broke for ever the Philistine yoke. This was undoubtedly the greatest achievement of his reign. From the defensive against the Philistines David proceeded to aggressive war, in which he subjugated the three kinsfolk of Israel,--Moab, Ammon, and Edom. He appears to have come into conflict first with the Moabites, whom he vanquished and treated with savage atrocity. Not long afterwards the king of Ammon died, and David sent an embassy of condolence to Hanun his successor. Hanun suspected in this a sinister design,--a suspicion we can readily understand if David had already, as is probable, subjugated Moab,--and with the utmost contumely sent back the messengers to their master forthwith, at the same time making preparations for war by entering into alliance with various Syrian kings, and particularly with the powerful king of Soba /1/ ************************************** 1. Soba appears to have been situated somewhat to the north of Damascus, and to have bordered on the west with Hamath. The Aramaeans were beginning even at that period to press westwards; the Hittites, Phoenicians, and Israelites had common interests against them. To the kingdom of Soba succeeded afterwards that of Damascus. ********************************* David took the initiative, and sent his army under command of Joab against Rabbath-Ammon. The Syrians advanced to the relief of the besieged city; but Joab divided his forces, and, leaving his brother Abishai to hold the Ammonites in the town in check, proceeded himself against the Syrians and repulsed them. On their afterwards threatening to renew the attack in increased force, David went against them in strength and defeated them at Helam "on the river." It seems that as a result of this the kingdom of Soba was broken up and made tributary to Damascus. Rabbath-Ammon could not now hold out any longer, and the Ammonites shared the fate of their Moabite brethren. Finally, Edom was about the same time coerced and depopulated; and thus was fulfilled the vision of Balaam,--the youngest of the four Hebrew nationalities trod the three elder under his feet. So far as external foes were concerned, David henceforward had peace; but new dangers arose at home within his own family. At once by ill-judged leniency and equally ill-timed severity he had completely alienated his son Absalom, who, after Amnon's death, was heir-apparent to the throne. Absalom organised a revolt against his father, and to foster it availed himself of a misunderstanding which had arisen between David and the men of Judah, probably because they thought they were not treated with sufficient favour. The revolt had its focus in Hebron; Ahithophel, a man of Judah, was its soul; Amasa, also of Judah, its arm; but the rest of Israel was also drawn into the rebellion, and only the territory to the east of Jordan remained faithful. Thither David betook himself with precipitancy, for the outbreak had taken him completely by surprise. At Mahanaim, which had once before been the centre from which the kingdom was regained, he collected his faithful followers around him with his 600 Cherethites and Pelethites for a nucleus, Absalom against Ahithophel's advice allowing him time for this. In the neighbourbood of Mahanaim, in the wood of Ephraim, the decisive blow was struck. Absalom fell, and with his death the rebellion was at an end. It was Joseph that, in the first instance, penitently sent a deputation to the king to bring him back. Judah, on the other hand, continued to hold aloof. Ultimately a piece of finesse on the king's part had the effect of bringing Judah also to its allegiance, though at the cost of kindling such jealousy between Israel and Judah that Sheba the Benjamite raised a new revolt, this time of Israelites, which was soon, however, repressed by Joab. David seems to have died soon afterwards. His historical importance is very great. Judah and Jerusalem were wholly his creation, and, though the united kingdom of Israel founded by him and Saul together soon fell to pieces, the recollection of it nevertheless continued in all time to be proudly cherished by the whole body of the people. His personal character has been often treated with undue disparagement. For this we must chiefly blame his canonisation by the later Jewish tradition which made a Levitical saint of him and a pious hymn-writer. It then becomes a strange inconsistency that he caused military prisoners to be treated with barbarity, and the bastard sons of Saul to be hanged up before the Lord in Gibeon. But if we take him as we find him, an antique king in a barbarous age, our judgment of him will be much more favourable. The most daring courage was combined in him with tender susceptibility; even after he had ascended the throne be continued to retain the charm of a pre-eminent and at the same time child-like personality. Even his conduct in the affair of Uriah is not by any means wholly to his discredit; not many kings can be mentioned who would have shown repentance public and deep such as he manifested at Nathan's rebuke. Least to his credit was his weakness in relation to his sons and to Joab. On the other hand, the testament attributed to him in 1Kings ii. cannot be justly laid to his charge; it is the libel of a later hand seeking to invest him with a fictitious glory. In like manner it is unjust to hold him responsible for the deaths of Abner and Amasa, or to attribute to him any conspiracy with the hierocracy for the destruction of Saul, and thus to deprive him of the authorship of the elegy in 2Samuel i, which certainly was not the work of a hypocrite. Solomon had already reached the throne, some time before his father's death, not in virtue of hereditary right, but by palace intrigue which had the support of the bodyguard of the Six Hundred. His glory was not purchased on the battlefield. So far was he from showing military capacity that he allowed a new Syrian kingdom to arise at Damascus, a far more dangerous thing for Israel than that of Soba which had been destroyed, and which it succeeded. During this reign Edom also regained its independence, nothing but the port of Elath remaining in Solomon's hands. As regards Moab and Ammon we have no information; it is not improbable that they also revolted. But if war was not Solomon's forte, he certainly took much greater pains than either of his predecessors in matters of internal administration; according to tradition, the wisdom of the ruler and the judge was his special "gift." Disregarding the tribal system, he divided his kingdom into twelve provinces, over each of which he placed a royal governor, thus making a beginning of vigorous and orderly administration. /1/ ********************************** 1. Very possibly the Canaanites, whose complete absorption falls within this period, were an element that helped to loosen the bonds of tribal unity, and consolidate a state in its place. ********************************* Judah alone he exempted from this arrangement, as if to show special favour. For his aim was less the advantage of his subjects than the benefit of his exchequer, and the same object appears in his horse traffic (1Kings ix. 19), his Ophir trade (1Kings x. 11), and his cession of territory to Hiram (1Kings ix. 11). His passions were architecture, a gorgeous court, and the harem, in which he sought to rival other Oriental kings, as for example his Egyptian father-in-law. For this he required copious means-forced labour, tribute in kind, and money. He had especially at heart the extension and improvement of Jerusalem as a strong and splendid capital; the temple which he built was only a portion of his vast citadel, which included within its precincts a number of private and public buildings designed for various uses. It is plain that new currents were introduced into the stream of the nation's development by such a king as this. As formerly, after the occupation, Canaanite culture had come in, so now, after the establishment of the kingdom, the floodgate was open for the admission of Oriental civilisation in a deeper and wider sense. Whatever the personal motives which led to it may have been, the results were very importent, and by no means disadvantageous on the whole. On the basis of the firmer administration now introduced, stability and order could rest; Judah had no cause to regret its acceptance of this yoke. Closer intercourse with foreign lands widened the intellectual horizon of the people, and at the same time awakened it to a deeper sense of its own peculiar individuality. If Solomon imported Phoenician and Egyptian elements into the worship of Jehovah at his court temple, the rigid old Israelite indeed might naturally enough take offence (Exodus xx. 24-26), but the temple itself nevertheless ultimately acquired a great and positive importance for religion. It need not be denied that mischievous consequences of various kinds slipped in along with the good. The king, moreover, can hardly be blamed for his conduct in erecting in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem altars to deities of Ammon and Egypt. For those altars remained undisturbed until the time of Josiah, although between Solomon and him there reigned more than one pious king who would certainly have destroyed them had he found them as offensive as did the author of Deuteronomy. 4. FROM JEROBOAM I. TO JEROBOAM II. After the death of Solomon the discontent which had been aroused by his innovations, and especially by the rigour of his government, openly showed itself against his successor; and when Rehoboam curtly refused the demands which had been laid before him by an assembly of the elders at Shechem, they withdrew from their allegiance and summoned to be their king the Ephraimite Jeroboam ben Nebat, who already had made an abortive attempt at revolt from Solomon, and afterwards had taken refuge in Egypt. Only Judah and Jerusalem remained faithful to the house of David. Among the causes of the revolt of the ten tribes, jealousy of Judah must certainly be reckoned as one. The power of Joseph had been weakened by the Philistines, and by the establishment of the monarchy the centre of gravity had been shifted from the north where it naturally lay. But now it was restored to its old seat; for once more it was situated, not in Judah, but in Joseph. Monarchy itself, however, was not abolished by the revolting tribes, conclusively showing how unavoidable and how advantageous that institution was now felt to be; but at the same time they did not refrain from attempts to combine its advantages with those of anarchy, a folly which was ultimately the cause of their ruin. As for their departure from the Mosaic cultus observed at Jerusalem on the other hand, it was first alleged against them as a sin only by the later Jews. At the time religion put no obstacle in the way of their separation; on the contrary, it actually suggested and promoted it (Ahijah of Shiloh). The Jerusalem cultus had not yet come to be regarded as the alone legitimate; that instituted by Jeroboam at Bethel and at Dan was recognised as equally right; images of the Deity were exhibited in all three places, and indeed in every place where a house of God was found. So far as the religious and intellectual life of the nation was concerned, there was no substantial difference between the two kingdoms, except indeed in so far as new displays of vigorous initiative generally proceeded from Israel. /1/ ************************************* 1. Even in the Deuteronomic redaction of the Book of Kings indeed, and still more by the Chronicler, the political rebellion of Israel is regarded as having been ecclesiastical and religious in its character. The Book of Chronicles regards Samaria as a heathen kingdom, and recognises Judah alone as Israel. But in point of fact Judah takes up the history of Israel only after the fall of Samaria; see ## 6, 7. ************************************ Rehoboam did not readily accept the situation; he sought to reduce the revolt by force of arms, with what degree of success is shown by the fact that his rival found himself constrained to take up his residence at Peniel (near Mahanaim) on the other side of Jordan. The invasion of Shishak, however, who took Jerusalem and burnt it, gave Jeroboam at last a breathing space. The feud continued indeed, but Rehoboam could no longer dream of bringing back the ten tribes. The scale by and by turned in Israel's favour. King Baasha, who had seated himself on the throne in place of Nadab, Jeroboam's son, took the offensive, and Asa ben Rehoboam had no help for it but to call in Benhadad of Damascus against his adversary. In this way he gained his immediate purpose, it is true, but by the most dangerous of expedients. Baasha's son Elah was supplanted by his vizier Zimri, who, however, was in his turn unable to hold his own against Omri, who had supreme command of the army. Against Omri there arose in another part of the country a rival, Tibni ben Ginath, who succeeded in maintaining some footing until his death, when Omri became supreme. Omri must be regarded as the founder of the first dynasty, in the proper sense of that word, in Israel, and as the second founder of the kingdom itself, to which he gave a permanent capital in Samaria. The Bible has hardly anything to tell us about him, but his importance is evident from the fact that among the Assyrians "the kingdom of Omri" / 1/ ********************************** 1. Bit Humri, like )OIKOS *LUSANIOU, and similar territorial names in Syriac. ********************************* was the ordinary name of Israel. According to the inscription of Mesha, it was he who again subjugated Moab, which had become independent at the death of David or of Solomon. He was not so successful against the Damascenes, to whom he had to concede certain privileges in his own capital (1Kings xx. 34) /2/ ********************************** 2. Omri's accession is to be placed somewhere about 900 B.C It is a date, and the first, that can be determined with some precision, if we place the battle of Karkar (854) near the end of Ahab's reign, and take the servitude of Moab, which lasted forty years and ended with Ahab's deatb, to begin in Omri's first decade. ********************************** Ahab, who succeeded Omri his father, seems during the greater part of his reign to have in some sort acknowledged Syrian suzerainty. In no other way can we account for the fact that in the battle of Karkar against the Assyrians (854 B.C.) a contingent was contributed by him. But this very battle made the political situation so clear that he was led to break off his relations with Damascus. With this began a series of ferocious attacks on Israel by Benhadad and Hazael. They were met by Ahab with courage and success, but in the third year of that fifty years' war he fell in the battle at Ramoth Gilead (c. 851). ***** After the events recorded in 1Kings xx., a forced alliance with Damascus on the part of Samaria is incredible; but the idea of spontaneous friendly relations is also inadmissible. Schrader indeed finds support for the latter theory in 1Kings xx. 34; but in that passage there is no word of any offensive or defensive alliance between the rival kings; all that is stated is that Ahab releases the captive Benhadad on condition (BBRYT) that the latter undertakes certain obligations, particularly those of keeping the peace and restoring the cities which had been taken. By this arrangement no change was made in the previously strained relations of the two kingdoms; and, moreover, the BRYT was not kept (xxii. 1 seq.). Not much nearer the truth than the preceding is the view that the danger threatened by Assyria drove the kings of Syria and Palestine into one another's arms, and so occasioned an alliance between Ahab and Benhadad also. For if feelings of hostility existed at all between the two last named, then Ahab could not do otherwise than congratulate himself that in the person of Shalmaneser II. there had arisen against Benhadad an enemy who would be able to keep him effectually in check. That Shalmaneser might prove dangerous to himself probably did not at that time occur to him; but if it had he would still have chosen the remote in preference to the immediately threatening evil. For it was the political existence of Israel that was at stake in the struggle with Damascus; in such circumstances every ally would of course be welcome, every enemy of the enemy would be hailed as a friend, and the political wisdom which Max Duncker attributes to Ahab would have been nothing less than unpardonable folly. The state of matters was at the outset in this respect just what it continued to be throughout the subsequent course of events; the Assyrian danger grew in subsequent years, and with it grew the hostility between Damascus and Samaria. This fact admits only of one explanation,--that the Israelites utilised to the utmost of their power for their own protection against the Syrians the difficulties into which the latter were thrown by Shalmaneser II., and that these in their turn, when the Assyrians gave them respite, were all the fiercer in their revenge. On the evidence of the monuments and the Bible we may even venture to assert that it was the Assyrian attacks upon Damascus which at that time preserved Israel from becoming Aramaic,--of course only because Israel made the most of them for her political advantage. Assuming that Ahab the Israelite (Ahabu Sirlaai) fought in the battle of Karkar (854) on the side of the king of Damascus, it was only because he could not help himself; but if it is actually the case that he did so, the battle of Karkar must have taken place BEFORE the events recorded in 1Kings xx. **** The Moabites took advantage of an accession under such critical circumstances to shake off the yoke imposed by Omri forty years before; an accurate account of their success, obviously written while the impression of it was still fresh, /1/ has come down to ******************************* 1. It is obvious that Mesha's narrative is to be taken with 2Kings i. 1, and not with 2Kings iii. ****************************** us in the famous inscription of King Mesha. Ahaziah, Ahab's immediate successor, was obliged to accept the situation; after his early death a futile attempt again to subjugate them was made by his brother Joram. Such a campaign was possible to him only in the event of the Syrians keeping quiet, and in point of fact it would appear that they were not in a position to follow up the advantage they had gained at Ramoth; doubtless they were hampered by the inroads of the Assyrians in 850 and 849. As soon as they got a little respite, however, they lost no time in attacking Joram, driving him into his capital, where they besieged him. Samaria had already been brought to the utmost extremities of famine, when suddenly the enemy raised the siege on account of a report of an invasion of their own land by the "Egyptians and Hittites." Possibly we ought to understand by these the Assyrians rather, who in 846 renewed their attacks upon Syria; to ordinary people in Israel the Assyrians were an unknown quantity, for which it would be natural in popular story to substitute something more familiar. This turn of affairs relieved Joram from his straits; it would even seem that, favoured by a change of dynasty at Damascus, he had succeeded in taking from the Syrians the fortress of Ramoth in Gilead, which had been the object of Ahab's unsuccessful endeavours, when suddenly there burst upon the house of Omri the overwhelming catastrophe for which the prophets had long been preparing. When the prophets first made their appearance, some time before the beginning of the Philistine war, they were a novel phenomenon in Israel; but in the interval they had become so naturalised that they now had a recognised and essential place in connection with the religion of Jehovah. They had in the process divested themselves of much that had originally characterised them, but they still retained their habit of appearing in companies and living together in societies, and also that of wearing a peculiar distinctive dress. These societies of theirs had no ulterior aims; the rabbinical notion that they were schools and academies in which the study of the Torah and of sacred history was pursued imports later ideas into an earlier time. First-rate importance on the whole cannot be claimed for the Nebiim, but occasionally there arose amongst them a man in whom the spirit which was cultivated within their circles may be said to have risen to the explosive pitch. Historical influence was exercised at no time save by these individuals, who rose above their order and even placed themselves in opposition to it, but always at the same time had their base of operations within it. The prototype of this class of exceptional prophets, whom we not unjustly have been accustomed to regard as the true, is Elijah of Thisbe, the contemporary of Ahab. ln compliment to Jezebel his wife, Ahab had set up in Samaria a temple with richly endowed religious services in honour of the Syrian Baal. In doing so he had no intention of renouncing Jehovah; Jehovah continued to be the national God after whom he named his sons Ahaziah and Jehoram. The destruction of Jehovah's altars or the persecution of His prophets was not at all proposed, or even the introduction of a foreign cultus elsewhere than in Samaria. Jehovah's sovereignty over Israel being thus only remotely if at all imperilled, the popular faith found nothing specially offensive in a course of action which had been followed a hundred years before by Solomon also. Elijah alone was strenuous in his opposition; the masses did not understand him, and were far from taking his side. To him only, but not to the nation, did it seem like a halting between two opinions, an irreconcilable inconsistency, that Jehovah should be worshipped as Israel's God and a chapel to Baal should at the same time be erected in Israel. In solitary grandeur did this prophet tower conspicuously over his time; legend, and not history, could alone preserve the memory of his figure. There remains a vague impression that with him the development of Israel's conception of Jehovah entered upon a new stadium, rather than any data from which it can be ascertained wherein the contrast of the new with the old lay. After Jehovah, acting more immediately within the political sphere, had established the nation and kingdom, he now began in the spiritual sphere to operate against the foreign elements, the infusion of which previously had been permitted to go on almost unchecked. /1/ ****************************************** 1. It is worth noticing how much more frequent from this period onwards proper names compounded with the word Jehovah become. Among the names of the judges and of the kings before Ahab in Israel and Asa in Judah, not a single instance occurs; thenceforward they become the rule. ****************************************** The Rechabites, who arose at that time, protested in their zeal for Jehovah altogether against all civilisation which presupposes agriculture, and in their fundamental principles aimed at a recurrence to the primitive nomadic life of Israel in the wilderness; the Nazarites abstained at least from wine, the chief symbol of Dionysiac civilisation. In this indeed Elijah was not with them; had he been so, he would doubtless have been intelligible to the masses. But, comprehending as he did the spirit from which these demonstrations proceeded, he thought of Jehovah as a great principle which cannot coexist in the same heart with Baal. To him first was it revealed that we have not in the various departments of nature a variety of forces worthy of our worship, but that there exists over all but one Holy One and one Mighty One, who reveals Himself not in nature but in law and righteousness in the world of man. The indignation he displayed against the judicial murder at Jezreel was as genuine and strong as that which he manifested against the worship of Baal in Samaria; the one was as much a crime against Jehovah as the other. Elijah ascended to heaven before he had actually achieved much in the world. The idea which his successors took from him was that it was necessary to make a thorough clearance from Samaria of the Baal worship and of the house of Ahab as well. For this practical end Elisha made use of practical means. When Elijah, after the murder of Naboth, had suddenly appeared before Ahab and threatened him with a violent end, an officer of high command had been present, Jehu ben Nimshi, and he had never forgotten the incident. He now found himself at the head of the troops at Ramoth Gilead after the withdrawal to Jezreel of Joram ben Ahab from the field to be healed of his wound. To Elisha the moment seemed a suitable one for giving to Jehu in Jehovah's name the command now to carry out Elijah's threat against the house of Ahab. Jehu gained over the captains of the army, and carried out so well the task with which the prophet had commissioned him that not a single survivor of Ahab's dynasty or of his court was left. He next extirpated Baal and his worshippers in Samaria. From that date no worship of foreign gods seems ever to have recurred in Israel. Idolatry indeed continued to subsist, but the images, stones, and trees, even the seraphim apparently, belonged to the cultus of Jehovah, or were at least brought into relation with it. Jehu founded the second and last dynasty of the kingdom of Samaria His inheritance from the house of Omri included the task of defending himself against the Syrians. The forces at his disposal being insufficient for this, he resorted to the expedient of seeking to urge the Assyrians to renew their hostilities against the Arameeans. For this end his ambassadors carried presents to Shalmaneser II.; these were not of a regular but only of an occasional character, but the vanity of the great king represents them as the tribute of a vassal. In the years 842 and 839 Assyrian campaigns against Hazael of Damascus actually took place; then they were intermitted for a long time, and the kings of Samaria, Jehu and his two successors, were left to their own resources. These were evil times for Israel. With a barbarity never intermitted the frontier war went on in Gilead, where Ammon and Moab showed themselves friendly to the Syrian cause (Amos i.); occasionally great expeditions took place, one of which brought King Hazael to the very walls of Jerusalem. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Israel's independence was maintained. Once more religion went hand in hand with the national cause; the prophet Elisha was the main stay of the kings in the struggle with the Syrians, "the chariot and horsemen of Israel." Joash ben Joahaz ben Jehu at last succeeded in inflicting upon Syria several blows which proved decisive. Thenceforward Israel had nothing to fear from that quarter. Under Joash's son, Jeroboam II., the kingdom even reached a height of external power which recalled the times of David. Moab was again subdued; southwards the frontier extended to the brook of the wilderness (Amos vi. 14), and northward to Hamath. 5. GOD, THE WORLD, AND THE LIFE OF MEN IN OLD ISRAEL. Before proceeding to consider the rise of those prophets who were the makers of the new Israel, it will not be out of place here to cast a glance backwards upon the old order of things which perished with the kingdom of Samaria. With reference to any period earlier than the century 850-750 B.C., we can hardly be said to possess any statistics. For, while the facts of history admit of being handed down with tolerable accuracy through a considerable time, a contemporary literature is indispensable for the description of standing conditions. But it was within this period that Hebrew literature first flourished--after the Syrians had been finally repulsed, it would seem. Writing of course had been practiced from a much earlier period, but only in formal instruments, mainly upon stone. At an early period also the historical sense of the people developed itself in connection with their religion; but it found its expression in songs, which in the first instance were handed down by word of mouth only. Literature began with the collection and writing out of those songs; _the Book of the Wars of the Lord_ and _the Book of Jashar_ were the oldest historical books. The transition was next made to the writing of prose history with the aid of legal documents and family reminiscences; a large portion of this early historiography has been preserved to us in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Contemporaneously also certain collections of laws and decisions of the priests, of which we have an example in Exodus xxi. xxii., were committed to writing. Somewhat later, perhaps, the legends about the patriarchs and primitive times, the origin of which cannot be assigned to a very early date, /1/ ***************************************** 1. Even the Jehovistic narratives about the patriarchs belong to the time when Israel had already become a powerful kingdom; Moab, Ammon,, and Edom had been subjugated (Genesis xxvii. 29), and vigorous frontier wars were being carried on with the Syrians about Gilead (Genesis xxxi. 52). In Genesis xxvii. 40 allusion is made to the constantly repeated subjugations of Edom by Judah, alternating with successful revolts on the part of the former; see Delitzsch on K)$R;. ************************************* received literary shape. Specially remarkable is the rise of a written prophecy. The question why it was that Elijah and Elisha committed nothing to writing, while Amos a hundred years later is an author, hardly admits of any other answer than that in the interval a non-literary had developed into a literary age. How rapid the process was may be gathered from a comparison between the singularly broken utterances of the earlier oracle contained in Isaiah xv. xvi. with the orations of Isaiah himself. We begin our survey with that of the family relations. Polygamy was rare, monogamy the rule; but the right of concubinage was unlimited. While a high position was accorded both by affection and custom to the married wife, traces still existed of a state of society in which she was regarded as property that went with the inheritance. The marriage of relations was by no means prohibited; no offence was taken at the circumstance that Abraham was the husband of his sister (by a different mother). Parents had full power over their children; they had the right to sell and even to sacrifice them. In this respect, however, the prevailing usage was mild, as also in regard to slaves, who socially held a position of comparative equality with their masters, and even enjoyed some measure of legal protection. Slavery, it is plain, had not thc same political importance as with the Greeks and Romans; it could have been abolished without any shock to the foundations of the state. Throughout this period agriculture and gardening continued to be regarded as man's normal calling (Genesis iii. iv.); the laws contained in Exod. xxi.-xxiii. rest entirely upon this assumption. To dwell in peace under his vine and under his fig-tree was the ideal of every genuine lsraelite. Only in a few isolated districts, as in the country to the east of Jordan and in portions of Judah, did the pastoral life predominate. Art and industry were undeveloped, and were confined to the production of simple domestic necessaries. Commerce was in old time followed exclusively by the Canaanite towns, so that the word "Canaanite" was used in the general sense of "trader." But by and by Israel began to tread in Canaan's footsteps (Hosea xii. 8, 9), /1/ **************************** 1. "Canaan (i.e., Ephraim Canaanised) has deceitful balances in his hand, and loves to overreach. Ephraim indeed saith, I am become rich, I have gained weealth; but all his profits will not suffice for (expiation of) the guilt which he has incurred." **************************** The towns grew more influential than the country; money notably increased; and the zeal of piety was quite unable to arrest the progress of the change which set in. The kings themselves, from Solomon onwards, were the first to set the bad example; they eagerly sought to acquire suitable harbours, and in company or in competition with the Syrians entered upon large commercial transactions. The extortions of the corn-market, the formation of large estates, the frequency of mortgages, all show that the small peasant proprietorship was unable to hold its own against the accumulations of wealth. The wage-receiving class increased, and cases in which free Hebrews sold themselves into slavery were not rare. On all hands the material progress of the commonwealth made itself felt, the old simplicity of manners disappeared, and luxury increased. Buildings of hewn stone began to be used even by private individuals. The towns, especially the chief ones, were fortified; and in time of war refuge was sought in them, and not as formerly in woods and caves. Even in the time of David the Israelites always fought on foot; but now horses and chariots were regarded as indispensable. The bow came to be the principal weapon of offence, and a military class appears to have sprung up. The monarchy retained in the kingdom of the ten tribes its military character; the commander-in-chief was the first person in the kingdom. In internal affairs its interference was slight; with systematic despotism it had little in common, although of course within its narrow sphere it united executive and legislative functions. It was little more than the greatest house in Israel. The highest official was called "master of the household." The court ultimately grew into a capital, the municipal offices of which were held by royal officials. The provinces had governors who, however, in time of war withdrew to the capital (1Kings xx.); the presumption is that their sole charge was collection of the revenue. The state was not charged with affairs of internal administration; all parties were left free to maintain their own interests. Only in cases in which conflicts had emerged in consequence could the king be approached. Ruling and judging were regarded as one and the same; there was but one word for both (2Kings xv. 5). Still, the king was not altogether the only judge; there were, in fact, a number of independent jurisdictions. Wherever within a particular circle the power lay, there the right of judging was also found, whether exercised by heads of families and communities or by warriors and powerful lords. It was only because the king was the most powerful that he was regarded as the judge of last resort; but it was equally permitted to apply to him from the first. Of method and rule in these things there was but little; a man was glad to find any court to receive his complaint. Of course without complaint one got no justice. The administration of justice was at best but a scanty supplement to the practice of self-help. The heir of the murdered man would not forego the right of blood revenge; but his family or the commune gave him aid, and in case of need took his place, for bloodshed had at all hazards to be atoned for. The firm establishment of civil order was rendered all the more difficult by the continual wars and violent changes of dynasty which ever and anon made its very existence problematical. Power, which is more important than righteousness to a judicatory, was what the government was wanting in In the simpler social conditions of the earlier time a state which was adapted merely for purposes of war might easily be found to work satisfactorily enough, but a more complex order of things had now arisen. Social problems had begun to crop up; for the poor and the proletariat the protection of a thoughtful government had come to be required, but was not forthcoming. But these defects did not check all progress. The weakness of the government, the want of political consolidation, were insufficient to arrest intellectual advance or to corrupt the prevailing moral tone and feeling for justice; in fact it was precisely in this period (the period in which the main part of the Jehovistic history must have been written) that the intellectual and moral culture of the people stood at its highest. Even when the machinery of the monarchy had got out of order, the organisation of the families and communes continued to subsist; the smaller circles of social life remained comparatively untouched by the catastrophes that shook the greater. Above all, the national religion supplied the spiritual life with an immovable basis. The favourite illustrations of the power of religion in the Israel of that period are drawn from the instances of great prophets who raised kings out of the dust and smote them to it again. But the influence and importance of these is generally exaggerated in the accounts we have. That among them there occasionally occurred manifestations of such power as to give a new turn in history is indeed true; a figure like that of Elijah is no mere invention. But such a man as he was a prophecy of the future rather than an actual agent in shaping the present. On the whole, religion was a peaceful influence, conserving rather than assailing the existing order of things. The majority of the prophets were no revolutionists; rather in fact were they always too much inclined to prophesy in accordance with the wishes of the party in power. Besides, in ordinary circumstances their influence was inferior to that of the priests, who were servants of royalty at the chief sanctuaries, but everywhere attached to the established order. The Torah of Jehovah still continued to be their special charge. It was not even now a code or law in our sense of the word; Jehovah had not yet made His Testament; He was still living and active in Israel. But the Torah appears during this period to have withdrawn itself somewhat from the business of merely pronouncing legal decisions and to have begun to move in a freer field. It now consisted in teaching the knowledge of God, in showing the right God-given way where men were not sure of themselves. Many of the counsels of the priests had become a common stock of moral convictions, which, indeed, were all of them referred to Jehovah as their author, yet had ceased to be matters of direct revelation. Nevertheless the Torah had still occupation enough, the progressive life of the nation ever affording matter for new questions. Although in truth the Torah and the moral influence of Jehovah upon the national life were things much weightier and much more genuinely Israelitic than the cultus, yet this latter held on the whole a higher place in public opinion. To the ordinary man it was not moral but liturgical acts that seemed to be truly religious. Altars of Jehovah occurred everywhere, with sacred stones and trees--the latter either artificial (Asheras) or natural--beside them; it was considered desirable also to have water in the neighbourhood (brazen sea). In cases where a temple stood before the altar it contained an ephod and teraphim, a kind of images before which the lot was cast by the priest. Of the old simplicity the cultus retained nothing; at the great sanctuaries especially (Bethel, Gilgal, Beersheba) it had become very elaborate. Its chief seasons were the agricultural festivals--the passover, the feast of weeks, and most especially the feast of the ingathering at the close of the year. These were the only occasions of public worship properly so called, at which every one was expected to attend; in other cases each worshipper sought the presence of God only in special circumstances, as for example at the beginning and at the end of particular undertakings. The cultus, as to place, time, matter, and form, belonged almost entirely to the inheritance which Israel had received from Canaan; to distinguish what belonged to the worship of Jehovah from that which belonged to Baal was no easy matter. /1/ ****************************************** 1. The description of the cultus by the Prophet Hosea shows this very clearly. It is obvious enough, however, that the object was to serve JEHOVAH, and not any foreign deity, by this worship. ***************************************** It was the channel through which also paganism could and did ever anew gain admittance into the worship of Jehovah. Yet that publicity of the cultus which arose out of the very nature of Jehovah, and in consequence of which the teraphim even were removed from the houses to the temples, cannot but have acted as a corrective against the most fatal excesses. As for the substance of the national faith, it was summed up principally in the proposition that Jehovah is the God of Israel. But "God" was equivalent to "helper;" that was the meaning of the word. "Help," assistance in all occasions of life,--that was what Israel looked for from Jehovah, not "salvation" in the theological sense. The forgiveness of sins was a matter of subordinate importance; it was involved in the "help," and was a matter not of faith but of experience. The relation between the people and God was a natural one as that of son to father; it did not rest upon observance of the conditions of a pact. But it was not on that account always equally lively and hearty; Jehovah was regarded as having varieties of mood. To secure and retain His favour sacrifices were useful; by them prayer and thanksgiving were seconded. Another main article of faith was that Jehovah judges and recompenses, not after death (then all men were thought to be alike), but upon the earth. Here, however, but little account was taken of the individual; over him the wheel of destiny remorselessly rolled; his part was resignation and not hope. Not in the career of the individual but in the fate of families and nations did the righteousness of Jehovah find scope for its manifestation; and this is the only reason why the religion could dispense with the conceptions of heaven and hell. For the rest, it was not always easy to bring the second article into correlation with the first; in practice the latter received the superior place. It need hardly be said that superstition of every kind also abounded. But the superstition of the Israelites had as little real religious significance as had that poetical view of nature which the Hebrews doubtless shared in greater or less degree with all the other nations of antiquity. 6. THE FALL OF SAMARIA. Under King Jeroboam II., two years before a great earthquake that served ever after for a date to all who had experienced it, there occurred at Bethel, the greatest and most conspicuous sanctuary of Jehovah in Israel, a scene full of significance. The multitude were assembled there with gifts and offerings for the observance of a festival, when there stepped forward a man whose grim seriousness interrupted the joy of the feast. It was a Judaean, Amos of Tekoa, a shepherd from the wilderness bordering on the Dead Sea. Into the midst of the joyful tones of the songs which with harp and tabor were being sung at the sacred banquet he brought the discordant note of the mourner's wail. For over all the joyous stir of busy life his ear caught the sounds of death: "the virgin of Israel is fallen, never more to rise; lies prostrate in her own land with no one to lift her up." He prophesied as close at hand the downfall of the kingdom which just at that moment was rejoicing most in the consciousness of power, and the deportation of the people to a far-off northern land. There was something rotten in the state of Israel in spite of the halcyon days it enjoyed under Jeroboam II. From the indirect results of war, from changes in the tenure and in the culture of the soil, from defective administration of justice, the humbler classes had much to suffer; they found that the times were evil. But it was not this that caused Amos to foresee the end of Israel, not a mere vague foreboding of evil that forced him to leave his flocks; the dark cloud that threatened on the horizon was plain enough--the Assyrians. Once already at an earlier date they had directed their course south-westwards, without, however, on that occasion becoming a source of danger to the Israelites. But now that the bulwark against the Assyrians, Aram of Damascus, was falling into ruins, a movement of these against Lebanon in the time of Jeroboam II. opened to Israel the alarming prospect that sooner or later they would have to meet the full force of the irresistible avalanche. What then? The common man was in no position truly to estimate the danger; and, so far as he apprehended it, he lived in the firm faith that Jehovah would not abandon His people in their straits. The governing classes prided themselves on the military resources of Israel, or otherwise tried to dismiss from their minds all thought of the gravity of the situation. But Amos heard the question distinctly enough, and did not hesitate to answer it: the downfall of Israel is imminent. It was nothing short of blasphemy to utter anything of this kind, for everything, Jehovah Himself included, depended on the existence of the nation. But the most astounding thing has yet to come; not Asshur, but Jehovah Himself, is bringing about the overthrow of Israel; through Asshur it is Jehovah that is triumphing over Israel. A paradoxical thought--as if the national God were to cut the ground from under His own feet! For the faith in Jehovah as the God of Israel was a faith that He intervenes on behalf of His people against all enemies, against the whole World; precisely in times of danger was religion shown by staying oneself upon this faith. Jehovah might indeed, of course, hide His face for a time, but not definitively; in the end He ever arose at last against all opposing powers. "The day of the Lord" was an object of hope in all times of difficulty and oppression; it was understood as self-evident that the crisis would certainly end in favour of Israel. Amos took up the popular conception of that day; but how thoroughly did he change its meaning! "Woe to them who long for the day of the Lord!--What to you is the day of the Lord,? It is darkness, not light." His own opposition to the popular conception is formulated in a paradox which he prefixes as theme to the principal section of his book:--"Us alone does Jehovah know," say the Israelites, drawing from this the inference that He is on their side, and of course must take their part. "You only do I know," Amos represents Jehovah as saying, "therefore do I visit upon you all your sins." If the question, Whereon did Jehovah's relation to Israel ultimately rest? be asked, the answer, according to the popular faith, must substantially be that it rested on the fact that Jehovah was worshipped in Israel and not among the heathen, that in Israel were His altars and His dwelling. His cultus was the bond between Him and the nation; when therefore it was desired to draw the bond still closer, the solemn services of religion were redoubled. But to the conception of Amos Jehovah is no judge capable of accepting a bribe; with the utmost indignation he repudiates the notion that it is possible to influence Him by gifts and offerings. Though Israel alone has served Him he does not on that account apply any other standard to it than to other nations (chaps. i. ii.). If Israel is better known to Him, it does not follow that on that account He shuts His eyes and blindly takes a side. Neither Jehovah nor His prophet recognises two moral standards; right is everywhere right, wrong always wrong, even though committed against Israel's worst enemies (ii. 1). What Jehovah demands is righteousness,--nothing more and nothing less; what He hates is injustice. Sin or offence to the Deity is a thing of purely moral character; with such emphasis this doctrine had never before been heard. Morality is that for the sake of which all other things exist; it is the alone essential thing in the world. It is no postulate, no idea, but at once a necessity and a fact, the most intensely living of personal powers-Jehovah the God of Hosts. In wrath, in ruin, this holy reality makes its existence known; it annihilates all that is hollow and false. Amos calls Jehovah the God of Hosts, never the God of Israel. The nation as such is no religious conception to him; from its mere existence he cannot formulate any article of faith. Sometimes it seems as if he were denying Israel's prerogative altogether. He does not really do so, but at least the prerogative is conditional and involves a heavy responsibility. The saying in iii. 2 recalls Luke xii. 47. The proposition "Jehovah knows Israel" is in the mouth of Amos almost the same thing as "Israel knows Jehovah; " save only that this is not to be regarded as any merit on Israel's part, but as a manifestation of the grace of Jehovah, who has led His people by great deeds and holy men, and so made Himself known. Amos knows no other truth than that practical one which he has found among his own people and nowhere else, Iying at the foundation of life and morality, and which he regards as the product of a divine providential ordering of history. From this point of view, so thoroughly Israelitish, he pronounces Israel's condemnation. He starts from premisses generally conceded, but he accentuates them differently and draws from them divergent conclusions. Amos was the founder, and the purest type, of a new phase of prophecy. The impending conflict of Asshur with Jehovah and Israel, the ultimate downfall of Israel, is its theme. Until that date there had subsisted in Palestine and Syria a number of petty kingdoms and nationalities, which had their friendships and enmities with one another, but paid no heed to anything outside their own immediate environment, and revolved, each on its own axis, careless of the outside world, until suddenly the Assyrians burst in upon them. These commenced the work which was carried on by the Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, and completed by the Romans. They introduced a new factor, the conception of the world,--the world of course in the historical sense of that expression. In presence of that conception the petty nationalities lost their centre of gravity, brute fact dispelled their illusions, they flung their gods to the moles and to the bats (Isaiah ii.). The prophets of Israel alone did not allow themselves to be taken by surprise by what had occurred, or to be plunged in despair; they solved by anticipation the grim problem which history set before them. They absorbed into their religion that conception of the world which was destroying the religions of the nations, even before it had been fully grasped by the secular consciousness. Where others saw only the ruin of everything that is holiest, they saw the triumph of Jehovah over delusion and error. Whatever else might be overthrown, the really worthy remained unshaken. They recognised ideal powers only, right and wrong truth and falsehood; second causes were matters of indifference to them, they were no practical politicians. But they watched the course of events attentively, nay, with passionate interest. The present, which was passing before them, became to them as it were the plot of a divine drama which they watched with an intelligence that anticipated the _denouement_. Everywhere the same goal of the development, everywhere the same laws. The nations are the _dramatis personae_, Israel the hero, Jehovah the poet of the tragedy. /1/ ***************************** 1. In very much the same way the threatened and actual political annihilation of Ionia led to the rise of Greek philosophy (Xenophanes, Heraclitus). ***************************** The canonical prophets, the series of whom begins with Amos, were separated by an essential distinction from the class which had preceded them and which still continued to be the type of the common prophet. They did not seek to kindle either the enthusiasm or the fanaticism of the multitude; they swam not with but against the stream. They were not patriotic, at least in the ordinary acceptation of that word; they prophesied not good but evil for their people (Jer. xxviii. 8). Until their time the nation had sprung up out of the conception of Jehovah; now the conception of Jehovah was casting the nation into the shade. The natural bond between the two was severed, and the relation was henceforward viewed as conditional. As God of the righteousness which is the law of the whole universe, Jehovah could be Israel's God only in so far as in Israel the right was recognised and followed. The ethical element destroyed the national character of the old religion. It still addressed itself, to be sure, more to the nation and to society at large than to the individual; it insisted less upon a pure heart than upon righteous institutions; but nevertheless the first step towards universalism had been accomplished, towards at once the general diffusion and the individualisation of religion. Thus, although the prophets were far from originating a new conception of God, they none the less were the founders of what has been called "ethical monotheism." But with them this ethical monotheism was no product of the "self-evolution of dogma," but a progressive step which had been called forth simply by the course of events. The providence of God brought it about that this call came at an opportune period, and not too suddenly. The downfall of the nation did not take place until the truths and precepts of religion were already strong enough to be able to live on alone; to the prophets belongs the merit of having recognised the independence of these, and of having secured perpetuity to Israel by refusing to allow the conception of Jehovah to be involved in the ruin of the kingdom. They saved faith by destroying illusion. The event which Amos had foreseen was not long in coming. The Israelites flew spontaneously, like "silly doves," into the net of the Assyrians. Zechariah ben Jeroboam was overthrown after a short reign, Shallum his murderer and successor was also unable to hold his own, and was followed after the horrors of a civil war by Menahem ben Gadi (745 B.C). But Menahem, in the presence of domestic (and perhaps also foreign) assailants, /1/ had no other ********************************** 1. It is not inconceivable that the wars carried on by Tiglath-pileser II. against Hamath had some connection with his interventions in favour of Menahem. The kingdom of Hamath, which may have been threatened by Jeroboam II., may have availed itself of the state of matters which followed his death to secure its own aggrandisement at Israel's expense; in correspondence with this attack from the northern side another by Judah in concert with Hamath may well have been made from the south. In this way, though not without the aid of pure hypothesis, it might be possible to fit into the general historical connection the fragmentary Assyrian notices about Azariah of Judah and his relations to Hamath; the explanations suggested by the Assyriologists have hitherto been total failures. But in that case it would certainly be necessary to assume that the Assyrians were badly informed as to the nature of the relations between Hamath and Judah, and also as to the individual who at that time held the throne of Judah. Uzziah (= Azariah), who in his old age had become a leper, could only nominally at best have been king of Judah then. ************************************* resort than to purchase by payment of a great tribute the assistance of King Tiglath-pileser II., who at that time was giving new force to the Assyrian predominance in these regions. By such means he succeeded in attaining his immediate end, but the further consequence was that the rival party in the state turned for support to Egypt, and Palestine now became the arena of conflict between the two great world-powers. Menahem transmitted his kingdom to Pekahiah; Pekahiah was murdered about 735 B.C. by Pekah, and Pekah himself shortly afterwards was overthrown. All this happened within a few years. It would have been possible to conjecture the state of the country in these circumstances, even if we had not been informed of it by means of the prophetical book of Hosea, which dates from the time when the Assyrians had begun indeed to tamper with the country, but had not yet shown their full design. After the death of Jeroboam II. there had been wild outbursts of partisan war; none of the kings who in quick succession appeared and disappeared had real power, none established order. It was as if the danger from without, which was only too obviously threatening the existence of the kingdom, had already dissolved all internal bonds; every one was at war with his neighbour. Assyrians and Egyptians were called in to support this or that government; by such expedients the external confusion was, naturally, only increased. Was there any other quarter in which help could yet be sought? The people, led by the priests, turned to the altars of Jehovah, and outdid itself in pious works, as if by any such illusory means, out of all relation to the practical problem in hand, the gangrene of anarchy could possibly be healed. Still more zealous than Amos against the cultus was Hosea, not merely on the ground that it had the absurd motive of forcing Jehovah's favour, but also because it was of heathenish character, nature-worship and idolatry. That Jehovah is the true and only helper is certainly not denied by Hosea. But His help is coupled with the condition that Israel shall undergo a complete change, and of such a change he sees no prospect. On this account the downfall of the state is in Hosea's view inevitable, but not final ruin, only such an overthrow as is necessary for the transition to a new and fair recommencement. In Hosea's prophecies the relation between Jehovah and Israel is conceived of as dissoluble, and as actually on the point of being dissolved, but it has struck its roots so deep that it must inevitably at last establish itself again. The first actual collision between Israel and Assyria occurred in 734. Resin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, had united in an expedition against Judah, where at that time Ahaz ben Jotham occupied the throne. But Ahaz parried the blow by placing himself under the protection of the Assyrians, who perhaps would in any case have struck in against the alliance between Aram and Israel. Tiglath-pileser made his first appearance in 734, first on the sea-coast of Palestine, and subsequently either in this or in the following year took up his quarters in the kingdom of the ten tribes. After he had ravaged Galilee and Gilead, he finally concluded a peace with Samaria conditionally on his receiving the head of King Pekah and a considerable yearly tribute. Hosea ben Elah was raised to the throne in Pekah's place and acknowledged by the Assyrian as a vassal For some ten years he held his position quietly, regularly paying his dues. But when at the death of Tiglath-pileser the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms rebelled _en masse_, Samaria also was seized with the delirium of patriotic fanaticism (Isaiah xxviii.). Relying upon the help of Seve, king of Ethiopia and Egypt, Hosea ventured on a revolt from Assyria. But the Egyptians left him in the lurch as soon as Shalmaneser IV., Tiglath-pileser's successor, invaded his territory. Before his capital had fallen, Hosea himself fell into the hands of the Assyrians. Samaria offered a desperate resistance, and succumbed only to Sargon, Shalmaneser's successor (72I). Energetic measures were adopted by the victor for the pacification of the country; he carried all the inhabitants of mark into captivity to Calachene, Gozanitis, and Armenia. Much light is thrown upon the conditions of the national religion then and upon its subsequent development by the single fact that the exiled Israelites were absorbed by the surrounding heathenism without leaving a trace behind them, while the population of Judah, who had the benefit of a hundred years respite, held their faith fast throughout the period of the Babylonian exile, and by means of it were able to maintain their own individuality afterwards in all the circumstances that arose. The fact that the fall of Samaria did not hinder but helped the religion of Jehovah is entirely due to the prophets. That they had foreseen the downfall of the state, and declared in the name of religion that it was inevitable, was a matter of much greater historical importance than the actual downfall itself. 7. THE DELIVERANCE OF JUDAH. Hitherto the small kingdom of Judah had stood in the background. Its political history had been determined almost exclusively by its relation to Israel. Under the dynasty of Omri the original enmity had been changed into a close but perhaps not quite voluntary friendship. Judah found itself drawn completely into the train of the more powerful neighbouring state, and seems even to have rendered it military service. The fall of the house of Omri was an ominous event for Judah as well as Israel; Jehu, as he passed to the throne, put to death not only Ahaziah the king but also two and forty other members of the royal house of David who had fallen into his hands; and those who still survived, children for the most part, were murdered wholesale by the regent Athaliah for reasons that are unknown. Only one little boy, Joash, was concealed from her fury, and by a successful conspiracy six years afterwards was placed upon the throne of his ancestors. At that time the Syrians were extending their incursions to Judah and Philistia, and Joash bought them off from Jerusalem with the temple treasures. Perhaps it was this disgrace that he expiated with his death; in like manner perhaps the assassination of his successor Amaziah is to be accounted for by the discredit he had incurred by a reckless and unsuccessful war against Israel. Just as Israel was beginning to recover itself after the happy termination of the Syrian wars, Judah also experienced its period of highest prosperity. What Jeroboam II. was to the northern kingdom, Uzziah was to that of the south. He appears to have obtained possession of Edom, and for a considerable time to have held that one province of David's conquests which fell to Judah; and at the trading port of Elath he revived the commerce which Solomon had created. The prosperity of his long reign was uninterrupted till in his later years he was smitten with leprosy, and found it necessary to hand over the affairs of the kingdom to his son Jotham. But Jotham appears to have died about the same time as his father,--his successor, still in very early youth (Isaiah iii. 12), being Ahaz ben Jotham ben Uzziah. If Judah could not compare with Israel in political and general historical importance, it nevertheless enjoyed more than one considerable advantage over the larger kingdom. It was much safer from foreign foes; for the Egyptians, as a rule, were not dangerous neighbours. But its chief advantage consisted in the stability of its dynasty. It was David who had elevated Judah and Jerusalem to a position of historical significance, and the prosperity of his house was most intimately connected with that of the town and territory, and even with that of religion. On two separate occasions it occurred that a king of Judah was murdered by subjects, but in both cases the "people of the land" rose up against the assassins and once more placed a member of the Davidic family upon the throne. The one actual recorded revolution was that against Athaliah, which had for its object the restoration of the throne to the legitimate heir. Under shelter of the monarchy the other institutions of the state also acquired a measure of permanency such as was not found at all in Israel, where everything depended on the character of individuals, and the existing order of things was ever liable to be subjected to fresh dispute. Life in Judah was a much more stable affair, though not so exciting or dramatic. Possibly the greater isolation of the little kingdom, its more intimate relations with the neighbouring wilderness, and the more primitive modes of life which resulted, were also factors which contributed to this general result. In the capital of course the life was not primitive, and its influence was undoubtedly greater than that of the country. Successive kings exerted themselves for its external improvement, and in this respect Hezekiah ben Ahaz was specially distinguished. Above all they manifested sincere interest in the temple, which from an early period exerted a powerful force of attraction over the entire mass of the population. They regulated the cultus according to their individual tastes, added to it or curtailed it at their pleasure, and dealt with the sacred treasures as they chose. Although the priests had in a certain sense great power--the conspiracy against Athaliah was led not by a prophet but by a priest,--they were nevertheless subjects of the king, and had to act according to his orders. That the cultus of Jehovah at Jerusalem was purer than that at Bethel or at Samaria is an assertion which is contradicted by more than one well-attested fact. In this respect there was no essential difference between Israel and Judah. It was in Israel that the reaction against Baal-worship originated which afterwards passed over into Judah; the initiative in all such matters was Israel's. There the experiments were made from which Jerusalem learned the lesson. How deep was the interest felt in the affairs of the larger kingdom by the inhabitants even of one of the smaller provincial towns of Judah is shown in the instance of Amos of Tekoah. Step by step with the decline of Israel after the death of Jeroboam II. did Judah rise in importance; it was already preparing to take the inheritance. The man through whom the transition of the history from Israel to Judah was effected, and who was the means of securing for the latter kingdom a period of respite which was fruitful of the best results for the consolidation of true religion, was the Prophet Isaiah. The history of his activity is at the same time the history of Judah during that period. Isaiah became conscious of his vocation in the year of King Uzziah's death; his earliest discourses date from the beginning of the reign of Ahaz. In them he contemplates the imminent downfall of Samaria, and threatens Judah also with the chastisement its political and social sins deserve. In chapter ix., and also in chapters ii.-v., he still confines himself on the whole to generalities quite after the manner of Amos. But on the occasion of the expedition of the allied Syrians and Ephraimites against Jerusalem he interposed with bold decision in the sphere of practical politics. To the very last he endeavoured to restrain Ahaz from his purpose of summoning the Assyrians to his help; he assured him of Jehovah's countenance, and offered him a token in pledge. When the king refused this, the prophet recognised that matters had gone too far, and that the coming of the Assyrians could not be averted. He then declared that the dreaded danger would indeed be obviated by that course, but that another far more serious would be incurred. For the Egyptians would resist the westward movement of Assyria, and Judah as the field of war would be utterly laid waste; only a remnant would remain as the basis of a better future. The actual issue, however, was not yet quite so disastrous. The Egyptians did not interfere with the Assyrians, and left Samaria and Damascus to their fate. Judah became indeed tributary to Assyria, but at the same time enjoyed considerable prosperity. Henceforward the prophet's most zealous efforts were directed to the object of securing the maintenance, at any price, of this condition of affairs. He sought by every means at his command to keep Judah from any sort of intervention in the politics of the great powers, in order that it might devote itself with undivided energies to the necessities of internal affairs. He actually succeeded in maintaining the peace for many years, even at times when in the petty kingdoms around the spirit of revolt was abroad. The ill success of all attempts elsewhere to shake off the yoke confirmed him in the conviction that Assyria was the rod of chastisement wielded by Jehovah over the nations, who had no alternative but to yield to its iron sway. While thirty years passed thus peacefully away so far as foreign relations were concerned, internal changes of all the greater importance were taking place. Hezekiah ben Ahaz undertook for the first time a thoroughgoing reformation in the cultus of Jehovah. "He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Ashera, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made;" so we are told in 2Kings xviii. 4, with a mixture of the general and the special that does not inspire much confidence. For, e.g., the "high places" which Solomon had raised on the Mount of Olives were not removed by Hezekiah, although they stood quite close to Jerusalem, and moreover were consecrated to foreign deities. But in every respect there must have been a wide difference between the objects and results of the reformations of Hezekiah and Josiah. Undoubtedly Hezekiah undertook his reforms in worship under the influence of Isaiah. Following in the footsteps of Hosea, who had been the first to take and to express offence at the use of images in the worship of Jehovah, this prophet, utilising the impression which the destruction of Samaria had produced in Jerusalem (Isaiah xvii., cf. Jeremiah iii.), strove to the utmost against the adoration of the work of men's hands in the holy places, against the Asheras and pillars (sun-pillars), and above all against the ephods, i.e., the idols of silver and gold, of which the land was full. But against the high places in and by themselves, against the multiplicity of the altars of Jehovah, he made no protest. "( In the Messianic time) ye shall loathe and cast away as an unclean thing your graven images with silver coverings and your molten images overlaid with gold," he says (xxx. 22); and the inference is that he contemplated the purification of the high places from superstitious excesses, but by no means their abolition. To this one object /1/ ******************************** 1. That is, to the abolition of the images. Jeremiah's polemic is directed no longer against the images, but against wood and stone, i.e, Asheras and pillars. The date of the reformation under Hezekiah is uncertain; perhaps it ought to be placed after Sennacherib's withdrawal from Jerusalem. ******************************** Hezekiah's reformation seems to have confined itself,--an object of much greater primary importance than the destruction of the altars themselves. Their destruction was a measure which arose simply out of despair of the possibility of cleansing them. Sargon, king of Assyria, was succeeded in 705 by Sennacherib. The opportunity was seized by Merodach Baladan of Babylon to secure his independence; and by means of an embassy he urged Hezekiah also to throw off the yoke. The proposal was adopted, and the king of Judah was joined by other petty kingdoms, especially some of the Philistine towns. Relations with Egypt were established to secure its support in case of need. Sennacherib's more immediate and pressing business in Babylon enabled Palestine to gain some time; but the issue of that revolt made self-deception impossible as to the probable result of the other movement. This was the period at which Isaiah, already far advanced in life, wielded his greatest influence. The preparations for revolt, the negotiations with Egypt, were concealed from him,-a proof how greatly he was feared at court. When he came to know of them, it was already too late to undo what had been done. But he could at least give vent to his anger. With Jerusalem, it seemed to him, the story of Samaria was repeating itself; uninstructed by that sad lesson, the capital was giving itself up to the mad intoxication of leaders who would inevitably bring her to ruin. "Quietness and rest" had been the motto given by Jehovah to Judah, powerless as it was and much in need of a period of peace; instead of this, defiance based on ignorance and falsehood expressed the prevailing temper. But those who refused to listen to the intelligible language of Jehovah would be compelled to hear Him speak in Assyrian speech in a way that would deafen and blind them. Isaiah shows himself no less indignant against the crowd that stupidly stared at his excitement than against the God-forsaken folly of the king, with his counsellors, his priests, and his prophets. They do not suffer themselves to be shaken out of their ordinary routine by the gravity of such a crisis as this; the living work of Jehovah is to them a sealed book; their piety does not extend beyond the respect they show for certain human precepts learnt by rote. Meanwhile Sennacherib, at the head of a great army, was advancing against Philistia and Judah along the Phoenician coast (701). Having captured Ascalon, he next laid siege to Ekron, which, after the combined Egyptian and Ethiopian army sent to its relief had been defeated at Eltheke, fell into the enemy's hand, and was severely dealt with. Simultaneously various fortresses of Judah were occupied, and the level country was devastated (Isaiah i.). The consequence was that Hezekiah, in a state of panic, offered to the Assyrians his sub-mission, which was accepted on payment of a heavy penalty, he being permitted, however, to retain possession of Jerusalem. He seemed to have got cheaply off from the unequal contest. The way being thus cleared, Sennacherib pressed on southwards, for the Egyptians were collecting their forces against him. The nearer he came to the enemy the more undesirable did he find it that he should leave in his rear so important a fortress as Jerusalem in the hands of a doubtful vassal. Notwithstanding the recently ratified treaty, therefore, he demanded the surrender of the city, believing that a policy of intimidation would be enough to secure it from Hezekiah. But there was another personality in Jerusalem of whom his plans had taken no account. Isaiah had indeed regarded the revolt from Assyria as a rebellion against Jehovah Himself, and therefore as a perfectly hopeless undertaking which could only result in the utmost humiliation and sternest chastisement for Judah. But still more distinctly than those who had gone before him did he hold firm as an article of faith the conviction that the kingdom would not be utterly annihilated; all his speeches of solemn warning closed with the announcement that a remnant should return and form the kernel of a new commonwealth to be fashioned after Jehovah's own heart. For him, in contrast to Amos, the great crisis had a positive character; in contrast to Hosea, he did not expect a temporary suspension of the theocracy, to be followed by its complete reconstruction, but in the pious and God-fearing individuals who were still to be met with in this Sodom of iniquity, he saw the threads, thin indeed yet sufficient, which formed the links between the Israel of the present and its better future. Over against the vain confidence of the multitude Isaiah had hitherto brought into prominence the darker obverse of his religious belief, but now he confronted their present depression with its bright reverse; faint-heartedness was still more alien to his nature than temerity. In the name of Jehovah he bade King Hezekiah be of good courage, and urged that he should by no means surrender. The Assyrians would not be able to take the city, not even to shoot an arrow into it nor to bring up their siege train against it. "I know thy sitting, thy going, and thy standing," is Jehovah's language to the Assyrian, "and also thy rage against me. And I will put my ring in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest." And thus it proved in the issue. By a still unexplained catastrophe, the main army of Sennacherib was annihilated on the frontier between Egypt and Palestine, and Jerusalem thereby freed from all danger. The Assyrian king had to save himself by a hurried retreat to Nineveh; Isaiah was triumphant. A more magnificent close of a period of influential public life can hardly be imagined. ***** What Sennacherib himself relates of his expedition against his rebellious vassals in Palestine (George Smith, Assyrian Eponym Canon, p. 67, 68, 131-136) runs parallel with 2 Kings xviii. 14-16, but not with the rest of the Bible narrative. These three verses are peculiar, and their source is different from that of the context. After having captured various Phoenician cities, and received tribute from a number of kings, his first measure is forcibly to restore the Assyrian governor who had been expelled from Ascalon, and next he turns his arms against Ekron. This city had put in irons its own king, Padi (who remained loyal to the suzerain), and handed him over to Hezekiah, who appears as the soul of the rebellion in these quarters. The Egyptians, who as usual have a hand in the matter, advance with an army for the relief of the beleaguered city, but are defeated near Eltheke in the immediate neighbourhood; Ekron is taken, remorselessly chastised, and forced to take Padi back again as its king. For Hezekiah in the meantime has delivered up his prisoner, and, terrified by the fall of his fortresses and the devastation of his territory, has accepted the position of a vassal once more, paying at the same time a heavy fine, inclusive of 30 talents of gold and 800 of silver. Such is the Assyrian account. If we treat the 300 talents mentioned in 2Kings xviii. 14 as Syrian (=800 Babylonian), it completely fills in the vague outlines given in 2Kings xviii. 14-16, and, while confirming in their place immediately after ver. 13 these verses, unrelated as they are to the main connection of the Biblical narrative, corrects them only in one point, by making it probable that the subjection of Hezekiah (which is not equivalent to the surrender of his city) took place while Sennacherib was still before Ekron, and not at later date when he had gone further south towards Libnah. As regards his further advance towards Egypt, and the reasons of his sudden withdrawal (related by Herodotus also from Egyptian tradition), the great king is silent, having nothing to boast of in it. The battle of Eltheke, which is to be regarded only as an episode in the siege of Ekron, being merely the repulse of the Egyptian relieving army, was not an event of great historical importance, and ought not to be brought into any connection either with 2Kings xix. 7 or with xix. 35; Sennacherib's inscription speaks only of the first and prosperous stage of the expedition, not of the decisive one which resulted so disastrously for him, as must be clear from the words themselves to every unprejudiced reader. 8. THE PROPHETIC REFORMATION. Isaiah was so completely a prophet that even his wife was called the prophetess after him. No such title could have been bestowed on the wife of either Amos or Hosea. But what distinguished him more than anything else from those predecessors was that his position was not, like theirs, apart from the government; he sat close to the helm, and took a very real part in directing the course of the vessel. He was more positive and practical than they; he wished to make his influence felt, and when for the moment he was unsuccessful in this so far as the great whole of the state was concerned, he busied himself in gathering round him a small circle of like-minded persons on whom his hope for the future rested. Now that Israel had been destroyed, he wished at all events to save Judah. The lofty ideality of his faith (ii. 1 seq.) did not hinder him from calling in the aid of practical means for this end. But the current of his activities was by the circumstances of the case directed into a channel in which after his death they continued to flow towards a goal which had hardly been contemplated by himself. The political importance of the people of Jehovah was reduced to a minimum when Judah only was left. Already at an earlier period in that kingdom the sacred had come to be of more importance than the secular; much more was this the case under the suzerainty of Assyria. The circumstances of the time themselves urged that the religion of Israel should divest itself of all politico-national character; but Isaiah also did his best to further this end. It was his most zealous endeavour to hold king and people aloof from every patriotic movement; to him the true religious attitude was one of quietness and sitting still, non-intervention in political affairs, concentration on the problems of internal government. But he was compelled to leave over for the coming Messiah (xi. 1 seq.) that reformation in legal and social matters which seemed to him so necessary; all that he could bring the secular rulers of his country to undertake was a reform in worship. This was the most easily solved of the problems alluded to above, and it was also that which most closely corresponded to the character of the kingdom of Judah. Thus it came about that the reform of the theocracy which had been contemplated by Isaiah led to its transformation into an ecclesiastical state. No less influential in effecting a radical change in the old popular religion was Isaiah's doctrine which identified the true Israel with the holy remnant which alone should emerge from the crisis unconsumed. For that remnant was more than a mere object of hope; it actually stood before him in the persons of that little group of pious individuals gathered around him. Isaiah founded no "ecclesiola in ecclesia" indeed, but certainly an "ecclesia in civitate Dei." Now began that distinction between the true Israel and the Israel according to the flesh, that bipartite division of the nation which became so important in later times. As head and founder of the prophetic party in Judah, Isaiah was, involuntarily, the man who took the first steps towards the institution of the church. The catastrophe which befell the army of Sennacherib had no very great effect upon the external affairs of Judah. Sennacherib indeed, being busy in the east, was unable to retrieve the loss he had sustained, but his son Esarhaddon, who succeeded him in 681, resumed the Egyptian war with better success. He made himself master of the Nile valley, and brought the Ethiopians into submission. That the petty kingdoms of Palestine returned to the old relations of dependence is to be taken as a matter of course. Judah appears to have resumed the yoke voluntarily, but the Samaritans only after force had been applied; they were afterwards deported, whereupon the deserted country was occupied by foreign colonists, who, however, accepted the cultus of the god of the land. That Manasseh ben Hezekiah should have again come under Assyrian suzerainty appears at that time to have made but little impression; since the time of Ahaz Judah had been accustomed to this relation. The Book of Kings speaks only of internal affairs under the reign of Manasseh. According to it, he was a bad ruler, who permitted, and even caused, innocent blood to flow like water. But what was of greater consequence for the future, he took up an attitude of hostility towards the prophetic party of reform, and put himself on the side of the reaction which would fain bring back to the place of honour the old popular half-pagan conception of Jehovah, as against the pure and holy God whom the prophets worshipped. The revulsion manifested itself as the reform had done, chiefly in matters of worship. The old idolatrous furniture of the sanctuaries was reinstated in its place, and new frippery was imported from all quarters, especially from Assyria and Babylon, to renovate the old religion; with Jehovah was now associated a "queen of heaven." Yet, as usual, the restoration did more than merely bring back the old order of things. What at an earlier period had been mere naivete now became superstition, and could hold its ground only by having imparted to it artificially a deeper meaning which was itself borrowed from the prophetical circle of ideas. Again, earnestness superseded the old joyousness of the cultus; this now had reference principally to sin and its atonement. Value was attached to services rendered to the Deity, just in proportion to their hardness and unnaturalness; at this period it was that the old precept to sacrifice to Jehovah the male that opens the matrix was extended to children. The counter- reformation was far from being unaffected by the preceding reformation, although it understood religious earnestness in quite another sense, and sought, not to eliminate heathenism from the cultus, but to animate it with new life. On the other hand, the reaction was, in the end, found to have left distinct traces of its influence in the ultimate issue of the reformation. We possess one document dating from Manasseh's time in Micah vi. 1- vii. 6. Here, where the lawlessness and utter disregard of every moral restraint in Judah are set in a hideous light, the prophetic point of view, as contrasted with the new refinements in worship, attains also its simplest and purest expression. Perhaps to this period the Decalogue also, which is so eloquently silent in regard to cultus, is to be assigned. Jehovah demands nothing for Himself, all that He asks is only for men; this is here the fundamental law of the theocracy. Manasseh's life was a long one, and his son Amon walked in his ways. The latter died after a brief reign, and with his death a new era for Judah began. It was introduced by the great catastrophe in which the Assyrian empire came to an end. The sovereignty of the world was beginning to pass out of the hands of the Semites into those of the Aryans. Phraortes of Media indeed was unsuccessful in his attempt against the Assyrians, but Cyaxares beat them and proceeded to besiege their capital. The Scythian invasion of Media and Western Asia (c. 630) at this juncture gave them another respite of more than twenty years; but even it tended to break in pieces the great, loosely-compacted monarchy. The provinces became gradually disintegrated, and the kingdom shrivelled up till it covered no more than the land of Asshur. /1/ **************************************** 1. Our knowledge of the events of the second half of the 7th century has remained singularly imperfect hitherto, notwithstanding the importance of the changes they wrought on the face of the ancient world. The account given above is that of Herodotus (i. 103-106), and there the matter must rest until really authentic sources shall have been brought to light. With regard to the final siege of Nineveh, our chief informant is Ctesias as quoted by Diodorus (ii. 26, 27). Whether the prophecy of Nabum relates to the LAST siege is doubtful (in spite of ii. 7, and the oracle given in Diodorus, (OTI THN *NINON )OUDEIS (ELEI KATA KRATOS )EAN MH PROTERON (O POTAMOS TH| POLEI GENHTAI POLEMOS), inasmuch as Nahum (i. 9) expressly speaks of the siege alluded to by him as the first, saying, "the trouble shall not rise up the second time." ****************************************** The inroad of the Scythians aroused to energy again the voice of prophecy which had been dumb during the very sinful but not very animated period of Manasseh's reign. Zephaniah and Jeremiah threatened with the mysterious northern foe, just as Amos and Hosea had formerly done with the Assyrians. The Scythians actually did invade Palestine in 626 (the 13th year of Josiah), and penetrated as far as to Egypt; but their course lay along the shore line, and they left Judah untouched. This danger that had come so near and yet passed them by, this instance of a prophetic threatening that had come to pass and yet been mercifully averted, made a powerful impression upon the people of Judah; public opinion went through a revolution in favour of the reforming party which was able to gain for itself the support also of the young king Josiah ben Amon. The circumstances were favourable for coming forward with a comprehensive programme for a reconstruction of the theocracy. In the year 621 (the eighteenth of Josiah) Deuteronomy was discovered, accepted, and carried into effect. The Deuteronomic legislation is designed for the reformation, by no means of the cultus alone, but at least quite as much of the civil relations of life. The social interest is placed above the cultus, inasmuch as everywhere humane ends are assigned for the rites and offerings. In this it is plainly seen that Deuteronomy is the progeny of the prophetic spirit. Still more plainly does this appear in the _motifs_ of the legislation; according to these, Jehovah is the only God, whose service demands the whole heart and every energy; He has entered into a covenant with Israel, but upon fundamental conditions that, as contained in the Decalogue, are purely moral and of absolute universality. Nowhere does the fundamental religious thought of prophecy find clearer expression than in Deuteronomy,--the thought that Jehovah asks nothing for Himself, but asks it as a religious duty that man should render to man what is right, that His will lies not in any unknown height, but in the moral sphere which is known and understood by all. /1/ ************************************** 1. The commandments which I command thee are not unattainable for thee, neither are they far off; not in heaven so that one might say, Who can climb up into heaven and bring them down, and tell us them that we might do them! not beyond the sea so that one might say, Who shall go over the sea, and fetch them, and tell us them that we might do them!--but the matter lies very near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, so that thou canst do it (Deut. xxx. 11-14). **************************************** But the result of the innovation did not correspond exactly to its prophetic origin. Prophecy died when its precepts attained to the force of laws; the prophetic ideas lost their purity when they became practical. Whatever may have been contemplated, only provisional regulations actually admitted of being carried, and even these only in co-operation with the king and the priests, and with due regard to the capacity of the masses. The final outcome of the Deuteronomic reformation was principally that the cultus of Jehovah was limited to Jerusalem and abolished everywhere else,--such was the popular and practical form of prophetic monotheism. The importance of the Salomonic temple was thereby increased in the highest degree, and so also the influence of the priests of Jerusalem, the sons of Zadok, who now in point of fact got rid entirely of their rivals, the priests of the country districts. 9. JEREMIAH AND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. Josiah lived for thirteen years after the accomplishment of his great work. It was a happy period of external and internal prosperity. The nation possessed the covenant, and kept it. It seemed as if the conditions had been attained on which, according to the prophets, the continuance of the theocracy depended; if their threatenings against Israel had been fulfilled, so now was Judah proving itself the heir of their promises. Already in Deuteronomy is the "extension of the frontier" taken into consideration, and Josiah actually put his hand to the task of seeking the attainment of this end. Jehovah and Israel, religion and patriotism, once more went hand in hand. Jeremiah alone did not suffer himself to be misled by the general feeling. He was a second Amos, upon a higher platform-- but, unlike his predecessor, a prophet by profession; his history, like Isaiah's, is practically the history of his time. In the work of introducing Deuteronomy he had taken an active part, and throughout his life he showed his zeal against unlawful altars and against the adoration of wood and stone (Asheras and pillars). But he was by no means satisfied with the efforts of the reformation that had been effected; nothing appeared to him more sinful or more silly than the false confidence produced by it in Jehovah and in the inviolability of His one true temple. This confidence he maintained to be delusive; Judah was not a whit better than Israel had been, Jerusalem would be destroyed one day like the temple of Shiloh. The external improvements on which the people of Judah prided themselves he held to leave this severe judgment unaffected; what was needed was a quite different sort of change, a change of heart, not very easy positively to define. An opportunity for showing his opposition presented itself to the prophet at the juncture when King Josiah had fallen at Megiddo in the battle with Pharaoh Necho (608), and when the people were seeking safety and protection by cleaving to Jehovah and His holy temple. At the instance of the priests and the prophets he had almost expiated with his blood the blasphemies he had uttered against the popular belief; but he did not suffer himself to be driven from his course. Even when the times had grown quiet again, he persisted, at the risk of his life and under universal reproach and ridicule, in his work as a prophet of evil. Moments of despair sometimes came to him; but that he had correctly estimated the true value of the great conversion of the nation was speedily proved by the facts. Although Deuteronomy was not formally abolished under Jehoiakim, who as the vassal of Egypt ascended the throne of his father Josiah, nevertheless it ceased to have practical weight, the battle of Megiddo having shown that in spite of the covenant with Jehovah the possibilities of non-success in war remained the same as before. Jehoiakim tended to return to the ways of Manasseh, not only as regarded idolatry, but also in his contempt for law and the private rights of his subjects;--the two things seem to stand in connection. The course of events at last brought upon the theocracy the visible ruin which Jeremiah had been so long expecting. After the Egyptians had, with comparative ease, subjugated Syria at the time when the Medes and Chaldaeans were busied with the siege of Nineveh, Nebuchadnezzar, that task accomplished, came upon them from Babylon and routed them on the Euphrates near Carchemish (605-4). The people of Judah rejoiced at the fall of Nineveh, and also at the result of Carchemish; but they were soon undeceived when the prospect began to open on them of simply exchanging the Egyptian for the Chaldaean yoke. The power of the Chaldaeans had been quite unsuspected, and now it was found that in them the Assyrians had suddenly returned to life. Jeremiah was the only man who gained any credit by these events. His much ridiculed "enemy out of the north," of whom he had of old been wont to speak so much, now began to be talked of with respect, although his name was no longer "the Scythian" but "the Babylonian." It was an epoch,--the close of an account which balanced in his favour. Therefore it was that precisely at this moment he received the Divine command to commit to writing that which for twenty-three years he had been preaching, and which, ever pronounced impossible, had now showed itself so close at hand. After the victory of Carchemish the Chaldaeans drove Pharaoh out of Syria, and also compelled the submission of Jehoiakim (c. 602). For three years he continued to pay his tribute, and then he withheld it; a mad passion for liberty, kindled by religious fanaticism, had begun to rage with portentous power amongst the influential classes, the grandees, the priests, and the prophets. Nebuchadnezzar satisfied himself in the first instance with raising against Judah several of the smaller nationalities around, especially the Edomites; not till 597 did he appear in person before Jerusalem. The town was compelled to yield; the more important citizens were carried into exile, amongst them the young king Jechoniah, son of Jehoiakim, who had died in the interval; Zedekiah ben Josiah was made king in his stead over the remnant left behind. The patriotic fanaticism that had led to the revolt was not broken even by this blow. Within four years afterwards new plans of liberation began to be again set on foot; but on this occasion the influence of Jeremiah proved strong enough to avert the danger. But when a definite prospect of help from Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) presented itself in 589, the craving for independence proved quite irrepressible. Revolt was declared; and in a very short time the Chaldaean army, with Nebuchadnezzar at its head, lay before Jerusalem. For a while everything seemed to move prosperously; the Egyptians came to the rescue, and the Chaleaeans were compelled to raise the siege in order to cope with them. At this there was great joy in Jerusalem; but Jeremiah continued to express his gloomy views. The event proved that he was right; the Egyptians were repulsed and the siege resumed. The city was bent on obstinate resistance; in vain did Jeremiah, at continual risk of his life, endeavour to bring it to reason. The king, who agreed with the prophet, did not venture to assert his opinion against the dominant terrorism. The town in these circumstances was at last taken by storm, and along with the temple, reduced to ruins. Cruel vengeance was taken on the king and grandees, and the pacification of the country was ensured by another and larger deportation of the inhabitants to Babylon. Thus terminated in 586 the kingdom of Judah. The prophets had been the spiritual destroyers of the old Israel. In old times the nation had been the ideal of religion in actual realisation; the prophets confronted the nation with an ideal to which it did not correspond. Then to bridge over this interval the abstract ideal was framed into a law, and to this law the nation was to be conformed. The attempt had very important consequences, inasmuch as Jehovah continued to be a living power in the law, when He was no longer realised as present in the nation; but that was not what the prophets had meant to effect. What they were unconsciously labouring towards was that religious individualism which had its historical source in the national downfall, and manifested itself not exclusively within the prophetical sphere. With such men as Amos and Hosea the moral personality based upon an inner conviction burst through the limits of mere nationality; their mistake was in supposing that they could make their way of thinking the basis of a national life. Jeremiah saw through the mistake; the true Israel was narrowed to himself. Of the truth of his conviction he never had a moment's doubt; he knew that Jehovah was on his side, that on Him depended the eternal future. But, instead of the nation, the heart and the individual conviction were to him the subject of religion. On the ruins of Jerusalem he gazed into the future filled with joyful hope, sure of this that Jehovah would one day pardon past sin and renew the relation which had been broken off-though on the basis of another covenant than that laid down in Deuteronomy. "I will put my law upon their heart, and write it on their mind; none shall say to his neighbour, Know the Lord, for all shall have that knowledge within them." 10. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RESTORATION The exiled Jews were not scattered all over Chaldaea, but were allowed to remain together in families and clans. Many of them, notwithstanding this circumstance, must have lapsed and become merged in the surrounding heathenism; but many also continued faithful to Jehovah and to Israel. They laboured under much depression and sadness, groaning under the wrath of Jehovah, who had rejected His people and cancelled His covenant. They were lying under a sort of vast interdict; they could not celebrate any sacrifice or keep any feast; they could only observe days of fasting and humiliation, and such rites as had no inseparable connection with the holy land. The observance of the Sabbath, and the practice of the rite of circumcision, acquired much greater importance than they formerly possessed as signs of a common religion. The meetings on the Sabbath day out of which the synagogues were afterwards developed appear to have first come into use during this period; perhaps also even then it had become customary to read aloud from the prophetic writings which set forth that all had happened in the providence of God, and moreover that the days of adversity were not to last for ever. Matters improved somewhat as Cyrus entered upon his victorious career. Was he the man in whom the Messianic prophecies had found their fulfilment? The majority were unwilling to think so. For it was out of Israel (they argued) that the Messiah was to proceed who should establish the kingdom of God upon the ruins of the kingdoms of the world; the restitution effected by means of a Persian could only be regarded as a passing incident in the course of an historical process that had its goal entirely elsewhere. This doubt was met by more than one prophetical writer, and especially by the great anonymous author to whom we are indebted for Isaiah xl.-lxvi. "Away with sorrow; deliverance is at the door! Is it a humiliating thing that Israel should owe its freedom to a Persian? Nay, is it not rather a proof of the world-wide sway of the God of Jacob that He should thus summon His instruments from the ends of the earth? Who else than Jehovah could have thus sent Cyrus? Surely not the false gods which he has destroyed? Jehovah alone it was who foretold and foreknew the things which are now coming to pass,--because long ago He had prearranged and predetermined them, and they are now being executed in accordance with his plan. Rejoice therefore in the prospect of your near deliverance; prepare yourselves for the new era; gird yourselves for the return to your homes." It is to be observed, as characteristic in this prophecy, how the idea of Jehovah as God alone and God over all--in constantly recurring lyrical parenthesis he is praised as the author of the world and of all nature--is yet placed in positive relation to Israel alone, and that upon the principle that Israel is in exclusive possession of the universal truth, which cannot perish with Israel, but must through the instrumentality of Israel, become the common possession of the whole world. "There is no God but Jehovah, and Israel is his prophet." For many years the Persian monarch put the patience of the Jews to the proof; Jehovah's judgment upon the Chaldaeans, instead of advancing, seemed to recede. At length, however, their hopes were realised; in the year 538 Cyrus brought the empire of Babylon to an end, and gave the exiles leave to seek their fatherland once more. This permission was not made use of by all, or even by a majority. The number of those who returned is stated at 42,360; whether women and children are included in this figure is uncertain. On arriving at their destination, after the difficult march through the desert, they did not spread themselves over the whole of Judah, but settled chiefly in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The Calebites, for example, who previously had had their settlements in and around Hebron, now settled in Bethlehem and in the district of Ephrath. They found it necessary to concentrate themselves in face of a threatened admixture of doubtful elements. From all sides people belonging to the surrounding nations had pressed into the depopulated territory of Judah. Not only had they annexed the border territories--where, for example, the Edomites or Idumaeans held the whole of the Negeb as far as to Hebron; they had effected lodgments everywhere, and-- as the Ammonites, Ashdodites, and especially the Samaritans--had amalgamated with the older Jewish population, a residue of which had remained in the country in spite of all that had happened. These half-breed "pagani" (Amme haarec 'oxloi) gave a friendly reception to the returning exiles (Bne haggola); particularly did the Samaritans show themselves anxious to make common cause with them. But they were met with no reciprocal cordiality. The lesson of religious isolation which the children of the captivity had learned in Babylon, they did not forget on their return to their home. Here also they lived as in a strange land. Not the native of Judaea, but the man who could trace his descent from the exiles in Babylon, was reckoned as belonging to their community. The first decennia after the return of the exiles, during which they were occupied in adjusting themselves to their new homes, were passed under a variety of adverse circumstances and by no means either in joyousness or security. Were these then the Messianic times which, it had been foretold, were to dawn at the close of their captivity? They did not at all events answer the expectations which had been formed. A settlement had been again obtained, it was true, in the fatherland; but the Persian yoke pressed now more heavily than ever the Babylonian had done. The sins of God's people seemed still unforgiven, their period of bond-service not yet at an end. A slight improvement, as is shown by the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, followed when in the year 520 the obstacles disappeared which until then had stood in the way of the rebuilding of the temple; the work then begun was completed in 516. Inasmuch as the Jews were now nothing more than a religious community, based upon the traditions of a national existence that had ceased, the rebuilding of the temple, naturally, was for them an event of supreme importance. The law of the new theocracy was the Book of Deuteronomy; this was the foundation on which the structure was to be built. But the force of circumstances, and the spirit of the age, had even before and during the exile exerted a modifying influence upon that legislative code; and it continued to do so still. At first a "son of David" had continued to stand at the head of the Bne haggola, but this last relic of the old monarchy soon had to give way to a Persian governor who was under the control of the satrap of trans-Euphratic Syria, and whose principal business was the collection of revenue. Thenceforward the sole national chief was Joshua the high priest, on whom, accordingly, the political representation also of the community naturally devolved. In the circumstances as they then were no other arrangement was possible. The way had been paved for it long before in so far as the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Israel, while in the kingdom of Judah which survived it the religious cultus had greater importance attached to it than political affairs, and also inasmuch as in point of fact the practical issue of the prophetic reformation sketched in Deuteronomy had been to make the temple the national centre still more than formerly. The hierocracy towards which Ezekiel had already opened the way was simply inevitable. It took the form of a monarchy of the high priest, he having stepped into the place formerly occupied by the theocratic king. As his peers and at his side stood the members of his clan, the Levites of the old Jerusalem, who traced their descent from Zadok (Sadduk); the common Levites held a much lower rank, so far as they had maintained their priestly rank at all and had not been degraded, in accordance with Ezekiel's law (chapter xliv.), to the position of mere temple servitors. "Levite," once the title of honour bestowed on all priests, became more and more confined to members of the second order of the clergy. Meanwhile no improvement was taking place in the condition of the Jewish colonists. They were poor; they had incurred the hostility of their neighbours by their exclusiveness; the Persian Government was suspicious; the incipient decline of the great kingdom was accompanied with specially unpleasant consequences so far as Palestine was concerned (Megabyzus). All this naturally tended to produce in the community a certain laxity and depression. To what purpose (it was asked) all this religious strictness, which led to so much that was unpleasant? Why all this zeal for Jehovah, who refused to be mollified by it? It is a significant fact that the upper ranks of the priesthood were least of all concerned to counteract this tendency. Their priesthood was less to them than the predominance which was based upon it; they looked upon the neighbouring ethnarchs as their equals, and maintained relations of friendship with them. The general community was only following their example when it also began to mingle with the Amme haarec. The danger of Judaism merging into heathenism was imminent. But it was averted by a new accession from without. In the year 458 Ezra the scribe, with a great number of his compatriots, set out from Babylon, for the purpose of reinforcing the Jewish element in Palestine. The Jews of Babylon were more happily situated than their Palestinian brethren, and it was comparatively easy for them to take up a separatist attitude, because they were surrounded by heathenism not partial but entire. They were no great losers from the circumstance that they were precluded from participating directly in the life of the ecclesiastical community; the Torah had long ago become separated from the people, and was now an independent abstraction following a career of its own. Babylonia was the place where a further codification of the law had been placed alongside of Deuteronomy. Ezekiel had led the way in reducing to theory and to writing the sacred praxis of his time; in this he was followed by an entire school; in their exile the Levites turned scribes. Since then Babylon continued to be the home of the Torah; and, while in Palestine itself the practice was becoming laxer, their literary study had gradually intensified the strictness and distinctive peculiarities of Judaism. And now there came to Palestine a Babylonian scribe having the law of his God in his hand, and armed with authority from the Persian king to proceed upon the basis of this law with a reformation of the community. Ezra did not set about introducing the new law immediately on his arrival in Judaea In the first instance he concentrated his attention on the task of effecting a strict separation between the Bne haggola and the heathen or half-heathen inhabitants. So much he could accomplish upon the basis of Deuteronomy, but it was long before he gave publicity to the law which he himself had brought. Why he hesitated so long it is impossible to say; between the seventh and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (458-445 B.C.) there is a great hiatus in the narrative of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The main reason appears to have been that, in spite of the good will of the Persian king, Ezra had not the vigorous support of the local authorities. But this was indispensably necessary in order to secure recognition for a new law. At last, in 445, it fell to the lot of a Jew, who also shared the views of Ezra, Nehemiah ben Hakkelejah, /1/ ****************************************** 1. According to the present punctuation this name is Hakalja (Hachaljah), but such a pronunciation is inadmissible; it has no possible etymology, the language having no such word as _hakal_. The name in its correct form means "wait upon Jehovah." ******************************************* the cupbearer and the favourite of Artaxerxes, to be sent as Persian governor to Judaea. After he had freed the community from external pressure with vigour and success, and brought it into more tolerable outward circumstances, the business of introducing the new law-book was next proceeded with; in this Ezra and Nehemiah plainly acted in concert. On the first of Tisri--the year is unfortunately not given, but it cannot have been earlier than 444 B.C.--the promulgation of the law began at a great gathering in Jerusalem; Ezra, supported by the Levites, was present. Towards the end of the month, the concluding act took place, in which the community became solemnly bound by the contents of the law. Special prominence was given to those provisions with which the people were directly concerned, particularly those which related to the dues payable by the laity to the priests. The covenant which hitherto had rested on Deuteronomy was thus expanded into a covenant based upon the entire Pentateuch. Substantially at least Ezra's law-book, in the form in which it became the Magna Charta of Judaism in or about the year 444, must be regarded as practically identical with our Pentateuch, although many minor amendments and very considerable additions may have been made at a later date. The character of the post-Deuteronomic legislation (Priestly Code) is chiefly marked, in its external aspects, by the immense extension of the dues payable to the priests, and by the sharp distinction made between the descendants of Aaron and the common Levites; this last feature is to be traced historically to the circumstance that after the Deuteronomic reformation the legal equality between the Levites who until then had ministered at the "high places" and the priests of the temple at Jerusalem was not _de facto_ recognised. Internally, it is mainly characterised by its ideal of Levitical holiness, the way in which it everywhere surrounds life with purificatory and propitiatory ceremonies, and its prevailing reference of sacrifice to sin. Noteworthy also is the manner in which everything is regarded from the point of view of Jerusalem, a feature which comes much more boldly into prominence here than in Deuteronomy; the nation and the temple are strictly speaking identified. That externalisation towards which the prophetical movement, in order to become practical, had already been tending in Deuteronomy finally achieved its acme in the legislation of Ezra; a new artificial Israel was the result; but, after all, the old would have pleased an Amos better. At the same time it must be remembered that the kernel needed a shell. It was a necessity that Judaism should incrust itself in this manner; without those hard and ossified forms the preservation of its essential elements would have proved impossible. At a time when all nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs, were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the Graeco-Roman empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the ocean. When the natural conditions of independent nationality all failed them, they nevertheless artificially maintained it with an energy truly marvellous, and thereby preserved for themselves, and at the same time for the whole world, an eternal good. As regards the subsequent history of the Jewish community under the Persian domination, we have almost no information. The high priest in Nehemiah's time was Eliashib, son of Joiakim and grandson of Joshua, the patriarchal head of the sons of Zadok, who had returned from Babylon; he was succeeded in the direct line by Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua (Nehemiah xii. 10, 11, 22); the last-named was in office at the time of Alexander the Great (Josephus, Antiquities, xi. 8). Palestine was the province which suffered most severely of all from the storms which marked the last days of the sinking Persian empire, and it is hardly likely that the Jews escaped their force; we know definitely, however, of only one episode, in which the Persian general Bagoses interfered in a disagreeable controversy about the high-priesthood (cir. 375). To this period also (and not, as Josephus states, to the time of Alexander) belongs the constitution of the Samaritan community on an independent footing by Manasseh, a Jewish priest of rank. He was expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah in 432, for refusing to separate from his alien wife. He took shelter with his father-in-law Sanballat, the Samaritan prince, who built him a temple on Mount Gerizim near Shechem, where he organised a Samaritan church and a Samaritan worship, on the Jerusalem model, and on the basis of a but slightly modified Jerusalem Pentateuch. If the Samaritans had hitherto exerted, themselves to the utmost to obtain admission into the fellowship of the Jews, they henceforward were as averse to have anything to do with these as these were to have any dealings with them; the temple on Mount Gerizim was now the symbol of their independence as a distinct religious sect. For the Jews this was a great advantage, as they had no longer to dread the danger of syncretism. They could now quite confidently admit the Amme haarec into their communion, in the assurance of assimilating them without any risk of the opposite process taking place. The Judaizing process began first with the country districts immediately surrounding Jerusalem, and then extended to Galilee and many portions of Peraea. In connection with it, the Hebrew language, which hitherto had been firmly retained by the Bne haggola, now began to yield to the Aramaic, and to hold its own only as a sacred speech. ____________ 11. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. The post-Deuteronomic legislation is not addressed to the people, but to the congregation; its chief concern is the regulation of worship. Political matters are not touched upon, as they are in the hands of a foreigner lord. The hierocracy is taken for granted as the constitution of the congregation. The head of the cultus is the head of the whole; the high priest takes the place of the king. The other priests, though his brothers or his sons, are officially subordinate to him, as bishops to the supreme pontiff. They, again, are distinguished from the Levites not only by their office but also by their noble blood, though the Levites belong by descent to the clergy, of which they form the lowest grade. The material basis of the hierarchical pyramid is furnished by the contributions of the laity, which are required on a scale which cannot be called modest. Such is the outward aspect of the rule of the holy in Israel. Inwardly, the ideal of holiness governs the whole of life by means of a net of ceremonies and observances which separate the Jew from the natural man. "Holy" means almost the same as "exclusive." Originally the term was equivalent to divine, but now it is used chiefly in the sense of religious, priestly, as if the divine were to be known from the worldly, the natural, by outward marks. It had so fallen out, even before the exile, that the reform of the theocracy which the prophets demanded began in the cultus; and after the exile this tendency could not fail to be persisted in. The restoration of Judaism took place in the form of a restoration of the cultus. Yet this restoration was not a relapse into the heathen ways which the prophets had attacked. The old meaning of the festivals and of the sacrifices had long faded away, and after the interruption of the exile they would scarcely have blossomed again of themselves; they had become simply statutes, unexplained commands of an absolute will. The cultus had no longer any real value for the Deity; it was valuable only as an exercise of obedience to the law. If it had been at first the bond connecting Israel with heathenism, now, on the contrary, it was the shield behind which Judaism retreated to be safe from heathenism. There was no other means to make Judaism secure; and the cultus was nothing more than a means to that end. It was the shell around the faith and practice of the fathers, around the religion of moral monotheism, which it alone preserved until it could become the common property of the world. The great public worship gave the new theocracy a firm centre, thus keeping it one and undivided, and helped it to an organisation. But of more importance was the minor private cultus of pious exercises, which served to Judaize the whole life of every individual. For the centre of gravity of Judaism was in the individual. Judaism was gathered from scattered elements, and it depended on the labour of the individual to make himself a Jew. This is the secret of the persistence of Judaism, even in the diaspora. The initiatory act of circumcision, which conferred an indelible character, was not the only safeguard; the whole of the education which followed that act went to guard against the disintegrating effects of individualism. This is the real significance of the incessant discipline, which consisted mainly in the observance of laws of purity and generally of regulations devised to guard against sin. For what holiness required was not to do good, but to avoid sin. By the sin and trespass offerings, and by the great day of atonement, this private cultus was connected with that of the temple; hence it was that all these institutions fitted so admirably into the system. The whole of life was directed in a definite sacred path; every moment there was a divine command to fulfil, and this kept a man from following too much the thoughts and desires of his own heart. The Jews trained themselves with an earnestness and zeal which have no parallel to create, in the absence of all natural conditions, a holy nation which should answer to the law, the concrete embodiment of the ideals of the prophets. In the individualism thus moulded into uniformity lay the chief difference which separated the new period from the old. The aim was universal culture by the law, that the prophecy should be fulfilled which says: "They shall all be taught of God." This universal culture was certainly of a peculiar kind, and imposed more troublesome observances than the culture of our day. Yet the strange duties which the law imposed were not universally felt to be a heavy burden. Precepts which were plain and had to do with something outward were very capable of being kept; the harder they seemed at first, the easier were they when the habit had been formed. A man saw that he was doing what was prescribed, and did not ask what was the use of it. The ever-growing body of regulations even came to be felt as a sort of emancipation from self. Never had the individual felt himself so responsible for all he did and left undone, but the responsibility was oppressive, and it was well that there should be a definite precept for every hour of his life, thus diminishing the risk of his going astray. Nor must we forget that the Torah contained other precepts than those which were merely ceremonial. The kernel did not quite harden into wood inside the shell; we must even acknowledge that moral sentiment gained very perceptibly in this period both in delicacy and in power. This also is connected with the fact that religion was not, as before, the custom of the people, but the work of the individual. A further consequence of this was, that men began to reflect upon religion. The age in question saw the rise of the so-called "Wisdom," of which we possess examples in the Book of Job, in the Proverbs of Solomon and of the Son of Sirach, and in Ecclesiastes. This wisdom flourished not only in Judah, but also at the same time in Edom; it had the universalistic tendency which is natural to reflection. The Proverbs of Solomon would scarcely claim attention had they arisen on Greek or Arabian soil; they are remarkable in their pale generality only because they are of Jewish origin. In the Book of Job, a problem of faith is treated by Syrians and Arabians just as if they were Jews. In Ecclesiastes religion abandons the theocratic ground altogether, and becomes a kind of philosophy in which there is room even for doubt and unbelief. Speculation did not on the whole take away from depth of feeling; on the contrary, individualism helped to make religion more intense. This is seen strikingly in the Psalms, which are altogether the fruit of this period. Even the sacrificial practice of the priests was made subjective, being incorporated in the Torah, i.e., made a matter for every one to learn. Though the laity could not take part in the ceremony, they were at least to be thoroughly informed in all the minutiae of the system; the law was a means of interesting every one in the great public sacrificial procedure. Another circumstance also tended to remove the centre of gravity of the temple service from the priests to the congregation. The service of song, though executed by choirs of singers, was yet in idea the song of the congregation, and came to be of more importance than the acts of worship which it accompanied and inspired. The Holy One of Israel sat enthroned, not on the smoke-pillars of the altar, but in the praises of the congregation pouring out its heart in prayer; the sacrifices were merely the external occasion for visiting the temple, the real reason for doing so lay in the need for the strength and refreshment to be found in religious fellowship. By the Torah religion came to be a thing to be learned. Hence the need of teachers in the church of the second temple. As the scribes had codified the Torah, it was also their task to imprint it on the minds of the people and to fill their life with it; in this way they at the same time founded a supplementary and changing tradition, which kept pace with the needs of the time. The place of teaching was the synagogue; there the law and the prophets were read and explained on the Sabbath. The synagogue and the Sabbath were of more importance than the temple and the festivals; and the moral influence of the scribes transcended that of the priests, who had to be content with outward power and dignity. The rule of religion was essentially the rule of the law, and consequently the Rabbis at last served themselves heirs to the hierarchs. At the same time, while the government of the law was acknowledged in principle, it could at no time be said to be even approximately realised in fact. The high-born priests who stood at the head of the theocracy, cared chiefly, as was quite natural, for the maintenance of their own supremacy. And there were sheep in the flock not to be kept from breaking out, both in the upper and in the lower classes of society; the school could not suppress nature altogether. It was no trifle even to know the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the written law, and the incalculable number of the unwritten. Religion had to be made a profession of, if it was to be practiced aright. It became an art, and thereby at the same time a matter of party:, the leaders of the religious were of course the scribes. The division became very apparent in the time of the Hellenization which preceded the Maccabaean revolt; at that period the name of Pharisees, i.e., the Separated, came into vogue for the party of the religious. But the separation and antipathy between the godly and the ungodly had existed before this, and had marked the life of the congregation after the exile from the very first. It was the law that gave the Jewish religion its peculiar character. But, on the other hand, a hope was not wanting to that religion; the Jews cherished the prospect of a reward for the fulfilling of the law. This hope attached itself to the old prophecies, certainly in a very fantastic way. The Jews had no historical life, and therefore painted the old time according to their ideas, and framed the time to come according to their wishes. They stood in no living relation with either the past or the future; the present was not with them a bridge from the one to the other; they did not think of bestirring themselves with a view to the kingdom of God. They had no national and historical existence, and made no preparations to procure such a thing for themselves; they only hoped for it as a reward of faithful keeping of the law. Yet they dreamed not only of a restoration of the old kingdom, but of the erection of a universal world-monarchy, which should raise its head at Jerusalem over the ruins of the heathen empires. They regarded the history of the world as a great suit between themselves and the heathen. In this suit they were in the right; and they waited for right to be done them. If the decision was delayed, their sins were the reason; Satan was accusing them before the throne of God, and causing the judgment to be postponed. They were subjected to hard trials, and if tribulation revived their hopes, with much greater certainty did it bring their sins into sorrowful remembrance. Outward circumstances still influenced in the strongest way their religious mood. But the old belief in retribution which sought to justify itself in connection with the fortunes of the congregation proved here also unequal to the strain laid upon it. Even in Deuteronomy it is maintained that the race is not to suffer for the act of an individual. Jeremiah's contemporaries thought it monstrous that because the fathers had eaten sour grapes the teeth of the children should be set on edge. Ezekiel championed in a notable way the cause of individualism on this ground. He denounced the Jews who had remained in Palestine, and who regarded themselves as the successors of the people of Jehovah because they dwelt in the Holy Land and had maintained some sort of existence as a people. In his view only those souls which were saved from the dispersion of the exile were to count as heirs of the promise; the theocracy was not to be perpetuated by the nation, but by the individual righteous men. He maintained that each man lived because of his own righteousness, and died because of his own wickedness; nay more, the fate of the individual corresponded even in its fluctuations to his moral worth at successive times. The aim he pursued in this was a good one; in view of a despair which thought there was nothing for it but to pine and rot away because of former sins, he was anxious to maintain the freedom of the will, ie., the possibility of repentance and forgiveness. But the way he chose for this end was not a good one; on his showing it was chance which ultimately decided who was good and who was wicked. The old view of retribution which allowed time for judgment to operate far beyond the limit of the individual life had truth in it, but this view had none. Yet it possessed one merit, that it brought up a problem which had to be faced, and which was a subject of reflection for a long time afterwards. The problem assumed the form of a controversy as to the principle on which piety was rewarded--this controversy taking the place of the great contest between Israel and the heathen. Were the wicked right in saying that there was no God, i.e., that He did not rule and judge on earth? Did He in truth dwell behind the clouds, and did He not care about the doings of men? In that case piety would be an illusion. Piety cannot maintain itself if God makes no difference between the godly and the wicked, and has nothing more to say to the one than to the other; for piety is not content to stretch out its hands to the empty air, it must meet an arm descending from heaven. It must have a reward, not for the sake of the reward, but in order to be sure of its own reality, in order to know that there is a communion of God with men and a road which leads to it. The usual form of this reward is the forgiveness of sins; that is the true motive of the fear of God. That is to say, as long as it is well with him, the godly man does not doubt, and so does not require any unmistakable evidence by which he may be justified and assured of the favour of God. But misfortune and pain destroy this certainty. They are accusers of sin, God's warnings and corrections. Now is the time to hold fast the faith that God leads the godly to repentance, and destroys the wicked, that He forgives the sin of the former, but punishes and avenges that of the latter. But this faith involves a hope of living to see better things; the justification of which the good man is sure must at last be attested by an objective judgment of God before the whole world, and the godly delivered from his sufferings. Hence the constant anxiety and restlessness of his conscience; the judgment passed upon him is ultimately to be gathered from the external world, and he can never be sure how it is to turn out. And a principle is also at stake the whole time, namely, the question whether godliness or ungodliness is right in its fundamental conviction. Each individual case at once affects the generality, the sufferings of one godly person touch all the godly. When he recovers and is saved, they triumph; when he succumbs, or seems to succumb, to death, they are cast down, unless in this case they should change their minds about him and hold him to be a hypocrite whom God has judged and unmasked. In the same way, they are all hurt at the prosperity of an ungodly man, and rejoice together at his fall, not from jealousy or pleasure in misfortune for its own sake, but because in the one case their faith is overturned, while in the other it is confirmed. The tortures incident to this curious oscillation between believing and seeing are set forth in the most trenchant way in the Book of Job. Job, placed in an agonizing situation, condemned without hope to the death of sinners, and yet conscious of his godliness, demands vengeance for his blood unjustly shed. But the vengeance is to be executed on God, and in such a case who can be the avenger? There is no one but God Himself, and thus the striking thought arises, that God will be the champion against God of his innocence, after having first murdered it. From the God of the present he appeals to the God of the future; but the identity between these two is yet maintained, and even now the God who slays him is the sole witness of his innocence, in which the world and his friends have ceased to believe. God must be this now if He is to avenge him in the future. An inner antinomy is in this way impersonated; the view of the friends is one of which the sufferer himself cannot divest himself; hence the conflict in his soul. But, supported by the unconquerable power of his good conscience, he struggles till he frees himself from the delusion; he believes more firmly in the direct testimony of his conscience than in the evidence of facts and the world's judgment about him, and against the dreadful God of reality, the righteous God of faith victoriously asserts Himself. Job in the end reaches the conclusion that he cannot understand God's ways. This is a negative expression of the position that he holds fast, in spite of all, to himself and to God; that is to say, that not outward experience, but inner feeling, is to decide. This inner feeling of the union of God with the godly meets us also in some of the Psalms, where, in spite of depression arising from untoward circumstances, it maintains itself as a reality which cannot be shaken, which temptations and doubts even tend to strengthen. It was a momentous step when the soul in its relations to God ventured to take its stand upon itself, to trust itself. This was an indirect product of prophecy, but one of not less importance than its direct product, the law. The prophets declared the revelation of God, which had authority for all, but along with this they had their own personal experience, and the subjective truth of which they thus became aware proved a more powerful solvent and emancipator than the objective one which formed the subject of their revelation. They preached the law to deaf ears, and laboured in vain to convert the people. But if their labour had produced no outward result, it had an inner result for them. Rejected by the people, they clung the more closely to Jehovah, in the conviction that the defeated cause was favoured by Him, that He was with them and not with the people. Especially with Jeremiah did prophecy, which is designed primarily to act on others, transform itself into an inner converse with the Deity, which lifted him above all the annoyances of his life. In this relation, however, there was nothing distinctively prophetical, just because it was a matter of the inner life alone, and was sufficient for itself; it was just the essence of the life of religion that the prophets thus brought to view and helped to declare itself. The experience of Jeremiah propagated itself and became the experience of religious Israel. This was the power by which Israel was enabled to rise again after every fall; the good conscience towards God, the profound sentiment of union with Him, proved able to defy all the blows of outward fortune. In this strength the servant, despised and slain, triumphed over the world; the broken and contrite heart was clothed and set on high with the life and power of the Almighty God. This divine spirit of assurance rises to its boldest expression in the 73rd Psalm: "Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou holdest me by my right hand; Thou guidest me with Thy counsel, and drawest me after Thee by the hand. If I have Thee, I desire not heaven nor earth; if my flesh and my heart fail, Thou, God, art for ever the strength of my heart, and my portion." The life surrendered is here found again in a higher life, without any expression of hope of a hereafter. In the Book of Job we do indeed find a trace of this hope, in the form that even after the death of the martyr, God may still find opportunity to justify him and pronounce him innocent; yet this idea is only touched on as a distant possibility, and is at once dropped. Certainly the position of that man is a grand one who can cast into the scale against death and devil his inner certainty of union with God-- so grand indeed that we must in honesty be ashamed to repeat those words of the 73d Psalm. But the point of view is too high. The danger was imminent of falling from it down into the dust and seeking comfort and support in the first earthly experience that might offer, or, on the other hand, sinking into despair. Subjective feeling was not enough of itself to outbid the contradictions of nature; the feeling must take an objective form, a world other than this one, answering the demands of morality, must build itself up to form a contrast to the world actually existing. The merit of laying the foundations for this religious metaphysic which the time called for belongs, if not to the Pharisees themselves, at least to the circles from which they immediately proceeded. The main features of that metaphysic first appear in the Book of Daniel, where we find a doctrine of the last things. We have already spoken of the transition from the old prophecy to apocalypse. With the destruction of the nation and the cessation of historical life, hope was released from all obligation to conform to historical conditions; it no longer set up an aim to which even the present might aspire, but ran riot after an ideal, at the advent of which the historical development would be suddenly broken off. To be pious was all the Jews could do at the time; but it caused them bitter regret that they had no part in the government of the world, and in thought they anticipated the fulfilment of their wishes. These they raised to an ever-higher pitch in proportion as their antagonism to the heathen became more pronounced, and as the world became more hostile to them and they to the world. As the heathen empires stood in the way of the universal dominion of Israel, the whole of them together were regarded as one power, and this world-empire was then set over against the kingdom of God, i.e., of Israel. The kingdom of God was entirely future; the fulfilling of the law did not prepare the way for it, but was only a statutory condition for its coming, not related to it inwardly as cause to effect. History was suddenly to come to a stop and cease. The Jews counted the days to the judgment; the judgment was the act by which God would at once realise all their wishes. The view thus taken of the world's history was a very comprehensive one and well worked out from its principle, yet of an entirely negative character; the further the world's history went wilfully away from its goal, the nearer did it unintentionally approach its goal. In this view, moreover, the earth always continued to be the place of hope; the kingdom of God was brought by the judgment into earthly history; it was on earth that the ideal was to be realised. A step further, and the struggle of the dualism of the earth was preluded in the skies by the angels, as the representatives of the different powers and nations. In this struggle a place was assigned to Satan; at first he was merely the accuser whom God Himself had appointed, and in this character he drew attention to the sins of the Jews before God's judgment-seat, and thereby delayed the judicial sentence in their favour; but ultimately (though this took place late, and is not met with in the Book of Daniel) he came to be the independent leader of the power opposed to God, God's cause being identified with that of the Jews. But as this prelude of the struggle took place in heaven, its result was also anticipated. The kingdom of God is on earth a thing of the future, but even now it is preserved in heaven with all its treasures, one day to descend from there to the earth. Heaven is the place where the good things of the future are kept, which are not and yet must be; that is its original and true signification. But the most important question came at last to be, how individuals were to have part in the glory of the future? How was it with the martyrs who had died in the expectation of the kingdom of God, before it came? The doctrine of the _zakuth_ was formed: if their merit was not of service to themselves, it was yet of service to others. But this was a solution with which individualism could not rest content. And what of the ungodly? Were they to escape from wrath because they died before the day of judgment? It was necessary that the departed also should be allowed to take some part in the coming retribution. Thus there arose--it is remarkable how late and how slowly--the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, that the kingdom of God might not be of service only to those who happened to be alive at the judgment. Yet at first this doctrine was only used to explain particularly striking cases. The Book of Daniel says nothing of a general resurrection, but speaks in fact only of a resurrection of the martyrs and a punishment of the wicked after death. With all this the resurrection is not the entrance to a life above the earth but to a second earthly life, to a world in which it is no longer the heathen but the Jews who bear rule and take the lead. Of a general judgment at the last day, or of heaven and hell in the Christian sense, the Jews know nothing, though these ideas might so easily have suggested themselves to them. It is not easy to find points of view from which to pronounce on the character of Judaism. It is a system, but a practical system, which can scarcely be set forth in relation to one leading thought, as it is an irregular product of history. It lives on the stores of the past, but is not simply the total of what had been previously acquired; it is full of new impulses, and has an entirely different physiognomy from that of Hebrew antiquity, so much so that it is hard even to catch a likeness. Judaism is everywhere historically comprehensible, and yet it is a mass of antinomies. We are struck with the free flight of thought and the deep inwardness of feeling which are found in some passages in the Wisdom and in the Psalms; but, on the other hand, we meet with a pedantic asceticism which is far from lovely, and with pious wishes the greediness of which is ill-concealed; and these unedifying features are the dominant ones of the system. Monotheism is worked out to its furthest consequences, and at the same time is enlisted in the service of the narrowest selfishness; Israel participates in the sovereignty of the One God. The Creator of heaven and earth becomes the manager of a petty scheme of salvation; the living God descends from His throne to make way for the law. The law thrusts itself in everywhere; it commands and blocks up the access to heaven; it regulates and sets limits to the understanding of the divine working on earth. As far as it can, it takes the soul out of religion and spoils morality. It demands a service of God, which, though revealed, may yet with truth be called a self-chosen and unnatural one, the sense and use of which are apparent neither to the understanding nor the heart. The labour is done for the sake of the exercise; it does no one any good, and rejoices neither God nor man. It has no inner aim after which it spontaneously strives and which it hopes to attain by itself, but only an outward one, namely, the reward attached to it, which might as well be attached to other and possibly even more curious conditions. The ideal is a negative one, to keep one's self from sin, not a positive one, to do good upon the earth; the morality is one which scarcely requires for its exercise the existence of fellow-creatures. Now pious exercises can dam up life and hold it in bounds, they may conquer from it more and more ground, and at last turn it into one great Sabbath, but they cannot penetrate it at the root. The occupation of the hands and the desire of the heart fall asunder. What the hands are doing has nothing in common with the earth, and bears no reference to earthly objects; but with the Jews the result of this is that their hope assumes a more worldly complexion. There is no connection between the Good One and goodness. There are exceptions, but they disappear in the system. The Gospel develops hidden impulses of the Old Testament, but it is a protest against the ruling tendency of Judaism. Jesus understands monotheism in a different way from his contemporaries. They think in connection with it of the folly of the heathen and their great happiness in calling the true God their own; He thinks of the claims, not to be disputed or avoided, which the Creator makes on the creature. He feels the reality of God dominating the whole of life, He breathes in the fear of the Judge who requires an account for every idle word, and has power to destroy body and soul in hell. "No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and Mammon; where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." This monotheism is not to be satisfied with stipulated services, how many and great soever; it demands the whole man, it renders doubleness of heart and hypocrisy impossible. Jesus casts ridicule on the works of the law, the washing of hands and vessels, the tithing of mint and cummin, the abstinence even from doing good on the Sabbath. Against unfruitful self-sanctification He sets up another principle of morality, that of the service of one's neighbour. He rejects that lofty kind of goodness, which says to father and mother, If I dedicate what I might give to you, that will be best even for you yourselves; He contends for the weightier matters in the law, for the common morality which sees its aim in the furtherance of the well-being of others, and which commends itself at once to the heart of every one. Just this natural morality of self-surrender does He call the law of God; that supernatural morality which thinks to outbid this, He calls the commandment of men. Thus religion ceases to be an art which the Rabbis and Pharisees understand better than the unlearned people which know nothing of the law. The arrogance of the school fares ill at the hands of Jesus; He will know nothing of the partisanship of piety or of the separateness of the godly; He condemns the practice of judging a man's value before God. Holiness shrinks from contact with sinners, but He helps the world of misery and sin; and there is no commandment on which He insists more than that of forgiving others their debts as one hopes for forgiveness himself from heaven. He is most distinctly opposed to Judaism in His view of the kingdom of heaven, not as merely the future reward of the worker, but as the present goal of effort, it being the supreme duty of man to help it to realise itself on earth, from the individual outwards. Love is the means, and the community of love the end. Self-denial is the chief demand of the Gospel; it means the same thing as that repentance which must precede entrance into the kingdom of God. The will thereby breaks away from the chain of its own acts, and makes an absolutely new beginning not conditioned by the past. The causal nexus which admits of being traced comes here to an end, and the mutual action, which cannot be analysed, between God and the soul begins. Miracle does not require to be understood, only to be believed, in order to take place. With men it is impossible, but with God it is possible. Jesus not only affirmed this, but proved it in His own person. The impression of His personality convinced the disciples of the fact of the forgiveness of their sins and of their second birth, and gave them courage to believe in a new divine life and to live it. He had in fact lost His life and saved it; He could do as he would. He had escaped the limits of the race and the pains of self-seeking nature; He had found freedom and personality in God, who alone is master of Himself, and lifts those up to Himself who seek after Him. Jesus works in the world and for the world, but with His faith He stands above the world and outside it. He can sacrifice Himself for the world because He asks nothing from the world, but has attained in retirement with God to equanimity and peace of soul. And further, the entirely supra-mundane position, at which Jesus finds courage and love to take an interest in the world, does not lead Him to anything strained or unnatural. He trusts God's Providence, and resigns Himself to His will, He takes up the attitude of a child towards Him, and loves best to call Him the Heavenly Father. The expression is simple, but the thing signified is new. He first knows Himself, not in emotion but in sober quietness, to be God's child; before Him no one ever felt himself to be so, or called himself so. He is the first-born of the Father, yet, according to His own view, a first-born among many brethren. For He stands in this relation to God not because His nature is unique, but because He is man; He uses always and emphatically this general name of the race to designate His own person. In finding the way to God for Himself He has opened it to all; along with the nature of God He has at the same time discovered in Himself the nature of man. Eternity extends into the present with Him, even on earth He lives in the midst of the kingdom of God; even the judgment He sees inwardly accomplished here below in the soul of man. Yet He is far from holding the opinion that he who loves God aright does not desire that God should love him in return. He teaches men to bear the cross, but he does not teach that the cross is sweet and that sickness is sound. A coming reconciliation between believing and seeing, between morality and nature, everywhere forms the background of His view of the world; even if He could have done without it for His own person, yet it is a thing He takes for granted, as it is an objective demand of righteousness. So much is certain; for the rest the eschatology of the New Testament is so thoroughly saturated with the Jewish ideas of the disciples, that it is difficult to know what of it is genuine. Jesus was so full of new and positive ideas that He did not feel any need for breaking old idols, so free that no constraint could depress Him, so unconquerable that even under the load of the greatest accumulations of rubbish He could still breathe. This ought ye to do, He said, and not to leave the other undone; He did not seek to take away one iota, but only to fulfil. He never thought of leaving the Jewish community. The Church is not His work, but an inheritance from Judaism to Christianity. Under the Persian domination the Jews built up an unpolitical community on the basis of religion. The Christians found themselves in a position with regard to the Roman Empire precisely similar to that which the Jews had occupied with regard to the Persian; and so they also founded, after the Jewish pattern, in the midst of the state which was foreign and hostile to them, and in which they could not feel themselves at home, a religious community as their true fatherland. The state is always the presupposition of the Church; but it was at first, in the case both of the Jewish and of the Christian Church, a foreign state. The original meaning of the Church thus disappeared when it no longer stood over against the heathen world-power, it having become possible for the Christians also to possess a natural fatherland in the nation. In this way it became much more difficult to define accurately the spheres of the state and the Church respectively, regarding the Church as an organisation, not as an invisible community of the faithful. The distinction of religious and secular is a variable one; every formation of a religious community is a step towards the secularisation of religion; the religion of the heart alone remains an inward thing. The tasks of the two competing organisations are not radically different in their nature; on the one side it may be said that had not the Christian religion found civil order already in existence, had it come, like Islam, in contact with the anarchy of Arabia instead of the Empire of Rome it must have founded not the Church, but the state; on the other side it is well known that the state has everywhere entered into possession of fields first reclaimed to cultivation by the Church. Now we must acknowledge that the nation is more certainly created by God than the Church, and that God works more powerfully in the history of the nations than in Church history. The Church, at first a substitute for the nation which was wanting, is affected by the same evils incident to an artificial cultivation as meet us in Judaism. We cannot create for ourselves our sphere of life and action; better that it should be a natural one, given by God. And yet it would be unjust to deny the permanent advantages of the differentiation of the two. The Church will always be able to work in advance for the state of the future. The present state unfortunately is in many respects only nothing more than a barrier to chaos; if the Church has still a task, it is that of preparing an inner unity of practical conviction, and awakening a sentiment, first in small circles, that we belong to each other. Whether she is to succeed in this task is certainly the question. The religious individualism of the Gospel is, and must remain for all time, the true salt of the earth. The certainty that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God drives out that fear which is opposed to love; an entirely supra-mundane faith lends courage for resultless self-sacrifice and resigned obedience on earth. We must succeed: _sursum corda_! 12. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD. Palestine fell into Alexander's possession in 332; after his death it had an ample share of the troubles arising out of the partition of his inheritance. In 320 it was seized by Ptolemy I., who on a Sabbath-day took Jerusalem; but in 3I5 he had to give way before Antigonus. Even before the battle of Ipsus, however, he recovered possession once more, and for a century thereafter Southern Syria continued to belong to the Egyptian crown, although the Seleucidae more than once sought to wrench it away. In the priestly dynasty during the period of the Ptolemies, Onias I. ben Jaddua was succeeded by his son Simon I., after whom again came first his brothers Eleazar and Manasseh, and next his son Onias II.; the last-named was in his turn followed by his son Simon II., whose praises are sung by the son of Sirach (xlix. 14-16). At the side of the high priest stood the gerusia of the town of Jerusalem, as a council of state, including the higher ranks of the priesthood. The new sovereign power was at once stronger and juster than the Persian,--at least under the earlier Ptolemies; the power of the national government increased; to it was intrusted the business of raising the tribute. As a consequence of the revolutionary changes which had taken place in the conditions of the whole East, the Jewish dispersion (diaspora) began vigorously to spread. It dated its beginning indeed from an earlier period,--from the time when the Jews had lost their land and kingdom, but yet, thanks to their religion, could not part with their nationality. They did not by any means all return from Babylon; perhaps the majority permanently settled abroad. The successors of Alexander (diadochi) fully appreciated this international element, and used it as a link between their barbarian and Hellenic populations. Everywhere they encouraged the settlement of Jews,--in Asia Minor, in Syria, and especially in Egypt. Alongside of the Palestinian there arose a Hellenistic Judaism which had its metropolis in Alexandria. Here, under Ptolemy I. and II., the Torah had already been translated into Greek, and around this sprung up a Jewish-Greek literature which soon became very extensive. At the court and in the army of the Ptolemies many Jews rose to prominent positions; everywhere they received the preference over, and everywhere they in consequence earned the hatred of, the indigenous population. After the death of Ptolemy IV. (205) Antiochus III. attained the object towards which he and his predecessors had long been vainly striving; after a war protracted with varying success through several years, he succeeded at last in incorporating Palestine with the kingdom of the Seleucidae. The Jews took his side, less perhaps because they had become disgusted with the really sadly degenerate Egyptian rule, than because they had foreseen the issue of the contest, and preferred to attach themselves voluntarily to the winning side. In grateful acknowledgment, Antiochus confirmed and enlarged certain privileges of the "holy camp," i.e., of Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities, xii. 3, 3). It soon, however, became manifest that the Jews had made but a poor bargain in this exchange. Three years after his defeat at Magnesia, Antiochus III. died (187), leaving to his son Seleucus IV. an immense burden of debt, which he had incurred by his unprosperous Roman war. Seleucus, in his straits, could not afford to be over-scrupulous in appropriating money where it was to be found: he did not need to be twice told that the wealth of the temple at Jerusalem was out of all proportion to the expenses of the sacrificial service. The sacred treasure accordingly made the narrowest possible escape from being plundered; Heliodorus, who had been charged by the king to seize it, was deterred at the last moment by a heavenly vision. But the Jews derived no permanent advantage from this. It was a priest of rank, Simon by name, who had called the attention of the king to the temple treasure; his motive had been spite against the high priest Onias III., the son and successor of Simon II. The circumstance is one indication of a melancholy process of disintegration that was at that time going on within the hierocracy. The high-priesthood, although there were exceptional cases, such as that of Simon II., was regarded less as a sacred office than as a profitable princedom; within the ranks of the priestly nobility arose envious and jealous factions; personal advancement was sought by means of the favour of the overlord, who had something to say in the making of appointments. A collateral branch of the ruling family, that of the children of Tobias, had by means of the ill-gotten wealth of Joseph ben Tobias attained to a position of ascendancy, and competed in point of power with the high priest himself. It appears that the above-mentioned Simon, and his still more scandalous brother AIenelaus, also belonged to the Tobiadae, and, relying upon the support of their powerful party (Josephus, Antiquities, xii. 5, 1), cherished the purpose of securing the high-priesthood by the aid of the Syrian king. The failure of the mission of Heliodorus was attributed by Simon to a piece of trickery on the part of Onias the high priest, who accordingly found himself called upon to make his own justification at court and to expose the intrigues of his adversary. Meanwhile Seleucus IV. died of poison (175), and Antiochus IV. Epiphanes did not confirm Onias in his dignity, but detained him in Antioch, while he made over the office to his brother Jason, who had offered a higher rent. Possibly the Tobiadae also had something to do with this arrangement; at all events, Menelaus was at the outset the right hand of the new high priest. To secure still further the favour of the king, Jason held himself out to be an enlightened friend of the Greeks, and begged for leave to found in Jerusalem a gymnasium and an ephebeum, and to be allowed to sell to the inhabitants there the rights of citizenship in Antioch,--a request which was readily granted. The malady which had long been incubating now reached its acute phase. Just in proportion as Hellenism showed itself friendly did it present elements of danger to Judaism. From the periphery it slowly advanced towards the centre, from the diaspora to Jerusalem, from mere matters of external fashion to matters of the most profound conviction. /1/ Especially did the upper and cultivated ************************************* 1. The Hellenising fashion is amusingly exemplified in the Grecising of the Jewish names; e.g., Alcimus = Eljakim, Jason = Jesus, Joshua; Menelaus = Menahem. **************************************** classes of society begin to feel ashamed, in presence of the refined Greeks, of their Jewish singularity, and to do all in their power to tone it down and conceal it. In this the priestly nobility made itself conspicuous as the most secular section of the community, and it was the high priest who took the initiative in measures which aimed at a complete Hellenising of the Jews. He outdid every one else in paganism. Once he sent a considerable present for offerings to the Syrian Hercules on the occasion of his festival; but his messenger, ashamed to apply the money to such a purpose, set it apart for the construction of royal ships of war. The friendship shown by Jason for the Greek king and for all that was Hellenic did not prevent Antiochus IV. from setting pecuniary considerations before all others. Menelaus, intrusted with the mission of conveying to Antioch the annual Jewish tribute, availed himself of the opportunity to promote his own personal interests by offering a higher sum for the high-priesthood, and having otherwise ingratiated himself with the king, gained his object (171). But though nominated, he did not find it quite easy to obtain possession of the post. The Tobiadae took his side, but the body of the people stuck to Jason, who was compelled to give way only when Syrian troops had been brought upon the scene. Menelaus had immediately, however, to encounter another difficulty, for he could not at once pay the amount of tribute which he had promised. He helped himself so far indeed by robbing the temple, but this landed him in new embarrassments. Onias III., who was living out of employment at Antioch, threatened to make compromising revelations to the king; he was, however, opportunely assassinated. The rage of the people against the priestly temple-plunderer now broke out in a rising against a certain Lysimachus, who at the instance of the absent Menelaus had made further inroads upon the sacred treasury. The Jews' defence before the king (at Tyre) on account of this uproar resolved itself into a grievous complaint against the conduct of Menelaus. His case was a bad one, but money again helped him out of his straits, and the extreme penalty of the law fell upon his accusers. The feelings of the Jews with reference to this wolfish shepherd may easily be imagined. Nothing but fear of Antiochus held them in check. Then a report gained currency that the king had perished in an expedition against Egypt (170); and Jason, who meanwhile had found refuge in Ammanitis, availed himself of the prevailing current of feeling to resume his authority with the help of one thousand men. He was not able, however, to hold the position long, partly because he showed an unwise vindictiveness against his enemies, partly (and chiefly) because the rumour of the death of Antiochus turned out to be false. The king was already, in fact, close at hand on his return from Egypt, full of anger at an insurrection which he regarded as having been directed against himself. He inflicted severe and bloody chastisement upon Jerusalem, carried off the treasures of the temple, and restored Menelaus, placing Syrian officials at his side. Jason fled from place to place, and ultimately died in misery at Lacedaemon. The deepest despondency prevailed in Judaea; but its cup of sorrow was not yet full. Antiochus, probably soon after his last Egyptian expedition (168), sent Apollonius with an army against Jerusalem. He fell upon the unsuspecting city, disarmed the inhabitants and demolished the walls, but on the other hand fortified Acra, and garrisoned it strongly, so as to make it a standing menace to the whole country. Having thus made his preparations, he proceeded to carry out his main instructions. All that was religiously distinctive of Judaism was to be removed; such was the will of the king. The Mosaic cultus was abolished, Sabbath observance and the rite of circumcision prohibited, all copies of the Torah confiscated and burnt. In the desecrated and partially-destroyed temple pagan ceremonies were performed, and upon the great altar of burnt-offering a small altar to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected, on which the first offering was made on 25th Kislev 168. In the country towns also heathen altars were erected, and the Jews compelled, on pain of death, publicly to adore the false gods and to eat swine's flesh that had been sacrificed to idols. The princes and grandees of the Jews had represented to Antiochus that the people were ripe for Hellenisation; and inasmuch as, apart from this, to reduce to uniformity the extremely motley constituents of his kingdom was a scheme that lay near his heart, he was very willing to believe them. That the very opposite was the case must of course have become quite evident very soon; but the resistance of the Jews taking the form of rebellious risings against his creatures, he fell upon the hopeless plan of coercion,--hopeless, for he could attain his end only by making all Judaea one vast graveyard. There existed indeed a pagan party; the Syrian garrison of Acra was partly composed of Jews who sold themselves to be the executioners of their countrymen. Fear also influenced many to deny their convictions; but the majority adhered firmly to the religion of their fathers. Jerusalem, the centre of the process of Hellenisation, was abandoned by its inhabitants, who made their escape to Egypt, or hid themselves in the country, in deserts and caves. The scribes in especial held fast by the law; and they were joined by the party of the Asidaeans (i.e., pious ones). 13. THE HASMONAEANS. At first there was no thought of meeting violence with violence; as the Book of Daniel shows, people consoled themselves with thoughts of the immediate intervention of God which would occur in due time. Quite casually, without either plan or concert, a warlike opposition arose. There was a certain priest Mattathias, of the family of the Hasmonaeans, a man far advanced in life, whose home was in Modein, a little country town to the west of Jerusalem. Hither also the Syrian soldiers came to put the population to a positive proof of their change of faith; they insisted upon Mattathias leading the way. But he was steadfast in his refusal; and, when another Jew addressed himself before his eyes to the work of making the heathen offering, he killed him and the Syrian officer as well, and destroyed the altar. Thereupon he fled to the hill country, accompanied by his sons (Johannes Gaddi, Simon Thassi, Judas Maccabaeus, Eleazar Auaran, Jonathan Apphus) and other followers. But he resolved to defend himself to the last, and not to act as some other fugitives had done, who about the same time had allowed themselves to be surrounded and butchered on a Sabbath-day without lifting a finger. Thus he became the head of a band which defended the ancestral religion with the sword. They traversed the country, demolished the altars of the false gods, circumcised the children, and persecuted the heathen and heathenishly disposed. The sect of the Asidaeans also intrusted itself to their warlike protection (1Maccabees ii. 42). Mattathias soon died and left his leadership to Judas Maccabaeus, by whom the struggle was carried on in the first instance after the old fashion; soon, however, it assumed larger dimensions, when regular armies were sent out against the insurgents. First Apollonius, the governor of Judaea, took the field; but he was defeated and fell in battle. Next came Seron, governor of Ccelesyria, who also was routed near Bethhoron (I66). Upon this Lysias, the regent to whom Antiochus IV., who was busied in the far east, had intrusted the government of Syria and the charge of his son, Antiochus Philopator, a minor, sent a strong force under the command of three generals. Approaching from the west, it was their design to advance separately upon Jerusalem, but Judas anticipated their plan and compelled them to quit the field (166). The regent now felt himself called on to interpose in person. Invading Judaea from the south, he encountered the Jews at Bethsur, who, however, offered an opposition that was not easily overcome; he was prevented from resorting to the last measures by the intelligence which reached him of the death of the king in Elymais (165). The withdrawal of Lysias secured the fulfilment of the desires of the defenders of the faith in so far as it now enabled them to restore the Jerusalem worship to its previous condition. They lost no time in setting about the accomplishment of this. They were not successful indeed in wresting Acra from the possession of the Syrians, but they so occupied the garrison as to prevent it from interfering with the work of restoration. On 25th Kislev 165, the very day on which, three years before, "the abomination of desolation" had been inaugurated, the first sacrifice was offered on the new altar, and in commemoration of this the feast of the dedication was thenceforth celebrated. As it was easy to see that danger still impended, the temple was put into a state of defence, as also was the town of Bethsur, where Lysias had been checked. But the favourable moment presented by the change of sovereign was made use of for still bolder attempts. Scattered over the whole of Southern Syria there were a number of Jewish localities on which the heathens now proceeded to wreak their vengeance. For the purpose of rescuing these oppressed co-religionists, and of bringing them in safety to Judaea, the Maccabees made a series of excursions, extending in some cases as far as to Lebanon and Damascus. Lysias had his hands otherwise fully occupied, and perhaps did not feel much disposed to continue the fight on behalf of the cultus of Jupiter Capitolinus. Daily gaining in boldness, the Jews now took in hand also to lay regular siege to Acra. Then at last Lysias yielded to the pressure of Syrian and Jewish deputations and determined to take serious steps (162). With a large force he entered Judaea, again from the south, and laid siege to Bethsur. Judas vainly attempted the relief of the fortress; he sustained near Bethzachariah a defeat in which his brother Eleazar perished. Bethsur was unable to hold out, being short of provisions on account of the sabbatic year. The Syrians advanced next to Jerusalem and besieged the temple; it also was insufficiently provisioned, and would soon have been compelled to surrender, had not Lysias been again called away at the critical moment by other exigencies. A certain Philip was endeavouring to oust him from the regency; as it was necessary for him to have his hands free in dealing with this new enemy, he closed a treaty with the temple garrison and the people at large, in accordance with which at once the political subjection and the religious freedom of the Jews were to be maintained; Thus the situation as it had existed before Antiochus IV. was restored. Only no attempt was made to replace Menelaus as high priest and ethnarch; this post was to be filled by Alcimus. The concessions thus made by Lysias were inevitable; and even King Demetrius I., son of Seleucus IV., who towards the end of 162 ascended the throne and caused both Lysias and his ward to be put to death, had no thought of interfering with their religious freedom. But the Maccabees desired something more than the _status quo ante_; after having done their duty they were disinclined to retire in favour of Alcimus, whose sole claim lay in his descent from the old heathenishly-disposed high-priestly family. Alcimus was compelled to invoke the assistance of the king, who caused him to be installed by Bacchides. He was at once recognised by the scribes and Asidaeans, for whom, with religious liberty, everything they wished had been secured; the claims to supremacy made by the Hasmonaeans were of no consequence to them. Doubtless the masses also would ultimately have quietly accepted Alcimus, who of course refrained from interference with either law or worship, had he not abused the momentary power he derived from the presence of Bacchides to take a foolish revenge. But the consequence of his action was that, as soon as Bacchides had turned his back, Alcimus was compelled to follow him. For the purpose of restoring him a Syrian army once more invaded Judaea under Nicanor (I60), but first at Kapharsalama and afterwards at Bethhoron was defeated by Judas, and almost annihilated in the subsequent flight, Nicanor himself being among the slain (13th Adar = Nicanor's day). Judas was now at the acme of his prosperity; about this time he concluded his (profitless) treaty with the Romans. But disaster was impending. In the month of Nisan, barely a month after the defeat of Nicanor, a new Syrian army under Bacchides entered Judaea from the north; near Elasa, southward from Jerusalem, a decisive battle was fought which was lost by Judas, and in which he himself fell. The religious war properly so called had already been brought once for all to an end by the convention of Lysias. If the struggle continued to be carried on, it was not for the faith but for the supremacy,--less in the interests of the community than in those of the Hasmonaeans. After the death of Judas the secular character which the conflict had assumed ever since 162 continually became more conspicuous. Jonathan Apphus fought for his house, and in doing so used thoroughly worldly means. The high-priesthood, i.e., the ethnarchy, was the goal of his ambition. So long as Alcimus lived, it was far from his reach. Confined to the rocky fastnesses beside the Dead Sea, he had nothing for it but, surrounded by his faithful followers, to wait for better times. But on the death of Alcimus (159) the Syrians refrained from appointing a successor, to obviate the necessity of always having to protect him with military force. During the interregnum of seven years which followed, Jonathan again came more and more to the front, so that at last Bacchides concluded an armistice with him on the basis of the _status quo_ (1Maccabees ix. 13). From his residence at Michmash Jonathan now exercised a _de facto_ authority over the entire nation. When accordingly Alexander Balas, a reputed son of Antiochus IV., rose against Demetrius, both rivals exerted themselves to secure the alliance of Jonathan, who did not fail to benefit by their competition. First of all, Demetrius formally recognised him as prince of Judah; in consequence of this he removed to Jerusalem, and expelled the heathen and heathenishly disposed, who continued to maintain a footing only in Acra and Bethsur. Next Alexander Balas conferred on him the title of "high priest of the nation and friend of the king;" in gratitude for which Jonathan went over to his side (152). He remained loya], although Demetrius now made larger offers; he was justified by the event, for Demetrius I. had the worst of it and was slain (150). The victorious Balas heaped honours upon Jonathan, who maintained his fidelity, and fought successfully in his interests when in I47 Demetrius II., the son of Demetrius I., challenged a conflict. The high priest was unable indeed to prevent the downfall of Alexander in 145; but Demetrius II., won by presents, far from showing any hostility, confirmed him in his position in consideration of a tribute of 300 talents. Jonathan was grateful to the king, as he showed by going with 3000 men to his aid against the insurgent Antiochenes. But when the latter drew back from his promise to withdraw the garrison from Acra, he went over to the side of Trypho, who had set up a son of Alexander Balas (Antiochus) as a rival. In the war which he now waged as Seleucid-strategus against Demetrius he succeeded in subduing almost the whole of Palestine. Meanwhile his brother Simon remained behind in Judaea, mastered the fortress of Bethsur, and resumed with great energy the siege of Acra. All this was done in the names of Antiochus and Trypho, but really of course in the interests of the Jews themselves. There were concluded also treaties with the Romans and Lacedaemonians, certainly not to the advantage of the Syrians. Trypho sought now to get rid of the man whom he himself had made so powerful. He treacherously seized and imprisoned Jonathan in Ptolemais, and meditated an attack upon the leaderless country. But on the frontier Simon, the last remaining son of Mattathias, met him in force. All Trypho's efforts to break through proved futile; after skirting all Judaea from west to south, without being able to get clear of Simon, he at last withdrew to Peraea without having accomplished anything. On the person of Jonathan, whom he caused to be executed, he vented the spleen he felt on the discovery that the cause for which that prince had fought was able to gain the victory even when deprived of his help. Simon, in point of fact, was Jonathan's equal as a soldier and his superior as a ruler. He secured his frontier by means of fortresses, made himself master of Acra (141), and understood how to enable the people in time of peace to reap the advantages that result from successful war; agriculture, industry, and commerce (from the haven of Joppa) began to flourish vigorously. In grateful recognition of his services the high-priesthood and the ethnarchy were bestowed upon him as hereditary possessions by a solemn assembly of the people, "until a trustworthy prophet should arise." Nominally the Seleucidae still continued to possess the suzerainty. Simon naturally had detached himself from Trypho and turned to Demetrius II., who confirmed him in his position, remitted all arrears of tribute, and waived his rights for the future (142). The friendship of Demetrius II. and of his successor Antiochus Sidetes with Simon, however, lasted only as long as Trypho still remained in the way. But, he once removed, Sidetes altered his policy. He demanded of Simon the surrender of Joppa, Gazara, and other towns, besides the citadel of Jerusalem, as well as payment of all tribute resting due. The refusal of these demands led to war, which in its earlier stages was carried on with success, but the scales were turned after the murder of Simon, when Sidetes in person took the field against John Hyrcanus, Simon's son and successor. Jerusalem capitulated; in the negotiations for peace the surrender of all the external possessions of the Jews was insisted upon; the suzerainty of the Syrians became once more a reality (I35). But in 130 the powerful Antiochus Sidetes fell in an expedition against the Parthians, and the complications anew arising in reference to the succession to the Syrian throne placed Hyrcanus in a position to recover what he had lost and to make new acquisitions. He subjugated Samaria and Idumaea, compelling the inhabitants of the latter to accept circumcision. Like his predecessors, he too sought to secure the favour of the Romans, but derived no greater benefit from the effort than they had done. After a prosperous reign of thirty years he died in 105. By Josephus he is represented as a pattern of all that a pious prince ought to be; by the rabbins as representing a splendid high-priesthood. The darkness of the succeeding age lent a brighter colour to his image. The external splendour of the Hasmonaean kingdom did not at once die away,--the downfall of the Seleucidae, which was its negative condition, being also a slow affair. Judah Aristobulus, the son of Hyrcanus, who reigned for only one year, was the first to assume the Greek title of royalty; Ituraea was subdued by him, and circumcision forced upon the inhabitants. His brother Jonathan (Jannaeus) Alexander (104-79), in a series of continual wars, which were never very prosperous, never-theless succeeded in adding the whole coast of Philistia (Gaza) as well as a great portion of Peraea to his hereditary dominions. /1/ ********************************************* 1. A number of half-independent towns and communes lay as tempting subjects of dispute between the Seleucidae, the Nabathaeans or Arabs of Petra, and the Jews. The background was occupied by the Parthians and the Romans. ******************************************** But the external enlargement of the structure was secured at the cost of its internal consistency. From the time when Jonathan, the son of Mattathias, began to carry on the struggle no longer for the cause of God but for his own interests, the scribes and the Asidaeans, as we have seen, had withdrawn themselves from the party of the Maccabees There can be no doubt that from their legal standpoint they were perfectly right in contenting themselves, as they did, with the attainment of religious liberty, and in accepting Alcimus. The Hasmonaeans had no hereditary right to the high-priesthood, and their politics, which aimed at the establishment of a national monarchy, were contrary to the whole spirit and essence of the second theocracy. The presupposition of that theocracy was foreign domination; in no other way could its sacred--i.e., clerical-- character be maintained. God and the law could not but be forced into the background if a warlike kingdom, retaining indeed the forms of a hierocracy, but really violating its spirit at every point, should ever grow out of a mere pious community. Above all, how could the scribes hope to retain their importance if temple and synagogue were cast into the shade by politics and clash of arms? But under the first great Hasmonaeans the zealots for the law were unable to force their way to the front; the enthusiasm of the people was too strong for them; they had nothing for it but to keep themselves out of the current and refuse to be swept along by it. Even under Hyrcanus, however, they gained more prominence, and under Jannaeus their influence upon popular opinion was paramount. For under the last-named the secularisation of the hierocracy no longer presented any attractive aspects; it was wholly repellent. It was looked upon as a revolting anomaly that the king, who was usually in the field with his army, should once and again assume the sacred mantle in order to perform the sacrifice on some high festival, and that his officers, profane persons as they were, should at the same time be holders of the highest spiritual offices. The danger which in all this threatened "the idea of Judaism" could not in these circumstances escape the observation of even the common people; for this idea was God and the law, not any earthly fatherland. The masses accordingly ranged themselves with ever-growing unanimity on the side of the Pharisees (i.e., the party of the scribes) as against the Sadducees (i.e., the Hasmonaean party). /1/ ***************************************** 1. PRW# means "separated," and refers perhaps to the attitude of isolation taken by the zealots for the law during the interval between 162 and 105. CDWQY (*SADDOUKAIOS) comes from CDWQ (*SADDOUK, LXX.) the ancestor of the higher priesthood of Jerusalem (1Kings ii. 35; 1Samuel ii. 35; Ezekiel xliv. 15), and designates the governing nobility. The original character of the opposition, as it appeared under Jannaeus, changed entirely with the lapse of time, on account of the Sadducees' gradual loss of political power, till they fell at last to the condition of a sort of "fronde." On one occasion, when Alexander Jannaeus had returned to Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles, and was standing in his priestly vestments before the altar to sacrifice, he was pelted by the assembled crowd of worshippers with citrons from the green branches they carried. By the cruelty with which he punished this insult he excited the populace to the highest pitch, and, when he lost his army in the disaster of Gadara, rebellion broke out. The Pharisees summoned the Syrian king Demetrius Eucaerus; Jannaeus was worsted and fled into the desert. But as he wandered in helplessness there, the patriotism of the people and sympathy for the heir of the Maccabees suddenly awoke; nature proved itself stronger than that consistency which in the cause of the Divine honour had not shrunk from treason. The insurgents for the most part went over to the side of the fugitive king; the others he ultimately overpowered after a struggle which lasted through several years, Demetrius having withdrawn his intervention. The vengeance which he took on the Pharisees was a bloody one; their only escape was by voluntary exile. Thenceforward he had peace so far as they were concerned. His last years were occupied with the reacquisition of the conquests which he had been compelled to yield to the Arabs during the civil war. He died in the field at the siege of Ragaba in Peraea (79). Under Queen Salome, his widow, matters were as if they had been specially arranged for the satisfaction of the Pharisees. The high-priesthood passed to Salome's son, Hyrcanus II.; she herself was only queen. In the management of external affairs her authority was absolute (Antiquities, xiii. 16, 6); in home policy she permitted the scribes to wield a paramount influence. The common assertion, indeed, that the synedrium was at that time practically composed of scribes, is inconsistent with the known facts of the case; the synedrium at that time was a political and not a scholastic authority. /1/ ************************************* 1. Kuenen, "Over de Samenstelling van het Sanhedrin," in Proceedings of Royal Netherl. Acad., 1866. ************************************** In its origin it was the municipal council of Jerusalem (so also the councils of provincial towns are called synedria, Mark xiii. 9), but its authority extended over the entire Jewish community; alongside of the elders of the city the ruling priests were those who had the greatest number of seats and votes. John Hyrcanus appears to have been the first to introduce some scribes into its composition; it is possible that Salome may have increased their number, but even so this high court was far from being changed into a college of scribes like that at Jamnia. If the domination of the Pharisees at this time is spoken of, the expression cannot be understood as meaning that they already held all the public offices, but only at most that the holders of those offices found it necessary to administer and to judge in their spirit and according to their fundamental principles. The party of the Sadducees (consisting of the old Hasmonaean officers and officials, who were of priestly family indeed, but attached only slight importance to their priestly functions) at length lost all patience. Led by Aristobulus, the second son of Jannaeus, the leaders of the party came to the palace, and begged the queen to dismiss them from the court and to send them into the provinces. There they were successful in securing possession of several fortresses /2/ in preparation for insurrection, a favourable ********************************************* 2. Alexandrium, Coreae, and similar citadels, which were at that time of great importance for Palestine and Syria. ********************************************* opportunity for which they were watching. Such an opportunity occurred, it seemed to Aristobulus, as his mother lay on her death-bed. The commandants of the fortresses were at his orders, and by their assistance an army also, with which he accordingly advanced upon Jerusalem, and, on the death of Salome, made himself master of the situation (69). Hyrcanus was compelled to resign office. With this event the good understanding between the civil government and the Pharisees came to an end; the old antagonisms became active once more, and now began to operate for the advantage of a third party, the Idumaean Antipater, Hyrcanus's confidential friend. After the latter, aided by Antipater, had at length with great difficulty got himself into a position for asserting his rights against Aristobulus, the Pharisees could not do otherwise than rank themselves upon his side, and the masses joined them against the usurper. With the help of the Nabataean monarch the effort to restore the elder brother to the supreme authority would doubtless have succeeded had not the Romans procured relief for Aristobulus, besieged as he was in Jerusalem (65), though without thereby recognising his claims. Pompey continued to delay a decision on the controversy in 64 also when the rival claimants presented themselves before him at Damascus; he wished first to have the Nabataeans disposed of, and to have free access to them through Judaea. This hesitation roused the suspicions of Aristobulus; still he did not venture to take decisive action upon them. He closed the passes (to Mount Ephraim) against the Romans, but afterwards gave them up; he prepared Jerusalem for war, and then went in person to the Roman camp at Jericho, where he promised to open the gates of the city and also to pay a sum of money. But the Roman ambassadors found the gates barred, and had to return empty-handed. Aristobulus thereupon was arrested, and siege was laid to Jerusalem. The party of Hyrcanus, as soon as it had gained the upper hand, surrendered the town; but the supporters of Aristobulus took their stand in the temple, and defended it obstinately. In June 63 the place was carried by storm; Pompey personally inspected the Holy of Holies, but otherwise spared the religious feelings of the Jews. But he caused the chief promoters of the war to be executed, and carried Aristobulus and his family into captivity. He abolished the kingship, but restored the high-priestly dignity to Hyrcanus. The territory was materially reduced in area, and made tributary to the Romans; the city was occupied by a Roman garrison. 14. HEROD AND THE ROMANS. Henceforward Roman intervention forms a constant disturbing factor in Jewish history. The struggle between the Pharisees and the Sadducees continued indeed to be carried on, but only because the momentum of their old feud was not yet exhausted. The Pharisees in a sense had been victorious. While the two brothers were pleading their rival claims before Pompey, ambassadors from the Pharisees had made their appearance in Damascus to petition for the abolition of the kingship; this object had now to some extent been gained. Less ambiguous than the victory of the Pharisees was the fall of the Sadducees, who in losing the sovereignty of the Jewish state lost all real importance. But the intervention of the foreign element exercised its most powerful influence upon the temper of the lower classes. Though in times of peace the masses still continued to accept the guidance of the rabbins, their patriotism instantly burst into flame as soon as a pretender to the throne, belonging to the family of Aristobulus, appeared in Palestine. During the decennia which immediately followed, Jewish history was practically absorbed in vain attempts to restore the old Hasmonaean kingdom. Insurrections of steadily increasing dimensions were made in favour of Aristobulus, the representative of the national cause. For Hyrcanus was not regarded as a Hasmonaean at all, but merely as the creature of Antipater and the Romans. First, in the year 57, Alexander the son of Aristobulus broke into rebellion, then in 56 Aristobulus himself and his son Antigonus, and in 55 Alexander again. Antipater was never able to hold his own; Roman intervention was in every case necessary. The division of the Hasmonaean state into five "aristocracies" by Gabinius had no effect in diminishing the feeling of national unity cherished by the Jews of Palestine. Once again, after the battle of Carrhae, a rising took place, which Cassius speedily repressed. In 49 the great Roman civil war broke out; Caesar instigated Aristobulus against Antipater, who in common with the whole East had espoused the cause of Pompey. But Aristobulus was poisoned by the opposite party while yet in Italy, and about the same time his son Alexander was also put to death at Antioch; thus the danger to Antipater passed away. After the battle of Pharsalus he went over to Caesar's side, and soon after rendered him an important service by helping him out of his difficulties at Alexandria. By this means he earned the good-will of Caesar towards the whole body of the Jews and secured for himself (or Hyrcanus) a great extension of power and of territory. The five "synedria" or "aristocracies" of Gabinius were superseded, the most important conquest of the Hasmonaeans restored, the walls of Jerusalem, which Pompey had razed, rebuilt. However indisputable the advantages conferred by the rule of Antipater, the Jews could not forget that the Idumaean, in name of Hyrcanus, the rightful heir of the Hasmonaeans, was in truth setting up an authority of his own. The Sadducaean aristocracy in particular, which formerly in the synedrium had shared the supreme power with the high priest, endeavoured to restore reality once more to the nominal ascendancy which still continued to be attributed to the ethnarch and the synedrium. "When the authorities (hoi 'en telei) of the Jews saw how the power of Antipater and his sons was growing, their disposition towards him became hostile" (Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 9, 3). They were specially jealous of the youthful Herod, to whom Galilee had been entrusted by his father. On account of the arbitrary execution of a robber chief Ezechias, who perhaps had originally been a Hasmonaean partisan, they summoned him before the synedrium, under the impression that it was not yet too late to remind him that he was after all but a servant. But the defiant demeanour of the culprit, and a threatening missive which at the same time arrived from Sextus Caesar demanding his acquittal, rendered his judges speechless, nor did they regain their courage until they had heard the stinging reproaches of Sameas the scribe. Yet the aged Hyrcanus, who did not comprehend the danger that was threatening himself, postponed judgment upon Herod, and gave him opportunity to withdraw. Having been appointed strategus of Coelesyria by Sextus Caesar in the meanwhile he soon afterwards appeared before Jerusalem at the head of an army, and the authorities were compelled to address themselves in a conciliatory manner to his father and to Phasael his brother in order to secure his withdrawal. The attempt to crush the serpent which had thus effected a lodgment in the Hasmonaean house came too late. The result of it simply was that the Herodians had now the advantage of being able to distinguish between Hyrcanus and his "evil counsellors." From that moment the downfall of the Sadducaean notables was certain. It was of no avail to them that after the battle of Philippi (42) they accused Herod and Phasael (Antipater having been murdered in 43) before Antony of having been helpful in every possible way to Cassius; Antony declared himself in the most decisive manner for the two brothers. In their despair--for properly speaking they were not national fanatics but only egoistic politicians--they ultimately made common cause with Antigonus the son of Aristobulus, and threw themselves into the arms of the Parthians, perceiving the interests of the Romans and of Herod to be inseparable (40). Fortune at first seemed to have declared in favour of the pretender. The masses unanimously took his side; Phasael committed suicide in prison; with a single blow Herod was stripped of all his following and made a helpless fugitive. He took refuge in Rome, however, where he was named king of Judaea by the senate, and after a somewhat protracted war he finally, with the help of the legions of Sosius, made himself master of Jerusalem (37). The captive Antigonus was beheaded at Antioch. King Herod began his reign by reorganising the synedrium; he ordered the execution of forty-five of its noblest members, his most zealous opponents. These were the Sadducaean notables who long had headed the struggle against the Idumaean interlopers. Having thus made away with the leaders of the Jerusalem aristocracy, he directed his efforts to the business of corrupting the rest. He appointed to the most important posts obscure individuals, of priestly descent, from Babylon and Alexandria, and thus replaced with creatures of his own the old aristocracy. Nor did he rest content with this; in order to preclude the possibility of any independent authority ever arising alongside of his own, he abolished the life-tenure of the high-priestly office, and brought it completely under the control of the secular power. By this means he succeeded in relegating the Sadducees to utter insignificance. They were driven out of their native sphere--the political--into the region of theoretical and ecclesiastical discussion, where they continued, but on quite unequal terms, their old dispute with the Pharisees. It was during the period of Herod's activity that the Pharisees, strictly speaking, enjoyed their greatest prosperity (Sameas and Abtalion, Hillel and Shammai); in the synedrium they became so numerous as almost to equal the priests and elders. Quite consistently with their principles they had abstained from taking any part in the life and death struggle for the existence of the national state. Their leaders had even counselled the fanatical defenders of Jerusalem to open the gates to the enemy; for this service they were treated with the highest honour by Herod. He made it part of his general policy to favour the Pharisees (as also the sect of the Essenes, insignificant though it was), it being his purpose to restrict the national life again within those purely ecclesiastical channels of activity which it had abandoned since the Maccabaean wars. However reckless his conduct in other respects, he was always scrupulously careful to avoid wounding religious susceptibilities (Antiquities, xiv. 16, 3). But although the Pharisees might be quite pleased that the high-priesthood and the kingship were no longer united in one and the same person, and that interest in the law again overshadowed interest in politics, the populace for their part could never forgive Herod for overthrowing the old dynasty. That he himself, at least in religious profession, was a Jew did not improve his position, but rather made it worse. It was not easy for him to stifle the national feeling after it had once been revived among the Jews; they could not forget the recent past, and objected to being thrust back into the time when foreign domination was endured by them as a matter of course. The Romans were regarded in quite a different light from that in which the Persians and the Greeks had been viewed, and Herod was only the client of the Romans. His greatest danger seemed to arise from the still surviving members of the Hasmonaean family, to whom, as is easily understood, the national hopes clung. In the course of the earlier years of his reign he removed every one of them from his path, beginning with his youthful brother-in-law Aristobulus (35), after whom came his old patron Hyrcanus II. (30), then Mariamne his wife (29), and finally his stepmother Alexandra (28), the daughter of Hyrcanus and the widow of Alexander Aristobuli. Subsequently, in 25, he caused Costobarus and the sons of Babas to be executed. While thus occupied with domestic affairs, Herod had constant trouble also in his external relations, and each new phase in his political position immediately made itself felt at home. In the first instance he had much to suffer from Cleopatra, who would willingly have seen Palestine reduced under Egyptian domination once more, and who actually succeeded in inducing Antony to take from Herod several fair and valuable provinces of his realm. Next, his whole position was imperilled by the result of the battle of Actium; he had once more ranged himself upon the wrong side. But his tact did not fail him in winning Octavianus, as before it had made Antony his friend. In fact he reaped nothing but advantage from the great overturn which took place in Roman affairs; it rid him of Cleopatra, a dangerous enemy, and gave him in the new imperator a much better master than before. During the following years he had leisure to carry out those splendid works of peace by which it was his aim to ingratiate himself with the emperor. He founded cities and harbours (Antipatris, Caesarea), constructed roads, theatres, and temples, and subsidised far beyond his frontier all works of public utility. He taxed the Jews heavily, but in compensation promoted their material interests with energy and discretion, and built for them, from 20 or 19 B.C. onwards, the temple at Jerusalem. To gain their sympathies he well knew to be impossible. Apart from the Roman legions at his back his authority had its main support in his fortresses and in his system of espionage. But just as the acme of his splendour had been reached, he himself became the instrument of a terrible vengeance for the crimes by which his previous years had been stained; as executioner of all the Hasmonaeans, he was now constrained to be the executioner of his own children also. His suspicious temper had been aroused against his now grown-up sons by Mariamne, whose claims through their mother to the throne were superior to his own; his brother Pheroras and his sister Salome made it their special business to fan his jealousy into flame. To show the two somewhat arrogant youths that the succession was not so absolutely secure in their favour as they were supposing, the father summoned to his court Antipater, the exiled son of a former marriage. Antipater, under the mask of friendship, immediately began to carry on infamous intrigues against his half brothers, in which Pheroras and Salome unconsciously played into his hands. For years he persevered alike in favouring and unfavouring circumstances with his part, until at last, by the machinations of a Lacedemonian, Eurycles, who had been bribed, Herod was induced to condemn the sons of Mariamne at Berytus, and cause them to be strangled (Samaria, 7-6 B.C.). Not long afterwards a difference between Antipater and Salome led to the exposure of the former. Herod was compelled to drain the cup to the dregs; he was not spared the knowledge that he had murdered his children without a cause. His remorse threw him into a serious illness, in which his strong constitution wrestled long with death. While he lay at Jericho near his end he gave orders for the execution of Antipater also; and to embitter the joy of the Jews at his removal he caused their elders to be shut up together in the hippodrome at Jericho with the injunction to butcher them as soon as he breathed his last, that so there might be sorrow throughout the land. The latter order, however, was not carried out. His death (4 B.C.) gave the signal for an insurrection of small beginnings which gradually spread until it ultimately infected all the people; it was repressed by Varus with great cruelty. Meanwhile Herod's connexions were at Rome disputing about the inheritance. The deceased king (who was survived by several children of various marriages) had made a will, which was substantially confirmed by Augustus. By it his son Philip received the northern portion of the territory on the east of the Jordan along with the district of Paneas (Caesarea Philippi); his thirty-seven years' reign over this region was happy. Another son, Herod Antipas, obtained Galilee and Peraea; he beautified his domains with architectural works (Sepphoris, Tiberias; Livias, Machaerus), and succeeded by his fox-like policy in ingratiating himself with the emperors, particularly with Tiberius, for that very cause, however, becoming odious to the Roman provincial officials. The principal heir was Archelaus, to whom Idumaea, Judaea, and Samaritis were allotted; Augustus at first refused him the title of king. Archelaus had experienced the greatest difficulty in carrying through his claims before the emperor in face of the manifold oppositions of his enemies; the vengeance which he wreaked upon his subjects was so severe that in 6 A,D. a Jewish and Samaritan embassy besought the emperor for his deposition. Augustus assented, banishing Archelaus to Vienne, and putting in his place a Roman procurator. Thenceforward Judaea continued under procurators, with the exception of a brief interval (41-44 A.D.), during which Herod Agrippa I. united under his sway all the dominions of his grandfather. /1/ **************************************** 1. Agrippa was the grandson of Mariamne through Aristobulus. Caligula, whose friendship he had secured in Rome, bestowed upon him in 37 the dominions of Philip with the title of king, and afterwards the tetrarchy of Antipas, whom he deposed and banished to Lugdunum (39). Claudius added the possessions of Archelaus. But the kingdom was again taken away from his son Agrippa II. (44), who, however, after the death of his uncle, Herod of Chalcis, obtained that principality for which at a later period (52) the tetrarchy of Philip was substituted. His sister Berenice is known as the mistress of Titus; another sister, Drusilla, was the wife of the procurator Felix. The descendants of Mariamne through Alexander held for some time an Armenian principality. **************************************** The termination of the vassal kingship resulted in manifest advantage to the Sadducees. The high priest and synedrium again acquired political importance; they were the responsible representatives of the nation in presence of the suzerain power, and conceived themselves to be in some sort lords of land and people (John xi. 48). For the Pharisees the new state of affairs appears to have been less satisfactory. That the Romans were much less oppressive to the Jews than the rulers of the house of Herod was a consideration of less importance to them than the fact that the heathen first unintentionally and then deliberately were guilty of the rudest outrages upon the law, outrages against which those sly half-Jews had well understood how to be on their guard. It was among the lower ranks of the people, however, that hatred to the Romans had its proper seat. On the basis of the views and tendencies which had long prevailed there, a new party was now formed, that of the Zealots, which did not, like the Pharisees, aim merely at the fulfilment of all righteousness, i.e., of the law, and leave everything else in the hands of God, but was determined to take an active part in bringing about the realisation of the kingdom of God (Josephus, Antiquities, xviii. 1, 1). As the transition to the new order of things was going on, the census of Quirinius took place (6-7 A.D.); it occasioned an immense excitement, which, however, was successfully allayed. On the withdrawal of Quirinius, Coponius remained behind as procurator of Judaea; he was followed, under Augustus, by Marcus Ambivius and Annius Rufus; under Tiberius, by Valerius Gratus (15-26 A.D.) and Pontius Pilatus (26-36 A.D.); under Caligula, by Marcellus (36-37) and Marullus (37-41 A.D.). The procurators were subordinate to the imperial legati of Syria; they resided in Caesarea, and visited Jerusalem on special occasions only. They had command of the military, and their chief business was the maintenance of the peace and the care of the revenue. They interested themselves in affairs of religion only in so far as these had a political side; the temple citadel Antonia was constantly garrisoned with a cohort. The administration of justice appears to have been left to a very considerable extent in the hands of the synedrium, but it was not allowed to give effect to any capital sentence. At the head of the native authorities stood at this time not so much the actual high priest as the college of the chief priests. The actual office of high priest had lost its political importance in consequence of the frequency with which its holders were changed; thus, for example, Annas had more influence than Caiaphas. The principle of interfering as little as possible with the religious liberty of the Jews was rudely assailed by the Emperor Caius, who like a second Antiochus, after various minor vexations, gave orders that his image should be set up in the temple of Jerusalem as in others elsewhere. It was entirely through the courage and tact of the Syrian governor P. Petronius that the execution of these orders was temporarily postponed until the emperor was induced by Agrippa I. to withdraw them. Caius soon afterwards died, and under the rule of Agrippa I., to whom the government of the entire kingdom of his grandfather was committed by Claudius, the Jews enjoyed much prosperity; in every respect the king was all they could wish. This very prosperity seems, however, to have caused them fresh danger. For it made them feel the government by procurators, which was resumed after the death of Agrippa I., to be particularly hard to bear, whatever the individual characters of these might be. They were Cuspius Fadus (from 44, under whom Theudas), Tiberius Alexander (the Romanised nephew of Philo, till 48), Cumanus (48-52, under whom the volcano already began to give dangerous signs of activity), and Felix (52-60). Felix, who has the honour to be pilloried in the pages of Tacitus, contrived to make the dispeace permanent. The influence of the two older parties, both of which were equally interested in the maintenance of the existing order, and in that interest were being drawn nearer to each other, diminished day by day. The masses broke loose completely from the authority of the scribes; the ruling nobility adapted itself better to the times; under the circumstances which then prevailed, it is not surprising that they became thoroughly secular and did not shrink from the employment of directly immoral means for the attainment of their ends. The Zealots became the dominant party. It was a combination of noble and base elements; superstitious enthusiasts (Acts xxi. 38) and political assassins, the so-called sicarii, were conjoined with honest but fanatical patriots. Felix favoured the sicarii in order that he might utilise them; against the others his hostility raged with indiscriminating cruelty, yet without being able to check them. The anarchy which he left behind him as a legacy was beyond the control of his able successor Porcius Festus (60-62), and the last two procurators, Albinus (62-64) and Gessius Florus, acted as if it had been their special business to encourage and promote it. All the bonds of social order were dissolved; no property was secure; the assassins alone prospered, and the procurators went shares with them in the profits. It was inevitable that deep resentment against the Romans should be felt in every honest heart. At last it found expression. During his visit to Jerusalem in May 66 Florus laid hands upon the temple treasure; the Jews allowed themselves to go so far as to make a joke about it, which he avenged by giving over a portion of the city to be plundered, and crucifying a number of the inhabitants. He next insisted upon their kissing the rod, ordering that a body of troops which was approaching should be met and welcomed. At the persuasion of their leaders the Jews forced themselves even to this; but a constant succession of fresh insults and cruelties followed, till patience was quite exhausted at last, and in a violent street fight the Romans were so handled that the procurator withdrew from the town, leaving only the cohort in Antonia. Once again was an attempt at pacification made by Agrippa II., who hastened from Alexandria with this purpose, but the Jews could not bring themselves to make submission to Gessius Florus. It so happened that at this juncture the fortress of Masada on the Dead Sea fell into the hands of the Zealots; the courage of the party of action rose, and at the instance of the hot-headed Eleazar the son of Ananias, a man, still young, of highest priestly family, the sacrifice on behalf of the emperor was discontinued, ie., revolt was declared. But the native authorities continued opposed to a war. At their request King Agrippa sent soldiers to Jerusalem; at first they appeared to have some effect, but ultimately they were glad to make their escape in safety from the city. The cohort in Antonia was in like manner unable to hold its own; freedom was given it to withdraw; but, contrary to the terms of capitulation, it was put to the sword. The war party now signalised its triumph over all elements of opposition from within by the murder of the high priest Ananias. A triumph was gained also over the outer foe. The Syrian legate, Cestius Gallus, appeared before Jerusalem in the autumn of 66, but after a short period raised the siege; his deliberate withdrawal was changed into a precipitate flight in an attack made by the Jews at Bethhoron. The revolt now spread irresistibly through all ranks and classes of the population, and the aristocracy found it expedient itself to assume the leadership. An autonomous government was organised, with the noblest members of the community at its head; of these the most important was the high priest Ananus. Meanwhile Nero entrusted the conduct of the Jewish war to Vespasian, his best general. In the spring of 67 he began his task in Galilee, where the historian Josephus had command of the insurgents. The Jews entirely distrusted him and he them; in a short time the Romans were masters of Galilee, only a few strong places holding out against them. Josephus was besieged in Jotapata, and taken prisoner; the other places also were unable to hold out long. Such of the champions of freedom in Galilee as escaped betook themselves to Jerusalem; amongst these was the Zealot leader John of Giscala. There they told the story of their misfortunes, of which they laid the blame upon Josephus, and upon the aristocratic government as having no heart for the common cause and having treachery for their motto. The Zealots now openly aimed at the overthrow of the existing government, but Ananus bravely withstood them, and pressed so hard on them that they summoned the Idumaeans into the city to their aid. These honourable fanatics indeed withdrew again as soon as they had discovered that they were being used for sinister designs; but in the meanwhile they had accomplished the work of the Zealots. The old magistracy of Jerusalem was destroyed, Ananus with the heads of the aristocracy and very many other respectable citizens put to death. The radicals, for the most part not natives of the city, came into power; John of Giscala at their head tyrannized over the inhabitants. While these events were taking place in Jerusalem, Vespasian had subdued the whole country, with the exception of one or two fortresses. But as he was setting about the siege of the capital, tidings arrived of the death of Nero, and the offensive was discontinued. For almost two years (June 68 to April 70), with a short break, war was suspended. When Vespasian at the end of this period became emperor, he entrusted to Titus the task of reducing Jerusalem. There in the interval the internal struggle had been going on, even after the radicals had gained the mastery. As a counterpoise to John of Giscala the citizens had received the guerilla captain Simon bar Giora into the city; the two were now at feud with each other, but were alike in their rapacity towards the citizens. John occupied the temple, Simon the upper city Iying over against it on the west. For a short time a third entered into competition with the two rivals, a certain Eleazar who had separated from John and established himself in the inner temple. But just as Titus was beginning the siege (Easter, 70) John contrived to get rid of this interloper. Titus attacked from the north. After the lower city had fallen into his hands, he raised banks with a view to the storm of the temple and the upper city. But the defenders, who were now united in a common cause, taught him by their vigorous resistance that his object was not to be so quickly gained. He therefore determined to reduce them by famine, and for this end completely surrounded the city with a strong wall. In the beginning of July he renewed the attack, which he directed in the first instance against the temple. The tower of Antonia fell on the 5th, but the temple continued to beheld notwithstanding; until the I7th the daily sacrifice continued to be offered. The Romans succeeded in gaining the outer court in August only. To drive them out, the Jews in the night of August 10-11 made a sortie, but were compelled to retire, the enemy forcing their way behind them into the inner court. A legionary flung a firebrand into an annexe of the temple, and soon the whole structure was in flames. A terrible slaughter of the defenders ensued, but John with a determined band succeeded in cutting his way out, and by means of the bridge over the Tyropceon valley made his escape into the upper city. No attack had as yet been directed against this quarter; but famine was working terrible ravages among the crowded population. Those in command, however, refused to capitulate unless freedom to withdraw along with their wives and children were granted. These terms being withheld, a storm, after the usual preparations on the part of the Romans, took place. The resistance was feeble; the strong towers were hardly defended at all; Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala now thought only of their personal safety. In the unprotected city the Roman soldiers spread fire and slaughter unchecked (September 7, 70). Of those who survived also some were put to death; the rest were sold or carried off to the mines and amphitheatres. The city was levelled with the ground; the tenth legion was left behind in charge. Titus took with him to Rome for his triumphal procession Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala, along with seven hundred other prisoners, also the sacred booty taken from the temple, the candlestick, the golden table, and a copy of the Torah. He was slightly premature with his triumph; for some time elapsed, and more than one bloody battle was necessary before the rebellion was completely stifled. It did not come wholly to an end until the fall of Masada (April 73). I5. THE RABBINS. Even now Palestine continued for a while to be the centre of Jewish life, but only in order to prepare the way for its transition into thoroughly cosmopolitan forms. The development of thought sustained no break on account of the sad events which had taken place, but was only directed once more in a consistent manner towards these objects which had been set before it from the time of the Babylonian exile. On the ruins of the city and of the temple the Pharisaic Judaism which rests upon the law and the school celebrated its triumph. National fanaticism indeed was not yet extinguished, but it burnt itself completely out in the vigorous insurrection led by Simeon bar Koziba (Bar Cochebas, 132-135). That a conspicuous rabbin, Akiba, should have taken part in it, and have recognised in Simeon the Messiah, was an inconsistency on his part which redounds to his honour. Inasmuch as the power of the rabbins did not depend upon the political or hierarchical forms of the old commonwealth, it survived the fall of the latter. Out of what hitherto had been a purely moral influence something of an official position now grew. They formed themselves into a college which regarded itself as a continuation of the old synedrium, and which carried forward its name. At first its seat was at Jamnia, but it soon removed to Galilee, and remained longest at Tiberias. The presidency was hereditary in the family of Hillel, with the last descendants of whom the court itself came to an end. /1/ *************************************** 1. The following is the genealogy of the first Nasi:--Gamaliel ben Simeon (Josephus, Vita, 38) ben Gamaliel (Acts v. 34, xxii. 3) ben simeon ben Hillel. The name Gamaliel was that which occurred most frequently among the patriarchs; see Codex Theod. xvi. 8, 22. *************************************** The respect in which the synedrial president was held rapidly increased; like Christian patriarchs under Mahometan rule, he was also recognised by the imperial government as the municipal head of the Jews of Palestine, and bore the secular title of the old high priests (nasi, ethnarch, patriarch). Under him the Palestinian Jews continued to form a kind of state within a state until the 5th century. From the non-Palestinian Jews he received offerings of money. (Compare Gothofredus on Codex Theod., xvi. 8, "De Judaeis;" and Morinus, Exer. Bibl., ii. exerc. 3, 4). The task of the rabbins was so to reorganise Judaism under the new circumstances that it could continue to assert its distinctive character. What of external consistency had been lost through the extinction of the ancient commonwealth required to be compensated for by an inner centralisation proportionately stronger. The separation from everything heathenish became more pronounced than before; the use of the Greek language was of necessity still permitted, but at least the Septuagint was set aside by Aquila (Cod. Justinian., Nov. 146) inasmuch as it had now become the Christian Bible. For to this period also belongs the definitive separation between the synagogue and the church; henceforward Christianity could no longer figure as a Jewish sect. Intensified exclusiveness was accompanied by increased internal stringency. What at an earlier period had still remained to some extent fluid now became rigidly fixed; for example, an authentic text of the canon was now established, and at the same time the distinction between canon and apocrypha sharply drawn. The old tendency of the scribes to leave as little as possible free to the individual conscience, but to bring everything within the scope of positive ordinance, now celebrated its greatest triumphs. It was only an apparent movement in the direction of liberty, if regulations which had become quite impossible were now modified or cancelled. The most influential of the rabbins were indeed the least solicitous about the maintenance of what was old, and had no hesitation in introducing numerous and thoroughgoing innovations; but the conservatives R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and R. Ishmael ben Elisha were in truth more liberal-minded than the leaders of the party of progress, notably than R. Akiba. Even the Ultramontanes have never hesitated at departures from the usage of the ancient and mediaeval church; and the Pharisaic rabbins were guided in their innovations by liberal principles no more than they. The object of the new determinations was simply to widen the domain of the law in a consistent manner, to bring the individual entirely under the iron rule of system. But the Jewish communities gave willing obedience to the hierarchy of the rabbins; Judaism had to be maintained, cost what it might. That the means employed were well adapted to the purpose of maintaining the Jews as a firmly compacted religious community even after all bonds of nationality had fallen away cannot be doubted. But whether the attainment of this purpose by incredible exertion was a real blessing to themselves and the world may very well be disputed. One consequence of the process of intellectual isolation and of the effort to shape everything in accordance with hard and fast rules and doctrines was the systematisation and codification of juristic and ritual tradition, a work with which a beginning was made in the century following the destruction of Jerusalem. Towards the end of the 2nd century the Pharisaic doctrine of Hillel as it had been further matured by Akiba was codified and elevated to the position of statute law by the patriarch Rabban Judah the Holy (Mishna). /1/ ************************************* 1. The Mishna succeeded almost, but not quite, in completely doing away with all conflicting tendencies. At first the heterodox tradition of that time was also committed to writing (R. Ishmael ben Elisha) and so handed down,--in various forms (col]ection of the Baraithas, that is, of old precepts which had not been received into the Mishna, in the Tosephtha). Nor did the active opposition altogether die out even at a later period; under favouring circumstances it awoke to new life in Karaism, the founder of which, Anan ben David, lived in Babylonia in the middle of the 8th century. ************************************ But this was only the first stage in the process of systematising and fixing tradition. The Mishna became itself the object of rabbinical comment and supplement; the Tannaim, whose work was registered in the Mathnetha (Mishna, DEUTERWSIS = doctrine), were followed by the Amoraim, whose work in turn took permanent shape in the Gemara (= doctrine). The Palestinian Gemara was reduced to writing in perhaps the 4th or 5th century; unfortunately it has been preserved to us only in part, but appears to have reached the Middle Ages in a perfect state (compare Schiller-Szinessy in the Academy, 1878, p. 170 seq.). Even thus the process which issued in the production of the Talmud was not yet completed; the Babylonian Amoraim carried it forward for some time longer, until at last at the rise of Islam the Babylonian Gemara was also written down. In the sth century Palestine ceased to be the centre of Judaism. Several circumstances conspired to bring this about. The position of the Jews in the Roman Empire had changed for the worse with the elevation of Christianity to be the religion of the state; the large autonomy which until then they had enjoyed in Palestine was now restricted; above all, the family of the Patriarchs, which had come to form a veritable dynasty, became extinct. /1/ **************************************** 1. Compare Gothofredus on Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 29, ad voc. "post excessum patriarcharum." **************************************** But this did not make an end of what may be called the Jewish church-state; henceforward it had its home in Babylonia. From the period of the exile, a numerous and coherent body of Jews had continued to subsist there; the Parthians and Sassanidae granted them self-government; at their head was a native prince (Resh Galutha,--can be clearly traced from 2nd century A.D. onwards) who, when the Palestinian patriarchate came to an end, was left without a rival. This remarkable relic of a Jewish commonwealth continued to exist until the time of the Abassides. /2/ ************************************ 2. See Noeldeke, Tabari; 68, 118, and Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, i. 188, ii. 176. ************************************ Even as early as the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. certain rabbins, at their head Abba Areka (Rab), had migrated from Palestine and founded a settlement for learning in the law in Babylonia. The schools there (at Pumbeditha, Sora, Nahardea) prospered greatly, vied with those of Palestine, and continued to exist after the cessation of the latter, when the patriarchate became extinct; thus they had the last word in the settlement of doctrine. Alongside of the settlement of tradition went another task, that of fixing the letters of the consonantal text of the Bible (by the Massora), its vowel pronunciation (by the punctuation), and its translation into the Aramaic vernacular (Targum). Here also the Babylonians came after the Palestinians, yet of this sort of erudition Palestine continued to be the headquarters even after the 5th century. With this task--that of attaining to the greatest possible conformity to the letter and of continuing therein--the inner development of Jewish thought came to an end. /1/ *************************************** 1. Compare F. Weber, System der altsynagagalen palaestinischen Theologie, Leipsic, 1880. **************************************** The later Hebrew literature, which does not fall to be considered here, contributed very few new elements; in so far as an intellectual life existed at all among the Jews of the Middle Ages, it was not a growth of native soil but proceeded from the Mahometan or Latin culture of individuals. The Kabbala at most, and even it hardly with justice, can be regarded as having been a genuine product of Judaism. It originated in Palestine, and subsequently flourished chiefly in the later Middle Ages in Spain, and, like all other methodised nonsense, had strong attractions for Christian scholars. 16. THE JEWISH DISPERSION. Something still remains to be said with reference to the diaspora. We have seen how it began; in spite of Josephus (Antiquities, xi. 5, 2), it is to be carried back not to the Assyrian but merely to the Babylonian captivity; it was not composed of Israelites, but solely of citizens of the southern kingdom. It received its greatest impulse from Alexander, and then afterwards from Caesar. In the Graeco-Roman period Jerusalem at the time of the great festival presented the appearance of a veritable Babel (Acts ii. 9-11); with the Jews themselves were mingled the proselytes (Acts ii. 11), for even already that religion was gaining considerable conquests among the heathen; as King Agrippa I. writes to the Emperor Caius (Philo, Legat. ad Gaium, sec. 36), "Jerusalem is the metropolis not only of Judaea but of very many lands, on account of the colonies which on various occasions ('epi xairwn) it has sent out into the adjoining countries of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Coelesyria, and into the more remote Pamphylia, Cilicia, the greater part of Asia Minor as far as to Bithynia and the remotest parts of Pontus; likewise into Europe--Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, AEtolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, most parts (and these the fairest) of the Peloponnesus. Nor are the Jewish settlements confined to the mainland only; they are found also in the more important islands, Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I do not insist on the countries beyond the Euphrates, for with few exceptions all of them, Babylon and the fertile regions around it, have Jewish inhabitants." In the west of Europe also they were not wanting; many thousands of them lived in Rome. In those cities where they were at all numerous they, during the imperial period, formed separate communities; Josephus has preserved a great variety of documents in which the Roman authorities recognise their rights and liberties (especially as regards the Sabbath rest and the observance of festivals). Of greatest importance was the community in Alexandria; according to Philo a million of Jews had their residence there under an ethnarch for whom a gerusia was afterwards substituted by Augustus (In Flac., secs. 6, 10). The extent to which this diaspora was helpful in the diffusion of Christianity, the manner in which the mission of the apostles everywhere attached itself to the synagogues and proseuchai, is well known from the New Testament. That the Christians of the 1st cenentury had much to suffer along with the Jews is also a familiar fact. For at this period, in other respects more favourable to them than any other had previously been, the Jews had occasionally to endure persecution. The emperors, taking umbrage at their intrusiveness, more than once banished them from Rome (Acts xviii. 2). The good will of the native population they never secured; they were most hated in Egypt and Syria, where they were strongest. /1/ ********************************** 1. Compare Schuerer, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte (1874), sec. 31. The place taken by the Jewish element in the world of that time is brilliantly set forth by Mommsen in his History of Rome (book v. chapter ii.; English translation iv. p. 538 seq., 1866):-- "How numerous even in Rome the Jewish population was already before Caesar's time, and how closely at the same time the Jews even then kept together as fellow-countrymen, is shown by the remark of an author of this period, that it was dangerous for a governor to offend the Jews in his province, because he might then certainly reckon on being hissed after his return, by the populace of the capital. Even at this time the predominant business of the Jews was trade.... At this period too we encounter the peculiar antipathy of the Occidentals touards this so thoroughly Oriental race and their foreign opinions and customs. This Judaism, although not the most pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture of the mixture of nations which then prevailed, was, nevertheless, an historical element developing itself in the natural course of things,... which Caesar just like his predecessor Alexander fostered as far as possible....They did not, of course, contemplate placing the Jewish nationality on an equal footing with the Hellenic or Italo-Hellenic. But the Jew who has not, like the Occidental, received the Pandora's gift of political organisation, and stands substantially in a relation of indifference to the state, who, moreover, is as reluctant to give up the essence of his national idiosyncrasy as he is ready to clothe it with any nationality at pleasure and to adapt himself up to a certain degree to foreign habits--the Jew was, for this very reason, as it were, made for a state which was to be built on the ruins of a hundred living polities, and to be endowed with a somewhat abstract and, from the outset, weakened nationality. In the ancient world also Judaism was an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism and of national decomposition." ********************************************* The position of the Jews in the Roman Empire was naturally not improved by the great risings under Nero, Trajan (in Cyrene, Cyprus, Mesopotamia), and Hadrian. The East strictly so called, became more and more their proper home. The Christianization of the empire helped still further in a very special way to detach them from the Western world. /1/ *********************************** 1. For a brief time only were they again favoured by Julian the Apostate; compare Gibbon, chapter xxiii. *********************************** They sided with the Persians against the Byzantines; in the year 614 they were even put in possession of Jerusalem by Chosroes, but were not long able to hold their own against Heraclius. /2/ ************************************* 2. Gibbon, chapter xlvi. ************************************* With Islam also they found themselves in greater sympathy than with Christianity, although they were cruelly treated by Mahomet in Arabia, and driven by Omar out of the Hejaz, and notwithstanding the facts that they were as matter of course excluded from citizenship, and that they were held by Moslems as a whole in greater contempt than the Christians. They throve especially well on what may be called the bridge between East and West, in Mauretania and Spain, where they were the intellectual intermediaries between the Arab and the Latin culture. In the Sephardim and Ashkenazim the distinction between the subtler Oriental and the more conservative Western Jews has maintained itself in Europe also. From the 8th century onwards Judaism put forth a remarkable side shoot in the Khazars on the Volga; if legend Is to he believed, but little was required at one time to have induced the Russians to accept the Jewish rather than the Christian faith. In the West the equal civil rights which Caracalla had conferred on all free inhabitants of the empire came to an end, so far as the Jews were concerned, in the time of Constantine. The state then became the secular arm of the church, and took action, though with less severity, against Jews just as against heretics and pagans. As early as the year 315, Constantine made conversion from Christianity to Judaism a penal offence, and prohibited Jews, on pain of death, from circumcising their Christian slaves. These laws were re-enacted and made more severe by Constantius, who attached the penalty of death to marriages between Jews and Christians. Theodosius I. and Honorius, indeed, by strictly prohibiting the destruction of synagogues, and by maintaining the old regulation that a Jew was not to be summoned before a court of justice on a Sabbath-day, put a check upon the militant zeal of the Church, by which even Chrysostom, for example, allowed himself to be carried away at Antioch. But Honorius rendered them ineligible for civil or military service, leaving open to them only the bar and the decurionate, the latter being a _privilegiium odiosum_. Their liberty to try cases by their own law was curtailed; the cases between Jews and Christians were to be tried by Christian judges only. Theodosius II. prohibited them from building new synagogues, and anew enforced their disability for all state employments. Most hostile of all was the orthodox Justinian, who, however, was still more severe against Pagans and Samaritans. /1/ ****************************************** 1. Cod. Theod., xvi. 8: "De Judaeis, Coelicolis, et Samaritanis;" Cod. Just., i. 9: "De Judaeis et Coelicolis." With regard to these coelicolae, see Gothofredus on Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 9, and also J. Bernays, "Ueber die Gottesfuerchtigen bei Juvenal," in the Comm. Philol in hon. Th. Mommsen, 1877, p. 163. ****************************************** He harassed the Jews with a law enjoining them to observe Easter on the same day as the Christians, a law which it was of course found impossible to carry out. /2/ ******************************************* 2. Gibbon, chapter xlvii. ******************************************* In the Germanic states which arose upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the Jews did not fare badly on the whole. It was only in cases where the state was dominated by the Catholic Church, as, for example; among the Spanish Visigoths, that they were cruelly oppressed; among the Arian Ostrogoths, on the other hand, they had nothing to complain of. One thing in their favour was the Germanic principle that the law to be applied depended not on the land but on the nationality, as now in the East Europeans are judged by the consuls according to the law of their respective nations. The autonomy of the Jewish communities, which had been curtailed by the later emperors, was now enlarged once more under the laxer political and legal conditions. The Jews fared remarkably well under the Frankish monarchy; the Carolingians helped them in every possible way, making no account of the complaints of the bishops. They were allowed to hold property in land, but showed no eagerness for it; leaving agriculture to the Germans, they devoted them selves to trade. The market was completely in their hands; as a specially lucrative branch of commerce they still carried on the traffic in slaves, which had engaged them even in ancient times. /1/ *************************************** 1. Agobardus Lugdunensis, Die Insolentia Judaeorum, De Judaicis superstitionibus. Agobard was no superstitious fanatic, but one of the weightiest and most enlightened ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages. *************************************** Meanwhile the Church was not remiss in seeking constantly repeated re-enactments of the old imperial laws, in the framing of which she had had paramount influence, and which she now incorporated with her own canon law. /2/ *************************************** 2. Compare Decret. i., dist. 45, c. 3; Decr. ii., caus. 23, qaest. 8, c. 9, caus. 28, qu. 1, c. 10-12; Decr. iii., de consecr., dist. 4, c. 93; Decretal. Greg. 5, 6 ("De Judaeis, Sarracenis, et eorum servis"), 5, 19, 18; Extrav. commun 5, 2. *************************************** Gradually she succeeded in attaining her object. In the later Middle Ages the position of the Jews in the Christian society deteriorated. Intercourse with them was shunned; their isolation from being voluntary became compulsory; from the I3th century onwards they were obliged to wear, as a distinctive mark (more necessary in the East than in the West), a round or square yellow badge on their breast. /3/ ***************************************** 3. Compare Du Cange, s. v. "Judaei;" also Reuter, Gesch. d. Aufklaerung im Mittelalter, i. 154 seq. In spite of all the legal restrictions laid upon them, the Jews still continued to have great influence with the princes, and more especially with the popes, of the Middle Ages. ***************************************** The difference of religion elicited a well-marked religious hate with oft-repeated deadly outbreaks, especially during the period of the crusades, and afterwards when the Black Death was raging (1348-50). Practical consequences like these the Church of course did not countenance; the popes set themselves against persecutions of the Jews, /4/ ***************************************** 4. Decr. ii. 23, 8, 9. Alexander II. omnibus episeopis Hispaniae: Dispar...est Judaeorum et Sarracenorum eausa; in illos enim, qui Christianos persequuntur et ex urbibus et propriis sedibus pellunt, juste pugnatur, hi vero ubique servire parati sunt. ******************************************** but with imperfect success. The popular aversion rested by no means exclusively on religious considerations; worldly motives were also present. The Jews of that period had in a still higher degree than now the control of financial affairs in their hands; and they used it without scruple. The Church herself had unintentionally given them a monopoly of the money market, by forbidding Christians to take interest. /5/ ******************************************** 5. Decretal. Greg. v. 19, 18. Innocent III. in name of the Lateran Council: Quanto amplius Christiana religio ab exactione compescitur usurarum, tanto gravisu super his Judaeorum perfidia insolescit, ita quod brevi tempore Christianorum exhauriunt facultates. Volentes igitur in hac parse prospicere Christianis, ne a Judaeis immaniter aggraventur, synodali decreto statuimus, ut, si de caetero quocunque praetextu Judaaei a Christianis graves immoderatasve usuras extorserint, Christianorum eis participium subtrahatur, donec de immoderato gravamine satisfecerint competenter.... Principibus autem injungimus, ut propter hoc non sint Christianis infesti, sed potius a tanto gravamine studeant cohibere Judaeos. ****************************************** In this way the Jews became rich indeed, but at the same time made themselves still more repugnant to the Christian population than they previously were by reason of their religion. Having, according to the later mediaeval system, no rights in the Christian state, the Jews were tolerated only in those territories where the sovereign in the exercise of free favour accorded them protection. This protection was granted them in many quarters, but never for nothing; numerous and various taxes, which could be raised or changed in a perfectly arbitrary way, were exacted in exchange. But in countries where the feeling of nationality attained to a vigorous development, the spirit of toleration was speedily exhausted; the Jews were expelled by the act of the state. England was the first kingdom in which this occurred (1290); France followed in 1395, Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1495. In this way it came about that the Holy Roman Empire-- Germany, Italy, and adjoining districts--became the chief abode of the Jews. /1/ In the anarchy which here prevailed they could best ***************************************** 1. The Polish Jews are German Jews who migrated in the Middle Ages to Poland, but have maintained to the present day their German speech, a mediaeval South-Frankish dialect, of course greatly corrupted. In Russian "German" and "Jew" mean the same thing. ****************************************** maintain their separate attitude, and if they were expelled from one locality they readily found refuge in some other. The emperor had indeed the right of extirpating them altogether (with the exception of a small number to be left as a memorial); but, in the first place, he had in various ways given up this right to the states of the empire, and, moreover, his pecuniary resources were so small that he could not afford to want the tax which the Jews as his "servi camerae" paid him for protecting their persons and property. In spite of many savage persecutions the Jews maintained their ground, especially in those parts of Germany where the political confusion was greatest. They even succeeded in maintaining a kind of autonomy by means of an arrangement in virtue of which civil processes which they had against each other were decided by their own rabbins in accordance with the law of the Talmud. /2/ ********************************************** 2. Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschl. waehr. d. Mittelalt., Brunsw., 1866. ********************************************** The Jews, through their having on the one hand separated theselves, and on the other hand been excluded on religious grounds from the Gentiles, gained an internal solidarity and solidity which has hitherto enabled them to survive all the attacks of time. The hostility of the Middle Ages involved them in no danger; the greatest peril has been brought upon them by modern times, along with permission and increasing inducements to abandon their separate position. It is worth while to recall on this point the opinion of Spinoza, who was well able to form a competent judgment (Tract. Theol. polit., c. 4, ad fin.):-- "That the Jews have maintained themselves so long in spite of their dispersed and disorganised condition is not at all to be wondered at, when it is considered how they separated themselves from all other nationalities in such a way as to bring upon themselves the hatred of all, and that not only by external rites contrary to those of other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision, which they maintain most religiously. Experience shows that their conservation is due in a great degree to the very hatred which they have incurred. When the king of Spain compelled the Jews either to accept the national religion or to go into banishment, very many of them accepted the Roman Catholic faith, and in virtue of this received all the privileges of Spanish subjects, and were declared eligible for every honour; the consequence was that a process of absorption began immediately, and in a short time neither trace nor memory of them survived. Quite different was the history of those whom the king of Portugal compelled to accept the creed of his nation; although converted, they continued to live apart from the rest of their fellow-subjects, having been declared unfit for any dignity. So great importance do I attach to the sign of circumcision also in this connection, that I am persuaded that it is sufficient by itself to maintain the separate existence of the nation for ever." The persistency of the race may of course prove a harder thing to overcome than Spinoza has supposed; but nevertheless he will be found to have spoken truly in declaring that the so-called emancipation of the Jews must inevitably lead to the extinction of Judaism wherever the process is extended beyond the political to the social sphere. For the accomplishment of this centuries may be required. 
1609	----	THE HOLY BIBLE Translated from the Latin Vulgate Diligently Compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in Divers Languages THE OLD TESTAMENT First Published by the English College at Douay A.D. 1609 & 1610 and THE NEW TESTAMENT First Published by the English College at Rheims A.D. 1582 With Annotations The Whole Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner A.D. 1749-1752 VOLUME I: THE FIRST PART OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CREDITS Without the assistance of many individuals and groups, this text of the Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible would not be available for the Project Gutenberg collection. Our most grateful and sincere thanks goes to those at 'Catholic Software' who have provided the electronic plain texts of the 73 books of the Bible. 'Catholic Software' also produces a Douay Bible program on CD-ROM that features a fully searchable Douay- Rheims Bible, footnotes, Latin text and dictionary, topical index, maps, Biblical art gallery, and other features. For more information of this and many other products contact: Catholic Software Box 1914 Murray, KY 42071 (502) 753-8198 http://www.catholicity.com/market/CSoftware/ waubrey@aol.com Additional production assistance has been provided by volunteers from the Atlanta Council of the Knights of Columbus. Tad Book compiled and reformatted the texts to Project Gutenberg standards. Dennis McCarthy assisted Mr. Book and transcribed selections from the first editions included as appendices. HISTORY This three volume e-text set comes from multiple editions of Challoner's revised Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible. The division of the Old Testaments into two parts follows the two tome format of the 1609/1610 printing of the Old Testament. In 1568 English exiles, many from Oxford, established the English College of Douay (Douai/Doway), Flanders, under William (later Cardinal) Allen. In October, 1578, Gregory Martin began the work of preparing an English translation of the Bible for Catholic readers, the first such translation into Modern English. Assisting were William Allen, Richard Bristow, Thomas Worthington, and William Reynolds who revised, criticized, and corrected Dr. Martin's work. The college published the New Testament at Rheims (Reims/Rhemes), France, in 1582 through John Fogny with a preface and explanatory notes, authored chiefly by Bristol, Allen, and Worthington. Later the Old Testament was published at Douay in two parts (1609 and 1610) by Laurence Kellam through the efforts of Dr. Worthington, then superior of the seminary. The translation had been prepared before the appearance of the New Testament, but the publication was delayed due to financial difficulties. The religious and scholarly adherence to the Latin Vulgate text led to the less elegant and idiomatic words and phrases often found in the translation. In some instances where no English word conveyed the full meaning of the Latin, a Latin word was Anglicized and its meaning defined in a glossary. Although ridiculed by critics, many of these words later found common usage in the English language. Spellings of proper names and the numbering of the Psalms are adopted from the Latin Vulgate. In 1749 Dr. Richard Challoner began a major revision of the Douay and Rheims texts, the spellings and phrasing of which had become increasingly archaic in the almost two centuries since the translations were first produced. He modernized the diction and introduced a more fluid style, while faithfully maintaining the accuracy of Dr. Martin's texts. This revision became the 'de facto' standard text for English speaking Catholics until the twentieth century. It is still highly regarded by many for its style, although it is now rarely used for liturgical purposes. The notes included in this electronic edition are generally attributed to Bishop Challoner. The 1610 printing of the second tome of the Old Testament includes an appendix containing the non-canonical books 'Prayer of Manasses,' 'Third Booke of Esdras,' and 'Fourth Booke of Esdras.' While not part of Challoner's revision, the 1610 texts are placed in the appendices of Vol. II of this e-text set. Also included are the original texts of two short books, 'The Prophecie of Abdias' (Vol. II) and 'The Catholike Epistle of Iude the Apostle' (Vol. III), to give the reader a sense of the language of the first editions in comparison to the Challoner revision. Further background on the Douay-Rheims version may be found in a selection from the preface to the 1582 edition and the original glossary included in the appendices of Vol. III. CONTENTS The First Part of the Old Testament Book of Genesis Book of Exodus Book of Leviticus Book of Numbers Book of Deuteronomy Book of Josue Book of Judges Book of Ruth First Book of Samuel, alias 1 Kings Second Book of Samuel, alias 2 Kings Third Book of Kings Fourth Book of Kings First Book of Paralipomenon Second Book of Paralipomenon First Book of Esdras Book of Nehemias, alias 2 Esdras Book of Tobias Book of Judith Book of Esther Book of Job THE BOOK OF GENESIS This book is so called from its treating of the GENERATION, that is, of the creation and the beginning of the world. The Hebrews call it BERESITH, from the Word with which it begins. It contains not only the history of the Creation of the world; but also an account of its progress during the space of 2369 years, that is, until the death of JOSEPH. Genesis Chapter 1 God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days. 1:1. In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 1:2. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 1:3. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. 1:4. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. 1:5. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day. 1:6. And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters. A firmament. . .By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth, and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds. 1:7. And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. 1:8. And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day. 1:9. God also said; Let the waters that are under the heaven, be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear. And it was so done. 1:10. And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 1:11. And he said: let the earth bring forth green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. 1:12. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 1:13. And the evening and the morning were the third day. 1:14. And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 1:15. To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth, and it was so done. 1:16. And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. Two great lights. . .God created on the first day, light, which being moved from east to west, by its rising and setting, made morning and evening. But on the fourth day he ordered and distributed this light, and made the sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though much less than the stars, is here called a great light, from its giving a far greater light to the earth than any of them. 1:17. And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. 1:18. And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 1:19. And the evening and morning were the fourth day. 1:20. God also said: let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven. 1:21. And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 1:22. And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea: and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. 1:23. And the evening and morning were the fifth day. 1:24. And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. 1:25. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 1:26. And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. Let us make man to our image. . .This image of God in man, is not in the body, but in the soul; which is a spiritual substance, endued with understanding and free will. God speaketh here in the plural number, to insinuate the plurality of persons in the Deity. 1:27. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 1:28. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. Increase and multiply. . .This is not a precept, as some Protestant controvertists would have it, but a blessing, rendering them fruitful; for God had said the same words to the fishes, and birds, (ver. 22) who were incapable of receiving a precept. 1:29. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: 1:30. And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. 1:31. And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day. Genesis Chapter 2 God resteth on the seventh day and blesseth it. The earthly paradise, in which God placeth man. He commandeth him not to eat of the tree of knowledge. And formeth a woman of his rib. 2:1. So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them. 2:2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. He rested, etc. . .That is, he ceased to make or create any new kinds of things. Though, as our Lord tells us, John 5.17, "He still worketh", viz., by conserving and governing all things, and creating souls. 2:3. And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. 2:4. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth: 2:5. And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth. 2:6. But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth. 2:7. And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. 2:8. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. 2:9. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. . .So called because it had that quality, that by eating of the fruit of it, man would have been preserved in a constant state of health, vigour, and strength, and would not have died at all. The tree of knowledge. . .To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge, beyond that which God was pleased to give. 2:10. And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. 2:11. The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth. 2:12. And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. 2:13. And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia. 2:14. And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 2:15. And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it. 2:16. And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 2:17. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. 2:18. And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself. 2:19. And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. 2:20. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. 2:21. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. 2:22. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. 2:23. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 2:24. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. 2:25. And they were both naked: to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed. Genesis Chapter 3 The serpent's craft. The fall of our first parents. Their punishment. The promise of a Redeemer. 3:1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? 3:2. And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: 3:3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. 3:4. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. 3:5. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. 3:6. And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband, who did eat. 3:7. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. And the eyes, etc. . .Not that they were blind before, (for the woman saw that the tree was fair to the eyes, ver. 6.) nor yet that their eyes were opened to any more perfect knowledge of good; but only to the unhappy experience of having lost the good of original grace and innocence, and incurred the dreadful evil of sin. From whence followed a shame of their being naked; which they minded not before; because being now stript of original grace, they quickly began to be subject to the shameful rebellions of the flesh. 3:8. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. 3:9. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? 3:10. And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. 3:11. And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? 3:12. And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 3:13. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. 3:14. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 3:15. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. She shall crush. . .Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent's head. 3:16. To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. 3:17. And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work: with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. 3:18. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. 3:19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return. 3:20. And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living. 3:21. And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them. 3:22. And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now therefore lest perhaps he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. Behold Adam, etc. . .This was spoken by way of reproaching him with his pride, in affecting a knowledge that might make him like to God. 3:23. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. 3:24. And he cast out Adam: and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. Genesis Chapter 4 The history of Cain and Abel. 4:1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God. 4:2. And again she brought forth his brother Abel. And Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a husbandman. 4:3. And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. 4:4. Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offerings. Had respect. . .That is, shewed his acceptance of his sacrifice (as coming from a heart full of devotion): and that, as we may suppose, by some visible token, such as sending fire from heaven upon his offerings. 4:5. But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain was exceeding angry, and his countenance fell. 4:6. And the Lord said to him: Why art thou angry? and why is thy countenance fallen? 4:7. If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it. 4:8. And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. 4:9. And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered: I know not: am I my brother's keeper? 4:10. And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth. 4:11. Now therefore cursed shalt thou be upon the earth, which hath opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand. 4:12. When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth. 4:13. And Cain said to the Lord: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon. 4:14. Behold thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face I shall be hid, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: every one therefore that findeth me, shall kill me. Every one that findeth me shall kill me. . .His guilty conscience made him fear his own brothers and nephews; of whom, by this time, there might be a good number upon the earth; which had now endured near 130 years; as may be gathered from Gen. 5.3, compared with chap. 4.25, though in the compendious account given in the scriptures, only Cain and Abel are mentioned. 4:15. And the Lord said to him: No, it shall not so be: but whosoever shall kill Cain, shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him. Set a mark, etc. . .The more common opinion of the interpreters of holy writ supposes this mark to have been a trembling of the body; or a horror and consternation in his countenance. 4:16. And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth at the east side of Eden. 4:17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. His wife. . .She was a daughter of Adam, and Cain's own sister; God dispensing with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated. He built a city, viz. . .In process of time, when his race was multiplied, so as to be numerous enough to people it. For in the many hundred years he lived, his race might be multiplied even to millions. 4:18. And Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviael, and Maviael begot Mathusael, and Mathusael begot Lamech, 4:19. Who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. 4:20. And Ada brought forth Jabel: who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. 4:21. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of them that play upon the harp and the organs. 4:22. Sella also brought forth Tubalcain, who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Noema. 4:23. And Lamech said to his wives Ada and Sella: Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: for I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. I have slain a man, etc. . .It is the tradition of the Hebrews, that Lamech in hunting slew Cain, mistaking him for a wild beast; and that having discovered what he had done, he beat so unmercifully the youth, by whom he was led into that mistake, that he died of the blows. 4:24. Sevenfold vengeance shall be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold. 4:25. Adam also knew his wife again: and she brought forth a son, and called his name Seth, saying: God hath given me another seed for Abel, whom Cain slew. 4:26. But to Seth also was born a son, whom he called Enos: this man began to call upon the name of the Lord. Began to call upon, etc. . .Not that Adam and Seth had not called upon God, before the birth of Enos; but that Enos used more solemnity in the worship and invocation of God. Genesis Chapter 5 The genealogy, age, and death of the Patriarchs, from Adam to Noe. The translation of Henoch. 5:1. This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him to the likeness of God. 5:2. He created them male and female; and blessed them: and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 5:3. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. 5:4. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. 5:5. And all the time that Adam lived, came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. 5:6. Seth also lived a hundred and five years, and begot Enos. 5:7. And Seth lived after he begot Enos, eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:8. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. 5:9. And Enos lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. 5:10. After whose birth he lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:11. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years, and he died. 5:12. And Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Malaleel. 5:13. And Cainan lived after he begot Malaleel, eight hundred and forty years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years, and he died. 5:15. And Malaleel lived sixty-five years and begot Jared. 5:16. And Malaleel lived after he begot Jared, eight hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:17. And all the days of Malaleel were eight hundred and ninety-five years, and he died. 5:18. And Jared lived a hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Henoch. 5:19. And Jared lived after he begot Henoch, eight hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years, and he died. 5:21. And Henoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Mathusala. 5:22. And Henoch walked with God: and lived after he begot Mathusala, three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:23. And all the days of Henoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. 5:24. And he walked with God, and was seen no more: because God took him. 5:25. And Mathusala lived a hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech. 5:26. And Mathlusala lived after he begot Lamech, seven hundred and eighty-two years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:27. And all the days of Mathusala were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died. 5:28. And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begot a son. 5:29. And he called his name Noe, saying: This same shall comfort us from the works and labours of our hands on the earth, which the Lord hath cursed. 5:30. And Lamech lived after he begot Noe, five hundred and ninety-five years, and begot sons and daughters. 5:31. And all the days of Lamech came to seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died. And Noe, when he was five hundred years old, begot Sem, Cham, and Japheth. Genesis Chapter 6 Man's sin is the cause of the deluge. Noe is commanded to build the ark. 6:1. And after that men began to be multiplied upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, 6:2. The sons of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all which they chose. The sons of God. . .The descendants of Seth and Enos are here called sons of God from their religion and piety: whereas the ungodly race of Cain, who by their carnal affections lay grovelling upon the earth, are called the children of men. The unhappy consequence of the former marrying with the latter, ought to be a warning to Christians to be very circumspect in their marriages; and not to suffer themselves to be determined in their choice by their carnal passion, to the prejudice of virtue or religion. 6:3. And God said: My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. His days shall be, etc. . .The meaning is, that man's days, which before the flood were usually 900 years, should now be reduced to 120 years. Or rather, that God would allow men this term of 120 years, for their repentance and conversion, before he would send the deluge. 6:4. Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. Giants. . .It is likely the generality of men before the flood were of a gigantic stature in comparison with what men now are. But these here spoken of are called giants, as being not only tall in stature, but violent and savage in their dispositions, and mere monsters of cruelty and lust. 6:5. And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times, 6:6. It repented him that he had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, It repented him, etc. . .God, who is unchangeable, is not capable of repentance, grief, or any other passion. But these expressions are used to declare the enormity of the sins of men, which was so provoking as to determine their Creator to destroy these his creatures, whom before he had so much favoured. 6:7. He said: I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. 6:8. But Noe found grace before the Lord. 6:9. These are the generations of Noe: Noe was a just and perfect man in his generations, he walked with God. 6:10. And he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth. 6:11. And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. 6:12. And when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth), 6:13. He said to Noe: The end of all flesh is come before me, the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth. 6:14. Make thee an ark of timber planks: thou shalt make little rooms in the ark, and thou shalt pitch it within and without. 6:15. And thus shalt thou make it. The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits: the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. Three hundred cubits, etc. . .The ark, according to the dimensions here set down, contained four hundred and fifty thousand square cubits; which was more than enough to contain all the kinds of living creatures, with all necessary provisions: even supposing the cubits here spoken of to have been only a foot and a half each, which was the least kind of cubits. 6:16. Thou shalt make a window in the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish the top of it: and the door of the ark thou shalt set in the side: with lower, middle chambers, and third stories shalt thou make it. 6:17. Behold, I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life under heaven. All things that are in the earth shall be consumed. 6:18. And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and the wives of thy sons with thee. 6:19. And of every living creature of all flesh, thou shalt bring two of a sort into the ark, that they may live with thee: of the male sex, and the female. 6:20. Of fowls according to their kind, and of beasts in their kind, and of every thing that creepeth on the earth according to its kind: two of every sort shall go in with thee, that they may live. 6:21. Thou shalt take unto thee of all food that may be eaten, and thou shalt lay it up with thee: and it shall be food for thee and them. 6:22. And Noe did all things which God commanded him. Genesis Chapter 7 Noe with his family go into the ark. The deluge overflows the earth. 7:1. And the Lord said to him: Go in, thou and all thy house, into the ark: for thee I have seen just before me in this generation. 7:2. Of all clean beasts take seven and seven, the male and the female. Of all clean. . .The distinction of clean and unclean beasts appears to have been made before the law of Moses, which was not promulgated till the year of the world 2514. 7:3. But of the beasts that are unclean two and two, the male and the female. Of the fowls also of the air seven and seven, the male and the female: that seed may be saved upon the face of the whole earth. 7:4. For yet a while, and after seven days, I will rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights: and I will destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the earth. 7:5. And Noe did all things which the Lord had commanded him. 7:6. And he was six hundred years old, when the waters of the flood overflowed the earth. 7:7. And Noe went in and his sons, his wife and the wives of his sons with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 7:8. And of beasts clean and unclean, and of fowls, and of every thing that moveth upon the earth, 7:9. Two and two went in to Noe into the ark, male and female, as the Lord had commanded Noe. 7:10. And after the seven days were passed, the waters of the flood overflowed the earth. 7:11. In the six hundredth year of the life of Noe, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened: 7:12. And the rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 7:13. In the selfsame day Noe, and Sem, and Cham, and Japheth, his sons: his wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, went into the ark. 7:14. They and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle in their kind, and every thing that moveth upon the earth, according to its kind, and every fowl according to its kind, all birds, and all that fly, 7:15. Went in to Noe into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein was the breath of life. 7:16. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in on the outside. 7:17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth: and the waters increased, and lifted up the ark on high from the earth. 7:18. For they overflowed exceedingly: and filled all on the face of the earth: and the ark was carried upon the waters. 7:19. And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 7:20. The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered. 7:21. And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beasts, and of all creeping things that creep upon the earth: and all men. 7:22. And all things wherein there is the breath of life on the earth, died. 7:23. And he destroyed all the substance that was upon the earth, from man even to beast, and the creeping things and fowls of the air: and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noe only remained, and they that were with him in the ark. 7:24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. Genesis Chapter 8 The deluge ceaseth. Noe goeth out of the ark, and offereth a sacrifice. God's covenant to him. 8:1. And God remembered Noe, and all the living creatures, and all the cattle which were with him in the ark, and brought a wind upon the earth, and the waters were abated: 8:2. The fountains also of the deep, and the floodgates of heaven, were shut up, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 8:3. And the waters returned from off the earth going and coming: and they began to be abated after a hundred and fifty days. 8:4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia. 8:5. And the waters were going and decreasing until the tenth month: for in the tenth month, the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared. 8:6. And after that forty days were passed, Noe opening the window of the ark, which he had made, sent forth a raven: 8:7. Which went forth and did not return, till the waters were dried up upon the earth. Did not return. . .The raven did not return into the ark; but (as it may be gathered from the Hebrew) went to and fro; sometimes going to the mountains, where it found carcasses to feed on: and other times returning, to rest upon the top of the ark. 8:8. He sent forth also a dove after him, to see if the waters had now ceased upon the face of the earth. 8:9. But she not finding where her foot might rest, returned to him into the ark: for the waters were upon the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and caught her, and brought her into the ark. 8:10. And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove out of the ark. 8:11. And she came to him in the evening carrying a bough of an olive tree, with green leaves, in her mouth. Noe therefore understood that the waters were ceased upon the earth. 8:12. And he stayed yet other seven days: and he sent forth the dove, which returned not any more unto him. 8:13. Therefore in the six hundredth and first year, the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were lessened upon the earth, and Noe opening the covering of the ark, looked, and saw that the face of the earth was dried. 8:14. In the second month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth was dried. 8:15. And God spoke to Noe, saying: 8:16. Go out of the ark, thou and thy wife, thy sons and the wives of thy sons with thee. 8:17. All living things that are with thee of all flesh, as well in fowls as in beasts, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, bring out with thee, and go ye upon the earth: increase and multiply upon it. 8:18. So Noe went out, he and his sons: his wife, and the wives of his sons with him. 8:19. And all living things, and cattle, and creeping things that creep upon the earth, according to their kinds went out of the ark. 8:20. And Noe built an altar unto the Lord: and taking of all cattle and fowls that were clean, offered holocausts upon the altar. Holocausts,. . .or whole burnt offerings. In which the whole victim was consumed by fire upon God's altar, and no part was reserved for the use of priest or people. 8:21. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said: I will no more curse the earth for the sake of man: for the imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth: therefore I will no more destroy every living soul as I have done. Smelled, etc. . .A figurative expression, denoting that God was well pleased with the sacrifices which his servant offered. 8:22. All the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day, shall not cease. Genesis Chapter 9 God blesseth Noe: forbiddeth blood, and promiseth never more to destroy the world by water. The blessing of Sem and Japheth. 9:1. And God blessed Noe and his sons. And he said to them: Increase, and multiply, and fill the earth. 9:2. And let the fear and dread of you be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the fowls of the air, and all that move upon the earth: all the fishes of the sea are delivered into your hand. 9:3. And every thing that moveth, and liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you: 9:4. Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat. 9:5. For I will require the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man, and of his brother, will I require the life of man. 9:6. Whosoever shall shed man's blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God. 9:7. But increase you and multiply, and go upon the earth and fill it. 9:8. Thus also said God to Noe, and to his sons with him: 9:9. Behold I will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you: 9:10. And with every living soul that is with you, as well in all birds, as in cattle and beasts of the earth, that are come forth out of the ark, and in all the beasts of the earth. 9:11. I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth. 9:12. And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. 9:13. I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me and between the earth. 9:14. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds: 9:15. And I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that beareth flesh: and there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh. 9:16. And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it, and shall remember the everlasting covenant, that was made between God and every living soul of all flesh which is upon the earth. 9:17. And God said to Noe: This shall be the sign of the covenant, which I have established, between me and all flesh upon the earth. 9:18. And the sons of Noe, who came out of the ark, were Sem, Cham, and Japheth: and Cham is the father of Chanaan. 9:19. These three are the sons of Noe: and from these was all mankind spread over the whole earth. 9:20. And Noe a husbandman began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard. 9:21. And drinking of the wine was made drunk, and was uncovered in his tent. Drunk. . .Noe by the judgment of the fathers was not guilty of sin, in being overcome by wine: because he knew not the strength of it. 9:22. Which when Cham the father of Chanaan had seen, to wit, that his father's nakedness was uncovered, he told it to his two brethren without. 9:23. But Sem and Japheth put a cloak upon their shoulders, and going backward, covered the nakedness of their father: and their faces were turned away, and they saw not their father's nakedness. Covered the nakedness. . .Thus, as St. Gregory takes notice L. 35; Moral. c. 22, we ought to cover the nakedness, that is, the sins, of our spiritual parents and superiors. 9:24. And Noe awaking from the wine, when he had learned what his younger son had done to him, 9:25. He said: Cursed be Chanaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Cursed be Chanaan. . .The curses, as well as the blessings, of the patriarchs, were prophetical: And this in particular is here recorded by Moses, for the children of Israel, who were to possess the land of Chanaan. But why should Chanaan be cursed for his father's faults? The Hebrews answer, that he being then a boy, was the first that saw his grandfather's nakedness, and told his father Cham of it; and joined with him in laughing at it: which drew upon him, rather than upon the rest of the children of Cham, this prophetical curse. 9:26. And he said: Blessed be the Lord God of Sem, be Chanaan his servant. 9:27. May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Sem, and Chanaan be his servant. 9:28. And Noe lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 9:29. And all his days were in the whole nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. Genesis Chapter 10 The genealogy of the children of Noe, by whom the world was peopled after the flood. 10:1. These are the generations of the sons of Noe: Sem, Cham, and Japheth: and unto them sons were born after the flood. 10:2. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Thubal, and Mosoch, and Thiras. 10:3. And the sons of Gomer: Ascenez and Riphath and Thogorma. 10:4. And the sons of Javan: Elisa and Tharsis, Cetthim and Dodanim. 10:5. By these were divided the islands of the Gentiles in their lands, every one according to his tongue and their families in their nations. The islands. . .So the Hebrews called all the remote countries, to which they went by ships from Judea, to Greece, Italy, Spain, etc. 10:6. And the Sons of Cham: Chus, and Mesram, and Phuth, and Chanaan. 10:7. And the sons of Chus: Saba, and Hevila, and Sabatha, and Regma, and Sabatacha. The sons of Regma: Saba, and Dadan. 10:8. Now Chus begot Nemrod: he began to be mighty on the earth. 10:9. And he was a stout hunter before the Lord. Hence came a proverb: Even as Nemrod the stout hunter before the Lord. A stout hunter. . .Not of beasts but of men: whom by violence and tyranny he brought under his dominion. And such he was, not only in the opinion of men, but before the Lord, that is, in his sight who cannot be deceived. 10:10. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, and Arach, and Achad, and Chalanne in the land of Sennaar. 10:11. Out of that land came forth Assur, and built Ninive, and the streets of the city, and Chale. 10:12. Resen also between Ninive and Chale: this is the great city. 10:13. And Mesraim begot Ludim, and Anamim and Laabim, Nephthuim. 10:14. And Phetrusim, and Chasluim; of whom came forth the Philistines, and the Capthorim. 10:15. And Chanaan begot Sidon his firstborn, the Hethite, 10:16. And the Jebusite, and the Amorrhite, and the Gergesite. 10:17. The Hevite and Aracite: the Sinite, 10:18. And the Aradian, the Samarite, and the Hamathite: and afterwards the families of the Chanaanites were spread abroad. 10:19. And the limits of Chanaan were from Sidon as one comes to Gerara even to Gaza, until thou enter Sodom and Gomorrha, and Adama, and Seboim even to Lesa. 10:20. These are the children of Cham in their kindreds and tongues, and generations, and lands, and nations. 10:21. Of Sem also the father of all the children of Heber, the elder brother of Japheth, sons were born. 10:22. The sons of Sem: Elam and Assur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. 10:23. The sons of Aram: Us, and Hull, and Gether; and Mes. 10:24. But Arphaxad begot Sale, of whom was born Heber. 10:25. And to Heber were born two sons: the name of the one was Phaleg, because in his days was the earth divided: and his brother's name Jectan. 10:26. Which Jectan begot Elmodad, and Saleph, and Asarmoth, Jare, 10:27. And Aduram, and Uzal, and Decla, 10:28. And Ebal, and Abimael, Saba, 10:29. And Ophir, and Hevila, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Jectan. 10:30. And their dwelling was from Messa as we go on as far as Sephar, a mountain in the east. 10:31. These are the children of Sem according to their kindreds and tongues, and countries in their nations. 10:32. These are the families of Noe, according to their people and nations. By these were the nations divided on the earth after the flood. Genesis Chapter 11 The tower of Babel. The confusion of tongues. The genealogy of Sem down to Abram. 11:1. And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same speech. 11:2. And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it. 11:3. And each one said to his neighbour: Come let us make brick, and bake them with fire. And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar: 11:4. And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands. 11:5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam were building. 11:6. And he said: Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed. 11:7. Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech. 11:8. And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. 11:9. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries. Babel. . .That is, confusion. 11:10. These are the generations of Sem: Sem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 11:11. And Sem lived after he begot Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:12. And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale. 11:13. And Arphaxad lived after he begot Sale, three hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:14. Sale also lived thirty years, and begot Heber. 11:15. And Sale lived after he begot Heber, four hundred and three years: and begot sons and daughters. 11:16. And Heber lived thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg. 11:17. And Heber lived after he begot Phaleg, four hundred and thirty years: and begot sons and daughters. 11:18. Phaleg also lived thirty years, and begot Reu. 11:19. And Phaleg lived after he begot Reu, two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:20. And Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot Sarug. 11:21. And Reu lived after he begot Sarug, two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:22. And Sarug lived thirty years, and begot Nachor. 11:23. And Sarug lived after he begot Nachor, two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:24. And Nachor lived nine and twenty years, and begot Thare. 11:25. And Nachor lived after he begot Thare, a hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:26. And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. 11:27. And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot. 11:28. And Aran died before Thare his father, in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. 11:29. And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor's wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha and father of Jescha. 11:30. And Sarai was barren, and had no children. 11:31. And Thare took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Aran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, the wife of Abram his son, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Chanaan: and they came as far as Haran, and dwelt there. 11:32. And the days of Thare were two hundred and five years, and he died in Haran. Genesis Chapter 12 The call of Abram, and the promise made to him. He sojourneth in Chanaan, and then by occasion of a famine, goeth down to Egypt. 12:1. And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. 12:2. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. 12:3. I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and IN THEE shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. 12:4. So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him, and Lot went with him: Abram was seventy-five years old when he went forth from Haran. 12:5. And he took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all the substance which they had gathered, and the souls which they had gotten in Haran: and they went out to go into the land of Chanaan. And when they were come into it, 12:6. Abram passed through the country unto the place of Sichem, as far as the noble vale: now the Chanaanite was at that time in the land. 12:7. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him: To thy seed will I give this land. And he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 12:8. And passing on from thence to a mountain, that was on the east side of Bethel, he there pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: he built there also an altar to the Lord, and called upon his name. 12:9. And Abram went forward, going and proceeding on to the south. 12:10. And there came a famine in the country: and Abram went down into Egypt, to sojourn there: for the famine was very grievous in the land. 12:11. And when he was near to enter into Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife: I know that thou art a beautiful woman: 12:12. And that when the Egyptians shall see thee, they will say: She is his wife: and they will kill me, and keep thee. 12:13. Say, therefore, I pray thee, that thou art my sister: that I may be well used for thee, and that my soul may live for thy sake. My sister. . .This was no lie; because she was his niece, being daughter to his brother Aran, and therefore, in the style of the Hebrews, she might truly be called his sister, as Lot is called Abram's brother, Gen. 14.14. See Gen. 20.12. 12:14. And when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman that she was very beautiful. 12:15. And the princes told Pharao, and praised her before him: and the woman was taken into the house of Pharao. 12:16. And they used Abram well for her sake. And he had sheep and oxen and he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels. 12:17. But the Lord scourged Pharao and his house with most grievous stripes for Sarai, Abram's wife. 12:18. And Pharao called Abram, and said to him: What is this that thou hast done to me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 12:19. For what cause didst thou say, she was thy sister, that I might take her to my wife? Now therefore there is thy wife, take her, and go thy way. 12:20. And Pharao gave his men orders concerning Abram: and they led him away and his wife, and all that he had. Genesis Chapter 13 Abram and Lot part from each other. God's promise to Abram. 13:1. And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him into the south. 13:2. And he was very rich in possession of gold and silver. 13:3. And he returned by the way, that he came, from the south to Bethel, to the place where before he had pitched his tent between Bethel and Hai, 13:4. In the place of the altar which he had made before, and there he called upon the name of the Lord. 13:5. But Lot also, who was with Abram, had flocks of sheep, and herds of beasts, and tents. 13:6. Neither was the land able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, and they could not dwell together. 13:7. Whereupon also there arose a strife between the herdsmen of Abram and of Lot. And at that time the Chanaanite and the Pherezite dwelled in that country. 13:8. Abram therefore said to Lot: Let there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen: for we are brethren. 13:9. Behold the whole land is before thee: depart from me, I pray thee: if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will take the right: if thou choose the right hand, I will pass to the left. 13:10. And Lot lifting up his eyes, saw all the country about the Jordan, which was watered throughout, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, as the paradise of the Lord, and like Egypt as one comes to Segor. 13:11. And Lot chose to himself the country about the Jordan, and he departed from the east: and they were separated one brother from the other. 13:12. Abram dwelt in the land of Chanaan: and Lot abode in the towns, that were about the Jordan, and dwelt in Sodom. 13:13. And the men of Sodom were very wicked, and sinners before the face of the Lord beyond measure. 13:14. And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him: Lift up thy eyes, and look from the place wherein thou now art, to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west. 13:15. All the land which thou seest, I will give to thee, and to thy seed for ever. 13:16. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: if any man be able to number the dust of the earth, he shall be able to number thy seed also. 13:17. Arise and walk through the land in the length, and the breadth thereof: for I will give it to thee. 13:18. So Abram removing his tent, came, and dwelt by the vale of Mambre, which is in Hebron: and he built there an altar to the Lord. Genesis Chapter 14 The expedition of the four kings; the victory of Abram; he is blessed by Melchisedech. 14:1. And it came to pass at that time, that Amraphel, king of Sennaar, and Arioch, king of Pontus, and Chodorlahomor, king of the Elamites, and Thadal, king of nations, 14:2. Made war against Bara, king of Sodom, and against Bersa, king of Gomorrha, and against Sennaab, king of Adama, and against Semeber, king of Seboim, and against the king of Bala, which is Segor. 14:3. All these came together into the woodland vale, which now is the salt sea. 14:4. For they had served Chodorlahomor twelve years, and in the thirteenth year they revolted from him. 14:5. And in the fourteenth year came Chodorlahomor, and the kings that were with him: and they smote the Raphaim in Astarothcarnaim, and the Zuzim with them, and the Emim in Save of Cariathaim. 14:6. And the Chorreans in the mountains of Seir, even to the plains of Pharan, which is in the wilderness. 14:7. And they returned, and came to the fountain of Misphat, the same is Cades: and they smote all the country of the Amalecites, and the Amorrhean that dwelt in Asasonthamar. 14:8. And the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrha, and the king of Adama, and the king of Seboim, and the king of Bala, which is Segor, went out: and they set themselves against them in battle array, in the woodland vale: 14:9. To wit, against Chodorlahomor king of the Elamites, and Thadal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Sennaar, and Arioch king of Pontus: four kings against five. 14:10. Now the woodland vale had many pits of slime. And the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrha turned their backs, and were overthrown there: and they that remained, fled to the mountain. Of slime. Bituminis. . .This was a kind of pitch, which served for mortar in the building of Babel, Gen. 11.3, and was used by Noe in pitching the ark. 14:11. And they took all the substance of the Sodomites, and Gomorrhites, and all their victuals, and went their way: 14:12. And Lot also, the son of Abram's brother, who dwelt in Sodom, and his substance. 14:13. And behold one, that had escaped, told Abram the Hebrew, who dwelt in the vale of Mambre the Amorrhite, the brother of Escol, and the brother of Aner: for these had made a league with Abram. 14:14. Which when Abram had heard, to wit, that his brother Lot was taken, he numbered of the servants born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, well appointed: and pursued them to Dan. 14:15. And dividing his company, he rushed upon them in the night, and defeated them: and pursued them as far as Hoba, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 14:16. And he brought back all the substance, and Lot his brother, with his substance, the women also, and the people. 14:17. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, after he returned from the slaughter of Chodorlahomor, and of the kings that were with him in the vale of Save, which is the king's vale. 14:18. But Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God, 14:19. Blessed him, and said: Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and earth. 14:20. And blessed be the most high God, by whose protection, the enemies are in thy hands. And he gave him the tithes of all. 14:21. And the king of Sodom said to Abram: Give me the persons, and the rest take to thyself. 14:22. And he answered him: I lift up my hand to the Lord God the most high, the possessor of heaven and earth, 14:23. That from the very woof thread unto the shoe latchet, I will not take of any things that are thine, lest thou say: I have enriched Abram. 14:24. Except such things as the young men have eaten, and the shares of the men that came with me, Aner, Escol, and Mambre: these shall take their shares. Genesis Chapter 15 God promiseth seed to Abram. His faith, sacrifice and vision. 15:1. Now when these things were done, the word of the Lord came to Abram by a vision, saying: Fear not, Abram, I am thy protector, and thy reward exceeding great. 15:2. And Abram said: Lord God, what wilt thou give me? I shall go without children: and the son of the steward of my house is this Damascus Eliezer. 15:3. And Abram added: But to me thou hast not given seed: and lo my servant born in my house, shall be my heir. 15:4. And immediately the word of the Lord came to him, saying : He shall not be thy heir: but he that shall come out of thy bowels, him shalt thou have for thy heir. 15:5. And he brought him forth abroad, and said to him: Look up to heaven and number the stars if thou canst. And he said to him: So shall thy seed be. 15:6. Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. 15:7. And he said to him: I am the Lord who brought thee out from Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land, and that thou mightest possess it. 15:8. But he said: Lord God, whereby may I know that I shall possess it? 15:9. And the Lord answered, and said: Take me a cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years. and a ram of three years, a turtle also, and a pigeon. 15:10. And he took all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid the two pieces of each one against the other: but the birds he divided not. 15:11. And the fowls came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 15:12. And when the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great and darksome horror seized upon him. 15:13. And it was said unto him: Know thou beforehand that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not their own, and they shall bring them under bondage, and afflict them four hundred years. 15:14. But I will judge the nation which they shall serve, and after this they shall come out with great substance. 15:15. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age. 15:16. But in the fourth generation they shall return hither: for as yet the iniquities of the Amorrhites are not at the full until this present time. 15:17. And when the sun was set, there arose a dark mist, and there appeared a smoking furnace, and a lamp of fire passing between those divisions. 15:18. That day God made a covenant with Abram, saying: To thy seed will I give this land, from the river to Egypt even to the great river Euphrates. 15:19. The Cineans, and Cenezites, the Cedmonites, 15:20. And the Hethites, and the Pherezites, the Raphaim also, 15:21. And the Amorrhites, and the Chanaanites, and the Gergesites, and the Jebusites. Genesis Chapter 16 Abram marrieth Agar, who bringeth forth Ismael. 16:1. Now Sarai, the wife of Abram, had brought forth no children: but having a handmaid, an Egyptian, named Agar, 16:2. She said to her husband: Behold, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: go in unto my handmaid, it may be I may have children of her at least. And when he agreed to her request, 16:3. She took Agar the Egyptian her handmaid, ten years after they first dwelt in the land of Chanaan, and gave her to her husband to wife. To wife. . .Plurality of wives, though contrary to the primitive institution of marriage, Gen. 2.24, was by divine dispensation allowed to the patriarchs: which allowance seems to have continued during the time of the law of Moses. But Christ our Lord reduced marriage to its primitive institution. Matt. 19. 16:4. And he went in to her. But she perceiving that she was with child, despised her mistress. 16:5. And Sarai said to Abram: Thou dost unjustly with me: I gave my handmaid into thy bosom, and she perceiving herself to be with child, despiseth me. The Lord judge between me and thee. 16:6. And Abram made answer, and said to her: Behold thy handmaid is in thy own hand, use her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai afflicted her, she ran away. 16:7. And the angel of the Lord having found her, by a fountain of water in the wilderness, which is in the way to Sur in the desert, 16:8. He said to her: Agar, handmaid of Sarai, whence comest thou? and whither goest thou? And she answered: I flee from the face of Sarai, my mistress. 16:9. And the angel of the Lord said to her: Return to thy mistress, and humble thyself under her hand. 16:10. And again he said: I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it shall not be numbered for multitude. 16:11. And again: Behold, said he, thou art with child, and thou shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Ismael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. 16:12. He shall be a wild man: his hand will be against all men, and all men's hands against him: and he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren. 16:13. And she called the name of the Lord that spoke unto her: Thou the God who hast seen me. For she said: Verily, here have I seen the hinder parts of him that seeth me. 16:14. Therefore she called that well, the well of him that liveth and seeth me. The same is between Cades and Barad. 16:15. And Agar brought forth a son to Abram: who called his name Ismael. 16:16. Abram was four score and six years old when Agar brought him forth Ismael. Genesis Chapter 17 The Covenant of circumcision. 17:1. And after he began to be ninety and nine years old, the Lord appeared to him: and said unto him: I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect. 17:2. And I will make my covenant between me and thee: and I will multiply thee exceedingly. 17:3. Abram fell flat on his face. 17:4. And God said to him: I am, and my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. 17:5. Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram: but thou shalt be called Abraham: because I have made thee a father of many nations. Abram. . .in the Hebrew, signifies a high father: but Abraham, the father of the multitude; Sarai signifies my Lady, but Sara absolutely Lady. 17:6. And I will make thee increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 17:7. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and between thy seed after thee in their generations, by a perpetual covenant: to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee. 17:8. And I will give to thee, and to thy seed, the land of thy sojournment, all the land of Chanaan, for a perpetual possession, and I will be their God. 17:9. Again God said to Abraham: And thou therefore shalt keep my covenant, and thy seed after thee in their generations. 17:10. This is my covenant which you shall observe between me and you, and thy seed after thee: All the male-kind of you shall be circumcised. 17:11. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. 17:12. An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every manchild in your generations: he that is born in the house, as well as the bought servant, shall be circumcised, and whosoever is not of your stock: 17:13. And my covenant shall be in your flesh for a perpetual covenant. 17:14. The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people: because he hath broken my covenant. 17:15. God said also to Abraham: Sarai thy wife thou shalt not call Sarai, but Sara. 17:16. And I will bless her, and of her I will give thee a son, whom I will bless, and he shall become nations, and kings of people shall spring from him. 17:17. Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, saying in his heart: Shall a son, thinkest thou, be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sara that is ninety years old bring forth? 17:18. And he said to God: O that Ismael may live before thee. 17:19. And God said to Abraham: Sara thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for a perpetual covenant, and with his seed after him. 17:20. And as for Ismael I have also heard thee. Behold, I will bless him, and increase, and multiply him exceedingly: he shall beget twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation. 17:21. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sara shall bring forth to thee at this time in the next year. 17:22. And when he had left off speaking with him, God went up from Abraham. 17:23. And Abraham took Ismael his son, and all that were born in his house: and all whom he had bought, every male among the men of his house: and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin forthwith the very same day, as God had commanded him. 17:24. Abraham was ninety and nine years old, when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. 17:25. And Ismael his son was full thirteen years old at the time of his circumcision. 17:26. The self-same day was Abraham circumcised and Ismael his son. 17:27. And all the men of his house, as well they that were born in his house, as the bought servants and strangers, were circumcised with him. Genesis Chapter 18 Angels are entertained by Abraham. They foretell the birth of Isaac. Abraham's prayer for the men of Sodom. 18:1. And the Lord appeared to him in the vale of Mambre as he was sitting at the door of his tent, in the very heat of the day. 18:2. And when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men standing near to him: and as soon as he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and adored down to the ground. 18:3. And he said: Lord, if I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away from thy servant. 18:4. But I will fetch a little water, and wash ye your feet, and rest ye under the tree. 18:5. And I will set a morsel of bread, and strengthen ye your heart, afterwards you shall pass on: for therefore are you come aside to your servant. And they said: Do as thou hast spoken. 18:6. Abraham made haste into the tent to Sara, and said to her: Make haste, temper together three measures of flour, and make cakes upon the hearth. 18:7. And he himself ran to the herd, and took from thence a calf, very tender and very good, and gave it to a young man, who made haste and boiled it. 18:8. He took also butter and milk, and the calf which he had boiled, and set before them: but he stood by them under the tree. 18:9. And when they had eaten, they said to him: Where is Sara thy wife? He answered: Lo she is in the tent. 18:10. And he said to him: I will return and come to thee at this time, life accompanying, and Sara, thy wife, shall have a son. Which when Sara heard, she laughed behind the door of the tent. 18:11. Now they were both old, and far advanced in years, and it had ceased to be with Sara after the manner of women. 18:12. And she laughed secretly, saying: After I am grown old, and my lord is an old man, shall I give myself to pleasure? 18:13. And the Lord said to Abraham: Why did Sara laugh, saying: Shall I, who am an old woman, bear a child indeed? 18:14. Is there any thing hard to God? According to appointment I will return to thee at this same time, life accompanying, and Sara shall have a son. 18:15. Sara denied, saying: I did not laugh: for she was afraid. But the Lord said: Nay; but thou didst laugh. 18:16. And when the men rose up from thence, they turned their eyes towards Sodom: and Abraham walked with them, bringing them on the way. 18:17. And the Lord said: Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do: 18:18. Seeing he shall become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed? 18:19. For I know that he will command his children, and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord, and do judgment and justice: that for Abraham's sake, the Lord may bring to effect all the things he hath spoken unto him. 18:20. And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. 18:21. I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come to me; or whether it be not so, that I may know. I will go down, etc. . .The Lord here accommodates his discourse to the way of speaking and acting amongst men; for he knoweth all things, and needeth not to go anywhere for information. Note here, that two of the three angels went away immediately for Sodom; whilst the third, who represented the Lord, remained with Abraham. 18:22. And they turned themselves from thence, and went their way to Sodom: but Abraham as yet stood before the Lord. 18:23. And drawing nigh, he said: Wilt thou destroy the just with the wicked? 18:24. If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? and wilt thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? 18:25. Far be it from thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked; this is not beseeming thee: thou who judgest all the earth, wilt not make this judgment. 18:26. And the Lord said to him: If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. 18:27. And Abraham answered, and said: Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. 18:28. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? wilt thou for five and forty destroy the whole city: And he said: I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty. 18:29. And again he said to him: But if forty be found there, what wilt thou do? He said: I will not destroy it for the sake of forty. 18:30. Lord, saith he, be not angry, I beseech thee, if I speak: What if thirty shall be found there? He answered: I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 18:31. Seeing, saith he, I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord: What if twenty be found there? He said: I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty. 18:32. I beseech thee, saith he, be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten shall be found there? And he said: I will not destroy it for the sake of ten. 18:33. And the Lord departed, after he had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place. Genesis Chapter 19 Lot, entertaining Angels in his house, is delivered from Sodom, which is destroyed: his wife for looking back is turned into a statue of salt. 19:1. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. And seeing them, he rose up and went to meet them: and worshipped prostrate to the ground. 19:2. And said: I beseech you, my lords, turn in to the house of your servant, and lodge there: wash your feet, and in the morning you shall go on your way. And they said: No, but we will abide in the street. 19:3. He pressed them very much to turn in unto him: and when they were come into his house, he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate: 19:4. But before they went to bed, the men of the city beset the house, both young and old, all the people together. 19:5. And they called Lot, and said to him: Where are the men that came in to thee at night? bring them out hither, that we may know them: 19:6. Lot went out to them, and shut the door after him, and said: 19:7. Do not so, I beseech you, my brethren, do not commit this evil. 19:8. I have two daughters who, as yet, have not known man; I will bring them out to you, and abuse you them as it shall please you, so that you do no evil to these men, because they are come in under the shadow of my roof. 19:9. But they said: Get thee back thither. And again: Thou camest in, said they, as a stranger, was it to be a judge? therefore we will afflict thee more than them. And they pressed very violently upon Lot: and they were even at the point of breaking open the doors. 19:10. And behold the men put out their hand, and drew in Lot unto them, and shut the door. 19:11. And them, that were without, they struck with blindness from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door. 19:12. And they said to Lot: Hast thou here any of thine? son in law, or sons, or daughters, all that are thine bring them out of this city: 19:13. For we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them. 19:14. So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons in law that were to have his daughters, and said: Arise: get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city. And he seemed to them to speak as it were in jest. 19:15. And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters that thou hast: lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city. 19:16. And as he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. 19:17. And they brought him forth, and set him without the city: and there they spoke to him, saying: Save thy life: look not back, neither stay thou in all the country about: but save thy self in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed. 19:18. And Lot said to them: I beseech thee, my Lord, 19:19. Because thy servant hath found grace before thee, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewn to me, in saving my life, and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil seize me, and I die. 19:20. There is this city here at hand, to which I may flee, it is a little one, and I shall be saved in it: is it not a little one, and my soul shall live? 19:21. And he said to him: Behold also in this, I have heard thy prayers, not to destroy the city for which thou hast spoken. 19:22. Make haste, and be saved there: because I cannot do any thing till thou go in thither. Therefore the name of that city was called Segor. Segor. . .That is, a little one. 19:23. The sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor. 19:24. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 19:25. And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth. 19:26. And his wife looking behind her, was turned into a statue of salt. And his wife. . .As a standing memorial to the servants of God to proceed in virtue, and not to look back to vice or its allurements. 19:27. And Abraham got up early in the morning, and in the place where he had stood before with the Lord: 19:28. He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that country: and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace. 19:29. Now when God destroyed the cities of that country, remembering Abraham, he delivered Lot out of the destruction of the cities wherein he had dwelt. 19:30. And Lot went up out of Segor, and abode in the mountain, and his two daughters with him (for he was afraid to stay in Segor) and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters with him. 19:31. And the elder said to the younger: Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. 19:32. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 19:33. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in, and lay with her father: but he perceived not, neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. 19:34. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. 19:35. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. 19:36. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father. 19:37. And the elder bore a son, and she called his name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites unto this day. 19:38. The younger also bore a son, and she called his name Ammon; that is, the son of my people: he is the father of the Ammonites unto this day. Genesis Chapter 20 Abraham sojourned in Gerara: Sara is taken into king Abimelech's house, but by God's commandment is restored untouched. 20:1. Abraham removed from thence to the south country, and dwelt between Cades and Sur, and sojourned in Gerara. 20:2. And he said of Sara his wife: She is my sister. So Abimelech the king of Gerara sent, and took her. 20:3. And God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and he said to him: Lo thou shalt die for the woman that thou hast taken: for she hath a husband. 20:4. Now Abimelech had not touched her, and he said: Lord, wilt thou slay a nation that is ignorant and just? 20:5. Did not he say to me: She is my sister: and she say, He is my brother? in the simplicity of my heart, and cleanness of my hands have I done this. 20:6. And God said to him: And I know that thou didst it with a sincere heart: and therefore I withheld thee from sinning against me, and I suffered thee not to touch her. 20:7. Now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet: and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: but if thou wilt not restore her, know that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. 20:8. And Abimelech forthwith rising up in the night, called all his servants: and spoke all these words in their hearing, and all the men were exceedingly afraid. 20:9. And Abimelech called also for Abraham, and said to him: What hast thou done to us? what have we offended thee in, that thou hast brought upon me and upon my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done to us what thou oughtest not to do. 20:10. And again he expostulated with him, and said: What sawest thou, that thou hast done this? 20:11. Abraham answered: I thought with myself, saying: Perhaps there is not the fear of God in this place: and they will kill me for the sake of my wife: 20:12. Howbeit, otherwise also she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her to wife. 20:13. And after God brought me out of my father's house, I said to her: Thou shalt do me this kindness: In every place, to which we shall come, thou shalt say that I am thy brother. 20:14. And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and servants and handmaids, and gave to Abraham: and restored to him Sara his wife, 20:15. And said: The land is before you, dwell wheresoever it shall please thee. 20:16. And to Sara he said: Behold I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver, this shall serve thee for a covering of thy eyes to all that are with thee, and whithersoever thou shalt go: and remember thou wast taken. 20:17. And when Abraham prayed, God healed Abimelech and his wife, and his handmaids, and they bore children: 20:18. For the Lord had closed up every womb of the house of Abimelech, on account of Sara, Abraham's wife. Genesis Chapter 21 Isaac is born. Agar and Ismael are cast forth. 21:1. And the Lord visited Sara, as he had promised: and fulfilled what he had spoken. 21:2. And she conceived and bore a son in her old age, at the time that God had foretold her. 21:3. And Abraham called the name of his son, whom Sara bore him, Isaac. Isaac. . .This word signifies laughter. 21:4. And he circumcised him the eighth day, as God had commanded him, 21:5. When he was a hundred years old: for at this age of his father, was Isaac born. 21:6. And Sara said: God hath made a laughter for me: whosoever shall hear of it will laugh with me. 21:7. And again she said: Who would believe that Abraham should hear that Sara gave suck to a son, whom she bore to him in his old age? 21:8. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast on the day of his weaning. 21:9. And when Sara had seen the son of Agar, the Egyptian, playing with Isaac, her son, she said to Abraham: 21:10. Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. 21:11. Abraham took this grievously for his son. 21:12. And God said to him: Let it not seem grievous to thee for the boy, and for thy bondwoman: in all that Sara hath said to thee, hearken to her voice: for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. 21:13. But I will make the son also of the bondwoman a great nation, because he is thy seed. 21:14. So Abraham rose up in the morning, and taking bread and a bottle of water, put it upon her shoulder, and delivered the boy, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Bersabee. 21:15. And when the water in the bottle was spent, she cast the boy under one of the trees that were there. 21:16. And she went her way, and sat over against him a great way off, as far as a bow can carry, for she said: I will not see the boy die: and sitting over against, she lifted up her voice and wept. 21:17. And God heard the voice of the boy: and an angel of God called to Agar from heaven, saying: What art thou doing, Agar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the boy, from the place wherein he is. 21:18. Arise, take up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make him a great nation. 21:19. And God opened her eyes: and she saw a well of water, and went and filled the bottle, and gave the boy to drink. 21:20. And God was with him: and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became a young man, an archer. 21:21. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Pharan, and his mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt. 21:22. At the same time Abimelech, and Phicol the general of his army, said to Abraham: God is with thee in all that thou dost. 21:23. Swear therefore by God, that thou wilt not hurt me, nor my posterity, nor my stock: but according to the kindness that I have done to thee, thou shalt do to me, and to the land wherein thou hast lived a stranger. 21:24. And Abraham said: I will swear. 21:25. And he reproved Abimelech for a well of water, which his servants had taken away by force. 21:26. And Abimelech answered: I knew not who did this thing: and thou didst not tell me, and I heard not of it till today. 21:27. Then Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech: and both of them made a league. 21:28. And Abraham set apart seven ewelambs of the flock. 21:29. And Abimelech said to him: What mean these seven ewelambs which thou hast set apart? 21:30. But he said: Thou shalt take seven ewelambs at my hand: that they may be a testimony for me, that I dug this well. 21:31. Therefore that place was called Bersabee; because there both of them did swear. Bersabee. . .That is, the well of oath. 21:32. And they made a league for the well of oath. 21:33. And Abimelech and Phicol, the general of his army, arose and returned to the land of the Palestines. But Abraham planted a grove in Bersabee, and there called upon the name of the Lord God eternal. 21:34. And he was a sojourner in the land of the Palestines many days. Genesis Chapter 22 The faith and obedience of Abraham is proved in his readiness to sacrifice his son Isaac. He is stayed from the act by an angel. Former promises are renewed to him. His brother Nachor's issue. 22:1. After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. God tempted, etc. . .God tempteth no man to evil, James 1.13; but by trial and experiment maketh known to the world, and to ourselves, what we are, as here by this trial the singular faith and obedience of Abraham was made manifest. 22:2. He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision; and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee. 22:3. So Abraham rising up in the night, saddled his ass, and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut wood for the holocaust, he went his way to the place which God had commanded him. 22:4. And on the third day, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar off. 22:5. And he said to his young men: Stay you here with the ass; I and the boy will go with speed as far as yonder, and after we have worshipped, will return to you. 22:6. And he took the wood for the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword. And as they two went on together, 22:7. Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? 22:8. And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son. So they went on together. 22:9. And they came to the place which God had shewn him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it; and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. 22:10. And he put forth his hand, and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. 22:11. And behold, an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him, saying: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. 22:12. And he said to him: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake. 22:13. Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram, amongst the briers, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son. 22:14. And he called the name of that place, The Lord seeth. Whereupon, even to this day, it is said: In the mountain the Lord will see. 22:15. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, saying: 22:16. By my own self have I sworn, saith the Lord: because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake: 22:17. I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore; thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies. 22:18. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. 22:19. Abraham returned to his young men, and they went to Bersabee together, and he dwelt there. 22:20. After these things, it was told Abraham, that Melcha also had borne children to Nachor his brother. 22:21. Hus, the firstborn, and Buz, his brother, and Camuel the father of the Syrians, 22:22. And Cased, and Azau, and Pheldas, and Jedlaph, 22:23. And Bathuel, of whom was born Rebecca: these eight did Melcha bear to Nachor, Abraham's brother. 22:24. And his concubine, named Roma, bore Tabee, and Gaham, and Tahas, and Maacha. Genesis Chapter 23 Sara's death and burial in the field bought of Ephron. 23:1. And Sara lived a hundred and twenty-seven years. 23:2. And she died in the city of Arbee which is Hebron, in the land of Chanaan: and Abraham came to mourn and weep for her. 23:3. And after he rose up from the funeral obsequies, he spoke to the children of Heth, saying: 23:4. I am a stranger and sojourner among you: give me the right of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead. 23:5. The children of Heth answered, saying: 23:6. My lord, hear us, thou art a prince of God among us: bury thy dead in our principal sepulchres: and no man shall have power to hinder thee from burying thy dead in his sepulchre. 23:7. Abraham rose up, and bowed down to the people of the land, to wit, the children of Heth: Bowed down to the people. . .Adoravit, literally adored. But this word here, as well as in many other places in the Latin scriptures, is used to signify only an inferior honour and reverence paid to men, expressed by a bowing down of the body. 23:8. And said to them: If it please your soul that I should bury my dead, hear me, and intercede for me to Ephron the son of Seor. 23:9. That he may give me the double cave, which he hath in the end of his field: For as much money as it is worth he shall give it me before you, for a possession of a burying place. 23:10. Now Ephron dwelt in the midst of the children of Heth. And Ephron made answer to Abraham in the hearing of all that went in at the gate of the city, saying: 23:11. Let it not be so, my lord, but do thou rather hearken to what I say: The field I deliver to thee, and the cave that is therein; in the presence of the children of my people, bury thy dead. 23:12. Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. 23:13. And he spoke to Ephron, in the presence of the people: I beseech thee to hear me: I will give money for the field; take it, and so will I bury my dead in it. 23:14. And Ephron answered: 23:15. My lord, hear me. The ground which thou desirest, is worth four hundred sicles of silver: this is the price between me and thee: but what is this? bury thy dead. 23:16. And when Abraham had heard this, he weighed out the money that Ephron had asked, in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred sicles of silver, of common current money. 23:17. And the field that before was Ephron's, wherein was the double cave, looking towards Mambre, both it and the cave, and all the trees thereof, in all its limits round about, 23:18. Was made sure to Abraham for a possession, in the sight of the children of Heth, and of all that went in at the gate of his city. 23:19. And so Abraham buried Sara, his wife, in the double cave of the field, that looked towards Mambre, this is Hebron in the land of Chanaan. 23:20. And the field was made sure to Abraham, and the cave that was in it, for a possession to bury in, by the children of Heth. Genesis Chapter 24 Abraham's servant, sent by him into Mesopotamia, bringeth from thence Rebecca, who is married to Isaac. 24:1. Now Abraham was old, and advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed him in all things. 24:2. And he said to the elder servant of his house, who was ruler over all he had: Put thy hand under my thigh, 24:3. That I may make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that thou take not a wife for my son, of the daughters of the Chanaanites, among whom I dwell: 24:4. But that thou go to my own country and kindred, and take a wife from thence for my son Isaac. 24:5. The servant answered: If the woman will not come with me into this land, must I bring thy son back again to the place from whence thou camest out? 24:6. And Abraham said: Beware thou never bring my son back again thither. 24:7. The Lord God of heaven, who took me out of my father's house, and out of my native country, who spoke to me, and swore to me, saying: To thy seed will I give this land: he will send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take from thence a wife for my son. He will send his angel before thee. . .This shows that the Hebrews believed that God gave them guardian angels for their protection. 24:8. But if the woman will not follow thee, thou shalt not be bound by the oath: only bring not my son back thither again. 24:9. The servant, therefore, put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his lord, and swore to him upon his word. 24:10. And he took ten camels of his master's herd, and departed, carrying something of all his goods with him, and he set forward and went on to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nachor. 24:11. And when he had made the camels lie down without the town, near a well of water, in the evening, at the time when women are wont to come out to draw water, he said: 24:12. O Lord, the God of my master, Abraham, meet me today, I beseech thee, and shew kindness to my master, Abraham. 24:13. Behold, I stand nigh the spring of water, and the daughters of the inhabitants of this city will come out to draw water: 24:14. Now, therefore, the maid to whom I shall say: Let down thy pitcher that I may drink: and she shall answer, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let it be the same whom thou hast provided for thy servant Isaac: and by this, I shall understand that thou hast shewn kindness to my master. 24:15. He had not yet ended these words within himself, and behold Rebecca came out, the daughter of Bathuel, son of Melcha, wife to Nachor the brother of Abraham, having a pitcher on her shoulder: 24:16. An exceeding comely maid, and a most beautiful virgin, and not known to man: and she went down to the spring, and filled her pitcher, and was coming back. 24:17. And the servant ran to meet her, and said: Give me a little water to drink of thy pitcher. 24:18. And she answered: Drink, my lord. And quickly she let down the pitcher upon her arm, and gave him drink. 24:19. And when he had drunk, she said: I will draw water for thy camels also, till they all drink. 24:20. And pouring out the pitcher into the troughs, she ran back to the well to draw water; and having drawn, she gave to all the camels. 24:21. But he musing, beheld her with silence, desirous to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. 24:22. And after that the camels had drunk, the man took out golden earrings, weighing two sicles; and as many bracelets, of ten sicles weight. 24:23. And he said to her: Whose daughter art thou? tell me: is there any place in thy father's house to lodge? 24:24. And she answered: I am the daughter of Bathuel, the son of Melcha, whom she bore to Nachor. 24:25. And she said, moreover, to him: We have good store of both straw and hay, and a large place to lodge in. 24:26. The man bowed himself down, and adored the Lord, 24:27. Saying: Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not taken away his mercy and truth from my master, and hath brought me the straight way into the house of my master's brother. 24:28. Then the maid ran, and told in her mother's house all that she had heard. 24:29. And Rebecca had a brother, named Laban, who went out in haste to the man, to the well. 24:30. And when he had seen the earrings and bracelets in his sister's hands, and had heard all that she related, saying, Thus and thus the man spoke to me: he came to the man who stood by the camels, and near to the spring of water, 24:31. And said to him: Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; why standest thou without? I have prepared the house, and a place for the camels. 24:32. And he brought him into his lodging; and he unharnessed the camels, and gave straw and hay, and water to wash his feet, and the feet of the men that were come with him. 24:33. And bread was set before him. But he said: I will not eat, till I tell my message. He answered him: Speak. 24:34. And he said: I am the servant of Abraham: 24:35. And the Lord hath blessed my master wonderfully, and he is become great: and he hath given him sheep and oxen, silver and gold, men servants and women servants, camels and asses. 24:36. And Sara, my master's wife, hath borne my master a son in her old age, and he hath given him all that he had. 24:37. And my master made me swear, saying: Thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the Chanaanites, in whose land I dwell: 24:38. But thou shalt go to my father's house, and shalt take a wife of my own kindred for my son: 24:39. But I answered my master: What if the woman will not come with me? 24:40. The Lord, said he, in whose sight I walk, will send his angel with thee, and will direct thy way: and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my own kindred, and of my father's house. 24:41. But thou shalt be clear from my curse, when thou shalt come to my kindred, if they will not give thee one. 24:42. And I came today to the well of water, and said: O Lord God of my master, Abraham, if thou hast prospered my way, wherein I now walk, 24:43. Behold, I stand by the well of water, and the virgin, that shall come out to draw water, who shall hear me say: Give me a little water to drink of thy pitcher: 24:44. And shall say to me: Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman, whom the Lord hath prepared for my master's son. 24:45. And whilst I pondered these things secretly with myself, Rebecca appeared, coming with a pitcher, which she carried on her shoulder: and she went down to the well and drew water. And I said to her: Give me a little to drink. 24:46. And she speedily let down the pitcher from her shoulder, and said to me: Both drink thou, and to thy camels I will give drink. I drank, and she watered the camels. 24:47. And I asked her, and said: Whose daughter art thou? And she answered: I am the daughter of Bathuel, the son of Nachor, whom Melcha bore to him. So I put earrings on her to adorn her face, and I put bracelets on her hands. 24:48. And falling down, I adored the Lord, blessing the Lord God of my master, Abraham, who hath brought me the straight way to take the daughter of my master's brother for his son. 24:49. Wherefore, if you do according to mercy and truth with my master, tell me: but if it please you otherwise, tell me that also, that I may go to the right hand, or to the left. 24:50. And Laban and Bathuel answered: The word hath proceeded from the Lord: we cannot speak any other thing to thee but his pleasure. 24:51. Behold, Rebecca is before thee, take her and go thy way, and let her be the wife of thy master's son, as the Lord hath spoken. 24:52. Which when Abraham's servant heard, falling down to the ground, he adored the Lord. 24:53. And bringing forth vessels of silver and gold, and garments, he gave them to Rebecca, for a present. He offered gifts also to her brothers, and to her mother. 24:54. And a banquet was made, and they ate and drank together, and lodged there. And in the morning, the servant arose, and said: Let me depart, that I may go to my master. 24:55. And her brother and mother answered: Let the maid stay, at least, ten days with us, and afterwards she shall depart. 24:56. Stay me not, said he, because the Lord hath prospered my way: send me away, that I may go to my master. 24:57. And they said: Let us call the maid, and ask her will. Let us call the maid, and ask her will. . .Not as to her marriage, as she had already consented, but of her quitting her parents and going to her husband. 24:58. And they called her, and when she was come, they asked: Wilt thou go with this man? She said: I will go. 24:59. So they sent her away, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his company. 24:60. Wishing prosperity to their sister, and saying: Thou art our sister, mayst thou increase to thousands of thousands; and may thy seed possess the gates of their enemies. 24:61. So Rebecca and her maids, being set upon camels, followed the man: who with speed returned to his master. 24:62. At the same time, Isaac was walking along the way to the well which is called Of the living and the seeing: for he dwelt in the south country: 24:63. And he was gone forth to meditate in the field, the day being now well spent: and when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw camels coming afar off. 24:64. Rebecca also, when she saw Isaac, lighted off the camel, 24:65. And said to the servant: Who is that man who cometh towards us along the field? And he said to her: That man is my master. But she quickly took her cloak, and covered herself. 24:66. And the servant told Isaac all that he had done. 24:67. Who brought her into the tent of Sara his mother, and took her to wife: and he loved her so much, that it moderated the sorrow which was occasioned by his mother's death. Genesis Chapter 25 Abraham's children by Cetura; his death and that of Ismael. Isaac hath Esau and Jacob twins. Esau selleth his first birthright to Jacob. 25:1. And Abraham married another wife named Cetura: 25:2. Who bore him Zamram, and Jecsan, and Madan, and Madian, and Jesboc, and Sue. 25:3. Jecsan also begot Saba, and Dadan. The children of Dadan were Assurim, and Latusim, and Loomim. 25:4. But of Madian was born Epha, and Opher, and Henoch, and Abida, and Eldaa: all these were the children of Cetura. 25:5. And Abraham gave all his possessions to Isaac: 25:6. And to the children of the concubines he gave gifts, and separated them from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, to the east country. Concubines. . .Agar and Cetura are here called concubines, (though they were lawful wives, and in other places are so called,) because they were of an inferior degree, and such in scripture are usually called concubines. 25:7. And the days of Abraham's life were a hundred and seventy-five years. 25:8. And decaying he died in a good old age, and having lived a long time, and being full of days: and was gathered to his people. 25:9. And Isaac and Ismael his sons buried him in the double cave, which was situated in the field of Ephron the son of Seor the Hethite, over against Mambre, 25:10. Which he had bought of the children of Heth: there was he buried, and Sara his wife. 25:11. And after his death, God blessed Isaac his son, who dwelt by the well named Of the living and seeing. 25:12. These are the generations of Ismael the son of Abraham, whom Agar the Egyptian, Sara's servant, bore unto him: 25:13. And these are the names of his children according to their calling and generations. The firstborn of Ismael was Nabajoth, then Cedar, and Adbeel, and Mabsam, 25:14. And Masma, and Duma, and Massa, 25:15. Hadar, and Thema, and Jethur, and Naphis, and Cedma. 25:16. These are the sons of Ismael: and these are their names by their castles and towns, twelve princes of their tribes. 25:17. And the years of Ismael's life were a hundred and thirty-seven, and decaying he died, and was gathered unto his people. 25:18. And he dwelt from Hevila as far as Sur, which looketh towards Egypt, to them that go towards the Assyrians. He died in the presence of all his brethren. 25:19. These also are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac: 25:20. Who when he was forty years old, took to wife Rebecca the daughter of Bathuel the Syrian of Mesopotamia, sister to Laban. 25:21. And Isaac besought the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and he heard him, and made Rebecca to conceive. 25:22. But the children struggled in her womb, and she said: If it were to be so with me, what need was there to conceive? And she went to consult the Lord. 25:23. And he answering, said: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. 25:24. And when her time was come to be delivered, behold twins were found in her womb. 25:25. He that came forth first was red, and hairy like a skin: and his name was called Esau. Immediately the other coming forth, held his brother's foot in his hand: and therefore he was called Jacob. 25:26. Isaac was threescore years old when the children were born unto him. 25:27. And when they were grown up, Esau became a skilful hunter, and a husbandman: but Jacob, a plain man, dwelt in tents. 25:28. Isaac loved Esau, because he ate of his hunting: and Rebecca loved Jacob. 25:29. And Jacob boiled pottage: to whom Esau, coming faint out of the field, 25:30. Said: Give me of this red pottage, for I am exceeding faint. For which reason his name was called Edom. 25:31. And Jacob said to him: Sell me thy first birthright. 25:32. He answered: Lo I die, what will the first birthright avail me? 25:33. Jacob said: Swear therefore to me. Esau swore to him, and sold his first birthright. 25:34. And so taking bread and the pottage of lentils, he ate, and drank, and went on his way; making little account of having sold his first birthright. Genesis Chapter 26 Isaac sojourneth in Gerara, where God reneweth to him the promise made to Abraham. King Abimelech maketh league with him. 26:1. And when a famine came in the land, after that barrenness which had happened in the days of Abraham, Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Palestines, to Gerara. 26:2. And the Lord appeared to him, and said: Go not down into Egypt, but stay in the land that I shall tell thee. 26:3. And sojourn in it, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee: for to thee and to thy seed I will give all these countries, to fulfil the oath which I swore to Abraham thy father. 26:4. And I will multiply thy seed like the stars of heaven: and I will give to thy posterity all these countries: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. 26:5. Because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts and commandments, and observed my ceremonies and laws. 26:6. So Isaac abode in Gerara. 26:7. And when he was asked by the men of that place, concerning his wife, he answered: She is my sister: for he was afraid to confess that she was his wife, thinking lest perhaps they would kill him because of her beauty. 26:8. And when very many days were passed, and he abode there, Abimelech, king of the Palestines, looking out through a window, saw him playing with Rebecca, his wife. 26:9. And calling for him, he said: It is evident she is thy wife: why didst thou feign her to be thy sister? He answered: I feared lest I should die for her sake. 26:10. And Abimelech said: Why hast thou deceived us? Some man of the people might have lain with thy wife, and thou hadst brought upon us a great sin. And he commanded all the people, saying: 26:11. He that shall touch this man's wife, shall surely be put to death. 26:12. And Isaac sowed in that land, and he found that same year a hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. 26:13. And the man was enriched, and he went on prospering and increasing, till he became exceeding great. 26:14. And he had possessions of sheep and of herds, and a very great family. Wherefore the Palestines envying him, 26:15. Stopped up at that time all the wells, that the servants of his father, Abraham, had digged, filling them up with earth: 26:16. Insomuch that Abimelech himself said to Isaac: Depart from us, for thou art become much mightier than we. 26:17. So he departed, and came to the torrent of Gerara, to dwell there: 26:18. And he digged again other wells, which the servants of his father, Abraham, had digged, and which, after his death, the Philistines had of old stopped up: and he called them by the same names, by which his father before had called them. 26:19. And they digged in the torrent, and found living water: Torrent. . .That is, a channel where sometimes a torrent or violent stream had run. 26:20. But there also the herdsmen of Gerara strove against the herdsmen of Isaac, saying: It is our water. Wherefore he called the name of the well, on occasion of that which had happened, Calumny. 26:21. And they digged also another; and for that they quarrelled likewise, and he called the name of it, Enmity. 26:22. Going forward from thence, he digged another well, for which they contended not; therefore he called the name thereof, Latitude, saying: Now hath the Lord given us room, and made us to increase upon the earth. Latitude. . .That is, wideness, or room. 26:23. And he went up from that place to Bersabee, 26:24. Where the Lord appeared to him that same night, saying: I am the God of Abraham thy father, do not fear, for I am with thee: I will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. 26:25. And he built there an altar: and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent; and commanded his servants to dig a well. 26:26. To which place when Abimelech, and Ochozath his friend, and Phicol chief captain of his soldiers, came from Gerara, 26:27. Isaac said to them: Why are ye come to me, a man whom you hate, and have thrust out from you? 26:28. And they answered: We saw that the Lord is with thee, and therefore we said: Let there be an oath between us, and let us make a covenant, 26:29. That thou do us no harm, as we on our part have touched nothing of thine, nor have done any thing to hurt thee; but with peace have sent thee away, increased with the blessing of the Lord. 26:30. And he made them a feast, and after they had eaten and drunk: 26:31. Arising in the morning, they swore one to another: and Isaac sent them away peaceably to their own home. 26:32. And behold, the same day the servants of Isaac came, telling him of a well which they had digged, and saying: We have found water. 26:33. Whereupon he called it Abundance: and the name of the city was called Bersabee, even to this day. 26:34. And Esau being forty years old, married wives, Judith, the daughter of Beeri, the Hethite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon, of the same place. 26:35. And they both offended the mind of Isaac and Rebecca. Genesis Chapter 27 Jacob, by him mother's counsel, obtaineth his father's blessing instead of Esau. And by her is advised to fly to his uncle Laban. 27:1. Now Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see: and he called Esau, his elder son, and said to him: My son? And he answered: Here I am. 27:2. And his father said to him, Thou seest that I am old, and know not the day of my death. 27:3. Take thy arms, thy quiver, and bow, and go abroad; and when thou hast taken something by hunting, 27:4. Make me a savoury meat thereof, as thou knowest I like, and bring it that I may eat: and my soul may bless thee, before I die. 27:5. And when Rebecca had heard this, and he was gone into the field to fulfil his father's commandment, 27:6. She said to her son Jacob: I heard thy father talking with Esau, thy brother, and saying to him: 27:7. Bring me of thy hunting, and make me meats that I may eat, and bless thee in the sight of the Lord, before I die. 27:8. Now therefore, my son, follow my counsel: 27:9. And go thy way to the flock, bring me two kids of the best, that I may make of them meat for thy father, such as he gladly eateth. 27:10. Which when thou hast brought in, and he hath eaten, he may bless thee before he die. 27:11. And he answered her: Thou knowest that Esau, my brother, is a hairy man, and I am smooth: 27:12. If my father should feel me, and perceive it, I fear lest he will think I would have mocked him, and I shall bring upon me a curse instead of a blessing. 27:13. And his mother said to him: Upon me be this curse, my son: only hear thou my voice, and go, fetch me the things which I have said. 27:14. He went, and brought, and gave them to his mother. She dressed meats, such as she knew his father liked. 27:15. And she put on him very good garments of Esau, which she had at home with her: 27:16. And the little skins of the kids she put about his hands, and covered the bare of his neck. 27:17. And she gave him the savoury meat, and delivered him bread that she had baked. 27:18. Which when he had carried in, he said: My father? But he answered: I hear. Who art thou, my son? 27:19. And Jacob said: I am Esau, thy firstborn: I have done as thou didst command me: arise, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. I am Esau thy firstborn. . .St. Augustine (L. Contra mendacium, c. 10), treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal Jews, which Jacob by prophetic light might understand. So far is certain, that the first birthright, both by divine election and by Esau's free cession belonged to Jacob: so that if there were any lie in the case, it could be no more than an officious and venial one. 27:20. And Isaac said to his son: How couldst thou find it so quickly, my son? He answered: It was the will of God, that what I sought came quickly in my way: 27:21. And Isaac said: Come hither, that I may feel thee, my son, and may prove whether thou be my son Esau, or no. 27:22. He came near to his father, and when he had felt him, Isaac said: The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob; but the hands, are the hands of Esau. 27:23. And he knew him not, because his hairy hands made him like to the elder. Then blessing him, 27:24. He said: Art thou my son Esau? He answered: I am. 27:25. Then he said: Bring me the meats of thy hunting, my son, that my soul may bless thee. And when they were brought, and he had eaten, he offered him wine also, which after he had drunk, 27:26. He said to him: Come near me, and give me a kiss, my son. 27:27. He came near, and kissed him. And immediately as he smelled the fragrant smell of his garments, blessing him, he said: Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field, which the Lord hath blessed. 27:28. God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, abundance of corn and wine. 27:29. And let peoples serve thee, and tribes worship thee: be thou lord of thy brethren, and let thy mother's children bow down before thee. Cursed be he that curseth thee: and let him that blesseth thee be filled with blessings. 27:30. Isaac had scarce ended his words, when, Jacob being now gone out abroad, Esau came, 27:31. And brought in to his father meats, made of what he had taken in hunting, saying: Arise, my father, and eat of thy son's venison; that thy soul may bless me. 27:32. And Isaac said to him: Why! who art thou? He answered: I am thy firstborn son, Esau. 27:33. Isaac was struck with fear, and astonished exceedingly; and wondering beyond what can be believed, said: Who is he then that even now brought me venison that he had taken, and I ate of all before thou camest? and I have blessed him, and he shall be blessed. 27:34. Esau having heard his father's words, roared out with a great cry; and, being in a consternation, said: Bless me also, my father. 27:35. And he said: Thy brother came deceitfully and got thy blessing. 27:36. But he said again: Rightly is his name called Jacob; for he hath supplanted me lo this second time: My birthright he took away before, and now this second time he hath stolen away my blessing. And again he said to his father: Hast thou not reserved me also a blessing? Jacob. . .That is, a supplanter. 27:37. Isaac answered: I have appointed him thy lord, and have made all his brethren his servants: I have established him with corn and wine, and after this, what shall I do more for thee, my son? 27:38. And Esau said to him: Hast thou only one blessing, father? I beseech thee bless me also. And when he wept with a loud cry, 27:39. Isaac being moved, said to him: In the fat of the earth, and in the dew of heaven from above, 27:40. Shall thy blessing be. Thou shalt live by the sword, and shalt serve thy brother: and the time shall come, when thou shalt shake off and loose his yoke from thy neck. 27:41. Esau therefore always hated Jacob, for the blessing wherewith his father had blessed him; and he said in his heart: The days will come of the mourning for my father, and I will kill my brother Jacob. 27:42. These things were told to Rebecca: and she sent and called Jacob, her son, and said to him: Behold Esau, thy brother, threateneth to kill thee. 27:43. Now therefore, my son, hear my voice, arise and flee to Laban, my brother, to Haran: 27:44. And thou shalt dwell with him a few days, till the wrath of thy brother be assuaged, 27:45. And his indignation cease, and he forget the things thou hast done to him: afterwards I will send, and bring thee from thence hither. Why shall I be deprived of both my sons in one day? 27:46. And Rebecca said to Isaac: I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the stock of this land, I choose not to live. Genesis Chapter 28 Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia: his vision and vow. 28:1. And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, saying: Take not a wife of the stock of Chanaan: 28:2. But go, and take a journey to Mesopotamia of Syria, to the house of Bathuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife thence of the daughters of Laban, thy uncle. 28:3. And God almighty bless thee, and make thee to increase and multiply thee: that thou mayst be a multitude of people. 28:4. And give the blessings of Araham to thee, and to thy seed after thee: that thou mayst possess the land of thy sojournment, which he promised to thy grandfather. 28:5. And when Isaac had sent him away, he took his journey and went to Mesopotamia of Syria, to Laban, the son of Bathuel, the Syrian, brother to Rebecca, his mother. 28:6. And Esau seeing that his father had blessed Jacob, and had sent him into Mesopotamia of Syria, to marry a wife thence; and that after the blessing he had charged him, saying: Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Chanaan: 28:7. And that Jacob obeying his parents, was gone into Syria: 28:8. Experiencing also, that his father was not well pleased with the daughters of Chanaan: 28:9. He went to Ismael, and took to wife, besides them he had before, Maheleth, the daughter of Ismael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nabajoth. 28:10. But Jacob being departed from Bersabee, went on to Haran. 28:11. And when he was come to a certain place, and would rest in it after sunset, he took of the stones that lay there, and putting under his head, slept in the same place. 28:12. And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven: the angels also of God ascending and descending by it. 28:13. And the Lord leaning upon the ladder saying to him: I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: The land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed. 28:14. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth: thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and IN THEE and thy seed, all the tribes of the earth SHALL BE BLESSED. 28:15. And I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land: neither will I leave thee, till I shall have accomplished all that I have said. 28:16. And when Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said: Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. 28:17. And trembling, he said: How terrible is this place? this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven. 28:18. And Jacob arising in the morning, took the stone which he had laid under his head, and set it up for a title, pouring oil upon the top of it. 28:19. And he called the name of the city Bethel, which before was called Luza. Bethel. . .This name signifies the house of God. 28:20. And he made a vow, saying: If God shall be with me, and shall keep me in the way, by which I walk, and shall give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 28:21. And I shall return prosperously to my father's house: the Lord shall be my God: 28:22. And this stone, which I have set up for a title, shall be called the house of God: and of all things that thou shalt give to me, I will offer tithes to thee. Genesis Chapter 29 Jacob serveth Laban seven years for Rachel: but is deceived with Lia: he afterwards marrieth Rachel. Lia bears him four sons. 29:1. Then Jacob went on in his journey, and came into the east country. 29:2. And he saw a well in the field, and three flocks of sheep lying by it: for the beasts were watered out of it, and the mouth thereof was closed with a great stone. 29:3. And the custom was, when all the sheep were gathered together, to roll away the stone, and after the sheep were watered, to put it on the mouth of the well again. 29:4. And he said to the shepherds: Brethren, whence are you? They answered: Of Haran. 29:5. And he asked them, saying: Know you Laban, the son of Nachor? They said: We know him. 29:6. He said: Is he in health? He is in health, say they: and behold, Rachel, his daughter, cometh with his flock. 29:7. And Jacob said: There is yet much day remaining, neither is it time to bring the flocks into the folds again: first give the sheep drink, and so lead them back to feed. 29:8. They answered: We cannot, till all the cattle be gathered together, and we remove the stone from the well's mouth, that we may water the flocks. 29:9. They were yet speaking, and behold Rachel came with her father's sheep; for she fed the flock. 29:10. And when Jacob saw her, and knew her to be his cousin german, and that they were the sheep of Laban, his uncle: he removed the stone wherewith the well was closed. 29:11. And having watered the flock, he kissed her: and lifting up his voice wept. 29:12. And he told her that he was her father's brother, and the son of Rebecca: but she went in haste and told her father. 29:13. Who, when he heard that Jacob his sister's son was come, ran forth to meet him: and embracing him, and heartily kissing him, brought him into his house. And when he had heard the causes of his journey, 29:14. He answered: Thou art my bone and my flesh. And after the days of one month were expired, 29:15. He said to him: Because thou art my brother, shalt thou serve me without wages? Tell me what wages thou wilt have. 29:16. Now he had two daughters, the name of the elder was Lia; and the younger was called Rachel. 29:17. But Lia was blear-eyed: Rachel was well favoured, and of a beautiful countenance. 29:18. And Jacob being in love with her, said: I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger daughter. 29:19. Laban answered: It is better that I give her to thee than to another man; stay with me. 29:20. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel: and they seemed but a few days, because of the greatness of his love. 29:21. And he said to Laban: Give me my wife; for now the time is fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. 29:22. And he, having invited a great number of his friends to the feast, made the marriage. 29:23. And at night he brought in Lia, his daughter, to him, 29:24. Giving his daughter a handmaid, named Zelpha. Now when Jacob had gone in to her according to custom, when morning was come he saw it was Lia. 29:25. And he said to his father-in-law: What is it that thou didst mean to do? did not I serve thee for Rachel? why hast thou deceived me? 29:26. Laban answered: It is not the custom in this place, to give the younger in marriage first. 29:27. Make up the week of days of this match: and I will give thee her also, for the service that thou shalt render me other seven years. 29:28. He yielded to his pleasure: and after the week was past, he married Rachel: 29:29. To whom her father gave Bala, for her servant. 29:30. And having at length obtained the marriage he wished for, he preferred the love of the latter before the former, and served with him other seven years. 29:31. And the Lord seeing that he despised Lia, opened her womb, but her sister remained barren. 29:32. And she conceived and bore a son, and called his name Ruben, saying: The Lord saw my affliction: now my husband will love me. 29:33. And again she conceived and bore a son, and said: Because the Lord heard that I was despised, he hath given this also to me: and she called his name Simeon. 29:34. And she conceived the third time, and bore another son, and said: Now also my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons: and therefore she called his name Levi. 29:35. The fourth time she conceived and bore a son, and said: Now will I praise the Lord: and for this she called him Juda. And she left bearing. Genesis Chapter 30 Rachel, being barren, delivereth her handmaid to Jacob; she beareth two sons. Lia ceasing to bear, giveth also her handmaid, and she beareth two more. Then Lia beareth other two sons and one daughter. Rachel beareth Joseph. Jacob, desirous to return home, is hired to stay for a certain part of the flock's increase, whereby he becometh exceeding rich. 30:1. And Rachel seeing herself without children, envied her sister, and said to her husband: Give me children, otherwise I shall die. 30:2. And Jacob being angry with her, answered: Am I as God, who hath deprived thee of the fruit of thy womb? 30:3. But she said: I have here my servant Bala: go in unto her, that she may bear upon my knees, and I may have children by her. 30:4. And she gave him Bala in marriage: who, 30:5. When her husband had gone in unto her, conceived and bore a son. 30:6. And Rachel said: The Lord hath judged for me, and hath heard my voice, giving me a son; and therefore she called his name Dan. 30:7. And again Bala conceived, and bore another, 30:8. For whom Rachel said: God hath compared me with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called him Nephthali. 30:9. Lia perceiving that she had left of bearing, gave Zelpha, her handmaid, to her husband. 30:10. And when she had conceived, and brought forth a son, 30:11. She said: Happily. And therefore called his name Gad. 30:12. Zelpha also bore another. 30:13. And Lia said: This is for my happiness: for women will call me blessed. Therefore she called him Aser. 30:14. And Ruben going out in the time of the wheat harvest into the field, found mandrakes: which he brought to his mother Lia. And Rachel said: Give me part of thy son's mandrakes. 30:15. She answered: Dost thou think it a small matter, that thou hast taken my husband from me, unless thou take also my son's mandrakes? Rachel said: He shall sleep with thee this night, for thy son's mandrakes. 30:16. And when Jacob returned at even from the field, Lia went out to meet him, and said: Thou shalt come in unto me, because I have hired thee for my son's mandrakes. And he slept with her that night. 30:17. And God heard her prayers; and she conceived: and bore a fifth son: 30:18. And said: God hath given me a reward, because I gave my handmaid to my husband. And she called his name Issachar. 30:19. And Lia conceived again, and bore the sixth son, 30:20. And said: God hath endowed me with a good dowry; this turn also my husband will be with me, because I have borne him six sons: and therefore she called his name Zabulon. 30:21. After whom she bore a daughter, named Dina. 30:22. The Lord also remembering Rachel, heard her, and opened her womb. 30:23. And she conceived, and bore a son, saying: God hath taken away my reproach. 30:24. And she called his name Joseph: saying: The Lord give me also another son. 30:25. And when Joseph was born, Jacob said to his father-in-law: Send me away, that I may return into my country, and to my land. 30:26. Give me my wives, and my children, for whom I have served thee, that I may depart: thou knowest the service that I have rendered thee. 30:27. Laban said to him: Let me find favour in thy sight: I have learned, by experience, that God hath blessed me for thy sake. 30:28. Appoint thy wages which I shall give thee. 30:29. But he answered: Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how great thy possession hath been in my hands. 30:30. Thou hadst but little before I came to thee, and now thou art become rich: and the Lord hath blessed thee at my coming. It is reasonable, therefore, that I should now provide also for my own house. 30:31. And Laban said: What shall I give thee? But he said: I require nothing; but if thou wilt do what I demand, I will feed and keep thy sheep again. 30:32. Go round through all thy flocks, and separate all the sheep of divers colours, and speckled; and all that is brown and spotted, and of divers colours, as well among the sheep as among the goats, shall be my wages. 30:33. And my justice shall answer for me tomorrow before thee, when the time of the bargain shall come; and all that is not of divers colours, and spotted, and brown, as well among the sheep as among the goats, shall accuse me of theft. 30:34. And Laban said: I like well what thou demandest. 30:35. And he separated the same day the she-goats, and the sheep, and the he-goats, and the rams of divers colours, and spotted; and all the flock of one colour, that is, of white and black fleece, he delivered into the hands of his sons. 30:36. And he set the space of three days journey betwixt himself and his son-in-law, who fed the rest of his flock. 30:37. And Jacob took green rods of poplar, and of almond, and of plane-trees, and pilled them in part: so when the bark was taken off, in the parts that were pilled, there appeared whiteness: but the parts that were whole, remained green: and by this means the colour was divers. 30:38. And he put them in the troughs, where the water was poured out; that when the flocks should come to drink, they might have the rods before their eyes, and in the sight of them might conceive. 30:39. And it came to pass, that in the very heat of coition, the sheep beheld the rods, and brought forth spotted, and of divers colours, and speckled. 30:40. And Jacob separated the flock, and put the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the rams; and all the white and the black were Laban's, and the rest were Jacob's, when the flocks were separated one from the other. 30:41. So when the ewes went first to ram, Jacob put the rods in the troughs of water before the eyes of the rams, and of the ewes, that they might conceive while they were looking upon them. 30:42. But when the later coming was, and the last conceiving, he did not put them. And those that were lateward, became Laban's; and they of the first time, Jacob's. 30:43. And the man was enriched exceedingly, and he had many flocks, maid-servants and men-servants, camels and asses. Genesis Chapter 31 Jacob's departure: he is pursued and overtaken by Laban. They make a covenant. 31:1. But after that he had heard the words of the sons of Laban, saying: Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's, and being enriched by his substance is become great. 31:2. And perceiving also, that Laban's countenance was not towards him as yesterday and the other day. 31:3. Especially the Lord saying to him: Return into the land of thy fathers and to thy kindred, and I will be with thee. 31:4. He sent, and called Rachel and Lia into the field, where he fed the flocks, 31:5. And said to them: I see your father's countenance is not towards me as yesterday and the other day: but the God of my father hath been with me. 31:6. And you know that I have served your father to the uttermost of my power. 31:7. Yea your father hath also overreached me, and hath changed my wages ten times: and yet God hath not suffered him to hurt me. 31:8. If at any time, he said: The speckled shall be thy wages: all the sheep brought forth speckled: but when he said on the contrary: Thou shalt take all the white one for thy wages: all the flocks brought forth white ones. 31:9. And God hath taken your father's substance, and given it to me. 31:10. For after the time came of the ewes conceiving, I lifted up my eyes, and saw in my sleep, that the males which leaped upon the females were of divers colours, and spotted, and speckled. 31:11. And the angel of God said to me in my sleep: Jacob. And I answered: Here I am. 31:12. And he said: Lift up thy eyes, and see that all the males leaping upon the females, are of divers colours, spotted and speckled. For I have seen all that Laban hath done to thee. 31:13. I am the God of Bethel, where thou didst anoint the stone, and make a vow to me. Now therefore arise, and go out of this land, and return into thy native country. 31:14. And Rachel and Lia answered: Have we any thing left among the goods and inheritance of our father's house? 31:15. Hath he not counted us as strangers, and sold us, and eaten up the price of us? 31:16. But God hath taken our father's riches, and delivered them to us, and to our children: wherefore, do all that God hath commanded thee. 31:17. Then Jacob rose up, and having set his children and wives upon camels, went his way. 31:18. And he took all his substance, and flocks, and whatsoever he had gotten in Mesopotamia, and went forward to Isaac, his father, to the land of Chanaan. 31:19. At that time Laban was gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole away her father's idols. Her father's idols. . .By this it appears that Laban was an idolater; and some of the fathers are of opinion that Rachel stole away these idols to withdraw him from idolatry, removing the occasion of his sin. 31:20. And Jacob would not confess to his father-in-law that he was flying away. 31:21. And when he was gone, together with all that belonged to him, and having passed the river, was going on towards mount Galaad, 31:22. It was told Laban on the third day, that Jacob fled. 31:23. And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days; and overtook him in the mount of Galaad. 31:24. And he saw in a dream God, saying to him: Take heed thou speak not any thing harshly against Jacob. 31:25. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain: and when he, with his brethren, had overtaken him, he pitched his tent in the same mount of Galaad. 31:26. And he said to Jacob: Why hast thou done thus, to carry away, without my knowledge, my daughters as captives taken with the sword? 31:27. Why wouldst thou run away privately, and not acquaint me, that I might have brought thee on the way with joy, and with songs, and with timbrels, and with harps? 31:28. Thou hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and daughters; thou hast done foolishly; and now indeed, 31:29. It is in my power to return thee evil; but the God of your father said to me yesterday: Take heed thou speak not any thing harshly against Jacob. 31:30. Suppose thou didst desire to go to thy friends, and hadst a longing after thy father's house: why hast thou stolen away my gods? 31:31. Jacob answered: That I departed unknown to thee, it was for fear lest thou wouldst take away thy daughters by force. 31:32. But, whereas, thou chargest me with theft: with whomsoever thou shalt find thy gods, let him be slain before our brethren. Search, and if thou find any of thy things with me, take them away. Now when he said this, he knew not that Rachel had stolen the idols. 31:33. So Laban went into the tent of Jacob, and of Lia, and of both the handmaids, and found them not. And when he was entered into Rachel's tent, 31:34. She, in haste, hid the idols under the camel's furniture, and sat upon them: and when he had searched all the tent, and found nothing, 31:35. She said: Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before thee, because it has now happened to me according to the custom of women. So his careful search was in vain. 31:36. And Jacob being angry, said in a chiding manner: For what fault of mine, and for what offence on my part hast thou so hotly pursued me, 31:37. And searched all my household stuff? What hast thou found of all the substance of thy house? lay it here before my brethren, and thy brethren, and let them judge between me and thee. 31:38. Have I, therefore, been with thee twenty years? thy ewes and goats were not barren, the rams of thy flocks I did not eat: 31:39. Neither did I shew thee that which the beast had torn; I made good all the damage: whatsoever was lost by theft, thou didst exact it of me: 31:40. Day and night was I parched with heat, and with frost, and sleep departed from my eyes. 31:41. And in this manner have I served thee in thy house twenty years, fourteen for thy daughters, and six for thy flocks: thou hast changed also my wages ten times. 31:42. Unless the God of my father, Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had stood by me, peradventure now thou hadst sent me away naked: God beheld my affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesterday. 31:43. Laban answered him: The daughters are mine, and the children, and thy flocks, and all things that thou seest are mine: what can I do to my children, and grandchildren? 31:44. Come, therefore, let us enter into a league; that it may be for a testimony between me and thee. 31:45. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a title. 31:46. And he said to his brethren: Bring hither stones. And they, gathering stones together, made a heap, and they ate upon it. 31:47. And Laban called it, The witness heap; and Jacob, The hillock of testimony: each of them according to the propriety of his language. 31:48. And Laban said: This heap shall be a witness between me and thee this day, and therefore the name thereof was called Galaad, that is, The witness heap. 31:49. The Lord behold and judge between us, when we shall be gone one from the other. 31:50. If thou afflict my daughters, and if thou bring in other wives over them: none is witness of our speech but God, who is present and beholdeth. 31:51. And he said again to Jacob: Behold this heap, and the stone which I have set up between me and thee, 31:52. Shall be a witness: this heap, I say, and the stone, be they for a testimony, if either I shall pass beyond it going towards thee, or thou shalt pass beyond it thinking harm to me. 31:53. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nachor, the God of their father, judge between us. And Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac: 31:54. And after he had offered sacrifices in the mountain, he called his brethren to eat bread. And when they had eaten, they lodged there: 31:55. But Laban arose in the night, and kissed his sons and daughters, and blessed them: and returned to his place. Genesis Chapter 32 Jacob's vision of angels; his message and presents to Esau; his wrestling with an angel. 32:1. Jacob also went on the journey he had begun: and the angels of God met him. 32:2. And when he saw them, he said: These are the camps of God, and he called the name of that place Mahanaim, that is, Camps. 32:3. And he sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, to the country of Edom: 32:4. And he commanded them, saying: Thus shall ye speak to my lord Esau: Thus saith thy brother Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and have been with him until this day: 32:5. I have oxen, and asses, and sheep, and menservants, and womenservants: and now I send a message to my lord, that I may find favour in thy sight. 32:6. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: We came to Esau, thy brother, and behold he cometh with speed to meet thee with four hundred men. 32:7. Then Jacob was greatly afraid; and in his fear divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and the sheep, and the oxen, and the camels, into two companies, 32:8. Saying: If Esau come to one company, and destroy it, the other company that is left, shall escape. 32:9. And Jacob said: O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac: O Lord who saidst to me, Return to thy land, and to the place of thy birth, and I will do well for thee. 32:10. I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies, and of thy truth which thou hast fulfilled to thy servant. With my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I return with two companies. 32:11. Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am greatly afraid of him; lest perhaps he come, and kill the mother with the children. 32:12. Thou didst say, that thou wouldst do well by me, and multiply my seed like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. 32:13. And when he had slept there that night, he set apart, of the things which he had, presents for his brother Esau, 32:14. Two hundred she-goats, twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, 32:15. Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and twenty bulls, twenty she-asses, and ten of their foals. 32:16. And he sent them by the hands of his servants, every drove by itself, and he said to his servants: Go before me, and let there be a space between drove and drove. 32:17. And he commanded the first, saying: If thou meet my brother Esau, and he ask thee: Whose art thou? or whither goest thou? or whose are these before thee? 32:18. Thou shalt answer: Thy servant Jacob's: he hath sent them as a present to my lord Esau; and he cometh after us. 32:19. In like manner he commanded the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying: Speak ye the same words to Esau, when ye find him. 32:20. And ye shall add: Thy servant Jacob himself also followeth after us; for he said: I will appease him with the presents that go before, and afterwards I will see him, perhaps he will be gracious to me. 32:21. So the presents went before him, but himself lodged that night in the camp. 32:22. And rising early, he took his two wives and his two handmaids, with his eleven sons, and passed over the ford of Jaboc. 32:23. And when all things were brought over that belonged to him, 32:24. He remained alone; and behold, a man wrestled with him till morning. A man, etc. . .This was an angel in human shape, as we learn from Osee 12.4. He is called God, ver. 28 and 30, because he represented the person of the Son of God. This wrestling, in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an angel, was so ordered (ver. 28,) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine assistance, that neither Esau, nor any other man, should have power to hurt him.--It was also spiritual, as appeareth by his earnest prayer, urging and at last obtaining the angel's blessing. 32:25. And when he saw that he could not overcome him, he touched the sinew of his thigh, and forthwith it shrank. 32:26. And he said to him: Let me go, for it is break of day. He answered: I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 32:27. And he said: What is thy name? He answered: Jacob. 32:28. But he said: Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel; for if thou hast been strong against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men? 32:29. Jacob asked him: Tell me by what name art thou called? He answered: Why dost thou ask my name? And he blessed him in the same place. 32:30. And Jacob called the name of the place Phanuel, saying: I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved. Phanuel. . .This word signifies the face of God, or the sight, or seeing of God. 32:31. And immediately the sun rose upon him, after he was past Phanuel; but he halted on his foot. 32:32. Therefore the children of Israel, unto this day, eat not the sinew, that shrank in Jacob's thigh: because he touched the sinew of his thigh and it shrank. Genesis Chapter 33 Jacob and Esau meet: Jacob goeth to Salem, where he raiseth an altar. 33:1. And Jacob lifting up his eyes, saw Esau coming, and with him four hundred men: and he divided the children of Lia and of Rachel, and of the two handmaids. 33:2. And he put both the handmaids and their children foremost: and Lia and her children in the second place: and Rachel and Joseph last. 33:3. And he went forward and bowed down with his face to the ground seven times, until his brother came near. 33:4. Then Esau ran to meet his brother, and embraced him: and clasping him fast about the neck, and kissing him, wept. 33:5. And lifting up his eyes, he saw the women and their children, and said: What mean these? And do they belong to thee? He answered: They are the children which God hath given to me, thy servant. 33:6. Then the handmaids and their children came near and bowed themselves. 33:7. Lia also, with her children, came near and bowed down in like manner; and last of all, Joseph and Rachel bowed down. 33:8. And Esau said: What are the droves that I met? He answered: That I might find favour before my lord. 33:9. But he said: I have plenty, my brother, keep what is thine for thyself. 33:10. And Jacob said: Do not so I beseech thee, but if I have found favour in thy eyes, receive a little present at my hands: for I have seen thy face, as if I should have seen the countenance of God: be gracious to me, 33:11. And take the blessing which I have brought thee, and which God hath given me, who giveth all things. He took it with much ado at his brother's earnest pressing him, 33:12. And said: Let us go on together, and I will accompany thee in thy journey. 33:13. And Jacob said: My lord, thou knowest that I have with me tender children, and sheep, and kine with young: which if I should cause to be overdriven, in one day all the flocks will die. 33:14. May it please my lord to go before his servant: and I will follow softly after him, as I shall see my children to be able, until I come to my lord in Seir. 33:15. Esau answered: I beseech thee, that some of the people, at least, who are with me, may stay to accompany thee in the way. And he said: There is no necessity: I want nothing else but only to find favour, my lord, in thy sight. 33:16. So Esau returned that day, the way that he came, to Seir. 33:17. And Jacob came to Socoth: where having built a house, and pitched tents, he called the name of the place Socoth, that is, Tents. 33:18. And he passed over to Salem, a city of the Sichemites, which is in the land of Chanaan, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria: and he dwelt by the town. 33:19. And he bought that part of the field, in which he pitched his tents, of the children of Hemor, the father of Sichem, for a hundred lambs. 33:20. And raising an altar there, he invoked upon it the most mighty God of Israel. Genesis Chapter 34 Dina is ravished, for which the Sichemites are destroyed. 34:1. And Dina the daughter of Lia went out to see the women of that country. 34:2. And when Sichem the son of Hemor the Hevite, the prince of that land, saw her, he was in love with her: and took her away, and lay with her, ravishing the virgin. 34:3. And his soul was fast knit unto her; and whereas she was sad, he comforted her with sweet words. 34:4. And going to Hemor his father, he said: Get me this damsel to wife. 34:5. But when Jacob had heard this, his sons being absent, and employed in feeding the cattle, he held his peace till they came back. 34:6. And when Hemor the father of Sichem was come out to speak to Jacob, 34:7. Behold his sons came from the field: and hearing what had passed, they were exceeding angry, because he had done a foul thing in Israel, and committed an unlawful act, in ravishing Jacob's daughter. 34:8. And Hemor spoke to them: The soul of my son Sichem has a longing for your daughter: give her him to wife: 34:9. And let us contract marriages one with another: give us your daughters, and take you our daughters. 34:10. And dwell with us: the land is at your command, till, trade, and possess it. 34:11. Sichem also said to her father and to her brethren: Let me find favour in your sight, and whatsoever you shall appoint I will give: 34:12. Raise the dowry, and ask gifts, and I will gladly give what you shall demand: only give me this damsel to wife. 34:13. The sons of Jacob answered Sichem and his father deceitfully, being enraged at the deflowering of their sister: Deceitfully. . .The sons of Jacob, on this occasion, were guilty of a grievous sin, as well by falsely pretending religion, as by excess of revenge: though otherwise their zeal against so foul a crime was commendable. 34:14. We cannot do what you demand, nor give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; which with us is unlawful and abominable. 34:15. But in this we may be allied with you, if you will be like us, and all the male sex among you be circumcised: 34:16. Then will we mutually give and take your daughters, and ours; and we will dwell with you, and will be one people: 34:17. But if you will not be circumcised, we will take our daughter and depart. 34:18. Their offer pleased Hemor, and Sichem, his son: 34:19. And the young man made no delay, but forthwith fulfilled what was required: for he loved the damsel exceedingly, and he was the greatest man in all his father's house. 34:20. And going into the gate of the city, they spoke to the people: 34:21. These men are peaceable, and are willing to dwell with us: let them trade in the land, and till it, which being large and wide wanteth men to till it: we shall take their daughters for wives, and we will give them ours. 34:22. One thing there is for which so great a good is deferred: We must circumcise every male among us, following the manner of the nation. 34:23. And their substance, and cattle, and all that they possess, shall be ours; only in this let us condescend, and by dwelling together, we shall make one people. 34:24. And they all agreed, and circumcised all the males. 34:25. And behold the third day, when the pain of the wound was greatest: two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, the brothers of Dina, taking their swords, entered boldly into the city and slew all the men. 34:26. And they killed also Hemor and Sichem, and took away their sister Dina out of Sichem's house. 34:27. And when they were gone out, the other sons of Jacob came upon the slain; and plundered the city in revenge of the rape. 34:28. And they took their sheep, and their herds, and their asses, wasting all they had in their houses and in their fields. 34:29. And their children and wives they took captive. 34:30. And when they had boldly perpetrated these things, Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: You have troubled me, and made me hateful to the Chanaanites and Pherezites, the inhabitants of this land. We are few: they will gather themselves together and kill me; and both I, and my house shall be destroyed. 34:31. They answered: Should they abuse our sister as a strumpet? Genesis Chapter 35 Jacob purgeth his family from idols: goeth by God's commandment to Bethel, and there buildeth an altar. God appearing again to Jacob blesseth him, and changeth his name into Israel. Rachel dieth in childbirth. Isaac also dieth. 35:1. In the mean time God said to Jacob: Arise and go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar to God, who appeared to thee when thou didst flee from Esau, thy brother. 35:2. And Jacob having called together all his household, said: Cast away the strange gods that are among you, and be cleansed, and change your garments. 35:3. Arise, and let us go up to Bethel, that we may make there an altar to God; who heard me in the day of my affliction, and accompained me in my journey. 35:4. So they gave him all the strange gods they had, and the earrings which were in their ears: and he buried them under the turpentine tree, that is behind the city of Sichem. 35:5. And when they were departed, the terror of God fell upon all the cities round about, and they durst not pursue after them as they went away. 35:6. And Jacob came to Luza, which is in the land of Chanaan, surnamed Bethel: he and all the people that were with him. 35:7. And he built there an altar, and called the name of that place, The house of God: for there God appeared to him when he fled from his brother. 35:8. At the same time Debora, the nurse of Rebecca, died, and was buried at the foot of Bethel, under an oak, and the name of that place was called, The oak of weeping. 35:9. And God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and he blessed him, 35:10. Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called him Israel. Israel. . .This name signifieth one that prevaileth with God. 35:11. And said to him: I am God almighty, increase thou and be multiplied. Nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. 35:12. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee. 35:13. And he departed from him. 35:14. But he set up a monument of stone, in the place where God had spoken to him: pouring drink-offerings upon it, and pouring oil thereon: 35:15. And calling the name of that place Bethel. 35:16. And going forth from thence, he came in the spring time to the land which leadeth to Ephrata: wherein when Rachel was in travail, 35:17. By reason of her hard labour, she began to be in danger, and the midwife said to her: Fear not, for thou shalt have this son also. 35:18. And when her soul was departing for pain, and death was now at hand, she called the name of her son Benoni, that is, the son of my pain: but his father called him Benjamin, that is, the son of the right hand. 35:19. So Rachel died, and was buried in the highway that leadeth to Ephrata, this is Bethlehem. 35:20. And Jacob erected a pillar over her sepulchre: this is the pillar of Rachel's monument, to this day. 35:21. Departing thence, he pitched his tent beyond the Flock tower. 35:22. And when he dwelt in that country, Ruben went, and slept with Bala the concubine of his father: which he was not ignorant of. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The concubine. . .She was his lawful wife; but, according to the style of the Hebrews, is called concubine, because of her servile extraction. 35:23. The sons of Lia: Ruben the first born, and Simeon, and Levi, and Juda, and Issachar, and Zabulon. 35:24. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. 35:25. The sons of Bala, Rachel's handmaid: Dan and Nephthali. 35:26. The sons of Zelpha, Lia's handmaid: Gad and Aser: these are the sons of Jacob, that were born to him in Mesopotamia of Syria. 35:27. And he came to Isaac his father in Mambre, the city of Arbee, this is Hebron: wherein Abraham and Isaac sojourned. 35:28. And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years. 35:29. And being spent with age he died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. Genesis Chapter 36 Esau with his wives and children parteth from Jacob. An account of his descendants, and of the first kings of Edom. 36:1. And these are the generations of Esau, the same is Edom. 36:2. Esau took wives of the daughters of Chanaan: Ada the daughter of Elon the Hethite, and Oolibama the daughter of Ana, the daughter of Sebeon the Hevite: Ada. . .These wives of Esau are called by other names, Gen. 26. But it was very common amongst the ancients for the same persons to have two names, as Esau himself was also called Edom. 36:3. And Basemath, the daughter of Ismael, sister of Nabajoth. 36:4. And Ada bore Eliphaz: Basemath bore Rahuel. 36:5. Oolibama bore Jehus, and Ihelon, and Core. These are the sons of Esau, that were born to him in the land of Chanaan. 36:6. And Esau took his wives, and his sons and daughters, and every soul of his house, and his substance, and cattle, and all that he was able to acquire in the land of Chanaan: and went into another country, and departed from his brother Jacob. 36:7. For they were exceeding rich, and could not dwell together: neither was the land in which they sojourned able to bear them, for the multitude of their flocks. 36:8. And Esau dwelt in mount Seir: he is Edom. 36:9. And these are the generations of Esau, the father of Edom, in mount Seir. 36:10. And these the names of his sons: Eliphaz the son of Ada, the wife of Esau: and Rahuel, the son of Basemath, his wife. 36:11. And Eliphaz had sons: Theman, Omar, Sepho, and Gatham and Cenez. 36:12. And Thamna was the concubine of Eliphaz, the son of Esau: and she bore him Amalech. These are the sons of Ada, the wife of Esau. 36:13. And the sons of Rahuel were Nahath and Zara, Samma and Meza. These were the sons of Basemath, the wife of Esau. 36:14. And these were the sons of Oolibama, the daughter of Ana, the daughter of Sebeon, the wife of Esau, whom she bore to him, Jehus, and Ihelon, and Core. 36:15. These were dukes of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau: duke Theman, duke Omar, duke Sepho, duke Cenez, 36:16. Duke Core, duke Gatham, duke Amalech: these are the sons of Eliphaz, in the land of Edom, and these the sons of Ada. 36:17. And these were the sons of Rahuel, the son of Esau: duke Nahath, duke Zara, duke Samma, duke Meza. And these are the dukes of Rahuel, in the land of Edom: these the sons of Basemath, the wife of Esau. 36:18. And these the sons of Oolibama, the wife of Esau: duke Jehus, duke Ihelon, duke Core. These are the dukes of Oolibama, the daughter of Ana, and wife of Esau. 36:19. These are the sons of Esau, and these the dukes of them: the same is Edom. 36:20. These are the sons of Seir, the Horrite, the inhabitants of the land: Lotan, and Sobal, and Sebeon, and Ana, 36:21. And Dison, and Eser, and Disan. These are dukes of the Horrites, the sons of Seir, in the land of Edom. 36:22. And Lotan had sons: Hori and Heman. And the sister of Lotan was Thamna. 36:23. And these the sons of Sobal: Alvan, and Manahat, and Ebal, and Sepho, and Onam. 36:24. And these the sons of Sebeon: Aia and Ana. This is Ana that found the hot waters in the wilderness, when he fed the asses of Sebeon, his father: 36:25. And he had a son Dison, and a daughter Oolibama. 36:26. And these were the sons of Dison: Hamdan, and Eseban, and Jethram, and Charan. 36:27. These also were the sons of Eser: Balaan, and Zavan, and Acan. 36:28. And Dison had sons: Hus and Aram. 36:29. These were dukes of the Horrites: duke Lotan, duke Sobal, duke Sebeon, duke Ana, 36:30. Duke Dison, duke Eser, duke Disan: these were dukes of the Horrites that ruled in the land of Seir. 36:31. And the kings that ruled in the land of Edom, before the children of Israel had a king, were these: 36:32. Bela the son of Beor, and the name of his city Denaba. 36:33. And Bela died, and Jobab, the son of Zara, of Bosra, reigned in his stead. 36:34. And when Jobab was dead, Husam, of the land of the Themanites, reigned in his stead. 36:35. And after his death, Adad, the son of Badad, reigned in his stead, who defeated the Madianites in the country of Boab; and the name of his city was Avith. 36:36. And when Adad was dead, there reigned in his stead, Semla, of Masreca. 36:37. And he being dead, Saul, of the river Rohoboth, reigned in his stead. 36:38. And when he also was dead, Balanan, the son of Achobor, succeeded to the kingdom. 36:39. This man also being dead, Adar reigned in his place; and the name of his city was Phau: and his wife was called Meetabel, the daughter of Matred, daughter of Mezaab. 36:40. And these are the names of the dukes of Esau in their kindreds, and places, and callings: duke Thamna, duke Alva, duke Jetheth, 36:41. Duke Oolibama, duke Ela, duke Phinon, 36:42. Duke Cenez, duke Theman, duke Mabsar, 36:43. Duke Magdiel, duke Hiram: these are the dukes of Edom dwelling in the land of their government; the same is Esau, the father of the Edomites. Genesis Chapter 37 Joseph's dreams: he is sold by his brethren, and carried into Egypt. 37:1. And Jacob dwelt in the land of Chanaan, wherein his father sojourned. 37:2. And these are his generations: Joseph, when he was sixteen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, being but a boy: and he was with the sons of Bala and of Zelpha his father's wives: and he accused his brethren to his father of a most wicked crime. 37:3. Now Israel loved Joseph above all his sons, because he had him in his old age: and he made him a coat of divers colours. 37:4. And his brethren seeing that he was loved by his father, more than all his sons, hated hem, and could not speak peaceably to him. 37:5. Now it fell out also that he told his brethren a dream, that he had dreamed: which occasioned them to hate him the more. A dream. . .These dreams of Joseph were prophetical, and sent from God; as were also those which he interpreted, Gen. 40. and 41.; otherwise generally speaking, the observing of dreams is condemned in the Scripture, as superstitious and sinful. See Deut. 18.10; Eccli. 34.2,3. 37:6. And he said to them: Hear my dream which I dreamed. 37:7. I thought we were binding sheaves in the field: and my sheaf arose as it were, and stood, and your sheaves standing about bowed down before my sheaf. 37:8. His brethren answered: Shalt thou be our king? or shall we be subject to thy dominion? Therefore this matter of his dreams and words ministered nourishment to their envy and hatred. 37:9. He dreamed also another dream, which he told his brethren, saying: I saw in a dream, as it were the sun, and the moon, and eleven stars worshipping me. 37:10. And when he had told this to his father, and brethren, his father rebuked him and said: What meaneth this dream that thou hast dreamed? shall I and thy mother, and thy brethren worship thee upon the earth? Worship. . .This word is not used here to signify divine worship, but an inferior veneration, expressed by the bowing of the body, and that, according to the manner of the eastern nations, down to the ground. 37:11. His brethren therefore envied him: but his father considered the thing with himself. 37:12. And when his brethren abode in Sechem, feeding their father's flocks, 37:13. Israel said to him: Thy brethren feed the sheep in Sichem: come, I will send thee to them. And when he answered: 37:14. I am ready: he said to him: Go, and see if all things be well with thy brethren, and the cattle: and bring me word again what is doing. So being sent from the vale of Hebron, he came to Sichem: 37:15. And a man found him there wandering in the field, and asked what he sought. 37:16. But he answered: I seek my brethren, tell me where they feed the flocks. 37:17. And the man said to him: They are departed from this place: for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothain. And Joseph went forward after his brethren, and found them in Dothain. 37:18. And when they saw him afar off, before he came nigh them, they thought to kill him: 37:19. And said one to another: Behold the dreamer cometh. 37:20. Come, let us kill him, and cast him into some old pit: and we will say: Some evil beast hath devoured him: and then it shall appear what his dreams avail him: 37:21. And Ruben hearing this, endeavoured to deliver him out of their hands, and said: 37:22. Do not take away his life, nor shed his blood: but cast him into this pit, that is in the wilderness, and keep your hands harmless: now he said this, being desirous to deliver him out of their hands and to restore him to his father. 37:23. And as soon as he came to his brethren, they forthwith stript him of his outside coat, that was of divers colours: 37:24. And cast him into an old pit where there was not water. 37:25. And sitting down to eat bread, they saw some Ismaelites on their way coming from Galaad, with their camels, carrying spices, and balm, and myrrh to Egypt. 37:26. And Juda said to his brethren: What will it profit us to kill our brother, and conceal his blood? 37:27. It is better that he be sold to the Ismaelites, and that our hands be not defiled: for he is our brother and our flesh. His brethren agreed to his words. 37:28. And when the Madianite merchants passed by, they drew him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ismaelites, for twenty pieces of silver: and they led him into Egypt. 37:29. And Ruben returning to the pit, found not the boy: 37:30. And rending his garments he went to his brethren, and said: The boy doth not appear, and whither shall I go? 37:31. And they took his coat, and dipped it in the blood of a kid, which they had killed: 37:32. Sending some to carry it to their father, and to say: This we have found: see whether it be thy son's coat, or not. 37:33. And the father acknowledging it, said: It is my son's coat, an evil wild beast hath eaten him, a beast hath devoured Joseph. 37:34. And tearing his garments, he put on sackcloth, mourning for his son a long time. 37:35. And all his children being gathered together to comfort their father in his sorrow, he would not receive comfort, but said: I will go down to my son into hell, mourning. And whilst he continued weeping, Into hell. . .That is, into limbo, the place where the souls of the just were received before the death of our Redeemer. For allowing that the word hell sometimes is taken for the grave, it cannot be so taken in this place; since Jacob did not believe his son to be in the grave, (whom he supposed to be devoured by a wild beast,) and therefore could not mean to go down to him thither: but certainly meant the place of rest where he believed his soul to be. 37:36. The Madianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Putiphar, an eunuch of Pharao, captain of the soldiers. An eunuch. . .This word sometimes signifies a chamberlain, courtier, or officer of the king: and so it is taken in this place. Genesis Chapter 38 The sons of Juda: the death of Her and Onan: the birth of Phares and Zara. 38:1. At that time Juda went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Odollamite, named Hiras. 38:2. And he saw there the daughter of a man of Chanaan, called Sue: and taking her to wife, he went in unto her. 38:3. And she conceived, and bore a son, and called his name Her. 38:4. And conceiving again, she bore a son, and called him Onan. 38:5. She bore also a third: whom she called Sela. After whose birth, she ceased to bear any more. 38:6. And Juda took a wife for Her, his first born, whose name was Thamar. 38:7. And Her, the first born of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord: and was slain by him. 38:8. Juda, therefore, said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother's wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother. 38:9. He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother's wife, he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother's name. 38:10. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing: 38:11. Wherefore Juda said to Thamar his daughter-in-law: Remain a widow in thy father's house, till Sela my son grow up: for he was afraid lest he also might die, as his brethren did. She went her way, and dwelt in her father's house. 38:12. And after many days were past: the daughter of Sue the wife of Juda died: and when he had taken comfort after his mourning, he went up to Thamnas, to the shearers of his sheep, he and Hiras the Odollamite, the shepherd of his flock. 38:13. And it was told Thamar that her father-in-law was come up to Thamnas to shear his sheep. 38:14. And she put off the garments of her widowhood, and took a veil: and changing her dress, sat in the cross way, that leadeth to Thamnas: because Sela was grown up, and she had not been married to him. 38:15. When Juda saw her, he thought she was a harlot: for she had covered her face, lest she should be known. 38:16. And going to her, he said: Suffer me to lie with thee: for he knew her not to be his daughter-in-law. And she answered: What wilt thou give me to enjoy my company? 38:17. He said: I will send thee a kid out of the flock. And when she said again: I will suffer what thou wilt, if thou give me a pledge, till thou send what thou promisest. 38:18. Juda said: What wilt thou have for a pledge? She answered: Thy ring and bracelet, and the staff which thou holdest in thy hand. The woman therefore at one copulation conceived. 38:19. And she arose and went her way: and putting off the apparel which she had taken, put on the garments of her widowhood. 38:20. And Juda sent a kid by his shepherd, the Odollamite, that he might receive the pledge again, which he had given to the woman: but he, not finding her, 38:21. Asked the men of that place: Where is the woman that sat in the cross way? And when they all made answer: There was no harlot in this place, 38:22. He returned to Juda, and said to him: I have not found her; moreover, the men of that place said to me, that there never sat a harlot there. 38:23. Juda said: Let her take it to herself, surely she cannot charge us with a lie, I sent the kid which I promised: and thou didst not find her. 38:24. And behold, after three months, they told Juda, saying: Thamar, thy daughter-in-law, hath played the harlot, and she appeareth to have a big belly. And Juda said: Bring her out that she may be burnt. 38:25. But when she was led to execution, she sent to her father in law, saying: By the man, to whom these things belong, I am with child. See whose ring, and bracelet, and staff this is. 38:26. But he acknowledging the gifts, said: She is juster than I: because I did not give her to Sela, my son. However he knew her no more. 38:27. And when she was ready to be brought to bed, there appeared twins in her womb: and in the very delivery of the infants, one put forth a hand, whereon the midwife tied a scarlet thread, saying: 38:28. This shall come forth the first. 38:29. But he drawing back his hand, the other came forth: and the woman said: Why is the partition divided for thee? and therefore called his name Phares. Phares. . .That is, a breach or division. 38:30. Afterwards his brother came out, on whose hand was the scarlet thread: and she called his name Zara. Genesis Chapter 39 Joseph hath charge of his master's house: rejecteth his mistress's solicitations: is falsely accused by her, and cast into prison, where he hath the charge of all the prisoners. 39:1. And Joseph was brought into Egypt, and Putiphar, an eunuch of Pharao, chief captain of the army, an Egyptian, bought him of the Ismaelites, by whom he was brought. 39:2. And the Lord was with him, and he was a prosperous man in all things: and he dwelt in his master's house: 39:3. Who knew very well that the Lord was with him, and made all that he did to prosper in his hand. 39:4. And Joseph found favour in the sight of his master, and ministered to him: and being set over all by him, he governed the house committed to him, and all things that were delivered to him: 39:5. And the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian for Joseph's sake, and multiplied all his substance, both at home and in the fields. 39:6. Neither knew he any other thing, but the bread which he ate. And Joseph was of a beautiful countenance, and comely to behold. 39:7. And after many days, his mistress cast her eyes on Joseph, and said: Lie with me. 39:8. But he in no wise consenting to that wicked act said to her: Behold, my master hath delivered all things to me, and knoweth not what he hath in his own house: 39:9. Neither is there any thing which is not in my power, or that he hath not delivered to me, but thee, who art his wife; how then can I do this wicked thing, and sin against my God? 39:10. With such words as these day by day, both the woman was importunate with the young man, and he refused the adultery. 39:11. Now it happened on a certain day, that Joseph went into the house, and was doing some business, without any man with him: 39:12. And she catching the skirt of his garment, said: Lie with me. But he leaving the garment in her hand, fled, and went out. 39:13. And when the woman saw the garment in her hands, and herself disregarded, 39:14. She called to her the men of her house, and said to them: See, he hath brought in a Hebrew, to abuse us: he came in to me, to lie with me; and when I cried out, 39:15. And he heard my voice, he left the garment that I held, and got him out. 39:16. For a proof therefore of her fidelity, she kept the garment, and shewed it to her husband when he returned home: A proof of her fidelity. . .or an argument to gain credit, argumentum fidei. 39:17. And said: The Hebrew servant, whom thou hast brought, came to me to abuse me. 39:18. And when he heard me cry, he left the garment which I held, and fled out. 39:19. His master hearing these things, and giving too much credit to his wife's words, was very angry, 39:20. And cast Joseph into the prison, where the king's prisoners were kept, and he was there shut up. 39:21. But the Lord was with Joseph, and having mercy upon him gave him favour in the sight of the chief keeper of the prison: 39:22. Who delivered into his hand all the prisoners that were kept in custody: and whatsoever was done, was under him. 39:23. Neither did he himself know any thing, having committed all things to him: for the Lord was with him, and made all that he did to prosper. Genesis Chapter 40 Joseph interpreteth the dreams of two of Pharao's servants in prison: the event declareth the interpretations to be true, but Joseph is forgotten. 40:1. After this, it came to pass, that two eunuchs, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, offended their lord. 40:2. And Pharao being angry with them, (now the one was chief butler, the other chief baker,) 40:3. He sent them to the prison of the commander of the soldiers, in which Joseph also was prisoner. 40:4. But the keeper of the prison delivered them to Joseph, and he served them. Some little time passed, and they were kept in custody. 40:5. And they both dreamed a dream the same night, according to the interpretation agreeing to themselves: 40:6. And when Joseph was come into them in the morning, and saw them sad, 40:7. He asked them, saying: Why is your countenance sadder today than usual? 40:8. They answered: We have dreamed a dream, and there is nobody to interpret it to us. And Joseph said to them: Doth not interpretation belong to God? Tell me what you have dreamed: Doth not interpretation belong to God?. . .When dreams are from God, as these were, the interpretation of them is a gift of God. But the generality of dreams are not of this sort; but either proceed from the natural complexions and dispositions of persons, or the roving of their imaginations in the day on such objects as they are much affected with, or from their mind being disturbed with cares and troubles, and oppressed with bodily infirmities: or they are suggested by evil spirits, to flatter, or to terrify weak minds, in order to gain belief, and so draw them into error or superstition; or at least to trouble them in their sleep, whom they cannot move when they are awake: so that the general rule, with regard to dreams, is not to observe them, nor to give any credit to them. 40:9. The chief butler first told his dream: I saw before me a vine, 40:10. On which were three branches, which by little and little sent out buds, and after the blossoms brought forth ripe grapes: 40:11. And the cup of Pharao was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into the cup which I held, and I gave the cup to Pharao. 40:12. Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: The three branches, are yet three days: 40:13. After which Pharao will remember thy service, and will restore thee to thy former place: and thou shalt present him the cup according to thy office, as before thou was wont to do. 40:14. Only remember me when it shall be well with thee, and do me this kindness: to put Pharao in mind to take me out of this prison: 40:15. For I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here without any fault was cast into the dungeon. 40:16. The chief baker seeing that he had wisely interpreted the dream, said: I also dreamed a dream, That I had three baskets of meal upon my head: 40:17. And that in one basket which was uppermost, I carried all meats that are made by the art of baking, and that the birds ate out of it. 40:18. Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: The three baskets, are yet three days: 40:19. After which Pharao will take thy head from thee, and hang thee on a cross, and the birds shall tear thy flesh. 40:20. The third day after this was the birthday of Pharao: and he made a great feast for his servants, and at the banquet remembered the chief butler, and the chief baker. 40:21. And he restored the one to his place, to present him the cup: 40:22. The other he hanged on a gibbet, that the truth of the interpreter might be shewn. 40:23. But the chief butler, when things prospered with him, forgot his interpreter. Genesis Chapter 41 Joseph interpreteth the two dreams of Pharao: he is made ruler over all Egypt. 41:1. After two years Pharao had a dream. He thought he stood by the river, 41:2. Out of which came up seven kine, very beautiful and fat: and they fed in marshy places. 41:3. Other seven also came up out of the river, ill-favoured, and lean fleshed: and they fed on the very bank of the river, in green places: 41:4. And they devoured them, whose bodies were very beautiful and well conditioned. So Pharao awoke. 41:5. He slept again, and dreamed another dream: Seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk full and fair: 41:6. Then seven other ears sprung up thin and blasted, 41:7. And devoured all the beauty of the former. Pharao awaked after his rest: 41:8. And when morning was come, being struck with fear, he sent to all the interpreters of Egypt, and to all the wise men: and they being called for, he told them his dream, and there was not any one that could interpret it. 41:9. Then at length the chief butler remembering, said: I confess my sin: 41:10. The king being angry with his servants, commanded me and the chief baker to be cast into the prison of the captain of the soldiers. 41:11. Where in one night both of us dreamed a dream foreboding things to come. 41:12. There was there a young man a Hebrew, servant to the same captain of the soldiers: to whom we told our dreams, 41:13. And we heard what afterwards the event of the thing proved to be so. For I was restored to my office: and he was hanged upon a gibbet. 41:14. Forthwith at the king's command Joseph was brought out of the prison, and they shaved him: and changing his apparel brought him in to him. 41:15. And he said to him: I have dreamed dreams, and there is no one that can expound them: Now I have heard that thou art very wise at interpreting them: 41:16. Joseph answered: Without me, God shall give Pharao a prosperous answer. 41:17. So Pharao told what he had dreamed: Methought I stood upon the bank of the river, 41:18. And seven kine came up out of the river, exceeding beautiful and full of flesh: and they grazed on green places in a marshy pasture. 41:19. And behold, there followed these, other seven kine, so very ill-favoured and lean, that I never saw the like in the land of Egypt: 41:20. And they devoured and consumed the former, 41:21. And yet gave no mark of their being full: but were as lean and ill-favoured as before. I awoke, and then fell asleep again, 41:22. And dreamed a dream: Seven ears of corn grew up upon one stalk, full and very fair. 41:23. Other seven also thin and blasted, sprung of the stalk: 41:24. And they devoured the beauty of the former: I told this dream to the conjecturers, and there is no man that can expound it. 41:25. Joseph answered: The king's dream is one: God hath shewn to Pharao what he is about to do. 41:26. The seven beautiful kine, and the seven full ears, are seven years of plenty: and both contain the same meaning of the dream. 41:27. And the seven lean and thin kine that came up after them, and the seven thin ears that were blasted with the burning wind, are seven years of famine to come: 41:28. Which shall be fulfilled in this order. 41:29. Behold, there shall come seven years of great plenty in the whole land of Egypt: 41:30. After which shall follow other seven years of so great scarcity, that all the abundance before shall be forgotten: for the famine shall consume all the land, 41:31. And the greatness of the scarcity shall destroy the greatness of the plenty. 41:32. And for that thou didst see the second time a dream pertaining to the same thing: it is a token of the certainty, and that the word of God cometh to pass, and is fulfilled speedily. 41:33. Now therefore let the king provide a wise and industrious man, and make him ruler over the land of Egypt: 41:34. That he may appoint overseers over all the countries: and gather into barns the fifth part of the fruits, during the seven fruitful years, 41:35. That shall now presently ensue: and let all the corn be laid up, under Pharao's hands, and be reserved in the cities. 41:36. And let it be in readiness, against the famine of seven years to come, which shall oppress Egypt, and the land shall not be consumed with scarcity. 41:37. The counsel pleased Pharao, and all his servants. 41:38. And he said to them: Can we find such another man, that is full of the spirit of God? 41:39. He said therefore to Joseph: Seeing God hath shewn thee all that thou hast said, can I find one wiser and one like unto thee? 41:40. Thou shalt be over my house, and at the commandment of thy mouth all the people shall obey: only in the kingly throne will I be above thee. 41:41. And again Pharao said to Joseph: Behold, I have appointed thee over the whole land of Egypt. 41:42. And he took his ring from his own hand, and gave it into his hand: and he put upon him a robe of silk, and put a chain of gold about his neck. 41:43. And he made him go up into his second chariot, the crier proclaiming that all should bow their knee before him, and that they should know he was made governor over the whole land of Egypt. 41:44. And the king said to Joseph: I am Pharao: without thy commandment no man shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. 41:45. And he turned his name, and called him in the Egyptian tongue the saviour of the world. And he gave him to wife Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis. Then Joseph went out to the land of Egypt. The saviour of the world. . .Zaphnah paaneah. 41:46. (Now he was thirty years old when he stood before king Pharao), and he went round all the countries of Egypt. 41:47. And the fruitfulness of the seven years came: and the corn being bound up into sheaves, was gathered together into the barns of Egypt. 41:48. And all the abundance of grain was laid up in every city. 41:49. And there was so great abundance of wheat, that it was equal to the sand of the sea, and the plenty exceeded measure. 41:50. And before the famine came, Joseph had two sons born: whom Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis, bore unto him. 41:51. And he called the name of the firstborn Manasses, saying: God hath made me to forget all my labours, and my father's house. Manasses. . .That is, oblivion, or forgetting. 41:52. And he named the second Ephraim, saying: God hath made me to grow in the land of my poverty. Ephraim. . .That is, fruitful, or growing. 41:53. Now when the seven years of plenty that had been in Egypt were passed: 41:54. The seven years of scarcity, which Joseph had foretold, began to come: and the famine prevailed in the whole world, but there was bread in all the land of Egypt. 41:55. And when there also they began to be famished, the people cried to Pharao, for food. And he said to them: Go to Joseph: and do all that he shall say to you. 41:56. And the famine increased daily in all the land: and Joseph opened all the barns, and sold to the Egyptians: for the famine had oppressed them also. 41:57. And all provinces came into Egypt, to buy food, and to seek some relief of their want. Genesis Chapter 42 Jacob sendeth his ten sons to buy corn in Egypt. Their treatment by Joseph. 42:1. And Jacob hearing that food was sold in Egypt, said to his sons: Why are ye careless? 42:2. I have heard that wheat is sold in Egypt: Go ye down, and buy us necessaries, that we may live, and not be consumed with want. 42:3. So the ten brethren of Joseph went down, to buy corn in Egypt: 42:4. Whilst Benjamin was kept at home by Jacob, who said to his brethren: Lest perhaps he take any harm in the journey. 42:5. And they entered into the land of Egypt with others that went to buy. For the famine was in the land of Chanaan. 42:6. And Joseph was governor in the land of Egypt, and corn was sold by his direction to the people. And when his brethren had bowed down to him, 42:7. And he knew them, he spoke as it were to strangers, somewhat roughly, asking them: Whence came you? They answered: From the land of Chanaan, to buy necessaries of life. 42:8. And though he knew his brethren, he was not known by them. 42:9. And remembering the dreams, which formerly he had dreamed, he said to them: You are spies. You are come to view the weaker parts of the land. You are spies. . .This he said by way of examining them, to see what they would answer. 42:10. But they said: It is not so, my lord; but thy servants are come to buy food. 42:11. We are all the sons of one man: we are come as peaceable men, neither do thy servants go about any evil. 42:12. And he answered them: It is otherwise: you are come to consider the unfenced parts of this land. 42:13. But they said: We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Chanaan: the youngest is with our father, the other is not living. 42:14. He saith, This is it that I said: You are spies. 42:15. I shall now presently try what you are: by the health of Pharao, you shall not depart hence, until your youngest brother come. 42:16. Send one of you to fetch him: and you shall be in prison, till what you have said be proved, whether it be true or false: or else by the health of Pharao you are spies. Or else by the health of Pharao you are spies. . .That is, if these things you say be proved false, you are to be held for spies for your lying, and shall be treated as such. Joseph dealt in this manner with his brethren, to bring them by the means of affliction to a sense of their former sin, and a sincere repentance for it. 42:17. So he put them in prison three days. 42:18. And the third day he brought them out of prison, and said: Do as I have said, and you shall live: for I fear God. 42:19. If you be peaceable men, let one of your brethren be bound in prison: and go ye your ways, and carry the corn that you have bought, unto your houses. 42:20. And bring your youngest brother to me, that I may find your words to be true, and you may not die. They did as he had said. 42:21. And they talked one to another: We deserve to suffer these things, because we have sinned against our brother, seeing the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear: therefore is this affliction come upon us. 42:22. And Ruben, one of them, said: Did not I say to you: Do not sin against the boy; and you would not hear me? Behold his blood is required. 42:23. And they knew not that Joseph understood, because he spoke to them by an interpreter. 42:24. And he turned himself away a little while, and wept: and returning, he spoke to them. 42:25. And taking Simeon, and binding him in their presence, he commanded his servants to fill their sacks with wheat, and to put every man's money again in their sacks, and to give them besides provisions for the way: and they did so. 42:26. But they having loaded their asses with the corn went their way. 42:27. And one of them opening his sack, to give his beast provender in the inn, saw the money in the sack's mouth, 42:28. And said to his brethren: My money is given me again; behold it is in the sack. And they were astonished, and troubled, and said to one another: What is this that God hath done unto us? 42:29. And they came to Jacob their father in the land of Chanaan, and they told him all things that had befallen them, saying: 42:30. The lord of the land spoke roughly to us, and took us to be spies of the country. 42:31. And we answered him: We are peaceable men, and we mean no plot. 42:32. We are twelve brethren born of one father: one is not living, the youngest is with our father in the land of Chanaan. 42:33. And he said to us: Hereby shall I know that you are peaceable men: Leave one of your brethren with me, and take ye necessary provision for your houses, and go your ways, 42:34. And bring your youngest brother to me, that I may know you are not spies: and you may receive this man again, that is kept in prison: and afterwards may have leave to buy what you will. 42:35. When they had told this, they poured out their corn, and every man found his money tied in the mouth of his sack: and all being astonished together, 42:36. Their father Jacob said: You have made me to be without children: Joseph is not living, Simeon is kept in bonds, and Benjamin you will take away: all these evils are fallen upon me. 42:37. And Ruben answered him: Kill my two sons, if I bring him not again to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will restore him to thee. 42:38. But he said: My son shall not go down with you: his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if any mischief befall him in the land to which you go, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to hell. To hell. . .That is, to that place, where the souls then remained, as above, chapter 37. ver. 35. Genesis Chapter 43 The sons of Jacob go again into Egypt with Benjamin. They are entertained by Joseph. 43:1. In the mean time the famine was heavy upon all the land. 43:2. And when they had eaten up all the corn, which they had brought out of Egypt, Jacob said to his sons: Go again, and buy us a little food. 43:3. Juda answered: The man declared unto us with the attestation of an oath, saying: You shall not see my face, unless you bring your youngest brother with you. 43:4. If therefore thou wilt send him with us, we will set out together, and will buy necessaries for thee. 43:5. But if thou wilt not, we will not go: for the man, as we have often said, declared unto us, saying: You shall not see my face without your youngest brother. 43:6. Israel said to them: You have done this for my misery, in that you told him you had also another brother. 43:7. But they answered: The man asked us in order concerning our kindred: if our father lived: if we had a brother: and we answered him regularly, according to what he demanded: could we know that he would say: Bring hither your brother with you? 43:8. And Juda said to his father: Send the boy with me, that we may set forward, and may live: lest both we and our children perish. 43:9. I take the boy upon me, require him at my hand: unless I bring him again, and restore him to thee, I will be guilty of sin against thee for ever. 43:10. If delay had not been made, we had been here again the second time. 43:11. Then Israel said to them: If it must needs be so, do what you will: take of the best fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down presents to the man, a little balm, and honey, and storax, myrrh, turpentine, and almonds. Balm. . .Literally rosin, resinae; but here by that name is meant balm. 43:12. And take with you double money, and carry back what you found in your sacks, lest perhaps it was done by mistake. 43:13. And take also your brother, and go to the man. 43:14. And may my almighty God make him favourable to you: and send back with you your brother, whom he keepeth, and this Benjamin: and as for me I shall be desolate without children. 43:15. So the men took the presents, and double money, and Benjamin: and went down into Egypt, and stood before Joseph. 43:16. And when he had seen them, and Benjamin with them, he commanded the steward of his house, saying: Bring in the men into the house, and kill victims, and prepare a feast: because they shall eat with me at noon. 43:17. He did as he was commanded, and brought the men into the house. 43:18. And they being much afraid, said there one to another: Because of the money, which we carried back the first time in our sacks, we are brought in: that he may bring upon us a false accusation, and by violence make slaves of us and our asses. 43:19. Wherefore, going up to the steward of the house, at the door, 43:20. They said: Sir, we desire thee to hear us. We came down once before to buy food: 43:21. And when we had bought, and were come to the inn, we opened our sacks, and found our money in the mouths of the sacks: which we have now brought again in the same weight. 43:22. And we have brought other money besides, to buy what we want: we cannot tell who put it in our bags. 43:23. But he answered: Peace be with you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks. For the money, which you gave me, I have for good. And he brought Simeon out to them. 43:24. And having brought them into the house, he fetched water, and they washed their feet, and he gave provender to their asses. 43:25. But they made ready the presents, against Joseph came at noon: for they had heard that they should eat bread there. 43:26. Then Joseph came in to his house, and they offered him the presents, holding them in their hands; and they bowed down with their face to the ground. 43:27. But he courteously saluting them again, asked them, saying: Is the old man your father in health, of whom you told me? Is he yet living? 43:28. And they answered: Thy servant our father, is in health; he is yet living. And bowing themselves, they made obeisance to him. 43:29. And Joseph lifting up his eyes, saw Benjamin, his brother by the same mother, and said: Is this your young brother, of whom you told me? And he said: God be gracious to thee, my son. 43:30. And he made haste, because his heart was moved upon his brother, and tears gushed out: and going into his chamber, he wept. 43:31. And when he had washed his face, coming out again, he refrained himself, and said: Set bread on the table. 43:32. And when it was set on, for Joseph apart, and for his brethren apart, for the Egyptians also that ate with him apart, (for it is unlawful for the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews, and they think such a feast profane): 43:33. They sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his age. And they wondered very much; 43:34. Taking the messes which they received of him: and the greater mess came to Benjamin, so that it exceeded by five parts. And they drank, and were merry with him. Genesis Chapter 44 Joseph's contrivance to stop his brethren. The humble supplication of Juda. 44:1. And Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying: Fill their sacks with corn, as much as they can hold: and put the money of every one in the top of his sack. 44:2. And in the mouth of the younger's sack put my silver cup, and the price which he gave for the wheat. And it was so done. 44:3. And when the morning arose, they were sent away with their asses. 44:4. And when they were now departed out of the city, and had gone forward a little way: Joseph sending for the steward of his house, said: Arise, and pursue after the men: and when thou hast overtaken them, say to them: Why have you returned evil for good? 44:5. The cup which you have stolen, is that in which my lord drinketh, and in which he is wont to divine: you have done a very evil thing. 44:6. He did as he had commanded him. And having overtaken them, he spoke to them the same words. 44:7. And they answered: Why doth our lord speak so, as though thy servants had committed so heinous a fact? 44:8. The money, that we found in the top of our sacks, we brought back to thee from the land of Chanaan: how then should it be that we should steal out of thy lord's house, gold or silver? 44:9. With whomsoever of thy servants shall be found that which thou seekest, let him die, and we will be the bondmen of my lord. 44:10. And he said to them: Let it be according to your sentence: with whomsoever it shall be found, let him be my servant, and you shall be blameless. 44:11. Then they speedily took down their sacks to the ground, and every man opened his sack. 44:12. Which when he had searched, beginning at the eldest, and ending at the youngest, he found the cup in Benjamin's sack. 44:13. Then they rent their garments, and loading their asses again, returned into the town. 44:14. And Juda at the head of his brethren went in to Joseph (for he was not yet gone out of the place) and they all together fell down before him on the ground. 44:15. And he said to them: Why would you do so? know you not that there is no one like me in the science of divining. The science of divining. . .He speaks of himself according to what he was esteemed in that kingdom. And indeed, he being truly a prophet, knew more without comparison than any of the Egyptian sorcerers. 44:16. And Juda said to him: What shall we answer my lord? or what shall we say, or be able justly to allege? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are all bondmen to my lord, both we, and he with whom the cup was found. 44:17. Joseph answered: God forbid that I should do so: he that stole the cup, he shall be my bondman: and go you away free to your father. 44:18. Then Juda coming nearer, said boldly: I beseech thee, my lord, let thy servant speak a word in thy ears, and be not angry with thy servant: for after Pharao thou art. 44:19. My lord. Thou didst ask thy servants the first time: Have you a father or a brother. 44:20. And we answered thee, my lord: We have a father an old man, and a young boy, that was born in his old age; whose brother by the mother is dead; and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him tenderly. 44:21. And thou saidst to thy servants: Bring him hither to me, and I will set my eyes on him. 44:22. We suggested to my lord: The boy cannot leave his father: for if he leave him, he will die. 44:23. And thou saidst to thy servants: Except your youngest brother come with you, you shall see my face no more. 44:24. Therefore when we were gone up to thy servant our father, we told him all that my lord had said. 44:25. And our father said: Go again, and buy us a little wheat. 44:26. And we said to him: We cannot go: if our youngest brother go down with us, we will set out together: otherwise, without him we dare not see the man's face. 44:27. Whereunto he answered: You know that my wife bore me two. 44:28. One went out, and you said: A beast devoured him; and hitherto he appeareth not. 44:29. If you take this also, and any thing befall him in the way, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow unto hell. 44:30. Therefore, if I shall go to thy servant, our father, and the boy be wanting, (whereas his life dependeth upon the life of him,) 44:31. And he shall see that he is not with us, he will die, and thy servants shall bring down his grey hairs with sorrow unto hell. His gray hairs. . .That is, his person, now far advanced in years.--With sorrow unto hell. . .The Hebrew word for hell is here sheol, the Greek hades: it is not taken for the hell of the damned; but for that place of souls below where the servants of God were kept before the coming of Christ. Which place, both in the Scripture and in the creed, is named hell. 44:32. Let me be thy proper servant, who took him into my trust, and promised, saying: If I bring him not again, I will be guilty of sin against my father for ever. 44:33. Therefore I, thy servant, will stay instead of the boy in the service of my lord, and let the boy go up with his brethren. 44:34. For I cannot return to my father without the boy, lest I be a witness of the calamity that will oppress my father. Genesis Chapter 45 Joseph maketh himself known to his brethren: and sendeth for his father. 45:1. Joseph could no longer refrain himself before many that stood by: whereupon he commanded that all should go out, and no stranger be present at their knowing one another. 45:2. And he lifted up his voice with weeping, which the Egyptians, and all the house of Pharao heard. 45:3. And he said to his brethren: I am Joseph: Is my father yet living? His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear. 45:4. And he said mildly to them: Come nearer to me. And when they were come near him, he said: I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. 45:5. Be not afraid, and let it not seem to you a hard case that you sold me into these countries: for God sent me before you into Egypt for your preservation. 45:6. For it is two years since the famine began to be upon the land, and five years more remain, wherein there can be neither ploughing nor reaping. 45:7. And God sent me before, that you may be preserved upon the earth, and may have food to live. 45:8. Not by your counsel was I sent hither, but by the will of God: who hath made me as it were a father to Pharao, and lord of his whole house, and governor in all the land of Egypt. 45:9. Make haste, and go ye up to my father, and say to him: Thus saith thy son Joseph: God hath made me lord of the whole land of Egypt; come down to me, linger not. 45:10. And thou shalt dwell in the land of Gessen: and thou shalt be near me, thou and thy sons, and thy sons' sons, thy sheep, and thy herds, and all things that thou hast. 45:11. And there I will feed thee, (for there are yet five years of famine remaining) lest both thou perish, and thy house, and all things that thou hast. 45:12. Behold, your eyes, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, see that it is my mouth that speaketh to you. 45:13. You shall tell my father of all my glory, and all things that you have seen in Egypt: make haste and bring him to me. 45:14. And falling upon the neck of his brother Benjamin, he embraced him and wept: and Benjamin in like manner wept also on his neck. 45:15. And Joseph kissed all his brethren, and wept upon every one of them: after which they were emboldened to speak to him. 45:16. And it was heard, and the fame was spread abroad in the king's court: The brethren of Joseph are come; and Pharao with all his family was glad. 45:17. And he spoke to Joseph that he should give orders to his brethren, saying: Load your beasts, and go into the land of Chanaan, 45:18. And bring away from thence your father and kindred, and come to me; and I will give you all the good things of Egypt, that you may eat the marrow of the land. 45:19. Give orders also that they take wagons out of the land of Egypt, for the carriage of their children and their wives; and say: Take up your father, and make haste to come with all speed: 45:20. And leave nothing of your household stuff; for all the riches of Egypt shall be yours. 45:21. And the sons of Israel did as they were bid. And Joseph gave them wagons according to Pharao's commandment: and provisions for the way. 45:22. He ordered also to be brought out for every one of them two robes: but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, with five robes of the best: 45:23. Sending to his father as much money and raiment; adding besides, ten he-asses, to carry off all the riches of Egypt, and as many she-asses, carrying wheat and bread for the journey. 45:24. So he sent away his brethren, and at their departing said to them: Be not angry in the way. 45:25. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Chanaan, to their father Jacob. 45:26. And they told him, saying: Joseph, thy son, is living; and he is ruler in all the land of Egypt. Which when Jacob heard, he awaked as it were out of a deep sleep, yet did not believe them. 45:27. They, on the other side, told the whole order of the thing. And when he saw the wagons, and all that he had sent, his spirit revived, 45:28. And he said: It is enough for me if Joseph, my son, be yet living: I will go and see him before I die. Genesis Chapter 46 Israel, warranted by a vision from God, goeth down into Egypt with all his family. 46:1. And Israel taking his journey, with all that he had, came to the well of the oath, and killing victims there to the God of his father Isaac, The well of the oath. . .Bersabee. 46:2. He heard him, by a vision in the night, calling him, and saying to him: Jacob, Jacob. And he answered him: Lo, here I am. 46:3. God said to him: I am the most mighty God of thy father; fear not, go down into Egypt, for I will make a great nation of thee there. 46:4. I will go down with thee thither, and will bring thee back again from thence: Joseph also shall put his hands upon thy eyes. 46:5. And Jacob rose up from the well of the oath: and his sons took him up, with their children and wives in the wagons, which Pharao had sent to carry the old man, 46:6. And all that he had in the land of Chanaan: and he came into Egypt with all his seed; 46:7. His sons, and grandsons, daughters, and all his offspring together. 46:8. And these are the names of the children of Israel, that entered into Egypt, he and his children. His firstborn Ruben, 46:9. The sons of Ruben: Henoch and Phallu, and Hesron and Charmi. 46:10. The sons of Simeon: Jamuel and Jamin and Ahod, and Jachin and Sohar, and Saul, the son of a woman of Chanaan. 46:11. The sons of Levi: Gerson and Caath, and Merari. 46:12. The sons of Juda: Her and Onan, and Sela, and Phares and Zara. And Her and Onan died in the land of Chanaan. And sons were born to Phares: Hesron and Hamul. 46:13. The sons of Issachar: Thola and Phua, and Job and Semron. 46:14. The sons of Zabulon: Sared, and Elon, and Jahelel. 46:15. These are the sons of Lia, whom she bore in Mesopotamia of Syria, with Dina, his daughter. All the souls of her sons and daughters, thirty-three. 46:16. The sons of Gad: Sephion and Haggi, and Suni and Esebon, and Heri and Arodi, and Areli. 46:17. The sons of Aser: Jamne and Jesua, and Jessuri and Beria, and Sara their sister. The sons of Beria: Heber and Melchiel. 46:18. These are the sons of Zelpha, whom Laban gave to Lia, his daughter. And these she bore to Jacob, sixteen souls. 46:19. The sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife: Joseph and Benjamin. 46:20. And sons were born to Joseph, in the land of Egypt, whom Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis, bore him: Manasses and Ephraim. 46:21. The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Bechor, and Asbel and Gera, and Naaman and Echi, and Ross and Mophim, and Ophim and Ared. 46:22. These are the sons of Rachel, whom she bore to Jacob: all the souls, fourteen. 46:23. The sons of Dan: Husim. 46:24. The sons of Nephthali: Jaziel and Guni, and Jeser and Sallem. 46:25. These are the sons of Bala, whom Laban gave to Rachel, his daughter: and these she bore to Jacob: all the souls, seven. 46:26. All the souls that went with Jacob into Egypt, and that came out of his thigh, besides his sons' wives, sixty-six. 46:27. And the sons of Joseph, that were born to him in the land of Egypt, two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, that entered into Egypt, were seventy. 46:28. And he sent Juda before him to Joseph, to tell him; and that he should meet him in Gessen. 46:29. And when he was come thither, Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet his father in the same place: and seeing him, he fell upon his neck, and embracing him, wept. 46:30. And the father said to Joseph: Now shall I die with joy, because I have seen thy face, and leave thee alive. 46:31. And Joseph said to his brethren, and to all his father's house: I will go up, and will tell Pharao, and will say to him: My brethren, and my father's house, that were in the land of Chanaan, are come to me: 46:32. And the men are shepherds, and their occupation is to feed cattle; their flocks, and herds, and all they have, they have brought with them. 46:33. And when he shall call you, and shall say: What is your occupation? 46:34. You shall answer: We, thy servants, are shepherds, from our infancy until now, both we and our fathers. And this you shall say, that you may dwell in the land of Gessen, because the Egyptians have all shepherds in abomination. Genesis Chapter 47 Jacob and his sons are presented before Pharao: he giveth them the land of Gessen. The famine forceth the Egyptians to sell all their possessions to the king. 47:1. Then Joseph went in and told Pharao, saying: My father and brethren, their sheep and their herds, and all that they possess, are come out of the land of Chanaan: and behold they stay in the land of Gessen. 47:2. Five men also, the last of his brethren, he presented before the king: The last. . .xtremos. Some interpret this word of the chiefest, and most rightly: but Joseph seems rather to have chosen out such as had the meanest appearance, that Pharao might not think of employing them at court, with danger of their morals and religion. 47:3. And he asked them: What is your occupation? They answered: We, thy servants, are shepherds, both we and our fathers. 47:4. We are come to sojourn in thy land, because there is no grass for the flocks of thy servants, the famine being very grievous in the land of Chanaan: and we pray thee to give orders that we thy servants may be in the land of Gessen. 47:5. The king therefore said to Joseph: Thy father and thy brethren are come to thee. 47:6. The land of Egypt is before thee: and make them dwell in the best place, and give them the land of Gessen. And if thou knowest that there are industrious men among them, make them rulers over my cattle. 47:7. After this Joseph brought in his father to the king, and presented him before him: and he blessed him. 47:8. And being asked by him: How many are the days of the years of thy life? 47:9. He answered: The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few, and evil, and they are not come up to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers. 47:10. And blessing the king, he went out. 47:11. But Joseph gave a possession to his father and his brethren in Egypt, in the best place of the land, in Ramesses, as Pharao had commanded. 47:12. And he nourished them, and all his father's house, allowing food to every one. 47:13. For in the whole world there was want of bread, and a famine had oppressed the land, more especially of Egypt and Chanaan; 47:14. Out of which he gathered up all the money for the corn which they bought, and brought it in to the king's treasure. 47:15. And when the buyers wanted money, all Egypt came to Joseph, saying: Give us bread: why should we die in thy presence, having now no money? 47:16. And he answered them: Bring me your cattle, and for them I will give you food, if you have no money. 47:17. And when they had brought them, he gave them food in exchange for their horses, and sheep, and oxen, and asses: and he maintained them that year for the exchange of their cattle. 47:18. And they came the second year, and said to him: We will not hide from our lord, how that our money is spent, and our cattle also are gone: neither art thou ignorant that we have nothing now left but our bodies and our lands. 47:19. Why therefore shall we die before thy eyes? we will be thine, both we and our lands: buy us to be the king's servants, and give us seed, lest for want of tillers the land be turned into a wilderness. 47:20. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt, every man selling his possessions, because of the greatness of the famine. And he brought it into Pharao's hands: 47:21. And all its people from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof, 47:22. Except the land of the priests, which had been given them by the king: to whom also a certain allowance of food was given out of the public stores, and therefore they were not forced to sell their possessions. 47:23. Then Joseph said to the people: Behold, as you see, both you and your lands belong to Pharao; take seed and sow the fields, 47:24. That you may have corn. The fifth part you shall give to the king; the other four you shall have for seed, and for food for your families and children. 47:25. And they answered: our life is in thy hand; only let my lord look favourably upon us, and we will gladly serve the king. 47:26. From that time unto this day, in the whole land of Egypt, the fifth part is paid to the kings, and it is become as a law, except the land of the priests, which was free from this covenant. 47:27. So Israel dwelt in Egypt, that is, in the land of Gessen, and possessed it; and grew, and was multiplied exceedingly. 47:28. And he lived in it seventeen years: and all the days of his life came to a hundred and forty-seven years. 47:29. And when he saw that the day of his death drew nigh, he called his son Joseph, and said to him: If I have found favour in thy sight, put thy hand under my thigh; and thou shalt shew me this kindness and truth, not to bury me in Egypt. 47:30. But I will sleep with my fathers, and thou shalt take me away out of this land, and bury me in the burying place of my ancestors. And Joseph answered him: I will do what thou hast commanded. 47:31. And he said: Swear then to me. And as he was swearing, Israel adored God, turning to the bed's head. To the bed's head. . .St. Paul, Heb. 11.21, following the Greek translation of the Septuagint, reads adored the top of his rod. Where note, that the same word in the Hebrew, according to the different pointing of it, signifies both a bed and a rod. And to verify both these sentences, we must understand that Jacob leaning on Joseph's rod adored, turning towards the head of his bed: which adoration, inasmuch as it was referred to God, was an absolute and sovereign worship: but inasmuch as it was referred to the rod of Joseph, as a figure of the sceptre, that is, of the royal dignity of Christ, was only an inferior and relative honour. Genesis Chapter 48 Joseph visiteth his father in his sickness, who adopteth his two sons Manasses and Ephraim, and blesseth them, preferring the younger before the elder. 48:1. After these things, it was told Joseph that his father was sick; and he set out to go to him, taking his two sons Manasses and Ephraim. 48:2. And it was told the old man: Behold thy son Joseph cometh to thee. And being strengthened, he sat on his bed. 48:3. And when Joseph was come in to him, he said: God almighty appeared to me at Luza, which is in the land of Chanaan, and he blessed me, 48:4. And said: I will cause thee to increase and multiply, and I will make of thee a multitude of people: and I will give this land to thee, and to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. 48:5. So thy two sons, who were born to thee in the land of Egypt before I came hither to thee, shall be mine: Ephraim and Manasses shall be reputed to me as Ruben and Simeon. 48:6. But the rest whom thou shalt have after them, shall be thine, and shall be called by the name of their brethren in their possessions. 48:7. For, when I came out of Mesopotamia, Rachel died from me in the land of Chanaan in the very journey, and it was spring time: and I was going to Ephrata, and I buried her near the way of Ephrata, which by another name is called Bethlehem. 48:8. Then seeing his sons, he said to him: Who are these? 48:9. He answered: They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said: Bring them to me, that I may bless them. 48:10. For Israel's eyes were dim by reason of his great age, and he could not see clearly. And when they were brought to him, he kissed and embraced them, 48:11. And said to his son: I am not deprived of seeing thee; moreover God hath shewn me thy seed. 48:12. And when Joseph had taken them from his father's lap, he bowed down with his face to the ground. 48:13. And he set Ephraim on his right hand, that is, towards the left hand of Israel; but Manasses on his left hand, to wit, towards his father's right hand, and brought them near to him. 48:14. But he, stretching forth his right hand, put it upon the head of Ephraim, the younger brother; and the left upon the head of Manasses, who was the elder, changing his hands. 48:15. And Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph, and said: God, in whose sight my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, God that feedeth me from my youth until this day: 48:16. The angel that delivereth me from all evils, bless these boys: and let my name be called upon them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth. 48:17. And Joseph seeing that his father had put his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, was much displeased: and taking his father's hand, he tried to lift it from Ephraim's head, and to remove it to the head of Manasses. 48:18. And he said to his father: It should not be so, my father; for this is the firstborn, put thy right hand upon his head. 48:19. But he refusing, said: I know, my son, I know: and this also shall become a people, and shall be multiplied; but his younger brother shall be greater than he; and his seed shall grow into nations. 48:20. And he blessed them at that time, saying: In thee shall Israel be blessed, and it shall be said: God do to thee as to Ephraim, and as to Manasses. And he set Ephraim before Manasses. 48:21. And he said to Joseph, his son: Behold I die, and God will be with you, and will bring you back into the land of your fathers. 48:22. I give thee a portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorrhite with my sword and bow. Genesis Chapter 49 Jacob's prophetical blessings of his twelve sons: his death. 49:1. And Jacob called his sons, and said to them: Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you the things that shall befall you in the last days. 49:2. Gather yourselves together, and hear, O ye sons of Jacob, hearken to Israel, your father: 49:3. Ruben, my firstborn, thou art my strength, and the beginning of my sorrow; excelling in gifts, greater in command. My strength, etc. . .He calls him his strength, as being born whilst his father was in his full strength and vigour: he calls him the beginning of his sorrow, because cares and sorrows usually come on with the birth of children. Excelling in gifts, etc., because the firstborn had a title to a double portion, and to have the command over his brethren, which Ruben forfeited by his sin; being poured out as water, that is, spilt and lost. 49:4. Thou art poured out as water, grow thou not; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, and didst defile his couch. Grow thou not. . .This was not meant by way of a curse or imprecation; but by way of a prophecy foretelling that the tribe of Ruben should not inherit the pre-eminences usually annexed to the first birthright, viz., the double portion, the being prince or lord over the other brethren, and the priesthood: of which the double portion was given to Joseph, the princely office to Juda, and the priesthood to Levi. 49:5. Simeon and Levi brethren: vessels of iniquity waging war. 49:6. Let not my soul go into their counsel, nor my glory be in their assembly: because in their fury they slew a man, and in their self-will they undermined a wall. Slew a man,. . .viz., Sichem the son of Hemor, with all his people, Gen. 34.; mystically and prophetically it alludes to Christ, whom their posterity, viz., the priests and the scribes, put to death. 49:7. Cursed be their fury, because it was stubborn: and their wrath, because it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. 49:8. Juda, thee shall thy brethren praise: thy hand shall be on the necks of thy enemies; the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee. 49:9. Juda is a lion's whelp: to the prey, my son, thou art gone up: resting thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness, who shall rouse him? A lion's whelp, etc. . .This blessing of Juda foretelleth the strength of his tribe, the fertility of his inheritance; and principally that the sceptre and legislative power should not be utterly taken away from his race till about the time of the coming of Christ: as in effect it never was: which is a demonstration against the modern Jews, that the Messiah is long since come; for the sceptre has long since been utterly taken away from Juda. 49:10. The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations. 49:11. Tying his foal to the vineyard, and his ass, O my son, to the vine. He shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape. 49:12. His eyes are more beautiful than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. 49:13. Zabulon shall dwell on the seashore, and in the road of ships, reaching as far as Sidon. 49:14. Issachar shall be a strong ass, lying down between the borders. 49:15. He saw rest that it was good: and the land that it was excellent: and he bowed his shoulder to carry, and became a servant under tribute. 49:16. Dan shall judge his people like another tribe in Israel. Dan shall judge, etc. . .This was verified in Samson, who was of the tribe of Dan, and began to deliver Israel. Judges 13.5. But as this deliverance was but temporal and very imperfect, the holy patriarch (ver. 18) aspires after another kind of deliverer, saying: I will look for thy salvation, O Lord. 49:17. Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, that his rider may fall backward. 49:18. I will look for thy salvation, O Lord. 49:19. Gad, being girded, shall fight before him: and he himself shall be girded backward. Gad being girded, etc. . .It seems to allude to the tribe of Gad; when after they had received for their lot the land of Galaad, they marched in arms before the rest of the Israelites, to the conquest of the land of Chanaan: from whence they afterwards returned loaded with spoils. See Jos. 4. and 12. 49:20. Aser, his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield dainties to kings. 49:21. Nephthali, a hart let loose, and giving words of beauty. 49:22. Joseph is a growing son, a growing son and comely to behold: the daughters run to and fro upon the wall; Run to and fro, etc. . .To behold his beauty; whilst his envious brethren turned their darts against him, etc. 49:23. But they that held darts, provoked him, and quarrelled with him, and envied him. 49:24. His bow rested upon the strong, and the bands of his arms and his hands were loosed, by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob: thence he came forth a pastor, the stone of Israel. His bow rested upon the strong, etc. . .That is, upon God, who was his strength: who also loosed his bands, and brought him out of prison to be the pastor, that is, the feeder and ruler of Egypt, and the stone, that is, the rock and support of Israel. 49:25. The God of thy father shall be thy helper, and the Almighty shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above, with the blessings of the deep that lieth beneath, with the blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 49:26. The blessings of thy father are strengthened with the blessings of his fathers: until the desire of the everlasting hills should come: may they be upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the Nazarite among his brethren. The blessings of thy father, etc. . .That is, thy father's blessings are made more prevalent and effectual in thy regard, by the additional strength they receive from his inheriting the blessings of his progenitors Abraham and Isaac. The desire of the everlasting hills, etc. . .These blessings all looked forward towards Christ, called the desire of the everlasting hills, as being longed for, as it were, by the whole creation. Mystically, the patriarchs and prophets are called the everlasting hills, by reason of the eminence of their wisdom and holiness. The Nazarite. . .This word signifies one separated; and agrees to Joseph, as being separated from, and more eminent than, his brethren. As the ancient Nazarites were so called from their being set aside for God, and vowed to him. 49:27. Benjamin a ravenous wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, and in the evening shall divide the spoil. 49:28. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: these things their father spoke to them, and he blessed every one with their proper blessings. 49:29. And he charged them, saying: I am now going to be gathered to my people: bury me with my fathers in the double cave, which is in the field of Ephron the Hethite, To be gathered to my people. . .That is, I am going to die, and so to follow my ancestors that are gone before me, and to join their company in another world. 49:30. Over against Mambre, in the land of Chanaan, which Abraham bought together with the field, of Ephron the Hethite, for a possession to bury in. 49:31. There they buried him, and Sara his wife: there was Isaac buried with Rebecca, his wife: there also Lia doth lie buried. 49:32. And when he had ended the commandments, wherewith he instructed his sons, he drew up his feet upon the bed, and died: and he was gathered to his people. Genesis Chapter 50 The mourning for Jacob, and his interment. Joseph's kindness towards his brethren. His death. 50:1. And when Joseph saw this, he fell upon his father's face, weeping and kissing him. 50:2. And he commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. 50:3. And while they were fulfilling his commands, there passed forty days: for this was the manner with bodies that were embalmed, and Egypt mourned for him seventy days. 50:4. And the time of the mourning being expired, Joseph spoke to the family of Pharao: If I have found favour in your sight, speak in the ears of Pharao: 50:5. For my father made me swear to him, saying: Behold I die; thou shalt bury me in my sepulchre which I have digged for myself in the land of Chanaan. So I will go up and bury my father, and return. 50:6. And Pharao said to him: Go up and bury thy father according as he made thee swear. 50:7. So he went up, and there went with him all the ancients of Pharao's house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. 50:8. And the house of Joseph with his brethren, except their children, and their flocks and herds, which they left in the land of Gessen. 50:9. He had also in his train chariots and horsemen: and it was a great company. 50:10. And they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is situated beyond the Jordan: where celebrating the exequies with a great and vehement lamentation, they spent full seven days. 50:11. And when the inhabitants of Chanaan saw this, they said: This is a great mourning to the Egyptians. And therefore the name of that place was called, The mourning of Egypt. 50:12. So the sons of Jacob did as he had commanded them. 50:13. And carrying him into the land of Chanaan, they buried him in the double cave, which Abraham had bought together with the field for a possession of a burying place, of Ehpron, the Hethite, over against Mambre. 50:14. And Joseph returned into Egypt with his brethren, and all that were in his company, after he had buried his father. 50:15. Now he being dead, his brethren were afraid, and talked one with another: Lest perhaps he should remember the wrong he suffered, and requite us all the evil that we did to him. 50:16. And they sent a message to him, saying: Thy father commanded us before he died, 50:17. That we should say thus much to thee from him: I beseech thee to forget the wickedness of thy brethren, and the sin and malice they practised against thee: we also pray thee, to forgive the servants of the God of thy father this wickedness. And when Joseph heard this, he wept. 50:18. And his brethren came to him; and worshipping prostrate on the ground, they said: We are thy servants. 50:19. And he answered them: Fear not: can we resist the will of God? 50:20. You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good, that he might exalt me, as at present you see, and might save many people. 50:21. Fear not: I will feed you and your children. And he comforted them, and spoke gently and mildly. 50:22. And he dwelt in Egypt with all his father's house; and lived a hundred and ten years. And he saw the children of Ephraim to the third generation. The children also of Machir, the sons of Manasses, were born on Joseph's knees. 50:23. After which he told his brethren: God will visit you after my death, and will make you go up out of this land, to the land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 50:24. And he made them swear to him, saying: God will visit you, carry my bones with you out of this place: 50:25. And he died, being a hundred and ten years old. And being embalmed, he was laid in a coffin in Egypt. THE BOOK OF EXODUS The Second Book of Moses is called EXODUS, from the Greek word EXODOS, which signifies going out: because it contains the history of the going out of the children of Israel out of Egypt. The Hebrews, from the words with which it begins, call it VEELLE SEMOTH: These are the names. It contains transactions for 145 years; that is, from the death of Joseph to the erecting of the tabernacle. Exodus Chapter 1 The Israelites are multiplied in Egypt. They are oppressed by a new king, who commandeth all their male children to be killed. 1:1. These are the names of the children of Israel, that went into Egypt with Jacob: they went in every man with his household: 1:2. Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, 1:3. Issachar, Zabulon, and Benjamin, 1:4. Dan, and Nephthali, Gad and Aser. 1:5. And all the souls that came out of Jacob's thigh, were seventy: but Joseph was in Egypt. 1:6. After he was dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation, 1:7. The children of Israel increased, and sprung up into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong they filled the land. 1:8. In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph: 1:9. And he said to his people: Behold the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than we. 1:10. Come let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war shall rise against us, join with our enemies, and having overcome us, depart out of the land. 1:11. Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens: and they built for Pharao cities of tabernacles, Phithom, and Ramesses. Of tabernacles. . .Or, of storehouses. 1:12. But the more they oppressed them, the more they were multiplied and increased. 1:13. And the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them: 1:14. And they made their life bitter with hard works in clay and brick, and with all manner of service, wherewith they were overcharged in the works of the earth. 1:15. And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua, 1:16. Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive. 1:17. But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children. 1:18: And the king called for them and said: What is it that you meant to do, that you would save the men children? 1:19. They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skilful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them. 1:20. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly strong. 1:21. And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses. Because the midwives feared God, etc. . .The midwives were rewarded, not for their lie, which was a venial sin; but for their fear of God, and their humanity: but this reward was only temporal, in building them houses, that is, in establishing and enriching their families. 1:22. Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive. Exodus Chapter 2 Moses is born and exposed on the bank of the river; where he is taken up by the daughter of Pharao, and adopted for her son. He killeth an Egyptian, and fleeth into Madian; where he marrieth a wife. 2:1. After this there went a man of the house of Levi; and took a wife of his own kindred. 2:2. And she conceived, and bore a son: and seeing him a goodly child, hid him three months. 2:3. And when she could hide him no longer, she took a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and pitch: and put the little babe therein, and laid him in the sedges by the river's brink, 2:4. His sister standing afar off, and taking notice what would be done. 2:5. And behold the daughter of Pharao came down to wash herself in the river: and her maids walked by the river's brink. And when she saw the basket in the sedges she sent one of her maids for it: and when it was brought, 2:6. She opened it, and seeing within it an infant crying, having compassion on it, she said: This is one of the babes of the Hebrews. 2:7. And the child's sister said to her: Shall I go, and call to thee a Hebrew woman, to nurse the babe? 2:8. She answered: Go. The maid went and called her mother. 2:9. And Pharao's daughter said to her: Take this child, and nurse him for me: I will give thee thy wages. The woman took and nursed the child: and when he was grown up, she delivered him to Pharao's daughter. 2:10. And she adopted him for a son, and called him Moses, saying: Because I took him out of the water. Moses. . .Or Moyses, in the Egyptian tongue, signifies one taken or saved out of the water. 2:11. In those days, after Moses was grown up, he went out to his brethren: and saw their affliction, and an Egyptian striking one of the Hebrews, his brethren. 2:12. And when he had looked about this way and that way, and saw no one there, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He slew the Egyptian. . .This he did by a particular inspiration of God; as a prelude to his delivering the people from their oppression and bondage. He thought, says St. Stephen, Acts 7.25, that his brethren understood that God by his hand would save them. But such particular and extraordinary examples are not to be imitated. 2:13. And going out the next day, he saw two Hebrews quarrelling: and he said to him that did the wrong: Why strikest thou thy neighbour? 2:14. But he answered: Who hath appointed thee prince and judge over us? wilt thou kill me, as thou didst yesterday kill the Egyptian? Moses feared, and said: How is this come to be known? 2:15. And Pharao heard of this word, and sought to kill Moses: but he fled from his sight, and abode in the land of Madian, and he sat down by a well. Madian. . .A city and country of Arabia, which took its name from Madian the son of Abraham, by Cetura, and was peopled by his posterity. 2:16. And the priest of Madian had seven daughters, who came to draw water: and when the troughs were filled, desired to water their father's flocks. 2:17. And the shepherds came and drove them away: and Moses arose, and defending the maids, watered their sheep. 2:18: And when they returned to Raguel their father, he said to them: Why are ye come sooner than usual? Raguel. . .He had two names, being also called Jethro, as appears from the first verse of the following chapter. 2:19. They answered: A man of Egypt delivered us from the hands of the shepherds: and he drew water also with us, and gave the sheep to drink. 2:20. But he said: Where is he? why have you let the man go? call him that he may eat bread. 2:21. And Moses swore that he would dwell with him. And he took Sephora his daughter to wife: 2:22. And she bore him a son, whom he called Gersam, saying: I have been a stranger in a foreign country. And she bore another, whom he called Eliezer, saying: For the God of my father, my helper, hath delivered me out of the hand of Pharao. Gersam. . .Or Gershom. This name signifies a stranger there: as Eliezer signifies the help of God. 2:23. Now after a long time the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel groaning, cried out because of the works: and their cry went up unto God from the works. 2:24. And he heard their groaning, and remembered the covenant which he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 2:25. And the Lord looked upon the children of Israel, and he knew them. Knew them. . .That is, he had respect to them, he cast a merciful eye upon them. Exodus Chapter 3 God appeareth to Moses in a bush, and sendeth him to deliver Israel. 3:1. Now Moses fed the sheep of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Madian: and he drove the flock to the inner parts of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. 3:2. And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he saw that the bush was on fire, and was not burnt. The Lord appeared. . .That is, an angel representing God, and speaking in his name. 3:3. And Moses said: I will go, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. 3:4. And when the Lord saw that he went forward to see, he called to him out of the midst of the bush. and said: Moses, Moses. And he answered: Here I am. 3:5. And he said: Come not nigh hither, put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place, whereon thou standest, is holy ground. 3:6. And he said: I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face: for he durst not look at God. 3:7. And the Lord said to him: I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigour of them that are over the works; 3:8. And knowing their sorrow, I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey, to the places of the Chanaanite, and Hethite, and Amorrhite, and Pherezite, and Hevite, and Jebusite. 3:9. For the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have seen their affliction, wherewith they are oppressed by the Egyptians. 3:10. But come, and I will send thee to Pharao, that thou mayst bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. 3:11. And Moses said to God: Who am I that I should go to Pharao, and should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? 3:12. And he said to him: I will be with thee; and this thou shalt have for a sign that I have sent thee: When thou shalt have brought my people out of Egypt, thou shalt offer sacrifice to God upon this mountain. 3:13. Moses said to God: Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they shall say to me: What is his name? What shall I say to them? 3:14. God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you. I am who am. . .That is, I am being itself, eternal, self-existent, independent, infinite; without beginning, end, or change; and the source of all other beings. 3:15. And God said again to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: The Lord God of your fathers the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me to you; this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. 3:16. Go and gather together the ancients of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to me, saying: Visiting I have visited you; and I have seen all that hath befallen you in Egypt. 3:17. And I have said the word to bring you forth out of the affliction of Egypt, into the land of the Chanaanite, and Hethite, and Amorrhite, and Pherezite, and Hevite, and Jebusite, to a land that floweth with milk and honey. 3:18: And they shall hear thy voice; and thou shalt go in, thou and the ancients of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and thou shalt say to him: The Lord God of the Hebrews hath called us; we will go three days' journey into the wilderness, to sacrifice unto the Lord our God. 3:19. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, but by a mighty hand. 3:20. For I will stretch forth my hand, and will strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst of them: after these he will let you go. 3:21. And I will give favour to this people, in the sight of the Egyptians: and when you go forth, you shall not depart empty: 3:22. But every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that is in her house, vessels of silver and of gold, and raiment: and you shall put them on your sons and daughters, and shall spoil Egypt. Shall spoil, etc. . .That is, you shall strip, and take away the goods of the Egyptians. This was not authorizing theft or injustice; but was a just disposal made by Him, who is the great lord and master of all things, in order to pay the children of Israel some part of what was due to them from the Egyptians for their labours. Exodus Chapter 4 Moses is empowered to confirm his mission with miracles: his brother Aaron is appointed to assist him. 4:1. Moses answered, and said: They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: The Lord hath not appeared to thee. 4:2. Then he said to him: What is that thou holdest in thy hand? He answered: A rod. 4:3. And the Lord said: Cast it down upon the ground. He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent, so that Moses fled from it. 4:4. And the Lord said: Put out thy hand, and take it by the tail. He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod. 4:5. That they may believe, saith he, that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee. 4:6. And the Lord said again: Put thy hand into thy bosom. And when he had put it into his bosom, he brought it forth leprous as snow. 4:7. And he said: Put back thy hand into thy bosom. He put it back, and brought it out again, and it was like the other flesh. 4:8. If they will not believe thee, saith he, nor hear the voice of the former sign, they will believe the word of the latter sign. 4:9. But if they will not even believe these two signs, nor hear thy voice: take of the river water, and pour it out upon the dry land, and whatsoever thou drawest out of the river, shall be turned into blood. 4:10. Moses said: I beseech thee, Lord, I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before; and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue. 4:11. The Lord said to him: Who made man's mouth? or who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? did not I? 4:12. Go therefore, and I will be in thy mouth; and I will teach thee what thou shalt speak. 4:13. But he said: I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send. 4:14. The Lord being angry at Moses, said: Aaron the Levite is thy brother, I know that he is eloquent: behold he cometh forth to meet thee, and seeing thee, shall be glad at heart. 4:15. Speak to him, and put my words in his mouth: and I will be in thy mouth, and in his month, and will shew you what you must do. 4:16. He shall speak in thy stead to the people, and shall be thy mouth: but thou shalt be to him in those things that pertain to God. 4:17. And take this rod in thy hand. wherewith thou shalt do the signs. 4:18: Moses went his way, and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said to him; I will go and return to my brethren into Egypt, that I may see if they be yet alive. And Jethro said to him: Go in peace. 4:19. And the Lord said to Moses, in Madian: Go, and return into Egypt; for they are all dead that sought thy life. 4:20. Moses therefore took his wife, and his sons, and set them upon an ass; and returned into Egypt, carrying the rod of God in his hand. 4:21. And the Lord said to him as he was returning into Egypt: See that thou do all the wonders before Pharao, which I have put in thy hand: I shall harden his heart, and he will not let the people go. I shall harden, etc. . .Not by being the efficient cause of his sin; but by withdrawing from him, for his just punishment, the dew of grace that might have softened his heart; and so suffering him to grow harder and harder. 4:22. And thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn. 4:23. I have said to thee: Let my son go, that he may serve me, and thou wouldst not let him go: behold I will kill thy son, thy firstborn. 4:24. And when he was in his journey, in the inn, the Lord met him, and would have killed him. The Lord met him, and would have killed him. . .This was an angel representing the Lord, who treated Moses in this manner, for having neglected the circumcision of his younger son; which his wife understanding, circumcised her child upon the spot, upon which the angel let Moses go. 4:25. Immediately Sephora took a very sharp stone, and circumcised the foreskin of her son, and touched his feet, and said: A bloody spouse art thou to me. 4:26. And he let him go after she had said: A bloody spouse art thou to me, because of the circumcision. 4:27. And the Lord said to Aaron: Go into the desert to meet Moses. And he went forth to meet him in the mountain of God, and kissed him. 4:28. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord, by which he had sent him, and the signs that he had commanded. 4:29. And they came together, and they assembled all the ancients of the children of Israel. 4:30. And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had said to Moses: and he wrought the signs before the people. 4:31. And the people believed. And they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction: and falling down they adored. Exodus Chapter 5 Pharao refuseth to let the people go. They are more oppressed. 5:1. After these things, Moses and Aaron went in, and said to Pharao: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Let my people go, that they may sacrifice to me in the desert. 5:2. But he answered: Who is the Lord, that I should hear his voice, and let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. 5:3. And they said: The God of the Hebrews hath called us, to go three days' journey into the wilderness, and to sacrifice to the Lord our God; lest a pestilence or the sword fall upon us. 5:4. The king of Egypt said to them: Why do you Moses and Aaron draw off the people from their works? Get you gone to your burdens. 5:5. And Pharao said: The people of the land are numerous; you see that the multitude is increased; how much more if you give them rest from their works? 5:6. Therefore he commanded the same day the overseers of the works, and the task-masters of the people, saying: 5:7. You shall give straw no more to the people to make brick, as before; but let them go and gather straw. 5:8. And you shall lay upon them the task of bricks, which they did before; neither shall you diminish any thing thereof, for they are idle, and therefore they cry. saying: Let us go and sacrifice to our God. 5:9. Let them be oppressed with works, and let them fulfil them; that they may not regard lying words. 5:10. And the overseers of the works, and the taskmasters, went out and said to the people: Thus saith Pharao: I allow you no straw; 5:11. Go, and gather it where you can find it; neither shall any thing of your work be diminished. 5:12. And the people was scattered through all the land of Egypt to gather straw. 5:13. And the overseers of the works pressed them, saying: Fulfil your work every day, as before ye were wont to do, when straw was given you. 5:14. And they that were over the works of the children of Israel, were scourged by Pharao's taskmasters, saying: Why have you not made up the task of bricks, both yesterday and to day, as before? 5:15. And the officers of the children of Israel came, and cried out to Pharao, saying: Why dealest thou so with thy servants? 5:16. Straw is not given us, and bricks are required of us as before; behold we, thy servants, are beaten with whips, and thy people is unjustly dealt withal. 5:17. And he said: You are idle, and therefore you say: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. 5:18: Go therefore and work: straw shall not be given you, and you shall deliver the accustomed number of bricks. 5:19. And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in evil case, because it was said to them: There shall not a whit be diminished of the bricks for every day. 5:20. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood over against them as they came out from Pharao: 5:21. And they said to them: The Lord see and judge, because you have, made our savour to stink before Pharao and his servants, and you have given him a sword, to kill us. 5:22. And Moses returned to the Lord, and said: Lord, why hast thou afflicted this people? wherefore hast thou sent me? 5:23. For since the time that I went in to Pharao to speak in thy name, he hath afflicted thy people: and thou hast not delivered them. Exodus Chapter 6 God reneweth his promise. The genealogies of Ruben, Simon and Levi, down to Moses and Aaron. 6;1. And the Lord said to Moses: Now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharao: for by a mighty hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he cast them out of his land. 6:2. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: I am the Lord 6:3. That appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, by the name of God Almighty: and my name ADONAI I did not shew them. My name Adonai. . .The name, which is in the Hebrew text, is that most proper name of God, which signifieth his eternal, self-existent being, Ex. 3.14, which the Jews out of reverence never pronounce; but, instead of it, whenever it occurs in the Bible, they read Adonai, which signifies the Lord; and, therefore, they put the points or vowels, which belong to the name Adonai, to the four letters of that other ineffable name Jod, He, Vau, He. Hence some moderns have framed the name Jehovah, unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians; for the true pronunciation of the name, which is in the Hebrew text, by long disuse, is now quite lost. 6:4. And I made a covenant with them, to give them the land of Chanaan, the land of their pilgrimage wherein they were strangers. 6:5. I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, wherewith the Egyptians have oppressed them: and I have remembered my covenant. 6:6. Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am the Lord who will bring you out from the work-prison of the Egyptians, and will deliver you from bondage: and redeem you with a high arm, and great judgments. 6:7. And I will take you to myself for my people, I will be your God: and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the work-prison of the Egyptians: 6:8. And brought you into the land, concerning which I lifted up my hand to give it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: and I will give it you to possess: I am the Lord. 6:9. And Moses told all this to the children of Israel: but they did not hearken to him, for anguish of spirit, and most painful work. 6:10. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:11. Go in, and speak to Pharao king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. 6:12. Moses answered before the Lord: Behold the children of Israel do not hearken to me: and how will Pharao hear me, especially as I am of uncircumcised lips? Uncircumcised lips. . .So he calls the defect he had in his words, or utterance. 6:13. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, and he gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharao the king of Egypt, that they should bring forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. 6:14. These are the heads of their houses by their families. The sons of Ruben the firstborn of Israel: Henoch and Phallu, Hesron and Charmi. 6:15. These are the kindreds of Ruben. The sons of Simeon, Jamuel and Jamin, and Ahod, and Jachin, and Soar, and Saul the son of a Chanaanitess: these are the families of Simeon. 6:16. And these are the names of the sons of Levi by their kindreds: Gerson, and Caath, and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were a hundred and thirty-seven. 6:17. The sons of Gerson: Lobni and Semei, by their kindreds. 6:18: The sons of Caath: Amram, and Isaar, and Hebron and Oziel. And the years of Caath's life, were a hundred and thirty-three. 6:19. The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi. These are the kindreds of Levi by their families. 6:20. And Amram took to wife Jochabed his aunt by the father's side: and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of Amram's life, were a hundred and thirty-seven. 6:21. The sons also of Isaar: Core, and Nepheg, and Zechri. 6:22. The sons also of Oziel: Mizael, and Elizaphan, and Sethri. 6:23. And Aaron took to wife Elizabeth the daughter of Aminadab, sister of Nahason, who bore him Nadab, and Abiu, and Eleazar, and Ithamar. 6:24. The sons also of Core: Aser, and Elcana, and Abiasaph. These are the kindreds of the Corites. 6:25. But Eleazar the son of Aaron took a wife of the daughters of Phutiel: and she bore him Phinees. These are the heads of the Levitical families by their kindreds. 6:26. These are Aaron and Moses, whom the Lord commanded to bring forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their companies. 6:27. These are they that speak to Pharao, king of Egypt, in order to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt: these are that Moses and Aaron, 6:28. In the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt. 6:29. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: I am the Lord; speak thou to Pharao, king of Egypt, all that I say to thee. 6:30. And Moses said before the Lord: Lo I am of uncircumcised lips, how will Pharao hear me? Exodus Chapter 7 Moses and Aaron go into Pharao: they turn the rod into a serpent; and the waters of Egypt into blood, which was the first plague. The magicians do the like, and Pharao's heart is hardened. 7:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, I have appointed thee the god of Pharao; and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet. The god of Pharao. . .Viz., to be his judge; and to exercise a divine power, as God's instrument, over him and his people. 7:2. Thou shalt speak to him all that I command thee; and he shall speak to Pharao, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. 7:3. But I shall harden his heart, and shall multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. I shall harden, etc. . .not by being the efficient cause of his hardness of heart, but by permitting it; and by withdrawing grace from him, in punishment of his malice; which alone was the proper cause of his being hardened. 7:4. And he will not hear you: and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and will bring forth my army and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, by very great judgments. 7:5. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, who have stretched forth my hand upon Egypt, and have brought forth the children of Israel out of the midst of them. 7:6. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded; so did they. 7:7. And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharao. 7:8. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: 7:9. When Pharao shall say to you, Shew signs; thou shalt say to Aaron: Take thy rod, and cast it down before Pharao, and it shall be turned into a serpent. 7:10. So Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharao, and did as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron took the rod before Pharao and his servants, and it was turned into a serpent. 7:11. And Pharao called the wise men and the magicians; and they also by Egyptian enchantments and certain secrets, did in like manner. Magicians. . .Jannes, and Mambres, or Jambres, 2 Tim. 3.8. 7:12. And they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron's rod devoured their rods. 7:13. And Pharao's heart was hardened, and he did not hearken to them, as the Lord had commanded. 7:14. And the Lord said to Moses: Pharao's heart is hardened, he will not let the people go. 7:15. Go to him in the morning, behold he will go out to the waters: and thou shalt stand to meet him on the ' bank of the river: and thou shalt take in thy hand the rod that was turned into a serpent. 7:16. And thou shalt say to him: The Lord God of the Hebrews sent me to thee, saying: Let my people go to sacrifice to me in the desert: and hitherto thou wouldst not hear. 7:17. Thus therefore saith the Lord: In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold I will strike with the rod, that is in my hand, the water of the river, and it shall be turned into blood. 7:18: And the fishes that are in the river, shall die, and the waters shall be corrupted, and the Egyptians shall be afflicted when they drink the water of the river. 7:19. The Lord also said to Moses: Say to Aaron, Take thy rod; and stretch forth thy hand upon the waters of Egypt, and upon their rivers, and streams and pools, and all the ponds of waters, that they may be turned into blood: and let blood be in all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and of stone. 7:20. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded: and lifting up the rod, he struck the water of the river before Pharao and his servants: and it was turned into blood. 7:21. And the fishes that were in the river died; and the river corrupted, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river, and there was blood in all the land of Egypt. 7:22. And the magicians of the Egyptians with their enchantments did in like manner; and Pharao's heart was hardened, neither did he hear them, as the Lord had commanded. 7:23. And he turned himself away, and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to it this time also. 7:24. And all the Egyptians dug round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river. 7:25. And seven days were fully ended, after that the Lord struck the river. Exodus Chapter 8 The second plague is of frogs: Pharao promiseth to let the Israelites go, but breaketh his promise. The third plague is of sciniphs. The fourth is of flies. Pharao again promiseth to dismiss the people, but doth it not. 8:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Go in to Pharao, and thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Let my people go to sacrifice to me. 8:2. But if thou wilt not let them go, behold I will strike all thy coasts with frogs. 8:3. And the river shall bring forth an abundance of frogs; which shall come up and enter into thy house, and thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the houses of thy servants, and to thy people, and into thy ovens, and into the remains of thy meats: 8:4. And the frogs shall come in to thee, and to thy people, and to all thy servants. 8:5. And the Lord said to Moses: Say to Aaron: Stretch forth thy hand upon the streams, and upon the rivers and the pools, and bring forth frogs upon the land of Egypt. 8:6. And Aaron stretched forth his hand upon the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. 8:7. And the magicians also, by their enchantments, did in like manner, and they brought forth frogs upon the land of Egypt. 8:8. But Pharao called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: Pray ye to the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. Pray ye to the Lord, etc. . .By this it appears, that though the magicians, by the help of the devil, could bring frogs, yet they could not take them away: God being pleased to abridge in this the power of Satan. So we see they could not afterwards produce the lesser insects; and in this restraint of the power of the devil, were forced to acknowledge the finger of God. 8:9. And Moses said to Pharao: Set me a time when I shall pray for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, that the frogs may be driven away from thee and from thy house, and from thy servants, and from thy people; and may remain only in the river. 8:10. And he answered: To morrow. But he said: I will do according to thy word; that thou mayest know that there is none like to the Lord our God. 8:11. And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy house, and from thy servants, and from thy people; and shall remain only in the river. 8:12. And Moses and Aaron went forth from Pharao: and Moses cried to the Lord for the promise, which he had made to Pharao concerning the frogs. 8:13. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses: and the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields: 8:14. And they gathered them together into immense heaps, and the land was corrupted. 8:15. And Pharao seeing that rest was given, hardened his own heart, and did not hear them, as the Lord had commanded. Pharao hardened his own heart. . .By this we see that Pharao was himself the efficient cause of his heart being hardened, and not God.--See the same repeated in ver. 32. Pharao hardened his heart at this time also: likewise chap. 9.7, 35, and chap. 13.15. 8:16. And the Lord said to Moses: Say to Aaron: Stretch forth thy rod, and strike the dust of the earth; and may there be sciniphs in all the land of Egypt. Sciniphs. . .Or Cinifs, Hebrew Chinnim, small flying insects, very troublesome both to men and beast. 8:17. And they did so. And Aaron stretched forth his hand, holding the rod; and he struck the dust of the earth, and there came sciniphs on men and on beasts: all the dust of the earth was turned into sciniphs through all the land of Egypt. 8:18: And the magicians with their enchantments practised in like manner, to bring forth sciniphs, and they could not: and there were sciniphs as well on men as on beasts. 8:19. And the magicians said to Pharao: This is the finger of God. And Pharao's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had commanded. 8:20. The Lord also said to Moses: Arise early, and stand before Pharao; for he will go forth to the waters: and thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Let my people go to sacrifice to me. 8:21. But if thou wilt not let them go, behold I will send in upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy houses, all kind of flies: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with flies of divers kinds, and the whole land wherein they shall be. 8:22. And I will make the land of Gessen wonderful in that day, so that flies shall not be there: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. 8:23. And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be. 8:24. And the Lord did so. And there came a very grievous swarm of flies into the houses of Pharao and of his servants, and into all the land of Egypt: and the land was corrupted by this kind of flies. 8:25. And Pharao called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: Go and sacrifice to your God in this land. 8:26. And Moses said: It cannot be so: for we shall sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: now if we kill those things which the Egyptians worship, in their presence, they will stone us. The abominations, etc. . .That is, the things they worship for Gods: oxen, rams, etc. It is the usual style of the scriptures to call all idols and false gods, abominations, to signify how much the people of God ought to detest and abhor them. 8:27. We will go three days' journey into the wilderness; and we will sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. 8:28. And Pharao said: I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but go no farther: pray for me. 8:29. And Moses said: I will go out from thee, and will pray to the Lord: and the flies shall depart from Pharao, and from his servants, and from his people to morrow: but do not deceive any more, in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. 8:30. So Moses went out from Pharao, and prayed to the Lord. 8:31. And he did according to his word: and he took away the flies from Pharao, and from his servants, and from his people: there was not left so much as one. 8:32. And Pharao's heart was hardened, so that neither this time would he let the people go. Exodus Chapter 9 The fifth plague is a murrain among the cattle. The sixth, of boils in men and beasts. The seventh, of hail. Pharao promiseth again to let the people go, and breaketh his word. 9:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Go in to Pharao, and speak to him: Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let my people go to sacrifice to me. 9:2. But if thou refuse, and withhold them still: 9:3. Behold my hand shall be upon thy fields; and a very grievous murrain upon thy horses, and asses, and camels, and oxen, and sheep. 9:4. And the Lord will make a wonderful difference between the possessions of Israel and the possessions of the Egyptians, that nothing at all shall die of those things that belong to the children of Israel. 9:5. And the Lord appointed a time, saying: To morrow will the Lord do this thing in the land. 9:6. The Lord therefore did this thing the next day: and all the beasts of the Egyptians died, but of the beasts of the children of Israel there died not one. All the beasts. . .That is, many of all kinds. 9:7. And Pharao sent to see; and there was not any thing dead of that which Israel possessed. And Pharao's heart was hardened, and he did not let the people go. 9:8. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Take to you handfuls of ashes out of the chimney, and let Moses sprinkle it in the air in the presence of Pharao. 9:9. And be there dust upon all the land of Egypt: for there shall be boils and swelling blains both in men and beasts, in the whole land of Egypt. 9:10. And they took ashes out of the chimney, and stood before Pharao, and Moses sprinkled it in the air; and there came boils with swelling blains in men and beasts. 9:11. Neither could the magicians stand before Moses, for the boils that were upon them, and in all the land of Egypt. 9:12. And the Lord hardened Pharao's heart, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Hardened, etc. . .See the annotations above, chap. 4.21, chap. 7.3, and chap. 8.15. 9:13. And the Lord said to Moses: Arise in the morning, and stand before Pharao, and thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go to sacrifice to me. 9:14. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thy heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayst know that there is none like me in all the earth. 9:15. For now I will stretch out my hand to strike thee, and thy people, with pestilence, and thou shalt perish from the earth. 9:16. And therefore have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee, and my name may be spoken of throughout all the earth. 9:17. Dost thou yet hold back my people; and wilt thou not let them go? 9:18: Behold I will cause it to rain to morrow at this same hour, an exceeding great hail; such as hath not been in Egypt from the day that it was founded, until this present time. 9:19. Send therefore now presently, and gather together thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for men and beasts, and all things that shall be found abroad, and not gathered together out of the fields which the hail shall fall upon, shall die. 9:20. He that feared the word of the Lord among Pharao's servants, made his servants and his cattle flee into houses: 9:21. But he that regarded not the word of the Lord, left his servants, and his cattle in the fields. 9:22. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand towards heaven, that there may be hail in the whole land of Egypt upon men, and upon beasts, and upon every herb of the field in the land of Egypt. 9:23. And Moses stretched forth his rod towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightnings running along the ground: and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 9:24. And the hail and fire mixt with it drove on together: and it was of so great bigness, as never before was seen in the whole land of Egypt since that nation was founded. 9:25. And the hail destroyed through all the land of Egypt all things that were in the fields, both man and beast: and the hail smote every herb of the field, and it broke every tree of the country. 9:26. Only in the land of Gessen, where the children of Israel were, the hail fell not. 9:27. And Pharao sent and called Moses and Aaron, saying to them: I have sinned this time also, the Lord is just: I and my people, are wicked. 9:28. Pray ye to the Lord that the thunderings of God and the hail may cease: that I may let you go, and that ye may stay here no longer. 9:29. Moses said: As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will stretch forth my hands to the Lord, and the thunders shall cease, and the hail shall be no more: that thou mayst know that the earth is the Lord's: 9:30. But I know that neither thou, nor thy servants do yet fear the Lord God. 9:31. The flax therefore, and the barley were hurt, because the barley was green, and the flax was now bolled; 9:32. But the wheat, and other winter corn were not hurt, because they were lateward. 9:33. And when Moses was gone from Pharao out of the city, he stretched forth his hands to the Lord: and the thunders and the hail ceased, neither did there drop any more rain upon the earth. 9:34. And Pharao seeing that the rain, and the hail, and the thunders were ceased, increased his sin: 9:35. And his heart was hardened, and the heart of his servants, and it was made exceeding hard: neither did he let the children of Israel go, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. Exodus Chapter 10 The eighth plague of the locusts. The ninth, of darkness: Pharao is still hardened. 10:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Go in to Pharao; for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants: that I may work these my signs in him, 10:2. And thou mayst tell in the ears of thy sons, and of thy grandsons, how often I have plagued the Egyptians, and wrought my signs amongst them: and you may know that I am the Lord. 10:3. Therefore Moses and Aaron went in to Pharao, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews: How long refusest thou to submit to me? let my people go, to sacrifice to me. 10:4. But if thou resist, and wilt not let them go, behold I will bring in to-morrow the locusts into thy coasts; 10:5. To cover the face of the earth, that nothing thereof may appear, but that which the hail hath left may be eaten: for they shall feed upon all the trees that spring in the fields. 10:6. And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of thy servants, and of all the Egyptians: such a number as thy fathers have not seen, nor thy grandfathers, from the time they were first upon the earth, until this present day. And he turned himself away, and went forth from Pharao. 10:7. And Pharao's servants said to him: How long shall we endure this scandal? Iet the men go to sacrifice to the Lord their God. Dost thou not see that Egypt is undone? 10:8. And they called back Moses, and Aaron, to Pharao; and he said to them: Go, sacrifice to the Lord your God: who are they that shall go? 10:9. Moses said: We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, with our sheep and herds: for it is the solemnity of the Lord our God. 10:10. And Pharao answered: So be the Lord with you, as I shall let you and your children go: who can doubt but that you intend some great evil? 10:11. It shall not be so. but go ye men only, and sacrifice to the Lord: for this yourselves also desired. And immediately they were cast out from Pharao's presence. 10:12. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand upon the land of Egypt unto the locust, that it come upon it, and devour every herb that is left after the hail. 10:13. And Moses stretched forth his rod upon the land of Egypt: and the Lord brought a burning wind all that day, and night; and when it was morning, the burning wind raised the locusts. 10:14. And they came up over the whole land of Egypt; and rested in all the coasts of the Egyptians, innumerable, the like as had not been before that time, nor shall be hereafter. 10:15. And they covered the whole face of the earth, wasting all things. And the grass of the earth was devoured, and what fruits soever were on the trees, which the hail had left; and there remained not any thing that was green on the trees, or in the herbs of the earth, in all Egypt. 10:16. Wherefore Pharao in haste called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 10:17. But now forgive me my sin this time also, and pray to the Lord your God, that he take away from me this death. 10:18: And Moses going forth from the presence of Pharao, prayed to the Lord: 10:19. And he made a very strong wind to blow from the west, and it took the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea: there remained not so much as one in all the coasts of Egypt. 10:20. And the Lord hardened Pharao's heart, neither did he let the children of Israel go. 10:21. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch out thy hand towards heaven: and may there be darkness upon the land of Egypt so thick that it may be felt. Darkness upon the land of Egypt, so thick that it may be felt. . .By means of the gross exhalations, which were to cause and accompany the darkness. 10:22. And Moses stretched forth his hand towards heaven: and there came horrible darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. 10:23. No man saw his brother, nor moved himself out of the place where he was: but wheresoever the children of Israel dwelt, there was light. 10:24. And Pharao called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: Go, sacrifice to the Lord: let your sheep only, and herds remain, let your children go with you. 10:25. Moses said: Thou shalt give us also sacrifices and burnt-offerings, to the Lord our God. 10:26. All the flocks shall go with us; there shall not a hoof remain of them: for they are necessary for the service of the Lord our God: especially as we know not what must be offered, till we come to the very place. 10:27. And the Lord hardened Pharao's heart, and he would not let them go. 10:28. And Pharao said to Moses: Get thee from me, and beware thou see not my face any more: in what day soever thou shalt come in my sight, thou shalt die. 10:29. Moses answered: So shall it be as thou hast spoken, I will not see thy face anymore. Exodus Chapter 11 Pharao and his people are threatened with the death of their firstborn. 11:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Yet one plague more will I bring upon Pharao and Egypt, and after that he shall let you go, and thrust you out. 11:2. Therefore thou shalt tell all the people, that every man ask of his friend, and every woman of her neighbour, vessels of silver and of gold. 11:3. And the Lord will give favour to his people in the sight of the Egyptians. And Moses was a very great man in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharao's servants, and of all the people. 11:4. And he said: Thus saith the Lord: At midnight I will enter into Egypt: 11:5. And every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharao who sitteth on his throne, even to the firstborn of the handmaid that is at the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. 11:6. And there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as neither hath been before, nor shall be hereafter. 11:7. But with all the children of Israel there shall not a dog make the least noise, from man even to beast; that you may know how wonderful a difference the Lord maketh between the Egyptians and Israel. 11:8. And all these thy servants shall come down to me, and shall worship me, saying: Go forth thou, and all the people that is under thee: after that we will go out. 11:9. And he went out from Pharao exceeding angry. But the Lord said to Moses: Pharao will not hear you, that many signs may be done in the land of Egypt. 11:10. And Moses and Aaron did all the wonders that are written, before Pharao. And the Lord hardened Pharao's heart, neither did he let the children of Israel go out of his land. The Lord hardened, etc. . .See the annotations above, chap. 4.21, and chap. 7.3. Exodus Chapter 12 The manner of preparing, and eating the paschal lamb: the firstborn of Egypt are all slain: the Israelites depart. 12:1. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 12:2. This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first in the months of the year. 12:3. Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses. 12:4. But if the number be less than may suffice to eat the lamb, he shall take unto him his neighbour that joineth to his house, according to the number of souls which may be enough to eat the lamb. 12:5. And it shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one year; according to which rite also you shall take a kid. A kid. . .The phase might be performed, either with a lamb or with a kid: and all the same rites and ceremonies were to be used with the one as with the other. 12:6. And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; and the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice it in the evening. 12:7. And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. 12:8. And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce. 12:9. You shall not eat thereof any thing raw, nor boiled in water, but only roasted at the fire; you shall eat the head with the feet and entrails thereof. 12:10. Neither shall there remain any thing of it until morning. If there be any thing left, you shall burn it with fire. 12:11. And thus you shall eat it: you shall gird your reins, and you shall have shoes on your feet, holding staves in your hands, and you shall eat in haste; for it is the Phase (that is the Passage) of the Lord. 12:12. And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments; I am the Lord. 12:13. And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be; and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you; and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt. 12:14. And this day shall be for a memorial to you; and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord in your generations, with an everlasting observance. 12:15. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread: in the first day there shall be no leaven in your houses; whosoever shall eat any thing leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall perish out of Israel. 12:16. The first day shall be holy and solemn, and the seventh day shall be kept with the like solemnity: you shall do no work in them, except those things that belong to eating. 12:17. And you shall observe the feast of the unleavened bread: for in this same day I will bring forth your army out of the land of Egypt, and you shall keep this day in your generations by a perpetual observance. 12:18: The first month, the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the same month, in the evening. Unleavened bread. . .By this it appears, that our Saviour made use of unleavened bread, in the institution of the blessed sacrament, which was on the evening of the paschal solemnity, at which time there was no leavened bread to be found in Israel. 12:19. Seven days there shall not be found any leaven in your houses: he that shall eat leavened bread, his soul shall perish out of the assembly of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land. 12:20. You shall not eat any thing leavened: in all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread. 12:21. And Moses called all the ancients of the children of Israel, and said to them: Go take a lamb by your families, and sacrifice the Phase. 12:22. And dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood that is at the door, and sprinkle the transom of the door therewith, and both the door cheeks: let none of you go out of the door of his house till morning. Sprinkle, etc. . .This sprinkling the doors of the Israelites with the blood of the paschal lamb, in order to their being delivered from the sword of the destroying angel, was a lively figure of our redemption by the blood of Christ. 12:23. For the Lord will pass through striking the Egyptians: and when he shall see the blood on the transom, and on both the posts, he will pass over the door of the house, and not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses and to hurt you. 12:24. Thou shalt keep this thing as a law for thee and thy children for ever. 12:25. And when you have entered into the land which the Lord will give you, as he hath promised, you shall observe these ceremonies. 12:26. And when your children shall say to you: What is the meaning of this service? 12:27. You shall say to them: It is the victim of the passage of the Lord, when he passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, striking the Egyptians, and saving our houses. And the people bowing themselves, adored. 12:28. And the children of Israel going forth, did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 12:29. And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle. 12:30. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt: and there arose a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead. 12:31. And Pharao calling Moses and Aaron, in the night, said: Arise and go forth from among my people, you and the children of Israel: go, sacrifice to the Lord as you say. 12:32. Your sheep and herds take along with you, as you demanded, and departing bless me. 12:33. And the Egyptians pressed the people to go forth out of the land speedily, saying: We shall all die. 12:34. The people therefore took dough before it was leavened; and tying it in their cloaks, put it on their shoulders. 12:35. And the children of Israel did as Moses had commanded: and they asked of the Egyptians vessels of silver and gold, and very much raiment. 12:36. And the Lord gave favour to the people in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them: and they stripped the Egyptians. 12:37. And the children of Israel set forward from Ramesse to Socoth, being about six hundred thousand men on foot, beside children. 12:38. And a mixed multitude, without number, went up also with them, sheep and herds, and beasts of divers kinds, exceeding many. 12:39. And they baked the meal, which a little before they had brought out of Egypt in dough: and they made hearth cakes unleavened: for it could not be leavened, the Egyptians pressing them to depart, and not suffering them to make any stay; neither did they think of preparing any meat. 12:40. And the abode of the children of Israel that they made in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. 12:41. Which being expired, the same day all the army of the Lord went forth out of the land of Egypt. 12:42. This is the observable night of the Lord, when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: this night all the children of Israel must observe in their generations. 12:43. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the service of the Phase; no foreigner shall eat of it. 12:44. But every bought servant shall be circumcised, and so shall eat. 12:45. The stranger and the hireling shall not eat thereof. 12:46. In one house shall it be eaten, neither shall you carry forth of the flesh thereof out of the house, neither shall you break a bone thereof. 12:47. All the assembly of the children of Israel shall keep it. 12:48. And if any stranger be willing to dwell among you, and to keep the Phase of the Lord, all his males shall first be circumcised, and then shall he celebrate it according to the manner: and he shall be as he that is born in the land: but if any man be uncircumcised, he shall not eat thereof. 12:49. The same law shall be to him that is born in the land, and to the proselyte that sojourneth with you. 12:50. And all the children of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 12:51. And the same day the Lord brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their companies. Exodus Chapter 13 The paschal solemnity is to be observed; and the firstborn are to be consecrated to God. The people are conducted through the desert by a pillar of fire in the night, and a cloud in the day. 13:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 13:2. Sanctify unto me every firstborn that openeth the womb among the children of Israel, as well of men as of beasts: for they are all mine. Sanctify unto me every firstborn. . .Sanctification in this place means that the firstborn males of the Hebrews should be deputed to the ministry in the divine worship; and the firstborn of beasts to be given for a sacrifice. 13:3. And Moses said to the people: Remember this day in which you came forth out of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage, for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought you forth out of this place: that you eat no leavened bread. 13:4. This day you go forth in the month of new corn. 13:5. And when the Lord shall have brought thee into the land of the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, and the Amorrhite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, which he swore to thy fathers that he would give thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey, thou shalt celebrate this manner of sacred rites in this month. 13:6. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be the solemnity of the Lord. 13:7. Unleavened bread shall you eat seven days: there shall not be seen any thing leavened with thee, nor in all thy coasts. 13:8. And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: This is what the Lord did to me when I came forth out of Egypt. 13:9. And it shall be as a sign in thy hand, and as a memorial before thy eyes; and that the law of the Lord be always in thy mouth, for with a strong hand the Lord hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt. 13:10. Thou shalt keep this observance at the set time from days to days. 13:11. And when the Lord shall have brought thee into the land of the Chanaanite, as he swore to thee and thy fathers, and shall give it thee: 13:12. Thou shalt set apart all that openeth the womb for the Lord, and all that is first brought forth of thy cattle: whatsoever thou shalt have of the male sex, thou shalt consecrate to the Lord. 13:13. The firstborn of an ass thou shalt change for a sheep: and if thou do not redeem it, thou shalt kill it. And every firstborn of men thou shalt redeem with a price. 13:14. And when thy son shall ask thee to morrow, saying: What is this? thou shalt answer him: With a strong hand did the Lord bring us forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 13:15. For when Pharao was hardened, and would not let us go, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of beasts: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the womb of the male sex, and all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. 13:16. And it shall be as a sign in thy hand, and as a thing hung between thy eyes, for a remembrance: because the Lord hath brought us forth out of Egypt by a strong hand. 13:17. And when Pharao had sent out the people, the Lord led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, which is near; thinking lest perhaps they would repent, if they should see wars arise against them, and would return into Egypt. 13:18: But he led them about by the way of the desert, which is by the Red Sea: and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt. 13:19. And Moses took Joseph's bones with him: because he had adjured the children of Israel, saying: God shall visit you, carry out my bones from hence with you. 13:20. And marching from Socoth, they encamped in Etham, in the utmost coasts of the wilderness. 13:21. And the Lord went before them to shew the way, by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire; that he might be the guide of their journey at both times. 13:22. There never failed the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people. Exodus Chapter 14 Pharao pursueth the children of Israel. They murmur against Moses, but are encouraged by him, and pass through the Red Sea. Pharao and his army following them are drowned. 14:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 14:2. Speak to the children of Israel: Let them turn and encamp over against Phihahiroth, which is between Magdal and the sea over against Beelsephon: you shall encamp before it upon the sea. 14:3. And Pharao will say of the children of Israel: They are straitened in the land, the desert hath shut them in. 14:4. And I shall harden his heart and he will pursue you: and I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in all his army: and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so. 14:5. And it was told the king of the Egyptians that the people was fled: and the heart of Pharao and of his servants was changed with regard to the people, and they said: What meant we to do, that we let Israel go from serving us? 14:6. So he made ready his chariot, and took all his people with him. 14:7. And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots that were in Egypt: and the captains of the whole army. 14:8. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharao, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel; but they were gone forth in a mighty hand. 14:9. And when the Egyptians followed the steps of them who were gone before, they found them encamped at the sea side: all Pharao's horse and chariots and the whole army were in Phihahiroth, before Beelsephon. 14:10. And when Pharao drew near, the children of Israel lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians behind them: and they feared exceedingly, and cried to the Lord. 14:11. And they said to Moses: Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou hast brought us to die in the wilderness: why wouldst thou do this, to lead us out of Egypt? 14:12. Is not this the word that we spoke to thee in Egypt, saying: Depart from us, that we may serve the Egyptians? for it was much better to serve them, than to die in the wilderness. 14:13. And Moses said to the people: Fear not: stand, and see the great wonders of the Lord, which he will do this day; for the Egyptians, whom you see now, you shall see no more for ever. 14:14. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. 14:15. And the Lord said to Moses: Why criest thou to me? Speak to the children of Israel to go forward. 14:16. But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch forth thy hand over the sea, and divide it: that the children of Israel may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground. 14:17. And I will harden the heart of the Egyptians to pursue you: and I will be glorified in Pharao, and in all his host, and in his chariots and in his horsemen. 14:18: And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen. 14:19. And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removing, went behind them: and together with him the pillar of the cloud, leaving the forepart, 14:20. Stood behind, between the Egyptians' camp and the camp of Israel: and it was a dark cloud, and enlightening the night, so that they could not come at one another all the night. A dark cloud, and enlightening the night. . .It was a dark cloud to the Egyptians; but enlightened the night to the Israelites by giving them a great light. 14:21. And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided. 14:22. And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up; for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left. 14:23. And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharao's horses, his chariots and horsemen, through the midst of the sea. 14:24. And now the morning watch was come, and behold the Lord looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host. 14:25. And overthrew the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. And the Egyptians said: Let us flee from Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against us. 14:26. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen. 14:27. And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place: and as the Egyptians were fleeing away, the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves. 14:28. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain. 14:29. But the children of Israel marched through the midst of the sea upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and on the left: 14:30. And the Lord delivered Israel in that day out of the hands of the Egyptians. 14:31. And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses his servant. Exodus Chapter 15 The canticle of Moses. The bitter waters of Mara are made sweet. 15:1. Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this canticle to the Lord, and said: Let us sing to the Lord: for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and the rider he hath thrown into the sea. 15:2. The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me: he is my God, and I will glorify him: the God of my father, and I will exalt him. 15:3. The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is his name. 15:4. Pharao's chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea: his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea. 15:5. The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone. 15:6. Thy right hand, O Lord, is magnified in strength: thy right hand, O Lord, hath slain the enemy. 15:7. And in the multitude of thy glory thou hast put down thy adversaries: thou hast sent thy wrath, which hath devoured them like stubble. 15:8. And with the blast of thy anger the waters were gathered together: the flowing water stood, the depths were gathered together in the midst of the sea. 15:9. The enemy said: I will pursue and overtake, I will divide the spoils, my soul shall have its fill: I will draw my sword, my hand shall slay them. 15:10. Thy wind blew and the sea covered them: they sunk as lead in the mighty waters. 15:11. Who is like to thee, among the strong, O Lord? who is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and praise-worthy, doing wonders? 15:12. Thou stretchedst forth thy hand, and the earth swallowed them. 15:13. In thy mercy thou hast been a leader to the people which thou hast redeemed: and in thy strength thou hast carried them to thy holy habitation. 15:14. Nations rose up, and were angry: sorrows took hold on the inhabitants of Philisthiim. 15:15. Then were the princes of Edom troubled, trembling seized on the stout men of Moab: all the inhabitants of Chanaan became stiff. 15:16. Let fear and dread fall upon them, in the greatness of thy arm: let them become immoveable as a stone, until thy people, O Lord, pass by: until this thy people pass by, which thou hast possessed. 15:17. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance, in thy most firm habitation, which thou hast made, O Lord; thy sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. 15:18: The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. 15:19. For Pharao went in on horseback with his chariots and horsemen into the sea: and the Lord brought back upon them the waters of the sea: but the children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof. 15:20. So Mary the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances. 15:21. And she began the song to them, saying: Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea. 15:22. And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went forth into the wilderness of Sur: and they marched three days through the wilderness, and found no water. 15:23. And they came into Mara, and they could not drink the waters of Mara because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a name also agreeable to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness. 15:24. And the people murmured against Moses, saying: What shall we drink? 15:25. But he cried to the Lord, and he shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness. There he appointed him ordinances, and judgments, and there he proved him, 15:26. Saying: If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before him, and obey his commandments, and keep all his precepts, none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee: for I am the Lord thy healer. 15:27. And the children of Israel came into Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water, and seventy palm trees: and they encamped by the waters. Exodus Chapter 16 The people murmur for want of meat: God giveth them quails and manna. 16:1. And they set forward from Elim, and all the multitude of the children of Israel came into the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai: the fifteenth day of the second month, after they came out of the land of Egypt. 16:2. And all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 16:3. And the children of Israel said to them: Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the fleshpots, and ate bread to the full: Why have you brought us into this desert, that you might destroy all the multitude with famine? 16:4. And the Lord said to Moses: Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you; let the people go forth, and gather what is sufficient for every day: that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law, or not. 16:5. But the sixth day let them provide for to bring in: and let it be double to that they were wont to gather every day. 16:6. And Moses and Aaron said to the children of Israel In the evening you shall know that the Lord hath brought you forth out of the land of Egypt: 16:7. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord: for he hath heard your murmuring against the Lord: but as for us, what are we, that you mutter against us? 16:8. And Moses said: In the evening the Lord will give you flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full: for he hath heard your murmurings, with which you have murmured against him, for what are we? your murmuring is not against us, but against the Lord. 16:9. Moses also said to Aaron: Say to the whole congregation of the children of Israel: Come before the Lord; for he hath heard your murmuring. 16:10. And when Aaron spoke to all the assembly of the children of Israel, they looked towards the wilderness; and behold the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud. 16:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 16:12. I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel, say to them: In the evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. 16:13. So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning a dew lay round about the camp. 16:14. And when it had covered the face of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground. 16:15. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another: Manhu! which signifieth: What is this! for they knew not what it was. And Moses said to them: This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. 16:16. This is the word that the Lord hath commanded: Let every one gather of it as much as is enough to eat; a gomor for every man, according to the number of your souls that dwell in a tent, so shall you take of it. 16:17. And the children of Israel did so: and they gathered, one more, another less. 16:18: And they measured by the measure of a gomor: neither had he more that had gathered more; nor did he find less that had provided less: but every one had gathered, according to what they were able to eat. 16:19. And Moses said to them: Let no man leave thereof till the morning. 16:20. And they hearkened not to him, but some of them left until the morning, and it began to be full of worms, and it putrified, and Moses was angry with them. 16:21. Now every one of them gathered in the morning, as much as might suffice to eat: and after the sun grew hot, it melted. 16:22. But on the sixth day they gathered twice as much, that is, two gomors every man: and all the rulers of the multitude came, and told Moses. 16:23. And he said to them: This is what the Lord hath spoken: To morrow is the rest of the sabbath sanctified to the Lord. Whatsoever work is to be done, do it; and the meats that are to be dressed, dress them; and whatsoever shall remain, lay it up until the morning. 16:24. And they did so as Moses had commanded, and it did not putrify, neither was there worm found in it. 16:25. And Moses said: Eat it to day, because it is the sabbath of the Lord: to day it shall not be found in the field. 16:26. Gather it six days; but on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord, therefore it shall not be found. 16:27. And the seventh day came; and some of the people going forth to gather, found none. 16:28. And the Lord said to Moses: How long will you refuse to keep my commandments, and my law? 16:29. See that the Lord hath given you the sabbath, and for this reason on the sixth day he giveth you a double provision: let each man stay at home, and let none go forth out of his place the seventh day. 16:30. And the people kept the sabbath on the seventh day. 16:31. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste thereof like to flour with honey. 16:32. And Moses said: This is the word which the Lord hath commanded: Fill a gomor of it, and let it be kept unto generations to come hereafter; that they may know the bread, wherewith I fed you in the wilderness when you were brought forth out of the land of Egypt. 16:33. And Moses said to Aaron: Take a vessel, and put manna into it, as much as a gomor can hold; and lay it up before the Lord, to keep unto your generations, 16:34. As the Lord commanded Moses. And Aaron put it in the tabernacle to be kept. 16:35. And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land: with this meat were they fed, until they reached the borders of the land of Chanaan. 16:36. Now a gomor is the tenth part of an ephi. Exodus Chapter 17 The people murmur again for want of drink; the Lord giveth them water out of a rock. Moses lifting up his hand in prayer, Amalec is overcome. 17:1. Then all the multitude of the children of Israel setting forward from the desert of Sin, by their mansions, according to the word of the Lord, encamped in Raphidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. 17:2. And they chode with Moses, and said: Give us water, that we may drink. And Moses answered them: Why chide you with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord? 17:3. So the people were thirsty there for want of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt, to kill us and our children, and our beasts with thirst? 17:4. And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me. 17:5. And the Lord said to Moses: Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel: and take in thy hand the rod wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go. 17:6. Behold I will stand there before thee, upon the rock Horeb, and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink. Moses did so before the ancients of Israel: 17:7. And he called the name of that place Temptation, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and for that they tempted the Lord, saying: Is the Lord amongst us or not? 17:8. And Amalec came, and fought against Israel in Raphidim. 17:9. And Moses said to Josue: Choose out men; and go out and fight against Amalec: tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, having the rod of God in my hand. 17:10. Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, and Aaron, and Hur, went up upon the top of the hill. 17:11. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame; but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame. 17:12. And Moses's hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass, that his hands were not weary until sunset. 17:13. And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword. 17:14. And the Lord said to Moses: Write this for a memorial in a book, and deliver it to the ears of Josue; for I will destroy the memory of Amalec from under heaven. 17:15. And Moses built an altar; and called the name thereof, The Lord, my exaltation, saying: 17:16. Because the hand of the throne of the Lord, and the war of the Lord shall be against Amalec, from generation to generation. Exodus Chapter 18 Jethro bringeth to Moses his wife and children. His counsel. 18:1. And when Jethro the priest of Madian, the kinsman of Moses, had heard all the things that God had done to Moses, and to Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought forth Israel out of Egypt: 18:2. He took Sephora, the wife of Moses, whom he had sent back: 18:3. And her two sons, of whom one was called Gersam: his father saying, I have been a stranger in a foreign country. 18:4. And the other Eliezer: For the God of my father, said he, is my helper, and hath delivered me from the sword of Pharao. 18:5. And Jethro, the kinsman of Moses, came with his sons, and his wife to Moses into the desert, where he was camped by the mountain of God. 18:6. And he sent word to Moses, saying: I Jethro, thy kinsman, come to thee, and thy wife, and thy two sons with her. 18:7. And he went out to meet his kinsman, and worshipped and kissed him: and they saluted one another with words of peace. And when he was come into the tent, 18:8. Moses told his kinsman all that the Lord had done to Pharao, and the Egyptians in favour of Israel: and all the labour which had befallen them in the journey, and that the Lord had delivered them. 18:9. And Jethro rejoiced for all the good things that the Lord had done to Israel, because he had delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians. 18:10. And he said: Blessed is the Lord, who hath delivered his people out of the hand of Egypt. 18:11. Now I know, that the Lord is great above all gods; because they dealt proudly against them. 18:12. So Jethro, the kinsman of Moses, offered holocausts and sacrifices to God: and Aaron and all the ancients of Israel came, to eat bread with him before God. 18:13. And the next day Moses sat to judge the people, who stood by Moses from morning until night. 18:14. And when his kinsman had seen all things that he did among the people, he said: What is it that thou dost among the people? Why sittest thou alone, and all the people wait from morning till night? 18:15. And Moses answered him: The people come to me to seek the judgment of God? 18:16. And when any controversy falleth out among them, they come to me to judge between them, and to shew the precepts of God, and his laws. 18:17. But he said: The thing thou dost is not good. 18:18: Thou art spent with foolish labour, both thou, and this people that is with thee; the business is above thy strength, thou alone canst not bear it. 18:19. But hear my words and counsels, and God shall be with thee. Be thou to the people in those things that pertain to God, to bring their words to him: 18:20. And to shew the people the ceremonies, and the manner of worshipping; and the way wherein they ought to walk, and the work that they ought to do. 18:21. And provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, in whom there is truth, and that hate avarice, and appoint of them rulers of thousands, and of hundreds, and of fifties, and of tens, 18:22. Who may judge the people at all times: and when any great matter soever shall fall out, let them refer it to thee, and let them judge the lesser matters only: that so it may be lighter for thee, the burden being shared out unto others. 18:23. If thou dost this, thou shalt fulfil the commandment of God, and shalt be able to bear his precepts: and all this people shall return to their places with peace. 18:24. And when Moses heard this, he did all things that he had suggested unto him. 18:25. And choosing able men out of all Israel, he appointed them rulers of the people, rulers over thousands, and over hundreds, and over fifties, and over tens. 18:26. And they judged the people at all times: and whatsoever was of greater difficulty they referred to him, and they judged the easier cases only. 18:27. And he let his kinsman depart: and he returned and went into his own country. Exodus Chapter 19 They come to Sinai: the people are commanded to be sanctified. The Lord, coming in thunder and lightning, speaketh with Moses. 19:1. In the third month of the departure of Israel out of the land of Egypt, on this day they came into the wilderness of Sinai: 19:2. For departing out of Raphidim, and coming to the desert of Sinai, they camped in the same place, and there Israel pitched their tents over against the mountain. 19:3. And Moses went up to God; and the Lord called unto him from the mountain, and said: Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: And Moses went up to God. . .Moses went up to mount Sinai, where God spoke to him. 19:4. You have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, how I have carried you upon the wings of eagles, and have taken you to myself. 19:5. If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my peculiar possession above all people: for all the earth is mine. 19:6. And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation. These are the words thou shalt speak to the children of Israel. 19:7. Moses came; and calling together the elders of the people, he declared all the words which the Lord had commanded. 19:8. And all the people answered together: All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do. And when Moses had related the people's words to the Lord, 19:9. The Lord said to him: Lo, now will I come to thee in the darkness of a cloud, that the people may hear me speaking to thee, and may believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. 19:10. And he said to him: Go to the people, and sanctify them to day, and to morrow, and let them wash their garments. 19:11. And let them be ready against the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai. 19:12. And thou shalt appoint certain limits to the people round about, and thou shalt say to them: Take heed ye go not up into the mount, and that ye touch not the borders thereof: every one that toucheth the mount, dying he shall die. 19:13. No hands shall touch him, but he shall be stoned to death, or he shall be shot through with arrows: whether it be beast, or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet shall begin to sound, then let them go up into the mount. 19:14. And Moses came down from the mount to the people, and sanctified them. And when they had washed their garments, 19:15. He said to them: Be ready against the third day, and come not near your wives. 19:16. And now the third day was come, and the morning appeared: and behold thunders began to be heard, and lightning to flash, and a very thick cloud to cover the mount, and the noise of the trumpet sounded exceeding loud; and the people that was in the camp, feared. 19:17. And when Moses had brought them forth to meet God, from the place of the camp, they stood at the bottom of the mount. 19:18. And all Mount Sinai was on a smoke: because the Lord was come down upon it in fire, and the smoke arose from it as out of a furnace: and all the mount was terrible. 19:19. And the sound of the trumpet grew by degrees louder and louder, and was drawn out to a greater length: Moses spoke, and God answered him. 19:20. And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, in the very top of the mount, and he called Moses unto the top thereof. And when he was gone up thither, 19:21. He said unto him: Go down, and charge the people; lest they should have a mind to pass the limits to see the Lord, and a very great multitude of them should perish. 19:22. The priests also that come to the Lord, let them be sanctified, lest he strike them. 19:23. And Moses said to the Lord: The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai: for thou didst charge, and command, saying: Set limits about the mount, and sanctify it. 19:24. And the Lord said to him: Go, get thee down; and thou shalt come up, thou and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people pass the limits, nor come up to the Lord, lest he kill them. 19:25. And Moses went down to the people and told them all. Exodus Chapter 20 The ten commandments. 20:1. And the Lord spoke all these words: 20:2. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 20:3. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. 20:4. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. A graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing, etc. . .All such images, or likenesses, are forbidden by this commandment, as are made to be adored and served; according to that which immediately follows, thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. That is, all such as are designed for idols or image-gods, or are worshipped with divine honour. But otherwise images, pictures, or representations, even in the house of God, and in the very sanctuary so far from being forbidden, are expressly authorized by the word of God. See Ex. 25.15, and etc.; chap. 38.7; Num. 21.8, 9; 1 Chron. or Paralip. 28.18, 19; 2 Chron. or Paralip. 3.10. 20:5. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: 20:6. And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments. 20:7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. 20:8. Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. 20:9. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. 20:10. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. 20:11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. 20:12. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayst be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. 20:13. Thou shalt not kill. 20:14. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 20:15. Thou shalt not steal. 20:16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 20:17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. 20:18. And all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking; and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood afar off, 20:19. Saying to Moses: Speak thou to us, and we will hear: let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die. 20:20. And Moses said to the people: Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that the dread of him might be in you, and you should not sin. 20:21. And the people stood afar off. But Moses went to the dark cloud wherein God was. 20:22. And the Lord said to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. 20:23. You shall not make gods of silver, nor shall you make to yourselves gods of gold. 20:24. You shall make an altar of earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it your holocausts and peace offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the memory of my name shall be: I will come to thee, and will bless thee. 20:25. And if thou make an altar of stone unto me, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones; for if thou lift up a tool upon it, it shall be defiled. 20:26. Thou shalt not go up by steps unto my altar, lest thy nakedness be discovered. Exodus Chapter 21 Laws relating to Justice. 21:1. These are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. 21:2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve thee; in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 21:3. With what raiment he came in, with the like let him go out: if having a wife, his wife also shall go out with him. 21:4. But if his master gave him a wife, and she hath borne sons and daughters; the woman and her children shall be her master's: but he himself shall go out with his raiment. 21:5. And if the servant shall say: I love my master and my wife and children, I will not go out free: 21:6. His master shall bring him to the gods, and he shall be set to the door and the posts, and he shall bore his ear through with an awl: and he shall be his servant for ever. To the gods. . .Elohim. That is, to the judges, or magistrates, authorized by God. 21:7. If any man sell his daughter to be a servant, she shall not go out as bondwomen are wont to go out. 21:8. If she displease the eyes of her master to whom she was delivered, he shall let her go: but he shall have no power to sell her to a foreign nation, if he despise her. 21:9. But if he have betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 21:10. And if he take another wife for him, he shall provide her a marriage, and raiment, neither shall he refuse the price of her chastity. 21:11. If he do not these three things, she shall go out free without money. 21:12. He that striketh a man with a will to kill him, shall be put to death. 21:13. But he that did not lie in wait for him, but God delivered him into his hands: I will appoint thee a place to which he must flee. 21:14. If a man kill his neighbour on set purpose, and by lying in wait for him: thou shalt take him away from my altar that he may die. 21:15. He that striketh his father or mother, shall be put to death. 21:16. He that shall steal a man, and sell him, being convicted of the guilt, shall be put to death. 21:17. He that curseth his father or mother, shall die the death. 21:18. If men quarrel, and the one strike his neighbour with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: 21:19. If he rise again and walk abroad upon his staff, he that struck him shall be quit, yet so that he make restitution for his work, and for his expenses upon the physicians. 21:20. He that striketh his bondman, or bondwoman, with a rod, and they die under his hands, shall be guilty of the crime. 21:21. But if the party remain alive a day or two, he shall not be subject to the punishment, because it is his money. 21:22. If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman's husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award. 21:23. But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life, 21:24. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 21:25. Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. 21:26. If any man strike the eye of his manservant or maidservant, and leave them but one eye, he shall let them go free for the eye which he put out. 21:27. Also if he strike out a tooth of his manservant or maidservant, he shall in like manner make them free. 21:28. If an ox gore a man or a woman, and they die, he shall be stoned: and his flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall be quit. 21:29. But if the ox was wont to push with his horn yesterday, and the day before, and they warned his master, and he did not shut him up, and he shall kill a man or a woman: then the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. 21:30. And if they set a price upon him, he shall give for his life whatsoever is laid upon him. 21:31. If he have gored a son, or a daughter, he shall fall under the like sentence. 21:32. If he assault a bondman or bondwoman, he shall give thirty sicles of silver to their master, and the ox shall be stoned. 21:33. If a man open a pit, and dig one, and cover it not, and an ox or an ass fall into it, 21:34. The owner of the pit shall pay the price of the beasts: and that which is dead shall be his own. 21:35. If one man's ox gore another man's ox, and he die: they shall sell the live ox, and shall divide the price, and the carcass of that which died they shall part between them: 21:36. But if he knew that his ox was wont to push yesterday, and the day before, and his master did not keep him in; he shall pay ox for ox, and shall take the whole carcass. Exodus Chapter 22 The punishment of theft, and other trespasses. The law of lending without usury, of taking pledges of reverences to superiors, and of paying tithes. 22:1. If any man steal an ox or a sheep, and kill or sell it: he shall restore five oxen for one ox, and four sheep for one sheep. 22:2. If a thief be found breaking open a house or undermining it, and be wounded so as to die: he that slew him shall not be guilty of blood. 22:3. But if he did this when the sun is risen, he hath committed murder, and he shall die. If he have not wherewith to make restitution for the theft, he shall be sold. 22:4. If that which he stole be found with him, alive, either ox, or ass, or sheep: he shall restore double. 22:5. If any man hurt a field or a vineyard, and put in his beast to feed upon that which is other men's: he shall restore the best of whatsoever he hath in his own field, or in his vineyard, according to the estimation of the damage. 22:6. If a fire breaking out light upon thorns, and catch stacks of corn, or corn standing in the fields, he that kindled the fire shall make good the loss. 22:7. If a man deliver money, or any vessel unto his friend to keep, and they be stolen away from him that received them: if the thief be found, he shall restore double: 22:8. If the thief be not known, the master of the house shall be brought to the gods, and shall swear that he did not lay his hand upon his neighbour's goods, 22:9. To do any fraud, either in ox, or in ass, or sheep, or raiment, or any thing that may bring damage: the cause of both parties shall come to the gods: and if they give judgment, he shall restore double to his neighbour. 22:10. If a man deliver ass, ox, sheep, or any beast, to his neighbour's custody, and it die, or be hurt, or be taken by enemies, and no man saw it: 22:11. There shall be an oath between them, that he did not put forth his hand to his neighbour's goods: and the owner shall accept of the oath, and he shall not be compelled to make restitution. 22:12. But if it were taken away by stealth, he shall make the loss good to the owner. 22:13. If it were eaten by a beast, let him bring to him that which was slain, and he shall not make restitution. 22:14. If a man borrow of his neighbour any of these things, and it be hurt or die, the owner not being present, he shall be obliged to make restitution. 22:15. But if the owner be present, he shall not make restitution, especially if it were hired, and came for the hire of his work. 22:16. If a man seduce a virgin not yet espoused, and lie with her: he shall endow her, and have her to wife. 22:17. If the maid's father will not give her to him, he shall give money according to the dowry, which virgins are wont to receive. 22:18. Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live. 22:19. Whosoever copulateth with a beast; shall be put to death. 22:20. He that sacrificeth to gods, shall be put to death, save only to the Lord. 22:21. Thou shalt not molest a stranger, nor afflict him: for yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt. 22:22. You shall not hurt a widow or an orphan. 22:23. If you hurt them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry: 22:24. And my rage shall be enkindled, and I will strike you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. 22:25. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor, that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner, nor oppress them with usuries. 22:26. If thou take of thy neighbour a garment in pledge, thou shalt give it him again before sunset. 22:27. For that same is the only thing, wherewith he is covered, the clothing of his body, neither hath he any other to sleep in: if he cry to me, I will hear him, because I am compassionate. 22:28. Thou shalt not speak ill of the gods, and the prince of thy people thou shalt not curse. 22:29. Thou shalt not delay to pay thy tithes and thy firstfruits: thou shalt give the firstborn of thy sons to me. 22:30. Thou shalt do the same with the firstborn of thy oxen also and sheep: seven days let it be with its dam: the eighth day thou shalt give it to me. 22:31. You shall be holy men to me: the flesh that beasts have tasted of before, you shall not eat, but shall cast it to the dogs. Exodus Chapter 23 Laws for judges; the rest of the seventh year, and day: three principal feasts to be solemnized every year; the promise of an angel, to conduct and protect them: idols are to be destroyed. 23:1. Thou shalt not receive the voice of a lie: neither shalt thou join thy hand to bear false witness for a wicked person. 23:2. Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth. 23:3. Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in judgment. 23:4. If thou meet thy enemy's ox or ass going astray, bring it back to him. 23:5. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lie underneath his burden, thou shalt not pass by, but shalt lift him up with him. 23:6. Thou shalt not go aside in the poor man's judgment. 23:7. Thou shalt fly lying. The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death: because I abhor the wicked. 23:8. Neither shalt thou take bribes, which even blind the wise, and pervert the words of the just. 23:9. Thou shalt not molest a stranger, for you know the hearts of strangers: for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt. 23:10. Six years thou shalt sow thy ground, and shalt gather the corn thereof. 23:11. But the seventh year thou shalt let it alone, and suffer it to rest, that the poor of thy people may eat, and whatsoever shall be left, let the beasts of the field eat it: so shalt thou do with thy vineyard and thy oliveyard. 23:12. Six days thou shalt work: the seventh day thou shalt cease, that thy ox and thy ass may rest: and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed. 23:13. Keep all things that I have said to you. And by the name of strange gods you shall not swear, neither shall it be heard out of your mouth. 23:14. Three times every year you shall celebrate feasts to me. 23:15. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month of new corn, when thou didst come forth out of Egypt: thou shalt not appear empty before me. 23:16. And the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of thy work, whatsoever thou hast sown in the field. The feast also in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in all thy corn out of the field. 23:17. Thrice a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God. 23:18. Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of my victim upon leaven, neither shall the fat of my solemnity remain until the morning. 23:19. Thou shalt carry the first-fruits of the corn of thy ground to the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam. 23:20. Behold I will send my angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared. 23:21. Take notice of him, and hear his voice, and do not think him one to be contemned: for he will not forgive when thou hast sinned, and my name is in him. 23:22. But if thou wilt hear hi voice, and do all that I speak, I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and will afflict them that afflict thee. 23:23. And my angel shall go before thee, and shall bring thee in unto the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherexite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hevite, and the Jebuzite, whom I will destroy. 23:24. Thou shalt not adore their gods, nor serve them. Thou shalt not do their works, but shalt destroy them, and break their statues. 23:25. And you shall serve the Lord your God, that I may bless your bread and your waters, and may take away sickness from the midst of thee. 23:26. There shall not be one fruitless nor barren in thy land: I will fill the number of thy days. 23:27. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come: and will turn the backs of all thy enemies before thee: 23:28. Sending out hornets before, that shall drive away the Hevite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, before thou come in. 23:29. I will not cast them out from thy face in one year; lest the land be brought into a wilderness, and the beasts multiply against thee. 23:30. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, till thou be increased, and dost possess the land. 23:31. And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea to the sea of the Palestines, and from the desert to the river: I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and will drive them out from before you. 23:32. Thou shalt not enter into league with them, nor with their gods. 23:33. Let them not dwell in thy land, lest perhaps they make thee sin against me, if thou serve their gods; which, undoubtedly, will be a scandal to thee. Exodus Chapter 24 Moses writeth his law; and after offering sacrifices, sprinkleth the blood of the testament upon the people: then goeth up the mountain which God covereth with a fiery cloud. 24:1. And he said to Moses: Come up to the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, and seventy of the ancients of Israel, and you shall adore afar off. 24:2. And Moses alone shall come up to the Lord, but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people come up with him. 24:3. So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice: We will do all the words of the Lord, which he hath spoken. 24:4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord: and rising in the morning, he built an altar at the foot of the mount, and twelve titles according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Titles. . .That is, pillars. 24:5. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, and they offered holocausts, and sacrificed pacific victims of calves to the Lord. Holocausts. . .Whole burnt offerings, in which the whole sacrifice was consumed with fire upon the altar. 24:6. Then Moses took half of the blood, and put it into bowls; and the rest he poured upon the altar. 24:7. And taking the book of the covenant, he read it in the hearing of the people: and they said: All things that the Lord hath spoken, we will do, we will be obedient. 24:8. And he took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. 24:9. Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, and seventy of the ancients of Israel went up: 24:10. And they saw the God of Israel: and under his feet as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the heaven, when clear. 24:11. Neither did he lay his hand upon those of the children of Israel, that retired afar off, and they saw God, and they did eat and drink. 24:12. And the Lord said to Moses: Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. 24:13. Moses rose up, and his minister Josue: and Moses going up into the mount of God, 24:14. Said to the ancients: Wait ye here till we return to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you: if any question shall arise, you shall refer it to them. 24:15. And when Moses was gone up, a cloud covered the mount. 24:16. And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day he called him out of the midst of the cloud. 24:17. And the sight of the glory of the Lord, was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel. 24:18. And Moses entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: And he was there forty days and forty nights. Exodus Chapter 25 Offerings prescribed for making the tabernacle, the ark, the candlestick, etc. 25:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 25:2. Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring firstfruits to me: of every man that offereth of his own accord, you shall take them. Firstfruits. . .Offerings of some of the best and choicest of their goods. 25:3. And these are the things you must take: Gold, and silver, and brass, 25:4. Violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen, and goats' hair, 25:5. And rams' skins dyed red, and violet skins, and setim wood: Setim wood. . .The wood of a tree that grows in the wilderness, which is said to be incorruptible. 25:6. Oil to make lights: spices for ointment, and for sweetsmelling incense: 25:7. Onyx stones, and precious stones to adorn the ephod and the rational. The ephod and the rational. . .The ephod was the high priest's upper vestment; and the rational his breastplate, in which were twelve gems, etc. 25:8. And they shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in the midst of them: 25:9. According to all the likeness of the tabernacle which I will shew thee, and of all the vessels for the service thereof: and thus you shall make it: 25:10. Frame an ark of setim wood, the length whereof shall be of two cubits and a half; the breadth, a cubit and a half; the height, likewise, a cubit and a half. 25:11. And thou shalt overlay it with the purest gold, within and without; and over it thou shalt make a golden crown round about: 25:12. And four golden rings, which thou shalt put at the four corners of the ark: let two rings be on the one side, and two on the other. 25:13. Thou shalt make bars also of setim wood, and shalt overlay them with gold. 25:14. And thou shalt put them in through the rings that are in the sides of the ark, that it may be carried on them: 25:15. And they shall be always in the rings, neither shall they at any time be drawn out of them. 25:16. And thou shalt put in the ark the testimony which I will give thee. 25:17. Thou shalt make also a propitiatory of the purest gold: the length thereof shall be two cubits and a half, and the breadth a cubit and a half. A propitiatory. . .a covering for the ark: called a propitiatory, or mercy seat, because the Lord, who was supposed to sit there upon the wings of the cherubims, with the ark for his footstool, from thence shewed mercy. It is also called the oracle, ver. 18 and 20; because from thence God gave his orders and his answers. 25:18. Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle. 25:19. Let one cherub be on the one side, and the other on the other. 25:20. Let them cover both sides of the propitiatory, spreading their wings, and covering the oracle, and let them look one towards the other, their faces being turned towards the propitiatory wherewith the ark is to be covered. 25:21. In which thou shalt put the testimony that I will give thee. 25:22. Thence will I give orders, and will speak to thee over the propitiatory, and from the midst of the two cherubims, which shall be upon the ark of the testimony, all things which I will command the children of Israel by thee. 25:23. Thou shalt make a table also of setim wood, of two cubits in length, and a cubit in breadth, and a cubit and a half in height. A table. . .On which were to be placed the twelve loaves of proposition: or, as they are called in the Hebrew, the face bread, because they were always to stand before the face of the Lord in his temple: as a figure of the eucharistic sacrifice and sacrament, in the church of Christ. 25:24. And thou shalt overlay it with the purest gold: and thou shalt make to it a golden ledge round about. 25:25. And to the ledge itself a polished crown, four inches high; and over the same another little golden crown. 25:26. Thou shalt prepare also four golden rings, and shalt put them in the four corners of the same table, over each foot. 25:27. Under the crown shall the golden rings be, that the bars may be put through them, and the table may be carried. 25:28. The bars also themselves thou shalt make of setim wood, and shalt overlay them with gold, to bear up the table. 25:29. Thou shalt prepare also dishes, and bowls, censers, and cups, wherein the libations are to be offered, of the purest gold. Libations. . .That is, drink offerings. 25:30. And thou shalt set upon the table loaves of proposition in my sight always. 25:31. Thou shalt make also a candlestick of beaten work, of the finest gold, the shaft thereof, and the branches, the cups, and the bowls, and the lilies going forth from it. A candlestick. . .This candlestick, with its seven lamps, which was always to give light in the house of God, was a figure of the light of the Holy Ghost, and his sevenfold grace, in the sanctuary of the church of Christ. 25:32. Six branches shall come out of the sides, three out of one side, and three out of the other. 25:33. Three cups as it were nuts to every branch, and a bowl withal, and a lily: and three cups likewise of the fashion of nuts in the other branch, and a bowl withal, and a lily. Such shall be the work of the six branches, that are to come out from the shaft: 25:34. And in the candlestick itself shall be four cups in the manner of a nut, and at every one bowls and lilies. 25:35. Bowls under two branches in three places, which together make six, coming forth out of one shaft. 25:36. And both the bowls and the branches shall be of the same beaten work of the purest gold. 25:37. Thou shalt make also seven lamps, and shalt set them upon the candlestick, to give light over against. 25:38. The snuffers also, and where the snuffings shall be put out, shall be made of the purest gold. 25:39. The whole weight of the candlestick, with all the furniture thereof, shall be a talent of the purest gold. 25:40. Look, and make it according to the pattern that was shewn thee in the mount. Exodus Chapter 26 The form of the tabernacle with its appurtenances. 26:1. And thou shalt make the tabernacle in this manner: Thou shalt make ten curtains of fine twisted linen, and violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, diversified with embroidery. 26:2. The length of one curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits; the breadth shall be four cubits. All the curtains shall be of one measure. 26:3. Five curtains shall be joined one to another, and the other five shall be coupled together in like manner. 26:4. Thou shalt make loops of violet in the sides and tops of the curtains, that they may be joined one to another. 26:5. Every curtain shall have fifty loops on both sides, so set on, that one loop may be against another loop, and one may be fitted to the other. 26:6. Thou shalt make also fifty rings of gold, wherewith the veils of the curtains are to be joined, that it may be made one tabernacle. 26:7. Thou shalt make also eleven curtains of goats' hair, to cover the top of the tabernacle. 26:8. The length of one hair-curtain shall be thirty cubits; and the breadth, four: the measure of all the curtains shall be equal. 26:9. Five of which thou shalt couple by themselves, and the six others thou shalt couple one to another, so as to double the sixth curtain in the front of the roof. 26:10. Thou shalt make also fifty loops in the edge of one curtain, that it may be joined with the other: and fifty loops in the edge of the other curtain, that it may be coupled with its fellow. 26:11. Thou shalt make also fifty buckles of brass, wherewith the loops may be joined, that of all there may be made one covering. 26:12. And that which shall remain of the curtains, that are prepared for the roof, to wit, one curtain that is over and above, with the half thereof thou shalt cover the back parts of the tabernacle. 26:13. And there shall hang down a cubit on the one side, and another on the other side, which is over and above in the length of the curtains, fencing both sides of the tabernacle. 26:14. Thou shalt make also another cover to the roof of rams' skins dyed red: and over that again another cover of violet coloured skins. 26:15. Thou shalt make also the boards of the tabernacle standing upright of setim wood. 26:16. Let every one of them be ten cubits in length, and in breadth one cubit and a half. 26:17. In the sides of the boards shall be made two mortises, whereby one board may be joined to another board: and after this manner shall all the boards be prepared. 26:18. Of which twenty shall be in the south side southward. 26:19. For which thou shalt cast forty sockets of silver, that under every board may be put two sockets at the two corners. 26:20. In the second side also of the tabernacle that looketh to the north, there shall be twenty boards, 26:21. Having forty sockets of silver, two sockets shall be put under each board. 26:22. But on the west side of the tabernacle thou shalt make six boards. 26:23. And again other two which shall be erected in the corners at the back of the tabernacle. 26:24. And they shall be joined together from beneath unto the top, and one joint shall hold them all. The like joining shall be observed for the two boards also that are to be put in the corners. 26:25. And they shall be in all eight boards, and their silver sockets sixteen, reckoning two sockets for each board. 26:26. Thou shalt make also five bars of setim wood, to hold together the boards on one side of the tabernacle. 26:27. And five others on the other side, and as many at the west side: 26:28. And they shall be put along by the midst of the boards, from one end to the other. 26:29. The boards also themselves thou shalt overlay with gold, and shalt cast rings of gold to be set upon them, for places for the bars to hold together the boardwork: which bars thou shalt cover with plates of gold. 26:30. And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the pattern that was shewn thee in the mount. 26:31. Thou shalt make also a veil of violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen, wrought with embroidered work and goodly variety: 26:32. And thou shalt hang it up before four pillars of setim wood, which themselves also shall be overlaid with gold, and shall have heads of gold, but sockets of silver. 26:33. And the veil shall be hanged on with rings, and within it thou shalt put the ark of the testimony, and the sanctuary and the holy of the holies shall be divided with it. The sanctuary, etc. . .That part of the tabernacle, which was without the veil, into which the priests daily entered, is here called the sanctuary, or holy place; that part which was within the veil, into which no one but the high priest ever went, and he but once a year, is called the holy of holies, (literally, the sanctuary of the sanctuaries,) as being the most holy of all holy places. 26:34. And thou shalt set the propitiatory upon the ark of the testimony, in the holy of holies. 26:35. And the table without the veil, and over against the table the candlestick in the south side of the tabernacle: for the table shall stand in the north side. 26:36. Thou shalt make also a hanging in the entrance of the tabernacle of violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen with embroidered work. 26:37. And thou shalt overlay with gold five pillars of setim wood, before which the hanging shall be drawn: their heads shall be of gold, and the sockets of brass. Exodus Chapter 27 The altar; and the court of the tabernacle with its hangings and pillars. Provision of oil for lamps. 27:1. Thou shalt make also an altar of setim wood, which shall be five cubits long, and as many broad, that is four square, and three cubits high. 27:2. And there shall be horns at the four corners of the same: and thou shalt cover it with brass. 27:3. And thou shalt make for the uses thereof pans to receive the ashes, and tongs and fleshhooks, and firepans: all its vessels thou shalt make of brass. 27:4. And a grate of brass in manner of a net; at the four corners of which, shall be four rings of brass, 27:5. Which thou shalt put under the hearth of the altar: and the grate shall be even to the midst of the altar. 27:6. Thou shalt make also two bars for the altar, of setim wood, which thou shalt cover with plates of brass: 27:7. And thou shalt draw them through rings, and they shall be on both sides of the altar to carry it. 27:8. Thou shalt not make it solid, but empty and hollow in the inside, as it was shewn thee in the mount. 27:9. Thou shalt make also the court of the tabernacle, in the south side whereof southward there shall be hangings of fine twisted linen of a hundred cubits long for one side. 27:10. And twenty pillars with as many sockets of brass, the heads of which, with their engraving, shall be of silver. 27:11. In like manner also on the north side there shall be hangings of a hundred cubits long, twenty pillars, and as many sockets of brass, and their heads with their engraving of silver. 27:12. But in the breadth of the court, that looketh to the west, there shall be hangings of fifty cubits, and ten pillars, and as many sockets. 27:13. In that breadth also of the court, which looketh to the east, there shall be fifty cubits. 27:14. In which there shall be for one side, hangings of fifteen cubits, and three pillars, and as many sockets. 27:15. And in the other side, there shall be hangings of fifteen cubits, with three pillars, and as many sockets. 27:16. And in the entrance of the court there shall be made a hanging of twenty cubits of violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen, with embroidered work: it shall have four pillars, with as many sockets. 27:17. All the pillars of the court round about shall be garnished with plates of silver, silver heads, and sockets of brass. 27:18. In length the court shall take up a hundred cubits, in breadth fifty, the height shall be of five cubits, and it shall be made of fine twisted linen, and shall have sockets of brass. 27:19. All the vessels of the tabernacle for all uses and ceremonies, and the pins both of it and of the court, thou shalt make of brass. 27:20. Command the children of Israel that they bring thee the purest oil of the olives, and beaten with a pestle: that a lamp may burn always, 27:21. In the tabernacle of the testimony, without the veil that hangs before the testimony. And Aaron and his sons shall order it, that it may give light before the Lord until the morning. It shall be a perpetual observance throughout their successions among the children of Israel. Exodus Chapter 28 The holy vestments for Aaron and his sons. 28:1. Take unto thee also Aaron thy brother with his sons, from among the children of Israel, that they may minister to me in the priest's office: Aaron, Nadab, and Abiu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 28:2. And thou shalt make a holy vesture for Aaron, thy brother, for glory and for beauty. 28:3. And thou shalt speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's vestments, in which he being consecrated, may minister to me. 28:4. And these shall be the vestments that they shall make: A rational and an ephod, a tunic and a strait linen garment, a mitre and a girdle. They shall make the holy vestments for thy brother Aaron and his sons, that they may do the office of priesthood unto me. 28:5. And they shall take gold, and violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen. 28:6. And they shall make the ephod of gold, and violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen, embroidered with divers colours. 28:7. It shall have the two edges joined in the top on both sides, that they may be closed together. 28:8. The very workmanship also, and all the variety of the work, shall be of gold, and violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen. 28:9. And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and shalt grave on them the names of the children of Israel: 28:10. Six names on one stone, and the other six on the other, according to the order of their birth. 28:11. With the work of an engraver, and the graving of a jeweller, thou shalt engrave them with the names of the children of Israel, set in gold and compassed about: 28:12. And thou shalt put them in both sides of the ephod, a memorial for the children of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord upon both shoulders, for a remembrance. 28:13. Thou shalt make also hooks of gold. 28:14. And two little chains of the purest gold, linked one to another, which thou shalt put into the hooks. 28:15. And thou shalt make the rational of judgment with embroidered work of divers colours, according to the workmanship of the ephod, of gold, violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen. The rational of judgment. . .This part of the priest's attire, which he wore at his breast, was called the rational of judgment; partly because it admonished both priest and people of their duty to God, by carrying the names of all their tribes in his presence; and by the Urim and the Thummim, that is, doctrine and truth, which were written upon it; and partly because it gave divine answers and oracles, as if it were rational and endowed with judgment. 28:16. It shall be four square and doubled: it shall be the measure of a span both in length and in breadth. 28:17. And thou shalt set in it four rows of stones . In the first row shall be a sardius stone, and a topaz, and an emerald: 28:18. In the second a carbuncle, a sapphire, and a jasper: 28:19. In the third a ligurius, an agate, and an amethyst: 28:20. In the fourth a chrysolite, an onyx, and a beryl. They shall be set in gold by their rows. 28:21. And they shall have the names of the children of Israel: with twelve names shall they be engraved, each stone with the name of one according to the twelve tribes. 28:22. And thou shalt make on the rational chains, linked one to another, of the purest gold: 28:23. And two rings of gold, which thou shalt put in the two ends at the top of the rational. 28:24. And the golden chains thou shalt join to the rings, that are in the ends thereof. 28:25. And the ends of the chains themselves, thou shalt join together with two hooks, on both sides of the ephod, which is towards the rational. 28:26. Thou shalt make also two rings of gold, which thou shalt put in the top parts of the rational, in the borders that are over against the ephod, and look towards the back parts thereof. 28:27. Moreover also other two rings of gold, which are to be set on each side of the ephod beneath, that looketh towards the nether joining, that the rational may be fitted with the ephod, 28:28. And may be fastened by the rings thereof unto the rings of the ephod with a violet fillet, that the joining artificially wrought may continue, and the rational and the ephod may not be loosed one from the other. 28:29. And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the rational of judgment upon his breast, when he shall enter into the sanctuary, a memorial before the Lord for ever. 28:30. And thou shalt put in the rational of judgment doctrine and truth, which shall be on Aaron's breast, when he shall go in before the Lord: and he shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel on his breast, in the sight of the Lord always. Doctrine and Truth. . .Hebrew, Urim and Thummim: illuminations and perfections. These words, written on the rational, seem to signify the light of doctrine and the integrity of life, with which the priests of God ought to approach him. 28:31. And thou shalt make the tunic of the ephod all of violet, 28:32. In the midst whereof above shall be a hole for the head, and a border round about it woven, as is wont to be made in the outmost parts of garments, that it may not easily be broken. 28:33. And beneath at the feet of the same tunic, round about, thou shalt make as it were pomegranates, of violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, with little bells set between: 28:34. So that there shall be a golden bell and a pomegranate, and again another golden bell and a pomegranate. 28:35. And Aaron shall be vested with it in the office of his ministry, that the sound may be heard, when he goeth in and cometh out of the sanctuary, in the sight of the Lord, and that he may not die. 28:36. Thou shalt make also a plate of the purest gold: wherein thou shalt grave with engraver's work, Holy to the Lord. 28:37. And thou shalt tie it with a violet fillet, and it shall be upon the mitre, 28:38. Hanging over the forehead of the high priest. And Aaron shall bear the iniquities of those things, which the children of Israel have offered and sanctified, in all their gifts and offerings. And the plate shall be always on his forehead, that the Lord may be well pleased with them. 28:39. And thou shalt gird the tunic with fine linen, and thou shalt make a fine linen mitre, and a girdle of embroidered work. 28:40. Moreover, for the sons of Aaron thou shalt prepare linen tunics, and girdles and mitres for glory and beauty: 28:41. And with all these things thou shalt vest Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him. And thou shalt consecrate the hands of them all, and shalt sanctify them, that they may do the office of priesthood unto me. 28:42. Thou shalt make also linen breeches, to cover the flesh of their nakedness, from the reins to the thighs: 28:43. And Aaron and his sons shall use them when they shall go into the tabernacle of the testimony, or when they approach to the altar to minister in the sanctuary. lest being guilty of iniquity they die. It shall be a law for ever to Aaron, and to his seed after him. Exodus Chapter 29 The manner of consecrating Aaron and other priests; the institution of the daily sacrifice of two lambs, one in the morning, the other at evening. 29:1. And thou shalt also do this, that they may be consecrated to me in priesthood. Take a calf from the herd, and two rams without blemish, 29:2. And unleavened bread, and a cake without leaven, tempered with oil, wafers also unleavened, anointed with oil: thou shalt make them all of wheaten flour. 29:3. And thou shalt put them in a basket, and offer them: and the calf and the two rams. 29:4. And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. And when thou hast washed the father and his sons with water, 29:5. Thou shalt clothe Aaron with his vestments, that is, with the linen garment and the tunic, and the ephod and the rational, which thou shalt gird with the girdle. 29:6. And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and the holy plate upon the mitre, 29:7. And thou shalt pour the oil of unction upon his head: and by this rite shall he be consecrated. 29:8. Thou shalt bring his sons also, and shalt put on them the linen tunics, and gird them with a girdle: 29:9. To wit, Aaron and his children, and thou shalt put mitres upon them; and they shall be priests to me by a perpetual ordinance. After thou shalt have consecrated their hands, 29:10. Thou shalt present also the calf before the tabernacle of the testimony. And Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon his head, 29:11. And thou shalt kill him in the sight of the Lord, beside the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. 29:12. And taking some of the blood of the calf, thou shalt put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and the rest of the blood thou shalt pour at the bottom thereof. 29:13. Thou shalt take also all the fat that covereth the entrails, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and shalt offer a burn offering upon the altar: 29:14. But the flesh of the calf, and the hide and the dung, thou shalt burn abroad, without the camp, because it is for sin. 29:15. Thou shalt take also one ram, upon the head whereof Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands. 29:16. And when thou hast killed him, thou shalt take of the blood thereof, and pour round about the altar. 29:17. And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and having washed his entrails and feet, thou shalt put them upon the flesh that is cut in pieces, and upon his head. 29:18. And thou shalt offer the whole ram for a burnt offering upon the altar: it is an oblation to the Lord, a most sweet savour of the victim of the Lord. 29:19. Thou shalt take also the other ram, upon whose head Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands. 29:20. And when thou hast sacrificed him, thou shalt take of his blood, and put upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron and of his sons, and upon the thumbs and great toes of their right hand and foot, and thou shalt pour the blood upon the altar round about. 29:21. And when thou hast taken of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the oil of unction, thou shalt sprinkle Aaron and his vesture, his sons and their vestments. And after they and their vestments are consecrated, 29:22. Thou shalt take the fat of the ram, and the rump, and the fat that covereth the lungs, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right shoulder, because it is the ram of consecration: 29:23. And one roll of bread, a cake tempered with oil, a wafer out of the basket of unleavened bread, which is set in the sight of the Lord: 29:24. And thou shalt put all upon the hands of Aaron and of his sons, and shalt sanctify them elevating before the Lord. 29:25. And thou shalt take all from their hands; and shalt burn them upon the altar for a holocaust, a most sweet savour in the sight of the Lord, because it is his oblation. 29:26. Thou shalt take also the breast of the ram, wherewith Aaron was consecrated, and elevating it thou shalt sanctify it before the Lord, and it shall fall to thy share. 29:27. And thou shalt sanctify both the consecrated breast, and the shoulder that thou didst separate of the ram, 29:28. Wherewith Aaron was consecrated and his sons, and they shall fall to Aaron's share, and his sons', by a perpetual right from the children of Israel: because they are the choicest and the beginnings of their peace victims which they offer to the Lord. 29:29. And the holy vesture, which Aaron shall use, his sons shall have after him, that they may be anointed, and their hands consecrated in it. 29:30. He of his sons that shall be appointed high priest in his stead, and that shall enter into the tabernacle of the testimony to minister in the sanctuary, shall wear it seven days. 29:31. And thou shalt take the ram of the consecration, and shalt boil the flesh thereof in the holy place: 29:32. And Aaron and his sons shall eat it. The loaves also, that are in the basket, they shall eat in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony, 29:33. That it may be an atoning sacrifice, and the hands of the offerers may be sanctified. A stranger shall not eat of them, because they are holy. 29:34. And if there remain of the consecrated flesh, or of the bread, till the morning, thou shalt burn the remainder with fire: they shall not be eaten, because they are sanctified. 29:35. All that I have commanded thee, thou shalt do unto Aaron and his sons. Seven days shalt thou consecrate their hands: 29:36. And thou shalt offer a calf for sin every day for expiation. And thou shalt cleanse the altar when thou hast offered the victim of expiation, and shalt anoint it to sanctify it. 29:37. Seven days shalt thou expiate the altar and sanctify it, and it shall be most holy. Every one, that shall touch it, shall be holy. 29:38. This is what thou shalt sacrifice upon the altar: Two lambs of a year old every day continually, 29:39. One lamb in the morning, and another in the evening. 29:40. With one lamb a tenth part of flour tempered with beaten oil, of the fourth part of a hin, and wine for libation of the same measure. 29:41. And the other lamb thou shalt offer in the evening, according to the rite of the morning oblation, and according to what we have said, for a savour of sweetness: 29:42. It is a sacrifice to the Lord, by perpetual oblation unto your generations, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony before the Lord, where I will appoint to speak unto thee. 29:43. And there will I command the children of Israel, and the altar shall be sanctified by my glory. 29:44. I will sanctify also the tabernacle of the testimony with the altar, and Aaron with his sons, to do the office of priesthood unto me. 29:45. And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and will be their God: 29:46. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who have brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might abide among them, I the Lord their God. Exodus Chapter 30 The altar of incense: money to be gathered for the use of the tabernacle: the brazen laver: the holy oil of unction, and the composition of the perfume. 30:1. Thou shalt make also an altar to burn incense, of setim wood. An altar to burn incense. . .This burning of incense was an emblem of prayer, ascending to God from an inflamed heart. See Ps. 140.2; Apoc. 5.8, and 8.4. 30:2. It shall be a cubit in length, and another in breadth, that is, four square, and two in height. Horns shall go out of the same. 30:3. And thou shalt overlay it with the purest gold, as well the grate thereof, as the walls round about, and the horns. And thou shalt make to it a crown of gold round about, 30:4. And two golden rings under the crown on either side, that the bars may be put into them, and the altar be carried. 30:5. And thou shalt make the bars also of setim wood, and shalt overlay them with gold. 30:6. And thou shalt set the altar over against the veil, that hangeth before the ark of the testimony before the propitiatory wherewith the testimony is covered, where I will speak to thee. 30:7. And Aaron shall burn sweet smelling incense upon it in the morning. When he shall dress the lamps, he shall burn it: 30:8. And when he shall place them in the evening, he shall burn an everlasting incense before the Lord throughout your generations. 30:9. You shall not offer upon it incense of another composition, nor oblation, and victim, neither shall you offer libations. 30:10. And Aaron shall pray upon the horns thereof once a year, with the blood of that which was offered for sin; and shall make atonement upon it in your generations. It shall be most holy to the Lord. 30:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 30:12. When thou shalt take the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number, every one of them shall give a price for their souls to the Lord, and there shall be no scourge among them, when they shall be reckoned. 30:13. And this shall every one give that passeth at the naming, half a sicle according to the standard of the temple. A sicle hath twenty obols. Half a sicle shall be offered to the Lord. Half a sicle. . .A sicle or shekel of silver, (which was also called a stater,) according to the standard or weight of the sanctuary, which was the most just and exact, was half an ounce of silver, that is, about half a crown of English money. The obol, or gerah, was about three halfpence. 30:14. He that is counted in the number from twenty years and upwards, shall give the price. 30:15. The rich man shall not add to half a sicle, and the poor man shall diminish nothing. 30:16. And the money received, which was contributed by the children of Israel, thou shalt deliver unto the uses of the tabernacle of the testimony, that it may be a memorial of them before the Lord, and he may be merciful to their souls. 30:17. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 30:18. Thou shalt make also a brazen laver with its foot to wash in: and thou shalt set it between the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar. And water being put into it: 30:19. Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and feet in it: 30:20. When they are going into the tabernacle of the testimony, and when they are to come to the altar, to offer on it incense to the Lord, 30:21. Lest perhaps they die. It shall be an everlasting law to him, and to his seed by successions. 30:22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, 30:23. Saying: Take spices, of principal and chosen myrrh five hundred sicles, and of cinnamon half so much; that is, two hundred and fifty sicles, of calamus in like manner two hundred and fifty, 30:24. And of cassia five hundred sicles by the weight of the sanctuary, of oil of olives the measure hin: 30:25. And thou shalt make the holy oil of unction, an ointment compounded after the art of the perfumer, 30:26. And therewith thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the testimony, and the ark of the testament, 30:27. And the table with the vessels thereof, the candlestick and furniture thereof, the altars of incense, 30:28. And of holocaust, and all the furniture that belongeth to the service of them. 30:29. And thou shalt sanctify all, and they shall be most holy: he that shall touch them shall be sanctified. 30:30. Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and shalt sanctify them, that they may do the office of priesthood unto me. 30:31. And thou shalt say to the children of Israel: This oil of unction shall be holy unto me throughout your generations. 30:32. The flesh of man shall not be anointed therewith, and you shall make none other of the same composition, because it is sanctified, and shall be holy unto you. 30:33. What man soever shall compound such, and shall give thereof to a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people. 30:34. And the Lord said to Moses: Take unto thee spices, stacte, and onycha, galbanum of sweet savour, and the clearest frankincense, all shall be of equal weight. 30:35. And thou shalt make incense compounded by the work of the perfumer, well tempered together, and pure, and most worthy of sanctification. 30:36. And when thou hast beaten all into very small powder, thou shalt set of it before the tabernacle of the testimony, in the place where I will appear to thee. Most holy shall this incense be unto you. 30:37. You shall not make such a composition for your own uses, because it is holy to the Lord. 30:38. What man soever shall make the like, to enjoy the smell thereof, he shall perish out of his people. Exodus Chapter 31 Beseleel and Ooliab are appointed by the Lord to make the tabernacle, and the things belonging thereto. The observation of the sabbath day is again commanded. And the Lord delivereth to Moses two tables written with the finger of God. 31:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 31:2. Behold, I have called by name Beseleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Juda, 31:3. And I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge in all manner of work, 31:4. To devise whatsoever may be artificially made of gold, and silver, and brass, 31:5. Of marble, and precious stones, and variety of wood. 31:6. And I have given him for his companion Ooliab, the son of Achisamech, of the tribe of Dan. And I have put wisdom in the heart of every skilful man, that they may make all things which I have commanded thee, 31:7. The tabernacle of the covenant, and the ark of the testimony, and the propitiatory, that is over it, and all the vessels of the tabernacle, 31:8. And the table and the vessels thereof, the most pure candlestick with the vessels thereof, and the altars of incense, 31:9. And of holocaust, and all their vessels, the laver with its foot, 31:10. The holy vestments in the ministry for Aaron the priest, and for his sons, that they may execute their office, about the sacred things: 31:11. The oil of unction, and the incense of spices in the sanctuary, all things which I have commanded thee, shall they make. 31:12. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 31:13. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: See that you keep my sabbath; because it is a sign between me and you in your generations that you may know that I am the Lord, who sanctify you. 31:14. keep you my sabbath: for it is holy unto you: he that shall profane it, shall be put to death: he that shall do any work in it, his soul shall perish out of the midst of his people. 31:15. Six days shall you do work: in the seventh day is the sabbath, the rest holy to the Lord. Every one that shall do any work on this day, shall die. 31:16. Let the children of Israel keep the sabbath, and celebrate it in their generations. It is an everlasting covenant 31:17. Between me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual sign. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and in the seventh he ceased from work. 31:18. And the Lord, when he had ended these words in Mount Sinai, gave to Moses two stone tables of testimony, written with the finger of God. Exodus Chapter 32 The people fall into idolatry. Moses prayeth for them. He breaketh the tables: destroyeth the idol: blameth Aaron, and causeth many of the idolaters to be slain. 32:1. And the people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: For as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him. 32:2. And Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me. 32:3. And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. 32:4. And when he had received them, he fashioned them by founders' work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. 32:5. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier's voice, saying To morrow is the solemnity of the Lord. 32:6. And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. 32:7. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee down: thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned. 32:8. They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst shew them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. 32:9. And again the Lord said to Moses: I see that this people is stiffnecked: 32:10. Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation. 32:11. But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation enkindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? 32:12. Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. 32:13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it for ever: 32:14. And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people. 32:15. And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides, 32:16. And made by the work of God; the writing also of God was graven in the tables. 32:17. And Josue hearing the noise of the people shouting, said to Moses: The noise of battle is heard in the camp. 32:18. But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers. 32:19. And when he came nigh to the camp, he saw the calf, and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: 32:20. And laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strewed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink. 32:21. And he said to Aaron: What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin? 32:22. And he answered him: Let not my lord be offended; for thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil. 32:23. They said to me: make us gods, that may go before us; for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him. 32:24. And I said to them: Which of you hath any gold? and they took and brought it to me; and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out. 32:25. And when Moses saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had stripped them by occasion of the shame of the filth, and had set them naked among their enemies) Naked. . .Having lost not only their gold, and their honour, but what was worst of all, being stripped also of the grace of God, and having lost him.--The shame of the filth. . .That is, of the idol, which they had taken for their god. It is the usual phrase of the scripture to call idols filth and abominations. 32:26. Then standing in the gate of the camp, he said: If any man be on the Lord's side, let him join with me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him: 32:27. And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Put every man his sword upon his thigh: go, and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every man kill his brother, and friend, and neighbour. 32:28. And the sons of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there were slain that day about three and twenty thousand men. 32:29. And Moses said: You have consecrated your hands this day to the Lord, every man in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given to you. 32:30. And when the next day was come, Moses spoke to the people: You have sinned a very great sin: I will go up to the Lord, if by any means I may be able to entreat him for your crime. 32:31. And returning to the Lord, he said: I beseech thee: this people hath sinned a heinous sin, and they have made to themselves gods of gold: either forgive them this trespass, 32:32. Or if thou do not, strike me out of the book that thou hast written. 32:33. And the Lord answered him: He that hath sinned against me, him will I strike out of my book: 32:34. But go thou, and lead this people whither I have told thee: my angel shall go before thee. And I in the day of revenge will visit this sin also of theirs. 32:35. The Lord therefore struck the people for the guilt, on occasion of the calf which Aaron had made. Exodus Chapter 33 The people mourn for their sin. Moses pitcheth the tabernacle without the camp. He converseth familiarly with God. Desireth to see his glory. 33:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee up from this place, thou and thy people which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land concerning which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: To thy seed I will give it: 33:2. And I will send an angel before thee, that I may cast out the Chanaanite, and the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, 33:3. That thou mayst enter into the land that floweth with milk and honey. For I will not go up with thee, because thou art a stiffnecked people; lest I destroy thee in the way. 33:4. And the people hearing these very bad tidings, mourned: and no man put on his ornaments according to custom. 33:5. And the Lord said to Moses: Say to the children of Israel: Thou art a stiffnecked people, once I shall come up in the midst of thee, and shall destroy thee. Now presently lay aside thy ornaments, that I may know what to do to thee. 33:6. So the children of Israel laid aside their ornaments by Mount Horeb. 33:7. Moses also taking the tabernacle, pitched it without the camp afar off, and called the name thereof, The tabernacle of the covenant. And all the people, that had any question, went forth to the tabernacle of the covenant, without the camp. 33:8. And when Moses went forth to the tabernacle, all the people rose up, and every one stood in the door of his pavilion, and they beheld the back of Moses, till he went into the tabernacle. 33:9. And when he was gone into the tabernacle of the covenant, the pillar of the cloud came down, and stood at the door, and he spoke with Moses. 33:10. And all saw that the pillar of the cloud stood at the door of the tabernacle. And they stood and worshipped at the doors of their tent. 33:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend. And when he returned into the camp, his servant Josue, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not from the tabernacle. Face to face. . .That is, in a most familiar manner. Though as we learn from this very chapter, Moses could not see the face of the Lord. 33:12. And Moses said to the Lord: Thou commandest me to lead forth this people; and thou dost not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, especially whereas thou hast said: I know thee by name, and thou hast found favour in my sight. I know thee by name. . .In the language of the scriptures, God is said to know such as he approves and loves: and to know by name, those whom he favours in a most singular manner, as he did his servant Moses. 33:13. If therefore I have found favour in thy sight, shew me thy face, that I may know thee, and may find grace before thy eyes: look upon thy people this nation. 33:14. And the Lord said: My face shall go before thee, and I will give thee rest. 33:15. And Moses said: If thou thyself dost not go before, bring us not out of this place. 33:16. For how shall we be able to know, I and thy people, that we have found grace in thy sight, unless thou walk with us, that we may be glorified by all people that dwell upon the earth? 33:17. And the Lord said to Moses: This word also, which thou hast spoken, will I do; for thou hast found grace before me, and thee I have known by name. 33:18. And he said: Shew me thy glory. 33:19. He answered: I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me. 33:20. And again he said: Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me, and live. 33:21. And again he said: Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. 33:22. And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my righthand till I pass: 33:23. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face thou canst not see. See my back parts. . .The Lord by his angel, usually spoke to Moses in the pillar of the cloud; so that he could not see the glory of him that spoke familiarly with him. In the vision here mentioned he was allowed to see something of him, in an assumed corporeal form: not in the face, the rays of which were too bright for mortal eye to bear, but to view him as it were behind, when his face was turned from him. Exodus Chapter 34 The tables are renewed: all society with the Chanaanites is forbid: some precepts concerning the firstborn, the sabbath, and other feasts: after forty days' fast, Moses returneth to the people with the commandments, and his face appearing horned with rays of light, he covereth it, whensoever he speaketh to the people. 34:1. And after this he said: Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the former, and I will write upon them the words, which were in the tables, which thou brokest. 34:2. Be ready in the morning, that thou mayst forthwith go up into Mount Sinai, and thou shalt stand with me upon the top of the mount. 34:3. Let no man go up with thee, and let not any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the oxen nor the sheep feed over against it. 34:4. Then he cut out two tables of stone, such as had been before; and rising very early he went up into the Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, carrying with him the tables. 34:5. And when the Lord was come down in a cloud, Moses stood with him, calling upon the name of the Lord. 34:6. And when he passed before him, he said: O the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion, and true, 34:7. Who keepest mercy unto thousands: who takest away iniquity, and wickedness, and sin, and no man of himself is innocent before thee. Who renderest the iniquity of the fathers to the children, and to the grandchildren unto the third and fourth generation. 34:8. And Moses making haste, bowed down prostrate unto the earth, and adoring, 34:9. Said: If I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, I beseech thee that thou wilt go with us, (for it is a stiffnecked people) and take away our iniquities and sin, and possess us. 34:10. The Lord answered: I will make a covenant in the sight of all, I will do signs such as were never seen upon the earth, nor in any nations; that this people, in the midst of whom thou art, may see the terrible work of the Lord which I will do. 34:11. Observe all things which this day I command thee: I myself will drive out before thy face the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite. 34:12. Beware thou never join in friendship with the inhabitants of that land, which may be thy ruin: 34:13. But destroy their altars, break their statues and cut down their groves: 34:14. Adore not any strange god. The Lord his name is jealous, he is a jealous God. 34:15. Make no covenant with the men of those countries; lest, when they have committed fornication with their gods, and have adored their idols, some one call thee to eat of the things sacrificed. 34:16. Neither shalt thou take of their daughters a wife for thy son, lest after they themselves have committed fornication, they make thy sons also to commit fornication with their gods. 34:17. Thou shalt not make to thyself any molten gods. 34:18: Thou shalt keep the feast of the unleavened bread. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee in the time of the month of the new corn: for in the month of the spring time thou camest out from Egypt. 34:19. All of the male kind that openeth the womb, shall be mine. Of all beasts; both of oxen and of sheep, it shall be mine. 34:20. The firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a sheep: but if thou wilt not give a price for it, it shall be slain. The firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem: neither shalt thou appear before me empty. 34:21. Six days shalt thou work, the seventh day thou shalt cease to plough and to reap. 34:22. Thou shalt keep the feast of weeks with the firstfruits of the corn of thy wheat harvest, and the feast when the time of the year returneth that all things are laid in. 34:23. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear in the sight of the almighty Lord the God of Israel. 34:24. For when I shall have taken away the nations from thy face, and shall have enlarged thy borders, no man shall lie in wait against thy land when thou shalt go up, and appear in the sight of the Lord thy God thrice in a year. 34:25. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice upon leaven; neither shall there remain in the morning any thing of the victim of the solemnity of the Phase. 34:26. The first of the fruits of thy ground thou shalt offer in the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam. 34:27. And the Lord said to Moses: Write thee these words, by which I have made a covenant both with thee and with Israel. 34:28. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights: he neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote upon the tables the ten words of the covenant. 34:29. And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. Horned. . .That is, shining, and sending forth rays of light like horns. 34:30. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near. 34:31. And being called by him, they returned, both Aaron and the rulers of the congregation. And after that he spoke to them, 34:32. And all the children of Israel came to him: and he gave them in commandment all that he had heard of the Lord on Mount Sinai. 34:33. And having done speaking, he put a veil upon his face. 34:34. But when he went in to the Lord, and spoke with him, he took it away until he came forth, and then he spoke to the children of Israel all things that had been commanded him. 34:35. And they saw that the face of Moses when he came out was horned, but he covered his face again, if at any time he spoke to them. Exodus Chapter 35 The sabbath. Offerings for making the tabernacle. Beseleel and Ooliab are called to the work. 35:1. And all the multitude of the children of Israel being gathered together, he said to them: These are the things which the Lord hath commanded to be done: 35:2. Six days you shall do work; the seventh day shall be holy unto you, the sabbath and the rest of the Lord: he that shall do any work on it, shall be put to death. 35:3. You shall kindle no fire in any of your habitations on the sabbath day. 35:4. And Moses said to all the assembly of the children of Israel: This is the word the Lord hath commanded, saying: 35:5. Set aside with you firstfruits to the Lord. Let every one that is willing and hath a ready heart, offer them to the Lord: gold, and silver, and brass, 35:6. Violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen, goats' hair, 35:7. And rams' skins dyed red, and violet coloured skins, setim wood, 35:8. And oil to maintain lights, and to make ointment, and most sweet incense, 35:9. Onyx stones, and precious stones, for the adorning of the ephod and the rational. 35:10. Whosoever of you is wise, let him come, and make that which the Lord hath commanded: 35:11. To wit, the tabernacle, and the roof thereof, and the cover, the rings, and the board-work with the bars, the pillars and the sockets: 35:12. The ark and the staves, the propitiatory, and the veil that is drawn before it: 35:13. The table with the bars and the vessels, and the loaves of proposition: 35:14. The candlestick to bear up the lights, the vessels thereof and the lamps, and the oil for the nourishing of fires: 35:15. The altar of incense, and the bars, and the oil of unction, and the incense of spices: the hanging at the door of the tabernacle: 35:16. The altar of holocaust, and its grate of brass, with the bars and vessels thereof: the laver and its foot: 35:17. The curtains of the court, with the pillars and the sockets, the hanging in the doors of the entry. 35:18. The pins of the tabernacle, and of the court, with their little cords: 35:19. The vestments that are to be used in the ministry of the sanctuary, the vesture of Aaron the high priest, and of his sons, to do the office of priesthood to me. 35:20. And all the multitude of the children of Israel going out from the presence of Moses, 35:21. Offered firstfruits to the Lord with a most ready and devout mind, to make the work of the tabernacle of the testimony. Whatever was necessary to the service and to the holy vestments, 35:22. Both men and women gave bracelets and earrings, rings and tablets: every vessel of gold was set aside to be offered to the Lord. 35:23. If any man had violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, fine linen and goats' hair, ramskins dyed red, and violet coloured skins, 35:24. Metal of silver and brass, they offered it to the Lord, and setim wood for divers uses. 35:25. The skilful women also gave such things as they had spun, violet, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, 35:26. And goats' hair, giving all of their own accord. 35:27. But the princes offered onyx stones, and precious stones, for the ephod and the rational, 35:28. And spices and oil for the lights, and for the preparing of ointment, and to make the incense of most sweet savour. 35:29. All, both men and women, with devout mind offered gifts, that the works might be done which the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. All the children of Israel dedicated voluntary offerings to the Lord. 35:30. And Moses said to the children of Israel: Behold, the Lord hath called by name Beseleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Juda, 35:31. And hath filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge, and all learning, 35:32. To devise and to work in gold and silver and brass, 35:33. And in engraving stones, and in carpenters' work. Whatsoever can be devised artificially, 35:34. He hath given in his heart: Ooliab also, the son of Achisamech, of the tribe of Dan: 35:35. Both of them hath he instructed with wisdom, to do carpenters' work, and tapestry, and embroidery in blue and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen, and to weave all things, and to invent all new things. Exodus Chapter 36 The offerings are delivered to the workmen, the curtains, coverings, boards, bars, veil, pillars, and hanging are made. 36:1. Beseleel therefore, and Ooliab, and every wise man, to whom the Lord gave wisdom and understanding, to know how to work artificially, made the things that are necessary for the uses of the sanctuary, and which the Lord commanded. 36:2. And when Moses had called them, and every skilful man, to whom the Lord had given wisdom, and such as of their own accord had offered themselves to the making of the work, 36:3. He delivered all the offerings of the children of Israel unto them. And while they were earnest about the work, the people daily in the morning offered their vows. 36:4. Whereupon the workmen being constrained to come, 36:5. Said to Moses: The people offereth more than is necessary. 36:6. Moses therefore commanded proclamation to be made by the crier's voice: Let neither man nor woman offer any more for the work of the sanctuary. And so they ceased from offering gifts, 36:7. Because the things that were offered did suffice, and were too much. 36:8. And all the men that were wise of heart, to accomplish the work of the tabernacle, made ten curtains of twisted fine linen, and violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, with varied work, and the art of embroidering: 36:9. The length of one curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth four: all the curtains were of the same size. 36:10. And he joined five curtains, one to another, and the other five he coupled one to another. 36:11. He made also loops of violet in the edge of one curtain on both sides, and in the edge of the other curtain in like manner, 36:12. That the loops might meet one against another, and might be joined each with the other. 36:13. Whereupon also he cast fifty rings of gold, that might catch the loops of the curtains, and they might be made one tabernacle. 36:14. He made also eleven curtains of goats' hair, to cover the roof of the tabernacle: 36:15. One curtain was thirty cubits long, and four cubits broad: all the curtains were of one measure. 36:16. Five of which he joined apart, and the other six apart. 36:17. And he made fifty loops in the edge of one curtain, and fifty in the edge of another curtain, that they might be joined one to another. 36:18. And fifty buckles of brass wherewith the roof might be knit together, that of all the curtains there might be made one covering. 36:19. He made also a cover for the tabernacle of rams' skins dyed red; and another cover over that of violet skins. 36:20. He made also the boards of the tabernacle of setim wood standing. 36:21. The length of one board was ten cubits; and the breadth was one cubit and a half. 36:22. There were two mortises throughout every board, that one might be joined to the other. And in this manner he made for all the boards of the tabernacle. 36:23. Of which twenty were at the south side southward, 36:24. With forty sockets of silver, two sockets were put under one board on the two sides of the corners, where the mortises of the sides end in the corners. 36:25. At that side also of the tabernacle, that looketh towards the north, he made twenty boards, 36:26. With forty sockets of silver, two sockets for every board. 36:27. But against the west, to wit, at that side of the tabernacle, which looketh to the sea, he made six boards, 36:28. And two others at each corner of the tabernacle behind: 36:29. Which were also joined from beneath unto the top, and went together into one joint. Thus he did on both sides at the corners: 36:30. So there were in all eight boards, and they had sixteen sockets of silver, to wit, two sockets under every board. 36:31. He made also bars of setim wood, five to hold together the boards of one side of the tabernacle, 36:32. And five others to join together the boards of the other side; and besides these, five other bars at the west side of the tabernacle towards the sea. 36:33. He made also another bar, that might come by the midst of the boards from corner to corner. 36:34. And the boards themselves he overlaid with gold casting for them sockets of silver. And their rings he made of gold, through which the bars might be drawn: and he covered the bars themselves with plates of gold. 36:35. He made also a veil of violet, and purple, scarlet and fine twisted linen, varied and distinguished with embroidery: 36:36. And four pillars of setim wood, which with their heads he overlaid with gold, casting for them sockets of silver. 36:37. He made also a hanging in the entry of the tabernacle of violet, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen, with the work of an embroiderer. 36:38. And five pillars with their heads, which he covered with gold, and their sockets he cast of brass. Exodus Chapter 37 Beseleel maketh the ark: the propitiatory, and cherubims, the table, the candlestick, the lamps, and the altar of incense, and compoundeth the incense. 37:1. And Beseleel made also, the ark of setim wood: it was two cubits and a half in length, and a cubit and a half in breadth, and the height was of one cubit and a half: and he overlaid it with the purest gold within and without. 37:2. And he made to it a crown of gold round about, 37:3. Casting four rings of gold at the four corners thereof: two rings in one side, and two in the other. 37:4. And he made bars of setim wood, which he overlaid with gold, 37:5. And he put them into the rings that were at the sides of the ark to carry it. 37:6. He made also the propitiatory, that is, the oracle, of the purest gold, two cubits and a half in length, and a cubit and a half in breadth. 37:7. Two cherubims also of beaten gold, which he set on the two sides of the propitiatory: 37:8. One cherub in the top of one side, and the other cherub in the top of the other side: two cherubims at the two ends of the propitiatory, 37:9. Spreading their wings, and covering the propitiatory, and looking one towards the other, and towards it. 37:10. He made also the table of setim wood, in length two cubits, and in breadth one cubit, and in height it was a cubit and a half. 37:11. And he overlaid it with the finest gold, and he made to it a golden ledge round about, 37:12. And to the ledge itself he made a polished crown of gold, of four fingers breadth, and upon the same another golden crown. 37:13. And he cast four rings of gold, which he put in the four corners at each foot of the table, 37:14. Over against the crown: and he put the bars into them, that the table might be carried. 37:15. The bars also themselves he made of setim wood, and overlaid them with gold. 37:16. And the vessels for the divers uses of the table, dishes, bowls, and cups, and censers of pure gold, wherein the libations are to be offered. 37:17. He made also the candlestick of beaten work of the finest gold. from the shaft whereof its branches, its cups, and bowls, and lilies came out: 37:18: Six on the two sides: three branches on one side, and three on the other. 37:19. Three cups in manner of a nut on each branch, and bowls withal and lilies: and three cups of the fashion of a nut in another branch, and bowls withal and lilies. The work of the six branches, that went out from the shaft of the candlestick was equal. 37:20. And in the shaft itself were four cups after the manner of a nut, and bowls withal at every one, and lilies: 37:21. And bowls under two branches in three places, which together made six branches going out from one shaft. 37:22. So both the bowls, and the branches were of the same, all beaten work of the purest gold. 37:23. He made also the seven lamps with their snuffers, and the vessels where the snuffings were to be put out, of the purest gold. 37:24. The candlestick with all the vessels thereof weighed a talent of gold. 37:25. He made also the alter of incense of setim wood, being a cubit on every side foursquare, and in height two cubits: from the corners of which went out horns. 37:26. And he overlaid it with the purest gold, with its grate, and the sides, and the horns. 37:27. And he made to it a crown of gold round about, and two golden rings under the crown at each side, that the bars might be put into them, and the altar be carried. 37:28. And the bars themselves he made also of setim wood, and overlaid them with plates of gold. 37:29. He compounded also the oil for the ointment of sanctification, and incense of the purest spices, according to the work of a perfumer. Exodus Chapter 38 He maketh the altar of holocaust. The brazen laver. The court with its pillars and hangings. The sum of what the people offered. 38:1. He made also the altar of holocaust of setim wood, five cubits square, and three in height: 38:2. The horns whereof went out from the corners, and he overlaid it with plates of brass. 38:3. And for the uses thereof, he prepared divers vessels of brass, cauldrons, tongs, fleshhooks, pothooks and firepans. 38:4. And he made the grate thereof of brass, in manner of a net, and under it in the midst of the altar a hearth, 38:5. Casting four rings at the four ends of the net at the top, to put in bars to carry it: 38:6. And he made the bars of setim wood, and overlaid them with plates of brass: 38:7. And he drew them through the rings that stood out in the sides of the altar. And the altar itself was not solid, but hollow, of boards, and empty within. 38:8. He made also the laver of brass, with the foot thereof, of the mirrors of the women that watched at the door of the tabernacle. 38:9. He made also the court, in the south side whereof were hangings of fine twisted linen of a hundred cubits. 38:10. Twenty pillars of brass with their sockets, the beads of the pillars, and the whole graving of the work, of silver. 38:11. In like manner at the north side the hangings, the pillars, and the sockets and heads of the pillars were of the same measure, and work and metal. 38:12. But on that side that looketh to the west, there were hangings of fifty cubits, ten pillars of brass with their sockets, and the heads of the pillars, and all the graving of the work, of silver. 38:13. Moreover, towards the east he prepared hangings of fifty cubits: 38:14. Fifteen cubits of which, were on one side with three pillars, and their sockets: 38:15. And on the other side (for between the two he made the entry of the tabernacle) there were hangings equally of fifteen cubits, and three pillars, and as many sockets. 38:16. All the hangings of the court were woven with twisted linen. 38:17. The sockets of the pillars were of brass, and their heads with all their gravings of silver: and he overlaid the pillars of the court also with silver. 38:18. And he made in the entry thereof an embroidered hanging of violet, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen, that was twenty cubits long, and five cubits high, according to the measure of all the hangings of the court. 38:19. And the pillars in the entry were four, with sockets of brass, and their heads and gravings of silver. 38:20. The pins also of the tabernacle and of the court round about he made of brass. 38:21. These are the instruments of the tabernacle of the testimony, which were counted according to the commandment of Moses, in the ceremonies of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest: 38:22. Which Beseleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Juda, had made, as the Lord commanded by Moses. 38:23. Having for his companion Ooliab, the son of Achisamech, of the tribe of Dan: who also was an excellent artificer in wood, and worker in tapestry and embroidery in violet, purple, scarlet, and fine linen. 38:24. All the gold that was spent in the work of the sanctuary, and that was offered in gifts, was nine and twenty talents, and seven hundred and thirty sicles according to the standard of the sanctuary. 38:25. And it was offered by them that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upwards, of six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men able to bear arms. 38:26. There were moreover a hundred talents of silver, whereof were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and of the entry where the veil hangeth. 38:27. A hundred sockets were made of a hundred talents, one talent being reckoned for every socket. 38:28. And of the thousand seven hundred and seventy-five he made the heads of the pillars, which also he overlaid with silver. 38:29. And there were offered of brass also seventy-two thousand talents, and four hundred sicles besides, 38:30. Of which were cast the sockets in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony, and the altar of brass with the grate thereof, and also the vessels that belong to the use thereof. 38:31. And the sockets of the court as well round about as in the entry thereof, and the pins of the tabernacle, and of the court round about. Exodus Chapter 39 All the ornaments of Aaron and his sons are made. And the whole work of the tabernacle is finished. 39:1. And he made, of violet and purple, scarlet and fine linen, the vestments for Aaron to wear when he ministered in the holy places, as the Lord commanded Moses. 39:2. So he made an ephod of gold, violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen, 39:3. With embroidered work, and he cut thin plates of gold, and drew them small into threads, that they might be twisted with the woof of the foresaid colours, 39:4. And two borders coupled one to the other in the top on either side, 39:5. And a girdle of the same colours, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:6. He prepared also two onyx stones, fast set and closed in gold, and graven, by the art of a lapidary, with the names of the children of Israel: 39:7. And he set them in the sides of the ephod, for a memorial of the children of Israel, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:8. He made also a rational with embroidered work, according to the work of the ephod, of gold, violet, purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen: 39:9. Foursquare, double, of the measure of a span. 39:10. And he set four rows of precious stones in it. In the first row was a sardius, a topaz, an emerald. 39:11. In the second, a carbuncle, a sapphire, and a jasper. 39:12. In the third, a ligurius, an agate, and an amethyst. 39:13. In the fourth, a chrysolite, an onyx, and a beryl, set and enclosed in gold by their rows. 39:14. And the twelve stones, were engraved with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, each one with its several name. 39:15. They made also in the rational little chains, linked one to another, of the purest gold, 39:16. And two hooks, and as many rings of gold. And they set the rings on either side of the rational, 39:17. On which rings the two golden chains should hang, which they put into the hooks that stood out in the corners of the ephod. 39:18. These both before and behind so answered one another, that the ephod and the rational were bound together, 39:19. Being fastened to the girdle, and strongly coupled with rings, which a violet fillet joined, lest they should flag loose, and be moved one from the other, as the Lord commanded Moses. 39:20. They made also the tunic of the ephod all of violet, 39:21. And a hole for the head in the upper part at the middle, and a woven border round about the hole: 39:22. And beneath at the feet pomegranates of violet, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen: 39:23. And little bells of the purest gold, which they put between the pomegranates at the bottom of the tunic round about: 39:24. To wit, a bell of gold, and a pomegranate, wherewith the high priest went adorned, when he discharged his ministry, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:25. They made also fine linen tunics with woven work for Aaron and his sons: 39:26. And mitres with their little crowns of fine linen: 39:27. And linen breeches of fine linen: 39:28. And a girdle of fine twisted linen, violet, purple, and scarlet twice dyed, of embroidery work, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:29. They made also the plate of sacred veneration of the purest gold, and they wrote on it with the engraving of a lapidary: The Holy of the Lord: 39:30. And they fastened it to the mitre with a violet fillet, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:31. So all the work of the tabernacle and of the roof of the testimony was finished: and the children of Israel did all things which the Lord had commanded Moses. 39:32. And they offered the tabernacle, and the roof, and the whole furniture, the rings, the boards, the bars, the pillars and their sockets, 39:33. The cover of rams' skins dyed red, and the other cover of violet skins, 39:34. The veil, the ark, the bars, the propitiatory, 39:35. The table, with the vessels thereof, and the loaves of proposition: 39:36. The candlestick, the lamps, and the furniture of them, with the oil: 39:37. The altar of gold, and the ointment, and the incense of spices: 39:38. And the hanging in the entry of the tabernacle: 39:39. The altar of brass, the grate, the bars, and all the vessels thereof: the laver, with the foot thereof: the hangings of the court, and the pillars, with their sockets: 39:40. The hanging in the entry of the court, and the little cords, and the pins thereof. Nothing was wanting of the vessels, that were commanded to be made for the ministry of the tabernacle, and for the roof of the covenant. 39:41. The vestments also, which the priests, to wit, Aaron and his sons, use in the sanctuary, 39:42. The children of Israel offered, as the Lord had commanded. 39:43. And when Moses saw all things finished, he blessed them. Exodus Chapter 40 The tabernacle is commanded to be set up and anointed. God filleth it with his majesty. 40:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 40:2. The first month, the first day of the month, thou shalt set up the tabernacle of the testimony, 40:3. And shalt put the ark in it, and shalt let down the veil before it: 40:4. And thou shalt bring in the table, and set upon it the things that are commanded according to the rite. The candlestick shall stand with its lamps, 40:5. And the altar of gold, whereon the incense is burnt before the ark of the testimony. Thou shalt put the hanging in the entry of the tabernacle, 40:6. And before it the altar of holocaust. 40:7. The laver between the altar and the tabernacle, and thou shalt fill it with water. 40:8. And thou shalt encompass the court with hangings, and the entry thereof. 40:9. And thou shalt take the oil of unction and anoint the tabernacle with its vessels, that they may be sanctified: 40:10. The altar of holocaust and all its vessels: 40:11. The laver with its foot: thou shalt consecrate all with the oil of unction, that they may be most holy. 40:12. And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, and having washed them with water, 40:13. Thou shalt put on them the holy vestments, that they may minister to me, and that the unction of them may prosper to an everlasting priesthood. 40:14. And Moses did all that the Lord had commanded. 40:15. So in the first month of the second year, the first day of the month, the tabernacle was set up. 40:16. And Moses reared it up, and placed the boards and the sockets and the bars, and set up the pillars, 40:17. And spread the roof over the tabernacle, putting over it a cover, as the Lord had commanded. 40:18. And he put the testimony in the ark, thrusting bars underneath, and the oracle above. 40:19. And when he had brought the ark into the tabernacle, he drew the veil before it to fulfil the commandment of the Lord. 40:20. And he set the table in the tabernacle of the testimony, at the north side, without the veil, 40:21. Setting there in order the loaves of proposition, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 40:22. He set the candlestick also in the tabernacle of the testimony, over against the table on the south side, 40:23. Placing the lamps in order, according to the precept of the Lord. 40:24. He set also the altar of gold under the roof of the testimony, over against the veil, 40:25. And burnt upon it the incense of spices, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 40:26. And he put also the hanging in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony, 40:27. And the altar of holocaust in the entry of the testimony, offering the holocaust, and the sacrifices upon it, as the Lord had commanded. 40:28. And he set the laver between the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar, filling it with water. 40:29. And Moses and Aaron, and his sons, washed their hands and feet, 40:30. When they went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and went to the altar, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 40:31. He set up also the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, drawing the hanging in the entry thereof. After all things were perfected, 40:32. The cloud covered the tabernacle of the testimony, and the glory of the Lord filled it. 40:33. Neither could Moses go into the tabernacle of the covenant, the cloud covering all things, and the majesty of the Lord shining, for the cloud had covered all. 40:34. If at any time the cloud removed from the tabernacle, the children of Israel went forward by their troops: 40:35. If it hung over, they remained in the same place. 40:36. For the cloud of the Lord hung over the tabernacle by day, and a fire by night, in the sight of all the children of Israel throughout all their mansions. THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS This Book is called LEVITICUS, because it treats of the Offices, Ministries, Rites and Ceremonies of the Priests and Levites. The Hebrews call it VAICRA, from the word with which it begins. Leviticus Chapter 1 Of holocausts or burnt offerings. 1:1. And the Lord called Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of the testimony, saying: 1:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man among you that shall offer to the Lord a sacrifice of the cattle, that is, offering victims of oxen and sheep: 1:3. If his offering be a holocaust, and of the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish, at the door of the testimony, to make the Lord favourable to him. A holocaust. . .That is, a whole burnt offering (olokauston), so called, because the whole victim was consumed with fire; and given in such manner to God as wholly to evaporate, as it were, for his honour and glory; without having any part of it reserved for the use of man. The other sacrifices in the Old Testament were either offerings for sin, or peace offerings: and these latter again were either offered in thanksgiving for blessings received; or by way of prayer for new favours or graces. So that sacrifices were then offered to God for four different ends or intentions, answerable to the different obligations which man has to God: 1. By way of adoration, homage, praise, and glory due to his divine majesty. 2. By way of thanksgiving for all benefits received from him. 3. By way of confessing and craving pardon for sins. 4. By way of prayer and petition for grace and relief in all necessities. In the New Law we have but one sacrifice, viz., that of the body and blood of Christ: but this one sacrifice of the New Testament perfectly answers all these four ends; and both priest and people, as often as it is celebrated, ought to join in offering it up for these four ends. 1:4. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the victim: and it shall be acceptable, and help to its expiation. 1:5. And he shall immolate the calf before the Lord: and the priests the sons of Aaron shall offer the blood thereof, pouring it round about the altar, which is before the door of the tabernacle. 1:6. And when they have flayed the victim, they shall cut the joints into pieces: 1:7. And shall put fire on the altar, having before laid in order a pile of wood. 1:8. And they shall lay the parts that are cut out in order thereupon: to wit, the head, and all things that cleave to the liver; 1:9. The entrails and feet being washed with water. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar for a holocaust, and a sweet savour to the Lord. 1:10. And if the offering be of the flocks, a holocaust of sheep or of goats, he shall offer a male without blemish. 1:11. And he shall immolate it at the side of the altar that looketh to the north, before the Lord: but the sons of Aaron shall pour the blood thereof upon the altar round about. 1:12. And they shall divide the joints, the head, and all that cleave to the liver: and shall lay them upon the wood, under which the fire is to be put. 1:13. But the entrails and the feet they shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer it all and burn it all upon the altar for a holocaust, and most sweet savour to the Lord. 1:14. But if the oblation of a holocaust to the Lord be of birds, of turtles, or of young pigeons: 1:15. The priest shall offer it at the altar: and twisting back the neck, and breaking the place of the wound, he shall make the blood run down upon the brim of the altar. 1:16. But the crop of the throat, and the feathers he shall cast beside the altar at the east side, in the place where the ashes are wont to be poured out. 1:17. And he shall break the pinions thereof, and shall not cut, nor divide it with a knife: and shall burn it upon the altar, putting fire under the wood. It is a holocaust and oblation of most sweet savour to the Lord. Leviticus Chapter 2 Of offerings of flour, and firstfruits. 2:1. When any one shall offer an oblation of sacrifice to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour: and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense, 2:2. And shall bring it to the sons of Aaron the priests. And one of them shall take a handful of the flour and oil, and all the frankincense; and shall put it a memorial upon the altar for a most sweet savour to the Lord. 2:3. And the remnant of the sacrifice shall be Aaron's, and his sons', holy of holies of the offerings of the Lord. Holy of holies. . .That is, most holy, as being dedicated to God, and set aside by his ordinance for the use of his priests. 2:4. But when thou offerest a sacrifice baked in the oven of flour, to wit, loaves without leaven, tempered with oil, and unleavened wafers, anointed with oil: 2:5. If thy oblation be from the fryingpan, of flour tempered with oil, and without leaven: 2:6. Thou shalt divide it into little pieces, and shalt pour oil upon it. 2:7. And if the sacrifice be from the gridiron, in like manner the flour shall be tempered with oil. 2:8. And when thou offerest it to the Lord, thou shalt deliver it to the hands of the priest. 2:9. And when he hath offered it, he shall take a memorial out of the sacrifice, and burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour to the Lord. 2:10. And whatsoever is left, shall be Aaron's, and his sons': holy of holies of the offerings of the Lord. 2:11. Every oblation that is offered to the Lord shall be made without leaven: neither shall any leaven or honey be burnt in the sacrifice to the Lord. Without leaven or honey. . .No leaven nor honey was to be used in the sacrifice offered to God; to signify that we are to exclude from the pure worship of the gospel, all double dealing and affection to carnal pleasures. 2:12. You shall offer only the firstfruits of them and gifts: but they shall not be put upon the altar, for a savour of sweetness. 2:13. Whatsoever sacrifice thou offerest, thou shalt season it with salt: neither shalt thou take away the salt of the covenant of thy God from thy sacrifice. In all thy oblations thou shalt offer salt. Salt. . .In every sacrifice salt was to be used, which is an emblem of wisdom and discretion, without which none of our performances are agreeable to God. 2:14. But if thou offer a gift of the firstfruits of thy corn to the Lord, of the ears yet green, thou shalt dry it at the fire, and break it small like meal; and so shalt thou offer thy firstfruits to the Lord: 2:15. Pouring oil upon it and putting on frankincense, because it is the oblation of the Lord. 2:16. Whereof the priest shall burn for a memorial of the gift, part of the corn broken small and of the oil, and all the frankincense. Leviticus Chapter 3 Of peace offerings. 3:1. And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offerings, and he will offer of the herd, whether male or female: he shall offer them without blemish before the Lord. Peace offerings. . .Peace, in the scripture language, signifies happiness, welfare or prosperity; in a word, all kind of blessings.--Such sacrifices, therefore, as were offered either on occasion of blessings received, or to obtain new favours, were called pacific or peace offerings. In these, some part of the victim was consumed with fire on the altar of God; other parts were eaten by the priests and by the persons for whom the sacrifice was offered. 3:2. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his victim, which shall be slain in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony: and the sons of Aaron the priests shall pour the blood round about upon the altar. 3:3. And they shall offer of the sacrifice of peace offerings, for an oblation to the Lord: the fat that covereth the entrails, and all the fat that is within, 3:4. The two kidneys with the fat wherewith the flanks are covered, and the caul of the liver with the two little kidneys. 3:5. And they shall burn them upon the altar, for a holocaust, putting fire under the wood: for an oblation of most sweet savour to the Lord. 3:6. But if his oblation and the sacrifice of peace offering be of the flock, whether he offer male or female, they shall be without blemish. 3:7. If he offer a lamb before the Lord: 3:8. He shall put his hand upon the head of the victim. And it shall be slain in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony: and the sons of Aaron shall pour the blood thereof round about upon the altar. 3:9. And they shall offer of the victim of peace offerings, a sacrifice to the Lord: the fat and the whole rump, 3:10. With the kidneys, and the fat that covereth the belly and all the vitals and both the little kidneys, with the fat that is about the flanks, and the caul of the liver with the little kidneys. 3:11. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar, for the food of the fire, and of the oblation of the Lord. 3:12. If his offering be a goat, and he offer it to the Lord: 3:13. He shall put his hand upon the head thereof: and shall immolate it in the entry of the tabernacle of the testimony. And the sons of Aaron shall pour the blood thereof round about upon the altar. 3:14. And they shall take of it for the food of the Lord's fire, the fat that covereth the belly, and that covereth all the vital parts: 3:15. The two little kidneys with the caul that is upon them which is by the flanks, and the fat of the liver with the little kidneys. 3:16. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar, for the food of the fire, and of a most sweet savour. All the fat shall be the Lord's. 3:17. By a perpetual law for your generations, and in all your habitations: neither blood nor fat shall you eat at all. Fat. . .It is meant of the fat, which by the prescription of the law was to be offered on God's altar; not of the fat of meat, such as we commonly eat. Leviticus Chapter 4 Of offerings for sins of ignorance. 4:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 4:2. Say to the children of Israel: The soul that sinneth through ignorance, and doth any thing concerning any of the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded not to be done: Ignorance. . .To be ignorant of what we are bound to know is sinful; and for such culpable ignorance, these sacrifices, prescribed in this and the following chapter, were appointed. 4:3. If the priest that is anointed shall sin, making the people to offend, he shall offer to the Lord for his sin a calf without blemish. 4:4. And he shall bring it to the door of the testimony before the Lord: and shall put his hand upon the head thereof, and shall sacrifice it to the Lord. 4:5. He shall take also of the blood of the calf: and carry it into the tabernacle of the testimony. The blood. . .As the figure of the blood of Christ shed for the remission of our sins, and carried by him into the sanctuary of heaven. 4:6. And having dipped his finger in the blood, he shall sprinkle with it seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. 4:7. And he shall put some of the same blood upon the horns of the altar of the sweet incense most acceptable to the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the testimony. And he shall pour all the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar of holocaust in the entry of the tabernacle. 4:8. And he shall take off the fat of the calf for the sin offering, as well that which covereth the entrails, as all the inwards: 4:9. The two little kidneys, and the caul that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the fat of the liver with the little kidneys: 4:10. As it is taken off from the calf of the sacrifice of peace offerings. And he shall burn them upon the altar of holocaust. 4:11. But the skin and all the flesh with the head and the feet and the bowels and the dung: 4:12. And the rest of the body, he shall carry forth without the camp into a clean place where the ashes are wont to be poured out: and he shall burn them upon a pile of wood. They shall be burnt in the place where the ashes are poured out. 4:13. And if all the multitude of Israel shall be ignorant, and through ignorance shall do that which is against the commandment of the Lord, 4:14. And afterwards shall understand their sin: they shall offer for their sin a calf, and shall bring it to the door of the tabernacle. 4:15. And the ancients of the people shall put their hands upon the head thereof before the Lord. And the calf being immolated in the sight of the Lord: 4:16. The priest that is anointed shall carry of the blood into the tabernacle of the testimony. 4:17. And shall dip his finger in it and sprinkle it seven times before the veil. 4:18. And he shall put of the same blood on the horns of the altar that is before the Lord, in the tabernacle of the testimony. And the rest of the blood he shall pour at the foot of the altar of holocaust, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. 4:19. And all the fat thereof he shall take off, and shall burn it upon the altar: 4:20. Doing so with this calf, as he did also with that before. And the priest praying for them, the Lord will be merciful unto them. 4:21. But the calf itself he shall carry forth without the camp, and shall burn it as he did the former calf: because it is for the sin of the multitude. 4:22. If a prince shall sin, and through ignorance do any one of the things that the law of the Lord forbiddeth, 4:23. And afterwards shall come to know his sin: he shall offer a buck goat without blemish, a sacrifice to the Lord. 4:24. And he shall put his hand upon the head thereof: and when he hath immolated it in the place where the holocaust is wont to be slain before the Lord, because it is for sin, 4:25. The priest shall dip his finger in the blood of the victim for sin, touching therewith the horns of the altar of holocaust, and pouring out the rest at the foot thereof. 4:26. But the fat he shall burn upon it, as is wont to be done with the victims of peace offerings. And the priest shall pray for him, and for his sin: and it shall be forgiven him. 4:27. And if any one of the people of the land shall sin through ignorance, doing any of those things that by the law of the Lord are forbidden, and offending, 4:28. And shall come to know his sin: he shall offer a she goat without blemish. 4:29. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the victim that is for sin: and shall immolate it in the place of the holocaust. 4:30. And the priest shall take of the blood with his finger, and shall touch the horns of the altar of holocaust: and shall pour out the rest at the foot thereof. 4:31. But taking off all the fat, as is wont to be taken away of the victims of peace offerings, he shall burn it upon the altar, for a sweet savour to the Lord: and he shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven him. 4:32. But if he offer of the flock a victim for his sin, to wit, an ewe without blemish: 4:33. He shall put his hand upon the head thereof, and shall immolate it in the place where the victims of holocausts are wont to be slain. 4:34. And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and shall touch the horns of the altar of holocaust: and the rest he shall pour out at the foot thereof. 4:35. All the fat also he shall take off, as the fat of the ram that is offered for peace offerings is wont to be taken away: and shall burn it upon the altar, for a burnt sacrifice of the Lord. And he shall pray for him and his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. Leviticus Chapter 5 Of other sacrifices for sins. 5:1. If any one sin, and hear the voice of one swearing, and is a witness either because he himself hath seen, or is privy to it: if he do not utter it, he shall bear his iniquity. 5:2. Whosoever toucheth any unclean thing, either that which hath been killed by a beast, or died of itself, or any other creeping thing: and forgetteth his uncleanness, he is guilty, and hath offended. 5:3. And if he touch any thing of the uncleanness of man, according to any uncleanness wherewith he is wont to be defiled: and having forgotten it, come afterwards to know it, he shall be guilty of an offence. 5:4. The person that sweareth, and uttereth with his lips, that he would do either evil or good, and bindeth the same with an oath, and his word: and having forgotten it afterwards understandeth his offence, 5:5. Let him do penance for his sin: 5:6. And offer of the flocks an ewe lamb, or a she goat, and the priest shall pray for him and for his sin. 5:7. But if he be not able to offer a beast, let him offer two turtles, or two young pigeons to the Lord, one for sin, and the other for a holocaust, 5:8. And he shall give them to the priest: who shall offer the first for sin, and twist back the head of it to the little pinions, so that it stick to the neck, and be not altogether broken off. 5:9. And of its blood he shall sprinkle the side of the altar: and whatever is left, he shall let it drop at the bottom thereof, because it is for sin. 5:10. And the other he shall burn for a holocaust, as is wont to be done. And the priest shall pray for him, and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. 5:11. And if his hand be not able to offer two turtles, or two young pigeons, he shall offer for his sin the tenth part of an ephi of flour. He shall not put oil upon it, nor put any frankincense thereon, because it is for sin. 5:12. And he shall deliver it to the priest, who shall take a handful thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar for a memorial of him that offered it: 5:13. Praying for him and making atonement. But the part that is left, he himself shall have for a gift. 5:14. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 5:15. If any one shall sin through mistake, transgressing the ceremonies in those things that are sacrificed to the Lord, he shall offer for his offence a ram without blemish out of the flocks, that may be bought for two sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary. 5:16. And he shall make good the damage itself which he hath done, and shall add the fifth part besides, delivering it to the priest, who shall pray for him, offering the ram: and it shall be forgiven him. 5:17. If any one sin through ignorance, and do one of those things which by the law of the Lord are forbidden, and being guilty of sin, understand his iniquity: 5:18. He shall offer of the flocks a ram without blemish to the priest, according to the measure and estimation of the sin. And the priest shall pray for him, because he did it ignorantly: And it shall be forgiven him, 5:19. Because by mistake he trespassed against the Lord. Leviticus Chapter 6 Oblation for sins of injustice: ordinances concerning the holocausts and the perpetual fire: the sacrifices of the priests, and the sin offerings. 6:1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:2. Whosoever shall sin, and despising the Lord, shall deny to his neighbour the thing delivered to his keeping, which was committed to his trust; or shall by force extort any thing, or commit oppression; 6:3. Or shall find a thing lost, and denying it, shall also swear falsely, or shall do any other of the many things, wherein men are wont to sin: 6:4. Being convicted of the offence, he shall restore 6:5. All that he would have gotten by fraud, in the principal, and the fifth part besides, to the owner, whom he wronged. 6:6. Moreover for his sin he shall offer a ram without blemish out of the flock: and shall give it to the priest, according to the estimation and measure of the offence. 6:7. And he shall pray for him before the Lord: and he shall have forgiveness for every thing in doing of which he bath sinned. 6:8. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:9. Command Aaron and his sons: This is the law of a holocaust. It shall be burnt upon the altar, all night until morning: the fire shall be of the same altar. 6:10. The priest shall be vested with the tunick and the linen breeches; and he shall take up the ashes of that which the devouring fire hath burnt: and putting them beside the altar, 6:11. Shall put off his former vestments, and being clothed with others, shall carry them forth without the camp, and shall cause them to be consumed to dust in a very clean place. 6:12. And the fire on the altar shall always burn, and the priest shall feed it, putting wood on it every day in the morning: and laying on the holocaust, shall burn thereupon the fat of the peace offerings. 6:13. This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar. The perpetual fire. . .This fire came from heaven, (infra. chap. 9.24,) and was always kept burning on the altar, as a figure of the heavenly fire of divine love, which ought to be always burning in the heart of a Christian. 6:14. This is the law of the sacrifice and libations, which the children of Aaron shall offer before the Lord, and before the altar. 6:15. The priest shall take a handful of the flour that is tempered with oil, and all the frankincense that is put upon the flour: and he shall burn on the altar for a memorial of most sweet odour to the Lord. 6:16. And the part of the flour that is left, Aaron and his sons shall eat, without leaven: and he shall eat it in the holy place of the court of the tabernacle. 6:17. And therefore it shall not be leavened, because part thereof is offered for the burnt sacrifice of the Lord. It shall be most holy, as that which is offered for sin and for trespass. 6:18. The males only of the race of Aaron shall eat it. It shall be an ordinance everlasting in your generations concerning the sacrifices of the Lord: Every one that toucheth them shall be sanctified. 6:19. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:20. This is the oblation of Aaron, and of his sons, which they must offer to the Lord, in the day of their anointing. They shall offer the tenth part of an ephi of flour for a perpetual sacrifice, half of it in the morning, and half of it in the evening. 6:21. It shall be tempered with oil, and shall be fried in a fryingpan. 6:22. And the priest that rightfully succeedeth his father, shall offer it hot, for a most sweet odour to the Lord: and it shall he wholly burnt on the altar. 6:23. For every sacrifice of the priest shall be consumed with fire: neither shall any man eat thereof. 6:24. And the Lord spoke to Moses. saying: 6:25. Say to Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the victim for sin. In the place where the holocaust is offered, it shall be immolated before the Lord. It is holy of holies. 6:26. The priest that offereth it, shall eat it in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle. 6:27. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof, shall be sanctified. If a garment be sprinkled with the blood thereof, it shall be washed in a holy place. 6:28. And the earthen vessel, wherein it was sodden, shall be broken: but if the vessel be of brass, it shall be scoured, and washed with water. 6:29. Every male of the priestly race shall eat of the flesh thereof, because it is holy of holies. 6:30. For the victim that is slain for sin, the blood of which is carried into the tabernacle of the testimony to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall not be eaten, but shall be burnt with fire. Leviticus Chapter 7 Of sacrifices for trespasses and thanks offerings. No fat nor blood is to be eaten. 7:1. This also is the law of the sacrifice for a trespass: it is most holy. Trespass. . .Trespasses, for which these offerings were to be made, were lesser offences than those for which the sin offerings were appointed. 7:2. Therefore where the holocaust is immolated, the victim also for a trespass shall be slain: the blood thereof shall be poured round about the altar. 7:3. They shall offer thereof the rump and the fat that covereth the entrails: 7:4. The two little kidneys, and the fat which is by the flanks, and the caul of the liver with the little kidneys. 7:5. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the burnt sacrifice of the Lord for a trespass. 7:6. Every male of the priestly race, shall eat this flesh in a holy place, because it is most holy. 7:7. As the sacrifice for sin is offered, so is also that for a trespass: the same shall be the law of both these sacrifices. It shall belong to the priest that offereth it. 7:8. The priest that offereth the victim of holocaust, shall have the skin thereof. 7:9. And every sacrifice of flour that is baked in the oven, and whatsoever is dressed on the gridiron, or in the fryingpan, shall be the priest's that offereth it. 7:10. Whether they be tempered with oil, or dry, all the sons of Aaron shall have one as much as another. 7:11. This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that is offered to the Lord. 7:12. If the oblation be for thanksgiving, they shall offer loaves without leaven tempered with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and fine flour fried, and cakes tempered and mingled with oil. 7:13. Moreover loaves of leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanks, which is offered for peace offerings: 7:14. Of which one shall be offered to the Lord for firstfruits, and shall be the priest's that shall pour out the blood of the victim. 7:15. And the flesh of it shall be eaten the same day: neither shall any of it remain until the morning. 7:16. If any man by vow, or of his own accord offer a sacrifice, it shall in like manner be eaten the same day. And if any of it remain until the morrow, it is lawful to eat it. 7:17. But whatsoever shall be found on the third day shall be consumed with fire. 7:18. If any man eat of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings on the third day, the oblation shall be of no effect: neither shall it profit the offerer. Yea rather, whatsoever soul shall defile itself with such meat, shall be guilty of transgression. 7:19. The flesh that hath touched any unclean thing, shall not be eaten: but shall be burnt with fire. He that is clean shall eat of it. 7:20. If any one that is defiled shall eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which is offered to the Lord, he shall be cut off from his people. 7:21. And he that hath touched the uncleanness of man, or of beast, or of any thing that can defile, and shall eat of such kind of flesh: shall be cut off from his people. 7:22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 7:23. Say to the children of Israel: The fat of a sheep, and of an ox, and of a goat you shall not eat. 7:24. The fat of a carcass that hath died of itself, and of a beast that was caught by another beast, you shall have for divers uses. 7:25. If any man eat the fat that should be offered for the burnt sacrifice of the Lord, he shall perish out of his people. 7:26. Moreover you shall not eat the blood of any creature whatsoever, whether of birds or beasts. 7:27. Every one that eateth blood, shall perish from among the people. 7:28. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 7:29. Speak to the children of Israel, saying: He that offereth a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, let him offer therewith a sacrifice also, that is, the libations thereof. 7:30. He shall hold in his hands the fat of the victim, and the breast. And when he hath offered and consecrated both to the Lord, he shall deliver them to the priest, 7:31. Who shall burn the fat upon the altar. But the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'. 7:32. The right shoulder also of the victim, of peace offerings shall fall to the priest for firstfruits. 7:33. He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood, and the fat: he shall have the right shoulder also for his portion. 7:34. For the breast that is elevated and the shoulder that is separated I have taken of the children of Israel, from off their victims of peace offerings: and have given them to Aaron the priest, and to his sons, by a law for ever, from all the people of Israel. 7:35. This is the anointing of Aaron and his sons, in the ceremonies of the Lord, in the day when Moses offered them, that they might do the office of priesthood, 7:36. And the things that the Lord commanded to be given them by the children of Israel, by a perpetual observance in their generations. 7:37. This is the law of holocaust, and of the sacrifice for sin, and for trespass, and for consecration, and the victims of peace offerings: 7:38. Which the Lord appointed to Moses in mount Sinai, when he commanded the children of Israel, that they should offer their oblations to the Lord in the desert of Sinai. Leviticus Chapter 8 Moses consecrateth Aaron and his sons. 8:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8:2. Take Aaron with his sons, their vestments, and the oil of unction: a calf for sin, two rams, a basket with unleavened bread. 8:3. And thou shalt gather together all the congregation to the door of the tabernacle. 8:4. And Moses did as the Lord had commanded. And all the multitude being gathered together before the door of the tabernacle: 8:5. He said: This is the word that the Lord hath commanded to be done. 8:6. And immediately, he offered Aaron and his sons. And when he had washed them, 8:7. He vested the high priest with the strait linen garment, girding him with the girdle, and putting on him the violet tunick: and over it he put the ephod. 8:8. And binding it with the girdle, he fitted it to the rational, on which was Doctrine and Truth. 8:9. He put also the mitre upon his head: and upon the mitre over the forehead, he put the plate of gold, consecrated with sanctification, as the Lord had commanded him. 8:10. He took also the oil of unction, with which he anointed the tabernacle, with all the furniture thereof. 8:11. And when he had sanctified and sprinkled the altar seven times, he anointed it, and all the vessels thereof: and the laver with the foot thereof, he sanctified with the oil. 8:12. And he poured it upon Aaron's head: and he anointed and consecrated him. 8:13. And after he had offered his sons, he vested them with linen tunicks, and girded them with girdles: and put mitres on them as the Lord had commanded. 8:14. He offered also the calf for sin: and when Aaron and his sons had put their hands upon the head thereof, 8:15. He immolated it: and took the blood, and dipping his finger in it, he touched the horns of the altar round about. Which being expiated, and sanctified, he poured the rest of the blood at the bottom thereof. 8:16. But the fat that was upon the entrails, and the caul of the liver, and the two little kidneys, with their fat, he burnt upon the altar. 8:17. And the calf with the skin, and the flesh and the dung, he burnt without the camp, as the Lord had commanded. 8:18. He offered also a ram for holocaust. And when Aaron and his sons had put their hands upon its head: 8:19. He immolated it, and poured the blood thereof round about the altar. 8:20. And cutting the ram into pieces, the head thereof, and the joints, and the fat he burnt in the fire. 8:21. Having first washed the entrails, and the feet, and the whole ram together he burnt upon the altar: because it was a holocaust of most sweet odour to the Lord, as he had commanded him. 8:22. He offered also the second ram, in the consecration of priests: and Aaron, and his sons put their hands upon the head thereof. 8:23. And when Moses had immolated it, he took of the blood thereof, and touched the tip of Aaron's right ear, and the thumb of his right hand, and in like manner also the great toe of his right foot. 8:24. He offered also the sons of Aaron: and when with the blood of the ram that was immolated, he had touched the tip of the right ear of every one of them, and the thumbs of their right hands, and the great toes of their right feet, the rest he poured on the altar round about. 8:25. But the fat, and the rump, and all the fat that covereth the entrails, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, and with the right shoulder, he separated. 8:26. And taking out of the basket of unleavened bread, which was before the Lord, a loaf without leaven, and a cake tempered with oil and a wafer, he put them upon the fat, and the right shoulder: 8:27. Delivering all to Aaron, and to his sons. Who having lifted them up before the Lord, 8:28. He took them again from their hands, and burnt them upon the altar of holocaust: because it was the oblation of consecration, for a sweet odour of sacrifice to the Lord. 8:29. And he took of the ram of consecration, the breast for his portion, elevating it before the Lord, as the Lord had commanded him. 8:30. And taking the ointment, and the blood that was upon the altar, he sprinkled Aaron, and his vestments, and his sons, and their vestments with it. 8:31. And when he had sanctified them in their vestments, he commanded them, saying: Boil the flesh before the door of the tabernacle, and there eat it. Eat ye also the loaves of consecration, that are laid in the basket, as the Lord commanded me, saying: Aaron and his sons shall eat them. 8:32. And whatsoever shall be left of the flesh and the loaves, shall be consumed with fire. 8:33. And you shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle for seven days, until the day wherein the time of your consecration shall be expired. For in seven days the consecration is finished: 8:34. As at this present it hath been done, that the rite of the sacrifice might be accomplished. 8:35. Day and night shall you remain in the tabernacle observing the watches of the Lord, lest you die. For so it hath been commanded me. 8:36. And Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses. Leviticus Chapter 9 Aaron offereth sacrifice for himself and the people. Fire cometh from the Lord upon the altar. 9:1. And when the eighth day was come, Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the ancients of Israel, and said to Aaron: 9:2. Take of the herd a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. 9:3. And to the children of Israel thou shalt say: Take ye a he goat for sin, and a calf, and a lamb, both of a year old, and without blemish for a holocaust. 9:4. Also a bullock and a ram for peace offerings. And immolate them before the Lord, offering for the sacrifice of every one of them flour tempered with oil: for to day the Lord will appear to you. 9:5. They brought therefore all things that Moses had commanded before the door of the tabernacle: where when all the multitude stood, 9:6. Moses said: This is the word, which the Lord hath commanded. Do it, and his glory will appear to you. 9:7. And he said to Aaron: Approach to the altar, and offer sacrifice for thy sin. Offer the holocaust, and pray for thyself and for the people: and when thou hast slain the people's victim, pray for them, as the Lord hath commanded. 9:8. And forthwith Aaron, approaching to the altar, immolated the calf for his sin. 9:9. And his sons brought him the blood of it: and he dipped his finger therein, and touched the horns of the altar, and poured the rest at the foot thereof. 9:10. And the fat, and the little kidneys, and the caul of the liver, which are for sin, he burnt upon the altar, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 9:11. But the flesh and skins thereof he burnt with fire without the camp. 9:12. He immolated also the victim of holocaust: and his sons brought him the blood thereof, which he poured round about on the altar. 9:13. And the victim being cut into pieces, they brought to him the head and all the members: all which he burnt with fire upon the altar. 9:14. Having first washed the entrails and the feet with water. 9:15. Then offering for the sin of the people, he slew the he goat: and expiating the altar, 9:16. He offered the holocaust. 9:17. Adding in the sacrifice the libations, which are offered withal, and burning them upon the altar, besides the ceremonies of the morning holocaust. 9:18. He immolated also the bullock and the ram, and peace offerings of the people: and his sons brought him the blood, which he poured upon the altar round about. 9:19. The fat also of the bullock, and the rump of the ram, and the two little kidneys with their fat, and the caul of the liver, 9:20. They put upon the breasts. And after the fat was burnt upon the altar, 9:21. Aaron separated their breasts, and the right shoulders, elevating them before the Lord, as Moses had commanded. 9:22. And stretching forth his hands to the people, he blessed them. And so the victims for sin, and the holocausts, and the peace offerings being finished, he came down. 9:23. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the testimony, and afterwards came forth and blessed the people. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the multitude. 9:24. And, behold, a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar: which when the multitude saw, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces. Leviticus Chapter 10 Nadab and Abiu for offering strange fire, are burnt by fire. Priests are forbidden to drink wine, when they enter into the tabernacle. The law of eating the holy things. 10:1. And Nadab and Abiu, the sons of Aaron, taking their censers, put fire therein, and incense on it, offering before the Lord strange fire: which was not commanded them. 10:2. And fire coming out from the Lord destroyed them: and they died before the Lord. 10:3. And Moses said to Aaron: This is what the Lord hath spoken. I will be sanctified in them that approach to me: and I will be glorified in the sight of all the people. And when Aaron heard this, he held his peace. 10:4. And Moses called Misael and Elisaphan, the sons of Oziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them: Go and take away your brethren from before the sanctuary, and carry them without the camp. 10:5. And they went forthwith and took them as they lay, vested with linen tunicks, and cast them forth, as had been commanded them. 10:6. And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons: Uncover not your heads, and rend not your garments, lest perhaps you die, and indignation come upon all the congregation. Let your brethren, and all the house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. 10:7. But you shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle: otherwise you shall perish, for the oil of the holy unction is on you. And they did all things according to the precept of Moses. 10:8. The Lord also said to Aaron: 10:9. You shall not drink wine nor any thing that may make drunk, thou nor thy sons, when you enter into the tabernacle of the testimony, lest you die. Because it is an everlasting precept; through your generations: 10:10. And that you may have knowledge to discern between holy and unholy, between unclean and clean: 10:11. And may teach the children of Israel all my ordinances which the Lord hath spoken to them by the hand of Moses. 10:12. And Moses spoke to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons that were left: Take the sacrifice that is remaining of the oblation of the Lord, and eat it without leaven beside the altar, because it is holy of holies. 10:13. And you shall eat it in a holy place: which is given to thee and thy sons of the oblations of the Lord, as it hath been commanded me. 10:14. The breast also that is offered, and the shoulder that is separated, you shall eat in a most clean place, thou and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee. For they are set aside for thee and thy children, of the victims of peace offerings of the children of Israel. 10:15. Because they have elevated before the Lord the shoulder and the breast, and the fat that is burnt on the altar: and they belong to thee and to thy sons by a perpetual law, as the Lord hath commanded. 10:16. While these things were a doing, when Moses sought for the buck goat, that had been offered for sin, he found it burnt. And being angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left, he said: 10:17. Why did you not eat in the holy place the sacrifice for sin, which is most holy, and given to you, that you may bear the iniquity of the people, and may pray for them in the sight of the Lord. 10:18. Especially, whereas none of the blood thereof hath been carried within the holy places: and you ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as was commanded me? 10:19. Aaron answered: This day hath been offered the victim for sin, and the holocaust before the Lord: and to me what thou seest has happened. How could I eat it, or please the Lord in the ceremonies, having a sorrowful heart? 10:20. Which when Moses had heard he was satisfied. Leviticus Chapter 11 The distinction of clean and unclean animals. 11:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 11:2. Say to the children of Israel: These are the animals which you are to eat of all the living things of the earth. Animals which you are to eat, etc. . .The prohibition of so many kinds of beasts, birds, and fishes, in the law, was ordered, 1st, to exercise the people in obedience, and temperance; 2ndly, to restrain them from the vices of which these animals were symbols; 3rdly, because the things here forbidden were for the most part unwholesome, and not proper to be eaten; 4thly, that the people of God, by being obliged to abstain from things corporally unclean, might be trained up to seek a spiritual cleanness. 11:3. Whatsoever hath the hoof divided, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, you shall eat. Hoof divided, and cheweth the cud. . .The dividing of the hoof and chewing of the cud, signify discretion between good and evil, and meditating on the law of God; and where either of these is wanting a man is unclean. In like manner fishes were reputed unclean that had not fins and scales: that is, souls that did not raise themselves up by prayer and cover themselves with the scales of virtue. 11:4. But whatsoever cheweth indeed the cud, and hath a hoof, but divideth it not, as the camel, and others: that you shall not eat, but shall reckon it among the unclean. 11:5. The cherogrillus which cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof, is unclean. The cherogrillus. . .Some suppose it to be the rabbit, others the hedgehog. St. Jerome intimates that it is another kind of animal common in Palestine, which lives in the holes of rocks or in the earth. We choose here, as also in the names of several other creatures that follow (which are little known in this part of the world,) to keep the Greek or Latin names. 11:6. The hare also: for that too cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof. 11:7. And the swine, which, though it divideth the hoof, cheweth not the cud. 11:8. The flesh of these you shall not eat, nor shall you touch their carcasses, because they are unclean to you. 11:9. These are the things that breed in the waters, and which it is lawful to eat. All that hath fins, and scales, as well in the sea, as in the rivers, and the pools, you shall eat. 11:10. But whatsoever hath not fins and scales, of those things that move and live in the waters, shall be an abomination to you, 11:11. And detestable. Their flesh you shall not eat: and their carcasses you shall avoid. 11:12. All that have not fins and scales, in the waters, shall be unclean. 11:13. Of birds these are they which you must not eat, and which are to be avoided by you: The eagle, and the griffon, and the osprey. The griffon. . .Not the monster which the painter represent, which hath no being upon earth; but a bird of the eagle kind, larger than the common. 11:14. And the kite, and the vulture, according to their kind. 11:15. And all that is of the raven kind, according to their likeness. 11:16. The ostrich, and the owl, and the larus, and the hawk according to its kind. 11:17. The screech owl, and the cormorant, and the ibis. 11:18. And the swan, and the bittern, and the porphyrion. 11:19. The heron, and the charadroin according to its kind, the houp also, and the bat. 11:20. Of things that fly, whatsoever goeth upon four feet, shall be abominable to you. 11:21. But whatsoever walketh upon four feet, but hath the legs behind longer, wherewith it hoppeth upon the earth, 11:22. That you shall eat: as the bruchus in its kind, the attacus, and ophimachus, and the locust, every, one according to their kind. 11:23. But of flying things whatsoever hath four feet only, shall be an abomination to you. 11:24. And whosoever shall touch the carcasses of them, shall be defiled: and shall be unclean until the evening: 11:25. And if it be necessary that he carry any of these things when they are dead: he shall wash his clothes, and shall be unclean until the sun set. 11:26. Every beast that hath a hoof, but divideth it not, nor cheweth the cud shall be unclean: and he that toucheth it, shall be defiled. 11:27. That which walketh upon hands of all animals which go on all four, shall be unclean: he that shall touch their carcasses shall be defiled until evening. 11:28. And he that shall carry such carcasses, shall wash his clothes, and shall be unclean until evening: because all these things are unclean to you. 11:29. These also shall be reckoned among unclean things, of all that move upon the earth. The weasel, and the mouse, and the crocodile, every one according to their kind: 11:30. The shrew, and the chameleon, and the stellio, and the lizard, and the mole. 11:31. All these are unclean. He that toucheth their carcasses shall be unclean until the evening. 11:32. And upon what thing soever any of their carcasses shall fall, it shall be defiled, whether it be a vessel of wood, or a garment, or skins or haircloths: or any thing in which work is done. They shall be dipped in water, and shall be unclean until the evening, and so afterwards shall be clean. 11:33. But an earthen vessel, into which any of these shall fall, shall be defiled: and therefore is to be broken. 11:34. Any meat which you eat, if water from such a vessel be poured upon it, shall be unclean; and every liquor that is drunk out of any such vessel, shall be unclean. 11:35. And upon whatsoever thing any of these dead beasts shall fall, it shall be unclean. Whether it be oven, or pots with feet, they shall be destroyed, and shall be unclean. 11:36. But fountains and cisterns, and all gatherings together of waters shall be clean. He that toucheth their carcasses shall be defiled. 11:37. If it fall upon seed corn, it shall not defile it. 11:38. But if any man pour water upon the seed, and afterwards it be touched by the carcasses, it shall be forthwith defiled. 11:39. If any beast die, of which it is lawful for you to eat, he that toucheth the carcass thereof, shall be unclean until the evening. 11:40. And he that eateth or carrieth any thing thereof, shall wash his clothes, and shall be unclean until the evening. 11:41. All that creepeth upon the earth shall be abominable: neither shall it be taken for meat. 11:42. Whatsoever goeth upon the breast on four feet, or hath many feet, or traileth on the earth, you shall not eat, because it is abominable. 11:43. Do not defile your souls, nor touch aught thereof, lest you be unclean, 11:44. For I am the Lord your God. Be holy because I am holy. Defile not your souls by any creeping thing, that moveth upon the earth. 11:45. For I am the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. 11:46. You shall be holy, because I am holy. This is the law of beasts and fowls, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and creepeth on the earth: 11:47. That you may know the differences of the clean, and unclean, and know what you ought to eat, and what to refuse. Leviticus Chapter 12 The purification of women after childbirth. 12:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: If a woman having received seed shall bear a man child, she shall be unclean seven days, according to the days of separation of her flowers. 12:3. And on the eighth day the infant shall be circumcised: 12:4. But she shall remain three and thirty days in the blood of her purification. She shall touch no holy thing: neither shall she enter into the sanctuary, until the days of her purification, be fulfilled. 12:5. But if she shall bear a maid child, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of her monthly courses. And she shall remain in the blood of her purification sixty-six days. 12:6. And when the days of her purification are expired, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, a lamb of a year old for a holocaust, and a young pigeon or a turtle for sin: and shall deliver them to the priest. 12:7. Who shall offer them before the Lord, and shall pray for her: and so she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that beareth a man child or a maid child. 12:8. And if her hand find not sufficiency, and she is not able to offer a lamb, she shall take two turtles, or two young pigeons, one for a holocaust, and another for sin: and the priest shall pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed. Leviticus Chapter 13 The law concerning leprosy in men, and in garments. 13:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 13:2. The man in whose skin or flesh shall arise a different colour or a blister, or as it were something shining, that is the stroke of the leprosy, shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or any or of his sons. 13:3. And if he see the leprosy in his skin, and the hair turned white and the place where the leprosy appears lower than the skin and the rest of the flesh: it is the stroke of the leprosy, and upon his judgment he shall be separated. 13:4. But if there be a shining whiteness in the skin, and not lower than the other flesh, and the hair be of the former colour, the priest shall shut him up seven days. 13:5. And the seventh day he shall look on him: and if the leprosy be grown no farther, and hath not spread itself in the skin, he shall shut him up again other seven days. 13:6. And on the seventh day, he shall look on him. If the leprosy be somewhat obscure, and not spread in the skin, he shall declare him clean, because it is but a scab: and the man shall wash his clothes, and shall be clean. 13:7. But, if the leprosy grow again, after he was seen by the priest and restored to cleanness, he shall be brought to him: 13:8. And shall be condemned of uncleanness. 13:9. If the stroke of the leprosy be in a man, he shall be brought to the priest: 13:10. And he shall view him. And when there shall be a white colour in the skin, and it shall have changed the look of the hair, and the living flesh itself shall appear: 13:11. It shall be judged an inveterate leprosy, and grown into the skin. The priest therefore shall declare him unclean: and shall not shut him up, because he is evidently unclean. 13:12. But if the leprosy spring out running about in the skin, and cover all the skin from the head to the feet, whatsoever falleth under the sight of the eyes: 13:13. The priest shall view him, and shall judge that the leprosy which he has is very clean: because it is all turned into whiteness, and therefore the man shall be clean. 13:14. But when the live flesh shall appear in him: 13:15. Then by the judgment of the priest he shall be defiled, and shall be reckoned among the unclean. For live flesh, if it be spotted with leprosy, is unclean. 13:16. And if again it be turned into whiteness, and cover all the man: 13:17. The priest shall view him, and shall judge him to be clean. 13:18. When also there has been an ulcer in the flesh and the skin, and it has been healed: 13:19. And in the place of the ulcer, there appeareth a white scar, or somewhat red, the man shall be brought to the priest. 13:20. And when he shall see the place of the leprosy lower than the other flesh, and the hair turned white: he shall declare him unclean, for the plague of leprosy is broken out in the ulcer. 13:21. But if the hair be of the former colour, and the scar somewhat obscure, and be not lower than the flesh that is near it: he shall shut him up seven days. 13:22. And if it spread, he shall judge him to have the leprosy: 13:23. But if it stay in its place, it is but the scar of an ulcer: and the man shall be clean. 13:24. The flesh also and skin that hath been burnt, and after it is healed hath a white or a red scar: 13:25. The priest shall view it, and if he see it turned white, and the place thereof is lower than the other skin: he shall declare him unclean, because the evil of leprosy is broken out in the scar. 13:26. But if the colour of the hair be not changed, nor the blemish lower than the other flesh, and the appearance of the leprosy be somewhat obscure: he shall shut him up seven days, 13:27. And on the seventh day he shall view him. If the leprosy be grown farther in the skin, he shall declare him unclean. 13:28. But if the whiteness stay in its place, and be not very clear, it is the sore of a burning: and therefore he shall be cleansed, because it is only the scar of a burning. 13:29. If the leprosy break out in the head or the beard of a man or woman, the priest shall see them, 13:30. And if the place be lower than the other flesh, and the hair yellow, and thinner than usual: he shall declare them unclean, because it is the leprosy of the head and the beard; 13:31. But if he perceive the place of the spot is equal with the flesh that is near it, and the hair black: he shall shut him up seven days, 13:32. And on the seventh day he shall look upon it. If the spot be not grown, and the hair keep its colour, and the place of the blemish be even with the other flesh: 13:33. The man shall be shaven all but the place of the spot: and he shall be shut up other seven days. 13:34. If on the seventh day the evil seem to have stayed in its place, and not lower than the other flesh, he shall cleanse him: and his clothes being washed he shall be clean. 13:35. But if after his cleansing the spot spread again in the skin: 13:36. He shall seek no more whether the hair be turned yellow, because he is evidently unclean. 13:37. But if the spot be stayed, and the hair be black, let him know that the man is healed: and let him confidently pronounce him clean. 13:38. If a whiteness appear in the skin of a man or a woman, 13:39. The priest shall view them. If he find that a darkish whiteness shineth in the skin, let him know that it is not the leprosy, but a white blemish, and that the man is clean. 13:40. The man whose hair falleth off from his head, he is bald and clean: 13:41. And if the hair fall from his forehead, he is bald before and clean. 13:42. But if in the bald head or in the bald forehead there be risen a white or reddish colour: 13:43. And the priest perceive this, he shall condemn him undoubtedly of leprosy which is risen in the bald part. 13:44. Now whosoever shall be defiled with the leprosy, and is separated by the judgment of the priest: 13:45. Shall have his clothes hanging loose, his head bare, his mouth covered with a cloth: and he shall cry out that he is defiled and unclean. 13:46. All the time that he is a leper and unclean he shall dwell alone without the camp. 13:47. A woollen or linen garment that shall have the leprosy 13:48. In the warp, and the woof: or skin, or whatsoever is made of a skin: 13:49. If it be infected with a white or red spot, it shall be accounted the leprosy, and shall be shewn to the priest. 13:50. And he shall look upon it and shall shut it up seven days. 13:51. And on the seventh day when he looketh on it again, if he find that it is grown, it is a fixed leprosy. He shall judge the garment unclean, and every thing wherein it shall be found. 13:52. And therefore it shall be burnt with fire. 13:53. But if he see that it is not grown, 13:54. He shall give orders, and they shall wash that part wherein the leprosy is: and he shall shut it up other seven days. 13:55. And when he shall see that the former colour is not returned, nor yet the leprosy spread, he shall judge it unclean: and shall burn it with fire, for the leprosy has taken hold of the outside of the garment, or through the whole. 13:56. But if the place of the leprosy be somewhat dark, after the garment is washed, he shall tear it off, and divide it from that which is sound. 13:57. And if after this there appear in those places that before were without spot, a flying and wandering leprosy: it must be burnt with fire. 13:58. If it cease, he shall wash with water the parts that are pure, the second time: and they shall be clean. 13:59. This is the law touching the leprosy of any woollen or linen garment, either in the warp or woof, or any thing of skins: how it ought to be cleaned, or pronounced unclean. Leviticus Chapter 14 The rites of sacrifices in cleansing the leprosy. Leprosy in houses. 14:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 14:2. This is the rite of a leper, when he is to be cleansed. He shall be brought to the priest: 14:3. Who going out of the camp, when he shall find that the leprosy is cleansed, 14:4. Shall command him that is to be purified, to offer for himself two living sparrows, which it is lawful to eat, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. 14:5. And he shall command one of the sparrows to be immolated in an earthen vessel over living waters. Living waters. . .That is, waters taken from a spring, brook, or river. 14:6. But the other that is alive, he shall dip, with the cedar wood, and the scarlet and the hyssop, in the blood of the sparrow that is immolated: 14:7. Wherewith he shall sprinkle him that is to be cleansed seven times, that he may be rightly purified. And he shall let go the living sparrow, that it may fly into the field. 14:8. And when the man hath washed his clothes, he shall shave all the hair of his body, and shall be washed with water: and being purified he shall enter into the camp, yet so that he tarry without his own tent seven days. 14:9. And on the seventh day he shall shave the hair of his head, and his beard and his eyebrows, and the hair of all his body. And having washed again his clothes, and his body, 14:10. On the eighth day, he shall take two lambs without blemish, and an ewe of a year old without blemish, and three tenths of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice, and a sextary of oil apart. A sextary. . .Heb. log: a measure of liquids, which was the twelfth part of a hin; and held about as much as six eggs. 14:11. And when the priest that purifieth the man, hath presented him, and all these things before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: 14:12. He shall take a lamb, and offer it for a trespass offering with the sextary of oil. And having offered all before the Lord, 14:13. He shall immolate the lamb, where the victim for sin is wont to be immolated, and the holocaust, that is, in the holy place. For as that which is for sin, so also the victim for a trespass offering pertaineth to the priest: it is holy of holies. 14:14. And the priest taking of the blood of the victim that was immolated for trespass, shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand and the great toe of his right foot. Taking of the blood, etc. . .These ceremonies used in the cleansing of a leper, were mysterious and very significative. The sprinkling seven times with the blood of the little bird, the washing himself and his clothes, the shaving his hair and his beard, signify the means which are to be used in the reconciliation of a sinner, and the steps by which he is to return to God, viz., by the repeated application of the blood of Christ: the washing his conscience with the waters of compunction: and retrenching all vanities and superfluities, by employing all that is over and above what is necessary in alms deeds. The sin offering, and the holocaust or burnt offering, which he was to offer at his cleansing, signify the sacrifice of a contrite and humble heart, and that of adoration in spirit and truth, with gratitude and thankfulness, for the forgiveness of sins, with which we are ever to appear before the Almighty. The touching the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot, first with the blood of the victim, and then with the remainder of the oil, which had been sprinkled seven times before the Lord, signify the application of the blood of Christ, and the unction of the sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost; to the sinner's right ear, that he may duly hearken to and obey the law of God; and to his right hand and foot, that the works of his hands, and all the steps or affections of his soul, signified by the feet, may be rightly directed to God. 14:15. And he shall pour of the sextary of oil into his own left hand, 14:16. And shall dip his right finger in it, and sprinkle it before the Lord seven times. 14:17. And the rest of the oil in his left hand, he shall pour upon the tip of the right ear of him that is cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand and the great toe of his right foot, and upon the blood that was shed for trespass: 14:18. And upon his head. 14:19. And he shall pray for him before the Lord, and shall offer the sacrifice for sin. Then shall he immolate the holocaust. 14:20. And put it on the altar with the libations thereof: and the man shall be rightly cleansed. 14:21. But if he be poor, and his hand cannot find the things aforesaid: he shall take a lamb for an offering for trespass, that the priest may pray for him, and a tenth part of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice, and a sextary of oil: 14:22. And two turtles or two young pigeons, of which one may be for sin, and the other for a holocaust. 14:23. And he shall offer them on the eighth day of his purification to the priest, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony before the Lord. 14:24. And the priest receiving the lamb for trespass, and the sextary of oil, shall elevate them together. 14:25. And the lamb being immolated, he shall put of the blood thereof upon the tip of the right ear of him that is cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and the great toe of his right foot. 14:26. But he shall pour part of the oil into his own left hand, 14:27. And dipping the finger of his right hand in it, he shall sprinkle it seven times before the Lord. 14:28. And he shall touch the tip of the right ear of him that is cleansed, and the thumb of his right hand and the great toe of his right foot, in the place of the blood that was shed for trespass. 14:29. And the other part of the oil that is in his left hand, he shall pour upon the head of the purified person, that he may appease the Lord for him. 14:30. And he shall offer a turtle, or young pigeon: 14:31. One for trespass, and the other for a holocaust, with their libations. 14:32. This is the sacrifice of a leper, that is not able to have all things that appertain to his cleansing. 14:33. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 14:34. When you shall come into the land of Chanaan, which I will give you for a possession, if there be the plague or leprosy in a house: 14:35. He whose house it is, shall go and tell the priest, saying: It seemeth to me, that there is the plague of leprosy in my house, 14:36. And he shall command, that they carry forth all things out of the house, before he go into it, and see whether it have the leprosy, let all things become unclean that are in the house. And afterwards he shall go in to view the leprosy of the house. 14:37. And if he see in the walls thereof as it were little dints, disfigured with paleness or redness, and lower than all he rest: 14:38. He shall go out of the door of the house, and forthwith shut it up seven days, 14:39. And returning on the seventh day, he shall look upon it. If he find that the leprosy is spread, 14:40. He shall command, that the stones wherein the leprosy is, be taken out, and cast without the city into an unclean place: 14:41. And that the house be scraped on the inside round about, and the dust of the scrapings be scattered without the city into an unclean place: 14:42. And that other stones be laid in the place of them that were taken away, and the house be plastered with other mortar. 14:43. But if after the stones be taken out, and the dust scraped off, and it be plastered with other earth. 14:44. The priest going in perceive that the leprosy is returned, and the walls full of spots, it is a lasting leprosy, and the house is unclean. 14:45. And they shall destroy it forthwith, and shall cast the stones and timber thereof, and all the dust without the town into an unclean place. 14:46. He that entereth into the house when it is shut, shall be unclean until evening, 14:47. And he that sleepeth in it, and eateth any thing, shall wash his clothes. 14:48. But if the priest going in perceive that the leprosy is not spread in the house, after it was plastered again, he shall purify it, it being cured. 14:49. And for the purification thereof he shall take two sparrows, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. 14:50. And having immolated one sparrow in an earthen vessel, over living waters, 14:51. He shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living sparrow, and shall dip all in the blood of the sparrow that is immolated, and in the living water: and he shall sprinkle the house seven times. 14:52. And shall purify it as well with the blood of the sparrow, as with the living water, and with the living sparrow, and with the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet. 14:53. And when he hath let go the sparrow to fly freely away into the field, he shall pray for the house: and it shall be rightly cleansed. 14:54. This is the law of every kind of leprosy and stroke. 14:55. Of the leprosy of garments and houses, 14:56. Of a scar and of blisters breaking out of a shining spot, and when the colours are diversely changed: 14:57. That it may be known when a thing is clean or unclean. Leviticus Chapter 15 Other legal uncleannesses. 15:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 15:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: The man that hath an issue of seed, shall be unclean. Issue of seed shall be unclean. . .These legal uncleannesses were instituted in order to give the people a horror of carnal impurities. 15:3. And then shall he be judged subject to this evil, when a filthy humour, at every moment, cleaveth to his flesh, and gathereth there. 15:4. Every bed on which he sleepeth, shall be unclean, and every place on which he sitteth. 15:5. If any man touch his bed, he shall wash his clothes and being washed with water, he shall be unclean until the evening. 15:6. If a man sit where that man hath sitten, he also shall wash his clothes: and being washed with water, shall be unclean until the evening. 15:7. He that toucheth his flesh, shall wash his clothes: and being himself washed with water shall be unclean until the evening. 15:8. If such a man cast his spittle upon him that is clean, he shall wash his clothes: and being washed with water, he shall be unclean until the evening. 15:9. The saddle on which he hath sitten shall be unclean. 15:10. And whatsoever has been under him that hath the issue of seed, shall be unclean until the evening. He that carrieth any of these things, shall wash his clothes: and being washed with water, he shall be unclean until the evening. 15:11. Every person whom such a one shall touch, not having washed his hands before, shall wash his clothes: and being washed with water, shall be unclean until the evening. 15:12. If he touch a vessel of earth, it shall be broken: but if a vessel of wood, it shall be washed with water. 15:13. If he who suffereth this disease be healed, he shall number seven days after his cleansing: and having washed his clothes, and all his body in living water, he shall be clean. 15:14. And on the eighth day he shall take two turtles, or two young pigeons, and he shall come before the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, and shall give them to the priest. 15:15. Who shall offer one for sin, and the other for a holocaust: and he shall pray for him before the Lord, that he may be cleansed of the issue of his seed. 15:16. The man from whom the seed of copulation goeth out, shall wash all his body with water: and he shall be unclean until the evening. 15:17. The garment or skin that he weareth, he shall wash with water: and it shall be unclean until the evening. 15:18. The woman, with whom he copulateth, shall be washed with water: and shall be unclean until the evening. 15:19. The woman, who at the return of the month, hath her issue of blood, shall be separated seven days. 15:20. Every one that toucheth her, shall be unclean until the evening. 15:21. And every thing that she sleepeth on, or that she sitteth on in the days of her separation, shall be defiled. 15:22. He that toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes: and being himself washed with water, shall be unclean until the evening. 15:23. Whosoever shall touch any vessel on which she sitteth, shall wash his clothes: and himself being washed with water, shall be defiled until the evening. 15:24. If a man copulateth with her in the time of her flowers, he shall be unclean seven days: and every bed on which he shall sleep, shall be defiled. 15:25. The woman that hath still issue of blood many days out of her ordinary time, or that ceaseth not to flow after the monthly courses, as long as she is subject to this disease, shall be unclean, in the same manner as if she were in her flowers. 15:26. Every bed on which she sleepeth, and every vessel on which she sitteth, shall be defiled. 15:27. Whosoever toucheth them shall wash his clothes: and himself being washed with water, shall be unclean until the evening. 15:28. If the blood stop and cease to run, she shall count seven days of her purification: 15:29. And on the eighth day she shall offer for herself to the priest, two turtles, or two young pigeons, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: 15:30. And he shall offer one for sin, and the other for a holocaust, and he shall pray for her before the Lord, and for the issue of her uncleanness. 15:31. You shall teach therefore the children of Israel to take heed of uncleanness, that they may not die in their filth, when they shall have defiled my tabernacle that is among them. 15:32. This is the law of him that hath the issue of seed, and that is defiled by copulation. 15:33. And of the woman that is separated in her monthly times, or that hath a continual issue of blood, and of the man that sleepeth with her. Leviticus Chapter 16 When and how the high priest must enter into the sanctuary. The feast of expiation. 16:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they were slain upon their offering strange fire: 16:2. And he commanded him, saying: Speak to Aaron thy brother, that he enter not at all into the sanctuary, which is within the veil before the propitiatory, with which the ark is covered, lest he die, (for I will appear in a cloud over the oracle), Enter not. . .No one but the high priest, and he but once a year, could enter into the sanctuary; to signify that no one could enter into the sanctuary of heaven, till Christ our high priest opened it by his passion. Heb. 10.8. 16:3. Unless he first do these things. He shall offer a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust. 16:4. He shall be vested with a linen tunick: he shall cover his nakedness with linen breeches: he shall be girded with a linen girdle, and he shall put a linen mitre upon his head. For these are holy vestments: all which he shall put on, after he is washed. 16:5. And he shall receive from the whole multitude of the children of Israel two buck goats for sin, and one ram for a holocaust. 16:6. And when he hath offered the cattle and prayed for himself and for his own house: 16:7. He shall make the two buck goats to stand before the Lord in the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. 16:8. And casting lots upon them both, one to be offered to the Lord, and the other to be the emissary goat: 16:9. That whose lot fell to be offered to the Lord, he shall offer for sin. 16:10. But that whose lot was to be the emissary goat, he shall present before the Lord, that he may pour prayers upon him, and let him go into the wilderness. 16:11. After these things are duly celebrated, he shall offer the calf: and praying for himself and for his own house, he shall immolate it. 16:12. And taking the censer, which he hath filled with the burning coals of the altar, and taking up with his hands the compounded perfume for incense, he shall go in within the veil into the holy place: 16:13. That when the perfumes are put upon the fire, the cloud and vapour thereof may cover the oracle, which is over the testimony, and he may not die. 16:14. He shall take also of the blood of the calf, and sprinkle with his finger seven times towards the propitiatory to the east. 16:15. And when he hath killed the buck goat for the sin of the people, he shall carry in the blood thereof within the veil, as he was commanded to do with the blood of the calf, that he may sprinkle it over against the oracle: 16:16. And may expiate the sanctuary from the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions, and all their sins. According to this rite shall he do to the tabernacle of the testimony, which is fixed among them in the midst of the filth of their habitation. 16:17. Let no man be in the tabernacle when the high priest goeth into the sanctuary, to pray for himself and his house, and for the whole congregation of Israel, until he come out. 16:18. And when he is come out to the altar that is before the Lord, let him pray for himself: and taking the blood of the calf, and of the buck goat, let him pour it upon the horns thereof round about. 16:19. And sprinkling with his finger seven times, let him expiate, and sanctify it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. 16:20. After he hath cleaned the sanctuary, and the tabernacle, and the altar, then let him offer the living goat. 16:21. And putting both hands upon his head, let him confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their offences and sins. And praying that they may light on its head, he shall turn him out by a man ready for it, into the desert. 16:22. And when the goat hath carried all their iniquities into an uninhabited land, and shall be let go into the desert: 16:23. Aaron shall return into the tabernacle of the testimony, and putting off the vestments, which he had on him before when he entered into the sanctuary, and leaving them there, 16:24. He shall wash his flesh in the holy place, and shall put on his own garments. And after that he is come out and hath offered his own holocaust, and that of the people, he shall pray both for himself, and for the people. 16:25. And the fat that is offered for sins, he shall burn on the altar. 16:26. But he that hath let go the emissary goat, shall wash his clothes, and his body with water, and so shall enter into the camp. 16:27. But the calf and the buck goat, that were sacrificed for sin, and whose blood was carried into the sanctuary, to accomplish the atonement, they shall carry forth without the camp, and shall burn with fire: their skins and their flesh, and their dung. 16:28. And whosoever burneth them shall wash his clothes, and flesh with water: and so shall enter into the camp. 16:29. And this shall be to you an everlasting ordinance. The seventh month, the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no work, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you. 16:30. Upon this day shall be the expiation for you, and the cleansing from all your sins. You shall be cleansed before the Lord. 16:31. For it is a sabbath of rest: and you shall afflict your souls by a perpetual religion. 16:32. And the priest that is anointed, and whose hands are consecrated to do the office of the priesthood in his father's stead, shall make atonement. And he shall be vested with the linen robe and the holy vestments. 16:33. And he shall expiate the sanctuary and the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar: the priest also and all the people. 16:34. And this shall be an ordinance for ever, that you pray for the children of Israel, and for all their sins once a year. He did therefore as the Lord had commanded Moses. Leviticus Chapter 17 No sacrifices to be offered but at the door of the tabernacle: a prohibition of blood. 17:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 17:2. Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel, saying to them: This is the word, which the Lord hath commanded, saying: 17:3. Any man whosoever of the house of Israel, if he kill an ox, or a sheep, or a goat in the camp, or without the camp, If he kill, etc. . .That is, in order to sacrifice. The law of God forbids sacrifices to be offered in any other place but at the tabernacle or temple of the Lord; to signify that no sacrifice would be acceptable to God, out of his true temple, the one holy, catholic, apostolic church. 17:4. And offer it not at the door of the tabernacle an oblation to the Lord, shall be guilty of blood. As if he had shed blood, so shall he perish from the midst of his people. 17:5. Therefore the children of Israel shall bring to the priest their victims, which they kill in the field, that they may be sanctified to the Lord before the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: and they may sacrifice them for peace offerings to the Lord. 17:6. And the priest shall pour the blood upon the altar of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: and shall burn the fat for a sweet odour to the Lord. 17:7. And they shall no more sacrifice their victims to devils, with whom they have committed fornication. It shall be an ordinance for ever to them and to their posterity. 17:8. And thou shalt say to them: The man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among you, that offereth a holocaust or a victim, 17:9. And bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, that it may be offered to the Lord, shall perish from among his people. 17:10. If any man whosoever of the house of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among them, eat blood, I will set my face against his soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Eat blood. . .To eat blood was forbidden in the law; partly, because God reserved it to himself, to be offered in sacrifices on the altar, as to the Lord of life and death; and as a figure of the blood of Christ; and partly, to give men a horror of shedding blood. Gen. 9.4, 5, 6. 17:11. Because the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you, that you may make atonement with it upon the altar for your souls, and the blood may be for an expiation of the soul. 17:12. Therefore I have said to the children of Israel: No soul of you, nor of the strangers that sojourn among you, shall eat blood. 17:13. Any man whosoever of the children of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among you, if by hunting or fowling, he take a wild beast or a bird, which is lawful to eat, let him pour out its blood, and cover it with earth. 17:14. For the life of all flesh is in the blood. Therefore I said to the children of Israel: you shall not eat the blood of any flesh at all, because the life of the flesh is in the blood, and whosoever eateth it, shall be cut off. 17:15. The soul that eateth that which died of itself, or has been caught by a beast, whether he be one of your own country or a stranger, shall wash his clothes and himself with water, and shall be defiled until the evening: and in this manner he shall be made clean. 17:16. But if he do not wash his clothes, and his body, he shall bear his iniquity. Leviticus Chapter 18 Marriage is prohibited in certain degrees of kindred: Anda all unnatural lusts. 18:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 18:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: I am the Lord your God. 18:3. You shall not do according to the custom of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt: neither shall you act according to the manner of the country of Chanaan, into which I will bring you. Nor shall you walk in their ordinances. 18:4. You shall do my judgments, and shall observe my precepts, and shall walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 18:5. Keep my laws and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them, I am the Lord. 18:6. No man shall approach to her that is near of kin to him, to uncover her nakedness. I am the Lord. 18:7. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother: she is thy mother, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 18:8. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's wife: for it is the nakedness of thy father. 18:9. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy sister by father or by mother: whether born at home or abroad. 18:10. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy son's daughter, or thy daughter's daughter: because it is thy own nakedness. 18:11. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, whom she bore to thy father: and who is thy sister. 18:12. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister: because she is the flesh of thy father. 18:13. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister: because she is thy mother's flesh. 18:14. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother: neither shalt thou approach to his wife, who is joined to thee by affinity. 18:15. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: because she is thy son's wife, neither shalt thou discover her shame. 18:16. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: because it is the nakedness of thy brother. 18:17. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy wife and her daughter. Thou shalt not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to discover her shame: because they are her flesh, and such copulation is incest. 18:18. Thou shalt not take thy wife's sister for a harlot, to rival her: neither shalt thou discover her nakedness, while she is yet living. 18:19. Thou shalt not approach to a woman having her flowers: neither shalt thou uncover her nakedness. 18:20. Thou shalt not lie with thy neighbour's wife: nor be defiled with mingling of seed. 18:21. Thou shalt not give any of thy seed to be consecrated to the idol Moloch, nor defile the name of thy God. I am the Lord. 18:22. Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: because it is an abomination. 18:23. Thou shalt not copulate with any beast: neither shalt thou be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it: because it is a heinous crime. Because it is a heinous crime. . .In Hebrew, this word heinous crime is expressed by the word confusion, signifying the shamefulness and baseness of this abominable sin. 18:24. Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, which I will cast out before you, 18:25. And with which the land is defiled: the abominations of which I will visit, that it may vomit out its inhabitants. 18:26. Keep ye my ordinances and my judgments: and do not any of these abominations. Neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you. 18:27. For all these detestable things the inhabitants of the land have done, that were before you, and have defiled it. 18:28. Beware then, lest in like manner, it vomit you also out, if you do the like things: as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 18:29. Every soul that shall commit any of these abominations, shall perish from the midst of his people. 18:30. Keep my commandments. Do not the things which they have done, that have been before you: and be not defiled therein. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus Chapter 19 Divers ordinances, partly moral, partly ceremonial or judicial. 19:1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 19:2. Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel. And thou shalt say to them: Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy. 19:3. Let every one fear his father, and his mother. Keep my sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. 19:4. Turn ye not to idols: nor make to yourselves molten gods. I am the Lord your God. 19:5. If ye offer in sacrifice a peace offering to the Lord, that he may be favourable: 19:6. You shall eat it on the same day it was offered, and the next day. And whatsoever shall be left until the third day, you shall burn with fire. 19:7. If after two days any man eat thereof, he shall be profane and guilty of impiety: 19:8. And shall bear his iniquity, because he hath defiled the holy thing of the Lord. And that soul shall perish from among his people. 19:9. When thou reapest the corn of thy land, thou shalt not cut down all that is on the face of the earth to the very ground: nor shalt thou gather the ears that remain. 19:10. Neither shalt thou gather the bunches and grapes that fall down in thy vineyard: but shalt leave them to the poor and the strangers to take. I am the Lord your God. 19:11. You shall not steal. You shall not lie: neither shall any man deceive his neighbour. 19:12. Thou shalt not swear falsely by my name, nor profane the name of thy God. I am the Lord. 19:13. Thou shalt not calumniate thy neighbour, nor oppress him by violence. The wages of him that hath been hired by thee shall not abide with thee until the morning. 19:14. Thou shalt not speak evil of the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind: but thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, because I am the Lord. 19:15. Thou shalt not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly. Respect not the person of the poor: nor honour the countenance of the mighty. But judge thy neighbour according to justice. 19:16. Thou shalt not be a detractor nor a whisperer among the people. Thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbour. I am the Lord. 19:17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: But reprove him openly, lest thou incur sin through him. 19:18. Seek not revenge, nor be mindful of the injury of thy citizens. Thou shalt love thy friend as thyself. I am the Lord. 19:19. Keep ye my laws. Thou shalt not make thy cattle to gender with beasts of any other kind. Thou shalt not sow thy field with different seeds. Thou shalt not wear a garment that is woven of two sorts. Different seeds, etc. . .This law tends to recommend simplicity and plain dealing in all things, and to teach the people not to join any false worship or heresy with the worship of the true God. 19:20. If a man carnally lie with a woman that is a bondservant and marriageable, and yet not redeemed with a price, nor made free: they both shall be scourged: and they shall not be put to death, because she was not a free woman. 19:21. And for his trespass he shall offer a ram to the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. 19:22. And the priest shall pray for him: and for his sin before the Lord: and he shall have mercy on him, and the sin shall be forgiven. 19:23. When you shall be come into the land, and shall have planted in it fruit trees, you shall take away the firstfruits of them. The fruit that comes forth shall be unclean to you: neither shall you eat of them. Firstfruits. . .Proeputia, literally, their foreskins; it alludes to circumcision, and signifies that for the first three years the trees were to be as uncircumcised, and their fruit unclean: till in the fourth year their increase was sanctified and given to the Lord, that is, to the priests. 19:24. But in the fourth year, all their fruit shall be sanctified, to the praise of the Lord. 19:25. And in the fifth year you shall eat the fruits thereof, gathering the increase thereof. I am the Lord your God. 19:26. You shall not eat with blood. You shall not divine nor observe dreams. 19:27. Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard. 19:28. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead: neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks. I am the Lord. 19:29. Make not thy daughter a common strumpet, lest the land be defiled, and filled with wickedness. 19:30. Keep ye my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 19:31. Go not aside after wizards: neither ask any thing of soothsayers, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. 19:32. Rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the aged man: and fear the Lord thy God. I am the Lord. 19:33. If a stranger dwell in your land, and abide among you, do not upbraid hin: 19:34. But let him be among you as one of the same country. And you shall love him as yourselves: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 19:35. Do not any unjust thing in judgment, in rule, in weight, or in measure. 19:36. Let the balance be just and the weights equal, the bushel just, and the sextary equal. I am the Lord your God, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. 19:37. Keep all my precepts, and all my judgments: and do them. I am the Lord. Leviticus Chapter 20 Divers crimes to be punished with death. 20:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 20:2. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: If any man of the children Israel, or of the strangers that dwell in Israel, give of his seed to the idol Moloch, dying let him die. The people of the land shall stone him. 20:3. And I will set my face against him: and I will cut him off from the midst of his people, because he hath given of his seed to Moloch, and hath defiled my sanctuary, and profaned my holy name. 20:4. And if the people of the land neglecting, and as it were little regarding my commandment, let alone the man that hath given of his seed to Moloch, and will not kill him: 20:5. I will set my face against that man, and his kindred, and will cut off both him and all that consented with him, to commit fornication with Moloch, out of the midst of their people. 20:6. The soul that shall go aside after magicians, and soothsayers, and shall commit fornication with them: I will set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst of its people. 20:7. Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy: because I am the Lord your God. 20:8. Keep my precepts, and do them. I am the Lord that sanctify you. 20:9. He that curseth his father, or mother, dying let him die. He hath cursed his father, and mother: let his blood be upon him. 20:10. If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress. 20:11. If a man lie with his stepmother, and discover the nakedness of his father, let them both be put to death: their blood be upon them. 20:12. If any man lie with his daughter in law: let both die, because they have done a heinous crime. Their blood be upon them. 20:13. If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination: let them be put to death. Their blood be upon them. 20:14. If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he hath done a heinous crime. He shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you. 20:15. He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die: the beast also ye shall kill. The beast also ye shall kill. . .The killing of the beast was for the greater horror of the crime, and to prevent the remembrance of such abomination. 20:16. The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same. Their blood be upon them. 20:17. If any man take his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and see her nakedness, and she behold her brother's shame: they have committed a crime. They shall be slain, in the sight of their people, because they have discovered one another's nakedness. And they shall bear their iniquity. 20:18. If any man lie with a woman in her flowers, and uncover her nakedness, and she open the fountain of her blood: both shall be destroyed out of the midst of their people. 20:19. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy aunt by thy mother, and of thy aunt by thy father. He that doth this, hath uncovered the shame of his own flesh: both shall bear their iniquity. 20:20. If any man lie with the wife of his uncle by the father, or of his uncle by the mother, and uncover the shame of his near akin, both shall bear their sin. They shall die without children. 20:21. He that marrieth his brother's wife, doth an unlawful thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be without children. 20:22. Keep my laws and my judgments, and do them: lest the land into which you are to enter to dwell therein, vomit you also out. 20:23. Walk not after the laws of the nations, which I will cast out before you. For they have done all these things: and therefore I abhorred them. 20:24. But to you I say: Possess their land which I will give you for an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who have separated you from other people. 20:25. Therefore do you also separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the clean fowl from the unclean. Defile not your souls with beasts, or birds, or any things that move on the earth, and which I have shewn you to be unclean: 20:26. You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord am holy: and I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine. 20:27. A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die. They shall stone them. Their blood be upon them. Leviticus Chapter 21 Ordinances relating to the priests. 21:1. The Lord said also to Moses: Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and thou shalt say for them: Let not a priest incur an uncleanness at the death of his citizens. An uncleanness. . .Viz., such as was contracted in laying out the dead body, or touching it; or in going into the house, or assisting at the funeral, etc. 21:2. But only for his kin, such as are near in blood: that is to say, for his father and for his mother, and for his son, and for his daughter, for his brother also: 21:3. And for a maiden sister, who hath had no husband. 21:4. But not even for the prince of his people shall he do any thing that may make him unclean. 21:5. Neither shall they shave their head, nor their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh. 21:6. They shall be holy to their God, and shall not profane his name. For they offer the burnt offering of the Lord, and the bread of their God: and therefore they shall be holy. 21:7. They shall not take to wife a harlot or a vile prostitute, nor one that has been put away from her husband: because they are consecrated to their God, 21:8. And offer the loaves of proposition. Let them therefore be holy because I also am holy: the Lord, who sanctify them. 21:9. If the daughter of a priest be taken in whoredom and dishonour the name of her father, she shall be burnt with fire. 21:10. The high priest, that is to say, the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of unction hath been poured; and whose hands have been consecrated for the priesthood; and who hath been vested with the holy vestments. He shall not uncover his head: he shall not rend his garments. 21:11. Nor shall he go in at all to any dead person: not even for his father, or his mother, shall he be defiled. 21:12. Neither shall he go out of the holy places, lest he defile the sanctuary of the Lord: because the oil of the holy unction of his God is upon him. I am the Lord. 21:13. He shall take a virgin unto his wife. 21:14. But a widow or one that is divorced, or defied, or a harlot, he shall not take: but a maid of his own people. 21:15. He shall not mingle the stock of his kindred with the common people of this nation: for I am the Lord who sanctify him. 21:16. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 21:17. Say to Aaron: Whosoever of thy seed throughout their families, hath a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God. 21:18. Neither shall he approach to minister to him: If he be blind; if he be lame; if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose; 21:19. If his foot, or if his hand be broken; 21:20. If he be crookbacked; or blear eyed; or have a pearl in his eye, or a continual scab, or a dry scurf in his body, or a rupture. 21:21. Whosoever of the seed of Aaron the priest hath a blemish: he shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his God. 21:22. He shall eat nevertheless of the loaves that are offered in the sanctuary. 21:23. Yet so that he enter not within the veil, nor approach to the altar: because he hath a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 21:24. Moses, therefore spoke to Aaron, and to his sons and to all Israel, all the things that had been commanded him. Leviticus Chapter 22 Who may eat the holy things: and what things may be offered. 22:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: 22:2. Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they beware of those things that are consecrated of the children of Israel: and defile not the name of the things sanctified to me, which they offer. I am the Lord. 22:3. Say to them and to their posterity: Every man of your race, that approacheth to those things that are consecrated, and which the children of Israel have offered to the Lord, in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord. Approacheth, etc. . .This is to give us to understand, with what purity of soul we are to approach to the blessed sacrament of which these meats that had been offered in sacrifice were a figure. 22:4. The man of the seed of Aaron, that is a leper, or that suffereth a running of the seed, shall not eat of those things that are sanctified to me, until he be healed. He that toucheth any thing unclean by occasion of the dead: and he whose seed goeth from him as in generation: 22:5. And he that toucheth a creeping thing, or any unclean thing, the touching of which is defiling: 22:6. Shall be unclean until the evening, and shall not eat those things that are sanctified. But when he hath washed his flesh with water, 22:7. And the sun is down, then being purified, he shall eat of the sanctified things, because it is his meat. 22:8. That which dieth of itself, and that which was taken by a beast, they shall not eat, nor be defiled therewith. I am the Lord. 22:9. Let them keep my precepts, that they may not fall into sin, and die in the sanctuary, when they shall have defiled it. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 22:10. No stranger shall eat of the sanctified things: a sojourner of the priests, or a hired servant, shall not eat of them. 22:11. But he whom the priest hath bought, and he that is his servant, born in his house, these shall eat of them. 22:12. If the daughter of a priest be married to any of the people, she shall not eat of those things that are sanctified nor of the firstfruits. 22:13. But if she be a widow, or divorced, and having no children return to her father's house, she shall eat of her father's meats, as she was wont to do when she was a maid. No stranger hath leave to eat of them. 22:14. He that eateth of the sanctified things through ignorance, shall add the fifth part with that which he ate, and shall give it to the priest into the sanctuary. 22:15. And they shall not profane the sanctified things of the children of Israel, which they offer to the Lord: 22:16. Lest perhaps they bear the iniquity of their trespass, when they shall have eaten the sanctified things. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 22:17. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 22:18. Speak to Aaron, and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who dwell with you, that offereth his oblation, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whatsoever it be which he presenteth for a holocaust of the Lord, 22:19. To be offered by you: it shall be a male without blemish of the beeves, or of the sheep, or of the goats. 22:20. If it have a blemish you shall not offer it: neither shall it be acceptable. 22:21. The man that offereth a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whether of beeves or of sheep, shall offer it without blemish, that it may be acceptable. There shall be no blemish in it. 22:22. If it be blind, or broken, or have a scar or blisters, or a scab, or a dry scurf: you shall not offer them to the Lord, nor burn any thing of them upon the Lord's altar. 22:23. An ox or a sheep, that hath the ear and the tail cut off, thou mayst offer voluntarily: but a vow may not be paid with them. 22:24. you shall not offer to the Lord any beast that hath the testicles bruised, or crushed, or cut and taken away: neither shall you do any such things in your land. 22:25. you shall not offer bread to your God, from the hand of a stranger, nor any other thing that he would give: because they are all corrupted, and defiled. You shall not receive them. 22:26. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 22:27. When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, they shall be seven days under the udder of their dam: but the eighth day, and thenceforth, they may be offered to the Lord. 22:28. Whether it be a cow, or a sheep, they shall not be sacrificed the same day with their young ones. 22:29. If you immolate a victim for thanksgiving to the Lord, that he may be favourable, 22:30. You shall eat it the same day. There shall not any of it remain until the morning of the next day. I am the Lord. 22:31. Keep my commandments, and do them. I am the Lord. 22:32. Profane not my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctify you: 22:33. And who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. I am the Lord. Leviticus Chapter 23 Holy days to be kept. 23:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy. 23:3. Six days shall ye do work: the seventh day, because it is the rest of the sabbath, shall be called holy. You shall do no work on that day: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your habitations. 23:4. These also are the holy days of the Lord, which you must celebrate in their seasons. 23:5. The first month, the fourteenth day of the month at evening, is the phase of the Lord. 23:6. And the fifteenth day of the same month is the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread. 23:7. The first day shall be most solemn unto you, and holy: you shall do no servile work therein. 23:8. But you shall offer sacrifice in fire to the Lord seven days. And the seventh day shall be more solemn, and more holy: and you shall do no servile work therein. 23:9. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23:10. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, and shall reap your corn, you shall bring sheaves of ears, the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 23:11. Who shall lift up the sheaf before the Lord, the next day after the sabbath, that it may be acceptable for you, and shall sanctify it. 23:12. And on the same day that the sheaf is consecrated, a lamb without blemish of the first year shall be killed for a holocaust of the Lord. 23:13. And the libations shall be offered with it: two tenths of flour tempered with oil, for a burnt offering of the Lord, and a most sweet odour. Libations also of wine, the fourth part of a hin. 23:14. You shall not eat either bread, or parched corn, or frumenty or the harvest, until the day that you shall offer thereof to your God. It is a precept for ever throughout your generations, and all your dwellings. 23:15. You shall count therefore from the morrow after the sabbath, wherein you offered the sheaf of firstfruits, seven full weeks. 23:16. Even unto the morrow after the seventh week be expired, that is to say, fifty days: and so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord. 23:17. Out of all your dwellings, two loaves of the firstfruits, of two tenths of flour leavened, which you shall bake for the firstfruits of the Lord. 23:18. And you shall offer with the loaves seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one calf from the herd, and they shall be for a holocaust with their two rams: and they shall be for a holocaust with their libations for a most sweet odour to the Lord. 23:19. You shall offer also a buck goat for sin, and two lambs of the first year for sacrifices of peace offerings. 23:20. And when the priest hath lifted them up with the loaves of the firstfruits before the Lord, they shall fall to his use. 23:21. And you shall call this day most solemn, and most holy. You shall do no servile work therein. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwellings and generations. 23:22. And when you reap the corn of your land, you shall not cut it to the very ground: neither shall you gather the ears that remain. But you shall leave them for the poor and for the strangers. I am the Lord your God. 23:23. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23:24. Say to the children of Israel: The seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall keep a sabbath, a memorial, with the sound of trumpets, and it shall be called holy. 23:25. You shall do no servile work therein, and you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord. 23:26. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23:27. Upon the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement. It shall be most solemn, and shall be called holy: and you shall await your souls on that day, and shall offer a holocaust to the Lord. 23:28. You shall do no servile work in the time of this day: because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be merciful unto you. 23:29. Every soul that is not afflicted on this day, shall perish from among his people. 23:30. And every soul that shall do any work, the same will I destroy from among his people. 23:31. You shall do no work therefore on that day: it shall be an everlasting ordinance unto you in all your generations, and dwellings. 23:32. It is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls beginning on the ninth day of the month. From evening until evening you shall celebrate your sabbaths. 23:33. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23:34. Say to the children of Israel: From the fifteenth day of this same seventh month, shall be kept the feast of tabernacles, seven days to the Lord. 23:35. The first day shall be called most solemn and most holy: you shall do no servile work therein. And seven days you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. 23:36. The eighth day also shall be most solemn and most holy: and you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. For it is the day of assembly and congregation. You shall do no servile work therein. 23:37. These are the feasts of the Lord which you shall call most solemn and most holy, and shall offer on them oblations to the Lord: holocausts and libations according to the rite of every day. 23:38. Besides the sabbaths of the Lord, and your gifts, and those things that you offer by vow, or which you shall give to the Lord voluntarily. 23:39. So from the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you shall have gathered in all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day and the eighth shall be a sabbath: that is a day of rest. 23:40. And you shall take to you on the first day the fruits of the fairest tree, and branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook: And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. 23:41. And you shall keep the solemnity thereof seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month shall you celebrate this feast. 23:42. And you shall dwell in bowers seven days. Every one that is of the race of Israel, shall dwell in tabernacles: 23:43. That your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 23:44. And Moses spoke concerning the feasts of the Lord to the children of Israel. Leviticus Chapter 24 The oil for the lamps. The loaves of proposition. The punishment of blasphemy. 24:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 24:2. Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee the finest and clearest oil of olives, to furnish the lamps continually, 24:3. Without the veil of the testimony in the tabernacle of the covenant. And Aaron shall set them from evening until morning before the Lord, by a perpetual service and rite in your generations. 24:4. They shall be set upon the most pure candlestick before the Lord continually. 24:5. Thou shalt take also fine flour, and shalt bake twelve loaves thereof, two tenths shall be in every loaf. 24:6. And thou shalt set them six and six, one against another, upon the most clean table before the Lord. 24:7. And thou shalt put upon them the clearest frankincense, that the bread may be for a memorial of the oblation of the Lord. 24:8. Every sabbath they shall be changed before the Lord: being received of the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. 24:9. And they shall be Aaron's and his sons', that they may eat them in the holy place: because it is most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord by a perpetual right. 24:10. And behold there went out the son of a woman of Israel, whom she had of an Egyptian, among the children of Israel: and fell at words in the camp with a man of Israel. 24:11. And when he had blasphemed the name, and had cursed it, he was brought to Moses. (Now his mother was called Salumith, the daughter of Dabri, of the tribe of Dan.) 24:12. And they put him into prison, till they might know what the Lord would command. 24:13. And the Lord spoke to Moses, 24:14. Saying: Bring forth the blasphemer without the camp: and let them that heard him, put their hands upon his head: and let all the people stone him. 24:15. And thou shalt speak to the children of Israel: The man that curseth his God, shall bear his sin: 24:16. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die. All the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die. 24:17. He that striketh and killeth a man: dying let him die. 24:18. He that killeth a beast, shall make it good that is to say, shall give beast for beast. 24:19. He that giveth a blemish to any of his neighbours: as he hath done, so shall it be done to him: 24:20. Breach for breach, eye for ere, tooth for tooth, shall he restore. What blemish he gave, the like shall he be compelled to suffer. 24:21. He that striketh a beast, shall render another. He that striketh a man shall be punished. 24:22. Let there be equal judgment among you, whether he be a stranger, or a native that offends: because I am the Lord your God. 24:23. And Moses spoke to the children of Israel. And they brought forth him that had blasphemed, without the camp: and they stoned him. And the children of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses. Leviticus Chapter 25 The law of the seventh and of the fiftieth year of jubilee. 25:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying: 25:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, observe the rest of the sabbath of the Lord. 25:3. Six years thou shalt sow thy field and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and shalt gather the fruits thereof. 25:4. But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord. Thou shalt not sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 25:5. What the ground shall bring forth of itself, thou shalt not reap: neither shalt thou gather the grapes or the firstfruits as a vintage. For it is a year of rest to the land. 25:6. But they shall be unto you for meat, to thee and to thy manservant, to thy maidservant and thy hireling, and to the strangers that sojourn with thee. 25:7. All things that grow shall be meat to thy beasts and to thy cattle. 25:8. Thou shalt also number to thee seven weeks of years: that is to say, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years. 25:9. And thou shalt sound the trumpet in the seventh month, the tenth day of the month, in the time of the expiation in all your land. 25:10. And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family: Remission. . .That is, a general release and discharge from debts and bondage, and a reinstating of every man in his former possessions. 25:11. Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year. You shall not sow, nor reap the things that grow in the field of their own accord, neither shall you gather the firstfruits of the vines, 25:12. Because of the sanctification of the jubilee. But as they grow you shall presently eat them. 25:13. In the year of the jubilee all shall return to their possessions. 25:14. When thou shalt sell any thing to thy neighbour, or shalt buy of him: grieve not thy brother. But thou shalt buy of him according to the number of years from the jubilee. 25:15. And he shall sell to thee according to the computation of the fruits. 25:16. The more years remain after the jubilee, the more shall the price increase: and the less time is counted, so much the less shall the purchase cost. For he shall sell to thee the time of the fruits. 25:17. Do not afflict your countrymen: but let every one fear his God. Because I am the Lord your God. 25:18. Do my precepts, and keep my judgments, and fulfil them: that you may dwell in the land without any fear. 25:19. And the ground may yield you its fruits, of which you may eat your fill, fearing no man's invasion. 25:20. But if you say: What shall we eat the seventh year, if we sow not, nor gather our fruits? 25:21. I will give you my blessing the sixth year: and it shall yield the fruits of three years. 25:22. And the eighth year you shall sow, and shall eat of the old fruits, until the ninth year: till new grow up, you shall eat the old store. 25:23. The land also shall not be sold for ever: because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me. 25:24. For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption. 25:25. If thy brother being impoverished sell his little possession, and his kinsman will: he may redeem what he had sold. 25:26. But if he have no kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it: 25:27. The value of the fruits shall be counted from that time when he sold it. And the overplus he shall restore to the buyer, and so shall receive his possession again. 25:28. But if his hands find not the means to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the jubilee. For in that year all that is sold shall return to the owner, and to the ancient possessor. 25:29. He that selleth a house within the walls of a city, shall have the liberty to redeem it, until one year be expired. 25:30. If he redeem it not, and the whole year be fully out, the buyer shall possess it, and his posterity for ever, and it cannot be redeemed, not even in the jubilee. 25:31. But if the house be in a village, that hath no walls, it shall be sold according to the same law as the fields. If it be not redeemed before, in the jubilee it shall return to the owner. 25:32. The houses of Levites, which are in cities, may always be redeemed. 25:33. If they be not redeemed, in the jubilee they shall all return to the owners: because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the children of Israel. 25:34. But let not their suburbs be sold, because it is a perpetual possession. 25:35. If thy brother be impoverished, and weak of hand, and thou receive him as a stranger and sojourner, and he live with thee: 25:36. Take not usury of him nor more than thou gavest. Fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. 25:37. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury: nor exact of him any increase of fruits. 25:38. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might give you the land of Chanaan, and might be your God. 25:39. If thy brother constrained by poverty, sell himself to thee: thou shalt not oppress him with the service of bondservants. 25:40. But he shall be as a hireling, and a sojourner: he shall work with thee until the year of the jubilee. 25:41. And afterwards he shall go out with his children: and shall return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers. 25:42. For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen. 25:43. Afflict him not by might: but fear thy God. 25:44. Let your bondmen, and your bondwomen, be of the nations that are round about you: 25:45. And of the strangers that sojourn among you, or that were born of them in your land. These you shall have for servants: 25:46. And by right of inheritance shall leave them to your posterity, and shall possess them for ever. But oppress not your brethren the children of Israel by might. 25:47. If the hand of a stranger or a sojourner grow strong among you, and thy brother being impoverished sell himself to him, or to any of his race: 25:48. After the sale he may be redeemed. He that will of his brethren shall redeem him: 25:49. Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, or his kinsman, by blood, or by affinity. But if he himself be able also, he shall redeem himself: 25:50. Counting only the years from the time of his selling unto the year of the jubilee: and counting the money that he was sold for, according to the number of the years and the reckoning of a hired servant. 25:51. If there be many years that remain until the jubilee, according to them shall he also repay the price. 25:52. If few, he shall make the reckoning with him according to the number of the years: and shall repay to the buyer of what remaineth of the years. 25:53. His wages being allowed for which he served before: he shall not afflict him violently in thy sight. 25:54. And if by these means he cannot be redeemed, in the year of the jubilee he shall go out with his children. 25:55. For the children of Israel are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. Leviticus Chapter 26 God's promises to them that keep his commandments. And the many punishments with which he threatens transgressors. 26:1. I am the Lord your God. You shall not make to yourselves any idol or graven thing: neither shall you erect pillars, nor set up a remarkable stone in your land, to adore it. For I am the Lord your God. 26:2. Keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 26:3. If you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons. 26:4. And the ground shall bring forth its increase: and the trees shall be filled with fruit. 26:5. The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. 26:6. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. 26:7. You shall pursue your enemies: and they shall fall before you. 26:8. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others: and a hundred of you ten thousand. Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 26:9. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish my covenant with you. 26:10. You shall eat the oldest of the old store: and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. 26:11. I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you: and my soul shall not cast you off. 26:12. I will walk among you, and will be your God: and you shall be my people. 26:13. I am the Lord your God: who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, that you should not serve them: and who have broken the chains of your necks, that you might go upright. 26:14. But if you will not hear me, nor do all my commandments: 26:15. If you despise my laws, and contemn my judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by me, and to make void my covenant: 26:16. I also will do these things to you. I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. 26:17. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies: and shall be made subject to them that hate you. You shall flee when no man pursueth you. 26:18. But if you will not yet for all this obey me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 26:19. And I will break the pride of your stubbornness: and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass. 26:20. Your labour shall be spent in vain: the ground shall not bring forth her increase: nor the trees yield their fruit. 26:21. If you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. 26:22. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number: and that your highways may be desolate. 26:23. And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to me: 26:24. I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. 26:25. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. And you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies, 26:26. After I shall have broken the staff of your bread: so that ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and give it out by weight: and you shall eat, and shall not be filled, 26:27. But if you will not for all this hearken to me, but will walk against me 26:28. I will also go against you with opposite fury: and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, 26:29. So that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. 26:30. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. 26:31. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness: and I will make your sanctuaries desolate: and will receive no more your sweet odours. 26:32. And I will destroy your land: and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. 26:33. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles: and I will draw out the sword after you. And your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. 26:34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths all the days of her desolation. When you shall be 26:35. In the enemy's land, she shall keep a sabbath, and rest in the sabbaths of her desolation: because she did not rest in your sabbaths, when you dwelt therein. 26:36. And as to them that shall remain of you I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies. The sound of a flying leaf shall terrify them: and they shall flee as it were from the sword. They shall fall, when no man pursueth them. 26:37. And they shall every one fall upon their brethren as fleeing from wars: none of you shall dare to resist your enemies. 26:38. You shall perish among the Gentiles: and an enemy's land shall consume you. 26:39. And if of them also some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities, in the land of their enemies: and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own. 26:40. Until they confess their iniquities, and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against me, and walked contrary unto me. 26:41. Therefore I also will walk against them, and bring them into their enemies' land until their uncircumcised mind be ashamed. Then shall they pray for their sins. 26:42. And I will remember my covenant, that I made with Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham. I will remember also the land: 26:43. Which when she shall be left by them, shall enjoy her sabbaths, being desolate for them. But they shall pray for their sins, because they rejected my judgments, and despised my laws. 26:44. And yet for all that when they were in the land of their enemies, I did not cast them off altogether. Neither did I so despise them that they should be quite consumed: and I should make void my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. 26:45. And I will remember my former covenant, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, in the sight of the Gentiles, to be their God. I am the Lord. These are the judgments, and precepts, and laws, which the Lord gave between him and the children of Israel, in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses. Leviticus Chapter 27 Of vows and tithes. 27:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 27:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man that shall have made a vow, and promised his soul to God, shall give the price according to estimation. 27:3. If it be a man from twenty years old unto sixty years old, he shall give fifty sicles of silver, after the weight of the sanctuary: 27:4. If a woman, thirty. 27:5. But from the fifth year until the twentieth, a man shall give twenty sicles: a woman ten. 27:6. From one month until the fifth year, for a male shall be given five sicles: for a female three. 27:7. A man that is sixty years old or upward, shall give fifteen sicles: a woman ten. 27:8. If he be poor, and not able to pay the estimation, he shall stand before the priest: and as much as he shall value him at, and see him able to pay, so much shall he give. 27:9. But a beast that may be sacrificed to the Lord, if any one shall vow, shall be holy, 27:10. And cannot be changed: that is to say, neither a better for a worse, nor a worse for a better. And if he shall change it: both that which was changed, and that for which it was changed, shall be consecrated to the Lord. 27:11. An unclean beast, which cannot be sacrificed to the Lord, if any man shall vow, shall be brought before the priest: 27:12. Who judging whether it be good or bad, shall set the price. 27:13. Which, if he that offereth it will give, he shall add above the estimation the fifth part. 27:14. If a man shall vow his house, and sanctify it to the Lord, the priest shall consider it, whether it be good or bad: and it shall be sold according to the price, which he shall appoint. 27:15. But if he that vowed, will redeem it, he shall give the fifth part of the estimation over and above: and shall have the house. 27:16. And if he vow the field of his possession, and consecrate it to the Lord, the price shall be rated according to the measure of the seed. If the ground be sown with thirty bushels of barley, let it be sold for fifty sicles of silver. 27:17. If he vow his field immediately from the year of jubilee that is beginning: as much as it may be worth, at so much it shall be rated. 27:18. But if some time after, the priest shall reckon the money according to the number of years that remain until the jubilee, and the price shall be abated. 27:19. And if he that had vowed, will redeem his field, he shall add the fifth part of the money of the estimation, and shall possess it. 27:20. And if he will not redeem it, but it be sold to any other man, he that vowed it, may not redeem it any more. 27:21. For when the day of jubilee cometh, it shall be sanctified to the Lord, and as a possession consecrated, pertaineth to the right of the priest. 27:22. If a field that was bought, and not of a man's ancestors' possession, be sanctified to the Lord: 27:23. The priest shall reckon the price according to the number of years, unto the jubilee. And he that had vowed, shall give that to the Lord. 27:24. But in the jubilee, it shall return to the former owner, who had sold it, and had it in the lot of his possession. 27:25. All estimation shall be made according to the sicle of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols. 27:26. The firstborn, which belong to the Lord, no man may sanctify and vow: whether it be bullock, or sheep, they are the Lord's. 27:27. And if it be an unclean beast, he that offereth it shall redeem it, according to thy estimation, and shall add the fifth part of the price. If he will not redeem it, it shall be sold to another for how much soever it was estimated by thee. 27:28. Any thing that is devoted to the Lord, whether it be man, or beast, or field, shall not be sold: neither may it be redeemed. Whatsoever is once consecrated shall be holy of holies to the Lord. 27:29. And any consecration that is offered by man, shall not be redeemed, but dying shall die. 27:30. All tithes of the land, whether of corn, or of the fruits of trees, are the Lord's, and are sanctified to him. 27:31. And if any man will redeem his tithes, he shall add the fifth part of them. 27:32. Of all the tithes of oxen, and sheep, and goats, that pass under the shepherd's rod, every tenth that cometh shall be sanctified to the Lord. 27:33. It shall not be chosen neither good nor bad, neither shall it be changed for another. If any man change it: both that which was changed, and that for which it was changed, shall be sanctified to the Lord, and shall not be redeemed. 27:34. These are the precepts which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai. THE BOOK OF NUMBERS This fourth Book of Moses is called NUMBERS, because it begins with the numbering of the people. The Hebrews, from its first words, call it VAIEDABBER. It contains the transactions of the Israelites from the second month of the second year after their going out of Egypt, until the beginning of the eleventh month of the fortieth year; that is, a history almost of thirty-nine years. Numbers Chapter 1 The children of Israel are numbered: the Levites are designed to serve the tabernacle. 1:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai in the tabernacle of the covenant, the first day of the second month, the second year of their going out of Egypt, saying: 1:2. Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel by their families, and houses, and the names of every one, as many as are of the male sex, 1:3. From twenty years old and upwards, of all the men of Israel fit for war, and you shall number them by their troops, thou and Aaron. 1:4. And there shall be with you the princes of the tribes, and of the houses in their kindreds, 1:5. Whose names are these: Of Ruben, Elisur the son of Sedeur. 1:6. Of Simeon, Salamiel the son of Surisaddai. 1:7. Of Juda, Nahasson the son of Aminadab. 1:8. Of Issachar, Nathanael the son of Suar. 1:9. Of Zabulon, Eliab the son of Helon. 1:10. And of the sons of Joseph: of Ephraim, Elisama the son of Ammiud: of Manasses, Gamaliel the son of Phadassur. 1:11. Of Benjamin, Abidan the son of Gedeon. 1:12. Of Dan, Ahiezer the son of Ammisaddai. 1:13. Of Aser, Phegiel the son of Ochran. 1:14. Of Gad, Eliasaph the son of Duel. 1:15. Of Nephtali, Ahira the son of Enan. 1:16. These are the most noble princes of the multitude by their tribes and kindreds, and the chiefs of the army of Israel: 1:17. Whom Moses and Aaron took with all the multitude of the common people: 1:18. And assembled them on the first day of the second month, reckoning them up by the kindreds, and houses, and families, and heads, and names of every one from twenty years old and upward, 1:19. As the Lord had commanded Moses. And they were numbered in the desert of Sinai. 1:20. Of Ruben the eldest son of Israel, by their generations and families and houses and names of every head, all that were of the male sex, from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go forth to war, 1:21. Were forty-six thousand five hundred. 1:22. Of the sons of Simeon by their generations and families, and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names and heads of every one, all that were of the male sex, from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go forth to war, 1:23. Fifty-nine thousand three hundred. 1:24. Of the sons of Gad, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:25. Forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. 1:26. Of the sons of Juda, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:27. Were reckoned up seventy-four thousand six hundred. 1:28. Of the sons of Issachar, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that could go forth to war, 1:29. Were reckoned up fifty-four thousand four hundred. 1:30. Of the sons of Zabulon, by the generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:31. Fifty-seven thousand four hundred. 1:32. Of the sons of Joseph, namely, of the sons of Ephraim, by the generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:33. Forty thousand five hundred. 1:34. Moreover of the sons of Manasses, by the generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that could go forth to war, 1:35. Thirty-two thousand two hundred. 1:36. Of the sons of Benjamin, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:37. Thirty-five thousand four hundred. 1:38. Of the sons of Dan, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:39. Sixty-two thousand seven hundred. 1:40. Of the sons of Aser, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, 1:41. Forty-one thousand and five hundred. 1:42. Of the sons of Nephtali, by their generations and families and houses of their kindreds, were reckoned up by the names of every one from twenty years old and upward, were able to go forth to war, 1:43. Fifty-three thousand four hundred. 1:44. These are they who were numbered by Moses and Aaron, and the twelve princes of Israel, every one by the houses of their kindreds. 1:45. And the whole number of the children of Israel by their houses and families, from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go to war, 1:46. Were six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men. 1:47. But the Levites in the tribes of their families were not numbered with them. 1:48. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 1:49. Number not the tribe of Levi, neither shalt thou put down the sum of them with the children of Israel: 1:50. But appoint them over the tabernacle of the testimony, and all the vessels thereof, and whatsoever pertaineth to the ceremonies. They shall carry the tabernacle and all the furniture thereof: and they shall minister, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle. 1:51. When you are to go forward, the Levites shall take down the tabernacle: when you are to camp, they shall set it up. What stranger soever cometh to it, shall be slain. 1:52. And the children of Israel shall camp every man by his troops and bands and army. 1:53. But the Levites shall pitch their tents round about the tabernacle, lest there come indignation upon the multitude of the children of Israel, and they shall keep watch, and guard the tabernacle of the testimony. 1:54. And the children of Israel did according to all things which the Lord had commanded Moses. Numbers Chapter 2 The order of the tribes in their camp. 2:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 2:2. All the children of Israel shall camp by their troops, ensigns, and standards, and the houses of their kindreds, round about the tabernacle of the covenant. 2:3. On the east Juda shall pitch his tents by the bands of his army: and the prince of his sons; shall be Nahasson the son of Aminadab. 2:4. And the whole sum of the fighting men of his stock, were seventy-four thousand six hundred. 2:5. Next unto him they of the tribe of Issachar encamped, whose prince was Nathanael, the son of Suar. 2:6. And the whole number of his fighting men were fifty-four thousand four hundred. 2:7. In the tribe of Zabulon the prince was Eliab the son of Helon. 2:8. And all the army of fighting men of his stock, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred. 2:9. All that were numbered in the camp of Juda, were a hundred and eighty-six thousand four hundred: and they by their troops shall march first. 2:10. In the camp of the sons of Ruben, on the south side, the prince shall be Elisur the son of Sedeur: 2:11. And the whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were forty-six thousand five hundred. 2:12. Beside him camped they of the tribe of Simeon: whose prince was Salamiel the son of Surisaddai. 2:13. And the whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were fifty-nine thousand three hundred. 2:14. In the tribe of Gad the prince was Eliasaph the son of Duel. 2:15. And the whole army of his righting men that were numbered, were forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. 2:16. All that were reckoned up in the camp of Ruben, were a hundred and fifty-one thousand four hundred and fifty, by their troops: they shall march in the second place. 2:17. And the tabernacle of the testimony shall be carried by the officers of the Levites and their troops. As it shall be set up, so shall it be taken down. Every one shall march according to their places, and ranks. 2:18. On the west side shall be the camp of the sons of Ephraim, whose prince was Elisama the son of Ammiud. 2:19. The whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were forty thousand five hundred. 2:20. And with them the tribe of the sons of Manasses, whose prince was Gamaliel the son of Phadassur. 2:21. And the whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were thirty-two thousand two hundred. 2:22. In the tribe of the sons of Benjamin the prince was Abidan the son of Gedeon. 2:23. And the whole army of fighting men, that were reckoned up, were thirty-five thousand four hundred. 2:24. All that were numbered in the camp of Ephraim, were a hundred and eight-thousand one hundred by their troops: they shall march in the third place. 2:25. On the north side camped the sons of Dan: whose prince was Ahiezar the son of Ammisaddai. 2:26. The whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were sixty-two thousand seven hundred. 2:27. Beside him they of the tribe of Aser pitched their tents: whose prince was Phegiel the son of Ochran. 2:28. The whole army of his fighting men, that were numbered, were forty-one thousand five hundred. 2:29. Of the tribe of the sons of Nephtali the prince was Ahira the son of Enan. 2:30. The whole army of his fighting men, were fifty-three thousand four hundred. 2:31. All that were numbered in the camp of Dan, were a hundred and fifty-seven thousand six hundred: and they shall march last. 2:32. This is the number of the children of Israel, of their army divided according to the houses of their kindreds and their troops, six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. 2:33. And the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel: for so the Lord had commanded Moses. 2:34. And the children of Israel did according to all things that the Lord had commanded. They camped by their troops, and marched by the families and houses of their fathers. Numbers Chapter 3 The Levites are numbered and their offices distinguished. They are taken in the place of the firstborn of the children of Israel. 3:1. These are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai. 3:2. And these the names of the sons of Aaron: his firstborn Nadab, then Abiu, and Eleazar, and Ithamar. 3:3. These the names of the sons of Aaron the priests that were anointed, and whose hands were filled and consecrated, to do the functions of priesthood. 3:4. Now Nadab and Abiu died, without children, when they offered strange fire before the Lord, in the desert of Sinai: and Eleazar and Ithamar performed the priestly office in the presence of Aaron their father. 3:5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 3:6. Bring the tribe of Levi, and make them stand in the sight of Aaron the priest to minister to him, and let them watch, 3:7. And observe whatsoever appertaineth to the service of the multitude before the tabernacle of the testimony, 3:8. And let them keep the vessels of the tabernacle, serving in the ministry thereof. 3:9. And thou shalt give the Levites for a gift, 3:10. To Aaron and to his sons, to whom they are delivered by the children of Israel. But thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons over the service of priesthood. The stranger that approacheth to minister, shall be put to death. 3:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 3:12. I have taken the Levites from the children of Israel, for every firstborn that openeth the womb among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. 3:13. For every firstborn is mine: since I struck the firstborn in the land of Egypt: I have sanctified to myself whatsoever is firstborn in Israel both of man and beast, they are mine: I am the Lord. 3:14. And the Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, saying: 3:15. Number the sons of Levi by the houses of their fathers and their families, every male from one month and upward. 3:16. Moses numbered them as the Lord had commanded. 3:17. And there were found sons of Levi by their names, Gerson and Caath Merari. 3:18. The sons of Gerson: Lebni and Semei. 3:19. The sons of Caath: Amram, and Jesaar, Hebron and Oziel: 3:20. The sons of Merari, Moholi and Musi. 3:21. Of Gerson were two families, the Lebnites, and the Semeites: 3:22. Of which were numbered, people of the male sex from one month and upward, seven thousand five hundred. 3:23. These shall pitch behind the tabernacle on the west, 3:24. Under their prince Eliasaph the son of Lael. 3:25. And their charge shall be in the tabernacle of the covenant: 3:26. The tabernacle itself and the cover thereof, the hanging that is drawn before the doors of the tabernacle of the covenant, and the curtains of the court: the hanging also that is hanged in the entry of the court of the tabernacle, and whatsoever belongeth to the rite of the altar, the cords of the tabernacle, and all the furniture thereof. 3:27. Of the kindred of Caath come the families of the Amramites and Jesaarites and Hebronites and Ozielites. These are the families of the Caathites reckoned up by their names: 3:28. All of the male sex from one month and upward, eight thousand six hundred: they shall have the guard of the sanctuary, 3:29. And shall camp on the south side. 3:30. And their prince shall be Elisaphan the son of Oziel: 3:31. And they shall keep the ark, and the table and the candlestick, the altars, and the vessels of the sanctuary, wherewith they minister, and the veil, and all the furniture of this kind. 3:32. And the prince of the princes of the Levites, Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, shall be over them that watch for the guard of the sanctuary. 3:33. And of Merari are the families of the Moholites, and Musites, reckoned up by their names: 3:34. All of the male kind from one month and upward, six thousand two hundred. 3:35. Their prince Suriel the son of Abihaiel: their shall camp on the north side. 3:36. Under their custody shall be the boards of the tabernacle, and the bars, and the pillars and their sockets, and all things that pertain to this kind of service: 3:37. And the pillars of the court round about with their sockets, and the pins with their cords. 3:38. Before the tabernacle of the covenant, that is to say on the east side shall Moses and Aaron camp, with their sons, having the custody of the sanctuary, in the midst of the children of Israel. What stranger soever cometh unto it, shall be put to death. 3:39. All the Levites, that I Moses and Aaron numbered according to the precept of the Lord, by their f families, of the male kind from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand. 3:40. And the Lord said to Moses: Number the firstborn of the male sex of the children of Israel, from one month and upward, and thou shalt take the sum of them. 3:41. And thou shalt take the Levites to me for all the firstborn of the children of Israel, I am the Lord: and their cattle for all the firstborn of the cattle of the children of Israel: 3:42. Moses reckoned up, as the Lord had commanded, the firstborn of the children of Israel: 3:43. And the males by their names, from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three. 3:44. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 3:45. Take the Levites for the firstborn of the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites for their cattle, and the Levites shall be mine. I am the Lord. 3:46. But for the price of the two hundred and seventy-three, of the firstborn of the children of Israel, that exceed the number of the Levites, 3:47. Thou shalt take five sicles for every bead, according to the weight of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols. 3:48. And thou shalt give the money to Aaron and his sons, the price of them that are above. 3:49. Moses therefore took the money of them that were above, and whom they had redeemed from the Levites, 3:50. For the firstborn of the children of Israel, one thousand three hundred and sixty-five sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, 3:51. And gave it to Aaron and his sons according to the word that the Lord had commanded him. Numbers Chapter 4 The age and time of the Levites' service: their offices and burdens. 4:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, and Aaron, saying: 4:2. Take the sum of the sons of Caath from the midst of the Levites, by their houses and families. 4:3. From thirty years old and upward, to fifty years old, of all that go in to stand and to minister in the tabernacle of the covenant. 4:4. This is the service of the sons of Caath: 4:5. When the camp is; to set forward, Aaron and his sons shall go into the tabernacle of the covenant, and the holy of holies, and shall take down the veil that hangeth before the door, and shall wrap up the ark of the testimony in it, 4:6. And shall cover it again with a cover of violet skins, and shall spread over it a cloth all of violet, and shall put in the bars. 4:7. They shall wrap up also the table of proposition in a cloth of violet, and shall put with it the censers and little mortars, the cups and bowls to pour out the libations: the loaves shall be always on it: 4:8. And they shall spread over it a cloth of scarlet, which again they shall cover with a covering of violet skins, and shall put in the bars. 4:9. They shall take also a cloth of violet wherewith they shall cover the candlestick with the lamps and tongs thereof and the snuffers and all the oil vessels, which are necessary for the dressing of the lamps: 4:10. And over all they shall put a cover of violet skins and put in the bars. 4:11. And they shall wrap up the golden altar also in a cloth of violet, and shall spread over it a cover of violet skins, and put in the bars. 4:12. All the vessels wherewith they minister in the sanctuary, they shall wrap up in a cloth of violet, and shall spread over it a cover of violet skins, and put in the bars. 4:13. They shall cleanse the altar also from the ashes, and shall wrap it up in a purple cloth, 4:14. And shall put it with all the vessels that they use in the ministry thereof, that is to say, firepans, fleshhooks and forks, pothooks and shovels. They shall cover all the vessels of the altar together with a covering of violet skins, and shall put in the bars. 4:15. And when Aaron and his sons have wrapped up the sanctuary and the vessels thereof at the removing of the camp, then shall the sons of Caath enter in to carry the things wrapped up: and they shall not touch the vessels of the sanctuary, lest they die. These are the burdens of the sons of Caath: in the tabernacle of the covenant: 4:16. And over them shall be Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, to whose charge pertaineth the oil to dress the lamps, and the sweet incense, and the sacrifice, that is always offered, and the oil of unction, and whatsoever pertaineth to the service of the tabernacle, and of all the vessels that are in the sanctuary. 4:17. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 4:18. Destroy not the people of Caath from the midst of the Levites: 4:19. But do this to them, that they may live, and not die, by touching the holies of holies. Aaron and his sons shall go in, and they shall appoint every man his work, and shall divide the burdens that every man is to carry. 4:20. Let not others by any curiosity see the things that are in the sanctuary before they be wrapped up, otherwise they shall die. 4:21. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 4:22. Take the sum of the sons of Gerson also by their houses and families and kindreds. 4:23. From thirty years old and upward, unto fifty years old. Number them all that go in and minister in the tabernacle of the covenant. 4:24. This is the office of the family of the Gersonites: 4:25. To carry the curtains of the tabernacle and the roof of the covenant, the other covering, and the violet covering over all, and the hanging that hangeth in the entry of the tabernacle of the covenant, 4:26. The curtains of the court, and the veil in the entry that is before tabernacle. All things that pertain to the altar, the cords and the vessels of the ministry, 4:27. The sons of Gerson shall carry, by the commandment of Aaron and his sons: and each man shall know to what burden he must be assigned. 4:28. This is the service of the family of the Gersonites in the tabernacle of the covenant, and they shall be under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest. 4:29. Thou shalt reckon up the sons of Merari also by the families and houses of their fathers, 4:30. From thirty years old and upward, unto fifty years old, all that go in to the office of their ministry, and to the service of the covenant of the testimony. 4:31. These are their burdens: They shall carry the boards of the tabernacle and the bars thereof, the pillars and their sockets, 4:32. The pillars also of the court round about, with their sockets and pins and cords. They shall receive by account all the vessels and furniture, and so shall carry them. 4:33. This is the office of the family of the Merarites, and their ministry in the tabernacle of the covenant: and they shall be under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest. 4:34. So Moses and Aaron and the princes of the synagogue reckoned up the sons of Caath, by their kindreds and the houses of their fathers, 4:35. From thirty years old and upward, unto fifty years old, all that go in to the ministry of the tabernacle of the covenant: 4:36. And they were found two thousand seven hundred and fifty. 4:37. This is the number of the people of Caath that go in to the tabernacle of the covenant: these did Moses and Aaron number according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses. 4:38. The sons of Gerson also were numbered by the kindreds and houses of their fathers, 4:39. From thirty years old and upward, unto fifty years old, all that go in to minister in the tabernacle of the covenant: 4:40. And they were found two thousand six hundred and thirty. 4:41. This is the people of the Gersonites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered according to the word of the Lord. 4:42. The sons of Merari also were numbered by the kindreds and houses of their fathers, 4:43. From thirty years old and upward, unto fifty years old, all that go in to fulfil the rites of the tabernacle of the covenant: 4:44. And they were found three thousand two hundred. 4:45. This is the number of the sons of Merari, whom Moses and Aaron reckoned up according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. 4:46. All that were reckoned up of the Levites, and whom Moses and Aaron and the princes of Israel took by name, by the kindreds and houses of their fathers, 4:47. From thirty years old and upward, until fifty years old, that go into the ministry of the tabernacle, and to carry the burdens, 4:48. Were in all eight thousand five hundred and eighty. 4:49. Moses reckoned them up according to the word of the Lord, every one according to their office and burdens, as the Lord had commanded him. Numbers Chapter 5 The unclean are removed out of the camp: confession of sins, and satisfaction: firstfruits and oblations belonging to the priests: trial of jealousy. 5:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 5:2. Command the children of Israel, that they cast out of the camp every leper, and whosoever hath an issue of seed, or is defiled by the dead: 5:3. Whether it be man or woman, cast ye them out of the camp, lest they defile it when I shall dwell with you, 5:4. And the children of Israel did so, and they cast them forth without the camp, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. 5:5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 5:6. Say to the children of Israel: When a man or woman shall have committed any of all the sins that men are wont to commit, and by negligence shall have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and offended, 5:7. They shall confess their sin, and restore the principal itself, and the fifth part over and above, to him against whom they have sinned. Shall confess. . .This confession and satisfaction, ordained in the Old Law, was a figure of the sacrament of penance. 5:8. But if there be no one to receive it, they shall give it to the Lord, and it shall be the priest's, besides the ram that is offered for expiation, to be an atoning sacrifice. 5:9. All the firstfruits also, which the children of Israel offer, belong to the priest: 5:10. And whatsoever is offered into the sanctuary by every one, and is delivered into the hands of the priest, it shall be his. 5:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 5:12. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man whose wife shall have gone astray, and contemning her husband, 5:13. Shall have slept with another man, and her husband cannot discover it, but the adultery is secret, and cannot be proved by witnesses, because she was not found in the adultery: 5:14. If the spirit of jealousy stir up the husband against his wife, who either is defiled, or is charged with false suspicion, The spirit of jealousy, etc. . .This ordinance was designed to clear the innocent, and to prevent jealous husbands from doing mischief to their wives: as likewise to give all a horror of adultery, by punishing it in so remarkable a manner. 5:15. He shall bring her to the priest, and shall offer an oblation for her, the tenth part of a measure of barley meal: he shall not pour oil thereon, nor put frankincense upon it: because it is a sacrifice of jealousy, and an oblation searching out adultery. 5:16. The priest therefore shall offer it, and set it before the Lord. 5:17. And he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and he shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the tabernacle into it. 5:18. And when the woman shall stand before the Lord, he shall uncover her head, and shall put on her hands the sacrifice of remembrance, and the oblation of jealousy: and he himself shall hold the most bitter waters, whereon he hath heaped curses with execration. 5:19. And he shall adjure her, and shall say: If another man hath not slept with thee, and if thou be not defiled by forsaking thy husband's bed, these most bitter waters, on which I have heaped curses, shall not hurt thee. 5:20. But if thou hast gone aside from thy husband, and art defiled, and hast lain with another man: 5:21. These curses shall light upon thee: The Lord make thee a curse, and an example for all among his people: may he make thy thigh to rot, and may thy belly swell and burst asunder. 5:22. Let the cursed waters enter into thy belly, and may thy womb swell and thy thigh rot. And the woman shall answer, Amen, amen. 5:23. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall wash them out with the most bitter waters, upon which he hath heaped the curses, 5:24. And he shall give them her to drink. And when she hath drunk them up, 5:25. The priest shall take from her hand the sacrifice of jealousy, and shall elevate it before the Lord, and shall put it upon the altar: yet so as first, 5:26. To take a handful of the sacrifice of that which is offered, and burn it upon the altar: and so give the most bitter waters to the woman to drink. 5:27. And when she hath drunk them, if she be defiled, and having despised her husband be guilty of adultery, the malediction shall go through her, and her belly swelling, her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse, and an example to all the people. 5:28. But if she be not defiled, she shall not be hurt, and shall bear children. 5:29. This is the law of jealousy. If a woman hath gone aside from her husband, and be defiled, 5:30. And the husband stirred up by the spirit of jealousy bring her before the Lord, and the priest do to her according to all things that are here written: 5:31. The husband shall be blameless, and she shall bear her iniquity. Numbers Chapter 6 The law of the Nazarites: the form of blessing the people. 6:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When a man, or woman, shall make a vow to be sanctified, and will consecrate themselves to the Lord: 6:3. They shall abstain from wine, and from every thing that may make a man drunk. They shall not drink vinegar of wine, or of any other drink, nor any thing that is pressed out of the grape: nor shall they eat grapes either fresh or dried. 6:4. All the days that they are consecrated to the Lord by vow: they shall eat nothing that cometh of the vineyard, from the raisin even to the kernel. 6:5. All the time of his separation no razor shall pass over his head, until the day be fulfilled of his consecration to the Lord. He shall be holy, and shall let the hair of his head grow. 6:6. All the time of his consecration he shall not go in to any dead, 6:7. Neither shall he make himself unclean, even for his father, or for his mother, or for his brother, or for his sister, when they die, because the consecration of his God is upon his head. 6:8. All the days of his separation he shall be holy to the Lord. 6:9. But if any man die suddenly before him: the head of his consecration shall be defiled: and he shall shave it forthwith on the same day of his purification, and again on the seventh day. 6:10. And on the eighth day he shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons to the priest in the entry of the covenant of the testimony. 6:11. And the priest shall offer one for sin, and the other for a holocaust, and shall pray for him, for that he hath sinned by the dead: and he shall sanctify his head that day: 6:12. And shall consecrate to the Lord the days of his separation, offering a lamb of one year for sin: yet so that the former days be made void, because his sanctification was profaned. 6:13. This is the law of consecration. When the days which he had determined by vow shall be expired, he shall bring him to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant, 6:14. And shall offer his oblation to the Lord: one he lamb of a year old without blemish for a holocaust, and one ewe lamb of a year old without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for a victim of peace offering, 6:15. A basket also of unleavened bread, tempered with oil, and wafers without leaven anointed with oil, and the libations of each: 6:16. And the priest shall present them before the Lord, and shall offer both the sin offering and the holocaust. 6:17. But the ram he shall immolate for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord, offering at the same time the basket of unleavened bread, and the libations that are due by custom. 6:18. Then shall the hair of the consecration of the Nazarite, be shaved off before the door of the tabernacle of the covenant: and he shall take his hair, and lay it upon the fire, which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings. 6:19. And shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and he shall deliver them into the hands of the Nazarite, after his head is shaven. 6:20. And receiving them again from him, he shall elevate them in the sight of the Lord: and they being sanctified shall belong to the priest, as the breast, which was commanded to be separated, and the shoulder. After this the Nazarite may drink wine. 6:21. This is the law of the Nazarite, when he hath vowed his oblation to the Lord in the time of his consecration, besides those things which his hand shall find, according to that which he had vowed in his mind, so shall he do for the fulfilling of his sanctification. 6:22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6:23. Say to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: 6:24. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. 6:25. The Lord shew his face to thee, and have mercy on thee. 6:26. The Lord turn his countenance to thee, and give thee peace. 6:27. And they shall invoke my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Numbers Chapter 7 The offerings of the princes at the dedication of the tabernacle. God speaketh to Moses from the propitiatory. 7:1. And it came to pass in the day that Moses had finished the tabernacle, and set it up, and had anointed and sanctified it with all its vessels, the altar likewise and all the vessels thereof, 7:2. The princes of Israel and the heads of the families, in every tribe, who were the rulers of them who had been numbered, offered 7:3. Their gifts before the Lord, six wagons covered, and twelve oxen. Two princes offered one wagon, and each one an ox, and they offered them before the tabernacle. 7:4. And the Lord said to Moses: 7:5. Receive them from them to serve in the ministry of the tabernacle, and thou shalt deliver them to the Levites according to the order of their ministry. 7:6. Moses therefore receiving the wagons and the oxen, delivered them to the Levites. 7:7. Two wagons and four oxen he gave to the sons of Gerson, according to their necessity. 7:8. The other four wagons, and eight oxen he gave to the sons of Merari, according to their offices and service, under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest. 7:9. But to the sons of Caath he gave no wagons or oxen: because they serve in the sanctuary and carry their burdens upon their own shoulders. 7:10. And the princes offered for the dedication of the altar on the day when it was anointed, their oblation before the altar. 7:11. And the Lord said to Moses: Let each of the princes one day after another offer their gifts for the dedication of the altar. 7:12. The first day Nahasson the son of Aminadab of the tribe of Juda offered his offering: 7:13. And his offering was a silver dish weighing one hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:14. A little mortar of ten sicles of gold full of incense: 7:15. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:16. And a buck goat for sin: 7:17. And for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five he goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Nahasson the son of Aminadab. 7:18. The second day Nathanael the son of Suar, prince of the tribe of Issachar, made his offering, 7:19. A silver dish weighing one hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:20. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:21. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:22. And a buck goat for sin: 7:23. And for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Nathanael the son of Suar. 7:24. The third day the prince of the sons of Zabulon, Eliab the son of Helon, 7:25. Offered a silver dish weighing one hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles by the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:26. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:27. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:28. And a buck goat for sin: 7:29. And for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This is the oblation of Eliab the son of Helon. 7:30. The fourth day the prince of the sons of Ruben, Elisur the son of Sedeur, 7:31. Offered a silver dish weighing one hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:32. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:33. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old, for a holocaust: 7:34. And a buck goat for sin: 7:35. And for victims of peace offerings two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Elisur the son of Sedeur. 7:36. The fifth day the prince of the sons of Simeon, Salamiel the son of Surisaddai, 7:37. Offered a silver dish weighing one hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles after the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:38. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:39. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:40. And a buck goat for sin: 7:41. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Salamiel the son of Surisaddai. 7:42. The sixth day the prince of the sons of Gad, Eliasaph the son of Duel, 7:43. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles by the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:44. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:45. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:46. And a buck goat for sin: 7:47. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Eliasaph the son of Duel. 7:48. The seventh day the prince of the sons of Ephraim, Elisama the son of Ammiud, 7:49. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:50. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:51. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:52. And a buck goat for sin: 7:53. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Elisama the son of Ammiud. 7:54. The eighth day the prince of the sons of Manasses, Gamaliel the son of Phadassur, 7:55. Offered a silver dish, weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:56. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:57. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:58. And a buck goat for sin: 7:59. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Gamaliel the son of Phadassur. 7:60. The ninth day the prince of the sons of Benjamin, Abidan the son of Gedeon, 7:61. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles by the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:62. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:63. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:64. And a buck goat for sin: 7:65. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Abidan the son of Gedeon. 7:66. The tenth day the princes of the sons of Dan, Ahiezer the son of Ammisaddai, 7:67. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:68. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:69. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:70. And a buck goat for sin: 7:71. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Ahiezer the son of Ammisaddai. 7:72. The eleventh day the prince of the sons of Aser, Phegiel the son of Ochran, 7:73. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:74. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:75. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:76. And a buck goat for sin: 7:77. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Phegiel the son of Ochran. 7:78. The twelfth day the prince of the sons of Nephtali, Ahira the son of Enan, 7:79. Offered a silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles, a silver bowl of seventy sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary, both full of flour tempered with oil for a sacrifice: 7:80. A little mortar of gold weighing ten sicles full of incense: 7:81. An ox of the herd, and a ram, and a lamb of a year old for a holocaust: 7:82. And a buck goat for sin: 7:83. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five buck goats, five lambs of a year old. This was the offering of Ahira the son of Enan. 7:84. These were the offerings made by the princes of Israel in the dedication of the altar, in the day wherein it was consecrated. Twelve dishes of silver: twelve silver bowls: twelve little mortars of gold: 7:85. Each dish weighing a hundred and thirty sicles of silver, and each bowl seventy sicles: that is, putting all the vessels of silver together, two thousand four hundred sicles, by the weight of the sanctuary. 7:86. Twelve little mortars of gold full of incense, weighing ten sicles apiece, by the weight of the sanctuary: that is, in all a hundred and twenty sicles of gold. 7:87. Twelve oxen out of the herd for a holocaust, twelve rams, twelve lambs of a year old, and their libations: twelve buck goats for sin. 7:88. And for sacrifices of peace offerings, oxen twenty-four, rams sixty, buck goats sixty, lambs of a year old sixty. These things were offered in the dedication of the altar, when it was anointed. 7:89. And when Moses entered into the tabernacle of the covenant, to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the propitiatory, that is over the ark between the two cherubims, and from this place he spoke to him. Numbers Chapter 8 The seven lamps are placed on the golden candlestick, to shine towards the loaves of proposition: the ordination of the Levites: and to what age they shall serve in the tabernacle. 8:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8:2. Speak to Aaron, and thou shalt say to him: When thou shalt place the seven lamps, let the candlestick be set up on the south side. Give orders therefore that the lamps look over against the north, towards the table of the loaves of proposition, over against that part shall they give light, towards which the candlestick looketh. 8:3. And Aaron did so, and he put the lamps upon the candlestick, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 8:4. Now this was the work of the candlestick, it was of beaten gold, both the shaft in the middle, and all that came out of both sides of the branches: according to the pattern which the Lord had shewn to Moses, so he made the candlestick. 8:5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8:6. Take the Levites out of the midst of the children of Israel, and thou shalt purify them, 8:7. According to this rite: Let them be sprinkled with the water of purification, and let them shave all the hairs of their flesh. And when they shall have washed their garments, and are cleansed, Let them be sprinkled with the water of purification. . .This was the holy water mixed with the ashes of the red cow, Num. 19., appointed for purifying all that were unclean. It was a figure of the blood of Christ, applied to our souls by his holy sacraments. 8:8. They shall take an ox of the herd, and for the offering thereof fine flour tempered with oil: and thou shalt take another ox of the herd for a sin offering: 8:9. And thou shalt bring the Levites before the tabernacle of the covenant, calling together all the multitude of the children of Israel: 8:10. And when the Levites are before the Lord, the children of Israel shall put their hands upon them: 8:11. And Aaron shall offer the Levites, as a gift in the sight of the Lord from the children of Israel, that they may serve in his ministry. 8:12. The Levites also shall put their hands upon the heads of the oxen, of which thou shalt sacrifice one for sin, and the other for a holocaust to the Lord, to pray for them. 8:13. And thou shalt set the Levites in the sight of Aaron and of his, and shalt consecrate them being offered to the Lord, 8:14. And shalt separate them from the midst of the children of Israel, to be mine. 8:15. And afterwards they shall enter into the tabernacle of the covenant, to serve me. And thus shalt thou purify and consecrate them for an oblation of the Lord: for as a gift they were given me by the children of Israel. 8:16. I have taken them instead of the firstborn that open every womb in Israel, 8:17. For all the firstborn of the children of Israel, both of men and of beasts, are mine. From the day that I slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, have I sanctified them to myself: 8:18. And I have taken the Levites for all the firstborn of the children of Israel: 8:19. And have delivered them for a gift to Aaron and his sons out of the midst of the people, to serve me for Israel in the tabernacle of the covenant, and to pray for them, lest there should be a plague among the people, if they should presume to approach unto my sanctuary. 8:20. And Moses and Aaron and all the multitude of the children of Israel did with the Levites all that the Lord had commanded Moses 8:21. And they were purified, and washed their garments. And Aaron lifted them up in the sight of the Lord, and prayed for them, 8:22. That being purified they might go into the tabernacle of the covenant to do their services before Aaron and his sons. As the Lord had commanded Moses touching the Levites, so was it done. 8:23. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8:24. This is the law of the Levites: From twenty-five years old and upwards, they shall go in to minister in the tabernacle of the covenant. 8:25. And when they shall have accomplished the fiftieth year of their age, they shall cease to serve: 8:26. And they shall be the ministers of their brethren in the tabernacle of the covenant, to keep the things that are committed to their care, but not to do the works. Thus shalt thou order the Levites touching their charge. Numbers Chapter 9 The precept of the pasch is renewed: the unclean and travellers are to observe it the second month: the camp is guided by the pillar of the cloud. 9:1. The Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first month, saying: 9:2. Let the children of Israel make the phase in its due time, Make the phase. . .That is, keep the paschal solemnity, and eat the paschal lamb. 9:3. The fourteenth day of this month in the evening, according to all the ceremonies and justifications thereof. 9:4. And Moses commanded the children of Israel that they should make the phase. 9:5. And they made it in its proper time: the fourteenth day of the month at evening, in mount Sinai. The children of Israel did according to all things that the Lord had commanded Moses. 9:6. But behold some who were unclean by occasion of the soul of a man, who could not make the phase on that day, coming to Moses and Aaron, Behold some who were unclean by occasion of the soul of a man, etc. . .That is, by having touched or come near a dead body, out of which the soul was departed. 9:7. Said to them: We are unclean by occasion of the soul of a man. Why are we kept back that we may not offer in its season the offering to the Lord among the children of Israel? 9:8. And Moses answered them: Stay that I may consult the Lord what he will ordain concerning you. 9:9. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 9:10. Say to the children of Israel: The man that shall be unclean by occasion of one that is dead, or shall be in a journey afar off in your nation, let him make the phase to the Lord. 9:11. In the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, they shall eat it with unleavened bread and wild lettuce: 9:12. They shall not leave any thing thereof until morning, nor break a bone thereof, they shall observe all the ceremonies of the phase. 9:13. But if any man is clean, and was not on a journey, and did not make the phase, that soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he offered not sacrifice to the Lord in due season: he shall bear his sin. 9:14. The sojourner also and the stranger if they be among you, shall make the phase to the Lord according to the ceremonies and justifications thereof. The same ordinances shall be with you both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the land. 9:15. Now on the day that the tabernacle was reared up, a cloud covered it. But from the evening there was over the tabernacle, as it were, the appearance of fire until the morning. 9:16. So it was always: by day the cloud covered it, and by night as it were the appearance of fire. 9:17. And when the cloud that covered the tabernacle was taken up, then the children of Israel marched forward: and in the place where the cloud stood still, there they camped. 9:18. At the commandment of the Lord they marched, and at his commandment they pitched the tabernacle. All the days that the cloud abode over the tabernacle, they remained in the same place: 9:19. And if it was so that it continued over it a long time, the children of Israel kept the watches of the Lord, and marched not, 9:20. For as many days soever as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle. At the commandment of the Lord they pitched their tents, and at his commandment they took them down. 9:21. If the cloud tarried from evening until morning, and immediately at break of day left the tabernacle, they marched forward: and if it departed after a day and a night, they took down their tents. 9:22. But if it remained over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a longer time, the children of Israel remained in the same place, and marched not: but immediately as soon as it departed, they removed the camp. 9:23. By the word of the Lord they pitched their tents, and by his word they marched: and kept the watches of the Lord according to his commandment by the hand of Moses. Numbers Chapter 10 The silver trumpets and their use. They march from Sinai. 10:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 10:2. Make thee two trumpets of beaten silver, wherewith thou mayest call together the multitude when the camp is to be removed. 10:3. And when thou shalt sound the trumpets, all the multitude shall gather unto thee to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant. 10:4. If thou sound but once, the princes and the heads of the multitude of Israel shall come to thee. 10:5. But if the sound of the trumpets be longer, and with interruptions, they that are on the east side, shall first go forward. 10:6. And at the second sounding and like noise of the trumpet, they who lie on the south side shall take up their tents. And after this manner shall the rest do, when the trumpets shall sound for a march. 10:7. But when the people is to be gathered together, the sound of the trumpets shall be plain, and they shall not make a broken sound. 10:8. And the sons of Aaron the priest shall sound the trumpets: and this shall be an ordinance for ever in your generations. 10:9. If you go forth to war out of your land against the enemies that fight against you, you shall sound aloud with the trumpets, and there shall be a remembrance of you before the Lord your God, that you may be delivered out of the hands of your enemies. 10:10. If at any time you shall have a banquet, and on your festival days, and on the first days of your months, you shall sound the trumpets over the holocausts, and the sacrifices of peace offerings, that they may be to you for a remembrance of your God. I am the Lord your God. 10:11. The second year, in the second month, the twentieth day of the month, the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle of the covenant. 10:12. And the children of Israel marched by their troops from the desert of Sinai, and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Pharan. 10:13. And the first went forward according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. 10:14. The sons of Juda by their troops: whose prince was Nahasson the son of Aminadab. 10:15. In the tribe of the sons of Issachar, the prince was Nathanael the son of Suar. 10:16. In the tribe of Zabulon, the prince was Eliab the son of Helon. 10:17. And the tabernacle was taken down, and the sons of Gerson and Merari set forward, bearing it. 10:18. And the sons of Ruben also marched, by their troops and ranks, whose prince was Helisur the son of Sedeur. 10:19. And in the tribe of Simeon, the prince was Salamiel the son of Surisaddai. 10:20. And in the tribe of Gad, the prince was Eliasaph the son of Duel. 10:21. Then the Caathites also marched carrying the sanctuary. So long was the tabernacle carried, till they came to the place of setting it up. 10:22. The sons of Ephraim also moved their camp by their troops, in whose army the prince was Elisama the son of Ammiud. 10:23. And in the tribe of the sons of Manasses, the prince was Gamaliel the son of Phadassur. 10:24. And in the tribe of Benjamin, the prince was Abidan the son of Gedeon. 10:25. The last of all the camp marched the sons of Dan by their troops, in whose army the prince was Ahiezer the son of Ammisaddai. 10:26. And in the tribe of the sons of Aser, the prince was Phegiel the son of Ochran. 10:27. And in the tribe of the sons of Nephtali, the prince was Ahira the son of Enan. 10:28. This was the order of the camps, and marches of the children of Israel by their troops, when they set forward. 10:29. And Moses said to Hobab the son of Raguel the Madianite, his kinsman: We are going towards the place which the Lord will give us: come with us, that we may do thee good: for the Lord hath promised good things to Israel. 10:30. But he answered him: I will not go with thee, but I will return to my country, wherein I was born. 10:31. And he said: Do not leave us: for thou knowest in what places we should encamp in the wilderness, and thou shalt be our guide. 10:32. And if thou comest with us, we will give thee what is the best of the riches which the Lord shall deliver to us. 10:33. So they marched from the mount of the Lord three days' journey, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them, for three days providing a place for the camp. 10:34. The cloud also of the Lord was over them by day when they marched. 10:35. And when the ark was lifted up, Moses said: Arise, O Lord, and let thy enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee, flee from before thy face. 10:36. And when it was set down, he said: Return, O Lord, to the multitude of the host of Israel. Numbers Chapter 11 The people murmur and are punished with fire. God appointeth seventy ancients for assistants to Moses. They prophesy. The people have their fill of flesh, but forthwith many die of the plague. 11:1. In the mean time there arose a murmuring of the people against the Lord, as it were repining at their fatigue. And when the Lord heard it he was angry. And the fire of the Lord being kindled against them, devoured them that were at the uttermost part of the camp. 11:2. And when the people cried to Moses, Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire was swallowed up. 11:3. And he called the name of that place, The burning: for that the fire of the Lord had been kindled against them. The burning. . .Hebrew, Taberah. 11:4. For a mixt multitude of people, that came up with them, burned with desire, sitting and weeping, the children of Israel also being joined with them, and said: Who shall give us flesh to eat? A mixt multitude. . .These were people that came with them out of Egypt, who were not of the race of Israel; who, by their murmuring, drew also the children of Israel to murmur: this should teach us the danger of associating ourselves with the children of Egypt, that is, with the lovers and admirers of this wicked world. 11:5. We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free cost: the cucumbers come into our mind, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. 11:6. Our soul is dry, our eyes behold nothing else but manna. 11:7. Now the manna was like coriander seed, of the colour of bdellium. Bdellium. . .Bdellium, according to Pliny, 1.21, c. 9. was of the colour of a man's nail, white and bright. 11:8. And the people went about, and gathering it, ground it in a mill, or beat it in a mortar, and boiled it in a pot, and made cakes thereof of the taste of bread tempered with oil. 11:9. And when the dew fell in the night upon the camp, the manna also fell with it. 11:10. Now Moses heard the people weeping by their families, every one at the door of his tent. And the wrath of the Lord was exceedingly enkindled: to Moses also the thing seemed insupportable. 11:11. And he said to the Lord: Why hast thou afflicted thy servant? Wherefore do I not find favour before thee? And why hast thou laid the weight of all this people upon me? 11:12. Have I conceived all this multitude, or begotten them, that thou shouldst say to me: Carry them in thy bosom as the nurse is wont to carry the little infant, and bear them into the land, for which thou hast sworn to their fathers? 11:13. Whence should I have flesh to give to so great a multitude? They weep against me, saying: Give us flesh that we may eat. 11:14. I am not able alone to bear all this people, because it is too heavy for me. 11:15. But if it seem unto thee otherwise, I beseech thee to kill me, and let me find grace in thy eyes, that I be not afflicted with so great evils. 11:16. And the Lord said to Moses: Gather unto me seventy men of the ancients of Israel, whom thou knowest to be ancients and masters of the people: and thou shalt bring them to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant, and shalt make them stand there with thee, Seventy men. . .This was the first institution of the council or senate, called the Sanhedrin, consisting of seventy or seventy-two senators or counsellors. 11:17. That I may come down and speak with thee: and I will take of thy spirit, and will give to them, that they may bear with thee the burden of the people, and thou mayest not be burthened alone. 11:18. And thou shalt say to the people: Be ye sanctified: to morrow you shall eat flesh: for I have heard you say: Who will give us flesh to eat? It was well with us in Egypt. That the Lord may give you flesh, and you may eat: 11:19. Not for one day, nor two, nor five, nor ten, no nor for twenty. 11:20. But even for a month of days, till it come out at your nostrils, and become loathsome to you, because you have cast off the Lord, who is in the midst of you, and have wept before him, saying: Why came we out of Egypt? 11:21. And Moses said: There are six hundred thousand footmen of this people, and sayest thou: I will give them flesh to eat a whole month? 11:22. Shall then a multitude of sheep and oxen be killed, that it may suffice for their food? or shall the fishes of the sea be gathered together to fill them? 11:23. And the Lord answered him: Is the hand of the Lord unable? Thou shalt presently see whether my word shall come to pass or no. 11:24. Moses therefore came, and told the people the words of the Lord, and assembled seventy men of the ancients of Israel, and made them to stand about the tabernacle. 11:25. And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spoke to him, taking away of the spirit that was in Moses, and giving to the seventy men. And when the spirit had rested on them they prophesied, nor did they cease afterwards. 11:26. Now there remained in the camp two of the men, of whom one was called Eldad, and the other Medad, upon whom the spirit rested; for they also had been enrolled, but were not gone forth to the tabernacle. 11:27. And when they prophesied in the camp, there ran a young man, and told Moses, saying: Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp. 11:28. Forthwith Josue the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, and chosen out of many, said: My lord Moses forbid them. 11:29. But he said: Why hast thou emulation for me? O that all the people might prophesy, and that the Lord would give them his spirit! 11:30. And Moses returned, with the ancients of Israel, into the camp. 11:31. And a wind going out from the Lord, taking quails up beyond the sea brought them, and cast them into the camp for the space of one day's journey, on every side of the camp round about, and they flew in the air two cubits high above the ground. 11:32. The people therefore rising up all that day, and night, and the next day, gathered together of quails, he that did least, ten cores: and they dried them round about the camp. 11:33. As yet the flesh was between their teeth, neither had that kind of meat failed: when behold the wrath of the Lord being provoked against the people, struck them with an exceeding great plague. 11:34. And that place was called, The graves of lust: for there they buried the people that had lusted. And departing from the graves of lust, they came unto Haseroth, and abode there. The graves of lust. . .Or, the sepulchres of concupiscence: so called from their irregular desire of flesh. In Hebrew, Kibroth. Hattaavah. Numbers Chapter 12 Mary and Aaron murmur against Moses, whom God praiseth above other prophets. Mary being struck with leprosy, Aaron confesseth his fault. Moses prayeth for her, and after seven days' separation from the camp, she is restored. 12:1. And Mary and Aaron spoke against Moses, because of his wife the Ethiopian, Ethiopian. . .Sephora the wife of Moses was of Madian, which bordered upon the land of Chus or Ethiopia: where note, that the Ethiopia here spoken of is not that of Africa but that of Arabia. 12:2. And they said: Hath the Lord spoken by Moses only? Hath he not also spoken to us in like manner? And when the Lord heard this, 12:3. (For Moses was a man exceeding meek above all men that dwelt upon earth) Exceeding meek. . .Moses being the meekest of men, would not contend for himself; therefore, God inspired him to write here his own defence: and the Holy Spirit, whose dictate he wrote, obliged him to declare the truth, though it was so much to his own praise. 12:4. Immediately he spoke to him, and to Aaron and Mary: Come out you three only to the tabernacle of the covenant. And when they were come out, 12:5. The Lord came down in a pillar of the cloud, and stood in the entry of the tabernacle calling to Aaron and Mary. And when they were come, 12:6. He said to them: Hear my words: if there be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him in a dream. 12:7. But it is not so with my servant Moses who is most faithful in all my house: 12:8. For I speak to him mouth to mouth: and plainly, and not by riddles and figures doth he see the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak ill of my servant Moses? 12:9. And being angry with them he went away: 12:10. The cloud also that was over the tabernacle departed: and behold Mary appeared white as snow with a leprosy. And when Aaron had looked on her, and saw her all covered with leprosy, 12:11. He said to Moses: I beseech thee, my lord, lay not upon us this sin, which we have foolishly committed: 12:12. Let her not be as one dead, and as an abortive that is cast forth from the mother's womb. Lo, now one half of her flesh is consumed with the leprosy. 12:13. And Moses cried to the Lord, saying O God, I beseech thee heal her. 12:14. And the Lord answered him: If her father had spitten upon her face, ought she not to have been ashamed for seven days at least? Let her be separated seven days without the camp, and afterwards she shall be called again. 12:15. Mary therefore was put out of the camp seven days: and the people moved not from that place until Mary was called again. Numbers Chapter 13 The twelve spies are sent to view the land. The relation they make of it. 13:1. And the people marched from Haseroth, and pitched their tents in the desert of Pharan. 13:2. And there the Lord spoke to Moses, saying. 13:3. Send men to view the land of Chanaan, which I will give to the children of Israel, one of every tribe, of the rulers. 13:4. Moses did what the Lord had commanded, sending from the desert of Pharan, principal men, whose names are these: 13:5. Of the tribe of Ruben, Sammua the son of Zechur. 13:6. Of the tribe of Simeon, Saphat the son of Huri. 13:7. Of the tribe of Juda, Caleb the son of Jephone. 13:8. Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph. 13:9. Of the tribe of Ephraim, Osee the son of Nun. 13:10. Of the tribe of Benjamin, Phalti the son of Raphu. 13:11. Of the tribe of Zabulon, Geddiel the son of Sodi. 13:12. Of the tribe of Joseph, of the sceptre of Manasses, Gaddi the son of Susi. 13:13. Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli. 13:14. Of the tribe of Aser, Sthur the son of Michael. 13:15. Of the tribe of Nephtali, Nahabi the son of Vapsi. 13:16. Of the tribe of Gad, Guel the son of Machi. 13:17. These are the names of the men, whom Moses sent to view the land: and he called Osee the son of Nun, Josue. 13:18. And Moses sent them to view the land of Chanaan, and said to them: Go you up by the south side. And when you shall come to the mountains, 13:19. View the land, of what sort it is, and the people that are the inhabitants thereof, whether they be strong or weak: few in number or many: 13:20. The land itself, whether it be good or bad: what manner of cities, walled or without walls: 13:21. The ground, fat or barren, woody or without trees. Be of good courage, and bring us of the fruits of the land. Now it was the time when the firstripe grapes are fit to be eaten. 13:22. And when they were gone up, they viewed the land from the desert of Sin, unto Rohob as you enter into Emath. 13:23. And they went up at the south side, and came to Hebron, where were Achiman and Sisai and Tholmai the sons of Enac. For Hebron was built seven years before Tanis the city of Egypt. 13:24. And forward as far as the torrent of the cluster of grapes, they cut off a branch with its cluster of grapes, which two men carried upon a lever. They took also of the pomegranates and of the figs of that place: 13:25. Which was called Nehelescol, that is to say, the torrent of the cluster of grapes, because from thence the children of Israel had carried a cluster of grapes. 13:26. And they that went to spy out the land returned after forty days, having gone round all the country, 13:27. And came to Moses and Aaron and to all the assembly of the children of Israel to the desert of Pharan, which is in Cades. And speaking to them and to all the multitude, they shewed them the fruits of the land: 13:28. And they related and said: We came into the land to which thou sentest us, which in very deed floweth with milk and honey as may be known by these fruits: 13:29. But it hath very strong inhabitants, and the cities are great and walled. We saw there the race of Enac. 13:30. Amalec dwelleth in the south, the Hethite and the Jebusite and the Amorrhite in the mountains: but the Chanaanite abideth by the sea and near the streams of the Jordan. 13:31. In the mean time Caleb, to still the murmuring of the people that rose against Moses, said: Let us go up and possess the land, for we shall be able to conquer it. 13:32. But the others, that had been with him, said: No, we are not able to go up to this people, because they are stronger than we. 13:33. And they spoke ill of the land, which they had viewed, before the children of Israel, saying: The land which we have viewed, devoureth its inhabitants: the people, that we beheld are of a tall stature. Spoke ill, etc. . .These men, who by their misrepresentations of the land of promise, discouraged the Israelites from attempting the conquest of it, were a figure of worldlings, who, by decrying or misrepresenting true devotion, discourage Christians from seeking in earnest and acquiring so great a good, and thereby securing to themselves a happy eternity. 13:34. There we saw certain monsters of the sons of Enac, of the giant kind: in comparison of whom, we seemed like locusts. Numbers Chapter 14 The people murmur. God threateneth to destroy them. He is appeased by Moses, yet so as to exclude the murmurers from entering the promised land. The authors of the sedition are struck dead. The rest going to fight against the will of God are beaten. 14:1. Therefore the whole multitude crying wept that night. 14:2. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying: 14:3. Would God that we had died in Egypt: and would God we may die in this vast wilderness, and that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt? 14:4. And they said one to another: Let us appoint a captain, and let us return into Egypt. 14:5. And when Moses and Aaron heard this, they fell down flat upon the ground before the multitude of the children of Israel. 14:6. But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone, who themselves also had viewed the land, rent their garments, 14:7. And said to all the multitude of the children of Israel: The land which we have gone round is very good: 14:8. If the Lord be favourable, he will bring us into it, and give us a land flowing with milk and honey. 14:9. Be not rebellious against the Lord: and fear ye not the people of this land, for we are able to eat them up as bread. All aid is gone from them: the Lord is with us, fear ye not. 14:10. And when all the multitude cried out, and would have stoned them, the glory of the Lord appeared over the tabernacle of the covenant to all the children of Israel. 14:11. And the Lord said to Moses: How long will this people detract me? how long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them? 14:12. I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them: but thee I will make a ruler over a great nation, and a mightier than this is. 14:13. And Moses said to the Lord: That the Egyptians, from the midst of whom thou hast brought forth this people, 14:14. And the inhabitants of this land, (who have heard that thou, O Lord, art among this people, and art seen face to face, and thy cloud protecteth them, and thou goest before them in a pillar of a cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night,) 14:15. May hear that thou hast killed so great a multitude as it were one man and may say: 14:16. He could not bring the people into the land for which he had sworn, therefore did he kill them in the wilderness. 14:17. Let then the strength of the Lord be magnified, as thou hast sworn, saying: 14:18. The Lord is patient and full of mercy, by taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear, who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Clear. . .i. e., who deserves punishment. 14:19. Forgive, I beseech thee, the sins of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, as thou hast been merciful to them from their going out of Egypt unto this place. 14:20. And the Lord said: I have forgiven according to thy word. 14:21. As I live: and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. 14:22. But yet all the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, 14:23. Shall not see the land for which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any one of them that hath detracted me behold it. 14:24. My servant Caleb, who being full of another spirit hath followed me, I will bring into this land which he hath gone round: and his seed shall possess it. 14:25. For the Amalecite and the Chanaanite dwell in the valleys. To morrow remove the camp, and return into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. 14:26. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 14:27. How long doth this wicked multitude murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. 14:28. Say therefore to them: As I live, saith the Lord: According as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you. 14:29. In the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against me, 14:30. Shall not enter into the land, over which I lifted up my hand to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun. 14:31. But your children, of whom you said, that they should be a prey to the enemies, will I bring in: that they may see the land which you have despised. 14:32. Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness. 14:33. Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert, Shall bear your fornication. . .That is, shall bear the punishment of your disloyalty to God, which in the scripture language is here called a fornication, in a spiritual sense. 14:34. According to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day. And forty years you shall receive your iniquities, and shall know my revenge: 14:35. For as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen up together against me: in this wilderness shall it faint away and die. 14:36. Therefore all the men, whom Moses had sent to view the land, and who at their return had made the whole multitude to murmur against him, speaking ill of the land that it was naught, 14:37. Died and were struck in the sight of the Lord. 14:38. But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb had gone to view the land. 14:39. And Moses spoke all these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly. 14:40. And behold rising up very early in the morning, they went up to the top of the mountain, and said: We are ready to go up to the place, of which the Lord hath spoken: for we have sinned. 14:41. And Moses said to them: Why transgress you the word of the Lord, which shall not succeed prosperously with you? 14:42. Go not up, for the Lord is not with you: lest you fall before your enemies. 14:43. The Amalecite and the Chanaanite are before you, and by their sword you shall fall, because you would not consent to the Lord, neither will the Lord be with you. 14:44. But they being blinded went up to the top of the mountain. But the ark of the testament of the Lord and Moses departed not from the camp. 14:45. And the Amalecite came down, and the Chanaanite that dwelt in the mountain: and smiting and slaying them pursued them as far as Horma. Numbers Chapter 15 Certain laws concerning sacrifices. Sabbath breaking is punished with death. The law of fringes on their garments. 15:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 15:2. Speak to the children of Israel and thou shalt say to them: When you shall be come unto the land of your habitation, which I will give you, 15:3. And shall make an offering to the Lord, for a holocaust, or a victim, paying your vows, or voluntarily offering gifts, or in your solemnities burning a sweet savour unto the Lord, of oxen or of sheep: 15:4. Whosoever immolateth the victim, shall offer a sacrifice of fine flour, the tenth part of an ephi, tempered with the fourth part of a hin of oil: 15:5. And he shall give the same measure of wine to pour out in libations for the holocaust or for the victim. For every lamb, 15:6. And for every ram there shall be a sacrifice of flour of two tenths, which shall be tempered with the third part of a hin of oil: 15:7. And he shall offer the third part the same measure of wine for the libation, for a sweet savour to the Lord. 15:8. But when thou offerest a holocaust or sacrifice of oxen, to fulfil thy vow or for victims of peace offerings, 15:9. Thou shalt give for every ox three tenths of flour tempered with half a hin of oil, 15:10. And wine for libations of the same measure, for an offering of most sweet savour to the Lord. 15:11. Thus shalt thou do 15:12. For every ox and ram and lamb and kid. 15:13. Both they that are born in the land, and the strangers 15:14. Shall offer sacrifices after the same rite. 15:15. There shall be all one law and judgment both for you and for them who are strangers in the land. 15:16. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 15:17. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: 15:18. When you are come into the land which I will give you, 15:19. And shall eat of the bread of that country, you shall separate firstfruits to the Lord, 15:20. Of the things you eat. As you separate firstfruits of your barnfloors: 15:21. So also shall you give firstfruits of your dough to the Lord. 15:22. And if through ignorance you omit any of these things, which the Lord hath spoken to Moses, 15:23. And by him hath commanded you from the day that he began to command and thenceforward, 15:24. And the multitude have forgotten to do it: they shall offer a calf out of the herd, a holocaust for a most sweet savour to the Lord, and the sacrifice and libations thereof, as the ceremonies require, and a buck goat for sin: 15:25. And the priest shall pray for all the multitude of the children of Israel: and it shall be forgiven them, because they sinned ignorantly, offering notwithstanding a burnt offering to the Lord for themselves and for their sin and their Ignorance: 15:26. And it shall be forgiven all the people of the children of Israel: and the strangers that sojourn among them: because it is the fault of all the people through ignorance. 15:27. But if one soul shall sin ignorantly, he shall offer a she goat of a year old for his sin. 15:28. And the priest shall pray for him, because he sinned ignorantly before the Lord: and he shall obtain his pardon, and it shall be forgiven him. 15:29. The same law shall be for all that sin by ignorance, whether they be natives or strangers. 15:30. But the soul that committeth any thing through pride, whether he be born in the land or a stranger (because he hath been rebellious against the Lord) shall be cut off from among his people: 15:31. For he hath contemned the word of the Lord, and made void his precept: therefore shall he be destroyed, and shall bear his iniquity. 15:32. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and had found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day, 15:33. That they brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole multitude. 15:34. And they put him into prison, not knowing what they should do with him. 15:35. And the Lord said to Moses: Let that man die, let all the multitude stone him without the camp. 15:36. And when they had brought him out, they stoned him, and he died as the Lord had commanded. 15:37. The Lord also said to Moses: 15:38. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt tell them to make to themselves fringes in the corners of their garments, putting in them ribands of blue: Fringes. . .The Pharisees enlarged these fringes through hypocrisy, Matt. 23.5, to appear more zealous than other men for the law of God. 15:39. That when they shall see them, they may remember all the commandments of the Lord, and not follow their own thoughts and eyes going astray after divers things, 15:40. But rather being mindful of the precepts of the Lord, may do them and be holy to their God. 15:41. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. Numbers Chapter 16 The schism of Core and his adherents: their punishment. 16:1. And behold Core the son of Isaar, the son of Caath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiron the sons of Eliab, and Hon the son of Pheleth of the children of Ruben, 16:2. Rose up against Moses, and with them two hundred and fifty others of the children of Israel, leading men of the synagogue, and who in the time of assembly were called by name. Rose up. . .The crime of these men, which was punished in so remarkable a manner, was that of schism, and of rebellion against the authority established by God in the church; and their pretending to the priesthood without being lawfully called and sent: the same is the case of all modern sectaries. 16:3. And when they had stood up against Moses and Aaron, they said: Let it be enough for you, that all the multitude consisteth of holy ones, and the Lord is among them: Why lift you up yourselves above the people of the Lord? 16:4. When Moses heard this, he fell flat on his face: 16:5. And speaking to Core and all the multitude, he said: In the morning the Lord will make known who belong to him, and the holy he will join to himself: and whom he shall choose, they shall approach to him. 16:6. Do this therefore: Take every man of you your censers, thou Core, and all thy company. 16:7. And putting fire in them to morrow, put incense upon it before the Lord: and whomsoever he shall choose, the same shall be holy: you take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi. 16:8. And he said again to Core: Hear ye sons of Levi. 16:9. Is it a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath spared you from all the people, and joined you to himself, that you should serve him in the service of the tabernacle, and should stand before the congregation of the people, and should minister to him? 16:10. Did he therefore make thee and all thy brethren the sons of Levi to approach unto him, that you should challenge to yourselves the priesthood also, 16:11. And that all thy company should stand against the Lord? for what is Aaron that you murmur against him? 16:12. Then Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiron the sons of Eliab. But they answered: We will not come. 16:13. Is it a small matter to thee, that thou hast brought us out of a land that flowed with milk and honey, to kill us in the desert, except thou rule also like a lord over us? 16:14. Thou hast brought us indeed into a land that floweth with rivers of milk and honey, and hast given us possessions of fields and vineyards; wilt thou also pull out our eyes? We will not come. 16:15. Moses therefore being very angry, said to the Lord: Respect not their sacrifices: thou knowest that I have not taken of them so much as a young ass at any time, nor have injured any of them. Very angry. . .This anger was a zeal against sin; and an indignation at the affront offered to God; like that which the same holy prophet conceived upon the sight of the golden calf, Ex. 32.19. 16:16. And he said to Core: Do thou and thy congregation stand apart before the Lord to morrow, and Aaron apart. 16:17. Take every one of you censers, and put incense upon them, offering to the Lord two hundred and fifty censers: let Aaron also hold his censer. 16:18. When they had done this, Moses and Aaron standing, 16:19. And had drawn up all the multitude against them to the door of the tabernacle, the glory of the Lord appeared to them all. 16:20. And the Lord speaking to Moses and Aaron, said: 16:21. Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may presently destroy them. 16:22. They fell flat on their face, and said: O most mighty, the God of the spirits of all flesh, for one man's sin shall thy wrath rage against all? 16:23. And the Lord said to Moses: 16:24. Command the whole people to separate themselves from the tents of Core and Dathan and Abiron. 16:25. And Moses arose, and went to Dathan and Abiron: and the ancients of Israel following him, 16:26. He said to the multitude: Depart from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be involved in their sins. 16:27. And when they were departed from their tents round about, Dathan and Abiron coming out stood in the entry of their pavilions with their wives and children, and all the people. 16:28. And Moses said: By this you shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all things that you see, and that I have not forged them of my own head: 16:29. If these men die the common death of men, and if they be visited with a plague, wherewith others also are wont to be visited, the Lord did not send me. 16:30. But if the Lord do a new thing, and the earth opening her mouth swallow them down, and all things that belong to them, and they go down alive into hell, you shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord. 16:31. And immediately as he had made an end of speaking, the earth broke asunder under their feet: 16:32. And opening her mouth, devoured them with their tents and all their substance. 16:33. And they went down alive into hell, the ground closing upon them, and they perished from among the people. 16:34. But all Israel, that was standing round about, fled at the cry of them that were perishing: saying: Lest perhaps the earth swallow us up also. 16:35. And a fire coming out from the Lord, destroyed the two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense. 16:36. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 16:37. Command Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to take up the censers that lie in the burning, and to scatter the fire of one side and the other: because they are sanctified 16:38. In the deaths of the sinners: and let him beat them into plates, and fasten them to the altar, because incense hath been offered in them to the Lord, and they are sanctified, that the children of Israel may see them for a sign and a memorial. 16:39. Then Eleazar the priest took the brazen censers, wherein they had offered, whom the burning fire had devoured, and beat them into plates, fastening them to the altar: 16:40. That the children of Israel might have for the time to come wherewith they should be admonished, that no stranger or any one that is not of the seed of Aaron should come near to offer incense to the Lord, lest he should suffer as Core suffered, and all his congregation, according as the Lord spoke to Moses. 16:41. The following day all the multitude of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying: You have killed the people of the Lord. 16:42. And when there arose a sedition, and the tumult increased, 16:43. Moses and Aaron fled to the tabernacle of the covenant. And when they were gone into it, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. 16:44. And the Lord said to Moses: 16:45. Get you out from the midst of this multitude, this moment will I destroy them. And as they were lying on the ground, 16:46. Moses said to Aaron: Take the censer, and putting fire in it from the altar, put incense upon it, and go quickly to the people to pray for them: for already wrath is gone out from the Lord, and the plague rageth. 16:47. When Aaron had done this, and had run to the midst of the multitude which the burning fire was now destroying, he offered the incense: 16:48. And standing between the dead and the living, he prayed for the people, and the plague ceased. 16:49. And the number of them that were slain was fourteen thousand and seven hundred men, besides them that had perished in the sedition of Core. 16:50. And Aaron returned to Moses to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant after the destruction was over. Numbers Chapter 17 The priesthood is confirmed to Aaron by the miracle of the blooming of his rod, which is kept for a monument in the tabernacle. 17:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 17:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod by their kindreds, of all the princes of the tribes, twelve rods, and write the name of every man upon his rod. 17:3. And the name of Aaron shall be for the tribe of Levi, and one rod shall contain all their families: 17:4. And thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the covenant before the testimony, where I will speak to thee. 17:5. Whomsoever of these I shall choose, his rod shall blossom: and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, wherewith they murmur against you. 17:6. And Moses spoke to the children of Israel: and all the princes gave him rods one for every tribe: and there were twelve rods besides the rod of Aaron. 17:7. And when Moses had Laid them up before the Lord in the tabernacle of the testimony: 17:8. He returned on the following day, and found that the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi, was budded: and that the buds swelling it hid bloomed blossoms, which spreading the leaves, were formed into almonds. The rod of Aaron for the house of Levi, was budded, etc. . .This rod of Aaron which thus miraculously brought forth fruit, was a figure of the blessed Virgin conceiving and bringing forth her Son without any prejudice to her virginity. 17:9. Moses therefore brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the children of Israel: and they saw, and every one received their rods. 17:10. And the Lord said to Moses: Carry back the rod of Aaron into the tabernacle of the testimony, that it may be kept there for a token of the rebellious children of Israel, and that their complaints may cease from me lest they die. 17:11. And Moses did as the Lord had commanded. 17:12. And the children of Israel said to Moses: Behold we are consumed, we all perish. 17:13. Whosoever approacheth to the tabernacle of the Lord, he dieth. Are we all to a man to be utterly destroyed? Numbers Chapter 18 The charge of the priests and of the Levites, and their portion. 18:1. And the Lord said to Aaron: Thou, and thy sons, and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the sins of your priesthood. Thou, and thy father's house with thee, shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary. . .That is, you shall be punished if, through negligence or want of due attention, you err in the discharge of the sacred functions for which you were ordained. 18:2. And take with thee thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, and the sceptre of thy father, and let them be ready in hand, and minister to thee: but thou and thy sons shall minister in the tabernacle of the testimony. 18:3. And the Levites shall watch to do thy commands, and about all the works of the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary nor the altar, lest both they die, and you also perish with them. 18:4. But let them be with thee, and watch in the charge of the tabernacle, and in all the ceremonies thereof. A stranger shall not join himself with you. 18:5. Watch ye in the charge of the sanctuary, and in the ministry of the altar: lest indignation rise upon the children of Israel. 18:6. I have given you your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel, and have delivered them for a gift to the Lord, to serve in the ministries of the tabernacle. 18:7. But thou and thy sons look ye to the priesthood: and all things that pertain to the service of the altar, and that are within the veil, shall be executed by the priests. If any stranger shall approach, he shall be slain. 18:8. And the Lord said to Aaron: Behold I have given thee the charge of my firstfruits. All things that are sanctified by the children of Israel, I have delivered to thee and to thy sons for the priestly office, by everlasting ordinances. 18:9. These therefore shalt thou take of the things that are sanctified, and are offered to the Lord. Every offering, and sacrifice, and whatsoever is rendered to me for sin and for trespass, and becometh holy of holies, shall be for thee and thy sons. 18:10. Thou shalt eat it in the sanctuary: the males only shall eat thereof, because it is a consecrated thing to thee. 18:11. But the firstfruits, which the children of Israel shall vow and offer, I have given to thee, and to thy sons, and to thy daughters, by a perpetual law. He that is clean in thy house, shall eat them. 18:12. All the best of the oil, and of the wine, and of the corn, whatsoever firstfruits they offer to the Lord, I have given them to thee. 18:13. All the firstripe of the fruits, that the ground bringeth forth, and which are brought to the Lord, shall be for thy use: he that is clean in thy house, shall eat them. 18:14. Every thing that the children of Israel shall give by vow, shall be thine. 18:15. Whatsoever is firstborn of all flesh, which they offer to the Lord, whether it be of men, or of beasts, shall belong to thee: only for the firstborn of man thou shalt take a price, and every beast that is unclean thou shalt cause to be redeemed, 18:16. And the redemption of it shall be after one month, for five sicles of silver, by the weight of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols. 18:17. But the firstling of a cow, and of a sheep and of a goat thou shalt not cause to be redeemed, because they are sanctified to the Lord. Their blood only thou shalt pour upon the altar, and their fat thou shalt burn for a most sweet odour to the Lord. 18:18. But the flesh shall fall to thy use, as the consecrated breast, and the right shoulder shall be thine. 18:19. All the firstfruits of the sanctuary which the children of Israel offer to the Lord, I have given to thee and to thy sons and daughters, by a perpetual ordinance. It is a covenant of salt for ever before the Lord, to thee and to thy sons. A covenant of salt. . .It is a proverbial expression, signifying a covenant not to be altered or corrupted; as salt is used to keep things from corruption; a covenant perpetual, like that by which it was appointed, that salt should be used in every sacrifice. Lev. 2. 18:20. And the Lord said to Aaron: You shall possess nothing in their land, neither shall you have a portion among them: I am thy portion and inheritance in the midst of the children of Israel. 18:21. And I have given to the sons of Levi all the tithes of Israel for a possession, for the ministry wherewith they serve me in the tabernacle of the covenant: 18:22. That the children of Israel may not approach any more to the tabernacle, nor commit deadly sin, Deadly sin. . .That is, sin which will bring death after it. 18:23. But only the sons of Levi may serve me in the tabernacle, and bear the sins of the people. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. They shall not possess any other thing, 18:24. But be content with the oblation or tithes, which I have separated for their uses and necessities. 18:25. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 18:26. Command the Levites, and declare unto them: When you shall receive of the children of Israel the tithes, which I have given you, offer the firstfruits of them to the Lord, that is to say, the tenth part of the tenth: 18:27. That it may be reckoned to you as an oblation of firstfruits, as well of the barnfloors as of the winepresses: 18:28. And of all the things of which you receive tithes, offer the firstfruits to the Lord, and give them to Aaron the priest. 18:29. All the things that you shall offer of the tithes, and shall separate for the gifts of the Lord, shall be the best and choicest things. 18:30. And thou shalt say to them: If you offer all the goodly and the better things of the tithes, it shall be reckoned to you as if you had given the firstfruits of the barnfloor and the winepress: 18:31. And you shall eat them in all your places, both you and your families: because it is your reward for the ministry, wherewith you serve in the tabernacle of the testimony. 18:32. And you shall not sin in this point, by reserving the choicest and fat things to yourselves, lest you profane the oblations of the children of Israel, and die. Numbers Chapter 19 The law of the sacrifice of the red cow, and the water of expiation. 19:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 19:2. This is the observance of the victim, which the Lord hath ordained. Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee a red cow of full age, in which there is no blemish, and which hath not carried the yoke: A red cow, etc. . .This red cow, offered in sacrifice for sin, and consumed with fire without the camp, with the ashes of which, mingled with water, the unclean were to be expiated and purified; was a figure of the passion of Christ, by whose precious blood applied to our souls in the holy sacraments, we are cleansed from our sins. 19:3. And you shall deliver her to Eleazar the priest, who shall bring her forth without the camp, and shall immolate her in the sight of all: 19:4. And dipping his finger in her blood, shall sprinkle it over against the door of the tabernacle seven times, 19:5. And shall burn her in the sight of all delivering up to the fire her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, and her dung. 19:6. The priest shall also take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet twice dyed, and cast it into the flame, with which the cow is consumed. 19:7. And then after washing his garments, and body, he shall enter into the camp, and shall be unclean until the evening. 19:8. He also that hath burned her, shall wash his garments, and his body, and shall be unclean until the evening. 19:9. And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the cow, and shall pour them forth without the camp in a most clean place, that they may be reserved for the multitude of the children of Israel, and for a water of aspersion: because the cow was burnt for sin. 19:10. And when he that carried the ashes of the cow, hath washed his garments, he shall be unclean until the evening. The children of Israel, and the strangers that dwell among them, shall observe this for a holy thing by a perpetual ordinance. 19:11. He that toucheth the corpse of a man, and is therefore unclean seven days, 19:12. Shall be sprinkled with this water on the third day, and on the seventh, and so shall be cleansed. If he were not sprinkled on the third day, he cannot be cleansed on the seventh. 19:13. Every one that toucheth the corpse of a man, and is not sprinkled with this mixture, shall profane the tabernacle of the Lord, and shall perish out of Israel: because he was not sprinkled with the water of expiation, he shall be unclean, and his uncleanness shall remain upon him. 19:14. This is the law of a man that dieth in a tent: All that go into his tent and all the vessels that are there, shall be unclean seven days. 19:15. The vessel that hath no cover, nor binding over it, shall be unclean. 19:16. If any man in the field touch the corpse of a man that was slain, or that died of himself, or his bone, or his grave, he shall be unclean seven days. 19:17. And they shall take of the ashes of the burning and of the sin offering, and shall pour living waters upon them into a vessel. 19:18. And a man that is clean shall dip hyssop in them, and shall sprinkle therewith all the tent, and all the furniture, and the men that are defiled with touching any such thing: 19:19. And in this manner he that is clean shall purify the unclean on the third and on the seventh day. And being expiated the seventh day, he shall wash both himself and his garments, and be unclean until the evening. 19:20. If any man be not expiated after this rite, his soul shall perish out of the midst of the church: because he hath profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, and was not sprinkled with the water of purification. 19:21. This precept shall be an ordinance for ever. He also that sprinkled the water, shall wash his garments. Every one that shall touch the waters of expiation, shall be unclean until the evening. 19:22. Whatsoever a person toucheth who is unclean, he shall make it unclean: and the person that toucheth any of these things, shall be unclean until the evening. Numbers Chapter 20 The death of Mary the sister of Moses. The people murmur for want of water: God giveth it them from the rock. The death of Aaron. 20:1. And the children of Israel, and all the multitude came into the desert of Sin, in the first month: and the people abode in Cades. And Mary died there, and was buried in the same place. 20:2. And the people wanting water, came together against Moses and Aaron: 20:3. And making a sedition, they said: Would God we had perished among our brethren before the Lord. 20:4. Why have you brought out the church of the Lord into the wilderness, that both we and our cattle should die? 20:5. Why have you made us come up out of Egypt, and have brought us into this wretched place which cannot be sowed, nor bringeth forth figs, nor vines, nor pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink? 20:6. And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord, and said. O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur. And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. 20:7. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 20:8. Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink. 20:9. Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him, 20:10. And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous: Can we bring you forth water out of this rock? 20:11. And when Moses bad lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank, The rock. . .This rock was a figure of Christ, and the water that issued out from the rock, of his precious blood, the source of all our good. 20:12. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them. You have not believed, etc. . .The fault of Moses and Aaron, on this occasion, was a certain diffidence and weakness of faith; not doubting of God's power or veracity; but apprehending the unworthiness of that rebellious and incredulous people, and therefore speaking with some ambiguity. 20:13. This is the Water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. The Water of contradiction. . .Or strife. Hebrew, Meribah. 20:14. In the mean time Moses sent messengers from Cades to the king of Edom, to say: Thus saith thy brother Israel: Thou knowest all the labour that hath come upon us: 20:15. In what manner our fathers went down into Egypt, and there we dwelt a long time, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers. 20:16. And how we cried to the Lord, and he heard us, and sent an angel, who hath brought us out of Egypt. Lo, we are now in the city of Cades, which is in the uttermost of thy borders, 20:17. And we beseech thee that we may have leave to pass through thy country. We will not go through the fields, nor through the vineyards, we will not drink the waters of thy wells, but we will go by the common highway, neither turning aside to the right hand, nor to the left, till we are past thy borders. 20:18. And Edom answered them: Thou shalt not pass by me: if thou dost I will come out armed against thee. 20:19. And the children of Israel said: We will go by the beaten way: and if we and our cattle drink of thy waters, we will give thee what is just: there shall be no difficulty in the price, only let us pass speedily. 20:20. But he answered: Thou shalt not pass. And immediately he came forth to meet them with an infinite multitude, and a strong hand, 20:21. Neither would he condescend to their desire to grant them passage through his borders. Wherefore Israel turned another way from him. 20:22. And when they had removed the camp from Cades, they came to mount Hor, which is in the borders of the land of Edom: 20:23. Where the Lord spoke to Moses: 20:24. Let Aaron, saith he, go to his people: for he shall not go into the land which I have given the children of Israel, because he was incredulous to my words, at the waters of contradiction. 20:25. Take Aaron and his son with him, and bring them up into mount Hor: 20:26. And when thou hast stripped the father of his vesture, thou shalt vest therewith Eleazar his son: Aaron shall be gathered to his people, and die there. 20:27. Moses did as the Lord had commanded: and they went up into mount Hor before all the multitude. 20:28. And when he had stripped Aaron of his vestments, he vested Eleazar his son with them. 20:29. And Aaron being dead in the top of the mountain, he came down with Eleazar. 20:30. And all the multitude seeing that Aaron was dead, mourned for him thirty days throughout all their families. Numbers Chapter 21 King Arad is overcome. The people murmur and are punished with fiery serpents: they are healed by the brazen serpent. They conquer the kings Sehon and Og. 21:1. And when king Arad the Chanaanite, who dwelt towards the south, had heard this, to wit, that Israel was come by the way of the spies, he fought against them, and overcoming them carried off their spoils. 21:2. But Israel binding himself by vow to the Lord, said: If thou wilt deliver thus people into my hand, I will utterly destroy their cities. 21:3. And the Lord heard the prayers of Israel, and delivered up the Chanaanite, and they cut them off and destroyed their cities: and they called the name of that place Horma, that is to say, Anathema. Anathema. . .That is, a thing devoted to utter destruction. 21:4. And they marched from mount Hor, by the way that leadeth to the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. And the people began to be weary of their journey and labour: 21:5. And speaking against God and Moses, they said: Why didst thou bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters: our soul now loatheth this very light food. Very light food. . .So they call the heavenly manna: thus worldlings loathe the things of heaven, for which they have no relish. 21:6. Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. Fiery serpents. . .They are so called, because they that were bitten by them were burnt with a violent heat. 21:7. Upon which they came to Moses, and said; We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee: pray that he may take away these serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 21:8. And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. 21:9. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed. A brazen serpent. . .This was a figure of Christ crucified, and of the efficacy of a lively faith in him, against the bites of the hellish serpent. John 3.14. 21:10. And the children of Israel setting forwards camped in Oboth. 21:11. And departing thence they pitched their tents in Jeabarim, in the wilderness, that faceth Moab toward the east. 21:12. And removing from thence, they came to the torrent Zared: 21:13. Which they left and encamped over against Arnon, which is in the desert and standeth out on the borders of the Amorrhite. For Arnon is the border of Moab, dividing the Moabites and the Amorrhites. 21:14. Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord: As he did in the Red Sea, so will he do in the streams of Arnon. The book of the wars, etc. . .An ancient book, which, like several others quoted in scripture, has been lost. 21:15. The rocks of the torrents were bowed down that they might rest in Ar, and lie down in the borders of the Moabites. 21:16. When they went from that place, the well appeared whereof the Lord said to Moses: Gather the people together, and I will give them water. 21:17. Then Israel sung this song: Let the well spring up. They sung thereto: 21:18. The well, which the princes dug, and the chiefs of the people prepared by the direction of the lawgiver, and with their staves. And they marched from the wilderness to Mathana. 21:19. From Mathana unto Nahaliel: from Nahaliel unto Bamoth. 21:20. From Bamoth, is a valley in the country of Moab, to the top of Phasga, which looked towards the desert. 21:21. And Israel sent messengers to Sehon king of the Amorrhites, saying: 21:22. I beseech thee that I may have leave to pass through thy land: we will not go aside into the fields or the vineyards, we will not drink waters of the wells, we will go the king's highway, till we be past thy borders. 21:23. And he would not grant that Israel should pass by his borders: but rather gathering an army, went forth to meet them in the desert, and came to Jasa and fought against them. 21:24. And he was slain by them with the edge of the sword, and they possessed his land from the Arnon unto the Jeboc, and to the confines of the children of Ammon: for the borders of the Ammonites, were kept with a strong garrison. 21:25. So Israel took all his cities, and dwelt in the cities of the Amorrhite, to wit, in Hesebon, and in the villages thereof. 21:26. Hesebon was the city of Sehon the king of the Amorrhites, who fought against the king of Moab: and took all the land, that had been of his dominion, as far as the Arnon. 21:27. Therefore it is said in the proverb: Come into Hesebon, let the city of Sehon be built and set up: 21:28. A fire is gone out of Hesebon, a flame from the city of Sehon, and hath consumed Ar of the Moabites, and the inhabitants of the high places of the Arnon. 21:29. Woe to thee Moab: thou art undone, O people of Chamos. He hath given his sons to flight, and his daughters into captivity to Sehon the king of the Amorrhites. 21:30. Their yoke is perished from Hesebon unto Dibon, they came weary to Nophe, and unto Medaba. 21:31. So Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorrhite. 21:32. And Moses sent some to take a view of Jazer: and they took the villages of it, and conquered the inhabitants. 21:33. And they turned themselves, and went up by the way of Basan, and Og the king of Basan came against them with all his people, to fight in Edrai. 21:34. And the Lord said to Moses: Fear him not, for I have delivered him and all his people, and his country into thy hand: and thou shalt do to him as thou didst to Sehon the king of the Amorrhites, the inhabitant of Hesebon. 21:35. So they slew him also with his sons, and all his people, not letting any one escape, and they possessed his land. Numbers Chapter 22 Balac, king of Moab, sendeth twice for Balaam to curse Israel. In his way Balaam is rebuked by an angel. 22:1. And they went forward and encamped in the plains of Moab, over against where Jericho is situate beyond the Jordan. 22:2. And Balac the son of Sephor, seeing all that Israel had done to the Amorrhite, 22:3. And that the Moabites were in great fear of him, and were not able to sustain his assault, 22:4. He said to the elders of Madian: So will this people destroy all that dwell in our borders, as the ox is wont to eat the grass to the very roots. Now he was at that time king in Moab. 22:5. He sent therefore messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, a soothsayer, who dwelt by the river of the land of the children of Ammon, to call him, and to say: Behold a people is come out of Egypt, that hath covered the face of the earth, sitting over against me. 22:6. Come therefore, and curse this people, because it is mightier than I: if by any means I may beat them and drive them out of my land: for I know that he whom thou shalt bless is blessed, and he whom thou shalt curse is cursed. 22:7. And the ancients of Moab, and the elders of Madian, went with the price of divination in their hands. And where they were come to Balaam, and had told him all the words of Balac: 22:8. He answered: Tarry here this night and I will answer whatsoever the Lord shall say to me. And while they stayed with Balaam, God came and said to him: 22:9. What mean these men that are with thee? 22:10. He answered: Balac the son of Sephor king of the Moabites hath sent to me, 22:11. Saying: Behold a people that is come out of Egypt, hath covered the face of the land: come and curse them, if by any means I may fight with them and drive them away. 22:12. And God said to Balaam: Thou shalt not go with them, nor shalt thou curse the people: because it is blessed. 22:13. And he rose in the morning and said to the princes: Go into your country, because the Lord hath forbid me to come with you. 22:14. The princes returning, said to Balac: Balaam would not come with us. 22:15. Then he sent many more and more noble than he had sent before: 22:16. Who, when they were come to Balaam, said: Thus saith Balac the son of Sephor, Delay not to come to me: 22:17. For I am ready to honour thee, and will give thee whatsoever thou wilt: come and curse this people. 22:18. Balaam answered: If Balac would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot alter the word of the Lord my God, to speak either more or less. 22:19. I pray you to stay here this night also, that I may know what the Lord will answer me once more. To stay. . .His desiring them to stay, after he had been fully informed already that it was not God's will he should go, came from the inclination he had to gratify Balac, for the sake of worldly gain. And this perverse disposition God punished by permitting him to go (though not to curse the people as he would willingly have done), and suffering him to fall still deeper and deeper into sin, till he came at last to give that abominable counsel against the people of God, which ended in his own destruction. So sad a thing it is to indulge a passion for money. 22:20. God therefore came to Balaam in the night, and said to him: If these men be come to call thee, arise and go with them: yet so, that thou do what I shall command thee. 22:21. Balaam arose in the morning, and saddling his ass went with them. 22:22. And God was angry. And an angel of the Lord stood in the way against Balaam, who sat on the ass, and had two servants with him. 22:23. The ass seeing the angel standing in the way, with a drawn sword, turned herself out of the way, and went into the field. And when Balaam beat her, and had a mind to bring her again to the way, 22:24. The angel stood in a narrow place between two walls, wherewith the vineyards were enclosed. 22:25. And the ass seeing him, thrust herself close to the wall, and bruised the foot of the rider. But he beat her again: 22:26. And nevertheless the angel going on to a narrow place, where there was no way to turn aside either to the right hand or to the left, stood to meet him. 22:27. And when the ass saw the angel standing, she fell under the feet of the rider: who being angry beat her sides more vehemently with a staff. 22:28. And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said: What have I done to thee? Why strikest thou me, lo, now this third time? Opened the mouth, etc. . .The angel moved the tongue of the ass, to utter these speeches, to rebuke, by the mouth of a brute beast, the brutal fury and folly of Balaam. 22:29. Balaam answered: Because thou hast deserved it, and hast served me ill: I would I had a sword that I might kill thee. 22:30. The ass said: Am not I thy beast, on which thou hast been always accustomed to ride until this present day? tell me if I ever did the like thing to thee. But he said: Never. 22:31. Forthwith the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel standing in the way with a drawn sword, and he worshipped him falling flat on the ground. 22:32. And the angel said to him: Why beatest thou thy ass these three times? I am come to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse, and contrary to me: Perverse. . .Because thy inclinations are wicked in being willing for the sake of gain to curse the people of whom I am the guardian. 22:33. And unless the ass had turned out of the way, giving place to me who stood against thee, I had slain thee, and she should have lived. 22:34. Balaam said: I have sinned, not knowing that thou didst stand against me: and now if it displease thee that I go, I will return. 22:35. The angel said: Go with these men, and see thou speak no other thing than what I shall command thee. He went therefore with the princes. 22:36. And when Balac heard it he came forth to meet him in a town of the Moabites, that is situate in the uttermost borders of Arnon. 22:37. And he said to Balaam: I sent messengers to call thee, why didst thou not come immediately to me? was it because I am not able to reward thy coming? 22:38. He answered him: Lo, here I am: shall I have power to speak any other thing but that which God shall put in my mouth? 22:39. So they went on together, and came into a city, that was in the uttermost borders of his kingdom. 22:40. And when Balac had killed oxen and sheep, he sent presents to Balaam, and to the princes that were with him. 22:41. And when morning was come, he brought him to the high places of Baal, and he beheld the uttermost part of the people. Numbers Chapter 23 Balaam, instead of cursing Israel, is obliged to bless them, and prophesy good things of them. 23:1. And Balaam said to Balac: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams. 23:2. And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they laid together a calf and a ram upon every altar. 23:3. And Balaam said to Balac: Stand a while by thy burnt offering, until I go, to see if perhaps the Lord will meet me, and whatsoever he shall command, I will speak to thee. 23:4. And when he was gone with speed, God met him. And Balaam speaking to him, said: I have erected seven altars, and have laid on everyone a calf and a ram. 23:5. And the Lord put the word in his mouth, and said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou speak. 23:6. Returning he found Balac standing by his burnt offering, with all the princes of the Moabites: 23:7. And taking up his parable, he said: Balac king of the Moabites hath brought me from Aram, from the mountains of the east: Come, said he, and curse Jacob: make haste and detest Israel. 23:8. How shall I curse him, whom God hath not cursed? By what means should I detest him, whom the Lord detesteth not? 23:9. I shall see him from the tops of the rocks, and shall consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. 23:10. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and know the number of the stock of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them. 23:11. And Balac said to Balaam: What is this that thou dost? I sent for thee to curse my enemies: and thou contrariwise blessest them. 23:12. He answered him: Can I speak any thing else but what the Lord commandeth? 23:13. Balac therefore said: Come with me to another place from whence thou mayest see part of Israel, and canst not see them all: curse them from thence. 23:14. And when he had brought him to a high place, upon the top of mount Phasga, Balaam built seven altars, and laying on every one a calf and a ram, 23:15. He said to Balac: Stand here by thy burnt offering while I go to meet him. 23:16. And when the Lord had met him, and had put the word in his mouth, he said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou say to him. 23:17. Returning he found him standing by his burnt sacrifice, and the princes of the Moabites with him. And Balac said to him: What hath the Lord spoken? 23:18. But he taking up his parable, said: Stand, O Balac, and give ear: hear, thou son of Sephor: 23:19. God is not a man, that he should lie, nor is the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said then, and will he not do? hath he spoken, and will he not fulfil? 23:20. I was brought to bless, the blessing I am not able to hinder. 23:21. There is no idol in Jacob, neither is there an image god to be seen in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the victory of the king in him. 23:22. God hath brought him out of Egypt, whose strength is like to the rhinoceros. 23:23. There is no soothsaying in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. In their times it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God hath wrought. 23:24. Behold the people shall rise up as a lioness, and shall lift itself up as a lion: it shall not lie down till it devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain. 23:25. And Balac said to Balaam: Neither curse, nor bless him. 23:26. And he said: Did I not tell thee, that whatsoever God should command me, that I would do? 23:27. And Balac said to him: Come and I will bring thee to another place; if peradventure it please God that thou mayest curse them from thence. 23:28. And when he had brought him upon the top of mount Phogor, which looketh towards the wilderness, 23:29. Balaam said to him: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams. 23:30. Balac did as Balaam had said: and he laid on every altar, a calf and a ram. Numbers Chapter 24 Balaam still continues to prophesy good things in favour of Israel. 24:1. And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord that he should bless Israel, he went not as he had gone before, to seek divination: but setting his face towards the desert, 24:2. And lifting up his eyes, he saw Israel abiding in their tents by their tribes: and the spirit of God rushing upon him, 24:3. He took up his parable and said: Balaam the son of Beor hath said: The man hath said, whose eye is stopped up: 24:4. The bearer of the words of God hath said, he that hath beheld the vision of the Almighty, he that falleth, and so his eyes are opened: 24:5. How beautiful are thy tabernacles O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel! 24:6. As woody valleys, as watered gardens near the rivers, as tabernacles which the Lord hath pitched, as cedars by the waterside. 24:7. Water shall flow out of his bucket, and his seed shall be in many waters. For Agag his king shall be removed, and his kingdom shall be taken away. 24:8. God hath brought him out of Egypt, whose strength is like to the rhinoceros. They shall devour the nations that are his enemies, and break their bones, and pierce them with arrows. 24:9. Lying down he hath slept as a lion, and as a lioness, whom none shall dare to rouse. He that blesseth thee, shall also himself be blessed: he that curseth thee shall be reckoned accursed. 24:10. And Balac being angry against Balaam, clapped his hands together and said: I called thee to curse my enemies, and thou on the contrary hast blessed them three times. 24:11. Return to thy place. I had determined indeed greatly to honour thee, but the Lord hath deprived thee of the honour designed for thee. 24:12. Balaam made answer to Balac: Did I not say to thy messengers, whom thou sentest to me: 24:13. If Balac would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to utter any thing of my own head either good or evil: but whatsoever the Lord shall say, that I will speak? 24:14. But yet going to my people, I will give thee counsel, what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. 24:15. Therefore taking up his parable, again he said: Balaam the son of Beor hath said: The man whose eye is stopped up, hath said: 24:16. The hearer of the words of God hath said, who knoweth the doctrine of the Highest, and seeth the visions of the Almighty, who falling hath his eyes opened: 24:17. I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near. A STAR SHALL RISE out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel: and shall strike the chiefs of Moab, and shall waste all the children of Seth 24:18. And he shall possess Idumea: the inheritance of Seir shall come to their enemies, but Israel shall do manfully. 24:19. Out of Jacob shall he come that shall rule, and shall destroy the remains of the city. 24:20. And when he saw Amalec, he took up his parable, and said: Amalec the beginning of nations, whose latter ends shall be destroyed. 24:21. He saw also the Cinite: and took up his parable, and said: Thy habitation indeed is strong: but though thou build thy nest in a rock, 24:22. And thou be chosen of the stock of Cin, how long shalt thou be able to continue? For Assur shall take thee captive. 24:23. And taking up his parable, again he said: Alas, who shall live when God shall do these things? 24:24. They shall come in galleys from Italy, they shall overcome the Assyrians, and shall waste the Hebrews, and at the last they themselves also shall perish. 24:25. And Balaam rose, and returned to his place: Balac also returned the way that he came. Numbers Chapter 25 The people fall into fornication and idolatry; for which twenty-four thousand are slain. The zeal of Phinees. 25:1. And Israel at that time abode in Settim, and the people committed fornication with the daughters of Moab, 25:2. Who called them to their sacrifices. And they ate of them, and adored their gods. 25:3. And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry, Initiated to Beelphegor. . .That is, they took to the worship of Beelphegor, an obscene idol of the Moabites, and were consecrated, as it were, to him. 25:4. Said to Moses: Take all the princes of the people, and hang them up on gibbets against the sun: that my fury may be turned away from Israel. 25:5. And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Let every man kill his neighbours, that have been initiated to Beelphegor. 25:6. And behold one of the children of Israel went in before his brethren to a harlot of Madian, in the sight of Moses and of all the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle. 25:7. And when Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose up from the midst of the multitude, and taking a dagger, 25:8. Went in after the Israelite into the brothel house, and thrust both of them through together, to wit, the man and the woman in the genital parts. And the scourge ceased from the children of Israel. 25:9. And there were slain four and twenty thousand men. 25:10. And the Lord said to Moses: 25:11. Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel: because he was moved with my zeal against them, that I myself might not destroy the children of Israel in my zeal. 25:12. Therefore say to him: behold I give him the peace of my covenant, 25:13. And the covenant of the priesthood for ever shall be both to him and his seed, because he hath been zealous for his God, and hath made atonement for the wickedness of the children of Israel. 25:14. And the name of the Israelite, that was slain with the woman of Madian, was Zambri the son of Salu, a prince of the kindred and tribe of Simeon. 25:15. And the Madianite woman, that was slain with him, was called Cozbi the daughter of Sur, a most noble prince among the Madianites. 25:16. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 25:17. Let the Madianites find you their enemies, and slay you them: 25:18. Because they also have acted like enemies against you, and have guilefully deceived you by the idol Phogor, and Cozbi their sister, a daughter of a prince of Madian, who was slain in the day of the plague for the sacrilege of Phogor. Numbers Chapter 26 The people are again numbered by their tribes and families. 26:1. After the blood of the guilty was shed, the Lord said to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron, the priest: 26:2. Number the whole sum of the children of Israel from twenty years old and upward, by their houses and kindreds, all that are able to go forth to war. 26:3. Moses therefore and Eleazar the priest, being in the plains of Moab upon the Jordan over against Jericho, spoke to them that were 26:4. From twenty years old and upward, as the Lord had commanded: and this is the number of them: 26:5. Ruben the firstborn of Israel. His sons were Henoch, of whom is the family of the Henochites: and Phallu, of whom is the family of the Phalluites: 26:6. And Hesron, of whom is the family of the Hesronites: and Charmi, of whom is the family of the Charmites. 26:7. These are the families of the stock of Ruben: whose number was found to be forty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty. 26:8. The son of Phallu was Eliab. 26:9. His sons, were Namuel and Dathan and Abiron. These are Dathan and Abiron the princes of the people, that rose against Moses and Aaron in the sedition of Core, when they rebelled against the Lord: 26:10. And the earth opening her mouth swallowed up Core, many others dying, when the fire burned two hundred and fifty men. And there was a great miracle wrought, 26:11. That when Core perished, his sons did not perish. 26:12. The sons of Simeon by their kindreds: Namuel, of him is the family of the Namuelites: Jamin, of him is the family of the Jaminites: Jachim, of him is the family of the Jachimites: 26:13. Zare, of him is the family of the Zarites: Saul, of him is the family of the Saulites. 26:14. These are the families of the stock of Simeon, of which the whole number was twenty-two thousand two hundred. 26:15. The sons of Gad by their kindreds: Sephon, of him is the family of the Sephonites: Aggi, of him is the family of the Aggites: Suni, of him is the family of the Sunites: 26:16. Ozni, of him is the family of the Oznites: Her, of him is the family of the Herites: 26:17. Arod, of him is the family of the Arodites: Ariel, of him is the family of the Arielites. 26:18. These are the families of Gad, of which the whole number was forty thousand five hundred. 26:19. The sons of Juda, Her and Onan, who both died in the land of Chanaan. 26:20. And the sons of Juda by their kindreds were: Sela, of whom is the family of the Selaites: Phares, of whom is the family of the Pharesites: Zare, of whom is the family of the Zarites. 26:21. Moreover the sons of Phares were: Hesron, of whom is the family of the Hesronites: and Hamul, of whom is the family of the Hamulites. 26:22. These are the families of Juda, of which the whole number was seventy-six thousand five hundred. 26:23. The sons of Issachar, by their kindreds: Thola of whom is the family of the Tholaites: Phua, of whom is the family of the Phuaites: 26:24. Jasub, of whom is the family of the Jasubites: Semran, of whom is the family of the Semranites. 26:25. These are the kindreds of Issachar, whose number was sixty-four thousand three hundred. 26:26. The sons of Zabulon by their kindreds: Sared, of whom is the family of the Saredites: Elon, of whom is the family of the Elonites: Jalel, of whom is the family of the Jalelites. 26:27. These are the kindreds of Zabulon, whose number was sixty thousand five hundred. 26:28. The sons of Joseph by their kindred, Manasses and Ephraim. 26:29. Of Manasses was born Machir, of whom is the family of the Machirites. Machir begot Galaad, of whom is the family of the Galaadites. 26:30. Galaad had sons: Jezer, of whom is the family of the Jezerites: and Helec, of whom is the family of the Helecites: 26:31. And Asriel, of whom is the family of the Asrielites: and Sechem, of whom is the family of the Sechemites: 26:32. And Semida, of whom is the family of the Semidaites: and Hepher, of whom is the family of the Hepherites. 26:33. And Hepher was the father of Salphaad, who had no sons, but only daughters, whose names are these: Maala, and Noa, and Hegla, and Melcha, and Thersa. 26:34. These are the families of Manasses, and the number of them fifty-two thousand seven hundred. 26:35. And the sons of Ephraim by their kindreds were these: Suthala, of whom is the family of the Suthalaites: Becher, of whom is the family of the Becherites: Thehen, of whom is the family of the Thehenites. 26:36. Now the son of Suthala was Heran, of whom is the family of the Heranites. 26:37. These are the kindreds of the sons of Ephraim: whose number was thirty-two thousand five hundred. 26:38. These are the sons of Joseph by their families. The sons of Benjamin in their kindreds: Bela, of whom is the family of the Belaites: Asbel, of whom is the family of the Asbelites: Ahiram, of whom is the family of the Ahiramites: 26:39. Supham, of whom is the family of the Suphamites: Hupham, of whom is the family of the Huphamites. 26:40. The sons of Bela: Hered, and Noeman. Of Hered, is the family of the Heredites: of Noeman, the family of the Noemanites. 26:41. These are the sons of Benjamin by their kindreds, whose number was forty-five thousand six hundred. 26:42. The sons of Dan by their kindreds: Suham, of whom is the family of the Suhamites: These are the kindreds of Dan by their families. 26:43. All were Suhamites, whose number was sixty-four thousand four hundred. 26:44. The sons of Aser by their kindreds: Jemna, of whom is the family of the Jemnaites: Jessui, of whom is the family of the Jessuites: Brie, of whom is the family of the Brieites. 26:45. The sons of Brie: Heber, of whom is the family of the Heberites: and Melchiel, of whom is the family of the Melchielites. 26:46. And the name of the daughter of Aser, was Sara. 26:47. These are the kindreds of the sons of Aser, and their number fifty-three thousand four hundred. 26:48. The sons of Nephtali by their kindreds: Jesiel, of whom is the family of the Jesielites: Guni, of whom is the family of the Gunites: 26:49. Jeser, of whom is the family of the Jeserites: Sellem, of whom is the family of the Sellemites. 26:50. These are the kindreds of the sons of Nephtali by their families: whose number was forty-five thousand four hundred. 26:51. This is the sum of the children of Israel, that were reckoned up, six hundred and one thousand seven hundred and thirty. 26:52. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 26:53. To these shall the land be divided for their possessions according to the number of names. 26:54. To the greater number thou shalt give a greater portion, and to the fewer a less: to every one, as they have now been reckoned up, shall a possession be delivered: 26:55. Yet so that by lot the land be divided to the tribe and families. 26:56. Whatsoever shall fall by lot, that shall be taken by the more, or the fewer. 26:57. This also is the number of the sons of Levi by their families: Gerson, of whom is the family of the Gersonites: Caath, of whom is the family of the Caathites: Merari, of whom is the family of the Merarites. 26:58. These are the families of Levi: The family of Lobni, the family of Hebroni, the family of Core. Now Caath begot Amram: 26:59. Who had to wife Jochabed the daughter of Levi, who was born to him in Egypt. She bore to her husband Amram sons, Aaron and Moses, and Mary their sister. 26:60. Of Aaron were born Nadab and Abiu, and Eleazar and Ithamar: 26:61. Of whom Nadab and Abiu died, when they had offered the strange fire before the Lord. 26:62. And all that were numbered, were twenty-three thousand males from one month old and upward: for they were not reckoned up among the children of Israel, neither was a possession given to them with the rest. 26:63. This is the number of the children of Israel, that were enrolled by Moses and Eleazar the priest, in the plains of Moab upon the Jordan, over against Jericho. 26:64. Among whom there was not one of them that were numbered before by Moses and Aaron in the desert of Sinai. 26:65. For the Lord had foretold that they should die in the wilderness. And none remained of them, but Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun. Numbers Chapter 27 The law of inheritance. Josue is appointed to succeed Moses. 27:1. Then came the daughters of Salphaad, the son of Hepher, the son of Galaad, the son of Machir, the son of Manasses, who was the son of Joseph: and their names are Maala, and Noa, and Hegla, and Melcha, and Thersa. 27:2. And they stood before Moses and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the people at the door of the tabernacle of the covenant, and said: 27:3. Our father died in the desert, and was not in the sedition, that was raised against the Lord under Core, but he died in his own sin: and he had no male children. Why is his name taken away out of his family, because he had no son? Give us a possession among the kinsmen of our father. 27:4. And Moses referred their cause to the judgment of the Lord. 27:5. And the Lord said to him: 27:6. The daughters of Salphaad demand a just thing: Give them a possession among their father's kindred, and let them succeed him in his inheritance. 27:7. And to the children of Israel thou shalt speak these things: 27:8. When a man dieth without a son, his inheritance shall pass to his daughter. 27:9. If he have no daughter, his brethren shall succeed him. 27:10. And if he have no brethren, you shall give the inheritance to his father's brethren. 27:11. But if he have no uncles by the father, the inheritance shall be given to them that are the next akin. And this shall be to the children of Israel sacred by a perpetual law, as the Lord hath commanded Moses. 27:12. The Lord also said to Moses: Go up into this mountain Abarim, and view from thence the land which I will give to the children of Israel. 27:13. And when thou shalt have seen it, thou also shalt go to thy people, as thy brother Aaron is gone: 27:14. Because you offended me in the desert of Sin in the contradiction of the multitude, neither would you sanctify me before them at the waters. These are the waters of contradiction in Cades of the desert of Sin. 27:15. And Moses answered him: 27:16. May the Lord the God of the spirits of all flesh provide a man, that may be over this multitude: 27:17. And may go out and in before them, and may lead them out, or bring them in: lest the people of the Lord be as sheep without a shepherd. 27:18. And the Lord said to him: take Josue the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and put thy hand upon him. 27:19. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest and all the multitude: 27:20. And thou shalt give him precepts in the sight of all, and part of thy glory, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may hear him. 27:21. If any thing be to be done, Eleazar the priest shall consult the Lord for him. He and all the children of Israel with him, and the rest of the multitude shall go out and go in at his word. 27:22. Moses did as the Lord had commanded. And, when he had taken Josue, he set him before Eleazar the priest, and all the assembly of the people, 27:23. And laying his hands on his head, he repeated all things that the Lord had commanded. Numbers Chapter 28 Sacrifices are appointed as well for every day as for sabbaths, and other festivals. 28:1. The Lord also said to Moses: 28:2. Command the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: Offer ye my oblation and my bread, and burnt sacrifice of most sweet odour, in their due seasons. 28:3. These are the sacrifices which you shall offer: Two lambs of a year old without blemish every day for the perpetual holocaust: 28:4. One you shall offer in the mornings, and the other in the evening: 28:5. And the tenth part of an ephi of flour, which shall be tempered with the, purest oil, of the measure of the fourth part of a hin. 28:6. It is the continual holocaust which you offered in mount Sinai for a most sweet odour of a sacrifice by fire to the Lord. 28:7. And for a libation you shall offer of wine the fourth part of a hin for every lamb in the sanctuary of the Lord. 28:8. And you shall offer the other lamb in like manner in the evening according to all the rites of the morning sacrifice, and of the libations thereof, an oblation of most sweet odour to the Lord. 28:9. And on the sabbath day you shall offer two lambs of a year old without blemish, and two tenths of flour tempered with oil in sacrifice, and the libations, 28:10. Which regularly are poured out every sabbath for the perpetual holocaust. 28:11. And on the first day of the month you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord, two calves of the herd, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, without blemish, 28:12. And three tenths of flour tempered with oil in sacrifice for every calf: and two tenths of flour tempered with oil for every ram: 28:13. And the tenth of a tenth of flour tempered with oil in sacrifice for every lamb. It is a holocaust of most sweet odour and an offering by fire to the Lord. 28:14. And these shall be the libations of wine that are to be poured out for every victim: Half a hin for every calf, a third for a ram, and a fourth for a lamb. This shall be the holocaust for every month, as they succeed one another in the course of the year. 28:15. A buck goat also shall be offered to the Lord for a sin offering over and above the perpetual holocaust with its libations. 28:16. And in the first month, on the four tenth day of the month, shall be the phase of the Lord, 28:17. And on the fifteenth day the solemn feast: seven days shall they eat unleavened bread. 28:18. And the first day of them shall be venerable and holy: you shall not do any servile work therein. 28:19. And you shall offer a burnt sacrifice a holocaust to the Lord, two calves of the herd, one ram, seven lambs of a year old, without blemish: 28:20. And for the sacrifice of every one three tenths of flour which shall be tempered with oil to every calf, and two tenths to every ram, 28:21. And the tenth of a tenth, to every lamb, that is to say, to all the seven lambs: 28:22. And one buck goat for sin, to make atonement for you, 28:23. Besides the morning holocaust which you shall always offer. 28:24. So shall you do every day of the seven days for the food of the fire, and for a most sweet odour to the Lord, which shall rise from the holocaust, and from the libations of each. 28:25. The seventh day also shall be most solemn and holy unto you, you shall do no servile work therein. 28:26. The day also of firstfruits, when after the weeks are accomplished, you shall offer new fruits to the Lord, shall be venerable and holy: you shall do no servile work therein. 28:27. And you shall offer a holocaust for a most sweet odour to the Lord, two calves of the herd, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, without blemish: 28:28. And in the sacrifices of them three tenths of flour tempered with oil to every calf, two to every ram, 28:29. The tenth of a tenth to every lamb, which in all are seven lambs: a buck goat also, 28:30. Which is slain for expiation: besides the perpetual holocaust and the libations thereof. 28:31. You shall offer them all without blemish with their libations. Numbers Chapter 29 Sacrifices for the festivals of the seventh month. 29:1. The first day also of the seventh month shall be venerable and holy unto you; you shall do no servile work therein, because it is the day of the sounding and of trumpets. 29:2. And you shall offer a holocaust for a most sweet odour to the Lord, one calf of the herd, one ram and seven lambs of a year old, without blemish. 29:3. And for their sacrifices, three tenths of flour tempered with oil to every calf, two tenths to a ram, 29:4. One tenth to a lamb, which in all are seven lambs: 29:5. And a buck goat for sin, which is offered for the expiation of the people, 29:6. Besides the holocaust of the first day of the month with the sacrifices thereof, and the perpetual holocaust with the accustomed libations. With the same ceremonies you shall offer a burnt sacrifice for a most sweet odour to the Lord. 29:7. The tenth day also of this seventh month shall be holy and venerable unto you, and you shall afflict your souls; you shall do no servile work therein. 29:8. And you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord for a most sweet odour, one calf of the herd, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:9. And for their sacrifices, three tenths of flour tempered with oil to every calf, two tenths to a ram, 29:10. The tenth of a tenth to every lamb, which are in all seven lambs: 29:11. And a buck goat for sin, besides the things that are wont to be offered for sin, for expiation, and for the perpetual holocaust with their sacrifice and libations. 29:12. And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which shall be unto you holy and venerable, you shall do no servile work, but shall celebrate a solemnity to the Lord seven days. 29:13. And you shall offer a holocaust for a most sweet odour to the Lord, thirteen calves of the herd, two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:14. And for their libations three tenths of flour tempered with oil to every calf, being in all thirteen calves: and two tenths to each ram, being two rams, 29:15. And the tenth of a tenth to every lamb, being in all fourteen lambs: 29:16. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:17. On the second day you shall offer twelve calves of the herd, two rams and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:18. And the sacrifices and the libations for every one, for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall duly celebrate: 29:19. And a buck goat for a sin offering besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:20. The third day you shall offer eleven calves, two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:21. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall offer according to the rite: 29:22. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice, and the libation thereof. 29:23. The fourth day you shall offer ten calves, two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:24. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall celebrate in right manner: 29:25. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:26. The fifth day you shall offer nine calves, two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:27. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall celebrate according to the rite: 29:28. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:29. The sixth day you shall offer eight calves, two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:30. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall celebrate according to the rite: 29:31. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:32. The seventh day you shall offer seven calves and two rams, and fourteen lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:33. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall celebrate according to the rite: 29:34. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:35. On the eighth day, which is most solemn, you shall do no servile work: 29:36. But you shall offer a holocaust for a most sweet odour to the Lord, one calf, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, without blemish: 29:37. And the sacrifices and the libations of every one for the calves and for the rams and for the lambs you shall celebrate according to the rite: 29:38. And a buck goat for sin, besides the perpetual holocaust, and the sacrifice and the libation thereof. 29:39. These things shall you offer to the Lord in your solemnities: besides your vows and voluntary oblations for holocaust, for sacrifice, for libation, and for victims of peace offerings. Numbers Chapter 30 Of vows and oaths: and their obligation. 30:1. And Moses told the children of Israel all that the Lord had commanded him: 30:2. And he said to the princes of the tribes of the children of Israel: This is the word that the Lord hath commanded: 30:3. If any man make a vow to the Lord, or bind himself by an oath: he shall not make his word void but shall fulfil all that he promised. 30:4. If a woman vow any thing, and bind herself by an oath, being in her father's house, and but yet a girl in age: if her father knew the vow that she hath promised, and the oath wherewith she hath bound her soul, and held his peace, she shall be bound by the vow: 30:5. Whatsoever she promised and swore, she shall fulfil in deed. 30:6. But if her father, immediately as soon as he heard it, gainsaid it, both her vows and her oaths shall be void, neither shall she be bound to what she promised, because her father hath gainsaid it. 30:7. If she have a husband, and shall vow any thing, and the word once going out of her mouth shall bind her soul by an oath, 30:8. The day that her husband shall hear it, and not gainsay it, she shall be bound to the vow, and shall give whatsoever she promised. 30:9. But if as soon as he heareth he gainsay it, and make her promises and the words wherewith she had bound her soul of no effect: the Lord will forgive her. 30:10. The widow, and she that is divorced, shall fulfil whatsoever they vow. 30:11. If the wife in the house of her husband, hath bound herself by vow and by oath, 30:12. If her husband hear, and hold his peace, and doth not disallow the promise, she shall accomplish whatsoever she had promised. 30:13. But if forthwith he gainsay it, she shall not be bound by the promise: because her husband gainsaid it, and the Lord will be merciful to her. 30:14. If she vow and bind herself by oath, to afflict her soul by fasting, or abstinence from other things, it shall depend on the will of her husband, whether she shall do it, or not do it. 30:15. But if the husband hearing it hold his peace, and defer the declaring his mind till another day: whatsoever she had vowed and promised, she shall fulfil: because immediately as he heard it, he held his peace. 30:16. But if he gainsay it after that he knew it, he shall bear her iniquity. 30:17. These are the laws which the Lord appointed to Moses between the husband and the wife, between the father and the daughter that is as yet but a girl in age, or that abideth in her father's house. Numbers Chapter 31 The Madianites are slain for having drawn the people of Israel into sin. The dividing of the booty. 31:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 31:2. Revenge first the children of Israel on the Madianites, and so thou shalt be gathered to thy people. 31:3. And Moses forthwith said: Arm of you men to fight, who may take the revenge of the Lord on the Madianites. 31:4. Let a thousand men be chosen out of every tribe of Israel to be sent to the war. 31:5. And they gave a thousand of every tribe, that is to say, twelve thousand men well appointed for battle. 31:6. And Moses sent them with Phinees the son of Eleazar the priest, and he delivered to him the holy vessels, and the trumpets to sound. 31:7. And when they had fought against the Madianites and had overcome them, they slew all the men. 31:8. And their kings Evi, and Recem, and Sur, and Hur, and Rebe, five princes of the nation: Balaam also the son of Beor they killed with the sword. 31:9. And they took their women, and their children captives, and all their cattle, and all their goods: and all their possessions they plundered: 31:10. And all their cities, and their villages, and castles, they burned. 31:11. And they carried away the booty, and all that they had taken both of men and of beasts. 31:12. And they brought them to Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and to all the multitude of the children of Israel. But the rest of the things for use they carried to the camp on the plains of Moab, beside the Jordan over against Jericho. 31:13. And Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the princes of the synagogue went forth to meet them without the camp. 31:14. And Moses being angry with the chief officers of the army, the tribunes, and the centurions that were come from the battle, 31:15. Said: Why have you saved the women? 31:16. Are not these they, that deceived the children of Israel by the counsel of Balaam, and made you transgress against the Lord by the sin of Phogor, for which also the people was punished? The sin of Phogor. . .The sin committed in the worship of Beelphegor. 31:17. Therefore kill all that are of the male sex, even of the children: and put to death the women, that have carnally known men. Of children. . .Women and children, ordinarily speaking, were not to be killed in war, Deut. 20.14. But the great Lord of life and death was pleased to order it otherwise in the present case, in detestation of the wickedness of this people, who by the counsel of Balaam, had sent their women among the Israelites on purpose to draw them from God. 31:18. But the girls, and all the women that are virgins save for yourselves: 31:19. And stay without the camp seven days. He that hath killed a man, or touched one that is killed, shall be purified the third day and the seventh day. 31:20. And of all the spoil, every garment, or vessel, or any thing made for use, of the skins, or hair of goats, or of wood, shall be purified. 31:21. Eleazar also the priest spoke to the men of the army, that had fought, in this manner: This is the ordinance of the law, which the Lord hath commanded Moses: 31:22. Gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, 31:23. And all that may pass through the fire, shall be purified by fire, but whatsoever cannot abide the fire, shall be sanctified with the water of expiation: 31:24. And you shall wash your garments the seventh day, and being purified, you shall afterwards enter into the camp. 31:25. And the Lord said to Moses: 31:26. Take the sum of the things that were taken both of man and beast, thou and Eleazar the priest and the princes of the multitude: 31:27. And thou shalt divide the spoil equally, between them that fought and went out to the war, and between the rest of the multitude. 31:28. And thou shalt separate a portion to the Lord from them that fought and were in the battle, one soul of five hundred as well of persons as of oxen and asses and sheep. 31:29. And thou shalt give it to Eleazar the priest, because they are the firstfruits of the Lord. 31:30. Out of the moiety also of the children of Israel thou shalt take the fiftieth head of persons, and of oxen, and asses, and sheep, and of all beasts, and thou shalt give them to the Levites that watch in the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord. 31:31. And Moses and Eleazar did as the Lord had commanded. 31:32. And the spoil which the army had taken, was six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep, 31:33. Seventy-two thousand oxen, 31:34. Sixty-one thousand asses: 31:35. And thirty-two thousand persons of the female sex, that had not known men. 31:36. And one half was given to them that had been in the battle, to wit, three hundred thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep: 31:37. Out of which, for the portion of the Lord, were reckoned six hundred seventy five sheep. 31:38. And out of the thirty-six thousand oxen, seventy-two oxen: 31:39. Out of the thirty thousand five hundred asses, sixty-one asses: 31:40. Out of the sixteen thousand persons, there fell to the portion of the Lord, thirty-two souls. 31:41. And Moses delivered the number of the firstfruits of the Lord to Eleazar the priest, as had been commanded him, 31:42. Out of the half of the children of Israel, which he had separated for them that had been in the battle. 31:43. But out of the half that fell to the rest of the multitude, that is to say, out of the three hundred thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep, 31:44. And out of the thirty-six thousand oxen, 31:45. And out of the thirty thousand five hundred asses, 31:46. And out of the sixteen thousand persons, 31:47. Moses took the fiftieth head, and gave it to the Levites that watched in the tabernacle of the Lord, as the Lord had commanded. 31:48. And when the commanders of the army, and the tribunes and centurions were come to Moses, they said: 31:49. We thy servants have reckoned up the number of the fighting men, whom we had under our hand, and not so much as one was wanting. 31:50. Therefore we offer as gifts to the Lord what gold every one of us could find in the booty, in garters and tablets, rings and bracelets, and chains, that thou mayst pray to the Lord for us. 31:51. And Moses and Eleazar the priest received all the gold in divers kinds, 31:52. In weight sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty sicles, from the tribunes and from the centurions. 31:53. For that which every one had taken in the booty was his own. 31:54. And that which was received they brought into the tabernacle of the testimony, for a memorial of the children of Israel before the Lord. Numbers Chapter 32 The tribes of Ruben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasses, receive their inheritance on the east side of Jordan, upon conditions approved of by Moses. 32:1. And the sons of Ruben and Gad had many flocks of cattle, and their substance in beasts was infinite. And when they saw the lands of Jazer and Galaad fit for feeding cattle, 32:2. They came to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and the princes of the multitude, and said: 32:3. Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nemra, Hesebon, and Eleale, and Saban, and Nebo, and Beon, 32:4. The land, which the Lord hath conquered in the sight of the children of Israel, is a very fertile soil for the feeding of beasts: and we thy servants have very much cattle: 32:5. And we pray thee, if we have found favour in thy sight, that thou give it to us thy servants in possession, and make us not pass over the Jordan. 32:6. And Moses answered them: What, shall your brethren go to fight, and will you sit here? 32:7. Why do ye overturn the minds of the children of Israel, that they may not dare to pass into the place which the Lord hath given them? 32:8. Was it not thus your fathers did, when I sent from Cadesbarne to view the land? 32:9. And when they were come as far as the valley of the cluster, having viewed all the country, they overturned the hearts of the children of Israel, that they should not enter into the coasts, which the Lord gave them. 32:10. And he swore in his anger, saying: 32:11. If these men, that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land, which I promised with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: because they would not follow me, 32:12. Except Caleb the son of Jephone the Cenezite, and Josue the son of Nun: these have fulfilled my will. 32:13. And the Lord being angry against Israel, led them about through the desert forty years, until the whole generation, that had done evil in his sight, was consumed. 32:14. And behold, said he, you are risen up instead of your fathers, the increase and offspring of sinful men, to augment the fury of the Lord against Israel. 32:15. For if you will not follow him, he will leave the people in the wilderness, and you shall be the cause of the destruction of all. 32:16. But they coming near, said: We will make sheepfolds, and stalls for our cattle, and strong cities for our children: 32:17. And we ourselves will go armed and ready for battle before the children of Israel, until we bring them in unto their places. Our little ones, and all we have, shall be in walled cities, for fear of the ambushes of the inhabitants. 32:18. We will not return into our houses until the children of Israel possess their inheritance: 32:19. Neither will we seek any thing beyond the Jordan, because we have already our possession on the east side thereof, 32:20. And Moses said to them: If you do what you promise, go on well appointed for war before the Lord: 32:21. And let every fighting man pass over the Jordan, until the Lord overthrow his enemies: 32:22. And all the land be brought under him, then shall you be blameless before the Lord and before Israel, and you shall obtain the countries that you desire, before the Lord. 32:23. But if you do not what you say, no man can doubt but you sin against God: and know ye, that your sin shall overtake you. 32:24. Build therefore cities for your children, and folds and stalls for your sheep and beasts, and accomplish what you have promised. 32:25. And the children of Gad and Ruben said to Moses: We are thy servants, we will do what my lord commandeth. 32:26. We will leave our children, and our wives and sheep and cattle, in the cities of Galaad: 32:27. And we thy servants all well appointed will march on to the war, as thou, my lord, speakest. 32:28. Moses therefore commanded Eleazar the priest, and Josue the son of Nun, and the princes of the families of all the tribes of Israel, and said to them: 32:29. If the children of Gad, and the children of Ruben pass with you over the Jordan, all armed for war before the Lord, and the land be made subject to you: give them Galaad in possession. 32:30. But if they will not pass armed with you into the land of Chanaan, let them receive places to dwell in among you. 32:31. And the children of Gad, and the children of Ruben answered: As the Lord hath spoken to his servants, so will we do: 32:32. We will go armed before the Lord into the land of Chanaan, and we confess that we have already received our possession beyond the Jordan. 32:33. Moses therefore gave to the children of Gad and of Ruben, and to the half tribe of Manasses the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sehon king of the Amorrhites, and the kingdom of Og king of Basan, and their land and the cities thereof round about. 32:34. And the sons of Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer, 32:35. And Etroth, and Sophan, and Jazer, and Jegbaa, 32:36. And Bethnemra, and Betharan, fenced cities, and folds for their cattle. 32:37. But the children of Ruben built Hesebon, and Eleale, and Cariathaim, 32:38. And Nabo, and Baalmeon (their names being changed) and Sabama: giving names to the cities which they had built. 32:39. Moreover the children of Machir, the son of Manasses, went into Galaad, and wasted it, cutting off the Amorrhites, the inhabitants thereof. 32:40. And Moses gave the land of Galaad to Machir the son of Manasses, and he dwelt in it. 32:41. And Jair the son of Manasses went, and took the villages thereof, and he called them Havoth Jair, that is to say, the villages of Jair. 32:42. Nobe also went, and took Canath with the villages thereof: and he called it by his own name, Nobe. Numbers Chapter 33 The mansions or journeys of the children of Israel towards the land of promise. 33:1. These are the mansions of the children of Israel, who went out of Egypt by their troops under the conduct of Moses and Aaron, The mansions. . .These mansions, or journeys of the children of Israel from Egypt to the land of promise, were figures, according to the fathers, of the steps and degrees by which Christians leaving sin are to advance from virtue to virtue, till they come to the heavenly mansions, after this life, to see and enjoy God. 33:2. Which Moses wrote down according to the places of their encamping, which they changed by the commandment of the Lord. 33:3. Now the children of Israel departed from Ramesses the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the phase, with a mighty hand, in the sight of all the Egyptians, 33:4. Who were burying their firstborn, whom the Lord had slain (upon their gods also he had executed vengeance,) 33:5. And they camped in Soccoth. 33:6. And from Soccoth they came into Etham, which is in the uttermost borders of the wilderness. 33:7. Departing from thence they came over against Phihahiroth, which looketh towards Beelsephon, and they camped before Magdalum. 33:8. And departing from Phihahiroth, they passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness: and having marched three days through the desert of Etham, they camped in Mara. 33:9. And departing from Mara, they came into Elim, where there were twelve fountains of waters, and seventy palm trees: and there they camped. 33:10. But departing from thence also, they pitched their tents by the Red Sea. And departing from the Red Sea, 33:11. They camped in the desert of Sin. 33:12. And they removed from thence, and came to Daphca. 33:13. And departing from Daphca, they camped in Alus. 33:14. And departing from Alus, they pitched their tents in Raphidim, where the people wanted water to drink. 33:15. And departing from Raphidim, they camped in the desert of Sinai. 33:16. But departing also from the desert of Sinai, they came to the graves of lust. 33:17. And departing from the graves of lust, they camped in Haseroth. 33:18. And from Haseroth they came to Rethma. 33:19. And departing from Rethma, they camped in Remmomphares. 33:20. And they departed from thence and came to Lebna. 33:21. Removing from Lebna they camped in Ressa. 33:22. And departing from Ressa, they came to Ceelatha. 33:23. And they removed from thence and camped in the mountain Sepher. 33:24. Departing from the mountain Sepher, they came to Arada, 33:25. From thence they went and camped in Maceloth. 33:26. And departing from Maceloth, they came to Thahath. 33:27. Removing from Thahath they camped in Thare. 33:28. And they departed from thence, and pitched their tents in Methca. 33:29. And removing from Methca, they camped in Hesmona. 33:30. And departing from Hesmona, they came to Moseroth. 33:31. And removing from Moseroth, they camped in Benejaacan. 33:32. And departing from Benejaacan, they came to mount Gadgad. 33:33. From thence they went and camped in Jetebatha. 33:34. And from Jetebatha they came to Hebrona. 33:35. And departing from Hebrona, they camped in Asiongaber. 33:36. They removed from thence and came into the desert of Sin, which is Cades. 33:37. And departing from Cades, they camped in mount Hor, in the uttermost borders of the land of Edom. 33:38. And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor at the commandment of the Lord: and there he died in the fortieth year of the coming forth of the children of Israel out of Egypt, the fifth month, the first day of the month, 33:39. When he was a hundred and twenty-three years old. 33:40. And king Arad the Chanaanite, who dwelt towards the south, heard that the children of Israel were come to the land of Chanaan. 33:41. And they departed from mount Hor, and camped in Salmona. 33:42. From whence they removed and came to Phunon. 33:43. And departing from Phunon, they camped in Oboth. 33:44. And from Oboth they came to Ijeabarim, which is in the borders of the Moabites. 33:45. And departing from Ijeabarim they pitched their tents in Dibongab. 33:46. From thence they went and camped in Helmondeblathaim. 33:47. And departing from Helmondeblathaim, they came to the mountains of Abarim over against Nabo. 33:48. And departing from the mountains of Abarim, they passed to the plains of Moab, by the Jordan, over against Jericho. 33:49. And there they camped from Bethsimoth even to Ablesatim in the plains of the Moabites, 33:50. Where the Lord said to Moses: 33:51. Command the children of Israel, and say to them: When you shall have passed over the Jordan, entering into the land of Chanaan, 33:52. Destroy all the inhabitants of that land: Beat down their pillars, and break in pieces their statues, and waste all their high places, 33:53. Cleansing the land, and dwelling in it. For I have given it you for a possession. 33:54. And you shall divide it among you by lot. To the more you shall give a larger part, and to the fewer a lesser. To every one as the lot shall fall, so shall the inheritance be given. The possession shall be divided by the tribes and the families. 33:55. But if you will not kill the inhabitants of the land: they that remain, shall be unto you as nails in your eyes, and spears in your sides, and they shall be your adversaries in the land of your habitation. 33:56. And whatsoever I had thought to do to them, I will do to you. Numbers Chapter 34 The limits of Chanaan; with the names of the men that make the division of it. 34:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 34:2. Command the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you are entered into the land of Chanaan, and it shall be fallen into your possession by lot, it shall be bounded by these limits: 34:3. The south side shall begin from the wilderness of Sin, which is by Edom: and shall have the most salt sea for its furthest limits eastward: The most salt sea. . .The lake of Sodom, otherwise called the Dead Sea. 34:4. Which limits shall go round on the south side by the ascent of the Scorpion and so into Senna, and reach toward the south as far as Cadesbarne, from whence the frontiers shall go out to the town called Adar, and shall reach as far as Asemona. The Scorpion. . .A mountain so called from having a great number of scorpions. 34:5. And the limits shall fetch a compass from Asemona to the torrent of Egypt, and shall end in the shore of the great sea. The great sea. . .The Mediterranean. 34:6. And the west side shall begin from the great sea, and the same shall be the end thereof. 34:7. But toward the north side the borders shall begin from the great sea, reaching to the most high mountain, The most high mountain. . .Libanus. 34:8. From which they shall come to Emath, as far as the borders of Sedada: 34:9. And the limits shall go as far as Zephrona, and the village of Enan. These shall be the borders on the north side. 34:10. From thence they shall mark out the grounds towards the east side from the village of Enan unto Sephama. 34:11. And from Sephama the bounds shall go down to Rebla over against the fountain of Daphnis: from thence they shall come eastward to the sea of Cenereth, Sea of Cenereth. . .This is the sea of Galilee, illustrated by the miracles of our Lord. 34:12. And shall reach as far as the Jordan, and at the last shall be closed in by the most salt sea. This shall be your land with its borders round about. 34:13. And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying: This shall be the land which you shall possess by lot, and which the Lord hath commanded to be given to the nine tribes, and to the half tribe. 34:14. For the tribe of the children of Ruben by their families, and the tribe of the children of Gad according to the number of their kindreds, and half of the tribe of Manasses, 34:15. That is, two tribes and a half, have received their portion beyond the Jordan over against Jericho at the east side. 34:16. And the Lord said to Moses: 34:17. These are the names of the men, that shall divide the land unto you: Eleazar the priest, and Josue the son of Nun, 34:18. And one prince of every tribe, 34:19. Whose names are these: Of the tribe of Juda, Caleb the son of Jephone. 34:20. Of the tribe of Simeon, Samuel the son of Ammiud. 34:21. Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chaselon. 34:22. Of the tribe of the children of Dan, Bocci the son of Jogli. 34:23. Of the children of Joseph of the tribe of Manasses, Hanniel the son of Ephod. 34:24. Of the tribe of Ephraim, Camuel the son of Sephtan. 34:25. Of the tribe of Zabulon, Elisaphan the son of Pharnach. 34:26. Of the tribe of Issachar, Phaltiel the prince, the son of Ozan. 34:27. Of the tribe of Aser, Ahiud the son of Salomi. 34:28. Of the tribe of Nephtali: Phedael the son of Ammiud. 34:29. These are they Whom the Lord hath commanded to divide the land of Chanaan to the children of Israel. Numbers Chapter 35 Cities are appointed for the Levites. Of which six are to be the cities of refuge. 35:1. And the Lord spoke these things also to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, over against Jericho: 35:2. Command the children of Israel that they give to the Levites out of their possessions, 35:3. Cities to dwell in, and their suburbs round about: that they may abide in the towns, and the suburbs may be for them cattle and beasts: 35:4. Which suburbs shall reach from the walls of the cities outward, a thousand paces on every side: 35:5. Toward the east shall be two thousand cubits: and toward the south in like manner shall be two thousand cubits: toward the sea also, which looketh to the west, shall be the same extent: and the north side shall be bounded with the like limits. And the cities shall be in the midst, and the suburbs without. 35:6. And among the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, six shall be separated for refuge to fugitives, that he who hath shed blood may flee to them: and besides these there shall be other forty-two cities, 35:7. That is, in all forty-eight with their suburbs. 35:8. And of these cities which shall be given out of the possessions of the children of Israel, from them that have more, more shall be taken: and from them that have less, fewer. Each shall give towns to the Levites according to the extent of their inheritance. 35:9. The Lord said to Moses: 35:10. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have passed over the Jordan into the land of Chanaan, 35:11. Determine what cities shall be for the refuge of fugitives, who have shed blood against their will. 35:12. And when the fugitive shall be in them, the kinsman of him that is slain may not have power to kill him, until he stand before the multitude, and his cause be judged. 35:13. And of those cities, that are separated for the refuge of fugitives, 35:14. Three shall be beyond the Jordan, and three in the land of Chanaan, 35:15. As well for the children of Israel as for strangers and sojourners, that he may flee to them, who hath shed blood against his will. 35:16. If any man strike with iron, and he die that was struck: he shall be guilty of murder, and he himself shall die. 35:17. If he throw a stone, and he that is struck die: he shall be punished in the same manner. 35:18. If he that is struck with wood die: he shall be revenged by the blood of him that struck him. 35:19. The kinsman of him that was slain, shall kill the murderer: as soon as he apprehendeth him, he shall kill him. 35:20. If through hatred any one push a man, or fling any thing at him with ill design: 35:21. Or being his enemy, strike him with his hand, and he die: the striker shall be guilty of murder: the kinsman of him that was slain as soon as he findeth him, shall kill him. 35:22. But if by chance medley, and without hatred, 35:23. And enmity, he do any of these things, 35:24. And this be proved in the hearing of the people, and the cause be debated between him that struck, and the next of kin: 35:25. The innocent shall be delivered from the hand of the revenger, and shall be brought back by sentence into the city, to which he had fled, and he shall abide there until the death of the high priest, that is anointed with the holy oil. Until the death, etc. . .This mystically signified that our deliverance was to be effected by the death of Christ, the high priest and the anointed of God. 35:26. If the murderer be found without the limits of the cities that are appointed for the banished, 35:27. And be struck by him that is the avenger of blood: he shall not be guilty that killed him. 35:28. For the fugitive ought to have stayed in the city until the death of the high priest: and after he is dead, then shall the manslayer return to his own country. 35:29. These things shall be perpetual, and for an ordinance in all your dwellings. 35:30. The murderer shall be punished by witnesses: none shall be condemned upon the evidence of one man. 35:31. You shall not take money of him that is guilty of blood, but he shall die forthwith. 35:32. The banished and fugitives before the death of the high priest may by no means return into their own cities. 35:33. Defile not the land of your habitation, which is stained with the blood of the innocent: neither can it otherwise be expiated, but by his blood that hath shed the blood of another. 35:34. And thus shall your possession be cleansed, myself abiding with you. For I am the Lord that dwell among the children of Israel. Numbers Chapter 36 That the inheritances may not be alienated from one tribe to another, all are to marry within their own tribes. 36:1. And the princes of the families of Galaad, the son of Machir, the son of Manasses, of the stock of the children of Joseph, came and spoke to Moses before the princes of Israel, and said: 36:2. The Lord hath commanded thee, my lord, that thou shouldst divide the land by lot to the children of Israel, and that thou shouldst give to the daughters of Salphaad our brother the possession due to their father: 36:3. Now if men of another tribe take them to wives, their possession will follow them, and being transferred to another tribe, will be a diminishing of our inheritance. 36:4. And so it shall come to pass, that when the jubilee, the is, the fiftieth year of remission, is come, the distribution made by the lots shall be confounded, and the possession of the one shall pass to the others. 36:5. Moses answered the children of Israel, and said by the command of the Lord: The tribe of the children of Joseph hath spoken rightly. 36:6. And this is the law promulgated by the Lord touching the daughters of Salphaad: Let them marry to whom they will, only so that it be to men of their own tribe. 36:7. Lest the possession of the children of Israel be mingled from tribe to tribe. For all men shall marry wives of their own tribe and kindred: 36:8. And all women shall take husbands of the same tribe: that the inheritance may remain in the families. 36:9. And that the tribes be not mingled one with another, but remain so 36:10. As they were separated by the Lord. And the daughters of Salphaad did as was commanded: 36:11. And Maala, and Thersa, and Hegla, and Melcha, and Noa were married to the sons of their uncle by their father 36:12. Of the family of Manasses, who was the son of Joseph: and the possession that had been allotted to them, remained in the tribe and family of their father. 36:13. These are the commandments and judgment, which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to the children of Israel, in the plains of Moab upon the Jordan over against Jericho. THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY This Book is called DEUTERONOMY, which signifies a SECOND LAW, because it repeats and inculcates the ordinances formerly given on mount Sinai, with other precepts not expressed before. The Hebrews, from the first words in the book, call it ELLE HADDEBARIM. Deuteronomy Chapter 1 A repetition of what passed at Sinai and Cadesbarne: and of the people's murmuring and their punishment. 1:1. These are the words, which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, in the plain wilderness, over against the Red Sea, between Pharan and Thophel and Laban and Haseroth, where there is very much gold. 1:2. Eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir to Cadesbarne. 1:3. In the fortieth year, the eleventh month, the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them: 1:4. After that he had slain Sehon king of the Amorrhites, who dwelt in Hesebon: and Og king of Basan who abode in Astaroth, and in Edrai, 1:5. Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab. And Moses began to expound the law, and to say: 1:6. The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough in this mountain: 1:7. Turn you, and come to the mountain of the Amorrhites, and to the other places that are next to it, the plains and the hills and the vales towards the south, and by the sea shore, the land of the Chanaanites, and of Libanus, as far as the great river Euphrates. 1:8. Behold, said he, I have delivered it to you: go in and possess it, concerning which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give it to them, and to their seed after them. 1:9. And I said to you at that time: 1:10. I alone am not able to bear you: for the Lord your God hath multiplied you, and you are this day as the stars of heaven, for multitude. 1:11. (The Lord God of your fathers add to this number many thousands, and bless you as he hath spoken.) 1:12. I alone am not able to bear your business, and the charge of you and your differences. 1:13. Let me have from among you wise and understanding men, and such whose conversation is approved among your tribes, that I may appoint them your rulers. 1:14. Then you answered me: The thing is good which thou meanest to do. 1:15. And I took out of your tribes men wise and honourable, and appointed them rulers, tribunes, and centurions, and officers over fifties, and over tens, who might teach you all things. 1:16. And I commanded them, saying: Hear them, and judge that which is just: whether he be one of your country, or a stranger. 1:17. There shall be no difference of persons, you shall hear the little as well as the great: neither shall you respect any man's person, because it is the judgment of God. And if any thing seem hard to you, refer it to me, and I will hear it. 1:18. And I commanded you all things that you were to do. 1:19. And departing from Horeb, we passed through the terrible and vast wilderness, which you saw, by the way of the mountain of the Amorrhite, as the Lord our God had commanded us. And when we were come into Cadesbarne, 1:20. I said to you: You are come to the mountain of the Amorrhite, which the Lord our God will give to us. 1:21. See the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee: go up and possess it, as the Lord our God hath spoken to thy fathers: fear not, nor be any way discouraged. 1:22. And you came all to me, and said: Let us send men who may view the land, and bring us word what way we shall go up, and to what cities we shall go. 1:23. And because the saying pleased me, I sent of you twelve men, one of every tribe: 1:24. Who, when they had set forward and had gone up to the mountains, came as far as the valley of the cluster: and having viewed the land, 1:25. Taking of the fruits thereof, to shew its fertility, they brought them to us, and said: The land is good, which the Lord our God will give us. 1:26. And you would not go up, but being incredulous to the word of the Lord our God, 1:27. You murmured in your tents, and said: The Lord hateth us, and therefore he hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, that he might deliver us into the hand of the Amorrhite, and destroy us. 1:28. Whither shall we go up? the messengers have terrified our hearts, saying: The multitude is very great, and taller than we: the cities are great, and walled up to the sky, we have seen the sons of the Enacims there. Walled up to the sky. . .A figurative expression, signifying the walls to be very high. 1:29. And I said to you: Fear not, neither be ye afraid of them: 1:30. The Lord God, who is your leader, himself will fight for you, as he did in Egypt in the sight of all. 1:31. And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place. 1:32. And yet for all this you did not believe the Lord your God, 1:33. Who went before you in the way, and marked out the place, wherein you should pitch your tents, in the night shewing you the way by fire, and in the day by the pillar of a cloud. 1:34. And when the Lord had heard the voice of your words, he was angry and swore, and said: 1:35. Not one of the men of this wicked generation shall see the good land, which I promised with an oath to your fathers: 1:36. Except Caleb the son of Jephone: for he shall see it, and to him I will give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath followed the Lord. 1:37. Neither is his indignation against the people to be wondered at, since the Lord was angry with me also on your account, and said: Neither shalt thou go in thither. 1:38. But Josue the son of Nun, thy minister, he shall go in for thee: exhort and encourage him, and he shall divide the land by lot to Israel. 1:39. Your children, of whom you said that they should be led away captives, and your sons who know not this day the difference of good and evil, they shall go in: and to them I will give the land, and they shall possess it. 1:40. But return you and go into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. 1:41. And you answered me: We have sinned against the Lord: we will go up and fight, as the Lord our God hath commanded. And when you went ready armed unto the mountain, 1:42. The Lord said to me: Say to them: Go not up, and fight not, for I am not with you: lest you fall before your enemies. 1:43. I spoke, and you hearkened not: but resisting the commandment of the Lord, and swelling with pride, you went up into the mountain. 1:44. And the Amorrhite that dwelt in the mountains coming out, and meeting you, chased you, as bees do: and made slaughter of you from Seir as far as Horma. 1:45. And when you returned and wept before the Lord, he heard you not, neither would he yield to your voice. 1:46. So you abode in Cadesbarne a long time. Deuteronomy Chapter 2 They are forbid to fight against the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. Their victory over Sehon king of Hesebon. 2:1. And departing from thence we came into the wilderness that leadeth to the Red Sea, as the Lord had spoken to me: and we compassed mount Seir a long time. 2:2. And the Lord said to me: 2:3. You have compassed this mountain long enough: go toward the north: 2:4. And command thou the people, saying: You shall pass by the borders of your brethren the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir, and they will be afraid of you. 2:5. Take ye then good heed that you stir not against them. For I will not give you of their land so much as the step of one foot can tread upon, because I have given mount Seir to Esau, for a possession. 2:6. You shall buy meats of them for money and shall eat: you shall draw waters for money, and shall drink. 2:7. The Lord thy God hath blessed thee in every work of thy hands: the Lord thy God dwelling with thee, knoweth thy journey, how thou hast passed through this great wilderness, for forty years, and thou hast wanted nothing. 2:8. And when we had passed by our brethren the children of Esau, that dwelt in Seir, by the way of the plain from Elath and from Asiongaber, we came to the way that leadeth to the desert of Moab. 2:9. And the Lord said to me: Fight not against the Moabites, neither go to battle against them: for I will not give thee any of their land, because I have given Ar to the children of Lot in possession. 2:10. The Emims first were the inhabitants thereof, a people great, and strong, and so tall, that like the race of the Enacims, 2:11. They were esteemed as giants, and were like the sons of the Enacims. But the Moabites call them Emims. 2:12. The Horrhites also formerly dwelt in Seir: who being driven out and destroyed, the children of Esau dwelt there, as Israel did in the land of his possession, which the Lord gave him. 2:13. Then rising up to pass the torrent Zared, we came to it. 2:14. And the time that we journeyed from Cadesbarne till we passed over the torrent Zared, was thirty-eight years: until all the generation of the men that were fit for war was consumed out of the camp, as the Lord had sworn: 2:15. For his hand was against them, that they should perish from the midst of the camp. 2:16. And after all the fighting men were dead, 2:17. The Lord spoke to me, saying: 2:18. Thou shalt pass this day the borders of Moab, the city named Ar: 2:19. And when thou comest nigh the frontiers of the children of Ammon, take heed thou fight not against them, nor once move to battle: for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon, because I have given it to the children of Lot for a possession. 2:20. It was accounted a land of giants: and giants formerly dwelt in it, whom the Ammonites call Zomzommims, 2:21. A people great and many, and of tall stature, like the Enacims whom the Lord destroyed before their face: and he made them to dwell in their stead, 2:22. As he had done in favour of the children of Esau, that dwell in Seir, destroying the Horrhites, and delivering their land to them, which they possess to this day. 2:23. The Hevites also, that dwelt in Haserim as far as Gaza, were expelled by the Cappadocians: who came out of Cappadocia, and destroyed them and dwelt in their stead. 2:24. Arise ye, and pass the torrent Arnon: Behold I have delivered into thy hand Sehon king of Hesebon the Amorrhite, and begin thou to possess his land and make war against him. 2:25. This day will I begin to send the dread and fear of thee upon the nations that dwell under the whole heaven: that when they hear thy name they may fear and tremble, and be in pain like women in travail. 2:26. So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Cademoth to Sehon the king of Hesebon with peaceable words, saying: 2:27. We will pass through thy land, we will go along by the highway: we will not turn aside neither to the right hand nor to the left. 2:28. Sell us meat for money, that we may eat: give us water for money and so we will drink. We only ask that thou wilt let us pass through, 2:29. As the children of Esau have done, that dwell in Seir, and the Moabites, that abide in Ar: until we come to the Jordan, and pass to the land which the Lord our God will give us. 2:30. And Sehon the king of Hesebon would not let us pass: because the Lord thy God had hardened his spirit, and fixed his heart, that he might be delivered into thy hands, as now thou seest. Hardened, etc. . .That is, in punishment of his past sins he left him to his own stubborn and perverse disposition, which drew him to his ruin. See the note on Ex. 7.3. 2:31. And the Lord said to me: Behold I have begun to deliver unto thee Sehon and his land, begin to possess it. 2:32. And Sehon came out to meet us with all his people to fight at Jasa. 2:33. And the Lord our God delivered him to us: and we slew him with his sons and all his people. 2:34. And we took all his cities at that time, killing the inhabitants of them, men and women and children. We left nothing of them: 2:35. Except the cattle which came to the share of them that took them: and the spoils of the cities, which we took: 2:36. From Aroer, which is upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, a town that is situate in a valley, as far as Galaad. There was not a village or city, that escaped our hands: the Lord our God delivered all unto us: 2:37. Except the land of the children of Ammon, to which we approached not: and all that border upon the torrent Jeboc, and the cities in the mountains, and all the places which the Lord our God forbade us. Deuteronomy Chapter 3 The victory over Og king of Basan. Ruben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasses receive their possession on the other side of Jordan. 3:1. Then we turned and went by the way of Basan: and Og the king of Basan came out to meet us with his people to fight in Edrai. 3:2. And the Lord said to me: Fear him not: because he is delivered into thy hand, with all his people and his land: and thou shalt do to him as thou hast done to Sehon king of the Amorrhites, that dwelt in Hesebon. 3:3. So the Lord our God delivered into our hands, Og also, the king of Basan, and all his people: and we utterly destroyed them, 3:4. Wasting all his cities at one time, there was not a town that escaped us: sixty cities, all the country of Argob the kingdom of Og in Basan. 3:5. All the cities were fenced with very high walls, and with gates and bars, besides innumerable towns that had no walls. 3:6. And we utterly destroyed them, as we had done to Sehon the king of Hesebon, destroying every city, men and women and children: 3:7. But the cattle and the spoils of the cities we took for our prey. 3:8. And we took at that time the land out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorrhites, that were beyond the Jordan: from the torrent Arnon unto the mount Hermon, 3:9. Which the Sidonians call Sarion, and the Amorrhites Sanir: 3:10. All the cities that are situate in the plain, and all the land of Galaad and Basan as far as Selcha and Edrai, cities of the kingdom of Og in Basan. 3:11. For only Og king of Basan remained of the race of the giants. His bed of iron is shewn, which is in Rabbath of the children of Ammon, being nine cubits long, and four broad after the measure of the cubit of a man's hand. 3:12. And we possessed the land at that time from Aroer, which is upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, unto the half of mount Galaad: and I gave the cities thereof to Ruben and Gad. 3:13. And I delivered the other part of Galaad, and all Basan the kingdom of Og to the half tribe of Manasses, all the country of Argob: and all Basan is called the Land of giants. 3:14. Jair the son of Manasses possessed all the country of Argob unto the borders of Gessuri, and Machati. And he called Basan by his own name, Havoth Jair, that is to say, the towns of Jair, until this present day. 3:15. To Machir also I gave Galaad. 3:16. And to the tribes of Ruben and Gad I gave of the land of Galaad as far as the torrent Arnon, half the torrent, and the confines even unto the torrent Jeboc, which is the border of the children of Ammon: 3:17. And the plain of the wilderness, and the Jordan, and the borders of Cenereth unto the sea of the desert, which is the most salt sea, to the foot of mount Phasga eastward. 3:18. And I commanded you at that time, saying: The Lord your God giveth you this land for an inheritance, go ye well appointed before your brethren the children of Israel, all the strong men of you. 3:19. Leaving your wives and children and cattle. For I know you have much cattle, and they must remain in the cities, which I have delivered to you. 3:20. Until the Lord give rest to your brethren, as he hath given to you: and they also possess the land, which he will give them beyond the Jordan: then shall every man return to his possession, which I have given you. 3:21. I commanded Josue also at that time, saying: Thy eyes have seen what the Lord your God hath done to these two kings: so will he do to all the kingdoms to which thou shalt pass. 3:22. Fear them not: for the Lord your God will fight for you. 3:23. And I besought the Lord at that time, saying: 3:24. Lord God, thou hast begun to shew unto thy servant thy greatness, and most mighty hand, for there is no other God either in heaven or earth, that is able to do thy works, or to be compared to thy strength. 3:25. I will pass over therefore, and will see this excellent land beyond the Jordan, and this goodly mountain, and Libanus. 3:26. And the Lord was angry with me on your account and heard me not, but said to me: It is enough: speak no more to me of this matter. 3:27. Go up to the top of Phasga, and cast thy eyes round about to the west, and to the north, and to the south, and to the east, and behold it, for thou shalt not pass this Jordan. 3:28. Command Josue, and encourage and strengthen him: for he shall go before this people, and shall divide unto them the land which thou shalt see. 3:29. And we abode in the valley over against the temple of Phogor. Deuteronomy Chapter 4 Moses exhorteth the people to keep God's commandments: particularly to fly idolatry. Appointeth three cities of refuge, on that side of the Jordan. 4:1. And now, O Israel, hear the commandments and judgments which I teach thee: that doing them, thou mayst live, and entering in mayst possess the land which the Lord the God of your fathers will give you. 4:2. You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. 4:3. Your eyes have seen all that the Lord hath done against Beelphegor, how he hath destroyed all his worshippers from among you. 4:4. But you that adhere to the Lord your God, are all alive until this present day. 4:5. You know that I have taught you statutes and justices, as the Lord my God hath commanded me: so shall you do them in the land which you shall possess: 4:6. And you shall observe, and fulfil them in practice. For this is your wisdom, and understanding in the sight of nations, that hearing all these precepts, they may say: Behold a wise and understanding people, a great nation. 4:7. Neither is there any other nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions. 4:8. For what other nation is there so renowned that hath ceremonies, and just judgments, and all the law, which I will set forth this day before our eyes? 4:9. Keep thyself therefore, and thy soul carefully. Forget not the words that thy eyes have seen, and let them not go out of thy heart all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and to thy grandsons, 4:10. From the day in which thou didst stand before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord spoke to me, saying: Call together the people unto me, that they may hear my words, and may learn to fear me all the time that they live on the earth, and may teach their children. 4:11. And you came to the foot of the mount, which burned even unto heaven: and there was darkness, and a cloud and obscurity in it. 4:12. And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of his words, but you saw not any form at all. 4:13. And he shewed you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, and the ten words that he wrote in two tables of stone. 4:14. And he commanded me at that time that I should teach you the ceremonies and judgments which you shall do in the land, that you shall possess. 4:15. Keep therefore your souls carefully. You saw not any similitude in the day that the Lord God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire: 4:16. Lest perhaps being deceived you might make you a graven similitude, or image of male or female, 4:17. The similitude of any beasts, that are upon the earth, or of birds, that fly under heaven, 4:18. Or of creeping things, that move on the earth, or of fishes, that abide in the waters under the earth: 4:19. Lest perhaps lifting up thy eyes to heaven, thou see the sun and the moon, and all the stars of heaven, and being deceived by error thou adore and serve them, which the Lord thy God created for the service of all the nations, that are under heaven. 4:20. But the Lord hath taken you and brought you out of the iron furnaces of Egypt, to make you his people of inheritance, as it is this present day. 4:21. And the Lord was angry with me for your words, and he swore that I should not pass over the Jordan, nor enter into the excellent land, which he will give you. 4:22. Behold I die in this land, I shall not pass over the Jordan: you shall pass, and possess the goodly land. 4:23. Beware lest thou ever forget the covenant of the Lord thy God, which he hath made with thee: and make to thyself a graven likeness of those things which the Lord hath forbid to be made: 4:24. Because the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 4:25. If you shall beget sons and grandsons, and abide in the land, and being deceived, make to yourselves any similitude, committing evil before the Lord your God, to provoke him to wrath: 4:26. I call this day heaven and earth to witness, that you shall quickly perish out of the land, which, when you have passed over the Jordan, you shall possess. You shall not dwell therein long, but the Lord will destroy you, 4:27. And scatter you among all nations, and you shall remain a few among the nations, to which the Lord shall lead you. 4:28. And there you shall serve gods, that were framed with men's hands: wood and stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 4:29. And when thou shalt seek there the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him: yet so, if thou seek him with all thy heart, and all the affliction of thy soul. 4:30. After all the things aforesaid shall find thee, in the latter time thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice. 4:31. Because the Lord thy God is a merciful God: he will not leave thee, nor altogether destroy thee, nor forget the covenant, by which he swore to thy fathers. 4:32. Ask of the days of old, that have been before thy time from the day that God created man upon the earth, from one end of heaven to the other end thereof, if ever there was done the like thing, or it hath been known at any time, 4:33. That a people should hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire, as thou hast heard, and lived: 4:34. If God ever did so as to go, and take to himself a nation out of the midst of nations by temptations, signs, and wonders, by fight, and a strong hand, and stretched out arm, and horrible visions according to all the things that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before thy eyes. 4:35. That thou mightest know that the Lord he is God, and there is no other besides him. 4:36. From heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might teach thee. And upon earth he shewed thee his exceeding great fire, and thou didst hear his words out of the midst of the fire, 4:37. Because he loved thy fathers, and chose their seed after them. And he brought thee out of Egypt, going before thee with his great power, 4:38. To destroy at thy coming very great nations, and stronger than thou art, and to bring thee in, and give thee their land for a possession, as thou seest at this present day. 4:39. Know therefore this day, and think in thy heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and there is no other. 4:40. Keep his precepts and commandments, which I command thee: that it may be well with thee, and thy children after thee, and thou mayst remain a long time upon the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee. 4:41. Then Moses set aside three cities beyond the Jordan at the east side, 4:42. That any one might flee to them who should kill his neighbour unwillingly, and was not his enemy a day or two before, and that he might escape to some one of these cities: 4:43. Bosor in the wilderness, which is situate in the plains of the tribe of Ruben: and Ramoth in Galaad, which is in the tribe of Gad: and Golan in Basan, which is in the tribe of Manasses. 4:44. This is the law, that Moses set before the children of Israel, 4:45. And these are the testimonies and ceremonies and judgments, which he spoke to the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, 4:46. Beyond the Jordan in the valley over against the temple of Phogor, in the land of Sehon king of the Amorrhites, that dwelt in Hesebon, whom Moses slew. And the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, 4:47. Possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Basan, of the two kings of the Amorrhites, who were beyond the Jordan towards the rising of the sun: 4:48. From Aroer, which is situate upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, unto mount Sion, which is also called Hermon, 4:49. All the plain beyond the Jordan at the east side, unto the sea of the wilderness, and unto the foot of mount Phasga. Deuteronomy Chapter 5 The ten commandments are repeated and explained. 5:1. And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the ceremonies and judgments, which I speak in your ears this day: learn them, and fulfil them in work. 5:2. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 5:3. He made not the covenant with our fathers, but with us, who are now present and living. 5:4. He spoke to us face to face in the mount out of the midst of fire. 5:5. I was the mediator and stood between the Lord and you at that time, to shew you his words, for you feared the fire, and went not up into the mountain, and he said: 5:6. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 5:7. Thou shalt not have strange gods in my sight. 5:8. Thou shalt not make to thy self a graven thing, nor the likeness of any things, that are in heaven above, or that are in the earth beneath, or that abide in the waters under the earth. 5:9. Thou shalt not adore them, and thou shalt not serve them. For I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation, to them that hate me, 5:10. And shewing mercy unto many thousands, to them that love me, and keep my commandments. 5:11. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for he shall not be unpunished that taketh his name upon a vain thing. 5:12. Observe the day of the sabbath, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. 5:13. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. 5:14. The seventh is the day of the sabbath, that is, the rest of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not do any work therein, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy ox, nor thy ass, nor any of thy beasts, nor the stranger that is within thy gates: that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest, even as thyself. 5:15. Remember that thou also didst serve in Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out from thence with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm. Therefore hath he commanded thee that thou shouldst observe the sabbath day. 5:16. Honour thy father and mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thou mayst live a long time, and it may be well with thee in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee. 5:17. Thou shalt not kill. 5:18. Neither shalt thou commit adultery. 5:19. And thou shalt not steal. 5:20. Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. 5:21. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife: nor his house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. 5:22. These words the Lord spoke to all the multitude of you in the mountain, out of the midst of the fire and the cloud, and the darkness, with a loud voice, adding nothing more: and he wrote them in two tables of stone, which he delivered unto me. 5:23. But you, after you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, and saw the mountain burn, came to me, all the princes of the tribes and the elders, and you said: 5:24. Behold the Lord our God hath shewn us his majesty and his greatness, we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire, and have proved this day that God speaking with man, man hath lived. 5:25. Why shall we die therefore, and why shall this exceeding great fire comsume us: for if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die. 5:26. What is all flesh, that it should hear the voice of the living God, who speaketh out of the midst of the fire, as we have heard, and be able to live? 5:27. Approach thou rather: and hear all things that the Lord our God shall say to thee, and thou shalt speak to us, and we will hear and will do them. 5:28. And when the Lord had heard this, he said to me: I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they spoke to thee: they have spoken all things well. 5:29. Who shall give them to have such a mind, to fear me, and to keep all my commandments at all times, that it may be well with them and with their children for ever? 5:30. Go and say to them: Return into your tents. 5:31. But stand thou here with me, and I will speak to thee all my commandments, and ceremonies and judgments: which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land, which I will give them for a possession. 5:32. Keep therefore and do the things which the Lord God hath commanded you: you shall not go aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left. 5:33. But you shall walk in the way that the Lord your God hath commanded, that you may live, and it may be well with you, and your days may be long in the land of your possession. Deuteronomy Chapter 6 An exhortation to the love of God, and obedience to his law. 6:1. These are the precepts, and ceremonies, and judgments, which the Lord your God commanded that I should teach you, and that you should do them in the land into which you pass over to possess it: 6:2. That thou mayst fear the Lord thy God, and keep all his commandments and precepts, which I command thee, and thy sons, and thy grandsons, all the days of thy life, that thy days may be prolonged. 6:3. Hear, O Israel, and observe to do the things which the Lord hath commanded thee, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayst be greatly multiplied, as the Lord the God of thy fathers hath promised thee a land flowing with milk and honey. 6:4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. 6:5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength. 6:6. And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart: 6:7. And thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. 6:8. And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and they shall be and shall move between thy eyes. 6:9. And thou shalt write them in the entry, and on the doors of thy house. 6:10. And when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, for which he swore to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: and shall have given thee great and goodly cities, which thou didst not build, 6:11. Houses full of riches, which thou didst not set up, cisterns which thou didst not dig, vineyards and oliveyards, which thou didst not plant, 6:12. And thou shalt have eaten and be full: 6:13. Take heed diligently lest thou forget the Lord, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt serve him only, and thou shalt swear by his name. 6:14. You shall not go after the strange gods of all the nations, that are round about you: 6:15. Because the Lord thy God is a jealous God in the midst of thee: lest at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and take thee away from the face of the earth. 6:16. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, as thou temptedst him in the place of temptation. 6:17. Keep the precepts of the Lord thy God, and the testimonies and ceremonies which he hath commanded thee. 6:18. And do that which is pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee: and going in thou mayst possess the goodly land, concerning which the Lord swore to thy fathers, 6:19. That he would destroy all thy enemies before thee, as he hath spoken. 6:20. And when thy son shall ask thee to morrow, saying: What mean these testimonies, and ceremonies and judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded us? 6:21. Thou shalt say to him: We were bondmen of Pharao in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. 6:22. And he wrought signs and wonders great and very grievous in Egypt against Pharao, and all his house, in our sight, 6:23. And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in and give us the land, concerning which he swore to our fathers. 6:24. And the Lord commanded that we should do all these ordinances, and should fear the Lord our God, that it might be well with us all the days of our life, as it is at this day. 6:25. And he will be merciful to us, if we keep and do all his precepts before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. Deuteronomy Chapter 7 No league nor fellowship to be made with the Chanaanites: God promiseth his people his blessing and assistance, if they keep his commandments. 7:1. When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which thou art going in to possess, and shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hethite, and the Gergezite, and the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art, and stronger than thou: 7:2. And the Lord thy God shall have delivered them to thee, thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no league with them, nor shew mercy to them: 7:3. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for thy son: 7:4. For she will turn away thy son from following me, that he may rather serve strange gods, and the wrath of the Lord will be kindled, and will quickly destroy thee. 7:5. But thus rather shall you deal with them: Destroy their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven things. 7:6. Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee, to be his peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth. 7:7. Not because you surpass all nations in number, is the Lord joined unto you, and hath chosen you, for you are the fewest of any people: 7:8. But because the Lord hath loved you, and hath kept his oath, which he swore to your fathers: and hath brought you out with a strong hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao the king of Egypt. 7:9. And thou shalt know that the Lord thy God, he is a strong and faithful God, keeping his covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, unto a thousand generations: 7:10. And repaying forthwith them that hate him, so as to destroy them, without further delay immediately rendering to them what they deserve. 7:11. Keep therefore the precepts and ceremonies and judgments, which I command thee this day to do. 7:12. If after thou hast heard these judgments, thou keep and do them, the Lord thy God will also keep his covenant to thee, and the mercy which he swore to thy fathers: 7:13. And he will love thee and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy vintage, thy oil, and thy herds, and the flocks of thy sheep upon the land, for which he swore to thy fathers that he would give it thee. 7:14. Blessed shalt thou be among all people. No one shall be barren among you of either sex, neither of men nor cattle. 7:15. The Lord will take away from thee all sickness: and the grievous infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, he will not bring upon thee, but upon thy enemies. 7:16. Thou shalt consume all the people, which the Lord thy God will deliver to thee. Thy eye shall not spare them, neither shalt thou serve their gods, lest they be thy ruin. 7:17. If thou say in thy heart: These nations are more than I, how shall I be able to destroy them? 7:18. Fear not, but remember what the Lord thy God did to Pharao and to all the Egyptians, 7:19. The exceeding great plagues, which thy eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the strong hand, and the stretched out arm, with which the Lord thy God brought thee out: so will he do to all the people, whom thou fearest. 7:20. Moreover the Lord thy God will send also hornets among them, until he destroy and consume all that have escaped thee, and could hide themselves. 7:21. Thou shalt not fear them, because the Lord thy God is in the midst of thee, a God mighty and terrible: 7:22. He will consume these nations in thy sight by little and little and by degrees. Thou wilt not be able to destroy them altogether: lest perhaps the beasts of the earth should increase upon thee. 7:23. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them in thy sight: and shall slay them until they be utterly destroyed. 7:24. And he shall deliver their kings into thy hands, and thou shalt destroy their names from under Heaven: no man shall be able to resist thee, until thou destroy them. 7:25. Their graven things thou shalt burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver and gold of which they are made, neither shalt thou take to thee any thing thereof, lest thou offend, because it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Graven things. . .Idols, so called by contempt. 7:26. Neither shalt thou bring any thing of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema. Deuteronomy Chapter 8 The people is put in mind of God's dealings with them, to the end that they may love him and serve him. 8:1. All the commandments, that I command thee this day, take great care to observe: that you may live, and be multiplied, and going in may possess the land, for which the Lord swore to your fathers. 8:2. And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were known in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. 8:3. He afflicted thee with want, and gave thee manna for thy food, which neither thou nor thy fathers knew: to shew that not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. Not in bread alone, etc. . .That is, that God is able to make food of what he pleases for the support of man. 8:4. Thy raiment, with which thou wast covered, hath not decayed for age, and thy foot is not worn, lo this is the fortieth year, 8:5. That thou mayst consider in thy heart, that as a man traineth up his son, so the Lord thy God hath trained thee up. 8:6. That thou shouldst keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and fear him. 8:7. For the Lord thy God will bring thee into a good land, of brooks and of waters, and of fountains: in the plains of which and the hills deep rivers break out: 8:8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vineyards, wherein fig trees and pomegranates, and oliveyards grow: a land of oil and honey. 8:9. Where without any want thou shalt eat thy bread, and enjoy abundance of all things: where the stones are iron, and out of its hills are dug mines of brass: 8:10. That when thou hast eaten, and art full, thou mayst bless the Lord thy God for the excellent land which he hath given thee. 8:11. Take heed, and beware lest at any time thou forget the Lord thy God, and neglect his commandments and judgments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day: 8:12. Lest after thou hast eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses, and dwelt in them, 8:13. And shalt have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, and plenty of gold and of silver, and of all things, 8:14. Thy heart be lifted up, and thou remember not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: 8:15. And was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness, wherein there was the serpent burning with his breath, and the scorpion and the dipsas, and no waters at all: who brought forth streams out of the hardest rock, The Dipsas. . .A serpent whose bite causeth a violent thirst; from whence it has its name, for in Greek dipsa signifies thirst. 8:16. And fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not. And after he had afflicted and proved thee, at the last he had mercy on thee, 8:17. Lest thou shouldst say in thy heart: My own might, and the strength of my own hand have achieved all these things for me. 8:18. But remember the Lord thy God, that he hath given thee strength, that he might fulfil his covenant, concerning which he swore to thy fathers, as this present day sheweth. 8:19. But if thou forget the Lord thy God, and follow strange gods, and serve and adore them: behold now I foretell thee that thou shalt utterly perish. 8:20. As the nations, which the Lord destroyed at thy entrance, so shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God. Deuteronomy Chapter 9 Lest they should impute their victories to their own merits, they are put in mind of their manifold rebellions and other sins, for which they should have been destroyed, but God spared them for his promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 9:1. Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt go over the Jordan this day; to possess nations very great, and stronger than thyself, cities great, and walled up to the sky, 9:2. A people great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen, and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand. 9:3. Thou shalt know therefore this day that the Lord thy God himself will pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face quickly, as he hath spoken to thee. 9:4. Say not in thy heart, when the Lord thy God shall have destroyed them in thy sight: For my justice hath the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their wickedness. 9:5. For it is not for thy justices, and the uprightness of thy heart that thou shalt go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly, they are destroyed at thy coming in: and that the Lord might accomplish his word, which he promised by oath to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 9:6. Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this excellent land in possession for thy justices, for thou art a very stiffnecked people. 9:7. Remember, and forget not how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou camest out of Egypt unto this place, thou hast always strove against the Lord. 9:8. For in Horeb, also thou didst provoke him, and he was angry, and would have destroyed thee, 9:9. When I went up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you: and I continued in the mount forty days and nights, neither eating bread, nor drinking water. 9:10. And the Lord gave me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and containing all the words that he spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the fire, when the people were assembled together. 9:11. And when forty days were passed, and as many nights, the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant, 9:12. And said to me: Arise, and go down from hence quickly: for thy people, which thou hast brought out of Egypt, have quickly forsaken the way that thou hast shewn them, and have made to themselves a molten idol. 9:13. And again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiffnecked: 9:14. Let me alone that I may destroy them, and abolish their name from under heaven, and set thee over a nation, that is greater and stronger than this. 9:15. And when I came down from the burning mount, and held the two tables of the covenant with both hands, 9:16. And saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made to yourselves a molten calf, and had quickly forsaken his way, which he had shewn you: 9:17. I cast the tables out of my hands, and broke them in your sight. 9:18. And I fell down before the Lord as before, forty days and nights neither eating bread, nor drinking water, for all your sins, which you had committed against the Lord, and had provoked him to wrath: 9:19. For I feared his indignation and anger, wherewith being moved against you, he would have destroyed you. And the Lord heard me this time also. 9:20. And he was exceeding angry against Aaron also, and would have destroyed him, and I prayed in like manner for him. 9:21. And your sin that you had committed, that is, the calf, I took, and burned it with fire, and breaking it into pieces, until it was as small as dust, I threw it into the torrent, which cometh down from the mountain. 9:22. At the burning also, and at the place of temptation, and at the graves of lust you provoked the Lord: 9:23. And when he sent you from Cadesbarne, saying: Go up, and possess the land that I have given you, and you slighted the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him, neither would you hearken to his voice: 9:24. But were always rebellious from the day that I began to know you. 9:25. And I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, in which I humbly besought him, that he would not destroy you as he had threatened: 9:26. And praying, I said: O Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed in thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. 9:27. Remember thy servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: look not on the stubbornness of this people, nor on their wickedness and sin: 9:28. Lest perhaps the inhabitants of the land, out of which thou hast brought us, say: The Lord could not bring them into the land that he promised them, and he hated them: therefore he brought them out, that he might kill them in the wilderness, 9:29. Who are thy people and thy inheritance, whom thou hast brought out by thy great strength, and in thy stretched out arm. Deuteronomy Chapter 10 God giveth the second tables of the law: a further exhortation to fear and serve the Lord. 10:1. At that time the Lord said to me: Hew thee two tables of stone like the former, and come up to me into the mount: and thou shalt make an ark of wood, 10:2. And I will write on the tables the words that were in them, which thou brokest before, and thou shalt put them in the ark. 10:3. And I made an ark of setim wood. And when I had hewn two tables of stone like the former, I went up into the mount, having them in my hands. 10:4. And he wrote in the tables, according as he had written before, the ten words, which the Lord spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the fire, when the people were assembled: and he gave them to me. 10:5. And returning from the mount, I came down, and put the tables into the ark, that I had made, and they are there till this present, as the Lord commanded me. 10:6. And the children of Israel removed their camp from Beroth, of the children of Jacan into Mosera, where Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him in the priestly office. Mosera. . .By mount Hor, for there Aaron died, Num. 20. This and the following verses seem to be inserted by way of parenthesis. 10:7. From thence they came to Gadgad, from which place they departed, and camped in Jetebatha, in a land of waters and torrents. 10:8. At that time he separated the tribe of Levi, to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to stand before him in the ministry, and to bless in his name until this present day. 10:9. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor possession with his brethren: because the Lord himself is his possession, as the Lord thy God promised him. 10:10. And I stood in the mount, as before, forty days and nights: and the Lord heard me this time also, and would not destroy thee. 10:11. And he said to me: Go, and walk before the people, that they may enter, and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers that I would give them. 10:12. And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul: 10:13. And keep the commandments of the Lord, and his ceremonies, which I command thee this day, that it may be well with thee? 10:14. Behold heaven is the Lord's thy God, and the heaven of heaven, the earth and all things that are therein. 10:15. And yet the Lord hath been closely joined to thy fathers, and loved them and chose their seed after them, that is to say, you, out of all nations, as this day it is proved. 10:16. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and stiffen your neck no more. 10:17. Because the Lord your God he is the God of gods, and the Lord of lords, a great God and mighty and terrible, who accepteth no person nor taketh bribes. 10:18. He doth judgment to the fatherless and the widow, loveth the stranger, and giveth him food and raiment. 10:19. And do you therefore love strangers, because you also were strangers in the land of Egypt. 10:20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him only: to him thou shalt adhere, and shalt swear by his name. 10:21. He is thy praise, and thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thy eyes have seen. 10:22. In seventy souls thy fathers went down into Egypt: and behold now the Lord thy God hath multiplied thee as the stars of heaven. Deuteronomy Chapter 11 The love and service of God are still inculcated, with a blessing to them that serve him, and threats of punishment if they forsake his law. 11:1. Therefore love the Lord thy God and observe his precepts and ceremonies, his judgments and commandments at all times. 11:2. Know this day the things that your children know not, who saw not the chastisements of the Lord your God, his great doings and strong hand, and stretched out arm, 11:3. The signs and works which he did in the midst of Egypt to king Pharao, and to all his land, 11:4. And to all the host of the Egyptians, and to their horses and chariots: how the waters of the Red Sea covered them, when they pursued you, and how the Lord destroyed them until this present day: 11:5. And what he hath done to you in the wilderness, til you came to this place: 11:6. And to Dathan and Abiron the sons of Eliab, who was the son of Ruben: whom the earth, opening her mouth swallowed up with their households and tents, and all their substance, which they had in the midst of Israel. 11:7. Your eyes have seen all the great works of the Lord, that he hath done, 11:8. That you may keep all his commandments, which I command you this day, and may go in, and possess the land, to which you are entering, 11:9. And may live in it a long time: which the Lord promised by oath to your fathers, and to their seed, a land which floweth with milk and honey. 11:10. For the land, which thou goest to possess, is not like the land of Egypt, from whence thou camest out, where, when the seed is sown, waters are brought in to water it after the manner of gardens. 11:11. But it is a land of hills and plains, expecting rain from heaven. 11:12. And the Lord thy God doth always visit it, and his eyes are on it from the beginning of the year unto the end thereof. 11:13. If then you obey my commandments, which I command you this day, that you love the Lord your God, and serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul: 11:14. He will give to your land the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil, 11:15. And your hay out of the fields to feed your cattle, and that you may eat and be filled. 11:16. Beware lest perhaps your heart be deceived, and you depart from the Lord, and serve strange gods, and adore them: 11:17. And the Lord being angry shut up heaven, that the rain come not down, nor the earth yield her fruit, and you perish quickly from the excellent land, which the Lord will give you. 11:18. Lay up these words in your hearts and minds, and hang them for a sign on your hands, and place them between your eyes. 11:19. Teach your children that they meditate on them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest on the way, and when thou liest down and risest up. 11:20. Thou shalt write them upon the posts and the doors of thy house: 11:21. That thy days may be multiplied, and the days of thy children in the land which the Lord swore to thy fathers, that he would give them as long as the heaven hangeth over the earth. 11:22. For if you keep the commandments which I command you, and do them, to love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, cleaving unto him, 11:23. The Lord will destroy all these nations before your face, and you shall possess them, which are greater and stronger than you. 11:24. Every place, that your foot shall tread upon, shall be yours. From the desert, and from Libanus, from the great river Euphrates unto the western sea shall be your borders. 11:25. None shall stand against you: the Lord your God shall lay the dread and fear of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon, as he hath spoken to you. 11:26. Behold I set forth in your sight this day a blessing and a curse: 11:27. A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: 11:28. A curse, if you obey not the commandments of the Lord your God, but revolt from the way which now I shew you, and walk after strange gods which you know not. 11:29. And when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, whither thou goest to dwell, thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Garizim, the curse upon mount Hebal: Put the blessing, et. . .See Deut. 27.12, etc. and Josue 8.33, etc. 11:30. Which are beyond the Jordan, behind the way that goeth to the setting of the sun, in the land of the Chanaanite who dwelleth in the plain country over against Galgala, which is near the valley that reacheth and entereth far. 11:31. For you shall pass over the Jordan, to possess the land, which the Lord your God will give you, that you may have it and possess it. 11:32. See therefore that you fulfil the ceremonies and judgments, which I shall set this day before you. Deuteronomy Chapter 12 All idolatry must be extirpated: sacrifices, tithes, and firstfruits must be offered in one only place: all eating of blood is prohibited. 12:1. These are the precepts and judgments, that you must do in the land, which the Lord the God of thy fathers will give thee, to possess it all the days that thou shalt walk upon the earth. 12:2. Destroy all the places in which the nations, that you shall possess, worshipped their gods upon high mountains, and hills, and under every shady tree: 12:3. Overthrow their altars, and break down their statues, burn their groves with fire, and break their idols in pieces: destroy their names out of those places. 12:4. You shall not do so to the Lord your God: 12:5. But you shall come to the place, which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, and to dwell in it: 12:6. And you shall offer in that place your holocausts and victims, the tithes and firstfruits of your hands and your vows and gifts, the firstborn of your herds and your sheep. 12:7. And you shall eat there in the sight of the Lord your God: and you shall rejoice in all things, whereunto you shall put your hand, you and your houses wherein the Lord your God hath blessed you. 12:8. You shall not do there the things we do here this day, every man that which seemeth good to himself. 12:9. For until this present time you are not come to rest, and to the possession, which the Lord your God will give you. 12:10. You shall pass over the Jordan, and shall dwell in the land which the Lord your God will give you, that you may have rest from all enemies round about: and may dwell without any fear, 12:11. In the place, which the Lord your God shall choose, that his name may be therein. Thither shall you bring all the things that I command you, holocausts, and victims, and tithes, and the firstfruits of your hands: and whatsoever is the choicest in the gifts which you shall vow to the Lord. 12:12. There shall you feast before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite that dwelleth in your cities. For he hath no other part and possession among you. 12:13. Beware lest thou offer thy holocausts in every place that thou shalt see: 12:14. But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes shalt thou offer sacrifices, and shalt do all that I command thee. 12:15. But if thou desirest to eat, and the eating of flesh delight thee, kill, and eat according to the blessing of the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee, in thy cities: whether it be unclean, that is to say, having blemish or defect: or clean, that is to say, sound and without blemish, such as may be offered, as the roe, and the hart, shalt thou eat it: 12:16. Only the blood thou shalt not eat, but thou shalt pour it out upon the earth as water. 12:17. Thou mayst not eat in thy towns the tithes of thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil, the firstborn of thy herds and thy cattle, nor any thing that thou vowest, and that thou wilt offer voluntarily, and the firstfruits of thy hands: 12:18. But thou shalt eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and maidservant, and the Levite that dwelleth in thy cities: and thou shalt rejoice and be refreshed before the Lord thy God in all things, whereunto thou shalt put thy hand. 12:19. Take heed thou forsake not the Levite all the time that thou livest in the land. 12:20. When the Lord thy God shall have enlarged thy borders, as he hath spoken to thee, and thou wilt eat the flesh that thy soul desireth: 12:21. And if the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name should be there, be far off, thou shalt kill of thy herds and of thy flocks, as I have commanded thee, and shalt eat in thy towns, as it pleaseth thee. 12:22. Even as the roe and the hart is eaten, so shalt thou eat them: both the clean and unclean shall eat of them alike. 12:23. Only beware of this, that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is for the soul: and therefore thou must not eat the soul with the flesh: 12:24. But thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water, 12:25. That it may be well with thee and thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is pleasing in the sight of the Lord. 12:26. But the things which thou hast sanctified and vowed to the Lord, thou shalt take, and shalt come to the place which the Lord shall choose: 12:27. And shalt offer thy oblations, the flesh and the blood upon the altar of the Lord thy God: the blood of thy victims thou shalt pour on the altar: and the flesh thou thyself shalt eat. 12:28. Observe and hear all the things that I command thee, that it may be well with thee and thy children after thee for ever, when thou shalt do what is good and pleasing in the sight of the Lord thy God. 12:29. When the Lord thy God shall have destroyed before thy face the nations, which thou shalt go in to possess, and when thou shalt possess them, and dwell in their land: 12:30. Beware lest thou imitate them, after they are destroyed at thy coming in, and lest thou seek after their ceremonies, saying: As these nations have worshipped their gods, so will I also worship. 12:31. Thou shalt not do in like manner to the Lord thy God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations which the Lord abhorreth, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire. 12:32. What I command thee, that only do thou to the Lord: neither add any thing, nor diminish. That only do thou, etc. . .They are forbid here to follow the ceremonies of the heathens; or to make any alterations in the divine ordinances. Deuteronomy Chapter 13 False prophets must be slain, and idolatrous cities destroyed. 13:1. If there rise in the midst of thee a prophet or one that saith he hath dreamed a dream, and he foretell a sign and a wonder, 13:2. And that come to pass which he spoke, and he say to thee: Let us go and follow strange gods, which thou knowest not, and let us serve them: 13:3. Thou shalt not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer: for the Lord your God trieth you, that it may appear whether you love him with all your heart, and with all your soul, or not. 13:4. Follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and hear his voice: him you shall serve, and to him you shall cleave. 13:5. And that prophet or forger of dreams shall be slain: because he spoke to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage: to make thee go out of the way, which the Lord thy God commanded thee: and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee. 13:6. If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife that is in thy bosom, or thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul, would persuade thee secretly, saying: Let us go, and serve strange gods, which thou knowest not, nor thy fathers, 13:7. Of all the nations round about, that are near or afar off, from one end of the earth to the other, 13:8. Consent not to him, hear him not, neither let thy eye spare him to pity and conceal him, 13:9. But thou shalt presently put him to death. Let thy hand be first upon him, and afterwards the hands of all the people. Presently put him to death. . .Not by killing him by private authority, but by informing the magistrate, and proceeding by order of justice. 13:10. With stones shall he be stoned to death: because he would have withdrawn thee from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage: 13:11. That all Israel hearing may fear, and may do no more any thing like this. 13:12. If in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God shall give thee to dwell in, thou hear some say: 13:13. Children of Belial are gone out of the midst of thee, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, and have said: Let us go, and serve strange gods which you know not: Belial. . .That is, without yoke. Hence the wicked, who refuse to be subject to the divine law, are called in scripture the children of Belial. 13:14. Inquire carefully and diligently, the truth of the thing by looking well into it, and if thou find that which is said to be certain, and that this abomination hath been really committed, 13:15. Thou shalt forthwith kill the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, and shalt destroy it and all things that are in it, even the cattle. 13:16. And all the household goods that are there, thou shalt gather together in the midst of the streets thereof, and shall burn them with the city itself, so as to comsume all for the Lord thy God, and that it be a heap for ever: it shall be built no more. 13:17. And there shall nothing of that anathema stick to thy hand: that the Lord may turn from the wrath of his fury, and may have mercy on thee, and multiply thee as he swore to thy fathers, 13:18. When thou shalt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, keeping all his precepts, which I command thee this day, that thou mayst do what is pleasing in the sight of the Lord thy God. Deuteronomy Chapter 14 In mourning for the dead they are not to follow the ways of the Gentiles: the distinction of clean and unclean meats: ordinances concerning tithes, and firstfruits. 14:1. Be ye children of the Lord your God: you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness for the dead; 14:2. Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God: and he chose thee to be his peculiar people of all nations that are upon the earth. 14:3. Eat not the things that are unclean. Unclean. . .See the annotations on Lev. 11. 14:4. These are the beasts that you shall eat, the ox, and the sheep, and the goat, 14:5. The hart and the roe, the buffle, the chamois, the pygarg, the wild goat, the camelopardalus. 14:6. Every beast that divideth the hoof in two parts, and cheweth the cud, you shall eat. 14:7. But of them that chew the cud, but divide not the hoof, you shall not eat, such as the camel, the hare, and the cherogril: because they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof, they shall be unclean to you. 14:8. The swine also, because it divideth the hoof, but cheweth not the cud, shall be unclean, their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. 14:9. These shall you eat of all that abide in the waters: All that have fins and scales, you shall eat. 14:10. Such as are without fins and scales, you shall not eat, because they are unclean. 14:11. All birds that are clean you shall eat. 14:12. The unclean eat not: to wit, the eagle, and the grype, and the osprey, 14:13. The ringtail, and the vulture, and the kite according to their kind: 14:14. And all of the raven's kind: 14:15. And the ostrich, and the owl, and the larus, and the hawk according to its kind: 14:16. The heron, and the swan, and the stork, 14:17. And the cormorant, the porphirion, and the night crow, 14:18. The bittern, and the charadrion, every one in their kind: the houp also and the bat. 14:19. Every thing that creepeth, and hath little wings, shall be unclean, and shall not be eaten. 14:20. All that is clean, you shall eat. 14:21. But whatsoever is dead of itself, eat not thereof. Give it to the stranger, that is within thy gates, to eat, or sell it to him: because thou art the holy people of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam. 14:22. Every year thou shalt set aside the tithes of all thy fruits that the earth bringeth forth, 14:23. And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, that his name may be called upon therein, the tithe of thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil, and the firstborn of thy herds and thy sheep: that thou mayst learn to fear the Lord thy God at all times. 14:24. But when the way and the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, are far off, and he hath blessed thee, and thou canst not carry all these things thither, 14:25. Thou shalt sell them all, and turn them into money, and shalt carry it in thy hand, and shalt go to the place which the Lord shall choose: 14:26. And thou shalt buy with the same money whatsoever pleaseth thee, either of the herds or of sheep, wine also and strong drink, and all that thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, and shalt feast, thou and thy house: 14:27. And the Levite that is within thy gates, beware thou forsake him not, because he hath no other part in thy possession. 14:28. The third year thou shalt separate another tithe of all things that grow to thee at that time, and shalt lay it up within thy gates. 14:29. And the Levite that hath no other part nor possession with thee, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, that are within thy gates, shall come and shall eat and be filled: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thy hands that thou shalt do. Deuteronomy Chapter 15 The law of the seventh year of remission. The firstlings of cattle are to be sanctified to the Lord. 15:1. In the seventh year thou shalt make a remission, 15:2. Which shall be celebrated in this order. He to whom any thing is owing from his friend or neighbour or brother, cannot demand it again, because it is the year of remission of the Lord. 15:3. Of the foreigner or stranger thou mayst exact it: of thy countryman and neighbour thou shalt not have power to demand it again. 15:4. And there shall be no poor nor beggar among you: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in the land which he will give thee in possession. There shall be no poor, etc. . .It is not to be understood as a promise, that there should be no poor in Israel, as appears from ver. 11, where we learn that God's people would never be at a loss to find objects for their charity: but it is an ordinance that all should do their best endeavours to prevent any of their brethren from suffering the hardships of poverty and want. 15:5. Yet so if thou hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and keep all things that he hath ordained, and which I command thee this day, he will bless thee, as he hath promised. 15:6. Thou shalt lend to many nations, and thou shalt borrow of no man. Thou shalt have dominion over very many nations, and no one shall have dominion over thee. 15:7. If one of thy brethren that dwelleth within thy gates of thy city in the land which the Lord thy God will give thee, come to poverty: thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor close thy hand, 15:8. But shalt open it to the poor man, thou shalt lend him, that which thou perceivest he hath need of. 15:9. Beware lest perhaps a wicked thought steal in upon thee, and thou say in thy heart: The seventh year of remission draweth nigh; and thou turn away thy eyes from thy poor brother, denying to lend him that which he asketh: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it become a sin unto thee. 15:10. But thou shalt give to him: neither shalt thou do any thing craftily in relieving his necessities: that the Lord thy God may bless thee at all times, and in all things to which thou shalt put thy hand. 15:11. There will not be wanting poor in the land of thy habitation: therefore I command thee to open thy hand to thy needy and poor brother, that liveth in the land. 15:12. When thy brother a Hebrew man, or Hebrew woman is sold to thee, and hath served thee six years, in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free: 15:13. And when thou sendest him out free, thou shalt not let him go away empty: 15:14. But shall give him for his way out of thy flocks, and out of thy barnfloor, and thy winepress, wherewith the Lord thy God shall bless thee. 15:15. Remember that thou also wast a bondservant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God made thee free, and therefore I now command thee this. 15:16. But if he say: I will not depart: because he loveth thee, and thy house, and findeth that he is well with thee: 15:17. Thou shalt take an awl, and bore through his ear in the door of thy house, and he shall serve thee for ever: thou shalt do in like manner to thy womanservant also. 15:18. Turn not away thy eyes from them when thou makest them free: because he hath served thee six years according to the wages of a hireling: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works that thou dost. 15:19. Of the firstlings, that come of thy herds and thy sheep, thou shalt sanctify to the Lord thy God whatsoever is of the male sex. Thou shalt not work with the firstling of a bullock, and thou shalt not shear the firstlings of thy sheep. 15:20. In the sight of the Lord thy God shalt thou eat them every year, in the place that the Lord shall choose, thou and thy house. 15:21. But if it have a blemish, or be lame, or blind, or in any part disfigured or feeble, it shall not be sacrificed to the Lord thy God. 15:22. But thou shalt eat it within the gates of thy city: the clean and the unclean shall eat them alike, as the roe and as the hart. 15:23. Only thou shalt take heed not to eat their blood, but pour it out on the earth as water. Deuteronomy Chapter 16 The three principal solemnities to be observed: just judges to be appointed in every city: all occasions of idolatry to be avoided. 16:1. Observe the month of new corn, which is the first of the spring, that thou mayst celebrate the phase to the Lord thy God: because in this month the Lord thy God brought thee out of Egypt by night. 16:2. And thou shalt sacrifice the phase to the Lord thy God, of sheep, and of oxen, in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there. 16:3. Thou shalt not eat with it leavened bread: seven days shalt thou eat without leaven, the bread of affliction, because thou camest out of Egypt in fear: that thou mayst remember the day of thy coming out of Egypt, all the days of thy life. 16:4. No leaven shall be seen in all thy coasts for seven days, neither shall any of the flesh of that which was sacrificed the first day in the evening remain until morning. 16:5. Thou mayst not immolate the phase in any one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God will give thee: 16:6. But in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there: thou shalt immolate the phase in the evening, at the going down of the sun, at which time thou camest out of Egypt. 16:7. And thou shalt dress, and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and in the morning rising up thou shalt go into thy dwellings. 16:8. Six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day, because it is the assembly of the Lord thy God, thou shalt do no work. 16:9. Thou shalt number unto thee seven weeks from that day, wherein thou didst put the sickle to the corn. 16:10. And thou shalt celebrate the festival of weeks to the Lord thy God, a voluntary oblation of thy hand, which thou shalt offer according to the blessing of the Lord thy God. 16:11. And thou shalt feast before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger and the fatherless, and the widow, who abide with you: in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there: 16:12. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in Egypt: and thou shalt keep and do the things that are commanded. 16:13. Thou shalt celebrate the solemnity also of tabernacles seven days, when thou hast gathered in thy fruit of the barnfloor and of the winepress. 16:14. And thou shalt make merry in thy festival time, thou, thy son, and thy daughter, thy manservant, and thy maidservant, the Levite also and the stranger, and the fatherless and the widow that are within thy gates. 16:15. Seven days shalt thou celebrate feasts to the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: and the Lord thy God will bless thee in all thy fruits, and in every work of thy hands, and thou shalt be in joy. 16:16. Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles. No one shall appear with his hands empty before the Lord: 16:17. But every one shall offer according to what he hath, according to the blessing of the Lord his God, which he shall give him. 16:18. Thou shalt appoint judges and magistrates in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God shall give thee, in all thy tribes: that they may judge the people with just judgment, 16:19. And not go aside to either part. Thou shalt not accept person nor gifts: for gifts blind the eyes of the wise, and change the words of the just. 16:20. Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just: that thou mayst live and possess the land, which the Lord thy God shall give thee. 16:21. Thou shalt plant no grove, nor any tree near the altar of the Lord thy God: 16:22. Neither shalt thou make nor set up to thyself a statue: which things the Lord thy God hateth. Deuteronomy Chapter 17 Victims must be without blemish. Idolaters are to be slain. Controversies are to be decided by the high priest and council, whose sentence must be obeyed under pain of death. The duty of a king, who is to receive the law of God at the priest's hands. 17:1. Thou shalt not sacrifice to the Lord thy God a sheep, or an ox, wherein there is blemish, or any fault: for that is an abomination to the Lord thy God. 17:2. When there shall be found among you within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God shall give thee, man or woman that do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, and transgress his covenant, 17:3. So as to go and serve strange gods, and adore them, the sun and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which I have not commanded: The host of heaven. . .That is, the stars. 17:4. And this is told thee, and hearing it thou hast inquired diligently, and found it to be true, and that the abomination is committed in Israel: 17:5. Thou shalt bring forth the man or the woman, who have committed that most wicked thing, to the gates of thy city, and they shall be stoned. 17:6. By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall he die that is to be slain. Let no man be put to death, when only one beareth witness against him. 17:7. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to kill him, and afterwards the hands of the rest of the people: that thou mayst take away the evil out of the midst of thee. 17:8. If thou perceive that there be among you a hard and doubtful matter in judgment between blood and blood, cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy: and thou see that the words of the judges within thy gates do vary: arise, and go up to the place, which the Lord thy God shall choose. If thou perceive, etc. . .Here we see what authority God was pleased to give to the church guides of the Old Testament, in deciding, without appeal, all controversies relating to the law; promising that they should not err therein; and surely he has not done less for the church guides of the New Testament. 17:9. And thou shalt come to the priests of the Levitical race, and to the judge, that shall be at that time: and thou shalt ask of them, and they shall shew thee the truth of the judgment. 17:10. And thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say, that preside in the place, which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee, 17:11. According to his law; and thou shalt follow their sentence: neither shalt thou decline to the right hand nor to the left hand. 17:12. But he that will be proud, and refuse to obey the commandment of the priest, who ministereth at that time to the Lord thy God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from Israel: 17:13. And all the people hearing it shall fear, that no one afterwards swell with pride. 17:14. When thou art come into the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, and possessest it, and shalt say: I will set a king over me, as all nations have that are round about: 17:15. Thou shalt set him whom the Lord thy God shall choose out of the number of thy brethren. Thou mayst not make a man of another nation king, that is not thy brother. 17:16. And when he is made king, he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor lead back the people into Egypt, being lifted up with the number of his horsemen, especially since the Lord hath commanded you to return no more the same way. 17:17. He shall not have many wives, that may allure his mind, nor immense sums of silver and gold. 17:18. But after he is raised to the throne of his kingdom, he shall copy out to himself the Deuteronomy of this law in a volume, taking the copy of the priests of the Levitical tribe, 17:19. And he shall have it with him, and shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and keep his words and ceremonies, that are commanded in the law; 17:20. And that his heart be not lifted up with pride over his brethren, nor decline to the right or to the left, that he and his sons may reign a long time over Israel. Deuteronomy Chapter 18 The Lord is the inheritance of the priests and Levites. Heathenish abominations are to be avoided. The great PROPHET CHRIST is promised. False prophets must be slain. 18:1. The priests and Levites, and all that are of the same tribe, shall have no part nor inheritance with the rest of Israel, because they shall eat the sacrifices of the Lord, and his oblations, 18:2. And they shall receive nothing else of the possession of their brethren: for the Lord himself is their inheritance, as he hath said to them. 18:3. This shall be the priest's due from the people, and from them that offer victims: whether they sacrifice an ox, or a sheep, they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the breast: 18:4. The firstfruits also of corn, of wine, and of oil, and a part of the wool from the shearing of their sheep. 18:5. For the Lord thy God hath chosen him of all thy tribes, to stand and to minister to the name of the Lord, him and his sons for ever. 18:6. If a Levite go out of any one of the cities throughout all Israel, in which he dwelleth, and have a longing mind to come to the place which the Lord shall choose, 18:7. He shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, that shall stand at that time before the Lord. 18:8. He shall receive the same portion of food that the rest do: besides that which is due to him in his own city, by succession from his fathers. 18:9. When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee, beware lest thou have a mind to imitate the abominations of those nations. 18:10. Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard, 18:11. Nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead. 18:12. For the Lord abhorreth all these things, and for these abominations he will destroy them at thy coming. 18:13. Thou shalt be perfect, and without spot before the Lord thy God. 18:14. These nations, whose land thou shalt possess, hearken to soothsayers and diviners: but thou art otherwise instructed by the Lord thy God. 18:15. The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a PROPHET of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou shalt hear: 18:16. As thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the assembly was gathered together, and saidst: Let me not hear any more the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see any more this exceeding great fire, lest I die. 18:17. And the Lord said to me: They have spoken all things well. 18:18. I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to thee: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. 18:19. And he that will not hear his words, which he shall speak in my name, I will be the revenger. 18:20. But the prophet, who being corrupted with pride, shall speak in my name things that I did not command him to say, or in the name of strange gods, shall be slain. 18:21. And if in silent thought thou answer: How shall I know the word that the Lord hath not spoken? 18:22. Thou shalt have this sign: Whatsoever that same prophet foretelleth in the name of the Lord, and it cometh not to pass: that thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath forged it by the pride of his mind: and therefore thou shalt not fear him. Deuteronomy Chapter 19 The cities of refuge. Wilful murder, and false witnesses must be punished. 19:1. When the Lord thy God hath destroyed the nations, whose land he will deliver to thee, and thou shalt possess it, and shalt dwell in the cities and houses thereof: 19:2. Thou shalt separate to thee three cities in the midst of the land, which the Lord will give thee in possession, 19:3. Paving diligently the way: and thou shalt divide the whole province of thy land equally into three parts: that he who is forced to flee for manslaughter, may have near at hand whither to escape. 19:4. This shall be the law of the slayer that fleeth, whose life is to be saved: He that killeth his neighbor ignorantly, and who is proved to have had no hatred against him yesterday and the day before: 19:5. But to have gone with him to the wood to hew wood, and in cutting down the tree the axe slipped out of his hand, and the iron slipping from the handle struck his friend, and killed him: he shall flee to one of the cities aforesaid, and live: 19:6. Lest perhaps the next kinsman of him whose blood was shed, pushed on by his grief should pursue, and apprehend him, if the way be too long, and take away the life of him who is not guilty of death, because he is proved to have had no hatred before against him that was slain. 19:7. Therefore I command thee, that thou separate three cities at equal distance one from another. 19:8. And when the Lord thy God shall have enlarged thy borders, as he swore to the fathers, and shall give thee all the land that he promised them, 19:9. (Yet so, if thou keep his commandments, and do the things which I command thee this day, that thou love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways at all times) thou shalt add to thee other three cities, and shalt double the number of the three cities aforesaid: 19:10. That innocent blood may not be shed in the midst of the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, lest thou be guilty of blood. 19:11. But if any man hating his neighbour, lie in wait for his life, and rise and strike him, and he die, and he flee to one of the cities aforesaid, 19:12. The ancients of his city shall send, and take him out of the place of refuge, and shall deliver him into the hand of the kinsman of him whose blood was shed, and he shall die. 19:13. Thou shalt not pity him, and thou shalt take away the guilt of innocent blood out of Israel, that it may be well with thee. 19:14. Thou shalt not take nor remove thy neighbour's landmark, which thy predecessors have set in thy possession, which the Lord thy God will give thee in the land that thou shalt receive to possess. 19:15. One witness shall not rise up against any man, whatsoever the sin or wickedness be: but in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand. 19:16. If a lying witness stand against a man, accusing him of transgression, 19:17. Both of them, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord in the sight of the priests and the judges that shall be in those days. 19:18. And when after most diligent inquisition, they shall find that the false witness hath told a lie against his brother: 19:19. They shall render to him as he meant to do to his brother, and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee: 19:20. That others hearing may fear, and may not dare to do such things. 19:21. Thou shalt not pity him, but shalt require life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Deuteronomy Chapter 20 Laws relating to war. 20:1. If thou go out to war against thy enemies, and see horsemen and chariots, and the numbers of the enemy's army greater than thine, thou shalt not fear them: because the Lord thy God is with thee, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. 20:2. And when the battle is now at hand, the priest shall stand before the army, and shall speak to the people in this manner: 20:3. Hear, O Israel, you join battle this day against your enemies, let not your heart be dismayed, be not afraid, do not give back, fear ye them not: 20:4. Because the Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger. 20:5. And the captains shall proclaim through every band in the hearing of the army: What man is there, that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. 20:6. What man is there, that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not as yet made it to be common, whereof all men may eat? let him go, and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man execute his office. 20:7. What man is there, that hath espoused a wife, and not taken her? let him go, and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and another man take her. 20:8. After these things are declared they shall add the rest, and shall speak to the people: What man is there that is fearful, and faint hearted? let him go, and return to his house, lest he make the hearts of his brethren to fear, as he himself is possessed with fear. 20:9. And when the captains of the army shall hold their peace, and have made an end of speaking, every man shall prepare their bands to fight. 20:10. If at any time thou come to fight against a city, thou shalt first offer it peace. 20:11. If they receive it, and open the gates to thee, all the people that are therein, shall be saved, and shall serve thee paying tribute. 20:12. But if they will not make peace, and shall begin war against thee, thou shalt besiege it. 20:13. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver it into thy hands, thou shalt slay all that are therein of the male sex, with the edge of the sword, 20:14. Excepting women and children, cattle and other things, that are in the city. And thou shalt divide all the prey to the army, and thou shalt eat the spoils of thy enemies, which the Lord thy God shall give thee. 20:15. So shalt thou do to all cities that are at a great distance from thee, and are not of these cities which thou shalt receive in possession. 20:16. But of those cities that shall be given thee, thou shalt suffer none at all to live: 20:17. But shalt kill them with the edge of the sword, to wit, the Hethite, and the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee: 20:18. Lest they teach you to do all the abominations which they have done to their gods: and you should sin against the Lord your God. 20:19. When thou hast besieged a city a long time, and hath compassed it with bulwarks, to take it, thou shalt not cut down the trees that may be eaten of, neither shalt thou spoil the country round about with axes: for it is a tree, and not a man, neither can it increase the number of them that fight against thee. 20:20. But if there be any trees that are not fruitful, but wild, and fit for other uses, cut them down, and make engines, until thou take the city, which fighteth against thee. Deuteronomy Chapter 21 The expiation of a secret murder. The marrying a captive. The eldest son must not be deprived of his birthright for hatred of his mother. A stubborn son is to be stoned to death. When one is hanged on a gibbet, he must be taken down the same day and buried. 21:1. When there shall be found in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder, 21:2. Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about: 21:3. And the ancients of that city which they shall perceive to be nearer than the rest, shall take a heifer of the herd, that hath not drawn in the yoke, nor ploughed the ground, 21:4. And they shall bring her into a rough and stony valley, that never was ploughed, nor sown: and there they shall strike off the head of the heifer: 21:5. And the priests the sons of Levi shall come, whom the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister to him, and to bless in his name, and that by their word every matter should be decided, and whatsoever is clean or unclean should be judged. 21:6. And the ancients of that city shall come to the person slain, and shall wash their hands over the heifer that was killed in the valley, 21:7. And shall say: Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. 21:8. Be merciful to thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood to their charge, in the midst of thy people Israel. And the guilt of blood shall be taken from them: 21:9. And thou shalt be free from the innocent's blood, that was shed, when thou shalt have done what the Lord hath commanded thee. 21:10. If thou go out to fight against thy enemies, and the Lord thy God deliver them into thy hand, and thou lead them away captives, 21:11. And seest in the number of the captives a beautiful woman, and lovest her, and wilt have her to wife, 21:12. Thou shalt bring her into thy house: and she shall shave her hair, and pare her nails, 21:13. And shall put off the raiment, wherein she was taken: and shall remain in thy house, and mourn for her father and mother one month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and shalt sleep with her, and she shall be thy wife. 21:14. But if afterwards she please thee not, thou shalt let her go free, but thou mayst not sell her for money nor oppress her by might because thou hast humbled her. 21:15. If a man have two wives, one beloved, and the other hated, and they have had children by him, and the son of the hated be the firstborn, 21:16. And he meaneth to divide his substance among his sons: he may not make the son of the beloved the firstborn, and prefer him before the son of the hated. 21:17. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, and shall give him a double portion of all he hath: for this is the first of his children, and to him are due the first birthrights. 21:18. If a man have a stubborn and unruly son, who will not hear the commandments of his father or mother, and being corrected, slighteth obedience: 21:19. They shall take him and bring him to the ancients of the city, and to the gate of judgment, 21:20. And shall say to them: This our son is rebellious and stubborn, he slighteth hearing our admonitions, he giveth himself to revelling, and to debauchery and banquetings: 21:21. The people of the city shall stone him: and he shall die, that you may take away the evil out of the midst of you, and all Israel hearing it may be afraid. 21:22. When a man hath committed a crime for which he is to be punished with death, and being condemned to die is hanged on a gibbet: 21:23. His body shall not remain upon the tree, but shall be buried the same day: for he is accursed of God that hangeth on a tree: and thou shalt not defile thy land, which the Lord thy God shall give thee in possession. Deuteronomy Chapter 22 Humanity towards neighbours. Neither sex may use the apparel of the other. Cruelty to be avoided even to birds. Battlements about the roof of a house. Things of divers kinds not to be mixed. The punishment of him that slandereth his wife, as also of adultery and rape. 22:1. Thou shalt not pass by if thou seest thy brother's ox, or his sheep go astray: but thou shalt bring them back to thy brother. 22:2. And if thy brother be not nigh, or thou know him not: thou shalt bring them to thy house, and they shall be with thee until thy brother seek them, and receive them. 22:3. Thou shalt do in like manner with his ass, and with his raiment, and with every thing that is thy brother's, which is lost: if thou find it, neglect it not as pertaining to another. 22:4. If thou see thy brother's ass or his ox to be fallen down in the way, thou shalt not slight it, but shalt lift it up with him. 22:5. A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel, neither shall a man use woman's apparel: for he that doth these things is abominable before God. 22:6. If thou find as thou walkest by the way, a bird's nest in a tree, or on the ground, and the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs: thou shalt not take her with her young: Thou shalt not take, etc. This was to shew them to exercise a certain mercy even to irrational creatures; and by that means to train them up to a horror of cruelty; and to the exercise of humanity and mutual charity one to another. 22:7. But shalt let her go, keeping the young which thou hast caught: that it may be well with thee, and thou mayst live a long time. 22:8. When thou buildest a new house, thou shalt make a battlement to the roof round about: lest blood be shed in thy house, and thou be guilty, if any one slip, and fall down headlong. Battlement. . .This precaution was necessary, because all their houses had flat tops, and it was usual to walk and to converse together upon them. 22:9. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest both the seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of the vineyard, be sanctified together. 22:10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together. 22:11. Thou shalt not wear a garment that is woven of woollen and linen together. 22:12. Thou shalt make strings in the hem at the four corners of thy cloak, wherewith thou shalt be covered. 22:13. If a man marry a wife, and afterwards hate her, 22:14. And seek occasions to put her away, laying to her charge a very ill name, and say: I took this woman to wife, and going in to her, I found her not a virgin: 22:15. Her father and mother shall take her, and shall bring with them the tokens of her virginity to the ancients of the city that are in the gate: 22:16. And the father shall say: I gave my daughter unto this man to wife: and because he hateth her, 22:17. He layeth to her charge a very ill name, so as to say: I found not thy daughter a virgin: and behold these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the ancients of the city: 22:18. And the ancients of that city shall take that man, and beat him, 22:19. Condemning him besides in a hundred sicles of silver, which he shall give to the damsel's father, because he hath defamed by a very ill name a virgin of Israel: and he shall have her to wife, and may not put her away all the days of his life. 22:20. But if what he charged her with be true, and virginity be not found in the damsel: 22:21. They shall cast her out of the doors of her father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her to death, and she shall die: because she hath done a wicked thing in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee. 22:22. If a man lie with another man's wife, they shall both die, that is to say, the adulterer and the adulteress: and thou shalt take away the evil out of Israel. 22:23. If a man have espoused a damsel that is a virgin, and some one find her in the city, and lie with her, 22:24. Thou shalt bring them both out to the gate of that city, and they shall be stoned: the damsel, because she cried not out, being in the city: the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife. And thou shalt take away the evil from the midst of thee. 22:25. But if a man find a damsel that is betrothed, in the field, and taking hold of her, lie with her, he alone shall die: 22:26. The damsel shall suffer nothing, neither is she guilty of death: for as a robber riseth against his brother, and taketh away his life, so also did the damsel suffer: 22:27. She was alone in the field: she cried, and there was no man to help her. 22:28. If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment: 22:29. He that lay with her shall give to the father of the maid fifty sicles of silver, and shall have her to wife, because he hath humbled her: he may not put her away all the days of his life. 22:30. No man shall take his father's wife, nor remove his covering. Deuteronomy Chapter 23 Who may and who may not enter into the church: uncleanness to be avoided: other precepts concerning fugitives, fornication, usury, vows, and eating other men's grapes and corn. 23:1. An eunuch, whose testicles are broken or cut away, or yard cut off, shall not enter into the church of the Lord. Eunuch. . .By these are meant, in the spiritual sense, such as are barren in good works. Ibid. Into the church. . .That is, into the assembly or congregation of Israel, so as to have the privilege of an Israelite, or to be capable of any place or office among the people of God. 23:2. A mamzer, that is to say, one born of a prostitute, shall not enter into the church of the Lord, until the tenth generation. 23:3. The Ammonite and the Moabite, even after the tenth generation shall not enter into the church of the Lord for ever: 23:4. Because they would not meet you with bread and water in the way, when you came out of Egypt: and because they hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor, from Mesopotamia in Syria, to curse thee. 23:5. And the Lord thy God would not hear Balaam, and he turned his cursing into thy blessing, because he loved thee. 23:6. Thou shalt not make peace with them, neither shalt thou seek their prosperity all the days of thy life for ever. 23:7. Thou shalt not abhor the Edomite, because he is thy brother: nor the Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. 23:8. They that are born of them, in the third generation shall enter into the church of the Lord. 23:9. When thou goest out to war against thy enemies, thou shalt keep thyself from every evil thing. 23:10. If there be among you any man, that is defiled in a dream by night, he shall go forth out of the camp, 23:11. And shall not return, before he be washed with water in the evening: and after sunset he shall return into the camp. 23:12. Thou shalt have a place without the camp, to which thou mayst go for the necessities of nature, 23:13. Carrying a paddle at thy girdle. And when thou sittest down, thou shalt dig round about, and with the earth that is dug up thou shalt cover 23:14. That which thou art eased of: (for the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thy enemies to thee:) and let thy camp be holy, and let no uncleanness appear therein, lest he go away from thee. No uncleanness. . .This caution against suffering any filth in the camp, was to teach them to fly the filth of sin, which driveth God away from the soul. 23:15. Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant that is fled to thee. 23:16. He shall dwell with thee in the place that shall please him, and shall rest in one of thy cities: give him no trouble. 23:17. There shall be no whore among the daughters of Israel, nor whoremonger among the sons of Israel. 23:18. Thou shalt not offer the hire of a strumpet, nor the price of a dog, in the house of the Lord thy God, whatsoever it be that thou hast vowed: because both these are an abomination to the Lord thy God. 23:19. Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury, nor corn, nor any other thing: 23:20. But to the stranger. To thy brother thou shalt lend that which he wanteth, without usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all thy works in the land, which thou shalt go in to possess. To the stranger. . .This was a dispensation granted by God to his people, who being the Lord of all things, can give a right and title to one upon the goods of another. Otherwise the scripture everywhere condemns usury, as contrary to the law of God, and a crying sin. See Ex. 22.25; Lev. 25.36, 37; 2 Esd. 5.7; Ps. 14.5; Ezech. 18.8, 13, etc. 23:21. When thou hast made a vow to the Lord thy God, thou shalt not delay to pay it: because the Lord thy God will require it. And if thou delay, it shall be imputed to thee for a sin. 23:22. If thou wilt not promise, that shalt be without sin. 23:23. But that which is once gone out of thy lips, thou shalt observe, and shalt do as thou hast promised to the Lord thy God, and hast spoken with thy own will and with thy own mouth. 23:24. Going into thy neighbour's vineyard, thou mayst eat as many grapes as thou pleasest: but must carry none out with thee: 23:25. If thou go into thy friend's corn, thou mayst break the ears, and rub them in thy hand: but not reap them with a sickle. Deuteronomy Chapter 24 Divorce permitted to avoid greater evil: the newly married must not go to war: of men stealers, of leprosy, of pledges, of labourers' hire, of justice, and of charity to the poor. 24:1. If a man take a wife, and have her, and she find not favour in his eyes, for some uncleanness: he shall write a bill of divorce, and shall give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 24:2. And when she is departed, and marrieth another husband, 24:3. And he also hateth her, and hath given her a bill of divorce, and hath sent her out of his house or is dead: 24:4. The former husband cannot take her again to wife: because she is defiled, and is become abominable before the Lord: lest thou cause thy land to sin, which the Lord thy God shall give thee to possess. 24:5. When a man hath lately taken a wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall any public business be enjoined him, but he shall be free at home without fault, that for one year he may rejoice with his wife. 24:6. Thou shalt not take the nether, nor the upper millstone to pledge: for he hath pledged his life to thee. 24:7. If any man be found soliciting his brother of the children of Israel, and selling him shall take a price, he shall be put to death, and thou shalt take away the evil from the midst of thee. 24:8. Observe diligently that thou incur not the stroke of the leprosy, but thou shalt do whatsoever the priests of the Levitical race shall teach thee, according to what I have commanded them, and fulfil thou it carefully. 24:9. Remember what the Lord your God did to Mary, in the way when you came out of Egypt. 24:10. When thou shalt demand of thy neighbour any thing that he oweth thee, thou shalt not go into his house to take away a pledge: 24:11. But thou shalt stand without, and he shall bring out to thee what he hath. 24:12. But if he be poor, the pledge shall not lodge with thee that night, 24:13. But thou shalt restore it to him presently before the going down of the sun: that he may sleep in his own raiment and bless thee, and thou mayst have justice before the Lord thy God. 24:14. Thou shalt not refuse the hire of the needy, and the poor, whether he be thy brother, or a stranger that dwelleth with thee in the land, and is within thy gates: 24:15. But thou shalt pay him the price of his labour the same day, before the going down of the sun, because he is poor, and with it maintaineth his life: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be reputed to thee for a sin. 24:16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers, but every one shall die for his own sin, 24:17. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger nor of the fatherless, neither shalt thou take away the widow's raiment for a pledge. 24:18. Remember that thou wast a slave in Egypt, and the Lord thy God delivered thee from thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing. 24:19. When thou hast reaped the corn in thy field, and hast forgot and left a sheaf, thou shalt not return to take it away: but thou shalt suffer the stranger, and the fatherless and the widow to take it away: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thy hands. 24:20. If thou have gathered the fruit of thy olive trees, thou shalt not return to gather whatsoever remaineth on the trees: but shalt leave it for the stranger, for the fatherless, and the widow. 24:21. If thou make the vintage of thy vineyard, thou shalt not gather the clusters that remain, but they shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. 24:22. Remember that thou also wast a bondman in Egypt, and therefore I command thee to do this thing. Deuteronomy Chapter 25 Stripes must not exceed forty. The ox is not to be muzzled. Of raising seed to the brother. Of the immodest woman. Of unjust weight. Of destroying the Amalecites. 25:1. If there be a controversy between men, and they call upon the judges: they shall give the prize of justice to him whom they perceive to be just: and him whom they find to be wicked, they shall condemn of wickedness. 25:2. And if they see that the offender be worthy of stripes: they shall lay him down, and shall cause him to be beaten before them. According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be: 25:3. Yet so, that they exceed not the number of forty: lest thy brother depart shamefully torn before thy eyes. 25:4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor. Not muzzle, etc. . .St. Paul understands this of the spiritual labourer in the church of God, who is not to be denied his maintenance. 1 Cor. 9.8, 9, 10. 25:5. When brethren dwell together, and one of them dieth without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another: but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother: 25:6. And the first son he shall have of her he shall call by his name, that his name be not abolished out of Israel. 25:7. But if he will not take his brother's wife, who by law belongeth to him, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and call upon the ancients, and say: My husband's brother refuseth to raise up his brother's name in Israel: and will not take me to wife. 25:8. And they shall cause him to be sent for forthwith, and shall ask him. If he answer: I will not take her to wife: 25:9. The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother's house: 25:10. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of the unshod. 25:11. If two men have words together, and one begin to fight against the other, and the other's wife willing to deliver her husband out of the hand of the stronger, shall put forth her hand, and take him by the secrets, 25:12. Thou shalt cut off her hand, neither shalt thou be moved with any pity in her regard. 25:13. Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag, a greater and a less: 25:14. Neither shall there be in thy house a greater bushel and a less. 25:15. Thou shalt have a just and a true weight, and thy bushel shall be equal and true: that thou mayest live a long time upon the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee. 25:16. For the Lord thy God abhorreth him that doth these things, and he hateth all injustice. 25:17. Remember what Amalec did to thee in the way when thou camest out of Egypt: Amalec. . .This order for destroying the Amalecites, in the mystical sense, sheweth how hateful they are to God, and what punishments they are to look for from his justice, who attack and discourage his servants when they are but just come out, as it were, of the Egypt of this wicked world and being yet weak and fainthearted, are but beginning their journey to the land of promise. 25:18. How he met thee: and slew the hindmost of the army, who sat down, being weary, when thou wast spent with hunger and labour, and he feared not God. 25:19. Therefore when the Lord thy God shall give thee rest, and shall have subdued all the nations round about in the land which he hath promised thee: thou shalt blot out his name from under heaven. See thou forget it not. Deuteronomy Chapter 26 The form of words with which the firstfruits and tithes are to be offered. God's covenant. 26:1. And when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, and hast conquered it, and dwellest in it: 26:2. Thou shalt take the first of all thy fruits, and put them in a basket, and shalt go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may be invocated there: 26:3. And thou shalt go to the priest that shall be in those days, and say to him: I profess this day before the Lord thy God, that I am come into the land, for which he swore to our fathers, that he would give it us. 26:4. And the priest taking the basket at thy hand, shall set it before the altar of the Lord thy God: 26:5. And thou shalt speak thus in the sight of the Lord thy God: The Syrian pursued my father, who went down into Egypt, and sojourned there in a very small number, and grew into a nation great and strong and of an infinite multitude. The Syrian. . .Laban. See Gen. 27. 26:6. And the Egyptians afflicted us, and persecuted us, laying on us most grievous burdens: 26:7. And we cried to the Lord God of our fathers: who heard us, and looked down upon our affliction, and labour, and distress: 26:8. And brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders: 26:9. And brought us into this place, and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10. And therefore now I offer the firstfruits of the land which the Lord hath given me. And thou shalt leave them in the sight of the Lord thy God, adoring the Lord thy God. 26:11. And thou shalt feast in all the good things which the Lord thy God hath given thee, and thy house, thou and the Levite, and the stranger that is with thee. 26:12. When thou hast made an end of tithing all thy fruits, in the third year of tithes thou shalt give it to the Levite, and to the stranger, and to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled: 26:13. And thou shalt speak thus in the sight of the Lord thy God: I have taken that which was sanctified out of my house, and I have given it to the Levite, and to the stranger, and to the fatherless, and to the widow, as thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments nor forgotten thy precepts. 26:14. I have not eaten of them in my mourning, nor separated them for any uncleanness, nor spent any thing of them in funerals. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God, and have done all things as thou hast commanded me. 26:15. Look from thy sanctuary, and thy high habitation of heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou didst swear to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:16. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these commandments and judgments: and to keep and fulfil them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. 26:17. Thou hast chosen the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways and keep his ceremonies, and precepts, and judgments, and obey his command. 26:18. And the Lord hath chosen thee this day, to be his peculiar people, as he hath spoken to thee, and to keep all his commandments: 26:19. And to make thee higher than all nations which he hath created, to his own praise, and name, and glory: that thou mayst be a holy people of the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken. Deuteronomy Chapter 27 The commandments must be written on stones: and an altar erected, and sacrifices offered. The observers of the commandments are to be blessed, and the transgressors cursed. 27:1. And Moses with the ancients of Israel commanded the people, saying: Keep every commandment that I command you this day. 27:2. And when you are passed over the Jordan into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee, thou shalt set up great stones, and shalt plaster them over with plaster, 27:3. That thou mayst write on them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over the Jordan: that thou mayst enter into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, as he swore to thy fathers. 27:4. Therefore when you are passed over the Jordan, set up the stones which I command you this day, in mount Hebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster: 27:5. And thou shalt build there an altar to the Lord thy God, of stones which iron hath not touched, 27:6. And of stones not fashioned nor polished: and thou shalt offer upon it holocausts to the Lord thy God: 27:7. And shalt immolate peace victims, and eat there, and feast before the Lord thy God. 27:8. And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law plainly and clearly. 27:9. And Moses and the priests of the race of Levi said to all Israel: Attend, and hear, O Israel: This day thou art made the people of the Lord thy God: 27:10. Thou shalt hear his voice, and do the commandments and justices which I command thee. 27:11. And Moses commanded the people in that day, saying: 27:12. These shall stand upon mount Garizim to bless the people, when you are passed the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Juda, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. 27:13. And over against them shall stand on mount Hebal to curse: Ruben, Gad, and Aser, and Zabulon, Dan, and Nephtali. 27:14. And the Levites shall pronounce, and say to all the men of Israel with a loud voice: 27:15. Cursed be the man that maketh a graven and molten thing, the abomination of the Lord, the work of the hands of artificers, and shall put it in a secret place: and all the people shall answer and say: Amen. 27:16. Cursed be he that honoureth not his father and mother: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:17. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmarks: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:18. Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of his way: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:19. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, of the fatherless and the widow: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:20. Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife, and uncovereth his bed: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:21. Cursed be he that lieth with any beast: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:22. Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or of his mother: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:23. Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:24. Cursed be he that secretly killeth his neighbour: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:25. Cursed be he that taketh gifts, to slay an innocent person: and all the people shall say: Amen. 27:26. Cursed be he that abideth not in the words of this law, and fulfilleth them not in work: and all the people shall say: Amen. Deuteronomy Chapter 28 Many blessings are promised to observers of God's commandments: and curses threatened to transgressors. 28:1. Now if thou wilt hear the voice of all his commandments, which I command thee this day, the Lord thy God will make thee higher than all the nations that are on the earth. 28:2. And all these blessings shall come upon thee and overtake thee: yet so if thou hear his precepts. All these blessings, etc. . .In the Old Testament, God promised temporal blessings to the keepers of his law, heaven not being opened as yet; and that gross and sensual people being more moved with present and sensible things. But in the New Testament the goods that are promised us are spiritual and eternal; and temporal evils are turned into blessings. 28:3. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed in the field. 28:4. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the droves of thy herds, and the folds of thy sheep. 28:5. Blessed shall be thy barns and blessed thy stores. 28:6. Blessed shalt thou be coming in and going out. 28:7. The Lord shall cause thy enemies, that rise up against thee, to fall down before thy face: one way shall they come out against thee, and seven ways shall they flee before thee. 28:8. The Lord will send forth a blessing upon thy storehouses, and upon all the works of thy hands: and will bless thee in the land that thou shalt receive. 28:9. The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to himself, as he swore to thee: if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. 28:10. And all the people of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord is invocated upon thee, and they shall fear thee. 28:11. The Lord will make thee abound with all goods, with the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy cattle, with the fruit of thy land, which the Lord swore to thy fathers that he would give thee. 28:12. The Lord will open his excellent treasure, the heaven, that it may give rain in due season: and he will bless all the works of thy hands. And thou shalt lend to many nations, and shalt not borrow of any one. 28:13. And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail: and thou shalt be always above, and not beneath: yet so if thou wilt hear the commandments of the Lord thy God which I command thee this day, and keep and do them, 28:14. And turn not away from them neither to the right hand, nor to the left, nor follow strange gods, nor worship them. 28:15. But if thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day, all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. All these curses, etc. . .Thus God dealt with the transgressors of his law in the Old Testament: but now he often suffers sinners to prosper in this world, rewarding them for some little good they have done, and reserving their punishment for the other world. 28:16. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed in the field. 28:17. Cursed shall be thy barn, and cursed thy stores. 28:18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, the herds of thy oxen, and the flocks of thy sheep. 28:19. Cursed shalt thou be coming in, and cursed going out. 28:20. The Lord shall send upon thee famine and hunger, and a rebuke upon all the works which thou shalt do: until he consume and destroy thee quickly, for thy most wicked inventions, by which thou hast forsaken me. 28:21. May the Lord set the pestilence upon thee, until he consume thee out of the land, which thou shalt go in to possess. 28:22. May the Lord afflict thee with miserable want, with the fever and with cold, with burning and with heat, and with corrupted air and with blasting, and pursue thee till thou perish. 28:23. Be the heaven, that is over thee, of brass: and the ground thou treadest on, of iron. 28:24. The Lord give thee dust for rain upon thy land, and let ashes come down from heaven upon thee, till thou be consumed. 28:25. The Lord make thee to fall down before thy enemies, one way mayst thou go out against them, and flee seven ways, and be scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth. 28:26. And be thy carcass meat for all the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, and be there none to drive them away. 28:27. The Lord strike thee with the ulcer of Egypt, and the part of thy body, by which the dung is cast out, with the scab and with the itch: so that thou canst not be healed. 28:28. The Lord strike thee with madness and blindness and fury of mind. 28:29. And mayst thou grope at midday as the blind is wont to grope in the dark, and not make straight thy ways. And mayst thou at all times suffer wrong, and be oppressed with violence, and mayst thou have no one to deliver thee. 28:30. Mayst thou take a wife, and another sleep with her. Mayst thou build a house, and not dwell therein. Mayest thou plant a vineyard and not gather the vintage thereof. 28:31. May thy ox be slain before thee, and thou not eat thereof. May thy ass be taken away in thy sight, and not restored to thee. May thy sheep be given to thy enemies, and may there be none to help thee. 28:32. May thy sons and thy daughters be given to another people, thy eyes looking on, and languishing at the sight of them all the day, and may there be no strength in thy hand. 28:33. May a people which thou knowest not, eat the fruits of thy land, and all thy labours: and mayst thou always suffer oppression, and be crushed at all times. 28:34. And be astonished at the terror of those things which thy eyes shall see: 28:35. May the Lord strike thee with a very sore ulcer in the knees and in the legs, and be thou incurable from the sole of the foot to the top of the head. 28:36. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, whom thou shalt have appointed over thee, into a nation which thou and thy fathers know not: and there thou shalt serve strange gods, wood and stone. 28:37. And thou shalt be lost, as a proverb and a byword to all people, among whom the Lord shall bring thee in. 28:38. Thou shalt cast much seed into the ground, and gather little: because the locusts shall consume all. 28:39. Thou shalt plant a vineyard, and dig it, and shalt not drink the wine, nor gather any thing thereof: because it shall be wasted with worms. 28:40. Thou shalt have olive trees in all thy borders, and shalt not be anointed with the oil: for the olives shall fall off and perish. 28:41. Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, and shalt not enjoy them: because they shall be led into captivity. 28:42. The blast shall consume all the trees and the fruits of thy ground. 28:43. The stranger that liveth with thee in the land, shall rise up over thee, and shall be higher: and thou shalt go down, and be lower. 28:44. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him. He shall be as the head, and thou shalt be the tail. 28:45. And all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue and overtake thee, till thou perish: because thou heardst not the voice of the Lord thy God, and didst not keep his commandments and ceremonies which he commanded thee. 28:46. And they shall be as signs and wonders on thee, and on thy seed for ever. 28:47. Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things: 28:48. Thou shalt serve thy enemy, whom the Lord will send upon thee, in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put an iron yoke upon thy neck, till he consume thee. 28:49. The Lord will bring upon thee a nation from afar, and from the uttermost ends of the earth, like an eagle that flyeth swiftly, whose tongue thou canst not understand, 28:50. A most insolent nation, that will shew no regard to the ancients, nor have pity on the infant, 28:51. And will devour the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruits of thy land: until thou be destroyed, and will leave thee no wheat, nor wine, nor oil, nor herds of oxen, nor flocks of sheep: until he destroy thee. 28:52. And consume thee in all thy cities, and thy strong and high wall be brought down, wherein thou trustedst in all thy land. Thou shalt be besieged within thy gates in all thy land which the Lord thy God will give thee: 28:53. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thy womb, and the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God shall give thee, in the distress and extremity wherewith thy enemy shall oppress thee. 28:54. The man that is nice among you, and very delicate, shall envy his own brother, and his wife, that lieth in his bosom, 28:55. So that he will not give them of the flesh of his children, which he shall eat: because he hath nothing else in the siege and the want, wherewith thy enemies shall distress thee within all thy gates. 28:56. The tender and delicate woman, that could not go upon the ground, nor set down her foot for over much niceness and tenderness, will envy her husband who lieth in her bosom, the flesh of her son, and of her daughter, 28:57. And the filth of the afterbirths, that come forth from between her thighs, and the children that are born the same hour. For they shall eat them secretly for the want of all things, in the siege and distress, wherewith thy enemy shall oppress thee within thy gates. 28:58. If thou wilt not keep, and fulfil all the words of this law, that are written in this volume, and fear his glorious and terrible name: that is, The Lord thy God: 28:59. The Lord shall increase thy plagues, and the plagues of thy seed, plagues great and lasting, infirmities grievous and perpetual. 28:60. And he shall bring back on thee all the afflictions of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of, and they shall stick fast to thee. 28:61. Moreover the Lord will bring upon thee all the diseases, and plagues, that are not written in the volume of this law till he consume thee: 28:62. And you shall remain few in number, who before were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because thou heardst not the voice of the Lord thy God. 28:63. And as the Lord rejoiced upon you before doing good to you, and multiplying you: so he shall rejoice destroying and bringing you to nought, so that you shall be taken away from the land which thou shalt go in to possess. 28:64. The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the farthest parts of the earth to the ends thereof: and there thou shalt serve strange gods, which both thou art ignorant of and thy fathers, wood and stone. 28:65. Neither shalt thou be quiet, even in those nations, nor shall there be any rest for the sole of thy foot. For the Lord will give thee a fearful heart, and languishing eyes, and a soul consumed with pensiveness: 28:66. And thy life shall be as it were hanging before thee. Thou shalt fear night and day, neither shalt thou trust thy life. 28:67. In the morning thou shalt say: Who will grant me evening? and at evening: Who will grant me morning? for the fearfulness of thy heart, wherewith thou shalt be terrified, and for those things which thou shalt see with thy eyes. 28:68. The Lord shall bring thee again with ships into Egypt, by the way whereof he said to thee that thou shouldst see it no more. There shalt thou be set to sale to thy enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you. Deuteronomy Chapter 29 The covenant is solemnly confirmed between God and his people. Threats against those that shall break it. 29:1. These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab: beside that covenant which he made with them in Horeb. 29:2. And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: You have seen all the things that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt to Pharao, and to all his servants, and to his whole land. 29:3. The great temptations, which thy eyes have seen, those mighty signs and wonders, 29:4. And the Lord hath not given you a heart to understand, and eyes to see, and ears that may hear, unto this present day. Hath not given you, etc. . .Through your own fault and because you resisted his grace. 29:5. He hath brought you forty years through the desert: your garments are not worn out, neither are the shoes of your feet consumed with age. 29:6. You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink: that you might know that I am the Lord your God. 29:7. And you came to this place: and Sehon king of Hesebon, and Og king of Basan, came out against us to fight. And we slew them. 29:8. And took their land, and delivered it for a possession to Ruben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses. 29:9. Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and fulfil them: that you may understand all that you do. 29:10. You all stand this day before the Lord your God, your princes, and tribes, and ancients, and doctors, all the people of Israel, 29:11. Your children and your wives, and the stranger that abideth with thee in the camp, besides the hewers of wood, and them that bring water: 29:12. That thou mayst pass in the covenant of the Lord thy God, and in the oath which this day the Lord thy God maketh with thee. 29:13. That he may raise thee up a people to himself, and he may be thy God as he hath spoken to thee, and as he swore to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14. Neither with you only do I make this covenant, and confirm these oaths, 29:15. But with all that are present and that are absent. 29:16. For you know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we have passed through the midst of nations, and passing through them, 29:17. You have seen their abominations and filth, that is to say, their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which they worshipped. 29:18. Lest perhaps there should be among you a man or a woman, a family or a tribe, whose heart is turned away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations: and there should be among you a root bringing forth gall and bitterness. 29:19. And when he shall hear the words of this oath, he should bless himself in his heart saying: I shall have peace, and will walk on in the naughtiness of my heart: and the drunken may consume the thirsty, The drunken, etc., absumat ebria sitientem. . .It is a proverbial expression, which may either be understood, as spoken by the sinner, blessing, that is, flattering himself in his sins with the imagination of peace, and so great an abundance as may satisfy, and as it were, consume all thirst and want: or it may be referred to the root of bitterness, spoken of before, which being drunken with sin may attract, and by that means consume, such as thirst after the like evils. 29:20. And the Lord should not forgive him: but his wrath and jealousy against that man should be exceedingly enkindled at that time, and all the curses that are written in this volume should light upon him: and the Lord should blot out his name from under heaven, 29:21. And utterly destroy him out of all the tribes of Israel, according to the curses that are contained in the book of this law and covenant: 29:22. And the following generation shall say, and the children that shall be born hereafter, and the strangers that shall come from afar, seeing the plagues of that land and the evils wherewith the Lord hath afflicted it, 29:23. Burning it with brimstone, and the heat of salt, so that it cannot be sown any more, nor any green thing grow therein, after the example of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, Adama and Seboim, which the Lord destroyed in his wrath and indignation: 29:24. And all the nations shall say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this land? what meaneth this exceeding great heat of his wrath? 29:25. And they shall answer: Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, which he made with their fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt: 29:26. And they have served strange gods, and adored them, whom they knew not, and for whom they had not been assigned: 29:27. Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this volume: 29:28. And he hath cast them out of their land, in anger and in wrath, and in very great indignation, and hath thrown them into a strange land, as it is seen this day. 29:29. Secret things to the Lord our God: things that are manifest, to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Secret things, etc. . .As much as to say, secret things belong to, and are known to, God alone; our business must be to observe what he has revealed and manifested to us, and to direct our lives accordingly. Deuteronomy Chapter 30 Great mercies are promised to the penitent: God's commandment is feasible. Life and death are set before them. 30:1. Now when all these things shall be come upon thee, the blessing or the curse, which I have set forth before thee, and thou shalt be touched with repentance of thy heart among all the nations, into which the Lord thy God shall have scattered thee, 30:2. And shalt return to him, and obey his commandments, as I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul: 30:3. The Lord thy God will bring back again thy captivity, and will have mercy on thee, and gather thee again out of all the nations, into which he scattered thee before. 30:4. If thou be driven as far as the poles of heaven, the Lord thy God will fetch thee back from hence, 30:5. And will take thee to himself, and bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it: and blessing thee, he will make thee more numerous than were thy fathers. 30:6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed: that thou mayst love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayst live. 30:7. And he will turn all these curses upon thy enemies, and upon them that hate and persecute thee. 30:8. But thou shalt return, and hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and shalt do all the commandments which I command thee this day: 30:9. And the Lord thy God will make thee abound in all the works of thy hands, in the fruit of thy womb, and in the fruit of thy cattle, in the fruitfulness of thy land, and in the plenty of all things. For the Lord will return to rejoice over thee in all good things, as he rejoiced in thy fathers: 30:10. Yet so if thou hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and keep his precepts and ceremonies, which are written in this law: and return to the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. 30:11. This commandment, that I command thee this day is not above thee, nor far off from thee: 30:12. Nor is it in heaven, that thou shouldst say: Which of us can go up to heaven to bring it unto us, and we may hear and fulfil it in work? 30:13. Nor is it beyond the sea: that thou mayst excuse thyself, and say: Which of us can cross the sea, and bring it unto us: that we may hear, and do that which is commanded? 30:14. But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayst do it. 30:15. Consider that I have set before thee this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil: 30:16. That thou mayst love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgments, and bless thee in the land, which thou shalt go in to possess. 30:17. But if thy heart be turned away, so that thou wilt not hear, and being deceived with error thou adore strange gods, and serve them: 30:18. I foretell thee this day that thou shalt perish, and shalt remain but a short time in the land, to which thou shalt pass over the Jordan, and shalt go in to possess it. 30:19. I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 30:20. And that thou mayst love the Lord thy God, and obey his voice, and adhere to him (for he is thy life, and the length of thy days,) that thou mayst dwell in the land, for which the Lord swore to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give it them. Deuteronomy Chapter 31 Moses encourageth the people, and Josue, who is appointed to succeed him. He delivereth the law to the priests. God foretelleth that the people will often forsake him, and that he will punish them. He commandeth Moses to write a canticle, as a constant remembrancer of the law. 31:1. And Moses went, and spoke all these words to all Israel, 31:2. And he said to them: I am this day a hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer go out and come in, especially as the Lord also hath said to me: Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan. 31:3. The Lord thy God then will pass over before thee: he will destroy all these nations in thy sight, and thou shalt possess them: and this Josue shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath spoken. 31:4. And the Lord shall do to them as he did to Sehon and Og the kings of the Amorrhites, and to their land, and shall destroy them. 31:5. Therefore when the Lord shall have delivered these also to you, you shall do in like manner to them as I have commanded you. 31:6. Do manfully and be of good heart: fear not, nor be ye dismayed at their sight: for the Lord thy God he himself is thy leader, and will not leave thee nor forsake thee. 31:7. And Moses called Josue, and said to him before all Israel: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring this people into the land which the Lord swore he would give to their fathers, and thou shalt divide it by lot. 31:8. And the Lord who is your leader, he himself will be with thee: he will not leave thee, nor forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. 31:9. And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the ancients of Israel. 31:10. And he commanded them, saying: After seven years, in the year of remission, in the feast of tabernacles, 31:11. When all Israel come together, to appear in the sight of the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou shalt read the words of this law before all Israel, in their hearing. 31:12. And the people being all assembled together, both men and women, children and strangers, that are within thy gates: that hearing they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and keep, and fulfil all the words of this law: 31:13. That their children also, who now are ignorant, may hear, and fear the Lord their God, all the days that they live in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it. 31:14. And the Lord said to Moses: Behold the days of thy death are nigh: call Josue, and stand ye in the tabernacle of the testimony, that I may give him a charge. So Moses and Josue went and stood in the tabernacle of the testimony: 31:15. And the Lord appeared there in the pillar of a cloud, which stood in the entry of the tabernacle. 31:16. And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them, 31:17. And my wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured: all evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me. 31:18. But I will hide, and cover my face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods. 31:19. Now therefore write you this canticle, and teach the children of Israel: that they may know it by heart, and sing it by mouth, and this song may be unto me for a testimony among the children of Israel. 31:20. For I will bring them into the land, for which I swore to their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey. And when they have eaten, and are full and fat, they will turn away after strange gods, and will serve them: and will despise me, and make void my covenant. 31:21. And after many evils and afflictions shall have come upon them, this canticle shall answer them for a testimony, which no oblivion shall take away out of the mouth of their seed. For I know their thoughts, and what they are about to do this day, before that I bring them into the land which I have promised them. 31:22. Moses therefore wrote the canticle, and taught it to the children of Israel. 31:23. And the Lord commanded Josue the son of Nun, and said: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I have promised, and I will be with thee. 31:24. Therefore after Moses had wrote the words of this law in a volume, and finished it: 31:25. He commanded the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying: 31:26. Take this book, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God: that it may be there for a testimony against thee. 31:27. For I know thy obstinacy, and thy most stiff neck. While I am yet living, and going in with you, you have always been rebellious against the Lord: how much more when I shall be dead? 31:28. Gather unto me all the ancients of your tribes, and your doctors, and I will speak these words in their hearing, and will call heaven and earth to witness against them. 31:29. For I know that, after my death, you will do wickedly, and will quickly turn aside form the way that I have commanded you: and evils shall come upon you in the latter times, when you shall do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him by the works of your hands. 31:30. Moses therefore spoke, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel, the words of this canticle, and finished it even to the end. Deuteronomy Chapter 32 A canticle for the remembrance of the law. Moses is commanded to go up into a mountain, from whence he shall see the promised land but not enter into it. 32:1. Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth. 32:2. Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass. 32:3. Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence to our God. 32:4. The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right. 32:5. They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation. 32:6. Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee? 32:7. Remember the days of old, think upon every generation: ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell thee. 32:8. When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel. 32:9. But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance. 32:10. He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye. 32:11. As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders. 32:12. The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him. 32:13. He set him upon high land: that he might eat the fruits of the fields, that he might suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the hardest stone, 32:14. Butter of the herd, and milk of the sheep with the fat of lambs, and of the rams of the breed of Basan: and goats with the marrow of wheat, and might drink the purest blood of the grape. 32:15. The beloved grew fat, and kicked: he grew fat, and thick and gross, he forsook God who made him, and departed from God his saviour. 32:16. They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up to anger, with their abominations. 32:17. They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not. 32:18. Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee, and hast forgotten the Lord that created thee. 32:19. The Lord saw, and was moved to wrath: because his own sons and daughters provoked him. 32:20. And he said: I will hide my face from them, and will consider what their last end shall be: for it is a perverse generation, and unfaithful children. 32:21. They have provoked me with that which was no god, and have angered me with their vanities: and I will provoke them with that which is no people, and will vex them with a foolish nation. 32:22. A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth with her increase, and shall burn the foundations of the mountains. 32:23. I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows among them. 32:24. They shall be consumed with famine, and birds shall devour them with a most bitter bite: I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon the ground, and of serpents. 32:25. Without, the sword shall lay them waste, and terror within, both the young man and the virgin, the sucking child with the man in years. 32:26. I said: Where are they? I will make the memory of them to cease from among men. 32:27. But for the wrath of the enemies I have deferred it: lest perhaps their enemies might be proud, and should say: Our mighty hand, and not the Lord, hath done all these things. 32:28. They are a nation without counsel, and without wisdom. 32:29. O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end. 32:30. How should one pursue after a thousand, and two chase ten thousand? Was it not, because their God had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? 32:31. For our God is not as their gods: our enemies themselves are judges. 32:32. Their vines are of the vineyard of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrha: their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters most bitter. 32:33. Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which is incurable. 32:34. Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed up in my treasures? 32:35. Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is at hand, and the time makes haste to come. 32:36. The Lord will judge his people, and will have mercy on his servants: he shall see that their hand is weakened, and that they who were shut up have also failed, and they that remained are consumed. 32:37. And he shall say: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted? 32:38. Of whose victims they ate the fat, and drank the wine of their drink offerings: let them arise and help you, and protect you in your distress. 32:39. See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike, and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. 32:40. I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live for ever. 32:41. If I shall whet my sword as the lightning, and my hand take hold on judgment: I will render vengeance to my enemies, and repay them that hate me. 32:42. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, of the blood of the slain and of the captivity, of the bare head of the enemies. 32:43. Praise his people, ye nations, for he will revenge the blood of his servants: and will render vengeance to their enemies, and he will be merciful to the land of his people. 32:44. So Moses came and spoke all the words of this canticle in the ears of the people, and Josue the son of Nun. 32:45. And he ended all these words, speaking to all Israel. 32:46. And he said to them: Set your hearts on all the words, which I testify to you this day: which you shall command your children to observe and to do, and to fulfil all that is written in this law: 32:47. For they are not commanded you in vain, but that every one should live in them, and that doing them you may continue a long time in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it. 32:48. And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying: 32:49. Go up into this mountain Abarim, (that is to say, of passages,) unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho: and see the land of Chanaan, which I will deliver to the children of Israel to possess, and die thou in the mountain. 32:50. When thou art gone up into it thou shalt be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his people: 32:51. Because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel, at the waters of contradiction, in Cades of the desert of Sin: and you did not sanctify me among the children of Israel. 32:52. Thou shalt see the land before thee, which I will give to the children of Israel, but thou shalt not enter into it. Deuteronomy Chapter 33 Moses before his death blesseth the tribes of Israel. 33:1. This is the blessing, wherewith the man of God, Moses, blessed the children of Israel, before his death. 33:2. And he said: The Lord came from Sinai, and from Seir he rose up to us: he hath appeared from mount Pharan, and with him thousands of saints. In his right hand a fiery law. 33:3. He hath loved the people, all the saints are in his hand: and they that approach to his feet, shall receive of his doctrine. 33:4. Moses commanded us a law, the inheritance of the multitude of Jacob. 33:5. He shall be king with the most right, the princes of the people, being assembled with the tribes of Israel. 33:6. Let Ruben live, and not die, and be he small in number. 33:7. This is the blessing of Juda. Hear, O Lord, the voice of Juda, and bring him in unto his people: his hands shall fight for him, and he shall be his helper against his enemies. 33:8. To Levi also he said: Thy perfection, and thy doctrine be to thy holy man, whom thou hast proved in the temptation, and judged at the waters of contradiction: Holy man. . .Aaron and his successors in the priesthood. 33:9. Who hath said to his father, and to his mother: I do not know you; and to his brethren: I know you not: and their own children they have not known. These have kept thy word, and observed thy covenant, Who hath said, etc. . .It is the duty of the priestly tribe to prefer God's honour and service before all considerations of flesh and blood: in such manner as to behave as strangers to their nearest akin, when these would withdraw them from the business of their calling. 33:10. Thy judgments, O Jacob, and thy law, O Israel: they shall put incense in thy wrath and holocaust upon thy altar. 33:11. Bless, O Lord, his strength, and receive the works of his hands. Strike the backs of his enemies, and let not them that hate him rise. 33:12. And to Benjamin he said: The best beloved of the Lord shall dwell confidently in him: as in a bride chamber shall he abide all the day long, and between his shoulders shall be rest. Shall dwell, etc. . .This seems to allude to the temple being built in the confines of the tribe of Benjamin. 33:13. To Joseph also he said: Of the blessing of the Lord be his land, of the fruits of heaven, and of the dew, and of the deep that lieth beneath. 33:14. Of the fruits brought forth by the sun and by the moon. 33:15. Of the tops of the ancient mountains, of the fruits of the everlasting hills: 33:16. And of the fruits of the earth, and of the fulness thereof. The blessing of him that appeared in the bush, come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the Nazarite among his brethren. The Nazarite. . .See the note on Gen. 49.26. 33:17. His beauty as of the firstling of a bullock, his horns as the horns of a rhinoceros: with them shall he push the nations even to the ends of the earth. These are the multitudes of Ephraim and these the thousands of Manasses. 33:18. And to Zabulon he said: Rejoice, O Zabulon, in thy going out; and Issachar in thy tabernacles. 33:19. They shall call the people to the mountain: there shall they sacrifice the victims of justice. Who shall suck as milk the abundance of the sea, and the hidden treasures of the sands. 33:20. And to Gad he said: Blessed be Gad in his breadth: he hath rested as a lion, and hath seized upon the arm and the top of the head. 33:21. And he saw his pre-eminence, that in his portion the teacher was laid up: who was with the princes of the people, and did the justices of the Lord, and his judgment with Israel. He saw, etc. . .The pre-eminence of the tribe of Gad, to which this alludeth, was their having the lawgiver Moses buried in their borders; though the particular place was not known. 33:22. To Dan also he said: Dan is a young lion, he shall flow plentifully from Basan. 33:23. And To Nephtali he said: Nephtali shall enjoy abundance, and shall be full of the blessings of the Lord: he shall possess the sea and the south. The sea. . .The lake of Genesareth. 33:24. To Aser also he said: Let Aser be blessed with children, let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. 33:25. His shoe shall be iron and brass. As the days of thy youth, so also shall thy old age be. 33:26. There is no other god like the God of the rightest: he that is mounted upon the heaven is thy helper. By his magnificence the clouds run hither and thither. 33:27. His dwelling is above, and underneath are the everlasting arms: he shall cast out the enemy from before thee, and shall say: Be thou brought to nought. Underneath are the everlasting arms. . .Though the dwelling of God be above in heaven, his arms are always stretched out to help us here below. 33:28. Israel shall dwell in safety, and alone. The eye of Jacob in a land of corn and wine, and the heavens shall be misty with dew. 33:29. Blessed art thou, Israel: who is like to thee, O people, that art saved by the Lord? the shield of thy help, and the sword of thy glory: thy enemies shall deny thee, and thou shalt tread upon their necks. Deuteronomy Chapter 34 Moses seeth the promised land, but is not suffered to go into it. He dieth at the age of 120 years. God burieth his body secretly, and all Israel mourn for him thirty days. Josue, replenished (by imposition of Moses's hands) with the spirit of God, succeedeth. But Moses, for his special familiarity with God, and for most wonderful miracles, is commended above all other prophets. 34:1. Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab upon mount Nebo, to the top of Phasga over against Jericho: and the Lord shewed him all the land of Galaad as far as Dan. 34:2. And all Nephtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasses, and all the land of Juda unto the furthermost sea, 34:3. And the south part, and the breadth of the plain of Jericho the city of palm trees as far as Segor. 34:4. And the Lord said to him: This is the land, for which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: I will give it to thy seed. Thou hast seen it with thy eyes, and shalt not pass over to it. 34:5. And Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, by the commandment of the Lord: Died there. . .This last chapter of Deuteronomy, in which the death of Moses is related, was written by Josue, or by some of the prophets. 34:6. And he buried him in the valley of the land of Moab over against Phogor: and no man hath known of his sepulchre until this present day. He buried him, viz. . .by the ministry of angels, and would have the place of his burial to be unknown, lest the Israelites, who were so prone to idolatry, might worship him with divine honours. 34:7. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, neither were his teeth moved. 34:8. And the children of Israel mourned for him in the plains of Moab thirty days: and the days of their mourning in which they mourned Moses were ended. 34:9. And Josue the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands upon him. And the children of Israel obeyed him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. 34:10. And there arose no more a prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 34:11. In all the signs and wonders, which he sent by him, to do in the land of Egypt to Pharao, and to all his servants, and to his whole land, 34:12. And all the mighty hand, and great miracles, which Moses did before all Israel. THE BOOK OF JOSUE This Book is called JOSUE, because it contains the history of what passed under him, and according to the common opinion was written by him. The Greeks call him Jesus: for Josue and Jesus in the Hebrew, are the same name, and have the same signification, viz., A SAVIOUR. And it was not without a mystery that he who was to bring the people into the land of promise should have his name changed from OSEE (for so he was called before, Num. 13.17,) to JOSUE or JESUS, to give us to understand, that Moses by his law could only bring the people within sight of the promised inheritance, but that our Saviour JESUS was to bring us into it. Josue Chapter 1 Josue, encouraged by the Lord, admonisheth the people to prepare themselves to pass over the Jordan. 1:1. Now it came to pass after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Josue, the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, and said to him: 1:2. Moses my servant is dead: arise, and pass over this Jordan, thou and thy people with thee, into the land which I will give to the children of Israel. 1:3. I will deliver to you every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, as I have said to Moses. 1:4. From the desert, and from Libanus unto the great river Euphrates, all the land of the Hethites, unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border. 1:5. No man shall be able to resist you all the days of thy life: as I have been with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee. 1:6. Take courage, and be strong: for thou shalt divide by lot to this people the land for which I swore to their fathers, that I would deliver it to them. 1:7. Take courage therefore, and be very valiant: that thou mayst observe and do all the law, which Moses my servant hath commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayst understand all things which thou dost. 1:8. Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate on it day and night, that thou mayst observe and do all things that are written in it: then shalt thou direct thy way, and understand it. 1:9. Behold I command thee, take courage, and be strong. Fear not, and be not dismayed: because the Lord thy God is with thee in all things whatsoever thou shalt go to. 1:10. And Josue commanded the princes of the people, saying: Pass through the midst of the camp, and command the people, and say: 1:11. Prepare your victuals: for after the third day you shall pass over the Jordan, and shall go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God will give you. 1:12. And he said to the Rubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses: 1:13. Remember the word, which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying: The Lord your God hath given you rest, and all this land. 1:14. Your wives, and children; and cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan: but pass you over armed before your brethren all of you that are strong of hand, and fight for them, 1:15. Until the Lord give rest to your brethren, as he hath given you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God will give them: and so you shall return into the land of your possession, and you shall dwell in it, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun. 1:16. And they made answer to Josue, and said: All that thou hast commanded us, we will do: and whither soever thou shalt send us, we will go. 1:17. As we obeyed Moses in all things, so will we obey thee also: only be the Lord thy God with thee, as he was with Moses. 1:18. He that shall gainsay thy mouth, and not obey all thy words, that thou shalt command him, let him die: only take thou courage, and do manfully. Josue Chapter 2 Two spies are sent to Jericho, who are received and concealed by Rahab. 2:1. And Josue, the son of Nun, sent from Setim two men, to spy secretly: and said to them: Go, and view the land, and the city of Jericho. They went, and entered into the house of a woman that was a harlot, named Rahab, and lodged with her. 2:2. And it was told the king of Jericho, and was said: Behold there are men come in hither, by night, of the children of Israel, to spy the land. 2:3. And the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying: Bring forth the men that came to thee, and are entered into thy house: for they are spies, and are come to view all the land. 2:4. And the woman taking the men, hid them, and said: I confess they came to me, but I knew not whence they were: 2:5. And at the time of shutting the gate in the dark, they also went out together. I know not whither they are gone: pursue after them quickly, and you will overtake them. 2:6. But she made the men go up to the top of her house, and covered them with the stalks of flax, which was there. 2:7. Now they that were sent, pursued after them, by the way that leadeth to the fords of the Jordan: and as soon as they were gone out, the gate was presently shut. 2:8. The men that were hid were not yet asleep, when behold the woman went up to them, and said: 2:9. I know that the Lord hath given this land to you: for the dread of you is fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land have lost all strength. 2:10. We have heard that the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea, at your going in, when you came out of Egypt: and what things you did to the two kings of the Amorrhites, that were beyond the Jordan, Sehon and Og whom you slew. 2:11. And at the hearing these things, we were affrighted, and our heart fainted away, neither did there remain any spirit in us, at your coming in: for the Lord your God he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath. 2:12. Now, therefore, swear ye to me by the Lord, that as I have shewed mercy to you, so you also will shew mercy to my father's house: and give me a true token. 2:13. That you will save my father and mother, my brethren and sisters, and all things that are theirs, and deliver our souls from death. 2:14. They answered her: Be our lives for you unto death, only if thou betray us not. And when the Lord shall have delivered us the land, we will shew thee mercy and truth. 2:15. Then she let them down with a cord out of a window: for her house joined close to the wall. 2:16. And she said to them: Get ye up to the mountains, lest perhaps they meet you as they return: and there lie ye hid three days, till they come back, and so you shall go on your way. 2:17. And they said to her: We shall be blameless of this oath, which thou hast made us swear, 2:18. If, when we come into the land, this scarlet cord be a sign, and thou tie it in the window, by which thou hast let us down: and gather together thy father and mother, and brethren, and all thy kindred into thy house. 2:19. Whosoever shall go out of the door of thy house, his blood shall be upon his own head, and we shall be quit. But the blood of all that shall be with thee in the house, shall light upon our head, if any man touch them. 2:20. But if thou wilt betray us, and utter this word abroad, we shall be quit of this oath, which thou hast made us swear. 2:21. And she answered: As you have spoken, so be it done: and sending them on their way, she hung the scarlet cord in the window. 2:22. But they went and came to the mountains, and stayed there three days, till they that pursued them were returned. For having sought them through all the way, they found them not. 2:23. And when they were gone back into the city, the spies returned, and came down from the mountain: and passing over the Jordan, they came to Josue, the son of Nun, and told him all that befel them, 2:24. And said: the Lord hath delivered all this land into our hands, and all the inhabitants thereof are overthrown with fear. Josue Chapter 3 The river Jordan is miraculously dried up for the passage of the children of Israel. 3:1. And Josue rose before daylight, and removed the camp: and they departed from Setim, and came to the Jordan: he, and all the children of Israel, and they abode there for three days. 3:2. After which, the heralds went through the midst of the camp, 3:3. And began to proclaim: When you shall see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests of the race of Levi carrying it, rise you up also, and follow them as they go before: 3:4. And let there be between you and the ark the space of two thousand cubits: that you may see it afar off, and know which way you must go: for you have not gone this way before: and take care you come not near the ark. 3:5. And Josue said to the people: Be ye sanctified: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. 3:6. And he said to the priests: Take up the ark of the covenant, and go before the people. And they obeyed his commands, and took it up, and walked before them. 3:7. And the Lord said to Josue: This day will I begin to exalt thee before Israel: that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I am with thee also. 3:8. And do thou command the priests, that carry the ark of the covenant, and say to them: When you shall have entered into part of the water of the Jordan, stand in it. 3:9. And Josue said to the children of Israel: Come hither, and hear the word of the Lord your God. 3:10. And again he said: By this you shall know, that the Lord, the living God, is in the midst of you, and that he shall destroy, before your sight, the Chanaanite and the Hethite, the Hevite and the Pherezite, the Gergesite also, and the Jebusite, and the Amorrhite. 3:11. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth shall go before you into the Jordan. 3:12. Prepare ye twelve men of the tribes of Israel, one of every tribe. 3:13. And when the priests, that carry the ark of the Lord the God of the whole earth, shall set the soles of their feet in the waters of the Jordan, the waters that are beneath shall run down and go off: and those that come from above, shall stand together upon a heap. 3:14. So the people went out of their tents, to pass over the Jordan: and the priests that carried the ark of the covenant, went on before them. 3:15. And as soon as they came into the Jordan, and their feet were dipped in part of the water, (now the Jordan, it being harvest time, had filled the banks of its channel,) 3:16. The waters that came down from above stood in one place, and swelling up like a mountain, were seen afar off, from the city that is called Adom, to the place of Sarthan: but those that were beneath, ran down into the sea of the wilderness, (which now is called the Dead Sea) until they wholly failed. 3:17. And the people marched over against Jericho: and the priests that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood girded upon the dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the people passed over, through the channel that was dried up. Josue Chapter 4 Twelve stones are taken out of the river to be set up for a monument of the miracle; and other twelve are placed in the midst of the river. 4:1. And when they were passed over, the Lord said to Josue: 4:2. Choose twelve men, one of every tribe: 4:3. And command them to take out of the midst of the Jordan, where the feet of the priests stood, twelve very hard stones, which you shall set in the place of the camp, where you shall pitch your tents this night. 4:4. And Josue called twelve men, whom he had chosen out of the children of Israel, one out of every tribe, 4:5. And he said to them: Go before the ark of the Lord your God to the midst of the Jordan, and carry from thence every man a stone on your shoulders, according to the number of the children of Israel, 4:6. That it may be a sign among you: and when your children shall ask you tomorrow, saying: What means these stones? 4:7. You shall answer them: The waters of the Jordan ran off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it passed over the same: therefore were these stones set for a monument of the children of Israel forever. 4:8. The children of Israel therefore did as Josue commanded them, carrying out of the channel of the Jordan twelve stones, as the Lord had commanded him according to the number of the children of Israel unto the place wherein they camped, and there they set them. 4:9. And Josue put other twelve stones in the midst of the channel of the Jordan, where the priests stood that carried the ark of the covenant: and they are there until this present day. 4:10. Now the priests that carried the ark, stood in the midst of the Jordan, till all things were accomplished, which the Lord had commanded Josue to speak to the people, and Moses had said to him. And the people made haste, and passed over. 4:11. And when they had all passed over, the ark also of the Lord passed over, and the priests went before the people. 4:12. The children of Ruben also, and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasses, went armed before the children of Israel, as Moses had commanded them. 4:13. And forty thousand fighting men by their troops and bands, marched through the plains and fields of the city of Jericho. 4:14. In that day the Lord magnified Josue in the sight of all Israel, that they should fear him, as they had feared Moses, while he lived. 4:15. And he said to him: 4:16. Command the priests, that carry the ark of the covenant, to come up out of the Jordan. 4:17. And he commanded them, saying: Come ye up out of the Jordan. 4:18. And when they that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, were come up, and began to tread on the dry ground, the waters returned into their channel, and ran as they were wont before. 4:19. And the people came up out of the Jordan, the tenth day of the first month, and camped in Galgal, over against the east side of the city of Jericho. 4:20. And the twelve stones, which they had taken out of the channel of the Jordan, Josue pitched in Galgal, 4:21. And said to the children of Israel: When your children shall ask their fathers tomorrow, and shall say to them: What mean these stones? 4:22. You shall teach them, and say: Israel passed over this Jordan through the dry channel, 4:23. The Lord your God drying up the waters thereof in your sight, until you passed over: 4:24. As he had done before in the Red Sea, which he dried up till we passed through: 4:25. That all the people of the earth may learn the most mighty hand of the Lord, that you also may fear the Lord your God for ever. Josue Chapter 5 The people are circumcised: they keep the pasch. The manna ceaseth. An angel appeareth to Josue. 5:1. Now when all the kings of the Amorrhites, who dwelt beyond the Jordan, westward, and all the kings of Chanaan, who possessed the places near the great sea, had heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the children of Israel, till they passed over, their heart failed them, and there remained no spirit in them, fearing the coming in of the children of Israel. 5:2. At that time the Lord said to Josue: Make thee knives of stone, and circumcise the second time the children of Israel. The second time. . .Not that such as had been circumcised before were to be circumcised again; but that they were now to renew, and take up again the practice of circumcision; which had been omitted during their forty years' sojourning in the wilderness; by reason of their being always uncertain when they should be obliged to march. 5:3. He did what the Lord had commanded, and he circumcised the children of Israel in the hill of the foreskins. 5:4. Now this is the cause of the second circumcision: All the people that came out of Egypt that were males, all the men fit for war, died in the desert, during the time of the long going about in the way: 5:6. Now these were all circumcised. But the people that were born in the desert, 5:6. During the forty years of the journey in the wide wilderness, were uncircumcised: till all they were consumed that had not heard the voice of the Lord, and to whom he had sworn before, that he would not shew them the land flowing with milk and honey. 5:7. The children of these succeeded in the place of their fathers, and were circumcised by Josue: for they were uncircumcised even as they were born, and no one had circumcised them in the way. 5:8. Now after they were all circumcised, they remained in the same place of the camp, until they were healed. 5:9. And the Lord said to Josue: This day have I taken away from you the reproach of Egypt. And the name of that place was called Galgal, until this present day. 5:10. And the children of Israel abode in Galgal, and they kept the phase, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, in the plains of Jericho: 5:11. And they ate on the next day unleavened bread of the corn of the land, and frumenty of the same year. 5:12. And the manna ceased after they ate of the corn of the land, neither did the children of Israel use that food any more, but they ate of the corn of the present year of the land of Chanaan. 5:13. And when Josue was in the field of the city of Jericho, he lifted up his eyes, and saw a man standing over against him, holding a drawn sword, and he went to him, and said: Art thou one of ours, or of our adversaries? 5:14. And he answered: No: but I am prince of the host of the Lord, and now I am come. Prince of the host of the Lord, etc. . .St. Michael, who is called prince of the people of Israel, Dan. 10.21. 5:15. Josue fell on his face to the ground. And worshipping, said: What saith my lord to his servant? Worshipping. . .Not with divine honour, but with a religious veneration of an inferior kind, suitable to the dignity of his person. 5:16. Loose, saith he, thy shoes from off thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Josue did as was commanded him. Josue Chapter 6 After seven days' processions, the priests sounding the trumpets, the walls of Jericho fall down: and the city is taken and destroyed. 6:1. Now Jericho was close shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in. 6:2. And the Lord said to Josue: Behold I have given into thy hands Jericho, and the king thereof, and all the valiant men. 6:3. Go round about the city all ye fighting men once a day: so shall ye do for six days. 6:4. And on the seventh day the priests shall take the seven trumpets, which are used in the jubilee, and shall go before the ark of the covenant: and you shall go about the city seven times, and the priests shall sound the trumpets. 6:5. And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and broken tune, and shall sound in your ears, all the people shall shout together with a very great shout, and the walls of the city shall fall to the ground, and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand. 6:6. Then Josue, the son of Nun, called the priests, and said to them: Take the ark of the covenant: and let seven other priests take the seven trumpets of the jubilee, and march before the ark of the Lord. 6:7. And he said to the people: Go, and compass the city, armed, marching before the ark of the Lord. 6:8. And when Josue had ended his words, and the seven priests blew the seven trumpets before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, 6:9. And all the armed men went before, the rest of the common people followed the ark, and the sound of the trumpets was heard on all sides. 6:10. But Josue had commanded the people, saying: You shall not shout, nor shall your voice be heard, nor any word go out of your mouth: until the day come wherein I shall say to you: Cry, and shout. 6:11. So the ark of the Lord went about the city once a day, and returning into the camp, abode there. 6:12. And Josue rising before day, the priests took the ark of the Lord, 6:13. And seven of them seven trumpets, which are used in the jubilee: and they went before the ark of the Lord, walking and sounding the trumpets: and the armed men went before them, and the rest of the common people followed the ark, and they blew the trumpets. 6:14. And they went round about the city the second day once, and returned into the camp. So they did six days. 6:15. But the seventh day, rising up early, they went about the city, as it was ordered, seven times. 6:16. And when in the seventh going about the priests sounded with the trumpets, Josue said to all Israel: Shout: for the Lord hath delivered the city to you: 6:17. And let this city be an anathema, and all things that are in it, to the Lord. Let only Rahab, the harlot, live, with all that are with her in the house: for she hid the messengers whom we sent. 6:18. But beware ye lest you touch ought of those things that are forbidden, and you be guilty of transgression, and all the camp of Israel be under sin, and be troubled. 6:19. But whatsoever gold or silver there shall be, or vessels of brass and iron, let it be consecrated to the Lord, laid up in his treasures. 6:20. So all the people making a shout, and the trumpets sounding, when the voice and the sound thundered in the ears of the multitude, the walls forthwith fell down: and every man went up by the place that was over against him: and they took the city, 6:21. And killed all that were in it, man and woman, young and old. The oxen also, and the sheep, and the asses, they slew with the edge of the sword. 6:22. But Josue said to the two men that had been sent for spies: Go into the harlot's house, and bring her out, and all things that are hers, as you assured her by oath. 6:23. And the young men went in, and brought out Rahab, and her parents, her brethren also, and all her goods, and her kindred, and made them to stay without the camp. 6:24. But they burned the city, and all things that were therein; except the gold and silver, and vessels of brass and iron, which they consecrated unto the treasury of the Lord. _ 6:25. But Josue saved Rahab the harlot, and her father's house, and all she had, and they dwelt in the midst of Israel until this present day: because she hid the messengers whom he had sent to spy out Jericho. At that time, Josue made an imprecation, saying: 6:26. Cursed be the man before the Lord, that shall raise up and build the city of Jericho. In his firstborn may he lay the foundation thereof, and in the last of his children set up its gates. Cursed, etc. . .Jericho, in the mystical sense, signifies iniquity: the sounding of the trumpets by the priests, the preaching of the word of God; by which the walls of Jericho are thrown down, when sinners are converted; and a dreadful curse will light on them who build them up again. 6:27. And the Lord was with Josue, and his name was noised throughout all the land Josue Chapter 7 For the sins of Achan, the Israelites are defeated at Hai. The offender is found out; and stoned to death, and God's wrath is turned from them. 7:1. But the children of Israel transgressed the commandment, and took to their own use of that which was accursed. For Achan, the son of Charmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zare, of the tribe of Juda, took something of the anathema: and the Lord was angry against the children of Israel. 7:2. And when Josue sent men from Jericho against Hai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of the town of Bethel, he said to them: Go up, and view the country: and they fulfilled his command, and viewed Hai. 7:3. And returning, they said to him: Let not all the people go up, but let two or three thousand men go, and destroy the city: why should all the people be troubled in vain, against enemies that are very few? 7:4. There went up therefore three thousand fighting men: who immediately turned their backs, 7:5. And were defeated by the men of the city of Hai, and there fell of them six and thirty men: and the enemies pursued them from the gate as far as Sabarim, and they slew them as they fled by the descent: and the heart of the people was struck with fear, and melted like water. 7:6. But Josue rent his garments, and fell flat on the ground, before the ark of the Lord, until the evening, both he and all the ancients of Israel: and they put dust upon their heads. 7:7. And Josue said: Alas, O Lord God, why wouldst thou bring this people over the river Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorrhite, and to destroy us? would God we had stayed beyond the Jordan, as we began. 7:8. My Lord God, what shall I say, seeing Israel turning their backs to their enemies? 7:9. The Chanaanites, and all the inhabitants of the land, will hear of it, and being gathered together will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do to thy great name? 7:10. And the Lord said to Josue: Arise, why liest thou flat on the ground? 7:11. Israel hath sinned, and transgressed my covenant: and they have taken of the anathema, and have stolen and lied, and have hid it among their goods. 7:12. Neither can Israel stand before his enemies, but he shall flee from them: because he is defiled with the anathema. I will be no more with you, till you destroy him that is guilty of this wickedness. 7:13. Arise, sanctify the people, and say to them: Be ye sanctified against tomorrow: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The curse is in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thy enemies, till he be destroyed out of thee, that is defiled with this wickedness. 7:14. And you shall come in the morning, every one by your tribes: and what tribe soever the lot shall find, it shall come by its kindreds, and the kindred by its houses and tho house by the men. 7:15. And whosoever he be that shall be found guilty of this fact, he shall be burnt with fire, with all his substance, because he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and hath done wickedness in Israel. 7:16. Josue, therefore, when he rose in the morning, made Israel to come by their tribes, and the tribe of Juda was found. 7:17. Which being brought by in families, it was found to be the family of Zare. Bringing that also by the houses, he found it to be Zabdi: 7:18. And bringing his house man by man, he found Achan, the son of Charmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zare, of the tribe of Juda. 7:19. And Josue said to Achan: My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and confess, and tell me what thou hast done, hide it not. 7:20. And Achan answered Josue, and said to him: Indeed I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. 7:21. For I saw among the spoils a scarlet garment, exceeding good, and two hundred sicles of silver, and a golden rule of fifty sicles: and I coveted them, and I took them away, and hid them in the ground in the midst of my tent, and the silver I covered with the earth that I dug up. 7:22. Josue therefore sent ministers: who running to his tent, found all hid in the same place, together with the silver. 7:23. And taking them away out of the tent, they brought them to Josue, and to all the children of Israel, and threw them down before the Lord. 7:24. Then Josue, and all Israel with him, took Achan, the son of Zare, and the silver, and the garment, and the golden rule, his sons also, and his daughters, his oxen, and asses, and sheep, the tent also, and all the goods: and brought them to the valley of Achor: His sons, etc. . .Probably conscious to, or accomplices of, the crime of their father. 7:25. Where Josue said: Because thou hast troubled us, the Lord trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him: and all things that were his, were consumed with fire. 7:26. And they gathered together upon him a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this present day And the wrath of the Lord was turned away from them. And the name of that place was called the Valley of Achor, until this day. Achor. . .That is, trouble. Josue Chapter 8 Hai is taken and burnt, and all the inhabitants slain. An altar is built, and sacrifices offered. The law is written on stones, and the blessings and cursings are read before all the people. 8:1. And the Lord said to Josue: Fear not, nor be thou dismayed: take with thee all the multitude of fighting men, arise, and go up to the town of Hai: Behold I have delivered into thy hand the king thereof, and the people, and the city, and the land. 8:2. And thou shalt do to the city of Hai, and to the king thereof, as thou hast done to Jericho, and to the king thereof: but the spoils, and all the cattle, you shall take for a prey to yourselves: lay an ambush for the city behind it. 8:3. And Josue arose, and all the army of the fighting men with him, to go up against Hai: and he sent thirty thousand chosen valiant men in the night, 8:4. And commanded them, saying: Lay an ambush behind the city: and go not very far from it: and be ye all ready. 8:5. But I, and the rest of the multitude which is with me, will approach on the contrary side against the city. And when they shall come out against us, we will flee, and turn our backs, as we did before: 8:6. Till they pursuing us be drawn farther from the city: for they will think that we flee as before. 8:7. And whilst we are fleeing, and they pursuing, you shall rise out of the ambush, and shall destroy the city: and the Lord your God will deliver it into your hands. 8:8. And when you shall have taken it, set it on fire, and you shall do all things so as I have commanded. 8:9. And he sent them away, and they went on to the place of the ambush, and abode between Bethel and Hai, on the west side of the city of Hai. But Josue staid that night in the midst of the people, 8:10. And rising early in the morning, he mustered his soldiers, and went up with the ancients in the front of the army, environed with the aid of the fighting men. 8:11. And when they were come, and were gone up over against the city, they stood on the north side of the city, between which and them there was a valley in the midst. 8:12. And he had chosen five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Hai, on the west side of the same city: Five thousand. . .These were part of the thirty thousand mentioned above, ver. 3. 8:13. But all the rest of the army went in battle array on the north side, so that the last of that multitude reached to the west side of the city. So Josue went that night, and stood in the midst of the valley. 8:14. And when the king of Hai saw this, he made haste in the morning, and went out with all the army of the city, and set it in battle array, toward the desert, not knowing that there lay an ambush behind his back. 8:15. But Josue, and all Israel gave back, making as if they were afraid, and fleeing by the way of the wilderness. 8:16. But they shouting together, and encouraging one another, pursued them. And when they were come from the city, 8:17. And not one remained in the city of Hai and of Bethel, that did not pursue after Israel, leaving the towns open as they had rushed out, 8:18. The Lord said to Josue: Lift up the shield that is in thy hand, towards the city of Hai, for I will deliver it to thee. 8:19. And when he had lifted up his shield towards the city, the ambush, that lay hid, rose up immediately: and going to the city, took it, and set it on fire. 8:20. And the men of the city, that pursued after Josue, looking back, and seeing the smoke of the city rise up to heaven, had no more power to flee this way or that way: especially as they that had counterfeited flight, and were going toward the wilderness, turned back most valiantly against them that pursued. 8:21. So Josue, and all Israel, seeing that the city was taken, and that the smoke of the city rose up, returned, and slew the men of Hai. 8:22. And they also that had taken and set the city on fire, issuing out of the city to meet their own men, began to cut off the enemies who were surrounded by them. So that the enemies being cut off on both sides, not one of so great a multitude was saved. 8:23. And they took the king of the city of Hai alive and brought him to Josue. 8:24. So all being slain that had pursued after Israel, in his flight to the wilderness, and falling by the sword in the same place, the children of Israel returned and laid waste the city. 8:25. And the number of them that fell that day, both of men and women, was twelve thousand persons, all of the city of Hai. 8:26. But Josue drew not back his hand, which he had stretched out on high, holding the shield, till all the inhabitants of Hai were slain. 8:27. And the children of Israel divided among them, the cattle and the prey of the city, as the Lord had commanded Josue. 8:28. And he burnt the city, and made it a heap forever: 8:29. And he hung the king thereof on a gibbet, until the evening and the going down of the sun. Then Josue commanded, and they took down his carcass from the gibbet: and threw it in the very entrance of the city, heaping upon it a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this present day. 8:30. Then Josue built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Hebal, 8:31. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, and it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of unhewn stones, which iron had not touched: and he offered upon it holocausts to the Lord, and immolated victims of peace offerings. 8:32. And he wrote upon stones, the Deuteronomy of the law of Moses, which he had ordered before the children of Israel. 8:33. And all the people, and the ancients, and the princes, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark, before the priests that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, both the stranger and he that was born among them, half of them by Mount Garizim, and half by Mount Hebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord, had commanded. And first he blessed the people of Israel. 8:34. After this, he read all the words of the blessing and the cursing, and all things that were written in the book of the law. 8:35. He left out nothing of those things which Moses had commanded, but he repeated all before all the people of Israel, with the women and children, and strangers, that dwelt among them. Josue Chapter 9 Josue is deceived by the Gabaonites: who being detected are condemned to be perpetual servants. 9:1. Now when these things were heard of, all the kings beyond the Jordan, that dwelt in the mountains, and in the plains, in the places near the sea, and on the coasts of the great sea, they also that dwell by Libanus, the Hethite, and the Amorrhite, the Chanaanite, the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, 9:2. Gathered themselves together, to fight against Josue and Israel with one mind, and one resolution. 9:3. But they that dwelt in Gabaon, hearing all that Josue had done to Jericho and Hai: 9:4. Cunningly devising took for themselves provisions, laying old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles rent and sewed up again, 9:5. And very old shoes, which for a show of age were clouted with patches, and old garments upon them: the loaves also, which they carried for provisions by the way, were hard, and broken into pieces: 9:6. And they went to Josue, who then abode in the camp at Galgal, and said to him, and to all Israel with him: We are come from a far country, desiring to make peace with you. And the children of Israel answered them, and said: 9:7. Perhaps you dwell in the land which falls to our lot; if so, we can make no league with you. 9:8. But they said to Josue: We are thy servants. Josue said to them: Who are you? and whence came you? 9:9. They answered: From a very far country thy servants are come in the name of the Lord thy God. For we have heard the fame of his power, all the things that he did in Egypt. 9:10. And to the two kings of the Amorrhites, that were beyond the Jordan, Sehon, king of Hesebon, and Og, king of Basan, that was in Astaroth: 9:11. And our ancients, and all the inhabitants of our country, said to us: Take with you victuals for a long way, and go meet them, and say: We are your servants, make ye a league with us. 9:12. Behold, these loaves we took hot, when we set out from our houses to come to you, now they are become dry, and broken in pieces by being exceeding old. 9:13. These bottles of wine when we filled them were new, now they are rent and burst. These garments we have on, and the shoes we have on our feet, by reason of the very long journey, are worn out, and almost consumed. 9:14. They took therefore of their victuals, and consulted not the mouth of the Lord. 9:15. And Josue made peace with them, and entering into a league, promised that they should not be slain: the princes also of the multitude swore to them. 9:16. Now three days after the league was made, they heard that they dwelt nigh, and they should be among them. 9:17. And the children of Israel removed the camp, and came into their cities on the third day, the names of which are, Gabaon, and Caphira, and Beroth, and Cariathiarim. 9:18. And they slew them not, because the princes of the multitude had sworn in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. Then all the common people murmured against the princes. 9:19. And they answered them: We have sworn to them in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, and therefore we may not touch them. 9:20. But this we will do to them: Let their lives be saved, lest the wrath of the Lord be stirred up against us, if we should be forsworn: 9:21. But so let them live, as to serve the whole multitude in hewing wood, and bringing in water. As they were speaking these things, 9;22. Josue called the Gabaonites, and said to them: Why would you impose upon us, saying: We dwell very far off from you, whereas you are in the midst of us? 9:23. Therefore you shall be under a curse, and your race shall always be hewers of wood, and carriers of water, into the house of my God. 9:24. They answered: It was told us, thy servants, that the Lord thy God had promised his servant Moses, to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants thereof. Therefore we feared exceedingly and provided for our lives, compelled by the dread we had of you, and we took this counsel. 9:25. And now we are in thy hand: deal with us as it seemeth good and right unto thee. 9:26. So Josue did as he had said, and delivered them from the hand of the children of Israel, that they should not be slain. 9:27. And he gave orders in that day, that they should be in the service of all the people, and of the altar of the Lord, hewing wood, and carrying water, until this present time, in the place which the Lord hath chosen. Josue Chapter 10 Five kings war against Gabaon. Josue defeateth them: many are slain with hailstones. At the prayer of Josue the sun and moon stand still the space of one day. The five kings are hanged. Divers cities are taken. 10:1. When Adonisedec, king of Jerusalem, had heard these things, to wit, that Josue had taken Hai, and had destroyed it, (for as he had done to Jericho and the king thereof, so did he to Hai and its king) and that the Gabaonites were gone over to Israel, and were their confederates, 10:2. He was exceedingly afraid. For Gabaon was a great city, and one of the royal cities, and greater than the town of Hai, and all its fighting men were most valiant. 10:3. Therefore Adonisedec, king of Jerusalem, sent to Oham, king of Hebron, and to Pharam, king of Jerimoth, and to Japhia, king of Lachis, and to Dabir, king of Eglon, saying: 10:4. Come up to me, and bring help, that we may take Gabaon, because it hath gone over to Josue, and to the children of Israel. 10:5. So the five kings of the Amorrhites being assembled together, went up: the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jerimoth, the king of Lachis, the king of Eglon, they and their armies, and camped about Gabaon, laying siege to it. 10:6. But the inhabitants of the city of Gabaon, which was besieged, sent to Josue, who then abode in the camp at Galgal, and said to him: Withdraw not thy hands from helping thy servants: come up quickly, and save us, and bring us succour: for all the kings of the Amorrhites, who dwell in the mountains, are gathered together against us. 10:7. And Josue went up from Galgal, and all the army of the warriors with him, most valiant men. 10:8. But the Lord said to Josue: Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thy hands: none of them shall be able to stand against thee. 10:9. So Josue going up from Galgal all the night, came upon them suddenly. 10:10. And the Lord troubled them, at the sight of Israel: and he slew them with a great slaughter, in Gabaon, and pursued them by the way of the ascent to Bethoron, and cut them off all the way to Azeca and Maceda. 10:11. And when they were fleeing from the children of Israel, and were in the descent of Bethoron, the Lord cast down upon them great stones from heaven, as far as Azeca: and many more were killed with the hailstones, than were slain by the swords of the children of Israel, 10:12. Then Josue spoke to the Lord, in the day that he delivered the Amorrhite in the sight of the children of Israel, and he said before them: Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon. 10:13. And the sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of the just? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down the space of one day. The book of the just. . .In Hebrew Jasher: an ancient book long since lost. 10:14. There was not before, nor after, so long a day, the Lord obeying the voice of a man, and fighting for Israel. 10:15. And Josue returned, with all Israel, into the camp of Galgal. 10:16. For the five kings were fled, and had hid themselves in a cave of the city of Maceda. 10:17. And it was told Josue, that the five kings were found hid in a cave of the city of Maceda. 10:18. And he commanded them that were with him, saying: Roll great stones to the mouth of the cave, and set careful men to keep them shut up: 10:19. And stay you not, but pursue after the enemies, and kill all the hindermost of them as they flee, and do not suffer them whom the Lord God hath delivered into your hands, to shelter themselves in their cities. 10:20. So the enemies being slain with a great slaughter, and almost utterly consumed, they that were able to escape from Israel, entered into fenced cities. 10:21. And all the army returned to Josue, in Maceda, where the camp then was, in good health, and without the loss of any one: and no man durst move his tongue against the children of Israel. 10:22. And Josue gave orders, saying: Open the mouth of the cave, and bring forth to me the five kings that lie hid therein. 10:23. And the ministers did as they were commanded: and they brought out to him the five kings out of the cave: the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jerimoth, the king of Lachis, the king of Eglon. 10:24. And when they were brought out to him, he called all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the army that were with him: Go, and set your feet on the necks of these kings. And when they had gone, and put their feet upon the necks of them lying under them, 10:25. He said again to them: Fear not, neither be ye dismayed, take courage, and be strong: for so will the Lord do to all your enemies, against whom you fight. 10:26. And Josue struck, and slew them, and hanged them upon five gibbets; and they hung until the evening. 10:27. And when the sun was down, he commanded the soldiers to take them down from the gibbets. And after they were taken down, they cast them into the cave, where they had lain hid, and put great stones at the mouth thereof, which remain until this day. 10:28. The same day Josue took Maceda, and destroyed it with the edge of the sword, and killed the king and all the inhabitants thereof: he left not in it the least remains. And he did to the king of Maceda, as he had done to the king of Jericho. 10:29. And he passed from Maceda with all Israel to Lebna, and fought against it: 10:30. And the Lord delivered it with the king thereof into the hands of Israel: and they destroyed the city with the edge of the sword, and all the inhabitants thereof. They left not in it any remains. And they did to the king of Lebna, as they had done to the king of Jericho. 10:31. From Lebna he passed unto Lachis, with all Israel: and investing it with his army, besieged it. 10:32. And the Lord delivered Lachis into the hands of Israel, and he took it the following day, and put it to the sword, and every soul that was in it, as he had done to Lebna. 10:33. At that time Horam, king of Gazer, came up to succour Lachis: and Josue slew him with all his people so as to leave none alive. 10:34. And he passed from Lachis to Eglon, and surrounded it, 10:35. And took it the same day: and put to the sword all the souls that were in it, according to all that he had done to Lachis. 10:36. He went up also with all Israel from Eglon to Hebron, and fought against it: 10:37. Took it, and destroyed it with the edge of the sword: the king also thereof, and all the towns of that country, and all the souls that dwelt in it: he left not therein any remains: as he had done to Eglon, so did he also to Hebron, putting to the sword all that he found in it. The king. . .Viz., the new king, who succeeded him that was slain, ver. 26. 10:38. Returning from thence to Dabir, 10:39. He took it, and destroyed it: the king also thereof, and all the towns round about, he destroyed with the edge of the sword: he left not in it any remains: as he had done to Hebron and Lebna, and to their kings, so did he to Dabir, and to the king thereof. 10:40. So Josue conquered all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the plain, and of Asedoth, with their kings: he left not any remains therein, but slew all that breathed, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded him. Any remains therein, but slew, etc. . .God ordered these people to be utterly destroyed, in punishment of their manifold abomination; and that they might not draw the Israelites into the like sins. 10:41. From Cadesbarne even to Gaza. All the land of Gosen even to Gabaon, 10:42. And all their kings, and their lands he took and wasted at one onset: for the Lord the God of Israel fought for him. 10:43. And he returned with all Israel to the place of the camp in Galgal. Josue Chapter 11 The kings of the north are overthrown: the whole country is taken. 11:1. And when Jabin king of Asor had heard these things, he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Semeron, and to the king of Achsaph: 11:2. And to the kings of the north, that dwelt in the mountains and in the plains over against the south side of Ceneroth, and in the levels and the countries of Dor by the sea side: 11:3. To the Chanaanites also on the east and on the west, and the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Jebusite in the mountains: to the Hevite also who dwelt at the foot of Hermon in the land of Maspha. 11:4. And they all came out with their troops, a people exceeding numerous as the sand that is on the sea shore, their horses also and chariots a very great multitude, 11:5. And all these kings assembled together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel. 11:6. And the Lord said to Josue: Fear them not: for to morrow at this same hour I will deliver all these to be slain in the sight of Israel: thou shalt hamstring their horses, and thou shalt burn their chariots with fire. Hamstring their horses, and burn their chariots with fire, etc. . .God so ordained, that his people might not trust in chariots and horses, but in him. 11:7. And Josue came, and all the army with him, against them to the waters of Merom on a sudden, and fell upon them. 11:8. And the Lord delivered them into the hands of Israel. And they defeated them, and chased them as far as the great Sidon and the waters of Maserophot, and the field of Masphe, which is on the east thereof. He slew them all, so as to leave no remains of them: 11:9. And he did as the Lord had commanded him, he hamstringed their horses and burned their chariots. 11:10. And presently turning back he took Asor: and slew the king thereof with the sword. Now Asor of old was the head of all these kingdoms. 11:11. And he cut off all the souls that abode there: he left not in it any remains, but utterly destroyed all, and burned the city itself with fire. 11:12. And he took and put to the sword and destroyed all the cities round about, and their kings, as Moses the servant of God had commanded him. 11:13. Except the cities that were on hills and high places, the rest Israel burned: only Asor that was very strong he consumed with fire. 11:14. And the children of Israel divided among themselves all the spoil of these cities and the cattle, killing all the men. 11:15. As the Lord had commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Josue, and he accomplished all: he left not one thing undone of all the commandments which the Lord had commanded Moses. 11:16. So Josue took all the country of the hills, and of the south, and the land of Gosen, and the plains and the west country, and the mountain of Israel, and the plains thereof: 11:17. And part of the mountain that goeth up to Seir as far as Baalgad, by the plain of Libanus under mount Hermon: all their kings he took, smote and slew. 11:18. Josue made war a long time against these kings. A long time. . .Seven years, as appears from chap. 14.10. 11:19. There was not a city that delivered itself to the children of Israel, except the Hevite, who dwelt in Gabaon: for he took all by fight. 11:20. For it was the sentence of the Lord, that their hearts should be hardened, and they should fight against Israel, and fall, and should not deserve any clemency, and should be destroyed as the Lord had commanded Moses. Hardened. . .This hardening of their hearts, was their having no thought of yielding or submitting: which was a sentence or judgment of God upon them in punishment of their enormous crimes. 11:21. At that time Josue came and cut off the Enancims from the mountains, from Hebron, and Dabir, and Anab, and from all the mountain of Juda and Israel, and destroyed their cities. 11:22. He left not any of the stock of the Enacims, in the land of the children of Israel: except the cities of Gaza, and Geth, and Azotus, in which alone they were left. 11:23. So Josue took all the land, as the Lord spoke to Moses, and delivered it in possession to the children of Israel, according to their divisions and tribes. And the land rested from wars. Josue Chapter 12 A list of the kings slain by Moses and Josue, 12:1. These are the kings, whom the children of Israel slew and possessed their land beyond the Jordan towards the rising of the sun, from the torrent Arnon unto mount Hermon, and all the east country that looketh towards the wilderness. 12:2. Sehon king of the Amorrhites, who dwelt in Hesebon, and had dominion from Aroer, which is seated upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, and of the middle part in the valley, and of half Galaad, as far as the torrent Jaboc, which is the border of the children of Ammon. 12:3. And from the wilderness, to the sea of Ceneroth towards the east, and to the sea of the wilderness, which is the most salt sea, on the east side by the way that leadeth to Bethsimoth: and on the south side that lieth under Asedoth, Phasga. 12:4. The border of Og the king of Basan, of the remnant of the Raphaims who dwelt in Astaroth, and in Edrai, and had dominion in mount Hermon, and in Salecha, and in all Basan, unto the borders 12:5. Of Gessuri and Machati, and of half Galaad: the borders of Sehon the king of Hesebon. 12:6. Moses the servant of the Lord, and the children of Israel slew them, and Moses delivered their land in possession to the Rubenites, and Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses. 12:7. These are the kings of the land, whom Josue and the children of Israel slew beyond the Jordan on the west side from Baalgad in the field of Libanus, unto the mount, part of which goeth up into Seir: and Josue delivered it in possession to the tribes of Israel, to every one their divisions, 12:8. As well in the mountains as in the plains and the champaign countries. In Asedoth, and in the wilderness, and in the south was the Hethite and the Amorrhite, the Chanaanite and the Pherezite, the Hevite and the Jebusite. 12:9. The king of Jericho one: the king of Hai, which is on the side of Bethel, one: 12:10. The king of Jerusalem one, the king of Hebron one, 12:11. The king of Jerimoth one, thee king of Lachis one, 12:12. The king of Eglon one, the king of Gazer one, 12:13. The king of Dabir one, the king of Gader one, 12:14. The king of Herma one, the king of Hered one, 12:15. The king of Lebna one, the king of Odullam one, 12:16. The king of Maceda one, the king of Bethel one, 12:17. The king of Taphua one, the king of Opher one, 12:18. The king of Aphec one, the king of Saron one, 12:19. The king of Madon one, the king of Asor one, 12:20. The king of Semeron one, the king of Achsaph one, 12:21. The king of Thenac one, the king of Mageddo one, 12:22. Thee king of Cades one, the king of Jachanan of Carmel one, 12:23. The king of Dor, and of the province of Dor one, the king of the nations of Galgal one, 12:24. The king of Thersa one: all the kings thirty and one. Josue Chapter 13 God commandeth Josue to divide the land: the possessions of Ruben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasses, beyond the Jordan. 13:1. Josue was old, and far advanced in years, and the Lord said to him: Thou art grown old, and advanced in age, and there is a very large country left, which is not yet divided by lot: Josue was old, and far advanced in years. . .He was then about one hundred and one years old.--And there is a very large country left, which is not yet divided by lot. . .Not yet possessed by the children of Israel. 13:2. To wit, all Galilee, Philistia, and all Gessuri. 13:3. From the troubled river, that watereth Egypt, unto the border of Accaron northward: the land of Chanaan, which is divided among the lords of the Philistines, the Gazites, the Azotians, the Ascalonites, the Gethites, and the Accronites. 13:4. And on the south side are the Hevites, all the land of Chanaan, and Maara of the Sidonians as far as Apheca, and the borders of the Amorrhite, 13:5. And his confines. The country also of Libanus towards the east from Baalgad under mount Hermon to the entering into Emath. 13:6. Of all that dwell in the mountains from Libanus, to the waters of Maserephoth, and all the Sidonians. I am he that will cut them off from before the face of the children of Israel. So let their land come in as a part of the inheritance of Israel, as I have commanded thee. 13:7. And now divide the land in possession to the nine tribes, and to the half tribe of Manasses, 13:8. With whom Ruben and Gad have possessed the land, which Moses the servant of the Lord delivered to them beyond the river Jordan, on the east side. With whom. . .That is, with the other half of that same tribe. 13:9. From Aroer, which is upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, and in the midst of the valley and all the plains of Medaba, as far as Dibon: 13:10. And all the cities of Sehon, king of the Amorrhites, who reigned in Hesebon, unto the borders of the children of Ammon. 13:11. And Galaad, and the borders of Gessuri and Machati, and all mount Hermon, and all Basan as far as Salecha, 13:12. All the kingdom of Og in Basan, who reigned in Astaroth and Edrai, he was of the remains of the Raphaims: and Moses overthrew and destroyed them. 13:13. And the children of Israel would not destroy Gessuri and Machati and they have dwelt in the midst of Israel, until this present day. 13:14. But to the tribe of Levi he gave no possession: but the sacrifices and victims of thee Lord God of Israel, are his inheritance, as he spoke to him. 13:15. And Moses gave a possession to the children of Ruben according to their kindreds. 13:16. And their border was from Aroer, which is on the bank of the torrent Arnon, and in the midst of the valley of the same torrent: all the plain, that leadeth to Medaba, 13:17. And Hesebon, and all their villages, which are in the plains. Dibon also, and Bamothbaal, and the town of Baalmaon, 13:18. And Jassa, and Cidimoth, and Mephaath, 13:19. And Cariathaim, and Sabama, and Sarathasar in the mountain of the valley. 13:20. Bethphogor and Asedoth, Phasga and Bethiesimoth, 13:21. And all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdoms of Sehon king of the Amorrhites, that reigned in Hesebon, whom Moses slew with the princes of Madian: Hevi, and Recem, and Sur and Hur, and Rebe, dukes of Sehon inhabitants of the land. The princes of Madian. . .It appears from hence that these were subjects of king Sehon: they are said to have been slain with him, that is, about the same time, but not in the same battle. 13:22. Balaam also the son of Beor the soothsayer, the children of Israel slew with the sword among the rest that were slain. 13:23. And the river Jordan was the border of the children of Ruben. This is the possession of the Rubenites, by their kindreds, of cities and villages. 13:24. And Moses gave to the tribe of Gad and to his children by their kindreds a possession, of which this is the division. 13:25. The border of Jaser, and all the cities of Galaad, and half the land of the children of Ammon: as far as Aroer which is over against Rabba: 13:26. And from Hesebon unto Ramoth, Masphe and Betonim: and from Manaim unto the borders of Dabir. 13:27. And in the valley Betharan and Bethnemra, and Socoth, and Saphon the other part of the kingdom of Sehon king of Hesebon: the limit of this also is the Jordan, as far as the uttermost part of the sea of Cenereth beyond the Jordan on the east side, 13:28. This is the possession of the children of Gad by their families, their cities, and villages. 13:29. He gave also to the half tribe of Manasses and his children possession according to their kindreds, 13:30. The beginning whereof is this: from Manaim all Basan, and all the kingdoms of Og king of Basan, and all the villages of Jair, which are in Basan, threescore towns. 13:31. And half Galaad, and Astaroth, and Edrai, cities of the kingdom of Og in Basan: to the children of Machir, the son of Manasses, to one half of the children of Machir according to their kindreds. 13:32. This possession Moses divided in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan, over against Jericho on the east side, 13:33. But to the tribe of Levi he gave no possession: because the Lord the God of Israel himself is their possession, as he spoke to them. Josue Chapter 14 Caleb's petition; Hebron is given to him and to his seed. 14:1. This is what the children of Israel possessed in the land of Chanaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Josue the son of Nun, and the princes of the families by the tribes of Israel gave to them. 14:2. Dividing all by lot, as the Lord had commanded the hand of Moses, to the nine tribes, and the half tribe. 14:3. For to two tribes and a half Moses had given possession beyond the Jordan: besides the Levites, who received no land among their brethren: 14:4. But in their place succeeded the children of Joseph divided into two tribes, of Manasses and Ephraim: neither did the Levites receive other portion of land, but cities to dwell in, and their suburbs to feed their beasts and flocks. Hebron belonged, etc. . .All the country thereabouts, depending on Hebron, was given to Caleb; but the city itself with the suburbs, was one of those that were given to the priests to dwell in. 14:5. As the Lord had commanded Moses so did the children of Israel, and they divided the land. 14:6. Then the children of Juda came to Josue in Galgal, and Caleb the son of Jephone the Cenezite spoke to him: Thou knowest what the Lord spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Cadesbarne. 14:7. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Cadesbarne, to view the land, and I brought him word again as to me seemed true, 14:8. But my brethren, that had gone up with me, discouraged the heart of the people: and I nevertheless followed the Lord my God. 14:9. And Moses swore in that day, saying: The land which thy foot hath trodden upon shall be thy possession, and thy children for ever, because thou hast followed the Lord my God. 14:10. The Lord therefore hath granted me life, as he promised until this present day, It is forty and five years since the Lord spoke this word to Moses, when Israel journeyed through the wilderness: this day I am eighty-five years old, 14:11. As strong as I was at that time when I was sent to view the land: the strength of that time continueth in me until this day, as well to fight as to march. 14:12. Give me therefore this mountain, which the Lord promised, in thy hearing also, wherein are the Enacims, and cities great and strong: if so be the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to destroy them, as he promised me. 14:13. And Josue blessed him, and gave him Hebron in possession. 14:14. And from that time Hebron belonged to Caleb the son of Jephone the Cenezite, until this present day: because he followed the Lord the God of Israel. 14:15. The name of Hebron before was called Cariath-Arbe: Adam the greatest among the Enacims was laid there and the land rested from wars. Josue Chapter 15 The borders of the lot of Juda. Caleb's portion and conquest. The cities of Juda. 15:1. Now the lot of the children of Juda by their kindreds was this: From the frontier of Edom, to the desert of Sin southward, and to the uttermost part of the south coast. 15:2. Its beginning was from the top of the most salt sea, and from the bay thereof, that looketh to the south. 15:3. And it goeth out towards the ascent of the Scorpion, and passeth on to Sina: and ascendeth into Cadesbarne, and reacheth into Esron, going up to Addar, and compassing Carcaa. 15:4. And from thence passing along into Asemona, and reaching the torrent of Egypt: and the bounds thereof shall be the great sea, this shall be the limit of the south coast. 15:5. But on the east side the beginning shall be the most salt sea even to the end of the Jordan: and towards the north from the bay of the sea unto the same river Jordan. 15:6. And the border goeth up into Beth-Hagla, and passeth by the north into Beth-Araba: going up to the stone of Boen the son of Ruben. 15:7. And reaching as far as the borders of Debara from the valley of Achor, and so northward looking towards Galgal, which is opposite to the ascent of Adommin, on the south side of the torrent, and the border passeth the waters that are called the fountain of the sun: and the goings out thereof shall be at the fountain Rogel. 15:8. And it goeth up by the valley of the son of Ennom on the side of the Jebusite towards the south, the same is Jerusalem: and thence ascending to the top of the mountain, which is over against Geennom to the west in the end of the valley of Raphaim, northward. 15:9. And it passeth on from the top of the mountain to the fountain of the water of Nephtoa: and reacheth to the towns of mount Ephron: and it bendeth towards Baala, which is Cariathiarim, that is to say, the city of the woods. 15:10. And it compasseth from Baala westward unto mount Seir: and passeth by the side of mount Jarim to the north into Cheslon: and goeth down into Bethsames, and passeth into Thamna. 15:11. And reacheth northward to a part of Accaron at the side: and bendeth to Sechrona, and passeth mount Baala: and cometh into Jebneel, and is bounded westward with the great sea. 15:12. These are the borders round about of the children of Juda in their kindreds. 15:13. But to Caleb the son of Jephone he gave a portion in the midst of the children of Juda, as the Lord had commanded him: Cariath-Arbe the father of Enac, which is Hebron. 15:14. And Caleb destroyed out of it the three sons of Enac, Sesai and Ahiman, and Tholmai of the race of Enac. 15:15. And going up from thence he came to the inhabitants of Dabir, which before was called Cariath-Sepher, that is to say, the city of letters. 15:16. And Caleb said: He that shall smite Cariath-Sepher, and take it, I will give him Axa my daughter to wife. 15:17. And Othoniel the son of Cenez, the younger brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Axa his daughter to wife. 15:18. And as they were going together, she was moved by her husband to ask a field of her father, and she sighed as she sat on her ass. And Caleb said to her: What aileth thee? 15:19. But she answered: Give me a blessing: thou hast given me a southern and dry land, give me also a land that Is watered. And Caleb gave her the upper and the nether watery ground. 15:20. This is the possession of the tribe of the children of Juda by their kindreds. 15:21. And the cities from the uttermost parts of the children of Juda by the borders of Edom to the south, were Cabseel and Eder and Jagur, 15:22. And Cina and Dimona and Adada, 15:23. And Cades and Asor and Jethnam, 15:24. Ziph and Telem and Baloth, 15:25. New Asor and Carioth, Hesron, which is Asor. 15:26. Amam, Sama and Molada, 15:27. And Asergadda and Hassemon and Bethphelet, 15:28. And Hasersual and Bersabee and Baziothia, 15:29. And Baala and Jim and Esem, 15:30. And Eltholad and Cesil and Harma, 15:31. And Siceleg and Medemena and Sensenna, 15:32. Lebaoth and Selim and Aen and Remmon: all the cities twenty-nine, and their villages. 15:33. But in the plains: Estaol and Sarea and Asena, 15:34. And Zanoe and Engannim and Taphua and Enaim, 15:35. And Jerimoth and Adullam, Socho and Azeca, 15:36. And Saraim and Adithaim and Gedera and Gederothaim: fourteen cities, and their villages. 15:37. Sanan and Hadassa and Magdalgad, 15:38. Delean and Masepha and Jecthel, 15:39. Lachis and Bascath and Eglon, 15:40. Chebbon and Leheman and Cethlis, 15:41. And Gideroth and Bethdagon and Naama and Maceda: sixteen cities, and their villages. 15:42. Labana and Ether and Asan, 15:43. Jephtha and Esna and Nesib, 15:44. And Ceila and Achzib and Maresa: nine cities, and their villages. 15:45. Accaron with the towns and villages thereof. 15:46. From Accaron even to the sea: all places that lie towards Azotus and the villages thereof. 15:47. Azotus with its towns and villages. Gaza with its towns and villages, even to the torrent of Egypt, and the great sea that is the border thereof. 15:48. And in the mountain Samir and Jether and Socoth, 15:49. And Danna and Cariath-senna, this is Dabir: 15:50. Anab and Istemo and Anim, 15:51. Gosen and Olon and Gilo: eleven cities and their villages. 15:52. Arab and Ruma and Esaan, 15:53. And Janum and Beththaphua and Apheca, 15:54. Athmatha and Cariath-Arbe, this is Hebron and Sior: nine cities and their villages. 15:55. Maon and Carmel and Ziph and Jota, 15:56. Jezrael and Jucadam and Zanoe, 15:57. Accain, Gabaa and Thamna: ten cities and their villages. 15:58. Halhul, and Bessur, and Gedor, 15:59. Mareth, and Bethanoth, and Eltecon: six cities and their villages. 15:60. Cariathbaal, the same is Cariathiarim the city of woods, and Arebba: two cities and their villages. 15:61. In the desert Betharaba, Meddin and Sachacha, 15:62. And Nebsan, and the city of salt, and Engaddi: six cities and their villages. 15:63. But the children of Juda could not destroy the Jebusite that dwelt in Jerusalem: and the Jebusite dwelt with the children of Juda in Jerusalem until this present day. Josue Chapter 16 The lot of the sons of Joseph. The borders of the tribe of Ephraim. 16:1. And the lot of the sons of Joseph fell from the Jordan over against Jericho and the waters thereof, on the east: the wilderness which goeth up from Jericho to the mountain of Bethel: 16:2. And goeth out from Bethel to Luza: and passeth the border of Archi, to Ataroth, 16:3. And goeth down westward, by the border of Jephleti, unto the borders of Beth-horon the nether, and to Gazer: and the countries of it are ended by the great sea: 16:4. And Manasses and Ephraim the children of Joseph possessed it. 16:5. And the border of the children of Ephraim was according to their kindreds: and their possession towards the east was Ataroth-addar unto Beth-horon the upper. 16:6. And the confines go out unto the sea: but Machmethath looketh to the north, and it goeth round the borders eastward into Thanath-selo: and passeth along on the east side to Janoe. Looketh to the north, etc. . .The meaning is, that the border went towards the north, by Machmethath; and then turned eastward to Thanath-selo. 16:7. And it goeth down from Janoe into Ataroth and Naaratha: and it cometh to Jericho, and goeth out to the Jordan. 16:8. From Taphua it passeth on towards the sea into the valley of reeds, and the goings out thereof are at the most salt sea. This is the possession of the tribe of the children of Ephraim by their families. 16:9. And there were cities with their villages separated for the children of Ephraim in the midst of the possession of the children of Manasses. 16:10. And the children of Ephraim slew not the Chanaanite, who dwelt in Gazer: and the Chanaanite dwelt in the midst of Ephraim until this day, paying tribute. Josue Chapter 17 The lot of the half tribe of Manasses. 17:1. And this lot fell to the tribe of Manasses for he is the firstborn of Joseph to Machir the firstborn of Manasses the father of Galaad, who was a warlike man, and had for possession Galaad and Basan. 17:2. And to the rest of the children of Manasses according to their families: to the children of Abiezer, and to the children of Helec, and to the children of Esriel, and to the children of Sechem, and to the children of Hepher, and to the children of Semida: these are the male children of Manasses the son of Joseph, by their kindreds. 17:3. But Salphaad the son of Hepher the son of Galaad the son of Machir the son of Manasses had no sons, but only daughters: whose names are these, Maala and Noa and Hegla and Melcha and Thersa. 17:4. And they came in the presence of Eleazar the priest and of Josue the son of Nun, and of the princes, saying: The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, that a possession should be given us in the midst of our brethren. And he gave them according to the commandment of the Lord a possession amongst the brethren of their father. 17:5. And there fell ten portions to Manasses, beside the land of Galaad and Basan beyond the Jordan. 17:6. For the daughters of Manasses possessed inheritance in the midst of his sons. And the land of Galaad fell to the lot of the rest of the children of Manasses. 17:7. And the border of Manasses was from Aser, Machmethath which looketh towards Sichem: and it goeth out on the right hand by the inhabitants of the fountain of Taphua. 17:8. For the lot of Manasses took in the land of Taphua, which is on the borders of Manasses, and belongs to the children of Ephraim. 17:9. And the border goeth down to the valley of the reeds, to the south of the torrent of the cities of Ephraim, which are in the midst of the cities of Manasses: the border of Manasses is on the north side of the torrent, and the outgoings of it are at the sea: 17:10. So that the possession of Ephraim is on the south, and on the north that of Manasses, and the sea is the border of both, and they are joined together in the tribe of Aser on the north, and in the tribe of Issachar on the east. 17:11. And the inheritance of Manasses in Issachar and in Aser, was Bethsan and its villages, and Jeblaam with its villages, and the inhabitants of Dor, with the towns thereof: the inhabitants also of Endor with the villages thereof: and in like manner the inhabitants of Thenac with the villages thereof: and the inhabitants of Mageddo with their villages, and the third part of the city of Nopheth. 17:12. Neither could the children of Manasses overthrow these cities, but the Chanaanite began to dwell in his land. 17:13. But after that the children of Israel were grown strong, they subdued the Chanaanites, and made them their tributaries, and they did not kill them. 17:14. And the children of Joseph spoke to Josue, and said: Why hast thou given me but one lot and one portion to possess, whereas I am of so great a multitude, and the Lord hath blessed me? 17:15. And Josue said to them: If thou be a great people, go up into the woodland, and cut down room for thyself in the land of the Pherezite and the Raphaims: because the possession of mount Ephraim is too narrow for thee. 17:16. And the children of Joseph answered him: We cannot go up to the mountains, for the Chanaanites that dwell in the low lands, wherein are situate Bethsan with its towns, and Jezrael in the midst of the valley, have chariots of iron. 17:17. And Josue said to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasses: Thou art a great people, and of great strength, thou shalt not have one lot only: 17:18. But thou shalt pass to the mountain, and shalt cut down the wood, and make thyself room to dwell in: and mayst proceed farther, when thou hast destroyed the Chanaanites, who as thou sayest have iron chariots, and are very strong. Josue Chapter 18 Surveyors are sent to divide the rest of the land into seven tribes. The lot of Benjamin. 18:1. And all the children of Israel assembled together in Silo, and there they set up the tabernacle of the testimony, and the land was subdued before them. 18:2. But there remained seven tribes of the children of Israel, which as yet had not received their possessions. 18:3. And Josue said to them: How long are you indolent and slack, and go not in to possess the land which the Lord the God of your fathers hath given you? 18:4. Choose of every tribe three men, that I may send them, and they may go and compass the land, and mark it out according to the number of each multitude: and bring back to me what they have marked out. 18:5. Divide to yourselves the land into seven parts: let Juda be in his bounds on the south side, and the house of Joseph on the north. 18:6. The land in the midst between these mark ye out into seven parts; and you shall come hither to me, that I may cast lots for you before the Lord your God. The land in the midst between these mark ye out into seven parts. . .That is to say, the rest of the land, which is not already assigned to Juda or Joseph. 18:7. For the Levites have no part among you, but the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad and Ruben, and the half tribe of Manasses have already received their possessions beyond the Jordan eastward: which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them. 18:8. And when the men were risen up, to go to mark out the land, Josue commanded them saying: Go round the land and mark it out, and return to me: that I may cast lots for you before the Lord in Silo. 18:9. So they went and surveying it divided it into seven parts, writing them down in a book. And they returned to Josue, to the camp in Silo. 18:10. And he cast lots before the Lord in Silo, and divided the land to the children of Israel into seven parts. 18:11. And first came up the lot of the children of Benjamin by their families, to possess the land between the children of Juda, and the children of Joseph. 18:12. And their border northward was from the Jordan: going along by the side of Jericho on the north side, and thence going up westward to the mountains, and reaching to the wilderness of Bethaven, 18:13. And passing along southward by Luza, the same is Bethel, and it goeth down into Ataroth-addar to the mountain, that is on the south of the nether Beth-horon. 18:14. And it bendeth thence going round towards the sea, south of the mountain that looketh towards Beth-horon to the southwest: and the outgoings thereof are into Cariathbaal, which is called also Cariathiarim, a city of the children of Juda This is their coast towards the sea, westward. 18:15. But on the south side the border goeth out from part of Cariathiarim towards the sea, and cometh to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoa. 18:16. And it goeth down to that part of the mountain that looketh on the valley of the children of Ennom: and is over against the north quarter in the furthermost part of the valley of Raphaim, and it goeth down into Geennom (that is the valley of Ennom) by the side of the Jebusite to the south: and cometh to the fountain of Rogel, 18:17. Passing thence to the north, and going out to Ensemes, that is to say, the fountain of the sun: 18:18. And It passeth along to the hills that are over against the ascent of Adommim: and it goeth down to Abenboen, that is, the stone of Boen the son of Ruben: and it passeth on the north side to the champaign countries; and goeth down Into the plain, 18:19. And it passeth by Bethhagla northward: and the outgoings thereof are towards the north of the most salt sea at the south end of the Jordan. 18:20. Which is the border of it on the east side. This is the possession of the children of Benjamin by their borders round about, and their families. 18:21. And their cities were, Jericho and Bethhagla and Vale-Casis, 18:22. Betharaba and Samaraim and Bethel, 18:23. And Avim and Aphara and Ophera, 18:24. The town Emona and Ophni and Gabee: twelve cities, and their villages. 18:25. Gabam and Rama and Beroth, 18:26. And Mesphe, and Caphara, and Amosa, 18:27. And Recem, Jarephel, and Tharela, 18:28. And Sela, Eleph and Jebus, which is Jerusalem, Gabaath and Cariath: fourteen cities, and their villages. This is the possession of the children of Benjamin by their families. Josue Chapter 19 The lots of the tribes of Simeon, Zabulon, Issachar, Aser, Nephtali and Dan. A city is given to Josue. 19:1. And the second lot came forth for the children of Simeon by their kindreds: and their inheritance was 19:2. In the midst of the possession of the children of Juda: Bersabee and Sabee and Molada 19:3. And Hasersual, Bala and Asem, 19:4. And Eltholad, Bethul and Harma, 19:5. And Siceleg and Bethmarchaboth and Hasersusa, 19:6. And Bethlebaoth and Sarohen: thirteen cities, and their villages. 19:7. And Remmon and Athor and Asan: four cities, and their villages. 19:8. And all the villages round about these cities to Baalath Beer Ramath to the south quarter. This is the inheritance of the children of Simeon according to their kindreds, 19:9. In the possession and lot of the children of Juda: because it was too great, and therefore the children of Simeon had their possession in the midst of their inheritance. 19:10. And the third lot fell to the children of Zabulon by their kindreds: and the border of their possession was unto Sarid. 19:11. And It went up from the sea and from Merala, and came to Debbaseth: as far as the torrent, which is over against Jeconam. 19:12. And it returneth from Sarid eastward to the borders of Ceseleththabor: and it goeth out to Dabereth and ascendeth towards Japhie. 19:13. And it passeth along from thence to the east side of Gethhepher and Thacasin: and goeth out to Remmon, Amthar and Noa. 19:14. And it turneth about to the north of Hanathon: and the outgoings thereof are the valley of Jephtahel, 19:15. And Cateth and Naalol and Semeron and Jedala and Bethlehem: twelve cities and their villages. 19:16. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Zabulon by their kindreds, the cities and their villages. 19:17. The fourth lot came out to Issachar by their kindreds. 19:18. And his inheritance was Jezrael and Casaloth and Sunem, 19:19. And Hapharaim and Seon and Anaharath, 19:20. And Rabboth and Cesion, Abes, 19:21. And Rameth and Engannim and Enhadda and Bethpheses. 19:22. And the border thereof cometh to Thabor and Sehesima and Bethsames: and the outgoings thereof shall be at the Jordan: sixteen cities, and their villages. 19:23. This is the possession of the sons of Issachar by their kindreds, the cities and their villages. 19:24. And the fifth lot fell to the tribe of the children of Aser by their kindreds: 19:25. And their border was Halcath and Chali and Beten and Axaph, 19:26. And Elmelech and Amaad and Messal: and it reacheth to Carmel by the sea and Sihor and Labanath, 19:27. And it returneth towards the east to Bethdagon: and passeth along to Zabulon and to the valley of Jephthael towards the north to Bethemec and Nehiel. And it goeth out to the left side of Cabul, 19:28. And to Abaran and Rohob and Hamon and Cana, as far as the great Sidon. 19:29. And it returneth to Horma to the strong city of Tyre, and to Hosa: and the outgoings thereof shall be at the sea from the portion of Achziba: 19:30. And Amma and Aphec and Rohob: twenty-two cities, and their villages. 19:31. This is the possession of the children of Aser by their kindreds, and the cities and their villages. 19:32. The sixth lot came out to the sons of Nephtali by their families: 19:33. And the border began from Heleph and Elon to Saananim, and Adami, which is Neceb, and Jebnael even to Lecum: 19:34. And the border returneth westward to Azanotthabor, and goeth out from thence to Hucuca, and passeth along to Zabulon southward, and to Aser westward, and to Juda upon the Jordan towards the rising of the sun. 19:35. And the strong cities are Assedim, Ser, and Emath, and Reccath and Cenereth, 19:36. And Edema and Arama, Asor, 19:37. And Cedes and Edri, Enhasor, 19:38. And Jeron and Magdalel, Horem, and Bethanath and Bethsames: nineteen cities, and their villages. 19:39. This is the possession of the tribe of the children of Nephtali by their kindreds, the cities and their villages. 19:40. The seventh lot came out to the tribe of the children of Dan by their families 19:41. And the border of their possession was Saraa and Esthaol, and Hirsemes, that is, the city of the sun, 19:42. Selebin and Aialon and Jethela, 19:43. Elon and Themna and Acron, 19:44. Elthece, Gebbethon and Balaath, 19:45. And Juda and Bane and Barach and Gethremmon: 19:46. And Mejarcon and Arecon, with the border that looketh towards Joppe, 19:47. And is terminated there. And the children of Dan went up and fought against Lesem, and took it: and they put it to the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt in it, calling the name of it Lesem Dan, by the name of Dan their father. 19:48. This is the possession of the tribe of the sons of Dan, by their kindreds, the cities and their villages. 19:49. And when he had made an end of dividing the land by lot to each one by their tribes, the children of Israel gave a possession to Josue the son of Nun in the midst of them, 19:50. According to the commandment of the Lord, the city which he asked for, Thamnath Saraa, in mount Ephraim: and he built up the city, and dwelt in it. 19:51. These are the possessions which Eleazar the priest, and Josue the son of Nun, and the princes of the families, and of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed by lot in Silo, before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, and they divided the land. Josue Chapter 20 The cities of refuge are appointed for casual manslaughter. 20:1. And the Lord spoke to Josue, saying: Speak to children of Israel and say to them: 20:2. Appoint cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses: 20:3. That whosoever shall kill a person unawares may flee to them, and may escape the wrath of the kinsman, who is the avenger of blood. 20:4. And when he shall flee to one of these cities: he shall stand before the gate of the city, and shall speak to the ancients of that city, such things as prove him innocent: and so shall they receive him, and give him a place to dwell in. 20:5. And when the avenger of blood shall pursue him, they shall not deliver him into his hands, because he slew his neighbour unawares, and is not proved to have been his enemy two or three days before, 20:6. And he shall dwell in that city, till he stand before judgment to give an account of his fact, and till the death of the high priest, who shall be at that time: then shall the manslayer return, and go into his own city and house from whence he fled. 20:7. And they appointed Cedes in Galilee of mount Nephtali, and Sichem in mount Ephraim, and Cariath-Arbe, the same is Hebron in the mountain of Juda. 20:8. And beyond the Jordan to the east of Jericho, they appointed Bosor, which is upon the plain of the wilderness of the tribe of Ruben, and Ramoth in Galaad of the tribe of Gad, and Gaulon in Basan of the tribe of Manasses. 20:9. These cities were appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the strangers, that dwelt among them, that whosoever had killed a person unawares might flee to them, and not die by the hand of the kinsman, coveting to revenge the blood that was shed, until he should stand before the people to lay open his cause. Josue Chapter 21 Cities with their suburbs are assigned for the priests and Levites. 21:1. Then the princes of the families of Levi came to Eleazar the priest, and to Josue the son of Nun, and to the princes of the kindreds of all the tribes of the children of Israel 21:2. And they spoke to them in Silo in the land of Chanaan, and said: The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, that cities should be given us to dwell in, and their suburbs to feed our cattle. 21:3. And the children of Israel gave out of their possessions according to the commandment of the Lord, cities and their suburbs. 21:4. And the lot came out for the family of Caath of the children of Aaron the priest out of the tribes of Juda, and of Simeon, and of Benjamin, thirteen cities. 21:5. And to the rest of the children of Caath, that is, to thee Levites, who remained, out of the tribes of Ephraim, and of Dan, and the half tribe of Manasses, ten cities. 21:6. And the lot came out to children of Gerson, that they should take of the tribes of Issachar and of Aser and of Nephtali, and of the half tribe of Manasses in Basan, thirteen cities. 21:7. And to the sons of Merari by their kindreds, of the tribes of Ruben and of Gad and of Zabulon, twelve cities. 21:8. And the children of Israel gave to the Levites the cities and their suburbs, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, giving to every one by lot. 21:9. Of the tribes of the children of Juda and of Simeon Josue gave cities: whose names are these, 21:10. To the sons of Aaron, of the families of Caath of the race of Levi (for the first lot came out for them) 21:11. The city of Arbe the father of Enac, which is called Hebron, in the mountain of Juda, and the suburbs thereof round about. 21:12. But the fields and the villages thereof he had given to Caleb the son of Jephone for his possession. 21:13. He gave therefore to the children of Aaron the priest, Hebron a city of refuge, and the suburbs thereof, and Lebna with the suburbs thereof, 21:14. And Jether and Estemo, 21:15. And Holon, and Dabir, 21:16. And Ain, and Jeta, and Bethsames, with their suburbs: nine cities out of the two tribes, as hath been said. 21:17. And out of the tribe of the children of Benjamin, Gabaon, and Gabae, 21:18. And Anathoth and Almon, with, their suburbs: four cities. 21:19. All the cities together of the children of Aaron the priest, were thirteen, with their suburbs, 21:20. And to the rest of the families of the children of Caath of the race of Levi was given this possession. 21:21. Of the tribe of Ephraim, Sichem one of the cities of refuge, with the suburbs thereof in mount Ephraim, and Gazer, 21:22. And Cibsaim, and Beth-horon, with their suburbs, four cities. 21:23. And of he tribe of Dan, Eltheco and Gabathon, 21:24. And Aialon and Gethremmon, with their suburbs, four cities. 21:25. And of the half tribe of Manasses, Thanac and Gethremmon, with their suburbs, two cities. 21:26. All the cities were ten, with their suburbs, which were given to the children of Caath, of the inferior degree. 21:27. To the children of Gerson also of the race of Levi out of the half tribe of Manasses, Gaulon in Basan, one of the cities of refuge, and Bosra, with their suburbs, two cities. 21:28. And of the tribe of Issachar, Cesion, and Dabereth, 21:29. And Jaramoth, and Engannim, with their suburbs, four cities. 21:30. And of the tribe of Aser, Masal and Abdon, 21:31. And Helcath, and Rohob, with their suburbs, four cities. 21:32. Of the tribe also of Nephtali, Cedes in Galilee, one of the cities of refuge: and Hammoth Dor, and Carthan, with their suburbs, three cities. 21:33. All the cities of the families of Gerson, were thirteen, with their suburbs. 21:34. And to the children of Merari, Levites of the inferior degree, by their families were given of the tribe of Zabulon, Jecnam and Cartha, 21:35. And Damna and Naalol, four cities with their suburbs. 21:36. Of the tribe of Ruben beyond the Jordan over against Jericho, Bosor in the wilderness, one of the cities of refuge, Misor and Jaser and Jethson and Mephaath, four cities with their suburbs. Four cities. . .There are no more, though there be five names: for Misor is the same city as Bosor, which is to be observed in some other places, where the number of names exceeds the number of cities. 21:37. Of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Galaad, one of the cities of refuge, and Manaim and Hesebon and Jaser, four cities with their suburbs, 21:38. All the cities of the children of Merari by their families and kindreds, were twelve. 21:39. So all the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were forty-eight, 21:40. With their suburbs, each distributed by the families. 21:41. And the Lord God gave to Israel all the land that he had sworn to give to their fathers: and they possessed it, and dwelt in it. 21:42. And he gave them peace from all nations round about: and none of their enemies durst stand against them, but were brought under their dominion. 21:43. Not so much as one word, which he had promised to perform unto them, was made void, but all came to pass. Josue Chapter 22 The tribes of Ruben and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasses return to their possessions. They build an altar by the side of the Jordan, which alarms the other tribes. An embassage is sent to them, to which they give a satisfactory answer. 22:1. At the same time Josue called the Rubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses, 22:2. And said to them: You have done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: you have also obeyed me in all things, 22:3. Neither have you left your brethren this long time, until this present day, keeping the commandment of the Lord your God. 22:4. Therefore as the Lord your God hath given your brethren rest and peace, as he promised: return, and go to your dwellings, and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan: 22:5. Yet so that you observe attentively, and in work fulfil the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: that you love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, and keep all his commandments, and cleave to him, and serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul. 22:6. And Josue blessed them, and sent them away, and they returned to their dwellings. 22:7. Now to half the tribe of Manasses, Moses had given a possession in Basan: and therefore to the half that remained, Josue gave a lot among the rest of their brethren beyond the Jordan to the west. And when he sent them away to their dwellings and had blessed them, 22:8. He said to them: With much substance and riches, you return to your settlements, with silver and gold, brass and iron, and variety of raiment: divide the prey of your enemies with your brethren. 22:9. So the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses returned, and parted from the children of Israel in Silo, which is in Chanaan, to go into Galaad the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. 22:10. And when they were come to banks of the Jordan, in the land of Chanaan, they built an altar immensely great near the Jordan. 22:11. And when the children of Israel had heard of it, and certain messengers brought them an account that the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses had built an altar in the land of Chanaan, upon the banks of the Jordan, over against the children of Israel: 22:12. They all assembled in Silo, to go up and fight against them. 22:13. And in the mean time they sent to them into the land of Galaad, Phinees the son of Eleazar the priest, 22:14. And ten princes with him, one of every tribe. 22:15. Who came to the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses, into the land of Galaad, and said to them: 22:16. Thus saith all the people of the Lord: What meaneth this transgression? Why have you forsaken the Lord the God of Israel, building a sacrilegious altar, and revolting from the worship of him? 22:17. Is it a small thing to you that you sinned with Beelphegor, and the stain of that crime remaineth in us to this day? and many of the people perished. 22:18. And you have forsaken the Lord to day, and to morrow his wrath will rage against all Israel. 22:19. But if you think the land of your possession to be unclean, pass over to the land wherein is the tabernacle of the Lord, and dwell among us: only depart not from the Lord, and from our society, by building an altar beside the altar of the Lord our God. 22:20. Did not Achan the son of Zare transgress the commandment of the Lord, and his wrath lay upon all the people of Israel? And he was but one man, and would to God he alone had perished in his wickedness. 22:21. And the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses answered the princes of the embassage of Israel: 22:22. The Lord the most mighty God, the Lord the most mighty God, he knoweth, and Israel also shall understand: If with the design of transgression we have set up this altar, let him not save us, but punish us immediately: 22:23. And if we did it with that mind, that we might lay upon it holocausts, and sacrifice, and victims of peace offerings, let him require and judge: 22:24. And not rather with this thought and design, that we should say: To morrow your children will say to our children: What have you to do with the Lord the God of Israel? 22:25. The Lord hath put the river Jordan for a border between us and you, O ye children of Ruben, and ye children of Gad: and therefore you have no part in the Lord. And by this occasion your children shall turn away our children from the fear of the Lord. We therefore thought it best, 22:26. And said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, nor to offer victims, 22:27. But for a testimony between us and you, and our posterity and yours, that we may serve the Lord, and that we may have a right to offer both holocausts, and victims and sacrifices of peace offerings: and that your children to morrow may not say to our children: You have no part in the Lord. 22:28. And if they will say so, they shall answer them: Behold the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for holocausts, nor for sacrifice, but for a testimony between us and you. 22:29. God keep us from any such wickedness that we should revolt from the Lord, and leave off following his steps, by building an altar to offer holocausts, and sacrifices, and victims, beside the altar of the Lord our God, which is erected before his tabernacle. 22:30. And when Phinees the priest, and the princes of the embassage, who were with him, had heard this, they were satisfied: and they admitted most willingly the words of the children of Ruben, and Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses, 22:31. And Phinees the priest the son of Eleazar said to them: Now we know that the Lord is with us, because you are not guilty of this revolt, and you have delivered the children of Israel from the hand of the Lord. 22:32. And he returned with the princes from the children of Ruben and Gad, out of the land of Galaad, into the land of Chanaan, to the children of Israel, and brought them word again. 22:33. And the saying pleased all that heard it. And the children of Israel praised God, and they no longer said that they would go up against them, and fight, and destroy the land of their possession. 22:34. And the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad called the altar which they had built, Our testimony, that the Lord is God, Josue Chapter 23 Josue being old admonisheth the people to keep God's commandments: and to avoid marriages and all society with the Gentiles for fear of being brought to idolatry. 23:1. And when a long time was passed, after that the Lord had given peace to Israel, all the nations round about being subdued. and Josue being now old, and far advanced in years: 23:2. Josue called for all Israel, and for the elders, and for the princes, and for the judges, and for the masters, and said to them: I am old, and far advanced in years, 23:3. And you see all that the Lord your God hath done to all the nations round about, how he himself hath fought for you: 23:4. And now since he hath divided to you by lot all the land, from the east of the Jordan unto the great sea, ant many nations yet remain: 23:5. The Lord your God will destroy them, and take them away from before your face, and you shall possess the land as he hath promised you. 23:6. Only take courage, and be careful to observe all things that are written in the book of the law of Moses: and turn not aside from them neither to the right hand nor to the left: 23:7. Lest after that you are come in among the Gentiles, who will remain among you, you should swear by the name of their gods, and serve them, and adore them: 23:8. But cleave ye unto the Lord your God, as you have done until this day. 23:9. And then the Lord God will take away before your eyes nations that are great and very strong, and no man shall be able to resist you. 23:10. One of you shall chase a thousand men of the enemies: because the Lord your God himself will fight for you, as he hath promised. 23:11. This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God. 23:12. But if you will embrace the errors of these nations that dwell among you, and make marriages with them, and join friendships: 23:13. Know ye for a certainty that the Lord your God will not destroy them before your face, but they shall be a pit and a snare in your way, and a stumbling-block at your side, and stakes in your eyes, till he take you away and destroy you from off this excellent land, which he hath given you. 23:14. Behold this day I am going into the way of all the earth, and you shall know with all your mind that of all the words which the Lord promised to perform for you, not one hath failed, 23:15. Therefore as he hath fulfilled in deed, what he promised, and all things prosperous have come: so will he bring upon you all the evils he hath threatened, till he take you away and destroy you from off this excellent land, which he hath given you, 23:16. When you shall have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which he hath made with you, and shall have served strange gods, and adored them: then shall the indignation of the Lord rise up quickly and speedily against you, and you shall be taken away from this excellent land, which he hath delivered to you. Josue Chapter 24 Josue assembleth the people, and reneweth the covenant between them and God. His death and burial. 24:1. And Josue gathered together all the tribes of Israel in Sichem, and called for the ancients, and the princes and the judges, and the masters: and they stood in the sight of the Lord: 24:2. And he spoke thus to the people: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river, Thare the father of Abraham, and Nachor: and they served strange gods. Of the river. . .The Euphrates. 24:3. And I took your father Abraham from the borders of Mesopotamia: and brought him into the land of Chanaan: and I multiplied his seed, 24:4. And gave him Isaac: and to him again I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave to Esau mount Seir for his possession: but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. 24:5. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I struck Egypt with many signs and wonders. 24:6. And I brought you and your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea: and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen, as far as the Red Sea. 24:7. And the children of Israel cried to the Lord: and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them. Your eyes saw all that I did in Egypt, and you dwelt in the wilderness a long time. 24:8. And I brought you into the land of the Amorrhite, who dwelt beyond the Jordan. And when they fought against you, I delivered them into your hands, and you possessed their land, and slew them. 24:9. And Balac son of Sephor king of Moab arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and called for Balaam son of Beor, to curse you: 24:10. And I would not hear him, but on the contrary I blessed you by him, and I delivered you out of his hand. 24:11. And you passed over the Jordan, and you came to Jericho. And the men of that city fought against you, the Amorrhite, and the Pherezite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, and the Gergesite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite: and I delivered them into your hands. 24:12. And I sent before you and I drove them out from their places, the two kings of the Amorrhites, not with thy sword nor with thy bow, 24:13. And I gave you a land, in which you had not laboured, and cities to dwell in which you built not, vineyards and oliveyards, which you planted not. 24:14. Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him with a perfect and most sincere heart: and put away the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 24:15. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, you have your choice: choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Amorrhites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house we will serve thee Lord, 24:16. And the people answered, and said, God forbid we should leave the Lord, and serve strange gods. 24:17. The Lord our God he brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: and did very great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way by which we journeyed, and among all the people through whom we passed. 24:18. And he hath cast out all the nations, the Amorrhite the inhabitant of the land into which we are come. Therefore we will serve the Lord, for he is our God. 24:19. And Josue said to the people: You will not be able to serve the Lord: for he is a holy God, and mighty and jealous, and will not forgive your wickedness and sins. You will not be able to serve the Lord, etc. . .This was not said by way of discouraging them; but rather to make them more earnest and resolute, by setting before them the greatness of the undertaking, and the courage and constancy necessary to go through with it. 24:20. If you leave the Lord, and serve strange gods, he will turn, and will afflict you, and will destroy you after all the good he hath done you. 24:21. And the people said to Josue: No, it shall not be so as thou sayest, but we will serve the Lord. 24:22. And Josue said to the people, You are witnesses, that you yourselves have chosen you the Lord to serve him. And they answered: We are witnesses. 24:23. Now therefore, said he, put away strange gods from among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord the God of Israel. 24:24. And the people said to Josue: We will serve the Lord our God, and we will be obedient to his commandments. 24:25. Josue therefore on that day made a covenant, and set before the people commandments and judgments in Sichem. 24:26. And he wrote all these things in the volume of the law of the Lord: and he took a great stone, and set it under the oak that was in the sanctuary of the Lord. 24:27. And he said to all the people: Behold this stone shall be a testimony unto you, that it hath heard all the words of the Lord, which he hath spoken to you: lest perhaps hereafter you will deny it, and lie to the Lord your God. It hath heard. . .This is a figure of speech, by which sensation is attributed to inanimate things; and they are called upon, as it were, to bear witness in favour of the great Creator, whom they on their part constantly obey. 24:28. And he sent the people away every one to their own possession, 24:29. And after these things Josue the son of Nun the servant of the Lord died, being a hundred and ten years old: And after, etc. . .If Josue wrote this book, as is commonly believed, these last verses were added by Samuel, or some other prophet. 24:30. And they buried him in the border of his possession in Thamnathsare, which is situate in mount Ephraim, on the north side of mount Gaas. 24:31. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Josue, and of the ancients that lived a long time after Josue, and that had known all the works of the Lord which he had done in Israel. 24:32. And the bones of Joseph which the children of Israel had taken out of Egypt, they buried in Sichem, in that part of the field which Jacob had bought of the sons of Hemor the father of Sichem, for a hundred young ewes, and it was in the possession of the sons of Joseph. 24:33. Eleazar also the son of Aaron died: and they buried him in Gabaath that belongeth to Phinees his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim. THE BOOK OF JUDGES This Book is called JUDGES, because it contains the history of what passed under the government of the judges, who ruled Israel before they had kings. The writer of it, according to the more general opinion, was the prophet Samuel. Judges Chapter 1 The expedition and victory of Juda against the Chanaanites: who are tolerated in many places. 1:1. After the death of Josue, the children of Israel consulted the Lord, saying: Who shall go up before us against the Chanaanite, and shall be the leader of the war? 1:2. And the Lord said: Juda shall go up: behold I have delivered the land into his hands. 1:3. And Juda said to Simeon, his brother: Come up with me into my lot, and fight against the Chanaanite, that I also may go along with thee into thy lot. And Simeon went with him. 1:4. And Juda went up, and the Lord delivered the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite into their hands: and they slew of them in Bezec ten thousand men. 1:5. And they found Adonibezec in Bezec, and fought against him, and they defeated the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite. 1:6. And Adonibezec fled: and they pursued after him and took him, and cut off his fingers and toes. 1:7. And Adonibezec said: Seventy kings, having their fingers and toes cut off, gathered up the leavings of the meat under my table: as I have done, so hath God requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there. 1:8. And the children of Juda besieging Jerusalem, took it, and put it to the sword, and set the whole city on fire. Jerusalem. . .This city was divided into two; one part was called Jebus, the other Salem: the one was in the tribe of Juda, the other in the tribe of Benjamin. After it was taken and burnt by the men of Juda, it was quickly rebuilt again by the Jebusites, as we may gather from ver. 21; and continued in their possession till it was taken by king David. 1:9. And afterwards they went down and fought against the Chanaanite, who dwelt in the mountains, and in the south, and in the plains. 1:10. And Juda going forward against the Chanaanite, that dwelt in Hebron, (the name whereof was in former times Cariath-Arbe) slew Sesai, and Ahiman, and Tholmai: Hebron. . .This expedition against Hebron, etc. is the same as is related, Jos. 15.24. It is here repeated, to give the reader at once a short sketch of all the achievements of the tribe of Juda against the Chanaanites. 1:11. And departing from thence, he went to the inhabitants of Dabir, the ancient name of which was Cariath-Sepher, that is, the city of letters. The city of letters. . .Perhaps so called from some famous school, or library, kept there. 1:12. And Caleb said: He that shall take Cariath-Sepher, and lay it waste, to him will I give my daughter Axa to wife. 1:13. And Othoniel, the son of Cenez, the younger brother of Caleb, having taken it, he gave him Axa his daughter to wife. 1:14. And as she was going on her way, her husband admonished her to ask a field of her father. And as she sighed sitting on her ass, Caleb said to her: What aileth thee? 1:15. But she answered: Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a dry land: give me also a watery land So Caleb gave her the upper and the nether watery ground. 1:16. And the children of the Cinite, the kinsman of Moses, went up from the city of palms, with the children of Juda, into the wilderness of his lot, which is at the south side of Arad, and they dwelt with him. The Cinite. . .Jethro the father in law of Moses was called Cinoeus, or the Cinite; and his children who came along with the children of Israel settled themselves among them in the land of Chanaan, embracing their worship and religion. From these the Rechabites sprung, of whom see Jer. 35.--Ibid. The city of palms. . .Jericho, so called from the abundance of palm trees. 1:17. And Juda went with Simeon, his brother, and they together defeated the Chanaanites that dwelt in Sephaath, and slew them. And the name of the city was called Horma, that is, Anathema. 1:18. And Juda took Gaza, with its confines, and Ascalon, and Accaron, with their confines. Gaza, etc. . .These were three of the principal cities of the Philistines, famous both in sacred and profane history. They were taken at this time by the Israelites: but as they took no care to put garrisons in them, the Philistines soon recovered them. 1:19. And the Lord was with Juda, and he possessed the hill country: but was not able to destroy the inhabitants of the valley, because they had many chariots armed with scythes. Was not able, etc. . .Through a cowardly fear of their chariots armed with hooks and scythes, and for want of confidence in God. 1:20. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, who destroyed out of it the three sons of Enac. 1:21. But the sons of Benjamin did not destroy the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem: and the Jebusite hath dwelt with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem until this present day. 1:22. The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 1:23. For when they were besieging the city, which before was called Luza, 1:24. They saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him: Shew us the entrance into the city, and we will shew thee mercy. 1:25. And when he had shewed them, they smote the city with the edge of the sword: but that man, and all his kindred, they let go: 1:26. Who being sent away, went into the land of Hetthim, and built there a city, and called it Luza: which is so called until this day. 1:27. Manasses also did not destroy Bethsan, and Thanac, with their villages; nor the inhabitants of Dor, and Jeblaam, and Mageddo, with their villages. And the Chanaanite began to dwell with them. 1:28. But after Israel was grown strong, he made them tributaries, and would not destroy them. 1:29. Ephraim also did not slay the Chanaanite that dwelt in Gazer, bnt dwelt with him. 1:30. Zabulon destroyed not the inhabitants of Cetron, and Naalol: but the Chanaanite dwelt among them, and became their tributary. 1:31. Aser also destroyed not the inhabitants of Accho, and of Sidon, of Ahalab, and of Achazib, and of Helba, and of Aphec, and of Rohob: 1:32. And he dwelt in the midst of the Chanaanites, the inhabitants of that land, and did not slay them. 1:33. Nephthali also destroyed not the inhabitants of Bethsames, and of Bethanath: and he dwelt in the midst of the Chanaanites, the inhabitants of the land, and the Bethsamites and Bethanites were tributaries to him. 1:34. And the Amorrhite straitened the children of Dan in the mountain, and gave them not a place to go down to the plain: 1:35. And he dwelt in the mountain Hares, that is, of potsherds, in Aialon and Salebim. And the hand of the house of Joseph was heavy upon him, and he became tributary to him. He dwelt. . .That is, the Amorrhite. 1:36. And the border of the Amorrhite was from the ascent of the scorpion, the rock, and the higher places. Judges Chapter 2 An angel reproveth Israel. They weep for their sins. After the death of Josue, they often fall, and repenting are delivered from their afflictions, but still fall worse and worse. 2:1. And an angel of the Lord went up from Galgal to the place of weepers, and said: I made you go out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land for which I swore to your fathers: and I promised that I would not make void my covenant with you for ever: An angel. . .Taking the shape of a man. 2:2. On condition that you should not make a league with the inhabitants of this land, but should throw down their altars: and you would not hear my voice: why have you done this? 2:3. Wherefore I would not destroy them from before your face; that you may have enemies, and their gods may be your ruin. 2:4. And when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel: they lifted up their voice, and wept. 2:5. And the name of that place was called, The place of weepers, or of tears: and there they offered sacrifices to the Lord. 2:6. And Josue sent away the people, and the children of Israel went every one to his own possession to hold it: And Josue, etc. . .This is here inserted out of Jos. 24, by way of recapitulation of what had happened before, and by way of an introduction to that which follows. 2:7. And they served the Lord all his days, and the days of the ancients, that lived a long time after him, and who knew all the works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel. 2:8. And Josue, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old; 2:9. And they buried him in the borders of his possession in Thamnathsare, in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaas. 2:10. And all that generation was gathered to their fathers: and there arose others that knew not the Lord and the works which he had done for Israel. 2:11. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they served Baalim 2:12. And they left the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt: and they followed strange gods, and the gods of the people that dwelt round about them, and they adored them: and they provoked the Lord to anger, They followed strange gods. . .What is here said of the children of Israel, as to their falling so often into idolatry, is to be understood of a great part of them; but not so universally, as if the true worship of God was ever quite abolished among them: for the succession of the true church and religion was kept up all this time by the priests and Levites, at least in the house of God in Silo. 2:13. Forsaking him, and serving Baal and Astaroth 2:14. And the Lord being angry against Israel, delivered them into the hands of plunderers: who took them and sold them to their enemies, that dwelt round about: neither could they stand against their enemies: 2:15. But whithersoever they meant to go, the hand of the Lord was upon them, as he had said, and as he had sworn to them: and they were greatly distressed. 2:16. And the Lord raised up judges, to deliver them from the hands of those that oppressed them: but they would not hearken to them, 2:17. Committing fornication with strange gods, and adoring them. They quickly forsook the way, in which their fathers had walked: and hearing the commandments of the Lord, they did all things contrary. 2:18. And when the Lord raised them up judges, in their days, he was moved to mercy, and heard the groanings of the afflicted, and delivered them from the slaughter of the oppressors. 2:19. But after the judge was dead, they returned, and did much worse things than their fathers had done, following strange gods, serving them, and adoring them. They left not their own inventions, and the stubborn way, by which they were accustomed to walk. 2:20. And the wrath of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said: Behold this nation hath made void my covenant, which I had made with their fathers, and hath despised to hearken to my voice: 2:21. I also will not destroy the nations which Josue left when he died: 2:22. That through them I may try Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord, and walk in it, as their fathers kept it, or not. 2:23. The Lord therefore left all these nations, and would not quickly destroy them, neither did he deliver them into the hands of Josue. Judges Chapter 3 The people falling into idolatry are oppressed by their enemies; but repenting are delivered by Othoniel, Aod, and Samgar. 3:1. These are the nations which the Lord left, that by them he might instruct Israel, and all that had not known the wars of the Chanaanites: 3:2. That afterwards their children might learn to fight with their enemies, and to be trained up to war: 3:3. The five princes of the Philistines, and all the Chanaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hevites that dwelt in Mount Libanus, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entering into Emath. 3:4. And he left them, that he might try Israel by them, whether they would hear the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded their fathers, by the hand of Moses, or not. 3:5. So the children of Israel dwelt in the midst of the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, and the Amorrhite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite: 3:6. And they took their daughters to wives, and they gave their own daughters to their sons, and they served their gods. 3:7. And they did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they forgot their God, and served Baalim and Astaroth. 3:8. And the Lord being angry with Israel, delivered them into the hands of Chusan Rasathaim, king of Mesopotamia, and they served him eight years. Mesopotamia. . .In Hebrew Aramnaharim. Syria of the two rivers: so called because it lies between the Euphrates and the Tigris. It is absolutely called Syria, ver. 10. 3:9. And they cried to the Lord, who raised them up a saviour, and delivered them; to wit, Othoniel, the son of Cenez, the younger brother of Caleb: 3:10. And the spirit of the Lord was in him, and he judged Israel. And he went out to fight, and the Lord delivered Chusan Rasathaim, king of Syria, and he overthrew him: 3:11. And the land rested forty years, and Othoniel, the son of Cenez, died. 3:12. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord: who strengthened against them Eglon, king of Moab: because they did evil in his sight. 3:13. And he joined to him the children of Ammon, and Amalec: and he went and overthrew Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees. 3:14. And the children of Israel served Eglon, king of Moab, eighteen years. 3:15. And afterwards they cried to the Lord, who raised them up a saviour, called Aod, the son of Cera, the son of Jemini, who used the left hand as well as the right. And the children of Israel sent presents to Eglon, king of Moab, by him. 3:16. And he made himself a two-edged sword, with a haft in the midst of the length of the palm of the hand, and was girded therewith, under his garment, on the right thigh. 3:17. And he presented the gifts to Eglon, king of Moab Now Eglon was exceeding fat. 3:18. And when he had presented the gifts unto him he followed his companions that came along with him. 3:19. Then returning from Galgal, where the idols were, he said to the king: I have a secret message to thee, O king. And he commanded silence: and all being gone out that were about him, 3:20. Aod went in to him: now he was sitting in a summer parlour alone, and he said: I have a word from God to thee. And he forthwith rose up from his throne. A word from God, etc. . .What Aod, who was judge and chief magistrate of Israel, did on this occasion, was by a special inspiration of God: but such things are not to be imitated by private men. 3:21. And Aod put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly, 3:22. With such force that the haft went in after the blade into the wound, and was closed up with the abundance of fat. So that he did not draw out the dagger, but left it in the body as he had struck it in: and forthwith, by the secret parts of nature, the excrements of the belly came out. 3:23. And Aod carefully shutting the doors of the parlour, and locking them, 3:24. Went out by a postern door. And the king's servants going in, saw the doors of the parlour shut, and they said: Perhaps he is easing nature in his summer parlour. 3:25. And waiting a long time, till they were ashamed, and seeing that no man opened the door, they took a key: and opening, they found their lord lying dead on the ground. 3:26. But Aod, while they were in confusion, escaped, and passed by the place of the idols from whence he had returned. And he came to Seirath: 3:27. And forthwith he sounded the trumpet in Mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel went down with him, he himself going in the front. 3:28. And he said to them: Follow me: for the Lord hath delivered our enemies, the Moabites, into our hands. And they went down after him, and seized upon the fords of the Jordan, which are in the way to Moab: and they suffered no man to pass over: 3:29. But they slew of the Moabites at that time, about ten thousand, all strong and valiant men: none of them could escape. 3:30. And Moab was humbled that day under the hand of Israel: and the land rested eighty years. 3:31. After him was Samgar, the son of Anath, who slew of the Philistines six hundred men with a ploughshare: and he also defended Israel. Judges Chapter 4 Debbora and Barac deliver Israel from Jabin and Sisara, Jahal killeth Sisara. 4:1. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord after the death of Aod: 4:2. And the Lord delivered them up into the hands of Jabin, king of Chanaan, who reigned in Asor: and he had a general of his army named Sisara, and he dwelt in Haroseth of the Gentiles. 4:3. And the children of Israel cried to the Lord: for he had nine hundred chariots set with scythes and for twenty years had grievously oppressed them. 4:4. And there was at that time Debbora, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, who judged the people. 4:5. And she sat under a palm tree, which was called by her name, between Rama and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for all judgment. 4:6. And she sent and called Barac, the Son of Abinoem, out of Cedes, in Nephthali: and she said to him: The Lord God of Israel hath commanded thee: Go, and lead an army to Mount Thabor, and thou shalt take with thee ten thousand fighting men of the children of Nephthali, and of the children of Zabulon: 4:7. And I will bring unto thee in the place of the torrent Cison, Sisara, the general of Jabin's army, and his chariots, and all his multitude, and will deliver them into thy hand. 4:8. And Barac said to her: If thou wilt come with me, I will go: if thou wilt not come with me, I will not go. 4:9. She said to him: I will go, indeed, with thee, but at this time the victory shall not be attributed to thee, because Sisara shall be delivered into the hand of a woman. Debbora therefore arose, and went with Barac to Cedes. 4:10. And he called unto him Zabulon and Nephthali, and went up with ten thousand fighting men, having Debbora in his company. 4:11. Now Haber, the Cinite, had some time before departed from the rest of the Cinites, his brethren, the sons of Hobab, the kinsman of Moses: and had pitched his tents unto the valley, which is called Sennim, and was near Cedes. 4:12. And it was told Sisara, that Barac, the son of Abinoem, was gone up to Mount Thabor: 4:13. And he gathered together his nine hundred chariots armed with scythes, and all his army, from Haroseth of the Gentiles, to the torrent Cison. 4:14. And Debbora said to Barac: Arise, for this is the day wherein the Lord hath delivered Sisara into thy hands: behold, he is thy leader. And Barac went down from Mount Thabor, and ten thousand fighting men with him. 4:15. And the Lord struck a terror into Sisara, and all his chariots, and all his multitude, with the edge of the sword, at the sight of Barac; insomuch, that Sisara leaping down from off his chariot, fled away on foot, 4:16. And Barac pursued after the fleeing chariots, and the army, unto Haroseth of the Gentiles; and all the multitude of the enemies was utterly destroyed. 4:17. But Sisara fleeing, came to the tent of Jahel, the wife of Haber, the Cinite, for there was peace between Jabin, the king of Asor, and the house of Haber, the Cinite. 4:18. And Jahel went forth to meet Sisara, and said to him: Come in to me, my lord; come in, fear not. He went into her tent, and being covered by her with a cloak, 4:19. Said to her: Give me, I beseech thee, a little water, for I am very thirsty. She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him to drink, and covered him. 4:20. And Sisara said to her: Stand before the door of the tent, and when any shall come and inquire of thee, saying: Is there any man here? thou shalt say: There is none. 4:21. So Jahel, Haber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and taking also a hammer: and going in softly, and with silence, she put the nail upon the temples of his head, and striking it with the hammer, drove it through his brain fast into the ground: and so passing from deep sleep to death, he fainted away and died. 4:22. And behold, Barac came pursuing after Sisara: and Jahel went out to meet him, and said to him: Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, he saw Sisara lying dead, and the nail fastened in his temples. 4:23. So God that day humbled Jabin, the king of Chanaan, before the children of Israel: 4:24. Who grew daily stronger, and with a mighty hand overpowered Jabin, king of Chanaan, till they quite destroyed him. Judges Chapter 5 The canticle of Debbora and Barac after their victory. 5:1. In that day Debbora and Barac, son of Abinoem, sung, and said: 5:2. O you of Israel, that have willingly offered your lives to danger, bless the Lord. 5:3. Hear, O ye kings, give ear, O ye princes: It is I, it is I, that will sing to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord, the God of Israel. 5:4. O Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, and passedst by the regions of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens and clouds dropped water. 5:5. The mountains melted before the face of the Lord, and Sinai before the face of the Lord the God of Israel. 5:6. In the days of Samgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jahel, the paths rested: and they that went by them, walked through bye-ways. The paths rested. . .The ways to the sanctuary of God were unfrequented: and men walked in the by-ways of error and sin. 5:7. The valiant men ceased, and rested in Israel: until Debbora arose, a mother arose in Israel. 5:8. The Lord chose new wars, and he himself overthrew the gates of the enemies: a shield and spear was not seen among forty thousand of Israel. 5:9. My heart loveth the princes of Israel: O you, that of your own good will offered yourselves to danger, bless the Lord. 5:10. Speak, you that ride upon fair asses, and you that sit in judgment, and walk in the way. 5:11. Where the chariots were dashed together, and the army of the enemies was choked, there let the justices of the Lord be rehearsed, and his clemency towards the brave men of Israel: then the people of the Lord went down to the gates, and obtained the sovereignty. 5:12. Arise, arise, O Debbora, arise, arise, and utter a canticle. Arise, Barac, and take hold of thy captives, O son of Abinoem. 5:13. The remnants of the people are saved, the Lord hath fought among the valiant ones. 5:14. Out of Ephraim he destroyed them into Amalec, and after him out of Benjamin into thy people, O Amalec: Out of Machir there came down princes, and out of Zabulon they that led the army to fight. Out of Ephraim, etc. . .The enemies straggling in their flight were destroyed, as they were running through the land of Ephraim, and of Benjamin, which lies after, that is beyond Ephraim: and so on to the very confines of Amalec. Or, it alludes to former victories of the people of God, particularly that which was freshest in memory, when the men of Ephraim and Benjamin, with Aod at their head, overthrew their enemies the Moabites with the Amalecites their allies. See chap. 3.--Ibid. Machir. . .The tribe of Manasses, whose eldest son was Machir. 5:15. The captains of Issachar were with Debbora, and followed the steps of Barac, who exposed himself to danger, as one going headlong, and into a pit. Ruben being divided against himself, there was found a strife of courageous men. Divided against himself, etc. . .By this it seems that the valient men of the tribe of Ruben were divided in their sentiments, with relation to this war; which division kept them at home within their own borders, to hear the bleating of their flocks. 5:16. Why dwellest thou between two borders, that thou mayst hear the bleatings of the flocks? Ruben being divided against himself, there was found a strife of courageous men. 5:17. Galaad rested beyond the Jordan, and Dan applied himself to ships: Aser dwelt on the sea shore, and abode in the havens. 5:18. But Zabulon and Nephthali offered their lives to death in the region of Merome. 5:19. The kings came and fought, the kings of Chanaan fought in Thanac, by the waters of Mageddo and yet they took no spoils. 5:20. There was war made against them from heaven: the stars, remaining in their order and courses, fought against Sisara. 5:21. The torrent of Cison dragged their carcasses, the torrent of Cadumim, the torrent of Cison: tread thou, my soul, upon the strong ones. 5:22. The hoofs of the horses were broken whilst the stoutest of the enemies fled amain, and fell headlong down. 5:23. Curse ye the land of Meroz, said the angel of the Lord: curse the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord, to help his most valiant men. Meroz. . .Where this land of Meroz was, which is here laid under a curse, we cannot find: nor is there mention of it anywhere else in holy writ. In the spiritual sense, they are cursed who refuse to assist the people of God in their warfare against their spiritual enemies. 5:24. Blessed among women be Jahel, the wife of Haber the Cinite, and blessed be she in her tent. 5:25. He asked her water, and she gave him milk, and offered him butter in a dish fit for princes. 5:26. She put her left hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer, and she struck Sisara, seeking in his head a place for the wound, and strongly piercing through his temples. 5:27. Between her feet he fell: he fainted, and he died: he rolled before her feet, and there he lay lifeless and wretched. 5:28. His mother looked out at a window, and howled: and she spoke from the dining room: Why is his chariot so long in coming back? Why are the feet of his horses so slow? 5:29. One that was wiser than the rest of his wives, returned this answer to her mother in law: 5:30. Perhaps he is now dividing the spoils, and the fairest of the women is chosen out for him: garments of divers colours are given to Sisara for his prey, and furniture of different kinds is heaped together to adorn necks. 5:31. So let all thy enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love thee shine, as the sun shineth in his rising. 5:32. And the land rested for forty years. Judges Chapter 6 The people for their sins, are oppressed by the Madianites. Gedeon is called to deliver them. 6:1. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord: and he delivered them into the hand of Madian seven years, 6:2. And they were grievously oppressed by them. And they made themselves dens and caves in the mountains, and strong holds to resist. 6:3. And when Israel had sown, Madian and Amalec, and the rest of the eastern nations, came up: 6:4. And pitching their tents among them, wasted all things as they were in the blade, even to the entrance of Gaza: and they left nothing at all in Israel for sustenance of life, nor sheep, nor oxen, nor asses. 6:5. For they and all their flocks came with their tents, and like locusts filled all places, an innumerable multitude of men, and of camels, wasting whatsoever they touched. 6:6. And Israel was humbled exceedingly in the sight of Madian. 6:7. And he cried to the Lord, desiring help against the Madianites. 6:8. And he sent unto them a prophet, and he spoke: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: I made you to come up out of Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage, 6:9. And delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians, and of all the enemies that afflicted you: and I cast them out at your coming in, and gave you their land. 6:10. And I said: I am the Lord your God, fear not the gods of the Amorrhites, in whose land you dwell. And you would not hear my voice. 6:11. And an angel of the Lord came, and sat under an oak that was in Ephra, and belonged to Joas, the father of the family of Ezri. And when Gedeon, his son, was threshing and cleansing wheat by the winepress, to flee from Madian, 6:12. The angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said: The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men. 6:13. And Gedeon said to him: I beseech thee, my lord, if the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are his miracles, which our fathers have told us of, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hand of Madian. 6:14. And the Lord looked upon him, and said: Go, in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian: know that I have sent thee. 6:15. He answered, and said: I beseech thee, my lord wherewith shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the meanest in Manasses, and I am the least in my father's house. The meanest in Manasses, etc. . .Mark how the Lord chooseth the humble (who are mean and little in their own eyes) for the greatest enterprises. 6:16. And the Lord said to him: I will be with thee: and thou shalt cut off Madian as one man. 6:17. And he said: If I have found grace before thee, give me a sign that it is thou that speakest to me: 6:18. And depart not hence, till I return to thee, and bring a sacrifice, and offer it to thee. And he answered: I will wait thy coming. 6:19. So Gedeon went in, and boiled a kid, and made unleavened loaves of a measure of flour: and putting the flesh in a basket, and the broth of the flesh into a pot, he carried all under the oak, and presented to him. 6:20. And the angel of the Lord said to him: Take the flesh and the unleavened loaves, and lay them upon that rock, and pour out the broth thereon. And when he had done so, 6:21. The angel of the Lord put forth the tip of the rod, which he held in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened loaves: and there arose a fire from the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened loaves: and the angel of the Lord vanished out of his sight. 6:22. And Gedeon seeing that it was the angel of the Lord, said: Alas, my Lord God: for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. 6:23. And the Lord said to him: Peace be with thee: fear not, thou shalt not die. 6:24. And Gedeon built there an altar to the Lord, and called it the Lord's peace, until this present day. And when he was yet in Ephra, which is of the family of Ezri, 6:25. That night the Lord said to him: Take a bullock of thy father's, and another bullock of seven years, and thou shalt destroy the altar of Baal, which is thy father's: and cut down the grove that is about the altar: 6:26. And thou shalt build un altar to the Lord thy God, in the top of this rock, whereupon thou didst lay the sacrifice before: and thou shalt take the second bullock, and shalt offer a holocaust upon a pile of the wood, which thou shalt cut down out of the grove. 6:27. Then Gedeon, taking ten men of his servants, did as the Lord had commanded him. But fearing his father's house, and the men of that city, he would not do it by day, but did all by night. 6:28. And when the men of that town were risen in the morning, they saw the altar of Baal destroyed, and the grove cut down, and the second bullock laid upon the altar, which then was built. 6:29. And they said one to another: Who hath done this? And when they inquired for the author of the fact, it was said: Gedeon, the son of Joas, did all this. 6:30. And they said to Joas: Bring out thy son hither, that he may die: because he hath destroyed the altar of Baal, and hath cut down his grove. 6:31. He answered them: Are you the avengers of Baal, that you fight for him? he that is his adversary, let him die before to morrow light appear: if he be a god, let him revenge himself on him that hath cast down his altar. 6:32. From that day Gedeon was called Jerobaal, because Joas had said: Let Baal revenge himself on him that hath cast down his altar. 6:33. Now all Madian, and Amalec, and the eastern people, were gathered together, and passing over the Jordan, camped in the valley of Jezrael. 6:34. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gedeon, and he sounded the trumpet, and called together the house of Abiezer, to follow him. 6:35. And he sent messengers into all Manasses, and they also followed him : and other messengers into Aser and Zabulon, and Nephthali, and they came to meet him. 6:36. And Gedeon said to God: If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said, 6:37. I will put this fleece of wool on the floor: if there be dew in the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as thou hast said, thou wilt deliver Israel. 6:38. And it was so. And rising before day, wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew. 6:39. And he said again to God: Let not thy wrath be kindled against me, if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece. I pray that the fleece only may be dry, and all the ground wet with dew. 6:40. And God did that night as he had requested: and it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. Judges Chapter 7 Gedeon, with three hundred men, by stratagem defeateth the Madianites. 7:1. Then Jerobaal, who is the same as Gedeon, rising up early, and all the people with him, came to the fountain that is called Harad. Now the camp of Madian was in the valley, on the north side of the high hill. 7:2. And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people that are with thee are many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength. Lest Israel, etc. . .By this we see that God will not choose for his instruments in great achievements, which depend purely on his grace, such as, through pride and self conceit, will take the glory to themselves. 7:3. Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all: Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return. So two and twenty thousand men went away from Mount Galaad and returned home, and only ten thousand remained. 7:4. And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee, This shall go with thee, let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return. 7:5. And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side. 7:6. And the number of them that had lapped water; casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. 7:7. And the Lord said to Gedeon: By the three hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place. That lapped water. . .These were preferred that took the water up in their hands, and so lapped it, before them who laid themselves quite down to the waters to drink: which argued a more eager and sensual disposition. 7:8. So taking victuals and trumpets according to their number, he ordered all the rest of the multitude to depart to their tents: and he with the three hundred gave himself to the battle. Now the camp of Madia was beneath him in the valley. 7:9. The same night the Lord said to him: Arise, and go down into the camp: because I have delivered them into thy hand. 7:10. But if thou be afraid to go alone, let Phara, thy servant, go down with thee. 7:11. And when thou shalt hear what they are saying, then shall thy hands be strengthened, and thou shalt go down more secure to the enemies' camp. And he went down with Phara his servant, into part of the camp, where was the watch of men in arms. 7:12. But Madian and Amalec, and all the eastern people, lay scattered in the valley, as a multitude of locusts: their camels also were innumerable, as the sand that lieth on the sea shore. 7:13. And when Gedeon was come, one told his neighbour a dream: and in this manner related what he had seen: I dreamt a dream, and it seemed to me as if a hearth cake of barley bread rolled and came down into the camp of Madian: and when it was come to a tent, it struck it, and beat it down flat to the ground. A dream. . .Observation of dreams is commonly superstitious, and as such is condemned in the word of God: but in some extraordinary cases, as we here see, God is pleased by dreams to foretell what he is about to do. 7:14. He to whom he spoke, answered: This is nothing else but the sword of Gedeon, the son of Joas, a man of Israel. For the Lord hath delivered Madian, and all their camp into his hand. 7:15. And when Gedeon had heard the dream, and the interpretation thereof, he adored: and returned to the camp of Israel, and said: Arise, for the Lord hath delivered the camp of Madian into our hands. 7:16. And he divided the three hundred men into three parts, and gave them trumpets in their hands, and empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. 7:17. And he said to them: What you shall see me do, do you the same: I will go into one part of the camp, and do you as I shall do. 7:18. When the trumpet shall sound in my hand, do you also blow the trumpets on every side of the camp, and shout together to the Lord and to Gedeon. 7:19. And Gedeon, and the three hundred men that were with him, went into part of the camp, at the beginning of the midnight watch, and the watchmen being alarmed, they began to sound their trumpets, and to clap the pitchers one against another. Their trumpets, etc. . .In a mystical sense, the preachers of the gospel, in order to spiritual conquests, must not only sound with the trumpet of the word of God, but must also break their earthen pitchers, by the mortification of the flesh and its passions, and carry lamps in their hands by the light of their virtues. 7:20. And when they sounded their trumpets in three places round about the camp, and had broken their pitchers, they held their lamps in their left hands, and with their right hands the trumpets which they blew, and they cried out: The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon: 7:21. Standing every man in his place round about the enemies' camp. So all the camp was troubled, and crying out and howling, they fled away: 7:22. And the three hundred men nevertheless persisted sounding the trumpets. And the Lord sent the sword into all the camp, and they killed one another, 7:23. Fleeing as far as Bethsetta, and the border of Abelmahula, in Tebbath. But the men of Israel, shouting from Nephthali, and Aser, and from all Manasses, pursued after Madian. 7:24. And Gedeon sent messengers into all Mount Ephraim, saying: Come down to meet Madian, and take the waters before them to Bethbera and the Jordan. And all Ephraim shouted, and took the waters before them and the Jordan as far as Bethbera. 7:25. And having taken two men of Madian, Oreb and Zeb: Oreb they slew in the rock of Oreb, and Zeb in the winepress of Zeb. And they pursued Madian, carrying the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gedeon, beyond the waters of the Jordan. Two men. . .That is, two of their chiefs. Judges Chapter 8 Gedeon appeaseth the Ephraimites. Taketh Zebee and Salmana. Destroyeth Soccoth and Phanuel. Refuseth to be king. Maketh an ephod of the gold of the prey, and dieth in a good old age. The people return to idolatry. 8:1. And the men of Ephraim said to him: What is this that thou meanest to do, that thou wouldst not call us, when thou wentest to fight against Madian? And they chid him sharply, and almost offered violence. 8:2. And he answered them: What could I have done like to that which you have done? Is not one bunch of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintages of Abiezer? What could I, etc. . .A meek and humble answer appeased them; who otherwise might have come to extremities. So great is the power of humility both with God and man. 8:3. The Lord hath delivered into your hands the princes of Madian, Oreb and Zeb: what could I have done like to what you have done? And when he had said this, their spirit was appeased, with which they swelled against him. 8:4. And when Gedeon was come to the Jordan, he passed over it with the three hundred men that were with him: who were so weary that they could not pursue after them that fled. 8:5. And he said to the men of Soccoth: Give, I beseech you, bread to the people that is with me, for they are faint: that we may pursue Zebee, and Salmana, the kings of Madian. 8:6. The princes of Soccoth answered: Peradventure the palms of the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hand, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to thy army. 8:7. And he said to them: When the Lord therefore shall have delivered Zebee and Salmana into my hands, I will thresh your flesh with the thorns and briers of the desert. 8:8. And going up from thence, he came to Phanuel: and he spoke the like things to the men of that place. And they also answered him, as the men of Soccoth had answered. 8:9. He said, therefore, to them also: When I shall return a conqueror in peace, I will destroy this tower. 8:10. But Zebee and Salmana were resting with all their army. For fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and one hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword were slain. 8:11. And Gedeon went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents, on the east of Nobe and Jegbaa, and smote the camp of the enemies, who were secure, and suspected no hurt. 8:12. And Zebee and Salmana fled, and Gedeon pursued and took them, all their host being put in confusion. 8:13. And returning from the battle before the sun rising, 8:14. He took a boy of the men of Soccoth: and he asked him the names of the princes and ancients of Soccoth, and he described unto him seventy-seven men. 8:15. And he came to Soccoth, and said to them: Behold Zebee, and Salmana, concerning whom you upbraided me, saying: Peradventure the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hands, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to the men that are weary and faint. 8:16. So he took the ancients of the city, and thorns and briers of the desert, and tore them with the same, and cut in pieces the men of Soccoth. 8:17. And he demolished the tower of Phanuel, and slew the men of the city. 8:18. And he said to Zebee and Salmana: What manner of men were they, whom you slew in Thabor? They answered: They were like thee, and one of them as the son of a king. 8:19. He answered them: They were my brethren, the sons of my mother. As the Lord liveth, if you had saved them, I would not kill you. 8:20. And he said to Jether, his eldest son: Arise, and slay them. But he drew not his sword: for he was afraid, being but yet a boy. 8:21. And Zebee and Salmana said: Do thou rise and run upon us: because the strength of a man is according to his age: Gedeon rose up, and slew Zebee and Salmana: and he took the ornaments and bosses, with which the necks of the camels of kings are wont to be adorned. 8:22. And all the men of Israel said to Gedeon: Rule thou over us, and thy son, and thy son's son: because thou hast delivered us from the hand of Madian. 8:23. And he said to them: I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, but the Lord shall rule over you. 8:24. And he said to them: I desire one request of you: Give me the earlets of your spoils. For the Ismaelites were accustomed to wear golden earlets. 8:25. They answered: We will give them most willingly. And spreading a mantle on the ground, they cast upon it the earlets of the spoils. 8:26. And the weight of the earlets that he requested, was a thousand seven hundred sicles of gold, besides the ornaments, and jewels, and purple raiment, which the kings of Madian were wont to use, and besides the golden chains that were about the camels necks. 8:27. And Gedeon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city Ephra. And all Israel committed fornication with it, and it became a ruin to Gedeon, and to all his house. An ephod. . .A priestly garment which Gedeon made with a good design; but the Israelites, after his death, abused it by making it an instrument of their idolatrous worship. 8:28. But Madian was humbled before the children of Israel, neither could they any more lift up their heads: but the land rested for forty years, while Gedeon presided. 8:29. So Jerobaal, the son of Joas, went and dwelt in his own house: 8:30. And he had seventy sons, who came out of his thigh, for he had many wives. 8:31. And his concubine, that he had in Sichem, bore him a son, whose name was Abimelech. His concubine. . .She was his servant, but not his harlot: and is called his concubine, as wives of an inferior degree are commonly called in the Old Testament, though otherwise lawfully married. 8:32. And Gedeon, the son of Joas died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father, in Ephra, of the family of Ezri. 8:33. But after Gedeon was dead, the children of Israel turned again, and committed fornication with Baalim. And they made a covenant with Baal, that he should be their god: 8:34. And they remembered not the Lord their God, who delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies round about: 8:35. Neither did they shew mercy to the house of Jerobaal Gedeon, according to all the good things he had done to Israel. Judges Chapter 9 Abimelech killeth his brethren. Joatham's parable. Gaal conspireth with the Sichemites against Abimelech, but is overcome. Abimelech destroyeth Sichem: but is killed at Thebes. 9:1. And Abimelech, the son of Jerobaal, went to Sichem, to his mother's brethren, and spoke to them, and to all the kindred of his mother's father, saying: 9:2. Speak to all the men of Sichem: whether is better for you that seventy men, all the sons of Jerobaal, should rule over you, or that one man should rule over you? And withal, consider that I am your bone, and your flesh. 9:3. And his mother's brethren spoke of him to all the men of Sichem, all these words, and they inclined their hearts after Abimelech, saying: He is our brother: 9:4. And they gave him seventy weight of silver out of the temple of Baalberith: wherewith he hired to himself men that were needy, and vagabonds, and they followed him. Baalberith. . .That is, Baal of the covenant, so called from the covenant they had made with Baal, chap. 8.33. 9:5. And he came to his father's house in Ephra, and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerobaal, seventy men, upon one stone: and there remained only Joatham, the youngest son of Jerobaal, who was hidden. 9:6. And all the men of Sichem were gathered together, and all the families of the city of Mello: and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak that stood in Sichem. 9:7. This being told to Joatham, he went, and stood on the top of Mount Garizim: and lifting up his voice, he cried, and said: Hear me, ye men of Sichem, so may God hear you. 9:8. The trees went to anoint a king over them: and they said to the olive tree: Reign thou over us. 9:9. And it answered: Can I leave my fatness, which both gods and men make use of, to come to be promoted among the trees? Both gods and men make use of. . .The olive tree is introduced, speaking in this manner, because oil was used both in the worship of the true God, and in that of the false gods, whom the Sichemites served. 9:10. And the trees said to the fig tree: Come thou and reign over us. 9:11. And it answered them: Can I leave my sweetness, and my delicious fruits, and go to be promoted among the other trees? 9:12. And the trees said to the vine: Come thou and reign over us. 9:13. And it answered them: Can I forsake my wine, that cheereth God and men, and be promoted among the other trees? Cheereth God and men. . .Wine is here represented as agreeable to God, because he had appointed it to be offered up with his sacrifices. But we are not obliged to take these words, spoken by the trees, in Joatham's parable, according to the strict literal sense: but only in a sense accomodated to the design of the parable expressed in the conclusion of it. 9:14. And all the trees said to the bramble: Come thou and reign over us. 9:15. And it answered them: If, indeed, you mean to make me king, come ye, and rest under my shadow: but if you mean it not, let fire come out from the bramble, and devour the cedars of Libanus. 9:16. Now, therefore, if you have done well, and without sin, in appointing Abimelech king over you, and have dealt well with Jerobaal, and with his house, and have made a suitable return for the benefits of him who fought for you, 9:17. And exposed his life to dangers, to deliver you from the hand of Madian, 9:18. And you are now risen up against my father's house, and have killed his sons, seventy men, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his handmaid, king over the inhabitants of Sichem, because he is your brother: 9:19. If therefore you have dealt well, and without fault, with Jerobaal and his house, rejoice ye, this day, in Abimelech, and may he rejoice in you. 9:20. But if unjustly: let fire come out from him, and consume the inhabitants of Sichem, and the town of Mello: and let fire come out from the men of Sichem and from the town of Mello, and devour Abimelech. 9:21. And when he had said thus, he fled, and went into Bera: and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech, his brother. 9:22. So Abimelech reigned over Israel three years. 9:23. And the Lord sent a very evil spirit between Abimelech and the inhabitants of Sichem; who began to detest him, 9:24. And to lay the crime of the murder of the seventy sons of Jerobaal, and the shedding of their blood, upon Abimelech, their brother, and upon the rest of the princes of the Sichemites, who aided him. 9:25. And they set an ambush against him on the top of the mountains: and while they waited for his coming, they committed robberies, taking spoils of all that passed by: and it was told Abimelech. 9:26. And Gaal, the son of Obed, came with his brethren, and went over to Sichem. And the inhabitants of Sichem, taking courage at his coming, 9:27. Went out into the fields, wasting the vineyards, and treading down the grapes: and singing and dancing, they went into the temple of their god, and in their banquets and cups they cursed Abimelech. 9:28. And Gaal, the son of Obed, cried: Who is Abimelech, and what is Sichem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerobaal, and hath made Zebul, his servant, ruler over the men of Emor, the father of Sichem? Why then shall we serve him? 9:29. Would to God that some man would put this people under my hand, that I might remove Abimelech out of the way. And it was said to Abimelech: Gather together the multitude of an army, and come. 9:30. For Zebul, the ruler of the city, hearing the words of Gaal, the son of Obed, was very angry, 9:31. And sent messengers privately to Abimelech, saying: Behold, Gaal, the son of Obed, is come into Sichem with his brethren, and endeavoureth to set the city against thee. 9:32. Arise, therefore, in the night, with the people that is with thee, and lie hid in the field: 9:33. And betimes in the morning, at sun rising, set upon the city, and when he shall come out against thee, with his people, do to him what thou shalt be able. 9:34. Abimelech, therefore, arose with all his army, by night, and laid ambushes near Sichem in four places. 9:35. And Gaal, the son of Obed, went out, and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city. And Abimelech rose up, and all his army with him, from the places of the ambushes. 9:36. And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul: Behold, a multitude cometh down from the mountains. And he answered him: Thou seest the shadows of the mountains as if they were the heads of men, and this is thy mistake. 9:37. Again Gaal said: Behold, there cometh people down from the midst of the land, and one troop cometh by the way that looketh towards the oak. 9:38. And Zebul said to him: Where is now thy mouth, wherewith thou saidst: Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? Is not this the people which thou didst despise? Go out, and fight against him. 9:39. So Gaal went out, in the sight of the people of Sichem, and fought against Abimelech, 9:40. Who chased and put him to flight, and drove him to the city: and many were slain of his people, even to the gate of the city: 9:41. And Abimelech sat down in Ruma: but Zebul drove Gaal, and his companions, out of the city, and would not suffer them to abide in it. 9:42. So the day following the people went out into the field. And it was told to Abimelech, 9:43. And he took his army, and divided it into three companies, and laid ambushes in the fields. And seeing that the people came out of the city, he arose, and set upon them, 9:44. With his own company, assaulting and besieging the city: whilst the two other companies chased the enemies that were scattered about the field. 9:45. And Abimelech assaulted the city all that day: and took it, and killed the inhabitants thereof, and demolished it, so that he sowed salt in it. Sowed salt. . .To make the ground barren, and fit for nothing. 9:46. And when they who dwelt in the tower of Sichem, had heard this, they went into the temple of their god Berith, where they had made a covenant with him, and from thence the place had taken its name, and it was exceeding strong. 9:47. Abimelech also hearing that the men of the tower of Sichem were gathered together, 9:48. Went up into mount Selmon, he and all his people with him: and taking an axe, he cut down the bough of a tree, and laying it on his shoulder, and carrying it, he said to his companions: What you see me do, do ye out of hand. 9:49. So they cut down boughs from the trees, every man as fast as he could, and followed their leader. And surrounding the fort, they set it on fire: and so it came to pass, that with the smoke and with the fire a thousand persons were killed, men and women together, of the inhabitants of the town of Sichem. 9:50. Then Abimelech, departing from thence, came to the town of Thebes, which he surrounded and besieged with his army. 9:51. And there was in the midst of the city a high tower, to which both the men and the women were fled together, and all the princes of the city, and having shut and strongly barred the gate, they stood upon the battlements of the tower to defend themselves. 9:52. And Abimelech, coming near the tower, fought stoutly: and, approaching to the gate, endeavoured to set fire to it: 9:53. And behold, a certain woman casting a piece of a millstone from above, dashed it against the head of Abimelech, and broke his skull. 9:54. And he called hastily to his armourbearer, and said to him: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest it should be said that I was slain by a woman. He did as he was commanded, and slew him. 9:55. And when he was dead all the men of Israel that were with him, returned to their homes. 9:56. And God repaid the evil that Abimelech had done against his father, killing his seventy brethren. 9:57. The Sichemites also were rewarded for what they had done, and the curse of Joatham, the son of Jerobaal, came upon them. Judges Chapter 10 Thola ruleth Israel twenty-three years; and Jair twenty-two. The people fall again into idolatry, and are afflicted again by the Philistines and Ammonites. They cry to God for help, who upon their repentance hath compassion on them. 10:1. After Abimelech, there arose a ruler in Israel, Thola, son of Phua, the uncle of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, who dwelt in Samir of mount Ephraim: Uncle of Abimelech. . .i. e., half brother to Gedeon, as being born of the same mother, but by a different father, and of a different tribe. 10:2. And he judged Israel three and twenty years, and he died, and was buried in Samir. 10:3. To him succeeded Jair, the Galaadite, who judged Israel for two and twenty years, 10:4. Having thirty sons, that rode on thirty ass colts, and were princes of thirty cities, which from his name were called Havoth Jair, that is, the towns of Jair, until this present day, in the land of Galaad. Havoth Jair. . .This name was now confirmed to these towns, which they had formerly received from another Jair. Num. 32.41. 10:5. And Jair died, and was buried in the place which is called Camon. 10:6. But the children of Israel, adding new sins to their old ones, did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served idols, Baalim and Astaroth, and the gods of Syria, and of Sidon, and of Moab, and of the children of Ammon, and of the Philistines: and they left the Lord, and did not serve him. 10:7. And the Lord being angry with them, delivered them into the hands of the Philistines, and of the children of Ammon. 10:8. And they were afflicted, and grievously oppressed for eighteen years, all they that dwelt beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorrhite, who is in Galaad: 10:9. Insomuch that the children of Ammon, passing over the Jordan, wasted Juda, and Benjamin, and Ephraim: and Israel was distressed exceedingly. 10:10. And they cried to the Lord, and said, We have sinned against thee, because we have forsaken the Lord our God, and have served Baalim. 10:11. And the Lord said to them: Did not the Egyptians, and the Amorrhites, and the children of Ammon, and the Philistines, 10:12. The Sidonians also, and Amalec, and Chanaan, oppress you, and you cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand? 10:13. And yet you have forsaken me, and have worshipped strange gods: therefore I will deliver you no more: 10:14. Go, and call upon the gods which you have chosen: let them deliver you in the time of distress. 10:15. And the children of Israel said to the Lord: We have sinned, do thou unto us whatsoever pleaseth thee: only deliver us this time. 10:16. And saying these things, they cast away out of their coasts all the idols of strange gods, and served the Lord their God: and he was touched with their miseries. 10:17. And the children of Ammon shouting together, pitched their tents in Galaad: against whom the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and camped in Maspha. 10:18. And the princes of Galaad said one to another: Whosoever of us shall first begin to fight against the children of Ammon, he shall be the leader of the people of Galaad. Judges Chapter 11 Jephte is made ruler of the people of Galaad: he first pleads their cause against the Ammonites; then making a vow obtains a signal victory; he performs his vow. 11:1. There was at that time Jephte, the Galaadite, a most valiant man, and a warrior, the son of a woman that was a harlot, and his father was Galaad. 11:2. Now Galaad had a wife of whom he had sons: who, after they were grown up, thrust out Jephte, saying: Thou canst not inherit in the house of our father, because thou art born of another mother. 11:3. Then he fled and avoided them, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered to him needy men and robbers, and they followed him as their prince. 11:4. In those days the children of Ammon made war against Israel. 11:5. And as they pressed hard upon them, the ancients of Galaad went to fetch Jephte out of the land of Tob to help them: 11:6. And they said to him: Come thou, and be our prince, and fight against the children of Ammon. 11:7. And he answered them: Are not you the men that hated me, and cast me out of my father's house, and now you are come to me, constrained by necessity? 11:8. And the princes of Galaad said to Jephte: For this cause we are now come to thee, that thou mayst go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be head over all the inhabitants of Galaad. 11:9. Jephte also said to them: If you be come to me sincerely, that I should fight for you against the children of Ammon, and the Lord shall deliver them into my hand, shall I be your prince? 11:10. They answered him: The Lord, who heareth these things, he himself is mediator and witness that we will do as we have promised. 11:11. Jephte therefore went with the princes of Galaad, and all the people made him their prince. And Jephte spoke all his words before the Lord in Maspha. 11:12. And he sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, to say in his name: What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me, to waste my land? 11:13. And he answered them: Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the confines of the Arnon unto the Jaboc and the Jordan: now, therefore, restore the same peaceably to me. 11:14. And Jephte again sent word by them, and commanded them to say to the king of Ammon: 11:15. Thus saith Jephte: Israel did not take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon: 11:16. But when they came up out of Egypt, he walked through the desert to the Red Sea, and came into Cades. 11:17. And he sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying: Suffer me to pass through thy land. But he would not condescend to his request. He sent also to the king of Moab, who, likewise, refused to give him passage. He abode, therefore, in Cades, 11:18. And went round the land of Edom at the side, and the land of Moab: and came over against the east coast of the land of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon: and he would not enter the bounds of Moab. 11:19. So Israel sent messengers to Sehon, king of the Amorrhites, who dwelt in Hesebon, and they said to him: Suffer me to pass through thy land to the river. 11:20. But he, also despising the words of Israel, suffered him not to pass through his borders: but gathering an infinite multitude, went out against him to Jasa, and made strong opposition. 11:21. And the Lord delivered him, with all his army, into the hands of Israel, and he slew him, and possessed all the land of the Amorrhite, the inhabitant of that country, 11:22. And all the coasts thereof from the Arnon to the Jaboc, and from the wilderness to the Jordan. 11:23. So the Lord, the God of Israel, destroyed the Amorrhite, his people of Israel fighting against him, and wilt thou now possess his land? 11:24. Are not those things which thy god Chamos possesseth, due to thee by right? But what the Lord our God hath obtained by conquest, shall be our possession: Chamos. . .The idol of the Moabites and Ammonites. He argues from their opinion, who thought they had a just title to the countries which they imagined they had conquered by the help of their gods: how much more then had Israel in indisputable title to the countries which God, by visible miracles, had conquered for them. 11:25. Unless, perhaps, thou art better than Balac, the son of Sephor, king of Moab: or canst shew that he strove against Israel, and fought against him, 11:26. Whereas he hath dwelt in Hesebon, and the villages thereof, and in Aroer, and its villages, and in all the cities near the Jordan, for three hundred years. Why have you for so long a time attempted nothing about this claim? 11:27. Therefore I do not trespass against thee, but thou wrongest me by declaring an unjust war against me. The Lord be judge, and decide this day, between Israel and the children of Ammon. 11:28. And the king of the children of Ammon would not hearken to the words of Jephte, which he sent him by the messengers. 11:29. Therefore the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephte, and going round Galaad, and Manasses, and Maspha of Galaad, and passing over from thence to the children of Ammon, 11:30. He made a vow to the Lord, saying: If thou wilt deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, 11:31. Whosoever shall first come forth out of the doors of my house, and shall meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, the same will I offer a holocaust to the Lord. Whosoever, etc. . .Some are of opinion, that the meaning of this vow of Jephte, was to consecrate to God whatsoever should first meet him, according to the condition of the thing; so as to offer it up as a holocaust, if it were such a thing as might be offered by the law; or to devote it otherwise to God, if it were not such as the law allowed to be offered in sacrifice. And therefore they think the daughter of Jephte was not slain by her father, but only consecrated to perpetual virginity. But the common opinion followed by the generality of the holy fathers and divines is, that she was offered as a holocaust, in consequence of her father's vow: and that Jephte did not sin, at least not mortally, neither in making, nor in keeping, his vow: since he is no ways blamed for it in scripture; and was even inspired by God himself to make the vow (as appears from ver. 29, 30) in consequence of which he obtained the victory; and therefore he reasonably concluded that God, who is the master of life and death, was pleased on this occasion to dispense with his own law; and that it was the divine will he should fulfil his vow. 11:32. And Jephte passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them: and the Lord delivered them into his hands. 11:33. And he smote them from Aroer till you come to Mennith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel, which is set with vineyards, with a very great slaughter: and the children of Ammon were humbled by the children of Israel. 11:34. And when Jephte returned into Maspha, to his house, his only daughter met him with timbrels and with dances: for he had no other children. 11:35. And when he saw her, he rent his garments, and said: Alas! my daughter, thou hast deceived me, and thou thyself art deceived: for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I can do no other thing. 11:36. And she answered him: My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, do unto me whatsoever thou hast promised, since the victory hath been granted to thee, and revenge of thy enemies. 11:37. And she said to her father: Grant me only this, which I desire: Let me go, that I may go about the mountains for two months, and may bewail my virginity with my companions. Bewail my virginity. . .The bearing of children was much coveted under the Old Testament, when women might hope that from some child of theirs, the Saviour of the world might one day spring. But under the New Testament virginity is preferred. 1 Cor. 7.35. 11:38. And he answered her: Go. And he sent her away for two months. And when she was gone with her comrades and companions, she mourned her virginity in the mountains. 11:39. And the two months being expired, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed, and she knew no man. From thence came a fashion in Israel, and a custom has been kept: 11:40. That, from year to year, the daughters of Israel assemble together, and lament the daughter of Jephte the Galaadite, for four days. Judges Chapter 12 The Ephraimites quarrel with Jephte: forty-two thousand of them are slain: Abeson, Ahialon, and Abdon, are judges. 12:1. But behold there arose a sedition in Ephraim. And passing towards the north, they said to Jephte: When thou wentest to fight against the children of Ammon, why wouldst thou not call us, that we might go with thee? Therefore we will burn thy house. 12:2. And he answered them: I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon: and I called you to assist me, and you would not do it. 12:3. And when I saw this, I put my life in my own hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon and the Lord delivered them into my hands. What have I deserved, that you should rise up to fight against me? 12:4. Then calling to him all the men of Galaad, he fought against Ephraim: and the men of Galaad defeated Ephraim, because he had said: Galaad is a fugitive of Ephraim, and dwelleth in the midst of Ephraim and Manasses. 12:5. And the Galaadites secured the fords of the Jordan, by which Ephraim was to return. And when any one of the number of Ephraim came thither in the flight, and said: I beseech you let me pass: the Galaadites said to him: Art thou not an Ephraimite? If he said: I am not: 12:6. They asked him: Say then, Scibboleth, which is interpreted, An ear of corn. But he answered, Sibboleth, not being able to express an ear of corn by the same letter. Then presently they took him and killed him in the very passage of the Jordan. And there fell at that time of Ephraim, two and forty thousand. 12:7. And Jephte, the Galaadite, judged Israel six years: and he died, and was buried in his city of Galaad. 12:8. After him Abesan of Bethlehem judged Israel: 12:9. He had thirty sons, and as many daughters, whom he sent abroad, and gave to husbands, and took wives for his sons, of the same number, bringing them into his house. And he judged Israel seven years: 12:10. And he died, and was buried in Bethlehem. 12:11. To him succeeded Ahialon, a Zabulonite: and he judged Israel ten years: 12:12. And he died, and was buried in Zabulon. 12:13. After him, Abdon, the son of Illel, a Pharathonite, judged Israel: 12:14. And he had forty sons, and of them thirty grandsons, mounted upon seventy ass colts, and he judged Israel eight years: 12:15. And he died, and was buried in Pharathon, in the land of Ephraim, in the mount of Amalech. Judges Chapter 13 The people fall again into idolatry and are afflicted by the Philistines. An angel foretelleth the birth of Samson. 13:1. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord: and he delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years. 13:2. Now there was a certain man of Saraa, and of the race of Dan, whose name was Manue, and his wife was barren. 13:3. And an angel of the Lord appeared to her, and said: Thou art barren and without children: but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. 13:4. Now therefore beware, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. 13:6. Because thou shalt conceive, and bear a son, and no razor shall touch his head: for he shall be a Nazarite of God, from his infancy, and from his mother's womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. 13:6. And when she was come to her husband, she said to him: A man of God came to me, having the countenance of an angel, very awful. And when I asked him whence he came, and by what name he was called, he would not tell me: 13:7. But he answered thus: Behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son: beware thou drink no wine, nor strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite of God from his infancy, from his mother's womb until the day of his death. 13:8. Then Manue prayed to the Lord, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, that the man of God, whom thou didst send, may come again, and teach us what we ought to do concerning the child, that shall be born. 13:9. And the Lord heard the prayer of Manue, and the angel of the Lord appeared again to his wife, as she was sitting in the field. But Manue her husband was not with her. And when she saw the angel, 13:10. She made haste, and ran to her husband: and told him, saying: Behold the man hath appeared to me, whom I saw before. 13:11. He rose up, and followed his wife: and coming to the man, said to him: Art thou he that spoke to the woman? And he answered: I am. 13:12. And Manue said to him: When thy word shall come to pass, what wilt thou that the child should do? or from what shall he keep himself? 13:13. And the angel of the Lord said to Manue: From all the things I have spoken of to thy wife, let her refrain herself: Let her refrain, etc. . .By the Latin text it is not clear whether this abstinence was prescribed to the mother, or to the child; but the Hebrew (in which the verbs relating thereto are of the feminine gender) determineth it to the mother. But then the child also was to refrain from the like things, because he was to be from his infancy a Nazarite of God, ver. 5, that is, one set aside, in a particular manner, and consecrated to God: now the Nazarites by the law were to abstain from all these things. 13:14. And let her eat nothing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: and whatsoever I have commanded her, let her fulfil and observe. 13:15. And Manue said to the angel of the Lord: I beseech thee to consent to my request, and let us dress a kid for thee. 13:16. And the angel answered him: If thou press me I will not eat of thy bread: but if thou wilt offer a holocaust, offer it to the Lord. And Manue knew not it was the angel of the Lord. 13:17. And he said to him: What is thy name, that, if thy word shall come to pass, we may honour thee? 13:18. And he answered him: Why askest thou my name, which is wonderful? 13:19. Then Manue took a kid of the flocks, and the libations, and put them upon a rock, offering to the Lord, who doth wonderful things: and he and his wife looked on. 13:20. And when the flame from the altar went up towards heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended also in the same. And when Manue and his wife saw this, they fell flat on the ground; 13:21. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them no more. And forthwith Manue understood that it was an angel of the Lord, 13:22. And he said to his wife: We shall certainly die, because we have seen God. Seen God. . .Not in his own person, but in the person of his messenger. The Israelites, in those days, imagined they should die if they saw an angel, taking occasion perhaps from those words spoken by the Lord to Moses, Ex. 33.20, No man shall see me and live. But the event demonstrated that it was but a groundless imagination. 13:23. And his wife answered him: If the Lord had a mind to kill us, he would not have received a holocaust and libations at our hands; neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor have told us the things that are to come. 13:24. And she bore a son, and called his name Samson. And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. 13:25. And the Spirit of the Lord began to be with him in the camp of Dan, between Saraa and Esthaol. Judges Chapter 14 Samson desireth a wife of the Philistines. He killeth a lion: in whose mouth he afterwards findeth honey. His marriage feast, and riddle, which is discovered by his wife. He killeth, and strippeth thirty Philistines. His wife taketh another man. 14:1. Then Samson went down to Thamnatha, and seeing there a woman of the daughters of the Philistines, 14:2. He came up, and told his father and his mother, saying: I saw a woman in Thamnatha of the daughters of the Philistines: I beseech you, take her for me to wife. 14:3. And his father and mother said to him: Is there no woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou wilt take a wife of the Philistines, who are uncircumcised? And Samson said to his father: Take this woman for me; for she hath pleased my eyes. Is there no woman among the daughters of thy brethren. . .This shews his parents were at first against his marriage with a Gentile, it being prohibited, Deut. 7.3; but afterwards they consented, knowing it to be by the dispensation of God; which otherwise would have been sinful in acting contrary to the law. 14:4. Now his parents knew not that the thing was done by the Lord, and that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. 14:5. Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Thamnatha. And when they were come to the vineyards of the town, behold a young lion met him, raging and roaring. 14:6. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid in pieces, having nothing at all in his hand: and he would not tell this to his father and mother. 14:7. And he went down, and spoke to the woman that had pleased his eyes. 14:8. And after some days, returning to take her, he went aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold there was a swarm of bees in the mouth of the lion, and a honey-comb. 14:9. And when he had taken it in his hands, he went on eating: and coming to his father and mother, he gave them of it, and they ate: but he would not tell them that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion. 14:10. So his father went down to the woman, and made a feast for his son Samson: for so the young men used to do. 14:11. And when the citizens of that place saw him, they brought him thirty companions to be with him. 14:12. And Samson said to them: I will propose to you a riddle, which if you declare unto me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty shirts, and as many coats: 14:13. But if you shall not be able to declare it, you shall give me thirty shirts and the same number of coats. They answered him: Put forth the riddle, that we may hear it. 14:14. And he said to them: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not for three days expound the riddle. 14:15. And when the seventh day came, they said to the wife of Samson: Sooth thy husband, and persuade him to tell thee what the riddle meaneth. But if thou wilt not do it, we will burn thee, and thy father's house. Have you called us to the wedding on purpose to strip us? 14:16. So she wept before Samson and complained, saying: Thou hatest me, and dost not love me: therefore thou wilt not expound to me the riddle, which thou hast proposed to the sons of my people. But he answered: I would not tell it to my father and mother: and how can I tell it to thee? 14:17. So she wept before him the seven days of the feast: and, at length, on the seventh day, as she was troublesome to him, he expounded it. And she immediately told her countrymen. 14:18. And they, on the seventh day before the sun went down, said to him: What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them: If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you had not found out my riddle. 14:19. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ascalon, and slew there thirty men whose garments he took away, and gave to them that had declared the riddle. And being exceeding angry, he went up to his father's house: 14:20. But his wife took one of his friends and bridal companions for her husband. Judges Chapter 15 Samson is denied his wife. He burns the corn of the Philistines, and kills many of them. 15:1. And a while after, when the days of the wheat harvest were at hand, Samson came, meaning to visit his wife, and he brought her a kid of the flock. And when he would have gone into her chamber, as usual, her father would not suffer him, saying: 15:2. I thought thou hadst hated her, and therefore I gave her to thy friend: but she hath a sister, who is younger and fairer than she, take her to wife instead of her. 15:3. And Samson answered him: From this day I shall be blameless in what I do against the Philistines: for I will do you evils. 15:4. And he went and caught three hundred foxes, and coupled them tail to tail, and fastened torches between the tails: Foxes. . .Being judge of the people he might have many to assist him to catch with nets or otherwise a number of these animals; of which there were great numbers in that country. 15:6. And setting them on fire he let the foxes go, that they might run about hither and thither. And they presently went into the standing corn of the Philistines. Which being set on fire, both the corn that was already carried together, and that which was yet standing, was all burnt, insomuch that the flame consumed also the vineyards and the oliveyards. 15:6. Then the Philistines said: Who hath done this thing? And it was answered: Samson, the son in law of the Thamnathite, because he took away his wife, and gave her to another, hath done these things. And the Philistines went up and burnt both the woman and her father. 15:7. But Samson said to them: Although you have done this, yet will I be revenged of you, and then I will be quiet. 15:8. And he made a great slaughter of them, so that in astonishment they laid the calf of the leg upon the thigh. And going down he dwelt in a cavern of the rock Etam. 15:9. Then the Philistines going up into the land of Juda, camped in the place which afterwards was called Lechi, that is, the Jawbone, where their army was spread abroad. 15:10. And the men of the tribe of Juda said to them: Why are you come up against us? They answered: We are come to bind Samson, and to pay him for what he hath done against us. 15:11. Wherefore three thousand men of Juda went down to the cave of the rock Etam, and said to Samson: Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? Why wouldst thou do thus? And he said to them: As they did to me, so have I done to them. 15:12. And they said to him: We are come to bind thee, and to deliver thee into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them: Swear to me, and promise me that you will not kill me. 15:13. They said: We will not kill thee: but we will deliver thee up bound. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him from the rock Etam. 15:14. Now when he was come to the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines shouting went to meet him, the Spirit of the Lord came strongly upon him: and as flax is wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed. 15:15. And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass, which lay there, catching it up, he slew therewith a thousand men. 15:16. And he said: With the jawbone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt of asses, I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men. 15:17. And when he had ended these words, singing, he threw the jawbone out of his hand, and called the name of that place Ramathlechi, which is interpreted the lifting up of the jawbone. 15:18. And being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord, and said: Thou hast given this very great deliverance and victory into the hand of thy servant: and behold I die for thirst, and shall fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. 15:19. Then the Lord opened a great tooth in the jaw of the ass and waters issued out of it. And when he had drunk them, he refreshed his spirit, and recovered his strength. Therefore the name of that place was called The Spring of him that invoked from the jawbone, until this present day. 15:20. And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines, twenty years. Judges Chapter 16 Samson is deluded by Dalila: and falls into the hands of the Philistines. His death. 16:1. He went also into Gaza, and saw there a woman, a harlot, and went in unto her. 16:2. And when the Philistines had heard this, and it was noised about among them, that Samson was come into the city, they surrounded him, setting guards at the gate of the city, and watching there all the night in silence, that in the morning they might kill him as he went out. 16:3. But Samson slept till midnight, and then rising, he took both the doors of the gate, with the posts thereof and the bolt, and laying them on his shoulders, carried them up to the top of the hill, which looketh towards Hebron. 16:4. After this he loved a woman, who dwelt in the valley of Sorec, and she was called Dalila. Dalila. . .Some are of opinion she was married to Samson; others that she was his harlot. If the latter opinion be true, we cannot wonder that, in punishment of his lust, the Lord delivered him up, by her means, into the hands of his enemies. However if he was guilty, it is not to be doubted but that under his afflictions he heartily repented and returned to God, and so obtained forgiveness of his sins. 16:5. And the princes of the Philistines came to her, and said: Deceive him, and learn of him wherein his great strength lieth, and how we may be able to overcome him, to bind and afflict him: which if thou shalt do, we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver. 16:6. And Dalila said to Samson: Tell me, I beseech thee, wherein thy greatest strength lieth, and what it is, wherewith if thou wert bound, thou couldst not break loose. 16:7. And Samson answered her: If I shall be bound with seven cords, made of sinews not yet dry, but still moist, I shall be weak like other men. 16:8. And the princes of the Philistines brought unto her seven cords, such as he spoke of, with which she bound him; 16:9. Men lying privately in wait with her, and in the chamber, expecting the event of the thing, and she cried out to him: The Philistines are upon thee, Samson. And he broke the bands, as a man would break a thread of tow twined with spittle, when it smelleth the fire: so it was not known wherein his strength lay. 16:10. And Dalila said to him: Behold thou hast mocked me, and hast told me a false thing: but now at least tell me wherewith thou mayest be bound. 16:11. And he answered her: If I shall be bound with new ropes, that were never in work, I shall be weak and like other men. 16:12. Dalila bound him again with these, and cried out: The Philistines are upon thee, Samson, there being an ambush prepared for him in the chamber. But he broke the bands like threads of webs. 16:13. And Dalila said to him again: How long dost thou deceive me, and tell me lies? Shew me wherewith thou mayest be bound. And Samson answered her: If thou plattest the seven locks of my head with a lace, and tying them round about a nail, fastenest it in the ground, I shall be weak. 16:14. And when Dalila had done this, she said to him: The Philistines are upon thee, Samson. And awaking out of his sleep, he drew out the nail with the hairs and the lace. 16:15. And Dalila said to him: How dost thou say thou lovest me, when thy mind is not with me? Thou hast told me lies these three times, and wouldst not tell me wherein thy greatest strength lieth. 16:16. And when she pressed him much, and continually hung upon him for many days, giving him no time to rest, his soul fainted away, and was wearied even unto death. 16:17. Then opening the truth of the thing, he said to her: The razor hath never come upon my head, for I am a Nazarite, that is to say, consecrated to God from my mother's womb: If my head be shaven, my strength shall depart from me, and I shall become weak, and shall be like other men. 16:18. Then seeing that he had discovered to her all his mind, she sent to the princes of the Philistines, saying: Come up this once more, for now he hath opened his heart to me. And they went up, taking with them the money which they had promised. 16:19. But she made him sleep upon her knees, and lay his head in her bosom. And she called a barber and shaved his seven locks, and began to drive him away, and thrust him from her: for immediately his strength departed from him. 16:20. And she said: The Philistines are upon thee, Samson. And awaking from sleep, he said in his mind: I will go out as I did before, and shake myself, not knowing that the Lord was departed from him. 16:21. Then the Philistines seized upon him, and forthwith pulled out his eyes, and led him bound in chains to Gaza, and shutting him up in prison made him grind. 16:22. And now his hair began to grow again, 16:23. And the princes of the Philistines assembled together, to offer great sacrifices to Dagon their god, and to make merry, saying: Our god hath delivered our enemy Samson into our hands. 16:24. And the people also seeing this, praised their god, and said the same: Our god hath delivered our adversary into our hands, him that destroyed our country, and killed very many. 16:25. And rejoicing in their feasts, when they had now taken their good cheer, they commanded that Samson should be called, and should play before them. And being brought out of prison, he played before them; and they made him stand between two pillars. 16:26. And he said to the lad that guided his steps: Suffer me to touch the pillars which support the whole house, and let me lean upon them, and rest a little. 16:27. Now the house was full of men and women, and all the princes of the Philistines were there. Moreover about three thousand persons of both sexes, from the roof and the higher part of the house, were beholding Samson's play. 16:28. But he called upon the Lord, saying: O Lord God remember me, and restore to me now my former strength, O my God, that I may revenge myself on my enemies, and for the loss of my two eyes I may take one revenge. Revenge myself. . .This desire of revenge was out of zeal for justice against the enemies of God and his people; and not out of private rancour and malice of heart. 16:29. And laying hold on both the pillars on which the house rested, and holding the one with his right hand, and the other with his left, 16:30. He said: Let me die with the Philistines. And when he had strongly shook the pillars, the house fell upon all the princes, and the rest of the multitude, that was there: and he killed many more at his death, than he had killed before in his life. Let me die. . .Literally, let my soul die. Samson did not sin on this occasion, though he was indirectly the cause of his own death. Because he was moved to what he did, by a particular inspiration of God, who also concurred with him by a miracle, in restoring his strength upon the spot, in consequence of his prayer. Samson, by dying in this manner, was a figure of Christ, who by his death overcame all his enemies. 16:31. And his brethren and all his kindred, going down took his body, and buried it between Saraa and Esthaol, in the buryingplace of his father Manue: and he judged Israel twenty years. Judges Chapter 17 The history of the idol of Michas, and the young Levite. 17:1. There was at that time a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Michas. 17:2. Who said to his mother: The eleven hundred pieces of silver, which thou hadst put aside for thyself, and concerning which thou didst swear in my hearing, behold I have, and they are with me. And she said to him. Blessed be my son by the Lord. 17:3. So he restored them to his mother, who said to him: I have consecrated and vowed this silver to the Lord, that my son may receive it at my hand, and make a graven and a molten god; so now I deliver it to thee. 17:4. And he restored them to his mother: and she took two hundred pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith, to make of them a graven and a molten God, which was in the house of Michas. 17:5. And he separated also therein a little temple for the god, and made an ephod, and theraphim, that is to say, a priestly garment, and idols: and he filled the hand of one of his sons, and he became his priest. Filled the hand. . .That is, appointed and consecrated him to the priestly office. 17:6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did that which seemed right to himself. 17:7. There was also another young man of Bethlehem Juda, of the kindred thereof: and he was a Levite, and dwelt there. 17:8. Now he went out from the city of Bethlehem, and desired to sojourn wheresoever he should find it convenient for him. And when he was come to mount Ephraim, as he was on his journey, and had turned aside a little into the house of Michas, 17:9. He was asked by him whence he came. And he answered: I am a Levite of Bethlehem Juda, and I am going to dwell where I can, and where I shall find a place to my advantage. 17:10. And Michas said: Stay with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee every year ten pieces of silver, and a double suit of apparel, and thy victuals. 17:11. He was content, and abode with the man, and was unto him as one of his sons. 17:12. And Michas filled his hand, and had the young man with him for his priest, saying: 17:13. Now I know God will do me good, since I have a priest of the race of the Levites. Judges Chapter 18 The expedition of the men of Dan against Lais: in their way they rob Michas of his priest and his gods. 18:1. In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of Dan sought them an inheritance to dwell in: for unto that day they had not received their lot among the other tribes. Not received, etc. . .They had their portions assigned them, Jos. 19.40. But, through their own sloth, possessed as yet but a small part of it. See Judges 1.34. 18:2. So the children of Dan sent five most valiant men, of their stock and family, from Saraa and Esthaol, to spy out the land, and to view it diligently: and they said to them: Go, and view the land. They went on their way, and when they came to mount Ephraim, they went into the house of Michas, and rested there: 18:3. And knowing the voice of the young man the Levite, and lodging with him, they said to him: Who brought thee hither? what dost thou here? why wouldst thou come hither? 18:4. He answered them: Michas hath done such and such things for me, and hath hired me to be his priest. 18:5. Then they desired him to consult the Lord, that they might know whether their journey should be prosperous, and the thing should have effect. 18:6. He answered them: Go in peace: the Lord looketh on your way, and the journey that you go. 18:7. So the five men going on came to Lais: and they saw how the people dwelt therein without any fear, according to the custom of the Sidonians, secure and easy, having no man at all to oppose them, being very rich, and living separated, at a distance from Sidon and from all men. 18:8. And they returned to their brethren in Saraa and Esthaol, who asked them what they had done: to whom they answered: 18:9. Arise, and let us go up to them: for we have seen the land which is exceeding rich and fruitful: neglect not, lose no time: let us go and possess it, there will be no difficulty. 18:10. We shall come to a people that is secure, into a spacious country, and the Lord will deliver the place to us, in which there is no want of any thing that groweth on the earth. 18:11. There went therefore of the kindred of Dan, to wit, from Saraa and Esthaol, six hundred men, furnished with arms for war. 18:12. And going up they lodged in Cariathiarim of Juda: which place from that time is called the camp of Dan, and is behind Cariathiarim. 18:13. From thence they passed into mount Ephraim. And when they were come to the house of Michas, 18:14. The five men, that before had been sent to view the land of Lais, said to the rest of their brethren: You know that in these houses there is an ephod and theraphim, and a graven and a molten god: see what you are pleased to do. 18:15. And when they had turned a little aside, they went into the house of the young man the Levite, who was in the house of Michas: and they saluted him with words of peace. 18:16. And the six hundred men stood before the door, appointed with their arms. 18:17. But they that were gone into the house of the young man, went about to take away the graven god, and the ephod, and the theraphim, and the molten god, and the priest stood before the door, the six hundred valiant men waiting not far off. 18:18. So they that were gone in took away the graven thing, the ephod, and the idols, and the molten god, And the priest said to them: What are you doing? 18:19. And they said to him: Hold thy peace, and put thy finger on thy mouth, and come with us, that we may have thee for a father, and a priest. Whether is better for thee, to be a priest in the house of one man, or in a tribe and family in Israel? 18:20. When he heard this, he agreed to their words, and took the ephod, and the idols, and the graven god, and departed with them. 18:21. And when they were going forward, and had put before them the children and the cattle, and all that was valuable, 18:22. And were now at a distance from the house of Michas, the men that dwelt in the houses of Michas gathering together followed them, 18:23. And began to shout out after them. They looked back, and said to Michas: What aileth thee? Why dost thou cry? 18:24. And he answered: You have taken away my gods which I have made me, and the priest, and all that I have, and do you say: What aileth thee? 18:25. And the children of Dan said to him: See thou say no more to us, lest men enraged come upon thee, and thou perish with all thy house. 18:26. And so they went on the journey they had begun. But Michas seeing that they were stronger than he, returned to his house. 18:27. And the six hundred men took the priest, and the things we spoke of before, and came to Lais, to a people that was quiet and secure, and smote them with the edge of the sword: and the city they burnt with fire, 18:28. There being no man at all who brought them any succour, because they dwelt far from Sidon, and had no society or business with any man. And the city was in the land of Rohob: and they rebuilt it, and dwelt therein, 18:29. Calling the name of the city Dan, after the name of their father, who was the son of Israel, which before was called Lais. 18:30. And they set up to themselves the graven idol, and Jonathan the son of Gersam, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests in the tribe of Dan, until the day of their captivity. 18:31. And the idol of Michas remained with them all the time that the house of God was in Silo. In those days there was no king in Israel. Judges Chapter 19 A Levite bringing home his wife, is lodged by an old man at Gabaa in the tribe of Benjamin. His wife is there abused by wicked men, and in the morning found dead. Her husband cutteth her body in pieces, and sendeth to every tribe of Israel, requiring them to revenge the wicked fact. 19:1. There was a certain Levite, who dwelt on the side of mount Ephraim, who took a wife of Bethlehem Juda: 19:2. And she left him, and returned to her father's house in Bethlehem, and abode with him four months. 19:3. And her husband followed her, willing to be reconciled with her, and to speak kindly to her, and to bring her back with him, having with him a servant and two asses: and she received him, and brought him into her father's house. And when his father in law had heard this, and had seen him, he met him with joy, 19:4. And embraced the man. And the son in law tarried in the house of his father in law three days, eating with him and drinking familiarly. 19:5. But on the fourth day, arising early in the morning, he desired to depart. But his father in law kept him, and said to him: Taste first a little bread, and strengthen thy stomach, and so thou shalt depart. 19:6. And they sat down together, and ate and drank. And the father of the young woman said to his son in law: I beseech thee to stay here to day, and let us make merry together. 19:7. But he rising up, began to be for departing. And nevertheless his father in law earnestly pressed him, and made him stay with him. 19:8. But when morning was come, the Levite prepared to go on his journey. And his father in law said to him again: I beseech thee to take a little meat, and strengthening thyself, till the day be farther advanced, afterwards thou mayest depart. And they ate together. 19:9. And the young man arose to set forward with his wife and servant. And his father in law spoke to him again: Consider that the day is declining, and draweth toward evening: tarry with me to day also, and spend the day in mirth, and to morrow thou shalt depart, that thou mayest go into thy house. 19:10. His son in law would not consent to his words: but forthwith went forward, and came over against Jebus, which by another name is called Jerusalem, leading with him two asses loaden, and his concubine. Concubine. She was his lawful wife, but even lawful wives are frequently in scripture called concubines. See above, chap. 8. ver. 31.-ver. 16. Jemini. . .That is, Benjamin. 19:11. And now they were come near Jebus, and the day was far spent: and the servant said to his master: Come, I beseech thee, let us turn into the city of the Jebusites, and lodge there. 19:12. His master answered him: I will not go into the town of another nation, who are not of the children of Israel, but I will pass over to Gabaa: 19:13. And when I shall come thither, we will lodge there, or at least in the city of Rama. 19:14. So they passed by Jebus, and went on their journey, and the sun went down upon them when they were by Gabaa, which is in the tribe of Benjamin: 19:15. And they turned into it to lodge there. And when they were come in, they sat in the street of the city, for no man would receive them to lodge. 19:16. And behold they saw an old man, returning out of the field and from his work in the evening, and he also was of mount Ephraim, and dwelt as a stranger in Gabaa; but the men of that country were the children of Jemini. 19:17. And the old man lifting up his eyes, saw the man sitting with his bundles in the street of the city, and said to him: Whence comest thou? and whither goest thou? 19:18. He answered him: We came out from Bethlehem Juda, and we are going to our home, which is on the side of mount Ephraim, from whence we went to Bethlehem: and now we go to the house of God, and none will receive us under his roof: 19:19. We have straw and hay for provender of the asses, and bread and wine for the use of myself and of thy handmaid, and of the servant that is with me: we want nothing but lodging. 19:20. And the old man answered him: Peace be with thee: I will furnish all things that are necessary: only I beseech thee, stay not in the street. 19:21. And he brought him into his house, and gave provender to his asses: and after they had washed their feet, he entertained them with a feast. 19:22. While they were making merry, and refreshing their bodies with meat and drink, after the labour of the journey, the men of that city, sons of Belial (that is, without yoke), came and beset the old man's house, and began to knock at the door, calling to the master of the house, and saying: Bring forth the man that came into thy house, that we may abuse him: 19:23. And the old man went out to them, and said: Do not so, my brethren, do not so wickedly: because this man is come into my lodging, and cease I pray you from this folly. 19:24. I have a maiden daughter, and this man hath a concubine, I will bring them out to you, and you may humble them, and satisfy your lust: only, I beseech you, commit not this crime against nature on the man. 19:25. They would not be satisfied with his words; which the man seeing, brought out his concubine to them, and abandoned her to their wickedness: and when they had abused her all the night, they let her go in the morning. 19:26. But the woman, at the dawning of the day, came to the door of the house, where her lord lodged, and there fell down. 19:27. And in the morning the man arose, and opened the door, that he might end the journey he had begun: and behold his concubine lay before the door with her hands spread on the threshold. 19:28. He thinking she was taking her rest, said to her: Arise, and let us be going. But as she made no answer, perceiving she was dead, he took her up, and laid her upon his ass, and returned to his house. 19:29. And when he was come home, he took a sword, and divided the dead body of his wife with her bones into twelve parts, and sent the pieces into all the borders of Israel. 19:30. And when every one had seen this, they all cried out: There was never such a thing done in Israel, from the day that our fathers came up out of Egypt, until this day: give sentence, and decree in common what ought to be done. Judges Chapter 20 The Israelites warring against Benjamin are twice defeated; but in the third battle the Benjamites are all slain, saving six hundred men. 20:1. Then all the children of Israel went out, and gathered together as one man, from Dan to Bersabee, with the land of Galaad, to the Lord in Maspha: 20:2. And all the chiefs of the people, and all the tribes of Israel, met together in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen fit for war. 20:3. (Nor were the children of Benjamin ignorant that the children of Israel were come up to Maspha.) And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was killed being asked, how so great a wickedness had been committed, 20:4. Answered: I came into Gabaa, of Benjamin, with my wife, and there I lodged: 20:5. And behold the men of that city, in the night beset the house wherein I was, intending to kill me, and abused my wife with an incredible fury of lust, so that at last she died. 20:6. And I took her and cut her in pieces, and sent the parts into all the borders of your possession: because there never was so heinous a crime, and so great an abomination committed in Israel. 20:7. You are all here, O children of Israel, determine what you ought to do. 20:8. And all the people standing, answered as by the voice of one man: We will not return to our tents, neither shall any one of us go into his own house: 20:9. But this we will do in common against Gabaa: 20:10. We will take ten men of a hundred out of all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred out of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to bring victuals for the army, that we may fight against Gabaa of Benjamin, and render to it for its wickedness, what it deserveth. 20:11. And all Israel were gathered together against the city, as one man, with one mind, and one counsel: 20:12. And they sent messengers to all the tribe of Benjamin, to say to them: Why hath so great an abomination been found among you? 20:13. Deliver up the men of Gabaa, that have committed this heinous crime, that they may die, and the evil may be taken away out of Israel. But they would not hearken to the proposition of their brethren the children of Israel: 20:14. But out of all the cities which were of their lot, they gathered themselves together into Gabaa, to aid them, and to fight against the whole people of Israel. 20:15. And there were found of Benjamin five and twenty thousand men that drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gabaa, 20:16. Who were seven hundred most valiant men, fighting with the left hand as well as with the right: and slinging stones so sure that they could hit even a hair, and not miss by the stone's going on either side. 20:17. Of the men of Israel also, beside the children of Benjamin, were found four hundred thousand that drew swords and were prepared to fight. 20:18. And they arose and came to the house of God, that is, to Silo: and they consulted God, and said: Who shall be in our army the first to go to the battle against the children of Benjamin? And the Lord answered them: Let Juda be your leader. 20:19. And forthwith the children of Israel rising in the morning, camped by Gabaa: 20:20. And going out from thence to fight against Benjamin, began to assault the city. 20:21. And the children of Benjamin coming out of Gabaa slew of the children of Israel that day two and twenty thousand men. 20:22. Again Israel, trusting in their strength and their number, set their army in array in the same place, where they had fought before: Trusting in their strength. . .The Lord suffered them to be overthrown and many of them to be slain, though their cause was just; partly in punishment of the idolatry which they exercised or tolerated in the tribe of Dan, and elsewhere; and partly because they trusted in their own strength; and therefore, though he bid them fight, he would not give them the victory, till they were thoroughly humbled and had learned to trust in him alone. 20:23. Yet so that they first went up and wept before the Lord until night: and consulted him and said: Shall I go out any more to fight against the children of Benjamin my brethren or not? And he answered them: Go up against them, and join battle. 20:24. And when the children of Israel went out the next day to fight against the children of Benjamin, 20:25. The children of Benjamin sallied forth out of the gates of Gabaa: and meeting them, made so great a slaughter of them, as to kill eighteen thousand men that drew the sword. 20:26. Wherefore all the children of Israel came to the house of God, and sat and wept before the Lord: and they fasted that day till the evening, and offered to him holocausts, and victims of peace offerings, 20:27. And inquired of him concerning their state. At that time the ark of the covenant of the Lord was there, 20:28. And Phinees, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was over the house. So they consulted the Lord, and said: Shall we go out any more to fight against the children of Benjamin, our brethren, or shall we cease? And the Lord said to them: Go up, for to morrow I will deliver them into your hands. 20:29. And the children of Israel set ambushes round about the city of Gabaa: 20:30. And they drew up their army against Benjamin the third time, as they had done the first and second. 20:31. And the children of Benjamin boldly issued out of the city, and seeing their enemies flee, pursued them a long way, so as to wound and kill some of them, as they had done the first and second day, whilst they fled by two highways, whereof one goeth up to Bethel and the other to Gabaa, and they slew about thirty men: 20:32. For they thought to cut them off as they did before. But they artfully feigning a flight, designed to draw them away from the city, and by their seeming to flee, to bring them to the highways aforesaid. 20:33. Then all the children of Israel rising up out of the places where they were, set their army in battle array, in the place which is called Baalthamar. The ambushes also, which were about the city, began by little and little to come forth, 20:34. And to march from the west side of the city. And other ten thousand men chosen out of all Israel, attacked the inhabitants of the city. And the battle grew hot against the children of Benjamin: and they understood not that present death threatened them on every side. 20:35. And the Lord defeated them before the children of Israel, and they slew of them in that day five and twenty thousand, and one hundred, all fighting men, and that drew the sword. 20:36. But the children of Benjamin, when they saw themselves to be too weak, began to flee. Which the children of Israel seeing, gave them place to flee, that they might come to the ambushes that were prepared, which they had set near the city. 20:37. And they that were in ambush arose on a sudden out of their coverts, and whilst Benjamin turned their backs to the slayers, went into the city, and smote it with the edge of the sword. 20:38. Now the children of Israel had given a sign to them, whom they had laid in ambushes, that after they had taken the city, they should make a fire: that by the smoke rising on high, they might shew that the city was taken. 20:39. And when the children of Israel saw this in the battle, (for the children of Benjamin thought they fled, and pursued them vigorously, killing thirty men of their army) 20:40. And perceived, as it were, a pillar of smoke rise up from the city; and Benjamin looking back, saw that the city was taken, and that the flames ascended on high: 20:41. They that before had made as if they fled, turning their faces, stood bravely against them. Which the children of Benjamin seeing, turned their backs, 20:42. And began to go towards the way of the desert, the enemy pursuing them thither also. And they that fired the city came also out to meet them. 20:43. And so it was, that they were slain on both sides by the enemies, and there was no rest of their men dying. They fell and were beaten down on the east side of the city of Gabaa. 20:44. And they that were slain in the same place, were eighteen thousand men, all most valiant soldiers. 20:45. And when they that remained of Benjamin saw this, they fled into the wilderness, and made towards the rock that is called Remmon. In that flight also, as they were straggling, and going different ways; they slew of them five thousand men. And as they went farther, they still pursued them, and slew also other two thousand. 20:46. And so it came to pass, that all that were slain of Benjamin, in divers places, were five and twenty thousand fighting men, most valiant for war. 20:47. And there remained of all the number of Benjamin only six hundred men that were able to escape, and flee to the wilderness: and they abode in the rock Remmon four months. 20:48. But the children of Israel returning, put all the remains of the city to the sword, both men and beasts, and all the cities and villages of Benjamin were consumed with devouring flames. Judges Chapter 21 The tribe of Benjamin is saved from being utterly extinct, by providing wives for the six hundred that remained. 21:1. Now the children of Israel had also sworn in Maspha, saying: None of us shall give of his daughters to the children of Benjamin to wife. 21:2. And they all came to the house of God in Silo, and sitting before him till the evening, lifted up their voices, and began to lament and weep, saying: 21:3. O Lord God of Israel, why is so great an evil come to pass in thy people, that this day one tribe should be taken away from among us? 21:4. And rising early the next day, they built an altar: and offered there holocausts, and victims of peace, and they said: 21:5. Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the army of the Lord? for they had bound themselves with a great oath, when they were in Maspha, that whosoever were wanting should be slain. 21:6. And the children of Israel being moved with repentance for their brother Benjamin, began to say: One tribe is taken away from Israel. 21:7. Whence shall they take wives? For we have all in general sworn, not to give our daughters to them. 21:8. Therefore they said: Who is there of all the tribes of Israel, that came not up to the Lord to Maspha? And, behold, the inhabitants of Jabes Galaad were found not to have been in that army. 21:9. (At that time also when they were in Silo, no one of them was found there,) 21:10. So they sent ten thousand of the most valiant men, and commanded them, saying: Go and put the inhabitants of Jabes Galaad to the sword, with their wives and their children. 21:11. And this is what you shall observe: Every male, and all women that have known men, you shall kill, but the virgins you shall save. 21:12. And there were found of Jabes Galaad four hundred virgins, that had not known the bed of a man, and they brought them to the camp in Silo, into the land of Chanaan. 21:13. And they sent messengers to the children of Benjamin, that were in the rock Remmon, and commanded them to receive them in peace. 21:14. And the children of Benjamin came at that time, and wives were given them of Jabes Galaad: but they found no others, whom they might give in like manner. 21:15. And all Israel was very sorry, and repented for the destroying of one tribe out of Israel. 21:16. And the ancients said: What shall we do with the rest, that have not received wives? for all the women in Benjamin are dead. 21:17. And we must use all care, and provide with great diligence, that one tribe be not destroyed out of Israel. 21:18. For as to our own daughters we cannot give them, being bound with an oath and a curse, whereby we said: Cursed be he that shall give Benjamin any of his daughters to wife. 21:19. So they took counsel, and said: Behold, there is a yearly solemnity of the Lord in Silo, which is situate on the north of the city of Bethel, and on the east side of the way, that goeth from Bethel to Sichem, and on the south of the town of Lebona. 21:20. And they commanded the children of Benjamin and said: Go, and lie hid in the vineyards, 21:21. And when you shall see the daughters of Silo come out, as the custom is, to dance, come ye on a sudden out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife among them, and go into the land of Benjamin. 21:22. And when their fathers and their brethren shall come, and shall begin to complain against you, and to chide, we will say to them: Have pity on them: for they took them not away as by the right of war or conquest, but when they asked to have them, you gave them not, and the fault was committed on your part. 21:23. And the children of Benjamin did as they had been commanded: and, according to their number, they carried off for themselves every man his wife of them that were dancing: and they went into their possession, and built up their cities, and dwelt in them. 21:24. The children of Israel also returned by their tribes, and families, to their dwellings. In those days there was no king in Israel: but every one did that which seemed right to himself. THE BOOK OF RUTH This Book is called RUTH, from the name of the person whose history is here recorded: who, being a Gentile, became a convert to the true faith, and marrying Booz, the great-grandfather of David, was one of those from whom Christ sprung according to the flesh, and an illustrious figure of the Gentile church. It is thought this book was written by the prophet Samuel. Ruth Chapter 1 Elimelech of Bethlehem going with his wife Noemi, and two sons, into the land of Moab, dieth there. His sons marry wives of that country and die without issue. Noemi returneth home with her daughter in law Ruth, who refuseth to part with her. 1:1. In the days of the judges, when the judges ruled, there came a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem Juda, went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. 1:2. He was named Elimelech, and his wife Noemi: and his two sons, the one Mahalon, and the other Chelion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Juda. And entering into the country of Moab, they abode there. 1:3. And Elimelech the husband of Noemi died: and she remained with her sons. 1:4. And they took wives of the women of Moab, of which one was called Orpha, and the other Ruth. And they dwelt their ten years, 1:5. And they both died, to wit, Mahalon and Chelion: and the woman was left alone, having lost both her sons and her husband. 1:6. And she arose to go from the land of Moab to her own country, with both her daughters in law: for she had heard that the Lord had looked upon his people, and had given them food. 1:7. Wherefore she went forth out of the place of her sojournment, with both her daughters in law: and being now in the way to return into the land of Juda, 1:8. She said to them: Go ye home to your mothers, the Lord deal mercifully with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 1:9. May he grant you to find rest in the houses of the husbands whom you shall take. And she kissed them. And they lifted up their voice, and began to weep, 1:10. And to say: We will go on with thee to thy people. 1:11. But she answered them: Return, my daughters: why come ye with me? have I any more sons in my womb, that you may hope for husbands of me? 1:12. Return again, my daughters, and go your ways: for I am now spent with age, and not fit for wedlock. Although I might conceive this night, and bear children, 1:13. If you would wait till they were grown up, and come to man's estate, you would be old women before you marry. Do not so, my daughters, I beseech you: for I am grieved the more for your distress, and the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. 1:14. And they lifted up their voice, and began to weep again: Orpha kissed her mother in law, and returned: Ruth stuck close to her mother in law. 1:15. And Noemi said to her: Behold thy kinswoman is returned to her people, and to her gods, go thou with her. To her gods, etc. . .Noemi did not mean to persuade Ruth to return to the false gods she had formerly worshipped: but by this manner of speech, insinuated to her, that if she would go with her, she must renounce her false gods and return to the Lord the God of Israel. 1:16. She answered: Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart: for whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. 1:17. The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee. The Lord do so and so, etc. . .A form of swearing usual in the history of the Old Testament, by which the person wished such and such evils to fall upon them, if they did not do what they said. 1:18. Then Noemi seeing that Ruth was steadfastly determined to go with her, would not be against it, nor persuade her any more to return to her friends: 1:19. So they went together, and came to Bethlehem. And when they were come into the city, the report was quickly spread among all: and the women said: This is that Noemi. 1:20. But she said to them: Call me not Noemi (that is, beautiful,) but call me Mara (that is, bitter), for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness. 1:21. I went out full and the Lord hath brought me back empty. Why then do you call me Noemi, whom the Lord hath humbled, and the Almighty hath afflicted? 1:22. So Noemi came with Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter in law, from the land of her sojournment: and returned into Bethlehem, in the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth Chapter 2 Ruth gleaneth in the field of Booz, who sheweth her favour. 2:1. Now her husband Elimelech had a kinsman, a powerful man, and very rich, whose name was Booz. 2:3. And Ruth, the Moabitess, said to her mother in law: If thou wilt, I will go into the field, and glean the ears of corn that escape the hands of the reapers, wheresoever I shall find grace with a householder, that will be favourable to me. And she answered her: Go, my daughter. 2:3. She went, therefore, and gleaned the ears of corn after the reapers. And it happened that the owner of that field was Booz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. 2:4. And behold, he came out of Bethlehem, and said to the reapers: The Lord be with you. And they answered him: The Lord bless thee. 2:5. And Booz said to the young man that was set over the reapers: Whose maid is this ? 2:6. And he answered him: This is the Moabitess, who came with Noemi, from the land of Moab, 2:7. And she desired leave to glean the ears of corn that remain, following the steps of the reapers: and she hath been in the field from morning till now, and hath not gone home for one moment. 2:8. And Booz said to Ruth: Hear me, daughter, do not go to glean in any other field, and do not depart from this place: but keep with my maids, 2:9. And follow where they reap. For I have charged my young men, not to molest thee: and if thou art thirsty, go to the vessels, and drink of the waters whereof the servants drink. 2:10. She fell on her face, and worshipping upon the ground, said to him: Whence cometh this to me, that I should find grace before thy eyes, and that thou shouldst vouchsafe to take notice of me, a woman of another country? 2:11. And he answered her: All hath been told me, that thou hast done to thy mother in law after the death of thy husband: and how thou hast left thy parents, and the land wherein thou wast born, and art come to a people which thou knewest not heretofore. 2:12. The Lord render unto thee for thy work, and mayst thou receive a full reward of the Lord the God of Israel, to whom thou art come, and under whose wings thou art fled. 2:13. And she said: I have found grace in thy eyes, my lord, who hast comforted me, and hast spoken to the heart of thy handmaid, who am not like to one of thy maids. 2:14. And Booz said to her: At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. So she sat at the side of the reapers, and she heaped to herself frumenty, and ate and was filled, and took the leavings. 2:15. And she arose from thence, to glean the ears of corn as before. And Booz commanded his servants, saying: If she would even reap with you, hinder her not: 2:16. And let fall some of your handfuls of purpose, and leave them, that she may gather them without shame, and let no man rebuke her when she gathereth them. 2:17. She gleaned therefore in the field till evening: and beating out with a rod, and threshing what she had gleaned, she found about the measure of an ephi of barley, that is, three bushels: 2:18. Which she took up, and returned into the city, and shewed it to her mother in law: moreover, she brought out, and gave her of the remains of her meat, wherewith she had been filled. 2:19. And her mother in law said to her: Where hast thou gleaned today, and where hast thou wrought? blessed be he that hath had pity on thee. And she told her with whom she had wrought: and she told the man's name, that he was called Booz. 2:20. And Noemi answered her: Blessed be he of the Lord: because the same kindness which he shewed to the living, he hath kept also to the dead. And again she said: The man is our kinsman. 2:21. And Ruth said: He also charged me, that I should keep close to his reapers, till all the corn should be reaped. 2:22. And her mother in law said to her: It is better for thee, my daughter, to go out to reap with his maids, lest in another man's field some one may resist thee. 2:23. So she kept close to the maids of Booz: and continued to glean with them, till all the barley and the wheat were laid up in the barns. Ruth Chapter 3 Ruth instructed by her mother in law lieth at Booz's feet, claiming him for her husband by the law of affinity: she receiveth a good answer, and six measures of barley. 3:1. After she was returned to her mother in law, Noemi said to her: My daughter, I will seek rest for thee, and will provide that it may be well with thee. 3:2. This Booz, with whose maids thou wast joined in the field, is our near kinsman, and behold this night he winnoweth barley in the threshingfloor. 3:3. Wash thyself therefore and anoint thee, and put on thy best garments, and go down to the barnfloor: but let not the man see thee, till he shall have done eating and drinking. 3:4. And when he shall go to sleep, mark the place wherein he sleepeth: and thou shalt go in, and lift up the clothes wherewith he is covered towards his feet, and shalt lay thyself down there: and he will tell thee what thou must do. 3:5. She answered: Whatsoever thou shalt command, I will do. 3:6. And she went down to the barnfloor, and did all that her mother in law had bid her. 3:7. And when Booz had eaten, and drunk, and was merry, he went to sleep by the heap of sheaves, and she came softly, and uncovering his feet, laid herself down. 3:8. And behold, when it was now midnight the man was afraid, and troubled: and he saw a woman lying at his feet, 3:9. And he said to her: Who art thou ? And she answered: I am Ruth, thy handmaid: spread thy coverlet over thy servant, for thou art a near kinsman. 3:10. And he said: Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, and thy latter kindness has surpassed the former: because thou hast not followed young men either poor or rich. Thy latter kindness, viz. . .to thy husband deceased in seeking to keep up his name and family by marrying his relation according to the law, and not following after young men. For Booz, it seems, was then in years. 3:11. Fear not therefore, but whatsoever thou shalt say to me I will do to thee. For all the people that dwell within the gates of my city, know that thou art a virtuous woman. 3:12. Neither do I deny myself to be near of kin, but there is another nearer than I. 3:13. Rest thou this night: and when morning is come, if he will take thee by the right of kindred, all is well: but if he will not, I will undoubtedly take thee, so the Lord liveth: sleep till the morning. 3:14. So she slept at his feet till the night was going off. And she arose before men could know one another, and Booz said: Beware lest any man know that thou camest hither. 3:15. And again he said: Spread thy mantle, wherewith thou art covered, and hold it with both hands. And when she spread it and held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it upon her. And she carried it, and went into the city, 3:16. And came to her mother in law; who said to her: What hast thou done, daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her. 3:17. And she said: Behold he hath given me six measures of barley: for he said: I will not have thee return empty to thy mother in law. 3:18. And Noemi said: Wait, my daughter, till we see what end the thing will have. For the man will not rest until he have accomplished what he hath said. Ruth Chapter 4 Upon the refusal of the nearer kinsman, Booz marrieth Ruth, who bringeth forth Obed, the grandfather of David. 4:1. Then Booz went up to the gate, and sat there. And when he had seen the kinsman going by, of whom he had spoken before, he said to him, calling him by his name: Turn aside for a little while, and sit down here. He turned aside, and sat down. 4:2. And Booz, taking ten men of the ancients of the city, said to them: Sit ye down here. 4:3. They sat down, and he spoke to the kinsman: Noemi, who is returned from the country of Moab will sell a parcel of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. 4:4. I would have thee to understand this, and would tell thee before all that sit here, and before the ancients of my people. If thou wilt take possession of it by the right of kindred: buy it, and possess it: but if it please thee not, tell me so, that I may know what I have to do. For there is no near kinsman besides thee, who art first, and me, who am second. But he answered: I will buy the field. 4:5. And Booz said to him: When thou shalt buy the field at the woman's hand, thou must take also Ruth, the Moabitess, who was the wife of the deceased: to raise up the name of thy kinsman in his inheritance. 4:6. He answered: I yield up my right of next akin: for I must not cut off the posterity of my own family. Do thou make use of my privilege, which I profess I do willingly forego. 4:7. Now this in former times was the manner in Israel between kinsmen, that if at any time one yielded his right to another: that the grant might be sure, the man put off his shoe and gave it to his neighbour; this was a testimony of cession of right in Israel. 4:8. So Booz said to his kinsman: Put off thy shoe. And immediately he took it off from his foot. 4:9. And he said to the ancients, and to all the people: You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and Chelion's, and Mahalon's, of the hand of Noemi: 4:10. And have taken to wife Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance lest his name be cut off, from among his family and his brethren and his people. You, I say, are witnesses of this thing. 4:11. Then all the people that were in the gate, and the ancients, answered: We are witnesses: The Lord make this woman who cometh into thy house, like Rachel, and Lia, who built up the house of Israel: that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrata, and may have a famous name in Bethlehem: Ephrata. . .Another name of Bethlehem. 4:12. And that the house may be, as the house of Phares, whom Thamar bore unto Juda, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. 4:13. Booz therefore took Ruth, and married her: and went in unto her, and the Lord gave her to conceive, and to bear a son. 4:14. And the women said to Noemi: Blessed be the Lord, who hath not suffered thy family to want a successor: that his name should be preserved in Israel. 4:15. And thou shouldst have one to comfort thy soul, and cherish thy old age. For he is born of thy daughter in law: who loveth thee: and is much better to thee, than if thou hadst seven sons. 4:16. And Noemi taking the child, laid it in her bosom, and she carried it, and was a nurse unto it. 4:17. And the women, her neighbours, congratulating with her, and saying, There is a son born to Noemi, called his name Obed: he is the father of Isai, the father of David. 4:18. These are the generations of Phares: Phares begot Esron, 4:19. Esron begot Aram, Aram begot Aminadab, 4:20. Aminadab begot Nahasson, Nahasson begot Salmon, 4:21. Salmon begot Booz, Booz begot Obed, 4:22. Obed begot Isai, Isai begot David. THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL, OTHERWISE CALLED THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS This and the following Book are called by the Hebrews the books of Samuel, because they contain the history of Samuel, and of the two kings, Saul and David, whom he anointed. They are more commonly named by the Fathers, the first and second book of kings. As to the writer of them, it is the common opinion that Samuel composed the first book, as far as the twenty-fifth chapter; and that the prophets Nathan and Gad finished the first, and wrote the second book. See 1 Paralipomenon, alias 1 Chronicles, 29.29. 1 Kings Chapter 1 Anna the wife of Elcana being barren, by vow and prayer obtaineth a son: whom she calleth Samuel: and presenteth him to the service of God in Silo, according to her vow. 1:1. There was a man of Ramathaimsophim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elcana, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliu, the son of Thohu, the son of Suph, an Ephraimite: An Ephraimite. . .He was of the tribe of Levi, 1. Par. 6.34, but is called an Ephraimite from dwelling in mount Ephraim. 1:2. And he had two wives, the name of one was Anna, and the name of the other Phenenna. Phenenna had children: but Anna had no children. 1:3. And this man went up out of his city upon the appointed days, to adore and to offer sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Silo. And the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were there priests of the Lord. 1:4. Now the day came, and Elcana offered sacrifice, and gave to Phenenna, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, portions: 1:5. But to Anna he gave one portion with sorrow, because he loved Anna. And the Lord had shut up her womb. 1:6. Her rival also afflicted her, and troubled her exceedingly, insomuch that she upbraided her, that the Lord had shut up her womb: 1:7. And thus she did every year, when the time returned, that they went up to the temple of the Lord: and thus she provoked her: but Anna wept, and did not eat. 1:8. Then Elcana, her husband, said to her: Anna, why weepest thou? and why dost thou not eat? and why dost thou afflict thy heart? Am not I better to thee than ten children? 1:9. So Anna arose after she had eaten and drunk in Silo: And Heli, the priest, sitting upon a stool before the door of the temple of the Lord; 1:10. As Anna had her heart full of grief, she prayed to the Lord, shedding many tears, 1:11. And she made a vow, saying: O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt look down, and wilt be mindful of me, and not forget thy handmaid, and wilt give to thy servant a manchild: I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head. 1:12. And it came to pass, as she multiplied prayers before the Lord, that Heli observed her mouth. 1:13. Now Anna spoke in her heart, and only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard at all. Heli therefore thought her to be drunk, 1:14. And said to her: How long wilt thou be drunk? digest a little the wine, of which thou hast taken too much. 1:15. Anna answering, said: Not so, my lord: for I am an exceeding unhappy woman, and have drunk neither wine nor any strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. 1:16. Count not thy handmaid for one of the daughters of Belial: for out of the abundance of my sorrow and grief have I spoken till now. 1:17. Then Heli said to her: Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition, which thou hast asked of him. 1:18. And she said: Would to God thy handmaid may find grace in thy eyes. So the woman went on her way, and ate, and her countenance was no more changed. 1:19. And they rose in the morning, and worshipped before the Lord: and they returned, and came into their house at Ramatha. And Elcana knew Anna his wife: And the Lord remembered her. 1:20. And it came to pass when the time was come about, Anna conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel: because she had asked him of the Lord. Samuel. . .This name imports, asked of God. 1:21. And Elcana, her husband, went up, and all his house, to offer to the Lord the solemn sacrifice, and his vow. 1:22. But Anna went not up: for she said to her husband: I will not go till the child be weaned, and till I may carry him, that he may appear before the Lord, and may abide always there. 1:23. And Elcana, her husband, said to her: Do what seemeth good to thee, and stay till thou wean him: and I pray that the Lord may fulfil his word. So the woman staid at home, and gave her son suck, till she weaned him. 1:24. And after she had weaned him, she carried him with her, with three calves, and three bushels of flour, and a bottle of wine, and she brought him to the house of the Lord in Silo. Now the child was as yet very young: 1:25. And they immolated a calf, and offered the child to Heli. 1:26. And Anna said: I beseech thee, my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord: I am that woman, who stood before thee here praying to the Lord. 1:27. For this child did I pray, and the Lord hath granted me my petition, which I asked of him. 1:28. Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord all the days of his life, he shall be lent to the Lord. And they adored the Lord there. And Anna prayed, and said: 1 Kings Chapter 2 The canticle of Anna. The wickedness of the sons of Heli: for which they are not duly corrected by their father. A prophecy against the house of Heli. 2:1. My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God: my mouth is enlarged over my enemies: because I have joyed in thy salvation. My horn. . .The horn in the scriptures signifies strength, power, the horn is said to be exalted, when a person receives an increase of strength or glory. 2:2. There is none holy as the Lord is: for there is no other beside thee, and there is none strong like our God. 2:3. Do not multiply to speak lofty things, boasting: let old matters depart from your mouth: for the Lord is a God of all knowledge, and to him are thoughts prepared. 2:4. The bow of the mighty is overcome, and the weak are girt with strength. 2:5. They that were full before, have hired out themselves for bread: and the hungry are filled, so that the barren hath borne many: and she that had many children is weakened. 2:6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to hell, and bringeth back again. 2:7. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth: 2:8. He raiseth up the needy from the dust, and lifteth up the poor from the dunghill: that he may sit with princes, and hold the throne of glory. For the poles of the earth are the Lord's, and upon them he hath set the world. 2:9. He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; because no man shall prevail by his own strength. 2:10. The adversaries of the Lord shall fear him: and upon them shall he thunder in the heavens: The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he shall give empire to his king, and shall exalt the horn of his Christ. 2:11. And Elcana went to Ramatha, to his house: but the child ministered in the sight of the Lord before the face of Heli the priest. 2:12. Now the sons of Heli were children of Belial, not knowing the Lord, 2:13. Nor the office of the priests to the people: but whosoever had offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest came, while the flesh was in boiling, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand, 2:14. And thrust it into the kettle, or into the cauldron, or into the pot, or into the pan: and all that the fleshhook brought up, the priest took to himself. Thus did they to all Israel that came to Silo. 2:15. Also before they burnt the fat, the servant of the priest came, and said to the man that sacrificed: Give me flesh to boil for the priest: for I will not take of thee sodden flesh, but raw. 2:16. And he that sacrificed said to him: Let the fat first be burnt to day, according to the custom, and then take to thee as much as thy soul desireth. But he answered, and said to him: Not so: but thou shalt give it me now, or else I will take it by force. 2:17. Wherefore the sin of the young men was exceeding great before the Lord: because they withdrew men from the sacrifice of the Lord. 2:18. But Samuel ministered before the face of the Lord: being a child girded with a linen ephod. 2:19. And his mother made him a little coat, which she brought to him on the appointed days, when she went up with her husband, to offer the solemn sacrifice. 2:20. And Heli blessed Elcana and his wife: and he said to him: The Lord give thee seed of this woman, for the loan thou hast lent to the Lord. And they went to their own home. 2:21. And the Lord visited Anna, and she conceived, and bore three sons, and two daughters: and the child Samuel became great before the Lord. 2:22. Now Heli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel: and how they lay with the women that waited at the door of the tabernacle: 2:23. And he said to them: Why do ye these kinds of things, which I hear, very wicked things, from all the people? 2:24. Do not so, my sons: for it is no good report that I hear, that you make the people of the Lord to transgress. 2:25. If one man shall sin against another, God may be appeased in his behalf: but if a man shall sin against the Lord, who shall pray for him? And they hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them. Who shall pray for him. . .By this word Heli would have his sons understand, that by their wicked abuse of sacred things, and of the very sacrifices which were appointed to appease the Lord, they deprived themselves of the ordinary means of reconciliation with God; which was by sacrifices. The more, because they were the chief priests whose business it was to intercede for all others, they had no other to offer sacrifices and to make atonement for them. Ibid. Because the Lord would slay them. . .In consequence of their manifold sacrileges, he would not soften their hearts with his efficacious grace, but was determined to destroy them. 2:26. But the child Samuel advanced, and grew on, and pleased both the Lord and men. 2:27. And there came a man of God to Heli, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Did I not plainly appear to thy father's house, when they were in Egypt in the house of Pharao? 2:28. And I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, and burn incense to me, and to wear the ephod before me: and I gave to thy father's house of all the sacrifices of the children of Israel. 2:29. Why have you kicked away my victims, and my gifts which I commanded to be offered in the temple: and thou hast rather honoured thy sons than me, to eat the firstfruits of every sacrifice of my people Israel? 2:30. Wherefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should minister in my sight, for ever. But now saith the Lord: Far be this from me: but whosoever shall glorify me, him will I glorify: but they that despise me, shall be despised. 2:31. Behold the days come: and I will cut off thy arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house. 2:32. And thou shalt see thy rival in the temple, in all the prosperity of Israel, and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever. Thy rival. . .A priest of another race. This was partly fulfilled, when Abiathar, of the race of Heli, was removed from the priesthood, and Sadoc, who was of another line, was substituted in his place. But it was more fully accomplished in the New Testament, when the priesthood of Aaron gave place to that of Christ. 2:33. However, I will not altogether take away a man of thee from my altar: but that thy eyes may faint, and thy soul be spent: and a great part of thy house shall die, when they come to man's estate. 2:34. And this shall be a sign to thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, Ophni and Phinees: in one day they shall both of them die. 2:35. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, who shall do according to my heart, and my soul and I will build him a faithful house, and he shall walk all days before my anointed. 2:36. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall remain in thy house shall come that he may be prayed for, and shall offer a piece of silver, and a roll of bread, and shall say: Put me, I beseech thee, to somewhat of the priestly office, that I may eat a morsel of bread. 1 Kings Chapter 3 Samuel is four times called by the Lord: who revealeth to him the evil that shall fall on Heli, and his house. 3:1. Now the child Samuel ministered to the Lord before Heli, and the word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no manifest vision. Precious. . .That is, rare. 3:2. And it came to pass one day when Heli lay in his place, and his eyes were grown dim, that he could not see: 3:3. Before the lamp of God went out, Samuel slept in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 3:4. And the Lord called Samuel. And he answered: Here am I. 3:5. And he ran to Heli, and said: Here am I: for thou didst call me. He said: I did not call: go back and sleep. And he went and slept. 3:6. And the Lord called Samuel again. And Samuel arose and went to Heli, and said: Here am I: for thou calledst me. He answered: I did not call thee, my son: return and sleep. 3:7. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither had the word of the Lord been revealed to him. 3:8. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose up and went to Heli, 3:9. And said: Here am I: for thou didst call me. Then Heli understood that the Lord called the child, and he said to Samuel: Go, and sleep: and if he shall call thee any more, thou shalt say: Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went, and slept in his place. 3:10. And the Lord came, and stood, and he called, as he had called the other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said: Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. 3:11. And the Lord said to Samuel: Behold I do a thing in Israel: and whosoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle. 3:12. In that day I will raise up against Heli all the things I have spoken concerning his house: I will begin, and I will make an end. 3:13. For I have foretold unto him, that I will judge his house for ever, for iniquity, because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them. 3:14. Therefore have I sworn to the house of Heli, that the iniquity of his house shall not be expiated with victims nor offerings for ever. 3:15. And Samuel slept till morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to tell the vision to Heli. 3:16. Then Heli called Samuel, and said: Samuel, my son. And he answered: Here am I. 3:17. And he asked him: What is the word that the Lord hath spoken to thee? I beseech thee hide it not from me. May God do so and so to thee, and add so and so, if thou hide from me one word of all that were said to thee. 3:18. So Samuel told him all the words, and did not hide them from him. And he answered: It is the Lord: let him do what is good in his sight. 3:19. And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and not one of his words fell to the ground. 3:20. And all Israel, from Dan to Bersabee, knew that Samuel was a faithful prophet of the Lord. 3:21. And the Lord again appeared in Silo, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Silo, according to the word of the Lord. And the word of Samuel came to pass to all Israel. 1 Kings Chapter 4 The Israelites being overcome by the Philistines, send for the ark of God: but they are beaten again, the sons of Heli are killed, and the ark taken: upon the hearing of the news Heli falleth backward and dieth. 4:1. And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight: and Israel went out to war against the Philistines, and camped by the Stone of help. And the Philistines came to Aphec, The Stone of help. . .In Hebrew Eben-ezer; so called from the help which the Lord was pleased afterwards to give to his people Israel in that place, by the prayers of Samuel, chap. 7.12. 4:2. And put their army in array against Israel. And when they had joined battle, Israel turned their backs to the Philistines: and there were slain in that fight, here and there in the fields, about four thousand men. 4:3. And the people returned to the camp: and the ancients of Israel said: Why hath the Lord defeated us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch unto us the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Silo, and let it come in the midst of us, that it may save us from the hand of our enemies. 4:4. So the people sent to Silo, and they brought from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, sitting upon the cherubims: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were with the ark of the covenant of God. 4:5. And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was come into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, and the earth rang again. 4:6. And the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, and they said: What is this noise of a great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp. 4:7. And the Philistines were afraid, saying: God is come into the camp. And sighing, they said: 4:8. Woe to us: for there was no such great joy yesterday, and the day before: Woe to us. Who shall deliver us from the hand of these high Gods? these are the Gods that struck Egypt with all the plagues in the desert. 4:9. Take courage, and behave like men, ye Philistines: lest you come to be servants to the Hebrews, as they have served you: take courage and fight. 4:10. So the Philistines fought, and Israel was overthrown, and every man fled to his own dwelling: and there was an exceeding great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. 4:11. And the ark of God was taken: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were slain. 4:12. And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Silo the same day, with his clothes rent, and his head strewed with dust. 4:13. And when he was come, Heli sat upon a stool over against the way, watching. For his heart was fearful for the ark of God. And when the man was come into the city, he told it: and all the city cried out. 4:14. And Heli heard the noise of the cry, and he said: What meaneth the noise of this uproar? But he made haste, and came, and told Heli. 4:15. Now Heli was ninety and eight years old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see. 4:16. And he said to Heli: I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day. And he said to him: What is there done, my son? 4:17. And he that brought the news answered, and said: Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter of the people: moreover thy two sons, Ophni and Phinees, are dead: and the ark of God is taken. 4:18. And when he had named the ark of God, he fell from his stool backwards by the door, and broke his neck and died. For he was an old man, and far advanced in years: And he judged Israel forty years. Named the ark, etc. . .There is great reason, by all these circumstances, to hope that Heli died in a state of grace; and by his temporal punishments escaped the eternal. 4:19. And his daughter in law, the wife of Phinees, was big with child, and near her time: and hearing the news that the ark of God was taken, and her father in law, and her husband, were dead, she bowed herself and fell in labour: for her pains came upon her on a sudden. 4:20. And when she was upon the point of death, they that stood about her said to her: Fear not, for thou hast borne a son. She answered them not, nor gave heed to them. 4:21. And she called the child Ichabod, saying: The glory is gone from Israel, because the ark of God was taken, and for her father in law, and for her husband: Ichabod. . .That is, Where is the glory? or, there is no glory. We see how much the Israelites lamented the loss of the ark, which was but the symbol of God's presence among them. How much more ought Christians to lament the loss of God himself, when by sin they have driven him out of their souls. 4:22. And she said: The glory is departed from Israel, because the ark of God was taken. 1 Kings Chapter 5 Dagon twice falleth down before the ark. The Philistines are grievously afflicted, wherever the ark cometh. 5:1. And the Philistines took the ark of God, and carried it from the Stone of help into Azotus. 5:2. And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the temple of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 5:3. And when the Azotians arose early the next day, behold Dagon lay upon his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord: and they took Dagon, and set him again in his place. 5:4. And the next day again, when they rose in the morning, they found Dagon lying upon his face on the earth before the ark of the Lord: and the head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands, were cut off upon the threshold: 5:5. And only the stump of Dagon remained in its place. For this cause neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that go into the temple, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Azotus unto this day. 5:6. And the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the Azotians, and he destroyed them, and afflicted Azotus and the coasts thereof with emerods. And in the villages and fields in the midst of that country, there came forth a multitude of mice, and there was the confusion of a great mortality in the city. 5:7. And the men of Azotus seeing this kind of plague, said: The ark of the God of Israel shall not stay with us: for his hand is heavy upon us, and upon Dagon, our god. 5:8. And sending, they gathered together all the lords of the Philistines to them, and said: What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And the Gethites answered: Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about. 5:9. And while they were carrying it about, the hand of the Lord came upon every city with an exceeding great slaughter: and he smote the men of every city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. And the Gethites consulted together, and made themselves seats of skins. 5:10. Therefore they sent the ark of God into Accaron. And when the ark of God was come into Accaron, the Accaronites cried out, saying: They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people. 5:11. They sent therefore, and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines: and they said: Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return into its own place, and not kill us and our people. 5:12. For there was the fear of death in every city, and the hand of God was exceeding heavy. The men also that did not die, were afflicted with the emerods: and the cry of every city went up to heaven. 1 Kings Chapter 6 The ark is sent back to Bethsames: where many are slain for looking through curiosity into it. 6:1. Now the ark of God was in the land of the Philistines seven months. 6:2. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying: What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? tell us how we are to send it back to its place. And they said: 6:3. If you send back the ark of the God of Israel, send it not away empty, but render unto him what you owe for sin, and then you shall be healed: and you shall know why his hand departeth not from you. 6:4. They answered: What is it we ought to render unto him for sin? and they answered: 6:5. According to the number of the provinces of the Philistines you shall make five golden emerods, and five golden mice: for the same plague hath been upon you all, and upon your lords. And you shall make the likeness of your emerods, and the likeness of the mice, that have destroyed the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel: to see if he will take off his hand from you, and from your gods, and from your land. 6:6. Why do you harden your hearts, as Egypt and Pharao hardened their hearts? did not he, after he was struck, then let them go, and they departed? 6:7. Now, therefore, take and make a new cart: and two kine that have calved, on which there hath come no yoke, tie to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 6:8. And you shall take the ark of the Lord, and lay it on the cart, and the vessels of gold, which you have paid him for sin, you shall put into a little box at the side thereof: and send it away, that it may go. 6:9. And you shall look: and if it go up by the way of his own coasts, towards Bethsames, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, we shall know that it is not his hand hath touched us, but it hath happened by chance. 6:10. They did therefore in this manner: and taking two kine, that had sucking calves, they yoked them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 6:11. And they laid the ark of God upon the cart, and the little box that had in it the golden mice, and the likeness of the emerods. 6:12. And the kine took the straight way, that leadeth to Bethsames, and they went along the way, lowing as they went: and turned not aside neither to the right hand nor to the left: and the lords of the Philistines followed them as far as the borders of Bethsames. 6:13. Now the Bethsamites were reaping wheat in the valley: and lifting up their eyes, they saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. 6:14. And the cart came into the field of Josue, a Bethsamite, and stood there. And there was a great stone, and they cut in pieces the wood of the cart, and laid the kine upon it a holocaust to the Lord. 6:15. And the Levites took down the ark of God, and the little box that was at the side of it, wherein were the vessels of gold, and they put them upon the great stone. The men also of Bethsames offered holocausts, and sacrificed victims that day to the Lord. 6:16. And the five princes of the Philistines saw, and they returned to Accaron the same day. 6:17. And these are the golden emerods, which the Philistines returned for sin to the Lord: For Azotus one, for Gaza one, for Ascalon one, for Geth one, for Accaron one: 6:18. And the golden mice, according to the number of the cities of the Philistines, of the five provinces, from the fenced city to the village that was without wall, and to the great Abel (the stone) whereon they set down the ark of the Lord, which was till that day in the field of Josue the Bethsamite. 6:19. But he slew of the men of Bethsames, because they had seen the ark of the Lord, and he slew of the people seventy men, and fifty thousand of the common people. And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten the people with a great slaughter. Seen. . .And curiously looked into. It is likely this plague reached to all the neighbouring country, as well as the city of Bethsames. 6:20. And the men of Bethsames said: Who shall be able to stand before the Lord this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 6:21. And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Cariathiarim, saying: The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord, come ye down and fetch it up to you. 1 Kings Chapter 7 The ark is brought to Cariathiarim. By Samuel's exhortation the people cast away their idols and serve God alone. The Lord defeateth the Philistines, while Samuel offereth sacrifice. 7:1. And the men of Cariathiarim came, and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and carried it into the house of Abinadab, in Gabaa: and they sanctified Eleazar, his son, to keep the ark of the Lord. In Gabaa. . .That is, on the hill, for Gabaa signifieth a hill. 7:2. And it came to pass, that from the day the ark of the Lord abode in Cariathiarim, days were multiplied (for it was now the twentieth year) and all the house of Israel rested, following the Lord. 7:3. And Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying: If you turn to the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods from among you, Baalim and Astaroth: and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. 7:4. Then the children of Israel put away Baalim and Astaroth, and served the Lord only. 7:5. And Samuel said: Gather all Israel to Masphath, that I may pray to the Lord for you. 7:6. And they gathered together to Masphath, and they drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and they fasted on that day, and they said there: We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Masphath. 7:7. And the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Masphath, and the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard this, they were afraid of the Philistines. 7:8. And they said to Samuel: Cease not to cry to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us out of the hand of the Philistines. 7:9. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it whole for a holocaust to the Lord: and Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him. 7:10. And it came to pass, when Samuel was offering the holocaust, the Philistines began the battle against Israel: but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and terrified them, and they were overthrown before the face of Israel. 7:11. And the men of Israel going out of Masphath, pursued after the Philistines, and made slaughter of them till they came under Bethchar. 7:12. And Samuel took a stone, and laid it between Masphath and Sen: and he called the place The stone of help. And he said: Thus far the Lord hath helped us. 7:13. And the Philistines were humbled, and they did not come any more into the borders of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines, all the days of Samuel. 7:14. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel, were restored to Israel, from Accaron to Geth, and their borders: and he delivered Israel from the hand of the Philistines, and there was peace between Israel and the Amorrhites. 7:15. And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life: 7:16. And he went every year about to Bethel and to Galgal and to Masphath, and he judged Israel in the foresaid places. 7:17. And he returned to Ramatha: for there was his house, and there he judged Israel: he built also there an altar to the Lord. 1 Kings Chapter 8 Samuel growing old, and his sons not walking in his ways, the people desire a king. 8:1. And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel. 8:2. Now the name of his firstborn son was Joel: and the name of the second was Abia, judges in Bersabee. 8:3. And his sons walked not in his ways: but they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. 8:4. Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled came to Samuel to Ramatha. 8:5. And they said to him: Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have. 8:6. And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 8:7. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee. For they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them. Rejected, etc. . .The government of Israel hitherto had been a theocracy, in which God himself immediately ruled, by laws which he had enacted, and by judges extraordinarily raised up by himself; and therefore he complains that his people rejected him, in desiring a change of government. 8:8. According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day: as they have forsaken me, and served strange gods, so do they also unto thee. 8:9. Now, therefore, hearken to their voice: but yet testify to them, and foretell them the right of the king, that shall reign over them. The right. . .That is, the manner (misphat) after which he shall proceed, having no one to control him, when he has the power in his hand. 8:10. Then Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that had desired a king of him, 8:11. And said: This will be the right of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and his running footmen, to run before his chariots, 8:12. And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes, and his centurions, and to plough his fields, and to reap his corn, and to make him arms and chariots. 8:13. Your daughters also he will take to make him ointments, and to be his cooks, and bakers. 8:14. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards, and give them to his servants. 8:15. Moreover he will take the tenth of your corn, and of the revenues of your vineyards, to give to his eunuchs and servants. 8:16. Your servants also, and handmaids, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, he will take away, and put them to his work. 8:17. Your flocks also he will tithe, and you shall be his servants. 8:18. And you shall cry out in that day from the face of the king, whom you have chosen to yourselves: and the Lord will not hear you in that day, because you desired unto yourselves a king. 8:19. But the people would not hear the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay: but there shall be a king over us, 8:20. And we also will be like all nations: and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us. 8:21. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. 8:22. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said to the men of Israel: Let every man go to his city. 1 Kings Chapter 9 Saul seeking his father's asses, cometh to Samuel, by whom he is entertained. 9:1. Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name was Cis, the son of Abiel, the son of Seror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphia, the son of a man of Jemini, valiant and strong. 9:2. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and goodly man, and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he appeared above all the people. 9:3. And the asses of Cis, Saul's father, were lost: and Cis said to his son Saul: Take one of the servants with thee, and arise, go, and seek the asses. And when they had passed through Mount Ephraim, 9:4. And through the land of Salisa, and had not found them, they passed also through the land of Salim, and they were not there: and through the land of Jemini, and found them not. 9:5. And when they were come to the land of Suph, Saul said to the servant that was with him: Come, let us return, lest perhaps my father forget the asses, and be concerned for us. 9:6. And he said to him: Behold there is a man of God in this city, a famous man: all that he saith, cometh certainly to pass. Now, therefore, let us go thither, perhaps he may tell us of our way, for which we are come. 9:7. And Saul said to his servant: Behold we will go: but what shall we carry to the man of God? the bread is spent in our bags: and we have no present to make to the man of God, nor any thing at all. 9:8. The servant answered Saul again, and said: Behold there is found in my hand the fourth part of a sicle of silver, let us give it to the man of God, that he may tell us our way. 9:9. Now in time past in Israel, when a man went to consult God, he spoke thus: Come, let us go to the seer. For he that is now called a prophet, in time past was called a seer. Seer. . .Because of his seeing by divine light hidden things and things to come. 9:10. And Saul said to his servant: Thy word is very good, come let us go. And they went into the city, where the man of God was. 9:11. And when they went up the ascent to the city, they found maids coming out to draw water, and they said to them: Is the seer here? 9:12. They answered and said to them: He is: behold he is before you, make haste now: for he came to day into the city, for there is a sacrifice of the people to day in the high place. A sacrifice. . .The law did not allow of sacrifices in any other place, but at the tabernacle, or temple, in which the ark of the covenant was kept; but Samuel, by divine dispensation, offered sacrifices in other places. For which dispensation this reason may be alleged, that the house of God in Silo, having lost the ark, was now cast off; as a figure of the reprobation of the Jews, Ps. 77.60, 67. And in Cariathiarim where the ark was, there was neither tabernacle, nor altar.--Ibid. The high place. . .Excelsum. The excelsa, or high places, so often mentioned in scripture, were places of worship, in which were altars for sacrifice. These were sometimes employed in the service of the true God, as in the present case: but more frequently in the service of idols; and were called excelsa, which is commonly (though perhaps not so accurately) rendered high places; not because they were always upon hills, for the very worst of all, which was that of Topheth, or Geennom, (Jer. 19.) was in a valley; but because of the high altars, and pillars, or monuments, erected there, on which were set up the idols, or images of their deities. 9:13. As soon as you come into the city, you shall immediately find him, before he go up to the high place to eat: for the people will not eat till he come; because he blesseth the victim, and afterwards they eat that are invited. Now, therefore, go up, for to day you shall find him. 9:14. And they went up into the city. And when they were walking in the midst of the city, behold Samuel was coming out over against them, to go up to the high place. 9:15. Now the Lord had revealed to the ear of Samuel the day before Saul came, saying: 9:16. To morrow about this same hour I will send thee a man of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel: and he shall save my people out of the hand of the Philistines: for I have looked down upon my people, because their cry is come to me. 9:17. And when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him: Behold the man, of whom I spoke to thee, this man shall reign over my people. 9:18. And Saul came to Samuel in the midst of the gate, and said: Tell me, I pray thee, where is the house of the seer? 9:19. And Samuel answered Saul, saying: I am the seer; go up before me to the high place, that you may eat with me to day, and I will let thee go in the morning: and tell thee all that is in thy heart. 9:20. And as for the asses, which were lost three days ago, be not solicitous, because they are found. And for whom shall be all the best things of Israel? Shall they not be for thee and for all thy father's house? 9:21. And Saul answering, said: Am not I a son of Jemini of the least tribe of Israel, and my kindred the last among all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then hast thou spoken this word to me? 9:22. Then Samuel taking Saul, and his servant, brought them into the parlour, and gave them a place at the head of them that were invited. For there were about thirty men. 9:23. And Samuel said to the cook: Bring the portion which I gave thee, and commanded thee to set it apart by thee. 9:24. And the cook took up the shoulder, and set it before Saul. And Samuel said: Behold what is left, set it before thee, and eat; because it was kept of purpose for thee, when I invited the people. And Saul ate with Samuel that day. 9:25. And they went down from the high place into the town, and he spoke with Saul upon the top of the house: and he prepared a bed for Saul on the top of the house and he slept. 9:26. And when they were risen in the morning, and it began now to be light, Samuel called Saul on the top of the house, saying: Arise, that I may let thee go. And Saul arose: and they went out both of them: to wit, he and Samuel. 9:27. And as they were going down in the end of the city, Samuel said to Saul: Speak to the servant to go before us, and pass on: but stand thou still a while, that I may tell thee the word of the Lord. 1 Kings Chapter 10 Saul is anointed. He prophesieth, and is changed into another man. Samuel calleth the people together, to make a king: the lot falleth on Saul. 10:1. And Samuel took a little vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said: Behold, the Lord hath anointed thee to be prince over his inheritance, and thou shalt deliver his people out of the hands of their enemies, that are round about them. And this shall be a sign unto thee, that God hath anointed thee to be prince. 10:2. When thou shalt depart from me this day, thou shalt find two men by the sepulchre of Rachel in the borders of Benjamin to the south, and they shall say to thee: The asses are found which thou wentest to seek: and thy father, thinking no more of the asses, is concerned for you, and saith: What shall I do for my son? 10:3. And when thou shalt depart from thence, and go farther on, and shalt come to the oak of Thabor, there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Bethel, one carrying three kids, and another three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine. Bethel. . .Where there was at that time an altar of God; it being one of the places where Samuel judged Israel. 10:4. And they will salute thee, and will give thee two loaves, and thou shalt take them at their hand. 10:5. After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where the garrison of the Philistines is: and when thou shalt be come there into the city, thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place, with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp before them, and they shall be prophesying. The hill of God. . .Gabaa, in which there was also at that time, a high place or altar.--Prophets. . .These were men whose office it was to sing hymns and praises to God; for such in holy writ are called prophets, and their singing praises to God is called prophesying. See 1 Par. alias 1 Chr. 15.22, and 25.1. Now there were in those days colleges, or schools for training up these prophets; and it seems there was one of these schools at this hill of God; and another at Najoth in Ramatha. See 1 Kings 19.20, 21, etc. 10:6. And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be changed into another man. 10:7. When therefore these signs shall happen to thee, do whatsoever thy hand shall find, for the Lord is with thee. 10:8. And thou shalt go down before me to Galgal, (for I will come down to thee), that thou mayst offer an oblation, and sacrifice victims of peace: seven days shalt thou wait, till I come to thee, and I will shew thee what thou art to do. Galgal. . .Here also by dispensation was an altar of God. 10:9. So when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave unto him another heart, and all these things came to pass that day. 10:10. And they came to the foresaid hill, and behold a company of prophets met him: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he prophesied in the midst of them. 10:11. And all that had known him yesterday and the day before, seeing that he was with the prophets, and prophesied, said to each other: What is this that hath happened to the son of Cis? is Saul also among the prophets? 10:12. And one answered another, saying: And who is their father? therefore it became a proverb: Is Saul also among the prophets? Their father. . .That is, their teacher, or superior. As much as to say, Who could bring about such a wonderful change as to make Saul a prophet? 10:13. And when he had made an end of prophesying, he came to the high place. 10:14. And Saul's uncle said to him, and to his servant: Whither went you? They answered: To seek the asses: and not finding them, we went to Samuel. 10:15. And his uncle said to him: Tell me what Samuel said to thee. 10:16. And Saul said to his uncle: He told us that the asses were found. But of the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken to him, he told him not. 10:17. And Samuel called together the people to the Lord in Maspha: 10:18. And he said to the children of Israel: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all the kings who afflicted you. 10:19. But you this day have rejected your God, who only hath saved you out of all your evils and your tribulations: and you have said: Nay: but set a king over us. Now therefore stand before the Lord by your tribes, and by your families. 10:20. And Samuel brought to him all the tribes of Israel, and the lot fell on the tribe of Benjamin. 10:21. And he brought the tribe of Benjamin and the kindreds thereof, and the lot fell upon the kindred of Metri, and it came to Saul, the son of Cis. They sought him therefore, and he was not found. 10:22. And after this they consulted the Lord whether he would come thither. And the Lord answered: Behold he is hidden at home. 10:23. And they ran and fetched him thence: and he stood in the midst of the people, and he was higher than any of the people from the shoulders and upward. 10:24. And Samuel said to all the people: Surely you see him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people. And all the people cried and said: God save the king. 10:25. And Samuel told the people the law of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord: and Samuel sent away all the people, every one to his own house. 10:26. Saul also departed to his own house in Gabaa: and there went with him a part of the army, whose hearts God had touched. 10:27. But the children of Belial said: Shall this fellow be able to save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents; but he dissembled as though he heard not. 1 Kings Chapter 11 Saul defeateth the Ammonites, and delivereth Jabes Galaad. 11:1. And it came to pass about a month after this, that Naas, the Ammonite, came up, and began to fight against Jabes Galaad. And all the men of Jabes said to Naas: Make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee. 11:2. And Naas, the Ammonite, answered them: On this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may pluck out all your right eyes, and make you a reproach in all Israel. 11:3. And the ancients of Jabes said to him: Allow us seven days, that we may send messengers to all the coasts of Israel: and if there be no one to defend us, we will come out to thee. 11:4. The messengers therefore came to Gabaa of Saul: and they spoke these words in the hearing of the people: and all the people lifted up their voices, and wept. 11:5. And behold Saul came, following oxen out of the field, and he said: What aileth the people that they weep? And they told him the words of the men of Jabes. 11:6. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, when he had heard these words, and his anger was exceedingly kindled. 11:7. And taking both the oxen, he cut them in pieces, and sent them into all the coasts of Israel, by messengers, saying: Whosoever shall not come forth, and follow Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and they went out as one man. 11:8. And he numbered them in Bezec: and there were of the children of Israel three hundred thousand: and of the men of Juda thirty thousand. 11:9. And they said to the messengers that came: Thus shall you say to the men of Jabes Galaad: To morrow, when the sun shall be hot, you shall have relief. The messengers therefore came, and told the men of Jabes, and they were glad. 11:10. And they said: In the morning we will come out to you: and you shall do what you please with us. 11:11. And it came to pass, when the morrow was come, that Saul put the people in three companies: and he came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and he slew the Ammonites until the day grew hot, and the rest were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. 11:12. And the people said to Samuel: Who is he that said: Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men, and we will kill them. 11:13. And Saul said: No man shall be killed this day: because the Lord this day hath wrought salvation in Israel: 11:14. And Samuel said to the people: Come, and let us go to Galgal, and let us renew the kingdom there. 11:15. And all the people went to Galgal, and there they made Saul king, before the Lord in Galgal, and they sacrificed there victims of peace before the Lord. And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced exceedingly. 1 Kings Chapter 12 Samuel's integrity is acknowledged. God sheweth by a sign from heaven that they had done ill in asking for a king. 12:1. And Samuel said to all Israel: Behold I have hearkened to your voice in all that you said to me, and have made a king over you. 12:2. And now the king goeth before you: but I am old and greyheaded: and my sons are with you: having then conversed with you from my youth until this day, behold here I am. 12:3. Speak of me before the Lord, and before his anointed, whether I have taken any man's ox, or ass: if I have wronged any man, if I have oppressed any man, if I have taken a bribe at any man's hand: and I will despise it this day, and will restore it to you. 12:4. And they said: Thou hast not wronged us, nor oppressed us, nor taken ought at any man's hand. 12:5. And he said to them: The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found any thing in my hand. And they said: He is witness. 12:6. And Samuel said to the people: It is the Lord who made Moses and Aaron, and brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt. 12:7. Now, therefore, stand up, that I may plead in judgment against you before the Lord, concerning all the kindness of the Lord, which he hath shewn to you, and to your fathers: 12:8. How Jacob went into Egypt, and your fathers cried to the Lord: and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, and brought your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place. 12:9. And they forgot the Lord their God, and he delivered them into the hands of Sisara, captain of the army of Hasor, and into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. 12:10. But afterwards they cried to the Lord, and said: We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Astaroth: but now deliver us from the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee. 12:11. And the Lord sent Jerobaal, and Badan, and Jephte, and Samuel, and delivered you from the hand of your enemies round about, and you dwelt securely. Jerobaal and Badan. . .That is, Gedeon and Samson called here Badan or Bedan, because he was of Dan. 12:12. But seeing that Naas, king of the children of Ammon, was come against you, you said to me: Nay, but a king shall reign over us: whereas the Lord your God was your king. 12:13. Now, therefore, your king is here, whom you have chosen and desired: Behold the Lord hath given you a king. 12:14. If you will fear the Lord, and serve him, and hearken to his voice, and not provoke the mouth of the Lord: then shall both you, and the king who reigneth over you, be followers of the Lord your God. 12:15. But if you will not hearken to the voice of the Lord, but will rebel against his words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you, and upon your fathers. 12:16. Now then stand, and see this great thing which the Lord will do in your sight. 12:17. Is it not wheat harvest to day? I will call upon the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain: and you shall know, and see that you yourselves have done a great evil in the sight of the Lord, in desiring a king over you. Wheat harvest. . .At which time of the year, it never thunders or rains in those countries. 12:18. And Samuel cried unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. 12:19. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel: Pray for thy servants to the Lord thy God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king. 12:20. And Samuel said to the people: Fear not, you have done all this evil: but yet depart not from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 12:21. And turn not aside after vain things, which shall never profit you, nor deliver you, because they are vain. 12:22. And the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because the Lord hath sworn to make you his people. 12:23. And far from me be this sin against the Lord, that I should cease to pray for you: and I will teach you the good and right way. 12:24. Therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in truth, and with your whole heart, for you have seen the great works which he hath done among you. 12:25. But if you will still do wickedly: both you and your king shall perish together. 1 Kings Chapter 13 The war between Saul and the Philistines. The distress of the Israelites. Saul offereth sacrifice before the coming of Samuel: for which he is reproved. 13:1. Saul was a child of one year when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel. Of one year. . .That is, he was good and like an innocent child, and for two years continued in that innocency. 13:2. And Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel: and two thousand were with Saul in Machmas, and in mount Bethel: and a thousand with Jonathan in Gabaa of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent back every man to their dwellings. 13:3. And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines which was in Gabaa. And when the Philistines had heard of it, Saul sounded the trumpet over all the land, saying: Let the Hebrews hear. 13:4. And all Israel heard this report: Saul hath smitten the garrison of the Philistines: and Israel took courage against the Philistines. And the people were called together after Saul to Galgal. 13:5. The Philistines also were assembled to fight against Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and a multitude of people besides, like the sand on the seashore for number. And going up they camped in Machmas, at the east of Bethaven. 13:6. And when the men of Israel saw that they were straitened (for the people were distressed), they hid themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in dens, and in pits. 13:7. And some of the Hebrews passed over the Jordan into the land of Gad and Galaad. And when Saul was yet in Galgal, all the people that followed him were greatly afraid. 13:8. And he waited seven days, according to the appointment of Samuel, and Samuel came not to Galgal, and the people slipt away from him. 13:9. Then Saul said: Bring me the holocaust, and the peace offerings. And he offered the holocaust. 13:10. And when he had made an end of offering the holocaust, behold Samuel came: and Saul went forth to meet him and salute him. 13:11. And Samuel said to him: What hast thou done? Saul answered: Because I saw that the people slipt from me, and thou wast not come according to the days appointed, and the Philistines were gathered together in Machmas, 13:12. I said: Now will the Philistines come down upon me to Galgal, and I have not appeased the face of the Lord. Forced by necessity, I offered the holocaust. 13:13. And Samuel said to Saul: Thou hast done foolishly, and hast not kept the commandments of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee. And if thou hadst not done thus, the Lord would now have established thy kingdom over Israel for ever: 13:14. But thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him a man according to his own heart: and him hath the Lord commanded to be prince over his people, because thou hast not observed that which the Lord commanded. 13:15. And Samuel arose and went up from Galgal to Gabaa of Benjamin. And the rest of the people went up after Saul, to meet the people who fought against them, going from Galgal to Gabaa, in the hill of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people, that were found with him, about six hundred men. 13:16. And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, were in Gabaa of Benjamin: But the Philistines encamped in Machmas. 13:17. And there went out of the camp of the Philistines three companies to plunder. One company went towards the way of Ephra to the land of Sual; 13:18. And another went by the way of Bethoron, and the third turned to the way of the border, above the valley of Seboim towards the desert. 13:19. Now there was no smith to be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had taken this precaution, lest the Hebrews should make them swords or spears. 13:20. So all Israel went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his ploughshare, and his spade, and his axe, and his rake. 13:21. So that their shares, and their spades, and their forks, and their axes, were blunt, even to the goad, which was to be mended. 13:22. And when the day of battle was come, there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan, except Saul and Jonathan his son. 13:23. And the army of the Philistines went out in order to advance further in Machmas. 1 Kings Chapter 14 Jonathan attacketh the Philistines. A miraculous victory. Saul's unadvised oath, by which Jonathan is put in danger of his life, but is delivered by the people. 14:1. Now it came to pass one day that Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man that bore his armour: Come, and let us go over to the garrison of the Philistines, which is on the other side of yonder place. But he told not this to his father. 14:2. And Saul abode in the uttermost part of Gabaa, under the pomegranate tree, which was in Magron: and the people with him were about six hundred men. 14:3. And Achias, the son of Achitob, brother of Ichabod the son of Phinees, the son of Heli, the priest of the Lord in Silo, wore the ephod. And the people knew not whither Jonathan was gone. 14:4. Now there were between the ascents, by which Jonathan sought to go over to the garrison of the Philistines, rocks standing up on both sides, and steep cliffs like teeth on the one side, and on the other, the name of the one was Boses, and the name of the other was Sene: 14:5. One rock stood out toward the north, over against Machmas, and the other to the south, over against Gabaa. 14:6. And Jonathan said to the young man that bore his armour: Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised, it may be the Lord will do for us: because it is easy for the Lord to save either by many, or by few. 14:7. And his armourbearer said to him: Do all that pleaseth thy mind: go whither thou wilt, and I will be with thee wheresoever thou hast a mind. 14:8. And Jonathan said: Behold we will go over to these men. And when we shall be seen by them, 14:9. If they shall speak thus to us: Stay till we come to you: let us stand still in our place, and not go up to them. 14:10. But if they shall say: Come up to us: let us go up, because the Lord hath delivered them into our hands, this shall be a sign unto us. This shall be a sign. . .It is likely Jonathan was instructed by divine inspiration to make a choice of this sign: otherwise the observation of omens is superstitious and sinful. 14:11. So both of them discovered themselves to the garrison of the Philistines: and the Philistines said: Behold the Hebrews come forth out of the holes wherein they were hid. 14:12. And the men of the garrison spoke to Jonathan, and to his armourbearer, and said: Come up to us, and we will shew you a thing. And Jonathan said to his armourbearer: Let us go up, follow me: for the Lord hath delivered them into the hands of Israel. 14:13. And Jonathan went up creeping on his hands and feet, and his armourbearer after him. And some fell before Jonathan, others his armourbearer slew as he followed him. 14:14. And the first slaughter which Jonathan and his armourbearer made, was of about twenty men, within half an acre of land, which a yoke of oxen is wont to plough in a day. 14:15. And there was a miracle in the camp, in the fields: and all the people of their garrison, who had gone out to plunder, were amazed, and the earth trembled: and it happened as a miracle from God. 14:16. And the watchmen of Saul, who were in Gabaa of Benjamin looked, and behold a multitude overthrown, and fleeing this way and that. 14:17. And Saul said to the people that were with him: Look, and see who is gone from us. And when they had sought, it was found that Jonathan and his armourbearer were not there. 14:18. And Saul said to Achias: Bring the ark of the Lord. (For the ark of God was there that day with the children of Israel.) 14:19. And while Saul spoke to the priest, there arose a great uproar in the camp of the Philistines: and it increased by degrees, and was heard more clearly. And Saul said to the priest: Draw in thy hand. 14:20. Then Saul, and all the people that were with him, shouted together, and they came to the place of the fight: and behold every man's sword was turned upon his neighbour, and there was a very great slaughter. 14:21. Moreover, the Hebrews that had been with the Philistines yesterday and the day before, and went up with them into the camp, returned to be with the Israelites, who were with Saul and Jonathan. 14:22. And all the Israelites that had hid themselves in mount Ephraim, hearing that the Philistines fled, joined themselves with their countrymen in the fight. And there were with Saul about ten thousand men. 14:23. And the Lord saved Israel that day. And the fight went on as far as Bethaven. 14:24. And the men of Israel were joined together that day: and Saul adjured the people, saying: Cursed be the man that shall eat food till evening, till I be revenged of my enemies. So none of the people tasted any food. 14:25. And all the common people came into a forest, in which there was honey upon the ground. 14:26. And when the people came into the forest, behold the honey dropped, but no man put his hand to his mouth. For the people feared the oath. 14:27. But Jonathan had not heard when his father adjured the people: and he put forth the end of the rod, which he had in his hand, and dipt it in a honeycomb: and he carried his hand to his mouth, and his eyes were enlightened. 14:28. And one of the people answering, said: Thy father hath bound the people with an oath, saying: Cursed be the man that shall eat any food this day. (And the people were faint.) 14:29. And Jonathan said: My father hath troubled the land: you have seen yourselves that my eyes are enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey: 14:30. How much more if the people had eaten of the prey of their enemies, which they found? had there not been made a greater slaughter among the Philistines? 14:31. So they smote that day the Philistines, from Machmas to Aialon. And the people were wearied exceedingly. 14:32. And falling upon the spoils, they took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground: and the people ate them with the blood. 14:33. And they told Saul that the people had sinned against the Lord, eating with the blood. And he said: You have transgressed: roll here to me now a great stone. 14:34. And Saul said: Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them to bring me every man his ox and his ram and slay them upon this stone, and eat, and you shall not sin against the Lord, in eating with the blood. So all the people brought every man his ox with him till the night: and slew them there. 14:35. And Saul built an altar to the Lord: and he then first began to build an altar to the Lord. 14:36. And Saul said: Let us fall upon the Philistines by night, and destroy them till the morning light, and let us not leave a man of them. And the people said: Do all that seemeth good in thy eyes. And the priest said: Let us draw near hither unto God. 14:37. And Saul consulted the Lord: Shall I pursue after the Philistines? wilt thou deliver them into the hands of Israel? And he answered him not that day. 14:38. And Saul said: Bring hither all the corners of the people: and know, and see by whom this sin hath happened to day. 14:39. As the Lord liveth, who is the Saviour of Israel, if it was done by Jonathan, my son, he shall surely die. In this none of the people gainsayed him. 14:40. And he said to all Israel: Be you on one side and I, with Jonathan, my son, will be on the other side. And the people answered Saul: Do what seemeth good in thy eyes. 14:41. And Saul said to the Lord: O Lord God of Israel, give a sign, by which we may know, what the meaning is, that thou answerest not thy servant to day: If this iniquity be in me, or in my son Jonathan, give a proof: or if this iniquity be in thy people, give holiness. And Jonathan and Saul were taken, and the people escaped. 14:42. And Saul said: (Cast lots between me, and Jonathan, my son. And Jonathan was taken. Jonathan was taken. . .Though Jonathan was excused from sin, through ignorance of the prohibition, yet God was pleased on this occasion to let the lot fall upon him, to shew unto all the great obligation of obedience to princes and parents. 14:43. And Saul said to Jonathan: Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said: I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod, which was in my hand, and behold I must die. 14:44. And Saul said: May God do so and so to me, and add still more: for dying thou shalt die, O Jonathan. 14:45. And the people said to Saul: Shall Jonathan then die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? this must not be: As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people delivered Jonathan, that he should not die. 14:46. And Saul went back, and did not pursue after the Philistines: and the Philistines went to their own places. 14:47. And Saul having his kingdom established over Israel, fought against all his enemies round about, against Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and Edom, and the kings of Soba, and the Philistines: and whithersoever he turned himself, he overcame. 14:48. And gathering together an army, he defeated Amalec, and delivered Israel from the hand of them that spoiled them. 14:49. And the sons of Saul, were Jonathan, and Jessui, and Melchisua: and the names of his two daughters, the name of the firstborn was Merob, and the name of the younger Michol. 14:50. And the name of Saul's wife was Achinoam, the daughter of Achimaas; and the name of the captain of his army was Abner, the son of Ner, the cousin german of Saul. 14:51. For Cis was the father of Saul, and Ner, the father of Abner, was son of Abiel. 14:52. And there was a great war against the Philistines all the days of Saul. For whomsoever Saul saw to be a valiant man, and fit for war, he took him to himself. 1 Kings Chapter 15 Saul is sent to destroy Amalec: he spareth their king and the best of their cattle: for which disobedience he is cast off by the Lord. 15:1. And Samuel said to Saul: The Lord sent me to anoint thee king over his people Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the Lord: 15:2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I have reckoned up all that Amalec hath done to Israel: how he opposed them in the way when they came up out of Egypt. 15:3. Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet anything that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. Child. . .The great Master of life and death (who cuts off one half of all mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways. But without such ordinance of God it is not allowable, in any wars, how just soever, to kill children. 15:4. So Saul commanded the people, and numbered them as lambs: two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand of the men of Juda. 15:5. And when Saul was come to the city of Amalec, he laid ambushes in the torrent. 15:6. And Saul said to the Cinite: Go, depart, and get ye down from Amalec: lest I destroy thee with him. For thou hast shewn kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. And the Cinite departed from the midst of Amalec. 15:7. And Saul smote Amalec from Hevila, until thou comest to Sur, which is over against Egypt. 15:8. And he took Agag, the king of Amalec, alive: but all the common people he slew with the edge of the sword. 15:9. And Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the flocks of sheep, and of the herds, and the garments and the rams, and all that was beautiful, and would not destroy them: but every thing that was vile, and good for nothing, that they destroyed. 15:10. And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, 15:11. It repenteth me that I have made Saul king: for he hath forsaken me, and hath not executed my commandments. And Samuel was grieved, and he cried unto the Lord all night. 15:12. And when Samuel rose early, to go to Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel that Saul was come to Carmel, and had erected for himself a triumphant arch, and returning had passed on, and gone down to Galgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul was offering a holocaust to the Lord, out of the choicest of the spoils, which he had brought from Amalec. 15:13. And when Samuel was come to Saul, Saul said to him: Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have fulfilled the word of the Lord. 15:14. And Samuel said: What meaneth then this bleating of the flocks, which soundeth in my ears, and the lowing of the herds, which I hear? 15:15. And Saul said: They have brought them from Amalec: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the herds, that they might be sacrificed to the Lord thy God, but the rest we have slain. 15:16. And Samuel said to Saul: Suffer me, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said to him: Speak. 15:17. And Samuel said: When thou wast a little one in thy own eyes, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee to be king over Israel. 15:18. And the Lord sent thee on the way, and said: Go, and kill the sinners of Amalec, and thou shalt fight against them until thou hast utterly destroyed them. 15:19. Why then didst thou not hearken to the voice of the Lord: but hast turned to the prey, and hast done evil in the eyes of the Lord? 15:20. And Saul said to Samuel: Yea, I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord, and have walked in the way by which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag, the king of Amalec, and Amalec I have slain. 15:21. But the people took of the spoils, sheep and oxen, as the firstfruits of those things that were slain, to offer sacrifice to the Lord their God in Galgal. 15:22. And Samuel said: Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices: and to hearken rather than to offer the fat or rams. 15:23. Because it is like the sin of witchcraft, to rebel: and like the crime of idolatry, to refuse to obey. Forasmuch, therefore, as thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord hath also rejected thee from being king. 15:24. And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned, because I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words, fearing the people, and obeying their voice. 15:25. But now bear, I beseech thee, my sin, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord. 15:26. And Samuel said to Saul: I will not return with thee, because thou hath rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. 15:27. And Samuel turned about to go away: but he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. 15:28. And Samuel said to him: The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to thy neighbour who is better than thee. 15:29. But the triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance: for he is not a man that he should repent. 15:30. Then he said: I have sinned: yet honour me now before the ancients of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord thy God. 15:31. So Samuel turned again after Saul: and Saul adored the Lord. 15:32. And Samuel said: Bring hither to me Agag, the king of Amalec. And Agag was presented to him very fat, and trembling. And Agag said: Doth bitter death separate in this manner? 15:33. And Samuel said: As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed him in pieces before the Lord in Galgal. 15:34. And Samuel departed to Ramatha: but Saul went up to his house in Gabaa. 15:35. And Samuel saw Saul no more till the day of his death: nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, because the Lord repented that he had made him king over Israel. Saw Saul no more till the day of his death. . .That is, he went no more to see him: he visited him no more. 1 Kings Chapter 16 Samuel is sent to Bethlehem, where he anointeth David: who is taken into Saul's family. 16:1. And the Lord said to Samuel: How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, whom I have rejected from reigning over Israel? fill thy horn with oil, and come, that I may send thee to Isai, the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons. 16:2. And Samuel said: How shall I go? for Saul will hear of it, and he will kill me. And the Lord said: Thou shalt take with thee a calf of the herd, and thou shalt say: I am come to sacrifice to the Lord. 16:3. And thou shalt call Isai to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou art to do, and thou shalt anoint him whom I shall shew to thee. 16:4. Then Samuel did as the Lord had said to him. And he came to Bethlehem, and the ancients of the city wondered, and meeting him, they said: Is thy coming hither peaceable? 16:5. And he said: It is peaceable: I am come to offer sacrifice to the Lord, be ye sanctified, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Isai and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice. 16:6. And when they were come in, he saw Eliab, and said: Is the Lord's anointed before him? 16:7. And the Lord said to Samuel: Look not on his countenance, nor on the height of his stature: because I have rejected him, nor do I judge according to the look of man: for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart. 16:8. And Isai called Abinadab, and brought him before Samuel. And he said: Neither hath the Lord chosen this, 16:9. And Isai brought Samma, and he said of him: Neither hath the Lord chosen this. 16:10. Isai therefore brought his seven sons before Samuel: and Samuel said to Isai: The Lord hath not chosen any one of these. 16:11. And Samuel said to Isai: Are here all thy sons? He answered: There remaineth yet a young one, who keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said to Isai: Send, and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. 16:12. He sent therefore and brought him. Now he was ruddy and beautiful to behold, and of a comely face. And the Lord said: Arise, and anoint him, for this is he. 16:13. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward: and Samuel rose up, and went to Ramatha. 16:14. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. From the Lord. . .An evil spirit, by divine permission, and for his punishment, either possessed or obsessed him. 16:15. And the servants of Saul said to him: Behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. 16:16. Let our lord give orders, and thy servants who are before thee, will seek out a man skilful in playing on the harp, that when the evil spirit from the Lord is upon thee, he may play with his hand, and thou mayst bear it more easily. 16:17. And Saul said to his servants: Provide me then some man that can play well, and bring him to me. 16:18. And one of the servants answering, said: Behold I have seen a son of Isai, the Bethlehemite, a skilful player, and one of great strength, and a man fit for war, and prudent in his words, and a comely person: and the Lord is with him. 16:19. Then Saul sent messengers to Isai, saying: Send me David, thy son, who is in the pastures. 16:20. And Isai took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid of the flock, and sent them by the hand of David, his son, to Saul. 16:21. And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him exceedingly, and made him his armourbearer. 16:22. And Saul sent to Isai, saying: Let David stand before me: for he hath found favour in my sight. 16:23. So whensoever the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Saul was refreshed, and was better, for the evil spirit departed from him. Departed from him. . .Chased away by David's devotion. 1 Kings Chapter 17 War with the Philistines. Goliath challengeth Israel. He is slain by David. 17:1. Now the Philistines gathering together their troops to battle, assembled at Socho of Juda: and camped between Socho and Azeca, in the borders of Dommim. 17:2. And Saul and the children of Israel being gathered together, came to the valley of Terebinth, and they set the army in array to fight against the Philistines. 17:3. And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them. 17:4. And there went out a man baseborn from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Geth, whose height was six cubits and a span: 17:5. And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales, and the weight of his coat of mail was five thousand sicles of brass: 17:6. And he had greaves of brass on his legs, and a buckler of brass covered his shoulders. 17:7. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred sicles of iron: and his armourbearer went before him. 17:8. And standing, he cried out to the bands of Israel, and said to them: Why are you come out prepared to fight? am not I a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose out a man of you, and let him come down and fight hand to hand. 17:9. If he be able to fight with me, and kill me, we will be servants to you: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, you shall be servants, and shall serve us. 17:10. And the Philistine said: I have defied the bands of Israel this day: give me a man, and let him fight with me hand to hand. 17:11. And Saul and all the Israelites hearing these words of the Philistine, were dismayed, and greatly afraid. 17:12. Now David was the son of that Ephrathite, of Bethlehem Juda, before mentioned, whose name was Isai, who had eight sons, and was an old man in the days of Saul, and of great age among men. 17:13. And his three eldest sons followed Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons that went to the battle, were Eliab, the firstborn, and the second, Abinadab, and the third Samma: 17:14. But David was the youngest. So the three eldest having followed Saul, 17:15. David went, and returned from Saul, to feed his father's flock at Bethlehem. 17:16. Now the Philistine came out morning and evening, and presented himself forty days. 17:17. And Isai said to David, his son: Take for thy brethren an ephi of frumenty, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp to thy brethren, 17:18. And carry these ten little cheeses to the tribune: and go see thy brethren, if they are well: and learn with whom they are placed. 17:19. But Saul, and they, and all the children of Israel, were in the valley of Terebinth, fighting against the Philistines. 17:20. David, therefore, arose in the morning, and gave the charge of the flock to the keeper: and went away loaded, as Isai had commanded him. And he came to the place of Magala, and to the army, which was going out to fight, and shouted for the battle. 17:21. For Israel had put themselves in array, and the Philistines who stood against them were prepared. 17:22. And David leaving the vessels which he had brought, under the care of the keeper of the baggage, ran to the place of the battle, and asked if all things went well with his brethren. 17:23. And as he talked with them, that baseborn man, whose name was Goliath, the Philistine, of Geth, shewed himself coming up from the camp of the Philistines: and he spoke according to the same words, and David heard them, 17:24. And all the Israelites, when they saw the man, fled from his face, fearing him exceedingly. 17:25. And some one of Israel said: Have you seen this man that is come up, for he is come up to defy Israel. And the man that shall slay him, the king will enrich with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and will make his father's house free from tribute in Israel. 17:26. And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: What shall be given to the man that shall kill this Philistine, and shall take away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? 17:27. And the people answered him the same words, saying: These things shall be given to the man that shall slay him. 17:28. Now when Eliab his eldest brother heard this, when he was speaking with others, he was angry with David, and said: Why camest thou hither? and why didst thou leave those few sheep in the desert? I know thy pride, and the wickedness of thy heart: that thou art come down to see the battle. 17:29. And David said: What have I done? is there not cause to speak? 17:30. And he turned a little aside from him to another: and said the same word. And the people answered him as before. 17:31. And the words which David spoke were heard, and were rehearsed before Saul. 17:32. And when he was brought to Saul, he said to him. Let not any man's heart be dismayed in him: I thy servant will go, and will fight against the Philistine. 17:33. And Saul said to David: Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him: for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth. 17:34. And David said to Saul: Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock: 17:35. And I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled, and killed them. 17:36. For I thy servant have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? 17:37. And David said: The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David: Go, and the Lord be with thee. 17:38. And Saul clothed David with his garments, and put a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. 17:39. And David having girded his sword upon his armour, began to try if he could walk in armour: for he was not accustomed to it. And David said to Saul: I cannot go thus, for I am not used to it. And he laid them off, 17:40. And he took his staff, which he had always in his hands: and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd's scrip, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine. 17:41. And the Philistine came on, and drew nigh against David, and his armourbearer went before him. 17:42. And when the Philistine looked, and beheld David, he despised him. For he was a young man, ruddy, and of a comely countenance. 17:43. And the Philistine said to David: Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 17:44. And he said to David: Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth. 17:45. And David said to the Philistine: Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied 17:46. This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth: that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 17:47. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is his battle, and he will deliver you into our hands. 17:48. And when the Philistine arose, and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. 17:49. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about, struck the Philistine in the forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. 17:50. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And as David had no sword in his hand, 17:51. He ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away. 17:52. And the men of Israel and Juda rising up shouted, and pursued after the Philistines till they came to the valley and to the gates of Accaron, and there fell many wounded of the Philistines in the way of Saraim, and as far as Geth, and as far as Accaron. 17:53. And the children of Israel returning, after they had pursued the Philistines, fell upon their camp. 17:54. And David taking the head of the Philistine, brought it to Jerusalem: but his armour he put in his tent. 17:55. Now at the time that Saul saw David going out against the Philistines, he said to Abner, the captain of the army: Of what family is this young man descended, Abner? And Abner said: As thy soul liveth, O king, I know not. 17:56. And the king said: Inquire thou, whose son this young man is. 17:57. And when David was returned, after the Philistine was slain, Abner took him, and brought him in before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 17:58. And Saul said to him: Young man, of what family art thou? And David said: I am the son of thy servant Isai the Bethlehemite. 1 Kings Chapter 18 The friendship of Jonathan and David. The envy of Saul, and his design upon David's life. He marrieth him to his daughter Michol. 18:1. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking to Saul, the son of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 18:2. And Saul took him that day, and would not let him return to his father's house. 18:3. And David and Jonathan made a covenant, for he loved him as his own soul. 18:4. And Jonathan stripped himself of the coat with which he was clothed, and gave it to David, and the rest of his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. 18:5. And David went out to whatsoever business Saul sent him, and he behaved himself prudently: and Saul set him over the soldiers, and he was acceptable in the eyes of all the people, and especially in the eyes of Saul's servants. 18:6. Now when David returned, after he slew the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with timbrels of joy, and cornets. 18:7. And the women sung as they played, and they said: Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands. 18:8. And Saul was exceeding angry, and this word was displeasing in his eyes, and he said: They have given David ten thousands, and to me they have given but a thousand, what can he have more but the kingdom? 18:9. And Saul did not look on David with a good eye from that day and forward. 18:10. And the day after, the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of his house. And David played with his hand as at other times. And Saul held a spear in his hand, Prophesied. . .Acted the prophet in a mad manner. 18:11. And threw it, thinking to nail David to the wall: and David stept aside out of his presence twice. 18:12. And Saul feared David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul himself. 18:13. Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him a captain over a thousand men, and he went out and came in before the people. 18:14. And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. 18:15. And Saul saw that he was exceeding prudent, and began to beware of him. 18:16. But all Israel and Juda loved David, for he came in and went out before them. 18:17. And Saul said to David: Behold my elder daughter Merob, her will I give thee to wife: only be a valiant man, and fight the battles of the Lord. Now Saul said within himself: Let not my hand be upon him, but let the hands of the Philistines be upon him. 18:18. And David said to Saul: Who am I, or what is my life, or my father's family in Israel, that I should be son in law of the king? 18:19. And it came to pass at the time when Merob, the daughter of Saul, should have been given to David, that she was given to Hadriel, the Molathite, to wife. 18:20. But Michol, the other daughter of Saul, loved David. And it was told Saul, and it pleased him. 18:21. And Saul said: I will give her to him, that she may be a stumblingblock to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be upon him. And Saul said to David: In two things thou shalt be my son in law this day. 18:22. And Saul commanded his servants to speak to David privately, saying: Behold, thou pleasest the king, and all his servants love thee. Now, therefore be the king's son in law. 18:23. And the servants of Saul spoke all these words in the ear of David. And David said: Doth it seem to you a small matter to be the king's son in law? But I am a poor man, and of small ability. 18:24. And the servants of Saul told him, saying: Such words as these hath David spoken. 18:25. And Saul said: Speak thus to David: The king desireth not any dowry, but only a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king's enemies. Now Saul thought to deliver David into the hands of the Philistines. 18:26. And when his servants had told David the words that Saul had said, the word was pleasing in the eyes of David to be the king's son in law. 18:27. And after a few days David rose up, and went with the men that were under him, and he slew of the Philistines two hundred men, and brought their foreskins and numbered them out to the king, that he might be his son in law. Saul therefore gave him Michol, his daughter, to wife. 18:28. And Saul saw, and understood that the Lord was with David. And Michol, the daughter of Saul, loved him. 18:29. And Saul began to fear David more: and Saul became David's enemy continually. 18:30. And the princes of the Philistines went forth: and from the beginning of their going forth, David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul, and his name became very famous. 1 Kings Chapter 19 Other attempts of Saul upon David's life. He cometh to Samuel. Saul's messengers, and Saul himself prophesy. 19:1. And Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, the son of Saul, loved David exceedingly. 19:2. And Jonathan told David, saying: Saul, my father, seeketh to kill thee: wherefore look to thyself, I beseech thee, in the morning and thou shalt abide in a secret place, and shalt be hid. 19:3. And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where thou art: and I will speak of thee to my father, and whatsoever I shall see, I will tell thee. 19:4. And Jonathan spoke good things of David to Saul, his father: and said to him: Sin not, O king, against thy servant, David, because he hath not sinned against thee, and his works are very good towards thee. 19:5. And he put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, and the Lord wrought great salvation for all Israel. Thou sawest it and didst rejoice. Why therefore wilt thou sin against innocent blood, by killing David, who is without fault? 19:6. And when Saul heard this, he was appeased with the words of Jonathan, and swore: As the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain. 19:7. Then Jonathan called David, and told him all these words: and Jonathan brought in David to Saul, and he was before him, as he had been yesterday and the day before. 19:8. And the war began again, and David went out, and fought against the Philistines, and defeated them with a great slaughter, and they fled from his face. 19:9. And the evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul; and he sat in his house, and held a spear in his hand: and David played with his hand. 19:10. And Saul endeavoured to nail David to the wall with his spear. And David slipt away out of the presence of Saul: and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled, and escaped that night. 19:11. Saul therefore sent his guards to David's house to watch him, that he might be killed in the morning. And when Michol, David's wife, had told him this, saying: Unless thou save thyself this night, to morrow thou wilt die: 19:12. She let him down through a window. And he went and fled away, and escaped. 19:13. And Michol took an image, and laid it on the bed, and put a goat's skin, with the hair at the head of it, and covered it with clothes. 19:14. And Saul sent officers to seize David; and it was answered that he was sick. 19:15. And again Saul sent to see David, saying: Bring him to me in the bed, that he may be slain. 19:16. And when the messengers were come in, they found an image upon the bed, and a goat skin at his head. 19:17. And Saul said to Michol: Why hast thou deceived me so, and let my enemy go and flee away? And Michol answered Saul: Because he said to me: Let me go, or else I will kill thee. 19:18. But David fled and escaped, and came to Samuel in Ramatha, and told him all that Saul had done to him: and he and Samuel went and dwelt in Najoth. Najoth. . .It was probably a school or college of prophets, in or near Ramath under the direction of Samuel. 19:19. And it was told Saul by some, saying: Behold David is in Najoth, in Ramatha. 19:20. So Saul sent officers to take David: and when they saw a company of prophets prophesying, and Samuel presiding over them, the Spirit of the Lord came also upon them, and they likewise began to prophesy. Prophesying. . .That is, singing praises to God by a divine impulse. God was pleased on this occasion that both Samuel's messengers and himself should experience the like impulse, that he might understand, by this instance of the divine power, how vain are the designs of man against him whom God protects. 19:21. And when this was told Saul, he sent other messengers: but they also prophesied. And again Saul sent messengers the third time: and they prophesied also. And Saul being exceeding angry, 19:22. Went also himself to Ramatha, and came as far as the great cistern, which is in Socho, and he asked, and said: In what place are Samuel and David? And it was told him: Behold they are in Najoth, in Ramatha. 19:23. And he went to Najoth, in Ramatha, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied till he came to Najoth, in Ramatha. 19:24. And he stripped himself also of his garments, and prophesied with the rest before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and night. This gave occasion to a proverb: What! is Saul too among the prophets? 1 Kings Chapter 20 Saul being obstinately bent upon killing David, he is sent away by Jonathan. 20:1. But David fled from Najoth, which is in Ramatha, and came and said to Jonathan: What have I done? what is my iniquity, and what is my sin against thy father, that he seeketh my life? 20:2. And he said to him: (God forbid, thou shalt not die: for my father will do nothing, great or little, without first telling me: hath then my father hid this word only from me? no, this shall not be. 20:3. And he swore again to David. And David said: Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, and he will say: Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved. But truly as the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, there is but one step (as I may say) between me and death. 20:4. And Jonathan said to David: Whatsoever thy soul shall say to me, I will do for thee. 20:5. And David said to Jonathan: Behold to morrow is the new moon, and I, according to custom, am wont to sit beside the king to eat: let me go then that I may be hid in the field till the evening of the third day. To morrow is the new moon. . .The neomenia, or first day of the moon, kept according to the law, as a festival; and therefore Saul feasted on that day: and expected the attendance of his family. 20:6. If thy father look and inquire for me, thou shalt answer him: David asked me that he might run to Bethlehem, his own city: because there are solemn sacrifices there for all of his tribe. 20:7. If he shall say: It is well: thy servant shall have peace: but if he be angry, know that his malice is come to its height. 20:8. Deal mercifully then with thy servant: for thou hast brought me, thy servant, into a covenant of the Lord with thee. But if there be any iniquity in me, do thou kill me, and bring me not in to thy father. 20:9. And Jonathan said: Far be this from thee: for if I should certainly know that evil is determined by my father against thee, I could do no otherwise than tell thee. 20:10. And David answered Jonathan: Who shall bring me word, if thy father should answer thee harshly concerning me? 20:11. And Jonathan said to David: Come, and let us go out into the field. And when they were both of them gone out into the field, 20:12. Jonathan said to David: O Lord God of Israel, if I shall discover my father's mind, to morrow, or the day after, and there be any thing good for David, and I send not immediately to thee, and make it known to thee, 20:13. May the Lord do so and so to Jonathan, and add still more. But if my father shall continue in malice against thee, I will discover it to thy ear, and will send thee away, that thou mayst go in peace, and the Lord be with thee, as he hath been with my father. 20:14. And if I live, thou shalt shew me the kindness of the Lord: but if I die, 20:15. Thou shalt not take away thy kindness from my house for ever, when the Lord shall have rooted out the enemies of David, every one of them from the earth, may he take away Jonathan from his house, and may the Lord require it at the hands of David's enemies. May he take away Jonathan, etc. . .It is a curse upon himself, if he should not be faithful to his promise.--Ibid. Require it, etc. . .That is, revenge it upon David's enemies, and upon me, if I should fail of my word given to him. 20:16. Jonathan therefore made a covenant with the house of David: and the Lord required it at the hands of David's enemies. 20:17. And Jonathan swore again to David, because he loved him: for he loved him as his own soul. 20:18. And Jonathan said to him: To morrow is the new moon, and thou wilt be missed: 20:19. For thy seat will be empty till after to morrow. So thou shalt go down quickly, and come to the place where thou must he hid, on the day when it is lawful to work, and thou shalt remain beside the stone, which is called Ezel. 20:20. And I will shoot three arrows near it, and will shoot as if I were exercising myself at a mark. 20:21. And I will send a boy, saying to him: Go and fetch me the arrows. 20:22. If I shall say to the boy: Behold the arrows are on this side of thee, take them up: come thou to me, because there is peace to thee, and there is no evil, as the Lord liveth. But if I shall speak thus to the boy: Behold the arrows are beyond thee: go in peace, for the Lord hath sent thee away. 20:23. And concerning the word which I and thou have spoken, the Lord be between thee and me forever. 20:24. So David was hid in the field, and the new moon came, and the king sat down to eat bread. 20:25. And when the king sat down upon his chair, (according to custom) which was beside the wall, Jonathan arose, and Abner sat by Saul's side, and David's place appeared empty. 20:26. And Saul said nothing that day, for he thought it might have happened to him, that he was not clean, nor purified. 20:27. And when the second day after the new moon was come, David's place appeared empty again. And Saul said to Jonathan, his son: Why cometh not the son of Isai to meat neither yesterday, nor to day? 20:28. And Jonathan answered Saul: He asked leave of me earnestly to go to Bethlehem. 20:29. And he said: Let me go, for there is a solemn sacrifice in the city, one of my brethren hath sent for me: and now if I have found favour in thy eyes, I will go quickly, and see my brethren. For this cause he came not to the king's table. 20:30. Then Saul being angry against Jonathan, said to him: Thou son of a woman that is the ravisher of a man, do I not know that thou lovest the son of Isai to thy own confusion, and to the confusion of thy shameless mother? 20:31. For as long as the son of Isai liveth upon earth, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Therefore now presently send, and fetch him to me: for he is the son of death. The son of death. . .That is, one that deserveth death, and shall surely be put to death. 20:32. And Jonathan answering Saul, his father, said: Why shall he die? What hath he done? 20:33. And Saul caught up a spear to strike him. And Jonathan understood that it was determined by his father to kill David. 20:34. So Jonathan rose from the table in great anger, and did not eat bread on the second day after the new moon. For he was grieved for David, because his father had put him to confusion. 20:35. And when the morning came, Jonathan went into the field according to the appointment with David, and a little boy with him. 20:36. And he said to his boy: Go, and fetch me the arrows which I shoot. And when the boy ran, he shot another arrow beyond the boy. 20:37. The boy therefore came to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot: and Jonathan cried after the boy, and said: Behold the arrow is there further beyond thee. 20:38. And Jonathan cried again after the boy, saying: Make haste speedily, stand not. And Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows, and brought them to his master: 20:39. And he knew not at all what was doing: for only Jonathan and David knew the matter. 20:40. Jonathan therefore gave his arms to the boy, and said to him: Go, and carry them into the city. 20:41. And when the boy was gone, David rose out of his place, which was toward the south, and falling on his face to the ground, adored thrice: and kissing one another, they wept together; but David more. 20:42. And Jonathan said to David: Go in peace: and let all stand that we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying: The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever. 20:43. And David arose, and departed: and Jonathan went into the city. 1 Kings Chapter 21 David receiveth holy bread of Achimelech, the priest: and feigneth himself mad before Achis, king of Geth. 21:1. And David came to Nobe, to Achimelech, the priest and Achimelech was astonished at David's coming. And he said to him: Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? Nobe. . .A city in the tribe of Benjamin, to which the tabernacle of the Lord had been translated from Silo. 21:2. And David said to Achimelech, the priest: The king hath commanded me a business, and said: Let no man know the thing for which thou art sent by me, and what manner of commands I have given thee: and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place. 21:3. Now therefore if thou have any thing at hand, though it were but five loaves, give me, or whatsoever thou canst find. 21:4. And the priest answered David, saying: I have no common bread at hand, but only holy bread, if the young men be clean, especially from women? If the young men be clean, etc. . .If this cleanness was required of them that were to eat that bread, which was a figure of the bread of life which we receive in the blessed sacrament; how clean ought Christians to be when they approach to our tremendous mysteries. And what reason hath the church of God to admit none to be her ministers to consecrate and daily receive this most pure sacrament, but such as devote themselves to a life of perpetual purity. 21:5. And David answered the priest, and said to him: Truly, as to what concerneth women, we have refrained ourselves from yesterday and the day before, when we came out, and the vessels of the young men were holy. Now this way is defiled, but it shall also be sanctified this day in the vessels. The vessels. . .i. e., the bodies, have been holy, that is, have been kept from impurity.--Ibid. Is defiled. . .Is liable to expose us to dangers of uncleanness.--Ibid. Be sanctified, etc. . .That is, we shall take care, notwithstanding these dangerous circumstances, to keep our vessels holy, that is, to keep our bodies from every thing that may defile us. 21:6. The priest therefore gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there, but only the loaves of proposition, which had been taken away from before the face of the Lord, that hot loaves might be set up. 21:7. Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, within the tabernacle of the Lord: and his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of Saul's herdsmen. 21:8. And David said to Achimelech: Hast thou here at hand a spear, or a sword? for I brought not my own sword, nor my own weapons with me, for the king's business required haste. 21:9. And the priest said: Lo, here is the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Terebinth, wrapped up in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take this, take it, for here there is no other but this. And David said: There is none like that, give it me. 21:10. And David arose and fled that day from the face of Saul: and came to Achis, the king of Geth: 21:11. And the servants of Achis, when they saw David, said to him: Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to him in their dances, saying: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? 21:12. But David laid up these words in his heart, and was exceedingly afraid at the face of Achis, the king of Geth. 21:13. And he changed his countenance before them, and slipt down between their hands: and he stumbled against the doors of the gate, and his spittle ran down upon his beard. 21:14. And Achis said to his servants: You saw the man was mad: why have you brought him to me? 21:15. Have we need of mad men, that you have brought in this fellow, to play the madman in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house? 1 Kings Chapter 22 Many resort to David. Doeg accuseth Achimelech to Saul. He ordereth him and all the other priests of Nobe to be slain. Abiathar escapeth. 22:1. David therefore went from thence, and fled to the cave of Odollam. And when his brethren, and all his father's house, had heard of it, they went down to him thither. 22:2. And all that were in distress, and oppressed with debt, and under affliction of mind, gathered themselves unto him: and he became their prince, and there were with him about four hundred men. 22:3. And David departed from thence into Maspha of Moab: and he said to the king of Moab: Let my father and my mother tarry with you, I beseech thee, till I know what God will do for me. 22:4. And he left them under the eyes of the king of Moab, and they abode with him all the days that David was in the hold. The hold. . .The strong hold, or fortress of Maspha. 22:5. And Gad the prophet said to David: Abide not in the hold, depart, and go into the land of Juda. And David departed, and came into the forest of Haret. 22:6. And SauI heard that David was seen, and the men that were with him. Now whilst Saul abode in Gabaa, and was in the wood, which is by Rama, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him, 22:7. He said to his servants that stood about him: Hear me now, ye sons of Jemini: will the son of Isai give every one of you fields, and vineyards, and make you all tribunes, and centurions: 22:8. That all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one to inform me, especially when even my son hath entered into league with the son of Isai? There is not one of you that pitieth my case, nor that giveth me any information: because my son hath raised up my servant against me, plotting against me to this day. 22:9. And Doeg, the Edomite, who stood by, and was the chief among the servants of Saul, answering, said: I saw the son of Isai, in Nobe, with Achimelech, the son of Achitob, the priest. 22:10. And he consulted the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath, the Philistine. 22:11. Then the king sent to call for Achimelech, the priest, the son of Achitob, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Nobe, and they came all of them to the king. 22:12. And Saul said to Achimelech: Hear, thou son of Achitob. He answered: Here I am, my lord. 22:13. And Saul said to him: Why have you conspired against me, thou, and the son of Isai, and thou hast given him bread and a sword, and hast consulted the Lord for him, that he should rise up against me, continuing a traitor to this day. 22:14. And Achimelech answering the king, said: And who amongst all thy servants is so faithful as David, who is the king's son in law, and goeth forth at thy bidding, and is honourable in thy house? 22:15. Did I begin to day to consult the Lord for him? far be this from me: let not the king suspect such a thing against his servant, or any one in all my father's house: for thy servant knew nothing of this matter, either little or great. 22:16. And the king said: Dying thou shalt die, Achimelech, thou and all thy father's house. 22:17. And the king said to the messengers that stood about him: Turn, and kill the priests of the Lord, for their hand is with David, because they knew that he was fled, and they told it not to me. And the king's servants would not put forth their hands against the priests of the Lord. 22:18. And the king said to Doeg: Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg, the Edomite, turned, and fell upon the priests, and slew in that day eighty-five men that wore the linen ephod. 22:19. And Nobe, the city of the priests, he smote with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and ox, and ass, and sheep, with the edge of the sword. 22:20. But one of the sons of Achimelech, the son of Achitob, whose name was Abiathar, escaped, and fled to David, 22:21. And told him that Saul had slain the priests of the Lord. 22:22. And David said to Abiathar: I knew that day when Doeg, the Edomite, was there, that without doubt he would tell Saul: I have been the occasion of the death of all the souls of thy father's house. 22:23. Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life, seeketh thy life also, and with me thou shalt be saved. 1 Kings Chapter 23 David relieveth Ceila, besieged by the Philistines. He fleeth into the desert of Ziph. Jonathan and he confirm their former covenant. The Ziphites discover him to Saul, who pursuing close after him, is called away by an invasion from the Philistines. 23:1. And they told David, saying: Behold the Philistines fight against Ceila, and they rob the barns. 23:2. Therefore David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said to David: Go, and thou shalt smite the Philistines, and shalt save Ceila. 23:3. And the men that were with David, said to him: Behold we are in fear here in Judea, how much more if we go to Ceila against the bands of the Philistines? 23:4. Therefore David consulted the Lord again. And he answered and said to him: Arise, and go to Ceila: for I will deliver the Philistines into thy hand. 23:5. David, therefore, and his men, went to Ceila, and fought against the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and made a great slaughter of them: and David saved the inhabitants of Ceila. 23:6. Now at that time, when Abiathar, the son of Achimelech, fled to David, to Ceila, he came down, having an ephod with him. An ephod. . .Or the ephod. That is, the vestment of the high priest, with the urim and thummim, by which the Lord gave his oracle. 23:7. And it was told Saul that David was come to Ceila: and Saul said: The Lord hath delivered him into my hands, and he is shut up, being come into a city that hath gates and bars. 23:8. And Saul commanded all the people to go down to fight against Ceila, and to besiege David and his men. 23:9. Now when David understood that Saul secretly prepared evil against him, he said to Abiathar, the priest: Bring hither the ephod. 23:10. And David said: O Lord God of Israel, thy servant hath heard a report, that Saul designeth to come to Ceila, to destroy the city for my sake: 23:11. Will the men of Ceila deliver me into his hands? and will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, tell thy servant. And the Lord said: He will come down. 23:12. And David said: Will the men of Ceila deliver me and my men into the hands of Saul? And the Lord said: They will deliver thee up. 23:13. Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose, and departing from Ceila, wandered up and down, uncertain where they should stay: and it was told Saul that David was fled from Ceila, and had escaped: wherefore he forbore to go out. 23:14. But David abode in the desert in strong holds, and he remained in a mountain of the desert of Ziph, in a woody hill. And Saul sought him always: but the Lord delivered him not into his hands. 23:15. And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life. And David was in the desert of Ziph, in a wood. 23:16. And Jonathan, the son of Saul, arose, and went to David, into the wood, and strengthened his hands in God: and he said to him: 23:17. Fear not: for the hand of my father, Saul, shall not find thee, and thou shalt reign over Israel, and I shall be next to thee; yea and my father knoweth this. 23:18. And they two made a covenant before the Lord: and David abode in the wood: but Jonathan returned to his house. 23:19. And the Ziphites went up to Saul, in Gabaa, saying: Lo, doth not David lie hid with us in the strong holds of the wood, in mount Hachila, which is on the right hand of the desert. 23:20. Now therefore come down, as thy soul hath desired to come down: and it shall be our business to deliver him into the king's hands. 23:21. And Saul said: Blessed be ye of the Lord, for you have pitied my case. 23:22. Go, therefore, I pray you, and use all diligence, and curiously inquire, and consider the place where his foot is, and who hath seen him there: for he thinketh of me, that I lie craftily in wait for him. 23:23. Consider, and see all his lurking holes, wherein he is hid, and return to me with the certainty of the thing, that I may go with you. And if he should even go down into the earth to hide himself, I will search him out in all the thousands of Juda. 23:24. And they arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: and David and his men were in the desert of Maon, in the plain at the right hand of Jesimon. 23:25. Then Saul and his men went to seek him: and it was told David, and forthwith he went down to the rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon: and when Saul had heard of it, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon. 23:26. And Saul went on this side of the mountain: and David and his men were on the other side of the mountain: and David despaired of being able to escape from the face of Saul: and Saul and his men encompassed David and his men round about, to take them. 23:27. And a messenger came to Saul, saying: Make haste to come, for the Philistines have poured in themselves upon the land. 23:28. Wherefore Saul returned, leaving the pursuit of David, and went to meet the Philistines. For this cause they called that place the rock of division. 1 Kings Chapter 24 Saul seeketh David in the wilderness of Engaddi: he goeth into a cave where David hath him in his power. 24:1. Then David went up from thence, and dwelt in strong holds of Engaddi. 24:2. And when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, they told him, saying: Behold, David is in the desert of Engaddi. 24:3. Saul, therefore, took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went out to seek after David and his men, even upon the most craggy rocks, which are accessible only to wild goats. 24:4. And he came to the sheepcotes which were in his way. And there was a cave, into which Saul went, to ease nature: now David and his men lay hid in the inner part of the cave. 24:5. And the servants of David said to him: Behold the day, of which the Lord said to thee: I will deliver thy enemy unto thee, that thou mayst do to him as it shall seem good in thy eyes. Then David arose, and secretly cut off the hem of Saul's robe. 24:6. After which David's heart struck him, because he had cut off the hem of Saul's robe. Heart struck him. . .Viz., with remorse, as fearing he had done amiss. 24:7. And he said to his men: The Lord be merciful unto me, that I may do no such thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, as to lay my hand upon him, because he is the Lord's anointed. 24:8. And David stopped his men with his words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul: but Saul, rising up out of the cave, went on his way. 24:9. And David also rose up after him: and going out of the cave, cried after Saul, saying: My lord the king. And Saul looked behind him: and David bowing himself down to the ground, worshipped, 24:10. And said to Saul: Why dost thou hear the words of men that say: David seeketh thy hurt? 24:11. Behold this day thy eyes have seen, that the Lord hath delivered thee into my hand, in the cave, and I had a thought to kill thee, but my eye hath spared thee. For I said: I will not put out my hand against my lord, because he is the Lord's anointed. A thought to kill thee. . .That is, a suggestion, to which I did not consent. 24:12. Moreover, see and know, O my father, the hem of thy robe in my hand, that when I cut off the hem of thy robe, I would not put out my hand against thee. Reflect, and see, that there is no evil in my hand, nor iniquity, neither have I sinned against thee: but thou liest in wait for my life, to take it away. 24:13. The Lord judge between me and thee and the Lord revenge me of thee: but my hand shall not be upon thee. Revenge me of thee. . .Or, as it is in the Hebrew, will revenge me. The meaning is, that he refers his whole cause to God, to judge and punish according to his justice: yet so as to keep himself in the mean time, from all personal hatred to Saul, or desire of gratifying his own passion, by seeking revenge. So far from it, that when Saul was afterwards slain, we find, that instead of rejoicing at his death, he mourned most bitterly for him. 24:14. As also it is said in the old proverb: From the wicked shall wickedness come forth: therefore my hand shall not be upon thee. After whom dost thou come out, O king of Israel? 24:15. After whom dost thou pursue? After a dead dog, after a flea. 24:16. Be the Lord judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and judge my cause, and deliver me out of thy hand. 24:17. And when David had made an end of speaking these words to Saul, Saul said: Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept: 24:18. And he said to David: Thou art more just than I: for thou hast done good to me, and I have rewarded thee with evil. 24:19. And thou hast shewed this day what good things thou hast done to me: how the Lord delivered me into thy hand, and thou hast not killed me. 24:20. For who when he hath found his enemy, will let him go well away? But the Lord reward thee for this good turn, for what thou hast done to me this day. 24:21. And now as I know that thou shalt surely be king, and have the kingdom of Israel in thy hand: 24:22. Swear to me by the Lord, that thou wilt not destroy my seed after me, nor take away my name from the house of my father. 24:23. And David swore to Saul. So Saul went home: and David and his men went up into safer places. 1 Kings Chapter 25 The death of Samuel. David, provoked by Nabal, threateneth to destroy him: but is appeased by Abigail. 25:1. And Samuel died, and all Israel was gathered together, and they mourned for him, and buried him in his house in Ramatha. And David rose, and went down into the wilderness of Pharan. 25:2. Now there was a certain man in the wilderness of Maon, and his possessions were in Carmel, and the man was very great: and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and it happened that he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 25:3. Now the name of the man was Nabal: and the name of his wife was Abigail. And she was a prudent and very comely woman: but her husband was churlish, and very bad and ill natured: and he was of the house of Caleb. 25:4. And when David heard in the wilderness, that Nabal was shearing his sheep, 25:5. He sent ten young men, and said to them: Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and salute him in my name with peace. 25:6. And you shall say: Peace be to my brethren, and to thee, and peace to thy house, and peace to all that thou hast. 25:7. I have heard that thy shepherds that were with us in the desert were shearing: we never molested them, neither was there ought missing to them of the flock at any time, all the while they were with us in Carmel. 25:8. Ask thy servants, and they will tell thee. Now therefore let thy servants find favour in thy eyes: for we are come in a good day, whatsoever thy hand shall find give to thy servants, and to thy son David. 25:9. And when David's servants came, they spoke to Nabal all these words in David's name, and then held their peace. 25:10. But Nabal answering the servants of David, said: Who is David? and what is the son of Isai? servants are multiplied now days who flee from their masters. 25:11. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and the flesh of my cattle, which I have killed for my shearers, and give to men whom I know not whence they are? 25:12. So the servants of David went back their way, and returning came and told him all the words that he said. 25:13. Then David said to his young men: Let every man gird on his sword. And they girded on every man his sword. And David also girded on his sword: and there followed David about four hundred men, and two hundred remained with the baggage. 25:14. But one of the servants told, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, saying: Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness, to salute our master: and he rejected them. 25:15. These men were very good to us, and gave us no trouble: Neither did we ever lose any thing all the time that we conversed with them in the desert. 25:16. They were a wall unto us, both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 25:17. Wherefore consider, and think what thou hast to do: for evil is determined against thy husband, and against thy house, and he is a son of Belial, so that no man can speak to him. 25:18. Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves, and two vessels of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dry figs, and laid them upon asses: 25:19. And she said to her servants: Go before me: behold, I will follow after you: but she told not her husband, Nabal. 25:20. And when she had gotten upon an ass, and was coming down to the foot of the mountain, David and his men came down over against her, and she met them. 25:21. And David said: Truly in vain have I kept all that belonged to this fellow in the wilderness, and nothing was lost of all that pertained unto him: and he hath returned me evil for good. 25:22. May God do so and so, and add more to the foes of David, if I leave of all that belong to him till the morning, any that pisseth against the wall. If I leave, etc. . .David certainly sinned in his designs against Nabal and his family, as he himself was afterwards sensible, when he blessed God for hindering him from executing the revenge he had proposed. 25:23. And when Abigail saw David, she made haste and lighted off the ass, and fell before David, on her face, and adored upon the ground. 25:24. And she fell at his feet, and said: Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord: let thy handmaid speak, I beseech thee, in thy ears, and hear the words of thy servant. 25:25. Let not my lord the king, I pray thee, regard this naughty man, Nabal: for according to his name, he is a fool, and folly is with him: but I, thy handmaid, did not see thy servants, my lord, whom thou sentest. His name. . .Nabal, in Hebrew, signifies a fool. 25:26. Now therefore, my lord, the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, who hath withholden thee from coming to blood, and hath saved thy hand to thee: and now let thy enemies be as Nabal, and all they that seek evil to my lord. 25:27. Wherefore receive this blessing, which thy handmaid hath brought to thee, my lord: and give it to the young men that follow thee, my lord. 25:28. Forgive the iniquity of thy handmaid: for the Lord will surely make for my lord a faithful house, because thou, my lord, fightest the battles of the Lord: let not evil therefore be found in thee all the days of thy life. 25:29. For if a man at any time shall rise, and persecute thee, and seek thy life, the soul of my lord shall be kept, as in the bundle of the living, with the Lord thy God: but the souls of thy enemies shall be whirled, as with the violence and whirling of a sling. 25:30. And when the Lord shall have done to thee, my lord, all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have made thee prince over Israel, 25:31. This shall not be an occasion of grief to thee, and a scruple of heart to my lord, that thou hast shed innocent blood, or hast revenged thyself: and when the Lord shall have done well by my lord, thou shalt remember thy handmaid. 25:32. And David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy speech: 25:33. And blessed be thou, who hast kept me to day from coming to blood, and revenging me with my own hand. 25:34. Otherwise, as the Lord liveth, the God of Israel, who hath withholden me from doing thee any evil, if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me, there had not been left to Nabal by the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall. 25:35. And David received at her hand all that she had brought him, and said to her: Go in peace into thy house, behold I have heard thy voice, and honoured thy face. 25:36. And Abigail came to Nabal: and behold he had a feast in his house, like the feast of a king: and Nabal's heart was merry, for he was very drunk: and she told him nothing less or more until morning. 25:37. But early in the morning, when Nabal had digested his wine, his wife told him these words, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 25:38. And after ten days had passed, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died. 25:39. And when David had heard that Nabal was dead, he said: Blessed be the Lord, who hath judged the cause of my reproach, at the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, and the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his head. Then David sent and treated with Abigail, that he might take her to himself for a wife. Blessed be, etc. . .David praiseth God, on this occasion, not out of joy for the death of Nabal (which would have argued a rancour of heart), but because he saw that God had so visibly taken his cause in hand, in punishing the injury done to him; whilst, by a merciful providence he kept him from revenging himself. 25:40. And David's servants came to Abigail, to Carmel, and spoke to her, saying: David hath sent us to thee, to take thee to himself for a wife. 25:41. And she arose, and bowed herself down with her face to the earth, and said: Behold, let thy servant be a handmaid, to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. 25:42. And Abigail arose, and made haste, and got upon an ass, and five damsels went with her, her waiting maids, and she followed the messengers of David, and became his wife. 25:43. Moreover David took also Achinoam of Jezrahel: and they were both of them his wives. 25:44. But Saul gave Michol, his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Lais, who was of Gallim. 1 Kings Chapter 26 Saul goeth out again after David, who cometh by night where Saul and his men are asleep, but suffereth him not to be touched. Saul again confesseth his fault, and promiseth peace. 26:1. And the men of Ziph came to Saul in Gabaa, saying: Behold David is hid in the hill of Hachila, which is over against the wilderness. 26:2. And Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph having with him three thousand chosen men of Israel, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. 26:3. And Saul encamped in Gabaa Hachila, which was over against the wilderness in the way: and David abode in the wilderness. And seeing that Saul was come after him into the wilderness, 26:4. He sent spies, and learned that he was most certainly come thither. 26:5. And David arose secretly, and came to the place where Saul was: and when he had beheld the place, wherein Saul slept, and Abner, the son of Ner, the captain of his army, and Saul sleeping in a tent, and the rest of the multitude round about him, 26:6. David spoke to Achimelech, the Hethite, and Abisai, the son of Sarvia, the brother of Joab, saying: Who will go down with me to Saul into the camp? And Abisai said: I will go with thee. 26:7. So David and Abisai came to the people by night, and found Saul lying and sleeping in the tent, and his spear fixed in the ground at his head: and Abner and the people sleeping round about him. 26:8. And Abisai said to David: God hath shut up thy enemy this day into thy hands: now then I will run him through with my spear, even to the earth at once, and there shall be no need of a second time. 26:9. And David said to Abisai: Kill him not: for who shall put forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and shall be guiltless? 26:10. And David said: As the Lord liveth, unless the Lord shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go down to battle, and perish: 26:11. The Lord be merciful unto me, and keep me that I never put forth my hand against the Lord's anointed. But now take the spear which is at his head, and the cup of water, and let us go. 26:12. So David took the spear, and the cup of water which was at Saul's head, and they went away: and no man saw it, or knew it, or awaked, but they were all asleep, for a deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them. 26:13. And when David was gone over to the other side, and stood on the top of the hill afar off, and a good space was between them, 26:14. David cried to the people, and to Abner, the son of Ner, saying: Wilt thou not answer, Abner? And Abner answering, said: Who art thou, that criest, and disturbest the king? 26:15. And David said to Abner: Art not thou a man? and who is like unto thee in Israel? why then hast thou not kept thy lord the king? for there came one of the people in to kill the king thy lord. 26:16. This thing is not good, that thou hast done: as the Lord liveth, you are the sons of death, who have not kept your master, the Lord's anointed. And now where is the king's spear, and the cup of water, which was at his head? 26:17. And Saul knew David's voice, and said: Is this thy voice, my son David? And David said: It is my voice, my lord the king. 26:18. And he said: Wherefore doth my lord persecute his servant? What have I done? or what evil is there in my hand? 26:19. Now therefore hear, I pray thee, my lord the king, the words of thy servant: If the Lord stir thee up against me, let him accept of sacrifice: but if the sons of men, they are cursed in the sight of the Lord, who have cast me out this day, that I should not dwell in the inheritance of the Lord, saying: Go, serve strange gods. 26:20. And now let not my blood be shed upon the earth before the Lord: for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as the partridge is hunted in the mountains. 26:21. And Saul said: I have sinned; return, my son David, for I will no more do thee harm, because my life hath been precious in thy eyes this day: for it appeareth that I have done foolishly, and have been ignorant in very many things. 26:22. And David answering, said: Behold the king's spear: let one of the king's servants come over and fetch it. 26:23. And the Lord will reward every one according to his justice, and his faithfulness: for the Lord hath delivered thee this day into my hand, and I would not put forth my hand against the Lord's anointed. 26:24. And as thy life hath been much set by this day in my eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord, and let him deliver me from all distress. 26:25. Then Saul said to David: Blessed art thou, my son David: and truly doing thou shalt do, and prevailing thou shalt prevail. And David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place. 1 Kings Chapter 27 David goeth again to Achis king of Geth, and obtaineth of him the city of Siceleg. 27:1. And David said in his heart: I shall one day or other fall into the hands of Saul: is it not better for me to flee, and to be saved in the land of the Philistines, that Saul may despair of me, and cease to seek me in all the coasts of Israel? I will flee then out of his hands. 27:2. And David arose, and went away, both he and the six hundred men that were with him, to Achis, the son of Maoch, king of Geth. 27:3. And David dwelt with Achis at Geth, he and his men; every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Achinoam, the Jezrahelitess, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel. 27:4. And it was told Saul that David was fled to Geth, and he sought no more after him. 27:5. And David said to Achis: If I have found favour in thy sight, let a place be given me in one of the cities of this country, that I may dwell there: for why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee? 27:6. Then Achis gave him Siceleg that day: for which reason Siceleg belongeth to the kings of Juda unto this day. 27:7. And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines, was four months. 27:8. And David and his men went up, and pillaged Gessuri, and Gerzi, and the Amalecites: for these were of old the inhabitants of the countries, as men go to Sur, even to the land of Egypt. Pillaged Gessuri, etc. . .These probably were enemies of the people of God: and some, if not all of them, were of the number of those whom God had ordered to be destroyed: which justifies David's proceedings in their regard. Though it is to be observed here, that we are not under an obligation of justifying every thing that he did: for the scripture, in relating what was done, does not say that it was well done. And even such as are true servants of God, are not to be imitated in all they do. 27:9. And David wasted all the land, and left neither man nor woman alive: and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achis. 27:10. And Achis said to him: Whom hast thou gone against to day? David answered: Against the south of Juda, and against the south of Jerameel, and against the south of Ceni. 27:11. And David saved neither man nor woman, neither brought he any of them to Geth, saying: Lest they should speak against us. So did David, and such was his proceeding all the days that he dwelt in the country of the Philistines. 27:12. And Achis believed David, saying: He hath done much harm to his people Israel: Therefore he shall be my servant for ever. 1 Kings Chapter 28 The Philistines go out to war against Israel. Saul being forsaken by God, hath recourse to a witch. Samuel appeareth to him. 28:1. And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered together their armies, to be prepared for war against Israel: And Achis said to David: Know thou now assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to the war, thou, and thy men. 28:2. And David said to Achis: Now thou shalt know what thy servant will do. And Achis said to David: And I will appoint thee to guard my life for ever. 28:3. Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel mourned for him, and buried him in Ramatha, his city. And Saul had put away all the magicians and soothsayers out of the land. 28:4. And the Philistines were gathered together, and came and encamped in Sunam: and Saul also gathered together all Israel, and came to Gelboe. 28:5. And Saul saw the army of the Philistines, and was afraid, and his heart was very much dismayed. 28:6. And he consulted the Lord, and he answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by priests, nor by prophets. 28:7. And Saul said to his servants: Seek me a woman that hath a divining spirit, and I will go to her, and enquire by her. And his servants said to him: There is a woman that hath a divining spirit at Endor. 28:8. Then he disguised himself: and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night, and he said to her: Divine to me by thy divining spirit, and bring me up him whom I shall tell thee. 28:9. And the woman said to him: Behold thou knowest all that Saul hath done, and how he hath rooted out the magicians and soothsayers from the land: why then dost thou lay a snare for my life, to cause me to be put to death? 28:10. And Saul swore unto her by the Lord, saying: As the Lord liveth, there shall no evil happen to thee for this thing. 28:11. And the woman said to him: Whom shall I bring up to thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. 28:12. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and said to Saul: Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. 28:13. And the king said to her: Fear not: what hast thou seen? and the woman said to Saul: I saw gods ascending out of the earth. 28:14. And he said to her: What form is he of? And she said: An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul understood that it was Samuel, and he bowed himself with his face to the ground, and adored. Understood that it was Samuel. . .It is the more common opinion of the holy fathers, and interpreters, that the soul of Samuel appeared indeed: and not, as some have imagined, an evil spirit in his shape. Not that the power of her magic could bring him thither, but that God was pleased for the punishment of Saul, that Samuel himself should denounce unto him the evils that were falling upon him. See Eccli. 46.23. 28:15. And Samuel said to Saul: Why hast thou disturbed my rest, that I should be brought up? And Saul said: I am in great distress: for the Philistines fight against me, and God is departed from me, and would not hear me, neither by the hand of prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayst shew me what I shall do. 28:16. And Samuel said: Why askest thou me, seeing the Lord has departed from thee, and is gone over to thy rival? 28:17. For the Lord will do to thee as he spoke by me, and he will rend thy kingdom out of thy hand, and will give it to thy neighbour David: 28:18. Because thou didst not obey the voice of the Lord, neither didst thou execute the wrath of his indignation upon Amalec. Therefore hath the Lord done to thee what thou sufferest this day. 28:19. And the Lord also will deliver Israel with thee into the hands of the Philistines: and to morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me: and the Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines. With me. . .That is, in the state of the dead, and in another world, though not in the same place. 28:20. And forthwith Saul fell all along on the ground; for he was frightened with the words of Samuel, and there was no strength in him, for he had eaten no bread all that day. 28:21. And the woman came to Saul, (for he was very much troubled) and said to him: Behold thy handmaid hath obeyed thy voice, and I have put my life in my hand: and I hearkened unto the words which thou spokest to me. 28:22. Now therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also to the voice of thy handmaid, and let me set before thee a morsel of bread, that thou mayst eat and recover strength, and be able to go on thy journey. 28:23. But he refused, and said: I will not eat. But his servants and the woman forced him, and at length hearkening to their voice, he arose from the ground, and sat upon the bed. 28:24. Now the woman had a fatted calf in the house, and she made haste and killed it: and taking meal, kneaded it, and baked some unleavened bread, 28:25. And set it before Saul, and before his servants. And when they had eaten they rose up, and walked all that night. 1 Kings Chapter 29 David going with the Philistines is sent back by their princes. 29:1. Now all the troops of the Philistines were gathered together to Aphec: and Israel also encamped by the fountain, which is in Jezrahel. 29:2. And the lords of the Philistines marched with their hundreds and their thousands: but David and his men were in the rear with Achis. 29:3. And the princes of the Philistines said to Achis: What mean these Hebrews? And Achis said to the princes of the Philistines: Do you not know David who was the servant of Saul, the king of Israel, and hath been with me many days, or years, and I have found no fault in him, since the day that he fled over to me until this day? 29:4. But the prices of the Philistines were angry with him, and they said to him: Let this man return, and abide in his place, which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest he be an adversary to us, when we shall begin to fight: for how can he otherwise appease his master, but with our heads? 29:5. Is not this David, to whom they sung in their dances, saying: Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands? 29:6. Then Achis called David, and said to him: As the Lord liveth, thou art upright and good in my sight: and so is thy going out, and thy coming in with me in the army: and I have not found any evil in thee, since the day that thou camest to me unto this day: but thou pleasest not the lords. 29:7. Return therefore, and go in peace, and offend not the eyes of the princes of the Philistines. 29:8. And David said to Achis: But what have I done, or what hast thou found in me thy servant, from the day that I have been in thy sight until this day, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king? 29:9. And Achis answering, said to David: I know that thou art good in my sight, as an angel of God: But the princes of the Philistines have said: He shall not go up with us to the battle. 29:10. Therefore arise in the morning, thou, and the servants of thy lord, who came with thee: and when you are up before day, and it shall begin to be light, go on your way. 29:11. So David and his men arose in the night, that they might set forward in the morning, and returned to the land of the Philistines: and the Philistines went up to Jezrahel. 1 Kings Chapter 30 The Amalecites burn Siceleg, and carry off the prey: David pursueth after them, and recovereth all out of their hands. 30:1. Now when David and his men were come to Siceleg on the third day, the Amalecites had made an invasion on the south side upon Siceleg, and had smitten Siceleg, and burnt it with fire, 30:2. And had taken the women captives that were in it, both little and great: and they had not killed any person, but had carried them with them, and went on their way. 30:3. So when David and his men came to the city, and found it burnt with fire, and that their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives, 30:4. David and the people that were with him, lifted up their voices, and wept till they had no more tears. 30:5. For the two wives also of David were taken captives, Achinoam, the Jezrahelitess, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel. 30:6. And David was greatly afflicted: for the people had a mind to stone him, for the soul of every man was bitterly grieved for his sons and daughters: but David took courage in the Lord his God. 30:7. And he said to Abiathar, the priest, the son of Achimelech: Bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 30:8. And David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I pursue after these robbers, and shall I overtake them, or not? And the Lord said to him: Pursue after them: for thou shalt surely overtake them and recover the prey. 30:9. So David went, he and the six hundred men that were with him, and they came to the torrent Besor: and some, being weary, stayed there. 30:10. But David pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred stayed, who, being weary, could not go over the torrent Besor. 30:11. And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David: and they gave him bread to eat, and water to drink, 30:12. As also a piece of a cake of figs, and two bunches of raisins. And when he had eaten them, his spirit returned, and he was refreshed: for he had not eaten bread, nor drunk water, three days and three nights. 30:13. And David said to him: To whom dost thou belong; or whence dost thou come? and whither art thou going? He said: I am a young man of Egypt, the servant of an Amalecite: and my master left me, because I began to be sick three days ago. 30:14. For we made an invasion on the south side of Cerethi, and upon Juda, and upon the south of Caleb, and we burnt Siceleg with fire. 30:15. And David said to him: Canst thou bring me to this company? and he said: Swear to me by God, that thou wilt not kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee to this company. And David swore to him. 30:16. And when he had brought him, behold they were lying spread abroad upon all the ground, eating and drinking, and as it were keeping a festival day, for all the prey and the spoils which they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Juda. 30:17. And David slew them from the evening unto the evening of the next day, and there escaped not a man of them, but four hundred young men, who had gotten upon camels, and fled. 30:18. So David recovered all that the Amalecites had taken, and he rescued his two wives. 30:19. And there was nothing missing small or great, neither of their sons or their daughters, nor of the spoils, and whatsoever they had taken, David recovered all. 30:20. And he took all the flocks and the herds, and made them go before him: and they said: This is the prey of David. 30:21. And David came to the two hundred men, who, being weary, had stayed, and were not able to follow David, and he had ordered them to abide at the torrent Besor: and they came out to meet David, and the people that were with him. And David coming to the people, saluted them peaceably. 30:22. Then all the wicked and unjust men, that had gone with David, answering, said: Because they came not with us, we will not give them any thing of the prey which we have recovered: but let every man take his wife, and his children, and be contented with them, and go his way. 30:23. But David said: You shall not do so, my brethren, with these things, which the Lord hath given us, who hath kept us, and hath delivered the robbers that invaded us into our hands: 30:24. And no man shall hearken to you in this matter. But equal shall be the portion of him that went down to battle, and of him that abode at the baggage, and they shall divide alike. 30:25. And this hath been done from that day forward, and since was made a statute and an ordinance, and as a law in Israel. 30:26. Then David came to Siceleg, and sent presents of the prey to the ancients of Juda, his neighbours, saying: Receive a blessing of the prey of the enemies of the Lord. 30:27. To them that were in Bethel, and that were in Ramoth to the south, and to them that were in Jether. 30:28. And to them that were in Aroer, and that were in Sephamoth, and that were in Esthamo, 30:29. And that were in Rachal, and that were in the cities of Jerameel, and that were in the cities of Ceni, 30:30. And that were in Arama, and that were in the lake Asan, and that were in Athach, 30:31. And that were in Hebron, and to the rest that were in those places, in which David had abode with his men. 1 Kings Chapter 31 Israel is defeated by the Philistines: Saul and his sons are slain. 31:1. And the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gelboe. 31:2. And the Philistines fell upon Saul, and upon his sons, and they slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua, the sons of Saul. 31:3. And the whole weight of the battle was turned upon Saul: and the archers overtook him, and he was grievously wounded by the archers. 31:4. Then Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me. And his armourbearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. 31:5. And when his armourbearer saw this, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. 31:6. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men that same day together. 31:7. And the men of Israel, that were beyond the valley, and beyond the Jordan, seeing that the Israelites were fled, and that Saul was dead, and his sons, forsook their cities, and fled: and the Philistines came and dwelt there. 31:8. And on the morrow the Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons lying in mount Gelboe. 31:9. And they cut off Saul's head, and stripped him of his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the temples of their idols and among their people. 31:10. And they put his armour in the temple of Astaroth, but his body they hung on the wall of Bethsan. 31:11. Now when the inhabitants of Jabes Galaad had heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul, 31:12. All the most valiant men arose, and walked all the night, and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the wall of Bethsan: and they came to Jabes Galaad, and burnt them there. 31:13. And they took their bones, and buried them in the wood of Jabes: and fasted seven days. THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL, OTHERWISE CALLED THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS This Book relates the transactions from the death of Saul until the end of David's reign, being a history for the space of about forty-six years. 2 Kings Chapter 1 David mourneth for the death of Saul and Jonathan: he ordereth the man to be slain who pretended he had killed Saul. 1:1. Now it came to pass, after Saul was dead, that David returned from the slaughter of the Amalecites, and abode two days in Siceleg. 1:2. And on the third day, there appeared a man who came out of Saul's camp, with his garments rent, and dust strewed on his head: and when he came to David, he fell upon his face, and adored. 1:3. And David said to him: From whence comest thou? And he said to him: I am fled out of the camp of Israel. 1:4. And David said unto him: What is the matter that is come to pass? tell me: He said: The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people are fallen and dead: moreover Saul and Jonathan his son are slain. 1:5. And David said to the young man that told him: How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son, are dead? 1:6. And the young man that told him, said: I came by chance upon mount Gelboe, and Saul leaned upon his spear: and the chariots and horsemen drew nigh unto him, 1:7. And looking behind him, and seeing me, he called me. And I answered, Here am I. 1:8. And he said to me: Who art thou? And I said to him: I am an Amalecite. 1:9. And he said to me: Stand over me, and kill me: for anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me. 1:10. So standing over him, I killed him: for I knew that he could not live after the fall: and I took the diadem that was on his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither to thee, my lord. I killed him. . .This story of the young Amalecite was not true, as may easily be proved by comparing it with the last chapter of the foregoing book. 1:11. Then David took hold of his garments and rent them, and likewise all the men that were with him. 1:12. And they mourned, and wept, and fasted until evening for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword. 1:13. And David said to the young man that told him: Whence art thou? He answered: I am the son of a stranger of Amalec. 1:14. David said to him: Why didst thou not fear to put out thy hand to kill the Lord's anointed? 1:15. And David calling one of his servants, said: Go near and fall upon him. And he struck him so that he died. 1:16. And David said to him: Thy blood be upon thy own head: for thy own mouth hath spoken against thee, saying: I have slain the Lord's anointed. 1:17. And David made this kind of lamentation over Saul, and over Jonathan his son. 1:18. (Also he commanded that they should teach the children of Juda the use of the bow, as it is written in the book of the just.) And he said: Consider, O Israel, for them that are dead, wounded on thy high places. 1:19. The illustrious of Israel are slain upon thy mountains: how are the valiant fallen? 1:20. Tell it not in Geth, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon: lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 1:21. Ye mountains of Gelboe, let neither dew, nor rain come upon you, neither be they fields of firstfruits: for there was cast away the shield of the valiant, the shield of Saul as though he had not been anointed with oil. 1:22. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the valiant, the arrow of Jonathan never turned back, and the sword of Saul did not return empty. 1:23. Saul and Jonathan, lovely, and comely in their life, even in death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. 1:24. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you with scarlet in delights, who gave ornaments of gold for your attire. 1:25. How are the valiant fallen in battle? Jonathan slain in the high places? 1:26. I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan: exceeding beautiful, and amiable to me above the love of women. As the mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee. 1:27. How are the valiant fallen, and the weapons of war perished? 2 Kings Chapter 2 David is received and anointed king of Juda. Isboseth the son of Saul reigneth over the rest of Israel. A battle between Abner and Joab. 2:1. And after these things David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up into one of the cities of Juda? And the Lord said to him: Go up. And David said: Whither shall I go up? And he answered him: Into Hebron. 2:2. So David went up, and his two wives Achinoam the Jezrahelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal of Carmel: 2:3. And the men also that were with him, David brought up every man with his household: and they abode in the towns of Hebron. 2:4. And the men of Juda came, and anointed David there, to be king over the house of Juda. And it was told David that the men of Jabes Galaad had buried Saul. 2:5. David therefore sent messengers to the men of Jabes Galaad, and said to them: Blessed be you to the Lord, who have shewn this mercy to your master Saul, and have buried him. 2:6. And now the Lord surely will render you mercy and truth, and I also will requite you for this good turn, because you have done this thing. 2:7. Let your hands be strengthened, and be ye men of valour: for although your master Saul be dead, yet the house of Juda hath anointed me to be their king. 2:8. But Abner the son of Ner, general of Saul's army, took Isboseth the son of Saul, and led him about through the camp, 2:9. And made him king over Galaad, and over Gessuri, and over Jezrahel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. 2:10. Isboseth the son of Saul was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years; and only the house of Juda followed David. He reigned two years. . .Viz., before he began visibly to decline: but in all he reigned seven years and six months; for so long David reigned in Hebron. 2:11. And the number of the days that David abode, reigning in Hebron over the house of Juda, was seven years and six months. 2:12. And Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Isboseth the son of Saul, went out from the camp to Gabaon. 2:13. And Joab the son of Sarvia, and the servants of David went out, and met them by the pool of Gabaon. And when they were come together, they sat down over against one another: the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side. 2:14. And Abner said to Joab: Let the young men rise, and play before us. And Joab answered: Let them rise. 2:15. Then there arose and went over twelve in number of Benjamin, of the part of Isboseth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. 2:16. And every one catching his fellow by the head, thrust his sword into the side of his adversary, and they fell down together: and the name of the place was called: The field of the valiant, in Gabaon. 2:17. And there was a very fierce battle that day: and Abner was put to flight, with the men of Israel, by the servants of David. 2:18. And there were the three sons of Sarvia there, Joab, and Abisai, and Asael: now Asael was a most swift runner, like one of the roes that abide in the woods. 2:19. And Asael pursued after Abner, and turned not to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. 2:20. And Abner looked behind him, and said: Art thou Asael? And he answered: I am. 2:21. And Abner said to him: Go to the right hand or to the left, and lay hold on one of the young men and take thee his spoils. But Asael would not leave off following him close. 2:22. And again Abner said to Asael: Go off, and do not follow me, lest I be obliged to stab thee to the ground, and I shall not be able to hold up my face to Joab thy brother. 2:23. But he refused to hearken to him, and would not turn aside: wherefore Abner struck him with his spear with a back stroke in the groin, and thrust him through, and he died upon the spot: and all that came to the place where Asael fell down and died stood still. 2:24. Now while Joab and Abisai pursued after Abner, the sun went down: and they came as far as the hill of the aqueduct, that lieth over against the valley by the way of the wilderness in Gabaon. 2:25. And the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together to Abner: and being joined in one body, they stood on the top of a hill. 2:26. And Abner cried out to Joab, and said: Shall thy sword rage unto utter destruction? knowest thou not that it is dangerous to drive people to despair? how long dost thou defer to bid the people cease from pursuing after their brethren? 2:27. And Joab said: As the Lord liveth, if thou hadst spoke sooner, even in the morning the people should have retired from pursuing after their brethren. 2:28. Then Joab sounded the trumpet, and all the army stood still, and did not pursue after Israel any farther, nor fight any more. 2:29. And Abner and his men walked all that night through the plains: and they passed the Jordan, and having gone through all Beth-horon, came to the camp. 2:30. And Joab returning, after he had left Abner, assembled all the people: and there were wanting of David's servants nineteen men, beside Asael. 2:31. But the servants of David had killed of Benjamin, and of the men that were with Abner, three hundred and sixty, who all died. 2:32. And they took Asael, and buried him in the sepulchre of his father in Bethlehem and Joab, and the men that were with him, marched all the night, and they came to Hebron at break of day. 2 Kings Chapter 3 David groweth daily stronger. Abner cometh over to him: he is treacherously slain by Joab. 3:1. Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: David prospering and growing always stronger and stronger, but the house of Saul decaying daily. There was a long war between the house of Saul, etc. . .Rather a strife or emulation than a war with arms; it lasted five years and a half. 3:2. And sons were born to David in Hebron: and his firstborn was Ammon of Achinoam the Jezrahelitess: 3:3. And his second Cheleab of Abigail the wife of Nabal of Carmel: and the third Absalom the son of Maacha the daughter of Tholmai king of Gessur: 3:4. And the fourth Adonias, the son of Haggith: and the fifth Saphathia the son of Abital: 3:5. And the sixth Jethraam of Egla the wife of David: these were born to David In Hebron. 3:6. Now while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner the son of Ner ruled the house of Saul. 3:7. And Saul had a concubine named Respha, the daughter of Aia. And Isboseth said to Abner: 3:8. Why didst thou go in to my father's concubine? And he was exceedingly angry for the words of Isboseth, and said: Am I a dog's head against Juda this day, who have shewn mercy to the house of Saul thy father, and to his brethren and friends, and have not delivered thee into the hands of David, and hast thou sought this day against me to charge me with a matter concerning a woman? 3:9. So do God to Abner, and more also, unless as the Lord hath sworn to David, so I do to him, 3:10. That the kingdom be translated from the house of Saul, and the throne of David be set up over Israel, and over Juda from Dan to Bersabee. 3:11. And he could not answer him a word, because he feared him. 3:12. Abner therefore sent messengers to David for himself, saying: Whose is the land? and that they should say: Make a league with me, and my hand shall be with thee: and I will bring all Israel to thee. 3:13. And he said: Very well: I will make a league with thee: but one thing I require of thee, saying: Thou shalt not see my face before thou bring Michol the daughter of Saul: and so thou shalt come, and see me. 3:14. And David sent messengers to Isboseth the son of Saul, saying: Restore my wife Michol, whom I espoused to me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. 3:15. And Isboseth sent, and took her from her husband Phaltiel, the son of Lais. 3:16. And her husband followed her, weeping as far as Bahurim: and Abner said to him: Go and return. And he returned. 3:17. Abner also spoke to the ancients of Israel, saying: Both yesterday and the day before you sought for David that he might reign over you. 3:18. Now then do it: because the Lord hath spoken to David, saying: By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel from the hands of the Philistines, and of all their enemies. 3:19. And Abner spoke also to Benjamin. And he went to speak to David in Hebron all that seemed good to Israel, and to all Benjamin. 3:20. And he came to David in Hebron with twenty men: and David made a feast for Abner, and his men that came with him. 3:21. And Abner said to David: I will rise, that I may gather all Israel unto thee my lord the king, and may enter into a league with thee, and that thou mayst reign over all as thy soul desireth. Now when David had brought Abner on his way, and he was gone in peace, 3:22. Immediately, David's servants and Joab came, after having slain the robbers, with an exceeding great booty. And Abner was not with David in Hebron, for he had now sent him away, and he was gone in peace. 3:23. And Joab and all the army that was with him, came afterwards: and it was told Joab, that Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he hath sent him away, and he is gone in peace. 3:24. And Joab went in to the king, and said: What hast thou done? Behold Abner came to thee: Why didst thou send him away, and he is gone and departed? 3:25. Knowest thou not Abner the son of Ner, that to this end he came to thee, that he might deceive thee, and to know thy going out, and thy coming in, and to know all thou dost? 3:26. Then Joab going out from David, sent messengers after Abner, and brought him back from the cistern of Sira, David knowing nothing of it. 3:27. And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside to the middle of the gate, to speak to him treacherously: and he stabbed him there in the groin, and he died, in revenge of the blood of Asael his brother. 3:28. And when David heard of it, after the thing was now done, he said: I, and my kingdom are innocent before the Lord for ever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner: 3:29. And may it come upon the head of Joab, and upon all his father's house: and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue of seed, or that is a leper, or that holdeth the distaff, or that falleth by the sword, or that wanteth bread. 3:30. So Joab and Abisai his brother slew Abner, because he had killed their brother Asael at Gabaon in the battle. 3:31. And David said to Joab, and to all the people that were with him: Rend your garments, and gird yourselves with sackcloths, and mourn before the funeral of Abner. And king David himself followed the bier. 3:32. And when they had buried Abner in Hebron, king David lifted up his voice, and wept at the grave of Abner: and all the people also wept. 3:33. And the king mourning and lamenting over Abner, said: Not as cowards are wont to die, hath Abner died. 3:34. Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet laden with fetters: but as men fall before the children of iniquity, so didst thou fall. And all the people repeating it wept over him. 3:35. And when all the people came to take meat with David, while it was yet broad day, David swore, saying: So do God to me, and more also, if I taste bread or any thing else before sunset. 3:36. And all the people heard, and they were pleased, and all that the king did seemed good in the sight of all the people. 3:37. And all the people, and all Israel understood that day that it was not the king's doing, that Abner the son of Ner was slain. 3:38. The king also said to his servants: Do you not know that a prince and a great man is slain this day in Israel? 3:39. But I as yet am tender, though anointed king. And these men the sons of Sarvia are too hard for me: the Lord reward him that doth evil according to his wickedness. 2 Kings Chapter 4 Isboseth is murdered by two of his servants. David punisheth the murderers. 4:1. And Isboseth the son of Saul heard that Abner was slain in Hebron: and his hands were weakened, and all Israel was troubled. 4:2. Now the son of Saul had two men captains of his bands, the name of the one was Baana, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Remmon a Berothite of the children of Benjamin: for Beroth also was reckoned in Benjamin. 4:3. And the Berothites fled into Gethaim, and were sojourners there until that time. 4:4. And Jonathan the son of Saul had a son that was lame of his feet: for he was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan from Jezrahel. And his nurse took him up and fled: and as she made haste to flee, he fell and became lame: and his name was Miphiboseth. 4:5. And the sons of Remmon the Berothite, Rechab and Baana coming, went into the house of Isboseth in the heat of the day: and he was sleeping upon his bed at noon. And the doorkeeper of the house, who was cleansing wheat, was fallen asleep. 4:6. And they entered into the house secretly taking ears of corn, and Rechab and Baana his brother stabbed him in the groin, and fled away. 4:7. For when they came into the house, he was sleeping upon his bed in a parlour, and they struck him and killed him and taking away his head they went off by the way of the wilderness, walking all night. 4:8. And they brought the head of Isboseth to David to Hebron: and they said to the king: Behold the head of Isboseth the son of Saul thy enemy who sought thy life: and the Lord hath revenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed. 4:9. But David answered Rechab, and Baana his brother, the sons of Remmon the Berothite, and said to them: As the Lord liveth, who hath delivered my soul out of all distress, 4:10. The man that told me, and said: Saul is dead, who thought he brought good tidings, I apprehended, and slew him in Siceleg, who should have been rewarded for his news. 4:11. How much more now when wicked men have slain an innocent man in his own house, upon his bed, shall I not require his blood at your hand, and take you away from the earth? 4:12. And David commanded his servants and they slew them: and cutting off their hands and feet, hanged them up over the pool in Hebron: but the head of Isboseth they took and buried in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron. 2 Kings Chapter 5 David is anointed king of all Israel. He taketh Jerusalem, and dwelleth there. He defeateth the Philistines. 5:1. Then all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron, saying: Behold we are thy bone and thy flesh. 5:2. Moreover yesterday also and the day before, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that did lead out and bring in Israel: and the Lord said to thee: Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over Israel. 5:3. The ancients also of Israel came to the king of Hebron, and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David to be king over Israel. 5:4. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. 5:5. In Hebron he reigned over Juda seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned three and thirty years over all Israel and Juda. 5:6. And the king and all the men that were with him went to Jerusalem to the Jebusites the inhabitants of the land: and they said to David: Thou shalt not come in hither unless thou take away the blind and the lame that say: David shall not come in hither. 5:7. But David took the castle of Sion, the same is the city of David. 5:8. For David had offered that day a reward to whosoever should strike the Jebusites and get up to the gutters of the tops of the houses, and take away the blind and the lame that hated the soul of David: therefore it is said in the proverb: The blind and the lame shall not come into the temple. 5:9. And David dwelt in the castle, and called it, The city of David: and built round about from Mello and inwards. 5:10. And he went on prospering and growing up, and the Lord God of hosts was with him. 5:11. And Hiram the king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons for walls: and they built a house for David. 5:12. And David knew that the Lord had confirmed him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom over his people Israel. 5:13. And David took more concubines and wives of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were born to David other sons also and daughters: David took more concubines and wives of Jerusalem. . .Not harlots, but wives of an inferior condition; for such, in scripture, are styled concubines. 5:14. And these are the names of them, that were born to him in Jerusalem, Samua, and Sobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, 5:15. And Jebahar, and Elisua, and Nepheg, 5:16. And Japhia, and Elisama, and Elioda, and Eliphaleth. 5:17. And the Philistines heard that they had anointed David to be king over Israel: and they all came to seek David: and when David heard of it, he went down to a strong hold. 5:18. And the Philistines coming spread themselves in the valley of Raphaim. 5:19. And David consulted the Lord, Saying: Shall I go up to the Philistines? and wilt thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said to David: Go up, for I will surely deliver the Philistines into thy hand. 5:20. And David came to Baal Pharisim: and defeated them there, and he said, The Lord hath divided my enemies before me, as waters are divided. Therefore the name of the place was called Baal Pharisim. 5:21. And they left there their idols: which David and his men took away. 5:22. And the Philistines came up again and spread themselves into the valley of Raphaim. 5:23. And David consulted the Lord: Shall I go up against the Philistines, and wilt thou deliver them into my hands? He answered: Go not up against them but fetch a compass behind them, and thou shalt come upon them over against the pear trees. 5:24. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one going in the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou join battle: for then will the Lord go out before thy face to strike the army of the Philistines. 5:25. And David did as the Lord had commanded him, and he smote the Philistines from Gabaa until thou come to Gezer. 2 Kings Chapter 6 David fetcheth the ark from Cariathiarim. Oza is struck dead for touching it. It is deposited in the house of Obededom: and from thence carried to David's house. 6:1. And David again gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 6:2. And David arose and went, with all the people that were with him of the men of Juda to fetch the ark of God, upon which the name of the Lord of Hosts is invoked, who sitteth over it upon the cherubims. 6:3. And they laid the ark of God upon a new cart: and took it out of the house of Abinadab, who was in Gabaa, and Oza and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. Gabaa. . .The hill of Cariathiarim, where the ark had been in the house of Abinadab, from the time of its being restored back by the Philistines. 6:4. And when they had taken it out of the house of Abinadab, who was in Gabaa, Ahio having care of the ark of God went before the ark. 6:5. But David and all Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of wood, on harps and lutes and timbrels and cornets and cymbals. 6:6. And when they came to the floor of Nachon, Oza put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it: because the oxen kicked and made it lean aside. 6:7. And the indignation of the Lord was enkindled against Oza, and he struck him for his rashness: and he died there before the ark of God. 6:8. And David was grieved because the Lord had struck Oza, and the name of that place was called: The striking of Oza, to this day. 6:9. And David was afraid of the Lord that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord come to me? 6:10. And he would not have the ark of the Lord brought in to himself into the city of David: but he caused it to be carried into the house of Obededom the Gethite. 6:11. And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gethite three months: and the Lord blessed Obededom, and all his household. 6:12. And it was told king David, that the Lord had blessed Obededom, and all that he had, because of the ark of God. So David went, and brought away the ark of God out of the house of Obededom into the city of David with joy. And there were with David seven choirs, and calves for victims. Choirs. . .Or companies of musicians. 6:13. And when they that carried the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed and ox and a ram: 6:14. And David danced with all his might before the Lord: and David was girded with a linen ephod. 6:15. And David and all the louse of Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet. 6:16. And when the ark of the Lord was come into the city of David, Michol the daughter of Saul, looking out through a window, saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord: and she despised him in her heart. 6:17. And they brought the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle, which David had pitched for it: and David offered holocausts, and peace offerings before the Lord. 6:18. And when he had made an end of offering holocausts and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. 6:19. And he distributed to all the multitude of Israel, both men and women, to every one, a cake of bread, and a piece of roasted beef, and fine flour fried with oil: and all the people departed every one to his own house. 6:20. And David returned to bless his own house: and Michol the daughter of Saul coming out to meet David, said: How glorious was the king of Israel to day, uncovering himself before the handmaids of his servants, and was naked, as if one of the buffoons should be naked. 6:21. And David said to Michol: Before the Lord, who chose me rather than thy father, and than all his house, and commanded me to be ruler over the people of the Lord in Israel, 6:22. I will both play and make myself meaner than I have done: and I will be little in my own eyes: and with the handmaids of whom thou speakest, I shall appear more glorious. 6:23. Therefore Michol the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death. 2 Kings Chapter 7 David's purpose to build a temple is rewarded with the promise of great blessings in his seed: his prayer and thanksgiving. 7:1. And it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, 7:2. He said to Nathan the prophet: Dost thou see that I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God is lodged within skins? 7:3. And Nathan said to the king: Go, do all that is in they heart: because the Lord is with thee. 7:4. But it came to pass that night, that the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: 7:5. Go, and say to my servant David: Thus saith the Lord: Shalt thou build me a house to dwell in? 7:6. Whereas I have not dwelt in a house from the day that I brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt even to this day: but have walked in a tabernacle, and in a tent. 7:7. In all the places that I have gone through with all the children of Israel, did ever I speak a word to any one of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying: Why have you not built me a house of cedar? 7:8. And now thus shalt thou speak to my servant David: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I took thee out of the pastures from following the sheep to be ruler over my people Israel: 7:9. And I have been with thee wheresoever thou hast walked, and have slain all thy enemies from before thy face: and I have made thee a great man, like unto the name of the great ones that are on the earth. 7:10. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, and they shall dwell therein, and shall be disturbed no more: neither shall the children of iniquity afflict them any more as they did before, 7:11. From the day that I appointed judges over my people Israel: and I will give thee rest from all thy enemies. And the Lord foretelleth to thee, that the Lord will make thee a house. 7:12. And when thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of the bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. I will establish his kingdom. . .This prophecy partly relateth to Solomon: but much more to Christ, who is called the son of David in scripture, and who is the builder of the true temple, which is the church, his everlasting kingdom, which shall never fail. 7:13. He shall build a house to my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom fore ever. 7:14. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son: and if he commit any iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. 7:15. But my mercy I will not take away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before my face. 7:16. And thy house shall be faithful, and thy kingdom for ever before thy face, and thy throne shall be firm for ever. 7:17. According to all these words and according to all this vision so did Nathan speak to David. 7:18. And David went in, and sat before the Lord, and said: Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far? 7:19. Bur yet this hath seemed little in thy sight, O Lord God, unless thou didst also speak of the house of thy servant for a long time to come: for this is the law of Adam, O Lord God: 7:20. And what can David say more unto thee? for thou knowest thy servant, O Lord God: 7:21. For thy word's sake, and according to thy own heart thou has done all these great things, so that thou wouldst make it known to thy servant. 7:22. Therefore thou art magnified, O Lord God, because there is none like to thee, neither is there any God besides thee, in all the things that we have heard with our ears. 7:23. And what nation is there upon earth, as thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for them great and terrible things, upon the earth, before the face of thy people, whom thou redeemedst to thyself out of Egypt, from the nations and their gods. 7:24. For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be an everlasting people: and thou, O Lord God, art become their God. 7:25. And now, O Lord God, raise up for ever the word that thou hast spoken, concerning thy servant and concerning his house: and do as thou hast spoken, 7:26. That thy name may be magnified for ever, and it may be said: The Lord of hosts is God over Israel. And the house of thy servant David shall be established before the Lord. 7:27. Because thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to the ear of thy servant, saying: I will build thee a house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to thee. 7:28. And now, O Lord God, thou art God, and thy words shall be true: for thou hast spoken to thy servant these good things. 7:29. And now begin, and bless the house of thy servant, that it may endure for ever before thee: because thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it, and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever. 2 Kings Chapter 8 David's victories, and his chief officers. 8:1. And it came to pass after this that David defeated the Philistines, and brought them down, and David took the bridle of tribute out of the hand of the Philistines, 8:2. And he defeated Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the earth: and he measured with two lines, one to put to death, and one to save alive: and Moab was made to serve David under tribute. 8:3. David defeated also Adarezer the son of Rohob king of Soba, when he went to extend his dominion over the river Euphrates. 8:4. And David took from him a thousand and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen, and houghed all the chariot horses: and only reserved of them for one hundred chariots. 8:5. And the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Adarezer the king of Soba: and David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men. 8:6. And David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and Syria served David under tribute, and the Lord preserved David in all his enterprises, whithersoever he went. 8:7. And David took the arms of gold, which the servants of Adarezer wore and brought them to Jerusalem. 8:8. And out of Bete, and out of Beroth, cities of Adarezer, king David took and exceeding great quantity of brass. 8:9. And Thou the king of Emath heard that David had defeated all the forces of Adarezer. 8:10. And Thou sent Joram his son to king David, to salute him, and to congratulate with him, and to return him thanks: because he had fought against Adarezer, and had defeated him. For Thou was an enemy to Adarezer, and in his hand were vessels of gold, and vessels of silver, and vessels of brass: 8:11. And king David dedicated them to the Lord, together with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all the nations, which he had subdued: 8:12. Of Syria, and of Moab, and of the children Ammon, and of the Philistines, and of Amalec, and of the spoils of Adarezer the son of Rohob king of Soba. 8:13. David also made himself a name, when he returned after taking Syria in the valley of the saltpits, killing eighteen thousand: 8:14. And he put guards in Edom, and placed there a garrison: and all Edom was made to serve David: and the Lord preserved David in all enterprises he went about. 8:15. And David reigned over all Israel: and David did judgment and justice to all his people. 8:16. And Joab the son Sarvia was over the army: and Josaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder: Recorder. . .Or chancellor. 8:17. And Sadoc the son of Achitob, and Achimelech the son of Abiathar, were the priests: and Saraias was the scribe: Scribe. . .Or secretary. 8:18. And Banaias the son of Joiada was over the Cerethi and Phelethi: and the sons of David were the princes. The Cerethi and Phelethi. . .The king's guards.--Ibid. Princes. . .Literally priests. (Cohen) So called, by a title of honour, and not from exercising the priestly functions. 2 Kings Chapter 9 David's kindness to Miphiboseth for the sake of his father Jonathan. 9:1. And David said: Is there any one, think you, left of the house of Saul, that I may shew kindness to him for Jonathan's sake? 9:2. Now there was of the house of Saul, a servant named Siba: and when the king had called him to him, he said to him: Art thou Siba? And he answered: I am Siba thy servant. 9:3. And the king said: Is there any one left of the house of Saul, that I may shew the mercy of God unto Him? And Siba said to the king: There is a son of Jonathan left, who is lame of his feet. 9:4. Where is he? said he. And Siba said to the king: Behold he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel in Lodabar. 9:5. Then King David sent, and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodabar. 9:6. And when Miphiboseth the son of Jonathan the son of Saul was come to David, he fell on his face and worshipped. And David said: Miphiboseth? And he answered: Behold thy servant. 9:7. And David said to him: Fear not, for I will surely shew thee mercy for Jonathan thy father's sake, and I will restore the lands of Saul the father, and thou shalt eat bread at my table always. 9:8. He bowed down to him, and said: Who am I thy servant, that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am? 9:9. Then the King called Siba the servant of Saul, and said to him: All that belonged to Saul, and all his house, I have given to thy master's son. 9:10. Thou therefore and the sons and thy servants shall till the land for him: and thou shalt bring in food for thy master's son, that he may be maintained: and Miphiboseth the son of thy master shall always eat bread at my table. And Siba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. 9:11. And Siba said to the king: As thou my lord the hast commanded thy servant, so will thy servant do: and Miphiboseth shall eat at my table, as one of the sons of the King. 9:12. And Miphiboseth had a young son whose name was Micha: and all that kindred of the house of Siba served Miphiboseth. 9:13. But Miphiboseth dwelt in Jerusalem: because he ate always of the king's table: and he was lame of both feet. 2 Kings Chapter 10 The Ammonites shamefully abuse the ambassadors of David: they hire the Syrians to the their assistance: but are overthrown with their allies. 10:1. And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanon his son reigned in his stead. 10:2. And David said: I will shew kindness to Hanon the son of Daas, as his father shewed kindness to me. So David sent his servants to comfort him for the death of his father. But when the servants of David were come into the land of the children of Ammon, 10:3. The princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanon their lord: Thinkest thou that for the honour of thy father, David hath sent comforters to thee, and hath not David rather sent his servants to thee to search, and spy into the city, and overthrow it? 10:4. Wherefore Hanon took the servants of David, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut away half of their garments even to the buttocks, and sent them away. 10:5. When this was told David, he sent to meet them: for the men were sadly put to confusion, and David commanded them, saying: Stay at Jericho, till your beards be grown, and then return. 10:6. And the children of Ammon seeing that they had done an injury to David, sent and hired the Syrians of Rohob, and the Syrians of Soba, twenty thousand footmen, and of the king of Maacha a thousand men, and of Istob twelve thousand men. 10:7. And when David heard this, he sent Joab and the whole army of warriors. 10:8. And the children of Ammon came out, and set their men in array at the entering in of the gate: but the Syrians of Soba, and of Rohob, and of Istob, and of Maacha were by themselves in the field. 10:9. Then Joab seeing that the battle was prepared against him, both before and behind, chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians: 10:10. And the rest of the people he delivered to Abisai his brother, who set them in array against the children of Ammon. 10:11. And Joab said: If the Syrians are too strong for me, then thou shalt help me, but if the children of Ammon are too strong for thee, then I will help thee. 10:12. Be of good courage, and let us fight for our people, and for the city of our God: and the Lord will do what is good in his sight. 10:13. And Joab and the people that were with him, began to fight against the Syrians: and they immediately fled before him. 10:14. And the children of Ammon seeing that the Syrians were fled, they fled also before Abisai, and entered into the city: and Joab returned from the children of Ammon, and came to Jerusalem. 10:15. Then the Syrians seeing that they had fallen before Israel, gathered themselves together. 10:16. And Adarezer sent and fetched the Syrians, that were beyond the river, and brought over their army: and Sobach, the captain of the host of Adarezer, was their general. 10:17. And when this was told David, he gathered all Israel together, and passed over the Jordan, and came to Helam: and the Syrians set themselves in array against David, and fought against him. 10:18. And the Syrians fled before Israel, and David slew of the Syrians the men of seven hundred chariots, and forty thousand horsemen: and smote Sobach the captain of the army, who presently died. 10:19. And all the kings that were auxiliaries of Adarezer, seeing themselves overcome by Israel, were afraid and fled away, eight and fifty thousand men before Israel. And they made peace with Israel: and served them, and all the Syrians were afraid to help the children of Ammon any more. 2 Kings Chapter 11 David falleth into the crime of adultery with Bethsabee: and not finding other means to conceal it, causeth her husband Urias to be slain. Then marrieth her, who beareth him a son. 11:1. And it came to pass at the return of the year, at the time when kings go forth to war, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel, and they spoiled the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabba: but David remained in Jerusalem. 11:2. In the mean time it happened that David arose from his bed after noon, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: And he saw from the roof of his house a woman washing herself, over against him: and the woman was very beautiful. 11:3. And the king sent, and inquired who the woman was. And it was told him, that she was Bethsabee the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Urias the Hethite. 11:4. And David sent messengers, and took her, and she came in to him, and he slept with her: and presently she was purified from her uncleanness: 11:5. And she returned to her house having conceived. And she sent and told David, and said: I have conceived. 11:6. And David sent to Joab, saying: Send me Urias the Hethite. And Joab sent Urias to David. 11:7. And Urias came to David. And David asked how Joab did, and the people, and how the war was carried on. 11:8. And David said to Urias: Go into thy house, and wash thy feet. And Urias went out from the king's house, and there went out after him a mess of meat from the king. 11:9. But Urias slept before the gate of the king's house, with the other servants of his lord, and went not down to his own house. 11:10. And it was told David by some that said: Urias went not to his house. And David said to Urias: Didst thou not come from thy journey? why didst thou not go down to thy house? 11:11. And Urias said to David: The ark of God and Israel and Juda dwell in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord abide upon the face of the earth: and shall I go into my house, to eat and to drink, and to sleep with my wife? By thy welfare and by the welfare of thy soul I will not do this thing. 11:12. Then David said to Urias: Tarry here to day, and to morrow I will send thee away. Urias tarried in Jerusalem that day and the next. 11:13. And David called him to eat and to drink before him, and he made him drunk: and he went out in the evening, and slept on his couch with the servants of his lord, and went not down into his house. 11:14. And when the morning was come, David wrote a letter to Joab: and sent it by the hand of Urias, 11:15. Writing in the letter: Set ye Urias in the front of the battle, where the fight is strongest: and leave ye him, that he may be wounded and die. 11:16. Wherefore as Joab was besieging the city, he put Urias in the place where he knew the bravest men were. 11:17. And the men coming out of the city, fought against Joab, and there fell some of the people of the servants of David, and Urias the Hethite was killed also. 11:18. Then Joab sent, and told David all things concerning the battle. 11:19. And he charged the messenger, saying: When thou hast told all the words of the battle to the king, 11:20. If thou see him to be angry, and he shall say: Why did you approach so near to the wall to fight? knew you not that many darts are thrown from above off the wall? 11:21. Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerobaal? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall and slew him in Thebes? Why did you go near the wall? Thou shalt say: Thy servant Urias the Hethite is also slain. 11:22. So the messenger departed, and came and told David all that Joab had commanded him. 11:23. And the messenger said to David: The men prevailed against us, and they came out to us into the field: and we vigorously charged and pursued them even to the gate of the city. 11:24. And the archers shot their arrows at thy servants from off the wall above: and some of the king's servants are slain, and thy servant Urias the Hethite is also dead. 11:25. And David said to the messenger: Thus shalt thou say to Joab: Let not this thing discourage thee: for various is the event of war: and sometimes one, sometimes another is consumed by the sword: encourage thy warriors against the city, and exhort them that thou mayest overthrow it. 11:26. And the wife of Urias heard that Urias her husband was dead, and she mourned for him. 11:27. And the mourning being over, David sent and brought her into his house, and she became his wife, and she bore him a son: and this thing which David had done, was displeasing to the Lord. 2 Kings Chapter 12 Nathan's parable. David confesseth his sin, and is forgiven: yet so as to be sentenced to most severe temporal punishments. The death of the child. The birth of Solomon. The taking of Rabbath. 12:1. And the Lord sent Nathan to David: and when he was come to him, he said to him: There were two men in one city, the one rich, and the other poor. 12:2. The rich man had exceeding many sheep and oxen. 12:3. But the poor man had nothing at all but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up, and which had grown up in his house together with his children, eating of his bread, and drinking of his cup, and sleeping in his bosom: and it was unto him as a daughter. 12:4. And when a certain stranger was come to the rich man, he spared to take of his own sheep and oxen, to make a feast for that stranger, who was come to him, but took the poor man's ewe, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. 12:5. And David's anger being exceedingly kindled against that man, he said to Nathan: As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this is a child of death. 12:6. He shall restore the ewe fourfold, because he did this thing, and had no pity. 12:7. And Nathan said to David: Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee from the hand of Saul, 12:8. And gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and Juda: and if these things be little, I shall add far greater things unto thee. 12:9. Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 12:10. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Urias the Hethite to be thy wife. 12:11. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. I will raise, etc. . .All these evils, inasmuch as they were punishments, came upon David by a just judgment of God, for his sin, and therefore God says, I will raise, etc.; but inasmuch as they were sins, on the part of Absalom and his associates, God was not the author of them, but only permitted them. 12:12. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel, and in the sight of the sun. 12:13. And David said to Nathan: I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David: The Lord also hath taken away thy sin: thou shalt not die. 12:14. Nevertheless, because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing, the child that is born to thee, shall surely die. 12:15. And Nathan returned to his house. The Lord also struck the child which the wife of Urias had borne to David, and his life was despaired of. 12:16. And David besought the Lord for the child: and David kept a fast, and going in by himself lay upon the ground. 12:17. And the ancients of his house came, to make him rise from the ground: but he would not, neither did he eat meat with them. 12:18. And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died: and the servants of David feared to tell him, that the child was dead. For they said: Behold when the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he would not hearken to our voice: how much more will he afflict himself if we tell him that the child is dead? 12:19. But when David saw his servants whispering, he understood that the child was dead: and he said to his servants: Is the child dead? They answered him He is dead. 12:20. Then David arose from the ground, and washed and anointed himself: and when he had changed his apparel, he went into the house of the Lord: and worshipped, and then he came into his own house, and he called for bread, and ate. 12:21. And his servants said to him: What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive, but when the child was dead, thou didst rise up, and eat bread. 12:22. And he said: While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept for him: for I said: Who knoweth whether the Lord may not give him to me, and the child may live? 12:23. But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Shall I be able to bring him back any more? I shall go to him rather: but he shall not return to me. 12:24. And David comforted Bethsabee his wife, and went in unto her, and slept with her: and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon, and the Lord loved him. 12:25. And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and called his name, Amiable to the Lord, because the Lord loved him. Amiable to the Lord. . .Or, beloved of the Lord. In Hebrew, Jedidiah. 12:26. And Joab fought against Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and laid close siege to the royal city. 12:27. And Joab sent messengers to David, saying: I have fought against Rabbath, and the city of waters is about to be taken. The city of waters. . .Rabbath the royal city of the Ammonites, was called the city of waters, from being encompassed with waters. 12:28. Now therefore gather thou the rest of the people together, and besiege the city and take it: lest when the city shall be wasted by me, the victory be ascribed to my name. 12:29. Then David gathered all the people together, and went out against Rabbath: and after fighting, he took it. 12:30. And he took the crown of their king from his head, the weight of which was a talent of gold, set with most precious stones, and it was put upon David's head, and the spoils of the city which were very great he carried away. 12:31. And bringing forth the people thereof he sawed them, and drove over them chariots armed with iron: and divided them with knives, and made them pass through brickkilns: so did he to all the cities of the children of Ammon: and David returned, with all the army to Jerusalem. 2 Kings Chapter 13 Ammon ravisheth Thamar. For which Absalom killeth him, and flieth to Gessur. 13:1. And it came to pass after this that Ammon the son of David loved the sister of Absalom the son of David, who was very beautiful, and her name was Thamar. 13:2. And he was exceedingly fond of her, so that he fell sick for the love of her: for as she was a virgin, he thought it hard to do any thing dishonestly with her. 13:3. Now Ammon had a friend, named Jonadab the son of Semmaa the brother of David, a very wise man: A very wise man. . .That is, a crafty and subtle man: for the counsel he gave on this occasion shews that his wisdom was but carnal and worldly. 13:4. And he said to him: Why dost thou grow so lean from day to day, O son of the king? why dost thou not tell me the reason of it? And Ammon said to him: I am in love with Thamar the sister of my brother Absalom. 13:5. And Jonadab said to him: Lie down upon thy bed, and feign thyself sick: and when thy father shall come to visit thee, say to him: Let my sister Thamar, I pray thee, come to me, to give me to eat, and to make me a mess, that I may eat it at her hand. 13:6. So Ammon lay down, and made as if he were sick: and when the king came to visit him, Ammon said to the king: I pray thee let my sister Thamar come, and make in my sight two little messes, that I may eat at her hand. 13:7. Then David sent home to Thamar, saying: Come to the house of thy brother Ammon, and make him a mess. 13:8. And Thamar came to the house of Ammon her brother: but he was laid down: and she took meal and tempered it: and dissolving it in his sight she made little messes. 13:9. And taking what she had boiled, she poured it out, and set it before him, but he would not eat: and Ammon said: Put out all persons from me. And when they had put all persons out, 13:10. Ammon said to Thamar: Bring the mess into the chamber, that I may eat at thy hand. And Thamar took the little messes which she had made, and brought them in to her brother Ammon in the chamber. 13:11. And when she had presented him the meat, he took hold of her, and said: Come lie with me, my sister. 13:12. She answered him: Do not so, my brother, do not force me: for no such thing must be done in Israel. Do not thou this folly. 13:13. For I shall not be able to bear my shame, and thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel: but rather speak to the king, and he will not deny me to thee. 13:14. But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her. 13:15. Then Ammon hated her with an exceeding great hatred: so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her before. And Ammon said to her: Arise, and get thee gone. 13:16. She answered him: The evil which now thou dost against me, in driving me away, is greater than that which thou didst before. And he would not hearken to her: 13:17. But calling the servants that ministered to him, he said: Thrust this woman out from me: and shut the door after her. 13:18. And she was clothed with a long robe: for the king's daughters that were virgins, used such kind of garments. Then his servant thrust her out: and shut the door after her. 13:19. And she put ashes on her head, and rent her long robe and laid her hands upon her head, and went on crying. 13:20. And Absalom her brother said to her: Hath thy brother Ammon lain with thee? but now, sister, hold thy peace, he is thy brother: and afflict not thy heart for this thing. So Thamar remained pining away in the house of Absalom her brother. 13:21. And when king David heard of these things he was exceedingly grieved: and he would not afflict the spirit of his son Ammon, for he loved him, because he was his firstborn. 13:22. But Absalom spoke not to Ammon neither good nor evil: for Absalom hated Ammon because he had ravished his sister Thamar. 13:23. And it came to pass after two years, that the sheep of Absalom were shorn in Baalhasor, which is near Ephraim: and Absalom invited all the king's sons: 13:24. And he came to the king, and said to him: Behold thy servant's sheep are shorn. Let the king, I pray, with his servants come to his servant. 13:25. And the king said to Absalom: Nay, my son, do not ask that we should all come, and be chargeable to thee. And when he pressed him, and he would not go, he blessed him. 13:26. And Absalom said: If thou wilt not come, at least let my brother Ammon, I beseech thee, come with us. And the king said to him: It is not necessary that he should go with thee. 13:27. But Absalom pressed him, so that he let Ammon and all the king's sons go with him. And Absalom made a feast as it were the feast of a king. 13:28. And Absalom had commanded his servants, saying: Take notice when Ammon shall be drunk with wine, and when I shall say to you: Strike him, and kill him, fear not: for it is I that command you: take courage, and be valiant men. 13:29. And the servants of Absalom did to Ammon as Absalom had commanded them. And all the king's sons arose and got up every man upon his mule, and fled. 13:30. And while they were yet in the way, a rumour came to David, saying: Absalom hath slain all the king's sons, and there is not one them left. 13:31. Then the king rose up, and rent his garments: and fell upon the ground, and all his servants, that stood about him, rent their garments. 13:32. But Jonadab the son of Semmaa David's brother answering, said: Let not my lord the king think that all the king's sons are slain: Ammon only is dead, for he was appointed by the mouth of Absalom from the day that he ravished his sister Thamar. 13:33. Now therefore let not my lord the king take this thing into his heart, saying: All the king's sons are slain: for Ammon only is dead. 13:34. But Absalom fled away: and the young man that kept the watch, lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there came much people by a by-way on the side of the mountain. 13:35. And Jonadab said to the king: Behold the king's sons are come: as thy servant said, so it is. 13:36. And when he made an end of speaking, the king's sons also appeared: and coming in they lifted up their voice, and wept: and the king also and all his servants wept very much. 13:37. But Absalom fled, and went to Tholomai the son of Ammiud the king of Gessur. And David mourned for his son every day. 13:38. And Absalom after he was fled, and come into Gessur, was there three years. And king David ceased to pursue after Absalom, because he was comforted concerning the death of Ammon. 2 Kings Chapter 14 Joab procureth Absalom's return, and his admittance to the king's presence. 14:1. And Joab the son of Sarvia, understanding that the king's heart was turned to Absalom, 14:2. Sent to Thecua, and fetched from thence a wise woman: and said to her: Feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on mourning apparel, and be not anointed with oil, that thou mayest be as a woman that had a long time been mourning for one dead. 14:3. And thou shalt go in to the king, and shalt speak to him in this manner. And Joab put the words in her mouth. 14:4. And when the woman of Thecua was come in to the king, she fell before him upon the ground, and worshipped, and said: Save me, O king. 14:5. And the king said to her: What is the matter with thee? She answered: Alas, I am a widow woman: for my husband is dead. 14:6. And thy handmaid had two sons: and they quarrelled with each other in the field, and there was none to part them: and the one struck the other, and slew him. 14:7. And behold the whole kindred rising against thy handmaid, saith: Deliver him that hath slain his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother, whom he slew, and that we may destroy the heir: and they seek to quench my spark which is left, and will leave my husband no name, nor remainder upon the earth. 14:8. And the king said to the woman: Go to thy house, and I will give charge concerning thee. 14:9. And the woman of Thecua said to the king: Upon me, my lord be the iniquity, and upon the house of my father: but may the king and his throne be guiltless. 14:10. And the king said: If any one shall say ought against thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more. 14:11. And she said: Let the king remember the Lord his God, that the next of kin be not multiplied to take revenge, and that they may not kill my son. And he said: As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth. 14:12. The woman said: Let thy hand maid speak one word to my lord the king. And he said: Speak. 14:13. And the woman said: Why hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God, and why hath the king spoken this word, to sin, and not bring home again his own exile? 14:14. We all die, and like waters that return no more, we fall down into the earth: neither will God have a soul to perish, but recalleth, meaning that he that is cast off should not altogether perish. 14:15. Now therefore I am come, to speak this word to my lord the king before the people. And thy handmaid said: I will speak to the king, it maybe the king will perform the request of his handmaid. 14:16. And the king hath hearkened to me to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of all that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God. 14:17. Then let thy handmaid say, that the word of the Lord the king be made as a sacrifice. For even as an angel of God, so is my lord the king, that he is neither moved with blessing nor cursing: wherefore the Lord thy God is also with thee. 14:18. And the king answering, said to the woman: Hide not from me the thing that I ask thee. And the woman said to him: Speak, my lord the king. 14:19. And the king said: Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? The woman answered, and said: By the health of thy soul, my lord, O king, it is neither on the left hand, nor on the right, in all these things which my lord the king hath spoken: for thy servant Joab, he commanded me, and he put all these words into the mouth of thy handmaid. 14:20. That I should come about with this form of speech, thy servant Joab commanded this: but thou, my lord, O king, art wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to understand all things upon earth. 14:21. And the king said to Joab: Behold I am appeased and have granted thy request: Go therefore and fetch back the boy Absalom. 14:22. And Joab falling down to the ground upon his face, adored, and blessed the king: and Joab said: This day thy servant hath understood, that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king: for thou hast fulfilled the request of thy servant. Blessed. . .That is, and gave thanks to the king. 14:23. Then Joab arose and went to Gessur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 14:24. But the king said: Let him return into his house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned into his house, and saw not the king's face. 14:25. But in all Israel there was not a man so comely, and so exceedingly beautiful as Absalom: from the sole of the foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. 14:26. And when he polled his hair (now he was polled once a year, because his hair was burdensome to him) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred sicles, according to the common weight. 14:27. And there were born to Absalom three sons: and one daughter, whose name was Thamar, and she was very beautiful. 14:28. And Absalom dwelt two years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king's face. 14:29. He sent therefore to Joab, to send him to the king: but he would not come to him. And when he had sent the second time, and he would not come to him, 14:30. He said to his servants: You know the field of Joab near my field, that hath a crop of barley: go now and set it on fire. So the servants of Absalom set the corn on fire. And Joab's servants coming with their garments rent, said: The servants of Absalom have set part of the field on fire. 14:31. Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom to his house, and said: Why have thy servants set my corn on fire? 14:32. And Absalom answered Joab: I sent to thee beseeching thee to come to me, that I might send thee to the king, to say to him: Wherefore am I come from Gessur? it had been better for me to be there: I beseech thee therefore that I may see the face of the king: and if he be mindful of my iniquity, let him kill me. 14:33. So Joab going in to the king, told him all: and Absalom was called for, and, he went in to the king: and prostrated himself on the ground before him: and the king kissed Absalom. 2 Kings Chapter 15 Absalom's policy and conspiracy. David is obliged to flee. 15:1. Now after these things Absalom made himself chariots, and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 15:2. And Absalom rising up early stood by the entrance of the gate, and when any man had business to come to the king's judgment, Absalom called him to him, and said: Of what city art thou? He answered, and said: Thy servant is of such tribe of Israel. 15:3. And Absalom answered him: Thy words seem to me good and just. But there is no man appointed by the king to hear thee. And Absalom said: 15:4. O that they would make me judge over the land, that all that have business might come to me, that I might do them justice. 15:5. Moreover when any man came to him to salute him, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. 15:6. And this he did to all Israel that came for judgment, to be heard by the king, and he enticed the hearts of the men of Israel. 15:7. And after forty years, Absalom said to king David: Let me go, and pay my vows which I have vowed to the Lord in Hebron. 15:8. For thy servant made a vow, when he was in Gessur of Syria, saying: If the Lord shall bring me again into Jerusalem, I will offer sacrifice to the Lord. 15:9. And king David said to him: Go in peace. And he arose, and went to Hebron. 15:10. And Absalom sent spies into all the tribes of Israel, saying: As soon as you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, say ye: Absalom reigneth in Hebron. 15:11. Now there went with Absalom two hundred men out of Jerusalem that were called, going with simplicity of heart, and knowing nothing of the design. 15:12. Absalom also sent for Achitophel the Gilonite, David's counsellor, from his city Gilo. And while he was offering sacrifices, there was a strong conspiracy, and the people running together increased with Absalom. 15:13. And there came a messenger to David, saying: All Israel with their whole heart followeth Absalom. 15:14. And David said to his servants, that were with him in Jerusalem: Arise and let us flee: for we shall not escape else from the face of Absalom: make haste to go out, lest he come and overtake us, and bring ruin upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword. 15:15. And the king's servants said to him: Whatsoever our lord the king shall command, we thy servants will willingly execute. 15:16. And the king went forth, and all his household on foot: and the king left ten women his concubines to keep the house: Concubines. . .That is, wives of an inferior degree. 15:17. And the king going forth and all Israel on foot, stood afar off from the house: 15:18. And all his servants walked by him, and the bands of the Cerethi, and the Phelethi, and all the Gethites, valiant warriors, six hundred men who had followed him from Geth on foot, went before the king. 15:19. And the king said to Ethai the Gethite: Why comest thou with us: return and dwell with the king, for thou art a stranger, and art come out of thy own place. 15:20. Yesterday thou camest, and to day shalt thou be forced to go forth with us? but I shall go whither I am going: return thou, and take back thy brethren with thee, and the Lord will shew thee mercy, and truth, because thou hast shewn grace and fidelity. 15:21. And Ethai answered the king, saying: As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth: in what place soever thou shalt be, my lord, O king, either in death, or in life, there will thy servant be. 15:22. And David said to Ethai: Come, and pass over. And Ethai the Gethite passed, and all the men that were with him, and the rest of the people. 15:23. And they all wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself went over the brook Cedron, and all the people marched towards the way that looketh to the desert. 15:24. And Sadoc the priest also came, and all the Levites with him carrying the ark of the covenant of God, and they set down the ark of God: and Abiathar went up, till all the people that was come out of the city had done passing. 15:25. And the king said to Sadoc: Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find grace in the sight of the Lord, he will bring me again, and he will shew me it, and his tabernacle. 15:26. But if he shall say to me: Thou pleasest me not: I am ready, let him do that which is good before him. 15:27. And the king said to Sadoc the priest: O seer, return into the city in peace: and let Achimaas thy son, and Jonathan the son of Abiathar, your two sons, be with you. 15:28. Behold I will lie hid in the plains of the wilderness, till there come word from you to certify me. 15:29. So Sadoc and Abiathar carried back the ark of God into Jerusalem: and they tarried there. 15:30. But David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, going up and weeping, walking barefoot, and with his head covered, and all the people that were with them, went up with their heads covered weeping. Weeping, etc. . .David on this occasion wept for his sins, which he knew were the cause of all his sufferings. 15:31. And it was told David that Achitophel also was in the conspiracy with Absalom, and David said: Infatuate, O Lord, I beseech thee, the counsel of Achitophel. 15:32. And when David was come to the top of the mountain, where he was about to adore the Lord, behold Chusai the Arachite, came to meet him with his garment rent and his head covered with earth. 15:33. And David said to him: If thou come with me, thou wilt be a burden to me: 15:34. But if thou return into the city, and wilt say to Absalom: I am thy servant, O king: as I have been thy father's servant, so I will be thy servant: thou shalt defeat the counsel of Achitophel. 15:35. And thou hast with thee Sadoc, and soever thou shalt hear out of the king's house, thou shalt tell it to Sadoc and Abiathar the priests. 15:36. And there are with them their two sons Achimaas; the son of Sadoc, and Jonathan the son of Abiathar: and you shall send by them to me every thing that you shall hear. 15:37. Then Chusai the friend of David went into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem. 2 Kings Chapter 16 Siba bringeth provisions to David. Semei curseth him. Absalom defileth his father's wives. 16:1. And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold Siba the servant of Miphiboseth came to meet him with two asses, laden with two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred cakes of figs, and a vessel of wine. 16:2. And the king said to Siba: What mean these things? And Siba answered: The asses are for the king's household to sit on: and the loaves and the figs for thy servants to eat, and the wine to drink if any man be faint in the desert. 16:3. And the king said: Where is thy master's son? And Siba answered the king: He remained in Jerusalem, saying: To day, will the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. 16:4. And the king said to Siba: I give thee all that belonged to Miphiboseth. And Siba said: I beseech thee let me find grace before thee, my lord, O king. 16:5. And king David came as far as Bahurim: and behold there came out from thence a man of the kindred of the house of Saul named Semei, the son of Gera, and coming out he cursed as he went on, 16:6. And he threw stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people, and all the warriors walked on the right, and on the left side of the king. 16:7. And thus said Semei when he cursed the king: Come out, come out, thou man of blood, and thou man of Belial. 16:8. The Lord hath repaid thee for all the blood of the house of Saul: because thou hast usurped the kingdom in his stead, and the Lord hath given the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and behold thy evils press upon thee, because thou art a man of blood. 16:9. And Abisai the son of Sarvia said to the king: Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? I will go, and cut off his head. 16:10. And the king said: What have I to do with you, ye sons of Sarvia? Let him alone and let him curse: for the Lord hath bid him curse David: and who is he that shall dare say, why hath he done so? Hath bid him curse. . .Not that the Lord was the author of Semei's sin, which proceeded purely from his own malice, and the abuse of his free will. But that knowing, and suffering his malicious disposition to break out on this occasion, he made use of him as his instrument to punish David for his sins. 16:11. And the king said to Abisai, and to all his servants: Behold my son, who came forth from my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now a son of Jemini? let him alone that he may curse as the Lord hath bidden him. 16:12. Perhaps the Lord may look upon my affliction, and the Lord may render me good for the cursing of this day. 16:13. And David and his men with him went by the way. And Semei by the hill's side went over against him, cursing, and casting stones at him, and scattering earth. 16:14. And the king and all the people with him came weary, and refreshed themselves there. 16:15. But Absalom and all his people came into Jerusalem, and Achitophel was with him. 16:16. And when Chusai the Arachite, David's friend, was come to Absalom, he said to him: God save thee, O king, God save thee, O king. 16:17. And Absalom said to him, Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Why wentest thou not with thy friend? 16:18. And Chusai answered Absalom: Nay: for I will be his, whom the Lord hath chosen, and all this people, and all Israel, and with him will I abide. 16:19. Besides this, whom shall I serve? is it not the king's son? as I have served thy father, so will I serve thee also. 16:20. And Absalom said to Achitophel: Consult what we are to do. 16:21. And Achitophel said to Absalom: Go in to the concubines of thy father, whom he hath left to keep the house: that when all Israel shall hear that thou hast disgraced thy father, their hands may be strengthened with thee. Their hands may be strengthened, etc. . .The people might apprehend lest Absalom should be reconciled to his father, and therefore they followed him with some fear of being left in the lurch, till they saw such a crime committed as seemed to make a reconciliation impossible. 16:22. So they spread a tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and he went in to his father's concubines before all Israel. 16:23. Now the counsel of Achitophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man should consult God: so was all the counsel of Achitophel, both when he was with David, and when he was with Absalom. 2 Kings Chapter 17 Achitophel's counsel is defeated by Chusai: who sendeth intelligence to David. Achitophel hangeth himself. 17:1. And Achitophel said to Absalom: I will choose me twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night. 17:2. And coming upon him (for he is now weary, and weak handed) I will defeat him: and when all the people is put to flight that is with him, I will kill the king who will be left alone. 17:3. And I will bring back all the people, as if they were but one man: for thou seekest but one man: and all the people shall be in peace. 17:4. And his saying pleased Absalom, and all the ancients of Israel. 17:5. But Absalom said: Call Chusai the Arachite, and let us hear what he also saith. 17:6. And when Chusai was come to Absalom, Absalom said to him: Achitophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do it or not? what counsel dost thou give? 17:7. And Chusai said to Absalom: The counsel that Achitophel hath given this time is not good. 17:8. And again Chusai said: Thou knowest thy father, and the men that are with him, that they are very valiant, and bitter in their mind, as a bear raging in the wood when her whelps are taken away: and thy father is a warrior, and will not lodge with the people. 17:9. Perhaps he now lieth hid in pits, or in some other place where he liest: and when any one shall fall at the first, every one that heareth it shall say: There is a slaughter among the people that followed Absalom. 17:10. And the most valiant man whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall melt for fear: for all the people of Israel know thy father to be a valiant man, and that all who are with him are valiant. 17:11. But this seemeth to me to be good counsel: Let all Israel be gathered to thee, from Dan to Bersabee, as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered: and thou shalt be in the midst of them. 17:12. And we shall come upon him in what place soever he shall be found: and we shall cover him, as the dew falleth upon the ground, and we shall not leave of the men that are with him, not so much as one. 17:13. And if he shall enter into any city, all Israel shall cast ropes round about that city, and we will draw it into the river, so that there shall not be found so much as one small stone thereof. 17:14. And Absalom, and all the men of Israel said: The counsel of Chusai the Arachite is better than the counsel of Achitophel: and by the will of the Lord the profitable counsel of Achitophel was defeated, that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. 17:15. And Chusai said to Sadoc and Abiathar the priests: Thus and thus did Achitophel counsel Absalom, and the ancients of Israel: and thus and thus did I counsel them. 17:16. Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying: Tarry not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but without delay pass over: lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that is with him. 17:17. And Jonathan and Achimaas stayed by the fountain Rogel: and there went a maid and told them: and they went forward, to carry the message to king David, for they might not be seen, nor enter into the city. 17:18. But a certain boy saw them, and told Absalom: but they making haste went into the house of a certain man in Bahurim, who had a well in his court, and they went down into it. 17:19. And a woman took, and spread a covering over the mouth of the well, as it were to dry sodden barley and so the thing was not known. 17:20. And when Absalom's servants were come into the house, they said to the woman: Where is Achimaas and Jonathan? and the woman answered them: They passed on in haste, after they had tasted a little water. But they that sought them, when they found them not, returned into Jerusalem. 17:21. And when they were gone, they came up out of the well, and going on told king David, and said: Arise, and pass quickly over the river: for this manner of counsel has Achitophel given against you. 17:22. So David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they passed over the Jordan, until it grew light, and not one of them was left that was not gone ever the river. 17:23. But Achitophel seeing that his counsel was not followed, saddled his ass, and arose and went home to his house and to his city, and putting his house in order, hanged himself, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father. 17:24. But David came to the camp, and Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him. To the camp. . .The city of Mahanaim, the name of which, in Hebrew, signifies The camp. It was a city of note at that time, as appears from its having been chosen by Isboseth for the place of his residence. 17:25. Now Absalom appointed Amasa in Joab's stead over the army: and Amasa was the son of a man who was called Jethra, of Jezrael, who went in to Abigail the daughter of Naas, the sister of Sarvia who was the mother of Joab. 17:26. And Israel camped with Absalom in the land of Galaad. 17:27. And when David was come to the camp, Sobi the son of Naas of Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammihel of Lodabar and Berzellai the Galaadite of Rogelim, 17:28. Brought him beds, and tapestry, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and meal, and parched corn, and beans, and lentils, and fried pulse, 17:29. And honey, and butter, and sheep, and fat calves, and they gave to David and the people that were with him, to eat: for they suspected that the people were faint with hunger and thirst in the wilderness. 2 Kings Chapter 18 Absalom is defeated, and slain by Joab. David mourneth for him. 18:1. And David, having reviewed his people, appointed over them captains of thousands and of hundreds, 18:2. And sent forth a third part of the people under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abisai the son of Sarvia Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ethai, who was of Geth: and the king said to the people: I also will go forth with you. 18:3. And the people answered: Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not much mind us: or if half of us should fall, they will not greatly care: for thou alone art accounted for ten thousand: it is better therefore that thou shouldst be in the city to succour us. 18:4. And the king said to them: What seemeth good to you, that will I do. And the king stood by the gate: and all the people went forth by their troops, by hundreds and by thousands. 18:5. And the king commanded Joab, and Abisai, and Ethai, saying: Save me the boy Absalom. And all the people heard the king giving charge to all the princes concerning Absalom. 18:6. So the people went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. 18:7. And the people of Israel were defeated there by David's army, and a great slaughter was made that day of twenty thousand men. 18:8. And the battle there was scattered over the face of all the country, and there were many more of the people whom the forest consumed, than whom the sword devoured that day. Consumed. . .Viz., by pits and precipices. 18:9. And it happened that Absalom met the servants of David, riding on a mule: and as the mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and the earth, the mule on which he rode passed on. 18:10. And one saw this and told Joab, saying: I saw Absalom hanging upon an oak. 18:11. And Joab said to the man that told him: If thou sawest him, why didst thou not stab him to the ground, and I would have given thee ten sicles of silver, and a belt? 18:12. And he said to Joab: If thou wouldst have paid down in my hands a thousand pieces of silver, I would not lay my hands upon the king's son for in our hearing the king charged thee, and Abisai, and Ethai, saying: Save me the boy Absalom. 18:13. Yea and if I should have acted boldly against my own life, this could not have been hid from the king, and wouldst thou have stood by me? 18:14. And Joab said: Not as thou wilt, but I will set upon him in thy sight. So he took three lances in his hand, and thrust them into the heart of Absalom: and whilst he yet panted for life, sticking on the oak, 18:15. Ten young men, armourbearers of Joab, ran up, and striking him slew him. 18:16. And Joab sounded the trumpet, and kept back the people from pursuing after Israel in their flight, being willing to spare the multitude. 18:17. And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the forest, and they laid an exceeding great heap of stones upon him: but all Israel fled to their own dwellings. 18:18. Now Absalom had reared up for himself, in his lifetime, a pillar, which is in the king's valley: for he said: I have no son, and this shall be the monument of my name. And he called the pillar by his own name, and it is called the hand of Absalom, to this day. No son. . .The sons mentioned above, chap. 14.27, were dead when this pillar was erected: unless we suppose he raised this pillar before they were born. 18:19. And Achimaas the son of Sadoc said: I will run and tell the king, that the Lord hath done judgment for him from the hand of his enemies. 18:20. And Joab said to him: Thou shalt not be the messenger this day, but shalt bear tidings another day: this day I will not have thee bear tidings, because the king's son is dead. 18:21. And Joab said to Chusai: Go, and tell the king what thou hast seen. Chusai bowed down to Joab, and ran. 18:22. Then Achimaas the son of Sadoc said to Joab again: Why might not I also run after Chusai? And Joab said to him: Why wilt thou run, my son? thou wilt not be the bearer of good tidings. 18:23. He answered: But what if I run? And he said to him: Run. Then Achimaas running by a nearer way passed Chusai. 18:24. And David sat between the two gates: and the watchman that was on the top of the gate upon the wall, lifting up his eyes, saw a man running alone. 18:25. And crying out he told the king: and the king said: If he be alone, there are good tidings in his mouth. And as he was coming apace, and drawing nearer, 18:26. The watchman saw another man running, and crying aloud from above, he said: I see another man running alone. And the king said: He also is a good messenger. 18:27. And the watchman said: The running of the foremost seemeth to me like the running of Achimaas the son of Sadoc. And the king said: He is a good man: and cometh with good news. 18:28. And Achimaas crying out, said to the king: God save thee, O king. And falling down before the king with his face to the ground, he said: Blessed be the Lord thy God, who hath shut up the men that have lifted up their hands against the lord my king. 18:29. And the king said: Is the young man Absalom safe? And Achimaas said: I saw a great tumult, O king, when thy servant Joab sent me thy servant: I know nothing else. 18:30. And the king said to him: Pass, and stand here. 18:31. And when he had passed, and stood still, Chusai appeared and coming up he said: I bring good tidings, my lord, the king, for the Lord hath judged for thee this day from the hand of all that have risen up against thee. 18:32. And the king said to Chusai: Is the young man Absalom safe? And Chusai answering him, said: Let the enemies of my lord, the king, and all that rise against him unto evil, be as the young man is. 18:33. The king therefore being much moved, went up to the high chamber over the gate, and wept. And as he went he spoke in this manner: My son Absalom, Absalom my son: would to God that I might die for thee, Absalom my son, my son Absalom. Would to God. . .David lamented the death of Absalom, because of the wretched state in which he died: and therefore would have been glad to have saved his life, even by dying for him. In which he was a figure of Christ weeping, praying and dying for his rebellious children, and even for them that crucified him. 2 Kings Chapter 19 David, at the remonstrances of Joab, ceaseth his mourning. He is invited back and met by Semei and Miphiboseth: a strife between the men of Juda and the men of Israel. 19:1. And it was told Joab, that the king wept and mourned for his son: 19:2. And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day: The king grieveth for his son. 19:3. And the people shunned the going into the city that day as a people would do that hath turned their backs, and fled away from the battle. 19:4. And the king covered his head, and cried with a loud voice: O my son Absalom, O Absalom my son, O my son. 19:5. Then Joab going into the house to the king, said: Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, that have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons, and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines. 19:6. Thou lovest them that hate thee, and thou hatest them that love thee: and thou hast shewn this day that thou carest not for thy nobles, nor for thy servants: and I now plainly perceive that if Absalom had lived, and all we had been slain, then it would have pleased thee. 19:7. Now therefore arise, and go out, and speak to the satisfaction of thy servants: for I swear to thee by the Lord, that if thou wilt not go forth, there will not tarry with thee so much as one this night: and that will be worse to thee, than all the evils that have befallen thee from thy youth until now. 19:8. Then the king arose and sat in the gate: and it was told to all the people that the king sat in the gate: and all the people came before the king, but Israel fled to their own dwellings. 19:9. And all the people were at strife in all the tribes of Israel, saying: The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us out of the hand of the Philistines: and now he is fled out of the land for Absalom. 19:10. But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in the battle: how long are you silent, and bring not back the king? 19:11. And king David sent to Sadoc, and Abiathar the priests, saying: Speak to the ancients of Juda, saying: Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house? (For the talk of all Israel was come to the king in his house.) 19:12. You are my brethren, you are my bone, and my flesh, why are you the last to bring back the king? 19:13. And say ye to Amasa: Art not thou my bone, and my flesh? So do God to me and add more, if thou be not the chief captain of the army before me always in the place of Joab. 19:14. And he inclined the heart of all the men of Juda, as it were of one man: and they sent to the king, saying: Return thou, and all thy servants. 19:15. And the king returned and came as far as the Jordan, and all Juda came as far as Galgal to meet the king, and to bring him over the Jordan. 19:16. And Semei the son of Gera the son of Jemini of Bahurim, made haste and went down with the men of Juda to meet king David, 19:17. With a thousand men of Benjamin, and Siba the servant of the house of Saul: and his fifteen sons, and twenty servants were with him: and going over the Jordan, 19:18.They passed the fords before the king, that they might help over the king's household, and do according to his commandment. And Semei the son of Gera falling down before the king, when he was come over the Jordan, 19:19. Said to him: Impute not to me, my lord, the iniquity, nor remember the injuries of thy servant on the day that thou, my lord, the king, wentest out of Jerusalem, nor lay it up in thy heart, O king. 19:20. For I thy servant acknowledge my sin: and therefore I am come this day the first of all the house of Joseph, and am come down to meet my lord the king. 19:21. But Abisai the son of Sarvia answering, said: Shall Semei for these words not be put to death, because he cursed the Lord's anointed? 19:22. And David said: What have I to do with you, ye sons of Sarvia? why are you a satan this day to me? shall there any man be killed this day in Israel? do not I know that this day I am made king over Israel? 19:23. And the king said to Semei: Thou shalt not die. And he swore unto him. 19:24. And Miphiboseth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and he had neither washed his feet, nor trimmed his beard: nor washed his garments from the day that the king went out, until the day of his return in peace. 19:25. And when he met the king at Jerusalem, the king said to him: Why camest thou not with me, Miphiboseth? 19:26. And he answering, said: My lord, O king, my servant despised me: for I thy servant spoke to him to saddle me an ass, that I might get on and go with the king: for I thy servant am lame. 19:27. Moreover he hath also accused me thy servant to thee, my lord the king: but thou my lord the king art as an angel of God, do what pleaseth thee. 19:28. For all of my father's house were no better than worthy of death before my lord the king; and thou hast set me thy servant among the guests of thy table: what just complaint therefore have I? or what right to cry any more to the king? 19:29. Then the king said to him: Why speakest thou any more? what I have said is determined: thou and Siba divide the possessions. 19:30. And Miphiboseth answered the king: Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is returned peaceably into his house. 19:31. Berzellai also the Galaadite coming down from Rogelim, brought the king over the Jordan, being ready also to wait on him beyond the river. 19:32. Now Berzellai the Galaadite was of a great age, that is to say, fourscore years old, and he provided the king with sustenance when he abode in the camp: for he was a man exceeding rich. 19:33. And the king said to Berzellai: Come with me that thou mayest rest secure with me in Jerusalem. 19:34. And Berzellai said to the king: How many are the days of the years of my life, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? 19:35. I am this day fourscore years old, are my senses quick to discern sweet and bitter? or can meat or drink delight thy servant? or can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? why should thy servant be a burden to my lord, the king? 19:36. I thy servant will go on a little way from the Jordan with thee: I need not this recompense. 19:37. But I beseech thee let thy servant return, and die in my own city, and be buried by the sepulchre of my father, and of my mother. But there is thy servant Chamaam, let him go with thee, my lord, the king, and do to him whatsoever seemeth good to thee. 19:38. Then the king said to him: Let Chamaam go over with me, and I will do for him whatsoever shall please thee, and all that thou shalt ask of me, thou shalt obtain. 19:39. And when all the people and the king had passed over the Jordan, the king kissed Berzellai, and blessed him: and he returned to his own place. 19:40. So the king went on to Galgal, and Chamaam with him. Now all the people of Juda had brought the king over, and only half of the people of Israel were there. 19:41. Therefore all the men of Israel running together to the king, said to him: Why have our brethren the men of Juda stolen thee away, and have brought the king and his household over the Jordan, and all the men of David with him? 19:42. And all the men of Juda answered the men of Israel: Because the king is nearer to me: why art thou angry for this matter? have we eaten any thing of the king's, or have any gifts been given us? 19:43. And the men of Israel answered the men of Juda, and said: I have ten parts in the king more than thou, and David belongeth to me more than to thee: why hast thou done me a wrong, and why was it not told me first, that I might bring back my king? And the men of Juda answered more harshly than the men of Israel. 2 Kings Chapter 20 Seba's rebellion. Amasa is slain by Joab. Abela is besieged, but upon the citizens casting over the wall the head of Seba, Joab departeth with all his army. 20:1. And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Seba, the son of Bochri, a man of Jemini: and he sounded the trumpet, and said: We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Isai: return to thy dwellings, O Israel. 20:2. And all Israel departed from David, and followed Seba the son of Bochri: but the men of Juda stuck to their king from the Jordan unto Jerusalem. 20:3. And when the king was come into his house at Jerusalem, he took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them inward, allowing them provisions: and he went not in unto them, but they were shut up unto the day of their death living in widowhood. 20:4. And the king said to Amasa: Assemble to me all the men of Juda against the third day, and be thou here present. 20:5. So Amasa went to assemble the men of Juda, but he tarried beyond the set time which the king had appointed him. 20:6. And David said to Abisai: Now will Seba the son of Bochri do us more harm than did Absalom: take thou therefore the servants of thy lord, and pursue after him, lest he find fenced cities, and escape us. 20:7. So Joab's men went out with him, and the Cerethi and the Phelethi: and all the valiant men went out of Jerusalem to pursue after Seba the son of Bochri. 20:8. And when they were at the great stone which is in Gabaon, Amasa coming met them. And Joab had on a close coat of equal length with his habit, and over it was girded with a sword hanging down to his flank, in a scabbard, made in such manner as to come out with the least motion and strike. 20:9. And Joab said to Amasa: God save thee, my brother. And he took Amasa by the chin with his right hand to kiss him. 20:10. But Amasa did not take notice of the sword, which Joab had, and he struck him in the side, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and gave him not a second wound, and he died. And Joab, and Abisai his brother pursued after Seba the son of Bochri. 20:11. In the mean time some men of Joab's company stopping at the dead body of Amasa, said: Behold he that would have been in Joab's stead the companion of David. 20:12. And Amasa imbrued with blood, lay in the midst of the way. A certain man saw this that all the people stood still to look upon him, so he removed Amasa out of the highway into the field, and covered him with a garment, that they who passed might, not stop on his account. 20:13. And when he was removed out of the way, all the people went on following Joab to pursue after Seba the son of Bochri. 20:14. Now he had passed through all the tribes of Israel unto Abela and Bethmaacha: and all the chosen men were gathered together unto him. Abela and Bethmaacha. . .Cities of the tribe of Nephtali. 20:15. And they came, and besieged him in Abela, and in Bethmaacha, and they cast up works round the city, and the city was besieged: and all the people that were with Joab, laboured to throw down the walls. 20:16. And a wise woman cried out from the city: Hear, hear, and say to Joab: Come near hither, and I will speak with thee. 20:17. And when he was come near to her, she said to him: Art thou Joab? And he answered: I am. And she spoke thus to him: Hear the words of thy handmaid. He answered: I do hear. 20:18. And she again said: A saying was used in the old proverb: They that inquire, let them inquire in Abela: and so they made an end. 20:19. Am not I she that answer truth in Israel, and thou seekest to destroy the city, and to overthrow a mother in Israel? Why wilt thou throw down the inheritance of the Lord? 20:20. And Joab answering said: God forbid, God forbid that I should, I do not throw down, nor destroy. 20:21. The matter is not so, but a man of mount Ephraim, Seba the son of Bochri by name, hath lifted up his hand against king David: deliver him only, and we will depart from the city. And the woman said to Joab: Behold his head shall be thrown to thee from the wall. 20:22. So she went to all the people, and spoke to them wisely: and they cut off the head of Seba the son of Bochri, and cast it out to Joab. And he sounded the trumpet, and they departed from the city, every one to their home: and Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king. 20:23. So Joab was over all the army of Israel: and Banaias the son of Joiada was over the Cerethites and Phelethites, 20:24. But Aduram over the tributes: and Josaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder. 20:25. And Siva was scribe: and Sadoc and Abiathar, priests. 20:26. And Ira the Jairite was the priest of David. 2 Kings Chapter 21 A famine of three years, for the sin of Saul against the Gabaonites, at whose desire seven of Saul's race are crucified. War again with the Philistines. 21:1. And there was a famine in the days of David for three years successively: and David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slow the Gabaonites. 21:2. Then the king, calling for the Gabaonites, said to them: (Now the Gabaonites were not of the children of Israel, but the remains of the Amorrhites: and the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul sought to slay them out of zeal, as it were for the children of Israel and Juda:) 21:3. David therefore said to the Gabaonites: What shall I do for you? and what shall be the atonement or you, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? 21:4. And the Gabaonites said to him: We have no contest about silver and gold, but against Saul and against his house: neither do we desire that any man be slain of Israel. And the king said to them: What will you then that I should do for you? 21:5. And they said to the king: The man that crushed us and oppressed us unjustly, we must destroy in such manner that there be not so much as one left of his stock in all the coasts of Israel. 21:6. Let seven men of his children be delivered unto us, that we may crucify them to the Lord in Gabaa of Saul, once the chosen of the Lord. And the king said: I will give them. 21:7. And the king spared Miphiboseth the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord, that had been between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 21:8. So the king took the two sons of Respha the daughter of Aia, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni, and Miphiboseth: and the five sons of Michol the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Hadriel the son of Berzellai, that was of Molathi: Of Michol. . .They were the sons of Merob, who was married to Hadriel: but they are here called the sons of Michol, because she adopted them, and brought them up as her own. 21:9. And gave them into the hands of the Gabaonites: and they crucified them on a hill before the Lord: and these seven died together in the first days of the harvest, when the barley began to be reaped. 21:10. And Respha the daughter of Aia took haircloth, and spread it under her upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest, till water dropped upon them out of heaven: and suffered neither the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night. 21:11. And it was told David, what Respha the daughter of Aia, the concubine of Saul, had done. 21:12. And David went, and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabes Galaad, who had stolen them from the street of Bethsan, where the Philistines had hanged them when they had slain Saul in Gelboe. 21:13. And he brought from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered up the bones of them that were crucified, 21:14. And they buried them with the bones of Saul, and of Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in the side, in the sepulchre of Cis his father: and they did all that the king had commanded, and God shewed mercy again to the land after these things. 21:15. And the Philistines made war again against Israel, and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David growing faint, 21:16. Jesbibenob, who was of the race of Arapha, the iron of whose spear weighed three hundred ounces, being girded with a new sword, attempted to kill David. 21:17. And Abisai the son of Sarvia rescued him, and striking the Philistine killed him. Then David's men swore unto him saying: Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, lest thou put out the lamp of Israel. 21:18. There was also a second battle in Gob against the Philistines: then Sobochai of Husathi slew Saph of the race of Arapha of the family of the giants. 21:19. And there was a third battle in Gob against the Philistines, in which Adeodatus the son of the Forrest an embroiderer of Bethlehem slew Goliath the Gethite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. Adeodatus the son of the Forrest. . .So it is rendered in the Latin Vulgate, by giving the interpretation of the Hebrew names, which are Elhanan the son of Jaare. 21:20. A fourth battle was in Geth: where there was a man of great stature, that had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, four and twenty in all, and he was of the race of Arapha. 21:21. And he reproached Israel: and Jonathan the son of Samae the brother of David slew him. 21:22. These four were born of Arapha in Geth, and they fell by the hand of David, and of his servants. 2 Kings Chapter 22 King David's psalm of thanksgiving for his deliverance from all his enemies. 22:1. And David spoke to the Lord the words of this canticle, in the day that the Lord delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul, 22:2. And he said: The Lord is my rock, and my strength, and my saviour. 22:3. God is my strong one, in him will I trust: my shield, and the horn of my salvation: he lifteth me up, and is my refuge: my saviour, thou wilt deliver me from iniquity. 22:4. I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised: and I shall be saved from my enemies. 22:5. For the pangs of death have surrounded me: the floods of Belial have made me afraid. 22:6. The cords of hell compassed me: the snares of death prevented me. 22:7. In my distress I will call upon the Lord, and I will cry to my God: and he will hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry shall come to his ears. 22:8. The earth shook and trembled, the foundations of the mountains were moved, and shaken, because he was angry with them. 22:9. A smoke went up from his nostrils, and a devouring fire out of his mouth: coals were kindled by it. 22:10. He bowed the heavens, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. 22:11. And he rode upon the cherubims, and flew: and slid upon the wings of the wind. 22:12. He made darkness a covering round about him: dropping waters out of the clouds of the heavens. 22:13. By the brightness before him, the coals of fire were kindled. 22:14. The Lord shall thunder from heaven: and the most high shall give forth his voice. 22:15. He shot arrows and scattered them: lightning, and consumed them. 22:16. And the overflowings of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid open at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of the spirit of his wrath. 22:17. He sent from on high, and took me, and drew me out of many waters. 22:18. He delivered me from my most mighty enemy, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me. 22:19. He prevented me in the day of my affliction, and the Lord became my stay. 22:20. And he brought me forth into a large place, he delivered me, because I pleased him. 22:21. The Lord will reward me according to my justice: and according to the cleanness of my hands he will render to me. 22:22. Because I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 22:23. For all his judgments are in my sight: and his precepts I have not removed from me. 22:24. And I shall be perfect with him: and shall keep myself from my iniquity. 22:25. And the Lord will recompense me according to my justice: and according to the cleanness of my hands in the sight of his eyes. 22:26. With the holy one thou wilt be holy: and with the valiant perfect. 22:27. With the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted. 22:28. And the poor people thou wilt save: and with thy eyes thou shalt humble the haughty. 22:29. For thou art my lamp O Lord: and thou, O Lord, wilt enlighten my darkness. 22:30. For in thee I will run girded: in my God I will leap over the wall. 22:31. God, his way is immaculate, the word of the Lord is tried by fire: he is the shield of all that trust in him. 22:32. Who is God but the Lord: and who is strong but our God? 22:33. God who hath girded me with strength, and made my way perfect. 22:34. Making my feet like the feet of harts, and setting me upon my high places. 22:35. He teacheth my hands to war: and maketh my arms like a bow of brass. 22:36. Thou hast given me the shield of my salvation: and thy mildness hath multiplied me. 22:37. Thou shalt enlarge my steps under me: and my ankles shall not fail. 22:38. I will pursue after my enemies, and crush them: and will not return again till I consume them. 22:39. I will consume them and break them in pieces, so that they shall not rise: they shall fall under my feet. 22:40. Thou hast girded me with strength to battle: thou hast made them that resisted me to bow under me. 22:41. My enemies thou hast made to turn their back to me: them that hated me, and I shall destroy them. 22:42. They shall cry, and there shall be none to save: to the Lord, and he shall not hear them. 22:43. I shall beat them as small as the dust of the earth: I shall crush them and spread them abroad like the mire of the streets. 22:44. Thou wilt save me from the contradictions of my people: thou wilt keep me to be the head of the Gentiles: the people which I know not, shall serve me, 22:45. The sons of the stranger will resist me, at the hearing of the ear they will obey me. 22:46. The strangers are melted away, and shall be straitened in their distresses. 22:47. The Lord liveth, and my God is blessed: and the strong God of my salvation shall be exalted: 22:48. God who giveth me revenge, and bringest down people under me, 22:49. Who bringest me forth from my enemies, and liftest me up from them that resist me: from the wicked man thou shalt deliver me. 22:50. Therefore will I give thanks to thee, O Lord, among the Gentiles, and will sing to thy name. 22:51. Giving great salvation to his king, and shewing mercy to David his anointed, and to his seed for ever. 2 Kings Chapter 23 The last words of David. A catalogue of his valiant men. 23:1. Now these are David's last words. David the son of Isai said: The man to whom it was appointed concerning the Christ of the God of Jacob, the excellent psalmist of Israel said: 23:2. The spirit of the Lord hath spoken by me and his word by my tongue. 23:3. The God of Israel said to me, the strong one of Israel spoke, the ruler of men, the just ruler in the fear of God. 23:4. As the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, shineth in the morning without clouds, and as the grass springeth out of the earth by rain. As the light, etc. . .So shall be the kingdom of Christ. 23:5. Neither is my house so great with God, that he should make with me an eternal covenant, firm in all things and assured. For he is all my salvation, and all my will: neither is there ought thereof that springeth not up. Neither is my house, etc. . .As if he should say: This everlasting covenant was not due to my house: but purely owing to his bounty; who is all my salvation, and my will: that is, who hath always saved me, and granted me what I beseeched of him; so that I and my house, through his blessing, have sprung up, and succeeded in all things. 23:6. But transgressors shall all of them be plucked up as thorns: which are not taken away with hands. 23:7. And if a man will touch them, he must be armed with iron and with the staff of a lance: but they shall be set on fire and burnt to nothing. 23:8. These are the names of the valiant men of David: Jesbaham sitting in the chair was the wisest chief among the three, he was like the most tender little worm of the wood, who killed eight hundred men at one onset. Jesbaham. . .The son of Hachamoni. For this was the name of this hero, as appears from 1 Chron. or Paralip. 11.--Ibid. Most tender, etc. . .He appeared like one tender and weak, but was indeed most valiant and strong. It seems the Latin has here given the interpretation of the Hebrew name of the hero, to whom Jesbaham was like, instead of the name itself, which was Adino the Eznite, one much renowned of old for his valour. 23:9. After him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of the three valiant men that were with David when they defied the Philistines, and they were there gathered together to battle. Dodo. . .In Latin, Patrui ejus, which is the interpretation of the Hebrew name Dodo. The same occurs in ver. 24. 23:10. And when the men of Israel were gone away, he stood and smote the Philistines till his hand was weary, and grew stiff with the sword: and the Lord wrought a great victory that day: and the people that were fled away, returned to take spoils of them that were slain. 23:11. And after him was Semma the son of Age of Arari. And the Philistines were gathered together in a troop: for there was a field full of lentils. And when the people were fled from the face of the Philistines, 23:12. He stood in the midst of the field, and defended it, and defeated the Philistines: and the Lord gave a great victory. 23:13. Moreover also before this the three who were princes among the thirty, went down and came to David in the harvest time into the cave of Odollam: and the camp of the Philistines was in the valley of the giants. 23:14. And David was then in a hold: and there was a garrison of the Philistines then in Bethlehem. 23:15. And David longed, and said: O that some man would get me a drink of the water out of the cistern, that is in Bethlehem, by the gate. 23:16. And the three valiant men broke through the camp of the Philistines, and drew water out of the cistern of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and brought it to David: but he would not drink, but offered it to the Lord, 23:17. Saying: The Lord be merciful to me, that I may not do this: shall I drink the blood of these men that went, and the peril of their lives? therefore he would not drink. These things did these three mighty men. 23:18. Abisai also the brother of Joab, the son of Sarvia, was chief among three: and he lifted up his spear against three hundred whom he slew, and he was renowned among the three, 23:19. And the noblest of three, and was their chief, but to the three first he attained not. 23:20. And Banaias the son of Joiada a most valiant man, of great deeds, of Cabseel: he slew the two lions of Moab, and he went down, and slew a lion in the midst of a pit, in the time of snow. 23:21. He also slew an Egyptian, a man worthy to be a sight, having a spear in his hand: but he went down to him with a rod, and forced the spear out of the hand of the Egyptian, and slew him with his own spear. 23:22. These things did Banaias the son of Joiada. 23:23. And he was renowned among the three valiant men, who were the most honourable among the thirty: but he attained not to the first three: and David made him of his privy council. 23:24. Asael the brother of Joab was one of the thirty, Elehanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem. 23:25. Semma of Harodi, Elica of Harodi, 23:26. Heles of Phalti, Hira the son of Acces of Thecua, 23:27. Abiezer of Anathoth, Mobonnai of Husati, 23:28. Selmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite, 23:29. Heled the son of Baana, also a Netophathite, Ithai the son of Ribai of Gabaath of the children of Benjamin, 23:30. Banaia the Pharathonite, Heddai of the torrent Gaas, 23:31. Abialbon the Arbathite, Azmaveth of Beromi, 23:32. Eliaba of Salaboni. The sons of Jassen, Jonathan, 23:33. Semma of Orori, Aliam the son of Sarar the Arorite, 23:34. Eliphelet the son of Aasbai the son of Machati, Eliam the son of Achitophel the Gelonite, 23:35. Hesrai of Carmel, Pharai of Arbi, 23:36. Igaal the son of Nathan of Soba, Bonni of Gadi, 23:37. Selec of Ammoni, Naharai the Berothite, armourbearer of Joab the son of Sarvia, 23:38. Ira the Jethrite, Gareb also a Jethrite; 23:39. Urias the Hethite, thirty and seven in all. 2 Kings Chapter 24 David numbereth the people: God sendeth a pestilence, which is stopt by David's prayer and sacrifice. 24:1. And the anger of the Lord was again kindled against Israel, and stirred up David among them, saying: Go, number Israel and Juda. Stirred up, etc. . .This stirring up was not the doing of God, but of Satan; as it is expressly declared, 1 Chron. or Paralip. 21.1. 24:2. And the king said to Joab the general of his army: Go through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Bersabee, and number ye the people that I may know the number of them. 24:3. And Joab said to the king: The Lord thy God increase thy people, and make them as many more as they are now, and again multiply them a hundredfold in the sight of my lord the king: but what meaneth my lord the king by this kind of thing? 24:4. But the king's words prevailed over the words of Joab, and of the captains of the army: and Joab, and the captains of the soldiers went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel. 24:5. And when they had passed the Jordan, they came to Aroer to the right side of the city, which is in the vale of Gad. 24:6. And by Jazer they passed into Galaad, and to the lower land of Hodsi, and they came into the woodlands of Dan. And going about by Sidon, 24:7. They passed near the walls of Tyre, and all the land of the Hevite, and the Chanaanite, and they came to the south of Juda into Bersabee: 24:8. And having gone through the whole land, after nine months and twenty days, they came to Jerusalem. 24:9. And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people to the king, and there were found of Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword: and of Juda five hundred thousand fighting men. 24:10. But David's heart struck him, after the people were numbered: and David said to the Lord: I have sinned very much in what I have done: but I pray thee, O Lord, to take away the iniquity of thy servant, because I have done exceeding foolishly. David's heart struck him, after the people were numbered. . .That is he was touched with a great remorse for the vanity and pride which had put him upon numbering the people. 24:11. And David arose in the morning, and the word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet and the seer of David, saying: 24:12. Go, and say to David: Thus saith the Lord: I give thee thy choice of three things, choose one of them which thou wilt, that I may do it to thee. 24:13. And when Gad was come to David, he told him, saying: Either seven years of famine shall come to thee in thy land: or thou shalt flee three months before thy adversaries, and they shall pursue thee: or for three days there shall be a pestilence in thy land. Now therefore deliberate, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. 24:14. And David said to Gad: I am in a great strait: but it is better that I should fall into the hands of the Lord (for his mercies are many) than into the hands of men. 24:15. And the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning unto the time appointed, and there died of the people from Dan to Bersabee seventy thousand men. 24:16. And when the angel of the Lord had stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord had pity on the affliction, and said to the angel that slew the people: It is enough: now hold thy hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the thrashingfloor of Areuna the Jebusite. 24:17. And David said to the Lord, when he saw the angel striking the people: It is I; I am he that have sinned, I have done wickedly: these that are the sheep, what have they done? let thy hand, I beseech thee, be turned against me, and against my father's house. 24:18. And Gad came to David that day, and said: Go up, and build an altar to the Lord in the thrashingfloor of Areuna the Jebusite. 24:19. And David went up according to the word of Gad which the Lord had commanded him. 24:20. And Areuna looked, and saw the king and his servants coming towards him: 24:21. And going out he worshipped the king, bowing with his face to the earth, and said: Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said to him: To buy the thrashingfloor of thee, and build an altar to the Lord, that the plague, which rageth among the people, may cease. 24:22. And Areuna said to David: Let my lord the king take, and offer, as it seemeth good to him: thou hast here oxen for a holocaust, and the wain, and the yokes of the oxen for wood. 24:23. All these things Areuna as a king gave to the king: and Areuna said to the king: The Lord thy God receive thy vow. 24:24. And the king answered him, and said: Nay, but I will buy it of thee, at a price, and I will not offer to the Lord my God holocausts free cost. So David bought the floor, and the oxen, for fifty sicles of silver: 24:25. And David built there an altar to the Lord, and offered holocausts and peace offerings: and the Lord became merciful to the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel. THE THIRD BOOK OF KINGS This and the following Book are called by the holy fathers the third and fourth book of Kings; but by the Hebrews, the first and second. They contain the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Juda, from the beginning of the reign of Solomon, to the captivity. As to the writer of these books, it seems most probable they were not written by one man; nor at one time; but as there was all along a succession of prophets in Israel, who recorded, by divine inspiration, the most remarkable things that happened in their days, these books seem to have been written by these prophets. See 2 Paralip. alias 2 Chron. 9.29; 12.15; 13.22; 20.34; 26.22; 32.32. 3 Kings Chapter 1 King David growing old, Abisag a Sunamitess is brought to him. Adonias pretending to reign, Nathan and Bethsabee obtain that Solomon should be declared and anointed king. 1:1. Now king David was old, and advanced in years: and when he was covered with clothes he was not warm. 1:2. His servants therefore, said to him: Let us seek for our Lord the king, a young virgin, and let her stand before the king, and cherish him, and sleep in his bosom and warm our lord the king. 1:3. So they sought a beautiful young woman, in all the coasts of Israel and they found Abisag, a Sunamitess, and brought her to the king. 1:4. And the damsel was exceedingly beautiful, and she slept with the king, and served him, but the king did not know her. 1:5. And Adonias, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying: I will be king. And he made himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 1:6. Neither did his father rebuke him at any time, saying: Why hast thou done this? And he also was very beautiful, the next in birth after Absalom. 1:7. And he conferred with Joab, the son of Sarvia, and with Abiathar, the priest, who furthered Adonias's side. 1:8. But Sadoc, the priest, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and Nathan, the prophet, and Semei, and Rei, and the strength of David's army, was not with Adonias. 1:9. And Adonias having slain rams and calves, and all fat cattle, by the stone of Zoheleth, which was near the fountain Rogel, invited all his brethren, the king's sons, and all the men of Juda, the king's servants: 1:10. But Nathan, the prophet, and Banaias, and all the valiant men, and Solomon, his brother, he invited not. 1:11. And Nathan said to Bethsabee, the mother of Solomon: Hast thou not heard that Adonias, the son of Haggith, reigneth, and our lord David knoweth it not? 1:12. Now then, come, take my counsel, and save thy life, and the life of thy son Solomon. 1:13. Go, and get thee in to king David, and say to him: Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear to me, thy handmaid, saying: Solomon, thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne? why then doth Adonias reign? 1:14. And while thou art yet speaking there with the king, I will come in after thee, and will fill up thy words. 1:15. So Bethsabee went in to the king into the chamber. Now the king was very old, and Abisag, the Sunamitess, ministered to him. 1:16. Bethsabee bowed herself, and worshipped the king. And the king said to her: What is thy will? 1:17. She answered, and said: My lord, thou didst swear to thy handmaid, by the Lord thy God, saying: Solomon, thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne. 1:18. And behold, now Adonias reigneth, and thou, my lord the king, knowest nothing of it. 1:19. He hath killed oxen, and all fat cattle, and many rams, and invited all the king's sons, and Abiathar, the priest, and Joab, the general of the army: but Solomon, thy servant, he invited not. 1:20. And now, my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, that thou shouldst tell them, who shall sit on thy throne, my lord the king, after thee. 1:21. Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my lord the king sleepeth with his fathers, that I, and my son, Solomon, shall be accounted offenders. 1:22. As she was yet speaking with the king, Nathan, the prophet, came. 1:23. And they told the king, saying: Nathan, the prophet, is here. And when he was come in before the king, and had worshipped, bowing down to the ground, 1:24. Nathan said: My lord, O king, hast thou said: Let Adonias reign after me, and let him sit upon my throne? 1:25. Because he is gone down to day, and hath killed oxen, and fatlings, and many rams, and invited all the king's sons, and the captains of the army, and Abiathar the priest: and they are eating and drinking before him, and saying: God save king Adonias: 1:26. But me, thy servant, and Sadoc, the priest, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and Solomon, thy servant, he hath not invited. 1:27. Is this word come out from my lord the king, and hast thou not told me, thy servant, who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him? 1:28. And king David answered, and said: Call to me Bethsabee. And when she was come in to the king, and stood before him, 1:29. The king swore, and said: As the Lord liveth, who hath delivered my soul out of all distress, 1:30. Even as I swore to thee, by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying: Solomon thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead, so will I do this day. 1:31. And Bethsabee, bowing with her face to the earth, worshipped the king, saying: May my lord David live for ever. 1:32. King David also said: Call me Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, and Banaias, the son of Joiada. And when they were come in before the king, 1:33. He said to them: Take with you the servants of your lord, and set my son Solomon upon my mule: and bring him to Gihon: 1:34. And let Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, anoint him there king over Israel: and you shall sound the trumpet, and shall say: God save king Solomon. 1:35. And you shall come up after him, and he shall come, and shall sit upon my throne, and he shall reign in my stead: and I will appoint him to be ruler over Israel, and over Juda. 1:36. And Banaias, the son of Joiada, answered the king, saying: Amen: so say the Lord, the God of my lord the king. 1:37. As the Lord hath been with my lord the king, so be he with Solomon, and make his throne higher than the throne of my lord king David. 1:38. So Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, went down, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and the Cerethi, and Phelethi: and they set Solomon upon the mule of king David, and brought him to Gihon. 1:39. And Sadoc, the priest, took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon: and they sounded the trumpet, and all the people said: God save king Solomon. 1:40. And all the multitude went up after him, and the people played with pipes, and rejoiced with a great joy, and the earth rang with the noise of their cry. 1:41. And Adonias, and all that were invited by him, heard it, and now the feast was at an end. Joab also, hearing the sound of the trumpet, said: What meaneth this noise of the city in an uproar? 1:42. While he yet spoke, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, the priest, came: and Adonias said to him: Come in, because thou art a valiant man, and bringest good news. 1:43. And Jonathan answered Adonias: Not so: for our lord, king David, hath appointed Solomon king; 1:44. And hath sent with him Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and the Cerethi, and the Phelethi, and they have set him upon the king's mule: 1:45. And Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, have anointed him king, in Gihon: and they are gone up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again: this is the noise that you have heard. 1:46. Moreover, Solomon sitteth upon the throne of the kingdom. 1:47. And the king's servants going in, have blessed our lord king David, saying: May God make the name of Solomon greater than thy name, and make his throne greater than thy throne. And the king adored in his bed: 1:48. And he said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who hath given this day one to sit on my throne, my eyes seeing it. 1:49. Then all the guests of Adonias were afraid, and they all arose, and every man went his way. 1:50. And Adonias fearing Solomon, arose and went, and took hold of the horn of the altar. 1:51. And they told Solomon, saying: Behold Adonias fearing king Solomon, hath taken hold of the horn of the altar, saying: Let king Solomon swear to me this day, that he will not kill his servant with the sword. 1:52. And Solomon said: If he be a good man, there shall not so much as one hair of his head fall to the ground: but if evil be found in him, he shall die. 1:53. Then king Solomon sent, and brought him out from the altar: and going in, he worshipped king Solomon: and Solomon said to him: Go to thy house. 3 Kings Chapter 2 David, after giving his last charge to Solomon, dieth. Adonias is put to death: Abiathar is banished: Joab and Semei are slain. 1:1. And the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged his son Solomon, saying: 2:2. I am going the way of all flesh: take thou courage and shew thyself a man. 2:3. And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and observe his ceremonies, and his precepts, and judgments, and testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses: that thou mayst understand all thou dost, and whithersoever thou shalt turn thyself: 2:4. That the Lord may confirm his words, which he hath spoken of me, saying: If thy children shall take heed to their ways, and shall walk before me in truth, with all their heart, and with all their soul, there shall not be taken away from thee a man on the throne of Israel. 2:5. Thou knowest also what Joab, the son of Sarvia, hath done to me, what he did to the two captains of the army of Israel, to Abner, the son of Ner, and to Amasa, the son of Jether: whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Joab. . .These instructions given by David to his son, with relation to Joab and Semei, proceeded not from any rancour of heart, or private pique; but from a zeal for justice, that crimes so public and heinous might not pass unpunished. 2:6. Do, therefore, according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoary head go down to hell in peace. To hell. . .This word hell doth not here signify the place or state of damnation; but the place and state of the dead. 2:7. But shew kindness to the sons of Berzellai, the Galaadite, and let them eat at thy table: for they met me when I fled from the face of Absalom, thy brother. 2:8. Thou hast also with thee Semei, the son of Gera, the son of Jemini, of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse, when I went to the camp: but because he came down to meet me when I passed over the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord, saying: I will not kill thee with the sword: 2:9. Do not thou hold him guiltless. But thou art a wise man, and knowest what to do with him, and thou shalt bring down his grey hairs with blood to the grave. 2:10. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. 2:11. And the days that David reigned in Israel, were forty years: in Hebron he reigned seven years, in Jerusalem thirty-three. 2:12. And Solomon sat upon the throne of his father David, and his kingdom was strengthened exceedingly. 2:13. And Adonias, the son of Haggith, came to Bethsabee the mother of Solomon. And she said to him: Is thy coming peaceable? He answered: It is peaceable. 2:14. And he added: I have a word to speak with thee. She said to him: Speak. And he said: 2:15. Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had preferred me to be their king: but the kingdom is transferred, and is become my brother's: for it was appointed him by the Lord. 2:16. Now therefore, I ask one petition of thee; turn not away my face. And she said to him: Say on. 2:17. And he said I pray thee speak to king Solomon (for he cannot deny thee any thing) to give me Abisag, the Sunamitess, to wife. 2:18. And Bethsabee said: Well, I will speak for thee to the king. 2:19. Then Bethsabee came to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonias: and the king arose to meet her, and bowed to her, and sat down upon his throne: and a throne was set for the king's mother, and she sat on his right hand. 2:20. And she said to him: I desire one small petition of thee; do not put me to confusion. And the king said to her: My mother ask, for I must not turn away thy face. 2:21. And she said: Let Abisag, the Sunamitess, be given to Adonias, thy brother, to wife. 2:22. And king Solomon answered, and said to his mother: Why dost thou ask Abisag, the Sunamitess, for Adonias? ask for him also the kingdom; for he is my elder brother, and hath Abiathar, the priest, and Joab, the son of Sarvia. 2:23. Then king Solomon swore by the Lord, saying: So and so may God do to me, and add more, if Adonias hath not spoken this word against his own life. 2:24. And now, as the Lord liveth, who hath established me, and placed me upon the throne of David, my father, and who hath made me a house, as he promised, Adonias shall be put to death this day. 2:25. And king Solomon sent by the hand of Banaias, the son of Joiada, who slew him, and he died. 2:26. And the king said also to Abiathar, the priest: Go to Anathoth, to thy lands, for indeed thou art worthy of death: but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou didst carry the ark of the Lord God before David, my father, and hast endured trouble in all the troubles my father endured. 2:27. So Solomon cast out Abiathar from being the priest of the Lord, that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he spoke concerning the house of Heli in Silo. 2:28. And the news came to Joab, because Joab had turned after Adonias, and had not turned after Solomon: and Joab fled into the tabernacle of the Lord, and took hold on the horn of the altar. 2:29. And it was told king Solomon, that Joab was fled into the tabernacle of the Lord, and was by the altar: and Solomon sent Banaias, the son of Joiada, saying. Go, kill him. 2:30. And Banaias came to the tabernacle of the Lord, and said to him: Thus saith the king: Come forth. And he said: I will not come forth, but here I will die. Banaias brought word back to the king, saying: Thus saith Joab, and thus he answered me. 2:31. And the king said to him: Do as he hath said; and kill him, and bury him, and thou shalt remove the innocent blood which hath been shed by Joab, from me, and from the house of my father: 2:32. And the Lord shall return his blood upon his own head; because he murdered two men, just and better than himself: and slew them with the sword, my father, David, not knowing it; Abner, the son of Ner, general of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether general of the army of Juda; 2:33. And their blood shall return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for ever. But to David and his seed, and his house, and to his throne, be peace for ever from the Lord. 2:34. So Banaias, the son of Joiada, went up, and setting upon him slew him, and he was buried in his house in the desert. 2:35. And the king appointed Banaias, the son of Joiada in his room over the army; and Sadoc, the priest, he put in the place of Abiathar. 2:36. The king also sent, and called for Semei, and said to him: Build thee a house in Jerusalem, and dwell there: and go not out from thence any where. 2:37. For on what day soever thou shalt go out, and shalt pass over the brook Cedron, know that thou shalt be put to death: thy blood shall be upon thy own head. 2:38. And Semei said to the king: The saying is good: as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. And Semei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. 2:39. And it came to pass after three years, that the servants of Semei ran away to Achis, the son of Maacha, the king of Geth: and it was told Semei that his servants were gone to Geth. 2:40. And Semei arose, and saddled his ass, and went to Achis, to Geth, to seek his servants, and he brought them out of Geth. 2:41. And it was told Solomon, that Semei had gone from Jerusalem to Geth, and was come back. 2:42. And sending he called for him, and said to him: Did I not protest to thee by the Lord, and tell thee before: On what day soever thou shalt go out and walk abroad any where, know that thou shalt die? And thou answeredst me: The word that I have heard is good. 2:43. Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the Lord, and the commandment that I laid upon thee? 2:44. And the king said to Semei: Thou knowest all the evil, of which thy heart is conscious, which thou didst to David, my father: the Lord hath returned thy wickedness upon thy own head. 2:45. And king Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord for ever. 2:46. So the king commanded Banaias, the son of Joiada: and he went out and struck him; and he died. 3 Kings Chapter 3 Solomon marrieth Pharao's daughter. He sacrificeth in Gabaon: in the choice which God gave him he preferreth wisdom. His wise judgment between the two harlots. 3:1. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon, and he made affinity with Pharao, the king of Egypt: for he took his daughter, and brought her into the city of David: until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about. 3:2. But yet the people sacrificed in the high places: for there was no temple built to the name of the Lord until that day. High places. . .That is, altars where they worshipped the Lord, but not according to the ordinance of the law; which allowed of no other places for sacrifice but the temple of God. Among these high places that of Gabaon was the chiefest, because there was the tabernacle of the testimony, which had been removed from Silo to Nobe and from Nobe to Gabaon. 3:3. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the precepts of David, his father; only he sacrificed in the high places, and burnt incense. 3:4. He went therefore to Gabaon, to sacrifice there: for that was the great high place: a thousand victims for holocausts, did Solomon offer upon that altar, in Gabaon. 3:5. And the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, saying: Ask what thou wilt that I should give thee. 3:6. And Solomon said: Thou hast shewed great mercy to thy servant David, my father, even as he walked before thee in truth, and justice, and an upright heart with thee: and thou hast kept thy great mercy for him, and hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. 3:7. And now, O Lord God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David, my father: and I am but a child, and know not how to go out and come in; 3:8. And thy servant is in the midst of the people which thou hast chosen, an immense people, which cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. 3:9. Give therefore to thy servant an understanding heart, to judge thy people, and discern between good and evil. For who shall be able to judge this people, thy people, which is so numerous? 3:10. And the word was pleasing to the Lord, that Solomon had asked such a thing. 3:11. And the Lord said to Solomon: Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life nor riches, nor the lives of thy enemies, but hast asked for thyself wisdom to discern judgment; 3:12. Behold I have done for thee according to thy words, and have given thee a wise and understanding heart, in so much that there hath been no one like thee before thee, nor shall arise after thee. 3:13. Yea, and the things also which thou didst not ask, I have given thee; to wit, riches and glory: so that no one hath been like thee among the kings in all days heretofore. 3:14. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, and keep my precepts and my commandments, as thy father walked, I will lengthen thy days. 3:15. And Solomon awaked, and perceived that it was a dream: and when he was come to Jerusalem, he stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered holocausts, and sacrificed victims of peace offerings, and made a great feast for all his servants. 3:16. Then there came two women that were harlots, to the king, and stood before him. 3:17. And one of them said: I beseech thee, my lord, I and this woman dwelt in one house, and I was delivered of a child with her in the chamber. 3:18. And the third day after I was delivered, she also was delivered; and we were together, and no other person with us in the house; only we two. 3:19. And this woman's child died in the night: for in her sleep she overlaid him. 3:20. And rising in the dead time of the night, she took my child from my side, while I, thy handmaid, was asleep, and laid it in her bosom: and laid her dead child in my bosom. 3:21. And when I arose in the morning, to give my child suck, behold it was dead: but considering him more diligently, when it was clear day, I found that it was not mine which I bore. 3:22. And the other woman answered: It is not so as thou sayest, but thy child is dead, and mine is alive. On the contrary, she said; Thou liest: for my child liveth, and thy child is dead. And in this manner they strove before the king. 3:23. Then said the king: The one saith, My child is alive, and thy child is dead. And the other answereth: Nay; but thy child is dead, and mine liveth. 3:24. The king therefore said: Bring me a sword. And when they had brought a sword before the king, 3:25. Divide, said he, the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other. 3:26. But the woman, whose child was alive, said to the king; (for her bowels were moved upon her child) I beseech thee, my lord, give her the child alive, and do not kill it. But the other said: Let it be neither mine nor thine; but divide it. 3:27. The king answered, and said: Give the living child to this woman, and let it not be killed; for she is the mother thereof. 3:28. And all Israel heard the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared the king, seeing that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment. 3 Kings Chapter 4 Solomon's chief officers. His riches and wisdom. 4:1. And king Solomon reigned over all Israel: 4:2. And these were the princes which he had: Azarias, the son of Sadoc, the priest: 4:3. Elihoreph, and Ahia, the sons of Sisa, scribes: Josaphat, the son of Ahilud, recorder: 4:4. Banaias, the son of Joiada, over the army: and Sadoc, and Abiathar, priests. Abiathar. . .By this it appears that Abiathar was not altogether deposed from the high priesthood; but only banished to his country house, and by that means excluded from the exercise of his functions. 4:5. Azarias, the son of Nathan, over them that were about the king: Zabud, the son of Nathan, the priest, the king's friend: 4:6. And Ahisar, governor of the house: and Adoniram, the son of Abda, over the tribute. 4:7. And Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, who provided victuals for the king and for his house hold: for every one provided necessaries, each man his month in the year. 4:8. And these are their names: Benhur, in mount Ephraim. 4:9. Bendecar, in Macces, and in Salebim, and in Bethsames, and in Elon, and in Bethanan. 4:10. Benhesed, in Aruboth: his was Socho, and all the land of Epher. 4:11. Benabinadab, to whom belonged all Nephath-Dor: he had Tapheth, the daughter of Solomon, to wife. 4:12. Bana, the son of Ahilud, who governed Thanac, and Mageddo, and all Bethsan, which is by Sarthana, beneath Jezrael, from Bethsan unto Abelmehula, over against Jecmaan. 4:13. Bengaber, in Ramoth Galaad: he had the town of Jair, the son of Manasses, in Galaad: he was chief in all the country of Argob, which is in Basan, threescore great cities with walls, and brazen bolts. 4:14. Ahinadab, the son of Addo, was chief in Manaim. 4:15. Achimaas, in Nephthali: he also had Basemath, the daughter of Solomon, to wife. 4:16. Baana, the son of Husi, in Aser, and in Baloth. 4:17. Josaphat, the son of Pharue, in Issachar. 4:18. Semei, the son of Ela, in Benjamin. 4:19. Gaber, the son of Uri, in the land of Galaad, in the land of Sehon, the king of the Amorrhites, and of Og, the king of Basan, over all that were in that land. 4:20. Juda and Israel were innumerable, as the sand of the sea in multitude; eating and drinking, and rejoicing. 4:21. And Solomon had under him all the kingdoms, from the river to the land of the Philistines, even to the border of Egypt: and they brought him presents, and served him all the days of his life. The river. . .Euphrates. 4:22. And the provision of Solomon, for each day, was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal; 4:23. Ten fat oxen, and twenty out of the pastures, and a hundred rams; besides venison of harts, roes, and buffles, and fatted fowls. 4:24. For he had all the country which was beyond the river, from Thaphsa to Gazan, and all the kings of those countries: and he had peace on every side round about. 4:25. And Juda, and Israel, dwelt without any fear, every one under his vine, and under his fig tree, from Dan to Bersabee, all the days of Solomon. 4:26. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of chariot horses, and twelve thousand for the saddle. 4:27. And the foresaid governors of the king fed them; and they furnished the necessaries also for king Solomon's table, with great care, in their time. 4:28. They brought barley also, and straw for the horses and beasts, to the place where the king was, according as it was appointed them. 4:29. And God gave to Solomon wisdom, and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, as the sand that is on the sea shore. 4:30. And the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the Orientals, and of the Egyptians; 4:31. And he was wiser than all men: wiser than Ethan, the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Dorda, the sons of Mahol, and he was renowned in all nations round about. 4:32. Solomon also spoke three thousand parables: and his poems were a thousand and five. Three thousand parables, etc. . .These works are all lost, excepting some part of the parables extant in the book of Proverbs; and his chief poem called the Canticle of Canticles. 4:33. And he treated about trees, from the cedar that is in Libanus, unto the hyssop that cometh out of the wall: and he discoursed of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes. 4:34. And they came from all nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who heard of his wisdom. 3 Kings Chapter 5 Hiram king of Tyre agreeth to furnish timber and workmen for building the temple: the number of workmen and overseers. 5:1. And Hiram, king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon: for he heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram had always been David's friend. 5:2. Solomon sent to Hiram, saying: 5:3. Thou knowest the will of David, my father, and that he could not build a house to the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars that were round about him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. 5:4. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest round about; and there is no adversary nor evil occurrence. 5:5. Wherefore I purpose to build a temple to the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to David my father, saying: Thy son, whom I will set upon the throne, in thy place, he shall build a house to my name. 5:6. Give orders, therefore, that thy servants cut me down cedar trees, out of Libanus, and let my servants be with thy servants: and I will give thee the hire of thy servants whatsoever thou wilt ask: for thou knowest how there is not among my people a man that has skill to hew wood like to the Sidonians. 5:7. Now when Hiram had heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced exceedingly, and said: Blessed be the Lord God this day, who hath given to David a very wise son over this numerous people. 5:8. And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying: I have heard all thou hast desired of me; and I will do all thy desire concerning cedar trees, and fir trees. 5:9. My servants shall bring them down from Libanus to the sea: and I will put them together in floats, on the sea, and convey them to the place, which thou shalt signify to me, and will land them there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt allow me necessaries to furnish food for my household. 5:10. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees, and fir trees, according to all his desire. 5:11. And Solomon allowed Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat, for provision for his house, and twenty measures of the purest oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram every year. 5:12. And the Lord gave wisdom to Solomon, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they two made a league together. 5:13. And king Solomon chose workmen out of all Israel, and the levy was of thirty thousand men. 5:14. And he sent them to Libanus, ten thousand every month, by turns, so that two months they were at home: and Adoniram was over this levy. 5:15. And Solomon had seventy thousand to carry burdens, and eighty thousand to hew stones in the mountain: 5:16. Besides the overseers who were over every work, in number three thousand and three hundred, that ruled over the people, and them that did the work. 5:17. And the king commanded that they should bring great stones, costly stones, for the foundation of the temple, and should square them: 5:18. And the masons of Solomon, and the masons of Hiram, hewed them: and the Giblians prepared timber and stones to build the house. 3 Kings Chapter 6 The building of Solomon's temple. 6:1. And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon over Israel, in the month Zio, (the same is the second month) he began to build a house to the Lord. 6:2. And the house, which king Solomon built to the Lord, was threescore cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty cubits in height. 6:3. And there was a porch before the temple, of twenty cubits in length, according to the measure of the breadth of the temple: and it was ten cubits in breadth, before the face of the temple. 6:4. And he made in the temple oblique windows. 6:5. And upon the wall of the temple, he built floors round about, in the walls of the house, round about the temple and the oracle, and he made chambers in the sides round about. Upon the wall, i. e., joining to the wall.--Ibid. He built floors round about. . .Chambers or cells adjoining to the temple, for the use of the temple and of the priests, so contrived as to be between the inward and outward wall of the temple, in three stories, one above another.--Ibid. The oracle. . .The inner temple or holy of holies, where God gave his oracles. 6:6. The floor that was underneath was five cubits in breadth, and the middle floor was six cubits in breadth, and the third floor was seven cubits in breadth. And he put beams in the house round about on the outside, that they might not be fastened in the walls of the temple. 6:7. And the house, when it was in building, was built of stones, hewed and made ready: so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house when it was in building. Made ready, etc. . .So the stones for the building of God's eternal temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, (who are the faithful,) must first be hewn and polished here by many trials and sufferings, before they can be admitted to have a place in that celestial structure. 6:8. The door, for the middle side, was on the right hand of the house: and by winding stairs they went up to the middle room, and from the middle to the third. 6:9. So he built the house, and finished it: and he covered the house with roofs of cedar. 6:10. And he built a floor over all the house, five cubits in height, and he covered the house with timber of cedar. 6:11. And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, 6:12. As for this house, which thou art building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments, walking in them, I will fulfil my word to thee, which I spoke to David thy father. 6:13. And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and I will not forsake my people Israel. 6:14. So Solomon built the house, and finished it. 6:15. And he built the walls of the house on the inside, with boards of cedar, from the floor of the house to the top of the walls, and to the roofs, he covered it with boards of cedar on the inside: and he covered the floor of the house with planks of fir. 6:16. And he built up twenty cubits with boards of cedar at the hinder part of the temple, from the floor to the top: and made the inner house of the oracle to be the holy of holies. 6:17. And the temple itself, before the doors of the oracle, was forty cubits long. 6:18. And all the house was covered within with cedar, having the turnings, and the joints thereof artfully wrought, and carvings projecting out: all was covered with boards of cedar: and no stone could be seen in the wall at all. 6:19. And he made the oracle in the midst of the house, in the inner part, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 6:20. Now the oracle was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in height. And he covered it, and overlaid it with most pure gold. And the altar also he covered with cedar. 6:21. And the house before the oracle he overlaid with most pure gold, and fastened on the plates with nails of gold. 6:22. And there was nothing in the temple that was not covered with gold: the whole altar of the oracle he covered also with gold. 6:23. And he made in the oracle two cherubims of olive tree, of ten cubits in height. 6:24. One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub was five cubits: that is, in all ten cubits, from the extremity of one wing to the extremity of the other wing. 6:25. The second cherub also was ten cubits: and the measure, and the work was the same in both the cherubims: 6:26. That is to say, one cherub was ten cubits high, and in like manner the other cherub. 6:27. And he set the cherubims in the midst of the inner temple: and the cherubims stretched forth their wings, and the wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall: and the other wings in the midst of the temple touched one another. 6:28. And he overlaid the cherubims with gold. 6:29. And all the walls of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings: and he made in them cherubims and palm trees, and divers representations, as it were standing out, and coming forth from the wall. 6:30. And the floor of the house he also overlaid with gold within and without. 6:31. And in the entrance of the oracle, he made little doors of olive tree, and posts of five corners, 6:32. And two doors of olive tree: and he carved upon them figures of cherubims, and figures of palm trees, and carvings very much projecting; and he overlaid them with gold: and he covered both the cherubims and the palm trees, and the other things, with gold. 6:33. And he made in the entrance of the temple posts of olive tree foursquare: 6:34. And two doors of fir tree, one of each side: and each door was double, and so opened with folding leaves. 6:35. And he carved cherubims, and palm trees, and carved work standing very much out: and he overlaid all with golden plates in square work by rule. 6:36. And he built the inner court with three rows of polished stones, and one row of beams of cedar. 6:37. In the fourth year was the house of the Lord founded, in the month Zio: 6:38. And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul. (which is the eighth month) the house was finished in all the works thereof, and in all the appurtenances thereof: and he was seven years in building it. 3 Kings Chapter 7 Solomon's palace, his house in the forest, and the queen's house: the work of the two pillars: the sea (or laver) and other vessels. 7:1. And Solomon built his own house in thirteen years, and brought it to perfection. 7:2. He built also the house of the forest of Libanus; the length of it was a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits, and the height thirty cubits: and four galleries between pillars of cedar: for he had cut cedar trees into pillars. 7:3. And he covered the whole vault with boards of cedar, and it was held up with five and forty pillars. And one row had fifteen pillars, 7:4. Set one against another, 7:5. And looking one upon another, with equal space between the pillars, and over the pillars were square beams in all things equal. 7:6. And he made a porch of pillars of fifty cubits in length, and thirty cubits in breadth: and another porch before the greater porch, and pillars, and chapiters upon the pillars. 7:7. He made also the porch of the throne wherein is the seat of judgment; and covered it with cedar wood from the floor to the top. 7:8. And in the midst of the porch, was a small house, where he sat in judgment of the like work. He made also a house for the daughter of Pharao (whom Solomon had taken to wife) of the same work, as this porch; 7:9. All of costly stones, which were sawed by a certain rule and measure, both within and without: from the foundation to the top of the walls, and without, unto the great court. 7:10. And the foundations were of costly stones, great stones of ten cubits or eight cubits. 7:11. And above there were costly stones of equal measure hewed, and in like manner planks of cedar. 7:12. And the great court was made round with three rows of hewed stones, and one row of planks of cedar, which also was observed in the inner court of the house of the Lord, and in the porch of the house. 7:13. And king Solomon sent, and brought Hiram from Tyre, 7:14. The son of a widow woman, of the tribe of Nephthali, whose father was a Tyrian, an artificer in brass, and full of wisdom, and understanding, and skill to work all work in brass. And when he was come to king Solomon, he wrought all his work. 7:15. And he cast two pillars in brass, each pillar was eighteen cubits high: and a line of twelve cubits compassed both the pillars. 7:16. He made also two chapiters of molten brass, to be set upon the tops of the pillars: the height of one chapiter was five cubits, and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits: 7:17. And a kind of network, and chain work wreathed together with wonderful art. Both the chapiters of the pillars were cast: seven rows of nets were on one chapiter, and seven nets on the other chapiter. 7:18. And he made the pillars, and two rows round about each network to cover the chapiters, that were upon the top, with pomegranates: and in like manner did he to the other chapiter. 7:19. And the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars, were of lily work, in the porch of four cubits. 7:20. And again there were other chapiters on the top of the pillars above, according to the measure of the pillar over against the network: and of pomegranates there were two hundred, in rows round about the other chapiter. 7:21. And he set up the two pillars in the porch of the temple: and when he had set up the pillar on the right hand, he called the name thereof Jachin: in like manner he set up the second pillar, and called the name thereof Booz. Jachin. . .That is, firmly established.--Ibid. Booz. . .That is, in its strength. By recording these names in holy writ, the spirit of God would have us understand the invincible firmness and strength of the pillars on which the true temple of God, which is the church, is established. 7:22. And upon the tops of the pillars he made lily work: so the work of the pillars was finished. 7:23. He made also a molten sea, of ten cubits, from brim to brim, round all about; the height of it was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. 7:24. And a graven work, under the brim of it, compassed it for ten cubits going about the sea: there were two rows cast of chamfered sculptures. 7:25. And it stood upon twelve oxen, of which three looked towards the north, and three towards the west, and three towards the south, and three towards the east: and the sea was above upon them, and their hinder parts were all hid within. 7:26. And the laver was a hand breadth thick: and the brim thereof was like the brim of a cup, or the leaf of a crisped lily: it contained two thousand bates. Two thousand bates. . .That is, about ten thousand gallons. This was the quantity of water which was usually put into it: but it was capable, if brimful, of holding three thousand. See 2 Par. 4.5. 7:27. And he made ten bases of brass, every base was four cubits in length, and four cubits in breadth, and three cubits high. 7:28. And the work itself of the bases, was intergraven: and there were gravings between the joinings. 7:29. And between the little crowns and the ledges, were lions, and oxen, and cherubims; and in the joinings likewise above: and under the lions and oxen, as it were bands of brass hanging down. 7:30. And every base had four wheels, and axletrees of brass: and at the four sides were undersetters, under the laver molten, looking one against another. 7:31. The mouth also of the laver within, was in the top of the chapiter: and that which appeared without, was of one cubit all round, and together it was one cubit and a half: and in the corners of the pillars were divers engravings: and the spaces between the pillars were square, not round. 7:32. And the four wheels, which were at the four corners of the base, were joined one to another under the base: the height of a wheel was a cubit and a half. 7:33. And they were such wheels as are used to be made in a chariot: and their axletrees, and spokes, and strakes, and naves, were all cast. 7:34. And the four undersetters, that were at every corner of each base, were of the base itself, cast and joined together. 7:35. And on the top of the base, there was a round compass of half a cubit, so wrought that the laver might be set thereon, having its gravings, and divers sculptures of itself. 7:36. He engraved also in those plates, which were of brass, and in the corners, cherubims, and lions, and palm trees, in likeness of a man standing, so that they seemed not to be engraven, but added round about. 7:37. After this manner, he made ten bases, of one casting and measure, and the like graving. 7:38. He made also ten lavers of brass: one laver contained four bates, and was of four cubits: and upon every base, in all ten, he put as many lavers. 7:39. And he set the ten bases, five on the right side of the temple, and five on the left: and the sea he put on the right side of the temple, over against the east southward. 7:40. And Hiram made cauldrons, and shovels, and basins, and finished all the work of king Solomon in the temple of the Lord. 7:41. The two pillars and the two cords of the chapiters, upon the chapiters of the pillars: and the two networks, to cover the two cords, that were upon the top of the pillars. 7:42. And four hundred pomegranates for the two networks: two rows of pomegranates for each network, to cover the cords of the chapiters, which were upon the tops of the pillars. 7:43. And the ten bases, and the ten lavers on the bases. 7:44. And one sea, and twelve oxen under the sea. 7:45. And the cauldrons, and the shovels, and the basins. All the vessels that Hiram made for king Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of fine brass. 7:46. In the plains of the Jordan, did the king cast them in a clay ground, between Socoth and Sartham. 7:47. And Solomon placed all the vessels: but for its exceeding great multitude the brass could not be weighed. 7:48. And Solomon made all the vessels for the house of the Lord: the altar of gold, and the table of gold, upon which the loaves of proposition should be set: 7:49. And the golden candlesticks, five on the right hand, and five on the left, over against the oracle, of pure gold: and the flowers like lilies, and the lamps over them of gold: and golden snuffers, 7:50. And pots, and fleshhooks, and bowls, and mortars, and censers, of most pure gold: and the hinges for the doors of the inner house of the holy of holies, and for the doors of the house of the temple, were of gold. 7:51. And Solomon finished all the work that he made in the house of the Lord, and brought in the things that David, his father, had dedicated, the silver and the gold, and the vessels, and laid them up in the treasures of the house of the Lord. 3 Kings Chapter 8 The dedication of the temple: Solomon's prayer and sacrifices. 8:1. Then all the ancients of Israel, with the princes of the tribes, and the heads of the families of the children of Israel, were assembled to king Solomon, in Jerusalem: that they might carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, out of the city of David, that is, out of Sion. 8:2. And all Israel assembled themselves to king Solomon, on the festival day, in the month of Ethanim, the same is the seventh month. 8:3. And all the ancients of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark, 8:4. And carried the ark of the Lord, and the tabernacle of the covenant, and all the vessels of the sanctuary, that were in the tabernacle: and the priests and the Levites carried them. 8:5. And king Solomon, and all the multitude of Israel, that were assembled unto him, went with him before the ark, and they sacrificed sheep and oxen, that could not be counted or numbered. 8:6. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord into its place, into the oracle of the temple, into the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubims. 8:7. For the cherubims spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and covered the ark, and the staves thereof above. 8:8. And whereas the staves stood out, the ends of them were seen without, in the sanctuary before the oracle, but were not seen farther out, and there they have been unto this day. 8:9. Now in the ark there was nothing else but the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. Nothing else, etc. . .There was nothing else but the tables of the law within the ark: but on the outside of the ark, or near the ark were also the rod of Aaron, and a golden urn with manna, Heb. 9.4. 8:10. And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the sanctuary, that a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 8:11. And the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. 8:12. Then Solomon said: The Lord said that he would dwell in a cloud. 8:13. Building, I have built a house for thy dwelling, to be thy most firm throne for ever. 8:14. And the king turned his face, and blessed all the assembly of Israel: for all the assembly of Israel stood. 8:15. And Solomon said: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David, my father, and with his own hands hath accomplished it, saying: 8:16. Since the day that I brought my people Israel, out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel, for a house to be built, that my name might be there: but I chose David to be over my people Israel. 8:17. And David, my father, would have built a house to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel: 8:18. And the Lord said to David, my father: Whereas, thou hast thought in thy heart to build a house to my name, thou hast done well in having this same thing in thy mind. 8:19. Nevertheless, thou shalt not build me a house, but thy son, that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build a house to my name. 8:20. The Lord hath performed his word which he spoke. And I stand in the room of David, my father, and sit upon the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised: and have built a house to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 8:21. And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with our fathers, when they came out of the land of Egypt. 8:22. And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord, in the sight of the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven, 8:23. And said: Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on the earth beneath: who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants, that have walked before thee with all their heart: 8:24. Who hast kept with thy servant David, my father, what thou hast promised him: with thy mouth thou didst speak, and with thy hands thou hast performed, as this day proveth. 8:25. Now, therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David, my father, what thou hast spoken to him, saying: There shall not be taken away of thee a man in my sight, to sit on the throne of Israel: yet so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked in my sight. 8:26. And now, Lord God of Israel, let thy words be established, which thou hast spoken to thy servant David, my father. 8:27. Is it then to be thought that God should indeed dwell upon earth? for if heaven, and the heavens of heavens, cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built? 8:28. But have regard to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplications, O Lord, my God: hear the hymn and the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee this day: 8:29. That thy eyes may be open upon this house, night and day: upon the house of which thou hast said: My name shall be there: that thou mayst hearken to the prayer which thy servant prayeth, in this place to thee: 8:30. That thou mayst hearken to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, whatsoever they shall pray for in this place, and hear them in the place of thy dwelling in heaven; and when thou hearest, shew them mercy. 8:31. If any man trespass against his neighbour, and have an oath upon him, wherewith he is bound, and come, because of the oath, before thy altar, to thy house, 8:32. Then hear thou in heaven: and do and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, and bringing his way upon his own head, and justifying the just, and rewarding him according to his justice. 8:33. If thy people Israel shall fly before their enemies (because they will sin against thee) and doing penance, and confessing to thy name, shall come and pray, and make supplications to thee in this house: 8:34. Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them back to the land which thou gavest to their fathers. 8:35. If heaven shall be shut up, and there shall be no rain, because of their sins, and they, praying in this place, shall do penance to thy name, and shall be converted from their sins, by occasion of their afflictions: 8:36. Then hear thou them in heaven, and forgive the sins of thy servants, and of thy people Israel: and shew them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people in possession. 8:37. If a famine arise in the land, or a pestilence, or corrupt air, or blasting, or locust, or mildew; if their enemy afflict them, besieging the gates, whatsoever plague, whatsoever infirmity, 8:38. Whatsoever curse or imprecation shall happen to any man of thy people Israel: when a man shall know the wound of his own heart, and shall spread forth his hands in this house; 8:39. Then hear thou in heaven, in the place of thy dwelling, and forgive, and do so as to give to every one according to his ways, as thou shalt see his heart (for thou only knowest the heart of all the children of men) 8:40. That they may fear thee all the days that they live upon the face of the land, which thou hast given to our fathers. 8:41. Moreover also the stranger, who is not of thy people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country for thy name's sake, (for they shall hear every where of thy great name, and thy mighty hand, 8:42. And thy stretched out arm) so when he shall come, and shall pray in this place, 8:43. Then hear thou in heaven, in the firmament of thy dwelling place, and do all those things, for which that stranger shall call upon thee: that all the people of the earth may learn to fear thy name, as do thy people Israel, and may prove that thy name is called upon on this house, which I have built. 8:44. If thy people go out to war against their enemies, by what way soever thou shalt send them, they shall pray to thee towards the way of the city, which thou hast chosen, and towards the house, which I have built to thy name: 8:45. And then hear thou in heaven their prayers, and their supplications, and do judgment for them. 8:46. But if they sin against thee, (for there is no man who sinneth not) and thou being angry, deliver them up to their enemies, so that they be led away captives into the land of their enemies, far or near; 8:47. Then if they do penance in their heart, in the place of captivity, and being converted, make supplication to thee in their captivity, saying: We have sinned, we have done unjustly, we have committed wickedness: 8:48. And return to thee with all their heart, and all their soul, in the land of their enemies, to which they have been led captives: and pray to thee towards the way of their land, which thou gavest to their fathers, and of the city which thou hast chosen, and of the temple which I have built to thy name: 8:49. Then hear thou in heaven, in the firmament of thy throne, their prayers, and their supplications, and do judgment for them: 8:50. And forgive thy people, that have sinned against thee, and all their iniquities, by which they have transgressed against thee: and give them mercy before them that have made them captives, that they may have compassion on them. 8:51. For they are thy people, and thy inheritance, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron. 8:52. That thy eyes may be open to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, to hear them in all things for which they shall call upon thee. 8:53. For thou hast separated them to thyself for an inheritance, from amongst all the people of the earth, as thou hast spoken by Moses, thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God. 8:54. And it came to pass, when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to the Lord, that he rose from before the altar of the Lord: for he had fixed both knees on the ground, and had spread his hands towards heaven. 8:55. And he stood, and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying: 8:56. Blessed be the Lord, who hath given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed so much as one word of all the good things that he promised by his servant Moses. 8:57. The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers, and not leave us, nor cast us off: 8:58. But may he incline our hearts to himself, that we may walk in all his ways, and keep his commandments, and his ceremonies, and all his judgments, which he commanded our fathers. 8:59. And let these my words, wherewith I have prayed before the Lord, be nigh unto the Lord our God day and night, that he may do judgment for his servant, and for his people Israel, day by day: 8:60. That all the people of the earth may know, that the Lord he is God, and there is no other besides him. 8:61. Let our hearts also be perfect with the Lord our God, that we may walk in his statutes, and keep his commandments, as at this day. 8:62. And the king, and all Israel with him, offered victims before the Lord. 8:63. And Solomon slew victims of peace offerings, which he sacrificed to the Lord, two and twenty thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep so the king, and all the children of Israel, dedicated the temple of the Lord. 8:64. In that day the king sanctified the middle of the court, that was before the house of the Lord for there he offered the holocaust, and sacrifice, and the fat of the peace offerings: because the brazen altar that was before the Lord, was too little to receive the holocaust, and sacrifice, and the fat of the peace offerings. 8:65. And Solomon made at the same time a solemn feast, and all Israel with him, a great multitude, from the entrance of Emath to the river of Egypt, before the Lord our God, seven days and seven days, that is, fourteen days. 8:66. And on the eighth day, he sent away the people: and they blessed the king, and went to their dwellings, rejoicing, and glad in heart, for all the good things that the Lord had done for David, his servant, and for Israel, his people. 3 Kings Chapter 9 The Lord appeareth again to Solomon: he buildeth cities: he sendeth a fleet to Ophir. 9:1. And it came to pass when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all that he desired and was pleased to do, 9:2. That the Lord appeared to him the second time, as he had appeared to him in Gabaon. 9:3. And the Lord said to him: I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, which thou hast made before me: I have sanctified this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and my eyes, and my heart, shall be there always. 9:4. And if thou wilt walk before me, as thy father walked, in simplicity of heart, and in uprightness: and wilt do all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my ordinances, and my judgments, As thy father walked, in simplicity of heart. . .That is, in the sincerity and integrity of a single heart, as opposite to all double dealing and deceit. 9:5. I will establish the throne of thy kingdom over Israel for ever, as I promised David, thy father, saying: There shall not fail a man of thy race upon the throne of Israel. 9:6. But if you and your children, revolting, shall turn away from following me, and will not keep my commandments, and my ceremonies, which I have set before you, but will go and worship strange gods, and adore them: 9:7. I will take away Israel from the face of the land which I have given them; and the temple which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb, and a byword among all people. 9:8. And this house shall be made an example of: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss, and say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house? 9:9. And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and followed strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped them: therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this evil. 9:10. And when twenty years were ended, after Solomon had built the two houses; that is, the house of the Lord, and the house of the king, 9:11. (Hiram, the king of Tyre, furnishing Solomon with cedar trees, and fir trees, and gold, according to all he had need of) then Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 9:12. And Hiram came out of Tyre, to see the towns which Solomon had given him, and they pleased him not; 9:13. And he said: Are these the cities which thou hast given me, brother? And he called them the land of Chabul, unto this day. Chabul. . .That is, dirty or displeasing. 9:14. And Hiram sent to king Solomon a hundred and twenty talents of gold. 9:15. This is the sum of the expenses, which king Solomon offered to build the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Mello, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Heser, and Mageddo, and Gazer. 9:16. Pharao, the king of Egypt, came up and took Gazer, and burnt it with fire: and slew the Chanaanite that dwelt in the city, and gave it for a dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife. 9:17. So Solomon built Gazer, and Bethhoron the nether, 9:18. And Baalath, and Palmira, in the land of the wilderness. 9:19. And all the towns that belonged to himself, and were not walled, he fortified; the cities also of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen, and whatsoever he had a mind to build in Jerusalem, and in Libanus, and in all the land of his dominion. 9:20. All the people that were left of the Amorrhites, and Hethites, and Pherezites, and Hevites, and Jebusites, that are not of the children of Israel: 9:21. Their children, that were left in the land; to wit, such as the children of Israel had not been able to destroy, Solomon made tributary unto this day. 9:22. But of the children of Israel, Solomon made not any to be bondmen, but they were warriors, and his servants, and his princes, and captains, and overseers of the chariots and horses. 9:23. And there were five hundred and fifty chief officers set over all the works of Solomon, and they had people under them, and had charge over the appointed works. 9:24. And the daughter of Pharao came up out of the city of David to her house, which Solomon had built for her: then did he build Mello. 9:25. Solomon also offered three times every year holocausts, and victims of peace offerings, upon the altar which he had built to the Lord, and he burnt incense before the Lord: and the temple was finished. 9:26. And king Solomon made a fleet in Asiongaber, which is by Ailath, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 9:27. And Hiram sent his servants in the fleet, sailors that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 9:28. And they came to Ophir; and they brought from thence to king Solomon four hundred and twenty talents of gold. 3 Kings Chapter 10 The queen of Saba cometh to king Solomon: his riches and glory. 10:1. And the queen of Saba having heard of the fame of Solomon in the name of the Lord, came to try him with hard questions. 10:2. And entering into Jerusalem with a great train, and riches, and camels that carried spices, and an immense quantity of gold, and precious stones, she came to king Solomon, and spoke to him all that she had in her heart. 10:3. And Solomon informed her of all the things she proposed to him: there was not any word the king was ignorant of, and which he could not answer her. 10:4. And when the queen of Saba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had built, 10:5. And the meat of his table, and the apartments of his servants, and the order of his ministers, and their apparel, and the cupbearers, and the holocausts, which he offered in the house of the Lord, she had no longer any spirit in her; 10:6. And she said to the king: The report is true, which I heard in my own country, 10:7. Concerning thy words, and concerning thy wisdom. And I did not believe them that told me, till I came myself, and saw with my own eyes, and have found that the half hath not been told me: thy wisdom and thy works exceed the fame which I heard. 10:8. Blessed are thy men, and blessed are thy servants, who stand before thee always, and hear thy wisdom. 10:9. Blessed be the Lord thy God, whom thou hast pleased, and who hath set thee upon the throne of Israel, because the Lord hath loved Israel for ever, and hath appointed thee king, to do judgment and justice. 10:10. And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices a very great store, and precious stones: there was brought no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Saba gave to king Solomon. 10:11. (The navy also of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir great plenty of thyine trees, and precious stones. 10:12. And the king made of the thyine trees the rails of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house: and citterns and harps for singers: there were no such thyine trees as these brought nor seen unto this day.) 10:13. And king Solomon gave the queen of Saba all that she desired, and asked of him: besides what he offered her of himself of his royal bounty. And she returned, and went to her own country, with her servants. 10:14. And the weight of the gold that was brought to Solomon every year, was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold: 10:15. Besides that which the men brought him that were over the tributes, and the merchants, and they that sold by retail, and all the kings of Arabia, and the governors of the country. 10:16. And Solomon made two hundred shields of the purest gold: he allowed six hundred sicles of gold for the plates of one shield. 10:17. And three hundred targets of fine gold: three hundred pounds of gold covered one target: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Libanus. 10:18. King Solomon also made a great throne of ivory: and overlaid it with the finest gold. 10:19. It had six steps: and the top of the throne was round behind: and there were two hands on either side holding the seat: and two lions stood, one at each hand, 10:20. And twelve little lions stood upon the six steps, on the one side and on the other: there was no such work made in any kingdom. 10:21. Moreover, all the vessels out of which king Solomon drank, were of gold: and all the furniture of the house of the forest of Libanus was of most pure gold: there was no silver, nor was any account made of it in the days of Solomon: 10:22. For the king's navy, once in three years, went with the navy of Hiram by sea to Tharsis, and brought from thence gold, and silver, and elephants' teeth, and apes, and peacocks. 10:23. And king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. 10:24. And all the earth desired to see Solomon's face, to hear his wisdom, which God had given in his heart. 10:25. And every one brought him presents, vessels of silver and of gold, garments, and armour, and spices, and horses, and mules, every year. 10:26. And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen, and he had a thousand four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen: and he bestowed them in fenced cities, and with the king in Jerusalem. 10:27. And he made silver to be as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones: and cedars to be as common as sycamores which grow in the plains. 10:28. And horses were brought for Solomon out of Egypt, and Coa: for the king's merchants bought them out of Coa, and brought them at a set price. 10:29. And a chariot of four horses came out of Egypt, for six hundred sicles of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. And after this manner did all the kings of the Hethites, and of Syria, sell horses. 3 Kings Chapter 11 Solomon by means of his wives falleth into idolatry: God raiseth him adversaries, Adad, Razon, and Jeroboam: Solomon dieth. 11:1. And king Solomon loved many strange women, besides the daughter of Pharao, and women of Moab, and of Ammon, and of Edom, and of Sidon, and of the Hethites: 11:2. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said to the children of Israel: You shall not go in unto them, neither shall any of them come into yours: for they will most certainly turn away your hearts to follow their gods. And to these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. 11:3. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. 11:4. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David, his father. 11:5. But Solomon worshipped Astarthe, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch, the idol of the Ammonites. 11:6. And Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as David, his father. 11:7. Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos, the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch, the idol of the children of Ammon. 11:8. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. 11:9. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice; 11:10. And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods: but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. 11:11. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: Because thou hast done this, and hast not kept my covenant, and my precepts, which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy servant. 11:12. Nevertheless, in thy days I will not do it, for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. 11:13. Neither will I take away the whole kingdom; but I will give one tribe to thy son, for the sake of David, my servant, and Jerusalem, which I have chosen. One tribe. . .Besides that of Juda, his own native tribe. 11:14. And the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Adad, the Edomite, of the king's seed, in Edom. 11:15. For when David was in Edom, and Joab, the general of the army, was gone up to bury them that were slain, and had killed every male in Edom, 11:16. (For Joab remained there six months with all Israel, till he had slain every male in Edom,) 11:17. Then Adad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father's servants, with him, to go into Egypt: and Adad was then a little boy. 11:18. And they arose out of Madian, and came into Pharan, and they took men with them from Pharan, and went into Egypt, to Pharao, the king of Egypt: who gave him a house, and appointed him victuals, and assigned him land. 11:19. And Adad found great favour before Pharao, insomuch that he gave him to wife the own sister of his wife, Taphnes, the queen. 11:20. And the sister of Taphnes bore him his son, Genubath; and Taphnes brought him up in the house of Pharao: and Genubath dwelt with Pharao among his children. 11:21. And when Adad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab, the general of the army, was dead, he said to Pharao: Let me depart, that I may go to my own country. 11:22. And Pharao said to him: Why, what is wanting to thee with me, that thou seekest to go to thy own country? But he answered: Nothing; yet I beseech thee to let me go. 11:23. God also raised up against him an adversary, Razon, the son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Adarezer, the king of Soba. 11:24. And he gathered men against him, and he became a captain of robbers, when David slew them of Soba: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt there, and they made him king in Damascus. 11:25. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon: and this is the evil of Adad, and his hatred against Israel; and he reigned in Syria. 11:26. Jeroboam also, the son of Nabat, an Ephrathite, of Sareda, a servant of Solomon, whose mother was named Sarua, a widow woman, lifted up his hand against the king. 11:27. And this is the cause of his rebellion against him; for Solomon built Mello, and filled up the breach of the city of David, his father. 11:28. And Jeroboam was a valiant and mighty man: and Solomon seeing him a young man ingenious and industrious, made him chief over the tributes of all the house of Joseph. 11:29. So it came to pass at that time, that Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahias, the Silonite, clad with a new garment, found him in the way: and they two were alone in the field. 11:30. And Ahias taking his new garment, wherewith he was clad, divided it into twelve parts: 11:31. And he said to Jeroboam: Take to thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give thee ten tribes. 11:32. But one tribe shall remain to him for the sake of my servant, David, and Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel: 11:33. Because he hath forsaken me, and hath adored Astarthe, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Chamos, the god of Moab, and Moloch, the god of the children of Ammon: and hath not walked in my ways, to do justice before me, and to keep my precepts, and judgments, as did David, his father. 11:34. Yet I will not take away all the kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David my servant's sake, whom I chose, who kept my commandments, and my precepts. 11:35. But I will take away the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give thee ten tribes: 11:36. And to his son I will give one tribe, that there may remain a lamp for my servant, David, before me always in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen, that my name might be there. 11:37. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign over all that thy soul desireth, and thou shalt be king over Israel. 11:38. If then thou wilt hearken to all that I shall command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do what is right before me, keeping my commandments and my precepts, as David, my servant, did: I will be with thee, and will build thee up a faithful house, as I built a house for David, and I will deliver Israel to thee: 11:39. And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but yet not for ever. 11:40. Solomon, therefore, sought to kill Jeroboam: but he arose, and fled into Egypt, to Sesac, the king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon. 11:41. And the rest of the words of Solomon, and all that he did and his wisdom: behold they are all written in the book of the words of the days of Solomon. The book of the words, etc. . .This book is lost, with divers others mentioned in holy writ. 11:42. And the days that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem, over all Israel, were forty years. 11:43. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, his father; and Roboam, his son, reigned in his stead. Solomon slept, etc. . .That is, died. He was then about fifty-eight years of age, having reigned forty years. 3 Kings Chapter 12 Roboam, following the counsel of young men alienateth from him the minds of the people. They make Jeroboam king over ten tribes: he setteth up idolatry. 12:1. And Roboam went to Sichem: for thither were all Israel come together to make him king. 12:2. But Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who was yet in Egypt, a fugitive from the face of king Solomon, hearing of his death, returned out of Egypt. 12:3. And they sent and called him: and Jeroboam came, and all the multitude of Israel, and they spoke to Roboam, saying: 12:4. Thy father laid a grievous yoke upon us: now, therefore, do thou take off a little of the grievous service of thy father, and of his most heavy yoke, which he put upon us, and we will serve thee. 12:5. And he said to them: Go till the third day, and come to me again. And when the people was gone, 12:6. King Roboam took counsel with the old men, that stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived, and he said: What counsel do you give me, that I may answer this people? 12:7. They said to him: If thou wilt yield to this people to day, and condescend to them, and grant their petition, and wilt speak gentle words to them, they will be thy servants always. 12:8. But he left the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that had been brought up with him, and stood before him. 12:9. And he said to them: What counsel do you give me, that I may answer this people, who have said to me: Make the yoke, which thy father put upon us, lighter? 12:10. And the young men that had been brought up with him, said: Thus shalt thou speak to this people, who have spoken to thee, saying: Thy father made our yoke heavy, do thou ease us. Thou shalt say to them: My little finger is thicker than the back of my father. 12:11. And now my father put a heavy yoke upon you, but I will add to your yoke: my father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions. 12:12. So Jeroboam, and all the people, came to Roboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying: Come to me again the third day. 12:13. And the king answered the people roughly, leaving the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, 12:14. And he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying: My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke: My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions. 12:15. And the king condescended not to the people: for the Lord was turned away from him, to make good his word, which he had spoken in the hand of Ahias, the Silonite, to Jeroboam, the son of Nabat. 12:16. Then the people, seeing that the king would not hearken to them, answered him, saying: What portion have we in David? or what inheritance in the son of Isai? Go home to thy dwellings, O Israel: now, David, look to thy own house. So Israel departed to their dwellings. 12:17. But as for all the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Juda, Roboam reigned over them. 12:18. Then king Roboam sent Aduram, who was over the tribute: and all Israel stoned him, and he died. Wherefore king Roboam made haste to get him up into his chariot, and he fled to Jerusalem: 12:19. And Israel revolted from the house of David, unto this day. 12:20. And it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they gathered an assembly, and sent and called him, and made him king over all Israel, and there was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Juda only. Juda only. . .Benjamin was a small tribe, and so intermixed with the tribe of Juda, (the very city of Jerusalem being partly in Juda, partly in Benjamin,) that they are here counted but as one tribe. 12:21. And Roboam came to Jerusalem, and gathered together all the house of Juda, and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred fourscore thousand chosen men for war, to fight against the house of Israel, and to bring the kingdom again under Roboam, the son of Solomon. 12:22. But the word of the Lord came to Semeias, the man of God, saying: 12:23. Speak to Roboam, the son of Solomon, the king of Juda, and to all the house of Juda, and Benjamin, and the rest of the people, saying: 12:24. Thus saith the Lord: You shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel: let every man return to his house, for this thing is from me. They hearkened to the word of the Lord, and returned from their journey, as the Lord had commanded them. 12:25. And Jeroboam built Sichem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt there, and going out from thence, he built Phanuel. 12:26. And Jeroboam said in his heart: Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David, 12:27. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem: and the heart of this people will turn to their lord Roboam, the king of Juda, and they will kill me, and return to him. 12:28. And finding out a device, he made two golden calves, and said to them: Go ye up no more to Jerusalem: Behold thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Golden calves. . .It is likely, by making his gods in this form, he mimicked the Egyptians, among whom he had sojourned, who worshipped their Apis and their Osiris under the form of a bullock. 12:29. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan: Bethel and Dan. . .Bethel was a city of the tribe of Ephraim in the southern part of the dominions of Jeroboam, about six leagues from Jerusalem; Dan was in the extremity of his dominions to the north in the confines of Syria. 12:30. And this thing became an occasion of sin: for the people went to adore the calf as far as Dan. 12:31. And he made temples in the high places, and priests of the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. 12:32. And he appointed a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, after the manner of the feast that was celebrated in Juda. And going up to the altar, he did in like manner in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves, which he had made: and he placed in Bethel priests of the high places, which he had made. 12:33. And he went up to the altar, which he had built in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, which he had devised of his own heart: and he ordained a feast to the children of Israel, and went up on the altar to burn incense. 3 Kings Chapter 13 A prophet sent from Juda to Bethel foretelleth the birth of Josias, and the destruction of Jeroboam's altar. Jeroboam's hand offering violence to the prophet withereth, but is restored by the prophet's prayer: the same prophet is deceived by another prophet, and slain by a lion. 13:1. And behold there came a man of God out of Juda, by the word of the Lord, to Bethel, when Jeroboam was standing upon the altar, and burning incense. 13:2. And he cried out against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said: O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold a child shall be born to the house of David, Josias by name, and he shall immolate upon thee the priests of the high places, who now burn incense upon thee, and he shall burn men's bones upon thee. 13:3. And he gave a sign the same day, saying: This shall be the sign, that the Lord hath spoken: Behold the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it, shall be poured out. 13:4. And when the king had heard the word of the man of God, which he had cried out against the altar in Bethel, he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying: Lay hold on him. And his hand which he stretched forth against him, withered: and he was not able to draw it back again to him. 13:5. The altar also was rent, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given before in the word of the Lord. 13:6. And the king said to the man of God: Entreat the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God besought the face of the Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him, and it became as it was before. 13:7. And the king said to the man of God: Come home with me to dine, and I will make thee presents. 13:8. And the man of God answered the king: If thou wouldst give me half thy house, I will not go with thee, nor eat bread, nor drink water in this place: 13:9. For so it was enjoined me by the word of the Lord commanding me: Thou shalt not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the same way that thou camest. 13:10. So he departed by another way, and returned not by the way that he came into Bethel. 13:11. Now a certain old prophet dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came to him, and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: and they told their father the words which he had spoken to the king. 13:12. And their father said to them: What way went he? His sons shewed him the way by which the man of God went, who came out of Juda. 13:13. And he said to his sons: Saddle me the ass. And when they had saddled it, he got up, 13:14. And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under a turpentine tree: and he said to him: Art thou the man of God who camest from Juda? He answered: I am. 13:15. And he said to him: Come home with me to eat bread. 13:16. But he said: I must not return, nor go with thee, neither will I eat bread, or drink water in this place: 13:17. Because the Lord spoke to me, in the word of the Lord, saying: Thou shalt not eat bread, and thou shalt not drink water there, nor return by the way thou wentest. 13:18. He said to him: I also am a prophet like unto thee: and an angel spoke to me, in the word of the Lord, saying: Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat bread, and drink water. He deceived him, An angel spoke to me, etc. . .This old man of Bethel was indeed a prophet, but he sinned in thus deceiving the man of God; the more because he pretended a revelation for what he did. 13:19. And brought him back with him: so he ate bread, and drank water in his house. 13:20. And as they sat at table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet that brought him back: 13:21. And he cried out to the man of God who came out of Juda, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast not been obedient to the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, 13:22. And hast returned, and eaten bread, and drunk water in the place wherein he commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat bread, nor drink water, thy dead body shall not be brought into the sepulchre of thy fathers. 13:23. And when he had eaten and drunk, he saddled his ass for the prophet, whom he had brought back. 13:24. And when he was gone, a lion found him in the way, and killed him, and his body was cast in the way: and the ass stood by him, and the lion stood by the dead body. Killed him. . .Thus the Lord often punishes his servants here, that he may spare them hereafter. For the generality of divines are of opinion, that the sin of this prophet, considered with all its circumstances, was not mortal. 13:25. And behold, men passing by, saw the dead body cast in the way, and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city, wherein that old prophet dwelt. 13:26. And when that prophet, who had brought him back out of the way, heard of it, he said: It is the man of God, that was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord hath delivered him to the lion, and he hath torn him, and killed him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to him. 13:27. And he said to his sons: Saddle me an ass. And when they had saddled it, 13:28. And he was gone, he found the dead body cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass: the lion had not eaten of the dead body, nor hurt the ass. 13:29. And the prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and going back brought it into the city of the old prophet, to mourn for him. 13:30. And he laid his dead body in his own sepulchre: and they mourned over him, saying: Alas! alas, my brother. 13:31. And when they had mourned over him, he said to his sons: When I am dead, bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried: lay my bones beside his bones. 13:32. For assuredly the word shall come to pass which he hath foretold in the word of the Lord, against the altar that is in Bethel: and against all the temples of the high places, that are in the cities of Samaria. 13:33. After these words, Jeroboam came not back from his wicked way: but on the contrary, he made of the meanest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he filled his hand, and he was made a priest of the high places. 13:34. And for this cause did the house of Jeroboam sin, and was cut off, and destroyed from the face of the earth. 3 Kings Chapter 14 Ahias prophesieth the destruction of the family of Jeroboam. He dieth, and is succeeded by his son Nadab. The king of Egypt taketh and pillageth Jerusalem. Roboam dieth and his son Abiam succeedeth. 14:1. At that time Abia, the son of Jeroboam, fell sick. 14:2. And Jeroboam said to his wife: Arise, and change thy dress, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Silo, where Ahias, the prophet is, who told me that I should reign over this people. 14:3. Take also with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a pot of honey, and go to him: for he will tell thee what will become of this child. 14:4. Jeroboam's wife did as he told her: and rising up, went to Silo, and came to the house of Ahias; but he could not see, for his eyes were dim by reason of his age. 14:5. And the Lord said to Ahias: Behold the wife of Jeroboam cometh in, to consult thee concerning her son, that is sick: thus and thus shalt thou speak to her. So when she was coming in, and made as if she were another woman, 14:6. Ahias heard the sound of her feet, coming in at the door, and said: Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam: why dost thou feign thyself to be another? But I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. 14:7. Go, and tell Jeroboam: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: For as much as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel; 14:8. And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to thee, and thou hast not been as my servant, David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing that which was well pleasing in my sight: 14:9. But hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast made thee strange gods, and molten gods, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: 14:10. Therefore, behold I will bring evils upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the last in Israel: and I will sweep away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as dung is swept away till all be clean. 14:11. Them that shall die of Jeroboam in the city, the dogs shall eat: and them that shall die in the field, the birds of the air shall devour: for the Lord hath spoken it. 14:12. Arise thou, therefore, and go to thy house: and when thy feet shall be entering into the city, the child shall die, 14:13. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and shall bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall be laid in a sepulchre, because in his regard there is found a good word from the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. 14:14. And the Lord hath appointed himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam in this day, and in this time: 14:15. And the Lord God shall strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water: and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river: because they have made to themselves groves, to provoke the Lord. 14:16. And the Lord shall give up Israel for the sins of Jeroboam, who hath sinned, and made Israel to sin. 14:17. And the wife of Jeroboam arose, and departed, and came to Thersa: and when she was coming in to the threshold of the house, the child died, 14:18. And they buried him. And all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Ahias, the prophet. 14:19. And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he fought, and how he reigned, behold they are written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel. The book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel. . .This book, which is often mentioned in the Book of Kings, is long since lost. For as to the books of Paralipomenon, or Chronicles, (which the Hebrews call the words of the days,) they were certainly written after the Book of Kings, since they frequently refer to them. 14:20. And the days that Jeroboam reigned, were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers: and Nadab, his son, reigned in his stead. 14:21. And Roboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Juda: Roboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naama, an Ammonitess. 14:22. And Juda did evil in the sight of the Lord, and provoked him above all that their fathers had done, in their sins which they committed. 14:23. For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves, upon every high hill, and under every green tree: 14:24. There were also the effeminate in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the people, whom the Lord had destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. The effeminate. . .Catamites, or men addicted to unnatural lust. 14:25. And in the fifth year of the reign of Roboam, Sesac, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem. 14:26. And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the king's treasures, and carried all off: as also the shields of gold which Solomon had made: 14:27. And Roboam made shields of brass instead of them, and delivered them into the hand of the captains of the shieldbearers, and of them that kept watch before the gate of the king's house. 14:28. And when the king went into the house of the Lord, they whose office it was to go before him, carried them: and afterwards they brought them back to the armoury of the shieldbearers. 14:29. Now the rest of the acts of Roboam, and all that he did, behold they are written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda. 14:30. And there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam always. 14:31. And Roboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with them, in the city of David: and his mother's name was Naama, an Ammonitess: and Abiam, his son, reigned in his stead. 3 Kings Chapter 15 The acts of Abiam and of Asa kings of Juda. And of Nadab and Baasa kings of Israel. 15:1. Now in the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, Abiam reigned over Juda. 15:2. He reigned three years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Maacha, the daughter of Abessalom. Maacha, etc. . .She is called elsewhere Michaia, daughter of Uriel; but it was common in those days for the same person to have two names. 15:3. And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David, his father. 15:4. But for David's sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem: 15:5. Because David had done that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not turned aside from any thing that he commanded him, all the days of his life, except the matter of Urias, the Hethite. 15:6. But there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam all the time of his life. 15:7. And the rest of the words of Abiam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? And there was war between Abiam and Jeroboam. 15:8. And Abiam slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Asa, his son, reigned in his stead. 15:9. So in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, reigned Asa, king of Juda, 15:10. And he reigned one and forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacha, the daughter of Abessalom. His mother, etc. . .That is, his grandmother; unless we suppose, which is not improbable, that the Maacha here named is different from the Maacha mentioned, ver. 2. 15:11. And Asa did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, as did David, his father: 15:12. And he took away the effeminate out of the land, and removed all the filth of the idols, which his fathers had made. 15:13. Moreover, he also removed his mother, Maacha, from being the princess in the sacrifices of Priapus, and in the grove which she had consecrated to him: and he destroyed her den, and broke in pieces the filthy idol, and burnt it by the torrent Cedron: 15:14. But the high places he did not take away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect with the Lord all his days: The high places. . .There were excelsa or high places of two different kinds. Some were set up, and dedicated to the worship of idols, or strange gods; and these Asa removed, 2 Par. 14.2; others were only altars of the true God, but were erected contrary to the law, which allowed of no sacrifices but in the temple; and these were not removed by Asa.--Ibid. Perfect with the Lord. . .Asa had his faults; but never forsook the worship of the Lord. 15:15. And he brought in the things which his father had dedicated, and he had vowed, into the house of the Lord, silver and gold, and vessels. 15:16. And there was war between Asa, and Baasa, king of Israel, all their days. 15:17. And Baasa, king of Israel, went up against Juda, and built Rama, that no man might go out or come in of the side of Asa, king of Juda. 15:18. Then Asa took all the silver and gold that remained in the treasures of the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and delivered it into the hands of his servants: and sent them to Benadad, son of Tabremon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying: 15:19. There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: therefore I have sent thee presents of silver and gold: and I desire thee to come, and break thy league with Baasa, king of Israel, that he may depart from me. 15:20. Benadad, hearkening to king Asa, sent the captains of his army against the cities of Israel, and they smote Ahion, and Dan, and Abeldomum Maacha, and all Cenneroth; that is all the land of Nephthali. 15:21. And when Baasa had heard this, he left off building Rama, and returned into Thersa. 15:22. But king Asa sent word into all Juda, saying: Let no man be excused: and they took away the stones from Rama, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasa had been building, and with them king Asa built Gabaa of Benjamin, and Maspha. 15:23. But the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his strength, and all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. 15:24. And he slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, his father. And Josaphat, his son, reigned in his place. 15:25. But Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over Israel the second year of Asa, king of Juda: and he reigned over Israel two years. 15:26. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father, and in his sins, wherewith he made Israel to sin. 15:27. And Baasa, the son of Ahias, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him, and slew him in Gebbethon, which is a city of the Philistines: for Nadab and all Israel besieged Gebbethon. 15:28. So Baasa slew him in the third year of Asa, king of Juda, and reigned in his place. 15:29. And when he was king, he cut off all the house of Jeroboam: he left not so much as one soul of his seed, till he had utterly destroyed him, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken in the hand of Ahias, the Silonite: 15:30. Because of the sin of Jeroboam, which he had sinned, and wherewith he had made Israel to sin, and for the offence wherewith he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel. 15:31. But the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:32. And there was war between Asa and Baasa, the king of Israel, all their days. 15:33. In the third year of Asa, king of Juda, Baasa, the son of Ahias, reigned over all Israel, in Thersa, four and twenty years. 15:34. And he did evil before the Lord, and walked in the ways of Jeroboam, and in his sins, wherewith he made Israel to sin. 3 Kings Chapter 16 Jehu prophesieth against Baasa: his son Ela is slain and all his family destroyed by Zambri. Of the reign of Amri father of Achab. 16:1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jehu, the son of Hanani, against Baasa, saying: 16:2. For as much as I have exalted thee out of the dust and made thee prince over my people Israel, and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins: 16:3. Behold I will cut down the posterity of Baasa, and the posterity of his house, and I will make thy house as the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat. 16:4. Him that dieth of Baasa, in the city, the dogs shall eat: and him that dieth of his in the country, the fowls of the air shall devour. 16:5. But the rest of the acts of Baasa, and all that he did, and his battles, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 16:6. So Baasa slept with his fathers, and was buried in Thersa: and Ela, his son, reigned in his stead. 16:7. And when the word of the Lord came in the hand of Jehu, the son of Hanani, the prophet, against Baasa, and against his house, and against all the evil that he had done before the Lord, to provoke him to anger by the works of his hands, to become as the house of Jeroboam: for this cause he slew him; that is to say, Jehu, the son of Hanani, the prophet. 16:8. In the six and twentieth year of Asa, king of Juda, Ela, the son of Baasa, reigned over Israel, in Thersa, two years. 16:9. And his servant Zambri, who was captain of half the horsemen, rebelled against him: now Ela was drinking in Thersa, and drunk in the house of Arsa, the governor of Thersa. 16:10. And Zambri rushing in, struck him, and slew him, in the seven and twentieth year of Asa, king of Juda and he reigned in his stead. 16:11. And when he was king, and sat upon his throne, he slew all the house of Baasa, and he left not one thereof to piss against a wall and all his kinsfolks and friends. 16:12. And Zambri destroyed all the house of Baasa, according to the word of the Lord, that he had spoken to Baasa, in the hand of Jehu, the prophet, 16:13. For all the sins of Baasa, and the sins of Ela, his son, who sinned, and made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, with their vanities. 16:14. But the rest of the acts of Ela, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 16:15. In the seven and twentieth year of Asa, king of Juda, Zambri reigned seven days in Thersa: now the army was besieging Gebbethon, a city of the Philistines. 16:16. And when they heard that Zambri had rebelled, and slain the king, all Israel made Amri their king, who was general over Israel in the camp that day. 16:17. And Amri went up, and all Israel with him, from Gebbethon, and they besieged Thersa. 16:18. And Zambri, seeing that the city was about to be taken, went into the palace, and burnt himself with the king's house: and he died 16:19. In his sins, which he had sinned, doing evil before the Lord, and walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin. 16:20. But the rest of the acts of Zambri, and of his conspiracy and tyranny, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 16:21. Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts: one half of the people followed Thebni, the son of Gineth, to make him king: and one half followed Amri. 16:22. But the people that were with Amri, prevailed over the people that followed Thebni, the son of Gineth: and Thebni died, and Amri reigned. 16:23. In the one and thirtieth year of Asa, king of Juda, Amri reigned over Israel twelve years: in Thersa he reigned six years. In the one and thirtieth year, etc. . .Amri began to reign in the seven and twentieth year of Asa; but had not quiet possession of the kingdom till the death of his competitor Thebni, which was in the one and thirtieth year of Asa's reign. 16:24. And he bought the hill of Samaria of Semer, for two talents of silver: and he built upon it, and he called the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Semer, the owner of the hill. 16:25. And Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord, and acted wickedly above all that were before him. 16:26. And he walked in all the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, and in his sins, wherewith he made Israel to sin: to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities. With their vanities. . .That is, their idols their golden calves, vain, false, deceitful things. 16:27. Now the rest of the acts of Amri, and the battles he fought, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 16:28. And Amri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria, and Achab, his son, reigned in his stead. 16:29. Now Achab, the son of Amri, reigned over Israel in the eight and thirtieth year of Asa, king of Juda. And Achab, the son of Amri, reigned over Israel in Samaria two and twenty years. 16:30. And Achab, the son of Amri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. 16:31. Nor was it enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat: but he also took to wife Jezabel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians. And he went, and served Baal, and adored him. 16:32. And he set up an altar for Baal, in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria; 16:33. And he planted a grove: and Achab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, than all the kings of Israel that were before him. 16:34. In his days Hiel, of Bethel, built Jericho: in Abiram, his firstborn, he laid its foundations: and in his youngest son, Segub, he set up the gates thereof: according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Josue, the son of Nun. 3 Kings Chapter 17 Elias shutteth up the heaven from raining. He is fed by ravens, and afterwards by a widow of Sarephta. He raiseth the window's son to life. 17:1. And Elias the Thesbite, of the inhabitants of Galaad, said to Achab: As the Lord liveth, the God of Israel, in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to the words of my mouth. 17:2. And the word of the Lord came to him, saying: 17:3. Get thee hence, and go towards the east, and hide thyself by the torrent of Carith, which is over against the Jordan; 17:4. And there thou shalt drink of the torrent: and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. 17:5. So he went, and did according to the word of the Lord: and going, he dwelt by the torrent Carith, which is over against the Jordan. 17:6. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the torrent. 17:7. But after some time the torrent was dried up: for it had not rained upon the earth. 17:8. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying: 17:9. Arise, and go to Sarephta of the Sidonians, and dwell there: for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee. Sarephta of the Sidonians. . .That is, a city of the Sidonians. 17:10. He arose, and went to Sarephta. And when he was come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. 17:11. And when she was going to fetch it, he called after her, saying: Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand. 17:12. And she answered: As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruise: behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. 17:13. And Elias said to her: Fear not; but go, and do as thou hast said but first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me, and after make for thyself and thy son. 17:14. For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruise of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth. 17:15. She went, and did according to the word of Elias: and he ate, and she, and her house: and from that day 17:16. The pot of meal wasted not, and the cruise of oil was not diminished according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias. 17:17. And it came to pass after this, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and the sickness was very grievous, so that there was no breath left in him. 17:18. And she said to Elias: What have I to do with thee, thou man of God? art thou come to me, that my iniquities should be remembered, and that thou shouldst kill my son? 17:11. And Elias said to her: Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. 17:20. And he cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord, my God, hast thou afflicted also the widow, with whom I am after a sort maintained, so as to kill her son? 17:21. And he stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord, my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body. 17:22. And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived. 17:23. And Elias took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber to the house below, and delivered him to his mother, and said to her: Behold thy son liveth. 17:24. And the woman said to Elias: Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true. 3 Kings Chapter 18 Elias cometh before Achab. He convinceth the false prophets by bringing fire from heaven: he obtaineth rain by his prayer. 18:1. After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elias, in the third year, saying: Go, and shew thyself to Achab, that I may give rain upon the face of the earth. 18:2. And Elias went to shew himself to Achab, and there was a grievous famine in Samaria. 18:3. And Achab called Abdias the governor of his house: now Abdias feared the Lord very much. 18:4. For when Jezabel killed the prophets of the Lord, he took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty and fifty in caves, and fed them with bread and water. 18:5. And Achab said to Abdias: Go into the land unto all fountains of waters, and into all valleys, to see if we can find grass, and save the horses and mules, that the beasts may not utterly perish. 18:6. And they divided the countries between them, that they might go round about them: Achab went one way, and Abdias another way by himself. 18:7. And as Abdias was in the way, Elias met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said: Art thou my lord Elias? 18:8. And he answered: I am. Go, and tell thy master: Elias is here. 18:9. And he said: What have I sinned, that thou wouldst deliver me, thy servant, into the hand of Achab, that he should kill me? 18:10. As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when all answered: He is not here: he took an oath of every kingdom and nation, because thou wast not found. 18:11. And now thou sayest to me: Go and tell thy master: Elias is here. 18:12. And when I am gone from thee, the Spirit of the Lord will carry thee into a place that I know not: and I shall go in and tell Achab; and he, not finding thee, will kill me: but thy servant feareth the Lord from his infancy. 18:13. Hath it not been told thee, my lord, what I did when Jezabel killed the prophets of the Lord; how I hid a hundred men of the prophets of the Lord, by fifty and fifty in caves, and fed them with bread and water? 18:14. And now thou sayest: Go and tell thy master: Elias is here: that he may kill me. 18:15. And Elias said: As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whose face I stand, this day I will shew myself unto him. 18:16. Abdias therefore went to meet Achab, and told him: and Achab came to meet Elias. 18:17. And when he had seen him, he said: Art thou he that troublest Israel? 18:18. And he said: I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, who have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim. 18:19. Nevertheless send now, and gather unto me all Israel, unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, who eat at Jezabel's table. 18:20. Achab sent to all the children of Israel, and gathered together the prophets unto mount Carmel. 18:21. And Elias coming to all the people, said: How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. 18:22. And Elias said again to the people: I only remain a prophet of the Lord: but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men. 18:23. Let two bullocks be given us, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it upon wood, but put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under it. 18:24. Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the name of my Lord: and the God that shall answer by fire, let him be God. And all the people answering, said: A very good proposal. 18:25. Then Elias said to the prophets of Baal: Choose you one bullock and dress it first, because you are many: and call on the names of your gods; but put no fire under. 18:26. And they took the bullock, which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying: O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made. 18:27. And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: Cry with a louder voice: for he is a god; and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey; or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awaked. 18:28. So they cried with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. 18:29. And after midday was past, and while they were prophesying, the time was come of offering sacrifice, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer, nor regard them as they prayed. 18:30. Elias said to all the people: Come ye unto me. And the people coming near unto him, he repaired the altar of the Lord, that was broken down: 18:31. And he took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord came, saying: Israel shall be thy name. 18:32. And he built with the stones an altar to the name of the Lord: and he made a trench for water, of the breadth of two furrows, round about the altar. 18:33. And he laid the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood. 18:34. And he said: Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood. And again he said: Do the same the second time. And when they had done it the second time, he said: Do the same also the third time. And they did so the third time. 18:35. And the water run round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water. 18:36. And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias, the prophet, came near and said: O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, shew this day that thou art the God of Israel, and I thy servant, and that according to thy commandment I have done all these things. 18:37. Dear me, O Lord, hear me: that this people may learn that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart again. 18:38. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 18:39. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God. 18:40. And Elias said to them: Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape. And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Cison, and killed them there. 18:41. And Elias said to Achab: Go up, eat and drink: for there is a sound of abundance of rain. 18:42. Achab went up to eat and drink: and Elias went up to the top of Carmel, and casting himself down upon the earth, put his face between his knees, 18:43. And he said to his servant: Go up, and look towards the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said: There is nothing. And again he said to him: Return seven times. 18:44. And at the seventh time: Behold a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man's foot. And he said: Go up, and say to Achab: Prepare thy chariot, and go down, lest the rain prevent thee. 18:45. And while he turned himself this way and that way, behold the heavens grew dark, with clouds and wind, and there fell a great rain. And Achab getting up, went away to Jezrahel: 18:46. And the hand of the Lord was upon Elias, and he girded up his loins, and ran before Achab, till he came to Jezrahel. 3 Kings Chapter 19 Elias, fleeing from Jezabel, is fed by an angel in the desert; and by the strength of that food walketh forty days, till he cometh to Horeb, where he hath a vision of God. 19:1. And Achab told Jezabel all that Elias had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 19:2. And Jezabel sent a messenger to Elias, saying: Such and such things may the gods do to me, and add still more, if by this hour to morrow I make not thy life as the life of one of them. 19:3. Then EIias was afraid, and rising up, he went whithersoever he had a mind: and he came to Bersabee of Juda, and left his servant there, 19:4. And he went forward, one day's journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for his soul that he might die, and said: It is enough for me, Lord; take away my soul: for I am no better than my fathers. That he might die. . .Elias requested to die, not out of impatience or pusillanimity, but out of zeal against sin; and that he might no longer be witness of the miseries of his people; and the war they were waging against God and his servants. See ver. 10. 19:5. And he cast himself down, and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree: and behold an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: Arise and eat. 19:6. He looked, and behold there was at his head a hearth cake, and a vessel of water: and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. 19:7. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: Arise, eat: for thou hast yet a great way to go. 19:8. And he arose, and ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb. In the strength of that food, etc. . .This bread, with which Elias was fed in the wilderness, was a figure of the bread of life which we receive in the blessed sacrament; by the strength of which we are to be supported in our journey through the wilderness of this world till we come to the true mountain of God, and his vision in a happy eternity. 19:9. And when he was come thither, he abode in a cave. and behold the word of the Lord came unto him, and he said to him: What dost thou here, Elias? 19:10. And he answered: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have thrown down thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. I alone am left. . .Viz., of the prophets in the kingdom of Israel, or of the ten tribes; for in the kingdom of Juda religion was at that time in a very flourishing condition under the kings Asa and Josaphat. And even in Israel there remained several prophets, though not then known to Elias. See chap. 20.13, 28, 35. 19:11. And he said to him: Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord: and behold the Lord passeth, and a great and strong wind before the Lord, overthrowing the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces: but the Lord is not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake: but the Lord is not in the earthquake. 19:12. And after the earthquake, a fire: but the Lord is not in the fire. And after the fire, a whistling of a gentle air. 19:13. And when Elias heard it, he covered his face with his mantle, and coming forth, stood in the entering in of the cave, and behold a voice unto him, saying: What dost thou here, Elias? And he answered: 19:14. With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have destroyed thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword; and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. 19:15. And the Lord said to him: Go, and return on thy way, through the desert, to Damascus: and when thou art come thither, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria; 19:16. And thou shalt anoint Jehu, the son of Namsi, to be king over Israel: and Eliseus, the son of Saphat, of Abelmeula, thou shalt anoint to be prophet in thy room. 19:17. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall escape the sword of Hazael, shall be slain by Jehu: and whosoever shall escape the sword of Jehu, shall be slain by Eliseus. Shall be slain by Eliseus. . .Eliseus did not kill any of the idolaters with the material sword: but he is here joined with Hazael and Jehu, the great instruments of God in punishing the idolatry of Israel, because he foretold to the former his exaltation to the kingdom of Syria, and the vengeance he would execute against Israel, and anointed the latter by one of his disciples to be king of Israel, with commission to extirpate the house of Achab. 19:18. And I will leave me seven thousand men in Israel, whose knees have not been bowed before Baal, and every mouth that hath not worshipped him, kissing the hands. 19:19. And Elias departing from thence, found Eliseus, the son of Saphat, ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen: and he was one of them that were ploughing with, twelve yoke of oxen: and when Elias came up to him, he cast his mantle upon him. 19:20. And he forthwith left the oxen, and run after Elias, and said: Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said to him: Go, and return back: for that which was my part, I have done to thee. 19:21. And returning back from him, he took a yoke of oxen, and killed them, and boiled the flesh with the plough of the oxen, and gave to the people, and they ate: and rising up, he went away, and followed Elias, and ministered to him. 3 Kings Chapter 20 The Syrians besiege Samaria: they are twice defeated by Achab: who is reprehended by a prophet for letting Benadad go. 20:1. And Benadad, king of Syria, gathered together all his host, and there were two and thirty kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and going up, he fought against Samaria, and besieged it. 20:2. And sending messengers to Achab, king of Israel, into the city, 20:3. He said: Thus saith Benadad: Thy silver and thy gold is mine: and thy wives and thy goodliest children are mine. 20:4. And the king of Israel answered: According to thy word, my lord, O king, I am thine, and all that I have. 20:5. And the messengers came again, and said: Thus saith Benadad, who sent us unto thee: Thy silver and thy gold, and thy wives and thy children, thou shalt deliver up to me. 20:6. To morrow, therefore, at this same hour, I will send my servants to thee, and they shall search thy house, and the houses of thy servants: and all that pleaseth them, they shall put in their hands, and take away. 20:7. And the king of Israel called all the ancients of the land, and said: Mark, and see that he layeth snares for us. For he sent to me for my wives, and for my children, and for my silver and gold: and I said not nay. 20:8. And all the ancients, and all the people said to him: Hearken not to him, nor consent to him. 20:9. Wherefore he answered the messengers of Benadad: Tell my lord, the king: All that thou didst send for to me, thy servant at first, I will do: but this thing I cannot do. 20:10. And the messengers returning brought him word. And he sent again, and said: Such and such things may the gods do to me, and more may they add, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me. 20:11. And the king of Israel answering, said: Tell him: Let not the girded boast himself as the ungirded. Let not the girded, etc. . .Let him not boast before the victory: it will then be time to glory when he putteth off his armour, having overcome his adversary. 20:12. And it came to pass, when Benadad heard this word, that he and the kings were drinking in pavilions, and he said to his servants: Beset the city. And they beset it. 20:13. And behold a prophet coming to Achab, king of Israel, said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Hast thou seen all this exceeding great multitude? behold I will deliver them into thy hand this day: that thou mayst know that I am the Lord. 20:14. And Achab said: By whom? And he said to him: Thus saith the Lord: By the servants of the princes of the provinces. And he said: Who shall begin to fight? And he said: Thou. 20:15. So he mustered the servants of the princes of the provinces, and he found the number of two hundred and thirty-two: and he mustered after them the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand: 20:16. And they went out at noon. But Benadad was drinking himself drunk in his pavilion, and the two and thirty kings with him, who were come to help him. 20:17. And the servants of the princes of the provinces went out first. And Benadad sent. And they told him, saying: There are men come out of Samaria. 20:18. And he said: Whether they come for peace, take them alive: or whether they come to fight, take them alive. 20:19. So the servants of the princes of the provinces went out, and the rest of the army followed: 20:20. And every one slew the man that came against him: and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued after them. And Benadad, king of Syria, fled away on horseback with his horsemen. 20:21. But the king of Israel going out overthrew the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter. 20:22. (And a prophet coming to the king of Israel, said to him: Go, and strengthen thyself, and know, and see what thou dost: for the next year the king of Syria will come up against thee.) 20:23. But the servants of the king of Syria said to him: Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they have overcome us: but it is better that we should fight against them in the plains, and we shall overcome them. 20:24. Do thou, therefore, this thing: Remove all the kings from thy army, and put captains in their stead: 20:25. And make up the number of soldiers that have been slain of thine, and horses, according to the former horses, and chariots, according to the chariots which thou hadst before: and we will fight against them in the plains, and thou shalt see that we shall overcome them. He believed their counsel, and did so. 20:26. Wherefore, at the return of the year, Benadad mustered the Syrians, and went up to Aphec, to fight against Israel. 20:27. And the children of Israel were mustered, and taking victuals, went out on the other side, and encamped over against them, like two little flocks of goats: but the Syrians filled the land. 20:28. (And a man of God coming, said to the king of Israel: Thus saith the Lord: Because the Syrians have said: The Lord is God of the hills, but is not God of the valleys: I will deliver all this great multitude into thy hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.) 20:29. And both sides set their armies in array one against the other seven days, and on the seventh day the battle was fought: and the children of Israel slew, of the Syrians, a hundred thousand footmen in one day. 20:30. And they that remained fled to Aphec, into the city: and the wall fell upon seven and twenty thousand men, that were left. And Benadad fleeing, went into the city, into a chamber that was within a chamber. 20:31. And his servants said to him: Behold, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful; so let us put sackcloths on our loins, and ropes on our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: perhaps he will save our lives. 20:32. So they girded sackcloths on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said to him: Thy servant, Benadad, saith: I beseech thee let me have my life. And he said: If he be yet alive, he is my brother. 20:33. The men took this for good luck: and in haste caught the word out of his mouth, and said: Thy brother Benadad. And he said to them: Go, and bring him to me. Then Benadad came out to him, and he lifted him up into his chariot. 20:34. And he said to him: The cities which my father took from thy father, I will restore: and do thou make thee streets in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria and having made a league, I will depart from thee. So he made a league with him, and let him go. 20:35. Then a certain man of the sons of the prophets, said to his companion, in the word of the Lord: Strike me. But he would not strike. 20:36. Then he said to him: Because thou wouldst not hearken to the word of the Lord, behold thou shalt depart from me, and a lion shall slay thee. And when he was gone a little from him, a lion found him, and slew him. 20:37. Then he found another man, and said to him: Strike me. And he struck him and wounded him. 20:38. So the prophet went, and met the king in the way, and disguised himself by sprinkling dust on his face and his eyes. 20:39. And as the king passed by, he cried to the king, and said: Thy servant went out to fight hand to hand: and when a certain man was run away, one brought him to me, and said: Keep this man: and if he shall slip away, thy life shall be for his life, or thou shalt pay a talent of silver. 20:40. And whilst I, in the hurry, turned this way and that, on a sudden he was not to be seen. And the king of Israel said to him: This is thy judgment, which thyself hast decreed. 20:41. But he forthwith wiped off the dust from his face, and the king of Israel knew him, that he was one of the prophets. 20:42. And he said to him: Thus saith the Lord. Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man worthy of death, thy life shall be for his life, and thy people for his people. 20:43. And the king of Israel returned to his house, slighting to hear, and raging came into Samaria. 3 Kings Chapter 21 Naboth, for denying his vineyard to king Achab, is by Jezabel's commandment, falsely accused and stoned to death. For which crime Elias denounceth to Achab the judgments of God: upon his humbling himself the sentence is mitigated. 21:1. And after these things, Naboth the Jezrahelite, who was in Jezrahel, had at that time a vineyard, near the palace of Achab, king of Samaria. 21:2. And Achab spoke to Naboth, saying: Give me thy vineyard, that I may make me a garden of herbs, because it is nigh, and adjoining to my house; and I will give thee for it a better vineyard: or if thou think it more convenient for thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. 21:3. Naboth answered him: The Lord be merciful to me, and not let me give thee the inheritance of my fathers. 21:4. And Achab came into his house angry and fretting, because of the word that Naboth, the Jezrahelite, had spoken to him, saying: I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And casting himself upon his bed, he turned away his face to the wall, and would eat no bread. 21:5. And Jezabel, his wife, went in to him, and said to him: What is the matter that thy soul is so grieved? and why eatest thou no bread? 21:6. And he answered her: I spoke to Naboth, the Jezrahelite, and said to him: Give me thy vineyard, and take money for it: or if it please thee, I will give thee a better vineyard for it. And he said: I will not give thee my vineyard. 21:7. Then Jezabel, his wife, said to him. Thou art of great authority indeed, and governest well the kingdom of Israel. Arise, and eat bread, and be of good cheer; I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezrahelite. 21:8. So she wrote letters in Achab's name, and sealed them with his ring, and sent them to the ancients, and the chief men that were in his city, and that dwelt with Naboth. 21:9. And this was the tenor of the letters: Proclaim a fast, and make Naboth sit among the chief of the people; 21:10. And suborn two men, sons of Belial, against him. and let them bear false witness; that he hath blasphemed God and the king: and then carry him out, and stone him, and so let him die. 21:11. And the men of his city, the ancients and nobles, that dwelt with him in the city, did as Jezabel had commanded them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent to them; 21:12. They proclaimed a fast, and made Naboth sit among the chief of the people. 21:13. And bringing two men, sons of the devil, they made them sit against him: and they, like men of the devil, bore witness against him before the people: saying: Naboth hath blasphemed God and the king. Wherefore they brought him forth without the city, and stoned him to death. 21:14. And they sent to Jezabel, saying: Naboth is stoned, and is dead. 21:15. And it came to pass, when Jezabel heard that Naboth was stoned, and dead, that she said to Achab: Arise, and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezrahelite, who would not agree with thee, and give it thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. 21:16. And when Achab heard this, to wit, that Naboth was dead, he arose, and went down into the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezrahelite, to take possession of it. 21:17. And the word of the Lord came to Elias, the Thesbite, saying: 21:18. Arise, and go down to meet Achab, king of Israel, who is in Samaria: behold he is going down to the vineyard of Naboth, to take possession of it: 21:19. And thou shalt speak to him, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast slain: moreover also thou hast taken possession. And after these words thou shalt add: Thus saith the Lord: In this place, wherein the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth, they shall lick thy blood also. 21:20. And Achab said to Elias: Hast thou found me thy enemy? He said: I have found thee because thou art sold, to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Sold, to do evil in the sight, etc. . .That is, so addicted to evil, as if thou hadst sold thyself to the devil, to be his slave to work all kinds of evil. 21:21. Behold I will bring evil upon thee, and I will cut down thy posterity, and I will kill of Achab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the last in Israel. 21:22. And I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, and like the house of Baasa the son of Ahias: for what thou hast done to provoke me to anger, and for making Israel to sin. 21:23. And of Jezabel also, the Lord spoke, saying: The dogs shall eat Jezabel in the field of Jezrahel. 21:24. If Achab die in the city, the dogs shall eat him: but if he die in the field, the birds of the air shall eat him. 21:25. Now, there was not such another as Achab, who was sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord: for his wife, Jezabel, set him on, 21:26. And he became abominable, insomuch that he followed the idols which the Amorrhites had made, whom the Lord destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. 21:27. And when Achab had heard these words, he rent his garments, and put haircloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and slept in sackcloth, and walked with his head cast down. 21:28. And the word of the Lord came to Elias, the Thesbite, saying: 21:29. Hast thou not seen Achab humbled before me? therefore, because he hath humbled himself, for my sake, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house. 3 Kings Chapter 22 Achab believing his false prophets, rather than Micheas, is slain in Ramoth Galaad. Ochozias succeedeth him. Good king Josaphat dieth, and his son Joram succeedeth him. 22:1. And there passed three years without war between Syria and Israel. 22:2. And in the third year, Josaphat, king of Juda, came down to the king of Israel. 22:3. (And the king of Israel said to his servants: Know ye not that Ramoth Galaad is ours, and we neglect to take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?) 22:4. And he said to Josaphat: Wilt thou come with me to battle to Ramoth Galaad? 22:5. And Josaphat said to the king of Israel: As I am, so art thou: my people and thy people are one: and my horsemen are thy horsemen. And Josaphat said to the king of Israel: Inquire, I beseech thee, this day the word of the Lord. 22:6. Then the king of Israel assembled the prophets, about four hundred men, and he said to them: Shall I go to Ramoth Galaad to fight, or shall I forbear? They answered: Go up, and the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king. 22:7. And Josaphat said: Is there not here some prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire by him? 22:8. And the king of Israel said to Josaphat. There is one man left, by whom we may inquire of the Lord; Micheas, the son of Jemla: but I hate him, for he doth not prophecy good to me, but evil. And Josaphat said: Speak not so, O king. 22:9. Then the king of Israel called an eunuch, and said to him: Make haste, and bring hither Micheas, the son of Jemla. 22:10. And the king of Israel, and Josaphat, king of Juda, sat each on his throne, clothed with royal robes, in a court, by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets prophesied before them. 22:11. And Sedecias, the son of Chanaana, made himself horns of iron, and said: Thus saith the Lord: With these shalt thou push Syria, till thou destroy it. 22:12. And all the prophets prophesied in like manner, saying: Go up to Ramoth Galaad, and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the king's hands. 22:13. And the messenger that went to call Micheas, spoke to him, saying: Behold the words of the prophets with one mouth declare good things to the king: let thy word, therefore, be like to theirs, and speak that which is good. 22:14. But Micheas said to him: As the Lord liveth, whatsoever the Lord shall say to me, that will I speak. 22:15. So he came to the king, and the king said to him: Micheas, shall we go to Ramoth Galaad to battle, or shall we forbear? He answered him: Go up, and prosper, and the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hands. Go up, etc. . .This was spoken ironically, and by way of jesting at the flattering speeches of the false prophets: and so the king understood it, as appears by his adjuring Micheas, in the following verse, to tell him the truth in the name of the Lord. 22:16. But the king said to him: I adjure thee again and again, that thou tell me nothing but that which is true, in the name of the Lord. 22:17. And he said: I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the Lord said: These have no master: let every man of them return to his house in peace. 22:18. (Then the king of Israel said to Josaphat: Did I not tell thee, that he prophesieth no good to me, but always evil?) 22:19. And he added and said: Hear thou, therefore, the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on the right hand and on the left: 22:20. And the Lord said: Who shall deceive Achab, king of Israel, that he may go up, and fall at Ramoth Galaad? And one spoke words of this manner, and another otherwise. The Lord said, etc. . .God standeth not in need of any counsellor; nor are we to suppose that things pass in heaven in the manner here described: but this representation was made to the prophet, to be delivered by him in a manner adapted to the common ways and notions of men. 22:21. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said: I will deceive him. And the Lord said to him: By what means? 22:22. And he said: I will go forth, and be a lying spirit, in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said: Thou shalt deceive him, and shalt prevail: go forth, and do so. Go forth, and do so. . .This was not a command, but a permission: for God never ordaineth lies; though he often permitteth the lying spirit to deceive those who love not the truth. 2 Thess. 2.10. And in this sense it is said in the following verse, The Lord hath given a lying spirit in the mouth of all thy prophets. 22:23. Now, therefore, behold the Lord hath given a lying spirit in the mouth of all thy prophets that are here, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee. 22:24. And Sedecias, the son of Chanaana, came, and struck Micheas on the cheek, and said: Hath then the spirit of the Lord left me, and spoken to thee? 22:25. And Micheas said: Thou shalt see in the day when thou shalt go into a chamber within a chamber to hide thyself. Go into a chamber, etc. . .This happened when he heard the king was slain, and justly apprehended that he should be punished for his false prophecy. 22:26. And the king of Israel said: Take Micheas and let him abide with Amon, the governor of the city, and with Joas, the son of Amalech; 22:27. And tell them: Thus saith the king: Put this man in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction, and water of distress till I return in peace. 22:28. And Micheas said: If thou return in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said: Hear, all ye people. 22:29. So the king of Israel, and Josaphat, king of Juda, went up to Ramoth-Galaad. 22:30. And the king of Israel said to Josaphat: Take thy armour, and go into the battle, and put on thy own garments. But the king of Israel changed his dress, and went into the battle. 22:31. And the king of Syria had commanded the two and thirty captains of the chariots, saying: You shall not fight against any, small or great, but against the king of Israel only. 22:32. So when the captains of the chariots saw Josaphat, they suspected that he was the king of Israel, and making a violent assault, they fought against him: and Josaphat cried out. 22:33. And the captains of the chariots perceived that he was not the king of Israel, and they turned away from him. 22:34. And a certain man bent his bow, shooting at a venture, and chanced to strike the king of Israel, between the lungs and the stomach. But he said to the driver of his chariot: Turn thy hand, and carry me out of the army, for I am grievously wounded. 22:35. And the battle was fought that day, and the king of Israel stood in his chariot against the Syrians, and he died in the evening: and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot. 22:36. And the herald proclaimed through all the army, before the sun set, saying: Let every man return to his own city, and to his own country. 22:37. And the king died, and was carried into Samaria: and they buried the king in Samaria. 22:38. And they washed his chariot in the pool of Samaria and the dogs licked up his blood, and they washed the reins according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken. 22:39. But the rest of the acts of Achab, and all that he did, and the house of ivory that he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 22:40. So Achab slept with his fathers; and Ochozias, his son, reigned in his stead. 22:41. But Josaphat, the son of Asa, began to reign over Juda, in the fourth year of Acbab, king of Israel. 22:42. He was five and thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned five and twenty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Azuba, the daughter of Salai. 22:43. And he walked in all the way of Asa, his father, and he declined not from it: and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. 22:44. Nevertheless, he took not away the high places for as yet the people offered sacrifice, and burnt incense in the high places. He took not away, etc. . .He left some of the high places, viz., those in which they worshipped the true God: but took away all others, 2 Par. 17.6, and note ver. 14 of chap. 15. 3 Kings. 22:45. And Josaphat had peace with the king of Israel. 22:46. But the rest of the acts of Josaphat, and his works which he did, and his battles, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 22:47. And the remnant also of the effeminate, who remained in the days of Asa, his father, he took out of the land. 22:48. And there was then no king appointed in Edom. 22:49. But king Josaphat made navies on the sea, to sail into Ophir for gold: but they could not go, for the ships were broken in Asiongaber. 22:50. Then Ochozias, the son of Achab, said to Josaphat: Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships. And Josaphat would not. Would not. . .He had been reprehended before for admitting such a partner: and therefore would have no more to do with him. 22:51. And Josaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, his father: and Joram, his son, reigned in his stead. 22:52. And Ochozias, the son of Achab, began to reign over Israel, in Samaria, in the seventeenth year of Josaphat, king of Juda, and he reigned over Israel two years. 22:53. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin. 22:54. He served also Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, according to all that his father had done. THE FOURTH BOOK OF KINGS 4 Kings Chapter 1 Ochozias sendeth to consult Beelzebub: Elias foretelleth his death: and causeth fire to come down from heaven, upon two captains and their companies. 1:1. And Moab rebelled against Israel, after the death of Achab. 1:2. And Ochozias fell through the lattices of his upper chamber, which he had in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, saying to them: Go, consult Beelzebub, the god of Accaron, whether I shall recover of this my illness. 1:3. And an angel of the Lord spoke to Elias, the Thesbite, saying: Arise, and go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them: Is there not a God in Israel, that ye go to consult Beelzebub, the god of Accaron? 1:4. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord: From the bed, on which thou art gone up, thou shalt not come down, but thou shalt surely die. And Elias went away. 1:5. And the messengers turned back to Ochozias. And he said to them: Why are you come back? 1:6. But they answered him: A man met us, and said to us: Go, and return to the king, that sent you, and you shall say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Is it because there was no God in Israel, that thou sendest to Beelzebub, the god of Accaron? Therefore thou shalt not come down from the bed, on which thou art gone up, but thou shalt surely die. 1:7. And he said to them: What manner of man was he who met you, and spoke these words? 1:8. But they said: A hairy man, with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said: It is Elias, the Thesbite. 1:9. And he sent to him a captain of fifty, and the fifty men that were under him. And he went up to him, and as he was sitting on the top of a hill, he said to him: Man of God, the king hath commanded that thou come down. 1:10. And Elias answering, said to the captain of fifty: If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee, and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him, and the fifty that were with him. Let fire, etc. . .Elias was inspired to call for fire from heaven upon these captains, who came to apprehend him; not out of a desire to gratify any private passion; but to punish the insult offered to religion, to confirm his mission, and to shew how vain are the efforts of men against God, and his servants, whom he willeth to protect. 1:11. And he again sent to him another captain of fifty men, and his fifty with him. And he said to him: Man of God: Thus saith the king: Make haste and come down. 1:12. Elias answering, said: If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee, and thy fifty. And fire came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. 1:13. Again he sent a third captain of fifty men, and the fifty that were with him. And when he was come, he fell upon his knees before Elias, and besought him, and said: Man of God, despise not my life, and the lives of thy servants that are with me. 1:14. Behold fire came down from heaven, and consumed the two first captains of fifty men, and the fifties that were with them: but now I beseech thee to spare my life. 1:15. And the angel of the Lord spoke to Elias, saying: Go down with him, fear not. He arose therefore, and went down with him to the king, 1:16. And said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast sent messengers to consult Beelzebub, the god of Accaron, as though there were not a God in Israel, of whom thou mightest inquire the word; therefore, from the bed on which thou art gone up, thou shalt not come down, but thou shalt surely die. 1:17. So he died, according to the word of the Lord, which Elias spoke; and Joram, his brother, reigned in his stead, in the second year of Joram, the son of Josaphat, king of Juda, because he had no son. The second year of Joram, etc. . .Counted from the time that he was associated to the throne by his father Josaphat. 1:18. But the rest of the acts of Ochozias, which he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 4 Kings Chapter 2 Eliseus will not part from Elias. The water of the Jordan is divided by Elias' cloak. Elias is taken up in a fiery chariot, and his double spirit is given to Eliseus. Eliseus healeth the waters by casting in salt. Boys are torn by bears for mocking Eliseus. 2:1. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elias, into heaven, by a whirlwind, that Elias and Eliseus were going from Galgal. Heaven. . .By heaven here is meant the air, the lowest of the heavenly regions. 2:2. And Elias said to Eliseus: Stay thou here, because the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel. And Eliseus said to him: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And when they were come down to Bethel, 2:3. The sons of the prophets, that were at Bethel, came forth to Eliseus, and said to him: Dost thou know that, this day, the Lord will take away thy master from thee? And he answered: I also know it: hold your peace. The sons of the prophets. . .That is, the disciples of the prophets; who seem to have had their schools, like colleges or communities, in Bethel, Jericho, and other places in the days of Elias and Eliseus. 2:4. And Elias said to Eliseus: Stay here, because the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And when they were come to Jericho, 2:5. The sons of the prophets, that were at Jericho, came to Eliseus, and said to him: Dost thou know that, this day, the Lord will take away thy master from thee? And he said: I also know it: hold your peace. 2:6. And Elias said to him: Stay here, because the Lord hath sent me as far as the Jordan. And he said: as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on together. 2:7. And fifty men, of the sons of the prophets, followed them, and stood in sight, at a distance: but they two stood by the Jordan. 2:8. And Elias took his mantle, and folded it together, and struck the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, and they both passed over on dry ground. 2:9. And when they were gone over, Elias said to Eliseus: Ask what thou wilt have me to do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Eliseus said: I beseech thee, that in me may be thy double spirit. Double spirit. . .A double portion of thy spirit, as the eldest son and heir: or thy spirit which is double in comparison of that which God usually imparteth to his prophets. 2:10. And he answered: Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, thou shalt have what thou hast asked: but if thou see me not, thou shalt not have it. 2:11. And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 2:12. And Eliseus saw him, and cried: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own garments, and rent them in two pieces. 2:13. And he took up the mantle of Elias, that fell from him: and going back, he stood on the bank of the Jordan; 2:14. And he struck the waters with the mantle of Elias, that had fallen from him, and they were not divided. And he said: Where is now the God of Elias? And he struck the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, and Eliseus passed over. 2:15. And the sons of the prophets, at Jericho, who were over against him, seeing it, said: The spirit of Elias hath rested upon Eliseus. And coming to meet him, they worshipped him, falling to the ground. They worshipped him. . .viz., with an inferior, yet religious veneration, not for any temporal, but spiritual excellency. 2:16. And they said to him: Behold, there are with thy servants, fifty strong men, that can go, and seek thy master, lest, perhaps, the spirit of the Lord, hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said: Do not send. 2:17. But they pressed him, till he consented, and said: Send. And they sent fifty men: and they sought three days, but found him not. 2:18. And they came back to him: for he abode at Jericho, and he said to them: Did I not say to you? Do not send. 2:19. And the men of the city, said to Eliseus . Behold the situation of this city is very good, as thou, my lord, seest: but the waters are very bad, and the ground barren. 2:20. And he said: Bring me a new vessel, and put salt into it. And when they had brought it, 2:21. He went out to the spring of the waters, and cast the salt into it, and said: Thus saith the Lord: I have healed these waters, and there shall be no more in them death or barrenness. 2:22. And the waters were healed unto this day, according to the word of Eliseus, which he spoke. 2:23. And he went up from thence to Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, little boys came out of the city and mocked him, saying: Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head. 2:24. And looking back, he saw them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord: and there came forth two bears out of the forest, and tore of them, two and forty boys. Cursed them. . .This curse, which was followed by so visible a judgment of God, was not the effect of passion, or of a desire of revenging himself; but of zeal for religion, which was insulted by these boys, in the person of the prophet; and of a divine inspiration: God punishing in this manner the inhabitants of Bethel, (the chief seat of the calf worship,) who had trained up their children in a prejudice against the true religion and its ministers. 2:25. And from thence he went to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria. 4 Kings Chapter 3 The kings of Israel, Juda, and Edom, fight against the king of Moab. They want water, which Eliseus procureth without rain: and prophesieth victory. The king of Moab is overthrown, his city is besieged: he sacrificeth his firstborn son: so the Israelites raise the siege. 3:1. And Joram the son of Achab, reigned over Israel, in Samaria, in the eighteenth year of Josaphat, king of Juda. And he reigned twelve years. 3:2. And he did evil before the Lord, but not like his father and his mother: for he took away the statues of Baal, which his father had made. 3:3. Nevertheless, he stuck to the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin, nor did he depart from them. 3:4. Now Mesa, king of Moab, nourished many sheep, and he paid to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, with their fleeces. 3:5. And when Achab was dead, he broke the league which he had made with the king of Israel. 3:6. And king Joram went out that day from Samaria, and mustered all Israel. 3:7. And he sent to Josaphat; king of Juda, saying: The king of Moab is revolted from me: come with me against him to battle. And he answered: I will come up: he that is mine, is thine: my people are thy people: and my horses, thy horses. 3:8. And he said: Which way shall we go up? But he answered: By the desert of Edom. 3:9. So the king of Israel, and the king of Juda, and the king of Edom, went, and they fetched a compass of seven days journey, and there was no water for the army, and for the beasts, that followed them. 3:10. And the king of Israel said: Alas, alas, alas, the Lord hath gathered us three kings together, to deliver us into the hands of Moab. 3:11. And Josaphat said: Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may beseech the Lord by him? And one of the servants of the king of Israel answered: Here is Eliseus, the son of Saphat, who poured water on the hands of Elias. 3:12. And Josaphat said: The word of the Lord is with him. And the king of Israel, and Josaphat, king of Juda, and the king of Edom, went down to him. 3:13. And Eliseus said to the king of Israel: What have I to do with thee? go to the prophets of thy father, and thy mother. And the king of Israel said to him: Why hath the Lord gathered together these three kings, to deliver them into the hands of Moab? 3:14. And Eliseus said to him: As the Lord of hosts liveth, in whose sight I stand, if I did not reverence the face of Josaphat, king of Juda, I would not have hearkened to thee, nor looked on thee. 3:15. But now bring me hither a minstrel. And when the minstrel played, the hand of the Lord came upon him, and he said: 3:16. Thus saith the Lord: Make the channel of this torrent full of ditches. 3:17. For thus saith the Lord: You shall not see wind, nor rain: and yet this channel shall be filled with waters, and you shall drink, you and your families, and your beasts. 3:18. And this is a small thing in the sight of the Lord: moreover, he will deliver, also, Moab into your hands. 3:19. And you shall destroy every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall cut down every fruitful tree, and shall stop up all the springs of waters, and every goodly field you shall cover with stones. 3:20. And it came to pass, in the morning, when the sacrifices used to be offered, that behold, water came by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. 3:21. And all the Moabites hearing that the kings were come up to fight against them, gathered together all that were girded with a belt upon them, and stood in the borders. 3:22. And they rose early in the morning, and the sun being now up, and shining upon the waters, the Moabites saw the waters over against them red, like blood, 3:23. And they said: It is the blood of the sword: the kings have fought among themselves, and they have killed one another: go now, Moab, to the spoils. 3:24. And they went into the camp of Israel: but Israel rising up, defeated Moab, who fled before them. And they being conquerors, went and smote Moab. 3:25. And they destroyed the cities: And they filled every goodly field, every man casting his stone: and they stopt up all the springs of waters: and cut down all the trees that bore fruit, so that brick walls only remained: and the city was beset by the slingers, and a great part thereof destroyed. Brick walls only remained. . .It was the proper name of the capital city of the Moabites. In Hebrew, Kir-Haraseth. 3:26. And when the king of Moab saw this, to wit, that the enemies had prevailed, he took with him seven hundred men that drew the sword, to break in upon the king of Edom: but they could not. 3:27. Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall: and there was great indignation in Israel, and presently they departed from him, and returned into their own country. 4 Kings Chapter 4 Miracles of Eliseus. He raiseth a dead child to life. 4:1. Now a certain woman of the wives of the prophets, cried to Eliseus, saying: Thy servant, my husband, is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant was one that feared God, and behold the creditor is come to take away my two sons to serve him. 4:2. And Eliseus said to her: What wilt thou have me do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in thy house? And she answered: I, thy handmaid, have nothing in my house but a little oil, to anoint me. 4:3. And he said to her: Go, borrow of all thy neighbours empty vessels, not a few. 4:4. And go in, and shut thy door, when thou art within, and thy sons: and pour out thereof into all those vessels: and when they are full, take them away. 4:5. So the woman went, and shut the door upon her, and upon her sons: they brought her the vessels, and she poured in. 4:6. And when the vessels were full, she said to her son: Bring me yet a vessel. And he answered: I have no more. And the oil stood. 4:7. And she came, and told the man of God. And he said: Go, sell the oil, and pay thy creditor: and thou and thy sons live of the rest. 4:8. And there was a day when Eliseus passed by Sunam: now there was a great woman there, who detained him to eat bread: and as he passed often that way, he turned into her house to eat bread. 4:9. And she said to her husband: I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who often passeth by us. 4:10. Let us, therefore, make him a little chamber, and put a little bed in it for him, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick, that when he cometh to us he may abide there. 4:11. Now, there was a certain day, when he came, and turned into the chamber, and rested there. 4:12. And he said to Giezi, his servant: Call this Sunamitess. And when he had called her, and she stood before him, 4:13. He said to his servant: Say to her: Behold, thou hast diligently served us in all things; what wilt thou have me to do for thee? Hast thou any business, and wilt thou, that I speak to the king, or to the general of the army? And she answered: I dwell in the midst of my own people. 4:14. And he said: What will she then that I do for her? And Giezi said: Do not ask, for she hath no son, and her husband is old. 4:15. Then he bid him call her. And when she was called, and stood before the door, 4:16. He said to her: At this time, and this same hour, if life be in company, thou shalt have a son in thy womb. But she answered: Do not, I beseech thee, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie to thy handmaid. 4:17. And the woman conceived, and brought forth a son in the time, and at the same hour that Eliseus had said. 4:18. And the child grew. And on a certain day, when he went out to his father to the reapers, 4:19. He said to his father: My head acheth, my head acheth. But he said to his servant. Take him, and carry him to his mother. 4:20. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, she sat him on her knees, until noon, and then he died. 4:21. And she went up, and laid him upon the bed of the man of God, and shut the door: and going out, 4:22. She called her husband, and said: Send with me, I beseech thee, one of thy servants, and an ass, that I may run to the man of God, and come again. 4:23. And he said to her: Why dost thou go to him? to day is neither new moon nor sabbath. She answered: I will go. 4:24. And she saddled an ass, and commanded her servant: Drive, and make haste, make no stay in going: And do that which I bid thee. 4:25. So she went forward, and came to the man of God, to mount Carmel: and when the man of God saw her coming towards, he said to Giezi, his servant: Behold that Sunamitess. 4:26. Go, therefore, to meet her, and say to her: Is all well with thee, and with thy husband, and with thy son? And she answered: Well. 4:27. And when she came to the man of God, to the mount, she caught hold on his feet: and Giezi came to remove her. And the man of God said: Let her alone for her soul is in anguish, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. 4:28. And she said to him: Did I ask a son of my lord? did I not say to thee: Do not deceive me? 4:29. Then he said to Giezi: Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thy hand, and go. If any man meet thee, salute him not: and if any man salute thee, answer him not: and lay my staff upon the face of the child. Salute him not. . .He that is sent to raise to life the sinner spiritually dead, must not suffer himself to be called off, or diverted from his enterprise, by the salutations or ceremonies of the world. 4:30. But the mother of the child said: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. He arose, therefore, and followed her. 4:31. But Giezi was gone before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child, and there was no voice nor sense: and he returned to meet him, and told him, saying: The child is not risen. St. Augustine considers a great mystery in this miracle wrought by the prophet Eliseus, thus: By the staff sent by his servant is figured the rod of Moses, or the Old Law, which was not sufficient to bring mankind to life then dead in sin. It was necessary that Christ himself should come, and by taking on human nature, become flesh of our flesh, and restore us to life. In this Eliseus was a figure of Christ, as it was necessary that he should come himself to bring the dead child to life and restore him to his mother, who is here, in a mystical sense, a figure of the Church. 4:32. Eliseus, therefore, went into the house, and behold the child lay dead on his bed: 4:33. And going in, he shut the door upon him, and upon the child, and prayed to the Lord. 4:34. And he went up, and lay upon the child: and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he bowed himself upon him, and the child's flesh grew warm. 4:35. Then he returned and walked in the house, once to and fro: and he went up, and lay upon him: and the child gaped seven times, and opened his eyes. 4:36. And he called Giezi, and said to him: Call this Sunamitess. And she being called, went in to him: and he said: Take up thy son. 4:37. She came and fell at his feet, and worshipped upon the ground: and took up her son, and went out. 4:38. And Eliseus returned to Galgal, and there was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets dwelt before him: And he said to one of his servants: Set on the great pot, and boil pottage for the sons of the prophets. 4:39. And one went out into the field to gather wild herbs: and he found something like a wild vine, and gathered of it wild gourds of the field, and filled his mantle, and coming back, he shred them into the pot of pottage; for he knew not what it was. Wild gourds of the field. . .Colocynthidas. They are extremely bitter, and therefore are called the gall of the earth; and are poisonous if taken in a great quantity. 4:40. And they poured it out for their companions to eat: and when they had tasted of the pottage, they cried out, saying: Death is in the pot, O man of God. And they could not eat thereof. 4:41. But he said: Bring some meal. And when they had brought it, he cast it into the pot, and said: Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was now no bitterness in the pot. 4:42. And a certain man came from Baalsalisa, bringing to the man of God, bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and new corn in his scrip. And he said: Give to the people, that they may eat. 4:43. And his servant answered him: How much is this, that I should set it before a hundred men? He said again: Give to the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord: They shall eat, and there shall be left. 4:44. So he set it before them: and they ate, and there was left, according to the word of the Lord. 4 Kings Chapter 5 Naaman the Syrian is cleansed of his leprosy. He professeth his belief in one God, promising to serve him. Giezi taketh gifts of Naaman, and is struck with leprosy. 5:1. Naaman, general of the army, of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable: for by him the Lord gave deliverance to Syria: and he was a valiant man, and rich, but a leper. 5:2. Now there had gone out robbers from Syria, and had led away captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid, and she waited upon Naaman's wife. 5:3. And she said to her mistress: I wish my master had been with the prophet that is in Samaria: he would certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he hath. 5:4. Then Naaman went in to his lord, and told him, saying: Thus and thus said the girl from the land of Israel. 5:5. And the king of Syria said to him: Go; and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment; 5:6. And brought the letter to the king of Israel, in these words: When thou shalt receive this letter, know that I have sent to thee Naaman, my servant, that thou mayst heal him of his leprosy. 5:7. And when the king of Israel had read the letter, he rent his garments, and said: Am I God, to be able to kill and give life, that this man hath sent to me to heal a man of his leprosy? mark, and see how he seeketh occasions against me. 5:8. And when Eliseus, the man of God, had heard this, to wit, that the king of Israel had rent his garments, he sent to him, saying: Why hast thou rent thy garments? let him come to me, and let him know that there is a prophet in Israel. 5:9. So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Eliseus: 5:10. And Eliseus sent a messenger to him, saying: Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall recover health, and thou shalt be clean. 5:11. Naaman was angry, and went away, saying: I thought he would have come out to me, and standing, would have invoked the name of the Lord his God, and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and healed me. 5:12. Are not the Abana, and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean? So as he turned, and was going away with indignation, 5:13. His servants came to him, and said to him: Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, surely thou shouldst have done it: how much rather what he now hath said to thee: Wash, and thou shalt be clean? 5:14. Then he went down, and washed in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored, like the flesh of a little child: and he was made clean. 5:15. And returning to the man of God, with all his train, he came, and stood before him, and said: In truth, I know there is no other God, in all the earth, but only in Israel: I beseech thee, therefore, take a blessing of thy servant. A blessing. . .a present. 5:16. But he answered: As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And when he pressed him, he still refused. 5:17. And Naaman said: As thou wilt: but I beseech thee, grant to me, thy servant, to take from hence two mules' burden of earth: for thy servant will not henceforth offer holocaust, or victim, to other gods, but to the Lord. 5:18. But there is only this, for which thou shalt entreat the Lord for thy servant; when my master goeth into the temple of Remmon, to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand: if I bow down in the temple of Remmon, when he boweth down in the same place, that the Lord pardon me, thy servant, for this thing. 5:19. And he said to him: Go in peace. So he departed from him, in the spring time of the earth. Go in peace. . .What the prophet here allowed, was not an outward conformity to an idolatrous worship; but only a service which by his office he owed to his master: who on all public occasions leaned on him: so that his bowing down when his master bowed himself down was not in effect adoring the idols: nor was it so understood by the standers by, since he publicly professed himself a worshipper of the only true and living God, but it was no more than doing a civil office to the king his master, whose leaning upon him obliged him to bow at the same time that he bowed. 5:20. But Giezi, the servant of the man of God, said: My master hath spared Naaman this Syrian, in not receiving of him that which he brought: as the Lord liveth, I will run after him, and take something of him. 5:21. And Giezi followed after Naaman: and when he saw him running after him, he leapt down from his chariot to meet him, and said: Is all well? 5:22. And he said: Well: my master hath sent me to thee, saying: Just now there are come to me from mount Ephraim, two young men of the sons of the prophets: give them a talent of silver, and two changes of garments. 5:23. And Naaman said: It is better that thou take two talents. And he forced him, and bound two talents of silver in two bags, and two changes of garments, and laid them upon two of his servants, and they carried them before him. 5:24. And when he was come, and now it was the evening, he took them from their hands, and laid them up in the house, and sent the men away, and they departed. 5:25. But he went in, and stood before his master. And Eliseus said: Whence comest thou, Giezi? He answered: Thy servant went no whither. 5:26. But he said: Was not my heart present, when the man turned back, from his chariot, to meet thee? So now thou hast received money, and received garments, to buy oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and maid-servants. 5:27. But the leprosy of Naaman, shall also stick to thee, and to thy seed for ever. And he went out from him a leper, as white as snow. 4 Kings Chapter 6 Eliseus maketh iron to swim upon the water: he leadeth the Syrians that were sent to apprehend him into Samaria, where there eyes being opened, they are courteously entertained. The Syrians besiege Samaria: the famine there causeth a woman to eat her own child. Upon this the king commandeth Eliseus to be put to death. 6:1. And the sons of the prophets said to Eliseus: Behold, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. 6:2. Let us go as far as the Jordan, and take out of the wood every man a piece of timber, that we may build us there a place to dwell in. And he said: Go. 6:3. And one of them said: But come thou also with thy servants. He answered: I will come. 6:4. So he went with them. And when they were come to the Jordan, they cut down wood. 6:5. And it happened, as one was felling some timber, that the head of the ax fell into the water: and he cried out, and said: Alas, alas, alas, my lord, for this same was borrowed. 6:6. And the man of God said: Where did it fall? and he shewed him the place: Then he cut off a piece of wood, and cast it in thither: and the iron swam. 6:7. And he said: Take it up. And he put out his hand, and took it. 6:8. And the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying: In such and such a place, let us lay an ambush. 6:9. And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying: Beware that thou pass not to such a place: for the Syrians are there in ambush. 6:10. And the king of Israel, sent to the place which the man of God had told him, and prevented him, and looked well to himself there not once nor twice. 6:11. And the heart of the king of Syria, was troubled for this thing. And calling together his servants, he said: Why do you not tell me who it is that betrays me to the king of Israel? 6:12. And one of his servants said: No one, my lord, O king: but Eliseus, the prophet, that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel all the words, that thou speakest in thy privy chamber. 6:13. And he said to them: Go, and see where he is: that I may send and take him. And they told him: saying: Behold he is in Dothan. 6:14. Therefore, he sent thither horses, and chariots, and the strength of an army: and they came by night, and beset the city. 6:15. And the servant of the man of God, rising early went out, and saw an army round about the city, and horses and chariots: and he told him, saying: Alas, alas, alas, my lord, what shall we do? 6:16. But he answered: Fear not: for there are more with us than with them. 6:17. And Eliseus prayed, and said: Lord, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus. 6:18. And the enemies came down to him: but Eliseus prayed to the Lord, saying: Strike, I beseech thee, this people with blindness: and the Lord struck them with blindness, according to the word of Eliseus. Blindness. . .The blindness here spoken of was of a particular kind, which hindered them from seeing the objects that were really before them; and represented other different objects to their imagination: so that they no longer perceived the city of Dothan, nor were able to know the person of Eliseus; but were easily led by him, whom they took to be another man, to Samaria. So that he truly told them, this is not the way, neither is this the city, etc., because he spoke with relation to the way and to the city, which was represented to them. 6:19. And Eliseus said to them: This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will shew you the man whom you seek. So he led them into Samaria. 6:20. And when they were come into Samaria, Eliseus said: Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw themselves to be in the midst of Samaria. 6:21. And the king of Israel said to Eliseus, when he saw them: My father, shall I kill them? 6:22. And he said: Thou shalt not kill them: for thou didst not take them with thy sword, or thy bow, that thou mayst kill them: but set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master. 6:23. And a great provision of meats was set before them, and they ate and drank; and he let them go: and they went away to their master: and the robbers of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. 6:24. And it came to pass, after these things, that Benadad, king of Syria, gathered together all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. 6:25. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and so long did the siege continue, till the head of an ass was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cabe of pigeons' dung, for five pieces of silver. 6:26. And as the king of Israel was passing by the wall, a certain woman cried out to him, saying: Save me, my lord, O king. 6:27. And he said: If the Lord doth not save thee, how can I save thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? And the king said to her: What aileth thee? And she answered: 6:28. This woman said to me: Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. 6:29. So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day: Give thy son, that we may eat him. And she hath hid her son. 6:30. When the king heard this, he rent his garments, and passed by upon the wall. And all the people saw the haircloth which he wore within next to his flesh. 6:31. And the king said: May God do so and so to me, and may he add more, if the head of Eliseus, the son of Saphat, shall stand on him this day. 6:32. But Eliseus sat in his house, and the ancients sat with him. So he sent a man before: and before that messenger came, he said to the ancients: Do you know that this son of a murderer hath sent to cut off my head? Look then when the messenger shall come, shut the door, and suffer him not to come in: for behold the sound of his master's feet is behind him. 6:33. While he was yet speaking to them, the messenger appeared, who was coming to him. And he said: Behold, so great an evil is from the Lord: what shall I look for more from the Lord? 4 Kings Chapter 7 Eliseus prophesieth a great plenty, which presently ensueth upon the sudden flight of the Syrians; of which four lepers bring the news to the city. The incredulous nobleman is trod to death. 7:1. And Eliseus said: Hear ye the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord: Tomorrow, about this time, a bushel of fine flour shall be sold for a stater, and two bushels of barley for a stater, in the gate of Samaria. A stater. . .It is the same as a sicle or shekel. 7:2. Then one of the lords, upon whose hand the king leaned, answering the man of God, said: If the Lord should make flood-gates in heaven, can that possibly be which thou sayest? And he said: Thou shalt see it with thy eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. 7:3. Now there were four lepers, at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another: What mean we to stay here till we die? 7:4. If we will enter into the city, we shall die with the famine: and if we will remain here, we must also die: come therefore, and let us run over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare us, we shall live: but if they kill us, we shall but die. 7:5. So they arose in the evening, to go to the Syrian camp. And when they were come to the first part of the camp of the Syrians, they found no man there. 7:6. For the Lord had made them hear, in the camp of Syria, the noise of chariots, and of horses, and of a very great army: and they said one to another: Behold, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hethites, and of the Egyptians; and they are come upon us. 7:7. Wherefore they arose, and fled away in the dark, and left their tents, and their horses and asses in the camp, and fled, desiring to save their lives. 7:8. So when these lepers were come to the beginning of the camp, they went into one tent, and ate and drank: and they took from thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went, and hid it: and they came again, and went into another tent, and carried from thence in like manner, and hid it. 7:9. Then they said one to another: We do not well: for this is a day of good tidings. If we hold our peace, and do not tell it till the morning, we shall be charged with a crime: come, let us go, and tell it in the king's court. 7:10. So they came to the gate of the city, and told them, saying: We went to the camp of the Syrians, and we found no man there, but horses, and asses tied, and the tents standing. 7:11. Then the guards of the gate went, and told it within in the king's palace. 7:12. And he arose in the night, and said to his servants: I tell you what the Syrians have done to us: They know that we suffer great famine, and therefore they are gone out of the camp, and lie hid in the fields, saying: When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive, and then we may get into the city. 7:13. And one of his servants answered: Let us take the five horses that are remaining in the city (because there are no more in the whole multitude of Israel, for the rest are consumed), and let us send and see. 7:14. They brought therefore two horses, and the king sent into the camp of the Syrians, saying: Go, and see. 7:15. And they went after them, as far as the Jordan: and behold, all the way was full of garments, and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away, in their fright, and the messengers returned, and told the king. 7:16. And the people going out, pillaged the camp of the Syrians: and a bushel of fine flour was sold for a stater, and two bushels of barley for a stater, according to the word of the Lord. 7:17. And the king appointed that lord on whose hand he leaned, to stand at the gate: and the people trod upon him in the entrance of the gate; and he died, as the man of God had said, when the king came down to him. 7:18. And it came to pass, according to the word of the man of God, which he spoke to the king, when he said: Two bushels of barley shall be for a stater, and a bushel of fine flour for a stater, at this very time tomorrow, in the gate of Samaria. 7:19. When that lord answered the man of God, and said: Although the Lord should make flood-gates in heaven, could this come to pass which thou sayest? And he said to him: Thou shalt see it with thy eyes, and shalt not eat thereof. 7:20. And so it fell out to him, as it was foretold, and the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died. 4 Kings Chapter 8 After seven years' famine foretold by Eliseus, the Sunamitess returning home, recovereth her lands, and revenues. Eliseus foresheweth the death of Benadad, king of Syria, and the reign of Hazael. Joram's wicked reign in Juda. He dieth, and his son Ochozias succeedeth. 8:1.And Eliseus spoke to the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying: Arise, and go thou, and thy household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst find: for the Lord hath called a famine, and it shall come upon the land seven years. 8:2. And she arose, and did according to the word of the man of God: and going with her household, she sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days. 8:3. And when the seven years were ended, the woman returned out of the land of the Philistines, and she went forth to speak to the king for her house and for her lands. 8:4. And the king talked with Giezi, the servant of the man of God, saying: Tell me all the great things that Eliseus hath done. 8:5. And when he was telling the king how he had raised one dead to life, the woman appeared, whose son he had restored to life, crying to the king for her house, and her lands. And Giezi said: My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Eliseus raised to life. 8:6. And the king asked the woman: and she told him. And the king appointed her an eunuch, saying: Restore her all that is hers, and all the revenues of the lands, from the day that she left the land to this present. 8:7. Eliseus also came to Damascus, and Benadad, king of Syria was sick; and they told him, saying: The man of God is come hither. 8:8. And the king said to Hazael: Take with thee presents, and go to meet the man of God, and consult the Lord by him, saying: Can I recover of this my illness? 8:9. And Hazael went to meet him, taking with him presents, and all the good things of Damascus, the burdens of forty camels. And when he stood before him, he said: Thy son, Benadad, the king of Syria, hath sent me to thee, saying: Can I recover of this my illness? 8:10. And Eliseus said to him: Go tell him: Thou shalt recover: but the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die. Tell him: thou shalt recover. . .By these words the prophet signified that the king's disease was not mortal: and that he would recover if no violence were used. Or he might only express himself in this manner, by way of giving Hazael to understand that he knew both what he would say and do; that he would indeed tell the king he should recover; but would be himself the instrument of his death. 8:11. And he stood with him, and was troubled so far as to blush: and the man of God wept. 8:12. And Hazael said to him: Why doth my lord weep? And he said: Because I know the evil that thou wilt do to the children of Israel. Their strong cities thou wilt burn with fire, and their young men thou wilt kill with the sword, and thou wilt dash their children, and rip up their pregnant women. 8:13. And Hazael said: But what am I, thy servant, a dog, that I should do this great thing? And Eliseus said: The Lord hath shewed me that thou shalt be king of Syria. 8:14. And when he was departed from Eliseus he came to his master, who said to him: What said Eliseus to thee? And he answered: He told me: Thou shalt recover. 8:15. And on the next day, he took a blanket, and poured water on it, and spread it upon his face: and he died, and Hazael reigned in his stead. 8:16. In the fifth year of Joram, son of Achab, king of Israel, and of Josaphat, king of Juda, reigned Joram, son of Josaphat, king of Juda. And of Josaphat, etc. . .That is, Josaphat being yet alive, who sometime before his death made his son Joram king, as David had done before by his own son Solomon. 8:17. He was two and thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 8:18. And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Achab had walked: for the daughter of Achab was his wife: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. 8:19. But the Lord would not destroy Juda, for David his servant's sake, as he had promised him, to give him a light, and to his children always. 8:20. In his days Edom revolted from being under Juda, and made themselves a king. 8:21. And Joram came to Seira, and all the chariots with him: and he arose in the night, and defeated the Edomites that had surrounded him, and the captains of the chariots, but the people fled into their tents. 8.22. So Edom revolted from being under Juda, unto this day. Then Lobna also revolted at the same time. 8:23. But the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 8:24. And Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, and Ochozias, his son, reigned in his stead. 8:25. In the twelfth year of Joram, the son of Achab, king of Israel, reigned Ochozias, son of Joram, king of Juda. 8:26. Ochozias was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Athalia the daughter of Amri king of Israel. Daughter. . .That is, grand-daughter; for she was daughter of Achab son of Amri, ver. 18. 8:27. And he walked in the ways of the house of Achab: and he did evil before the Lord, as did the house of Achab: for he was the son in law of the house of Achab. 8:28. He went also with Joram, son of Achab, to fight against Hazael, king of Syria, in Ramoth Galaad, and the Syrians wounded Joram: 8:29. And he went back to be healed, in Jezrahel: because the Syrians had wounded him in Ramoth, when he fought against Hazael, king of Syria And Ochozias, the son of Joram, king of Juda, went down to visit Joram, the son of Achab, in Jezrahel, because he was sick there. 4 Kings Chapter 9 Jehu is anointed king of Israel, to destroy the house of Achab and Jezebel. He killeth Joram king of Israel, and Ochozias king of Juda. Jezebel is eaten by dogs. 9:1. And Eliseus the prophet, called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him: Gird up thy loins, and take this little bottle of oil in thy hand, and go to Ramoth Galaad. 9:2. And when thou art come thither, thou shalt see Jehu the son of Josaphat the son of Namsi: and going in, thou shalt make him rise up from amongst his brethren, and carry him into an inner chamber. 9:3. Then taking the little bottle of oil, thou shalt pour it on his head, and shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: I have anointed thee king over Israel. And thou shalt open the door and flee, and shalt not stay there. 9:4. So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went away to Ramoth Galaad, 9:5. And went in thither: and behold, the captains of the army were sitting, and he said: I have a word to thee, O prince. And Jehu said: Unto whom of us all? And he said: To thee, O prince. 9:6. And he arose, and went into the chamber: and he poured the oil upon his head, and said: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: I have anointed thee king over Israel, the people of the Lord. 9:7. And thou shalt cut off the house of Achab, thy master, and I will revenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezabel. 9:8. And I will destroy all the house of Achab, and I will cut off from Achab, him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the meanest in Israel. 9:9. And I will make the house of Achab, like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, and like the house of Baasa, the son of Ahias. 9:10. And the dogs shall eat Jezabel, in the field of Jezrahel, and there shall be no one to bury her. And he opened the door and fled. 9:11. Then Jehu went forth to the servants of his Lord: and they said to him: Are all things well? why came this madman to thee? And he said to them: You know the man, and what he said. 9:12. But they answered: It is false; but rather do thou tell us. And he said to them: Thus and thus did he speak to me: and he said: Thus saith the Lord: I have anointed thee king over Israel. 9:13. Then they made haste, and taking every man his garment, laid it under his feet, after the manner of a judgment seat, and they sounded the trumpet, and said: Jehu is king. 9:14. So Jehu, the son of Josaphat, the son of Namsi, conspired against Joram. Now Joram had besieged Ramoth Galaad, he, and all Israel, fighting with Hazael, king of Syria: 9:15. And was returned to be healed in Jezrahel of his wounds; for the Syrians had wounded him, when he fought with Hazael, king of Syria. And Jehu said: If it please you, let no man go forth or flee out of the city, lest he go, and tell in Jezrahel. 9:16. And he got up, and went into Jezrahel for Joram was sick there, and Ochozias king of Juda, was come down to visit Joram. 9:17. The watchman therefore, that stood upon the tower of Jezrahel, saw the troop of Jehu coming, and said: I see a troop. And Joram said: Take a chariot, and send to meet them, and let him that goeth say: Is all well? 9:18. So there went one in a chariot to meet him, and said: Thus saith the king: Are all things peaceable? And Jehu said: What hast thou to do with peace? go behind and follow me. And the watchman told, saying: The messenger came to them, but he returneth not. 9:19. And he sent a second chariot of horses: and he came to them, and said: Thus saith the king: Is there peace? And Jehu said: What hast thou to do with peace? pass, and follow me. 9:20. And the watchman told, saying: He came even to them, but returneth not: and the driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Namsi; for he drives furiously. 9:21. And Joram said: Make ready the chariot. And they made ready his chariot: and Joram, king of Israel, and Ochozias, king of Juda, went out, each in his chariot, and they went out to meet Jehu, and met him in the field of Naboth, the Jezrahelite. 9:22. And when Joram saw Jehu, he said: Is there peace, Jehu? And he answered: What peace? so long as the fornications of Jezabel, thy mother, and her many sorceries, are in their vigour. 9:23. And Joram turned his hand, and fleeing, said to Ochozias: There is treachery, Ochozias. 9:24. But Jehu bent his bow with his hand, and shot Joram between the shoulders: and the arrow went out through his heart, and immediately he fell in his chariot. 9:25. And Jehu said to Badacer, his captain: Take him, and cast him into the field of Naboth, the Jezrahelite: for I remember, when I and thou, sitting in a chariot, followed Achab, this man's father, that the Lord laid this burden upon him, saying: 9:26. If I do not requite thee in this field, saith the Lord, for the blood of Naboth, and for the blood of his children, which I saw yesterday, saith the Lord. So now take him, and cast him into the field, according to the word of the Lord. 9:27. But Ochozias, king of Juda, seeing this, fled by the way of the garden house: and Jehu pursued him, and said: Strike him also in his chariot. And they struck him in the going up to Gaver, which is by Jeblaam: and he fled into Mageddo, and died there. 9:28. And his servants laid him upon his chariot, and carried him to Jerusalem: and they buried him in his sepulchre with his fathers, in the city of David. 9:29. In the eleventh year of Joram, the son of Achab, Ochozias reigned over Juda; 9:30. And Jehu came into Jezrahel. But Jezabel, hearing of his coming in, painted her face with stibic stone, and adorned her head, and looked out of a window. 9:31. At Jehu coming in at the gate, and said: Can there be peace for Zambri, that hath killed his master? 9:32. And Jehu lifted up his face to the window, and said: Who is this? And two or three eunuchs bowed down to him. 9:33. And he said to them: Throw her down headlong; And they threw her down, and the wall was sprinkled with her blood, and the hoofs of the horses trod upon her. 9:34. And when he was come in to eat, and to drink, he said: Go, and see after that cursed woman, and bury her; because she is a king's daughter. 9:35. And when they went to bury her, they found nothing but the skull, and the feet, and the extremities of her hands. 9:36. And coming back they told him. And Jehu said: It is the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant Elias, the Thesbite, saying: In the field of Jezrahel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezabel. 9:37. And the flesh of Jezabel shall be as dung upon the face of the earth in the field of Jezrahel; so that they who pass by shall say: Is this that same Jezabel? 4 Kings Chapter 10 Jehu destroyeth the house of Achab: abolisheth the worship of Baal, and killeth the worshippers: but sticketh to the calves of Jeroboam. Israel is afflicted by the Syrians. 10:1. And Achab had seventy sons in Samaria: so Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, to the chief men of the city, and to the ancients, and to them that brought up Achab's children, saying: 10:2. As soon as you receive these letters, ye that have your master's sons, and chariots, and horses, and fenced cities, and armour, 10:3. Choose the best, and him that shall please you most of your master's sons, and set him on his father's throne, and fight for the house of your master. 10:4. But they were exceedingly afraid, and said: Behold two kings could not stand before him, and how shall we be able to resist? 10:5. Therefore they that were over the king's house, and the rulers of the city, and the ancients, and the bringers up of the children, sent to Jehu, saying: We are thy servants: whatsoever thou shalt command us we will do; we will not make us any king: do thou all that pleaseth thee. 10:6. And he wrote letters the second time to them, saying: If you be mine, and will obey me, take the heads of the sons of your master, and come to me to Jezrahel by tomorrow at this time. Now the king's sons, being seventy men, were brought up with the chief men of the city. 10:7. And when the letters came to them, they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezrahel. 10:8. And a messenger came, and told him, saying: They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said: Lay ye them in two heaps by the entering in of the gate until the morning. 10:9. And when it was light, he went out, and standing, said to all the people: You are just: if I conspired against my master, and slew him; who hath slain all these? 10:10. See therefore now that there hath not fallen to the ground any of the words of the Lord, which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Achab, and the Lord hath done that which he spoke in the hand of his servant Elias. 10:11. So Jehu slew all that were left of the house of Achab in Jezrahel, and all his chief men, and his friends, and his priests, till there were no remains left of him. 10:12. And he arose, and went to Samaria: and when he was come to the shepherds' cabin in the way, 10:13. He met with the brethren of Ochozias, king of Juda, and he said to them: Who are you? And they answered: We are the brethren of Ochozias, and are come down to salute the sons of the king, and the sons of the queen. 10:14. And he said: Take them alive. And they took them alive, and killed them at the pit by the cabin, two and forty men, and he left not any of them. 10:15. And when he was departed thence, he found Jonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him, and he blessed him. And he said to him: Is thy heart right as my heart is with thy heart? And Jonadab said: It is. If it be, said he, give me thy hand. He gave him his hand. And he lifted him up to him into the chariot, 10:16. And said to him: Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord. So he made him ride in his chariot, 10:17. And brought him into Samaria. And he slew all that were left of Achab, in Samaria, to a man, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by Elias. 10:18. And Jehu gathered together all the people, and said to them: Achab worshipped Baal a little, but I will worship him more. I will worship him more. . .Jehu sinned in thus pretending to worship Baal, and causing sacrifice to be offered to him: because evil is not to be done, that good may come of it. Rom. 3.8. 10:19. Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal, and all his servants, and all his priests: let none be wanting, for I have a great sacrifice to offer to Baal: whosoever shall be wanting, shall not live. Now Jehu did this craftily, that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal. 10:20. And he said: Proclaim a festival for Baal. And he called, 10:21. And he sent into all the borders of Israel; and all the servants of Baal came: there was not one left that did not come. And they went into the temple of Baal: and the house of Baal was filled, from one end to the other. 10:22. And he said to them that were over the wardrobe: Bring forth garments for all the servants of Baal. And they brought them forth garments. 10:23. And Jehu, and Jonadab, the son of Rechab, went to the temple of Baal, and said to the worshippers of Baal: Search, and see that there be not any with you of the servants of the Lord, but that there be the servants of Baal only. 10:24. And they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings: but Jehu had prepared him fourscore men without, and said to them: If any of the men escape, whom I have brought into your hands, he that letteth him go, shall answer life for life. 10:25. And it came to pass, when the burnt offering was ended, that Jehu commanded his soldiers and captains, saying: Go in, and kill them: let none escape. And the soldiers and captains slew them with the edge of the sword, and cast them out: and they went into the city of the temple of Baal, 10:26. And brought the statue out of Baal's temple, and burnt it, 10:27. And broke it in pieces. They destroyed also the temple of Baal, and made a jakes in its place unto this day. 10:28. So Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel: 10:29. But yet he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin, nor did he forsake the golden calves that were in Bethel, and Dan. 10:30. And the Lord said to Jehu: because thou hast diligently executed that which was right and pleasing in my eyes, and hast done to the house of Achab according to all that was in my heart: thy children shall sit upon the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. 10:31. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel to sin. 10:32. In those days the Lord began to be weary of Israel: and Hazael ravaged them in all the coasts of Israel, 10:33. From the Jordan eastward, all the land of Galaad, and Gad, and Ruben, and Manasses, from Aroer, which is upon the torrent Arnon, and Galaad, and Basan. 10:34. But the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and his strength, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 10:35. And Jehu slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria: and Joachaz, his son, reigned in his stead. 10:36. And the time that Jehu reigned over Israel, in Samaria, was eight and twenty years. 4 Kings Chapter 11 Athalia's usurpation and tyranny. Joas is made king. Athalia is slain. 11:1. Now Athalia, the mother of Ochozias, seeing that her son was dead, arose and slew all the royal seed. 11:2. But Josaba the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ochozias, took Joas, the son of Ochozias, and stole him from among the king's sons that were slain, out of the bedchamber with his nurse: and hid him from the face of Athalia; so that he was not slain. 11:3. And he was with her six years, hid in the house of the Lord. And Athalia reigned over the land. 11:4. And in the seventh year Joiada sent, and taking the centurions and soldiers, brought them in to him into the temple of the Lord, and made a covenant with them: and taking an oath of them in the house of the Lord, shewed them the king's son: 11:5. And he commanded them, saying: This is the thing that you must do. 11:6. Let a third part of you go in on the sabbath, and keep the watch of the king's house. And let a third part be at the gate of Sur; and let a third part be at the gate behind the dwelling of the shieldbearers; and you shall keep the watch of the house of Messa. 11:7. But let two parts of you all that go forth on the sabbath, keep the watch of the house of the Lord about the king. 11:8. And you shall compass him round about, having weapons in your hands: and if any man shall enter the precinct of the temple, let him be slain: and you shall be with the king, coming in and going out. 11:9. And the centurions did according to all things that Joiada the priest, had commanded them: and taking every one their men, that went in on the sabbath, with them that went out in the sabbath, came to Joiada, the priest. 11:10. And he gave them the spears, and the arms of king David, which were in the house of the Lord. 11:11. And they stood, having every one their weapons in their hands, from the right side of the temple, unto the left side of the altar, and of the temple, about the king. 11:12. And he brought forth the king's son, and put the diadem upon him, and the testimony: and they made him king, and anointed him: and clapping their hands, they said: God save the king. The testimony. . .The book of the law. 11:13. And Athalia heard the noise of the people running: and going in to the people into the temple of the Lord, 11:14. She saw the king standing upon a tribunal, as the manner was, and the singers, and the trumpets near him, and all the people of the land rejoicing, and sounding the trumpets: and she rent her garments, and cried: A conspiracy, a conspiracy. A tribunal. . .A tribune, or a place elevated above the rest. 11:15. But Joiada commanded the centurions that were over the army, and said to them: Have her forth without the precinct of the temple, and whosoever shall follow her, let him be slain with the sword. For the priest had said: Let her not be slain in the temple of the Lord. 11:16. And they laid hands on her: and thrust her out by the way by which the horses go in, by the palace, and she was slain there. 11:17. And Joiada made a covenant between the Lord, and the king, and the people, that they should be the people of the Lord; and between the king and the people. 11:18. And all the people of the land went into the temple of Baal, and broke down his altars, and his images they broke in pieces thoroughly: they slew also Mathan the priest of Baal before the altar. And the priest set guards in the house of the Lord. 11:19. And he took the centurions, and the bands of the Cerethi, and the Phelethi, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king from the house of the Lord: and they came by the way of the gate of the shieldbearers into the palace, and he sat on the throne of the kings. 11:20. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: but Athalia was slain with the sword in the king's house. 11:21. Now Joas was seven years old when he began to reign. 4 Kings Chapter 12 The temple is repaired. Hazael is bought off from attacking Jerusalem. Joas is slain. 12:1. In the seventh year of Jehu, Joas began to reign: and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. The name of his mother was Sebia, of Bersabee. 12:2. And Joas did that which was right before the Lord all the days that Joiada, the priest, taught him. 12:3. But yet he took not away the high places: for the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places. 12:4. And Joas said to the priests: all the money of the sanctified things, which is brought into the temple of the Lord by those that pass, which is offered for the price of a soul, and which of their own accord, and of their own free heart, they bring into the temple of the Lord: Sanctified. . .That is, dedicated to God's service.--Ibid. The price of a soul. . .That is, the ordinary oblation, which every soul was to offer by the law. Ex. 30. 12:5. Let the priests take it according to their order and repair the house, wheresoever they shall see any thing that wanteth repairing. 12:6. Now till the three and twentieth year of king Joas the priests did not make the repairs of the temple. 12:7. And king Joas called Joiada, the high priest, and the priests, saying to them: Why do you not repair the temple? Take you, therefore, money no more according to your order, but restore it for the repairing of the temple. 12:8. And the priests were forbidden to take any more money of the people, and to make the repairs of the house. 12:9. And Joiada, the high priest, took a chest, and bored a hole in the top, and set it by the altar at the right hand of them that came into the house of the Lord; and the priests that kept the doors, put therein all the money that was brought to the temple of the Lord. 12:10. And when they saw that there was very much money in the chest, the king's scribe, and the high priest, came up, and poured it out, and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord. 12:11. And they gave it out by number and measure into the hands of them that were over the builders of the house of the Lord: and they laid it out to the carpenters, and the masons, that wrought in the house of the Lord, 12:12. And made the repairs: and to them that cut stones, and to buy timber, and stones to be hewed, that the repairs of the house of the Lord might be completely finished, and wheresoever there was need of expenses to uphold the house. 12:13. But there were not made of the same money for the temple of the Lord, bowls, or fleshhooks, or censers, or trumpets, or any vessel of gold and silver, of the money that was brought into the temple of the Lord: 12:14. For it was given to them that did the work, that the temple of the Lord might be repaired. 12:15. And they reckoned not with the men that received the money to distribute it to the workmen, but they bestowed it faithfully. 12:16. But the money for trespass, and the money for sins, they brought not into the temple of the Lord, because it was for the priests. 12:17. Then Hazael, king of Syria, went up, and fought against Geth, and took it, and set his face to go up to Jerusalem. 12:18. Wherefore Joas, king of Juda, took all the sanctified things, which Josaphat, and Joram, and Ochozias, his fathers, the kings of Juda, had dedicated to holy uses, and which he himself had offered: and all the silver that could be found in the treasures of the temple of the Lord, and in the king's palace: and sent it to Hazael, king of Syria, and he went off from Jerusalem. 12:19. And the rest of the acts of Joas, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 12:20. And his servants arose, and conspired among themselves, and slew Joas, in the house of Mello, in the descent of Sella. 12:21. For Josachar the son of Semaath, and Jozabad the son of Somer his servant, struck him, and he died: and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David; and Amasias, his son, reigned in his stead. The city of David. . .He was buried in the same city with his fathers, but not in the sepulchres of the kings. 2 Par. 14. 4 Kings Chapter 13 The reign of Joachaz and of Joas kings of Israel. The last acts and death of Eliseus the prophet: a dead man is raised to life by the touch of his bones. 13:1. In the three and twentieth year of Joas son of Ochozias, king of Juda, Joachaz, the son of Jehu, reigned over Israel, in Samaria, seventeen years. 13:2. And he did evil before the Lord, and followed the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin; and he departed not from them. 13:3. And the wrath of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael, the king of Syria, and into the hand of Benadad, the son of Hazael, all days. 13:4. But Joachaz besought the face of the Lord, and the Lord heard him: for he saw the distress of Israel, because the king of Syria had oppressed them: 13:5. And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, and they were delivered out of the hand of the king of Syria: and the children of Israel dwelt in their pavilions as yesterday and the day before. 13:6. But yet they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin, but walked in them: and there still remained a grove also in Samaria. A grove. . .Dedicated to the worship of idols. 13:7. And Joachaz had no more left of the people than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen: for the king of Syria had slain them, and had brought them low as dust by threshing in the barnfloor. 13:8. But the rest of the acts of Joachaz, and all that he did, and his valour, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 13:9. And Joachaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria: and Joas, his son, reigned in his stead. 13:10. In the seven and thirtieth year of Joas, king of Juda, Joas the son of Joachaz reigned over Israel, in Samaria, sixteen years. 13:11. And he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin; but he walked in them. 13:12. But the rest of the acts of Joas, and all that he did, and his valour wherewith he fought against Amasias, king of Juda, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 13:13. And Joas slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne. But Joas was buried in Samaria, with the kings of Israel. 13:14. Now Eliseus was sick of the illness whereof he died: and Joas, king of Israel, went down to him, and wept before him, and said: O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the guider thereof. 13:15. And Eliseus said to him: Bring a bow and arrows. And when he had brought him a bow and arrows, 13:16. He said to the king of Israel: Put thy hand upon the bow. And when he had put his hand, Eliseus put his hands over the king's hands, 13:17. And said: Open the window to the east. And when he had opened it, Eliseus said: Shoot an arrow. And he shot. And Eliseus said: The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of the deliverance from Syria: and thou shalt strike the Syrians in Aphec, till thou consume them. 13:18. And he said: Take the arrows. And when he had taken them, he said to him: Strike with an arrow upon the ground. And he struck three times, and stood still. 13:19. And the man of God was angry with him, and said: If thou hadst smitten five or six or seven times, thou hadst smitten Syria even to utter destruction: but now three times shalt thou smite it. If thou hadst smitten, etc. . .By this it appears that God had revealed to the prophet that the king should overcome the Syrians as many times as he should then strike on the ground; but as he had not at the same time revealed to him how often the king would strike, the prophet was concerned to see that he struck but thrice. 13:20. And Eliseus died, and they buried him. And the rovers from Moab came into the land the same year. 13:21. And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life and stood upon his feet. 13:22. Now Hazael, king of Syria, afflicted Israel all the days of Joachaz. 13:23. And the Lord had mercy on them, and returned to them, because of his covenant, which he had made with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob: and he would not destroy them, nor utterly cast them away, unto this present time. 13:24. And Hazael, king of Syria, died; and Benadad, his son, reigned in his stead. 13:25. Now Joas the son of Joachaz, took the cities out of the hand of Benadad, the son of Hazael, which he had taken out of the hand of Joachaz, his father, by war; three times did Joas beat him, and he restored the cities to Israel. 4 Kings Chapter 14 Amasias reigneth in Juda: he overcometh the Edomites: but is overcome by Joas king of Israel. Jereboam the second reigneth in Israel. 14:1. In the second year of Joas son of Joachaz, king of Israel, reigned Amasias son of Joas, king of Juda. 14:2. He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign; and nine and twenty years he reigned in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Joadan, of Jerusalem. 14:3. And he did that which was right before the Lord, but yet not like David his father. He did according to all things that Joas his father, did: 14:4. But this only, that he took not away the high places; for yet the people sacrificed, and burnt incense in the high places: 14:5. And when he had possession of the kingdom, he put his servants to death that had slain the king, his father. 14:6. But the children of the murderers he did not put to death, according to that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying: The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: but every man shall die for his own sin. 14:7. He slew of Edom in the valley of the Saltpits, ten thousand men, and took the rock by war, and called the name thereof Jectehel, unto this day. 14:8. Then Amasias sent messengers to Joas, son of Joachaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying: Come, let us see one another. Let us see one another. . .This was a challenge to fight. 14:9. And Joas, king of Israel, sent again to Amasias, king of Juda, saying: A thistle of Libanus sent to a cedar tree, which is in Libanus, saying: Give thy daughter to my son to wife. And the beasts of the forest, that are in Libanus, passed, and trod down the thistle. 14:10. Thou hast beaten and prevailed over Edom, and thy heart hath lifted thee up; be content with this glory, and sit at home; why provokest thou evil, that thou shouldst fall, and Juda with thee? 14:11. But Amasias did not rest satisfied. So Joas, king of Israel, went up; and he and Amasias, king of Juda, saw one another in Bethsames, a town in Juda. 14:12. And Juda was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled every man to their dwellings. 14:13. But Joas, king of Israel, took Amasias, king of Juda, the son of Joas, the son of Ochozias, in Bethsames, and brought him into Jerusalem; and he broke down the wall of Jerusalem, from the gate of Ephraim to the gate of the corner, four hundred cubits. 14:14. And he took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of the Lord, and in the king's treasures, and hostages, and returned to Samaria. 14:15. But the rest of the acts of Joas, which he did, and his valour, wherewith he fought against Amasias, king of Juda, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 14:16. And Joas slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria, with the kings of Israel: and Jeroboam, his son, reigned in his stead. 14:17. And Amasias, the son of Joas, king of Juda, lived after the death of Joas, son of Joachaz, king of Israel, fifteen years. 14:18. And the rest of the acts of Amasias, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 14:19. Now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem: and he fled to Lachis. And they sent after him to Lachis, and killed him there. 14:20. And they brought him away upon horses, and he was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers, in the city of David. 14:21. And all the people of Juda took Azarias, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father, Amasias. 14:22. He built Elath, and restored it to Juda, after that the king slept with his fathers. 14:23. In the fifteenth year of Amasias, son of Joas, king of Juda, reigned Jeroboam, the son of Joas, king of Israel, in Samaria, one and forty years: 14:24. And he did that which is evil before the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin. 14:25. He restored the borders of Israel from the entrance of Emath, unto the sea of the wilderness, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant, Jonas, the son of Amathi, the prophet, who was of Geth, which is in Opher. Opher. . .The tribe of Zabulon. 14:26. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was exceedingly bitter, and that they were consumed even to them that were shut up in prison, and the lowest persons, and that there was no one to help Israel. 14:27. And the Lord did not say that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joas. 14:28. But the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his valour, wherewith he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Emath to Juda, in Israel, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 14:29. And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel; and Zacharias, his son, reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 15 The reign of Azarias, and Joatham in Juda: and of Zacharias, Sellum, Manahem, Phaceia, and Phacee in Israel. 15:1. In the seven and twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, reigned Azarias, son of Amasias, king of Juda. Azarias. . .Otherwise called Ozias. 15:2. He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Jechelia, of Jerusalem. 15:3. And he did that which was pleasing before the Lord, according to all that his father, Amasias, had done. 15:4. But the high places he did not destroy, for the people sacrificed, and burnt incense in the high places. 15:5. And the Lord struck the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and he dwelt in a free house apart: but Joatham, the king's son, governed the palace, and judged the people of the land. A leper. . .In punishment of his usurping the priestly function. 2 Par. 26. 15:6. And the rest of the acts of Azarias, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 15:7. And Azarias slept with his fathers: and they buried him with his ancestors in the city of David, and Joatham, his son, reigned in his stead. 15:8. In the eight and thirtieth year of Azarias, king of Juda, reigned Zacharias, son of Jeroboam, over Israel, in Samaria, six months: 15:9. And he did that which is evil before the Lord, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin. 15:10. And Sellum, the son of Jabes, conspired against him: and struck him publicly, and killed him, and reigned in his place. 15:11. Now the rest of the acts of Zacharias, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:12. This was the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Jehu, saying: Thy children, to the fourth generation, shall sit upon the throne of Israel. And so it came to pass. 15:13. Sellum, the son of Jabes, began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Azarias, king of Juda: and reigned one month in Samaria. 15:14. And Manahem, the son of Gadi, went up from Thersa, and he came into Samaria, and struck Sellum, the son of Jabes, in Samaria, and slew him, and reigned in his stead. 15:15. And the rest of the acts of Sellum, and his conspiracy which he made, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:16. Then Manahem destroyed Thapsa and all that were in it, and the borders thereof from Thersa, because they would not open to him: and he slew all the women thereof that were with child, and ripped them up. 15:17. In the nine and thirtieth year of Azarias, king of Juda, reigned Manahem, son of Gadi, over Israel, ten years, in Samaria. 15:18. And he did that which was evil before the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin, all his days. 15:19. And Phul, king of the Assyrians, came into the land, and Manahem gave Phul a thousand talents of silver to aid him and to establish him in the kingdom. 15:20. And Manahem laid a tax upon Israel, on all that were mighty and rich, to give the king of the Assyrians, each man fifty sicles of silver: so the king of the Assyrians turned back, and did not stay in the land. 15:21. And the rest of the acts of Manahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:22. And Manahem slept with his fathers: and Phaceia, his son, reigned in his stead. 15:23. In the fiftieth year of Azarias, king of Juda, reigned Phaceia, the son of Manahem, over Israel, in Samaria, two years. 15:24. And he did that which was evil before the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin. 15:25. And Phacee the son of Romelia, his captain, conspired against him, and smote him in Samaria, in the tower of the king's house, near Argob, and near Arie, and with him fifty men of the sons of the Galaadites, and he slew him, and reigned in his stead. 15:26. And the rest of the acts of Phaceia, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:27. In the two and fiftieth year of Azarias, king of Juda, reigned Phacee, the son of Romelia, over Israel, in Samaria, twenty years. 15:28. And he did that which was evil before the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin. 15:29. In the days of Phacee, king of Israel, came Theglathphalasar, king of Assyria, and took Aion, and Abel Domum Maacha, and Janoe, and Cedes, and Asor, and Galaad, and Galilee, and all the land of Nephthali: and carried them captives into Assyria. 15:30. Now Osee, son of Ela, conspired, and formed a plot against Phacee, the son of Romelia, and struck him, and slew him: and reigned in his stead in the twentieth year of Joatham, the son of Ozias. In the twentieth year of Joatham. . .That is, in the twentieth year, from the beginning of Joatham's reign. The sacred writer chooses rather to follow here this date than to speak of the years of Achaz, who had not yet been mentioned. 15:31. But the rest of the acts of Phacee, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel? 15:32. In the second year of Phacee, the son of Romelia king of Israel, reigned Joatham, son of Ozias, king of Juda. 15:33. He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Jerusa, the daughter of Sadoc. 15:34. And he did that which was right before the Lord: according to all that his father Ozias had done, so did he. 15:35. But the high places he took not away: the people still sacrificed, and burnt incense in the high places: he built the highest gate of the house of the Lord. 15:36. But the rest of the acts of Joatham, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 15:37. In those days the Lord began to send into Juda, Rasin king of Syria, and Phacee the son of Romelia. 15:38. And Joatham slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, his father; and Achaz, his son, reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 16 The wicked reign of Achaz: the kings of Syria and Israel war against him: he hireth the king of the Assyrians to assist him: he causeth an altar to be made after the pattern of that of Damascus. 16:1. In the seventeenth year of Phacee, the son of Romelia reigned Achaz, the son of Joatham, king of Juda. 16:2. Achaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: he did not that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord, his God, as David, his father. 16:3. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel: moreover, he consecrated also his son, making him pass through the fire, according to the idols of the nations which the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. 16:4. He sacrificed also, and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree. 16:5. Then Rasin, king of Syria, and Phacee, son of Romelia, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to fight: and they besieged Achaz, but were not able to overcome him. 16:6. At that time Rasin, king of Syria, restored Aila to Syria, and drove the men of Juda out of Aila: and the Edomites came into Aila, and dwelt there unto this day. 16:7. And Achaz sent messengers to Theglathphalasar, king of the Assyrians, saying: I am thy servant, and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who are risen up together against me. 16:8. And when he had gathered together the silver and gold that could be found in the house of the Lord, and in the king's treasures, he sent it for a present to the king of the Assyrians. 16:9. And he agreed to his desire: for the king of the Assyrians went up against Damascus, and laid it waste: and he carried away the inhabitants thereof to Cyrene; but Rasin he slew. 16:10. And king Achaz went to Damascus to meet Theglathphalasar, king of the Assyrians, and when he had seen the altar of Damascus, king Achaz sent to Urias, the priest, a pattern of it, and its likeness, according to all the work thereof. 16:11. And Urias, the priest, built an altar according to all that king Achaz had commanded from Damascus so did Urias, the priest, until king Achaz came from Damascus. 16:12. And when the king was come from Damascus, he saw the altar and worshipped it: and went up and offered holocausts, and his own sacrifice; 16:13. And he offered libations, and poured the blood of the peace offerings, which he had offered, upon the altar. 16:14. But the altar of brass that was before the Lord, he removed from the face of the temple, and from the place of the altar, and from the place of the temple of the Lord: and he set it at the side of the altar towards the north. 16:15. And king Achaz commanded Urias, the priest, saying: Upon the great altar offer the morning holocaust, and the evening sacrifice, and the king's holocaust, and his sacrifice, and the holocaust of the whole people of the land, and their sacrifices, and their libations: and all the blood of the holocaust, and all the blood of the victim, thou shalt pour out upon it: but the altar of brass shall be ready at my pleasure. 16:16. So Urias, the priest, did according to all that king Achaz had commanded him. 16:17. And king Achaz took away the graven bases, and the laver that was upon them: and he took down the sea from the brazen oxen that held it up, and put it upon a pavement of stone. 16:18. The Musach also for the sabbath, which he had built in the temple, and the king's entry from without, he turned into the temple of the Lord, because of the king of the Assyrians. Musach. . .The covert, or pavilion, or tribune, for the king. 16:19. Now the rest of the acts of Achaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the of the days of the kings of Juda? 16:20. And Achaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, and Ezechias, his son, reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 17 The reign of Osee. The Israelites for their sins are carried into captivity: other inhabitants are sent to Samaria, who make a mixture of religion. 17:1. In the twelfth year of Achaz king of Juda, Osee the son of Ela reigned in Samaria, over Israel, nine years. In the twelfth year of Achaz king of Juda. . .He began to reign before: but was not in quiet possession of the kingdom to the twelfth year of Achaz. 17:2. And he did evil before the Lord: but not as the kings of Israel that had been before him. 17:3. Against him came up Salmanasar, king of the Assyrians; and Osee became his servant, and paid him tribute. 17:4. And when the king of the Assyrians found that Osee, endeavouring to rebel, had sent messengers to Sua, the king of Egypt, that he might not pay tribute to the king of the Assyrians, as he had done every year, he besieged him, bound him, and cast him into prison. 17:5. And he went through all the land: and going up to Samaria, he besieged it three years. 17:6. And in the ninth year of Osee, the king of the Assyrians took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria: and he placed them in Hala, and Habor, by the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. 17:7. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharao, king of Egypt; and they worshipped strange gods. 17:8. And they walked according to the way of the nations which the Lord had destroyed in the sight of the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel: because they had done in like manner. 17:9. And the children of Israel offended the Lord, their God, with things that were not right: and built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 17:10. And they made them statues and groves on every high hill, and under every shady tree: 17:11. And they burnt incense there upon altars, after the manner of the nations which the Lord had removed from their face: and they did wicked things, provoking the Lord. 17:12. And they worshipped abominations, concerning which the Lord had commanded them that they should not do this thing. 17:13. And the Lord testified to them in Israel, and in Juda, by the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: Return from your wicked ways, and keep my precepts, and ceremonies, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers: and as I have sent to you in the hand of my servants the prophets. 17:14. And they hearkened not, but hardened their necks like to the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord, their God. 17:15. And they rejected his ordinances, and the covenant that he made with their fathers, and the testimonies which he testified against them: and they followed vanities, and acted vainly: and they followed the nations that were round about them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did. 17:16. And they forsook all the precepts of the Lord, their God: and made to themselves two molten calves, and groves, and adored all the host of heaven: and they served Baal, 17:17. And consecrated their sons, and their daughters, through fire: and they gave themselves to divinations, and soothsayings: and they delivered themselves up to do evil before the Lord, to provoke him. 17:18. And the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from his sight, and there remained only the tribe of Juda. 17:19. But neither did Juda itself keep the commandments of the Lord, their God: but they walked in the errors of Israel, which they had wrought. 17:20. And the Lord cast off all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, till he cast them away from his face: 17:21. Even from that time, when Israel was rent from the house of David, and made Jeroboam, son of Nabat, their king: for Jeroboam separated Israel from the Lord, and made them commit a great sin. 17:22. And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, which he had done: and they departed not from them, 17:23. Till the Lord removed Israel from his face, as he had spoken in the hand of all his servants, the prophets: and Israel was carried away out of their land to Assyria, unto this day. 17:24. And the king of the Assyrians brought people from Babylon, and from Cutha, and from Avah, and from Emath, and from Sepharvaim: and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. 17:25. And when they began to dwell there, they feared not the Lord: and the Lord sent lions among them, which killed them. 17:26. And it was told the king of the Assyrians, and it was said: The nations which thou hast removed, and made to dwell in the cities of Samaria, know not the ordinances of the God of the land: and the Lord hath sent lions among them: and behold they kill them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. 17:27. And the king of the Assyrians commanded, saying: Carry thither one of the priests whom you brought from thence captive, and let him go, and dwell with them: and let him teach them the ordinances of the God of the land. 17:28. So one of the priests, who had been carried away captive from Samaria, came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should worship the Lord. 17:29. And every nation made gods of their own and put them in the temples of the high places, which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities where they dwelt. 17:30. For the men of Babylon made Sochothbenoth: and the Cuthites made Nergel: and the men of Emath made Asima. 17:31. And the Hevites made Nebahaz, and Tharthac. And they that were of Sepharvaim burnt their children in fire, to Adramelech and Anamelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 17:32. And nevertheless they worshipped the Lord. And they made to themselves, of the lowest of the people, priests of the high places, and they placed them in the temples of the high places. 17:33. And when they worshipped the Lord, they served also their own gods, according to the custom of the nations out of which they were brought to Samaria: 17:34. Unto this day they follow the old manner: they fear not the Lord, neither do they keep his ceremonies, and judgments, and law, and the commandment, which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he surnamed Israel: 17:35. With whom he made a covenant, and charged them, saying: You shall not fear strange gods, nor shall you adore them, nor worship them, nor sacrifice to them. 17:36. But the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and a stretched out arm, him shall you fear, and him shall you adore, and to him shall you sacrifice. 17:37. And the ceremonies, and judgments, and law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do them always: and you shall not fear strange gods. 17:38. And the covenant that he made with you, you shall not forget: neither shall ye worship strange Gods, 17:39. But fear the Lord, your God, and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. 17:40. But they did not hearken to them, but did according to their old custom. 17:41. So these nations feared the Lord, but nevertheless served also their idols: their children also, and grandchildren, as their fathers did, so do they unto this day. 4 Kings Chapter 18 The reign of Ezechias: he abolisheth idolatry and prospereth. Sennacherib cometh up against him: Rabsaces soliciteth the people to revolt; and blasphemeth the Lord. 18:1. In the third year of Osee, the son of Ela, king of Israel, reigned Ezechias, the son of Achaz, king of Juda. 18:2. He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Abi, the daughter of Zacharias. 18:3. And he did that which was good before the Lord, according to all that David, his father, had done 18:4. He destroyed the high places, and broke the statues in pieces, and cut down the groves, and broke the brazen serpent, which Moses had made: for till that time the children of Israel burnt incense to it: and he called its name Nohestan. And he called its name Noheston. . .That is, their brass; or a little brass. So he called it in contempt, because they had made an idol of it. 18:5. He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel: so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Juda, nor any of them that were before him: 18:6. And he stuck to the Lord, and departed not from his steps, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. 18:7. Wherefore the Lord also was with him, and in all things, to which he went forth, he behaved himself wisely. And he rebelled against the king of the Assyrians, and served him not. 18:8. He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza, and all their borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 18:9. In the fourth year of king Ezechias, which was the seventh year of Osee, the son of Ela, king of Israel, Salmanasar, king of the Assyrians, came up to Samaria, and besieged it, 18:10. And took it. For after three years, in the sixth year of Ezechias, that is, in the ninth year of Osee, king of Israel, Samaria was taken: 18:11. And the king of the Assyrians carried away Israel into Assyria, and placed them in Hala, and in Habor, by the rivers of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. 18:12. Because they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord, their God, but transgressed his covenant: all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded, they would not hear, nor do. 18:13. In the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, came up against the fenced cities of Juda, and took them. 18:14. Then Ezechias, king of Juda, sent messengers to the king of the Assyrians, to Lachis, saying: I have offended, depart from me: and all that thou shalt put upon me, I will bear. And the king of the Assyrians put a tax upon Ezechias, king of Juda, of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold. 18:15. And Ezechias gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the king's treasures. 18:16. At that time Ezechias broke the doors of the temple of the Lord, and the plates of gold which he had fastened on them, and gave them to the king of the Assyrians. 18:17. And the king of the Assyrians sent Tharthan, and Rabsaris, and Rabsaces, from Lachis, to king Ezechias, with a strong army, to Jerusalem: and they went up and came to Jerusalem, and they stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the way of the fuller's field. 18:18. And they called for the king: and there went out to them Eliacim, the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and Joahe, the son of Asaph, the recorder. 18:19. And Rabsaces said to them: Speak to Ezechias: Thus saith the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence, wherein thou trustest? 18:20. Perhaps thou hast taken counsel, to prepare thyself for battle. On whom dost thou trust, that thou darest to rebel? 18:21. Dost thou trust in Egypt a staff of a broken reed, upon which if a man lean, it will break and go into his hand, and pierce it? so is Pharao, king of Egypt, to all that trust in him. 18:22. But if you say to me: We trust in the Lord, our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away: and hath commanded Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? 18:23. Now therefore come over to my master, the king of the Assyrians, and I will give you two thousand horses, and see whether you be able to have riders for them. 18:24. And how can you stand against one lord of the least of my master's servants? Dost thou trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 18:25. Is it without the will of the Lord that I am come up to this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up to this land, and destroy it. 18:26. Then Eliacim, the son of Helcias, and Sobna, and Joahe, said to Rabsaces: We pray thee, speak to us, thy servants, in Syriac: for we understand that tongue: and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the hearing of the people that are upon the wall. 18:27. And Rabsaces answered them, saying: Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words, and not rather to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine with you? 18:28. Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said: Hear the word of the great king, the king of the Assyrians. 18:29. Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of my hand. 18:30. Neither let him make you trust in the Lord, saying: The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of the Assyrians. 18:31. Do not hearken to Ezechias. For thus saith the king of the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me: and every man of you shall eat of his own vineyard, and of his own fig tree: and you shall drink water of your own cisterns, 18:32. Till I come, and take you away, to a land, like to your own land, a fruitful land, and plentiful in wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olives, and oil, and honey, and you shall live, and not die. Hearken not to Ezechias, who deceiveth you, saying: The Lord will deliver us. 18:33. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 18:34. Where is the god of Emath, and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 18:35. Who are they among all the gods of the nations that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? 18:36. But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for they had received commandment from the king that they should not answer him. 18:37. And Eliacim, the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and Joahe, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Ezechias, with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces. 4 Kings Chapter 19 Ezechias is assured of God's help by Isaias the prophet. The king of the Assyrians still threateneth and blasphemeth. Ezechias prayeth, and God promiseth to protect Jerusalem. An angel destroyeth the army of the Assyrians, their king returneth to Nineve, and is slain by his two sons. 19:1. And when king Ezechias heard these words, he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 19:2. And he sent Eliacim, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and the ancients of the priests, covered with sackcloths, to Isaias, the prophet, the son of Amos. 19:3. And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: the children are come to the birth, and the woman in travail hath not strength. 19:4. It may be the Lord, thy God, will hear all the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians, his master, hath sent to reproach the living God, and to reprove with words, which the Lord, thy God, hath heard: and do thou offer prayer for the remnants that are found. 19:5. So the servants of king Ezechias came to Isaias. 19:6. And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid for the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me. 19:7. Behold I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return into his own country, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own country. 19:8. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachis. 19:9. And when he heard of Tharaca, king of Ethiopia: Behold, he is come out to fight with thee: and was going against him, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying: 19:10. Thus shall you say to Ezechias, king of Juda: Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest: and do not say: Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. 19:11. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all countries, how they have laid them waste: and canst thou alone be delivered? 19:12. Have the gods of the nations delivered any of them, whom my fathers have destroyed, to wit, Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thelassar? 19:13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Ana, and of Ava? 19:14. And when Ezechias had received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and had read it, he went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord, 19:15. And he prayed in his sight, saying: O Lord God of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kings of the earth: thou madest heaven and earth: 19:16. Incline thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to upbraid unto us the living God. 19:17. Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have destroyed nations, and the lands of them all. 19:18. And they have cast their gods into the fire: for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, of wood and stone, and they destroyed them. 19:19. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, the only God. 19:20. And Isaias, the son of Amos, sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians. 19:21. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin, the daughter of Sion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged her head behind thy back. 19:22. Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed? against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? against the holy one of Israel. 19:23. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus, and have cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees. And I have entered into the furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel. Carmel. . .A pleasant fruitful hill in the forest. These expressions are figurative, signifying under the names of mountains and forests, the kings and provinces whom the Assyrians had triumphed over. 19:24. I have cut down, and I have drunk strange waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet all the shut up waters. 19:25. Hast thou not heard what I have done from the beginning? from the days of old I have formed it, and now I have brought it to effect: that fenced cities of fighting men should be turned to heaps of ruins: I have formed it, etc. . .All thy exploits, in which thou takest pride, are no more than what I have decreed; and are not to be ascribed to thy wisdom or strength, but to my will and ordinance: who have given to thee to take and destroy so many fenced cities, and to carry terror wherever thou comest.--Ibid. Heaps of ruin. . .Literally ruin of the hills. 19:26. And the inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled and were confounded, they became like the grass of the field, and the green herb on the tops of houses, which withered before it came to maturity. 19:27. Thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy way I knew before, and thy rage against me. 19:28. Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest. 19:29. And to thee, O Ezechias, this shall be a sign: Eat this year what thou shalt find: and in the second year, such things as spring of themselves: but in the third year sow and reap: plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 19:30. And whatsoever shall be left of the house of Juda, shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 19:31. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and that which shall be saved out of mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 19:32. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it. 19:33. By the way that he came he shall return: and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord. 19:34. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for David, my servant's sake. 19:35. And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead. 19:36. And Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, departing, went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive. 19:37. And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch, his god, Adramelech and Sarasar, his sons, slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 20 Ezechias being sick, is told by Isaias that he shall die; but praying to God, he obtaineth longer life, and in confirmation thereof receiveth a sign by the sun's returning back. He sheweth all his treasures to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon: Isaias reproving him for it, foretelleth the Babylonish captivity. 20:1. In those days Ezechias was sick unto death: and Isaias, the son of Amos, the prophet, came and said to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Give charge concerning thy house, for thou shalt die, and not llve. 20:2. And he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying: 20:3. I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is pleasing before thee. And Ezechias wept with much weeping. 20:4. And before Isaias was gone out of the middle of the court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: 20:5. Go back, and tell Ezechias, the captain of my people: Thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee: on the third day thou shalt go up to the temple of the Lord. 20:6. And I will add to thy days fifteen years: and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect this city for my own sake, and for David, my servant's sake. 20:7. And Isaias said: Bring me a lump of figs. And when they had brought it, and laid it upon his boil, he was healed. 20:8. And Ezechias had said to Isaias: What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord the third day? 20:9. And Isaias said to him: This shall be the sign from the Lord, that the Lord will do the word which he hath spoken: Wilt thou that the shadow go forward ten lines, or that it go back so many degrees? 20:10. And Ezechias said: It is an easy matter for the shadow to go forward ten lines: and I do not desire that this be done, but let it return back ten degrees. 20:11. And Isaias, the prophet, called upon the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backwards by the lines, by which it had already gone down on the dial of Achaz. 20:12. At that time Berodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, king of the Babylonians, sent letters and presents to Ezechias: for he had heard that Ezechias had been sick. 20:13. And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he shewed them the house of his aromatical spices, and the gold, and the silver, and divers precious odours, and ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all that he had in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominions, that Ezechias shewed them not. 20:14. And Isaias, the prophet, came to king Ezechias, and said to him: What said these men? or from whence came they to thee? And Ezechias said to him: From a far country, they came to me out of Babylon. 20:15. And he said: What did they see in thy house? Ezechias said: They saw all the things that are in my house: There is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. 20:16. And Isaias said to Ezechias: Hear the word of the Lord. 20:17. Behold the days shall come, that all that is in thy house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. 20:18. And of thy sons also that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 20:19. Ezechias said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken, is good: let peace and truth be in my days. 20:20. And the rest of the acts of Ezechias, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought waters into the city, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 20:21. And Ezechias slept with his fathers, and Manasses, his son reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 21 The wickedness of Manasses: God's threats by his prophets. His wicked son Amon succeedeth him, and is slain by his servants. 21:1. Manasses was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Haphsiba. 21:2. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the idols of the nations, which the Lord destroyed from before the face of the children of Israel. 21:3. And he turned, and built up the high places, which Ezechias, his father, had destroyed: and he set up altars to Baal, and made groves, as Achab, the king of Israel, had done: and he adored all the host of heaven, and served them. 21:4. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said: In Jerusalem I will put my name. 21:5. And he built altars for all the host of heaven, in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. 21:6. And he made his son pass through fire: and he used divinations, and observed omens, and appointed pythons, and multiplied soothsayers, to do evil before the Lord, and to provoke him. Pythons. . .That is, diviners by spirits. 21:7. He set also an idol of the grove, which he had made, in the temple of the Lord: concerning which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son: In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever. 21:8. And I will no more make the feet of Israel to be moved out of the land, which I gave to their fathers: only if they will observe to do all that I have commanded them, according to the law which my servant Moses commanded them. 21:9. But they hearkened not: but were seduced by Manasses, to do evil more than the nations which the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. 21:10. And the Lord spoke in the hand of his servants, the prophets, saying: 21:11. Because Manasses, king of Juda, hath done these most wicked abominations, beyond all that the Amorrhites did before him, and hath made Juda also to sin with his filthy doings: 21:12. Therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on evils upon Jerusalem and Juda: that whosoever shall hear of them, both his ears shall tingle. 21:13. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the weight of the house of Achab: and I will efface Jerusalem, as writings tables are wont to be effaced, and I will erase and turn it, and draw the pencil often over the face thereof. 21:14. And I will leave the remnants of my inheritance, and will deliver them into the hands of their enemies: and they shall become a prey, and a spoil to all their enemies. 21:15. Because they have done evil before me, and have continued to provoke me, from the day that their fathers came out of Egypt, even unto this day. 21:16. Moreover, Manasses shed also very much innocent blood, till he filled Jerusalem up to the mouth: besides his sins, wherewith he made Juda to sin, to do evil before the Lord. 21:17. Now the rest of the acts of Manasses, and all that he did, and his sin, which he sinned, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 21:18. And Manasses slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Oza: and Amon, his son, reigned in his stead. 21:19. Two and twenty years old was Amon when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Messalemeth, the daughter of Harus, of Jeteba. 21:20. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasses, his father, had done. 21:21. And he walked in all the way in which his father had walked: and he served the abominations which his father had served, and he adored them. 21:22. And forsook the Lord, the God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the Lord. 21:23. And his servants plotted against him, and slew the king in his own house. 21:24. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon: and made Josias, his son, their king in his stead. 21:25. But the rest of the acts of Amon, which he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 21:26. And they buried him in his sepulchre, in the garden of Oza: and his son, Josias, reigned in his stead. 4 Kings Chapter 22 Josias repaireth the temple. The book of the law is found, upon which they consult the Lord, and are told that great evils shall fall upon them, but not in the time of Josias. 22:1. Josias was eight years old when he began to reign: he reigned one and thirty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Idida, the daughter of Hadaia, of Besecath. 22:2. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of David, his father: he turned not aside to the right hand, or to the left. 22:3. And in the eighteenth year of king Josias, the king sent Saphan, the son of Assia, the son of Messulam, the scribe of the temple of the Lord, saying to him: 22:4. Go to Helcias, the high priest, that the money may be put together which is brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers of the temple have gathered of the people. 22:5. And let it be given to the workmen by the overseers of the house of the Lord: and let them distribute it to those that work in the temple of the Lord, to repair the temple: 22:6. That is, to carpenters and masons, and to such as mend breaches: and that timber may be bought, and stones out of the quarries, to repair the temple of the Lord. 22:7. But let there be no reckoning made with them of the money which they receive, but let them have it in their power, and in their trust. 22:8. And Helcias, the high priest, said to Saphan, the scribe: I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord: and Helcias gave the book to Saphan, and he read it. The book of the law. . .That is, Deuteronomy. 22:9. And Saphan, the scribe, came to the king, and brought him word again concerning that which he had commanded, and said: Thy servants have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord: and they have given it to be distributed to the workmen, by the overseers of the works of the temple of the Lord. 22:10. And Saphan, the scribe, told the king, saying: Helcias, the priest, hath delivered to me a book. And when Saphan had read it before the king, 22:11. And the king had heard the words of the law of the Lord, he rent his garments. 22:12. And he commanded Helcias, the priest, and Ahicam, the son of Saphan, and Achobor, the son of Micha, and Saphan, the scribe, and Asaia, the king's servant, saying: 22:13. Go and consult the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Juda, concerning the words of this book which is found: for the great wrath of the Lord is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened to the words of this book, to do all that is written for us. 22:14. So Helcias, the priest, and Ahicam, and Achobor, and Sapham, and Asaia, went to Holda, the prophetess, the wife of Sellum, the son of Thecua, the son of Araas, keeper of the wardrobe, who dwelt in Jerusalem, in the Second: and they spoke to her. The Second. . .A street, or part of the city, so called; in Hebrew, Massem. 22:15. And she said to them: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me: 22:16. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will bring evils upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, all the words of the law which the king of Juda hath read: 22:17. Because they have forsaken me, and have sacrificed to strange gods, provoking me by all the works of their hands: therefore my indignation shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. 22:18. But to the king of Juda, who sent you to consult the Lord, thus shall you say: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: for as much as thou hast heard the words of the book, 22:19. And thy heart hath been moved to fear, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, hearing the words against this place, and the inhabitants thereof, to wit, that they should become a wonder and a curse: and thou hast rent thy garments, and wept before me; I also have heard thee; saith the Lord. 22:20. Therefore I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy sepulchre in peace; that thy eyes may not see all the evils which I will bring upon this place. 4 Kings Chapter 23 Josias readeth the law before all the people. They promise to observe it. He abolisheth all idolatry, celebrateth the phase: is slain in battle by the king of Egypt. The short reign of Joachaz, in whose place Joakim is made king. 23:1. And they brought the king word again what she had said. And he sent: and all the ancients of Juda and Jerusalem were assembled to him. 23:2. And the king went up to the temple of the Lord, and all the men of Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both little and great: and in the hearing of them all he read all the words of the book of the covenant, which was found in the house of the Lord. 23:3. And the king stood upon the step: and he made a covenant with the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his ceremonies, with all their heart, and with all their soul, and to perform the words of this covenant, which were written in that book: and the people agreed to the covenant. The king stood upon the step. . .That is, his tribune, or tribunal, a more eminent place, from whence he might be seen and heard by the people. 23:4. And the king commanded Helcias, the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to cast out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burnt them without Jerusalem, in the valley of Cedron, and he carried the ashes of them to Bethel. 23:5. And he destroyed the soothsayers, whom the kings of Juda had appointed to sacrifice in the high places in the cities of Juda, and round about Jerusalem: them also that burnt incense to Baal, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the twelve signs, and to all the host of heaven. 23:6. And he caused the grove to be carried out from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, to the valley of Cedron, and he burnt it there, and reduced it to dust, and cast the dust upon the graves of the common people. 23:7. He destroyed also the pavilions of the effeminate, which were in the house of the Lord, for which the women wove as it were little dwellings for the grove. 23:8. And he gathered together all the priests out of the cities of Juda: and he defiled the high places, where the priests offered sacrifice, from Gabaa to Bersabee: and he broke down the altars of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Josue, governor of the city, which was on the left hand of the gate of the city. 23:9. However, the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord, in Jerusalem: but only eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. 23:10. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom: that no man should consecrate there his son, or his daughter, through fire, to Moloch. 23:11. And he took away the horses which the kings of Juda had given to the sun, at the entering in of the temple of the Lord, near the chamber of Nathanmelech the eunuch, who was in Pharurim: and he burnt the chariots of the sun with fire. 23:12. And the altars that were upon the top of the upper chamber of Achaz, which the kings of Juda had made, and the altars which Manasses had made in the two courts of the temple of the Lord, the king broke down: and he ran from thence, and cast the ashes of them into the torrent Cedron. 23:13. The high places also that were at Jerusalem, on the right side of the Mount of Offence, which Solomon, king of Israel, had built to Astaroth, the idol of the Sidonians, and to Chamos, the scandal of Moab, and to Melchom, the abomination of the children of Ammon, the king defiled. 23:14. And he broke in pieces the statues, and cut down the groves: and he filled their places with the bones of dead men. 23:15. Moreover, the altar also that was at Bethel, and the high place, which Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin, had made: both the altar, and the high place, he broke down and burnt, and reduced to powder, and burnt the grove. 23:16. And as Josias turned himself, he saw there the sepulchres that were in the mount: and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God spoke, who had foretold these things. 23:17. And he said: What is that monument which I see? And the men of that city answered: It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Juda, and foretold these things which thou hast done upon the altar of Bethel. 23:18. And he said: Let him alone, let no man move his bones. So his bones were left untouched with the bones of the prophet, that came out of Samaria. 23:19. Moreover all the temples of the high places which were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord, Josias took away: and he did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel. 23:20. And he slew all the priests of the high places, that were there, upon the altars; and he burnt men's bones upon them: and returned to Jerusalem. 23:21. And he commanded all the people, saying: Keep the Phase to the Lord your God, according as it is written in the book of this covenant. 23:22. Now there was no such a Phase kept from the days of the judges, who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Juda, 23:23. As was this Phase, that was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem, in the eighteenth year of king Josias. 23:24. Moreover the diviners by spirits, and soothsayers, and the figures of idols, and the uncleannesses, and the abominations, that had been in the land of Juda and Jerusalem, Josias took away: that he might perform the words of the law, that were written in the book, which Helcias the priest had found in the temple of the Lord. 23:25. There was no king before him like unto him, that returned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses: neither after him did there arise any like unto him. 23:26. But yet the Lord turned not away from the wrath of his great indignation, wherewith his anger was kindled against Juda: because of the provocations, wherewith Manasses had provoked him. 23:27. And the Lord said: I will remove Juda also from before my face, as I have removed Israel: and I will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the house, of which I said: My name shall be there. 23:28. Now the rest of the acts of Josias, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 23:29. In his days Pharao Nechao, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josias went to meet him: and was slain at Mageddo, when he had seen him. 23:30. And his servants carried him dead from Mageddo: and they brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Joachaz, the son of Josias: and they anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead. 23:31. Joachaz was three and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Amital, the daughter of Jeremias, of Lobna. 23:32. And he did evil before the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 23:33. And Pharao Nechao bound him at Rebla, which is in the land of Emath, that he should not reign in Jerusalem: and he set a fine upon the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. 23:34. And Pharao Nechao made Eliacim, the son of Josias, king in the room of Josias his father: and turned his name to Joakim. And he took Joachaz away and carried him into Egypt, and he died there. 23:35. And Joakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharao, after he had taxed the land for every man, to contribute according to the commandment of Pharao: and he exacted both the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every man according to his ability: to give to Pharao Nechao. 23:36. Joakim was five and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Zebida, the daughter of Phadaia, of Ruma. 23:37. And he did evil before the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. 4 Kings Chapter 24 The reign of Joakim, Joachin, and Sedecias. 24:1. In his days Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon came up, and Joakim became his servant three years: then again he rebelled against him. 24:2. And the Lord sent against him the rovers of the Chaldees, and the rovers of Syria, and the rovers of Moab, and the rovers of the children of Ammon: and he sent them against Juda, to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by his servants, the prophets. The Lord sent against him the rovers. . .Latrunculos. Bands or parties of men, who pillaged and plundered wherever they came. 24:3. And this came by the word of the Lord against Juda, to remove them from before him for all the sins of Manasses which he did; 24:4. And for the innocent blood that he shed, filling Jerusalem with innocent blood: and therefore the Lord would not be appeased. 24:5. But the rest of the acts of Joakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? And Joakim slept with his fathers: 24:6. And Joachin, his son, reigned in his stead. 24:7. And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his own country: for the king of Babylon had taken all that had belonged to the king of Egypt, from the river of Egypt, unto the river Euphrates. 24:8. Joachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Nohesta, the daughter of Elnathan, of Jerusalem. 24:9. And he did evil before the Lord, according to all that his father had done. 24:10. At that time the servants of Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem, and the city was surrounded with their forts. 24:11. And Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came to the city, with his servants, to assault it. 24:12. And Joachin, king of Juda, went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his nobles, and his eunuchs: and the king of Babylon received him in the eighth year of his reign. 24:13. And he brought out from thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house: and he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon, king of Israel, had made in the temple of the Lord, according to the word of the Lord. 24:14. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the valiant men of the army, to the number of ten thousand, into captivity: and every artificer and smith: and none were left, but the poor sort of the people of the land. 24:15. And he carried away Joachin into Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his eunuchs: and the judges of the land he carried into captivity, from Jerusalem, into Babylon. 24:16. And all the strong men, seven thousand, and the artificers, and the smiths, a thousand, all that were valiant men, and fit for war: and the king of Babylon led them captives into Babylon. 24:17. And he appointed Matthanias, his uncle, in his stead: and called his name Sedecias. 24:18. Sedecias was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Amital, the daughter of Jeremias, of Lobna. 24:19. And he did evil before the Lord, according to all that Joakim had done. 24:20. For the Lord was angry against Jerusalem and against Juda, till he cast them out from his face: and Sedecias revolted from the king of Babylon. 4 Kings Chapter 25 Jerusalem is besieged and taken by Nabuchodonosor: Sedecias is taken: the city and temple are destroyed. Godolias, who is left governor, is slain. Joachin is exalted by Evilmerodach. 25:1. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, that Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem: and they surrounded it: and raised works round about it. 25:2. And the city was shut up and besieged till the eleventh year of king Sedecias, 25:3. The ninth day of the month: and a famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. 25:4. And a breach was made into the city: and all the men of war fled in the night between the two walls by the king's garden (now the Chaldees besieged the city round about), and Sedecias fled by the way that leadeth to the plains of the wilderness. 25:5. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all the warriors that were with him were scattered, and left him: 25:6. So they took the king, and brought him to the king of Babylon, to Reblatha, and he gave judgment upon him. 25:7. And he slew the sons of Sedecias before his face, and he put out his eyes, and bound him with chains, and brought him to Babylon. 25:8. In the fifth month, the seventh day of the month, the same is the nineteenth year of the king of Babylon, came Nabuzardan, commander of the army, a servant of the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem. 25:9. And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and the houses of Jerusalem, and every great house he burnt with fire. 25:10. And all the army of the Chaldees, which was with the commander of the troops, broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about. 25:11. And Nabuzardan, the commander of the army, carried away the rest of the people, that remained in the city, and the fugitives, that had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the remnant of the common people. 25:12. But of the poor of the land he left some dressers of vines and husbandmen. 25:13. And the pillars of brass that were in the temple of the Lord, and the bases, and the sea of brass, which was in the house of the Lord, the Chaldees broke in pieces, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon. 25:14. They took away also the pots of brass, and the mazers, and the forks, and the cups, and the mortars, and all the vessels of brass, with which they ministered. 25:15. Moreover also the censers, and the bowls, such as were of gold in gold: and such as were of silver in silver, the general of the army took away. 25:16. That is, two pillars, one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made in the temple of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight. 25:17. One pillar was eighteen cubits high: and the chapiter of brass, which was upon it, was three cubits high: and the network, and the pomegranates that were upon the chapiter of the pillar, were all of brass: and the second pillar had the like adorning. 25:18. And the general of the army took Seraias, the chief priest, and Sophonias, the second priest, and three doorkeepers: 25:19. And out of the city one eunuch, who was captain over the men of war: and five men of them who had stood before the king, whom he found in the city, and Sopher, the captain of the army, who exercised the young soldiers of the people of the land: and threescore men of the common people, who were found in the city: 25:20. These Nabuzardan, the general of the army, took away, and carried them to the king of Babylon, to Reblatha. 25:21. And the king of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Reblatha, in the land of Emath: so Juda was carried away out of their land. 25:22. But over the people that remained in the land of Juda, which Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, had left, he gave the government to Godolias, the son of Ahicam, the son of Saphan. 25:23. And when all the captains of the soldiers had heard this, they and the men that were with them, to wit, that the king of Babylon had made Godolias governor they came to Godolias to Maspha, Ismael, the son of Nathanias, and Johanan, the son of Caree, and Saraia, the son of Thanehumeth, the Netophathite, and Jezonias, the son of Maachathi, they and their men. 25:24. And Godolias swore to them and to their men, saying: Be not afraid to serve the Chaldees: stay in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. 25:25. But it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ismael, the son of Nathanias, the son of Elisama, of the seed royal came, and ten men with him, and smote Godolias; so that he died: and also the Jews and the Chaldees that were with him in Maspha. 25:26. And all the people, both little and great, and the captains of the soldiers, rising up, went to Egypt, fearing the Chaldees. 25:27. And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Joachin, king of Juda, in the twelfth month, the seven and twentieth day of the month: Evilmerodach, king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, lifted up the head of Joachin, king of Juda, out of prison. 25:28. And he spoke kindly to him: and he set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. 25:29. And he changed his garments which he had in prison, and he ate bread always before him, all the days of his life. 25:30. And he appointed him a continual allowance, which was also given him by the king, day by day, all the days of his life. THE FIRST BOOK OF PARALIPOMENON These Books are called by the Greek interpreters, Paralipomenon, that is, of things left out, or omitted; because they are a kind of a supplement of such things as were passed over in the books of the Kings. The Hebrews call them Dibre Haijamim, that is, The words of the days, or The Chronicles.--Not that they are the books which are so often quoted in the Kings, under the title of the words of the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Juda: for the books of Paralipomenon were written after the books of Kings: but because in all probability they have been abridged from those ancient words of the days, by Esdras or some other sacred writer. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 1 The genealogy of the patriarchs down to Abraham: The posterity of Abraham and of Esau. 1:1. Adam, Seth, Enos, 1:2. Cainan, Malaleel, Jared, 1:3. Henoc, Mathusale, Lamech, 1:4. Noe, Sem, Cham, and Japheth. 1:5. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, Thubal, Mosoch, Thiras. 1:6. And the sons of Gomer: Ascenez, and Riphath, and Thogorma. 1:7. And the sons of Javan: Elisa and Tharsis, Cethim and Dodanim. 1:8. The sons of Cham: Chus, and Mesrai, and Phut, and Chanaan. 1:9. And the sons of Chus: Saba, and Hevila, Sabatha, and Regma, and Sabathaca. And the sons of Regma: Saba, and Dadan. 1:10. Now Chus begot Nemrod: he began to be mighty upon earth. 1:11. But Mesraim begot Ludim, and Anamim, and Laabim, and Nephtuim, 1:12. Phetrusim also, and Casluim: from whom came the Philistines, and Caphtorim. 1:13. And Chanaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and the Hethite, 1:14. And the Jebusite, and the Amorrhite, and the Gergesite, 1:15. And the Hevite, and the Aracite, and the Sinite, 1:16. And the Aradian, and the Samarite, and the Hamathite. 1:17. The sons of Sem: Elam and Asur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and Hus, and Hul, and Gether, and Mosoch. 1:18. And Arphaxad begot Sale, and Sale begot Heber. 1:19. And to Heber were born two sons, the name of the one was Phaleg, because in his days the earth was divided; and the name of his brother was Jectan. 1:20. And Jectan begot Elmodad, and Saleph, and Asarmoth, and Jare, 1:21. And Adoram, and Usal, and Decla, 1:22. And Hebal, and Abimael, and Saba, 1:23. And Ophir, and Hevila, and Jobab. All these are the sons of Jectan. 1:24. Sem, Arphaxad, Sale, 1:25. Heber, Phaleg, Ragau, 1:26. Serug, Nachor, Thare, 1:27. Abram, this is Abraham. 1:28. And the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Ismahel. 1:29. And these are the generations of them. The firstborn of Ismahel, Nabajoth, then Cedar, and Adbeel, and Mabsam, 1:30. And Masma, and Duma, Massa, Hadad, and Thema, 1:31. Jetur, Naphis, Cedma: these are the sons of Ismahel. 1:32. And the sons of Cetura, Abraham's concubine, whom she bore: Zamran, Jecsan, Madan, Madian, Jesboc, and Sue. And the sons of Jecsan, Saba, and Dadan. And the sons of Dadan: Assurim, and Latussim, and Laomin. Concubine. . .She was his lawful wife, but of an inferior degree. 1:33. And the sons of Madian: Epha, and Epher, and Henoch, and Abida, and Eldaa. All these are the sons of Cetura. 1:34. And Abraham begot Isaac: and his sons were Esau and Israel. 1:35. The sons of Esau: Eliphaz, Rahuel, Jehus, Ihelom, and Core. 1:36. The sons of Eliphaz: Theman, Omar, Sephi, Gathan, Cenez, and by Thamna, Amalec. 1:37. The sons of Rahuel: Nahath, Zara, Samma, Meza. 1:38. The sons of Seir: Lotan, Sobal, Sebeon, Ana, Dison, Eser, Disan. 1:39. The sons of Lotan: Hori, Homam. And the sister of Lotan was Thamna. 1:40. The sons of Sobal: Alian, and Manahath, and Ebal, Sephi, and Onam. The sons of Sebeon: Aia, and Ana. The son of Ana: Dison. 1:41. The sons of Dison: Hamram, and Eseban, and Jethran, and Charan. 1:42. The sons of Eser: Balaan, and Zavan, and Jacan. The sons of Disan: Hus and Aran. 1:43. Now these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there was a king over the children of Israel: Bale the son of Beor: and the name of his city was Denaba. 1:44. And Bale died, and Jobab the son of Zare of Bosra, reigned in his stead. 1:45. And when Jobab also was dead, Husam of the land of the Themanites reigned in his stead. 1:46. And Husam also died, and Adad the son of Badad reigned in his stead, and he defeated the Madianites in the land of Moab: the name of his city was Avith. 1:47. And when Adad also was dead, Semla of Masreca reigned in his stead. 1:48. Semla also died, and Saul of Rohoboth, which is near the river, reigned in his stead. 1:49. And when Saul was dead, Balanan the son of Achobor reigned in his stead. 1:50. He also died, and Adad reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Phau, and his wife was called Meetabel the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezaab. 1:51. And after the death of Adad, there began to be dukes in Edom instead of kings: duke Thamna, duke Alva, duke Jetheth, 1:52. Duke Oolibama, duke Ela, duke Phinon, 1:53. Duke Cenez, duke Theman, duke Mabsar, 1:54. Duke Magdiel, duke Hiram. These are the dukes of Edom. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 2 The twelve tribes of Israel. The genealogy of Juda down to David. Other genealogies of the tribe of Juda. 2:1. And these are the sons of Israel: Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, Issachar, and Zabulon, 2:2. Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Nephtali, Gad, and Aser. 2:3. The sons of Juda: Her, Onan and Sela. These three were born to him of the Chanaanitess the daughter of Sue. And Her the firstborn of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him. 2:4. And Thamar his daughter in law bore him Phares and Zara. So all the sons of Juda were five. 2:5. And the sons of Phares, were Hesron and Hamul. 2:6. And the sons also of Zare: Zamri, and Ethan, and Eman, and Chalchal, and Dara, five in all. 2:7. And the sons of Charmi: Achar, who troubled Israel, and sinned by the theft of the anathema. Achar. . .Alias Achan. Jos. 7.--Ibid. The anathema. . .The thing devoted or accursed, viz., the spoils of Jericho. 2:8. The sons of Ethan: Azarias, 2:9. And the sons of Hesron that were born to him: Jerameel, and Ram, and Calubi. 2:10. And Ram begot Aminadab, and Aminadab begot Nahasson, prince of the children of Juda. Ram. . .He is commonly called Aram. But it is to be observed here, once for all, that it was a common thing among the Hebrews for the same persons to have different names: and that it is not impossible among so many proper names, as here occur in the first nine chapters of this book, that the transcribers of the ancient Hebrew copies may have made some slips in the orthography. 2:11. And Nahasson begot Salma, the father of Booz. 2:12. And Booz begot Obed, and Obed begot Isai. 2:13. And Isai begot Eliab his firstborn, the second Abinadab, the third Simmaa, 2:14. The fourth, Nathanael, the fifth Raddai, 2:15. The sixth Asom, the seventh David. 2:16. And their sisters were Sarvia, and Abigail. The sons of Sarvia: Abisai, Joab, and Asael, three. 2:17. And Abigail bore Amasa, whose father was Jether the Ismahelite. 2:18. And Caleb the son of Hesron took a wife named Azuba, of whom he had Jerioth: and her sons were Jaser, and Sobab, and Ardon. Caleb. . .Alias Calubi, ver. 9. 2:19. And when Azuba was dead, Caleb took to wife Ephrata: who bore him Hur. 2:20. And Hur begot Uri: and Uri begot Bezeleel. 2:21. And afterwards Hesron went in to the daughter of Machir the father of Galaad, and took her to wife when he was threescore years old: and she bore him Segub. 2:22. And Segub begot Jair, and he had three and twenty cities in the land of Galaad. 2:23. And he took Gessur, and Aram the towns of Jair, and Canath, and the villages thereof, threescore cities. All these, the sons of Machir father of Galaad. 2:24. And when Hesron was dead, Caleb went in to Ephrata. Hesron also had to wife Abia who bore him Ashur the father of Thecua. 2:25. And the sons of Jerameel the firstborn of Hesron, were Ram his firstborn, and Buna, and Aram, and Asom, and Achia. 2:26. And Jerameel married another wife, named Atara, who was the mother of Onam. 2:27. And the sons of Ram the firstborn of Jerameel, were Moos, Jamin, and Achar. 2:28. And Onam had sons Semei, and Jada. And the sons of Semei: Nadab, and Abisur. 2:29. And the name of Abisur's wife was Abihail, who bore him Ahobban, and Molid. 2:30. And the sons of Nadab were Saled and Apphaim. And Saled died without children. 2:31. But the son of Apphaim was Jesi: and Jesi begot Sesan. And Sesan begot Oholai. 2:32. And the sons of Jada the brother of Semei: Jether and Jonathan. And Jether also died without children. 2:33. But Jonathan begot Phaleth, and Ziza. These were the sons of Jerameel. 2:34. And Sesan had no sons, but daughters and a servant an Egyptian, named Jeraa. 2:35. And he gave him his daughter to wife: and she bore him Ethei. 2:36. And Ethei begot Nathan, and Nathan begot Zabad. 2:37. And Zabad begot Ophlal, and Ophlal begot Obed. 2:38. Obed begot Jehu, Jehu begot Azarias. 2:39. Azarias begot Helles, and Helles begot Elasa. 2:40. Elasa begot Sisamoi, Sisamoi begot Sellum, 2:41. Sellum begot Icamia, and Icamia begot Elisama. 2:42. Now the sons of Caleb the brother of Jerameel were Mesa his firstborn, who was the father of Siph: and the sons of Maresa father of Hebron. 2:43. And the sons of Hebron, Core, and Thaphua, and Recem, and Samma. 2:44. And Samma begot Raham, the father of Jercaam, and Recem begot Sammai. 2:45. The son of Sammai, Maon: and Maon the father of Bethsur. 2:46. And Epha the concubine of Caleb bore Haran, and Mosa, and Gezez. And Haran begot Gezez. 2:47. And the sons of Jahaddai, Rogom, and Joathan, and Gesan, and Phalet, and Epha, and Saaph. 2:48. And Maacha the concubine of Caleb bore Saber, and Tharana. 2:49. And Saaph the father of Madmena begot Sue the father of Machbena, and the father of Gabaa. And the daughter of Caleb was Achsa. 2:50. These were the sons of Caleb, the son of Hur the firstborn of Ephrata, Sobal the father of Cariathiarim. 2:51. Salma the father of Bethlehem, Hariph the father of Bethgader. 2:52. And Sobal the father of Cariathiarim had sons: he that saw half of the places of rest. He that saw, etc. . .The Latin interpreter seems to have given us here, instead of the proper names, the meaning of those names in the Hebrew. He has done in like manner, ver. 55. 2:53. And of the kindred of Cariathiarim, the Jethrites, and Aphuthites, and Semathites, and Maserites. Of them came the Saraites, and Esthaolites. 2:54. The sons of Salma, Bethlehem, and Netophathi, the crowns of the house of Joab, and half of the place of rest of Sarai. 2:55. And the families of the scribes that dwell in Jabes, singing and making melody, and abiding in tents. These are the Cinites, who came of Calor (Chamath) father of the house of Rechab. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 3 The genealogy of the house of David. 3:1. Now these were the sons of David that were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn Amnon of Achinoam the Jezrahelitess, the second Daniel of Abigail the Carmelitess. 3:2. The third Absalom the son of Maacha the daughter of Tolmai king of Gessur, the fourth Adonias the son of Aggith, 3:3. The fifth Saphatias of Abital, the sixth Jethrahem of Egla his wife. 3:4. So six sons were born to him in Hebron, where he reigned seven years and six months. And in Jerusalem he reigned three and thirty years. 3:5. And these sons were born to him in Jerusalem: Simmaa, and Sobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four of Bethsabee the daughter of Ammiel. 3:6. Jebaar also and Elisama, 3:7. And Eliphaleth, and Noge, and Nepheg, and Japhia, 3:8. And Elisama, and Eliada, and Elipheleth, nine: 3:9. All these the sons of David, beside the sons of the concubines: and they had a sister Thamar. The concubines. . .The inferior wives. 3:10. And Solomon's son was Roboam: whose son Abia begot Asa. And his son was Josaphat, 3:11. The father of Joram: and Joram begot Ochozias, of whom was born Joas: 3:12. And his son Amasias begot Azarias. And Joathan the son of Azarias 3:13. Begot Achaz, the father of Ezechias, of whom was born Manasses. 3:14. And Manasses begot Amon the father of Josias. 3:15. And the sons of Josias were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Joakim, the third Sedecias, the fourth Sellum. 3:16. Of Joakim was born Jechonias, and Sedecias. 3:17. The sons of Jechonias were Asir, Salathiel, 3:18. Melchiram, Phadaia, Senneser and Jecemia, Sama, and Nadabia. 3:19. Of Phadaia were born Zorobabel and Semei. Zorobabel begot Mosollam, Hananias, and Salomith their sister: 3:20. Hasaba also, and Ohol, and Barachias, and Hasadias, Josabhesed, five. 3:21. And the son of Hananias was Phaltias the father of Jeseias, whose son was Raphaia. And his son was Arnan, of whom was born Obdia, whose son was Sechenias. 3:22. The son of Sechenias was Semeia, whose sons were Hattus, and Jegaal, and Baria, and Naaria, and Saphat, six in number. Six. . .Counting the father in the number. 3:23. The sons of Naaria, Elioenai, and Ezechias, and Ezricam, three. 3:24. The sons of Elioenai, Oduia, and Eliasub, and Pheleia, and Accub, and Johanan, and Dalaia, and Anani, seven. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 4 Other genealogies of Juda and Simeon, and their victories. 4:1. The sons of Juda: Phares, Hesron, and Charmi and Hur, and Sobal. 4:2. And Raia the son of Sobal begot Jahath, of whom were born Ahumai, and Laad. These are the families of Sarathi. 4:3. And this is the posterity of Etam: Jezrahel, and Jesema, And Jedebos: and the name of their sister was Asalelphuni. 4:4. And Phanuel the father of Gedor, and Ezar the father of Hosa, these are the sons of Hur the firstborn of Ephratha the father of Bethlehem. 4:5. And Assur the father of Thecua had two wives, Halaa and Naara: 4:6. And Naara bore him Ozam, and Hepher, and Themani, and Ahasthari: these are the sons of Naara. 4:7. And the sons of Halaa, Sereth, Isaar, and Ethnan. 4:8. And Cos begot Anob, and Soboba, and the kindred of Aharehel the son of Arum. 4:9. And Jabes was more honourable than any of his brethren, and his mother called his name Jabes, saying: Because I bore him with sorrow. Jabes. . .That is, sorrowful. 4:10. And Jabes called upon the God of Israel, saying: If blessing thou wilt bless me, and wilt enlarge my borders, and thy hand be with me, and thou save me from being oppressed by evil. And God granted him the things he prayed for. 4:11. And Caleb the brother of Sua begot Mahir, who was the father of Esthon. 4:12. And Esthon begot Bethrapha, and Phesse, and Tehinna father of the city of Naas: these are the men of Recha. 4:13. And the sons of Cenez were Othoniel, and Saraia. And the sons of Othoniel, Hathath, and Maonathi. 4:14. Maonathi begot Ophra, and Saraia begot Joab the father of the Valley of artificers: for artificers were there. 4:15. And the sons of Caleb the son of Jephone, were Hir, and Ela, and Naham. And the sons of Ela: Cenez. 4:16. The sons also of Jaleleel: Ziph, and Zipha, Thiria and Asrael. 4:17. And the sons of Esra, Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon, and he begot Mariam, and Sammai, and Jesba the father of Esthamo. 4:18. And his wife Judaia, bore Jared the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Icuthiel the father of Zanoe. And these are the sons of Bethia the daughter of Pharao, whom Mered took to wife. 4:19. And the sons of his wife Odaia the sister of Naham the father of Celia, Garmi, and Esthamo, who was of Machathi. 4:20. The sons also of Simon, Amnon, and Rinna the son of Hanan, and Thilon. And the sons of Jesi Zoheth, and Benzoheth. 4:21. The sons of Sela the son of Juda: Her the father of Lecha, and Laada the father of Maresa, and the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen in the House of oath. 4:22. And he that made the sun to stand, and the men of Lying, and Secure, and Burning, who were princes in Moab, and who returned into Lahem. Now these are things of old. He that made, etc. . .Viz., Joazim, the meaning of whose name in Hebrew is, he that made the sun to stand. In like manner the following names, Lying (Chozeba), Secure (Joas), and Burning (Saraph), are substituted in place of the Hebrew names of the same signification. 4:23. These are the potters, and they dwelt in Plantations, and Hedges, with the king for his works, and they abode there. Plantations and Hedges. . .These are the proper names of the places where they dwelt. In Hebrew Atharim and Gadira. 4:24. The sons of Simeon: Namuel and Jamin, Jarib, Zara, Saul: 4:25. Sellum his son, Mapsam his son, Masma his son. 4:26. The sons of Masma: Hamuel his son, Zachur his son, Semei his son. 4:27. The sons of Semei were sixteen, and six daughters: but his brethren had not many sons, and the whole kindred could not reach to the sum of the children of Juda. 4:28. And they dwelt in Bersabee, and Molada, and Hasarsuhal, 4:29. And in Bala, and in Asom, and in Tholad, 4:30. And in Bathuel, and in Horma, and in Siceleg, 4:31. And in Bethmarchaboth, and in Hasarsusim, and in Bethberai, and in Saarim. These were their cities unto the reign of David. 4:32. Their towns also were Etam, and Aen, Remmon, and Thochen, and Asan, five cities. 4:33. And all their villages round about these cities as far as Baal. This was their habitation, and the distribution of their dwellings. 4:34. And Mosabab and Jemlech, and Josaphat, the son of Amasias, 4:35. And Joel, and Jehu the son of Josabia the son of Saraia, the son of Asiel, 4:36. And Elioenai, and Jacoba, and Isuhaia, and Asaia, and Adiel, and Ismiel, and Banaia, 4:37. Ziza also the son of Sephei the son of Allon the son of Idaia the son of Semri the son of Samaia. 4:38. These were named princes in their kindreds, and in the houses of their families were multiplied exceedingly. 4:39. And they went forth to enter into Gador as far as to the east side of the valley, to seek pastures for their flocks. 4:40. And they found fat pastures, and very good, and a country spacious, and quiet, and fruitful, in which some of the race of Cham had dwelt before. 4:41. And these whose names are written above, came in the days of Ezechias king of Juda: and they beat down their tents, and slew the inhabitants that were found there, and utterly destroyed them unto this day: and they dwelt in their place, because they found there fat pastures. 4:42. Some also of the children of Simeon, five hundred men, went into mount Seir, having for their captains Phaltias and Naaria and Raphaia and Oziel the sons of Jesi: 4:43. And they slew the remnant of the Amalecites, who had been able to escape, and they dwelt there in their stead unto this day. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 5 Genealogies of Ruben and Gad: their victories over the Agarites: their captivity. 5:1. Now the sons of Ruben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was his firstborn: but forasmuch as he defiled his father's bed, his first birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel, and he was not accounted for the firstborn. 5:2. But of the race of Juda, who was the strongest among his brethren, came the princes: but the first birthright was accounted to Joseph.) Accounted to Joseph. . .Viz., as to the double portion, which belonged to the firstborn; but the princely dignity was given to Juda, and the priesthood to Levi. 5:3. The sons then of Ruben the firstborn of Israel were Enoch, and Phallu, Esron, and Charmi. 5:4. The sons of Joel: Samaia his son, Gog his son, Semei his son, 5:5. Micha his son, Reia his son, Baal his son, 5:6. Beera his son, whom Thelgathphalnasar king of the Assyrians carried away captive, and he was prince in the tribe of Ruben. 5:7. And his brethren, and all his kindred, when they were numbered by their families, had for princes Jehiel, and Zacharias. 5:8. And Bala the son of Azaz, the son of Samma, the son of Joel, dwelt in Aroer as far as Nebo, and Beelmeon. 5:9. And eastward he had his habitation as far as the entrance of the desert, and the river Euphrates. For they possessed a great number of cattle in the land of Galaad. 5:10. And in the days of Saul they fought against the Agarites, and slew them, and dwelt in their tents in their stead, in all the country, that looketh to the east of Galaad. 5:11. And the children of Gad dwelt over against them in the land of Basan, as far as Selcha: 5:12. Johel the chief, and Saphan the second: and Janai, and Saphat in Basan. 5:13. And their brethren according to the houses of their kindreds, were Michael and Mosollam, and Sebe, and Jorai, and Jacan, and Zie, and Heber, seven. 5:14. These were the sons of Abihail, the son of Huri, the son of Jara, the son of Galaad, the son of Michael, the son of Jesisi, the son of Jeddo, the son of Buz. 5:15. And their brethren the sons of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of the house in their families, 5:16. And they dwelt in Galaad, and in Basan and in the towns thereof, and in all the suburbs of Saron, unto the borders. 5:17. All these were numbered in the days of Joathan king of Juda, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel. 5:18. The Sons of Ruben, and of Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses, fighting men, bearing shields, and swords, and bending the bow, and trained up to battles, four and forty thousand seven hundred and threescore that went out to war. 5:19. They fought against the Agarites: but the Itureans, and Naphis, and Nodab, 5:20. Gave them help. And the Agarites were delivered into their hands, and all that were with them, because they called upon God in the battle: and he heard them, because they had put their faith in him. 5:21. And they took all that they possessed, of camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, and of men a hundred thousand souls. 5:22. And many fell down slain: for it was the battle of the Lord. And they dwelt in their stead till the captivity. 5:23. And the children of the half tribe of Manasses possessed the land, from the borders of Basan unto Baal, Hermon, and Sanir, and mount Hermon, for their number was great. 5:24. And these were the heads of the house of their kindred, Epher, and Jesi, and Eliel, and Esriel, and Jeremia, and Odoia, and Jediel, most valiant and powerful men, and famous chiefs in their families. 5:25. But they forsook the God of their fathers, and went astray after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. 5:26. And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Phul king of the Assyrians. and the spirit of Thelgathphalnasar king of Assur: and he carried away Ruben, and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses, and brought them to Lahela, and to Habor, and to Ara, and to the river of Gozan, unto this day. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 6 The genealogies of Levi, and of Aaron: the cities of the Levites. 6:1. The sons of Levi were Gerson, Caath, and Merari. 6:2. The Sons of Caath: Amram, Isaar, Hebron, and Oziel. 6:3. The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Mary. The Sons of Aaron: Nadab and Abiu, Eleazar and Ithamar. 6:4. Eleazar begot Phinees, and Phinees begot Abisue, 6:5. And Abisue begot Bocci, and Bocci begot Ozi. 6:6. Ozi begot Zaraias, and Zaraias begot Maraioth. 6:7. And Maraioth begot Amarias, and Amarias begot Achitob. 6:8. Achitob begot Sadoc, and Sadoc begot Achimaas. 6:9. Achimaas begot Azarias, Azarias begot Johanan, 6:10. Johanan begot Azarias. This is he that executed the priestly office in the house which Solomon built in Jerusalem. 6:11. And Azarias begot Amarias, and Amarias begot Achitob. 6:12. And Achitob begot Sadoc, and Sadoc begot Sellum, 6:13. Sellum begot Helcias, and Helcias begot Azarias, 6:14. Azarias begot Saraias, and Saraias begot Josedec. 6:15. Now Josedec went out, when the Lord carried away Juda, and Jerusalem, by the hands of Nabuchodonosor. 6:16. So the sons of Levi were Gerson, Caath, and Merari. 6:17. And these are the names of the sons of Gerson: Lobni and Semei. 6:18. The sons of Caath: Amram, and Isaar, and Hebron, and Oziel. 6:19. The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi. And these are the kindreds of Levi according to their families. 6:20. Of Gerson: Lobni his son, Jahath his son, Zamma his son, 6:21. Joah his son, Addo his son, Zara his son, Jethrai his son. 6:22. The sons of Caath, Aminadab his son, Core his son, Asir his son, 6:23. Elcana his son, Abiasaph his son, Asir his son, 6:24. Thahath his son, Uriel his son, Ozias his son, Saul his son. 6:25. The sons of Elcana: Amasai, and Achimoth. 6:26. And Elcana. The sons of Elcana: Sophai his son, Nahath his son, 6:27. Eliab his son, Jeroham his son, Elcana his son. 6:28. The sons of Samuel: the firstborn Vasseni, and Abia. 6:29. And the sons of Merari, Moholi: Lobni his son, Semei his son, Oza his son, 6:30. Sammaa his son, Haggia his son, Asaia his son. 6:31. These are they, whom David set over the singing men of the house of the Lord, after that the ark was placed. 6:32. And they ministered before the tabernacle of the testimony, with singing, until Solomon built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they stood according to their order in the ministry. 6:33. And these are they that stood with their sons, of the sons of Caath, Hemam a singer, the son of Joel, the son of Sammuel, 6:34. The son of Elcana, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Thohu, 6:35. The son of Suph, the son of Elcana, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai, 6:36. The son of Elcana, the son of Johel, the son of Azarias, the son of Sophonias, 6:37. The son of Thahath, the son of Asir, the son of Abiasaph, the son of Core, 6:38. The son of Isaar, the son of Caath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel. 6:39. And his brother Asaph, who stood on his right hand, Asaph the son of Barachias, the son of Samaa. 6:40. The son of Michael, the son of Basaia, the, son of Melchia. 6:41. The son of Athanai, the son of Zara, the son of Adaia. 6:42. The son of Ethan, the son of Zamma, the son of Semei. 6:43. The son of Jeth, the son of Gerson, the son of Levi. 6:44. And the sons of Merari their brethren, on the left hand, Ethan the son of Cusi, the son of Abdi, the son of Meloch, 6:45. The son of Hasabia, the son of Amasai, the son of Helcias, 6:46. The son of Amasai, the son of Boni, the son of Somer, 6:47. The son of Moholi, the son of Musi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi. 6:48. Their brethren also the Levites, who were appointed for all the ministry of the tabernacle of the house of the Lord. 6:49. But Aaron and his sons offered burnt offerings upon the altar of holocausts, and upon the altar of incense, for every work of the holy of holies: and to pray for Israel according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded. 6:50. And these are the sons of Aaron: Eleazar his son, Phinees his son, Abisue his son, 6:51. Bocci his son, Ozi his son, Zarahia his son, 6:52. Meraioth his son, Amarias his son, Achitob his son, 6:53. Sadoc his son, Achimaas his son. 6:54. And these are their dwelling places by the towns and confines, to wit, of the sons of Aaron, of the families of the Caathites: for they fell to them by lot. 6:55. And they gave them Hebron in the land of Juda, and the suburbs thereof round about: 6:56. But the fields of the city, and the villages to Caleb son of Jephone. 6:57. And to the sons of Aaron they gave the cities for refuge Hebron, and Lobna, and the suburbs thereof, 6:58. And Jether and Esthemo, with their suburbs, and Helon, and Dabir with their suburbs: 6:59. Asan also, and Bethsames, with their suburbs. 6:60. And out of the tribe of Benjamin: Gabee and its suburbs, Almath with its suburbs, Anathoth also with its suburbs: all their cities throughout their families were thirteen. 6:61. And to the sons of Caath that remained of their kindred they gave out of the half tribe of Manasses ten cities in possession. 6:62. And to the sons of Gerson by their families out of the tribe of Issachar, and out of the tribe of Aser, and out of the tribe of Nephtali, and out of the tribe Manasses in Basan, thirteen cities. 6:63. And to the sons of Merari by their families out of the tribe of Ruben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zabulon, they gave by lot twelve cities. 6:64. And the children of Israel gave to the Levites the cities, and their suburbs. 6:65. And they gave them by lot, out of the tribe of the sons of Juda, and out of the tribe of the sons of Simeon, and out of the tribe of the sons of Benjamin, these cities which they called by their names. 6:66. And to them that were of the kindred of the sons of Caath, and the cities in their borders were of the tribe of Ephraim. 6:67. And they gave the cities of refuge Sichem with its suburbs in mount Ephraim, and Gazer with its suburbs, 6:68. Jecmaan also with its suburbs, and Beth-horon in like manner, 6:69. Helon also with its suburbs, and Gethremmon in like manner, 6:70. And out of the half tribe of Manasses, Aner and its suburbs, Baalam and its suburbs, to wit, to them that were left of the family of the sons of Caath. 6:71. And to the sons of Gersom, out the kindred of the half tribe of Manasses, Gaulon, in Basan, and its suburbs, and Astharoth with its suburbs. 6:72. Out of the tribe of Issachar, Cedes and its suburbs, and Dabereth with its suburbs; 6:73. Ramoth also and its suburbs, and Anem with its suburbs. 6:74. And out of the tribe of Aser: Masal with its suburbs, and Abdon in like manner; 6:75. Hucac also and its suburbs, and Rohol with its suburbs. 6:76. And out of the tribe of Nephtali, Cedes in Galilee and its suburbs, Hamon with its suburbs, and Cariathaim, and its suburbs. 6:77. And to the sons of Merari that remained: out of the tribe of Zabulon, Remmono and its suburbs, and Thabor with its suburbs. 6:78. Beyond the Jordan also over against Jericho, on the east side of the Jordan and out of the tribe of Ruben, Bosor in the wilderness with its suburbs, and Jassa with its suburbs; 6:79. Cademoth also and its suburbs, and Mephaath with its suburbs; 6:80. Moreover also out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Galaad and its suburbs, and Manaim with its suburbs; 6:81. Hesebon also with its suburbs, and Jazer with its suburbs. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 7 Genealogies of Issachar, Benjamin, Nephtali, Manasses, Ephraim, and Aser. 7:1. Now the sons of Issachar were Thola, and Phua, Jasub and Simeron, four. 7:2. The sons of Thola: Ozi and Raphaia, and Jeriel, and Jemai, and Jebsem, and Samuel, chiefs of the houses of their kindreds. Of the posterity of Thola were numbered in the days of David, two and twenty thousand six hundred most valiant men. 7:3. The sons of Ozi: Izrahia, of whom were born Michael, and Obadia, and Joel, and Jesia, five all great men. 7:4. And there were with them by their families and peoples, six and thirty thousand most valiant men ready for war: for they had many wives and children. 7:5. Their brethren also throughout all the house of Issachar, were numbered fourscore and seven thousand most valiant men for war. 7:6. The sons of Benjamin were Bela, and Bechor, and Jadihel, three. 7:7. The sons of Bela: Esbon, and Ozi, and Ozial, and Jerimoth and Urai, five chiefs of their families, and most valiant warriors, and their number was twenty-two thousand and thirty-four. 7:8. And the sons of Bechor were Zamira, and Joas, and Eliezer, and Elioenai, and Amai, and Jerimoth, and Abia, and Anathoth, and Almath: all these were the sons of Bechor. 7:9. And they were numbered by the families, heads of their kindreds, most valiant men for war, twenty thousand and two hundred. 7:10. And the son of Jadihel: Balan. And the sons of Balan: Jehus and Benjamin, and Aod, and Chanana, and Zethan and Tharsis, and Ahisahar. 7:11. All these were sons of Jadihel, heads of their kindreds, most valiant men, seventeen thousand and two hundred fifty to go out to war. 7:12. Sepham also and Hapham the sons of Hir: and Hasim the sons of Aher. 7:13. And the sons of Nephtali were Jasiel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Sellum, sons of Bala. 7:14. And the son of Manasses, Ezriel: and his concubine the Syrian bore Machir the father of Galaad. 7:15. And Machir took wives for his sons Happhim, and Saphan: and he had a sister named Maacha: the name of the second was Salphaad, and Salphaad had daughters. 7:16. And Maacha the wife of Machir bore a son, and she called his name Phares: and the name of his brother was Sares: and his sons were Ulam and Recen. 7:17. And the son of Ulam, Baden. These are the sons of Galaad, the son of Machir, the son of Manasses. 7:18. And his sister named Queen bore Goodlyman, and Abiezer, and Mohola. 7:19. And the sons of Semida were Ahiu, and Sechem, and Leci and Aniam. 7:20. And the sons of Ephraim were Suthala, Bared his son, Thahath his son, Elada his son, Thahath his son, and his son Zabad, 7:21. And his son Suthala, and his son Ezer, and Elad: and the men of Geth born in the land slew them, because they came down to invade their possessions. 7:22. And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him. 7:23. And he went in to his wife: and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Beria, because he was born when it went evil with his house: Beria. . .This name signifies in evil, or in affliction. 7:24. And his daughter was Sara, who built Bethoron, the nether and the upper, and Ozensara. 7:25. And Rapha was his son, and Reseph, and Thale, of whom was born Thaan, 7:26. Who begot Laadan: and his son was Ammiud, who begot Elisama, 7:27. Of whom was born Nun, who had Josue for his son. 7:28. And their possessions and habitations were Bethel with her daughters, and eastward Noran, and westward Gazer and her daughters, Sichem also with her daughters, as far as Asa with her daughters. 7:29. And by the borders of the sons of Manasses Bethsan and her daughters, Thanach and her daughters, Mageddo and her daughters: Dor and her daughters: in these dwelt the children of Joseph, the son of Israel. 7:30. The children of Aser were Jemna, and Jesua, and Jessui, and Baria, and Sara their sister. 7:31. And the sons of Baria: Haber, and Melchiel: he is the father of Barsaith. 7:32. And Heber begot Jephlat, and Somer, and Hotham, and Suaa their sister. 7:33. The sons of Jephlat: Phosech, and Chamaal, and Asoth: these are the sons of Jephlat. 7:34. And the sons of Somer: Ahi, and Roaga and Haba, and Aram. 7:35. And the sons of Helem his brother: Supha, and Jemna, and Selles, and Amal. 7:36. The sons of Supha: Sue, Hernapher, and Sual, and Beri, and Jamra. 7:37. Bosor and Hod, and Samma, and Salusa, and Jethran, and Bera. 7:38. The sons of Jether: Jephone, and Phaspha, and Ara. 7:39. And the sons of Olla: Aree, and Haniel, and Resia. 7:40. All these were sons of Aser, heads of their families, choice and most valiant captains of captains: and the number of them that were of the age that was fit for war, was six and twenty thousand. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 8 The posterity of Benjamin is further declared down to Saul. His issue. 8:1. Now Benjamin begot Bale his firstborn, Asbel the second, Ahara the third, 8:2. Nohaa the fourth, and Rapha the fifth. 8:3. And the sons of Bale were Addar, and Gera, and Abiud, 8:4. And Abisue, and Naaman, and Ahoe, 8:5. And Gera, and Sephuphan, and Huram. 8:6. These are the sons of Abed, heads of families that dwelt in Gabaa, who were removed into Manahath. 8:7. And Naaman, and Achia, and Gera he removed them, and begot Oza, and Ahiud. 8:8. And Saharim begot in the land of Moab, after he sent away Husim and Bara his wives. 8:9. And he begot of Hodes his wife Jobab, and Sebia, and Mosa, and Molchom, 8:10. And Jehus and Sechia, and Marma. These were his sons heads of their families. 8:11. And Mehusim begot Abitob, and Elphaal. 8:12. And the sons of Elphaal were Heber, and Misaam, and Samad: who built Ono, and Lod, and its daughters. 8:13. And Baria, and Sama were heads of their kindreds that dwelt in Aialon: these drove away the inhabitants of Geth. 8:14. And Ahio, and Sesac, and Jerimoth, 8:15. And Zabadia, and Arod, and Heder, 8:16. And Michael, and Jespha, and Joha, the sons of Baria. 8:17. And Zabadia, and Mosollam, Hezeci, and Heber, 8:18. And Jesamari, and Jezlia, and Jobab, sons of Elphaal, 8:19. And Jacim, and Zechri, and Zabdi, 8:20. And Elioenai, and Selethai, and Elial, 8:21. And Adaia, and Baraia, and Samareth, the sons of Semei. 8:22. And Jespham, and Heber, and Eliel, 8:23. And Abdon, and Zechri, and Hanan, 8:24. And Hanania, and Elam, and Anathothia. 8:25. And Jephdaia, and Phanuel the sons of Sesac. 8:26. And Samsari, and Sohoria and Otholia, 8:27. And Jersia, and Elia, and Zechri, the sons of Jeroham. 8:28. These were the chief fathers, and heads of their families who dwelt in Jerusalem. 8:29. And at Gabaon dwelt Abigabaon, and the name of his wife was Maacha: 8:30. And his firstborn son Abdon, and Sur, and Cis, and Baal, and Nadab, 8:31. And Gedor, and Ahio, and Zacher, and Macelloth: 8:32. And Macelloth begot Samaa: and they dwelt over against their brethren in Jerusalem with their brethren. 8:33. And Ner begot Cis and Cis begot Saul. And Saul begot Jonathan and Melchisua, and Abinadab, and Esbaal. Esbaal. . .Alias Isboseth. 8:34. And the son of Jonathan was Meribbaal: and Meribbaal begot Micha. Meribbaal. . .Alias Miphiboseth. 2 Kings 4.4. 8:35. And the sons of Micha were Phithon, and Melech, and Tharaa, and Ahaz. 8:36. And Ahaz begot Joada: and Joada begot Alamath, and Azmoth, and Zamri: and Zamri begot Mosa, 8:37. And Mosa begot Banaa, whose son was Rapha, of whom was born Elasa, who begot Asel. 8:38. And Asel had six sons whose names were Ezricam, Bochru, Ismahel, Saris, Obdia, and Hanan. All these were the sons of Asel. 8:39. And the sons of Esec, his brother, were Ulam the firstborn, and Jehus the second, and Eliphalet the third. 8:40. And the sons of Ulam were most valiant men, and archers of great strength: and they had many sons and grandsons, even to a hundred and fifty. All these were children of Benjamin. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 9 The Israelites, priests, and Levites, who first dwelt in Jerusalem after the captivity. A repetition of the genealogy of Saul. 9:1. And all Israel was numbered: and the sum of them was written in the book of the kings of Israel, and Juda: and they were carried away to Babylon for their transgression. 9:2. Now the first that dwelt in their possessions, and in their cities, were the Israelites, and the priests, and the Levites, and the Nathineans. Nathineans. . .These were the posterity of the Gabaonites, whose office was to bring wood, water, etc., for the service of the temple. 9:3. And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Juda, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim, and of Manasses. 9:4. Othei the son of Ammiud, the son of Amri, the son of Omrai, the son of Bonni of the sons of Phares the son of Juda. 9:5. And of Siloni: Asaia the firstborn, and his sons. 9:6. And of the sons of Zara: Jehuel and their brethren, six hundred and ninety. 9:7. And of the sons of Benjamin: Salo the son of Mosollam, the son of Oduia, the son of Asana: 9:8. And Jobania the son of Jeroham: and Ela the son of Ozi, the son of Mochori and Mosallam the son of Saphatias, the son of Rahuel, the son of Jebania: 9:9. And their brethren by their families, nine hundred and fifty-six. All these were heads of their families, by the houses of their fathers. 9:10. And of the priests: Jedaia, Joiarib, and Jachin: 9:11. And Azarias the son of Helcias, the son of Mosollam, the son of Sadoc, the son of Maraioth, the son of Achitob, high priest of the house of God. 9:12. And Adaias the son of Jeroham, the son of Phassur, the son of Melchias, and Maasai the son of Adiel, the son of Jezra, the son of Mosollam, the son of Mosollamith, the son of Emmer. 9:13. And their brethren heads in their families a thousand seven hundred and threescore, very strong and able men for the work of the ministry in the house of God. 9:14. And of the Levites: Semeia the son of Hassub the son of Ezricam, the son of Hasebia of the sons of Merari. 9:15. And Bacbacar the carpenter, and Galal, and Mathania the son of Micha, the son of Zechri the son of Asaph: 9:16. And Obdia the son of Semeia, the son of Galal, the son of Idithum: and Barachia the son of Asa, the son of Elcana, who dwelt in the suburbs of Netophati. 9:17. And the porters were Sellum, and Accub, and Telmon, and Ahiman: and their brother Sellum was the prince, 9:18. Until that time, in the king's gate eastward, the sons of Levi waited by their turns. 9:19. But Sellum the son of Core, the son of Abiasaph, the son of Core, with his brethren and his father's house, the Corites were over the works of the service, keepers of the gates of the tabernacle: and their families in turns were keepers of the entrance of the camp of the Lord. 9:20. And Phinees the son of Eleazar, was their prince before the Lord, 9:21. And Zacharias the son of Mosollamia, was porter of the gate of the tabernacle of the testimony: 9:22. All these that were chosen to be porters at the gates, were two hundred and twelve: the they were registered in their proper towns: whom David and Samuel the seer appointed in their trust. 9:23. As well them as their sons, to keep the gates of the house of the Lord, and the tabernacle by their turns. 9:24. In four quarters were the porters: that is to say, toward the east, and west, and north, and south. 9:25. And their brethren dwelt in village, and came upon their sabbath days from time to time. 9:26. To these four Levites were committed the whole number of the porters, and they were over the chambers, and treasures, of the house of the Lord. 9:27. And they abode in their watches round about the temple of the Lord: that when it was time, they might open the gates in the morning. 9:28. And some of their stock had the charge of the vessels for the ministry: for the vessels were both brought in and carried out by number. 9:29. Some of them also had the instruments of the sanctuary committed unto them, and the charge of the fine flour, and wine, and oil, and frankincense, and spices. 9:30. And the sons of the priests made the ointments of the spices. 9:31. And Mathathias a Levite, the firstborn of Sellum the Corite, was overseer of such things as were fried the fryingpan. 9:32. And some of the sons of Caath their brethren, were over the loaves of proposition, to prepare always new for every sabbath. 9:33. These are the chief of the singing men of the families of the Levites, who dwelt in the chambers, by the temple, that they might serve continually day and night in their ministry. 9:34. The heads of the Levites, princes in their families, abode in Jerusalem. 9:35. And in Gabaon dwelt Jehiel the father of Gabaon, and the name of his wife was Maacha: 9:36. His firstborn son Abdon, and Sur, and Cis, and Baal, and Ner, and Nadab, 9:37. Gedor also, and Ahio, and Zacharias, and Macelloth. 9:38. And Macelloth begot Samaan: these dwelt over against their brethren in Jerusalem, with their brethren. 9:39. Now Ner begot Cis: and Cis begot Saul: and Saul begot Jonathan and Melchisua, and Abinadab, and Esbaal. 9:40. And the son of Jonathan, was Meribbaal: and Meribbaal begot Micha. 9:41. And the sons of Micha, were Phithon, and Melech, and Tharaa, and Ahaz. 9:42. And Ahaz begot Jara, and Jara begot Alamath, and Azmoth, and Zamri. And Zamri begot Mosa. 9:43. And Mosa begot Banaa: whose son Raphaia begot Elasa: of whom was born Asel. 9:44. And Asel had six sons whose names are, Ezricam Bochru, Ismahel, Saria, Obdia, Hanan: these are the sons of Asel. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 10 Saul is slain for his sins: he is buried by the men of Jabes. 10:1. Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down wounded in mount Gelboe. 10:2. And the Philistines drew near pursuing after Saul, and his sons, and they killed Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua the sons of Saul. 10:3. And the battle grew hard against Saul and the archers reached him, and wounded him with arrows. 10:4. And Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and mock me. But his armourbearer would not, for he was struck with fear: so Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. 10:5. And when his armourbearer saw it, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died. 10:6. So Saul died, and his three sons, and all his house fell together. 10:7. And when the men of Israel, that dwelt in the plains, saw this, they fled: and Saul and his sons being dead, they forsook their cities, and were scattered up and down: and the Philistines came, and dwelt in them. 10:8. And the next day the Philistines taking away the spoils of them that were slain, found Saul and his sons lying on mount Gelboe. 10:9. And when they had stripped him, and out off his head, and taken away his armour, they sent it into their land, to be carried about, and shewn in the temples of the idols and to the people. 10:10. And his armour they dedicated in the temple of their god, and his head they fastened up in the temple of Dagon. 10:11. And when the men of Jabes Galaad had heard this, to wit, all that the Philistines had done to Saul, 10:12. All the valiant men of them arose, and took the bodies of Saul and of his sons, and brought them to Jabes, and buried their bones under the oak that was in Jabes, and they fasted seven days. 10:13. So Saul died for his iniquities, because he transgressed the commandment of the Lord, which he had commanded, and kept it not: and moreover consulted also a witch, 10:14. And trusted not in the Lord: therefore he slew him, and transferred his kingdom to David the son of Isai. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 11 David is made king. He taketh the castle of Sion. A catalogue of his valiant men. 11:1. Then all Israel gathered themselves to David in Hebron, saying: We are thy bone, and thy flesh. 11:2. Yesterday also, and the day before when Saul was king, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: for the Lord thy God said to thee: Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over them. 11:3. So all the ancients of Israel came to the king to Hebron, and David made a covenant with them before the Lord: and they anointed him king over Israel according to the word of the Lord which he spoke in the hand of Samuel. 11:4. And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus, where the Jebusites were the inhabitants of the land. 11:5. And the inhabitants of Jebus said to David: Thou shalt not come in here. But David took the castle of Sion, which is the city of David. 11:6. And he said: Whosoever shall first strike the Jebusites, shall be the head and chief captain. And Joab the son of Sarvia went up first, and was made the general. 11:7. And David dwelt in the castle, and therefore it was called the city of David, 11:8. And he built the city round about from Mello all round, and Joab built the rest of the city. 11:9. And David went on growing and increasing, and the Lord of hosts was with him. 11:10. These are the chief of the valiant man of David, who helped him to be made king over all Israel, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Israel. 11:11. And this is the number of the heroes of David: Jesbaam the son of Hachamoni the chief among the thirty: he lifted up his spear against three hundred wounded by him at one time. 11:12. And after him was Eleazar his uncle's son the Ahohite, who was one of the three mighties. 11:13. He was with David in Phesdomim, when the Philistines were gathered to that place to battle: and the field of that country was full of barley, and the people fled from before the Philistines. 11:14. But these men stood in the midst of the field, and defended it: and they slew the Philistines, and the Lord gave a great deliverance to his people. 11:15. And three of the thirty captains went down to the rock, wherein David was, to the cave of Odollam, when the Philistines encamped in the valley of Raphaim. 11:16. And David was in a hold, and the garrison of the Philistines in Bethlehem. 11:17. And David longed, and said: O that some man would give me water of the cistern of Bethlehem, which is in the gate. 11:18. And these three broke through the midst of the camp of the Philistines, and drew water out of the cistern of Bethlehem, which was in the gate, and brought it to David to drink: and he would not drink of it, but rather offered it to the Lord, 11:19. Saying: God forbid that I should do this in the sight of my God, and should drink the blood of these men: for with the danger of their lives they have brought me the water. And therefore he would not drink. These things did the three most valiant. 11:20. And Abisai the brother of Joab, he was chief of three, and he lifted up his spear against three hundred whom he slew, and he was renowned among the three, 11:21. And illustrious among the second three, and their captain: but yet he attained not to the first three. 11:22. Banaias the son of Joiada a most valiant man, of Cabseel, who had done many acts: he slew the two ariels of Moab: and he went down, and killed a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow. Two ariels. . .That is, two lions, or lion-like men; for Ariel in Hebrew signifies a lion. 11:23. And he slew an Egyptian, whose stature was of five cubits, and who had a spear like a weaver's beam: and he went down to him with a staff, and plucked away the spear, that he held in his hand, and slew him with his own spear. 11:24. These things did Banaias the son of Joiada, who was renowned among the three valiant ones, 11:25. And the first among the thirty, but yet to the three he attained not: and David made him of his council. 11:26. Moreover the most valiant men of the army, were Asahel brother of Joab, and Elchanan the son of his uncle of Bethlehem, 11:27. Sammoth an Arorite, Helles a Phalonite, 11:28. Ira the son of Acces a Thecuite, Abiezer an Anathothite, 11:29. Sobbochai a Husathite, Ilai an Ahohite, 11:30. Maharai a Netophathite, Heled the son of Baana a Netophathite, 11:31. Ethai the son of Ribai of Gabaath of the sons of Benjamin, Banai a Pharathonite, 11:32. Hurai of the torrent Gaas, Abiel an Arbathite, Azmoth a Bauramite, Eliaba a Salabonite, 11:33. The sons of Assem a Gezonite, Jonathan the son of Sage an Ararite, 11:34. Ahiam the son of Sachar an Ararite, 11:35. Eliphal the son of Ur, 11:36. Hepher a Mecherathite, Ahia a Phelonite, 11:37. Hesro a Carmelite, Naarai the son of Azbai, 11:38. Joel the brother of Nathan, Mibahar the son of Agarai. 11:39. Selec an Ammonite, Naharai a Berothite, the armourbearer of Joab the son of Sarvia. 11:40. Ira a Jethrite, Gareb a Jethrite, 11:41. Urias a Hethite, Zabad the son of Oholi, 11:42. Adina the son of Siza a Rubenite the prince of the Rubenites, and thirty with him: 11:43. Hanan the son of Maacha, and Josaphat a Mathanite, 11:44. Ozia an Astarothite, Samma, and Jehiel the sons of Hotham an Arorite, 11:45. Jedihel the son of Zamri, and Joha his brother a Thosaite, 11:46. Eliel a Mahumite, and Jeribai, and Josaia the sons of Elnaim, and Jethma a Moabite, Eliel, and Obed, and Jasiel of Masobia. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 12 Who followed David when he fled from Saul. And who came to Hebron to make him king. 12:1. Now these are they that came to David to Siceleg, while he yet fled from Saul the son of Cis, and they were most valiant and excellent warriors, 12:2. Bending the bow, and using either hand in hurling stones with slings, and shooting arrows: of the brethren of Saul of Benjamin. 12:3. The chief was Ahiezer, and Joas, the sons of Samoa of Gabaath, and Jaziel, and Phallet the sons of Azmoth, and Beracha, and Jehu an Anathothite. 12:4. And Samaias of Gabaon, the stoutest amongst the thirty and over the thirty; Jeremias, and Jeheziel and Johanan, and Jozabad of Gaderoth; 12:5. And Eluzai, and Jerimuth, and Baalia, and Samaria, and Saphatia the Haruphite; 12:6. Elcana, and Jesia, and Azareel, and Joezer, and Jesbaam of Carehim: 12:7. And Joela, and Zabadia the sons of Jeroham of Gedor. 12:8. From Gaddi also there went over to David, when he lay hid in the wilderness most valiant men, and excellent warriors, holding shield and spear: whose faces were like the faces of a lion, and they were swift like the roebucks on the mountains. 12:9. Ezer the chief, Obdias the second, Eliab the third, 12:10. Masmana the fourth, Jeremias the fifth, 12:11. Ethi the sixth, Eliel the seventh, 12:12. Johanan the eighth, Elzebad the ninth, 12:13. Jerenias the tenth, Machbani the eleventh, 12:14. These were of the sons of Gad, captains of the army: the least of them was captain over a hundred soldiers, and the greatest over a thousand. 12:15. These are they who passed over the Jordan in the first month, when it is used to flow over its banks: and they put to flight all that dwelt in the valleys both toward the east and toward the west. 12:16. And there came also of the men of Benjamin, and of Juda to the hold, in which David abode. 12:17. And David went out to meet them, and said: If you are come peaceably to me to help me, let my heart be joined to you: but if you plot against me for my enemies whereas I have no iniquity in my hands, let the God of our fathers see, and judge. 12:18. But the spirit came upon Amasai the chief among thirty, and he said: We are thine, O David, and for thee, O son of Isai: peace, peace be to thee, and peace to thy helpers. For thy God helpeth thee. So David received them, and made them captains of the band. 12:19. And there were some of Manasses that went over to David, when he came with the Philistines against Saul to fight: but he did not fight with them: because the lords of the Philistines taking counsel sent him back, saying: With the danger of our heads he will return to his master Saul. 12:20. So when he went back to Siceleg, there fled to him of Manasses, Ednas and Jozabad, and Jedihel, and Michael, and Ednas, and Jozabad, and Eliu, and Salathi, captains of thousands in Manasses. 12:21. These helped David against the rovers: for they were all most valiant men, and were made commanders in the army. 12:22. Moreover day by day there came some to David to help him till they became a great number, like the army of God. 12:23. And this is the number of the chiefs of the army who came to David, when he was in Hebron, to transfer to him the kingdom of Saul, according to the word of the Lord. 12:24. The sons of Juda bearing shield and spear, six thousand eight hundred well appointed to war. 12:25. Of the sons of Simeon valiant men for war, seven thousand one hundred. 12:26. Of the sons of Levi, four thousand six hundred. 12:27. And Joiada prince of the race of Aaron, and with him three thousand seven hundred. 12:28. Sadoc also a young man of excellent disposition, and the house of his father, twenty-two principal men. 12:29. And of the sons of Benjamin the brethren of Saul, three thousand: for hitherto a great part of them followed the house of Saul. 12:30. And of the sons of Ephraim twenty thousand eight hundred, men of great valour renowned in their kindreds. 12:31. And of the half tribe of Manasses, eighteen thousand, every one by their names, came to make David king. 12:32. Also of the sons of Issachar men of understanding, that knew all times to order what Israel should do, two hundred principal men: and all the rest of the tribe followed their counsel. 12:33. And of Zabulon such as went forth to battle, and stood in array well appointed with armour for war, there came fifty thousand to his aid, with no double heart. 12:34. And of Nephtali, a thousand leaders: and with them seven and thirty thousand, furnished with shield and spear. 12:35. Of Dan also twenty-eight thousand six hundred prepared for battle. 12:36. And of Aser forty thousand going forth to fight, and challenging in battle. 12:37. And on the other side of the Jordan of the sons of Ruben, and of Gad, and of the half of the tribe of Manasses a hundred and twenty thousand, furnished with arms for war. 12:38. All these men of war well appointed to fight, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel, were of one heart to make David king. 12:39. And they were there with David three days eating and drinking: for their brethren had prepared for them. 12:40. Moreover they that were near them even as far as Issachar, and Zabulon, and Nephtali, brought loaves on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, to eat: meal, figs, raisins, wine, oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance, for there was joy in Israel. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 13 The ark is brought from Cariathiarim. Oza for touching it is struck dead. 13:1. David consulted with the captains of thousands, and of hundreds, and with all the commanders. 13:2. And he said to all the assembly of Israel: If it please you; and if the words which I speak come from the Lord our God, let us send to the rest of our brethren into all the countries of Israel, and to the priests, and the Levites, that dwell in the suburbs of the cities, to gather themselves to us, 13:3. And let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we sought it not in the days of Saul. 13:4. And all the multitude answered that it should be so: for the word pleased all the people. 13:5. So David assembled all Israel from Sihor of Egypt, even to the entering into Emath, to bring the ark of God from Cariathiarim. 13:6. And David went up with all the men of Israel to the hill of Cariathiarim which is in Juda, to bring thence the ark of the Lord God sitting upon the cherubims, where his name is called upon. 13:7. And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart out of the house of Abinadab. And Oza and his brother drove the cart. 13:8. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might with hymns, and with harps, and with psalteries, and timbrels, and cymbals, and trumpets, 13:9. And when they came to the floor of Chidon, Oza put forth his hand, to hold up the ark: for the ox being wanton had made it lean a little on one side. 13:10. And the Lord was angry with Oza, and struck him, because he had touched the ark; and he died there before the Lord. 13:11. And David was troubled because the Lord had divided Oza: and he called that place the Breach of Oza to this day. 13:12. And he feared God at that time, saying: How can I bring in the ark of God to me? 13:13. And therefore he brought it not home to himself, that is, into the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obededom the Gethite. 13:14. And the ark of God remained in the house of Obededom three months: and the Lord blessed his house, and all that he had. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 14 David's house, and children: his victories over the Philistines. 14:1. And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and masons, and carpenters, to build him a house. 14:2. And David perceived that the Lord had confirmed him king over Israel, and that his kingdom was exalted over his people Israel. 14:3. And David took other wives in Jerusalem: and he begot sons, and daughters. 14:4. Now these are the names of them that were born to him in Jerusalem: Samua, and Sobad, Nathan, and Solomon, 14:5. Jebahar, and Elisua, and Eliphalet, 14:6. And Noga, and Napheg, and Japhia, 14:7. Elisama, and Baaliada, and Eliphalet. 14:8. And the Philistines hearing that David was anointed king over all Israel, went all up to seek him: and David heard of it, and went out against them. 14:9. And the Philistines came and spread themselves in the vale of Raphaim. 14:10. And David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up against the Philistines, and wilt thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said to him: Go up, and I will deliver them into thy hand. 14:11. And when they were come to Baalpharasim, David defeated them there, and he said: God hath divided my enemies by my hand, as waters are divided: and therefore the name of that place was called Baalpharasim. 14:12. And they left there their gods, and David commanded that they should be burnt. 14:13. Another time also the Philistines made an irruption, and spread themselves abroad in the valley. 14:14. And David consulted God again, and God said to him: Go not up after them, turn away from them, and come upon them over against the pear trees. 14:15. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one going in the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou go out to battle. For God is gone out before thee to strike the army of the Philistines. 14:16. And David did as God had commanded him, and defeated the army of the Philistines, slaying them from Gabaon to Gazera. 14:17. And the name of David became famous in all countries, and the Lord made all nations fear aim. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 15 The ark is brought into the city of David, with great solemnity. Michol derideth David's devotion. 15:1. He made also houses for himself in the city of David: and built a place for the ark of God, and pitched a tabernacle for it. 15:2. Then David said: No one ought to carry the ark of God, but the Levites, whom the Lord hath chosen to carry it, and to minister unto himself for ever. 15:3. And he gathered all Israel together into Jerusalem, that the ark of God might be brought into its place, which he had prepared for it. 15:4. And the sons of Aaron also, and the Levites. 15:5. Of the children of Caath, Uriel was the chief, and his brethren a hundred and twenty. 15:6. Of the sons of Merari, Asaia the chief, and his brethren two hundred and twenty. 15:7. Of the sons of Gersom, Joel the chief, and his brethren a hundred and thirty. 15:8. Of the sons of Elisaphan, Semeias the chief: and his brethren two hundred. 15:9. Of the sons of Hebron, Eliel the chief: and his brethren eighty. 15:10. Of the sons of Oziel, Aminadab the chief: and his brethren a hundred and twelve. 15:11. And David called Sadoc, and Abiathar the priests, and the Levites, Uriel, Asaia, Joel, Semeia, Eliel, and Aminadab: 15:12. And he said to them: You that are the heads of the Levitical families, be sanctified with your brethren, and bring the ark of the Lord the God of Israel to the place, which is prepared for it: 15:13. Lest as the Lord at first struck us, because you were not present, the same should now also come to pass, by our doing some thing against the law. 15:14. So the priests and the Levites were sanctified, to carry the ark of the Lord the God of Israel. 15:15. And the sons of Levi took the ark of God as Moses had commanded, according to the word of the Lord, upon their shoulders, with the staves. 15:16. And David spoke to the chiefs of the Levites, to appoint some of their brethren to be singers with musical instruments, to wit, on psalteries, and harps, and cymbals, that the joyful noise might resound on high. 15:17. And they appointed Levites, Hemam the son of Joel, and of his brethren Asaph the son of Barachias: and of the sons of Merari, their brethren: Ethan the son of Casaia. 15:18. And with them their brethren: in the second rank, Zacharias, and Ben, and Jaziel, and Semiramoth, and Jahiel, and Ani, and Eliab, and Banaias, and Maasias, and Mathathias, and Eliphalu, and Macenias, and Obededom, and Jehiel, the porters. 15:19. Now the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, sounded with cymbals of brass. 15:20. And Zacharias, and Oziel, and Semiramoth, and Jehiel, and Ani, and Eliab, and Maasias, and Banaias, sung mysteries upon psalteries. 15:21. And Mathathias, and Eliphalu, and Macenias and Obededom, and Jehiel and Ozaziu, sung a song of victory for the octave upon harps. 15:22. And Chonenias chief of the Levites, presided over the prophecy, to give out the tunes: for he was very skilful. The prophecy, to give out the tunes. . .Singing praises to God is here called prophecy: the more, because these singers were often inspired men. 15:23. And Barachias, and Elcana, were doorkeepers of the ark. 15:24. And Sebenias, and Josaphat, and Nathanael, and Amasai, and Zacharias, and Banaias, and Eliezer the priests, sounded with trumpets, before the ark of God: and Obededom and Jehias were porters of the ark. 15:25. So David and all the ancients of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obededom with joy. 15:26. And when God had helped the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, they offered in sacrifice seven oxen, and seven rams. 15:27. And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that carried the ark, and the singing men, and Chonenias the ruler of the prophecy among the singers: and David also had on him an ephod of linen. 15:28. And all Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and sounding with the sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and cymbals, and psalteries, and harps. 15:29. And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was come to the city of David, Michol the daughter of Saul looking out at a window, saw king David dancing and playing, and she despised him in her heart. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 16 The ark is placed in the tabernacle. Sacrifice is offered. David blesseth the people, disposeth the offices of Levites, and maketh a psalm of praise to God. 16:1. So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent, which David had pitched for it: and they offered holocausts, and peace offerings before God. 16:2. And when David had made an end of offering holocausts, and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord. 16:3. And he divided to all and every one, both men and women, a loaf of bread, and a piece of roasted beef, and flour fried with oil. 16:4. And he appointed Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to remember his works, and to glorify, and praise the Lord God of Israel. 16:5. Asaph the chief, and next after him Zacharias: moreover Jahiel, and Semiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mathathias, and Eliab, and Banaias, and Obededom: and Jehiel over the instruments of psaltery, and harps: and Asaph sounded with cymbals: 16:6. But Banaias, and Jaziel the priests, to sound the trumpet continually before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 16:7. In that day David made Asaph the chief to give praise to the Lord with his brethren. 16:8. Praise ye the Lord, and call upon his name: make known his doings among the nations. 16:9. Sing to him, yea, sing praises to him: and relate all his wondrous works. 16:10. Praise ye his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice, that seek the Lord. 16:11. Seek ye the Lord, and his power: seek ye his face evermore. 16:12. Remember his wonderful works, which he hath done: his signs, and the judgments of his mouth. 16:13. O ye seed of Israel his servants, ye children of Jacob his chosen. 16:14. He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth. 16:15. Remember for ever his covenant: the word, which he commanded to a thousand generations. 16:16. The covenant which he made with Abraham: and his oath to Isaac. 16:17. And he appointed the same to Jacob for a precept: and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: 16:18. Saying: To thee will I give the land of Chanaan: the lot of your inheritance. 16:19. When they were but a small number: very few and sojourners in it. 16:20. And they passed from nation to nation: and from a kingdom to another people. 16:21. He suffered no man to do them wrong: and reproved kings for their sake. 16:22. Touch not my anointed: and do no evil to my prophets. 16:23. Sing ye to the Lord, all the earth: shew forth from day to day his salvation. 16:24. Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people. 16:25. For the Lord is great and exceedingly to be praised: and he is to be feared above all gods. 16:26. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens. 16:27. Praise and magnificence are before him: strength and joy in his place. 16:28. Bring ye to the Lord, O ye families of the nations: bring ye to the Lord glory and empire. 16:29. Give to the Lord glory to his name, bring up sacrifice, and come ye in his sight: and adore the Lord in holy becomingness. 16:30. Let all the earth be moved at his presence: for he hath founded the world immoveable. 16:31. Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad: and let them say among the nations: The Lord hath reigned. 16:32. Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all things that are in them. 16:33. Then shall the trees of the wood give praise before the Lord: because he is come to judge the earth. 16:34. Give ye glory to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 16:35. And say ye: Save us, O God our savior: and gather us together, and deliver us from the nations, that we may give glory to thy holy name, and may rejoice in singing thy praises. 16:36. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity: and let all the people say Amen, and a hymn to God. 16:37. So he left there before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, Asaph and his brethren to minister in the presence of the ark continually day by day, and in their courses. 16:38. And Obededom, with his brethren sixty-eight: and Obededom the son of Idithun, and Hosa he appointed to be porters. 16:39. And Sadoc the priest, and his brethren priests, before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place, which was in Gabaon. 16:40. That they should offer holocausts to the Lord upon the altar of holocausts continually, morning and evening, according to all that is written in the law of the Lord, which he commanded Israel. 16:41. And after him Heman, and Idithun, and the rest that were chosen, every one by his name to give praise to the Lord: because his mercy endureth for ever. 16:42. And Heman and Idithun sounded the trumpet, and played on the cymbals, and all kinds of musical instruments to sing praises to God: and the sons of Idithun he made porters. 16:43. And all the people returned to their houses: and David to bless also his own house. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 17 David's purpose to build a temple, is rewarded by most ample promises: David's thanksgiving. 17:1. Now when David was dwelling in his house, he said to Nathan the prophet: Behold I dwell in a house of cedar: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under skins. 17:2. And Nathan said to David: Do all that is in thy heart: for God is with thee. 17:3. Now that night the word of God came to Nathan, saying: 17:4. Go, and speak to David my servant: Thus saith the Lord: Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in. 17:5. For I have not remained in a house from the time that I brought up Israel, to this day: but I have been always changing places in a tabernacle, and in a tent, 17:6. Abiding with all Israel. Did I ever speak to any one, of all the judges of Israel whom I charged to feed my people, saying: Why have you not built me a house of cedar? 17:7. Now therefore thus shalt thou say to my servant David: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I took thee from the pastures, from following the flock, that thou shouldst be ruler of my people Israel. 17:8. And I have been with thee whithersoever thou hast gone: and have slain all thy enemies before thee, and have made thee a name like that of one of the great ones that are renowned in the earth. 17:9. And I have given a place my people Israel: they shall be planted, and shall dwell therein, and shall be moved no more, neither shall the children of iniquity waste them, as at the beginning, 17:10. Since the days that I gave judges to my people Israel, and have humbled all thy enemies. And I declare to thee, that the Lord will build thee a house. 17:11. And when thou shalt have ended thy days to go to thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons: and I will establish his kingdom. 17:12. He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever. 17:13. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee. 17:14. But I will settle him in my house, and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be most firm for ever. 17:15. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David. 17:16. And king David came and sat before the Lord, and said: Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou shouldst give such things to me? 17:17. But even this hath seemed little in thy sight, and therefore thou hast also spoken concerning the house of thy servant for the time to come: and hast made me remarkable above all men, O Lord God. 17:18. What can David add more, seeing thou hast thus glorified thy servant, and known him? 17:19. O Lord, for thy servant's sake, according to thy own heart, thou hast shewn all this magnificence, and wouldst have all the great things to be known. 17:20. O Lord there is none like thee: and here is no other God beside thee, of all whom we have heard of with our ears. 17:21. For what other nation is there upon earth like thy people Israel, whom God went to deliver, and make a people for himself, and by his greatness and terrors cast out nations before their face whom he had delivered out of Egypt? 17:22. And thou hast made thy people Israel to be thy own people for ever, and thou, O Lord, art become their God. 17:23. Now therefore, O Lord, let the word which thou hast spoken to thy servant, and concerning his house, be established for ever, and do as thou hast said. 17:24. And let thy name remain and be magnified for ever: and let it be said: The Lord of hosts is God of Israel, and the house of David his servant remaineth before him. 17:25. For thou, O Lord my God, hast revealed to the ear of thy servant, that thou wilt build him a house: and therefore thy servant hath found confidence to pray before thee. 17:26. And now O Lord, thou art God: and thou hast promised to thy servant such great benefits. 17:27. And thou hast begun to bless the house of thy servant, that it may be always before thee: for seeing thou blessest it, O Lord, it shall be blessed for ever. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 18 David's victories. His chief officers. 18:1. And it came to pass after this, that David defeated the Philistines, and humbled them, and took away Geth, and her daughters out of the hands of the Philistines, 18:2. And he defeated Moab, and the Moabites were made David's servants, and brought him gifts. 18:3. At that time David defeated also Adarezer king of Soba of the land of Hemath, when he went to extend his dominions as far as the river Euphrates. 18:4. And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen, and he houghed all the chariot horses, only a hundred chariots, which he reserved for himself. 18:5. And the Syrians of Damascus came also to help Adarezer king of Soba: and David slew of them likewise two and twenty thousand men. 18:6. And he put a garrison in Damascus, that Syria also should serve him, and bring gifts. And the Lord assisted him in all things to which he went. 18:7. And David took the golden quivers which the servants of Adarezer had, and he brought them to Jerusalem. 18:8. Likewise out of Thebath and Chun, cities of Adarezer, he brought very much brass, of which Solomon made the brazen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass. 18:9. Now when Thou king of Hemath heard that David had defeated all the army of Adarezer king of Soba, 18:10. He sent Adoram his son to king David to desire peace of him, and to congratulate him that he had defeated and overthrown Adarezer: for Thou was an enemy to Adarezer. 18:11. And all the vessels of gold, and silver and brass king David consecrated to the Lord, with the silver and gold which he had taken from all the nations, as well from Edom, and from Moab, and from the sons of Ammon, as from the Philistines, and from Amalec. 18:12. And Abisai the son of Sarvia slew of the Edomites in the vale of the saltpits, eighteen thousand: 18:13. And he put a garrison in Edom, that Edom should serve David: and the Lord preserved David in all things to which he went. 18:14. So David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice among all his people. 18:15. And Joab the son of Sarvia was over the army, and Josaphat the son of Ahilud recorder. 18:16. And Sadoc the son of Achitob, and Achimelech the son of Abiathar, were the priests: and Susa, scribe. 18:17. And Banaias the son of Joiada was over the bands of the Cerethi, and the Phelethi: and the sons of David were chief about the king. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 19 The Ammonites abuse David's ambassadors: both they and their confederates are overthrown. 19:1. Now it came to pass that Naas the king of the children of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his stead. 19:2. And David said: I will shew kindness to Hanon the son of Naas: for his father did a favour tome. And David sent messengers to comfort him upon the death of his father. But when they were come into the land of the children of Ammon, to comfort Hanon, 19:3. The princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanon: Thou thinkest perhaps that David to do honour to thy father hath sent comforters to thee: and thou dost not take notice, that his servants are come to thee to consider, and search, and spy out thy land. 19:4. Wherefore Hanon shaved the heads and beards of the servants of David, and cut away their garments from the buttocks to the feet, and sent them away. 19:5. And when they were gone, they sent word to David, who sent to meet them (for they had suffered a great affront) and ordered them to stay at Jericho till their beards grew and then to return. 19:6. And when the children of Ammon saw that they had done an injury to David, Hanon and the rest of the people sent a thousand talents of silver, to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia and out of Syria Maacha, and out of Soba. 19:7. And they hired two and thirty thousand chariots, and the king of Maacha, with his people. And they came and camped over against Medaba. And the children of Ammon gathered themselves together out of their cities, and came to battle. 19:8. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab, and all the army of valiant men: 19:9. And the children of Ammon came out and put their army in array before the gate of the city: and the kings, that were come to their aid, stood apart in the field. 19:10. Wherefore Joab understanding that the battle was set against him before and behind, chose out the bravest men of all Israel, and marched against the Syrians, 19:11. And the rest of the people he delivered into the hand of Abisai his brother, and they went against the children of Ammon. 19:12. And he said: If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me: but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, I will help thee. 19:13. Be of good courage and let us behave ourselves manfully for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the Lord will do that which is good in his sight. 19:14. So Joab and the people that were with him, went against the Syrians to the battle: and he put them to flight. 19:15. And the children of Ammon seeing that the Syrians were fled, they likewise fled from Abisai his brother, and went into the city: and Joab also returned to Jerusalem. 19:16. But the Syrians seeing that they had fallen before Israel, sent messengers, and brought to them the Syrians that were beyond the river: and Sophach, general of the army of Adarezer, was their leader. 19:17. And it was told David, and he gathered together all Israel, and passed the Jordan, and came upon them, and put his army in array against them, and they fought with him. 19:18. But the Syrian fled before Israel: and David slew of the Syrians seven thousand chariots, and forty thousand footmen, and Sophach the general of the army. Seven thousand chariots. . .That is, of men who fought in chariots. 19:19. And when the servants of Adarezer saw themselves overcome by Israel, they went over to David, and served him: and Syria would not help the children of Ammon any more. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 20 Rabba is taken. Other victories over the Philistines. 20:1. And it came to pass after the course of a year, at the time that kings go out to battle, Joab gathered together an army and the strength of the troops, and wasted the land of the children of Ammon: and went and besieged Rabba. But David stayed at Jerusalem, when Joab smote Rabba, and destroyed it. 20:2. And David took the crown of Melchom from his head, and found in it a talent weight of gold, and most precious stones, and he made himself a diadem of it: he took also the spoils of the city which were very great. 20:3. And the people that were therein he brought out: and made harrows, and sleds, and chariots of iron to go over them, so that they were cut and bruised to pieces: in this manner David dealt with all the cities of the children of Ammon: and he returned with all his people to Jerusalem. 20:4. After this there arose a war at Gazer against the Philistines: in which Sabachai the Husathite slew Saphai of the race of Raphaim, and humbled them. 20:5. Another battle also was fought against the Philistines, in which Adeodatus the son of Saltus a Bethlehemite slew the brother of Goliath the Gethite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 20:6. There was another battle also in Geth, in which there was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand and foot: who also was born of the stock of Rapha. 20:7. He reviled Israel: but Jonathan the son of Samaa the brother of David slew him. These were the sons of Rapha in Geth, who fell by the hand of David and his servants. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 21 David's sin in numbering the people is punished by a pestilence: which ceaseth upon his offering sacrifice in the thrashingfloor of Ornan. 21:1. And Satan rose up against Israel: and moved David to number Israel. 21:2. And David said to Joab, and to the rulers of the people: Go, and number Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, and bring me the number of them that I may know it. 21:3. And Joab answered: The Lord make his people a hundred times more than they are: but, my lord the king, are they not all thy servants: why doth my lord seek this thing, which may be imputed as a sin to Israel? 21:4. But the king's word rather prevailed: and Joab departed, and went through all Israel: and returned to Jerusalem. 21:5. And he gave David the number of them, whom he had surveyed: and all the number of Israel was found to be eleven hundred thousand men that drew the sword: and of Juda four hundred and seventy thousand fighting men. The number, etc. . .The difference of the numbers here and 2 Kings 24. is to be accounted for, by supposing the greater number to be that which was really found, and the lesser to be that which Joab gave in. 21:6. But Levi and Benjamin he did not number: for Joab unwillingly executed the king's orders. 21:7. And God was displeased with this thing that was commanded: and he struck Israel. 21:8. And David said to God: I have sinned exceedingly in doing this: I beseech thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done foolishly. 21:9. And the Lord spoke to Gad the seer of David, saying: 21:10. Go, and speak to David, and tell him: Thus saith the Lord: I give thee the choice of three things: choose one which thou wilt, and I will do it to thee. 21:11. And when Gad was come to David, he said to him: Thus saith the Lord: choose which thou wilt: 21:12. Either three years famine: or three months to flee from thy enemies, and not to be able to escape their sword: or three days to have the sword of the Lord, and pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying in all the coasts of Israel: now therefore see what I shall answer him who sent me. Three years famine. . .Which joined with the three foregoing years of famine mentioned, 2 Kings 21. and the seventh year of the land's resting, would make up the seven years proposed by the prophet, 2 Kings 24.13. 21:13. And David said to Gad: I am on every side in a great strait: but it is better for me to fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are many, than into the hands of men. 21:14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel. And there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 21:15. And he sent an angel to Jerusalem, to strike it: and as he was striking it, the Lord beheld, and took pity for the greatness of the evil: and said to the angel that destroyed: It is enough, now stop thy hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. Ornan. . .Otherwise Areuna. 21:16. And David lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand, turned against Jerusalem: and both he and the ancients clothed in haircloth, fell down flat on the ground. 21:17. And David said to God: Am not I he that commanded the people to be numbered? It is I that have sinned: it is I that have done the evil: but as for this flock, what hath it deserved? O Lord my God, let thy hand be turned, I beseech thee, upon me, and upon my father's house: and let not thy people be destroyed. 21:18. And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David, to go up, and build an altar to the Lord God in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. 21:19. And David went up, according to the word of Gad, which he spoke to him in the name of the Lord. 21:20. Now when Ornan looked up, and saw the angel, he and his four sons hid themselves: for at that time he was thrashing wheat in the floor. 21:21. And as David was coming to Ornan, Ornan saw him, and went out of the thrashingfloor to meet him, and bowed down to him with his face to the ground. 21:22. And David said to him: Give me this place of thy thrashingfloor, that I may build therein an altar to the Lord: but thou shalt take of me as much money as it is worth, that the plague may cease from the people. 21:23. And Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the king do all that pleaseth him: and moreover the oxen also I give for a holocaust, and the drays for wood, and the wheat for the sacrifice: I will give it all willingly. 21:24. And king David said to him: It shall not be so, but I will give thee money as much as it is worth: for I must not take it from thee, and so offer to the Lord holocausts free cost. 21:25. So David gave to Ornan for the place, six hundred sicles of gold of just weight. Six hundred sicles, etc. . .This was the price of the whole place, on which the temple was afterwards built; but the price of the oxen was fifty sicles of silver. 2 Kings 24.24. 21:26. And he built there an altar to the Lord: and he offered holocausts, and peace offerings, and he called upon the Lord, and he heard him by sending fire from heaven upon the altar of the holocaust. 21:27. And the Lord commanded the angel: and he put up his sword again into the sheath. 21:28. And David seeing that the Lord had heard him in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, forthwith offered victims there. 21:29. But the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the desert, and the altar of holocausts, was at that time in the high place of Gabaon. 21:30. And David could not go to the altar there to pray to God: for he was seized with an exceeding great fear, seeing the sword of the angel of the Lord. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 22 David having prepared all necessaries, chargeth Solomon to build the temple and the princes to assist him. 22:1. Then David said: This is the house of God, And this is the altar for the holocaust of Israel. 22:2. And he commanded to gather together all the proselytes of the land of Israel, and out of them he appointed stonecutters to hew stones and polish them, to build the house of God. 22:3. And David prepared in abundance iron for the nails of the gates, and for the closures and joinings: and of brass an immense weight. 22:4. And the cedar trees were without number, which the Sidonians, and Tyrians brought to David. 22:5. And David said: Solomon my son is very young and tender, and the house which I would have to be built to the Lord, must be such as to be renowned in all countries: therefore I will prepare him necessaries. And therefore before his death he prepared all the charges. 22:6. And he called for Solomon his son: and commanded him to build a house to the Lord the God of Israel. 22:7. And David said to Solomon: My son, it was my desire to have built a house to the name of the Lord my God. 22:8. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Thou hast shed much blood, and fought many battles, so thou cannot not build house to my name, after shedding so much blood before me: 22:9. The son, that shall be born to thee, shall be a most quiet man: for I will make him rest from all his enemies round about: and therefore he shall be called Peaceable: and I will give peace and quietness to Israel all his days. 22:10. He shall build a house to my name, and he shall be a son to me, and I will be a father to him: and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever. 22:11. Now then, my son, the Lord be with thee, and do thou prosper, and build the house to the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken of thee. 22:12. The Lord also give thee wisdom and understanding, that thou mayest be able to rule Israel, and to keep the law of the Lord thy God. 22:13. For then thou shalt be able to prosper, if thou keep the commandments, and judgments, which the Lord commanded Moses to teach Israel: take courage and act manfully, fear not, nor be dismayed. 22:14. Behold I in my poverty have prepared the charges of the house of the Lord, of gold a hundred thousand talents, and of silver a million of talents: but of brass, and of iron there is no weight, for the abundance surpasseth all account: timber also and stones I have prepared for all the charges. 22:15. Thou hast also workmen in abundance, hewers of stones, and masons, and carpenters, and of all trades the most skilful in their work, 22:16. In gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, whereof there is no number. Arise then, and be doing, and the Lord will be with thee. 22:17. David also charged all the princes of Israel, to help Solomon his son, 22:18. Saying: You see, that the Lord your God is with you, and hath given you rest round about, and hath delivered all your enemies into your hands, and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before his people. 22:19. Give therefore your hearts and your souls, to seek the Lord your God and arise, and build a sanctuary to the Lord God, that the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the vessels consecrated to the Lord, may be brought into the house, which is built to the name of the Lord. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 23 David appointeth Solomon king. The distribution of the Levites and their offices. 23:1. David being old and full of days, made Solomon his son king over Israel. 23:2. And he gathered together all the princes of Israel, and the priests and Levites. 23:3. And the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years, and upwards: and there were found of them thirty-eight thousand men. 23:4. Of these twenty-four thousand were chosen, and distributed unto the ministry of the house of the Lord: and six thousand were the overseers and judges. 23:5. Moreover four thousand were porters: and as many singers singing to the Lord with the instruments, which he had made to sing with. 23:6. And David distributed them into courses by the families of the sons of Levi, to wit, of Gerson, and of Caath, and of Merari. 23:7. The sons of Gerson were Leedan and Semei. 23:8. The sons of Leedan: the chief Jahiel, and Zethan, and Joel, three. 23:9. The sons of Semei: Salomith, and Hosiel, and Aran, three: these were the heads of the families of Leedan. 23:10. And the sons of Semei were Leheth, and Ziza, and Jaus, and Baria: these were the sons of Semei, four. 23:11. And Leheth was the first, Ziza the second: but Jaus and Baria had not many children, and therefore they were counted in one family, and in one house. 23:12. The sons of Caath were Amram, and Isaar, Hebron, and Oziel, four. 23:13. The sons of Amram, Aaron, and Moses. And Aaron was separated to minister in the holy of holies, he and his sons for ever, and to burn incense before the Lord, according to his ceremonies, and to bless his name for ever. 23:14. The sons also of Moses, the man of God, were numbered in the tribe of Levi. 23:15. The sons of Moses were Gersom and Eliezer: 23:16. The sons of Gersom: Subuel the first. 23:17. And the sons of Eliezer were: Rohobia the first: and Eliezer had no more sons. But the sons of Rohobia were multiplied exceedingly. 23:18. The sons of Isaar: Salomith the first. 23:19. The sons of Hebron: Jeriau the first, Amarias the second, Jahaziel the third, Jecmaam the fourth. 23:20. The sons of Oziel: Micha the first, Jesia the second. 23:21. The sons of Merari: Moholi, and Musi. The sons of Moholi: Eleazar and Cis. 23:22. And Eleazar died, and had no sons but daughters: and the sons of Cis their brethren took them. 23:23. The sons of Musi: Moholi, and Eder, and Jerimoth, three. 23:24. These are the sons of Levi in their kindreds and families, princes by their courses, and the number of every head that did the works of the ministry of the house of the Lord from twenty years old and upward. 23:25. For David said: The Lord the God of Israel hath given rest to his people, and a habitation in Jerusalem for ever. 23:26. And it shall not be the office of the Levites to carry any more the tabernacle, and all the vessels for the service thereof. 23:27. So according to the last precepts of David, the sons of Levi are to be numbered from twenty years old and upward. 23:28. And they are to be under the hand of the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of the Lord, in the porches, and in the chambers, and in the place of purification, and in the sanctuary, and in all the works of the ministry of the temple of the Lord. 23:29. And the priests have the charge of the loaves of proposition, and of the sacrifice of fine flour, and of the unleavened cakes, and of the fryingpan, and of the roasting, and of every weight and measure. 23:30. And the Levites are to stand in the morning to give thanks, and to sing praises to the Lord: and in like manner in the evening, 23:31. As well in the oblation of the holocausts of the Lord, as in the sabbaths and in the new moons, and the rest of the solemnities, according to the number and ceremonies prescribed for every thing, continually before the Lord. 23:32. And let them keep the observances of the tabernacle of the covenant, and the ceremonies of the sanctuary, and the charge of the sons of Aaron their brethren, that they may minister in the house of the Lord. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 24 The divisions of the priests into four and twenty courses, to serve in the temple: the chiefs of the Levites. 24:1. Now these were the divisions of the sons of Aaron: The sons of Aaron: Nadab, and Abiu, and Eleazar, and Ithamar. 24:2. But Nadab and Abiu died before their father, and had no children: so Eleazar, and Ithamar did the office of the priesthood. 24:3. And David distributed them, that is, Sadoc of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, according to their courses and ministry. 24:4. And there were found many more of the sons of Eleazar among the principal men, than of the sons of Ithamar. And he divided them so, that there were of the sons of Eleazar, sixteen chief men by their families: and of the sons of Ithamar eight by their families and houses. 24:5. And he divided both the families one with the other by lot: for there were princes of the sanctuary, and princes of God, both of the sons of Eleazar, and of the sons of Ithamar. 24:6. And Semeias the son of Nathanael the scribe a Levite, wrote them down before the king and the princes, and Sadoc the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the princes also of the priestly and Levitical families: one house, which was over the rest, of Eleazar: and another house, which had the rest under it, of Ithamar. 24:7. Now the first lot came forth to Joiarib, the second to Jedei, 24:8. The third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, 24:9. The fifth to Melchia, the sixth to Maiman, 24:10. The seventh to Accos, the eighth to Abia, 24:11. The ninth to Jesua, the tenth to Sechenia, 24:12. The eleventh to Eliasib, the twelfth to Jacim, 24:13. The thirteenth to Hoppha, the fourteenth to Isbaab, 24:14. The fifteenth to Belga, the sixteenth to Emmer, 24:15. The seventeenth to Hezir, the eighteenth to Aphses, 24:16. The nineteenth to Pheteia, the twentieth to Hezechiel, 24:17. The one and twentieth to Jachin, the two and twentieth to Gamul, 24:18. The three and twentieth to Dalaiau, the four and twentieth to Maaziau. 24:19. These are their courses according to their ministries, to come into the house of the Lord, and according to their manner under the hand of Aaron their father: as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded. 24:20. Now of the rest of the sons of Levi, there was of the sons of Amram, Subael: and of the sons of Subael, Jehedeia. 24:21. Also of the sons of Rohobia the chief Jesias. 24:22. And the son of Isaar Salemoth, and the son of Salemoth Jahath: 24:23. And his son Jeriau the first, Amarias the second, Jahaziel the third, Jecmaan the fourth. 24:24. The son of Oziel, Micha: the son of Micha, Samir. 24:25. The brother of Micha, Jesia: and the son of Jesia, Zacharias. 24:26. The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi: the son of Oziau: Benno. 24:27. The son also of Merari Oziau, and Soam, and Zacchur, and Hebri. 24:28. And the son of Moholi: Eleazar, who had no sons. 24:29. And the son of Cis, Jeramael. 24:30. The sons of Musi: Moholi, Eder, and Jerimoth. These are the sons of Levi according to the houses of their families. 24:31. And they also cast lots over against their brethren the sons of Aaron before David the king, and Sadoc, and Ahimelech, and the princes of the priestly and Levitical families, both the elder and the younger. The lot divided all equally. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 25 The number and divisions of the musicians. 25:1. Moreover David and the chief officers of the army separated for the ministry the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Idithun: to prophesy with harps, and with psalteries, and with cymbals according to their number serving in their appointed office. 25:2. Of the sons of Asaph: Zacchur, and Joseph, and Nathania, and Asarela, sons of Asaph: under the hand of Asaph prophesying near the king. 25:3. And of Idithun: the sons of Idithun, Godolias, Sori, Jeseias, and Hasabias, and Mathathias, under the hand of their father Idithun, who prophesied with a harp to give thanks and to praise the Lord. 25:4. Of Heman also: the sons of Heman, Bocciau, Mathaniau, Oziel, Subuel, and Jerimoth, Hananias, Hanani, Eliatha, Geddelthi, and Romemthiezer, and Jesbacassa, Mellothi, Othir, Mahazioth: 25:5. All these were the sons of Heman the seer of the king in the words of God, to lift up the horn: and God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. 25:6. All these under their father's hand were distributed to sing in the temple of the Lord, with cymbals, and psalteries and harps, for the service of the house of the Lord near the king: to wit, Asaph, and Idithun, and Heman. 25:7. And the number of them with their brethren, that taught the song of the Lord, all the teachers, were two hundred and eighty-eight. 25:8. And they cast lots by their courses, the elder equally with the younger, the learned and the unlearned together. 25:9. And the first lot came forth to Joseph, who was of Asaph. The second to Godolias, to him and his sons, and his brethren twelve. 25:10. The third to Zachur, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:11. The fourth to Isari, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:12. The fifth to Nathania, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:13. The sixth to Bocciau, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:14. The seventh to Isreela, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:15. The eighth to Jesaia, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:16. The ninth to Mathanaias, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:17. The tenth to Semeias, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:18. The eleventh to Azareel, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:19. The twelfth to Hasabia, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:20. The thirteenth to Subael, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:21. The fourteenth to Mathathias, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:22. The fifteenth to Jerimoth, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:23. The sixteenth to Hananias, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:24. The seventeenth to Jesbacassa, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:25. The eighteenth to Hanani, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:26. The nineteenth to Mellothi, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:27. The twentieth to Eliatha, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:28. The one and twentieth to Othir, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:29. The two and twentieth to Geddelthi, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:30. The three and twentieth to Mahazioth, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 25:31. The four and twentieth to Romemthiezer, to his sons and his brethren twelve. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 26 The divisions of the porters. Offices of other Levites. 26:1. And the divisions of the porters: of the Corites Meselemia, the son of Core, of the sons of Asaph. 26:2. The sons of Meselemia: Zacharias the firstborn, Jadihel the second, Zabadias the third, Jathanael the fourth, 26:3. Elam the fifth, Johanan the sixth, Elioenai the seventh. 26:4. And the sons of Obededom, Semeias the firstborn, Jozabad the second, Joaha the third, Sachar the fourth, Nathanael the fifth, 26:5. Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Phollathi the eighth: for the Lord had blessed him. 26:6. And to Semei his son were born sons, heads of their families: for they were men of great valour. 26:7. The sons then of Semeias were Othni, and Raphael, and Obed, Elizabad, and his brethren most valiant men: and Eliu, and Samachias. 26:8. All these of the sons of Obededom: they, and their sons, and their brethren most able men for service, sixty-two of Obededom. 26:9. And the sons of Meselemia, and their brethren strong men, were eighteen. 26:10. And of Hosa, that is, of the sons of Merari: Semri the chief, (for he had not a firstborn, and therefore his father made him chief.) He had not a firstborn. . .That is, his firstborn was either dead or not fit to be chief; and therefore he made Semri the chief. 26:11. Helcias the second, Tabelias the third, Zacharias the fourth: all these the sons, and the brethren of Hosa, were thirteen. 26:12. Among these were the divisions of the porters, so that the chiefs of the wards, as well as their brethren, always ministered in the house of the Lord. 26:13. And they cast lots equally, both little and great, by their families for every one of the gates. 26:14. And the lot of the east fell to Selemias. But to his son Zacharias, a very wise and learned man, the north gate fell by lot. 26:15. And to Obededom and his sons that towards the south: in which part of the house was the council of the ancients. 26:16. To Sephim, and Hosa towards the west, by the gate which leadeth to the way of the ascent: ward against ward. 26:17. Now towards the east were six Levites: and towards the north four a day: and towards the south likewise four a day: and where the council was, two and two. 26:18. In the cells also of the porters toward the west four in the way: and two at every cell. 26:19. These are the divisions of the porters of the sons of Core, and of Merari. 26:20. Now Achias was over the treasures of the house of God, and the holy vessels. Holy vessels. . .Or vessels of the holy places, or of things holy. Vasa sanctorum. 26:21. The sons of Ledan, the sons of Gersonni: of Ledan were heads of the families, of Ledan, and Gersonni, Jehieli. 26:22. The sons of Jehieli: Zathan and Joel, his brethren over the treasures of the house of the Lord, 26:23. With the Amramites, and Isaarites, and Hebronites, and Ozielites. 26:24. And Subael the son of Gersom, the son of Moses, was chief over the treasures. 26:25. His brethren also, Eliezer, whose son Rohobia, and his son Isaias, and his son Joram, and his son Zechri, and his son Selemith. 26:26. Which Selemith and his brethren were over the treasures of the holy things, which king David, and the heads of families, and the captains over thousands and over hundreds, and the captains of the host had dedicated, 26:27. Out of the wars, and the spoils won in battles, which they had consecrated to the building and furniture of the temple of the Lord. 26:28. And all these things that Samuel the seer and Saul the son of Cis, and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Sarvia had sanctified: and whosoever had sanctified those things, they were under the hand of Selemith and his brethren. 26:29. But Chonenias and his sons were over the Isaarites, for the business abroad over Israel to teach them and judge them. 26:30. And of the Hebronites Hasabias, and his brethren most able men, a thousand seven hundred had the charge over Israel beyond the Jordan westward, in all the works of the Lord, and for the service of the king. 26:31. And the chief of the Hebronites was Jeria according to their families and kindreds. In the fortieth year of the reign of David they were numbered, and there were found most valiant men in Jazer Galaad, 26:32. And his brethren of stronger age, two thousand seven hundred chiefs of families. And king David made them rulers over the Rubenites and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses, for all the service of God, and the king. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 27 The twelve captains for every month; the twelve princes of the tribes. David's several officers. 27:1. Now the children of Israel according to their number, the heads of families, captains of thousands and of hundreds, and officers, that served the king according to their companies, who came in and went out every month in the year, under every chief were four and twenty thousand. 27:2. Over the first company the first month Jesboam, the son of Zabdiel was chief, and under him were four and twenty thousand. 27:3. Of the sons of Phares, the chief of all the captains in the host in the first month. 27:4. The company of the second month was under Dudia, an Ahohite, and after him was another named Macelloth, who commanded a part of the army of four and twenty thousand. 27:5. And the captain of the third company for the third month, was Banaias the son of Joiada the priest: and in his division were four and twenty thousand. 27:6. This is that Banaias the most valiant among the thirty, and above the thirty. And Amizabad his son commanded his company. 27:7. The fourth, for the fourth month, was Asahel the brother of Joab, and Zabadias his son after him: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:8. The fifth captain for the fifth month, was Samaoth a Jezerite: and his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:9. The sixth, for the sixth month, was Hira the son of Acces a Thecuite: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:10. The seventh, for the seventh month, was Helles a Phallonite of the sons of Ephraim: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:11. The eighth, for the eighth month, was Sobochai a Husathite of the race of Zarahi: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:12. The ninth, for the ninth month, was Abiezer an Anathothite of the sons of Jemini, and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:13. The tenth, for the tenth month, was Marai, who was a Netophathite of the race of Zarai: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:14. The eleventh, for the eleventh month, was Banaias, a Pharathonite of the sons of Ephraim: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:15. The twelfth, for the twelfth month, was Holdai a Netophathite, of the race of Gothoniel: and in his company were four and twenty thousand. 27:16. Now the chiefs over the tribes of Israel were these: over the Rubenites, Eliezer the son of Zechri was ruler: over the Simeonites, Saphatias the son of Maacha: 27:17. Over the Levites, Hasabias the son of Camuel: over the Aaronites, Sadoc: 27:18. Over Juda, Eliu the brother of David over Issachar, Amri the son of Michael: 27:19. Over the Zabulonites, Jesmaias the son of Adias: over the Nephtalites, Jerimoth the son of Ozriel: 27:20. Over the sons of Ephraim, Osee the son of Ozaziu: over the half tribe of Manasses, Joel the son of Phadaia: 27:21. And over the half tribe of Manasses in Galaad, Jaddo the son of Zacharias: and over Benjamin, Jasiel the son of Abner. 27:22. And over Dan, Ezrihel the son of Jeroham: these were the princes of the children of Israel. 27:23. But David would not number them from twenty years old and under: because the lord had said that he would multiply Israel like the stars of heaven. 27:24. Joab the son of Sarvia began to number, but he finished not: because upon this there fell wrath upon Israel: and therefore the number of them that were numbered, was not registered in the chronicles of king David. 27:25. And over the king's treasures was Azmoth the son of Adiel: and over those stores which were in the cities, and in the villages, and, in the castles, was Jonathan the son of Ozias. 27:26. And over the tillage, and the husbandmen, who tilled the ground, was Ezri the son of Chelub: 27:27. And over the dressers of the vine yards, was Semeias a Romathite: and over the wine cellars, Zabdias an Aphonite. 27:28. And over the oliveyards and the fig groves, which were in the plains, was Balanam a Gederite: and over the oil cellars, Joas. 27:29. And over the herds that fed in Saron, was Setrai a Saronite: and over the oxen in the valleys, Saphat the son of Adli: 27:30. And over the camels, Ubil an Ishmahelite and over the asses, Jadias a Meronathite: 27:31. And over the sheep Jaziz an Agarene. All these were the rulers of the substance of king David. 27:32. And Jonathan David's uncle, a counsellor, a wise and learned man: he and Jahiel the son of Hachamoni were with the king's sons. 27:33. And Achitophel was the king's counsellor, and Chusai the Arachite, the king's friend. 27:34. And after Achitophel was Joiada the son of Banaias, and Abiathar. And the general of the king's army was Joab. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 28 David's speech, in a solemn assembly: his exhortation to Solomon. He giveth him a pattern of the temple. 28:1. And David assembled all the chief men of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies, who waited on the king: and the captains over thousands, and over hundreds, and them who had the charge over the substance and possessions of the king, and his sons with the officers of the court, and the men of power, and all the bravest of the army at Jerusalem. 28:2. And the king rising up, and standing said: Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had a thought to have built a house, in which the ark of the Lord, and the footstool of our God might rest: and prepared all things for the building. 28:3. And God said to me: Thou shalt not build a house to my name: because thou art a man of war, and hast shed blood. 28:4. But the Lord God of Israel chose me of all the house of my father, to be king over Israel for ever: for of Juda he chose the princes: and of the house of Juda, my father's house: and among the sons of my father, it pleased him to choose me king over all Israel. 28:5. And among my sons (for the Lord hath given me many sons) he hath chosen Solomon my son, to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. 28:6. And he said to me: Solomon thy son shall build my house, and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be a father to him. 28:7. And I will establish his kingdom for ever, it he continue to keep my commandments, and my judgments, as at this day. 28:8. Now then before all the assembly of Israel, in the hearing of our God, keep ye, and seek all the commandments of the Lord our God: that you may possess the good land, and may leave it to your children after you for ever. 28:9. And thou my son Solomon, know the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek him, thou shalt find him: but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. 28:10. Now therefore seeing the Lord hath chosen thee to build the house of the sanctuary, take courage, and do it. 28:11. And David gave to Solomon his son a description of the porch, and of the temple, and of the treasures, and of the upper floor, and of the inner chambers, and of the house for the mercy seat, 28:12. As also of all the courts, which he had in his thought, and of the chambers round about, for the treasures of the house of the Lord, and for the treasures of the consecrated things, 28:13. And of the divisions of the priests and of the Levites, for all the works of the house of the Lord, and for all the vessels of the service of the temple of the Lord. 28:14. Gold by weight for every vessel for the ministry. And silver by weight according to the diversity of the vessels and uses. 28:15. He gave also gold for the golden candlesticks, and their lamps, according to the dimensions of every candlestick, and the lamps thereof. In like manner also he gave silver by weight for the silver candlesticks, and for their lamps according to the diversity of the dimensions of them. 28:16. He gave also gold for the tables of proposition, according to the diversity of the tables: in like manner also silver for other tables of silver. 28:17. For fleshhooks also, and bowls, and censors of fine gold, and for little lions of gold, according to the measure he gave by weight, for every lion. In like manner also for lions of silver he set aside a different weight of silver. 28:18. And for the altar of incense, he gave the purest gold: and to make the likeness of the chariot of the cherubims spreading their wings, and covering the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 28:19. All these things, said he, came to me written by the hand of the Lord that I might understand all the works of the pattern. 28:20. And David said to Solomon his son: Act like a man, and take courage, and do: fear not, and be not dismayed: for the Lord my God will be with thee, and will not leave thee, nor forsake thee, till thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord. 28:21. Behold the courses of the priests and the Levites, for every ministry of the house of the Lord, stand by thee, and are ready, and both the princes, and the people know how to execute all thy commandments. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 29 David by word and example encourageth the princes to contribute liberally to the building of the temple. His thanksgiving, prayer, and sacrifices: his death. 29:1. And king David said to all the assembly: Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is as yet young and tender: and the work is great, for a house is prepared not for man, but for God. 29:2. And I with all my ability have prepared the expenses for the house of my God. Gold for vessels of gold, and silver for vessels of silver, brass for things of brass, iron for things of iron, wood for things of wood: and onyx stones, and stones like alabaster, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble of Paros in great abundance. 29:3. Now over and above the things which I have offered into the house of my God I give of my own proper goods, gold and silver for the temple of my God, beside what things I have prepared for the holy house. 29:4. Three thousand talents of gold of the gold of Ophir: and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the temple. 29:5. And gold for wheresoever there is need of gold: and silver for wheresoever there is need of silver, for the works to be made by the hands of the artificers: now if any man is willing to offer, let him fill his hand to day, and offer what he pleaseth to the Lord. 29:6. Then the heads of the families, and the princes of the tribes of Israel and the captains of thousands, and of hundreds, and the overseers of the king's possessions promised, 29:7. And they gave for the works of the house of the Lord, of gold, five thousand talents, and ten thousand solids: of silver ten thousand talents: and of brass eighteen thousand talents: and of iron a hundred thousand talents. 29:8. And all they that had stones, gave them to the treasures of the house of the Lord, by the hand of Jahiel the Gersonite. 29:9. And the people rejoiced, when they promised their offerings willingly: because they offered them to the Lord with all their heart: and David the king rejoiced also with a great joy. 29:10. And he blessed the Lord before all the multitude, and he said: Blessed art thou, O Lord the God of Israel, our father from eternity to eternity. 29:11. Thine, O Lord, is magnificence, and power, and glory, and victory: and to thee is praise: for all that is in heaven, and in earth, is thine: thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art above all princes. 29:12. Thine are riches, and thine is glory, thou hast dominion over all, in thy hand is power and might: in thy hand greatness, and the empire of all things. 29:13. Now therefore our God we give thanks to thee, and we praise thy glorious name. 29:14. Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to promise thee all these things? all things are thine: and we have given thee what we received of thy hand. 29:15. For we are sojourners before thee, and strangers, as were all our fathers. I Our days upon earth are as a shadow, and there is no stay. 29:16. O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee a house for thy holy name, is from thy hand, and all things are thine. 29:17. I know my God that thou provest hearts, and lovest simplicity, wherefore I also in the simplicity of my heart, have joyfully offered all these things: and I have seen with great joy thy people, which are here present, offer thee their offerings. 29:18. O Lord God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Israel our fathers, keep for ever this will of their heart, and let this mind remain always for the worship of thee. 29:19. And give to Solomon my son a perfect heart, that he may keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy ceremonies, and do all things: and build the house, for which I have provided the charges. 29:20. And David commanded all the assembly: Bless ye the Lord our God. And all the assembly blessed the Lord the God of their fathers: and they bowed themselves and worshipped God, and then the king. 29:21. And they sacrificed victims to the Lord: and they offered holocausts the next day, a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, a thousand lambs, with their libations, and with every thing prescribed most abundantly for all Israel. 29:22. And they ate, and drank before the Lord that day with great joy. And they anointed the second time Solomon the son of David. And they anointed him to the Lord to be prince, and Sadoc to be high priest. 29:23. And Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father, and he pleased all: and all Israel obeyed him. 29:24. And all the princes, and men of power, and all the sons of king David gave their hand, and were subject to Solomon the king. 29:25. And the Lord magnified Solomon over all Israel: and gave him the glory of a reign, such as no king of Israel had before him. 29:26. So David the son of Isai reigned over all Israel. 29:27. And the days that he reigned over Israel, were forty years: in Hebron he reigned seven years, and in Jerusalem three and thirty years. 29:28. And he died in a good age, full of days, and riches, and glory. And Solomon his son reigned in his stead. 29:29. Now the acts of king David first and last are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer: 29:30. And of all his reign, and his valour, and of the times that passed under him, either in Israel, or in all the kingdoms of the countries. THE SECOND BOOK OF PARALIPOMENON 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 1 Solomon offereth sacrifices at Gabaon. His choice of wisdom which God giveth him. 1:1. And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him to a high degree. 1:2. And Solomon gave orders to all Israel, to the captains of thousands, and of hundreds, and to the rulers, and to the judges of all Israel, and the heads of the families: 1:3. And he went with all the multitude to the high place of Gabaon, where was the tabernacle of the covenant of the Lord, which Moses the servant of God made, in the wilderness. 1:4. For David had brought the ark of God from Cariathiarim to the place, which he had prepared for it, and where he had pitched a tabernacle for it, that is, in Jerusalem. 1:5. And the altar of brass, which Beseleel the son of Uri the son of Hur had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord: and Solomon and all the assembly sought it: 1:6. And Solomon went up thither to the brazen altar, before the tabernacle of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up on it a thousand victims. 1:7. And behold that night God appeared to him, saying: Ask what thou wilt that I should give thee. 1:8. And Solomon said to God: Thou hast shewn great kindness to my father David: and hast made me king in his stead. 1:9. Now therefore, O Lord God, let thy word be fulfilled, which thou hast promised to David my father: for thou hast made me king over thy great people, which is as innumerable as the dust of the earth. 1:10. Give me wisdom and knowledge that I may come in and go out before thy people: for who can worthily judge this thy people, which is so great? 1:11. And God said to Solomon: Because this choice hath pleased thy heart, and thou hast not asked riches, and wealth, and glory, nor the lives of them that hate thee, nor many days of life: but hast asked wisdom and knowledge, to be able to judge my people, over which I have made thee king, 1:12. Wisdom and knowledge are granted to thee: and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and glory, so that none of the kings before thee, nor after thee, shall be like thee. 1:13. Then Solomon came from the high place of Gabaon to Jerusalem before the tabernacle of the covenant, and reigned over Israel. 1:14. And he gathered to himself chariots and horsemen, and he had a thousand four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen: and he placed them in the cities of the chariots, and with the king in Jerusalem. 1:15. And the king made silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees as sycamores, which grow in the plains in great multitude. 1:16. And there were horses brought him from Egypt, and from Coa by the king's merchants, who went, and bought at a price, 1:17. A chariot of four horses for six hundred pieces of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty: in like manner market was made in all the kingdoms of the Hethites, and of the kings of Syria. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 2 Solomon's embassy to Hiram, who sends him a skilful workman and timber. 2:1. And Solomon determined to build a house to the name of the Lord, and a palace for himself. 2:2. And he numbered out seventy thousand men to bear burdens, and eighty thousand to hew stones in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them. 2:3. He sent also to Hiram king of Tyre, saying: As thou didst with David my father, and didst send him cedars, to build him a house, in which he dwelt: 2:4. So do with me that I may build a house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to burn incense before him, and to perfume with aromatical spices, and for the continual setting forth of bread, and for the holocausts, morning and evening, and on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and the solemnities of the Lord our God for ever, which are commanded for Israel. 2:5. For the house which I desire to build, is great: for our God is great above all gods. 2:6. Who then can be able to build him a worthy house? if heaven, and the heavens of heavens cannot contain him: who am I that I should be able to build him a house? but to this end only, that incense may be burnt before him. 2:7. Send me therefore a skilful man, that knoweth how to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, and in iron, in purple, in scarlet and in blue, and that hath skill in engraving, with the artificers, which I have with me in Judea and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. 2:8. Send me also cedars, and fir trees, and pine trees from Libanus: for I know that thy servants are skilful in cutting timber in Libanus, and my servants shall be with thy servants, 2:9. To provide me timber in abundance. For the house which I desire to build, is to be exceeding great, and glorious. 2:10. And I will give thy servants the workmen that are to cut down the trees, for their food twenty thousand cores of wheat, and as many cores of barley, and twenty thousand measures of wine, and twenty thousand measures of oil. 2:11. And Hiram king of Tyre sent a letter to Solomon, saying: Because the Lord hath loved his people, therefore he hath made thee king over them. 2:12. And he added, saying: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who hath given to king David a wise and knowing son, endued with understanding and prudence, to build a house to the Lord, and a palace for himself. 2:13. I therefore have sent thee my father Hiram, a wise and most skilful man, 2:14. The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a Tyrian, who knoweth how to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, and in iron, and in marble, and in timber, in purple also, and violet, and silk and scarlet: and who knoweth to grave all sort of graving, and to devise ingeniously all that there may be need of in the work with thy artificers, and with the artificers of my lord David thy father. 2:15. The wheat therefore, and the barley and the oil, and the wine, which thou, my lord, hast promised, send to thy servants. 2:16. And we will cut down as many trees out of Libanus, as thou shalt want, and will convey them in floats by sea to Joppe: and it will be thy part to bring them thence to Jerusalem. 2:17. And Solomon numbered all the proselytes in the land of Israel, after the numbering which David his father had made, and they were found a hundred and fifty-three thousand and six hundred. 2:18. And he set seventy thousand of them to carry burdens on their shoulders, and eighty thousand to hew stones in the mountains: and three thousand and six hundred to be overseers of the work of the people. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 3 The plan and ornaments of the temple: the cherubims, the veil, and the pillars. 3:1. And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, in mount Moria, which had been shewn to David his father, in the place which David had prepared in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. 3:2. And he began to build in the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. 3:3. Now these are the foundations, which Solomon laid, to build the house of God, the length by the first measure sixty cubits, the breadth twenty cubits. 3:4. And the porch in the front, which was extended in length according to the measure of the breadth of the house, twenty cubits: and the height was a hundred and twenty cubits: and he overlaid it within with pure gold. 3:5. And the greater house he ceiled with deal boards, and overlaid them with plates of fine gold throughout: and he graved in them palm trees, and like little chains interlaced with one another. 3:6. He paved also the floor of the temple with most precious marble, of great beauty. 3:7. And the gold of the plates with which he overlaid the house, and the beams thereof, and the posts, and the walls, and the doors was of the finest: and he graved cherubims on the walls. 3:8. He made also the house of the holy of holies: the length of it according to the breadth of the temple, twenty cubits, and the breadth of it in like manner twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with plates of gold, amounting to about six hundred talents. 3:9. He made also nails of gold, and the weight of every nail was fifty sicles: the upper chambers also he overlaid with gold. 3:10. He made also in the house of the holy of holies two cherubims of image work: and he overlaid them with gold. 3:11. The wings of the cherubims were extended twenty cubits, so that one wing was five cubits long, and reached to the wall of the house: and the other was also five cubits long, and reached to the wing of the other cherub. 3:12. In like manner the wing of the other cherub, was five cubits long, and reached to the wall: and his other wing was five cubits long, and touched the wing of the other cherub. 3:13. So the wings of the two cherubims were spread forth, and were extended twenty cubits: and they stood upright on their feet, and their faces were turned toward the house without. 3:14. He made also a veil of violet, purple, scarlet, and silk: and wrought in it cherubims. 3:15. He made also before the doors of the temple two pillars, which were five and thirty cubits high: and their chapiters were five cubits. 3:16. He made also as it were little chains in the oracle, and he put them on the heads of the pillars: and a hundred pomegranates, which he put between the little chains. 3:17. These pillars he put at the entrance of the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left: that which was on the right hand, he called Jachin: and that on the left hand, Booz. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 4 The altar of brass, the molten sea upon twelve oxen, the ten loaves, the candlesticks and other vessels and ornaments of the temple. 4:1. He made also an altar of brass twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits broad, and ten cubits high. 4:2. Also a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass: it was five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. 4:3. And under it there was the likeness of oxen, and certain engravings on the outside of ten cubits compassed the belly of the sea, as it were with two rows. 4:4. And the oxen were cast: and the sea itself was set upon the twelve oxen, three of which looked toward the north, and other three toward the west: and other three toward the south, and the other three that remained toward the east, and the sea stood upon them: and the hinder parts of the oxen were inward under the sea. 4:5. Now the thickness of it was a handbreadth, and the brim of it was like the brim of a cup, or of a crisped lily: and it held three thousand measures. 4:6. He made also ten lavers: and he set five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them all such things as they were to offer for holocausts: but the sea was for the priests to wash in. 4:7. And he made ten golden candlesticks, according to the form which they were commanded to be made by: and he set them in the temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left. 4:8. Moreover also ten tables: and he set them in the temple, five on the right side, and five on the left. Also a hundred bowls of gold. 4:9. He made also the court of the priests, and a great hall, and doors in the hall, which he covered with brass. 4:10. And he set the sea on the right side over against the east toward the south. 4:11. And Hiram made caldrons, and fleshhooks, and bowls: and finished all the king's work the house of God: 4:12. That is to say, the two pillars, and the pommels, and the chapiters, and the network, to cover the chapiters over the pommels. 4:13. And four hundred pomegranates, and two wreaths of network, so that two rows of pomegranates were joined to each wreath, to cover the pommels, and the chapiters of the pillars. 4:14. He made also bases, and lavers, which he set upon the bases: 4:15. One sea, and twelve oxen under the sea; 4:16. And the caldrons, and fleshhooks, and bowls. All the vessels did Hiram his father make for Solomon in the house of the Lord of the finest brass. 4:17. In the country near the Jordan did the king cast them, in a clay ground between Sochot and Saredatha. 4:18. And the multitude of vessels was innumerable, so that the weight of the brass was not known. 4:19. And Solomon made all the vessels for the house of God, and the golden altar, and the tables, upon which were the loaves of proposition, 4:20. The candlesticks also of most pure gold with their lamps to give light before the oracle, according to the manner. 4:21. And certain flowers, and lamps, and golden tongs: all were made of the finest gold. 4:22. The vessels also for the perfumes, and the censers, and the bowls, and the mortars, of pure gold. And he graved the doors of the inner temple, that is, for the holy of holies: and the doors of the temple without were of gold. And thus all the work was finished which Solomon made in the house of the Lord. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 5 The ark is brought with great solemnity into the temple: the temple is filled with the glory of God. 5:1. Then Solomon brought in all those things that David his father had vowed, the silver, and the gold, and all the vessels he put among the treasures of the house of God. 5:2. And after this he gathered together the ancients of Israel and all the princes of the tribes, and the heads of the families, of the children of Israel to Jerusalem, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Sion. 5:3. And all the men of Israel came to the king in the solemn day of the seventh month. 5:4. And when all the ancients of Israel were come, the Levites took up the ark, 5:5. And brought it in, together with all the furniture of the tabernacle. And the priests with the Levites carried the vessels of the sanctuary, which were in the tabernacle. 5:6. And king Solomon and all the assembly of Israel and all that were gathered together before the ark, sacrificed rams, and oxen without number: so great was the multitude of the victims. 5:7. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord into its place, that is, to the oracle of the temple, into the holy of holies under the wings of the cherubims: 5:8. So that the cherubims spread their wings over the place, in which the ark was set, and covered the ark itself and its staves. 5:9. Now the ends of the staves wherewith the ark was carried, because they were some thing longer, were seen before the oracle: but if a man were a little outward, he could not see them. So the ark has been there unto this day. 5:10. And there was nothing else in the ark but the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb when the Lord gave the law to the children of Israel, at their coming out of Egypt. 5:11. Now when the priests were come out of the sanctuary, for all the priests that could be found there, were sanctified: and as yet at that time the courses and orders of the ministries were not divided among them, 5:12. Both the Levites and the singing men, that is, both they that were under Asaph, and they that were under Heman, and they that were under Idithun, with their sons, and their brethren, clothed with fine linen, sounded with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps, standing on the east side of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests, sounding with trumpets. 5:13. So when they all sounded together, both with trumpets, and voice, and cymbals, and organs, and with divers kind of musical instruments, and lifted up their voice on high: the sound was heard afar off, so that when they began to praise the Lord, and to say: Give glory to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever: the house of God was filled with a cloud. 5:14. Nor could the priests stand and minister by reason of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 6 Solomon's blessings and prayer. 6:1. Then Solomon said: The Lord promised that he would dwell in a cloud. 6:2. But I have built a house to his name, that he might dwell there for ever. 6:3. And the king turned his face, and blessed all the multitude of Israel for all the multitude stood attentive and he said: 6:4. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who hath accomplished in deed that which he spoke to David my father, saying: 6:5. From the day that I brought my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel, for a house to be built in it to my name: neither chose I any other man, to be the ruler of my people Israel. 6:6. But I chose Jerusalem, that my name might be there: and I chose David to set him over my people Israel. 6:7. And whereas David my father had a mind to build a house to the name of the Lord the God of Israel, 6:8. The Lord said to him: Forasmuch as it was thy will to build a house to my name, thou hast done well indeed in having such a will: 6:9. But thou shalt not build the house, but thy son, who shall come out of thy loins, he shall build a house to my name. 6:10. The Lord therefore hath accomplished his word which he spoke: and I am risen up in the place of David my father, and sit upon the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised: and have built a house to the name of the Lord God of Israel. 6:11. And I have put in it the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with the children of Israel. 6:12. And he stood before the altar of the Lord, in presence of all the multitude of Israel, and stretched forth his hands. 6:13. For Solomon had made a brazen scaffold, and had set it in the midst of the temple, which was five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high: and he stood upon it: then kneeling down in the presence of all the multitude of Israel, and lifting up his hands towards heaven, 6:14. He said: O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven nor in earth: who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts: 6:15. Who hast performed to thy servant David my father all that thou hast promised him: and hast accomplished in fact, what thou hast spoken with thy mouth, as also the present time proveth. 6:16. Now then, O Lord God of Israel, fulfil to thy servant David my father, whatsoever thou hast promised him, saying: There shall not fail thee a man in my sight, to sit upon the throne of Israel: yet so that thy children take heed to their ways, and walk in my law, as thou hast walked before me. 6:17. And now, Lord God of Israel, let thy word be established which thou hast spoken to thy servant David. 6:18. Is it credible then that God should dwell with men on the earth? If heaven and the heavens of heavens do not contain thee, how much less this house, which I have built? 6:19. But to this end only it is made, that thou mayest regard the prayer of thy servant and his supplication, O Lord my God: and mayest hear the prayers which thy servant poureth out before thee. 6:20. That thou mayest open thy eyes upon this house day and night, upon the place wherein thou hast promised that thy name should be called upon, 6:21. And that thou wouldst hear the prayer which thy servant prayeth in it: hearken then to the prayers of thy servant, and of thy people Israel. Whosoever shall pray in its place, hear thou from thy dwelling place, that is, from heaven, and shew mercy. 6:22. If any man sin against his neighbour, and come to swear against him, and bind himself with a curse before the altar in this house: 6:23. Then hear thou from heaven, and do justice to thy servants, so to requite the wicked by making his wickedness fall upon his own head, and to revenge the just, rewarding him according to his justice. 6:24. If thy people Israel be overcome by their enemies, (for they will sin against thee,) and being converted shall do penance, and call upon thy name, and pray to thee in this place, 6:25. Then hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel and bring them back into the land which thou gavest to them, and their fathers. 6:26. If the heavens be shut up, and there fall no rain by reason of the sin of the people, and they shall pray to thee in this place, and confess to thy name, and be converted from their sins, where thou dost afflict them, 6:27. Then hear thou from heaven, O Lord, and forgive the sins of thy servants and of thy people Israel and teach them the good way in which they may walk: and give rain to thy land which thou hast given to thy people to possess. 6:28. If a famine arise in the land, or a pestilence or blasting, or mildew, or locusts, or caterpillars: or if their enemies waste the country, and besiege the cities, whatsoever scourge or infirmity shall be upon them: 6:29. Then if any of thy people Israel, knowing his own scourge and infirmity shall pray, and shall spread forth his hands in this house, 6:30. Hear thou from heaven, from thy high dwelling place, and forgive, and render to every one according to his ways, which thou knowest him to have in his heart: for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men: 6:31. That they may fear thee, and walk in thy ways all the days that they live upon the face of the land, which thou hast given to our fathers. 6:32. If the stranger also, who is not of thy people Israel, come from a far country, for the sake of thy great name, and thy strong hand, and thy stretched out arm, and adore in this place: 6:33. Hear thou from heaven thy firm dwelling place, and do all that which that stranger shall call upon thee for: that all the people of the earth may know thy name, and may fear thee, as thy people Israel, and may know, that thy name is invoked upon this house, which I have built. 6:34. If thy people go out to war against their enemies, by the way that thou shalt send them, and adore thee towards the way of this city, which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built to thy name: 6:35. Then hear thou from heaven their prayers, and their supplications, and revenge them. 6:36. And if they sin against thee (for there is no man that sinneth not) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them up to their enemies, and they lead them away captive to a land either afar off, or near at hand, 6:37. And if they be converted in their heart in the land to which they were led captive, and do penance, and pray to thee in the land of their captivity saying: We have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have dealt unjustly: 6:38. And return to thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their captivity, to which they were led away, and adore thee towards the way of their own land which thou gavest their fathers, and of the city, which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built to thy name: 6:39. Then hear thou from heaven, that is, from thy firm dwelling place, their prayers, and do judgment, and forgive thy people, although they have sinned: 6:40. For thou art my God: let thy eyes, I beseech thee, be open, and let thy ears be attentive to the prayer, that is made in this place. 6:41. Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, put on salvation, and thy saints rejoice in good things. 6:42. O Lord God, turn not away the face of thy anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 7 Fire from heaven consumeth the sacrifices. The solemnity of the dedication of the temple. God signifieth his having heard Solomon's prayer: yet so if he continue to serve him. 7:1. And when Solomon had made an end of his prayer, fire came down from heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims: and the majesty of the Lord filled the house. 7:2. Neither could the priests enter into the temple of the Lord, because the majesty of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord. 7:3. Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire coming down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house: and falling down with their faces to the ground, upon the stone pavement, they adored and praised the Lord: because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever. 7:4. And the king and all the people sacrificed victims before the Lord. 7:5. And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand rams: and the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 7:6. And the priests stood in their offices: and the Levites with the instruments of music of the Lord, which king David made to praise the Lord: because his mercy endureth for ever, singing the hymns of David by their ministry: and the priests sounded with trumpets before them, and all Israel stood. 7:7. Solomon also sanctified the middle of the court before the temple of the Lord: for he offered there the holocausts, and the fat of the peace offerings: because the brazen altar, which he had made, could not hold the holocausts and the sacrifices and the fat: 7:8. And Solomon kept the solemnity at that time seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entrance of Emath to the torrent of Egypt. 7:9. And he made on the eighth day a solemn assembly, because he had kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and had celebrated the solemnity seven days. 7:10. So on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent away the people to their dwellings, joyful and glad for the good that the Lord had done to David, and to Solomon, and to all Israel his people. 7:11. And Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all that he had designed in his heart to do, in the house of the Lord, and in his own house, and he prospered. 7:12. And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said: I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. 7:13. If I shut up heaven, and there fall no rain, or if I give orders, and command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people: 7:14. And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land. 7:15. My eyes also shall be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in this place. 7:16. For I have chosen, and have sanctified this place, that my name may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there perpetually. 7:17. And as for thee, if thou walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and keep my justices and my judgments: 7:18. I will raise up the throne of thy kingdom, as I promised to David thy father, saying: There shall not fail thee a man of thy stock to be ruler in Israel. 7:19. But if you turn away, and forsake my justices, and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve strange gods, and adore them, 7:20. I will pluck you up by the root out of my land which I have given you: and this house which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast away from before my face, and will make it a byword, and an example among all nations. 7:21. And this house shall be for a proverb to all that pass by, and they shall be astonished and say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house? 7:22. And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped them: therefore all these evils are come upon them. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 8 Solomon's buildings and other acts. 8:1. And at the end of twenty years after Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house: 8:2. He built the cities which Hiram had given to Solomon, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there. 8:3. He went also into Emath Suba, and possessed it. 8:4. And he built Palmira in the desert, and he built other strong cities in Emath. 8:5. And he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, walled cities with gates and bars and locks. 8:6. Balaath also and all the strong cities that were Solomon's, and all the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen. All that Solomon had a mind, and designed, he built in Jerusalem and in Libanus, and in all the land of his dominion. 8:7. All the people that were left of the Hethites, and the Amorrhites, and the Pherezites, and the Hevites, and the Jebusites, that were not of the stock of Israel: 8:8. Of their children, and of the posterity, whom the children of Israel had not slain, Solomon made to be the tributaries, unto this day. 8:9. But of the children of Israel he set none to serve in the king's works: for they were men of war, and chief captains, and rulers of his chariots and horsemen. 8:10. And all the chief captains of king Solomon's army were two hundred and fifty, who taught the people. 8:11. And he removed the daughter of Pharao from the city of David, to the house which he had built for her. For the king said: My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, for it is sanctified: because the ark of the Lord came into it. 8:12. Then Solomon offered holocausts to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord which he had built before the porch, 8:13. That every day an offering might be made on it according to the ordinance of Moses, in the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the festival days three times a year, that is to say, in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles. 8:14. And he appointed according to the order of David his father the offices of the priests in their ministries: and the Levites in their order to give praise, and minister before the priests according to the duty of every day: and the porters in their divisions by gate and gate: for so David the man of God had commanded. 8:15. And the priests and Levites departed not from the king's commandments, as to any thing that he had commanded, and as to the keeping of the treasures. 8:16. Solomon had all charges prepared, from the day that he founded the house of the Lord, until the day wherein he finished it. 8:17. Then Solomon went to Asiongaber, and to Ailath, on the coast of the Red Sea, which is in the land of Edom. 8:18. And Hiram sent him ships by the hands of his servants, and skilful mariners, and they went with Solomon's servants to Ophir, and they took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought it to king Solomon. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 9 The queen of Saba admireth the wisdom of Solomon. His riches and glory. His death. 9:1. And when the queen of Saba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to try him with hard questions at Jerusalem, with great riches, and camels, which carried spices, and abundance of gold, and precious stones. And when she was come to Solomon, she proposed to him all that was in her heart. 9:2. And Solomon explained to her all that she proposed: and there was not any thing that he did not make clear unto her. 9:3. And when she had seen these things, to wit, the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had built, 9:4. And the meats of his table, and the dwelling places of his servants, and the attendance of his officers, and their apparel, his cupbearers also, and their garments, and the victims which he offered in the house of the Lord: there was no more spirit in her, she was so astonished. 9:5. And she said to the king: The word is true which I heard in my country of thy virtues and wisdom. 9:6. I did not believe them that told it, until I came, and my eyes had seen, and I had proved that scarce one half of thy wisdom had been told me: thou hast exceeded the same with thy virtues. 9:7. Happy are thy men, and happy are thy servants, who stand always before thee, and hear thy wisdom. 9:8. Blessed be the Lord thy God, who hath been pleased to set thee on his throne, king of the Lord thy God. Because God loveth Israel, and will preserve them forever: therefore hath he made thee king over them, to do judgment and justice. 9:9. And she gave to the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and spices in great abundance, and most precious stones: there were no such spices as these which the queen of Saba gave to king Solomon. 9:10. And the servants also of Hiram, with the servants of Solomon, brought gold from Ophir, and thyine trees, and most precious stones: 9:11. And the king made of the thyine trees stairs in the house of the Lord, and in the king's house, and harps and psalteries for the singing men: never were there seen such trees in the land of Juda. 9:12. And king Solomon gave to the queen of Saba all that she desired, and that she asked, and many more things than she brought to him: so she returned, and went to her own country with her servants. 9:13. And the weight of the gold, that was brought to Solomon every year, was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold: 9:14. Beside the sum which the deputies of divers nations, and the merchants were accustomed to bring, and all the kings of Arabia, and the lords of the lands, who brought gold and silver to Solomon. 9:15. And king Solomon made two hundred golden spears, of the sum of six hundred pieces of gold, which went to every spear: 9:16. And three hundred golden shields of three hundred pieces of gold, which went to the covering of every shield: and the king put them in the armoury, which was compassed with a wood. 9:17. The king also made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold. 9:18. And six steps to go up to the throne, and a footstool of gold, and two arms one on either side, and two lions standing by the arms: 9:19. Moreover twelve other little lions standing upon the steps on both sides: there was not such a throne in any kingdom. 9:20. And all the vessels of the king's table were of gold, and the vessels of the house of the forest of Libanus were of the purest gold. For no account was made of silver in those days. 9:21. For the king's ships went to Tharsis with the servants of Hiram, once in three years: and they brought thence gold and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks. 9:22. And Solomon was magnified above all the kings of the earth for riches and glory. 9:23. And all the kings of the earth desired to see the face of Solomon, that they might hear the wisdom which God had given in his heart. 9:24. And every year they brought him presents, vessels of silver and of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, and horses, and mules. 9:25. And Solomon had forty thousand horses in the stables, and twelve thousand chariots, and horsemen, and he placed them in the cities of the chariots and where the king was in Jerusalem. 9:26. And he exercised authority over all the kings from the river Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, and to the borders of Egypt. 9:27. And he made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones: and cedars as common as the sycamores, which grow in the plains. 9:28. And horses were brought to him out of Egypt, and out of all countries. 9:29. Now the rest of the acts of Solomon first and last are written in the words of Nathan the prophet, and in the books of Ahias the Silonite, and in the vision of Addo the seer, against Jeroboam the son of Nabat. 9:30. And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. 9:31. And he slept with his fathers: and they buried him in the city of David: and Roboam his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 10 Roboam answereth the people roughly: upon which ten tribes revolt. 10:1. And Roboam went to Sichem: for thither all Israel were assembled, to make him king. 10:2. And when Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who was in Egypt, (for he was fled thither from Solomon,) heard it, forthwith he returned. 10:3. And they sent for him, and he came with all Israel, and they spoke to Roboam, saying: 10:4. Thy father oppressed with a most grievous yoke, do thou govern us with a lighter hand than thy father, who laid upon us a heavy servitude, and ease some thing of the burden, that we may serve thee. 10:5. And he said to them: Come to me again after three days. And when the people were gone, 10:6. He took counsel with the ancients, who had stood before his father Solomon, while he yet lived, saying: What counsel give you to me, that I may answer the people? 10:7. And they said to him: If thou please this people, and soothe them with kind words, they will be thy servants for ever. 10:8. But he forsook the counsel of the ancients, and began to treat with the young men, that had been brought up with him, and were in his train. 10:9. And he said to them: What seemeth good to you? or what shall I answer this people, who have said to me: Ease the yoke which thy father laid upon us? 10:10. But they answered as young men, and brought up with him in pleasures, and said: Thus shalt thou speak to the people, that said to thee: Thy father made our yoke heavy, do thou ease it: thus shalt thou answer them: My little finger is thicker than the loins of my father. 10:11. My father laid upon you a heavy yoke, and I will add more weight to it: my father beat you with scourges, but I will beat you with scorpions. 10:12. So Jeroboam, and all the people came to Roboam the third day, as he commanded them. 10:13. And the king answered roughly, leaving the counsel of the ancients. 10:14. And he spoke according to the advice of the young men: My father laid upon you a heavy yoke, which I will make heavier: my father beat you with scourges, but I will beat you with scorpions. 10:15. And he condescended not to the people's requests: for it was the will of God, that his word might be fulfilled which he had spoken by the hand of Ahias the Silonite to Jeroboam the son of Nabat. 10:16. And all the people upon the king's speaking roughly, said thus unto him: We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Isai. Return to thy dwellings, O Israel, and do thou, O David feed thy own house. And Israel went away to their dwellings. 10:17. But Roboam reigned over the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Juda. 10:18. And king Roboam sent Aduram, who was over the tributes, and the children of Israel stoned him, and he died: and king Roboam made haste to get up into his chariot, and fled into Jerusalem. 10:19. And Israel revolted from the house of David unto this day. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 11 Roboam's reign. His kingdom is strengthened. 11:1. And Roboam came to Jerusalem, and called together all the house of Juda and of Benjamin, a hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men and warriors, to fight against Israel, and to bring back his kingdom to him. 11:2. And the word of the Lord came to Semeias the man of God, saying: 11:3. Speak to Roboam the son of Solomon the king of Juda, and to all Israel, in Juda and Benjamin: 11:4. Thus saith the Lord: You shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: let every man return to his own house, for by my will this thing has been done. And when they heard the word of the Lord, they returned, and did not go against Jeroboam, 11:5. And Roboam dwelt in Jerusalem, and built walled cities in Juda. 11:6. And he built Bethlehem, and Etam, and Thecue, 11:7. And Bethsur, and Socho, and Odollam, 11:8. And Geth, and Maresa, and Ziph, 11:9. And Aduram, and Lachis, and Azecha, 11:10. Saraa also, and Aialon, and Hebron, which are in Juda and Benjamin, well fenced cities. 11:11. And when he had enclosed them with walls, he put in them governors and storehouses of provisions, that is, of oil and of wine. 11:12. Moreover in every city he made an armoury of shields and spears, and he fortified them with great diligence, and he reigned over Juda, and Benjamin, 11:13. And the priests and Levites, that were in all Israel, came to him out of all their seats, 11:14. Leaving their suburbs, and their possessions, and passing over to Juda, and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off, from executing the priestly office to the Lord. 11:15. And he made to himself priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made. 11:16. Moreover out of all the tribes of Israel, whosoever gave their heart to seek the Lord the God of Israel, came into Jerusalem to sacrifice their victims before the Lord the God of their fathers. 11:17. And they strengthened the kingdom of Juda, and established Roboam the son of Solomon for three years: for they walked in the ways of David and of Solomon, only three years. 11:18. And Roboam took to wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David: and Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Isai. 11:19. And they bore him sons Jehus, and Somorias, and Zoom. 11:20. And after her he married Maacha the daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abia, and Ethai, and Ziza, and Salomith. 11:21. And Roboam loved Maacha the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and concubines: for he had married eighteen wives, and threescore concubines: and he begot eight and twenty sons, and threescore daughters. 11:22. But he put at the head of them Abia the son of Maacha to be the chief ruler over all his brethren: for he meant to make him king, 11:23. Because he was wiser and mightier than all his sons, and in all the countries of Juda, and of Benjamin, and in all the walled cities: and he gave them provisions in abundance, and he sought many wives. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 12 Roboam for his sins is delivered up into the hands of the king of Egypt: who carrieth away all the treasures of the temple. 12:1. And when the kingdom of Roboam was strengthened and fortified, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him. 12:2. And in the fifth year of the reign of Roboam, Sesac king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem (because they had sinned against the Lord) 12:3. With twelve hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt, to wit, Libyans, and Troglodites, and Ethiopians. 12:4. And he took the strongest cities in Juda, and came to Jerusalem. 12:5. And Semeias the prophet came to Roboam, and to the princes of Juda, that were gathered together in Jerusalem, fleeing from Sesac, and he said to them: Thus saith the Lord: You have left me, and I have left you in the hand of Sesac. 12:6. And the princes of Israel, and the king, being in a consternation, said: The Lord is just. 12:7. And when the Lord saw that they were humbled, the word of the Lord came to Semeias, saying: Because they are humbled, I will not destroy them, and I will give them a little help, and my wrath shall not fall upon Jerusalem by the hand of Sesac. 12:8. But yet they shall serve him, that they may know the difference between my service, and the service of a kingdom of the earth. 12:9. So Sesac king of Egypt departed from Jerusalem, taking away the treasures of the king's house, and he took all with him, and the golden shields that Solomon had made, 12:10. Instead of which the king made brazen ones, and delivered them to the captains of the shieldbearers, who guarded the entrance of the palace. 12:11. And when the king entered into the house of the Lord, the shieldbearers came and took them, and brought them back again to their armoury. 12:12. But yet because they were humbled, the wrath of the Lord turned away from them, and they were not utterly destroyed: for even in Juda there were found good works. 12:13. King Roboam therefore was strengthened in Jerusalem, and reigned: he was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel, to establish his name there: and the name of his mother was Naama an Ammonitess. 12:14. But he did evil, and did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord. 12:15. Now the acts of Roboam first and last are written in the books of Semeias the prophet, and of Addo the seer, and diligently recorded: and there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam all their days. 12:16. And Roboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. And Abia his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 13 Abia's reign: his victory over Jeroboam. 13:1. In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, Abia reigned over Juda. 13:2. Three years he reigned in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Michaia, the daughter of Uriel of Gabaa: and there was war between Abia and Jeroboam. Michaia. . .Alias Maacha. Her father had also two names, viz., Absalom, or Abessalom, and Uriel. 13:3. And when Abia had begun battle, and had with him four hundred thousand most valiant and chosen men, Jeroboam put his army in array against him, eight hundred thousand men, who were also chosen and most valiant for war. 13:4. And Abia stood upon mount Semeron, which was in Ephraim, and said: Hear me, O Jeroboam, and all Israel: 13:5. Do you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave to David the kingdom over Israel for ever, to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? A covenant of salt. . .That is, a firm and perpetual covenant. See Num. 18.19. 13:6. And Jeroboam the son of Nabat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up: and rebelled against his lord. 13:7. And there were gathered to him vain men, and children of Belial: and they prevailed against Roboam the son of Solomon: for Roboam was unexperienced, and of a fearful heart, and could not resist them. 13:8. And now you say that you are able to withstand the kingdom of the Lord, which he possesseth by the sons of David, and you have a great multitude of people, and golden calves, which Jeroboam hath made you for gods. 13:9. And you have cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites: and you have made you priests, like all the nations of the earth: whosoever cometh and consecrateth his hand with a bullock of the herd, and with seven rams, is made a priest of those who are no gods. 13:10. But the Lord is our God, whom we forsake not, and the priests who minister to the Lord are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites are in their order. 13:11. And they offer holocausts to the Lord, every day, morning and evening, and incense made according to the ordinance of the law, and the loaves are set forth on a most clean table, and there is with us the golden candlestick, and the lamps thereof, to be lighted always in the evening: for we keep the precepts of the Lord our God, whom you have forsaken. 13:12. Therefore God is the leader in our army, and his priests who sound with trumpets, and resound against you: O children of Israel, fight not against the Lord the God of your fathers, for it is not good for you. 13:13. While he spoke these things, Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind him. And while he stood facing the enemies, he encompassed Juda, who perceived it not, with his army. 13:14. And when Juda looked back, they saw the battle coming upon them both before and behind, and they cried to the Lord: and the priests began to sound with the trumpets. 13:15. And all the men of Juda shouted: and behold when they shouted, God terrified Jeroboam, and all Israel that stood against Abia and Juda. 13:16. And the children of Israel fled before Juda, and the Lord delivered them into their hand. 13:17. And Abia and his people slew them with a great slaughter, and there fell wounded of Israel five hundred thousand valiant men. 13:18. And the children of Israel were brought down, at that time, and the children of Juda were exceedingly strengthened, because they had trusted in the Lord the God of their fathers. 13:19. And Abia pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel and her daughters, and Jesana with her daughters, Ephron also and her daughters. 13:20. And Jeroboam was not able to resist any more, in the days of Abia: and the Lord struck him, and he died. 13:21. But Abia, being strengthened in his kingdom, took fourteen wives: and begot two and twenty sons, and sixteen daughters. 13:22. And the rest of the acts of Abia, and of his ways and works, are written diligently in the book of Addo the prophet. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 14 The reign of Asa: his victory over the Ethiopians. 14:1. And Abia slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: an Asa his son reigned in his stead: in his days the land was quiet ten years. 14:2. And Asa did that which was good and pleasing in the sight of his God, and he destroyed the altars of foreign worship, and the high places. 14:3. And broke the statues, and cut down the groves. 14:4. And he commanded Juda to seek the Lord the God of their fathers, and to do the law, and all the commandments. 14:5. And he took away out of all the cities of Juda the altars, and temples, and reigned in peace. 14:6. He built also strong cities in Juda, for he was quiet, and there had no wars risen in his time, the Lord giving peace. 14:7. And he said to Juda: Let us build these cities, and compass them with walls, and fortify them with towers, and gates, and bars, while all is quiet from wars, because we have sought the Lord the God of our fathers, and he hath given us peace round about. So they built, and there was no hinderance in building. 14:8. And Asa had in his army of men that bore shields and spears of Juda three hundred thousand, and of Benjamin that bore shields and drew bows, two hundred and eighty thousand, all these were most valiant men. 14:9. And Zara the Ethiopian came out against them with his army of ten hundred thousand men, and with three hundred chariots: and he came as far as Maresa. 14:10. And Asa went out to meet him, and set his army in array for battle in the vale of Sephata, which is near Maresa: 14:11. And he called upon the Lord God, and said: Lord, there is no difference with thee, whether thou help with few, or with many: help us, O Lord our God: for with confidence in thee, and in thy name we are come against this multitude. O Lord thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee. 14:12. And the Lord terrified the Ethiopians before Asa and Juda: and the Ethiopians fled. 14:13. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them to Gerara: and the Ethiopians fell even to utter destruction, for the Lord slew them, and his army fought against them, and they were destroyed. And they took abundance of spoils, 14:14. And they took all the cities round about Gerara: for a great fear was come upon all men: and they pillaged the cities, and carried off much booty. 14:15. And they destroyed the sheepcotes, and took an infinite number of cattle, and of camels: and returned to Jerusalem. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 15 The prophecy of Azarias. Asa's covenant with God. He deposeth his mother. 15:1. And the spirit of God came upon Azarias the son of Oded, 15:2. And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him: Hear ye me, Asa, and all Juda and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, because you have been with him. If you seek him, you shall find: but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 15:3. And many days shall pass in Israel, without the true God, and without a priest a teacher, and without the law. 15:4. And when in their distress they shall return to the Lord the God of Israel, and shall seek him, they shall find him. 15:5. At that time there shall be no peace to him that goeth out and cometh in, but terrors on every side among all the inhabitants of the earth. 15:6. For nation shall fight against nation, and city against city, for the Lord will trouble them with all distress. 15:7. Do you therefore take courage, and let not your hands be weakened: for there shall be a reward for your work. 15:8. And when Asa had heard the words, and the prophecy of Azarias the son of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and took away the idols out of all the land of Juda, and out of Benjamin, and out of the cities of mount Ephraim, which he had taken, and he dedicated the altar of the Lord, which was before the porch of the Lord. 15:9. And he gathered together all Juda and Benjamin, and the strangers with them of Ephraim, and Manasses, and Simeon: for many were come over to him out of Israel, seeing that the Lord his God was with him. 15:10. And when they were come to Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa, 15:11. They sacrificed to the Lord in that day of the spoils, and of the prey, that they had brought, seven hundred oxen, and seven thousand rams. 15:12. And he went in to confirm as usual the covenant, that they should seek the Lord the God of their fathers with all their heart, and with all their soul. 15:13. And if any one, said he, seek not the Lord the God of Israel, let him die, whether little or great, man or woman. 15:14. And they swore to the Lord with a loud voice with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet, and sound of cornets, 15:15. All that were in Juda with a curse: for with all their heart they swore, and with all their will they sought him, and they found him, and the Lord gave them rest round about. 15:16. Moreover Maacha the mother of king Asa he deposed from the royal authority, because she had made in a grove an idol of Priapus: and he entirely destroyed it, and breaking it into pieces, burnt it at the torrent Cedron. 15:17. But high places were left in Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days. 15:18. And the things which his father had vowed, and he himself had vowed, he brought into the house of the Lord, gold and silver, and vessels of divers uses. 15:19. And there was no war unto the five and thirtieth year of the kingdom of Asa. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 16 Asa is reproved for seeking help from the Syrians: his last acts and death. 16:1. And in the six and thirtieth year of his kingdom, Baasa the king of Israel came up against Juda, and built a wall about Rama, that no one might safely go out or come in of the kingdom of Asa. Six and thirtieth year of his kingdom. . .That is, of the kingdom of Juda, taking the date of it from the beginning of the reign of Reboam. 16:2. Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's treasures, and sent to Benadad king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying: 16:3. There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father, wherefore I have sent thee silver and gold, that thou mayst break thy league with Baasa king of Israel, and make him depart from me. 16:4. And when Benadad heard this, he sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel: and they took Ahion, and Dan, and Abelmaim, and all the walled cities of Nephtali. 16:5. And when Baasa heard of it, he left off the building of Rama, and interrupted his work. 16:6. Then king Asa took all Juda, and they carried away from Rama the stones, and the timber that Baasa had prepared for the building: and he built with them Gabaa, and Maspha. 16:7. At that time Hanani the prophet came to Asa king of Juda, and said to him: Because thou hast had confidence in the king of Syria, and not in the Lord thy God, therefore hath the army of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. 16:8. Were not the Ethiopians, and the Libyans much more numerous in chariots, and horsemen, and an exceeding great multitude: yet because thou trustedst in the Lord, he delivered them into thy hand? 16:9. For the eyes of the Lord behold all the earth, and give strength to those who with a perfect heart trust in him. Wherefore thou hast done foolishly, and for this cause from this time wars shall arise against thee. 16:10. And Asa was angry with the seer, and commanded him to be put in prison: for he was greatly enraged because of this thing: and he put to death many of the people at that time. 16:11. But the works of Asa the first and last are written in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. 16:12. And Asa fell sick in the nine and thirtieth year of his reign, of a most violent pain in his feet, and yet in his illness he did not seek the Lord, but rather trusted in the skill of physicians. 16:13. And he slept with his fathers: and he died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. 16:14. And they buried him in his own sepulchre, which he had made for himself in the city of David: and they laid him on his bed full of spices and odoriferous ointments, which were made by the art of the perfumers, and they burnt them over him with very great pomp. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 17 Josaphat's reign: his care for the instruction of his people: his numerous forces. 17:1. And Josaphat his son reigned in his stead, and grew strong against Israel. 17:2. And he placed numbers of soldiers in all the fortified cities of Juda. And he put garrisons in the land of Juda, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken. 17:3. And the Lord was with Josaphat, because he walked in the first ways of David his father: and trusted not in Baalim, 17:4. But in the God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not according to the sins of Israel. 17:5. And the Lord established the kingdom in his hand, and all Juda brought presents to Josaphat: and he acquired immense riches, and much glory. 17:6. And when his heart had taken courage for the ways of the Lord, he took away also the high places and the groves out of Juda. 17:7. And in the third year of his reign, he sent of his princes Benhail, and Abdias, and Zacharias, and Nathanael, and Micheas, to teach in the cites of Juda: 17:8. And with them the Levites, Semeias, and Nathanias, and Zabadias, and Asael, and Semiramoth, and Jonathan, and Adonias, and Tobias, and Thobadonias Levites, and with them Elisama, and Joram priests. 17:9. And they taught the people in Juda, having with them the book of the law of the Lord: and they went about all the cities of Juda, and instructed the people. 17:10. And the fear of the Lord came upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Juda, and they durst not make war against Josaphat. 17:11. The Philistines also brought presents to Josaphat, and tribute in silver, and the Arabians brought him cattle, seven thousand seven hundred rams, and as many he goats. 17:12. And Josaphat grew, and became exceeding great: and he built in Juda houses like towers, and walled cities. 17:13. And he prepared many works in the cities of Juda: and he had warriors, and valiant men in Jerusalem. 17:14. Of whom this is the number of the houses and families of every one: in Juda captains of the army, Ednas the chief, and with him three hundred thousand most valiant men. 17:15. After him Johanan the captain, and with him two hundred and eighty thousand. 17:16. And after him was Amasias the son of Zechri, consecrated to the Lord, and with him were two hundred thousand valiant men. 17:17. After him was Eliada valiant in battle, and with him two hundred thousand armed with bow and shield. 17:18. After him also was Jozabad, and with him a hundred and eighty thousand ready for war. 17:19. All these were at the hand of the king, beside others, whom he had put in the walled cities, in all Juda. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 18 Josaphat accompanies Achab in his expedition against Ramoth; where Achab is slain, as Micheas had foretold. 18:1. Now Josaphat was rich and very glorious, and was joined by affinity to Achab. 18:2. And he went down to him after some years to Samaria: and Achab at his coming killed sheep and oxen in abundance for him and the people that came with him: and he persuaded him to go up to Ramoth Galaad. 18:3. And Achab king of Israel said to Josaphat king of Juda: Come with me to Ramoth Galaad. And he answered him: Thou art as I am, and my people as thy people, and we will be with thee in the war. 18:4. And Josaphat said to the king of Israel: Inquire, I beseech thee, at present the word of the Lord. 18:5. So the king of Israel gathered together of the prophets four hundred men, and he said to them: Shall we go to Ramoth Galaad to fight, or shall we forbear? But they said: Go up, and God will deliver into the king's hand. 18:6. And Josaphat said: Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire also of him? 18:7. And the king of Israel said to Josaphat: There is one man, of whom we may ask the will of the Lord: but I hate him, for he never prophesieth good to me, but always evil: and it is Micheas the son of Jemla. And Josaphat said: Speak not thus, O king. 18:8. And the king of Israel called one of the eunuchs, and said to him: Call quickly Micheas the son of Jemla. 18:9. Now the king of Israel, and Josaphat king of Juda, both sat on their thrones, clothed in royal robes, and they sat in the open court by the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets prophesied before them. 18:10. And Sedecias the son of Chanaana made him horns of iron, and said: Thus saith the Lord: With these shalt thou push Syria, till thou destroy it. 18:11. And all the prophets prophesied in like manner, and said: Go up to Ramoth Galaad, and thou shalt prosper, and the Lord will deliver them into the king's hand. 18:12. And the messenger that went to call Micheas, said to him: Behold the words of all the prophets with one mouth declare good to the king: I beseech thee therefore let not thy word disagree with them, and speak thou also good success. 18:13. And Micheas answered him: As the Lord liveth, whatsoever my God shall say to me, that will I speak. 18:14. So he came to the king: and the king said to him: Micheas, shall we go to Ramoth Galaad to fight, or forbear? And he answered him: Go up, for all shall succeed prosperously, and the enemies shall be delivered into your hands. 18:15. And the king said: I adjure thee again and again to say nothing but the truth to me, in the name of the Lord. 18:16. Then he said: I saw all Israel scattered in the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd: and the Lord said: These have no masters: let every man return to his own house in peace. 18:17. And the king of Israel said to Josaphat: Did I not tell thee that this man would not prophesy me any good, but evil? 18:18. Then he said: Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on the right hand and on the left, 18:19. And the Lord said: Who shall deceive Achab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall in Ramoth Galaad? And when one spoke in this manner, and another otherwise: Who shall deceive, etc. . .See the annotations, 3 Kings 22. 18:20. There came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said: I will deceive him. And the Lord said to him: By what means wilt thou deceive him? 18:21. And he answered: I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said: Thou shalt deceive, and shalt prevail: go out, and do so. 18:22. Now therefore behold the Lord hath put a spirit of lying in the mouth of all thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee. 18:23. And Sedecias the son of Chanaana came, and struck Micheas on the cheek and said: Which way went the spirit of the Lord from me, to speak to thee? 18:24. And Micheas said: Thou thyself shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go in from chamber to chamber, to hide thyself. 18:25. And the king of Israel commanded, saying: Take Micheas, and carry him to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joas the son of Amelech, 18:26. And say: Thus saith the king: Put this fellow in prison, and give him bread and water in a small quantity till I return in peace. 18:27. And Micheas said: If thou return in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said: Hear, all ye people. 18:28. So the king of Israel and Josaphat king of Juda went up to Ramoth Galaad. 18:29. And the king of Israel said to Josaphat: I will change my dress, and so I will go to the battle, but put thou on thy own garments. And the king of Israel having changed his dress, went to the battle. 18:30. Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his cavalry, saying: Fight ye not with small, or great, but with the king of Israel only. 18:31. So when the captains of the cavalry saw Josaphat, they said: This is the king of Israel. And they surrounded him to attack him: but he cried to the Lord, and he helped him, and turned them away from him. 18:32. For when the captains of the cavalry saw, that he was not the king of Israel, they left him. 18:33. And it happened that one of the people shot an arrow at a venture, and struck the king of Israel between the neck and the shoulders, and he said to his chariot man: Turn thy hand, and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded. 18:34. And the fight was ended that day: but the king of Israel stood in his chariot against the Syrians until the evening, and died at the sunset. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 19 Josaphat's charge to the judges and to the Levites. 19:1. And Josaphat king of Juda returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem. 19:2. And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer met him, and said to him: Thou helpest the ungodly, and thou art joined in friendship with them that hate the Lord, and therefore thou didst deserve indeed the wrath of the Lord: 19:3. But good works are found in thee, because thou hast taken away the groves out of the land of Juda, and hast prepared thy heart to seek the Lord the God of thy fathers. 19:4. And Josaphat dwelt at Jerusalem: and he went out again to the people from Bersabee to mount Ephraim, and brought them back to the Lord the God of their fathers. 19:5. And he set judges of the land in all the fenced cities of Juda, in every place. 19:6. And charging the judges, he said: Take heed what you do: for you exercise not the judgment of man, but of the Lord: and whatsoever you judge, it shall redound to you. 19:7. Let the fear of the Lord be with you, and do all things with diligence: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor desire of gifts. 19:8. In Jerusalem also Josaphat appointed Levites, and priests and chiefs of the families of Israel, to judge the judgment and the cause of the Lord for the inhabitants thereof. 19:9. And he charged them, saying, Thus shall you do in the fear of the Lord faithfully, and with a perfect heart. 19:10. Every cause that shall come to you of your brethren, that dwell in their cities, between kindred and kindred, wheresoever there is question concerning the law, the commandment, the ceremonies, the justifications: shew it them, that they may not sin against the Lord, and that wrath may not come upon you and your brethren: and so doing you shall not sin. 19:11. And Amarias the priest your high priest shall be chief in the things which regard God: and Zabadias the son of Ismahel, who is ruler in the house of Juda, shall be over those matters which belong to the king's office: and you have before you the Levites for masters, take courage and do diligently, and the Lord will be with you in good things. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 20 The Ammonites, Moabites, and Syrians combine against Josaphat: he seeketh God's help by public prayer and fasting. A prophet foretelleth that God will fight for his people: the enemies destroy one another. Josaphat with his men gathereth the spoils. He reigneth in peace, but his navy perisheth, for his society with wicked Ochozias. 20:1. After this the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them of the Ammonites, were gathered together to fight against Josaphat. 20:2. And there came messengers, and told Josaphat, saying: There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, and out of Syria, and behold they are in Asasonthamar, which is Engaddi. 20:3. And Josaphat being seized with fear betook himself wholly to pray to the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Juda. 20:4. And Juda gathered themselves together to pray to the Lord: and all came out of their cities to make supplication to him. 20:5. And Josaphat stood in the midst of the assembly of Juda, and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord before the new court, 20:6. And said: O Lord God of our fathers, thou art God in heaven, and rulest over all the kingdoms and nations, in thy hand is strength and power, and no one can resist thee. 20:7. Didst not thou our God kill all the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever? 20:8. And they dwelt in it, and built in it a sanctuary to thy name, saying: 20:9. If evils fall upon us, the sword of judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand in thy presence before this house, in which thy name is called upon: and we will cry to thee in our afflictions, and thou wilt hear, and save us. 20:10. Now therefore behold the children of Ammon, and of Moab, and mount Seir, through whose lands thou didst not allow Israel to pass, when they came out of Egypt, but they turned aside from them, and slew them not, 20:11. Do the contrary, and endeavour to cast us out of the possession which thou hast delivered to us. 20:12. O our God, wilt thou not then judge them? as for us we have not strength enough, to be able to resist this multitude, which cometh violently upon us. But as we know not what to do, we can only turn our eyes to thee. 20:13. And all Juda stood before the Lord with their little ones, and their wives, and their children. 20:14. And Jahaziel the son of Zacharias, the son of Banaias, the son of Jehiel, the son of Mathanias, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, was there, upon whom the spirit of the Lord came in the midst of the multitude, 20:15. And he said: Attend ye, all Juda, and you that dwell in Jerusalem, and thou king Josaphat: Thus saith the Lord to you: Fear ye not, and be not dismayed at this multitude: for the battle is not yours, but God's. 20:16. To morrow you shall go down against them: for they will come up by the ascent named Sis, and you shall find them at the head of the torrent, which is over against the wilderness of Jeruel. 20:17. It shall not be you that shall fight, but only stand with confidence, and you shall see the help of the Lord over you, O Juda, and Jerusalem: fear ye not, nor be you dismayed: to morrow you shall go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. 20:18. Then Josaphat, and Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell flat on the ground before the Lord, and adored him. 20:19. And the Levites of the sons of Caath, and of the sons of Core praised the Lord the God of Israel with a loud voice, on high. 20:20. And they rose early in the morning, and went out through the desert of Thecua: and as they were marching, Josaphat standing in the midst of them, said: Hear me, ye men of Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be secure: believe his prophets, and all things shall succeed well. 20:21. And he gave counsel to the people, and appointed the singing men of the Lord, to praise him by their companies, and to go before the army, and with one voice to say: Give glory to the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever. 20:22. And when they began to sing praises, the Lord turned their ambushments upon themselves, that is to say, of the children of Ammon, and of Moab, and of mount Seir, who were come out to fight against Juda, and they were slain. 20:23. For the children of Ammon, and of Moab, rose up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, to kill and destroy them: and when they had made an end of them, they turned also against one another, and destroyed one another. 20:24. And when Juda came to the watch tower, that looketh toward the desert, they saw afar off all the country, for a great space, full of dead bodies, and that no one was left that could escape death. 20:25. Then Josaphat came, and all the people with him to take away the spoils of the dead, and they found among the dead bodies, stuff of various kinds, and garments, and most precious vessels: and they took them for themselves, insomuch that they could not carry all, nor in three days take away the spoils, the booty was so great. 20:26. And on the fourth day they were assembled in the valley of Blessing: for there they blessed the Lord, and therefore they called that place the valley of Blessing until this day. 20:27. And every man of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem returned, and Josaphat at their head, into Jerusalem with great joy, because the Lord had made them rejoice over their enemies. 20:28. And they came into Jerusalem with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets into the house of the Lord. 20:29. And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. 20:30. And the kingdom of Josaphat was quiet, and God gave him peace round about. 20:31. And Josaphat reigned over Juda, and he was five and thirty years old, when he began to reign: and he reigned five and twenty years in Jerusalem: and the name of his mother was Azuba the daughter of Selahi. 20:32. And he walked in the way of his father Asa and departed not from it, doing the things that were pleasing before the Lord. 20:33. But yet he took not away the high places, and the people had not yet turned their heart to the Lord the God of their fathers. 20:34. But the rest of the acts of Josaphat, first and last, are written in the words of Jehu the son of Hanani, which he digested into the books of the kings of Israel. 20:35. After these things Josaphat king of Juda made friendship with Ochozias king of Israel, whose works were very wicked. 20:36. And he was partner with him in making ships, to go to Tharsis: and they made the ships in Asiongaber. 20:37. And Eliezer the son of Dodau of Maresa prophesied to Josaphat, saying: Because thou hast made a league with Ochozias, the Lord hath destroyed thy works, and the ships are broken, and they could not go to Tharsis. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 21 Joram's wicked reign: his punishment and death. 21:1. And Josaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David: and Joram his son reigned in his stead. 21:2. And he had brethren the sons of Josaphat, Azarias, and Jahiel, and Zacharias, and Azaria, and Michael, and Saphatias, all these were the sons of Josaphat king of Juda. 21:3. And their father gave them great gifts of silver, and of gold, and pensions, with strong cities in Juda: but the kingdom he gave to Joram, because he was the eldest. 21:4. So Joram rose up over the kingdom of his father: and when he had established himself, he slew all his brethren with the sword, and some of the princes of Israel. 21:5. Joram was two and thirty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 21:6. And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Achab had done: for his wife was a daughter of Achab, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. 21:7. But the Lord would not destroy the house of David: because of the covenant which he had made with him: and because he had promised to give a lamp to him, and to his sons for ever. 21:8. In those days Edom revolted, from being subject to Juda, and made themselves a king. 21:9. And Joram went over with his princes, and all his cavalry with him, and rose in the night, and defeated the Edomites who had surrounded him, and all the captains of his cavalry. 21:10. However Edom revolted, from being under the dominion of Juda unto this day: at that time Lobna also revolted, from being under his hand. For he had forsaken the Lord the God of his fathers. 21:11. Moreover he built also high places in the cities of Juda, and he made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and Juda to transgress. 21:12. And there was a letter brought him from Eliseus the prophet, in which it was written: Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Josaphat thy father nor in the ways of Asa king of Juda, 21:13. But hast walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and hast made Juda and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, imitating the fornication of the house of Achab, moreover also thou hast killed thy brethren, the house of thy father, better men than thyself, 21:14. Behold the Lord will strike thee with a great plague, with all thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy substance. 21:15. And thou shalt be sick of a very grievous disease of thy bowels, till thy vital parts come out by little and little every day. 21:16. And the Lord stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, who border on the Ethiopians. 21:17. And they came up into the land of Juda, and wasted it, and they carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, his sons also, and his wives: so that there was no son left him but Joachaz, who was the youngest. Joachaz. . .Alias Ochozias. 21:18. And besides all this the Lord struck him with an incurable disease in his bowels. 21:19. And as day came after day, and time rolled on, two whole years passed: then after being wasted with a long consumption, so as to void his very bowels, his disease ended with his life. And he died of a most wretched illness, and the people did not make a funeral for him according to the manner of burning, as they had done for his ancestors. 21:20. He was two and thirty years old when he began his reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked not rightly, and they buried him in the city of David: but not in the sepulchres of the kings. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 22 The reign and death of Ochozias. The tyranny of Athalia. 22:1. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ochozias his youngest son king in his place: for the rovers of the Arabians, who had broke in upon the camp, had killed all that were his elder brothers. So Ochozias the son of Joram king of Juda reigned. 22:2. Ochozias was forty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother was Athalia the daughter of Amri. Forty-two, etc. . .Divers Greek Bibles read thirty-two, agreeably to 4 Kings 8.17. 22:3. He also walked in the ways of the house of Achab: for his mother pushed him on to do wickedly. 22:4. So he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as the house of Achab did: for they were his counsellors after the death of his father, to his destruction. 22:5. And he walked after their counsels. And he went with Joram the son of Achab king of Israel, to fight against Hazael king of Syria, at Ramoth Galaad: and the Syrians wounded Joram. 22:6. And he returned to be healed in Jezrahel: for he received many wounds in the foresaid battle. And Ochozias the son of Joram king of Juda, went down to visit Joram the son of Achab in Jezrahel where he lay sick. 22:7. For it was the will of God against Ochozias that he should come to Joram: and when he was come should go out also against Jehu the son of Namsi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Achab. 22:8. So when Jehu was rooting out the house of Achab, he found the princes of Juda, and the sons of the brethren of Ochozias, who served him, and he slew them. 22:9. And he sought for Ochozias himself, and took him lying hid in Samaria: and when he was brought to him, he killed him, and they buried him: because he was the son of Josaphat, who had sought the Lord with all his heart. And there was no more hope that any one should reign of the race of Ochozias. 22:10. For Athalia his mother, seeing that her son was dead, rose up, and killed all the royal family of the house of Joram. 22:11. But Josabeth the king's daughter took Joas the son of Ochozias, and stole him from among the king's sons that were slain. And she hid him with his nurse in a bedchamber: now Josabeth that hid him, was daughter of king Joram, wife of Joiada the high priest, and sister of Ochozias, and therefore Athalia did not kill him. 22:12. And he was with them hid in the house of God six years, during which Athalia reigned over the land. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 23 Joiada the high priest causeth Joas to be made king: Athalia to be slain, and idolatry to be destroyed. 23:1. And in the seventh year Joiada being encouraged, took the captains of hundreds, to wit, Azarias the son of Jeroham, and Ismahel the son of Johanan, and Azarias the son of Obed, and Maasias the son of Adaias, and Elisaphat the son of Zechri: and made a covenant with them. 23:2. And they went about Juda, and gathered together the Levites out of all the cities of Juda, and the chiefs of the families of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. 23:3. And all the multitude made a covenant with the king in the house of God: and Joiada said to them: Behold the king's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David. 23:4. And this is the thing that you shall do: 23:5. A third part of you that come to the sabbath, of the priests, and of the Levites, and of the porters shall be at the gates: and a third part at the king's house: and a third at the gate that is called the Foundation: but let all the rest of the people be in the courts of the house of the Lord. To the sabbath. . .That is, to perform in your weeks the functions of your office, or the weekly watches. 23:6. And let no one come into the house of the Lord, but the priests, and they that minister of the Levites: let them only come in, because they are sanctified: and let all the rest of the people keep the watches of the Lord. 23:7. And let the Levites be round about the king, every man with his arms; and if any other come into the temple, let him be slain; and let them be with the king, both coming in, and going out. 23:8. So the Levites, and all Juda did according to all that Joiada the high priest had commanded: and they took every one his men that were under him, and that came in by the course of the sabbath, with those who had fulfilled the sabbath, and were to go out. For Joiada the high priest permitted not the companies to depart, which were accustomed to succeed one another every week. 23:9. And Joiada the priest gave to the captains the spears, and the shields, and targets of king David, which he had dedicated in the house of the Lord. 23:10. And he set all the people with swords in their hands from the right side of the temple, to the left side of the temple, before the altar, and the temple, round about the king. 23:11. And they brought out the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and the testimony, and gave him the law to hold in his hand, and they made him king: and Joiada the high priest and his sons anointed him: and they prayed for him, and said: God save the king. 23:12. Now when Athalia heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came in to the people, into the temple of the Lord. 23:13. And when she saw the king standing upon the step in the entrance, and the princes, and the companies about him, and all the people of the land rejoicing, and sounding with trumpets, and playing on instruments of divers kinds, and the voice of those that praised, she rent her garments, and said: Treason, treason. 23:14. And Joiada the high priest going out to the captains, and the chiefs of the army, said to them: Take her forth without the precinct of the temple, and when she is without let her be killed with the sword. For the priest commanded that she should not be killed in the house of the Lord. 23:15. And they laid hold on her by the neck: and when she was come within the horse gate of the palace, they killed her there. 23:16. And Joiada made a covenant between himself and all the people, and the king, that they should be the people of the lord. 23:17. And all the people went into the house of Baal, and destroyed it: and they broke down his altars and his idols: and they slew Mathan the priest of Baal before the altars. 23:18. And Joiada appointed overseers in the house of the Lord, under the hands of the priests, and the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of the Lord: to offer holocausts to the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, with joy and singing, according to the disposition of David. 23:19. He appointed also porters in the gates of the house of the Lord, that none who was unclean in any thing should enter in. 23:20. And he took the captains of hundreds, and the most valiant men, and the chiefs of the people, and all the people of the land, and they brought down the king from the house of the Lord, and brought him through the upper gate into the king's house, and set him on the royal throne. 23:21. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: but Athalia was slain with the sword. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 24 Joas reigneth well all the days of Joiada: afterwards falleth into idolatry and causeth Zacharias to be slain. He is slain himself by his servants. 24:1. Joas was seven years old when he began to reign: and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Sebia of Bersabee. 24:2. And he did that which is good before the Lord all the days of Joiada the priest. 24:3. And Joiada took for him two wives, by whom he had sons and daughters. 24:4. After this Joas had a mind to repair the house of the Lord. 24:5. And he assembled the priests, and the Levites, and said to them: Go out to the cities of Juda, and gather of all Israel money to repair the temple of your God, from year to year: and do this with speed: but the Levites were negligent. 24:6. And the king called Joiada the chief, and said to him: Why hast thou not taken care to oblige the Levites to bring in out of Juda and Jerusalem the money that was appointed by Moses the servant of the Lord for all the multitude of Israel to bring into the tabernacle of the testimony? 24:7. For that wicked woman Athalia, and her children have destroyed the house of God, and adorned the temple of Baal with all the things that had been dedicated in the temple of the Lord. 24:8. And the king commanded, and they made a chest: and set it by the gate of the house of the Lord on the outside. 24:9. And they made a proclamation in Juda and Jerusalem, that every man should bring to the Lord the money which Moses the servant of God appointed for all Israel, in the desert. 24:10. And all the princes, and all the people rejoiced: and going in they contributed and cast so much into the chest of the Lord, that it was filled. 24:11. And when it was time to bring the chest before the king by the hands of the Levites, (for they saw there was much money,) the king's scribe, and he whom the high priest had appointed went in: and they poured out the money that was in the chest: and they carried back the chest to its place: and thus they did from day to day, and there was gathered an immense sum of money. 24:12. And the king and Joiada gave it to those who were over the works of the house of the Lord: but they hired with it stonecutters, and artificers of every kind of work to repair the house of the Lord: and such as wrought in iron and brass, to uphold what began to be falling. 24:13. And the workmen were diligent, and the breach of the walls was closed up by their hands, and they set up the house of the Lord in its former state, and made it stand firm. 24:14. And when they had finished all the works, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Joiada: and with it were made vessels for the temple for the ministry, and for holocausts and bowls, and other vessels of gold and silver: and holocausts were offered in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Joiada. 24:15. But Joiada grew old and was full of days, and died when he was a hundred and thirty years old. 24:16. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good to Israel, and to his house. 24:17. And after the death of Joiada, the princes of Juda went in, and worshipped the king: and he was soothed by their services and hearkened to them. 24:18. And they forsook the temple of the Lord the God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and wrath came upon Juda and Jerusalem for this sin. 24:19. And he sent prophets to them to bring them back to the Lord, and they would not give ear when they testified against them. 24:20. The spirit of God then came upon Zacharias the son of Joiada the priest, and he stood in the sight of the people, and said to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Why transgress you the commandment of the Lord which will not be for your good, and have forsaken the Lord, to make him forsake you? 24:21. And they gathered themselves together against him, and stoned him at the king's commandment in the court of the house of the Lord. 24:22. And king Joas did not remember the kindness that Joiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. And when he died, he said: The Lord see, and require it. 24:23. And when a year was come about, the army of Syria came up against him: and they came to Juda and Jerusalem, and killed all the princes of the people, and they sent all the spoils to the king of Damascus. 24:24. And whereas there came a very small number of the Syrians, the Lord delivered into their hands an infinite multitude, because they had forsaken the Lord the God of their fathers: and on Joas they executed shameful judgments. 24:25. And departing they left him in great diseases: and his servants rose up against him, for revenge of the blood of the son of Joiada the priest, and they slew him in his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings. 24:26. Now the men that conspired against him were Zabad the son of Semmaath an Ammonitess, and Jozabad the son of Semarith a Moabitess. 24:27. And concerning his sons, and the sum of money which was gathered under him, and the repairing the house of God, they are written more diligently in the book of kings: and Amasias his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 25 Amasias' reign: he beginneth well, but endeth ill: he is overthrown by Joas, and slain by his people. 25:1. Amasias was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem, the name of his mother was Joadan of Jerusalem. 25:2. And he did what was good in the sight of the Lord: but yet not with a perfect heart. 25:3. And when he saw himself strengthened in his kingdom, he put to death the servants that had slain the king his father. 25:4. But he slew not their children, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying: The fathers shall not be slain for the children, nor the children for their fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin. 25:5. Amasias therefore gathered Juda together, and appointed them by families, and captains of thousands and of hundreds in all Juda, and Benjamin: and he numbered them from twenty years old and upwards, and found three hundred thousand young men that could go out to battle, and could hold the spear and shield. 25:6. He hired also of Israel a hundred thousand valiant men, for a hundred talents of silver. 25:7. But a man of God came to him, and said: O king, let not the army of Israel go out with thee, for the Lord is not with Israel, and all the children of Ephraim: 25:8. And if thou think that battles consist in the strength of the army, God will make thee to be overcome by the enemies: for it belongeth to God both to help, and to put to flight. 25:9. And Amasias said to the man of God: What will then become of the hundred talents which I have given to the soldiers of Israel? and the man of God answered him: The Lord is rich enough to be able to give thee much more than this. 25:10. Then Amasias separated the army, that came to him out of Ephraim, to go home again: but they being much enraged against Juda, returned to their own country. 25:11. And Amasias taking courage led forth his people, and went to the vale of saltpits, and slew of the children of Seir ten thousand. 25:12. And other ten thousand men the sons of Juda took, and brought to the steep of a certain rock, and cast them down headlong from the top, and they all were broken to pieces. 25:13. But that army which Amasias had sent back, that they should not go with him to battle, spread themselves among the cities of Juda, from Samaria to Beth-horon, and having killed three thousand took away much spoil. 25:14. But Amasias after he had slain the Edomites, set up the gods of the children of Seir, which he had brought thence, to be his gods, and adored them, and burnt incense to them. 25:15. Wherefore the Lord being angry against Amasias, sent a prophet to him, to say to him: Why hast thou adored gods that have not delivered their own people out of thy hand? 25:16. And when he spoke these things, he answered him: Art thou the king's counsellor? be quiet, lest I kill thee. And the prophet departing, said: I know that God is minded to kill thee, because thou hast done this evil, and moreover hast not hearkened to my counsel. 25:17. Then Amasias king of Juda taking very bad counsel, sent to Joas the son of Joachaz the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying: Come, let us see one another. 25:18. But he sent back the messengers, saying: The thistle that is in Libanus, sent to the cedar in Libanus, saying: Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and behold the beasts that were in the wood of Libanus passed by and trod down the thistle. 25:19. Thou hast said: I have overthrown Edom, and therefore thy heart is lifted up with pride: stay at home, why dost thou provoke evil against thee, that both thou shouldst fall and Juda with thee. 25:20. Amasias would not hearken to him, because it was the Lord's will that he should be delivered into the hands of enemies, because of the gods of Edom. 25:21. So Joas king of Israel went up, and they presented themselves to be seen by one another: and Amasias king of Juda was in Bethsames of Juda: 25:22. And Juda fell before Israel, and they fled to their dwellings. 25:23. And Joas king of Israel took Amasias king of Juda, the son of Joas, the son of Joachaz, in Bethsames, and brought him to Jerusalem: and broke down the walls thereof from the gate of Ephraim, to the gate of the corner, four hundred cubits. 25:24. And he took all the gold, and silver, and all the vessels, that he found in the house of God, and with Obededom, and in the treasures of the king's house, moreover also the sons of the hostages, he brought back to Samaria. 25:25. And Amasias the son of Joas king of Juda lived, after the death of Joas the son of Joachaz king of Israel, fifteen years. 25:26. Now the rest of the acts of Amasias, the first and last, are written in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. 25:27. And after he revolted from the Lord, they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem. And he fled into Lachis, and they sent, and killed him there. 25:28. And they brought him back upon horses, and buried him with his fathers in the city of David. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 26 Ozias reigneth prosperously, till he invadeth the priests' office, upon which he is struck with a leprosy. 26:1. And all the people of Juda took his son Ozias, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the room of Amasias his father. 26:2. He built Ailath, and restored it to the dominion of Juda, after that the king slept with his fathers. 26:3. Ozias was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Jechelia of Jerusalem. 26:4. And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Amasias his father had done. 26:5. And he sought the Lord in the days of Zacharias that understood and saw God: and as long as he sought the Lord, he directed him in all things. 26:6. Moreover he went forth and fought against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Geth, and the wall of Jabnia, and the wall of Azotus: and he built towns in Azotus, and among the Philistines. 26:7. And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians, that dwelt in Gurbaal, and against the Ammonites. 26:8. And the Ammonites gave gifts to Ozias: and his name was spread abroad even to the entrance of Egypt for his frequent victories. 26:9. And Ozias built towers in Jerusalem over the gate of the corner, and over the gate of the valley, and the rest, in the same side of the wall, and fortified them. 26:10. And he built towers in the wilderness, and dug many cisterns, for he had much cattle both in the plains, and in the waste of the desert: he had also vineyards and dressers of vines in the mountains, and in Carmel: for he was a man that loved husbandry. 26:11. And the army of his fighting men, that went out to war, was under the hand of Jehiel the scribe, and Maasias the doctor, and under the hand of Henanias, who was one of the king's captains. 26:12. And the whole number of the chiefs by the families of valiant men were two thousand six hundred. 26:13. And the whole army under them three hundred and seven thousand five hundred: who were fit for war, and fought for the king against the enemy. 26:14. And Ozias prepared for them, that is, for the whole army, shields, and spears, and helmets, and coats of mail, and bows, and slings to cast stones. 26:15. And he made in Jerusalem engines of diverse kinds, which he placed in the towers, and in the corners of the walls, to shoot arrows, and great stones: and his name went forth far abroad, for the Lord helped him, and had strengthened him. 26:16. But when he was made strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, and he neglected the Lord his God: and going into the temple of the Lord, he had a mind to burn incense upon the altar of incense. 26:17. And immediately Azarias the priest going in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the Lord, most valiant men, 26:18. Withstood the king and said: It doth not belong to thee, Ozias, to burn incense to the Lord, but to the priests, that is, to the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated for this ministry: go out of the sanctuary, do not despise: for this thing shall not be accounted to thy glory by the Lord God. 26:19. And Ozias was angry, and holding in his hand the censer to burn incense, threatened the priests. And presently there rose a leprosy in his forehead before the priests, in the house of the Lord at the altar of incense. 26:20. And Azarias the high priest, and all the rest of the priests looked upon him, and saw the leprosy in his forehead, and they made haste to thrust him out. Yea himself also being frightened, hasted to go out, because he had quickly felt the stroke of the Lord. 26:21. And Ozias the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and he dwelt in a house apart being full of the leprosy, for which he had been cast out of the house of the Lord. And Joatham his son governed the king's house, and judged the people of the land. 26:22. But the rest of the acts of Ozias first and last were written by Isaias the son of Amos, the prophet. 26:23. And Ozias slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the field of the royal sepulchres, because he was a leper: and Joatham his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 27 Joatham's good reign. 27:1. Joatham was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Jerusa the daughter of Sadoc. 27:2. And he did that which was right before the Lord, according to all that Ozias his father had done, only that he entered not into the temple of the Lord, and the people still transgressed. 27:3. He built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and on the wall of Ophel he built much. 27:4. Moreover he built cities in the mountains of Juda, and castles and towers in the forests. 27:5. He fought against the king of the children of Ammon, and overcame them, and the children of Ammon gave him at that time a hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and as many measures of barley: so much did the children of Ammon give him in the second and third year. 27:6. And Joatham was strengthened, because he had his way directed before the Lord his God. 27:7. Now the rest of the acts of Joatham, and all his wars, and his works, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Juda. 27:8. He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. 27:9. And Joatham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Achaz his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 28 The wicked and unhappy reign of Achaz. 28:1. Achaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done, 28:2. But walked in the ways of the kings of Israel; moreover also he cast statues for Baalim. 28:3. It was he that burnt incense in the valley of Benennom, and consecrated his sons in the fire according to the manner of the nations, which the Lord slew at the coming of the children of Israel. 28:4. He sacrificed also, and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree. 28:5. And the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria, who defeated him, and took a great booty out of his kingdom, and carried it to Damascus: he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel, who overthrew him with a great slaughter. 28:6. For Phacee the son of Romelia slew of Juda a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord the God of their fathers. 28:7. At the same time Zechri a powerful man of Ephraim, slew Maasias the king's son, and Ezricam the governor of his house, and Elcana who was next to the king. 28:8. And the children of Israel carried away of their brethren two hundred thousand women, boys, and girls, and an immense booty: and they brought it to Samaria. 28:9. At that time there was a prophet of the Lord there, whose name was Oded: and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them: Behold the Lord the God of your fathers being angry with Juda, hath delivered them into your hands, and you have butchered them cruelly, so that your cruelty hath reached up to heaven. 28:10. Moreover you have a mind to keep under the children of Juda and Jerusalem for your bondmen and bondwomen, which ought not to be done: for you have sinned in this against the Lord your God. 28:11. But hear ye my counsel, and release the captives that you have brought of your brethren, because a great indignation of the Lord hangeth over you. 28:12. Then some of the chief men of the sons of Ephraim, Azarias the son of Johanan, Barachias the son of Mosollamoth, Ezechias the son of Sellum, and Amasa the son of Adali, stood up against them that came from the war. 28:13. And they said to them: You shall not bring in the captives hither, lest we sin against the Lord. Why will you add to our sins, and heap up upon our former offences? for the sin is great, and the fierce anger of the Lord hangeth over Israel. 28:14. So the soldiers left the spoils, and all that they had taken, before the princes and all the multitude. 28:15. And the men, whom we mentioned above, rose up and took the captives, and with the spoils clothed all them that were naked: and when they had clothed and shod them, and refreshed them with meat and drink, and anointed them because of their labour, and had taken care of them, they set such of them as could not walk, and were feeble, upon beasts, and brought them to Jericho the city of palm trees to their brethren, and they returned to Samaria. 28:16. At that time king Achaz sent to the king of the Assyrians asking help. 28:17. And the Edomites came and slew many of Juda, and took a great booty. 28:18. The Philistines also spread themselves among the cities of the plains, and to the south of Juda: and they took Bethsames, and Aialon, and Gaderoth, and Socho, and Thamnan, and Gamzo, with their villages, and they dwelt in them. 28:19. For the Lord had humbled Juda because of Achaz the king of Juda, for he had stripped it of help, and had contemned the Lord. For he had stripped it of help. . .That is, Achaz stripped the kingdom of Juda of the divine assistance by his wickedness, and by his introducing idolatry. 28:20. And he brought against him Thelgathphalnasar king of the Assyrians, who also afflicted him, and plundered him without any resistance. 28:21. And Achaz stripped the house of the Lord, and the house of the kings, and of the princes, and gave gifts to the king of the Assyrians, and yet it availed him nothing. 28:22. Moreover also in the time of his distress he increased contempt against the Lord: king Achaz himself by himself, 28:23. Sacrificed victims to the gods of Damascus that struck him, and he said: The gods of the kings of Syria help them, and I will appease them with victims, and they will help me; whereas on the contrary they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel. 28:24. Then Achaz having taken away all the vessels of the house of God, and broken them, shut up the doors of the temple of God, and made himself altars in all the corners of Jerusalem. 28:25. And in all the cities of Juda he built altars to burn frankincense, and he provoked the Lord the God of his fathers to wrath. 28:26. But the rest of his acts, and all his works first and last are written in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. 28:27. And Achaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of Jerusalem: for they received him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel. And Ezechias his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 29 Ezechias purifieth the temple, and restoreth religion. 29:1. Now Ezechias began to reign, when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Abia, the daughter of Zacharias. 29:2. And he did that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. 29:3. In the first year and month of his reign he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and repaired them. 29:4. And he brought the priests and the Levites, and assembled them in the east street. 29:5. And he said to them: Hear me, ye Levites, and be sanctified, purify the house of the Lord the God of your fathers, and take away all filth out of the sanctuary. 29:6. Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs. 29:7. They have shut up the doors that were in the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense, nor offered holocausts in the sanctuary of the God of Israel. 29:8. Therefore the wrath of the Lord hath been stirred up against Juda and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, and to destruction, and to be hissed at, as you see with your eyes. 29:9. Behold, our fathers are fallen by the sword, our sons, and our daughters, and wives are led away captives for this wickedness. 29:10. Now therefore I have a mind that we make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel, and he will turn away the wrath of his indignation from us. 29:11. My sons, be not negligent: the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to minister to him, and to worship him, and to burn incense to him. 29:12. Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azarias, of the sons of Caath: and of the sons of Merari, Cis the son of Abdi, and Azarias the son of Jalaleel. And of the sons of Gerson, Joah the son of Zemma, and Eden the son of Joah. 29:13. And of the sons of Elisaphan, Samri, and Jahiel. Also of the sons of Asaph, Zacharias, and Mathanias. 29:14. And of the sons of Heman, Jahiel, and Semei: and of the sons of Idithun, Semeias, and Oziel. 29:15. And they gathered together their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and went in according to the commandment of the king, and the precept of the Lord, to purify the house of God. 29:16. And the priests went into the temple of the Lord to sanctify it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found within to the entrance of the house of the Lord, and the Levites took it away, and carried it out abroad to the torrent Cedron. 29:17. And they began to cleanse on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the same month they came into the porch of the temple of the Lord, and they purified the temple in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the same month they finished what they had begun. 29:18. And they went in to king Ezechias, and said to him: We have sanctified all the house of the Lord, and the altar of holocaust, and the vessels thereof, and the table of proposition with all its vessels, 29:19. And all the furniture of the temple, which king Achaz in his reign had defiled, after his transgression; and behold they are all set forth before the altar of the Lord. 29:20. And king Ezechias rising early, assembled all the rulers of the city, and went up into the house of the Lord: 29:21. And they offered together seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats for sin, for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, for Juda: and he spoke to the priests the sons of Aaron, to offer them upon the altar of the Lord. 29:22. Therefore they killed the bullocks, and the priests took the blood, and poured it upon the altar; they killed also the rams, and their blood they poured also upon the altar, and they killed the lambs, and poured the blood upon the altar. 29:23. And they brought the he goats for sin before the king, and the whole multitude, and they laid their hand upon them: 29:24. And the priests immolated them, and sprinkled their blood before the altar for an expiation of all Israel: for the king had commanded that the holocaust and the sin offering should be made for all Israel. 29:25. And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps according to the regulation of David the king, and of Gad the seer, and of Nathan the prophet: for it was the commandment of the Lord by the hand of his prophets. 29:26. And the Levites stood, with the instruments of David, and the priests with trumpets. 29:27. And Ezechias commanded that they should offer holocausts upon the altar: and when the holocausts were offered, they began to sing praises to the Lord, and to sound with trumpets, and divers instruments which David the king of Israel had prepared. 29:28. And all the multitude adored, and the singers, and the trumpeters, were in their office till the holocaust was finished. 29:29. And when the oblation was ended, the king, and all that were with him bowed down and adored. 29:30. And Ezechias and the princes commanded the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David, and Asaph the seer: and they praised him with great joy, and bowing the knee adored. 29:31. And Ezechias added, and said: You have filled your hands to the Lord, come and offer victims, and praises in the house of the Lord. And all the multitude offered victims, and praises, and holocausts with a devout mind. 29:32. And the number of the holocausts which the multitude offered, was seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. 29:33. And they consecrated to the Lord six hundred oxen, and three thousand sheep. 29:34. But the priests were few, and were not enough to flay the holocausts: wherefore the Levites their brethren helped them, till the work was ended, and priests were sanctified, for the Levites are sanctified with an easier rite than the priests. 29:35. So there were many holocausts, and the fat of peace offerings, and the libations of holocausts: and the service of the house of the Lord was completed. 29:36. And Ezechias, and all the people rejoiced because the ministry of the Lord was accomplished. For the resolution of doing this thing was taken suddenly. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 30 Ezechias inviteth all Israel to celebrate the pasch; the solemnity is kept fourteen days. 30:1. And Ezechias sent to all Israel and Juda: and he wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasses, that they should come to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel, 30:2. For the king, taking counsel, and the princes, and all the assembly of Jerusalem, decreed to keep the phase the second month. 30:3. For they could not keep it in its time; because there were not priests enough sanctified, and the people was not as yet gathered together to Jerusalem. The host of heaven. . .The sun, moon, and stars. 30:4. And the thing pleased the king, and all the people. 30:5. And they decreed to send messengers to all Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, that they should come, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel in Jerusalem: for many had not kept it as it is prescribed by the law. 30:6. And the posts went with letters by commandment of the king, and his princes, to all Israel and Juda, proclaiming according to the king's orders: Ye children of Israel, turn again to the Lord the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Israel: and he will return to the remnant of you that have escaped the hand of the king of the Assyrians. 30:7. Be not like your fathers, and brethren, who departed from the Lord the God of their fathers, and he hath given them up to destruction, as you see. 30:8. Harden not your necks, as your fathers did: yield yourselves to the Lord, and come to his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified forever: serve the Lord the God of your fathers, and the wrath of his indignation shall be turned away from you. 30:9. For if you turn again to the Lord, your brethren, and children shall find mercy before their masters, that have led them away captive, and they shall return into this land: for the Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him. 30:10. So the posts went speedily from city to city, through the land of Ephraim, and of Manasses, even to Zabulon, whilst they laughed at them and mocked them. 30:11. Nevertheless some men of Aser, and of Manasses, and of Zabulon, yielding to the counsel, came to Jerusalem. 30:12. But the hand of God was in Juda, to give them one heart to do the word of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king, and of the princes. 30:13. And much people were assembled to Jerusalem to celebrate the solemnity of the unleavened bread in the second month: 30:14. And they arose and destroyed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and took away all things in which incense was burnt to idols and cast them into the torrent Cedron. 30:15. And they immolated the phase on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites being at length sanctified offered holocausts in the house of the Lord. 30:16. And they stood in their order according to the disposition and law of Moses the man of God: but the priests received the blood which was to be poured out, from the hands of the Levites, 30:17. Because a great number was not sanctified: and therefore the Levites immolated the phase for them that came not in time to be sanctified to the Lord. 30:18. For a great part of the people from Ephraim, and Manasses, and Issachar, and Zabulon, that had not been sanctified, ate the phase otherwise than it is written: and Ezechias prayed for them, saying: The Lord who is good will shew mercy, 30:19. To all them, who with their whole heart, seek the Lord the God of their fathers: and will not impute it to them that they are not sanctified. 30:20. And the Lord heard him, and was merciful to the people. 30:21. And the children of Israel, that were found at Jerusalem, kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great joy, praising the Lord every day. the Levites also, and the priests, with instruments that agreed to their office. 30:22. And Ezechias spoke to the heart of all the Levites, that had good understanding concerning the Lord: and they ate during the seven days of the solemnity, immolating victims of peace offerings, and praising the Lord the God of their fathers. 30:23. And it pleased the whole multitude to keep other seven days: which they did with great joy. 30:24. For Ezechias the king of Juda had given to the multitude a thousand bullocks, and seven thousand sheep: and the princes had given the people a thousand bullocks, and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests was sanctified. 30:25. And all the multitude of Juda with the priests and Levites, and all the assembly, that came out of Israel; and the proselytes of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Juda were full of joy. 30:26. And there was a great solemnity in Jerusalem, such as had not been in that city since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel. 30:27. And the priests and the Levites rose up and blessed the people: and their voice was heard: and their prayer came to the holy dwelling place of heaven. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 31 Idolatry is abolished; and provisions made for the ministers. 31:1. And when these things had been duly celebrated, all Israel that were found in the cities of Juda, went out, and they broke the idols, and cut down the groves, demolished the high places, and destroyed the altars, not only out of all Juda and Benjamin, but out of Ephraim also and Manasses, till they had utterly destroyed them: then all the children of Israel returned to their possessions and cities. 31:2. And Ezechias appointed companies of the priests, and the Levites, by their courses, every man in his own office, to wit, both of the priests, and of the Levites, for holocausts, and for peace offerings, to minister, and to praise, and to sing in the gates of the camp of the Lord. 31:3. And the king's part was, that of his proper substance the holocaust should be offered always morning and evening, and on the sabbaths, and the new moons and the other solemnities, as it is written in the law of Moses. 31:4. He commanded also the people that dwelt in Jerusalem, to give to the priests, and the Levites their portion, that they might attend to the law of the Lord. 31:5. Which when it was noised abroad in the ears of the people, the children of Israel offered in abundance the firstfruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey: and brought the tithe of all things which the ground bringeth forth. 31:6. Moreover the children of Israel and Juda, that dwelt in the cities of Juda, brought in the tithes of oxen, and sheep, and the tithes of holy things, which they had vowed to the Lord their God: and carrying them all, made many heaps. 31:7. In the third month they began to lay the foundations of the heaps, and in the seventh month, they finished them. 31:8. And when Ezechias and his princes came in, they saw the heaps, and they blessed the Lord and the people of Israel. 31:9. And Ezechias asked the priests and the Levites, why the heaps lay so. 31:10. Azarias the chief priest of the race of Sadoc answered him, saying: Since the firstfruits began to be offered in the house of the Lord, we have eaten, and have been filled, and abundance is left, because the Lord hath blessed his people: and of that which is left is this great store which thou seest. 31:11. Then Ezechias commanded to prepare storehouses in the house of the Lord. And when they had done so, 31:12. They brought in faithfully both the firstfruits, and the tithes, and all they had vowed. And the overseer of them was Chonenias the Levite, and Semei his brother was the second, 31:13. And after him Jehiel, and Azarias, and Nahath, and Asael, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Jesmachias, and Mahath, and Banaias, overseers under the hand of Chonenias, and Semei his brother, by the commandment of Ezechias the king, and Azarias the high priest of the house of God, to whom all things appertained. 31:14. But Core the son of Jemna the Levite, the porter of the east gate, was overseer of the things which were freely offered to the Lord, and of the firstfruits and the things dedicated for the holy of holies. 31:15. And under his charge were Eden, and Benjamin, Jesue, and Semeias, and Amarias, and Sechenias, in the cities of the priests, to distribute faithfully portions to their brethren, both little and great: 31:16. Besides the males from three years old and upward, to all that went into the temple of the Lord, and whatsoever there was need of in the ministry, and their offices according to their courses, day by day. 31:17. To the priests by their families, and to the Levites from the twentieth year and upward, by their classes and companies. 31:18. And to all the multitude, both to their wives, and to their children of both sexes, victuals were given faithfully out of the things that had been sanctified. 31:19. Also of the sons of Aaron who were in the fields and in the suburbs of each city, there were men appointed, to distribute portions to all the males, among the priests and the Levites. 31:20. So Ezechias did all things which we have said in all Juda, and wrought that which was good, and right, and truth, before the Lord his God, 31:21. In all the service of the house of the Lord according to the law and the ceremonies, desiring to seek his God with all his heart, and he did it and prospered. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 32 Sennacherib invadeth Juda: his army is destroyed by an angel. Ezechias recovereth from his sickness: his other acts. 32:1. After these things, and this truth, Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came and entered into Juda, and besieged the fenced cities, desiring to take them. 32:2. And when Ezechias saw that Sennacherib was come, and that the whole force of the war was turning against Jerusalem, 32:3. He took counsel with the princes, and the most valiant men, to stop up the heads of the springs, that were without the city: and as they were all of this mind, 32:4. He gathered together a very great multitude, and they stopped up all the springs, and the brook, that ran through the midst of the land, saying: Lest the kings of the Assyrians should come, and find abundance of water. 32:5. He built up also with great diligence all the wall that had been broken down, and built towers upon it, and another wall without: and he repaired Mello in the city of David, and made all sorts of arms and shields: 32:6. And he appointed captains of the soldiers of the army: and he called them all together in the street of the gate of the city, and spoke to their heart, saying: 32:7. Behave like men, and take courage: be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of the Assyrians, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there are many more with us than with him. 32:8. For with him is an arm of flesh: with us the Lord our God, who is our helper, and fighteth for us. And the people were encouraged with these words of Ezechias king of Juda. 32:9. After this, Sennacherib king of the Assyrians sent his servants to Jerusalem, (for he with all his army was besieging Lachis,) to Ezechias king of Juda, and to all the people that were in the city, saying: 32:10. Thus saith Sennacherib king of the Assyrians: In whom do you trust, that you sit still besieged in Jerusalem? 32:11. Doth not Ezechias deceive you, to give you up to die by hunger and thirst, affirming that the Lord your God shall deliver you from the hand of the king of the Assyrians? 32:12. Is it not this same Ezechias, that hath destroyed his high places, and his altars, and commanded Juda and Jerusalem, saying: You shall worship before one altar, and upon it you shall burn incense? 32:13. Know you not what I and my fathers have done to all the people of the lands? have the gods of any nations and lands been able to deliver their country out of my hand? 32:14. Who is there among all the gods of the nations, which my fathers have destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of this hand? 32:15. Therefore let not Ezechias deceive you, nor delude you with a vain persuasion, and do not believe him. For if no god of all the nations and kingdoms, could deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers, consequently neither shall your God be able to deliver you out of my hand. 32:16. And many other things did his servants speak against the Lord God, and against Ezechias his servant. 32:17. He wrote also letters full of blasphemy against the Lord the God of Israel, and he spoke against him: As the gods of other nations could not deliver their people out of my hand, so neither can the God of Ezechias deliver his people out of this hand. 32:18. Moreover he cried out with a loud voice, in the Jews' tongue, to the people that sat on the walls of Jerusalem, that he might frighten them, and take the city. 32:19. And he spoke against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, the works of the hands of men. 32:20. And Ezechias the king, and Isaias the prophet the son of Amos, prayed against this blasphemy, and cried out to heaven. 32:21. And the Lord sent an angel, who cut off all the stout men and the warriors, and the captains of the army of the king of the Assyrians: and he returned with disgrace into his own country. And when he was come into the house of his god, his sons that came out of his bowels, slew him with the sword. 32:22. And the Lord saved Ezechias and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of the hand of Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, and out of the hand of all, and gave them treasures on every side. 32:23. Many also brought victims, and sacrifices to the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Ezechias king of Juda: and he was magnified thenceforth in the sight of all nations. 32:24. In those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and he prayed to the Lord: and he heard him, and gave him a sign. 32:25. But he did not render again according to the benefits which he had received, for his heart was lifted up: and wrath was enkindled against him, and against Juda and Jerusalem. 32:26. And he humbled himself afterwards, because his heart had been lifted up, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and therefore the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Ezechias. 32:27. And Ezechias was rich, and very glorious, and he gathered himself great treasures of silver and of gold, and of precious stones, of spices, and of arms, of all kinds, and of vessels of great price. 32:28. Storehouses also of corn, of wine, and of oil, and stalls for all beasts, and folds for cattle. 32:29. And he built himself cities: for he had flocks of sheep, and herds without number, for the Lord had given him very much substance. 32:30. This same Ezechias was, he that stopped the upper source of the waters of Gihon, and turned them away underneath toward the west of the city of David: in all his works he did prosperously what he would. 32:31. But yet in the embassy of the princes of Babylon, that were sent to him, to inquire of the wonder that had happened upon the earth, God left him that he might be tempted, and all things might be made known that were in his heart. 32:32. Now the rest of the acts of Ezechias, and of his mercies are written in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. 32:33. And Ezechias slept with his fathers, and they buried him above the sepulchres of the sons of David: and all Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem celebrated his funeral: and Manasses his son reigned in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 33 Manasses for his manifold wickedness is led captive to Babylon: he repenteth, and is restored to his kingdom, and destroyeth idolatry: his successor Amon is slain by his servants. 33:1. Manasses was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 33:2. And he did evil before the Lord, according to all the abominations of the nations, which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel: 33:3. And he turned, and built again the high places which Ezechias his father had destroyed: and he built altars to Baalim, and made groves, and he adored all the host of heaven, and worshipped them. The host of heaven. . .The sun, moon, and stars. 33:4. He built also altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said: In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. 33:5. And he built them for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 33:6. And he made his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of Benennom: he observed dreams, followed divinations, gave himself up to magic arts, had with him magicians, and enchanters: and he wrought many evils before the Lord, to provoke him to anger. 33:7. He set also a graven, and a molten statue in the house of God, of which God had said to David, and to Solomon his son: In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever. 33:8. And I will not make the foot of Israel to be removed out of the land which I have delivered to their fathers: yet so if they will take heed to do what I have commanded them, and all the law, and the ceremonies, and judgments by the hand of Moses. 33:9. So Manasses seduced Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to do evil beyond all the nations, which the Lord had destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. 33:10. And the Lord spoke to his people, and they would not hearken. 33:11. Therefore he brought upon them the captains of he army of the king of the Assyrians: and they took Manasses, and carried him bound with chains and fetters to Babylon. 33:12. And after that he was in distress he prayed to the Lord his God: and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers. 33:13. And he entreated him, and besought him earnestly: and he heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, and Manasses knew that the Lord was God. 33:14. After this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon in the valley, from the entering in of the gate round about to Ophel, and raised it up to a great height: and he appointed captains of the army in all the fenced cities of Juda: 33:15. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord: the altars also which he had made in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and he cast them all out of the city. 33:16. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed upon it victims, and peace offerings, and praise: and he commanded Juda to serve the Lord the God of Israel. 33:17. Nevertheless the people still sacrificed in the high places to the Lord their God. 33:18. But the rest of the acts of Manasses, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers that spoke to him in the name of the Lord the God of Israel, are contained in the words of the kings of Israel. 33:19. His prayer also, and his being heard and all his sins, and contempt, and places wherein he built high places, and set up groves, and statues before he did penance, are written in the words of Hozai. 33:20. And Manasses slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house: and his son Amon reigned in his stead. 33:21. Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 33:22. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasses his father had done: he sacrificed to all the idols which Manasses his father had made, and served them. 33:23. And he did not humble himself before the lord, as Manasses his father had humbled himself, but committed far greater sin. 33:24. And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house. 33:25. But the rest of the multitude of the people slew them that had killed Amon, and made Josias his son king in his stead. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 34 Josias destroyeth idolatry, repaireth the temple, and reneweth the covenant between God and the people. 34:1. Josias was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one and thirty years in Jerusalem. 34:2. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father: he declined not, neither to the right hand, nor to the left. 34:3. And in the eighth year of his reign, when he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of his father David: and in the twelfth year after he began to reign, he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the idols, and the graven things. 34:4. And they broke down before him the altars of Baalim, and demolished the idols that had been set upon them: and he cut down the groves and the graven things, and broke them in pieces: and strewed the fragments upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them. 34:5. And he burnt the bones of the priests on the altars of the idols, and he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem. 34:6. And in the cities of Manasses, and of Ephraim, and of Simeon, even to Nephtali he demolished all. 34:7. And when he had destroyed the altars, and the groves, and had broken the idols in pieces, and had demolished all profane temples throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. 34:8. Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land, and the temple of the Lord, he sent Saphan the son of Elselias, and Maasias the governor of the city, Joha the son of Joachaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God. 34:9. And they came to Helcias the high priest: and received of him the money which had been brought into the house of the Lord, and which the Levites and porters had gathered together from Manasses, and Ephraim, and all the remnant of Israel, and from all Juda, and Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 34:10. Which they delivered into the hands of them that were over the workmen in the house of the Lord, to repair the temple, and mend all that was weak. 34:11. But they gave it to the artificers, and to the masons, to buy stones out of the quarries, and timber for the couplings of the building, and to rafter the houses, which the kings of Juda had destroyed. 34:12. And they did all faithfully. Now the overseers of the workmen were Jahath and Abdias of the sons of Merari, Zacharias and Mosollam of the sons of Caath, who hastened the work: all Levites skilful to play on instruments. 34:13. But over them that carried burdens for divers uses, were scribes, and masters of the number of the Levites, and porters. 34:14. Now when they carried out the money that had been brought into the temple of the Lord, Helcias the priest found the book of the law of the Lord, by the hand of Moses. 34:15. And he said to Saphan the scribe: I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord: and he delivered it to him. 34:16. But he carried the book to the king, and told him, saying: Lo, all that thou hast committed to thy servants, is accomplished. 34:17. They have gathered together the silver that was found in the house of the Lord: and it is given to the overseers of the artificers, and of the workmen, for divers works. 34:18. Moreover Helcias the priest gave me this book. And he read it before the king. 34:19. And when he had heard the words of the law, he rent his garments: 34:20. And he commanded Helcias, and Ahicam the son of Saphan, and Abdon the son of Micha, and Saphan the scribe, and Asaa the king's servant, saying: 34:21. Go, and pray to the Lord for me, and for the remnant of Israel, and Juda, concerning all the words of this book, which is found: for the great wrath of the Lord hath fallen upon us, because our fathers have not kept the words of the Lord, to do all things that are written in this book. 34:22. And Helcias and they that were sent with him by the king, went to Olda the prophetess, the wife of Sellum the son of Thecuath, the son of Hasra keeper of the wardrobe: who dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second part: and they spoke to her the words above mentioned. 34:23. And she answered them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me: 34:24. Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring evils upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, and all the curses that are written in this book which they read before the king of Juda. 34:25. Because they have forsaken me, and have sacrificed to strange gods, to provoke me to wrath with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath shall fail upon this place, and shall not be quenched. 34:26. But as to the king of Juda that sent you to beseech the Lord, thus shall you say to him: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Because thou hast heard the words of this book, 34:27. And thy heart was softened, and thou hast humbled thyself in the sight of God for the things that are spoken against this place, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and reverencing my face, hast rent thy garments, and wept before me: I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. 34:28. For now I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be brought to thy tomb in peace: and thy eyes shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and the inhabitants thereof. They therefore reported to the king all that she had said. 34:29. And he called together all the ancients of Juda and Jerusalem. 34:30. And went up to the house of the Lord, and all the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites, and all the people from the least to the greatest. And the king read in their hearing, in the house of the Lord, all the words of the book. 34:31. And standing up in his tribunal, he made a covenant before the Lord to walk after him, and keep his commandments, and testimonies, and justifications with all his heart, and with all his soul, and to do the things that were written in that book which he had read. 34:32. And he adjured all that were found in Jerusalem and Benjamin to do the same: and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of the Lord the God of their fathers. 34:33. And Josias took away all the abominations out of all the countries of the children of Israel and made all that were left in Israel, to serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived they departed not from the Lord the God of their fathers. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 35 Josias celebrateth a most solemn pasch. He is slain by the king of Egypt. 35:1. And Josias kept a phase to the Lord in Jerusalem, and it was sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month. 35:2. And he set the priests in their offices, and exhorted them to minister in the house of the Lord. 35:3. And he spoke to the Levites, by whose instruction all Israel was sanctified to the Lord, saying: Put the ark in the sanctuary of the temple, which Solomon the son of David king of Israel built: for you shall carry it no more: but minister now to the Lord your God, and to his people Israel. 35:4. And prepare yourselves by your houses, and families according to your courses, as David king of Israel commanded, and Solomon his son hath written. 35:5. And serve ye in the sanctuary by the families and companies of Levi. 35:6. And being sanctified kill the phase, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the words which the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses. 35:7. And Josias gave to all the people that were found there in the solemnity of the phase, of lambs and of kids of the flocks, and of other small cattle thirty thousand, and of oxen three thousand, all these were of the king's substance. 35:8. And his princes willingly offered what they had vowed, both to the people and to the priests and the Levites. Moreover Helcias, and Zacharias, and Jahiel rulers of the house of the Lord, gave to the priests to keep the phase two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen. 35:9. And Chonenias, and Semeias and Nathanael, his brethren, and Hasabias, and Jehiel, and Jozabad princes of the Levites, gave to the rest of the Levites to celebrate the phase five thousand small cattle, and five hundred oxen. 35:10. And the ministry was prepared, and the priests stood in their office: the Levites also in their companies, according to the king's commandment. 35:11. And the phase was immolated: and the priests sprinkled the blood with their hand, and the Levites flayed the holocausts: 35:12. And they separated them, to give them by the houses and families of every one, and to be offered to the Lord, as it is written in the book of Moses, and with the oxen they did in like manner. 35:13. And they roasted the phase with fire, according to that which is written in the law: but the victims of peace offerings they boiled in caldrons, and kettles, and pots, and they distributed them speedily among all the people. 35:14. And afterwards they made ready for themselves, and for the priests: for the priests were busied in offering of holocausts and the fat until night, wherefore the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests the sons of Aaron last. 35:15. And the singers the sons of Asaph stood in their order, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Idithun, the prophets of the king: and the porters kept guard at every gate, so as not to depart one moment from their service, and therefore their brethren the Levites prepared meats for them. 35:16. So all the service of the Lord was duly accomplished that day, both in keeping the phase and offering holocausts upon the altar of the Lord, according to the commandment of king Josias. 35:17. And the children of Israel that were found there, kept the phase at that time, and the feast of unleavened seven days. 35:18. There was no phase like to this in Israel, from the days of Samuel the prophet: neither did any of all the kings of Israel keep such a phase as Josias kept, with the priests, and the Levites, and all Juda, and Israel that were found, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 35:19. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josias was this phase celebrated. 35:20. After that Josias had repaired the temple, Nechao king of Egypt came up to fight in Charcamis by the Euphrates: and Josias went out to meet him. 35:21. But he sent messengers to him, saying: What have I to do with thee, O king of Juda? I come not against thee this day, but I fight against another house, to which God hath commanded me to go in haste: forbear to do against God, who is with me, lest he kill thee. 35:22. Josias would not return, but prepared to fight against him, and hearkened not to the words of Nechao from the mouth of God, but went to fight in the field of Mageddo. 35:23. And there he was wounded by the archers, and he said to his servants: Carry me out of the battle, for I am grievously wounded. 35:24. And they removed him from the chariot into another, that followed him after the manner of kings, and they carried him away to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in the monument of his fathers, and all Juda and Jerusalem mourned for him, 35:25. Particularly Jeremias: whose lamentations for Josias all the singing men and singing women repeat unto this day, and it became like a law in Israel: Behold it is found written in the Lamentations. 35:26. Now the rest of the acts of Josias and of his mercies, according to what was commanded by the law of the Lord: 35:27. And his works first and last, are written in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. 2 Paralipomenon Chapter 36 The reigns of Joachaz, Joakim, Joachin, and Sedecias: the captivity of Babylon released at length by Cyrus. 36:1. Then the people of the land took Joachaz the son of Josias, and made him king instead of his father in Jerusalem. 36:2. Joachaz was three and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. 36:3. And the king of Egypt came to Jerusalem, and deposed him, and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. 36:4. And he made Eliakim his brother king in his stead, over Juda and Jerusalem: and he turned his name to Joakim: but he took Joachaz with him and carried him away into Egypt. 36:5. Joakim was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did evil before the Lord his God. 36:6. Against him came up Nabuchodonosor king of the Chaldeans, and led him bound in chains into Babylon. 36:7. And he carried also thither the vessels of the Lord, and put them in his temple. 36:8. But the rest of the acts of Joakim, and his abominations, which he wrought, and the things that were found in him, are contained in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. And Joachin his son reigned in his stead. 36:9. Joachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Eight years old. . .He was associated by his father to the kingdom, when he was but eight years old; but after his father's death, when he reigned alone, he was eighteen years old. 4 Kings 24.8. 36:10. And at the return of the year, king Nabuchodonosor sent, and brought him to Babylon, carrying away at the same time the most precious vessels of the house of the Lord: and he made Sedecias his uncle king over Juda and Jerusalem. 36:11. Sedecias was one and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 36:12. And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God, and did not reverence the face of Jeremias the prophet speaking to him from the mouth of the Lord. 36:13. He also revolted from king Nabuchodonosor, who had made him swear by God: and he hardened his neck and his heart, from returning to the Lord the God of Israel. 36:14. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people wickedly transgressed according to all the abominations of the Gentiles: and they defiled the house of the Lord, which he had sanctified to himself in Jerusalem. 36:15. And the Lord the God of their fathers sent to them, by the hand of his messengers, rising early, and daily admonishing them: because he spared his people and his dwelling place. 36:16. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused the prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, and there was no remedy. 36:17. For he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, and he slew their young men with the sword in the house of his sanctuary, he had no compassion on young man, or maiden, old man or even him that stooped for age, but he delivered them all into his hands. 36:18. And all the vessels of the house of Lord, great and small, and the treasures of the temple and of the king, and of the princes he carried away to Babylon. 36:19. And the enemies set fire to the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all the towers, and what soever was precious they destroyed. 36:20. Whosoever escaped the sword, was led into Babylon, and there served the king and his sons, till the reign of the king of Persia, 36:21. That the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremias might be fulfilled, and the land might keep her sabbaths: for all the days of the desolation she kept a sabbath, till the seventy years were expired. 36:22. But in the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, to fulfil the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by the mouth of Jeremias, the Lord stirred up the heart of Cyrus, king of the Persians: who commanded it to be proclaimed through all his kingdom, and by writing also, saying: 36:23. Thus saith Cyrus king of the Persians: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord the God of heaven given to me, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea: who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up. THE FIRST BOOK OF ESDRAS This Book taketh its name from the writer: who was a holy priest, and doctor of the law. He is called by the Hebrews, Ezra. 1 Esdras Chapter 1 Cyrus king of Persia releaseth God's people from their captivity, with license to return and build the temple in Jerusalem: and restoreth the holy vessels which Nabuchodonosor had taken from thence. 1:1. In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremias might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians: and he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and in writing also, saying: 1:2. Thus saith Cyrus king of the Persians: The Lord the God of heaven hath given to me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. 1:3. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and build the house of the Lord the God of Israel: he is the God that is in Jerusalem. 1:4. And let all the rest in all places wheresoever they dwell, help him every man from his place, with silver and gold, and goods, and cattle, besides that which they offer freely to the temple of God, which is in Jerusalem. 1:5. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Juda and Benjamin, and the priests, and Levites, and every one whose spirit God had raised up, to go up to build the temple of the Lord, which was in Jerusalem. 1:6. And all they that were round about, helped their hands with vessels of silver, and gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with furniture, besides what they had offered on their own accord. 1:7. And king Cyrus brought forth vessels of the temple of the Lord, which Nabuchodonosor had taken from Jerusalem, and had put them in the temple of his god. 1:8. Now Cyrus king of Persia brought them forth by the hand of Mithridates the son of Gazabar, and numbered them to Sassabasar the prince of Juda. 1:9. And this is the number of them: thirty bowls of gold, a thousand bowls of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty cups of gold, 1:10. Silver cups of a second sort, four hundred and ten: other vessels a thousand. 1:11. All the vessels of gold and silver, five thousand four hundred: all these Sassabasar brought with them that came up from the captivity of Babylon to Jerusalem. 1 Esdras Chapter 2 The number of them that returned to Judea: their oblations. 2:1. Now these are the children of the province, that went out of the captivity, which Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Juda, every man to his city. 2:2. Who came with Zorobabel, Josue, Nehemia, Saraia, Rahelaia, Mardochai, Belsan, Mesphar, Beguai, Rehum, Baana. The number of the men of the people of Israel: 2:3. The children of Pharos two thousand one hundred seventy-two. 2:4. The children of Sephatia, three hundred seventy-two. 2:5. The children of Area, seven hundred seventy-five. 2:6. The children of Phahath Moab, of the children of Josue: Joab, Two thousand eight hundred twelve. 2:7. The children of Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty-four. 2:8. The children of Zethua, nine hundred forty-five. 2:9. The children of Zachai, seven hundred sixty. 2:10. The children of Bani, six hundred forty-two. 2:11. The children of Bebai, six hundred twenty-three. 2:12. The children of Azgad, a thousand two hundred twenty-two. 2:13. The children of Adonicam, six hundred sixty-six. 2:14. The children of Beguai, two thousand fifty-six. 2:15. The children of Adin, four hundred fifty-four. 2:16. The children of Ather, who were of Ezechias, ninety-eight. 2:17. The children of Besai, three hundred and twenty-three. 2:18. The children of Jora, a hundred and twelve. 2:19. The children of Hasum, two hundred twenty-three. 2:20. The children of Gebbar, ninety-five. 2:21. The children of Bethlehem, a hundred twenty-three. 2:22. The men of Netupha, fifty-six. 2:23. The men of Anathoth, a hundred twenty-eight. 2:24. The children of Azmaveth, forty-two. 2:25. The children of Cariathiarim, Cephira, and Beroth, seven hundred forty-three. 2:26. The children of Rama and Gabaa, six hundred twenty-one. 2:27. The men of Machmas, a hundred twenty-two. 2:28. The men of Bethel and Hai, two hundred twenty-three. 2:29. The children of Nebo, fifty-two. 2:30. The children of Megbis, a hundred fifty-six. 2:31. The children of the other Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty-five. 2:32. The children of Harim, three hundred and twenty. 2:33. The children of Lod, Hadid and Ono, seven hundred twenty-five. 2:34. The children of Jericho, three hundred forty-five. 2:35. The children of Senaa, three thousand six hundred thirty. 2:36. The priests: the children of Jadaia of the house of Josue, nine hundred seventy-three. 2:37. The children of Emmer, a thousand fifty-two. 2:38. The children of Pheshur, a thousand two hundred forty-seven. 2:39. The children of Harim, a thousand and seventeen. 2:40. The Levites: the children of Josue and of Cedmihel, the children of Odovia, seventy-four. 2:41. The singing men: the children of Asaph, a hundred twenty-eight. 2:42. The children of the porters: the children of Sellum, the children of Ater, the children of Telmon, the children of Accub, the children of Hatita, the children of Sobai: in all a hundred thirty-nine. 2:43. The Nathinites: the children of Siha, the children of Hasupha, the children of Tabbaoth, 2:44. The children of Ceros, the children of Sia, the children of Phadon, 2:45. The children of Lebana, the children of Hegaba, the children of Accub, 2:46. The children of Hagab, the children of Semlai, the children of Hanan, 2:47. The children of Gaddel, the children of Gaher, the children of Raaia, 2:48. The children of Rasin, the children of Necoda, the children of Gazam, 2:49. The children of Asa, the children of Phasea, the children of Besee, 2:50. The children of Asena, the children of Munim, the children of Nephusim, 2:51. The children of Bacbuc, the children of Hacupha, the children of Harhur, 2:52. The children of Besluth, the children of Mahida, the children of Harsa, 2:53. The children of Bercos, the children of Sisara, the children of Thema, 2:54. The children of Nasia, the children of Hatipha, 2:55. The children of the servants of Solomon, the children of Sotai, the children of Sopheret, the children of Pharuda, 2:56. The children of Jala, the children of Dercon, the children of Geddel, 2:57. The children of Saphatia, the children of Hatil, the children of Phochereth, which were of Asebaim, the children of Ami, 2:58. All the Nathinites, and the children of the servants of Solomon, three hundred ninety-two. 2:59. And these are they that came up from Thelmela, Thelharsa, Cherub, and Adon, and Emer. And they could not shew the house of their fathers and their seed, whether they were of Israel. 2:60. The children of Dalaia, the children of Tobia, the children of Necoda, six hundred fifty-two. 2:61. And of the children of the priests: the children of Hobia, the children of Accos, the children of Berzellai, who took a wife of the daughters of Berzellai, the Galaadite, and was called by their name: 2:62. These sought the writing of their genealogy, and found it not, and they were cast out of the priesthood. 2:63. And Athersatha said to them, that they should not eat of the holy of holies, till there arose a priest learned and perfect. 2:64. All the multitudes as one man, were forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty: Forty-two thousand, etc. . .Those who are reckoned up above of the tribes of Juda, Benjamin, and Levi, fall short of this number. The rest, who must be taken in to make up the whole sum, were of the other tribes. 2:65. Besides their menservants, and womenservants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven: and among them singing men, and singing women two hundred. 2:66. Their horses seven hundred thirty-six, their mules two hundred forty-five, 2:67. Their camels four hundred thirty-five, their asses six thousand seven hundred and twenty. 2:68. And some of the chief of the fathers, when they came to the temple of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem, offered freely to the house of the Lord to build it in its place. 2:69. According to their ability, they gave towards the expenses of the work, sixty-one thousand solids of gold, five thousand pounds of silver, and a hundred garments for the priests. 2:70. So the priests and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singing men, and the porters, and the Nathinites dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. 1 Esdras Chapter 3 An altar is built for sacrifice, the feast of tabernacles is solemnly celebrated, and the foundations of the temple are laid. 3:1. And now the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in their cities: and the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. 3:2. And Josue the son of Josedec rose up, and his brethren the priests, and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and his brethren, and they built the altar of the God of Israel that they might offer holocausts upon it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. Josue. . .or Jesus (Jeshua) the son of Josedec; he was the high priest, at that time. 3:3. And they set the altar of God upon its bases, while the people of the lands round about put them in fear, and they offered upon it a holocaust to the Lord morning and evening. 3:4. And they kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the holocaust every day orderly according to the commandment, the duty of the day in its day. 3:5. And afterwards the continual holocaust, both on the new moons, and on all the solemnities of the Lord, that were consecrated, and on all in which a freewill offering was made to the Lord. 3:6. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer holocausts to the Lord: but the temple of God was not yet founded. 3:7. And they gave money to hewers of stones and to masons: and meat and drink, and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians, to bring cedar trees from Libanus to the sea of Joppe, according to the orders which Cyrus king of the Persians had given them. 3:8. And in the second year of their coming to the temple of God in Jerusalem, the second month, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue the son of Josedec, and the rest of their brethren the priests, and the Levites, and all that were come from the captivity to Jerusalem began, and they appointed Levites from twenty years old and upward, to hasten forward the work of the Lord. 3:9. Then Josue and his sons and his brethren, Cedmihel, and his sons, and the children of Juda, as one man, stood to hasten them that did the work in the temple of God: the sons of Henadad, and their sons, and their brethren the Levites. 3:10. And when the masons laid the foundations of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their ornaments with trumpets: and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise God by the hands of David king of Israel. 3:11. And they sung together hymns, and praise to the Lord: because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, praising the Lord, because the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid. 3:12. But many of the priests and the Levites, and the chief of the fathers and the ancients that had seen the former temple; when they had the foundation of this temple before their eyes, wept with a loud voice: and many shouting for joy, lifted up their voice. 3:13. So that one could not distinguish the voice of the shout of joy, from the noise of the weeping of the people: for one with another the people shouted with a loud shout, and the voice was heard afar off. 1 Esdras Chapter 4 The Samaritans by their letter to the king hinder the building. 4:1. Now the enemies of Juda and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple to the Lord the God of Israel. 4:2. And they came to Zorobabel, and the chief of the fathers, and said to them: Let us build with you, for we seek your God as ye do: behold we have sacrificed to him, since the days of Asor Haddan king of Assyria, who brought us hither. 4:3. But Zorobabel, and Josue, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said to them: You have nothing to do with us to build a house to our God, but we ourselves alone will build to the Lord our God, as Cyrus king of the Persians hath commanded us. 4:4. Then the people of the land hindered the hands of the people of Juda, and troubled them in building. 4:5. And they hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their design all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of the Persians. 4:6. And in the reign of Assuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Juda and Jerusalem. Assuerus. . .Otherwise called Cambyses the son and successor of Cyrus. He is also in the following verse named Artaxerxes, a name common to almost all the kings of Persia. 4:7. And in the days of Artaxerxes, Beselam, Mithridates, and Thabeel, and the rest that were in the council wrote to Artaxerxes king of the Persians: and the letter of accusation was written in Syrian, and was read in the Syrian tongue. 4:8. Reum Beelteem, and Samsai the scribe wrote a letter from Jerusalem to king Artaxerxes, in this manner: 4:9. Reum Beelteem, and Samsai the scribe and the rest of their counsellors, the Dinites, and the Apharsathacites, the Therphalites, the Apharsites, the Erchuites, the Babylonians, the Susanechites, the Dievites, and the Elamites, 4:10. And the rest of the nations, whom the great and glorious Asenaphar brought over: and made to dwell in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the countries of this side of the river in peace. 4:11. (This is the copy of the letter, which they sent to him:) To Artaxerxes the king, thy servants, the men that are on this side of the river, send greeting. 4:12. Be it known to the king, that the Jews, who came up from thee to us, are come to Jerusalem a rebellious and wicked city, which they are building, setting up the ramparts thereof and repairing the walls. 4:13. And now be it known to the king, that if this city be built up, and the walls thereof repaired, they will not pay tribute nor toll, nor yearly revenues, and this loss will fall upon the kings. 4:14. But we remembering the salt that we have eaten in the palace, and because we count it a crime to see the king wronged, have therefore sent and certified the king, 4:15. That search may be made in the books of the histories of thy fathers, and thou shalt find written in the records: and shalt know that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful to the kings and provinces, and that wars were raised therein of old time: for which cause also the city was destroyed. 4:16. We certify the king, that if this city be built, and the walls thereof repaired, thou shalt have no possession on this side of the river. 4:17. The king sent word to Reum Beelteem and Samsai the scribe, and to the rest that were in their council, inhabitants of Samaria, and to the rest beyond the river, sending greeting and peace. 4:18. The accusation, which you have sent to us, hath been plainly read before me, 4:19. And I commanded: and search hath been made, and it is found, that this city of old time hath rebelled against kings, and seditions and wars have been raised therein. 4:20. For there have been powerful kings in Jerusalem, who have had dominion over all the country that is beyond the river: and have received tribute, and toll and revenues. 4:21. Now therefore hear the sentence: Hinder those men, that this city be not built, till further orders be given by me. 4:22. See that you be not negligent in executing this, lest by little and little the evil grow to the hurt of the kings. 4:23. Now the copy of the edict of king Artaxerxes was read before Reum Beelteem, and Samsai the scribe, and their counsellors: and they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and hindered them with arm and power. 4:24. Then the work of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem was interrupted, and ceased till the second year of the reign of Darius king of the Persians. 1 Esdras Chapter 5 By the exhortation of Aggeus, and Zacharias, the people proceed in building the temple. Which their enemies strive in vain to hinder. 5:1. Now Aggeus the prophet, and Zacharias the son of Addo, prophesied to the Jews that were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel. 5:2. Then rose up Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue the son of Josedec, and began to build the temple of God in Jerusalem, and with them were the prophets of God helping them. 5:3. And at the same time came to them Thathanai, who was governor beyond the river, and Stharbuzanai, and their counsellors: and said thus to them: Who hath given you counsel to build this house, and to repair the walls thereof? 5:4. In answer to which we gave them the names of the men who were the promoters of that building. 5:5. But the eye of their God was upon the ancients of the Jews, and they could not hinder them. And it was agreed that the matter should be referred to Darius, and then they should give satisfaction concerning that accusation. 5:6. The copy of the letter that Thathanai governor of the country beyond the river, and Stharbuzanai, and his counsellors the Arphasachites, who dwelt beyond the river, sent to Darius the king. 5:7. The letter which they sent him, was written thus: To Darius the king all peace. 5:8. Be it known to the king, that we went to the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which they are building with unpolished stones, and timber is laid in the walls: and this work is carried on diligently and advanceth in their hands. 5:9. And we asked those ancients, and said to them thus: Who hath given you authority to build this house, and to repair these walls? 5:10. We asked also of them their names, that we might give thee notice: and we have written the names of the men that are the chief among them. 5:11. And they answered us in these words, saying: We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are building a temple that was built these many years ago, and which a great king of Israel built and set up. 5:12. But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he delivered them into the hands of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon the Chaldean: and he destroyed this house, and carried away the people to Babylon. 5:13. But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon, king Cyrus set forth a decree, that this house of God should be built. 5:14. And the vessels also of gold and silver of the temple of God, which Nabuchodonosor had taken out of the temple, that was in Jerusalem, and had brought them to the temple of Babylon, king Cyrus brought out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one Sassabasar, whom also he appointed governor, 5:15. And said to him: Take these vessels, and go, and put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be built in its place. 5:16. Then came this same Sassabasar, and laid the foundations of the temple of God in Jerusalem, and from that time until now it is in building, and is not yet finished. 5:17. Now therefore if it seem good to the king, let him search in the king's library, which is in Babylon, whether it hath been decreed by Cyrus the king, that the house of God in Jerusalem should be built, and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter. 1 Esdras Chapter 6 King Darius favoureth the building and contributeth to it. 6:1. Then king Darius gave orders, and they searched in the library of the books that were laid up in Babylon, 6:2. And there was found in Ecbatana, which is a castle in the province of Media, a book in which this record was written. 6:3. In the first year of Cyrus the king: Cyrus the king decreed, that the house of God should be built, which is in Jerusalem, in the place where they may offer sacrifices, and that they lay the foundations that may support the height of threescore cubits, and the breadth of threescore cubits, 6:4. Three rows of unpolished stones, and so rows of new timber: and the charges shall be given out of the king's house. 6:5. And also let the golden and silver vessels of the temple of God, which Nabuchodonosor took out of the temple of Jerusalem, and brought to Babylon, be restored, and carried back to the temple of Jerusalem to their place, which also were placed in the temple of God. 6:6. Now therefore Thathanai, governor of the country beyond the river, Stharbuzanai, and your counsellors the Apharsachites, who are beyond the river, depart far from them, 6:7. And let that temple of God be built by the governor of the Jews, and by their ancients, that they may build that house of God in its place. 6:8. I also have commanded what must be done by those ancients of the Jews, that the house of God may be built, to wit, that of the king's chest, that is, of the tribute that is paid out of the country beyond the river, the charges be diligently given to those men, lest the work be hindered. 6:9. And if it shall be necessary, let calves also, and lambs, and kids, for holocausts to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the custom of the priests that are in Jerusalem, be given them day by day, that there be no complaint in any thing. 6:10. And let them offer oblations to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his children. 6:11. And I have made a decree: That if any whosoever, shall alter this commandment, a beam be taken from his house, and set up, and he be nailed upon it, and his house be confiscated. 6:12. And may the God, that hath caused his name to dwell there, destroy all kingdoms, and the people that shall put out their hand to resist, and to destroy the house of God, that is in Jerusalem. I Darius have made the decree, which I will have diligently complied with. 6:13. So then Thathanai, governor of the country beyond the river, and Stharbuzanai, and his counsellors diligently executed what Darius the king had commanded. 6:14. And the ancients of the Jews built, and prospered according to the prophecy of Aggeus the prophet, and of Zacharias the son of Addo: and they built and finished, by the commandment of the God of Israel, and by the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes kings of the Persians. 6:15. And they were finishing this house of God, until the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of king Darius. 6:16. And the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity kept the dedication of the house of God with joy. 6:17. And they offered at the dedication of the house of God, a hundred calves, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and for a sin offering for all Israel twelve he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 6:18. And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses over the works of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. 6:19. And the children of Israel of the captivity kept the phase, on the fourteenth day of the first month. 6:20. For all the priests and the Levites were purified as one man: all were clean to kill the phase for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and themselves. 6:21. And the children of Israel that were returned from captivity, and all that had separated themselves from the filthiness of the nations of the earth to them, to seek the Lord the God of Israel, did eat. 6:22. And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, that he should help their hands in the work of the house of the Lord the God of Israel. 1 Esdras Chapter 7 Esdras goeth up to Jerusalem to teach, and assist the people, with a gracious decree of Artaxerxes. 7:1. Now after these things in the reign of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Esdras the son of Saraias, the son of Azarias, the son of Helcias, 7:2. The son of Sellum, the son of Sadoc, the son of Achitob, 7:3. The son of Amarias, the son of Azarias, the son of Maraioth, 7:4. The son of Zarahias, the son of Ozi, the son of Bocci, 7:5. The son of Abisue, the son of Phinees, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest from the beginning. 7:6. This Esdras went up from Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God had given to Israel: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. 7:7. And there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the children of the priests, and of the children of the Levites, and of the singing men, and of the porters, and of the Nathinites to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. 7:8. And they came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, in the seventh year of the king. 7:9. For upon the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him. 7:10. For Esdras had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do and to teach in Israel the commandments and judgment. 7:11. And this is the copy of the letter of the edict, which king Artaxerxes gave to Esdras the priest, the scribe instructed in the words and commandments of the Lord, and his ceremonies in Israel. 7:12. Artaxerxes king of kings to Esdras the priest, the most learned scribe of the law of the God of heaven, greeting. 7:13. It is decreed by me, that all they of the people of Israel, and of the priests and of the Levites in my realm, that are minded to go into Jerusalem, should go with thee. 7:14. For thou art sent from before the king, and his seven counsellors, to visit Judea and Jerusalem according to the law of thy God, which is in thy hand. 7:15. And to carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counsellors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose tabernacle is in Jerusalem. 7:16. And all the silver and gold that thou shalt find in all the province of Babylon, and that the people is willing to offer, and that the priests shall offer of their own accord to the house of their God, which is in Jerusalem, 7:17. Take freely, and buy diligently with this money, calves, rams, lambs, with the sacrifices and libations of them, and offer them upon the altar of the temple of your God, that is in Jerusalem. 7:18. And if it seem good to thee, and to thy brethren to do any thing with the rest of the silver and gold, do it according to the will of your God. 7:19. The vessels also, that are given thee for the sacrifice of the house of thy God, deliver thou in the sight of God in Jerusalem. 7:20. And whatsoever more there shall be need of for the house of thy God, how much soever thou shalt have occasion to spend, it shall be given out of the treasury, and the king's exchequer, and by me. 7:21. I Artaxerxes the king have ordered and decreed to all the keepers of the public chest, that are beyond the river, that whatsoever Esdras the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you, you give it without delay, 7:22. Unto a hundred talents of silver, and unto a hundred cores of wheat, and unto a hundred bates of wine, and unto a hundred bates of oil, and salt without measure. 7:23. All that belongeth to the rites of the God of heaven, let it be given diligently in the house of the God of heaven: lest his wrath should be enkindled against the realm of the king, and of his sons. 7:24. We give you also to understand concerning all the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nathinites, and ministers of the house of this God, that you have no authority to impose toll or tribute, or custom upon them. 7:25. And thou Esdras according to the wisdom of thy God, which is in thy hand, appoint judges and magistrates, that may judge all the people, that is beyond the river, that is, for them who know the law of thy God, yea and the ignorant teach ye freely. 7:26. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king diligently, judgment shall be executed upon him, either unto death, or unto banishment, or to the confiscation of goods, or at least to prison. 7:27. Blessed be the Lord the God of our fathers, who hath put this in the king's heart, to glorify the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem, 7:28. And hath inclined his mercy toward me before the king and his counsellors, and all the mighty princes of the king: and I being strengthened by the hand of the Lord my God, which was upon me, gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me. 1 Esdras Chapter 8 The companions of Esdras. The fast which he appointed. They bring the holy vessels into the temple. 8:1. Now these are the chief of families, and the genealogy of them, who came up with me from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes the king. 8:2. Of the sons of Phinees, Gersom. Of the sons of Ithamar, Daniel. Of the sons of David, Hattus. 8:3. Of the sons of Sechenias, the son of Pharos, Zacharias, and with him were numbered a hundred and fifty men. 8:4. Of the sons of Phahath Moab, Eleoenai the son of Zareha, and with him two hundred men. 8:5. Of the sons of Sechenias, the son of Ezechiel, and with him three hundred men. 8:6. Of the sons of Adan, Abed the son of Jonathan, and with him fifty men. 8:7. Of the sons of Alam, Isaias the son of Athalias, and with him seventy men. 8:8. Of the sons of Saphatia: Zebodia the son of Michael, and with him eighty men. 8:9. Of the sons of Joab, Obedia the son of Jahiel, and with him two hundred and eighteen men. 8:10. Of the sons of Selomith, the son of Josphia, and with him a hundred and sixty men. 8:11. Of the sons of Bebai, Zacharias the son of Bebai: and with him eight and twenty men. 8:12. Of the sons of Azgad, Joanan the son of Eccetan, and with him a hundred and ten men. 8:13. Of the sons of Adonicam, who were the last: and these are their names: Eliphelet, and Jehiel, and Samaias, and with them sixty men. 8:14. Of the sons of Begui, Uthai and Zachur, and with them seventy men. 8:15. And I gathered them together to the river, which runneth down to Ahava, and we stayed there three days: and I sought among the people and among the priests for the sons of Levi, and found none there. 8:16. So I sent Eliezer, and Ariel, and Semeias, and Elnathan, and Jarib, and another Elnathan, and Nathan, and Zacharias, and Mosollam, chief men: and Joiarib, and Elnathan, wise men. 8:17. And I sent them to Eddo, who is chief in the place of Chasphia, and I put in their mouth the words that they should speak to Eddo, and his brethren the Nathinites in the place of Chasphia, that they should bring us ministers of the house of our God. 8:18. And by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought us a most learned man of the sons of Moholi the son of Levi the son of Israel, and Sarabias and his sons, and his brethren eighteen, 8:19. And Hasabias, and with him Isaias of the sons of Merari, and his brethren, and his sons twenty. 8:20. And of the Nathinites, whom David, and the princes gave for the service of the Levites, Nathinites two hundred and twenty: all these were called by their names. 8:21. And I proclaimed there a fast by the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before the Lord our God, and might ask of him a right way for us and for our children, and for all our substance. And I proclaimed a fast. . .It is not enough to part from Babylon, that is, figuratively from sin, but we must also do works of penance; and therefore Esdras here proclaimed an extraordinary fast to those that were come from captivity. This shews that fasting was commanded and practised from the earliest times. 8:22. For I was ashamed to ask the king for aid and for horsemen, to defend us from the enemy in the way: because we had said to the king: The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him in goodness: and his power and strength, and wrath upon all them that forsake him. 8:23. And we fasted, and besought our God for this: and it fell out prosperously unto us. 8:24. And I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sarabias, and Hasabias, and with them ten of their brethren, 8:25. And I weighed unto them the silver and gold, and the vessels consecrated for the house of our God, which the king and his counsellors, and his princes, and all Israel, that were found had offered. 8:26. And I weighed to their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and a hundred vessels of silver, and a hundred talents of gold, 8:27. And twenty cups of gold, of a thousand solids, and two vessels of the best shining brass, beautiful as gold. 8:28. And I said to them: You are the holy ones of the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and gold, that is freely offered to the Lord the God of our fathers. 8:29. Watch ye and keep them, till you deliver them by weight before the chief of the priests, and of the Levites, and the heads of the families of Israel in Jerusalem, into the treasure of the house of the Lord. 8:30. And the priests and the Levites received the weight of the silver and gold, and the vessels, to carry them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. 8:31. Then we set forward from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon us, and delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. 8:32. And we came to Jerusalem, and we stayed there three days. 8:33. And on the fourth day the silver and the gold, and the vessels were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth the son of Urias the priest, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinees, and with them Jozabad the son of Josue, and Noadaia the son of Benoi, Levites. 8:34. According to the number and weight of everything: and all the weight was written at that time. 8:35. Moreover the children of them that had been carried away that were come out of the captivity, offered holocausts to the God of Israel, twelve calves for all the people of Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve he goats for sin: all for a holocaust to the Lord. 8:36. And they gave the king's edicts to the lords that were from the king's court, and the governors beyond the river, and they furthered the people and the house of God. 1 Esdras Chapter 9 Esdras mourneth for the transgression of the people: his confession and prayer. 9:1. And after these things were accomplished, the princes came to me, saying: The people of Israel, and the priests and Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, and from their abominations, namely, of the Chanaanites, and the Hethites, and the Pherezites, and the Jebusites, and the Ammonites, and the Moabites, and the Egyptians, and the Amorrhites. This shows how sinful it is to intermarry with those that the Church forbids us, on account of the danger of perversion and falling off from the true faith. 9:2. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, and they have mingled the holy seed with the people of the lands. And the hand of the princes and magistrates hath been first in this transgression. 9:3. And when I had heard this word, I rent my mantle and my coat, and plucked off the hairs of my head and my beard, and I sat down mourning. 9:4. And there were assembled to me all that feared the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that were come from the captivity, and I sat sorrowful, until the evening sacrifice. 9:5. And at the evening sacrifice I rose up from my affliction, and having rent my mantle and my garment, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, 9:6. And said: My God I am confounded and ashamed to lift up my face to thee: for our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto heaven, 9:7. From the days of our fathers: and we ourselves also have sinned grievously unto this day, and for our iniquities we and our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the lands, and to the sword, and to captivity, and to spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is at this day. 9:8. And now as a little, and for a moment has our prayer been made before the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant, and give us a pin in his holy place, and that our God would enlighten our eyes, and would give us a little life in our bondage. A pin. . .or nail, here signifies a small settlement or holding; which Esdras begs for, to preserve even a part of the people, who, by their great iniquity had incurred the anger of God. 9:9. For we are bondmen, and in our bondage our God hath not forsaken us, but hath extended mercy upon us before the king of the Persians, to give us life, and to set up the house of our God, and to rebuild the desolations thereof, and to give us a fence in Juda and Jerusalem. 9:10. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments, 9:11. Which thou hast commanded by the hand of thy servants the prophets, saying: The land which you go to possess, is an unclean land, according to the uncleanness of the people, and of other lands, with their abominations, who have filled it from mouth to mouth with their filth. 9:12. Now therefore give not your daughters to their sons, and take not their daughters for your sons, and seek not their peace, nor their prosperity for ever: that you may be strengthened, and may eat the good things of the land, and may have your children your heirs for ever. 9:13. And after all that is come upon us, for our most wicked deeds, and our great sin, seeing that thou our God hast saved us from our iniquity, and hast given us a deliverance as at this day, 9:14. That we should not turn away, nor break thy commandments, nor join in marriage with the people of these abominations. Art thou angry with us unto utter destruction, not to leave us a remnant to be saved? 9:15. O Lord God of Israel, thou art just: for we remain yet to be saved as at this day. Behold we are before thee in our sin, for there can be no standing before thee in this matter. 1 Esdras Chapter 10 Order is given for discharging strange women: the names of the guilty. 10:1. Now when Esdras was thus praying, and beseeching, and weeping, and lying before the temple of God, there was gathered to him of Israel an exceeding great assembly of men and women and children, and the people wept with much lamentation. 10:2. And Sechenias the son of Jehiel of the sons of Elam answered, and said to Esdras: We have sinned against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: and now if there be repentance in Israel concerning this, 10:3. Let us make a covenant with the Lord our God, to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the will of the Lord, and of them that fear the commandment of the Lord our God: let it be done according to the law. 10:4. Arise, it is thy part to give orders, and we will be with thee: take courage, and do it. 10:5. So Esdras arose, and made the chiefs of the priests and of the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word, and they swore. 10:6. And Esdras rose up from before the house of God, and went to the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliasib, and entered in thither: he ate no bread, and drank no water: for he mourned for the transgression of them that were come out of the captivity. 10:7. And proclamation was made in Juda and Jerusalem to all the children of the captivity, that they should assemble together into Jerusalem. 10:8. And that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the ancients, all his substance should be taken away, and he should be cast out of the company of them that were returned from captivity. 10:9. Then all the men of Juda, and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within three days, in the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month: and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of the sin, and the rain. 10:10. And Esdras the priest stood up, and said to them: You have transgressed, and taken strange wives, to add to the sins of Israel. 10:11. And now make confession to the Lord the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from your strange wives. 10:12. And all the multitude answered and said with a loud voice: According to thy word unto us, so be it done. 10:13. But as the people are many, and it is time of rain, and we are not able to stand without, and it is not a work of one day or two, (for we have exceedingly sinned in this matter,) 10:14. Let rulers be appointed in all the multitude: and in all our cities, let them that have taken strange wives come at the times appointed, and with them the ancients and the judges of every city, until the wrath of our God be turned away from us for this sin. 10:15. Then Jonathan the son of Azahel, and Jaasia the son of Thecua were appointed over this, and Mesollam and Sebethai, Levites, helped them: 10:16. And the children of the captivity did so. And Esdras the priest, and the men heads of the families in the houses of their fathers, and all by their names, went and sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. 10:17. And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month. 10:18. And there were found among the sons of the priests that had taken strange wives: Of the sons of Josue the son of Josedec, and his brethren, Maasia, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Godolia. 10:19. And they gave their hands to put away their wives, and to offer for their offence a ram of the flock. 10:20. And of the sons of Emmer, Hanani, and Zebedia. 10:21. And of the sons of Harim, Maasia, and Elia, and Semeia, and Jehiel, and Ozias. 10:22. And of the sons of Pheshur, Elioenai, Maasia, Ismael, Nathanael, Jozabed, and Elasa. 10:23. And of the sons of the Levites, Jozabed, and Semei, and Celaia, the same is Calita, Phataia, Juda, and Eliezer. 10:24. And of the singing men, Elisiab: and of the porters, Sellum, and Telem, and Uri. 10:25. And of Israel, of the sons of Pharos, Remeia, and Jezia, and Melchia, and Miamin, and Eliezer, and Melchia, and Banea. 10:26. And of the sons of Elam, Mathania, Zacharias, and Jehiel, and Abdi, and Jerimoth, and Elia. 10:27. And of the sons of Zethua, Elioenai, Eliasib, Mathania, Jerimuth, and Zabad, and Aziaza. 10:28. And of the sons of Babai, Johanan, Hanania, Zabbai, Athalai: 10:29. And of the sons of Bani, Mosollam, and Melluch, and Adaia, Jasub, and Saal, and Ramoth. 10:30. And of the sons of Phahath, Moab, Edna, and Chalal, Banaias, and Maasias, Mathanias, Beseleel, Bennui, and Manasse. 10:31. And of the sons of Herem, Eliezer, Josue, Melchias, Semeias, Simeon, 10:32. Benjamin, Maloch, Samarias. 10:33. And of the sons of Hasom, Mathanai, Mathatha, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jermai, Manasse, Semei. 10:34. Of the sons of Bani, Maaddi, Amram, and Uel, 10:35. Baneas, and Badaias, Cheliau, 10:36. Vania, Marimuth, and Eliasib, 10:37. Mathanias, Mathania, and Jasi, 10:38. And Bani, and Bennui, Semei, 10:39. And Salmias, and Nathan, and Adaias, 10:40. And Mechnedebai, Sisai, Sarai, 10:41. Ezrel, and Selemiau, Semeria, 10:42. Sellum, Amaria, Joseph. 10:43. Of the sons of Nebo, Jehiel, Mathathias, Zabad, Zabina, Jeddu, and Joel, and Banaia. 10:44. All these had taken strange wives, and there were among them women that had borne children. THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAS, WHICH IS CALLED THE SECOND OF ESDRAS This Book takes its name from the writer, who was cupbearer to Artaxerxes (surnamed Longimanus) king of Persia, and was sent by him with a commission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It is also called the second book of Esdras; because it is a continuation of the history, begun by Esdras, of the state of the people of God after their return from captivity. 2 Esdras Chapter 1 Nehemias hearing the miserable state of his countrymen in Judea, lamenteth, fasteth, and prayeth to God for their relief. 1:1. The words of Nehemias the son of Helchias. And it came to pass in the month of Casleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in the castle of Susa, 1:2. That Hanani one of my brethren came, he and some men of Juda; and I asked them concerning the Jews, that remained and were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 1:3. And they said to me: They that have remained, and are left of the captivity there in the province, are in great affliction, and reproach: and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire. 1:4. And when I had heard these words, I sat down, and wept, and mourned for many days: and I fasted, and prayed before the face of the God of heaven. 1:5. And I said: I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, strong, great, and terrible, who keepest covenant and mercy with those that love thee, and keep thy commandments: 1:6. Let thy ears be attentive, and thy eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, night and day, for the children of Israel thy servants: and I confess the sins of the children of Israel, by which they have sinned against thee: I and my father's house have sinned. 1:7. We have been seduced by vanity, and have not kept thy commandments, and ceremonies and judgments, which thou hast commanded thy servant Moses. 1:8. Remember the word that thou commandedst to Moses thy servant, saying: If you shall transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations: 1:9. But if you return to me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though you should be led away to the uttermost parts of the world, I will gather you from thence, and bring you back to the place which I have chosen for my name to dwell there. 1:10. And these are thy servants, and thy people: whom thou hast redeemed by thy great strength, and by thy mighty hand. 1:11. I beseech thee, O Lord, let thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name: and direct thy servant this day, and give him mercy before this man. For I was the king's cupbearer. 2 Esdras Chapter 2 Nehemias with commission from king Artaxerxes cometh to Jerusalem: and exhorteth the Jews to rebuild the walls. 2:1. And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king: that wine was before him, and I took up the wine, and gave it to the king: and I was as one languishing away before his face. 2:2. And the king said to me: Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou dost not appear to be sick? this is not without cause, but some evil, I know not what, is in thy heart. And I was seized with an exceeding great fear: 2:3. And I said to the king: O king, live for ever: why should not my countenance be sorrowful, seeing the city of the place of the sepulchres of my fathers is desolate, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire? 2:4. Then the king said to me: For what dost thou make request? And I prayed to the God of heaven, 2:5. And I said to the king: If it seem good to the king, and if thy servant hath found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldst send me into Judea to the city of the sepulchre of my father, and I will build it. 2:6. And the king said to me, and the queen that sat by him: For how long shall thy journey be, and when wilt thou return? And it pleased the king, and he sent me: and I fixed him a time. 2:7. And I said to the king: If it seem good to the king, let him give me letters to the governors of the country beyond the river, that they convey me over, till I come into Judea: 2:8. And a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, to give me timber that I may cover the gates of the tower of the house, and the walls of the city, and the house that I shall enter into. And the king gave me according to the good hand of my God with me. 2:9. And I came to the governors of the country beyond the river, and gave them the king's letters. And the king had sent with me captains of soldiers, and horsemen. 2:10. And Sanaballat the Horonite, and Tobias the servant, the Ammonite, heard it, and it grieved them exceedingly, that a man was come, who sought the prosperity of the children of Israel. 2:11. And I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. 2:12. And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me, and I told not any man what God had put in my heart to do in Jerusalem, and there was no beast with me, but the beast that I rode upon. 2:13. And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, and before the dragon fountain, and to the dung gate, and I viewed the wall of Jerusalem which was broken down, and the gates thereof which were consumed with fire. 2:14. And I passed to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's aqueduct, and there was no place for the beast on which I rode to pass. 2:15. And I went up in the night by the torrent, and viewed the wall, and going back I came to the gate of the valley, and returned. 2:16. But the magistrates knew not whither I went, or what I did: neither had I as yet told any thing to the Jews, or to the priests, or to the nobles, or to the magistrates, or to the rest that did the work. 2:17. Then I said to them: You know the affliction wherein we are, because Jerusalem is desolate, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire: come, and let us build up the walls of Jerusalem, and let us be no longer a reproach. 2:18. And I shewed them how the hand of my God was good with me, and the king's words, which he had spoken to me, and I said: Let us rise up, and build. And their hands were strengthened in good. 2:19. But Sanaballat the Horonite, and Tobias the servant, the Ammonite, and Gossem the Arabian heard of it, and they scoffed at us, and despised us, and said: What is this thing that you do? are you going to rebel against the king? 2:20. And I answered them, and said to them: The God of heaven he helpeth us, and we are his servants: let us rise up and build: but you have no part, nor justice, nor remembrance in Jerusalem. 2 Esdras Chapter 3 They begin to build the walls: the names and order of the builders. 3:1. Then Eliasib the high priest arose, and his brethren the priests, and they built the flock gate: they sanctified it, and set up the doors thereof, even unto the tower of a hundred cubits they sanctified it unto the tower of Hananeel. 3:2. And next to him the men of Jericho built: and next to them built Zachur the son of Amri. 3:3. But the fish gate the sons of Asnaa built: they covered it, and set up the doors thereof, and the locks, and the bars. And next to them built Marimuth the son of Urias the son of Accus. 4. And next to him built Mosollam the son of Barachias, the son of Merezebel, and next to them built Sadoc the son of Baana. 5. And next to them the Thecuites built: but their great men did not put their necks to the work of their Lord. 3:6. And Joiada the son of Phasea, and Mosollam the son of Besodia built the old gate: they covered it and set up the doors thereof, and the locks, and the bars. 3:7. And next to them built Meltias the Gabaonite, and Jadon the Meronathite, the men of Gabaon and Maspha, for the governor that was in the country beyond the river. 3:8. And next to him built Eziel the son of Araia the goldsmith: and next to him built Ananias the son of the perfumer: and they left Jerusalem unto the wall of the broad street. 3:9. And next to him built Raphaia the son of Hur, lord of the street of Jerusalem. 3:10. And next to him Jedaia the son of Haromaph over against his own house: and next to him built Hattus the son of Hasebonia. 3:11. Melchias the son of Herem, and Hasub the son of Phahath Moab, built half the street, and the tower of the furnaces. 3:12. And next to him built Sellum the son of Alohes, lord of half the street of Jerusalem, he and his daughters. 3:13. And the gate of the valley Hanun built, and the inhabitants of Zanoe: they built it, and set up the doors thereof, and the locks, and the bars, and a thousand cubits in the wall unto the gate of the dunghill. 3:14. And the gate of the dunghill Melchias the son of Rechab built, lord of the street of Bethacharam: he built it, and set up the doors thereof, and the locks, and the bars. 3:15. And the gate of the fountain, Sellum, the son of Cholhoza, built, lord of the street of Maspha: he built it, and covered it, and set up the doors thereof, and the locks, and the bars, and the walls of the pool of Siloe unto the king's guard, and unto the steps that go down from the city of David. 3:16. After him built Nehemias the son of Azboc, lord of half the street of Bethsur, as far as over against the sepulchre of David, and to the pool, that was built with great labour, and to the house of the mighty. 3:17. After him built the Levites, Rehum the son of Benni. After him built Hasebias, lord of half the street of Ceila in his own street. 3:18. After him built their brethren Bavai the son of Enadad, lord of half Ceila. 3:19. And next to him Aser the son of Josue, lord of Maspha, built another measure, over against the going up of the strong corner. 3:20. After him in the mount Baruch the son of Zachai built another measure, from the corner to the door of the house of Eliasib the high priest. 3:21. After him Merimuth the son of Urias the son of Haccus, built another measure, from the door of the house of Eliasib, to the end of the house of Eliasib. 3:22. And after him built the priests, the men of the plains of the Jordan. 3:23. After him built Benjamin and Hasub, over against their own house: and after him built Azarias the son of Maasias the son of Ananias over against his house. 3:24. After him built Bennui the son of Hanadad another measure, from the house of Azarias unto the bending, and unto the corner. 3:25. Phalel, the son of Ozi, over against the bending and the tower, which lieth out from the king's high house, that is, in the court of the prison: after him Phadaia the son of Pharos. 3:26. And the Nathinites dwelt in Ophel, as far as over against the water gate toward the east, and the tower that stood out. 3:27. After him the Thecuites built another measure over against, from the great tower that standeth out unto the wall of the temple. 3:28. And upward from the horse gate the priests built, every man over against his house. 3:29. After them built Sadoc the son of Emmer over against his house. And after him built Semaia the son of Sechenias, keeper of the east gate. 3:30. After him built Hanania the son of Selemia, and Hanun the sixth son of Seleph, another measure: after him built Mosollam the son of Barachias over against his treasury. After him Melcias the goldsmith's son built unto the house of the Nathinites, and of the sellers of small wares, over against the judgment gate, and unto the chamber of the corner. 3:31. And within the chamber of the corner of the flock gate, the goldsmiths and the merchants built. 2 Esdras Chapter 4 The building is carried on notwithstanding the opposition of their enemies. 4:1. And it came to pass, that when Sanaballat heard that we were building the wall he was angry: and being moved exceedingly he scoffed at the Jews. 4:2. And said before his brethren, and the multitude of the Samaritans: What are the silly Jews doing? Will the Gentiles let them alone? will they sacrifice and make an end in a day? are they able to raise stones out of the heaps of the rubbish, which are burnt? 4:3. Tobias also the Ammonite who was by him said: Let them build: if a fox go up, he will leap over their stone wall. 4:4. Hear thou our God, for we are despised: turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them to be despised in a land of captivity. 4:5. Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thy face, because they have mocked thy builders. 4:6. So we built the wall, and joined it all together unto the half thereof: and the heart of the people was excited to work. 4:7. And it came to pass, when Sanaballat, and Tobias, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Azotians heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and the breaches began to be closed, that they were exceedingly angry. 4:8. And they all assembled themselves together, to come, and to fight against Jerusalem, and to prepare ambushes. 4:9. And we prayed to our God, and set watchmen upon the wall day and night against them. 4:10. And Juda said: The strength of the bearer of burdens is decayed, and the rubbish is very much, and we shall not be able to build the wall. 4:11. And our enemies said: Let them not know, nor understand, till we come in the midst of them, and kill them, and cause the work to cease. 4:12. And it came to pass, that when the Jews that dwelt by them came and told us ten times, out of all the places from whence they came to us, 4:13. I set the people in the place behind the wall round about in order, with their swords, and spears, and bows. 4:14. And I looked and rose up: and I said to the chief men and the magistrates, and to the rest of the common people: be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, and your wives, and your houses. 4:15. And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that the thing had been told us, that God defeated their counsel. And we returned all of us to the walls, every man to his work. 4:16. And it came to pass from that day forward, that half of their young men did the work, and half were ready for to fight, with spears, and shields, and bows, and coats of mail, and the rulers were behind them in all the house of Juda. 4:17. Of them that built on the wall and that carried burdens, and that laded: with one of his hands he did the work, and with the other he held a sword. 4:18. For every one of the builders was girded with a sword about his reins. And they built, and sounded with a trumpet by me. 4:19. And I said to the nobles, and to the magistrates, and to the rest of the common people: The work is great and wide, and we are separated on the wall one far from another: 4:20. In what place soever you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, run all thither unto us: our God will fight for us. 4:21. And let us do the work: and let one half of us hold our spears from the rising of the morning, till the stars appear. 4:22. At that time also I said to the people: Let every one with his servant stay in the midst of Jerusalem, and let us take our turns in the night, and by day, to work. 4:23. Now I and my brethren, and my servants, and the watchmen that followed me, did not put off our clothes: only every man stripped himself when he was to be washed. 2 Esdras Chapter 5 Nehemias blameth the rich, for their oppressing the poor. His exhortation, and bounty to his countrymen. 5:1. Now there was a great cry of the people, and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. 5:2. And there were some that said: Our sons and our daughters are very many: let us take up corn for the price of them, and let us eat and live. 5:3. And there were some that said: Let us mortgage our lands, and our vineyards, and our houses, and let us take corn because of the famine. 5:4. And others said: Let us borrow money for the king's tribute, and let us give up our fields and vineyards: 5:5. And now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren: and our children as their children. Behold we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters, and some of our daughters are bondwomen already, neither have we wherewith to redeem them, and our fields and our vineyards other men possess. 5:6. And I was exceedingly angry when I heard their cry according to these words. 5:7. And my heart thought with myself: and I rebuked the nobles and magistrates, and said to them: Do you every one exact usury of your brethren? And I gathered together a great assembly against them, 5:8. And I said to them: We, as you know, have redeemed according to our ability our brethren the Jews, that were sold to the Gentiles: and will you then sell your brethren, for us to redeem them? And they held their peace, and found not what to answer. 5:9. And I said to them: The thing you do is not good: why walk you not in the fear of our God, that we be not exposed to the reproaches of the Gentiles our enemies? 5:10. Both I and my brethren, and my servants, have lent money and corn to many: let us all agree not to call for it again; let us forgive the debt that is owing to us. 5:11. Restore ye to them this day their fields, and their vineyards, and their oliveyards, and their houses: and the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, which you were wont to exact of them, give it rather for them. 5:12. And they said: We will restore, and we will require nothing of them: and we will do as thou sayest. And I called the priests and took an oath of them, to do according to what I had said. 5:13. Moreover I shook my lap, and said: So may God shake every man that shall not accomplish this word, out of his house, and out of his labours, thus may he be shaken out, and become empty. And all the multitude said: Amen. And they praised God. And the people did according to what was said. 5:14. And from the day, in which the king commanded me to be governor in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year even to the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, for twelve years, I and my brethren did not eat the yearly allowance that was due to the governors. 5:15. But the former governors that had been before me, were chargeable to the people, and took of them in bread, and wine, and in money every day forty sicles: and their officers also oppressed the people. But I did not so for the fear of God. 5:16. Moreover I built in the work of the wall, and I bought no land, and all my servants were gathered together to the work. 5:17. The Jews also and the magistrates to the number of one hundred and fifty men, were at my table, besides them that came to us from among the nations that were round about us. 5:18. And there was prepared for me day be day one ox, and six choice rams, besides fowls, and once in ten days I gave store of divers wines, and many other things: yet I did not require my yearly allowance as governor: for the people were very much impoverished. 5:19. Remember me, O my God, for good according to all that I have done for this people. 2 Esdras Chapter 6 The enemies seek to terrify Nehemias. He proceedeth and finisheth the wall. 6:1. And it came to pass, when Sanaballat, and Tobias, and Gossem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it, (though at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates,) 6:2. Sanaballat and Gossem sent to me, saying: Come, and let us make a league together in the villages, in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief. 6:3. And I sent messengers to them, saying: I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down, lest it be neglected whilst I come, and go down to you. 6:4. And they sent to me according to this word, four times: and I answered them after the same manner. 6:5. And Sanaballat sent his servant to me the fifth time according to the former word, and he had a letter in his hand written in this manner: 6:6. It is reported amongst the Gentiles, and Gossem hath said it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel, and therefore thou buildest the wall, and hast a mind to set thyself king over them: for which end 6:7. Thou hast also set up prophets, to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying: There is a king in Judea. The king will hear of these things: therefore come now, that we may take counsel together. 6:8. And I sent to them, saying: There is no such thing done as thou sayest: but thou feignest these things out of thy own heart. 6:9. For all these men thought to frighten us, thinking that our hands would cease from the work, and that we would leave off. Wherefore I strengthened my hands the more: 6:10. And I went into the house of Samaia the son of Delaia, the son of Metabeel privately. And he said: Let us consult together in the house of God in the midst of the temple: and let us shut the doors of the temple, for they will come to kill thee, and in the night they will come to slay thee. 6:11. And I said: Should such a man as I flee? and who is there that being as I am, would go into the temple, to save his life? I will not go in. 6:12. And I understood that God had not sent him, but that he had spoken to me as if he had been prophesying, and Tobias, and Sanaballat had hired him. 6:13. For he had taken money, that I being afraid should do this thing, and sin, and they might have some evil to upbraid me withal. 6:14. Remember me, O Lord, for Tobias and Sanaballat, according to their works of this kind: and Noadias the prophet, and the rest of the prophets that would have put me in fear. 6:15. But the wall was finished the five and twentieth day of the month of Elul, in two and fifty days. 6:16. And it came to pass when all our enemies heard of it, that all nations which were round about us, were afraid, and were cast down within themselves, for they perceived that this work was the work of God. 6:17. Moreover in those days many letters were sent by the principal men of the Jews to Tobias, and from Tobias there came letters to them. 6:18. For there were many in Judea sworn to him, because he was the son in law of Sechenias the son of Area, and Johanan his son had taken to wife the daughter of Mosollam the son of Barachias. 6:19. And they praised him also before me, and they related my words to him: And Tobias sent letters to put me in fear. 2 Esdras Chapter 7 Nehemias appointeth watchmen in Jerusalem. The list of those who came first from Babylon. 7:1. Now after the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and numbered the porters and singing men, and Levites: 7:2. I commanded Hanani my brother, and Hananias ruler of the house of Jerusalem, (for he seemed as a sincere man, and one that feared God above the rest,) 7:3. And I said to them: Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened till the sun be hot. And while they were yet standing by the gates were shut, and barred: and I set watchmen of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one by their courses, and every man over against his house. 7:4. And the city was very wide and great, and the people few in the midst thereof, and the houses were not built. 7:5. But God had put in my heart, and I assembled the princes and magistrates, and common people, to number them: and I found a book of the number of them who came up at first and therein it was found written: 7:6. These are the children of the province, who came up from the captivity of them that had been carried away, whom Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon had carried away, and who returned into Judea, every one into his own city. 7:7. Who came with Zorobabel, Josue, Nehemias, Azarias, Raamias, Nahamani, Mardochai, Belsam, Mespharath, Begoia, Nahum, Baana. The number of the men of the people of Israel: 7:8. The children of Pharos, two thousand one hundred seventy-two. 7:9. The children of Sephatia, three hundred seventy-two. 7:10. The children of Area, six hundred fifty-two. 7:11. The children of Phahath Moab of the children of Josue and Joab, two thousand eight hundred eighteen. 7:12. The children of Elam, one thousand two hundred fifty-four. 7:13. The children of Zethua, eight hundred forty-five. 7:14. The children of Zachai, seven hundred sixty. 7:15. The children of Bannui, six hundred forty-eight. 7:16. The children of Bebai, six hundred twenty-eight. 7:17. The children of Azgad, two thousand three hundred twenty-two. 7:18. The children of Adonicam, six hundred sixty-seven. 7:19. The children of Beguai, two thousand sixty-seven. 7:20. The children of Adin, six hundred fifty-five. 7:21. The children of Ater, children of Hezechias, ninety-eight. 7:22. The children of Hasem, three hundred twenty-eight. 7:23. The children of Besai, three hundred twenty-four. 7:24. The children of Hareph, a hundred and twelve. 7:25. The children of Gabaon, ninety-five. 7:26. The children of Bethlehem, and Netupha, a hundred eighty-eight. 7:27. The men of Anathoth, a hundred twenty-eight. 7:28. The men of Bethazmoth, forty-two. 7:29. The men of Cariathiarim, Cephira, and Beroth, seven hundred forty-three. 7:30. The men of Rama and Geba, six hundred twenty-one. 7:31. The men of Machmas, a hundred twenty-two. 7:32. The men of Bethel and Hai, a hundred twenty-three. 7:33. The men of the other Nebo, fifty-two. 7:34. The men of the other Elam, one thousand two hundred fifty-four. 7:35. The children of Harem, three hundred and twenty. 7:36. The children of Jericho, three hundred forty-five. 7:37. The children of Lod, of Hadid and Ono, seven hundred twenty-one. 7:38. The children of Senaa, three thousand nine hundred thirty. 7:39. The priests: the children of Idaia in the house of Josue, nine hundred and seventy-three. 7:40. The children of Emmer, one thousand fifty-two. 7:41. The children of Phashur, one thousand two hundred forty-seven. 7:42. The children of Arem, one thousand and seventeen. The Levites: 7:43. The children of Josue and Cedmihel, the sons 7:44. Of Oduia, seventy-four. The singing men: 7:45. The children of Asaph, a hundred forty-eight. 7:46. The porters: the children of Sellum, the children of Ater, the children of Telmon, the children of Accub, the children of Hatita, the children of Sobai: a hundred thirty-eight. 7:47. The Nathinites: the children of Soha, the children of Hasupha, the children of Tebbaoth, 7:48. The children of Ceros, the children os Siaa, the children of Phadon, the children of Lebana, the children of Hagaba, the children of Selmai, 7:49. The children of Hanan, the children of Geddel, the children of Gaher, 7:50. The children of Raaia, the children of Rasin, the children of Necoda, 7:51. The children of Gezem, the children of Asa, the children of Phasea, 7:52. The children of Besai, the children of Munim, the children of Nephussim, 7:53. The children of Bacbuc, the children of Hacupha, the children of Harhur, 7:54. The children of Besloth, the children of Mahida, the children of Harsa, 7:55. The children of Bercos, the children of Sisara, the children of Thema, 7:56. The children of Nasia, the children of Hatipha, 7:57. The children of the servants of Solomon, the children of Sothai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Pharida, 7:58. The children of Jahala, the children of Darcon, the children of Jeddel, 7:59. The children of Saphatia, the children of Hatil, the children of Phochereth, who was born of Sabaim, the son of Amon. 7:60. All the Nathinites, and the children of the servants of Solomon, three hundred ninety-two. 7:61. And these are they that came up from Telmela, Thelharsa, Cherub, Addon, and Emmer: and could not shew the house of their fathers, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel. 7:62. The children of Dalaia, the children of Tobia, the children of Necoda, six hundred forty-two. 7:63. And of the priests, the children of Habia, the children of Accos, the children of Berzellai, who took a wife of the daughters of Berzellai the Galaadite, and he was called by their name. 7:64. These sought their writing in the record, and found it not: and they were cast out of the priesthood. 7:65. And Athersatha said to them, that they should not eat of the holies of holies, until there stood up a priest learned and skilful. 7:66. All the multitude as it were one man, forty-two thousand three hundred sixty, 7:67. Beside their menservants and womenservants, who were seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven: and among them singing men, and singing women, two hundred forty-five. 7:68. Their horses, seven hundred thirty-six: their mules two hundred forty-five. 7:69. Their camels, four hundred thirty-five, their asses, six thousand seven hundred and twenty. (Hitherto is related what was written in the record. From this place forward goeth on the history of Nehemias.) 7:70. And some of the heads of the families gave unto the work. Athersatha gave into the treasure a thousand drams of gold, fifty bowls, and five hundred and thirty garments for priests. Athersatha. . .That is, Nehemias; as appears from chap. 12. Either that he was so called at the court of the king of Persia, where he was cupbearer: or that, as some think, this name signifies governor; and he was at that time governor of Judea. 7:71. And some of the heads of families gave to the treasure of the work, twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand two hundred pounds of silver. 7:72. And that which the rest of the people gave, was twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand pounds of silver, and sixty-seven garments for priests. 7:73. And the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singing men, and the rest of the common people, and the Nathinites, and all Israel dwelt in their cities. 2 Esdras Chapter 8 Esdras readeth the law before the people. Nehemias comforteth them. They celebrate the feast of tabernacles. 8:1. And the seventh month came: and the children of Israel were in their cities. And all the people were gathered together as one man to the street which is before the water gate, and they spoke to Esdras the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. 8:2. Then Esdras the priest brought the law before the multitude of men and women, and all those that could understand, in the first day of the seventh month. 8:3. And he read it plainly in the street that was before the water gate, from the morning until midday, before the men, and the women, and all those that could understand: and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book. 8:4. And Esdras the scribe stood upon a step of wood, which he had made to speak upon, and there stood by him Mathathias, and Semeia, and Ania, and Uria, and Helcia, and Maasia, on his right hand: and on the left, Phadaia, Misael, and Melchia, and Hasum, and Hasbadana, Zacharia and Mosollam. 8:5. And Esdras opened the book before all the people: for he was above all the people: and when he had opened it, all the people stood. 8:6. And Esdras blessed the Lord the great God: and all the people answered, Amen, amen: lifting up their hands: and they bowed down, and adored God with their faces to the ground. 8:7. Now Josue, and Bani, and Serebia, Jamin, Accub, Sephtai, Odia, Maasia, Celtia, Azarias, Jozabed, Hanan, Phalaia, the Levites, made silence among the people to hear the law: and the people stood in their place. 8:8. And they read in the book of the law of God distinctly and plainly to be understood: and they understood when it was read. 8:9. And Nehemias (he is Athersatha) and Esdras the priest and scribe, and the Levites who interpreted to all the people, said: This is a holy day to the Lord our God: do not mourn, nor weep: for all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. 8:10. And he said to them: Go, eat fat meats, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to them that have not prepared for themselves: because it is the holy day of the Lord, and be not sad: for the joy of the Lord is our strength. 8:11. And the Levites stilled all the people, saying: Hold your peace, for the day is holy, and be not sorrowful. 8:12. So all the people went to eat and drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth: because they understood the words that he had taught them. 8:13. And on the second day the chiefs of the families of all the people, the priests, and the Levites were gathered together to Esdras the scribe, that he should interpret to them the words of the law. 8:14. And they found written in the law, that the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in tabernacles, on the feast, in the seventh month: 8:15. And that they should proclaim and publish the word in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying: Go forth to the mount, and fetch branches of olive, and branches of beautiful wood, branches of myrtle, and branches of palm, and branches of thick trees, to make tabernacles, as it is written. 8:16. And the people went forth, and brought. And they made themselves tabernacles every man on the top of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim. 8:17. And all the assembly of them that were returned from the captivity, made tabernacles, and dwelt in tabernacles: for since the days of Josue the son of Nun the children of Israel had not done so, until that day: and there was exceeding great joy. 8:18. And he read in the book of the law of God day by day, from the first day till the last, and they kept the solemnity seven days, and in the eighth day a solemn assembly according to the manner. 2 Esdras Chapter 9 The people repent with fasting and sackcloth. The Levites confess God's benefits, and the people's ingratitude: they pray for them, and make a covenant with God. 9:1. And in the four and twentieth day of the month the children of Israel came together with fasting and with sackcloth, and earth upon them. 9:2. And the seed of the children of Israel separated themselves from every stranger: and they stood, and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. 9:3. And they rose up to stand: and they read in the book of the law of the Lord their God, four times in the day, and four times they confessed, and adored the Lord their God. 9:4. And there stood up upon the step of the Levites, Josue, and Bani, and Cedmihel, Sabania, Bonni, Sarebias, Bani, and Chanani: and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 9:5. And the Levites Josue and Cedmihel, Bonni, Hasebnia, Serebia, Oduia, Sebnia, and Phathahia, said: Arise, bless the Lord your God from eternity to eternity: and blessed be the high name of thy glory with all blessing and praise. 9:6. Thou thyself, O Lord alone, thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host thereof: the earth and all things that are in it: the seas and all that are therein: and thou givest life to all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth thee. 9:7. Thou O Lord God, art he who chosest Abram, and broughtest him forth out of the fire of the Chaldeans, and gavest him the name of Abraham. The fire of the Chaldeans. . .The city of Ur in Chaldea, the name of which signifies fire. Or out of the fire of the tribulations and temptations, to which he was there exposed.--The ancient Rabbins understood this literally, affirming that Abram was cast into the fire by the idolaters, and brought out by a miracle without any hurt. 9:8. And thou didst find his heart faithful before thee: and thou madest a covenant with him, to give him the land of the Chanaanite, of the Hethite, and of the Amorrhite, and of the Pherezite, and of the Jebusite, and of the Gergezite, to give it to his seed: and thou hast fulfilled thy words, because thou art just. 9:9. And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt: and thou didst hear their cry by the Red Sea. 9:10. And thou shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharao, and upon all his servants, and upon the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them: and thou madest thyself a name, as it is at this day. 9:11. And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land: but their persecutors thou threwest into the depth, as a stone into mighty waters. 9:12. And in a pillar of a cloud thou wast their leader by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, that they might see the way by which they went. 9:13. Thou camest down also to mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from heaven, and thou gavest them right judgments, and the law of truth, ceremonies, and good precepts. 9:14. Thou madest known to them thy holy sabbath, and didst prescribe to them commandments, and ceremonies, and the law by the hand of Moses thy servant. 9:15. And thou gavest them bread from heaven in their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst, and thou saidst to them that they should go in, and possess the land, upon which thou hadst lifted up thy hand to give it them. 9:16. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks and hearkened not to thy commandments. 9:17. And they would not hear, and they remembered not thy wonders which thou hadst done for them. And they hardened their necks, and gave the head to return to their bondage, as it were by contention. But thou, a forgiving God, gracious, and merciful, longsuffering, and full of compassion, didst not forsake them. And gave the head. . .That is, they set their head, or were bent to return to Egypt. 9:18. Yea when they had made also to themselves a molten calf, and had said: This is thy God, that brought thee out of Egypt: and had committed great blasphemies: 9:19. Yet thou, in thy many mercies, didst not leave them in the desert: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way, and the pillar of fire by night to shew them the way by which they should go. 9:20. And thou gavest them thy good Spirit to teach them, and thy manna thou didst not withhold from their mouth, and thou gavest them water for their thirst. 9:21. Forty years didst thou feed them in the desert, and nothing was wanting to them: their garments did not grow old, and their feet were not worn. 9:22. And thou gavest them kingdoms, and nations, and didst divide lots for them: and they possessed the land of Sehon, and the land of the king of Hesebon, and the land of Og king of Basan. 9:23. And thou didst multiply their children as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them to the land concerning which thou hadst said to their fathers, that they should go in and possess it. 9:24. And the children came and possessed the land, and thou didst humble before them the inhabitants of the land, the Chanaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as it pleased them. 9:25. And they took strong cities and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods: cisterns made by others, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: and they ate, and were filled, and became fat, and abounded with delight in thy great goodness. 9:26. But they provoked thee to wrath, and departed from thee, and threw thy law behind their backs: and they killed thy prophets, who admonished them earnestly to return to thee: and they were guilty of great blasphemies. 9:27. And thou gavest them into the hands of their enemies, and they afflicted them. And in the time of their tribulation they cried to thee, and thou heardest from heaven, and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies thou gavest them saviours, to save them from the hands of their enemies. 9:28. But after they had rest, they returned to do evil in thy sight: and thou leftest them in the hand of their enemies, and they had dominion over them. Then they returned, and cried to thee: and thou heardest from heaven, and deliveredst them many times in thy mercies. 9:29. And thou didst admonish them to return to thy law. But they dealt proudly, and hearkened not to thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them: and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear. 9:30. And thou didst forbear with them for many years, and didst testify against them by thy spirit by the hand of thy prophets: and they heard not, and thou didst deliver them into the hand of the people of the lands. 9:31. Yet in thy very many mercies thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them: because thou art a merciful and gracious God. 9:32. Now therefore our God, great, strong, and terrible, who keepest covenant and mercy, turn not away from thy face all the labour which hath come upon us, upon our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, and our fathers, and all the people from the days of the king of Assur, until this day. 9:33. And thou art just in all things that have come upon us: because thou hast done truth, but we have done wickedly. 9:34. Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept thy law, and have not minded thy commandments, and thy testimonies which thou hast testified among them. 9:35. And they have not served thee in their kingdoms, and in thy manifold goodness, which thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land, which thou deliveredst before them, nor did they return from their most wicked devices. 9:36. Behold we ourselves this day are bondmen: and the land, which thou gavest our fathers, to eat the bread thereof, and the good things thereof, and we ourselves are servants in it. 9:37. And the fruits thereof grow up for the kings, whom thou hast set over us for our sins, and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our beasts, according to their will, and we are in great tribulation. 9:38. And because of all this we ourselves make a covenant, and write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our priests sign it. 2 Esdras Chapter 10 The names of the subscribers to the covenant, and the contents of it. 10:1. And the subscribers were Nehemias, Athersatha the son of Hachelai, and Sedecias, 10:2. Saraias, Azarias, Jeremias, 10:3. Pheshur, Amarias, Melchias, 10:4. Hattus, Sebenia, Melluch, 10:5. Harem, Merimuth, Obdias, 10:6. Daniel, Genthon, Baruch, 10:7. Mosollam, Abia, Miamin, 10:8. Maazia, Belgia, Semeia: these were priests. 10:9. And the Levites, Josue the son of Azanias, Bennui of the sons of Henadad, Cedmihel, 10:10. And their brethren, Sebenia, Oduia, Celita, Phalaia, Hanan, 10:11. Micha, Rohob, Hasebia, 10:12. Zachur, Serebia, Sabania, 10:13. Odaia, Bani, Baninu. 10:14. The heads of the people, Pharos, Phahath Moab, Elam, Zethu, Bani, 10:15. Bonni, Azgad, Bebai, 10:16. Adonia, Begoai, Adin, 10:17. Ater, Hezecia, Azur, 10:18. Odaia, Hasum, Besai, 10:19. Hareph, Anathoth, Nebai, 10:20. Megphias, Mosollam, Hazir, 10:21. Mesizabel, Sadoc, Jeddua, 10:22. Pheltia, Hanan, Anaia, 10:23. Osee, Hanania, Hasub, 10:24. Alohes, Phalea, Sobec, 10:25. Rehum, Hasebna, Maasia, 10:26. Echaia, Hanan, Anan, 10:27. Melluch, Haran, Baana: 10:28. And the rest of the people, priests, Levites, porters, and singing men, Nathinites, and all that had separated themselves from the people of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. 10:29. All that could understand, promising for their brethren, with their chief men, and they came to promise, and swear that they would walk in the law of God, which he gave in the hand of Moses the servant of God, that they would do and keep all the commandments of the Lord our God, and his judgments and his ceremonies. 10:30. And that we would not give our daughters to the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. 10:31. And if the people of the land bring in things to sell, or any things for use, to sell them on the sabbath day, that we would not buy them on the sabbath, or on the holy day. And that we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every hand. 10:32. And we made ordinances for ourselves, to give the third part of a sicle every year for the work of the house of our God, 10:33. For the loaves of proposition, and for the continual sacrifice, and for a continual holocaust on the sabbaths, on the new moons, on the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offering: that atonement might be made for Israel, and for every use of the house of our God. 10:34. And we cast lots among the priests, and the Levites, and the people for the offering of wood, that it might be brought into the house of our God by the houses of our fathers at set times, from year to year: to burn upon the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law of Moses: 10:35. And that we would bring the firstfruits of our land, and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, from year to year, in the house of our Lord. 10:36. And the firstborn of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our oxen, and of our sheep, to be offered in the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God. 10:37. And that we would bring the firstfruits of our meats, and of our libations, and the fruit of every tree, of the vintage also and of oil to the priests, to the storehouse of our God, and the tithes of our ground to the Levites. The Levites also shall receive the tithes of our works out of all the cities. 10:38. And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites in the tithes of the Levites, and the Levites shall offer the tithe of their tithes in the house of our God, to the storeroom into the treasure house. 10:39. For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall carry to the treasury the firstfruits of corn, of wine, and of oil: and the sanctified vessels shall be there, and the priests, and the singing men, and the porters, and ministers, and we will not forsake the house of our God. 2 Esdras Chapter 11 Who were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the other cities. 11:1. And the princes of the people dwelt at Jerusalem: but the rest of the people cast lots, to take one part in ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city, and nine parts in the other cities. 11:2. And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell in Jerusalem. 11:3. These therefore are the chief men of the province, who dwelt in Jerusalem, and in the cities of Juda. And every one dwelt in his possession, in their cities: Israel, the priests, the Levites, the Nathinites, and the children of the servants of Solomon. 11:4. And in Jerusalem there dwelt some of the children of Juda, and some of the children of Benjamin: of the children of Juda, Athaias the son of Aziam, the son of Zacharias, the son of Amarias, the son of Saphatias, the son of Malaleel: of the sons of Phares, 11:5. Maasia the son of Baruch, the son of Cholhoza, the son of Hazia, the son of Adaia, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zacharias, the son of the Silonite: 11:6. All these the sons of Phares, who dwelt in Jerusalem, were four hundred sixty-eight valiant men. 11:7. And these are the children of Benjamin: Sellum the son of Mosollam, the son of Joed, the son of Phadaia, the son of Colaia, the son of Masia, the son of Etheel, the son of Isaia. 11:8. And after him Gebbai, Sellai, nine hundred twenty-eight. 11:9. And Joel the son of Zechri their ruler, and Judas the son of Senua was second over the city. 11:10. And of the priests Idaia the son of Joarib, Jachin, 11:11. Saraia the son of Helcias, the son of Mosollam, the son of Sadoc, the son of Meraioth, the son of Achitob the prince of the house of God, 11:12. And their brethren that do the works of the temple: eight hundred twenty-two. And Adaia the son of Jeroham, the son of Phelelia, the son of Amsi, the son of Zacharias, the son of Pheshur, the son of Melchias, 11:13. And his brethren the chiefs of the fathers: two hundred forty-two. And Amassai the son of Azreel, the son of Ahazi, the son of Mosollamoth, the son of Emmer, 11:14. And their brethren who were very mighty, a hundred twenty-eight: and their ruler Zabdiel son of the mighty. 11:15. And of the Levites Semeia the son of Hasub, the son of Azaricam, the son of Hasabia, the son of Boni, 11:16. And Sabathai and Jozabed, who were over all the outward business of the house of God, of the princes of the Levites, 11:17. And Mathania the son of Micha, the son of Zebedei, the son of Asaph, was the principal man to praise, and to give glory in prayer, and Becbecia, the second, one of his brethren, and Abda the son of Samua, the son of Galal, the son of Idithun. 11:18. All the Levites in the holy city were two hundred eighty-four. 11:19. And the porters, Accub, Telmon, and their brethren, who kept the doors: a hundred seventy-two. 11:20. And the rest of Israel, the priests and the Levites were in all the cities of Juda, every man in his possession. 11:21. And the Nathinites, that dwelt in Ophel, and Siaha, and Gaspha of the Nathinites. 11:22. And the overseer of the Levites in Jerusalem, was Azzi the son of Bani, the son of Hasabia, the son of Mathania, the son of Micha. Of the sons of Asaph, were the singing men in the ministry of the house of God. 11:23. For the king's commandment was concerning them, and an order among the singing men day by day. 11:24. And Phathahia the son of Mesezebel of the children of Zara the son of Juda was at the hand of the king, in all matters concerning the people, 11:25. And in the houses through all their countries. Of the children of Juda some dwelt at Cariath-Arbe, and in the villages thereof: and at Dibon, and in the villages thereof: and at Cabseel, and in the villages thereof. 11:26. And at Jesue, and at Molada, and at Bethphaleth, 11:27. And at Hasersuel, and at Bersabee, and in the villages thereof, 11:28. And at Siceleg, and at Mochona, and in the villages thereof, 11:29. And at Remmon, and at Saraa, and at Jerimuth, 11:30. Zanoa, Odollam, and in their villages, at Lachis and its dependencies, and at Azeca and the villages thereof. And they dwelt from Bersabee unto the valley of Ennom. 11:31. And the children of Benjamin, from Geba, at Mechmas, and at Hai, and at Bethel, and in the villages thereof, 11:32. At Anathoth, Nob, Anania, 11:33. Asor, Rama, Gethaim, 11:34. Hadid, Seboim, and Neballat, Lod, 11:35. And Ono the valley of craftsmen. 11:36. And of the Levites were portions of Juda and Benjamin. 2 Esdras Chapter 12 The priests, and Levites that came up with Zorobabel. The succession of high priests: the solemnity of the dedication of the wall. 12:1. Now these are the priests and the Levites, that went up with Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue: Saraia, Jeremias, Esdras, 12:2. Amaria, Melluch, Hattus, 12:3. Sebenias, Rheum, Merimuth, 12:4. Addo, Genthon, Abia, 12:5. Miamin, Madia, Belga, 12:6. Semeia, and Joiarib, Idaia, Sellum Amoc, Helcias, 12:7. Idaia. These were the chief of the priests, and of their brethren in the days of Josue. 12:8. And the Levites, Jesua, Bennui, Cedmihel, Sarebia, Juda, Mathanias, they and their brethren were over the hymns: 12:9. And Becbecia, and Hanni, and their brethren every one in his office. 12:10. And Josue begot Joacim, and Joacim begot Eliasib, and Eliasib begot Joiada, 12:11. And Joiada begot Jonathan and Jonathan begot Jeddoa. 12:12. And in the days of Joacim the priests and heads of the families were: Of Saraia, Maraia: of Jeremias, Hanania: 12:13. Of Esdras, Mosollam: and of Amaria, Johanan: 12:14. Of Milicho, Jonathan: of Sebenia, Joseph: 12:15. Of Haram, Edna: of Maraioth, Helci: 12:16. Of Adaia, Zacharia: of Genthon, Mosollam: 12:17. Of Abia, Zechri: of Miamin and Moadia, Phelti: 12:18. Of Belga, Sammua of Semaia, Jonathan: 12:19. Of Joiarib, Mathanai: of Jodaia, Azzi: 12:20. Of Sellai, Celai: of Amoc, Heber: 12:21. Of Helcias, Hasebia: of Idaia, Nathanael. 12:22. The Levites the chiefs of the families in the days of Eliasib, and Joiada, and Johanan, and Jeddoa, were recorded, and the priests in the reign of Darius the Persian. 12:23. The sons of Levi, heads of the families were written in the book of Chronicles, even unto the days of Jonathan the son of Eliasib. 12:24. Now the chief of the Levites were Hasebia, Serebia, and Josue the son of Cedmihel: and their brethren by their courses, to praise and to give thanks according to the commandment of David the man of God, and to wait equally in order. 12:25. Mathania, and Becbecia, Obedia, and Mosollam, Telmon, Accub, were keepers of the gates and of the entrances before the gates. 12:26. These were in the days of Joacim the son of Josue, the son of Josedec, and in the days of Nehemias the governor, and of Esdras the priest and scribe. 12:27. And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, and to keep the dedication, and to rejoice with thanksgiving, and with singing, and with cymbals, and psalteries and harps. 12:28. And the sons of the singing men were gathered together out of the plain country about Jerusalem, and out of the villages of Nethuphati, 12:29. And from the house of Galgal, and from the countries of Geba and Azmaveth: for the singing men had built themselves villages round about Jerusalem. 12:30. And the priests and the Levites were purified, and they purified the people, and the gates, and the wall. 12:31. And I made the princes of Juda go up upon the wall, and I appointed two great choirs to give praise. And they went on the right hand upon the wall toward the dung gate. 12:32. And after them went Osaias, and half of the princes of Juda, 12:33. And Azarias, Esdras, and Mosollam, Judas, and Benjamin, and Semeia, and Jeremias. 12:34. And of the sons of the priests with trumpets, Zacharias the son of Jonathan, the son of Semeia, the son of Mathania, the son of Michaia, the son of Zechur, the son of Asaph, 12:35. And his brethren Semeia, and Azareel, Malalai, Galalai, Maai, Nathanael, and Judas, and Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God: and Esdras the scribe before them at the fountain gate. 12:36. And they went up over against them by the stairs of the city of David, at the going up of the wall of the house of David, and to the water gate eastward: 12:37. And the second choir of them that gave thanks went on the opposite side, and I after them, and the half of the people upon the wall, and upon the tower of the furnaces, even to the broad wall, 12:38. And above the gate of Ephraim, and above the old gate, and above the fish gate and the tower of Hananeel, and the tower of Emath, and even to the flock gate: and they stood still in the watch gate. 12:39. And the two choirs of them that gave praise stood still at the house of God, and I and the half of the magistrates with me. 12:40. And the priests, Eliachim, Maasia, Miamin, Michea, Elioenai, Zacharia, Hanania with trumpets, 12:41. And Maasia, and Semeia, and Eleazar, and Azzi, and Johanan, and Melchia, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sung loud, and Jezraia was their overseer: 12:42. And they sacrificed on that day great sacrifices, and they rejoiced: for God had made them joyful with great joy: their wives also and their children rejoiced, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. 12:43. They appointed also in that day men over the storehouses of the treasure, for the libations, and for the firstfruits, and for the tithes, that the rulers of the city might bring them in by them in honour of thanksgiving, for the priests and Levites: for Juda was joyful in the priests and Levites that assisted. 12:44. And they kept the watch of their God, and the observance of expiation, and the singing men, and the porters, according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son. 12:45. For in the days of David and Asaph from the beginning there were chief singers appointed, to praise with canticles, and give thanks to God. 12:46. And all Israel, in the days of Zorobabel, and in the days of Nehemias gave portions to the singing men, and to the porters, day by day, and they sanctified the Levites, and the Levites sanctified the sons of Aaron. Sanctified. . .That is, they gave them that which by the law was set aside, and sanctified for their use. 2 Esdras Chapter 13 Divers abuses are reformed. 13:1. And on that day they read in the book of Moses in the hearing of the people: and therein was found written, that the Ammonites and the Moabites should not come in to the church of God for ever: 13:2. Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and water: and they hired against them Balaam, to curse them, and our God turned the curse into blessing. 13:3. And it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated every stranger from Israel. 13:4. And over this thing was Eliasib the priest, who was set over the treasury of the house of our God, and was near akin to Tobias. Over this thing, etc. . .Or, he was faulty in this thing, or in this kind. 13:5. And he made him a great storeroom, where before him they laid up gifts, and frankincense, and vessels, and the tithes of the corn, of the wine, and of the oil, the portions of the Levites, and of the singing men, and of the porters, and the firstfruits of the priests. 13:6. But in all this time I was not in Jerusalem, because in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon, I went to the king, and after certain days I asked the king: 13:7. And I came to Jerusalem, and I understood the evil that Eliasib had done for Tobias, to make him a storehouse in the courts of the house of God. 13:8. And it seemed to me exceeding evil. And I cast forth the vessels of the house of Tobias out of the storehouse. 13:9. And I commanded and they cleansed again the vessels of the house of God, the sacrifice, and the frankincense. 13:10. And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them: and that the Levites, and the singing men, and they that ministered were fled away every man to his own country: 13:11. And I pleaded the matter against the magistrates, and said: Why have we forsaken the house of God? And I gathered them together, and I made them to stand in their places. 13:12. And all Juda brought the tithe of the corn, and the wine, and the oil into the storehouses. 13:13. And we set over the storehouses Selemias the priest, and Sadoc the scribe, and of the Levites Phadaia, and next to them Hanan the son of Zachur, the son of Mathania: for they were approved as faithful, and to them were committed the portions of their brethren. 13:14. Remember me, O my God, for this thing, and wipe not out my kindnesses, which I have done relating to the house of my God and his ceremonies. 13:15. In those days I saw in Juda some treading the presses on the sabbath, and carrying sheaves, and lading asses with wine, and grapes, and figs, and all manner of burthens, and bringing them into Jerusalem on the sabbath day. And I charged them that they should sell on a day on which it was lawful to sell. 13:16. Some Tyrians also dwelt there, who brought fish, and all manner of wares: and they sold them on the sabbaths to the children of Juda in Jerusalem. 13:17. And I rebuked the chief men of Juda, and said to them: What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the sabbath day: 13:18. Did not our fathers do these things, and our God brought all this evil upon us, and upon this city? And you bring more wrath upon Israel by violating the sabbath. 13:19. And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem were at rest on the sabbath day, I spoke: and they shut the gates, and I commanded that they should not open them till after the sabbath: and I set some of my servants at the gates, that none should bring in burthens on the sabbath day. 13:20. So the merchants, and they that sold all kinds of wares, stayed without Jerusalem, once or twice. 13:21. And I charged them, and I said to them: Why stay you before the wall? if you do so another time, I will lay hands on you. And from that time they came no more on the sabbath. 13:22. I spoke also to the Levites that they should be purified, and should come to keep the gates, and to sanctify the sabbath day: for this also remember me, O my God, and spare me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. 13:23. In those days also I saw Jews that married wives, women of Azotus, and of Ammon, and of Moab. 13:24. And their children spoke half in the speech of Azotus, and could not speak the Jews' language, but they spoke according to the language of this and that people. 13:25. And I chid them, and laid my curse upon them. And I beat some of them, and shaved off their hair, and made them swear by God that they would not give their daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for their sons, nor for themselves, saying: 13:26. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin in this kind of thing: and surely among many nations, there was not a king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: and yet women of other countries brought even him to sin. 13:27. And shall we also be disobedient and do all this great evil to transgress against our God, and marry strange women: 13:28. And one of the sons of Joiada the son of Eliasib the high priest, was son in law to Sanaballat the Horonite, and I drove him from me. 13:29. Remember them, O Lord my God, that defile the priesthood, and the law of priests and Levites. 13:30. So I separated from them all strangers, and I appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites, every man in his ministry: 13:31. And for the offering of wood at times appointed, and for the firstfruits: remember me, O my God, unto good. Amen. THE BOOK OF TOBIAS This Book takes its name from the holy man Tobias, whose wonderful virtues are herein recorded. It contains most excellent documents of great piety, extraordinary patience, and of a perfect resignation to the will of God. His humble prayer was heard, and the angel Raphael was sent to relieve him: he is thankful and praises the Lord, calling on the children of Israel to do the same. Having lived to the age of one hundred and two years, he exhorts his son and grandsons to piety, foretells the destruction of Ninive and the rebuilding of Jerusalem: he dies happily. Tobias Chapter 1 Tobias's early piety: his works of mercy, particularly in burying the dead. 1:1. Tobias of the tribe and city of Nephtali, (which is in the upper parts of Galilee above Naasson, beyond the way that leadeth to the west, having on the right hand the city of Sephet,) 1:2. When he was made captive in the days of Salmanasar king of the Assyrians, even in his captivity, forsook not the way of truth, 1:3. But every day gave all he could get to his brethren his fellow captives, that were of his kindred. 1:4. And when he was younger than any of the tribe of Nephtali, yet did he no childish thing in his work. 1:5. Moreover when all went to the golden calves which Jeroboam king of Israel had made, he alone fled the company of all, 1:6. And went to Jerusalem to the temple of the Lord, and there adored the Lord God of Israel, offering faithfully all his firstfruits, and his tithes, 1:7. So that in the third year he gave all his tithes to the proselytes, and strangers. 1:8. These and such like things did he observe when but a boy according to the law of God. 1:9. But when he was a man, he took to wife Anna of his own tribe, and had a son by her, whom he called after his own name, 1:10. And from his infancy he taught him to fear God, and to abstain from all sin. 1:11. And when by the captivity he with his wife and his son and all his tribe was come to the city of Ninive, 1:12. (When all ate of the meats of the Gentiles) he kept his soul and never was defiled with their meats. 1:13. And because he was mindful of the Lord with all his heart, God gave him favour in the sight of Salmanasar the king. 1:14. And he gave him leave to go whithersoever he would, with liberty to do whatever he had a mind. 1:15. He therefore went to all that were in captivity, and gave them wholesome admonitions. 1:16. And when he was come to Rages a city of the Medes, and had ten talents of silver of that with which he had been honoured by the king: 1:17. And when amongst a great multitude of his kindred, he saw Gabelus in want, who was one of his tribe, taking a note of his hand he gave him the aforesaid sum of money. 1:18. But after a long time, Salmanasar the king being dead, when Sennacherib his son, who reigned in his place, had a hatred for the children of Israel: 1:19. Tobias daily went among all his kindred and comforted them, and distributed to every one as he was able, out of his goods: 1:20. He fed the hungry, and gave clothes to the naked, and was careful to bury the dead, and they that were slain. 1:21. And when king Sennacherib was come back, fleeing from Judea by reason of the slaughter that God had made about him for his blasphemy, and being angry slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias buried their bodies. 1:22. But when it was told the king, he commanded him to be slain, and took away all his substance. 1:23. But Tobias fleeing naked away with his son and with his wife, lay concealed, for many loved him. 1:24. But after forty-five days, the king was killed by his own sons. 1:25. And Tobias returned to his house, and all his substance was restored to him. Tobias Chapter 2 Tobias leaveth his dinner to bury the dead: he loseth his sight by God's permission, for manifestation of his patience. 2:1. But after this, when there was a festival of the Lord, and a good dinner was prepared in Tobias's house, 2:2. He said to his son: Go, and bring some of our tribe that fear God, to feast with us. 2:3. And when he had gone, returning he told him, that one of the children of Israel lay slain in the street. And he forthwith leaped up from his place at the table, and left his dinner, and came fasting to the body. 2:4. And taking it up carried it privately to his house, that after the sun was down, he might bury him cautiously. 2:5. And when he had hid the body, he ate bread with mourning and fear, 2:6. Remembering the word which the Lord spoke by Amos the prophet: Your festival days shall be turned into lamentation and mourning. 2:7. So when the sun was down, he went and buried him. 2:8. Now all his neighbours blamed him, saying: once already commandment was given for thee to be slain because of this matter, and thou didst scarce escape the sentence of death, and dost thou again bury the dead? 2:9. But Tobias fearing God more than the king, carried off the bodies of them that were slain, and hid them in his house, and at midnight buried them. 2:10. Now it happened one day that being wearied with burying, he came to his house, and cast himself down by the wall and slept, 2:11. And as he was sleeping, hot dung out of a swallow's nest fell upon his eyes, and he was made blind. 2:12. Now this trial the Lord therefore permitted to happen to him, that an example might be given to posterity of his patience, as also of holy Job. 2:13. For whereas he had always feared God from his infancy, and kept his commandments, he repined not against God because the evil of blindness had befallen him, 2:14. But continued immoveable in the fear of God, giving thanks to God all the days of his life. 2:15. For as the kings insulted over holy Job: so his relations and kinsmen mocked at his life, saying: Kings. . .So Job's three friends are here called, because they were princes in their respective territories. 2:16. Where is thy hope, for which thou gavest alms, and buriedst the dead? 2:17. But Tobias rebuked them, saying: Speak not so: 2:18. For we are the children of saints, and look for that life which God will give to those that never change their faith from him. 2:19. Now Anna his wife went daily to weaving work, and she brought home what she could get for their living by the labour of her hands. 2:20. Whereby it came to pass, that she received a young kid, and brought it home: 2:21. And when her husband heard it bleating, he said: Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen: restore ye it to its owners, for it is not lawful for us either to eat or to touch any thing that cometh by theft. 2:22. At these words his wife being angry answered: It is evident the hope is come to nothing, and thy alms now appear. 2:23. And with these and other, such like words she upbraided him. Tobias Chapter 3 The prayer of Tobias, and of Sara, in their several afflictions, are heard by God, and the angel Raphael is sent to relieve them. 3:1. Then Tobias sighed, and began to pray with tears, 3:2. Saying, Thou art just, O Lord, and all thy judgments are just, and all thy ways mercy, and truth, and judgment: 3:3. And now, O Lord, think of me, and take not revenge of my sins, neither remember my offences, nor those of my parents. 3:4. For we have not obeyed thy commandments, therefore are we delivered to spoil and to captivity, and death, and are made a fable, and a reproach to all nations, amongst which thou hast scattered us. 3:5. And now, O Lord, great are thy judgments, because we have not done according to thy precepts, and have not walked sincerely before thee. 3:6. And now, O Lord, do with me according to thy will, and command my spirit to be received in peace: for it is better for me to die, than to live. 3:7. Now it happened on the same day, that Sara daughter of Raguel, in Rages a city of the Medes, received a reproach from one of her father's servant maids, Rages. . .In the Greek it is Ecbatana, which was also called Rages. For there were two cities in Media of the name of Rages. Raguel dwelt in one of them, and Gabelus in the other. 3:8. Because she had been given to seven husbands and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them, at their first going in unto her. 3:9. So when she reproved the maid for her fault, she answered her, saying: May we never see son, or daughter of thee upon the earth, thou murderer of thy husbands. 3:10. Wilt thou kill me also, as thou hast already killed seven husbands? At these words, she went into an upper chamber of her house: and for three days and three nights did neither eat nor drink: 3:11. But continuing in prayer with tears besought God, that he would deliver her from this reproach. 3:12. And it came to pass on the third day when she was making an end of her prayer, blessing the Lord, 3:13. She said: Blessed is thy name, O God of our fathers, who when thou hast been angry, wilt shew mercy, and in the time of tribulation forgivest the sins of them that call upon thee. 3:14. To thee, O Lord, I turn my face, to thee I direct my eyes. 3:15. I beg, O Lord, that thou loose me from the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from the earth. 3:16. Thou knowest, O Lord, that I never coveted a husband, and have kept my soul clean from all lust. 3:17. Never have I joined myself with them that play: neither have I made myself partaker with them that walk in lightness. 3:18. But a husband I consented to take, with thy fear, not with my lust. 3:19. And either I was unworthy of them, or they perhaps were not worthy of me: because perhaps thou hast kept me for another man, 3:20. For thy counsel is not in man's power. 3:21. But this every one is sure of that worshippeth thee, that his life, if it be under trial, shall be crowned and if it be under tribulation, it shall be delivered: and if it be under correction, it shall be allowed to come to thy mercy. 3:22. For thou art not delighted in our being lost, because after a storm thou makest a calm, and after tears and weeping thou pourest in joyfulness. 3:23. Be thy name, O God of Israel, blessed for ever, 3:24. At that time the prayers of them both were heard in the sight of the glory of the most high God: 3:25. And the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael was sent to heal them both, whose prayers at one time were rehearsed in the sight of the Lord. Tobias Chapter 4 Tobias thinking he shall die, giveth his son godly admonitions: and telleth him of money he had lent to a friend. 4:1. Therefore when Tobias thought that his prayer was heard that he might die, he called to him Tobias his son, 4:2. And said to him: Hear, my son, the words of my mouth, and lay them as a foundation in thy heart. 4:3. When God shall take my soul, thou shalt bury my body: and thou shalt honour thy mother all the days of her life: 4:4. For thou must be mindful what and how great perils she suffered for thee in her womb. 4:5. And when she also shall have ended the time of her life, bury her by me. 4:6. And all the days of thy life have God in thy mind: and take heed thou never consent to sin, nor transgress the commandments of the Lord our God. 4:7. Give alms out of thy substance, and turn not away thy face from any poor person: for so it shall come to pass that the face of the Lord shall not be turned from thee. 4:8. According to thy ability be merciful. 4:9. If thou have much give abundantly: if thou have little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little. 4:10. For thus thou storest up to thyself a good reward for the day of necessity. 4:11. For alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness. 4:12. Alms shall be a great confidence before the most high God, to all them that give it. 4:13. Take heed to keep thyself, my son, from all fornication, and beside thy wife never endure to know a crime. 4:14. Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning. 4:15. If any man hath done any work for thee, immediately pay him his hire, and let not the wages of thy hired servant stay with thee at all. 4:16. See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another. 4:17. Eat thy bread with the hungry and the needy, and with thy garments cover the naked, 4:18. Lay out thy bread, and thy wine upon the burial of a just man, and do not eat and drink thereof with the wicked. 4:19. Seek counsel always of a wise man. 4:20. Bless God at all times: and desire of him to direct thy ways, and that all thy counsels may abide in him. 4:21. I tell thee also, my son, that I lent ten talents of silver, while thou wast yet a child, to Gabelus, in Rages a city of the Medes, and I have a note of his hand with me: 4:22. Now therefore inquire how thou mayst go to him, and receive of him the foresaid sum of money, and restore to him the note of his hand. 4:23. Fear not, my son: we lead indeed a poor life, but we shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good. Tobias Chapter 5 Young Tobias seeking a guide for his journey, the angel Raphael, in shape of a man, undertaketh this office. 5:1. Then Tobias answered his father, and said: I will do all things, father, which thou hast commanded me. 5:2. But how I shall get this money, I cannot tell; he knoweth not me, and I know not him: what token shall I give him? nor did I ever know the way which leadeth thither. 5:3. Then his father answered him, and said: I have a note of his hand with me, which when thou shalt shew him, he will presently pay it. 5:4. But go now, and seek thee out some faithful man, to go with thee for his hire: that thou mayst receive it, while I yet live. 5:5. Then Tobias going forth, found a beautiful young man, standing girded, and as it were ready to walk. 5:6. And not knowing that he was an angel of God, he saluted him, and said: From whence art thou, good young man? 5:7. But he answered: Of the children of Israel. And Tobias said to him: Knowest thou the way that leadeth to the country of the Medes? 5:8. And he answered: I know it: and I have often walked through all the ways thereof, and I have abode with Gabelus our brother, who dwelleth at Rages a city of the Medes, which is situate in the mount of Ecbatana. 5:9. And Tobias said to him: Stay for me, I beseech thee, till I tell these same things to my father. 5:10. Then Tobias going in told all these things to his father. Upon which his father being in admiration, desired that he would come in unto him. 5:11. So going in he saluted him, and said: Joy be to thee always. 5:12. And Tobias said: What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness and see not the light of heaven? 5:13. And the young man said to him: Be of good courage, thy cure from God is at hand. 5:14. And Tobias said to him: Canst thou conduct my son to Gabelus at Rages, a city of the Medes? and when thou shalt return, I will pay thee thy hire. 5:15. And the angel said to him: I will conduct him thither, and bring him back to thee. 5:16. And Tobias said to him: I pray thee, tell me, of what family, or what tribe art thou? 5:17. And Raphael the angel answered: Dost thou seek the family of him thou hirest, or the hired servant himself to go with thy son? 5:18. But lest I should make thee uneasy, I am Azarias the son of the great Ananias. Azarias. . .The angel took the form of Azarias: and therefore might call himself by the name of the man whom he personated. Azarias, in Hebrew, signifies the help of God, and Ananias the grace of God. 5:19. And Tobias answered: Thou art of a great family. But I pray thee be not angry that I desired to know thy family. 5:20. And the angel said to him: I will lead thy son safe, and bring him to thee again safe. 5:21. And Tobias answering, said: May you have a good journey, and God be with you in your way, and his angel accompany you. 5:22. Then all things being ready, that were to be carried in their journey, Tobias bade his father and his mother farewell, and they set out both together. 5:23. And when they were departed, his mother began to weep, and to say: Thou hast taken the staff of our old age, and sent him away from us. 5:24. I wish the money for which thou hast sent him, had never been. 5:25. For our poverty was sufficient for us, that we might account it as riches, that we saw our son. 5:26. And Tobias said to her: Weep not, our son will arrive thither safe, and will return safe to us, and thy eyes shall see him. 5:27. For I believe that the good angel of God doth accompany him, and doth order all things well that are done about him, so that he shall return to us with joy. 5:28. At these words his mother ceased weeping, and held her peace. Tobias Chapter 6 By the angel's advice young Tobias taketh hold on a fish that assaulteth him. Reserveth the heart, the gall, and the liver for medicines. They lodge at the house of Raguel, whose daughter Sara, Tobias is to marry; she had before been married to seven husbands, who were all slain by a devil. 6:1. And Tobias went forward, and the dog followed him, and he lodged the first night by the river of Tigris. 6:2. And he went out to wash his feet, and behold a monstrous fish came up to devour him. 6:3. And Tobias being afraid of him, cried out with a loud voice, saying: Sir, he cometh upon me. 6:4. And the angel said to him: Take him by the gill, and draw him to thee. And when he had done so, he drew him out upon the land, and he began to pant before his feet. 6:5. Then the angel said to him: Take out the entrails of this fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines. 6:6. And when he had done so, he roasted the flesh thereof, and they took it with them in the way: the rest they salted as much as might serve them, till they came to Rages the city of the Medes. 6:7. Then Tobias asked the angel, and said to him: I beseech thee, brother Azarias, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish? 6:8. And the angel, answering, said to him: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them. Its heart, etc. The liver (ver. 19). . .God was pleased to give these things a virtue against those proud spirits, to make them, who affected to be like the Most High, subject to such mean corporeal creatures as instruments of his power. 6:9. And the gall is good for anointing the eyes, in which there is a white speck, and they shall be cured. 6:10. And Tobias said to him: Where wilt thou that we lodge? 6:11. And the angel answering, said: Here is one whose name is Raguel, a near kinsman of thy tribe, and he hath a daughter named Sara, but he hath no son nor any other daughter beside her. 6:12. All his substance is due to thee, and thou must take her to wife. 6:13. Ask her therefore of her father, and he will give her thee to wife. 6:14. Then Tobias answered, and said: I hear that she hath been given to seven husbands, and they all died: moreover I have heard, that a devil killed them. 6:15. Now I am afraid, lest the same thing should happen to me also: and whereas I am the only child of my parents, I should bring down their old age with sorrow to hell. Hell. . .That is, to the place where the souls of the good were kept before the coming of Christ. 6:16. Then the angel Raphael said to him: Hear me, and I will shew thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. 6:17. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power. 6:18. But thou when thou shalt take her, go into the chamber, and for three days keep thyself continent from her, and give thyself to nothing else but to prayers with her. 6:19. And on that night lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away. 6:20. But the second night thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy Patriarchs. 6:21. And the third night thou shalt obtain a blessing that sound children may be born of you. 6:22. And when the third night is past, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayst obtain a blessing in children. Tobias Chapter 7 They are kindly entertained by Raguel. Tobias demandeth Sara to wife. 7:1. And they went in to Raguel, and Raguel received them with joy. 7:2. And Raguel looking upon Tobias, said to Anna his wife: How like is this young man to my cousin? 7:3. And when he had spoken these words, he said: Whence are ye young men our brethren? 7:4. But they said: We are of the tribe of Nephtali, of the captivity of Ninive. 7:5. And Raguel said to them: Do you know Tobias my brother? And they said: We know him. 7:6. And when he was speaking many good things of him, the angel said to Raguel: Tobias concerning whom thou inquirest is this young man's father. 7:7. And Raguel went to him, and kissed him with tears and weeping upon his neck, said: A blessing be upon thee, my son, because thou art the son of a good and most virtuous man. 7:8. And Anna his wife, and Sara their daughter wept. 7:9. And after they had spoken, Raguel commanded a sheep to be killed, and a feast to be prepared. And when he desired them to sit down to dinner, 7:10. Tobias said: I will not eat nor drink here this day, unless thou first grant me my petition, and promise to give me Sara thy daughter. 7:11. Now when Raguel heard this he was afraid, knowing what had happened to those seven husbands, that went in unto her: and he began to fear lest it might happen to him also in like manner: and as he was in suspense, and gave no answer to his petition, 7:12. The angel said to him: Be not afraid to give her to this man, for to him who feareth God is thy daughter due to be his wife: therefore another could not have her. 7:13. Then Raguel said: I doubt not but God hath regarded my prayers and tears in his sight. 7:14. And I believe he hath therefore made you come to me, that this maid might be married to one of her own kindred, according to the law of Moses: and now doubt not but I will give her to thee. 7:15. And taking the right hand of his daughter, he gave it into the right hand of Tobias, saying: The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you, and may he join you together, and fulfil his blessing in you. 7:16. And taking paper they made a writing of the marriage. 7:17. And afterwards they made merry, blessing God. 7:18. And Raguel called to him Anna his wife, and bade her to prepare another chamber. 7:19. And she brought Sara her daughter in thither, and she wept. 7:20. And she said to her: Be of good cheer, my daughter: the Lord of heaven give thee joy for the trouble thou hast undergone. Tobias Chapter 8 Tobias burneth part of the fish's liver, and Raphael bindeth the devil. Tobias and Sara pray. 8:1. And after they had supped, they brought in the young man to her. 8:2. And Tobias remembering the angel's word, took out of his bag part of the liver, and laid it upon burning coals. 8:3. Then the angel Raphael took the devil, and bound him in the desert of upper Egypt. 8:4. Then Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said to her: Sara, arise, and let us pray to God to day, and to morrow, and the next day: because for these three nights we are joined to God: and when the third night is over, we will be in our own wedlock. 8:5. For we are the children of saints, and we must not be joined together like heathens that know not God. 8:6. So they both arose, and prayed earnestly both together that health might be given them, 8:7. And Tobias said: Lord God of our fathers, may the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains, and the rivers, and all thy creatures that are in them, bless thee. 8:8. Thou madest Adam of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve for a helper. 8:9. And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever. 8:10. Sara also said: Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, and let us grow old both together in health. 8:11. And it came to pass about the cockcrowing, Raguel ordered his servants to be called for, and they went with him together to dig a grave. 8:12. For he said: Lest perhaps it may have happened to him, in like manner as it did to the other seven husbands, that went in unto her. 8:13. And when they had prepared the pit, Raguel went back to his wife, and said to her: 8:14. Send one of thy maids, and let her see if he be dead, that I may bury him before it be day. 8:15. So she sent one of her maidservants, who went into the chamber, and found them safe and sound, sleeping both together. 8:16. And returning she brought the good news: and Raguel and Anna his wife blessed the Lord, 8:17. And said: We bless thee, O Lord God of Israel, because it hath not happened as we suspected. 8:18. For thou hast shewn thy mercy to us, and hast shut out from us the enemy that persecuted us. 8:19. And thou hast taken pity upon two only children. Make them, O Lord, bless thee more fully: and to offer up to thee a sacrifice of thy praise, and of their health, that all nations may know, that thou alone art God in all the earth. 8:20. And immediately Raguel commanded his servants, to fill up the pit they had made, before it was day. 8:21. And he spoke to his wife to make ready a feast, and prepare all kind of provisions that are necessary for such as go a journey. 8:22. He caused also two fat kine, and four wethers to be killed, and a banquet to be prepared for all his neighbours, and all his friends, 8:23. And Raguel adjured Tobias, to abide with him two weeks. 8:24. And of all things which Raguel possessed, he gave one half to Tobias, and made a writing, that the half that remained should after their decease come also to Tobias. Tobias Chapter 9 The angel Raphael goeth to Gabelus, receiveth the money, and bringeth him to the marriage. 9:1. Then Tobias called the angel to him, whom he took to be a man, and said to him: Brother Azarias, I pray thee hearken to my words: 9:2. If I should give myself to be thy servant I should not make a worthy return for thy care. 9:3. However, I beseech thee, to take with thee beasts and servants, and to go to Gabelus to Rages the city of the Medes: and to restore to him his note of hand, and receive of him the money, and desire him to come to my wedding. 9:4. For thou knowest that my father numbereth the days: and if I stay one day more, his soul will be afflicted. 9:5. And indeed thou seest how Raguel hath adjured me, whose adjuring I cannot despise. 9:6. Then Raphael took four of Raguel's servants, and two camels, and went to Rages the city of the Medes: and finding Gabelus, gave him his note of hand, and received of him all the money. 9:7. And he told him concerning Tobias the son of Tobias, all that had been done: and made him come with him to the wedding. 9:8. And when he was come into Raguel's house he found Tobias sitting at the table: and he leaped up, and they kissed each other: and Gabelus wept, and blessed God, 9:9. And said: The God of Israel bless thee, because thou art the son of a very good and just man, and that feareth God, and doth almsdeeds: 9:10. And may a blessing come upon thy wife and upon your parents. 9:11. And may you see your children, and your children's children, unto the third and fourth generation: and may your seed be blessed by the God of Israel, who reigneth for ever and ever. 9:12. And when all had said, Amen, they went to the feast: but the marriage feast they celebrated also with the fear of the Lord. Tobias Chapter 10 The parents lament the long absence of their son Tobias. He sets out to return. 10:1. But as Tobias made longer stay upon occasion of the marriage, Tobias his father was solicitous, saying: Why thinkest thou doth my son tarry, or why is he detained there? 10:2. Is Gabelus dead, thinkest thou, and no man will pay him the money? 10:3. And he began to be exceeding sad, both he and Anna his wife with him: and they began both to weep together, because their son did not return to them on the day appointed. 10:4. But his mother wept and was quite disconsolate, and said: Woe, woe is me, my son; why did we send thee to go to a strange country, the light of our eyes, the staff of our old age, the comfort of our life, the hope of our posterity? 10:5. We having all things together in thee alone, ought not to have let thee go from us. 10:6. And Tobias said to her: Hold thy peace, and be not troubled, our son is safe: that man with whom we sent him is very trusty. 10:7. But she could by no means be comforted, but daily running out looked round about, and went into all the ways by which there seemed any hope he might return, that she might if possible see him coming afar off. 10:8. But Raguel said to his son in law: Stay here, and I will send a messenger to Tobias thy father, that thou art in health. 10:9. And Tobias said to him: I know that my father and mother now count the days, and their spirit is grievously afflicted within them. 10:10. And when Raguel had pressed Tobias with many words, and he by no means would hearken to him, he delivered Sara unto him, and half of all his substance in menservants, and womenservants, in cattle, in camels, and in kine, and in much money, and sent him away safe and joyful from him, 10:11. Saying: The holy angel of the Lord be with you in your journey, and bring you through safe, and that you may find all things well about your parents, and my eyes may see your children before I die. 10:12. And the parents taking their daughter kissed her, and let her go: 10:13. Admonishing her to honour her father and mother in law, to love her husband, to take care of the family, to govern the house, and to behave herself irreprehensibly. Tobias Chapter 11 Tobias anointeth his father's eyes with the fish's gall, and he recovereth his sight. 11:1. And as they were returning they came to Charan, which is in the midway to Ninive, the eleventh day. 11:2. And the angel said: Brother Tobias, thou knowest how thou didst leave thy father. 11:3. If it please thee therefore, let us go before, and let the family follow softly after us, together with thy wife, and with the beasts. 11:4. And as this their going pleased him, Raphael said to Tobias: Take with thee of the gall of the fish, for it will be necessary. So Tobias took some of that gall and departed. 11:5. But Anna sat beside the way daily, on the top of a hill, from whence she might see afar off. 11:6. And while she watched his coming from that place, she saw him afar off, and presently perceived it was her son coming: and returning she told her husband, saying: Behold thy son cometh. 11:7. And Raphael said to Tobias: As soon as thou shalt come into thy house, forthwith adore the Lord thy God: and giving thanks to him, go to thy father, and kiss him. 11:8. And immediately anoint his eyes with this gall of the fish, which thou carriest with thee. For be assured that his eyes shall be presently opened, and thy father shall see the light of heaven, and shall rejoice in the sight of thee. 11:9. Then the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. The dog, etc. . .This may seem a very minute circumstance to be recorded in sacred history: but as we learn from our Saviour, St. Matt. 5.18, there are iotas and tittles in the word of God: that is to say, things that appear minute, but which have indeed a deep and mysterious meaning in them. 11:10. And his father that was blind, rising up, began to run stumbling with his feet: and giving a servant his hand, went to meet his son. 11:11. And receiving him kissed him, as did also his wife, and they began to weep for joy. 11:12. And when they had adored God, and given him thanks, they sat down together. 11:13. Then Tobias taking of the gall of the fish, anointed his father's eyes. 11:14. And he stayed about half an hour: and a white skin began to come out of his eyes, like the skin of an egg. 11:15. And Tobias took hold of it, and drew it from his eyes, and recovered his sight. 11:16. And they glorified God, both he and his wife and all that knew him. 11:17. And Tobias said: I bless thee, O Lord God of Israel, because thou hast chastised me, and thou hast saved me and behold I see Tobias my son. 11:18. And after seven days Sara his son's wife and all the family arrived safe, and the cattle, and the camels, and an abundance of money of his wife's: and that money also which he had received of Gabelus, 11:19. And he told his parents all the benefits of God, which he had done to him by the man that conducted him. 11:20. And Achior and Nabath the kinsmen of Tobias came, rejoicing for Tobias, and congratulating with him for all the good things that God had done for him. 11:21. And for seven days they feasted and rejoiced all with great joy. Tobias Chapter 12 Raphael maketh himself known. 12:1. Then Tobias called to him his son and said to him: What can we give to this holy man, that is come with thee? 12:2. Tobias answering, said to his father: Father, what wages shall we give him? or what can be worthy of his benefits? 12:3. He conducted me and brought me safe again, he received the money of Gabelus, he caused me to have my wife, and he chased from her the evil spirit, he gave joy to her parents, myself he delivered from being devoured by the fish, thee also he hath made to see the light of heaven, and we are filled with all good things through him. What can we give him sufficient for these things? 12:4. But I beseech thee, my father, to desire him, that he would vouchsafe to accept of one half of all things that have been brought. 12:5. So the father and the son calling him, took him aside: and began to desire him that he would vouchsafe to accept of half of all things that they had brought, 12:6. Then he said to them secretly, Bless ye the God of heaven, give glory to him in the sight of all that live, because he hath shewn his mercy to you. 12:7. For it is good to hide the secret of a king: to reveal and confess the works of God. 12:8. Prayer is good with fasting and alms more than to lay up treasures of gold. 12:9. For alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting. 12:10. But they that commit sin and iniquity, are enemies to their own soul. 12:11. I discover then the truth unto you, and I will not hide the secret from you. 12:12. When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord. 12:13. And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. 12:14. And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son's wife from the devil. 12:15. For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord. 12:16. And when they had heard these things, they were troubled, and being seized with fear they fell upon the ground on their face. 12:17. And the angel said to them: Peace be to you, fear not. 12:18. For when I was with you, I was there by the will of God: bless ye him, and sing praises to him. 12:19. I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men. 12:20. It is time therefore that I return to him that sent me: but bless ye God, and publish all his wonderful works. 12:21. And when he had said these things, he was taken from their sight, and they could see him no more. 12:22. Then they lying prostrate for three hours upon their face, blessed God, and rising up, they told all his wonderful works. Tobias Chapter 13 Tobias the father praiseth God, exhorting all Israel to do the same. Prophesieth the restoration and better state of Jerusalem. 13:1. And Tobias the elder opening his mouth, blessed the Lord, and said: Thou art great O Lord, for ever, and thy kingdom is unto all ages. 13:2. For thou scourgest, and thou savest: thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again: and there is none that can escape thy hand. 13:3. Give glory to the Lord, ye children of Israel, and praise him in the sight of the Gentiles: 13:4. Because he hath therefore scattered you among the Gentiles, who know not him, that you may declare his wonderful works, and make them know that there is no other almighty God besides him. 13:5. He hath chastised us for our iniquities: and he will save us for his own mercy. 13:6. See then what he hath done with us, and with fear and trembling give ye glory to him: and extol the eternal King of worlds in your works. 13:7. As for me, I will praise him in the land of my captivity: because he hath shewn his majesty toward a sinful nation, 13:8. Be converted therefore, ye sinners, and do justice before God, believing that he will shew his mercy to you. 13:9. And I and my soul will rejoice in him. 13:10. Bless ye the Lord, all his elect, keep days of joy, and give glory to him. 13:11. Jerusalem, city of God, the Lord hath chastised thee for the works of thy hands. Jerusalem. . .What is prophetically delivered here, and in the following chapter, with relation to Jerusalem, is partly to be understood of the rebuilding of the city after the captivity: and partly of the spiritual Jerusalem, which is the church of Christ, and the eternal Jerusalem in heaven. 13:12. Give glory to the Lord for thy good things, and bless the God eternal that he may rebuild his tabernacle in thee, and may call back all the captives to thee, and thou mayst rejoice for ever and ever. 13:13. Thou shalt shine with a glorious light: and all the ends of the earth shall worship thee, 13:14. Nations from afar shall come to thee: and shall bring gifts, and shall adore the Lord in thee, and shall esteem thy land as holy. 13:15. For they shall call upon the great name in thee, 13:16. They shall be cursed that shall despise thee: and they shall be condemned that shall blaspheme thee: and blessed shall they be that shall build thee up, 13:17. But thou shalt rejoice in thy children, because they shall all be blessed, and shall be gathered together to the Lord. 13:18. Blessed are all they that love thee, and that rejoice in thy peace, 13:19. My soul, bless thou the Lord, because the Lord our God hath delivered Jerusalem his city from all her troubles. 13:20. Happy shall I be if there shall remain of my seed, to see the glory of Jerusalem. 13:21. The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of sapphire, and of emerald, and all the walls thereof round about of precious stones. 13:22. All its streets shall be paved with white and clean stones: and Alleluia shall be sung in its streets, 13:23. Blessed be the Lord, who hath exalted it, and may he reign over it for ever and ever, Amen. Tobias Chapter 14 Old Tobias dieth at the age of a hundred and two years, after exhorting his son and grandsons to piety, foreshewing that Ninive shall be destroyed, and Jerusalem rebuilt. The younger Tobias returneth with his family to Raguel, and dieth happily as he had lived. 14:1. And the words of Tobias were ended. And after Tobias was restored to his sight, he lived two and forty years, and saw the children of his grandchildren. 14:2. And after he had lived a hundred and two years, he was buried honorably in Ninive. 14:3. For he was six and fifty years old when he lost the sight of his eyes, and sixty when he recovered it again. 14:4. And the rest of his life was in joy, and with great increase of the fear of God he departed in peace. 14:5. And at the hour of his death he called unto him his son Tobias and his children, seven young men, his grandsons, and said to them: 14:6. The destruction of Ninive is at hand: for the word of the Lord must be fulfilled: and our brethren, that are scattered abroad from the land of Israel, shall return to it. 14:7. And all the land thereof that is desert shall be filled with people, and the house of God which is burnt in it, shall again be rebuilt: and all that fear God shall return thither. 14:8. And the Gentiles shall leave their idols, and shall come into Jerusalem, and shall dwell in it. 14:9. And all the kings of the earth shall rejoice in it, adoring the King of Israel. 14:10. Hearken therefore, my children, to your father: serve the Lord in truth, and seek to do the things that please him: 14:11. And command your children that they do justice and almsdeeds, and that they be mindful of God, and bless him at all times in truth, and with all their power. 14:12. And now, children, hear me, and do not stay here: but as soon as you shall bury your mother by me in one sepulchre, without delay direct your steps to depart hence: 14:13. For I see that its iniquity will bring it to destruction. 14:14. And it came to pass that after the death of his mother, Tobias departed out of Ninive with his wife, and children, and children's children, and returned to his father and mother in law. 14:15. And he found them in health in a good old age: and he took care of them, and he closed their eyes: and all the inheritance of Raguel's house came to him: and he saw his children's children to the fifth generation. 14:16. And after he had lived ninety-nine years in the fear of the Lord, with joy they buried him. 14:17. And all his kindred, and all his generation continued in good life, and in holy conversation, so that they were acceptable both to God, and to men, and to all that dwelt in the land. THE BOOK OF JUDITH The sacred writer of this Book is generally believed to be the high priest Eliachim (called also Joachim). The transactions herein related, most probably happened in his days, and in the reign of Manasses, after his repentance and return from captivity. It takes its name from that illustrious woman, by whose virtue and fortitude, and armed with prayer, the children of Israel were preserved from the destruction threatened them by Holofernes and his great army. It finishes with her canticle of thanksgiving to God. Judith Chapter 1 Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians overcometh Arphaxad king of the Medes. 1:1. Now Arphaxad king of the Medes had brought many nations under his dominions, and he built a very strong city, which he called Ecbatana, Arphaxad. . .He was probably the same as is called Dejoces by Herodotus; to whom he attributes the building of Ecbatana, the capital city of Media. 1:2. Of stones squared and hewed: he made the walls thereof seventy cubits broad, and thirty cubits high, and the towers thereof he made a hundred cubits high. But on the square of them, each side was extended the space of twenty feet. 1:3. And he made the gates thereof according to the height of the towers: 1:4. And he gloried as a mighty one in the force of his army and in the glory of his chariots. 1:5. Now in the twelfth year of his reign, Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Ninive the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him, Nabuchodonosor. . .Not the king of Babylon, who took and destroyed Jerusalem, but another of the same name, who reigned in Ninive: and is called by profane historians Saosduchin. He succeeded Asarhaddan in the kingdom of the Assyrians, and was contemporary with Manasses king of Juda. 1:6. In the great plain which is called Ragua, about the Euphrates, and the Tigris, and the Jadason, in the plain of Erioch the king of the Elicians. 1:7. Then was the kingdom of Nabuchodonosor exalted, and his heart was elevated: and he sent to all that dwelt in Cilicia and Damascus, and Libanus, 1:8. And to the nations that are in Carmelus, and Cedar, and to the inhabitants of Galilee in the great plain of Asdrelon, 1:9. And to all that were in Samaria, and beyond the river Jordan even to Jerusalem, and all the land of Jesse till you come to the borders of Ethiopia. 1:10. To all these Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, sent messengers: 1:11. But they all with one mind refused, and sent them back empty, and rejected them without honour. 1:12. Then king Nabuchodonosor being angry against all that land, swore by his throne and kingdom that he would revenge himself of all those countries. Judith Chapter 2 Nabuchodonosor sendeth Holofernes to waste the countries of the west. 2:1. In the thirteenth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, the two and twentieth day of the first month, the word was given out in the house of Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, that he would revenge himself. 2:2. And he called all the ancients, and all the governors, and his officers of war, and communicated to them the secret of his counsel: 2:3. And he said that his thoughts were to bring all the earth under his empire. 2:4. And when this saying pleased them all, Nabuchodonosor, the king, called Holofernes the general of his armies, 2:5. And said to him: Go out against all the kingdoms of the west, and against them especially that despised my commandment. 2:6. Thy eye shall not spare any kingdom, and all the strong cities thou shalt bring under my yoke. 2:7. Then Holofernes called the captains, and officers of the power of the Assyrians: and he mustered men for the expedition, and the king commanded him, a hundred and twenty thousand fighting men on foot, and twelve thousand archers, horsemen. 2:8. And he made all his warlike preparations to go before with a multitude of innumerable camels, with all provisions sufficient for the armies in abundance, and herds of oxen, and flocks of sheep, without number. 2:9. He appointed corn to be prepared out of all Syria in his passage. 2:10. But gold and silver he took out of the king's house in great abundance. 2:11. And he went forth he and all the army, with the chariots, and horsemen, and archers, who covered the face of the earth, like locusts. 2:12. And when he had passed through the borders of the Assyrians, he came to the great mountains of Ange, which are on the left of Cilicia: and he went up to all their castles, and took all the strong places. 2:13. And he took by assault the renowned city of Melothus, and pillaged all the children of Tharsis, and the children of Ismahel, who were over against the face of the desert, and on the south of the land of Cellon. 2:14. And he passed over the Euphrates and came into Mesopotamia: and he forced all the stately cities that were there, from the torrent of Mambre, till one comes to the sea: 2:15. And he took the borders thereof, from Cilicia to the coasts of Japheth, which are towards the south. 2:16. And he carried away all the children of Madian, and stripped them of all their riches, and all that resisted him he slew with the edge of the sword. 2:17. And after these things he went down into the plains of Damascus in the days of the harvest, and he set all the corn on fire, and he caused all the trees and vineyards to be cut down. 2:18. And the fear of them fell upon all the inhabitants of the land. Judith Chapter 3 Many submit themselves to Holofernes. He destroyeth their cities, and their gods, that Nabuchodonosor only might be called God. 3:1. Then the kings and the princes of all the cities and provinces, of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Syria Sobal, and Libya, and Cilicia sent their ambassadors, who coming to Holofernes, said: 3:2. Let thy indignation towards us cease, for it is better for us to live and serve Nabuchodonosor the great king, and be subject to thee, than to die and to perish, or suffer the miseries of slavery. 3:3. All our cities and our possessions, all mountains and hills, and fields, and herds of oxen, and flocks of sheep, and goats, and horses, and camels, and all our goods, and families are in thy sight: 3:4. Let all we have be subject to thy law, 3:5. Both we and our children are thy servants. 3:6. Come to us a peaceable lord, and use our service as it shall please thee, 3:7. Then he came down from the mountains with horsemen, in great power, and made himself master of every city, and all the inhabitants of the land. 3:8. And from all the cities he took auxiliaries valiant men, and chosen for war, 3:9. And so great a fear lay upon all those provinces, that the inhabitants of all the cities, both princes and nobles, as well as the people, went out to meet him at his coming. 3:10. And received him with garlands, and lights, and dances, and timbrels, and flutes. 3:11. And though they did these things, they could not for all that mitigate the fierceness of his heart: 3:12. For he both destroyed their cities, and cut down their groves. 3:13. For Nabuchodonosor the king had commanded him to destroy all the gods of the earth, that he only might be called God by those nations which could be brought under him by the power of Holofernes. 3:14. And when he had passed through all Syria Sobal, and all Apamea, and all Mesopotamia, he came to the Idumeans into the land of Gabaa, 3:15. And he took possession of their cities, and stayed there for thirty days, in which days he commanded all the troops of his army to be united. Judith Chapter 4 The children of Israel prepare themselves to resist Holofernes. They cry to the Lord for help. 4:1. Then the children of Israel, who dwelt in the land of Juda, hearing these things, were exceedingly afraid of him. 4:2. Dread and horror seized upon their minds, lest he should do the same to Jerusalem and to the temple of the Lord, that he had done to other cities and their temples. 4:3. And they sent into all Samaria round about, as far as Jericho, and seized upon all the tops of the mountains: 4:4. And they compassed their towns with walls and gathered together corn for provision for war. 4:5. And Eliachim the priest wrote to all that were over against Esdrelon, which faceth the great plain near Dothain, and to all by whom there might be a passage of way, that they should take possession of the ascents of the mountains, by which there might be any way to Jerusalem, and should keep watch where the way was narrow between the mountains. 4:6. And the children of Israel did as the priests of the Lord Eliachim had appointed them. 4:7. And all the people cried to the Lord with great earnestness, and they humbled their souls in fastings, and prayers, both they and their wives. 4:8. And the priests put on haircloths, and they caused the little children to lie prostrate before the temple of the Lord, and the altar of the Lord they covered with haircloth. 4:9. And they cried to the Lord the God of Israel with one accord, that their children might not be made a prey, and their wives carried off, and their cities destroyed, and their holy things profaned, and that they might not be made a reproach to the Gentiles. 4:10. Then Eliachim the high priest of the Lord went about all Israel and spoke to them, 4:11. Saying: Know ye that the Lord will hear your prayers, if you continue with perseverance in fastings and prayers in the sight of the Lord. 4:12. Remember Moses the servant of the Lord overcame Amalec that trusted in his own strength, and in his power, and in his army, and in his shields, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen, not by fighting with the sword, but by holy prayers: 4:13. So all the enemies of Israel be, if you persevere in this work which you have begun. 4:14. So they being moved by this exhortation of his, prayed to the Lord, and continued in the sight of the Lord. 4:15. So that even they who offered the holocausts to the Lord, offered the sacrifices to the Lord girded with haircloths, and with ashes upon their head. 4:16. And they all begged of God with all their heart, that he would visit his people Israel. Judith Chapter 5 Achior gives Holofernes an account of the people of Israel. 5:1. And it was told Holofernes the general of the army of the Assyrians, that the children of Israel prepared themselves to resist, and had shut up the ways of the mountains. 5:2. And he was transported with exceeding great fury and indignation, and he called all the princes of Moab and the leaders of Ammon. 5:3. And he said to them: Tell me what is this people that besetteth the mountains: or what are their cities, and of what sort, and how great: also what is their power, or what is their multitude: or who is the king over their warfare: 5:4. And why they above all that dwell in the east, have despised us, and have not come out to meet us, that they might receive us with peace? 5:5. Then Achior captain of all the children of Ammon answering, said; If thou vouchsafe, my lord, to hear, I will tell the truth in thy sight concerning this people, that dwelleth in the mountains, and there shall not a false word come out of my mouth. 5:6. This people is of the offspring of the Chaldeans. 5:7. They dwelt first in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans. 5:8. Wherefore forsaking the ceremonies of their fathers, which consisted in the worship of many gods, 5:9. They worshipped one God of heaven, who also commanded them to depart from thence, and to dwell in Charan. And when there was a famine over all the land, they went down into Egypt, and there for four hundred years were so multiplied, that the army of them could not be numbered. 5:10. And when the king of Egypt oppressed them, and made slaves of them to labour in clay and brick, in the building of his cities, they cried to their Lord, and he struck the whole land of Egypt with divers plagues. 5:11. And when the Egyptians had cast them out from them, and the plague had ceased from them, and they had a mind to take them again, and bring them back to their service, 5:12. The God of heaven opened the sea to them in their flight, so that the waters were made to stand firm as a wall on either side, and they walked through the bottom of the sea and passed it dry foot. 5:13. And when an innumerable army of the Egyptians pursued after them in that place, they were so overwhelmed with the waters, that there was not one left, to tell what had happened to posterity. 5:14. After they came out of the Red Sea, they abode in the deserts of mount Sina, in which never man could dwell, or son of man rested. 5:15. There bitter fountains were made sweet for them to drink, and for forty years they received food from heaven. 5:16. Wheresoever they went in without bow and arrow, and without shield and sword, their God fought for them and overcame. 5:17. And there was no one that triumphed over this people, but when they departed from the worship of the Lord their God. 5:18. But as often as beside their own God, they worshipped any other, they were given to spoil and to the sword, and to reproach. 5:19. And as often as they were penitent for having revolted from the worship of their God, the God of heaven gave them power to resist. 5:20. So they overthrew the king of the Chanaanites, and of the Jebusites, and of the Pherezites, and of the Hethites, and of the Hevites, and of the Amorrhites, and all the mighty ones in Hesebon, and they possessed their lands, and their cities: 5:21. And as long as they sinned not in the sight of their God, it was well with them: for their God hateth iniquity. 5:22. And even some years ago when they had revolted from the way which God had given them to walk therein, they were destroyed in battles by many nations and very many of them were led away captive into a strange land. 5:23. But of late returning to the Lord their God, from the different places wherein they were scattered, they are come together and are gone up into all these mountains, and possess Jerusalem again, where their holies are. 5:24. Now therefore, my lord, search if there be any iniquity of theirs in the sight of their God: let us go up to them, because their God will surely deliver them to thee, and they shall be brought under the yoke of thy power: 5:25. But if there be no offence of this people in the sight of their God, we cannot resist them because their God will defend them: and we shall be a reproach to the whole earth. 5:26. And it came to pass, when Achior had ceased to speak these words, all the great men of Holofernes were angry, and they had a mind to kill him, saying to each other: 5:27. Who is this, that saith the children of Israel can resist king Nabuchodonosor, and his armies, men unarmed, and without force, and without skill in the art of war? 5:28. That Achior therefore may know that he deceiveth us, let us go up into the mountains: and when the bravest of them shall be taken, then shall he with them be stabbed with the sword, 5:29. That every nation may know that Nabuchodonosor is god of the earth, and besides him there is no other. Judith Chapter 6 Holofernes in great rage sendeth Achior to Bethulia, there to be slain with the Israelites. 6:1. And it came to pass when they had left off speaking, that Holofernes being in a violent passion, said to Achior: 6:2. Because thou hast prophesied unto us, saying: That the nation of Israel is defended by their God, to shew thee that there is no God, but Nabuchodonosor: 6:3. When we shall slay them all as one man, then thou also shalt die with them by the sword of the Assyrians, and all Israel shall perish with thee: 6:4. And thou shalt find that Nabuchodonosor is lord of the whole earth: and then the sword of my soldiers shall pass through thy sides, and thou shalt be stabbed and fall among the wounded of Israel, and thou shalt breathe no more till thou be destroyed with them. 6:5. But if thou think thy prophecy true, let not thy countenance sink, and let the paleness that is in thy face, depart from thee, if thou imaginest these my words cannot be accomplished. 6:6. And that thou mayst know that thou shalt experience these things together with them, behold from this hour thou shalt be associated to their people, that when they shall receive the punishment they deserve from my sword, thou mayst fall under the same vengeance. 6:7. Then Holofernes commanded his servants to take Achior, and to lead him to Bethulia, and to deliver him into the hands of the children of Israel. 6:8. And the servants of Holofernes taking him, went through the plains: but when they came near the mountains, the slingers came out against them. 6:9. Then turning out of the way by the side of the mountain, they tied Achior to a tree hand and foot, and so left him bound with ropes, and returned to their master. 6:10. And the children of Israel coming down from Bethulia, came to him, and loosing him they brought him to Bethulia, and setting him in the midst of the people, asked him what was the matter that the Assyrians had left him bound. 6:11. In those days the rulers there, were Ozias the son of Micha of the tribe of Simeon, and Charmi, called also Gothoniel. 6:12. And Achior related in the midst of the ancients, and in the presence of all the people, all that he had said being asked by Holofernes: and how the people of Holofernes would have killed him for this word, 6:13. And how Holofernes himself being angry had commanded him to be delivered for this cause to the Israelites: that when he should overcome the children of Israel, then he might command Achior also himself to be put to death by diverse torments, for having said: The God of heaven is their defender. 6:14. And when Achior had declared all these things, all the people fell upon their faces, adoring the Lord, and all of them together mourning and weeping poured out their prayers with one accord to the Lord, 6:15. Saying: O Lord God of heaven and earth, behold their pride, and look on our low condition, and have regard to the face of thy saints, and shew that thou forsakest not them that trust on thee, and that thou humblest them that presume of themselves, and glory in their own strength. 6:16. So when their weeping was ended, and the people's prayer, in which they continued all the day, was concluded, they comforted Achior, 6:17. Saying: The God of our fathers, whose power thou hast set forth, will make this return to thee, that thou rather shalt see their destruction. 6:18. And when the Lord our God shall give this liberty to his servants, let God be with thee also in the midst of us: that as it shall please thee, so thou with all thine mayst converse with us. 6:19. Then Ozias, after the assembly was broken up, received him into his house, and made him a great supper. 6:20. And all the ancients were invited, and they refreshed themselves together after their fast was over. 6:21. And afterwards all the people were called together, and they prayed all the night long within the church, desiring help of the God of Israel. The church. . .That is, the synagogue or place where they met for prayer. Judith Chapter 7 Holofernes besiegeth Bethulia. The distress of the besieged. 7:1. But Holofernes on the next day gave orders to his army, to go up against Bethulia. 7:2. Now there were in his troops a hundred and twenty thousand footmen, and two and twenty thousand horsemen, besides the preparations of those men who had been taken, and who had been brought away out of the provinces and cities of all the youth. 7:3. All these prepared themselves together to fight against the children of Israel, and they came by the hillside to the top, which looketh toward Dothain, from the place which is called Belma, unto Chelmon, which is over against Esdrelon. 7:4. But the children of Israel, when they saw the multitude of them, prostrated themselves upon the ground, putting ashes upon their heads, praying with one accord, that the God of Israel would shew his mercy upon his people. 7:5. And taking their arms of war, they posted themselves at the places, which by a narrow pathway lead directly between the mountains, and they guarded them all day and night. 7:6. Now Holofernes, in going round about, found that the fountain which supplied them with water, ran through an aqueduct without the city on the south side: and he commanded their aqueduct to be cut off. 7:7. Nevertheless there were springs not far from the walls, out of which they were seen secretly to draw water, to refresh themselves a little rather than to drink their fill. 7:8. But the children of Ammon and Moab came to Holofernes, saying: The children of Israel trust not in their spears, nor in their arrows, but the mountains are their defence, and the steep hills and precipices guard them. 7:9. Wherefore that thou mayst overcome them without joining battle, set guards at the springs that they may not draw water out of them, and thou shalt destroy them without sword, or at least being wearied out they will yield up their city, which they suppose, because it is situate in the mountains, to be impregnable. 7:10. And these words pleased Holofernes, and his officers, and he placed all round about a hundred men at every spring. 7:11. And when they had kept this watch for full twenty days, the cisterns, and the reserve of waters failed among all the inhabitants of Bethulia, so that there was not within the city, enough to satisfy them, no not for one day, for water was daily given out to the people by measure. 7:12. Then all the men and women, young men, and children, gathering themselves together to Ozias, all together with one voice, 7:13. Said: God be judge between us and thee, for thou hast done evil against us, in that thou wouldst not speak peaceably with the Assyrians, and for this cause God hath sold us into their hands. 7:14. And therefore there is no one to help us, while we are cast down before their eyes in thirst, and sad destruction. 7:15. And now assemble ye all that are in the city, that we may of our own accord yield ourselves all up to the people of Holofernes. 7:16. For it is better, that being captives we should live and bless the Lord, than that we should die, and be a reproach to all flesh, after we have seen our wives and our infants die before our eyes. 7:17. We call to witness this day heaven and earth, and the God of our fathers, who taketh vengeance upon us according to our sins, conjuring you to deliver now the city into the hand of the army of Holofernes, that our end may be short by the edge of the sword, which is made longer by the drought of thirst. 7:18. And when they had said these things, there was great weeping and lamentation of all in the assembly, and for many hours with one voice they cried to God, saying: 7:19. We have sinned with our fathers, we have done unjustly, we have committed iniquity: 7:20. Have thou mercy on us, because thou art good, or punish our iniquities by chastising us thyself, and deliver not them that trust in thee to a people that knoweth not thee, 7:21. That they may not say among the Gentiles: Where is their God? 7:22. And when being wearied with these cries, and tired with these weepings, they held their peace, 7:23. Ozias rising up all in tears, said: Be of good courage, my brethren, and let us wait these five days for mercy from the Lord. 7:24. For perhaps he will put a stop to his indignation, and will give glory to his own name. 7:25. But if after five days be past there come no aid, we will do the things which you have spoken. Judith Chapter 8 The character of Judith: her discourse to the ancients. 8:1. Now it came to pass, when Judith a widow had heard these words, who was the daughter of Merari, the son of Idox, the son of Joseph, the son of Ozias, the son of Elai, the son of Jamnor, the son of Gedeon, the son of Raphaim, the son of Achitob, the son of Melchias, the son of Enan, the son of Nathanias, the son of Salathiel, the son of Simeon, the son of Ruben: Simeon the son of Ruben. . .In the Greek, it is the son of Israel. For Simeon the patriarch, from whom Judith descended, was not the son, but the brother of Ruben. It seems more probable that the Simeon and the Ruben here mentioned are not the patriarchs: but two of the descendants of the patriarch Simeon: and that the genealogy of Judith, recorded in this place, is not carried up so high as the patriarchs. No more than that of Elcana the father of Samuel, 1 Kings 1.1, and that of king Saul, 1 Kings 9.1. 8:2. And her husband was Manasses, who died in the time of the barley harvest: 8:3. For he was standing over them that bound sheaves in the field; and the heat came upon his head, and he died in Bethulia his own city, and was buried there with his fathers. 8:4. And Judith his relict was a widow now three years and six months. 8:5. And she made herself a private chamber in the upper part of her house, in which she abode shut up with her maids. 8:6. And she wore haircloth upon her loins, and fasted all the days of her life, except the sabbaths, and new moons, and the feasts of the house of Israel. 8:7. And she was exceedingly beautiful, and her husband left her great riches, and very many servants, and large possessions of herds of oxen, and flocks of sheep. 8:8. And she was greatly renowned among all, because she feared the Lord very much, neither was there any one that spoke an ill word of her. 8:9. When therefore she had heard that Ozias had promised that he would deliver up the city after the fifth day, she sent to the ancients Chabri and Charmi. 8:10. And they came to her, and she said to them: What is this word, by which Ozias hath consented to give up the city to the Assyrians, if within five days there come no aid to us? 8:11. And who are you that tempt the Lord? 8:12. This is not a word that may draw down mercy, but rather that may stir up wrath, and enkindle indignation. 8:13. You have set a time for the mercy of the Lord, and you have appointed him a day, according to your pleasure. 8:14. But forasmuch as the Lord is patient, let us be penitent for this same thing, and with many tears let us beg his pardon: 8:15. For God will not threaten like man, nor be inflamed to anger like the son of man. 8:16. And therefore let us humble our souls before him, and continuing in an humble spirit, in his service: 8:17. Let us ask the Lord with tears, that according to his will so he would shew his mercy to us: that as our heart is troubled by their pride, so also we may glorify in our humility. 8:18. For we have not followed the sins of our fathers, who forsook their God, and worshipped strange gods. 8:19. For which crime they were given up to their enemies, to the sword, and to pillage, and to confusion: but we know no other God but him. 8:20. Let us humbly wait for his consolation, and the Lord our God will require our blood of the afflictions of our enemies, and he will humble all the nations that shall rise up against us, and bring them to disgrace. 8:21. And now, brethren, as you are the ancients among the people of God, and their very soul resteth upon you: comfort their hearts by your speech, that they may be mindful how our fathers were tempted that they might be proved, whether they worshipped their God truly. 8:22. They must remember how our father Abraham was tempted, and being proved by many tribulations, was made the friend of God. 8:23. So Isaac, so Jacob, so Moses, and all that have pleased God, passed through many tribulations, remaining faithful. 8:24. But they that did not receive the trials with the fear of the Lord, but uttered their impatience and the reproach of their murmuring against the Lord, 8:25. Were destroyed by the destroyer, and perished by serpents. 8:26. As for us therefore let us not revenge ourselves for these things which we suffer. 8:27. But esteeming these very punishments to be less than our sins deserve, let us believe that these scourges of the Lord, with which like servants we are chastised, have happened for our amendment, and not for our destruction. 8:28. And Ozias and the ancients said to her: All things which thou hast spoken are true, and there is nothing to be reprehended in thy words. 8:29. Now therefore pray for us, for thou art a holy woman, and one fearing God. 8:30. And Judith said to them: As you know that what I have been able to say is of God: 8:31. So that which I intend to do prove ye if it be of God, and pray that God may strengthen my design. 8:32. You shall stand at the gate this night, and I will go out with my maidservant: and pray ye, that as you have said, in five days the Lord may look down upon his people Israel. 8:33. But I desire that you search not into what I am doing, and till I bring you word let nothing else be done but to pray for me to the Lord our God. 8:34. And Ozias the prince of Juda said to her: Go in peace, and the Lord be with thee to take revenge of our enemies. So returning they departed. Judith Chapter 9 Judith's prayer, to beg of God to fortify her in her undertaking. 9:1. And when they were gone, Judith went into her oratory: and putting on haircloth, laid ashes on her head: and falling down prostrate before the Lord, she cried to the Lord, saying: 9:2. Lord God of my father Simeon, who gavest him a sword to execute vengeance against strangers, who had defiled by their uncleanness, and uncovered the virgin unto confusion: Gavest him a sword, etc. . .The justice of God is here praised, in punishing by the sword of Simeon the crime of the Sichemites: and not the act of Simeon, which was justly condemned by his father, Gen. 49.5. Though even with regard to this act, we may distinguish between his zeal against the crime committed by the ravishers of his sister, which zeal may be considered just: and the manner of his punishing that crime, which was irregular and excessive. 9:3. And who gavest their wives to be made a prey, and their daughters into captivity: and all their spoils to be divided to the servants, who were zealous with thy zeal: assist, I beseech thee, O Lord God, me a widow. 9:4. For thou hast done the things of old, and hast devised one thing after another: and what thou hast designed hath been done. 9:5. For all thy ways are prepared, and in thy providence thou hast placed thy judgments. 9:6. Look upon the camp of the Assyrians now, as thou wast pleased to look upon the camp of the Egyptians, when they pursued armed after thy servants, trusting in their chariots, and in their horsemen, and in a multitude of warriors. 9:7. But thou lookedst over their camp, and darkness wearied them. 9:8. The deep held their feet, and the waters overwhelmed them. 9:9. So may it be with these also, O Lord, who trust in their multitude, and in their chariots, and in their pikes, and in their shields, and in their arrows, and glory in their spears, 9:10. And know not that thou art our God, who destroyest wars from the beginning, and the Lord is thy name. 9:11. Lift up thy arm as from the beginning, and crush their power with thy power: let their power fall in their wrath, who promise themselves to violate thy sanctuary, and defile the dwelling place of thy name, and to beat down with their sword the horn of thy altar. 9:12. Bring to pass, O Lord, that his pride may be cut off with his own sword. 9:13. Let him be caught in the net of his own eyes in my regard, and do thou strike him by the graces of the words of my lips. 9:14. Give me constancy in my mind, that I may despise him: and fortitude that I may overthrow him. 9:15. For this will be a glorious monument for thy name, when he shall fall by the hand of a woman. 9:16. For thy power, O Lord, is not in a multitude, nor is thy pleasure in the strength of horses, nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee. 9:17. O God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and Lord of the whole creation, hear me a poor wretch, making supplication to thee, and presuming of thy mercy. 9:18. Remember, O Lord, thy covenant, and put thou words in my mouth, and strengthen the resolution in my heart, that thy house may continue in thy holiness: 9:19. And all nations may acknowledge that thou art God, and there is no other besides thee. Judith Chapter 10 Judith goeth out towards the camp, and is taken, and brought to Holofernes. 10:1. And it came to pass, when she had ceased to cry to the Lord, that she rose from the place wherein she lay prostrate before the Lord. 10:2. And she called her maid, and going down into her house she took off her haircloth, and put away the garments of her widowhood, 10:3. And she washed her body, and anointed herself with the best ointment, and plaited the hair of her head, and put a bonnet upon her head, and clothed herself with the garments of her gladness, and put sandals on her feet, and took her bracelets, and lilies, and earlets, and rings, and adorned herself with all her ornaments. 10:4. And the Lord also gave her more beauty: because all this dressing up did not proceed from sensuality, but from virtue: and therefore the Lord increased this her beauty, so that she appeared to all men's eyes incomparably lovely. 10:5. And she gave to her maid a bottle of wine to carry, and a vessel of oil, and parched corn, and dry figs, and bread and cheese, and went out. 10:6. And when they came to the gate of the city, they found Ozias, and the ancients of the city waiting. 10:7. And when they saw her they were astonished, and admired her beauty exceedingly. 10:8. But they asked her no question, only they let her pass, saying: The God of our fathers give thee grace, and may he strengthen all the counsel of thy heart with his power, that Jerusalem may glory in thee, and thy name may be in the number of the holy and just. 10:9. And they that were there said, all with one voice: So be it, so be it. 10:10. But Judith praying to the Lord, passed through the gates, she and her maid. 10:11. And it came to pass, when she went down the hill, about break of day, that the watchmen of the Assyrians met her, and stopped her, saying: Whence comest thou or whither goest thou? 10:12. And she answered: I am a daughter of the Hebrews, and I am fled from them, because I knew they would be made a prey to you, because they despised you, and would not of their own accord yield themselves, that they might find mercy in your sight. Because I knew, etc. . .In this and the following chapter, some things are related to have been said by Judith, which seem hard to reconcile with truth. But all that is related in scripture of the servants of God is not approved by the scripture; and even the saints in their good enterprises may sometimes slip into venial sins. 10:13. For this reason I thought with myself, saying: I will go to the presence of the prince Holofernes, that I may tell him their secrets, and shew him by what way he may take them, without the loss of one man of his army. 10:14. And when the men had heard her words, they beheld her face, and their eyes were amazed, for they wondered exceedingly at her beauty. 10:15. And they said to her: Thou hast saved thy life by taking this resolution, to come down to our lord. 10:16. And be assured of this, that when thou shalt stand before him, he will treat thee well, and thou wilt be most acceptable to his heart. And they brought her to the tent of Holofernes, telling him of her. 10:17. And when she was come into his presence, forthwith Holofernes was caught by his eyes. 10:18. And his officers said to him: Who can despise the people of the Hebrews, who have such beautiful women, that we should not think it worth our while for their sakes to fight against them? 10:19. And Judith seeing Holofernes sitting under a canopy, which was woven of purple and gold, with emeralds and precious stones: 10:20. After she had looked on his face, bowed down to him, prostrating herself to the ground. And the servants of Holofernes lifted her up, by the command of their master. Judith Chapter 11 Judith's speech to Holofernes. 11:1. Then Holofernes said to her: Be of good comfort, and fear not in thy heart: for I have never hurt a man that was willing to serve Nabuchodonosor the king. 11:2. And if thy people had not despised me, I would never have lifted up my spear against them. 11:3. But now tell me, for what cause hast thou left them, and why it hath pleased thee to come to us? 11:4. And Judith said to him: Receive the words of thy handmaid, for if thou wilt follow the words of thy handmaid, the Lord will do with thee a perfect thing. 11:5. For as Nabuchodonosor the king of the earth liveth, and his power liveth which is in thee for chastising of all straying souls: not only men serve him through thee, but also the beasts of the field obey him. 11:6. For the industry of thy mind is spoken of among all nations, and it is told through the whole world, that thou only art excellent, and mighty in all his kingdom, and thy discipline is cried up in all provinces. 11:7. It is known also what Achior said, nor are we ignorant of what thou hast commanded to be done to him. 11:8. For it is certain that our God is so offended with sins, that he hath sent word by his prophets to the people, that he will deliver them up for their sins. 11:9. And because the children of Israel know they have offended their God, thy dread is upon them. 11:10. Moreover also a famine hath come upon them, and for drought of water they are already to be counted among the dead. 11:11. And they have a design even to kill their cattle, and to drink the blood of them. 11:12. And the consecrated things of the Lord their God which God forbade them to touch, in corn, wine, and oil, these have they purposed to make use of, and they design to consume the things which they ought not to touch with their hands: therefore because they do these things, it is certain they will be given up to destruction. 11:13. And I thy handmaid knowing this, am fled from them, and the Lord hath sent me to tell thee these very things. 11:14. For I thy handmaid worship God even now that I am with thee, and thy handmaid will go out, and I will pray to God, 11:15. And he will tell me when he will repay them for their sins, and I will come and tell thee, so that I may bring thee through the midst of Jerusalem, and thou shalt have all the people of Israel, as sheep that have no shepherd, and there shall not so much as one dog bark against thee: 11:16. Because these things are told me by the providence of God. 11:17. And because God is angry with them, I am sent to tell these very things to thee. 11:18. And all these words pleased Holofernes, and his servants, and they admired her wisdom, and they said one to another: 11:19. There is not such another woman upon earth in look, in beauty, and in sense of words. 11:20. And Holofernes said to her: God hath done well who sent thee before the people, that thou mightest give them into our hands: 11:21. And because thy promise is good, if thy God shall do this for me, he shall also be my God, and thou shalt be great in the house of Nabuchodonosor, and thy name shall be renowned through all the earth. Judith Chapter 12 Judith goeth out in the night to pray: she is invited to a banquet with Holofernes. 12:1. Then he ordered that she should go in where his treasures were laid up, and bade her tarry there, and he appointed what should be given her from his own table. 12:2. And Judith answered him and said: Now I cannot eat of these things which thou commandest to be given me, lest sin come upon me: but I will eat of the things which I have brought. 12:3. And Holofernes said to her: If these things which thou hast brought with thee fail thee, what shall we do for thee? 12:4. And Judith said: As thy soul liveth, my lord, thy handmaid shall not spend all these things till God do by my hand that which I have purposed. And his servants brought her into the tent which he had commanded. 12:5. And when she was going in, she desired that she might have liberty to go out at night and before day to prayer, and to beseech the Lord. 12:6. And he commanded his chamberlains, that she might go out and in, to adore her God as she pleased, for three days. 12:7. And she went out in the nights into the valley of Bethulia, and washed herself in a fountain of water. 12:8. And as she came up, she prayed to the Lord the God of Israel, that he would direct her way to the deliverance of his people. 12:9. And going in, she remained pure in the tent, until she took her own meat in the evening. 12:10. And it came to pass on the fourth day, that Holofernes made a supper for his servants, and said to Vagao his eunuch: Go, and persuade that Hebrew woman, to consent of her own accord to dwell with me. 12:11. For it is looked upon as shameful among the Assyrians, if a woman mock a man, by doing so as to pass free from him. 12:12. Then Vagao went in to Judith, and said: Let not my good maid be afraid to go in to my lord, that she may be honoured before his face, that she may eat with him and drink wine and be merry. 12:13. And Judith answered him: Who am I, that I should gainsay my lord? 12:14. All that shall be good and best before his eyes, I will do. And whatsoever shall please him, that shall be best to me all the days of my life. 12:15. And she arose and dressed herself out with her garments, and going in she stood before his face. 12:16. And the heart of Holofernes was smitten, for he was burning with the desire of her. 12:17. And Holofernes said to her: Drink now, and sit down and be merry; for thou hast found favour before me. 12:18. And Judith said: I will drink my lord, because my life is magnified this day above all my days. 12:19. And she took and ate and drank before him what her maid had prepared for her. 12:20. And Holofernes was made merry on her occasion, and drank exceeding much wine, so much as he had never drunk in his life. Judith Chapter 13 Judith cutteth off the head of Holofernes, and returneth to Bethulia. 13:1. And when it was grown late, his servants made haste to their lodgings, and Vagao shut the chamber doors, and went his way. 13:2. And they were all overcharged with wine. 13:3. And Judith was alone in the chamber. 13:4. But Holofernes lay on his bed, fast asleep, being exceedingly drunk. 13:5. And Judith spoke to her maid to stand without before the chamber, and to watch: 13:6. And Judith stood before the bed praying with tears, and the motion of her lips in silence, 13:7. Saying: Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that as thou hast promised, thou mayst raise up Jerusalem thy city: and that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by thee. 13:8. And when she had said this, she went to the pillar that was at his bed's head, and loosed his sword that hung tied upon it. 13:9. And when she had drawn it out, she took him by the hair of his head, and said: Strengthen me, O Lord God, at this hour. 13:10. And she struck twice upon his neck, and cut off his head, and took off his canopy from the pillars, and rolled away his headless body. 13:11. And after a while she went out, and delivered the head of Holofernes to her maid, and bade her put it into her wallet. 13:12. And they two went out according to their custom, as it were to prayer, and they passed the camp, and having compassed the valley, they came to the gate of the city. 13:13. And Judith from afar off cried to the watchmen upon the walls: Open the gates for God is with us, who hath shewn his power in Israel. 13:14. And it came to pass, when the men had heard her voice, that they called the ancients of the city. 13:15. And all ran to meet her from the least to the greatest: for they now had no hopes that she would come. 13:16. And lighting up lights they all gathered round about her: and she went up to a higher place, and commanded silence to be made. And when all had held their peace, 13:17. Judith said: Praise ye the Lord our God, who hath not forsaken them that hope in him. 13:18. And by me his handmaid he hath fulfilled his mercy, which he promised to the house of Israel: and he hath killed the enemy of his people by my hand this night. 13:19. Then she brought forth the head of Holofernes out of the wallet, and shewed it them, saying: Behold the head of Holofernes the general of the army of the Assyrians, and behold his canopy, wherein he lay in his drunkenness, where the Lord our God slew him by the hand of a woman. 13:20. But as the same Lord liveth, his angel hath been my keeper both going hence, and abiding there, and returning from thence hither: and the Lord hath not suffered me his handmaid to be defiled, but hath brought me back to you without pollution of sin, rejoicing for his victory, for my escape, and for your deliverance. 13:21. Give all of you glory to him, because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever. 13:22. And they all adored the Lord, and said to her: The Lord hath blessed thee by his power, because by thee he hath brought our enemies to nought. 13:23. And Ozias the prince of the people of Israel, said to her: Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth. 13:24. Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the cutting off the head of the prince of our enemies. 13:25. Because he hath so magnified thy name this day, that thy praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord for ever, for that thou hast not spared thy life, by reason of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but hast prevented our ruin in the presence of our God. 13:26. And all the people said: So be it, so be it. 13:27. And Achior being called for came, and Judith said to him: The God of Israel, to whom thou gavest testimony, that he revengeth himself of his enemies, he hath cut off the head of all the unbelievers this night by my hand. 13:28. And that thou mayst find that it is so, behold the head of Holofernes, who in the contempt of his pride despised the God of Israel: and threatened them with death, saying: When the people of Israel shall be taken, I will command thy sides to be pierced with a sword. 13:29. Then Achior seeing the head of Holofernes, being seized with a great fear he fell on his face upon the earth, and his soul swooned away. 13:30. But after he had recovered his spirits he fell down at her feet, and reverenced her, and said: 13:31. Blessed art thou by thy God in every tabernacle of Jacob, for in every nation which shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of thee. Judith Chapter 14 The Israelites assault the Assyrians, who finding their general slain, are seized with a panic fear. 14:1. And Judith said to all the people: Hear me, my brethren, hang ye up this head upon our walls. 14:2. And as soon as the sun shall rise, let every man take his arms, and rush ye out, not as going down beneath, but as making an assault. 14:3. Then the watchmen must needs run to awake their prince for the battle. 14:4. And when the captains of them shall run to the tent of Holofernes, and shall find him without his head wallowing in his blood, fear shall fall upon them. 14:5. And when you shall know that they are fleeing, go after them securely, for the Lord will destroy them under your feet. 14:6. Then Achior seeing the power that the God of Israel had wrought, leaving the religion of the Gentiles, he believed God, and circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and was joined to the people of Israel, with all the succession of his kindred until this present day. 14:7. And immediately at break of day, they hung up the head of Holofernes upon the walls, and every man took his arms, and they went out with a great noise and shouting. 14:8. And the watchmen seeing this, ran to the tent of Holofernes. 14:9. And they that were in the tent came, and made a noise, before the door of the chamber to awake him, endeavouring by art to break his rest, that Holofernes might awake, not by their calling him, but by their noise. 14:10. For no man durst knock, or open and go into the chamber of the general of the Assyrians. 14:11. But when his captains and tribunes were come, and all the chiefs of the army of the king of the Assyrians, they said to the chamberlains: 14:12. Go in, and awake him, for the mice, coming out of their holes, have presumed to challenge us to fight. 14:13. Then Vagao going into his chamber, stood before the curtain, and made a clapping with his hands: for he thought that he was sleeping with Judith. 14:14. But when with hearkening, he perceived no motion of one lying, he came near to the curtain, and lifting it up, and seeing the body of Holofernes, lying upon the ground, without the head, weltering in his blood, he cried out with a loud voice, with weeping, and rent his garments. 14:15. And he went into the tent of Judith, and not finding her, he ran out to the people, 14:16. And said: One Hebrew woman hath made confusion in the house of king Nabuchodonosor: for behold Holofernes lieth upon the ground, and his head is not upon him. 14:17. Now when the chiefs of the army of the Assyrians had heard this, they all rent their garments, and an intolerable fear and dread fell upon them, and their minds were troubled exceedingly. 14:18. And there was a very great cry in the midst of their camp. Judith Chapter 15 The Assyrians flee: the Hebrews pursue after them, and are enriched by their spoils. 15:1. And when all the army heard that Holofernes was beheaded, courage and counsel fled from them, and being seized with trembling and fear they thought only to save themselves by flight. 15:2. So that no one spoke to his neighbour, but hanging down the head, leaving all things behind, they made haste to escape from the Hebrews, who, as they heard, were coming armed upon them, and fled by the ways of the fields, and the paths of the hills. 15:3. So the children of Israel seeing them fleeing, followed after them. And they went down sounding with trumpets and shouting after them. 15:4. And because the Assyrians were not united together, they went without order in their flight; but the children of Israel pursuing in one body, defeated all that they could find. 15:5. And Ozias sent messengers through all the cities and countries of Israel. 15:6. And every country, and every city, sent their chosen young men armed after them, and they pursued them with the edge of the sword until they came to the extremities of their confines. 15:7. And the rest that were in Bethulia went into the camp of the Assyrians, and took away the spoils which the Assyrians in their flight had left behind them, and they were laden exceedingly, 15:8. But they that returned conquerors to Bethulia, brought with them all things that were theirs, so that there was no numbering of their cattle, and beasts, and all their moveables, insomuch that from the least to the greatest all were made rich by their spoils. 15:9. And Joachim the high priest came from Jerusalem to Bethulia with all his ancients to see Judith. 15:10. And when she was come out to him, they all blessed her with one voice, saying: Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people: 15:11. For thou hast done manfully, and thy heart has been strengthened, because thou hast loved chastity, and after thy husband hast not known any other: therefore also the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee, and therefore thou shalt be blessed for ever. 15:12. And all the people said: So be it, so be it. 15:13. And thirty days were scarce sufficient for the people of Israel to gather up the spoils of the Assyrians. 15:14. But all those things that were proved to be the peculiar goods of Holofernes, they gave to Judith in gold, and silver, and garments and precious stones, and all household stuff, and they all were delivered to her by the people. 15:15. And all the people rejoiced, with the women, and virgins, and young men, playing on instruments and harps. Judith Chapter 16 The canticle of Judith: her virtuous life and death. 16:1. Then Judith sung this canticle to the Lord, saying: 16:2. Begin ye to the Lord with timbrels, sing ye to the Lord with cymbals, tune unto him a new psalm, extol and call upon his name. 16:3. The Lord putteth an end to wars, the Lord is his name. 16:4. He hath set his camp in the midst of his people, to deliver us from the hand of all our enemies. 16:5. The Assyrian came out of the mountains from the north in the multitude of his strength: his multitude stopped up the torrents, and their horses covered the valleys. 16:6. He bragged that he would set my borders on fire, and kill my young men with the sword, to make my infants a prey, and my virgins captives. 16:7. But the almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman, and hath slain him. 16:8. For their mighty one did not fall by young men, neither did the sons of Titan strike him, nor tall giants oppose themselves to him, but Judith the daughter of Merari weakened him with the beauty of her face. 16:9. For she put off her the garments of widowhood, and put on her the garments of joy, to give joy to the children of Israel. 16:10. She anointed her face with ointment, and bound up her locks with a crown, she took a new robe to deceive him. 16:11. Her sandals ravished his eyes, her beauty made his soul her captive, with a sword she cut off his head. 16:12. The Persians quaked at her constancy, and the Medes at her boldness. 16:13. Then the camp of the Assyrians howled, when my lowly ones appeared, parched with thirst. 16:14. The sons of the damsels have pierced them through, and they have killed them like children fleeing away: they perished in battle before the face of the Lord my God. 16:15. Let us sing a hymn to the Lord, let us sing a new hymn to our God. 16:16. O Adonai, Lord, great art thou, and glorious in thy power, and no one can overcome thee. 16:17. Let all thy creatures serve thee: because thou hast spoken, and they were made: thou didst send forth thy spirit, and they were created, and there is no one that can resist thy voice. 16:18. The mountains shall be moved from the foundations with the waters: the rocks shall melt as wax before thy face. 16:19. But they that fear thee, shall be great with thee in all things. 16:20. Woe be to the nation that riseth up against my people: for the Lord almighty will take revenge on them, in the day of judgment he will visit them. 16:21. For he will give fire, and worms into their flesh, that they may burn, and may feel for ever. 16:22. And it came to pass after these things, that all the people, after the victory, came to Jerusalem to adore the Lord: and as soon as they were purified, they all offered holocausts, and vows, and their promises. 16:23. And Judith offered for an anathema of oblivion all the arms of Holofernes, which the people gave her, and the canopy that she had taken away out of his chamber. An anathema of oblivion. . .That is, a gift or offering made to God, by way of an everlasting monument, to prevent the oblivion or forgetting so great a benefit. 16:24. And the people were joyful in the sight of the sanctuary, and for three months the joy of this victory was celebrated with Judith. 16:25. And after those days every man returned to his house, and Judith was made great in Bethulia, and she was most renowned in all the land of Israel. 16:26. And chastity was joined to her virtue, so that she knew no man all the days of her life, after the death of Manasses her husband. 16:27. And on festival days she came forth with great glory. 16:28. And she abode in her husband's house a hundred and five years, and made her handmaid free, and she died, and was buried with her husband in Bethulia. 16:29. And all the people mourned for seven days. 16:30. And all the time of her life there was none that troubled Israel, nor many years after her death. 16:31. But the day of the festivity of this victory is received by the Hebrews in the number of holy days, and is religiously observed by the Jews from that time until this day. THE BOOK OF ESTHER This Book takes its name from queen Esther, whose history is here recorded. The general opinion of almost all commentators on the Holy Scriptures makes Mardochai the writer of it: which also may be collected below from chap. 9 ver. 20. Esther Chapter 1 King Assuerus maketh a great feast. Queen Vasthi being sent for refuseth to come: for which disobedience she is deposed. 1:1. In the days of Assuerus, who reigned from India to Ethiopia over a hundred and twenty seven provinces: 1:2. When he sat on the throne of his kingdom, the city Susan was the capital of his kingdom. 1:3. Now in the third year of his reign he made a great feast for all the princes, and for his servants, for the most mighty of the Persians, and the nobles of the Medes, and the governors of the provinces in his sight, 1:4. That he might shew the riches of the glory of his kingdom, and the greatness, and boasting of his power, for a long time, to wit, for a hundred and fourscore days. 1:5. And when the days of the feast were expired, he invited all the people that were found in Susan, from the greatest to the least: and commanded a feast to be made seven days in the court of the garden, and of the wood, which was planted by the care and the hand of the king. 1:6. And there were hung up on every side sky coloured, and green, and violet hangings, fastened with cords of silk, and of purple, which were put into rings of ivory, and were held up with marble pillars. The beds also were of gold and silver, placed in order upon a floor paved with porphyry and white marble: which was embellished with painting of wonderful variety. 1:7. And they that were invited, drank in golden cups, and the meats were brought in divers vessels one after another. Wine also in abundance and of the best was presented, as was worthy of a king's magnificence. 1:8. Neither was there any one to compel them to drink that were not willing, but as the king had appointed, who set over every table one of his nobles, that every man might take what he would. 1:9. Also Vasthi the queen made a feast for the women in the palace, where king Assuerus was used to dwell. 1:10. Now on the seventh day, when the king was merry, and after very much drinking was well warmed with wine, he commanded Mauman, and Bazatha, and Harbona, and Bagatha, and Abgatha, and Zethar, and Charcas, the seven eunuchs that served in his presence, 1:11. To bring in queen Vasthi before the king, with the crown set upon her head, to shew her beauty to all the people and the princes: for she was exceeding beautiful. 1:12. But she refused, and would not come at the king's commandment, which he had signified to her by the eunuchs. Whereupon the king, being angry, and inflamed with a very great fury, 1:13. Asked the wise men, who according to the custom of the kings, were always near his person, and all he did was by their counsel, who knew the laws, and judgments of their forefathers: 1:14. (Now the chief and nearest him were, Charsena, and Sethar, and Admatha, and Tharsis, and Mares, and Marsana, and Mamuchan, seven princes of the Persians and of the Medes, who saw the face of the king, and were used to sit first after him:) 1:15. What sentence ought to pass upon Vasthi the queen, who had refused to obey the commandment of king Assuerus, which he had sent to her by the eunuchs? 1:16. And Mamuchan answered, in the hearing of the king and the princes: Queen Vasthi hath not only injured the king, but also all the people and princes that are in all the provinces of king Assuerus. 1:17. For this deed of the queen will go abroad to all women, so that they will despise their husbands, and will say: King Assuerus commanded that queen Vasthi should come in to him, and she would not. 1:18. And by this example all the wives of the princes of the Persians and the Medes will slight the commandments of their husbands: wherefore the king's indignation is just. 1:19. If it please thee, let an edict go out from thy presence, and let it be written according to the law of the Persians and of the Medes, which must not be altered, that Vasthi come in no more to the king, but another, that is better than her, be made queen in her place. 1:20. And let this be published through all the provinces of thy empire, (which is very wide,) and let all wives, as well of the greater as of the lesser, give honour to their husbands. 1:21. His counsel pleased the king, and the princes: and the king did according to the counsel of Mamuchan. 1:22. And he sent letters to all the provinces of his kingdom, as every nation could hear and read, in divers languages and characters, that the husbands should be rulers and masters in their houses: and that this should be published to every people. Esther Chapter 2 Esther is advanced to be queen. Mardochai detecteth a plot against the king. 2:1. After this, when the wrath of king Assuerus was appeased, he remembered Vasthi, and what she had done and what she had suffered: 2:2. And the king's servants and his officers said: Let young women be sought for the king, virgins and beautiful, 2:3. And let some persons be sent through all the provinces to look for beautiful maidens and virgins: and let them bring them to the city of Susan, and put them into the house of the women under the hand of Egeus the eunuch, who is the overseer and keeper of the king's women: and let them receive women's ornaments, and other things necessary for their use. 2:4. And whosoever among them all shall please the king's eyes, let her be queen instead of Vasthi. The word pleased the king: and he commanded it should be done as they had suggested. 2:5. There was a man in the city of Susan, a Jew, named Mardochai, the son of Jair, the son of Semei, the son of Cis, of the race of Jemini, 2:6. Who had been carried away from Jerusalem at the time that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon carried away Jechonias king of Juda, 2:7. And he had brought up his brother's daughter Edissa, who by another name was called Esther: now she had lost both her parents: and was exceeding fair and beautiful. And her father and mother being dead, Mardochai adopted her for his daughter. 2:8. And when the king's ordinance was noised abroad, and according to his commandment many beautiful virgins were brought to Susan, and were delivered to Egeus the eunuch: Esther also among the rest of the maidens was delivered to him to be kept in the number of the women. 2:9. And she pleased him, and found favour in his sight. And he commanded the eunuch to hasten the women's ornaments, and to deliver to her her part, and seven of the most beautiful maidens of the king's house, and to adorn and deck out both her and her waiting maids. 2:10. And she would not tell him her people nor her country. For Mardochai had charged her to say nothing at all of that: 2:11. And he walked every day before the court of the house, in which the chosen virgins were kept, having a care for Esther's welfare, and desiring to know what would befall her. 2:12. Now when every virgin's turn came to go in to the king, after all had been done for setting them off to advantage, it was the twelfth month: so that for six months they were anointed with oil of myrrh, and for other six months they used certain perfumes and sweet spices. 2:13. And when they were going in to the king, whatsoever they asked to adorn themselves they received: and being decked out, as it pleased them, they passed from the chamber of the women to the king's chamber. 2:14. And she that went in at evening, came out in the morning, and from thence she was conducted to the second house, that was under the hand of Susagaz the eunuch, who had the charge over the king's concubines: neither could she return any more to the king, unless the king desired it, and had ordered her by name to come. 2:15. And as the time came orderly about, the day was at hand, when Esther, the daughter of Abihail the brother of Mardochai, whom he had adopted for his daughter, was to go in to the king. But she sought not women's ornaments, but whatsoever Egeus the eunuch the keeper of the virgins had a mind, he gave her to adorn her. For she was exceeding fair, and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all. 2:16. So she was brought to the chamber of king Assuerus the tenth month, which is called Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. 2:17. And the king loved her more than all the women, and she had favour and kindness before him above all the women, and he set the royal crown on her head, and made her queen instead of Vasthi. 2:18. And he commanded a magnificent feast to be prepared for all the princes, and for his servants, for the marriage and wedding of Esther, And he gave rest to all the provinces, and bestowed gifts according to princely magnificence. 2:19. And when the virgins were sought the second time, and gathered together, Mardochai stayed at the king's gate, 2:20. Neither had Esther as yet declared her country and people, according to his commandment. For whatsoever he commanded, Esther observed: and she did all things in the same manner as she was wont at that time when he brought her up a little one. 2:21. At that time, therefore, when Mardochai abode at the king's gate, Bagathan and Thares, two of the king's eunuchs, who were porters, and presided in the first entry of the palace, were angry: and they designed to rise up against the king, and to kill him. 2:22. And Mardochai had notice of it, and immediately he told it to queen Esther: and she to the king in Mardochai's name, who had reported the thing unto her. 2:23. It was inquired into, and found out: and they were both hanged on a gibbet. And it was put in the histories, and recorded in the chronicles before the king. Esther Chapter 3 Aman, advanced by the king, is offended at Mardochai, and therefore procureth the king's decree to destroy the whole nation of the Jews. 3:1. After these things, king Assuerus advanced Aman, the son of Amadathi, who was of the race of Agag: and he set his throne above all the princes that were with him. 3:2. And all the king's servants, that were at the doors of the palace, bent their knees, and worshipped Aman: for so the emperor had commanded them, only Mardochai did not bend his knee, nor worship him. 3:3. And the king's servants that were chief at the doors of the palace, said to him: Why dost thou alone not observe the king's commandment? 3:4. And when they were saying this often, and he would not hearken to them, they told Aman, desirous to know whether he would continue in his resolution: for he had told them that he was a Jew. 3:5. Now when Aman had heard this, and had proved by experience that Mardochai did not bend his knee to him, nor worship him, he was exceeding angry. 3:6. And he counted it nothing to lay his hands upon Mardochai alone: for he had heard that he was of the nation of the Jews, and he chose rather to destroy all the nation of the Jews that were in the kingdom of Assuerus. 3:7. In the first month (which is called Nisan) in the twelfth year of the reign of Assuerus, the lot was cast into an urn, which in Hebrew is called Phur, before Aman, on what day and what month the nation of the Jews should be destroyed: and there came out the twelfth month, which is called Adar. 3:8. And Aman said to king Assuerus: There is a people scattered through all the provinces of thy kingdom, and separated one from another, that use new laws and ceremonies, and moreover despise the king's ordinances: and thou knowest very well that it is not expedient for thy kingdom that they should grow insolent by impunity. 3:9. If it please thee, decree that they may be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents to thy treasurers. 3:10. And the king took the ring that he used, from his own hand, and gave it to Aman, the son of Amadathi of the race of Agag, the enemy of the Jews, 3:11. And he said to him: As to the money which thou promisest, keep it for thyself: and as to the people, do with them as seemeth good to thee. 3:12. And the king's scribes were called in the first month Nisan, on the thirteenth day of the same mouth: and they wrote, as Aman had commanded, to all the king's lieutenants, and to the judges of the provinces, and of divers nations, as every nation could read, and hear according to their different languages, in the name of king Assuerus: and the letters, sealed with his ring, 3:13. Were sent by the king's messengers to all provinces, to kill and destroy all the Jews, both young and old, little children, and women, in one day, that is, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is called Adar, and to make a spoil of their goods. 3:14. And the contents of the letters were to this effect, that all provinces might know and be ready against that day. 3:15. The couriers that were sent made haste to fulfil the king's commandment. And immediately the edict was hung up in Susan, the king and Aman feasting together, and all the Jews that were in the city weeping. Esther Chapter 4 Mardochai desireth Esther to petition the king for the Jews. They join in fasting and prayer. 4:1. Now when Mardochai had heard these things, he rent his garments, and put on sackcloth, strewing ashes on his head and he cried with a loud voice in the street in the midst of the city, shewing the anguish of his mind. 4:2. And he came lamenting in this manner even to the gate of the palace: for no one clothed with sackcloth might enter the king's court. 4:3. And in all provinces, towns, and places, to which the king's cruel edict was come, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, wailing, and weeping, many using sackcloth and ashes for their bed. 4:4. Then Esther's maids and her eunuchs went in, and told her. And when she heard it she was in a consternation and she sent a garment, to clothe him, and to take away the sackcloth: but he would not receive it. 4:5. And she called for Athach the eunuch, whom the king had appointed to attend upon her, and she commanded him to go to Mardochai, and learn of him why he did this. 4:6. And Athach going out went to Mardochai, who was standing in the street of the city, before the palace gate: 4:7. And Mardochai told him all that had happened, how Aman had promised to pay money into the king's treasures, to have the Jews destroyed. 4:8. He gave him also a copy of the edict which was hanging up in Susan, that he should shew it to the queen, and admonish her to go in to the king, and to entreat him for her people. 4:9. And Athach went back and told Esther all that Mardochai had said. 4:10. She answered him, and bade him say to Mardochai: 4:11. All the king's servants, and all the provinces that are under his dominion, know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, cometh into the king's inner court, who is not called for, is immediately to be put to death without any delay: except the king shall hold out the golden sceptre to him, in token of clemency, that so he may live. How then can I go in to the king, who for these thirty days now have not been called unto him? 4:12. And when Mardochai had heard this, 4:13. He sent word to Esther again, saying: Think not that thou mayst save thy life only, because thou art in the king's house, more than all the Jews: 4:14. For if thou wilt now hold thy peace, the Jews shall be delivered by some other occasion: and thou, and thy father's house shall perish. And who knoweth whether thou art not therefore come to the kingdom, that thou mightest be ready in such a time as this? 4:15. And again Esther sent to Mardochai in these words: 4:16. Go, and gather together all the Jews whom thou shalt find in Susan, and pray ye for me. Neither eat nor drink for three days and three nights: and I with my handmaids will fast in like manner, and then I will go in to the king, against the law, not being called, and expose myself to death and to danger. 4:17. So Mardochai went, and did all that Esther had commanded him. Esther Chapter 5 Esther is graciously received: she inviteth the king and Aman to dinner, Aman prepareth a gibbet for Mardochai. 5:1. And on the third day Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house, over against the king's hall: now he sat upon his throne in the hall of the palace, over against the door of the house. 5:2. And when he saw Esther the queen standing, she pleased his eyes, and he held out toward her the golden sceptre, which he held in his hand and she drew near, and kissed the top of his sceptre. 5:3. And the king said to her: What wilt thou, queen Esther? what is thy request? if thou shouldst even ask one half of the kingdom, it shall be given to thee. 5:4. But she answered: If it please the king, I beseech thee to come to me this day, and Aman with thee to the banquet which I have prepared. 5:5. And the king said forthwith: Call ye Aman quickly, that he may obey Esther's will. So the king and Aman came to the banquet which the queen had prepared for them. 5:6. And the king said to her, after he had drunk wine plentifully: What dost thou desire should be given thee? and for what thing askest thou? although thou shouldst ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it. 5:7. And Esther answered: My petition and request is this: 5:8. If I have found favour in the king's sight, and if it please the king to give me what I ask, and to fulfil my petition: let the king and Aman come to the banquet which I have prepared them, and to morrow I will open my mind to the king. 5:9. So Aman went out that day joyful and merry. And when he saw Mardochai sitting before the gate of the palace, and that he not only did not rise up to honour him, but did not so much as move from the place where he sat, he was exceedingly angry: 5:10. But dissembling his anger, and returning into his house, he called together to him his friends, and Zares his wife: 5:11. And he declared to them the greatness of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and with how great glory the king had advanced him above all his princes and servants. 5:12. And after this he said: Queen Esther also hath invited no other to the banquet with the king, but me: and with her I am also to dine to morrow with the king: 5:13. And whereas I have all these things, I think I have nothing, so long as I see Mardochai the Jew sitting before the king's gate. 5:14. Then Zares his wife, and the rest of his friends answered him: Order a great beam to be prepared, fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king, that Mardochai may be hanged upon it, and so thou shalt go full of joy with the king to the banquet. The counsel pleased him, and he commanded a high gibbet to be prepared. Esther Chapter 6 The king hearing of the good service done him by Mardochai, commandeth Aman to honour him next to the king, which he performeth. 6:1. That night the king passed without sleep, and he commanded the histories and chronicles of former times to be brought him. And when they were reading them before him, 6:2. They came to that place where it was written, how Mardochai had discovered the treason of Bagathan and Thares the eunuchs, who sought to kill king Assuerus. 6:3. And when the king heard this, he said: What honour and reward hath Mardochai received for this fidelity? His servants and ministers said to him: He hath received no reward at all. No reward at all. . .He received some presents from the king, chap. 12.5; but these were so inconsiderable in the opinion of the courtiers, that they esteemed them as nothing at all. 6:4. And the king said immediately: Who is in the court? for Aman was coming in to the inner court of the king's house, to speak to the king, that he might order Mardochai to be hanged upon the gibbet, which was prepared for him. 6:5. The servants answered: Aman standeth in the court, and the king said: Let him come in. 6:6. And when he was come in, he said to him: What ought to be done to the man whom the king is desirous to honour? But Aman thinking in his heart, and supposing that the king would honour no other but himself, 6:7. Answered: The man whom the king desireth to honour, 6:8. Ought to be clothed with the king's apparel, and to be set upon the horse that the king rideth upon, and to have the royal crown upon his head, 6:9. And let the first of the king's princes and nobles hold his horse, and going through the street of the city, proclaim before him and say: Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king hath a mind to honour. 6:10. And the king said to him: Make haste and take the robe and the horse, and do as thou hast spoken to Mardochai the Jew, who sitteth before the gates of the palace. Beware thou pass over any of those things which thou hast spoken. 6:11. So Aman took the robe and the horse, and arraying Mardochai in the street of the city, and setting him on the horse, went before him, and proclaimed: This honour is he worthy of, whom the king hath a mind to honour. 6:12. But Mardochai returned to the palace gate: and Aman made haste to go to his house, mourning and having his head covered: 6:13. And he told Zares his wife, and his friends, all that had befallen him. And the wise men whom he had in counsel, and his wife answered him: If Mardochai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou canst not resist him, but thou shalt fall in his sight. 6:14. As they were yet speaking, the king's eunuchs came, and compelled him to go quickly to the banquet which the queen had prepared. Esther Chapter 7 Esther's petition for herself and her people: Aman is hanged upon the gibbet he had prepared for Mardochai. 7:1. So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen. 7:2. And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it. 7:3. Then she answered: If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request. 7:4. For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king. 7:5. And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things? 7:6. And Esther said: It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy. Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and of the queen. 7:7. But the king being angry rose up, and went from the place of the banquet into the garden set with trees. Aman also rose up to entreat Esther the queen for his life, for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king. 7:8. And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face. 7:9. And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman's house, being fifty cubits high. And the king said to him: Hang him upon it. 7:10. So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king's wrath ceased. Esther Chapter 8 Mardochai is advanced: Aman's letters are reversed. 8:1. On that day king Assuerus gave the house of Aman, the Jews' enemy, to queen Esther, and Mardochai came in before the king. For Esther had confessed to him that he was her uncle. 8:2. And the king took the ring which he had commanded to be taken again from Aman, and gave it to Mardochai. And Esther set Mardochai over her house. 8:3. And not content with these things, she fell down at the king's feet and wept, and speaking to him besought him, that he would give orders that the malice of Aman the Agagite, and his most wicked devices which he had invented against the Jews, should be of no effect. 8:4. But he, as the manner was, held out the golden sceptre with his hand, which was the sign of clemency: and she arose up and stood before him, 8:5. And said: If it please the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, and my request be not disagreeable to him, I beseech thee, that the former letters of Aman the traitor and enemy of the Jews, by which he commanded that they should be destroyed in all the king's provinces, may be reversed by new letters. 8:6. For how can I endure the murdering and slaughter of my people? 8:7. And king Assuerus answered Esther the queen, and Mardochai the Jew: I have given Aman's house to Esther, and I have commanded him to be hanged on a gibbet, because he durst lay hands on the Jews. 8:8. Write ye therefore to the Jews, as it pleaseth you in the king's name, and seal the letters with my ring. For this was the custom, that no man durst gainsay the letters which were sent in the king's name, and were sealed with his ring. 8:9. Then the king's scribes and secretaries were called for (now it was the time of the third month which is called Siban) the three and twentieth day of the month, and letters were written, as Mardochai had a mind, to the Jews, and to the governors, and to the deputies, and to the judges, who were rulers over the hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India even to Ethiopia: to province and province, to people and people, according to their languages and characters, and to the Jews, according as they could read and hear. 8:10. And these letters which were sent in the king's name, were sealed with his ring, and sent by posts: who were to run through all the provinces, to prevent the former letters with new messages. 8:11. And the king gave orders to them, to speak to the Jews in every city, and to command them to gather themselves together, and to stand for their lives, and to kill and destroy all their enemies with their wives and children and all their houses, and to take their spoil. 8:12. And one day of revenge was appointed through all the provinces, to wit, the thirteenth of the twelfth month Adar. 8:13. And this was the content of the letter, that it should be notified in all lands and peoples that were subject to the empire of king Assuerus, that the Jews were ready to be revenged of their enemies. 8:14. So the swift posts went out carrying the messages, and the king's edict was hung up in Susan. 8:15. And Mardochai going forth out of the palace, and from the king's presence, shone in royal apparel, to wit, of violet and sky colour, wearing a golden crown on his head, and clothed with a cloak of silk and purple. And all the city rejoiced, and was glad. 8:16. But to the Jews, a new light seemed to rise, joy, honour, and dancing. 8:17. And in all peoples, cities, and provinces, whithersoever the king's commandments came, there was wonderful rejoicing, feasts and banquets, and keeping holy day: Insomuch that many of other nations and religion, joined themselves to their worship and ceremonies. For a great dread of the name of the Jews had fallen upon all. Esther Chapter 9 The Jews kill their enemies that would have killed them. The days of Phurim are appointed to be kept holy. 9:1. So on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which as we have said above is called Adar, when all the Jews were designed to be massacred, and their enemies were greedy after their blood, the case being altered, the Jews began to have the upper hand, and to revenge themselves of their adversaries. To revenge, etc. . .The Jews on this occasion, by authority from the king, were made executioners of the public justice, for punishing by death a crime worthy of death, viz., a malicious conspiracy for extirpating their whole nation. 9:2. And they gathered themselves together in every city, and town, and place, to lay their hands on their enemies, and their persecutors. And no one durst withstand them, for the fear of their power had gone through every people. 9:3. And the judges of the provinces, and the governors, and lieutenants, and every one in dignity, that presided over every place and work, extolled the Jews for fear of Mardochai: 9:4. For they knew him to be prince of the palace, and to have great power: and the fame of his name increased daily, and was spread abroad through all men's mouths. 9:5. So the Jews made a great slaughter of their enemies, and killed them, repaying according to what they had prepared to do to them: 9:6. Insomuch that even in Susan they killed five hundred men, besides the ten sons of Aman the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews: whose names are these: 9:7. Pharsandatha, and Delphon, and Esphatha 9:8. And Phoratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha, 9:9. And Phermesta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Jezatha. 9:10. And when they had slain them, they would not touch the spoils of their goods. 9:11. And presently the number of them that were killed in Susan was brought to the king. 9:12. And he said to the queen: The Jews have killed five hundred men in the city of Susan, besides the ten sons of Aman: how many dost thou think they have slain in all the provinces? What askest thou more, and what wilt thou have me to command to be done? 9:13. And she answered: If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews, to do to morrow in Susan as they have done to day, and that the ten sons of Aman may be hanged upon gibbets. 9:14. And the king commanded that it should be so done. And forthwith the edict was hung up in Susan, and the ten sons of Aman were hanged. 9:15. And on the fourteenth day of the month Adar the Jews gathered themselves together, and they killed in Susan three hundred men: but they took not their substance. 9:16. Moreover through all the provinces which were subject to the king's dominion the Jews stood for their lives, and slew their enemies and persecutors: insomuch that the number of them that were killed amounted to seventy-five thousand, and no man took any of their goods. 9:17. Now the thirteenth day of the month Adar was the first day with them all of the slaughter, and on the fourteenth day they left off. Which they ordained to be kept holy day, so that all times hereafter they should celebrate it with feasting, joy, and banquets. 9:18. But they that were killing in the city of Susan, were employed in the slaughter on the thirteenth and fourteenth day of the same month: and on the fifteenth day they rested. And therefore they appointed that day to be a holy day of feasting and gladness. 9:19. But those Jews that dwelt in towns not walled and in villages, appointed the fourteenth day of the month Adar for banquets and gladness, so as to rejoice on that day, and send one another portions of their banquets and meats. 9:20. And Mardochai wrote all these things, and sent them comprised in letters to the Jews that abode in all the king's provinces, both those that lay near and those afar off, 9:21. That they should receive the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month Adar for holy days, and always at the return of the year should celebrate them with solemn honour: 9:22. Because on those days the Jews revenged themselves of their enemies, and their mourning and sorrow were turned into mirth and joy, and that these should be days of feasting and gladness, in which they should send one to another portions of meats, and should give gifts to the poor. 9:23. And the Jews undertook to observe with solemnity all they had begun to do at that time, which Mardochai by letters had commanded to be done. 9:24. For Aman, the son of Amadathi of the race of Agag, the enemy and adversary of the Jews, had devised evil against them, to kill them and destroy them; and had cast Phur, that is, the lot. 9:25. And afterwards Esther went in to the king, beseeching him that his endeavours might be made void by the king's letters: and the evil that he had intended against the Jews, might return upon his own head. And so both he and his sons were hanged upon gibbets. 9:26. And since that time these days are called Phurim, that is, of lots: because Phur, that is, the lot, was cast into the urn. And all things that were done, are contained in the volume of this epistle, that is, of this book: 9:27. And the things that they suffered, and that were afterwards changed, the Jews took upon themselves and their seed, and upon all that had a mind to be joined to their religion, so that it should be lawful for none to pass these days without solemnity: which the writing testifieth, and certain times require, as the years continually succeed one another. 9:28. These are the days which shall never be forgot: and which all provinces in the whole world shall celebrate throughout all generations: neither is there any city wherein the days of Phurim, that is, of lots, must not be observed by the Jews, and by their posterity, which is bound to these ceremonies. 9:29. And Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mardochai the Jew, wrote also a second epistle, that with all diligence this day should be established a festival for the time to come. 9:30. And they sent to all the Jews that were in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of king Assuerus, that they should have peace, and receive truth, 9:31. And observe the days of lots, and celebrate them with joy in their proper time: as Mardochai and Esther had appointed, and they undertook them to be observed by themselves and by their seed, fasts, and cries, and the days of lots, 9:32. And all things which are contained in the history of this book, which is called Esther. Esther Chapter 10 Assuerus's greatness. Mardochai's dignity. 10:1. And king Assuerus made all the land, and all the islands of the sea tributary. 10:2. And his strength and his empire, and the dignity and greatness wherewith he exalted Mardochai, are written in the books of the Medes, and of the Persians: 10:3. And how Mardochai of the race of the Jews, was next after king Assuerus: and great among the Jews, and acceptable to the people of his brethren, seeking the good of his people, and speaking those things which were for the welfare of his seed. 10:4. Then Mardochai said: God hath done these things. Then Mardochai, etc. . .Here St. Jerome advertiseth the reader, that what follows is not in the Hebrew, but is found in the septuagint Greek edition, which the seventy-two interpreters translated out of the Hebrew, or added by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 10:5. I remember a dream that I saw, which signified these same things: and nothing thereof hath failed. A dream. . .This dream was prophetical and extraordinary: otherwise the general rule is not to observe dreams. 10:6. The little fountain which grew into a river, and was turned into a light, and into the sun, and abounded into many waters, is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen. 10:7. But the two dragons are I and Aman. 10:8. The nations that were assembled are they that endeavoured to destroy the name of the Jews. 10:9. And my nation is Israel, who cried to the Lord, and the Lord saved his people: and he delivered us from all evils, and hath wrought great signs and wonders among the nations: 10:10. And he commanded that there should be two lots, one of the people of God, and the other of all the nations. 10:11. And both lots came to the day appointed already from that time before God to all nations: 10:12. And the Lord remembered his people, and had mercy on his inheritance. 10:13. And these days shall be observed in the month of Adar on the fourteenth, and fifteenth day of the same month, with all diligence, and joy of the people gathered into one assembly, throughout all the generations hereafter of the people of Israel. Esther Chapter 11 The dream of Mardochai, which in the ancient Greek and Latin Bibles was into the beginning of the book, but was detached by St. Jerome, and put in this place. 11:1. In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest, and of the Levitical race, and Ptolemy his son brought this epistle of Phurim, which they said Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy had interpreted in Jerusalem. 11:2. In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the great, in the first day of the month Nisan, Mardochai the son of Jair, the son of Semei, the son of Cis, of the tribe of Benjamin: 11:3. A Jew who dwelt in the city of Susan, a great man and among the first of the king's court, had a dream. 11:4. Now he was of the number of the captives, whom Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away from Jerusalem with Jechonias king of Juda: 11:5. And this was his dream: Behold there were voices, and tumults, and thunders, and earthquakes, and a disturbance upon the earth. 11:6. And behold two great dragons came forth ready to fight one against another. 11:7. And at their cry all nations were stirred up to fight against the nation of the just. 11:8. And that was a day of darkness and danger, of tribulation and distress, and great fear upon the earth. 11:9. And the nation of the just was troubled fearing their own evils, and was prepared for death. 11:10. And they cried to God: and as they were crying, a little fountain grew into a very great river, and abounded into many waters. 11:11. The light and the sun rose up, and the humble were exalted, and they devoured the glorious. 11:12. And when Mardochai had seen this, and arose out of his bed, he was thinking what God would do: and he kept it fixed in his mind, desirous to know what the dream should signify. Esther Chapter 12 Mardochai detects the conspiracy of the two eunuchs. 12:1. And he abode at that time in the king's court with Bagatha and Thara the king's eunuchs, who were porters of the palace. 12:2. And when he understood their designs, and had diligently searched into their projects, he learned that they went about to lay violent hands on king Artaxerxes, and he told the king thereof. 12:3. Then the king had them both examined, and after they had confessed, commanded them to be put to death. 12:4. But the king made a record of what was done: and Mardochai also committed the memory of the thing to writing. 12:5. And the king commanded him, to abide in the court of the palace, and gave him presents for the information. 12:6. But Aman the son of Amadathi the Bugite was in great honour with the king, and sought to hurt Mardochai and his people, because of the two eunuchs of the king who were put to death. Esther Chapter 13 A copy of a letter sent by Aman to destroy the Jews. Mardochai's prayer for the people. 13:1. And this was the copy of the letter: Artaxerxes the great king who reigneth from India to Ethiopia, to the princes and governors of the hundred and twenty-seven provinces, that are subject to his empire, greeting. 13:2. Whereas I reigned over many nations, and had brought all the world under my dominion, I was not willing to abuse the greatness of my power, but to govern my subjects with clemency and that they might live quietly without any terror, and might enjoy peace, which is desired by all men, 13:3. But when I asked my counsellors how this might be accomplished, one that excelled the rest in wisdom and fidelity, and was second after the king, Aman by name, 13:4. Told me that there was a people scattered through the whole world, which used new laws, and acted against the customs of all nations, despised the commandments of kings, and violated by their opposition the concord of all nations. 13:5. Wherefore having learned this, and seeing one nation in opposition to all mankind using perverse laws, and going against our commandments, and disturbing the peace and concord of the provinces subject to us, 13:6. We have commanded that all whom Aman shall mark out, who is chief over all the provinces, and second after the king, and whom we honour as a father, shall be utterly destroyed by their enemies, with their wives and children, and that none shall have pity on them, on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month Adar of this present year: 13:7. That these wicked men going down to hell in one day, may restore to our empire the peace which they had disturbed. 13:8. But Mardochai besought the Lord, remembering all his works, 13:9. And said: O Lord, Lord, almighty king, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou determine to save Israel. 13:10. Thou hast made heaven and earth and all things that are under the cope of heaven. 13:11. Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that can resist thy majesty. 13:12. Thou knowest all things, and thou knowest that it was not out of pride and or any desire of glory, that I refused to worship the proud Aman, 13:13. (For I would willingly and readily for the salvation of Israel have kissed even the steps of his feet,) 13:14. But I feared lest I should transfer the honour of my God to a man, and lest I should adore any one except my God. 13:15. And now, O Lord, O king, O God of Abraham, have mercy on thy people, because our enemies resolve to destroy us, and extinguish thy inheritance. 13:16. Despise not thy portion, which thou hast redeemed for thyself out of Egypt. 13:17. Hear my supplication, and be merciful to thy lot and inheritance, and turn our mourning into joy, that we may live and praise thy name, O Lord, and shut not the mouths of them that sing to thee. 13:18. And all Israel with like mind and supplication cried to the Lord, because they saw certain death hanging over their heads. Esther Chapter 14 The prayer of Esther for herself and her people. 14:1. Queen Esther also, fearing the danger that was at hand, had recourse to the Lord. 14:2. And when she had laid away her royal apparel, she put on garments suitable for weeping and mourning: instead of divers precious ointments, she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she humbled her body with fasts: and all the places in which before she was accustomed to rejoice, she filled with her torn hair. 14:3. And she prayed to the Lord the God of Israel, saying: O my Lord, who alone art our king, help me a desolate woman, and who have no other helper but thee. 14:4. My danger is in my hands. 14:5. I have heard of my father that thou, O Lord, didst take Israel from among all nations, and our fathers from all their predecessors, to possess them as an everlasting inheritance, and thou hast done to them as thou hast promised. 14:6. We have sinned in thy sight, and therefore thou hast delivered us into the hands of our enemies: 14:7. For we have worshipped their gods. Thou art just, O Lord. 14:8. And now they are not content to oppress us with most hard bondage, but attributing the strength of their hands to the power of their idols. 14:9. They design to change thy promises, and destroy thy inheritance, and shut the mouths of them that praise thee, and extinguish the glory of thy temple and altar, 14:10. That they may open the mouths of Gentiles, and praise the strength of idols, and magnify for ever a carnal king. 14:11. Give not, O Lord, thy sceptre to them that are not, lest they laugh at our ruin: but turn their counsel upon themselves, and destroy him that hath begun to rage against us. 14:12. Remember, O Lord, and shew thyself to us in the time of our tribulation, and give me boldness, O Lord, king of gods, and of all power: 14:13. Give me a well ordered speech in my mouth in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to the hatred of our enemy, that both he himself may perish, and the rest that consent to him. 14:14. But deliver us by thy hand, and help me, who have no other helper, but thee, O Lord, who hast the knowledge of all things. 14:15. And thou knowest that I hate the glory of the wicked, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised, and of every stranger. 14:16. Thou knowest my necessity, that I abominate the sign of my pride and glory, which is upon my head in the days of my public appearance, and detest it as a menstruous rag, and wear it not in the days of my silence, 14:17. And that I have not eaten at Aman's table, nor hath the king's banquet pleased me, and that I have not drunk the wine of the drink offerings: 14:18. And that thy handmaid hath never rejoiced, since I was brought hither unto this day but in thee, O Lord, the God of Abraham. 14:19. O God, who art mighty above all, hear the voice of them, that have no other hope, and deliver us from the hand of the wicked, and deliver me from my fear. Esther Chapter 15 Esther comes into the king's presence: she is terrified, but God turns his heart. 15:1. And he commanded her (no doubt but he was Mardochai) to go to the king, and petition for her people, and for her country. 15:2. Remember, (said he,) the days of thy low estate, how thou wast brought up by my hand, because Aman the second after the king hath spoken against us unto death. 15:3. And do thou call upon the Lord, and speak to the king for us, and deliver us from death. 15:4. And on the third day she laid away the garments she wore, and put on her glorious apparel. 15:5. And glittering in royal robes, after she had called upon God the ruler and Saviour of all, she took two maids with her, 15:6. And upon one of them she leaned, as if for delicateness and overmuch tenderness she were not able to bear up her own body. 15:7. And the other maid followed her lady, bearing up her train flowing on the ground. 15:8. But she with a rosy colour in her face, and with gracious and bright eyes hid a mind full of anguish, and exceeding great fear. 15:9. So going in she passed through all doors in order, and stood before the king, where he sat upon his royal throne, clothed with his royal robes, and glittering with gold, and precious stones, and he was terrible to behold. 15:10. And when he had lifted up his countenance, and with burning eyes had shewn the wrath of his heart, the queen sunk down, and her colour turned pale, and she rested her weary head upon her handmaid. 15:11. And God changed the king's spirit into mildness, and all in haste and in fear he leaped from his throne, and holding her up in his arms, till she came to herself, caressed her with these words: 15:12. What is the matter, Esther? I am thy brother, fear not. 15:13. Thou shalt not die: for this law is not made for thee, but for all others. 15:14. Come near then, and touch the sceptre. 15:15. And as she held her peace, he took the golden sceptre, and laid it upon her neck, and kissed her, and said: Why dost thou not speak to me? 15:16. She answered: I saw thee, my lord, as an angel of God, and my heart was troubled for fear of thy majesty. 15:17. For thou, my lord, art very admirable, and thy face is full of graces. 15:18. And while she was speaking, she fell down again, and was almost in a swoon. 15:19. But the king was troubled, and all his servants comforted her. Esther Chapter 16 A copy of the king's letter in favour of the Jews. 16:1. The great king Artaxerxes, from India to Ethiopia, to the governors and princes of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, which obey our command, sendeth greeting. From India to Ethiopia. . .That is, who reigneth from India to Ethiopia. 16:2. Many have abused unto pride the goodness of princes, and the honour that hath been bestowed upon them: 16:3. And not only endeavour to oppress the king's subjects, but not bearing the glory that is given them, take in hand, to practise also against them that gave it. 16:4. Neither are they content not to return thanks for benefits received, and to violate in themselves the laws of humanity, but they think they can also escape the justice of God who seeth all things. 16:5. And they break out into so great madness, as to endeavour to undermine by lies such as observe diligently the offices committed to them, and do all things in such manner as to be worthy of all men's praise, 16:6. While with crafty fraud they deceive the ears of princes that are well meaning, and judge of others by their own nature. 16:7. Now this is proved both from ancient histories, and by the things which are done daily, how the good designs of kings are depraved by the evil suggestions of certain men. 16:8. Wherefore we must provide for the peace of all provinces. 16:9. Neither must you think, if we command different things, that it cometh of the levity of our mind, but that we give sentence according to the quality and necessity of times, as the profit of the commonwealth requireth. 16:10. Now that you may more plainly understand what we say, Aman the son of Amadathi, a Macedonian both in mind and country, and having nothing of the Persian blood, but with his cruelty staining our goodness, was received being a stranger by us: 16:11. And found our humanity so great towards him, that he was called our father, and was worshipped by all as the next man after the king: 16:12. But he was so far puffed up with arrogancy, as to go about to deprive us of our kingdom and life. 16:13. For with certain new and unheard of devices he hath sought the destruction of Mardochai, by whose fidelity and good services our life was saved, and of Esther the partner of our kingdom with all their nation: 16:14. Thinking that after they were slain, he might work treason against us left alone without friends, and might transfer the kingdom of the Persians to the Macedonians. 16:15. But we have found that the Jews, who were by that most wicked man appointed to be slain, are in no fault at all, but contrariwise, use just laws, 16:16. And are the children of the highest and the greatest, and the ever living God, by whose benefit the kingdom was given both to our fathers and to us, and is kept unto this day. 16:17. Wherefore know ye that those letters which he sent in our name, are void and of no effect. 16:18. For which crime both he himself that devised it, and all his kindred hang on gibbets, before the gates of this city Susan: not we, but God repaying him as he deserved. 16:19. But this edict, which we now send, shall be published in all cities, that the Jews may freely follow their own laws. 16:20. And you shall aid them that they may kill those who had prepared themselves to kill them, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is called Adar. 16:21. For the almighty God hath turned this day of sadness and mourning into joy to them. 16:22. Wherefore you shall also count this day among other festival days, and celebrate it with all joy, that it may be known also in times to come, 16:23. That all they who faithfully obey the Persians, receive a worthy reward for their fidelity: but they that are traitors to their kingdom, are destroyed for their wickedness. 16:24. And let every province and city, that will not be partaker of this solemnity, perish by the sword and by fire, and be destroyed in such manner as to be made unpassable, both to men and beasts, for an example of contempt, and disobedience. THE BOOK OF JOB This Book takes its name from the holy man of whom it treats: who, according to the more probable opinion, was of the race of Esau; and the same as Jobab, king of Edom, mentioned Gen. 36.33. It is uncertain who was the writer of it. Some attribute it to Job himself; others to Moses, or some one of the prophets. In the Hebrew it is written in verse, from the beginning of the third chapter to the forty-second chapter. Job Chapter 1 Job's virtue and riches. Satan by permission from God strippeth him of all his substance. His patience. 1:1. There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. Hus. . .The land of Hus was a part of Edom; as appears from Lam. 4.21.--Ibid. Simple. . .That is, innocent, sincere, and without guile. 1:2. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 1:3. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceedingly great: and this man was great among all the people of the east. 1:4. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses, every one in his day. And sending, they called their three sisters, to eat and drink with them. And made a feast by houses. . .That is, each made a feast in his own house and had his day, inviting the others, and their sisters. 1:5. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early, offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. So did Job all days. Blessed. . .For greater horror of the very thought of blasphemy, the scripture both here and ver. 11, and in the following chapter, ver. 5 and 9, uses the word bless to signify its contrary. 1:6. Now on a certain day, when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. The sons of God. . .The angels.--Ibid. Satan also, etc. This passage represents to us in a figure, accommodated to the ways and understandings of men, 1. The restless endeavours of Satan against the servants of God; 2. That he can do nothing without God's permission; 3. That God doth not permit him to tempt them above their strength: but assists them by his divine grace in such manner, that the vain efforts of the enemy only serve to illustrate their virtue and increase their merit. 1:7. And the Lord said to him: Whence comest thou? And he answered and said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it. 1:8. And the Lord said to him: Hast thou considered my servant, Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil? 1:9. And Satan answering, said: Doth Job fear God in vain? 1:10. Hast thou not made a fence for him, and his house, and all his substance round about, blessed the works of his hands, and his possession hath increased on the earth? 1:11. But stretch forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath, and see if he bless thee not to thy face. 1:12. Then the Lord said to Satan: Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand: only put not forth thy hand upon his person. And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. 1:13. Now upon a certain day, when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine, in the house of their eldest brother, 1:14. There came a messenger to Job, and said: The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, 1:15. And the Sabeans rushed in, and took all away, and slew the servants with the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell thee. 1:16. And while he was yet speaking, another came, and said: The fire of God fell from heaven, and striking the sheep and the servants, hath consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell thee. 1:17. And while he also was yet speaking, there came another, and said: The Chaldeans made three troops, and have fallen upon the camels, and taken them; moreover, they have slain the servants with the sword: and I alone have escaped to tell thee. 1:18. He was yet speaking, and behold another came in, and said: Thy sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their eldest brother, 1:19. A violent wind came on a sudden from the side of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, and it fell upon thy children, and they are dead: and I alone have escaped to tell thee. 1:20. Then Job rose up, and rent his garments, and having shaven his head, fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 1:21. And said: Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. 1:22. In all these things Job sinned not by his lips, nor spoke he any foolish thing against God. Job Chapter 2 2:1. And it came to pass, when on a certain day the sons of God came, and stood before the Lord, and Satan came amongst them, and stood in his sight, 2:2. That the Lord said to Satan: Whence comest thou? And he answered, and said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it. 2:3. And the Lord said to Satan: Hast thou considered my servant, Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a man simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence? But thou hast moved me against him, that I should afflict him without cause. 2:4. And Satan answered, and said: Skin for skin; and all that a man hath, he will give for his life: 2:5. But put forth thy hand, and touch his bone and his flesh, and then thou shalt see that he will bless thee to thy face. 2:6. And the Lord said to Satan: Behold, he is in thy hand, but yet save his life. 2:7. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of his head: 2:8. And he took a potsherd and scraped the corrupt matter, sitting on a dunghill. 2:9. And his wife said to him: Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? bless God and die. 2:10. And he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women: If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? In all these things Job did not sin with his lips. 2:11. Now when Job's three friends heard all the evil that had befallen him, they came every one from his own place, Eliphaz, the Themanite, and Baldad, the Suhite, and Sophar, the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment to come together and visit him, and comfort him. 2:12. And when they had lifted up their eyes afar off, they knew him not, and crying out, they wept, and rending their garments, they sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. 2:13. And they sat with him on the ground seven day and seven nights and no man spoke to him a word: for they saw that his grief was very great. Job Chapter 3 3:1. After this, Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day, Cursed his day. . .Job cursed the day of his birth, not by way of wishing evil to any thing of God's creation; but only to express in a stronger manner his sense of human miseries in general, and of his own calamities in particular. 3:2. And he said: 3:3. Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived. 3:4. Let that day be turned into darkness, let not God regard it from above, and let not the light shine upon it. 3:5. Let darkness, and the shadow of death, cover it, let a mist overspread it, and let it be wrapped up in bitterness. 3:6. Let a darksome whirlwind seize upon that night, let it not be counted in the days of the year, nor numbered in the months. 3:7. Let that night be solitary, and not worthy of praise. 3:8. Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to raise up a leviathan: 3:9. Let the stars be darkened with the mist thereof: let it expect light, and not see it, nor the rising of the dawning of the day: 3:10. Because it shut not up the doors of the womb that bore me, nor took away evils from my eyes. 3:11. Why did I not die in the womb? why did I not perish when I came out of the belly? 3:12. Why received upon the knees? why suckled at the breasts? 3:13. For now I should have been asleep and still, and should have rest in my sleep: 3:14. With kings and consuls of the earth, who build themselves solitudes: 3:15. Or with princes, that possess gold, and fill their houses with silver: 3:16. Or as a hidden untimely birth, I should not be; or as they that, being conceived, have not seen the light. 3:17. There the wicked cease from tumult, and there the wearied in strength are at rest. 3:18. And they sometime bound together without disquiet, have not heard the voice of the oppressor. 3:19. The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master. 3:20. Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to them that are in bitterness of soul? 3:21. That look for death, and it cometh not, as they that dig for a treasure: 3:22. And they rejoice exceedingly when they have found the grave? 3:23. To a man whose way is hidden, and God hath surrounded him with darkness? 3:24. Before I eat I sigh: and as overflowing waters, so is my roaring: 3:25. For the fear which I feared, hath come upon me: and that which I was afraid of, hath befallen me. 3:26. Have I not dissembled? have I not kept silence? have I not been quiet? and indignation is come upon me. Job Chapter 4 4:1. Then Eliphaz, the Themanite, answered, and said: 4:2. If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill; but who can withhold the words he hath conceived? 4:3. Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands: 4:4. Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees: 4:5. But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: It hath touched thee, and thou art troubled. 4:6. Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways? 4:7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed? 4:8. On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them, 4:9. Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath. 4:10. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions, are broken: 4:11. The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad. 4:12. Now there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears by stealth, as it were, received the veins of its whisper. 4:13. In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men, 4:14. Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted: 4:15. And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up. 4:16. There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before my eyes, and I heard the voice, as it were, of a gentle wind. 4:17. Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker? Shall man be justified in comparison of God, etc. . .These are the words which Eliphaz had heard from an angel, which, ver. 15, he calls a spirit. 4:18. Behold, they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness: 4:19. How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth? 4:20. From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever. 4:21. And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom. Job Chapter 5 5:1. Call now, if there be any that will answer thee, and turn to some of the saints. 5:2. Anger indeed killeth the foolish, and envy slayeth the little one. 5:3. I have seen a fool with a strong root, and I cursed his beauty immediately. 5:4. His children shall be far from safety, and shall be destroyed in the gate, and there shall be none to deliver them. 5:5. Whose harvest the hungry shall eat, and the armed man shall take him by violence, and the thirsty shall drink up his riches. 5:6. Nothing upon earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground. 5:7. Man is born to labour, and the bird to fly. 5:8. Wherefore I will pray to the Lord, and address my speech to God: 5:9. Who doth great things, and unsearchable and wonderful things without number: 5:10. Who giveth rain upon the face of the earth, and watereth all things with waters: 5:11. Who setteth up the humble on high, and comforteth with health those that mourn. 5:12. Who bringeth to nought the designs of the malignant, so that their hands cannot accomplish what they had begun: 5:13. Who catcheth the wise in their craftiness, and disappointeth the counsel of the wicked: 5:14. They shall meet with darkness in the day, and grope at noonday as in the night. 5:15. But he shall save the needy from the sword of their mouth, and the poor from the hand of the violent. 5:16. And to the needy there shall be hope, but iniquity shall draw in her mouth. 5:17. Blessed is the man whom God correcteth: refuse not, therefore, the chastising of the Lord. 5:18. For he woundeth, and cureth: he striketh, and his hands shall heal. 5:19. In six troubles he shall deliver thee, and in the seventh, evil shall not touch thee. 5:20. In famine he shall deliver thee from death; and in battle, from the hand of the sword. 5:21. Thou shalt be hidden from the scourge of the tongue: and thou shalt not fear calamity when it cometh. 5:22. In destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: and thou shalt not be afraid of the beasts of the earth. 5:23. But thou shalt have a covenant with the stones of the lands, and the beasts of the earth shall be at peace with thee. 5:24. And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle is in peace, and visiting thy beauty, thou shalt not sin. 5:25. Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be multiplied, and thy offspring like the grass of the earth. 5:26. Thou shalt enter into the grave in abundance, as a heap of wheat is brought in its season. 5:27. Behold, this is even so, as we have searched out: which thou having heard, consider it thoroughly in thy mind. Job Chapter 6 6:1. But Job answered, and said: 6:2. O that my sins, whereby I have deserved wrath, and the calamity that I suffer, were weighed in a balance. My sins, etc. . .He does not mean to compare his sufferings with his real sins: but with the imaginary crimes which his friends imputed to him: and especially with his wrath, or grief, expressed in the third chapter, which they so much accused. Though, as he tells them here, it bore no proportion with the greatness of his calamity. 6:3. As the sand of the sea, this would appear heavier: therefore, my words are full of sorrow: 6:4. For the arrows of the Lord are in me, the rage whereof drinketh up my spirit, and the terrors of the Lord war against me. 6:5. Will the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or will the ox low when he standeth before a full manger? 6:6. Or can an unsavoury thing be eaten, that is not seasoned with salt? or can a man taste that which, when tasted, bringeth death? 6:7. The things which before my soul would not touch, now, through anguish, are my meats. 6:8. Who will grant that my request may come: and that God may give me what I look for? 6:9. And that he that hath begun may destroy me, that he may let loose his hand, and cut me off? 6:10. And that this may be my comfort, that afflicting me with sorrow, he spare not, nor I contradict the words of the Holy one. 6:11. For what is my strength, that I can hold out? or what is my end, that I should keep patience? 6:12. My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass. 6:13. Behold there is no help for me in myself, and my familiar friends also are departed from me. 6:14. He that taketh away mercy from his friend, forsaketh the fear of the Lord. 6:15. My brethren have passed by me, as the torrent that passeth swiftly in the valleys. 6:16. They that fear the hoary frost, the snow shall fall upon them. 6:17. At the time when they shall be scattered they shall perish: and after it groweth hot, they shall be melted out of their place. 6:18. The paths of their steps are entangled: they shall walk in vain, and shall perish. 6:19. Consider the paths of Thema, the ways of Saba, and wait a little while. 6:20. They arc confounded, because I have hoped: they are come also even unto me, and are covered with shame. 6:21. Now you are come: and now, seeing my affliction, you are afraid. 6:22. Did I say: Bring to me, and give me of your substance? 6:23. Or deliver me from the hand of the enemy, and rescue me out of the hand of the mighty? 6:24. Teach me, and I will hold my peace: and if I have been ignorant of any thing, instruct me. 6:25. Why have you detracted the words of truth, whereas there is none of you that can reprove me? 6:26. You dress up speeches only to rebuke, and you utter words to the wind. 6:27. You rush in upon the fatherless, and you endeavour to overthrow your friend. 6:28. However, finish what you have begun: give ear and see whether I lie. 6:29. Answer, I beseech you, without contention: and speaking that which is just, judge ye. 6:30. And you shall not find iniquity in my tongue, neither shall folly sound in my mouth. Job Chapter 7 7:1. The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling. 7:2. As a servant longeth for the shade, as the hireling looketh for the end of his work; 7:3. So I also have had empty months, and have numbered to myself wearisome nights. 7:4. If I lie down to sleep, I shall say: When shall I rise? and again, I shall look for the evening, and shall be filled with sorrows even till darkness. 7:5. My flesh is clothed with rottenness and the filth of dust; my skin is withered and drawn together. 7:6. My days have passed more swiftly than the web is cut by the weaver, and are consumed without any hope. 7:7. Remember that my life is but wind, and my eye shall not return to see good things. 7:8. Nor shall the sight of man behold me: thy eyes are upon me, and I shall be no more. 7:9. As a cloud is consumed, and passeth away: so he that shall go down to hell shall not come up. 7:10. Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him any more 7:11. Wherefore, I will not spare my month, I will speak in the affliction of my spirit: I will talk with the bitterness of my soul. 7:12. Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou hast inclosed me in a prison? 7:13. If I say: My bed shall comfort me, and I shall be relieved, speaking with myself on my couch: 7:14. Thou wilt frighten me with dreams, and terrify me with visions. 7:15. So that my soul rather chooseth hanging, and my bones death. 7:16. I have done with hope, I shall now live no longer: spare me, for my days are nothing. 7:17. What is a man, that thou shouldst magnify him or why dost thou set thy heart upon him? 7:18. Thou visitest him early in the morning, and thou provest him suddenly. 7:19. How long wilt thou not spare me, nor suffer me to swallow down my spittle? 7:20. I have sinned: what shall I do to thee, O keeper of men? why hast thou set me opposite to thee. and am I become burdensome to myself? 7:21. Why dost thou not remove my sin, and why dost thou not take away my iniquity? Behold now I shall sleep in the dust: and if thou seek me in the morning, I shall not be. Job Chapter 8 8:1. Then Baldad, the Suhite, answered, and said: 8:2. How long wilt thou speak these things, and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? 8:3. Doth God pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty overthrow that which is just? 8:4. Although thy children have sinned against him, and he hath left them in the hand of their iniquity: 8:5. Yet if thou wilt arise early to God, and wilt beseech the Almighty: 8:6. If thou wilt walk clean and upright, he will presently awake unto thee, and will make the dwelling of thy justice peaceable: 8:7. In so much, that if thy former things were small thy latter things would be multiplied exceedingly. 8:8. For inquire of the former generation, and search diligently into the memory of the fathers: 8:9. (For we are but of yesterday, and are ignorant that our days upon earth are but a shadow 8:10. And they shall teach thee: they shall speak to thee, and utter words out of their hearts. 8:11. Can the rush be green without moisture? or sedge bush grow without water? 8:12. When it is yet in flower, and is not plucked u with the hand, it withereth before all herbs. 8:13. Even so are the ways of all that forget God, an the hope of the hypocrite shall perish: 8:14. His folly shall not please him, and his trust shall be like the spider's web. 8:15. He shall lean upon his house, and it shall no stand: he shall prop it up, and it shall not rise: 8:16. He seemeth to have moisture before the sun cometh; and at his rising, his blossom shall shoot forth. 8:17. His roots shall be thick upon a heap of stones; and among the stones he shall abide. 8:18. If one swallow him up out of his place, he shall deny him, and shall say: I know thee not. 8:19. For this is the joy of his way, that others may spring again out of the earth. 8:20. God will not cast away the simple, nor reach out his hand to the evil doer: 8:21. Until thy mouth be filled with laughter, and thy lips with rejoicing. 8:22. They that hate thee, shall be clothed with confusion: and the dwelling of the wicked shall not stand. Job Chapter 9 9:1. And Job answered, and said: 9:2. Indeed I know it is so, and that man cannot be justified, compared with God. 9:3. If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one for a thousand. 9:4. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath resisted him, and hath had peace? 9:5. Who hath removed mountains, and they whom he overthrew in his wrath, knew it not. 9:6. Who shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. 9:7. Who commandeth the sun, and it riseth not: and shutteth up the stars, as it were, under a seal: 9:8. Who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and walketh upon the waves of the sea 9:9. Who maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and Hyades, and the inner parts of the south. Arcturus, etc. . .These are names of stars or constellations. In Hebrew, Ash, Cesil, and Cimah. See note chap. 38, ver. 31. 9:10. Who doth things great and incomprehensible, and wonderful, of which there is no number. 9:11. If he come to me, I shall not see him: if he depart, I shall not understand. 9:12. If he examine on a sudden, who shall answer him? or who can say: Why dost thou so? 9:13. God, whose wrath no man can resist, and under whom they stoop that bear up the world. 9:14. What am I then, that I should answer him, and have words with him? 9:15. I, who although I should have any just thing, would not answer, but would make supplication to my judge. 9:16. And if he should hear me when I call, I should not believe that he had heard my voice. 9:17. For he shall crush me in a whirlwind, and multiply my wounds even without cause. Without cause. . .That is, without my knowing the cause: or without any crime of mine. 9:18. He alloweth not my spirit to rest, and he filleth me with bitterness. 9:19. If strength be demanded, he is most strong: if equity of judgment, no man dare bear witness for me. 9:20. If I would justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me: if I would shew myself innocent, he shall prove me wicked. 9:21. Although I should be simple, even this my soul shall be ignorant of, and I shall be weary of my life. 9:22. One thing there is that I have spoken, both the innocent and the wicked he consumeth. 9:23. If he scourge, let him kill at once, and not laugh at the pains of the innocent. 9:24. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked, he covereth the face of the judges thereof: and if it be not he, who is it then? 9:25. My days have been swifter than a post: they have fled away and have not seen good. 9:26. They have passed by as ships carrying fruits, as an eagle flying to the prey. 9:27. If I say: I will not speak so: I change my face, and am tormented with sorrow. 9:28. I feared all my works, knowing that thou didst not spare the offender. 9:29. But if so also I am wicked, why have I laboured in vain? 9:30. If I be washed, as it were, with snow waters, and my hands shall shine ever so clean: 9:31. Yet thou shalt plunge me in filth, and my garments shall abhor me. 9:32. For I shall not answer a man that is like myself: nor one that may be heard with me equally in judgment. 9:33. There is none that may be able to reprove both, and to put his hand between both. 9:34. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me. 9:35. I will speak, and will not fear him: for I cannot answer while I am in fear. Job Chapter 10 10:1. My soul is weary of my life, I will let go my speech against myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 10:2. I will say to God: Do not condemn me: tell me why thou judgest me so? 10:3. Doth it seem good to thee that thou shouldst calumniate me, and oppress me, the work of thy own hands, and help the counsel of the wicked? 10:4. Hast thou eyes of flesh: or, shalt thou see as man seeth? 10:5. Are thy days as the days of man, and are thy years as the times of men: 10:6. That thou shouldst inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin? 10:7. And shouldst know that I have done no wicked thing, whereas there is no man that can deliver out of thy hand? 10:8. Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me wholly round about, and dost thou thus cast me down headlong on a sudden? 10:9. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and thou wilt bring me into dust 10:10. Hast thou not milked me as milk, and curdled me like cheese? 10:11. Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh: thou hast put me together with bones and sinews: 10:12. Thou hast granted me life and mercy, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit. 10:13. Although thou conceal these things in thy heart, yet I know that thou rememberest all things. 10:14. If I have sinned, and thou hast spared me for an hour: why dost thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity? 10:15. And if I be wicked, woe unto me: and if just, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery. 10:16. And for pride thou wilt take me as a lioness, and returning, thou tormentest me wonderfully. 10:17. Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and multipliest thy wrath upon me, and pains war against me. 10:18. Why didst thou bring me forth out of the womb? O that I had been consumed, that eye might not see me l 10:19. I should have been as if I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. 10:20. Shall not the fewness of my days be ended shortly? Suffer me, therefore, that I may lament my sorrow a little: 10:21. Before I go and return no more, to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death: 10:22. A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth. Job Chapter 11 Sophar reproves Job, for justifying himself, and invites him to repentance. 11:1. Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said: 11:2. Shall not he that speaketh much, hear also? or shall a man full of talk be justified? 11:3. Shall men hold their peace to thee only? and when thou hast mocked others, shall no man confute thee? 11:4. For thou hast said: My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight. 11:5. And I wish that God would speak with thee, and would open his lips to thee, 11:6. That he might shew thee the secrets of wisdom, and that his law is manifold, and thou mightest understand that he exacteth much less of thee, than thy iniquity deserveth. 11:7. Peradventure thou wilt comprehend the steps of God, and wilt find out the Almighty perfectly? 11:8. He is higher than heaven, and what wilt thou do? he is deeper than hell, and how wilt thou know? 11:9. The measure of him is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. 11:10. If he shall overturn all things, or shall press them together, who shall contradict him? 11:11. For he knoweth the vanity of men, and when he seeth iniquity, doth he not consider it? 11:12. A vain man is lifted up into pride, and thinketh himself born free like a wild ass's colt. 11:13. But thou hast hardened thy heart, and hast spread thy hands to him. 11:14. If thou wilt put away from thee the iniquity that is in thy hand, and let not injustice remain in thy tabernacle: 11:15. Then mayst thou lift up thy face without spot, and thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear. 11:16. Thou shalt also forget misery, and remember it only as waters that are passed away. 11:17. And brightness like that of the noonday, shall arise to thee at evening: and when thou shalt think thyself consumed, thou shalt rise as the day star. 11:18. And thou shalt have confidence, hope being set before thee, and being buried thou shalt sleep secure. 11:19. Thou shalt rest, and there shall be none to make thee afraid: and many shall entreat thy face. 11:20. But the eyes of the wicked shall decay, and the way to escape shall fail them, and their hope the abomination of the soul. Job Chapter 12 Job's reply to Sophar. He extols God's power and wisdom. 12:1. Then Job answered, and said: 12:2. Are you then men alone, and shall wisdom die with you? 12:3. I also have a heart as well as you: for who is ignorant of these things, which you know? 12:4. He that is mocked by his friends as I, shall call upon God and he will hear him: for the simplicity of the just man is laughed to scorn. 12:5. The lamp despised in the thoughts of the rich, is ready for the time appointed. 12:6. The tabernacles of robbers abound, and they provoke God boldly; whereas it is he that hath given all into their hands: 12:7. But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the birds of the air, and they shall tell thee. 12:8. Speak to the earth, and it shall answer thee: and the fishes of the sea shall tell. 12:9. Who is ignorant that the hand of the Lord hath made all these things? 12:10. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the spirit of all flesh of man. 12:11. Doth not the ear discern words, and the palate of him that eateth, the taste? 12:12. In the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days prudence. 12:13. With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. 12:14. If he pull down, there is no man that can build up: if he shut up a man, there is none that can open. 12:15. If he withhold the waters, all things shall be dried up: and if he send them out, they shall overturn the earth. 12:16. With him is strength and wisdom: he knoweth both the deceivers, and him that is deceived. 12:17. He bringeth counsellors to a foolish end, and judges to insensibility. 12:18. He looseth the belt of kings, and girdeth their loins with a cord. 12:19. He leadeth away priests without glory, and overthroweth nobles. 12:20. He changeth the speech of the true speakers, and taketh away the doctrine of the aged. 12:21. He poureth contempt upon princes, and relieveth them that were oppressed. 12:22. He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth up to light the shadow of death. 12:23. He multiplieth nations, and destroyeth them, and restoreth them again after they were overthrown. 12:24. He changeth the heart of the princes of the people of the earth, and deceiveth them that they walk in vain where there is no way. 12:25. They shall grope as in the dark, and not in the light, and he shall make them stagger like men that are drunk. Job Chapter 13 Job persists in maintaining his innocence: and reproves his friends. 13:1. Behold my eye hath seen all these things, and my ear hath heard them, and I have understood them all. 13:2. According to your knowledge I also know: neither am I inferior to you. 13:3. But yet I will speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. 13:4. Having first shewn that you are forgers of lies, and maintainers of perverse opinions. 13:5. And I wish you would hold your peace, that you might be thought to be wise men. 13:6. Hear ye therefore my reproof, and attend to the judgment of my lips. 13:7. Hath God any need of your lie, that you should speak deceitfully for him? 13:8. Do you accept this person, and do you endeavour to judge for God? 13:9. Or shall it please him, from whom nothing can be concealed? or shall he be deceived as a man, with your deceitful dealings? 13:10. He shall reprove you, because in secret you accept his person. 13:11. As soon as he shall move himself, he shall trouble you: and his dread shall fall upon you. 13:12. Your remembrance shall be compared to ashes, and your necks shall be brought to clay. 13:13. Hold your peace a little while, that I may speak whatsoever my mind shall suggest to me. 13:14. Why do I tear my flesh with my teeth, and carry my soul in my hands? 13:15. Although he should kill me, I will trust in him: but yet I will reprove my ways in his sight. 13:16. And he shall be my saviour: for no hypocrite shall come before his presence. 13:17. Hear ye my speech, and receive with your ears hidden truths. 13:18. If I shall be judged, I know that I shall be found just. 13:19. Who is he that will plead against me? let him come: why am I consumed holding my peace? 13:20. Two things only do not to me, and then from thy face I shall not be hid: 13:21. Withdraw thy hand far from me, and let not thy dread terrify me. 13:22. Call me, and I will answer thee: or else I will speak, and do thou answer me. 13:23. How many are my iniquities and sins? make me know my crimes and offenses. 13:24. Why hidest thou thy face, and thinkest me thy enemy? 13:25. Against a leaf, that is carried away with the wind, thou shewest thy power, and thou pursuest a dry straw. 13:26. For thou writest bitter things against me, and wilt consume me for the sins of my youth. 13:27. Thou hast put my feet in the stocks, and hast observed all my paths, and hast considered the steps of my feet: 13:28. Who am to be consumed as rottenness, and as a garment that is motheaten. Job Chapter 14 Job declares the shortness of man's days: and professes his belief of a resurrection. 14:1. Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries. 14:2. Who cometh forth like a flower, and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state. 14:3. And dost thou think it meet to open thy eyes upon such an one, and to bring him into judgment with thee? 14:4. Who can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed? is it not thou who only art? 14:5. The days of man are short, and the number of his months is with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed. 14:6. Depart a little from him, that he may rest until his wished for day come, as that of the hireling. 14:7. A tree hath hope: if it be cut, it growth green again, and the boughs thereof sprout. 14:8. If its roots be old in the earth, and its stock be dead in the dust: 14:9. At the scent of water, it shall spring, and bring forth leaves, as when it was first planted. 14:10. But man when he shall be dead, and stripped and consumed, I pray you where is he? 14:11. As if the waters should depart out of the sea, and an emptied river should be dried up; 14:12. So man when he is fallen asleep shall not rise again; till the heavens be broken, he shall not awake, nor rise up out of his sleep. 14:13. Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell, and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me? That thou mayst protect me in hell. . .That is, in the state of the dead; and in the place where the souls are kept waiting for their Redeemer. 14:14. Shall man that is dead, thinkest thou, live again? all the days in which I am now in warfare, I expect until my change come. 14:15. Thou shalt call me, and I will answer thee: to the work of thy hands thou shalt reach out thy right hand. 14:16. Thou indeed hast numbered my steps, but spare my sins. 14:17. Thou hast sealed up my offences as it were in a bag, but hast cured my iniquity. 14:18. A mountain falling cometh to nought, and a rock is removed out of its place. 14:19. Waters wear away the stones, and with inundation the ground by little and little is washed away: so in like manner thou shalt destroy man. 14:20. Thou hast strengthened him for a little while, that he may pass away for ever: thou shalt change his face, and shalt send him away. 14:21. Whether his children come to honour or dishonour, he shall not understand. 14:22. But yet his flesh, while he shall live, shall have pain, and his soul shall mourn over him. Job Chapter 15 Eliphaz returns to the charge against Job, and describes the wretched state of the wicked. 15:1. And Eliphaz the Themanite, answered, and said: 15:2. Will a wise man answer as if he were speaking in the wind, and fill his stomach with burning heat? 15:3. Thou reprovest him by words, who is not equal to thee, and thou speakest that which is not good for thee. 15:4. As much as is in thee, thou hast made void fear, and hast taken away prayers from before God. Thou hast made void fear. . .That is, cast off the fear of offending God. 15:5. For thy iniquity hath taught thy mouth, and thou imitatest the tongue of blasphemers. 15:6. Thy own mouth shall condemn thee, and not I: and thy own lips shall answer thee. 15:7. Art thou the first man that was born, or wast thou made before the hills? 15:8. Hast thou heard God's counsel, and shall his wisdom be inferior to thee? 15:9. What knowest thou that we are ignorant of? what dost thou understand that we know not? 15:10. There are with us also aged and ancient men, much elder than thy fathers. 15:11. Is it a great matter that God should comfort thee? but thy wicked words hinder this. 15:12. Why doth thy heart elevate thee, and why dost thou stare with thy eyes, as if they were thinking great things? 15:13. Why doth thy spirit swell against God, to utter such words out of thy mouth? 15:14. What is man that he should be without spot, and he that is born of a woman that he should appear just? 15:15. Behold among his saints none is unchangeable, and the heavens are not pure in his sight. 15:16. How much more is man abominable, and unprofitable, who drinketh iniquity like water? 15:17. I will shew thee, hear me: and I will tell thee what I have seen. 15:18. Wise men confess and hide not their fathers. Wise men confess and hide not their fathers. . .That is, the knowledge and documents they have received from their fathers they are not ashamed to own. 15:19. To whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger hath passed among them. 15:20. The wicked man is proud all his days, and the number of the years of his tyranny is uncertain. 15:21. The sound of dread is always in his ears: and when there is peace, he always suspecteth treason. 15:22. He believeth not that he may return from darkness to light, looking round about for the sword on every side. 15:23. When he moveth himself to seek bread, he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 15:24. Tribulation shall terrify him, and distress shall surround him, as a king that is prepared for the battle. 15:25. For he hath stretched out his hand against God, and hath strengthened himself against the Almighty. 15:26. He hath run against him with his neck raised up, and is armed with a fat neck. 15:27. Fatness hath covered his face, and the fat hangeth down on his sides. 15:28. He hath dwelt in desolate cities, and in desert houses that are reduced into heaps. 15:29. He shall not be enriched, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he push his root in the earth. 15:30. He shall not depart out of darkness: the flame shall dry up his branches, and he shall be taken away by the breath of his own mouth. 15:31. He shall not believe, being vainly deceived by error, that he may be redeemed with any price. 15:32. Before his days be full he shall perish: and his hands shall wither away. 15:33. He shall be blasted as a vine when its grapes are in the first flower, and as an olive tree that casteth its flower. 15:34. For the congregation of the hypocrite is barren, and fire shall devour their tabernacles, who love to take bribes. 15:35. He hath conceived sorrow, and hath brought forth iniquity, and his womb prepareth deceits. Job Chapter 16 Job expostulates with his friends: and appeals to the judgment of God. 16:1. Then Job answered, and said: 16:2. I have often heard such things as these: you are all troublesome comforters. 16:3. Shall windy words have no end? or is it any trouble to thee to speak? 16:4. I also could speak like you: and would God your soul were for my soul. 16:5. I would comfort you also with words, and would wag my head over you. 16:6. I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as sparing you. 16:7. But what shall I do? If I speak, my pain will not rest: and if I hold my peace, it will not depart from me. 16:8. But now my sorrow hath oppressed me, and all my limbs are brought to nothing. 16:9. My wrinkles bear witness against me, and a false speaker riseth up against my face, contradicting me. 16:10. He hath gathered together his fury against me, and threatening me he hath gnashed with his teeth upon me: my enemy hath beheld me with terrible eyes. 16:11. They have opened their mouths upon me, and reproaching me they have struck me on the cheek, they are filled with my pains. 16:12. God hath shut me up with the unjust man, and hath delivered me into the hands of the wicked. 16:13. I that was formerly so wealthy, am all on a sudden broken to pieces: he hath taken me by my neck, he hath broken me, and hath set me up to be his mark. 16:14. He hath compassed me round about with his lances, he hath wounded my loins, he hath not spared, and hath poured out my bowels on the earth, 16:15. He hath torn me with wound upon wound, he hath rushed in upon me like a giant. 16:16. I have sowed sackcloth upon my skin, and have covered my flesh with ashes. 16:17. My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim. 16:18. These things have I suffered without the iniquity of my hand, when I offered pure prayers to God. 16:19. O earth, cover not thou my blood, neither let my cry find a hiding place in thee. 16:20. For behold my witness is in heaven, and he that knoweth my conscience is on high. 16:21. My friends are full of words: my eye poureth out tears to God. 16:22. And O that a man might so be judged with God, as the son of man is judged with his companion! 16:23. For behold short years pass away, and I am walking in a path by which I shall not return. Job Chapter 17 Job's hope in God: he expects rest in death. 17:1. My spirit shall be wasted, my days shall be shortened and only the grave remaineth for me. 17:2. I have not sinned, and my eye abideth in bitterness. Not sinned. . .That is, I am not guilty of such sins as they charge me with. 17:3. Deliver me, O Lord, and set me beside thee, and let any man's hand fight against me. 17:4. Thou hast set their heart far from understanding, therefore they shall not be exalted. 17:5. He promiseth a prey to his companions, and the eyes of his children shall fail. 17:6. He hath made me as it were a byword of the people, and I am an example before them. 17:7. My eye is dim through indignation, and my limbs are brought as it were to nothing. 17:8. The just shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall be raised up against the hypocrite. 17:9. And the just man shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. 17:10. Wherefore be you all converted, and come, and I shall not find among you any wise man. 17:11. My days have passed away, my thoughts are dissipated, tormenting my heart. 17:12. They have turned night into day, and after darkness I hope for light again. 17:13. If I wait hell is my house, and I have made my bed in darkness. Hell. . .Sheol. The region of the dead. 17:14. I have said to rottenness: Thou art my father; to worms, my mother and my sister. 17:15. Where is now then my expectation, and who considereth my patience? 17:16. All that I have shall go down into the deepest pit: thinkest thou that there at least I shall have rest? Deepest pit. . .Literally, hell. Job Chapter 18 Baldad again reproves Job and describes the miseries of the wicked. 18:1. Then Baldad the Suhite answered, and said: 18:2. How long will you throw out words? understand first, and so let us speak. 18:3. Why are we reputed as beasts, and counted vile before you? 18:4. Thou that destroyest thy soul in thy fury, shall the earth be forsaken for thee, and shall rocks be removed out of their place? 18:5. Shall not the light of the wicked be extinguished, and the flame of his fire not shine? 18:6. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and the lamp that is over him, shall be put out. 18:7. The step of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down headlong. 18:8. For he hath thrust his feet into a net, and walketh in its meshes. 18:9. The sole of his foot shall be held in a snare, and thirst shall burn against him. 18:10. A gin is hidden for him in the earth, and his trap upon the path. 18:11. Fears shall terrify him on every side, and shall entangle his feet. 18:12. Let his strength be wasted with famine, and let hunger invade his ribs. 18:13. Let it devour the beauty of his skin, let the firstborn death consume his arms. 18:14. Let his confidence be rooted out of his tabernacle, and let destruction tread upon him like a king. 18:15. Let the companions of him that is not, dwell in his tabernacle, let brimstone be sprinkled in his tent. 18:16. Let his roots be dried up beneath, and his harvest destroyed above. 18:17. Let the memory of him perish from the earth, and let not his name be renowned in the streets. 18:18. He shall drive him out of light into darkness, and shall remove him out of the world. 18:19. His seed shall not subsist, nor his offspring among his people, nor any remnants in his country. 18:20. They that come after him shall be astonished at his day, and horror shall fall upon them that went before. 18:21. These then are the tabernacles of the wicked, and this the place of him that knoweth not God. Job Chapter 19 Job complains of the cruelty of his friends; he describes his own sufferings: and his belief of a future resurrection. 19:1. Then Job answered, and said: 19:2. How long do you afflict my soul, and break me in pieces with words? 19:3. Behold, these ten times you confound me, and are not ashamed to oppress me. 19:4. For if I have been ignorant, my ignorance shall be with me. 19:5. But you set yourselves up against me, and reprove me with my reproaches. 19:6. At least now understand, that God hath not afflicted me with an equal judgment, and compassed me with his scourges. With an equal judgment. . .St. Gregory explains these words thus: Job being a just man, and truly considering his own life, thought that his affliction was greater than his sins deserved: and in that respect, that the punishment was not equal, yet it was just, as coming from God, who gives a crown of justice to those who suffer for righteousness' sake, and proves the just with tribulations, as gold is tried by fire. 19:7. Behold I shall cry suffering violence, and no one will hear: I shall cry aloud, and there is none to judge. 19:8. He hath hedged in my path round about, and I cannot pass, and in my way he hath set darkness. 19:9. He hath stripped me of my glory, and hath taken the crown from my head. 19:10. He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am lost, and he hath taken away my hope, as from a tree that is plucked up. 19:11. His wrath is kindled against me, and he hath counted me as his enemy. 19:12. His troops have come together, and have made themselves a way by me, and have besieged my tabernacle round about. 19:13. He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance like strangers have departed from me. 19:14. My kinsmen have forsaken me, and they that knew me, have forgotten me. 19:15. They that dwell in my house, and my maidservants have counted me as a stranger, and I have been like an alien in their eyes. 19:16. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer, I entreated him with my own mouth. 19:17. My wife hath abhorred my breath, and I entreated the children of my womb. 19:18. Even fools despised me, and when I was gone from them, they spoke against me. 19:19. They that were sometime my counsellors, have abhorred me: and he whom I loved most is turned against me. 19:20. The flesh being consumed, my bone hath cleaved to my skin, and nothing but lips are left about my teeth. 19:21. Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me. 19:22. Why do you persecute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh? 19:23. Who will grant me that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book? 19:24. With an iron pen and in a plate of lead, or else be graven with an instrument in flint stone? 19:25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. Ver. 25, 26, and 27 shew Job's explicit belief in his Redeemer, and also of the resurrection of the flesh, not as one tree riseth in place of another, but that the selfsame flesh shall rise at the last day, by the power of God, changed in quality but not in substance, every one to receive sentence according to his works in this life. 19:26. And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. 19:27. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom. 19:28. Why then do you say now: Let us persecute him, and let us find occasion of word against him? 19:29. Flee then from the face of the sword, for the sword is the revenger of iniquities: and know ye that there is a judgment. Job Chapter 20 Sophar declares the shortness of the prosperity of the wicked: and their sudden downfall. 20:1. Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said: 20:2. Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things. 20:3. The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me. 20:4. This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth, 20:5. That the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. 20:6. If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds: 20:7. In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that had seen him, shall say: Where is he? 20:8. As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night: 20:9. The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him. 20:10. His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render to him his sorrow. 20:11. His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust. 20:12. For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue. 20:13. He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat. 20:14. His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him, 20:15. The riches which he hath swallowed, he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly. 20:16. He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill him. 20:17. Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter. 20:18. He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he suffer. According to the multitude of his devices. . .That is, his stratagems to gratify his passions and to oppress and destroy the poor. 20:19. Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build. 20:20. And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them. 20:21. There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods: 20:22. When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him. 20:23. May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him. 20:24. He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass. 20:25. The sword is drawn out, and cometh forth from its scabbard, and glittereth in his bitterness: the terrible ones shall go and come upon him. 20:26. All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is not kindled shall devour him, he shall be afflicted when left in his tabernacle. 20:27. The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him. 20:28. The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God's wrath. 20:29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord. Job Chapter 21 Job shews that the wicked often prosper in this world, even to the end of their life: but that their judgment is in another world. 21:1. Then Job answered, and said: 21:2. Hear, I beseech you, my words, and do penance. 21:3. Suffer me, and I will speak, and after, if you please, laugh at my words. 21:4. Is my debate against man, that I should not have just reason to be troubled? 21:5. Hearken to me and be astonished, and lay your finger on your mouth. 21:6. As for me, when I remember, I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh. 21:7. Why then do the wicked live, are they advanced, and strengthened with riches? 21:8. Their seed continueth before them, a multitude of kinsmen, and of children's children in their sight. 21:9. Their houses are secure and peaceable, and the rod of God is not upon them. 21:10. Their cattle have conceived, and failed not: their cow has calved, and is not deprived of her fruit. 21:11. Their little ones go out like a flock, and their children dance and play. 21:12. They take the timbrel, and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. 21:13. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell. 21:14. Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. 21:15. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what doth it profit us if we pray to him? 21:16. Yet because their good things are not in their hand, may the counsel of the wicked be far from me. 21:17. How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and he shall distribute the sorrows of his wrath? 21:18. They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. 21:19. God shall lay up the sorrow of the father for his children: and when he shall repay, then shall he know. 21:20. His eyes shall see his own destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21:21. For what is it to him what befalleth his house after him: and if the number of his months be diminished by one half? 21:22. Shall any one teach God knowledge, who judgeth those that are high? 21:23. One man dieth strong, and hale, rich and happy. 21:24. His bowels are full of fat, and his bones are moistened with marrow. 21:25. But another dieth in bitterness of soul without any riches: 21:26. And yet they shall sleep together in the dust, and worms shall cover them. 21:27. Surely I know your thoughts, and your unjust judgments against me. 21:28. For you say: Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked? 21:29. Ask any one of them that go by the way, and you shall perceive that he knoweth these same things. 21:30. Because the wicked man is reserved to the day of destruction, and he shall be brought to the day of wrath. 21:31. Who shall reprove his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done? 21:32. He shall be brought to the graves, and shall watch in the heap of the dead. 21:33. He hath been acceptable to the gravel of Cocytus, and he shall draw every man after him, and there are innumerable before him. Acceptable to the gravel of Cocytus. . .The Hebrew word, which St. Jerome has here rendered by the name Cocytus, (which the poets represent as a river in hell,) signifies a valley or a torrent: and in this place, is taken for the low region of death and hell: which willingly, as it were, receives the wicked at their death: who are ushered in by innumerable others that have gone before them; and are followed by multitudes above number. 21:34. How then do ye comfort me in vain, whereas your answer is shewn to be repugnant to truth? Job Chapter 22 Eliphaz falsely imputes many crimes to Job, but promises him prosperity if he will repent. 22:1. Then Eliphaz the Themanite answered, and said: 22:2. Can man be compared with God, even though he were of perfect knowledge? 22:3. What doth it profit God if thou be just? or what dost thou give him if thy way be unspotted? 22:4. Shall he reprove thee for fear, and come with thee into judgment: 22:5. And not for thy manifold wickedness and thy infinite iniquities? 22:6. For thou hast taken away the pledge of thy brethren without cause, and stripped the naked of their clothing. 22:7. Thou hast not given water to the weary, thou hast withdrawn bread from the hungry. 22:8. In the strength of thy arm thou didst possess the land, and being the most mighty thou holdest it. 22:9. Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless thou hast broken in pieces. 22:10. Therefore art thou surrounded with shares, and sudden fear troubleth thee. 22:11. And didst thou think that thou shouldst not see darkness, and that thou shouldst not be covered with the violence of overflowing waters? 22:12. Dost not thou think that God is higher than heaven, and is elevated above the height of the stars? 22:13. And thou sayst: What doth God know? and he judgeth as it were through a mist. 22:14. The clouds are his covert, and he doth not consider our things, and he walketh about the poles of heaven. 22:15. Dost thou desire to keep the path of ages, which wicked men have trodden? 22:16. Who were taken away before their time, and a flood hath overthrown their foundation. 22:17. Who said to God: Depart from us: and looked upon the Almighty as if he could do nothing: 22:18. Whereas he had filled their houses with good things: whose way of thinking be far from me. 22:19. The just shall see, and shall rejoice, and the innocent shall laugh them to scorn. 22:20. Is not their exaltation cut down, and hath not fire devoured the remnants of them? 22:21. Submit thyself then to him, and be at peace: and thereby thou shalt have the best fruits. 22:22. Receive the law of his mouth, and lay up his words in thy heart. 22:23. If thou wilt return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, and shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacle. 22:24. He shall give for earth flint, and for flint torrents of gold. 22:25. And the Almighty shall be against thy enemies, and silver shall be heaped together for thee. 22:26. Then shalt thou abound in delights in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face to God. 22:27. Thou shalt pray to him, and he will hear thee, and thou shalt pay vows. 22:28. Thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall come to thee, and light shall shine in thy ways. 22:29. For he that hath been humbled, shall be in glory: and he that shall bow down his eyes, he shall be saved. 22:30. The innocent shall be saved, and he shall be saved by the cleanness of his hands. Job Chapter 23 Job wishes to be tried at God's tribunal. 23:1. Then Job answered, and said: 23:2. Now also my words are in bitterness, and the hand of my scourge is more grievous than my mourning. 23:3. Who will grant me that I might know and find him, and come even to his throne? 23:4. I would set judgment before him, and would fill my mouth with complaints. 23:5. That I might know the words that he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. 23:6. I would not that he should contend with me with much strength, nor overwhelm me with the weight of his greatness. 23:7. Let him propose equity against me, and let my judgment come to victory. 23:8. But if I go to the east, he appeareth not; if to the west, I shall not understand him. 23:9. If to the left hand, what shall I do? I shall not take hold on him: if I turn myself to the right hand, I shall not see him. 23:10. But he knoweth my way, and has tried me as gold that passeth through the fire: 23:11. My foot hath followed his steps, I have kept his way, and have not declined from it. 23:12. I have not departed from the commandments of his lips, and the words of his mouth I have hid in my bosom. 23:13. For he is alone, and no man can turn away his thought: and whatsoever his soul hath desired, that hath he done. 23:14. And when he shall have fulfilled his will in me, many other like things are also at hand with him. 23:15. And therefore I am troubled at his presence, and when I consider him I am made pensive with fear. 23:16. God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath troubled me. 23:17. For I have not perished because of the darkness that hangs over me, neither hath the mist covered my face. Job Chapter 24 God's providence often suffers the wicked to go on a long time in their sins: but punisheth them in another life. 24:1. Times are not hid from the Almighty: but they that know him, know not his days. 24:2. Some have removed landmarks, have taken away flocks by force, and fed them. 24:3. They have driven away the ass of the fatherless, and have taken away the widow's ox for a pledge. 24:4. They have overturned the way of the poor, and have oppressed together the meek of the earth. 24:5. Others like wild asses in the desert go forth to their work: by watching for a prey they get bread for their children. 24:6. They reap the field that is not their own, and gather the vintage of his vineyard whom by violence they have oppressed. 24:7. They send men away naked, taking away their clothes who have no covering in the cold: 24:8. Who are wet, with the showers of the mountains, and having no covering embrace the stones. 24:9. They have violently robbed the fatherless, and stripped the poor common people. 24:10. From the naked and them that go without clothing, and from the hungry they have taken away the ears of corn. 24:11. They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them, who after having trodden the winepresses suffer thirst. 24:12. Out of the cities they have made men to groan, and the soul of the wounded hath cried out, and God doth not suffer it to pass unrevenged. 24:13. They have been rebellious to the light, they have not known his ways, neither have they returned by his paths. 24:14. The murderer riseth at the very break of day, he killeth the needy, and the poor man: but in the night he will be as a thief. 24:15. The eye of the adulterer observeth darkness, saying: No eye shall see me: and he will cover his face. 24:16. He diggeth through houses in the dark, as in the day they had appointed for themselves, and they have not known the light. 24:17. If the morning suddenly appear, it is to them the shadow of death: and they walk in darkness as if it were in light. 24:18. He is light upon the face of the water: cursed be his portion on the earth, let him not walk by the way of the vineyards. 24:19. Let him pass from the snow waters to excessive heat, and his sin even to hell. 24:20. Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness: let him be remembered no more, but be broken in pieces as an unfruitful tree. 24:21. For he hath fed the barren that beareth not, and to the widow he hath done no good. 24:22. He hath pulled down the strong by his might: and when he standeth up, he shall not trust to his life. 24:23. God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride: but his eyes are upon his ways. 24:24. They are lifted up for a little while and shall not stand, and shall be brought down as all things, and shall be taken away, and as the tops of the ears of corn they shall be broken. 24:25. And if it be not so, who can convince me that I have lied, and set my words before God? Job Chapter 25 God's providence often suffers the wicked to go on a long time in their sins: but punisheth them in another life. 25:1. Then Baldad the Suhite answered, and I said: 25:2. Power and terror are with him, who maketh peace in his high places. 25:3. Is there any numbering of his soldiers? and upon whom shall not his light arise? 25:4. Can man be justified compared with God, or he that is born of a woman appear clean? 25:5. Behold even the moon doth not shine, and the stars are not pure in his sight. 25:6. How much less man that is rottenness and the son of man who is a worm? Job Chapter 26 Job declares his sentiments of the wisdom and power of God. 26:1. Then Job answered, and said: 26:2. Whose helper art thou? is it of him that is weak? and dost thou hold up the arm of him that has no strength? 26:3. To whom hast thou given counsel? perhaps to him that hath no wisdom, and thou hast shewn thy very great prudence. 26:4. Whom hast thou desired to teach? was it not him that made life? 26:5. Behold the giants groan under the waters, and they that dwell with them. 26:6. Hell is naked before him, and there is no covering for destruction. 26:7. He stretched out the north over the empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. 26:8. He bindeth up the waters in his clouds, so that they break not out and fall down together. 26:9. He withholdeth the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud over it. 26:10. He hath set bounds about the waters, till light and darkness come to an end. 26:11. The pillars of heaven tremble, and dread at his beck. 26:12. By his power the seas are suddenly gathered together, and his wisdom has struck the proud one. 26:13. His spirit hath adorned the heavens, and his obstetric hand brought forth the winding serpent. His obstetric hand brought forth the winding serpent. . .That is, the omnipotent power of God: which brought forth all things created in time, but conceived in the Divine mind from all eternity. The winding serpent, a constellation of fixed stars winding round the north pole, called Draco. This appears from the foregoing part of the same verse, His spirit hath adorned the heavens. 26:14. Lo, these things are said in part of his ways: and seeing we have heard scarce a little drop of his word, who shall be able to behold the thunder of his greatness? Job Chapter 27 Job persists in asserting his own innocence, and that hypocrites will be punished in the end. 27:1. Job also added, taking up his parable, and said: 27:2. As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment, and the Almighty, who hath brought my soul to bitterness, 27:3. As long as breath remaineth in me, and the spirit of God in my nostrils, 27:4. My lips shall not speak iniquity, neither shall my tongue contrive lying. 27:5. God forbid that I should judge you to be just: till I die I will not depart from my innocence. 27:6. My justification, which I have begun to hold, I will not forsake: for my heart doth not reprehend me in all my life. 27:7. Let my enemy be as the ungodly, and my adversary as the wicked one. 27:8. For what is the hope of the hypocrite if through covetousness he take by violence, and God deliver not his soul? 27:9. Will God hear his cry, when distress shall come upon him? 27:10. Or can he delight himself in the Almighty, and call upon God at all times? 27:11. I will teach you by the hand of God, what the Almighty hath, and I will not conceal it. 27:12. Behold you all know it, and why do you speak vain things without cause? 27:13. This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the inheritance of the violent, which they shall receive of the Almighty. 27:14. If his sons be multiplied, they shall be for the sword, and his grandsons shall not be filled with bread. 27:15. They that shall remain of him, shall be buried in death, and his widows shall not weep. 27:16. If he shall heap together silver as earth, and prepare raiment as clay, 27:17. He shall prepare indeed, but the just man shall be clothed with it: and the innocent shall divide the silver. 27:18. He hath built his house as a moth, and as a keeper he hath made a booth. 27:19. The rich man when he shall sleep shall take away nothing with him: he shall open his eyes and find nothing. 27:20. Poverty like water shall take hold on him, a tempest shall oppress him in the night: 27:21. A burning wind shall take him up, and carry him away, and as a whirlwind shall snatch him from his place. 27:22. And he shall cast upon him, and shall not spare: out of his hand he would willingly flee. 27:23. He shall clasp his hands upon him, and shall hiss at him, beholding his place. Job Chapter 28 Man's industry searcheth out many things: true wisdom is taught by God alone. 28:1. Silver hath beginnings of its veins, and gold hath a place wherein it is melted. 28:2. Iron is taken out of the earth, and stone melted with heat is turned into brass. 28:3. He hath set a time for darkness, and the end of all things he considereth, the stone also that is in the dark and the shadow of death. 28:4. The flood divideth from the people that are on their journey, those whom the food of the needy man hath forgotten, and who cannot be come at. 28:5. The land, out of which bread grew in its place, hath been overturned with fire. 28:6. The stones of it are the place of sapphires, and the clods of it are gold. 28:7. The bird hath not known the path, neither hath the eye of the vulture beheld it. 28:8. The children of the merchants have not trodden it, neither hath the lioness passed by it. 28:9. He hath stretched forth his hand to the flint, he hath overturned mountains from the roots. 28:10. In the rocks he hath cut out rivers, and his eye hath seen every precious thing. 28:11. The depths also of rivers he hath searched, and hidden things he hath brought forth to light. 28:12. But where is wisdom to be found, and where is the place of understanding? 28:13. Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of them that live in delights. 28:14. The depth saith: It is not in me: and the sea saith: It is not with me. 28:15. The finest gold shall not purchase it, neither shall silver be weighed in exchange for it. 28:16. It shall not be compared with the dyed colours of India, or with the most precious stone sardonyx, or the sapphire. 28:17. Gold or crystal cannot equal it, neither shall any vessels of gold be changed for it. 28:18. High and eminent things shall not be mentioned in comparison of it: but wisdom is drawn out of secret places. 28:19. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not be equal to it, neither shall it be compared to the cleanest dyeing. 28:20. Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? 28:21. It is hid from the eyes of all living, and the fowls of the air know it not. 28:22. Destruction and death have said: With our ears we have heard the fame thereof. 28:23. God understandeth the way of it, and he knoweth the place thereof. 28:24. For he beholdeth the ends of the world: and looketh on all things that are under heaven. 28:25. Who made a weight for the winds, and weighed the waters by measure. 28:26. When he gave a law for the rain, and a way for the sounding storms. 28:27. Then he saw it, and declared, and prepared, and searched it. 28:28. And he said to man: Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil, is understanding. Job Chapter 29 Job relates his former happiness, and the respect that all men shewed him. 29:1. Job also added, taking up his parable, and said: 29:2. Who will grant me, that I might be according to the months past, according to the days in which God kept me? 29:3. When his lamp shined over my head, and I walked by his light in darkness? 29:4. As I was in the days of my youth, when God was secretly in my tabernacle? 29:5. When the Almighty was with me: and my servants round about me? 29:6. When I washed my feet with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil? 29:7. When I went out to the gate of the city, and in the street they prepared me a chair? 29:8. The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the old men rose up and stood. 29:9. The princes ceased to speak, and laid the finger on their mouth. 29:10. The rulers held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to their throat. 29:11. The ear that heard me blessed me, and the eye that saw me gave witness to me: 29:12. Because I had delivered the poor man that cried out; and the fatherless, that had no helper. 29:13. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I comforted the heart of the widow. 29:14. I was clad with justice: and I clothed myself with my judgment, as with a robe and a diadem. 29:15. I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame. 29:16. I was the father of the poor: and the cause which I knew not, I searched out most diligently. 29:17. I broke the jaws of the wicked man, and out of his teeth I took away the prey. 29:18. And I said: I shall die in my nest, and as a palm tree shall multiply my days. 29:19. My root is opened beside the waters, and dew shall continue in my harvest. 29:20. My glory shall always be renewed, and my bow in my hand shall be repaired. 29:21. They that heard me, waited for my sentence, and being attentive held their peace at my counsel. 29:22. To my words they durst add nothing, and my speech dropped upon them. 29:23. They waited for me as for rain, and they opened their mouth as for a latter shower. 29:24. If at any time I laughed on them, they believed not, and the light of my countenance fell not on earth. 29:25. If I had a mind to go to them, I sat first, and when I sat as a king, with his army standing about him, yet I was a comforter of them that mourned. Job Chapter 30 Job shews the wonderful change of his temporal estate, from welfare to great calamity. 30:1. But now the younger in time scorn me, whose fathers I would not have set with the dogs of my flock: But now the younger in time. . .That is, younger than I am, and as it were obscure, when I was conspicuous and in magnificence; they now look down on me. 30:2. The strength of whose hands was to me as nothing, and they were thought unworthy of life itself. 30:3. Barren with want and hunger, who gnawed in the wilderness, disfigured with calamity and misery. 30:4. And they ate grass, and barks of trees, and the root of junipers was their food. 30:5. Who snatched up these things out of the valleys, and when they had found any of them, they ran to them with a cry. 30:6. They dwelt in the desert places of torrents, and in caves of earth, or upon the gravel. 30:7. They pleased themselves among these kind of things, and counted it delightful to be under the briers. 30:8. The children of foolish and base men, and not appearing at all upon the earth. 30:9. Now I am turned into their song, and am become their byword. 30:10. They abhor me, and flee far from me, and are not afraid to spit in my face. 30:11. For he hath opened his quiver, and hath afflicted me, and hath put a bridle into my mouth. 30:12. At the right hand of my rising, my calamities forthwith arose: they have overthrown my feet, and have overwhelmed me with their paths as with waves. 30:13. They have destroyed my ways, they have lain in wait against me, and they have prevailed, and there was none to help. 30:14. They have rushed in upon me, as when a wall is broken, and a gate opened, and have rolled themselves down to my miseries. 30:15. I am brought to nothing: as a wind thou hast taken away my desire: and my prosperity hath passed away like a cloud. 30:16. And now my soul fadeth within myself, and the days of affliction possess me. 30:17. In the night my bone is pierced with sorrows: and they that feed upon me, do not sleep. 30:18. With the multitude of them my garment is consumed, and they have girded me about, as with the collar of my coat. 30:19. I am compared to dirt, and am likened to embers and ashes. 30:20. I cry to thee, and thou hearest me not: I stand up, and thou dost not regard me. 30:21. Thou art changed to be cruel toward me, and in the hardness of thy hand thou art against me. 30:22. Thou hast lifted me up, and set me as it were upon the wind, and thou hast mightily dashed me. 30:23. I know that thou wilt deliver me to death, where a house is appointed for every one that liveth. 30:24. But yet thou stretchest not forth thy hand to their consumption: and if they shall fall down thou wilt save. 30:25. I wept heretofore for him that was afflicted, and my soul had compassion on the poor. 30:26. I expected good things, and evils are come upon me: I waited for light, and darkness broke out. 30:27. My inner parts have boiled without any rest, the days of affliction have prevented me. 30:28. I went mourning without indignation; I rose up, and cried in the crowd. 30:29. I was the brother of dragons, and companion of ostriches. Brother of dragons, etc. . .Imitating these creatures in their lamentable noise. 30:30. My skin is become black upon me, and my bones are dried up with heat. 30:31. My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep. Job Chapter 31 Job, to defend himself from the unjust judgments of his friends, gives a sincere account of his own virtues. 31:1. I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. 31:2. For what part should God from above have in me, and what inheritance the Almighty from on high? 31:3. Is not destruction to the wicked, and aversion to them that work iniquity? 31:4. Doth not he consider my ways, and number all my steps? 31:5. If I have walked in vanity, and my foot hath made haste to deceit: 31:6. Let him weigh me in a just balance, and let God know my simplicity. 31:7. If my step hath turned out of the way, and if my heart hath followed my eyes, and if a spot hath cleaved to my hands: 31:8. Then let me sow and let another reap: and let my offspring be rooted out. 31:9. If my heart hath been deceived upon a woman, and if I have laid wait at my friend's door: 31:10. Let my wife be the harlot of another, and let other men lie with her. 31:11. For this is a heinous crime, and a most grievous iniquity. 31:12. It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring. 31:13. If I have despised to abide judgment with my manservant, or my maidservant, when they had any controversy against me: 31:14. For what shall I do when God shall rise to judge? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him? 31:15. Did not he that made me in the womb make him also: and did not one and the same form me in the womb? 31:16. If I have denied to the poor what they desired, and have made the eyes of the widow wait: 31:17. If I have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof: 31:18. (For from my infancy mercy grew up with me: and it came out with me from my mother's womb:) 31:19. If I have despised him that was perishing for want of clothing, and the poor man that had no covering: 31:20. If his sides have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep: 31:21. If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, even when I saw myself superior in the gate: 31:22. Let my shoulder fall from its joint, and let my arm with its bones be broken. 31:23. For I have always feared God as waves swelling over me, and his weight I was unable to bear. 31:24. If I have thought gold my strength, and have said to fine gold: My confidence: 31:25. If I have rejoiced over my great riches, and because my hand had gotten much. 31:26. If I beheld the sun when it shined and the moon going in brightness: If I beheld the sun, etc. . .If I behold the sun and moon with admiration, knowing them to be created and governed by the power of God, I call on my adversaries to produce any thing against me, whereby I could be charged with worshipping the sun or moon. 31:27. And my heart in secret hath rejoiced, and I have kissed my hand with, my mouth: 31:28. Which is a very great iniquity, and a denial against the most high God. 31:29. If I have been glad at the downfall of him that hated me, and have rejoiced that evil had found him. 31:30. For I have not given my mouth to sin, by wishing a curse to his soul. 31:31. If the men of my tabernacle have not said: Who will give us of his flesh that we may be filled? 31:32. The stranger did not stay without, my door was open to the traveller. 31:33. If as a man I have hid my sin, and have concealed my iniquity in my bosom. 31:34. If I have been afraid at a very great multitude, and the contempt of kinsmen hath terrified me: and have not rather held my peace, and not gone out of the door. 31:35. Who would grant me a hearing, that the Almighty may hear my desire: and that he himself that judgeth would write a book, 31:36. That I may carry it on my shoulder, and put it about me as a crown? 31:37. At every step of mine I would pronounce it, and offer it as to a prince. 31:38. If my land cry against me, and with it the furrows thereof mourn: 31:39. If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, and have afflicted the son of the tillers thereof: 31:40. Let thistles grow up to me instead of wheat, and thorns instead of barley. The words of Job are ended. Job Chapter 32 Eliu is angry with Job and his friends. He boasts of himself. 32:1. So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he seemed just to himself. 32:2. And Eliu the son of Barachel the Buzite of the kindred of Ram, was angry and was moved to indignation: now he was angry against Job, because he said he was just before God. 32:3. And he was angry with his friends, because they had not found a reasonable answer, but only had condemned Job. 32:4. So Eliu waited while Job was speaking because they were his elders that were speaking. 32:5. But when he saw that the three were not able to answer, he was exceedingly angry. 32:6. Then Eliu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered, and said: I am younger in days, and you are more ancient, therefore hanging down my head, I was afraid to shew you my opinion. 32:7. For I hoped that greater age would speak, and that a multitude of years would teach wisdom. 32:8. But, as I see, there is a spirit in men, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding. 32:9. They that are aged are not the wise men, neither do the ancients understand judgment. 32:10. Therefore I will speak: Hearken to me, I also will shew you my wisdom. 32:11. For I have waited for your words, I have given ear to your wisdom, as long as you were disputing in words. 32:12. And as long as I thought you said some thing, I considered: but, as I see, there is none of you that can convince Job, and answer his words. 32:13. Lest you should say: We have found wisdom, God hath cast him down, not man. 32:14. He hath spoken nothing to me, and I will not answer him according to your words. 32:15. They were afraid, and answered no more, and they left off speaking. 32:16. Therefore because I have waited, and they have not spoken: they stood, and answered no more: 32:17. I also will answer my part, and will shew my knowledge. 32:18. For I am full of matter to speak of, and the spirit of my bowels straiteneth me. 32:19. Behold, my belly is as new wine which wanteth vent, which bursteth the new vessels. 32:20. I will speak and take breath a little: I will open my lips, and will answer. 32:21. I will not accept the person of man, and I will not level God with man. I will not level God with man. . .Here Eliu considers that Job hath put himself on a level with God, by the manner he assumed to justify his own life in speaking to God as if he spoke to an equal: Eliu expresses in the following ver. 22 his fear of punishment hereafter for such an attempt. 32:22. For I know not how long I shall continue, and whether after a while my Maker may take me away. Job Chapter 33 Eliu blames Job for asserting his own innocence. 33:1. Hear therefore, O Job, my speeches, and hearken to all my words. 33:2. Behold now I have opened my mouth, let my tongue speak within my jaws. 33:3. My words are from my upright heart, and my lips shall speak a pure sentence. 33:4. The spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life. 33:5. If thou canst, answer me, and stand up against my face. 33:6. Behold God hath made me as well as thee, and of the same clay I also was formed. 33:7. But yet let not my wonder terrify thee, and let not my eloquence be burdensome to thee. 33:8. Now thou hast said in my hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words: 33:9. I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me. 33:10. Because he hath found complaints against me, therefore he hath counted me for his enemy. 33:11. He hath put my feet in the stocks, he hath observed all my paths. 33:12. Now this is the thing in which thou art not justified: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. 33:13. Dost thou strive against him, because he hath not answered thee to all words? 33:14. God speaketh once, and repeateth not the selfsame thing the second time. 33:15. By a dream in a vision by night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, and they are sleeping in their beds: 33:16. Then he openeth the ears of men, and teaching instructeth them in what they are to learn. 33:17. That he may withdraw a man from the things he is doing, and may deliver him from pride. 33:18. Rescuing his soul from corruption: and his life from passing to the sword. 33:19. He rebuketh also by sorrow in the bed, and he maketh all his bones to wither. 33:20. Bread becometh abominable to him in his life, and to his soul the meat which before he desired. 33:21. His flesh shall be consumed away, and his bones that were covered shall be made bare. 33:22. His soul hath drawn near to corruption, and his life to the destroyers. 33:23. If there shall be an angel speaking for him, one among thousands, to declare man's uprightness, 33:24. He shall have mercy on him, and shall say: Deliver him, that he may not go down to corruption: I have found wherein I may be merciful to him. 33:25. His flesh is consumed with punishments, let him return to the days of his youth. 33:26. He shall pray to God, and he will be gracious to him: and he shall see his face with joy, and he will render to man his justice. 33:27. He shall look upon men, and shall say: I have sinned, and indeed I have offended, and I have not received what I have deserved. 33:28. He hath delivered his soul from going into destruction, that it may live and see the light. 33:29. Behold, all these things God worketh three times within every one. 33:30. That he may withdraw their souls from corruption, and enlighten them with the light of the living. 33:31. Attend, Job, and hearken to me, and hold thy peace, whilst I speak. 33:32. But if thou hast any thing to say, answer me, speak: for I would have thee to appear just. 33:33. And if thou have not, hear me: hold thy peace, and I will teach thee wisdom. Job Chapter 34 Eliu charges Job with blasphemy: and sets forth the power and justice of God. 34:1. And Eliu continued his discourse, and said: 34:2. Hear ye, wise men, my words, and ye learned, hearken to me: 34:3. For the ear trieth words, and the mouth discerneth meats by the taste. 34:4. Let us choose to us judgment, and let us see among ourselves what is the best. 34:5. For Job hath said: I am just, and God hath overthrown my judgment. 34:6. For in judging me there is a lie: my arrow is violent without any sin. 34:7. What man is there like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water? 34:8. Who goeth in company with them that work iniquity, and walketh with wicked men? 34:9. For he hath said: Man shall not please God, although he run with him. 34:10. Therefore, ye men of understanding, hear me: far from God be wickedness, and iniquity from the Almighty. 34:11. For he will render to a man his work, and according to the ways of every one he will reward them. 34:12. For in very deed God will not condemn without cause, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment. 34:13. What other hath he appointed over the earth? or whom hath he set over the world which he made? 34:14. If he turn his heart to him, he shall draw his spirit and breath unto himself. 34:15. All flesh shall perish together, and man shall return into ashes. 34:16. If then thou hast understanding, hear what is said, and hearken to the voice of my words. 34:17. Can he be healed that loveth not judgment? and how dost thou so far condemn him that is just? 34:18. Who saith to the king: Thou art an apostate: who calleth rulers ungodly: 34:19. Who accepteth not the persons of princes: nor hath regarded the tyrant, when he contended against the poor man: for all are the work of his hands. 34:20. They shall suddenly die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and they shall pass, and take away the violent without hand. 34:21. For his eyes are upon the ways of men, and he considereth all their steps. 34:22. There is no darkness, and there is no shadow of death, where they may be hid who work iniquity. 34:23. For it is no longer in the power of man to enter into judgment with God. 34:24. He shall break in pieces many and innumerable, and shall make others to stand in their stead. 34:25. For he knoweth their works: and therefore he shall bring night on them, and they shall be destroyed. 34:26. He hath struck them, as being wicked, in open sight. 34:27. Who as it were on purpose have revolted from him, and would not understand all his ways: 34:28. So that they caused the cry of the needy to come to him, and he heard the voice of the poor. 34:29. For when he granteth peace, who is there that can condemn? When he hideth his countenance, who is there that can behold him, whether it regard nations, or all men? 34:30. Who maketh a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people? 34:31. Seeing then I have spoken of God, I will not hinder thee in thy turn. 34:32. If I have erred, teach thou me: if I have spoken iniquity, I will add no more. 34:33. Doth God require it of thee, because it hath displeased thee? for thou begannest to speak, and not I: but if thou know any thing better, speak. 34:34. Let men of understanding speak to me, and let a wise man hearken to me. 34:35. But Job hath spoken foolishly, and his words sound not discipline. 34:36. My father, let Job be tried even to the end: cease not from the man of iniquity. 34:37. Because he addeth blasphemy upon his sins, let him be tied fast in the mean time amongst us: and then let him provoke God to judgment with his speeches. Job Chapter 35 Eliu declares that the good or evil done by man cannot reach God. 35:1. Moreover Eliu spoke these words: 35:2. Doth thy thought seem right to thee, that thou shouldst say: I am more just than God? 35:3. For thou saidst: That which is right doth not please thee: or what will it profit thee if I sin? 35:4. Therefore I will answer thy words, and thy friends with thee. 35:5. Look up to heaven and see, and behold the sky, that it is higher than thee. 35:6. If thou sin, what shalt thou hurt him? and if thy iniquities be multiplied, what shalt thou do against him? 35:7. And if thou do justly, what shalt thou give him, or what shall he receive of thy hand? 35:8. Thy wickedness may hurt a man that is like thee: and thy justice may help the son of man. 35:9. By reason of the multitude of oppressors they shall cry out: and shall wail for the violence of the arm of tyrants. 35:10. And he hath not said: Where is God, who made me, who hath given songs in the night? 35:11. Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and instructeth us more than the fowls of the air. 35:12. There shall they cry, and he will not hear, because of the pride of evil men. 35:13. God therefore will not hear in vain, and the Almighty will look into the causes of every one. 35:14. Yea, when thou shalt say: He considereth not: be judged before him, and expect him. 35:15. For he doth not now bring on his fury, neither doth he revenge wickedness exceedingly. 35:16. Therefore Job openeth his mouth in vain, and multiplieth words without knowledge. Job Chapter 36 Eliu proceeds in setting forth the justice and power of God. 36:1. Eliu also proceeded, and said: 36:2. Suffer me a little, and I will shew thee: for I have yet somewhat to speak in God's behalf. 36:3. I will repeat my knowledge from the beginning, and I will prove my Maker just. 36:4. For indeed my words are without a lie, and perfect knowledge shall be proved to thee. 36:5. God doth not cast away the mighty, whereas he himself also is mighty. 36:6. But he saveth not the wicked, and he giveth judgment to the poor. 36:7. He will not take away his eyes from the just, and he placeth kings on the throne for ever, and they are exalted. 36:8. And if they shall be in chains, and be bound with the cords of poverty: 36:9. He shall shew them their works, and their wicked deeds, because they have been violent. 36:10. He also shall open their ear, to correct them: and shall speak, that they may return from iniquity. 36:11. If they shall hear and observe, they shall accomplish their days in good, and their years in glory. 36:12. But if they hear not, they shall pass by the sword, and shall be consumed in folly. 36:13. Dissemblers and crafty men prove the wrath of God, neither shall they cry when they are bound. 36:14. Their soul shall die in a storm, and their life among the effeminate. 36:15. He shall deliver the poor out of his distress, and shall open his ear in affliction. 36:16. Therefore he shall set thee at large out of the narrow mouth, and which hath no foundation under it: and the rest of thy table shall be full of fatness. Out of the narrow mouth. . .That is, out of hell, whose entrance is narrow, and its depth bottomless; but figuratively meant here, that is, from his miseries and calamity to be restored to his former state of happiness. 36:17. Thy cause hath been judged as that of the wicked, cause and judgment thou shalt recover. 36:18. Therefore let not anger overcome thee to oppress any man: neither let multitude of gifts turn thee aside. 36:19. Lay down thy greatness without tribulation, and all the mighty of strength. 36:20. Prolong not the night that people may come up for them. 36:21. Beware thou turn not aside to iniquity: for this thou hast begun to follow after misery. For this thou hast begun to follow after misery. . .Eliu charges Job, that notwithstanding his misery, he does not fear God as he ought: but in his judgment, falls into iniquity. 36:22. Behold, God is high in his strength, and none is like him among the lawgivers. 36:23. Who can search out his ways? or who can say to him: Thou hast wrought iniquity? 36:24. Remember that thou knowest not his work, concerning which men have sung. 36:25. All men see him, every one beholdeth afar off. 36:26. Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge: the number of his years is inestimable. 36:27. He lifteth up the drops of rain, and poureth out showers like floods: 36:28. Which flow from the clouds that cover all above. 36:29. If he will spread out clouds as his tent, 36:30. And lighten with his light from above, he shall cover also the ends of the sea. 36:31. For by these he judgeth people, and giveth food to many mortals. 36:32. In his hands he hideth the light, and commandeth it to come again. 36:33. He sheweth his friend concerning it, that it is his possession, and that he may come up to it. Job Chapter 37 Eliu goes on in his discourse, shewing God's wisdom and power, by his wonderful works. 37:1. At this my heart trembleth, and is moved out of its place. 37:2. Hear ye attentively the terror of his voice, and the sound that cometh out of his mouth. 37:3. He beholdeth under all the heavens, and his light is upon the ends of the earth. 37:4. After it a noise shall roar, he shall thunder with the voice of his majesty, and shall not be found out, when his voice shall be heard. 37:5. God shall thunder wonderfully with his voice, he that doth great and unsearchable things. 37:6. He commandeth the snow to go down upon the earth, and the winter rain, and the shower of his strength. 37:7. He sealeth up the hand of all men, that every one may know his works. He sealeth up, etc. . .When he sends those showers of his strength, that is, those storms of rain, he seals up, that is, he shuts up the hands of men from their usual works abroad, and confines them within doors, to consider his works; or to forecast their works, that is, what they themselves are to do. 37:8. Then the beast shall go into his covert, and shall abide in his den. 37:9. Out of the inner parts shall a tempest come, and cold out of the north. 37:10. When God bloweth there cometh frost, and again the waters are poured out abundantly. 37:11. Corn desireth clouds, and the clouds spread their light: 37:12. Which go round about, whithersoever the will of him that governeth them shall lead them, to whatsoever he shall command them upon the face of the whole earth: 37:13. Whether in one tribe, or in his own land, or in what place soever of his mercy he shall command them to be found. 37:14. Hearken to these things, Job: Stand, and consider the wondrous works of God. 37:15. Dost thou know when God commanded the rains, to shew his light of his clouds? 37:16. Knowest thou the great paths of the clouds, and the perfect knowledges? 37:17. Are not thy garments hot, when the south wind blows upon the earth? 37:18. Thou perhaps hast made the heavens with him, which are most strong, as if they were of molten brass. 37:19. Shew us what we may say to him: or we are wrapped up in darkness. 37:20. Who shall tell him the things I speak? even if a man shall speak, he shall be swallowed up. He shall be swallowed up. . .All that man can say when he speaks of God, is so little and inconsiderable in comparison with the subject, that man is lost, and as it were swallowed up in so immense an ocean. 37:21. But now they see not the light: the air on a sudden shall be thickened into clouds, and the wind shall pass and drive them away. 37:22. Cold cometh out of the north, and to God praise with fear. 37:23. We cannot find him worthily: he is great in strength, and in judgment, and in justice, and he is ineffable. 37:24. Therefore men shall fear him, and all that seem to themselves to be wise, shall not dare to behold him. Job Chapter 38 God interposes and shews from the things he hath made, that man cannot comprehend his power and wisdom. 38:1. Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: The Lord. That is, an angel speaking in the name of the Lord. 38:2. Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskilful words? 38:3. Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. 38:4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. 38:5. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest or who hath stretched the line upon it? 38:6. Upon what are its bases grounded? or who laid the corner stone thereof, 38:7. When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody? 38:8. Who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as issuing out of the womb: 38:9. When I made a cloud the garment thereof, and wrapped it in a mist as in swaddling bands? 38:10. I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors: 38:11. And I said: Hitherto thou shalt come, and shalt go no further, and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves. 38:12. Didst thou since thy birth command the morning, and shew the dawning of the day its place? 38:13. And didst thou hold the extremities of the earth shaking them, and hast thou shaken the ungodly out of it? 38:14. The seal shall be restored as clay, and shall stand as a garment. 38:15. From the wicked their light shall be taken away, and the high arm shall be broken. 38:16. Hast thou entered into the depths of the sea, and walked in the lowest parts of the deep? 38:17. Have the gates of death been opened to thee, and hast thou seen the darksome doors? 38:18. Hast thou considered the breadth of the earth? tell me, if thou knowest all things? 38:19. Where is the way where light dwelleth, and where is the place of darkness? 38:20. That thou mayst bring every thing to its own bounds, and understand the paths of the house thereof. 38:21. Didst thou know then that thou shouldst be born? and didst thou know the number of thy days? 38:22. Hast thou entered into the storehouses of the snow, or hast thou beheld the treasures of the hail: 38:23. Which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, against the day of battle and war? 38:24. By what way is the light spread, and heat divided upon the earth? 38:25. Who gave a course to violent showers, or a way for noisy thunder: 38:26. That it should rain on the earth without man in the wilderness, where no mortal dwelleth: 38:27. That it should fill the desert and desolate land, and should bring forth green grass? 38:28. Who is the father of rain? or who begot the drops of dew? 38:29. Out of whose womb came the ice? and the frost from heaven who hath gendered it? 38:30. The waters are hardened like a stone, and the surface of the deep is congealed. 38:31. Shalt thou be able to join together the shining stars the Pleiades, or canst thou stop the turning about of Arcturus? Pleiades. . .Hebrew, Cimah. A cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus or the Bull. Arcturus, a bright star in the constellation Bootes. The Hebrew name Cesil, is variously interpreted; by some, Orion; by others, the Great Bear is understood. 38:32. Canst thou bring forth the day star in its time, and make the evening star to rise upon the children of the earth? 38:33. Dost thou know the order of heaven, and canst thou set down the reason thereof on the earth? 38:34. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that an abundance of waters may cover thee? 38:35. Canst thou send lightnings, and will they go, and will they return and say to thee: Here we are? 38:36. Who hath put wisdom in the heart of man? or who gave the cock understanding? Understanding. . .That instinct by which he distinguishes the times of crowing in the night. 38:37. Who can declare the order of the heavens, or who can make the harmony of heaven to sleep? 38:38. When was the dust poured on the earth, and the clods fastened together? 38:39. Wilt thou take the prey for the lioness, and satisfy the appetite of her whelps, 38:40. When they couch in the dens and lie in wait in holes? 38:41. Who provideth food for the raven, when her young ones cry to God, wandering about, because they have no meat? Job Chapter 39 The wonders of the power and providence of God in many of his creatures. 39:1. Knowest thou the time when the wild goats bring forth among the rocks, or hast thou observed the hinds when they fawn? 39:2. Hast thou numbered the months of their conceiving, or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? 39:3. They bow themselves to bring forth young, and they cast them, and send forth roarings. 39:4. Their young are weaned and go to feed: they go forth, and return not to them. 39:5. Who hath sent out the wild ass free, and who hath loosed his bonds? 39:6. To whom I have given a house in the wilderness, and his dwellings in the barren land. 39:7. He scorneth the multitude of the city, he heareth not the cry of the driver. 39:8. He looketh round about the mountains of his pasture, and seeketh for every green thing, 39:9. Shall the rhinoceros be willing to serve thee, or will he stay at thy crib? 39:10. Canst thou bind the rhinoceros with thy thong to plough, or will he break the clods of the valleys after thee? 39:11. Wilt thou have confidence in his great strength, and leave thy labours to him? 39:12. Wilt thou trust him that he will render thee the seed, and gather it into thy barnfloor? 39:13. The wing of the ostrich is like the wings of the heron, and of the hawk. 39:14. When she leaveth her eggs on the earth, thou perhaps wilt warm them in the dust. 39:15. She forgetteth that the foot may tread upon them, or that the beasts of the field may break them. 39:16. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers, she hath laboured in vain, no fear constraining her. 39:17. For God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he given her understanding. 39:18. When time shall be, she setteth up her wings on high: she scorneth the horse and his rider. 39:19. Wilt thou give strength to the horse or clothe his neck with neighing? 39:20. Wilt thou lift him up like the locusts? the glory of his nostrils is terror. 39:21. He breaketh up the earth with his hoof, he pranceth boldly, he goeth forward to meet armed men. 39:22. He despiseth fear, he turneth not his back to the sword. 39:23. Above him shall the quiver rattle, the spear and shield shall glitter. 39:24. Chasing and raging he swalloweth the ground, neither doth he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth. 39:25. When he heareth the trumpet he saith: Ha, ha: he smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, and the shouting of the army. 39:26. Doth the hawk wax feathered by thy wisdom, spreading her wings to the south? 39:27. Will the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest in high places? 39:28. She abideth among the rocks, and dwelleth among cragged flints, and stony hills, where there is no access. 39:29. From thence she looketh for the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. 39:30. Her young ones shall suck up blood: and wheresoever the carcass shall be, she is immediately there. 39:31. And the Lord went on, and said to Job: 39:32. Shall he that contendeth with God be so easily silenced? surely he that reproveth God, ought to answer him. 39:33. Then Job answered the Lord, and said: 39:34. What can I answer, who hath spoken inconsiderately? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Spoken inconsiderately. . .If we discuss all Job's words (saith St. Gregory), we shall find nothing impiously spoken; as may be gathered from the words of the Lord himself, chap. 42, ver. 7, 8; but what was reprehensible in him, was the manner of expressing himself at times, speaking too much of his own affliction, and too little of God's goodness towards him, which here he acknowledges as inconsiderate. 39:35. One thing I have spoken, which I wish I had not said: and another, to which I will add no more. Job Chapter 40 Of the power of God in the behemoth and the leviathan. 40:1. And the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind, said: 40:2. Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and do thou tell me. 40:3. Wilt thou make void my judgment: and condemn me, that thou mayst be justified? 40:4. And hast thou an arm like God, and canst thou thunder with a voice like him? 40:5. Clothe thyself with beauty, and set thyself up on high, and be glorious, and put on goodly garments. 40:6. Scatter the proud in thy indignation, and behold every arrogant man, and humble him. 40:7. Look on all that are proud, and confound them, and crush the wicked in their place, 40:8. Hide them in the dust together, and plunge their faces into the pit. 40:9. Then I will confess that thy right hand is able to save thee. 40:10. Behold behemoth whom I made with thee, he eateth grass like an ox. Behemoth. . .In Hebrew, behema, which signifies in general an animal; but many authors explain, that here it is put for the elephant. 40:11. His strength is in his loins, and his force in the navel of his belly. 40:12. He setteth up his tail like a cedar, the sinews of his testicles are wrapped together. 40:13. His bones are like pipes of brass, his gristle like plates of iron. 40:14. He is the beginning of the ways of God, who made him, he will apply his sword. He will apply his sword. . .This text is variously explained: some explain the sword, the horn given to the animal for his defence: others, the power that God hath given to the animal for his defence: others, the power that God hath given to man to slay him, notwithstanding his great size and strength. 40:15. To him the mountains bring forth grass: there all the beasts of the field shall play. 40:16. He sleepeth under the shadow, in the covert of the reed, and in moist places. 40:17. The shades cover his shadow, the willows of the brook shall compass him about. 40:18. Behold, he will drink up a river, and not wonder: and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth. 40:19. In his eyes as with a hook he shall take him, and bore through his nostrils with stakes. 40:20. Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a hook, or canst thou tie his tongue with a cord? Leviathan. . .The whale or some sea monster. 40:21. Canst thou put a ring in his nose, or bore through his jaw with a buckle? 40:22. Will he make many supplications to thee, or speak soft words to thee? 40:23. Will he make a covenant with thee, and wilt thou take him to be a servant for ever, 40:24. Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids? 40:25. Shall friends cut him in pieces, shall merchants divide him? 40:26. Wilt thou fill nets with his skin, and the cabins of fishes with his head? 40:27. Lay thy hand upon him: remember the battle, and speak no more. 40:28. Behold his hope shall fail him, and in the sight of all he shall be cast down. Job Chapter 41 A further description of the leviathan. 41:1. I will not stir him up, like one that is cruel, for who can resist my countenance? 41:2. Who hath given me before that I should repay him? All things that are under heaven are mine. 41:3. I will not spare him, nor his mighty words, and framed to make supplication. 41:4. Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can go into the midst of his mouth? 41:5. Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. 41:6. His body is like molten shields, shut close up with scales pressing upon one another. 41:7. One is joined to another, and not so much as any air can come between them: 41:8. They stick one to another and they hold one another fast, and shall not be separated. 41:9. His sneezing is like the shining of fire, and his eyes like the eyelids of the morning. 41:10. Out of his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of lighted fire. 41:11. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, like that of a pot heated and boiling. 41:12. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame cometh forth out of his mouth. 41:13. In his neck strength shall dwell, and want goeth before his face. 41:14. The members of his flesh cleave one to another: he shall send lightnings against him, and they shall not be carried to another place. 41:15. His heart shall be as hard as a stone, and as firm as a smith's anvil, 41:16. When he shall raise him up, the angels shall fear, and being affrighted shall purify themselves. Angels. . .Elim, Hebrew: which signifies here, the mighty, the most valiant, shall fear this monstrous fish, and in their fear shall seek to be purified. 41:17. When a sword shall lay at him, it shall not be able to hold, nor a spear, nor a breastplate. 41:18. For he shall esteem iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. 41:19. The archer shall not put him to flight, the stones of the sling are to him like stubble. 41:20. As stubble will he esteem the hammer, and he will laugh him to scorn who shaketh the spear. 41:21. The beams of the sun shall be under him, and he shall strew gold under him like mire. Under him. . .He shall not value the beams of the sun; and gold to him shall be like mire. 41:22. He shall make the deep sea to boil like a pot, and shall make it as when ointments boil. 41:23. A path shall shine after him, he shall esteem the deep as growing old. The deep as growing old. . .Growing hoary, as it were with the froth which he leaves behind him. 41:24. There is no power upon earth that can be compared with him who was made to fear no one, 41:25. He beholdeth every high thing, he is king over all the children of pride. He is king, etc. . .He is superior in strength to all that are great and strong amongst living creatures: mystically it is understood of the devil, who is king over all the proud. Job Chapter 42 Job submits himself. God pronounces in his favour. Job offers sacrifice for his friends. He is blessed with riches and children, and dies happily, 42:1. Then Job answered the Lord, and said: 42:2. I know that thou canst do all things, and no thought is hid from thee. 42:3. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have spoken unwisely, and things that above measure exceeded my knowledge. 42:4. Hear, and I will speak: I will ask thee, and do thou tell me. 42:5. With the hearing of the ear, I have heard thee, but now my eye seeth thee. 42:6. Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance in dust and ashes. 42:7. And after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Themanite: My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, because you have not spoken the thing that is right before me, as my servant Job hath. 42:8. Take unto you therefore seven oxen and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer for yourselves a holocaust, and my servant Job shall pray for you: his face I will accept, that folly be not imputed to you: for you have not spoken right things before me, as my servant Job hath. 42:9. So Eliphaz the Themanite, and Baldad the Suhite, and Sophar the Naamathite went, and did as the Lord had spoken to them, and the Lord accepted the face of Job. 42:10. The Lord also was turned at the penance of Job, when he prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 42:11. And all his brethren came to him, and all his sisters, and all that knew him before, and they ate bread with him in his house: and bemoaned him, and comforted him upon all the evil that God had brought upon him. And every man gave him one ewe, and one earring of gold. 42:12. And the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. And he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. 42:13. And he had seven sons, and three daughters. 42:14. And he called the name of one Dies, and the name of the second Cassia, and the name of the third Cornustibii. 42:15. And there were not found in all the earth women so beautiful as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. 42:16. And Job lived after these things, a hundred and forty years, and he saw his children, and his children's children, unto the fourth generation, and he died an old man, and full of days.